El Salvador declares state of emergency amid killings

Mar 27, 2022, 10:13 AM | Updated: Mar 28, 2022, 12:22 am

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s congress granted President Nayib Bukele’s request to declare a state of emergency early Sunday amid a wave of gang-related killings over the weekend.

Fourteen people were killed Friday and 62 people died Saturday, a scale of violence that has not been seen for years. By comparison, there were 79 homicides in the entire month of February.

Bukele announced the request Saturday in his social media accounts, and congress approved it early Sunday. The decree would suspend constitutional guarantees of freedom of assembly and loosen arrest rules for as much as thirty days, but could be extended.

The homicides appeared linked to the country’s notorious street gangs, who effectively control many neighborhoods in the capital. The National Police reported they have captured five leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, who they claimed ordered the weekend killings.

Bukele wrote in his social media accounts that he was ordering the head of the country’s prisons to carry out an immediate 24/7 lockdown of gang inmates in their cells.

“They are not to go out even to the patio” of prisons, Bukele wrote, adding “a message to the gangs: because of your actions, now your homeboys will not see even one ray of sunlight.”

While Bukele has tried to project a tough attitude on crime, the country’s enormously powerful street gangs have proved a double-edged sword for him.

“We must remind the people of El Salvador that what is happening now is due to the negligence of those who protected criminals,” the conservative Arena party said in a statement.

That was an apparent reference to a December report by the U.S. Treasury Department that said Bukele’s government secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the gangs. That contradicted Bukele’s denials and raised tensions between the two nations.

The U.S government alleges Bukele’s government bought the gangs’ support with financial benefits and privileges for their imprisoned leaders including prostitutes and cellphones.

The explosive accusations cuts to the heart of one of Bukele’s most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country’s homicide rate.

The president responded sarcastically via Twitter to the accusations. “Cell phones and prostitutes in the prisons? Money to the gangs? When did that happen? Didn’t they even check the date? How can they put out a such an obvious lie without anyone questioning them?”

Bukele vehemently denied the accusation when it was reported in August 2020 by the local news site El Faro.

In 2020, Bukele’s administration ”provided financial incentives to Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18) to ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low,” the Treasury statement said. “Over the course of these negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in upcoming elections.”

Bukele’s New Ideas party has a majority in El Salvador’s congress.

The revelations raised tensions between Bukele and the Biden administration. After the new congress removed the attorney general and the justices of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court in May, the U.S. government expressed concern over the direction of the country.

The U.S. Agency for International Development announced it would shift aid from government agencies in El Salvador to non-governmental organizations.

El Salvador’s new attorney general in June announced the government was canceling the Organization of American States’ anti-corruption mission in the Central American country.

Bukele enjoys extremely high popularity. He stepped into a political vacuum left by discredited traditional parties from the left and right.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

AP

This photo provided by Robert Wilkes, owner of a house boat management company, shows smoke rising ...

Associated Press

Houseboats catch fire while docked at Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell

More than half a dozen house boats momentarily caught fire at a popular boating destination on the Utah-Arizona line on Friday.

21 hours ago

File - Women work in a restaurant kitchen in Chicago, Thursday, March 23, 2023. On Friday, the U.S....

Associated Press

US hiring, unemployment jump in May and what that says about the economy

The nation’s employers stepped up their hiring in May, adding a robust 339,000 jobs, well above expectations.

21 hours ago

(Pixabay Photo)...

Associated Press

Oath Keeper from Arizona sentenced for role in Jan. 6 riot at US Capitol

Edward Vallejo, a U.S. Army veteran from Phoenix, oversaw a “Quick Reaction Force” at a Virginia hotel that was prepared to deploy an arsenal of weapons into Washington if needed, authorities say.

2 days ago

FILE - U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz listens during a news conference, Jan. 5, 2023, in Washi...

Associated Press

US Border Patrol chief is retiring after seeing through end of Title 42 immigration restrictions

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol announced Tuesday that he was retiring, after seeing through a major policy shift that seeks to clamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border following the end of Title 42 pandemic restrictions.

3 days ago

FILE - President Joe Biden talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., on the House steps as...

Associated Press

House OKs debt ceiling bill to avoid default, sends Biden-McCarthy deal to Senate

The House approved a debt ceiling and budget cuts package late Wednesday, as President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy assembled a bipartisan coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans against fierce conservative blowback and progressive dissent.

3 days ago

Sean Bickings (Family Photo via city of Tempe)...

Associated Press

Family of man who drowned last year in Tempe Town Lake files wrongful death lawsuit

The family of a man who drowned in Tempe Town Lake a year ago filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city Wednesday, noting that its police department doesn't have a policy requiring officers to go into the water to save someone.

3 days ago

Sponsored Articles

...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

5 mental health myths you didn’t know were made up

Helping individuals understand mental health diagnoses like obsessive compulsive spectrum disorder or generalized anxiety disorder isn’t always an easy undertaking. After all, our society tends to spread misconceptions about mental health like wildfire. This is why being mindful about how we talk about mental health is so important. We can either perpetuate misinformation about already […]

...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

How to identify the symptoms of 3 common anxiety disorders

Living with an anxiety disorder can be debilitating and cause significant stress for those who suffer from the condition.

(Photo: OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center)...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

Here’s what you need to know about OCD and where to find help

It's fair to say that most people know what obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders generally are, but there's a lot more information than meets the eye about a mental health diagnosis that affects about one in every 100 adults in the United States.

El Salvador declares state of emergency amid killings