The difference is the public nature of the execution. That is what makes it more similar to, say, Colombia or Venezuela _to me._ Within the context of 'magical realism', it is the perspective and mass dissemination of the violence that heightens that feeling.
Going back to the original topic, there is a reason that most of 100 Years of Solitude's pivotal moments happen around the staging of public executions (and not so much the off-screen violence, of which there is some but it's not focal).