El Salvador has changed in the two years since the government of Nayib Bukele first declared a state of emergency in order to combat gang violence.
Since the declaration on March 27, 2022, gang violence has largely disappeared, and according to the government, homicides have become a thing of the past. But there is a dark side to maintaining the policy that has permeated Salvadoran society.
“On the one hand the actions of the gangs have ceased, or been greatly reduced,” Leonor Arteaga, the executive director of the Due Process of Law Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., tells The Progressive.
“But at the same time, the other reality is that there is great fear of the government, a fear to denounce what is happening,” she says. “It has also generated a feeling that anyone who bothers the government can go to jail, and once you’re in jail, you don’t come out.”
The state of emergency appears set to continue into the future. Just weeks ahead of the second anniversary of the politically popular policy, El Salvador’s congress approved its extension, thereby maintaining a police state.
La Prensa Gráfica, CC BY 3.0
A Salvadoran soldier searches a resident for gang related tattoos during the siege of Soyapango, El Salvador, December 3, 2022.
El Salvador now has one of the highest percentages of the population imprisoned, with an estimated 2 percent behind bars. Since the state of emergency was first declared, more than 78,000 people have been arbitrarily arrested without evidence for alleged gang affiliation.
The policy has resulted in numerous violations of human rights, with groups such as the Due Process of Law Foundation documenting the systematic violation of due process, including numerous cases of arbitrary arrest—including the arrest of minors. People arrested have also been denied a fair trial and in some cases tortured in prison. At least 235 people have died while in detention.
Other human rights groups have also marked the authoritarian actions being carried out under Bukele’s police state. At the end of 2023, Amnesty International issued a report condemning the continued use of the declaration to combat gang violence.
In their statement, Amnesty says that in spite of the state of emergency’s continued renewal, the policy cannot last.
“In the absence of any kind of evaluation and checks and balances within the country, and with only a timid response from the international community, the false illusion has been created that President Bukele has found the magic formula to solve the very complex problems of violence and criminality in a seemingly simple way,” said Amnesty’s Americas director Ana Piquer in a press statement issued on March 27. “But reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success.”
The unsustainability of such policies has long been pointed out by observers, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as criminal groups will likely continue to evolve. Added to this, the economic impact of maintaining such a large prison population has been criticized, especially since the country is experiencing a lingering economic crisis.
“It is difficult to sustain [this state of emergency] over time,” Arteaga says. “There has to be a legal and political solution.”
In spite of concerns over the long-term impacts of the state of emergency, El Salvador’s implementation of this legislation has become an example for governments who are copying it across the region.
Ecuador has been under a state of emergency since January 2024, after president Daniel Noboa declared that the South American nation was in “an internal armed conflict.” The declaration came after armed gangs raided a television station live on-air on January 9, 2024.
Nearly 12,000 people have been detained since the declaration of the internal armed conflict. In early March, President Noboa requested an extension of the declaration and Ecuador's congress complied, extending it through April 8, 2024.
Even as the country has worked to combat organized crime through the state of emergency, violence continues to rage across the South American nation.
Brigitte García, the twenty-seven-year-old mayor of San Vicente, was shot and killed on March 25. And in another incident, nine people were killed in the coastal town of Guayaquil during the weekend of March 29-31.
Other countries are adopting a similar model—using states of emergency to combat gangs.
Other countries are adopting a similar model—using states of emergency to combat gangs—but this model requires the rollback of constitutional rights.
Honduras has utilized multiple states of emergency to combat gang violence since November 2022. The decree has been extended eight times and has generated concerns among human rights groups for its violations of the basic rights of citizens.
Bukele has become the model across the hemisphere for fighting crime and violence. He was recently received like a rock star at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland on February 22.
But this model requires the rollback of constitutional rights, the formation of police states, and a complete disregard for affected countries’ constitutions—as was seen with Bukele’s illegal re-election in February 2024, in which he campaigned on his success in lowering crime and violence—leading to the rise of this new authoritarian model.
“Bukele is the new example to follow in the region,” Arteaga says. “It is very dangerous.”
She adds, “He has become a problem, not only for Salvadorans, but for all democracies in the region.”