Ecuador security forces given blanket amnesty in cartel fight

By AFP

Ecuador's president announced on Friday an amnesty for security forces fighting drug cartels in the port city of Guayaquil, where 22 people were killed in fierce gunfights between rival gangs.

As teams of heavily armed police launched raids and collected tens of bodies in the city's troubled Nueva Prosperina neighbourhood, President Daniel Noboa announced a blanket pardon designed to signal resolve.

"All police and military personnel who have operated in, or who will be deployed to Nueva Prosperina, already have a presidential pardon," he said on social media.

He urged the security forces -- some already accused of human rights abuses during an increasingly brutal drug war -- to "act with determination and without fear of reprisal."

AFP reporters accompanied police SWAT teams on a series of raids in Nueva Prosperina on Friday.

Forces combed steams and culverts, and stormed apartment blocks, hauling out handcuffed suspects and suitcases filled with rifles and ammunition as police helicopters circled the skies above.

Noboa, in power since 2023, faces a presidential runoff election on April 13 that will decide whether he gets another four years in power.

He has campaigned on his crackdown on drug cartels that have turned what was once one of Latin America's most peaceful countries into one of its most violent.

"Defend the country and I will defend you," added the president, who edged his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez in the first election round on February 9.

On Thursday, 22 people were killed and six injured in clashes between rival factions of one of the country's biggest criminal gangs, Los Tiguerones, authorities said.

'I will defend you'

Noboa's rival Gonzalez, a lawyer, has criticized human rights abuses allegedly committed by the security forces in the name of the war on cartels and vowed a more restrained approach.

Over a dozen members of the military are being investigated over the murder of four boys who went missing while playing football in Guayaquil in December.

Their charred bodies were later found near an army base, in a case that caused widespread outrage.

Ecuador has been plunged into violence by the spread of transnational cartels that use its ports, like Guayaquil, to ship cocaine to the United States and Europe.

Homicides rose from six per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to a record 47 in 2023.

With the violence showing no sign of abating, Noboa's strategy on the campaign trail has been to toughen rather than soften his rhetoric.

He recently said he would ask unspecified allied countries to send special forces to help him fight criminal gangs.

Guayaquil is the capital of Guayas, one of seven provinces where a state of emergency has been in force for the past two months.