El Salvador's War on MS-13: Nayib Bukele Goes Hard

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since 2019, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has smashed the country’s two main gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, throwing almost 80,000 people into megaprisons and implementing a harsh but effective “state of exception,” aka martial law. Murder rates have plummeted and, for the first time in years, Salvadorans can live without the fear of violence, extortion, or death. But the sneaker-wearing “world’s coolest dictator” has also gerrymandered El Salvador’s political map, silenced the press, and packed out the judiciary with sycophants and wallflowers. And as human rights NGOs cry foul, Bukele has gone full-tilt, telling citizens not to call him a dictator, but a “philosopher king.” Is his fragile peace about to come crashing down? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	March 27, 2022, in the Central American state of El Salvador, a Sunday, the day of rest for
0:07.7	this Catholic majority nation of 6.3 million people.
0:11.6	But just as it's been for decades, there's no rest at all for those
0:14.5	caught in the crosshairs of El Salvador's brutal omnipresent street gangs.
0:18.7	Barrio Dieseo and Mada Salvatrucha or MS-13. And on this particular Sunday, they're not just
0:26.2	hell-bent on money-making violence. This time is political. See, the homicide rate in El Salvador had been dropping, fast.
0:35.0	And not just since the 2019 election of Salvadoran President Naid Bukale,
0:39.0	an enigmatic millennial strong man with a poncheon as much for self-importance as hair gel.
0:45.1	But Buekele had swept to power on a promise to slash El Salvador's homicide rate.
0:50.1	And that is exactly what he's done.
0:52.3	From almost 2,400 in 2019
0:54.9	to under half that in 2021.
0:58.2	Some folks have been sounding the alarm about Buekle's dictatorial tendencies,
1:02.4	from stacking the judiciary and piling
1:04.6	sovereign wealth into Bitcoin to stuff a bit more on the nose like calling himself
1:09.5	the dictator Ma's cool de la Mundo Mundial the coolest dictator in the world. dictator,
1:13.8	call del Mundo Mundial, the coolest dictator in the world.
1:15.4	But most Salvadorans don't care.
1:17.5	They're just happy they're not living under constant threat of extortion,
1:20.8	violence or death.
1:23.8	But in recent months, Buekelli's relationship to the gangs
1:26.5	has been exposed as something a little less combative
	...

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