In recent days, leaders from all over the American continent have shown their support for the Government of Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, which is facing a serious wave of violence at the hands of criminal gangs, which has already caused a dozen deaths. Latin American governments and organizations have highlighted the regional implications of the “internal armed conflict” – decreed by the Ecuadorian president this Tuesday -, especially in relation to the transnational dimension of drug trafficking, which would finance the groups of criminals responsible for riots in prisons or the temporary seizure of ‘a television channel, among other incidents experienced in Ecuador.
Argentina and the United States were the first American neighbors to propose sending aid to Ecuador. On Tuesday, the Argentine Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, offered the dispatch of “security forces”, and emphasized that it is a “continental issue” that could spread throughout the region. Bullrich regretted that Ecuador “has gone from a peaceful country with a low homicide rate to a country gripped by narco-terrorism”. For its part, the United States is following the situation closely and is “ready to provide assistance”, a spokesperson for the State Department told Efe.
Colombia and Peru, the only two states that share a border with Ecuador, have been particularly forceful with their response to the crisis. “We are attentive to all the support that the Government of Ecuador requests from us”, said the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro. The government of the Peruvian Dina Boluarte has gone even further and has declared an emergency in the northern part of the country, which borders Ecuador, where it has announced that it will send the armed forces to work on surveillance tasks together with the Police national
Luis Arce, president of Bolivia, agreed on the risks for the continent, and considered it “urgent” to work on the “regionalization of the fight against drug trafficking and other illicit trade”, as well as on the creation of an Alliance Latin American Antinarcotics, a Bolivian proposal presented during the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Drugs, held in September 2023.
The Organization of American States (OAS) conveyed its “support for the provisional emergency measures taken” by Noboa and joined the initiatives of solidarity with Ecuador, as it assured that they could “count on the Secretary General of the OAS in its efforts for security in the country”, as Luis Almagro, secretary general of the organization, wrote in his X account. Almagro also pointed out the “fundamental for the region” importance of the fight against organized crime and crime.
The Andean Community, a group formed by Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, which promotes regional integration, added itself to the declarations of support for the Ecuadorian Government and encouraged it to use “all the means allowed by law to eradicate this transnational threat”.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has warned about the imperative of respect for human rights in the response to this crisis. The IACHR is monitoring “the human rights situation during the State of Emergency” in Ecuador, and has stressed that the “action of the armed forces in internal security tasks must be extraordinary, justified, exceptional, temporary, restricted, subordinate and complementary to the civil forces, with regulation and control”.
Other Latin American countries such as Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela or Chile have also expressed their concern about the situation in Ecuador and expressed the wish that order be restored soon country
On the other side of the Atlantic, yesterday the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, said that he was following the events “with logical concern” during the inauguration of the Conference of Ambassadors in Madrid, the most important annual meeting of Spanish diplomacy . Similar to his American counterparts, Sánchez called for respect for democratic institutionalism in Ecuador.
