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History As It Happens
Nayib Bukele and the Death of El Salvador's Democracy
00:45:12
Twelve years ago, few outside Latin America knew of Nayib Bukele, then the young mayor of a small town outside San Salvador. Today, the media-savvy Bukele proudly calls himself the "world's coolest dictator" as president of El Salvador. He and his...
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- [00:01]
Martin DeCaro
I say this every election cycle and.
- [00:03]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
I'll say it again. The 2024 political field was intense. So don't get left behind in 2025. If you're running for office, the first thing on your to do list should.
- [00:15]
Nayib Bukele
Be securing your name on the web.
- [00:17]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
With the your name vote domain from.
- [00:19]
Nayib Bukele
GoDaddy.com you'll stand out and make your mark. Don't wait.
- [00:24]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Get yours today. History as it happens. June 13, 2025 Nayib Bukele and the death of El Salvador's democracy.
- [00:36]
Martin DeCaro
They're striving to build a society that guarantees free exercise of religion and speech, that does not tolerate human rights abuses, that offers its people the benefits of a growing economy. President Reagan vetoed legislation which tied military aid to El Salvador to its human rights record. Knowledgeable observers estimate at any one time the left has between and 10,000 people under arm.
- [00:59]
Nayib Bukele
We have come far in El Salvador.
- [01:02]
Martin DeCaro
But have yet a long difficult road to travel.
- [01:04]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
A decade long civil war was followed by decades of violent crime, the rise of gangs and deep social inequality. Throughout this time, two parties controlled El Salvador's politics until a young social media savvy Nayib Bukele emerged promising to restore law and order. Crime dropped, human rights and democracy disappeared. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [01:29]
Nayib Bukele
The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States. But you can release him inside El Salvador. Yeah, but I'm not releasing. I mean we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the western hemisphere. And you want us to go back? He has been able to capitalize discontent and the disenchantment that exists in El Salvador with democracy, with procedural democracy. And that again, it's not just El Salvador, but a lot of Latin American countries face disenchantment with democracy because democracy has been little more than procedural democracy. It has not been substantive democracy. It hasn't delivered economic, social rights, it hasn't delivered security, it hasn't delivered an end to violence, even though civil wars are supposed to be a thing of the past.
- [02:19]
Martin DeCaro
He has agreed to accept for deportation any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal from any nationality, be they MS.13 or train that I and housed them in his jails.
- [02:34]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, about 2,000 miles away from the US southern border. But the two countries are closely connected.
- [02:43]
Martin DeCaro
Well, thank you very much.
- [02:44]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
It's an honor to have a friend of mine because we, decades before President Trump warmly welcomed El Salvador's young, good looking human rights abusing autocrat to the White House. So I knew him as a very young man. Now he's just a young man. Washington was deeply involved in the affairs of that little country, part of a broader Cold war strategy.
- [03:04]
Martin DeCaro
In four years, Mr. Carter's administration has managed to alienate our friends in the hemisphere, to encourage the destabilization of government and to permit Cuban and Soviet influence to grow. We must take steps to change the Carter administration's sorry record of vacillation, alienation and and neglect in the region.
- [03:25]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
That was Ronald Reagan. October 1980, just weeks before his election victory over Jimmy Carter. Evan McCormick, writing for the Texas National Security Review, noted it was not surprising that a crescendo of militarism accompanied Reagan's election in 1980. He campaigned in large measure against President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy. And in no place did Reaganites believe Carter's policies toward the Global south had so undermined US interests and legitimacy that as in the Western Hemisphere, with a number of Latin American countries facing violent social conflicts, Carter sought to reverse the traditional US policy of interventionism, emphasizing respect for human rights. Instead, Reagan officials saw fecklessness in Carter's handling of the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution, which brought the leftist Sandinista faction to power. They chastised Carter for curtailing aid to military governments in Guatemala, Argentina and Chile borders over human rights concerns. And they feared the insurgency led by the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador would cause that country to be the next domino to fall.
- [04:30]
Martin DeCaro
No area of the world should have a higher priority than the place where we live, the Western Hemisphere. My administration will forge a new, more realistic policy toward our own hemisphere as an integral part of my program for peace.
- [04:47]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Reagan's new policy did not bring peace. In his first year in office, he sent military advisors to El Salvador and authorized massive amounts of military aid to its regime despite its horrendous human rights record. Historian Andrea Onate Madrazo writes, when Reagan took office, he knew that in order to get congressional approval to support the Salvadoran army, the armed forces in El Salvador would have to tone down their abuses because thousands of tortures, murders and human rights abuses were endorsed and carried out by hardliners in the military and paramilitari. Members of the Reagan administration hoped that by propping up and supporting moderates within the Salvadoran right, they would secure the necessary support at home to pursue their policy abroad.
- [05:29]
Martin DeCaro
President Reagan vetoed legislation which tied military aid to El Salvador to its human rights record. The bill which passed Congress unanimously extended the human rights certification process that had been in effect for the last two years. This issue of military aid to the El Salvador government is a major issue whenever it comes up. And there are indications it will be even more so next time because Reagan.
- [05:51]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Now the face of the moderates, became Jose Napoleon Duarte, who was elected president in 1984, the first democratically elected government in El salvador since the 1930s. The following year, Duarte visited Reagan's White House.
- [06:07]
Nayib Bukele
We have come far in El Salvador.
- [06:09]
Martin DeCaro
But have yet a long, difficult road to travel.
- [06:12]
Nayib Bukele
The March election reaffirmed the commitment of.
- [06:14]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
My people to a peaceful, democratic solution of our problems. I fully share that commitment.
- [06:20]
Nayib Bukele
But the need to curb foreign intervention.
- [06:24]
Martin DeCaro
Is paramount in our purposes. And those who question our efforts in Central America should take note of the heartwarming process progress that President Duarte has made. The people of El Salvador had another free election in March. Economic reforms are continuing and communist guerrillas are losing ground.
- [06:44]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Duarte tried to stabilize the economy and end the civil war as he wrote a wave of US aid. He failed. Land reform was not realized and the death squads continued their reign of terror. As the far right and far left bloodied each other. Duarte's political, economic and social reforms had little chance of success. But that did not stop the US from claiming victory. Here is Reagan in 1987 at another White House appearance with Duarte.
- [07:11]
Martin DeCaro
It was not that long ago that El Salvador was all but written off by many in this city's circles of power. The communist guerrillas, it was said, were an irresistible force. The cruel tactics of the right could not be thwarted. The cause of democracy was doomed. So they said. Well, the United States Congress came within a few votes of making the predictions of doom a self fulfilling prophecy. Our request for military aid to El Salvador was nearly defeated. That would have left you President Duarte and others who were struggling for democracy, unarmed and defenseless against communist guerrillas who were receiving arms and ammunition through Nicaragua.
- [07:51]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
In 1988, a New York Times op ed carried the headline Reagan's Nightmare in El Salvador. By virtually any measure, it said, El Salvador is worse off economically than in 1980. Despite American aid, unemployment is way up, the gross national product has contract, investment is down and capital has flown. In 1982, the guerrillas were concentrated in five areas. Today they operate in all 14 provinces. And to return to historian Andrea Onate Madrazo. She concludes US Involvement had the effect of weakening civilian political leaders in their attempts to bring the military under civilian control. Now the civil war came to a negotiated end in 1992. Some 70,000 people had been killed. But peace and prosperity did not blossom. For the better part of the next three decades. Salvadoran suffered from more violence, poverty, natural disasters, gang warfare and extortion, and official corruption. Two parties dominated politics, the right wing arena and the left wing Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front, or fmln, the former Marxist guerrillas of the civil war years. All of this set the stage for someone like Nayib Bukele, the self described world's coolest dictator, to break through. And today he and his massive prison are favorites of the Trump administration.
- [09:16]
Martin DeCaro
He has agreed to accept for deportation any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal from any nationality, be they MS.13 or Trindar Agua and house them in his jails. And third, he has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizenship and legal residence. No country's ever made an offer of friendship such as this.
- [09:44]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
One wonders if Secretary of State Marco Rubio has read the Freedom House report on Bukele's El Salvador. Widespread corruption undermines democracy and the rule of law. While the executive has concentrated control over the legislature, judiciary and oversight institutions, authorities maintain a harsh militarized response to public security, resulting in extrajudicial killings, mass arbitrary arrests and other abuses. Members of the active civil society sector and dynamic press risk harassment and violence in connection with their coverage of organized crime, corruption and criticism of government policy. Now, in April, Bukele was welcomed into the Oval Office by President Trump. They lavishly praised one another as the Latin American autocrat bragged about his tough on crime approach.
- [10:34]
Nayib Bukele
They sometimes they say that we imprison thousands. I like to say that we actually liberated millions. So, you know, like, it's very good.
- [10:46]
Martin DeCaro
Who gave him that life?
- [10:47]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Do you think I can use?
- [10:49]
Nayib Bukele
And in fact, in fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.
- [10:59]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
In that clip you heard at the top of the podcast, that was Bukele saying he would not release the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrejo Garcia because he's a terrorist. So despite all this, Bukele is a popular leader in his country. Why? Gema Clope Santa Maria is a sociologist and historian who specializes on violence and crime with a focus on Central America and Mexico. She's an associate research professor of Latin American history at George Washington University and currently lecturer in sociology at University College, Cork in Ireland. Our conversation Next History is defined by.
- [11:39]
Nayib Bukele
The names that stand the test of time. Names that inspire, unite, and and lead.
- [11:44]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Now it's your turn to create a.
- [11:46]
Martin DeCaro
Lasting legacy with a Dot Vote domain.
- [11:48]
Nayib Bukele
Whether you're running for office, driving change, or rallying support, a dot Vote domain ensures your name is as memorable as.
- [11:56]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Those in the history books.
- [11:57]
Nayib Bukele
Visit GoDaddy.com, type in your name, dot vote and secure a web address that stands out. Claim your place in history with Dot.
- [12:05]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Vote hemaklope Santa Maria Welcome.
- [12:10]
Nayib Bukele
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [12:12]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
So when Nayib Bukele appeared in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, that was probably the first time many Americans were introduced to him. Maybe they had heard his name. He'd been president now for a few years. But they're seeing this young, handsome fella sitting next to President Trump who seemed very proud of the fact that he's a dictator. He refers to himself as the world's coolest dictator. Why don't we begin in 2012? That's not that long ago to try to explain this man's meteoric rise in politics and even global politics. He was 31 years old when he was elected mayor of a small town just outside San Salvador. At that point, he was a member of fmln, the National Liberation Front. Farabundo Marti, the left wing party, goes back a long way. How did he get into politics?
- [13:03]
Nayib Bukele
Yes, so Kelly is a fascinating figure. Not to say that it's equally concerning for democracy and for people that follow democracy and human rights in the region. So he has called himself the coolest dictator in the world. In a very recent speech celebrating the second anniversary of his second mandate or his second administration in El Salvador, he said that he didn't care to be called a dictator, that his main concern was with the lives of Salvadorians, and that he rather read newspapers referring to him as a dictator than reading about people being killed in El Salvador. So Bukele, when he becomes mayor of Nova Cozcatlan, he had been a member of the FMLN for a few years, but he hadn't been involved in politics. What he had been doing is that he had been working as a publicist in the company run by his father. So? So he was a very talented publicist. He had been in charge of his father's company, managing the political campaigns of the fmln, including some of the presidential campaigns of the fmln. So he's not someone that you would necessarily characterize as someone that was committed to the leftist revolutionary ideas of the fmln. And he, in many interviews has also said, look, I'm a millennial. I mean, I didn't really live through the civil war. So he doesn't come with that sort of baggage. And I would say in general also, the Bukele family, including his father, who is a very influential figure in his life, don't locate themselves within the left. Strictly speaking, they are part of the FMLN in many ways, because the FMLN represented at the time an opposition party and a party that was opposing the mainstream dominant way of doing politics, which at the time meant arena, no, Amin arena, and the right wing forces in the country. So that's how he comes to politics, via his work as a publicist and how he had come to meet the sort of political language and the ways in which FMLN presented itself to the population, via the use of social media, via the use of political campaigning. And basically, and this is the way he retells the story, apparently when fmln, when they were trying to look for a candidate in the position of Major of Novo Cuscatlan, he said, do you have a candidate already? And when they said no, he was like, well, here I am, I can do it. But I would like to highlight again, he never ran necessarily with a leftist agenda. And actually from the very beginning, what he says is that he is running as a candidate that brings new ideas, where he says that what people need are new paradigms, that the problem of El Salvador are the paradigms, the old paradigms, and the fact that people need to think outside of the box. And from the very beginning also, he starts using the letter N for Nova Cuscatlan represents the end of this town, but it also, you know, represents the end of naive Bukele. So from the very beginning, he has a very, very specific brand that is rather like centered on his Persona and the kind of new ideas that he's bringing, rather than like a hardcore militant of the FMLN or the leftist ideas that the party represents.
- [16:19]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
So when it came to his time as mayor in this little town outside San Salvador, what did he achieve there? Because we've established that he wasn't really much of an ideologue, right? He wasn't a hardcore leftist Marxist. You mentioned he had new ideas. That's actually the name of his new party. The FMLN kicked him out at one point. So how did he approach his job as mayor and what did he achieve.
- [16:42]
Nayib Bukele
He basically focuses on creating a few new infrastructural developments, like he opens up a new clinic, a few new schools. He creates programs dedicated for children and youth, like Focus on Education. He also has a few cash transfers, like giving money to people that are in need. So he does have a populist bent that, again, doesn't necessarily match left or right ideologies. And in every single thing that he does, there is a huge publicity. Again, let's not forget that he's a publicist who he makes sure that every single thing that he does in Novo Cuscatlan gets all the attention. I mean, it goes to social media, it goes through all these channels. It is branded as an accomplishment of Bukele. Now, one thing that he does, aside from these projects of infrastructure and programs for youth and for children, he also focuses on security from very early on in his career. And that, as you know and your listeners know, this will become really like the central piece. This is the brand of his trajectory as a politician, the focus on security. From the very beginning, he says, no Cuscatlan, he's going to resolve the concerns that Salvadorians had there in terms of security and crime, and he pledges that he's going to reduce homicides. Now, Novo Cuscatlan wasn't that violent. As a matter of fact, the municipality had like 12 homicides per year, which is nothing in a country that had historic heights of homicides. Now, we're talking about over 30 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants at that point. So 12 per year is really nothing. But nevertheless, he communicates at the end of his mandate that there was not one single homicide at the end of his mandate in this small locality. So he. He presents that as a huge success. We kind of renew Novo Cuscatlan. Now, Novo Cuscatlan is an example not only of modernity and also infrastructure, but also security.
- [18:37]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
And he becomes mayor of San Salvador, the capital, in 2015, just three years later. So he's very social media savvy. He's results oriented at a time decades after the end of the Civil War in 1992. So we're talking about 10 years ago. This is a time where the people of El Salvador are exhausted by violence, gang violence, corruption, the stranglehold the two main parties, ARENA and fmln, had on politics. So he had good timing, but he also exploited this opportunity for a new way, right?
- [19:13]
Nayib Bukele
Absolutely. We need to understand his presence as someone that is able to communicate something different. He's seen as a fresh figure. I mean, he's young he's telling people that Salvador need to think outside of the box and that he's able to see through the way in which El Salvador can be changed dramatically. That he's referred to as the El Senor de los Suenos, as someone that is able to dream and bring dreams to completion. So he's presented this image of himself as a visionary in San Salvador. He kind of continues with the same sort of strategy that he did in Nocuscatlan, although of course this is the capital of the country. And indeed some of the more traditional leftist members of FMLN were reluctant to accept his candidacy. Bukele comes from a very, very rich and well off family. So he's not your typical leftist that you would imagine comes from marginalized areas.
- [20:10]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
He's not a peasant.
- [20:11]
Nayib Bukele
No, absolutely no. He's not working class. I mean, he comes from a very well off family and he grew up in a very, very privileged family with access to, to a very privileged education in what I would say was like a bubble within a country that was first experiencing civil war and later on very dear economic conditions. So people from the left for the more traditional left said he cannot represent fmln. I mean, he's not even a leftist, he's not working class. How can he connect with the poor? But the more pragmatic factions of the FMLN saw in him an opportunity to gain more presence and to gain more traction for the fmln and that's why they allow him to run. When he was mayor of San Salvador, he sticks to some of the same strategies. So infrastructure projects in San Salvador, the main thing that he does is that he revitalizes the historic center. He also promises that he's going to reduce crime and homicides. And some of this does happen in San Salvador as well. This is the very, very first moment that according to a very respectable investigative journalism in El Salvador, el and also later on other investigations point out, is the first time where he starts dealing with gangs, starts negotiations with gangs. And what did he offer to gangs? He offered them stalls in the New Cuscatlan market. He offered them also some cash in exchange for support or even positions to operate as security guards while he was campaigning.
- [21:41]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
So he got the gangs to agree to stop the violence or curtail the violence in exchange for privileges. So that's one way to fight crime instead of just throwing everybody in prison, which is what he's accused of doing. Now roughly 1% of El Salvador's population is locked up and we'll get to that gulag that he's running down there where people are sent away and where there is torture, where the Trump administration sent somebody wrongfully, you know, became a cause celeb for a short time here in this country. So just to review, he becomes mayor of this small town, nuvo Cuscatlan, in 2012. He's 31 years old. In 2015, he's now mayor of San Salvador. He becomes president in 2019. I did mention his New Ideas Party. That actually comes a little bit later in this story because he's still a member of the FMLN up until 2017, and he gets kicked out of the party. What happened?
- [22:33]
Nayib Bukele
There were some factions of the party that were not so happy with him, that saw that he was promoting his image and not necessarily the image of the political party, and that he was not so much of a team player. Since he was mayor of Novocos Catlan and later of San Salvador, he surrounded himself by family members, previous collaborators. So he didn't pick people from the FMLM party, but people that were close to him that he could trust. But then in 2017, what happened is that as he was mayor of San Salvador, he becomes very upset with members of the city council that do not approve some of the measures that he's trying to push forward in terms of the money that he wanted to invest in these projects. So he becomes increasingly frustrated, and it also becomes increasingly clear for him that the party won't allow him to continue growing his career, becoming the candidates to run for the presidential election in El Salvador. And so he starts basically very, very conscious effort to upset the members of the political party. So he criticizes the president of El Salvador, the first FMLN president that comes to power, calling them names, First Mauricio Funes and then Sanchez Seren as well. He offends, basically the membership of the.
- [23:50]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Fmln, and they break up with him.
- [23:51]
Nayib Bukele
Then it's a crisis that he generated.
- [23:54]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
I mean, it's amazing because he starts his own political party and becomes president of the country, a country, as I mentioned, that's been dominated by just two parties since 1992, 1994. During these years, really going back to the end of the civil war, the country was not peaceful. Even though the war came to a close and negotiated settlement. The 90s were violent. Every decade in El Salvador has been very violent, maybe for different reasons. In the 90s, it was former soldiers, former combatants, and then it became gang members. I did speak to Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker on this podcast last year about his great book, Everyone who is Gone is Here, about the immigration Crisis that one reason why the gang problem, Ms. 13 and some of the others become so severe in El Salvador is that the United States is deporting people back to El Salvador who run these massive gangs now, and they destabilize the country.
- [24:50]
Nayib Bukele
No, absolutely. So the 1990s was a very difficult decade for El Salvador. El Salvador had a very bloody civil war that resulted in over 70,000 people killed. Like thousands disappeared, displaced. So when the 1992 peace accords come, it's a country that basically transitioned to peace, not necessarily because any party won, not because the FMLN had won or because the the military had won, but basically out of exhaustion. So on the one hand, the peace accords did demobilize the fmln. I mean, so the FMLN agreed to.
- [25:23]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Lay down weapons and enter politics and join politics.
- [25:26]
Nayib Bukele
Enter politics, exactly. Becoming a political party. There was a demilitarization of the country or a civilian control over the military. There was a greater commitment to human rights, but there were many, many issues. There was never transitional justice. There was a Truth Commission overseen by the un, but there was basically total amnesty. None of the atrocities committed during the civil war were ever punished and that meant a impunity and then that victims never really had justice.
- [25:55]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
These atrocities were committed largely by the military junta that was running the country, backed by the Reagan administration, targeting the Marxist insurgents of the fmln. However, civilians were routinely massacred during these years. Right. People had nothing to do with the rebels. Right.
- [26:14]
Nayib Bukele
I mean, According to the UN Truth Commission, more or less 85% of all those killings happen at the hands of the military or paramilitary forces, including the very famous death squats that killed thousands of people and indeed innocent people. Some of the greatest atrocities happened against civilians, including the 1981 Mosote massacre, where thousands of unarmed peasants that were evangelical Christians were shot, including the rape and killing of the four US missionaries. The killing in 1980 of Oscar Romero or later on the killing of the Jesuits in 1989. So these were civilians. One of the problems that I would say with the peace first was a large amount of availability of weapons. The country was in very, very bad shape, economically speaking. A country that was devastated by a civil war, with high levels of inequality, with very weak institutions that was just transitioning to democracy. Now. The FMLN only competed in presidential elections in 1994 and lost to Arena. But arena, again, this right wing party that was formed in 1981, that was co founded by Roberto Do Wison, that was one of the members of the death squads and is deemed to be responsible for the killing of Oscar romero. So the 1990s, I wouldn't call this really a transition to democracy, or at the very best, it was a very imperfect transition. I mean, a very fragmented, incomplete transition.
- [27:43]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
There was supposed to be land reform, right? But it was never followed through on.
- [27:47]
Nayib Bukele
I think one of the great, great challenges that El Salvador faces is that all the reforms, including the economic reforms, the economic redistribution that was supposed to happen, the access to justice, the reform of the security forces, all of those fell on the hands of, of people that really didn't have incentives for changing the country because ARENA was still in power. So even though there was a formal transition of peace, those that were responsible, those that were supposed to be the implementers of this peace process, had very little incentives to change. So indeed, inequality was rampant, high inequality, very weak institutions. A society that has been very, very hardly hit by a very bloody civil war. And on top of that, you have this mass deportation. Now, mass deportations in and of themselves wouldn't have produced the sort of like perfect storm that happened. We need to understand the massive deportations in conjunction with these other political socioeconomic circumstances. And then very, very crucially, we need to understand that from the very early 2000s, these tough on crime measures that Bukele has sold as a new policy have been implemented since the early 2000s.
- [29:03]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. It was a left wing government that getting tough on the gangs even before Bukele comes along, because the situation was so dire. You have all these deportations destabilizing El Salvador in this larger context that you explained of economic inequality in the aftermath of the civil war and violence. And that just destabilizes the country and causes what more migration to the United States. So it becomes a cycle.
- [29:29]
Nayib Bukele
Absolutely, absolutely. So you have the implementation of Mandora policies, both by the right and the left. So you start with arena, you have Francisco Flores and then Antonio Saka, both of which promoted like Manodura and then super Manodura policies. And then these were continued by both Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez, including treating these gangs as terrorists. And so these policies, what they do is that these tough on crime policies is basically like a self fulfilled prophecy. They start treating these gangs, all of them without distinction, as threats to security. They start with massive incarcerations, with arbitrary detentions, with criminalization of youth. So any young person that lives in the barrios, that has a certain tattoo is automatically accused of being a gang member. And this massive incarceration next to mass deportations, next to the Socioeconomic conditions that the country faces does create this perfect storm. Back then at the beginning of the 2000s, still sort of like more traditional street gangs. I mean, they were involved in crime, but they did not operate as these more organized crime structures that they eventually become. But by the end of that first decade, they had become transnational, powerful groups that control huge amounts of the territory in El Salvador.
- [30:53]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
These are organized, transnational organized crime organizations.
- [30:58]
Nayib Bukele
That wasn't a natural result of the deportation process, but it was a result of the deportation process in conjunction with how the government responded. I think there was a different way because they were incarcerating basically youth whose involvement in gangs meant merely the fact that they had a tattoo, or at the very best, they had committed a petty crime and they put it in the same prison with someone that had committed an homicide or someone that was in charge of running a. A protection racket. So then it became indeed a major problem.
- [31:28]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
So what happens to a young person in that climate? They become a hardened criminal.
- [31:33]
Nayib Bukele
And also it reinforces identity because in many cases, they incarcerated them in different prisons. That also increased their sense of identity, that increased their capability of organizing more hierarchically, learning how to follow instructions. And then it also hardened the gang's rule in terms of both involvement in the gang and then exiting the gang. And gangs became more predatory. Like gangs used to be a little bit more respectful of the neighborhoods. There were certain crimes that they wouldn't commit. Whereas later on, when the government basically declares a war on gangs, the gangs respond in the language of war as well. Arming themselves better, being more predatory, applying violence against each other and against state security forces, but also against civilians.
- [32:17]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
There's always been a lot of migration from El Salvador to the United States. But people may remember about 10 years ago, the unaccompanied minor issue was during Obama's time. It was around 2014. At this time, Bukele is still the mayor of a small town. He's not quite mayor of San Salvador yet. The unaccompanied miners showing up at the southern border, they were fleeing all this mayhem, Their parents sending them out of the country to escape the horrors that you were just describing there.
- [32:44]
Martin DeCaro
While we intend to do the right.
- [32:46]
Nayib Bukele
Thing by these children, their parents need to know that this is an incredibly.
- [32:52]
Martin DeCaro
Dangerous situation and it is unlikely that.
- [32:56]
Nayib Bukele
Their children will be able to stay. And I've asked parents across Central America.
- [33:01]
Martin DeCaro
Not to put their children in harm's.
- [33:03]
Nayib Bukele
Way in this fashion.
- [33:09]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
The first three people presidents after the end of the civil war are Arena, Armando Calderon, Francisco Flores and Tony Saka. And then you finally get an FLMN President Mauricio Funes in 2009, followed by Salvador Sanchez in 2014. Bukele becomes president in 2019. And he's quite popular. He was until recently. I think his popularity rating has dropped a little bit because of the abuses of civil rights and human rights in El Salvador. So how does he do it? How is he able to break through the stranglehold these two parties have on politics in 2019?
- [33:45]
Nayib Bukele
I would say that he starts to take measures very quickly after he takes over power. So again, he's elected in 2019. And then in February 2020 is one of the first signs of how his government is going to operate. So in 2020 he stages this takeover of the legislature with military and police like in full gear.
- [34:06]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
And he sends the army in, right.
- [34:09]
Nayib Bukele
In protest of the fact that legislators had not approved 100 million budget that he had proposed in order to improve security. Even though that act of intimidation at that moment didn't yield results and it led to some critics, it does set the stage what was coming after.
- [34:27]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Let me ask you though, Hema, did he run on a promise to be, to be an autocrat, a dictator?
- [34:33]
Nayib Bukele
No, he didn't. I mean, I think he ran on a campaign that said traditional parties have failed Salvadorians. I'm someone that is an outsider, even though, as we have discussed, he's not an outsider, he comes from the fmln. But he manages to present himself as a fresh voice, as someone that kind of like thinks outside the box. And he does promise Salvadorians security. And if you look at polls, the main, main concern for Salvadorians was security was the high homicide rates that people were experiencing. I mean, we're talking about El Salvador was one of the most, most violent countries in Latin America. Measured by homicides. We are talking about an homicide rate of over 80 per 100,000 inhabitants. Homicide rate. Just to give an idea, the United States has a homicide rate around 6 or 7 per 100,000 inhabitants. And just to give you an idea of how this has drastically changed on their bukele right now I can talk more about the problems of these statistics, but right now the homicide rate is around two homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. So it's a really, really, really drastic change.
- [35:38]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
I guess if you throw everybody in prison in addition to the murderers, you know, you'll sweep up some innocent people, but you're guaranteed to get all the bad people too, I guess. I mean, you mentioned some of these stats may be manipulated a little Bit. But there's no question that the violence has come down.
- [35:52]
Nayib Bukele
Homicides have a lot of problems, I mean, as an indicator. And also the statistics might be manipulated. They don't count, for instance, bodies that are found in clandestine graves. They do not count killings perpetrated by the military or the police. But if we look at victimization rates from independent surveys, like America's barometer in EL Salvador, only 10% of people said that they were victims of a crime in the last 12 months. So that means, yes, it has succeeded to secure people's sense of security, but a very, very high cost, no, for democracy and human rights.
- [36:23]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Bukele seems to follow the modern authoritarian playbook after he becomes president. Orban in Hungary is another one who's done something similar. Right. Very media savvy. Also, his party does very well in the legislative elections. Talking about Bukele here. And then he starts to make it very difficult for anyone else to win power after he wins it legitimately. And he also stuffs the judiciary with loyal judges. Right. So he comes to power through legitimate means. But then once he's in that position, he makes it very difficult to dislodge him and his people.
- [36:59]
Nayib Bukele
Absolutely. So in 2021, his political party, Nova CDAs, wins a super majority. And with that supermajority, they are able to oust the five judges of the Supreme Court, the general prosecutor, who by the way, was investigating him precisely because. Because of some of these dealings that he had with gangs. So they are able to exclude them. So now he has control over the legislature, he has control over the judicial power. He eventually takes control over the electoral system as well. The latest and most important step that he has taken as an autocrat is the state of exception or the state of emergency that he declares in 2022.
- [37:38]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
That's right. They've been living under an emergency situation now for three years, but it's supposed.
- [37:43]
Nayib Bukele
To be like a very short term, only six months type of measure when some of the most basic rights, including people rights to assembly are eliminated. People are incarcerated and detained in quite arbitrary conditions and indefinitely. So this has been extended ever since. And I think these emergency measures are what have kept him right now in power. He doesn't allow media, for instance, to talk about gangs. The media faces repercussions if they talk about gangs, because that's also considered like a security threat. So little by little, like if the media.
- [38:17]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
I'm sorry, if the media talks about gangs, that's a security threat.
- [38:21]
Nayib Bukele
Right. So he basically put a gag on the media so if local media report on gangs in a way that supposedly reveals information that is considered a threat to the security of the country, so he's able to go against.
- [38:38]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
He's the one who determines that, though it seems rather arbitrary. So it's no wonder Donald Trump admires this man. Just recently, the Trump administration talked about possibly suspending the writ of habeas corpus, which protects people from being unlawfully imprisoned. So tell us a little bit about this gulag it's been called this massive, massive maximum security prison known as Sekater Cecot. How long has this been around and is there any way to get out of there once you've been thrown inside?
- [39:10]
Nayib Bukele
This secot basically was created around the state of emergency that Bukele declared, and it's a maximum security prison. Many of the people that are there, or most of the people that are there haven't been trialed.
- [39:26]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Charged.
- [39:26]
Nayib Bukele
Charged, exactly. They haven't been charged. Many of them have died without having been accused of a crime. So this is a place of indefinite detention. People that are in will never see the light again. Or that's the premise. They are incarcerated indefinitely. Some of them are supposed to face mass trials, which is unheard of in El Salvador. Or what is left of any appearance of democracy is gone with this. In all the sort of investigations that have been done by both international and local media, the security officials that work with government very openly say that people will never get out, that will never get out a permanent confinement. There is not any criminal investigation that determines their membership to gangs. Even if they would be members of gang, they haven't been charges pressed against them. So they are being held under the suspicion of having committed a crime. So the presumption of innocence has been violated bravely in El Salvador.
- [40:27]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
I was reading articles to prepare to talk to you about the demise of El Salvador's democracy. Well, El Salvador's democracy has been in a lot of trouble since the end of the civil war for a lot of reasons we didn't even get to here today. Economics, neoliberalism, globalization, hurricanes and earthquakes that have caused lots of damage and further migration out of the country. But it's pretty clear to me now, whatever the problems of the past, that El Salvador is not a democracy any longer.
- [40:55]
Nayib Bukele
Absolutely no. El Salvador is not a democracy anymore. It's an authoritarian regime indeed, as has happened in other contexts, for instance in Nicaragua, in the neighboring country of Nicaragua, run by Ortega, Murillo, these type of leaders that come through the electoral ballot but then eliminate any checks and balances Eliminate any opposition, any political opposition. The level of harassment to political dissidents, to opponents, to critics, human rights organizations, journalists. Bukele has dismantled democracy in El Salvador. Now, we do need to understand, according to a couple of recent polls, his popularity is still quite high. He was reelected last year with 85% or so of approval. And both these recent polls that came out say that he has over 80% of approval in El Salvador still, despite the human rights violations, including one by galup.
- [41:50]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
Well, so he must be then delivering on other fronts. I mean, we're focusing on somewhat abstract ideas about democracy, but they're not really abstract. He's basically made a political opposition impossible on the country economically, other areas he must be delivering.
- [42:05]
Nayib Bukele
So I think if there has been any beginning of discontent in El Salvador has to do with economic reasons, with some of the unkept promises of his regime. And in a very recent speech that he gave, he said that, he said, economically speaking, we're not yet where we should be. But he again goes to the point of saying to the Salvadorians, but you live with freedom now. Your lives are secure. And now, of course, we need to understand that this is something that many scholars have called punitive populism. Democracy or populism used to be about delivering economic goods. Now it is about delivering punishment for those that are deemed to be criminals. And so we are creating this idea that those people that are behind bars, those people that are in secot, must have done something wrong. So there is a lot of approval for this because people feel that it doesn't impact them. And that, again, what we have talked about, democracy, it was never a reality for Salvadorians. Arena and FMLN never really represented the interest of the people in a country highly, highly, highly unequal, economically speaking, and also with high levels of violence, sense, democracy doesn't mean anything. And so now they have something that in their minds is giving them, quote, unquote, freedom.
- [43:27]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
And when gangs have so much power, how can you call it a democracy? In the past. So, you know, I have discussed this issue with past guests, and that is, you know, how much do people really care about civil rights compared to other more material or tangible concerns? And, you know, in the United States, we talk about our freedom all the time, and the founding fathers and the bill of rights and the declaration of independence and equality, but a lot of people just pay lip service to that. And when it comes to civil rights and human rights, they want it for themselves. But when it comes to sending away these other troublemakers over here or people who speak differently or look differently over there? Well, if they're in trouble, they must have done something wrong, right? I don't really think people care about civil rights as much as they do other things or as much as they claim to care about them. And I guess we're seeing that in El Salvador. If this man is as popular as you're saying he is, he has been.
- [44:21]
Nayib Bukele
Able to capitalize discontent and the disenchantment that exists in El Salvador with democracy, with procedural democracy. And that again, is not just El Salvador, but a lot of Latin American countries face disenchantment with democracy because democracy has been little more that procedural democracy. It has not been substantive democracy. It hasn't delivered economic social rights. It hasn't delivered security. It hasn't delivered an end to violence. Even though civil wars are supposed to be a thing of the past. We actually turned the Murder Capital of the world that was the journalist call it Right Murder Capital of the World into the safest country in the Western hemisphere. And you know, if sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands, I like to say that we actually liberated millions.
- [45:15]
Gema Clope Santa Maria
On the next two episodes of History As It Happens, I'll be at the Army War College and Heritage center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to check out their brand new exhibit at their museum on the 250th birthday of the US Army. And I'll also look into what that institution teaches colonels and lieutenant colonels about grand strategy in the world today. Two episodes from the Army War College and Heritage center. And I'll have plenty of photos and videos to go along the podcasts and my weekly newsletter. You can stay posted by following History As It Happens on Facebook or go to Substack and search for History as it Happens to sign up for my free weekly newsletter that comes out every Friday.
- [45:56]
Nayib Bukele
Friday.