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USAID steers El Salvador funding away from state
‘DEEP CONCERNS’: Funding would be diverted from the Attorney General’s Office and the police to civil society groups and human rights organizations, USAID said
AP, SAN SALVADOR
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) would redirect its funding from El Salvador’s state institutions to its civil society groups as tensions rise between the two governments over the Central American country’s removal of Salvadoran Supreme Court justices and the attorney general.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power said in a statement on Friday that the agency has “deep concerns” about the shakeup in the justice system earlier this month and more generally about transparency and accountability.
Salvadorans yesterday went to the polls to vote in legislative and municipal elections that could give a broad victory to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s party, consolidating his overhaul of traditional politics.
Opinion polls show that Bukele’s party, New Ideas, could win more than half of the mayoral positions, and enough seats to hold at least a simple majority in Salvadoran Congress.
A two-thirds majority in Congress would let the party appoint high-level government officials, such as the attorney general and five of the 15 Salvadoran Supreme Court justices.
Bukele, a 39-year-old publicist and city mayor, took office in 2019 promising to root out
A Los Angeles neighborhood in the 1980s was where the Mara Salvatrucha emerged. Also called MS13, the gang’s original purpose was to protect immigrants who came to the United States from El Salvador, fleeing their homeland’s Civil War.
However, MS13 broadened its motivations and spread throughout Central America, Mexico, the U.S. and several countries in Europe. Composed of thousands of young people and adults, the Mara Salvatrucha has been involved in drug trafficking, organized crime and extortion and is one of the most feared criminal organizations today.
How did an L.A. gang grow to such an extent, and how does it control such a large territory?