The government of El Salvador on Wednesday tore down the monument to Reconciliation, a symbol of the end of the bloody civil war (1980-1992), described by President Nayib Bukele as "unsightly" and an apology for pacts between the left and the right.
Bukele, currently out of office because he is running for re-election, celebrated the demolition of what he called "the so-called 'monument to reconciliation,'" which, according to him, a critic of the 1992 peace accords, symbolized a "pact" between former guerrillas and the military that did not mean well-being for Salvadorans.
"Not only was it aesthetically horrifying, but it glorified the pact between the murderers of our people, to divide the cake," he said on the social network X.
There are three bronze statues, two of seven meters that symbolized a former guerrilla fighter and a soldier in fatigue suit, unarmed, with their hands clasped releasing aluminum doves, and which represented the sides of the past conflict.
The third statue, 12 meters long, is that of a mother with her arms outstretched who had a ring on her right finger that represented society's commitment to live in peace.
"Goodbye, blue doll, and everything you stood for," Bukele wrote.
Public Works Minister Romeo Rodriguez said a 2.5 km pedestrian route will be built and will be part of "the new peace and security that all Salvadorans are experiencing" as a result of Bukele's fight against gangs.
On January 16, 1992, under the mediation of the UN, the government (right) and the then guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN, left) signed the agreements that ended the civil war that left more than 75,000 dead, 7,000 disappeared and millions in economic losses.
The monument to Reconciliation, which was made with keys gathered by the Catholic Church in its parishes, was inaugurated on the side of a highway in western San Salvador in 2017, under the FMLN government, for the 25th anniversary of the end of the conflict.
- El Salvador