El Salvador Perspectives

The military incursion by the United State on January 3, to arrest Venezuela's dictator-president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, sent ripples throughout Latin America. From El Salvador, president Nayib Bukele backed the capture by US troops.   Venezuela and Venezuelans have been a thread running throughout Bukele's political career.  His start in politics was partly fueled with oil dollars from the Chavista regime in Venezuela. Today, as he celebrates Maduro's capture, Bukele runs El Salvador surrounded by political advisers tied to Venezuelan opposition figures and opens his prisons to Venezuelans deported by Donald Trump.      When Nayib Bukele commenced his political career, he was a young, promising politician in the FMLN.  The left-wing FMLN, the former armed guerilla movement turned political party, was a loyal part of the Latin American left led by Cuba and Venezuela.     Sending subsidized petroleum and money earned from its oil re...

Sunday, November 16, marked the 36th anniversary of the Jesuit massacre at the University of Central America José Simeón Cañas  in El Salvador (the "UCA").   On that date in 1989 during El Salvador's bloody civil war, soldiers from an elite Salvadoran army battalion assassinated six Jesuit priests and a female co-worker and her daughter on the campus of the UCA.  It was a murderous attack on voices which had consistently denounced human rights abuses and and sought peace and justice for the oppressed millions of El Salvador.  This year's anniversary comes in the midst of the 4th year of the State of Exception in El Salvador in which tens of thousands have been imprisoned for years in hellish prisons without trial and without guarantees of due process.  Allegations of torture, which echo back to the bloody decades of the 70s and 80s, are being made again by victims and their families. The military roams anew the streets of the country.   Although ...

On November 2, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele broadcast an address to the nation to announce that his administration was inaugurating 70 remodeled schools that day. The upgrades to the schools were part of Bukele's "Two Schools Per Day Plan" in which the government says it is commencing the upgrades of two new schools each day, 70 of which have now been finished. Inauguration of 70 schools Inauguración de 70 escuelas pic.twitter.com/Lj5sfrUn4C — Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) November 3, 2025 The announcement came with the usual production values of a hallmark Bukele presentation -- the delivery of some new infrastructure project or building, and the Salvadoran president receiving a tour and the adulation of the citizens gathered for the event. [Fact checkers at VozPublica highlighted several misrepresentations in Bukele's presentation regarding the number of schools built by his administration (overstated), the number of schools built by prior governments (u...

The March 15, 2025, US deportation flights, which brought hundreds of Venezuelans and a few dozen Salvadorans to El Salvador's CECOT prison, continue to be in the news.  The Washington Post disclosed more details about the deal between Washington and Bukele, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio's promise to undo agreements with cooperating witnesses from MS-13 who were ready to testify about bargains between the Salvadoran government and the gang.   Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal  (Washington Post, Oct. 20, 2025) --  "in promising to terminate the informant arrangements, current and former Justice Department officials say Rubio threatened to undercut years of work by U.S. law enforcement to apprehend and secure the cooperation of high-ranking members of one of the world’s most deadly gangs." Rubio's deal had its origins in earlier dealings with El Salvador led by then-ambassador Ron Johnson:  An American ...

Several news topics from El Salvador at the end of September involve water. Major Water Crisis in the Capital A significant water crisis occurred in September due to a collapse in a 48-inch pipeline belonging to the Northern Zone System, which services large parts of the San Salvador Metropolitan Area (AMSS) and La Libertad. The initial suspension of service occurred on September 16, but the problem was aggravated when the newly repaired pipe collapsed again shortly afterward. This led to a prolonged, multi-day water shortage affecting major zones of the metro area. On Wednesday, September 17, approximately four hours after the initial repair was reported as complete and the system had begun the slow process of refilling, the catastrophic secondary failure occurred. The high-pressure pipeline collapsed again, and this time it took with it the entire structure which supported it over a ravine outside Apopa. This cascading failure transformed a manageable technical problem into a full-bl...

One of the defining features of Nayib Bukele's presidency is spectacle.   From displays of military hardware to fireworks and choreographed light shows, his government does not miss a chance to put on a show for the Salvadoran public.  And these spectacles are never produced just for the audience in attendance.  A mini-army of camera people, drone operators, live-streamers and producers choreograph and document every event, and then push it out through every social media channel available.  The refined art of spectacle was on display for El Salvador's Independence Day celebrations on September 15. During the day, the main event was a parade through the streets of San Salvador.  In recent years, the Independence Day parade has actually been two parades -- one is a "civic" parade filled with uniformed school children stepping in unison down the streets, marching bands, folk dancers and other displays of civic pride in which the national blue and white col...

The healthcare delivery system in El Salvador has three tiers, depending on how care is paid for.   In the bottom tier is the public hospital system.  This system, administered by the Ministry of Health, provides free or very low cost healthcare to Salvadorans of limited means who do not have employment in the formal economy. The middle tier is the social security hospital system (ISSS), which supports care for persons who work in the formal economy and who pay into the system along with their employers to receive healthcare and pension benefits from the government. The third tier is the private healthcare system. This is healthcare provided by private hospitals or doctors in private clinics whose charges are paid by the wealthy who can afford private health insurance. The country’s national healthcare plan is deemed a national secret and is not available to the public.   So we can only look at where the government is operating openly.  Hospital R...