Thread: El Salvador reels as 6,000 people arrested in unprecedented crackdown Authoritarian

El Salvador reels as 6,000 people arrested in unprecedented crackdown

Authoritarian populist president Nayib Bukele has suspended rights in state of emergency justified as attack on MS13 gang

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Bryan Avelar in San Salvador and Santa Tecla, and Nina Lakhani
Tue 5 Apr 2022 06.30 EDT

Distraught families across El Salvador are searching for information on the fate of their loved ones after almost 6,000 people were arrested in an unprecedented security crackdown over the past week.
Men, women and children have been rounded up across the Central American country since the government declared a state of emergency on 27 March, suspending constitutional rights including the presumption of innocence.

President Nayib Bukele, an authoritarian populist who uses Twitter to announce policies and denounce his enemies, has said that the detainees are all gang members and that they will not be released.


El Salvador locks down prisons after wave of 87 killings over weekend


The state of emergency was declared after three days of violence left 87 dead, which Bukele blamed on the Mara Salvatrucha gang known as MS-13.
While the police claim to have captured the MS-13 leaders who ordered the killings, there is mounting evidence that ordinary people who live or work in gang-dominated neighbourhoods have been arrested arbitrarily.
In the capital, San Salvador, hundreds of wives and mothers have been gathering outside a navy base that houses one the largest police holding cells. Vans loaded with handcuffed detainees arrived throughout the week as members of an evangelical church handed out small cups of sherbet to tearful relatives camped out in the baking sun.
Carmen Rodríguez, 33, does not know why her husband, brother and nephew were arrested a week ago while unloading a truck of secondhand clothes for their business at the city’s main market in the historic quarter.
“When we asked the police why they were taking them, they just insulted us,” said Rodríguez, who is struggling to find the money to pay for their meals. “They are taking the righteous for sinners. It is good for the police to do their job, but it is unfair that they also take away working people – and even worse that they treat them like animals,” she said.



Women react as they recognize their detained relatives, who were being transferred to a prison in San Salvador last week. Photograph: José Cabezas/Reuters


Last week Bukele announced on Twitter that food for gang inmates would be rationed to feed the new detainees as he wasn’t prepared to take money from the education budget to feed “terrorists”.
The 30-day state of emergency allows detainees to be held for 15 days – rather than the usual three – without access to a defence attorney and without prosecutors having to make a case in front of a judge. The decree, which also allows police to search cellphones and messages, could be extended.
The national assembly, which is controlled by Bukele’s allies, also passed legislation increasing jail terms for juveniles and allowed indefinite pre-trial detention for suspected gang members.


El Salvador rights groups fear repression after raids on seven offices

Zaira Navas, a lawyer at the Salvadoran human rights group Cristosal, said: “The detainees have lost their right to defence and do not have the right to know the reasons for their arrest.”
Despite the wide scope of the new emergency powers, reports suggest that other constitutional rights are also being violated.
Rosa López said police forced their way into her house in Santa Tecla in the La Libertad region on Saturday 26 March and arrested her 20-year-old cousin who suffers from a heart condition. He should have been assigned a lawyer and appeared in court after three days as he was arrested a day before the state of emergency, but he remains incommunicado.
“The police didn’t ask, they just entered the house and took him away. They were crazy that day, capturing everyone … It is terrible what they are doing to him and to us. It is not only unfair but it is also illegal,” said López, 26.
The crackdown is popular with many voters who are fed up with the gangs, but has led to the lockdown of entire neighbourhoods.



An alleged MS-13 gang member is escorted into a detention center. Photograph: Camilo Freedman/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

At a military checkpoint one afternoon last week in Santa Tecla, soldiers armed with AK-47s examined vehicles and checked people’s identity cards and proof of address before letting them in or out of the neighbourhood. Anyone regarded as suspicious was forced to strip, so troops could check for gang-related tattoos.
Only those deemed to have a legitimate reason to be out and about could pass.


Nayib Bukele calls himself the ‘world’s coolest dictator’ – but is he joking?

“Builders and informal workers can’t leave. They are locked up, prisoners. Luckily I have a formal job and [my employer] has issued a letter. But if we want to go out shopping after work we can’t. There is nothing we can do,” said a 35-year-old woman who preferred not to give her name.
Astrid Valencia, Central America researcher at Amnesty International, said: “We are alarmed not only that the measures suspend fundamental elements of due process, but also by President Bukele’s confrontational discourse, which stigmatises and attacks human rights defenders, civil society organisations, international NGOs and independent media for expressing their concerns about those measures.”
Bukele has taken an increasingly combative stance with anyone daring to question his government, and recently claimed that human rights NGOs, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations – which provides grants to NGOs and independent media in El Salvador – are gang associates.



Nayib Bukele
@nayibbukele
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Ha quedado claro quiénes son los socios de los pandilleros. Todos han salido a defenderlos:Financistas, narcos, políticos y jueces corruptos, ONGs de “derechos humanos”, la “comunidad internacional”, la CIDH, periodistas y medios de Open Society, etc.Se quitaron la máscara.

Even before the mass arrests, El Salvador had one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the world, with about a quarter of detainees being held in pre-trial detention.
While mayor of San Salvador, Bukele claimed to support socially driven crime prevention and rehabilitation programs to tackle the country’s intractable gang violence. Since coming into power in 2019, he has reverted to the same mano dura or repressive tactics of previous governments, while at the same time secretly negotiating a truce with gang leaders, according to the US.
Bukele denies the allegations, but the telephones of journalists reporting on the negotiated truce were hacked using Israeli spyware.
Names of victims and their relatives have been changed

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El Salvador reels as 6,000 people arrested in unprecedented crackdown | Global development | The Guardian

Marco Rubio Visits El Salvador, Condemns Biden for ‘Alienating’ Anti-Gang President

Twitter/Marco Rubio CHRISTIAN K. CARUZO 4 Apr 2023

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) traveled to El Salvador this weekend to meet with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, criticizing President Joe Biden for “alienating” Central American and other allies with combative policies.
Bukele is currently engaged in a campaign to eradicate the country’s largest gangs, most prominently Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) and 18th Street. His country has been in a “state of exception” that has restricted civil liberties such as freedom of assembly for month, allowing police to arrest thousands of people suspected of having gang ties. The campaign is widely popular in El Salvador, where nearly 70 percent of citizens want Bukele to run for reelection even though he legally cannot do so.

Under former President Donald Trump, Bukele’s administration maintained friendly relationships with Washington. The Biden administration has condemned the gang crackdown, however, resulting in Bukele accusing Biden last year of “supporting the gangs.”

In an official press release this weekend, Sen. Rubio remarked, “as Latin America and the Caribbean turn towards left-leaning, anti-American governments, El Salvador remains an important strategic ally in Central America.”
During their meeting, the Floridan senator and the Salvadoran president discussed Bukele’s ongoing security initiatives, the importance of democratic order in the region, and mutual cooperation between the United States and El Salvador. U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan was also present in the encounter.

“I had a productive meeting with President Bukele and U.S. Ambassador Duncan during my first official visit to El Salvador,” Rubio said in the official press release.

“At a time when the Biden Administration actively alienates our allies and opts to appease murderous dictators in our region,” Rubio continued, “it’s important we stand in support of those democratic leaders in our hemisphere who are actually leading the fight against brutal gangs and criminals in Central America.”
“For the future of our bilateral relations, it’s essential that El Salvador’s democratic institutions remain strong,” he concluded.



Marco Rubio
@marcorubio
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In El Salvador @nayibbukele put thousands of gangbangers in jail He has an over 90% approval rating because for the first time in decades people feel safe going out at night & they no longer have to pay an extortion tax to MS13





7:26 AM · Apr 1, 2023




Marco Rubio
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I just returned from #ElSalvador where government officials are been sanctioned by the Biden Administration for rounding up gangs that have extorted,mutilated and murdered people for decades

Watch on Twitter

1:16 PM · Apr 3, 2023

“So how does the Biden administration react to this? By badmouthing the guy [Bukele], by sanctioning people in the government, by going after them because they’re being too tough and too harsh, and so forth,” Rubio said. “And on top of everything else, this is a guy that has tried to be friendly and an ally to the United States, and we have a problem with our foreign policy. We treat our enemies better than we treat our friends.”
“We have an administration that bends over backwards to try to accommodate [Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás] Maduro, an administration that’s afraid to do anything tough on [communist dictator Daniel] Ortega in Nicaragua, on the regime in Cuba.” Rubio continued. “But on the other hand decides ‘I’m going to crack down on El Salvador, and sanctioning and badmouth them and try to make them a global pariah.’”
Bukele shared Sen. Rubio’s with added Spanish subtitles through his official Facebook account on Monday.
“U.S. Senator Marco Rubio visited our country to learn first-hand reality, facing the accusations of the Biden administration,” Bukele’s Facebook post read. “Unlike many, he decided to come and know the truth, with his own eyes.”
El Salvador has been placed under a state of emergency since March 2022 to combat gang violence after 62 homicides occurred in a single day that month — the most violent day in El Salvador in over a century. The decree placed the Central American nation in a de facto state of martial law.

The decree, which originally lasted 30 days, has been continuously renewed over the past year for additional 30-day periods and can be extended so long as the causes used to initially enact it still exist, according to the nation’s constitution.

Bukele’s actions under the state of emergency have resulted in a dramatic reduction in violence in the country. The Salvadoran president announced on his Twitter account on Saturday that, according to the government’s daily homicide statistics, March 2023 was the safest month in the history of El Salvador, one year after living through the most violent day in over a century.



Nayib Bukele
@nayibbukele
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Por cierto, marzo 2023 cerró como el mes más seguro en toda la historia de El Salvador
PNC El Salvador
@PNCSV

Finalizamos el viernes 31 de marzo, con 0 homicidios en el país.





11:24 PM · Apr 1, 2023

Bukele’s actions to combat gang violence in El Salvador, the ongoing state of emergency, and other actions taken by the pro-Bukele Salvadoran Congress and the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice have been the source of tensions between the Biden Administration and the Salvadoran government. Members of the United States Congress’ Human Rights Commission held a hearing in September to discuss El Salvador’s state of emergency decree and “its consequences for human rights.”
The Biden Administration has imposed sanctions on several of the members of Bukele’s cabinet. In December 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned prison system chief and Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security Osiris Luna Meza and the Chairman of the Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit Carlos Amilcar Marroquin Chica, accusing both of having participated in undercover negotiations with leaders of the MS-13 and 18th Street.
In December, the Department of the Treasury sanctioned Salvadoran Labor Minister Rolando Castro for alleged misappropriation of public funds for his personal benefit. It also sanctioned Bukele’s legal secretary Conan Castro for allegedly obstructing investigations into the misappropriation of public funds intended to fight the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
The United States Department of State accused the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador of undermining democracy in September 2021 after the Salvadoran top court — whose top justices were replaced by the overwhelmingly pro-Bukele majority in Congress in 2021 — issued a controversial new interpretation of Article 152 of El Salvador’s constitution that paved the way for a possible Bukele re-election as the nation’s constitution explicitly forbids a president from seeking an immediate re-election.

Bukele referenced the tensions between his government and the United States in September during his speech at the 77th United Nations General Assembly, using an analogy of a “rich neighbor” and a “poor neighbor” to describe the United States’ concerns over El Salvador’s human rights under Bukele’s state of emergency policies.
“The poor neighbor should not oppose his rich neighbor, he should not envy him, he should not aspire to have what the rich neighbor has, he should not pretend that he will give orders to his palace or demand that he change the marble of his room,” Bukele said during his speech. “But the poor neighbor should at least have the right to clean his house, patch and paint his walls, change his furniture, plant flowers in his garden and change his roof for one that doesn’t leak and covers him from the rain.”
The Salvadoran president’s crackdown on gang violence has largely contributed to his high approval ratings, which hovered around 92 percent at the start of March, giving Bukele the highest approval rating of any state leader in Latin America.
Although the Salvadoran constitution explicitly forbids a president from seeking an immediate re-election — going as far as stripping a Salvadoran citizen of his or her rights should they “promote or support the reelection or continuation of the President of the Republic” — a poll conducted in March showed that nearly 70 percent of Salvadorans expressed their support for a prospective Bukele re-election in the upcoming 2024 elections.

The mayor of the Colombian city of Medellín, Daniel Quintero Calle expressed in March his intention to build an inmate center in the same vein as El Salvador’s recently debuted 40,000-bed “mega prison,” known as the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT). The move directly defied the administration of far-left Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who has been highly critical of the new prison and has insisted that his government will not build new inmate centers despite Colombia’s prison facilities facing widespread overpopulation problems.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Marco Rubio Visits El Salvador, Condemns Biden for 'Alienating' Anti-Gang President (breitbart.com)