El Salvador Perspectives

From his campaign for president until today, the most frequent target of social media attacks and diatribes by Nayib Bukele has been the independent press in the country, especially when they are in the middle of revealing uncomfortable truths about his administration.   That strategy, of denigrating the press as "fake news" which is "biased" and "part of the opposition", has appeared to work.   Bukele's popularity remains sky high with a public unwilling to hear any criticism of their "cool dictator." Despite this, the journalism being produced by investigative journalists in El Salvador in recent years has actually been getting stronger.   As a student of the Salvadoran press for more than 20 years, I feel comfortable saying that the reporting now may be the best it has ever been, with reporters for multiple online media sites showing significant courage and fortitude knowing that all power in the country rests in the hands of those they ar...

The Salvadoran human rights organization Cristosal recently released a report detailing how the Salvadoran government under president Nayib Bukele has increasingly denied citizen requests for information about the dealings of their government.  This has occurred despite a strong law which requires such transparency. The new report is titled Report on the status of transparency: The establishment of opacity Here are the report's conclusions: In the time since the implementation of the Law of Access to Public Information, this is the worst moment in terms of respect for the Right of Access to Public Information in El Salvador. Without an active controlling entity, the violation of this right will increasingly intensify, which will result in the disrespect of other rights, since the [Right of Access] is the one that opens the doors for the guarantee of others. Knowing that there will be no consequences, because the [Institute for Access to Public Information] remains inoperative, gove...

El Salvador now has a gleaming new national library in the center of San Salvador, courtesy of a donation by China.   The modern structure is located on Plaza Barrios in the historic center of the capital city, next to the old National Palace and directly across from the Metropolitan Cathedral.  President Nayib Bukele holds the building up as a symbol of the new El Salvador under his rule.    I had a tour of the library during the second week of January.  Although seven weeks had passed since the opening of the library to the general public, visitors still needed to wait outside on a weekday morning in a long queue to gain admittance through a guided tour.  Tours were given by smiling young people with internships, including tours given in English to foreign tourists who might want to see Bukele's library.   The first floors you encounter in the library are dedicated to children's books and learning from the earliest ages.  In addition t...

Sharing a collection of articles in the English language press from the past month regarding El Salvador, the elections, and the State of Exception.  How El Salvador’s Iron-Fist Regime Is Quashing Environmental Resistance  -- A year ago, President Nayib Bukele’s authoritarian government detained five water defenders who orchestrated the nation’s historic mining ban. Activists fear that’s just the beginning. (Atmos, Jan. 24, 2024) Organized Crime Ranked Top Political Risk in Critical LatAm Election Year -- In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele looks all but certain to win re-election. His first term has been defined by his tough-on-crime security measures, which started with a state of exception declared in March 2022 following a spate of gang killings. (Insight Crime, Jan. 24, 2024) How El Salvador's 2024 Presidential Election Could Play Out -- Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will likely win reelection in February, after which he will seek to consolidate po...

National elections in El Salvador which could consolidate one party rule by Nayib Bukele in El Salvador have already begun.   A period of internet voting for Salvadorans living in other countries has kicked off an electoral process which will likely see Nayib Bukele re-elected for an immediate second term, despite a constitutional prohibition of the same.  Voters are also electing deputies to the Legislative Assembly. Because there is voting, it will be called "democracy," but at the end of the elections, the populist authoritarian ruler of El Salvador will have consolidated all political power to himself.          Internet voting for the Salvadoran diaspora outside of the country began on January 6.    According to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), 120,634 Salvadorans had voted in this fashion as of January 24.  Their votes for deputies in the legislative assembly are being allocated as if they lived in the department of San S...

Monument to Peace on highway south of San Salvador January 16 marks the 32nd anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords which ended El Salvador's  12 year long bloody civil war.   There is no official celebration of the end of that conflict by the government of Nayib Bukele, the country's president who labels the accords "a farce." Here is what I wrote on the 2021 anniversary of the Accords: So why is Bukele attacking the Peace Accords?   To celebrate the Peace Accords and the reforms they instituted would be to celebrate many of the norms which Bukele has begun to trample.   He cares little for the institutions of constitutional democracy.   The separation of powers checks him from acting freely.   He attacks those who would champion human rights.   While the Peace Accords intended to remove the military from domestic affairs, Bukele sends the military out into the country with ever more frequency to perform all sor...

The year 2023 saw increasing arrivals in El Salvador of persons declaring they had arrived in a promised land of freedom.  They are persons from English-speaking countries arriving in El Salvador to escape.  Whether you call them “influencers” or “youtubers” or Bitcoiners”, they go on social media to announce that they have left countries where they felt oppressed by their governments, and only by escaping to El Salvador did they find freedom.  It's a freedom of the rich colonialist, not a freedom guaranteed by the government of El Salvador to all its citizens.     Typical of these exaggerated proclamations that El Salvador is a beacon of freedom is this  article in Bitcoin Magazine  by William Stebbins, a retired US military officer who declares that El Salvador has transformed itself under Bukele "from impoverished vassal to budding sanctuary of freedom."  Stebbins proclaims "Bitcoin’s freedom technology has offered Salvadoreños an opportun...