Bulletins and News Discussion from April 28th to May 4th, 2025 - Competent Fascism? - COTW: El Salvador

Image is from the Britannica article on CECOT, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center in English.

This megathread's topic is inspired by our lovely news regular, @Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net, who talks often about the conditions inside El Salvador and gives nuanced and informative takes.

As the Trump administration continues to make foreign policy blunders that would make even the staunchest anti-imperialist accelerationist blush - and we are barely three months in! - it's interesting to compare and contrast his policies of incompetent imperialist and domestic management to the dictators in other countries.

Bukele is somewhat unique among fascists, in that he seems to not hide - and seems to even admit to - his evil, self-describing as the world's "coolest dictator". El Salvador has no particular shortage of prominent fascists in their history, but one major example is Maximiliano Martínez, who led the country over much of the 1930s and the early 1940s. He was responsible the deaths of many thousands of communists and indigneous people, and yet joined World War 2 on the side of the Allies and against the Nazis.

The comparisons between Martínez and Bukele - and, indeed, between Bukele and Trump - in terms of their impact on minority groups are slowly growing as world attention is being drawn to the country. The recent meeting between Bukele and Trump has shifted a spotlight onto El Salvador's crime policy; the internal conditions of El Salvador's prisons are genuinely monstrous. One gets a similar feeling as when reading descriptions of the conditions of Holocaust victims in German concentration camps. Trump has made statements to the effect that he want a similar crime crackdown inside the United States, and I certainly believe that he wants this (ICE is already just kidnapping people off the streets into vans), but his administration has been so chaotic and mismanaged that it's difficult to determine whether this will be an interest he rapidly drops in favor of some other hair-brained scheme.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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Israel has used drones to attack a Gaza humanitarian aid flotilla in International waters off the coast of Malta.
UPDATE from Thiago Ávila, coordinator of the Freedom Flotilla still in Malta:
We had another mission 15 years ago that was attacked, and 10 of our participants were killed in this mission of the Mavi Marmara. And right now we just suffered another attack, where two drones attacked our boat and put our boat on fire and created a big hole on our boat. There was a distress signal that was sent to all neighboring countries, to all the vessels nearby.
And until very early in the morning, no one had responded to this. This happened now six hours ago. And now that we finally — the fire was put down, and finally, the drones that attacked the boat are out of the region.
But we are very concerned for our participants. This is part of a humanitarian mission that was carrying food and medical aid to Gaza, because Gaza has now been for 58 days under total blockade — that not a single bag of flour, not a single bottle of water has entered Gaza for 58 days under a state of famine in the Gaza Strip.
So we were trying to break the siege and create a people's humanitarian corridor, with people from over 20 different countries and carrying all the aid we could carry. We had members of parliament, we had actors, we had doctors, we had news outlets, we had influencers, we had grassroots solidarity movement activists as well for Palestine.
And we were doing our best. This was a confidential mission. Because they've been attempting bureaucratic warfare on us, we were not disclosing the information until then that we were going, because they've been trying to hinder us. We were supposed to be on the boat three days ago now, and we've been hindered. And now, a few hours before we depart, we were attacked.
And so we are due to share this information, to contact local politicians, to contact everyone you can, so that the Maltese government organize a proper rescue operation, which is not ongoing until now, and it's been many, many hours. We don't want to antagonize this government.
We actually think this government needs to be an ally on a rescue mission, but we really need to denounce the war crime that happened because the boat was 13 nautical miles from Maltese territory, so it's in international waters, but it's nearby Malta, and we need people to denounce this attack, this war crime that just happened against a peaceful humanitarian mission to Gaza. And we need people to put the spotlight as well on the total blockade that Gaza has been suffering for 58 days.
We only went to the boat because we knew there was no other choice to open a humanitarian corridor, so the people of the world were willing to open it.
And we were attacked. So we were urged for your help, and Nicole here is part of our delegation, has been doing an amazing, amazing job, and we count on you to follow up with her, because we really need you right now, and especially the people, the Palestinian people in Gaza need you more than ever.
From elsewhere on Twitter:
We spoke with Jasmine, one of the organizers of the Freedom Flotilla.
She reports that the 30 people aboard the ship are afraid to board lifeboats—fearing Israel will strike them again once exposed. As of now, there are no confirmed injuries, but communication with the ship has been lost.
Jasmine is currently organizing an independent operation with others to reach the Freedom Flotilla after 7 hours without any response to the ship’s SOS. Authorities, embassies, and officials have remained silent.
The ship is sinking in international waters.
Despite multiple calls to embassies, media, and an SOS call and beacon no countries responded for over 6 hours until a Cypriot vessel picked up the SOS call and sent help.
I don't have the national makeup of activists on board for obvious reasons, but if any of them were British then it's highly likely that the British government has actively assisted in the illegal drone striking of one of its own citizens since they provide radio surveillance of that area, as well as surveillance flights and targeting for Israeli drones from RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus.
History is repeating itself again, as a reminder; in 2010 Israeli military boarded and stormed a previous Gaza humanitarian flotilla and executed at least 10 activists, all unarmed, some at point blank range, including UK and US citizens.
- Gun to my head, this was probably done out of Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. Depending on the size of the drone, someone could have launched it from a ship if it was a small one, or done it from Malta, since that "country" is basically just several intelligence agencies and organized crime syndicates in a trench coat.
  
  Last i read on TG that an israhelli cargo plane landed on Malta yesterday, which could mean nothing.
  
  It was a one way drone/suicide drone attack with small drones, so there's only a handful of possible locations the attack could have come from. Malta itself, Libya, Sigonella/Sicily, or drones launched from another ship. Possible parties responsible for the attack could be Israel or Libyan pirates. An Israeli C-130 cargo aircraft arrived in or flew around Malta yesterday, so that could be connected. Another possibility would be launching the drones out of the back of the aircraft.
  
  intelligence agencies and organized crime syndicates
- Coincidentally, the 2010 flotilla attack was also the flashpoint of the breakdown of relations between South Africa and the Nazi entity, with the first signs of hostility from recalls of ambassadors to academic boycotts and even terrorist threats already emerging before the FIFA World Cup.
  Of course, I was in ameriKKKa at the time and like everything else related to Palestine, I didn't hear of this incident until 2014.
  Death to ameriKKKa, Death to piSSrael
- This is of course disgusting criminal behavior by the zionazi regime.
  But on a related note, I just learned about this freak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_O%27Keefe
  Be vigilant about reactionaries in your midst, or they may one day get you killed.
  
  White supremacy and anti-U.S. I can kind of imagine being a niche. Like you don't think the U.S. is fascisming hard enough for some reason or something. White supremacy and being "pro-Palestinian"...that one's bizarre.
  I really have to wonder what is going through the heads of the people around him. I can't imagine even the liberal activists I know tolerating that junk and being closer than, at best, "Okay: I'm glad you're nominally broadcasting some of the same messages as us. But I'm not sure I believe you, and...just go do your thing way over there or something."
- Is the flotilla even close to ever sailing to Gaza? It has taken almost 2 years for them to move from Turkey to Malta. Good people are at risk of grave harm in vain if their leaders aren't willing to make the call either way.

771 comments