Families from Guajoyo facing eviction as the government opens new prison in the area

Last night, president Bukele broadcasted a pre-recorded video to showcase the new prison in Tecoluca, San Vicente.

BBC Mundo writes:

In the midst of an exception regime that restricts individual liberties, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced on Tuesday night the inauguration of a prison called the “Confinement center for Terrorism.”

…

In the country with the highest rate of prison population in the world, the prison complex will have the capacity to house thousands of inmates in the context of what the Salvadoran government describes as a “war” against crime that began in March of last year.

This prison “will have space for 40,000 terrorists, who will be cut off from the outside world,” Bukele had previously stated in a message posted on Twitter in July, although the capacity of the building is believed to be greater.

 

The Minister of Public Works, Romeo Rodríguez, said that this would be “the largest prison in all of America” and that “it would be impossible for an inmate to leave” the compound, with its 23 hectares of construction that will be guarded by some 600 soldiers and 250 policemen (DW)

 

In the meantime, YSUCA reports a reality that affects our friends from rural Guajoyo, also in Tecoluca.

 

A judge from Tecoluca, San Vicente, ruled in favor of Arsenio Molina, who claims some land located in the Guajoyo community.

The judge ordered the eviction of 178 families, despite the fact that they have deeds from the National Registration Center. They obtained them through the land transfer program, after the signing of the Peace Accords, said César Cañas, spokesman for the affected.

The former owners sold the properties to Arsenio Molina, who benefited from the resolution. The ruling affects the families of the Guajoyo community, which in the opinion of Cañas, is unfair.

 

The families that must evict their lands have no other place to live and, after the resolution, they fear a forced eviction by the Police.

 

After the arrest of the Santa Marta leaders, accusing them of connection with criminals, people are afraid of the government’s response if they fight for their rights. Nevertheless, they released a statement which says:

From (the moment the lands were distributed) we began an organizational process and community work to meet the basic needs of the population: drinking water, neighborhood roads, homes, schools, electricity, communal house, clinic, and productive activities of short, medium and long term. At the same time, we organized ourselves to protect our environment: forests, rivers and the fauna in the area (…) due to this fact, we have been victims of persecution, arbitrary capture of young people, in recent days, raids in some houses and with the authorization of the Ministry of the Environment the extraction of exorbitant amounts of sand from the Lempa River for commercial purposes.

(…)

We want to make it clear that, just as we fought to conquer the lands we have today, at the cost of sacrifice, sweat, blood and lives, with the same force we are willing to defend it and we will not cede even an inch of land from our houses and our community infrastructure.

 

While this unfold, this administration remains popular and any conversation about basic human rights is twisted on social media as advocacy for criminals and against honest, hard-working population:

Romeo Auerbach: "Me preocupa que el Rector de una importante Universidad del país diga que le estremece ver las celdas del nuevo Centro de Confinamiento y que no le haya estremecido ver la realidad de los salvadoreños sometidos por las pandillas"https://t.co/fGby4fLdVj pic.twitter.com/rKmKBRNjQD

— netolopezradio (@netolopezradio) February 2, 2023