As Salvadorans this weekend mark 40 years since nearly 1,000 rural villagers were murdered in El Mozote and nearby hamlets by troops from an elite U.S.-trained army unit, the pursuit of justice by survivors and victims’ families is being threatened by El Salvador’s right-wing president—who critics say is trying to derail the prosecution of the massacres’ perpetrators in a bid to protect the armed forces and solidify his power.
Even as somber ceremonies were held to commemorate those slain in the deadliest mass killing in modern Latin American history, President Nayib Bukele was accused of demagoguery and disrespect after he showed up in El Mozote Friday without consulting local residents, accompanied by soldiers from the same army that committed the massacre.
The 40-year-old populist president, who is often seen wearing a leather jacket and backward baseball cap, has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator.” He’s widely known outside his country for making Bitcoin legal tender; however, inside El Salvador he has stoked fears of a return to authoritarianism with a series of policies and actions that have alarmed human rights defenders at home and abroad.
Earlier this year, Bukele’s allies in the Legislative Assembly summarily fired the attorney general and all the judges in the Supreme Court of Justice’s constitutional chamber.
— source commondreams.org | Brett Wilkins | Dec 11, 2021