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class="PersistentBottomWrapper-eddooY bIieWF persistent-bottom" data-journey-hook="persistent-bottom"><asi class="PaywallBarWrapper-hbEokK kqItQt paywall-bar"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut paywall-barnsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-bar-ll-to-actn" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--paywall-bar-ll-to-actn"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div><ma id="ma-ntent" tabx="-1" class="BasePageMaContent-kFvAuh ewPCZH pagema-ntent"><article class="article ma-ntent" lang="en-US"><div class="ArticlePageLeBackground-EufvU tFsh"><hear class="ContentHearWrapper-clujbs ldzxDV ntent-hear articlentent-hear"><div data-ttid="ContentHearContaer" class="ContentHearContaer-cGKRbE gXTBMX"><div class="ContentHearHedAccredatnWrapper-GFiQf cDNVlV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper" class="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper-cjmSKp jbzVNV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubric" class="ContentHearRubricBlock-LmpbT kkDiIx"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubricDateBlock" class="ContentHearRubricDateBlock-kAQcZP fTFWxD"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX dZhWBL bric ContentHearRubricContaer-eTudtt iRsSlw"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ briclk" href="/magaze/letter-om-el-salvador"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Letter om El Salvador</span></a></div></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearHed-NCyCC iUEiRd NbxED hpJvIc">The Rise of Nayib Bele, El Salvador’s Authorarian Print</h1></div><div class="ContentHearAccredatn-lfctVB etVsnJ ntent-hearaccredatn" data-ttid="ContentHearAccredatn"><div class="ContentHearDek-bIqFFZ Mtme">The buddg strongman has ridn B schem and a reprsive crackdown on gangs to bee Lat Ameri’s most popular lear.</div><div class="ContentHearByle-kmPyCa gvUmxJ"><div class="ContentHearByleContent-dpPmNn DRFq"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl ContentHearByl-cZqgyJ bHLeKI"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH bwbwth byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn lOLCm bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG uhfVi bylepreamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL brYZgj bylename-lk button" href="/ntributors/jonathan-blzer">Jonathan Blzer</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2022-09-05T06:00:00-04:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd kYZrFA iINaCX">September 5, 2022</time></div></div></div></div><div class="ContentHearLeadAsset-hGbumP kByCgj lead-asset ContentHearLeadAssetWrapper-hfXHEc Grck lead-asset--width-fullbleed" data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset"><figure class="ContentHearLeadAssetContent-kOfYSG dRGWbI"><div class="ContentHearLeadAssetContentMedia-bLEIpi jjhWdS lead-assetntentphoto"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz eIhPZj"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="A woman hugs her boyiend before police officers take him to the provisnal tentn center El Penalo San..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></picture></div></div></span></div></figure></div><div class="ContentHearLeadContentFullWidth-cvJzX hHaBOT"><figure class="ContentHearLeadContentCaptnCred-hSIIqJ kQVfzg"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn ContentHearLeadAssetCaptn-hPWmSN kuCzGS"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">Outsi El Penalo, the ltle jail. El Salvador has long been ravaged by gang vlence. In recent months, Bele’s ernment has clared a state of emergency and taed some fifty thoand people.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptncred">Photographs by Fred Ramos for The New Yorker</span></div></figure></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-bodyntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kAEsuD viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU cjjxgx bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG lmuXQm"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay ; encrypted-media ; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">El Penalo, the ltle jail, is a squat ncrete stcture on a by mercial street San Salvador, the pal of El Salvador. On the morng of April 7th, a Thursday, fifty women were led up along s ont wall, wearg surgil masks and holdg umbrellas agast the sun. They’d been gatherg there all week. It was ne-thirty, and about nety gre. Most of the women had been wag sce eight to reach a small wdow where a police official shared rmatn on the whereabouts of their sons and hbands.</p><p class="paywall">Toward the back of the le, wearg a long nim skirt and a red T-shirt, was a middle-aged woman wh dark, led sk and ep-set ey. Her name was Yanira, and her son, she said, was a twenty-year-old wh tism. He’d been arrted three days earlier, at home, where the two had been workg throughout the panmic, cleang and rellg disrd plastic sleev that hold bottl of hand sanizer. Yanira rarely leav him alone, but she had to n an errand. When she returned, thirty mut later, the police had taken him away. “Sometim he’ll wanr to the street whout his sho,” she told me. “All the neighbors know him. But someone who don’t might thk he’s a crimal, or crazy.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-unslot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">A week before, members of El Salvador’s largt gang, MS-13, had murred eighty-seven people three days. The untry has long been ravaged by gang vlence, but the killgs were unual their thlsns. People wh no ti to crime were targeted: a u seller, a surf stctor, a homemaker, a bbler. The gangsters went after everybody, but their msage was directed at one person—the untry’s Print, Nayib Bele, who has promised to radilly rce crime and to change El Salvador’s image abroad. Gang members left a rpse on the road leadg to Surf Cy, a stretch of beachont real tate on the Pacific Coast which Bele had refurbished and renamed to attract ternatnal tourists.</p><p class="paywall">In recent s, every Salvadoran Print has ntend wh the gangs. One admistratn sent soldiers to poor neighborhoods and filled the untry’s prisons, unr a policy lled <em>mano dura</em>, or “strong hand”; another reprised as <em>super mano dura</em>. When Bele was the mayor of San Salvador, he lled the rpons “immoral” and “impractil.” But now he clared war. Jt after midnight on the send day of the homici spike, the Natnal Assembly, which Bele’s party ntrols, stuted a “state of exceptn,” unr which thori uld arrt anyone they nsired spic. Detae were not entled to a legal fense. The right to gather groups larger than two was spend, and all mors would be tried as adults. On his Twter acunt, Bele, who is forty-one years old and has an approval ratg of more than eighty per cent, shared a nng tally of the arrts that followed, along wh sbro mentary, postg photographs of tattooed men handcuffs and unrwear (“ltle angels”), some of whom appeared to have been roughed up (“He mt have been eatg i wh ketchup”). Crics of the new policy—whether mon cizens, journalists, or foreign ernments—supported “the terrorists,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Yanira’s son was one of six thoand people arrted the first week. By the time I met her, the total had risen to about ne thoand. A month and a half later, would reach thirty thoand. Bele nced that one per cent of the roundups might rult wrongful arrts, but the public uld only take his word for that figure. “As we ntue arrtg more gangsters, more people are gog to prott,” Bele said. “Bee there will always be a mother of a gangster, a fay member, or a iend who isn’t gog to like that we are cleansg that ncer.”</p><p class="paywall">Yanira was joed the le by her dghter, who’d been missg work at a clothg shop to help lote her brother. The prev day, the dghter told me, they’d spent six hours visg urtho, searchg for him. “We’re not the kd of people who have any experience the sorts of plac,” she said. She crossed the street while Yanira held their place le. A boga ont of El Penalo offers food and hygiene packag for tae, rangg om a sgle meal ($2.50) to basic toiletri ($7.00) or a change of unrwear ($15.50). (Prisoners whout this assistance eat only termtently.) Yanira’s dghter returned jt time to prs a receipt for three meals to her mother’s hand before they reached the wdow. Farther down the block, a group of soldiers armed wh rifl had stopped a public b and were orrg the male passengers to step out and lift up their shirts. They were checkg for tattoos that might dite gang membership.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoonimage-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Person stg on porch talkg to person standg by mailbox" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoonptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptntext">“I’ve been extra nice to people—I should be gettg some thank-you not.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by Frank Cotham</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to 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class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">As the official at the wdow examed her son’s rerds, Yanira stood ramrod straight. Sudnly, she reiled; when she turned away om the wdow, her ey were wi. “Izal” was all she uld say, and she staggered off, sobbg. It was the name of a maximum-secury prison that ho harned gangsters. Her son had been sent there earlier that morng.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">While the women waed outsi El Penalo, another crowd was gatherg, at the Miami Beach Conventn Center. It nsisted of vtors and tech entreprenrs, who were there to see Bele, a keynote speaker at an annual B nference. Last summer, he announced that El Salvador would be the first untry the world to accept b as legal tenr. Wh a few months, there were some two hundred special A.T.M.s set up across the untry, and the ernment had lnched an app, lled the Chivo Wallet, on which each Salvadoran was given thirty dollars’ worth of b. At the nference, Bers, techno-utopians, and libertarians assembled to hear about a seri of amb projects that Bele had been promisg ever sce. They would have to wa a ltle longer. The nference, Bele wrote an apologetic note, was “one of the biggt celebratns of the power of eedom, centralizatn, and human genuy s fight agast ignorance, centralizatn, and dogma.” But, owg to the state of exceptn, he need to stay put. “Everythg happens for a reason,” he went on. “Hopefully we’ll be able to learn soon why this had to happen this way.”</p><p class="paywall">When Bele was elected Print, 2019, he was the youngt head of state Lat Ameri and embodied a new natnal begng. At his guratn, his heavily pregnant wife stood bi him as he stcted crowds of ecstatic voters to raise a hand along wh him after he swore the oath of office. Three of his recent precsors had been eher arrted or dicted, and all of them me om El Salvador’s two ma polil parti, which had erned whout terptn for more than two s. It had been a perd of chronic poverty, vlence, and mass emigratn. “If you left to live the Uned Stat and returned twenty years later, you’d fd the same policians,” Amparo Marroquín, a profsor at the Central Amerin Universy, San Salvador, told me. “They were dosrs.” Bele, who’d fected om one of the ma parti, pched himself as an anti-rptn reformer. His mpaign slogan—“There’s enough money to go around as long as no one steals”—is a le that he has ed for almost as long as he’s been public life. He began his reer at the age of thirty, as the mayor of a town of fewer than ten thoand people. After a sgle term, he ran for mayor of San Salvador. Frh off that job, at thirty-seven, he was elected Print.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Bele, who wears leather jackets and backward baseball ps and has a beard, vok Alexanr the Great and Steve Jobs, and his brand is meant to be a b of both: a potentate wh an anti-tablishment streak. At the Uned Natns General Assembly 2019, he took a selfie om the dais, mid-addrs, remdg the world lears attendance that a “uple of imag on Instagram n have a greater impact than any speech this assembly.” Social media, he once said, “has shown what people really are.” Before, “everybody was pretendg.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Durg the years of his ascent, the public heard om him nstantly—on Twter and Facebook, and a ntual procsn of ribbon cuttgs and other public appearanc. As the mayor of San Salvador, he cleaned up parts of the cy’s ramshackle downtown; renovated a tr of historic plazas; opened a high-end market, which has lators and rooftop rtrants, addn to a library equipped wh puters and play areas for children. At one pot, he unveiled a twenty-four-ln-dollar public-works project, lled 100% Ilumado, to stall lamps on every street rner. “You n ll PR if you want to be a ltle cynil. But I’m talkg about spiratn,” he told the <em>Virgia Quarterly Review</em>, 2016. “I’m talkg about somethg sublime.”</p><p class="paywall">Usually, public adoratn dims as the reali of erng set , but Bele’s support has grown. He is now the most popular lear Lat Ameri. In part, this is the rult of his war on the gangs, his handlg of the panmic, public-astcture projects, an crease the mimum wage, and low gas pric. It is also the product of a mammoth propaganda mpaign. But, more profoundly, Bele has succeed generatg a palpable sense of llective expectancy and pri: the untry is fally gettg s act together.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="0k28fl"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The Uned Stat, the European Unn, and the Organizatn of Amerin Stat have cricized Bele’s most dac acts as Print. The clu threateng members of Congrs wh troops, and firg Supreme Court magistrat and replacg them wh judg who have allowed Bele to n for a send term spe a nstutnal ban. But the foreign cricism has enabled Bele to unify Salvadorans agast a mon enemy, and has put him, and his untry of six and a half ln people, on the map. “Why are they so ncerned about a untry so small?” he has said. In 2021, <em>Time</em> clud Bele s list of the world’s most fluential people, alongsi Narendra Modi, Donald Tmp, and Naftali Bent. “Ok boomers,” he recently tweeted, English, at members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relatns Commtee. “You have 0 jurisdictn on a sovereign and pennt natn. We are not your lony.”</p><p class="paywall">For much of his reer, Bele has basked the limelight of the prs: viss to Washgton, to addrs the Ameris Society and the Herage Foundatn, terviews wh Je Ramos and Ben Smh. When the verage turned cril, however, he stopped engagg wh ternatnal journalists. I was no exceptn. As one of his advisers put , “Why talk to you when he n speak directly to the people?”</p><p class="paywall">Bele may reprent the future, but he talks a lot about the past—the policians who robbed public ffers, the gangs that sowed terror, the stutns that never worked. “It’s a kd of revanchism,” Juan Anton Durán, a judge, told me. He was moted last year, after cricizg the Print for forcg a third of the feral judiciary to early retirement. By then, at least fifty ernment officials and high-profile crics had had to leave the untry, acrdg to <em>Revista Factum</em>, a Salvadoran news magaze. Bele, after many accatns that he was ncentratg power, changed his Twter b to “the olt dictator the world.” A member of his party intified himself on social media as “Mister of Trolls.” Bele’s voters expected him to have enemi, a member of Congrs told me. “What the Print is sellg the people is revenge.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">All through the neteen-eighti, El Salvador was a place of obssive U.S. tert. Ronald Reagan said that was “on the ont le of the battle that is really aimed at the very heart of the Wtern Hemisphere, and eventually at .” When fightg broke out between the untry’s right-wg ernment and leftist guerrillas, the U.S. sid wh the ernment; armed the ary, traed and advised s officer rps, and vered up their worst ab. For twelve years, the guerrillas fought the U.S.-backed ernment to a stalemate, and some seventy-five thoand civilians died. Eighty-five per cent of the killgs were mted by the ary and the secury forc, which massacred large numbers of the ral poor for sympathizg wh the guerrillas. Bele was ten when peace acrds were signed, 1992. Nearly a quarter of the Salvadoran populatn end up movg to the Uned Stat.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="A souvenir market downtown San Salvador sells gifts that feature Print Nayib Bele." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">“What the Print is sellg people is revenge,” a member of Congrs said. His voters expect him to have enemi.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bele grew up San Salvador, as a privileged outsir. His father was a Mlim bsman of Paltian scent, who opened the untry’s first McDonald’s anchise, ran a textile pany, helped build four mosqu, and owned a public-relatns firm. He was also a polygamist wh six wiv. Bele, who has three brothers and seven half siblgs, went to a bilgual private school. Most of his well-heeled classmat shared their fai’ nservative outlooks. But Bele’s father was a man of the left and a supporter of the guerrilla forc, lled the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacnal, or the F.M.L.N., which beme one of the two major polil parti after the war. Mlim leftists stood out Salvadoran high society. In the late neti, after Al Qaeda gaed ternatnal notoriety, the Bele fay was stopped by ctoms agents at the airport bee of their spic-soundg name, acrdg to a ep vtigative profile by the journalist Gabriel Labrador. If the cint rattled Bele, he refed to let on. Popular enough to be elected print of his high-school class, he ptned his yearbook photograph “Class terrorist.”</p><p class="paywall">Bele’s polil apprentichip began after he dropped out of llege and was managg a night club downtown San Salvador. He took over his fay’s public-relatns firm, whose key client was the F.M.L.N. The Princy and the Assembly were ntrolled by the Alianza Republina Nacnalista, or <em class="small">ARENA</em>, which was found, the early eighti, by a member of a right-wg ath squad. The Party tered primarily to the bs éle, but s members clud ex-ary men and relig nservativ. An accumulatn of rptn sndals sank <em class="small">ARENA</em>, 2009, allowg the F.M.L.N. to ga power, which held on to for the next . In 2011, Bele lnched a self-fund bid for mayor of Nuevo Ctlán, an old <em class="small">ARENA</em> stronghold outsi the pal. “Don’t get volved polics,” his father had once warned him, acrdg to an terview revered by the vtigative newspaper <em>El Faro</em>. “Policians who lose are . . . thrown away. You’ll be damaged goods.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">But Bele already had a plan: he would n on the F.M.L.N. ticket while downplayg his associatns wh the Party. “I did not live the war,” he said a televisn terview durg the mpaign. “I’m of the postwar generatn, a generatn that has new ias.” His polics were leftist—progrsive tax, creased public spendg—but he avoid the F.M.L.N.’s hoary pronouncements about revolutn. He also rejected the Party’s tramark lors of red and whe, stead blanketg the streets wh mpaign materials that featured his name whe agast a backdrop of light blue. “I have iends who are nservative, and they’d never vote for the F.M.L.N.,” he told one of his advisers.</p><p class="paywall">Bele won by ls than two per cent, and erned as if he were still mpaigng. He erected a large stone sign wh a whe “N” engraved a circle at the entrance to Nuevo Ctlán. He also opened a twenty-four-hour medil clic, a library, and a muny center. Each month, senrs received a ee basket of food. Bele vowed to donate his entire salary to a new program fundg grants for stunts to take class English and puter science. The town’s bt ballooned, but his populary soon eclipsed that of the Party elrs.</p><p class="paywall">The F.M.L.N. enuraged him to n for mayor of San Salvador, a job wily seen as a steppg stone to the Princy. “The lear of the Party told everyone that Nayib’s ndidacy would get two or three more seats Congrs,” a former Party official told me. “They all thought that would help them.”</p><p class="paywall">Bele, who felt his power growg, shut the Party out of his mpaign, relyg stead on fay members and old iends. One of them was Ernto Castro, his chief secretary Nuevo Ctlán, who now serv as the print of the Natnal Assembly. Another was his younger brother Karim. In public, Nayib was polished and poised, but private meetgs he tend to be distracted and jtery. He checked his phone nstantly, drank four Red Bulls a day, kept odd hours, and stggled to foc on dividual tasks. A former associate told me, “If an ia occurs to him, and he thks ’s brilliant, he do . Then, afterward, if ’s illegal? Oops!” Karim would s quietly before makg lm, thorative pronouncements. “It wasn’t a meetg unls Karim was there,” the former Party official said. Together, the brothers reprised the high pots of the Nuevo Ctlán mpaign—the same lors, the same signia (“N”), and the same slogan (“New Ias”). By the time Bele won, he had veloped a regnizable brand and had more Twter followers than the untry’s Print did.</p><p class="paywall">When journalists dug to Bele’s acplishments office—the market downtown, the revalizatn of San Salvador’s historic mercial district—they found evince of irregulari. The mayor’s office had disregard perms and zong ordanc. It paid flated pric to ntractors, and kept rmatn om the cy uncil. One bsman who worked wh Bele at the time told me, “Before Bele, you’d want to get somethg done, and when you’d go to meet wh the mayor you’d fd a long table full of uncil members, lots of burecracy. Wh Bele, you’d s down at the same long table, but would jt be him wh an assistant. On the one hand, was great bee was jt one guy. On the other, you’d leave thkg, Uh-oh, ’s jt one guy.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="c4hls"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bele me to regard any vtigatn to his learship as a personal attack. Edw Segura, a pollster and a polil lumnist, told me, “Anytime the media put out somethg qutng his acplishments, was bee they were agast him.” Bele started buildg an alternative media landspe: TV programs, a work of trolls on Twter, an army of YouTubers, and several publitns that posted pro-Bele stori on Facebook.</p><p class="paywall">Bele’s portrayal of himself as a ntrarian tth-teller was effective, but was a fallg out wh the F.M.L.N. that turned him to a polil juggernt. In the fall of 2017, an argument broke out a San Salvador cy-uncil meetg over the issuance of a buildg perm for a revalizatn project. Acrdg to reportg by Labrador, Bele acced the uncil’s legal director, a lawyer wh the F.M.L.N., of nspirg agast him. At one pot, she claimed, he threw an apple at her and said, “Take this apple, you wch!”</p><p class="paywall">The cint led to a formal vote expellg Bele om the Party, but the F.M.L.N. was divid. “The lears were also sred that Bele might rign,” the official told me. “He was so popular. He had this huge reach on social media. The breakg pot was when he wanted to be Print. They ed the apple to ver up.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoonimage-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Caveman asks iend to move boulr to ve entrance so he n sleep" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoonptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptntext">“Can you roll back for ne more mut?”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by Drew Dernavich</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Shortly afterward, Bele, at a gatherg the U.S. wh Salvadoran immigrants, said, “<em class="small">ARENA</em> and the F.M.L.N. are really the same.” He announced the formatn of a new party, Nuevas Ias. In Febary, 2019, he was elected Print wh fifty-three per cent of the vote.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">The arm—bare and handcuffed at the wrist, the hand a fist—me to view on a two-lane road leadg om the pal to San Vicente. It was juttg out om the back of a police pickup tck that was drivg past a store lled Tula’s Classic Sweets. A man was lyg the bed of the tck, but all that was visible was his arm, chaed to a rack attached to the b.</p><p class="paywall">One of the strangt aspects of the state of exceptn was how equent sightgs like this were, unls you went lookg for them. The ernment was broadstg s harsht acts, and on Twter there was a flood of photographs, vios, and menacg announcements. But on the ma streets of the untry’s biggt ci nothg seemed out of the ordary. “The state of exceptn is directed at the poor, margalized areas,” Ra Montti, the director of vtigatns at Cristosal, a human-rights group, told me. “The are stigmatized muni wh people who are seen as havg <em>dudosa nfiabilidad</em> ”—“qutnable tstworths.” She ntued, “You hear people say, ‘Surely they mt have done somethg if they’re beg taken away.’ ”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">On a Saturday night, an old Salvadoran iend of me proposed that we shoot pool at a billiard hall San Salvador’s historic downtown. He is a father of three his mid-forti who ns a small bs the pal. The last time I’d seen him—about six years earlier, at the start of Bele’s mayoral term—he ma trips downtown only durg daylight hours, bee was too dangero after dark. He was enuraged by the Print’s actns durg the state of exceptn, as is more than nety per cent of the populatn, acrdg to recent polls. “Nayib is fightg,” he said. “Of urse he has his crics. He’s dog new thgs, radil thgs. It’s all on the up and up. People are always tryg to be so down on El Salvador. But I don’t hear Salvadorans talkg about leavg, like before.” At the pool hall, was Eighti Night, and a d.j. played the Sugar Hill Gang and Run-DMC while people danced and ate tapas. We left after midnight. As we strolled through the illumated downtown plazas, he snapped photos of the Art Nouve Natnal Theatre.</p><p class="paywall">In the <em>zonas margalizadas</em>, where the gangs had been ntrol, however, rints were effectively trapped between them and the ernment. I arrived Distro Italia, a muny of ten thoand people about an hour north of San Salvador, on a Monday eveng, to fd a rdon of some twenty soldiers bat fatigu and armed wh semi-tomatic rifl. They had set up a checkpot for anyone enterg or leavg the rintial area. Soldiers searched bags and checked I.D. rds, and as people returned om work the le grew long. The mandg officer sought me out as soon as I arrived. “If you haven’t done anythg wrong, you’ll be fe,” he said. “People outsi El Salvador probably don’t unrstand.”</p><p class="paywall">A few mut later, I noticed a woman a green striped shirt, wh dark, izzy hair, standg at a slight remove om the crowd. Her two sons—ag eighteen and twenty-one—were returng om work, and she was wag to meet them, so that they uld all walk home together. Mostly, she felt <em>aliv</em>—“relief”—she said: “There are soldiers si patrollg.” When I asked her whether she worried that her sons might get arrted, she shgged. “Until happens to you, don’t matter what happens to someone else,” Veróni Reyna, a secury expert who works at a nonprof lled Servic Social Pasnista, told me. “It’s a survival stct. The more vlence people live wh, the ls they n re about other people. Gettg volved other people’s liv is adly.”</p><p class="paywall">Gangs have domated life El Salvador sce the late neti, but they didn’t origate there. MS-13 and Barr 18 both began Los Angel, at least a earlier, as hundreds of thoands of Salvadorans fled the civil war. Many of the teen-agers, adrift when they arrived, turned to crime the ner cy, where Mexin and Black gangs enforced a btal racial hierarchy. After thoands of Salvadoran youths were arrted, the Clton Admistratn saw an opportuny to monstrate s toughns both on immigratn and on crime. It ported vlent offenrs whout tellg the Salvadoran ernment who they were. “The Uned Stat lets the dangero typ out and tells them, ‘Go back to where you me om,’ ” the Print of El Salvador said 1997. “But we have no way to try them or jail them . . . and so we mt not only let them but let them go ee.”</p><p class="paywall">Cliqu om Southern California arrived El Salvador, brgg their rivalri and their turf wars wh them. “They nsumed everythg their path,” the anthropologist Juan José Martínez d’Aubuisson has wrten. “Piecemeal neighborhood gangs saw no choice but to jo one of the two for their own survival. The alternative was plete annihilatn.” By 2015, there were some sixty thoand gang members El Salvador, and seventy per cent of the untry’s bs were beg extorted, leadg to annual loss of four billn dollars, acrdg to timat by the Salvadoran Central Rerve Bank. The homici rate was higher than had been durg much of the civil war.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="a4j7aa"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">A seri of Salvadoran admistratns lnched dramatic crackdowns that played well wh the public but failed to curb the vlence. In 2012, David Munguía Payés, who had served as a general durg the war and was now the Mister of Secury an F.M.L.N. ernment, cid that the gangs, like the guerrillas, uldn’t be beaten wh force alone. He brought a former guerrilla, a Catholic bishop, and a reprentative om the Organizatn of Amerin Stat to negotiate wh them. A al was reached, and the homici rate dropped for almost eighteen months, but revelatns of the talks ced public outrage. The next Print, who also me om the F.M.L.N., renounced the al, and the ernment negotiators were eventually prosecuted for their volvement. In 2020, Munguía Payés was arrted for “unlawful associatn.” Other members of the F.M.L.N. and <em class="small">ARENA</em> have faced jail time for makg ad-hoc als wh the gangs, eher to enforce higher turnout at electn time or to perdilly blunt the ath unt.</p><p class="paywall">As the mayor of San Salvador, Bele ma an agreement wh members of Barr 18, who ntrolled the area around the Merdo Ctlán, acrdg to <em>El Faro</em>. The ernment gave them space among the venrs’ stalls, and, return, the gang allowed the market to operate. Bele has nied this, and as Print he adopted visible measur to bat the gangs. He lled his policy the Terrorial Control Plan; creased the police prence some municipali and clared a state of emergency si the natnal prisons, which had the immediate effect of mixg rival populatns that had long been kept apart. At the start of the panmic, the thori arranged hundreds of bare-chted prisoners their unrwear, prsed tightly together rows, for a photo opportuny. One of the Print’s advisers told me, “Look how he’s treatg the gangs. How uld he be talkg to them?”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoonimage-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoonimage rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Cyclist wearg profsnal gear passg pestrians on path" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoonptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptntext">“Man needlsly drsed profsnal cyclg outf on your right.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtooncred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptncred">Cartoon by E. S. Glenn and Col Nissan</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg buttonlabel">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT buttonin-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">But Bele started negotiatg wh MS-13 as soon as he beme Print, acrdg to another story <em>El Faro</em>. Durg his first year office, he didn’t have a majory the Assembly, and for his fledglg party to w seats he need the homici rate to fall. “The big drops homicis were never jt the work of the ernment,” Veróni Reyna told me. “Bele learned the lson om what happened before. He closed ranks. No one had accs to the prisons for a year and a half.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The <em>El Faro</em> story relied on hundreds of pag of prison documents, addn to logbooks om facili where secret meetgs were held between gang learship and ernment reprentativ. In an tercepted msage, one lear of MS-13 told another, “Thgs are gog step by step.” The ernment, he said, was creasg enforcement to keep up appearanc, so that the negotiatns uld ntue. “The measur are jt a vep,” he went on. “They’re lookg out for the well-beg of homi.”</p><p class="paywall">Ls than a week after the story was published, Bele announced that the ernment would vtigate <em>El Faro</em> for money lnrg. Sce then, he has attacked the newspaper relentlsly, sometim llg out journalists by name. A few of them have been forced to exile; many others have adopted the practice of leavg the untry after publishg a story and wag to return until the threats have died down. The newspaper has a large ternatnal followg, but si El Salvador Bele’s mpaign agast has succeed. Many people have e to see <em>El Faro</em> as partisan and unreliable.</p><p class="paywall">The night before I arrived El Salvador, the Natnal Assembly passed a sweepg law to block news outlets om reportg on the gang suatn. Journalists uld now face up to ten years prison if they “reproduced” or “transmted” rmatn that might have e om gang sourc or uld otherwise “panic” the public. The law was ambiguo by sign, César Fagoaga, then the print of the Associatn of Journalists of El Salvador, told me. “This isn’t a legal problem—’s a polil problem,” he said. “They want to ntrol the only thg they don’t have—journalism.” Cldia Ortiz, a first-term ngrswoman om a fledglg party lled Vamos, told me, “The real opposn right now that’s dog substantive thgs is outsi the Assembly. It’s vtigative journalism, the universi, social anizatns exposg real problems.”</p><p class="paywall">In the ne days that I spent El Salvador April, three more journalists had to leave the untry after beg falsely acced by the Print and members of his party of nspirg wh the gangs. One of them—a reporter named Bryan Avelar, who works wh the New York <em>Tim</em>—was the target of a viral mpaign that claimed his brother was a proment gangster. (He don’t have any brothers.) “They know that they n have arrted if they feel like ,” Julia Gavarrete, a reporter wh <em>El Faro</em>, told me. Last year, she was one of thirty-five journalists and human-rights advot to disver that their cell phon had been fected wh the surveillance software Pegas.</p><p class="paywall">The ernment uld ny prs reports, but certa facts remaed. Last year, Bele refed a U.S. requt to extrade fourteen top-rankg members of MS-13. The Salvadoran ernment secretly released some of the men om prison, and they are now at large. Acrdg to a jot vtigatn by <em>La Prensa Gráfi</em> and InSight Crime, one of the gangsters, whose nom guerre is Crook of Hollywood, walked out of the untry’s most secure prison durg a crime wave last November. The followg month, homicis creased.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="mmh39"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Recently, the journalist Carlos Martínez published a story <em>El Faro</em> based on seven d rerdgs of nversatns between members of MS-13 and a ernment negotiator close to Bele. The name they e for the Print is Batman. There are explic referenc to two years of secret talks, and the official tak pas to scribe everythg he’s done for the gang to prove his “loyalty and tstworths.” What ed the killg spree March, acrdg to three gang members ced the story, was the arrt of a group of gangsters who were travellg a ernment vehicle. They felt betrayed bee they’d been promised “safe passage.”</p><p class="paywall">Uncharacteristilly, the ernment did not attack the article when me out. In June, 2022, Patrick Ventrell, the Amerin Chargé d’Affair, gave a prs nference San Salvador at which he said, “The bt way for the ernment of El Salvador to show that is ser” about fightg the gangs “is to extrade the most dangero lears.” Later the summer, Bele extraded two of them wh ltle fanfare. This news was eclipsed by the nstctn of a prison to hold more spected gang members, which he was llg the Terrorism Confement Center.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">It’s taken as an article of fah that the public r about such abstract prcipl as the le of law and the health of public stutns. But voters also want to see their man w, bee means that <em>they’re</em> wng. Often, thorarian tactics play better than high-md poise do. On Febary 9, 2020, eight months to Bele’s term, a crowd of a few thoand monstrators gathered outsi the Natnal Assembly, which was not ssn. They’d arrived ernment vehicl and b driven by soldiers, and were there to prott the refal by members of the Assembly to fund a key plank of Bele’s secury budget. Shortly after 4 <em class="small">p</em>.<em class="small">m</em>., a ravan of S.U.V.s pulled up, and Bele emerged. Surround by bodyguards, he stro to a stage set up at the end of an alley leadg to the chamber, and the crowd roared. “Wa here,” he told them, then head si. Armed soldiers bat fatigu followed him.</p><p class="paywall">While the troops fanned out across the gallery, Bele lled a symbolic ssn to orr. “I thk ’s clear who’s ntrol of the suatn,” he said to a microphone. He put down and bowed his head prayer. After a few sends, he rose and returned to the crowd outsi. This time, when he approached the stage, half a dozen soldiers stood bi him, their rifl drawn.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Relativ mourn Germn Orlando Esbar 28 Veracz Ctln. Esbar arrted on May 13 died weeks later at Izal..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">A funeral procsn for Germán Orlando Esbar, a taee who died prison.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">“I asked God, and he told me, ‘Patience,’ ” Bele said. He’s never ma clear which relign he practic, yet he equently vok God, projectg a firm but flexible piety. (“It’s one of his key characteristics,” Marroquín, of the Central Amerin Universy, told me. “He n seem Catholic or Prottant, Christian, or even Mlim.”) Bele’s relig rhetoric generally sways the public, but this crowd was expectg somethg more dramatic. People started to groan. “Patience, patience,” he repeated. “The <em>svergüenzas</em>,” he ntued, gturg behd him reference to the obstctnist ngrsmen. “We’ll get rid of them mocratilly. . . . In several months, we’re gog to have the Assembly.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In Central Ameri, the symbolism was lost on nobody: a head of state had jt breached another branch of the ernment wh troops. “The whole thg got out of hand,” a former ernment official told me. But those people who thought Bele would suffer nsequenc were mistaken. “The most signifint thg wasn’t what happened but what didn’t,” Johnny Wright, a ngrsman wh the party Nutro Tiempo, told me. “That was the moment when he knew, he tted that he would not have ristance.”</p><p class="paywall">Hours after the cursn, Bele received a text msage om his former attorney Bertha Deleón. “You’ve gone too far,” she wrote. When he didn’t reply, she cid to tweet. His rponse was swift. “Delete this,” he told her. “You’re attackg .” Deleón refed, and the ernment lnched a smear mpaign agast her. She was a trendg topic on Twter for days, acced of protectg the gangs and of abettg crimals. People shouted at her on the street. “I worked for the prosecutor’s office for years on anized crime,” she said. “Old lleagu me up to me sayg, ‘Now we’re supposed to be vtigatg you. Fix this, or leave.’ ” Months later, wh multiple rptn charg lodged agast her and an Interpol warrant out for her arrt, she told me the story om Mexi, where she had recently been granted asylum.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">Bele’s most nspicuo enabler durg this perd was the Tmp Admistratn. The Amerin Ambassador to El Salvador was a former mid-level C.I.A. staffer named Ronald Johnson, whose relatnship wh Bele was characterized by iendly rmaly. All Tmp red about, a former Admistratn official told me, was immigratn, and Bele acted acrdgly. In 2019, he was so eager to ply wh a al on asylum procsg that his advisers e-mailed a signed py of the agreement straight to the Department of Homeland Secury. U.S. officials had to ll them back to expla that the protol was more volved. In return, Bele “really wanted the State Department to lower the threat level for travel to El Salvador,” the former Admistratn official told me. “That was a really big thg to him. He was promotg Surf Cy.” (Eventually, the U.S. rced the threat level, which officials claimed to have been reviewg before Bele phed for the change stat.)</p><p class="paywall">A few weeks after Bele’s stunt at the Natnal Assembly, the first se of <em class="small">Covid</em>-19 was tected El Salvador. On March 21st, Bele clared a state of exceptn, issug strict guil for a natnal quarante. Those people who vlated s terms were arrted and sent to “ntament centers.” In theory, the centers were rerved for Salvadorans who’d been travellg abroad and need to be tted. But they soon beme -facto jails, where returng travellers and anyone acced of ignorg the l were held fely, many s for longer than a month. Ten thoand people were taed the early months of the panmic.</p><p class="paywall">The Supreme Court twice clared Bele’s measur unnstutnal, but he ignored the lgs and acced the judg of threateng public health. “If I really were a dictator, I would shoot all of them,” Bele said. “You save thoands of liv exchange for five.” He publicly mand the police and the ary to make more arrts, ntraventn of the judg’ orrs. “The flectn pot was the panmic,” the former ernment official told me. “That’s when Bele really started takg advantage.”</p><p class="paywall">The public was too overwhelmed wh s own survival to worry about the fer pots of ernance, and El Salvador’s fectn rate stayed low pared wh those of neighborg untri. In June, a gleamg new hospal for <em class="small">Covid</em> patients went up, billed as the biggt such facily Lat Ameri. (It remas unfished.) The ary distributed food to poor areas, and Bele gave three hundred dollars sh relief to more than a third of the untry. “The people are seeg that he is workg hard and dog thgs for the public,” a thirty-three-year-old named Gisele Hernánz, who worked a tortilla shop, told the Spanish newspaper <em>El País</em>. Another person said, “Bele isn’t dividg El Salvador. The untry is already divid.”</p><p class="paywall">The followg Febary, when El Salvador held legislative electns, Nuevas Ias won fifty-six of the eighty-four seats—a super-majory. The new members of the Assembly were a mixture of te believers and opportunists, but all were uned their loyalty to the person who had brought them to power. “Bele <em>is</em> the Party,” a senr U.S. official told me.</p><p class="paywall">The new legislators went after their first target on the day of their swearg . They arrived at ne the morng, and the ssn ran past midnight. “We entered whout knowg anythg,” Cldia Ortiz, of Vamos, told me. The Supreme Court magistrat who had opposed Bele’s panmic measur were summarily fired, for actg agast the bt terts of the public. The Nuevas Ias bloc also fired the Attorney General, whose term was up at the end of the year. The Print’s personal lawyer told an opposn lawmaker private, “We have to be disptive. People voted for for a reason. They wanted to change thgs radilly. We’re gog to change this place for good.” Four days later, the Assembly approved a law blockg all vtigatns to the ernment’s panmic spendg and shieldg officials om rptn charg.</p><p class="paywall">Bele had assumed office sayg that his relatnship wh the U.S. was “the No. 1 prry for .” But the U.S. had a new Print, and both untri had changed. “When we tried to normalize the relatnship, he felt like we were pullg the g out om unr him,” the senr U.S. official told me. “We didn’t have the red rpets out, so he thought was a liberate attempt to embarrass him.” The Bin Admistratn began drawg up a list of sanctns agast members of Bele’s admistratn, for actns cludg rptn and nspiracy wh the gangs. Bele ntued to meet Johnson, the prev Ambassador, Miami, and he retaed another Amerin adviser, who shared the view that the Democrats wouldn’t ntrol the Whe Hoe for long. When Bele cid to give a big terview the wter of 2021, wasn’t to the Salvadoran news media or to CNN but to Tucker Carlson. “He’s tryg to ri the culture war,” the senr U.S. official told me. “But El Salvador do not have the luxury of cidg that one party is gog to protect s terts forevermore.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Soldiers check the bags of lols at a checkpot at the entrance of the Distro Italia neighborhood San Salvador...." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">A checkpot outsi Distro Italia, which for years has had a large gang prence.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">For the past three years, crypto evangelists om all over the world have ma a pilgrimage to a stic beach El Salvador lled El Zonte, where a middle-aged surfer om California named Mike Peterson lnched an experimental chary. Its fancg me om an anonymo philanthropist who imposed a sgle ndn: the money had to be distributed entirely b. Soon, mom-and-pop bs, markets, and food stalls the area were acceptg the currency. El Zonte me to be known as B Beach.</p><p class="paywall">In the sprg of 2021, B Beach drew a mor crypto celebry—Jack Mallers, a twenty-seven-year-old tech entreprenr who was buildg an app lled Strike. The service allows ers to make money transfers, wh no fe, on Lightng, a high-speed work that is lked to the technology behd B. El Salvador fascated Mallers for reasons that went beyond B Beach. Twenty per cent of the untry’s gross domtic product om remtanc sent by Salvadorans livg abroad, mostly the U.S. But when immigrants e Wtern Unn to transfer money they typilly pay a hefty fee. “Lightng solv that,” Mallers has said. “It sts nothg to send one dollar or one thoand.” After livg B Beach for a month, he started spendg time San Salvador. He was havg a shi dner wh iends one night when he noticed a direct msage on Twter. “Hi, Jack, this is a msage on behalf of Print Bele,” began. A few days later, Karim Bele, wearg a hoodie, greeted Mallers and troduced him to his brother.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">At the B Conference Miami that summer, Mallers prented Bele, who addrsed atten by vio, fluent English. He announced that El Salvador would beg acceptg b, and prented a heady se for how B uld solve some of El Salvador’s problems. Seventy per cent of Salvadorans don’t have bank acunts, but more than half of them e cell phon. “El Salvador has not been the untry that’s regnized to be the first novatn,” Bele later told the podster Peter McCormack. “But why not this time?” Champng the currency has turned him to a global cult hero, a csar agast U.S. hegemony. “This is jt exercisg our sovereign right to adopt legal tenrs, like we adopted the U.S. dollar the year 2001,” he ntued. “In 2001, was probably done for the benefs of the banks, and this cisn is done for the benefs of the people.”</p><p class="paywall">Salvadorans found out about the B policy om news reports after the Miami announcement. The followg September, the Bele admistratn prented s B Law, which Mallers helped shape, and the Natnal Assembly passed whout bate or modifitn.</p><p class="paywall">Bers are skeptil of ernments and central banks, but their goal is the universal adoptn of the currency, and they need more untri to follow El Salvador’s lead. Even so, some of them were troubled by s example. The sh to create the B Law rulted nfg provisns: one article mandat that all merchants accept b, but another seems to hedge on that requirement. “The ernment operated on a startup’s timele—move fast and break thgs,” Jill Gunter, the chief strategy officer at Esprso Systems, a blockcha pany, told me. “But you’re talkg about an actual sovereign natn, wh the well-beg of lns of people at stake.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="nbjqer"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">There were some red flags. B ers need both a public key and a private one to accs their money, and many people rely on a “digal wallet” to store the keys. The ernment created s own—the Chivo Wallet app—but shared virtually no rmatn about who was signg or how would work.</p><p class="paywall">One afternoon, I was walkg through the ma plaza Usulután, a small cy the untry’s southeast, when I saw two soldiers standg guard outsi a gleamg blue Chivo A.T.M. The uned mache looked like a monument, or a shre. The bs that accept b tend to be large ternatnal rporatns (Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Starbucks); a recent survey by the Chamber of Commerce found that eighty-six per cent of the untry’s mercial bs have never nducted a b transactn.</p><p class="paywall">Last November, durg B Week El Salvador, Bele ma another announcement, this one om a beachont stage rigged wh strobe lights and jets of smoke. The sky l up wh fireworks, and on a giant screen behd him, neon-blue letters, were the words “El Printe.” The athetic was somewhere between a Kiss ncert and an I.P.O. “When Alexanr the Great was nquerg the world, he tablished ‘Alexandrias,’ ” Bele said. “The Alexandrias would be like beans of hope for the rt of the world. We should build the first Alexandria here, El Salvador. So we were thkg of buildg”—a pse for effect—“B Cy.”</p><p class="paywall">B Cy would be an actual municipaly, powered by the geothermal energy of a nearby volno and fund by a new fancial stment lled B Bonds, or Volno Bonds, which will pay yields tied to the sale of b. The issuance of the bonds, acrdg to Bele, would raise a billn dollars. The sh of vtment would help fund schools, hospals, and public works— theory, at least. The qutn was who would vt the bonds, given that, by most acunts, their returns were no better than those of the alternativ. Matt Leve, a lumnist at Bloomberg, wrote, “People who like crypto will buy them and tra them wh each other and feel a sense of kship and muny and fun. They are HODLers and whal, they get to hang out wh the print of a untry on a Saturday night.”</p><p class="paywall">In attendance at the announcement was an Amerin vtor and early B adopter named Max Keiser, who ns a fund lled El Zonte Capal. He’s part of a group of ternatnal fanciers who are sellg the image of a dynamic new El Salvador. When we spoke, Keiser had jt ded wh Bele at the Printial Palace. He had flown wh his wife for the ocsn, on a plane belongg to “Uncle Ricky,” the Mexin bsman and TV magnate Rirdo Salas Pliego, who is a passnate Ber and a pro-Bele partisan. Keiser tends to see nspiraci high plac. He suggted to me that the U.S. State Department had been volved the gang killgs March, but he praised Bele’s state of exceptn as “phenomenal.” “Some suggt human rights have been vlated. I would say that the human rights of seven ln Salvadorans are what matters,” he said. “Image J.F.K. if he had B to do battle wh the C.I.A. and central banks—and what you get is Print Bele today. El Salvador is the new Camelot.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw bodygrid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embedasset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embedrponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Surfers at El Zonte beach La Libertad. El Zonte and the other nearby astal towns were recently adopted by the Bele..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embedptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptntext">El Zonte, which has e to be known as B Beach.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Sce El Salvador adopted b, the currency’s value has fluctuated wildly. But Bele ntued to buy more of wh state funds, cludg a hundred s last November and five hundred more early May, after the price dropped. “El Salvador jt bought the dip!” he wrote on Twter. The untry now holds some twenty-four hundred bs, worth approximately forty-eight ln dollars, or roughly half what Bele paid for them.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Short-term loss are hardly the biggt danger to the Salvadoran enomy. The Internatnal Moary Fund, om which El Salvador sought a $1.3-billn loan, nsirs b a threat both to the global fancial system and to the untry’s immediate solvency. In January, 2023, El Salvador will need to make one eight-hundred-ln-dollar bond payment, followed by another, 2025. “The fancial markets now see El Salvador as much riskier than before,” the enomist Rirdo Castaneda told me. “The reasons are failur of mocratic stutns, the adoptn of b, and the lack of certaty about plans for payg off the untry’s bt.” The former ernment official told me, “B vtment is a cloud that don’t exist. The state rerv are the last rource for the ernment to pay for basic needs. Maybe n get them to the 2024 electns.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropplead-standard-headg paywall">Nuevas Ias shows no signs of losg s super-majory Congrs, yet s members live fear of misspeakg. Late last year, two of the Party’s ngrsmen were rerd sharg ncerns over the phone about losg their travel visas as a rult of U.S. sanctns. Both have been forced om their jobs and are currently unr vtigatn.</p><p class="paywall">The only member of the Bele ernment willg to speak wh me was the Vice-Print, Félix Ulloa, Jr. He received me one morng at his official rince, an upsle neighborhood of San Salvador. He sat a high-backed wood chair wh blue velvet trim. On the wall was a surrealist patg of Lady Jtice, bldfold, wh her body floatg three unnnected piec among the clouds. Ulloa, a short man wh long hair and a pper-lored beard, is a nstutnal scholar wh gre om universi three untri. He is thirty years olr than the Print he serv, and a veteran of left-wg .</p><p class="paywall">“I have been a social warrr all my life, and I fought not jt wh words—we took up arms,” he told me. This was a reference to the war years, when he was a stunt radil. “We fought agast a dictatorship. . . . Those who say this is a dictatorship don’t know what a dictatorship is.” He ntued, “We spent the two years of the panmic clashg wh Congrs.” It was “an assembly domated by the two parti which blocked everythg the Print proposed.”</p><p class="paywall">We spoke for an hour, durg which he livered a lany of enomic-growth figur, improved homici statistics, and news of proment foreign vtors who had vised the untry. Tourism was up, and preparatns were unr way for an ternatnal surfg petn. But all topics led back to a fact that no one uld refute: the Print and his party had won their electns and ntued to enjoy overwhelmg public support. Until Bele lost a vote or rigged an electn, the rt was amic. At the end of the month, the state of exceptn was due to expire. Would the Assembly extend ? I asked. “Durg the war, we lived six years wh a state of exceptn,” he replied. There was “nothg strange” about dog aga.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="adslot adslot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="xgva8h"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body bodyntaer articlebody" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="bodyner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">On a recent night, I was speakg wh a woman named Karen, whose hband had been arrted durg a work break at a taxi stand a town near San Salvador. He and his employee were eatg pupas on the street, and, when a ok om the food stall walked over to llect their money, a group of officers nverged on the three of them. The charge was “illegal gatherg.” A jealo neighbor may have lled a tip—Karen’s hband had never been arrted, and he was a fixture at their lol church. He had also enthiastilly voted for Bele 2019. Baffled, Karen tried everythg, cludg speakg to lol reporters to publicize the se, but nothg changed. When she first told me the story, we were hunched over a small table the food urt of a mall, her face teary.</p><p class="paywall">We stayed touch as the state of exceptn kept gettg extend. It is still effect, even though daily homicis have dropped. Each month, when the Assembly has to renew , the Speaker nven the body wh an announcement on Twter. Nuevas Ias members reply enthiastilly, wh emojis and updated profile pictur. Most of them retweet Bele, who routely announc days wh zero homicis. “<em>Seguimos</em>,” he says, at the end of each one—“Onward.” Fifty thoand people have now been taed.</p><p class="paywall">“There’s no official policy beyond givg people blanket sentenc and keepg them taed,” Ra Montti, of Cristosal, told me. “We’ve been to heargs where there are between three hundred and five hundred people beg tried en masse. But there’s no actual crimal vtigatn.” Cristosal has been documentg tentn ndns based on dividual plats brought by fay members of tae. At least seventy people have died while ctody.</p><p class="paywall">Karen has two small children, and she was now rg for them while workg two jobs—her own and her hband’s. In the first weeks after his arrt, she found time every morng to vis Izal, the prison where he was beg held. It was a two-hour trip, and she ma to prove her vigilance, sce the prison didn’t allow visors. The crowds of women who’d once gathered outsi small police preccts were now reassemblg each day ont of Izal and Marna, the two prisons, both overcrowd, where nearly everyone had been sent.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The last time Karen and I spoke, she told me that she uld no longer make the trips to see her hband. “Too much work,” she said. Her voice was dry, almost raspy wh exhstn. “Everyone is gettg six months” prison, she add. He was now more than halfway through, though his crime remaed a mystery. ♦</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS jyGBoi"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body bodyle-barrier articlebody articlebody--grid-margs"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-unslot nsumer-marketg-unslot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv jfHKjr"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body bodyntaer"><div 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Mallm</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture 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class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Transn" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-emk">Lyndon Johnson and the events Dallas.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-embyle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-embyle"><div class="summary-embylentent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span>Robert A. Caro</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Blood Ti" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-emntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-embric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Crime</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackghed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-emhed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Blood Ti</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Blood Ti" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-emk">Two brilliant llege lovers were nvicted of a btal slayg. All the years later, why has the se bee a e?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-embyle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-embyle"><div class="summary-embylentent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle bylbyle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU bylename"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss bylepreamble">By </span>Nathan Heller</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-emimage rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Chameleon" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-imageimage" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-emntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-embric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Crime</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackghed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-emhed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Chameleon</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-emasset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-emimage-lk summary-em-trackgimage-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset 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nayib bukele gay

3 Dec 2024

A new documentary, 'Unfivable,' follows Geovany, a gay former gang hman, who grappl wh both his sexualy and his vlent past.

INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR

But for some groups, cludg lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) people, El Salvador provis no safe haven.

The social media savvy ndidate said he had gay iends and acquatanc, but add that marriage uld only happen between a man and a woman.

NAYIB BELE DICE NO AL MATRIMON GAY

In a untry where, acrdg to the Pew Rearch Center, more than 60 percent of the populatn nsirs society should reject homosexualy, where women n be imprisoned for havg a misrriage, and where one of the polil parti ntendg for the princy (Vamos) csad agast anythg related to LGBT rights, some nsir Bele’s lewarm posn is foremost a polil lculatn. Activists participate a march agast homophobia on May 17, 2018 San Salvador.

The prison director showed him an isolatn cell, where ne former gang members—om each of the untry’s three ma anized crime groups, MS-13, and two factns of Barr 18—had been moved after g out as gay.

RINTE CLASH WH EL SALVADOR’S PRO-LIFE, ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE PRINT ON IG LIVE

“Bee the gangs, if there’s even the spicn that you’re gay, you pay for wh your life.

BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM NAYIB BUKELE GAY

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class="ContentHearHedAccredatnWrapper-GFiQf cDNVlV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper" class="ContentHearTleBlockWrapper-cjmSKp jbzVNV"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubric" class="ContentHearRubricBlock-LmpbT kkDiIx"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubricDateBlock" class="ContentHearRubricDateBlock-kAQcZP fTFWxD"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX dZhWBL bric ContentHearRubricContaer-eTudtt iRsSlw"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ bric__lk" href="/magaze/letter-om-el-salvador"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Letter om El Salvador</span></a></div></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearHed-NCyCC iUEiRd NbxED hpJvIc">The Rise of Nayib Bele, El Salvador’s Authorarian Print</h1></div><div class="ContentHearAccredatn-lfctVB etVsnJ ntent-hear__accredatn" data-ttid="ContentHearAccredatn"><div class="ContentHearDek-bIqFFZ Mtme">The buddg strongman has ridn B schem and a reprsive crackdown on gangs to bee Lat Ameri’s most popular lear.</div><div class="ContentHearByle-kmPyCa gvUmxJ"><div class="ContentHearByleContent-dpPmNn DRFq"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl ContentHearByl-cZqgyJ bHLeKI"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH bwbwth byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn lOLCm byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG uhfVi byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL brYZgj byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/jonathan-blzer">Jonathan Blzer</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2022-09-05T06:00:00-04:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd kYZrFA iINaCX">September 5, 2022</time></div></div></div></div><div class="ContentHearLeadAsset-hGbumP kByCgj lead-asset ContentHearLeadAssetWrapper-hfXHEc Grck lead-asset--width-fullbleed" data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset"><figure class="ContentHearLeadAssetContent-kOfYSG dRGWbI"><div class="ContentHearLeadAssetContentMedia-bLEIpi jjhWdS lead-asset__ntent__photo"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz eIhPZj"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa ContentHearRponsiveAsset-bREgIb hONbnm rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="A woman hugs her boyiend before police officers take him to the provisnal tentn center El Penalo San..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></div></div></span></div></figure></div><div class="ContentHearLeadContentFullWidth-cvJzX hHaBOT"><figure class="ContentHearLeadContentCaptnCred-hSIIqJ kQVfzg"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn ContentHearLeadAssetCaptn-hPWmSN kuCzGS"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">Outsi El Penalo, the ltle jail. El Salvador has long been ravaged by gang vlence. In recent months, Bele’s ernment has clared a state of emergency and taed some fifty thoand people.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photographs by Fred Ramos for The New Yorker</span></div></figure></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kAEsuD viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU cjjxgx bookmark mobile"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save this story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z"></path><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z"></path></svg></span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ActnBarButtonText-bYXYuh iUEiRd bkefvo gkccfO">Save this story</span></button></div></div></div><div class="LightboxWrapper-dxsWBV hhylRt"><div class="ArticlePageChunksContent-etcMtP bwyLBj"><div data-ttid="ArticlePageChunks" class="ArticlePageChunks-fLyCVG lmuXQm"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">El Penalo, the ltle jail, is a squat ncrete stcture on a by mercial street San Salvador, the pal of El Salvador. On the morng of April 7th, a Thursday, fifty women were led up along s ont wall, wearg surgil masks and holdg umbrellas agast the sun. They’d been gatherg there all week. It was ne-thirty, and about nety gre. Most of the women had been wag sce eight to reach a small wdow where a police official shared rmatn on the whereabouts of their sons and hbands.</p><p class="paywall">Toward the back of the le, wearg a long nim skirt and a red T-shirt, was a middle-aged woman wh dark, led sk and ep-set ey. Her name was Yanira, and her son, she said, was a twenty-year-old wh tism. He’d been arrted three days earlier, at home, where the two had been workg throughout the panmic, cleang and rellg disrd plastic sleev that hold bottl of hand sanizer. Yanira rarely leav him alone, but she had to n an errand. When she returned, thirty mut later, the police had taken him away. “Sometim he’ll wanr to the street whout his sho,” she told me. “All the neighbors know him. But someone who don’t might thk he’s a crimal, or crazy.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">A week before, members of El Salvador’s largt gang, MS-13, had murred eighty-seven people three days. The untry has long been ravaged by gang vlence, but the killgs were unual their thlsns. People wh no ti to crime were targeted: a u seller, a surf stctor, a homemaker, a bbler. The gangsters went after everybody, but their msage was directed at one person—the untry’s Print, Nayib Bele, who has promised to radilly rce crime and to change El Salvador’s image abroad. Gang members left a rpse on the road leadg to Surf Cy, a stretch of beachont real tate on the Pacific Coast which Bele had refurbished and renamed to attract ternatnal tourists.</p><p class="paywall">In recent s, every Salvadoran Print has ntend wh the gangs. One admistratn sent soldiers to poor neighborhoods and filled the untry’s prisons, unr a policy lled <em>mano dura</em>, or “strong hand”; another reprised as <em>super mano dura</em>. When Bele was the mayor of San Salvador, he lled the rpons “immoral” and “impractil.” But now he clared war. Jt after midnight on the send day of the homici spike, the Natnal Assembly, which Bele’s party ntrols, stuted a “state of exceptn,” unr which thori uld arrt anyone they nsired spic. Detae were not entled to a legal fense. The right to gather groups larger than two was spend, and all mors would be tried as adults. On his Twter acunt, Bele, who is forty-one years old and has an approval ratg of more than eighty per cent, shared a nng tally of the arrts that followed, along wh sbro mentary, postg photographs of tattooed men handcuffs and unrwear (“ltle angels”), some of whom appeared to have been roughed up (“He mt have been eatg i wh ketchup”). Crics of the new policy—whether mon cizens, journalists, or foreign ernments—supported “the terrorists,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Yanira’s son was one of six thoand people arrted the first week. By the time I met her, the total had risen to about ne thoand. A month and a half later, would reach thirty thoand. Bele nced that one per cent of the roundups might rult wrongful arrts, but the public uld only take his word for that figure. “As we ntue arrtg more gangsters, more people are gog to prott,” Bele said. “Bee there will always be a mother of a gangster, a fay member, or a iend who isn’t gog to like that we are cleansg that ncer.”</p><p class="paywall">Yanira was joed the le by her dghter, who’d been missg work at a clothg shop to help lote her brother. The prev day, the dghter told me, they’d spent six hours visg urtho, searchg for him. “We’re not the kd of people who have any experience the sorts of plac,” she said. She crossed the street while Yanira held their place le. A boga ont of El Penalo offers food and hygiene packag for tae, rangg om a sgle meal ($2.50) to basic toiletri ($7.00) or a change of unrwear ($15.50). (Prisoners whout this assistance eat only termtently.) Yanira’s dghter returned jt time to prs a receipt for three meals to her mother’s hand before they reached the wdow. Farther down the block, a group of soldiers armed wh rifl had stopped a public b and were orrg the male passengers to step out and lift up their shirts. They were checkg for tattoos that might dite gang membership.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Person stg on porch talkg to person standg by mailbox" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“I’ve been extra nice to people—I should be gettg some thank-you not.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Frank Cotham</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk 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class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">As the official at the wdow examed her son’s rerds, Yanira stood ramrod straight. Sudnly, she reiled; when she turned away om the wdow, her ey were wi. “Izal” was all she uld say, and she staggered off, sobbg. It was the name of a maximum-secury prison that ho harned gangsters. Her son had been sent there earlier that morng.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">While the women waed outsi El Penalo, another crowd was gatherg, at the Miami Beach Conventn Center. It nsisted of vtors and tech entreprenrs, who were there to see Bele, a keynote speaker at an annual B nference. Last summer, he announced that El Salvador would be the first untry the world to accept b as legal tenr. Wh a few months, there were some two hundred special A.T.M.s set up across the untry, and the ernment had lnched an app, lled the Chivo Wallet, on which each Salvadoran was given thirty dollars’ worth of b. At the nference, Bers, techno-utopians, and libertarians assembled to hear about a seri of amb projects that Bele had been promisg ever sce. They would have to wa a ltle longer. The nference, Bele wrote an apologetic note, was “one of the biggt celebratns of the power of eedom, centralizatn, and human genuy s fight agast ignorance, centralizatn, and dogma.” But, owg to the state of exceptn, he need to stay put. “Everythg happens for a reason,” he went on. “Hopefully we’ll be able to learn soon why this had to happen this way.”</p><p class="paywall">When Bele was elected Print, 2019, he was the youngt head of state Lat Ameri and embodied a new natnal begng. At his guratn, his heavily pregnant wife stood bi him as he stcted crowds of ecstatic voters to raise a hand along wh him after he swore the oath of office. Three of his recent precsors had been eher arrted or dicted, and all of them me om El Salvador’s two ma polil parti, which had erned whout terptn for more than two s. It had been a perd of chronic poverty, vlence, and mass emigratn. “If you left to live the Uned Stat and returned twenty years later, you’d fd the same policians,” Amparo Marroquín, a profsor at the Central Amerin Universy, San Salvador, told me. “They were dosrs.” Bele, who’d fected om one of the ma parti, pched himself as an anti-rptn reformer. His mpaign slogan—“There’s enough money to go around as long as no one steals”—is a le that he has ed for almost as long as he’s been public life. He began his reer at the age of thirty, as the mayor of a town of fewer than ten thoand people. After a sgle term, he ran for mayor of San Salvador. Frh off that job, at thirty-seven, he was elected Print.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Bele, who wears leather jackets and backward baseball ps and has a beard, vok Alexanr the Great and Steve Jobs, and his brand is meant to be a b of both: a potentate wh an anti-tablishment streak. At the Uned Natns General Assembly 2019, he took a selfie om the dais, mid-addrs, remdg the world lears attendance that a “uple of imag on Instagram n have a greater impact than any speech this assembly.” Social media, he once said, “has shown what people really are.” Before, “everybody was pretendg.”</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Durg the years of his ascent, the public heard om him nstantly—on Twter and Facebook, and a ntual procsn of ribbon cuttgs and other public appearanc. As the mayor of San Salvador, he cleaned up parts of the cy’s ramshackle downtown; renovated a tr of historic plazas; opened a high-end market, which has lators and rooftop rtrants, addn to a library equipped wh puters and play areas for children. At one pot, he unveiled a twenty-four-ln-dollar public-works project, lled 100% Ilumado, to stall lamps on every street rner. “You n ll PR if you want to be a ltle cynil. But I’m talkg about spiratn,” he told the <em>Virgia Quarterly Review</em>, 2016. “I’m talkg about somethg sublime.”</p><p class="paywall">Usually, public adoratn dims as the reali of erng set , but Bele’s support has grown. He is now the most popular lear Lat Ameri. In part, this is the rult of his war on the gangs, his handlg of the panmic, public-astcture projects, an crease the mimum wage, and low gas pric. It is also the product of a mammoth propaganda mpaign. But, more profoundly, Bele has succeed generatg a palpable sense of llective expectancy and pri: the untry is fally gettg s act together.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="0k28fl"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The Uned Stat, the European Unn, and the Organizatn of Amerin Stat have cricized Bele’s most dac acts as Print. The clu threateng members of Congrs wh troops, and firg Supreme Court magistrat and replacg them wh judg who have allowed Bele to n for a send term spe a nstutnal ban. But the foreign cricism has enabled Bele to unify Salvadorans agast a mon enemy, and has put him, and his untry of six and a half ln people, on the map. “Why are they so ncerned about a untry so small?” he has said. In 2021, <em>Time</em> clud Bele s list of the world’s most fluential people, alongsi Narendra Modi, Donald Tmp, and Naftali Bent. “Ok boomers,” he recently tweeted, English, at members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relatns Commtee. “You have 0 jurisdictn on a sovereign and pennt natn. We are not your lony.”</p><p class="paywall">For much of his reer, Bele has basked the limelight of the prs: viss to Washgton, to addrs the Ameris Society and the Herage Foundatn, terviews wh Je Ramos and Ben Smh. When the verage turned cril, however, he stopped engagg wh ternatnal journalists. I was no exceptn. As one of his advisers put , “Why talk to you when he n speak directly to the people?”</p><p class="paywall">Bele may reprent the future, but he talks a lot about the past—the policians who robbed public ffers, the gangs that sowed terror, the stutns that never worked. “It’s a kd of revanchism,” Juan Anton Durán, a judge, told me. He was moted last year, after cricizg the Print for forcg a third of the feral judiciary to early retirement. By then, at least fifty ernment officials and high-profile crics had had to leave the untry, acrdg to <em>Revista Factum</em>, a Salvadoran news magaze. Bele, after many accatns that he was ncentratg power, changed his Twter b to “the olt dictator the world.” A member of his party intified himself on social media as “Mister of Trolls.” Bele’s voters expected him to have enemi, a member of Congrs told me. “What the Print is sellg the people is revenge.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">All through the neteen-eighti, El Salvador was a place of obssive U.S. tert. Ronald Reagan said that was “on the ont le of the battle that is really aimed at the very heart of the Wtern Hemisphere, and eventually at .” When fightg broke out between the untry’s right-wg ernment and leftist guerrillas, the U.S. sid wh the ernment; armed the ary, traed and advised s officer rps, and vered up their worst ab. For twelve years, the guerrillas fought the U.S.-backed ernment to a stalemate, and some seventy-five thoand civilians died. Eighty-five per cent of the killgs were mted by the ary and the secury forc, which massacred large numbers of the ral poor for sympathizg wh the guerrillas. Bele was ten when peace acrds were signed, 1992. Nearly a quarter of the Salvadoran populatn end up movg to the Uned Stat.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="A souvenir market downtown San Salvador sells gifts that feature Print Nayib Bele." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">“What the Print is sellg people is revenge,” a member of Congrs said. His voters expect him to have enemi.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bele grew up San Salvador, as a privileged outsir. His father was a Mlim bsman of Paltian scent, who opened the untry’s first McDonald’s anchise, ran a textile pany, helped build four mosqu, and owned a public-relatns firm. He was also a polygamist wh six wiv. Bele, who has three brothers and seven half siblgs, went to a bilgual private school. Most of his well-heeled classmat shared their fai’ nservative outlooks. But Bele’s father was a man of the left and a supporter of the guerrilla forc, lled the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacnal, or the F.M.L.N., which beme one of the two major polil parti after the war. Mlim leftists stood out Salvadoran high society. In the late neti, after Al Qaeda gaed ternatnal notoriety, the Bele fay was stopped by ctoms agents at the airport bee of their spic-soundg name, acrdg to a ep vtigative profile by the journalist Gabriel Labrador. If the cint rattled Bele, he refed to let on. Popular enough to be elected print of his high-school class, he ptned his yearbook photograph “Class terrorist.”</p><p class="paywall">Bele’s polil apprentichip began after he dropped out of llege and was managg a night club downtown San Salvador. He took over his fay’s public-relatns firm, whose key client was the F.M.L.N. The Princy and the Assembly were ntrolled by the Alianza Republina Nacnalista, or <em class="small">ARENA</em>, which was found, the early eighti, by a member of a right-wg ath squad. The Party tered primarily to the bs éle, but s members clud ex-ary men and relig nservativ. An accumulatn of rptn sndals sank <em class="small">ARENA</em>, 2009, allowg the F.M.L.N. to ga power, which held on to for the next . In 2011, Bele lnched a self-fund bid for mayor of Nuevo Ctlán, an old <em class="small">ARENA</em> stronghold outsi the pal. “Don’t get volved polics,” his father had once warned him, acrdg to an terview revered by the vtigative newspaper <em>El Faro</em>. “Policians who lose are . . . thrown away. You’ll be damaged goods.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">But Bele already had a plan: he would n on the F.M.L.N. ticket while downplayg his associatns wh the Party. “I did not live the war,” he said a televisn terview durg the mpaign. “I’m of the postwar generatn, a generatn that has new ias.” His polics were leftist—progrsive tax, creased public spendg—but he avoid the F.M.L.N.’s hoary pronouncements about revolutn. He also rejected the Party’s tramark lors of red and whe, stead blanketg the streets wh mpaign materials that featured his name whe agast a backdrop of light blue. “I have iends who are nservative, and they’d never vote for the F.M.L.N.,” he told one of his advisers.</p><p class="paywall">Bele won by ls than two per cent, and erned as if he were still mpaigng. He erected a large stone sign wh a whe “N” engraved a circle at the entrance to Nuevo Ctlán. He also opened a twenty-four-hour medil clic, a library, and a muny center. Each month, senrs received a ee basket of food. Bele vowed to donate his entire salary to a new program fundg grants for stunts to take class English and puter science. The town’s bt ballooned, but his populary soon eclipsed that of the Party elrs.</p><p class="paywall">The F.M.L.N. enuraged him to n for mayor of San Salvador, a job wily seen as a steppg stone to the Princy. “The lear of the Party told everyone that Nayib’s ndidacy would get two or three more seats Congrs,” a former Party official told me. “They all thought that would help them.”</p><p class="paywall">Bele, who felt his power growg, shut the Party out of his mpaign, relyg stead on fay members and old iends. One of them was Ernto Castro, his chief secretary Nuevo Ctlán, who now serv as the print of the Natnal Assembly. Another was his younger brother Karim. In public, Nayib was polished and poised, but private meetgs he tend to be distracted and jtery. He checked his phone nstantly, drank four Red Bulls a day, kept odd hours, and stggled to foc on dividual tasks. A former associate told me, “If an ia occurs to him, and he thks ’s brilliant, he do . Then, afterward, if ’s illegal? Oops!” Karim would s quietly before makg lm, thorative pronouncements. “It wasn’t a meetg unls Karim was there,” the former Party official said. Together, the brothers reprised the high pots of the Nuevo Ctlán mpaign—the same lors, the same signia (“N”), and the same slogan (“New Ias”). By the time Bele won, he had veloped a regnizable brand and had more Twter followers than the untry’s Print did.</p><p class="paywall">When journalists dug to Bele’s acplishments office—the market downtown, the revalizatn of San Salvador’s historic mercial district—they found evince of irregulari. The mayor’s office had disregard perms and zong ordanc. It paid flated pric to ntractors, and kept rmatn om the cy uncil. One bsman who worked wh Bele at the time told me, “Before Bele, you’d want to get somethg done, and when you’d go to meet wh the mayor you’d fd a long table full of uncil members, lots of burecracy. Wh Bele, you’d s down at the same long table, but would jt be him wh an assistant. On the one hand, was great bee was jt one guy. On the other, you’d leave thkg, Uh-oh, ’s jt one guy.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="c4hls"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Bele me to regard any vtigatn to his learship as a personal attack. Edw Segura, a pollster and a polil lumnist, told me, “Anytime the media put out somethg qutng his acplishments, was bee they were agast him.” Bele started buildg an alternative media landspe: TV programs, a work of trolls on Twter, an army of YouTubers, and several publitns that posted pro-Bele stori on Facebook.</p><p class="paywall">Bele’s portrayal of himself as a ntrarian tth-teller was effective, but was a fallg out wh the F.M.L.N. that turned him to a polil juggernt. In the fall of 2017, an argument broke out a San Salvador cy-uncil meetg over the issuance of a buildg perm for a revalizatn project. Acrdg to reportg by Labrador, Bele acced the uncil’s legal director, a lawyer wh the F.M.L.N., of nspirg agast him. At one pot, she claimed, he threw an apple at her and said, “Take this apple, you wch!”</p><p class="paywall">The cint led to a formal vote expellg Bele om the Party, but the F.M.L.N. was divid. “The lears were also sred that Bele might rign,” the official told me. “He was so popular. He had this huge reach on social media. The breakg pot was when he wanted to be Print. They ed the apple to ver up.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Caveman asks iend to move boulr to ve entrance so he n sleep" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Can you roll back for ne more mut?”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Drew Dernavich</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 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ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Shortly afterward, Bele, at a gatherg the U.S. wh Salvadoran immigrants, said, “<em class="small">ARENA</em> and the F.M.L.N. are really the same.” He announced the formatn of a new party, Nuevas Ias. In Febary, 2019, he was elected Print wh fifty-three per cent of the vote.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The arm—bare and handcuffed at the wrist, the hand a fist—me to view on a two-lane road leadg om the pal to San Vicente. It was juttg out om the back of a police pickup tck that was drivg past a store lled Tula’s Classic Sweets. A man was lyg the bed of the tck, but all that was visible was his arm, chaed to a rack attached to the b.</p><p class="paywall">One of the strangt aspects of the state of exceptn was how equent sightgs like this were, unls you went lookg for them. The ernment was broadstg s harsht acts, and on Twter there was a flood of photographs, vios, and menacg announcements. But on the ma streets of the untry’s biggt ci nothg seemed out of the ordary. “The state of exceptn is directed at the poor, margalized areas,” Ra Montti, the director of vtigatns at Cristosal, a human-rights group, told me. “The are stigmatized muni wh people who are seen as havg <em>dudosa nfiabilidad</em> ”—“qutnable tstworths.” She ntued, “You hear people say, ‘Surely they mt have done somethg if they’re beg taken away.’ ”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">On a Saturday night, an old Salvadoran iend of me proposed that we shoot pool at a billiard hall San Salvador’s historic downtown. He is a father of three his mid-forti who ns a small bs the pal. The last time I’d seen him—about six years earlier, at the start of Bele’s mayoral term—he ma trips downtown only durg daylight hours, bee was too dangero after dark. He was enuraged by the Print’s actns durg the state of exceptn, as is more than nety per cent of the populatn, acrdg to recent polls. “Nayib is fightg,” he said. “Of urse he has his crics. He’s dog new thgs, radil thgs. It’s all on the up and up. People are always tryg to be so down on El Salvador. But I don’t hear Salvadorans talkg about leavg, like before.” At the pool hall, was Eighti Night, and a d.j. played the Sugar Hill Gang and Run-DMC while people danced and ate tapas. We left after midnight. As we strolled through the illumated downtown plazas, he snapped photos of the Art Nouve Natnal Theatre.</p><p class="paywall">In the <em>zonas margalizadas</em>, where the gangs had been ntrol, however, rints were effectively trapped between them and the ernment. I arrived Distro Italia, a muny of ten thoand people about an hour north of San Salvador, on a Monday eveng, to fd a rdon of some twenty soldiers bat fatigu and armed wh semi-tomatic rifl. They had set up a checkpot for anyone enterg or leavg the rintial area. Soldiers searched bags and checked I.D. rds, and as people returned om work the le grew long. The mandg officer sought me out as soon as I arrived. “If you haven’t done anythg wrong, you’ll be fe,” he said. “People outsi El Salvador probably don’t unrstand.”</p><p class="paywall">A few mut later, I noticed a woman a green striped shirt, wh dark, izzy hair, standg at a slight remove om the crowd. Her two sons—ag eighteen and twenty-one—were returng om work, and she was wag to meet them, so that they uld all walk home together. Mostly, she felt <em>aliv</em>—“relief”—she said: “There are soldiers si patrollg.” When I asked her whether she worried that her sons might get arrted, she shgged. “Until happens to you, don’t matter what happens to someone else,” Veróni Reyna, a secury expert who works at a nonprof lled Servic Social Pasnista, told me. “It’s a survival stct. The more vlence people live wh, the ls they n re about other people. Gettg volved other people’s liv is adly.”</p><p class="paywall">Gangs have domated life El Salvador sce the late neti, but they didn’t origate there. MS-13 and Barr 18 both began Los Angel, at least a earlier, as hundreds of thoands of Salvadorans fled the civil war. Many of the teen-agers, adrift when they arrived, turned to crime the ner cy, where Mexin and Black gangs enforced a btal racial hierarchy. After thoands of Salvadoran youths were arrted, the Clton Admistratn saw an opportuny to monstrate s toughns both on immigratn and on crime. It ported vlent offenrs whout tellg the Salvadoran ernment who they were. “The Uned Stat lets the dangero typ out and tells them, ‘Go back to where you me om,’ ” the Print of El Salvador said 1997. “But we have no way to try them or jail them . . . and so we mt not only let them but let them go ee.”</p><p class="paywall">Cliqu om Southern California arrived El Salvador, brgg their rivalri and their turf wars wh them. “They nsumed everythg their path,” the anthropologist Juan José Martínez d’Aubuisson has wrten. “Piecemeal neighborhood gangs saw no choice but to jo one of the two for their own survival. The alternative was plete annihilatn.” By 2015, there were some sixty thoand gang members El Salvador, and seventy per cent of the untry’s bs were beg extorted, leadg to annual loss of four billn dollars, acrdg to timat by the Salvadoran Central Rerve Bank. The homici rate was higher than had been durg much of the civil war.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="a4j7aa"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">A seri of Salvadoran admistratns lnched dramatic crackdowns that played well wh the public but failed to curb the vlence. In 2012, David Munguía Payés, who had served as a general durg the war and was now the Mister of Secury an F.M.L.N. ernment, cid that the gangs, like the guerrillas, uldn’t be beaten wh force alone. He brought a former guerrilla, a Catholic bishop, and a reprentative om the Organizatn of Amerin Stat to negotiate wh them. A al was reached, and the homici rate dropped for almost eighteen months, but revelatns of the talks ced public outrage. The next Print, who also me om the F.M.L.N., renounced the al, and the ernment negotiators were eventually prosecuted for their volvement. In 2020, Munguía Payés was arrted for “unlawful associatn.” Other members of the F.M.L.N. and <em class="small">ARENA</em> have faced jail time for makg ad-hoc als wh the gangs, eher to enforce higher turnout at electn time or to perdilly blunt the ath unt.</p><p class="paywall">As the mayor of San Salvador, Bele ma an agreement wh members of Barr 18, who ntrolled the area around the Merdo Ctlán, acrdg to <em>El Faro</em>. The ernment gave them space among the venrs’ stalls, and, return, the gang allowed the market to operate. Bele has nied this, and as Print he adopted visible measur to bat the gangs. He lled his policy the Terrorial Control Plan; creased the police prence some municipali and clared a state of emergency si the natnal prisons, which had the immediate effect of mixg rival populatns that had long been kept apart. At the start of the panmic, the thori arranged hundreds of bare-chted prisoners their unrwear, prsed tightly together rows, for a photo opportuny. One of the Print’s advisers told me, “Look how he’s treatg the gangs. How uld he be talkg to them?”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Cyclist wearg profsnal gear passg pestrians on path" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Man needlsly drsed profsnal cyclg outf on your right.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by E. S. Glenn and Col Nissan</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">But Bele started negotiatg wh MS-13 as soon as he beme Print, acrdg to another story <em>El Faro</em>. Durg his first year office, he didn’t have a majory the Assembly, and for his fledglg party to w seats he need the homici rate to fall. “The big drops homicis were never jt the work of the ernment,” Veróni Reyna told me. “Bele learned the lson om what happened before. He closed ranks. No one had accs to the prisons for a year and a half.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The <em>El Faro</em> story relied on hundreds of pag of prison documents, addn to logbooks om facili where secret meetgs were held between gang learship and ernment reprentativ. In an tercepted msage, one lear of MS-13 told another, “Thgs are gog step by step.” The ernment, he said, was creasg enforcement to keep up appearanc, so that the negotiatns uld ntue. “The measur are jt a vep,” he went on. “They’re lookg out for the well-beg of homi.”</p><p class="paywall">Ls than a week after the story was published, Bele announced that the ernment would vtigate <em>El Faro</em> for money lnrg. Sce then, he has attacked the newspaper relentlsly, sometim llg out journalists by name. A few of them have been forced to exile; many others have adopted the practice of leavg the untry after publishg a story and wag to return until the threats have died down. The newspaper has a large ternatnal followg, but si El Salvador Bele’s mpaign agast has succeed. Many people have e to see <em>El Faro</em> as partisan and unreliable.</p><p class="paywall">The night before I arrived El Salvador, the Natnal Assembly passed a sweepg law to block news outlets om reportg on the gang suatn. Journalists uld now face up to ten years prison if they “reproduced” or “transmted” rmatn that might have e om gang sourc or uld otherwise “panic” the public. The law was ambiguo by sign, César Fagoaga, then the print of the Associatn of Journalists of El Salvador, told me. “This isn’t a legal problem—’s a polil problem,” he said. “They want to ntrol the only thg they don’t have—journalism.” Cldia Ortiz, a first-term ngrswoman om a fledglg party lled Vamos, told me, “The real opposn right now that’s dog substantive thgs is outsi the Assembly. It’s vtigative journalism, the universi, social anizatns exposg real problems.”</p><p class="paywall">In the ne days that I spent El Salvador April, three more journalists had to leave the untry after beg falsely acced by the Print and members of his party of nspirg wh the gangs. One of them—a reporter named Bryan Avelar, who works wh the New York <em>Tim</em>—was the target of a viral mpaign that claimed his brother was a proment gangster. (He don’t have any brothers.) “They know that they n have arrted if they feel like ,” Julia Gavarrete, a reporter wh <em>El Faro</em>, told me. Last year, she was one of thirty-five journalists and human-rights advot to disver that their cell phon had been fected wh the surveillance software Pegas.</p><p class="paywall">The ernment uld ny prs reports, but certa facts remaed. Last year, Bele refed a U.S. requt to extrade fourteen top-rankg members of MS-13. The Salvadoran ernment secretly released some of the men om prison, and they are now at large. Acrdg to a jot vtigatn by <em>La Prensa Gráfi</em> and InSight Crime, one of the gangsters, whose nom guerre is Crook of Hollywood, walked out of the untry’s most secure prison durg a crime wave last November. The followg month, homicis creased.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="mmh39"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Recently, the journalist Carlos Martínez published a story <em>El Faro</em> based on seven d rerdgs of nversatns between members of MS-13 and a ernment negotiator close to Bele. The name they e for the Print is Batman. There are explic referenc to two years of secret talks, and the official tak pas to scribe everythg he’s done for the gang to prove his “loyalty and tstworths.” What ed the killg spree March, acrdg to three gang members ced the story, was the arrt of a group of gangsters who were travellg a ernment vehicle. They felt betrayed bee they’d been promised “safe passage.”</p><p class="paywall">Uncharacteristilly, the ernment did not attack the article when me out. In June, 2022, Patrick Ventrell, the Amerin Chargé d’Affair, gave a prs nference San Salvador at which he said, “The bt way for the ernment of El Salvador to show that is ser” about fightg the gangs “is to extrade the most dangero lears.” Later the summer, Bele extraded two of them wh ltle fanfare. This news was eclipsed by the nstctn of a prison to hold more spected gang members, which he was llg the Terrorism Confement Center.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">It’s taken as an article of fah that the public r about such abstract prcipl as the le of law and the health of public stutns. But voters also want to see their man w, bee means that <em>they’re</em> wng. Often, thorarian tactics play better than high-md poise do. On Febary 9, 2020, eight months to Bele’s term, a crowd of a few thoand monstrators gathered outsi the Natnal Assembly, which was not ssn. They’d arrived ernment vehicl and b driven by soldiers, and were there to prott the refal by members of the Assembly to fund a key plank of Bele’s secury budget. Shortly after 4 <em class="small">p</em>.<em class="small">m</em>., a ravan of S.U.V.s pulled up, and Bele emerged. Surround by bodyguards, he stro to a stage set up at the end of an alley leadg to the chamber, and the crowd roared. “Wa here,” he told them, then head si. Armed soldiers bat fatigu followed him.</p><p class="paywall">While the troops fanned out across the gallery, Bele lled a symbolic ssn to orr. “I thk ’s clear who’s ntrol of the suatn,” he said to a microphone. He put down and bowed his head prayer. After a few sends, he rose and returned to the crowd outsi. This time, when he approached the stage, half a dozen soldiers stood bi him, their rifl drawn.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Relativ mourn Germn Orlando Esbar 28 Veracz Ctln. Esbar arrted on May 13 died weeks later at Izal..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">A funeral procsn for Germán Orlando Esbar, a taee who died prison.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">“I asked God, and he told me, ‘Patience,’ ” Bele said. He’s never ma clear which relign he practic, yet he equently vok God, projectg a firm but flexible piety. (“It’s one of his key characteristics,” Marroquín, of the Central Amerin Universy, told me. “He n seem Catholic or Prottant, Christian, or even Mlim.”) Bele’s relig rhetoric generally sways the public, but this crowd was expectg somethg more dramatic. People started to groan. “Patience, patience,” he repeated. “The <em>svergüenzas</em>,” he ntued, gturg behd him reference to the obstctnist ngrsmen. “We’ll get rid of them mocratilly. . . . In several months, we’re gog to have the Assembly.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">In Central Ameri, the symbolism was lost on nobody: a head of state had jt breached another branch of the ernment wh troops. “The whole thg got out of hand,” a former ernment official told me. But those people who thought Bele would suffer nsequenc were mistaken. “The most signifint thg wasn’t what happened but what didn’t,” Johnny Wright, a ngrsman wh the party Nutro Tiempo, told me. “That was the moment when he knew, he tted that he would not have ristance.”</p><p class="paywall">Hours after the cursn, Bele received a text msage om his former attorney Bertha Deleón. “You’ve gone too far,” she wrote. When he didn’t reply, she cid to tweet. His rponse was swift. “Delete this,” he told her. “You’re attackg .” Deleón refed, and the ernment lnched a smear mpaign agast her. She was a trendg topic on Twter for days, acced of protectg the gangs and of abettg crimals. People shouted at her on the street. “I worked for the prosecutor’s office for years on anized crime,” she said. “Old lleagu me up to me sayg, ‘Now we’re supposed to be vtigatg you. Fix this, or leave.’ ” Months later, wh multiple rptn charg lodged agast her and an Interpol warrant out for her arrt, she told me the story om Mexi, where she had recently been granted asylum.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Bele’s most nspicuo enabler durg this perd was the Tmp Admistratn. The Amerin Ambassador to El Salvador was a former mid-level C.I.A. staffer named Ronald Johnson, whose relatnship wh Bele was characterized by iendly rmaly. All Tmp red about, a former Admistratn official told me, was immigratn, and Bele acted acrdgly. In 2019, he was so eager to ply wh a al on asylum procsg that his advisers e-mailed a signed py of the agreement straight to the Department of Homeland Secury. U.S. officials had to ll them back to expla that the protol was more volved. In return, Bele “really wanted the State Department to lower the threat level for travel to El Salvador,” the former Admistratn official told me. “That was a really big thg to him. He was promotg Surf Cy.” (Eventually, the U.S. rced the threat level, which officials claimed to have been reviewg before Bele phed for the change stat.)</p><p class="paywall">A few weeks after Bele’s stunt at the Natnal Assembly, the first se of <em class="small">Covid</em>-19 was tected El Salvador. On March 21st, Bele clared a state of exceptn, issug strict guil for a natnal quarante. Those people who vlated s terms were arrted and sent to “ntament centers.” In theory, the centers were rerved for Salvadorans who’d been travellg abroad and need to be tted. But they soon beme -facto jails, where returng travellers and anyone acced of ignorg the l were held fely, many s for longer than a month. Ten thoand people were taed the early months of the panmic.</p><p class="paywall">The Supreme Court twice clared Bele’s measur unnstutnal, but he ignored the lgs and acced the judg of threateng public health. “If I really were a dictator, I would shoot all of them,” Bele said. “You save thoands of liv exchange for five.” He publicly mand the police and the ary to make more arrts, ntraventn of the judg’ orrs. “The flectn pot was the panmic,” the former ernment official told me. “That’s when Bele really started takg advantage.”</p><p class="paywall">The public was too overwhelmed wh s own survival to worry about the fer pots of ernance, and El Salvador’s fectn rate stayed low pared wh those of neighborg untri. In June, a gleamg new hospal for <em class="small">Covid</em> patients went up, billed as the biggt such facily Lat Ameri. (It remas unfished.) The ary distributed food to poor areas, and Bele gave three hundred dollars sh relief to more than a third of the untry. “The people are seeg that he is workg hard and dog thgs for the public,” a thirty-three-year-old named Gisele Hernánz, who worked a tortilla shop, told the Spanish newspaper <em>El País</em>. Another person said, “Bele isn’t dividg El Salvador. The untry is already divid.”</p><p class="paywall">The followg Febary, when El Salvador held legislative electns, Nuevas Ias won fifty-six of the eighty-four seats—a super-majory. The new members of the Assembly were a mixture of te believers and opportunists, but all were uned their loyalty to the person who had brought them to power. “Bele <em>is</em> the Party,” a senr U.S. official told me.</p><p class="paywall">The new legislators went after their first target on the day of their swearg . They arrived at ne the morng, and the ssn ran past midnight. “We entered whout knowg anythg,” Cldia Ortiz, of Vamos, told me. The Supreme Court magistrat who had opposed Bele’s panmic measur were summarily fired, for actg agast the bt terts of the public. The Nuevas Ias bloc also fired the Attorney General, whose term was up at the end of the year. The Print’s personal lawyer told an opposn lawmaker private, “We have to be disptive. People voted for for a reason. They wanted to change thgs radilly. We’re gog to change this place for good.” Four days later, the Assembly approved a law blockg all vtigatns to the ernment’s panmic spendg and shieldg officials om rptn charg.</p><p class="paywall">Bele had assumed office sayg that his relatnship wh the U.S. was “the No. 1 prry for .” But the U.S. had a new Print, and both untri had changed. “When we tried to normalize the relatnship, he felt like we were pullg the g out om unr him,” the senr U.S. official told me. “We didn’t have the red rpets out, so he thought was a liberate attempt to embarrass him.” The Bin Admistratn began drawg up a list of sanctns agast members of Bele’s admistratn, for actns cludg rptn and nspiracy wh the gangs. Bele ntued to meet Johnson, the prev Ambassador, Miami, and he retaed another Amerin adviser, who shared the view that the Democrats wouldn’t ntrol the Whe Hoe for long. When Bele cid to give a big terview the wter of 2021, wasn’t to the Salvadoran news media or to CNN but to Tucker Carlson. “He’s tryg to ri the culture war,” the senr U.S. official told me. “But El Salvador do not have the luxury of cidg that one party is gog to protect s terts forevermore.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Soldiers check the bags of lols at a checkpot at the entrance of the Distro Italia neighborhood San Salvador...." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">A checkpot outsi Distro Italia, which for years has had a large gang prence.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">For the past three years, crypto evangelists om all over the world have ma a pilgrimage to a stic beach El Salvador lled El Zonte, where a middle-aged surfer om California named Mike Peterson lnched an experimental chary. Its fancg me om an anonymo philanthropist who imposed a sgle ndn: the money had to be distributed entirely b. Soon, mom-and-pop bs, markets, and food stalls the area were acceptg the currency. El Zonte me to be known as B Beach.</p><p class="paywall">In the sprg of 2021, B Beach drew a mor crypto celebry—Jack Mallers, a twenty-seven-year-old tech entreprenr who was buildg an app lled Strike. The service allows ers to make money transfers, wh no fe, on Lightng, a high-speed work that is lked to the technology behd B. El Salvador fascated Mallers for reasons that went beyond B Beach. Twenty per cent of the untry’s gross domtic product om remtanc sent by Salvadorans livg abroad, mostly the U.S. But when immigrants e Wtern Unn to transfer money they typilly pay a hefty fee. “Lightng solv that,” Mallers has said. “It sts nothg to send one dollar or one thoand.” After livg B Beach for a month, he started spendg time San Salvador. He was havg a shi dner wh iends one night when he noticed a direct msage on Twter. “Hi, Jack, this is a msage on behalf of Print Bele,” began. A few days later, Karim Bele, wearg a hoodie, greeted Mallers and troduced him to his brother.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">At the B Conference Miami that summer, Mallers prented Bele, who addrsed atten by vio, fluent English. He announced that El Salvador would beg acceptg b, and prented a heady se for how B uld solve some of El Salvador’s problems. Seventy per cent of Salvadorans don’t have bank acunts, but more than half of them e cell phon. “El Salvador has not been the untry that’s regnized to be the first novatn,” Bele later told the podster Peter McCormack. “But why not this time?” Champng the currency has turned him to a global cult hero, a csar agast U.S. hegemony. “This is jt exercisg our sovereign right to adopt legal tenrs, like we adopted the U.S. dollar the year 2001,” he ntued. “In 2001, was probably done for the benefs of the banks, and this cisn is done for the benefs of the people.”</p><p class="paywall">Salvadorans found out about the B policy om news reports after the Miami announcement. The followg September, the Bele admistratn prented s B Law, which Mallers helped shape, and the Natnal Assembly passed whout bate or modifitn.</p><p class="paywall">Bers are skeptil of ernments and central banks, but their goal is the universal adoptn of the currency, and they need more untri to follow El Salvador’s lead. Even so, some of them were troubled by s example. The sh to create the B Law rulted nfg provisns: one article mandat that all merchants accept b, but another seems to hedge on that requirement. “The ernment operated on a startup’s timele—move fast and break thgs,” Jill Gunter, the chief strategy officer at Esprso Systems, a blockcha pany, told me. “But you’re talkg about an actual sovereign natn, wh the well-beg of lns of people at stake.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="nbjqer"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">There were some red flags. B ers need both a public key and a private one to accs their money, and many people rely on a “digal wallet” to store the keys. The ernment created s own—the Chivo Wallet app—but shared virtually no rmatn about who was signg or how would work.</p><p class="paywall">One afternoon, I was walkg through the ma plaza Usulután, a small cy the untry’s southeast, when I saw two soldiers standg guard outsi a gleamg blue Chivo A.T.M. The uned mache looked like a monument, or a shre. The bs that accept b tend to be large ternatnal rporatns (Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Starbucks); a recent survey by the Chamber of Commerce found that eighty-six per cent of the untry’s mercial bs have never nducted a b transactn.</p><p class="paywall">Last November, durg B Week El Salvador, Bele ma another announcement, this one om a beachont stage rigged wh strobe lights and jets of smoke. The sky l up wh fireworks, and on a giant screen behd him, neon-blue letters, were the words “El Printe.” The athetic was somewhere between a Kiss ncert and an I.P.O. “When Alexanr the Great was nquerg the world, he tablished ‘Alexandrias,’ ” Bele said. “The Alexandrias would be like beans of hope for the rt of the world. We should build the first Alexandria here, El Salvador. So we were thkg of buildg”—a pse for effect—“B Cy.”</p><p class="paywall">B Cy would be an actual municipaly, powered by the geothermal energy of a nearby volno and fund by a new fancial stment lled B Bonds, or Volno Bonds, which will pay yields tied to the sale of b. The issuance of the bonds, acrdg to Bele, would raise a billn dollars. The sh of vtment would help fund schools, hospals, and public works— theory, at least. The qutn was who would vt the bonds, given that, by most acunts, their returns were no better than those of the alternativ. Matt Leve, a lumnist at Bloomberg, wrote, “People who like crypto will buy them and tra them wh each other and feel a sense of kship and muny and fun. They are HODLers and whal, they get to hang out wh the print of a untry on a Saturday night.”</p><p class="paywall">In attendance at the announcement was an Amerin vtor and early B adopter named Max Keiser, who ns a fund lled El Zonte Capal. He’s part of a group of ternatnal fanciers who are sellg the image of a dynamic new El Salvador. When we spoke, Keiser had jt ded wh Bele at the Printial Palace. He had flown wh his wife for the ocsn, on a plane belongg to “Uncle Ricky,” the Mexin bsman and TV magnate Rirdo Salas Pliego, who is a passnate Ber and a pro-Bele partisan. Keiser tends to see nspiraci high plac. He suggted to me that the U.S. State Department had been volved the gang killgs March, but he praised Bele’s state of exceptn as “phenomenal.” “Some suggt human rights have been vlated. I would say that the human rights of seven ln Salvadorans are what matters,” he said. “Image J.F.K. if he had B to do battle wh the C.I.A. and central banks—and what you get is Print Bele today. El Salvador is the new Camelot.”</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa RaHuL body ArticlePageBodyGridContaer-jrMoA-d xjuw body__grid-ntaer" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="GenericCalloutWrapper-tojWn ecxUUd llout--has-top-borr" data-ttid="GenericCallout"><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="Surfers at El Zonte beach La Libertad. El Zonte and the other nearby astal towns were recently adopted by the Bele..." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">El Zonte, which has e to be known as B Beach.</span></div></figure></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Sce El Salvador adopted b, the currency’s value has fluctuated wildly. But Bele ntued to buy more of wh state funds, cludg a hundred s last November and five hundred more early May, after the price dropped. “El Salvador jt bought the dip!” he wrote on Twter. The untry now holds some twenty-four hundred bs, worth approximately forty-eight ln dollars, or roughly half what Bele paid for them.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Short-term loss are hardly the biggt danger to the Salvadoran enomy. The Internatnal Moary Fund, om which El Salvador sought a $1.3-billn loan, nsirs b a threat both to the global fancial system and to the untry’s immediate solvency. In January, 2023, El Salvador will need to make one eight-hundred-ln-dollar bond payment, followed by another, 2025. “The fancial markets now see El Salvador as much riskier than before,” the enomist Rirdo Castaneda told me. “The reasons are failur of mocratic stutns, the adoptn of b, and the lack of certaty about plans for payg off the untry’s bt.” The former ernment official told me, “B vtment is a cloud that don’t exist. The state rerv are the last rource for the ernment to pay for basic needs. Maybe n get them to the 2024 electns.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Nuevas Ias shows no signs of losg s super-majory Congrs, yet s members live fear of misspeakg. Late last year, two of the Party’s ngrsmen were rerd sharg ncerns over the phone about losg their travel visas as a rult of U.S. sanctns. Both have been forced om their jobs and are currently unr vtigatn.</p><p class="paywall">The only member of the Bele ernment willg to speak wh me was the Vice-Print, Félix Ulloa, Jr. He received me one morng at his official rince, an upsle neighborhood of San Salvador. He sat a high-backed wood chair wh blue velvet trim. On the wall was a surrealist patg of Lady Jtice, bldfold, wh her body floatg three unnnected piec among the clouds. Ulloa, a short man wh long hair and a pper-lored beard, is a nstutnal scholar wh gre om universi three untri. He is thirty years olr than the Print he serv, and a veteran of left-wg .</p><p class="paywall">“I have been a social warrr all my life, and I fought not jt wh words—we took up arms,” he told me. This was a reference to the war years, when he was a stunt radil. “We fought agast a dictatorship. . . . Those who say this is a dictatorship don’t know what a dictatorship is.” He ntued, “We spent the two years of the panmic clashg wh Congrs.” It was “an assembly domated by the two parti which blocked everythg the Print proposed.”</p><p class="paywall">We spoke for an hour, durg which he livered a lany of enomic-growth figur, improved homici statistics, and news of proment foreign vtors who had vised the untry. Tourism was up, and preparatns were unr way for an ternatnal surfg petn. But all topics led back to a fact that no one uld refute: the Print and his party had won their electns and ntued to enjoy overwhelmg public support. Until Bele lost a vote or rigged an electn, the rt was amic. At the end of the month, the state of exceptn was due to expire. Would the Assembly extend ? I asked. “Durg the war, we lived six years wh a state of exceptn,” he replied. There was “nothg strange” about dog aga.</p></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="xgva8h"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bDFJoo"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">On a recent night, I was speakg wh a woman named Karen, whose hband had been arrted durg a work break at a taxi stand a town near San Salvador. He and his employee were eatg pupas on the street, and, when a ok om the food stall walked over to llect their money, a group of officers nverged on the three of them. The charge was “illegal gatherg.” A jealo neighbor may have lled a tip—Karen’s hband had never been arrted, and he was a fixture at their lol church. He had also enthiastilly voted for Bele 2019. Baffled, Karen tried everythg, cludg speakg to lol reporters to publicize the se, but nothg changed. When she first told me the story, we were hunched over a small table the food urt of a mall, her face teary.</p><p class="paywall">We stayed touch as the state of exceptn kept gettg extend. It is still effect, even though daily homicis have dropped. Each month, when the Assembly has to renew , the Speaker nven the body wh an announcement on Twter. Nuevas Ias members reply enthiastilly, wh emojis and updated profile pictur. Most of them retweet Bele, who routely announc days wh zero homicis. “<em>Seguimos</em>,” he says, at the end of each one—“Onward.” Fifty thoand people have now been taed.</p><p class="paywall">“There’s no official policy beyond givg people blanket sentenc and keepg them taed,” Ra Montti, of Cristosal, told me. “We’ve been to heargs where there are between three hundred and five hundred people beg tried en masse. But there’s no actual crimal vtigatn.” Cristosal has been documentg tentn ndns based on dividual plats brought by fay members of tae. At least seventy people have died while ctody.</p><p class="paywall">Karen has two small children, and she was now rg for them while workg two jobs—her own and her hband’s. In the first weeks after his arrt, she found time every morng to vis Izal, the prison where he was beg held. It was a two-hour trip, and she ma to prove her vigilance, sce the prison didn’t allow visors. The crowds of women who’d once gathered outsi small police preccts were now reassemblg each day ont of Izal and Marna, the two prisons, both overcrowd, where nearly everyone had been sent.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">The last time Karen and I spoke, she told me that she uld no longer make the trips to see her hband. “Too much work,” she said. Her voice was dry, almost raspy wh exhstn. “Everyone is gettg six months” prison, she add. He was now more than halfway through, though his crime remaed a mystery. ♦</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS jyGBoi"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body article__body--grid-margs"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv jfHKjr"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2022/09/12" data-reactroot="">September 12, 2022</a>, issue, wh the headle “Strongman of the People.”</footer></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="LkStackWrapper-NFLYw kgtXXB lkstack" data-ttid="LkStack"><div class="SectnTleRoot-dBGvdq kjAxEG LkStackHear-lKjbE hejl lk-stack--headg" data-ttid="SectnTle"><h2 class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SectnTleHed-dKqZet dxqEAa dqtvfu 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data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>The <a href="/science/maria-konnikova/the-secret-formula-for-rilience" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">secret formula for rilience</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>A young Kennedy, Khnerland, <a href="/magaze/2020/09/28/a-young-kennedy--khnerland-turned-whistle-blower" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">turned whistle-blower</a>.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p><a href="/news/dispatch/the-biggt-potential-water-disaster--the-uned-stat" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">The biggt potential water disaster</a> the Uned Stat.</p></div></li><li class="LkStackBullet-kQRqul iQHwiG lk-stack--lk-em" data-ttid="LkStackBullet"><div><p>Fictn by Jhumpa Lahiri: “<a href="/magaze/2003/06/16/gogol" class="InternalLkEmbedWrapper-fhjgJW cQLtaa">Gogol</a>.”</p></div></li></ul><div class="LkStackFooter-KfRyO ebnmps lk-stack--footer"><div><p><a href=">Sign up</a> for our daily newsletter to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/jonathan-blzer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/jonathan-blzer">Jonathan Blzer</a> is a staff wrer at The New Yorker.</div><div class="ContributorBFooter-brqDlv ezUmSv"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div data-ttid="TagCloudWrapper" class="TagCloudWrapper-gGgndx ctyZyK ContentFooterTagCloud-krQmRG ZLGh"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudSectnHear-cOforY iUEiRd bPyAoD kQQRmu">More:</span><a href="/tag/el-salvador" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">El Salvador</span></a><a href="/tag/central-ameri" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Central Ameri</span></a><a href="/tag/gangs" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Gangs</span></a></div></div></div></div><div data-ttid="ContentFooterBottom" class="ContentFooterBottom-jwWZfC kcbyiW"><div class="ContentFooterNewsletterContentWrapper-bmjtna kixtae"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormWrapper-fCqqkN jKSBhE newsletter-subscribe-form ContentFooterNewsletterForm-hKeYwa liPqcf"><div data-ttid="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper" class="NewsletterSubscribeFormHedDekWrapper-fpMElW eglIBL"><h3 class="NewsletterSubscribeFormDangeroHed-kRwWjt kbxOa-D 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summary-llectn-grid--DenseDktopStack"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="SummaryCollectnGridContent-eVUpRm jTGbEO"><div class="SectnTleRoot-dBGvdq kjAxEG SummaryCollectnGridSectnTle-fCmYwG izjbVn" data-ttid="SectnTle"><hear class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SectnTleHed-dKqZet dxqEAa dqtvfu jttyjJ">Read More</hear></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridItems-DZShR jBCYOL hi-read-more-ad" data-ttid="SummaryCollectnGridItems"><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Iphigenia Fort Hills" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Reporter at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Iphigenia Fort Hills</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-1" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Iphigenia Fort Hills" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Anatomy of a murr trial.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Ja Mallm</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Transn" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of History</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Transn</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Transn" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Lyndon Johnson and the events Dallas.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Robert A. Caro</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Blood Ti" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Crime</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Blood Ti</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Blood Ti" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Two brilliant llege lovers were nvicted of a btal slayg. All the years later, why has the se bee a e?</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Nathan Heller</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff ewgXAt summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm kdEfwY" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Chameleon" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl bcywvc summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Crime</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Chameleon</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Chameleon" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">The many liv of Frédéric Bourd.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" 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INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR

NAYIB BELE DICE NO AL MATRIMON GAY

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