El Salvador's reformed killers

Claire Marshall BBC correspondent in El Salvador

During this year's successful election campaign, El Salvador's new President Tony Saca pledged to crack down on the criminal gangs that are blamed for much of the violence that affects the country.

A member of Mara Salvatrucha shows the MS tattoo on his back

Carlos does not look like the type of person who could kill anybody.

He is a 32-year-old software engineer who wears designer glasses and striped collared shirts and keeps his shoes well polished.

Relaxing back in to his sofa at home in San Salvador he affectionately ruffles the hair of his English Sheepdog, Charlie.

But 10 years ago, Carlos was a very different man.

He was one of the most notorious members of one of the most feared Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles - the Mara Salvatrucha, known by its initials, MS.

This gang was started up in LA in the 1980s by the children of Salvadorean immigrants who had moved there to flee the violent civil war ravaging their country.

When the conflict ended in 1992 many of these unwanted immigrants and their delinquent children were deported back to El Salvador.

They took their gang culture with them.

Carlos spent seven years in high security prisons in LA, before being thrown out for kicking a black member of a rival gang to death.

Solitary confinement

He tells the defining story of when he started to realise that he could not carry on this way

The man had wandered into their domain by mistake. Carlos and his friends were high on cocaine and quickly got into a fight.

He says, "We didn't know the extent to which we had beaten him."

"All of a sudden the cops were looking for us and took us in because our shoes and our trousers were all bloody and we didn't even realise."

It is clear that it took a lot for Carlos to change. Locked up in solitary confinement for months at a time, his health deteriorated.

He tells the defining story of when he started to realise that he could not carry on this way.

One day, he was on his way to take a shower. A rival prisoner beat him with a hammer around the head.

"My face became infected and filled up with pus."

Carlos fingers the fine white lines of the visible scars around his mouth.

Another former gang member, Jaime is trying to rebuild his life

"I would get a razor and start ripping at my skin 'cause I couldn't stand it."

He caught scabies, and an abscess developed on his buttocks from an old stab wound.

His feet became mouldy, and the flesh fell away from his lower legs.

"I was deformed because I was so sick. I was rotten," he says.

Turning to God

Aside from a toothbrush and toothpaste, the only possession which he was allowed in the cell was a religious book.

His mother, whose name is tattooed on his neck, sent him the Bible.

"I was reading it at that time, when I felt real bad - real humble."

"I read it four or five times right the way through. It was like God was telling me - the way you are outside, that's the way your heart is."

"You need me to help change you. So I said, if you help me, then I will change."

Over the last few years, he has proposed to two Salvadorean girls

Carlos has abandoned the baggy trousers, trainers, and shaven-headed look, as well as the accompanying knives.

He has thrown away the rap and heavy-metal CDs he used to listen to, and burned the old group photos.

Now he always carries a Bible with him, and prays every day.

He volunteers for the San Andres foundation.

This is a group which is trying to address the growing problem of the vicious gangs in this tiny Central American country, by helping young members to leave and find a new life following Jesus.

Unconvinced

But they are not all as ready to reform as Carlos.

During one of the foundation meetings, the spiritual leader sings a prayer song accompanied by a woman on a guitar.

Several of the young men present, with their heavy necklaces and closely-shaved hair wet with gel shift in their seats and look unconvinced.

Mara membership across Central America is put at 25,000

There is much more enthusiasm for the group game of football afterwards.

Baltazar Sanchez jogs off the pitch, bare-chested and slightly sweating.

He swaggers and jokes, and is clearly one of the more dominant members of the group.

He proudly displays the 'MS' initials tattooed prominently across his muscular back, and twists the fingers of both hands in to the gang greeting.

"I am part of the Mara Salvatrucha and I always will be."

"When your own family doesn't pay you any attention, the other Mara members become your family and friends."

"It's a good thing to be a part of."

Baltazar admits to regularly stealing and selling drugs.

He is not coming to these classes to leave the gang, but to try to learn a trade to help him get a job.

Haunted by the past

Carlos hopes that Baltazar will change for the better.

But his face turns sad and reflective, when he admits that quitting the gang isn't the end of it.

It is difficult to entirely leave behind such a violent past.

Over the last few years, he has proposed to two Salvadorean girls.

Both times, their parents have refused to let their daughters marry him because of his brutal history.

But Charlie the sheepdog curls around his feet, and looks up at his master - eyes peeping out from under a long fringe of floppy grey hair.

He trusts Carlos completely.

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From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 8 May, 2004 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.