After a dramatic spike in killings right here over a single weekend final month, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s response was swift — and excessive.
He despatched troopers into poor neighborhoods to spherical up 1000’s of people that he claimed had been gang members, then paraded them in entrance of stories cameras of their underwear and handcuffs.
He tweeted footage of detainees who had been bruised and bloodied by safety forces, suggesting they “possibly fell” or “had been consuming fries with ketchup.”
And he began feeding the nation’s prisoners two meals a day as an alternative of three, warning that if violence continued, “I swear to God that they gained’t eat a single grain of rice.”
It’s a distinct search for Bukele, who has been centered in latest months on presenting himself to the world as a contemporary tech innovator on a quest to show El Salvador right into a cryptocurrency paradise.