Por Agencies
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U.S. Peace Corps volunteers returned to El Salvador this week for the first time since the American force left in 2016 because of violence in the Central American country.
It was the latest sign of a thaw in U.S. relations with El Salvador, whose President Nayib Bukele was once shunned because of his harsh crackdown on street gangs.
It was also a sign of how much Bukele’s widespread arrests of suspected gang members – which also jailed a considerable number of apparently innocent young men – has reduced the country’s once-fearsome homicide rate.
The Peace Corps said the first nine volunteers would work on community economic development, education, and youth initiatives.
All nine had previously worked two-year stints in other Central American countries.
“Today is not just a celebration, it’s a commitment to continue building on the decades-long partnership with the people of El Salvador,” said Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn.
More than 2,300 Peace Corps Volunteers had worked in El Salvador since 1962.
The Peace Corps volunteers left after El Salvador’s gang-fueled homicide rate reached a high of 106 murders per 100,000 inhabitants on 2015, 5hat year there were 6,658 killings in the country of 6.3 million.
Under a state of emergency originally declared in 2022 and still in effect, Bukele’s government has rounded up about 81,900 suspected gang members in sweeps that rights groups say are often arbitrary, based on a person’s appearance or where they live.
The government has had to release about 7,000 people because of a lack of evidence.
In July, the human rights organization Cristosal said at least 261 people have died in prisons during the crackdown.
While the government is accused of committing mass human rights abuses in the crackdown, Bukele remains highly popular in El Salvador because homicide rates sharply dipped following the detentions.
The Central American nation went from being one of the most dangerous countries in the world to having the lowest homicide rate in the region.
In all of 2023, the country saw only 214 homicides, and 116 so far in 2024.
Bukele rode that popularity into reelection in February, despite the country’s constitution prohibiting second terms for presidents.
The United States did not object and sent a high-level delegation to his inauguration for a second term.
ARGENTINA
Argentine prosecutors accuse Opus Dei leaders in South America of trafficking and labor explotation.
Argentine prosecutors have concluded that there are grounds for launching a criminal investigation into the highest authorities of Opus Dei in South America between 1983 and 2015 for the crimes of human trafficking and labor exploitation against at least 44 women recruited by the religious order to perform domestic tasks in their homes.
According to a document, prosecutors sought a federal judge to summon those who served during that period as vicar or regional councilor of Opus Dei Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia to testify: Carlos Nannei (1991-1997), Patricio Olmos (1998-2014) and Víctor Urtizarrazu (2014-2022).
They also seek to interrogate the regional secretary in charge of the order’s female section, Gabriel Dondo, who held the position until 2015.
Opus Dei, Work of God in Latin, was founded by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928, and has 90,000 members in 70 countries.
The lay group, which was greatly favored by St. John Paul II, who canonized Escrivá in 2002, has a unique status in the church and reports directly to the pope.
Most members are laymen and women with secular jobs and families who strive to “sanctify ordinary life.”
Other members are priests or celibate lay people.
Following a complaint filed in 2022, the team of prosecutors launched an investigation that concluded that from the early 1970s until 2015, “people holding different positions within Opus Dei established a structure dedicated to recruiting at least 44 women, most of them girls and adolescents, to be subjected to living conditions comparable to servitude.”
The Opus Dei in Argentina has denied the accusations.
“We categorically deny the accusations of human trafficking and labor exploitation,” said the office of the Prelature of Opus Dei in Argentina in a statement, adding that in order to build this accusation, “the formation received by some of the women in the group and the vocation freely chosen by the numerary assistants of Opus Dei are completely taken out of context. This is a totally false accusation.”
Prosecutors argue that Opus Dei selected girls and adolescents from low-income families, usually from rural areas far from the organization’s activity centers, and that they were recruited “under the promise of receiving training and improving their job prospects.”
“Once admitted, they were subjected to a regime of ‘spiritual, professional and work training,’ and if they showed a vocation to be numerary assistants, they were assigned for life to perform domestic tasks in Opus Dei centers, both in the country and abroad,” they said.
The investigation centers on four cases that fit the crime of human trafficking under current Argentinian legislation.
Some of the complainants gave their testimony to AP in a story published in November 2021 in which they reported working under “manifestly illegal conditions” that included working without pay for 12 hours-plus without breaks except for food or prayer, no registration in the Social Security system and other violations of basic rights.
Their identities have been preserved in the prosecutors’ resolution.
Most of the women requested dispensation saying that the physical and psychological demands they were subjected to during their years of service became intolerable. They maintain that they were left to their own devices, without money, and many needed psychological treatment after leaving Opus Dei.
A federal judge must now decide whether to grant the prosecutors’ request to summon the former vicars to testify.
Opus Dei Argentina reaffirmed its commitment to fully cooperate with the justice “to clarify the facts and resolve the situation in a fair and transparent manner.”
BRAZIL
A judge has convicted a man of obstructing the investigation into the assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco and sentenced him to five years in prison.
The conviction of Edilson Barbosa dos Santos was the first in the 2018 shooting death of Franco, who was prominent as the only Black woman on the council and as a bisexual. Dos Santos was accused of dismantling a car used in the drive-by shooting, and his conviction was published Monday by the Rio de Janeiro state court.
Former policeman Ronnie Lessa has confessed to killing Franco as part of a plea bargain, but he has yet to be sentenced.
In March, federal lawmaker Chiquinho Brazão and his brother Domingos Brazão, a member of Rio state’s accounts watchdog, were detained on suspicion of ordering the killing of Franco. Both are allegedly connected to criminal groups, known as militias, which illegally charge residents for various services.
Both have denied any wrongdoing in the case.
