'Not even in the worst dictatorships has a country's embassy been violated': Rafael Correa on the Ecuador-Mexico diplomatic crisis

The former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa (2007-2017) assured this Saturday that the current president, Daniel Noboa, confuses the country “with one of his banana farms,” ​​after The Ecuadorian Government decided to enter the Mexican Embassy by force to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas, to whom the Mexican Executive had granted political asylum.

In a message on the social network

“Not even in the worst dictatorships has a country's embassy been violated. We do not live in a state of law, but in a state of barbarism, with an improvised entity that confuses the homeland with one of its banana plantations,” Correa said in reference to Noboa, whose family owns the largest banana emporium in the country, the world's leading exporter of that fruit.

“We hold Daniel Noboa responsible for the safety and physical and psychological integrity of former Vice President Jorge Glas. To Mexico, its people and its Government, our apologies and eternal admiration. Until victory always!”, concluded the former president.

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, anticipated the formal breaking of diplomatic relations with Ecuador considering the invasion of the embassy in Quito as a violation of national sovereignty and international law.

This event occurred at a time of maximum tension in relations between Ecuador and Mexico, after the Noboa Government had expelled the Mexican ambassador, Raquel Serur, for statements by López Obrador, regarding the murder of the candidate Fernando Villavicencio and the effect on the elections won by the young businessman, now 36 years old, who beat the Correista candidate Luisa González.

At the end of February, the Ecuadorian Government had already requested permission from the Mexican ambassador to enter the diplomatic headquarters to detain Glas, when the López Obrador administration had not yet resolved his request for political asylum.

Glas, who was vice president of Ecuador during part of Rafael Correa's presidential term (2007-2017) and at the beginning of Lenín Moreno's presidential term (2017-2021), was at the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador since the end of December 2023.

He had arrived there after being charged with alleged embezzlement (embezzlement of public funds) in the 'Reconstruction' case of the coastal province of Manabí, after the strong earthquake that occurred in 2016.

After staying at the Mexican Embassy in Quito, a judge ordered his capture and entry into preventive detention at the beginning of 2024.

Glas spent nearly five years in prison between 2017 and the end of 2022, to serve two sentences for corruption cases of eight and six years in prison, respectively, for the crimes of bribery and illicit association in the irregular financing of the Correísta party and in the framework of the international corruption case of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

The former vice president has always rejected the accusations and convictions against him and from the beginning has declared himself a politically persecuted person and victim of lawfare. (use of the judicial apparatus against political adversaries), which is why he had requested political asylum in Mexico.

In the same sentence for bribery, former President Correa, who has refugee status in Belgium, was also sentenced to eight years in prison and politically disqualified, from where he also denounces political persecution against him and those close to him during his Government.