How a narco revolt pushed a peaceful nation to the brink
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
A high-profile prison escape. A TV station takeover. An assault on police. Today on “Post Reports,” how powerful gangs in Ecuador pushed this historically peaceful nation to the brink and led its new president to declare war.
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Ecuador has long been an ecotourism hub and a safe haven, mostly immune from the guerilla violence endured for decades in neighboring Colombia and Peru. But the country has experienced a shift in recent years, becoming a center for drug trafficking and organized crime, as global demand for cocaine surges to new levels.
On Jan. 9, this new reality came into full focus through coordinated attacks that shook the country to its core, culminating on live TV for all of Ecuador and the world to witness. The Post’s Bogotá bureau chief, Samantha Schmidt, and Ecuadorian journalist Arturo Torres have spent months reconstructing what exactly happened that day: how the chaos unfolded, the extent to which gangs infiltrated institutions, and President Daniel Noboa’s controversial response, giving unprecedented power to the military.
Piecing together the details through exclusive interviews and footage revealed a deeper truth, Schmidt tells “Post Reports,” which is that the crisis in Ecuador isn’t an outlier. What happened that day and the complicated aftermath represent “a canary in the coal mine” moment and a warning for all of Latin America.
Today’s show was produced by Elana Gordon. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Monica Campbell. Thanks to Maggie Penman, Arturo Torres and Peter Finn.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So in early January we started to see an escalation of violence in Ecuador and then the most important and powerful gang leader in Ecuador, known as Fito, escaped from prison. |
| 0:17.0 | The Manta Schmidt covers Latin America for the post. |
| 0:24.0 | Fito's full name is Jose Adolfo Macias Viamar. |
| 0:28.0 | The fact that he'd escaped from prison by basically walking out the front door was jarring. |
| 0:35.0 | Ecuador was always this sort of peaceful haven in South America, |
| 0:41.0 | surrounded by neighbors like Columbia and Peru that suffered from, you know, years of decades of guerrilla violence. |
| 0:50.0 | It was seen as this sort of ecotourism hub, |
| 0:54.3 | but in recent years, all of that has changed. |
| 0:57.5 | We've had a wave of gang violence, |
| 1:00.4 | a presidential candidate who had strongly spoken out against corruption and drug trafficking, |
| 1:08.0 | he was killed while leaving a campaign rally. |
| 1:12.0 | This country that had previously been an outlier in the region was suddenly one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America. |
| 1:20.0 | And now Ecuador's new president, Danielle Noboa, faced a critical point. |
| 1:26.0 | He had campaigned as a center-right hardliner against crime, pledging to build more prisons. |
| 1:32.0 | He had to act. |
| 1:34.0 | He declares a state of emergency. |
| 1:37.0 | A cow is a firmare. |
| 1:38.0 | The Decreto is a deception |
| 1:39.0 | for that the force has harm has |
| 1:41.0 | been against all the rest of the political illeg political illegal suctionary. |
| 1:45.0 | Nuboa addresses the nation looking into the camera, wearing a slick black bomber jacket. |
| 1:51.0 | He's 36, the son of a banana tycoon, and he's only been in office for about a month at this point. |
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