El Faro English Audio: Recent Episodes
El Faro English
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 47: Five months before new magistrates are chosen, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Guatemala has been raided yet again amid arrests, a guilty plea, and accusations of bribery. Next year, the top seats at the TSE, high courts, and other crucial institutions are up for grabs.
In Costa Rica, President Rodrigo Chaves skirts an effort by the Legislative Assembly to strip him of his immunity on corruption allegations — and his presidential candidate Laura Fernández says she will shield him from an array of probes with a top cabinet spot if she wins the February 1 election.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and Gabriel Labrador and edited by Roman Gressier. Production and soundtrack by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and iHeart podcast platforms.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 46: Salvadoran-born journalist Mario Guevara is set to be deported today, Friday, after his arrest in June, while covering protests in Georgia against the immigration raids of Trump’s first months. He was the only known journalist detained by ICE on U.S. soil.
This special October episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and edited by Roman Gressier. Production and soundtrack by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and iHeart podcast platforms.
Ep. 45, SPECIAL with LATINO USA: She was in labor, fainted, and woke up in handcuffs.
In El Salvador, nearly 200 women have been incarcerated in the last 26 years after having obstetric emergencies, like miscarriages and stillbirths. Maria Hinojosa and producer Monica Morales-Garcia travel to the country to speak with women who have been incarcerated under El Salvador's anti-abortion laws, some of the strictest in the world.
Through interviews, documents, and archival materials, this investigation paints a clear and disturbing picture of the women who suffer most when a country stretches the definition of abortion beyond its meaning and then bans them all without exception.
This podcast episode was produced by Latino USA and co-published in partnership with El Faro English.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 44: On September 8, Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans and Nicaraguans came to an end, leaving more than 50,000 immigrants, who have been in the United States for over two decades, at risk of deportation.
The Guatemalan Constitutional Court refused to grant provisional parole to publisher Jose Rubén Zamora, bouncing the decision of whether he will continue in pre-trial detention rather than house arrest back to lower court.
Guatemalan outlet No-Ficción reports that the Arévalo administration purchased $10.3 million in military equipment from Israeli companies named by a Trump-sanctioned U.N. special rapporteur as part of an “economy of genocide” in Gaza.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 43: With under three months until election day in Honduras, alarm bells are sounding: lawfare and institutional capture threaten the credibility of the process amid efforts to veto civil society as electoral monitors. The chief campaign finance auditor has no budget.
In a country where political violence has stained elections for the better part of two decades, four mayoral candidates have already been assassinated. Parts of the two largest cities remain under a state of exception suspending rights, while the leading parties dabble in early accusations of fraud.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 42: Recent accusations by U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi about an “air bridge” for Venezuelan drug traffickers in Guatemala and neighboring countries draws sparring between the Guatemalan president and attorney general over who is really leading interdiction efforts.
In Nicaragua, an opposition leader detained for more than a month is announced dead in custody and denied his right to a funeral, in yet another case in recent months of political violence toward prominent critics of the dictatorship.
New reporting by El Faro English identifies the first Salvadoran to die in Bukele’s prisons under the state of exception: Walter Sandoval, a man who within three days of his arrest went from a clean bill of health to showing signs of torture in a coroner’s report. His is the first of at least 435 known in-custody deaths.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 41: A former magistrate and security chief was arrested by Costa Rican authorities and the DEA in their first extradition on drug trafficking charges. U.S. authorities also accuse him of informing the Rodrigo Chaves administration in 2023 of his ability to “guarantee the entry of cocaine into the country.”
In El Salvador, as Nayib Bukele names an Army captain as minister of education, breaking a decadeslong tradition of civilian power, the Presidency takes command of public hospitals, including the power to compel services from private providers in a sector whose unionists are a motor of protest.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Roman Gressier and Yuliana Ramazzini with production by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon at support.elfaro.net.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 40: In Guatemala, six officials were sentenced to prison for the gruesome 2017 death of 41 girls in a fire in the Hogar Seguro children’s home. Abuses and inhumane conditions leading up to the fire compounded with officials’ apathy to rescue them, stirring indignation in Guatemala over state complicity.
The U.S. State Department claimed in its annual report that there were “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” in El Salvador in 2024, omitting widespread reports of torture in prisons, political prisoners, and police persecution causing an exodus of human rights defenders, dissidents, and journalists.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and Ramiro Guevara. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound production by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 39: El Salvador’s Canal 10 has been transformed into a vehicle for institutional propaganda. Since its relaunch in 2020, the public television channel has been remade from a cultural station into a mouthpiece for President Nayib Bukele — a space without dissent, without opposition, without debate.
This extended August episode of Central America in Minutes was produced by Nelson Rauda and Daniel Reyes, and adapted in English by Yuliana Ramazzini. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 38: A prisoner exchange between the United States, El Salvador, and Venezuela sends 252 men deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in Salvadoran megaprison CECOT back to Venezuela, in exchange for 10 U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela.
A new investigation by InSight Crime reports that at least 23 environmentalists were killed in the country between 2023 and 2024. Since 2011, when Pepe Lobo declared Honduras open for business, deforestation and forest fires have increased at an alarming rate due to criminal interests.
The Guatemalan Teachers’s Union, headed by internationally sanctioned unionist Joviel Acevedo, camped out across the Central Plaza demanding higher salaries. But they were fined and evicted as President Bernardo Arévalo locked horns with Acevedo, who exiled prosecutors say is protected by the attorney general.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Edward Grattan, Leyrian Colón Santiago, and Yuliana Ramazzini. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound production by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 37: Cristosal, a leading human rights organization in Central America, announces that it is closing operations in El Salvador under threat of political arrest and administrative harassment under a “Russia-style” Foreign Agents Law that dealt a frontal blow to civil society.
In Nicaragua, three days before the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, the regime renames the archive illegally confiscated from Central American University. Meanwhile, Ortega and Murillo completely restructure the national university system to flex their total control over higher education.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Leyrian Colón Santiago, Yuliana Ramazzini, and Victoria Delgado, with additional reporting by Edward Grattan. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound production by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 36: In correspondence with U.N. enforced disappearance investigators, the Salvadoran government claimed the jurisdiction and ultimate fate of the 238 Venezuelans imprisoned in CECOT falls on the U.S. government — even as the Trump administration has claimed the opposite.
As the U.S. government cancels TPS deportation protections for Nicaraguans and Hondurans, Daniel Ortega says little in public while quietly receiving a military deportation flight. Xiomara Castro announces she will seek a diplomatic solution with Trump while continuing to avoid direct confrontation.
In an interview with El Faro English, Guatemalan sociologist Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, a founder of Semilla a decade ago, calls the new rupture in President Bernardo Arévalo’s party a sign of “lack of leadership and organic political work.”
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Edward Grattan, Leyrian Colón Santiago, and Yuliana Ramazzini, with production by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 35: For the first time in decades, a growing number of political exiles are fleeing El Salvador. In Guatemala, the justice system is the spearhead of attacks against those pursuing corruption. Following the murder of a Nicaraguan exile, the U.N. denounces a “high risk of life and physical safety” for dissidents beyond Nicaraguan borders.
This special July episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Roman Gressier and Leyrian Colón Santiago and produced by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 34: In a regional tour, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced agreements for Guatemala and Honduras to receive third-country asylum claims, and in Panama, to pay for flights to continue deporting migrants, including from Venezuela and Colombia.
In Costa Rica, investigators examine whether a Nicaraguan government-backed hit squad is targeting exiles on the heels of the murder of former military officer and opposition member Roberto Samcam.
New reporting from El Faro English shows how the Trump administration is seeking to dismiss charges against multiple MS-13 gang leaders and deport them to El Salvador before they can testify about Nayib Bukele’s secret former gang negotiations.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Edward Grattan and Roman Gressier and produced by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 33: The Panamanian government arrested Secretary General of the Banana Industry Workers Union Fransisco Smith four days after an agreement was announced between union leaders, the National Assembly and President Raúl Mulino to amend social security reforms driving the country into nation-wide protest.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Edward Grattan and Roman Gressier and produced by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 32: In El Salvador, three top military officers are convicted for the emblematic 1982 murder of four Dutch journalists, marking the first conviction of high-ranking military officials in the country for crimes committed during the civil war.
In Honduras, digital outlet Contracorriente reports that the Xiomara Castro administration has launched a media campaign during the electoral season promoting the image of a new supermax facility emulating El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
Despite international pressure, Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras expands charges against two Indigenous leaders of the 2023 mobilizations against an electoral coup. The E.U. sanctions the Foundation Against Terrorism, a close ally in Porras’ lawfare against civil society.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier and Edward Grattan, with production by Omnionn. Help us shine a brighter beacon on Central America at support.elfaro.net. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 31: Rosario Murillo holds the reins in Nicaragua. By their own decree, she and Daniel Ortega are now “co-presidents” ruling without the separation of powers, not even on paper. Three moments help explain Murillo’s rise — but just how durable is her newfound power?
This special June episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 30: In Costa Rica, evidence collected by the press and prosecutors of Rodrigo Chaves rigging a public-relations contract leads the Supreme Court to discuss the possible removal of his immunity — an unprecedented corruption probe against a sitting president.
In Honduras, President Xiomara Castro will be interim defense minister after ruling-party presidential candidate Rixi Moncada leaves for the campaign trail. Moncada’s exit blunts her direct conflict of interest as former head of the armed forces, an institution under scrutiny for its handling of the primaries.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. Additional reporting from Ramiro Guevara. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 29: The attorneys general of El Salvador and Guatemala meet and agree to increase cooperation, in the most public show of support from the Bukele regime for Consuelo Porras. Weeks after Guatemalan prosecutors threatened to launch an investigation into USAID funding to independent media, the Salvadoran legislature approves a Foreign Agents Law to choke off international aid to critical civil society groups.
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo modify the recently rewritten constitution to eliminate the right to double-citizenship. Around the seventh anniversary of the start of the mass uprising against the regime, the Inter-American Court issues a sweeping report on migratory repression in the last two years of dissidents and former political prisoners.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. Additional reporting from Ramiro Guevara. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 28: In El Salvador, Nayib Bukele sends the Military Police to disperse families in front of his personal residence, as they pleaded not to be evicted from their homes. As the regime arrests another lawyer accompanying families threatened by displacement, Bukele claims international interference against his government, reactivating a 2021 plan to place high taxes on donations to civil society organizations.
On Thursday, El Faro’s 27th anniversary, we launched Central America Monthly, a digital magazine where we will seek deeper, sharper answers to pressing questions in our region. The inaugural issue includes a judicial chronicle from Guatemala, our exclusive video interview on gang leaders’ decade-long relationship with Bukele —the publication of which set off a firestorm of government retaliation in El Salvador— and more.
This episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 27: Even if Jose Rubén Zamora, who is 68 years old, successfully defends himself at retrial in the original case against him, he looks set to face years of legal challenges as the hydra of spurious accusations against Guatemala’s former top publisher continues to grow.
On April 21, the Bernardo Arévalo administration said they are finishing chalking up a journalist-protection policy for the Executive Branch. Press advocates warn that any safeguards can only have a limited effect without an end to persecution and change of leadership at the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The attorney general selection process is set to end in May 2026.
This special May episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 26: It may have come as a surprise in the U.S. when Trump and Bukele shrugged off a court order to bring back wrongfully deported immigrant Kilmar Ábrego. In El Salvador, presidential non-compliance has been business as usual since 2020.
El Faro is on vacation for Holy Week. Today, in a shorter episode, we share the perspectives of two Salvadoran columnists from our flagship El Faro English newsletter. Subscribe here.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 25: The U.N. Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua names Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and dozens of regime officials in a report on crimes against humanity. It’s their second major release in two months, compounding U.N. evidence-gathering on the Ortega-Murillo regime as the 2018 state repression turns seven years old.
Days before Nayib Bukele is set to meet with Donald Trump at the White House, the State Department certifies his government as respectful of human rights and softens the advisory for U.S. citizens traveling to El Salvador. The DOJ puts a senior attorney on leave for not “zealously advocating” for the administration’s policy of deportations to El Salvador.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 24: The key to El Salvador’s prisons, and the Nayib Bukele administration that runs them, are facilities that most observers abroad have never heard of: black boxes where reports of systematic torture have emerged in survivor testimony, disease proliferates and medical care is denied, and at least 375 people have reportedly died in custody.
These prisons are a focal point of political corruption investigated by Salvadoran and U.S. authorities, from the top brass of the Ministry of Security to rank-and-file officers. They were also the stage of Bukele’s pact with MS-13 and 18th Street from 2019 to 2022 — the collapse of which led to the installment of the state of exception now three years old.
This special April monthly episode of Central America in Minutes was written and narrated by Roman Gressier with audio production and original soundtrack by Omnionn. El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help us continue shining a light on Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 23: Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson, a friend and promoter of Nayib Bukele, tells the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “I don’t doubt” that Pegasus could have been used against civil society and U.S. officials during his tenure in El Salvador.
The Panama government allows fugitive ex-president Ricardo Martinelli —once famous for using Pegasus against political opponents and his mistress— to leave for Managua. In February 2024, Martinelli claimed asylum in the Nicaraguan Embassy to evade a 10-year money-laundering sentence in Panama City.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 22: Nayib Bukele and Elon Musk propose that U.S. judges ruling against Donald Trump’s agenda be impeached, citing the illegal 2021 removal of the Salvadoran constitutional chamber magistrates as a model to follow. Bukele claims that a judge’s order against recent deportations to Salvadoran prison is a “judicial coup” against Trump.
In the Honduran primaries, ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada says she will resign as defense minister in May. Salvador Nasralla, casting himself as MAGA-friendly, emerges for the Liberal Party. The National Party courts Trump operative Roger Stone, who claims the 2024 drug conviction of Juan Orlando Hernández is part of a “globalist” plot against a U.S. friend.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 21: The Sunday primaries in Honduras await results as civil society monitors criticize delayed ballot delivery and the press reports violations of the chain of custody of ballots by the Army. Ruling party Libre receives the most votes, according to projections.
Tension grows between the two main electoral institutions. Minister of Defense Rixi Moncada, who is also the Libre presidential candidate, deflects responsibility for the blunders to the National Electoral Council (CNE). The CNE, meanwhile, denounces a contractor for the ballot disarray.
In Guatemala, a judge orders journalist Jose Rubén Zamora back to prison and he re-enters Mariscal Zavala after an appellate court vacates months of proceedings. In the same breath, the judge denounces threats against his court and plaintiffs file yet another money laundering case against Zamora.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 20: Honduras claims it is closing in on a free-trade deal with China, but negotiations have lagged since late last year. Xiomara Castro is toning down some public references to Chinese cooperation for infrastructure as they play push and pull with Donald Trump.
Nicaraguan environmentalist group Fundación del Río filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of Justice against a network of lawyers and notaries trafficking Indigenous land. The foundation and digital outlet Divergentes found illegal land transactions totaling tens of thousands of acres, including protected areas.
Human Rights Watch reports forced pregnancies of just under 15,000 girls under the age of 15 in Guatemala in the last six years — 17 cases a day in a country of around 18 million. But accountability is slim: 102 men were convicted stemming from rape and forced pregnancy from 2018 to 2023.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 19: Fidel Zavala is a Salvadoran businessman turned human rights activist who sued the director of prisons after attesting to state crimes in prison under the state of exception. He has been re-arrested in El Salvador less than a year into his lawsuit against the director of prisons.
Salvadoran unions report 30,000 illegal firings since 2019 to the International Labor Organization. Union representatives compare what they describe as union suppression under Nayib Bukele in El Salvador to the curbing of freedom of expression under Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua.
The head of the Nicaraguan Armed Forces is sworn-in to a fourth term pledging allegiance to Ortega and Murillo as co-presidents. Nicaragua announces its withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council amid the preparation of a list of officials implicated in crimes against humanity.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 18: The internationally sanctioned Guatemalan Special Prosecutor Against Impunity threatens to investigate USAID funding to independent media, echoing attacks on the press in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
José Ubico, the former president of Guatemala’s congressional National Defense Committee, is sentenced to 18 years in prison in the Eastern District of Texas after pleading guilty to conspiring to traffic cocaine in a plot implicating the Guatemalan Police’s Anti-Narcotics Unit.
After months of claiming that the Honduran government would denounce the U.S. extradition treaty on sovereignty grounds, Xiomara Castro announces that her government reached an agreement with the Trump administration to keep the treaty for at least another year, as national elections are held.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 17: Honduran campesinos repeat calls for President Xiomara Castro to respect a 2022 agreement to end assassinations tied to palm oil monocrop in the Bajo Aguán. Castro has not installed a promised Truth Commission nor propelled a constitutionally mandated agrarian reform.
Nicaraguan police and military leaders swear in para-security forces implicated in crimes against humanity, despite the fact that Daniel Ortega has not yet signed into law the recently passed constitution creating a third armed security force.
The Inter-American Development Bank writes a one-billion-dollar check to El Salvador on the heels of an agreement with the IMF that peeled back Bukele’s signature 2021 Bitcoin Law. But regime officials insist that El Salvador is still “Bitcoin Country.”
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 16: Rosario Murillo orders the removal of presidential security advisor Horacio Rocha and interim Supreme Court president Marvin Aguilar as Murillo, the newly minted “co-president” of Nicaragua, prepares to nominate a reduced nine-seat Supreme Court in her image.
Nayib Bukele slates changes to the Salvadoran penal code to make soldiers “agents of authority” when “accompanying or carrying out functions of public security”, despite the constitution’s reservation of those tasks for the National Civil Police.
In exchange for extensive cooperation with the Trump administration to receive increased regional deportees, Bukele asks the U.S. to deport MS-13 leaders who are on trial in New York, and with whom he had negotiated a reduction in homicides.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 15: With Trump and regional migration carrying the headlines and Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveling in Central America, Nayib Bukele rewrites the constitution in El Salvador and the Guatemalan Supreme Court resumes an internationally condemned probe of Bernardo Arévalo.
Honduras and Colombia try to rally Latin American and Caribbean nations against Trump’s deportation agenda, but fail to hold an emergency session at CELAC this week as Central American neighbors El Salvador and Guatemala collaborate on migration with the Trump administration.
A journalistic investigation by Focos found that Salvadoran prisons under the state of exception chronically lack sanitary pads for menstruation, tampons, menstrual cups, potable water, clean linens, and medicine for recurring vaginal infections.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 14: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights finds the Nicaraguan state guilty of “abusive use of the state apparatus” in allowing Daniel Ortega’s unconstitutional 2011 reelection, setting precedent for the elections in Honduras in 2017 and El Salvador in 2024.
China hawk Marco Rubio, Trump’s top diplomat, plans to make his first official trip to Central America. Contrary to the Panamanian government, he suggests Panama may be violating the treaty that turned over control of the canal in 1999.
According to Nicaraguan state media, Former Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, a once-iconic leader who brought the leftist former guerrilla party FMLN to power in the postwar era, died in Managua. He was a fugitive of corruption charges and convictions.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 13: The Biden administration extends Temporary Protected Status for 232,000 Salvadorans through September 2026, but has not renewed these protections from deportation for recipients from Honduras or Nicaragua.
Per a tally by exiled Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, 38 former political prisoners have had their asylum claims denied by the United States after promises that the Biden administration would seek quick adjustment of their refugee status.
In an interview with El Faro English, exiled former Guatemalan AG Claudia Paz y Paz denounces that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has become an instrument of criminalization violating Guatemala’s obligations to the Inter-American Court.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 12: Expecting increased U.S. deportations, Honduran President Xiomara Castro threatens to expel a key Southcom military base. Her Guatemalan counterpart Bernardo Arévalo, meanwhile, says the country is “open” to taking in deportations of other Central American nationals.
After weeks of claiming that the Chinese military controls the Panama Canal and mistreats U.S. businesses, Trump says he will not rule out military intervention to take back control of the canal zone. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino retorts that the “sovereignty of the canal is non-negotiable.”
In the span of a day, the Guatemalan Supreme Court prepares to notify publisher Jose Rubén Zamora that he would be sent back to preventive prison, while the Constitutional Court rejects an appeal to stop the criminalization of journalists.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 11: In a major universal jurisdiction trial, an Argentinian judge has requested the arrest of Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and a battery of top Nicaraguan officials implicated in hundreds of killings and other 2018 state crimes against humanity.
Two-thirds of the big business-friendly Guatemalan Congress approved an anti-monopoly law that was a priority of President Bernardo Arévalo, amid debates over whether the new rules will curb market concentration or provide insider loopholes.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights sets regional precedent by condemning the Salvadoran state for “obstetric violence” by denying Beatriz a therapeutic abortion in 2013 — but stops short of naming the state responsible for the woman’s 2017 death.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 10: In 2024, Bernardo Arévalo failed to remove the Guatemalan attorney general from office, the Salvadoran press published evidence that Nayib Bukele’s family is acquiring significant assets, and Central American leaders eyed Donald Trump’s return for political gain.
In 2025, U.S. immigrants’ organizations plan to again turn to religious organizations to fight Trump deportations and expect DACA to eventually be struck down. In Central America, Nayib Bukele expresses interest in pursuing the press and the November elections will test Xiomara Castro’s democratic commitment.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 9: The Salvadoran Court of Accounts planned to let Agriculture Minister Pablo Anliker off the hook for $60 million in Covid-19 fraud while ordering six of his subordinates to repay the money from contracts he signed.
After three years of negotiations, El Salvador secures a $1.4 billion debt refinancing lifeline from the IMF and stands to obtain more from other financiers — in exchange for rolling back plans for Bitcoin, which will no longer be legal tender.
The Nicaraguan Central Bank pushes to de-dollarize to increase monetary control, decreeing that most goods and services be quoted in córdobas. The regime, close to BRICS nations China and Russia, has criticized the “global dictatorship of the dollar.”
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 8: The Nicaraguan regime tightens border controls, pulls passports, and puts a legal veneer on the cancellation of citizenship to keep a leash on insiders and critics alike.
U.S. congressmen from both parties criticize arbitrary arrests in El Salvador. But Republican Chris Smith cites Joe Biden’s signing-off on Nayib Bukele’s unconstitutional reelection to assert that Bukele obtained a “democratic majority” in February.
Guatemalan courts reactivate the lawfare against reporters from Jose Rubén Zamora’s paper elPeriódico, a third arrest warrant is issued for exiled journalist Juan Luis Font, and anti-femicide law is wielded against Diego España, a courtroom reporter who publicly questioned a woman prosecutor.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 7: Top editors of Costa Rica’s leading daily newspaper resign, citing editorial pressures on coverage. Salvadoran authorities raid the home of a radio journalist whose station is critical of Bukele’s mining project.
Guatemalan AG Consuelo Porras picks apart the Public Prosecutor’s Office in a dramatic reshuffling of dozens of staff, and dismantles the special war-crimes unit.
A Stanford-led study projects that the state of exception has doubled and will continue to fuel the swelling rate of tuberculosis in Salvadoran prisons, which hold the largest per capita incarcerated population in the world.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 6: After the express approval of a new data privacy law in El Salvador, a freshly created State Cybersecurity Agency will order the removal of online content deemed “inadequate” or “inexact” from the internet.
Nayib Bukele declares on X that El Salvador’s watershed 2017 prohibition of metallic mining is “absurd”. In Nicaragua, toxic mining and settler violence against Indigenous communities in affected areas run deep.
The IMF is reportedly close to a $1.4 billion dollar deal with El Salvador in the coming weeks, all while the Fund reports that Nicaragua —which is in the middle of dismantling the separation of powers— “is maintaining robust economic performance.”
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 5: Two years into the Honduran state of exception, reports abound of illegal raids, torture, forced disappearance, and extrajudicial killings. Extortion, the purported reason for the measures, remains unscathed.
In Nicaragua, the Ortega-Murillo regime slates constitutional changes to officialize the position of “co-president”, removing any room for doubt that Rosario Murillo plans to hold onto the presidency should Daniel Ortega pass away.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the primary enforcer of Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans, is acquiring new surveillance tools like those deployed against civil society, politicians, and journalists in El Salvador and Panama.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 4: Rodrigo Chaves awards Nayib Bukele Costa Rica’s highest diplomatic honors and receives dozens of Salvadoran soldiers in Costa Rica —which abolished its Army in 1948— before getting permission from the legislature.
Donald Trump taps top Republican foreign policymaker Marco Rubio, a staunch critic of Nicaragua, as secretary of state. He also nominates Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, head of the El Salvador Caucus, to lead the Department of Justice.
Daniel Ortega expels the head of the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua as the regime surveils, jails, and banishes Catholic clergy as a criminal organization.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 3: In congratulating Donald Trump on his return to the White House, Nayib Bukele flashes his teeth at his critics. The Honduran foreign minister says a hardening of U.S. immigration policy will “affect the whole region.”
An El Faro investigation reveals that, while Bukele was running for reelection last year, the Office of the Presidency bought plots of land around his personal residence — despite the fact that a presidential residence already exists.
A Guatemalan court orders the release of over a dozen military officers in one of the most infamous forced disappearance cases in Latin America. The attorney general fires the prosecutor leading the Ixil genocide case against Benedicto Lucas García.
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Introducing Central America in Minutes: a weekly podcast from El Faro English where we cover our breaking investigations, the splashiest headlines from the region, and the stories swept underneath the rug.
Subscribe on major podcast platforms to receive a new episode every Friday.
This trailer was written by Roman Gressier, the editor of El Faro English, and narrated with reporter Yuliana Ramazzini. Production and original soundtrack by Omnionn.
El Faro English translates —and now podcasts— Central America. For more of our award-winning reporting, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on X.
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CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 2: A verdict is expected soon in the trial of retired General Benedicto Lucas García, one of the most emblematic Guatemalan military leaders of the armed conflict, on charges of genocide against the Maya Ixil people.
Also in Guatemala City, former Nicaraguan political prisoners who were received by the Arévalo administration and U.S. State Department in early September struggle to get by as they await the promised adjustment of their refugee status.
In El Salvador, leading public school unionist Idalia Zúniga lost her job after refusing, at the request of Nayib Bukele’s chief of cabinet, to call off a protest against $121 million dollars in cuts next year to public health and education.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Help fund independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 1: After spending 813 days in prison and facing a slate of procedural irregularities, leading Guatemalan newspaperman Jose Rubén Zamora will await retrial under house arrest.
In El Salvador, the anti-mining environmentalists known as the ‘Santa Marta Five’ are vindicated as a judge dismisses the case against them mounted by the Bukele-controlled Attorney General’s Office.
With under two weeks until the U.S. election, Alianza Américas executive director Dulce Guzmán warns of the effects of the rightward swing of U.S. immigration politics for Central American diaspora communities.
El Faro English translates Central America. Listen to Central America in Minutes every Friday on major podcast platforms.
Support independent journalism in Central America by joining our crowdfunding community at support.elfaro.net. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. Our mantra this year at El Faro English is simple: Journalism must go on.
President Xiomara Castro has answered scathing new evidence of drug ties against her husband and brother-in-law by accusing the military, opposition, and U.S. Embassy of plotting a coup d’état. Rixi Moncada, the leading presidential pre-candidate for the ruling party, has been named minister of defense, portending a wider crisis given that the military, which she will oversee, is the guarantor of the November 2025 elections.
In the chaotic first week of the Covid pandemic, El Salvador paid a Virgin Islands company $27 million USD to provide milk powder for its hungry citizens — but the shell firm overcharged and under-delivered, pocketing $7 million, a government audit found.
Nayib Bukele’s Saturday inauguration was an ironclad display of his control of the military and the obedience he expects from Salvadorans. The Biden administration completed its diplomatic U-turn and received applause from San Salvador, who also flirted over the weekend with a delegation of far-right figureheads featuring Donald Trump Jr.
The now de facto president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and his family clan have risen above our laws to assume the throne, without any institution capable of imposing limits to their constitutional trampling. The authoritarian regime has become a dictatorship.
June 1 marks the inauguration of Nayib Bukele’s unconstitutional second term. Senior diplomatic delegations including from Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, China, and the United States are arriving in San Salvador. But underneath the expected fanfare is an ever-thickening atmosphere of fear among families upended by the state of exception and tensions following dubious police allegations of a bomb plot by former FMLN leaders.
If Bukele, his attorney general, and his police truly had fighting corruption on their agenda, the government would be purged from bottom to top. On the contrary, the function of El Salvador’s top prosecutor is to protect the corrupt and enable corruption for the home team.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine will also affect the global fight on climate change: the fighting has increased greenhouse gas emissions in Europe and damaged Ukraine’s renewable energy infrastructure.
In the municipal vote on Sunday, just one mayor’s office out of 44 fell out of Bukele’s control. After an election season where legislative and municipal gerrymandering proved far more effective for the president than his overwhelming popularity, opposition representatives are again preaching unity and, above all, the need to recover their contact with Salvadoran society.
During a private meeting on Tuesday with delegates from political parties, TSE President Dora Martínez suggested that the failure of the vote-count process on Sunday could have been intentionally provoked. She said she will file a complaint to the Attorney General.
Over 97 percent of Salvadorans in the U.S. voted for Nayib Bukele, who claimed a commanding electoral victory Sunday with over 80 percent of total votes. Opposition parties have been reduced to a minimum, capping an unconstitutional process totally controlled by the ruling party.
Comparisons to U.S. gerrymandering, electoral use of public funds, lack of regulation of the diaspora vote, and the constitutional ban on reelection overshadow the Sunday election, when Nayib Bukele is expected to garner wide support. International monitors will assess on Sunday whether the vote is not only free but also fair.
Audio recordings, screenshots, and a gang leader’s testimony reveal that the Bukele administration was willing to pay over one million dollars to a Mexican drug cartel and the 18th Street gang if they helped rearrest MS-13 leader “Crook” in time for the 2024 elections. One of the highest Salvadoran police officials negotiated for ten months with a fugitive gang leader who was at the same time in contact with U.S. authorities.
Élmer Canales Rivera waived a speedy trial in a Long Island court on Thursday, so he could have more time to prepare his defense. Following his capture last November in Mexico, the Justice Department is prosecuting him on terrorism charges.
A group of campesinos from El Salvador’s Jiquilisco Bay have filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office against a Salvadoran Navy sergeant, accusing him of providing false testimony that was decisive in the sentencing of a minor to ten years in prison. The boy’s case is the first conviction of a resident of their island under the state of exception.
Less than five months before the Salvadoran elections, the diplomatic corps has gone silent regarding presidential reelection. The US, which two years ago condemned consecutive periods, now takes cover behind voters’ “right to determine their own future.” Amid doubts about a fair playing field, it is unclear what real impact OAS and EU monitors can have.
The National Civil Police of El Salvador profiled ruling-party legislator Bladimir Barahona in June 2021 as part of a human trafficking ring. That November, Interpol El Salvador alerted its Washington office that a company owned by Barahona, who sits on the Financial Committee of the Legislative Assembly, funnels “money from unknown sources,” which could constitute money laundering.
The Rancho Bejuco massacre took place on July 29, 1982, in Baja Verapaz, Guatemala, during the de facto government of General Efraín Ríos Montt. It exemplifies the genocidal scorched-earth policies implemented during his 17 months in power.
The Biden administration has banned from U.S. territory the prosecutor and judge who attempted to interfere in Guatemala’s run-off election and who incarcerated journalist José Rubén Zamora. The sanctions also include a dozen Nicaraguan officials involved in the banishment of political prisoners but steer clear of the inner circles of the presidents of El Salvador and Honduras in a sign of a shifting U.S. strategy in Central America.
On May 30, Salvadoran police arrested two Bureau of Prisons officials including Wilfredo Hernández Molina, right-hand man of Vice Minister of Security Osiris Luna, for allegedly charging bribes from drug traffickers for prison benefits. Two years ago the top aide had been named as an accomplice to Luna in the now-shuttered corruption probe called “Operation Cathedral”.
Left-of-center opposition legislator Bernardo Arévalo shattered all forecasts in seizing second place in the presidential elections on Sunday and advancing to an August runoff. Arévalo will face political boss Sandra Torres in a test of whether Guatemalan voters can achieve political change via the ballot despite the profound suspicions of presidential efforts to contaminate the election.
Reports of bribery from President Giammattei to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, disputes over the electronic vote-counting system, and suspicions of illicit campaign financing are piling onto a widely condemned elimination of presidential front-runners. These ingredients make this Sunday’s elections the most precarious and uncertain in decades.
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora was convicted to six years of prison for money laundering this Wednesday in Guatemala. It’s the outcome of a tilted process where Zamora never appeared to have a chance. Investigative journalism reference media elPeriodico, the newspaper he founded 27 years ago, was forced to close one month ago.
Eight months before the elections, President Nayib Bukele announced last night that the 262 Salvadoran municipalities will be cut to 44 and the 84-seat legislature to 60. In his prime-time speech marking four years in power, he also announced the seizure of ex-president Alfredo Cristiani’s assets on unknown charges.
Eight months before the elections, President Nayib Bukele announced last night that the 262 Salvadoran municipalities will be cut to 44 and the 84-seat legislature to 60. In his prime-time speech marking four years in power, he also announced the seizure of ex-president Alfredo Cristiani’s assets on unknown charges.
Civil society movements are nearing an agreement with El Salvador’s four most influential opposition parties on a joint ticket for the 2024 presidential elections. In a bid for a broad front against Nayib Bukele’s unconstitutional reelection, the initiative harks back to historic anti-dictatorship alliances of the 1970s despite strategic, ideological, and partisan tensions.
In the world of YouTube, Nayib Bukele is cast as an invincible hero admired by Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian. First-of-its-kind research analyzed a sample of 70 channels that amplify the Salvadoran president’s message, amassing billions of views. The influencers say they are “just normal people,” unlike “media elites” and “biased journalists,” although some have demonstrated government ties. Political content creation thrives while traditional media, under Bukele’s government siege, loses ground.
As democracies deteriorate across Central America, conditions for the free exercise of journalism have become increasingly dire. Sadly, our 25th anniversary comes on the very day the final edition of elPeriódico of Guatemala goes to press, as the paper shuts down operations in the face of government persecution and a political and judicial system that is corrupt, intolerant of criticism, and radically anti-democratic.
The trial of journalist José Rubén Zamora has dealt a lethal blow to the daily newspaper elPeriódico, which he has directed since 1996. The outlet, a leader of investigative journalism in Guatemala, published its last edition on Monday, May 15. Zamora has lost eight defense attorneys; four were accused of crimes and one left the country.
Central America, in Brief: Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador’s nods to Russia and China are often read as a jealousy game in the U.S. bilateral relationship. Regional leaders claim sovereignty and multipolarity as their mantra. Experts say that non-ideological short-term calculus and a search for impunity are instead guiding their actions.
In a precedent-setting trial at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Salvadoran government denied responsibility for the health of a mother for whom in 2013 the state denied a therapeutic abortion of a fetus missing its brain. They tried to decouple the total abortion ban from the mother Beatriz’s health problems, but the state’s lead witness acknowledged that he barely treated her and one of their experts conceded that abortion is justified in certain cases like ectopic pregnancies.
Our main newsroom will stay in El Salvador. But, 25 years after its founding, El Faro is converting its administrative and legal operations into a non-profit registered in Costa Rica.
Retired Army Colonel Roberto Garay Saravia will face an immigration trial to determine his deportation to El Salvador, because of his involvement in extrajudicial killings in El Mozote, and three other army-led massacres in the early 80s, during El Salvador’s civil war. His arrest came after a two-year joint investigation by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, and could reveal new evidence about these war crimes.
Inscription for the June national vote closed this weekend. Electoral authorities, toeing the line of far-right political operatives, have spuriously excluded two presidential duos and are aiming for a third, clearing the way for conservative Zury Rios.
Historic FMLN leader Eugenio Chicas warns that if the leftist party participates in El Salvador’s 2024 presidential elections it will divide the opposition. He fears the Frente’s current leaders are looking to “kill the Frente and turn over the corpse and banner to Bukele.”
Congressional Republicans and Democrats wrote to the presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica asking for them to guarantee that the Central American Bank of Economic Integration will no longer be a “lifeline” for the Ortega-Murillo regime. In a forum in Washington on Thursday, CABEI president Dante Mossi justified his relationship with a government that he considers legitimate.
As we remember Beatriz, we must also think of the other “Beatrices,” women whose stories were not publicized when they passed away under El Salvador's terminal prohibition of abortion.
Crypto maximalists in El Salvador have learned to love financial and political centralization as long as it serves their interests.
President Nayib Bukele’s plans to cut El Salvador’s 262 municipalities down to 50 are “fairly far along,” according to the Legislative Assembly president. Experts point out that the move would centralize even more power in the executive branch and snuff out for Bukele an increasing source of conflict with local governments.
For the past four months, Guatemala City has been a turbulent thoroughfare for thousands of Venezuelans on a threadbare quest not only north, but south, too. Discouraged by the violence of Mexican authorities and criminal groups and resigned to not making it to the United States after months of traveling, many remain in Central America while waiting for a way home.
Nayib Bukele boasts of controlling each and every decision of his government and thus was unquestionably aware of his officials’ pact with gang leaders from the beginning.
The U.S. Justice Department says it can demonstrate that the Bukele administration offered MS-13 leaders protection from extradition to the U.S. in exchange for a reduction in homicides and electoral backing. A U.S. official told El Faro that, ever since the illegal instatement of the attorney general in May 2021, “there has been a large decrease in the level of cooperation” with the U.S. authorities.
Fears of government spying have turned El Salvador’s diplomatic corps —officials who are supposed to be representing the country’s interests abroad— into paranoid servants of the president’s capricious designs.
A private company owned by Ernesto Castro —president of the Legislative Assembly and one of the closest advisors to President Nayib Bukele— and his wife Michelle Sol —El Salvador’s minister of Housing— received a total of $504,000 from the black budget of the then President Mauricio Funes, between 2010 and 2011. The company never reported officially the contract in its accounting and it is unclear if Castro and Sol paid taxes for the income.
An internal police review in May 2022 found that officers falsified the arrest report of a bricklayer who was illegally detained weeks before. Nine months later, the man remains in prison.
The 222 political prisoners banished by the regime of Daniel Ortega last Thursday are celebrating their freedom after years or months of lockdown and torture, but many doubt their future and stifle their opinions out of fear for their family in Nicaragua. Half of them have no family in the U.S. and are wondering how to rebuild a life far from their country and loved ones.
A Salvadoran Supreme Court justice informed the high court that Apple notified her in December of her possible targeting with Pegasus, a spyware sold to governments to hack the cellphones of journalists, activists, and opposition members.
Nicaragua is the destination where the Central American hopes to never arrive: more than 160 journalists in exile and 54 news organizations shuttered by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega. In El Salvador, there are multiple alerts that the country is headed in that direction: mass deployment of Pegasus spyware, defamation and the mounting of criminal accusations against journalists, and the closure of news programs. In this podcast produced by El Hilo in collaboration with El Faro English, three journalists in two countries give their first-hand accounts of exile, harassment, and persecution.
This episode, part of a project to cover challenges to the free press in the region, was co-produced by El Hilo and El Faro, with support from the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives.
After ten months of state of exception, El Salvador seems to have destroyed the territorial reach and centralized leadership of the notorious MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. El Faro verified their withdrawal from communities across the country and with a veteran leader of one of the groups. To achieve it, the Bukele administration, who secretly negotiated with the gangs for three years, unleashed mass human rights violations that have raised concerns on the side effects and sustainability of the new scenario.
In October 2020, the Bukele administration obtained three spyware tools from an intermediary firm of an Israeli ex-special operations official close to the Salvadoran president. The first registered deployment of Pegasus in the country occurred four months prior.
When a spike in homicides in November 2021 put Nayib Bukele’s negotiations with El Salvador’s gangs in crisis, officials mediated with the criminal organizations to curb the violence. While police documents ascribed the death of 45 people to differences between MS-13 and 18th Street, a source from the Mara Salvatrucha asserted that they were caused by a rift inside the gang over how the negotiations were conducted.
When Nayib Bukele’s signature Chivo Wallet crashed two days after launch, an American developer was brought in to put out the flames. The story he told to a Texas court is one of amateur coding, millions of dollars of taxpayer money, improvised decision-making, and removal of money laundering firewalls when the bitcoin trading software came to a grinding halt after just 150 downloads.
The same day Nayib Bukele staged a military siege of the gang bastion Soyapango, Xiomara Castro deployed police and military in 162 of Honduras’ most marginalized urban communities after decreeing a state of exception. The suspension of constitutional guarantees goes even further than in the Salvadoran model.
On behalf of 15 members of El Faro, lawyers from the Knight First Amendment Institute sued the Israeli surveillance company NSO for allegedly selling a program that hacked the phones of 22 members of El Faro between June 2020 and November 2021. The lawsuit asks the court to order NSO Group to disclose the name of its client in El Salvador. This is the first time that journalists targeted by NSO spyware, including a U.S. national, file suit in the U.S.
On November 7, the Police and Army violently evicted the Garifuna community in Punta Gorda, Roatán, defying ancestral land rights promised by Honduran law since 1995. It’s the first removal of a Garifuna community under President Xiomara Castro.
Official documents obtained by El Faro through Guacamaya Leaks show not only that Élmer Canales Rivera, “Crook,” was freed from prison in November 2021, but that his exit was registered in emails, police profiles, and other reports from the National Civil Police of El Salvador. These documents also reveal that, hours before the senior MS-13 leader's release, a police team arrived at Zacatecoluca Prison to serve him an additional outstanding arrest warrant, but a member of the unit told El Faro that prison authorities did not let them enter. Despite the fact that Canales was released by the Bukele administration, the Police have requested help from foreign partners to recapture him.
On Monday the Biden administration expanded Trump-era sanctions to the Nicaraguan economy, cutting off the country’s lucrative gold industry from U.S. markets as Managua deepens energy cooperation with Moscow and Tehran. The administration, aware that other Central American leaders are watching, says it will study similar moves against other industries bankrolling Ortega.
In the first 24 hours of the three-day massacre that put an end to the Bukele administration’s gang negotiations and ushered in the state of exception, the Salvadoran Prison Bureau took four top leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha out of maximum-security prison to a private hospital, internal documents report.
The only thing separating Nayib Bukele today from becoming a dictator is the unconstitutional reelection that he has announced. Right now he is a constitutionally elected president, even if his exercise of power is no longer constitutional.
The Honduran government says the legality of Nayib Bukele’s possible candidacy in 2024 is none of its business. No other Central American government has commented. A year after clearly stating that immediate reelection is unconstitutional, the Biden administration now asserts that there are arguments on “either side.”
Last night, in a televised broadcast on the country's 201st anniversary of independence, Nayib Bukele announced his candidature for the 2024 presidential election despite multiple explicit prohibitions on consecutive reelection in the Salvadoran constitution.
The U.S. Senate is back from August recess and will likely vote soon on new ambassadors to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Belize. In an apparent bid for more Republican buy-in, Biden is putting veteran diplomats in charge of the tenuous U.S. relationship with Bukele, potential major trade sanctions on the Ortega regime, and Panama-centered efforts to thwart regional migration and Chinese influence.
The Salvadoran coroner’s office reported that half of those who have died in custody under the state of exception succumbed to pulmonary edema and showed signs of torture. One of them was a dairy producer, 64, who for two decades worked in the U.S. for a recycling company.
Prosecutors found evidence of nepotism and overcharging in contracts benefitting the biggest food contractor for the Bukele administration’s signature pandemic aid program. The investigation was thwarted by Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado after he was illegally instated in May 2021.
The president and director of Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, and assistant attorney Samari Carolina Gómez Díaz will spend at least three months in pre-trial detention on the basis of a single testimony and supposed evidence that Rafael Curruchiche, the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (FECI), told El Faro were collected in just 72 hours between July 26 and 29.
Amid multiple corruption and misconduct probes muddling his first three months in office, President Rodrigo Chaves has lashed out at the press. In July authorities shuttered a business financing the operations of leading newspaper La Nación, a move marking a sharp escalation in attacks against press freedom in a country that has for years provided safe haven for journalists fleeing neighboring Nicaragua.
The grounds for hundreds of arrests provided in sealed court documents analyzed by El Faro include suspicious appearance, looking like a gang member, fitting a “police profile," assault on a police officer, attempted escape, nervous appearance, social media reports, prior criminal records, and having tattoos.
Those governing Guatemala have created a prominent political prisoner before the eyes of the world — and those of a Central American journalistic community tired of the attempts of the corrupt to silence us.
In the middle of a Caribbean paradise along the Honduran coast, the Garifuna people are defending their right to survival on ancestral territory from business conglomerates, the Army, and a European reality show seeking to profit from the natural beauty of the Cayos Cochinos archipelago.
A main question mark about Xiomara Castro’s presidency has been dispelled as her husband, former head of state “Mel” Zelaya, an alleged narco-collaborator deposed in 2009, cements himself as the administration’s strongman. To fill in the family photo, one of their sons is defense minister and another is a presidential advisor, while their daughter, named after the president, is honing her political career in Congress.
Bukele’s government told Wall Street investors in March that it hasn't totally ruled out a deal with the IMF to avoid default, offering backup plans B and C. All scenarios involve massive credits from regional development banks and, somehow, squeezing more tax revenue despite an aching global economy nearing recession. Only one of them included the expected but controversial pension nationalization.
Images and videos that she uploaded to Instagram and Facebook substantiate Crook’s release late last year, a fact that the Salvadoran government has not publicly admitted. The images show parts of his face and tattoos that coincide with old photographs of him in prison. El Faro also confirmed his identity with four current and former gang members and a friend of Chávez, her cellmate when she was incarcerated in 2010 on charges of aiding Canales in a kidnapping.
An old alliance between the Mexican Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and Guatemalan traffickers explains the criminal groups’ complicity in an area otherwise known as rival Sinaloa Cartel grounds. Evidence suggests that CJNG is now receiving its Colombian cocaine in Guatemala from the Second Marquetalia, a group of FARC dissidents.
The public defender and his colleagues are on the receiving end of this machine of detentions and convictions. Whereas before he took on 45 to 50 new cases in a month, under the emergency measures he grew accustomed to seeing 60, then 70, and as many as 95 new case files in a single day. With the exponential growth in cases has also risen the number of desperate families that he receives in his office. “We can no longer even keep track of all the cases,” he says. The Public Defender’s Office did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Central American leaders are averting their gaze from the Ortega-Murillo regime, aware that picking a fight with the most consolidated autocracy in Central America would give more oxygen to criticism of corruption and human rights violations in their own countries. But the complicity is also about money: When in dire straits, there’s enough cash to go around at Central America’s development bank.
The documentary "The Silence of the Mole", Taracena’s first feature-length film, has received ten awards in film festivals in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Mexico, Kosovo, Switzerland, and South Korea since its release last year. It has now come home to Guatemala. El Faro spoke with Taracena in the center of Guatemala City, near the small commercial theater in Zone 1 where she has played the film in a series of well attended but poorly ventilated projections.
Global financial duress is pummeling cryptocurrencies including Tether, an important piece of Nayib Bukele’s bitcoin project. One year into the Bitcoin Law, most Salvadorans say its benefits have been minimal, the government keeps related spending a closely guarded secret, and its bitcoin portfolio has lost $57M in taxpayer money. The president calls for patience.
After the no-show of the Northern Triangle presidents at the Americas Summit, their foreign ministers gave strident speeches defying Joe Biden and named their countries’ terms for U.S. and regional engagement. El Salvador and Guatemala used claims to sovereignty to spurn international criticism. Honduras reaffirmed its desire for a U.N.-backed anti-corruption commission, but invoked the 2009 coup in a warning that collaboration will hinge on non-meddling in “internal affairs.”
The persecution of independent judges and prosecutors presses onward with the order to trial of former top state attorney Virginia Laparra. The shady Foundation against Terrorism, lead architect of the legal attacks that have already pushed two-dozen anti-corruption operators into exile, has named among its next targets the human rights ombudsman and three of the country’s most influential judges.
"The next few weeks will be intense for the governments of the Northern Triangle, but especially for El Salvador. U.S. sources close to the extradition process have told me that the updating of the Engel List is in its final stage and includes the possibility of sanctioning Central American citizens with U.S. permanent residence. By late June or early July the State Department is expected to reveal the new names, adding to a list already including Bukele’s chief of cabinet"
Days before the summit in Los Angeles, the U.S. is short on friends in the Northern Triangle. Giammattei, once Biden's ally of last resort, said he will not attend amid an open feud over the reelection of the corrupt attorney general. Honduran Xiomara Castro said she wouldn’t attend without Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Only the provocateur Bukele remains silent.
Judge Miguel Ángel Flores Durel, a magistrate on the Salvadoran Supreme Court (CSJ), formerly worked as defense attorney for the most influential leader of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Borromeo Enrique Henríquez, alias “Diablito de Hollywood,” according to CSJ documents published on Wednesday.
El Faro obtained audio recordings of conversations between a senior Bukele administration official and the Mara Salvatrucha, detailing the unraveling of covert negotiations for a reduction in homicides. In one of the recordings Carlos Marroquín, the official leading the talks, blamed Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro for the collapse that led to an unprecedented wave of violence in March. He also confirmed to the gang that he personally took Helmer Canales Rivera, alias “Crook,” out of prison to Guatemala despite pending criminal charges and a U.S. extradition request.
The government not only extended the politically popular state of exception for another month on Sunday; it also seized the moment to temporarily exempt security spending from legal oversight. Despite widespread flak from human rights groups as evidence accumulates of police abuses and arbitrary detentions, Bukele’s party passed legislation to allow for government land expropriation to build more prisons. The country has the second-highest incarceration rate in the Americas.
On the fourth anniversary of April’s protests and the ensuing brutal repression, the opposition seems unable to find a response to the imprisonment of its key leaders and the kidnapping of the electoral process. But the Ortega-Murillo government’s weaknesses are also evident, as shown by recent internal divisions in the Sandinista party. Given the failure of international pressure, a future democratic opening may rely on the eventual implosion of the regime.
Days after the passage of a law to criminalize media using gang sources, officials and even the president are smearing and threatening journalists with criminal investigations. El Faro journalists and a renowned expert on gangs, who left the country for his safety, have been at the center of these attacks. The IACHR asked El Salvador Wednesday to revise the text of the law and the U.S. State Department cited escalating restrictions on the press in its annual report detailing human rights abuses in El Salvador.
On Tuesday Bukele ordered changes to the Penal Code that press advocates warn censor journalism about gangs and would impede news outlets from questioning the official narrative on issues such as security policy and the government’s secret negotiations with the gangs. The reforms could criminalize El Faro’s newest revelation that an anti-mafia judge documented a top MS-13 leader’s unlawful release from prison. The measure comes on the heels of the declaration of a 30-day state of exception on
After a tense run-off election marked by personal invective and mass voter abstention, the controversial conservative economist Rodrigo Chaves will take office as the next president of Costa Rica in May despite past sexual harassment and an open investigation for illicit campaign finance. The former World Bank official and treasury minister has promised a hard break with the country’s political establishment.
Amid an ongoing state of exception, the Bukele-controlled legislature held its second emergency session in five days to approve sweeping increases in criminal sentences for gang leaders and underage members alike. Bukele also sponsored legislation to increase prison time for any kind of negotiation with gangs, despite the fact that his administration has been doing just that since its first days in office.
Communications privacy and the right to legal counsel in case of detention, among other civil liberties, will be suspended for 30 days in El Salvador as a government response to the alarming spike of 62 gang-attributed homicides on Saturday. The surge in violence casts further doubt on the efficiency of President Bukele’s security policy, known as “Plan Territorial Control,” already under scrutiny because of revelations of secret gang negotiations.