Five prominent environmental defenders who played a crucial role in securing a historic mining ban in El Salvador<\/a> have been detained accused of civil war era and gang-related crimes, in what rights groups fear is a ruse to restart mining.<\/p>\n Miguel \u00c1ngel G\u00e1mez, Alejandro La\u00ednez Garc\u00eda, Pedro Antonio Rivas La\u00ednez, Antonio Pacheco and Sa\u00fal Agust\u00edn Rivas Ortega were detained on Wednesday in Caba\u00f1as in northern El Salvador<\/a>, accused of killing an alleged army informant more than 33 years ago during the brutal civil war that claimed 75,000 lives.<\/p>\n <\/gu-island><\/figure>\n Nayib Bukele, the authoritarian populist president who swept to power in 2019, has repeatedly blocked attempts to seek justice for civil war victims \u2013 the vast majority of whom were civilians killed by the US-backed dictatorship and rightwing death squads.<\/p>\n The military is accused of dozens of human rights violations and crimes against humanity in Santa Marta, the community where the five detained defenders live and work, but no one has ever faced justice.<\/p>\n Hundreds of national and international activists and organisations have condemned the detention as politically motivated.<\/p>\n In a statement, the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) said the government\u2019s decision to arrest the five men while blocking justice in high-profile cases like the El Mozote massacre \u201craises questions about whether the true motivation is to attempt to silence these water defenders\u201d.<\/p>\n Without providing details, prosecutors have also accused the<\/a> five men of illicit association \u2013 a crime which has been widely used by the Bukele regime to lock up more than 60,000 alleged gang members since March.<\/p>\n En coordinaci\u00f3n con @PNCSV<\/a>, hemos logrado ejecutar la captura de 6 \u201cex comandantes\u201d guerrilleros, acusados de participar directamente en el asesinato de Mar\u00eda In\u00e9s.<\/p>\n Despu\u00e9s de d\u00e9cadas, nosotros estamos logrando una verdadera JUSTICIA. No nos vamos a detener. pic.twitter.com\/we0TVqD7us<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Rodolfo Delgado (@FiscalGeneralSV) January 11, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n n”,”url”:”https:\/\/twitter.com\/FiscalGeneralSV\/status\/1613212851103047680?s=20&t=fdB9V45iUfsAjRxoe6yFLw”,”id”:”1613212851103047680″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”1baea797-b37f-41b4-8f87-2cf40d427bea”}}”><\/p>\n En coordinaci\u00f3n con @PNCSV<\/a>, hemos logrado ejecutar la captura de 6 \u201cex comandantes\u201d guerrilleros, acusados de participar directamente en el asesinato de Mar\u00eda In\u00e9s.<\/p>\n Despu\u00e9s de d\u00e9cadas, nosotros estamos logrando una verdadera JUSTICIA. No nos vamos a detener. pic.twitter.com\/we0TVqD7us<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2014 Rodolfo Delgado (@FiscalGeneralSV) January 11, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n <\/gu-island><\/figure>\n Rights groups fear that the community leaders, who are being held at a police station in the capital, San Salvador, could languish in overcrowded cells for months before formal charges are filed in court. The ongoing state of emergency has suspended a wide range of civil liberties and led to widespread arbitrary detentions and other abuses, according to United Nations experts<\/a>.<\/p>\n The detained men are renowned community organisers and water protectors, who helped lead the historic and successful campaign<\/a> that convinced the Salvadoran legislature to unanimously pass a ban on metals mining in 2017 to save that nation\u2019s rivers. Amid worsening drought caused by the climate crisis, El Salvador could run out of drinking<\/a> water by the end of the century unless radical action is taken to rehabilitate its contaminated waterways.<\/p>\n Environmental organisations fear that the arrests were a calculated attempt to destabilise community opposition as the economically stressed government seeks to overturn the mining ban.<\/p>\n\n