Update from La Libertad and San Vicente

Last Friday, president Nayib Bukele established a sanitary cordon in La Libertad. People were not allowed to leave their houses not even to purchase food. This was criticized by several people:

 

The lawyer and former Minister of Security, Francisco Bertrand Galindo, wrote that if the siege in La Libertad is true, it is “illegal, arbitrary and has nothing sanitary”, but rather is a visceral punishment.

For Erika Saldaña, a constitutional lawyer, the sanitary cordon is a suspension of rights with no Exception Regime to support it.

The Executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, José Miguel Vivanco, agreed, explaining that it was a punishment by Bukele to the town, in addition, he described the measure as disproportionate and a Human Rights violation.

Jeannette Aguilar, researcher on security issues, explained that the measure was not a sanitary cordon, but rather —it is in practice— a curfew with no epidemiological basis.

 

People from the area also reported abuses, such as beating of people who were in charge of running the local water system.

 

People also showed their discontent by using the hashtag “BukeleDictador” on Twitter and making it a trending topic.

 

Some people also mentioned that, due to the living conditions in the area, people were still going out to sell or even to go to the bank agency to get their $300 USD provided by the government itself. This fund, as stated by the Ministry of Treasure, Nelson Fuentes, will no longer be provided. They are planning to give food instead.

The sanitary cordon was removed last night, as informed by Bukele on Twitter.

 

Another one was put in place today (April 20) near the center of San Salvador by mayor Ernesto Muyshondt, someone who people expect will switch to the Nuevas Ideas party at the 2021 elections. Muyshondt informed this on Sunday night on Twitter.

Bukele tweeted this a little later:

La mayoría de alcaldes de nuestro país le darán la espalda a las cúpulas partidarias y sus financistas.

Se quedaron solos en su estrategia de incrementar los contagios, para luego culpar al Gobierno.

Ningún alcalde querrá eso para su municipio. Ese factor no lo calcularon.

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 20, 2020

“Most mayors of our country will turn their backs on party leaders and their funders. They are alone in their strategy to increase contagions, and then blame the government. No mayor will want that for their municipality. They did not calculate that factor”.

 

In the middle of this power struggle, our friends from CRIPDES SUR and CRIPDES SAN VICENTE prepared bags of food (and cleaning supplies in San Vicente’s case) for families that did not receive government funds.

 

 

We want to support these efforts and we are still coordinating the process. In the meantime, we ask you to remember this if you are receiving a stimulus check and you are able to donate a part of this to our friends from rural El Salvador.
We will be contacting you very soon.