Ecuadorian leader proposes lifting ban on foreign military bases

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has said he wants to change his country’s constitution to allow the presence of foreign military bases.

He made the proposal 15 years after the last American soldiers left the Manta base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast and handed it back to the Ecuadorian army.

President Noboa argues that Ecuador needs foreign military assistance to combat the international criminal gangs that use the country as a major transit route for drugs smuggled from South America to Europe and the US.

The 36-year-old leader declared war on the gangs in January, but cities such as Manta, Durán and Guayaquil are still plagued by gang violence.

Noboa made the announcement in a video recorded at Manta Base and uploaded to Xformerly known as Twitter.

In it, he criticizes then-President Rafael Correa’s 2008 decision not only not to renew the agreement under which the US had leased the base in Manta, but also to include in the constitution a ban on any foreign military presence.

“They claimed that Ecuador would regain its sovereignty, but in reality they simply handed the country over to drug traffickers,” Noboa says in the video, without explicitly naming Correa.

“In a transnational conflict, we need a response at national and international level,” he adds.

He said he would send the partial constitutional reform to Ecuador’s National Assembly, which will have to vote on it before the proposal is adopted.

But before lawmakers can vote on it, the constitutional amendment must be approved by the Constitutional Court.

Furthermore, any amendment to the Constitution must be submitted to the Ecuadorian people through a referendum in order to take effect.

This is not the first constitutional amendment proposed by President Noboa.

In April, his government put 11 measures to the vote, nine of which were approved.

Many of these measures also concerned security, for example, allowing soldiers to patrol the streets and allowing criminals to be extradited to face trial in the US.

President Noboa came to power less than a year ago, following early elections after the resignation of President Guillermo Lasso.

Noboa has already said he will run for re-election in February 2025. Monday’s announcement is seen as an attempt to portray himself as a forceful and active leader, despite the gang violence that continues to plague Ecuador.

Polls show the president’s popularity has declined in recent months.

According to analysts, this is mainly due to the lack of results in the “war” he has declared against criminal organizations operating in Ecuador.

In port cities, especially Guayaquil and Durán, the number of murders and kidnappings has increased dramatically.

Before the US handed over the Manta base in 2009, it was a key outpost for the war on drugs in South America.

President Noboa has long claimed that the expulsion of the US military was a mistake that allowed international criminal organizations to gain a foothold in Ecuador.