Carlos Javier Vega, 19, asked to switch shifts at his father’s bakery in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, so he could help his cousin sell a puppy.
A few blocks from the buyer’s location, however, their car was stopped at a checkpoint manned by navy troopers deployed on the streets after President Daniel Noboa decreed an “internal armed conflict” against organised crime.
Vega’s cousin attempted a U-turn, clipping a soldier and a military vehicle. An argument broke out, and the troops opened fire. Vega was shot four times and died; his cousin survived a gunshot to the shoulder.
The government swiftly labelled the two unarmed victims as “terrorists” who had allegedly attempted an “attack on a military checkpoint”. Although the public prosecutor’s office dismissed the claim and cleared them of any wrongdoing, the government has never apologised.
“His death destroyed our family,” said Vega’s father, Carlos Vicente Vega Molina, 55.
“I don’t want my son’s death to go unpunished like so many others,” said his mother, Laura Ipanaqué, 43.
Vega’s case, along with that of four Black boys who died in December after being detained by the military, are the two most glaring examples of a wave of serious human rights violations since Noboa introduced his mano dura (iron fist) policy a year ago in response to a dramatic surge in violent crime.
This Sunday, that policy and Noboa’s brief 14 months in power will be put to the test as about 13 million Ecuadorians head to the polls for the first round of the presidential election.
The heir to a banana fortune, Noboa, 37, became Ecuador’s youngest president in 2023 after surprisingly winning a snap election to complete the term of the former president, Guillermo Lasso, who had dissolved Congress and resigned to avoid impeachment. Noboa was one of three Latin American presidents who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration at the US Capitol, along with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei.
“Noboa’s presidency has been marked above all by a radicalisation against human rights,” said journalist Karol Noroña, who led an investigation uncovering inconsistencies in the military’s account of Vega’s death. Although she acknowledged that “human rights violations aren’t typically discussed in Ecuadorian households”, Noroña said that other issues – such as an energy crisis that has caused scheduled blackouts of up to 14 hours – could influence the upcoming election.
For Guillaume Long, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Noboa’s government displayed “clear signs of authoritarianism and a disregard for the rule of law, constitutional practices and rights”.
He highlighted the president’s refusal to step down during the 30-day electoral campaign period, as mandated by the constitution, and an unprecedented diplomatic incident in which Ecuadorian police and military forces invaded the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest Jorge Glas, a former vice-president under the leftist Rafael Correa.
“Noboa also has a tendency of ruling by emergency decrees in all sorts of ways,” said Long, who was Ecuador’s foreign minister under Correa. Last year, the country was under a state of emergency for 250 days, allowing measures such as warrantless home raids and a ban on the right to assembly. Noboa has justified such steps as necessary to fight gangs.
In April, the rightwing president won a referendum supporting his security plan, but Long said that did not necessarily mean he enjoys enough popular support to have an easy ride in Sunday’s election – although polls suggest an advantage for the incumbent.
“When campaigning for the referendum, Noboa said he hadn’t been able to reduce crime because his hands were tied. Nearly a year later, he still has not delivered,” said Long.
Once one of the safest countries in Latin America, Ecuador saw violence soar after its ports turned into a “cocaine superhighway” to the US and Europe. There was an initial drop in homicides when Noboa imposed his “war on drugs”, but the rates quickly returned to the previous alarming levels, making 2024 the second most violent year. Meanwhile, kidnapping and extortion continued to rise.
In Cañaveral, an impoverished neighbourhood in the north-west of Guayaquil, people pay a weekly $2 vacuna (extortion fee) to the local gang. “If you don’t pay, they’ll break into your house and take your things. Sometimes, the $2 is the only money I have, so I end up not buying food or water for my children,” said one resident.
European officials credit Noboa’s crackdown for a significant reduction in drug shipments, yet Spain’s largest ever cocaine seizure, last November, came from a banana-loaded ship from Guayaquil.
“How does a 13-tonne shipment get through the port? There is a policy of zero control at the maritime ports in Ecuador,” said Mónica Luzárraga, a former public defender in Guayaquil, who in recent years has worked on hundreds of drug-trafficking cases.
“The balance of this internal armed conflict is disastrous in terms of human rights and criminal control,” she said. “Now the citizens are not only victims of criminal groups but also of the abuses committed by the armed forces.”
In Vega’s case, two navy soldiers and a corporal await trial on bail. “I forgive those people because we’ve been taught about forgiveness, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be judged for all the harm they’ve caused us,” said the young man’s mother, Laura Ipanaqué.
“The truth is, the soldiers didn’t just kill my son – they killed us too,” she said.
