Organized crime murders two mayors in 48 hours in Ecuador

The second mayor murdered in less than a week in Ecuador. Two days had passed since the murder of Mayor José Sánchez, of Ponce Enriquez, a city located between the mountains of the Ecuadorian Austro, when a new crime has shaken another town in the country. This time it is Portovelo, in the province of El Oro. The councilor, Jorge Maldonado, was murdered on Friday morning in the center of his city. Both mayors were shot down by hitmen. The two crimes are separated by 180 kilometers, two different provinces, but they share something in common: their cities have been built on mountains that store millions of tons of gold, silver and copper, which organized crime has transferred its businesses to those areas. , through illegal mining.

Municipal politics has become a deadly job in Ecuador. This is the third crime against a mayor that has occurred so far in 2024, and the fourth in less than a year. “These acts are not just individual tragedies, but indicative of a serious security crisis that puts the lives of all municipal leaders at risk,” Patricio Maldonado, president of the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador, AME, wrote in X. It is the only entity that has spoken out about the two crimes; President Daniel Noboa and his government officials have remained silent.

These are complicated days for the Executive that is dealing with an energy crisis that keeps the country in the dark for up to more than nine hours each day, and just a few days before holding a popular consultation and referendum called by the president. There are 11 questions, of which nine seek to make legal and constitutional reforms that serve as tools for controlling security in the country. But no questions about illegal mining reached the ballot, despite the fact that the Police have determined that criminal gangs such as Los Lobos operate in cities with mining resources to launder money and obtain minerals and then irregularly export them from the country. Practically, the entire southern area of ​​the mountains and the east of the country are vast mining territories that lack control by the authorities and where drug trafficking has been embedded with bullets and blood.

Ecuador is divided into 221 municipalities that are represented by a councilor and a council body that are made up according to the amount of population that each city has. The authorities only took office last May, after overcoming the most violent electoral campaign that the South American country has ever recorded. But once in office, the cities' top authorities continued to be the target of organized crime. The AME has asked the Government to carry out a risk analysis on the country's 221 mayors. But the process is progressing slowly, and as of early April only 30 have been given police protection. “The integrity of our mayors is not negotiable. We demand solutions now, so that they can continue serving their cantons without fear for their lives,” Maldonado said. The last time the Government responded to this request was after the crime of Brigitte García, mayor of San Vicente, when she explained that she does not have the financial resources to respond to all the requests.