The applause that Nayib Bukele is achieving for his measures against crime poses the risk that other Latin American countries and other regions decide to replicate them. The particular social and security fabric of El Salvador and the risks to democracy are factors to take into account.
A little over a year has passed since the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, launched a “war against gangs”, establishing a state of exception that has been renewed monthly since then. The government claims to have detained 66,000 suspected gang members, projecting an image of an all-out fight against criminal organizations that has resulted in a notable drop in homicide rates. This has earned Bukele the approval of not only the majority of Salvadorans, but millions of citizens throughout Latin America. His methods have become both a foreign policy tool and a driver of electoral disputes in the region. But, are they “exportable” to other countries? And if so, should they be?
He state of exception of El Salvador
The state of emergency entails a set of extraordinary measures to respond to massive disturbances of public order: they extend preventive detention from 72 hours to 15 days, facilitate wiretapping, restrict freedom of assembly and the right to self-defense before the courts. . These measures arose in response to the outbreak of violence in March 2022, when one of the country’s main criminal gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), led the wave of murders that left 87 dead in one weekend, apparently as a consequence of the breakdown of secret negotiations with the government. The government accompanied the measure with the approval of reforms to toughen penalties for gang-related offences, including membership, to a minimum of 30 years, paving the way for an unprecedented crackdown on current and former members and collaborators of these criminal groups. In just 12 months, the authorities claim to have detained more than 66,000 people who, added to the 40,000 already in jail, have led the country to have the highest prison population rate in the world, with 1 in 50 citizens between bars. The government inaugurated last February a mega-prison built in record time, prepared to house up to 40,000 criminals. bukele did public the images of the first transfers of gang members, half-naked and lined up on the ground, face down, under the watchful eye of the security agents.
The appeal of Bukele’s methods
As brutal as they may seem, Bukele’s methods dealt a blow to the criminal organizations that had wreaked havoc in the country for decades, dismantling many of their operations and later helping to reduce levels of violence to record lows. And Salvadorans are feeling the change. In 2022, the authorities reported of 495 homicides, an unthinkable figure just eight years ago, when there were more than 6,600. This decline continues into 2023 and based on current trends, could end up with around 200 deaths from violence, which translates into a murder rate comparable to that of European countries. It is therefore understandable that around 80% of those interviewed in any recent poll support the state of emergency.
The apparent success and popularity of these measures has fucked throughout Latin America. Also through social networks, where the carefully edited videos of El Salvador’s forceful reaction to national crime circulate. Politicians from across the hemisphere have seen an opportunity to use his example to their own advantage. Opposition representatives in Colombia, Chile and Argentina used the measures of the President of El Salvador as a point of reference to criticize the relative inaction of their national governments in the field of security. The presidential hopefuls of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic also promised that they would follow in Bukele’s footsteps if they were elected.
The Honduran government of Xiomara Castro, bowing to mounting criticism over the perceived increase in extortion activities, imposed a similar state of exception in December 2022, initially limited to 160 communities in the two most violent cities in the country, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, which in early April was expanded to 50 municipalities. Unlike its neighbor, however, Honduran authorities have so far only arrested about 4,000 criminal suspects, and the number of 235 homicides recorded in January was lower, though not light-years, from the 269 recorded in November. Apparently, most of the detainees are being released for lack of evidence.
Why Bukele’s methods cannot be applied elsewhere
Despite the appeal of El Salvador’s measures, some practical impediments narrow down the options that other countries can apply similar measures, or at least that they give the same results.
First, the apparent success of the Bukele trawl is intertwined with El Salvador’s clearly defined criminal landscape. Unlike most Latin American countries, illicit activities in El Salvador are concentrated in densely populated urban and suburban settings, where only three criminal gangs –the Mara Salvatrucha and the two factions of Barrio 18– exercise a virtual hegemony. The spatial distribution of their “areas of influence”, moreover, had been informally agreed upon in a negotiation called the Truce (2012-14), which made it easier for the authorities to trace violent crimes to either of the two groups.
A second crucial element refers, in effect, to the preparation of the authorities to imprison tens of thousands of gang members and maintain control in the prisons. Since 2014, when the Truce collapsed and open warfare broke out between gangs and security forces, Salvadoran authorities began building a database with gang members of more than 75,000 entries, in a country that barely exceeds 6.5 million inhabitants. Additionally, El Salvador has more than 25,000 police officers and 20,000 military personnel deployed on public security missions, even before President Bukele announced the doubling of the army in July 2021. Although outnumbered by gang members, the proportion of a security agent for every 100 inhabitants is no small feat. In the case of Honduras, despite doubling the size and population of El Salvador, it has less than 40,000 police and military personnel.
Finally, the Salvadoran authorities have succeeded in imposing their authority on the prison system, after the gang leadership used the prisons as headquarters to consolidate their power and direct criminal activities abroad. Since 2016, the prison authorities have applied the so-called “extraordinary measures”, which impose a strict isolation regime on inmates in security prisons, including the prohibition of family visits and the reduction of leisure time. In addition, accounts of people incarcerated and later released under the state of emergency point to brutal repression tactics used by prison guards to maintain order and prevent riots, such as the use of tear gas in cells. For now, order has been maintained, despite unprecedented levels of overcrowding: more than 300% by the end of 2022, before the inauguration of the new prison.
The risks for democracy
Behind the apparent success of these tactics hide some worrying characteristics that any politician in favor of this trend must take into account: massive violations of human rights, undemocratic concentration of power and uncertain long-term effects in the field of security.
“After obtaining an absolute majority in the Legislative Assembly in the 2021 elections, his Nuevas Ideas party has turned it into a procedural Parliament”
Human rights organizations and the media have denounced the unjustified detention of thousands of citizens, often based on unverified anonymous complaints or even on the “suspicious” or “anxious” appearance of people frisked by the police. The “arrest first, investigate later” approach adopted by the Salvadoran authorities, coupled with a general regime of impunity (Bukele himself has subtracted public importance to abuses of force and has accused criticss to side with the gangs), has created a fertile environment for abuse without penalty. Authorities admit that more than 3,700 people have been released, but the number unjustly detained is likely much higher. Detainees often appear before a judge in rushed hearings of up to 500 defendants at a time, often without legal representation that most of them couldn’t afford anyway.
Second, Bukele has been able to prolong the state of emergency in perpetuity and ensure that most detainees are not released thanks to his concentration of power. After having obtained an absolute majority in the Legislative Assembly in the 2021 elections, her Nuevas Ideas party has turned it into a procedural Parliament, approving without debate any initiative from the executive. Hence, the state of exception has been extended without debate eleven times and counting. The new Assembly also dismissed 10 of the 15 Supreme Court judges and the attorney general, as well as a third of the ordinary judges and police officers, and replaced them with officials loyal to Bukele. Therefore, neither ordinary nor constitutional judges dare to oppose the directives coming from the presidency.
The state of exception is directed, for now, at criminal gangs, with terrible side effects on the lives of thousands of innocent people, but it has also laid the foundations for building a large-scale police state. The measure was accompanied of more than 15 legal reforms that not only toughen penalties for gang-related crimes, but also erase transparency in public procurement processes, annul constitutional guarantees to free and fair trials, and even penalize the media to share messages that can create anxiety among the population.
Finally, the longevity of El Salvador’s security achievements is not insured. Prison overcrowding can lead to riots and violence inside prisons (some 100 people have reportedly already died in dubious circumstances), where gangs could also take advantage of the resentment of those wrongfully detained and those they had tried to leave behind his life of crime to feed his ranks. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the authorities will detain all of its members, as many have already fled to neighboring countries. Meanwhile, the underlying conditions that gave rise to the security problem in El Salvador, such as marginalization, lack of economic opportunity, and a broken social fabric with a deeply rooted culture of violence, have not changed at all. This increases the chances that, rather than disappearing completely, criminal violence will only take different forms.
In short, despite the interest that Bukele’s methods arouse, the probability that other Latin American governments will implement similar repressive measures remains relatively low. However, one should not underestimate the risk of populist security-related promises, which can only be stopped by promoting democratic checks and balances.
Article originally published in the International Affair Institute (IAI).
