The war against criminal gangs in The Savior already leaves 58,000 detainees. Despite the fact that the state of emergency in the country has been criticized by humanitarian organizations, the president Nayib Bukele announced this Wednesday that the authorities will surround the cities to apprehend gang members and mara members.
(In context: This is the ‘prison regime’ to which gang members will be subjected in El Salvador)
“What we are practically going to do is surround large cities and carry out the processes of extracting the terrorists who are inside those cities, without giving them the chance to escape,” the president said in a speech.
Buekele assures that some 14,000 soldiers were concentrated on land near a military barracks on the outskirts of the city of San Juan Opico, 35 kilometers west of San Salvador.
Bukele said that he would not reveal “for security reasons” the names of the cities that “in the coming days” will be surrounded by police and soldiers, to carry out a meticulous search for gang members and arrest them.
The president assured that the idea of putting up fences in large cities is based on “the success” that took place at the beginning of last October in the town of Comasagua, 30 kilometers south of the capital, where after a homicide a police and military siege that allowed the dismantling of a cell from the mara gang Salvatrucha (MS-13).
What we are practically going to do is surround large cities and carry out the extraction processes of the terrorists who are inside those cities, without giving them the possibility of escape.
“If they (the gang members) want to escape or someone wants to supply them with weapons or food or ammunition, or cell phones or everything they use to intimidate the population, then there (the police and soldiers) will intercept them,” Bukele insisted.
The government also did not specify the date when the security fences will begin to be set up, which the president said “the population requests and approves.” The assembly of security fences in cities for the “extraction of gang members” is part, Bukele said, of the so-called “Territorial Control” government security plan that is now “reinforced” with the exception regime that allows the promotion of war against gangs.
Criticism of the exception regime
The emergency regime that has been promoted since March 27 and that allows arrests without a warrant, was declared in response to an escalation of violence that claimed the lives of 87 people from March 25 to 27.
If they want to escape or someone wants to supply them with weapons or food or ammunition, or cell phones or everything they use to intimidate the population, then they will be intercepted there.
Questioned by humanitarian organizations, the emergency regime was recently extended by Congress until mid-December and the president himself said “it has been a complete success, since it has allowed the arrest of 58,000 people, suspected gang members. Before March and prior to Before the emergency regime began, there were 16,000 incarcerated gang members in the prisons of El Salvador.
Most of those detained are members of the gangs MS-13 and its rival Barrio 18 in its southern and revolutionary factions.
The Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (Fespad) denounced in the past the “arbitrary” detention of “at least 8 children and young people” in eastern El Salvador, the non-governmental organization confirmed to EFE.
The event, according to Fespad, happened on October 29 in a community in the Bajo Lempa area, in the eastern municipality of Jiquilisco, after the detainees “represented a play on the historical memory of El Salvador.
He explained that “the work presented by the detained children and youth portrayed the history of the country from pre-Columbian times, the Peace Accords, to the present day.” “The relatives fear that it is a reprisal for including the military performances in the theatrical performance,” she said.
CARLOS JOSE REYES GARCIA
INTERNATIONAL SUB-EDITOR
TIME
*With Efe
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