U.S. sending general, top State Department officials to Ecuador

WASHINGTON — The U.S. will send top military, State Department and law enforcement officials to Ecuador to offer assistance as that country battles a terror campaign launched by powerful narco gangs.

The visits over the coming weeks will “explore with Ecuadorian counterparts ways we can work together more effectively to confront the threat posed by transnational criminal organizations,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement on Thursday night.

The statement pointed out the scale of the crisis, which has emptied the streets of many cities: “Appalling levels of violence and terrorism at the hands of narco-criminal elements targeting innocent civilians. More than 100 prison guards are being held hostage in multiple locations.”

The violence paralyzing the Andean nation when two drug kingpins escaped from prison and President Daniel Noboa, who took office in November, ordered a nationwide manhunt. The reaction was swift: riots erupted in prisons with hundreds of staffers held hostage by inmates, and police officers being kidnapped around the country. The world took notice on Tuesday when masked gunmen briefly seized control of a television station in Guayaquil during a live broadcast.

Yet the nation had been simmering for some time, with organized crime organizations becoming bolder while the government cut down on its security budget amid a fiscal crisis. The chaotic descent also threatens the vital tourism industry.

Miller said officials expected to travel to Ecuador included General Laura Richardson, head of U.S. Southern Command; Assistant Secretary of State Todd Robinson of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary Kevin Sullivan.

Ecuador’s murder rate nearly doubled in 2023, and is now eight times higher than it was just five years before. Ecuadorians ranked violence as their chief concern in the recent presidential election that was marred by the assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

Asked about the unrest in Ecuador earlier Thursday, John Kirby, a White House spokesman, told reporters that “we have offered support and will continue to stay latched up with the government there to see what it is they need.”

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