Ecuador’s Shocking Mafia Violence Threatens To Worsen Border And Migration Crisis
Latin American once again teeters on the brink of chaos
Nestled from the Andes mountains to the Pacific Ocean, the small and poor South American nation of Ecuador was long seen as immune from the worst of the crime and drug wars that plague Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. When I filmed a documentary on gangs in the sweltering coastal city of Guayaquil in 2011, I interviewed lower-level street crews, who were often spin-offs from gangs formed in the United States, such as the Latin Kings of Chicago. There was hope then that social programs could steer recruits into a lawful life in the tropical and lively city and that the leftist president Rafael Correa would help ease poverty.
That perception has been gradually changing with a rising pile of murder victims and was truly shattered this week after gang members stormed into a TV station in Guayaquil. The attack was both terrifying in its implications and comical in its amateurishness. The staff of the publicly-owned TC Televisión genuinely feared for their lives as the 13 bangers shoved guns to their heads, kicked them, and waved machetes and explosives during what was supposed to be a news analysis show. A cameraman was shot in the leg, and another had his arm broken.
The head of news, Alina Manrique, was in the control room when she was forced onto the floor by gunmen. “I am still in shock,” she told the Associated Press. “All I know is that it’s time to leave this country and go very far away.”
It’s true that the assailants, who ranged from 16 to 26 years old, were scattered and slipshod. They talked over each other as they ordered the presenter to voice their demands on air. “The police have to back off,” said one. “Tell them we’ve got bombs,” said another. Some of their pistols looked low-end and old, and their explosives appeared homemade and scrappy. They wore cheap face masks, and some openly showed their mugs as they flashed gang signs at the camera. When a tactical unit of police stormed the station, some tried to hide, and the officers easily subdued them.
But those thugs were likely cannon fodder sent by an organized crime network to cause panic even though they would be arrested. Meanwhile, the more experienced gunmen blocked streets in the sprawling city with burning cars, kidnapped police officers and tried to storm a hospital and university, making students run for their lives and residents cower in their homes.
All of this might seem like noise to Americans, who are understandably more focused on the migration crisis on the border and in the cities, with millions of people fleeing their nations for refuge in the US. A similar drama is unfolding in Europe.
But the two problems are fundamentally connected. If crime and drug gangs expand their violent attacks, destabilizing governments and going on killing sprees, the migration crisis could get far worse. Many of the migrants coming to the US are from Venezuela, where political chaos and violence have become rampant.
For over two decades, I’ve been reporting on this new breed of gangster warlords that has emerged across Latin America, talking to victims, cops, politicians, and hundreds of the criminals themselves. The death toll has been tragic, with more than 2.5 million total murders in Latin America since 2000. While I hoped the situation could get better, it has only been getting more dire. This current battle in Ecuador is an important chapter, and whether the nation regains control will have implications far beyond its borders.
Since the Cold War, Latin American smugglers and street gangs have transformed into much more sinister crime armies that destabilize countries and make people flee. Meanwhile, the drugs sent from the region are killing Americans in record numbers. Last year, 112,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, a shocking increase from the 20,000 that killed them in 2000.
This recent attack in Ecuador aimed to make the government pay a cost for clamping down on criminals and securing prisons. The crime network that unleashed the attack on the TV station also commands well-trained paramilitary squads, has police on its payroll, and reaps vast profits from drugs and extortion. Mafias control the penitentiaries, and as the government tries to impose order, two gang leaders just escaped from them. The gangsters want the government to back off, and by using such terror, they can often succeed. It’s a tactic that political scientist Benjamin Lessing calls “violent lobbying.”
The terror shows the world how Ecuador’s crime networks, an unholy mix of street gangs, prison mafias, drug cartels, and former guerrillas, now pose a fundamental threat to the nation and its democracy. Murders have exploded from less than 1,000 in 2017 to more than 7,500 last year, giving it one of the worst homicide rates on the planet.
In August, gunmen shot dead a presidential candidate who promised to fight narco corruption and whose slogan was, “Es tiempo de valientes,” “It’s time for the brave.” The new president, Daniel Noboa, a 36-year-old son of a banana tycoon, has declared a state of emergency with curfews and “internal armed conflict” that allows soldiers to shoot the “terrorists.”
And the bloody melodrama is not confined to Ecuador. Since the end of the Cold War, street gangs and smugglers have transformed into these new types of insurgent criminal networks that dominate swathes of the continent. The terror tactics of “violent lobbying” are repeated again and again.
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