Ecuador remains in ‘shock’ after declaring “war” on organized crime: more than 320 prisoners and militarized streets

Ecuador has not yet recovered from the shock caused by the day of terror and chaos experienced on Tuesday due to the violent actions perpetrated by criminal gangs, on which the President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, declared “war”.

The armed assault broadcast on the TC Television channel, the burning of vehicles, the kidnapping of police officers and hostage riots in various prisons across the country led Noboa to make the controversial and unprecedented decision to consider organized crime groups as belligerent actors. against the stability of the state.

And by decreeing the “internal armed conflict”, Criminal gangs operating in Ecuador deemed ‘terrorist’ and military targets were to be “neutralized”, so the first day in this scenario resulted in the arrests of “329 terrorists” and the deaths of five, as well as two police officers killed and one wounded.

There was very little activity on the streets, with lIn-person lessons suspended in schools until Friday, many people have taken refuge in their homes, and a tight security cordon around the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito’s historic center.

Meanwhile, a total of 139 prison officials, including guards and administrative staff, are still detained in at least five prisons. where prisoners rioted as a protest measure against the heavy-handed policy that Noboa wants to implement in Ecuador’s prison system.

Among the inmates are 125 prison guards and 14 administrative officials in the prisons of Cuenca, Azogues, Napo, Ambato and Latacunga.

In the latter, located 70 kilometers south of Quito, prisoners swarmed on the roofs of the prison complex and also carried banners calling for “peace”, as did their relatives concentrated outside, as EFE was able to verify.

Daniel Noboa ‘does not negotiate’ with ‘terrorists’

At the moment Noboa shows up intransigent in negotiating the freedom of prison staff. “We are doing everything possible and impossible to bring them back safely, but we cannot stop a war because of this, because the state is at war,” she noted.

“We are in a state of war and we cannot surrender to these terrorists”, said the young president, in his first public speech since the outbreak of the crisis, the first as president after his inauguration in November, after a campaign with the badge of violence linked to drug trafficking.

This wave of violence comes in the face of the Noboa government’s apparently imminent intention to isolate the leaders of criminal gangs before taking them to two maximum security prisons whose construction it intends to present this Thursday, with a design similar to those used in Mexico and El Salvador.

Prisons in the spotlight

Prisons are in Noboa’s sights after more than 450 prisoners have been murdered there since 2020 in a series of prison massacres due to clashes between rival gangs, a violence that has spread to the streets so much so as to make Ecuador one of the most violence in the region.

Warned of this plan, José Adolfo Macías “Fito”, the boss of “Los Choneros”, the largest criminal gang in Ecuador and one of the most violent, escaped from prison on Sunday, for which Ecuador is offering a reward for his capture.

Also included in the reward program was Fabricio Colón Pico, leader of the “Los Lobos” criminal gang accused of planning an attack against Attorney General Diana Salazar, who escaped from Riobamba prison on Monday after a riot in which a total of 32 prisoners escaped .

Canal raiders tried for terrorism

At the same time, the Prosecutor’s Office prosecuted the 13 detainees for the attack on the television channel’s facilities in Guayaquil on Tuesday, including a Venezuelan and two minors, for terrorism.

The eleven adults, including the Venezuelan, were ordered to preventive detention, while the two minors, aged 15 and 17, will be placed in a detention center while investigations continue.

He the fear still remains in the group when these people broke into the television studio, hooded and armed, and pointed guns at the staff, all broadcast live nationally.

“I never thought I would experience what happened yesterday in my life. It was disastrous for all the canal workers. We were all afraid of dying or that a colleague was killed or injured,” creative producer Carlos Vega told EFE.

One of the operators can’t get it out of his head that “comrade José Luis Calderón is the criminal They put a stick of dynamite in his chest. We all saw it in Ecuador.”

The dialogue prevented it from ending in a bloodbath, General Víctor Herrera Leiva, commander of the Ecuadorian police, said in an interview with EFE. Through dialogue “they tried to make them stop using weapons, because inside the canal they had two long weapons, a machine gun and three explosive devices”, he explained.

Source: EFE