United States: Governments around Latin America have united behind Mexico following the arrest of a controversial politician who had been given political refuge at the Mexican embassy in Quito by security forces in Ecuador.
A few hours after the arrest of Ecuador’s former vice president, Jorge Glas, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela censured Ecuador severely, and Nicaragua followed suit, cutting diplomatic ties with Quito.
At least one agent scaled the walls to free Glas during the late-night Friday event, which saw special troops encircling the Mexican embassy in Quito’s business area with a battering ram.
The 54-year-old lawmaker has been shut up inside the Mexican embassy since December, when he requested political asylum. He is wanted on corruption accusations.
That request was approved by Mexican officials on Friday. After being brought into custody, Glas was shown on camera, which went viral on social media, being driven to the Quito airport by a police convoy with troops who were highly armed. The biggest city in the Andes, Guayaquil, is where he boarded an aircraft to go to a prison.
While Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa’s administration claimed that Glas’s asylum protections were unlawful due to the corruption charges he is facing, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador denounced the unprecedented diplomatic incursion and arrest as a “authoritarian” act and a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.
Nonetheless, a country is not allowed to trespass into an embassy’s territory because of international law, which regards embassies as the sovereign territory of the nation they represent. This is stated in the Vienna Convention, which regulates international relations.
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