Maybe Ecuador isn’t at war or shouldn’t be. At least not taking this concept so lightly. In fact, without going into the consideration of the category of non-international armed conflict in the light of international humanitarian law, what President Noboa’s government has done, at the legal level, has simply added to it the cause of internal armed conflict of internal unrest that seeks to justify the declared state of emergency. This is the legal consequence of the implemented rhetoric: a new exceptionalism, which is firm in the fight against organized and terrorist crime. The Constitutional Court will see whether this reason is applicable or not. My thinking today is not about legal.

If this happens, it will be a triumph of democracy over terrorism.

If there really is a war, it is possible that it will not be between warring powers, but between two views of the world: stronger law, imposed by drug traffickers and their violent and narcissistic powers, or democracy, with rights and institutions that support and protect human dignity. In this context, or in whatever Ecuador one lives in, it is imperative to preserve a critical sense that is not tolerated by drug traffickers and that is the foundation of democracy. Because of this critical sense, I allow myself to doubt the relevance of the war narrative, used – I believe – to hide the failure of the Ecuadorian state, for so many years and governments, to break the criminal organizations that today recognize the status of an even more powerful war enemy. Are we at war or is this narrative an improvised response from a state that didn’t know what else to do?

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They are at war in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. If Ecuador fights any kind of war, it is also against the possibility of becoming a failed state due to its own inefficiency. Or against the possibility of forgetting: there are many examples in the history of Latin America, in which the narrative of war has been used to support governments with aspirations that are as much messianic as they are electoral. In Peru, for example, the war narrative served to implement binaries in extremis: either you are with Fiumorates or you are with terrorism. Those who pondered this dichotomy did not consider that Fiumorato meant state terrorism, as brutal and bloodthirsty as that of the heinous revolutionary armed groups. Today in Ecuador, no one dares to question the fallacy of considering animal tattoos as a valid indication for the armed forces and police to detain and interrogate, at the very least, people. Admittedly, I have a tattoo of a cobra eating an elephant on my shoulder.

Daniel Noboa declares an internal armed conflict at the national level and orders military forces to neutralize the groups

I don’t know if we are at war, but I doubt it. What I do know is that the Ecuadorian state is obliged, with all the force and severity of the case, to bring organized crime under the law and guarantee public safety. The spectacle of war is a narrative that may serve for a few days, but then we will have to get down to business and we will continue to witness the failure of the state if there are no real and profound changes: the kidnapping of prison guides, the escape of prisoners in prisons that are supposedly militarized on their perimeters, cars bombs and explosive alarms or the desolation of Ecuadorian roads without the presence of the military or police. Of course, we must support the work of our law enforcement agencies, to the extent that they embody the values ​​of our democratic system. Never under one discourse without doubt or critical sense.

I would rather raise these suspicions now, with the hope that the possibility that this narrative of war, and this unique discourse it seeks to implement, is a prelude to false results and excesses against innocent people, such as those committed by drug traffickers, does not materialize. Meanwhile, the president refuses to accept that he was wrong in his demand for an investigation of Teleamazonas, because he conveyed, as was his obligation, the seizure of TC by terrorists, and suggests that the bill for his alleged “war” should be paid by the citizens who, in contrast, from the Government, we are prioritizing expenses to stay afloat each month, within the impoverished economy.

A communication strategy is urgently needed in Ecuador to avoid disinformation amid a declared internal armed conflict.

Susan Sontag, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, was suspicious of metaphors alluding to war because of their pretensions to spectacle. The Ecuadorian government will not subdue crime with spectacle, nor with images of mega-prisons created in rendered software and, apparently, without real architectural plans. I insist, you will not submit to the drug trade by improvising and feeding a warlike and dichotomous narrative, which above all contributes to the terrorization of society and which has eliminated the possibility of tourism for many years. It would be fair to support the Government to the extent that it is capable of modernizing the state’s security and intelligence agencies, regaining control of prisons, capturing and re-capturing the leaders of criminal organizations and bringing them to justice, guaranteeing the safety and sustainability of life, with the state present public policy – especially health and education – in the entire territory, without areas left to God, so prone to drug money. If this happens, it will be a triumph of democracy over terrorism. Otherwise, you should know that over time, every war narrative falls under its own weight and leaves the emperor naked. (OR)