Diplomatic Blowback Begins in Latin America, As Ecuador Violates One of the Oldest Rules of International Law

As if by clockwork, diplomatic tensions are rapidly intensifying in Latin America as the US tries to reimpose its stranglehold over the region.

In September last year we reported, in the article “Back to Business As Usual: The US Is Once Again Vigorously Stirring the Pot in Its Own ‘Backyard‘”, how the US is seeking to reimpose its military and strategic stranglehold over South America — or failing that, to sow enough chaos and division in the region to undermine China’s growing economic influence there.

As the Commander of US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, explained in disarmingly candid fashion at the Atlantic Council in Jan 2023, the main goal of the US government and military (and, of course, the corporate and financial interests they serve), is to tap Latin America’s abundant natural resources, including rare earth elements, lithium, gold, oil, natural gas, light sweet crude, abundant food crops, and fresh water, while depriving China and Russia of access to those same resources.

Since then, Washington has signed agreements with three countries (Argentina, Ecuador and Peru) allowing US troops to operate along their coastlines and/or on their sovereign territory, in the ostensible name of waging Washington’s war on drugs. In Argentina, the Milei government recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States allowing members of the US Army Corps of Engineers to operate along the Paraná-Paraguay Waterway, one of the largest freshwater basins in the world.

In Uruguay, the Senate just approved the entry of US military personnel from US Special Forces into Uruguay, who will be in the country between April 7 and May 16, ostensibly for training purposes. On Friday, Javier Milei made an unscheduled 3,000-kilometre trip to Ushuaia, on the southern tip of Tierra de Fuego, to meet with General Richardson and US ambassador Marc Stanley. He was also there to check on the status of Argentina’s new Integrated Naval Base, a project begun two years ago under the previous administration that had originally generated concern in Washington about the possible participation of Russia and China. Now, it seems that the US will be the sole partner in this geo-strategically vital venture.

“It will be a logistics center and the closest port to Antarctica, helping to turn our country into the entry point to the white continent,” Milei said. “It will also help improve the local economy and give support to scientific research conducted by several international Antarctica projects.” In his morning press conference, Milei’s spokesman, Manuel Adorni, clarified that it will be Argentina and the US who will control this gateway to the white continent.

The Argentine president, dressed in military fatigues, also announced plans to increase Argentina’s “strategic alliance” with the United States in order to better defend its sovereignty (no, seriously). As the Buenos Aires Herald reports, he even lashed out at previous governments, accusing them of failing to take Argentina’s sovereignty seriously.

“They have done nothing to defend us from drug traffickers and Islamic terrorism,” he continued, before taking a veiled jab at China and its fishing industry. “They have not defended the sovereignty of the Argentine Sea from illegal fishing.”

El "anarco"capitalista de Milei no es más que un títere. Acaba de anunciar una base militar de Estados Unidos en Argentina. Mientras grita "Viva la libertad, carajo" vende su país. pic.twitter.com/cRoKpd45wy

— Fonsi Loaiza (@FonsiLoaiza) April 5, 2024

[Translation: the anarcho-capitalist Milei is nothing more than a puppet. He just announced a US military base in Argentina. While he shouts “long live freedom, carajo” he sells out his country]

Also on Friday, the Mexican government granted political asylum to Jorge Glas, a former Ecuadorian vice president who had been taking refuge at the Mexican embassy in Quito since December last year. Glas is accused of corruption charges related to the Lava Jato (car wash) scandal implicating the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, and has already served five years in prison. He was released on appeal in 2022 but the political and judicial authorities want him back in jail.

Blowback Begins

In response to Mexico’s announcement, Daniel Noboa’s government in Quito declared the Mexican ambassador persona non-grata and surrounded the Mexican embassy with hundreds of soldiers and police officers. In the early hours of Saturday (April 6) morning, those soldiers and police officers attacked the embassy in Quito, which is equivalent to an act of war, detaining (or as some are saying, kidnapping) Glas while using force against members of Mexico’s diplomatic staff. Mexican diplomat Roberto Canseco was visibly shaken after being pushed to the ground by Ecuador’s police as they left the Mexican embassy:

“They can kill him, there is no basis for doing this. This is outside the norm and they are doing it because he is a persecuted person. It cannot be so, this has not happened even in the worst cases.”

🇪🇨🇲🇽 Jorge Glas llevaba refugiado en la embajada mexicana desde diciembre de 2023. El Gobierno ecuatoriano había solicitado con anterioridad que le entregarán a Glas, a lo cual México se había negado. pic.twitter.com/FIMt2W58cn

— Descifrando la Guerra (@descifraguerra) April 6, 2024

Mexico responded to this “flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention” by severing diplomatic relations with Ecuador, which could, if extended to the commercial space, have unpleasant consequences for the Andean nation’s recession-hit, IMF-dependent economy. Mexico´s Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador government is also threatening to take the case to the International Court of Justice.

Almost without exception, the Noboa’s government’s actions have been condemned by countries in the region and beyond, as well as the United Nations, leading Ecuador’s former President Rafael Correa to propose nominating  Noboa for the Nobel peace prize for uniting the world — against Ecuador! Some countries took longer than others to express their disapproval, including the US and Canada, and, interestingly, Russia. When Moscow’s statement did arrive, it was succinct but forceful.

“For our part, we express our extreme concern about the armed incursion of representatives of the Ecuadorian security forces into the Mexican Embassy.” We also “reaffirm our unconditional commitment to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961,” which guarantees the inviolability of diplomatic headquarters, their immunity from searches, arrests and coercive actions. “We regret that Mexican diplomats were injured in the incident.”

Weak-Tea Statements

By contrast, the US and Canada issued weak-tea statements. Ottawa express its concern about Ecuador’s “apparent” breach of the 1961 Convention Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, as if the events of Saturday morning were somehow in doubt. Neither country expressly condemned the attack. By doing this, notes Sacha Llorenti, a former ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations, the US and Canada essentially establish equivalence between the aggressor and the attacked and, “with typical condescension”, call on both governments to “resolve their differences”, as if there were two parties equally to blame for what has happened.

Since his secuestro arrest, Glas has had no access to his defence lawyers. In an interview yesterday with the Mexican daily La Jornada, Glas’ chief lawyer, Sonia Vera, warned that Glas faces a “real threat of death” if sent back to jail, which is where he spent much of Saturday and all of Sunday before being rushed to a military hospital on Monday afternoon after reportedly ingesting (or being given) an overdose of psychotropic drugs. He is allegedly in an induced coma while speculation builds that the Noboa government wants him dead.

“ His son has told me that he fears for his life. And, to tell the truth, so do I,” says Vera, who explains that contrary to what is stated in the successive – and contradictory – statements from Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Glas is not a fugitive nor is he at risk of flight. “He is a politically persecuted person who has already served his sentence, who has the right to pre-release measures and precautionary measures and who was on conditional release.”

Electoral Calculations

Noboa begs to differ, claiming he had little choice but to take “exceptional decisions” in an unprecedented situation to protect national security, the rule of law and dignity. Ecuador, he said, is a country of peace and justice that respects all nations and international law — while, of course, violating one of the oldest and most important rules of international law. Meanwhile, an article in the New York Times (Spanish edition) suggests that the attack on Mexico’s embassy was primarily motivated by crude electoral calculations:

President Daniel Noboa has faced declining approval ratings amid a surge in violence weeks before a referendum that could affect his re-election prospects next year. The dispute with Mexico, which suspended diplomatic relations, may be just what he needed.

Noboa’s office said the arrest had been carried out because Mexico had abused the immunities and privileges granted to the diplomatic mission, but the message it sent was also in line with Noboa’s heavy-handed approach to dealing with the violence and corruption in Ecuador.

The 36-year-old center-right leader came to power in November after President Guillermo Lasso, who was facing impeachment over allegations of embezzlement, called early elections. Noboa will hold the position until May 2025, the date on which Lasso’s term ends…

“He did this to change all [the] negative conversation topics that were affecting him and try to have a conversation in his favor,” said an Ecuadorian political analyst, Agustín Burbano de Lara.

But if Glas ends up dying in military hospital, the conversation is going to get a lot more uncomfortable for Noboa, especially given Glas’ status in many people’s minds as a political prisoner. According to his defence lawyer, he is the only Ecuadorian who has four rulings from international judges in his favor, including from the IACHR and the UN arbitrary detention group.

A Particularly Bad Case of Lawfare

An article published by Le Monde Diplomatique in January 2023 eviscerates Ecuador’s 2019 Bribery Law that is being used to prosecute/persecute almost a dozen former members of Rafael Correa’s government, including Correa himself who has received political asylum in Belgium. Brought into effect by Lenin Moreno — Correa’s duplicitous successor who allowed British police to enter Ecuador’s embassy in London and arrest Julian Assange in 2019 in return for a $4.2 billion loan from the IMF (and who knows what else) — the law is one of the most egregious examples of lawfare to have come out of Latin America, notes the article:

[W]e can affirm without a doubt that one of the most brutal lawfare campaigns that has been seen in Latin America recently is the persecution deployed in Ecuador against former president Rafael Correa and other members of his Government, with the clear purpose of eradicating them from the political map, banning them and arbitrarily depriving them of their freedom.

Probably the most paradigmatic case of this lawfare in Ecuador has been the one known as the Bribery Case. Through this criminal case plagued by irregularities, the Ecuadorian judicial authorities have condemned and beheaded a large part of the movement led by former president Rafael Correa…

The Bribery Case ended with the conviction of twenty people for the crime of bribery, including former President Rafael Correa and ten other members of his governments and party. Specifically, in the sentencing, former President Correa was convicted, without there being a single scrap of incriminating evidence against him, on the basis of Rafael Correa’s “psychic influence” on the events, simply for being the president in those years, without any additional evidence against him. The theory of “psychic influence” will go down in history as one of the greatest legal aberrations that lawfare has brought forth in Latin America.

[E]ven though the Ecuadorian authorities have presented the bribery case as a criminal case being handled independently,… without political interests, the truth is that international human rights organisations are currently taking the country to task for what they consider to be… judicial persecution, with the purpose of bringing about the expulsion from public life of former president Rafael Correa and his political associates…

First, it is necessary to note that the international arrest warrants against former president Rafael Correa have been blocked by INTERPOL… Second, former President Correa has received political asylum in Belgium, which believes that the Ecuadorian judicial authorities are engaging in political persecution remotely directed by the executive… Third, and of particular relevance, is the criticism made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers… In relation to the Bribery Case, the UN Rapporteur has launched no fewer than four appeals against Ecuador

US Involvement?

Another question many are asking is to what extent Washington was aware of, or, for that matter, directly involved in the Noboa government’s decision to raid the Mexican embassy. After all, it is hard to imagine a government as closely aligned with the US as Ecuador’s, with a president who was born, raised and educated in the US, willing to take such an extreme course of action without first getting the green light from Washington.

Today (April 9), Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (aka AMLO) himself said during his morning press conference while sharing video images of Ecuador’s military invasion of the Mexican embassy that a government does not do this unless it feels that it has the support of other powers… That’s why we are taking this matter to the International Court of Justice. Mexico must be respected.” Here are the images:

Al dar a conocer imágenes del asalto a la Embajada de México en Ecuador, el pdte. @lopezobrador_ dijo:"Eso no lo hace un gobierno si no siente que tiene respaldo de otras potencias…Por eso vamos a llevar este asunto a la Corte de Justicia Internacional. A México se le respeta." pic.twitter.com/icpvDGDczZ

— Jesús Ramírez Cuevas (@JesusRCuevas) April 9, 2024

Coincidentally (or not), the recent rise in diplomatic tensions between Ecuador and Argentina on the one hand and certain left-leaning governments in the region on the other, particularly Mexico and Colombia, comes just after a rare visit by the CIA director William Burns to Argentina as well as visits by SOUTHCOM Commander, General Richardson, to both countries. The invasion of the Mexican embassy also comes just days after Israel launched a missile attack against the Iranian embassy in Damascus killing at least 11 people, including senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards.

While the US denies any involvement in the two embassy attacks, as one would expect it to, it is striking that one of the attacks was carried out by arguably its closest ally (in the case of Israel) and the other by a servile client state (in the case of Ecuador).

In June 2022, four months into its SMO (Special Military Operation) in Ukraine, Russia warned that the Vienna Convention risked losing its status in the current climate. From Tass:

Moscow believes that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is sacrosanct and must not be violated when it comes to issues related to Russia’s diplomatic property, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Wednesday.

“We believe that <…> the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is sacrosanct and must not be violated,” she stressed. Zakharova pointed out that under the convention, the premises of diplomatic missions, “their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.”

“Until recently, raising such issues seemed inconceivable in light of diplomatic regulations and the concept of private property that was viewed as practically sacred by countries of the collective West,” Zakharova stressed.

End of an Era?

Not even during the worst moments of the Cold War did the nuclear powers dare to violate the sovereignty of another embassy. Nor did the British government dare to enter the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Julian Assange despite the Swedish and US arrest warrants against him. As Zakharova said, the Vienna Convention is, or at least was, sacrosanct.

By invading the Mexican embassy, the Noboa government violated Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (“Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith. A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty”), explains Jesús Lopéz Almejo, a Mexican professor of international relations. It also violated articles 22 and 29 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 (regarding the inviolability of diplomatic headquarters and agents) as well as articles four and nine of the 1954 Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum.

That’s not all, says Lopéz Almejo: by executing this raid on the Mexican embassy, the Noboa government also contravened a number of articles of Ecuador’s national constitution pertaining to the government’s obligations in respect with public international law (including article four, paragraph 1, art. 147, number 1; art. 416, number 9; art. 417; 424, paragraph 2; art. 425 and art 426, paragraph 2). It also violated article 482 of Ecuador’s Comprehensive Criminal Organic Code on raids on diplomatic missions.

This is not the first time Noboa has shown blithe disregard for international norms. As readers may recall, his government triggered a diplomatic crisis with Russia in January by offering to give Ecuador’s Russian-made weaponry to the US in exchange for a promise of more modern US equipment some time in the future. It was a complete violation of the end user certificates previous Ecuadorian governments had signed with the Russian arms manufacturers. To justify the move, Noboa claimed the Russian weaponry was mere scrap metal while the US openly talked about sending it to Ukraine, to be used against Russian soldiers. When Russia imposed import bans on Ecuadorian bananas, Ecuador’s most important export product, the Noboa government quickly back tracked.

But Quito’s latest action is potentially far more serious since it threatens to set a dangerous precedent in the region and beyond, precisely at a time when international law is already facing threats from multiple sides, warns Paulina Estraza, a professor of international law and international relations at the University of Concepcion, in Chile:

What Ecuador has done cannot be allowed to set a precedent in international relations. That is why one would have expected a swifter, clearer and stronger condemnation from states and international organisations. This is not a question of right or left. This is a matter of international law. An act like this could end up further aggravating the current crisis undermining the international legal system.

Although President Andrés Manuel López also violated a traditional rule of international law — the prohibition on meddling in the internal affairs of another state — this does not give Ecuador the right to bypass the rules of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Article 27 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties clearly establishes that no state can invoke norms of its internal law to justify its non-compliance with a treaty (or any international norm). International law takes precedence over domestic law. Pacta sunt servanda, what has been agreed is binding and must be complied with in good faith.

A long-standing and essential international legal concept, especially for Latin America, is the right to asylum. A key factor in making asylum work — and saving lives as has happened in many dictatorships around the world — is the inviolability of diplomatic premises… In Chile, after the [1973] coup d’état, many persecuted by the regime found asylum in foreign embassies, mainly Latin American and European. This saved their lives. Not even Augusto Pinochet had the military enter diplomatic compounds to arrest dissidents of the dictatorship.

And that pretty much says it all.