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el salvador
El Salvador’s Self-Proclaimed Dictator Is On Trial
Nayib Bukele is persecuting water defenders on trumped up charges. In reality, he’s the one on trial.
Sep 29, 2024
Nayib Bukele has proudly called himself “the world’s coolest dictator.” On October 8, his government will begin an unjust trial of five water defenders from El Salvador. These men are heroes of El Salvador — and they never should have been arrested.
In these two weeks leading up to the trial, human rights supporters across the United States, Canada, Germany, and elsewhere are joining counterparts in El Salvador to call for the five to be freed.
In January of 2023, Bukele’s attorney general arrested five prominent environmental defenders and charged them with a murder that took place in that nation’s brutal civil war 35 years ago. It doesn’t matter that the government has no evidence to back up the charges or that the five are covered by a 1992 amnesty. Bukele has no use for domestic or international law as he bulldozes civil liberties in mass arrests under the banner of eliminating gangs.
Opposition to these mass arrests is now rising — some from parents whose children were wrongly swept into his prisons, some from human rights defenders, and some from communities that fear he will undo the seven-year old ban on mining which was won by communities that placed the health of their rivers and lands over the profits of mining corporations.
This is where Bukele’s argument that he is only arresting gang members gets murky. In a fact-finding delegation to El Salvador last fall, eight of us from the U.S. and Canada found that thousands of innocent people had also been arrested. We found cases of torture. And we found that Bukele had been locking up opponents, including labor leaders and leaders of the successful fight against mining.
In reality, it’s Nayib Bukele who will be going on trial on October 8 — the trial of global public opinion. If there is any justice left in El Salvador, these five will be freed and the charges dropped. If Bukele instead is insisting on total control of his courts, then the public will see him for what he is: a vindictive bully who has no respect for either human rights or the environment in El Salvador.
On September 26, at protests in front of Salvadoran embassies and consulates in Washington, DC, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver, people gathered to call for justice. IPS joined the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES), and the Washington Ethical Society at the Washington protest.
Bukele hopes to squash democratic opposition to his policies with this trial, and the groups that IPS joins under the rubric of International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador are responding that they will not be moved.
A word of hope, and a word of shame.
In terms of hope, the efforts of organizations in Canada, German, France, and the UK have convinced those four governments to express discontent over the arrests of the five by agreeing to send representatives to the October 8 trial.
In terms of shame, the United States government stands tall. Despite a clear condemnation of the arrests by 17 members of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. government is shamefully remaining silent on the trial.
IPS’s Trade and Mining Project has worked with allies on the ground in El Salvador since 2009, when IPS awarded its prestigious Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award to the National Roundtable on Metals Mining in El Salvador. And just as IPS has fought for justice for 48 years in the assassinations of our IPS colleagues Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, we will fight for justice for the Salvadoran water defenders.
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Salvadoran Court Decried for Letting Case Against 'Santa Marta 5' Continue
"It is outrageous that the judge is allowing this trial to go forward despite the lack of any evidence of a crime," said one observer.
Apr 10, 2024
Human rights defenders on Wednesday condemned a Salvadoran court's decision to uphold what critics say are politically motivated murder and illicit association charges against five environmental activists.
Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega were arrested in January 2023 and accused of murdering María Inés Alvarenga—an alleged collaborator with the U.S.-backed Salvadoran regime that killed approximately 75,000 civilians during a 1979-92 civil war—when the men were Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) rebels.
Defenders of the "Santa Marta Five" have highlighted not only the Salvadoran government's failure to show any proof of the men's guilt, but also the fact that perpetrators of civil war-related crimes are protected under a 1992 amnesty agreement between the government and FMLN.
"It is outrageous that the judge is allowing this trial to go forward despite the lack of any evidence of a crime," said John Cavanagh, a senior adviser at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.
"The international community stands strong with the five leaders of the successful fight against mining, and we will join Salvadoran water defenders to continue to fight with them for justice in this case," he added.
Advocates for the five defendants have also noted how a "state of exception" imposed as part of right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's war on drug gangs has eroded due process and other rights. As Common Dreams has reported, tens of thousands of people have been arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned under the crackdown. More than 130 of them have died in state custody.
Some critics say it's no coincidence that the Santa Marta Five—who played a key role in winning a 2017 ban on metals mining in El Salvador—have been targeted by Bukele's government, which is taking steps to reverse the historic prohibition. Environmental activists have found themselves in the crosshairs.
Vidalina Morales, who heads the environmental and human rights group Association of Economic and Social Development (ADES)—where Santa Marta Five member Pacheco worked— toldAtmos earlier this year that by arresting the Santa Marta Five, Bukele's administration is "sending us a message."
"They want to open the path for these mining projects to come back," she explained. "They want to criminalize the social movements in this country."
"This is the life we're living in El Salvador," Morales added. "We feel so much fear for our lives and the lives of our families."
Viviana Herrera, the Latin America program coordinator at MiningWatch Canada, said Wednesday that "there is a well-documented pattern of criminalization across the Americas, where environmental defenders are slapped with unfounded charges in an effort to silence their opposition to mining and prevent their life-affirming work protecting water for future generations."
"We firmly denounce today's Santa Marta case ruling," she continued. "All five water defenders played pivotal roles securing an historic ban on metal mining in El Salvador, and this ruling is a clear threat to the rights of all Salvadorans who are protecting their water and environment."
"We express our heartfelt sorrow with the five water defenders and their families," Herrera added, "and will continue to call for the charges to be dropped until they are free."
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Groups Warn Gang Crackdown in El Salvador Has Led to Human Rights Crisis
"Reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said one Amnesty International official.
Mar 27, 2024
Two years after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele declared a "state of exception" that was originally adopted for a 30-day period in response for a spate of apparent gang killings, the government is boasting that its policies have driven down the homicide rate by 70%—but international rights defenders on Wednesday warned the crackdown has plunged the country into a human rights crisis.
Amnesty International said that according to local victims' movements and human rights groups, El Salvador's former murder rate has been replaced by 327 cases of forced disappearances since March 2022, as well as 78,000 arbitrary detentions as police have raided neighborhoods, particularly in low-income areas.
"A total of approximately 102,000 people [are] now deprived of their freedom in the country—a situation of prison overcrowding of approximately 148% percent and at least 235 deaths in state custody," said Amnesty.
Bukele adopted the state of emergency after El Salvador reported its deadliest peak in apparent gang violence in recent history, with gangs blamed for 92 people's deaths over three days in March 2022.
Under the emergency order, authorities have suspended the right to privacy in communications, to be informed of the reason for one's arrest, and to be taken before a judge within 72 hours of an arrest. A report by Human Rights Watch in December 2022 also warned of "torture, or other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment against people accused of crimes." Officers told people during arrests only that they were following "orders from the president," and in some cases, told people they were being taken to a police station for "questioning" when they were actually under arrest.
"The insistence of Nayib Bukele's government on maintaining the state of emergency, the adoption of disproportionate measures, and the denial, minimization, and concealment of reported serious human rights violations reflect the government's unwillingness to fulfill its duty to respect and promote human rights in the country," Ana Piquer, Amnesty International's Americas director, said Wednesday. "It also demonstrates its inability to design comprehensive long-term measures to address the root causes of violence and criminality without forcing the population to choose between security and freedom."
Amnesty's statement came a day after Justice and Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro said Bukele's government plans to continue its strategy to "eradicate this endemic evil."
"This war against these terrorists will continue," said Villatoro in a televised address.
Despite outcry from domestic and international human rights groups, Bukele won his reelection campaign in a landslide last month. El Faro reported that Bukele's government had violated some election rules including airing ads within three days of the election and campaigning on Election Day. Some poll workers also wore clothes identifying them as supporters of Bukele's Nueva Ideas party, and police allegedly blocked journalists from working near polling locations, prompting accusations of intimidation and harassment by the Association of Journalists of El Salvador.
The Due Process of Law Foundation released a report Tuesday warning that Bukele's government could be guilty of crimes against humanity as it continues its crackdown.
"Well over 76,000 people, including minors, have been detained under the state of exception, accused of having ties to gangs," wrote the group. "Many or most of these detentions appear to be occurring without any reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person may have committed a crime. Mere physical appearance—including having tattoos—seems to be enough to put people at risk of arrest, with young men from poor districts a particular target. Arrests of this nature are in themselves discriminatory, and may well qualify as arbitrary. According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, under customary
international law, 'The legal basis justifying... detention must be accessible, understandable, nonretroactive, and applied in a consistent and predictable way.'"
Amnesty noted on Wednesday that human rights defenders and dissidents also face "increased risk" under the state of emergency, "as they are criminalized." As Common Dreams reported this week, five water defenders are scheduled to stand trial on April 3 for allegedly killing a military informant, an accusation for which the government has produced no proof.
"In the absence of any kind of evaluation and checks and balances within the country, and with only a timid response from the international community, the false illusion has been created that President Bukele has found the magic formula to solve the very complex problems of violence and criminality in a seemingly simple way. But reducing gang violence by replacing it with state violence cannot be a success," said Piquer. "The authorities in El Salvador must focus the state response on comprehensive policies that respect human rights and seek long-term solutions."
"The international community," she added, "must respond in a robust, articulate and forceful manner, condemning any model of public security that is based on human rights violations."
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