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Notes -
Nayyib Bukele's war on crime: real or fake, good or bad?
Basically, they've arrested at least 60,000 who seem like criminals, without a warrant, and sent them to a newly created prison. There are now troops based in high-risk communities and a whole swathe of the constitution was suspended. Considering the videos, it's hard to see how people with such extensive tattoo-collections could be law-abiding - the usual suspects have been protesting about human rights and the need to see a lawyer.
https://news.sky.com/story/first-inmates-transferred-to-el-salvador-mega-prison-in-crackdown-on-gangs-12821405
Gangs in El Salvedor tended to be incredibly violent and powerful, there was a huge problem with them killing 76 people in 2 days back in March 2022, at which point the government declared a state of emergency. El Salvedor used to be the murder capital of the world, reporting an astonishing 103 homicides per 100K residents in 2015, which then fell steadily to about 18.1 in 2022 and further since. El Salvedor is now out of the top 20 most murderous countries. Bukele took office in 2019, so the decline isn't all under his watch. Obviously, homicide rates don't tell the whole story. They don't include the number of people who die in shootouts with police (120 gang members in 2022). Furthermore, they do not include 'disappearances' which is what the US state department says is replacing homicides in El Salvedoran statistics. Finally, homicides do not capture the level of conflict between gangs and govt - we can imagine a govt that arranges to give the gangs what they want in exchange for peace, a govt that lashes out and crushes them or tries to crush them (causing homicides to spike) or a govt that lets them run rampant (with consistently high homicides). The US alleges that Bukele's been making deals with the gangs, as have all the previous govts. They say Bukele's plans are indistinguishable from previous iron fist policing methods that didn't work either and that El Salvedor's being turned into a one-party state under a state of exception. They suggest instead that El Salvedor adopt 'comprehensive gang prevention, intervention and rehabilitation programs in marginalized communities'.
Bukele says that the US is smearing him because he takes a less-than-liberal approach to human rights for violent criminals. He's also been experimenting with introducing a non-USD basis for his currency in Bitcoin, something that would naturally anger Washington. There's definitely a level of conflict here, they've sanctioned some of Bukele's govt leaders.
I'm inclined to favor Bukele, on the basis that iron fist policing methods should work. I've espoused 'send the criminals to prison or shoot them' policies before. This is on the assumption that the definition of 'criminal' centers around violence, organized crime or serious drug trafficking. Copyright infringement should not be met with summary executions for example. (But if they were it would probably reduce copyright infringement more than 'rehabilitation programs in marginalized communities').
If there's enormous amounts of murder, it follows that there are too many dangerous criminals on the streets. Thus more intensive policing is needed. High levels of crime is extremely damaging, you end up with capital flight, limited investment, a frayed social fabric and so on. I think that a safe society is the foundation upon which legal niceties and so on can be built. You can't build a functional society in a country full of gangs. You can only get a kayfabe liberal democracy like Brazil (or more specifically the North East) which has all the appearances of rights and laws and judges but there's immense corruption and a permanently high rate of crime with gangs enjoying considerable freedom to bully everyone else. What are the rights and laws and judges for if not reducing crime and improving quality of life? In my view, they're not ends in and of themselves.
It's better to dictate terms with the gangs than let them run rampant. I believe Bukele was negotiating for that very reason, before the gangs performatively defected from the terms with the bloodbath in March. The harsher policies since then are better yet. Gangs should not be trying to use leverage on the government by saying 'we can raise the crime level at any time and lower your election prospects'. El Salvedor's gangs seem to be in the 'worst of the worst' category and most El Salvedorans seem to be satisfied with the crackdown.
But I can see there are arguments against the crackdown as well, that certainty relies upon statistics we can't know for certain. Thoughts? Applicable in what Trump would call 'shithole countries' but not in the West? Slippery slope to tyranny?
“What makes a country a country?” is one of the primary questions of political science. The usual glib answer is “Other countries recognize them as one”. This of course leads to “What makes other countries recognize them?”. There are a few short answers for this, and some disagreement, but one of those short answers is pretty indisputable. Aside from claiming to be a country in the first place, the government seeking that recognition must maintain a monopoly on the use of organized violence within its claimed borders. Military invasion and conquering of a country is the direct material refutation of this sort of claim, but its not just a foreign army that can despoil your violence monopoly. There comes a point as this violence monopoly slips that the polity effectively ceases to be. Somalian recent history has a good example of this. I don’t know how bad things are in El Salvador and I don’t trust US media to report honestly, but there comes a point where a government either has to take steps like this (or even more brutal) or pack it up and flee to Miami with as much as they can steal on the way out. This latter option has been historically pretty popular. This government, in this moment, is choosing the former. It still wants to be a country. Even the most authoritarian states are still countries: they have an intact violence monopoly, you can negotiate with their gov’t as a unit and expect it to at least have the state capacity to follow through on its agreements if it chooses to do so. A gang of the most Western educated, culturally sensitive, US foreign policy compliant, says-all-the-right-things, paragons of democratic virtue living saints who don’t have an effective monopoly on violence is not a country at all.
Are there some innocent people in these prisons in El Salvador? Almost certainly, and that really sucks for them. OTOH they’re lucky the current gov’t there even bothers to use prisons at all. Locking them all in buildings that are then lit on fire has been a historically attractive option for countries that found themselves in similar situations in the past. AFAIK no one has uncovered any mass graves yet. This approach seems balanced given the easily available alternatives.
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