A joint American and Ecuadorian military operation bombed farms and homes in an Amazon village in Ecuador, according to residents and their lawyers.
Ecuador’s defense ministry on March 6 said Operation Total Extermination included aerial bombardment in the province of Sucumbios, which sits in the country's northeastern corner, on the border with Colombia. Ecuadorian officials said the operation, conducted with United States intelligence, destroyed a hideout for a Colombian drug trafficking group.
Residents of San Martin, the farming village of about 27 families in Sucumbios, told USA TODAY that the operation, which took place March 1-6, didn’t target drug traffickers. Instead, they said military personnel destroyed farms. Detained local workers have told a United Nations human rights group that Ecuadorian soldiers tortured them.
"The government’s version is that they bombed encampments of certain armed groups," Vicente Garrido, vice president of the community of San Martin, who has lived there for nearly 40 years, said in an interview. "But what we’re showing the world is that these aren’t encampments, these are peasants’ homes."
American military personnel said the operation showed the success of the partnership with Ecuador, whose conservative government has emerged as a key ally of the Trump administration in Latin America.
