State of Exception and Imprisonment–Forgoing of Law in El Salvador
Guest blogger: Sequoyah Hilton, Masters in Migration Studies Program student, University of San Francisco:
Understanding and remedying the root causes that expel communities from their countries is becoming more and more accepted as the only meaningful avenue through which massive displacement and emigration can be addressed. However, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and his newest application of the mano duro policies to combat gang violence in the country is being severely mishandled, and are hypocritical in their application.
Bukele has been overriding many of the democratic institutions within El Salvador under the promise of combating the cartel and gang violence under the argument that he is the only one to do so. One of the most notable (and expensive) factors that fall under this umbrella of policies was the opening of the ‘Terrorist Confinement Center’ – a massive super prison that is officially the largest in all of the Americas (Aleman 2023). The language used by him and his Attorney General are concerning however, as they are using the enforcement branches of government to operate in ways that challenge rule-of-law principles. To demonstrate, Gustavo Villatoro, the government’s minister for justice and peace, said the suspected gang members would never return to the streets, even though about 57,000 of those arrested are still awaiting formal charges or a trial (Aleman 2023). If many of those arrested have done so without having been found guilty, it is very worrying to think what release in such a large jail would even look like. The images are nauseating as well, where the men are stripped of their shoes, shirts, wearing nothing but white boxers and corralled so close as to be nose-to-neck. The heavy documentation of this by the state is grotesque, and to so plainly dehumanize the arrestees in language and photography is definitely not what combats any root cause of violence–indeed, it looks like it’s just recreating it again.
This State of Exception demonstrates its violent treatment of El Salvador’s citizens plainly through strict and paternalistic policy–the right of association is suspended, and police don’t have to tell someone being arrested the reason or inform them of their rights… [without] right to a lawyer and can be held for 15 days without seeing a judge rather than the previous 72 hours (Linthecum, 2022). The suspension of ‘inalienable’ rights is clear, and its hard to see how suspending adherence to laws as a government is going to do anything other than push people outside the law as well.
This approach of being ‘tough on crime’ and enforcement-centric approaches is undermined by the new US department of Justice report that has insider-intelligence claiming ample collaboration between Bukele and the gangs in order to improve his image. Apparently, according first to Salvadoran journalists Oscar and Carlos Martinez, the State of Exception and mass arrests was the result of a lapsed pact of collaboration between MS-13 and Bukele (Linthecum, 2022). The DOJ report is even more damning, where Bukele specifically offers high ranking members financial benefits and protection in exchange for reducing their public murder rate (Sanz & Martinez, 2023). Bukele’s high nominal approval rating and obsession with maintaining the image of a competent and fair leader is clearly little more than a facade, and it’s hard to know a lot when the burden continues to fall on independent journalists and grassroots leaders to challenge his discourse.
Sources:
Aleman, Marcos. (2023 March). “2000 more sent to new prison for gangs in El Salvador”. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-03-15/2-000-more-sent-to-new-prison-for-gangs-in-el-salvador
Linthecum, Kate. (2022 June). As El Salvador’s president tries to silence free press, journalist brothers expose his ties to street gangs. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-06-09/nayib-bukele-el-salvador-el-faro-journalists
Sanz, José Luis & Martínez, Carlos. “El Salvador Government Protection of MS-13 from Extradition Emerges in DOJ Indictment”. El Faro. https://elfaro.net/en/202302/el_salvador/26739/El-Salvador-Government-Protection-of-MS-13-from-Extradition-Emerges-in-DOJ-Indictment.htm
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