The poor Central American nation of El Salvador has earned praise for its swift clampdown on Covid. Even before the country recorded its first case, President Nayib Bukele imposed a lockdown, announced an economic relief plan, and restricted the entry of virtually all foreign citizens. The country has administered 3,300 tests for every 1 million citizens, which is nearly double the testing rate in Brazil. And while many nations have seen their infections and deaths rise, El Salvador has only 345 recorded coronavirus infections and a mere eight deaths.
However, while Mr. Bukele has capitalized on his successful Covid strategy to earn stratospheric approval ratings of 91 percent, he has also used it as a cover for ramping up his government’s violent anti-gang policies and authoritarian politics.
Since arriving in power, the leader has championed a crackdown on pandillas, the organized criminal street gangs that are behind much of the violence in El Salvador. This tough-on-crime stance has taken on much darker undertones, with the president allowing the use of lethal force against gang members after 58 gang-related homicides — supposedly ordered from within prisons — were recorded over the weekend.
Meanwhile, gang members were placed under excruciating confinement situations, cramped in their cells and mixing members of rival groups in small spaces. “No contact with the outside...
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