Expat Life: What the hell is going on in Ecuador?

Ever since last August, when an anti-crime presidential candidate was assassinated by gang members, Ecuador has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Inflammatory headlines like, “Ecuador gripped by drug gang violence,” “Gang warfare breaks out in Ecuador,” and “Surge in gang violence upends life in Ecuador” (italics ours) paint a bleak picture of a country historically described as “muy tranquilo.”

We’ve received so many kind messages from friends and followers concerned about our safety. Shortly before our recent return home to Cuenca from a holiday visit in the States, a relative asked if we were comfortable going back in the midst of Ecuador’s “civil war.”

As 13+ year residents, we would like to share with you our expat perspective on how this mess started and what’s really going on in our adopted home country.

Ecuador is surrounded by the two largest cocaine producing countries in the world—Colombia to the north and Peru to the south. We have 1200 miles of Pacific coastline. It is an open secret that, despite improvements over the years, corruption is a way of life in Latin America.

Those three factors create the foundation for what has happened here. But if you look at a map of South America you may wonder, “Wait a minute, those two countries have plenty of coastline. Why do they need to export cocaine from Ecuador?”

We wondered that too, so we looked into it and discovered some interesting answers. In fact, Colombia and Peru do ship drugs from their own ports, but production is so great that other distribution points are required. Ecuador is perfect, not only due to its location but also because of the ease of hiding the illegal contraband in our biggest agricultural export—

Bananas!

Ecuador is one of the world’s leading banana growers, exporting almost 300,000,000 boxes in 2023. Where do most of them go? The EU. Where are they shipped from? Guayaquil, our major port city.

Where does cocaine sell for twice the price it commands in the U.S.? The EU. Where has most of Ecuador’s drug violence been centered? Guayaquil.

Combine those facts with the ease of either bribing or intimidating whoever it takes to grease the wheels, from low-paid dock workers to judges, law enforcement personnel, and politicians, and there you have the perfect storm for our current situation.

So what exactly is that situation? Is Ecuador “gripped with fear,” as the headlines scream?

Hardly. Here’s what the mass media neglects to explain. The drug activity is centered, as stated, in Guayaquil and a couple of other port areas along the coast.

But understand, Guayaquil is a major city with over 3 million residents. The entire metropolis isn’t a war zone with bullets constantly flying and people running for safety. Beyond the isolated pockets where the drug trade is centered, daily life continues for most of the population.

Granted, the situation in the smaller cities has been more hazardous. Thankfully, aggressive measures by our newly elected president have quickly restored order there.

Throughout the rest of the country not much has really changed. In September of last year we traveled extensively in northern Ecuador without hesitation and felt very safe. Here in Cuenca we live in an apartment overlooking green spaces beside the Tomebamba River which runs through the city. All day long we see people walking their dogs, jogging, biking, relaxing on the riverbanks, and stopping to chat.

This isn’t to suggest that locals aren’t concerned with what is happening on the coast. Ecuadorians adore their country and have been appalled at the news accounts of violence. They are highly supportive of President Noboa’s proactive initiatives (his approval rating is over 80%) that have quickly had a major impact.

Perhaps you have read that Ecuador is the new “murder capital of Latin America.” Here is what was not (and won’t be, because it doesn’t fit the media narrative) reported. A full 91% of murders in Ecuador have been bad guys shooting each other!

And since Noboa declared “No mas” and got the military involved in keeping the peace, there has been an overnight 41% decline in violent deaths.

Ecuador still has a lot of work to do, and since the world appears to have an insatiable appetite for drugs, it’s not likely the matter will ever be resolved completely. The prison system here, for example, is a shocking embarrassment.

Through bribes, imprisoned gang leaders were allowed to continue running their operations behind bars. Recent raids revealed that some even had “luxury suites” complete with king size beds, big screen TVs, fully stocked bars, drugs, and weapons. Thankfully, many of the most dangerous have been transferred to a maximum security facility with no outside contact.

Years of complacency by elected officials (or were they paid off too?) has allowed illegal drug trade in Ecuador to escalate to the current level of unacceptable violence. Long-overdue steps are now finally being taken to address the problem.

But Ecuador’s story is reflective of another issue affecting each of us—the over-reliance on media coverage to inform our thoughts and opinions. We are inundated with information all day long from a myriad of sources battling for our attention.

Like shouting carnival barkers trying to entice you into their tents, sensational headlines are clickbait tactics to increase readership. But if you merely glance at those overblown words while scrolling through your news feed, it is far too easy to accept the exaggerated and often misleading message at face value and move on.

This is not to say that any of us has the time to do exhaustive research on every potentially interesting subject. Rather, what you have read about Ecuador versus the reality we’ve shared serves as a cautionary tale to keep an open mind regarding the objectivity and truthfulness of the flood of information on the internet.