Not even the Chafarotes dare to

Definition: A chafarote is a broad, short, and often curved sword. Informally, particularly in Central America, it is used as a derogatory term for a crude, ignorant, or uneducated soldier or officer, often referring to a pompous member of the military. That is to say, every single one of them.

To friends who ask me, “What’s happening in my homeland, El Salvador?”

The situation is complex, painful and deeply rooted in history. To understand it, we have to look back a bit.

Since independence from Spain in 1821, Central America has experienced a strong concentration of power in the hands of the Creole families who led the break from the crown. That power was never truly shared. It remained with the elites who controlled the land and the means of production. El Salvador was no exception. Even so, there was something resembling a bourgeois democracy, with civilian presidents backed, and monitored, by the military establishment.

Everything changed in December 1931. The Minister of Defense of the democratic civilian government orchestrated a coup and installed himself as dictator. Just a month later, in January 1932, Indigenous communities in the western part of the country rose up, demanding basic rights that had been denied to them for generations. The government’s response was brutal and heartbreaking: entire communities were massacred in what history remembers as “The Massacre” of 1932.

The military dictatorship that began then continued, in one form or another, until October 1979. Some would say, and I am one of them, that this period didn’t truly end until 1984, when a civilian president was finally elected. After the 1979 coup that overthrew the last military president, the country was governed by juntas composed of both military officers and civilians, in a tense and fragile transition.

El Salvador endured decades of cruel and oppressive military rule. From time to time, the dictators organized elections, but they were always won by another military figure. When the abuse became unbearable, they themselves orchestrated coups to “readjust” the system. In some cases, these shifts brought limited progress. For example, the 1948 coup led to the 1950 Constitution, which included some environmental protections and what are considered “the stoned written clauses” the clauses that recognize inalienable rights.

Throughout this period, the economic elites, the multimillionaires who have historically concentrated power, used the military as their instrument of control, almost like an internal occupying force. By the 1970s, resistance movements began to emerge in the form of small guerrilla groups. 

The armed resistance was made up of students, workers and peasants in a somewhat romantic and fragmented way.

Finally, in 1980, after the assassination of the most revered catholic leader, whom the day before, in his homily, had beg soldiers to disobey illegal orders from their superiors to kill civilians. 

These groups united into a coalition, and a civil war erupted that would last 12 long, devastating years. It left deep wounds, wounds that, in many ways, have never fully healed. In 1992, the Peace Accords were signed, marking the beginning of a new era: a formal but fragile democracy, built on the 1983 Constitution (itself shaped by earlier versions of 1961 and 1950), with its “entrenched clauses” still intact.

But democracy was never fully consolidated. It was weakened by constant clashes between branches of government, paralyzing governance, and by other equally serious factors. Among them was the rise of the maras, the criminal gangs that took control of entire neighborhoods, spreading fear, violence, and despair. These gangs have roots in immigrant communities that, during the war, settled in Los Angeles, hence their names mara 18 (for the 18 street in LA) and mara Salvatrucha (the Salvadoreans collective nick name.) After their mass deportations, the maras found fertile ground in their parents’ homeland marked by inequality and exclusion.

Then came another devastating blow: widespread and blatant corruption among many post-war civilian governments. Disillusionment grew. So did exhaustion. People were tired, tired of violence, tired of broken promises, tired of feeling abandoned.

In that context, a charismatic leader emerged, presenting himself as something different, a new path, a source of hope. In 2019, he won the presidency with unprecedented popularity with a campaign slogan “There's enough money when nobody steals it.”

His determination to confront the maras has been, without a doubt, one of the most recognized aspects of his administration. But alongside it, authoritarian tendencies began to surface. On February 9, 2020, the president entered the Legislative Assembly accompanied by the army and police, an act many saw as a direct threat to the democratic order. It was something not seen since before the end of the war, it was beyond doubt, deeply unsettling.

Over time, his movement gained control of the Legislative Assembly, allowing him to dismantle institutional checks and balances, including the Supreme Court, concentrating more and more power in the presidency.

In March 2022, a “state of exception” was declared under the pretext of combating gangs. At first, it was supported by many, especially as violence decreased. But the regime continues to this day, even as that violence appears to be under control. What began as an extraordinary measure has slowly become a permanent tool of control.

Under this system, fundamental freedoms have been restricted. Critical voices have been silenced, some through imprisonment, others through forced exile. Freedom of expression has been deeply affected.

Meanwhile, troubling signs have emerged: the concentration of wealth among those close to the president, the deterioration of public health and education systems, environmental damage justified in the name of progress, and economic decisions that impact entire communities. All of this creates a bitter sense of déjà vu, as if the country is trapped in cycles, it has never been able to break.

What is perhaps most unsettling is that even practices that past dictatorships avoided, such as openly manipulating the Constitution and its entrenched clauses, or keeping government actions entirely secret, now seem to be normalized. And even more concerning: some voices that once defended the rule of law now justify these actions as necessary.

Recent reports speak of international condemnation and serious accusations, even crimes against humanity. Faced with this, the official response has been to reject all criticism, dismissing it as false or fabricated.

It pains me to say this, but the echoes of the past are loud. They are impossible to ignore. It feels as if history is repeating itself, again, and once more, we are failing to learn from it.

The disregard for institutions has reached such a level that not even past military dictators, the chafarotes, dared to go this far and they held the same power that today’s the dictator’s apprentice concentrates in his hands.

Any similarity with the present Ontario government is not an accident.