At Christmas, I had dinner with the gang members of the Bukele’s mega-jail

“No one leaves here; those who serve their sentence are recaptured immediately,” says Berlamino Garcia.

Here it is the CECOT, the acronym chosen for the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, but which on the streets of El Salvador is better known as Bukele’s mega-jail.

And Belarmino Garcia has been its director since this huge prison was inaugurated less than 11 months ago.

Luis Alonso García Flores, “El Paisa,” a gang member of Barrio 18-Sureños, is convicted of homicide.
Photo: Roberto Valencia.

Today is December 24, the sun is setting and in an hour I will have rice and beans for dinner among gang members of the criminal structures Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Barrio 18-Sureños and Barrio 18-Revolucionarios, the cause of a spiral of violence that has left thousands dead in the Central American country.

The visit was arranged with the Secretariat of Communications to share Christmas dinner first with gang members and then with guards.

But first, Belarmino will give me an express tour.

I have been in Central American prisons for 15 years and this is something else.

To begin with, its dimensions are colossal: 236,000 square meters, the equivalent of five times the Zócalo in Mexico City. Very few prisons in the world occupy more space.

“The main wall is nine meters high, and another three meters of electrified fence; 15,000 volts,” says Belarmino, with a hint of pride. “ Just by getting close to it, one dies at a single touch. “

Belarmino is short and friendly. He speaks with satisfaction of his 17 years in the General Directorate of Penal Centers of El Salvador and of his brilliant career.

“I come from an agent,” he says.

He now runs “this monster”, with 1,000 people under his command, not counting the 250 police officers stationed there and the 600 military personnel guarding the perimeter.

A huge construction

A year and a half ago, the site where this concrete mass was erected — in Tecoluca, department of San Vicente — was farmland on the slopes of the Chichontepec volcano.

The security agents search the inmates in cell 2 of Module 3, the ones chosen by me to have dinner with me. Photo: Roberto Valencia.

Located some 70 kilometers from the capital, San Salvador, since its inauguration it has been surrounded by controversy and secrecy, and allegations of abuse, isolation, torture, and deaths from beatings.

President Nayib Bukele referred to it on the social network X (formerly Twitter) as “the most criticized prison in the world”, and in recent weeks some local and international media have been allowed group entry.

Visiting at Christmas is a rarity.

Bukele himself — praised by broad sectors of his country for his achievements in security matters — announced at the time that the CECOT will be able to house “40,000 terrorists, who will be cut off from the outside world”, a rather large number for a country like El Salvador, with a population of only 6.3 million inhabitants.

By comparison, the Marmara prison in Turkey, near Istanbul, is registered in the Guinness Book of Records as the most populated prison in the world: 22 781 inmates in November 2019, but it occupies almost twice as much space as the Salvadoran prison and was designed to hold some 11 000 people.

But Turkey has 85 million and the other countries with mega-prisons listed in the Guinness Book of Records are the United States and India, with populations of 340 million and 1.4 billion respectively.

The truth is that today, 11 months after the inauguration, there are just over 12,000 inmates, less than a third. Why?

The menu is the same as any other day: rice, beans and two corn tortillas. Photo: Roberto Valencia.

“It is the security strategies of the authorities; they determine when and at what time the transfers are made,” Belarmino responds evasively.

A dinner like every day

Bukele’s mega-jail has eight gigantic modules — eight independent little prisons, in Belarmino’s words — of which six are occupied by emeeses and dieciocheros.

In the other two, there are inmates in the trust phase, who are not gang members or on trial for serious crimes, and who work in the maintenance and cleaning of the facility; for every eight hours worked, they reduce their sentence by two days.

After walking 800 meters from the access gate, we arrive at Module 3, located in the northeast corner of the rectangle that is the CECOT. It is a few minutes past 6 p.m. and it is already dark outside.

As you enter the ship, dinner is being served.

The gang members do not leave their cells, nothing to do with the commonplace to which Hollywood has accustomed us, of crowded dining rooms where fights and settling of scores take place.

Food is provided by a company, three times a day.

Inmates in the trust phase ration it in another sector of the prison and deliver through the bars a plastic cup and a plastic cup for each inmate.

I thought that, because it was such a special date, the menu would have some concessions, but authorities and gang members tell me that it does not.

We will eat a fistful of tasteless rice, a broth made from beans, and two thin corn tortillas, the kind used for tacos. For a drink, a weak coffee.

They eat the same thing every day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The only change — Belarmino tells me and the Paisa of the 18-Sureños will confirm later — is that the rice is replaced by spaghetti.

Once a month, family members can send packages with some food products from a list prepared by Centros Penales: sugar, oatmeal, milk and powdered supplements, vitamins…

But among gang members, the percentage of inmates who have a family to support them is the lowest. “In CECOT, less than half,” says Belarmino.

The lack of animal protein and other nutrients is taking its toll.

I will interview six inmates at length tonight, face to face, and tomorrow I will find on the internet photographs taken at the time of arrest or even on their abandoned Facebook accounts: the weight loss will be evident.

News about Messi

Although this Christmas Eve dinner was going to be like any other day, my presence has altered things a bit.

Under a strict security cordon, with guards equipped as riot police, the inmates in one cell have been let out into the wide central corridor, unshackled, to sit in five rows of 16.

I was able to choose among the 30 cells of the module, cell 2, and I was also able to select the gang members to interview.

Many have been there for months. Before dinner, I introduced myself, and, to break the ice and build some trust, we talked about mundane matters.

No one here knew that Lionel Messi and his Inter Miami will come to El Salvador in January, a hot topic outside since it was confirmed at the end of November.

I have been asked which clubs have triumphed this year in the Champions League and the Libertadores and about the winners of the last two local soccer tournaments.

After a prayer in an evangelical key that has been shouted by a prisoner of the 18 tattooed from head to toe, the dinner began.

https://medium.com/media/c7f57c697346d091eb4291a6f24eaaee/href

I sat down to eat next to Paisa, an active gang member from Barrio 18-Sureños who will be 30 years old tomorrow, Christmas Day. He looks jovial, even grateful for the conversation.

It is not at all common for them to be able to talk to people coming from abroad.

We eat the tasteless mixture of rice and beans without cutlery, using pieces of tortilla as spoons. Needless to say, I am the clumsiest.

A Barrio 18 gang member gives a prayer of thanks for the Christmas dinner they are about to enjoy. Photo: Roberto Valencia.

Life inside

El Paisa is Luis Alonso García Flores, from El Refugio, department of Ahuachapán.

Since 2017 he has been serving a sentence for homicide and has never received a visit or a phone call, prohibited since March 2016 in prisons that house only gang members.

They had not been let out of the cell for several days, he tells me.

They used to have occasional outings to the corridor for Bible reading and physical stretching programs, given by inmates in the trust phase, “but in December the programs are suspended, they are over,” Belarmino will tell me later.

The CECOT does not offer training workshops and does not allow them to enter a novel.

“The truth is that we would like to have at least a small library to spend the day reading,” Paisa tells me.

I will ask him and the other people interviewed what goes through their heads on a day as unique as December 24.

El Paisa answers me this: “The wish of every prisoner is to be able to be with his family, at least to receive a visit on this day. I have a daughter, Lucero, who turned 13 on December 14; it is only by faith that I know she is still alive.

His words are repeated.

A native of El Congo (Santa Ana), Salvador Alberto Jovel Servando, 39, is an active member of the Western Locos clique of the MS-13.

José Leonardo Chicas Cortés was an MS-13 gang member in the United States; he is awaiting trial. Photo: Roberto Valencia.

After a lifetime of being in and out of prisons in the United States and El Salvador, he last lost his freedom in November 2021. He has not yet been sentenced.

“I would like to see my daughter, who just turned 6 years old. Her name is Allison Yamilteh, and I hope someone can dress up as Santa Claus and give her the gift she doesn’t have from her dad,” she says.

Alberto Ramírez Torres is the Chogüi in the 18-Sureños tribu that operated — or operates? While the government claims to have put an end to the gangs, some say that vestiges remain — in the Altavista residential area in Ilopango.

He was arrested on April 22, 2022, when the regime of exception still in force in El Salvador was taking its first steps. He has not been convicted.

“I want to tell my daughter Naomy that I love her very much, that everything is a matter of time, and that in the name of Jesus Christ, what I am saying now to you I will say to her in person someday. And I wish all the Salvadoran people a Merry Christmas,” he says.

José Leonardo Chicas Cortés is 43 years old but looks at least a decade older. He is from Sensuntepeque, Cabañas, and lived in the United States for decades. He says he left the gang years ago when he was deported. He was arrested on May 3, 2022 in Honduras, deported and is still awaiting trial.

“It’s been almost two years since I’ve talked to my mother, my wife, my son…. I send greetings to my mom, whose name is María Cortés,” he shares.

Luis Alberto Paredes is the Miñaña of the 18-Revolucionarios. He is 39 years old, from the Concepcion neighborhood of San Salvador, and is a criminal in the La Tiendona market area. He has been serving a 65 year sentence for aggravated homicide since May 2008.

“My last Christmas off was 2007, and since 2016 I have not been able to see my family or my daughters; I believe in God and he has the last word,” he points out.

Williams Arnoldo Vasquez Carpio is the Angel Black, the palabrero of the 18-Sureños clique that operated in San Martin, east of the capital. He was arrested on June 29, 2022, and is awaiting trial.

Luis Alberto Paredes, el Miñaña, a Barrio 18-Revolucionarios gang member, is convicted of aggravated homicide. Photo: Roberto Valencia.

“I want to send greetings to all my family, especially my mother, my brothers, my whole family in general, that they continue to persevere and that I thank them for all the help; and to my daughters, I want to tell them that I love them very much and that I always carry them in my heart,” he says.

What about the gang victims, isn’t there a message for them, I ask him. “No, I don’t know about that…” he stammers.

Figures and controversy

The existence and the dizzying construction of Bukele’s mega-jail — it was built from scratch in just over eight months — is a direct consequence of the emergency regime in force since March 2022, which has allowed the capture of almost 75,000 alleged gang members.

This is a number that is questioned by relatives and human rights organizations, which claim that thousands of innocent people are imprisoned who have no connection with the gangs.

But under that same legal tool — the regime of exception — the government has dealt the gangs an unprecedented blow.

According to its figures, the National Civil Police registered 147 homicides as of December 17 of this year.

Adjusted to the guidelines of the Bogotá Protocol, which establishes a series of technical criteria whose fulfillment reflects that homicide data in Latin America and the Caribbean present a high degree of validity, reliability, and transparency, the figure rises to 204.

Little changes.

The homicide rate in 2023 will be 3 per 100,000 inhabitants. Just eight years ago, in 2015, El Salvador counted 6,656 murders, a rate of 106 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Indicators for crimes traditionally associated with gangs, such as the disappearance of persons, femicide, and extortion, have also fallen to historic lows.

The security paradox

After having dinner with the gang members, I asked to speak with the custodians.

There were a hundred of them in a dining room so large that they were scattered. They ate roast beef, sausages, shrimp, various salads and french fries.

I sat down with five of them — I also chose the table — and asked them their opinion on how they and their families are living now.

Because of the meager salaries of the security agents, they generally inhabit the same neighborhoods and cantons that for decades have been under the control of MS-13 or 18.

They have accepted the conversation under the condition of not taking photos or publishing names and places of residence.

“This gang thing is very changeable,” one of them justifies to me. “The gangs have not been completely exterminated, there are still gang members,” adds his partner.

But the change for the better experienced with the exception regime is expressed unanimously and enthusiastically.

They say they can now arrive at 9 p.m. without fear, that new stores have opened in their neighborhoods or existing ones have been expanded. They say that delivery drivers now come in. They say their mothers and wives sleep more peacefully.

This is what the cells of Bukele’s mega-prison look like from the inside; they have 80 cots on four levels, made of metal and without mattresses or bedding. Photo: Roberto Valencia.

They say, in short, that the reduction in violence can be felt, and breathed, that it goes beyond cold numbers on homicide rates that can be read from a computer or a smartphone.

This is the paradox that Salvadoran society is experiencing these days in the area of public security.

The same regime of exception that has cut short the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people and their families represents a blessing for hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, perhaps millions.

It is a reality that in and out of prison continues to divide individuals and families in what was once the most violent country in the world.

This is the English version (thank you, DeepL and Grammarly) of a chronicle I published on December 29, 2023, on BBC Mundo, under the title ‘ La cena de Navidad en la megacárcel de Bukele ’.

¿Te gusta el periodismo de largo aliento? Mi más reciente libro, Made in El Salvador, está a la venta en Amazon, tanto en formato impreso como en formato eBook. Recopila 16 de las mejores crónicas y perfiles que he firmado en mi carrera.

Si vives en El Salvador, puedo hacértelo llegar con dedicatoria y autografiado a través de Correos de El Salvador. Pregunta sin compromiso en mi cuenta de Twitter/X ; mi DM está abierto.

[image error]