Ecuador declared a state of emergency Thursday and requested the FBI to assist probe the assassination of a well-liked presidential candidate whose dying has highlighted the once-peaceful nation’s decline right into a violent hotbed of drug trafficking and arranged crime.
Fernando Villavicencio, a 59-year-old journalist and distinguished anti-corruption crusader, was gunned down as he left a marketing campaign rally within the capital Quito on Wednesday night time.
President Guillermo Lasso declared a two-month state of emergency, and wrote on social media that he had “requested the support of the FBI” with the investigation into the homicide.
He stated the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation had “accepted our request and in the next few hours a delegation will arrive in the country.”
Shocked residents expressed their frustration with the burgeoning violence within the South American nation, which has seen its homicide charge soar as drug gangs wage bloody turf wars.
Housewife Ruth Flores, 65, informed AFP folks had been “outraged” by the homicide of a person she noticed as “the hope for honesty in our country. A candidate who denounced the corruption of narcopolitics.”
She described the state of affairs within the nation as “very worrying. You can’t walk peacefully… there is no security.”
Villavicencio had complained of receiving threats from Los Choneros, one of many nation’s strongest drug gangs.
“They told me to wear a (bulletproof) vest. I don’t need it. Let the hitmen come! They may bend me but they will never break me,” the politician informed a rally earlier this week in Chone, birthplace of the gang.
Electoral officers have moreover reported threats towards them forward of the snap election on August 20. A well-liked mayor and aspiring lawmaker have additionally been assassinated in current weeks.
Villavicencio was shot in a hail of gunfire as he exited the political rally.
The nation’s important newspaper, El Universo, reported that Villavicencio was assassinated “hitman-style and with three shots to the head.”
His household gathered, weeping and holding one another, as his physique was transported from a forensic lab to a funeral dwelling for a non-public wake.
‘Sabotage’
The assault got here a bit of over every week earlier than a snap election, referred to as by Lasso after he dissolved the opposition-dominated Congress in May to keep away from an impeachment trial over alleged corruption.
He will not be searching for reelection.
Earlier, Lasso blamed the killing on “organized crime.”
“This is a political crime… and we do not doubt that this murder is an attempt to sabotage the electoral process,” stated Lasso, who additionally declared three days of nationwide mourning.
Villavicencio was the second hottest of eight candidates within the presidential race, in accordance with current opinion polls.
His journalistic investigations uncovered an enormous graft community which led to former president Rafael Correa being sentenced to eight years in jail.
Correa now lives in exile in Belgium after fleeing to flee the jail time period.
‘A bleak future’
Giant posters of Villavicencio had been nonetheless plastered on the partitions of the sports activities complicated the place the rally was held, as passersby positioned candles and bouquets of white roses outdoors.
A bike owner, who was too afraid to provide her identify, put up a banner studying: “The damn narcopoliticians will pay.”
“I see a bleak future because no one has the guts like him to tackle the situation. They are all lukewarm, including the president who disappointed us,” the lady informed AFP.
Nine different folks had been injured within the assault, together with a candidate operating for the nationwide legislature and three policemen, prosecutors and police officers stated.
One of the alleged attackers was shot and killed by safety personnel.
Six folks have been arrested, with Interior Minister Juan Zapata saying they belong to an “organized crime gang.”
The United States condemned the assault, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken providing to “support local authorities to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act to justice.”
The European Union’s overseas coverage chief Josep Borrell stated the bloc “stands with Ecuador in its fight against the worsening violence by organized crime.”
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk stated the “appalling killing… underscores the challenges the country and its people face amid the violence.”
Global drug hub
Ecuador will not be identified to have giant plantations of drug crops or laboratories, however its location between main cocaine producers Colombia and Peru and laxer controls, have made it a brand new nerve heart for the worldwide drug commerce.
Most medicine are shipped overseas by way of the foremost port of Guayaquil.
Hundreds have been killed — some dismembered or burned to dying — in a gang warfare that largely performed out within the nation’s prisons, primarily in Guayaquil, within the battle for management of drug routes.
Guayaquil has additionally been hit by automobile bombs and surprising scenes of our bodies dangling from bridges.
Highlighting Ecuador’s rising affect within the commerce, Dutch authorities stated Thursday that they had seized over eight tonnes of cocaine found in a container carrying bananas from Ecuador, its largest ever seizure of the drug.
In 2022, Ecuador’s homicide charge nearly doubled in comparison with the earlier 12 months to 25 per 100,000. — Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
