Ecuador: at war with the drug mafia
There have been shootings and looting across Ecuador following a well-known drug lord’s escape from prison. Masked and heavily armed, gang members also stormed a live TV programme and forced those present to demand that President Daniel Noboa end his war on drug trafficking. Noboa has declared a state of emergency and deployed the military against the gangs. Where will all this lead?
Don’t succumb to authoritarianism
El País warns against overreactions:
“President Noboa has confirmed that the country is at war with crime. However, as his speeches have shown, he is trying to introduce an authoritarian model similar to that established by Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. During the election campaign, which was rocked by the murder of candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August, the president promised to buy prison ships to isolate the most dangerous criminals. The grave crisis in which Ecuadorians find themselves requires committed action from all parties and a relentless fight against crime on the part of the state. However, human rights and fundamental freedoms must not suffer as a result. Social peace and democratic coexistence are at stake.”
Deal with the mafia possible
Political scientist Vitaly Kulyk comments in Censor.net:
“Noboa enjoys significant support among the civilian population, as well as among certain sections of the non-corrupt security forces. But since the local authorities and the police have been completely infiltrated by cartels, there is a risk that the president’s decisions will be sabotaged. Noboa’s critics on the left say he will ultimately come to an agreement with the gangsters to end the spiral of violence, and that his family’s contacts (an oligarchic dynasty of banana traders) in the mafia environment will help him to do this. However, if the wave of violence is not stemmed quickly enough, Noboa will soon face a political crisis.”
Entire countries hijacked
In a Facebook post, journalist Anatoly Nesmiyan sees similar problems throughout Latin America:
“Sooner or later, organised crime comes to the conclusion that the biggest gains are made if you manage to hijack an entire state. ... Venezuela has lost the war against the mafia, as have most of the Central American states. ... In Brazil the prospects are very poor. ... In Ecuador the situation is deteriorating. The outcome of the current round of violent confrontation is difficult to predict, although the transfer of powers to the army suggests that the police are ineffectual and probably already controlled by the cartels.”
National strategies doomed to fail
The continent must come together to face the problem, Le Monde urges:
“Ecuador, long considered an oasis of peace in a troubled region, has fallen prey to organised crime. ... Ecuador’s weaknesses show how illusory it is to react with national responses to a problem that knows no national borders. A prolonged destabilisation of the country would be catastrophic for its immediate neighbours, as well as for a large part of Latin America. Ecuador needs security assistance on a continental scale to address what is by far the main problem of its citizens. The situation is urgent.”
Destroy organised crime’s business model
The violence is a consequence of international drug policy, writes the taz:
“In all industrialised countries, people are snorting all the coke they can get up their noses, across all social classes and political divides. Including those who normally only buy fair-trade organic food. ... There isn’t half a gram of cocaine that isn’t tainted with blood. But as long as it is politically convenient for the governments of the North to maintain the illusory but seemingly so caring goal of a drug-free world, nothing will change. They could switch to realpolitik and regulate the market from plant to end consumer. But instead: the North gets the lifestyle, the South gets the dead.”
