Summary
El Salvador ended 2024 with a record low 114 homicides, equivalent to 1.9 per 100,000 people, making it the safest country in the Western Hemisphere according to President Nayib Bukele.
The drop follows two years under a state of emergency aimed at eradicating gang violence, granting authorities sweeping powers but limiting civil rights.
Over 83,000 arrests have been made, though 354 detainees reportedly died in custody.
While criticized for human rights violations, Bukele’s crackdown has drastically improved security, boosting his popularity.
On the one hand, Bukele is basically installing an authoritarian dictatorship here, so can we even trust these numbers? And the real big fish criminals are probably in cahoots with the regime. And of course people are getting eaten up by an inhumane, classist system that is producing a lost generation. So fuck all that.
On the other hand however, the previous situation was indeed unlivable. It was like living in the purge every day, with people living under the thumb of petty gangsters. And I’m really struggling to come up with an example of a nation coming back from this kind of collapse without some kind of Terror, in the Jacobin sense.
Like, sometimes a state of exception, a state of emergency is actually justified, and the state needs to re-establish the monopoly on violence. If Claudia Sheinbaum went Bukele against the Cartels in the north for example, would she really not be justified?
definitely numbers to take with a grain of salt. but by accounts from people living there, the difference is noticable even if it’s not as high as what the government says. even tourism has had a huge uptick because people actually feel pretty safe going there now.
You can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs
you can’t make a tomlette without cracking a few Greggs