Miami.- Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa asserted this Saturday that “their time is up” for the “mafias (that) believed America was their territory,” during a summit in Miami convened by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, which was attended by other right-wing leaders from the region.
“For too long, the mafias believed that America was their territory. That they could cross borders, move drugs, weapons, and violence without consequences. That time is over,” the president wrote on his X social media account.
Following his brief statement, Noboa attached photos with the presidents who attended the summit, called ‘Shield of the Americas,’ and one in which the U.S. president is seen showing a signed decree formalizing the new ‘military coalition’ in Latin America against drug cartels, which was announced this Saturday.
The Ecuadorian president had indicated weeks ago that he would attend the meeting for “a matter of security”, since, he assured, the country needs “international help to give security to Ecuadorians”.
Joint Operation Ecuador-U.S. in Sucumbíos
This very week, the United States and Ecuador initiated joint military operations on Ecuadorian soil against “terrorist” organizations, in which, as was learned on Friday, they bombed and destroyed a training camp of the Border Commands, one of the dissident criminal groups of the extinct guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The operation took place in the Amazonian province of Sucumbíos, bordering Colombia, where the Ecuadorian military attacked with intelligence information and US support a rest camp of the Border Commands that, according to official information, belonged to the leader nicknamed Mono Tole and had the capacity to “train up to fifty drug traffickers”.
The United States has become a key partner for Ecuador in the “war” that President Noboa declared at the beginning of 2024 against criminal gangs, which he classified as “terrorists” for being the cause of the worst crisis of violence in the country’s history, which has led it to be at the head of Latin America in the homicide index.
The summit this Saturday is also attended by the presidents of Argentina, Javier Milei; Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz; Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chavez; Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; El Salvador, Nayib Bukele; Guyana, Irfaan Ali; Honduras, Nasry Asfura; Panama, José Raúl Mulino; Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
Also participating is the president-elect of Chile, José Antonio Kast, who will take office next Wednesday.
