Egypt Independent –
Ecuador was known as the “isla de paz” – an island of peace – in the 1980s, when compared to its neighbors Colombia and Peru, some of the world’s biggest producers of cocaine.
But a deadly escalation of violence has upended that reputation in past few years, as rights groups say the Andean nation has clocked some of the highest homicide rates in the region.
In April alone, the country has seen a prison riot, explosions in the port city of Guayaquil, and the slaying of at least nine people during an armed attack of a fishing port.
Civilians are finding themselves caught between criminal groups battling for control of the cocaine supply chain, which passes through Ecuador, according to Glaeldys González, an expert on organized crime at the International Crisis Group.
And Ecuadorian authorities have struggled to tackle this public security crisis “efficiently because it is mired in (a) political crisis,” González says. MORE
For no particular reason, I wonder what the CIA has been up to lately.
Send in the clintons stat!
And didn’t Ecuador recently make Bitcoin legal tender?
… yea, so is America.
could call on cuba/haiti/venezuela for guidance, they are doing so well. people are leaving to escape the oppressive freedom & prosperity.
My wife was from Guayaquil, Ecuador. It has always been a corrupt society, like most of the world…and too much of the US, but the criminality was somewhat controlled. Ten years under Correa, the son of a convicted narco mule, turned Ecuador into a haven for criminals from throughout the region. He decriminalized crime. He packed the courts with like-minded judges. Criminals, even violent murderers, were often released before the arresting officer had completed his paperwork. That arresting officer could then expect a quick visit from a sicario, as a reward for doing his job.
After Correa left and his plans to do a Putin failed, he has schemed with the Communists, the criminal syndicates, his political party (metastasized into two or three new parties) and his appointees in the government to destabilize Ecuador to the point that the people would call for his return.
Unfortunately, the Mexican cartels have moved in to take control, not only of the drug trade, but also the domestic criminal organizations. They intend to take over Ecuador in the same way they have taken control of Mexico.
The first thing a new president in Ecuador should do is to preemptively arrest all friends and family. It is guaranteed that some of them would use their relationship to gain power, influence and wealth. Nearly every Ecuadorian, given that opportunity, would take it. It is to be expected, socio-culturally.
Lasso’s opposition, composed of leftists, indigenous groups (upset about the removal of subsidies) and quitocentric regionalists (Lasso is from Guayaquil), have hamstrung him from the beginning with a series of crippling strikes and multiple attempts at impeachment, for various reasons (sound familiar?).
Right now, I think most Ecuadorians would welcome the suspension of the Asamblea and the declaration of martial law. They are at war with the Mexican Cartels, their own criminals, and the Communists.
Lasso has the backing of the military. The national police still suffer from the influence of Correa appointees. They have been trying but they are outmanned and outgunned.
It remains to be seen if this will go forward as a war or a civil war. Nearly every family has someone involved in crime or communism. Still, better to do it now than to wait and become the next Mexico and/or Venezuela. Colombians are facing the same decision, now that buyers remorse is setting in after foolishly electing a Communist terrorist president.
Ecuador uses the US Dollar as its official currency, except for the use of the highly devalued Sucre for exchanges under $1, which are now rare. Correa tried to force the acceptance of a national cryptocurrency but it failed. El Salvador is the Latin American country that has promoted cryptocurrency.
Ecuador is kept deliberately poor by the despots which runs the place. Citizens are even forbidden to buy or accept previously used goods and forced to purchase only new store-bought with profits going directly to the corrupt government and those companies which are in league with the pollution.
There are no despots currently running Ecuador. The current, and previous, president has been hobbled by tyranny of the street (not the majority). Even the despot, Correa, was unable to complete his plans because of Ecuador’s irritating regionalism and pugnacious personal independence — good for them.
The importation of used goods, usually used clothing purchased by weight from charities that cannot make use of them, negatively impacts domestic industries, including neighborhood shops.
It is true that import barriers have been used traditionally to protect oligarch-owned (not the same as Russian oligarchs) industries that could not survive fair competition. Automobile prices were outrageously high for decades. Those tariffs have since been lowered significantly, flooding the cities with bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Dumping, no matter the product, is not fair competition. It doesn’t matter if it’s cheap used crap from the US or brand new cheap Chinese crap. If these tariffs impede personal exchanges of used items, it may not seem fair, but it is similar to illegal immigration. Many individual cases may be compelling, but the law is the law and it is there for a good reason.
The despot is living quite comfortably now in Belgium, thanks to ten years of skimming millions off Chinese loan money and more millions from frivolous lawsuits adjudicated by crony judges.
Ecuador has a thriving middle-class and there is upward mobility, be they abject poor or better off, though never enough and there are a variety of glass ceilings. Not too much different than the US, in that aspect.
Ecuador is not a paradise (though it can be, and is for some) but it isn’t quite a hell-hole…yet.