2023-08-12 05:01:00
Engulfed in a boundless and unchecked spiral of violence, the government of Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador is heading toward its disastrous end amid spasms and convulsions of ever-deepening impact.
Along with the assassination of the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago, on July 24, the deadly attack against presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, which occurred in Quito on August 9, ends up configuring a picture in which, as occurred in Colombia and Mexico, In past decades, political crime ended up naturalizing as a major and underground prolongation of a situation of growing generalized insecurity.
Fernando Villavicencio was a politician and journalist that was nothing short of controversial on the Ecuadorian scene in the last twenty years: he maintained a surprising ability to stay in the spotlight based on legal complaints and accusations of all kinds, mainly referring to alleged acts of corruption and embezzlement of public resources.
Villavicencio achieved some notoriety as an investigative journalist in different graphic media, but he would reach a wide repercussion when he questioned that on September 30, 2010 an attempt was made to carry out a coup against the government of Rafael Correa and that it was all about a self-kidnapping promoted from the top of political power.
As a result of this pronouncement, in March 2014 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for insults against the presidential figure. To avoid this sentence, Villavicencio took refuge in the Amazon, protected by the Sarayaku People, and then managed to escape to Peru. In total, the journalist remained a fugitive from Ecuadorian justice for three years.
He returned to Ecuador in September 2017 thanks to the initiative of President Lenin Moreno, an enemy of Correa and interested in Villavicencio presenting his complaints in Ecuador to the courts. Shortly after his arrival in the country, in fact, he publicly pointed out the Correista government for its alleged involvement with the private company Petrochina.
Protected by Moreno and by the interests of the most conservative and retrograde sectors of the country, Villavicencio was also one of the protagonists of the investigation that would lead to the Bribes 2012-2016 case for which the leadership of the Alianza País party was accused. to accept payments from the Odebrecht company.
Without much possibility of defense and with the verdict established in advance, Rafael Correa was sentenced to eight years in prison for the crime of bribery and 19 other defendants were also sentenced, including former Vice President Jorge Glas.
In October 2020 Villavicencio took advantage of his popularity and with a speech focused on the fight against corruption, he won a seat in the Assembly. Despite the fact that he recently claimed his alleged political independence, Villavicencio could be observed in close ties with President Guillermo Lasso.
Villavicencio’s parliamentary work would suddenly come to an end when, faced with growing ungovernability and fearing impeachment, Lasso decided to use the “cross death”, calling general elections and a change in power.
Villavicencio was the first candidate to announce his presidential candidacy in a campaign focused on attacking the “mafias” that operate in Ecuador and their collusion with political power, in a constant and obsessive attack against Correa, without mentioning the direct responsibility of Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso in the crisis in which Ecuador finds itself today.
In addition to its obvious local implications, the crime threatens to have international spillovers. After the false step of presenting the narco group Los Lobos as responsible for the murder and the reply of the “authentic” Lobos proclaiming their innocence, a day after the attack a gang of six Colombian hit men was caught, some of whose members would have recognized by witnesses to the event.
So many twists and turns and operations only reveal that the government of Guillermo Lasso, the police and the intelligence apparatus are truly adrift and, surely, in the midst of internal conflicts and rivalries.
Beyond the enormous doubts and questions generated by this case, there is the certainty that an internal war is being waged in Ecuador over the drug market between gangs and local criminal organizations that, in some cases, have obvious external ties in the United States. United States, Mexico, Spain and Albania.
If Villavicencio’s death is definitely linked to his confrontation with drug trafficking organizations, then other governments like the US will surely seek to intervene and, in their own way, encourage an eventual internal peace process. Beyond the concrete results, the priority will be to consolidate Ecuador’s external alignment and its peripheral condition in the face of possible changes that may materialize in its political orientation.
It is not a minor fact that this attack occurs in the midst of the alleged strengthening of the Ecuadorian security apparatus thanks to the support of the United States Department of Defense. In fact, and a week ago, Washington promoted the delivery of more than 3 million dollars for the local Armed Forces…
Although it is still too early to draw conclusions, it is possible to affirm that eleven days before the presidential elections, the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio could have been planned with the objective of dirtying the figure of Luisa González, Rafael Correa’s candidate, who First gear in all polls.
Despite the fact that last week Villavicencio announced that both he and his main collaborators were being threatened by drug trafficking, much of the press highlighted the enmity between the late candidate and former President Correa as a “necessary” context to understand the nature of this political crime.
With the Lasso government in free fall, it is conceivable that if Luisa González does win the August 20 elections, the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio becomes the first crisis she will have to endure. What is clear is that, at this point, the reprehensible attack is no longer against this ominous present, but against any possibility of real change that may arise in the near future.
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