Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has announced a “strategic alliance” with the Donald Trump-supporting founder of the private military firm Blackwater to supposedly reinforce his controversial “war” on crime.
Noboa, the rightwing heir to a South American banana empire, announced the partnership with Erik Prince on social media on Tuesday night.
“We [have] established a strategic alliance to strengthen our capabilities in the fight against narco-terrorism and to protect our waters from illegal fishing,” Noboa tweeted alongside a photograph of the two men sitting together.
“Organized crime has sown fear and believed it can operate with impunity. Their time is running out. International aid is beginning to flow to Ecuador,” added the president, who is seeking re-election in the second round of the country’s presidential election next month.
Ecuador’s president offered no further details of the partnership between his government and Prince, a Navy Seal turned multimillionaire security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration.
The announcement appeared designed to bolster Noboa’s attempt to portray himself as an iron-fisted anti-crime crusader ahead of the 13 April run-off against his leftwing rival Luisa González. Noboa’s administration announced on Sunday a $1m reward for the capture of one of Ecuador’s most notorious drug bosses, José Adolfo Macías Villamar, who is known by the nickname “Fito”.
The news that Blackwater’s former CEO would join Noboa’s campaign prompted outrage and trepidation given the military contractor’s track record of involvement in abuses, including the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007, after the US invasion.
Posted by John3262005
2 Comments
CoD flashback mission
For reference in the span of ten years the murder rate in Ecuador has gone from 8 per 100k to 38.8.
That’s like if in the US you went from living in like Sacramento CA or Orlando FL type murder rates out to those of like Baton Rouge or New Orleans LA without changing place at all.
A presidential candidate was assassinated while I was in the country and later some cartel group stormed a broadcasting corporation to taunt the nation which is all absolutely insane unprecedented stuff for that country.