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The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I hate the arrangements!' Two Bruce superfans dissect Springsteen's lavish lost albums box set
Bruce Springsteen is opening his treasure trove: Tracks II: The Lost Albums features 83 previously unheard songs – unless of course you're one of the close friends that Springsteen has apparently been playing them to 'for years' – from unreleased albums made in the gaps between his storied catalogue, spanning 1983 to 2018. To make sense of this vast tranche of new material, we got 'tramps' Michael Hann and Laura Barton to pull apart the risks, regrets and riches in this landmark box set. Michael Hann I saw the trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere the other day, which shows the symbolic moment in which the young Bruce buys his first new car, a 305 V8. 'It's awfully fitting for a handsome devil rock star,' the salesman says, leaning through the window. 'I do know who you are.' Springsteen looks up and says, wistfully. 'Well, that makes one of us.' I think that captures what Tracks II: The Lost Albums are, with Springsteen making sense of himself in those years when the world had decided on a very clear idea of which Bruce Springsteen it wanted, thank you very much. My feeling is that now, he's very clearly delineated the Boss from another, more nuanced version of Bruce Springsteen. The Boss tours with the E Street Band; Bruce Springsteen writes a memoir, performs a Broadway one-man show, makes left-field records following his muse. Now he's maybe able to do what he wanted to do in the late 80s and through the 90s because he's secure in being able to switch between those two ideas – and he does know 'the Boss' is an idea that he created – and also secure that his audience trusts him enough not always to be the Boss. Laura Barton I think you're spot on about this, and particularly about what The Lost Albums are. But it's interesting that even in the early 80s, shortly before these recordings began, he stepped away from being the Boss – releasing Nebraska rather than Born in the USA. I'm never quite sure whether that was through confidence or compulsion or a kind of necessity. Whatever it was, I think it established a tension between these two Bruces that has proved fruitful. I should probably add that maybe that tension began with songs like Stolen Car and The River in 1980, but that's for another conversation, and probably he addresses it himself in 1987 on Tunnel of Love's Two Faces … MH Where do you hear the closest to your platonic ideal of Bruce within this set? LB In the first two tracks from the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, made around 1993 – Blind Spot and Maybe I Don't Know You. They have all that encroaching darkness that marks my favourite Bruce songs. You? MH I thought it would be on LA Garage Sessions '83. They really did just sound like band demos. What surprised me and tickled me the most was Twilight Hours, the Bacharach-style album, where there were plenty of other musicians. He wrote this in tandem with 2019's Western Stars, and while I wasn't mad about Western Stars, I thought the Twilight Hours songs found something very reflective of age in them, and also take Bruce back to an American bar tradition, albeit a different kind of bar to The Stone Pony. LB I laughed out loud when Twilight Hours opened, in a warm and surprised way. I love that tradition of American songwriting – and performance. It's Bacharach, but there's a lot of the longing of Jimmy Webb or Glen Campbell to the material. But his voice here is fascinating to me, because I'm guessing for a lot of singers there comes a point where they wonder which way to go, and an awful lot of well-known artists pursue the classics and mine the American songbook and take on that sort of fireside persona, and it's interesting that Bruce could have taken that path. MH That's interesting, because I don't hear these songs that way. Darkness on the Edge of Town, from 1978, is my favourite Springsteen album, and this seems – in a very peculiar way – a companion to that. It sounds like the record the parents of the characters in Darkness might have been listening to, addressing their concerns. LB That's a good way to put it, but I'm not saying it sounds like a fireside album. I'm saying that the croon of his voice opens that avenue, and it's not one I ever considered for Bruce. MH You're right about the croon. I think his voice sounds better on Twilight Hours than it does on rock songs now. It's nice not hearing the effort. But I want to bring you back to the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions. I love the songs there, but hate the arrangements. Well not even the arrangements. The drum loops, inspired in part by the era's west coast hip-hop. It dates it all so badly. I keep expecting manager Jon Landau to shout: 'Hear the drummer get wicked!' We both have bits of the Bruce catalogue we don't much like the sound of. But this? LB I love those loops and will defend them to the death. MH You OK, hun? You've hardly touched your Little Steven bandana print toilet paper. LB When I heard they would be included I feared they would sound dated, but unexpectedly I just don't think they do. There's something very stark and sombre about the way they're used. I'm listening to Streets of Philadelphia's Blind Spot and there's a yelp in there that is very different to the howl of say, I'm on Fire or Atlantic City, but there's something animalistic about it that hits a similar spot for me. Some of my favourite Bruce moments across his career are those beyond-words utterances. MH I quite like the fact this is, in the main, a bunch of genre exercises. I usually think his genre pastiches are the weakest thing in his repertoire – top o' the mornin' to you Irish-American folk-punk – but putting these collections out in this way enables me to hear them not as 'the album after Tom Joad' or whatever, but as discrete little packages. LB Oh that's interesting, because I now don't see them as discrete little packages so much as ongoing conversations with his own music. MH I know that's what they are for him. Because he's been having that conversation with these songs over years, whereas for me they're brand new information. It's like hearing an old friend say: 'Did I ever tell you about the time I got married and divorced in a weekend in Ulaanbaatar?' LB Do you think that will change with repeated listening? Because the way I've been listening to them over the past few weeks has been mixed in with the rest of his repertoire. Sort of stitching them back into the fabric of what I already know and love. Sign up to Sleeve Notes Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week after newsletter promotion MH Yes, I think they will – as lots of the songs from the first Tracks collection, or from the Darkness and River boxes have. I'm fascinated by the way a generation of older musicians – Bruce, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell – have been emptying their vaults. I can't imagine it's solely about raking in those sweet geriatric bucks. I wonder if they all, in their ways, want to forestall all the questioning about, well, everything. It's as if they're saying: Here it all is, everything that has passed through my musical mind; you decide for yourself. LB My suspicion is that it's something to do with the freedom and sure-footedness you can find the older you get. That it's something about not being afraid to be seen. So in the same way that Bruce wrote the autobiography and the Broadway show, and some of that exposed elements of his life and career that a younger Bruce might have wanted to keep hidden – to me this feels like an extension of that. And maybe there's a connection to the opening of the new Springsteen Archives/Center for American Music next year: a gift to our understanding of a body of work. It's acknowledging that there's illumination in showing your working. MH There's something he's said in interviews that interests me, when he has said his audience 'wasn't ready' for these albums. Which suggests a certain insecurity he has since overcome. Because, in truth, only the obsessional are going to be delving deep into this much music, and that's fine, and that would have been true then, as well. But at that time, without the E Street Band, he maybe felt he risked too much. So if he wasn't going to make rock music for the best part of a decade, he had best not throw out too much non-rock, so that the rockers were still there when he was ready to come back. I don't think there's any such insecurity now he plays to 75,000 people a night again in Europe. LB Yes, possibly. Or maybe it wasn't insecurity, it was just Bruce's understanding of how much an audience can take. I'm always really interested in how he knows just how long to take any solo or musical diversion or 'jam' in a live show. It never feels indulgent to me. In a similar way, I think he has a profound understanding of what an audience can take in a broader sense, perhaps before they do. Also, side note, I think a lot of the audience not being 'ready' relates to my beloved Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, and Bruce thinking audiences weren't able to take a fourth album about curdled relationships after Tunnel of Love, Human Touch and Lucky Town. MH Can we talk about the missing thing? Electric Nebraska. In a Rolling Stone piece, Springsteen first said no such thing existed. Then a week later he texted the writer to say: Oh, I had a poke and there is an Electric Nebraska, 'though it does not have the full album of songs'. Which strikes me as both coy and disingenuous. But that seems so much part of this story, and I can only guess that's being held back for a Nebraska reissue to go with the film. Is it churlish to be unhappy about something missing from several hours of unheard music? LB Yes it is churlish! I'm teasing you. Let's discuss it! MH You talked about this music being part of the ongoing conversation. In this case, it feels a little like your friend telling you: 'That thing you really want to know? I'll probably tell you. Yeah, but not now.' LB To which I would say: 'That's fine, it's yours to tell or not tell.' MH Which album do you think is weakest? For me, it's Faithless, recorded between 2005 and 2006 as a soundtrack to a movie that never got made. I think it's the weakest not because of any explicit shortcomings on its part, but more because its sonic character isn't as fully defined as the others: it sounds as though any one of those songs could have been on the other records, but few of those songs could have been on Faithless. LB I actually like Faithless. Though at times it was one of the points in this collection that made me want to hear Bruce work with other, more unexpected collaborators. I'd love to hear a soundtrack that set Bruce's voice against, say, an Oliver Coates cello piece. I took a little longer to find my footing in Inyo. Which surprised me, because Inyo really came out of The Ghost of Tom Joad, which I love. MH I love the splashes of colour on Inyo from the mariachi band. It's not quite the mariachi album that was billed, but there's a joy in those songs – amid the hard times of a lot of the lyrics – that, again, reminds me of the thing the E Street Band do of finding joy in the despair. LB Yes, I think it took a while for me to see those splashes of colour, because for a while it all felt quite bleached-out. What did you think of Perfect World? Less an album, more a compilation of tracks from the mid-90 to early 2010s. MH It's a ragbag, but I think he was right that the collection needed some rock, and while there's no Badlands on it, there are some songs I'd be very happy to hear in the live set. I guess what's amazing is that at this point it is possible for Springsteen to release all this unheard music and for it to contain music that's not just interesting, not just decent, but contains a worthwhile number of songs that genuinely bear comparison to anything from any point in his career. The Klansman, Shut Out the Light, High Sierra – those all seem like masterpieces to me. And, as with Tracks, there are some smaller numbers that are fantastic – Janey, Don't Lose Your Heart on both Tracks collections, and on this one The Great Depression is, I suspect, going to be my go-to semi-throwaway. LB I was going to ask you if there is a song on this collection you think might grow to be one of your favourites? I know when I got Dylan's Biograph the version of I'll Keep It With Mine on there eventually became my favourite Dylan song of all time. I'm not sure whether I've yet found that overwhelming feeling about a song here yet, but I agree with you about The Klansman and High Sierra. And I could see my relationship with Maybe I Don't Know You becoming quite intense. MH And there's Tracks III to come, touted as five more albums-worth of music stretching from his debut in 1973 to last year. Plus – I bet – Electric Nebraska. It feels like so much. I just hope we get to hear some of this music some time. Preferably standing next to each other. Bruce Springsteen's Tracks II: The Lost Albums is released on Sony on 27 June
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I hate the arrangements!' Two Bruce superfans dissect Springsteen's lavish lost albums box set
Bruce Springsteen is opening his treasure trove: Tracks II: The Lost Albums features 83 previously unheard songs – unless of course you're one of the close friends that Springsteen has apparently been playing them to 'for years' – from unreleased albums made in the gaps between his storied catalogue, spanning 1983 to 2018. To make sense of this vast tranche of new material, we got 'tramps' Michael Hann and Laura Barton to pull apart the risks, regrets and riches in this landmark box set. Michael Hann I saw the trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere the other day, which shows the symbolic moment in which the young Bruce buys his first new car, a 305 V8. 'It's awfully fitting for a handsome devil rock star,' the salesman says, leaning through the window. 'I do know who you are.' Springsteen looks up and says, wistfully. 'Well, that makes one of us.' I think that captures what Tracks II: The Lost Albums are, with Springsteen making sense of himself in those years when the world had decided on a very clear idea of which Bruce Springsteen it wanted, thank you very much. My feeling is that now, he's very clearly delineated the Boss from another, more nuanced version of Bruce Springsteen. The Boss tours with the E Street Band; Bruce Springsteen writes a memoir, performs a Broadway one-man show, makes left-field records following his muse. Now he's maybe able to do what he wanted to do in the late 80s and through the 90s because he's secure in being able to switch between those two ideas – and he does know 'the Boss' is an idea that he created – and also secure that his audience trusts him enough not always to be the Boss. Laura Barton I think you're spot on about this, and particularly about what The Lost Albums are. But it's interesting that even in the early 80s, shortly before these recordings began, he stepped away from being the Boss – releasing Nebraska rather than Born in the USA. I'm never quite sure whether that was through confidence or compulsion or a kind of necessity. Whatever it was, I think it established a tension between these two Bruces that has proved fruitful. I should probably add that maybe that tension began with songs like Stolen Car and The River in 1980, but that's for another conversation, and probably he addresses it himself in 1987 on Tunnel of Love's Two Faces … MH Where do you hear the closest to your platonic ideal of Bruce within this set? LB In the first two tracks from the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, made around 1993 – Blind Spot and Maybe I Don't Know You. They have all that encroaching darkness that marks my favourite Bruce songs. You? MH I thought it would be on LA Garage Sessions '83. They really did just sound like band demos. What surprised me and tickled me the most was Twilight Hours, the Bacharach-style album, where there were plenty of other musicians. He wrote this in tandem with 2019's Western Stars, and while I wasn't mad about Western Stars, I thought the Twilight Hours songs found something very reflective of age in them, and also take Bruce back to an American bar tradition, albeit a different kind of bar to The Stone Pony. LB I laughed out loud when Twilight Hours opened, in a warm and surprised way. I love that tradition of American songwriting – and performance. It's Bacharach, but there's a lot of the longing of Jimmy Webb or Glen Campbell to the material. But his voice here is fascinating to me, because I'm guessing for a lot of singers there comes a point where they wonder which way to go, and an awful lot of well-known artists pursue the classics and mine the American songbook and take on that sort of fireside persona, and it's interesting that Bruce could have taken that path. MH That's interesting, because I don't hear these songs that way. Darkness on the Edge of Town, from 1978, is my favourite Springsteen album, and this seems – in a very peculiar way – a companion to that. It sounds like the record the parents of the characters in Darkness might have been listening to, addressing their concerns. LB That's a good way to put it, but I'm not saying it sounds like a fireside album. I'm saying that the croon of his voice opens that avenue, and it's not one I ever considered for Bruce. MH You're right about the croon. I think his voice sounds better on Twilight Hours than it does on rock songs now. It's nice not hearing the effort. But I want to bring you back to the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions. I love the songs there, but hate the arrangements. Well not even the arrangements. The drum loops, inspired in part by the era's west coast hip-hop. It dates it all so badly. I keep expecting manager Jon Landau to shout: 'Hear the drummer get wicked!' We both have bits of the Bruce catalogue we don't much like the sound of. But this? LB I love those loops and will defend them to the death. MH You OK, hun? You've hardly touched your Little Steven bandana print toilet paper. LB When I heard they would be included I feared they would sound dated, but unexpectedly I just don't think they do. There's something very stark and sombre about the way they're used. I'm listening to Streets of Philadelphia's Blind Spot and there's a yelp in there that is very different to the howl of say, I'm on Fire or Atlantic City, but there's something animalistic about it that hits a similar spot for me. Some of my favourite Bruce moments across his career are those beyond-words utterances. MH I quite like the fact this is, in the main, a bunch of genre exercises. I usually think his genre pastiches are the weakest thing in his repertoire – top o' the mornin' to you Irish-American folk-punk – but putting these collections out in this way enables me to hear them not as 'the album after Tom Joad' or whatever, but as discrete little packages. LB Oh that's interesting, because I now don't see them as discrete little packages so much as ongoing conversations with his own music. MH I know that's what they are for him. Because he's been having that conversation with these songs over years, whereas for me they're brand new information. It's like hearing an old friend say: 'Did I ever tell you about the time I got married and divorced in a weekend in Ulaanbaatar?' LB Do you think that will change with repeated listening? Because the way I've been listening to them over the past few weeks has been mixed in with the rest of his repertoire. Sort of stitching them back into the fabric of what I already know and love. Sign up to Sleeve Notes Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week after newsletter promotion MH Yes, I think they will – as lots of the songs from the first Tracks collection, or from the Darkness and River boxes have. I'm fascinated by the way a generation of older musicians – Bruce, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell – have been emptying their vaults. I can't imagine it's solely about raking in those sweet geriatric bucks. I wonder if they all, in their ways, want to forestall all the questioning about, well, everything. It's as if they're saying: Here it all is, everything that has passed through my musical mind; you decide for yourself. LB My suspicion is that it's something to do with the freedom and sure-footedness you can find the older you get. That it's something about not being afraid to be seen. So in the same way that Bruce wrote the autobiography and the Broadway show, and some of that exposed elements of his life and career that a younger Bruce might have wanted to keep hidden – to me this feels like an extension of that. And maybe there's a connection to the opening of the new Springsteen Archives/Center for American Music next year: a gift to our understanding of a body of work. It's acknowledging that there's illumination in showing your working. MH There's something he's said in interviews that interests me, when he has said his audience 'wasn't ready' for these albums. Which suggests a certain insecurity he has since overcome. Because, in truth, only the obsessional are going to be delving deep into this much music, and that's fine, and that would have been true then, as well. But at that time, without the E Street Band, he maybe felt he risked too much. So if he wasn't going to make rock music for the best part of a decade, he had best not throw out too much non-rock, so that the rockers were still there when he was ready to come back. I don't think there's any such insecurity now he plays to 75,000 people a night again in Europe. LB Yes, possibly. Or maybe it wasn't insecurity, it was just Bruce's understanding of how much an audience can take. I'm always really interested in how he knows just how long to take any solo or musical diversion or 'jam' in a live show. It never feels indulgent to me. In a similar way, I think he has a profound understanding of what an audience can take in a broader sense, perhaps before they do. Also, side note, I think a lot of the audience not being 'ready' relates to my beloved Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, and Bruce thinking audiences weren't able to take a fourth album about curdled relationships after Tunnel of Love, Human Touch and Lucky Town. MH Can we talk about the missing thing? Electric Nebraska. In a Rolling Stone piece, Springsteen first said no such thing existed. Then a week later he texted the writer to say: Oh, I had a poke and there is an Electric Nebraska, 'though it does not have the full album of songs'. Which strikes me as both coy and disingenuous. But that seems so much part of this story, and I can only guess that's being held back for a Nebraska reissue to go with the film. Is it churlish to be unhappy about something missing from several hours of unheard music? LB Yes it is churlish! I'm teasing you. Let's discuss it! MH You talked about this music being part of the ongoing conversation. In this case, it feels a little like your friend telling you: 'That thing you really want to know? I'll probably tell you. Yeah, but not now.' LB To which I would say: 'That's fine, it's yours to tell or not tell.' MH Which album do you think is weakest? For me, it's Faithless, recorded between 2005 and 2006 as a soundtrack to a movie that never got made. I think it's the weakest not because of any explicit shortcomings on its part, but more because its sonic character isn't as fully defined as the others: it sounds as though any one of those songs could have been on the other records, but few of those songs could have been on Faithless. LB I actually like Faithless. Though at times it was one of the points in this collection that made me want to hear Bruce work with other, more unexpected collaborators. I'd love to hear a soundtrack that set Bruce's voice against, say, an Oliver Coates cello piece. I took a little longer to find my footing in Inyo. Which surprised me, because Inyo really came out of The Ghost of Tom Joad, which I love. MH I love the splashes of colour on Inyo from the mariachi band. It's not quite the mariachi album that was billed, but there's a joy in those songs – amid the hard times of a lot of the lyrics – that, again, reminds me of the thing the E Street Band do of finding joy in the despair. LB Yes, I think it took a while for me to see those splashes of colour, because for a while it all felt quite bleached-out. What did you think of Perfect World? Less an album, more a compilation of tracks from the mid-90 to early 2010s. MH It's a ragbag, but I think he was right that the collection needed some rock, and while there's no Badlands on it, there are some songs I'd be very happy to hear in the live set. I guess what's amazing is that at this point it is possible for Springsteen to release all this unheard music and for it to contain music that's not just interesting, not just decent, but contains a worthwhile number of songs that genuinely bear comparison to anything from any point in his career. The Klansman, Shut Out the Light, High Sierra – those all seem like masterpieces to me. And, as with Tracks, there are some smaller numbers that are fantastic – Janey, Don't Lose Your Heart on both Tracks collections, and on this one The Great Depression is, I suspect, going to be my go-to semi-throwaway. LB I was going to ask you if there is a song on this collection you think might grow to be one of your favourites? I know when I got Dylan's Biograph the version of I'll Keep It With Mine on there eventually became my favourite Dylan song of all time. I'm not sure whether I've yet found that overwhelming feeling about a song here yet, but I agree with you about The Klansman and High Sierra. And I could see my relationship with Maybe I Don't Know You becoming quite intense. MH And there's Tracks III to come, touted as five more albums-worth of music stretching from his debut in 1973 to last year. Plus – I bet – Electric Nebraska. It feels like so much. I just hope we get to hear some of this music some time. Preferably standing next to each other. Bruce Springsteen's Tracks II: The Lost Albums is released on Sony on 27 June
Daily Mail
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The new most dangerous country in the world: The 'island of peace' nation that spiralled into uncontrolled bloodshed with drug cartels who cut out hearts and send severed heads to their enemies' wives
It was just after midday at the riverside community of Playas del Cuyabeno when the mob attacked. A British man was said to have been dragged out of a police station in Ecuador, taken out into the street and 'set on fire until he died'. Police said Michael Hann had been arrested for his own safety earlier that day, on April 20, after being 'beaten by local residents' who accused him of a fatal shooting. Such stories have become commonplace in the country, which only a few years ago was one of the safest in Latin America. Authorities have lost their monopoly on violence, pitting the state against vicious gangs, cartels and, in some cases, even residents undeterred by threat of prison. With violence spiralling, the government has borrowed from the playbook of Nayib Bukele, the strongman ruler of El Salvador whose brutal crackdowns on gangs have horrified global onlookers. But Ecuador's gangs, strengthened by drug money from neighbouring Colombia, are far more resilient than those to the north, and even prison guards have their price in a country riddled with corruption. In only a few short years, peace has made way for an imported normalisation of beheadings, car bombs, public hangings and hostage taking. On Valentine's Day, a man gunned down had his head cut off and sent to his wife, his heart cut out and sent to his parents, according to police. President Daniel Noboa has not given up yet, carrying out almost nightly raids on gang strongholds and showing off impressive hauls of guns and drugs designed to assure the public. His show of resistance helped secure an historic re-election in April. But in an increasingly insecure country, with no clear clear path to recovery, there is still no sign that Ecuador is any closer to ending the scourge of lawlessness and disorder blighting its streets. Security forces stand guard at a polling station during the presidential runoff election in Guayaquil, Guayas province, Ecuador, on April 13, 2025 'Ecuador is changing,' President Daniel Noboa assured his supporters in his victory speech last month after securing re-election. 'Ecuador has already chosen a different path. And that path will allow our children to live better lives than we did.' Such words carry weight in a country worn down by half a decade of brutal gang violence. In 2019, it was one of the safest countries in the region, with a homicide rate of 6.7 per 100,000 people. By comparison, the U.S. had a homicide rate of 5.0 per 100,000 in the same year, according to the FBI. Mexico's was 29.31. But growing demand for drugs, including cocaine, in foreign markets has galvanised Ecuadorian gangs, resulting in larger - and bloodier - turf wars. These clashes have seen the homicide rate inflate rapidly in recent years, with local estimates suggesting this had risen to 45, or even 47, per 100,000 by 2023. The country had been rocked by a spate of bombings, kidnappings and attacks on civilian infrastructure as rival gangs compete with each other and the state for influence in an increasingly weary nation. Civilians are not exempt from the attacks; in April 2023, nine victims, aged 28 to 79, were gunned down in broad daylight at a fishing port in Esmeraldas. Government officials said rival drug pushers were the likely targets, probably shot for not paying protection money. The same month, the bodies of three women - aged 19, 21 and 22 - were found dumped in a shallow grave in the city, apparently tortured and with their throats slit after disappearing on a beach trip. Relatives said they did not believe the killings were linked to drug trafficking. A month prior, three severed heads were found wrapped in black bags. One was still a teenager, his devastated mother said, tasked with identifying the remains. Other gang members have been publicly hanged and left on bridges as a warning to rivals. While running on a centrist platform, Noboa risks falling victim to the allure of populism in his bid to wrestle back control. His promises for growth are said to be overstated, public spending has soared - and now he seeks to spend $52 million on a mega prison for the country's worst offenders, mirroring's El Salvador's descent into an unending 'state of emergency'. Noboa will point to his success in bringing down the homicide rate, which fell to 39 per 100,000 in 2024. But that progress had been largely undone by the turn of the new year, with recorded killings reaching record highs January and February. In March, at the height of the run-up to the election, at least 22 people were killed in the key port city of Guayaquil after rival trafficking factions exchanged shots. Guayaquil has borne the brunt of the violence, strategically situated on the Babahayo River with access to the South Pacific Ocean -- useful for moving drugs to the United States. Gun battles broke out across the northern neighborhood of Nueva Prosperina on March 6 between members of criminal group Los Tiguerones, one of the most powerful gangs in the country. 'The problem is that they know each other, they know where they live, and they're fighting over who has power over that territory,' local police chief Pablo Davila told reporters. Images and videos posted on social media showed several heavily armed men running around the district during the violent attack. Police launched an offensive in response, carrying out around 200 searches and seizing guns and ammunition. Fourteen people, including two minors, were arrested in the area. But police are doubtful their raids have all that much impact. 'We can take these guys off the streets but there will be two more outfits that spring up in their place,' one officer said as suspects were led away. Noboa, then seeking re-election, said military and police officers would be allowed to respond to the violence in Guayaquil without fear of being punished for acting with a heavy hand. Detainees, weapons, drugs an ammunition are presented to media members after an operation carried out in the neighborhood where at least 22 people were killed on the eve in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on March 7, 2025 The gangs, considered terrorist groups by the government, operate with little regard for such threats. Police are underprepared and underpaid, unwilling to enter some neighbourhoods. And with the backing of established Mexican gangs, few targets are off limits for the gangs. In June last year, an Ecuadorian MP was murdered outside a circus in the city of Manta during a livestreamed interview. Cristhian Nieto, 34, was gunned down with his wife as he ushered children towards their seats, after telling a journalist how happy he was that his event had been a success. It was not immediately clear who shot Nieto. Local media referenced the sprawling crime epidemic and gangs linked to the cocaine trade, as well as the shooting of the mayor of San Vicente Brigitte García in March that year and the assassination of the mayor of Manta Agustin a year before. Gangs also assassinated presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August 2023, and set off car bombs in front of government buildings. Foreign targets are no safer. In December 2023, a former British consul and his Colombian mistress were snatched outside Guayaquil by Los Tiguerones, bundled into his car and taken to a remote farm in the countryside. The gang members demanded millions from Colin Armstrong, then 78, before freeing partner Katherine Paola Santos, now 30, to deliver a phone to his son for negotiations. Ms Santos was fitted with what she believed was a bomb vest and told that if she went near a police station it would detonate. She was left to deliver the phone to Mr Armstrong's son, Nick, who had replaced him as consul. Mr Armstrong told The Times this week that he had no idea whether he would survive the ordeal. He had read recently of a kidnap victim losing fingers. When his captors asked if they had tracking implants (to deter kidnap), he feared they might 'produce a razor to find out'. Hostage negotiators worked carefully in the delicate hours that followed to keep Mr Armstrong alive and bring down the ransom. Mr Armstrong promised he would pay out, and was eventually freed 'by a roadside near a brothel'. Police picked him up from the scene and he was taken to see a doctor, 'in pretty good shape', considering. Police chief Cesar Zapata said the motive for the crime was 'economic' but he would not indicate how much, if any, of a ransom was paid. Officers said they confiscated a huge stash from the gang during a raid, including five grenades, six firearms, 1,500 cartridges, 30 detonating fuses - and 'several kilos' of controlled substances. With the state struggling to address the root of the problem - foreign demand for drugs and the appeal of such criminal careers against the alternatives - inter- and intra-cartel violence has spiralled. A month after the arrests, the country erupted again with gang violence. Guards at La Regional prison in Guayaquil discovered early on January 7 that Los Choneros leader Adolfo Macias was not in his cell. News quickly spread. Incarcerated gangsters across the nation began rioting. Guards were taken hostage and shot or, in some cases, hanged. Beyond the prison walls, explosions rocked major cities. At least 10 people were killed in the first few days. Machete-wielding thugs threatened to execute anyone they found on the streets of Ecuador at night. Citizens took up arms to defend themselves. One video showed the body of a man, said to be a police officer, lying on the side of the road in a pool of blood. He appeared to have been shot in the head. The 'civil war' escalated when gang members wearing balaclavas stormed the state-owned TC Television in Guayaquil and pistol-whipped staff to the floor. Images from the television studio were broadcast across the country, impossible to ignore. It seemed Ecuador was in the midst of a coup, or a civil war. Unchallenged, the gangsters brandished knives, dynamite and machineguns in a show of force. Making clear who was in charge, gang members then shared footage of kidnapped officers as one was made to read a statement: You declared war, you will get war. You declared a state of emergency. We declare police, civilians and soldiers to be the spoils of war.' A day later, Noboa declared a state of emergency, allowing the government additional powers. The army was sent in to take back the prisons. On January 9, he acknowledged the 'internal armed conflict' and ordered the army to 'neutralise' nearly two dozen gangs. The first military operation was carried out in June in La Pradera after five people were murdered and another seven were left injured after an armed attack on May 20. Days later, pictures emerged of military commanders raiding a prison and rounding up gang members in an effort to cleanse the facility of weapons and drugs. Soldiers stormed the Manabi N4 Detention Centre in Poroviejo on June 5, 2024, took back control and posted photos of the inmates sat down in columns, reminiscent of Bukele's boasts from the CECOT max security prison in Teoluca. A permanent military presence was established in a third of the country's 36 prisons as the military looked to restore order. 'We are facing a very dangerous enemy, very prepared, well equipped and with a lot of economic power,' said Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo at the time. Noboa's position is not easy. Rights groups share their alarm at the 'imminent risk' to inmates inside the country's prisons. Opposition politicians have said Noboa has led the country into 'dictatorship'. He has been accused of surrounding himself with family and friends and contradicted by the central bank and IMF on promises to boost growth. Breaking apart the gangs will require structural reform, offering viable career alternatives to citizens, and restoring the state's monopoly on violence - a deterrent to any would-be militant groups. At present, Ecuador has the lowest growth estimates in South America; GDP fell for three consecutive quarters last year. The pandemic made matters worse, turning hungry children and unemployed adults into easy recruits for criminal groups, with criminals demanding payments from businesses and terming the fee a 'vacuna' (vaccine) -- as in immunity from crime. 'COVID came and went and left us vaccines, but a different type of vaccines,' said Holbach Muñeton, president of the National Federation of Provincial Chambers of Tourism of Ecuador. Convenience stores, auto part shops and pharmacies have floor-to-ceiling metal bars that prevent customers from entering from the sidewalk. Malls have metal detectors at the entrances, and bars and restaurants have fewer tables and close early. Belen Diaz, a resident at a gated community in Guayaquil, said she has adapted by carrying two phones - one main and one to hand over to thieves. 'We don't know who we're friends with anymore,' she said. 'I'm going to stay single forever. I can't go dating on these weird apps. I mean, imagine, they could kidnap me!' Such uncertainty makes the task ahead a huge challenge. Gang violence will deter investment and opportunities for legitimate businesses to grow without fear of extortion, corruption or violence. President Noboa promises to have the answers. But peace, still within living memory for most Ecuadorians, is still not clearly within reaching distance.
Time of India
24-04-2025
- Time of India
British man lynched by mob after arrest in remote Ecuadorian Amazon village
A British national was killed by a mob in Ecuador after being dragged from a police station in a remote Amazonian village, according to local media and authorities. The man, named locally as Michael Hann, 34, was taken into custody on 20 April in the riverside village of Playas del Cuyabeno, near the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. He was suspected of fatally shooting his long-time friend and business partner, Rodrigo Chavez, in an alleged dispute linked to their struggling tourism business. Police confirmed that Hann was arrested early that morning and brought to the station for his own safety after he was 'intercepted and beaten by local residents' following the shooting. Authorities said they were preparing to transfer him to Lago Agrio, about 75 miles away, but were delayed due to 'geographical conditions.' At around 12:30 pm, a group of angry villagers stormed the station, forcibly removed Hann, and lynched him in the street before setting his body on fire, according to the local outlet Extra, which described the incident as 'a shocking act of apparent community justice.' A police report identified the victim only as an 'English national,' and a senior police official told the Daily Mail: 'We are still trying to establish the specific identity of the citizen we believe is a British national. We know that he was working and teaching English and was making reservations for tourists visiting the area but we don't have any more information right now.' Authorities said the situation escalated quickly, with seven officers present at the station during the mob attack. The officers reportedly feared for their lives and potential damage to state property. 'They were carrying guns and other weapons including stones, sticks, spears and even cans of petrol they were threatening to burn the police station down with and harm officers,' the police chief said. Extra reported that the officers had received advance warnings about threats to the detainee's safety but were unable to act due to the delayed arrival of backup. Ecuadorian broadcaster Ecuavisa stated that Hann died hours later from burns sustained during the lynching. According to sources close to the investigation, the motive behind the shooting was rooted in a bitter business dispute. Chavez had accused Hann of misappropriating funds from their tourism venture, cutting him out of the business amid financial struggles. The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it is urgently working with Ecuadorian authorities and forensic teams to verify the victim's identity and gather more information. The FCDO has not yet issued an official statement.
