The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has been “very tough” on the street gang MS-13—or so said Donald Trump last year. Murders have indeed fallen 80% since 2015, when El Salvador was the most violent country in the world (apart from conflict zones such as Syria). Mr Bukele attributes the improvement to a crackdown on MS-13 and its rival, Barrio18. But prison logs and intelligence reports published on September 3rd by El Faro, a Salvadorean news site, suggest another explanation: that for 15 months Mr Bukele’s government has secretly negotiated with MS-13’s imprisoned leaders, granting perks in exchange for keeping murders down.
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美国总统唐纳德·特朗普去年就曾这样说过，萨尔瓦多总统纳伊布·布克尔对街头黑帮“MS-13”的态度“非常强硬”。萨尔瓦多是世界上发生暴力事件最多的国家（除了叙利亚等冲突地区），实际上，自2015年以来，当地的谋杀案已经下降了80%。布克尔总统将这种改善归因于政府对“MS-13”及其竞争对手“Barrio18”的打击。但是萨尔瓦多新闻网站“ElFaro”在9月3日发布的监狱日志和情报报告也显示了另一种解释：15个月以来，布克尔政府一直在秘密地与“MS-13”帮派被监禁的领导人进行谈判，给予他们额外待遇以换取谋杀案减少。

Mr Bukele denies the reports. If true, they make painfully clear something Salvadoreans already know: the streets belong to the gangs, not the government. Practically every city block in El Salvador (and much of Guatemala and Honduras) is extorted by one or both of the gangs. La renta is squeezed out of tortilla carts and telecoms firms alike, then split among tens of thousands of members. It doesn’t make them rich. Rather, their rivalry is itself their raison detre. Deal or no deal with Mr Bukele, tread on enemy turf and you get killed.
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布克尔总统否认了这些报道。如果报道真实可靠的话，那么也只是在艰难澄清萨尔瓦多人民已经知道的一些事情：萨尔瓦多的街道由黑帮接管了，而不属于政府。实际上，在萨尔瓦多（以及危地马拉和洪都拉斯的大部分地区）的每个街区都会盘踞着一两个黑帮团伙对市民进行敲诈勒索。他们从卖馅饼的小推车还有电信公司等敲诈租金，然后分给成千上万名帮派成员。这样的手段并不能使他们富有。相反，较量本身就是他们存在的理由。不论黑帮有没有与布克尔总统进行交易，踏上敌人的地盘就会被杀。

注释

1.or so 左右

It was only an hour or so later that I discovered that my gun was missing.

仅仅约一个小时之后，我发现我的枪不见了。

2.belong to 属于

I used to belong to a youth club.

我过去是一个青年俱乐部的成员。