GANGS TO CONVENE AT PEACE SUMMIT\Event's sponsor takes aim at curbing projected rise in youth crime.

Byline: John A. Crowl American News Service

Members and former members of Latino street gangs will gather early next month in Washington for a meeting most people would consider very un-ganglike.

They won't be there to fight, to establish turf, or even just to hang out. Instead, they'll be sitting down with mothers whose children have died in gang warfare, clergy, government officials and others. They're coming together for a national peace summit aimed at curbing violence among gangs.

"The American people cannot tolerate this level of violence any longer," said Otilio Quintero of the National Coalition of Barrios Unidos (United Neighborhoods), an organization based in Santa Cruz, seeking to end gang violence.

A few thousand young Latino gang members, ex-members and many others concerned about gangs are expected to turn out for the April 3-6 meeting, called by Barrios Unidos to attack a worsening problem nationwide.

While most crime rates are falling, youth crime is projected to more than double over the next decade, fueled in part by gang activity. Roughly 400,000 youths in about 700 U.S. cities are now caught up in gangs, according to FBI reports.

Law enforcement professionals have for some time been sounding the alarm over these rising numbers. Now some gang members themselves - African-Americans as well as Latinos - are seeking alternatives to what they describe as a growing war in the streets.

In Washington, leaders of Barrios Unidos will present a gang peace plan to political leaders, asking the federal government to play its part in offering youth alternatives to drugs and violence.

"We have a solution," Quintero said, "and we want the country to take as much interest in this war in the streets as we have in other (foreign) wars where we have invested millions of dollars."

Quintero and others from inside the Latino gang world want to turn youths now addicted to turf wars and trouble into contributing members of their communities. They already have held smaller assemblies in other cities, bringing together members of rival gangs in anticipation of a national summit.

But some on the outside are skeptical.

Truces actually can help gangs' drug business by reducing police presence in the neighborhood, said Cmdr. Donald Hilbring, a gang expert with the Chicago Police Department. "When the gangs give up their guns, and when they give up their narcotics trafficking, then we'll believe in their peace summit."

Gang peace leaders agree that the guns and drugs must go, but they believe the first step has to be a truce among warring gangs - a key objective of the upcoming conference.

"We must get rid of the madness," said Daniel Alejandrez, a former gang member and founder of Barrios Unidos, referring to gangs' indiscriminate violence.

In Atlanta, social worker Barbara Bush has seen gang truces work. The Catholic Charities official recently helped persuade several local gangs to lay down their arms - not with the threat of punishment, she said, but with the refuge and alternatives offered by a local service agency.

"These were full gang members. Now they're working with the police to create nice parks and recreation areas in the community," Bush said.

"And they did it because they were treated with respect, and because some people recognized that they have skills. They know how to get things done. They know how to distribute labor."

Since its formation in 1977, Barrios Unidos has been trying to get things done in the Latino community, setting up 27 chapters across the country.

A parallel national movement, centered in Los Angeles, is growing within African-American gangs.

Building toward the Washington meeting, over the past two years Barrios Unidos has held gang summits in Kansas City, Mo., El Paso, Texas, and most recently in Santa Cruz to develop and then refine a peace plan to end gang violence.

"People came with bullets in their bodies, fresh stab wounds, broken hearts. And we brought in medicine, brought in our drums, brought in solutions. The tears people shed were tears of letting go," Alejandrez said.

In workshops at these summits "rival gangs play different games, like making giant pyramids out of their bodies together," said Ella Seneres, also of Barrios Unidas. "They're touching for the first time - it's simple but it really works."

The notion of touchy-feely gang gatherings may seem a bit unreal, but Alejandrez said "a lot of healing" took place at the Santa Cruz meeting.

At the Washington conference there will be more such cathartic workshops, but Barrios Unidos leaders also will lobby Congress and the Clinton administration for measures to address what they see as the economic roots of gang violence, especially the lack of job opportunities for youths.

Leaders of the summit will introduce the Cesar E. Chavez Peace Plan, named for the late Mexican-American farm labor leader. The ceremony will involve mothers who have lost children to gang violence as well as former gang members. Members of Congress, religious leaders and representatives from the Department of Justice also are expected.