Dramatic and shocking scenes from Ecuador played out live to a world audience on 9 January, as a local TV channel was taken over by armed bandits while the cameras kept rolling. Simultaneously, inmates overran entire prisons, and held guards captives. These unprecedented actions led many to ask, how did Ecuador fall from being a peaceful country into one of the most violent in the world? Perhaps a more appropriate initial question is, why was Ecuador so peaceful in the first place?
Sandwiched between the world’s two largest cocaine producers – Peru and Colombia – and with a coastline full of ports, violence from organised crime always posed a threat to the Andean nation. And an economy reliant on oil exports left it vulnerable to an economic collapse should prices fall, similar to Venezuela.
In 2007, Rafael Correa became president of Ecuador. Buoyed by strong oil prices – with the commodity entailing over 50% of its total exports in 2013 – state spending on social programmes doubled. Poverty was reduced, millions were able to access education, and a legitimate middle class formed.
While the oil shock of 2014 did not lead Ecuador to hyperinflation, as in Venezuela, it did lead to an economic decline from which it has not truly recovered. In 2016, Correa was forced to take a loan from the IMF, and austerity ensued, plunging millions back into poverty and recession, even before Covid-19 hit. The fall in the price of oil that the pandemic brought hit Ecuador harder than most within the region; its GDP is still 5% lower than prior to COVID-19.
Ecuador’s security situation has mirrored its economic outlook. During the Correa years, the murder rate halved, which many commentators put down to his administration’s decision to recognise criminal gangs as “cultural associations”, or urban youth groups, allowing them access to government grants and funding in exchange for ending violence. Correa also dissolved the elite Anti-Narcotics Investigations Unit, which had been supported by the DEA, and was part of his wider criticism of the war on drugs – stating that cocaine consumption was more of a problem of American addicts than Ecuadorian vendors.
While this softer approach, combined with a rise in economic standards and employment, led to a peaceful co-existence between the government and organised crime, Correa’s light-touch left the state vulnerable to a rise in the cartels’ power. Prior to 2016, the Colombian paramilitary group FARC controlled the cocaine trafficking routes from Colombia into Ecuador, and there was minimal conflict in Ecuador. Following a peace deal between FARC and the Colombian government, however, a power vacuum emerged, and international trafficking gangs competed for the lucrative Ecuadorian ports.
Various cartels from Albania, Mexico and Colombia began to pour money and weapons into Ecuador. The port city of Guayaquil became one of the busiest ports for cocaine trafficking in the world, and it is now estimated that one third of the world’s cocaine passes through Ecuador before being sent to North America or Europe. Global cocaine demand reached record highs, providing an economic boon for the cartels, and – compounded by economic decline and an increase in unemployment – the homicide rate rose to around 45 per 100,000 inhabitants – making it one of the highest in the world.
Violence began to spill over into the political sphere. In August, an anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed eleven days before the 2023 election. The 59-year-old former journalist had been key in revealing cartel infiltration of the government, including in law and order, and had received multiple death threats should he not cease his investigations. Blame for the murder was split between Ecuador’s two largest cartels – Los Choneros and Los Lobos. In October, the six murder suspects were found lynched in the prison where they were being kept, and investigations into Villavicencio’s death have been inconclusive.
Daniel Noboa, aged 36, was the surprise winner of the 2023 Ecuadorian elections. Running on a platform of being tough on crime, the security situation as he took power was close to complete collapse. Many of Ecuador’s overcrowded prisons were controlled by cartel-affiliated inmates, from where they directed the drug trade. Adolfo “Fito” MacĂas, leader of Los Choneros, lived in luxury in prison, regularly hosting parties, and recording videos “for the authorities and the Ecuadorian people” surrounded by armed men. His proposed transfer to solitary confinement was the spark which ignited the powder keg.
On 7 January, MacĂas escaped from prison, with the help of two guards that he had bribed, and President Noboa declared a “state of emergency”, authorising the military to patrol the streets. Two days later, the cartels struck back – with the infamous images of the storming of TC de Guayaquil’s live broadcast spreading worldwide.
While this threat was neutralised, several prison riots occurred, with images of guards being held prisoner by the inmates at gunpoint; it is reported that over 150 guards and staff were held hostage, with reports of some guards being lynched. Cities ground to a halt, curfews were declared, schools and universities announced that classes would take place online, looting took place in Guayaquil and Quito, and several police officers were kidnapped. Presumed leader of “Los Lobos” Fabricio Pico, who had been arrested for plotting to kill the attorney general, also broke free from prison amidst the chaos.
Noboa has warned that this battle is a decisive moment in the Ecuadorian fight against becoming a “narco-state”. He has refused to negotiate with the cartels, declaring 22 organisations as “terrorist groups”, and also threatened to stamp down on corruption within the institutions of government. The 36-year-old president has called his response “Plan Phoenix”, in which 22,000 troops have been deployed to “neutralise” the gangs, and already 850 arrests have been made. Noboa has also appealed for international help in its war on narcos, including from the US, and Israel’s security forces for advice and operational support.
Ecuador is in a dire predicament. Its annual fiscal deficit has tripled to 5% of its GDP, and Noboa has pledged austerity in order to meet IMF targets. Ecuador’s youngest president, whose term will only last until 2025, does not have a majority in Congress, and will face strong opposition in any attempt to pass austerity-imposing legislation. Adding to the political instability is the corruption that has infiltrated all stratas of Ecuadorean society. The former agricultural minister resigned after it emerged that he had strong links with the Albanian mafia, and several judges and high-ranking security officers had been implicated in taking bribes from the cartels.
Rapid turnarounds in the fight against cartels can occur – as seen in El Salvador. The murder rate has dropped from the highest in the world in 2015, to one of the lowest in the region, but it has come at a heavy price – with Amnesty International warning of the dismantling of due process, arbitrary arrest, and systematic torture being deployed against suspected criminals. El Salvador has around 2% of its adult population behind bars – the highest rate in all of the world, and many are housed in extremely cramped prisons, with no rights to visitors, workshops or educational programs.
The Salvadorean approach has gained President Bukele huge domestic support. He reportedly enjoys 91% approval ratings and is favourite to win the 2024 election by a landslide. Noboa has pledged to borrow some of El Salvador’s tactics – including the construction of two super-max prison facilities – but whether Noboa would have the domestic or international support to carry out mass arrests and incarcerations as El Salvador has done is doubtful.
Ecuador’s crossroads draws parallels to its neighbour Colombia’s challenges with drug cartels in the 1980’s. During the Pablo Escobar era, the Colombian state was regularly attacked by powerful drug-trafficking groups, with state buildings taken over, frequent kidnappings, political assassinations, and mass bombings used to instill terror. The extreme violence succeeded in halting the Colombian government’s actions against him, and it took around ten years for the state to bring his empire down, and bring violence down from astronomically high levels. However the drug war in Colombia still persists to this day.
Should Ecuador continue along its path to becoming a narco-state, it will have global consequences for the “war on drugs”, as cocaine will be shipped even more freely to match surging global demand. Turmoil could also spill over into Peru and Colombia, both of whom have increased police and military security along their borders with Ecuador, fearing Ecuadorian gang members could flee into their countries.
Ecuador will hope that its fight against its “narcoterrorists” will not resemble its neighbour’s in the 1980’s, but the stranglehold that the cartels have on Ecuador’s state, combined with its institutional weaknesses, could make the current crisis the start of a long, protracted war. Should Noboa fail, scenes witnessed on 9 January might go from being unprecedented to frequent occurrences.
Ben Kwasnik is an International Political Economy Masters degree student at Kings College London who spent two years living in Latin America.
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