Although it’s a rescue mission, not a nation-building action:
BUKELE AND HIS WATERLOO?
With the announcement of the deployment from El Salvador to Haiti of a contingent of 3,000 troops, whose mission is to locate the 4 members of that country’s armed forces who were kidnapped last Sunday—when they entered territory controlled by gangs and were attacked by a gang of armed irregulars—fierce armed clashes are looming in the coming hours.
At this point, knowing how things are resolved in Haiti, the chances of these soldiers still being alive are minimal. So, if there’s no possibility of negotiating anything, what we’re facing is an armed confrontation between El Salvador’s troops and the gangs that control the territory where the Central American soldiers were attacked and kidnapped.
According to reports in the international press, those responsible are two criminal organizations that dominate the “Croix des Bouquets” area. One is led by Claude Celestin, head of the Chen Mechan gang (rabid dogs), and the other by Wilson Joseph (“Lammo San Jou”), leader of the 400 Mawozo gang.
Yesterday, the latter publicly challenged President Nayib Bukele in a video posted on social media, where he warned that he won’t leave Haiti and displayed thousands of rounds of ammunition and gear with weapons of various calibers, which he said are waiting for the Salvadorans.
We thus have the table set for an armed confrontation just 45 km from the Dominican Republic-Haiti border: an army of armed gang members with nothing to lose facing off against regular El Salvadoran troops, who will fight an urban war in the streets of a country that isn’t theirs and is utterly unknown to them.
I wouldn’t bet against Bukele and the El Salvadorans. This is a spiritual war and the voodoo masters cannot stand against a Christian army.
I don’t know that I’d be averse to him invading Hollywood and Los Angeles.