BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Media in Ecuador published last Monday that Guillermo Lasso had declared on a social media chat, "The godfathers of the drug trafficking mafias are the narco-politicians, who react in their defense, trying to destabilize democracy to try to return to power." Christophe Marchand, coordinator of Correa's international defense, considers this an indictment of Rafael Correa and Citizens' Revolution opponents.
Jus Cogens Advocats have sent a statement to the media to denounce this accusation as a part of a broader movement to try to link Rafael Correa to drug trafficking and blame him for the policies of his successors that have led to the current disaster.
Christophe Marchand declares in reference to this manipulation that: "Rafael Correa has no link with drug trafficking. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that false rumors and accusations have been spread about him, without providing any evidence, to avoid the real issues that are the countless massacres in prisons and the dramatic situation of insecurity that the Ecuador is experiencing today. This is a new form of lawfare."
Jus Cogens want to make clear that Rafael Correa never formed an alliance with these criminals. In fact, during his presidency, the fight against drug trafficking was praised even by the United States, which in 2016 decorated Ecuador for seizing, in 6 and a half years, practically the same tons of drugs as in the previous 19 years. In contrast, violent deaths have only increased since Lenin Moreno came to power. The annual number of homicides in 2007 was 2,273. When Rafael Correa left Ecuador, the number decreased to 970. The homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants had dropped from 15.9% (2007) to 5.78% (2017). In 2022, Ecuador again registers a rate of 15.48 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Although 2022 is not finished, 2,785 people have already lost their lives1. When Rafael Correa left the government of Ecuador, it was the second safest country in Latin America, while today it is one of the most violent.
Information manoeuvres for perverse purposes
The international defense team wants to state that this strategy of manipulation of information has been a constant for months and intensifies every time the government faces a social or security problem. Thus, after a new prison massacre in the Social Rehabilitation Center of Cotopaxi, in which at least 15 inmates died, many newspapers published a photograph of the former president and one of the deceased in a totally decontextualized way to insinuate a link with drug trafficking. The photo was taken almost ten years ago as part of a pacification programme and shows nothing but the will to confront the conflict and find solutions. So biased is the information on this matter, that few reported that this individual, interviewed before his murder, had declared pressures to harm Jorge Glas (former Rafael Correa’s vice president).
"Lawfare feeds on lies in the media. Lasso's statements should not be evaluated in isolation because they are part of a systematic baseless attack. Therefore, this aspect of the judicial war organized by the former president must be denounced before the international community," concludes Mr. Marchand.
More about the case of Rafael Correa
Rafael Correa was born on April 6, 1963 in the city of Guayaquil (Ecuador).
He was President of Ecuador for more than a decade, from January 2007 to May 2017, being the Ecuadorian president who has remained in power the most uninterruptedly. He decided to devote himself more to his family and left the presidency to another member of the Alianza País party.
After this, when he became the main opponent of the new Government, he began to receive brutal judicial harassment, whose fulminating point was an illegitimate sentence and suspension of his political rights.
Since April 15, 2022, Rafael Correa has been a political refugee in Belgium, a status recognized by the141 signatory states of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. This shows that he is a victim of lawfare.
1. https://fr.countryeconomy.com/demographie/homicides/equateur
