This is John Batchett, a conversation with colleague Evan Ellis, professor at the U.S. Army War College,

about the reported lethal attack on the president of Ecuador, Daniel Naboa.

The professor explains the backstory and how it came to a rock-throwing incident against his motorcade

by what appears to be an indigenous protest.

Backstory by Evan Ellis.

Ecuador is an unstable country ripped apart by violence and narco-terrorism.

Denoah is an answer to that, and it is destabilizing to have him attacked by anyone,

but especially people's not in the narco-terrorism game.

This is indigenous people protesting subsidies.

Evan Ellis.

That's correct, John.

While the Nebula administration has done a lot to try to get a hand on the different criminal groups,

Lobos, Choneros, and others that working through Mexican cartels have really wreaked havoc on the security situation.

Indeed, there was just a new state of emergency that was

declared in 10 provinces across Ecuador. One of the other problems is that the economic

difficulties, Ecuador has long subsidized its petroleum output. You actually have a substantial

petroleum production that's done in Ecuador. But reflecting the really unlimited resources that the Ecuador regime has, they were recently

forced to eliminate a very costly subsidy on diesel fuel, which caused diesel fuel, which

is essential for truck drivers to rise from $1.82 a gallon that augmented protests by

indigenous groups led by the indigenous organization Kaunai. And so Nouveau was basically

caught in the middle of a radicalized community who started throwing stones at them, about 500

protesters. And so the accusation of one of his ministers was that this essentially blocking his activity and throwing stones was an attempt to assassinate him.

...