‘Ecuador does not need foreign soldiers. What it needs is a government,’ Rafael Correa said.

On Wednesday, President Daniel Noboa ordered the Foreign Affairs Ministry to carry out the necessary procedures to allow specialized forces from other countries to temporarily enter Ecuadorian territory to combat transnational organized crime.

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More specifically, Ecuadorian diplomacy must establish contacts with “allied countries” to coordinate and cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking, “while respecting the current constitutional framework.” The Noboa administration, however, did not specify which nations these approaches would be made with.

The temporary presence of foreign forces would aim to “support and strengthen the actions of the Armed Forces and the National Police of Ecuador… in the context of the declared war against narcoterrorism.”

In 2023, after seven consecutive years of right-wing administrations, Ecuador became the Latin American country with the highest homicide rate, a trend has worsened in 2025. At the beginning of 2024, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a “State of Internal Armed Conflict” against criminal organizations, which he classified as “terrorist groups.”

In an unsuccessful attempt to control the situation, the right-wing president has issued successive “States of Emergency” to pursue criminal gangs primarily engaged in drug trafficking, extortion, and illegal mining, some of which have links to Mexican cartels.

To implement his proposal, Noboa requires the National Assembly to carry out a partial reform of the Constitution’s Article 5 to eliminate the prohibition on establishing foreign military bases in the country, which has been in force since the 2008 Constitution was approved by popular referendum.

In October 2024, the Ecuadorian president had already sent a constitutional reform proposal to the National Assembly for the establishment of foreign military bases. If approved by legislators, this reform would also have to be ratified in a referendum.

This week, former President Rafael Correa (2007–2017) strongly criticized Noboa’s proposal, emphasizing that the current government is demonstrating a lack of a security plan to address the violence prevailing in the Andean nation, where citizens will head to a second-round election on April 13.

“Useless people! They don’t even feel ashamed! They admit there is no ‘Phoenix Plan.’ In their incompetence, they irresponsibly improvise. Ecuador does not need foreign soldiers. What it needs is a government,” the leftist leader said.

teleSUR/ JF

Source: EFE

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