Storming of Mexico Embassy in Ecuador ruptures relations
QUITO, Ecuador — Mexico’s government ended diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police broke into the Mexican Embassy to arrest a former Ecuadorian vice president, an extraordinary use of force that shocked and mystified regional leaders and diplomats.
Ecuadorian police late Friday broke through the external doors of the embassy in the capital, Quito, to arrest Jorge Glas, who had been residing there since December. Glas sought political asylum after being indicted on corruption charges.
The raid prompted Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to announce the breaking of diplomatic relations with Ecuador on Friday night, while his government’s foreign relations secretary said the move will be challenged at the World Court in The Hague.
On Saturday, Glas was taken by armored vehicle from the attorney general’s office to an airport, where he boarded an aircraft for a flight to the port city of Guayaquil, 265 miles south of Quito. People who had gathered outside the prosecutor’s office yelled “Strength” as the convoy of police and military vehicles moved off.
Ecuador’s corrections agency said Glas will be held in a maximum-security facility in Guayaquil.
Authorities are investigating Glas over alleged irregularities during his management of reconstruction efforts following a powerful earthquake in 2016 that killed hundreds of people. He was convicted on bribery and corruption charges in other cases.
The office of Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa defended the raid in a statement, saying: “Ecuador is a sovereign nation” that will not “allow any criminal to stay free.”
Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations, posted on the social platform X that a number of diplomats suffered injuries during the break-in, adding that it violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Diplomatic premises are considered “inviolable” under the Vienna treaties and local law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enter without the permission of the ambassador. People seeking asylum have lived anywhere from days to years at embassies around the world, including at Ecuador’s embassy in London, which housed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for seven years.
The Ecuadorian authorities’ decision was condemned by presidents, diplomats and a regional body Saturday.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro, writing on X, characterized the raid as “an intolerable act for the international community” and a “violation of the sovereignty of the Mexican State and international law” because “it ignores the historical and fundamental right to asylum.”
The Organization of American States in a statement reminded its members, which include Ecuador and Mexico, of their “obligation” to not “invoke norms of domestic law to justify non-compliance with their international obligations.”