Verónica Sarauz was in Washington with her two children the day her husband was killed. On August 9, 2023. Fernando Villavicencio, investigative journalist, co-author with Christian Zurita of the document published on the Mil Hojas digital portal on corruption titled 'Odebrecht and other multinationals installed a president in Ecuador', was murdered by hitmen upon leaving a rally in Quito. He was 59 years old and was the candidate of the political group Movimiento Construye in the presidential elections. The polls placed him in second place when ten days before the elections he was fatally shot. He was threatened by drug trafficking groups.
– Are you not afraid in a country that experiences extreme violence?
– Of course. But since Fernando happened I have a good security capsule. My husband's was not. Due to the negligence of the Police, the hitmen acted with incredible ease. The officers did not react until after the shots were fired. They hide. In that murder there are very strange moments and omissions on the part of the State. There were many interested in preventing Fernando from becoming president of the Republic, for example Jorge Glas. I am convinced that Fernando would have acted in the same way as President Daniel Noboa in the case of the Mexican consulate.
– At no point do you ask yourself, what am I doing here in this very dangerous country?
– Leaving here and abandoning the fight that Fernando started would be like leaving everything. I know that we are in danger, a real danger, because the level that I manage now in the country is 90%. My husband was murdered at a 93% risk, so I am scared every day. He closed his eyes and when I open them the fear is still there. But that same thing drives me to keep fighting. I hope that the idea of fleeing, of leaving the country that we love so much, never comes.
– Do you think you will achieve it?
– I am a fighting woman who was with my husband from the beginning because he was brutally persecuted by previous governments. Even in Lenín Moreno's case, he was forced to wear an ankle shackle when he was accused of divulging confidential information. Now I am left alone without my fighting partner, but I am firm because I have no other purpose than to reveal who the intellectual authors of the murder were. There are people interested in postponing the trial. Even one of them, a suspect, is being an international campaign to sanction Ecuador for the case of the Mexican consulate.
– Are you referring to Rafael Correa?
– That's how it is.
–What did you think when the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that Luisa González, Correismo candidate, lost the elections with Noboa thanks to the murder of her husband?
– I think he tried to minimize the power of the people and the mourning that the country is experiencing and is experiencing due to the murder of Fernando. What did the electoral board change? Of course the electoral table changed. The entire country mourned the assassination of a candidate.
“There was no other way”
– Do you agree with the Government's decision to remove Jorge Glas from the Mexican consulate?
– It was a forceful decision, but not the most appropriate, although, in my opinion, there was no other way to arrest a fugitive from justice, already sentenced for two crimes of corruption.
– He has received a lot of support from Mexicans who consider AMLO's words unfair.
– And not just Mexicans. Also Peruvians, Argentines… We are brothers, we are Latinos. We are the same people, governed by different political tendencies.
– How would you define the current situation in Ecuador?
– It is complex, a time of violence never seen before. The rise in drug trafficking has caused arms trafficking to flourish. It can even be said that the Mexican drug mafias have come here. Also the Albanians and the Italians.
– What is your opinion on Daniel Noboa? I get the feeling that the state of emergency does not have the effect it intended. Is that so?
– Well no. As a country we are going to have to unite now more than ever. We must assume the consequences of having acted as we have acted with the Mexican consulate, but I insist that it could not be allowed. Jorge Glas belongs to this political group linked to drug trafficking and organized crime gangs. He is also related to the murder of my husband. Glas could not flee the country because it would have meant that he had received some form of impunity. I know that they have already called ministers to impeachment to explain their actions in the raid on the Mexican embassy. But there are more serious, more fundamental issues, such as internal security, violence… This is something very tragic. We may or may not like the way Glas was removed from the embassy, but we have to support this Government.
– How do you find the work of prosecutor Diana Salazar, who has put several politicians, judges, officials and lawyers in jail in the 'Metastasis case'?
– Salazar is doing historic work. The prosecutors that we had had here in Ecuador had been servile to the Government in power. She is brave, because her life is also in danger. She has made this country have a real bathroom that has been missing for a long time.
– What would you ask of the international community?
– Well, just don't judge us so harshly, because we accept that this decision to violate norms of international law should not have been made, but there was no other way to prevent Glas from fleeing. We are going to accept the sanctions because we have to be respectful, but all of Ecuador needs all the collaboration of the international community in the fight we are carrying out against organized crime, against drug trafficking, which also affects the European Union. All the drugs that arrive from here are bathed in blood.
– What was Fernando like as a person?
– He was a good person, passionate about his work and music. I don't know another person who has been so hurt that Ecuador was the way it is.
– You had given him several bulletproof vests and had warned him of the danger he was in.
– Yes, but he had a theme: “When they want to kill me, they will shoot me in the head.” So it was.
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