In El Salvador a Cold Case Murder Has Become a Weapon for Silencing Environmental Activists

[00:00:00] Vidalina: Nosotros No somos terroristas. Somos ambientalistas, somos luchadores sociales. Somos de personas de la madre naturaleza.

[00:00:07] Yessenia: Vidalina Morales is in her 50s. She's soft spoken and welcoming. She's the last person you'd expect would need to say the words, we are not terrorists. But Vidalina is the president of the Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social, or ADES, a community based organization in El Salvador that carries out educational, environmental, and cultural projects.

The group became nationally famous for setting the alarm over mining projects that threatened El Salvador's rivers.

In 2017, their years of organizing helped secure a huge win. The government of El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban mining. Today, ye Buke, a man who likes to call himself the coolest dictator in the world, wants to reverse that ban. But first, he needs to discredit the activists who fought for it, and he's gone about it in a strange way, accusing five leaders in Hades of a decades old murder.

Over the past year, Vidalina has been fighting on their behalf, touring radio stations and TV channels to explain that these accusations are part of a smear campaign meant to weaken the environmental movement

[00:01:10] Vidalina: hasta hoy esta lucha le hemos liberado como comunidades, como organizaciones que han creído en este esfuerzo que han creído en la inocencia de nuestros compañeros y que sabemos que primeramente Dios y esta justicia salvadoreña, nuestros compañeros van a quedar libres.

Porque, pues este caso es un caso construido. Es un caso que a todas luces hay tantas irregularidades.

[00:01:34] English translation: All along we have fought this fight as communities, as organizations that believe in our efforts, that believe in the innocence of our comrades, and that know that first of all, God and then this Salvadoran justice system will set them free because this case is manufactured. You can see it is a case with so many irregularities

[00:01:55] Yessenia: The charges go back to El Salvador's bloody civil war. When violence tore through the country. An experience Vidalina remembers well. She was born and raised on the border between Honduras and El Salvador. In 1980, war broke out in El Salvador between the U. S. backed military dictatorship and the Frente Farogundo The FMLN, a Marxist guerrilla group.

To crush the insurgency, the army launched a terror campaign in the north of the country, where the guerrilla forces had their camps. Civilians were considered guerrilla collaborators and became targets for the army and paramilitary groups. A series of massacres occurred in the Cabanas region, killing hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children.

Several thousand survivors crossed the Lempa River and took refuge in Honduras.

[00:02:41] Vidalina: Fui testigo de cómo llegaron los refugiados a a los Hernández. Eh desnudos, porque huían,

[00:02:49] English translation: I witnessed refugees arriving at Los Hernandes naked because they were fleeing

[00:02:54] Yessenia: vidalina was 14 when she saw the refugees crossing the river.

[00:02:57] Vidalina: cerca enfrente de la casa de mis padres, instalaron un campamento para sanar a los heridos. Entonces yo también pude ver toda esa situación, verdad? Como cuánta persona llegaba este herida que quedaba perdida por los montes?

Porque del río lempa hacia la aldea, los Hernández hay más o menos un una hora de camino quizás más. Entonces, en ese camino, y como la gente no conocía, se perdía. Y el ejército hondureño también la masacraba la masacre en el cruce del río lempa fue fue apoyada por la el ejército salvadoreño

[00:03:38] English translation: Near my parents house, they set up a camp to treat the wounded, so I also saw how many people arrived wounded. Some had gotten lost in the mountains, because from the Rio Limpa to Los Hernandez, it's about an hour's walk, and people got lost.

The Honduran army also participated in the massacre. The Limpa River Massacre was supported by both the Honduran and Salvadoran armies.

[00:04:02] Yessenia: As part of a local Catholic group, she helped assist the refugees as they settled in a camp called Mesa Grande.

[00:04:08] Vidalina: Y una de las actividades era hacer mandados digamos, nos mandaban a al pueblo como nosotros le llamabamos a comprar comida, comprar pan a comprar cualquier insumo de alimentación para la para la gente esta. Y ahí colaboraba yo.

[00:04:25] English translation: One of the things I did was run errands. They would send us to the town to buy food, bread, any kind of food we could get for the people there, and I helped.

[00:04:36] Yessenia: That's how she got in contact with the Resistencia Nacional . One of the insurgency groups that had a strong presence in the camp

[00:04:43] Vidalina: Esa fue como la creación de conciencia que yo fui creando, digamos, en esos tiempos, pasaron esos años. Hasta el 80, siendo una joven muy joven. Eh, mi vida da un giro diferente y me acompaño con el padre de mis hijos, eh? Él, él era un compañero. Era en ese tiempo, pertenecía al ejército guerrillero mi edad era en 18 años cuando yo me acompañé con él

[00:05:14] English translation: this is how my awareness began to grow. During those years, 81 to 88, I went from being a young girl to my life taking a turn. I got together with the father of my children. He was a friend, and he was part of the guerrilla army. I was 18 when I got together with him.

[00:05:31] Yessenia: in 1987, groups of refugees started moving back to El Salvador. Many of them resettled in Santa Marta. One of the communities they had abandoned when they fled, many of them resettled in Santa Marta. One of the communities they had abandoned, they fled to Honduras. All of the military scorched Earth campaigns are mostly over by then.

The war was still raging, and the refugees still feared the army's operations. It made people paranoid about infiltrators and spies. That's when a murder took place in Santa Marta. The rumor spread that a woman named Maria Ines Alvarenga was an army informant. One night, guerrilla fighters dragged her out of her house in front of her children and took her to an unknown place where she was shot and buried.

Her body was never found. Three decades later, that murder would be used by prosecutors to target anti mining activists and the organization Vidalina represents. Ah, this. As land defenders around the world know very well, an unsolved criminal case can easily become a tool for a repressive government to attack its opponents and destroy their reputations.

When the state wants to crush a movement, it can make any accusation stick. That's our story today, after this quick break. I'm Yesenia Funes, and this is Drilled.

[00:06:45] Vidalina: [ad break]

[00:06:46] Yessenia: Midelina wasn't in Santa Marta when Maria Ines Aparenga was murdered. She didn't move there until 1996, but she still lives there today. Santa Marta is in the northern department of Cabañas, about four hours from the capital, San Salvador. It's a town made of scattered houses and a deep valley, along dirt roads that cars can barely get down in the raining season.

At the center of the community, there's a small church, a soccer field, a basketball court, and a tiny pizza joint. On the hills surrounding Santa Marta, small farmers grow corn, beans, cassava, and vegetables, and the community keeps a conservation area covered by a thick forest. During her first years there, Viderina was a stay at home mom taking care of her five children.

But as they grew older, she got restless. She felt she wasn't doing anything for her community.

That's when she got in contact with Antonio Pacheco, also known as Chico, the director of Hades.

[00:07:43] Vidalina: chico, yo aquí siento que estoy haciendo nada. Yo no sé si hay alguna posibilidad de de que me involucren en en alguna acción

[00:07:55] English translation: chico, I feel like I'm doing nothing here. Is there a possibility you'd involve me in any action?

[00:08:01] Yessenia: Antonio Pacheco had been an area commander of the guerrilla forces. He wasn't from Santa Marta, but he decided to stay there at the end of the war when the insurgents handed over their weapons. He created Hades because the community was getting almost no support from the state. The organization provided education for the children, built the town's water supply network, and ran agricultural programs.

It also launched a community radio station called Radio Victoria.

[00:08:26] Radio Victoria: Radio victoria presenta a partir de esta hora. Comunidad, comunidad día al día bien.

[00:08:38] Yessenia: Over the years, I got larger and started operating in other parts of the country too.

The organization moved its offices closer to cin, the largest city in ka. Antonio Pacheco came to talk to Vidalina.

[00:08:50] Vidalina: fíjate que acá hay una problemática que un tanto me está preocupando. Y hay que enfrentarla

[00:08:59] English translation: he said, there's a problem here that is really worrying me and we have to tackle it.

[00:09:03] Yessenia: A Canadian company called Pacific Rim was prospecting for gold in the region. He asked her to investigate. Was it true that mining was a once in a lifetime opportunity to bring prosperity to cabañas?

Or was it a threat to the water resources and the environment, as some people were saying?

[00:09:19] Vidalina: Entonces yo le digo, bueno, yo no tengo conocimiento en tema de minería,

[00:09:24] English translation: So I told him, okay, I don't know anything about mining.

[00:09:28] Yessenia: Vidalina wasn't sure she had the background to address the issue, but she started learning about mining. In the early 2000s, El Salvador, like a lot of other Central American countries looking to attract multinational mining companies, set new laws that made it attractive to investors.

They promised little environmental oversight, cheap labor, and big tax breaks. Companies could pay royalties as low as one or two percent. Gold, silver, and nickel companies, most of them Canadian, rushed in. In 2000, the San Martin mine started operating in Honduras.

And in 2005, the Marlin mine opened in Guatemala. Here's a promotional video the Canadian mining company Goldcorp made about how great it is to mine in Guatemala.

[duck last bit under VO]

[00:10:12] Guatemala Mining Vid: Nuestra extensión territorial menos del percent del tenorio nacional. Nuevas oportunidades. Nuevas capacidades

[00:10:27] Yessenia: In Nicaragua, the autocratic government of Daniel Ortega became a major asset for transnational mining companies. Even the environmentally friendly Costa Rica was eager to dig into its mountains before backtracking and declaring a ban on open pit mining in 2010. El Salvador was no exception. Pacific Rim purchased land and drilled for samples.

They decided to start their gold operation on a 13 square kilometer site in San Isidro. The mayor and regional politicians were vocal supporters of the mine. Vidalina met with environmental organizations in San Salvador. She talked with experts.

She went with other community members to the Valle de Siria in Honduras, where Gold Corp was running a large open pit gold mine.

[00:11:08] Vidalina: Y así fue como fuimos expandiéndolo desde el para, eh enseguida, eh, ya fuimos haciendo como una un tejido. Llegamos a las comunidades.

nosotros visitamos el valle de siria en Honduras, porque la escasez del agua, el ruido, casas, casas hendidas.

Entonces la gente quedaba impactada. Eso fue haciendo que la gente tomara conciencia y se movilizara

[00:11:34] English translation: and that's how we've been expanding since 2006, creating a network across communities. We went to Syria Valley because of the water scarcity. We went to Siria Valley because of the water scarcity, noise, and damaged homes there. People were shocked. They raised awareness and mobilized.

[00:11:54] Yessenia: Vidalina made up her mind. Gold mines were a major threat to the whole region. Mining operations sucked up water resources in a place where access to clean water was already a problem.

They used dangerous chemicals like cyanide to separate the gold from the rock.

If a cyanide spill occurred, it could threaten the Lenpa River, which provides 60 percent of the water resources of El Salvador. Mining companies, as you would soon discover, were bad for communities too. Dividing the population and bringing in social unrest, violence, and death.

Opposition started to mount against Pacific Rim. Addis and other organizations mobilized people in Cabanas. They organized forums where the company experts were asked tough questions by local people. Santa Marta and other communities came to San Salvador to protest and the mining company pushed back.

[00:12:44] Vidalina: nos íbamos a plantar a San salvador, a la a los diferentes ministerios al ministerio media ambiente, principalmente. Yo recuerdo que varias actividades de movilización hicimos frente al ministerio de medio ambiente frente a casa presidencial en esos tiempos también con mucho miedo, porque también si nos agarraban, pues este nos capturaban y nos metían preso

[00:13:08] English translation: we would station ourselves in San Salvador at different ministries, the Ministry of Environment in front of the President's house too, with a lot of fear because if they caught us, they would arrest us and throw us in prison.

[00:13:20] Radio Victoria: Que radio victoria es un medio de comunicación alternativo que decidida a mimos las 10, 44 minutos desde la mañana 44 minutos.

[00:13:28] Yessenia: A major tool of the resistance against mining companies was Radio Victoria, Santa Marta's community radio station. Its mix of music, news, and commentary, and its large network of local correspondents, gave the radio station a large audience across Cabañas.

[00:13:42] Radio Victoria: muy buenos días, amigos y amigas, gracias por escuchar radio victoria en el 91. Como siempre, es un placer enorme acompañarles.

[00:13:51] Yessenia: Radio Victoria was one of Addis main projects at the end of the war.

[00:13:56] Cristina: that was nineteen ninety three when we first went on the air and when we moved up to victoria

[00:14:01] Yessenia: This is Christina Starr. She's from Charlotte, North Carolina. Her real name is Wendy Wallace, but everyone in Santa Marta knows her as Christina, a name she has used since the war.

In 1988, she came to El Salvador to work at a trade union federation in San Salvador. The war was raging, and a year later, a death squad detonated a bomb in the offices where she worked. The attack killed 10 unionists and wounded 40 others. Christina was lucky. She had left the cafeteria where the bomb exploded minutes earlier.

Shortly after that experience, she joined the insurgency and became part of a propaganda unit filming some of the guerrilla's actions.

In 1991, she settled in Santa Marta and at the end of the war, she decided to stay. Because of her communications background, Hades asked her to help create Radio Victoria.

[00:14:54] Cristina: mostly my role has been to look for the the projects that we have. I was never at the radio fulltime but i es part of the coordinating team so we had a collective that ran the radio [

and basically accompanying you know i never wanted to be two hands on because i didn't wanna be the gringa that runs the radio

[00:15:17] Yessenia: From the beginning, Radio Victoria became the voice of the anti mining front. Radio Victoria explained the dangers of mining to its listeners, By pointing to the environmental and social costs of the industry, it disrupted Pacific Rim's communication campaign.

[00:15:33] Radio Victoria: Estas condiciones determinan que industrias extractivas como la minería de metales preciosos, sean inviables económica, social y ambientalmente

[00:15:44] Yessenia: Public opinion turned against mining, but soon enough, the threats began. The radio hosts received warning calls on their cell phones.

[00:15:53] Cristina: The language was very much like gang members you know some of the terms they used and they were very vulgar.

So the asunción they were getting money channeled to them to carry out these threats thats the assumption.

[00:16:12] Yessenia: This wasn't a small thing, since the gangs in El Salvador were known for their cruelty. Then, the killing started. First, it was Marcelo Rivera, a teacher, community leader, and environmentalist.

He had been one of the first to sound the alarm bell when Pacific Rim began prospecting in the region.

[00:16:31] Cristina: He you know he was a performer and he would come to our we would have these community arts festivals for our anniversary and he would always come and he was pretty close to us

[00:16:46] Yessenia: Rivera was tortured before he was killed, and his body was thrown into a well. This had a huge impact on those who were opposing the mining project.

[00:16:55] Cristina: and the death Threat said you know you better shut up same thing happened Marcel happened to you

[00:17:03] Yessenia: Later that year, two other activists, Ramiro Rivera and Dora Sorto, were gunned down.

I'm Amy Goodman. We begin today with El Salvador, where, for the second time in a week, a prominent anti gold mining activist has been assassinated. On Saturday, 32 year old Dora Alicia Recino Sorto was shot dead near her home. She was 8 months pregnant, carrying her 2 year old son. Son Soto and her husband were both active members of the Cobania Environment Committee, which is campaigned against the reopening of a gold mine owned by the Vancouver based Pacific Rim Mining Company.

Last week, Ramiro Rivera Gomez, the Vice President of the Cobania Environment Committee, was shot dead by heavily armed men, despite having been under 24 hour police protection.

[00:17:49] Yessenia: Meanwhile, the death threats against Radio Victoria's staff kept coming. People would bang the doors of their homes at night and caught guns.

[00:17:58] Cristina: and i was.

I was really scared and you know i didn't know if we should shut down the radio or what we should do but you know people at the radio weapon to on the the only way we can resiste this and that's what we're gonna do

[00:18:16] Yessenia: One day, Christina talked to one of the radio hosts, a young man called Oscar.

[00:18:22] Cristina: and I said aren't you afraid aren't you scared yeah. You know so much of your life to something it's your life and to not do that to kind of lose your life so you know this is this is whats important and what we have to do

[00:18:45] Yessenia: The three murders were never thoroughly investigated, but for the activists, there was no doubt that they were the result of the anti mining protests.

Despite the threats and the killings, the environmental defenders kept going. They brought on board new allies including El Salvador's, Archbishop, a prominent churchman. Monsignor San Z was also a chemist, and he worried that the use of cyanide by mining companies could cause a major environmental disaster. They also convinced both right wing and left wing politicians to join them. 2008, the government decided to stop approving permits for new mines. It wasn't a ban, yet, but President Antonio Saca said he wanted to better understand the impact gold mining was having on the country's water sources before approving any more permits.

Pacific Rim filed a complaint against El Salvador using a legal tool known as Investor State Dispute Settlement. We've covered this many times in Drilled, but it's a quasi illegal system that is meant to protect companies from governments and enforce free trade agreements. In practice what it does is help companies scare governments away from environmental and human rights legislation and push forward harmful projects, even when activist pressure works and governments reject them.

Pacific Rim claimed that El Salvador, by not allowing it to move forward with its gold mine, had violated its rights. The company asked for 350 million to cover the revenue it was losing as a result of the government's refusal to grant its permits. This, of course, did nothing for Pacific Rim's popularity in El Salvador.

In 2016, the tribunal made a rare ruling against the company, and El Salvador won the dispute, but not before spending millions fighting it. 2017 marked the end of the struggle. In an unprecedented decision, El Salvador's government approved a law that banned all mining for metals in El Salvador.

[00:20:43] News Archival: Fue un día histórico, dijeron los diputados y es que el pleno legislativo aprobó la ley de prohibición de minería metálica normativa que implica la prohibición de la explotación y exploración minera en territorio salvadoreño en el salvador.

[00:21:01] Yessenia: The decision was unanimous. Videlina still can't believe it.

[00:21:06] Vidalina: Esto fue un una cosa tan maravillosa que yo, cuando lo recuerdo, se me se mechina la piel, como decimos en salvadoreño

[00:21:15] English translation: this was such a marvelous thing that when I remember it, Me encina la piel, as we say in Salvadorino. In English, we might say it gives me chills

[00:21:25] Yessenia: But if mining companies have learned anything in their dealings with Latin American countries, it's patience. If political circumstances are not in your favor at first, don't worry, that might change sooner than you think. In El Salvador, it took only two years.

[00:21:41] News Archival: Year old na buke entered San salvador convention center a main boating station a few hours later than Planned to cast his he brought all the confidence Swagger and even the black leath jacket of a rock

[00:22:01] Yessenia: In 2019, an outsider candidate called Nayib Bukele won the elections with an absolute majority. He rocked the country as no one had done since the war. He assumed leadership in a country dominated by two violent gangs. The Madre Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 controlled entire neighborhoods and rural communities.

For years, they made El Salvador one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Ordinary Salvadorians lived in fear of leaving their homes every day. Hundreds were killed every year for the crime of coming from a neighborhood controlled by a rival gang. Every business, no matter the size, was burdened with huge protection payments to the gangs.

In 2015, the most violent year, more than 6, 000 people were murdered, more than any year during the Civil War. In the beginning, Nayib Bukele did what his predecessors had tried before him. He negotiated with the gangs. In return for prison privileges, the gangs agreed to decrease the murder rate, but they soon started asking for more.

To pressure the government, one of the two main gangs went on a killing spree. Assassinating close to a hundred innocent people in three days. Bukele changed his strategy immediately.

[00:23:19] News Archival: Tonight, the crackdown on gangs intensifies in El Salvador. free as these images of mass arrests and police searching through homes and families belongings at neighborhood checkpoints. Fuel concerns that human rights are being violated. President Nayib Bukele and the National Police touting the efforts on social media all week using the hashtag War Against Gangs on Wednesday, citing over 10, 000 people.

2, 000 arrests made in just four days in response to one of the bloodiest weekends in the country in 30 years.

[00:24:02] Yessenia: He declared a state of emergency, suspending constitutional rights. He empowered the authorities to arrest anyone suspected of being a gang member. He even went on national TV and threatened to starve the detainees if the gangs tried to retaliate.

Since then, more than 75, 000 people have been put in overcrowded jails. Among them are thousands of innocent people, mostly young men from poor neighborhoods with no ties to the gangs. Official dossiers obtained by the newspaper El Farro showed that the reason for an arrest can be as flimsy as He looked like a gang member, or he was nervous when the police showed up.

But the results of this policy have been spectacular. Extortion and murders decreased dramatically. The homicide rate is now one of the lowest in Latin America, even lower than in the United States. Now, small businesses bloom everywhere, and ordinary Salvadorians have reclaimed their streets. Nowhere is this sense of security more obvious than in the center of San Salvador.

What was a maze of street stands under the tight control of the gangs has become a pleasant district with well kept plazas, fountains, and street performers. On the plaza Gerardo Barrios, in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral, and at the side of the National Palace, a brand new library, a gift from China to El Salvador, is now one of the landmarks of San Salvador.

But El Salvador's democracy has paid the price for this peace. As Nayib Bukele's popularity skyrocketed, he took control of all the institutions. To rein in the judicial system, he hand picked the Supreme Court magistrates and sent a third of El Salvador's judges to retirement by decree.

[00:25:42] Luis Gonzalez: se habla de un populismo autoritario.

Sea, es un. Se habla de un régimen híbrido que ya pierde las nociones de democracia.

Tenemos todos los poderes concentrados en el ejecutivo y específicamente en la figura del presidente, y esto hace que estos controles de sistema de pesos y contrapesos no funcionen

[ English translation]: There is talk of an authoritarian populism and a hybrid regime that is losing the guardrails of democracy. We have all governmental powers concentrated in the executive branch and specifically in the president, and this makes it so that the system of checks and balances doesn’t work.

[00:26:22] Yessenia: Luis Gonzalez is a lawyer and activist at the Salvadorian Ecological Unit.

This environmental organization has been at the side of Hidalina and Hades in the fight against mining, and joined various other environmental fights, including the expansion of sugarcane plantations, the destruction of mangroves, and deforestation. It has also denounced attacks against Indigenous leaders.

Luis has seen firsthand how the state of emergency, which was meant to fight gangs, has been used to attack environmental activists and community leaders.

[00:26:52] Luis Gonzalez: sin duda. Y te pongo un par de ejemplos. En esta lógica del régime se quies, se quiso construir o se construyó más bien un un centro penitenciario en Teotepeque Ahí habían personas organizadas que tenían cultivos que les querían exp.

Bueno, les expropiaron sus terrenos y el pensamento fue mire o vende o igual el estado va a agarrar su terreno. Y mire, recuerda que estamos en régimen, nos lo podemos llevar preso porque usted puede ser pandero. Entonces, si usted se opone a esta medida presidencial, usted. Se pone a la lucha contra las pan.

Entonces usted apoya terroristas. El mismo discurso le están utilizando con eh personas organizadas en la unión donde se quiere construir un nuevo aeropuerto. Les están expropiando sus terrenos. Y el discurso es, recuerden que estamos en régimen.

[English translation]: Without a doubt and I’ll give you a couple of examples. Under the state of emergency they wanted to build a prison in Teotepeque. There were people there working the land, and they expropriated it. And the approach was either sell it or the State will take it. And if you object, remember that we are a regime. The same sort of rhetoric was used against people who were organized in a labor union where they were building a new airport. Remember that we are a regime. They took vendors off the street with that too, remember we are a regime.

y las comunidades eh, que quieren decir algo? Se han visto amenazadas con cometer a alguien preso. Mm-hmm. Líderes indígenas con los que trabajábamos en sonsonate en el caso de un tata. Pues lo llevaron preso, lo liberaron en todo tiempo, pero era como.

Segus hablando, tenemos otros líderes que lo que les han capturado es son unos familiares a hijos a como hicieron en el caso de bebida lina con su hijo. Pero el caso de silverio morales, un tata indígena es un Sonsonate pues tiene actuada a un hermana o un hermano a su hijo. Entonces, el tiempo que utilizaba para lucha social para reivindicarse más ambientales, pues hoy tiene que estar viendo cómo les.

Les apoya con alimentos con medicinas en las cárceles a sus familiares

[English translation] The communities that want to say anything have been threatened with putting people in prison. Indigenous leaders we work with in Sonsonate. The case of a father who was taken to prison. They let him go after some time, but it was “if you keep talking…”

We have other leaders where they’ve captured their family members.

[00:29:33] Yessenia: It is not a coincidence that this repressive trend happened at the same time that Bukele began to look at the potential of various extractive industries to help El Salvador's economy.

[00:29:42] Luis Gonzalez: ya fue en el 2021 que de retoma esta agenda. Está activista esta agenda.

Muy neoliberal muy muy digamos, extractiva de los bienes ambientales, y es en ese marco en que hay posicionamiento gubernamentales contra los temas ambientales y contra los defensores.

[ English translation]: Already in 2021 this extractivist agenda resumed, this very neoliberal agenda, let's say, extractive of environmental resources. And it is within this framework that there are government positions against environmental issues and against defenders.

[00:30:18] Yessenia: Environmental leaders like Pedro Cabezas from the Central American Alliance Against Mining say Bukele's primary focus, now that he's been re elected, is the economy.

[00:30:27] Pedro Cabezas: En este memento, el principal interés o la principal preocupación de la población es la economía, la falta de trabajo, la inflación, este la falta de de de de oportunidades económicas en el país. Y más de 60 percent de la población está diciendo mira, mira, no, no me esta llendo tan bién

[ English translation] In this moment, the primary interest, or the primary concern of the public is the economy, lack of work, inflation, this lack of economic opportunities in the country. And more than 60 percent of the population is saying look, look, no, no I’m not doing very well.

[00:31:07] Yessenia: this is especially true after Bukele's signature move to improve El Salvador's economy backfired spectacularly.

In 2021, he decided to make Bitcoin a national currency. Then he gambled with the country's reserves by buying a hundred million dollars worth of bitcoins. Virtually no one has adopted the new currency.

Now, Quee is desperate to bring investors back, and environmental activists are convinced that Bouley burned by his Bitcoin mining wants to return to the old fashioned sort, and the activists are in his way

[00:31:40] Pedro Cabezas: [transition music]

maybe also sound effects – police sirens?

[00:31:44] Yessenia: in the middle of the night, on the 11th of January, 2023, police patrols pulled up in front of three houses in Santa Marta. They arrested three men, Miguel Ángel Gámez, Pedro Rivas, and Alejandro Lainez. All three were members of Hades. Police told them that they were accused of murdering María Inés Alvarenga, the woman who was said to be an informant to the army 30 years ago, during the Civil War.

The three men were sent to San Salvador to be charged by a judge. There they learned that the director of Hades, Antonio Pacheco, and the organization's lawyer Saúl Rivas had also been arrested for the same case. A sixth man, Fidel Recinos, who isn't a member of Hades, was also taken into custody. All of them fought within the ranks of the guerrillas in the 80s and 90s, all denying any involvement in Alvarenga's murder.

These arrests were surprising for a lot of reasons. Very few cases related to the war have ever made their way to the courts. Except for a handful of high impact cases, no one has been charged for crimes related to the war. Why was a prosecutor's office suddenly interested in this particular 30 year old murder? For Vidalina, the reason is clear. The Attorney General, a close ally to Nayib Bukele, is trying to cripple Addis in preparation for Bukele's move to bring mining back to El Salvador.

The defendants cannot talk openly to journalists, as their trial is pending. We won't hear them in this podcast, but they've always claimed their innocence.

On their behalf, Fidelina launched a campaign to denounce the arrests. She participated in countless TV and radio shows and led protests in San Salvador, in front of the prison where the six men were held in custody.

Cumplida por el sistema penitenciario. Por tanto, venimos a solicitarle que, en cumplimiento a la resol hasta la resolución judicial y dar a la delicada situación de salud, no se retrase más la salida de prisión de nuestros compañeros. Los.

[00:33:52] English translation: We've come to ask that in compliance with the judicial resolution, the release of our comrades from prison is not further delayed.

[00:34:01] Yessenia: She organized an international campaign of solidarity that included Washington based organizations too.

1. S. Congresspersons wrote to El Salvador's government to ask for the liberation of others activists. The arrest fueled the belief that mining would soon make a comeback, but so did other recent actions by the government.

For example, in May 2021, El Salvador joined the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development, an initiative founded by the Canadian government to help countries develop mining operations. Why would a country where mining is prohibited join such a club? That same year, the government created a new institution, the Oil, Energy, and Mines Directorate, proving that the extraction of El Salvadoran resources is a priority for the government.

One of this institution's first missions was to evaluate the current legislation on mining. The government of El Salvador and various ministers declined multiple requests for an interview.

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For months, the pressure from Videlina to free her comrades seemed to be fruitless. The six men remained in custody. They couldn't see their families. Not even their lawyer, Dennis Munoz, was allowed to talk to them. They were moved from prison to prison, experiencing increasingly harrowing conditions.

[00:35:16] Denis Muñoz: Comida? Pues muy mínima. Cero. Salud, eh? Eh condiciones infrahumanas en el sentido de que en una letrina era para doscientas personas, eh, espacio muy poco para poderse desplazar, eh?

[English translation] Food? Well, very little. Zero healthcare. Inhumane conditions, in the sense that there was one toilet for 200 people. Very little space to move around.

[00:35:45] Yessenia: This is Dennis Munoz, their lawyer.

[00:35:48] Denis Muñoz: Difícilmente se podían bañar o asear porque no había mucha agua. Agua potable, CE o o en condiciones, eh, favorable biológicamente. Entonces, eh, la verdad es que son son muchas las condiciones y ojo, esto va, eh, agravando. Eh, básicamente la salud de una persona longeva que ya tiene enfermedades crónicas degenerativas o severas, como diabetes o insuficiencia renal, incluso o pretensión arterial

[ English translation] They could hardly bathe or clean themselves because there was not much water. Zero drinking water in biologically (un)favorable conditions. So the conditions were really a lot…and then you have to watch out because that will really impact the health of an older person who already has chronic degenerative or other serious illnesses, like diabetes or kidney failure, or even high blood pressure.

[00:36:45] Yessenia: In Santa Ana's prison, they spent their nights in large cells with 200 people, sometimes sleeping on the bare floor with all the lights on. During the day, they stayed in a courtyard so packed, they couldn't even sit. The meals consisted of 8 spoonfuls of rice and a few black beans. They all lost weight and developed chronic illnesses due to malnourishment.

On top of that, every day someone would be dragged out of the cells and beaten by the guards. Some mornings, a prisoner wouldn't wake up, his body was wrapped in its sheets and taken out. Most of the prisoners, like the activist from Santa Marta, were in temporary custody, awaiting their trial.

[00:37:24] Denis Muñoz: Bueno, uno de ellos, por ejemplo, eh, lo que me ha dicho es que tiene pesadillas todavía. De que se encuentre en ese lugar.

[ English translation] So, one of them, for example, told me that he still has nightmares. About what he experienced in that place.

[00:37:42] Yessenia: And then in May 2023, Vidalina received a tremendous blow. Her son was detained. The police told her that it was because they suspected he was a member of a gang. She knew what that meant.

[00:37:54] Vidalina: En en el caso de cuando ya tocan los intereses muy, muy, muy internos, muy íntimos de uno de familia.

Yo dije esto no, no lo voy a permitir que mi hijo vaya a parar a las cárceles porque yo conozco a mi hijo y todo mundo lo conoce en la comunidad. Y él nunca ha pertenecido a ninguna pandilla, pero este era señalado por pandillero. Cuando lo captura, entonces yo fui a la al puesto policial. Fue el primer al primer lugar donde acudí.

Lo que le quiero contar es que lo que me lo que me dijo el jefe de puesto de de santa marta. Mira, me dijo aquí tenemos una buena lista de personas a capturar.

[00:38:37] English translation: They will mess with the very, very, very private, intimate interests of a family member. I said that no, no, I will not allow my son to be incarcerated because I know my son and everyone in the community knows my son. He's never been involved with any gang, but he's being accused of being a gang member.

When they arrested him, I immediately went to the police station. That's the first place I went. What I want to tell you is what the chief of the Santa Marta police station said to me, look, he said, here, we have a very good list of people to arrest,

[00:39:14] Yessenia: there was no doubt they were attacking her through her son. She was desperate. She thought she wouldn't see him for years. She knew of the detention conditions and couldn't imagine her son in a cell with hundreds of actual gang members. Videlina immediately went to social media to denounce the arrest. She contacted El Salvador's ombudsman. She activated her network of national and international allies.

[00:39:40] Vidalina: y no sé la impotencia misma me me o sea, no, no tengo cómo explicarlo. Pero pero dije este es el memento de luchar porque mi hijo salga en libertad. Y claro, pensé también toda mi entrega que lolo he tenido por tanto tiempo a estos esfuerzos.

No puede quedar en vano.

[00:40:03] English translation: but this is the moment when my lioness clause came out because he's my son. So I don't know helplessness. I mean, I don't know how to explain it, but I said, this is the time to fight for my son to be released. And of course, I also thought about all the effort I've put into this cause for so long. It can't be in vain.

[00:40:24] Yessenia: This time, the pressure worked. About 40 hours later, her son was released. They just kicked him out of Sensuntepeque's jail. No charges were brought against him, and no explanation was given. Midalina was lucky. Dozens of families have been without news of their incarcerated relatives for years.

They often don't know where they are jailed, or even if they are still alive. That's why environmental activists are so scared of the state of exception Bukele declared two years ago. It means anyone can be tagged as a gang member and disappear into the nightmarish prison system. The government wasn't done trying to intimidate Hades.

[00:41:04] News Archival: Por primera vez, un departamento entero tiene un cerco militar en el salvador cerca de militares y policías. Encerraron el departamento de cabañas en el centro del país.

[00:41:16] Yessenia: In August 2023, Bukele declared the militarization of the whole Cabangas region. 8, 000 soldiers were sent there officially to fight against the gangs. For the first time since the war, armored vehicles entered Santa Marta.

[00:41:30] Vidalina: y que, claro, se instalan un buen grupo en victoria en a los alrededores de santa marta. Y era como terrorífico. Era como un terror sentir la presencia

[00:41:42] English translation: And of course, a good sized group of them settled in Victoria around Santa Marta. And it was terrifying.

[00:41:49] Yessenia: For those who survived the war, seeing the army patrolling in front of their houses was a traumatic flashback. Bukele's regime is characterized by its opacity. Many of its actions come with no explanation. The militarization of Caballones could be part of Bukele's crackdown on gangs. It could also be a warning to activists in the area who might oppose any of his plans.

The uncertainty is just another burden on community organizers and environmental defenders. Finally, on September 5th, 2023, the five Ailas activists were sent back home after a judge granted them house arrest. Vidalina thinks the international pressure on the government paid off. The men are still recovering from their horrendous experience in prison.

Their trial is set to start this month. Last February, Nayibu Kelly ran for re election, even though the constitution clearly says that no one can hold office twice. Boosted by his crackdown on gangs, he won with more than 80 percent of the vote. In his new term, he faces no political opposition. His party also won 54 of the 60 seats at the National Assembly.

For the activist Luis Gonzalez, the future under an increasingly powerful Bukele looks grim.

Still, he has a lot of faith in community organizers.

[00:43:05] Luis Gonzalez: Vamos a tener una política ambiental sin cambios donde no interesa. Donde el tema económico, el tema de seguridad es lo único que se habla a nivel de la agenda gubernamental y con todos los impactos que eso va general de las comunidades más pobres y vulnerables

[ English translation]: Are we going to have an environmental policy that only changes with special interests? Where the economic issue, the security issue is the only thing the government discusses, with all of the impacts that has on the poorest and most vulnerable communities?

Esperemos que no. Y yo todavía creo que las esperanzas están en las comunidades en la resistencia. Creo que hoy más que nunca, hay que resistir.

Hay que resistir para poder enfrentar estos embates extra activistas y que ojalá pueda primar la defensa, la vida contra estos otros intereses.

[English translation] Let’s hope not. And I still believe that hope lies in the communities that are resisting. I believe that now more than ever, we have to resist. We have to resist to be able to face these anti-activist attacks and hopefully the resistance, and life, will win out over these other interests.

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