Militarization Eroding Democracy: Ecuador’s Internal Armed Conflict

Author: Santino Calcagno

September 30, 2025

Ecuadoran soldiers ordered men and boys off buses and searched them for weapons, drugs and gang tattoos. [Image source: 2024 The New York Times]

Introduction

Since the 20th century, the phrase “the ends justify the means” has become a motto for Latin American governments dealing with an internal threat. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, several Latin American states identified their internal threat as leftist revolutionary groups. During this period, a large majority of countries in Central and South America were ruled with an iron fist by right-wing military dictatorships, who justified their legitimacy by emphasizing the existence of an internal enemy that had to be stopped by all means necessary. These means included the forced disappearance of civilians, torture of suspected leftist revolutionaries, and extrajudicial killings. Whether it was the governments in Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile, the same narrative swept across the region. It is the state’s responsibility to protect its citizens and control the monopoly over violence. In the face of an internal threat, the state may take all necessary measures to carry out this responsibility. Due to their absolute absorption of power and the lack of restraints on their counterinsurgency tactics, these regimes managed to become an even greater threat to their citizens than the revolutionary groups they were fighting. 

Fast forward to modern day, and a similar reality has unfolded with a different and much more elusive threat—organized crime groups. Concurrently, violent crime in Latin America has reached unprecedented levels over the last two decades. In certain countries, the violent threat imposed by gangs and organized crime groups has completely destabilized communities. In El Salvador, civilians would describe their daily lives as being controlled by gangs, also known as maras. From 2014 to 2017, the maras claimed the lives of 20,000 Salvadorans, and in 2015, their homicide rate reached 103 per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2022, the maras finally reached their demise after indiscriminately killing at least 87 people between March 25th and 27th. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele responded by declaring a 30-day state of exception that put a halt to many constitutional rights such as freedom of assembly, access to legal counsel, and due process. These changes meant that the police could throw people into prison with minimal evidence and slight suspicion of gang affiliation. Joint police and military operations were responsible for roughly 85,000 arrests, either by using specific search warrants or by stopping random young men on the street to check for criminal records and gang tattoos. Since then, the state of exception has become a permanent government policy as it brought order to communities overrun by gangs. At the end of last year, Bukele announced that the homicide rate in El Salvador dropped to 1.9 homicides per 100,000, making it one of the safest countries in Latin America. The price of this safety is the continuance of these measures, which infringe on civil rights. 

Ecuador is now facing a similar situation. Previously considered one of the safest countries in Latin America, Ecuador has experienced an unprecedented spike in homicides and gang-related violence. Bordering on Peru and Colombia, the world's biggest producers of coca, Ecuador has evolved into a logistical distribution center for the shipment of cocaine to Europe and the United States. Through intercontinental criminal networks, connecting local gangs in Ecuadorian port cities with powerful cartels in Mexico and organized crime organizations in Albania, these gangs have stepped up in the world of the transnational drug trade. As the demand for their services grows, their control of prisons and port cities grows exponentially. In contrast to cartel operations, the gangs in Ecuador operate mainly from prison. Logistical operations are planned and directed from different sections of the penitentiaries, all controlled by rival gangs. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a 2022 study revealed that if Ecuador’s prison system were a city, it would be the second-most violent city in the entire country—behind the port city of Guayaquil, the epicenter of the violence. These findings are evidenced by a series of prison massacres that have led to the deaths of more than 450 people. Tensions between rival groups within prison walls have spilled over into the streets as kidnappings, robberies, murders, dismemberments, and car bombings, which have occurred periodically since 2021. In 2023, the homicide rate in Guayaquil-adjacent towns like Durán reached 145.43 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the country as a whole recorded more than 7,600 murders, making it the bloodiest year on record. The threat of gangs is not only felt within prison walls and in underprivileged neighborhoods. Ecuador's political, judicial, and civic spaces are co-opted by gang violence. Prosecutors, judges, journalists, and political leaders, including a mayor and a presidential candidate, have all been assassinated by the gangs. Taking similar measures to Bukele, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has embraced a hard-line approach in order to bring back much-needed stability. 

At the start of January 2024, a couple of months after taking office, Noboa was immediately tested after the country's most notorious drug lord, José Adolfo “Fito” Macías Villamar, escaped from prison. Following his escape, a series of coordinated attacks rampaged across Ecuador and the city of Guayaquil, showcasing the sheer threat and sporadic hostility of the gangs. A group of armed men stormed a TV station during a live broadcast and held the staff hostage. On top of that, more than thirty car bombs went off, multiple prisons erupted in riots, police officers were kidnapped, and civilians were indiscriminately murdered on the street. Noboa responded by imposing a 60-day state of emergency and declaring the country to be in an internal armed conflict. He designated 22 criminal organizations as terrorist organizations and “non-state warring parties,” a measure that has allowed for a full-fledged military confrontation to arise between the state and organized crime groups. By extending the military’s reach in maintaining societal order, Noboa’s policies have led to mass incarcerations, often suspending due process and constitutional freedoms to interrogate and arrest suspected “terrorists” or gang affiliates. 

As the threat of the gangs has escalated to an unsettling scale, Daniel Noboa—much like his Salvadoran counterpart—has decided to confront the violence head-on as a demonstration of government strength to show that the state will not roll over. It is important to recognize that without these steps, both Ecuador and El Salvador would find themselves completely overrun by organized crime groups. A failed state cannot fulfill its responsibility to protect its citizens. Noboa is attempting to reclaim Ecuador’s monopoly on violence to ensure the events of January 2024 never repeat themselves. However, the upsurge of gang violence is at the tip of Ecuador’s societal iceberg. Underneath the tip lie structural issues of corruption, impunity, lack of development, and institutional weakness, which have created an environment that fosters growth for organized crime. These are issues that have yet to be addressed and have subsequently been ignored by Daniel Noboa’s administration. The desperate need for immediate security measures has led to a harsh military presence on the streets and in prisons, inviting a wave of human rights abuses and democratic erosion along with it. 

The state of emergency allows for military forces and the national police to conduct searches and inspections in homes to locate suspects, as the right to inviolability of the home and correspondence was suspended. Those who are presumed to be criminals are arrested on the spot. The emergency state allows authorities to collect mail and electronic communication that they suspect of being linked to the conflict. The decree also calls for nightly curfews and a suspension of the freedom of assembly for the most heavily impacted cities. States of emergency situations are traditionally temporary and of an exceptional nature. However, President Noboa has regularly declared multiple 60-day states of emergency. Last year, the first state of emergency declared by Noboa lasted 250 days. The citizens of Ecuador have had to endure almost a year with their legal protections and constitutional freedoms suspended. Civilians are caught in the middle of this state-gang conflict. The reliance on security forces has created an increasingly militarized form of governance. So why do these security operations tend to pave the way for authoritarian governance in Latin America?

The answer is quite simple. The urgency of a nation’s security crisis and the vulnerability of its citizens prompts their leaders to use exceptional measures to bring temporary stability and rebuild as a society. They then fail to employ institutional reforms that address the root causes of spiking non-state violence. They rely on states of emergency so they can evade traditional legal procedures and employ unrestricted military force to deliver immediate results. Operating with minimal legal constraints allows for the blurring of democratic norms and standards, raising the risk of human rights violations. Over time, the blurring of democratic norms becomes normalized, and democratic freedoms are sacrificed for national security, a tradeoff that Noboa and Bukele’s administrations accept. 

Effectiveness of Mano Dura and Its Impact on Democracy

Militarized security operations, also known as mano dura (iron fist) policies, have historically failed to bring long-term solutions to conflicts involving organized crime groups. In El Salvador, the mano dura measures implemented by Nayib Bukele drastically brought down the nation’s homicide rate, giving the impression that their country is one of the safest in Latin America. However, these numbers do not show how Salvadoran authorities have created an environment of fear for marginalized and impoverished communities. Neighborhoods that have been historically ravaged by crime have become the targets of massive, arbitrary detentions; forced disappearances; torture; and inhumane treatment in detention centers because they are suspected of harboring gang members. 

For a President whose administration is centered around making the country safer, Noboa’s policies have failed to deliver promising results. There was an initial drop in homicides when the internal armed conflict began, but the current rates remain at alarming levels. In 2023, the homicide rate stood at 47 per 100,000 inhabitants. Following the implementation of Noboa’s measures in 2024, the homicide rate fell to 38, making it the nation’s second-most violent year. At the same time, the police’s investigative force against extortions (FICE) reported 2,100 kidnappings and almost 10,700 cases of extortion. The effectiveness of these militarized policies is disproportionate to the number of human rights violations that have been reported. 

One of the largest issues facing Noboa in his war against organized crime is the lack of control in Ecuadorian prisons. The country’s largest criminal organization, Los Lobos, has maintained a strong presence in prisons, often controlling the units on the inside and calling the shots for their illicit activities on the outside. Noboa’s objective has been for the state to reclaim control of the prisons and reduce the size and power of the gangs. Paradoxically, he believed order would be restored by increasing the military's presence within prisons. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have conducted interviews and thorough investigations that bring to light how inmate mistreatment and torture have been on the rise as a consequence of Noboa’s militarization campaign. Ecuador’s most notorious prison, El Litoral Penitentiary, located in Guayaquil, used to be under full control of the gangs. In the last three years, at least 300 people have been killed in the institution as a result of gang rivalries or confrontations between inmates and police. As a result of Noboa’s militarization of prisons, inmates are no longer killing each other; now, they have to live in fear of the authorities sent to protect them. Visibility into the prisons post-militarization has been significantly limited by the government. Personal interviews of released prisoners have revealed the extent of the human rights abuses. For instance, the armed forces beat the inmates as soon as they enter, using whips, cables, sticks, and water pipes. The soldiers have also used waterboarding as a torture technique to get information from the inmates regarding stashes of weapons or drugs.

Symbols of active gangs in Ecuador alongside soldiers [Image source: Ecuavisa]

The mistreatment does not only come in the form of physical torture but also negligence. An outbreak of tuberculosis in prisons has been confirmed by the Ministry of Health, where the rates are 123 times higher than in the general population of Ecuador. Overcrowding, the lack of consistent medical care, and poor nutrition have worsened this outbreak into an urgent public health crisis. This puts all prisoners, guards, staff, and visitors at risk. Poor nutrition includes being denied food, being given rotten food, and/or being given less than a minute to consume their daily meals. Communication between the prisoners and the outside world has been almost completely severed, furthering an environment of uncertainty and fear on the outside. Those who have been released have been able to tell their stories, but they represent a small fraction of the thousands who were picked up since Noboa declared a state of emergency. 

Noboa struggles to find a balance between restoring order in the prisons and upholding international standards for the treatment of prisoners. The same struggle for maintaining order and respecting human rights applies on the streets, especially in the city of Guayaquil. This is primarily evidenced by the case of Carlos Javier Vega, an unarmed 19-year-old who was gunned down by soldiers during a military checkpoint in February of 2024. The soldiers deemed Vega and his cousin, Eduardo Velasco, terrorists. Velasco, who survived the attack, recounts that he accidentally engaged with the soldiers after being denied access through the checkpoint. The soldiers opened fire into their vehicle, striking highly lethal areas of Vega’s body and hitting Velasco in the shoulder. Velasco attempted to drive to the hospital, but the armed forces threw him and his cousin to the ground, where they were met with blows to the head. According to investigations conducted by the HRW, the soldiers delayed providing medical assistance to the victims. Vega was eventually taken to the hospital, where he died the following day from internal bleeding in his lungs and intestines. Vega’s family has denied the military’s accusation that their son was affiliated with the gangs, claiming that it is simply being used as a cover-up for his killing. The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the case, making it one of eight ongoing investigations into extrajudicial executions. The investigation is still in its preliminary stage.

The Guayaquil Four is an additional case that shook the nation and further exposed the extrajudicial nature of Noboa’s anti-gang military operations. In December of 2024, four boys aged 11 to 15 were apprehended by 16 Air Force soldiers on their way home from a football game. They were taken into the soldiers’ vehicles and were never heard from again. Their incinerated bodies were found on Christmas Eve near an Air Force base. The military's involvement in the children’s deaths is being investigated by public prosecutors. The Ministry of Defence claims that the boys could have been victims of organized crime after being released. All 16 officers are being investigated for the crime of forced disappearance, which could lead to a sentence of 22 to 26 years in prison. President Noboa’s declaration of an “internal armed conflict” gives grounds for an unregulated use of force by the military. Any legal arguments against this use of force may go unanswered due to the fragility of Ecuador’s judicial system. These investigations will test Ecuador’s judicial system and prove to the international community whether its citizens’ basic human rights are being violated. 

Without a strong judicial system to enforce the rule of law and guarantee due process for all citizens, the armed forces can arrest and detain people for short periods outside of the legal process, often holding detainees incommunicado. Many of those arrested have never been taken before a prosecutor or judge. The National Assembly stated that they are willing to do anything to guarantee the work of the armed forces and police. Ecuador’s homicide statistics are cited to support the military’s overstepping of its legal boundaries. 

Apart from employing excessive force to fight organized crime, Noboa has eroded democracy by ignoring constitutional limits and disregarding Ecuadorian law. According to Article 93 of the Organic Law on Elections and Political Organizations, passed by the National Assembly,  public officials must take unpaid leave before campaigning for a presidential election. The incumbent president is supposed to take unpaid leave and transfer power to the vice president. During the 30-day campaign period for the 2025 presidential election, Daniel Noboa refused to step down despite pressure from the National Assembly and Vice President Veronica Abad. Noboa’s administration argued that he was not running for reelection since his term was a continuation of former President Guillermo Lasso’s term and, therefore, Noboa would not need to take leave. 

On April 5th 2024, Noboa ordered the military and police to raid the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest Jorge Glas, former vice-president of Ecuador under Rafael Correa. Glas was convicted in two corruption cases and had been living in the Mexican Embassy while on parole, alleging he was being persecuted in Ecuador. A few hours after being granted political asylum by the Mexican government, the National Police of Ecuador stormed into the embassy and seized Glas, who was ultimately transferred to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil. Mexico and numerous other countries condemned Noboa’s administration for violating Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which holds foreign embassies or any other premises of a diplomatic mission to be inviolable. Noboa justified the act by stating that he would not tolerate sentenced criminals being granted asylum. He said he made this decision to protect national security and the rule of law. This episode is simply another example of Noboa employing a severe approach towards crime, even if it involves breaching legal constraints and international agreements. 

Ignoring the Underlying Issues

Daniel Noboa’s approach is a demonstration of the state's power. Similar to the situation in El Salvador, gang violence escalated to such an exaggerated and uncontrollable scale that the government had to take drastic measures to prove to its civilians that the monopoly on violence is held by the state. By conducting mass arrests and deploying soldiers, Noboa has been on the attack against organized crime, forsaking civil liberties in the process. None of Noboa’s actions have addressed the underlying issues surrounding the rise of organized crime. 

A lack of opportunities and limited access to education in impoverished communities leave Ecuadorian youth vulnerable to gang recruitment. The creation of a subsistence economy has made it more attractive to join a gang and participate in extortion schemes than to not join one and become the victim. In Ecuador, gangs have mainly recruited underprivileged youth in coastal regions, primarily fishermen, luring them in with salaries they simply cannot afford to refuse.

Another issue is the high-profile corruption and criminal networks that have entrenched Ecuador’s judiciary system. The Metastasis, Plaga, Encuentro, Pampa, and Fachada investigations expose how easily drug traffickers form alliances through bribes with networks of judicial officials, lawyers, and security forces to evade the law and secure their freedom from prison. Even more concerning, prosecutors and judges are not provided with basic security, such as bulletproof vehicles, to protect them. Consequently, at least 15 prosecutors and judges have been killed since 2022. Expanding on the dysfunctionality of Ecuador's justice system, the HRW reports that the courts and prosecutors’ offices are severely understaffed and underfunded. For instance, officials told HRW that the Attorney General’s office has 600 vacant positions, and the National Court of Justice, the country’s highest appeals court, has less than half of the required magistrates. 

Moving Forward

On April 13th 2025, Daniel Noboa was reelected as President with 56% of the vote and will now carry out a full four-year term. With the victory over leftist candidate Luisa González, Noboa has been able to prove that despite his administration’s disregard for democratic freedoms, constitutional constraints, and international law, he remains favored by the public. Further confirming the assertion that Ecuadorian citizens support a leader who prioritizes national security over democratic governance. However, his victory via a runoff election has raised several eyebrows for the vast amount of votes received in the second round and other questionable pre-election procedures.

At a time of rampant safety insecurities, Noboa presents himself as a leader who takes action instead of allowing organized crime groups to get increasingly powerful. If this new term is defined by the same militarization policies and reliance on the armed forces to maintain stability, then human rights organizations will need to monitor the situation closely. Noboa is choosing to rule with fear and force, a strategy that was used by the gangs when they controlled communities in Guayaquil and other coastal areas. Instead of fearing retaliation for not paying a tax to the gangs, the youth will fear the military and the police, who can detain them under the slightest suspicion, hold them incommunicado, and torture information out of them. Although order and security are desperately needed, it will not be achieved by replacing one oppressive armed force with another. 

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Glossary

• Access to legal counsel: The right to have an attorney during an arrest and the legal proceedings that follow.

• Accusation: A claim that someone has done something wrong or committed an illegal act.

• Affiliation: One’s connections or allegiances to a certain group, organization, or party.   

• Appeals court: A higher court that reviews decisions made by a lower trial court to determine if there were any errors in the proceedings or in the way the law was applied. 

• Apprehended: Arrested for a certain crime. 

• Assertion: A confident statement of fact or belief. 

• Asylum: The protection granted by a state to someone who has left their home country as a political refugee.

• Authoritarian governance: A form of non-democratic governance that centralizes the power of the state in one leader who uses violent and repressive techniques to suppress public dissent and protect their proclaimed agenda. 

• Breaching: To break a law, rule, norm, promise, treaty, or other standard/principle.

• Bribes: A sum of money or something else offered to influence and change someone’s behavior. 

• Cartels: A term for organized crime groups in Mexico that specialize in the trade of illicit goods, primarily drugs, but also work in migrant smuggling, arms trafficking, and any other illicit markets. 

• Condemned: Expressed complete disapproval of something. 

• Constitutional rights: Freedoms and liberties that are protected by and enshrined in the Constitution. 

• Corruption: Dishonest or fraudulent behavior conducted by those in power, typically involving bribery, embezzlement, or abuse of power. 

• Counterinsurgency tactics: A combination of military, political, and social strategies aimed at defeating an insurgency. 

• Decree: An official order issued by a legal authority. 

• Deemed: To be regarded or considered in a specific way. 

• Democratic erosion: When democratic institutions, norms, processes, and laws slowly begin to lose their legitimacy and power. Often initiated by elected leaders who want to overstep their democratic limits, while still maintaining a superficial democratic appearance.

• Democratic governance: A system where institutions are run according to democratic principles, including the participation of citizens in decision-making, the rule of law, checks and balances, transparency, and accountability. 

• Destabilized: Disturb the stability of a region or system, causing unrest. 

• Detain: Keeping someone in official custody, if they are suspected of committing a crime or if they are needed for the purpose of an investigation. Not necessarily an arrest, but a way of keeping an individual in custody. 

• Disproportionate: Too large or too small compared to something else.

• Disregard: Pay no attention to; ignore. 

• Drastic: Likely to have a strong or far-reaching effort; radical and extreme. 

• Drug traffickers: Individuals or groups involved in the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and sale of illegal drugs. 

• Due process: A legal requirement that the government must honor all legal rights owed to a person, to ensure fair treatment in all legal proceedings. 

• Dysfunctionality: The state or quality of not functioning properly or normally. 

• Elusive: Difficult to find, catch, or achieve. 

• Employ institutional reforms: Introducing changes or adjustments to a certain institution or law.

• Entrenched: Firmly established and difficult or unlikely to change. 

• Epicenter: The central point of something.

• Eroded: Gradually worn away or deteriorated over time.

• Escalated: To get worse rapidly.  

• Evade: To avoid or escape something. 

• Exceptional nature: Describing something that is out of the ordinary and uniquely different. Only occurring in specific contexts. 

• Excessive: The quality of being more than necessary, desirable, or normal. 

• Exponentially: Increasing more and more rapidly.

• Extortion: The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

• Extrajudicial killings: The deliberate killing of a person by state actors without legal authorization or any due process.

• Forced disappearance of civilians: The abduction or detention of a person by state officials, followed by the refusal to acknowledge their detention or reveal their whereabouts and fate. 

• Forsaking: Renouncing or giving up. 

• Fragility: Having some sort of vulnerability, being easily broken or damaged. Not being very secure or strong.

• Freedom of assembly: The right to gather and meet with others, both publicly and privately, and to express, promote, and defend one’s ideas collectively. 

• Harboring: Sheltering or hiding a criminal or wanted person. 

• Homicide rate: Measures the number of homicide victims per 100,000 people.

• Human rights abuses: A violation of a person’s human rights, usually causing harm and suffering to one’s livelihood and their fundamental rights. They can include economic, mental, or physical harm. Can also occur through acts like torture, forced labor, discrimination, or denial of essential services. 

• Human rights violations: Any act that directly targets the well-being and livelihood of an individual and their access to basic human rights.

• Illicit: Describing something illegal or forbidden by laws, rules, and customs. 

• Impunity: Being exempt or immune from punishment. Lack of punishment or consequences for doing something illegal. 

• Incommunicado: Not allowed to communicate with people. 

• Incinerated: Destroyed by fire.

• Incumbent president: The president who is currently in office and is running for reelection. 

• Indiscriminately: Occurring in a random manner.

• Infringe: Acting in a way that undermines or limits something.

• Intercontinental criminal networks: A network of individuals or groups operating across continental borders to engage in illegal activities and achieve monetary, political, or commercial gains.

• Inviolable: Something that can not be violated or broken.

• Leftist revolutionary groups: Organizations that seek to fundamentally transform society, through violent or non-violent means, based on leftist ideologies that advocate for social and economic equality, challenging capitalism and traditional Western power structures.

• Mano dura (iron fist): A hard-line policy was implemented in Latin American countries to combat organized crime groups and gangs, usually involving the use of heavy military operations on the streets to conduct massive arrests. 

• Maras: A term for street gangs in Central America, notable examples are MS-13 and Barrio 18. 

• Marginalized and impoverished communities: Groups of people who face exclusion, discrimination, and systemic barriers to participation in the social, economic, cultural, and political life of society due to their identity, class, or income level. 

• Mass incarcerations: Arresting and jailing individuals on a massive scale. 

• Medical assistance: Proper support and care to help or heal someone during a medical emergency. 

• Militarization: The process of equipping and supplying a place or organization with soldiers and military resources, which increases the role or presence of the military in a designated space. 

• Monopoly on violence: Control over the means of violence in a society. Usually, the state is the only entity within a given territory that holds the legitimate authority to use physical force. 

• Negligence: Failure to provide proper care and assistance. 

• Non-state warring parties: Actors, not associated with the government, who are engaged in an armed conflict with the state. 

• Notorious: Famous or well-known for some sort of negative characteristic. 

• Organized Crime Groups: A structured network of three or more individuals, operating continuously over time to commit serious crimes, primarily for financial or other material benefit. 

• Overstepping: Doing something that ignores and exceeds a limit or boundary that has been set. 

• Parole: The conditional release of a prisoner before the completion of their sentence. Usually is granted on the basis of good behavior. 

• Penitentiaries: A prison for people convicted of serious crimes.

• Persecuted: Being targeted, attacked, or treated unfairly based on several characteristics including: race, ethnicity, gender, political beliefs, etc. 

• Presumed: To assume that something is true based on probability or available information.

• Raid: A sudden, forcible, and planned entry into a location by law enforcement, for the purpose of conducting a search, seizing evidence, or arresting suspects. 

• Rampaged: Rushing around in a violent and uncontrollable manner. 

• Rampant: When something unpleasant is rapidly spreading unchecked. 

• Ravaged: Severely damaged and devastated. 

• Regimes: A government. 

• Retaliation: The act of inflicting harm or violence in response to a prior wrong. 

• Right-wing military dictatorships: Authoritarian regimes, traditionally made up of military leaders who rule with an iron fist, that often use violent and non-democratic means to silence or repress the population. 

• Runoff election: A follow-up election held when no single candidate receives the required number of votes to win an initial election. 

• Search warrant: A court order issued by a judge, which gives permission to law enforcement officers to search a specific person, place, or vehicle, in order to collect evidence relevant to an investigation. 

• Severed: Having been cut off or broken.

• Sporadic hostility: Unfriendly and aggressive behavior that occurs unexpectedly and unpredictably. 

• State of emergency: A Situation of national danger or disaster in which a government suspends normal constitutional procedures in order to regain control.

• Subsistence economy: A subsistence economy, in the context of gangs, refers to an informal and often illicit system of economic survival in which criminal organizations rely on activities like extortion, drug trafficking, and other underground markets to generate income.

• Suspicion: A feeling or thought that something is supposed to be true. 

• Term: A fixed amount of time in which a politician serves in office. 

• Terrorist organizations: Groups that use sporadic acts of violence to fight against an enemy with whom they have grievances.

• Transnational drug trade: The cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and sale of illegal drugs across global borders, operating as an international black market. 

• Unarmed: Not possessing a weapon. 

• Unprecedented: Something never done or known before. 

• Upsurge: A sudden or rapid increase in something. 

• Vacant: Not being filled. 

• Vulnerable: More at risk of being in harm's way. Not having the proper protection from danger. 

• Waterboarding: A form of torture that involves pouring water on an individual’s face as they are covered with a rag or towel, making it difficult to breathe and simulating a drowning sensation.

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Sources

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8. Rogero, T., & Moncada, B. (2025, February 6). “clear signs of authoritarianism”: Ecuador’s “Iron fist” leader seeks re-election. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/06/ecuador-election-president-daniel-noboa 

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