The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, launched another of his political ventures: he opened the doors of a megaprison with a capacity for 40,000 inmates. In its opening week, 2,000 gangaffiliated criminals arrived at the prison, only to find there were not enough beds or mattresses for all the prisoners.
“This will be their new home where they will live for decades, all mixed together without being able to cause further harm to the population,” Bukele tweeted. El Salvador’s Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro followed suit. “They will never leave there,” he said, referring to the detainees.
Read more: “This man is President of the Republic”, article by Dagomir Marquezi, published in issue 52 of Revista Oeste
The prisoners were taken to the mega prison by bus. They were handcuffed and handcuffed. Despite this, the route from the old prison to the new home was patrolled by armed helicopters.
Images posted to social media show barefoot men wearing only white briefs, bent over and walking with their hands behind their heads. All without hair on their heads and their bodies covered in tattoos. The men appear huddled while armed guards watch them.
“We’re eliminating this cancer from society,” Villatoro said. “You know you’ll never get out of this, you’ll pay for what you are… cowardly terrorists.”
At dawn today, we transferred the first 2,000 Pandilleros on a mission to the Center for Countering Terrorism (CECOT).
This will be their new home, where they will live haphazardly for decades without being able to do any more harm to the populace.
We follow…#GuerraContraPandillas pic.twitter.com/9VvsUBvoHC
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 24, 2023
underprivileged
The mega prison is located in Tecoluca, 74 kilometers southeast of San Salvador. There are eight reinforced concrete buildings with 32 cells of about 100 square meters on the site. Each of the cages can accommodate more than a hundred inmates, with two toilets and two sinks at their disposal.
For every 100 prisoners there are 80 metal bunks. According to human rights groups and international observers, this practice violates detention standards. There are cafeterias, exercise rooms, and pingpong tables onsite — but not for inmates. Only Wardens have this privilege.
According to the Salvadoran authorities, detainees are only allowed to leave their cells for online hearings. Or being punished in an isolation cell with no windows or light.
More than 60,000 gang members have been arrested since Bukele declared a state of emergency for the country last year. Some of them will even go to the mega prison Tecoluca, which is considered the largest in America.