As tensions continue over tariffs between Colombia and Ecuador, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, reported on the morning of April 29 alleged incursions by Colombian guerrillas driven, apparently, by President Gustavo Petro.
Given this, the Colombian head of state responded to him on the afternoon of the same Wednesday, where he invited him to meet personally: “You go to the northern border and meet me and we will build peace in those territories, stop believing lies.”
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Tensions between Colombia and Ecuador
Tariffs between Colombia and Ecuador. Photo:AI
These accusations come amid an escalation of tensions between both leaders and a trade war.
“Several sources have informed us of an incursion along the northern border by Colombian guerrillas, promoted by the Petro Government,” Noboa stated on social networks. who started the trade war with the neighboring country by considering that Colombia is not doing enough to prevent criminal organizations and cocaine produced in that country from reaching Ecuador.
“President Petro, “Dedicate yourself to improving the lives of your people instead of wanting to export problems to neighboring countries.”added the Ecuadorian president, in whose communication he did not offer details of the point at which the incursion of guerrillas he mentions supposedly took place.
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In recent years, the presence and influence of dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been consolidated in the Ecuadorian territory near the border, such as the Oliver Sinisterra Front and the Border Commandos, dedicated not only to drug trafficking, but also to illegal mining in different points of the border geography of Ecuador.
Noboa has declared the Border Commandos and other criminal groups in Colombia as terrorists, in the same way that he has done with the Ecuadorian criminal gangs to which the worst violence crisis in the history of the country is attributedlocated at the head of Latin America in homicides with a rate of more than 50 per 100,000 inhabitants per year.
In this context, Noboa started a trade war last February to pressure Colombia to carry out greater surveillance of the border, considering that the situation of criminal violence in Ecuador is caused by the tons of cocaine that enter the country from the neighboring country to be sent from its ports and coasts to North America and Europe.
Trade war and bombings
Presidents Gustavo Petro (Colombia) and Daniel Noboa (Ecuador). Photo:Presidency
The trade war has escalated to the imposition of 100 percent tariffs that will come into force from May 1, along with other economic sanctions.
In that context, The Armed Forces of Ecuador began bombing alleged criminal gang camps at the beginning of March on the border with Colombia with support from the United States.
One of those bombs appeared in a coca field in Colombia, in an incident that raised tensions and ultimately It was resolved when it was considered that the device had bounced off Ecuadorian territory without detonating.
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Recently, the fight between both rulers intensified when Gustavo Petro insisted that former Correista vice president Jorge Glas be released. who is serving two sentences for corruption in prison and that Noboa ordered to be recaptured in an assault on the Embassy from Mexico in 2024 when he had received asylum from the Mexican Government.
In response, Noboa has accused Petro of allegedly having a relationship with drug trafficker José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias Fito, top leader of Los Choneros, the oldest criminal gang operating in Ecuador, during his two-day stay in the coastal city of Manta in 2025 after going to Quito for the inauguration ceremony of the Ecuadorian president, something that the Colombian president denies.
EFE Agency.
