US-backed special forces accused of human rights abuses in El Salvador

[Judi Lynn]

The Special Reaction Force is allegedly responsible for 43 murders in the first half of 2017.
LUKE BARNES JUN 1, 2018, 12:10 PM

An elite Salvadoran police commando unit funded by the United States has been accused of carrying out dozens of extrajudicial killings, according to a forthcoming United Nations report.

The report, obtained in advance by CNN, claims that the Special Reaction Force of El Salvador’s National Police Force (Fuerza Especializada de Reacción, or FES) is responsible for the illegal killings of 43 gang members in the first six months of 2017 alone. The accusations fit into a “pattern of behavior by security personnel amounting to extrajudicial executions,” the report states.

In addition, the U.N.’s special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, claims that 92 percent of investigations against the Salvadoran police are dismissed within three days, and that units previously accused of human rights abuses are simply re-branded with the same personnel.

Despite this, the FES received an unknown portion of the $140 million in security assistance provided by the United States to El Salvador over the last two years. The funding has continued even though the FES were disbanded earlier this year — among other things, for allegedly kidnapping one of their own members — and replaced with a new unit called the Jaguars, which many former FES officers joined.

More:
https://thinkprogress.org/us-backs-el-salvador-police-accused-of-human-rights-abuses-5f4a44a44050/

[montanacowboy]

1. Sound Familiar?

Here we go again.