April 17, 2024 (EIRNS)—Heads of state and government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), convened virtually on April 16 to hear Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) address the matter of Ecuador’s violent raid on the Mexican Embassy in Quito on April 5, and appeal for their support for Mexico’s submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Ecuadorian security forces violated international law and Mexican sovereignty when they entered the embassy illegally, assaulted its Mexican personnel and kidnapped former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been granted asylum.
Ecuador’s super-rich, lightweight President Daniel Noboa two days ago doubled down and said he had “no regrets” over his invasion of the Mexican embassy, making it clear that he was acting with support from capitals such as Washington and London—whose policy is to take down all the institutions of international law, in order to impose their “rules-based order.”
AMLO thanked the nations of Ibero-America and the Caribbean for their solidarity and proposed that, “if you consider it viable and feasible, support us by endorsing our denunciation at the International Court of Justice.” At yesterday’s regular morning press conference, reported by the daily Excélsior, AMLO explained that what Mexico is asking for “is very clear.”
“First, remove the state of Ecuador from the United Nations until it declares, and makes a commitment to not repeat [this action], and admits they violated our sovereignty…. This is the time for any state that violates the sovereignty of any other country’s embassy and violates the right to asylum and international law, to be expelled from the UN.” Many observers took note of the fact that AMLO’s description also fit Israel’s April 1 rocket attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Mexico wants the ICJ to make a firm ruling on this, he said, “so that this resolution goes to the General Assembly of the United Nations, that it be voted on and presented for the consideration of all member states; if it’s approved, that it be implemented, and that the UN Security Council not have the right to veto it.” If the UN fails to take these steps, he warned, then it’s “going to be left just looking like a flower pot, just an ornament.”
The Mexican President also explained how “sacred” the institution of asylum has been for his country historically. As reported by Milenio, he said “it’s something historic, that was reaffirmed with great pride and decision by President Lázaro Cárdenas,” who governed from 1934-1940, and “who offered protection to Jews, and to participants and fighters in the Spanish Civil War, granting asylum to Trotsky when no one else wanted to accept him.” It wasn’t just Cárdenas, he said, “but all the presidents of the post-revolutionary period (post 1917) who have protected the right to asylum. This is sacred to us. If we don’t do this, we’re not going to be able to live in a world guided by norms and laws. I was telling [Brazilian] President Lula that it would be the world of gorillas; we’d be returning to a world of the gorillas, with all due respect to gorillas.”
