Lasso decrees the state of exception in Ecuador 2:11
(CNN) -
Homicides, drug trafficking, bloody prison riots, robberies of homes, vehicles and people: Ecuador is suffering a wave of violence that has generated deep fear in the population.
Consequently, President Guillermo Lasso decreed this Monday a state of exception due to "serious internal commotion" throughout the national territory.
Crisis in Ecuador's prison system: a "time bomb" that begins to explode
The measure implies the mobilization of the Armed Forces in the provinces of Guayas, Pichincha, El Oro, Santa Elena, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo, Manabí, Esmeraldas and Sucumbíos, and an increase in the actions of the Police in the rest of the provinces Ecuadorians, in accordance with the decree.
All this weeks after the bloody riot at the Guayas Number One Penitentiary, on the outskirts of Guayaquil, which left more than 100 dead.
Mexican cartels infiltrate Ecuador jails 3:21
What is happening in Ecuador?
The escalation of violence
"The hit men here live day by day. Yesterday there was a shooting here, but no one came and they let it pass," a Guayaquil merchant who did not want to be identified for retaliation told CNN.
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Official figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) and the National Directorate of Crimes Against Life, Violent Deaths, Disappearances, Extortion and Kidnappings (Dinased) also show an increase in crime in Ecuador.
Between January and August 2021, 16,017 robberies were registered in the country, above the 12,475 reported in the same period in 2020, according to data from the Statistical Commission of Citizen Security and Justice presented by INEC.
In the same comparison, the reported violations were 3,503 in 2021, against 2,858 in 2020.
This is the situation around the prisons of Ecuador 3:10
Increase in homicides, even with a pandemic
The lower numbers of some crimes registered in 2020 compared to 2021 can be explained in part due to the restrictions imposed in the face of the covid-19 pandemic, but in the case of homicides, the upward trend was maintained even with the restrictions.
In 2019, 1,188 homicides were registered, while in 2020 the figure rose to 1,372, according to data from Dinased and the Ecuadorian National Police cited in Decree 224 of the Ecuadorian government.
From January to October 2021, the registered homicides were 1,885.
Although the data shows an increase in homicides in the country, the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants - located at 7.8 in 2020 and 10.62 so far in 2021, according to Dinased - is still below the peak of 17 , 9 registered in 2008, according to World Bank data.
President Lasso said that more than 70% of the violent deaths that occur today in the Guayas province "are in some way related to drug trafficking."
New incidents in the prisons of Ecuador 1:21
Lasso also lamented, during his speech, the death of an 11-year-old boy this Sunday during a bullet crossing during an assault on an ice cream parlor in Guayaquil.
"We know that nothing will be able to repair this terrible loss, but we must all gather strength to fight with greater determination, to finally end the violence that took away Sebastián Xavier and many Ecuadorians," he said.
Riots in prisons
Violence inside Ecuador's prisons, affected by overcrowding and gang conflict, was a record in 2021.
At the end of September, the riot at the Guayas 1 Center for the Deprivation of Liberty (also known as the Litoral Penitentiary) left at least 118 dead and 79 wounded, after which the prison system was declared an emergency and sent to the Armed Forces to the place.
In February there were 75 deaths in a first round of riots in three prisons in the provinces of Azuay, Guayas and Cotopaxi, according to police.
So far in 2021, more than 200 deaths have been registered in prisons in Ecuador, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and the prison system had already been declared in emergency in July.
Prisons in Ecuador are affected by overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions, a situation exacerbated by covid-19, and by internal confrontations between different criminal gangs linked to drug trafficking.
In fact, most of the victims in the riots were killed by gunshots and even grenade explosions.
The role of drug trafficking
Ecuador is a key transit point on the route that carries cocaine from South America to the United States and Asia, making it fertile ground for gang confrontations.
Thus, prisons have become battlefields for supremacy.
According to 2020 data from the United States Anti-Drug Agency (DEA), 74% of the cocaine that enters the United States comes from the Eastern Pacific, with the coast of Ecuador being a key starting point.
Furthermore, the level of weapons in the hands of inmates points to another factor in extreme bloodshed: the presence of trained and organized criminal groups with sophisticated financial and logistical capacity to smuggle huge quantities of firearms into prisons.
Urgent measures to face the prison crisis in Ecuador 0:55
In September, CNN toured the Lacatunga Penitentiary and was able to see that the walls of the pavilions showed graffiti of the two main gangs that rule the underground in Ecuador, Los Lobos and Los Choneros.
These gangs are accused of working in alliance with two of the most feared Mexican cartels, the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel respectively, who are at war over drug trafficking in Ecuador according to Mario Pazmiño, former head of the drug trafficking unit. intelligence of the Ecuadorian Army.
What is the state of exception?
The presence of the Armed Forces and the Police "will be felt strongly in the streets" through patrols, inspections, drug requisitions and other actions, Lasso said Monday.
The President of Ecuador also offered full support for the actions undertaken by members of the Police and the Armed Forces in the fight against crime and announced the creation of a legal defense unit for the public force to dedicate itself to the protection of their members.
Members of the Marine Corps conduct security operations in southern Guayaquil, Ecuador, on October 19, 2021. (Credit: FERNANDO MENDEZ / AFP via Getty Images)
"Act with the courage that characterizes you. This government will pardon all those who have been unjustly convicted of having done their job. Our judges must guarantee peace and order, not impunity and crime. The law must intimidate the offender. but not the police, "stressed the president.
According to decree 224 of the government of Ecuador, the state of emergency will last 60 days and provides for the mobilization of the Armed Forces in the provinces of El Oro, Guayas, Santa Elena, Manabí, Los Ríos, Esmeraldas, Santo Domingo de las Tsáchilas , Pichincha and Sucumbíos.
Its functions will be operational control in the required areas of citizen security, internal protection, crime prevention and public order, in addition to carrying out control, search and requisition operations in cases of carrying weapons and substances subject to control.
The decree also highlights that the Armed Forces "must adhere strictly to due process and place the detainee at the orders of the competent authority."
Guillermo Lasso
