MIAMI.- Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who leads a bipartisan group in a statement supporting “both the people and the Ecuadorian government as the country faces a wave of violence by criminal gangs and cartels,” points out to the former president of the southern country, Rafael Correa of irregular situations in Ecuador.
“I don’t think there is a doubt that (Rafael) Correa and his political group have links with these (criminal) groups and he has used it for his internal politics. To destabilize governments that are not of the line and we have seen it. We saw it when we were there,” Rubio said in an interview with NTN24.
Rubio says that he has no evidence, but he also does not doubt the links between the former president and these organized crime groups and their use to destabilize the governments in power. In recent days, after Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito, leader of the dangerous gang Los Choneros, escaped from prison, the country has been involved in a wave of violence, which detonated when criminals attacked the channel last Tuesday. of TC television, broadcasting live how they harassed the plant workers.
Faced with this episode, and after having previously declared a State of Exception, President Daniel Noboa declared the country in “internal armed conflict.”
“What we have is a situation in which we have criminal gangs with weapons and the capacity to threaten the Government and the State and that is what we see. It is an emergency. We must do everything possible. That will eventually have an impact on the United States, whether in the immigration issue, drug trafficking. We do not want to see a democratic government in this hemisphere, an ally of the United States, fall to criminal gangs,” said the senator.
In a letter, Rubio, along with Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rick Scott (R-FL), showed their support for the Ecuadorian people.
“The horrific attacks against the Ecuadorian people have shown the world the vile and violent nature of the country’s armed groups. This week’s wave of violence has terrified an entire nation and is a stark reminder that security, stability and the rule of law are not guaranteed and require continued attention. While Ecuador faces the great challenge of confronting the criminal drug cartels, which seek to destroy its stability, the US. “Unequivocally supports our ally Ecuador in efforts to ensure that the perpetrators of these acts are held accountable.”
Cooperation against organized crime is “very convenient” after being undermined by the decision of former left-wing Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to expel a US military base, Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Initiative on Non-State Armed Actors from the Brookings Institution, based in Washington.
The effort should focus on “the infiltration of organized crime into two institutions”, ports and airports, on “strengthening controls, reforming prisons to make them much safer and developing investigative capabilities,” he explains.
The Republican congresswoman, María Elvira Salazar, also reacted with a direct request to the president of the United States, Joe Biden, to support the Ecuadorian head of state, Daniel Noboa in two aspects. “Send intelligence so that the Noboa Government can identify where the operations of these gang members are and sell them weapons.”
