2024-01-10 07:01:00
The escape of Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, head of Los Choneros, one of the main criminal gangs in Ecuador, unleashed a series of attacks with explosives and threats against the public force and the media, which reached its peak yesterday. A group of men took over the TC Televisión Guayaquil channel with weapons and for 30 minutes of panic forced its staff to broadcast the attack on its facilities live.
“Don’t shoot, please, don’t shoot,” shouted a woman in the midst of explosions on the television set. Before the lights went out, the hooded men were observed holding a grenade, pointing weapons at workers and placing what looked like a stick of dynamite in a person’s jacket. A TC journalist sent WhatsApp messages to a reporter from the AFP news agency stating: “Please. They came to kill us. God allow this not to happen. “The criminals are on the air.”
In a response action, the Ecuadorian police contained the seizure and detained 13 of the alleged attackers, with no injuries reported.
While these events shook the facilities of TC Televisión, in the north of Guayaquil a student was injured in the middle of a shootout when she was traveling on El Bombero Avenue.
Additionally, in the south of the city, other hooded men arrived near the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo hospital, where they assaulted and robbed passers-by and medical personnel. “They robbed everyone who was at the entrance, thank God they didn’t take anyone, the police were nearby and they left,” declared a doctor.
Acts of violence of this caliber forced President Daniel Noboa to decree “an internal armed conflict” at the national level, which aims to promote measures to confront the actions of 22 transnational organized crime groups, which he described as “terrorist organizations and actors.” non-state belligerents.
Executive Decree 111 provides for “recognizing the existence of an internal armed conflict” and adds it as a cause for Decree 110 in which it declared the State of Exception and curfew, which was ordered last Monday, after the escape of the Domingo de Fito, who was serving a 34-year sentence for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
This is the second time that the criminal boss escapes from prison. In 2013, along with other prisoners, he managed to evade the controls of the maximum security prison known as La Roca, in Guayaquil. He was recaptured three months later.
The riots that shook some prison centers also led to the escape, this Tuesday, of Fabricio Colón Pico, alias “Capitán Pico”, of the Los Lobos gang, captured only last Friday and accused of being responsible for the death threats against Ecuadorian prosecutor Diana Salazar.
In the midst of the state of emergency declared for 60 days and a six-hour curfew – between 11:00 at night and 5:00 in the morning – at least seven police officers were kidnapped, three of them in the city of Machala, in El Empalme and in Quito.
Added to the kidnapping of police officers were explosions in Esmeraldas (near the border with Colombia), one of the Ecuadorian provinces controlled by mafias. Explosions were also recorded against a police station, in front of the home of the president of the National Court of Justice, and two vehicles were set on fire. There were no deaths or injuries in any of the events. In Quito, the explosion of an artifact near a pedestrian bridge was also reported.
Meanwhile, in prisons in five cities there were 125 prison guards and 14 administrative officials detained, said the body that manages prisons (SNAI).
“We will not negotiate”
By taking the measures, Noboa said that the emergency will allow the Armed Forces to intervene in the control of prisons, where the retention of prison guides was reported.
“We are not going to negotiate with terrorists nor will we rest until we return peace to the Ecuadorians,” said Noboa.
The president, who did not mention the escape of the leader of the Los Choneros gang, attributed the situation in the prisons to his government’s actions to “regain control.”
With the determination to combat organized crime and decree the existence of an internal armed conflict, the president ordered the military to “neutralize” the drug criminal gangs that intensified their attacks.
Noboa, who is facing his first major crisis since taking office last November, also ordered the Armed Forces to “execute military operations (…) to neutralize” around twenty organized crime groups. The target list includes Águilas, ÁguilasKiller, Ak47, Caballeros Oscuros, ChoneKiller, Choneros, Covicheros, Cuartel de las Feas, Cubanos, Fatales, Gánster, Kater Piler, Lagartos, Latin Kings, Lobos, Los p.27, Los Tiburones, Mafia 18, Mafia Trébol, Patrones, R7, Tiguerones.
Noboa, who led a meeting of the Security Council in Quito, warned that “these are extremely difficult days.” In his turn, the government’s Secretary of Communication, Roberto Izurieta, assured that the decision is to face “these threats with terrorist characteristics head-on,” according to what he said in an interview with the digital channel Visionarias.
Last week, the ruler Noboa said that he will build two maximum security prisons in the provinces of Pastaza (east of Ecuador) and Santa Elena (southwest), in the style of those established by his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele in his war against gangs. . Sectors of indigenous people from the Amazon called for peaceful protests this Tuesday in rejection of this project in Pastaza, their biodiverse and oil territory.
A difficult panorama
Ecuador went from being an island of peace to a drug trafficking war fort. In 2023 it closed with more than 7,800 homicides and 220 tons of drugs seized, undoubtedly a record in a nation with 17 million inhabitants.
Since 2021, clashes between prisoners have left more than 460 dead. In addition, homicides on the streets between 2018 and 2023 grew by almost 800%, going from 6 to 46 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Izurieta warned that “the level of infiltration” of criminal groups in the State “is very great” and called Ecuador’s violent prison system “failed,” where this Monday “incidents” also occurred in prisons in six provinces.
Police and soldiers entered heavily armed penitentiary centers in El Oro, Loja, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Azuay and Pichincha (whose capital is Quito) to control “incidents” with the “retention” of prison guards, without any victims according to a preliminary report. .
In videos released by the Armed Forces, half-naked inmates can be seen lying in the courtyards with their hands on their heads.
In a courtyard of the Regional, the inmates had written with white painted stones “PAPA FITO” and “FATALES GTR”, the latter in reference to another criminal gang. The legend “WITH FITO WE SOW PEACE” appeared on a sports field.
The genesis of the conflict
The crisis of public order and urban security that Ecuador is experiencing has its origin in a scourge that Colombia is still fighting against: drug trafficking. According to Professor Juan Federico Pino, from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) of Ecuador, the country became a transit site for drugs coming from both Colombia and Peru to the Pacific, which gave way to transnational gangs. who in turn subcontracted local gangs to guarantee and take care of traffic in the ports. However, added to the increasingly predominant role of transnational crime, it must be taken into account that in the neighboring country there was a weakening of the State in terms of security and intelligence.
“In 2019, the State security apparatus began to be dismantled and the role of different ministries that were in charge of security was weakened, which affected the ability to react,” explains Pino in dialogue with this newspaper.
Added to this is that the criminals turned their backs on governance and stability processes at the local and regional level, so “they simply dedicated themselves to taking care of very specific parts of their business.”
Professor Rafael Piñeros Ayala, a researcher in international relations and contemporary international agenda at the Externado University, agrees with this, and warned of a “new surge in violence” caused by the strengthening of Mexican cartels, the fight for territory or new forms of activity. criminal such as the felling of wood and precious metals such as gold.
“Violence in Ecuador is not new, in fact, it is considered one of the factors why former president Guillermo Lasso had to call elections. The situation in the prisons is one of disputes or retaliations that transcend the border and territorial sphere to the penitentiary area,” Piñeros tells EL COLOMBIANO.
In the middle of the equation the political issue appears transversally. According to Manuel Alejandro Rayran, a specialist in diplomacy and conflict resolution at the Catholic University of Louvain Belgium, political instability forced the departure of former President Lasso in 2023 by dissolving Parliament, citing a “serious political crisis and internal commotion.”
Hence, today’s President Noboa has had no choice but to admit via decree that there is an internal armed conflict. With this, Rayran explains to this newspaper, the president “gives economic priority to the issue, which allows him to economically transfer portfolios to solve this situation.” On the other hand, in the face of imminent security threats and the need for short-term responses, he causes “the political spaces for discussion to be reduced to a short government work team to make decisions. That is, the space for debate in public opinion is cut.”
In addition, the declaration represents a reduction in the freedoms of citizens, such as “people cannot go out after certain hours or cannot be in certain places.”
However, it must be taken into account that by declaring an internal conflict – says Professor Pinto –, the Ecuadorian State “can use military force within the country, which is why the Army can intervene in situations such as riots. the prisions. Furthermore, within the framework of human rights, international humanitarian law begins to govern.”
For this reason, for researcher Piñeros, the declaration evidences “weakness and inability to find a solution within the channels of the law.” However, he recognizes that the president also scores a blow to opinion by “trying to generate a consensus in the civilian population.”
The level of anxiety and crisis in matters of public order increases just when President Daniel Noboa completes just over a month and a half at the head of Ecuador. Therefore, for Professor Rayran this is his first litmus test: “The government won the Presidency through a speech of containing these armed groups. Noboa brought ideas very similar to (Nayib) Bukele of creating prisons to contain all these groups. We have to wait what the reaction will be and if it can reduce or diminish the situation.”
#reach #level #anxiety