QUITO, Ecuador – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday (Friday Manila time) promised security aid to violence-wracked Ecuador as he sought to rally the region behind a force-first anti-crime campaign following a US strike on a boat allegedly linked to Venezuela.
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa, an emerging ally of US President Donald Trump, has deployed troops to combat violence that has transformed the country from one of Latin America’s safest to one of its most dangerous.
Rubio, meeting with Noboa in the centuries-old palace in Quito’s old city, said the United States would provide nearly $20 million in security aid including $6 million in drones.
He also said that the United States was designating two gangs, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, as foreign terrorist organizations — putting them directly into US crosshairs. AFP
Rubio told reporters that he was helping Ecuador to “wage war against these vicious animals, these terrorists.”
Speaking of Trump’s push against criminal groups, Rubio said, “This administration is confronting it like it’s never been confronted before.”
Noboa’s mass deployment of force has won him popular support but has yet to dent crime, which mostly consists of gang battles.
At a joint press conference, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld said that Ecuador wants to see the Americas region free of “threats from transnational organized crime groups and terrorist groups that want to subjugate our citizens.”
The visit comes two days after US forces said they blew up an alleged drug-running boat from a gang tied to Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, in an operation Trump said killed 11 people.
AFP has not been able to verify independently the details of the attack presented by the United States. AFP
