Soldiers arrived at dawn, sealing off an entire municipality in San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital, stopping cars, forcing passengers off buses and ordering men to lift up their shirts to show if they had gang tattoos.
For many in this once gang-infested community, the show of force was welcome.
“Before, it was the mobsters who were in charge,” said María, a store owner who asked that her last name not be used for her safety. “Now, there are almost no gang members.”
When gang violence in March left more than 60 dead in a single day, the government of President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency, suspending fundamental constitutional rights.
The measure was supposed to be temporary, but more than eight months later, the emergency decree is still in force, the army patrols the streets, mass arrests occur daily and jails are full to capacity.
Now a Human Rights Watch report documents arbitrary arrests, torture and deaths in custody.
The President’s press secretary did not respond to a request for comment, but Bukele, in a speech to the National Police last month, rejected international criticism and praised law enforcement. “They are bringing peace to the Salvadoran people,” he said.
Bukele’s policy appears to be achieving some of its goals: Neighborhoods once considered unsafe to enter are experiencing relative calm. Between January and the end of October, 463 people were killed in El Salvador, a 50 percent drop compared to the same period last year, according to a national police document obtained by Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, an advocacy group. Salvadoran.
The country’s Security Minister claims that extortion cases, a key source of income for gangs, have fallen by 80 percent. But if criminal groups have been crippled, so have many civil liberties.
Since March, the Legislative Assembly, controlled by Bukele’s party, has passed legislation that allows judges to imprison children as young as 12, limits freedom of expression, expands the use of pretrial detention and allows prosecutors and judges to judge people in absentia.
Yet Bukele’s approval ratings have remained above 80 percent, suggesting that many Salvadorans yearn for greater security, even if it means a more repressive system.
The increase in gang violence in countries of the region has led some governments to adopt similar responses. The Honduran government declared a state of emergency last month in two of its largest cities. Jamaica imposed a similar emergency decree last month in Kingston, the capital, and in other parts of the country.
Still, a drop in violence in El Salvador is likely to be temporary if root causes, including poverty and corruption, are not addressed, analysts warn.
And imprisoning youth who may not have done anything wrong could result in a large population of disaffected youth who could be more easily recruited by gangs.
“Similar policies of mass incarceration and iron fist in El Salvador and the rest of the region have shown that in the long term they do not achieve sustainable results and provoke waves of violence,” said Juan Pappier of Human Rights Watch.
Nearly 100,000 people were in prison as of November, more than three times the capacity of the prison system. At least 90 people have died in custody since the state of emergency began.
Some slum residents who once feared gang members say they fear the police more.
“The government can do much worse things to you,” said Hilda Solórzano, 34, who lives in the town of Jucuapa, in the east of the country. Her younger brother, Adrian, 30, was arrested in April and charged with terrorism. She said that her brother had done nothing wrong. On July 5, representatives from a funeral home came to the family’s home and said Adrian was strangled to death while he was in custody. It was not clear how he was killed or by whom.
Now, Solórzano fears that she, too, could become a target because she has been reporting the case. “I’m afraid that one day they’re going to say, ‘You’re under arrest, too.'”
By: BRYAN AVELAR and OSCAR LOPEZ
Soyapango (El Salvador)
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6494468, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-12-14 23:20:09
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