The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, is, today, one of the most controversial leaders on the planet because of the handling he has given to the war for the permanent eradication of gangs: The Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs.
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His decisions have provoked strong conflicts with the international community and with recognized human rights organizations, which state that his policies would be considerably violating constitutional freedoms throughout the territory.
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The Salvadoran state is accused of using torture, arbitrary arrests and forced disappearances in its onslaught once morest the ‘Maras’. However, The Government confronts this type of accusation with concise information and notable media coverage to show the presumed results left by the actions of the state once morest organized crime.
So far in the 11 months of the state of emergency, close to 65 thousand captures for alleged ties to gangs. To house all the prisoners, a mega prison with a capacity for 40,000 inmates called Terrorism Containment Center (Cecot).
A prison in which those deprived of liberty have strict prohibition of contact with the outside, including lawyers, visits or virtual trials with the intervention of witnesses.
According to human rights organizations in that country, this is a notorious violation of due process in the judicialization and imposition of sentences of those captured, since only a third of those prosecuted would have proven links with groups outside the law.
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For the opposition, the alleged indiscriminate arrests would be a political strategy ahead of next year’s presidential elections.
Before these accusationsBukele has responded with ‘acid’ statements that have not gone down well with his detractors who accuse him of being a “dictator.” For this reason, EL TIEMPO has made a collection of some of the most ‘spicy’ and criticized phrases of the president.
This is how Bukele responds to the opposition
Last Thursday, the mobilization of two thousand more prisoners to the Cecot was carried out. Again the criticisms jumped on the table and focused on the treatment of the prisoners.
Bukele reacted on his Twitter account to a note from the newspaper ‘El País’ where they reported: “Barefoot, with a naked torso, crouched down and handcuffed. Once once more, the Government of Nayib Bukele has carried out the transfer of prisoners to the maximum security super prison in El Salvador under these conditions.”
Regarding this new mega-prison, Bukele and Petro got involved in a hectic exchange of words on social networks, following the Colombian president criticized the mobilization of the first wave of prisoners to the prison : “You can see in networks the concentration camp of El Salvador, full of young people, thousands and thousands imprisoned”
And he added: “I think there are people who like that: seeing the youth in prisons and they believe that this is security.” This caused a wave of trills from the Salvadoran that went viral in a few minutes.
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On the other hand, his iron determination to put an end to the gangs has led him to make quite controversial pronouncements regarding the living conditions of the prisoners.
Likewise, Bukele has used social networks as his main political platform. From his Twitter account, he has responded, ironically, to the criticism that comes from the international community and from the opposition that labels him as totalitarian.
Institutions such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) expressed their concern last year, at the beginning of the state of emergency, regarding the measures of the Salvadoran president and pointed out that implementing these strategies “have already proven to be unsuccessful at other times.” .
(You may be interested: Bukele on treatment of prisoners: “What brand of shoes do you think would be good”).
The controversy also reached the media, since the Legislative Assembly of that country voted, in 2022, in favor of reforming the Penal Code to penalize any media outlet that reproduces or transmits “messages or communications originated or allegedly originated” by gangs.
This did not sit well at all with the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (Apes), which described the norm as a kind of “gag”, since “It threatens the media and journalists who report on a reality that from the current administration tries to hide”.
Three years ago, when Bukele assumed the presidency, he got involved in a strong exchange of words with Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, following he accused him of being, paradoxically, a dictator who violates human rights, for which he made the decision to expel the embassy of that South American country from El Salvador.
almost immediately, Maduro spoke on his social networks and did the same with the Salvadoran representative in Venezuela. Likewise, the Bolivarian president called Bukele at a conference in Cuba “Wimp of imperialism.”
(Also read: These are the jewels that entangle Bolsonaro in the illegal import scandal).
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