Bukele exhibits thousands of prisoners as a demonstration of power over the gangs

The staging is impressive.

The cameras focus on hundreds of men who, dressed only in white underwear, leave the prisons of El Salvador to be transferred by bus to what is the flagship project of President Nayib Bukele's security policy: the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism. , a huge prison complex located on the outskirts of San Salvador and announced by the president as "the largest prison in all of America."

It was Bukele himself who shared the video that shows how last Friday morning members of the gangs that have spread terror in the Central American country are taken from their cells by prison officers, handcuffed and forced to walk with their bodies low. They get on the buses and go to the new maximum security prison,

where they have been locked up, in a demonstration of power against the so-called maras.

"This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, mixed, without doing any more harm to the population," the Salvadoran president said.

The video begins with the men running with their hands in the never, their faces puzzled, listening to the orders of their guards.

The gang members sit in the enormous courtyards of the prisons, one pressed against the other, until the pavilion fills up and shows a shocking image of shirtless men, a huge human mass of bodies, shaved heads, tattooed arms and backs.

Once everyone has come down from their cells, the new order is to run in line to the buses, now with their hands behind their backs, handcuffed.

The number of cameras used is surprising: they are in the old prisons, inside the buses, on the highway that connects the city with the gigantic confinement center.

There are aerial shots and close-ups of the prisoners' faces in the dead of night.

And with the coming of dawn,

The press department of the presidency delivered dozens of photographs of the transfer to international agencies. PRESIDENCIA EL SALVADOR (AFP)

"They tell me that I am brave because we are facing the terrorists, the drug traffickers, international organizations, great world powers, the local oligarchy," Bukele said.

"And maybe I am brave compared to the parasites that ruled us before, compared to politicians from other countries who have to be just as parasites," the president said in a video that shows him giving a speech to the armed forces.

And it was the military and the police that the president winked at: “I am not brave on a par with the soldiers, the police, with those who risk their lives every day to bring peace to the people. Salvadoran and that they really come face to face with terrorism, crime and evil”.

The transfer of 2,000 gang members to the maximum security prison built by the government in just seven months has generated a new wave of criticism from human rights organizations, which question the legality of the measures taken by the president since he decreed the state of exception in El Salvador as part of its security strategy.

The Government has captured more than 60,000 gang members and closes the siege against their leaders, but along the way the authorities have committed gross violations of human rights.

A report presented at the end of January by Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals that "abuses on a large scale" have been committed, including extreme overcrowding, violations of due process, lack of guarantees, mass arrests and deaths in custody.

“Thousands of people, including hundreds of minors,

The action to transfer the gang members coincides with an indictment filed by the United States Attorney's Office in federal court in New York, which accuses two high-ranking officials of the President's government of having negotiated with the gang a reduction in homicides in exchange for benefits. between the years 2019 to 2021. The document, made public on Thursday by the Department of Justice, reveals that the Salvadoran Executive negotiated for at least two years with the gangs to achieve a reduction in homicides in El Salvador, in order to benefit to the popularity of Bukele, who, indeed, has high approval ratings.

The president has not ruled on the accusations of US justice,

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This has been the transfer of the 2,000 gang members

In the photo, the convoy that transferred the prisoners upon arrival at the Confinement Center, in Tecoluca, 70 kilometers from the capital. Photo: (El Salvador Presidency) REUTERS |

Video: EPV

“This highly cinematic transfer occurs while the Department of Justice released an indictment that points to the Government of negotiations with the gangs.

This transfer is intended to try to control the narrative and present a strong-armed figure,” explains Juan Pappier, acting deputy director of HRW's Americas Division.

“Bukele has developed a model of repression and dark negotiations with the gangs behind the backs of the Salvadoran people,” he adds.

Regarding the huge prison complex, Pappier says that "this prison is a symbol of Bukele's punitive security policies that will allow him to maintain his very high popularity ratings, but I have no doubts that in the long term there will be no more security for the saviors.

Experiences in El Salvador show that these measures,

The Salvadoran president, however, boasts of having lowered the high homicide rates in his country in ten months.

In his account of the personal crusade he has unleashed against gangs, Bukele has applauded a drastic drop in crime in January and February and has dubbed his country "the safest in America."

On Sunday he said El Salvador completed (“thank God”) another full week without homicides.

The strategy is applauded by the majority of Salvadorans and it seems that the staging of the transfer of prisons helps the image of the president.

“This is a government that flaunts its violations of human rights.

Of course those who commit serious crimes must be brought to justice,

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