--- title: "Briefing Room: Bukele Preparing Mass Prisoner Release, And More." description: "Fronts video analysis of Briefing Room: Bukele Preparing Mass Prisoner Release, And More, with context on conflict, defense, and security." url: https://fronts.co/videos/briefing-room-bukele-preparing-mass-prisoner-release-and-more.md canonical: https://fronts.co/videos/briefing-room-bukele-preparing-mass-prisoner-release-and-more/ datePublished: 2026-10-23T16:00:04.000Z dateModified: 2026-10-23T16:00:04.000Z author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://fronts.co/authors/simon-whistler/ publisher: Fronts image: "https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,height=630,fit=cover,gravity=auto,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/briefing-room-bukele-preparing-mass-prisoner-release-and-more-36b59d7b.jpg" type: NewsArticle language: en access: members isAccessibleForFree: false tokens: 5345 --- Welcome back to The Briefing Room, the weekly show on Fronts.com, where everyone goes for the things you need to know. I don't know if that was intended to bribe dear writer, but well done. This week we're touching down in El Salvador to discuss some unexpected news, as tough on crime strong man, Naiba Kailey, prepares to release tens of thousands of prisoners back into society. Then we're moving to Europe and North Africa, where a bitter series of protests in France and Albania have inspired concerned citizens elsewhere to consider direct action against their corrupt or unperforming governments. And finally, we're taking a close look at rebel-held territory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the Congo's former longtime president, Joseph Kabir, is working to install himself at the head of a reshaped rebel alliance. As always, it's been a jam-packed week of global news, and not every story will make its way to the major headlines. But it's these stories of the week that we suspect will all be better off studying early to understand affairs in El Salvador, the Congo, and to cross this new wave of protests as they develop. I was half expecting a ride there, writer. Come on now, you set yourself up. First up, we'll fly to El Salvador (if you get that reference, good for you) or where the nation's president since 2019, 45-year-old Naiba Kailey is, as usual, on top of his own little world. Recently, Kailey's been having a good run on the international stage. Latin American politics have shifted sharply rightward over the last few years, due in no small part of the rise of candidates who've pledged to emulate bouquelles, sweeping crackdowns against gangs and organized crime. Better yet for bouquelles, these other politicians have helped to reaffirm the bouquelles belongs at the top of a food chain. Sometimes that's because leaders like Ecuador's Daniel Ngoer and Chile's Jose Antonio Cast have had a harder time implementing his strategies, and sometimes it's because leaders like Columbia's Abelardo de Esperaire style themselves so closely to bouquelles' image that they could be credibly accused of imitating the Salvadorian president outright. But this month, bouquelles decided to advance his anti-crime project by taking a major new step in an unexpected direction. Ever since bouquelles instituted his sweeping state of exception in 2022, the Salvadoran state has held custody of a massive and growing number of detainees estimated to dove in 20,000 arrests according to Salvadoran officials, but probably closer to 120, 000 if you prefer to trust independent rights groups. Depending on the number you choose to follow, that's anywhere between 2 and 3 percent of El Salvador's entire adult population. The vast majority of those people have remained in custody since their arrests and a high share of them have been disappeared into a high-security prison network known for overcrowding, harsh conditions that many rights groups describe as torture, and little to no contact with family members or private council. Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 of those inmates are believed to be held in El Salvador's most notorious institution, the Centro de Confiniamento del Terrorismo, which let me guess it's the center of the confinement of terrorists, but it's better known as Seacott, which is handy because pronunciation. So with such a hardline status quo imposed by Blicheli and his allies and held steady without compromise across the last several years, the most surprising thing that the Peacheli government could start to do is talk about early release for some of those inmates, but that's exactly the conversation that Peacheli started last week, when, on Tuesday the 13th of October, he announced a plan to consider a conditional early release for roughly half of El Salvador's prisoners under the state of exception. According to Peacheli himself, the plan is a recognition of the difficult reality that many Salvadorans faced before the state of exception was imposed. Quote in the Latin times on the issue, "The president built his argument around a distinction between those who ran criminal organizations, and those who, as he described it, were simply trying to survive under gang control. He characterized the gangs that once paralyzed Salvadoran society as a shadow power structure that left ordinary citizens with few alternatives but to comply or face violence." End quote. Now, Peacheli made sure to surround the announcement with a lot of caveats, probably in an effort to avoid leaving some of his most die-hards borders feeling as if they'd been betrayed. According to Peacheli, "Any early release is not the same as a pardon. People who've been released under the deal would remain legally convicted of their crimes and would still be saddled with their criminal records. In fact, they'd also be expected to serve out the rest of their sentence, living a partly free life in Salvadoran society, but remaining subject to monitoring and behavioral requirements to stay out of prison." Peacheli further insisted that nobody who was an active member of a Salvadoran gang would be allowed to leave. Instead, quoting an analysis from the Associated Press, the plan will "focus on releasing people who were considered gang collaborators, a blanket term that can include anyone from gang lookouts to people who make extortion payments." End quote. And yes, you actually did hear that right. Salvadorans have been imprisoned for years in this prison system, not just for offenses like extorting payments from others, but for being extorted and paying gang sters off as they request. Peacheli framed the new measure as an attempt to deal with a capacity issue, as El Salvador's overstuffed prisons struggled to cope with the sheer number of people who are guilty of some crime-related violation under current law. As Peacheli openly admitted in his address, quote, "If we were to arrest everyone who collaborated with gangs, we would have to arrest 20 percent of the population." End quote. Even if that is a bit hyperbolic, it's probably not all that much of an exaggeration considering just how pervasive El Salvador's gangs were before the state of exception began. So, instead of trying to find everyone who was on the periphery of Salvador in gang life and haul all of them into prison for extended terms, Peacheli is trying to move the country over to a model where it can continue its crackdowns without stuffing prisons further. In a political sense, the move is a well-reasoned one. Peacheli's parallel crackdowns against the Salvadoran political opposition and to the press have made that it's hard to get the word out about what actually happens under the state of exception, and so Peacheli generally isn't in a position to have to admit setbacks or internal problems. Severe prison overcrowding, however, is the exception. If more and more people continue to be incarcerated, then Peacheli can't avoid shining a spotlight on the issue sooner or later. Either he'll have to surge state resources to construct new prisons and expand old ones, which is hard to hide, or he'll have to stop detaining people, which is even harder to hide. Instead, he's taking an approach that other tough-on-crime leaders across Latin America have struggled to replicate. Proactively changing his approach to dodge political problems before they emerge instead of maintaining the status quo until a problem becomes unavoidable. And in typical Peacheli fashion, he made sure to sandwich the potentially controversial news between bits of good news, including a deal with Spain's Cox group that he signed that same day, valued at US$2.9 billion. The deal will help improve El Salvador's power and water systems, and according to Peacheli himself, it represents the largest single private investment in El Salvador across the nation's history. As for what the conditional early-release program will actually mean for El Salvador, if Peacheli is looking to get prisoners out of custody as soon as possible, then the program could very well result in the release of many tens of thousands of people in the near future, each of whom will come bearing stories about what really happens to them after they disappeared into the state of exception. If Peacheli would instead like to limit the number of releases and avoid either bad press or accidental release of dangerous individuals, then the process may be a good deal slower and result in the release of only a few thousand prisoners overall. Just as important as any ambitions Peacheli might have for the prison capacity, he'll be opening up. Perhaps El Salvador's remaining prisons can enjoy less crowded conditions. Or perhaps Peacheli needs a bit of spare capacity for another set of crackdowns on the way. Next up, we can zoom out and cover a more global set of stories as a wave of anti-corruption and anti-government protests sweeps across Europe and North Africa. By now, you're almost certainly aware of at least two of these protest movements, the massive demonstrations and riots in France, and the fast-evolving Flamingo Revolution in Albania. And if you're not yet aware, we've recently published full-length episodes on both issues. You can find them both in the warfronts feed over on YouTube. But here, on the briefing room, we're going to focus on the other protests that have started to crop up nearby after either being inspired directly or indirectly by events in Paris and Tirada. Let's start with the nation of Italy, where last Saturday, the city of Milan was overtaken with writers after a peaceful march went off the rails. The march, in its original form, was intended as a statement against global conflicts and a more direct protest against the Italian government, over the rising cost of living in the country. Within hours, however, Italian protesters had dragged bar tables outside to form barricades and set far to them as blazing roadblocks. At least 50 demonstrators were detained, including minors. By Monday, a major Italian union had called for a general strike currently scheduled for the 20th of November, and protests had spread to Bologna, Turin, and other cities. Across the country, meanwhile, there's another protest-taking shape in the south after farmers and truckers began a blockade of port cities and major highways last week, it protest over high fuel prices caused by the war in Iran. The two protests have yet to merge as of the time of writing. Meanwhile, the two nations of the Iberian Peninsula have also had a difficult few days as Madrid and Lisbon were paralyzed by major protests of their own. In Spain, protests have centered around the country's housing crisis after the death of an 87-year-old woman, Maa Carmen Arbaskal. She was evicted from her home and gave the movement a martyr figure to rally around. The problem of rising rents, especially in Spain's bigger cities, is made worse by parallel costs of living pressures after personal incomes haven't risen nearly as quickly. The Spanish government under Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is trying to capitalize on the situation, promising housing reform if the Sanchez government's mandate is strengthened in an upcoming snap election, but there are no guarantees that the gamble will pay off. Across the border in Portugal, rallies and marches have drawn thousands of attendees across the past few weeks, also due to rising prices that ordinary, tax-paying citizens see as a violation of their right to housing. The problem is especially severe in and around Lisbon, where roughly one in four Portuguese people live in the Lisbon metropolitan area. Both Spanish and Portuguese civil leaders have called general strikes of their own, also expected to take place in November. Then there's the situation in Tunisia, where, last Saturday, protesters held the nation's biggest march in several years in a seething expression of discontent against Tunisian President Qayes Syed. After the seized broad state authority and dissolved parliament across 2021 and 2022, Syed has turned into a post-Arab spring autocrat in Tunisia, cracking down against civil society, the political opposition and the media, while consolidating his control over the levels of power of the Tunisian state. Under his watch, Tunisia has endured tough and worsening times. A Reuters report on the subject identified, quote, "an economic crisis worsening public services recurring water and power cuts at shortages of medicines and essential goods," as driving actors behind the public's discontent. This month, the broad spectrum of the Tunisian political opposition managed to join forces in an unusual share of solidarity as they marched alongside lawyers, doctors, the unemployed, journalists and other groups in a well-coordinated display against Syed. Probably even despite Syed's authoritarian takeover of the country, Tunisia is somewhat more likely candidate for a change in government imposed by its people than many of the dictatorships of the Middle East and North Africa. Syed has proved to be much more talented at seizing power than actually using that power once he's gathered it. Today, he hasn't been able to implement the kinds of repressive measures that might make a protest movement like this disappear in a more tightly controlled country. With public displays of anger becoming more and more intense across all four nations, along with the recent events in France and Albania, it's clear that Europe and North Africa are at a risk of entering a new round of anti-government uprisings. Around the world, other nations appeared to be added in the same direction, especially in India, where mass demonstrations against the Modi government show no sign of slowing down and in Pakistan, where supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan are trying to resist a federal takeover of the Khan-friendly province of Khyber Pak Tunghwa. If more and more of these protests continue to crop up and intensify, then this would be the latest go round of cycle that's repeated again and again over the last few years as youth-led demonstrators rally against a common set of grievances. These most recent movements share a common core grievance. Rising costs for ordinary people, the governments are either unable or simply unwilling to address. If this latest round of protests is any indication, then the people in each of these nations are highly motivated to see this through even if rioting and destruction can't be avoided. For our next story, we'll turn our attention to the DRC, where the nation's former President Joseph Kabir has officially taken command of the rebellion that holds vast wealths of territory in the eastern part of the country. On the 12th of October, Kabir launched the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation, or FRN, at his residence in Goma, the city that the rebel group M23 has controlled since January last year. Before then, Kabir had denied any involvement in the rebellion, despite the Congolese government's repeated accusations to the contrary. The FRN is meant to bring the disparate rebel groups in eastern DRC together under one political and military banner, taking over the role of the Congo River Alliance, or AFC, which was dissolved after the FRN's formation. The AFC, by the way, included M23 as one of its constituent factions. Kabir will now lead the new organization, while Korne Nanga, the former head of the AFC, will serve as one of two vice presidents. While this sounds like a massive shaker, it really isn't. According to the analysts at the Critical Threats Project, or CDP, this is a political rebranding of the AFC, which formalizes Kabir's role in the group instead of a genuine attempt to restructure the coalition. So why did Kabir do this? Why did he finally join the rebels after years of denying any involvement with them? The short answer is that he was running out of other options. The CTP argues that joining the rebels was the only option Kabir had left to protect his interests and political power from the government of President Felix Shish ikady. Kabir and Shishikady have been a bit of rivals since at least 2018, when the two agreed to share power after a disputed election. This power-sharing agreement would only last until 2020, and by 2021, Shishik ady had pushed Kabir's loyalists out of the government and the army. The rivalries only gotten worse in the intervening years, as Shishikady's government has aggressively gone after the former president and his allies. Kinshasa has gone as far as sentencing Kabir to death in absentia for treason and war crimes over his alleged role in the rebellion. Kinshasa also suspended his political party and seized the assets of the party 's senior officials as part of a strategy to exert maximum pressure on Kabir, and to deny him any political influence. All of this pressure is being applied at a time when it's becoming increasingly clear that President Shishikady is trying to extend his stay in office beyond what the DRC's constitution would allow. Under the current constitution, the president could be elected for two five- year terms, as Shishikady's second time is set to end in 2028. Shishikady's allies have been laying the groundwork for a constitutional change that would allow the president to stay in office longer. Shishikady himself has fueled speculation by saying that while he wouldn't seek a third German office, he would accept it if the Congolese people wanted him to continue, which is the kind of thing that someone says when they definitely want to extend their time in office. But the DRC wasn't the only one applying pressure on the former president. The Trump administration sanctioned Kabir in April this year for his alleged role in funding and providing political support to the rebel group. All of this pressure meant that Kabir no longer had a reason to officially stay out to the conflict. The consequences, he clearly hoped to avoid, kept to find him anyway. And this leads us to our next question. How does Kabir's formal entrance into the rebellion and the formation of the FR N affect the balance of power within the rebel group? While the rebels were under the AFC banner, the group was led by Corne Nanga, who is best known within the DRC for overseeing the disputed 2018 election. Nanga served as the political head of the AFC, and while that position should have granted him a lot of power, the reality couldn't have been more different. Democracy in Africa, a local research organization, noted that Nanga didn't enjoy any real backing from Rwanda, the means of order of the rebels, and that he had little budget and maneuvering space, which are kind of important if you want to project power. His position was just mostly ceremonial. Instead, most observers believe that Sultani Makenga, the leader of M23, was the real power in the AFC, as he controlled the men with guns. The balance of power is definitely going to change with the formation of the FR N. A key reason why is because Kabir, unlike Nanga, is an actual political force. He ruled the DRC for 18 years, and comes with influential connections all through Africa – particularly in Namibia, Kenya, South Africa, and other countries, which he visits regularly. Kabir also enjoys a much better relationship with Rwanda than Nanga, which should give him even more leverage over the other members of the rebel group. There's also the personal history between Makenga and Kabir to consider, which could be best described as "cadentius". Kabir's government and UN-backed troops defeated the first M23 rebellion in 2013, and Makenga ended up in exile in Uganda, which makes it odd to see the two on the same side. If that wasn't awkward enough, the Congo research group reported that when Kab ir arrived in Goma in May last year, Makenga came to visit, but was forced to wait for hours after being disarmed by Kabir's guards. Nanga, on the other hand, was let in straight away. Kabir and Makenga also have differing views on how to approach the insurgency. Kabir is indicated that he would favor a March on Kinshasa to remove President Shishikady from office, while Makenga and the other senior officials within M23 would prefer to consolidate their control over North and South Kivu to the most mineral-rich provinces in the country. This shift is happening at a particularly turbulent time for M23. The group recently uncovered a plot to oust Makenga orchestrated by people close to Nanga after multiple reports emerged that Rwanda was considering a replacement. That attempted coup, and Kabir's new role within the alliance could exacerbate the long-standing tensions between M23 and the other members of the alliance. If they are not resolved, then history might remember the formation of the FRN, not as a new chapter in the alliance, but as the beginning of the end. Thank you for watching.