by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich met this Thursday in Washington with the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele, who invited her to his country to show him in person the program with which he managed to reduce violence excessively.
Bullrich came to the US capital with an intense agenda, which began with a speech at a conservative conference and continued with meetings with officials from the FBI, the DEA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Organization of American States and a face to face with the Salvadoran president, a meeting that she wanted to finalize.
The officials met within the framework of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC for its acronym in English), the same forum where President Javier Milei and the former head of the Banking House Donald Trump will speak on Saturday.
The minister gave a speech at this Conference on Wednesday, the day of the inauguration, and referred to the need to coordinate “the efforts of the free and democratic world” to disrupt criminal organizations and the links between the CCP, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran . .
Bukele, considered a reference for the continent’s right, spoke this Thursday and his speech focused on how the crime rate had managed to drop abruptly from his country, which was cornered by gang violence.
When the speech ended, Bullrich and Bukele spoke 10 minutes about what they both did in terms of security. “He invited me to El Salvador so that I could see on the ground that his program is a comprehensive project, which is not just a prison.l,” the minister told Clarín. “It was a good first contact to work together,” she added.
“I told him how we were working and he told me: I came because we had a country taken over and people today feel liberated and I know that you are making a great effort,” Bullrich said.
The minister told him that the Argentine government had the decision to move forward in the fight against organized crime and “press the accelerator,” she said. And she told him the “very important” progress they had made in Rosario.
The relationship between Bullrich and the president of El Salvador is not new. At the time of his re-election, on February 5, Bukele offered help to Argentina. “We have officially offered Minister Bullrich, not advice, because I believe that is not the word, but the collaboration that they need on all security issues,” Bukele explained.
Bullrich is interested in Bukele’s model. In relation to the possibility of receiving collaboration from the government of El Salvador, she said at the time that it could be “technical support on how they managed to advance crime and legislation.”
In 2015, El Salvador was classified as the most violent nation in the world with a homicide rate of 105 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to official figures. Since Bukele assumed the presidency in 2019, more than 71,000 people have been detained and the country has reached the highest incarceration rate in the world. Today two out of every 100 adult Salvadorans are in jail, many awaiting trial.
The plan was carried out through a state of emergency regime in March 2022 through which thousands of suspected gang members were detained without a warrant. Some 7,000 innocent people were released, but human rights organizations denounce that there are still arbitrary arrests.
In addition to his meeting with Bukele, Bullrich had intense activity these days in Washington. He met with Leslie Backshies and Jennifer Whittaker, representatives of the International Operations Division and the Americas Unit of the FBI. He also had meetings at the DEA, at Homeland Security and with Homeland Security Director Robert Greenway. In these meetings, he spoke about the need to work together on issues of antiterrorism, investigations, crime scenes, money laundering, trafficking and cybersecurity in order for the Federal Police to become a force specialized in investigations and highly complex issues. . in the border area, the ministry said.
Later Bullrich was at the OAS, where he participated in a panel of the Hemispheric Security Commission. There the minister highlighted the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in the fight against organized crime. She then met with the General Secretary of the organization, Luis Almagro.
