Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented severe human rights abuses including arbitrary detentions, torture and targeted air and drone strikes against civilians committed during joint military operations between the United States and Ecuador, warning that deep security cooperation between the two nations has entered a “perilous” phase.
In a report released this week titled “A Dangerous Partnership,” the international watchdog cautioned that both governments are engaging in systemic abuses under the guise of an all-out “war” on regional organized crime.
“From a human rights perspective, this partnership is a perilous one,” the report stated. “The two countries’ security relationship is deepening at a moment when both governments have engaged in serious human rights violations fueled by their insistence on framing their confrontations with organized crime groups as a kind of war.”
HRW’s findings draw on 62 interviews with survivors, legal experts and witnesses as well as satellite imagery, vessel tracking telemetry, thermal fire-detection data, medical records and more than 100 authenticated photos and videos.
The investigation details specific incidents on land and at sea that implicate US and Ecuadorian forces.
One of them occurred during a joint campaign along the Colombian border from March 1-6 when Ecuadorian soldiers arbitrarily detained and tortured four Colombian agricultural workers using electric shocks, waterboarding and mock executions before burning three civilian properties and dropping air munitions on two of them.
In mid-to-late March, armed drones launched attacks against two Ecuadorian fishing vessels-the La Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca — off the coast of the Galapagos Islands.
Another one occurred when 13 surviving fishermen reported that after the sea strikes, they were boarded and held on a nearby vessel by armed men in military uniforms wearing US flag insignias before being transferred to the Salvadoran Coast Guard.
On Jan. 20, the fishing vessel Fiorella vanished near the Galapagos alongside eight crew members following reports of US military patrol activity in the area.
While the US Department of Defense and Coast Guard have denied direct involvement in the maritime strikes, HRW maintained that Washington provided essential intelligence, equipment, training or direct operational support in each case.
HRW raised alarms that these tactics set a dangerous precedent for Latin America. The group specifically warned that similar human rights violations could spread to neighboring Colombia if the incoming administration of President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella moves forward with plans to expand bilateral military cooperation with Washington.
