There is a small country in Central America called El Salvador.
It is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, packed with unique geography, ancient history and pioneering modern milestones. A beautiful country with a rich Maya heritage that was almost wiped away by an unprecedented surge of violent crime and gangsterism between the early 1990s and the 2010s.
According to historical data, the 1990s saw the rise of the Maras. Transnational gangs like Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 took root in El Salvador after forming among Salvadoran refugees in Los Angeles in the 1980s and expanding via US mass deportations in the 1990s.
During this period, the country saw peak violence. With weak post-civil war infrastructure, poverty, and militarised mano dura (iron fist) policies failing to curb them, gangs carved out territorial control through extortion, forced displacement and extreme violence.
Then came the homicide peak. In 2015, El Salvador hit a record-breaking homicide rate of 103 per 100,000 residents, earning a reputation as one of the most violent peacetime countries in the world.
Why am I so interested in this country?
Because South Africa and El Salvador suffer from the same disease but have chosen opposite prescriptions.
Both have, at different times, been called the murder capital of the world outside a war zone.
When doing a comparative analysis we must take account of this: one country decided to suspend parts of its constitution to fight gangs. The other has one of the best constitutions in the world, but struggles to enforce it.
Here is the reality facing South Africa. We have an unprecedented number of international syndicates operating in the inner city, the outer suburbs and townships.
We have Colombians, Mexicans, Nigerians, Congolese, Eritreans, Ethiopians, Mozambicans, Asians and Eastern Europeans; a mixed bag of criminal syndicates pushing narcotics, counterfeits, fraud, murder-for-hire and kidnappings. Some make headlines, others operate beneath the surface. In some cases there are rival gang wars between these groups that ordinary citizens are not even aware of.
At one point there was a brutal drug turf war between Nigerians and Congolese in the Point area in Durban, as well as in Cape Town. Let's not even talk about Gauteng and the Zama Zamas, the Eastern European syndicates and many others who operate from there.
Many privileged South Africans have become so cocooned in comfort that they are oblivious to the realities the less fortunate face.
As we watch extortion rackets, the construction mafia and gang murders paralyse the Cape Flats and townships in KZN, the question is no longer whether we need to learn from El Salvador.
It is what we should learn, and what we must never copy.
The numbers tell the story
In 2015, El Salvador's murder rate reached approximately 103 per 100,000. Gangs MS-13 and Barrio 18 controlled up to 80% of the country. Every shopkeeper, bus driver and homeowner paid protection money or was killed. Does that sound familiar?
In 2025, El Salvador recorded just 82 murders for the entire year. Its rate was about 1.3 per 100,000 — lower than the United States and Canada. President Nayib Bukele now claims it is the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.
South Africa remains in a different league. Official police figures show the murder rate fell to 41 per 100,000 in the 12 months to 31 March 2025, but in the October–December 2025 quarter alone, 5,940 murders were recorded, an average of 63 people killed every day.
In this instance, I am of the view that the Western Cape is our El Salvador. Despite having less than 12% of the national population, the province has been reported to account for nearly 90% of all gang-related murders in South Africa, and police themselves note that more than 90% of such murders were recorded there. The same townships keep appearing: Nyanga, Delft, Mfuleni, Manenberg, Kraaifontein, Philippi East.
Our government, according to data, now admits that it faces 162 organised syndicates. They run extortion, the construction mafia, the water tanker mafia, drug trafficking through the Durban harbour, and a marketplace for assassins with 2,500 contract killings since 2000. In KwaZulu-Natal, that merges with political killings and taxi wars.
What Bukele actually did
According to information from the state of El Salvador and various media accounts, he did three things, in the following order:
First, the Territorial Control Plan in June 2019. This was not a raid. It was an occupation. The multi-phase plan aimed to reclaim territory from MS-13 and Barrio 18. Soldiers and police retook neighbourhoods block by block and then stayed. They built permanent bases inside gang territory and cut off the extortion network.
Second, it was the State of Exception in March 2022. After gangs murdered 87 people in one weekend, the Legislative Assembly suspended constitutional protections. Warrantless arrests, detention without a lawyer for 15 days, and mass trials commenced. More than 85,000 people have been arrested under the State of Exception. About 8,000 were later released as innocent.
Third, was the infamous purge. Bukele's most famous line druing this time was: "We removed corrupt judges." In one day he removed all judges over 60 and the entire Attorney General's office.
He then built CECOT, which stands for Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo. This was inaugurated in 2023 and designed to hold 40,000 inmates, where inmates are stripped, shaved, denied family contact and forced to share cells.
As a result, extortion dropped by a staggering 90%. Small businesses came back and the economy started to flourish. Something that is evident to this day. But at what cost?
Human Rights Watch has documented hundreds of deaths inside El Salvador's jails due to torture and medical neglect.
Five lessons for South Africa
1. Control territory, don't just raid it.
South Africa does not have a State of Exception, however, our response to violent crime and gans was Operation Shanela. Launched in 2023, it regularly nets 14,000–18,000 arrests in a single week. Impressive on paper. But if they raid Manenberg on Monday and leave on Tuesday, it defeats the purpose and the gangs are back on Wednesday.
El Salvador teaches us that you cannot police a township from a highway roadblock. SAPS needs permanent, integrated military-police bases in the top 20 murder capital townships such as Nyanga, Delft, Inanda, Umlazi, KwaMashu, Mfuleni.
2. Break the prison-gang nexus.
In El Salvador, gangs ran the country from prison cells using cellphones. In South Africa, the Numbers gangs, commonly known as the 26s, 27s, 28s, run Cape Flats gangs from prison. IPID investigations show police evidence firearms dissapear from SAPS storerooms directly to gangs.
As a country we do not need new laws. We need signal jamming in all maximum prisons, full separation of gang leaders, and a forensic audit of every SAPS evidence store in the Western Cape and KZN. Nothing must come and nothing must go out, the country has the tech and private security companies to do this.
3. Purge the chain, not just the criminal.
A friend of mine in politics once said: "The day South Africans direct their anger towards magistrates and judges, they will taste true justice. Striving for freedom whilst ignoring injustice being made legal by courts is self-defeating. All oppressive regimes rely on the courts and army to oppress. Whilst magistrates and judges continue to be treated like demigods, you will continue to live under the will of those who pay magistrates and judges."
Bukele fired judges. South Africa is learning the hard way that the chain itself is compromised. The Madlanga Commission, set up after KZN Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi alleged collusion between SAPS, politicians and alleged tender tycoon Vusimuzi "Cat" Matlala, has already heard allegations involving a Police Minister, the National Commissioner, his deputy and the head of organised crime.
Our conviction rate for organised crime is under 20%. We do not need fewer judges. We need younger, new blood and we need clean police, protected prosecutors, and witness protection that actually works.
4. Follow the money.
El Salvador choked the extortion economy. South Africa has the tools to fight this, such as the Asset Forfeiture Unit. According to reports, about R75 million was frozen in gang assets in the Western Cape in 2023. which is nothing compared to billions that are extorted every year.
Others argue that every mafia demand of 30% must trigger automatic SARS, FIC and AFU action. Every taxi murder must trigger a forensic audit of the route's bank accounts and we need to call extortion out for what it is: treason against the economy.
El Salvador won when it stopped treating extortion as petty crime and called it a national security threat. South Africa must do the same. When a teacher in the Cape Flats pays protection, when a spaza owner in Durban pays, when a bus driver is extorted by the local taxi lord, when a contractor cannot build a school without paying a local don, that is not crime. That is a parallel state. What is happening in the Eastern Cape to Intercape buses for example is a case in point.
We need a dedicated National Anti-Extortion Directorate, not another SAPS task team that reports to the same broken chain.
What we must never copy but learn from
We cannot copy mass warrantless arrests. The principles of Nobel Prize winner, Ms Navi Pillay has championed, and our own Constitution, forbid it. The Constitutional Court would strike it down in a day. And morally, we cannot accept thousands of innocent people jailed and hundreds dying in custody to get results. That is not justice. That is revenge.
We cannot copy CECOT. Our prisons are at 137% overcrowding nationally, with some facilities at over 200%. Building a super-prison without fixing SAPS detective work and NPA prosecution just creates a university for gangsterism.
And we are not El Salvador. El Salvador is 6.3 million people with two main gangs. South Africa is 62 million people with 162 syndicates, a taxi industry that kills more than gangs, political assassinations, and heroin coming through Durban port from East Africa. There is no single enemy to lock up.
However, with that said, El Salvador's real lesson is not about prisons. It is about political will. What we can copy from them is the will to get things done and snap out of our comfort zones if we want to create a better country for the future generation of South Africans.
Gangs are defeated when the state decides to physically own the township again, and when it treats corruption inside SAPS, the NPA and municipalities as part of the gang itself.
Bukele's model is simple: remove judges, jail criminals.
South Africa's model must be harder but more durable: remove criminals from our judiciary, our police and our politics, then jail them through a court system that still works.
My humble opinion is that we do not need a state of exception but what we do need is a state that functions.
* Ayanda Mdluli is the Editor: Thought and Opinion at IOL
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of IOL