The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-03)

18 The Sunday Times April 3, 2022

WORLD NEWS

It was the bloodiest weekend in El Salva-
dor since its civil war ended in 1992. In
three days, beginning on March 25, at
least 87 people were murdered. Many
were bystanders, shot in buses and in
street markets by masked gang members
brandishing assault weapons. Their bod-
ies were deliberately left in plain sight.
Exactly what triggered the rampage
remains unclear. One theory is that a
“devil’s pact” — a non-aggression deal
between the government of President
Nayib Bukele and the criminal gangs that
operate in the central American country
— has fallen apart, with potentially dire
repercussions.
The immediate response of Bukele, 40,
a maverick right-wing populist who is also
trying to establish El Salvador as a safe
haven for bitcoin investors, has been swift
and ruthless.
Within hours of the murders, the presi-
dent, famed for always wearing his base-
ball cap backwards, obtained parliamen-
tary approval for 30 days of emergency
rule. That enabled the security services to
begin mass arrests. Military roadblocks
were set up across the country.

the civil war. One of his key election

promises was that he would bring to an

end the gang violence that has plagued

the country for decades. Two powerful

criminal groups, known as MS-13 and 18th

Street, extort businesses and run sex and

drug trafficking rings across the country.

Both cartels trace their origins to Los

Angeles, where some of the gangs’ heav-

ily tattooed founders lived during the civil

war before being deported to their home

country after it ended.

Before this weekend, Bukele’s pledge

to improve the security of ordinary Salva-

dorians showed significant signs of suc-

cess. Last year there were 1,140 murders,

about a third of the number just before

Stephen Gibbs Caracas

Nayib Bukele, above left, has

goaded his criminal enemies

by promising to worsen their

prison conditions, above right

I’ll open the

murder valves,

said one leader

Gang rampage blamed on collapse

of devil’s pact with ‘coolest dictator’

There were reports that anyone “who

looked like a thug” would be handcuffed

and taken away. By Thursday the presi-

dent claimed that 3,000 people had been

detained, in a country whose population

is almost 6.5 million.

On social media Bukele, who once

described himself as “the coolest dictator

in the whole world”, goaded his criminal

enemies by promising to worsen their

prison conditions.

“Because of your actions, now your

homeboys won’t see a ray of sun,” he

tweeted. He also warned that owing to the

thousands of additional detainees filling

up jails, all prisoners would have their

food rations limited. His courts ordered

that criminal bosses should face 40 to 45

years in jail if convicted.

The president’s actions have led to

calls for restraint from global human

rights organisations. Amnesty Interna-

tional said the emergency decree passed

by parliament, which includes a ban on

public assembly, “suspends human rights

that cannot be restricted under any cir-

cumstance”.

Bukele reacted to that with derision.

“If the ‘international community’ is wor-

ried about their little angels, come and

bring them food, because I will not take

funding away from schools to feed these

terrorists.” he tweeted on Wednesday.

The president, a former mayor and

businessman of Palestinian background,

was elected to office following a landslide

vote in 2019. His then newly created

party, New Ideas, obliterated the political

duopoly which had alternately ruled the

impoverished country since the end of

party in exchange for improved prison

privileges.

In one intercepted message a gang

leader noted that if the government did

not meet its part of the agreement his

accomplices would “open the murder

valves”. That may have been what hap-

pened last weekend.

Last year the US Treasury sanctioned

two officials from Bukele’s government,

alleging that their close co-operation with

MS-13 leaders included allowing them

mobile phones and prostitutes inside

prison. Bukele said those allegations were

without foundation. But Salvadorian offi-

cials from previous governments have

been charged with making similar deals.

Bukele, who still enjoys sky-high popu-

larity ratings, has also become a cult fig-

ure outside the country. Last year El Sal-

vador became the first country in the

world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The

president is placing massive bets on the

cryptocurrency, spending tens of mil-

lions of dollars of state resources. He has

also pledged to build the world’s first “bit-

coin city”, where coins will be mined near

an inactive volcano using geothermic

energy. In January the International Mon-

etary Fund warned Bukele that his un-

orthodox financial management puts the

country on an “unsustainable path”.

Bukele belittled that rebuke.

The weekend massacre and the iron-

fisted response will, however, impede his

attempts to brand El Salvador as a 21st-

century crypto hub. “It completely con-

tradicts his version of the country,”

Tiziano Breda, central America analyst

for the International Crisis Group, said.

JOSE CABEZAS/REUTERS; ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
El Salvador’s baseball cap

wearing populist leader

has responded ruthlessly

to a string of shootings

by masked men

BTS thrill fans on stage in South Korea in 2020

K-pop idols may

swap stage for

combat fatigues

For Gunn Kim, South Korea’s

ambassador to Britain, the

fate of the world’s biggest boy

band, BTS, is sealed.

“It is very much expected

that young Korean men serve

the country, and those BTS

members are role models for

many young-generation

Koreans.

“I’m pretty sure they will

fulfil their obligation to

society,” he said, hours after

North Korea tested what

appeared to be its biggest

intercontinental ballistic

missile to date, although

South Korean and US

intelligence has since

questioned that.

South Korea, a country still

technically at war with the

north, has one of the largest

militaries in the world, with a

555,000-strong active force

and 3.1 million troops in

reserve. An ever-increasing

defence budget ensures that

its soldiers are some of the

best equipped and trained in

the region.

To maintain a ready

fighting force, it requires all

men between the ages of 18

and 28 to serve at least 18

months in the military.

It is one of the few

countries in the industrial

world where conscription is

still mandatory. Without a

valid excuse, those who

object face jail time.

Kim, a veteran diplomat

who has held posts handling

the nuclear threat from North

Korea, served in the infantry

in his early twenties. His

eldest son, Munroe, 28, has

already completed his

service, and his second son,

Muny, 21, is expecting to join

the air force in May.

A decision is still to be

made on whether the seven

members of BTS, a global pop

phenomenon based in Seoul,

will be exempt from

mandatory service. BTS

stands for Bangtan

Sonyeondan, which

translates as “Bulletproof Boy

Scouts”.

Their fans around the

world sighed with relief

when, in light of the band’s

global success, South Korea’s

national assembly passed the

so-called BTS law in

December 2020, revising the

country’s Military Service

Act. It allowed stars such as

Kim Seok-jin, the oldest

member of the band, to

postpone military service

until they turn 30.

It bought Kim, who goes by

his stage name, Jin, two more

years to perform at what was

described by some as the

height of his career. “What a

day to be alive,” one follower

wrote on Twitter. However,

his 30th birthday is looming

later this year.

There has been much

speculation in South Korea

over whether he will be

forced to sign up.

“Most of our people expect

that our members of BTS will

fulfil their obligation as

citizens of Korea. Eventually I

think it will happen,” Kim

said, drinking Korean

ginseng tea.

In his office at the embassy

in London is a defence white

paper from 2020 and a

painting of the South Korean

animated film character

Robot Taekwon V. The robot

was built to help other

superheroes fight monsters

that had been destroying the

world. Conscription is

necessary so “we can defend

ourselves and we are ready to

fight when it is required”,

Kim said.

His country knows how it

is to be invaded. The Korean

War, from 1950 to 1953, began

when the North Korean

communist army crossed the

38th parallel and rapidly

advanced to the south,

trapping South Korean and

American troops around the

port of Pusan, on the

southern tip of the Korean

peninsula, Kim’s home town.

The West supported South

Korea, while communist

China and the Soviet Union

backed North Korea.

The war ended with

millions of casualties, no

peace treaty and almost no

change to the border. Military

personnel from North and

South Korea continue to

occupy the demilitarised

zone, a strip of land acting as

a buffer between the

territories. “There are

similarities between Ukraine

and Korea, because we are

also surrounded by big

countries,” Kim said. “In our

history we were invaded by

neighbouring countries many

times, so that’s one of the

reasons why our people are

so sympathetic to the people

of Ukraine.”

The 56-year-old, who

moved to the capital, Seoul,

aged seven, believes that to

ensure safety and security a

country must have a strong

security posture and be able

to “manage relations” with

the countries it borders.

“North Korea is our

imminent military threat and

at the same time North Korea

is our brother. We must be

militarily fully prepared and

at the same time we need to

pursue reconciliation and

improvement of relations,”

Kim said.

At 7am on March 24 Kim

awoke to the news that North

Korea had launched what

appeared to be a powerful

intercontinental ballistic

missile for the first time since

2017, breaking a self-imposed

moratorium on long-range

missile tests. Launched from

Sunan airfield near the

capital of Pyongyang, the

missile was thought to be

capable of carrying several

warheads and to have a range

of more than 8,000 miles,

putting the US mainland

within reach. The test set

alarm bells ringing in the

West and raised tension in

east Asia.

Larisa Brown

Diplomatic and Security

Correspondent

GETTY IMAGES

the president took office. But the suspi-

cion is that the sharp reduction has not

been simply due to tough talking or even

tough policing. The rumour has long

been that Bukele did a secret deal with the

gangs.

Evidence for that theory grew when

the Salvadorian investigative journalism

website El Faro published, in 2020, docu-

ments that appeared to prove that the

government had indeed held covert talks

in jails with MS-13 leaders.

The discussions, El Faro reported,

involved a broad agreement that murders

would be reduced and gangs would

encourage members to vote for the presi-

dent’s

Macron’s two hours of boasting in rock star rally

towards foreigners seem

more mainstream.

This has provoked a

change of course from the

Macron camp, which had

been accused of going soft on

Le Pen in the expectation he

would beat her easily in the

second round. In recent days,

the president has labelled his

rival “extreme right” and

spoken of a “Marine Le Pen-

Eric Zemmour tandem”,

despite the pair’s intense

rivalry and mutual loathing.

He has also pointedly

taken to referring to her party

by its former name of

National Front.

Liberté, égalité, fragilité,

Magazine

climbing ratings are a

vindication of her decision to

make voters’ dwindling

pouvoir d’achat (purchasing

power) the centrepiece of

her campaign, downplaying

her traditional anti-

immigrant stance.

She also appears to be

reaping the benefits of a long-

running drive to dédiaboliser

(“de-demonise”) her National

Rally party and play up her

softer, more empathetic side.

Paradoxically, she has been

helped by the candidacy of

Eric Zemmour, 63, the far-

right polemicist. Although he

has taken some of Le Pen’s

first round votes, his strident

anti-Islamic rhetoric has

made her own harsh stance

predicted support in the first

round, set for next Sunday, at

30 per cent — a good ten-

point margin over Le Pen, 53.

Yet the effect has waned,

and his ratings have dropped

as attention has shifted from

the war itself to its effects on

living standards in France — a

surge in energy prices that

has pushed inflation to 4.

per cent — its highest level

since the mid-1980s.

The latest poll yesterday

predicted the president

would beat Le Pen 28.5 to 22

per cent in the first round,

but by just 53 to 47 per cent in

the run-off on April 24, a far

cry from the 66 to 34 per cent

margin with which he

trounced her in 2017. Le Pen’s

sounding horns and chanting

“Macron président” as if they

were watching Paris Saint-

Germain playing Olympique

de Marseille rather than the

leader of France outline his

political programme.

It was the only mass

meeting of Macron’s

campaign, which was scaled

down after the Russian

invasion of Ukraine. He has

made occasional forays out of

Paris to meet voters, but has

insisted the war means he

should be devoting his time to

matters of state.

The strategy initially

appeared to pay off: already

the front runner, Macron

enjoyed a “war bounce” after

Putin’s attack, with his

television the aim was to

recreate the ambiance of

American football’s Super

Bowl:“It’s going to be

energising and enthusiastic.”

To prevent the

embarrassment of rows of

empty seats, supporters from

the provinces were brought

in by bus. A competition was

also organised for the party

faithful to see who could

bring along the most people:

the five winners were offered

the prize of a “unique and

privileged moment after the

meeting” — presumed to be

an encounter with Macron.

In the event, the hall

quickly filled in the run-up to

the speech, with small but

noisy groups of supporters

The 30,000-seat La Défense
arena on the edge of Paris is
best known as a venue for
rugby matches and rock
concerts. Yesterday President
Emmanuel Macron tried to
use the place to breathe new
life into a re-election
campaign shaken by recent
gains for his right-wing rival,
Marine Le Pen.
Channelling his inner rock
star, Macron, 44, pushed his
way through the cheering
crowd to the stage, shaking
hands as he went,
accompanied by thumping
music, pyrotechnics and
chants of “cinque ans de plus”
(“five more years”).
Dressed in his trademark
blue suit, the president began
with swipes both at President
Vladimir Putin and his own
right-wing opponents. “Some
today are bombing a few
hours away from Paris, others
would like to take us back to
the France of years ago,” he
said. “We are here in the
largest hall in Europe to say
that no one will make us go
back, we are here in this
moment marked by war ... to
remind ourselves that France
always has something to say
to the world.”
He went on for more than
two hours to list his
achievements — including the
lowest jobless rate in 15 years,
a doubling of apprenticeships
and longer paternity leave —
and planned future reforms,
including a rise in the
retirement age and the right
for firms to pay workers a tax-
free €6,000 (£5,000) bonus
to combat rising living costs.
The contents of the speech
were worthy, verging on dull
— but it was punctuated by
choreographed chanting
from sections of the crowd,
waving flags left on their seats

by organisers. The loudest —

and most apparently

spontaneous — cheers came

when Macron paid tribute to

his wife, Brigitte, 68, “who

means the most to me”, who

was among dignitaries in the

front row, and blew her a kiss.

The choice of the arena

was a high-risk strategy for

the president, who told aides

he did not want a normal

political rally but something

more akin to a sports event.

An official from Jeunes avec

Macron ( JAM), the youth

wing of his party, told French

Supporters mob Emmanuel

Macron as he makes his

way to the stage of his rally

at the La Défense arena

French

urged to

turn off

appliances

Households and businesses in

France have been asked to try

to avoid using dishwashers

and washing machines

tomorrow morning to limit

electricity use.

The operator of France’s

electricity grid, Réseau de

Transport d’Électricité (RTE),

has asked customers to cut

consumption as cold weather

increases demand at a time

when about half the country’s

nuclear reactors are offline.

If possible, they should

avoid using the appliances “in

particular between 7am and

10am” on Monday, and “shift

their electricity consumption

to this weekend”.

Customers are also advised

to turn down thermostats in

their homes if they are out,

switch off devices on standby

and reduce the number of

lights on in a room.

RTE claimed that if every

French person switched off a

light, this would save

600 megawatts,

approximately the

consumption of Toulouse,

France’s fourth-largest city.

In the UK, Bill Bullen, the

managing director of the

Utilita energy company, has

warned families struggling to

pay energy bills not to use

barbecues indoors to heat

their homes.

Bullen told Radio 4’s Today

programme last week: “I urge

everybody, no matter how

much you’re suffering with

your bills, please do not

resort to using barbecues or

open fires at home. Quite

apart from the fire risk there’s

also a carbon monoxide risk.”

Rosamund Urwin

Peter Conradi Paris

LUDOVIC MARIN /EPA