The people who have fallen in the relentless operation against the gangs of El Salvador

When the president of The Savior, Nayib Bukeleattended the army officers’ graduation ceremony last week, said more than warm words about their future careers as security officers.

He also announced the latest escalation in his relentless crackdown on his country’s street gangs, which has resulted in a staggering 57,000 people arrested on suspicion of mara gang affiliation since March.

LOOK: “Instead of effectively responding to gang violence, Bukele is subjecting the town to a tragedy”

Bukele’s self-proclaimed “war against the gangs” has also led to an increase in cases of arrests considered arbitrary.

“Thank God and thanks to you, Salvadorans have true peace,” President Bukele told thousands of soldiers and police officers at a carefully prepared evening event to launch the fifth phase of his controversial “Territorial Control Plan.”

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, makes suppressing gang violence a priority. (EPA).

Called “Extraction,” its goal is to strengthen military control of El Salvador’s major cities using high-tech surveillance equipment, supposedly to prevent gang members from leaving or entering.

The operation began this weekend with 10,000 members of the security forces surrounding the municipality of Soyapangowhere they began to detain alleged gang members.

The soldiers listened in firm formation to the president’s words during the evening event. (EPA).

President Bukele dismissed criticism from international human rights organizations and foreign governments over the “state of emergency” he imposed nine months ago, after a weekend of extreme gang violence in which more than 70 people were killed.

The emergency measure endowed the police with extensive new powers, including the right to arrest suspects without due process. Bukele told the officers that he had the support of more than 95% of Salvadorans.

It is certainly popular. Homicide rates are reaching record low levels. Neighborhoods that have endured years of extortion and violence at the hands of the brutal MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs are experiencing a previously unknown period of calm.

“My husband has nothing to do with the gangs”

However, El Salvador’s prison population is proportionally the highest in the world. The already overcrowded prison grounds are about to burst with the arrival of new inmates, leading the government to announce the construction of a new large jail.

With the entry of new detainees, some inmates have had to be transferred to open the field. (REUTERS).

The evidence suggests that hundreds, perhaps thousands of people with no obvious links to the gangs have fallen into the raids.

When the police officers forced their way into the door of Zoyla Torres’s house, she believed that it was a mistake.

“We don’t give anyone a problem,” he insists. “My husband has nothing to do with the gangs. He works in a factory making sacks. for transporting crops.

However, the police broke into her humble home and arrested her husband Manuel and his brother-in-law, while their children were having breakfast.

Manuel, the husband of Zoyla Torres, was arrested at his home in front of the couple’s children. (COURTESY OF ZOYLA TORRES).

The same thing was happening across the street at his brother’s house—all based on an anonymous tip.

The three men spent almost a month enduring the worst prison conditions in Latin America. Zoyla says that they were regularly beaten in prison and that they have been traumatized by the experience.

However, they can be considered lucky. Zoyla managed to get them released after her employer gave assurances that they were not involved in gang activities.

The relatives of those detained in the operation have held demonstrations. (EPA).

Marta, an 18-year-old psychology student, was not so lucky.

Her father Óscar assures that Marta -a pseudonym- was taken from the house after the police forced her to give them the name of a gang member.

Since she didn’t know any gang members and wasn’t prepared to falsely accuse anyone, they simply arrested her, Óscar says.

“At the end of December will serve six months in prison. They arrested her for conspiracy. But they had no proof, no evidence.”

“Thousands of arbitrary arrests”

Óscar’s attempts to win his daughter’s release – presenting evidence of her college enrollment and testimony from his church group as to her good character – have fallen on deaf ears.

And now Marta, like thousands of other prisoners, faces another six months in legal limbo as the state of exception is to be extended again this year.

Óscar has been trying to secure his daughter’s release. (COURTESY OF OSCAR).

Lucrecia Landaverde, a lawyer who represents dozens of detainees pro bono, says the policy is causing lasting damage to El Salvador’s judicial system.

“So far, there have been thousands of arbitrary arrests, baseless accusations and illegal detentions. There have not even been preliminary investigations to see if those arrested are part of the gang structure,” he alleges.

With the right to habeas corpus virtually suspended and some police officers allegedly justifying arbitrary arrests as simply “the will of the president,” Landaverde warns, it is a very short step to reach totalitarianism.

Critics of the president’s strategy warn of growing authoritarianism. (EPA).

Dozens of former gang members have also been targeted in the crackdown, despite many of them having renounced gang life decades earlier and seeking to make amends for their previous crimes.

Among them is William Arias, an evangelical pastor and former member of MS-13 who was interviewed by the BBC in 2018.

With the gang tattoo still visible on his forehead, William fully acknowledged committing horrible crimes in his youth. But he insisted that for 18 years, he has been totally dedicated to dissuading other youths from following that path in the gang.

William was arrested in April, and his whereabouts are unknown. “If he has not been released, he undoubtedly still had charges pending against him,” said the vice president of the National Assembly, Guillermo Gallegos.

“And remember, many gang members use the church as a pretext,” he alleged. The staunch Bukele supporter has repeatedly advocated the death penalty for gangs in El Salvador.

“The gangs never gave anything for the human rights of the victims,” ​​says Gallegos, echoing the president’s argument. “So, now, we consider that their human rights are reduced to the minimum.”

Meanwhile, Óscar fears for his daughter’s life.

“They’re not interested in knowing if people are innocent or guilty,” he says in a quavering voice. “What matters to them is having a large number of arrestees for publicity. To impress”.

Source: Elcomercio