Photo: a web tv via ap/picture alliance / Deutsche Welle
The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, with a large pro-government majority, decreed early this Sunday (13.03.2022 ) an exceptional regime as a result of the “disproportionate increase” in homicides attributed to gangs and that claimed the lives of 70 people in two days.
The Legislative body, with 67 votes of the 84 deputies, suspended for a period of 30 days freedom of association, right to defense, term of administrative detention, inviolability of correspondence and telecommunications.
The Government of Nayib Bukele asked Congress to measure to “contain and reduce the uptick in homicides and guarantee peace”, given that it considers that the country is facing “serious disturbances of public order by criminal groups”. According to the Executive, the figures for murders in recent days show a “trend contrary to the achievements in security that this government has achieved.”
This is not the first time that the gangs, who own some 70.000 members, put in check the government’s security strategy during the Bukele’s government. However, Saturday’s homicide streak (27.03.2022) represents a severe blow to the Executive, given that it became the day deadliest in the recent history of El Salvador with 62 violent deaths in a single day.
In November 2021, the country also experienced a sudden spike in homicides that left more than 40 murders in three days, which the Government attributed to the gangs and “dark forces that are working for us to return to the past”.
In December 2021, the US Department of the Treasury sanctioned two Bukele government officials for alleged “secret negotiations ” with MS13. At the time, various analysts attributed the escalation in homicides to the breaking of an alleged pact between the government and the gangs. On this occasion, deputies from the ruling party Nuevas Ideas (NI) blamed sectors of the opposition for this series of murders, but without providing evidence.
mn (efe , afp)