"They shot me to kill and they killed Javier," says Eduardo Velasco, who is recovering from a gunshot wound caused by soldiers.
The incident occurred at a military checkpoint in Ecuador,
where reports of abuses by public forces in the war against drugs are multiplying.
On February 2, this 34-year-old man was driving with his cousin Javier Vega, 19, to go sell a pet in the port city of Guayaquil (southwest),
one of the most violent in the country.
According to the court file, Velasco advanced despite the traffic restriction and the tire of his car passed over the foot of a soldier.
He maintains that, while backing up, he collided with a patrol car.
At "that moment I heard a detonation, my cousin grabbed me (...) I saw that his color changed, and he turned pale," Velasco, who is under house arrest for an alleged crime of attack and resistance, told AFP. .
Laura Ipanaque Baquerizo and Eduardo Velasco Ipanaque, mother and uncle of Javier Vega Ipanaque, who died during a military operation in Ecuador.
AFP Photo
"I see that they took him (Javier) down, hit him and stepped on his head
," he recalls.
Unable to continue driving due to the bullet in his shoulder, Velasco also ended up on the ground trampled by uniformed officers, according to his story.
With no criminal record, Javier Vega died a day later from
four shots that destroyed his lungs, stomach and spine.
The Human Rights Committee (CDH) accompanies the family in this case, one of many of alleged
excessive use of force by uniformed officers
in the midst of the state of emergency that has been in force in Ecuador since January.
According to NGOs, reports of military abuses have multiplied since President Daniel Noboa declared the country
in "internal armed conflict"
and mobilized his troops in the streets and prisons to combat twenty organizations classified as "terrorists."
The AFP analyzed 18 videos that circulated on social networks between January 11 and February 4 in different provinces.
At least ten verified cases show abuses such as beatings
in the streets during the night curfew.
Inside the prisons, there have been humiliations or explosions of tear gas bombs very close to the faces of half-naked and subjugated prisoners.
Laura Ipanaqué wants to clear the name of her son Javier, whom the Armed Forces branded a "terrorist."
Eduardo Velasco Ipanaque, uncle of Javier Vega Ipanaque.
AFP Photo
"No one is going to fill this void that they have left inside me, this pain that I have," says the 41-year-old woman.
The judge in the case ordered the Prosecutor's Office
to investigate an alleged excess of functions by the military.
Lawyer Fernando Bastias, coordinator of the CDH, explains that "the disproportionate use of force outside prisons (...) is very complex to monitor because it is happening almost everywhere and people believe that it is normal because there is a state of exception".
"We have seen people beaten, humiliated for disrespecting the curfew," he says.
The panorama
is similar
in prisons under military control.
During a hearing supported by the HRC for 18 inmates to access medical care, some recounted alleged torture including electric shocks.
"They made me open my legs and they hit me in the testicles, they hit me with the cable on the back," said one prisoner.
A judge ruled that there were violations of rights and ordered compensation for them.
The AFP requested interviews with the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces, but both declined the requests.
In parallel, the Armed Forces broadcast videos of inmates under strict military discipline while they exercise, sweep floors, sing or claim to have better living conditions inside prisons.
The UN asked Ecuador
for a "proportionate" response
to the wave of violence.
Noboa, 36, defends his tough policy.
"Let no antipatriate come and tell us that we are violating the rights of anyone, when what we are protecting the rights of the vast majority," said Ecuador's youngest president recently, surrounded by soldiers.
For Fernando Bastias, these statements pave the way for polarization and the path towards an eventual presidential re-election before an electorate fed up with a war between criminal gangs that left
a record of 46 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023.
According to the expert, taking control of prisons dominated by gangs is the "correct" thing to do, but
"exercising torture as a kind of punishment (...) is prohibited
by international humanitarian law."
Instead of promoting the "administration of justice" a "sense of revenge" is promoted, he estimated.
The ruling on violations against 18 prisoners is an example of the need to "stop" the "brutality with which the Armed Forces
were carrying out mistreatment inside prison
," Bastias continued.
For his organization, the militarization of prisons where more than 460 inmates have died since 2021 hides an outstanding debt: the purging of the public force, punctuated by corruption scandals, human rights violations and drug trafficking.
With Valentín Díaz. AFP Agency
P.B.