Bukele’s burden
THE decision by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to strip the gang elements in his country of their rights to liberty and legal representation is a massive step in the region’s war against organised criminal gangs.
Although it is an incredible step in the right direction, it comes with a burden that is not quite as obvious as it should be.
You see, President Bukele has stepped into territory that puts him at odds with some of the largest countries in the western hemisphere and with every human rights organisation in the world. He is the first leader to openly do what all of us in the region need to do — that is to prioritise the human rights of the average citizen over those of the gang member.
His move also acknowledges that there is no solution to bringing about radical change in the national security environment if these gangs enjoy the same rights as other citizens. Further, it openly challenges the rights of foreign countries to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations with respect to how they fight crime.
However, if Bukele’s decision becomes a tool of political repression, corruption, or the creation of an oligarchy, then El Salvador and all of us who are fighting a one-sided war against organised crime will suffer and be set back decades.
The reality is that these massive gangs which earn their income from the developed countries’ demand for narcotics, and from international scamming and extortion of their home populace, are large and well-armed.
They are too large and too well-armed to be fought using day-to-day practices, policies, and laws that make up the jurisprudence culture of a country not at war. So, the only approach that will work is the one taken by El Salvador.
That being said, if Bukele becomes another Hugo Chavez or Robert Mugabe then the rest of us in the region will never be allowed by the international community to attempt to create an entire legal category that differentiates one person from another. The decision is an extremely dangerous approach and has its origins — in its theory — in Nazi Germany. The great difference, however, is that Germany’s application was ethnic and religious, while El Salvador’s is behaviour-based.
Bukele’s approach is also the only tool that will end the stranglehold that the gangs have on not just El Salvador but Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Honduras, Ecuador, and several other South American and Central American countries. We, therefore, cannot afford for this effort to fail.
So do we have any reason to worry? Not yet, but there are some methods that need to be avoided. He needs to avoid the use of arrest quotas; arrests in that legal environment must be dependent on
conduct that has already been demonstrated, not on fear of conduct that may be demonstrated.
Accordingly, the arrests must be limited to people who were listed and known gang members before.
He should ensure that with respect to the date and conducting of general elections that the political process is followed. He must be wary of shakedowns by State officials because of the awesome power of the State in an environment like that.
He should fastidiously oppose the practice of extrajudicial killings.
There needs to be a logical process to appeal arrests which allows specifically selected judges access to intelligence and intelligence sources that motivated the arrest of the noted people. Remember, there is no evidence required for these arrests.
Let me be clear, I have no reason to believe that any political repression or corrupt practices are active in El Salvador’s current effort to win their war. I am just keen to see that it works and works well so that one day the Parliament of my country will employ similar measures so that our war, which is in its 50th year, can end in my lifetime.
In my lifetime I have seen terrorism become so effective in Northern Ireland that a terrorist like Jeremy Adams now sits in their Parliament. I have seen gangsters embraced publicly by political leaders because they had no choice. I have seen one gangster cause the resignation of a prime minister and rob the country of a great mind.
I don’t want to see a gang leader in my Parliament. I had feared at one time that we were heading there.
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