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image source, Archyde.com
Petro compared the mega-prison in El Salvador to a concentration camp.
They apparently have a similar goal, but their approaches are radically opposite.
The presidents of Colombia, Gustavo Petroand from El Salvador, Nayib Bukeleclashed on Twitter as a result of criticism made by the former against the high-security mega-prison that the latter built to house gang members detained in El Salvador.
At the beginning of February, Bukele inaugurated the prison known as the “Center for the Confinement of Terrorism”, whose capacity -according to him- allows housing up to 40,000 inmates.
Three weeks later, the government of El Salvador published a video showing the transfer of the first 2,000 prisoners to this jail. In the images in to the prisoners in underwearwithout shoes or shirt, with shaved head, handcuffed and chained by hands and feet.
This Wednesday, during a public event in Colombia, Petro referred to these images.
“You can see on the networks the terrible photos – I can’t get into other countries – of the concentration camp in El Salvador, full of young people, thousands and thousands, imprisoned that gives one the chills. I think there are people who “He likes that, without a doubt. Seeing the youth in prisons and they believe that this is security. And popularity skyrockets, without a doubt. We also experience it in Colombia,” said Petro.
Later he added: “The president of El Salvador feels proud because he reduced the homicide rate starting, he says, by subjugating the gangs that today are in those prisons – in my opinion – gruesome.”
Petro assured that the same thing had been done in Colombia, but with a different strategy.
“Us We also managed to reduce the rate of homicides, crime, and violence, but not from prisons, but from universitiesschools, spaces for dialogue, spaces for poor people to stop being poor,” he said.
image source, Getty Images
Bukele and a soldier.
Later, in a message on Twitter that was attached to a video with excerpts from Petro’s speech, Bukele wrote a post addressed to the Colombian president.
“Mr. @petrogustavo, Results outweigh rhetoric. I hope Colombia can actually lower homicide rates, as we Salvadorans have. God bless you.”
The Bukele government governs under a state of emergency imposed since March 2022, which has made it possible to detain more than 60,000 suspected gang members, according to official figures, but which has been criticized by human rights organizations that have warned of possible arbitrary arrests, among other possible violations.
Bogota experience
In response to Bukele, Petro published another tweet in which he stated that in Bogotá they had gone from 90 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 1993 to 13 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022.
“We did not build prisons but universities. It is good to compare experiences. I propose to you an international forum,” he added.
image source, Getty Images
Petro assures that in Bogotá they reduced crime with universities and not with prisons.
But Bukele questioned Petro’s responsibility for that decline, as well as the fact that these are not statistics for all of Colombia.
“Since 1993? 30 years… Have you governed for 30 years? Bogotá? Aren’t you the president of Colombia?” he wrote.
After that message, Petro then published a message that was attached to a table that apparently shows the evolution of the rate of homicide rates and that would show that the figures for 2020 were the lowest in the last 59 years.
“For your knowledge I am sending you this information. It seems to me that the Bogota experience, which is due in the first place to Mayor Mockus, is well worth studying internationally,” Petro tweeted.
The Salvadoran president did not respond directly to that message, but this Thursday morning he published a new tweet in which he stated: “We ended the first day of March 2023 with 0 homicides nationwide. We have transformed the most insecure country in the world into the safest in Latin America“.
image source, Getty Images
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