Diplomats from Mexico return to their country after breaking relations with Ecuador

MEXICO CITY –

The Mexican diplomatic delegation in Quito arrived in the country on Sunday after the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador broke relations with Ecuador in rejection of the police raid at the Mexican embassy to detain a former Ecuadorian vice president who had received political asylum.

The unusual Ecuadorian action triggered condemnation from 18 Latin American countries and 10 European governments.

The mission led by the ambassador, Raquel Serur, arrived after noon on an Aeroméxico airline flight to the international airport of Mexico City where it was received by Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena.

By strongly condemning the action of the Ecuadorian security forces, Bárcena announced that Mexico will appear on Monday before the International Court of Justice and other multilateral and regional forums to denounce that “the immunity of the embassy and diplomatic staff was flagrantly violated.” “This is something that has never, ever in the history of Mexico, and I would say in the recent history of Latin America, had happened. “Not even in the worst times of the dictatorships, not even the dictator (Augusto) Pinochet himself ever dared to violate the Mexican Embassy in Chile,” said the chancellor.

Among the delegation of 18 people, which includes diplomats and their families, was Roberto Canseco, head of the Mexican consular section in Quito, who was injured in the neck after confronting the police on Friday night when they forcibly entered the building. the diplomatic headquarters for arrest former vice president Jorge Glas, who had resided there since December. He had requested asylum after being indicted on corruption charges, protection he had obtained a few hours earlier.

Serur also reacted harshly and said in a brief speech that Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa was “wrong” to make a decision that he assured not only breaks with what is established by international conventions, but also “implies ignorance of the reality of his country.” town”.

“The current government of Ecuador still cannot measure what it did to its people who do not deserve the government they currently have, a government that improvises and that ignores the art of politics and good government and the importance of asylum,” he added. .

The Mexican embassy in Quito will remain closed indefinitely and consular services will be activated from the headquarters in Colombia and Chile for 1,600 Mexican citizens and businessmen living in Ecuador, the Foreign Ministry reported.

In a statement, the Organization of American States (OAS) reminded its members, which include Ecuador and Mexico, of their obligation “not to invoke norms of domestic law to justify non-compliance with their international obligations.”

For its part, the Spanish Foreign Ministry indicated in a statement on Sunday that “the forced entry into the Mexican Embassy in Quito represents a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.” The high representative of the Union European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, spoke in the same vein and called for respect for international law.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “The United States condemns any violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and takes seriously the obligation of host countries under international law to respect the inviolability of diplomatic delegations.” He called for the two countries to resolve their differences.

For its part, Bolivia summoned its ambassador in Ecuador to provide information about what happened, President Luis Arce noted on Sunday in a message on his X account, formerly Twitter, and reiterated that defending the inviolable nature of diplomatic headquarters is a matter of principles, like “the Latin American tradition of asylum.”

Diplomatic compounds are considered foreign territory, they are “inviolable” according to the Vienna treaties and the security forces of the host country are not authorized to enter without permission from the ambassador. Asylum seekers have lived for days and even years in embassies around the world, including Ecuador's embassy in London, which housed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for seven years without British police being able to enter to arrest him.

Meanwhile, Glas was transferred on Saturday from the attorney general's office in Quito to the port city of Guayaquil, where he will remain held in a maximum security prison. People gathered in front of the prosecutor's office exclaimed “strength!” when the former official left in a convoy of police and military vehicles.

Glas's lawyer, Sonia Vera, told the AP that the police broke into his room, put his hands behind him, to which Glas resisted and “they knocked him to the floor, kicked him in the head, in the spine, in the his legs, his hands” and when he could not walk, “they dragged him out.”

The defense was not allowed to see Glas while he was in the prosecutor's office, so he is preparing a habeas corpus request, he added.

Authorities are investigating Glas for alleged irregularities during his handling of reconstruction efforts after a powerful earthquake in 2016 that killed hundreds of people. He has been convicted of bribery and corruption charges in other cases.

The Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabriela Sommerfeld, told reporters on Saturday that the decision to enter the Mexican diplomatic headquarters was adopted by the president of Ecuador, given “a risk of imminent escape” by Glas and after having exhausted, as he assured, all the possibilities of diplomatic dialogue with Mexico.

The specialist in international law and director of the Law and Justice Observatory, María Dolores Miño, warned that Ecuador will have to face immediate sanctions of a political nature that “should not be underestimated.”

Miño warned that Glas could sue the country before the inter-American Human Rights system. “The fact that the protections of that status have been forcibly taken away, even though we do not agree with this, is a clear violation of protected rights,” he said.

Noboa became president of Ecuador last year as the country faced record crime rates linked to drug trafficking. He declared the country to be in an “internal armed conflict” in January and designated 20 drug trafficking organizations as terrorist groups that the military was authorized to “neutralize” within the margins of international humanitarian law.

Will Freeman, a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S.-based think tank, said the decision to send police to the Mexican embassy raises concerns about the steps Noboa is willing to take to be re-elected. His term ends in 2025 because he was elected to complete the term of former President Guillermo Lasso.

“I really hope that Noboa is not taking a course more like Bukele's,” Freeman said, alluding to El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, whose tough-on-crime strategy has been widely criticized by human rights organizations. “That is, less respectful of the rule of law to get a boost in his popularity before the elections.”

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channels Youtube, WhatsApp and to newsletter. Turn on notifications and follow us on Facebook, x and instagram.