Human Rights defenders are "anti-patriotic" says President Noboa

 

For the safety of Ecuadorian citizens, it is undeniable that the prisons needed dramatic reform. Before January the 17^th 2024, when they became militarized, the prisons and prison authorities were under the control of drug cartels.  Massacres between rival gangs occurred and guns, bullets and drugs were found inside the penitentiaries. Fito, the leader of the largest drug cartel in Ecuador, lived like a king inside the jail, until he was permitted to escape.

But for prisoners the change has been like a leap from a frying pan into a fire.

Military intervention has violated the Human Rights of prisoners by a regime of discipline that is beyond legal. Prisoners are beaten with sticks and metal cables. They have been denied food for up to six days. They have been asphyxiated by having their heads plunged into water tanks, subjected to torture by electric shock, been thrashed in the testicles by metal cables and gassed (as evidenced in this video).

Prisoners...when they have been fed...have been given 60 seconds to consume their food until it is kicked away from them. Medicines have been destroyed and denied to sick prisoners. Their personal belongings have been destroyed. Their mattresses have been taken away. Personal hygiene products (soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste & toilet paper) have been removed from them.

Prisoners have been urinated on and denied opportunities to wash or shower. They have been denied water and lighting and electricity. Without being able to flush their toilets, they have had to resort to defecating in plastic bags.

In short, prisoners are being systematically tortured.

These disturbing reports come from the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights who also state that:

“Families are once again victims of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as they have been restricted from information about the health status of their detained relatives since the beginning of the military occupation. This scenario is aggravated by the possibility that your detained relative is being beaten or injured as a result of the military intervention. The same occurs with those people deprived of liberty who require medical attention.”

Journalist, Gabriela Peralta, for Wambra reports the testimony of one prisoner, Anthony M, who describes living in a cell with twelve men suffering from tuberculosis. Denied drinking water they are coughing up blood.

“We do not have anything. I haven't bathed in more than three weeks, I'm wearing the same boxer shorts. I don't have water, I don't have anything.” he explains.

Billy Navarrete, director of the CDH, in an interview with Peralta, said that they value military intervention to be able, in some way, to restore some peace of mind to the prison population, but he questions the torture. 

He explains that these are not isolated events but intentional mistreatment to intimidate – not only the prisoners, but – the rest of Ecuadorian society.

“Torture must be condemned without conditions. There is no way for the authorities to justify the application of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment committed by the Armed Forces inside prisons,” he said.

The current President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, who (like Bruce Springsteen) was born in the USA, delivered a patriotic speech on the 15^th of February 2023 that ended in a troubling dismissive comment about Human Rights defenders.

“On behalf of all of Ecuador, I send you my thanks because you are tirelessly restoring peace to us. Thanks to the forceful blows against organized crime, we carried out one of the toughest battles in our history, but the terrorists have encountered a government that They are not willing to bow down as they did before. They have met brave security forces with strong leadership. They have met a United country willing to build a new Ecuador of peace, work, dignity and democracy. Here they have me and will have me defending them and also the integrity and honor of the armed forces and the police and that no anti-patriotic person comes to tell us that we are violating the rights of anyone when we are protecting the rights of the vast majority.”

Described by some as hate speech, this vainglorious oration has a dictatorial element that he would be wise to detract. His description of Human Rights defenders as unpatriotic (essentially treasonous) while he claims to be defending the human rights of the majority of Ecuadorians is a careless oversight and unnecessary.

With the armed forces and the police behind him, both institutions notoriously swamped in corruption - this can be understood as a danger alarm, indeed a threat, for Human Rights organisations and vulnerable communities.

What he is not saying is that:

Human rights are universal and inalienable; indivisible; interdependent and interrelated.

The language of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Noboa’s implication is that to defend the Human Rights of the majority we shouldn’t complain about the human rights violated in the application. That is profoundly undemocratic.

What he is not saying to the armed forces and police is:

“Well done. Good job, and please remember to do this without compromising human rights.”

In his campaign as a candidate for the Presidency Daniel Noboa impressed the nation’s voters with his calm manner, listening skills and convincing, thoughtful analysis. He came across as rational, reasonable and intelligent person in his delivery, qualities that are so vividly scarce amongst politicians globally. He calmly took the time to consider questions before answering them fully without avoidance of the complexity of the issues he described.

Despite the fact that he is the son of the richest man in Ecuador due to inherit a banana empire, Ecuadorian voters chose him to lead and represent them because he exuded a confidence, a certainty and a sincerity that appealed to the unmet needs of Ecuadorian people.

More recently, however, his language has been careless and naïve. He is beginning to demonstrate a privileged disconnection with the experience of his voters whose lives are so “humble.”

Days after his address to the army and police he addressed the people of Ecuador amid an economic and labor crisis with considerable unemployment and under employment where only 30% earn the basic minimum wage or more – the absolute minimal income in which to survive.

He said:

“I invite you to work just as hard as the government, the same hours and I assure you that you will be able to buy several plates of food, including dessert.”

This is in a country where one out three children are malnourished and exposed to contaminated water 

It had echoes of the famous Marie Antoinette’s answer to reports that the starving proletariat of 18th century France didn’t even have bread to eat, when the Queen of France said, well then …

“Let them eat cake.”

Where on earth did that patronizing tone in Noboa’s speech come from? I wonder.

“If you are a good boy, you can have pudding!” said Nanny. 

Did he have more than a minute to eat it before she kicked away the plate?

President Noboa has the approval of 81% of Ecuadorian people, the highest support for an Ecuadorian leader since 1979, according to CEDATOS.

More pudding everyone?