The war of the ‘maras’ shoots up with 62 crimes in one day; the Government suspends constitutional rights and makes hundreds of arrests
With international news practically engulfed by the conflict in Ukraine, the explosive situation in El Salvador has barely found a place in the foreign media. But in the streets of the Central American country, with just over 6.4 million inhabitants, another war has been waged for days with disturbing records. In just one weekend, 87 people have been murdered; 62 in one day.
There, a new battle against the ‘maras’ or gang members is being rewritten. And with lethal days that have not been known since 2015, when the country was among the most violent in the world with an average of 103 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. This new wave of crimes has led the government of Nayib Bukele to decree a state of exception that came into force at dawn last Sunday; that it will last for at least a month; and that suspends constitutional guarantees such as the rights of association, assembly or defense.
«1,400 gang members captured in just three days. And no, they will not go free. We continue…». This is how the Salvadoran president highlighted the first effects of this constitutional exceptionality in a message through his Twitter account. Prolific on this channel, the 40-year-old president, in power since 2019, has spared no reproaches to those who accuse him of having undertaken a “dictatorial and authoritarian persecution” – he literally asks them to get the 70,000 gang members out of the country who are still on the streets.
THE KEYS:
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Historic crash.
President Bukele celebrated last February as the safest in the country since 1996 -
Gatherings in prisons.
It is denied that the rise in crime responds to the failure of “secret agreements” with the leaders of the gangs
Nor does he shy away from his threats to the ‘maras’. «We have 16,000 ‘homeboys’ (gang members) in our power. We seized everything from them, even their sleeping mats, we rationed their food and now they will no longer see the sun. Stop killing now or they will pay too », she recently assured. Bukele is watching his so-called Territorial Control Plan sink. A roadmap to eradicate crime in the country, which he presented with 575.2 million dollars as soon as he became president and which was going to put an end to the bloody activity of gang members by controlling penal centers; cutting funding to organized crime; and with a significant investment to strengthen the security forces.
An ‘achievement’ under suspicion
From the outset civil society and human rights organizations in El Salvador warned of a risk of militarization. Objections that the Government fought with data of a supposed effectiveness that has now been distorted. And overnight. Because Bukele recently highlighted that El Salvador had experienced the safest February in the country’s history since 1996. He made it emphatic. “Many have already forgotten, but having 30 homicides a day (and a similar number of daily disappearances), for every day of a month, was something normal just one government ago (…) Having achieved a reduction of more than 80% in homicides, forced disappearances and other crimes, tells us that we are on the right path, “he stressed. The institutional website still contrasts data: 664 homicides in February 2016 “during the government of Salvador Sánchez Cerén”, compared to 76 in the same month this year.
Pacification was (until now) the great achievement that Bukele was selling. But his Territorial Control Plan against the ‘maras’ would not have been as ‘sanitized’ or as effective. The newspaper ‘El Faro’ uncovered in August of last year that government officials held secret meetings in prisons with the leaders of the three main gangs to ‘freeze’ the historic drop in murders.
In exchange, the three organizations (‘El Faro’ cites Mara Salvatrucha-13, Barrio 18 Revolucionarios and Barrio 18 Sureños) raised “a series of demands” such as “improvements in prison life conditions and benefits for their members in freedom” . The Government denies any pact with organizations that Salvadoran legislation itself considers “terrorist” and, of course, that the open war these days has to do with these “sewer” negotiations. But the army has had to become omnipresent in large cities, even with air support, and there are hundreds of arrests every day. Overwhelmed situation.
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