The government of Daniel Noboa ordered an extension of the state of emergency in Ecuador to continue facing the threat of organized crime, but there are doubts regarding its effectiveness
Text: Nestor Aguilera
One week after one year since the start of an internal armed conflict in Ecuador, decreed by President Daniel Noboa after an alarming increase in violence, his government issued a new state of emergency on January 2, which extends the coverage of the measure.
Now, in addition to the territories where it was already carried out – six provinces and two municipalities – two more are being added: the Amazonian province of Sucumbíos, which borders the Colombian department of Putumayo, in the south of that country, and the municipality of La Troncal , about 80 kilometers from the center of Guayaquil.
What led the government to insist on a state of emergency similar to others previously declared? Some factors that are put forward in the extensive executive decree 493 are “serious internal commotion” and that “extreme violence is still recorded in said constituencies.”
And this is supported by the figures: Although until December 12, 2024, 16% fewer intentional homicides were recorded in the Andean country, crimes such as extortion and kidnappings multiplied throughout the territory, exceeding 13,000. and 2,000, respectively, according to figures from the National Police.
Beyond the figures, the media constantly record events in which the main protagonists are members of criminal gangs and victims of their actions.
In fact, as soon as the new year began, the first fatality was recorded in Guayaquil, a 22-year-old girl who was attacked by criminals while driving in a car through a popular area. The paradoxical thing, according to the local press version, is that she got to spend the New Year’s holidays with her boyfriend, who is a member of the police.
And precisely, the public force is also a victim of the actions of criminal gangs. The government affirms that in the year that just ended, 43 uniformed officers, 39 police officers and four members of the Armed Forces were murdered.
What does this new executive decree empower you to do?
Among other things, it allows the right to inviolability of the home to be suspended for 60 days. This, in turn, will facilitate “the carrying out of inspections, raids, and the corresponding searches by the Armed Forces and the National Police, leading to the location and registration of places intended to hide from people belonging to armed groups.” organized.”
On the other hand, the measure allows the suspension of the right to “inviolability of correspondence” for the identification, analysis and collection of messages, communications, letters or physical or electronic missives that have as their objective the concealment of any member of the organized armed group. .
In addition, it establishes a curfew between 10:00 at night and 5:00 in the morning in 22 municipalities and in one parish (smaller territorial jurisdiction).
Finally, it provides that the mobilization of the Armed Forces and the Police continues in the territories where it is in force and in the social rehabilitation centers of the country.
Asked by the Voice of America about this measure, constitutionalist Salim Zaidán questioned this Friday the repeated nature of the states of exception and said that the government argues for reasons that are not consummated: “Serious internal commotion and internal armed conflict.”
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The elements that make up the internal armed conflict are not met, according to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court and International Humanitarian Law, explained the academic.
He also expressed that he is struck by the fact that the government presents “control” of prisons among its achievements, when that does not exist in practice. He pointed out that this shows a contradiction with the factual foundations indicated in the document.
For her part, the Guayaquil investigator of International Organized Crime (COT) conflict and violence Michelle Maffei asserted that states of emergency are normally regular in Latin America.
From his point of view, the states of exception in Ecuador “are prostitutes and unfortunately they achieve nothing.” He also pointed out that “the political, financial structures and corruption – which are the driving force of organized crime and violence – do not change.”
He added that although in El Salvador there is a militaristic approach, with the Terrorism Confinement Center, CECOT, programs with a social focus were implemented, which does not happen in the South American country.
The new state of exception comes amid repeated criticism of the Ecuadorian president and his government, following the location and identification of the burned bodies of four minors, after having remained missing for three weeks.
Behind this fact, 16 members of the Armed Forces who participated in the arrest are being investigated, during an operation in a popular area of Guayaquil.
The burial of the young people, whose bodies were located near an Air Force base, took place this January 1, amidst collective indignation, in the face of what is considered an excess in the use of force.
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