Just when we think the gang violence in Latin America and the Caribbean can’t possibly shock us anymore — it shocks us again. Last week we saw a new burst of narco-cartel violence in Ecuador.
On Tuesday, 13 masked and heavily armed gunmen stormed a TV station in the coastal city of Guayaquil during a live broadcast. They brandished explosives and pushed their gun barrels into the necks of horrified hostages. They shot a cameraman in the leg, fortunately not fatally, before police finally arrested them.
It was just the latest reminder that gang crime has morphed into gang rule in much of Latin America — from Haiti to Honduras, from Mexico to Ecuador.
It’s a product of two key factors: the region’s lack of democratic institutions, like justice systems, and the insatiable demand in the U.S. and Europe for cocaine. It’s a key reason a record number of migrants are fleeing to the U.S.
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On the South Florida Roundup, WLRN’s Tim Padgett spoke to Miami-Dade Councilman Christian Cevallos. He was born in Ecuador and raised in Guayaquil, the site of that terrifying TV station takeover. They discussed the current situation in his home country.
Cevallos says the last 10 to 12 years have changed everything in Ecuador. He says that while the narcos storming the TV station surprised him, it’s “something that was coming and has been growing little by little in the last few years.”
Some of his family members still live in Guayaquil. He says they’re telling him they’re afraid of going out to the streets because of all the “vandals and criminals” in the area.
“I was in Ecuador a month and a half ago and it's not the same as when I used to go [a couple of years ago]. Now you need to walk carefully and you need to watch your back and see where you go because [there are] a lot of criminals. So people are scared. My relatives [and] my friends, they're really scared,” said the councilman.
To some it may appear that the gang violence plague hit Ecuador overnight, but it’s something that has been building up for several years. And it starts in large part with the breakdown of democratic institutions like the justice system under a very authoritarian ruler, former President Rafael Correa.
Cevallos says that all the ingredients for the current situation in Ecuador have been coming together even sometime before Correa took office. He says that the adoption of the United States dollar in 2000 helped facilitate money laundering schemes in Ecuador.
“A lot of Mexican cartels started to kind of get into the country …in the early 2000s. Then Correa [came into] power in 2007 and start[ed] facilitating stuff for these criminals,” he said.
During his presidency, Cevallos says that Correa supported the growth of violent gangs in the country. At the same time, there was a weakening of the justice system — leaving Ecuador without an independent judiciary to confront organized crime.
But the issue in Ecuador also has to do with the demand for cocaine. The European Union says that most of the coke that comes through their ports was moved from Ecuador.
Drugs and violence in the South American country are at an all-time high, which is why Cevallos suggests that Ecuador's president, Daniel Novoa, request the help of the United States to combat the narcos in the country. He believes the U.S. can help them build their police and justice systems.
“What [law enforcement] needs [is] a lot more training and the U.S. could be a great partner to train, advise [and] help in the investigations,” said Cevallos. “But right now, if Ecuador is the port that serves all these narcos and drug lords … to take their drugs out, well, [the U.S.] needs to … put a lot more concentration in Ecuador.”
You can listen to the full conversation at the audio link above.
