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In Santa Marta, social leaders assure that the state of emergency decreed in March 2022 by President Nayib Bukele has encouraged arbitrary arrests by the police and eroded the human rights of Salvadorans.
The Santa Marta community located in the department of Cabañas, in the northeast of El Salvador, is a recognized focus of social and environmental mobilization. In the 1980s, its inhabitants took refuge in Honduras, to flee from military repression during the civil war.
This year they commemorate the anniversary of the peace accords, denouncing the actions of the authorities.
“In the early morning of this January 11, we were greatly surprised when the Prosecutor’s Office and members of the national civil police broke into three homes in the community. And comrades who have an active life in the fight against mining in the department of Cabañas were captured. They said this was due to events that occurred during the war. We were surprised because in all these years in which justice and truth have been demanded, they have never wanted to act. And when they present a judicial case, it turns out that it is against the leadership of the community itself”, declared the spokesman for the Santa Marta community, Leonel Rivas, in an interview for RFI.
In that area, a massacre was committed in which more than 200 people died at the hands of the army, and it was never investigated. The community does not understand, then, why the community leaders were arrested, accused of having murdered a woman in 1989.
“They also said that there was the crime of association of illegal groups. It is the crime that they are using to prosecute many people during this period of the exception regime. It is worrisome because any fact can be used to prosecute anyone with ties to that historical past, but also to the current struggles that are taking place in El Salvador,” added Rivas.
For the community of Santa Marta, the government of Nayib Bukele has prolonged the state of emergency to continue gagging social movements.
“We believe that this government is going backwards on human rights. Here, due process is not respected, nor are constitutional guarantees. Because the State and the government are the first violators of the Constitutions and processes. It is a very painful situation”, concluded Leonel Rivas.
