RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The United States embassy in Ecuador withdrew the visa of four generals of the National Police, after the ambassador in this country, Michael Fitzpatrick, publicly stated that his government is concerned about the penetration of drug trafficking in the forces of order, and also used the expression “narco generals”.
In public statements made to the local portal Primicias, the diplomat pointed out: “We are very concerned about the penetration of drug trafficking in Ecuador and law enforcement. And President (Joe) Biden has just announced a new national anti-corruption strategy, which has a lot to do with our multilateral work to counteract these kinds of problems”.
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Without mentioning names or indicating which branch of the police force they belong to, Fitzpatrick said that this year “there have been hundreds of cases” of visa withdrawals, including family members, and that they are committed to this process.
Security expert Mario Pazmiño told El Tiempo newspaper that, although the ambassador’s statements caused a stir, they are a “slap on the wrist to the Ecuadorian government to say to it that its intelligence and counterintelligence system is not working and that it must act to prevent drug crime from continuing to penetrate institutions and that the United States will react to this.
Pazmiño, who was head of Intelligence of the Armed Forces, maintains that Ecuador has become a “sanctuary for organized crime” and believes that given the accusations against the country’s generals, the diplomatic reaction of the Ecuadorian government should have been stronger and summoned the U.S. representative to indicate the information that supports the seriousness of his statements.
But Fitzpatrick warned that people have hidden behind sovereignty to commit crimes in the past, but when they are cases of international crimes, it is not a matter of sovereignty. On the contrary, it is the coordination of sovereign efforts of several countries.
“It is a sovereign decision of ours who can enter or not enter our country. And we have new tools in the United States to prevent the entry not only of certain individuals but of all their family members, who are taking advantage and using stolen assets,” he added.
The statement comes two days after a court order returned to the police ranks Generals Víctor Araus, Pablo Rodríguez, Paulo Terán, and Édgar Correa, who last August was not promoted to the higher rank of inspector general, according to an official report, “because they did not pass the tests”.
General Araus, who has led the judicial claim, has maintained that “he was called for the promotion with the sole motive of denying it to end his career” and that “the Presidency of the Republic was misled”, suggesting irregularities in the promotion process.
The departure of the four high-ranking officers opened the way, through an executive decree signed by President Guillermo Lasso, to the promotion of four colonels to the rank of generals, among them Edwin Noguera, husband of the current Police Commander, Tannya Varela.
INTERNAL DISPUTE
The dismissed generals, the same ones whose visas have been withdrawn, filed protection actions which ruled in their favor and, on December 9, they were reinstated as acting generals, recognizing in the judicial decision “the violation of legal security, due process, the guarantee of motivation and the right to work”. The following day the visa was withdrawn.
The statements of the U.S. diplomat also provoked 19 generals of the Ecuadorian Police to present their availability to President Guillermo Lasso, who, however, defended the uniformed, pointing out that “the body of generals of the National Police and the Armed Forces and commanders of Ecuador are serious, respectable elements (…).” In addition, he asked Ambassador Fitzpatrick to inform who he refers to with the appellative ‘narco generals’ to avoid further speculation.
The Minister of Government, Alexandra Vela, after recognizing that the statement has generated “enormous concern and alarm”, sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador requesting information on the generals whose visas have been withdrawn.
“It is inadmissible that high dignitaries of the forces of law and order could be involved in such execrable crimes”, the minister reiterated.
The diplomat’s statements are not the first alert. Several local voices have already warned of the contamination of drug trafficking in military and police ranks, but, according to political scientist and professor Santiago Basabe, they had “weakness” because they come from Ecuadorians.
However, for the analyst, the ambassador’s statements have strong political content, are ambiguous, and leave the space for citizens to speculate who the officers involved may be.
With his statement, “Ambassador Fitzpatrick allows the honor of people and their families to be played with. There, the morbidity begins to spread and those who are and those who are not, active and passive police and military, begin to be in the mouth of the citizenship”, he highlighted.
“If there is a genuine political interest in reducing the incidence of drug trafficking among the police and the military, then an integral examination of both institutions should be proposed to know in-depth how they proceed and what are the dynamics of action of their intelligence and counterintelligence services”, he added.
Meanwhile, at the officers’ request, the Comptroller General of the State, the Financial Analysis Unit, and the Superintendence of Banks have initiated investigations regarding the declarations of assets and accounts of the generals who have been promoted since January 2016.
Araus, one of those implicated, presented himself to the U.S. embassy in Quito at the request of the legation. He acknowledged that the allegations against him arose from within the same institution through his lawyer.
For Diego Chimbo, the officer’s lawyer, it is revenge for a complaint that Araus made about the alleged falsification of documents that allowed the promotion to the highest position of the current commander of the Police, Tannya Varela.
The controversy comes amid a difficult situation for Ecuador due to the notable increase in drug trafficking activities, which has been reflected in a bloody mafia war in several provinces, especially Guayas, and clashes in prisons, which have left more than 300 dead so far this year.