Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has announced a \u201cstrategic alliance\u201d to fight organized crime with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial private defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater. <\/p>\n
Noboa, who launched a divisive military operation against criminal groups last year, posted a photo on X and Instagram showing him chatting with Prince at an office with an Ecuadorian flag in the background. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have established a strategic alliance to strengthen our capabilities in the fight against narcoterrorism and the protection of our waters from illegal fishing,\u201d Noboa wrote on Tuesday. \u201cThere is no truce. There is no retreat. We are moving forward,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
The president did not provide details on the partnership. <\/p>\n
Noboa\u2019s announcement has raised eyebrows in Ecuador. Former Army commander Luis Altamirano criticized the partnership, calling it \u201cdeplorable\u201d that \u201cthey seek to hire the services of a mercenary army.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s truly deplorable that, under the guise of \u2018international cooperation,\u2019 they seek to hire the services of a mercenary army. In the end, the announced \u2018special forces\u2019 were a dubious private company. Is this announcement just another smokescreen?\u201d the retired general said on X. <\/p>\n
Prince, who is the brother of US President Donald Trump\u2019s former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, founded Blackwater, which gained notoriety in 2007 during the Iraq War, when its private contractors opened fire in Baghdad\u2019s Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians. <\/p>\n
Four contractors were convicted and later pardoned by Trump. <\/p>\n
Following the massacre, the company changed its name and Prince sold the firm in 2010. He currently identifies himself on his website as an investor, entrepreneur and leader in military affair reforms. <\/p>\n
Prince was a prominent Trump supporter during the 2016 campaign. He spent time around senior transition officials and informally advised the Trump White House on some major foreign policy decisions early in Trump\u2019s first term. <\/p>\n
In his post announcing the partnership with Prince, Ecuador\u2019s president wrote: \u201cOrganized crime has sown fear and believed it can operate with impunity. Their time is up. International aid begins in Ecuador.\u201d <\/p>\n
In early 2024, Noboa launched a nationwide crackdown to stop an outburst of gang violence. But the president, who is seeking reelection this year, has insisted that his country needs foreign support to solve the security crisis driven by local criminal groups linked to international drug cartels. <\/p>\n
Ecuador has the highest homicide rate in Latin America, with 38.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the most recent report from the organized crime research and analysis center InSight Crime. It is followed by Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, and Brazil. <\/p>\n
The Ecuadorian Ministry of the Interior says the start to the year has been the most violent in the country\u2019s history, with more than 1,000 homicides. <\/p>\n
The president said in a radio interview on Monday that Ecuador would receive international assistance and support in the coming days through \u201cspecial forces abroad\u201d that would arrive in the country to join the fight against organized crime. <\/p>\n
Noboa did not specify where this new international support would come from, nor under what mechanisms foreign forces would operate in the country. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has announced a \u201cstrategic alliance\u201d to fight organized crime with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial private defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater. Noboa, who launched a divisive military operation against criminal groups last year, posted a photo on X and Instagram showing him chatting with Prince at an office…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}