How an 'Island of Peace' Came Undone

Inside the deteriorating situation in Ecuador
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 10, 2024 11:05 AM CST
How a 'Corner of Relative Peace' Came Undone
Soldiers patrol outside the government palace during a state of emergency in Quito, Ecuador, on Tuesday.   (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

"All I know is that it's time to leave this country and go very far away." So said the head of news for Ecuador's TC Television after armed masked men broke in during a live broadcast Tuesday and attempted to force a presenter to read a message they'd written on the air. It was an event preceded by the Monday night kidnappings of four police officers and a powerful gang leader's apparent weekend escape from prison. "Until just a few years ago, Ecuador was a corner of relative peace," notes the Guardian. So what's behind the country's swift descent? An explainer:

  • The country is bookended by Peru and Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine producers, and has seen more drugs moving across its borders in recent years. CNN reports "the country's deep ports have made it a key transit point for cocaine making its way to consumers in the United States and Europe. And its dollarized economy also makes it a strategic location for traffickers seeking to launder money." Rival gangs fighting to secure control of the smuggling routes has fueled much of the violence.
  • The AP reports Ecuador has recorded at least 30 attacks since news broke that Los Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macias, aka Fito, went missing from his cell in a low-security prison Sunday. He had been due to be moved to a maximum security facility that day. His whereabouts are unknown.
  • The BBC reports news of his escape spurred riots in at least six jails, with some prison guards taken hostage. Another gang leader, Fabricio Colon Pico, escaped prison Monday night.

  • President Daniel Noboa, a 36-year-old who took office in November, issued a state of emergency after Macias' apparent escape, a move the government says prompted criminals to react with violence. One kidnapped officer was forced to appear in a videotaped statement that said, in part, "You declared a state of emergency. We declare police, civilians, and soldiers to be the spoils of war."
  • Noboa subsequently raised the stakes, declaring a state of "internal armed conflict"; the Guardian reports he classified 20 drug trafficking gangs as terrorist groups and gave the military the green light to "neutralize" them "within the bounds of international humanitarian law."
  • The Guardian elaborates on Noboa's stance, reporting he'd previously pledged to take back control of the country's prisons from criminal hands, vowing to "militarize jails, lengthen sentences, and isolate powerful kingpins like those who just escaped."
  • The BBC explains that many of the prison wings that hold the country's most infamous gang members are under inmate control. "Individual cells can be rented from the inmates running the wing, and food, drink, and drugs [that] are smuggled into the jail can also be bought from those in charge," the outlet notes.
  • "We've never seen this before," says Ecuadorian security expert Fernando Carrion, per the Guardian. "We always defined ourselves as an island of peace." That definition is changing, at least by the numbers. Carrion says the rate of violent deaths his country has jumped from 5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017 to 46 per 100,000 in 2023.
  • As for the TV station attackers, authorities say all 13 have been arrested and will be charged with terrorism. They face up to 13 years if convicted.
(More Ecuador stories.)

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