Ecuador’s president has called for the United States, Brazil and European nations to deploy troops to help his violence-wracked country win a “war” against drug gangs.
In a BBC interview broadcast Wednesday, Daniel Noboa asked for help from countries that are the source of demand for the large quantities of drugs transported via Ecuador.
“We need the help of international forces,” the 37-year-old president said. “We are talking about armies. US, European, Brazilian special forces. This could be a great help for us.”
Ecuador, once one of the safest countries in Latin America has become a major transit point for Colombian, Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine exports.
The trade has attracted a plethora of foreign and local cartels and gangs to Ecuador, who have since branched out into kidnapping, extortion, and illegal mining — bringing record-levels of violence.
“We need to have more soldiers to fight this war” he said, describing a conflict that was “an unconventional, urban guerrilla war.”
Security is a major theme of the upcoming April election, and Noboa has campaigned for reelection on a platform of zero tolerance toward illegal groups.
In the runup to the vote — as Ecuador has seen dismembered bodies dumped on the streets, car bombs detonated and mass shootings — Noboa has floated a series of radical policies including the arrival of foreign troops.
He recently announced an alliance with Erik Prince, founder of the deeply controversial military contractor Blackwater, whose employees killed and injured dozens of civilians in Iraq.
Noboa told the BBC it was “not necessarily” his plan to bring mercenaries to Ecuador, adding that Prince was simply “advising” him.
Noboa’s wish to host foreign troops faces several political, financial and legal hurdles, including the need for so-called status of forces agreements, as well as an existing ban on foreign bases in Ecuador.
His leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez is unlikely to back such a move if elected.
She is a political protege of ex-president Rafael Correa, who kicked US troops out of an important military base at Manta in 2009.
