Hate crime and racial discrimination in Ecuador: The case of Michael Arce in ESMIL
| DOI | 10.1177/13582291211002972 |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Rocío Elizabeth Vera Santos |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Hate crime and racial
discrimination in Ecuador:
The case of Michael Arce
in ESMIL
Roc´
ıo Elizabeth Vera Santos
Abstract
For the first time in Ecuador a hate crime was tried in court and led to a conviction. This
was the case of Michael Arce, a young Afro-Ecuadorian former cadet who won the trial
against Captain Fernando Encalada of the Eloy Alfaro Military School (ESMIL). ESMIL
belongs to the Ecuadorian Armed Forces, a state institution considered to be of great
prestige and a guarantor of citizens’ rights and democracy, but not for all. Arce suffered
in ESMIL 2 months of humiliation and torture. Through a socio-legal analysis this article
demonstrates the normalization of racial stereotypes and prejudices, and the sometimes
subtle existence of structural and institutional racism in the education and judicial sys-
tems. This case represents a pioneering judicial action in Ecuador that legally established
and defined new pretrial and trial proceedings in regard to litigation concerning violation
of human rights, racial discrimination and hate crimes.
Keywords
Hate crime, racial discrimination, structural racism, human rights, social justice, Armed
Forces, Afro-Ecuadorian
Introduction
In contemporary Ecuador there are a number of racial stereotypes historically associated
with the Afro-descendant population. These include laziness, vagrancy, violence, and
Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Corresponding author:
Roc´
ıo Elizabeth Vera Santos, Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin, 12627, Berlin, Germany.
Email: rocio.vera@fu-berlin.de
International Journalof
Discrimination and theLaw
2021, Vol. 21(2) 117–138
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13582291211002972
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criminality, as well as supposed physical strength, hypersexuality, musicality, rhythm,
dance, sports-related skills, innate joy, and associations with rurality, nature, and pov-
erty. Many of these stereotypes which were created in the colonial era and have been
strengthened by the discourse of scientific racism present in the narratives of the social
and political scientists of the nineteenth century (De la Torre, 2002; G´ongora et al., 2019;
Vera, 2015) are still used directly in everyday discourses and in the media (De la Torre
and Hollestein, 2010; D´ıaz et al., 2016; Rahier, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2008). In addition to
these stereotypes, the ideology of mestizaje in the Andean context was based on a
valuing Spanish and indigenous heritage, while excluding the population of Af rican
origin and its descendants. Afro-descendants were considered to belong to a race which
is ‘less apt to join civilization’ (Espinosa, 1985, p. 167) and furthermore, this was
accompanied by the invisibilization of their culture and their contributions to the nation
building (Wade, 1997; Walsh, 2010).
Mestizaje in Ecuador has been interpreted by the scholars Whitten (1981) and Stutz-
man (1974) as an ideology of ethnic homogenization: racial mixture with a marked
tendency to whiten the population. Whitening implies an idea of national progress;
whitening means becoming more urban, more civilized, and Christian; that is, the oppo-
site of rural, illiterate, Black or indige nous (Whitten, 1981, p. 15). This assessment
precisely shows what Stutzman (1974) called the ‘all-inclusive ideology of exclusion’,
a system of ideas that apparently included all people as potential mestizos but excluded
indigenous people and especially Afro-descendants. The latter were ideologically con-
structed as the ‘ultimate Others’ (Rahier, 1999). In Latin America, under the discourse of
mestizaje, states tended to deny the existing racism within their societies when compared
to other countries such as the United States and South Africa, thus reinforcing the idea of
harmony and racial democracy, and promoting mestizo cultural homogenization (see
G´ongora, 2012; G´ongora et al., 2019; Hern´andez, 2012). Later, in the 1990s, the shift to
multiculturalism, the influence of ethnic movements and the interest of neo-liberal state
agendas led several countries in Latin America to recognize and protect ethnic diversity
(Wade, 2006).
Since 1998 the Ecuadorian Constitution has recognized the indigenous and Afro-
Ecuadorian
1
population as part of the nation and given them collective rights. Ecuador
is particularly interesting in this sense because it remains the only nation in Latin
America, that recognizes Afro-descendants as ‘collective peoples’ and ‘explicitly names
racism, ongoing colonialism, affirmative action, and restorative reparation – and their
interrelation – in its Constitution’ (Walsh, 2015, p. 28). The 2008 Constitution expanded
collective rights and incorporated affirmative action in access to universities
2
and jobs
3
through ethnoracial quotas. Despite all these advances in legislation and public policy,
racial hierarchies are still present in the discourses of the Ecuadorian elites. These white
and mestizo elites use elements of race, biology (ideas of bloodline, phenotype, and
aesthetics), culture, level of education, and class to differentiate and position themselves
as hierarchically superior t o the racialized ‘others’ by tr eating them in a racist and
discriminatory manner (Roitmann and Oviedo, 2017). This racially charged mistreat-
ment increases when racialized groups attempt to occupy spaces that were denied to
them because of their racial or economic status (De la Torre, 2002). De la Torre (2002,
pp. 58, 71) indicates that the association of Black bodies with low-paid, manual jobs
118 International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 21(2)
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