WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE ECUADOR - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #347 - International, Ecuador: The so-called war against drug trafficking is a war against the people (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In Ecuador, the government claims to be waging war on drug trafficking.

But by targeting impoverished and racialized populations, the State is
in reality creating a crime of poverty which results in thousands of
imprisonments to the detriment of human rights. By legalizing the
carrying of weapons, increasing repressive means and building
"mega-prisons", Ecuador has launched a war against the people. ---- "¡No
son terroristas! ¡No, we are terrorists!» "They are not terrorists! We
are not terrorists!», chant the committees of families of incarcerated
people who have organized several gatherings in different cities in
Ecuador since January 9. This slogan resonates in the streets while
videos of prisoners humiliated and crushed by military forces circulate
on social networks, generating the approval of thousands of Internet users.

This reminds us of two essential points. First, the "internal armed
conflict" declared by President Daniel Noboa is not a war against drugs,
it is a war waged against impoverished and racialized populations,
labeled "terrorists" by a government that has arrested more than 7,200
people and killed 8 others in a month. Secondly, the Manichean reading
of events that we are led into makes us lose our humanity.

The strategy of fear
Relayed from all sides, the discourse of "the war on drugs" seems to be
unanimous, particularly in the media. On one side, a victim State,
overwhelmed, on the other, mafias and sprawling armed groups which
attack territories and institutions. The enemy becomes diffuse,
impalpable, so much so that everyone becomes suspect.

This official reading of events prevents any understanding and
depoliticizes the phenomenon by crushing the possibility of identifying
the concrete actors and those responsible for the violence perpetrated.
The various scandals demonstrating the links between the State and drug
trafficking are glaring, while money laundering is carried out under the
responsibility of the banks. But neither the State nor the banks are
implicated in this "war on drugs".

While the militarization and para-militarization of the country advances
and decrees to liberalize the economy rain down, fear turns against
community ties, against the capacity for collective action and against
the other in general. And when the possibilities for collective
construction for life are broken and the feeling of danger is permanent,
repressive policies are trivialized and state violence becomes common
sense[1].

The families of people deprived of their liberty are demanding justice
and reparation in Ecuador's prisons.
Committee of Families for Justice in Cárceles
Mega-prisons where the mafia thrives
However, it must be remembered that the "war on drugs" strategy has been
applied since the 1980s and 1990s under the leadership of the United
States. Trade agreements favorable to exports are concluded by Ecuador
in exchange for the promise to fight against drug trafficking and to
promote the North American military presence in the region[2]. The war
on drugs therefore revolves around two axes: a neoliberalized economy
which increases inequalities and mass impoverishment; and the massive
and racial criminalization of populations excluded from the system of
legal capital accumulation. Indeed, the populations targeted by the
penal and punitive systems are the vast majority of people of
Afro-descendants, Montubias, and of indigenous descent[3].

The presidency of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) was then marked by a
"punitive boom". The incarcerated population triples in less than ten
years, with the construction of giant prison complexes in Guayaquil,
Cuenca and Latacunga. The criminalization of poverty crimes, well beyond
micro-drug trafficking, is facilitated by the development of police
technologies and new punitive institutions[4]. It is in these new
mega-prisons that the mafias are being built, with significant
responsibility for the State and the police[5]. This period is also
marked by the advance of neoliberalism, particularly with the increase
in extractivism in the Amazon.

More than 600 deaths in prison since 2021

The official return of neoliberalism in 2019 marks the multiplication of
states of emergency, first during the 2019 social movement led by CONAIE
(Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), then during the
pandemic, and finally during the social movement of 2022, reinforcing
the punitive system, as well as the stigmatization of racialized and
impoverished populations, designated as a source of danger and labeled
as terrorists during the mobilizations.

The governments of Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso orchestrate the
return of agreements with the IMF and the United States. Several
massacres are taking place in prisons, with more than 600 incarcerated
people having died since 2021, while the government legalizes the
carrying of weapons and encourages the population to "self-defense". The
war taking place in Ecuador is a neoliberal war directed against
indigenous territories and impoverished urban spaces and their
inhabitants. In Europe, in France, it is urgent to get rid of the epic
narrative of third world countries with weak institutions, invaded by
violence and the mafias of Pablo Escobar from the Netflix series.

In order not to lose our humanity, we must listen to those who find
themselves in the crossfire of military and paramilitary organizations
and who are suffering the invasion of their places of life: the powerful
in this war are at the top. We are not facing a State that is too weak
but rather an exacerbated punitive, racist, classist and patriarchal State.

As the Manifesto Against War[6]says: "We speak out against war as a
government strategy that is intensifying today in Ecuador, but which has
already cost the lives of thousands of people in countries in the
region. like Mexico and Colombia, and which is expressed through
genocide in countries like Palestine. Our demand is regional and global:
We want peace with social justice for the whole world!»

Typhaine (UCL Finistère) and Gaëlle Le Gauyer

To validate

[1]Dawn Marie Paley, Guerra Neoliberal, Desaparición y búsqueda en el
norte de México, 2014.

[2]Lisset Coba Mejía, Sitiadas: la criminalización de las pobres en
Ecuador, 2015.

[3]Andrea Aguirre, Incivil y criminal: Quito como escenario de
construction statetal de la delincuencia entre los decades 1960 y 1980,
2019.

[4]Aguirre, Léon, Ribadeneira, Sistema penitenciario y población
penalizada pendante la Revolución Ciudadana (2007-2017), 2020.

[5]Jorge Nuñez, Muros: Voces anticarcelarias del Ecuador, 2022.

[6]Manifesto against the war in Ecuador, Latin America and the world,
Change.org.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Equateur-La-pretendue-guerre-contre-le-narcotrafic-est-une-guerre-contre-le
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