22 sats \ 9 replies \ @knorozov 19 Mar \ parent \ on: Homicide rate in El Salvador: The Justice of Bukele? charts
You know he was mayor of San Salvador 2015-2018?
I didn't know that. So, is the story that the decline in national murder rate was driven by his cleaning up crime in the city and then he gets elected nationally to continue those policies?
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No, Bukele wasn't really elected on an anti-gang platform, but on anti-corruption. The presidents before him made treaties with the gangs to keep the homicide rates at politically acceptable levels, while keeping crime out of the “good neighborhoods.”
The gangs always used murder and large-scale attacks as a political tactic to influence the government (in the USA we would call this "domestic terrorism"). When they tried this under Bukele's administration, and killed 80+ Salvadorans in multiple attacks over a single day, he issued a state of emergency and deployed the military to (finally) end them.
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Ok, but is he credited for the decline in murders that happened while he was mayor?
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The decline in murders that happened while he was mayor of San Sal (the capitol city) was a very relative thing. It was relative to the absolute murder storm in 2015, when the city and really whole nation was paralyzed for a while under waves of attacks, but murders didn't decline to anything near what a functional nation could consider acceptable. El Salvador at the time was simply not a functional nation, though.
Ever see The Wire?
Politicians in Baltimore, just like politicians in El Salvador, gamed the murder rate to maintain their credibility. The murder rate would drop when the governments made agreements with the gang leaders, and that's why it "dropped" under Sanchez Ceren. However, the gangs still held power over Salvadoran neighborhoods during those truces, and still murdered each other and people who wouldn't pay them "rent" (extortion).
The guy I work with in El Salvador was paying almost half his $700/month salary to MS-13, for the entire period I've worked with him (since 2007) and would've been killed if he'd refused to pay, truce or no truce—he just wouldn't been added to the "acceptable murder rate" statistics.
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That all makes sense, but I think one of the things @Undisciplined is wondering about is if the popular perception is that Bukele was responsible for a decline in murder rate, both before he was elected President, and after? Does he get credit for more than what happened during his presidency?
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He's only credited in El Salvador with shutting down the Maras during his presidency, i.e., in the last few years. Salvadorans don't actually give a shit about the "declining murder rate" in 2016/2017/2018 because they were still being killed (it was only declining relative to 2015) and because they hated the government for negotiating treaties with the gangs instead of actually dealing with them.
Since Bukele actually dealt with them, he's credited for that.
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Also, the last president, Ceren, is up on corruption charges.
Just like the president before him, who fled the country years ago.
And just like the president before that one https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/el-salvador-police-arrest-former-president-tony-saca-n675656
And just like the president before that one https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29288915.
Yes that's correct @Undisciplined, @elvismercury—every Salvadoran present over the last 20 years has been charged with corruption, arrested, or fled the country to avoid the same. Salvadoran people think Funes faked his death to avoid arrest and is living large somewhere 🤷
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Damn, that's bleak.
Thanks, that is what I'm trying to understand.
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