El Salvador's approach to gang violence should be rejected, not romanticised

Mickel Jackson



AP
In this photo provided by El Salvador’s presidential press office, inmates identified by authorities as gang members are seated on the prison floor of the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 15, 2023.


Jamaica continues to grapple with a staggering crime rate – 762 lives have been lost as of August 2024 and a grim homicide rate of 60.9 per 100,000 people. Our society is at a critical juncture, facing the temptation to embrace ‘Bukelism’, an approach championed by El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele. While proponents hail its success in drastically lowering homicide rates, Jamaicans must scrutinise the hidden costs of such a strategy.

‘Bukelism’ is not merely a crime-fighting tactic; it embodies a dangerous shift towards authoritarianism, replacing gang violence with a more insidious form of state-sanctioned oppression. The key to Bukele’s relative ‘success’ in dismantling gangs include the use of extreme legal measures that assault constitutional protections; a loose interpretation of gang association; and the concentration of political and executive power. When Jamaicans speak of “adapting the Bukele model”, we should also consider the allegations of cutting secret deals with gangs, or laws that oust judges and prosecutors by way of ‘early retirement’ to have a stacked court to ram through constitutional changes.

The Salvadoran state of emergency (SoE), extended month after month since 2022, has seen grave injustices, such as mass trials involving up to 900 individuals – ‘trials’ lasting only minutes. By forcing individuals to be judged collectively, the state unjustly targets innocent people based on shared regional origins or alleged affiliations with gangs. Any young man can be scraped up by the police without access to legal remedies. In fact, during the prolonged state of emergency, El Salvador’s incarceration rate has soared to 1.7 per cent of the population, meaning one out of every 60 residents is imprisoned.

The iron-fist of the self-styled ‘world’s coolest dictator’ is not without self-serving gratification. President Bukele’s 2021 constitutional amendment has already facilitated his consecutive presidential re-election. This manoeuvre defied the explicit language of the constitution and is perhaps a first step for the possibility of indefinite re-election. In cementing his concentration of power, the president has also silenced dissenting voices, including political opponents, journalists and human rights defenders.

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