Three ’rounds’, in addition to a couple of hints, add up the presidents of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the Colombian, Gustavo Petro, in their quadrilateral digital platform that, moreover, has become the favorite political forum for both: Twitter. These disagreements, according to analysts, are due to “personal factors”, since they seek to defend their interests, especially in matters of security, but they are not so transcendental as to generate a rupture in relations between the two countries.
?️ 1 er ROUND. Petro turned to the left to hit the mega-prison of Bukele, who had bragged about the so-called Terrorism Containment Center(CCT): “You can see on the networks the terrible photos — I can’t get into other countries — of the concentration camp in El Salvador, full of young people, thousands and thousands, imprisoned that gives one the chills,” said the Colombian president, in a public event, at the beginning of March.
uncomfortable with criticism Bukele responded to Petrovia Twitter, that “the results weigh more than rhetoric” and that he wanted “Colombia to actually manage to lower homicide rates,” as they had achieved in their country.
The Colombian, then, proposed to his Salvadoran counterpart to appear in an international forum to discuss the results in both countries. “We went from 90 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 1993, in Bogotá, to 13 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022,” he said. To which Bukele questioned: “You governed 30 years? Bogotá? Aren’t you president of Colombia?”
Laura Lizarazo, analyst for the Andean region in Control Risks’ Global Risk Analysis practice, told the voice of america that the dispute between the two presidents “has highly personal overtones”, since the two “need to show themselves as strong leaders, with convincing results regarding their agenda priorities”, particularly on security issues.
Opinion shared by Valeria Vásquez, Control Risks analyst for Central America: “It is unlikely that there is something more fundamental than Bukele trying to defend his security strategy, defend what he is doing within the country,” he adds, and emphasizes that it is “a matter of principles”, of his way of governing which, in the end, is what allows him to “gain popularity”.
The analyst for the Andean region also emphasizes that the confrontation is influenced by ideological elements, their profiles and the way of defend their positions.
Regarding the ideological elements, he adds, they are “two leaders at different ends of the political spectrum.” Petro is a left-wing leader with an insurgent past, linked to guerrilla struggles that sought social equality and greater inclusion, and who has had a 40-year public career, while Bukele is a “outsider politician” who has a business profile.
In this sense, Iván Briscoe, director of Programs for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Crisis Group, maintains that, while Bukele decided -through the state of emergency- to undertake a large-scale and “strong-handed” “coercive campaign” against all gang members and dismantle them “by force” and blunt action.
On the other hand, it highlights that Petro tries to negotiate with armed and criminal groups, and seeks to “restore the efforts for pacification and implementation” of the Peace Accords with the FARC signed in 2016. His security policy became the “Complete Peace”.
But, in addition, adds Briscoe, they have different visions of democracy. While for the Salvadoran it means “the will and desire of the majority of the people in the country”, for the Colombian the “empowerment of the excluded and marginalized groups of society” is important.
different, but similar
?️ 2 either ROUND. A week after the first clash between the two leaders, the Salvadoran president responded to his Colombian counterpart that he “does not understand” the “obsession” with his country, after Petro shared a tweet related to the investigation by New York prosecutors into alleged pacts between Salvadoran government officials and gang members.
Besides of Tweet From the North American media, the Colombian president wrote in his message that “better than making government pacts under the table is that Justice can make them on the table without deceit and in search of Peace.”
In this regard, the Salvadoran president sought to put him on the ropes with a forceful response: “Agree. First he accuses of inhumane treatment and now they talk about ‘better conditions’.” “Besides, I don’t understand his obsession with El Salvador. Isn’t his son the one who makes pacts under the table and also for money? Is everything okay at home?” Bukele added.
Message to which President Petro responded immediately: “Dear President Nayib, everything is fine in my house. Here there is the presumption of innocence, a universal principle. Here the president does not remove judges or magistrates; he fights for a more autonomous and stronger justice. Here in Colombia we deepen democracy, we do not destroy it”.
In addition to the first two rounds, during a forum in mid-March, Petro said that “democracy is in danger” and, as an example, without mentioning the Salvadoran, he stated: “We only have to look to the south, a president prisoner, to the north, concentration camps”.
Iván Briscoe also describes them as two leaders who are seeking to grow and capitalize on their own electorates, their popular bases that brought them to power and who, in both cases, in quite different ways, want to see change and transformation in their country. And, as a consequence, they want to express positions in social media, because, in a certain way, they are “in competition for regional leadership in Latin America, above all, in terms of ideological and political regional leadership.”
However, they share common struggles, such as organized crime, insecurity and inequality, in each of their countries.
Despite thinking differently, adds the analyst Lizarazo, they are two leaders who “tend, at times, to bypass the institutional framework and embody the Executive Power in their individual figure.” In addition, they are “extremely media-oriented” and want to connect with citizens, throught social media.
In addition, Vásquez explained to the VOAthe position of the Salvadoran, as far as foreign policy is concerned, has always been “a bit conflictive, in the sense of defending their strategies.”
The consequences
?️ 3 er ROUND. With a copy to Petro, Bukeleadvertisement on Twitter the seizure of 1.2 tons of cocaine in El Salvador, at the end of March. Subsequently, Peter He also used the social network to highlight, without directly mentioning Bukele: “Another ton and a half of cocaine that falls near El Salvador, thanks to the intelligence and help of the Colombian Navy.”
In mid-April, another hint from the Salvadoran added to the disagreements, by sharing the ranking of approval of the presidents of Latin America: “It seems that someone is going into a tailspin,” Bukele wrote. In May, he also reacted to the results of the latest Datexco survey for the medium W Radius, which found that 55% of the people surveyed would like a president like Nayib Bukele for Colombia, and shared the results with a trill that included the flags of both countries between a heart.
Despite them, Valeria Vásquez maintains that it is “unlikely” that the meetings between the leaders generate “significant effects for commercial relations, such as diplomatic ones.” Her idea is shared by Laura Lizarazo, since she does not believe that there are “indications that this dispute is going to move or transcend to more technical instances.”
The expected consequence or impact, he adds, could be a “slowing down of this inter-institutional dialogue” due to the lack of this “high-level political line.” In other words, the technical authorities of both countries can address issues of inter-institutional cooperation, but outside of this personal clash between the heads of state.
However, he emphasizes that what could become “worrying” is the issue of security, since, in the last 12 years, Colombia has prioritized the transfer of capabilities and knowledge from the Colombian Military Forces to the Central American ones to combat transnational organized crime and drug trafficking and, in the event of a breakdown in relations, could jeopardize the “high-level strategic direction to continue these processes” and generate “a lag in these efforts” to address this shared challenge.
For Briscoe, one of the great challenges for Latin America is to overcome the existing ideological and political differences in the construction of regional consensus and, for this, “a certain self-control” is required on the part of the region’s leaders.
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