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Nayb Bokil, self -advertiser “The most wonderful dictator in the world”Six years will be celebrated as President of Salvador on Sunday, a period determined by controversial reforms, which critics say has brought peace to the streets at an incredibly high price.
The Iron hat campaign was on the country, which was once more A violent nation in the western hemisphere, It led to arrest and detention around it 87,000 peopleOften with a few legal procedures.
The government has defended this step, noting major discounts in gang violence at the country level, but opponents say they came at the expense of collective prison and erosion of civil freedoms.
Critics say Dragnet expanded over time to include civil society groups and journalists who are investigating the official collusion with the country’s gangs.
On May 19, Roth Lopez, a anti -corruption lawyer for the Christosal Human Rights Group, was also a prominent critic of a agent, detained By Al -Salvaduri authorities to steal “money from state treasures”. However, Lopez has not been charged with a crime even though he remained in detention.
Shortly after the arrest of Lopez, the government of the agent approved a law that imposes taxes on foreign donations of NGOs such as Cristosal by 30 %, which rights groups described as an existential threat.
“What we have seen is a tremendous focus of power in the hands of (agent).” The rule of the agent was “based on the demolition of checks and balances between democracy and the increasing efforts to silence and intimidate critics.”
Reducing the crime related to al -Sulafador has made a well -known agent in the Central America, to the extent that it was He was re -elected to my land victory Last year, although the country’s constitution prevented anyone standing for a second period. (The allies of the agent in Congress eventually replaced the best judges of the Supreme Court with the judges who are ready to explain the constitution in his favor.)
Since March 2022, the country has been under a “exclusion state”, allowing many constitutional rights to be suspended. In the capital, San Salvador, many people say they are now I feel safe Walking through neighborhoods is once dangerous. Although they admit that the country has witnessed a huge increase in records and the suspension of rights, Bukele supporters believe that the resulting peace and security deserve barter.
The soldiers are patrolling in a neighborhood in Saint Marcus, El Salvador, in a armored vehicle on October 28, 2024, after Nayeb Bokley announced the deployment of security forces to discuss the remains of gangs. – Jose Capsas/Reuters
Not everyone agrees.
Samuel Ramirez, founder of the regime’s victims movement (MOVIR), a group of human rights that work with families of people who are believed to be detained without the due legal procedures, said thousands have been arrested because of unrealistic doubts of gangs.
The agent previously admitted that some innocent people had been accidentally detained, but he said that several thousand had already been released.
Ramirez and other activists believe that many are afraid to speak publicly.
“Here we see the soldiers armed with the streets in the streets, the police, and even armored trucks in the streets – tanks. This is a synonym for a country in war,” he said. “The gangs have already been neutralized for me. Now the war against people, so they don’t appear, do not speak.”
Alleged back door transactions
Although he presents himself as a leader of the law and order, the agent faced allegations that he negotiated the peaceful security situation in El Salvador through rear door transactions with gangs.
In 2021, Biden Administration accused The Boxley system for the MS-13 and Barrio 18 bribery system, which are one of the most famous gangs in El Salvador, to ensure that gang violence accidents and the number of confirmed murders remained low.
He immediately denied the agent of these allegations, describing them as a “clear lie”.
But after four years, an independent news room EL FARO published an explosive interview With two gang leaders who are self -designed from Barrio 18 who claimed that, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, they intimidated the voters in making their polling cards for a agent during an attempt by the San Salvador mayor for the year 2015.
Gang leaders also claimed that when he became president in 2019, the agent arranged that the most powerful gangs in El Salvador refrained from brutal killing and extortion, fearing that he would look bad.
Bukele publicly did not respond to their allegations, but indirectly indicated reports from El Faro In a publication On May 10, he sarcastically refers to the only “agreement” he made with the gang leaders involved in their prison.
Journalists escaped from El Faro who broke the story to the country before it was published, Expect detention.
“I think the agent will try to put us in prison. I have no doubt. CNN said.
He said that seven journalists in the post are facing arrest orders by reporting on the alleged deals. However, he said that the newspaper will continue its journalistic work. Over the past two years, the post has most of its operations in exile from Costa Rica.
“If there are any manifestations of the remaining democracy in El Salvador, then this was in an independent press,” said Noah Bullock, CEO of Christosal.
CNN has reached the chairmanship of the comments.
“We are under dictatorship”
Last week, the government of the agent issued a 30 % foreign donation imposition of taxes for non -governmental organizations.
I suggested a similar law In 2021But it did not pass. However, Pollock says it is not important whether any law has been suggested, passed or displayed in El Salvador: After almost six years of power that is almost not restricted, Bukele is a law in itself.
Gracia Grande, the program’s official at Salvaduri branch at the Dutch Institute for Multinational Democracy, told CNN that the law represents an existential threat to its work in NGOs.
She said that the law will make it impossible for them to continue to work. It gives them three months to renew their registration as a non -governmental organization, but they do not know how the process will do.
Grande’s assessment of the situation is unambiguous: “At the present time, we can say very publicly that we are under a dictatorship.”
Despite the increasing anger of rights groups, the punishable penal system in Bukele won.
The prison officer at the CECOT Tower (CECOT Center) stands in Ticoloca, San Vicente, El Salvador, on April 4.
US President Donald Trump to praise Campaign and cut a deal With Bukele, who agreed to hold hundreds of Venezuelan deportees At Al -Salvador Center for Terrorism, along with thousands of detained Silvadorians.
Known as CecotThe huge prison is the largest prison in the Americas and is famous for the conditions of Spartan, which is by rights organizations as inhuman.
“I think what is happening here is a type of laboratory of what could happen in other countries,” Grande NGOs. “Even the United States.”
During Trump’s meeting in April with a White House agent, Bokley suggested that the US President follow the initiative when it is It comes to collective arrests.
“The president, you have 350 million people to liberate, as you know,” Bokley said of the US residents. “But to free 350 million people, you have to imprison some. As you know, this is how you work, right?”
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