Issues In Ecuador
Ecuador, a relatively peaceful country of 18 million people until 2017-18.
It is now one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America.
Situated between Colombia and Peru, both major producers of cocaine, it has seen a spurt in violent crimes with drug cartels shifting their focus to the country in order to get drugs shipped to North America and Europe.
Murders have quadrupled since 2019, with 4,800 recorded last year.
Officials say two international crime organisations, a Mexican cartel and a Balkan one (known as the Albanian mafia), have recruited local gangs to build drug networks, and their fight to take control of the supply routes has led to rising gang violence.
The gangs have turned prisons into operating bases and ports into fighting zones, while extortion networks flourish across the country.
The government of President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative who is facing serious allegations of corruption, has remained largely helpless when cartels built a parallel system.
The assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador, just 11 days ahead of voting, shows that even its top politicians are not safe from organised gangs that have, in recent years, turned the nation into a hub of narco-trafficking.
If Ecuador’s politicians and state institutions continue to let criminal gangs have their way, it is only a matter of time before the country becomes a failed state.
Ecuador should start an uncompromising war against organised crimes.
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