In about two months, El Salvador will complete one year under the exceptional regime enacted by the populist Nayib Bukele government. And there is no deadline to end it, according to Vice President Félix Ulloa, 71.
With the justification of combating the so-called “pandillas” or “maras”, gangs responsible for high levels of violence, the Central American country has established military sieges and carried out massive arrests of alleged members of the “pandillas” —60,000 until here.
Human rights organizations point out that the situation, together with Bukele and his supporters’ attitude of interfering in the judiciary and maintaining an aggressive discourse against the press, made El Salvador migrate towards an autocracy. Ulloa, in turn, says that democracy there has never been so vibrant.
Graduated in law, he fought against the dictatorship that was in force from 1931 to 1979 in the country. His father, after whom he was named, was assassinated by the regime in 1980. Bukele is 30 years younger than his deputy.
Ulloa acknowledges that the war against gangs has led to human rights violations. But he claims that this is not a state policy — it would, he says, be a kind of collateral damage. “No human work is perfect, and investigations are ongoing”, says the Salvadoran.
he spoke to Sheet via video call in the first week of January, when he was in Brazil for the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and shortly before meeting his Brazilian counterpart, Geraldo Alckmin (PSB).
The government argues that the number of homicides has dropped in the country, and Bukele enjoys approval ratings in excess of 80%. Contrary to the Constitution, he has already said he should run for re-election in 2024.
One of the government’s main strategies is to impose military sieges to fight crime. Doesn’t the broad participation of the Armed Forces violate democracy? It’s not that wide, and it was seven or eight overtimes. [do estado de exceção]. When I was studying law, during the dictatorship of the 1980s, there was a state of exception for several years.
But it was a dictatorship. Today, in theory, it is a democracy. But what was the purpose of the state of exception? As of now, the only guarantees affected are to ensure that prisoners are not released due to legal loopholes. Another thing was the right to privacy, so that there could be eavesdropping, a way of guaranteeing security. Many municipalities are asking for sieges [militares]. It is the effectiveness of the methodology of the war that we are waging against the “pandillas” for the protection of the people.
Is there an end date? There is no date.
If there is no deadline, it does not become a autocracy? An authoritarian regime uses the coercive force of the state to maintain itself in power. When coercive power is used to protect the population, democracy is strengthened. Before [de Bukele], we had a formal democracy, but the people were oppressed. The “pandillas” were strengthened because they had the support of the parties in power.
World-renowned human rights organizations say the exception allowed serious violations, such as forced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment in prisons. Is everything fair in the war against the “pandillas”? Of course not. The security office explained the protocols, of unrestricted respect for human rights. There was no bloodshed.
Do you recognize that there are human rights violations? Sure, but it’s not a state policy. They are isolated acts of people who are being investigated, prosecuted and judged. It is not possible to guarantee that in an operation of this magnitude there will be no errors. In a proportionality analysis, we could say that there are 60,000 captured and 3,000 dead or missing. It’s not even 10%.
Three thousand is a lot. It’s a lot if we look at it in isolation. There are 57,000 delinquents removed from the streets. Many of the complaints are from family members of the “pandilleros”. Judges review the cases, and hundreds of people have already been released from prison because it has been shown that they were wrongfully captured. No human work is perfect. The NGOs that complain are spokespersons for an anti-government discourse.
If we didn’t make this war, we would never solve the problem. This could be a model for other countries, like Haiti. There is a willingness to share these good experiences with other states.
More than 30 journalists and activists say they have been spied on with Pegasus software at the behest of the government. They also hacked the account of the president and vice president of the Legislative Assembly. Bukele did not buy the program. Many of the journalists served as vehicles for disseminating messages from the “maras”. Not a single media outlet is censored or closed, even though they are critical every day.
There are laws to combat certain content. Posting about the “maras” is not prohibited. What is prohibited is transmitting messages from them.
Doesn’t this violate freedom of the press? A journalist cannot be an instrument to commit a crime.
It is an information tool.. There are limits. In El Salvador, one of them is not transmitting messages.
Bitcoin is sold by the government as a victory, but there is still resistance from the population. Are frustrated with the results? I’m looking forward. I cannot say that it was a success, because the population has not yet become familiar with it, but it is not a failure either, because it is not a question of buying and selling shares, but a reserve policy. The future is the digital age, currencies will be digital.
What are the expectations with Brazil, with Lula back in the Presidency? We share the vision of supporting multilateralism and the vocation for peace, development and solidarity. We will have excellent relations.
Over the last four years, with Jair Bolsonaro (PL), how was the relationship? There are facts that are public, such as the absence of the previous administration from regional cooperation mechanisms. El Salvador is a pioneer in Central America in the fight for regional integration, and we would like to count on Brazil.
There is a kind of left turn in Latin America. Does this contribute to El Salvador’s isolation? We want to get out of labels. These are anachronisms that should have stayed in the Cold War. Today there are other agendas that unite us, linked to themes such as the environment, gender equality and opportunities for invisible sectors. When did what a friend calls the democratic spring begin in the region, with the first government of President [Hugo] Chavez [na Venezuela], expectations based on ideological characterizations were generated. Soon came the disenchantments, coups d’état.
I was a leftist, we took up arms to fight the dictatorship, but that is our past. In this world, where I have a millennial president, we cannot want to impose these schemes on the new generations. And I felt in Lula’s speech an up-to-date thought, far from old clichés.
You have already spoken about the lawsuits against leaders like Lula. What do you think of these clashes that governments in the region have with the judicial system, as happened in El Salvador? Doesn’t that violate democracy? I think it can strengthen it. Many judges became political activists. In Latin America, as in the case against Lula, we saw the partial way in which Justice acted. In El Salvador, it was the same situation. And Congress had to act, not the president.
But Congress is with Bukele, his party has a majority. Congress was elected by the people. If the people gave this supermajority to the president’s party, it’s because they wanted his policies to be applied. It was an administrative act, without punishment. When we adopt the Separation of Powers scheme, it is necessary to ensure that the bodies operate independently. When there is a party line, these dysfunctionalities are generated in the rule of law.
El Salvador is the origin of one of the main migratory flows to the USA. What are you doing to change that? Forced migration is not an act of people wanting to leave. The first cause is precariousness in communities, lack of employment and work. The second, violence, which we have already fought. We need to generate conditions for development, especially in rural communities.
X-ray | Felix Ulloa, 71
Vice President of El Salvador since 2019, he is a lawyer. He studied in France and the US and was active in student and union movements during the dictatorship.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
