by Truth Press

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador isn’t playing around when it comes to gang violence.

On Friday, Bukele showcased a new prison intended for hardened gang members in a video shared on his official Twitter account.

The video detailed a law enforcement operation in which 2,000 detainees were transferred from other jails and prisons to El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism, a new facility intended to house gang members.

The prisoners — many of them tattooed with gang imagery — were made to shuffle in an exposed state in handcuffs as they were led to their new residence in the video.

“Today at dawn, in a single operation, we transferred the first 2,000 gang members to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT),” began the tweet, according to a Google translation.

“This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, mixed up, unable to do any more harm to the population.”

The prison is slated for an eventual capacity of 40,000 inmates, according to Insider.

If the prison proves capable of holding its intended capacity, it’d be the most populous penal facility in the world, dwarfing the current record-holder of Silivri Penitentiaries Campus in Turkey.

One image shared by Salvadorian politician Mauricio Ortiz showed the volume of detainees held in the country’s prisons, although it’s not clear if the image was taken at the new facility.

Some inmates in the video even bear tattoos advertising their affiliation with MS-13, one of the most bloodthirsty and dangerous drug smuggling organizations in the Americas.

More footage from El Salvador’s prison show conditions that would break the will of even the most savage organized criminal.

The Central American nation has long struggled with the scourge of organized crime and gun violence.

Bukele’s tough-on-crime approach has caused the nation’s homicide rate drop considerably, however.

Homicides decreased by 56.8 percent in 2022, according to Reuters.

The Center for the Confinement of Terrorism opened earlier this year in connection with Bukele’s plans to crack down on the country’s crime epidemic, according to the Los Angeles Times.

by the El Reportero’s wire services

La Paz, February 23 – Bolivians perceive with sympathy today the recommendation of a psychiatric evaluation by Bolivian Senator Leonardo Loza to the civic citizen Rómulo Calvo from Santa Cruz, who the day before threatened President Luis Arce with initiating a process to recall his constitutional mandate.

“Calvo is sick in the head and must go to the psychiatrist, since he cannot threaten to recall the head of state because he would be attacking democracy,” said the legislator of the Movement for Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS). -IPSP) when referring to the subject.

This Wednesday, Calvo tried to intimidate the dignitary by initiating this type of process if he does not issue a supreme decree of amnesty for those whom he called political prisoners within 72 hours.

“Arriving at a recall process is the least convenient scenario for Bolivians because we will be throughout 2023 with uncertainties, but with the certainty and certainty that you are not capable of continuing to lead the course of the country,” he said.

He warned that it is “a scenario that you can stop by issuing an unrestricted amnesty,” he said, addressing the head of state at a press conference in which he was accompanied by Fernando Larach, recently elected president of the Pro Santa Cruz Committee, and the new prime minister. Vice Principal, Stello Cochamanidis.

Before a crowd emotionally manipulated by the corporate media network controlled by the so-called Cruceño committee, Calvo launched the question on January 25 in a non-binding town hall with the demand in favor of the supposed figure of “more than 180 political prisoners”, in a period of 30 days.

In response, the vice president of Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, asserted this Wednesday in a public speech that Arce was elected by the will of the people and those who propose a presidential recall referendum “do not realize that they are going against an entire people.”

Government authorities repeatedly recalled that the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights investigated “in situ”.

He then confirmed that, after the November 2019 coup that exalted Jeanine Añez, massacres of unarmed civilians took place in Sacaba, Senkata, Pedregal and other places with less conflict. These events left a balance of 38 dead, hundreds injured, thousands imprisoned and tortured and are investigated in the Coup d’état I judicial file, in which Áñez and the governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, both imprisoned at the moment, are accused. .

The GIEI also verified that the de facto regime not only used the military and police forces, but also the paramilitary Resistencia Juvenil Cochala and the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista.

During his speech for the 15th anniversary of the Deputy Mayor of the Challa district, Cochabamba department, Choquehuanca recalled that Arce was elected in 2020 in national elections with the support of 55.11 percent of voters.

For his part, the Minister of Public Works, Edgar Montaño, warned that “this gentleman is used to threatening, insulting, and belittling the same people from Santa Cruz who live in Santa Cruz,” deploring Calvo’s ultimatum.

He recalled his habitual attitude of insulting anyone who doesn’t think the same way, addressing high authorities in a disrespectful manner, and then victimizing himself as politically persecuted.

Since the requirement imposed in the council was known, the national government ruled out this possibility with the argument that it would go against the recommendations of the GIEI.

In suggestion 10 of the 36 issued by these experts after concluding their investigation and interviews with the relatives of the deceased and other victims of the de facto government, it was made clear that it must “guarantee the imprescriptibility and inapplicability of amnesty norms in cases of serious violations of human rights.

In this regard, the constitutional lawyer Pedro Ugarte clarified that, according to current regulations, the resolutions of a council are not binding and the amnesty that the Pro Santa Cruz Committee requests is not applicable in cases related to terrorism, a charge for which he is prosecuted, for example, Camacho.

Another MAS-IPSP legislator, deputy Freddy López, considered that Calvo’s proposal will be a failure due to lack of support.

“Time and procedures are not enough (…), this is going to fail, instead of ensuring the development and growth of Santa Cruz (…) there are lodges that are only thinking about their personal interests,” concluded the member of the Assembly Plurinational Legislative.

Former president of Ecuador will be accused of alleged bribery

by the El Reportero wire services

Via Prensa Latina

Quito, February 22, 2024-The Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office announced today that the former president of the Andean country Lenín Moreno will be accused along with his family for alleged bribery within the so-called INA Papera case.

Diana Salazar, State Attorney General, asked the National Court of Justice (CNJ) to set a date and time for the hearing to file charges against 37 people, linked to an alleged corruption structure around the Coca Codo hydroelectric project. Sinclair, with an interstate and transnational scope, which would have carried out illegal actions between 2009 and 2018.

The complaints against the ex-president stemmed from an investigation entitled The presidential circle offshore labyrinth, released in 2019 on a corruption case, directly involving the company INA Investment Corporation, created by Edwin Moreno, which supposedly bears part of the name of the daughters of the former head of state.

According to the registered documentation, that company managed accounts at Balboa Bank, in Panama, from which expensive furniture, rugs and other luxury items were purchased for Moreno’s apartment in Geneva (Switzerland), where he served as special envoy of the Secretary General. of the UN for persons with disabilities.

To hold this position, Moreno moved to Paraguay, where he lives and works with the Government of Mario Abdo on issues related to inclusion.

According to the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office, if after the charges were filed, the judge ordered the preventive detention of Moreno, his stay in Paraguay would not prevent him from being sent to Ecuador since both governments have a current criminal assistance agreement.

The investigation against Lenín Moreno also alludes to the purchase of an apartment in Spain, linked to the presidential family, among other irregularities.

The crimes under investigation include money laundering, illicit association, bribery and illicit enrichment, the Ecuadorian prosecutor’s office said.

With reports by BBC News World and other cables

The release of the political prisoners was well received by human rights organizations, which celebrated the release of 200 political prisoners without sparing criticism of Managua.

In the United States, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement that this decision “marks a constructive step to address human rights abuses in the country and opens the door for greater dialogue between the US and the US. and Nicaragua on topics of interest”.

The president of the Central American country, Daniel Ortega, assured on national television that there was no “negotiation” with the US for the release of the prisoners and that they did not ask Washington for anything in return.

On Thursday morning, magistrate Octavio Rothschuh, president of Chamber One of the Managua Court of Appeals, had made public a sentence that decreed the “immediate and effective deportation of 222 people sentenced for committing acts that undermine the independence, the sovereignty and self-determination of the people; for inciting violence, terrorism and economic destabilization”.

“The deportees were declared traitors to the homeland and punished for different serious crimes and permanently disqualified from exercising public office,” Rothschuh said.

The flight with the opponents left the Nicaraguan capital early in the morning for Washington DC, where it arrived at mid-morning.

The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, spoke on national television to ensure that the release and expulsion of the 222 opponents that took place this Thursday was not done to obtain something in return from the United States.

“We are not asking for the sanctions to be lifted. We are not asking for anything in return,” the president said.

Ortega explained that the expulsion of the opposition group to Washington occurred after his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, spoke a few days ago by phone with the US ambassador in Managua, Kevin Sullivan, before a trip to his country, and He suggested that Washington receive the prisoners.

The president acknowledged that he did not expect a positive response from the United States to the request. However, Sullivan replied that he would consult the White House, but not before asking how many prisoners he intended to release.

“Everyone,” Ortega replied. “We do not want any trace of the empire’s mercenaries to remain in our country,” he added, according to information from the EFE news agency.

The individuals released from Nicaraguan custody include political and business leaders, journalists, civil society representatives, and students.

Writer Gioconda Belli, who was a guerrilla and revolutionary before becoming a staunch opponent of the government of Daniel Ortega, said: “Taking away their nationality and invoking exile for freed Nicaraguans is a display of cruelty…” during a interview from Spain, who said she was surprised by the news, and that she had to verify several times that the release this Thursday of 222 opponents from her country was real.