The death of Fernando Villavicencio, which mourns the whole of Ecuador in an unprecedented and unimaginable way, must shake us to see with a deep examination of conscience how much of the guilt each of the Ecuadorians has in this.

Simplicity suggests that crime and drug trafficking are solved with bullets, and on the other hand, to ensure that in a few months the country is lost.

The country has been lost for years, in which there is no talk of patriotic love, because it is an “old” concept. Duties and obligations towards others, towards society, are not taught. Rights are taught to the extent that the right to the existence of a rabbit or a turtle is equal to the right to human life.

The years in which we allowed the police to become demoralized, for crime to take place in the barracks, for the government to propose a class struggle between the officers and the army. Years in which people, unfortunately many of those who have the most, refuse to pay taxes, and then ask for handouts from the state, ask for more investment, and neither the people nor their populist leaders ever ask where the hell they are going, get the money out

And if there is a drug trade, it is not only because there are dark mafias, but, to a large extent, because there is a lot of poverty and inequality. And if there is poverty, it is because economic policies have never, yes, I repeat, never succeeded in establishing a free economy in Ecuador, driven by a free price system and an economic opening to trade and investment that offers security. It has always been demanded that the state solve everything.

So we are all guilty of something. We have all brought this society to the point where this horrible murder takes place, which is beyond any opinion or political preference that existed for Villavicencio, simply reprehensible, unacceptable and heartbreaking for what is a national feeling.

Ecuador can face this tragedy in two ways: looking, as always, everyone with an accusing finger at the guilty or looking at every citizen, every trade union, every group, every organization, what their obligations are, to see if we have fulfilled them and then meditate about how to contribute to moving this country forward.

But above all, political leaders can choose between the usual cannibalism or an authentic position of honest dialogue, to agree on that minimal national agenda, which faces the enormous structural problems that exist today, about which no candidate has openly spoken, and worse about real and technical solutions. This assassination should lead us as a society to demand a national purpose, a set of goals that transcend governments, campaigns, political statements and are immovable, because without them there will be no growth, no progress and the drug trade will continue.

If Fernando Villavicencio’s sacrifice fails to unite the country around his fate, his blood will be historical waste and his struggle will fall into a vacuum. (OR)