Terrorized by gangs, Ecuador embraces the hardline 'Noboa Way'

Since Ecuador's president declared war on gangs last month, soldiers with assault rifles have flooded the streets of Guayaquil, a sprawling city on the Pacific coast that has been an epicenter of the country's years-long descent into violence.

They pull men from buses and cars looking for drugs, weapons and gang tattoos, and patrol roads to enforce curfews. The city is on edge, its men and teenage boys potential targets for troops and police officers tasked with taking down powerful gangs that have joined forces with international cartels to make Ecuador a center of the global drug trade.

But when people see soldiers passing by, many clap or give a thumbs up. “We applaud the iron fist, we celebrate it,” said Guayaquil Mayor Aquiles Álvarez. “It helped bring peace.”

In early January, Guayaquil was hit by a wave of violence that could prove to be a turning point in the country's long-running security crisis: Gangs attacked the city after authorities took control of Ecuador's prisons, which were largely controlled by gangs.

Police officers were kidnapped, explosives detonated and invaded an episode Broadcast live, a dozen armed men briefly seized a major television station.

The president, Daniel Noboa, has declared an internal conflict, an extraordinary step taken when the state is attacked by an armed group. He has deployed troops against the gangs, who have taken over much of Ecuador. He battles for control of the cocaine smuggling routes, transforming the country from one of South America's most peaceful to one of its deadliest.

Ecuador's top military commander warned that every gang member now was “a military objective.”

Mr. Noboa's aggressive response has reduced violence and brought a precarious sense of security to places like Guayaquil, a city of 2.7 million and a major drug trafficking port, boosting government approval. 76 percent from a recent national survey.

It has also raised alarm among human rights activists.

“We don't see anything new or innovative,” said Fernando Bastias of Guayaquil's Standing Committee for the Defense of Human Rights. “What we are seeing is an increase in the number of cases of serious human rights violations.”

Ecuador's approach has drawn comparisons to El Salvador, where its young leader, Nayib Bukele, has largely dismantled his brutal gangs, earning him a landslide re-election victory and admiration across Latin America. But critics say he has also flouted human rights and the rule of law and ordered mass arrests that have ensnared innocent people.

“Ecuador is an important case because it is almost a second laboratory for Bukele's policies,” said Gustavo Flores-Macías, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University who specializes in Latin America. “People are so desperate that they are buying into the need for these iron-fist policies to reduce crime.”

The policies can be effective, but, he added, “the costs to civil liberties are high.”

Just like Mr. Bukele, Mr. Noboa (36). to build mega prisons and his social media posts include pumping music and images of prisoners handcuffed and stripped to the waist. He proclaims it “The Noboa Road.”

Yet there are important differences, says Christopher Sabatini, senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, a research group in London. While Mr. Bukele disdains democracy, Mr. Noboa has “portrayed his government as a democracy under siege,” Mr. Sabatini said.

Mr. Noboa also faces another opponent, said Will Freeman, a Latin America fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“El Salvador has never been important for the drug trade,” he said. “It's just too small.” Ecuador, by contrast, now plays a central role in the global cocaine trade, he said, and has ties to cartels from Mexico to Europe. As a result, the gangs have millions to arm themselves to fight the authorities.

But, he added, “we see Noboa moving toward a strategy of mass arrests.”

Since the president declared war on the gangs, authorities in Ecuador have made arrests more than 6,000 people.

In Guayaquil, soldiers and police are destroying camera systems installed by gangs to monitor entire neighborhoods, storming areas previously largely off-limits to police and knocking down doors Unpleasant discover caches of weapons and explosives.

The crackdown has had some effect.

From December to January, the number of murders in Guayaquil fell 33 percent, from 187 to 125. Outside the city's morgue, Cheyla Jurado, a street vendor who sells juice and pastries to families waiting to collect the bodies, said the crowds had visibly thinned out. .

“Now it's car accidents, drownings,” she said.

At the city's largest hospital, the number of patients arriving with gunshot wounds and other violence-related injuries has dropped from five a day to just one every three days, said Dr. Rodolfo Zevallos, an emergency physician.

The postponement of the bloodshed – even though it is still in its early stages – has a lot of support for the young president.

“We can sit outside at night,” said Janet Cisneros, who sells home-cooked meals in Guayaquil's Suburbio neighborhood. “We couldn't do that before; we were just completely stuck inside.”

Mr Noboa, heir to a banana fortune, was elected in November to complete his predecessor's term, which was cut short when he dissolved parliament, triggering early elections.

In January, when violence broke out, he traded his business suit and shy smile for a grimace, buzz cut and black leather jacketannouncing that Ecuador would no longer take orders from “narco-terrorist groups.”

The tough message is aimed at Ecuadorians, who will vote for president again next year, said Mr. Flores-Macías, the political scientist, but is also intended to gain support from international leaders — especially President Biden. Mr. Noboa, he said, “sees clearly that he needs the support — the guidance, financing and assistance — from the United States.”

So far, the Biden administration has provided Ecuador with equipment and training, along with approximately $93 million in military and humanitarian assistance.

Ecuadorian officials have said the military is crucial to reclaiming the country neighborhoods of gangs that have become de facto authorities, recruiting boys as young as twelve to transport drugs, kidnap and kill.

Mr. Noboa's office did not respond to requests for comment.

In Guayaquil, police paint murals of gang leaders. Soldiers conducting street raids tell young men found with small bags of marijuana about the dangers of drugs or a life of crime.

But videos are circulating showing authorities also using harsher tactics, with men and boys being rounded up on the streets hitting on the head or forced to do so kiss each other. In a widely shared video, a teenager is encouraged to do so exfoliating a tattoo until his chest bleeds.

Similar abuses are taking place in prisons where the military was sent to take control from gangs, lawyers and families of prisoners said.

“They let the prisoners get beaten worse than Jesus Christ,” said Fernanda Lindao, whose son is serving a prison sentence for theft in Guayaquil's Litoral Penitentiary. “There are no human rights for prisoners.”

Still, arrest videos are extremely popular, with many Ecuadorians praising the soldiers and the president.

“The public is cheering what is happening,” said Mr. Álvarez, the mayor of Guayaquil, “and they are applauding not because they are bad people, but because they are tired of all the violence they have had to endure.”

To explain their support for Mr. Noboa's tactics, many described how bad things had become.

“They killed and dumped bodies here,” said Rosa Elena Guachicho, who lives in Durán, a Guayaquil suburb with unpaved roads and no drinking water. “A month ago they found one in a pillowcase, chopped up.”

Dolores Garacoia said gangs had taken over Durán. Taxi drivers refused to enter for fear they would be robbed or kidnapped, she said. Even the police did not feel safe.

Gangs threatened small business owners like Ms. Garacoia, who said she closed the store she had run for years after receiving a phone call demanding payment of thousands of dollars. vacuumor vaccine.

“I had to take the sign down and close it immediately,” she said.

Just as the residents of Guayaquil have changed to adapt to the violence (staying indoors and getting pit bulls), so has the physical appearance of the city. Houses have become cages, entangled in two- or three-story bars.

Ángel Chávez, 14, sat behind wrought iron bars at a community center in Monte Sinai, part of Guayaquil's most dangerous neighborhood where more than 500 people were killed last year.

He had mixed feelings about the arrival of the army.

“Maybe it will finally put an end to what we have suffered,” he said.

But, he added, the way soldiers treated teenagers in some videos concerned him. “I don't like it when they abuse them.”

Yet the biggest fear for many in Guayaquil is the withdrawal of the army.

Ms Cisneros, the cook who can finally serve the meals outside, said: “They are not allowed to leave.”

Thalie Ponce reporting contributed.