Three Ecuadorians were arrested in Colombia for transporting 90 kilos of explosives to be handed over to FARC dissidents

Three Ecuadorians were imprisoned in Nariño, Colombia, for carrying 90 kilos of explosives that, according to authorities, were to be handed over to the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The defendants managed to evade border controls in Ecuador and crossed into the neighboring country.

The men, who were arrested on the Ipiales-Guachucal highway, hid the explosives in four sacks of onions and carrots. Guillermo David Obando, Germán Raúl Gualavisi, and Miguel Perugachi, from the province of Imbabura, in north-central Ecuador, are accused of being co-authors of the crimes of manufacturing, trafficking, and carrying firearms, and ammunition for private use, restricted by the Armed Forces or aggravated explosives.

The authorities became aware of the explosives when they stopped, at kilometer 3 of the Ipiales-Guachucal road, at the height of the Ipialpud village of this municipality, the individuals. The vehicle in which they were moving had the carrot and onion sacks, but when the search was carried out, the uniformed found 50 bars of the high-powered pentolite explosive, for a total of 90 kilos of explosives. Subjected to forensic studies, each bar weighed 450 grams suitable for detonation, as confirmed by the Colombian Prosecutor's Office.

The shipment, according to Colombian authorities, was intended to be delivered to rebel groups operating in the Colombian municipality of Tumaco, opposite the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas.

Dissidence on the Shared Border

Several studies, including military, recognize that the border shared by Ecuador and Colombia is a high-risk area due to the presence of FARC dissidents. According to an article by Major Fernando Conde and Major Marlo Orbe, of the Ecuadorian Army, published in the Spanish-American edition of the Military Review, dissidents were created during the peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government because there were “divisions between the middle commanders, which generated a breaks organizational objectives and causes mistrust, uncertainty and non-conformity among its members”.

The presence of dissidents combined with the lack of opportunities and the state abandonment have led to the existence of “an inter-domestic conflict” on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border, as defined by the army majors who wrote the article in question. In other words, the problem is of international and domestic interest.

Although it was in 2018 that warnings about the presence of FARC dissidents jumped through the attacks in San Lorenzo and the kidnapping and murder of the newspaper team of Ecuador's El Comercio newspaper; four years after that, dissidents operate on the northern Ecuadorian border.

In January of this year, the Ecuadorian Armed Forces located an illegal rest base for armed groups. The discovery was made in Mataje, a rural parish in the San Lorenzo canton of the province of Esmeraldas. On that occasion, military personnel seized a machine gun, six hand grenades, more than 2,200 ammunition of different caliber, 21 M16 rifle feeders, four combat vests, a kitchen, three backpacks, three batteries for solar panels, 1,156 Colombian pesos, clothing and t-shirts and hats bearing the emblems of the Front Oliver Sinisterra.

The FARC dissident group, known as Oliver Sinisterra, is the armed movement with the greatest access to drug trafficking resources and operates in the department of Nariño, southwestern Colombia, on the border between that country and Ecuador and a six-hour drive between Nariño and San Lorenzo, the canton where Mataje is located. Oliver Sinisterra is known in Ecuador for the kidnapping and murder of the three journalists from the newspaper El Comercio, who were executed on the orders of Walter Arisala, alias Guacho, their then leader who was killed by Colombian security forces in December 2018, eight months after the team's murder journalistic.

On March 21, members of the Ecuadorian Armed Forces located a 60-millimeter mortar shell for military use, also in the Mataje area. According to the authorities, the grenade had been abandoned in the sector by irregular groups.

According to the study by Ecuadorian Army officers, dissidents are closely related to drug trafficking. In this regard, the military researchers point out, “the State must direct its efforts towards the consolidation of strategies and policies that respond to the political, economic and social needs on the northern border, promoting at all costs the development and integrity of the people, through the creation and execution of education, housing, labor, food, health, justice, basic services, unconditional support for the most vulnerable and unprotected peasants, farmers, fishermen, traders and inhabitants of the rural area of the border where poverty is evident”.

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