Notes: Security Crisis in Ecuador

good morning thank you so much for those of you who are joining us in person but also virtually I think we have about 160 people joining us online which I think shows the importance of the topic but also it's a reflection of our amazing panelists um my name is Rebecca Bill Chavez I'm president and CEO of the interamerican dialogue and we are here today to discuss the alarming security crisis in Ecuador and I think all of you are tracking that Ecuador right now is facing an unprecedented level of violence and turmoil in fact I was in keto just last month for meetings that were hosted by calf Development Bank of Latin America that brought together members of the naboa administration and also outside experts to explore innovative ways to address this issue and I hope we have a chance to talk about some innovative ways today but before we turn to Ecuador I just wanted to provide a very brief bit of context um primarily the fact that Ecuador is not alone crime and violence are significant challenges across Latin America and the Caribbean the Americas have the highest Regional homicide rate um sorry not Regional they have the highest homicide rate in the world and much of it is related to organized crime 23% report that they were victims of a crime in the past year and crime is the top concern of 20% of citizens in the region has been and continues to be a primary um focus in campaigns um across the region from Mexico to Uruguay but back to Ecuador um I think that there is a lot of to learn from the comparative perspective which we can of course um bring into the question and answers but the D dramatic rise of transnational organized crime and illicit trafficking they've compounded insecurity and really have propelled Ecuador into the ranks of the most violent nations in the hemisphere in November Danielle NOOA assumed the presidency and one of his first actions was to declare a state of internal war and to mobilize not just the national police but also the armed forces and of course this signals the gravity of the situation but it also has led to considerable debate within Ecuador and Beyond about his approach So today we're going to seek to unravel the complexities behind the security crisis we're going to examine how Ecuador's institutions are responding to the violence and also explore potential strategies for collaboration with the United States and other partners to overcome the crisis so to Del into these pressing issues we really have a just top-notch panel of expert Scholars with us first we have Dr Lorena Pedra assistant professor at the univers cathol Ecuador and also president of the ecuadoran association of inter International Studies Dr Pedra is an expert in police intelligence and criminal violence in Ecuador and she has been a tireless advocate for prison reforms especially in female wards where violence is rampant next we are joined by Dr Pablo andr professor at univers andina and Dr Andra among other things has a really deep understanding of the intricate relationship between political parties and criminal violence in Ecuador something I'm looking forward to hearing about and finally we are very privileged to have Dr Grace Hado professor at the University of British Columbia and founder of Ecuador's foreign policy Forum Dr Hado is an expert on Ecuador's foreign policy and international relations more broadly including in the context of um criminal violence so I think we're going to have lots of time for Q&A today but I want to get us started and I want to start with you Lorena and my question is well it's it's a request could you provide an overview of the current situ security situation in Ecuador and also if you could say um a few words about what you see as the major um if there there's been progress and also setbacks in the efforts to combat um criminal violence and basically the effectiveness of of the policies okay that's a big question I know yeah that's why I I will read a little bit because I I want to be like I want to say the things I must say and do not go around the the ideas okay we have uh an explosive increase in violent debts and this is what characterizes the current scenario in Ecuador and also there is an emic conflict within the penitentiary system and also we have the presence of areas where uh as was highlighted in president no's recent the state of emergency declaration the intensity and magnitude of the current situation have exceeded the state's capacities and what is important is that this criminal violence has a clear origin and this is an incomplete process of establishing ER State presence in certain regions of the country uh this critical areas include the northern northern and SN borders H the province of Los Rios manabi and generally hard to reach areas or unlegal settlements within major cities as Kito and guil and er the criminal increased violence results from the multiplication of leadership and the struggle among uh the leaders of criminal organizations and um because uh we cannot understand this also without the dynamic resulting from broken agreements among political actors linked to organized crime structors yeah we have H those elements and uh seems like there has been an explicit breakdown of agreements with organized crime structures and we have also a declaration of war and a lot of improvisations and lack of medium-term plans about what what will happen next and uh I want to be like uh brief in this part but the only progress we have seen is the temporary control of the operational centers of organized crime structures because they work from inside the prisons they used to work from there and we have like a temporary control but this control is very precarious because uh the Armed Forces which are in charge of these uh work said that they are constantly under attack for their current role and we cannot speak of like progress because there is no medium-term plan in any aspect not even in the control inside prisons uh and also um an area that is a extremely problematic it's inside the intelligence system of the country because the there's no way to control what is doing the intelligence system there hasn't been away from 2008 till now now we don't have an specialized La in intelligence that allows the Assembly of the country to oversight what is going on and uh the intelligence system has been doing political intelligence since 2008 and there's no way in which this can prevent to H happen all the time and we have um one fact that is very problematic because right now we have inside Ecuador the same person in charge of the ministry of ministerial interior and also of intelligence in the Cs is the same person so H that's very problematic because you have the temp Temptation right in front of you of using political intelligence and prioritizing that instead of the knowledge that you need to have in order to prevent the penetration of of criminal organizations inside a a lot of areas inside the country and um how can I say um that is the worst thing that can happen to a country that wants to prevent the penetration of criminal organizations you do not have intelligence H working as it's supposed to be and you do not have midterm plans you don't know what to do next and what is worse is that the army that used to be the most strong institution inside Ecuador it's corrupting little by little and when you don't have the Army what you will do next you don't have any plan Maybe so short answer so much Lena I I your point about intelligence is so important because when combating citizen insecurity I mean that is perhaps the most important ingredient um so I really appreciate that and something I hope we can come back to is your point about the military and corrupting the military we get the chance to talk a little bit before about um the dangers of militarization because when you bring in the military it's really hard to go back we've learned a lot from the Mexican case um that's been in this role since 2006 um and so perhaps we'll find time later to talk about off ramps for the military but this idea that the longer the militar is involved in this the more chances there are for human rights abuses and also for corruption um great great points so one of the things you mentioned was um the um breakdown of agreements and Pablo I want to turn to you here because um these these political alliances um and the rivalries I want to would love for you to delve into their role in either exacerbating or mitigating criminal violence and Ecuador and also because I'm a political scientist too any any insights on the role of political parties in influencing the Dynamics well a political scientist I tend to think that uh in order to explain this phenomenal we need to take into account the structural ins factors yes but also the role of the parties and the leaders and also the interaction between those parties and their institutional framework uh so to be to be um very suent um Ecuador's political system the political institutions are made for strong president backed by a majoritarian party in the legislative and that happened for 10 years but Korea didn't have the ability to keep the party together once he left office once he left office the party collapsed in part because of factional uh rivalries and that distort what seems to be there's no I would love to have more evidence I only have suspicions at this point um that the that collapse of uh alansa p with the factors that mention uh um Lorena help the dto the drug trafficking organizations uh to First consolidate in the country and second to uh enter into a dangerous a very dangerous Turf War based on their access to basically two change in conditions one uh the European market we don't we we think we tend to think on uh the cocaine Market at least as it it only comes to the exports come to the US but the main the main uh consumer of cocaine right now is Europe right and Europe uh uh and and the the market with Europe was favored by the structural change we we by Sorry by institutional change we signed an agreement a free training agreement with Europe and that helped uh our exports of cocaine to Europe so that's one factor the other factor is that the um the way in which the political parties operate in in our system is really interesting because they are not political parties they are mere electoral Vehicles if you look at uh Danielle NOOA party there's no party there's no registered legal party at the time when he um when he competed for the election or his first election it was a loose Alliance a loose coalition of a series of fragments of former political parties among them Alan um he had no structure so who is running the country because he's now the government this Alliance is the government who's running the country well basically um a company group of NOA the NOOA group if you look at every single one of the ministers and you look at their CVS what you're going to see is that they have plenty of experience with Management in companies right no so much in politics so the political system in Ecuador is designed in such a way as you either have the majority a Unitarian president who almost dictator or you don't have support in the legislative and you face defeat very easily so now those factors are what are playing right now let me give you uh the broad picture one again you have a very uh authoritarian decided president whose only support is not the legislative because he he doesn't have a majority in the legislative yes he h he has an enormous popularity among the population As proved by the recent referendum in April but he doesn't have a political party he has only a team of managers that he manages as the CEO of a company right and his only and his additional support is of course the military Lorena mentioned the militarization of the country yeah it is part of the picture the other part of the picture is that 6,000 6,000 members of the Armed forces have asked for uh early retirement for getting out of the of the army and going back to Mexico if I remember well the setas were more or less in the same Dynamic and going back to Mexico once again um amlo is an emerging leader an anti- anti-establishment leader uh immensely popular among other things because he he comes from outside of the party system Supply well in the case of Ecuador if you look at uh at the party system that existed from 1979 to 1997 more or less there's nothing left the Democracy help us to kill to destroy the parties that founded democracy the only survival is Paro Christiano um and then it came the long years of uh Rafael Cora and alansa P and they supposedly turned to the left the anti liberal program and so forth and so on and a new uh type of uh involvement with with the Armed Forces with the police and so forth and so on the result has not been um cheerful for no one well maybe for those who who benefited from it uh directly and it seems illegally in some cases so anyway and just to wrap up there are two things that that really worries me uh the involvement of the military in uh uh law enforcement is ring further more our already weak democracy I don't think that at this point we should talk about Ecuador as a democracy we should talk about Ecuador as m the civilian competitive regime that is what we have in place there um there's a strong tension between the executive and the legislative and part of the tension is because uh new elections are right around the corner and two of the candidates are President executive and the president of the legislative uh one from the right Diel and one for the right for the right uh Mr what's what's the name of the president of the legislative you remember Henry confer member of the Paro Christiano the party of Law and Order until yesterday uh so there's no much there one thing that gives me hope and that it normally tends to be ignored in this type of of conversations is that one really good thing that that ironically Y masso the former president and a former banker and uh Danielle D have done is to raise taxes on the wealthiest uh on the people who really has money to F this this war and that amounts to State Building now State Building paid by the elites but led by an authoritarian person or without the party that is able to control it without the normal uh um liberal rights to keep in check the power of the of the state well maybe not the way to go even the silver uh line the silver the Silver Lining seems to be not that silver a little bit dark here under there so we can we can keep talking about this thank you thank you um I think you said some very provocative provocative States statements there and I I hope we can have time to di dive into it but your part about the party system is not it's a good one and something when we're thinking about democracy more broadly in the region the erosion of party systems the like these just the um the link between these disposable parties and the rise of populism I think is something that's it's worth exploring um your your statement I do want to um hope we have some time to put to um talk about whether or not um Ecuador still is still a democracy I think that you could make the case that it um still is I think of democracy more as a Continuum um and I think we see a lot of kind of erosion of democratic institutions in the region I think I'm a little more optimistic in would characterize Ecuador but I don't live there um so um but this militarization issue of course is real and it's it's um alarming the the other thing though you mentioned Alo and I think omo is an important reminder that challenges democracy can come from both ends of the political spectrum they can come from the left and the come for the right um and I really just want to put this out there is is I think at least in the United States policy makers too often think about think what matters most is the left right Di and you know Return of the pink tide and all of these things when I think what really matters is the Democracy Continuum are you a liberal democracy or are you slipping towards authoritarianism so lots of food Lots we can discuss on this but I wanted toor sorry uh but you just remind me um a news that I watched yesterday from the Sky News uh the headline was France was uh how we lose France to the left yeah so yeah yeah and it come is well yes it and it comes it comes from both sides sometimes but that the the rhetoric here is definitely more along those lines um okay grace I want to turn to you and of course this issue of Citizen security it's not it's it's an issue that transcends borders no single country can really address it on its own I mean just by its very nature when we talk about transnational organized crime so um I'm hoping you can shed some light on how Ecuador can develop an even more robust collaborative strategy with the United States but not just with the United States with other International Partners to effectively address and overcome ultimately the the current crisis and what role do you see international support playing how can the International Community play a productive role um Thanks for for for the invitation for setting up this panel because I think there are many many ways in which the United States and what I call it the Western Front can help over countries like Ecuador overcome this type of situations first and foremost I would say you need a strategy to start with Ecuador needs a strategy to start with for starters I would say but the I mean talking about the strategy you also have the capacity to create allies with the United States I would say the Western Front front not only the United States and the European Union for example in create that such an strategy but that strategy needs to go beyond just the securitization of um the responses and I I mean since I my my strength is international political economy I will just say say it right away you cannot have such an strategy without ceasing the moments of the United States of creating value added ER employment Ecuador is um believe it or not is one of the few countries in the in the Pacific at least that has not um inserted itself into Global value chains that is dramatic something that has been done Long Ago by El Salvador by Costa Rica by even Guatemala that is not the case of Ecuador for example um just neighboring countries Colombia Chile H Peru has been inserting themselves into Global value chains um that has two fold consequences the first is that Ecuador lacks employment a good value added employment or at least a steady flow of employment that keeps up with population growth just um I will tell you starting um data so 60% of uh people in Ecuador is under 40 years of age if you don't create a steady sources of employment how on Earth are you going to overcome the security dilemma that we we're now facing um obviously the consequences are for all to see first of all you have a lot of migration and uh irregular or not irregular ones H value added migration that stays in the United States or Europe because of better opportunities or or just because the fear of violence but the second most consequential aspect of that is that the most vulnerable population especially the ones mentioned by Lorena in the provinces that are corupted by criminal violence Haas and esmeraldas loros and and especially manabi um th that youth is pray to high levels of of unemployment easily coopted by criminal gangs um to the illegal drug trafficking Market I was telling Rebecca for example that one of the also arriving forces into that equation um is not only is no longer at least just the coastal region and that increasingly youth unemployment in vulnerable communities is also the Amazon region that um is is pop ated by mostly indigenous peoples a lot of Youth unemployed just um I mean the regular sources of employment in the Amazon region is usually logging and Mining but even I mean those sources and and of of employment for employment can easily cross back and forth to Illegal sources of drug trafficking networks that are are are coopting also logging and Mining opportunities illegal mining that is to say so that is the second aspect where the US can really help not only building a strategy that goes beyond just one Administration that hopefully is consensual among different political parties even the ones that are do not support democracy are are party client clientes that really rely on patrimonial distribution of wealth but the second source is really create a huge investment in three areas I would say answering directly to what Rebecca is expecting but I I really think and according to other other um I would say examples in the region especially Mexico now the new I mean the newly elected president is really uh focused on negotiating um the new Free Trade Agreement NAFTA 2.0 into near sharing opportunities that is a really way to go is it cannot be possible that there is more sh near Shoring and GBC opportunities in Vietnam than in Latin America so that is the second aspect um huge investment in education in value added education in new technologies second investment in in startups and um I would say accelerators and innovators and three uh huge employment in both areas that um Can can really combat some sort of uh illegal drug trafficking but also illegal migration and I would say that it's not possible that under the circumstances and this is my advocacy piece um uh eador just received 27 million dollar a year um in development assistance when I mean the huge crisis that we're that we're witnessing really demands way more thank you among other things I think you brought up a really important issue is I think so many times when we talk about security there's a bifurcated conversation um where I think what you call the securitization of the conversation um versus the that happens and then you have the separate conversation on prevention and Rehabilitation these conversations need to be happening together um but I want to give an opportunity to the audience both those in person and also those of um of you online if you want to submit submit questions and if you could just introduce yourself um and then ask your question sure hi Alejandro Sanchez I'm an analyst based here in Washington DC a question to the panel um in on when Kito announced the the that there was an internal conflict the groups like The chonos The chony Killers the tonis they were level terrorists they're no longer criminals beeps murderers they teror terroristas what's your opinion about that um what's your opinion about the U and how does that that affect against from a legal perspective to be charged for ter with terrorism as compared not being charged for for for being with being a drug trafficker I'm sure there's a worse U penalty or or time in prison but what what do you think about the fact that we that that equadorian government is now using that label to describe um these entities thank you thank you very much uh just a very uh two very quick quick questions one is I think the elephant in the room in this in this crisis and it is Colombia you know I would like to know your opinion if there is any connection about the present security crisis in Colombia and the fact that there is a total collapse of the fighting against narcotics in Colombia and also of the border security of the Colombian border security capabilities you know particularly in the sou part of the country I mean basically I am going to be a little bit an over statement but basically Ecuador is no longer limiting with Colombia is limiting with a group of a a a a set of different criminal gangs disident groups and so on and on so that's my my first issue the second issue is a little more the second question is a little bit more about comparation with Mexico yes I would like to go a little bit deeper about this issue because I think there are a couple of very important difference between Ecuador and Mexico regarding the role of the military in the in public security I mean uh a couple of things one is the equadorian military is much smaller I mean we are talking really about a really a small Force we are talking about the armies around 25,000 troops more or less the second thing is excuse me in eador yeah well this is not the figure I have maybe you are right but the the the the the other thing is Ecuador has a really strong National Police at least in terms of numbers and this is very different in comparation with Mexico so there is a kind of balance on the on the side of the of the of the law enforcement in the sense that I mean it's not like Mexico now with just one one I mean just the military running almost completely the public security thank you very much thank you I'm Danielle from the ru of law program uh the dialogue um just a comment and a question I think that sometimes we forget that this government is the result of you know the cross dead mechanism like mu kusada it only had like one year right now and we're also in a pre-electoral context because we know that next year we're going to have like presidential elections so sometimes we feel that when we talk about Security in equator we're asking too much to a government that only has right now you know a temporary government and sometimes we think on long-term measures that will attack the root causes of violence but those long-term measures takes a lot of time to implement so my question is like what do you think could be some of the short term measures that we can Implement right now to fight you know security and then maybe we can think on medium and long-term measures like social policies education investment but right now if we can you know think about something to provide some security to equatorian what those measures can be I know it's not an easy question so has retired um I think my question is along the same lines I mean I didn't hear much about sequencing in terms of dealing with this issue I I personally think talking about value added party system is really secondary to the immediate task providing some kind of security stability in the country so the the question then becomes what what do you have to work with and from what I heard really really isn't a lot you have a military which is somewhat controversial but at least it's a it's a military they have uniforms they have some kind of training they have some kind of capab I I have if I were a citizen ofor I wouldn't have a problem with relying on whoever is has the capacity to actually do something which brings me to my question I do think intelligence is important and it's made a big difference in Colombia and in Mexico to the extent that they had in the case of Columbia they had their own intelligence for many years of fighting which was very easy to work with when the US decided to work with Colombians back centers created Lessing of intelligence capabilities I do wonder whether Ecuador has the in the needy greedy issues Reflections you could provide on on that were were I think four excellent questions um difficult questions and so um why don't we go in the order um that you spoke and you could kind of pick which one you think your most um equipped to answer well I I will try to okay um why called um organized crime organization terrorists I think that was an like the quick strategy in order to let the military get into the subject because with the Ecuadorian Constitution we have like very very straight lines uh that allows or not the military get into this kind of conflict and before the last uh referendum that we had uh it was like that you needed an special situation in order to let the military get inside the prisons all the time yeah um one one of the things and how can I say it's not possible to say this openly in Ecuador to talk about these things as a result of polarization because the style of government has authoritarian threats and it's amazing that even uh that we have uh a context in where criminal leaders like fito leader of the chonos and colico that it's the operational leader of the lawalls and he's responsible for the threats against the Attorney General um they they remain they remain free although they escape from jail yeah and we have that situation and we lack of a professional intelligence and centralized system that is working so uh that's a big issue that we have to fix inside the country in order to have uh real capabilities of doing something we must uh what we must do immediately in order to to fix this situation uh first of all we must get rid of improvisation in the inside the security field why because we have uh this big issue that it's a penetration of organized crime into key States institution yeah and the integration between corruption and organized crime has been so successful due as symbiosis H with corrupt actors evidence of this can be seen inside this night that it's the institution responsible for the penitentiary system uh we have this H prison that is jogo inside Kito and you can imagine a prison that it's special for pregnant woman and breastfeeding children that had the right to live with with their moms H since they have uh I mean a they have like three years old and also women with uh terminal illnesses with used to guarantee this person used to guarantee the basics for the childrens but since 2023 this turn this had turned to the opposite because on December of 2023 we have uh a key witness that it's a was a corrupt functionary and uh she was the one er a public official involved in a criminal structure that you used to control the justice system and she was transferred to this prison by judicial decision and her presence has disrupted H the Dynamics of the children that are inside the prison and that in Practical terms are locked up with their mothers so they they are like inside they are locked up starting at 400 P.M every day and they are the children are just allowed to go out at 8:00 a.m. every single day day and you have overcrowded conditions 20 mothers and childrens per Pavilion and they have like the maybe between 13 hours or 15 hours of confinment every single day imagine like toddlers babies and er this leads to physical psychological and sexual violence in this context uh the children barely receive the required caloric intake because you know inside Ecuador prisons the state is not paying anymore for food so the only food the the the people has inside it's comes from donations from civil society and the authorities are improvising almost all the time inside intelligence inside a prison system and H they rarely last a year in their roles you don't have professionals doing elligence or the work inside penit prisons and they like they lack the knowledge and experience to make it work and that's what we must fix because you have like you don't have professionals working in the most serious parts that you have that you must work in order to fix this problem thanks for sharing that by the way that was i i w well I'd like to uh deepen a little bit my comparison with Mexico make may look even awkward uh I mean there's if you look at the size of Mexico and the size of Ecuador there's almost no no comparison if you look at the of the economic structure of Mexico how Diversified is it how dependent is it from from the United States but also how competitive is is it in worldwide terms and you look at the uh economic structure in eador there's no comparison basically what we sport is grimp oil tomatoes and so sotic fruits well chocolate very good one by the way the best of the world uh anyway but if you look at the strategy then the comparison makes sense why because the strategy of Calderon on during the war of uh during the war of drugs was basically to Target the criminal organizations and to decapitate the leadership that is exactly the same strategy in eador and is working more L like in Mexico that is failing um and I don't have to say it you know some of my statements may seem uh poic they are not you have you only have to read decree 381 of July 2 this year 2024 uh which among it's a very hard to to read uh document uh but when you read it it is actually a confession signed by the president how the strategy is working so how the strategy is working according to the sources quoted by the president that is an extraordinary document uh it saids according to those sources that more or less approximately 11,000 people have died in the past 4 years 11,000 people killed 92% of them men 89% of them killed byarm for by a far arm by by a gun or a pistol you know and there's another interesting comparison between Ecuador and Mexico um in Mexico the gentleman is Right Mexico um the military were the dominant Force right and that was because in Mexico among other things you have I don't remember how many but to but too much fragmentation uh between the police yeah the the the law enforcement forces are you uh pick up this iPad and there's an agent of of the law enforcing you know uh the police the the law well anyway in Ecuador we have only one National Police it is uh centrally commanded and so forth and so on but in the new situation we we have um as part of the strategy a new special force called block SEC the block SEC that is um a coordination between the armed forces the Army especially and the the National Police it goes up to extremes for example um up to two weeks ago when you were there um the president ordered The Joint command of the Armed Forces and the police to operate in order to to make sure that the block supposed to be they ordered to move it the physically from keto to Manta where uh the block was operating now if you look at the structure of the block that normally who's in charge is a general of the army other of the police and to make to make things even clearer in that same decree that I just quote right um the one of the uh justifications one of the legal justifications for for the decree is that we need to improve the coordination between the Army and the police but it is clear also that the police is subject is inferior it should be coordinated by the Army because the Army is supposed to be less contaminated right um yesterday the minister of interior Monica Placencia Valencia yeah Monica Palencia uh she said that in uh Haas which is the first uh murderous District of the country uh 145 per 1,000 in some areas of homicides R uh will be commanded the block will be commanded by a general of the Army and the a general of the army will be the official uh SP person and so forth and so on I disagree with you my dear friend that I just met but anyway to me um with the things that parties are not important maybe I I I misunderstanding elections are important so in 2025 we are going to have an an election right and that election is going to be once again disputed by two loose coalitions two or three or 24 because the electoral law in Ecuador is very loose um of electoral machines right and it's beginning to show once again go back to the decree 381 the decree is supposed to focalize to Target from uh provinces among them W manavi um well not esmeraldas actually because in esmeraldas we we don't have an emergency according to the decree but according to the decree right those provinces are the major electoral districts so you are going to have an election under military rule under military law if I remember well that doesn't sound like a democracy there may be electoral competition among civilians um that's so where the nais yes so so I really quickly I I just wanted to to um say really up front so we were hoping to have a representative of the Ecuadorian Embassy today and it was up it ended up falling falling through I think it would have been really helpful to have that um but I do um want to kind of I want to um if it's okay just inter interject very quickly because I think Danielle and your question about sequencing was really important um because what are the other tools and I think this this one of the things we've learned from buele and El Salvador are people are willing to sacrifice a lot in exchange for security so what other options did NOOA have does NOOA have um if the military is the only option okay if it's the in the short term and if it's what citizens demand it's it's it's worth I think we have to think about that have to think about um that I I I have a hard time with this sometimes because I'm very critical of I've been very critical of bu's approach but I I um we actually have a a woman in the room who was just there who Salvadoran um who came back and just talked about the impact on her family so um but on this I think what's the danger part of the danger I served in the Obama Administration in the Pentagon and um is what is the off-ramp for the military because one of the challenges of Mexico is we've seen and this is a Mexico case which there are important differences is that once you start relying on the military it takes away the incentive to strengthen the police um so Pan and the je Marie the National Guard was supposed to do it um so something for us to think about as we think about um the best ways we have to come up with a framework for addressing citizen security that's within a rule of law framework I think this question of off ramps for the milit AR is going to be key and so what we did under the Obama Administration I'm not going to say it worked um in part because I wasn't continui of government but I think in part because um maybe this wasn't clear enough is that um continued military assistance was dependent on having a viable off-ramp for the military um in the issue of of law enforcement but the sequencing effort and what else is there available in the short run these are to as much as we these are issues we have to Grapple with um but I I was going to to Really point that out Rebecca precisely because um I we just published alongside my my friend Max Cameron last year um challenges to democracies in the Andes so we we actually did a comparative study of what is going on with horizontal controls of democracy and what is happening with the state structors within the Andes and it is clear for us all that that one of the problems and tackling for example the issue about intelligence something that um Lorena um work um right is working right now but I work before and trying to really call attention to to the different administrations in Ecuador of the the the real need to create a a a a an intelligence structure that is has Democratic controls so what you now have and I mean it used to be better actually Ecuador used to have a good criminal intelligence that used to work alongside um its Colombian counterparts that broke down in 2008 and I was part of the process I mean the academic Theon to make those two get together back again so that was the difference that was H what has changed so much regarding intelligence since 2008 after angostura after the the I would say the situation between Colombia and Ecuador they stop sharing intelligence for criminal activ or against criminal activities so Ecuador replaced that with some sort of political intelligence as opposed to criminal intelligence the government needs to have an agreement to go back again and to have a new system where the center is uh intelligence against criminal activity against International crime against cyber security or crime also but also with Democratic controls why we are in inserting the the issue of Mexico into the whole comparison um examination in this case is because Mexico was the one kind of penetrating the criminal guns in Ecuador not Colombia I mean that is sort of an important information and we are advocating now and and that is why the the these type of forums are are super important also for Ecuador and the possibilities of American collaboration and Western collaboration with Ecuador in fighting insecurity is because it goes beyond just one Administration yes indeed Danielle NOOA is just six month probably eight months now into the presidency but the a strategy is is key to have some sort of um consensual or Democratic agreement between the parties that goes Beyond one single Administration and it it starts to reassert control of what to do with the military afterwards for example how the coordination should work between the Agents of the state and something that we missed out in this discussion is how independent is the justice system from both the criminal activities and also single administrations targeting political paybacks for example so that is key for all the success and the success of any any approach to combat increasing criminality increasing violence in Ecuador in the future in the near future in the medium term in the long term I think I want to give um chance for another round um and also if there are any pressing um questions that are coming in um so I think there if we we have time for another round oh so we have one there and one over on this end of the room hi and thank you again very much for being here this is very interesting it's it's great to hear your voices on the topic very important my name is James Virgil um I would like to start with a comment and then follow up with the question here the comment is that we've been comparing the Ecuadorian situation a lot to the Colombian and Mexican ones um and I think that although you know there is some purpose to that it's a limit on those on the use utility of these comparisons Ecuadorian situation is primarily a narcot trafficking one and not a narco producing or Distributing one that we would see in Mexico or Columbia and therefore the Band-Aid solutions that we could say probably weren't very effective and are not very effective in Mexico and Colombia who knows how they would apply to the Ecuadorian situation which leads me to my question with that caveat it has been shown Tom rright is a great Economist who gets into this that higher walls mean higher ladders as militarization and counternarcotics increases narcotics Narco organizations militarize in turn do you think that there is room in the Ecuadorian narcotics counterar itics Conflict for a demilitarization starting on the government's part uh to make a more peaceful conflict resolution morning I'm Emily Cole I work as an attorney and researcher with the program on global faith and inclusive societies out of pepperd DC campus um my question for you we focus on human rights broadly but mostly International religious freedom so it's a little bit of a different question but I just wanted to ask do you have an opinion or see the role for Faith leaders in some of these communities especially like as maradas or manabi um areas where like you said there's low employment opportunities and it's probably more at the local level where things um can take root so I guess I'm just wondering I know your backgrounds are are vared political science economics but do you see a larger role for Faith communities whatever they may be to act as sort of catalyst to help with security and stability especially given that the OAS General Assembly one of their resolutions noted specifically that religious freedom is one of those Pathways towards stability and democracy um in many different countries in the region so thank you more Peter mcferson in the front row wait let's get you a microphone thank you so very much your comments and it seems like an excellent job indicating the problem but we haven't really gotten into as much of what we would what would be proposed to do now is clear that security and crime uh is a major issue in Ecuador to the population and it's also clear historically that sooner or later when that when those issues great are so great then a a person on horse horseback arrives and it takes control of things I so I know we're about out of time but I as I sit here listening to this with long Association and great affection for Ecuador I'm particularly interested in what you would say today or the months ahead would be the best course uh or our options for courses for the ecuadorians to take to deal with this problem question um so why don't we this time we'll start and we'll go this direction so Grace why don't we start with you great so I will resume my conversation with Peter because Peter was just asking me that at the beginning of the of of this um event I would do two things mainly one a good strategy that focuses on creating good intelligence against criminal activity connecting that intell I mean that intelligence system with Democratic controls like that exist in other democracies to I will definitely invest um in Anchor companies in in an anchor industry that lives immediately A lot of people out of poverty creates huge levels of employment in in some sort of area other than that I I mean there are so many things to do but I will start with those two thank you Grace keeping with with Grace spirit and your question I think that the the way to to go is to strengthen Civil Society along with this other uh uh efforts indeed we need uh better uh intelligence indeed but we also need more democracy more democratic controls on them because otherwise we're going to end up in the same Sor state that we that we were on the cor um and yeah to go back to you uh Faith communities are part of the picture there should be actually I will uh suggest you to look at the uh work that the com konanos I don't know what the name in in English um one order of the Catholic Church are doing in in esmeraldas amazing stuff really really really interesting and what the what the thing that I were that they are doing is actually putting together indirect action you know face to face the military with their organization right because under under the state of emergency and I know that some things need we have to do something uh under the military law uh under the emergency law the military can go right into your house and take you as suspect suspected of drug trafficking belong into a gang or being a killer or you know whatever but if you are a woman and if you are uh captured by a pelone or by a patrol of the army well your prospects are dark so what I what I what is this person doing well organizes the bario the neighborhood good people by the way to accompany this woman to the prison to the military uh uh barx and being sure that she is well and this she that she comes out well there's growing concern concerns of Human Rights and one of the most motivated uh Civil Society organizations that are following this these human rights abuses uh come from the Catholic Church come from the uh um Progressive Evangelical churches that are uh working in Ecuador so yeah I think it's part of the of the future and a very important part of the picture um can I just um just say that you said that your question might not be relevant I think it was incredibly relevant in this this point so Pablo and I were speaking beforehand about having these conversations need to be inclusive in Civil Society is such an important voice that needs to be at the table I think we're running out of time so I want to um give Lorena a chance um and then of course those of you who are available we can stay around and we can chat afterwards thank you uh yeah okay uh talking about the role of the religious actors inside eador CAD just last year opened a big campus inalas and in the most dangerous places in which no one wants to have a a place H for example in San Lorenzo yeah you you have a an small campus but you have one and in other in other uh places in esmeraldas that the the things are going on very bad and it this is unique because the university has special scholarships for people in risk and this is important because if you think it twice this is not work of one private university one Catholic University this is this is work of the state to offer opportunities to study to a lot of people there yeah and and I also I I I want to add something talking about the intelligence capabilities in Ecuador uh something that it's impossible to think as a possibility but that happens in Ecuador is that H the government and the strategy of the government is not seem that organized crime structures inside Ecuador have Diversified their income generation lines including Timber trafficking and the highly lucrative IL legal gold destruction the Lobos had become very strong in this and here we have a very rare fact the authorities does not have the numbers of how many million of dollars can earn the Lobos by a illegal gold distraction yeah some some analyst says $2 million per month H some other analyst can make the numbers climb uh till maybe $10 million a month so you don't have the numbers and you are not seeing this problem but this ensures um that the operational capability of criminal organizations in the context of an internal War change so it does not matter if drug Dr trafficking or instruction systems are attacked they have a financial caution and no one is seeing this inside Ecuador illegal mining ER is the most lucrative inonline right now and the least attacked by the state structures which are almost exclusively focused on drugs and this is a how can I say a real danger that we have because no not no institution inside the country has the exact numbers of what's going on well thank you all um Grace I just wanted to say one comment on your your two suggestions and just um so when we were in Kito for this workshop with um members of the administration maybe you were channeling me because I think the two two of the key pieces of of not advice but kind of the workshop focused on is one is developing a a short-term long-term medium-term strategy and the second one was Intel Intel Intel um but I I wanted to end by um this back to a think a theme that has been kind of especially with you Pablo this theme of democracy because I think this topic of security has huge implications for democracy in the region and not just Ecuador because I think this issue of how finding ways to address citizen insecurity within a rule of law framework is really important when it comes to addressing the crisis of confidence in democracy um I think you're all tracking that over the past two decades um the decline in support for democracy today only three in five um citizens of the region see democracy as the best form of government and even probably more alarming is only two and five are satisfied with how it performs and one of the reasons is is this government providing me can my kids go to school so when we're thinking about how do to build support for democracy at a time when we're seeing erosion of democratic institutions across much of the hemisphere addressing citizen insecurity is is one way and finally I just want to announce that we are going to be um we have an annual conference every year with cap Development Bank and the organization of American states this year it's going to be on September 5th at the OAS and the focus of the conference is going to be on security and development so we'll have um the opportunity and not definitely I think the conversation we had today will will feed into it so I want to thank you Lor Pablo and Grace so much for being here and thank you to our audience here and online for joining us

good morning thank you so much for those of you who are joining us in person but also virtually I think we have about 160 people joining us online which I think shows the importance of the topic but also it&#39;s a reflection of our amazing panelists um my name is Rebecca Bill Chavez I&#39;m president and CEO of the interamerican dialogue and we are here today to discuss the alarming security crisis in Ecuador and I think all of you are tracking that Ecuador right now is facing an unprecedented level of violence and turmoil in fact I was in keto just last month for meetings that were hosted by calf Development Bank of Latin America that brought together members of the naboa administration and also outside experts to explore innovative ways to address this issue and I hope we have a chance to talk about some innovative ways today but before we turn to Ecuador I just wanted to provide a very brief bit of context um primarily the fact that Ecuador is not alone crime and violence are significant challenges across Latin America and the Caribbean the Americas have the highest Regional homicide rate um sorry not Regional they have the highest homicide rate in the world and much of it is related to organized crime 23% report that they were victims of a crime in the past year and crime is the top concern of 20% of citizens in the region has been and continues to be a primary um focus in campaigns um across the region from Mexico to Uruguay but back to Ecuador um I think that there is a lot of to learn from the comparative perspective which we can of course um bring into the question and answers but the D dramatic rise of transnational organized crime and illicit trafficking they&#39;ve compounded insecurity and really have propelled Ecuador into the ranks of the most violent nations in the hemisphere in November Danielle NOOA assumed the presidency and one of his first actions was to declare a state of internal war and to mobilize not just the national police but also the armed forces and of course this signals the gravity of the situation but it also has led to considerable debate within Ecuador and Beyond about his approach So today we&#39;re going to seek to unravel the complexities behind the security crisis we&#39;re going to examine how Ecuador&#39;s institutions are responding to the violence and also explore potential strategies for collaboration with the United States and other partners to overcome the crisis so to Del into these pressing issues we really have a just top-notch panel of expert Scholars with us first we have Dr Lorena Pedra assistant professor at the univers cathol Ecuador and also president of the ecuadoran association of inter International Studies Dr Pedra is an expert in police intelligence and criminal violence in Ecuador and she has been a tireless advocate for prison reforms especially in female wards where violence is rampant next we are joined by Dr Pablo andr professor at univers andina and Dr Andra among other things has a really deep understanding of the intricate relationship between political parties and criminal violence in Ecuador something I&#39;m looking forward to hearing about and finally we are very privileged to have Dr Grace Hado professor at the University of British Columbia and founder of Ecuador&#39;s foreign policy Forum Dr Hado is an expert on Ecuador&#39;s foreign policy and international relations more broadly including in the context of um criminal violence so I think we&#39;re going to have lots of time for Q&amp;A today but I want to get us started and I want to start with you Lorena and my question is well it&#39;s it&#39;s a request could you provide an overview of the current situ security situation in Ecuador and also if you could say um a few words about what you see as the major um if there there&#39;s been progress and also setbacks in the efforts to combat um criminal violence and basically the effectiveness of of the policies okay that&#39;s a big question I know yeah that&#39;s why I I will read a little bit because I I want to be like I want to say the things I must say and do not go around the the ideas okay we have uh an explosive increase in violent debts and this is what characterizes the current scenario in Ecuador and also there is an emic conflict within the penitentiary system and also we have the presence of areas where uh as was highlighted in president no&#39;s recent the state of emergency declaration the intensity and magnitude of the current situation have exceeded the state&#39;s capacities and what is important is that this criminal violence has a clear origin and this is an incomplete process of establishing ER State presence in certain regions of the country uh this critical areas include the northern northern and SN borders H the province of Los Rios manabi and generally hard to reach areas or unlegal settlements within major cities as Kito and guil and er the criminal increased violence results from the multiplication of leadership and the struggle among uh the leaders of criminal organizations and um because uh we cannot understand this also without the dynamic resulting from broken agreements among political actors linked to organized crime structors yeah we have H those elements and uh seems like there has been an explicit breakdown of agreements with organized crime structures and we have also a declaration of war and a lot of improvisations and lack of medium-term plans about what what will happen next and uh I want to be like uh brief in this part but the only progress we have seen is the temporary control of the operational centers of organized crime structures because they work from inside the prisons they used to work from there and we have like a temporary control but this control is very precarious because uh the Armed Forces which are in charge of these uh work said that they are constantly under attack for their current role and we cannot speak of like progress because there is no medium-term plan in any aspect not even in the control inside prisons uh and also um an area that is a extremely problematic it&#39;s inside the intelligence system of the country because the there&#39;s no way to control what is doing the intelligence system there hasn&#39;t been away from 2008 till now now we don&#39;t have an specialized La in intelligence that allows the Assembly of the country to oversight what is going on and uh the intelligence system has been doing political intelligence since 2008 and there&#39;s no way in which this can prevent to H happen all the time and we have um one fact that is very problematic because right now we have inside Ecuador the same person in charge of the ministry of ministerial interior and also of intelligence in the Cs is the same person so H that&#39;s very problematic because you have the temp Temptation right in front of you of using political intelligence and prioritizing that instead of the knowledge that you need to have in order to prevent the penetration of of criminal organizations inside a a lot of areas inside the country and um how can I say um that is the worst thing that can happen to a country that wants to prevent the penetration of criminal organizations you do not have intelligence H working as it&#39;s supposed to be and you do not have midterm plans you don&#39;t know what to do next and what is worse is that the army that used to be the most strong institution inside Ecuador it&#39;s corrupting little by little and when you don&#39;t have the Army what you will do next you don&#39;t have any plan Maybe so short answer so much Lena I I your point about intelligence is so important because when combating citizen insecurity I mean that is perhaps the most important ingredient um so I really appreciate that and something I hope we can come back to is your point about the military and corrupting the military we get the chance to talk a little bit before about um the dangers of militarization because when you bring in the military it&#39;s really hard to go back we&#39;ve learned a lot from the Mexican case um that&#39;s been in this role since 2006 um and so perhaps we&#39;ll find time later to talk about off ramps for the military but this idea that the longer the militar is involved in this the more chances there are for human rights abuses and also for corruption um great great points so one of the things you mentioned was um the um breakdown of agreements and Pablo I want to turn to you here because um these these political alliances um and the rivalries I want to would love for you to delve into their role in either exacerbating or mitigating criminal violence and Ecuador and also because I&#39;m a political scientist too any any insights on the role of political parties in influencing the Dynamics well a political scientist I tend to think that uh in order to explain this phenomenal we need to take into account the structural ins factors yes but also the role of the parties and the leaders and also the interaction between those parties and their institutional framework uh so to be to be um very suent um Ecuador&#39;s political system the political institutions are made for strong president backed by a majoritarian party in the legislative and that happened for 10 years but Korea didn&#39;t have the ability to keep the party together once he left office once he left office the party collapsed in part because of factional uh rivalries and that distort what seems to be there&#39;s no I would love to have more evidence I only have suspicions at this point um that the that collapse of uh alansa p with the factors that mention uh um Lorena help the dto the drug trafficking organizations uh to First consolidate in the country and second to uh enter into a dangerous a very dangerous Turf War based on their access to basically two change in conditions one uh the European market we don&#39;t we we think we tend to think on uh the cocaine Market at least as it it only comes to the exports come to the US but the main the main uh consumer of cocaine right now is Europe right and Europe uh uh and and the the market with Europe was favored by the structural change we we by Sorry by institutional change we signed an agreement a free training agreement with Europe and that helped uh our exports of cocaine to Europe so that&#39;s one factor the other factor is that the um the way in which the political parties operate in in our system is really interesting because they are not political parties they are mere electoral Vehicles if you look at uh Danielle NOOA party there&#39;s no party there&#39;s no registered legal party at the time when he um when he competed for the election or his first election it was a loose Alliance a loose coalition of a series of fragments of former political parties among them Alan um he had no structure so who is running the country because he&#39;s now the government this Alliance is the government who&#39;s running the country well basically um a company group of NOA the NOOA group if you look at every single one of the ministers and you look at their CVS what you&#39;re going to see is that they have plenty of experience with Management in companies right no so much in politics so the political system in Ecuador is designed in such a way as you either have the majority a Unitarian president who almost dictator or you don&#39;t have support in the legislative and you face defeat very easily so now those factors are what are playing right now let me give you uh the broad picture one again you have a very uh authoritarian decided president whose only support is not the legislative because he he doesn&#39;t have a majority in the legislative yes he h he has an enormous popularity among the population As proved by the recent referendum in April but he doesn&#39;t have a political party he has only a team of managers that he manages as the CEO of a company right and his only and his additional support is of course the military Lorena mentioned the militarization of the country yeah it is part of the picture the other part of the picture is that 6,000 6,000 members of the Armed forces have asked for uh early retirement for getting out of the of the army and going back to Mexico if I remember well the setas were more or less in the same Dynamic and going back to Mexico once again um amlo is an emerging leader an anti- anti-establishment leader uh immensely popular among other things because he he comes from outside of the party system Supply well in the case of Ecuador if you look at uh at the party system that existed from 1979 to 1997 more or less there&#39;s nothing left the Democracy help us to kill to destroy the parties that founded democracy the only survival is Paro Christiano um and then it came the long years of uh Rafael Cora and alansa P and they supposedly turned to the left the anti liberal program and so forth and so on and a new uh type of uh involvement with with the Armed Forces with the police and so forth and so on the result has not been um cheerful for no one well maybe for those who who benefited from it uh directly and it seems illegally in some cases so anyway and just to wrap up there are two things that that really worries me uh the involvement of the military in uh uh law enforcement is ring further more our already weak democracy I don&#39;t think that at this point we should talk about Ecuador as a democracy we should talk about Ecuador as m the civilian competitive regime that is what we have in place there um there&#39;s a strong tension between the executive and the legislative and part of the tension is because uh new elections are right around the corner and two of the candidates are President executive and the president of the legislative uh one from the right Diel and one for the right for the right uh Mr what&#39;s what&#39;s the name of the president of the legislative you remember Henry confer member of the Paro Christiano the party of Law and Order until yesterday uh so there&#39;s no much there one thing that gives me hope and that it normally tends to be ignored in this type of of conversations is that one really good thing that that ironically Y masso the former president and a former banker and uh Danielle D have done is to raise taxes on the wealthiest uh on the people who really has money to F this this war and that amounts to State Building now State Building paid by the elites but led by an authoritarian person or without the party that is able to control it without the normal uh um liberal rights to keep in check the power of the of the state well maybe not the way to go even the silver uh line the silver the Silver Lining seems to be not that silver a little bit dark here under there so we can we can keep talking about this thank you thank you um I think you said some very provocative provocative States statements there and I I hope we can have time to di dive into it but your part about the party system is not it&#39;s a good one and something when we&#39;re thinking about democracy more broadly in the region the erosion of party systems the like these just the um the link between these disposable parties and the rise of populism I think is something that&#39;s it&#39;s worth exploring um your your statement I do want to um hope we have some time to put to um talk about whether or not um Ecuador still is still a democracy I think that you could make the case that it um still is I think of democracy more as a Continuum um and I think we see a lot of kind of erosion of democratic institutions in the region I think I&#39;m a little more optimistic in would characterize Ecuador but I don&#39;t live there um so um but this militarization issue of course is real and it&#39;s it&#39;s um alarming the the other thing though you mentioned Alo and I think omo is an important reminder that challenges democracy can come from both ends of the political spectrum they can come from the left and the come for the right um and I really just want to put this out there is is I think at least in the United States policy makers too often think about think what matters most is the left right Di and you know Return of the pink tide and all of these things when I think what really matters is the Democracy Continuum are you a liberal democracy or are you slipping towards authoritarianism so lots of food Lots we can discuss on this but I wanted toor sorry uh but you just remind me um a news that I watched yesterday from the Sky News uh the headline was France was uh how we lose France to the left yeah so yeah yeah and it come is well yes it and it comes it comes from both sides sometimes but that the the rhetoric here is definitely more along those lines um okay grace I want to turn to you and of course this issue of Citizen security it&#39;s not it&#39;s it&#39;s an issue that transcends borders no single country can really address it on its own I mean just by its very nature when we talk about transnational organized crime so um I&#39;m hoping you can shed some light on how Ecuador can develop an even more robust collaborative strategy with the United States but not just with the United States with other International Partners to effectively address and overcome ultimately the the current crisis and what role do you see international support playing how can the International Community play a productive role um Thanks for for for the invitation for setting up this panel because I think there are many many ways in which the United States and what I call it the Western Front can help over countries like Ecuador overcome this type of situations first and foremost I would say you need a strategy to start with Ecuador needs a strategy to start with for starters I would say but the I mean talking about the strategy you also have the capacity to create allies with the United States I would say the Western Front front not only the United States and the European Union for example in create that such an strategy but that strategy needs to go beyond just the securitization of um the responses and I I mean since I my my strength is international political economy I will just say say it right away you cannot have such an strategy without ceasing the moments of the United States of creating value added ER employment Ecuador is um believe it or not is one of the few countries in the in the Pacific at least that has not um inserted itself into Global value chains that is dramatic something that has been done Long Ago by El Salvador by Costa Rica by even Guatemala that is not the case of Ecuador for example um just neighboring countries Colombia Chile H Peru has been inserting themselves into Global value chains um that has two fold consequences the first is that Ecuador lacks employment a good value added employment or at least a steady flow of employment that keeps up with population growth just um I will tell you starting um data so 60% of uh people in Ecuador is under 40 years of age if you don&#39;t create a steady sources of employment how on Earth are you going to overcome the security dilemma that we we&#39;re now facing um obviously the consequences are for all to see first of all you have a lot of migration and uh irregular or not irregular ones H value added migration that stays in the United States or Europe because of better opportunities or or just because the fear of violence but the second most consequential aspect of that is that the most vulnerable population especially the ones mentioned by Lorena in the provinces that are corupted by criminal violence Haas and esmeraldas loros and and especially manabi um th that youth is pray to high levels of of unemployment easily coopted by criminal gangs um to the illegal drug trafficking Market I was telling Rebecca for example that one of the also arriving forces into that equation um is not only is no longer at least just the coastal region and that increasingly youth unemployment in vulnerable communities is also the Amazon region that um is is pop ated by mostly indigenous peoples a lot of Youth unemployed just um I mean the regular sources of employment in the Amazon region is usually logging and Mining but even I mean those sources and and of of employment for employment can easily cross back and forth to Illegal sources of drug trafficking networks that are are are coopting also logging and Mining opportunities illegal mining that is to say so that is the second aspect where the US can really help not only building a strategy that goes beyond just one Administration that hopefully is consensual among different political parties even the ones that are do not support democracy are are party client clientes that really rely on patrimonial distribution of wealth but the second source is really create a huge investment in three areas I would say answering directly to what Rebecca is expecting but I I really think and according to other other um I would say examples in the region especially Mexico now the new I mean the newly elected president is really uh focused on negotiating um the new Free Trade Agreement NAFTA 2.0 into near sharing opportunities that is a really way to go is it cannot be possible that there is more sh near Shoring and GBC opportunities in Vietnam than in Latin America so that is the second aspect um huge investment in education in value added education in new technologies second investment in in startups and um I would say accelerators and innovators and three uh huge employment in both areas that um Can can really combat some sort of uh illegal drug trafficking but also illegal migration and I would say that it&#39;s not possible that under the circumstances and this is my advocacy piece um uh eador just received 27 million dollar a year um in development assistance when I mean the huge crisis that we&#39;re that we&#39;re witnessing really demands way more thank you among other things I think you brought up a really important issue is I think so many times when we talk about security there&#39;s a bifurcated conversation um where I think what you call the securitization of the conversation um versus the that happens and then you have the separate conversation on prevention and Rehabilitation these conversations need to be happening together um but I want to give an opportunity to the audience both those in person and also those of um of you online if you want to submit submit questions and if you could just introduce yourself um and then ask your question sure hi Alejandro Sanchez I&#39;m an analyst based here in Washington DC a question to the panel um in on when Kito announced the the that there was an internal conflict the groups like The chonos The chony Killers the tonis they were level terrorists they&#39;re no longer criminals beeps murderers they teror terroristas what&#39;s your opinion about that um what&#39;s your opinion about the U and how does that that affect against from a legal perspective to be charged for ter with terrorism as compared not being charged for for for being with being a drug trafficker I&#39;m sure there&#39;s a worse U penalty or or time in prison but what what do you think about the fact that we that that equadorian government is now using that label to describe um these entities thank you thank you very much uh just a very uh two very quick quick questions one is I think the elephant in the room in this in this crisis and it is Colombia you know I would like to know your opinion if there is any connection about the present security crisis in Colombia and the fact that there is a total collapse of the fighting against narcotics in Colombia and also of the border security of the Colombian border security capabilities you know particularly in the sou part of the country I mean basically I am going to be a little bit an over statement but basically Ecuador is no longer limiting with Colombia is limiting with a group of a a a a set of different criminal gangs disident groups and so on and on so that&#39;s my my first issue the second issue is a little more the second question is a little bit more about comparation with Mexico yes I would like to go a little bit deeper about this issue because I think there are a couple of very important difference between Ecuador and Mexico regarding the role of the military in the in public security I mean uh a couple of things one is the equadorian military is much smaller I mean we are talking really about a really a small Force we are talking about the armies around 25,000 troops more or less the second thing is excuse me in eador yeah well this is not the figure I have maybe you are right but the the the the the other thing is Ecuador has a really strong National Police at least in terms of numbers and this is very different in comparation with Mexico so there is a kind of balance on the on the side of the of the of the law enforcement in the sense that I mean it&#39;s not like Mexico now with just one one I mean just the military running almost completely the public security thank you very much thank you I&#39;m Danielle from the ru of law program uh the dialogue um just a comment and a question I think that sometimes we forget that this government is the result of you know the cross dead mechanism like mu kusada it only had like one year right now and we&#39;re also in a pre-electoral context because we know that next year we&#39;re going to have like presidential elections so sometimes we feel that when we talk about Security in equator we&#39;re asking too much to a government that only has right now you know a temporary government and sometimes we think on long-term measures that will attack the root causes of violence but those long-term measures takes a lot of time to implement so my question is like what do you think could be some of the short term measures that we can Implement right now to fight you know security and then maybe we can think on medium and long-term measures like social policies education investment but right now if we can you know think about something to provide some security to equatorian what those measures can be I know it&#39;s not an easy question so has retired um I think my question is along the same lines I mean I didn&#39;t hear much about sequencing in terms of dealing with this issue I I personally think talking about value added party system is really secondary to the immediate task providing some kind of security stability in the country so the the question then becomes what what do you have to work with and from what I heard really really isn&#39;t a lot you have a military which is somewhat controversial but at least it&#39;s a it&#39;s a military they have uniforms they have some kind of training they have some kind of capab I I have if I were a citizen ofor I wouldn&#39;t have a problem with relying on whoever is has the capacity to actually do something which brings me to my question I do think intelligence is important and it&#39;s made a big difference in Colombia and in Mexico to the extent that they had in the case of Columbia they had their own intelligence for many years of fighting which was very easy to work with when the US decided to work with Colombians back centers created Lessing of intelligence capabilities I do wonder whether Ecuador has the in the needy greedy issues Reflections you could provide on on that were were I think four excellent questions um difficult questions and so um why don&#39;t we go in the order um that you spoke and you could kind of pick which one you think your most um equipped to answer well I I will try to okay um why called um organized crime organization terrorists I think that was an like the quick strategy in order to let the military get into the subject because with the Ecuadorian Constitution we have like very very straight lines uh that allows or not the military get into this kind of conflict and before the last uh referendum that we had uh it was like that you needed an special situation in order to let the military get inside the prisons all the time yeah um one one of the things and how can I say it&#39;s not possible to say this openly in Ecuador to talk about these things as a result of polarization because the style of government has authoritarian threats and it&#39;s amazing that even uh that we have uh a context in where criminal leaders like fito leader of the chonos and colico that it&#39;s the operational leader of the lawalls and he&#39;s responsible for the threats against the Attorney General um they they remain they remain free although they escape from jail yeah and we have that situation and we lack of a professional intelligence and centralized system that is working so uh that&#39;s a big issue that we have to fix inside the country in order to have uh real capabilities of doing something we must uh what we must do immediately in order to to fix this situation uh first of all we must get rid of improvisation in the inside the security field why because we have uh this big issue that it&#39;s a penetration of organized crime into key States institution yeah and the integration between corruption and organized crime has been so successful due as symbiosis H with corrupt actors evidence of this can be seen inside this night that it&#39;s the institution responsible for the penitentiary system uh we have this H prison that is jogo inside Kito and you can imagine a prison that it&#39;s special for pregnant woman and breastfeeding children that had the right to live with with their moms H since they have uh I mean a they have like three years old and also women with uh terminal illnesses with used to guarantee this person used to guarantee the basics for the childrens but since 2023 this turn this had turned to the opposite because on December of 2023 we have uh a key witness that it&#39;s a was a corrupt functionary and uh she was the one er a public official involved in a criminal structure that you used to control the justice system and she was transferred to this prison by judicial decision and her presence has disrupted H the Dynamics of the children that are inside the prison and that in Practical terms are locked up with their mothers so they they are like inside they are locked up starting at 400 P.M every day and they are the children are just allowed to go out at 8:00 a.m. every single day day and you have overcrowded conditions 20 mothers and childrens per Pavilion and they have like the maybe between 13 hours or 15 hours of confinment every single day imagine like toddlers babies and er this leads to physical psychological and sexual violence in this context uh the children barely receive the required caloric intake because you know inside Ecuador prisons the state is not paying anymore for food so the only food the the the people has inside it&#39;s comes from donations from civil society and the authorities are improvising almost all the time inside intelligence inside a prison system and H they rarely last a year in their roles you don&#39;t have professionals doing elligence or the work inside penit prisons and they like they lack the knowledge and experience to make it work and that&#39;s what we must fix because you have like you don&#39;t have professionals working in the most serious parts that you have that you must work in order to fix this problem thanks for sharing that by the way that was i i w well I&#39;d like to uh deepen a little bit my comparison with Mexico make may look even awkward uh I mean there&#39;s if you look at the size of Mexico and the size of Ecuador there&#39;s almost no no comparison if you look at the of the economic structure of Mexico how Diversified is it how dependent is it from from the United States but also how competitive is is it in worldwide terms and you look at the uh economic structure in eador there&#39;s no comparison basically what we sport is grimp oil tomatoes and so sotic fruits well chocolate very good one by the way the best of the world uh anyway but if you look at the strategy then the comparison makes sense why because the strategy of Calderon on during the war of uh during the war of drugs was basically to Target the criminal organizations and to decapitate the leadership that is exactly the same strategy in eador and is working more L like in Mexico that is failing um and I don&#39;t have to say it you know some of my statements may seem uh poic they are not you have you only have to read decree 381 of July 2 this year 2024 uh which among it&#39;s a very hard to to read uh document uh but when you read it it is actually a confession signed by the president how the strategy is working so how the strategy is working according to the sources quoted by the president that is an extraordinary document uh it saids according to those sources that more or less approximately 11,000 people have died in the past 4 years 11,000 people killed 92% of them men 89% of them killed byarm for by a far arm by by a gun or a pistol you know and there&#39;s another interesting comparison between Ecuador and Mexico um in Mexico the gentleman is Right Mexico um the military were the dominant Force right and that was because in Mexico among other things you have I don&#39;t remember how many but to but too much fragmentation uh between the police yeah the the the law enforcement forces are you uh pick up this iPad and there&#39;s an agent of of the law enforcing you know uh the police the the law well anyway in Ecuador we have only one National Police it is uh centrally commanded and so forth and so on but in the new situation we we have um as part of the strategy a new special force called block SEC the block SEC that is um a coordination between the armed forces the Army especially and the the National Police it goes up to extremes for example um up to two weeks ago when you were there um the president ordered The Joint command of the Armed Forces and the police to operate in order to to make sure that the block supposed to be they ordered to move it the physically from keto to Manta where uh the block was operating now if you look at the structure of the block that normally who&#39;s in charge is a general of the army other of the police and to make to make things even clearer in that same decree that I just quote right um the one of the uh justifications one of the legal justifications for for the decree is that we need to improve the coordination between the Army and the police but it is clear also that the police is subject is inferior it should be coordinated by the Army because the Army is supposed to be less contaminated right um yesterday the minister of interior Monica Placencia Valencia yeah Monica Palencia uh she said that in uh Haas which is the first uh murderous District of the country uh 145 per 1,000 in some areas of homicides R uh will be commanded the block will be commanded by a general of the Army and the a general of the army will be the official uh SP person and so forth and so on I disagree with you my dear friend that I just met but anyway to me um with the things that parties are not important maybe I I I misunderstanding elections are important so in 2025 we are going to have an an election right and that election is going to be once again disputed by two loose coalitions two or three or 24 because the electoral law in Ecuador is very loose um of electoral machines right and it&#39;s beginning to show once again go back to the decree 381 the decree is supposed to focalize to Target from uh provinces among them W manavi um well not esmeraldas actually because in esmeraldas we we don&#39;t have an emergency according to the decree but according to the decree right those provinces are the major electoral districts so you are going to have an election under military rule under military law if I remember well that doesn&#39;t sound like a democracy there may be electoral competition among civilians um that&#39;s so where the nais yes so so I really quickly I I just wanted to to um say really up front so we were hoping to have a representative of the Ecuadorian Embassy today and it was up it ended up falling falling through I think it would have been really helpful to have that um but I do um want to kind of I want to um if it&#39;s okay just inter interject very quickly because I think Danielle and your question about sequencing was really important um because what are the other tools and I think this this one of the things we&#39;ve learned from buele and El Salvador are people are willing to sacrifice a lot in exchange for security so what other options did NOOA have does NOOA have um if the military is the only option okay if it&#39;s the in the short term and if it&#39;s what citizens demand it&#39;s it&#39;s it&#39;s worth I think we have to think about that have to think about um that I I I have a hard time with this sometimes because I&#39;m very critical of I&#39;ve been very critical of bu&#39;s approach but I I um we actually have a a woman in the room who was just there who Salvadoran um who came back and just talked about the impact on her family so um but on this I think what&#39;s the danger part of the danger I served in the Obama Administration in the Pentagon and um is what is the off-ramp for the military because one of the challenges of Mexico is we&#39;ve seen and this is a Mexico case which there are important differences is that once you start relying on the military it takes away the incentive to strengthen the police um so Pan and the je Marie the National Guard was supposed to do it um so something for us to think about as we think about um the best ways we have to come up with a framework for addressing citizen security that&#39;s within a rule of law framework I think this question of off ramps for the milit AR is going to be key and so what we did under the Obama Administration I&#39;m not going to say it worked um in part because I wasn&#39;t continui of government but I think in part because um maybe this wasn&#39;t clear enough is that um continued military assistance was dependent on having a viable off-ramp for the military um in the issue of of law enforcement but the sequencing effort and what else is there available in the short run these are to as much as we these are issues we have to Grapple with um but I I was going to to Really point that out Rebecca precisely because um I we just published alongside my my friend Max Cameron last year um challenges to democracies in the Andes so we we actually did a comparative study of what is going on with horizontal controls of democracy and what is happening with the state structors within the Andes and it is clear for us all that that one of the problems and tackling for example the issue about intelligence something that um Lorena um work um right is working right now but I work before and trying to really call attention to to the different administrations in Ecuador of the the the real need to create a a a a an intelligence structure that is has Democratic controls so what you now have and I mean it used to be better actually Ecuador used to have a good criminal intelligence that used to work alongside um its Colombian counterparts that broke down in 2008 and I was part of the process I mean the academic Theon to make those two get together back again so that was the difference that was H what has changed so much regarding intelligence since 2008 after angostura after the the I would say the situation between Colombia and Ecuador they stop sharing intelligence for criminal activ or against criminal activities so Ecuador replaced that with some sort of political intelligence as opposed to criminal intelligence the government needs to have an agreement to go back again and to have a new system where the center is uh intelligence against criminal activity against International crime against cyber security or crime also but also with Democratic controls why we are in inserting the the issue of Mexico into the whole comparison um examination in this case is because Mexico was the one kind of penetrating the criminal guns in Ecuador not Colombia I mean that is sort of an important information and we are advocating now and and that is why the the these type of forums are are super important also for Ecuador and the possibilities of American collaboration and Western collaboration with Ecuador in fighting insecurity is because it goes beyond just one Administration yes indeed Danielle NOOA is just six month probably eight months now into the presidency but the a strategy is is key to have some sort of um consensual or Democratic agreement between the parties that goes Beyond one single Administration and it it starts to reassert control of what to do with the military afterwards for example how the coordination should work between the Agents of the state and something that we missed out in this discussion is how independent is the justice system from both the criminal activities and also single administrations targeting political paybacks for example so that is key for all the success and the success of any any approach to combat increasing criminality increasing violence in Ecuador in the future in the near future in the medium term in the long term I think I want to give um chance for another round um and also if there are any pressing um questions that are coming in um so I think there if we we have time for another round oh so we have one there and one over on this end of the room hi and thank you again very much for being here this is very interesting it&#39;s it&#39;s great to hear your voices on the topic very important my name is James Virgil um I would like to start with a comment and then follow up with the question here the comment is that we&#39;ve been comparing the Ecuadorian situation a lot to the Colombian and Mexican ones um and I think that although you know there is some purpose to that it&#39;s a limit on those on the use utility of these comparisons Ecuadorian situation is primarily a narcot trafficking one and not a narco producing or Distributing one that we would see in Mexico or Columbia and therefore the Band-Aid solutions that we could say probably weren&#39;t very effective and are not very effective in Mexico and Colombia who knows how they would apply to the Ecuadorian situation which leads me to my question with that caveat it has been shown Tom rright is a great Economist who gets into this that higher walls mean higher ladders as militarization and counternarcotics increases narcotics Narco organizations militarize in turn do you think that there is room in the Ecuadorian narcotics counterar itics Conflict for a demilitarization starting on the government&#39;s part uh to make a more peaceful conflict resolution morning I&#39;m Emily Cole I work as an attorney and researcher with the program on global faith and inclusive societies out of pepperd DC campus um my question for you we focus on human rights broadly but mostly International religious freedom so it&#39;s a little bit of a different question but I just wanted to ask do you have an opinion or see the role for Faith leaders in some of these communities especially like as maradas or manabi um areas where like you said there&#39;s low employment opportunities and it&#39;s probably more at the local level where things um can take root so I guess I&#39;m just wondering I know your backgrounds are are vared political science economics but do you see a larger role for Faith communities whatever they may be to act as sort of catalyst to help with security and stability especially given that the OAS General Assembly one of their resolutions noted specifically that religious freedom is one of those Pathways towards stability and democracy um in many different countries in the region so thank you more Peter mcferson in the front row wait let&#39;s get you a microphone thank you so very much your comments and it seems like an excellent job indicating the problem but we haven&#39;t really gotten into as much of what we would what would be proposed to do now is clear that security and crime uh is a major issue in Ecuador to the population and it&#39;s also clear historically that sooner or later when that when those issues great are so great then a a person on horse horseback arrives and it takes control of things I so I know we&#39;re about out of time but I as I sit here listening to this with long Association and great affection for Ecuador I&#39;m particularly interested in what you would say today or the months ahead would be the best course uh or our options for courses for the ecuadorians to take to deal with this problem question um so why don&#39;t we this time we&#39;ll start and we&#39;ll go this direction so Grace why don&#39;t we start with you great so I will resume my conversation with Peter because Peter was just asking me that at the beginning of the of of this um event I would do two things mainly one a good strategy that focuses on creating good intelligence against criminal activity connecting that intell I mean that intelligence system with Democratic controls like that exist in other democracies to I will definitely invest um in Anchor companies in in an anchor industry that lives immediately A lot of people out of poverty creates huge levels of employment in in some sort of area other than that I I mean there are so many things to do but I will start with those two thank you Grace keeping with with Grace spirit and your question I think that the the way to to go is to strengthen Civil Society along with this other uh uh efforts indeed we need uh better uh intelligence indeed but we also need more democracy more democratic controls on them because otherwise we&#39;re going to end up in the same Sor state that we that we were on the cor um and yeah to go back to you uh Faith communities are part of the picture there should be actually I will uh suggest you to look at the uh work that the com konanos I don&#39;t know what the name in in English um one order of the Catholic Church are doing in in esmeraldas amazing stuff really really really interesting and what the what the thing that I were that they are doing is actually putting together indirect action you know face to face the military with their organization right because under under the state of emergency and I know that some things need we have to do something uh under the military law uh under the emergency law the military can go right into your house and take you as suspect suspected of drug trafficking belong into a gang or being a killer or you know whatever but if you are a woman and if you are uh captured by a pelone or by a patrol of the army well your prospects are dark so what I what I what is this person doing well organizes the bario the neighborhood good people by the way to accompany this woman to the prison to the military uh uh barx and being sure that she is well and this she that she comes out well there&#39;s growing concern concerns of Human Rights and one of the most motivated uh Civil Society organizations that are following this these human rights abuses uh come from the Catholic Church come from the uh um Progressive Evangelical churches that are uh working in Ecuador so yeah I think it&#39;s part of the of the future and a very important part of the picture um can I just um just say that you said that your question might not be relevant I think it was incredibly relevant in this this point so Pablo and I were speaking beforehand about having these conversations need to be inclusive in Civil Society is such an important voice that needs to be at the table I think we&#39;re running out of time so I want to um give Lorena a chance um and then of course those of you who are available we can stay around and we can chat afterwards thank you uh yeah okay uh talking about the role of the religious actors inside eador CAD just last year opened a big campus inalas and in the most dangerous places in which no one wants to have a a place H for example in San Lorenzo yeah you you have a an small campus but you have one and in other in other uh places in esmeraldas that the the things are going on very bad and it this is unique because the university has special scholarships for people in risk and this is important because if you think it twice this is not work of one private university one Catholic University this is this is work of the state to offer opportunities to study to a lot of people there yeah and and I also I I I want to add something talking about the intelligence capabilities in Ecuador uh something that it&#39;s impossible to think as a possibility but that happens in Ecuador is that H the government and the strategy of the government is not seem that organized crime structures inside Ecuador have Diversified their income generation lines including Timber trafficking and the highly lucrative IL legal gold destruction the Lobos had become very strong in this and here we have a very rare fact the authorities does not have the numbers of how many million of dollars can earn the Lobos by a illegal gold distraction yeah some some analyst says $2 million per month H some other analyst can make the numbers climb uh till maybe $10 million a month so you don&#39;t have the numbers and you are not seeing this problem but this ensures um that the operational capability of criminal organizations in the context of an internal War change so it does not matter if drug Dr trafficking or instruction systems are attacked they have a financial caution and no one is seeing this inside Ecuador illegal mining ER is the most lucrative inonline right now and the least attacked by the state structures which are almost exclusively focused on drugs and this is a how can I say a real danger that we have because no not no institution inside the country has the exact numbers of what&#39;s going on well thank you all um Grace I just wanted to say one comment on your your two suggestions and just um so when we were in Kito for this workshop with um members of the administration maybe you were channeling me because I think the two two of the key pieces of of not advice but kind of the workshop focused on is one is developing a a short-term long-term medium-term strategy and the second one was Intel Intel Intel um but I I wanted to end by um this back to a think a theme that has been kind of especially with you Pablo this theme of democracy because I think this topic of security has huge implications for democracy in the region and not just Ecuador because I think this issue of how finding ways to address citizen insecurity within a rule of law framework is really important when it comes to addressing the crisis of confidence in democracy um I think you&#39;re all tracking that over the past two decades um the decline in support for democracy today only three in five um citizens of the region see democracy as the best form of government and even probably more alarming is only two and five are satisfied with how it performs and one of the reasons is is this government providing me can my kids go to school so when we&#39;re thinking about how do to build support for democracy at a time when we&#39;re seeing erosion of democratic institutions across much of the hemisphere addressing citizen insecurity is is one way and finally I just want to announce that we are going to be um we have an annual conference every year with cap Development Bank and the organization of American states this year it&#39;s going to be on September 5th at the OAS and the focus of the conference is going to be on security and development so we&#39;ll have um the opportunity and not definitely I think the conversation we had today will will feed into it so I want to thank you Lor Pablo and Grace so much for being here and thank you to our audience here and online for joining us

Transcript for:Notes: Security Crisis in Ecuador

Transcript for:
Notes: Security Crisis in Ecuador