Asier Vera

Updated Tuesday, March 26, 2024-01:10

  • El Salvador Bukele closes the department of Cabañas with 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police in search of gang members

Two young men handcuffed with their hands behind their backs and on their knees are surrounded by hundreds of heavily armed soldiers and police in

El Salvador,

while a drone flies over the place capturing the most typical image of a war scene with the capture of two enemies . It is the latest show of force by the Government of

Nayib Bukele,

who imposed a new military siege on Sunday night and early Monday morning with 5,000 soldiers and 1,000 police in four towns in the department of

Chalatenango,

in response to two homicides committed in the area and attributed to the

Barrio 18 Sureños gang.

Bukele himself published the video on his social networks and reported that the two captured belong to that gang, while detailing that the military and police have surrounded the districts of

San José Cancasque, San Antonio Los Ranchos, Potonico and San Isidro Labrador,

to "completely dismantle" the Barrio 18 Sureños clique, since "we are not going to stop until we eradicate what little remains of the gangs."

For his part, the director of the

National Civil Police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas,

pointed out that the two young people arrested are alleged gang members who are attributed with the murder of Eder Rodríguez Flores, originally from the

Los Naranjos

canton, and

Víctor Manuel Rivas,

a native of San Antonio Los Ranchos.

Arriaza indicated that on March 18 and 22, both young people "were vilely and cowardly attacked by a criminal structure that calls itself

Los Justicieros

when they were returning from enjoying a healthy recreation." In this sense, he stressed that as a police institution and with instructions from Bukele "no indication of criminal structures will be allowed."

Preparation of the operation in Chalatenango.HANDOUTAFP

For this reason, he announced that, in the coming days, the Police will "accompany" the population of the four aforementioned districts "with the sole purpose of guaranteeing the life and safety of property of the honest and hard-working Salvadorans who live in this territory." To this end, he announced that the

Special Forces, Intelligence and Investigations and the Specialized Canine Police Units

will be available "in those places where we obtain information that drugs are being distributed."

Thus, the Police published on their social networks that they are patrolling "every kilometer" of the four districts of Chalatenango "in search of the remnants of terrorists who are still hiding from justice," despite the Exception

Regime

that has been in force since March 2022 at the request of Bukele and which has resulted in more than 78,000 people detained accused of belonging to or collaborating with gangs. The

Legislative Assembly

has extended this measure up to 24 times, which suspends several constitutional guarantees, including the defense of detainees, the inviolability of telecommunications, and prolongs provisional detention for up to 15 days.

"REMOVE CANCER" FROM GANGS

"Removing the cancer that for decades took away peace from the population is the mission of the war against gangs," stressed the Police, which has installed police checkpoints at the main entrances of the four municipalities to prevent "terrorists from fleeing or illegal transfers and bring to justice every last terrorist from Barrio 18 Sureños".

The military and police fence is part of phase five of the

Territorial Control Plan,

which Bukele launched on November 23, 2022 and which aims to "extract the plague" of gang members in the large cities of the Central American country. The president accuses these groups of being part of "international terrorist organizations", in reference to the

Mara Salvatrucha

and

Barrio 18.

Since it was implemented, it is the sixth siege that has been carried out, after, in August 2023, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police were deployed in the department of Cabañas, while, in May of the same year, 5,500 were also

sent military

and police agents to

Nueva Concepción,

Chalatenango, after the murder of a police officer by alleged gang members.

The first military fence was installed on October 2, 2022 in

Comasagua,

after a 36-year-old man was murdered a day earlier in that municipality of 14,000 inhabitants located 100 kilometers from the capital. Ten days later, another fence was implemented in Soyapango, where 8,500 soldiers and 1,500 police participated, while on December 24, 2022, Bukele also surrounded the

Tutunichapa community,

in San Salvador, with 1,000 soldiers and 130 police officers, as well as the community

La Granjita,

also in the country's capital with 1,000 members of the Army and 100 of the Police.

Since he began his first term in June 2019, Bukele launched the aforementioned Territorial Control Plan, which resulted in a militarization of the streets, although the Plan did not prevent 62 violent deaths from being recorded in March 2022. attributed to gangs, which caused the Legislative Assembly to approve the Exception Regime on the 27th of that month, which has been extended every month since then.

After winning the elections on February 4, in which the population endorsed his repressive policies, despite complaints from human rights organizations about arbitrary arrests and deaths in prisons, Bukele will begin a second term on June 1 in El Salvador with which he aims to end the "cancer of gangs", which has caused thousands of deaths in recent years.