US Secretary of State begins first tour in South America in an Ecuador under emergency

On his first trip to South America, the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, arrives this Tuesday in Ecuador under a state of exception, a measure ordered by the government to confront drug violence.

The Secretary of State will be in Quito from the afternoon and on Wednesday he will travel to Bogotá for a two-day visit, with a message of support for its democracies.

The United States wants to strengthen its alliance with both conservative governments at times of renewed tension with Chavista Venezuela.

Blinken will make his first stop in an Ecuador shocked by the rebound in insecurity and an unprecedented prison crisis, with hundreds of deaths involved, phenomena that the government of Guillermo Lasso links to drug trafficking.

On Monday he decreed a state of exception for 60 days to combat organized crime, when social discontent is also growing over the gradual rise in fuel prices, an issue that has generated harshly repressed protests in the past.

Protected by that figure, Lasso ordered the deployment “righ now”From the military to support policemen in the streets, although he refrained from restricting freedoms such as those of protest or assembly.

In Guayaquil (southwest), the commercial hub of the country, the presence of soldiers was already perceived in operations to search for weapons and drugs, but not in Quito, according to AFP reporters.

For a long time, Ecuador managed to stay out of the violence of drug trafficking, despite sharing borders with Colombia and Peru, the main world producers of cocaine along with Bolivia.

“One of the main axes for the United States in terms of cooperation is precisely the fight against drug trafficking. The Secretary of State’s visit responds to the strengthening of these ties“But also to his”worry”Said Ecuadorian analyst Karen Garzón Sherdeck.

During the rise of the left in Latin America, Washington maintained difficult relations with Ecuador for a decade (2007-2017), which improved under the Lenín Moreno government (until 2021), and which are expected to enter a stage of close cooperation under the mandate of Lasso, a former banker who has professed his closeness to the first power.

New kind of relationship

In Bogotá, a historic ally of Washington, Blinken will meet with President Iván Duque.

Both governments maintain a cordial relationship, despite calls from members of the Democratic Party for the White House to speak out more strongly against police brutality in a country that faced an unprecedented wave of protests.

Duque is the main support of the United States in its crusade against the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro. The Colombian president maintains an open door policy with the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have crossed the border fleeing the economic disaster in Venezuela.

Blinken’s trip coincides with the extradition to the United States from Cape Verde of Colombian Alex Saab, considered Maduro’s greatest front man and who would be involved in the diversion of millions of dollars destined for food and aid for the impoverished Venezuelans.

As in Ecuador, the Secretary of State will speak with authorities, as well as with human rights defense groups. In addition to democracy and drug trafficking, Blinken wants to promote the message against the climate crisis that the Joe Biden administration encourages.

“It is an important pro-democracy journey for Secretary Blinken, but it is also a realignment of relations with Latin American democracies, (going) beyond the traditional issues that have dominated the debate for many years.“Said Muni Jensen, a former Colombian diplomat and current consultant at the Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington.

Also on its agenda is a meeting with the region’s foreign ministers, including Peru’s, to talk about migration, amid a high flow of Haitians seeking to start the long journey to the United States from the south of the continent. , passing through Colombia and Panama.