Everything that is wrong in El Salvador
In a July article, El Faro reporters alleged that a unit of the Salvadoran Police Reaction Group (GRP) massacred eight unarmed people at San Blas, a coffee farm in La Libertad, on March 26. They claimed that the official version put forward by the police was not supported by four witnesses or any other evidence. There was no shootout between gang members and police. Instead the eight individuals were killed execution-style.
After having killed seven alleged gang members, the GRP knocked on Dennis' door. Dennis was a young man who worked on the farm. Dennis was on the phone with the farm's overseer, his Uncle Chus, asking for advice. His uncle told him that if the men at the door were police, he had nothing to fear. Dennis's mother, Consuelo, was nearby in a shed on the farm. Dennis then opened the door. The officers asked who he had been talking with on the phone and then killed Dennis.
Dennis' phone went missing after the murders at San Blas. Weeks later, Uncle Chus was murdered. Chus was the last person who spoke with Dennis before his murder.
Consuelo, Dennis' mother, spoke with police on the morning of the massacre at the station in Santa Tecla. However, eight months later she has yet to speak with any member of the prosecutor's office or the National Civil Police. Only after El Faro's report did a member of the human rights office speak with Consuelo. However, nothing appears to have come of that August meeting. Consuelo has since received numerous death threats and has had to flee her home. On Sunday, November 15, Consuelo, her husband, and their three children left their community.
I spoke about this case during an asylum hearing last week in which I offered expert witness testimony. I don't know how effective my retelling of this massacre was but I thought that it exemplified much of what is wrong in El Salvador today. Gang members took over control of the San Blas coffee farm. The residents of the farm were left with no other option than to heed to their demands. Salvadoran gangs are alleged to be responsible for making El Salvador the world’s most violent country not at war in its traditional sense.
By all accounts, the GRP responded to an anonymous phone call about the presence of these gang members intent on killing those they encountered at the farm. Nearly sixty members of the police have died at the hands of gang members in 2015, while it appears as if hundreds of gang members have died under suspicious circumstances – one reason why El Salvador will finish the year with the world’s highest murder rate of any country “not” at war.
Corrupt police staged the scene to make it look as if the dead had died in a shootout with authorities and then murdered a witness to their crimes, Dennis. It appears that the police then tracked down and killed another man, Chus, who could contradict their version of the events. Neither the gangs nor the police leave loose ends.
Even though the forensic evidence does not appear to substantiate the authorities' version of the events, the police report was left to stand. Even though eyewitness testimony appears to contradict the official version of the events, the police report was left to stand. Even though the alleged massacre made national and international news, the police report was left to stand with no follow-up investigation. Two journalists who broke the story left the country and a third relocated within it before it was published. They received death threats following the story’s publication demonstrating how difficult it is to report on police and government corruption in El Salvador today.
No one from the police, the attorney general's office or the human rights office seemed interested in pursuing the matter. The authorities made no effort to protect a witness to police corruption. Instead, anonymous death threats from her dead son’s phone forced her to join the hundreds of thousands of other Salvadorans forced to flee their homes because of violence. Because very few places in El Salvador are safe, thousands of these individuals eventually leave the country for the United States.
The Salvadoran police continue to be complicit in criminal behavior. The State does little to investigate police misconduct or to take citizen complaints seriously, thereby contributing to impunity. Salvadorans suffer from gang and police violence and the lack of a state response.
In the end, Salvadorans must pack their things and leave.
After having killed seven alleged gang members, the GRP knocked on Dennis' door. Dennis was a young man who worked on the farm. Dennis was on the phone with the farm's overseer, his Uncle Chus, asking for advice. His uncle told him that if the men at the door were police, he had nothing to fear. Dennis's mother, Consuelo, was nearby in a shed on the farm. Dennis then opened the door. The officers asked who he had been talking with on the phone and then killed Dennis.
Dennis' phone went missing after the murders at San Blas. Weeks later, Uncle Chus was murdered. Chus was the last person who spoke with Dennis before his murder.
Consuelo, Dennis' mother, spoke with police on the morning of the massacre at the station in Santa Tecla. However, eight months later she has yet to speak with any member of the prosecutor's office or the National Civil Police. Only after El Faro's report did a member of the human rights office speak with Consuelo. However, nothing appears to have come of that August meeting. Consuelo has since received numerous death threats and has had to flee her home. On Sunday, November 15, Consuelo, her husband, and their three children left their community.
I spoke about this case during an asylum hearing last week in which I offered expert witness testimony. I don't know how effective my retelling of this massacre was but I thought that it exemplified much of what is wrong in El Salvador today. Gang members took over control of the San Blas coffee farm. The residents of the farm were left with no other option than to heed to their demands. Salvadoran gangs are alleged to be responsible for making El Salvador the world’s most violent country not at war in its traditional sense.
By all accounts, the GRP responded to an anonymous phone call about the presence of these gang members intent on killing those they encountered at the farm. Nearly sixty members of the police have died at the hands of gang members in 2015, while it appears as if hundreds of gang members have died under suspicious circumstances – one reason why El Salvador will finish the year with the world’s highest murder rate of any country “not” at war.
Corrupt police staged the scene to make it look as if the dead had died in a shootout with authorities and then murdered a witness to their crimes, Dennis. It appears that the police then tracked down and killed another man, Chus, who could contradict their version of the events. Neither the gangs nor the police leave loose ends.
Even though the forensic evidence does not appear to substantiate the authorities' version of the events, the police report was left to stand. Even though eyewitness testimony appears to contradict the official version of the events, the police report was left to stand. Even though the alleged massacre made national and international news, the police report was left to stand with no follow-up investigation. Two journalists who broke the story left the country and a third relocated within it before it was published. They received death threats following the story’s publication demonstrating how difficult it is to report on police and government corruption in El Salvador today.
No one from the police, the attorney general's office or the human rights office seemed interested in pursuing the matter. The authorities made no effort to protect a witness to police corruption. Instead, anonymous death threats from her dead son’s phone forced her to join the hundreds of thousands of other Salvadorans forced to flee their homes because of violence. Because very few places in El Salvador are safe, thousands of these individuals eventually leave the country for the United States.
The Salvadoran police continue to be complicit in criminal behavior. The State does little to investigate police misconduct or to take citizen complaints seriously, thereby contributing to impunity. Salvadorans suffer from gang and police violence and the lack of a state response.
In the end, Salvadorans must pack their things and leave.
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