Óscar Martínez: "Trump has given him the green light, and now Bukele is accelerating his dictatorial project."

A few months ago, the magazine The Lighthouse published interviews in which former leaders of gangs like Mara Salvatrucha revealed their pact with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, to get him votes in exchange for money and prison benefits. The president who put an end to gangs in El Salvador came to power thanks to them. And intends to stay, as demonstrated by the constitutional reform approved this Friday to eliminate term limits and remain in power. The revelation of these interviews forced all the editors ofThe Lighthouse to go into exile. Editor-in-chief Óscar Martínez visited Barcelona to participate in a debate at the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture (CCCB). Bukele with the bands for his election.

— The Lighthouse has uncovered government pacts with gangs since 2012, both from the left-wing FMLN and the far-right ARENA party. While they initially involved homicide reduction agreements in exchange for prison benefits, they soon became money in exchange for votes, which the gangs obtained by intimidating communities. Bukele negotiated with the gangs when he ran for mayor of the capital for the FMLN in 2015 and again when he became president in 2019. We published it back then, and that's why he hates us: Mara Salvatrucha is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, which could lead to sanctions or charges. However, this last time, video interviews with two former gang leaders went viral. This unleashed Bukele's ire. We learned that they had prepared arrest warrants against us.

What charges are they facing?

— They haven't made them public. We understand they want to accuse us of criminal association, that is, of being gang members. We're not the only ones. There are about 40 journalists abroad. Last May, Ruth López, the country's most prominent anti-corruption lawyer, was also arrested and disappeared for ten days: a state kidnapping. Then they arrested two environmental leaders, and right now, countries like Guatemala and Mexico are full of Salvadoran journalists in silent exile.

Why has Bukele's authoritarianism hardened?

— Bukele remains very popular and right now he feels stronger than ever. because Trump has extended his handHe no longer has any problems with the only country that worries him. Bukele has already said he's not interested in the European Union, only USA, with whom he made the deportation agreement. And Trump has given him free rein, so he's accelerating the dictatorial project. If before he still wanted to maintain some semblance of a Democrat, now he's taking advantage of the opportunity to continue accumulating power and eliminating all critical voices.

There were three gang massacres while his pact with them lasted, they said. The Lighthouse.

— Since 2012, the gangs had learned that the dead were a political asset: if you want something, kill more and it will be granted to you. They did it three times under Bukele. On the weekend of March 26, 2022, the Mara Salvatrucha murdered 86 Salvadorans in a single weekend. And then Bukele, who is more of a man of ideas than a man of whimsy, decided to declare a state of emergency in the country. He reformed the Penal Code and eliminated many safeguards. Now all trials are secret. A soldier or police officer can arrest you without a warrant; you can be detained for fifteen days without seeing a lawyer, or spend twenty years without a conviction. This is a dictatorship, right?

The truth is that this is how he has managed to eliminate the gangs.

— Mara Salvatrucha no longer operates in El Salvador or anywhere else. But many other people who are imprisoned or disappeared were not gang members. Bukele has put an end to gangs and democracy. According to official data, 87,000 Salvadorans have been arrested since the state of emergency began, and they have been tried in secret. In some of the files we have had access to, the only charge listed is having shown "nervousness." People have been in prison for three years for "showing nervousness." A country where a soldier can imprison you at will is not a safe country. A country where you are tortured in prisons and more than 300 people have died since the regime began is not a safe country.

And now he has Trump's support.

— Trump is even dismantling the trial against the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha gang in New York. The United States is holding a trial against 27 Mara leaders, of whom eight had been captured. One of them, Kruk, was released by Bukele with 40 years left on his sentence to control the streets and escaped. He is living proof of Bukele's pact with the gangs and is now in the United States. But Trump, on the first flight of Venezuelans, deported one of the eight leaders to Bukele's prison. What was the message to the other seven remaining in the United States? If you testify against Bukele, you could end up in Bukele's prison. Who will want to testify?

It also deports immigrants from the United States in a high-security prison in Bukele.

— He Salvador has 22 prisons. Cecot is the prison Bukele wants you to see., the one who wants to teach the world and that is why she has brought in a lot of YouTubers Ridiculous. He's chosen the most tattooed gang members to stand there, and the prison is clean. The other 21 prisons in El Salvador are much worse. But if there's one thing Bukele knows about, it's selling his image.

But then, what ideology is behind the dictator Bukele?

— He believes he is some kind of messiah or savior and that is why he should have all the power. There is an episode that defines him: in May 2021, when the Legislative Assembly was blocking his measures, in an act of desperation, he decides one Sunday to summon a crowd, enter the Assembly with soldiers and video cameras, sit in the seat of the speaker of the chamber and say that he will speak to God. And God tells him to be patient. Military, publicity, and God, that is what so many dictators in the history of Latin America are made of. El Salvador is a country of desperate people, where more than 60% of the population subsists. When your verb is surviveThinking is a privilege. How do dictators come to power? With people anguished and condemned to ignorance—not ignorance—by inaccessible education and poverty.