“It is the objective of journalism: to reveal.” This is how the editor-in-chief of the El Salvador newspaper answers, The lighthouse, regarding what motivated the publication of his last and explosive investigation.
“Journalism starts from the idea that an informed society makes better decisions than an uninformed society”, continues the journalist Óscar Martínez.
“So, I think that Salvadoran society should know that his government was negotiating with criminal groups. I think the mothers, fathers, children and siblings of the 87 dead They must know why their relatives have fallen that weekend.”
Those 87 muertos mentioned by Martínez were recorded between the March 25 and 27 in El Salvador.
The country reported 62 homicides only for Saturday 26, date that was placed as the deadliest day since the end of the civil war.
These crimes were not long in being attributed by the Salvadoran Executive to those criminal groups known as “gangs” or “maras”.
This wave of violence in El Salvador led at the end of March to the approval by Congress of a exception regime. A measure that enjoyed great popularity among the population, who considered it a firm response to these rampant gangs.
At that time, several local media claimed that decrease in the number of violent deaths who registered before that weekend It was due to a pact between the government of President Nayib Bukele and the maras.
The lighthouse came this week to add fuel to the fire with an investigation, and Martínez has what condition the research was carried out and with what risk.
An investigation that raised doubts among journalists in El Salvador
That journalistic work It was published this Tuesday and intends to demonstrate that the rupture of a supposed pact between the Salvadoran government and the gangs caused the massacre from the end of March. It was signed by Carlos Martinez, while Oscar Martinez, his brother, intervened as editor.
The latter begins by saying that the investigation did not come as a surprise, but it came to confirm doubts that they already had within the newspaper.
“We had the suspicion, the certainty rather -corrects the journalist- that the increase in homicides had to do with some problem in the negotiations between the government and the gangs,” he said.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear: https://t.co/CLxE6A3FHn
– Carlos Martínez (@chelefaro) May 18, 2022
And it is that The lighthouse enjoys a long career in deal disclosure between successive governments and the maras.
A) Yes, It is not the first investigation that brings to light the alleged use of these methods by the current government.
“In addition, we know from experience that the gangs, as a criminal organization, use the dead as a means of pressure. So yes, we suspected that these crimes were very surely due to non-conformity with the pact that the government I had complied with them.”
To tell a story fully, you can’t just talk to people you morally like.
– Óscar Martínez, editor-in-chief of Faro
To prepare this investigation, journalist Carlos Martínez says he was in contact with two leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha-13 and one of Barrio 18, the groups with the greatest weight in El Salvador.
And to justify resorting to criminals for the writing of this work, the reporter invokes “journalistic reasons”: “To tell a story fully, you can’t just talk to people you morally like.”
He also explains that, according to him, the government itself gives weight and voice to the gangs: “They have turned them into political actors, they have given it importance. So we have also cultivated sources within those organizations.”
“You don’t have to be the best journalist in the world to talk to a gang member”
The journalist, who has a long experience in covering the Salvadoran reality, insists on putting things in the context of the country.
“According to the latest counts, there are more than 70,000 gang members and almost 6.5 million inhabitants in El Salvador. You don’t have to be the best journalist in the world to get to talk to a gang member. If you look at the international media, it is not so exotic to get a gang member as a source”, said.
And indeed, the renowned British chain BBC World published a month ago an interview with leaders of the Barrio 18-Sureños.
Nevertheless, Oscar Martinez He insists that at no time does the newspaper’s editorial team defend the crimes of the gang members.
“They will have come to us because they feel betrayed by the government. But we have never stopped questioning their activities. They have also threatened us, on several occasions,” counted.
And if the reporters consider that at times it is necessary to talk to gang members to understand the ins and outs of a story, Óscar Martínez assures that “We do not publish anything that does not seem plausible to us. The information they provide us is always verified.
“It is a bit naive to think that the gang members will not want to secure evidence”
In the case of this investigation, the published audios would come from telephone conversations between a leader of the Mara Salvatrucha-13 and the director of Reconstruction of the Social Fabric of El Salvador, Carlos Marroquin.
These conversations would have been recorded without the latter’s authorization, “Although in a country like El Salvador it is a bit naive to think that the gang members will not want to secure evidence,” Martinez thinks.
Once the reporter Carlos Martínez had them in his possession, those audios were first verified with gang sources.
“Then we talked to another source, which was not even possible to mention in the article,” Oscar Martinez specifies.
Finally, El Faro used three software -two forensic audio and one for commercial use- to compare Marroquín’s voice in some of his public interventions, with the voice heard on the recordings.
“Persecution” of press freedom in El Salvador
And thus was born the investigation that accuses “irrefutably” -Martínez remarks- to the government of Nayib Bukele of negotiating with criminal actors.
But what risk does this publication entail for its authors? “The problem is that we have published this investigation when a ‘gag’ law has already been approved.”
That law you mention Oscar Martinez it was voted on in the first week of April.
penalize those who “reproduce messages allegedly originating or originating from gangs” with up to 15 years in prison; that, according to the same text, to avoid generating “anxiety and panic” among the population.
“But the one that generates anxiety is the government, with its failed negotiations, which cost the country 87 deaths,” the journalist sentences.
Óscar Martínez goes further in his accusations, and does not rule out that the reform, -which was approved just a few weeks before the publication of his team’s work-, arose with the intention of covering up that investigation.
“It is no longer difficult for me to believe anything regarding this government. And I don’t see why they ban journalists from publishing regarding gangs right following a wave of violence. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some kind of notion of research, and they feared that what we have revealed would be revealed.”
It’s Friday already, and the government’s silence in the face of the published investigation is more notorious than any noise. https://t.co/wZ98nYUBJv
– Óscar Martínez (@CronistaOscar) May 20, 2022
At the time of the interview, Carlos and Óscar are in Mexico, but for work reasons.
“On the other hand, we do have Salvadoran colleagues who are in preventive exile. They have been persecuted for revealing and investigating; as if it were not the work of a journalist”, remark.
However, the editor-in-chief of El Faro tells France 24 that he is not going to be intimidated: “The puzzle hasn’t been put together yet. Many pieces are missing; many actors to discover, many promises of the pact to reveal.
A response from the main victims is still waiting. the one they call ‘Batman’ in the audios between Marroquín and the Mara Salvatrucha, President Nayib Bukele The complaint remains unclear.
“It’s not the first time”, Martinez points out.
“The past has shown that when a narrative is imposed on him that he doesn’t like, he tends to shut up. In a more democratic country, I would at least have to show my face and say that an investigation is being carried out. But El Salvador is no longer democratic: one man directs everything.”
