FDLP – Ecuador: CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND GOVERNMENT DISHONOR THE MEMORY OF THE FOUR CHILDREN FROM LAS MALVINAS

We hereby share an unofficial translation of a statement by the Defense Front of the People’s Struggles of Ecuador.

The ruling by the Constitutional Court regarding the murder of the four children from Las Malvinas does not fully meet the expectations of the people regarding the punishment that should be imposed on the military personnel, the commanders, the Minister of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior, and the President of the Republic.

The Court declared that the children were illegally, arbitrarily, and illegitimately deprived of their freedom by military patrols and that the State did not provide immediate, satisfactory, nor convincing information about their arrest or whereabouts. It also stated that this is one of the most serious and reprehensible violations of the constitutional and international order of human rights. Up to this point, the Court’s pronouncement was at least made with a minimum of objectivity. However, it then reverted to its old ways of stupidity, complicity, and impunity.

Let’s see.

The military did not just disappear the children. They tortured, killed, dismembered, and incinerated them. And then they tried to return their remains to the families. What do we see here? Armed Forces doing what they know how to do: disappear, torture, and kill. And we say this in reference to the case of the four children from Las Malvinas, but it is not a rhetorical accusation or hyperbole. It is the brutal expression of a pattern of behavior that, at different times, has involved members of the Armed Forces and the National Police.

And why is the Court stupid? Because of its so-called reparations measures.

Because nothing will bring those children back to life. They were children. They had the right to a future, even amidst poverty and misery. They had the right to grow, to live, to dream, to survive. Nothing will return their children to their parents, murdered in the most vile and cruel manner by military hands.

As if they had done something significant, the Court orders the State to apologize. Clowns! Who is going to apologize? The president who suggested that the children were criminals? The Minister of Defense who claimed they were criminals and had disappeared in gang fights? Who has the moral authority to apologize for a crime of this magnitude? No one. Absolutely no one.

Do apologies solve anything? The State is not cleansed by apologies. Not even by recognizing that it acted as a criminal machine does it repair what it did. In this case, the apology does not even begin to touch the dimension of the horror.

They go even further. They order that the case of the four children is incorporated into the Museum of Memory. Which museum? Not even the museum that was supposed to be built based on the recommendations of the Truth Commission, regarding the crimes against humanity committed years ago, was constructed in the appropriate location. The decree designated its location in the former offices of the Criminal Investigation Service of Pichincha, and it ended up being reduced to a marginal space in the basement of a public institution. Such stupidity. And besides, what does it repair in real terms to have the case exhibited there? What does it solve? What does it return? What does it transform?

They also order the recovery of a public space in Guayaquil, the declaration of December 8th as a national day of remembrance, and free psychological, psychiatric, and medical attention for the families. Pure nonsense. Pure institutional garbage that says nothing. It says nothing to the masses, nothing to the families of the victims, and probably nothing to those who wrote it, because they themselves may not know what they wanted to express with that empty rhetoric.

And, finally, as they say, the cherry on top: they order the compensatory payment of 10,000 USD for each of the four children. Yes, as it reads: ten thousand dollars for each child murdered.

Let’s see the magnitude of the insult. A general earns in two months what they intend to deliver for the life of each child. The State spends more in any wasteful expenses. On the scale of privilege, luxury, and the obscenity of power, those ten thousand dollars mean nothing, much less reparations; on the contrary, they represent contempt. Just the handbag of the “first lady,” who, by the way, likes to show off her expensive designer clothes, is worth equal to or more than the entire amount that the parents of the four children would receive. Not to mention the sports car that the miserable Noboa uses to insult the misery and poverty of our people.

A figure like that does not honor the memory of the children nor recognize the devastation caused to their families. It is a miserable sum in the face of a monstrous crime. That’s what the life of the people’s children is worth to the criminal government!

Genuine nonsense. A genuine insult.

The families of Josué, Ismael, Steven, and Nehemías did not just receive the news of a death. Before that, they endured uncertainty, the search, anguish, waiting, institutional contradictions, and the weariness of demanding the truth from authorities, a truth that should have been immediate. That journey is also part of the harm. Therefore, when looking at the ruling from the human experience of the families, an uncomfortable but necessary question arises: can reparations feel truly comprehensive when the magnitude of suffering so evidently overflows the measures adopted? The answer does not require harshness; it requires honesty. And this miserable government knows nothing of that.

They sent those who got their hands dirty with the blood of the four children to prison, but left the higher-ranking officers untouched. They exempted from all political responsibility those from the government who denied military involvement, spread false versions, and tried to instill the idea that the children were criminals. Not only was the crime covered up; the victims were also tried to be smeared to protect the culprits.

And, of course, no responsibility is attributed to the fascist Noboa. He is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and also came out to say barbarities about the children while the State did everything possible to cover up its own responsibility. In any state that was not rotten, the chain of command would have consequences. Not here. Here, impunity rises in rank and becomes untouchable.

People of Ecuador, it is clear: we can never, ever expect the State to purge or cleanse itself. We can never expect those who hold power and administer the bureaucratic apparatus to go to jail or assume the responsibilities they clearly have in this crime.

Nothing that comes from public and legal institutions truly serves the majority. It is designed to sustain the power of people like Noboa and his accomplices; to protect the big bourgeoisie and big landlords; to shield the responsible parties and manage social outrage without touching the essence of impunity. That is the true meaning of these “reparations”: not to repair, but to appear as if justice has been done where only the media fervor, narrative, and scandal have been doled out.

PRISON FOR ALL AUTHORITIES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRIME AGAINST THE FOUR FROM LAS MALVINAS!

A FEW CENTS AND SOME PHOTOS IN A MUSEUM DOES NOT REPAIR THE HARM CAUSED TO THE FAMILIES OF THE CHILDREN FROM LAS MALVINAS!

DON’T FORGIVE NOR FORGET FOR THOSE WHO ARE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE AND THOSE WHO HAVE RESPONSIBILITY FROM THE GOVERNMENT!

NOBOA AND HIS GOVERNMENT ARE MURDERERS!