This is John Batchelor, conversation with Professor Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College about El Salvador,

its controversial president, Naibu Kelle, a young man, and he was faced with an overwhelming crime-ridden city,

Salvador, and country El Salvador, how he changed that to what Evan describes as

safer than parts of Canada is challenging.

Here's Evan to describe it.

The largest prison, to my knowledge,

in the Western Hemisphere.

And it has achieved one goal, but much to learn. Here's Evan on how Buckele cleaned up

El Salvador. More of this tonight. John, it absolutely makes sense, although sometimes in

worrisome ways.

But first of all, given that previously El Salvador has a very young population,

a population that had been also badly affected by violent at one point,

104 murders per 100,000 people, I remember back in the late 2000s.

And so Buckele came with a combination of things and an atmosphere that was right for it.

So first of all, as a relatively young person who's media savvy, who's internet savvy, he was able to cast himself as different and connect with the young people.

Number two, after winning an initial victory on his own party platform, his new

ideas party successfully controlled literally two-thirds of the legislature, which basically

gave him the power to do whatever he wanted. So that was where you really saw the acceleration

of a concept, which is to get the gangs

under control, frankly, by terror tactics. With that legislative fiat, virtually everybody in

El Salvador, if you look, if you had a gang tattoo, if there's a reasonable suspicion,

you were a gang member, you got rounded up. They built a big new prison. They label the gangs as terrorists.

...