Ecuador: A defund the police cautionary tale
Policies that mirror US anti-police activism have turned a South American country in a crime ridden nightmare
Ecuador is a tropical paradise that has become a crime-ridden hellscape after its government decided to stop enforcing the law. Ecuador means equator in Spanish. It is a small country known primarily as the nation that controls the Galapagos Islands 500 miles off its coast. The Galapagos are famous because in 1835 Charles Darwin visited them and, based on his research of the unique flora and fauna there, was able to form his theory of natural selection. I thought Ecuador was an oasis of peace from the cartels that had brutalized its neighbor to the north, Colombia, and its neighbor to the south, Peru. So I was shocked when I saw that a politician running for president on an anti-corruption platform was murdered in broad daylight.
On August 9, 2023, Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead after leaving a campaign event. The ensuing melee left nine people wounded and the gunman shot dead by police. Later in the day, the police rounded up six Colombian citizens who were said to be cartel hitmen.
Sadly, this is not a one-off event. Two other Ecuadorian politicians were murdered in 2023. This violence is the result of over a decade of bad policies by both leftwing and rightwing demagogues.
In 2007 Rafael Correa was elected president. At this time the murder rate in Ecuador was 16 deaths per year per 100,000 citizens. President Correa was a socialist elected in a “pink wave” of left-wing leaders in South America. However, unlike his fellow Marxist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Correa was able to improve the economy and living standards of many of his citizens.
Part of being a progressive firebrand is railing against imperialism, so in 2009, President Correa expelled all US forces from Ecuador. About 400 US military personnel had been conducting Columbian drug interdiction operations from an air base in the City of Manta since 1999. This move sabotaged Ecuador’s ability to defend its border with Columbia, resulting in increased drug smuggling.
In 2012 President Correa provided asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the London embassy. Since Wikileaks released sensitive information about the Iraq War this action strained Ecuador's relations with the United States government. After seven years Assange wore out his welcome and they turned him over to the British police in 2019. In 2014 President Correa expelled all 20 US military staff from the diplomatic mission in the capital city, Quito. In 2017 when President Correa ended his term, the murder rate was 6 per 100k which is comparable with the United States. One could look at his legacy in isolation and say that Correa was a success: he ameliorated poverty and enforced his country’s sovereignty by kicking out the US. However, he opened the door to the cartels, who did not increase violence at first. Still, there was a noticeable uptick by 2018 and the cartels are currently in open warfare with each other to maintain dominance of the drug trade in Ecuador.
In 2017 President Lenín Moreno took office and instituted a policy of austerity to reduce foreign debt which further degraded the country’s ability to enforce the law. Despite his first name, President Moreno was a fiscal conservative. I speculate that he felt that his country’s low crime rate made the criminal justice system an unnecessary luxury.
In 2021 Guillermo Lasso, moderate conservative, became president. His administration has been rocked by turmoil with two attempts by the legislature to impeach him for financial corruption. He has been unable to get the security situation under control. Out of desperation, he decreed that any regular citizen may openly carry firearms to defend themselves because the state is unable to do so.
Ecuador then became the number one exporter of narcotics to Europe. Albanian and Mexican gangs set up shop in Ecuador and corrupted the remaining police they had with bribes. In 2022, the murder rate in Ecuador soared to 26/100k.
The chaos in Ecuador is caused by the same problems afflicting crime-ridden hyper-progressive cities and hyper-conservative states in the United States. Leftwing demagogues do not believe in the legitimacy of using force to keep the rule of law, so you see cities like San Francisco in a doom loop after they institute de facto legalization of hard drugs and theft. Rightwing demagogues pursue failed austerity programs that starve law enforcement of resources. Republicans have near-hegemonic control over Mississippi, which has the highest murder rate in the nation, with 20.5 murders per 100,000 citizens in 2022. You cannot have civilization without a security apparatus no matter where in the world you are. As much as I would disdain having the Ecuadoran military stationed in the US to maintain order, I would prefer that over being murdered by the cartel. So I hope Ecuador invites the US military back in. The only other alternative is a fascist crackdown similar to what is occurring in El Salvador, which has been effective but is risky in the long run.