Gang Violence Again Out of Control in El Salvador

A week ago, on Sunday, March 27th, Salvadorans woke up to a country under a state of exception. A spike in murderous violence saw registered murders climb to a total of 62 that Saturday, sending the government to scramble for solutions after a period of relative calm in gang violence. Throughout 2020 and 2021, murders in El Salvador averaged 3.4 a day, but now, the reprieve has given way to a new era of violence showing President Nayib Bukele’s gang strategy for the failure that it always was.

                The state of exception has suspended the right to free association and legal defense, increases the period of detention without pressing charges from 72 hours to 15 days and permits the government to eavesdrop on communications without a warrant. It is unclear how these faculties, easily deployed against human rights and political opponents, can help the security forces to control gangs; there is already ample legislation empowering the government in its fight against organized crime.

                The overnight increase in murders is horrendous, not least because the victims come from society’s most vulnerable and impoverished sectors, and it must be effectively dealt with to prevent gangs from accruing even more power. Disappointingly, Bukele’s government, always bereft of sound ideas, is recycling the Mano Dura policies enacted by previous governments to no avail. Passing harsher sentences for gang affiliation, depriving prison inmates of food and comforts and granting the army more latitude while reducing oversight has done little to reduce violent crime in the last twenty years.

                Of particular worry is the plan to judge minors as adults for affiliating or cooperating with gangs. With their lives or families menaced, these kids have little option but to be initiated into the organizations holding their communities for ransom. Decades-long neglect of social policy can’t be fixed through harsher sentencing and draconian pacifying.

                And the current government has compounded these failures by ceding ever more power to gangs. Its much-vaunted Plan de Control Territorial is a fiction and a PR exercise—to date, nobody in the security forces has been able to explain how the scheme works. The truth of the matter is that murders went down because Bukele negotiated their decrease with gang leaders. Government supporters decry this as slander, but reputable media have reported on it convincingly, and the United States State Department sanctioned government officials for carving a deal, a drop in murders in exchange for economic incentives.

                Bukele is not the first president to bargain with the gangs. Previous governments brokered fragile truces that saw similar drops in violence, though never sustained in the long run. Bukele’s government, however, has given gang leaders more than any of his predecessors did. He has blocked the extradition to the United States of gang members wanted in that country. It appears to have freed a significant number of gang leaders without any explanation. Cash from Covid-19 relief funds also found its way to gang pockets during the health emergency.

                These and other yet-to-be-unearthed gifts were the price Bukele paid so he could preside over relative peace during the first half of his term. Analysts speculate about what, exactly, lies behind the breakdown in this truce, and considering that the government has already given plenty—to the point of standing between gang chiefs and American justice—I think it’s safe to say that gang leaders felt quite good about their bargaining position. With government finances under increasing duress, it’s possible that Bukele is no longer flush enough to continue paying the price of peace. As things stand, the government, by sabotaging extradition, has further alienated the United States without it being enough to buy calm in the streets.

                In the short term though, the government’s military onslaught, its promotion of tough sentences for gang members and the purge of “corrupt judges” is likely to stabilize its popularity. Along with the state of exception, Bukele is working its political marketing machinery into overdrive, and with the opposition struggling to remain relevant, Salvadorans have nowhere else to look for solace in these difficult times. The staggering levels of violence in El Salvador have engendered a politics of fear. Street violence results in state violence, which in its turn makes a bad situation even more desperate. In a scenario of continued menace, voters are ever more reluctant to take the long view—more education, jobs and social services—that is the one way out of this mess. With bodies piling up in morgues, only the bravest politician will argue for more social investment and fewer resources for the military. With every week of senseless violence, the chances for productive dialogue recede further.

                This week the government has made its force felt, cordoning off gang-controlled communities and capturing hundreds of foot soldiers. In time, the gangs are likely to strike back though. A pattern of escalation is all but assured, and the government’s response, be it more payoffs or repression will likely be a mere stopgap that continues to chip away at the rule of law. With North Korean levels of popularity and full control of the three branches of government, Nayib Bukele is the most powerful Salvadoran president in decades, but when it comes to gang violence he is as helpless as his predecessors.