Imprisoner-in-Chief: As El Salvador Grows Closer to the US, It Cracks Down at Home

In exchange for imprisoning migrants deported from the United States, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele allegedly asked American officials to extradite top leaders of the MS-13 gang who are currently in American prisons to El Salvador. 

The deal was part of an American effort to expel more than 200 Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in the small Central American country, the infamous Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT). The US paid El Salvador $6 million to house the migrants but Bukele offered a 50 percent discount if American President Donald Trump would send the MS-13 leaders. 

At the same time, federal prosecutors have convinced federal courts to dismiss charges against MS-13 leaders to clear administrative hurdles to returning them to El Salvador, Politico wrote. Critics at the Guardian described the move as Trump doing a “favor” for Bukele, whom he has called “one hell of a president.” 

Meanwhile, Bukele, who has put 85,000 citizens of his country in jail under a crackdown on crime, has been accused of making deals with criminal gangs to improve public safety and secure his position, the Hudson Institute explained. 

In doing so, he did win the gratitude of many El Salvadorans who say they can now live in peace.  

That heralded peace may last longer than the Constitution had originally allowed. Last year, Bukele violated term limits to run for a second term. Now, lawmakers have approved constitutional changes that will allow indefinite presidential reelection and extend presidential terms to six years. 

Like Trump, Bukele embraces a strongman image. He and Trump publicly rejected any assertion, for example, that the US mistakenly deported an American citizen to El Salvador. The US Supreme Court disagreed, however, saying the transfer of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was unlawful, though he still may face criminal charges in the US.  

Despite the setbacks, El Salvador and the US have used the migrant crisis as an opportunity to develop security, intelligence, and military ties between the two countries, too, added Mother Jones magazine. Bukele has deployed Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to muzzle journalists, dissidents, and others who oppose his administration, for example. 

He has intensified that crackdown on opponents.  

“Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has never concealed his autocratic tendencies… unabashedly (referring) to himself as the world’s coolest dictator, but since enjoying the firm embrace of US President Donald Trump, Bukele has grown emboldened,” wrote World Politics Review. “(Since May), he has intensified his crackdown on critics and accelerated his efforts to suppress dissent, turning the screws on human rights organizations, journalists and civil society at large.” 

Recently, Bukele’s government arrested one of the country’s most prominent human rights activists, forced its most heralded human rights group to leave the country, enacted a “foreign agents” law that resembles those in Russia and Nicaragua to weaken civil society, and threatened lawyers and journalists, prompting more of them to flee into exile out of fear of being imprisoned. 

That’s because CECOT is likely one of the worst places on the planet, say those who have experienced it firsthand. 

Venezuelans released from CECOT and other El Salvadoran jails have shown bruises, rubber bullet wounds, and other injuries, the Organization for World Peace continued. Conditions included sexual violence, excessive solitary confinement, spoiled food and water, and no contact with lawyers or family. Some were disappeared. 

CECOT “seemed like it was for animals,” detainee Julio Fernández Sánchez, 35, told the Washington Post. “It was designed for people to go crazy or kill themselves.” 

Venezuelan officials under their dictatorial socialist government are now investigating allegations of torture in CECOT and other El Salvadoran prisons that have housed Venezuelan inmates, Consortium News noted. So is an international panel, which will determine whether to refer it to the International Criminal Court. 

CECOT’s officers are extremely cruel, say human rights officials and inmates. Formerly consigned to CECOT after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers raided a house in North Carolina, the recently released Venezuelan musician Arturo Suárez-Trejo said he was beaten for singing in an effort to maintain his humanity and cheer up his cellmates, wrote El País. 

“I spent my time singing,” he told the newspaper, adding, “and that way I brightened my life a little and made it brighter for everyone else.”