Bukele’s Firm Hand: El Salvador’s New Export?

With a new mega prison that holds 40,000 “terrorists”, the President of El Salvador takes his ultra punitive system (often disrespectful of human rights) one step further. This penal policy, coveted by many in Latin America, is a new challenge to the rule of law in the subcontinent.

Ilustration: Erick Retana

By Suhelis Tejero

Last week, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, took a tour of the recently inaugurated Terrorism Confinement Center (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo – CECOT), a highly secure penitentiary that holds 40,000 “gang members”. He proudly stated that the confinement center is the largest in Latin America and that it is a “key element for the gang crackdown to be successful.” The new penitentiary is an addition to Bukele’s highly questioned ultra punitive policy, which constitutes a challenge to the rule of law in the Central American country, a policy that El Salvador is willing to export.

Indeed, in late January, Felix Ulloa (Vice President of the country) said that the Salvadoran government had a meeting with Ariel Henry, Prime Minister of Haiti, to set up a cooperation office in the Caribbean nation aimed at designing a plan of territorial control against organized crime to halt the violence of Haitian gangs. 

An alliance against crime should not make anyone wary, except in this case the policy constitutes a clear violation of human rights by a judicial branch that has been taken over by the executive. Yet, in the words of Tiziano Breda, expert in conflict resolution and armed violence in Latin America, as well as researcher at the NGO Instituto de Asuntos Internacionales, the “Bukele method” has become an extremely popular at domestic level, supported by a population that dreads insecurity – even at the expense of their own rights. What is worse, as appealing as it is to locals, it also “seems to be of interest for other rulers,” he added.

The highly questioned Salvadoran crackdown on gang crime has caught people’s attention, not just in Haiti. In December 2022, the President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, set in motion a state of exception to bring down the influence of gangs, at the expense of the suspension of the population’s constitutional guarantees.

For its part, early this year, the Minister of Public Security of Costa Rica, Jorge Torres, mentioned in a press conference that it would be “great” to have a security plan such as Bukele’s to decrease insecurity rates in his country. Fortunately, by the end of that month, the idea was rejected by his boss, President Rodrigo Chaves, as he stressed that he is a believer in democracy, separation of powers and firm and clear dialogue. 

Bukele’s Concentration Camp

Admittedly, criminality in El Salvador has dropped – at a high cost. The Territorial Control Plan that Bukele has enforced imposes a state of exception (in place since late March 2022) that limits the freedom of association and supersedes detainees’ right to be informed about the motive of their arrest and to an attorney. As expected, this system has led to the arrest of an indeterminate number of people whose only crime was having some tattoos and being at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

The newly opened Terrorism Confinement Center, Latin America’s largest prison, has a capacity of 40,000 “gang members”. But, even though the facility awaits its first inmate, the ghost of overcrowding seems to be looming. After all, the Salvadoran government claimed it had arrested almost 59,000 in the last year.

Prison overcrowding is one of the striking issues pertaining to human rights problems in the gangs crisis crackdown in El Salvador. Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates that more than a hundred people have died in prisons as a result of the subhuman conditions they are in.

The human rights organization also disclosed other leaked official figures that confirm severe overcrowding in prisons but also serious violations to due process. According to data of March to August last year, published by HRW, nearly 70% of the total of people arrested since the beginning of the state of exception have been charged with illicit association, while 15% face charges of being part of a terrorist organization, and a few of extortion, homicide and other crimes. 

But, as incredible as it may seem, none of these detainees have been taken to trial. Zaira Navas, legal director of rule of law and security at Cristosal (a Central American NGO), explained that the authorities have only brought forward the detainees in a hearing that lacked proof against them, and in which judges have ruled for temporary imprisonment that has been endlessly postponed. “Detainees will be incarcerated for two years without having a proper trial,” he remarked.

Plans of social reintegration are also lacking. In the inauguration of the Terrorism Confinement Center, Bukele walked around bedrooms, dining rooms and gymnasiums that were perfectly painted and lit. Those spaces are not intended for “gang members” but for the prison guards who are the ones that deserve these conditions – as Bukele said that day.

Instead, “gang members” occupy collective cells that are dark and poorly painted, are given no mattresses to sleep in and are expected to shower in cement tanks. They will only leave the premises to go to hearings (set to take place inside the prison) or to isolation cells. Things go downhill from there. Isolation cells are dark and secluded punishment rooms, with a cement slab for a bed, a toilet and a small tank. Troublemaking inmates will be sent to isolation, as the Salvadoran government explained. 

A Regime That Turns its Back to Human Rights

Navas believes that Bukele is dealing with a perception of security, “which obviously has permeated to the people, they feel satisfied with these measures.” The aforementioned amidst a reelection campaign in which “gang members”, who Bukele considers terrorists, have had a leading role. 

This adjective is not new in El Salvador: the Constitutional Chamber rendered a judgment in 2016 (during the government of Salvador Sanchez Ceren) that validated the use of the term to talk about those criminals. 

Bukele has reinforced a term that had been used in the judicial context and he has managed to exploit it in the framework of his crackdown against crime. Latin Americans are familiar with the word in contexts of political discrediting of protesters (as the Peruvian government is doing, and as happened in similar contexts in Colombia and Venezuela). But there is a considerable difference in El Salvador, this is not just for propagandistic purposes but, as Breda recalls, a judgment by the Salvadoran Court has labeled these criminal groups as terrorists, a fact that gets mixed together with trials against gang members in the United States (in which they are considered as such). 

Semantics aside, the key question is if Bukele’s punitive policy against insecurity will have a real impact in the long run. Data shows that homicides have gone down in the last year, although at the expense of violations to human rights that could have unforeseeable consequences. 

In terms of being a definitive solution to violence, it doesn’t seem to be precise. “As long as the marginalization issues that push young people into illegal organizations are not addressed, it is hard to imagine it as a final and lasting solution to the problem of insecurity,” Breda emphasized. 

For his part, Navas warned that long term peace and security are sustainable only when the basic requirements of a public safety policy are fulfilled; including: prevention, investigation and repression of crime, as well as institutional empowerment. “We don’t have that here in El Salvador”, he added.

Time will tell if Bukele’s firm hand policy led to definitive results to decrease the indexes of criminality. But systematic violations to human rights will be a permanent footprint that are proof that not anything goes when democracy is undermined.

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