I always wonder how Ukrainians can continue to live with a war that has been going on for a year and a half, destroying cities and in constant danger. What will it do to be subjected to constant fears. How will children go to school or not? How do they dress, what do they buy, can they buy? What do they live on if there is no work? Will he have a moment of rest?

Everyone is guilty

We are at war, but maybe we don’t call it that. We call that insecurity, danger, attacks, fear. Until recently, many looked the other way, in Guayaquil it was about certain neighborhoods… Finally, part of the country thought it was about the problems of the Coast (Esmeraldas, Manabí, Los Ríos) or prisons.. Until she came to the capital and it has spread to all the provinces like an oil slick that permeates the most luxurious neighborhoods, a neighbor who walks the streets, educational centers, shopping centers, highways, seas and rivers. Whole neighborhoods have to accept being prisoners of a gang that rules them, blackmails them, robs them, takes their houses, gives them licenses or denies them.

And we begin to name those who obey us. Organized criminal groups, GDO, drug trade, corruption, inequality.

If we understood that this is a war with different actors than the ones that armies have clashed before, we might be able to unite and together face the calamity that is affecting us. The murder of Fernando Villavicencio may be the last straw and the beginning of a collective awakening.

united for peace

Others must apply the legitimate use of force: the police and the military.

But we ordinary people, civilians, have to organize ourselves. Our first tool will be a vote to choose who will lead the ship that weathers the storm and can guide our common boat to port on this turbulent and dangerous sea.

The paralysis we suffer must give way to minimal proposals that we can all push…

The rest of us must establish a conversation and a national proposal, the danger forces us, after we cannot accept ourselves as different, knowing that we are inhabitants of a country with different geographies and multiple cultures. Now we are all equal in the face of danger, we are afraid.

dropping out of college

No force takes away the ability to act as effectively as fear.. The paralysis we suffer must give way to minimal proposals that we can all push and make our own.

We must achieve an imperfect peace, fueled by small or medium victories, but without losing sight of the horizon towards which we are moving. It will be imperfect because there will always be tasks to complete, to do, never to end, there will always be action to continue and improve.

When we experienced the Cenepa War, the whole country mobilized, not a step back was the slogan. We take care of each other, we organize. Now the danger is greater. The future of the youth, the country, and democracy is at stake. And the present of all of us who live in it. Building a society together where we can educate, work and take care of our health requires recognizing the war that is taking us over, taking away the soldiers that poverty, corruption and the drug trade give them. Prevent the spread of micro-commerce. Do not accept cash payments for expensive purchases and other related measures. It is our own trench. (OR)