Lasso wants a “Plan Ecuador” against drug trafficking with the help of the United States.

The Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso raised in Madrid (Spain) the need for a “Plan Ecuador” against drug trafficking, alluding to the Plan Colombia funded by the United States.

Likewise, the Ecuadorian president raised the need to have a law that allows the demolition of illegal flights and narrated that he found a third of the territory without air radar control.

“Ecuador he just can’t get by. I have even raised the possibility that it is time for an ‘Ecuador plan’Lasso said in a talk organized by the Spanish newspaper ABC.

“That plan”, He added,“demands the support and backing of friendly countries, the United States, the European Union”, He added in the presence of the former president of the Spanish government José María Aznar, also a conservative, with whom he shared the talk.

The United States delivered between 2000 and 2016 more than US $ 7,000 million to Bogotá under Plan Colombia, but the money ended up being poured into the fight against the guerrillas, and the country continues to be the world’s leading producer of cocaine (64% of the world in 2019, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC).

Ecuador, which shares borders with Peru and ColombiaIn recent years, it has gone from being a transit country for drugs to the United States and Europe to storage and processing.

“That is a new reality with which the Ecuadorian government awakens, and it causes insecurity problems in the prisons, and causes insecurity problems in the streets.”, Declared the president, in the second of the three days of his visit to Spain.

Mainly due to drug trafficking, violence rates have grown by Ecuador, a country with 17.7 million inhabitants. The homicide rate went from 7.8 per 100,000 residents in 2020 to 10.6 between January and October 2021, according to the government.

Inmates of drug-related gangs are also fighting for power, which has left some 250 inmates dead this year.

“I found almost a third of the Ecuadorian territory without air control”Upon coming to power in May, Lasso narrated, promising that in March 2022 at most they will have radars covering 100% of the territory.

“But it’s not enough“, He estimated, defending the approval of”a law that authorizes the demolition of irregular flights when they do not accept the control of the State ”.

Lasso I will conclude your visit to Spain on Saturday with a meeting with the Ecuadorian community in this country.