Criminal gangs have wreaked havoc in several provinces in western Ecuador. Riots in at least six prisons, kidnapped police officers (including one in Quito, the capital), explosions and burning of vehicles, shooting at passers-by, looting of stores, raids on universities and even a live news broadcast in the port city of Guayaquil (previously prosperous, now taken over by gangs) has left at least ten dead and several injured.
Organized crime has declared war on the Ecuadorian president, Daniel Noboa, as evidenced by the messages that the gang members have recorded on the networks these days and that are addressed to the president. Noboa, heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, took power in November with a promise that his government would stop a wave of drug-related violence on the streets and in prisons that has been growing for years.
“Organized crime linked to drug trafficking and weapons has become internationalized in Ecuador, especially throughout the drug corridor, which links Peru and Colombia along the west coast,” explains Anna Ayuso, researcher at Cidob (Barcelona Center for International Affairs). and specialist in Latin America. As a consequence, the gangs have increased their resources and the State, punished by “very weak governments and a justice system that is not very independent and penetrated by drug trafficking,” has been overwhelmed, according to the expert.
The most recent evidence of the power held by gangs in the country was the street murder of independent presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a critic of corruption and organized crime, during the election campaign last August. “That was a declaration of war and now the same thing is happening,” says Ayuso. The difference is that today the enemy of the gangs is the president, a 35-year-old businessman who surprisingly won the elections and left Correismo, the left-wing political movement around former president Rafael Correa, in the opposition. Noboa has admitted that the country is facing an “internal armed conflict.”
For the moment, Noboa has responded with an iron fist. First, he decreed a 60-day state of emergency following the escape from prison of the leader of Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, leader of the Los Choneros gang, a group with ties to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and which is accused of being behind the attack on Villavicencio. The measure allows the authorities to suspend people's rights and mobilize the military. On Tuesday, shortly after the gunmen stormed the television station, Noboa issued another decree designating 22 drug trafficking gangs operating in the country as terrorist groups, including Los Choneros or Los Lobos (the leader of which also fled. from jail on Friday).
The decree turns the gangs into military objectives, said Admiral Jaime Vela, head of the joint command of the Armed Forces. The government has said the violence is a reaction to Noboa's plan to build a new high-security prison and move imprisoned gang leaders.
“In the short term the response is punitive, but in the long term there has to be a more concerted response, which includes much-needed structural reforms, such as strengthening the security forces and the judicial system, which is truly effective and democratically controlled and, put an end, above all, to corruption,” says Ayuso. The Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, Juanita Goebertus, points in the same direction, stating that “to confront organized crime, Ecuador needs to strengthen its judicialization capacity, control prisons, and investigate money laundering and corruption.” , according to a message published on social networks.
Noboa now faces the dilemma of choosing the path of El Salvador, where its president, Nayib Bukele, has appeased the violence of the gangs with authoritarian measures and cutting fundamental rights, or opting to reach agreements with the opposition, if it takes a position. collaborative, according to the Cidob expert. “In Ecuador there is a left-wing party that has more than 40% of the Parliament [Correismo] and I do not believe that it is willing to give carte blanche in the advancement of an authoritarian system as has happened with Bukele, who does have a parliamentary majority to do what they want.” There is a danger that Noboa will opt for the plebiscite option, the popular consultation that the constitution facilitates to bypass Parliament, Ayuso points out.
For now, the National Assembly has given its full support to the measures that Noboa has taken and the actions of the law enforcement forces. The members of the Ecuadorian legislative branch assured that they are working "in unity, regardless of the different political and ideological currents," according to a statement published in X. We will have to see how long political solidarity lasts.
