Ecuador police arrested ex-Vice President Jorge Glas at the Mexican embassy. Mexico reacts indignantly to the operation – and breaks off diplomatic relations.
Security forces in Ecuador have entered the Mexican embassy and arrested former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas. The governments of both Latin American countries announced this on Friday (local time). Mexico is breaking off diplomatic relations with Ecuador with immediate effect and will appeal to the International Court of Justice, said Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena.
Meanwhile, international pressure on Ecuador’s government is growing. UN Secretary-General António Guterres reacted “alarmed” to the incident in Quito, said his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Saturday in New York. Guterres emphasized the importance of the inviolability of embassy premises; Any violation of this principle “endangers the maintenance of normal international relations,” it said.
The UN Secretary General called on Ecuador and Mexico to “moderate”. They should “resolve their differences through peaceful means,” the statement continued.
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru and Venezuela also criticized Ecuador’s actions. After Mexico, Nicaragua also broke off its relations with Ecuador on Saturday (local time). The Central American country justified the decision with the “unusual and reprehensible” act of invading another country’s embassy.
“Blatant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty”
“Ecuadorian police have forcibly entered our embassy and arrested the country’s former vice president, who was a refugee and had requested asylum due to the persecution and harassment he was facing,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote on Friday ( local time) in the online service X.
“This is a blatant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty,” López Obrador continued. Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena later wrote on X that Mexico had decided to “immediately break off diplomatic relations with Ecuador.”
The Ecuadorian Presidency Communications Service said on Friday that Glas, who was “sentenced to prison by the Ecuadorian justice system, was arrested this evening and placed under the control of the relevant authorities.”
Glas, wanted for corruption, had been staying at the Mexican representation in the Ecuadorian capital Quito for months. On Friday, the Mexican Foreign Ministry announced that it wanted to grant Glas asylum. The Foreign Ministry of the South American Ecuador then said that this violated international agreements. There is an arrest warrant against Glas for embezzlement and he will not be allowed to leave the country.
Glas was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison
Glas was Vice President of Ecuador during the second term of office of left-wing President Rafael Correa (2013-2017) – who has since been convicted of corruption and lives in exile in Belgium – and at the beginning of the term of office of his successor Lenín Moreno (2017-2021).
At the end of 2017, he was found guilty of accepting bribes in exchange for awarding public contracts to the Brazilian company Odebrecht. He was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison in several corruption cases. Two years ago he was released early because of the poor security situation in Ecuador’s prisons.
Only on Thursday did the Ecuadorian government of conservative President Daniel Noboa declare the Mexican ambassador persona non grata. The reason was an suggestion by the left-wing populist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio last August in Ecuador had contributed to Noboa’s election victory in October.
