Latest news with #Bukele
CNN
a day ago
- General
- CNN
‘We are under a dictatorship.' Six years into his rule, El Salvador's Nayib Bukele tightens his grip
Nayib Bukele, the self-declared 'world's coolest dictator,' will mark six years as El Salvador's president on Sunday, a period defined by contentious reforms, which critics say have brought peace to the streets at an incredibly high price. His iron-fisted crackdown on crime in the country, that was once the most violent nation in the western hemisphere, led to the arrest and detention of around 87,000 people, often with little due process. The government has defended the move, pointing to significant reductions in gang violence nationwide, but opponents say it has come at the cost of mass incarceration and the erosion of civil liberties. The dragnet expanded as time wore on to include civil society groups and journalists investigating official collusion with the country's gangs, critics say. On May 19, Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer for the human rights group Cristosal, who is also a prominent critic of Bukele, was detained by Salvadoran authorities for allegedly stealing 'funds from state coffers.' However, López still has not been charged with a crime despite remaining in detention. Soon after Lopez was arrested, Bukele's government passed a law taxing foreign donations to NGOs like Cristosal at 30%, which rights groups have described as an existential threat. 'What we have seen is a massive concentration of power in (Bukele's) hands,' Juan Pappier, deputy director for Latin America at Human Rights Watch, said of Bukele's six years in power. Bukele's rule has been 'based on demolition of the checks and balances of democracy and increasing efforts to silence and intimidate critics.' The reduction of gang-related crime in El Salvador has made Bukele popular in the Central American nation, so much so that he was reelected in a landslide victory last year, even though the country's constitution had barred anyone standing for a second term. (Bukele's allies in Congress eventually replaced the Supreme Court's top justices with judges willing to interpret the constitution in his favor.) Since March 2022, the country has been under a 'state of exception,' allowing the suspension of numerous constitutional rights. In the capital San Salvador, many people say they now feel safe walking through neighborhoods once considered dangerous. Though they acknowledge the country has seen a massive increase in incarcerations and a suspension of rights, Bukele's supporters believe the resulting peace and security has been worth the tradeoff. Not everyone agrees. Samuel Ramírez, founder of the Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR), a human rights group that works with families of people believed to have been detained without due process, says thousands have been arrested over unfounded suspicions of being linked to gangs. Bukele has previously admitted that some innocent people have been detained by mistake but said that several thousand have already been released. Ramírez and other activists believe that many are too afraid to speak publicly. 'Here we see soldiers armed to the teeth in the streets, the police, even armored trucks in the streets — tanks. That's synonymous with a country at war,' he said. 'The gangs, for me, have already been neutralized. And now the war is against the people, so they don't demonstrate, don't speak out.' Though he presents himself as a law-and-order leader, Bukele has long faced allegations that he negotiated the peaceful security situation in El Salvador through back-door dealings with the gangs. In 2021, the Biden administration accused Bukele's regime of bribing MS-13 and Barrio 18, two of the most notorious gangs in El Salvador, to 'ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low.' Alleged payoffs included cash, cell phones and prostitutes for imprisoned capos. Bukele promptly denied the allegations, calling them an 'obvious lie.' But four years later, independent newsroom El Faro published an explosive interview with two self-styled gang leaders from Barrio 18 who claimed that, in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, they had intimidated voters into casting their ballots for Bukele during his 2015 bid for mayor of San Salvador. The two men gang leaders also claimed that when he became president in 2019, Bukele had arranged that the most powerful gangs in El Salvador refrain from wanton murder and extortion, lest they make him look bad, El Faro reported. Bukele has not yet responded publicly to their allegations, but obliquely referenced the reporting from El Faro in a post on May 10, sarcastically implying the only 'pact' he made with the gang leaders involved putting them in prison. The journalists from El Faro who broke the story fled the country before it was published, anticipating arrest. 'I think Bukele will try to put us in jail. I have no doubt about that. I have no doubt, after what he did to Ruth López, that Bukele has decided to raise the bar and persecute those he considers the most visible critics in El Salvador,' El Faro Editor-in-Chief Óscar Martínez told CNN. He said seven of the publication's journalists are facing arrest warrants for reporting on the alleged deals. Even so, he said the newspaper would continue its journalistic work. For the past two years, the publication has been running most of its operations in exile from Costa Rica. 'If there was any semblance of democracy left in El Salvador, it was in independent journalism,' said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal. CNN has reached out to the presidency for comments. 'We are under a dictatorship' Last week, Bukele's government passed a law taxing foreign donations to NGOs at 30%. He had proposed a similar law in 2021, but it didn't pass. In any case, Bullock says that it's irrelevant whether any law is proposed, passed or tabled in El Salvador: after six years of virtually unfettered power, Bukele is a law in and of himself. Gracia Grande, the program officer at the Salvadoran branch of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, told CNN that the law is an existential threat to her NGO's work. She said the law will make it impossible for them to continue working. It gives them three months to renew their registration as an NGO, but they don't know how the process will work. Grande's assessment of the situation is unambiguous: 'Right now, we can say very openly that we are under a dictatorship.' Despite the growing outrage from rights groups, Bukele's punishing penal system has won him fans. US President Donald Trump has praised the crackdown and cut a deal with Bukele, who agreed to hold hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in El Salvador's Center for Terrorism Confinement, alongside thousands of detained Salvadorans. Known as Cecot, the mega-prison is considered the largest penitentiary in the Americas and is notorious for the spartan conditions, which rights organizations have denounced as inhumane. 'I think what is happening here is a kind of laboratory for what could happen in other countries,' NGO worker Grande warned. 'Even the United States.' During Trump's April meeting with Bukele at the White House, Bukele suggested the US president follow his lead when it comes to mass detentions. 'Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate, you know,' Bukele said of the US population. 'But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. You know, that's the way it works, right?'
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
‘We are under a dictatorship.' Six years into his rule, El Salvador's Nayib Bukele tightens his grip
Nayib Bukele, the self-declared 'world's coolest dictator,' will mark six years as El Salvador's president on Sunday, a period defined by contentious reforms, which critics say have brought peace to the streets at an incredibly high price. His iron-fisted crackdown on crime in the country, that was once the most violent nation in the western hemisphere, led to the arrest and detention of around 87,000 people, often with little due process. The government has defended the move, pointing to significant reductions in gang violence nationwide, but opponents say it has come at the cost of mass incarceration and the erosion of civil liberties. The dragnet expanded as time wore on to include civil society groups and journalists investigating official collusion with the country's gangs, critics say. On May 19, Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer for the human rights group Cristosal, who is also a prominent critic of Bukele, was detained by Salvadoran authorities for allegedly stealing 'funds from state coffers.' However, López still has not been charged with a crime despite remaining in detention. Soon after Lopez was arrested, Bukele's government passed a law taxing foreign donations to NGOs like Cristosal at 30%, which rights groups have described as an existential threat. 'What we have seen is a massive concentration of power in (Bukele's) hands,' Juan Pappier, deputy director for Latin America at Human Rights Watch, said of Bukele's six years in power. Bukele's rule has been 'based on demolition of the checks and balances of democracy and increasing efforts to silence and intimidate critics.' The reduction of gang-related crime in El Salvador has made Bukele popular in the Central American nation, so much so that he was reelected in a landslide victory last year, even though the country's constitution had barred anyone standing for a second term. (Bukele's allies in Congress eventually replaced the Supreme Court's top justices with judges willing to interpret the constitution in his favor.) Since March 2022, the country has been under a 'state of exception,' allowing the suspension of numerous constitutional rights. In the capital San Salvador, many people say they now feel safe walking through neighborhoods once considered dangerous. Though they acknowledge the country has seen a massive increase in incarcerations and a suspension of rights, Bukele's supporters believe the resulting peace and security has been worth the tradeoff. Not everyone agrees. Samuel Ramírez, founder of the Movement of Victims of the Regime (MOVIR), a human rights group that works with families of people believed to have been detained without due process, says thousands have been arrested over unfounded suspicions of being linked to gangs. Bukele has previously admitted that some innocent people have been detained by mistake but said that several thousand have already been released. Ramírez and other activists believe that many are too afraid to speak publicly. 'Here we see soldiers armed to the teeth in the streets, the police, even armored trucks in the streets — tanks. That's synonymous with a country at war,' he said. 'The gangs, for me, have already been neutralized. And now the war is against the people, so they don't demonstrate, don't speak out.' Though he presents himself as a law-and-order leader, Bukele has long faced allegations that he negotiated the peaceful security situation in El Salvador through back-door dealings with the gangs. In 2021, the Biden administration accused Bukele's regime of bribing MS-13 and Barrio 18, two of the most notorious gangs in El Salvador, to 'ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low.' Alleged payoffs included cash, cell phones and prostitutes for imprisoned capos. Bukele promptly denied the allegations, calling them an 'obvious lie.' But four years later, independent newsroom El Faro published an explosive interview with two self-styled gang leaders from Barrio 18 who claimed that, in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, they had intimidated voters into casting their ballots for Bukele during his 2015 bid for mayor of San Salvador. The two men gang leaders also claimed that when he became president in 2019, Bukele had arranged that the most powerful gangs in El Salvador refrain from wanton murder and extortion, lest they make him look bad, El Faro reported. Bukele has not yet responded publicly to their allegations, but obliquely referenced the reporting from El Faro in a post on May 10, sarcastically implying the only 'pact' he made with the gang leaders involved putting them in prison. The journalists from El Faro who broke the story fled the country before it was published, anticipating arrest. 'I think Bukele will try to put us in jail. I have no doubt about that. I have no doubt, after what he did to Ruth López, that Bukele has decided to raise the bar and persecute those he considers the most visible critics in El Salvador,' El Faro Editor-in-Chief Óscar Martínez told CNN. He said seven of the publication's journalists are facing arrest warrants for reporting on the alleged deals. Even so, he said the newspaper would continue its journalistic work. For the past two years, the publication has been running most of its operations in exile from Costa Rica. 'If there was any semblance of democracy left in El Salvador, it was in independent journalism,' said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal. CNN has reached out to the presidency for comments. 'We are under a dictatorship' Last week, Bukele's government passed a law taxing foreign donations to NGOs at 30%. He had proposed a similar law in 2021, but it didn't pass. In any case, Bullock says that it's irrelevant whether any law is proposed, passed or tabled in El Salvador: after six years of virtually unfettered power, Bukele is a law in and of himself. Gracia Grande, the program officer at the Salvadoran branch of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, told CNN that the law is an existential threat to her NGO's work. She said the law will make it impossible for them to continue working. It gives them three months to renew their registration as an NGO, but they don't know how the process will work. Grande's assessment of the situation is unambiguous: 'Right now, we can say very openly that we are under a dictatorship.' Despite the growing outrage from rights groups, Bukele's punishing penal system has won him fans. US President Donald Trump has praised the crackdown and cut a deal with Bukele, who agreed to hold hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in El Salvador's Center for Terrorism Confinement, alongside thousands of detained Salvadorans. Known as Cecot, the mega-prison is considered the largest penitentiary in the Americas and is notorious for the spartan conditions, which rights organizations have denounced as inhumane. 'I think what is happening here is a kind of laboratory for what could happen in other countries,' NGO worker Grande warned. 'Even the United States.' During Trump's April meeting with Bukele at the White House, Bukele suggested the US president follow his lead when it comes to mass detentions. 'Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate, you know,' Bukele said of the US population. 'But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. You know, that's the way it works, right?'
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
The shadowy rise of Trump's favorite ally: El Salvador's Nayib Bukele
But that's just part of the story. Bukele rose to near-total control of El Salvador on a tide of support from the very gang he's credited with defeating, according to a U.S. federal indictment, the Treasury department, regional experts, and Salvadoran media. In March, Trump's Justice Department dropped terrorism charges against Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, an alleged top MS-13 leader, and returned him to El Salvador before he could potentially reveal Bukele's deals in an American courtroom. Lopez-Larios, one of MS-13's self-styled "12 Apostles of the Devil," isn't the only person with potentially damaging information on Bukele. USA TODAY has learned that a former president of El Salvador's national assembly - who is also familiar with gangland negotiations - was seized by U.S. immigration officers in March and awaits deportation to his homeland, where he was convicted in absentia for illicit gang dealings. Bukele's deal with MS-13 Leaders of MS-13 negotiated with Bukele ahead of his 2019 presidential landslide and gave him a sometimes violent get-out-the-vote effort in 2021 legislative elections, the U.S. Justice Department has alleged. The 2021 victory gave Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party a legislative supermajority that allowed the term-limited president to cull the country's supreme court, oust the attorney general, and blow through El Salvador's constitution to run for and win a second term. In return, MS-13 leaders received prison privileges, financial benefits - and a ban on extraditions to the United States, U.S. prosecutors, Salvadoran media, and people familiar with the negotiations told USA TODAY. An examination of Bukele's past shows how a gifted young politician, who once described himself as "a radical leftist," rose to power with the help of a Communist guerilla commander, Venezuelan oil money - and a winning deal with MS-13's bloodstained leadership. "There are serious allegations that Bukele purchased peace by making deals with the gangs that Trump says he's at war with," said former Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who once headed the State Department's democracy and human rights office. "We are grateful for President Bukele's partnership and for CECOT - one of the most secure facilities in the world - there is no better place for these sick criminals," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, referring to the prison holding thousands of MS-13 detainees and hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the U.S. Jackson didn't address questions about Bukele's collusion with MS-13. The Salvadoran embassy did not return a message seeking comment. Trump's 'Vulcans' The most important U.S. source on Bukele's MS-13 ties is a task force created during Trump's first administration. Joint Task Force Vulcan was launched in 2019. It was staffed by bloodhounds from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the DEA and others with one mission: "To destroy MS-13, a vile and evil gang of people," Trump said at the time. Vulcan tore into the task. While winning terrorism and drug indictments against MS-13's Ranfla, or board of directors, investigators discovered a group that was closer to an armed insurgency than a traditional street gang. Drugs? Of course. Human trafficking? Naturally. But also: Trained strike battalions, rocket launchers, and power over life and death stretching from New York's Long Island to Central America, prosecutors said. The U.S. lawmen also found Faustian bargains had been made with MS-13 by El Salvador's old-guard political parties, who were desperate to lower a stratospheric murder rate - and by Nayib Bukele, the self-styled reformer who had promised to clean things up. Comandante Ramiro Bukele, the son of a businessman, dropped out of college and worked in advertising before he gained the attention of the FMLN, the political party of El Salvador's former communist insurgents. In 2011 he won the mayoralty of Nuevo Cuscatlan, just outside the capital. Despite a population of just 8,000, Bukele used the town as a megaphone. Exploiting social media in ways new to El Salvador, he was seen as a progressive newcomer and caught the eye of the man who would serve as his political godfather. Jose Luis Merino was a Communist guerilla commander during El Salvador's bitter 12-year civil war and became a deputy minister for foreign investment after FMLN won the presidency in 2009. Merino was the party's main link to the governments of Hugo Chavez and, later, Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, which used oil money to support leftist movements across the region. Some of that cash went to the young mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan - Bukele has acknowledged that businesses he controlled received $1.9 million originating from a Venezuelan-Salvadoran oil company that experts say was controlled by Merino. He described the funds as legitimate commercial loans. Audits later determined the oil company had doled out $1 billion in unrecovered loans to entities related to Merino, according to a 2020 report. Merino is among several Bukele associates - including Bukele's chief of cabinet, his press secretary, his gang reintegration coordinator, and his prisons director - placed under U.S. sanctions for corruption and "actions that undermine democratic processes or institutions" during Joe Biden's administration. In 2016, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a Republican senator from Florida, called Merino a key enabler of a leftist Colombian narco-insurgency, blasting Bukele's patron as "a top-notch, world-class money launderer, arms smuggler for the FARC." Rubio accused Merino of "millions of dollars of laundering for the FARC as well as corrupt Venezuelan officials." Bukele was elected mayor of San Salvador in 2015, a traditional springboard to the presidency, and broke with the FMLN two years later. Merino, whose nom de guerre was Comandante Ramiro, abandoned his old comrades and backed Bukele, who was elected president in 2019. Bukele's MS-13 ties El Salvador's leaders had been making deals with the gangs for years, trading leniency in prison and on the streets for a reduction in homicides that reached a high of 6,656 in 2015. Bukele took the deals to new heights. A 2022 U.S. federal indictment based on Vulcan's work alleged MS-13 leaders held talks with all of the country's political parties "including without limitation negotiations in connection with the February 2019 El Salvador presidential election" - in which Bukele took 85% of the vote. After Bukele's victory, his administration met secretly with imprisoned MS-13 leaders. MS-13 members who were not incarcerated were brought into prison meetings with government ID cards "identifying them as intelligence or law enforcement officials," the indictment said. In those talks, gang leaders "agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in upcoming elections," the U.S. Treasury department said, while announcing sanctions on Bukele's top negotiators. MS-13 demanded an end to extraditions, shortened sentences, and control of territory. In return, the gang agreed to "reduce the number of public the impression that the government was reducing the murder rate," the indictment says. "In fact, MS-13 leaders continued to authorize murders where the victims' bodies were buried or otherwise hidden." Human rights groups found that, even as El Salvador's official murder rate fell, reported disappearances went up - a trend that started before Bukele was elected president. Bukele, who sold himself as a trailblazer, used the same playbook as his predecessors - only more effectively, people familiar with the operation said. The Salvadoran president's gang associations go back to his time as mayor of the capital, San Salvador. El Faro newspaper reported on a December 2015 phone call that police intercepted between two MS-13 members in which one brags that he's prepping for a meeting with top aides to San Salvador's mayor - Bukele - at a shopping mall Pizza Hut."Monday at 10 at Multiplaza, we're all meeting up," one says. "The mayor already said 'Yeah.'" After the meeting, El Faro reported, police stopped the two Bukele aides and released them without arrest. The cozy dealings appeared to end in March 2022, when three days of violence took 87 lives in the tiny Central American country. Bukele declared a temporary state of emergency that's been renewed every month since, and El Salvador's prison population swelled to 110,000; many of these detainees have been charged with "illicit association." The devil's 'apostle' and the former mayor One person who, prosecutors allege, knows plenty about Bukele's deals with MS-13 is Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, an original member of the gang's "12 Apostles of the Devil." Until recently, Lopez-Larios was based in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting trial on charges that included plotting terrorist attacks in the United States. But on March 11, John Durham, then-interim U.S. attorney for New York's Eastern District, asked federal Judge Joan Azrack to drop the charges. Durham, who earlier led the Vulcan task force, cited "sensitive and important foreign policy considerations." Six days later, Lopez-Larios was seen among dozens of Venezuelans being dragged off a deportation flight and processed in El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison. The White House hailed his deportation. "It's very telling that the price Bukele demanded" for imprisoning U.S. deportees at CECOT "was the return of these MS-13 leaders who were poised to testify in court," Malinowski said. (Trump has touted a reported $6 million payment to Bukele's administration for holding the deportees as a bargain.) Another top MS-13 leader, Elmer "Crook de Hollywood" Canales-Rivera, remains in U.S. custody, though people familiar with the case fear he too could be returned before trial. The Bukele administration secretly freed Canales from a Salvadoran prison in November 2021, gave him a handgun, and dropped the alleged terrorist at the Guatemalan border, U.S. prosecutors said. Task Force Vulcan tracked Canales to Mexico. He was captured and deported to the U.S. where he awaits trial. A person familiar with the case said that, like Lopez-Larios, Canales was directly involved in negotiations with Bukele - describing him as Bukele's crown jewel. Another Bukele opponent who may soon return to El Salvador is Norman Quijano, who served as president of the national assembly and is a former mayor of San Salvador. Quijano fled El Salvador in 2021, hours before his parliamentary immunity expired, and sought political asylum in the United States. He was convicted in absentia of seeking support from MS-13 and the Barrio 18 gang in a failed 2014 run for president with the conservative ARENA party. Now 78, Quijano is the highest-ranking Salvadoran official convicted of gang ties in prosecutions that experts say have targeted the opposition while sparing Bukele's associates. A person familiar with Quijano told USA TODAY the politician had paid for gang support in his 2014 run - but he was outbid by Bukele's then-party, the FMLN, which paid more than double what Quijano could raise. Quijano lost by a whisker with 49.89% of the vote. Quijano was tried by Salvadoran Judge Godofredo Miranda. In February 2020, Miranda ruled in a separate case that he could "infer" the FMLN's 2014 gang negotiations "particularly impacted the election for mayor of San Salvador at the time," which Bukele won before later breaking with the party. "It is therefore mandatory to verify the existence of any close contacts between the MS gang and the current Cabinet," the judge wrote of Bukele's presidency. ICE agents arrested Quijano on March 6, days before the Trump administration dropped charges against MS-13 leader Lopez-Larios. Quijano is being held at a Texas detention facility. His attorney couldn't be reached; family members did not reply to calls and messages seeking comment.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Why Is a House Democrat Making Nice With El Salvador's President?
Donald Trump is a big fan of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and turns a blind eye to his administration's myriad human rights violations and increasing authoritarianism in exchange for accepting deportees of any nationality. But why does Bukele also have a fan in Democratic Representative Vicente Gonzalez? The Texas moderate is the lone House Democrat to have met with Bukele while visiting El Salvador, and toured the country's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, where immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was once held and where Venezuelan immigrants removed from the U.S. are currently detained. Other Democrats, including Senator Chris Van Hollen, were unable to visit the prison or meet with Bukele on their visits to the country. 'El Salvador is crucial in helping the United States curb the flow of irregular migration and is an important ally in the western hemisphere,' Gonzalez said in a press release after his visit. Gonzalez's district voted for Trump in 2024 and is 90 percent Hispanic, and also happens to be on the U.S.'s southern border. Gonzales has praised Bukele, claiming that the Salvadoran leader has created for Latin America with his crackdown on gangs in the country. 'I think it's undeniable what he's done has been spectacular, in terms of bringing security to over 98 percent of the population that lived in turmoil for over a generation,' Gonzalez told Politico Magazine. 'He clean[ed] up the most dangerous country in the world and turn[ed] it into the safest in the hemisphere.' Along with former Representative Matt Gaetz, Gonzalez is a founding member of the El Salvador Caucus in Congress, and now is only one of two Democrats in the pro-Bukele organization along with Representative Lou Correa. That may be due to the fact that Bukele has trolled and mocked other Democrats on social media, who have criticized the Trump administration's deal with El Salvador. That doesn't seem to matter to Gonzalez, who thinks 'Democrats … shouldn't shy from building a diplomatic relationship with the country of El Salvador' despite the fact that human rights activists in the country have been arrested and journalists have been forced to flee. Perhaps Gonzalez should ask himself how he'd feel if Trump acted like the Salvadoran autocrat.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Bitcoin Beach: How a small seaside town became cryptocurrency ground zero
The populist Salvadorian leader, who has fashioned himself a Silicon Valley-style disrupter, signed a $US1.4 billion-deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the bogeyman of Bitcoiners, in which he agreed to scale back the country's Bitcoin policies. As part of the agreement, Salvadorian merchants are no longer compelled to accept the cryptocurrency as payment and Bukele agreed on paper to stop buying Bitcoin with public cash – the country currently owns more than 6,000 Bitcoin – although he has since said their strategy is not stopping. So what will this gear-change mean for 'Bitcoin Beach'? 'It's gonna keep some people away, definitely,' says Ronny Avendano, who runs the Bitcoin Hardware Store, which sells all the Bitcoin bells and whistles including tech and books about the cryptocurrency. 'The IMF is definitely a governing body that you want to stay as far away from as possible... It might be detrimental to the business,' he adds. While he does not think the IMF deal will impact life in El Zonte, where Bitcoin is already enmeshed in the community, he worries it could cause some Bitcoiners to get 'cold feet'. Loading Avendano, whose parents fled El Salvador for Canada during the civil war, gave up his six-figure job in finance in Toronto to travel Latin America in response to Justin Trudeau's vaccine mandates. His first stop was El Zonte in March 2021. He has been here ever since. After learning about Bitcoin, he became a 'Bitcoin maximalist', investing all of his savings in the cryptocurrency. Right now, he says, he only has around $US9. When Bukele announced Bitcoin would be a legal tender, he saw an 'influx' of Bitcoiners from all over the world arrive. Talking to The Telegraph after giving a short lesson on investing in the courtyard outside his shop, he adds: 'From a tourist perspective, you know, I don't feel that excitement anymore... It used to be 'I can't wait to come to El Salvador' to now 'tell you what's going on with this deal'.' He adds: 'For me, nothing's changed. People in town still accept Bitcoin, and I still love the Bitcoin farmers market. Yesterday, I went to buy food at the grocery store in Bitcoin. 'I don't know what's gonna happen over the next six months if it were to change... I'd have to close my business down.' Mr Avendano believes it's not just Bitcoin pulling foreigners to El Salvador, but the country's safety. To combat gang violence, Bukele enforced a 'state of exception' in 2022, rounding up and imprisoning more than 80,000 people without due process. The streets are safer, but the Bukele administration has faced allegations of human rights abuses. His administration also built the notorious Cecot mega-prison, where Donald Trump has since deported Venezuelan migrants the White House claims are gang members. Walter Mena, a Salvadorian lawyer, was reluctant to open a business before Bukele, when even El Zonte was overrun by gangs and it was not uncommon for people to be shot dead on the beach. But now Mena, 49, who returned to El Salvador in 2019 after living in France for 15 years, is in the midst of constructing apartments he hopes to rent to wealthy Bitcoiners Mena, who accepts Bitcoin payment for his legal services, does not think the IMF deal will make any difference. Loading 'Now people know what Bitcoin is and how to use it... Bukele is pretty smart, and the IMF is full of dinosaurs,' he said. 'People probably will turn back, but the people who understand, who are already here, they're not leaving.' For locals in El Zonte, the sudden arrival of foreign Bitcoiners has been a blessing and a curse. Wealthy foreigners have been investing in the area, buying land, building homes and starting businesses. But prices have increased, and for each tale of one local making enough money to buy a new motorcycle with Bitcoin, there are stories of those who lost thousands in the volatile market. El Salvador 'like Wild West' Surf teacher Isaac Reyes, 28, who is from El Zonte, says there have been more positive impacts than negative on the local community. He is sometimes paid in Bitcoin but he and most of the locals transfer it straight into dollars using an app on their phone. He said he believes the novelty of Bitcoin Beach had already reached its 'peak' and is now 'going back down'. 'Now the difference is the people, not the currency… less people are coming,' he said. From speaking to the Europeans who have already moved to El Salvador in search of Bitcoin freedom, there is no hesitation – they are here to stay. M moved to El Salvador from London in 2021 after he broke up with his girlfriend and read about Bukele. Talking to The Telegraph as he sips on a can of beer with a friend, purchased with Bitcoin, he says he did not know El Salvador existed before he read about the Salvadorian president. M, 28, who did not want to give his full name, now lives in San Salvador. He first bought Bitcoin almost a decade ago when he was at university and now works for a hardware Bitcoin devices firm. Asked what he likes most about the country, he said: 'The fact that I can just easily use my Bitcoin everywhere.' Danny, a retired Belgian housebuilder who also did not want to give his last name, made his fortune in Bitcoin before moving to El Zonte 20 months ago in search of a crypto haven to retire to. You wouldn't know it by looking at him, as he sits on a stool wearing a vest and flip flops, but Danny, 59, is a Bitcoin millionaire. He invested his life savings in 2014, when one Bitcoin was worth around $US311. The value has since swelled to over $US108,000. He believes Europe is becoming a 'police state' and part of the reason he has relocated to El Zonte is to provide a base for his nine grandchildren to escape to if they wish. El Salvador, by contrast, he says is like the Wild West. 'There are not many rules, or not many rules that you really need to follow... there is almost no control.' James Bosworth, the founder of Hxagon, a firm which provides political risk analysis with a focus on Latin America, is also unconvinced the IMF deal will have much of an impact. 'Bitcoin experiment has been a failure' He puts the apparent dwindling numbers of people visiting Bitcoin Beach down to the town losing its sheen, rather than the IMF deal. 'It's probably more a function of the initial hype cycle about El Salvador's Bitcoin drawing down and global macro factors (likely recession hits all tourism),' he says. He adds: 'There are only so many people who might relocate and most of them jumped early. For anyone still considering it, the IMF agreement didn't change much.' Dr Peter Howson, an assistant professor at Northumbria University who has written books on cryptocurrency, thinks Bukele's Bitcoin experiment has been a 'failure'. Loading In 2023, eight out of 10 Salvadorians did not use cryptocurrency, according to a survey by the University Institute of Public Opinion (Iudop) at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University (UCA). Meanwhile, only a fraction of remittances sent back to El Salvador from relatives abroad, which accounts for 25 per cent of the country's GDP, were sent with Bitcoin.
