Govt made mistake in war on gangs – Ulloa
SAN SALVADOR, Jan 31, (AP): El Salvador’s government “made mistakes” in its war against the country’s gangs, but has never undermined the country’s democracy to consolidate power, according to the man likely to be reelected vice president.
temporarily on leave as El Salvador’s vice president while he runs for reelection alongside Nayib Bukele, defended his government’s controversial crackdown in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, days before a presidential election they are expected to win easily. Such policies, he said, will continue until El Salvador’s gangs are defeated.
Ulloa acknowledged that in their administration’s mass detention of citizens the government imprisoned thousands of people who had not committed any crime, something he said they are correcting, but justified the harsh actions as being widely popular and completely “legal.”
Since declaring a state of emergency in March 2022 following a surge in gang violence, the government has detained 76,000 people - more than 1% of the population in the small Central American nation. The declaration, which suspended some fundamental rights like access to a lawyer and being told why you’re being arrested, has been renewed by congress every month since.
Félix Ulloa, Defended
“There is no perfect work by humans ... Look at the big picture,” Ulloa said. “Understand what this country is doing when we have defended people and the human rights of millions of Salvadorans whose rights were being violated by criminal structures.”
Around 7,000 people arrested under the state of emergency have since been released from prisons where authorities have been accused of torture, as well committing systematic and mass human rights abuses.
Ulloa said that in some cases officials may have asked security forces to meet quotas of detentions - arresting a predetermined number of people - but that it was “not an order from executives, nor a government policy.”
Human rights groups say more than 150 people have died in custody since the beginning of the crackdown.
Reporting by the Associated Press has documented that detainees pass through mass hearings of as many as 300 defendants at a time. They rarely have access to lawyers. The vast majority of those arrested under the emergency declaration remain in prison without having been tried.
❑ ❑ ❑ Haiti pushes forward with new program:
Prime Minister Ariel Henry met for the first time Tuesday with officials from various countries who are part of an international steering committee aimed at boosting the country’s beleaguered police department as it awaits the potential deployment of a foreign armed force to help it fight gangs, according to Haiti’s government.
The committee responsible for overseeing the program includes officials from the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Nations and the European Union, according to the office of Haiti’s prime minister.
The office did not provide further details, except to say the program is for the operational and institutional reinforcement of Haiti’s National Police.
A government official who was not authorized to speak to the media told The Associated Press the program aims to generate more money for an existing basket fund created to help Haiti’s National Police. The official said he didn’t know how much additional money, if any, each country pledged or what the money would be used for specifically.
The meeting comes just days after a court in Kenya ruled that deploying police officers to Haiti as part of a UN-backed mission approved last year is unconstitutional.
❑ ❑ ❑ 19 dead, 18 hurt in bus-truck collision:
A collision between a passenger bus and a freight truck on a highway in northern Mexico Tuesday left at least 19 people dead and 18 injured, local authorities said.
The accident occurred on a highway in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. Roy Navarrete, the director of the state civil defense office, said the crash occurred in the township of Elota, near the port city of Mazatlan.
The injured were being treated at local hospitals and the cause of the accident is under investigation.
There were 37 people aboard the bus. Photos of the scene showed both vehicles had been reduced to burnt-out metal frames.
❑ ❑ ❑ Boat accident kills 4 Mexican
Four Mexican tourists died after a boat carrying 19 people capsized or swamped between Cancún and Isla Mujeres, authorities said Tuesday.
The boat was carrying 17 passengers and a crew of two when the accident occurred late Monday. The captain of the boat survived and was taken into custody, according to the municipal government of Isla Mujeres.
Most of the passengers had to be rescued from the water by personnel from the Mexican Navy, local police and civil defense agencies, and some were taken to hospitals. All were Mexican citizens.
Investigators in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo are looking into whether the boat had been overcrowded, or if rough weather had played a role in the accident. It was not clear whether the passengers were wearing life jackets.
❑ ❑ Gov faces heated debate: ❑ tourists:
A public servant from the United Kingdom has been sworn in as the new governor of the British Virgin Islands, where he faces debate over the archipelago’s sovereignty after an investigation found widespread corruption and sparked a constitutional crisis.
Gov. Daniel Pruce said in a speech released Tuesday that he would follow the recommendations issued by a 2022 commission of inquiry, which found that corruption ran so deep in the British Caribbean territory that the local elected government should be suspended.
Local officials retained their power, but Pruce’s steps will be closely watched. Caribbean leaders recently rejected a push by his predecessor, former gov John Rankin, to award the governor’s office more power after finding that the inquiry’s proposed reforms were “significantly stalled.”
Pruce promised to work closely with local government officials to implement the commission’s proposals.
Tshisekedi