The Savior accumulates more than 78,000 detainees in two years of the “war” that the president Nayib Bukele waged against violent gangs protected by an emergency regime, the government reported this Tuesday.
In these two years, 3,939 firearms and 8,000 vehicles were also seized from the gangs, among other assets, according to an official report. The previous balance of prisoners was 77,300.
“This war against these terrorists is going to continue and we are not going to stop taking all the necessary actions to eradicate this endemic evil that was in this country for twenty years,” declared the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro, to the state television channel 10.
The gangs, which had established borders in their disputes over crime areas, controlled 80% of the country’s territory, according to the government.
“Those imaginary borders no longer exist,” and the population “You no longer have to pay any type of tribute or payment.” [de extorsiones] to anyone to be able to move and be able to leave their house”Villatoro emphasized.
The Minister of Defense, René Francis Merino, highlighted in the same TV program the coordination of the army and the police in this crusade.
“What in strategy is called collateral damage, in El Salvador has been minimal […] and for that reason it is something attractive for other countries”he claimed.
Humanitarian organizations question the detention of innocent people under the emergency regime, which allows arrests without a court order, and warn of possible future repercussions.
For Katya Salazar, from the NGO Due Process Foundation, El Salvador with the thousands of detainees has “a time bomb, because it is something that is not sustainable” over time.
“El Salvador cannot stay with 78,000 people in jail [y] “If they are not prosecuted, there has to be some type of judicial solution response,” he assured.
According to Salazar, El Salvador must apply due process to those imprisoned, otherwise “sooner or later there will be convictions from international courts, compensation to be paid.”
The Salvadoran government attributes some 120,000 homicides to the gangs in three decades, exceeding the 75,000 deaths left by twelve years of bloody civil war (1980-1992).
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Source: Gestion
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