An hour after the handshake agreement, I stood at the edge of our work site and watched as two thousand gang members emerged from various points in the forest. They arrived in organized groups, moving with the kind of coordinated efficiency that suggested the Jaguars ran a more disciplined operation than typical street gangs. The sheer scale of the assembled workforce was staggering – hundreds of people forming orderly lines across the clearing, waiting for instructions with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
The military presence that had seemed overwhelming earlier now appeared almost inadequate given the number of armed individuals who had just voluntarily entered our work zone. But the gang members had left their weapons behind, or at least made them less visible, in what I assumed was a gesture toward maintaining the non-aggression pact we had negotiated.
