Attachments
Spiking violence in Ecuador has led recently-inaugurated President Daniel Noboa to declare an “internal armed conflict” with criminal groups. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Glaeldys González explains how the South American country arrived at this point and the potential consequences of the government’s crackdown.
What has happened in Ecuador?
After grappling with worsening insecurity for several years, Ecuador witnessed a terrifying spike in violence in the first half of January. Criminal groups have shot civilians; looted stores; and set off car bombs and other explosions in the capital Quito and Guayaquil, a major port city on the Pacific coast. Gunmen stormed a Guayaquil TV studio during a live news broadcast. Rioting inmates overran a number of the country’s prisons and held more than 150 prison guards hostage for almost a week. Overall, at least nineteen people have been killed since the criminal uprising began on 8 January. The mayhem represents an unprecedented challenge for Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s youngest-ever president, who assumed office in November 2023 following victory in a run-off poll. With public alarm soaring in the face of a seemingly unbridled criminal rampage, the government imposed on 9 January a state of exception. A day later it declared that the country was in an “internal armed conflict”, and would deploy lethal force and military assets to combat 22 criminal groups, now labelled terrorists.
The sequence of events that culminated in this unusual move began in the first week of the new year. On 7 January, Ecuadorian authorities reported the disappearance of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, also known as Fito, one of the nation’s most notorious gangsters, from the Guayaquil Regional prison. The government had planned to transfer him to a high-security jail, La Roca, as part of a broader effort to crack down on criminal groups in prisons. But that plan must have been leaked, because Fito was nowhere to be found when security forces came looking for him. The reigning leader of Los Choneros, the country’s largest and most brutal crime group, Fito had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for a litany of offences, including robbery, murder and drug trafficking.
After his disappearance, chaos unfolded on the streets of the country’s major cities. The government commenced a hunt involving over 3,000 police and army officers. Simultaneously, rival criminal factions – sensing an opportunity to capitalise on the chaos and show their clout – unleashed a wave of violence. Los Lobos, the second-largest gang in Ecuador and the main competitor to Los Choneros, orchestrated uprisings on streets and in prisons, triggering riots in at least six jails under its control that led to the killing of one prison guard and the kidnapping of 178 others.
After the gangs threw down the gauntlet, Noboa initially followed his predecessor Guillermo Lasso’s approach. Faced with outbursts of criminal violence, Lasso had declared states of exception over ten times between 2021 and 2023. While in some cases these were limited to jails or specific geographical regions, on other occasions they were national in scope: after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on 9 August 2023, for example, a state of exception was declared across the entire country. Noboa followed suit and on 8 January declared a 60-day state of exception. The move allows the government to mobilise the armed forces in support of the police, impose a nationwide curfew, and suspend freedom of assembly. But as pandemonium engulfed urban centres, and with the gang raid on TC Televisión in Guayaquil gaining worldwide media coverage, the president opted to redouble the state counter-offensive through declaration of an armed conflict. (The consequences of this declaration are discussed below.)
While Ecuador was formerly one of Latin America’s more peaceful nations, the violence is the culmination of a several-year trend. The country’s geography plays a role: sandwiched between Colombia and Peru – Latin America’s top producers of cocaine – Ecuador has emerged as a key transport and logistics link in the global drug supply chain. Hyper-violent gangs have buttressed their ranks by recruiting among communities impoverished by COVID-19. Meanwhile, a shortfall in security investment during the Lenin Moreno administration, in part due to IMF-backed budget cuts, have starved the state’s security forces. During his tenure, from 2017-2021, the government cut prison budgets by 30 per cent, eliminated the Justice Ministry, and froze the security budget. The combination of a weak state and strong criminal forces has led to a near-doubling of homicides each year since 2020. The nation’s murder rate for last year – around 40 murders per 100,000 people – is the highest in its history, and makes the country one of the most violent in Latin America.