El Salvador says it foiled plot to plant bombs on the day of President Bukele’s inauguration

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador said authorities have broken up a plot to plant bombs across the country ahead of President Nayib Bukele’s inauguration Saturday.

The country’s National Police said the plot involved “veterans” of the 1980-1992 civil war, an apparent reference to former left-wing guerrillas.

Police posted photos of small cylinders containing explosives with fuses and bags of ammonium nitrate on the force’s social media accounts. It said the explosives had been seized in raids and that the plot was believed to target petrol stations, supermarkets and government buildings.

Some explosives were found in an attack on a former rebel stronghold, Guazapa, on the outskirts of the capital San Salvador.

Police blamed a shadowy force they called the “Salvadoran Insurrection Brigade” for the plot, and former congressman José Santos Melara of the left-wing FMLN party – formed by former guerrillas – had been arrested and was “the one who financed these plans”.

Melara is the leader of the National Association of FMLN Veterans of the War. At least seven other suspects were also arrested.

The Bloc of Popular Resistance and Rebellion – known as the BPR because of its initials in Spanish – released a statement saying Melara’s arrest “is arbitrary and an act of political persecution.”

The group demanded his release, saying “we do not recognize the unconstitutional and illegitimate president who will take office on June 1.” It said it would “begin a new phase of struggle in light of Bukele’s imposition as president.”

In February, the highly popular Bukele easily won a second term in his country’s presidential elections, despite the constitution forbidding re-election.

He has drawn criticism for his anti-gang attacks and mass arrests, but the alleged bombing may have had to do with the terms of the 1992 peace accords that ended the civil war and guaranteed former rebels a place in politics.

Bukele has taken a number of measures that critics say endanger the Central American country’s fragile democracy, which was restored after the brutal civil war.

In addition to hounding critics and trapping 1% of his country’s population in his gangs’ crackdown, the leader last year also approved reforms that cut the number of seats in Congress, tilting the upcoming elections in favor of his party are weighed.

Although there were allegations of abuse and unjust imprisonment, the gangs’ crackdown made Bukele popular; The country’s street gangs once ruled many neighborhoods with brutality, killing almost everyone and extorting money.

Bukele didn’t just win re-election. His party also won a supermajority in Congress, effectively allowing him to govern with little check on his power.

The Associated Press