IRTF News

Bukele's crackdown on gangs has led to a drastic drop in homicides and is praised by many Salvadorans, but rights groups slam abuses in prisons, saying inmates are forced to confess and held without contact from families and lawyers.

The Salvadoran NGO Socorro Juridico Humanitario (SJH) estimates that almost a third of those detained are innocent -- based on a study of 3,500 cases.

"I am not defending, or against, the government. What I want is for them to hand over my brother, who is innocent," Yessica said at her home in San Jose Las Flores, north of the capital San Salvador.

Five years ago, her brother Carlos Alfonso, 44, was beaten to death by gang members in his neighborhood, and now she is afraid that Leonel, who suffers from epilepsy, will die in jail.

After the elections in Guatemala, the “Pact of the Corrupt” tried to prevent the transfer of power to the democratically elected Bernardo Arevalo, who surprisingly won. But indigenous people managed to organize quickly and prevent this from happening. It was not an obvious battle for them to defend the representative democracy of a system from which they are excluded. Women, who are even more discriminated against in this system, have played a central role in this.
Abigail Monroy, Maya Kaqchikel and ancestral authority of Chuarrancho, said that now “we have a president who understands the people and is willing to work with the people”, but it is also “just a turning point on a long road”.

Many human rights organizations including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch have been reporting and presenting evidence of the human rights violations committed by President Bukele's government. As a reaction to this violence, people are heading demonstrations on the streets of El Salvador. These marches often get stopped by the police, but this time, on August 16 the Movement of Victims of the Regime reached the Presidential Palace. 

"We wanted to get to the Presidential Palace. We had already been to almost all the government institutions, but we still hadn't gone to the Presidential Palace, [..] they always meet us with barricades. So one group of us gathered at the Savior of the World monument to attract attention while another went to the Presidential Palace, getting there quickly so they wouldn't block us," said Samuel Ramirez, a spokesperson form the Movement of Victims of the Regime.

On August 6, a new group in the U.S. House of Representatives, the El Salvador Caucus, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting that the State Department remove the elevated travel advisory status for El Salvador, its first official correspondence aimed at influencing U.S. policy towards El Salvador. The caucus—formally announced on July 8 by Florida Republican and vocal Trump supporter Representative Matt Gaetz, who co-chairs the caucus alongside Texas Democrat Vicente Gonzalez—emerged as increasing numbers of international headlines report on widespread human rights violations under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s militarized state of exception, which has suspended many basic civil liberties nationwide for over two years in a so-called “war against gangs.”

In Gaetz’s words, however, “The El Salvador Caucus will exist to… encourage the strong reforms that President Bukele has put into effect” and “vindicate the choices President Bukele has made.”Like other congressional caucuses, the El Salvador Caucus has no authority within Congress other than to advance a common interest. The caucus’ stated mission is to promote “a better understanding of issues related to the United States’ relationship with El Salvador, our mutual interests and the interests of the United States.” In Gaetz’s words, however, “The El Salvador Caucus will exist to… encourage the strong reforms that President Bukele has put into effect” and “vindicate the choices President Bukele has made.” The caucus’ early actions and Gaetz’s statements suggest the group’s role is not only to boost the image of Bukele but also to drive the agenda of the Bukele government within the United States.

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IRTF was founded in Cleveland, OH, in 1981to call people here in the U.S. into solidarity with the people of Central America to promote peace, justice, human rights, and systemic transformation through nonviolence. Four decades later, the people of Central America face formidable challenges like the rolling back of democratic advances, forced displacement from communal and ancestral lands, and attacks on human rights defenders—harassment, threats, false criminalization, and violence (including assasssination). Our solidarity is as important now as ever.

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Nicaragua’s government has launched a fierce crackdown on the Catholic church and other religious organizations, jailing priests and bishops, closing religious schools, and stripping charities and ministries of their legal standing.

On September 5, 135 prisoners were released in a secret operation negotiated by the Biden administration, officials announced.

The prisoners, all Nicaraguan citizens, were flown to Guatemala and will be able to apply for U.S. legal status. Descending from the plane, they cried, “God Bless America” and “God Bless Guatemala,” said Eric Jacobstein, a State Department official who greeted them.

Among the 135 freed Thursday are 13 members of the Texas-based Mountain Gateway missionary organization, as well as Catholic laypeople, students, journalists and human rights defenders, U.S. officials said. The highest-profile prisoners (from Mountain Gateway, an evangelical Christian organization based in Dripping Springs, TX) included 11 pastors who were arrested in December and later found guilty of money laundering, plus two of their lawyers. The pastors had received sentences of 12 to 15 years, and were collectively fined almost $1 billion, the organization said in a statement. It said the charges were baseless.

A stunning report in Axios paints a damning picture of widespread farm labor abuse in the US agricultural industry outside the protections of the Fair Food Program (FFP). 

Yet while federal prosecutions of forced labor operations grow more common in agriculture, many massive food corporations like the grocery giant Kroger continue to turn a blind eye to the extreme abuses of some of the most vulnerable workers at the bottom of their opaque supply chains, according to a shocking report, months in the making, by Richard Collings of Axios.  Meanwhile, according to the report, the lack of adequate resources for state and federal authorities to protect farmworkers is only making matters worse, and is likely allowing even more widespread exploitation of the agricultural workers who put food on our tables to go undetected. 

Against this backdrop of pervasive abuse, Worker-driven Social Responsibility programs like the Fair Food Program and Milk with Dignity are singled out by Axios as “key to ending widespread forced labor.”

The bullet-pointed report is a must-read.   We have included it here below in full to best share its urgent message: Forced labor is an appalling reality in US agriculture today, but there is a proven solution — the unique monitoring and enforcement mechanisms of the Fair Food Program, driven by workers as the frontline monitor of their own rights and backed by the purchasing power of the program’s participating buyers.

The article by Efren Lemus in El Faro on August 19, 2024, highlights severe issues within El Salvador's Bureau of Prisons under the state of exception. It documents cases where court-ordered releases were ignored, leading to deaths and continued unjust detainment. Families like that of Luis Armando Rodríguez faced repeated bureaucratic obstacles after his release was ordered, ultimately resulting in his death in prison. The Bureau of Prisons, accused of crimes and secrecy, has failed to comply with court orders, perpetuating a pattern of human rights abuses and institutional impunity despite international scrutiny.

NISGUA’s press release on the latest updates in the historic Guatemalan case charging ex-general Manuel Benedicto Lucas Garcia with genocide against the Maya Ixil people. On August 12, the accused made a frivolous and malicious attempt to dismiss the case. Yet, the fight continues and elders from the three municipals of the Maya Ixil region who are unable to travel to the capital due to advanced age or health issues are preparing to give their testimonies in Nebaj, Guatemala next week. 

In this critical moment, a month before the expected end of the trial, we call upon international media to continue to shine a spotlight on the case and reflect upon the international community’s role in enabling the genocide. In particular, the United States provided training to the Guatemalan police and military, promoted the ‘internal enemy’ doctrine, and taught torture techniques, forced disappearance, and counterinsurgency tactics. Survivors of the genocide of the Maya Ixil people and their families and communities have been awaiting justice for over 40 years, and the fight will continue until justice prevails. 

Cañaverales, a town in Colombia’s northern province of La Guajira, has become the first beneficiary of a new government program protecting campesino communities from industrial development. On July 5, 2024, Colombia's Ministry of Agriculture declared Cañaverales a Protected Area for Food Production (APPA), safeguarding 80,000 hectares from coal mining and prioritizing agriculture. This victory follows decades of activism by Afro-Colombian, campesino, and Indigenous communities fighting against environmental degradation caused by large-scale mining.

Despite this progress, the future remains uncertain as corporate power, particularly from companies like the Turkish Best Coal Company, threatens to override these protections. The community's struggle reflects the broader challenges of balancing environmental protection with economic interests under the Petro-Márquez administration, which, despite its focus on rural development and food security, continues to face opposition from business interests and the extractive industry. The people of Cañaverales remain committed to resisting mining and protecting their land, but the threat of corporate influence and legal challenges looms large.