in Ecuador The crisis of gang crime and drug trafficking, which had simmered quietly in recent years, burst into flames after the turn of the year.
A state of emergency has been declared in the country, and armed criminal groups have made visible attacks on, for example, a television studio. President of Ecuador Daniel Noboa has declared war on drug gangs.
It's a war he can't win, says the associate professor at Stockholm University's Institute of Latin American Studies Magnus Lembke For Helsingin Sanomat.
“Ecuador cannot win this war alone because it is an international phenomenon. What will happen if the armed forces manage to close Ecuador's ports to such activities? It just moves elsewhere.”
Lembken according to the same was seen earlier in Colombia. Drug smuggling moved from there to Ecuador, where cocaine producers made it a key transit country for their product traveling around the world.
“It's an international phenomenon that changes places. The only way to fight this and win is at the international level. The countries affected by this, i.e. Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and the countries of Central America, must join forces.”
Lembke follows the events of South America from a close distance, as he is currently in Ecuador studying the country's politics. The researcher in Quito has not personally witnessed the country's violence.
of Ecuador the problems are also reflected in Europe through drug smuggling. The central hub is the port city of Guayaquil.
“70 percent of the cocaine coming to Europe comes from Ecuador, and 80 percent of it leaves Guayaquil,” said the commander of the Ecuadorian coast guard Fernando Alvarez for news agency AFP.
In a photo released by Ecuador's armed forces, police and soldiers take over a prison overrun by gang inmates in Cuenca on Sunday.
Last week after the highly publicized television studio attack, Ecuadorian President Noboa ordered his country's armed forces to eliminate more than 20 named gangs classified as terrorist organizations.
Ecuadorian magazine El Telegrafon according to last week, more than 1,300 people were arrested in the country, of which more than 140 are suspected of terrorist crimes.
Five “terrorists” are said to have been killed in the operations, and two policemen have died. Twenty people have died in the violence, according to AFP.
On Wednesday, it was reported that the prosecutor investigating the attack on a television studio in the city of Guayaquil Cesar Suarez has been shot dead. The news agencies AFP and Reuters reported on the matter.
The authorities said on Sunday that they had restored order to the country's prisons, which had been thrown into chaos by gang riots. According to AFP, the authorities released more than 200 workers taken hostage in prisons.
A picture published from the yard of a prison shows hundreds of prisoners stripped to their underwear, who have been made to lie on the ground.
In a photo released by the Ecuadorian armed forces, security forces watch over captured and stripped prisoners in Ambato prison on Sunday, January 14.
With the authorities is in a hurry to show the fruits of his labor, because the country has already raised concerns about how Ecuador's already weak economy will withstand the war against gangs.
President Noboa has already proposed to parliament a substantial increase in the country's value added tax to finance the war on gangs. According to the proposal, the value added tax would be increased from the current 12 percent to 15 percent.
“I'm not an economist, but it sounds like a big increase to me,” researcher Magnus Lembke tells HS. “Warfare is expensive. If you want the armed forces to patrol ports, prisons and streets, then such an operation costs money, and Ecuador is a poor country. It has a huge deficit.”
Ecuador's deficit at the end of 2023 was around 5.2 billion euros, reports the news agency Reuters. The state's foreign debt is more than 43 billion euros.
According to Lembke, the war against drug gangs cannot be won by force alone, but it also requires correcting Ecuador's economic inequality and rooting out corruption in the state apparatus.
Lembken according to the open question is whether Noboa will manage to keep the support of the majority of the parliament in the state of emergency and in the war against gangs in the future as well.
“The president has had the unity of the parliament behind him, but Ecuador is a very polarized country. The question is how long the unity will last.”
The proposed increase in value added tax, which will enter into force in March, would bring the equivalent of about 1.2 billion euros to the state coffers per year, but the proposal has aroused resistance in the parliament.
The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, in a photo published by the presidential office from a BBC interview on January 12.
The left-wing People's Revolution Party RC, which is part of Noboa's government coalition, has announced its opposition to the VAT increase, Reuters reports. According to the left, additional funding should instead be sought through taxation of foreign capital.
“President Noboa, you have options, don't rip this trouble from the wallets of the suffering people!” the lawmakers wrote in a statement on social media.
The social Christian party PSC, which represents the political center of the Noboa coalition, has also refused to support the VAT increase.
On Monday, the government sent a proposal to the parliament that would facilitate the confiscation of the assets of criminal organizations, it was reported El Telegrafo.
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