Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, has implemented an emergency regime aimed at combating criminal groups like MS 13 and the 18, which has been extended 12 times since March 27, 2022. The regime involves using the military on the streets, building a mega jail, and capturing suspects without due process. However, some critics have accused the regime of imprisoning innocent people without connection to gangs, leading to international criticism from human rights activists, journalists, and even presidents of other regions. Bukele has also engaged in public debates with other leaders, such as Gabriel Boric from Chile and Gustavo Petro from Colombia. Bukele has also clashed with the Biden administration over the regime’s actions, leading to strained relations between El Salvador and the United States.
Nayib BukelePresident of The Saviorcarries out its emergency regime, which has been extended at least 12 times, since its implementation on March 27, 2022. 24 hours earlier, 62 Salvadorans were brutally murdered in a single day.
Its main objective is to combat the empty (MS 13) y gangs (18 or XVII), which by the way are two different criminal groups although with the same antisocial criminal connotation.
Keeping the military on the streets, building a mega jail to house those captured by both criminal structures and making arrests against suspects of belonging to them, without due process, are part of the strategy that the legislative Assemblycontrolled by Nuevas Ideas, the president’s party, allows execution for the twelfth time.
However, the fact that thousands of people are part of the system’s victims who were imprisoned without proving their link to the maras or gangs has brought strong criticism to the Salvadoran president.
This is even more so from the international level, where human rights activists, journalists, both American, European and Latin American, and even presidents of regions such as South America, have sharply criticized the Bukele strategy, generating discussions that are in the public domain and they end up with those close to both parties, forming factions.
Nayib Bukele and his direct statements to his Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric
One of the first presidents to be immersed in the responses “without mincing words”, but via Twitter, from Nayib Bukele, was the Chilean leader Gabriel Boric.
It was enough for the president to issue his comments in an interview to Timeshowing that he did not identify with the governance style of his Salvadoran counterpart, in matters of combating security.
“There is effectively an authoritarian drift: where to face a problem that is very serious, which is the issue of the gangs, which I know is very difficult and that crime must be faced with great determination, but that cannot be done by restricting the democracy”Boric told the American publication.
“I imagine he could say the same about me”added the president of Chile when questioning the emergency regime in El Salvador which, in his opinion, is detrimental to democracy.
Indeed, the Salvadoran president’s response did not wait, and although it did not go to the jugular, as on previous occasions with other of his critics, it did generate a debate that included several deputies from his party, in response to Gabriel Boric.
For several weeks and perhaps months, some legislators from El Salvador’s ruling party maintained fierce criticism of the management from La Moneda.
Some decisions made from the government house in Chile, and even criminal acts that occurred in the country, were used by deputies from Nuevas Ideas, among them Walter Germanwho dedicated part of his daily schedule to reproaching what was happening in this South American territory, like his fellow bench member Alexia Rivas.
The legislator described as repression of protests the actions of the Carabineros against alleged high school students, in September 2022, amid the burning of collective buses. Part of the Chilean population even reproached President Boric, as now, for a lack of strategy to deal with this type of action.
“He did not mention about the protests that he and his government have suppressed. When he refers to “human rights violations in El Salvador,” I suppose he is referring to not giving gang members a chicken in prison, I suppose. Because in ???????? the opposition has no call” ????
Nayib Bukele’s round with another Chilean: José Miguel Vivanco from HRW
José Miguel Vivanco was Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. His messages on Twitter were focused on the countries with the highest rate of democratic vulnerability.
His criticism of nations whose leaders act in detriment of human rights was and still is recurring after his departure from HRW.
Under this premise, it is that Vivanco showed the need for Nayib Bukele to respect the rule of law, long before the so-called Exception Regime began in El Salvador.
The episode in which the military broke into the Legislative Assembly, when Nayib Bukele was already president, but did not control his party, was one of the occasions. Later, the criticism intensified and therefore the response of the Central American president.
“I want Bukele to be clear: We will make every effort so that this assault on democracy affects his relationship with the US government, the World Bank, the IMF and the IDB. Today in Washington the rule of law is a necessary condition”Vivanco emphasized.
Hence, Bukele’s accusation of the Chilean lawyer, assuring that he worked for George Soros, a billionaire investor in successful businesses such as Uber, Spotify and others. He is a Hungarian-born but naturalized American philanthropist who has bought the media and other critics to turn against his government.
“We all know that Vivanco is funded by @OpenSociety, from @georgesoros. But what is revealing is that he says that they will make “every effort” to affect our relationship with the US, @BancoMundialLAC, @el_BID and @FMInoticias. It will be interesting to see how much influence Soros has, ”concluded Bukele, whose followers took up the same speech for any criticism that the president received from him.
Gustavo Petro vs Nayib Bukele: leaders of El Salvador and Colombia do not get along at all
“Better than making government pacts under the table”. When Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, wrote that phrase, he stirred up a hornet’s nest that included government officials, his unconditional followers (some of them from anonymous Salvadoran accounts) and Nayib Bukele himself, who issued one of several responses against his peer Latin American.
What Petro was referring to with this assertion is the alleged negotiation that the president held with gang members, before declaring war on them, which would have been broken when they decided – presumably – to break the pact at the beginning of last year, when they were 62 Salvadorans were murdered on March 26, 2022 by these criminal groups.
From El Salvador, media such as The lighthouse They have carried out investigative work that would account for the alleged arrangements mediated by Bukele officials, to maintain an agreement, which included some of his officials as mediators, including the Director of Penal Centers, Osiris Luna Mesa.
In 2020, the then Attorney General Raul Melara ordered the investigation of said pacts in the Bukele administration, in addition to those that occurred during the FMLN presidency that ended in 2019.
On May 1, 2021, legislators from Bukele’s party, which obtained the legislative majority in the last elections, just hours after taking office, dismissed both Melara and 5 magistrates from the Constitutional Chamber, appointing in an almost unanimous vote and expedited to his successors, without due process of this type of charges.
According to documents and photographs obtained by this means of communication, in August 2022 Luna entered a maximum security prison to talk with gang leaders imprisoned there, in order to uphold the agreement.
That information apparently reached Petro, who used it to criticize the government of Nayib Bukele, in relation to its change in strategy. That is, from the supposed pact, to the declared war against the aforementioned criminals.
As often happens, Bukele did not stay with the criticism. He headed towards what he considers mismanagement by his Colombian counterpart, indicating that he uses El Salvador as a distraction from said situation. In passing, he added Gustavo Petro’s son, asking him if he wasn’t the one with the pacts.
“Agree. First he accuses of inhumane treatment and now they speak of “better conditions.” Besides, I don’t understand his obsession with El Salvador. Isn’t his son the one who makes pacts under the table and also for money? Everything is good at home? ????
Nayib Bukele’s unforgettable discussion with Maduro, whom he previously admired
Nicolas Maduro did not escape a forceful response from Nayib Bukele. This, after a meeting in Havana, with the presence of the former Salvadoran president, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, the Venezuelan sent a message to the Central American president.
“It is shameful to see how a person who came to the presidency of the republic with some hope for the Salvadoran people is disfigured, melted before imperialism”he said in reference to the friendship between Bukele and former President Donald Trump.
Maduro continued his stinging rhetoric, adding that “History is history. And you are not saved from history, Bukele. It’s your place as a traitor and wimp of imperialism. As simple as that. The people of El Salvador rest assured that no pimp, no wimp of imperialism like this Bukele, is going to separate the peoples of El Salvador and Venezuela.”
Bukele, meanwhile, felt the need to respond to Maduro, emphasizing his management, criticized for being undemocratic and more than that.
“More respect Mr. Nicolás Maduro. He speaks of a democratically elected President and not by fraud, unlike him. Contrary to you, 9 out of 10 people approve of my Government. And in El Salvador, without being on seas of oil and natural gas, a roll of toilet paper does not cost us a month’s salary “he replied on his Facebook profile.
Obviously, in the case of two more than recognized figures, the debate viralized the publication of the Salvadoran president. However, the response was curious when, years ago, Bukele professed admiration for Nicolas Maduro, when he was still mayor for the FMLN party, an ally of the Venezuelan ruling party.
One of the tweets in this regard was written in January 2013, a few weeks before the death of Hugo Chávez Frías, Maduro’s predecessor.
Bukele clashed with the Biden administration
Although at some point in its relationship with the United States, during the Trump presidency, Nayib Bukele was called “imperialism wimp”, the situation changed drastically with the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House.
Since then, bilateral relations between the US and El Salvador have been part of a tug of war, against the backdrop of the economic cooperation that the Central American country receives from North American territory and its millions of migrants who have work permits such as the Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
On multiple occasions, when Biden administration officials have expressed concern about what is happening in The Saviorwith the so-called Exception Regime, or before, with the appointment of officials related to the Salvadoran ruling party in the Prosecutor’s Office, Supreme Court of Justice, among other institutions, Bukele has faced criticism from a partner who until years ago was strategic in all the senses.
In an interview with EFE, the main adviser to the US government for Latin America, Juan González, assured that El Salvador had to be prevented from becoming another Venezuela.
Bukele responded, alluding to his North American counterpart, in a new round with his critics, which seems endless, like the same interaction on social networks that he uses to send his responses.
In summary, Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, has faced criticism from several leaders, human rights activists, and journalists at the national and international levels. The prolonged emergency regime aimed at combating the MS 13 and 18 gangs has been the main point of contention, leading to accusations of authoritarianism and disregard for human rights. Bukele has engaged in sharp exchanges with his counterparts, including Gabriel Boric from Chile, Gustavo Petro from Colombia, and Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, among others. Even the Biden administration has expressed concern over the Salvadoran government’s actions. The debate continues, with no end in sight.