CNN
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Self-declared “the coolest dictator in the world” Naive Buquer will be making his sixth year as president of El Salvador on Sunday, a period defined by the controversial reforms that critics brought peace on the streets at incredibly high prices.
Once the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere, his crackdown on crimes in the country where the iron attacked led to the arrest and detention of around 87,000 people.
The government has defended the move, referring to a massive cut in gang violence across the country, but opponents say it has been at the expense of mass incarceration and erosion of civil liberty.
Critics say the dragnets expanded over time.
On May 19, Ruth Lopez, an anti-corruption lawyer for the human rights group Cristosal, who is also a prominent critic of Buquere, was taken into custody by Salvadora authorities after allegedly “stolen funds from state funds.” However, despite being kept in custody, Lopez is still not charged with a crime.
Shortly after Lopez was arrested, the Buquere government passed a law that taxed foreign contributions to NGOs like 30% Christosall.
“What we saw is a massive amount of power in the hands of (Bukere’s) hands,” Juan Papia, deputy director of Latin America at Human Rights Watch, said of Bukere’s six years of power. Bukele’s rules are “based on the dismantling of democracy checks and balances and increasing efforts to silence and intimidate critics.”
With the reductions in gang-related crime in El Salvador, Bukkel has become popular in the Central American country, and he was re-elected last year with a landslide victory, despite last year’s constitution banning those standing in a second term. (Bukere’s allies in Parliament eventually replaced the Supreme Court Supreme Court with a judge willing to interpret his favourable constitution.)
Since March 2022, the country has been under a “state of exception” and has allowed the suspension of many constitutional rights. In San Salvador, many say they feel safe walking around the neighborhood when once considered dangerous. They acknowledge that the country has seen a significant increase in imprisonment and a halt of rights, but Bukere’s supporters believe that the resulting peace and security are worth the trade-off.
Not everyone agrees.
Samuel Ramirez, founder of the administration’s Victim Movement (MOVIR), a human rights group that works with the families of people believed to have been detained without legitimate proceedings, says thousands have been arrested on unfounded suspicions that they are linked to gangs.
Bukele previously admitted that some innocent people were mistakenly taken into custody, but thousands have said they have already been released.
Ramirez and other activists believe that many are so afraid they can’t speak publicly.
“Here, soldiers armed with street teeth, police, even armored trucks on the street are synonyms for war,” he said. “For me, gangs have already been neutralised, and now war is against the people.
Although he presents himself as a leader in law and orders, Bukel has long faced allegations that he negotiated the peaceful security situation in El Salvador through backdoor deals with gangs.
In 2021, the Biden administration denounced the Bucquere administration, which bribed two of El Salvador’s most infamous gangsters, the MS-13 and the Barrio 18, “guaranteed that the number of gang violence and confirmed murders was low.” The alleged payoff included cash, cell phones and prostitutes for the imprisoned capo.
Bukel immediately denied the allegations and called them “obvious lies.”
But four years later, independent newsroom El Faro released an explosive interview with two self-style gang leaders at Barrio 18. He claimed he threatened voters to vote for Buquere during Mayor San Salvador’s 2015 bid in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash.
The two-man gang leaders also claimed that when he became president in 2019, Bukere arranged for El Salvador’s most powerful gang to refrain from unfair murder and terror.
Buquere has not yet publicly responded to their allegations, but he diagonally referenced a report from El Faro in his May 10th post.
The El Faro journalist who broke the story escaped the country before it was published, anticipating an arrest.
“I think Buquel is going to put us in prison. I have no doubt about that. After what he did to Ruth Lopez, Buquele has definitely decided to raise the bar and persecute the most visible critics in El Salvador.”
He said seven of the publication’s journalists face a warrant for reporting on the alleged transaction. Still, he said the newspapers continue their journalistic work. Over the past two years, the publication has carried out most of its operations in exile from Costa Rica.
“If there was any democratic similarity left in El Salvador, it was in independent journalism,” said Noah Brock, executive director of Christosal.
CNN contacted the presidency for comment.
“We are under a dictatorship.”
Last week, Bukel’s government passed a law that taxes foreign contributions to NGOs at 30%.
He had proposed a similar law in 2021, but did not pass. In any case, Bullock says it is irrelevant whether the law has been proposed, passed or represented in El Salvador.
Gracia Grande, the programme officer for the Salvadran branch of the Dutch Institute for Multiparty Democracy, told CNN that the law is an existential threat to the work of her NGOs.
She said the law would make it impossible for them to continue working. I’ll give you 3 months to renew my registration as an NGO, but I don’t know how the process will work.
The assessment of Grande’s situation is not clear. “Now we can be very openly told that we are under a dictatorship.”
Despite growing anger from rights groups, Bukel’s punishment system has earned him a fan.
US President Donald Trump praised the crackdown and cut his deal with Bukere. Buquer, along with thousands of detained Salvadorans, agreed to hold hundreds of boring Venezuelans in El Salvador’s terrorist confinement centres.
Megaprison, known as CECOT, is considered the largest prison in the Americas and is well-known in the Spartan situation where rights groups accuse them of being inhumane.
“I think what’s going on here is a kind of lab about what happens in other countries,” warned NGO Worker Grande. “Even in the US.”
At Trump’s April meeting with Bukkele in the White House, Bukkele proposed that the US president follow his lead on a massive detention.
“President, you have 350 million people to free,” Bukere said of the US population. “But to free 350 million people, you have to be jailed. You know, that works, right?”
