Massive protests against Nayib Bukele in El Salvador: President accuses international community of funding protests

The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, accused Wednesday of “friendly countries” of the international community of financing the opposition, without presenting any evidence, and said he would not allow “interference of any kind.”

The president, without mentioning any particular country, launched the accusation on a nationwide prerecorded radio and television network, according to local media outlets, concerning the bicentenary of the independence of Central America.

The agent He criticized the marches that gathered thousands of Salvadorans Wednesday morning to protest against his government.

“Unfortunately they are protected by certain friends of the international community, I say some because they are not all” and “What is sad is that they are financing a perverse opposition”, Bukele told ambassadors accredited to the country and accused the protesters of “vandalizing private property”.

Bukele denied that there is a “dictatorship” in the country, since the protest was authorized because “We have yet to use a single tear gas canister that many of your governments use on a daily basis.”

“Here there is not a dictatorship, but a democracy which was expressed at the ballot box not once, but twice”, he said with reference to the 2019 and 2021 elections.

He defended the Legislature’s decision to remove judges in their sixties to supposedly purge the court system, although the recently approved measure does not establish measures to combat corrupt practices.

He called on the international community for defending “corrupt judges”, “Terrorists” and “people who vandalize”.

This It is the first time that he publicly qualifies his detractors as “terrorists”, although in previous speeches he called them “internal enemies”.

“Many of you like what I’m saying, many don’t. But it is a real independence and the one who does not like it, because he will have to live with it, because El Salvador will not become a colony again, protectorate, nor will it follow the orders of any foreign power, ”he added.

Added: “We are going to open our doors wide to all foreigners who want to come to work and contribute., but we are not going to allow any interference of any kind ”.

The covid-19 pandemic forced from 2020 to suspend traditional parades to commemorate independence and Thousands of Salvadorans took advantage of the event to protest against the Bukele government for decisions such as the adoption of bitcoin and the president’s “authoritarian” drift, according to the different sectors.

Doctors, judges, human rights activists, veterans, students, feminists and opponents of the Bukele executive have also rejected the decisions of the Legislative Assembly, with a large pro-government majority, and the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) .

(With information from EFE)

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