The National Civil Police was the main institution that emerged from the 1992 Peace Accords, but its actions over the years have distorted the police force that was supposed to ensure the democracy of El Salvador, now it has become a political police according to social researcher Jeannette Aguilar.
Jeannette Aguilar is a social researcher who follows security issues closely; it has been measuring for several years the behavior of the National Civil Police and its “institutional deterioration” as she calls it.
The researcher is concerned about the negative transformation of the institution born of the Peace Accords, which just this year marks 29 years since the signing of peace that ended a bloody war that left more than 80,000 dead.
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Aguilar has experienced the political persecution of the police force and the State Intelligence Agency in the Bukele administration, but this has not stopped him from continuing to analyze and comment on the deterioration of the police corporation and the rule of law.
Today’s Diary spoke with her about the background of the PNC, the deteriorating pace of the police force, which now, has sharpened and threatens the democracy of the Savior with Bukele, sees no improvement in the short term but until to the arrival of a new Government that, in fact, develops a total purification and reform of the Police.
What is your assessment as a researcher of the Peace Accords and the emergence of the National Civil Police?
First of all, the Peace Accords must be cited in their proper context, it meant the end of the armed conflict through negotiation and the establishment of a roadmap that established the conditions for the democratization of country; in this context, it was essential to create new bodies, above all, aimed at strengthening the consolidation of a new democratic state, a new state that respects the rule of law and human rights.
In this context, all the reforms related to the area of public security take place, obviously the most important being the creation of the National Civil Police in the context of the Peace Accords.
From my perspective, the issue of the PNC is the central theme of political negotiation. When one reviews the different agreements in which this issue was discussed, he emphasizes the relevance that a new instance with a civil, professional and democratic cut would have in the establishment of a new political regime, which in this case would be democracy.
There is a proposal that is still valid and has not been implemented, which has to do with a conception of a civilist, professional, democratic police, with a vocation of service to the citizens, to the community. This is the conception under which the PNC is created and around which a series of complementary and follow-up agreements are generated. In this logic, the roadmap is valid from my perspective and I read it 29 years later, and it continues to make more and more sense to me to the extent that this type of policing, obviously, in the context that favors these processes of democratization which was to produce changes in the conditions of post-conflict violence.
This was his philosophy of creation, but over time what has happened to the police force, we have seen that it has been used to persecute opponents, used by organized crime, extermination groups and now a political PNC. What happened?
Well, what has happened to the Police, first hindered in its spirit and letter, in relation to its initial conception by the same political actors who signed the peace, in the context, saw it with suspicion and concern, and was conceived at this time by the political, military and economic elites, as a threat to the extent that a professional and scientific Police would be more efficient in the fight against crime, and especially organized crime that has prevailed in the Salvadoran state for decades.
In this context, what took place was basically a deliberate effort to prevent this primordial conception of a civil, democratic and professional Police from being consolidated. Then what happened, was first, was seen as a threat, was hindered and then instrumentalized, and in this context has been denatured almost since its inception and has been expressed in the cramps signs of decomposition and corruption that were already noticed in the first years of the Police, was consolidated first like a repressive police, with traits of authoritarianism, but in addition later and in this logic also, of the repressive answer that has prevailed in the State, favored the entrenchment of criminal structures.
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In recent years?
This same Police already in the period of Sanchez Ceren and in a context of deep weakening of part of internal controls, of indignification of the police function, it is necessary to say it, takes place an express militarization of the National Civil Police but in addition it is used for the purpose of extermination and social cleansing, this was what we had in the Sánchez Cerén administration.
And now recently, the traffic of a Police for the purpose of exterminating a political police, a police that with these previous characteristics is used to undermine democracy, in this case to invade and threaten the Legislative Assembly; on February 9, which has fallen into contempt, with a clear vocation of service to the interests of the president (Bukele) by the current director who has certainly just given the shot of grace to those elements or waste that were left ‘this original conception.
Already this process of politicization, instrumentalization, for the purpose of persecuting political opponents, dissenting voices, attitudes of disrespect for the law, disobedience to court orders we had been seeing, but not so obviously, so filthy, so manifests as in the current administration, and this has only occurred in a context of impunity and a clear break with the law of the President and his Cabinet.
Can something be done with the police, or is everything lost already?
Look, I from the previous period, also in documenting some cases, the patterns of execution, the use of lethal force, the problems with the extermination groups I have been raising the need for a new police reform, a new police reform that rethinks the bases of this new organization, this supposes a deep purification and the creation of a new institution that resumes that those primitive principles, but also that is oriented to the professionalisation, to the technical-scientific investigation.
I believe that in the current context, especially of such a complex and organized violence that has prevailed in the country, the Police is a central instrument to ensure security and stability in the country, and would only be achieved if there is a process of institutional reform that almost always, almost all the countries we have seen in reform processes in Latin America, are also related in the political context, unfortunately we have an adverse political context, rather totally favorable to this process of institutional deterioration and decomposition .
Bukele needs a deteriorated, unprofessional Police, an abusive Police that acts outside the law because it is this type of institution that is functional to him in his own political interests, rather it would be a contradiction, especially in the face of the traits of authoritarianism that we have seen in his Government in these first 15 months that bet on a different police or with a process of police reform, this can probably be done with the arrival of a new Government that is really committed to the refoundation almost of the country itself and of these institutions.