The Vice Minister of the Government of Ecuador, Esteban Torres, rejected this Monday the report by the international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) of alleged human rights violations committed by state forces under the “internal armed conflict” declared against organized crime and He accused the entity of seeking the disorganization of societies through human rights.
The Government of Ecuador rejects the Human Rights Watch report
Posted On 28 May 2024
Police and military intervened in two neighborhoods south of Guayaquil, this February 15, 2024.
«We know who is behind each of the organizations. Behind that NGO is Mr. (George) Soros, who not only in Latin America, but throughout the world, promotes the disorganization of societies and the complete penetration of irregular groups shielded by human rights issues,” Torres said in a conference call. press.
Last week, HRW sent a letter to the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, to express that its evaluations of that first state of emergency determined that the declaration of “internal armed conflict” is not sufficiently motivated and that this measure contributed to serious violations of human rights.
“The violations include at least one apparent extrajudicial execution and multiple cases of arbitrary detentions and mistreatment,” said the international human rights organization after having interviewed a dozen victims of abuse, requesting information from State institutions, and analyzing 33 photographs. and videos and review court case files.
In a case documented by Human Rights Watch, soldiers killed Carlos Javier Vega, 19, and wounded his cousin Eduardo Velasco on February 2 in Guayaquil, whom the Armed Forces accused of having allegedly tried to “evade control, attacking military personnel” and called them “terrorists.”
Human Rights Watch interviews with witnesses, family members, and lawyers of the victims, along with verified videos and photographs, and court documents, contradict the Army’s version.
Many of the people reported as detained were not brought before the Prosecutor’s Office and appear to have been detained for brief periods outside the legal process and, according to videos and photographs posted on the Internet and verified by Human Rights Watch, subjected to reprimands, beatings and other treatment. degrading
HRW also denounced that “the military, which has controlled Ecuadorian prisons since January, has kept detainees incommunicado, sometimes hindering their right to consult with lawyers or obtain medical assistance.”
At the press conference this Monday, Vice Minister Esteban Torres acknowledged that the complaints presented by HRW are not the only ones, and that there are more organizations that have expressed themselves in this regard, which is why he indicated that the Government will accept these reports and take action. corrective measures “in the event that corrective measures have to be taken.”
The official noted that “the Government fights corruption with all the weapons that citizens have given it and responds to Ecuadorians, not to these international organizations.”
Since the beginning of the year, Noboa elevated the fight against organized crime to the category of “internal armed conflict”, with which he began to classify criminal gangs as terrorist groups and non-state belligerent actors.
At the same time, it issued a state of emergency at the national level that was in force from January 8 to April 7, and through which it began to militarize the prisons, one of the epicenters of the country’s violence crisis as many prisons dominated by criminal gangs.
Organized crime gangs, mainly dedicated to drug trafficking, are attributed with the wave of violence that has hit Ecuador and has led it to be among the first countries in Latin America with the most homicides, with a rate of 47 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory (OECO). EFE (I)
