March 27 will mark one year since the administration of Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency that unleashed its war on gangs in El Salvador. Since then the country has lived under a suspended constitution, arbitrarily arresting those accused of gang affiliation, and rolling back human and constitutional rights in the Central American country.
The declaration was made after a weekend of gang violence in March 2022 that left nearly sixty people dead in one day. Bukele’s response has seen a massive deployment of police and military to combat gangs. While there has been a significant decrease in gang violence, it has come at a great cost to human rights and to democratic institutions.
“This state of emergency sells us terror in the name of security,” says Alejandra, a fifty-four-year-old resident of Barrio San Martín in San Salvador who asked to use a pseudonym out of fear of reprisals.
“We had a crisis in terms of security,” she tells The Progressive. “Obviously the homicides have been drastically reduced, but in exchange for what?”
Over the past year, the Bukele administration arbitrarily detained and imprisoned more than 64,000 people, largely young men from poor neighborhoods. According to the Defense Minister, there are at least another 30,000 alleged gang members the government is still seeking to arrest.
As a result of this war on gangs, El Salvador now has the globe’s highest incarceration rate, with nearly 2 percent of adults behind bars. The country has also constructed the largest prison in the region, which can house 45,000 people.
New policies under the state of emergency have emboldened the police. As El Salvador’s General Director of the Salvadoran National Civilian Police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, stated in a press conference, “The policeman is a street judge who has criteria to be able to arrest, identify, and individualize any person.”
Under the conditions of this new police state, young men are stopped by police and soldiers who demand they remove shirts or pants to check for tattoos. Those who are detained face a lack of legal means to defend themselves and are often arbitrarily condemned.
“This state of emergency sells us terror in the name of security....Obviously the homicides have been drastically reduced, but in exchange for what?”
However, the prolonged use of the state of emergency is also a violation of the country’s constitution, according to Leonor Arteaga, the executive director of the Due Process of Law Foundation, based in Washington, D.C. “The validity of a state of emergency is blatantly unconstitutional,” Arteaga tells The Progressive. “The constitution says that a state of exception can last a maximum of sixty days, that is, thirty days that can be extended for another thirty.”
This use of an unconstitutional and unsustainable measure like this is a part of the rollback of democratic norms that Bukele has utilized throughout his administration.
Beginning in February 2020, Bukele has worked quickly to consolidate his, co-opting various state institutions, rolling back democratic rule in the country. Bukele is also poised to take a further step in 2024 by running for re-election, an action that is also prohibited by the country’s constitution.
The rollbacks of democratic institutions have also diminished freedom of expression in the Central American country. In one widely condemned move, police arrested Luis Rivas, an outspoken critic of Bukele on social media, who was detained after criticizing the use of presidential security for Bukele’s brother.
The administration has also attacked the independent media, and silenced critics through the use of online trolls that defend the administration.
“No one can say anything against this government,” Alejandra says. “If you dare to say anything, at the moment that it reaches the ears of the people in charge, [the people] that the president has [around him], they begin to persecute you, they begin to search.”
As El Salvador nears the first anniversary of its state of emergency, Bukele took to Twitter to defend his administration and to spar with the Colombian President Gustavo Petro, after Petro criticized the Salvadoran president on social media and in press conferences.
“You can see the terrible photos in the media . . . of the concentration camp in El Salvador, full of thousands and thousands of incarcerated young people,” Petro said in a press conference on March 1. “It’s chilling.”
Bukele responded to the criticism defending his policies, leading to a public back-and-forth between the heads of state.
While Bukele has received criticism from many in the international community and from human rights observers, in general, Bukele and his governing style have become a desired model for the hemisphere.
“In the last [few] weeks we have seen that Bukele is being talked about throughout Latin America and also in various media outlets that are writing wonderful things about him,” Arteaga says. “Bukele [is seen] as a benchmark, as the president that everyone desires.”
She adds, “It is very dangerous.”
Regionally, the Bukele administration has offered to export its anti-gang model to neighboring countries. While Guatemalan officials have declined the offer, the administration of Xiomara Castro in Honduras has also instituted a state of emergency, suspending rights in order to combat gangs.
Since December 2022, the Castro administration has carried out a campaign against gang members in hundreds of neighborhoods across the country, but mostly in the country's second largest city, San Pedro Sula. At least 650 accused gang members have been detained during January alone.
The state of emergency in Honduras was extended again in February 2023 to last until April 2023.
“It seems very dangerous to me that a government like [that of Xiomara Castro], that has gained power with a more democratic message has very quickly begun implementing these types of measures,” Arteaga says. “More than solving the problem of crime, they are going to make it more complex.”
In El Salvador, it appears that the war on gangs and the rollbacks of democratic norms are going to continue into the future, especially as the country is set to hold presidential, congressional, and municipal elections in 2024. Bukele hopes to utilize his war on gangs to win a second term.
“[Bukele and the Defense Ministry] indicate that this is not going to stop,” Arteaga says. “The state of exception and the massive captures, many of them arbitrary, will continue.”
She adds, “These [upcoming] elections are going to be key.”