Hundreds of members of the Salvadoran diaspora in Los Angeles gathered at MacArthur Park to show solidarity with President Nayib Bukele and to support his claims to be the candidate of the Nuevas Ideas party to seek re-election.
On November 30, Bukele resigned from the presidency of El Salvador to run again in his country’s elections, where he is recognized for having “removed the cancer” of insecurity that plagued the Central American nation for decades.
Interim President Claudia Rodríguez de Guevara, El Salvador’s first female head of state, took office on December 1. She is expected to hold the presidency until June 2024.
“I know first-hand the governments before Bukele, and I can say that our country had a cancer called insecurity; He has removed that cancer and our country has peace,” said Ricardo Marroquín, a 48-year-old Salvadoran who arrived from Seattle, Washington, to the so-called “International Bukele Day” in MacArthur Park.
“Economically, socially and educationally, El Salvador is a destination country with Nayib Bukele,” added Marroquín, who works as a radio host in Seattle and distributes Latin American products.
Although El Salvador’s Constitution prohibits presidents from serving a second consecutive term, Nayib Bukele, 42, has suggested that his re-election bid is legal.
In fact, since Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, dictator in 1939, Nayib Bukele is the first Salvadoran politician to run for re-election, which he could win easily and without fraud. The licensed president has the majority of preferences and exceeds 70% of the population.
The endorsement of his candidacy was achieved, thanks to the reinterpretation of the Constitution, by the new judges of the Constitutional Court, who ruled that a president could run again if he resigned his mandate six months before the 2024 inauguration. .
In September, with an annual investment of $30 million, Bukele announced the sixth phase of his Territorial Control plan called “Integration”, focused on addressing the medium and long-term needs of the disadvantaged Salvadoran population.
“Bukele is the best president that El Salvador has had in history; In four and a half years he has done what others did not do in 40 years,” said Nelly Gallegos, a Salvadoran resident of Los Angeles.
Indeed, for decades, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and two gangs from Calle 18 (Barrio 18) dominated the criminal landscape through extortion through blood and fire.
In 2015, America’s “Little Tom” was considered one of the most violent in the world with 5,656 homicides, that is, 106 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
With the arrival of Bukele to the government, since March 2022, he enacted an emergency regime [estado de emergencia] in response to a brutal gang massacre that left 87 murders.
Through these measures, security forces cracked down on gangs and arrested tens of thousands of suspected gang members and collaborators. More than 70,000 are behind bars. Those who escaped arrest had to go underground or into exile.
“Bukele, the man who recovered our faith and hope”
Deisy Cabrera, a life insurance agent in Los Angeles, said that the celebration of “International Nayib Bukele Day” arose as an idea to defend him “from all the attacks from the international community and human rights, because of what was happening in El Savior”.
The emergency regime that Bukele imposed suspended fundamental rights of people and carried out his heavy-handed policy against gangs, which all Salvadorans blamed for the wave of terror they experienced in neighborhoods and communities for decades.
She and another fellow Virginian began planning the rally of diaspora Salvadorans in support of Bukele.
“Everything was maturing, until this year when we learned that he registered as a candidate and we decided to declare that we would support him,” he said.
The endorsement was made at MacArthur Park, the same site that Bukele visited six years ago when he was municipal president of San Salvador and planned to run for president.
Deisy Cabrera emigrated to the United States just after the military offensive of November 1989, when she was 15 years old and it was a very dangerous age for her as a young woman.
“It was decisive for everyone, or you could die by the guerrillas or the Death Squads,” he recalled. “But thank God, my brothers who lived here brought me to the United States.”
Subsequently, he was no longer able to return to his native country. She hoped that, with the Peace Accords signed in Mexico – in 1992 – peace would return to El Salvador.
“Poverty and insecurity came with the gangs and I lost all hope of returning,” he said. “That is why I thank President Bukele for the peace that our country has; “He is the man who made us regain faith, hope and love for Salvadorans.”
The horror and death caused by gangs
With the application of a tough policy against gangs, the National Police of El Salvador recorded 142 homicides between January 1 and September 11, 2023, 72% less than the 519 in the same period in 2022.
Since Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez decreed a state of emergency, at least 72,000 alleged gang members and their henchmen have been captured. The majority are in prison for the crime of illicit association or in provisional detention without a final sentence. Just over 7,000 were released for lack of evidence.
Bukele has been denounced by Human Rights for not respecting the due process of gang members or alleged members associated with gangs.
“Where were Human Rights 40 years ago when they were murdering our relatives?” asked Ana Thompson, a Salvadoran woman who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, and who attended the rally at the Levitt Pavilion in MacArthur Park.
. “My uncle, Fabio Mejía, was murdered in 2016 because he could not pay two dollars to enter the neighborhood where he lived (in Metapán, department of Santa Ana).”
Where were the Human Rights people when they killed [en 1984] “to my aunt, with a stone on her head?” he added. “She fed the guerrillas, and then she did the same with the Death Squads… They killed her in front of her grandchildren!”
For these reasons, and now with peace in her country, Ana has joined the voices that support Nayib Bukele, “because peace is essential for our country.”
“We have the best president in the world,” he said. “My father, Santiago Mejía, who is now 89 years old, had not gone to El Salvador since his brother was killed; Now he leaves and stays for up to 10 months and I have to go get him, because he no longer wants to return to the United States.”