Everyone has their own way of killing fleas…
As the implementation of a public security strategy radically different from that followed mainly in Mexico and for which Nayib Bukele is reaping abundant fruits, according to the preliminary results of the elections held in El Salvador, in which he went ahead to proclaim himself the winner with 85 percent in favor of the vote and which also ensures him an overwhelming majority in the Assembly, boasting of having “broken all the records of all democracies in world history” and further emboldened by affirming popular support to continue in the Same way. There is no doubt that the success is mainly attributed to the heavy-handed measures against the gangs that devastated Salvadoran society, making the country one of the most dangerous places in the world, but they are also highly discussed by national and international institutions. who focus their criticism on the impact they have on the violation of human rights.
Various sources mention, including the Central American University (UCA), that in 2015 El Salvador observed one of the highest crime rates in Latin America, reaching the scandalous figure of one hundred (100) intentional homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants, while Currently, in the Bukele era, official data registers seven point eight (7.8) homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants in 2022, with a downward trend.
This, contrasted with the results reported by the INEGI with respect to Mexico where: in 2015 there were twenty-eight (28) homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants, in 2018 twenty-nine (29) homicides per one hundred thousand inhabitants and in 2022, twenty-six point eleven (26.11) for every hundred thousand inhabitants, the difference in effectiveness between the strategies is immediately obvious.
Of course, the problem of crime in El Salvador and Mexico is much more complex and differentiated, since their specific circumstances are mainly due to socioeconomic factors that in each country their government is trying to counteract according to its “best knowledge and understanding.” On the one hand, indiscriminately hitting everything that moves, in clear violation of human rights, overcrowding the prisons and building new ones to house more “guests”, reaching to date the rate of six hundred and ten (610) prisoners per hundred thousand inhabitants and increasing, unlike in Mexico, the ruling of “hugs not bullets” prevails as a public policy to combat organized crime, with zero effectiveness and clearly counterproductive, according to some voices qualified as experts and whose implementation has stimulated the territorial advance of criminal groups that proliferate rapidly. In both cases, the permanent violation of legitimately valid laws is observed, under the argument that all their actions, even those that involve crimes, are supported by the people who endorse them with their vote.
In both countries, collateral damage is increasing among increasingly broader sectors, either due to the arbitrary acts that are committed daily in El Salvador under the pretext of combating crime head-on or due to the inaction of the Mexican authority to properly contain effective targeting of organized crime groups. The dilemma is
“…with bullets or let it happen let it happen”
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