The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said on Sunday night that he doesn’t care if they call him a “dictator” and that democracy, transparency, human rights, and the rule of law are terms that are used in reality to keep people subdued.
“Democracy, institutionalism, transparency, human rights, rule of law, they sound good, they are actually great ideals, but they are terms that are actually only used to keep us subdued,” Bukele stated during his speech for the first year of his second consecutive term, in a solemn session of the Legislative Assembly held at the National Theater in San Salvador.
“Sadly, we witness how our neighboring countries still believe in these international organizations, still believe in these treaties that are supposed to help us with our human rights, and some politicians in the region (Latin America) unfortunately play along with this game,” the president pointed out.
“What they, the defenders of democracy and the rule of law, really want is for us to be unable to punish murderers in the name of a supposed ideal of human rights that is nothing more than the rights of criminals,” said the president before members of Congress, representatives of the diplomatic corps in El Salvador, and various institutions.
Attacks on the press
The president of El Salvador also stated that he “doesn’t care” if he is called a “dictator” and that he prefers that “to seeing Salvadorans being killed.”
“En lo personal me ha dicho dictador en todos los medios que han querido y podido. Desde los panfletos salvadoreños, hasta los panfletos internacionales, los más prestigiosos (sin especificar)”, dijo Bukele durante una sesión solemne de la Asamblea Legislativa desarrollada en el Teatro Nacional en San Salvador.
“You know what? I don’t care if they call me a dictator,” he stated and assured that “I prefer to be called a dictator than to see Salvadorans being killed on the streets.”
And he continued: “I prefer these moments when I pick up my phone and see: dictator, dictator, dictator... in the news, and not see murder, murder, murder...”
“I prefer to be called a dictator but for Salvadorans to finally be able to live in peace. Let them stay there discussing their semantics and we will continue to focus on achieving results. Contrary to the lies they spread day and night, we have achieved more results than any other government in our entire history,” he added.
The first year of Bukele’s second consecutive term, which has been criticized as unconstitutional, is marked by warnings of “an authoritarian escalation”, the detention of human rights activists, and the imprisonment of hundreds of Venezuelans who were expelled from the United States and are not facing criminal charges in El Salvador.