ASSAULT ON THE EMBASSY OF MEXICO IN ECUADOR

The President of Ecuador, Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa (36 years old; born in Miami, Florida and son of Ecuador’s richest businessman, Alvaro Noboa, in turn a five-time former presidential candidate), ordered on the night of April 5 that special forces of the National Police of Ecuador violently raid the Mexican embassy in Quito (capital of Ecuador), to apprehend the former vice president (during the government of Rafael Correa 2007-2017), Jorge Glas, convicted by Ecuadorian courts of corruption.

Jorge Glas had taken refuge in the Mexican embassy since December 17, 2023, pointing out that the charges against him were political persecution and had sought asylum from the Mexican government.

Until April 5, 2024, the government of President López Obrador had not granted asylum, but a crisis in relations between the two countries in recent days led the government of López Obrador to grant asylum to Glas that day.

The crisis arose when the Mexican president pointed out on April 3 that the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in the presidential elections last year in Ecuador favored the victory of the current president, harming the candidate Luisa Gonzáles (ally of former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas).

These statements were considered by the Noboa government as unacceptable interference by the Mexican government in Ecuador's internal affairs, so it decided to designate Mexico's ambassador, Raquel Serur, persona non grata on April 4, and expelled her from the country (although she has not yet left).

This reaction of the Ecuadorian government led President López Obrador to finally grant asylum to Glas, which detonated hours later, on April 5, Noboa’s decision to violate the 1964 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, to which both countries are parties, by ordering his police forces to violently enter the Mexican embassy in Quito, apprehend Glas and violently subdue the Mexican diplomats who tried to convince the Ecuadorian police not to commit such a violation of International Law.

According to the Ecuadorian government, the assault on the Mexican embassy was carried out because: “No criminal can be considered politically persecuted. . .. (and) Having abused the immunities and privileges granted to the diplomatic mission that housed Jorge Glas and having granted diplomatic asylum contrary to the legal framework of the treaty, proceeded with his arrest.”

The Ecuadorian government’s “explanation” has neither feet nor head. The inviolability of diplomatic headquarters is the oldest and most important diplomatic privilege.

To violate this principle is to destroy the basis on which diplomatic relations between countries are based, since there would be no security for diplomatic representatives in a country to carry out their duties if they were exposed to arrests, raids and seizures decided unilaterally by the host country.

Not even dictator Augusto Pinochet dared to attack the Mexican embassy in Santiago, Chile, after the widow of ousted president Salvador Allende, Hortensia Bussi, and dozens of other politically persecuted people sought asylum at the Mexican diplomatic headquarters in 1973.

Faced with this action, the Mexican government has severed diplomatic relations with Ecuador (although the Mexican president mistakenly called it a “suspension of relations”; however, the Foreign Ministry correctly pointed out that it is a severance of diplomatic relations).

If the government of Ecuador considered the granting of asylum by Mexico to Mr. Glas unacceptable, then it could not grant the safe conduct, that is, the permission for Glas to leave the embassy, and at the same time file a complaint with the International Court of Justice in The Hague (as the government of Mexico has now done), which depends on the United Nations, to resolve the dispute between the two countries over the granting of asylum to Mr. Glas.

The Organization of American States (OAS) has already called an urgent meeting to address this issue.

But by proceeding unilaterally, with the use of force, in violation of an international treaty to which the Ecuadorian government is a party, it has provided the Mexican government with all the arguments to accuse it in turn before the International Court of Justice and win the case.

It remains to be seen how the Ecuadorian authorities will treat the Mexican diplomats, given that Roberto Canseco, the chargé de affaires of the embassy, was forcibly subdued by the Ecuadorian police.

The Mexican government has not yet formally expelled the Ecuadorian diplomats.

What is undeniable is that much of this crisis has been due to the way the Mexican president has developed foreign policy during his administration.

Already in 2019, the then president of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez (now imprisoned by the government of Luis Arce, friend, and ally of López Obrador) had expelled the Mexican ambassador María Teresa Mercado, for trying to help a former minister in the government of former President Evo Morales to leave the country.

In 2021, the Mexican ambassador in Lima, Peru, Pablo Monroy, was expelled because the deposed president Pedro Castillo (another ally and friend of López Obrador), was detained before trying to take asylum at the Mexican embassy, so the ambassador was declared persona non grata.

What is noticeable in all these cases is that the López Obrador government interferes in the internal life of Latin American countries for the benefit of presidents, politicians or progressive and leftist parties with whom his government maintains friendly relations; and, of course, this leads governments, presidents and right-wing and conservative parties to expel Mexican diplomatic representatives, considering that they exceed their duties, by interfering in the internal affairs of those countries.

López Obrador will continue at this type of intervention in other Latin American countries in the six months left to his government, which has had serious diplomatic disputes with governments of different countries (including Spain, Panama, and Argentina), and with his “crusade” in favor of “progressive and leftist” governments and against “conservatives ones.”