Drugs, Ecuador and Colombia a common destiny

By: Francisco Santos - 11/08/2023

To understand what is happening to Ecuador today with the violence resulting from the drug business, one must go back 13 years to the neighboring country, Colombia. In 2010, the government of Alvaro Uribe ended with great success in the fight against the terrorist organizations Farc and Eln and the dismantling of the paramilitaries with most of their leaders extradited to the United States.

The success of this fight against crime and of course its main business, drug trafficking, had two effects. The first was that many of the criminal organizations settled in neighboring countries. The Farc in Venezuela and Ecuador with the acquiescence of both governments and the ELN in Venezuela where it has become the first multinational terrorist organization on the continent.

The second effect was due to the successful fight against coca crops, which in 8 years dropped from 168,000 to 62,000 hectares. This led to a transfer and concentration of the cultivation business in 3 regions, two of them bordering Ecuador, Putumayo and Nariño. The third was Catatumbo, neighboring Venezuela. It is no coincidence that the crops are transferred to the borders with these criminal organizations settled quietly in neighboring countries.

With more than 50 percent of the cultivation on the border with Ecuador, it was obvious that criminal organizations would choose to use that country to move and export the coca. A weak police force unable to confront these powerful organizations and a populist government whose anti-American stance prevented it from cooperating in the fight against drug trafficking were the ideal scenario for this process that grew intensely and strengthened Ecuadorian criminal organizations.

If we add to this fact the dollarization of the economy and the opening to migration that opened the doors to Albanian and Mexican criminal organizations, the ideal scenario became the perfect scenario. The conditions for a large criminal business in Ecuador were ripe. The only thing missing was one last decision made by the next President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos in 2013.

In that year the hectares of coca were at 48 thousand. But the negotiation with the Farc would only advance if the model of the fight against coca changed. The government abandoned glyphosate fumigation and supported its legal restriction. In addition, it reduced the assets and resources with which it faced this illegal business. In 2018, during the joint between governments, the damage that had been done to the fight against drug trafficking was seen. The marine infantry, in charge of controlling the rivers, operated at barely 15 percent of its capacity. The rivers, the fundamental route in the entire production chain of the coca business, were highways without any state control.

The result was seen quickly. In just 5 years, coca went from 48,000 to 200,000 hectares in Colombia. Business flourished again and Ecuador was now a big player in shipping and exporting. The traces of speedboats that left the entire Ecuadorian Pacific through the south of the Galapagos multiplied. Ecuador became a “cocaine highway to the United States and Europe,” InsightCrime wrote.

What followed is almost predictable. First, the territorial control of criminal organizations. Today a large part of the Ecuadorian Pacific is in the hands of these organizations. Guayas or Esmeraldas are forbidden territory for security agencies. And the epicenter of violence is Guayaquil, the focus of exports due to the port and its logistical capacity and the scene of disputes between gangs dedicated to micro-trafficking.

The latter is the other expected effect. Many of the criminal organizations see the consumer business as an obvious line of action. Transnational organizations, Albanians and Mexicans with a presence in Ecuador, subcontract with Ecuadorian gangs and often pay them in coca. This is where micro-trafficking and consumption grow and violent disputes over territory are born. In Guayaquil itself, both in the south and in the periphery, the control of these criminal organizations is almost total.

And there is a third effect that is even more visible. These criminal gangs, with immense resources from drug trafficking, expand to other criminal actions such as kidnapping, extortion and sophisticated armed assault on residential centers. This is already seen in Guayaquil and will surely move to other cities. The tranquility of Ecuador and the security of its citizens is beginning to be a thing of the past and if the State does not take corrective actions with resources, institutional strengthening, strategic planning and international cooperation, what they have experienced up to now, which is just the beginning, will become unmanageable.

Ecuador faces a situation similar to that of Colombia at the end of the last century. Without terrorist crime like the Farc and the ELN, but with sophisticated criminal organizations that thrive on drug trafficking and expand to other businesses. Colombia strengthened its Police and its judiciary in cooperation with the United States and England, and from being on the verge of being a failed state, it managed to defeat many of the criminal organizations, increase their operating costs, and thus limit their possibilities and growth.

Of course, the leadership of Alvaro Uribe in those 8 years was fundamental, but without a strengthened institutional framework, little could have been done. The priority in those two governments as the basis for everything else was security to generate confidence that allowed economic growth.

The Ecuadorian drug traffickers have it clear. Not in vain they destroyed the radar that could damage a piece of the business. And let's not tell lies they are winning the battle. If Ecuadorian society does not rise up, as Colombian society did many times in the worst times, and if there is not a great Presidential leadership with resources, with objectives and with detailed monitoring of a whole new security policy -which today does not exist - We will see Ecuador become a narco state like Venezuela is today or like Mexico will be if it continues on the path it is going.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».