By Alejandra Garcia and Bill Hackwell on March 13, 2025
Notorious military contractor Erik Prince, meeting with Ecuador President Daniel Noboa, son of the richest person in the country.
Ecuador is preparing for the second round of presidential elections, marked by a strong background of drug trafficking violence, especially in the city of Guayaquil. President Daniel Noboa, candidate for reelection, announced that he was entering into a “strategic alliance” with Erik Prince, a controversial figure providing private paramilitary services and founder of the Blackwater firm. Prince, an ally of Donald Trump, is accused of dozens of abuses and terror in several countries around the world. Blackwater’s product is mercenary guns for hire that have been carrying out brutal military operations for the interests of Empire around the globe going back to the war in Iraq.
The announcement comes as the country prepares for the second round of presidential elections on April 13, between the outgoing super rich president, Daniel Noboa, and the leftist candidate Luisa Gonzalez. This all comes in the midst of a strong wave of violence. Last week, a gang attack left at least 22 dead in Guayaquil, a port city and epicenter of drug trafficking in Ecuador, to name just one example.
Homicides stemming from gang conflicts have spiked in the run-up to the elections, with levels of violence in January 2025 surpassing historical records. Meanwhile, the country ranks as the most violent in all of Latin America. The homicide rate escalated from 6 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to 38 in 2024, with an all-time high of 47 in 2023.
“We have established a strategic alliance to strengthen our capacities to fight narcoterrorism and protect our waters from illegal fishing,” Noboa posted on his social networks on March 11, without giving timelines or resources; without giving details on what the strategy will be. “There is no truce. There is no retreat. We go forward,” added the president after posing for a photo in his office with Erik Prince, founder of the private security company involved in the massacre of 17 civilians in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007.
Analysts affirm that it remains to be defined in which areas this cooperation will take place. For Johanna Paulina Espín, professor at the security and defense school of the Institute of Higher National Studies of Ecuador, the country is in the middle of a presidential campaign, “so it sounds a bit more like a campaign announcement than a strategy to respond to a security policy.”
The Blackwater company no longer bears that name. It was renamed Academi and absorbed by U.S. company Constellis. Their members are often hired as bodyguards, soldiers of fortune, consultants and members of special forces in conflict territories outside the military justice system.
For candidate Luisa Gonzalez, from the leftist Citizen Revolution Movement, leaving the country’s security in the hands of this mercenary company would have dire consequences. “National security is exclusively the responsibility of the Public Forces. We will not negotiate with criminal gang leaders,” she said.
For Gonzalez, Ecuador has to close its doors to mercenary forces, murderers who do not know Ecuador and do not have a plan. “In Ecuador, there is a constant increase in violence. That is to say, none of Noboa’s actions have been able to guarantee security. Why? Because he does not have a plan, a clear strategy on how to combat violence. Those mercenaries have no knowledge of our territory. They don’t know what the conflicts we live in are like, they are improvised, and the only thing they have caused in the countries they have been in is an exasperation of internal conflicts,” the candidate assured during an interview for a local news outlet.
The militarization of the country on Noboa’s orders, with the supposed aim of protecting civil society from criminal groups, has had painful consequences for those it is supposed to protect. Four children were recently kidnapped, raped, and incinerated by army soldiers. Many Ecuadorians wonder what might happen if Blackwater soldier receive a license to kill, having such a record of decades of terror and impunity. Insecurity will undoubtedly be a decisive factor in the voting intentions of the Ecuadorean people, who want, more than anything, peace.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English