fear and relief. The mention of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador is a reminder of a security model that has cornered the maras, the main criminal organizations in the Central American country, and at the same time the terror that the relentless war against the gangs has caused in parts of society has awakened. The success of the so-called exceptional regime is based on the ashes of rights and freedoms. Many justify and applaud him with the President’s popularity. The cost is a setback to guarantees and the rule of law.
However, Salvadorans like Don Cabaña don’t seem to care. “Who knows how many families they killed, how many young women they raped and now that they are in prison crying for forgiveness?” This 60-year-old man’s mood soars when he remembers it , what it was like living in Las Margaritas, his home, and how comfortable he was watching the game on the field in the neighborhood. “Right from the start you couldn’t leave the house. Here, where we are talking, they would come together and not go.” Who is it? “The letters,” he says in a whisper. So the MS. La Mara Salvatrucha 13. The young people of this neighborhood of San Salvador play soccer and take advantage of the last moments of light in the afternoon. When it gets dark, some streetlights are turned on and now they are the ones that don’t go. They stop and start talking, laughing among themselves.
After 25 years living in this place, Don Cabaña – the name is fictitious for security reasons – had never seen a scene like the one before him. He is wearing a t-shirt with the name of popular Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on it. “My wife and I had them done,” he says. Speak proudly. “What the President is doing is very good. “The man has a lot of brains and a lot of power to run the country,” he says. After dark, the neighborhood’s streets come alive. If a newcomer were told there were no gangs in this country, they would believe it.
In El Salvador, a country of fewer than 6.5 million people, the government has arrested 71,000 people accused of committing felonies as members of MS-13 or the rival group Barrio 18. The “stains” (graffiti) of the gangs have disappeared from the streets. The military have set up checkpoints with tanks in the streets, and the National Police are roaming the streets with guns. There are frequent scenes of people being arrested at police stations, as well as families standing guard outside detention centers looking for their loved ones.
The flip side of the so-called war on gangs is a tangible deterioration in democratic guarantees, according to complaints from the United Nations and various international organizations dedicated to defending human rights, such as Human Rights Watch. The holding of massive trials, the building of mega-prisons, overcrowding, police abuse and the exposure of detainees through government propaganda videos have set off alarm bells in much of the international community, but have also triggered a kind of contagion effect in some Latin American countries. Honduran President Xiomara Castro launched a similar offensive against gangs in June. Ecuador, choked by organized crime, declared a state of emergency last week after presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated mid-election campaign. And in Colombia or Chile, the Bukele model pervades the political debate.
The exceptional regime
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This is the system that has radically changed the cultural geography of the Central American country over the past 17 months, which has seen the President institute the exceptional regime as an anti-gang policy. You couldn’t walk around here before; It used to be that you couldn’t be on the street at this time; It used to be impossible to enter the neighborhood across the street…Salvadorians speak in the past tense as if they come from a distant time. “Now we can rest a bit, we can sleep at night,” says Ms. Tere, 67, while running her clothing store in Cimas de San Bartolo, the headquarters of “People of Number” – the Barrio 18 gang. The merchants of this colony were blackmailed; The amount to be paid depended on the size or wealth of the company. The gang took the homes of some residents to put up for rent, while others charged a fee to own their vehicles. In a passageway in this neighborhood, the gang had erected a tribute to their pride, a wall that read, “Welcome to the heart of Barrio 18.” The graffiti had already been pasted over with graffiti alluding to Christmas.
Army combat vehicles continue to stand at the entrance to Sensuntepeque Municipality, El Salvador. Victor Pena
The state of emergency was declared after the secret ceasefire between the Bukele government and the gangs collapsed in March 2022. The stubborn policy, according to data officials, has reduced the murder rate from 103 to 2 per 100,000 people and changed the situation According to statistics, a few years ago the country of America became one of the most peaceful. This is the argument some politicians in the region are tempted with by the Bukele model, and the President, who uses social media to campaign constantly and to mock criticism, wants to be seen as a role model to follow.
This week, for example, after Javier Milei’s victory in Argentina’s primary elections, advisors to the Salvadoran President began to spread the idea that the Ultra candidate’s victory was a Bukelismo success. Consulted weeks ago by EL PAÍS, Milei confirmed that one of his associates, MP Nahuel Sotelo, had traveled to San Salvador to investigate the phenomenon. “We study it because it was extremely successful,” he replied.
Bukele, 42, made security and politics what several analysts call “punitive populism” in the spring of his 2024 re-election attempt. A maneuver that has been widely questioned, given that the constitution prohibits holding office in successive terms. In a section of the population that, according to the company CID Gallup, gives him 90 percent approval, the belief has taken root that only Bukele can guarantee that the gang members will remain in prison. “If he is not re-elected, what will happen next for the country? They’ll take out all the gang members and the killing will get worse, we don’t want to go back to the old days,” says Guille, who has a stall in the market at Plaza La Libertad in downtown San Salvador. Six years ago, she says, her daughter ran the business and was caught in the crossfire between police and gangs. A bullet pierced his skull and blew out an eye. Live the daughter, “Thank God,” she prays. Guille now sells sweaters and hats with the President’s character and a caption that reads, “We’re running for re-election.”
Fear changes faces
Respondents do not want their identity to be known. The Salvadorans’ sense of security is permeable and fragile. Suspicion creeps in. And fear has changed her face too. They say not all gang members are in prison and many of those accused of being gang members have had no connection with the criminal groups. Civil society groups point out that the government used the emergency regime as a pretext to trap innocent people and quell any dissent. During this period, 21 union leaders and five activists opposed to mining projects were arrested. “The exceptional regime has become a license to violate rights,” says Abraham Abrego, a lawyer for the Cristosal organization.
Salvadorans speak of the “regime” as if it were a being that follows its rules, that decides who is guilty or innocent, who goes free or goes to prison, that is always hungry and wants more. Cristosal has received a total of 3,500 complaints of arbitrary detention. Legal Aid – another human rights group – has documented 180 deaths of people in detention; that is, under the responsibility of the Salvadorian government. 50% are violent deaths from beatings or choking; 30% for lack of medical treatment; the rest for unknown reasons. Ingrid Escobar, director of Socorro, claims that 92% of those killed are innocent, according to the analysis of the organization’s lawyers. “It is not true that this improvised and irresponsible security policy only focuses on criminals,” he concludes.
In a country where prosecutors are not autonomous and where judges loyal to the ruling party have been installed in the judiciary, Salvadorans have learned that if a person is accidentally arrested, it will be difficult for them to prove their innocence and get out alive . Persons whose family members are in custody are denied the opportunity to speak to them. Many are not even sure if their relative is still alive.
Nayib Bukele’s face features prominently in the garments for sale in informal shops in central San Salvador.Víctor Peña
Arbitrary arrests have increased amid a reform that allows authorities to charge the crime of “criminal association”. Javier’s wife, a university professor, was taken away by police in August 2022. They broke into her home, found her breastfeeding her one-year-old son, took her away and took her to Ilopango prison. All thanks to an anonymous complaint. Have you spoken to her, heard from her? “No, nothing,” says the husband. “The police told me that she would no longer see sunlight.”
The cases are replicated. Amanda’s brother was arrested in June 2022 while transporting goods to his mother’s store in his car. You couldn’t contact him. Rosa’s son was captured while working at a car wash. She used to be a member of MS-13, she says, but served her sentence, went to rehab, got a job, and went back to school. The police arrested him anyway and brought him back to a world he had left, to the new maximum security prison created by Bukele, the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot). “Here you live in fear, not of the gangs, but of authority,” says this mother, who also hasn’t heard from her imprisoned son. For many in El Salvador, fear changed their faces; now wears uniform.
Soldiers walk along with locals and tourists through Plaza Libertad in the historic center of San Salvador. Victor Pena
political confrontation
The lack of fundamental guarantees illustrated by these cases is the main reason for the distrust of the Bukele model by the governments of countries like Colombia and Chile. Both face a security crisis for different reasons. But Presidents Gustavo Petro and Gabriel Boric, from progressive positions, not only place themselves in ideological opposition to their Salvadoran counterparts, but also reject the application of a similar model. However, the right-wing opposition, particularly the most radical sectors, have made the heavy hand the flag and axis of political confrontation. And in Ecuador, where presidential elections are held this Sunday, candidate Jan Topic – a former soldier in the Foreign Legion known as “Ecuadorian Rambo” and now a multi-million dollar businessman – wants to openly emulate Bukele.
The analyst Mauricio Morales, academic at the University of Talca (Chile), recalls that according to all public opinion studies, crime is the main concern of the people. In this picture, he says, “the Bukele phenomenon has had three effects”: “First, with a greater demand for law and order.” Second, with a preference for far-right candidates. Third, with a particularly critical assessment of left-wing governments for their reluctance to use a strong hand against crime.” In this light, Morales continues, “the experience of El Salvador has contributed to positions that we thought were closer to authoritarianism than are close to democracy to give more credibility.”
José Antonio Kast, leader of the far-right formation of the Chilean Republican Party, in an act on May 7. Stephen Felix (AP)
In Chile, where Boric suffered a major electoral setback against the far-right Republican Party in recent elections, there is a “longing for sanctions” in relation to crime in part of society, says Axel Callís, an academic at the Central University and director of the polling firm Tu influencias. Added to this is the lack of credibility of the justice system in view of the increasing crime rate.
It is favorable breeding ground in a given context and when there are political actors defending it. In Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil, all the coordinates for the success of such a model agreed, but today there are no local imitators worth mentioning for Bukele’s model. But even under leftist Lula da Silva, Brazilian police lethality remains very high – police in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador de Bahia individually killed more people last year than police in the US – and most prisons are run by dominated by the main organized crime groups. the Primer Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho.
The Colombian case
One of the countries where Bukele’s policies resonate most is Colombia. Not only because of his arguments with Petro on social media, but because there are several right-wing politicians who are looking for the Bukele seal. Most visible is Diego Molano, candidate for mayor of Bogotá and political godson of former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who has proposed building mega prisons if elected on October 29. Former Uribista Defense Minister Iván Duque explained his idea on the radio: “We need a prison in Bogotá, a mega-prison, to hold at least 3,000 of the criminals who are caught.” affecting citizens, being captured, prosecuted and imprisoned, in Colombia those who commit all kinds of crimes and terrorism will be rewarded and released.” and they want to become peace managers. The world is upside down!”
Uribista Diego Molano, former Defense Minister, on July 29, 2022 in Bogotá. Anadolu Agency (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
María Fernanda Cabal, the right-most figure of post-Uribe Uribism, has also expressed sympathy for the Salvadoran president. “It happens, but it deserves what it does. There has to be a balance, otherwise a pure and harsh dictatorship will emerge,” he told this newspaper in an interview in May. This month, Datexco asked Colombians if they would like their country to have a president like Bukele: 55% answered yes. In June another company, Invamer, started the issue and 49% said they had a positive image of Bukele; only 10% expressed their disapproval. As early as March, the magazine Semana, which has a clearly right-wing guideline, titled a cover with the title “The Bukele Miracle”. The phenomenon worries moderate sectors that are unwilling to give up freedoms and rights in exchange for more order.
And that is one of the political battles that will be fought in Latin America in the coming electoral cycles.
With information from Rocio Montes, Juan Esteban Lewin and Naiara Galarraga. And Centennial Sea.