El Salvador Perspectives

Twenty years ago today I wrote the first post on what was then called simply Tim's El Salvador Blog. This post will be number 3,300 over those twenty years.   The posts in those early years were not much longer than a tweet today.   A few sentences and a link to what someone else had written.   Today I do not write as frequently, but I try to delve into topics I write about more deeply. Throughout these 20 years, my goal continues in writing continues to be the same, to be a credible source of information about El Salvador for an English speaking audience.   I hope that I have achieved that goal for some of you. If I have one bias when writing El Salvador Perspectives, my bias is to stand with the victims. That meant standing with the victims when they were being extorted and killed by gang members, but it also means telling the stories of the victims of a government who can arrest persons without cause and send them into hellish prisons without information to their families and wi

November 16th is the 35th anniversary of the 1989 massacre by Salvadoran troops of six Jesuit priests and a female coworker and her daughter at the University of Central America. 35 years after the crime, a criminal prosecution is slowly moving forward in a Salvadoran courtroom. The case charges senior military leaders involved in the order to kill the Jesuits along with the former president Alfredo Cristiani, and Rodolfo Parker, a military lawyer who went on to be a prominent political figure. Both men fled the country in June 2021 when Nayib Bukele and his Nuevas Ideas party deposed the attorney general and magistrates of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Judicial Court and inserted Bukele allies in those roles.  Although various arrest warrants have been issued, Cristiani and Parker have never appeared in the case and have not returned to the country. They are being tried in absentia along with the various members of the military high command. Despite the notoriety of the m

Salvadoran population from last 6 national census tallies This year El Salvador conducted its first national census of the population since 2007.   Thousands of census takers  went door to door to compile a statistical picture of the country.    Several results pop out.  For one, the population is smaller than the recent estimates.   Prior to the 2024 census , the population was estimated by various sources to be between 6.3 and 6.5 million people.  The actual count by the new census is 6.029 million people.  In the 2007 census , the population was 5.744 million.  Thus the population grew by just 5% or 285,000 over the last 17 years.   The reasons the population could be lower than expected include lower birth rates in the country, higher mortality rates from violence and disease, and the impact of outward migration by persons seeking safety from violence or pursuing economic sustenance. 52.8% of the population is female and 47.2% male. Perhaps the most notable change in the population

As the world now knows, Donald Trump will again be president of the United States after a major victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday's election. Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele tweeted his congratulations: What does the return of Trump to the White House portend for El Salvador? Nayib Bukele enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration during 2019 and 2020, and in particular with the US Ambassador Ronald Johnson. Bukele   met Donald Trump   on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 and famously called the American president "nice and cool."  Trump was pleased with Bukele’s willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration’s efforts to control migration and sent multiple high level officials to meetings in the country.  Bukele assisted on migration despite Trump’s attempts to cancel Temporary Protected Status ("TPS") which protects 195,000 Salvadorans from removal, and despite Trump calling El Salvador

In his  June 1  speech on inauguration to his unconstitutional second consecutive term in office, Nayib Bukele told the Salvadoran public to expect the need for "bitter medicine" if the country was going to achieve economic growth and prosperity.  It was a speech with a prolonged metaphor about following the advice of the wise doctor (Bukele).  Today, the Salvadoran healthcare system might be one example of the bitter medicine the Bukele regime is prescribing. Ask Salvadorans who rely on the public health system or the social security system, and they will describe problems with long wait times, the unavailability of specialists, and drugs which are never in stock.  These are problems of long standing. At least 150 specialists and sub-specialist physicians in the social security hospital system have quit since the beginning of the year  for reasons of low pay and working conditions.   The result is a shortage of specialists in the social security hospital system, which serve

A collection of some of the news from El Salvador during the month of October: The Santa Marta 5 are acquitted .  A court dismissed the charges against the community and anti-mining activists who were accused of a killing during El Salvador's civil war.  The prosecution of the activists had been seen as intimidation of the anti-mining movement which had achieved a law banning gold mining in the country.  Bukele sends thousands of troops in siege of another town .  Bukele labels El Salvador the "safest country in the western hemisphere," but maintains it through massive shows of force.  Asserting a need to root out gang members, some 2000 soldiers and 500 police were sent to establish a security cordon around the town of San Marcos. The national emergency State of Exception  remains in place and suspends due process protections for those arrested. El Salvador refinances foreign debt in environmental conservation deal .   In a re-financing transaction facilitated with as

Nayib Bukele spent the second half of September on foreign travel.  He sought to portray himself as having something important to say to the rest of world.      For Bukele, these travels were all about showing to the Salvadoran public that he is a leader of world stature. Three different national broadcasts in El Salvador highlighted the travels of the president. There he was meeting with the world's richest man, speaking at the UN General Assembly and lecturing the wealthy countries of the world, and being given all the honors of a state visit in Argentina with fellow populist leader Javier Milei. Were there any tangible benefits to El Salvador out of this trip? No, not really. But for the self-proclaimed "world's coolest dictator" and "philosopher king" it was a chance to further enhance his image to his adoring public in El Salvador, around Latin America, and in the circles of Bitcoin true-believers. Bukele started his travels with a meeting with billi