The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-25)

A22 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, APRIL 25 , 2022

Bukele denies such a truce ever

existed.

The 40-year-old former mayor

of San Salvador, a self-styled mil-

lennial populist, was elected pres-

ident in 2019 on promises of a

break from the past. He’s the first

president since the 1980 s who

was not from one of the two par-

ties associated with the country’s

civil war. His party later won a

majority in congress.

Bukele quickly became a vocal

ally of President Donald Trump,

whom he called “very nice and

cool” before a bilateral meeting in

2019. His relationship with the
      Biden administration — especial-
      ly during the current crackdown
      — has been far more combative.
      The State Department, con-
      cerned about the state of emer-
      gency, urged El Salvador this
      month “to protect its citizens
      while also upholding civil liber-
      ties, including freedom of the
      press.”
      Bukele’s response was swift.
      “Yes, we got support from the

U.S. government to fight crime,

but [that] was UNDER THE

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION,” he

tweeted. “You are only supporting

the gangs and their ‘civil liberties’

now.”

The state of emergency allows

authorities to hold people swept

up in police raids without charges

for up to 15 days under “adminis-

trative detention.” Judges then

hold virtual hearings for as many

as 150 defendants at a time, where

most have been ordered to six

months of “preventive prison,”

which can be extended, before

they are tried formally.

The flurry of arrests has been so

sudden and chaotic that in some

neighborhoods, residents say, po-

lice are rounding up every young

man they find outside of their

homes. In some cases, authorities

have arrested minors and sent

them to adult penitentiaries.

“There’s usually no evidence at

all, just suspicion,” said one judge,

who spoke on the condition of

anonymity to avoid retaliation by

the government. “People arrive in

the court and there’s literally

nothing to substantiate claims

that they have gang ties.”

Judges who refuse to impose

lengthy sentences have been

threatened publicly by Bukele,

who has called them “accomplic-

es” of organized crime. Last week,

lawmakers from Bukele’s party

approved legislation to build

more prisons to accommodate the

surge in arrests.

And yet, in at least some neigh-

borhoods, gang control has reced-

ed during the crackdown. Some

Salvadorans have pointed to the

sudden disappearance of gang

checkpoints, replaced in some

cases by police and military pa-

trols.

“Sometimes it’s the bitter medi-

cine that’s necessary,” said the

Rev. Mario Carias, an evangelical

pastor in the Distrito Italia neigh-

borhood, which has for years suf-

fered a large MS-13 presence.

But in many cases, fear of gang

violence has been replaced by fear

of arbitrary arrest.

In the Panchimalco area, in the

hills outside of San Salvador, sol-

diers took over a local school,

using it as a base for patrols

through the scattered shacks

perched over slopes.

One day this month, family

members say, they detained 19-

year-old Johny Melara while he

was in his uncle’s hammock and

30-year-old Juan Vázquez while

he played with his 2-year-old son.

Neither of their families has

been able to locate them.

“I look at the bed where my son

used to sleep and it’s so painful

that I don’t even know where he

is,” said Sebastiana Melara,

Johny’s mother.

She had written a letter to the

country’s director of prisons and

was delivering copies of it to de-

tention centers across the city.

“Estimado señor,” it began.

“Can you give me information

about my son?”

“He was arrested on April 14. It

is for this reason that I come

seeking help to know where he is

detained and when the hearing

will be held and the procedures

that I have to pursue to feed him

and other things that you re-

quest.”

She said she has not received

any response.

In front of El Penalito, Monte-

rosa decided she needed to be

more assertive.

She returned to the prison gate

and showed officers there a cell-

phone video of her son’s detention

in front of the migration process-

ing office.

The officer turned again to his

desktop computer.

“I see him in the system now,”

he said.

He was in a different prison.

The official charge was “resis-

tance,” which usually means sus-

picion of gang involvement.

“Thank you,” Monterosa said,

walking away from the prison, a

look of relief washing over her.

“At least now we know where

he is.”

BY KEVIN SIEFF

san salvador — Gregoria
Monterosa steeled herself and
walked up to the entrance of the
unmarked prison known as El
Penalito. Next to the front gate, a
visibly bored police officer sat
behind a desktop computer.
“Who’s next?” he droned.
Monterosa, 70, stepped forward.
“My son was arrested eight
days ago, and we still have no idea
where he is,” she said.
She spelled out his name —
Genaro Godoy Ramos — and tried
to hold the officer’s attention. But
he looked over her shoulder, dis-
tracted by what he saw there.
Behind Monterosa was a scene
provoked by one of the most dra-
matic police crackdowns in recent
Latin American history: a crowd
of Salvadoran mothers and wives
whose husbands and sons had
been detained in a wave of at least
13,000 arrests.
The arrests are El Salvador’s
response to a rampage of killings
last month, including 62 in a sin-
gle day. The country’s president,
Nayib Bukele, promised revenge:
“a war on gangs.”
On March 27, he announced a
30-day “Regimén de Excepción”
— a state of emergency that gave
the government broad power to
make arrests, suspending due
process. The country’s legislature
approved a 30-day extension of
the emergency on Sunday, the
Associated Press reported.
Many family members, such as
Monterosa, have no idea where
their relatives have been taken.
They come here on their own ad
hoc searches, sneaking glimpses
between gaps in the metal gate,
checking incomplete lists of de-
tainees posted by police officers.
Monterosa had tried those op-
tions without success. Other
mothers had seen their sons flash
by in the windows of police buses
as they were transferred between
jails. She watched them collapse
into tears, jealous of their assur-
ance.
“At least they’ve seen their
loved ones,” she said.
Her son, 47, had been detained
immediately after arriving in San
Salvador on a deportation flight
from the United States. A family
friend recorded a video of him
and two other deportees being
driven away from the country’s
migration office in the back of a
police pickup.
A police officer told the family
that his tattoos suggested possi-
ble gang ties — evidence enough
to detain someone under the
country’s current state of emer-
gency.
The other women in line at El
Penalito told stories of how their
sons were arrested — in raids on
their homes, while selling fruit in
downtown San Salvador or work-
ing on construction sites, while
walking home from the bus.
In a country where thousands
disappeared during the civil war
of the 1980s, and thousands more
vanished during a surge in gang
violence that began in 2014, the
arrests have prompted the kind of
frantic search that for some Salva-
dorans feels familiar.
“We have no record of your son
in the system,” the officer told
Monterosa. He called the next
woman in line.
Monterosa tucked his identifi-
cation card back in her purse and
walked away.
“How is it that my son can just
be lost?” she asked. “How do you
arrest someone and then just have
no record of it?”
Bukele, a prolific user of social
media, has posted videos of pris-
oners being handcuffed and herd-
ed into prison halls, where hun-
dreds were sandwiched together
for a photo op.
“We seized everything from
them, even their mattresses,” he
tweeted. “We rationed their food
and now they will no longer see
the sun. STOP KILLING NOW or
they will pay for it too.”
Long before the bloodletting
last month, it was clear that in
parts of El Salvador, gangs had
more control than the state. In
some neighborhoods, MS-13 and
Mara 18 extorted and threatened
people, and killed those who re-
fused to submit. The police rarely
intervened.
The United States has said that
Bukele’s government negotiated a
truce with the country’s major
gangs, a controversial approach
pursued by previous Salvadoran
presidents. The U.S. Treasury De-
partment said last year that Buke-
le’s administration “provided fi-
nancial incentives to Salvadoran
gangs MS-13 and 18th Street Gang
(Barrio 18) to ensure that inci-
dents of gang violence and the
number of confirmed homicides
remained low.”

Salvadoran families search for missing amid arrests

Crackdown and

detention of thousands

have f amiliar feel

PHOTOS BY FRED RAMOS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Flor de Maria Erazo, 49, second from left, cries over seeing her son at El Penalito, a provisional detention center, in San Salvador on Tuesday.

A police officer leads an arrested man into El Penalito. The arrests are El Salvador’s response to a

rampage of killings last month, including 62 in a single day.

D inora Jacinto has a photo of her husband,

Juan Vasquez, and her son on her phone.

Vasquez was arrested April 14.

S ome of the men who have been accused of being gang members and have

been arrested. The g overnment declared a state of emergency March 27.

Women ask a police officer for information about their relatives detained

in El Penalito. I n three weeks, 13, 000 have been arrested.

“My son was arrested eight days ago, and we still have no idea where he is.”

Gregoria Monterosa