Numerous countries and international organizations, such as the UN and the OAS, have harshly criticized Ecuador after the police assault on the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas. Ecuador responds that the operation was necessary given the risk of escape of Glas, who has taken refuge in the legation since December and is wanted by the Ecuadorian justice system for corruption.
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The police assault on the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas has placed Ecuador in the middle of a diplomatic storm.
The international rejection was personified in the criticism of the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who through a spokesperson declared himself “alarmed” by the operation and assured that not respecting the principle of inviolability of diplomatic premises “would put the the continuation of normal international relations”.
For its part, the Organization of American States described Ecuador's actions as “inappropriate” and expressed “solidarity” with the Mexican delegation, in a statement. Nicaragua joined Mexico and broke diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
Several Latin American governments, both on the left such as Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Chile, and on the right, such as Argentina and Peru, criticized the assault and detention of Glas, who was required by the Ecuadorian justice system to face charges of alleged corruption and had been refugee since September in the Mexican embassy.
The United States condemned “any violation of the Vienna Statute, which guarantees the sovereignty of embassies.
Read alsoThe Ecuadorian police enter the Mexican embassy and arrest former vice president Glas
Glas, vice president of Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017, has a preventive detention order for alleged embezzlement in public works contracted after the devastating earthquake on the Ecuadorian coast in 2016.
The politician was transferred on Saturday to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil. He had already been in prison for having participated in the corruption plot of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. He regained his freedom in 2022 thanks to a writ of habeas corpus.
Mexico denounced “a “flagrant violation of international law” and its “sovereignty”, while the Foreign Minister of Ecuador, Gabriela Sommerfeld, accused Mexico of violating “the fundamental principle of not intervening in the internal affairs of other States” by granting asylum to Glas and justified the assault on the diplomatic headquarters, arguing “a real flight risk” for the 54-year-old politician.
A crisis that broke out in 4 days
The diplomatic crisis began on Wednesday, when López Obrador raised a parallel between the violence that marked the 2023 Ecuadorian presidential campaign, during which candidate Fernando Villavicencio was murdered, and the crime that is being recorded in Mexico ahead of the elections on 2 of June.
According to the Mexican president, the crime in Villavicencio created a “rarefied atmosphere of violence” that caused the drop in the polls of the leftist candidate Luisa González and the rise of Daniel Noboa, who was the winner. A harsh critic of Correa, Villavicencio was known for his denunciations of the strengthening of drug trafficking.
The Noboa government considered that these comments “offend the Ecuadorian State” and expelled the Mexican ambassador Raquel Serur, who has not yet left the country. In response, Mexico granted political asylum to Glas on Friday after months of refuge in the diplomatic headquarters in Quito, alleging political persecution against him. After learning of this decision, the Ecuadorian authorities launched the police operation to arrest him.
