2023-05-08 14:02:54
Fear, uncertainty, depression and lack of hope are some of the feelings that we observe among Ecuadorians, as a consequence of the social crisis and the escalation of insecurity and violence that plagues the country. A climate of fear has been generated, amplified by the mass media, which is very dangerous, as it constitutes the best breeding ground for legitimizing authoritarianism, disrespect for human rights, the appearance of paramilitary gangs and violent reactions in certain sectors of the population that decide to take justice into their own hands in the face of the ineffectiveness of the police and other state institutions.
Fear: Miguel Merino (ART)
alarming figures
Ecuador closed 2022 with its worst rates of criminal violence. In the country, 4,603 violent deaths were registered, which meant a rate of 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The growth is exponential, since, in 2021, the official rate was 13.7 deaths, that is, in one year the increase was 82.5%. This places Ecuador as the sixth most violent country in the region, above Mexico, and the country with the highest growth in criminal violence in Latin America.
In the first quarter of 2023, the situation has worsened with 1,356 registered violent deaths and a daily average of 17.4 cases, while in 2022 the average was 10.4 cases.
Another aspect of the violence that has complicated the situation is the prison crisis. Since February 2021, there have been 11 prison massacres in the country that left 413 inmates murdered. In 2022 alone there were 120 deaths in seven massacres. Crimes such as robberies, assaults, extortion, kidnappings, femicides, disappearance of people, etc. have also increased. The development of new types of crime is very worrying, such as the so-called “vaccines” that consist of demanding payments in exchange for supposed protection. This fact causes great economic damage to small businesses and companies and has spread to sectors as delicate as education.
The problem is complex and is out of control by the State
Consequently, the phenomenon of insecurity is very complex and has many facets. The Lasso government ignores this reality and tries to confine the problem to drug trafficking and the confrontation between organized crime gangs. The serious thing is that the State has lost control of the situation and is giving blind blows. The regime has shown its total inability to control the issue of insecurity from a comprehensive perspective and does not have an adequate plan to deal with it. Its only discursive axis is to fight crime with a “strong hand”, involving the military through states of emergency and entrusting them with the ministries and institutions related to security. However, this pompous discourse does not correspond to reality, since sufficient budgetary resources have not been allocated to provide the police and law enforcement with the equipment and supplies to combat increasingly better armed and organized crime.
It has also decreed the free carrying of weapons for civilians, acknowledging that the State does not have the capacity to act in the face of the situation and rather favoring crime and arms dealers. It has recently decreed that organized crime gangs be declared terrorists, as if making declarations or increasing the sentences would solve the problem.
However, the situation does not concern only the executive power but also other functions of the State such as the legislative and judicial. There is no coordination between them and rather there are mutual accusations. The government accuses the Assembly of not having given way to its juridical-legal proposals and, above all, the judges of a permissive and dishonest exercise in releasing criminals. The legislature in the hands of the opposition to Lasso responds that they have approved at least three legal reforms and that the executive has the necessary tools to act against crime. Justice is very delegitimized before the citizenry due to its slowness, its lack of impartiality and its political groping by the governments on duty. In conclusion, there is a chaos in the state institutionality as a whole that demands fundamental changes and not simple patches and conjunctural measures.
The social and political context of violence and insecurity
The context of this serious situation is the socioeconomic and political crisis that the country is experiencing. Problems such as unemployment, underemployment, precarious work, poverty and extreme poverty, child malnutrition, the deterioration of public services in the areas of health, education, housing, roads and others, are the backdrop that allows us to understand the overflow delinquency and the increase in social violence.
Politically, the Lasso government, greatly weakened by its ineffectiveness, its neoliberal policies and well-founded allegations of corruption (including the links between his brother-in-law Danilo Carrera and senior officials with drug trafficking mafias), is facing a political trial that could end in his dismissal by the National Assembly, an issue that will be defined in mid-May. The trial is for the crime of embezzlement in the Ecuadorian Oil Fleet (FLOPEC), the only legal cause recognized by the Constitutional Court for the prosecution of the president. The government has dedicated itself to the murky task of capturing votes from opposition political groups in exchange for political or economic concessions. There have been several defections in assemblymen from Pachakutik, the Democratic Left and the PSC, which makes it very difficult for there to be enough votes in the National Assembly to dismiss Lasso.
Are there alternatives to the overflow of insecurity and violence?
The right has always proposed a policy of iron fist, unrestricted repression and increased penalties for criminals. The result is in sight: an increase in social violence, an increase in the prison population, overcrowding and the impossibility of rehabilitation. The opposite of the supposed social rehabilitation occurs: prisons have become schools for the improvement of crime. Currently, it has become fashionable to invoke as a model to follow the one applied by the government of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, since it has managed to significantly reduce crime rates. However, there is no mention of the fact that these achievements have a high economic cost (mega prison that houses 60,000 inmates) and above all political, since it has given rise to serious violations against human rights (for example, many innocent people have been arrested and sentenced ), authoritarianism of the government that has managed to control the other powers of the State and therefore weakening of democracy. For this and other reasons this model does not appear to be sustainable.
Faced with the phenomenon of growing drug trafficking, governments in general have aligned themselves with the policies of the North American DEA: “war without quarter against drug trafficking mafias.” It is 40 years since this supposed war and what we see is that this illegal business continues to grow unstoppably and provides enormous profits to the powerful mafias that control it internationally. According to CELAC, only in the Putumayo area in Colombia, 3.5 billion dollars have been laundered in recent years. This enormous mass of money is laundered through international financial capital, that is, banks and other financial institutions, having become a constitutive element of the capitalist system.
The socialist left has not had a clear line in the face of the increasingly acute problem of insecurity and violence. He has generally supported the discourse of respect for human rights, but now he is suffering an onslaught from the right that alleges that we sympathize with criminals, but not with the common citizen who is a victim of crime.
Collecting some discussions, such as the contribution of colleagues from MIT in Chile, we propose the following proposals for debate:
– The need to legalize and regularize the use of some less lethal drugs such as marijuana, so that the great incentive of the enormous profits generated by its illegal nature is lost, as happened in the 20s of the last century with the drug business. alcohol.
– Promote neighborhood and community organization to carry out collective activities decided in a democratic and participatory manner in order to face the problem of insecurity and criminal violence, avoiding falling into violent practices contrary to human rights. In Ecuador we have the example of self-defense and the guards formed in some indigenous communities that correspond to their ancestral customs and practices.
– Require employers to reach agreements with their workers, especially regarding working hours and anticipating the availability of transportation in order to protect their safety.
However, we believe that the only fundamental alternative to put an end to the growing insecurity and social violence that plagues the country is a change in the neoliberal economic model and, ultimately, in the unfair, oppressive and excluding capitalist system, and its replacement by a socialist system that guarantees the access of all citizens to decent work. This fact will allow them to have the necessary income to satisfy the basic needs of the whole family, as well as access to free and quality education and health provided by the State.
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