Costa Rica looks to El Salvador's gang crackdown for path to stopping
violence
[April 05, 2025]
By MARCOS ALEMÁN
TECOLUCA, El Salvador (AP) — Costa Rica's security minister toured El
Salvador's maximum-security gang prison on Friday as part of his review
of the measures that El Salvador has taken to reduce violence caused by
powerful street gangs during a now three-year offensive under a state of
emergency.
Costa Rica Justice and Peace Minister Gerald Campos Valverde said he was
visiting on orders of President Rodrigo Chaves to “see the good
practices of the Salvadoran people with the goal of combating crime and
to returning rights to all citizens.”
In November, Costa Rica bestowed its highest diplomatic honor on El
Salvador President Nayib Bukele for his success in lowering levels of
violence during his three-year campaign against powerful street gangs.
El Salvador has lived under a state of emergency that suspends
fundamental rights like access to a lawyer. Some 84,000 people have been
arrested, accused of gang ties.
Homicides have plummeted in El Salvador and the improved security has
fueled Bukele’s popularity.
“El Salvador’s rescue from those nefarious claws is also helping the
peace in our region,” Chaves said when he presented Bukele with the
recognition last year. “The fight against organized crime in any part of
Central America is welcome. The reach and influence and bad example of
the gangs must be reduced.”
Campos came away impressed by the gang prison Bukele built at the start
of the state of emergency where Campos said he saw fundamental rights
being respected.
The prison's director Belarmino García showed Campos one of the cells
holding about 70 inmates. The prison director instructed the inmates to
remove their shirts to show their tattooed torsos and asked some to
identify their gang affiliation to show that members of rival gangs were
sharing the same cell.
After his tour, Campos said that Costa Rica would not continue allowing
criminals to be arrest by police only to see them quickly freed by the
judicial system.
“We are going to take all of the good practices” back to Costa Rica “to
give Costa Ricans a place of peace and tranquility,” he said.
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Prisoners look out from their cell as the Costa Rica Justice and
Peace minister tours the Terrorist Confinement Center in Tecoluca,
El Salvador, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)
El Salvador Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro said earlier Friday
that El Salvador was pleased to share its experience with Costa
Rica, a country that until recently had been a reference for peace,
but now struggles with bloodshed like El Salvador once had.
“This is not a question of copy and paste, but rather of learning
what we have done and implementing in each country what precisely
can be done to rescue thousands of Costa Ricans, thousands of
Salvadorans and imprisoning hundreds,” Villatoro said.
El Salvador's new gang prison, where inmates are held in large cells
and never allowed outside, has gained more attention in recent weeks
after the U.S. government sent nearly 300 migrants, including more
than 200 Venezuelans, it accused of having gang ties to be held
there.
Costa Rica continues to struggle with historically high homicide
numbers.
In 2023, Costa Rica set a homicide record with 907, down somewhat in
2024 to 880. So far this year, the country is on nearly the same
homicide pace as last year, according to government data.
Unlike Bukele, Chaves does not hold a majority in Congress and has
not remade Costa Rica’s courts to remove opposition.
Costa Rica — long applauded for a robust ecotourism industry,
environmental conservation and relative peace — has been wracked by
violence in recent years, largely attributed to drug trafficking.
Costa Rica has become a key way station for cocaine exports to
Europe and the United States.
___
Associated Press writer Javier Cordoba in San Jose, Costa Rica
contributed to this report.
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