The Ecuadorian military will remain in control of the country’s prisons for as long as necessary with the aim of recovering peace throughout the national territory, he assured this Tuesday. the head of the Joint Command of the Armed ForcesJaime Vela.
“The Armed Forces will remain in control of said centers until necessary,” the military chief remarked after remembering that prisons were for years bases of organized crime and conflict zones between criminal gangs that disputed control of the prisons.
These statements were reproduced by the General Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency of the Republic after a reserved meeting of the Public and State Security Council (Cosepe), led by the president of the country, Daniel Noboa.
Vela recalled that the country has been subject to a state of emergency since the first days of last January in which the existence of a “internal armed conflict” against organized crime, in response to the spiral of violence unleashed in prisons and streets by criminal groups, whom he began to describe as “terrorists.”
The head of the Joint Command reiterated the commitment of the military forces to restore peace in the country through the execution of operations subject to international humanitarian lawwithin the framework of the executive decrees signed by President Noboa.
Human rights
Since the permanent entry of the military into prisons, human rights organizations have denounced excesses and violations against inmatesso a judge ordered these accusations to be verified within 45 days, a mission entrusted to the Ombudsman’s Office, which after five years has managed to enter some prisons escorted by law enforcement.
After declaring the “internal armed conflict,” the Government identified at least 22 transnational organized crime groups and classified them “as terrorist organizations” and “belligerent non-state actors.”
By identifying these groups as belligerents, the president opened a legal door for the Armed Forces together with the Police to act with all their resources to neutralize them.
The spiral of violence in Ecuador was unleashed when the president was apparently preparing to launch his Phoenix Plan against crime.
In principle, this strategy sought to regain control of the prisons, many of them internally dominated by criminal groups, whose rivalries left more than 450 prisoners murdered since 2020 in a series of prison massacres.
However, prison violence took to the streets until Ecuador became one of the most violent countries in 2023, with an average of 45 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in that year. EFE
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