The recurrent use of the state of exception in Ecuador raises doubts. The State seems to have lost control of the prisons, centers of crime. Inaction, ineptitude or complicity?
“This is a declaration of war against the State, the Government and civil society”, said the president of Ecuador, < strong>Guillermo Lasso,explaining the reasons why he imposed, for the fourth consecutive time, the State of Exception.
Protected by article 164 of the Constitution of Ecuador, the president can order the State of Exception.
This, in case of “aggression, international or internal armed conflict, serious internal commotion, public calamity or natural disaster”.
With the state of exception, the Ecuadorian authorities can suspend or limit the right to inviolability of home and correspondence, freedom of movement, association, assembly and information.
In Ecuador four states have been decreed of exception so far in 2022:
1st state of exception in coastal provinces
On April 29, 2022, the state of emergency was decreed and curfews in the three coastal provinces of Guayas, Manabí and Esmeraldas.
4,000 police officers and 5,000 members of the armed forces were deployed to “counteract the violence generated by drug trafficking.”
2nd Thirteen days of national strike
On June 20, 2022, Lasso ordered a state of emergency in Pichincha, Imbabura, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Chimborazo and Pastaza due to “serious internal commotion”.
The measure generated a “national indigenous uprising”.
Repealing it was one of the guarantees required by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) to access the negotiating table.
Their demands: employment, labor rights, fight against speculation, fair prices for agricultural production, reduce and freeze fuel prices.
3rd Arms control, drug trafficking and patrols< /strong>
On October 19, Ecuador imposed a state of emergency in the provinces of El Oro, Guayas, Santa Elena, Manabí, Los Ríos, Esmeraldas, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Pichincha and Sucumbíos.
The president announced the creation of a legal protection unit for the public force.
4th “Sabotage and terrorism”
The On November 1, a state of emergency was ordered in the provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas for 45 days. The decision was made after 10 attacks with explosives against gas stations, police units and a hospital. In fact, the criminals murdered five police officers.
DW
An exceptional measure turned into “normal”
Does the situation of insecurity in Ecuador warrant the installation of a state of emergency as a recurrent measure?
“They are no longer a novelty in Ecuador. States of exception have been decreed in the provinces that register an increase in homicides and attacks. Between August 2021 and 2022 alone, there have been 146 attacks in Ecuador,” security expert Carolina Andrade tells DW, adding that Ecuador is breaking homicide records.
“In 2022 we can close with a homicide rate of 25 per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2017 we had a rate of 5.8. Today it is almost 4 to 5 times higher, ”she said.
Carolina Andrade, former Undersecretary General for Intelligence in Ecuador, considers, however, that “the states of exception only seek greater militarization and police presence in the streets, without really addressing the underlying issues.”
Es that is, the growing drug trafficking, corruption, cooptation of military, police and officials by organized crime.
“Ecuador has ceded territory to criminal organizations. But the State, instead of investing in its recovery, limits itself to giving a repressive response”, explains the political scientist.
A fact ratified by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) which, last March, indicated that in Ecuador “there is an absence of effective control by the State of penitentiary centers.
The Ecuadorian analyst is more explicit: “In Ecuador, criminals control the prisons.”
Andrade points out that the loss of spaces at the hands of the underworld in Ecuador is not limited to prisons.
He also recalled that “ the United States denounced in 2021 the presence of drug traffickers in the National Police and the Armed Forces and policemen linked to money laundering schemes.”
The United States Embassy did not publicly present the names of the so-called “narco-generals”.
In turn, the Ministry of Defense denied that Washington had canceled the visa of any of its members.
Inaction, ineptitude or complicity?
What can be verified is that the “Comptroller of Ecuador carried out special examinations of the patrimonial declarations of 25 generals of the National Police. Indications of criminal responsibility were detected in three cases”, as reported by Primicias.
This is the same medium to which the United States ambassador to Ecuador, Michael Fitzpatrick, expressed on December 10, 2021 the & #8220;concern” of Washington for the existence of alleged “narco generals”.
Presumably, the Government of Ecuador knows the diagnosis of the situation and the effective countermeasures.
Why does it only seem to resort to the state of emergency?
“We all even know that in prisons there must be scanners that allow controls, but there are none. The police patrol in a defenseless state,” answers expert Carolina Andrade.
Finally, she concluded that “the government’s inaction could be interpreted as suspicious complicity.”