A massive wave of unrest has engulfed Ecuador after gang leaders escaped from prison. On January 9, armed people broke into the studio of one of the TV channels and took its employees hostage live. Local residents report that life in the country has stopped and the streets of the capital are empty. The expert community believes that it is still difficult to predict the development of the situation, however, the rebellion is unlikely to affect trade relations with Russia and the general situation in the region. What provoked the crisis and how the situation in the country will develop – in the material of Izvestia.
Ecuador gripped by riots
In just a few years, Ecuador has gone from a quiet country to the state with the highest crime rating in the Latin American region, even surpassing Mexico and Colombia. Compared to 2019, the murder index in 2023 increased fivefold, reaching 40 deaths per 100 thousand people.
On January 8, the 36-year-old President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, who assumed the presidency at the end of 2023, was forced to introduce a state of emergency and an amnesty for abuse of power for security forces and military personnel in order to prevent unrest that broke out in the country, characterized by the leader as internal armed conflict.
On January 7, the Ecuadorian press informed about the escape from a maximum security prison of the leader of one of the country’s criminal groups, “Los Choneros,” Jose Adolf Macias, nicknamed Fito.
Fito was transferred to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil (one of the most dangerous cities in the world) in August 2023 from another prison located in the same city. He is accused of sending threatening letters to presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot dead a week and a half before the August 2023 elections.
On November 9, it also became known about the escape of the leader of the Los Lobos group, Fabrizio Colon Pico, accused of preparing the murder of the Prosecutor General of Ecuador Diana Salazar.
The day after the authorization for abuse of power was announced, reports began to appear online about serious unrest in at least six prisons in Ecuador, and information was received that criminals had taken prison employees hostage. Other cases of prisoner escapes have been reported. Videos have circulated online showing prisoners hiding their appearance allegedly bringing prison officers to their knees, threatening them with death and demanding the repeal of this order.
“Look here, Daniel Noboa! Since you introduced a regime in which the military can kill prisoners, when you show up in one of the prisons, you will see them all dead. We are not asking for five-star prisons, and we are not even asking for the Internet. We ask for the right to life,” says a man with his face covered in one of the videos.
According to the man in the video, the video was filmed in the La Roca prison where Fito was held. In the background there are most likely prison officers, guns pointed at their heads and necks.
On the same day, criminals broke into the studio of a local television channel in Guayaquil. The moment of the attack was broadcast live. It shows how people hiding their faces under hoods threaten journalists with weapons, presumably they also had explosive devices in their hands. The footage also shows people covering their faces with their hands and sitting on the floor, and sounds similar to gunshots are heard.
It is reported that all the channel's employees were released and the criminals were detained. However, according to local residents, the channel's broadcast was interrupted in the afternoon and had not resumed by the morning of January 10. The screen says “We’ll be back soon.”
“We are alive, although the attack was unprecedentedly brutal. They forced their way into the studio because they wanted us to say what they needed,” says the presenter.
The whole city stopped on the evening of January 9, Gabi, a resident of the capital Quito, told Izvestia.
“It was a dark day for our country.” After lunch, everyone began to rush home – employers let their employees go, teachers let their students go, and shops began to abruptly close. From the window you could see all the people running somewhere. There were terrible traffic jams,” says Gabi.
The whole country watched the broadcast of the TV channel in Guayaquil with fear. After the broadcast was stopped, people began to complain about interruptions in public transport. Local residents also say that they witnessed attempts to rob stores or set fire to cars.
Already at 18:30 on January 9, Quito looked like a ghost town, comments Gabi. There was no one on the streets, public transport stopped working, shops were closed. Videos of tanks moving through the city streets were distributed on social networks.
The next day, most people worked remotely, however, shops and public transport resumed their work on January 10, although strict control of everyone entering continued.
Security problems caused the crisis
After the incident, the Ecuadorian government set a goal to put an end to 22 criminal organizations operating in the country, and, according to the Latin American press, at least 14 of them have connections with Mexican drug cartels.
“The time is over for drug trafficking, hit-for-hire and organized crime convicts to tell the government what to do. What is happening now in our country’s prisons is the result of our decision to confront them,” President Daniel Noboa said in a video distributed by the Ecuadorian press. In it, he, wearing a leather jacket (an image reminiscent of that used by El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, known for his campaign against criminal gangs), explains to citizens his further actions to protect the country.
“This is a clarification of the relationship between crime and the authorities. Crime is trying to maintain its ability to be one of the centers of power of the state, while they are not interested in displacing this power,” said Victor Kheifets, professor at the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University.
The request for security was central during the last presidential campaign at the end of 2023. UN experts say the main reasons for the unstable situation in the country are the high level of income gap between different segments of the population, carelessness among young people and the presence of organized crime gangs and drug trafficking.
— Crime rates are higher in poorer countries. In addition, the Indian peoples, which include Ecuador, have a tradition of growing coca. This contributed to the development of drug cartels and drug trafficking, says Nikolai Kalashnikov, adviser to the director of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Ecuador is one of the leaders in Latin America in cocaine production. Its importance as a hub for the transportation of drugs to other countries has increased since the peace agreement between the Colombian authorities and the FARC group in 2016 (an agreement to cease fire and stop the persecution of rebels in exchange for a cessation of drug trafficking activities).
In early 2024, Daniel Noboa proposed holding a referendum on new, stricter security measures in Ecuador. The president wants to increase prison sentences for serious offenses such as weapons trafficking and murder, and also use the army to fight criminal groups in the country. In addition, among his proposals was the creation of floating prisons (a ship adapted to hold criminals) to reduce contact among prisoners.
— Ecuadorian prisons have long been a walk-through yard. Come in, whoever you want, take out whatever you want. The current president proposed strengthening this system. Maybe Ecuadorian crime has decided to get ahead of the curve, says Victor Kheifets.
It is difficult to predict the duration of the confrontation betw
een crime and official authorities, experts say. Nevertheless, Ecuadorian unrest will not be able to have a strong impact on the situation in the Latin American region, Nikolai Kalashnikov noted.
“The example of Colombia shows that the struggle, when the poorest sections of the population are involved in it, is difficult, long, and so far no one has been able to achieve a military victory in Latin America,” noted Nikolai Kalashnikov.
Thus, the expert insists that the speed of resolution of the conflict will most likely depend on the strength and training of the Ecuadorian army, as well as on how quickly the criminal groups agree to surrender, realizing that the government will not make concessions.
However, this is unlikely to affect commercial relations between Ecuador and Russia. At the same time, trade and economic cooperation between the two countries is developing quite dynamically. Ecuador is one of the leading trading partners of the Russian Federation in Latin America. The main Russian export products are mineral fertilizers, chemical products, petroleum products, paper and cardboard. Key import items: bananas, flowers, crustaceans.
Supplies of bananas from the republic (which accounts for about 96% of Russian imports of this product) are proceeding as usual, they have not been interrupted, said Richard Salazar, executive director of the Ecuadorian Banana Marketing and Export Association (Acorbanec). According to him, ports and shipping lines are operating as usual.
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