By Moncho Torres
San Salvador, Feb 3 (EFE).- In El Salvador, almost two years after the declaration of a state of emergency by President Nayib Bukele, who is running for re-election on Sunday, the terror of the gangs, or “maras,” that was rampant until a few years ago is being replaced by that of the security forces.
El Salvador sees historic drop in homicides
In 2015, El Salvador was one of the most violent countries in the world, with 103 homicides per 100,000 people, a number that fell to 2.4 in 2023, according to government figures.
“So far in 2024, El Salvador already has the lowest homicide rate in the entire Western Hemisphere. If the trend continues, the homicide rate would be 1.6 per 100,000 inhabitants,” Bukele assured on X amid his presidential bid.
Bukele’s popularity is undeniable, and he is expected to win Sunday’s election with more than 80 percent of the vote.
However, more and more voices are warning, albeit quietly, about his regime’s massive arrests.
“I was on the verge of death. I’m here because I always had faith that God would get me out, and here I am testifying to what I lived in those places,” Victor Barahona, told EFE, referring to the Salvadoran prisons where he spent 11 months and 12 days.
Victim describes inhumane conditions
“We saw many people die for lack of medicine, or because of beatings by the guards. They practically did not give you medicine, even if you suffered from hypertension, diabetes, or any chronic disease,” he adds.
Baraona blames his imprisonment on his work as a community journalist and recalls that he and the other prisoners were forced to sleep on the floor in cells that were at twice their capacity, with only a glass of “dirty water” to get through the day along with “small portions” of food.
“I lost 80 pounds in that place, you can see my body full of scars, that’s how all our bodies were,” he recalls.
Human Rights Violations
More than 75,000 people have been arrested since the state of emergency was imposed in March 2022.
Rina Montti, from the humanitarian organization Cristosal, cannot keep up with the count.
“So far we have 3,730 people who have filed complaints with us (…) 90% are arbitrary arrests, that is, arrests that have not been justified,” she tells EFE.
Most of them are men between the ages of 18 and 35, “usually from impoverished areas” that have been “stigmatized” by gang control, she explains.
Mass arrests under state of emergency
At first, many thought that the state of emergency came with arrest quotas to get as many gang members as possible, but now they believe that it is “applied to anyone who a police officer might consider to be breaking the law,” the activist explains.
“The sad thing is that I keep talking about fear, you just change the face of the perpetrator. It is very worrying because… the indescribably cruel gang members are now simply being replaced by the police,” she said.
The prisons, she says, “are basically torture centers,” with more than 180 cases of dead inmates documented by the organization.
“The condition of the bodies when they come out is deplorable. People who have been starved to death or others with scars. The bodies speak for themselves.”
Testimony: he came back dead
The couple lived in one of San Salvador’s most dangerous neighborhoods, dominated by the Mara Salvatrucha.
The woman, who did not want to give her name for fear of reprisals, told EFE that she received the news of her partner’s death last week, almost a year after his arrest.
She then had to go and collect his body.
The woman, who runs a small shop, agreed to meet with EFE after dark in a small, remote, and empty house overlooking the city to tell her story.
She insists that her partner had no gang ties, criminal record, or even tattoos, which usually identify gang members and are one of the main characteristics targeted in the arrests.
“I asked them why they were taking him, and the cop’s answer was simply: ‘I have to take him.’ Just like that, nothing more, no further explanation, no reason. He was just following an order,” she recalls.
That was the last time she saw her partner. The woman fought to get him out of jail alive, but to no avail.
She contacted the organization Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, which helped her apply for habeas corpus based on her partner’s health problems, and to take the case to the Supreme Court, but none of it worked.
On her cell phone, the widow shows a photo of her partner by the sea, wearing a tank top, without a single tattoo.
The next, a more recent one taken at his funeral, shows him in a coffin, his face emaciated.
“I received … I got a skeleton. It was skin and bones, there was no flesh, there was no muscle, there was nothing,” she laments.
The man was arrested after an anonymous call accused him of being a “gang collaborator,” an ambiguous term that can even include people who have been extorted by the gangs, Ingrid Escobar, of Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, explained to EFE.
This case “is one of the examples (…) of the errors and horrors of the state of emergency,” she says.
“In these mass arrests, more than 23,000 innocent people have been taken to jail,” Escobar adds.
Socorro Jurídico has documented 225 deaths, and only “6% have been profiled as gang members. EFE
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