Ecuador: do not follow the example of Colombia and Mexico

With each passing month, the complex security situation that Ecuador is experiencing becomes more visible: massacres in prisons, strengthening of national and international organized crime, increase in homicides, illegal firearms in circulation, a presidential candidate assassinated, public television taken live and millions of people watching.

Everything raises the distressing memory that Ecuador is going to go through the same fate as Mexico and Colombia: another one.

The world is watching and the pressure is on.

What will it do to not end up like those two countries?

My advice is not to follow our example, especially where different leaders, in both countries, focused their speeches and concentrated their political capital.

The most urgent task that Ecuador has is to recover the legitimate monopoly of force and this implies strengthening the capacity and ability of the State to manage security.

But the governance of this sector was affected by eliminating and merging key institutions with direct competition in this area about seven years ago.

The result: weakening and elimination of qualified and professional human resources, as well as adequate technical, technological and financial capabilities.

Furthermore, as expected, several criminal organizations took advantage of the opportunity to advance their interests and consolidate their power.

At this critical point, the political challenge is to strengthen and purify the security and defense institutions without falling into the temptation of granting too much power to the public force, without the necessary tools to execute it in an effective and measured manner, and without due supervision and accountability.

The experience in countries like Colombia and Mexico shows that a public force with excessive power, little control and blind political support ends up accumulating great political and economic power, makes them prone to more corruption scandals and human rights violations and makes them less efficient in their work: a kind of surgeon with a machete.

Furthermore, by being more involved in the administrative actions of the State, it is easier for them to block future institutional changes.

And reversing that power provided will become a monumental task.

In addition to recovering the monopoly of force with tools and control mechanisms, I hope that Ecuador is more strategic than Colombia and Mexico and also bets on the other side of the coin: justice.

There can be no security without an efficient and effective justice system.

Therefore, to reduce violence and contain organized crime, it is insufficient to send the military to the streets and continue overcrowding the prisons.

They are popular actions, but they are also counterproductive because they escalate the violence even further and strengthen criminal groups as Ecuador has already proven: its prisons ended up becoming criminal schools.

So I hope this country chooses the path of strengthening and optimizing the work of prosecutors and judges, of stopping abusing the figure of preventive detention, of thinking about alternative measures to imprisonment for minor and non-violent crimes, of decriminalizing some behaviors, of improve prison systems and invest in recidivism prevention programs.

Another aspect where Ecuador can make a significant difference, by not following the example of Mexico and Colombia, is to avoid framing everything (speeches, agenda, security, defense and justice policies) within the fight against drug trafficking.

The temptation to do so seems a natural response to the extent that a good part of the criminal actions observed are related to this market.

But maintaining the idea that the war on drugs is the solution is almost insulting in the face of the gigantic evidence accumulated after decades of failure.

Let us not forget that what happens in Ecuador happens under a system of international drug prohibition.

Yes, paradoxical.

So I hope that Ecuador is more cautious, and manages to reach that point of talking about security and drugs in their proper proportions.

But also be more daring, and request or make evaluations of what has been useful and what has not in this matter in the region: a balance of money invested in this fight

versus

real impacts.

I hope that Ecuador is at the same time more autonomous and does not allow itself to be carried away by the pressure that Washington will surely impose on it (where there must already be minds thinking about a Plan Ecuador), designing and implementing its own agenda.

Coordinated as equals with whoever is appropriate, but not imposed.

I hope it is braver and joins Colombia in its objective of promoting a paradigm shift, because we cannot continue to be governed by drug control conventions designed more than 60 years ago.

I hope that Ecuador is more sensible in focusing efforts on money laundering, where criminal organizations can really be affected, and where the public force is a weak point due to exposure to corruption.

And finally, I hope it is more ingenious and manages to regionally lead experiments, studies or regulatory mechanisms for certain substances.

Underpinning all these decisions is a favorite discourse in the region: the iron fist.

Through this approach, actions such as tightening criminal codes, increasing police and military presence on the streets, increasing incarceration and preventive detentions, or emergency laws that limit civil liberties and expand the power of public forces are prioritized.

Again, attractive but ineffective.

They cause governments to end up being purely reactive, almost never preventive, on security issues.

As a result, the discourse and model of security seem to end up being a

show

to show manhood (it is no coincidence that it is a sector historically led by men) that leads to an endless violent escalation.

It has become a game where several of our leaders fall into the same logic as criminal organizations (“papayas, let them give up and we will fire them”).

Where authoritarian leaders and ideas are promoted in the name of security, while certain groups, especially young people, are further criminalized and stigmatized.

We resort to being heavy-handed, but we rarely reflect on why there are 16-year-olds murdering, and what could work according to the evidence to stop this from happening.

So I hope Ecuador does better.

You have an opportunity to better channel citizen anger and frustration.

To show us that being aware of the primary, basic need to live in a society with rules that we comply with and enforce does not inevitably imply policies with a machete in a strong hand, but rather with a scalpel in firm hands.

That going from state of exception to state of exception is not a consistent security policy.

Nor is the paralysis of action or empty slogans like “hugs, not bullets.”

I hope that Ecuador challenges the traditional security narrative without falling into do-gooder inaction and shows us that this word can also mean a right, protection, environments of trust, collective care and prevention.

That true firmness is found in the implementation of comprehensive, sustainable and specific security policies in cities, ports and borders.

In short, let Ecuador show us that we do not have to choose between democracy and security.

What security can go in harmony with respect for rights and freedoms.

We trust in you, Ecuador.

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