We went from being the most powerful country in the world to being the safest country in the entire hemisphere. And well, it's easy to say, but the Attorney General really knows, and you, the people who work here at the prosecutor's office, know all the work that had to be done for several years to achieve that milestone.
Previous governments never fought crime, and our country really had two governments. It had the formal, official government, the one that was internationally recognized, and it had the territorial government, the one that controlled about 80% of the territory.
There are people who, when I tell them that, say, 'No, it wasn't that bad.' I say, 'The government had to ask permission to enter a community.' Not a person, not a family, the government, the central government, the mayor's offices had to ask the gangs for permission to enter a community. That showed who was in charge of the territory. Everything else is formalism. The one in charge of the territory was the one authorizing entry.
And they didn't just authorize entry, they collected taxes. A fiscal collection. Paying that tax, which I called income tax, was actually extortion or goodbye life, goodbye children, goodbye hands, goodbye head. They collected taxes, they had courts, they executed punishments, not just death, there were different types of punishments, beatings, there were levels of punishment. Minister, you who were also a prosecutor, know the level of punishments there were: cutting off hands, killing a child, raping a daughter, exile, beatings, death. No, I didn't say it in order.
They were the real government and they systematically violated the human rights of the population, all human rights, starting with the most important one, because without it you can't have all the others, which is the right to life.
And when we decided, or rather had to face them directly in an open war, basically, I have always said that we won thanks to God, and that is true. But one of the things God provided so that we could defeat them was teamwork between the executive, legislative, judicial branches, and the Attorney General's Office. Which would not have been possible if, on the third day of the state of exception, the Constitutional Chamber had declared it unconstitutional, or if a prosecutor had said, 'No, I'm not going to process those 1,000 cases you bring me,' or if the Assembly had said, 'I won't approve the second extension of the state of exception.' How many extensions? 44.
It's a dictatorship, right? Democratically, no international organization in the world, no country, there are 192 countries, none of the 192 countries questions the results of the 2021 elections, with which those reforms could be made, reforms made within the constitutional framework as a product of democratic elections. Then, no international organization, no country of the 192 countries questions the results of 2024. In fact, we had presidents and kings at the inauguration, and from there came more reforms, reforms that have allowed us not only to defeat the gangs, which are practically defeated, but that have allowed us, and I allow myself to say it again, to become the safest country in the hemisphere and on our way to being one of the safest countries in the world. We are already one of the safest countries in the world, but one, or the safest country in the world.
And that brings me to something that is extremely important to me, and it is that ending crime has four major areas. The first, which is the most famous, is fighting crime. The police go, the soldiers go, they catch the gang member. It's the one everyone knows. Then there is the other part that maybe people don't know as much, they only know one part, which is the penitentiary part. There, that penitentiary part is divided in two. The one people know is the maximum security prison, from which no one leaves. And the rest, penitentiary farms, rehabilitation programs, 50% of the inmates are in rehabilitation programs because they are going to leave prison and we want them to leave prison reintegrated into society. It is the largest reintegration program, percentage-wise, in all of Latin America. Few people talk about it, but it is an important component of fighting crime, especially the sustainability of it.
The other fundamental pillar is prevention, and that is why we build two schools a day, that is why we give school packages, that is why we invest in early childhood, that is why we build the CAPIs, that is why we invest in youth, that is why we build the Cubos, that is why we are giving opportunities to young people so they don't get into trouble.
But there is another element that we also almost never communicate, and without it, nothing could be done, which is this: taking cases to justice and winning them in court. And it is an overwhelming job because I am sure that the prosecutor's office has never had as much work as it has now. Yes. So you needed a building like this and the best tools possible to face a gigantic job that the country had never had in its history. And that job will last several years, for sure, it will continue for a couple more years. But then comes another stage of our country that has already begun, but will take on more and more prominence, and it is moving from what we already achieved, which was fighting crime, to violence in El Salvador is at minimum levels, someone being murdered, raped, extorted, that is the exception, not the rule.
But we are not yet a country of law and order. People walk the streets safely, yes, at any time, 3 in the morning, in a dark alley, nothing happens. Yes, we have achieved that, thank God and to you. But that is security, not law and order. Law and order require different layers, different stages that we have not reached, such as no corruption, for example. One thing is that I'm not mugged in the street, another thing is that there is no corruption, that there are no scams. One thing is that I'm not mugged in the street, but they can't scam you. No contraband. Many people in El Salvador took it as a lesser evil, right? It's just contraband, it's just a scam. I even remember when the police arrested someone who had committed a minor theft. People used a phrase that had a lot of weight at the time that said, 'Only the one who steals a chicken gets caught.' And that phrase had a lot of weight and made sense because there were 30 homicides a day, they didn't catch any of the 30 murderers, or more because sometimes they had accomplices, maybe 60, 90 murderers per day, and they caught the one who stole the chicken. That one, yes. So people logically said, 'They only catch the one who steals the chicken.' But now it's not like that, it's the opposite. Look at social media, if someone steals a cell phone, a wallet, three Doritos later, three Doritos later, why haven't they caught him? 5 hours have passed and they still haven't caught the one who stole the wallet, and there goes the police, the DEC, everyone looking for cameras, looking for the subject, and they catch him dressed the same. If he robbed the bank, they catch him so fast they don't give him a chance to change clothes. But people no longer say, 'Don't catch him.' He only stole a cell phone, as they used to say, he only stole a chicken. Instead, people now understand that our country has moved from eliminating violent crime to a stage where all crimes must be eliminated. We must be a country of law and order, where okay, they don't murder, thank God, they don't extort, thank God, they don't rape, thank God, but there is petty theft, there is contraband, there is tax evasion, there is corruption, there are scams, there is environmental pollution from individuals, from companies. We haven't eradicated that, it has improved, but we haven't eradicated it. So, we are going to a new stage where our country must build, not the safest country, which we already are, in the entire hemisphere, but the country with the most law and order in the entire hemisphere, and in the future, one of the countries with the most respect for law and order in the world. That will require a strong prosecutor's office, a prosecutor's office capable of investigating, processing, following leads, taking to trial, winning trials, and putting lawbreakers behind bars.
This prosecutor's office has done a great job and it must be recognized, it has been one of the fundamental pillars in the biggest change our country has had, and we hope that in the same way it will be in this new stage in which we are going to take El Salvador to another level, right? A safe country that we have now, which fills us with pride, but we have already achieved that, instead, a country of law and order. And it is you, the prosecutors, who will ensure that this is so. This is a project of yours. We accompany you, we help you with the financing. The Legislative Assembly also gave its vote for that, but this is a legacy of yours, of you and your team. We are guests here, but with great pride we can say that we are working in this way, bearing these fruits. Some are seen in infrastructure, others are seen in the peace that people live in the streets, and as 'by their fruits you shall know them,' I think they are bearing excellent fruit. Thank you very much and God bless you.
