Following Ecuadorian authorities' storming of Mexico's embassy in Quito and arrest of the country’s former vice president Jorge Glas on corruption charges, Ecuador’s exiled former president, Rafael Correa, told FRANCE 24 on Saturday that his ex-deputy Glas “is an honest man” subject to “political persecution”. He also likened the raid on the embassy, which has been condemned by Mexico and prompted it to cut diplomatic ties with the South American nation, to an invasion and said that under normal circumstances it would have been “a cause for war”.
Glas, who had sought political asylum in Mexico, had been residing in the embassy since December after being indicted on corruption charges.
On Friday, police broke through the external doors of the Mexican diplomatic headquarters in the Ecuadorian capital and entered the main patio to get Glas, who was reportedly also injured in the operation.
Mexico reacted strongly to the news, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announcing that his country was cutting off diplomatic ties with Ecuador.
In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24, Ecuador’s former leader Correa said Glas “is an honest man, he is a political persecuted person and for this reason, Mexico granted him asylum”.
Correa also described Ecuador’s action as an invasion.
“This is a cause for war, thank God we have a very good government [in Mexico], a very good president but usually this is an invasion because the embassy is a foreign territory.”
"Mexico is handling the situation very well," he said.
Under international law, embassies are considered the sovereign territory of the country they represent.
In the interview, Correa, who served as Ecuador's leftist leader between 2007 and 2017, said he and his family still have to take security precautions, despite having been granted political asylum.
“[We] feel that we are being followed,” he said. “There is even a lawsuit in Spain because we discovered that we were being followed by a Spanish enterprise […] They reported to the Ecuadorian government and the CIA in the US.”
If he were to return to Ecuador, he said he would be "killed or imprisoned".
Correa has also been accused by Ecuadorian authorities of corruption.
Immediately following Glas’ violent arrest, Roberto Canseco, the head of the Mexican consular section in Quito, told local press outside the embassy: “This is not possible. It cannot be. This is crazy.”
“I am very worried because they could kill him. There is no basis to do this. This is totally outside the norm,” Canseco said.
'Flagrant violation of international law'
The government of Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa had argued asylum protections were illegal because of the corruption charges Glas is facing.
“Ecuador is a sovereign nation and we are not going to allow any criminal to stay free,” the presidency said in a statement.
Mexico's López Obrador fired back, calling Glas’ detention an “authoritarian act” and “a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico.”
Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations, posted on X that a number of diplomats suffered injuries during the break-in, adding that it violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Bárcena said that Mexico would take the case to the International Court of Justice “to denounce Ecuador’s responsibility for violations of international law”. She also said Mexican diplomats were only waiting for the Ecuadorian government to offer the necessary guarantees for their return home.
Ecuador’s foreign and interior ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AP.
On Thursday, tensions between the two countries escalated after Mexico’s president made statements that Ecuador considered “very unfortunate” about last year’s election there, won by Noboa.
In reaction, the Ecuadorian government declared the Mexican ambassador persona non grata.
Diplomatic rally around Mexico and Glas
On Saturday, governments across the political spectrum in Latin America - including Brazil and Colombia on the left, and Argentina and Uruguay on the right - sharply criticised the intrusion into the embassy and the arrest of Glas.
Nicaragua went as far as to break "all its diplomatic relations" with Ecuador.
Brazil’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, condemned Ecuador’s move, saying it was a “clear violation” of international norms” that “must be subject to strong repudiation, whatever the justification for its implementation”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro argued in a post on X that Latin America “must keep alive the precepts of international law in the midst of the barbarism that is advancing in the world.”
According to a separate statement, Petro’s government said it will seek human rights legal protections for the now-detained Glas.
Accused of taking bribes
In 2017, Glas was sentenced to six years in prison after he was found guilty of taking bribes from Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht in exchange for awarding it government contracts.
As he faced a fresh arrest warrant on separate graft charges, Glas has claimed he is the victim of political persecution, a charge Ecuador’s government has denied.
On Saturday, Glas was taken from the attorney general’s office in Quito to the port city of Guayaquil, where he will remain in custody at a maximum-security prison. People who had gathered outside the prosecutor’s office yelled “strength” as he left with a convoy of police and military vehicles.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and Reuters)
