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“A child in North Syria passing by the ruins, after the earthquake hit his town.” - Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Feb 13 2023 (IPS)

Almost over 33,000 people have been killed and thousands injured by the 7.8 earthquake which struck south-eastern Turkey and Syria in the early hours on Monday, February 6th. The first images that came out were of collapsed buildings, rubble strewn across streets, people trapped under rubbles, screaming for help. What followed was the unusually strong aftershock – including one quake which was almost as large as the first.

Rawan Kahwaji was fast asleep in her apartment in Gaziantep, in Turkey when she woke up to the sounds of people screaming. The first two minutes, she says, did not make sense to her. “It was a nightmare, I remember waking up not knowing what was going on. My apartment was shaking really hard and it went on for sometime, we didn’t expect it to be this bad, we just thought we would get out of the apartment for a few hours because earthquakes happen quite regularly. But this time with each hour that we spent waiting outside, following the aftershocks, we realised the situation was much worse,” Kahwaji said.

War in Syria had displaced Kahwaji and her family once, before they moved to Gaziantep in 2015. For many displaced like her, documents which included ID, educational degrees and travel documents meant more than anything for survival. “In the middle of that chaos, we realised we needed our documents in case we had to leave the city. Our apartment was full of cracks and everything inside was destroyed, we somehow managed to get our documents.

“A street of local markets in a residential area in North Syria that has been blocked by the ruins of collapsed buildings.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

After spending two days in a shelter in Gaziantep, Kahwaji and her family were amongst the few who managed to get to Ankara safely, but she describes the experience as something she has never seen before. “There were people on the road screaming, we could hear people crying for help, I saw people collapsing because they were having heart attacks. I don’t know if they made it through or not, but it was complete chaos. We lost a lot, we lost our business, our lives, physically we are safe, but mentally we are not fine. I am still imagining the earth shaking and we are all simply sitting, waiting in anticipation that something is going to happen to us again,” Kahwaji said.

It has been almost a week of relentless search and rescue operations, as workers across these regions are still trying to pull survivors from the rubble – there have been some harrowing stories of success and also of heartbreak. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced a three-month state of emergency in 10 provinces worst-affected by the earthquake.

“Buildings in North Syria completely destroyed.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Syria Civil Defence – also known as White Helmets have been in news since the beginning of the earthquake for their immediate call to action to rescue those trapped under rubbles and for saving lives.

Almost 3000 White Helmet volunteers have been on the ground searching for survivors and pulling the dead from collapsed buildings. It’s been a race against the clock, those who have made it through for them the challenge has been to survive the cold weather, toxic smoke as people burnt plastic to stay warm, lack of water and basic necessities.

“A small truck loaded with a family’s basic items, who are seeking shelter after they lost their home amidst the disastrous earthquake in North Syria.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Cities closest to the epicentre of the earthquake, as per this report, when the temperatures rose on Sunday and it became warm, “odour of rotting bodies became discernible. It was the smell of death.”

“The situation has been very catastrophic, both personally and also collectively,” says Muzna Dureid, Senior Program Manager, White Helmets in an interview given to IPS said, “One of the worst impacted regions is North West Syria, home to almost 4.5 million people who have been forcefully displaced multiple times, they have witnessed the siege, the chemical attacks, bombardments, all types of suffering and now this earthquake.

“A muddy road in North Syria with, and a car damaged by the ruins.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

“Unfortunately the situation has been beyond the capacity of our team, we are working with very limited resources as cities and villages have been completely destroyed. Families have been destroyed, so many are living on the streets in dire weather conditions,” Dureid said.

The possibility of finding survivors continues to decrease as the hours pass. A UN liaison officer warned that the two countries are nearing the end of the search and rescue window. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates up to 23 million people could be affected by the earthquake across both the countries.

“People gathered around the search and rescue team, trying to help them rescue families stuck under the rubble, in one of the neighborhoods that was completely destroyed in North Syria.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has been working on the ground across Syria providing relief, water, and support to those affected by the earthquake. In a statement issued here, NRC says, “The quake happened at the worst time of the night at the worst time of the year. The destructive extent of the shock hit a number of cities in Syria, including Aleppo, Idlib, Homs, Hamah and Lattakia, including internally displaced people across Syria’s north.”

“We are now entering a new phase with search and rescue operations largely coming to an end. The real scale of the disaster will start to crystallise in the coming days,” says Emilie Luciani, Country Director, Syria Response Office, Norwegian Refugee council in an interview to IPS.

“Syrians waiting for the search and rescue team to help people stuck under the rubble, where an entire flattened by the earthquake in North Syria.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

“Thousands of families are without shelter in open areas or seeking refuge in damaged buildings, existing internally displaced people’s (IDP) sites, reception centres, collective centres or beings temporarily hosted by other families. Communication has been very difficult, and roads around the main affected areas are damaged.

“People in North West Syria are in a desperate situation. They have already spent many years displaced and reliant on humanitarian assistance, and now unfortunately, the aid reaching them is also restricted as the United Nations can only utilise one crossing-point to reach them from Turkey which only just reopened – 5 days after the earthquake,” says Luciani.

According to this report, the Syrian government in Damascus has been receiving aid from international donors, but there is a lot of uncertainty about whether that will be equitably distributed to all the affected parts of Syria including the rebel held North West.

“People trying to help the search and rescue team in rescuing families buried under the rubble in North Syria.” Credit: Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

The Red Cross has called for urgent access in Northern Syria to help people who need urgent support. “Impartial humanitarian assistance should never be hindered, nor politicised,” it says.

Avril Benoit, Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) USA said: “The massive consequences of this disaster will require an equally massive international response. People urgently need shelter, food, blankets, clothes, heating materials, hygiene kits, and medical assistance – including access to mental health support. For Syrians living the earthquake zone, this is catastrophe layered on top of crisis after crisis. People have endured more than a decade of war, an economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and a recent cholera outbreak, benoit said.

UNHCR has warned that according to its preliminary data, as many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been affected by the recent earthquake and will need some form of shelter assistance. A huge number and this destruction comes to a population already suffering mass displacement.

“We are really worried, as we have seen in the past, the world has the habit of replacing a crisis with a new crisis and so on. Right now everyone is opening their doors, giving donations, opening relief camps and emergency response which is needed, no doubt but what after that? We are worried that after a week or so when everyone goes back to their routine life, we will forget about those impacted by the earthquake, especially women and children, says Anila Noor, Managing Director of Women Connectors and a policy expert on refugees and migration.

“These are poor people, who have suffered due to war, they live with very limited resources especially in Syria. Emergency response is the first step, but we need to see how we can help them later, make an ecosystem and a system of accountability to track where the money and aid goes, and also see the local efforts,” says Noor.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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On average a person might be consuming 5 grams of microplastics per week, amounting to approximately 18 kilograms, or 40 pounds, of plastic over a lifetime. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Feb 13 2023 (IPS)

With one in ten people in the world going hungry, food prices hitting record highs, and the worsening conditions of the environment and climate, it’s time for the world’s population of 8 billion to eat something that is available, abundant and inexpensive: plastics.

Their introduction at the start of the 20th century began the rapid start of the Age of Plastics. Today plastics are ubiquitous, easily transported and stored, and readily available even in the most remote corners of the world.

Without knowing it, people are already consuming microplastics. The largest source of microplastics in people’s diet is drinking water. Microplastics can also be found in vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, tea, beer, wine, etc

Plastics have become such an integral part of human daily life from birth to death, completely infiltrating the environment of planet Earth. Plastics can be found anywhere, including in water, on land and even in the atmosphere

Every year the world produces approximately 400 million metric tons of plastics. That amounts to about 50 kilograms of plastics, or 110 pounds, for each person on the planet.

Today’s annual amount of plastics produced could certainly be increased. With the proper political commitment, private investments and improved technologies, the annual production of plastics could be greatly expanded.

A tenfold increase in the annual production of plastics would yield no less than 500 kilograms, or 1,100 pounds, of a variety of plastics for every man, woman and child on the planet. That would provide an individual daily consumption of 1.4 kilograms, or 3 pounds, from a broad diversity of plastics, which is approximately the amount of food people eat each day.

In addition, the cumulative amount of plastics that has already been produced worldwide is estimated at approximately 10 billion metric tons. That vast valuable global resource yields about 1,250 kilograms, or 2,756 pounds, for each man, woman and child now inhabiting planet Earth. Moreover, the world’s cumulative amount of plastics is projected to nearly triple by midcentury to about 27 billion metric tons (Figure 1).

 

Source: Our World in Data.

 

Eating plastics would solve the world’s hunger problem for hundreds of millions of people as well as offer numerous other advantages. Plastics could be used as a feed supplement for farm animals, especially for pigs but also for cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, etc., as well as a supplemental food for fish and other aquatic wildlife, many of which are already eating plastics.

It’s highly unlikely that people will voluntarily agree to cutbacks in their current use of plastics. Eating plastics would also largely eliminate the costly, ineffective and bothersome process of asking people to recycle their plastics.

Cost is the primary reason why less than a tenth of plastics produced annually are recycled. For the plastics industries the costs of recycling are far greater than the costs of producing new plastics.

Instead of today’s problematic plastic throw-away culture, eating plastics would foster a “keep-consume” culture. Such a cultural transformation to keep-consume plastics would certainly be welcomed by people around the world.

A keep-consume plastics culture would be environmentally sound, cost effective and economically sustainable. Rather than having more than 10 million metric tons of plastics dumped in the oceans annually, humans could simply eat their plastics in the comfort of their homes. Human and livestock consumption of plastics would keep the oceans clean and reduce pollution. Plastics that accidently enter the oceans can be consumed by fish and other wildlife.

In 2021 about one third of the global plastic materials was produced by China. It was then followed by North America, the rest of Asia and Europe 18, 17 and 15 percent, respectively. Substantially lower in the production of plastics with each less than 10 percent were the rest of the regions (Figure 2).

 

Source: Statista.

 

Attempting to eliminate the production of plastics is clearly impractical and costly. The elimination or even the serious reduction in the production of plastics would undermine national economies, increase unemployment, reduce wages, raise poverty rates and fuel political instability. Consequently, eating plastics at every meal should be promoted in schools, workplaces, places of worship, recreation facilities, retirement centers, homes, etc.

Most plastics are generally not biodegradable. They will not spoil and are not perishable like traditional foods and therefore have a long shelf life, taking anywhere from 20 to 500 years to breakdown, if at all.

Plastics breakdown depends on the material’s composition, structure and environmental factors, such as exposure to sunlight. In the oceans, for example, plastics straws and plastic water bottles are estimated to breakdown in 200 and 450 years, respectively.

The plastics remaining in the environment often break down into microplastics, which are small pieces of plastics including fibers, microbeads, fragments, nurdles, and foam. Those microplastics are already found in water, food and some animals. Given their diversity of shape, texture and color, microplastics can be readily consumed by men, women and even older children, but in small amounts initially.

Plastics could enhance traditional dishes, such as chicken plastic masala, microplastics pizza, kung plastic pao chicken, plastic burger, croque plastic-monsieur and shepherds’ plastic pie. Microplastics could also be used as a spice, food additive or culinary enrichment to enhance daily meals, similar to the current practice of adding salt and pepper to meals.

Without knowing it, people are already consuming microplastics. The largest source of microplastics in people’s diet is drinking water. Microplastics can also be found in vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, tea, beer, wine, etc.

Some have estimated that on average a person might be consuming 5 grams of microplastics per week, amounting to approximately 18 kilograms, or 40 pounds, of plastic over a lifetime. Human autopsies have also found microplastics in major human organs, such as lungs, liver, spleen, and kidney tissue.

On the plus side, people eating plastics reduces the feeling of hunger, cuts down on calories and helps with weight loss. Also, it fills the stomach of birds, fish and other small animals.

Human consumption of plastics also addresses concerns of countries regarding the problems resulting from plastics. Rather than banning the use of plastic bags for bagging groceries, governments could encourage their citizens to eat their plastic bags at their daily meals.

People eating plastics also helps to eliminate the plastics trash problem, reduces pollution in waterways, landfills and atmosphere, and contributes to the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by United Nations Member States. Eating plastics will also improve the world’s environment, atmosphere and wildlife, reduce the consumption of unhealthy junk food and help reduce inflation due to the rising costs of traditional foods (Table 1).

 

Source: Author’s compilation.

 

As is case with innovation, it will take some time for people to become accustomed to eating plastics. This will especially be the case among older cohorts of people who are less willing than younger cohorts to accept innovation, new technologies and new cultural behavior.

Admittedly, some concerns have been expressed by health professionals and scientists about eating of plastics, given that they are being made mostly from fossil fuels, i.e., oil and natural gas, through a process that is energy intensive and emits greenhouse gases. Those health concerns include endocrine disrupting chemicals, which are linked to infertility, obesity, diabetes, prostate or breast cancer, and cognitive impairment and neurodevelopmental disorders.

However, such health concerns and exaggerated warnings are limited to scientific research and not from the producers of plastics. The technical research findings are understood largely by scientists, but mainstream media as usual has publicized the warnings about eating plastics.

People’s bodies will evolve to the consumption of plastics. That evolutionary process will be similar to people eating processed junk foods. But like junk foods, infants should not consume microplastics and young children should limit their consumption.

Eating plastics will require more mindful chewing of most plastics. Some may be tempted to simply swallow plastics. However, except for microplastics, it is not recommended for proper digestion.

Those with existing health problems may encounter reactions to eating plastics. Such reactions can be addressed by eating small amounts of plastics initially and drinking plenty of fluids, especially alcoholic beverages. Those fluids will aid in digestion and permit the body’s vital organs to evolve.

In sum, to address widespread hunger in the world, the high and rising costs of food, and the consequences of plastics on the environment, flora, fauna and climate, the solution is clear. Let’s eat plastics!

 

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

 

As Pakistanis rebuild their lives, says UNDP, all development must be resilient and disaster and climate proof. Credit: UN Development Programme/Jamil Akhtar

By Shiraz Ali Shah and Khusrav Sharifov
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 13 2023 (IPS)

Last year’s devastating floods in Pakistan cost the country more than US$30 billion, about 6.4 trillion rupees.

The entire Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2021-2022 was valued at 900 billion rupees. This means that the floods wiped out development gains worth more than six PSDPs. This disproportionately affects the vulnerable segments of society, especially women, girls, the elderly and persons with disabilities.

The debilitating impact of the floods on women can be better explained through the example of Sakina Bibi who is a resident of Kacchi district of Balochistan. Her husband tends on his small farm and supplements his income by working as a labourer in a warehouse.

The floods washed away their home and destroyed their farm crops. Her husband lost his job when the business was shut down due to flood damage.

Pregnant and malnourished, Sakina Bibi lost what little support she had in the form of supplemental nutrition from her rural health centre. It was destroyed by the floods.

Her daughters used to study in the government-run primary school, which was among the 17,205 flood-impacted educational institutions across Pakistan. It has yet to be rehabilitated, leaving her children out of school for the last five months.

She used to get an allowance under the government-managed social safety net programme but is now unsure whether it will be continued. Some NGOs visited her village after the floods and have provided transitional shelters, food and medicines, but those have run out and she doesn’t know when she will get further support to rebuild her life.

Millions of women are meeting the same challenges as Sakina Bibi in the flood affected areas of Sindh and Balochistan. Her story highlights the vulnerability of the state as well as the poor to the impacts of disasters and climate change.

It calls for a rethink of the development planning process if it is to be ensured that the existing productive, social and service delivery infrastructure is resilient to such shocks in the future.

The repeated losses from various disasters have highlighted the need for tackling development from a different perspective.

Firstly, there is a need to ensure that all development is resilient and is made disaster and climate proof. Achieving this objective is possible and does not cost significant time or resources. It can be done by getting a better idea of the hazard profile of the area for multiple hazards and planning accordingly.

Secondly, while planning development projects – be they large or small – there is a need to ensure that the infrastructure does not contribute to increasing the risk in that particular area.

This can be achieved through mainstreaming disaster and climate resilience in the development planning processes at all levels, starting from the districts all the way up to the national level.

UNDP Pakistan launched its 2022 Flood Recovery Programme with the objective to transition from relief and expedite resilient and sustainable recovery in the flood affected areas in an integrated manner.

This programme is based on four major pillars designed to restore housing and community infrastructure, livelihoods, and government services, while also building disaster resilience and ensuring environmental protection. Each pillar aims to kickstart the recovery process by meeting the most critical recovery needs, and lay the foundation for longer-term resilient and inclusive development, focusing on the most vulnerable segments of the population that have been impacted by the floods.

There are many possibilities in Pakistan where, for climate and natural hazard sensitive assets and ecosystems, damages and losses can be avoided or at least greatly delayed through reductions in risk drivers that increase their vulnerability to climate change.

Human action in adaptation and building disaster resilience is equally critical if not more important. Recognizing that humans depend on goods and services provided by climate-sensitive ecosystems, there are a range of adaptation options that can be deployed to avoid loss and damages, most often through a combination of technologies, changes in livelihoods and improvements in social and economic opportunities.

These include practices that reduce dependence on climate sensitive resources or enhance people’s freedoms to adapt, such as social protection and income guarantees in times of crises, industrial restructuring programmes, improvements in infrastructure, and the introduction of a range of disaster risk financing options.

They also include technologies that reduce sensitivity to climate risk, such as coastal and river defenses, irrigation, and improved designs for infrastructure.

Shiraz Ali Shah is Recovery Specialist, UNDP Pakistan and Khusrav Sharifov, Advisor, Recovery Programme, UNDP Pakistan

Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 2023 (IPS)

As the toll in last week’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria exceeds a staggering 28,000 people dead and more than 78,000 injured–and counting– the United Nations is in an emergency-footing struggling to provide humanitarian aid, along with several international humanitarian organizations.

The devastated cities in both countries—by an earthquake described as one of the world’s top 10 deadliest in history at a magnitude of 7.8— are urgently in need of food, water, medicine, clothes and shelter—even as after-shocks have triggered the collapse of additional buildings with a new search for more survivors in a doomed scenario.

But the flow of aid is being hindered by several factors, including power politics, sanctions and limited border crossings in a 12-year long civil war in conflict-ridden Syria.

Asked about these limitations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters last week: “This is the moment of unity, not to politicize or to divide, but it is obvious that we need massive support, and so I would be of course very happy if the Security Council could reach a consensus to allow for more crossings to be used, as we need also to increase our capacity to deliver on crossline operations into Idlib from Damascus.”

Over the years, Russia and China, two veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, have remained supportive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the remaining three permanent members, the US, UK and France, have been critical of Assad’s authoritarian regime accused of war crimes and use of chemical weapons.

But the humanitarian crisis in Syria is not likely to change the power politics in a divided Security Council.

Louis Charbonneau, United Nations Director at Human Rights Watch, told IPS: “We hope the UN Security Council moves quickly and Russia won’t block expansion of cross-border aid, as the secretary-general has requested.”

But Security Council approval, he pointed out, is not a legal prerequisite to conduct cross-border aid operations into Syria. Cooperation from de facto authorities on both sides of any border, in line with humanitarian law obligations, is.

“If the Security Council is deadlocked, and the UN determines it’s feasible and safe, the UN should push ahead to address the crisis and help victims,” he declared.

The White Helmets, a civil society organization which has been operating in opposition-held areas in Syria, was critical of the slow movement of aid.

“Had international rescue teams come into Syria in the first hours, or even the second day, there was a big hope that these people who were under the ruins could have been brought out alive”, Mohamed al—Shibli of the White helmets was quoted as saying.

At his press briefing, Guterres said: the first United Nations convoy crossed into northern Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, and it included 6 trucks carrying shelter and other desperately needed relief supplies. “More help is on the way, but much more, much more is needed.”

But the New York Times ran a hard-hitting story February 10 under the headline: “UN Aid Trickles into Syria, but Residents say it is too Little, too Late”.

Still, the UN and its agencies have responded with all the means at their disposal, including assistance from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN children’s agency UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), among others, and a task force led by the Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths.

After his arrival in the Syrian capital February 12, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria
Geir O. Pedersen told reporters the earthquake was “one of the biggest humanitarian or natural disasters that we have seen recently”.

While expressing his condolences, he said: “And I think, you know, when we see the images, the heartbreaking images, we really feel the suffering. But we’re also seeing a lot of heroism, you see, you know, individuals, civilians, humanitarians trying to save lives, and it is this effort that we need to support.”

He assured that “the UN humanitarian family will do whatever they can to reach out to everyone that needs support. So, we are trying to mobilize whatever support there is. We are reaching out to countries, we are mobilizing funding, and we’re trying to tell everyone to put politics aside because this is a time to unite behind a common effort to support the Syrian people”.

Still, Pendersen said: “We need all the access we can have, crossline, cross-border and we need more resources. So, I’m in close touch with the UN humanitarian family, we’re working together to try to mobilize this support and that of course is my key message during this visit to Syria.

The issue of access was also raised by the US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield who said last week that she spoke with Presidents of InterAction and the International Rescue Committee, who both underscored the dire situation on the ground as humanitarian workers and first responders attempt to save lives while also facing personal tragedy.

She also spoke with representatives of Save the Children, CARE, and the White Helmets, who described the urgent need for shelter, clean water, and cash assistance, as well as increased access into Syria to allow local NGOs to deliver life-saving aid.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield voiced U.S. support for additional cross-border access points from Türkiye into northwest Syria to facilitate deliveries of earthquake-specific aid. She commended the search and rescue efforts by the White Helmets, which have saved thousands of people from collapsed buildings in northern Syria.

So far, the UN has released about $50 million from its emergency fund. But it is making a “Flash Appeal” for more funds from the international community.

Asked how much was needed, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said February 9: “We are trying to figure out how much. We’re still doing the needs assessment and I would also encourage – the public can also give through on the OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) website, the UN Foundation websites. There are ways for people, for the public to give to the appeal,” he said.

Meanwhile, the crisis in Turkey has also been tainted with domestic politics. The slow or belated response has been blamed on the Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, up for re-election on May 14.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the opposition party and a potential presidential candidate, was quoted as saying: “It is the ruling party that has not prepared the country for an earthquake for 20 years”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Aerial view of the Terrorism Confinement Center, the mega-prison that the Salvadoran government has built to house some 40,000 gang members, and about which very little is known because the information was classified as confidential by the Nayib Bukele administration. CREDIT: Presidency of El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Feb 13 2023 (IPS)

The construction of a mega-prison, in which the government of El Salvador intends to imprison some 40,000 gang members, is in line with President Nayib Bukele’s tendency to hide public information on public projects, classifying them as “reserved.”

The Bukele administration thus continues to bypass accountability and transparency procedures, building a huge prison about which no one knows important details, as in the case of other government projects.

Construction work on the prison began last year, under a blanket of total secrecy.

The only information available was that the prison was being built on a 165-hectare rural piece of land, in the El Perical hamlet in Tecoluca municipality, in the central department of San Vicente. It was finished in seven months.“There is a policy, I would dare to say public, because it is a decision of the Salvadoran State to keep everything under wraps. No matter what, there is always something that they want to keep secret.” -- Wilson Sandoval

It was Bukele himself, in a televised program on Jan. 31, who formalized the start of prison operations during a tour of the facilities, accompanied by four officials.

The jail was still empty of inmates, and it was not announced when they would begin to be transferred there.

 

Cloak of secrecy

Despite the magnitude of the mega-project, the public does not know how much was spent on it and, above all, what criteria were taken into consideration to award the project, or which company built it, among other aspects.

Critics question Bukele about this veil of secrecy, the same one that has previously surrounded issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, or the construction of other public works.

“There is a policy, I would dare to say public, because it is a decision of the Salvadoran State to keep everything under wraps. No matter what, there is always something that they want to keep secret,” Wilson Sandoval, head of the Anticorruption Legal Advice Center of the National Foundation for Development, told IPS.

Although Salvadoran legislation allows some aspects of government programs to be classified as reserved, out of national security concerns for example, the Bukele administration keeps almost everything shrouded in secrecy.

In the case of the new prison, Sandoval said they were not demanding that sensitive or confidential information be revealed, such as the penitentiary’s internal security protocols.

He said the issue was basic aspects that should be available to the public, such as the cost of the prison and the bidding processes, since it was built with public funds.

The official secrecy surrounding the prison was announced in December 2022 and will be in force until 2024, according to the local newspaper La Prensa Gráfica.

But it is very likely that before the deadline expires, the classification will be extended, as has happened in other cases, added the expert.

The abuse of government secrecy can lead to embezzlement of funds, he said.

“I would say that more than a doubt, it is rather almost a certainty (that there may be mismanagement) because there is a basic formula in public management: discretion plus opacity will normally result in corruption,” Sandoval argued.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele listens to an explanation from an official about how the X-ray scanners operate, located at the entrance of the mega-prison that has been built in the center of the country. Bukele made the opening of the facility official on Jan. 31, during a tour of the facilities. CREDIT: Presidency of El Salvador

 

The largest prison in the Americas

The government has boasted of building the prison, which it has described as the largest in the Americas, as if it were inaugurating a public university or a state-of-the-art hospital.

“It is logical to think that the government needs prisons, because otherwise it would have nowhere to put criminals in jail,” an Uber motorcycle driver, who was driving along one of the avenues in San Salvador and said his name was Carlos, told IPS.

The mega-prison, called the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot), will hold a good part of the almost 63,000 people held under the state of emergency that the government declared in late March 2022.

The state of emergency suspended several constitutional guarantees, such as extending the term from three to 15 days for filing charges before a judge.

The war on gangs led at first to massive arrests of people suspected of belonging to the gangs or “maras”, in many cases without due process.

The maras took root in El Salvador in the early 1990s, when young Salvadorans who became part of gangs in the United States were deported to this impoverished Central American nation and brought their gang affiliation with them.

The mega-prison has several security rings, the main one being a concrete perimeter wall, 11 meters high and reinforced at the top with a 15,000-volt electrified fence. It also has 19 watchtowers.

Another security ring has been set up on the outskirts of the compound, made up of 600 soldiers and 250 police officers.

Modern X-ray equipment will fully scrutinize the body of whoever enters, to keep out prohibited objects.

Standing in front of one of the X-ray screens, Bukele told one of his officials: “You can see everything here, even the lungs, the bones.”

On Feb. 3 Amnesty International tweeted against the prison saying it would mean “continuity and escalation of the abuses” committed during the massive raids, documented by local and international organizations.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tours one of the cell blocks of the prison built in the center of El Salvador. International human rights organizations have criticized the project, with Amnesty International saying it would mean “the continuity and escalation of the abuses” committed under the state of emergency. CREDIT: Presidency of El Salvador

 

Machiavellian style: does the end justify the means?

The new prison is the most recent move by the Bukele government, in its fight against gangs.

That fight, at least until the state of emergency, had been thrown into doubt when an investigation by the online newspaper El Faro revealed in 2020 that the Bukele administration had negotiated with the gangs to reduce the number of homicides in the country.

Bukele began his five-year term in June 2019, at the age of 38, with an air of modernity that led him to be described as the millennial president.

But after he gained a majority in Congress two years later, he took control of the Judiciary and the Attorney General’s Office, taking steady steps towards authoritarianism.

Since the government announced the state of emergency in March 2022, human rights organizations have denounced more than 4,000 cases of arbitrary detentions and abuses by soldiers and police officers emboldened by Bukele’s hard line against the gangs.

In fact, the government itself has reported that around 3,000 detainees have already been released, as their participation in the maras was not proven.

That has been read by opponents as evidence that innocent people have indeed been arrested.

But the government gives it a positive spin, saying it shows that the cases are being investigated, and that if there is no conclusive evidence, people are released.

Carlos, the Uber driver, pointed out that since the state of emergency began, the neighborhoods of San Salvador are safer, and he himself has seen this because he can now enter areas that were previously too dangerous to visit, as they were controlled by the maras.

Like him, the majority of the population of 6.7 million inhabitants of this small Central American country approve of Bukele’s measures to dismantle the gangs, as can be seen when people are asked on the streets of towns and cities, and as all opinion polls confirm.

“Only he has put on his pants against the gang members,” Carlos said.

But the impression is that the public backs the crackdown on gangs even when human rights violations are involved.

The problem of murders and insecurity in El Salvador was so severe that most people back the measures, as long as their own family members are not arbitrarily detained and subjected to police brutality.

When the murder rate peaked in 2015, El Salvador had a rate of 103 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the most violent country in the world

At the end of 2022, three and a half years into the Bukele administration, the homicide rate had plunged to 7.8 murders per 100,000 population.

But not everyone agrees with the Machiavellian principle that the end justifies the means and that gangs should be fought at any cost.

Despite agreeing, in general, with Bukele´s fight against gangs, Álvaro, who draws portraits in downtown San Salvador, told IPS that it does not seem right for abuses to be committed in the persecution of gangs.

“It is obvious, what is being done (against the gangs) is a good thing, but we must remember that there are cases, perhaps not a large percentage, of people who are innocent,” he added, sitting outside the National Theater waiting for customers.

“They are people who have been victims of an unfounded complaint. This has happened and from what I see it will continue to happen,” he said.

“The key is how to make legal and police work more efficient, without detaining everyone who is reported,” he argued.

Related Articles

• Arbitrary Arrests in El Salvador Hit the LGBTI Community
• The Price of Bukele’s State of Emergency in El Salvador

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By External Source
GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb 11 2023 (IPS-Partners)

In celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) today named Somaya Faruqi as a new ECW Global Champion.

The former captain of the Afghan Girls’ Robotics Team will serve as a global advocate for ECW and will headline an important Spotlight on Afghanistan panel discussion at the upcoming ECW High-Level Financing Conference, 16 and 17 February in Geneva, Switzerland.

Faruqi made international headlines when she and her team of ‘Afghan Dreamers’ built a ventilator from used car parts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am honored to accept my appointment as Education Cannot Wait’s Global Champion on behalf of all the girls worldwide who dream – against all odds – of an education. These are the future scientists and leaders of tomorrow. So many are being left behind. We must unite in our efforts to ensure girls everywhere can access high-quality science, technology, engineering and math education, and realize our collective dreams of a better, more equal world for all,” Faruqi said.

Faruqi was born in Herat, Afghanistan in 2002. She cultivated her love of engineering in her father’s mechanic shop. Her high-school career and leadership of the Afghan Dreamers was cut short by the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. She and the rest of her teammates had to flee the country in August 2021.

“Somaya Faruqi is a shining example to us all that with courage, hope, and tenacity, we can ensure every girl – and every boy – across the planet is able to experience the hope and opportunity that only a quality education can provide. As our global champion, Somaya will advocate for all of the world’s 222 million crisis-impacted girls and boys that so urgently need our support. Somaya is the face of a new generation of young leaders – and the face of the Afghan people at their best – proud, profound, brilliant and unstoppable,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

Faruqi has received several awards over her young career, including being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2021, BBC’s 100 Women in 2020, and the 2017 Silver Medal for Courageous Achievement at the FIRST Global Challenge – in recognition of science and technology in the US.

 

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