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Mexico has severed diplomatic relations with Ecuador and vowed to take the Andean nation to an international tribunal after police raided its embassy in Quito and captured Ecuador’s former vice president, who had refugee there after being convicted of corruption.
President Daniel Noboa’s conservative government ordered agents to enter the embassy premises after Mexico’s leftist administration granted asylum to Jorge Glas, who served as Ecuador’s vice president from 2013 to 2018 and was later sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Police stormed the embassy late Friday evening as heavily armed troops stood guard outside. Video posted on social media showed two black police jeeps leaving the diplomatic compound with sirens blaring as Mexico’s acting ambassador Roberto Canseco shouted “No, no, this is a violation, it’s not possible!” and was knocked to the ground by the police.
“This is totally unacceptable,” Canseco told reporters afterward. “They hit me, pushed me to the ground. I physically tried to stop them from entering. They searched the Mexican embassy in Quito like criminals.”
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican president, accused Ecuador of “flagrant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty” and said he had ordered the immediate suspension of diplomatic relations.
The 1961 Vienna Convention guarantees the inviolability of diplomatic premises, establishing that “agents of the host state may not enter them except with the consent of the head of mission”. Forced entry into an embassy by the host government is almost unheard of, even in military dictatorships.
However, Noboa claimed that “the immunities and privileges granted to the diplomatic mission hosting Jorge Glas had been abused” and that his political asylum was “contrary to the legal framework”.
“Ecuador is a sovereign country and we will not allow any criminal to go unpunished,” he added.
Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign minister, said she would take the case to the International Court of Justice “to denounce Ecuador’s responsibility for violations of international law.” She added that several Mexican diplomats were injured during the raid.
The dispute between Ecuador and Mexico had been brewing since Glas sought refuge in the embassy in December. He fled there after prosecutors published chat messages suggesting he had been released early from his long prison sentence in 2022 because a major Ecuadorian drug trafficker had bribed a judge.
López Obrador infuriated Ecuador’s government this week by suggesting that Noboa’s election victory last year against a left-wing opponent was because the opponent had been wrongly accused of killing another candidate during the campaign . Ecuador ordered the expulsion of the Mexican ambassador for these remarks.
The Mexican president, like many other Latin American left-wing leaders, has remained loyal to Ecuador’s long-ruling former president Rafael Correa. The left-wing authoritarian leader fled to Belgium in 2018 after an arrest warrant was issued on corruption charges. Glas was Correa’s vice president and Luisa González, who lost to Noboa last year, was supported by Correa.
Noboa, 36, is enjoying growing popularity among Ecuadorians and strong support from Washington after declaring all-out war on drug trafficking. The scion of a wealthy banana exporting family, he used emergency powers to send troops into the streets and sent the army to take control of gang-infested prisons, using tactics partly borrowed from China’s strongman leader. El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
A former haven between the major cocaine-producing nations of Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has suffered a spiral of violence and a rise in murders in recent years as drug cartels turned it into a major transshipment point for cocaine destined for ‘Europe.