A woman votes at a polling station in Manabí, one of the provinces where changes were made to the polling stations for the presidential runoff, April 13, 2025 Photo: AFP
Despite Ecuador's attempts to block international observers, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE) documented the violent realities of Daniel Noboa’s militarized election - where Afro-Ecuadorian communities faced repression, environmental racism, and state violence under the guise of a 'War on Drugs.' This report from BAP observers exposes the deepening crisis under Noboa’s regime and the urgent need for an independent Afro-Ecuadorian movement to resist U.S.-backed militarization and defend collective liberation.
The Black Alliance for Peace and Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE) reported back on the Ecuadorian presidential elections held on Sunday, April 13, 2025. Despite the fact the current president, Daniel Noboa, issued a last-minute decree (Decree 597) that sealed the northern and southern borders, intending to deny entry to international observers, the election team for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) was able to enter and observe the elections on the ground.
The National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) has declared Daniel Noboa the winner of the second round of elections, with over an 11-point lead. With this win, it is certain that Noboa’s declared “internal armed struggle” will continue to negatively and disproportionately impact Ecuador’s poor and AfroEcuadorian communities. While the election process ostensibly adhered to international standards, BAP observed several troubling elements, including an excessive military presence, particularly at polling stations located in predominantly AfroEcuadorian precincts. This is precisely why MANE invited an election observation delegation from the BAPs North South Project for People(s)- Centered Human Rights to monitor the situation in those majority African precincts in Guayaquil. It is also reflective of the ongoing human rights issues AfroEcuadorians continue to face since the illegal kidnapping and vicious murder of four AfroEcuadorian youth by Ecuadorian military officials nearly one month ago. These murders are indicative of the human rights crisis Ecuadorians, but particularly AfroEcuadorians, are facing due to the current government’s heavy-handed approach to the phony “War on Drugs.”
BAP’s delegation met with the families of the latest egregious violations to, and systemic dehumanizing of AfroEcuadorians who police snipers shot during an apparent raid on a Black community in a Guayaquil barrio. One died from the attack, and another is now permanently disabled, while a third teenager remains hospitalized and permanently paralyzed. All of these victims’ main crimes are that they are Black and poor.
These conditions directly connect to the situation in the region of Esmeraldas, which is more than 70% AfroEcuadorians, that was recently devastated by an oil spill after a pipeline operated by the state-owned petroleum company PetroEcuador ruptured and released approximately 25,000 barrels of oil. Roughly 300,000 of the region’s 500,000 people and the livelihoods of fishermen, farmers, and others are facing dire conditions. The inadequate response to the devastation by the Ecuadorian government, as well as the global environmental community, showcases the environmental racism experienced by AfroEcuadorians in Esmeralda, which is endemic of environmental injustice shouldered by all oppressed Africans from Cancer Alley in the U.S. to Port Au Prince in the Revolutionary Republic of Haiti. BAP affirms the axiomatic nexus between increasing militarism and an increasing climate crisis that disproportionately impacts Africans and Indigenous peoples the world over.
With Noboa’s win, these conditions will certainly deteriorate further. BAP’s concerns are highlighted by the very real danger of the fulfillment of ongoing efforts to expand the U.S. military’s presence in Ecuador as part of a larger conquest of South America’s Pacific coast. This, in turn, will exacerbate the existing militarized presence in Ecuador under the guise of security, already subjecting Afro, Indigenous, and poor Ecuadorians to daily human rights violations. The development of an independent, national AfroEcuadorian politics is even more urgent than before to not only counter U.S. and Ecuadorian reactionary right-wing forces but to ensure the human rights of AfroEcuadorians through the power of the people and popular mass movements.
To this end, BAP will continue to support MANE in developing an independent national AfroEcuadorian formation that will be able to identify and defend the fundamental human rights of the AfroEcuadorian people. The last nine months of collaboration between BAP and MANE exemplify this development and commitment to a popular process.
No Compromise
No Retreat
Black people are disproportionately convicted of felonies across New York State. In Manhattan, a Black person is 21 times more likely to be convicted of a crime than a white person.
Thank you for your support in 2022. Black Agenda Report Will Return on January 4, 2023.
The effort to save an African cemetery from destruction and desecration, witnessing Cuba and the Black liberation connection, and the impact of a Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Harper.
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is a longtime contributor to Black Agenda Report and the author of No Fear: A Whistelebower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA. She is also the founder of…
Lee Robinson is President of the African Awareness Association. He joins us to discuss that organization’s work, Cuba's role in liberation movement, and a tour to Cuba which will take place in…
