El Salvador’s President Nayib Boucle declared on Sunday that Haiti’s ongoing political turmoil and rampant gang violence “can be solved,” equating images of brutality from the island nation with the situation in his home country, adding that he expects a solution to the ongoing political turmoil and rampant gang violence in Haiti in 2022. Law enforcement agencies will start cracking down in 2020.
Bukele did not specify who he meant by “we” in the text, whether he was referring to the Salvadoran government or the international community in general. He later commented that “experts” had declared similar violence in El Salvador to be “endemic” to the country, and that the eradication of organized criminal violence from the country had proven them wrong.
For decades, El Salvador has suffered from near-total control of society by organized crime groups such as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street Gang. Bukele, who took office in 2019, has significantly expanded police powers and created a “state of exception” that will allow police to detain tens of thousands of gang suspects in 2022. Bukele is also building a “mega-prison” complex to house suspects and processing criminals in mass trials to facilitate their removal from society.
WATCH — Law and Order: El Salvador builds ‘giant prison’ to eradicate gangs
President of the Republic of El Salvador via Storyful
Bukele’s dramatic expansion of law enforcement powers has alarmed outside observers who worry that ordinary citizens may soon see their constitutional rights eroded. However, there have been no reports from El Salvador of the imprisonment of political dissidents or the silencing of opposition. The country’s most prominent opposition newspaper is El Farowill recognize in 2023 that there are “no gangs” in this country, as they once were, and basic freedoms such as the ability for citizens to visit parks peacefully and set up small businesses without paying extortion fees to gangs will be restored. It was approved to enact. El Faro Continue to operate and freely publish material deadly Bukele’s.
Bukele was overwhelmingly re-elected in February’s presidential election with an estimated 85% of the vote.
Haiti has long suffered from organized criminal violence, extreme poverty, political corruption, and insecurity. In 2021, the situation got out of control and assassins shot President Jovenel Moïse dead in his home. His wife, Martine Moyes, was also indicted in February as part of an apparently elaborate conspiracy. Haiti has not had a president since then.
The only acting authority after the assassination was Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was appointed days before Moïse’s murder. Henry has repeatedly refused to hold elections or step down as prime minister, arguing that violence and declining infrastructure make it impossible to hold free and fair elections in Haiti. In response to international pressure, he recently pledged: sort out Elections will be held by August 2025.
Ariel Henry (Anita Pouchard-Serra/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Henry leaves Haiti to seek help in creating an international police force to combat growing gang violence. Haiti’s police force, exhausted by lack of supplies and easy access to the U.S. immigration system, currently poses no threat to gangs. Henry visited Kenya, where Kenyan President William Ruto offered to lead law enforcement efforts in the country, but the intervention in Haiti was unpopular at home and faced severe criticism and accusations of violating the constitution. ing.
In Henry’s absence, Haiti’s most powerful gang leader, Jimmy “Barbeque” Chéridier, orchestrated a siege of the country’s prisons, releasing an estimated 4,000 inmates and demanding Henry’s resignation. Henry was unable to return home as gang members flooded the capital’s streets and took over government buildings, roads and the local airport. Henry is believed to be currently in Puerto Rico, and there are reports that President Joe Biden’s administration is urging him to resign.
Jimmy Chéridier, a former elite police officer known as Barbeque who now runs a gang federation, holds a press conference in the Delmas 6 neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 5, 2024. (Oderin Joseph/Associated Press)
“The fight will last as long as necessary. We will continue to fight Ariel Henry. Please keep your children at home to avoid collateral damage,” Ms. Chéridier warned on television.
“The Haitian people must be liberated. We will do it with arms. All armed groups, domestic, local and in Port-au-Prince, are more united than ever. We, the armed forces, , I have decided to take the future into my own hands,” he declared.
People walk past burning tires during a protest against Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, February 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Oderin Joseph)
Chérisier later threatened to promote “genocide” if Henry remained in power. Several foreign governments, including the United States, began evacuating their embassy staff, leaving Chéridier as the country’s most powerful official.
“We can solve it,” Bukele, a native of El Salvador, offered on Sunday. “But we’re going to need the UNSC.” [U.N. Security Council] resolution, host country consent, and that all mission costs are covered. ”
It can be fixed.
However, it requires a Security Council resolution, host country consent, and all mission costs to be covered. https://t.co/GPqMVo7MTN
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibukele) March 10, 2024
Bukele later shared an unverified image of gang members allegedly committing acts of cannibalism in Haiti, writing, “We saw similar images in El Salvador a few years ago, along with the skulls of victims. Gangsters taking a bath.”
A few years ago, I saw a similar image in El Salvador. Gangsters bathe with the skulls of their victims.
All the “experts” said they cannot afford to lose because they are “an essential part of our society.”
they were wrong.
We wiped them out.
The same must be done in Haiti. https://t.co/RkrBfZuGGM
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibukele) March 11, 2024
An undated, gruesome video that circulated shows a man eating what appears to be a finger and carving out what appears to be a human leg.indian newspaper Hindustan Times claimed “The video is two years old and has no connection to the current unrest,” Monday’s report said. The source of the video remains unconfirmed. It is unknown if the photo was taken in Haiti.
Although unusual, cannibalism is not unheard of in gang culture in the Western Hemisphere. In 2017, inmates involved in a prison riot in Brazil were filmed burning the bodies of rival gang members. Individuals claiming to belong to the Red Command (CV), one of Brazil’s most powerful gangs, are cooking “PCC skirt steaks” after their rival, the First Capital Command (PCC). he boasted. In Venezuela, families of victims who were reportedly killed, cooked and eaten in the western city of Tachira accused prisoner “cannibal” Drancel Vargas in 2016 of dismembering fellow prisoners and feeding them to other prisoners. He blamed the socialist government for allowing it.
The UN Security Council has made no significant moves to de-escalate the situation in Haiti. On Monday, the council issued a lengthy statement expressing “concerns” over the irregularities and hoping that the Kenyan-led police effort would finally get off the ground.
A man stands near a burning tire during a demonstration against insecurity in Carrefour-Feuilles, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, August 14, 2023. (RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP, Getty Images)
“Members of the Council heard Kenya’s briefing on ongoing planning efforts for the deployment of a multinational security assistance mission to Haiti and the international commitments made to this mission,” the statement said. . read. “The two leaders expressed their expectation and desire to dispatch a multinational security assistance mission to Haiti as soon as possible, in accordance with Haiti’s request and the approval of the Security Council through resolution 2699 (2023).”
In an interview with ABC News, Mr. Cheridier reiterated his call for Mr. Henry’s resignation on Monday, but argued that the gang would escalate the war after that happened.
“The first step is to overthrow Ariel Henry, and then we will begin a real fight against the current system, the corrupt oligarchic system, and the corrupt traditional politicians,” the gangster said. The boss was informed. Said. “We’re not only fighting Ariel Henry, we’re also fighting all of his accomplices of some sort.”
