El Salvador: News & Updates

'Systematic' human rights abuse. With these words the human rights organization Amnesty International has described El Salvador's anti-gang efforts in a report on April 3.

More than a year ago, the Salvadoran Bukele government has established a still ongoing "state of exception" in an effort to combat gang activities in the country. Since the first introduction, the state of exception, which only stays active for a month on a time, has been renewed 12 times, and with every additional month the devastating consequences of Bukele's strategy are worsening.      

According to Amnesty International, government security forces and the national judicial sector have committed wide spread human rights violations, such as mass arrests, torture, forced disappearances and the denial of a fair process. In the course of the last year, more than 66,000 individuals have been detained, many of whom not even having any gang affiliation. Furthermore, according to Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, at least 132 individuals have died in custody. Guevara-Rosas stated that, “The systematic violation of human rights and the dismantling of the rule of law are not the answer to the problems facing the country.”

Despite the international criticism, Bukele is holding on to his iron fist crack down strategy, and his popularity has only been surging since the implementation of the state of exception. Only a few months ago, the largest of Bukele's projects, a new mega-prison called "Terrorism Confinement Center" was finished. So far, the prison has a population of 4,000 despite having the capacity to hold up to 40,000 individuals, but this is believed to change soon. Proud of the arrest and the "Confinement Center," Bukele stated: “This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, all mixed, unable to do any further harm to the population.”   

In their report Amnesty International condemns the reliance on imprisonment, with Guevara-Rosas saying that “The dehumanization that thousands of unjustly imprisoned people are suffering is intolerable.”

IRTF supports Amnesty International's denunciation of the Salvadoran anti-gang crackdown. We believe that the problem of gang violence can not be solved by more violence and imprisonment. We call for a solution that goes to the roots of the problem like poverty, ghettoization, the lack of future prospects for the youth, and one that actually protects the innocent population instead of criminalizing them.   

On behalf of IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) members, we wrote six letters this month to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice.

IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

Yesterday we reported on the ongoing gang crackdown under the state of exception in El Salvador, and its popularity. But so far, the Salvadoran prison infrastructure has been lacking capacity to keep pace with the mass arrests carried out in the name of national security. The latest official numbers of the Salvadoran prison population were published in April 2021, almost a year before the implementation of the state of exception. Back then El Salvador had a total prison population of 36,000 in its 29 facilities, an amount 20% over the holding capacity. One can only wonder how crowded the prisons must be after 64,000 additional arrests in the last year. 

With this in mind, President Nayib Bukele ordered the construction of a new, enormous complex with the capacity to hold up to 40,000 individuals, creating the largest prison in all of the Americas. Now, in early February Bukele presented the complete project. Each cell of the so-called "Terrorism Confinement Center" will be able to hold up to 100 inmates. Furthermore, it will have pitch black punishment cells, in which the prisoners are totally isolated and have to sleep on concrete. Besides these inhuman circumstances, the prison lacks any kind of education, traning or rehabilitation programs which could help lead inmates toward a lawful future. The absence of this much needed support structure leaves many no choice but to rejoin the gangs and creates a fertile breeding ground for further gang recruitment. 

Critics of Bukele's approach have stated that this strategy will not be able to hold up long term, as the country can't arrest and jail itself out of the structural social issues it faces. Bukele himself dismissed any critics of his strongman policy as defenders of gangs and praised himself, saying, “El Salvador has managed to go from being the world’s most dangerous country, to the safest country in the Americas. How did we do it? By putting criminals in jail. Is there space? There is now.” It is still unclear when the transition of prisoners to the new facility will start. 

So far the vast majority of the Salvadoran population stands in support of Bukele's crackdown policies. But as critics have pointed out, the imprisonment of tens of thousands of primarily young individuals will not solve the underlying issues of poverty, unemployment, lack of a future perspective, education and social services. And with prisons already being recruitment centers for gangs, it is likely that the approach  in the long term will do more harm than good--pouring oil on the fire that is organized gang criminality.  

El Salvador has been in a state of exception for almost a year now. Since its implementation in March 2022, the government of President Nayib Bukele has massively cut civil rights. The policy allows security forces to arrest any individual without a warrant. Furthermore, the state of exception provides the government with full access to all private communications and severely weakens the right to legal defense in court. 

So far around 64,000 individuals have been arrested under the state of exception, leading to nearly 2% of the Salvadoran population being behind bars. With that El Salvador is now the country with the highest prison population in relation to national population, even surpassing that of the United States. Asked about the future plans to end the state of exception, the Salvadoran Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro stated that it will stay active until every criminal is captured. He estimated that 10,000 more arrests will have to be made in order to reach that goal. Furthermore, Villatoro declared that the Salvadoran border security forces will cooperate with Mexico, Guatemala and the United States to prevent any potential criminal from leaving the country as well as finding an unspecified number of gang members who already left the country. 

But the strategy seems to be effective. Official government statistics show that the amount of homicides has more than halved since the beginning of the state of exception and the crackdown on gangs. While in the year prior to the state of exception 1,147 killings were recorded, in 2022 the number fell to 495. But it is very unlikely that these numbers accurately reflect the situation in the country, as killings by security forces are excluded from the statistics and many murders are never recorded. Furthermore, extortions, one of core activities of Salvadoran gangs has fallen immensely. 

So far the state of exception seems to have lowered violence in El Salvador, an effect that is reflected by the popularity the strategy has in the population.  Surveys indicate that 92% of Salvadorans support the hard crackdown. Citizens stated that the act has allowed them to let their kids play on the streets, take walks and go shopping without fear. Further support comes from local business owners who were forced to pay "protection money" to gangs for years. And while the crackdown strategy gained popularity within the country, surrounding nations took notice. Honduras implemented a softer version of the crackdown strategy in December, and El Salvador has offered help Haiti in their struggle against organized crime.

But with the authoritarian strongman strategy in the name of national security comes a number of oppressive policies and a strong centralization of power towards President Bukele. During the state of exception, the anti-corruption legal body has been devolved and Bukele has stacked the highest court with loyalists. This strategic move did not only enable Bukele to be reelected but also allowed a law to be passed which prohibits journalists from writing about gangs in general. Besides the legal steps, Bukele has built up a network of paid trolls and loyalist fans to defend and support his policies online, as well as harassing and attacking his opposition and human rights defenders. 

Human Rights Watch and other human rights organization stand in strong opposition to Bukele's state of exception. So far, massive human rights violations have been reported, like violations in criminal processes, mass traias and minors being kept in overcrowded prisons.

The Salvadoran government denies all accusations of rights violations besides those allowed under the state of exception and Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro stated, "It doesn't interest us to convict anyone unjustly." 

It is yet to be seen how long the Salvadoran government will hold up the state of exception and how long civilians are willing to give up rights in return for safer streets. Especially Bukele's centralization efforts, matched with the human rights violations, is most concerning, as it could lead to another oppressive, one man dictatorship in Central America. 

On behalf of IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) members, we wrote six letters this month to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice.

IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

El Salvador: Widespread Abuses Under State of Emergency

After interviewing more than 1,100 victims (or their relatives) of the government’s State of Emergency, Cristosal and Human Rights Watch released in December 2022 an 89-page report, “‘We Can Arrest Anyone We Want’: Widespread Human Rights Violations Under El Salvador’s ‘State of Emergency’” , which documents mass arbitrary detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment against detainees, enforced disappearances, deaths in custody, and abuse-ridden prosecutions. President Nayib Bukele’s swift dismantling of judicial independence since he took office in mid-2019 enabled the abuses. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal have not been able to identify any meaningful investigations into the hundreds of allegations of human rights violations committed during the State of Emergency.

Since the State of Emergency (aka State of Exception) was declared in El Salvador in March of 2022, the country has seen thousands of power abuse cases by the military and other security forces. Many arbitrary arrests appear to have been driven by a policy of “quotas” imposed by commanders in the National Civil Police, according to police officers. Between March and November 2022, security forces arrested more than 58,000 people:

-1,600 children

-hundreds of arrests without connections to gangs

-51,000 in pre-trail detention 

-a spike in the prison population from 39,000 in March 2022 to 95,000 in November 2022

-overcrowded cells with up to 125 prisoners in cells constructed for 30

-90 deaths in prison without investigation

-up to 500 sentenced in unjust mass judicial processes.

These circumstances are fueled by authorities requiring certain numbers of daily arrests, intimidating independent judges who are trying to investigate human rights violations, and stigmatizing independent journalists and civil society groups. This paired with the lack of access to lawyers makes for a system in which no one is safe from unjust arrests.

More and more voices are calling for alternative strategies to fight organized crime. Civil society groups and activists criticize the government’s failure to:

-invest in prevention and reintegration

-address illegal economies helping gangs

New strategies would include tackling root causes of gang membership, such as:  

-high levels of poverty

-social exclusion

-focus criminal persecution on high level gang leaders.

State violence and mass arrests are only two of the ways in which the Salvadoran government is crushing down on its population. Civil society groups are calling for international support for independent journalists and grassroots organizing groups that are under attack. Furthermore, the groups call on the international community to suspend existing loans involving the National Civil Police, armed forces, the Attorney General’s Office and the prison system.

Read the full report at https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/12/07/we-can-arrest-anyone-we-want/widespread-human-rights-violations-under-el

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After nine months, the Salvadoran Congress has once again voted for an extension of the ongoing State of Emergency (aka State of Exception) in the country. This marks the tenth extension and will be in effect from January 17 until February 15. The extension was passed with 67 votes in favor, an immense approval rate in a Congress with only 84 seats. President Bukele justifies this by claiming that 80% of the country is controlled by gangs, with Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18 being the largest with an estimated membership of 70,000 members between both of them.

Earlier this month the Salvadoran government announced a drop of 56.8% in the country's murder rate. But the government's number of 496 registered homicides is questionable at best. Many deaths are never registered, and killings during clashes between gang members and security forces are not included. Civil rights groups have counted at least 600 killings in 2022. With the State of Emergency going into its 11th month, activists and rights groups keep articulating concerns about power abuses by security forces. 

The official detention numbers since March 2022 have risen to 61,000 detentions. In January, Human Rights Watch published a statement putting forward the fact that "hundreds of people with no connections to gangs have been detained." 

The author of this opinion article, Fidelina Alfaro, a member of the New Jersey TPS Committee, has lived and worked in the United States for 21 years. In 1995 the mother of two migrated to the US in the hope of a safe and better life and to provide education for her children. In 2001, following a massive earthquake in El Salvador, Alfaro was granted Temporary Protection Status (TPS), which provides protection from deportation to countries wrecked by violence, war and natural disasters. Even though the U.S. government has just extended TPS for El Salvador, Alfaro, like thousands more, live in constant fear that their TPS will expire and attempts to end TPS. For this reason, Alfaro has written this article. 

In her 21 years of TPS, Alfaro has regularly worked two jobs to pay for a college education for her daughter. During the Covid pandemic, she worked as a caretaker, putting herself in danger regularly. 

Alfaro advocates for the right of TPS  holders to apply for citizenship and become full members of US society, with the right to vote, travel and the end of the constant fear of deportation. This goal could be accomplished by the American Dream and Promise Act, as well as through the Registry Act.

IRTF supports Alfaro's call for the right to citizenship of TPS holders and demands an end to taxation without representation and basic citizen rights!