By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 9 2024 – While the international consensus and world public opinion are resoundingly clear in demanding an immediate cease-fire to the Hamas-Israel war, it remains uncertain whether a cease-fire will be observed.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel resulting in approximately 1,200 deaths and 240 hostages taken. Nearly ten weeks after the attack with thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on 12 December 2023 aimed at addressing the Hamas-Israel war.

The resolution demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, parties’ compliance with international law and the release of all hostages taken by Hamas. The vote was 153 countries in favor to 23 abstentions and 10 against (Table 1).

Source: United Nations.

Several months after the UN General Assembly cease-fire resolution and nearly six months after the 7 October 2023 attack, the United Nations Security Council adopted after several failed attempts its first cease-fire resolution on 25 March 2024, which many world leaders welcomed. All 14 council members voted for Security Council Resolution 2728 (2024) with the United States abstaining.

The resolution demands an immediate cease-fire to come into effect for the month of Ramadan, which is from 11 March to 9 April 2024. The resolution also calls for the unconditional release of all hostages and ensuring humanitarian access with urgent need to expand the flow of aid into Gaza.

World opinion on the Hamas-Israel war and the need for an immediate cease-fire are clearly reflected in the UN General Assembly vote on 12 December 2023. The proportion of countries in favor of that UN resolution was 82 percent, representing 90 percent of the world’s population. The proportion of the countries opposed to the resolution was 5 percent, representing 5 percent of the world’s population but 0.9 percent of the world’s population when the United States was excluded

On 28 March, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an order calling on Israel to allow unimpeded access for humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, which the United Nations warned was on the verge of famine. With malnutrition among children soaring, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Israel needed to “surge” humanitarian relief into Gaza or there would be starvation.

The ICJ acknowledged that Israel has engineered a famine in Gaza. The judges unanimously delivered a legally binding ruling that Israel should “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay … the unhindered provision … of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” in Gaza. The ICJ’s ruling is part of the increasing worldwide pressure pushing Israel to do more to address the humanitarian crisis and looming famine in Gaza.

The order of the ICJ came following a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of state-stationed genocide in Gaza. Consistent with the ICJ decision, a Federal Court in the United States has also ruled that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza may amount to genocide.

Earlier, on 24 January 2024, various international organizations demanded an immediate cease-fire to the Hamas-Israel war. Among those organizations were humanitarian agencies, human rights groups, faith-based groups, and United Nations officials, including Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Médecins du Monde International Network, Mennonite Central Committee, Oxfam and Save the Children.

Those organizations also called on all states to halt the transfer of weapons that can be employed to commit violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The Palestinian group Hamas is reported to have welcomed the Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In a statement, Hamas said that it was committed to the conditions of the resolution.

Hamas added that it affirms readiness to engage in immediate prisoner swaps on both sides and noted that Israel must be held accountable in adhering to the Security Council resolution. Also, a Hamas official stressed the necessity of reaching a permanent ceasefire that would lead to a return of the displaced and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

The Israeli government condemned the recent Security Council vote and said the resolution undermines the efforts to secure the release of captives in Gaza. Senior Israeli officials indicated that they would ignore the call for a cease-fire and have set their aim of “total victory”.

Also, Israel’s foreign minister said that despite the Security Council resolution, Israel will not cease fire in the Gaza Strip. He added that Israel aims to destroy Hamas and intends to continue fighting until all the hostages taken on 7 October are returned to their homes.

In addition, Israel’s prime minister stated that the army would press ahead with its offensive against Rafah, the city in southern tip of Gaza where approximately 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are estimated to be sheltering.

Also recently at an Israeli cabinet meeting, the prime minister declared that Israel is “one step away from victory” in winning the war with Hamas and vowed that there would be no truce until Hamas frees all hostages.

Many countries, including the United States, have warned Israel about its proposed large-scale ground offensive in Rafah due to its severe humanitarian consequences and concerns about safeguarding innocent Palestinians seeking refuge there.

World opinion on the Hamas-Israel war and the need for an immediate cease-fire are clearly reflected in the UN General Assembly vote on 12 December 2023. The proportion of countries in favor of that UN resolution was 82 percent, representing 90 percent of the world’s population. The proportion of the countries opposed to the resolution was 5 percent, representing 5 percent of the world’s population but 0.9 percent of the world’s population when the United States was excluded (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

Moreover, a Eurotrack survey conducted in November 2023 across seven Western European countries – Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK – reported that most Europeans, between 55 to 73 percent, thought that Israel should stop its military campaign and call a ceasefire. In Germany, for example, nearly 70 percent of Germans surveyed felt that Israel’s military actions were not justifiable.

Also importantly, a March national poll in the United States found a solid majority of Americans, 55 percent, disapprove of Israel’s military actions. An earlier national survey in November reported that the majority of Americans, 68 percent, thought that Israel should call a cease-fire and try to negotiate the Hamas-Israel war, which has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis. That proportion, two-thirds of US voters, continued to hold in a national survey in February.

Despite the opposition by the majority of Americans to Israel’s war actions and calls for a cease-fire, the Biden administration has “quietly” authorized arms shipments to Israel. Those shipments include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth approximately $2.5 billion.

Biden’s critics believe he has been too closely aligned with the Israeli government. They are troubled by America’s complicity in the moral issue surrounding the war, which has left the US administration morally compromised and upholding a blatant double standard on human rights.

Moreover, they criticized the US president for not taking stronger steps to promote a cease-fire and to assist the Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Mainly due Israel’s intense aerial bombardment, more than 70 percent of the homes in Gaza have been destroyed and more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and children. In addition, more than 75,000 Palestinians have been wounded and most Palestinians living in Gaza have been displaced and are living in squalid camps with little food, water and fuel.

Those vocal criticisms of US policies have created difficulties for Biden in protest votes in a number of state primaries across the country as well as posing risks for his reelection campaign.

Even within Israel, growing numbers of Israelis are saying that a cease-fire is the best way to save Israeli captives being held by Hamas. Some also don’t believe that the goals of the war can be achieved and feel that the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza jeopardizes Israel’s long-term security.

In a recent development following the adoption of the UN Security Council’s cease-fire resolution, the United States played down the resolution, asserting that it is not legally binding. Consequently, according to the Biden administration, the resolution has no impact on Israel’s ability to continue its war with Hamas and the US will continue its flows of weapons and arms to Israel.

However, many countries as well as international law experts have affirmed that all Security Council resolutions are binding and mandatory. Also, the United Nations has said that all resolutions of the Security Council are international law and therefore are binding as international laws. The UN Secretary-General remarked that the resolution must be implemented and failure would be unforgivable.

As the Hamas-Israel war enters its seventh month, some in Israel, including officials in the current Israeli government, which is a right-wing coalition including religious nationalists, believe that it will be a long slog of ongoing warfare ahead.

However, anti-government protests across Israeli cities are urging the government to reach a cease-fire deal to free all the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and to hold early elections. Many of the protesting families of hostages believe time is running out for the hostages taken on 7 October and are expressing their displeasure with the prime minister’s handling of the war after six months in Gaza.

In a recent development relating to news reporting on the war, the Israeli prime minister, with overwhelming support in the Knesset, said that he plans to “act immediately” on a new Israeli law that gives senior government officials power to shutter foreign news networks located in Israel for national security purposes. Press freedom experts warned that the shuttering of Al Jazeera could set a dangerous precedent in Israel.

The Hamas-Israel war has now entered its seventh month. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, injured, displaced and scores of hostages remain held captive in Gaza.

Also, one week after the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, release of hostages and expanded aid into Gaza, Israeli military strikes on an approved aid convoy run by the charity group World Central Kitchen (WCK) killed seven of its employees in Gaza.

Since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, Gaza has been the deadliest place for aid workers with a total of 224 humanitarian aid workers killed in the Hamas-Israel war.

The most recent attack on the WCK convoy is also setting back attempts by various countries and aid groups to address the hunger crisis of Palestinians in Gaza. The deadly incident on the food aid convoy has also contributed to Israel’s mounting international isolation.

Many countries, including Australia, Britain and the United States, condemned the attack on the WCK food aid convoy that resulted in the deaths of seven of its workers and demanded explanations from Israel with some Western leaders joining WCK in calling for an independent investigation because they believe “the perpetrator cannot be investigating himself.”

Also, in a recent television interview aired in the US, the distressed head of WCK said, “This doesn’t seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself.”

US President Biden was reported to be “outraged” by the attack on the WCK food aid convoy calling it “unacceptable”. He said that Israel has not done enough to protect civilians in Gaza, emphasized the need for an immediate cease-fire and for the Israeli government to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home.

In addition, in a recent phone conversation with the Israeli prime minister, the American president indicated that if Israel doesn’t change course in Gaza, “we won’t be able to support you”.

One result of that exchange was Israel’s decision to open the port of Ashdod and the Erez crossing in northern Gaza. However, Israel has yet to indicate when and what kind of aid will be permitted into Gaza.

The international consensus and world public opinion regarding the Hamas-Israel war, which has become one of the most destructive, deadly and intractable conflicts of the 21st century, are abundantly clear.

Nevertheless, whether the UN Security Council Resolution 2728 on the Hamas-Israel war will achieve its primary aims of an immediate cease-fire, the unconditional release of all hostages and the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, remains an open question but with some hopeful signs.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 9 2024 – Carbon dioxide emission taxes, prices and markets have been touted as key to stopping global heating. However, carbon markets have failed mainly because they favour the rich and powerful.

Market solutions better?
Mainstream economists believe the best way to check global heating is to tax greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Equivalent ‘carbon prices’ have been set for the other significant GHGs. But many have been revised due to their moot, varied and unstable, arguably incomparable nature.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

High carbon prices for GHG emissions are expected to persuade emitters to switch to ‘cleaner’ energy sources. Higher prices for energy-intensive goods and services are supposed to get consumers to buy less energy-intensive alternatives.

Positive carbon prices tax fossil fuels, GHG emissions, and products according to their energy intensity. Hence, when carbon prices fall, they deter fossil fuel use less effectively.

Developed countries have set up ‘carbon trading’ systems ostensibly to deter GHG emissions. Firms wanting to emit more than their assigned quotas must buy emission permits from others who commit to emit under quota.

Getting prices right?
Conventional economists believe carbon prices should cover the ‘social costs’ of GHG emissions, but disagree on how to estimate them. But policymakers believe it necessary to discount these prices to gain broad acceptance for carbon markets.

A recent International Monetary Fund paper acknowledged, “Differences between efficient prices and retail fuel prices are large and pervasive”. But such distortions undermine the very purpose of carbon pricing.

Gro Intelligence estimated the social cost of carbon emissions at $4.08 per metric tonne in 2022, which is used by the influential Gro-Kepos Carbon Barometer. But Resources for the Future estimated it at $185/tonne, over forty times higher!

While carbon prices are meant to tax fossil fuels, low prices reduce their deterrent effect. Fossil fuel subsidies lower carbon prices, which can even become negative. Such price subsidies undermine carbon markets’ intended effects.

Whenever carbon prices are discounted or deliberately kept low, they are much less effective in deterring GHG emissions. They also distort the price system with many other unintended, but perverse consequences.

Writing in the New York Times, Peter Coy noted the carbon price rose from under $4 per metric tonne in 2012 to almost $20/tonne in 2020 before dropping sharply to around $4/tonne in 2022!

Incredibly, he still concluded carbon prices were “headed in the right direction” since 2012. How low and volatile carbon prices are supposed to discourage fossil fuel use and accelerate renewable energy investments must be self-evident to him alone?

Western fossil fuel subsidies
Carbon prices shot up when fossil fuel energy prices spiked after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But they soon collapsed as European governments intervened to subsidise energy prices.

As the rich nations’ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development noted, “government support for fossil fuels almost doubled in 2022” to over $1.4 trillion!

State subsidies rise with prices when governments try to mitigate rising fossil fuel prices. Such subsidies negate the purpose of carbon pricing, and can lower them so much as to become negative!

Such subsidies were deemed necessary to retain public support for NATO’s Ukraine war effort and to drive down Russian fossil fuel export prices. Thus, such ‘geopolitical’ interventions have undermined carbon taxes, prices and markets.

Carbon prices dropped sharply worldwide, from $18.97/tonne in 2021 to $4.08 in 2022. In 2022, nine of the 26 countries in the Barometer had negative prices, with only six – not the US – above $25.

Oil and natural gas prices have since fallen from their 2022 peaks, with consumer subsidies declining correspondingly. Hence, carbon prices for GHG emissions have recovered.

Such price subsidies and volatility do not help enterprises plan and invest their energy use – crucial to accelerate needed ‘carbon transitions’.

Unsurprisingly, after over a decade, there is little evidence that carbon markets have effectively cut GHG emissions to avert climate catastrophe. Clearly, they cannot be counted upon to cut them sufficiently.

China, market conformist!
Significantly, after China began its emissions trading system in 2021, its carbon price rose to a level higher than the US price in 2022. As its per capita income is much lower than in the West, its higher carbon price is probably a more significant deterrent to fossil fuel use.

China is now the world’s largest carbon emitter, so its $19/tonne price in 2022 significantly raised the international weighted average. Nevertheless, thanks to the subsidies, the weighted average for all other countries was negative at -$4.50/tonne in 2022!

Despite much rich nation rhetoric demanding carbon prices and markets for the whole world, their own commitment to this problematic approach to mitigating GHG emissions has been much more compromised than China’s!

IPS UN Bureau

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By Alice Wairimu Nderitu
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 9 2024 – One should never lose sight that for people who experienced genocide, the warning signs were there. Genocide is a process. It requires preparation and capacities to carry it out.

The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in which Hutu and others who opposed it were also killed, was made possible because of decades of stigmatisation, marginalisation, and discrimination, aggravated by hate speech against the Tutsi.

The Tutsi were dehumanized, called “inyenzi” – cockroaches – to ensure that when the call to kill and exterminate went out, it was taken up. This call, fed by dehumanisation, made it possible for tailors, cobblers, farmers, teachers, priests – ordinary people – to kill unarmed men, women, old people, and children.

People whose only crime was the identity they held.

Alice Wairimu Nderitu

In understanding genocide ideology, we must remember that to kill over a million people as happened in Rwanda in 1994, many perpetrators are required. However, since then, many of these perpetrators have come forward to pick up the broken pieces and rebuild, and for this Rwanda has given the world hope.

Others have descended on the path of denying that the genocide happened. Denial or distorting the facts of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, coming in the form of hate speech or not, constitutes an indicator of risk for the commission of genocide.

Genocide deniers

Despite the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda having proved repeatedly, conclusively, in lengthy legal processes and applying international fair trial standards and the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, that the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda happened, revisionists and genocide deniers continue to ignore judicial decisions.

These trends are particularly worrisome as we are marking the 30th commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. This time should be spent honouring and commemorating victims, remembering, and learning from the past.

We are instead faced with the challenge of addressing growing trends of denial and distortion or these tragedies.

Hate speech, especially on social media, is helping spread and amplify denial at alarming rates. Genocide denial impacts directly on victims who are retraumatized and faced with the burden of having to justify and explain the crimes they endured, despite the courts having conclusively determined that the crimes occurred.

Denial has a serious detrimental impact on healing and reconciliation. I have seen this too often. Victims understand very well that genocide denial refers to the past, but that its impact is felt in the present and will be felt in the future. They do not want the young generations to experience what they have experienced.

The story of Rwanda in the past 30 years is a story of deep learning and drawing of lessons from the past to ensure that future generations do not experience the same horrors.

Those whose lives and futures were taken must be remembered, always. There is an everlasting pain in remembering, but there is also strength.

There must be determination in ensuring that these lessons learned from Rwanda are truly learned, risk factors mitigated early, and populations protected from another genocide. This determination and efforts remain essential.

This is why Kwibuka30 is especially important today: to remind us of our obligation to learn, to prevent, to act. This is important, especially, for those whose lives were taken away in the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and for all those at risk across the world today.

Alice Wairimu Nderitu is UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to the United Nations Secretary General.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 9 2024 – The deadly six-month-old Israeli-Hamas war, which has claimed the lives of more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza and over 1,200 in Israel, has sharply divided the world with vociferous protestors on both sides of the conflict.

But the United Nations is no exception with some of the estimated 35,000 staffers—both in New York and UN affiliates worldwide– have been increasingly vocal, mostly on social media, critical of either Israel or Hamas.

As international civil servants, UN staffers are not expected to participate in political protests and demonstrations or express political views in public or against any UN member state.

In June 2020, the UN advised staff members not to participate in the nation-wide public demonstrations in the wake of the controversial police killing of an African-American, George Floyd.

The reason: public displays of support for the protest movement would undermine the world body’s reputation for impartiality.

Credit: UN Today

But Secretary-General António Guterres reversed course informing staffers that there was “no ban on personal expressions of solidarity or acts of peaceful civic engagement, provided they are carried out in an entirely private capacity.”

This time around, Guterres has been openly critical of the killings by Hamas, and also more strongly, on the killings of civilians by Israel, while human rights organizations have accused Israel of genocide and using starvation as a weapon of war by cutting off food supplies to Gaza.

In a circular to staffers, titled Guidance on Personal Communications last month, the UN’s Department of Global Communications (DGC), says recent global events, including “the crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, are deeply upsetting and a matter of grave concern to all of us”.

“While it is understandable that many of us feel compelled to share views about the events that are unfolding, including in personal fora such as social media, we must be mindful at all times of our rights and duties as international civil servants, which require us to act independently and impartially.”

“Please take a moment to familiarize yourselves with the policies on the Status, basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members; outside activities; and the guidelines for the personal use of social media. Your attention is also drawn to the “2023 Guidance on Political Activities” issued on iSeek by the UN Ethics Office”.

Accordingly, “we should frame any public communications on the current crisis in the Middle East, as well as other political matters, including through the personal use of social media, in a manner that is consistent with the position of the Organization and the statements of the Secretary-General”.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and head of the Department of Public Information, told IPS UN Secretariat staff are international civil servants who are contracted to discharge their functions and regulate their conduct in line with the position of the Secretary -General.

On the current situation in Gaza, he said, Secretary -General Antonio Guterres stood at the borders of Gaza drawing attention to the tragic humanitarian sufferings, while UNICEF representatives spoke publicly about starvation and suffering of innocent civilians.

Thousands of staffers in U.N. related agencies staff, particularly UNRWA were killed trying to offer food, shelter and medical care for needy children.

Sanbar pointed out that U.N staff, including heads of Departments, habitually reflect General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, including those indicating the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people”.

Discussing pressing issues with the staff, discreet internal consultation and creative teamwork would help, said Sanbar, who served under five different Secretaries-General.

An Associate Press (AP) story last January, cited the Geneva-based advocacy group UN Watch, reporting that a deputy chief of UN Women’s peace and security office, had endorsed 153 posts on social media since Hamas ’ Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel that exposed her partisan views about the war in Gaza.

In a letter to staffers on UN Day 24 October last year, Guterres said the UN Day comes at a time of sorrow and anxiety for everyone. The situation in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the wider region is on the brink, “and we are all fearful of what the next days and weeks will bring.”

“The conflict is marked by immense human suffering and heartache. I know many of us have family, friends and loved ones in the region and are experiencing this tragedy in a very personal way,” he added.

“We are all devastated and horrified by the situation of our staff in Gaza. At least 35 of our UNRWA colleagues have been killed and many more injured. Sadly, that number continues to rise. We mourn those we have lost and send our deepest condolences to their families and friends. As I told the Security Council today, I owe their families the condemnation of these and many other similar killings”.

Meanwhile, the basic rights and duties of United Nations staff members are governed by the following rules and regulations:

Regulation 1.1: Staff members shall make the following written declaration witnessed by the Secretary-General or his or her authorized representative: “I solemnly declare and promise to exercise in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions entrusted to me as an international civil servant of the United Nations, to discharge these functions and regulate my conduct with the interests of the United Nations only in view, and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of my duties from any Government or other source external to the Organization.

“I also solemnly declare and promise to respect the obligations incumbent upon me as set out in the Staff Regulations and Rules.”

Regulation 1.2: In the performance of their duties staff members shall neither seek nor accept instructions from any Government or from any other source external to the Organization.

While staff members’ personal views and convictions, including their political and religious convictions, remain inviolable, staff members shall ensure that those views and convictions do not adversely affect their official duties or the interests of the United Nations.

They shall conduct themselves at all times in a manner befitting their status as international civil servants and shall not engage in any activity that is incompatible with the proper discharge of their duties with the United Nations.

They shall avoid any action and, in particular, any kind of public pronouncement that may adversely reflect on their status, or on the integrity, independence and impartiality that are required by that status.

Staff members may exercise the right to vote but shall ensure that their participation in any political activity is consistent with, and does not reflect adversely upon, the independence and impartiality required by their status as international civil servants.

Conflict of interest Regulation:

A conflict of interest occurs when, by act or omission, a staff member’s personal interests interfere with the performance of his or her official duties and responsibilities or with the integrity, independence and impartiality required by the staff member’s status as an international civil servant.

When an actual or possible conflict of interest does arise, the conflict shall be disclosed by staff members to their head of office, mitigated by the Organization and resolved in favour of the interests of the Organization.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Juanita Goebertus Estrada
BOGOTÁ, Apr 9 2024 – Two years since President Nayib Bukele announced a “war against gangs” in El Salvador, the country has gone through rapid change.

Agustín, not his real name, was 16 when Bukele made the announcement. When Human Rights Watch researchers met him a year-and-a-half later he had already personally experienced the country’s quick turn from being gang-ridden to, increasingly, a police state.

Agustín first suffered from gang violence in Cuscatancingo, a few kilometers north of the capital. As in many areas in El Salvador, gangs controlled his neighborhood, and many aspects of his family’s lives. “It was suffocating,” his mother told us. “You had to think about what to say, how to walk and what to wear. They saw everything. It was like being with your enemy 24 hours.”

As with most of the 78,000 people detained during the “war against gangs,” prosecutors accused him of “unlawful association,” the crime of belonging to a gang, which does not require proving the defendant has committed a violent or other unlawful act. The crime is defined so broadly under El Salvador’s law that anyone who has interacted with gang members, willingly or not, may be prosecuted

The MS-13, one of El Salvador’s most prominent gangs, tried to recruit her son when he was 12. Five adolescent gang members promised him better shoes, clothing, and cigars. Many boys from the neighborhood joined, he said, but he refused.

The gangs have recruited thousands of children. Studies show mostly join these criminal groups between ages 12 and 15. A lack of educational and economic opportunities makes it easier for gangs to recruit them, even in exchange for shoes and cigars.

Violence took a turn for the worse for Agustín in June 2021. MS-13 gang members beat his stepfather and threatened to kill his mother, a community leader, after she helped police distribute food during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Talking to the police or a soldier was like a death sentence,” she said.

The violence forced the family to flee to Mejicanos, a city near San Salvador. They escaped the immediate threat but did not find safety. The 18th Street gang, the country’s second largest, controlled their new neighborhood. A few months later, they threatened to kill Agustín’s mother, forcing the family to leave again.

In January 2022 they tried to find peace in San José Guayabal, a small town largely untouched by gang presence. They even became hopeful about their country when in March, President Bukele launched his “war against gangs” and his supporters in the Legislative Assembly declared a state of emergency, suspending basic rights.

Yet a few months later, police officers and soldiers appeared at his house to arrest Agustín and his stepfather. Officers did not provide a warrant or a reason for the arrest. They said they were taking him, then 16, to a police station to “investigate him.”

He is one of 2,800 children sent to jail since the state of emergency began. What followed for him, as in many other cases human rights groups in El Salvador documented during the emergency, was a harrowing sequence of abuses.

He told us that soldiers simulated his execution on a deserted road as they were transferring him between police stations. One soldier laughed, as he triggered a gun to his head, he said. Then they reportedly told him to run away, with his feet cuffed.

He said he was held, for several days, in an overcrowded cell, where 70 children shared three beds. He recalls being forced to sleep on the floor. Guards did nothing when other detainees kicked him, virtually every day, while they counted the seconds out loud, always up to 13—an apparent reference to the MS-13.

As with most of the 78,000 people detained during the “war against gangs,” prosecutors accused him of “unlawful association,” the crime of belonging to a gang, which does not require proving the defendant has committed a violent or other unlawful act. The crime is defined so broadly under El Salvador’s law that anyone who has interacted with gang members, willingly or not, may be prosecuted.

The judge in his case found no evidence against him and released Agustín after 12 days. But police and soldiers, who have overbroad powers and little to no oversight in El Salvador, kept insisting that he was a gang member. Some harassed him in the local park, beating him and threatening to arrest him again.

He left school and took a construction job in another city. When Human Rights Watch met him, the gangs that had long tormented his family were no longer his biggest concern. Homicides in the country have dropped significantly and gangs appear to be weakened, for now. But as his mother told us, he “now cries every time he sees soldiers or police.”

Salvadorans should not be forced to choose between living in fear of gangs or of security forces. They should be offered a brighter future, one in which the government protects children from violence and abuse and minimizes the risk of gang recruitment by ensuring children have the educational and other support they need. One in which law enforcement conducts meaningful investigations to identify real gang members—and dismantle their groups—instead of relying on arbitrary arrests and abusive treatment.

“We want to leave El Salvador,” his mother told us. “I want my child to forget everything.”

Excerpt:

Juanita Goebertus Estrada is the Americas director at Human Rights Watch.