The Diplomat
The Association of Media Editors of the European Union and Latin America, EditoRed, to which The Diplomat in Spain belongs, strongly condemns the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio Valencia on Wednesday, according to a statement published on its website and reproduced in full below.
“We send our solidarity embrace to the family of the man who was also a critical journalist, as well as a prominent politician and activist. We join the grieving voice of his relatives to demand with them justice for this crime that shocks not only Ecuador but the world. We feel their pain as our own and we also make their struggle our own so that the circumstances of the vile attack are fully clarified and that the culprits, at all levels of responsibility, are held accountable before the law and its operators. The world, through the eyes of the free journalism that we defend, will be closely watching the outcome of the trial.
Our solidarity goes also to all the Ecuadorian people. We are sure that in this expression of support at such a difficult time we are conveying the general feeling of the citizens of the nations we serve through journalism.
Ecuador does not deserve to be held hostage to a wave of violence that has not been brought under control, that is getting worse and worse and that has not found in the country’s main political actors clear signs of a joint and agreed solution to put a stop to the organised crime that has sown terror in this beloved Latin American country.
Journalism has also suffered in this wave of violence. Recently, five journalists have had to leave Ecuador because of the risks to their lives. They did so, surely, remembering that earlier, in 2018, the worst threats were carried out against three members of a journalistic team of the newspaper El Comercio, murdered in Colombia, in the border area with Ecuador, by armed groups, in an unprecedented event and, until now, without full punishment or clarification. To the Ecuadorian journalists, especially to those who are being threatened, to those who have had to leave their country, may these words of encouragement and support come from their colleagues in the rest of Latin America and the European Union. You can count on us.
Through the media that make up this journalistic network, including The Diplomat in Spain, we ask societies, governments and institutions in the rest of America and Europe, especially, not to look the other way. The situation in Ecuador should affect us all, as well as the situation of other nations in both continents, which are immersed in wars of all kinds and with victims of all kinds. If we allow violence to go unpunished, we are condemned to live in a world without real democracy, perhaps one of apparent well-being, one in which citizenship cannot be exercised freely, a world without peace”.
Widespread condemnation in Spain
The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday expressed Spain’s condemnation of the murder of Fernando Villavicencio, candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador, in its X account.
In a message, the Foreign Ministry stressed that Spain “regrets and condemns” the murder of Villavicencio and added: “We support Ecuador’s electoral process, its democracy and the authorities so that this tragic death is investigated and the guilty parties are brought to justice”.
Villavicencio was shot dead on Wednesday afternoon by gunmen as he left a rally of his party, Movimiento Construye, in Quito, an event that has sent shockwaves through Ecuador, where the centre-right candidate was one of the favourites to win the presidential election against the leftist former president Rafael Correa, who leads Revolución Ciudadana.
In Spain, People’s Party president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also expressed his condolences on social media to the Ecuadorian people and the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, for the “brutal murder” of Villavicencio. She added: “Democracy must prevail over infamies such as yesterday’s”.
Similarly, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in her X account, after describing Villavicencio’s murder as “terrible”, recalled that Villavicencio “had been denouncing for years the links between drug trafficking and the networks of the revolutionary ultra-left”. “In the face of heroes like him, what right do we have here to retreat in the face of totalitarianism for political expediency?”, she added.
From Vox, its president, Santiago Abascal, said the murder “is the sad demonstration of everything we denounce and fight against”. “Organised crime, the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group are the greatest threat facing free nations,” he said.
The secretary general of the Communist Party of Spain and deputy for Sumar, Enrique Santiago, while condemning Villavicencio’s murder and sending his condolences to his family and loved ones, then wrote, “The death of the alleged murderer by the police makes it difficult to clarify the crime and allows the right to intoxicate by blaming Revolución Ciudadana, at the head of the polls.
