The Mexico Solidarity Forum in the UK has condemned the assault on the Mexican Embassy in Quito after heavily armed special military and police officers (The Security Bloc) forcibly broke through the premises of the embassy of Mexico in Quito, Ecuador’s capital on April 5th.
The purpose of this brutal aggression was the arrest of the former Ecuadorian vice-president, Jorge Glas who had been allowed into the embassy premises requesting political asylum. The order for this criminal attack seems to have been prompted after Mexico made public its decision to grant diplomatic asylum to Glas.
Television screens around the world showed the extraordinary spectacle of military officers climbing the embassy building’s walls, bulldozing their way through the building, and assaulting Mexico’s ambassador, Roberto Canseco, who physically tried to stop them.
They also assaulted embassy staff. They brutally got hold of Glas, who was beaten up – it was reported by onlookers that he could hardly walk – and dragged outside the embassy to a car and then taken away. This was nothing more than a kidnapping.
Glas is now being held in a maximum-security prison and there are reports that he is in a parlous state, and there is growing concern for his life.
There is not enough space in this brief statement to list the number of national, Latin American and international conventions, norms and laws, including its own domestic laws and constitution, that the government of president Daniel Noboa has violated. This aggression is a grotesque violation of Mexico’s sovereignty but also of international law, including the stipulations in art. 29 of the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Missions.
This is a very grave and flagrant violation of international law that has no precedent in Latin America, not even under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile; when hundreds of left-wing activists sought and obtained protection in many embassies in Santiago, the military were not ordered to assault a foreign embassy. In short, it sets a grave precedent.
Worse, Ecuador’s foreign minister, Gabriela Sommerfield, sought to justify the assault at a press conference arguing the assault was launched because of a supposed escape attempt by Jorge Glas, and besides, she went on, “it was president Noboa who gave the order.”
Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) immediately took the decision to recall his ambassador and broke diplomatic relations with Ecuador. And the Nicaraguan government, in solidarity with Mexico, has also broken diplomatic relations with Ecuador. Many social movements, political parties, and all kind of organisations have issued condemnatory statements.
Mexico’s foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, announced that her government will take this very grave violation of its sovereignty and international law to the International Court of Justice. Noboa’s aggression against Mexico has been roundly condemned by the whole of Latin America – Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, even Milei of Argentina and the OAS have joined the condemnation chorus. Ecuador has also been condemned by ALBA-TCP. Some European countries such as Ireland and Norway have joined in the condemnation.
This aggression sets an extremely grave precedent; it is a barbaric act and is completely unacceptable.
The Mexico Solidarity Forum unreservedly condemn and reject president Noboa’s decision to launch a military-police aggression perpetrated against Mexico’s sovereignty, the illegal arrest of an asylum seeker in a foreign embassy, and condemn the use of brutal force against him, and the assault against Mexico’s ambassador.
We also express our full solidarity with the government and the people of Mexico for the egregious assault they have endured caused by a government that runs roughshod over international law, attacking Mexico for defending the human rights of the persecuted. We call upon other organisations and individuals to join in the condemnation.
