( Spanish) – The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, defended this Saturday the security policy that has allowed, according to official figures, a drastic reduction in homicides in the Central American country.
The Salvadoran president reacted on his X account to statements made by Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Bachelet said, during a forum in Guatemala, that due process is lacking in El Salvador and highlighted the inhumane conditions in prisons.
“The truth is that human rights have been violated there. There has been no due process, people are crowded in prisons with inhumane conditions,” said Bachelet during her speech at the forum called “Democratic regression and strategies to strengthen institutions in Latin America.”
Bukele says that Bachelet’s criticism comes when they are “the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”
In your message at XBukele points out that Bachelet visited El Salvador in 2015 during the government of Salvador Sánchez Cerén, when she was serving her second term as president of Chile, and “she was full of praise for the government of that time.” That year, according to reports published by the authorities, was the most violent in recent times and El Salvador reached a homicide rate of 106.3 per 100,000 inhabitants.
In 2023, also according to reports published by the authorities, the average homicide rate was reduced to 2.4 and by 2024, the government projects that it will drop to 1.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
“It is interesting to realize that these ‘human rights’ bodies actually only exist to defend the rights of criminals,” Bukele adds in his post.
The Salvadoran president has repeatedly criticized those who oppose his offensive against gangs, stating that they prioritize the defense of criminals over that of the honest population. Under an extended and questioned emergency regime, Bukele’s policies have left more than 82,000 detainees linked, according to official records, to gangs.
Despite criticism on human rights from national and international organizations, Bukele said at the end of September at the United Nations General Assembly that the world is looking to the example of El Salvador for its results in terms of security.
Since 2022, an emergency regime has been in force in El Salvador that suspends several constitutional guarantees, including the right to defense, and extends the period of provisional detention from 72 hours to 15 days. International organizations have pointed out human rights violations and arbitrary detentions in this context.
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