Lasso Wants Ecuador to be Paramilitary State: Colombian Analyst [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuadorean right-wing presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso has proposed deploying private companies to work with the police and military

Published 21 March 2017


Paramilitarism flourished in Colombia after expansion of the private security model — which Ecuador's Guillermo Lasso promotes.

The proposal to privatize security forces in Ecuador put forward by right-wing presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso is the same model that spurred a major surge in paramilitary violence in Colombia more than two decades ago, according to a Colombian analyst.

Daniela Pacheco, a Colombian journalist and specialist on development projects, argued in a recent piece on the Ecuadorean platform La Junta that shifting issues of security into private hands ultimately undermines public safety by pandering to the whims of political and economic elites, as has happened in Colombia.

"In this conception of private companies participating in citizen security, present in Lasso's proposal and the Colombian model, the government openly grants functions of preserving security to private entities, with the evident risk of becoming guarantors not of national security, but of their own political and economic rights and interests," Pacheco wrote.

More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Lasso-Wants-Ecuador-to-be-Paramilitary-State-Colombian-Analyst-20170321-0007.html