Andrea Perez
Last April 5th, Mexico decided to sever relationships with Ecuador after police officers made an assault in the Embassy of Mexico in Ecuador, where former vice president, Jorge Blas was being kept as he was in the process of seeking political asylum because of the persecution he is facing.
This conflict dates back to the year 2023, as Ecuador held presidential elections and in the last week of March, the President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, accused Ecuador of media manipulation and other internal affairs that happened in between the electoral process. Subsequently, Ecuador decided to expel Mexican Ambassador, Raquel Serur. Mexico further escalated tensions by granting political asylum to Jorge Glas, who was seeking refuge in the Embassy to avoid returning to prison due to two corruption cases, one of them related with the Brazilian company, Odebrecht. Moreover, he was supposed to serve eight years in prison, of those he has only served five, as he asked on different occasions for freedom due to health issues. However, Daniel Noboa, Ecuador 's president, ordered Glas to be captured and taken to prison in the city of Guayaquil. Furthermore, Ecuador accused Mexico of intervening in their domestic affairs. Almost immediately after the assault, the Mexican president decided to sever relations with Ecuador.
But who is Jorge Glas and why is he in the spotlight of the conflict? Glas was one of the closest friends and Ministry of Telecommunications of Rafael Correa, (Ecuador president 2007 - 2017), who thought Glas could keep on his political career.
Jorge Glas detained
Correa set him up to be vice president of Lenín Moreno, who won Ecuador 's elections in 2017. However, a couple of months later, Moreno dismissed Glas from all his functions when some corruption allegations started to rise against him. In this way, he began to serve his sentence in 2018, but managed to be free in 2022, for the reasons aforementioned, when he had only completed half of his sentence. Nevertheless, the law was still after him, and it was in 2023 when thought of asking for political asylum.
"This is a violation of international rights and Mexico's sovereignty".
Andres Lopez, President of Mexico
Going back to Mexico, Lopez Obrador claims that the assault in the Embassy is a violation of international rights and Mexico's sovereignty. Due to these events, the OAS (Organization of American States) showed its support to Mexico by summoning in an expedited meeting in which 29 of 30 countries supported Mexico’s decision in giving political asylum to Glas. In addition, Noboa decided to break Vienna's convention – which establishes that all Embassies are territories of national sovereignty – alleging that he [Noboa] couldn’t let a criminal escape from justice; it was a security crisis in Ecuador, and so “exceptional decisions” were to be taken. Noboa called for a referendum for next April 21st, which would be crucial to contextualize the diplomatic crisis.
As a consequence of these severed relationships, the possibility of carrying out a free trade agreement between these two countries comes to an end. In fact, some experts agree that this is now a matter in which it's necessary for other countries to intervene in order to achieve a de-escalation.
Daniel Noboa, President of Ecuador
Besides this, Mexican officials are now returning to their country and the Mexican flag has already been taken down from its flagpole in Ecuador.
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