President of El Salvador declares total war on MS-13, equips prisoners with sledgehammers and gives them one target

El Salvador’s President Naib Bukele tweeted on Thursday morning.

The tweet was written in English, suggesting that its target audience is unlikely to be his compatriots; Spanish is the official and most widely spoken language in El Salvador.

Bukele posted an undated video of gravestones being smashed with sledgehammers in a cemetery, describing the scene: “We sent prisoners to destroy all of the gang gravestones.”

We sent prisoners to destroy all tombstones with bandit symbols …pic.twitter.com/u5WXTxmsov

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbule) March 2, 2023

A November report by ABC News said prisoners were being sent to cemeteries on a similar mission in Santa Tecla, El Salvador. At one time, the prisoners demolished about 80 tombstones, and also erased gang-related graffiti in the city facility.

“Our plan is to keep the graffiti off so people feel safe,” Santa Tecla Mayor Henry Flores told ABC News.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the video Bukele shared this week was from that event or another, more recent iteration of the same tactic.

In any case, Bukele has repeatedly shown that he is not joking, since a year ago he requested “special powers” and suspended some of the country’s constitutional rights in the name of cracking down on banditry.

On February 24, Bukele showed off a new prison meant for hardened gang members in a video posted to his official Twitter account.

The video details a law enforcement operation in which 2,000 detainees were transferred from other prisons and prisons to the El Salvador Center for Combating Terrorism, a new facility designed to house gang members.

The prisoners, many of whom were covered in gang tattoos, were made to shuffle around in handcuffs as they were led to their new residence.

“Today at dawn, in one operation, we transferred the first 2,000 gang members to the Terrorist Detention Center (CECOT),” the tweet reads. (The tweet was posted in Spanish.)

“This will be their new home, where they will live for decades, mixed up, unable to harm the population anymore.”

Hoy en la madrugada, en un solo operativo, trasladamos a los primeros 2000 pandilleros al Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT).

Esta será su nueva casa, donde vivirán por décadas, mezclados, sin poder hacerle más daño a la población.

Segimos…#GuerraContraPandillas pic.twitter.com/9VvsUBvoHC

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbule) February 24, 2023

According to Insider, the prison has a capacity of 40,000 inmates, which at full capacity would make it the most crowded penitentiary in the world, compared to the current record-holder of the penitentiary town of Silivri in Turkey.

Some of the prisoners in the video have tattoos indicating their affiliation with MS-13, one of the most bloodthirsty and dangerous drug smuggling organizations in America.

What does a prison for gang members in El Salvador look like pic.twitter.com/0VSEPSgOXr

— Jack Posobec ​​ (@JackPosobec) February 25, 2023

The Central American nation has long struggled with the scourge of organized crime and gun violence. Bukele’s extra-constitutional approach has led to a 56.8 percent drop in the country’s homicide rate in 2022, according to Reuters.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Center for Combating Terrorism opened earlier this year in connection with Bukele’s stated intention to quell the country’s crime epidemic.

This article originally appeared in The Western Journal.

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