U.N. Critical of El Salvador's Gloves-Off Approach to Street Gangs.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
As it prepares for next month's parliamentary and municipal elections, El Salvador is grappling with some timely diplomatic challenges. Buffeted by a series of decidedly undiplomatic remarks from US President Donald Trump, the tiny country is also taking heat from the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), albeit for very different reasons.
In recent months, the UN agency, based in Geneva, Switzerland, has dispatched a number of envoys (including, for the first time, the OHCHR head) to take a first-hand look at the Central American nation's heavy-handed crackdown on violent street gangs, known locally as maras or pandillas. And in each case, the officials have reached similar conclusions: that while the maras are clearly a menace to Salvadoran society, authorities should show more restraint in how they tackle the problem.
Of particular concern are the so-called medidas extraordinarias (emergency measures) that the government of President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a guerrilla commander during El Salvador's civil war (1980-1992), introduced in 2016 to tighten control over imprisoned gang members. Among other things, the measures restrict visiting rights for convicted pandilleros (gang members), allow certain prisoners to be held in isolation, and prohibit inmates from leaving prisons even for court dates (NotiCen, May 26, 2016).
Following a visit to El Salvador last November, the high commissioner himself, Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein, said that because of the temporary rules-changes, thousands of inmates are being subjected to "prolonged and isolated detention under truly inhumane conditions." He urged Sanchez Ceren to end the emergency measures--which the Asamblea Legislativa (AL), El Salvador's unicameral legislature, overwhelming opted to renew last year--and grant outside rights groups access to the country's prison facilities
The government ignored the call, and on Jan. 25 formally petitioned the AL to again renew the measures. That same day, another OHCHR envoy, Agnes Callamard of France, the UN rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, began her own fact-finding mission in El Salvador. In a press conference nearly two weeks later, at the conclusion of her visit, Callamard called the emergency measures "illegal," saying they violate various international treaties to which El Salvador is a party and should be ended immediately.
"The appalling conditions I witnessed can't be explained by security...
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