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What El Salvador's Bukele, a hero for the American right, isn't showing the world [View all]
By Kate Linthicum
Staff Writer
May 18, 2025 3 AM PT
APOPA, El Salvador — Victor Barahona was grateful when soldiers started rounding up gang members who had long terrorized this working-class city. No longer would his grandchildren pass drug deals or be startled from sleep by the crack of gunfire.
But when El Salvador’s military started hauling away neighbors Barahona knew had no connection to the gangs, he spoke out, criticizing the arrests on his community radio program.
Soon after, police rapped on his door. Barahona said he was handcuffed and sent to prison, with no access to lawyers, no contact with family and no clear sense of the charges against him.
He recalls seeing inmates being tortured and guards hauling bodies from cells while he lived on meager portions of noodles and beans. He would later lodge a complaint with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
When he was released almost a year later — 70 pounds lighter, and with no explanation — Barahona was alarmed to see that President Nayib Bukele was winning global praise for bringing peace and prosperity to El Salvador, with his iron-fist security strategy heralded by American conservatives such as President Trump.
More:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-05-18/el-salvadors-millennial-dictator-disappeared-thousands-but-quashed-gangs-how-long-will-his-popularity-last
Or:
https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-05-18/el-salvadors-millennial-dictator-disappeared-thousands-but-quashed-gangs-how-long-will-his-popularity-last
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