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Populist President Nayib Bukele has said he will escalate the ‘fight against gangs’ even though at least 2% of the country’s population is being held in prisons.
The development comes after rte police officers were killed in what appears to be the first major reaction to the president’s policy of suppressing riots, which critics call “the most dramatic move in Latin American history.”
The Bukele government has filled prisons with more than 43,000 Salvadoran citizens following the imposition of a curfew since late March that has jailed about 2% of the country’s adult population.
Yesterday the new president said he would intensify police crackdown after three officers were killed during a gun battle in Santa Ana, the city 60km from the capital San Salvador.
“If they think this will make us step down from the fight against gangs, it’s in fact the opposite,” said Bukele, who ironically calls himself “the most charming dictator in the world.”
“If they think that all the power of the state has been unleashed on these criminals, now they will actually try it,” says dictator Bukele, who likens his campaign to a cure for the disease of crime.
“If we stop now they will reorganize… and it will be impossible to eradicate this cancer.”
But critics say this massive collective “offensive” offensive that led to 43,086 arrests between March 27 and June 27 has taken with it thousands of poor people who have nothing to do with El Salvador gangs.
Meanwhile, overcrowding in prisons has caused mysterious mass deaths of prisoners, which have been justified by riots or fires in institutions.
Local investigative journalist Jorge Beltrán says his country is unsafe, neither by gangs nor by the government.
“The reality is that in El Salvador it is already a crime to be young, because you are not safe anywhere,” Marie Hernández told Britain’s The Guardian in San Salvador.
Earlier, Amnesty International accused the local government of “mass violations of human rights, which were met with contempt by the devout populist Bukele.
“Foreign NGOs are friends with the gangsters and rejoice in the death of three police officers who were trapped by the Barrio 18 gang,” he said.
“Foreigners do not say anything because they do not want to know. “When he puts a thug in jail, they say, ‘Oh, he’s desolate, he won’t eat well there,’ but at least he’ll be alive.”
Well-known local journalist carscar Martínez, reacted to the president’s comments, on social networks “What happened is despicable but the only one who is taking advantage of the event to add hate speech is Bukele.” / TheGuardian /
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