The Islander Who Vanquished the State of Exception
Carlos Barrera
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Carlos Barrera
Virginia won. After losing for so long, and for no reason, she won. After losing the person she loved most, she won. She got him back.
Virginia, a 50-year-old woman who sells coconut preserves and almond seeds, defeated El Salvador’s state of exception. Traveling from her island home to courthouses and prisons in multiple cities, she reclaimed the son whom the state had stolen from her. Despite her financial limitations, Virginia persevered and ultimately prevailed over an injustice imposed by the most celebrated policy of the most powerful man El Salvador has known since the civil war: Nayib Bukele. Virginia succeeded in what so few have accomplished in the past two years.
Virginia Cali is a resident of Espíritu Santo Island, in Jiquilisco Bay, Usulután. She completed four years of elementary school, then went on to learn how to make coconut preserves that she sells along the Litoral Highway on El Salvador’s southern coast. The island where Virginia and her family live is a case study in how the police and military have acted as judge and jury under the state of exception, indiscriminately arresting thousands of people. There have never been gangs on the island. Nevertheless, Virginia’s son Samuel, 17 years old at the time, was detained on the night of July 3, 2022, a little over three months into the state of exception, and charged with illicit association, a gang-related crime. To date, more than 78,000 people have been arrested, twenty-five of them on the island with no gangs.
According to a report by Socorro Jurídico Humanitario, a Salvadoran human rights organization, 236 people are known to have died in prison under the state of exception, with most having never been tried or convicted. The arbitrary nature of the exception regime has destroyed due process, hinging on court hearings where hundreds of people are processed simultaneously, without individual attention to each case. All information on the state of exception is a state secret. But because the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro, said so in a television interview, we know that some 7,000 people have been released during the period in question. Samuel is one of those people. Virginia got him back.
For Virginia, the journey to reclaim her son was as troubled as the choppy waters that rock the boats in Jiquilisco Bay. She had to pay for dozens of rides in lanchas, $25 dollars per trip, to cross the bay at dawn with her bundle of prison supplies, then make her way to the El Espino Social Integration Center in Ahuachapán, more than 200 kilometers from the island. She made repeated trips to the courts in Usulután and San Miguel to follow her son’s trial. Even with a letter of release in hand, she had to go to the prison three times before Samuel was finally returned to her.
Each monthly trip to deliver basic necessities to her son in prison took at least $35 out of Virginia’s already stretched-thin budget. She got Samuel back, but lost precious time. For nearly 20 months, she combined her work preparing and selling canned goods with her son’s release proceedings. Virginia even lost hope, when her son was sentenced to ten years based on the false testimony of a sergeant before the Juvenile Chamber in Usulután. She appealed the decision, crushed by a policy statutes with no clear rules, and he was ultimately released.
Samuel is not a gang member and never has been, as Virginia and her entire community knows, and the Salvadoran state now admits. Samuel is not a gangster. Virginia is not the mother of a gangster. After enduring 589 days with her son in prison, a mother from the island of Espiritú Santo defeated a state of exception that was designed never to be defeated. Today, 17 islanders remain imprisoned in the regime’s cells.
On December 13, 2023, Virginia Cali, 50 years old, walks past the entrance of the Ilobasco Rehabilitation Farm after inquiring about the process to release her son, Samuel, who had been acquitted of illicit association. That day, and the next, Virginia left without her son as a result of bureaucratic delays. It would take nearly two more months before Samuel was finally released.
A poster in a wooden frame, which still hangs on the wall of Virginia’s home, reads: “We demand justice and freedom for Samuel Hernández Cali.” Relatives of Espíritu Santo Island detainees took posters like this to every protest and occupation they attended.
Every week, Virginia leaves the island to deliver the products she makes to retailers. During the time her son was detained, she never stopped working. The money she makes selling almonds and coconut preserves is her only income; she had to wring out $35 every month to deliver a package of cleaning supplies and other necessities to her imprisoned son.
Samuel was 17 years old when he was arrested. He was detained at the El Espino Social Integration Center, in Ahuachapán, and then at the Ilobasco Rehabilitation Farm. He does not go to school. Every day, starting at 6:00 a.m., he harvests coconuts for a local cooperative on the island, earning $5 a day. “When I was inside, I didn’t know anything about what was going on outside,” he says. “I didn’t know about all my mother’s efforts to keep me from dying inside. I saw a lot of people whose relatives didn’t send them anything, which is why I’m so thankful for everything she did for me.”
On April 30, 2024, a page from La Prensa Gráfica rests on a small table in Virginia’s kitchen: “Attorney General’s Office opens investigation into Sergeant Montesinos.” The inquiry into Montesinos was prompted by complaints filed by a group of island residents. The sergeant had given testimony before a judge concerning the arrests of some of the young men detained on Espíritu Santo Island. This testimony resulted in Samuel being sentenced to 10 years in prison for the alleged crime of illicit association. On November 20, 2023, the San Miguel Juvenile Chamber approved an appeal filed by Samuel’s defense attorneys, dismissing the testimony of Sergeant Montesinos due to inconsistencies in his account of the arrests.
On December 7, 2023, Virginia and her family rallied to the San Miguel courthouse. That day, in juvenile court, Samuel’s defense presented arguments against what they said was an illegal conviction. Virginia left the trial dismayed after the judges neglected to issue a response the same day, and instead said they needed time to analyze the arguments. Five days later, the court issued Samuel’s letter of release.
May 3, 2024, 1:00 in the afternoon. According to weather reports, the temperature in Jiquilisco was 43 degrees Celsius (over 109 degrees Fahrenheit). Virginia walked along the Litoral Highway just as she has done for almost 20 years, carrying her products in her hands. She went from stall to stall, selling her goods and delivering orders she had placed days before. That week, Virginia earned 35 dollars.
Virginia cries as she hugs two of her children, Melvin and Delmy, on December 14, 2023, after learning that the Ilobasco Rehabilitation Farm had postponed Samuel’s release.
As she cooks coconut preserves, Virginia says that after the stress of months of her son’s detention, she suffers from spells of dizziness that often make it impossible for her to cook or crack almond shells. “I have no choice; If I don’t work, we won’t be able to cover all our expenses,” she says.
Virginia is a religious woman. She says that perhaps her son’s arrest was God testing her faith. She speaks of how unjust the men who bore false witness to her son were: “They should repent. God forgives us all... The truth almost always triumphs, and just as my son got out, I hope that, little by little, the rest of the innocent islanders who are imprisoned will get out, too.”
*Translated by Max Granger
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