El Salvador Perspectives

This is the second of my series on the State of Exception in El Salvador as it starts its third year.   Today we look at the prisons holding those persons arrested during Bukele's war on the gangs. Since the beginning of the State of Exception two years ago, the prison population in El Salvador has skyrocketed.   Today El Salvador incarcerates people at a rate higher than anywhere else in the world, with almost 2% of the adult population behind bars.  The 78,000 people captured under the State of Exception, and held without trial, live in the hellish conditions of the Salvadoran prison system.  And, sadly, a significant majority of the Salvadoran public, thirsty for vengeance, applauds. To add to the prison capacity of El Salvador, the Bukele regime built its new mega-prison, the Center for Confinement of Terrorism or CECOT.  This new prison grabs all the headlines.  But the story is not CECOT.  CECOT is the story Bukele wants to tell, but i...

March 27 is the two year anniversary of the State of Exception in El Salvador.  This suspension of constitutional due process protections as part of a war on gangs was adopted by the Salvadoran  Legislative Assembly in the midst of a bloody weekend in March 2022 in which gangs murdered at least 87 people around the country. Under the State of Exception, security forces of the police and military can arrest anyone without a warrant or observing them commit a crime, can hold them for 15 days before appearing before a judge and without telling them the charges, and can freely intercept communications without a judicial order. Those detained receive initial hearings, before judges with their identities masked, in groups that often number in the hundreds where the charges are simply gang affiliation. Judges routinely order defendants into El Salvador's hellishly overcrowded prisons without bail, to await for their next hearing which could come in six months. The Minister of ...

Sunday March 24 is the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero.  For this year's post commemorating the anniversary of Romero's martyrdom, we listen to Romero's voice in sermons he gave on the final two days of his life. On Sunday March 23, 1980, the archbishop preached his Sunday sermon which was broadcast by radio throughout the country.   His homily concluded with these powerful words: I would like to make an appeal especially to the men of the army, and concretely to the National Guard, the police, and the troops. Brothers, you are of part of our own people. You are killing your own brother and sister campesinos, and against any order a man may give to kill, God’s law must prevail: «You shall not kill!» No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God.  No one has to observe an immoral law. It is time now for you to reclaim your conscience and to obey your conscience rather than the command to sin. The church defen...

El Salvador is continuing to experience a tourism boom.   One way to measure this is just be looking at the number of people arriving at the country's international airport.  The number of travelers arriving by air into El Salvador increased from 1.5 million to 2 million, jumping by 33% from 2022 to 2023. By any measure, that is a significant jump and represents a strong indicator that tourism is surging in El Salvador.  The Ministry of Tourism stated that, when entries to El Salvador from neighboring countries were included, there were a total of 3.4 million visitors in 2023.      The country is about to enter an important time of visits.  The Ministry of Tourism is projecting that during Semana Santa, which begins on Saturday, the country will receive 126,000 international visitors, with $110 million in tourism spending and  4.2 million visits to touristic sites, beaches and the Historic Center of San Salvador.  On El Salv...

A recent run-up of the price of Bitcoin has Nayib Bukele and all his supporters wanting to say "I told you so."  The price of Bitcoin today is $65,335USD, up 26% from September 6, 2021 when El Salvador's Bitcoin law went into effect.   In between those dates, however, the price had dropped below $17,000 in December 2022, increasing the skepticism around Bukele's Bitcoin gambit.     Bitcoin price history since El Salvador Bitcoin law went into effect As the volatile price of Bitcoin started surging again beginning in November 2023, Bukele repetitively posted that he was " still waiting " for the critics of his Bitcoin strategy to admit they were wrong.  Skeptics, myself included , wanted to see the actual financial records and evidence of income and expenses for the Bitcoin project. On March 14, 2024, Bukele went on X.com to post a screen shot showing 5690 BTC worth $406 million USD that day, being received at specific address on the blockchain. Bukele ...

This article was originally published at El Salvador Info under the title Minimum Wage in El Salvador in 2024: Understanding the Economic Realities of Salvadorans  and is reprinted here with permission of the author. By Eddie Galdamez Updated on Jan 29, 2024 The monthly minimum wage in El Salvador in 2024 is $365.00 for commerce, industrial, service, and sugar mill workers; $359.16 for maquila workers that manufacture textiles and clothing; $272.66 for coffee mill and sugar cane harvesting workers; and $243.46 for agriculture, fishing, and coffee harvesting workers. The last minimum wage increase occurred in August 2021 during the Nayib Bukele administration; before that, it happened in 2018, under the Salvador Sanchez Ceren presidency. In 2024, the Salvadoran minimum wage is divided into four sectors, with two specifically designated for urban areas and two for rural regions. Commerce, Services, Industry, and Sugar Mills Wages The minimum wage rate for workers in the fields of c...

Maquilishuat tree During the last week of February, El Salvador's national tree, the maquilishuat, burst into bloom all around the country.  Its pink and white flowers adorned yards and roadsides and parks.   In the depths of the dry season when the countryside is dry and brown, the maquilishuat brings a splash of beauty in the weeks leading up to Semana Santa. The scientific name of the maquilishuat is  Tabebuia rosea .  In other parts of the world it is known as the "pink poui", and "rosy trumpet tree" and "roble de sabana".  The tree is predominantly found in subtropical dry forests, is common in Central America, and can grow to a height of 30 meters.   According to El Salvador's environment ministry ,  the maquilishuat has ecosystem relevance since its flowers attract a variety of pollinators, such as bees and hummingbirds.  Its seeds are a source of food for various species of birds and mammals. Some maquilishuat trees along th...

Counting votes in Antiguo Cuscatlán In yesterday's election of mayors, Nuevas Ideas appears to have captured 28 municipal governments out of 44 in the newly-gerrymandered maps. (Two of those in coalition with CD).   This total probably came as a surprise to many, in light of Nuevas Ideas dominating showing in last month's presidential and Legislative Assembly elections.  With 78% of the vote nationally counted as of 7:30 Monday morning,  other parties in the lead to win municipalities included GANA(6), PDC (4), PCN (3), Fuerza Solidaria (1), ARENA (1) and a coalition of PDC/PCN (1).  The FMLN was left out of control of any municipality for the first time since it became a political party at the end of the civil war in 1992. Turnout at the polls was low . Perhaps the reason was that people felt disconnected from the new mega-municipalities.  Or these elections may have had less energy without the charismatic energy of Nayib Bukele.  Bukele did not use ...

On Sunday March 3, Salvadorans will go to the polls for the second set of national elections in a month.   In these elections, Salvadorans will elect their mayors and will elect deputies of the Central American Parliament.  (PARLACEN). Three years ago Salvadorans elected mayors in 262 different municipalities.  However, in a measure passed 8 months ago, the Legislative Assembly consolidated those 262 municipalities into only 44 municipalities at the directive of Nayib Bukele.  The old municipalities are now "districts" within the 44 new mega-municipalities which have memorable names like San Salvador East and La Libertad South.   The new municipalities and the districts which make them up are shown at this link .   This reduction in the number of local government bodies was gerrymandering on a dramatic scale.   One analyst portrayed the impact of the change using results from the last elections in 2021. Using the votes cast for may...