The murder of Fernando Villavicencio, a brave politician who offered hope to rid us of corruption and violent organized crime, confronts us with a reality we have never experienced before: the state cannot guarantee the right to life or integrity. Neither political actors nor ordinary citizens.

An FBI delegation will arrive in the country because of the assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio, President Guillermo Lasso announced

There is no doubt that the state does not have the capacity to combat the mafias who manage the drug trade, money laundering and businesses that feed on money from the State Treasury. There is someone to blame for this pernicious social coexistence, and that is with their actions aimed at dismantling the State Security and turning it into a haven for international criminal organizations that began their work in 2007; and especially for hate speech against those who think differently from his plan of domination, with which he “inoculated” the less enlightened and manipulable masses; but at the same time they were convinced that it was okay to steal if roads were built and if they were given a bonus, but the slanderers should be “kicked”. That’s why they put a price on Emilio Palacio’s head on Twitter.

There are also those who are guilty of inaction. Presidents who offered to restore lost security and failed to do so, despite campaigning to ask the United Nations for an International Commission to Fight Impunity, similar to CICIG in Guatemala.

Defense to deploy troops on national territory until August 20 election: offers ‘firm hand’ against crime

With a subjugated state, we are left to chance, trapped by transnational organized crime that has permeated the state security system and that makes it easy for ordinary criminals to control streets and neighborhoods for robbery or extortion (in exchange for “respect for life”). All evidence shows that the only thing guaranteed is impunity for prisoners. The country is falling apart, as the president of the National Court said, in connection with the murder of Villavicencio. History would have been written differently if President Lasso had asked the United Nations for an International Commission to Fight Impunity, as the President of Honduras did for CICIH to work in that country.

Since 2007, we have entered a vortex of violence, social terror, the collapse of rights and the connection with drug cartels of businessmen, politicians, members of the police and the army. This vortex occupied the Colombians in the 1980s and the Mexicans in the 1990s. In Colombia (1989), a drug lord ordered the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galanno, who was executed by a machine gunner while he was speaking from the podium. Another presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio in Mexico (1994), was also killed on the campaign trail; to this day it is not known who ordered the crime, although López Obrador has offered to reopen the case and find the culprits.

Accumulated experience with use the same mechanisms used to counter mob power predict that our insecurity will worsen until we seek international help clean up the institutions charged with providing us with the physical security to which we are entitled. (OR)