禁漫天堂

Firebombings and kidnappings are part of the commotion

that has embroiled Ecuador in heightened violence this week

and caused the president to invoke measures aimed at

combatting 'armed conflict'.

Analysis from the Washington Post bureau in Ecuador...

This week's chaos shows that Ecuador not only has

lost control of prisons and streets but also the country's

security aparatus, said Ecuadorian law professor

David Cordero-Heredia.

He argued that Noboa's executive order Tuesday was

a mistake because it grants an elevated "political status"

to the country's gangs by defining them as terrorists

and grants expanded powers to security forces suffering

from alleged corruption at the highest levels.

"They think they are commanders of a force that should be

obedient to them," he said of Noboa and his predecessor

(ex-presidente Lasso).聽 "But they find the [security forces]

have their own agenda."

Despite three security rings in the country's prisons,

the country's most important gang leader managed to escape,

"mocking the security of police, prison guards and the military,"

Cordero-Herrera said.

"This only shows that the country's security forces

are not at the service of the government," he said, "but are

heavily infiltrated and at the service of organized crime."

Source... The Washington Post

Scenes of a beleaguered capital.

Shops, offices and schools closed down on Monday

as word of the stepped-up violence in Ecuador

spread through the capital city.聽 With bus service

suddenly limited, hundreds of residents jumped

on the back of pickup trucks in order to head home.

As the first night of curfew approached, only police

vehicles and ambulances were seen on El Centro streets,

in scenes reminiscent of the quiet, abandoned city center

during the height of the Covid 19 pandemic.

Source.... The New York Times

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Prison rioting has become a common occurance, and drug gangs,already strong and violent, are becoming more of a presence in Ecuador (albeit mostly on the coast).聽 Corruption combined with lack of ability to control these criminal forces is coming to a head.

If you're from the states, to illustrate, it would be as if the Bloods and the Crips started to take over sleepy Savannah, Georgia.聽 Your first impression is, 'what in the world', the next is, 'what will happen next?'

Cities like Guayaquil are known, dangerous cities.聽 Anyone visiting Guayaquil is warned by their friends, 'be careful, it's dangerous there'.聽 Here in Cuenca, and many other cities, there is/has been petty crime and isolated bad incidents, but by and large it's fairly peaceful.聽 Even now the vibe is peaceful, people are trying to live their lives.聽 Supermaxi was closed yesterday, a huge shock (they almost never close).聽 We'll see what today brings for quiet Cuenca.聽

I'm not complacent, nor am I over-cautious.聽 A balanced attitude helps matters greatly.聽 And remember what we left in the states...acts of terrorism, school and building bombings, mass murderers, etc.聽 It's all relative.

Re: "Scenes of a beleaguered capital."

I don't know that - what I as a Canadian see as >anxiety and fear addicted< American news sites -聽 are the best source for an accurate and calmly objective view of what's going on in Ecuador鈥� (I would even go so far as to say in my opinion there's a xenophobic and condescending frame of events coloured by what they see as a "Third World" country; But I see as a developing country ).

Beware of fake news; Worth a read:

Also; Fake News Alert No.1; No, there was never an alleged shooting near the government palace in Quito:

Fake News Alert No.2; No, there was never an alleged kidnapping in the Quito metro:

Ecuadors army and national police are doing a great job鈥� They've already ended several of the incidents that the >AMERICAN< media has been over hyping, and the wannabe gangsters already rounded up and ready to be incarcerated or deported; The civilians all safely released. Schools and government offices are temporarily closed to make it easier for enacting the governments anti-crime and anti-cartel initiative鈥�

There's a strong partnership between Ecuadors army, national police, and local citizens watch brigades鈥� with the support of Colombia, Peru, & US military, crime units, intelligence offices, Coast Guard, and the US FBI and DEA, crime and attempts to import cartel influence is being hit on all fronts鈥� Hence the panicked and failing response by criminals. Now that Ecuador's new president is stepping up border and port security in partnership with the US, it seems they're running scared.

I'm very happy to be in a country that in my opinion takes security and protection of the public seriously 馃挏馃尯馃嚜馃嚚馃檶馃徑

Shoot to kill.

Presidente Noboa聽 has given the police and the military

the green light to 'shoot to kill' gang members if they are

seen committing crimes.

This get-tough order was followed by an immediate decrease

in violent acts in Ecuador as military personnel took to

the nation's streets in the larger cities.

This new posture was lauded by prominent Ecuadorian figures,

even some of Daniel Noboa's former political opponents.

News source... Cuenca HighLife website

The deportation of bad actors.

Presidente Noboa announced on Wednesday that

Ecuador is beginning the deportation of foreigners

who have been incarcerated with the prison population

of the country.

El presidente said Colombian prisoners in particular

are being booted out of Ecuador.

Source...聽 Reuters

It's important to keep in mind that Ecuador is a big country - a bit bigger than the UK, in fact. So there are huge parts of it that are untouched by the banditos. There's a good online report out of Cuenca that is reassuring. My son and his girlfriend are over there for a few months, and I'm not in the least worried for them.

El Presidente hails hostage-freedom successes.

133 guards and prison staff held for almost a week at

multiple Ecuador prisons were rescued in

Saturday night raids by Ecuador's armed forces and police.

Presidente Noboa praised the military and police personnel who

staged the successful raids .. as well as two of his ministers who

coordinated the operations at prisons in provinces

Azuay, Ca帽ar, Esmeraldas, Cotacachi, Tungurahua, El Oro and Loja.

Firearms, knives and explosives in large quantities were seized in

the raids.

At least two hostages died before the raids were carried out.

Source....

Even Loja, eh, CCC? That's where my people are! "Becoming Cuenca" is another good blog; he and I exchanged a couple of emails. Where is it that you're based?

Grumpy Expat sours on Ecuador.

YouTuber Don "The Grumpy Expat" Shader

has been posting daily updates about Ecuador's violent

recent events on his Don Shader channel,

which hasn't sweetened his mood even one bit.

Don is heading to Phoenix, Arizona, and perhaps other

points in the USA shortly as he re-evaluates his future

plans after three years in Ecuador.聽 He is maintaining

his rental apartment overlooking the Pacific Ocean

at Manta even though he doesn't seem to have a

clear idea about when he will be back in Ecuador.

As for my own location and where yours truly is based,

I expect to keep a low profile al respecto聽 while

Ecuador is in ferment.

cccmedia, from the Ecuador-Colombia corridors

@cccmedia Oy... it's muy tranquillo in Cotacachi 馃し馃徏鈥嶁檪锔忦煉滒煂吼焽�馃嚚馃寛馃�垛櫨锔� How a place feels has a lot to do with attitude 馃槀

@rkg695聽 Same here in Cuenca.聽 I think I 'talked my friends down' from their anxieties about the situation mostly stemming from the "reputable" news media.聽

Had to do a video call with a friend who was convinced I should be indoors hiding out.聽 I showed her the goings on around me, which shocked her.聽 The news media has said that Ecuador is now the 'most violent South American Country', that it is going through apocalyptic violence, etc.聽 No wonder my friends were concerned.

The way I feel about Guayaquil is the same way I'd feel about certain cities in the states....they didn't terrify me, but it was definitely a good idea to avoid them at night, and be extremely cautious during the day.

Many curfews kaput.

With crime in most of Ecuador down by more than half,

the government has lifted the curfews in 160 of 221 cantons.

The all-night curfews have been reduced to 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.

in Cuenca and some other mid-level-risk municipalities.

Midnight curfews now restrict movements in Quito and

some coastal provinces.

Source...

Illegal narco-trafficker airstrips destroyed.

One by one, air fields and landing locations used by

traffickers to facilitate narco flights between Ecuador

and its neighboring countries are being taken out of

service.

The latest was a rural聽 grass air field identified with the

assistance of USA reconaissance on Puno Island in

the Gulf of Guayaquil. It was destroyed by the Ecuadorian

military.

Recently, other such landing strips were identified and

decommissioned by the military聽 in the provinces of

Manab铆 and Los R铆os, Ecuador.

The former airstrips were being used to transport

contraband via flights originating in Peru and

Colombia, the world's leading cocaine producer.

Source...

Mayor of Manab铆 community assassinated.

Brigitte Garc铆a, 27, mayor of San Vicente,

was shot to death in her car on Sunday.

Also shot and killed in the car was the

mayor's communications director, Jairo Loor.

Srta. Garc铆a was Ecuador's youngest mayor.聽 She was

a nurse who was working on improving health conditions

in her impoverished community in northern Manab铆

province.

No suspects were immediately arrested.

At least half a dozen elected officials and candidates have been

assassinated in Ecuador since early last year, all but one

of them in the coastal region.

This item appeared in an article dated March 25

at

The only way the cartels are going to move on to somewhere else is if they lose too much product.

I wonder if they reassigned the 17 Super Tucanos to combat status and had them flying frequent sorties over known routes?

Cheaper to fly than the jets and they could fly slow enough to perform fixed and rotary wing interdictions.

They've used them with great success in D.R. and Brazil.

Once product gets to a shipping terminal all bets are off though, no feasible way to stop it getting aboard ship.

Assassinations.

A prison warden was murdered on Sunday.

Cosmo Dami谩n Parrales Merch谩n, director of

El Rodeo prison in Porto Viejo, was shot dead.

Two local mayors were also killed in the past

week in Ecuadorian municipalitiies.

El Mercurio (Cuenca) as translated at

Don't bring some chairs to a gun fight.

A 71-year-old USA Expat from Houston

identified as Richard Jackson Lewis

was killed in a robbery at a restaurant

where he was dining in Santa Marianita,

near Manta. He was pronounced dead

at a Manta hospital from four gunshots.

Instead of handing over his money and

valuables that the robbers were demanding,

Richard resisted, throwing chairs at the

delincuentes.

They responded with gunfire, killing Richard,

who had been planning to return to Texas

in October.聽 He had been living alone in an

apartment near the restaurant where he

was shot.

Source....

Thieves, sometimes armed,

have been attacking travelers coming from

Guayaquil and the GYE airport.

Some of the 诲别濒颈苍肠耻别苍迟别蝉听 target motorists

who have to slow down on a two-lane road

known for vehicle-speed monitoring on stretches

of road between Guayaquil and Cuenca.

The details of this story are beyond the scope of

this post, which is based on an article dated

May 28, 2024, at

Assassination suspects convicted.

A three-judge court has convicted five individuals

involved in the plot that led to last year's

assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

The former investigative journalist was shot by moto riders

after a rally in Quito before the presidential election.

The men received prison sentences of 12 to 34 years

and fines in the tens of thousands of dollars up to

$100,000 payable to the late politician's families.

For full details of this Associated Press article,

it's reprinted at

@cccmedia

Trouble is moving inland.聽 Not only is the highway from the coast to Cuenca being targeted, but the highway

between Cuenca and Loja is as well.聽 This was reported in Cuenca High Life also, I believe.聽 The crime in the

Malacatos, Landangui and Vilcabamba has been rising again.聽 Home invasions are occurring and some have been

quite violent.聽 There were arrests of 4 men last weekend that were from Loja and connected to robberies around

the Malacatos area.聽 There have been multiple invasions that had up to 7 men and a woman.聽 Whether the four

arrested were a part of that has not been determined.聽 聽The atmosphere in this area is heavy and uncomfortable

for all here.聽 Let us hope and pray that the criminals are caught soon before any more carnage occurs.

@prospector911聽 i wouldnt try being sassy with govt officials聽 ..聽 youre not in america聽 聽 聽your rights are not the same聽 聽

Massive arrests for kidnaping and extortion.

The National Police have pulled off a major

operation in multiple coastal provinces, also

in the provinces of Santo Domingo de las Ts谩chilas

and Pichincha, arresting 45 suspects聽 believed to be

members of three gangs, for kidnaping and

extortion.

A kidnap victim for whom a large ransom

was sought was freed.

Source.. El Mercurio, as translated and

reported at