{"id":4123,"date":"2026-11-09T23:18:02","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T22:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=4123"},"modified":"2026-11-09T23:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T22:24:20","slug":"ecuador-is-a-testing-ground-for-what-other-countries-might-do-in-the-future","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/publicacion\/ecuador-is-a-testing-ground-for-what-other-countries-might-do-in-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEcuador is a testing ground for what other countries might do in the future.\u201d Interview with Andrea Aguirre Salas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Constanza Cisneros and Lotta-Luka Tenhunen<\/b><\/h3>\n

Photos: Wambra Medio Comunitario<\/a> and Mujeres de Frente<\/a><\/h4>\n

Translation into English by Jennie Gant<\/i><\/p>\n

‘Let’s talk about Ecuador’ has been the common refrain amongst us over the last few days. We know that for some years now, the country has been experiencing a profound social crisis that has descended into a state of war. The latest episode was the national strike called at the end of September 2025 and the brutal repression it was met with. Driven by the need to better understand the news reaching us from the other side of the ocean, we spoke with our comrade Andrea Aguirre Salas from the Mujeres de Frente (Women on the Front Line) collective. In her lucid analysis, she describes the reality of the creation of a \u2018proletariat of violence\u2019 as a strategy employed by the national oligarchic elites committed to mining extractivism, drug trafficking, and other transnational forms of legal and illegal capital accumulation. She offers us a cohesive view of how to understand this reality through a feminist and anti-racist lens by analyzing the distribution of assigned roles amongst the region\u2019s countries, the provinces of Ecuador, and the structures hierarchized by gender, class, and racialization. Resistance has an ancestral character. It also draws strength from the emergence of new ways of speaking. Even in our own attempts at using the new language, the dialogues that challenge our thinking, the memory of the uprisings, and faith in the rhythm of the people become a collective force that invites us to believe in a different future amidst difficult times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Constanza Cisneros & Lotta-Luka Tenhunen: <\/span><\/b>F<\/span>irst of all, we\u2019d like to welcome you and thank you so much for this conversation. Who are you, how would you like to introduce yourself on this occasion, and from what perspective do you view and analyze the world?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Andrea Aguirre Salas:<\/strong><\/span> I am Andrea Aguirre Salas, a member of Mujeres de Frente, a collective that has been in existence for 20 years. In fact, it is a community of around 50 women who are currently in prison, women who have been released from prison, self-employed traders, casual domestic and sex workers, university lecturers, and students. It is from within this organization that I do my thinking, and from which I will share all my ideas, because as an assembly-based organization, we are constantly developing our ideas and activism in a collective way. I am also a university lecturer, which allows me to engage in dialogue with students and colleagues. But first and foremost, let\u2019s say, I am thinking from the perspective of Mujeres de Frente, and the ideas I am going to share are collective.<\/p>\n

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CC & LLT: <\/span><\/b>We\u2019d like to begin by asking you about the state of emergency currently unfolding in Ecuador following the national strike called last week. What is the background to the uprising against Daniel Noboa\u2019s government? In what way do you think this government\u2019s policies fit, if at all, within a broader global context of the fascistization of society?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

AAS: <\/strong><\/span>What we might define as an emergency situation \u2014 which we define as the country being placed in a state of war, by which we mean militarization and also paramilitarization \u2014 dates back years, many years. In fact, during Guillermo Lasso\u2019s government1<\/span><\/span><\/sup> \u2014 clearly with advice from the US embassy \u2014 a deliberate process of placing the country in a state of war began, and this has intensified since January 2024 when\u00a0Daniel Noboa2<\/span><\/span><\/sup> seized power. So, the declaration of a state of emergency, which, of course, was not caused by the national strike, is a government strategy that has claimed countless lives3<\/span><\/span><\/sup> and can only be understood from an anti-racist perspective.<\/p>\n

The national strike has been called in response to the removal of the diesel subsidy, which, of course, means a rise not only in fuel prices but also in everything that is transported; people, products, leading to a drastic increase in the cost of living. We must not forget that the major strikes of 2019 and 2022 were also protesting the removal of fuel subsidies. Of course, this trigger is linked to an equally deliberate and systematic erosion of public services, such as healthcare and education \u2014 systems that are fundamental to the basic sustenance of life, and a series of laws that have been passed in the National Assembly one after another on an ad hoc basis, without proper deliberation, purely because the government has presented them as urgent economic measures.<\/p>\n

The strike has been triggered by the removal of the diesel subsidy, but it encompasses a host of other connected demands, including the state ceasing to provide, for instance, daily dialysis required for life-threatening illnesses. There are many sectors, many severely affected communities attempting to join the strike, which is being strategically quashed by the state in a brutal manner \u2014 though a very skilful one in terms of communication. So, how might we analyze the policies of this government, which is at war within the regional and global context, alongside the rise of fascist tendencies amongst the world\u2019s elites?<\/p>\n

To begin with, the strategy being deployed in Ecuador is a regional strategy that is clearly orchestrated from the Pentagon. We can begin to identify the ideological machinery from which these ideas emerge: ideas of war as a quest for peace; of militarization and paramilitarization as a discourse that legitimizes the most brutal and illegal human rights violations by presenting them as peacemaking. Of course, we only need to recall the strategies deployed in Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador to see that this is a strategy with a regional scope\u2026<\/p>\n

Now, speaking in terms of fascistization is, for us as Mujeres de Frente, as important as it is problematic. It is important because it enables us to engage in global dialogue; it allows us to understand a trend amongst the elites \u2014 and I want to emphasise this \u2014 the right-wing elites. But at the same time, for us, in the national context, it raises debates that are delicate to say the least, because some sectors of the left itself talk about the fascistization of the people or of the working classes, this how they explain why Noboa has won the elections by such a landslide. We, as Mujeres de Frente, are troubled by the idea of the fascistization of the people. We believe that the key to understanding this is racism. We believe that the concept and the word we should use to make sense of what is happening to us is racism. Firstly, it enables us to understand the distribution of roles in the war. The military, the paramilitaries, and the victims are clearly racialized populations and territories. Secondly, it enables us to understand the fear and anguish experienced, for example, by women who are trying to save their children from being drawn into what the government strategically terms \u2018organized crime\u2019 by sending them into the military. We see this phenomenon as self-inflicted racism rather than fascistization. People are trying to save themselves as best they can. Rather than fascistization, we are talking about survival in the face of dilemmas that currently seem frankly inescapable. That is why we choose to speak of structural racism and state racism as a way of framing the issue in our country, thereby opposing the idea of fascistization.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CC & LLT:<\/strong> What is the situation like in prisons these days? We\u2019re hearing reports of a high number of deaths. What can you tell us?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

AAS:<\/span> <\/strong>Once again, I must return to what we consider to be the strategy of war that has been unfolding for years now in this country. It involves not only the construction of a militarization project, which is currently legal, but also, as we see it, a strategy of paramilitarization. Since 2021 \u2014 specifically February 2021 \u2014 this country has been shaken by prison massacres. These have laid bare the cruelty involved. We have seen dismembered bodies; we witnessed the first massacres in real time and realised that we were deliberately being made to witness prison violence. Once again, from an anti-racist perspective, there was a dehumanization of prisoners in portraying them as capable of actions that legitimized any punishment meted out to them. This treatment has resulted in a series of extrajudicial killings in prisons which is still ongoing. In this regard, it is vitally important to point out that what the government calls \u2018organized crime groups\u2019 were formed within prisons. Unlike in Central America, where we understand there are different explanations, in the Ecuadorian context \u2014 whilst there were certainly groups which official discourse refers to as organized youth gangs, such as the Latin Kings and the Vatos Locos \u2014 what we know as organized crime groups were not formed as local gangs but were created within prisons.<\/p>\n

In fact, the senior leadership of the so-called organized crime groups forged their links with the so-called cartels and recruited large numbers of members from within prisons. This means that we are referring to these groups as paramilitary organizations. The so-called organized crime groups in Ecuador are structures that were formed and consolidated within prisons. And this is pivotal for us because, in the official narrative, \u2018organized crime groups\u2019 are said to be the product of impoverished and racialized working-class sectors. When faced with the crisis, these groups can apparently think of nothing else than to resort to bloody violence. This is seen as \u2018characteristic of their race\u2019, according to the official narrative.<\/p>\n

We argue that, in the Ecuadorian context, these ultra-violent structures were created whilst in the custody of the State; they were formed within prisons. Their top leadership consolidated both international links with the so-called cartels and the recruitment of operatives whose role involves managing violence within prisons. Consequently, the prison massacres that shocked the country in February 2021 began to become a daily occurrence and legitimized the ultra-violent and illegal treatment of prison populations, who are racialized working-class groups. This is very important because, on the one hand, the State has contributed to the creation of paramilitary groups by reinforcing the notion of terrorism. The country, of course, experiences this as a critical juncture, given that there are violent deaths and contract killings; this is a fact. There are \u2018violence workers, they are like the \u2018proletariat of violence\u2019, serving extractive capital and various forms of illegal capital accumulation, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, mining, and so on. These \u2018violence workers\u2019 were recruited following the consolidation of these groups within prisons. And I would like to emphasise that when we talk about terrorism, clearly, we as a country feel terror because there are weapons on the streets, there are dead bodies on the streets, violence, even lethal violence, is used to resolve horizontal conflicts.<\/p>\n

For example, the women who monitor cases of femicide show us that, in this latest phase, femicides are being committed with firearms. This did not happen before. In other words, there is an armed population that is resolving problems through violence. What we emphasise is that this has taken place under the auspices of the state and as a result of a series of laws that have legalized gun ownership in various sectors. This means that the very idea of terrorism truly instils terror in us and creates a sense of lawlessness, because obviously there are armed men in uniform on the streets, as well as those without uniforms. There are non-violent crimes, for example, mobile phone theft, burglary, and so on, which are associated with and confused with contract killings and mass murder. There is a great deal of confusion, and it has been deliberately created. So, when the uprisings began during the national strike, the first thing the government said was that it was the \u2018Tren de Aragua\u2019 instigating these uprisings in Imbabura, the province that put up the fiercest resistance. And so, this confusion serves as a key strategy to instil terror, to legitimize, shall we say, the arrest of protesters, community members, and rural farmers, and even the murder of Efra\u00edn Fu\u00e9rez, who was killed by military gunfire.
\nAt the same time, prison has been the place to which these comrades accused of terrorism have been transferred. A few days ago, there was another massacre in the Afro-Esmeraldan province, the province of Esmeraldas, and it is to that prison that the comrades who have been criminalized are being taken. This instils fear in the people who take to the streets, of course, because the government is not only going to crack down on the streets, but it is also going to send you to these prisons. There is no distinction between what we might define as offences clearly associated with the protest, and contract killings. There is enormous confusion. And you can check for the national broadcasts the government is forcing us to watch every day, and you will see how there is a criminalization campaign that strategically links the protesters with organized crime groups.<\/p>\n

Consequently, there is a legitimization of the detention of protesters in these prisons, and even of Efra\u00edn\u2019s murder. The government has said nothing about the murder, but what is clear is that Imababura has been systematically criminalized. By this I mean that prisons in this country are a key part of the strategy of waging war, instilling terror, and recruiting men for war. That is why, for us, our perspective cannot be merely anti-racist; it must be radically feminist. There are mafia-style forms of masculinity being produced from within prisons. Although this is not directly related to the strike, I would like to add that since January 2024, with the militarization of prisons, sustained torture of the prison population has been institutionalized. These prisoners are, for the vast majority, of course, young, racialized men. Of course, they are also impoverished, because class and race in this country cannot be distinguished; they must be considered together. And we have been reflecting on what systematic torture implies, in terms of the shaping of the emotional world. If you want hitmen, you need broken men; you need desensitized men. You need men capable of killing and dying. You need men capable of resisting and inflicting brutal violence.<\/p>\n

We have seen how Daniel Noboa\u2019s government has institutionalized torture as a deliberate strategy. Those men are broken and capable of breaking others. This ties in with another issue that is key for us. Part of military training involves torturing people in prison. And this is where juvenile detention centres also come into play because military training involves torturing children as well. A fellow member of our organization, who has never been to prison, is a self-employed street trader and an Indigenous woman from Chimborazo. She told us, for example, that her son-in-law, who had enlisted in the military, showed them a video on his mobile phone of the torture being inflicted on children in a juvenile detention centre in Ambato de Tumburagua, a city and province in Ecuador. He said that at first he found it somewhat difficult and had only hit the child lightly. Then, when he returned to his commanding officer, he was tortured in the very way he should have tortured the child.<\/p>\n

So, there is a strategy of using bodies in prison for military training. In fact, another comrade who has been through prison herself and whose son is currently imprisoned was trying to explain in this very same conversation why, in militarized prisons where daily life was already organized around the military personnel responsible for custody, military commandos would unexpectedly enter at dawn, torture people and then leave. These were military commandos different from those responsible for day-to-day custody, whose sole mission was to enter, torture and leave. We therefore came to understand that this was part of this anti-terrorist \u2014, in reality, counter-insurgency \u2014 training. That is why we say that this is how the government is managing to contain the strike \u2014 because the strike is contained; it is failing to gain momentum precisely due to a strategy of instilling violence and terror that has been in place for years. They are not improvising. And that is why we say that a feminist perspective is crucial to understanding what they are doing to our children, at least to the imprisoned children of many of our comrades, who are deliberately, and with their own complicity, being turned into men ready for war. They find their humanity in the masculinity they assert, not only through the possession of weapons, suffering, and the perpetration of violence, but also through violence against women and children.<\/p>\n

Let me give another example. A brilliant network in Ecuador called Comadres \u2014 women who provide support for safe abortions \u2014 told us that in the provinces where violence is escalating, more and more women are seeking abortions in situations where their attackers are part of paramilitary structures. Moreover, they cannot report these attacks because, if their attackers find out about the complaint, they end up being assaulted. So, we see how this violence, perhaps in the way Rita Segato explains, is expressed in the bodies of women, gender-non-conforming people, and children. That is why we say that understanding the government\u2019s strategy must be approached from an anti-racist and feminist perspective.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to link the strike to a broader strategy to explain why they\u2019re holding us back, because we\u2019re trying to rise up and the repression is brutal. There is a combination of repression and propaganda that really\u2026 And I\u2019d add that media outlets that used to occupy a middle ground have been literally bought out by the government. For example, La Posta, which was a right-wing outlet but functioned as a critic of sorts, was bought out by an ADN assembly member. So, the communicational dimension is key, telling us what to think. And I believe that in many ways they are succeeding, although there is also a great deal of faith in the people that we are.<\/p>\n

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We denounce the strategies of the racist government which, on the one hand \u2013 the murderous hand \u2013 justifies brutal and even lethal violence by labelling the community members on national strike organized criminals and terrorists, whilst on the other hand \u2013 the paternalistic one \u2013 gives handouts with the clear aim of humiliating and dividing the people starved by its oligarchic policies! This strategy is yet another manifestation of state racism, which fails to consider the age-old wisdom of the people!<\/p><\/div>\n

CC & LLT:<\/strong> Could you explore further what role this \u2018proletariat of violence\u2019 plays for the State? How does it serve the State? What are the mechanisms at work here?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

AAS:<\/strong> <\/span>To understand this, we must be in constant dialogue with our comrades in environmentalist circles, because it is clear that the strategy of waging war has objectives of capital accumulation across legal and illegal spheres. It is essential to understand that we do not have separate narco-elites and legal export-oriented elites. Our elite accumulates capital in the grey area between legal and illegal. They have both legal and illegal businesses; they export bananas and they export cocaine; just as they open up legal mining areas \u2014 let\u2019s say gain legal concessions \u2014 within which illegal extraction, currently primarily involving gold, happens. So, for us, it is key to understand that in this phase of advanced capitalism and in our region, capital is accumulated across legal and illegal activities, because they also need to launder money, and because they also do legal business.<\/p>\n

This requires, once again from a feminist perspective, the destruction of social fabrics. Where there is a social fabric, extractivism finds it harder to gain a foothold. Where there is a social fabric, both military and paramilitary structures find it difficult to recruit. At this moment, as throughout our region, we believe that the mothers and partners \u2014 of all those men who are being recruited, of all the children we are losing \u2014 are at the forefront of the resistance. For example, the relatives of the disappeared detainees whom Daniel Noboa\u2019s government is creating are there. For example, the mothers, wives, and partners, and so on, of those who have died in prison massacres, and of the children being recruited are there.<\/p>\n

Let us say that for me, for us, it is clear that resistance takes a feminine form and has a certain maternal quality which, rather than being politicized, is about survival and holding the social fabric together. And so, for us, the waging of war has, first and foremost, a clear objective of tearing that social fabric apart. It is therefore a war against us; against us and against what we are trying to uphold, against those we wish to save, and so on. War destroys the social fabric, not only in the literal sense that people are killed, but, as we were saying yesterday in our political training school, in the sense that it savagely divides us into good children and bad children, into paramilitarized children and military children, into those who steal and those who do not, into those who like terrorism and those who do not. In other words, there is a very brutal division caused by this violence, which also makes the violence self-inflicted, doesn\u2019t it? Us against ourselves, us fighting against ourselves.<\/p>\n

This destruction of the social fabric firstly enables the recruitment of men for war; secondly, it allows the influx of extractive capital and the flourishing of illegal businesses, such as arms trafficking and human trafficking. For example, the issue of people-smuggling is significant in a country with high levels of migration such as ours. Here, this state of war is strategic for the accumulation of capital. It is not gratuitous evil; it is not merely a form of cruel enjoyment. It actually has very clear economic interests. That is why we need to look, for example, at the new mining concessions that this very government has granted, or the very laws that wiped out the Noboa Group\u2019s multi-million tax debt. So, we can clearly see that the gamble on war has objectives of capital accumulation, where the emphasis lies between the legal and the illegal. And that is why it needs a great deal of chaos. In other words, it needs a great deal of lawlessness, it needs a great deal of confusion so that the country continues to say, \u2018wow, even if it\u2019s through militarization, we need order\u2019, or rather, \u2018we just want to know what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow\u2019, right? The government\u2019s proposal for militarization has been hugely successful because deep down, in our little patriarchal hearts, we also want them to bring us to order, don\u2019t we? Like a good father who gives you a proper thrashing but tells you that tomorrow he\u2019ll take you to school.<\/p>\n

CC & LLT:<\/strong> Whilst we\u2019re on the subject, we can see that you, too, think it\u2019s entirely valid to speak of multiple, interconnected regimes of war, is that right? Recently, the Noboa government purchased more than 50 assault vehicles from Israel, and apart from the arms deal, it gets training and advice from the IDF. How do you see, in this uprising, and in previous years too, the way in which the war regimes of Israel and the US are intertwined with Ecuador and beyond? We\u2019d like you to tell us a bit about how these intersections \u2014 these alliances between capital and the warlords \u2014 are perceived.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

AAS:<\/strong><\/span> Let\u2019s say that these alliances, to begin with, are simple and straightforward. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is the daughter of the representative in Ecuador for Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Sikorsky International Operations, defence industry companies that produce drones and helicopters. It\u2019s as straightforward as that. It is clear that this escalation of conflict is linked to the global arms trade, and of course arming populations opens up all manner of opportunities, including the accumulation of capital.<\/p>\n

I believe, we believe \u2014 and we are also in agreement with a lecturer at the Central University, Luis C\u00f3rdoba, who has studied the issue in depth \u2014 that the strategy we are discussing is not Noboa\u2019s invention. This comes via the US Embassy, from the Regional Centre for Strategic Security Studies, and the Centre for the Study of Irregular Warfare, which is attached to the Pentagon, and the US Southern Command, with whom the country has signed training agreements. Although there are still no military bases in the country \u2014 that will be put to a referendum \u2014 this is key, because when Daniel Noboa launched his presidential campaign, it came as a huge surprise; nobody imagined he would make it so far. There was a major publicity campaign, but what is clear is that his government was thrown together. In other words, it lacked a comprehensive government programme. So, when the programme began to be rolled out in January 2024, it was characterized by thoroughness and meticulousness. There are times when they throw four laws at you all at once, so you don\u2019t have time to react. You realise there\u2019s a team of advisers that has nothing to do with the president\u2019s immediate and direct advisers. Then you are forced to understand the regional nature of the project, and you necessarily have to put the pieces together, shall we say, of the relationship with the Pentagon via the US Embassy, which is the main adviser.<\/p>\n

As our colleagues from the CDH (Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Guayaquil) also say, this country is not governed from Ecuador. This country is governed by the US political project in favour of the Ecuadorian oligarchies. So, for example, when this government commits the act of invading the Mexican Embassy \u2014 unprecedented in its brutal illegality because it was invading the territory of another country, right? \u2014 it speaks volumes that the Embassy remains completely silent, and that ultimately nothing comes of it. Our diplomatic relations have been severed, but the key point is that the international community simply remains silent. Well, these are just details of the sort of things that can happen. Increasingly, at least amongst left-wing social and intellectual movements, and so on, we are absolutely certain \u2014 and there is a wealth of evidence to support this \u2014 that the country is not governed from within the country itself. It is, though, I say again, governed in accordance with the immediate interests of the oligarchies. We are returning to these older concepts such as the oligarchy, and specifically the Noboa family helps to explain why we are reviving terms from the past, such as oligarchy, because there are processes of re-feudalization; a full-scale return to those ways.
\nBy contrast, the dynamics of capital accumulation, spanning both legal and illegal spheres, are clearly transnational. This means that nation-states are rather limited institutional frameworks for understanding governmentality, right? We must not forget, as Saskia Sassen explained years ago, that these heavily indebted governments are utterly disciplined governments. Even progressive regimes \u2014 about which there is much to debate, and I shall not enter into that bitter debate \u2014 have to contend with the constraints of debt and consequently with a weakening of what we used to think of as sovereignty. It is becoming increasingly clear that these large companies operate on a transnational scale, and it\u2019s not possible to understand, for example, the geography of drug trafficking if you confine yourself to Colombia, Mexico, or Ecuador. You can only understand the drug trade if you view it in its transnational context, with its money-laundering hubs, export hubs, production hubs, and laboratory hubs.<\/p>\n

Something similar happens with human trafficking, and Ecuador plays a part in this, like any country that expels people. I am using the term \u2018expulsion\u2019 in its strongest sense. Many of our fellow migrants, for example, have to pass through a transnational network with contacts in Ecuador, Mexico, and the United States to make that journey. They have to, so to speak, become this \u2018migrant commodity\u2019, a commodified body, in order to reach their destination. So, we must understand this transnational scope, the role played by this geographical territory we call Ecuador. To begin with, it must be considered in terms of the dollarized economy. Our country is a key player in money laundering. The government led by the banker Lasso was one in which the connections between the banks and drug trafficking was demonstrated very clearly. This was amply demonstrated in the famous Gran Padrino (The Great Godfather) case, amongst others. The dollarization of the economy is key. Furthermore, at present, the areas associated with the expansion of the extractive economy are playing a crucial role. To start with, gold illegally extracted from Ecuador is generating more revenue right now than the drug trade, according to the data we have.<\/p>\n

This, once again, can only be understood within a regional context in which the Global South is a zone of resource extraction, particularly mineral resources. And in this regard, Ecuador is yet another region within the Global South from which resources are being drained. Furthermore, in the case of Ecuador, there is the issue of the ports. At present, the ports of Guayaquil \u2014 one of which, incidentally, is run by the Noboa family themselves \u2014 are currently seeing very large shipments of drugs leaving the country.
\nBut, looking at this from a global perspective as well, Ecuador, and here I mean Ecuador specifically, is serving as a case study. As Dawn Paley also taught us in her early books when she talked about the war on drugs as a war against the people, and when she spoke to us about Plan Colombia and the M\u00e9rida Initiative, she, along with many other authors, was already showing us that these countries and their M\u00e9rida Initiative and Plan Colombia were testing grounds for what would later be exported across the region. I believe that El Salvador is another great case study. That is to say, not only for the ingenuity of Bukele, but also the model for the creation of the state\u2019s punitive apparatus as a genuine sacrificial machine, and also \u2014 and this must be emphasized \u2014 for the recruitment of war workers.<\/p>\n

Ecuador is putting much of what it has learnt from El Salvador into practice, but Ecuador, in my humble opinion, is acting as a testing ground for legitimizing the waging of war. The fact that paramilitary structures are, in our view, being created in a very methodical manner from within prisons seems to me to make Ecuador a testing ground for what other countries might do in the future. It is a place where strategies are being tried out for export, and this means that what is happening with our various governments, in different countries, is refining a strategy for waging war and legitimizing the destruction of life, for legitimizing the creation of sacrifice zones. For example, the murder of the four children in Guayaquil, which, we should note, was carried out by the military, was filmed. They were then apparently handed over to paramilitaries, it has never been made entirely clear, but they were children. The youngest was 11 years old. And this country fought back; we organized demonstrations and so on, but the perpetrators remain unpunished, right? And, once again, it serves as a testing ground for what is possible.<\/p>\n

And finally, I believe that in Ecuador, as in other countries in our region, there is a clear pattern of a certain geographical distribution, let\u2019s say, of exploitation, recruitment, and sacrifice. It is no coincidence that one of the hardest-hit provinces, even before this government came to power, has been the Afro-Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas. It is the sacrifice zone, and it is the Black province. And something similar happens with the geography of the city, of the port province of Guayas, the enclaves of violence where all day long, every single day, we see news reports of massacres. \u201cThey were at a christening and were massacred\u201d, \u201cit\u2019s typical, it\u2019s the Black neighbourhood\u201d, and so on. So, there is a clear geography that legitimizes who is allowed to die. For us, the anti-racist perspective involves not only denouncing the fact that there are bodies perceived as inferior, as less human, and as deserving of death, but also that these bodies are deliberately portrayed as brutal, as perpetrators of atrocities, right? It is as if they are constantly and deliberately portrayed as people who not only deserve death, but who die \u2018according to their own law\u2019 \u2014 which is the law of non-whites. It is these new forms of racism which, as Elsa Dorling also says, prevent self-defence. There is no way to defend yourself when you are supposed to be the animal; you cannot defend yourself when you are supposed to be the one who comes out with a chainsaw to chop off heads.<\/p>\n

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CC & LLT:<\/strong> We\u2019d like to explore many of the things you\u2019ve said\u2026 but to return to the strike, how do you envisage the role of feminist internationalism \u2014 or grassroots internationalism \u2014 in supporting the strike and protecting those who have risen up? In short, what do you think we can do on the level of internationalism?\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

AAS:<\/strong> <\/span>Just as accumulation and violence have a clear global reach, I think that, in practice, we\u2019ve been thinking together in many ways. I believe we think together; we have already been thinking collectively, and I think it is very important to recognize this and to continue nurturing that collective thinking. We must also engage with shared tensions, such as North-South tensions, as well as the anger that arises from places of extreme dispossession and harm like our own, which we must monitor and challenge. So, it seems to me \u2014 and we believe \u2014 that we exist as a global feminist and anti-racist community. And we believe that these tensions are productive, that we develop our thinking from that point, and that this has been happening for some time. It is essential to recognize this so that we do not start putting forward ideas along the lines of \u2018let\u2019s do such-and-such from now on\u2019, because those ideas never work.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, our region is one of ancestral resistance. There is a dimension to the Andean world \u2014 and the Mesoamerican world too, but I\u2019m focusing on the Andean context for the purposes of what I wish to say now \u2014 which is a privilege of ours. It is a form of intelligence that is very difficult to elucidate, which means that things like strikes will flourish. They will flourish, as our comrades in the Indigenous Movement say, because there is a rhythm to the common good, to community life. There is a shared way of thinking which has a global reach; for me, that is feminism, more or less. But there are singularities; there are ways of being, ways of coming into being. We must think and we must live, and very often do so without fully understanding the Andean perspective of the ancestral peoples.<\/p>\n

We are convinced that ancestral wisdom isn\u2019t just a figure of speech; it\u2019s a form of intelligence that our Indigenous sisters often have to re-teach us, right? When we get flustered, \u2018Oh, the government\u2019s watching our communications; will the strike take off or will it not? What\u2019s going on? Let\u2019s take to the streets!\u2019 And then they\u2019d come out with a banner \u2014 something like: \u2018Hey, Noboa, we\u2019ve resisted people like you for 500 years; let\u2019s see who can hold out longer.\u2019 What a brilliant banner! We get caught up in the rush, we get caught up in the anxiety, those of us who are more Westernised, this educated middle class, and urban people. And they always remind us that there is a rhythm, that there is an intelligence which, ever since the process of conquest and colonization, people have always, always tried to blind us to. And there is a shared, communal, collective spirit which, like any human environment, has its flaws and its shortcomings, and whatever else, but which possesses a rhythm of resistance.<\/p>\n

This ensures that one never loses one\u2019s way in one\u2019s ignorance, that one never loses faith in what we, as a people, can achieve. There is a profound certainty that we possess a capacity which we do not necessarily understand, which we cannot necessarily transform into crystal-clear action, but which has to do with a rhythm. There is a people who perceive, who understand, who have a rhythm. And, as they say, this rhythm cannot be forced to conform to the circumstances. You cannot pull at the threads of such a vast community, because the indigenous movement is enormous, isn\u2019t it? So, this suggests that there is an ancestral character to the strikes, in the way the community I am part of navigates them, feels them, but cannot necessarily put into words. That is not my place; it is not something I can say. There\u2019s a great deal of respect for that, but it also means we mustn\u2019t forget what this banner said: let\u2019s see who can hold out the longest, because we\u2019ve been at this for 500 years and we\u2019re still here.<\/p>\n

And this brings in these transnational dialogues, mobilizing as much as we can, showing solidarity, and so on, but also being part of something greater; something you don\u2019t have to understand or control in order to stand alongside it and be part of it. I don\u2019t know how to explain it; it\u2019s something very much part of who we are. It\u2019s as if you have to know how to let yourself be guided by the collective. Because otherwise, you might become stubborn or act foolishly. So, there\u2019s something there that we see bearing fruit. Strikes have always been like this; they happen where you least expect them. Suddenly, people are there and you haven\u2019t quite understood where they came from, and you just have to go with the flow.<\/p>\n

Finally, on the anti-racist perspective of the peoples of the diaspora. Afro-Ecuadorian organizations, and Black communities in our region, at least in our country, are forging something that is also a new development. It isn\u2019t yet being expressed in the strike, but it was expressed through the \u2018Guayaquil Four\u2019. It was absolutely beautiful, as well. There\u2019s something there that speaks in other languages, in other ways. And that is what we must believe in, because ultimately, that is who we are. And that is what we are capable of, even if we do not always realize it. This is growing. I believe that in a few years\u2019 time, the Afro \u2014and Afro-feminist, though not only feminist \u2014 movement will achieve a great deal. Clear discussions are emerging from within it, which is something the region, and Ecuador in particular, needed, and it is beginning to happen.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m making myself clear, because it also has to do with feelings that one doesn\u2019t always manage to express. But it\u2019s important to try, even if it\u2019s just babbling attempts to put things into words, because that is our strength. It is what gives us hope in this appalling context \u2014 hope that we can do it.<\/p>\n

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We have to stop to move forward! Up the national strike!<\/p><\/div>\n

Notes<\/span><\/h4>\n
\n

1<\/a> A banker and financial entrepreneur, Lasso served as President of Ecuador from May 2021 to November 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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2<\/a> The current president since November 2023, this Ecuadorian-American comes from a family of numerous industrialists and exporters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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3<\/a> According to official figures, 5,268 violent deaths were recorded in Ecuador between January and August 2025 alone. This lethal violence has received widespread media coverage since mid-2021.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Transcription, editing, and translation carried out with the support of FfAI<\/span> and RLS -Madrid<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Let’s talk about Ecuador’ has been the common refrain amongst us over the last few days. We know that for some years now, the country has been experiencing a profound social crisis that has descended into a state of war. The latest episode was the national strike called at the end of September 2025 and the brutal repression it was met with. Driven by the need to better understand the news reaching us from the other side of the ocean, we spoke with our comrade Andrea Aguirre Salas from the Mujeres de Frente (Women on the Front Line) collective. In her lucid analysis, she describes the reality of the creation of a \u2018proletariat of violence\u2019 as a strategy employed by the national oligarchic elites committed to mining extractivism, drug trafficking, and other transnational forms of legal and illegal capital accumulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3333,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"portfolio_category":[81,49,43],"portfolio_skills":[],"portfolio_tags":[],"class_list":["post-4123","avada_portfolio","type-avada_portfolio","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_category-internationalisms","portfolio_category-notes","portfolio_category-regime-war-patriarchal-restoration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/4123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/avada_portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4123"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/4123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4129,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/4123\/revisions\/4129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"portfolio_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_category?post=4123"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_skills","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_skills?post=4123"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laboratoria.red\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_tags?post=4123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}