One week ago, on November 6, two more innocent Jamaican children – Justin Perry, and Nahcolive Smith, both nine – were victims of a brutal and senseless killing. All well-thinking Jamaicans bar none, town and country, uptown and downtown, youth and elders, MPs on both sides were moved to tears and outrage: “This can’t be allowed to continue! This has to stop! We have to do something! The question to each and all of us is: What? And How?

Our leaders are providing two contrasting answers. One came from the former Minister of National Security and Chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party, Robert Montague. An alternative view is coming from civil society organisations, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), sections of the political directorate on both sides of the aisle and the Church – urgently rebuild a consensus for lawful assault on gangs along with social and community transformation. Bobby Montague’s proposal is quite different, made in the House of Representatives in the State of the Constituency Debate. Montague proposed that “We need to study and adopt the El Salvador Model of dealing with gangs.” One week later our prime minister, in a press conference following the slaying of Justin and Nacholive, said “Our constitutional arrangements would not allow it.” More than likely, the prime minister had done some of the study recommended by his party chairman and concluded, as I do, not to adopt the El Salvador model.

WHAT IS IN THIS ‘MODEL’?

So, Chairman Montague and other leaders so-minded might ask, if our Constitution is the obstacle, why not change it to be able to adopt the El Salvador Model? Hence, you and I need to be aware of what is in this ‘model’ that we are being urged to adopt.

1. Keep declaring states of emergency: El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, after a day of particularly numerous gang killings, on March 27, 2022 declared a state of emergency. Thereafter, the president – using his parliamentary majority to overrule the minority – has renewed the 30-day state of emergency as each has expired, back-to-back, 17 times, spread over the last one year and seven months, continuing to the present.

2. Under this rolling/permanent state of emergency, the security forces can and do make arrests without a warrant; detainees do not have a right to an attorney; families do not have access to imprisoned relatives and the whereabouts of detainees are concealed. On this basis, between March 2022 and November 9, 2023 some 73,800 persons have been arrested. El Salvador now has the highest prison population per capita in the world. That is, 1,086 per 100,000 population. This rate of incarceration – mainly without due process – is almost ten times Jamaica’s at 125 per 100,000.

3. Among those detained on suspicion of being associated with gangs, or otherwise breaking the law, are 16 trade union leaders and five members of the national press union. Notably, one union leader has been among 18 persons who have died in custody.

4. The age of criminal responsibility has been reduced under the Salvadoran model from 16 to 12 years old. Human Rights Watch estimates that 1,600 children are among those arrested and detained by the security forces.

5. To initiate and sustain this model, Bukele had to beat down resistance from the Legislative Assembly/Parliament. On the night of February 9, 2020 Bukele sent the military into the Parliament to intimidate parliamentarians into approving a loan request to the United States government for US$109 million to upgrade equipment for the security forces. On February 12, 2020 this action was condemned by the US Department of State as “unacceptable and violates the separation of powers of the democratic institutions of El Salvador”.

6. A little over a year later in May 2021, in order to develop his model, President Bukele had to fire the attorney general and five Supreme Court judges in what the United States and the OAS described as “democratic backsliding”.

7. Five months later, the Supreme Court amended El Salvador’s Constitution by reversing a 2014 court decision which prohibited a sitting president from seeking immediate re-election. President Bukele subsequently announced that he shall be running for re-election in the presidential election set for February 4, 2024.

8. Within El Salvador, 71 civil society organisations condemned the move to fire the attorney general and the judges, and 26 of these regarded this action as in breach of the constitution.

9. Under this model there were 421 press freedom violations between 2019 and 2021, including physical attacks, digital harassment as well as restriction on journalists’ work and on access to public information. In the 2022 Press Freedom Index, El Salvador had a score of 54 and a global ranking of 112 out of 180 countries. In stark contrast, Jamaica’s score was 83 and our ranking was number 12 out of 180 countries.

10. In order to secure his model, Bukele has announced his intention to double the size of the military and to make military service mandatory. Implementation of this intention would move El Salvador’s military to over 600 per 100,000 population. In comparison, Jamaica’s military is estimated at 280 per 100,000.

So, what makes this authoritarian model, this abuse of citizens’ rights so worthy of study? The truth is that under Bukele’s presidency the murder rate has fallen from 52 per 100,000 – the highest in the world in 2018 – to 7.8 per 100,000 in 2022, and it is still falling. Moreover, in June of 2023, Bukele’s approval rate was 92.9 per cent among the Salvadoran people – the highest of any president or head of government in the Latin America and Caribbean region. So, we can see why any political leader – minded to take any measure whatsoever to reduce their country’s murder rate and to take any step necessary to increase popularity – might want to adopt the Bukele Model.

THE ONLY WAY?

But, is the only way to reduce the murder rate and to dismantle gangs, locking up thousands without warrant or access to attorneys? Incarcerating hundreds of children? Dismissing judges and law officers? Sending the military into the Parliament? Militarising the society? Violating press freedom and restricting journalists? My answer and that of NIA, JFJ, the Advocates’ Network, the Church, many citizens and professional bodies, and indeed politicians on both sides of the aisle, is no! We urge a rights-respecting approach to violence reduction and the dismantling of gangs. This demands not only bringing existing violence producers and offenders to justice but the removal of the social, economic, community and cultural generators of crime and violence. What is urgently demanded now is not the adoption of Bukele’s authoritarianism, but the urgent renewal of consensus-building among the government, the opposition, private sector and civil society. NIA and no doubt other civil society organisations align with the November 9 press release from the PSOJ, which “urges re-engagement in united crime strategy, [and] emphasises long-term solutions beyond State of Emergency measures”. In that regard, a critical piece of legislation, long-promised by the government and agreed to by the opposition and civil society organisations, is the Enhanced Security Measures Act, empowering law enforcement with legal provisions, within the Constitution, to move effectively and quickly against known violence producers.

Let’s start there – adapting Jamaica’s democracy, not adopting El Salvador’s autocracy.

Professor Emeritus Trevor Munroe is the founding director of National Integrity Action. Send feedback to info@niajamaica.org or columns@gleanerjm.com.