Violence-hit Ecuadorans vote on anticrime measures
QUITO—Ecuadorans voted in a referendum Sunday on proposed tougher measures to fight gang-related crime as the country grapples with a shocking rise in violence that has seen two mayors killed just this week.
The once-peaceful South American country has recently found itself in the grips of a terrorizing wave of violence blamed on gangs with links to transnational cartels using its ports to ship drugs to the United States and Europe.
President Daniel Noboa declared in January a state of “internal armed conflict” with about 20 criminal groups blamed for a spasm of violence sparked by the jailbreak of a major drug lord, still on the run.
Noboa deployed soldiers to retake control of the country’s prisons, which had become the nerve center for gang operations and a bloody battleground that has claimed the lives of more than 460 inmates in three years—many beheaded or burned alive.
Expanding military power
Despite these efforts, the violence has persisted, which Noboa has taken as “a sign that narcoterrorism and its allies are looking for spaces to terrorize us.”
Sunday’s vote seeks popular backing for Noboa’s plans to clamp down even harder on those responsible for such acts.
Citizens will be asked to approve an expansion of military and police powers, significantly boosting gun controls and imposing harsher penalties for “terrorism” and drug trafficking.
Noboa is also proposing changing the constitution so that Ecuadorans wanted abroad for organized crime-related offenses can be extradited. —AFP
