In the Encuentro interview with Julio Villagrán, journalist Leonel Herrera explained that the expectation in the preliminary hearing of the case against the leaders of the Santa Marta community was that the case will be closed since the prosecution has not presented real evidence of the crimes for which they are being accused, stating that the entire case is a political persecution against environmental leaders.
““The Salvadoran state, instead of persecuting the leaders of Santa Marta, should recognize them because they are heroes, they fought for mining to be banned and this country will be saved from an enormous environmental catastrophe,” the journalist highlights.
Furthermore, the journalist pointed out that the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic has defined the former guerrilla organizations as illicit associations, with this the authorities are overriding the peace agreements, with this legal reworking all the groups that formed the FMLN party are groups criminals, and if the environmentalists are convicted for illicit association, it means that even people from the current government who belonged to these groups in the past would also be defined as criminals.
“If in the end the legal precedent condemns the leaders of Santa Marta for illicit association and that was having belonged to a guerrilla organization, here all those who belonged to the FPL, ERP, communist party, RN, PRTC, here will be criminals.” Even people from the government are going to be criminals… Felix Ulloa is going to be a criminal because he belonged to the RN, Maria Chichilco is going to be a criminal because she belonged to the FPL”says Herrera.
In the possibility of failing a constitutional reform for Herrera, it would be to adapt the constitution of the republic in favor of the dictatorship, where stone clauses would be touched.
He also stressed that any reform to the constitution that the new legislative assembly wants to make must be the subject of extensive debate and broad national consensus, to know if the population agrees or not.
“The deputies who would ratify the constitutional reform in the next legislature are all illegal and unconstitutional, because the constitution says that those who promote the presidential reelection lose their citizen rights, all NI deputies promote the reelection of Bukele… Due to the size of the constitutional reform will dismantle the entire republican democratic regime and readjust it to the Bukele dictatorship”explains Leonel Herrera.