The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, with a large pro-government majority, decreed an exceptional regime this Sunday morning (03.27.2022) as a result of the “disproportionate increase” in homicides attributed to gangs and that claimed the lives of 76 people in two days.
The Legislative body, with 67 votes of the 84 deputies, suspended for a period of 30 days the freedom of association, right of defense, term of administrative detention, inviolability of correspondence and telecommunications.
The Government of Nayib Bukele asked Congress for the measure to “contain and reduce the uptick in homicides and guarantee peace”, since 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 terms of security that this government has achieved.”
This is not the first time that the gangs, which have some 70,000 members, have challenged the government’s security strategy during the Bukele government. However, the streak of homicides on Saturday (03.26.2022) is a severe blow to the Executive, given that it became the deadliest day in the recent history of El Salvador with 62 violent deaths in a single day.
In November 2021, the country also registered a sudden rise in homicides that left more than 40 murders in three days, which the government attributed to gangs and “dark forces that are working to return us to the past.”
In December 2021, the US Treasury Department sanctioned two Bukele government officials for alleged “secret negotiations” with the 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)