Ecuador's Noboa Touts Crime-Fighting Efforts in Speech to National Assembly
Is Noboa reclaiming Ecuador from organized crime or unleashing state violence on its own people?
Above: Daniel Noboa delivers a speech at Ecuador's National Assembly in Quito on May 24. Image credit: Carlos Arias/Agencia Press South/Getty Images
The Spin
Pro-government narrative
Noboa is doing what no other Ecuadorian leader has dared to do: taking on organized crime head-on without backing down. Before his administration declared an internal armed conflict, criminal networks had more territorial control than the state itself. Reclaiming that authority is a genuine achievement, and dismissing it ignores just how deep the crisis ran.
Government-critical narrative
Ecuador's militarization under Noboa produced record homicides — 9,216 in 2025, the deadliest year in the country's history. Soldiers have forcibly disappeared at least 51 people, including children, torturing detainees and executing them in cornfields with zero accountability. A strategy that generates more violence than it stops is a tragedy for the country.
