Santa Fe governor orders Bukele-style tactics for narcos in Rosario

It is an image that has become common in countries hit by gang violence like Ecuador and El Salvador: shirtless and subdued prisoners lined up under the watch of heavily armed police.

Fed up with drug-related gang unrest, the governor in Argentina's bloodiest province of Sante Fe has released a flurry of similar photos in a warning to narcos, along with a promise to finish construction on a long-delayed maximum security prison.

The moves have seen some accuse him of "Bukelisation" – a catchphrase in Latin America referring to the gang-busting tactics of El Salvador's hardline President Nayib Bukele.

Sante Fe Province Governor Maximiliano Pullaro has imposed harsher conditions on prisoners, particularly gang bosses, which he says has earned him 25 death threats since he took office two months ago.

"The more they mess with us, the worse it will be," provincial Security Minister Pablo Cococcioni said of drug-lords, adding that "they won't even be able to blink" once the new prison has been built.

Santa Fe province's capital is Rosario, renowned for a murder rate five times the national average (22 for every 100,000 inhabitants) and for being the birthplace of football superstar Lionel Messi.

Rosario has a key port on South America's second-longest river after the Amazon – the Paraná – which has made it a hotspot for the movement of drugs from Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay headed to Europe and Asia.

'Public commotion'

On Tuesday, provincial authorities published photos and videos of jailed inmates in their underwear, bending over in line, to non-stop heavy metal music.

There has been a spate of violence since the regional government published the images.

Last week a bus transporting prison staff came under fire, and this week a taxi-driver was shot nine times while another was shot in the head. 

"It is clear that the motive is a reaction to the reorganisation of the prison conditions of high-profile inmates," said Franco Carbone, the prosecutor investigating the death threats against authorities.

"The aim is to draw attention, not only of authorities but any person living in Rosario, and to create public commotion," he told the AFP news agency.

A year ago, gunmen opened fire on a supermarket belonging to the family of Messi's wife in an attack which authorities said was similarly aimed at raising chaos.

These “shoot-outs” are a fact of everyday life of those living in the most impoverished areas of Rosario, a city where luxury high-rise buildings contrast with 175 villas that lack basic sewage and services. 

“Until a few years ago, this was a quiet neighbourhood, now you can’t go outside after 8 pm”, said Sonia, a 57-year-old homemaker, who would not give her last name out of fear.

She lives in the Tablada area, a stone’s throw away from a drug “bunker” where narcotics are sold. 

Emulating Bukele

El Salvador last year recorded its lowest murder rate in three decades after Bukele's crackdown, which saw him build a massive maximum security prison and round up 80,000 suspected gangsters.

His methods have alarmed rights observers due to allegations of inhumane conditions and widespread abuses, including the detention of minors and torture.

But Bukele is idolised across much of Latin America, where communities are tiring of gang violence and governments have lost control of prisons, which have become command centres for cartels.

Argentina's government "has adopted the very worrying logic that I call 'Bukelisation'," said criminologist Enrique Font of the University of Rosario.

He said publishing photos of jail raids and subdued prisoners "is just media noise. It is counter-productive" and feeds the phenomenon of identity-based violence.

Provincial deputy Carlos Del Frade, a criminologist and journalist, says that the government’s decision to share the images from jail “seeks only social control” while using “the excuse of combatting drug-dealing.”

Last week, Argentina's President Javier Milei praised Pullaro's approach, saying it had led to a 60 percent decrease in murders. However, fact-checkers from the Chequeado fact-checking website said this figure is "exaggerated." 

Bukele himself talked about Rosario after being re-elected president.

“The problem in Argentina is ... worrying, especially in Rosario and other areas,” he said.

He suggested that the necessary measures needed to fix the problem “need not be as drastic” as in his country.