The Salvadoran social movement coalition known as the Bloque de Resistencia y Rebeldía Popular (Popular Resistance and Rebellion Bloc) issued a statement yesterday, March 28, condemning the recent wave of homicides in El Salvador as well as the State of Exception that was decreed in its wake by President Bukele. The statement is translated here by CISPES, with suggestions for further reading below. 

"The Bloque Bloque de Resistencia y Rebeldía Popular condemns in the strongest possible terms the wave of murders that the country is experiencing, as well as the approval of the State of Exception, which was published on Sunday, March 27, in the Official Gazette.

For three years, Nayib Bukele has been playing with the security and fear of the Salvadoran people in order to secure financial resources and bolster his image. Let’s remember that funding for the Territorial Control Plan was the justification for the military takeover of the Legislative Assembly on February 9, 2020.

Everyone knows that the Bukele administration has been negotiating with organized crime and gangs since the beginning of its term. A series of negotiations with gang leaders–arranged by the General Director of the Criminal Center, Osiris Luna, and the Director of Reconstruction of the Social Fabric of the Presidency, Carlos Marroquin–have been well documented and denounced. For this reason, when homicides and femicides rise drastically at the national level, the people rightly wonder if it is due to a breach of the pact or to a directive from the Executive.

Last Saturday, March 26, a total of 62 murders were recorded from different parts of the country. The next day, Sunday, March 27, the population woke up to the news of a “State of Exception,” approved in a session held in the middle of the night by legislators subservient to Bukele. This is the second suspension of Constitutional guarantees in the three years of misgovernment by this regime.

The Bukele administration is responsible for the increase in homicides–whether by omission or commission. The administration is the true "dark force" that the president denounces for the terrifying murders of last weekend.

The State of Exception is an instrument of repression and social control, which limits the Constitutional rights of association/assembly, defense, and inviolability of correspondence and telecommunications, and extends the period of provisional detention. It is a tool to criminalize the opposition that has been organizing against the dictatorship. It does nothing to stop the wave of murders. The famous "Territorial Control Plan" is just a propaganda slogan.

The Bloque de Resistencia y Rebeldía Popular stands in solidarity with the victims of violence and their families, categorically rejects the State of Exception, and calls on the Salvadoran people to demand our right to security–without political persecution, abuse of power, or imprisonment for political reasons.

El Salvador, March 27, 2022"

For further reading on the State of Exception (in Spanish): 

Bukele's Assembly suspends Constitutional rights to stop rebound in homicides, from news outlet, Revista GatoEncerrado. 

Human rights violations are expected in the next 30 days, from the Central American University, José Simeón Cañas.

After the State of Exception? The need for a true public policy in matters of security, from the Study Foundation for the Application of the Law (FESPAD)

In English

Is Bukele's Gang Truce Unraveling? from news outlet El Faro. 

El Salvador: State of Exception Contradicts International Human Rights Standards, from WOLA.