What is known about Bukele’s war against corruption in El Salvador, for which he will build a new prison

The war against gangs promoted in El Salvador by Nayib Bukelenow the fight against government corruption will be added, as announced this Tuesday by the president himself during a cabinet meeting.

In the meeting with all members of his Executive, in addition to announcing that he will step away from office for six months to be able to contest the 2024 presidential elections, Bukele said he is worried about leaving a bad legacy and asked Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado, also present , to investigate all government officials.

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“There are some fugitive presidents, but most are remembered as thieves. So, I don’t steal because I don’t want to be remembered as the thief or the corrupt one,” said Bukele.

“But I’m not going to be the president who didn’t steal, but surrounded himself with thieves. I hope you remember me as the president who didn’t steal and who didn’t let anyone steal. And whoever steals, puts them in jail. There is already a couple who are in prison (…) We are about to start construction of CECOC, the Corruption Confinement Center. “It’s no joke,” said the president.

CECOT and now, CECOC

Bukele said that the new prison for corrupt people will be close to Cecot. (GET IMAGES).

At the moment there is not much information about the prisons that, according to Bukele, will begin to be built soon.

The Salvadoran president announced that he will be called Corruption Confinement Center and will be close to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot).

El Cecot, a mega-prison opened in early 2023 and which, according to the Salvadoran government, exclusively houses gang members, has been described as “the largest in America”.

It is located in a rural area near Tecoluca, in the department of San Vicente, approximately 74 kilometers southeast of the country’s capital, San Salvador.

Some of the more than 70,000 people detained since the imposition of the emergency regime in March 2022 are being held there. The government guarantees that they are members of gangs or have links to them, although human rights and civil society organizations report arbitrary detentions and human rights violations. Due Process.

This is not the first time that Bukele has spoken of prison for politicians who commit crimes.

He has already referred to her on June 1, when he declared “war on corruption”after considering that it is an “endemic evil” that, “like gangs, has tentacles at all levels of the State”.

“Just as we mobilize law enforcement and arrest gang members until they are taken to prison, we will also pursue white-collar criminals, wherever they come from.”he stated during his address to the nation upon completing his fourth year in power.

“We will also build a prison for the corrupt. We will seize everything they have and make them return what was stolen,” she assured.

He also said that, while he was speaking these words, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) was carrying out the search and seizure of all the assets of the former president Alfredo Cristiani, who governed the Central American country between 1989 and 1994.

The Legislative Assembly controlled by the ruling Nuevas Ideas party fired then-attorney general Raúl Melara in 2021. (GET IMAGES).

A series of accusations for alleged corruption were already weighing on Cristiani, including that five months before leaving the government, the Presidential House had issued 106 checks in his name with a total value of US$5.5 million, the destination of which is unknown, as revealed in the newspaper. newspaper El Faro in an investigation.

Three days after his arrest, the FGR formally accused him of having participated in the massacre of six Jesuit priests and their two collaborators perpetrated by an elite military command in 1989.

However, analysts and members of civil society organizations questioned Bukele’s new “war” against corruption, ensuring that it could be used arresting the president’s political rivals a few months before the elections.

Accusations against current employees

Bukele’s critics denounce that, although he came to power in 2019 waving the banner of fighting corruption, during the time he led the government he dismantled institutions that guarantee transparency and oversight in the country, in addition to attacking the State’s balance of powers.

As an example of this they put the 2021 dismissal of Attorney General Raúl Melara.

The Legislative Assembly, controlled by his Novas Ideias party, dismissed him in May 2021 on the grounds that his independence and impartiality were at stake, due to his alleged links with the opposition party Arena, something Melara denied.

However, by then the FGR headed by Melara had also carried out a criminal investigation against several government officials.

For months, prosecutors tapped phones, conducted physical surveillance, seized documents, took photographs and interviewed witnesses.

The investigations not only focused on alleged negotiations with gangs, but also on alleged irregular purchases during the pandemic linked to the Ministries of Health and Agriculture.

After Melara’s resignation, the research called “Cathedral” It was in the hands of Rodolfo Delgado, the new attorney general appointed by the Assembly controlled by the ruling party.

Initial reports on cost overruns during the pandemic were compiled by Bukele’s then main anti-corruption body, the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (Cicies).

However, in June 2021 Bukele announced the rupture of his agreement with the Organization of American States (OAS) for the existence of Ciciesarguing that this body was not trustworthy, as it had hired as an advisor a former mayor of San Salvador who was being investigated.

Bukele asked the attorney general to investigate all members of the government. (GET IMAGES).

“We decided that we are going to break our agreement with Cicies because it is absurd to try to combat impunity precisely with the people who promote impunity in El Salvador”, said the president in a press conference on June 5, 2021.

Likewise, so far in your administration, more than a dozen of your government officials have been accused of alleged acts of corruption committed by the United States Department of Stateincluding his press secretary, his legal secretary, the Minister of Labor, one of his former Ministers of Agriculture and his former Minister of Justice.

In July 2021, the US included Chief of Staff Carolina Recinos on the Engel list, which contains the names of Central American officials suspected of corruption or undermining democracy.

The report accuses Recinos of having participated in “significant corruption through the misappropriation of public funds for personal benefit” and states that he also participated in a money laundering scheme.

Last June, the Government Ethics Court (TEG) sentenced Recinos to reimbursement of 25 thousand dollars and fined her 2,300 dollars for “breach of ethical duty” in the management of funds intended for scholarships.

On the other hand, the Washington Office for Latin American Affairs (Wola) and other organizations reported that during the emergency regime still in force in El Salvador “they eliminated legal controls over administrative processes for the use of public resources and State contractingas well as the right of access to public information.”

Perhaps to silence these accusations, Bukele announced this Tuesday that although he is about to leave office, he will “increase supervision of the work of the government and its departments”.

“From now on, only two will be up for re-election, it’s not like if the president goes, we’ll all go. If it’s the two of us who are up for re-election (he and current vice-president Félix Ulloa). others will not be re-elected, no one will vote for you (…) Those who continue will be because they stood out in their positions”, he stated during the cabinet meeting.

And then he addressed the attorney general: “I want to publicly ask that we investigate everyone here, backwards and forwards.”

Source: Elcomercio