(Reuters) – Ecuador stunned on Thursday after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio the night before, less than two weeks before elections.
The killing of Villavicencio, an outspoken critic of corruption and drug-related crimes in Ecuador, underscores deteriorating security in much of South America.
The combination of chronically weak economic growth, volatile politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the growing success of cocaine trafficking gangs has destabilized large parts of the continent.
WHAT HAPPENED TO SECURITY IN ECUADOR?
Security in Ecuador has deteriorated since the pandemic. Since late 2020, violence has erupted in many of the country’s criminals, with hundreds of inmates killed in criminal riots.
Gangs operating in Ecuadorian prisons have taken advantage of the weakness of the state to expand their power, threatening the lives of detainees, according to human rights teams and relatives of prisoners.
Outside prisons, murders have skyrocketed. Since 2016, Ecuador’s homicide rate has soared nearly 500 percent to about 22 murders, compared with 100,000 more people in 2022, global threat intelligence firm Vethreat (NASDAQ:VRSK) Maplecroft said in a note.
Guyaquil, Ecuador’s most dangerous city, recorded 1,390 violent deaths in the first part of this year, a maximum of the same as in the 2022 total, and almost a part of the 3,500 deaths recorded nationwide, according to police data.
WHY DID THE VIOLENCE BREAK OUT?
Conservative President Guillermo Lasso, who has called for early presidential elections to conduct impeachment, has continually blamed drug gangs for the violence, adding to the jails.
The government said Thursday that Villavicencio’s killing stems from paintings of foreigners belonging to drug gangs.
Verisk Maplecroft also attributed an “unprecedented brutal crime” to the expansion of “transnational drug trafficking organizations and violent street gangs. “
Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, has escaped the violence that has long engulfed its northern neighbor, Colombia, the world’s largest maker of coca, the main element of cocaine.
With less attention from authorities, drug gangs have taken root in Ecuador, experts said, hiding large quantities of cocaine in banana shipments bound for Europe, where demand for the white powder is booming.
Ecuador is the only South American country feeling the impact. Paraguay, a key logistics hub for the global cocaine trade, has been characterized by high-profile cases of drug-related violence, and historically nonviolent countries such as Chile and Uruguay are also nonviolent. affected.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO FIX THE PROBLEM?
Lasso declared common states of emergency to bolster security, including army patrols on the streets and curfews in the middle of the night.
In April, Lasso legalized the civilian use of firearms to combat growing insecurity. The Ecuadorians went to the shooting levels according to their capabilities and protected themselves.
IS THERE A PRECEDENT FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN LATIN AMERICA?
Villavicencio’s killing is reminiscent of the 1984 murder of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and the 1989 murder of Colombian liberal candidate Luis Carlos Galán, analysts at Verisk Maplecroft said.
It also follows an assassination attempt on prominent Argentine Cristina Fernández De Kirchner last year, as well as the assassination and attempted murder of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, among others.
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