Bukele and Allies Have Blood on Their Hands
El Faro Editorial Board
Wednesday, 25 de may de 2022
The leaked phone conversations between senior Bukele administration official Carlos Marroquín and a leader of the Mara Salvatrucha, published by El Faro, shed new light on the depths of the deal that the administration of President Nayib Bukele cut in secret with the gangs, and on their collapse. He played Russian roulette with the criminal organizations: He pacted with them, set their leaders free, and later broke the agreement. Others paid the price. Eighty-seven people, most of them with no relation to the gangs, were assassinated in a single weekend.
This whole time, while the president, his ministers, party legislators, and unofficial mouthpieces accused civil society organizations, human rights advocates, and journalists of “defending gangs,” the administration maintained its agreement with the criminal structures. As Marroquín confessed in the conversations, they even freed gang leaders with ongoing criminal sentences in El Salvador and facing U.S. extradition requests. Marroquín personally admitted to freeing Élmer Canales Rivera, alias “Crook de Hollywood,” and transporting him to Guatemala.
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This new investigation confirms that Marroquín —Bukele’s negotiator with the gangs dating back to 2015, during the president’s term as mayor of San Salvador— informed Bukele, under the pseudonym of “Batman,” of all developments in negotiations with the Mara Salvatrucha-13. It’s hard to imagine that a man like Bukele, who demands unquestioning loyalty, did not sign off on each and every step of the failed negotiations.
The consequences of his macabre game have yet to fully play out. Pushed by the failure of his security plan, which was nothing more than a criminal pact, Bukele decreed a state of exception and ordered mass detentions. More than 30 thousand people have been detained in almost two months. Are they gang members and criminals? Many of them are, if judging by information provided by the police and prosecutors. But many others are not. Human rights organizations have denounced the detention of innocent people as well as torture. There are political prisoners, among them trade unionists and critics of the government, such as a local radio host who denounced on-air the arbitrary detention of his sister. Reports of government abuse multiply every day, and a dozen people have died in police custody. More deaths to attribute to Bukele.
More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202205/opinion/26192/Bukele-and-Allies-Have-Blood-on-Their-Hands.htm