Gang Violence, Human Rights Offences & International Condemnation: El Salvador's Perfect Storm
- Francis Buchanan
- May 3, 2020
- 12 min read
Updated: May 5, 2020
Earlier in 2020, when I thought about how developing Central American countries might try and manage an outbreak of coronavirus, I thought about the time I crossed the Guatemalan border into El Salvador in early February 2020. During that crossing, every passenger promptly had their temperature checked before we were all grilled on which countries we had visited in the last six months.
No one had been to China, the epicentre of the pandemic at the time, but we did have two French nationals also making the trip down to Leon in Nicaragua. Because France had recorded a few cases at that stage, Salvadoran border security took these two aside and questioned them further, clearly concerned that they may have been in contact with the virus.
This all seemed pretty extraordinary and surreal at the time, but contrasted with the lack of questioning, temperature checks and overall concern I witnessed at Heathrow in late March, for a while I maintained this absolute reverence to the way in which El Salvador were navigating their way through these challenging times.
Of course, absolute reverence is typically a result of absolute ignorance and this illusion I was harbouring was gradually degraded over the following months. So, now, when I think about how El Salvador is trying to manage an outbreak of Coronavirus, I think about the “blood-thirsty, machete-wielding gangs enforcing a coronavirus lockdown as police lose control”, how “El Salvador’s president is using covid-19 as an excuse to abuse his power”, and the “El Salvador prisoners crammed inside jail during coronavirus lockdown”.
Let’s just get one thing out of the way. You probably noticed that these headlines are a little bit melodramatic and in-your-face. Welcome to how the mainstream global media tends to report on Salvadoran domestic affairs. I’m not saying these headlines are fictitious. In fact, there’s certainly truth in all of them. But the veracity of the statement is often weighed down and sullied by a whole lot of sensationalism, indifference, and a general nonchalance.
In this article, I’ll be steering clear of the jacked headlines and often adverse preconceptions. Here, I’m going to be looking at the various different factors contributing to El Salvador’s current crisis, and how the pandemic itself has contributed to the country’s struggle with gang violence and retrograde, populist politics.
A Silicon Valley-Style Disrupter: President Nayib Bukele’s Authoritarian Turn
On the 1st of June 2019, El Salvador elected their 46th President – a politician and slick, hot-shot businessman by the name of Nayib Bukele. Often dubbed Latin America’s first millennial president, Bukele was an outsider that emerged from the political peripheries to clinch over 50% of the ballot, upending the historic dominance of the country’s two largest parties.
Leader of the centre-right GANA Party, Bukele’s electoral success marked a seismic shift in El Salvador’s political landscape. Writing in Jacobin Magazine, Latin American political expert, Hillary Goodfriend stated that: “Bukele campaigned as a Silicon Valley–style disrupter, positioning himself against a corrupt political class encumbered by outdated ideological divisions and pledging to mobilize international investment to catapult El Salvador into the twenty-first century.” Blaming previous administrations for leaving the country “in ruins”, Bukele sought to inaugurate a “new era” for El Salvador by improving security and tackling gang violence and political corruption.
The first few months of Bukele’s presidency brought about unprecedented levels of public optimism as crime levels dropped and the country’s homicide rate sharply declined. In July 2019, Bukele’s second month in office, he was even able to celebrate the first day without a murder for two years. It is claimed that there have only been eight murder-free days since 2000. This feat was accompanied by the announcement of the government’s new security strategy named “Secure El Salvador”, which had “five objectives; to prevent crime and violence; improve the justice system; do more to rehabilitate criminals; provide greater protections for victims; and strengthen institutions keeping citizens safe”. Bukele’s successes earned him a staggering 91% approval rating, a figure that went hand-in-hand with his online popularity. With a total of 1.9 million Twitter followers, Bukele boasts a healthy online base. To put this into perspective, former British Prime Minister, Theresa May, has less than a million followers, while current British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has just 2.5 million followers. Although trivial, these figures speak volumes about the populism of Nayib Bukele.
However, Bukele’s popularity wasn’t destined to last forever. In December, during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, he faced tough questions about his stance on Salvadorans leaving the country, bound for the USA, in order to escape gang violence, poverty, and destitution. The 38-year-old President began the interview by broadly stating: “The reality is that our whole economy is in shatters. Nothing works.” Going into detail, Bukele went on to say: “Well paying factory jobs have gone to Asia and any work that can be found by young people is in low wage jobs in shops and restaurants… We have an economy that creates 20,000 jobs in a country that 100,000 kids get into-- into working age every year. So, 80,000 stay out of a job. I mean, this is a country with-- a lot, a lot of problems.”
Bukele once said, “President Trump is very nice and cool…and I'm nice and cool too…” Like many of the political leaders of El Salvador’s neighbours, Bukele has gone out of his way to cosy up to U.S. President, Donald Trump. In fact, with their election pledges and devotion to communicating solely via Twitter, they’re practically cut from the same cloth. In September, the Salvadoran President agreed to a highly contentious deal that would allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers from anywhere in world to El Salvador – a country the size of New Jersey. El Salvador doesn’t have any asylum capabilities, but Bukele agreed to the construct them as it paved the way to the Trump administration releasing around $50 million dollars of foreign aid that it was holding back. It’s no secret that the Trump administration is offering foreign aid to Central American countries only in exchange for compliance on tighter border control, harsher immigration regulations, and U.S. directed asylum strategies.
On the 9th of February 2020, around eight months into his presidency, Nayib Bukele received intense levels of international scrutiny following a chilling demonstration of how political populism can often fringe on oppressive authoritarianism. While coronavirus was still in its infancy, sequestered away in inland China and other areas of the globe, El Salvador found itself in the midst of a constitutional crisis as Bukele essentially intimidated deputies to approve a $109 million loan in security funds. In a move that Goodfriend claimed was “flirting with fascism”, Bukele ordered 1,400 Salvadoran soldiers from the Salvadoran Army to enter the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador. Goodfriend writes: “They fanned out across the half-empty chambers, stationing themselves behind startled deputies and lining the hallways. Outside, snipers perched atop government buildings. President Nayib Bukele marched into the occupied chambers and took his seat in the Assembly President’s chair. “Now I think it’s quite clear who has control of the situation,” he said”.
Following what is now generally referred to as El Bukelazo, the President received widespread criticism and condemnation for, not only appearing to use intimidation tactics to get his way, but also for evoking a sense of ultra-violent authoritarian that many in the country had hoped they would never see again. Goodfriend concludes that the images of El Bukelazo “recall the dictatorial and repressive past that the president’s millennial democracy seeks to revise… Bukele’s dictatorial disposition has been laid bare”. The condemnation that El Bukelazo received wasn’t just from abroad either, it was being voiced by many in the country itself.
Suggesting that the President’s relaxed, easy-going guise may have slipped during the incident, Oscar Martinez, editor of Salvadoran digital newspaper, El Faro, wrote: “For the first time in his career, he wasn’t the ‘cool’ president for the international community. With the military takeover of the assembly, Nayib Bukele laid to rest the last doubts about his character: he is showboating, populist, anti-democratic, and authoritarian. With the cheapest tricks – vile, dangerous, and claiming he has God on his side – he turned over a dark page in the history of our young democracy.”
Following the events of February 9th then, it’s no secret that Nayib Bukele and El Salvador limped tentatively into the biggest international public health crisis and economic downturn witnessed in modern history.
A Semblance of Order
The thing about El Salvador’s coronavirus crisis is, as of now, it’s not actually a public health crisis in terms of the amount of sick people seeking out hospital beds. With only around 450 confirmed cases and just 10 deaths in a country of well over 6 million people, the figures coming out of El Salvador are actually incredibly positive. In comparison, Mexico – a far more developed and populous nation – has recorded over 20,000 cases and around 2,000 deaths, while neighbouring Guatemala has recorded around 650 cases and 16 deaths.
In early March, as the coronavirus pandemic spread all around the globe, Bukele banned mass gatherings and ordered bars and nightclubs to shut up shop. The president went on to order that a convention centre be turned into a temporary hospital with 2,000 beds and 300 intensive care units. On March 22nd, Bukele went a step further and ordered a national 30-day lockdown complete with strict consequences for those who went didn’t comply. Further measures “barred entry to nearly all foreigners, required a 30-day quarantine for Salvadorans arriving from other countries, suspended schools for three weeks, and halted gatherings of 500 people or more – all before it had registered a single positive case”. By late March, it was being reported that soldiers were patrolling the streets of San Salvador in a bid to enforce government measures.
However, while Bukele certainly received plaudits for his tough stance on tackling coronavirus, his actions also received criticism from many that saw the redaction of civil liberties and constitutional rights as a follow-on from El Bukelazo back in early February. On March 14th, lawyer and anti-corruption expert Wilson Sandoval tweeted, “Today we all lost. The worst thing is not the virus, it’s the next few years that will come from an authoritarianism that will gradually destroy our rights…”
With the lockdown in full effect, it was reported recently that law enforcement were detaining citizens found outside without a valid cause in special quarantine centres. Allegedly, thousands of people, who may or may not have contracted the virus, are currently being detained. In light of this, the constitutional court then ruled that these arrests were “improper”, but Bukele tweeted that the ruling would not be respected, saying “I don’t understand their morbid desire that our people die”. Following this, “The court told the National Assembly to pass a quarantine law that preserved constitutional rights. But as legislators moved to do so on April 23, immediately after overriding a presidential veto of aid for health workers, Mr. Bukele forced them to suspend their session by claiming that health authorities had detected the coronavirus inside the assembly building.”
This led to even more international scrutiny and began generating headlines that suggested Bukele was using the covid-19 outbreak as an excuse to abuse his power. This is by no means an isolated response to the threat that coronavirus poses. In March, Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, passed emergency legislation that, among other things, allowed the Prime Minister to rule by decree for an indefinite time period, while also making it a criminal offence to spread misinformation. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin have also faced criticism for effectively turning their pandemic responses into political power grabs.
Yet, there’s another angle to the Bukele administration’s response to coronavirus, and it concerns the President’s struggle to combat gang violence across the country. In late April, everything started to boil over.
A Weekend of Bloodshed
In his interview with CBS, Nayib Bukele was asked about the ongoing violence between the country’s two largest gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, and how he was managing the gangs’ influence on the country’s economy. Due to their tendency to shake-down businesses, gangs in El Salvador actually maintain the power to tangibly impact the national economy. Businesses tend to perceive this criminal activity as a kind of tax, when in reality it’s extortion. In response, Bukele said that his administration would never negotiate with any organised crime network due to concerns that it would grant them legitimacy. In El Salvador, it is understood that there are around 60,000 gang members, many of whom are in the capital, San Salvador. There are also a further 12,000 gang members in prisons around the country.
Speaking to the Express, Dr Harry E. Vanden, a Central American gang violence expert said: “The gangs are trying to adapt to the lockdown and quarantine. Their main source of income is, however, the extortion from residents and businesses in the neighbourhood. They brutally enforce their rule and threaten, beat, rape or gang rape, or assassinate those who do not comply. Through terrorising the neighbourhoods, they are able to continue their rule and extortion. They also fight brutally and bitterly with the other gangs and the police as well. I am sure this will resume once the worst of the measures to combat coronavirus are reduced or lifted.”
Many of Bukele’s successes in office have been down to his role in tackling gang violence, even his controversial stunt in parliament was done ostensibly in order to garner more funds in his fight against the gangs’ stranglehold over the country. However, in the midst of a lockdown, the President wouldn’t have expected the level of violence that engulfed the time in between April 24th and April 27th. In just one weekend, 77 people lost their lives.
Citing “intelligence information”, Bukele claimed that the homicides had been orchestrated by senior gang members who were already in prison, and quickly introduced a spate of new measures that would make it harder for inmates to relay messages to peers and the outside world. As Justice Minister, Osiris Luna put it, “no ray of sunlight” would enter the cells holding jailed gang members.
Following this statement, the government released a number of alarming photos showing prisoners tightly packed together while their cells were searched – a clear disregard of any social distancing protocols. Bukele then “bragged that members of rival gangs had been mixed together and their quarters sealed so they ‘will no longer be able to see outside the cell’”. As for gang members outside prison, Bukele authorised the use of “lethal force” to supress gang-related violence.
Coupled with his refusal to comply with the ruling of constitutional court, Bukele’s strong response to this increase in homicides has alerted a number of human rights groups to suggest that El Salvador’s prisons are now teetering on the edge of a humanitarian disaster.
In His World, He Decides Who is Guilty or Innocent
Regarding the inhumane treatment of prisoners in El Salvador, Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas Director at Human Rights Watch said: “Given the Covid-19 pandemic, prisons in El Salvador, as elsewhere, are a potential epicentre for an outbreak, and the Bukele administration’s lockdown has exacerbated an already heightened risk. President Bukele’s get-tough-on-crime discourse to address 77 killings in 4 days is, ironically, putting more lives at risk of a potential contagion – inside and outside detention centers.”
Later, on Twitter, Jose Miguel Vivanco added: “In his world, he decides who is guilty or innocent”.
Some commentators were less aggrieved by the images, comprehending this development as the final nail in the coffin of Bukele’s promise of a “new era”. Dr Sonja Wolf, author of Mano Dura: The Politics of Gang Control in El Salvador said: “What Bukele is ordering is really a continuation of measures we’ve seen before. It is shocking and alarming to see this, but it’s not the first time that the governments have acted harshly against gang members or taken drastic measures in the prisons.”
In response to the growing fear of a humanitarian crisis in El Salvador’s prisons, an open letter to the President was published by a host of international organisations such as Amnesty International, the Center for Justice and International Law, and the Washington Office on Latin America. The letter read:
"Today we collectively call on president Bukele to lead a public health strategy to protect the population and their rights in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government must immediately reverse those measures that, far from serving health purposes, have only led to multiple reports of alleged human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions and excessive use of force. The authorities have detained thousands of people and taken them to holding centres that often lack measures to ensure a minimum level of sanitation and physical separation. With this strategy, the government only increases the risk of contagion instead of protecting people from the virus. Moreover, the detention of people who go out in search of water, food or medicine disproportionately affects those living in poverty. El Salvador needs comprehensive solutions that address inequality and the causes that drive many people to go out to meet their basic needs.”
Understanding El Salvador’s Perfect Storm
For a country the size of a small U.S. state and with a population of under 10 million people, El Salvador has managed to embroil itself in a multifaceted, perfect storm of gory gang violence, human rights offences, political power grabs, populist fervour, and the threat of a global pandemic.
The situation in El Salvador cannot be easily deciphered, decrypted, or disentangled, it is the result of men fighting fire with fire at every turn. It’s what happens when a bold, populist approach to governance comes head-to-head with a decades-old crime network in an arena where the very ground is a mine-field representing the country’s fragile, young democracy.
If the mechanics of democracy and the edicts of the country’s constitution were properly adhered to from the outset, perhaps this crisis wouldn’t have evolved in the way it did, and perhaps I’d still be thinking about that time I crossed the border into El Salvador going, “woah, this place has got it right”.
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