AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Voters in Ecuador will decide today whether they'll allow the U.S. to have military bases in their country. Backers of a national referendum say Ecuador needs international support to stem soaring violence from drug gangs. Traffickers control large parts of the country, especially along its Pacific Coast, where fishermen say they're being squeezed by the gangs. But those same fishermen are now also at risk of being targets for the U.S. military, which for months has been bombing boats it alleges are transporting narcotics. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports from the southern coast of Ecuador.
(CROSSTALK)
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: In this small but bustling Santa Rosa port, Jose Vera (ph) has his spot on one of the lower stone steps that lead right into the light blue water.
JOSE VERA: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "I sell every type of fish," he says, "pompano, corvina, robalo, but times are tough."
VERA: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "It's difficult to make a living at sea," he says, "from warming waters, fewer fish and rising crime." He doesn't want to get into too much detail - too many people listening.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOAT ENGINE STARTING)
KAHN: But offshore, not far from the busy market, fishermen just back from the sea have plenty to say.
GABRIEL: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "It's very dangerous now," says this 40-year-old fisherman who asked us to only use his first name, Gabriel. Like many we talked to, he's afraid of violent retribution from the gangs. He says pirates, as the locals call them, extort and rob them at sea.
GABRIEL: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "They come at you, firing into the water, and grab onto your boat," he says. "They take everything - our gas, our motors, which cost from $10,000 to $15,000."
Another man nearby tells how pirates recently took his crew's motor, all their food and drinking water, leaving them adrift for days. Luckily, he says they were rescued by fellow fishermen. Gabriel says he's also paying monthly extortion fees called vacunas, or vaccines. His is up to $200 a month. Despite all this, he's voting no in today's referendum on U.S. military bases. He says, Washington isn't interested in helping little guys like us. He wants Ecuador's own police to do their jobs and stop the gangs.
GABRIEL: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "There's no authority in the waters or on land," he says. "It's so dangerous. You go out and you never know if you're going to come back alive."
With fishermen struggling, many have become easy recruits for drug traffickers. A drug run can reap thousands of dollars. Some, like those just looking for better money, have taken the risk. One local fisherman, Andres Fernando Tufino, survived a recent U.S. military strike while traveling in a semisubmersible with a Colombian national in the Caribbean. Tufino had prior trafficking ties. In 2000, he was caught after leaving Ecuador's coast in a fast boat with more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine, according to court documents. He was convicted and spent four years in a federal prison in California. Jeremy Warren, his defense attorney at the time, says Tufino had a large family to support, and, like most recruited by traffickers, was poor and desperate.
JEREMY WARREN: They also have, on the other hand, incredible navigational skills. I mean, they're mechanics and weathermen, navigators. It's a perfect marriage for the cartels to take advantage of their desperation and use them as transporters on the high seas.
KAHN: Warren, like other critics of the U.S. military strikes, says once the boats are blown up, so is a lot of evidence that could lead authorities to the leaders and profiters of the drug trade. President Trump, however, insists his campaign against drug runners is a powerful deterrent. But most fishermen we talked to hadn't heard of the U.S. strikes, like Pedro, a 65-year-old fisherman who also fears the gangs. They recently robbed him of his outboard motor. He's now struggling to pay for the replacement and make his monthly extortion payments.
PEDRO: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "I pay $30 a month and can only fish close to the coastline now," he says. His son also had his outboard motor stolen by the gangs. He went into debt and fell into drug use. While in rehab, they grabbed him and forced him to make a fast boat run with 2,000 pounds of cocaine, says his mother. She also gave only her first name, Dolores (ph). We're talking inside their small cinder-block house not far from the port.
DOLORES: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: She says her son wasn't a bad person. He made a bad decision. He was caught off the shores of the Galapagos Islands by Ecuadorian officials. Her son isn't a terrorist. She says the real terrorists are the gang leaders.
DOLORES: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "They have no heart," she says, "and evil is winning out."
Her son was sentenced to 22 years in prison in Ecuador. The family has spent all their savings on lawyers and payments to the prison's gang to keep him safe and fed. As for Tufino, the Ecuadorian survivor of the recent U.S. military strike, after his rescue by the U.S. Navy, he was repatriated. Authorities here, however, said he hadn't committed any crimes in Ecuador, and he was released.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Salinas, Ecuador.
(SOUNDBITE OF HERMANOS GUTIERREZ'S "MESA REDONDA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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