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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1758 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Ecuador

New President Daniel Noboa has started things off with a huge focus on law and order in response to the rise of organized crime in recent years (“The murder rate quadrupled from 2018 to 2022, while last year became the most violent yet with 7,500 homicides in the country of about 18 million people.”) . He has begun by announcing a referendum on new policies dealing with crime:

The referendum would seek approval from voters on lengthening prison sentences for serious crimes like homicide and arms trafficking, among others, as well for Ecuador's military to eradicate international criminal groups operating in the country, according to Noboa's letter to the court.

Noboa has also now announced the construction of two new maximum security prisons, with a not-exactly subtle nod to Bukele’s policies over in El Salvador:

He said the buildings would be exactly the same as a prison built by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has led a controversial crackdown on gangs in his Central American country.

"The prisons will allow for the division, proper isolation of people," said the 36-year-old Noboa, who took office in November, speaking in a radio interview.

"For all the Bukele lovers, it is an identical prison," to those he has built, added Noboa.

To make even more room, Noboa says they will also deport over a thousand foreigners in prison back to the surrounding countries they came from (no word on those receiving countries feel about it). By design the new prisons will be on the coast, far away from the heart of the worst of the violence, in hopes it will make it harder for gangs to liberate their members.

Speaking of which, the leader of the notorious Los Choneros cartel was just liberated from prison by his fellow gang members. People are freaking out, probably understandably, and Noboa has declared a 60 day state of emergency for the leader to be found. Having only just come out of a prolonged state of emergency under Noboa’s predecessor Lasso, apparently it’s a state Ecuadorians must get used to. Given that the previous state of emergency gave the military powers of internal law enforcement, I guess it makes the whole referendum a little redundant.

The cartels have responded in kind with major prison uprisings holding over 130 prison staff hostage and ghastly footage of them breaking into a news broadcasting station and holding the staff hostage on live TV. President Noboa has now declared they are at war with the cartels and have detained hundreds of alleged gang members. It's been a really crazy few days.

The cartels have responded in kind with major prison uprisings and ghastly footage of them breaking into a news broadcasting station and holding the staff hostage on live TV. It's been a really crazy few days.

I wouldn't mind them hanging around as debate moderators, especially if they're strict about time keeping. Shooting an Uzi next to someone's ear works better than muting mics!

I am curious to see how a genuine "tough on crime" policy plays out, now that we have multiple ongoing experiments. Some people might still like to believe that violence and repression can never work when it comes to reducing crime, whereas it's obvious to me that if it doesn't, you're not using enough, or at least employing it on the wrong targets. Bukele somehow didn't manage to shut up all the doubters, but at least other people in power have noticed and that seems to have overruled a lot of institutional inertia and learned helpless handwringing.

It'll be interesting to see what Noboa does next. He ran on and for now seems to be pursuing a genuine tough on crime policy, but there are a fair amount of people who suspect his family of having cartel ties as well. His family is a banana shipping magnate and banana shipments are the primary way (that we/Europe have caught at least) that the Ecuadorian cartels have been moving drugs. The cartels are more recent in Ecuador but at least in more established countries like Colombia (1, 2) and Mexico it's normal for them to spend significant sums backing friendly candidates to the Presidency.

Bukele somehow didn't manage to shut up all the doubters,

In fairness it's a lot easier to lock up all the criminals when they've tattooed "bad guy" on their face. The real trick is just to have such a permissive approach to crime that gang members feel comfortable labeling themselves, then you can swoop em up all at once. Fwiw though, Bukele does have a string of copycat candidates running/or who ran in elections across Central and South America, though not all of them successful.

There are very few important political actors in Central America who doesn’t have some sort of ties to some drug crime. It’s typically more useful to think of the “cartels” (what a weird name when you think about it) as public-private partnerships between the drug entrepreneurs and different levels of the government. The real difficulty these states have fighting against cartels doesn’t have anything to do with regular policing problems. It’s the challenge of organising the state apparatus to fight parts of itself. Army against police departments, judiciary against army, central government against provincial governors etc is how it usually goes. There is a reason why these states get a new “totally not corrupt this time” police department every 5 years to investigate the other police departments. “Cartel”s are often just a part of the state organism

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