What does NRC think | Ikon judgment is justice, but that does not make El Salvador an exemplary rule of law yet

Although it has had to take 43 years, it is too cheering that a judge in El Salvador has punished the controversial murders on Vier Ikon journalists, in 1982. A court jury unanimously ruled on Tuesday that a former Colonel, Minister of Defense and Police Chief then helped the fatal army nuisance layer, in which the Dutch four died when the Civil War reported in the Central American country.

For the relatives of Hans ter Laag, Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper and Joop Willemsen concludes this judgment for a decades -long fight for entitlement. During the dragging judgment, other suspects died and two of the three very elderly convicts will no longer turn into the cell, while a third has been hiding in the US for years. But thanks to this verdict, at least they go into the grave as convicted murderers.

The fact that the harrowing impunity in this case has come to an end, does not yet make El Salvador an exemplary rule of law. On the contrary: it is precisely in recent years that the country has slipped from a frightened democracy to an authoritarian -led police state under the leadership of a man who promotes himself as ‘the world’s coolest dictator’.

Nayib Bukele has been president since May 2019 and in those six years he first put both the legislative and the judiciary to his hands. He then proclaimed a state of emergency in the fight against Bendegeweld. Below are tens of thousands of people, with hardly access to court. In violation of the Constitution, he went up for a second term at the beginning of 2024, which he won in a convincing way: many Salvadorans appreciate the recovered safety in some years the country with the highest murder figure in the world.

This Bukele model-less civil freedoms in exchange for safety-has since made school in the Latin America-ravaged Latin America. Throughout the region, citizens say they want « someone like Bukele » and promise to copy his approach and also en masse to lock up in extra secure mega prisoners.

Donald Trump also recognized the appeal of that promise. Shortly after his appointment, his government concluded an agreement to turn nearly three hundred migrants to El Salvador. Although not all of them are certain that they are gang members, as Washington claims, they ended up in Bukeles controversial Cecot. Images of their deportation and detention served as propaganda material.

The safety with which Bukele makes an international decorative is actually the result of a shadowy deal. His reign threw it at a secret agreement with the top of the most important gangs. In exchange for personal releases, these leaders did not revolt when their foot soldiers were picked up en masse.

The gangs in El Salvador are a direct legacy of the armed conflict whose IKON team reported at the time. Bukele has only raised a facade of safety and made the entire population as a prisoner. Without me, he threatens, the violence will return in no time. Human rights activists or journalists who highlight the returns of this policy are chased or prosecuted the country. Although El Salvador is no longer in international interest, such as during the Cold War, this deserves more attention.

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