Trump’s Rent-A-Gulag is Run By?

The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison located in Tecoluca, is managed by the Salvadoran government.​ Photos of the arrival of Trump-supplied detainees, to CECOT, show a force that has experience with both significant control of subjects, and a desire for anonymity.

During the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992), the U.S. sided with the Salvadoran government, against the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of leftist guerrilla groups that was backed, in part, by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

The U.S. government, under Ronald Reagan, provided nearly $5 billion in military aid to El Salvador. It also deployed military advisors, to train Salvadoran forces

One byproduct was the Atlácatl Battalion, a Salvadoran Army counterinsurgency unit, that was trained in the United States by Marine Special Forces.

Later, they gained infamy, for their role in major civil war atrocities, including the El Mozote massacre, in 1981, and the 1989 Jesuit murders.1

The 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords ended El Salvador’s civil war. Atlácatl was disbanded, as part of that settlement.2 ​

In 1993, a broad amnesty law followed. It shielded wartime perpetrators from prosecution. This impunity meant that notorious war-time figures not only remained free. They reintegrated into society, and public service. Some continued careers in security institutions​.

There also was no specific legal provision that barred former Atlácatl members from seeking government employment, including in the police, or prison service.

Ex-Atlácatl Personnel Enter Post-War Security Institutions

After demobilization, many former combatants, both Army, and FMLN guerrillas, who were also guilty of a fair share of atrocities, joined the new National Civil Police, the private security sector, and the prisons.

A small elite of ex-military officers dominated El Salvador’s security organs for decades after the war​, Human rights observers noted, at the time.3

This suggests that some Atlácatl veterans likely secured roles in the security and penitentiary system. Identifying specific individuals, however, is difficult. Public records do not explicitly list ex-Atlácatl members employed as prison staff, and no policy required labeling them as such.

El Salvador’s custodios, the prison guard corps, have historically included many ex-military personnel.

Prisons fell under the Public Security Ministry in the 1990s, which was often staffed by former soldiers. The continuity of war-era personnel in security jobs was largely accepted in the post-war governments​.4

Analyst Héctor Silva pointed out, in 2014, that “the same group of [ex-war] officers…have occupied the commands of the police for the last 22 years”, thanks to political patronage​.5

It is plausible, therefore, that lower-ranking Atlácatl ex-soldiers found employment as prison guards or advisors, especially given their combat experience, even if they weren’t publicly spotlighted.

Wartime Tactics in Modern Salvadoran Prisons

No high-profile case has surfaced of a named Atlácatl veteran, serving as a prison warden, or advisor. Yet, there are instances that have been reported that suggest war-time tactics, that Atlácatl unit members used, were finding their way into the prison system.

In recent years, investigative reports have identified brutal prison staff whose backgrounds raise questions.

A Mariona prison guard nicknamed “Montaña” (William Ernesto Magaña Rodríguez), who began working in the prison system in 2006​.6 He was accused by dozens of inmates of systematic torture and abuse, effectively acting as the “head of torturers” there​.

The El Faro news outlet documented how Montaña freely roamed various cellblocks issuing orders for degradation, torture, and even killing. It was behavior reminiscent of the unchecked brutality of Salvadoran wartime units like the Atlácatl.7 His impunity, and authority within the jail, suggest that there is institutional tolerance for extremist ex-military figures, in custodial roles.

There is no explicit link between Montaña, and the Atlácatl Battalion. His case, though, exemplifies how former or off-duty military men have operated within prisons, at a level consistent with the Battalion’s past history of abuse.

Human rights groups have compared the abuses, under Montaña, and others, to the abuses committed during the civil war​.8 This continuity indicates that at least some prison personnel share the Atlácatl’s hardline ethos, if not their specific unit pedigree.

It’s noteworthy that several Atlácatl officers remained in government service, after 1992, though not necessarily in prisons.

Inocente Orlando Montano, a former colonel who was implicated in ordering the Jesuit massacre, served as Vice-Minister of Public Security, in the early 1990s, overseeing police, and prisons, before retiring. Decades later, he was extradited to Spain, where he was convicted, in 2020, for the Jesuit murders​.9

Another Atlácatl officer, Lt. René Yusshy Mendoza, avoided prosecution, in El Salvador. As a cooperating witness, in Spain, he received a light one-year sentence for the murders, due to his testimony​.10

These cases underscore that Atlácatl personnel faced little scrutiny in El Salvador, and nothing formally prevented such individuals from holding public-sector jobs.

In fact, until Montano’s foreign trial, no Atlácatl member had been punished at home.11 Their long immunity underscores why hiring ex-Atlácatl soldiers, in the police, or in prisons, would have been controversial only if publicly known.

Human Rights & International Criticisms

Human rights organizations frequently criticized El Salvador’s post-war administrations for failing to purge security forces of individuals implicated in atrocities. The UN Truth Commission recommended the removal of officers involved in serious abuses, but El Salvador’s 1993 Amnesty Law nullified those recommendations​.12

Modern Prisons. Classic Brutality.

For over two decades, former Atlácatl soldiers were legally allowed to work in prisons, or anywhere else, so long as they met the standard requirements.

Current prison conditions, under President Nayib Bukele’s state of exception (2022–present) have sparked comparisons to past atrocities. Mass prisoner round-ups, and reports of inmate abuse, have led critics to argue that “the militaristic, iron-fist approach” once employed by units like Atlácatl, now pervades the penitentiary strategy​1314.

The broader policy debate implicitly links the legacy of Atlácatl’s brutality to the ethos of today’s prison regime, even if individual Atlácatl veterans are not named.

Fidel Zavala formally accused the prison authorities of torture, and corruption, after witnessing dozens of inmates beaten, or killed, by guards in Mariona, and Cutumay Camones prisons​15​16. His complaint was referred to the Attorney General, then specifically targeted to the Osiris Luna, Director of Prisons, for human rights violations​, by prison staff17.

Such allegations echo the culture of impunity that Atlácatl embodied during the war. They have fueled political debate over who is serving as prison personnel, and what training, or background, enables such abuses.

There is no official roster of ex-Atlácatl Battalion members in the Salvadoran prison system. The post-war immunity made it likely, that a number of Atlácatl veterans found employment as prison guards, or advisors. Amnesty, and a lack of vetting meant that former Atlácatl soldiers faced no formal barriers to such jobs​18.

While no specific names of prison administrators have been publicly tied to Atlácatl, the continuing reports of brutality behind bars suggest that the spirit of Atlácatl tactics were invested into the penal system’s ranks.

Unreformed Prisons Open Old Wounds in El Salvador’s Dark History of Violence and Oppression

Analysts and human rights advocates have long decried the presence of unreformed war-era personnel in public security​.19 Even if not singled out by name, former Atlácatl fighters have served El Salvador’s government after 1992, and by extension some likely served in its prisons in roles ranging from guard to consultant.

This has remained a sensitive issue. The topic gained renewed relevance as El Salvador’s hardline policies put prisons at the center of national security, reviving questions about who is enforcing order, and whether past human rights violators are again in positions of power.

In short, ex-Atlácatl members could easily have worked in the prison system, under the radar of public attention, a fact enabled by decades of impunity.

The Trump administration, deporting alleged gang members, and “terrorists” to CECOT is only going to intensify scrutiny of El Salvador’s prisons, and who runs them. The wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego García, and Trump’s threats to send anyone, including citizens, down there, without trial, or any due process, has begun to focus the whole world’s attention on El Salvador’s notorious system.

President Bukele may find the reported $6M price tag paid to house the American detainees in his prisons ending up being far more costly to him, as global scrutiny intensifies.

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