Mexico City, Mexico — Venezuela and Honduras have withdrawn their diplomatic personnel in Ecuador in an act of solidarity with Mexico. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador thanked the governments of Venezuela and Honduras for the act after the assault on the Mexican embassy in Quito on April 5.
The news came during a Tuesday evening Celac (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños) meeting between heads of state.
During the virtual meeting, President Xiomara Castro, representing CELAC, strongly condemned the violent invasion of the Ecuadorian security forces into the facilities of the Mexican embassy and the excessive use of force against the Mexican diplomatic staff and the former Vice President of Ecuador, Jorge David Glas Espinel.
“We express our rejection of these types of acts, inadmissible from every point of view, which violate peaceful coexistence between States and, in turn, are a clear manifestation of barbarism that violates basic human rights,” she said.
“We reiterate our commitment to consolidate our community of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace in which differences between nations are resolved peacefully through dialogue so that these irrational and savage acts are never repeated in our Latin American and Caribbean region again,” she added.
Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, said that “Mexico is not alone. It has the voice of our America accompanying it in a circumstance that you did not seek. (…) I have ordered to close our embassy in Ecuador, close the consulate in Quito, immediately close the consulate in Guayaquil, and for diplomatic personnel to return to Venezuela immediately.
“We have a business manager, Professor Pedro Sassone. From here I give you the order to prepare everything, close it, return until international law is expressly restored in Ecuador,” he said.
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) have agreed to support President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the position of the Government of Mexico in the face of the violation of national sovereignty and international and asylum law committed by Ecuador.
They agreed to accompany Mexico in the lawsuit filed in the International Court of Justice.
President López Obrador reiterated that the legal response to the grievance consists of requesting the expulsion of Ecuador from the United Nations (UN) as long as it does not offer an apology and undertakes not to repeat what he described as a “shameful and “violatory.”
The consequence that Mexico promotes is intended to be a principle of resolution so that something similar does not happen in the future.
Recognizing the response of CELAC member countries, he thanked the support received and assured that “we are going to continue defending the independence and sovereignty of our country. Mexico is not a protectorate, it is not a colony of any foreign country. Mexico is a free and sovereign country.”
