At the end of March, when El Salvador registered 62 homicides in just one day, the country’s Legislative Assembly approved the implementation of a state of emergency that has been extended over the months, culminating in the arrest of dozens of alleged gang members and the eradication of violence in the streets of the Central American country.
These are, in fact, the main arguments that the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, periodically brings to light in order to promote his so-called «war against gangs» and try to sell to the world the effectiveness of his laws. Meanwhile, human rights organizations have been questioning these measures for months.
During the period of the state of exception, the Salvadoran government is able to suspend certain freedoms and guarantees to facilitate the deployment of military and police in the streets, especially in those municipalities that accumulated the most homicides during the escalation of violence in March.
Specifically, the measure contemplates the suspension of the right of assembly throughout the country, the increase of the maximum period of detention from 72 hours to 15 days, the suppression of the right to legitimate self-defense and the elimination of the right not to be tapped in telecommunications.
During the more than seven months that the emergency measure has been in force, Salvadoran authorities have certified the detention of more than 57,500 alleged gang members, whom the country’s Presidency has labeled as «terrorists». Likewise, close to 1,900 firearms, abundant ammunition, thousands of cell phones, vehicles and close to 1.5 million dollars in cash have been confiscated.
In this context, the Police and Bukele himself have intensified their campaign to try to defend the measure as the necessary step to achieve some security and social stability in El Salvador. According to the authorities, the country has been following a downward trend in homicides in recent months, with no violent deaths recorded in the last two weeks.
The authorities’ fight against gangs is such that the Salvadoran government has even launched an operation to destroy the graves of gang members killed by its government. A measure that Bukele considers necessary to put an end to the memory and symbols of violence.
In early November, the Salvadoran head of state shared a video on Twitter in which workers are seen beating the graves of dozens of the deceased, adding that this is an attempt to «compensate a little for the damage they (the gang members) did to society.
SECURITY AT THE COST OF HUMAN RIGHTS However, what Bukele considers to be a saving measure has not had the same reception among some of the most prominent NGOs and international organizations, such as Amnesty International or the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which have repeatedly urged the authorities to guarantee the rights and freedoms of citizens and put an end to detentions that they consider arbitrary.
Amnesty International has recognized that gang violence has terrorized Salvadorans for 30 years, so the «war against gangs» announced by Bukele is a popular measure to stop what «has done nothing more than inflict misery on the population».
However, the NGO has denounced that «public security should not be achieved at the cost of massive violations of human rights», thus questioning that more than one percent of the population is behind bars just for their «suspicious» appearance and alluding to the at least 73 people who have died in custody of the authorities in fact, Amnesty has compiled statements from some former members of gangs such as the notorious Mara Salvatrucha, who have denounced that the repressive measures applied by the authorities «do not change the gang member» and have argued that the solution for young people not to join gangs is to guarantee educational and employment opportunities.
For its part, the IACHR has warned against the fact that the Salvadoran National Assembly has extended the state of emergency on so many occasions, a measure that, as its name indicates, should not be normalized because it entails the suspension of fundamental rights of citizens.
«The state of exception is a provision for extraordinary circumstances and not a means to confront common crime,» the organization said several days ago in a statement in which it called on the Salvadoran authorities to ensure compliance with the American Convention.
«THE ‘EXPERTS’ SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE».
While the criticisms follow one after the other, Bukele boasts about his «war» against crime, which has managed to turn the «most insecure country in the world» into the «safest in Latin America» even though «the ‘experts’ said it was impossible». «We continue to build the country we all dream of,» he has said on occasion.
Thus, in what has turned into a direct confrontation with international organizations, Bukele has even suggested that his measures «seem to bother» «big media, NGOs and opposition» and has doubted that they are really organizations in defense of Human Rights.
«If the IACHR were a true human rights organization, I would be happy that in El Salvador the most important human right is so strongly protected: the right to life,» said the Salvadoran leader in his social networks.
Along with the reprimands of organizations, Bukele is also gaining the disapproval of the international community, which sees in the man who ironically has proclaimed himself as «the ‘coolest’ dictator in the world» a president who has gradually taken control of the Parliament and has dismissed critical judges and prosecutors.
