Following the domain extinction measures carried out yesterday by the authorities of the Attorney General’s Office and the National Civil Police (PNC) At the headquarters of the ARENA . partyIn San Salvador, the Salvadoran president, Neb Bukele, confirmed that the said property will be used as a “gym for young athletes,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

In the same announcement, Bukele stated that the $2.9 million owed to the party in political debt, seized as part of the operation, would be used to reconstitute 15 schools, though he did not specify which educational centers he was referring to or the amounts needed for each.

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In addition, he confirmed that with the other assets seized from the party, as well as the 17 confiscated vehicles and bank accounts, “a fund for the families of Las Colinas victims will be established”, in the Santa Tecla area. It was one of the hardest hit areas in the country due to the January-February 2001 earthquake.

In yesterday’s proceedings, the Prosecutor General, imposed by the ruling party, Rodolfo Delgado; The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Gustavo Villatoro, and the Director of Police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, along with other police chiefs.

More than 100 PNC agents participated in the procedure. Photo EDH/Francisco Rubio

According to Delgado, this is one of the legal measures that have been proposed in order to “recover” the money donated by the governments of China and Taiwan to El Salvador. He said the total amounted to $3.9 million. ARENA members, including former presidents Elias Antonio Saca and Francisco Flores, were tried for the alleged diversion of nearly $10 million for party activities, said to have come from a donation from Taiwan due to the 2001 earthquake.

For its part, the party leadership published a statement hours after the procedure, in which it highlighted that “El Salvador is facing an imminent danger towards a dictatorship,” noting that both President Bukele and the imposed deputy, and “the police are intent on him.” They are trying to divert attention from acts of corruption associated with the current government, all this in order not to “confront the Salvadoran people and the international community”.

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The statement also confirmed that the party’s headquarters had been “kidnapped and threatened with the aim of silencing us”, and therefore urged the president to “show his face” and dismiss his government officials referred to in Engel’s list.

In the text, ARENA also emphasizes that the institution is not limited to the walls of the headquarters or building, while calling on the international community to be aware of what is happening on the Salvadoran territory. He concludes: “We will continue to be a political opposition force.”