Quito, Ecuador

Mexico’s diplomatic personnel are leaving Ecuador, on Sunday (Apr 7) said the Mexican foreign minister after the two countries severed ties. This comes after the police raided Mexico’s embassy in Quito and arrested former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas. 

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The raid has prompted criticism across Latin America, the United States, Honduras, Spain, the European Union, and United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres also condemned Ecuador’s decision saying that it violates the sanctity of diplomatic and consular property. 

‘Leaving everything in Ecuador’

“Our diplomatic staff are leaving everything in Ecuador and returning home with their heads held high... after the assault on our embassy,” said Mexico’s Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena, on X. 

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WATCH | Mexico suspends diplomatic ties with Ecuador

According to Mexican officials, the group of 18 diplomats will be accompanied by “friendly and allied countries” to the airport. 

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Mexican diplomats would also be travelling on a commercial airline to Mexico City after the possibility of sending a military plane was ruled out due to ongoing tensions between the two countries. 

The departure comes amid a growing rift between Mexico and Ecuador which had been going on for days and culminated on Friday (Apr 5) after Mexico granted political asylum to Glas, who served as VP under leftist former President Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017.

Glas, 54, convicted twice for corruption, had sought shelter in the embassy in Quito since seeking political asylum in December. 

The police raid

On Friday, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador took to X and said “police from Ecuador forcibly entered” his country’s embassy in Quito and took the former VP who “was a refugee and processing asylum because of the persecution and harassment he faces.”

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The dramatic footage of the police raid shows heavily armed officers massing around the building and senior Mexican diplomat, Roberto Canseco being wrestled to the ground as Glas was driven away. 

The Ecuadorian government of President Daniel Noboa later confirmed the arrest and said Glas was “sentenced to imprisonment by the Ecuadorian justice system,” in a statement. 

The government said Glas had been granted diplomatic asylum “contrary to the conventional legal framework.”

The former VP has since been taken to a maximum-security prison in Guayaquil known as La Roca, said Ecuador’s national prisons agency, SNAI, on Saturday. 

Police raid draws condemnation

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela condemned the move by Ecuadorian authorities, while Nicaragua joined Mexico in severing diplomatic ties with Quito over Noboa’s “astonishing and despicable act”. 

Barcena expressed shock at Ecuador’s incursion into Mexico’s embassy in Quito calling it “a violent attack” perpetrated by the police and said that the country “reiterates its condemnation for the violation of the immunity of its embassy in Quito and the attack on its staff.”

She also went on to call it a “clear and flagrant violation of international law.” 

Also Read | Mexico suspends relations with Ecuador after arrest of ex-VP

As per international law, embassies are considered the sovereign territory of the country they represent. Additionally, the Vienna Convention says that a country cannot intrude upon an embassy on its territory.

“The secretary general is alarmed at the forced entry of Ecuadorian security forces into the premises of the Mexican embassy,” said the UN chief through his spokesperson on Sunday. 

He added that violations of the sanctity of diplomatic and consular property “jeopardise the pursuit of normal international relations”.

(With inputs from agencies)