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Mexico Cuts Diplomatic Ties With Ecuador After 'Intolerable' Quito Embassy Raid
"This is a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico," said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Apr 06, 2024
Mexico on Friday night announced the suspension of diplomatic relations with Ecuador after police stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito and kidnapped former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who was granted asylum after being convicted of what he claims are politically motivated corruption charges.
"Alicia Bárcena, our secretary of foreign affairs, has just informed me that police from Ecuador forcibly entered our embassy and detained the former vice president of that country who was a refugee and processing asylum due to the persecution and harassment he faces," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on social media following the raid.
"This is a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico, which is why I have instructed our chancellor to issue a statement regarding this authoritarian act, proceed legally, and immediately declare the suspension of diplomatic relations with the government of Ecuador," he added.
Bárcena said that "given the flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the injuries suffered by Mexican diplomatic personnel in Ecuador, Mexico announces the immediate breaking of diplomatic relations with Ecuador."
Mexican officials said multiple embassy staff members were injured during the raid. They also said that all Mexican diplomatic staff will immediately leave Ecuador, and that Mexico would appeal to the International Court of Justice to hold Ecuador accountable.
Roberto Canseco, head of chancellery and policy affairs at the embassy, told reporters that "what you have just seen is an outrage against international law and the inviolability of the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador."
"It is barbarism," he added. "It is impossible for them to violate the diplomatic premises as they have done."
Ecuador's government said that Glas—who served as vice president under former leftist President Rafael Correa from 2013-17—was a fugitive who has been "sentenced to imprisonment by the Ecuadorian justice system" and had been granted asylum "contrary to the conventional legal framework."
However, Ecuadorian attorney and political commentator Adrián Pérez Salazar toldAl Jazeera that "the fact that there was this grievance does not—at least under international law—justify the forceful breach of an embassy."
"International law is very clear that embassies are not to be touched, and regardless of whatever justifications the Ecuadorian government might have, it is a case where the end does not justify the means," Salazar added.
Numerous Latin American nations including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela condemned the Ecuadorian raid.
"The action constitutes a clear violation of the American Convention on Diplomatic Asylum and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which, in Article 22, provides that the locations of a diplomatic mission are inviolable and can be accessed by agents of the receiving state only with the consent of the head of mission," the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The measure carried out by the Ecuadorian government constitutes a serious precedent, and must be subject to strong repudiation, whatever the justification for its implementation."
Honduran President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya—who called the raid "an intolerable act for the international community"—said Saturday that she would convene a special emergency session of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States on Monday. Castro currently serves as CELAC's president pro tempore.
The Organization of American States General Secretariat issued a statement Saturday rejecting "any action that violates or puts at risk the inviolability of the premises of diplomatic missions and reiterates the obligation that all states have not to invoke norms of domestic law to justify non-compliance with their international obligations."
"In this context, it expresses solidarity with those who were victims of the inappropriate actions that affected the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador," the body added.
It's been a bad week for the inviolability of sovereign diplomatic spaces. Iran and Syria on Monday accused Israel of bombing the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, an attack that killed 16 people including senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders as well as Iranian and Syrian diplomats and other civilians.
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On Coup Anniversary, Examining the US Role in Honduras
Today marks seven years since the coup d'etat in Honduras - the day that former President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped by the Honduran army and then flown out of the country from an air field controlled by the U.S. military. That event sent shockwaves through the region and the world and was denounced by the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union. Honduras was suspended temporarily from the OAS.
Jun 28, 2016
Today marks seven years since the coup d'etat in Honduras - the day that former President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped by the Honduran army and then flown out of the country from an airfield controlled by the U.S. military. That event sent shockwaves through the region and the world and was denounced by the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union. Honduras was suspended temporarily from the OAS.
Observers and experts warned that if Zelaya was not restored to office and the forces behind the coup were allowed to proceed without any accountability, it would be disastrous for Honduras and the region. Some feared widespread human rights violations and targeting of political opposition, harkening back to a time of CIA-trained death squads and disappearances when Honduras was a front in the U.S.'s covert war against liberation movements in neighboring countries.
Seven years and hundreds of lives later, those predictions have proven true. Opponents of the coup regime, leaders of the resistance, land rights activists, journalists, and human rights lawyers have been killed in the wake of the coup. Among the most recent tragic examples is that of Berta Caceres, a fearless, committed, and exuberant advocate for the Lenca people against the construction of a dam project at Rio Blanco. Berta was shot and killed in her home on March 3, 2016.
Three years before her death, she acknowledged the danger she faced:
The army has an assassination list of 18 wanted human rights fighters with my name at the top. I want to live, there are many things I still want to do in this world but I have never once considered giving up fighting for our territory, for a life with dignity, because our fight is legitimate. I take lots of care but in the end, in this country where there is total impunity I am vulnerable... When they want to kill me, they will do it.
Three months after her murder, a former Honduran soldier confirmed for The Guardian the existence of the hitlist, with Caceres' name on it, in the possession of a unit trained by U.S. special forces.
The U.S. has historically played a heavy-handed role in Honduras, which became an outpost from which it conducted covert action in the region during the Cold War, with disastrous results for human rights defenders and activists there. To date, there has been no real accountability for the role the U.S. played in Honduras in training and arming security forces who committed unspeakable violence against political opponents. Likewise, on the Honduran side of the equation, there has been little accountability over the years. Indeed, at least one confirmed member of Battalion 3-16, a notorious death squad trained by the CIA in the '80s, was active in the political intrigue after the 2009 coup.
Not that there weren't efforts at the time to hold the U.S. government accountable for its role in the region. Organizations like CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) were working to raise these concerns and stop economic, political and military intervention as early as 1980. The Center for Constitutional Rights, representing members of Congress and victims of human rights violations in the region, sought to bring these disastrous and harmful policies to light in court in cases like Crocket v. Reagan, challenging the administration's undeclared war in El Salvador, and Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, which took aim at U.S. officials' complicity in murder, torture, rape and other human rights violations in Nicaragua. Dellums v. Smith sought to compel an investigation into credible allegations of illegality in the administration's conduct in Nicaragua, and some believe the case led to revelations about the sale of arms to Iran to fund support for the contras, who were largely trained from inside Honduras.
Then, there was the judgment of the International Court of Justice in a case brought by Nicaragua, which found the U.S. guilty of violating international law for its mining of Nicaragua's harbors and supporting and arming the contras. The court ordered the U.S. to pay reparations to Nicaragua. The U.S. ignored both the judgment and calls by the international community to comply with it.
Fast forward to Honduras after the 2009 coup: Here, the U.S. government helped to undermine democracy and the strong resistance that formed in the wake of the coup when it worked against the restoration of the democratically-elected president and pushed for the recognition of an election that was boycotted by respected election observers who saw no possibility of a free and fair process in the circumstances at the time. The U.S. was the first country to restore relations with Honduras after the controversial election officially and pushed others to normalize relations with the post-coup regime as well. Consistent with its long-standing modus operandi, the U.S. continued to provide aid and military training and support while expanding its base of operations there.
In doing so, the U.S. government has helped to seal the fate of hundreds of resistance activists, journalists, campesinos, and, yes, Berta Caceres. However, Honduran and U.S. human rights activists and organizations working across national lines have sought to keep speaking truth to the power on all sides of the equation by amplifying the struggle and stories from Honduras and the impact of the U.S. on events inside. CCR has again been part of these diverse efforts by representing family members of a youth killed by the Honduran military in a case against an engineer of the coup and de facto president Robert Michelletti, representing the alternative true commission in efforts to gain access to information about the coup from the U.S. government through FOIA requests, the submission of a complaint to the International Criminal Court, and joining with others in pushing for an end to the exploitive, extractive and self-serving policies of the U.S. in Honduras.
Last week, U.S. Representative Hank Johnson introduced unprecedented legislation to stop U.S. aid to Honduras. The Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act would suspend U.S. support for military operations, equipment, and training until the Honduran government investigates credible reports of human rights violations. The legislation is an important and necessary step and should be supported.
Another momentous event is the Border Convergence organized by SOA Watch that will be held October 7-10, 2016 in Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. CCR, along with many other organizations, is endorsing this event, which looks critically at the impact of U.S. policies in the region that exacerbate repression and economic crisis on the one hand and the xenophobic immigration laws and policies encountered by migrants and refugees in the U.S. on the other. It is a way of highlighting the absurdity of decrying immigration and blaming migrants and refugees for fleeing situations we helped create and, worse, benefit from.
While there is much to be done, and hearts are still heavy with the loss of Berta and so many others, these and other efforts are cause for hope in an otherwise very dark time.
To show your support for the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, click here.
To support the Border Convergence, click here.
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How Secretary of State Clinton Enabled the Coup in Honduras
The rule of law in Honduras has still not recovered from the coup that the Democratic candidate for president enabled
Feb 19, 2016
On June 28, 2009, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, democratically elected a military coup overthrew Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. The United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization of American States condemned the coup, and on July 5, Honduras was suspended from the OAS.
Under longstanding and clear-cut U.S. law, all U.S. aid to Honduras except democracy assistance, including all military aid, should have been immediately suspended following the coup.
On August 7, fifteen House Democrats, led by Rep. Raul Grijalva, sent a letter to the Administration that began, "As you know, a military coup took place in Honduras on June 28th, 2009." The letter said, "The State Department should fully acknowledge that a military coup has taken place and follow through with the total suspension of non-humanitarian aid, as required by law."
Why wasn't U.S. aid to Honduras suspended following the coup? On August 25, Clinton's State Department justified not suspending aid to Honduras by claiming that events in Honduras were murky and that it was not clear whether a coup had taken place. Clinton's State Department claimed that State Department lawyers were studying the question.
This justification was a lie, and Clinton's State Department knew it was a lie. By July 24, 2009, the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, knew clearly that the action of the Honduran military to remove President Zelaya on June 28, 2009 constituted a coup. On July 24, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens sent a cable to top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Clinton, with the subject: "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," thoroughly documenting the assertion that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup."
Why did Clinton's State Department lie and pretend that it was murky whether a coup had taken place when it knew the fact that a coup had taken place was clear-cut? Because Hillary Clinton wanted the coup to succeed. Clinton's strategy to help the coup succeed, as revealed in her emails, was "delay, delay, delay," as Donald Trump might say. Delay any action that might help force the coup government to stand down and allow the democratically elected President to be restored to office. As she later confessed in her book, her goal was to "render the question of [President] Zelaya moot."
Today, the rule of law in Honduras still has not recovered from the coup that Secretary Clinton helped enable. That's a key reason that refugees have fled Honduras to the United States, only to find themselves hunted by the Department of Homeland Security raids that Secretary Clinton supported before she opposed them.
President Obama is going to visit Cuba, and that's wonderful. Ending the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba is a key step the U.S. must take to restore normal relations with Latin America. But it's not the only change we need. There is a two-hundred-year legacy of U.S. military intervention and subversion in Latin America that didn't stop in January 2009. It's hard to have confidence that former Secretary Clinton will end this legacy as President when she used her power as Secretary of State to turn the clock backward.
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