April 10, 2024 (EIRNS)—Foreign Ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) met virtually yesterday to discuss the crisis that erupted due to the violent assault on Mexico’s embassy in Quito, Ecuador by elite units of the Ecuadorian police. Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Barcena and her Ecuadorian counterpart Gabriela Sommerfeld each presented their views of the situation, but representatives of 19 of 20 countries present condemned Ecuador’s assault and physical attacks on embassy personnel as an outrageous violation of international law and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Ms. Barcena, who also showed the footage of the attacks filmed by the embassy’s security cameras asked her colleagues to endorse Mexico’s petition to the International Court of Justice, which will be submitted shortly, and to the case it will present to the General Assembly of the United Nations. As reported on the Mexican government website, she also welcomed the proposal by the President Pro Tempore of CELAC to convene an emergency heads of state and government summit of member nations this Friday, April 12 to further deliberate on the subject.
In her remarks, Barcena emphasized that Mexico’s granting of asylum to Ecuador’s former Vice President Jorge Glas was done in strict accordance with international law, and that there had been continuous contact with Ecuadorian authorities during the process. The raid on the embassy “has no precedent in the history of the region, not in the worst moments, not in the darkest moments.” This authoritarian act, she said, passed a “dangerous threshold … which wasn’t crossed even under the most difficult times of Latin American and European dictatorships.”
Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld continued to insist that Jorge Glas didn’t meet the minimal requirements of eligibility for asylum, and that Mexico violated “important conventions.” She accused Mexico of “promoting impunity” by granting Glas asylum, since he is just a common criminal. Mexico has violated several articles of the Vienna Convention, she insisted, and has engaged in “provocations against Ecuador.”
A final communiqué from the meeting is expected shortly.
