The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, distanced himself this Friday from his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, despite the similarities in the heavy-handed policy to contain crime in both countries. “I don’t think my Government considers itself to be anything similar. Our proposal is employment, not security,” said Noboa, who is in Spain for the third time since he was elected. Ecuador, in a constant state of exception since January, respects “100% human rights and democracy,” defended the president, who at the same time welcomed the opening of a new megaprison in the coming weeks.
Noboa, 36, highlighted in an event organized at Casa de América, in Madrid, the results that his security strategy has had in Ecuador in recent months: from registering 40 homicides a day, there are now 12, a drop from 60%. Furthermore, he enjoys a popularity of 68%, as he has managed to convince the population that his approach is the best to attack criminal groups. “The last governments were not successful because they did not take these extremely difficult measures,” he noted. Among them is the state of emergency decree and the militarization of security, as is happening in El Salvador.
On the other hand, he has highlighted the approval of an economic law that promotes job creation and which he believes will especially help young people to prevent them from joining criminal gangs. “We also focus on human development. That is not very authoritarian or right-wing,” Noboa said ironically.
A new mega prison is scheduled to open in the next two weeks in the province of Santa Elena, on the west coast of Ecuador, Noboa has announced. According to him, this new facility will help “decongest” prisons, especially in Guayaquil, one of the areas of greatest insecurity in the country. “We must dismantle these prisons that became operation centers [de bandas criminales]. It doesn’t make much sense that around the corner from the prisons are the homes of the leaders of these criminal groups,” he said.
However, the president has highlighted that the problem of mafias and criminal gangs is not only exclusive to Ecuador, but “transnational.” “40% of the drugs that leave Ecuador reach the United States, another 40% reach Europe. The remaining 20% goes to Asia, Russia and the Middle East,” he stated. Therefore, he has urged leaders to support his security strategy.
Before his time in Spain, Noboa has been in Italy and France, where this week two police officers were murdered during the escape of a prisoner linked to drug trafficking. Regarding this event, the president has suggested: “Cocaine did not magically come out of French soil. The logistical origin usually comes from Ecuador.”
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“Good will” to reestablish relations with Mexico
Ecuador’s international image was affected in early April, when Noboa ordered his police to force their way into the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas, convicted in his country of corruption. The UN, the European Union and the Organization of American States (OAS) strongly condemned the assault on the diplomatic legation. However, for the president, Ecuador has “managed to strengthen international cooperation.” The president has given as an example the designation of his country to head the Anti-Terrorism Secretariat of the OAS, as well as “the increase” in collaboration with the United States to combat “transnational terrorism.”
Asked if he would have acted differently if he had known the consequences—Mexico has denounced Ecuador before the International Court of Justice—Noboa responded that the decision to attack the embassy “was the appropriate one.” “We could not let a fugitive escape from justice and we could not let the dignity of Ecuadorians be violated.”
Despite his unqualified defense of the raid, he has assured that he has “good will” to reestablish diplomatic relations with Mexico. “Unfortunately, until today, the only condition has been that we return a convicted criminal who is in a maximum security prison, put him on a plane and send him to Mexico,” Noboa responded to Mexico’s requirement to restore diplomacy between both countries.
The Ecuadorian president has also referred to the internal rupture of his Executive, after the vice president, Verónica Abad, described him as being “authoritarian in power.” “I don’t agree with almost anything about the vice president’s behavior in recent months. I think that going against one’s own Government is disloyal, it is not correct,” Noboa alleged. At the same time, he has opened the door to handing over power to another person when he must suspend his activities as president when he is a candidate for re-election – at the beginning of next year -, despite the fact that the usual thing is to give way to the number two in the Executive. . “We will consult the Court and the Attorney General’s Office,” he concluded.
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