Officials from the Government of President Nayib Bukele have negotiated with three of the main gangs that operate in El Salvador, “to seek to reduce homicides in the country, an investigation by the independent media revealed. The lighthouse.
The negotiations, which would have been held “within maximum security prisons” with the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha-13, Barrio 18 Revolucionario and Barrio 18 Sureños, offered the members of these groups – classified as terrorists – “improvements in the conditions of prison life and benefits for its members in freedom ”.
According to investigation, which shows images and cites documents, the negotiations were documented by the Public Ministry, which then had Raúl Melara as attorney general, “through audios, photographs, documents and testimonies”, in addition the investigation was called “Cathedral” .
After the digital media released its report, the current president of the Salvadoran Congress, Ernesto Castro, downplayed the journalistic investigation.
In his Twitter account he wrote that the current government had “saved hundreds of lives” with its security plan.
And, in direct reference to the publication, he said that “obviously, there will always be groups of factual power interested in us returning to the previous state of things. Why? Because they live off chaos. If there is no violence, if there are no deaths, they have no reason to be, they have nothing to publish. That is why they want us to go back ”.
Here the media have the right to do the research (that’s what they call them) they want. But we also have every right to question the quality, the expertise, the verification of the information … and the real interest of your publications.
– Ernesto Castro (@ECastroES) August 24, 2021
Castro also recognized the right of the media to investigate, however, he pointed out that the Government has “the right to question the quality, expertise, verification of information … and the real interest of its publications.”
This is not the first time that a Salvadoran media indicates that the Bukele Administration has maintained deals with these criminal groups to achieve historic reductions in homicide rates in those areas that are controlled by the gangs. Something that the Executive have denied.
Previous administrations, they have also been singled out and accused by the country’s justice system having agreed to a truce with the violent gangs.
El Salvador, like the rest of the countries that make up the Northern Triangle of Central America, has been suffering for years the violence perpetrated in large part by the maras or gangs, corruption and extreme poverty. Issues that have been identified by the US as some of the main causes driving migration.
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