According to Sullivan, “the Ecuadorian government ignored its obligations under international law as a host state to respect” that principle and “jeopardized the foundations of basic diplomatic norms and relations.”
The United States condemned this Tuesday “the use of force against embassy officials” of Mexico in Ecuador, following the president’s claim Andrés Manuel López Obrador for his initially lukewarm reaction to the assault that led him to break relations with Quito.
Just a few hours after the leftist president’s criticism, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan condemned this violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on the inviolability of diplomatic headquarters.
According to Sullivan, “the Ecuadorian government ignored its obligations under international law as a host state to respect” that principle and “jeopardized the foundations of basic diplomatic norms and relations.”
In his usual press conference this Tuesday, López Obrador considered the statements of the United States and Canada “ambiguous”; at the same time that he presented unpublished images of the police raid to capture the exiled Ecuadorian former vice president Jorge Glas, accused of corruption.
In that video you can see how police with long weapons point at the diplomat Roberto Canseco and drag him by the neck last Friday night. Also, the moment when Glas is taken away, lifted up and apparently handcuffed.
“We have reviewed the images from the security cameras of the Mexican embassy and we believe that these actions have been a mistake,” said Sullivan.
Initially, the State Department condemned “any violation” of the Vienna Convention and called on Mexico and Ecuador to resolve their differences “jointly.”
Read also: Ecuador accuses Mexico at the OAS of undermining asylum and promoting ‘impunity’
“We fear for his life”
AMLO, as the Mexican president is known by the initials of his name, called this statement and that of Canada, which referred to the “apparent” violation of diplomatic immunity, “ambiguous”; He said he missed a direct reaction from his American counterpart, Joe Biden.
For this reason, he had urged both countries, his partners in the powerful T-MEC trade bloc, to “speak out openly”; ruling out that this situation could affect relationships.
But if this “violation” is not denounced and if international treaties are not “respected,” “respect for sovereignty disappears, it is now the law of the strongest,” he warned.
Meanwhile, Glas, 54, returned to a high-security prison in Guayaquil (southwest) on Tuesday after being hospitalized on Monday due to a decompensation he suffered after refusing to eat for 24 hours, according to Ecuadorian authorities.
His capture, hours after receiving political asylum, led Mexico to break relations with Ecuador. In addition to announcing a lawsuit against the South American country before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The police raid was condemned by thirty countries and seven world and regional organizations; such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS), where the issue was discussed this Tuesday at the request of Ecuador, which considers the asylum granted to Glas illegal.
Mexico’s embassy
Mexico’s attitude “undermines and denatures the figure of diplomatic asylum” by granting it “to a convicted person and fugitive from Ecuadorian justice, promoting impunity,” accused the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, Alejandro Dávalos before the OAS.
There was no representative of the Mexican delegation in the room; who will most likely attend the session scheduled for Wednesday morning, this time convened by Colombia and Bolivia.
Glas’ lawyers claim that they have not been able to see him because he remains isolated.
“We fear for his life,” said Spanish MEP Manu Pineda on Tuesday in the European Parliament alongside former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, of whom Glas was vice president.
The former president (2007-2017), also convicted of corruption and exiled in Belgium, called for a “strong response” from the international community.
Celac meeting
López Obrador presented for the first time images of the interior of the embassy during the raid.
In the video you can see the police entering abruptly, one of them after climbing a wall, with long weapons and shields; after which another agent points gun at Roberto Canseco, head of the mission, in the library.
Later the diplomat is seen struggling with the agents who drag him by the neck. Canseco gets up and continues resisting the police as they leave the diplomatic headquarters, outside which he confronts them again until he is brought to his knees.
The crisis was addressed this Tuesday in a meeting of representatives of Colombia, Honduras and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, coordinators of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
“Mexico urges the member states of Celac to endorse the claim” before the ICJ, Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena requested at that meeting.