The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) leaders decided on Tuesday to denounce Ecuador’s incursion into the Mexican embassy in Quito on April 5 in an attempt to kidnap former vice president Jorge Glas. Glas had applied for asylum at the embassy following his conviction for corruption.
“We express our gratitude to the majority of Latin American and Caribbean countries and peoples for their support. The participants in the virtual meeting, which was called by Honduran President Xiomara Castro, who serves as the bloc’s rotating president, were informed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) that “we also want to propose, if they consider it viable and feasible, that they join us in signing the complaint before the International Court of Justice (ICJ),”
AMLO maintained that there had been a violation of international law by President Daniel Noboa’s law enforcement agents acting inside a diplomatic mission. The Mexican president further acknowledged that he thought Ecuador should be kicked out of the UN until it apologized to the Mexican government.
Castro gave Enrique Reina, the foreign minister, instructions to discuss the matter with her nation’s chargé d’affaires in Quito. Given Ecuador’s violation of the 1954 Caracas Convention on Asylum and the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations at the Mexican Embassy in Quito, Reina acknowledged on X that Castro’s initiative was to uphold “respect for International Law given these events should not become a disastrous precedent in the international system.”
Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, harshly denounced Noboa for missing the online conference and declared that his nation would also be removing its ambassador from Quito.
Additionally endorsing AMLO, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva proposed the formation of a panel to monitor Glas’ health, because he has reportedly initiated a hunger strike while incarcerated in his nation.
Noboa, who is from Miami, Florida, acknowledged earlier last week that he did not regret ordering Glas’s abduction, even if it meant going against diplomatic protocol, in an interview with an Australian outlet. Despite widespread condemnation, he maintained that he was on the “right side of history.”
Noboa also contended that the Organization of American States (OAS) had declared that certain states amounted to pure “impunity” when they utilized their embassies as a front for political refugees. The head of Ecuador declared that Glas had had his day in court when he was tried, convicted, and found to be guilty. “He (Glas) is required to serve his jail sentence. That was our Court of Justice’s ruling. “I am not sorry,” Noboa emphasized.
He believed that when aid was given to a fugitive, Mexico was the first to breach Ecuadorean sovereignty, and as a result, “we had to make a decision.” Noboa further said that Glas planned to leave the diplomatic mission in Ecuador. “Justice cannot be bargained for,” Noboa added.
