A wave of attacks carried out by criminal organisations last week in Ecuador – epitomised by gunmen storming a television station live on air – has brought international attention to a security crisis that has been building for years. Ecuador has become one of the most murderous countries in what is already the world’s most homicidal region. The murder rate in the South American country has risen from five per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017 to 46 per 100,000 in 2023.
States of emergency, which establish curfews and permit military action in prisons, have been frequent in Ecuador in recent years. Its president, Daniel Noboa, innovated last week with the unprecedented declaration of a state of “internal armed conflict”. By applying the laws of war to organised criminals as if they were terrorists or insurgents, the move may contravene international law, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Americas director, Juan Pappier, told the Washington Post. Commentators and critics have noted the lack of any clear exit strategy by the government.
So far, more than 1,100 people have been arrested under the state of emergency, and five alleged “terrorists” have been killed by security forces, according to government figures. The authorities are moving to retake control of the country’s prisons, which for a long time have been largely controlled by criminal organisations. In an interview on Friday, Noboa said a hardline crackdown is the only way to prevent Ecuador becoming a “narco-state”.
Noboa, who won a surprise victory in snap elections last year, is a political outsider with just 18 months remaining to govern before the next set of elections in 2025. He has every incentive to advance with rapid solutions, regardless of their sustainability. And Ecuadoreans across the political spectrum have been united by the existential threat of organised criminal organisations, so for now many appear to back his promise to wrest back control at any price.
Ecuador’s militarised crackdown could set a new precedent for a region where security concerns seem to increasingly overshadow commitments to democratic principles. Latin America’s political systems are in the midst of what the NGO Latinobarómetro has described as a “democratic recession”, as voters increasingly feel indifference to the type of regime that governs them, with less support for democracy and more attitudes favouring authoritarianism. Burgeoning security issues are a significant factor in Latin America’s growing disenchantment with democracy. Simply put, governments in the region have failed to mount an effective response to organised crime, which is ultimately responsible for much of Latin America’s murders.
Noboa’s approach in Ecuador appears partially inspired by the iron-fisted crackdown carried out by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, against gangs in that country. The wildly popular leader’s heavy-handed and – perhaps – successful suppression of street gangs has made him a rock-star influencer among Latin American politicians who hope to achieve some of his sparkle by enacting punitive measures of their own. Indeed, earlier this month, Noboa referenced Bukele’s mega-prison in a promise to build his own.
What Noboa does next could have profound implications for security policies across Latin America. Until now, Bukele’s approach has generated a lot of discussion and interest, but no country has moved to actually emulate the method.
The iron-fisted approach may be tempting, but even beyond concerns about the systematic human rights violations that form the policy’s backbone, Bukele’s model isn’t exportable. For one, the relative poverty of El Salvador’s street gangs precludes their mounting a militarised response to the crackdown. Ecuador’s criminal groups, by contrast, have ties with transnational cartels, are richer due to the cocaine trade, and are far better armed.
In addition, Bukele’s security policies have created a “tropical gulag”, according to Noah Bullock, director of the human rights organisation Cristosal. The risk of creeping authoritarianism shouldn’t be understated. Bukele’s campaign of mass detentions is part of a larger package that includes secret negotiations with gang leaders, control of legislature and judicial power, and a previous pattern of arbitrary detentions under Covid-19 quarantines. El Salvador’s model is “a repressive system in which the state can do whatever it wants with whoever it wants,” Bullock writes. And the policies have increasingly turned into a crackdown on dissent.
The experience of recent states of emergency in Ecuador itself, as well as those in Honduras under Xiomara Castro, suggest that Bukele’s approach fails to address underlying problems. And its costs to democracy and society are obvious. Experts further emphasise that militarised approaches have not worked in the past in Latin America, and tend to worsen the spiral of violence. Indeed, this week’s wave of coordinated terror was apparently a response to efforts by Noboa and the attorney general to crack down on gangs and government collaborators.
But these details won’t dim the central allure of militarised security policies in a region where failures in public security have pushed the conversation towards brutal realism. The regional debate is whether the “Bukele method” works or not, rather than its dependence on arbitrary detention and, as several NGO reports have alleged, torture. Human rights have been pushed to the periphery of the conversation.
It is understandable that human rights are an intangible concern for people besieged by criminal groups. If you are likely to be killed by a stray bullet, or kidnapped by a criminal group, due process is not compelling. But democratic leaders cannot turn away from their responsibility to uphold these rights.
To the extent that Noboa can subdue violence in Ecuador with a militarised response, even if it is only a short-term gain, it will burnish his reelection bid and add to a regional disenchantment with human rights as a hard policy limit. The counterpoint is hardly heartening: whether the approach wins or fails, either way it will only mean more violence.
Jordana Timerman is a journalist based in Buenos Aires, she edits the Latin America Daily Briefing
