Image is from the Britannica article on CECOT, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center in English.
This megathread’s topic is inspired by our lovely news regular, @[email protected], who talks often about the conditions inside El Salvador and gives nuanced and informative takes.
As the Trump administration continues to make foreign policy blunders that would make even the staunchest anti-imperialist accelerationist blush - and we are barely three months in! - it’s interesting to compare and contrast his policies of incompetent imperialist and domestic management to the dictators in other countries.
Bukele is somewhat unique among fascists, in that he seems to not hide - and seems to even admit to - his evil, self-describing as the world’s “coolest dictator”. El Salvador has no particular shortage of prominent fascists in their history, but one major example is Maximiliano Martínez, who led the country over much of the 1930s and the early 1940s. He was responsible the deaths of many thousands of communists and indigneous people, and yet joined World War 2 on the side of the Allies and against the Nazis.
The comparisons between Martínez and Bukele - and, indeed, between Bukele and Trump - in terms of their impact on minority groups are slowly growing as world attention is being drawn to the country. The recent meeting between Bukele and Trump has shifted a spotlight onto El Salvador’s crime policy; the internal conditions of El Salvador’s prisons are genuinely monstrous. One gets a similar feeling as when reading descriptions of the conditions of Holocaust victims in German concentration camps. Trump has made statements to the effect that he want a similar crime crackdown inside the United States, and I certainly believe that he wants this (ICE is already just kidnapping people off the streets into vans), but his administration has been so chaotic and mismanaged that it’s difficult to determine whether this will be an interest he rapidly drops in favor of some other hair-brained scheme.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Bukele enjoys popular support because the alternative to his massive anti gang measures is having the highest intentional murder rate in the world. The US mass deported MS13 and other Salvadoran gangs in the late 80s / early 90s after the Salvadoran civil war and overwhelmed the newly formed government. The gang rule resembled the Spanish feudal order in many ways and a lot of people couldn’t leave their place of birth. Bukele ended that system and re-established state rule over El Salvador.
His methods and motivations are extremely questionable. The campaign itself included attempts to ease the human rights concerns of some critics through claims of rehabilitation for low level gang members. I haven’t been able to substantiate this claim though. Not to mention the suspicious ties to Israel for military equipment, often obscured by Bukele’s Palestinian heritage.
His origins in the deeply corrupt FMLN (a Marxist nationalist organization named after one of the leaders of a mass communist indigenous uprising in the early 1900s) made understanding his moves difficult. Founding Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas) probably should have been a wake up call though. Its not like he started a new workers party or people party. The new ideas were basically bitcoin and arrest every gang member. Though he has invested significantly in infrastructure, medical facilities, and schools, but I don’t know what demographics those facilities are meant to / practically serve.
Growing up, my understanding of communism was shaped by the communist resistance in the civil war. Holding out for the people against US funded death squads. Even making it as far as forming a legitimate government, but nothing really changed after that until Bukele took power. The FMLN enjoyed massive popular support for a long time and mostly used it to take bribes and help the gangs entrench themselves.
Lmk if there’s any points to the history that I’m getting wrong. Happy to make corrections. I’m 2nd generation Salvadoran, this is based on following the news, some study, and chisme from my aunts and uncles who historically supported the communists, but have been sorely disappointed by FMLN.
The murder rate had declined precipitously in El Salvador before Bukele took office.
The three years after he got into office saw a decline not because of his iron-fisted, policies, but because he continued the previous administrations policies of negotiating with and mediating between the gangs. There are also serious questions as to whether or not their current numbers are even accurate.
I don’t see him being a beneficiary of his anti-gang measures as much as he has been a beneficiary of the decline in murder that started before he even took office, the same way a GOP Governor in certain red states got to take credit and an approval bump for Medicaid expansions that they opposed. As an outsider, the whole situation seems to me a lot more fragile than it’s protrayed.
Based on the chisme I’ve heard on the subject, there was a lot of corrupt normalization of gang authority in government that played a part in that. Which may have also lowered the murder rate without mass incarceration. A lot of the political mandate for Nuevas Ideas came from their anti corruption angle which aimed to root out any gang influence and control over government functions. Which I think is why a lot of locals credit him for ending gang rule in the country. At least from what I gather from my family’s comments on the topic.
I’m interested in getting updated again next time I’m out there.
The ARENA government also delayed the creation of a police force for a year, and when it was actually ready, the police force was nothing more than the same military working as a death squad for the state. Without the police militias, there was basically no opposition to organized crime. The FMLN screwed up the chance they had in power by being dumb SocDem (even if they meant well), and I believe the last FMLN president recently died in exile.
The FMLN having elected a president is one of the most hype things ever, and the disappointing result is heartbreaking. Turns out guerillas turning towards electoralism, even when popular, don’t actually get very far
Petro is also an ex-guerrilla member btw. He was a member of the 19th of April Movement (which followed the ideology of Rojismo and Democratic Socialism).
Oh I know, and he has been much stronger. Though the Colombian civil war was ongoing more recently so while Petro was non-violent since his release from torture, the overall movement there has more bite
Thanks for your perspective
Oye, otro Centroamericano! Calidá.