Mexico and Ecuador are in the middle of a diplomatic crisis, here’s why

ALBERTO SUAREZ / AFP

Ecuadorian police attempt to enter the Mexican embassy in Quito on April 5, 2024.

INTERNATIONAL – Total diplomatic conflict. Relations between Mexico and Ecuador have been broken for several days, which even led Mexican diplomatic staff to leave Quito this Sunday, April 7. THE HuffPost explains to you what happened.

It all started last Wednesday, with criticism from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on the conduct of the 2023 Ecuadorian presidential election. The one nicknamed “AMLO” accuses the Ecuadorian authorities of having exploited the assassination of the opposition candidate Fernando Villavicencio during the campaign, August 9, 2023, to favor the election of the liberal Daniel Noboa to the detriment of the left-wing candidate Luisa González.

On Thursday, the Ecuadorian government announced in response that it would expel the Mexican ambassador to Quito, Raquel Serur. The next day, Mexico granted asylum to Jorge Glas, who had taken refuge in its embassy since December 17 and was the subject of an arrest warrant for alleged corruption.

“Flagrant violation of international law”

Jorge Glas, vice-president between 2013 and 2017 under former socialist president Rafael Correa (2007-2017), is accused of having embezzled public funds intended for the reconstruction of coastal cities after an earthquake in 2016. Quito qualifies the protection Jorge Glas from Mexico“illegal”.

In this context, police officers burst into the Mexican embassy to arrest the former vice-president, an intrusion into a diplomatic enclosure without recent precedent in the world. AMLO denounces a “ flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico”and said he intended to take the case to the International Court of Justice.

In the process, Mexico announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Ecuador, followed on Saturday by Nicaragua. Mexican diplomatic staff, including the ambassador and the head of the diplomatic mission, left Ecuador on Sunday.

Already sentenced to six years in prison in 2017, Jorge Glas was transferred on Saturday to a high security prison in Guayaquil (southwest of Ecuador), according to government sources.

A raid condemned by the international community

The raid was condemned by left-wing governments across Latin America, from Brazil to Venezuela, Chile, and even ultraliberal President Javier Milei’s Argentina, as well as the Organization of American States, the European Union and Spain.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: alarm ” by the raid, believing that any violation of diplomatic precincts “ jeopardizes the pursuit of normal international relations”according to its spokesperson.

The United States – which condemns “ any violation of the Vienna Convention » – encouraged Mexico and Ecuador “ to resolve their disputes in accordance with international standards”. The Vienna Convention of 1961 provides that embassies and consulates “ are inviolable ».

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