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Situated in the center of Latin America’s Northern Triangle, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele sits atop a pedestal of lives saved and rights infringed. After his re-election in February 2024, the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” has continued his controversial emergency order that has left tens of thousands of Salvadorans (many of them innocent) behind bars, all the while curbing the nation’s gang violence and homicide rate.

By weaponizing the nation’s police force to mass-arrest anyone and everyone suspected of being involved with the country’s many gangs, Bukele has significantly cut gang violence and its resultant harms by effectively eradicating El Salvadorans’ right to a fair trial. This emergency order (officially known as a ‘state of exception’), established in March 2021 in the wake of a slew of gang-related murders, was originally meant to be a temporary measure lasting only 30 days... Wednesday will be its two-year anniversary.

In the wake of 87 alleged gang-related murders in just 72 hours occurring in March 2021, Bukele was quick to act in instating an emergency order that proceeded to take away El Salvadorans’ constitutional rights in the name of public safety. To this point, it has worked... both in taking away fundamental rights and in reducing the nation’s absurdly-high homicide rate.

El Salvador’s Innocent in Crisis 

Up to 900 people can be tried at once, a move made necessary by mass arrests perpetuated by El Salvador’s weaponized police force. To this point, more than 76,000 people—1% of El Salvador’s total population—have been arrested and detained for accusations of belonging to or being affiliated with gangs. Thousands of relatives of gang members have been arrested, too, charged with collaborating with criminal groups. 40,000 children have been left without parents.

Of those 76,000 arrestees, only about 6,000 Salvadorans have been released from prison for their innocence. However, thousands more remain in overcrowded prisons plagued with human rights abuses, unable to prove their innocence through judicial systems stripped down under Bukele’s administration and his “nuevas ideas” coalition. These innocent arrests are most prevalent in low-income communities, where gang violence was most prevalent before Bukele’s emergency order, yet arrests continue to be made against people who have “no connection to gangs.”

According to the UN, 5,747 people in El Salvador have been detained without an arrest warrant, where they have been subjected to cruel, inhumane treatment. Under Bukele’s emergency order of abuse, children can be sentenced as adults (an estimated 1,600 of them have already been treated as such) and placed in El Salvador’s already-overcrowded adult mega prisons, where they face increasingly-long sentences.

Yet within those prisons, the conditions are alleged to be as equally, if not more inhumane, as the broken justice system itself. Another UN investigation revealed more than 7,900 complaints of human rights violations against prisoners in El Salvador in the time since Bukele’s state of emergency began. In the year since that investigation, it’s unclear if conditions have gotten any better. In truth, El Salvador’s justice system isn’t just broken... it’s been weaponized into a tool used to imprison as many people as possible without evidence, a fair trial, or attorneys. All the while, these prisoners are subjected to horrid conditions treating them as subhuman.

Are Gangs Still Around? 

The roots of these organizations run deep. They’re funded almost entirely by large extortion networks across the country. This extortion, while usually only occurring in small amounts, is prevalent in a substantial majority of businesses across El Salvador. MS-13 had an annual revenue of $31.2 million, extorting money from an estimated 70% of all businesses across El Salvador.

And under Bukele, this extortion has taken on new avenues. In 2021, the country named Bitcoin as a legal tender, a move which has yet to result in real change among the El Salvadoran people, few of whom have any of the cryptocurrency. But while the newfound legal tender has yet to catch on among citizens, it’s become the currency of preference for gangs, scamming users out of millions. By holding all currency in the virtual blockchain rather than physical cash inside safehouses, the gangs have been able to hide their illegal funding from law enforcement, and now frequently use Bitcoin in cocaine transportation, general extortion cases, and more.

From barbershops to restaurants and other businesses across El Salvador, nobody is safe. Often, it was a choice of paying the gangs or dying.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Nayib Bukele said, “in a very short time, El Salvador has gone from being LITERALLY the MOST DANGEROUS country IN THE WORLD, to being on its way to being the SAFEST country in [the] AMERICA[S].” And while the use of caps lock in the transcribed speech (seriously, he used all caps in many portions of the speech document) may be excessive, the point Bukele attempts to get across is well emphasized: El Salvador was dangerous, but under his leadership, it is now safe.

However, fear remains that this progress is only temporary. Inmates cannot stay in prison permanently, and many of them must eventually be released and re-integrated into society. That re-integration will be near-impossible due to the social isolation and brutality that occurs in El Salvador’s prisons. The potential that these gangs, or some facsimile of them, could return is very real. While failing to address the socio-economic issues that caused and resulted in the nation’s former gang violence proliferation, the same problems are likely to manifest themselves shortly after the emergency order ends (an act that Bukele seems intent on delaying for as long as possible).

The unsustainability of Bukele’s prison system and emergency order at-large makes this return probable and potentially inevitable. Only about 36% of gang members in El Salvador have been arrested by police estimates, with the remainder laying low until the emergency order clears up so they can begin their reign of terror again.

These mega prisons of Bukele’s are also unlikely to stay economically sustainable for much longer. While fiscal opaqueness has prevented accurate estimates of the prisons’ cost and budget, the continued management is estimated to require enough funding such that the program cannot be continued long-term. In that case, not only would the prisons be unable to accept new prisoners (either guilty or innocent), but they would also likely have to release many current prisoners and gang members, if not close their doors altogether.

But at least in the interim, these prisons remain hubs for abuse, gang violence, torture, and death.

Bukele and El Salvador (not) in the International Spotlight

Yet despite all the abuses, the pseudo-dictator will continue to remain in power for another 5-year term after his reelection last month. Alongside him, the state of exception has no end in sight. The widely popular leader won 83% of the vote, largely because of his effective crackdown on violent gangs through the emergency order. 63% of El Salvadorans don’t care whether they live in an authoritarian or democratic government, so long as it solves their problems—a statistic they made clear through the landslide victory of authoritarian Nayib Bukele.

Despite Bukele’s attempts to dismantle democracy, he manages to continue winning democratically.

That reelection, notably, was anything but typical for a nation that has held a constitutional ban on Presidential reelection for decades. Article 88 of El Salvador’s constitution reads “[t]he principle that a President cannot succeed himself is indispensable for the maintenance of the established form of government and political system. Violation of this norm makes insurrection an obligation.” To this point, no insurrection has happened, in large part due to an El Salvador Supreme Court ruling that allowed Bukele to run for reelection so long as he stepped down from the Presidency a few months before the election—a move that many legal experts, labeled as the “blatantly unconstitutional” result of court packing by pro-Bukele legislators and the President himself. Instead, Bukele’s self-confidence has only been bolstered and his domestic support has only increased, to the point where he proclaimed himself to be the “world’s coolest dictator.”

What was once known as a war-torn, gunpowder-filled nation with gang violence reaching an all-time high, is now advertised as the land of volcanoes and beaches. But behind El Salvador’s pretty advertisements lies a story of human rights abuses, torture, and mass incarceration. An authoritarian leader enabled by an emergency order which suspends constitutional rights and liberties has led his country for the past two years without any substantial checks on his near-unlimited power, no end is in sight.

What was once an emergency measure intended to last only 30 days has drawn out into a way of life for the past two years, without any indication of ending anytime in the near future.

So if Bukele is so bad, why hasn’t anybody stopped him? Sure, he’s popular within El Salvador, therefore ruling out the potential of a domestic dictatorial swap. And when local opposition leaders, particularly those from civil rights groups in El Salvador, step up to the authoritarian President, the results aren’t often as planned.

Bukele administration officials have threatened both civil and human rights organization leaders with audits, accused them of money laundering and other crimes, and harassed them online. Human rights advocates have furthermore been spied on by the El Salvadoran government through illegal surveillance made legal under Bukele’s New Ideas legislature.

Outside of El Salvador, attempts to call out Bukele’s atrocities have fallen on deaf ears, and in many cases have been nonexistent in the first place.

U.S. lawmakers to this point have benefited from decreased immigration from El Salvador as a result of Bukele’s safety-promoting and widely-popular policies. Thus, they’ve struggled to balance democratic backsliding and human rights abuses prevalent throughout the Bukele administration with the acknowledgement of his popularity and helpful immigration impacts.

Furthermore, El Salvador has aligned itself with the U.S. in its position against China. It’s one of only a few Latin American countries to reject 5G proposals from Chinese company Huawei Technologies, and has instead engaged in communications for a potential U.S. deal. By standing against the country, the U.S. would risk forcing El Salvador to turn to other nations for support, thereby taking away American leverage and the ability for the U.S. to positively influence the nation’s political landscape.

For instance- after Trump temporarily cut aid to El Salvador in 2019, Bukele proceeded to engage openly in diplomacy with China, and similar measures are likely to yield equivalent shifts away from America. During the Biden administration, calls from Secretary of State Antony Blinken against the country’s democratic backsliding resulted in closer ties with Russia, with El Salvador ultimately abstaining from a UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite calling out the El Salvador Supreme Court decision which allowed Bukele to run for reelection as unconstitutional in 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ultimately changed gears and congratulated Bukele on his February reelection, urging collaboration between the two nations.

Shortly after his February reelection, Bukele also received a warm welcome at the Republican Conference, CPAC, where supporters cheered and proclaimed their support for Bukele and his emergency order.

Outside of the U.S., other leaders have also been slow to condemn Bukele and El Salvador’s emergency order.

Other Latin American countries, including Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica, have held pro-Bukele marches, advocating for similarly strict anti-gang policies in nations that remain plagued by violence. In Ecuador, the El Salvadoran Bukele is twice as popular as any politician within the country.

Argentinian President Javier Milei also spoke alongside Bukele at CPAC in February, and has been a vocal advocate of El Salvador’s policies for quite some time.

And so, as the Americas become more populist, the Heads of State who lead such nations are turning to Bukele, not as the antithesis of human rights, but as the perfect model of effective protectionary policies. Not only are leaders failing to condemn his actions, but in many cases they are endorsing and emboldening them.

In the long term, these mega-prisons remain unfeasible- but the refusal of world leaders to listen to organizations like Amnesty International and condemn these grievous human rights violations will only encourage Bukele to continue exerting authoritarian power over the country and attempt to fund these programs for as long as he can.

Life, protection, and safety have long been sought after for El Salvador as they struggled with ever-increasing gang violence for years. These prerequisites to self-actualization were never met, thereby limiting the benefits and advancements made possible by the protection of Bukele’s policies. Yet, they come at the cost of neglected human rights and nullified constitutional liberties. While it may be difficult to see (or care about) from within, the authoritarian leader is trending towards dictatorship. At this moment, no one is willing to stop Nayib Bukele. But it’s high time someone does. 

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