How a young leather-clad president took on the drug cartels... and lost
When Daniel Noboa came to power last November, at the age of 35, he pledged to break up the powerful drug cartels that have come to dominate Ecuador.
His “Phoenix” security strategy included plans to enhance intelligence services and expand the military’s presence at key points of transport infrastructure. That all unravelled spectacularly in a matter of hours.
Amid the extreme violence that followed the prison escape of one of the country’s most wanted gang leaders, masked gangsters kidnapped policemen. “You declared war, you’ll get war,” one of the captured officers was forced to recite at gunpoint in a video posted on social media.
“You declared a state of emergency. “We declare police, civilians and soldiers to be the targets of war,” they told the president, guns to their heads.
This took place in Guayaquil, a port city that has become the epicentre of war between increasingly powerful gangs. The city is prized turf for drug traffickers seeking to guarantee cocaine pipelines to the US and Europe. Gangs have previously said they receive payments of weapons from Mexican cartels for their services. This has increased their violent capabilities and made their rivalries bloodier. The security services have struggled to keep up.
Ecuador’s problems extend beyond violence. Corruption scandals implicating judges, prosecutors and security officials in the international cocaine trade have eroded state legitimacy and fuelled accusations that the country has become a narcostate.
As prisoners rioted this week, gangsters burnt cars in the streets and interrupted a live TV news broadcast, opening fire on security forces and civilians in an explosion of violence.
The spotlight is now on the government’s response. Mr Noboa, the son of a banana magnate who is Ecuador’s richest man, won the second round of a special presidential election last October. As a result of the gang rampage this week he declared a state of “internal armed conflict”. The president labelled 22 criminal groups “terrorist organisations” and ordered the armed forces and police to mobilise and “neutralise” them.
With reference to president Nayib Bukele’s hardline stance in El Salvador, Mr Noboa called for a similar “iron fist” approach in Ecuador. But his administration has acknowledged that proposals to build new prisons, and fill them with jailed gang leaders, may have set off this wave of violence.
Political analysts believe Mr Noboa might have been too ambitious and wonder if he has an exit strategy from the war he has declared. He became Ecuador’s youngest president, replacing Guillermo Lasso, who cut short his term to avoid being impeached on corruption charges. It means Mr Noboa has only one-and-ahalf years to implement his agenda.