The alleged betrayal of a pact between the Government of Nayib Bukele and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang triggered the deadliest weekend so far this century in El Salvador.
Between March 25 and 27, 87 people were murdered and the 26th became the bloodiest in recent Salvadoran history with 62 homicides, according to an investigation published by the Salvadoran media outlet El Faro on Tuesday.
A wave of assassinations led Congress to declare an emergency regime.
The aforementioned media stated that they had contacted two spokespersons for the aforementioned gang, who pointed out the relationship between the murders and the "pact they had maintained for at least two and a half years."
According to El Faro, the escalation of murders occurred after the capture of gang members who were being transported in a government vehicle.
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He also published a series of recordings that were supposedly made to Carlos Marroquín, an official of the Bukele government and who was sanctioned by the United States on charges of corruption and negotiating with gangs.
“El Faro has in its possession a series of recordings in which Carlos Marroquín, director of Reconstruction of the Social Fabric and one of the negotiators with the gangs on behalf of the Executive, is heard
confessing his efforts to his counterparts in MS-13 .
for keeping the agreement in force during the spike in homicides,” he
added.
The text states that “in the recordings, the official blames what happened on the Minister of Security and Justice, Gustavo Villatoro, whom he describes as a “crazy minister”, and says “he is transferring messages from the gangs to President Bukele.”
"I already shot Batman
that there are 72 hours to give an answer.
He didn't take it well, he took it badly, like 'they don't threaten me' and I don't know what, you know,” says Marroquín in the audios, referring to the Salvadoran president.
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“In four of the seven audio files, Marroquín alludes to Bukele and from what was said it is inferred that the president was aware of Marroquín's conversations with spokesmen for the Mara Salvatrucha-13 all the time.
The director of the Social Fabric even offered a gang member screenshots of his conversations with the president, ”added the outlet.
The publication indicated that “it has verified the authenticity of the audios through a technical expert report, in which the voice of Marroquín in some of his public interventions is compared with three
software
– two forensic audio and one for commercial use. the voice that is heard on the recordings.”
“Frequency analysis showed that the pitches and frequencies of the recordings matched at what the
software
returned as 85% to 90% similarity.
These percentages are within the maximum ranges of certainty that these programs can draw on their graphs by isolating the frequency of the human voice,” the publication stated.
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In December 2021, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Marroquín and the director of Penal Centers, Osiris Luna, for
“secret negotiations”
between the government and MS-13.
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The US said in a statement that Luna and Marroquín "directed, facilitated and organized" a series of meetings with imprisoned gang leaders, as part of the Salvadoran government's efforts to negotiate "a secret truce" with gang leaders. MS-13.
The gang leaders confirmed to El Faro that the pact was broken because
the officials "did things they didn't have to do."
"Desde ahí es por lo que se levantaron esos 80 muertos que pasaron en esas fechas ¿me explico? Incumplieron, hicieron capturas que no tenían que hacer, donde ellos dijeron ‘lleguen a tal lugar, vamos a dialogar’ y en lugar de dialogar, capturaron", dijo al medio uno de los líderes de la MS-13 que está fuera del país.
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Bajo el régimen de excepción, que cumplió su primer plazo de 30 días y fue ampliado por un período igual, se han detenido a más de 30,000 personas, de acuerdo con la Policía Nacional Civil (PNC).
In this context, Congress approved criminal reforms at the request of President Bukele, including one that punishes "any demonstration" that alludes to the "territorial control" of the gangs with up to 15 years in prison.
With information from
Eph.