FDLP-Ecuador: WHILE THE ELECTION SCAM IS BEING HATCHED, THE WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE CONTINUES
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a note published Defense Front of the People’s Struggles in Ecuador (FDLP-EC) on the 16th of April.
A new military bombing shook the El Chical area in Carchi, on Ecuador’s northern border. According to the government, it was an operation against illegal mining, but what is once again evident is the consolidation of a policy of militarizing the territory, expanding the repressive apparatus, and normalizing violence and internal conflict as a distraction from the social, economic, and political crisis plaguing the country—especially the poor peasantry.
But the underlying problem isn’t illegal mining. That’s nonsense! The problem is that, under the guise of the “fight against the Organized Crime Groups,” the regime has been establishing a logic of a permanent state of emergency across vast territories in the provinces of Manabí, Guayas, Los Ríos, and Esmeraldas, as well as in several border areas, where poor peasants are trapped between criminal economies, State neglect, and increasingly aggressive military operations. In this context, what Noboa’s comprador and fascist regime is doing is imposing criminal, diversionary policies that seek to focus the masses’ attention on the State’s violent behavior as part of a crude strategy of corporatization.
Today, the country has become embroiled in the strategic maneuvering dictated by Yankee imperialism, with an increasingly visible US presence in joint operations linked to the so-called “Shield of the Americas.” Added to this are the Southern Seas 2026 exercises, held on April 7 and 8, in which the Ecuadorian Navy operated alongside the USS Nimitz and the USS Gridley, in coordination with the US Southern Command. The Southern Command itself stated that these maneuvers aim to strengthen maritime partnerships to address regional threats, while the reality is that the country is increasingly being drawn into the strategic map of Yankee imperialism. One must ask: What the hell is the purpose of the Nimitz aircraft carrier’s presence and operations in the country and in the fight against four-man boats with alleged drug traffickers on board?
Adding to this picture is Noboa’s political offensive against Colombia. The subservient and sell-out government raised the so-called “security tax” on Colombian imports from 50% to 100% as of May 1, citing a lack of border cooperation. In 2025, Colombia recorded a trade surplus of $1.016 billion with Ecuador, with exports totaling $1.847 billion and imports totaling $830.1 million. The conflict is damaging a trade relationship of enormous importance to both countries and threatens to further worsen supply chains, production costs, and living conditions along the border.
The problem is even more serious because Ecuador is not an industrialized country capable of replacing a substantial portion of those goods in the short term. Among the sensitive trade goods are medicines, energy, pesticides, manufactured goods, and key inputs, and some 2,700 Colombian export companies are affected by the measure. Even Petro later backed down in the face of a blanket 100% tariff in Colombia, but the political and commercial damage has already been done. Noboa, a servile dog of imperialism, also intends to meddle in Colombia’s electoral process; that’s all there is to it!
Meanwhile, the social crisis in Ecuador continues to deepen. According to the INEC, in March 2026 the monthly expenses of a family reached USD 829.38, a monthly increase of 0.63%; the Central Bank reported an annual inflation rate of 2.33% for that same month. At the same time, fuel prices continue to rise: Extra gasoline went from USD 2.46 per gallon in May 2024 to USD 3.02 in April 2026, a 22% increase in less than two years, and in April, diesel and high-octane gasoline also rose to USD 4.80 per gallon. In other words, while the official rhetoric speaks of a war on crime, the lives of the masses are entering a phase of absolute impoverishment.
In the workplace, the situation has reached alarming levels. A few days ago, more than 100 hospital workers were laid off in Quito. Ministerial Agreement MDT-2026-059 allows the 40-hour workweek to be distributed across five days, with shifts of up to 10 hours per day. Although the regulation formally maintains the weekly limit and overtime pay if the 40-hour limit is exceeded, in practice it creates new conditions to intensify exploitation, reorganize the workday according to employers’ needs, and undermine the actual stability of workers’ and peasants’ lives. And mind you, we must remember that electoral opportunists boasted that, in the last Popular Consultation, they “defeated” the regime by opposing these measures. What is bound to happen happens when the one in power is part of the big bourgeoisie, one of the owners of the State, an ally of imperialism, and now administers the old bureaucratic-landlord State; they don’t give a damn and expose the dictatorship of the classes (the big bourgeoisie and the big landlords) on the country’s political and economic stage.
In a country plagued by unemployment, underemployment, and poverty, these measures will lead to further crisis, higher unemployment, increased violence, greater emigration, and further enrichment of the sectors that control the country’s economy and politics.
And while all this is happening, raids continue in rural areas, and persecution and pressure on communities that oppose extractivism are the order of the day. New raids and intimidation by armed forces in Las Naves. The murder of peasant activists who opposed the large mining companies and defended the water. Throughout the month of March and so far in April, there have been reports of bombings, the burning of homes, and harm to the peasant population on the northern border, casting doubt on the official version regarding military targets. It is abundantly clear that we are facing an escalation of repression against the vast majority of the population, which demands a forceful response.
Noboa is militarizing society, increasingly subordinating the country’s sovereignty to imperialism, and shifting the burden of the crisis of bureaucratic capitalism onto peasants, workers, and people’s sectors.
Today more than ever, the objective reality facing the vast majority demands that we resist, organize, and fight. Resist the militarization of our territories and the criminalization of poverty. Organize against the advance of extractivism, the precariousness of labor, and the rising cost of living. To fight against imperialist penetration, against the opportunism that reduces politics to the electoral calendar, and against a regime that seeks to govern through fear, propaganda, and armed force. In the face of the crisis, State terror, and the surrender of sovereignty, the people’s response can be nothing other than conscious, combative, and permanent mobilization.
People of Ecuador, remember: local elections are coming up, brought forward by the regime to suit its own interests. What does this tell you? That electoral processes are a sham, open to manipulation at any time and in any way. You must also remember that, in the last referendum, the “NO” vote won regarding the presence of military bases and foreign forces in the country; the “NO” vote regarding the precariousness of work, among other things. However, now there are more military bases, the FBI, Mossad, the CIA, the U.S. Air Force, and special forces—all together. We know full well that the invading troops are addicts; they consume drugs like crazy to cope with their war psychosis. We know full well that they will come to commit sexual “abuses,” targeting, preferably, girls and boys, because they are corrupt and sick. We know full well that this military deployment seeks to turn us from a semi-colony into a colony of the United States.
Nothing you decided at the polls amounted to a damn thing, except to frustrate you, dampen your resolve to fight, and leave you trapped in the corporate machinery of the old State.
Meanwhile, the opportunists are there, licking their wounds, because the narco-president backed by the big bourgeoisie has curtailed the electoral participation of the followers of Correa, Alianza Popular, and other electoral opposition organizations. Therefore, do not continue to fall into the electoral trap; only organization, popular combat, and resistance will allow us to expel the Yankee invaders and halt the economic and political voracity of one of the most reactionary, treacherous, sell-out, and fascist regimes that the country’s political history has ever known.
STOP THE BOMBING OF PEASANT REGIONS!
YANKEES: GO HOME!
NO TO ELECTORAL FRAUD!
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM MUST BE LINKED
TO THE STRUGGLE AGAINST OPPORTUNISM!
LONG LIVE THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUE!
ORGANIZE, COMBAT, AND RESIST!
