Tears welled in Alex’s eyes and he pressed his head into his hands as he thought about more than a year of birthdays and holidays without his mother, who was swept up by El Salvador’s police as she walked to work in a clothing factory.
“I feel very alone,” the 10-year-old said last month as he sat next to his 8-year-old brother and their grandmother. “I’m scared, feeling like they could come and they could take away someone else in my family.”
Forty thousand children have seen one parent or both detained in President Nayib Bukele’s nearly two-year war on El Salvador’s gangs, according to the national social services agency.
The records were shared with The Associated Press by an official with the National Council on Children and Adolescents, who insisted on anonymity due to fear of government reprisal against those violating its tight control of information. The official said many more children have jailed parents but are not in the records.
On one hand you have this on the other hand El Salvador turned from one of the most dangerous countries in the region to one of the safest.
They had a ramping gang problem and this president managed to reign the crime rings. But I don’t know what’s better to be honest. It is quite controversial but I don’t think that if he had decided to try it the lawful way it would have been successful either.
I am not defending him, I am just pointing out that if he tried to try those people they could have bought their way out, through corruption, skillful lawyer, etc. and then the end effect wouldn’t be anywhere close to what they have now.
I guess it boils down to what you consider worst. Gangs, or a tyrannical government who disappear people without due process. It is like releasing killer monkeys to take care of your radioactive crocodile problem.
Except that in this case, at least they are not disappearing with no knowledge to others.
Responsibility and accountability still lay supreme. Better than in other conditions, where you got no idea who did what to whom.
You’ll probably see people asking to have their food and education (alright, maybe they won’t ask for the education) funded by the govt. and if it’s unable to deliver, it will lose power.
I guess at least with the government at least it is a little more surgical. Gangs tend to not really care where their bullets go.
And really the question is more: do you want one tyrannical government or six competing tyrannical governments?
Its not one of the safest countries when you risk being arrested just by walking to work.
The question you ask yourself is; are you, personally, willing to be caught up in the wide net cast, and have your own life destroyed, in favor of the supposed overall “reigned in” crime?
Police forces aren’t efficient, especially under bad, unstable, unethical leadership. You’re given a license to shoot everyone in the room because someone suspects the killer might be inside… They aren’t. Let’s say MAYBE 50% of the people they are rounding up would have ended up in jail for justified reasons, and that’s probably extremely generous - And if you disagree with my estimated numbers, I’ll just accuse you of being a secret communist and have Mr. McCarthy blacklist you.
Famously, Pablo Escobar took down an entire commercial flight to get one perceived enemy on the plane, and that person ended up not even being on the flight…
So are you cool being on that plane, and dying a horrible death, for the chance at what you perceive as the greater good happening I your wake? That’s the question you ask.