Published 04/16/2024 16:28 | Edited 04/16/2024 16:48
This Tuesday (16), President Lula participated in the Virtual Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The meeting was called by the president of Honduras and pro-tempore of CELAC, Xiomara Castro, to discuss the invasion of the Mexican Embassy in Quito by Ecuadorian police forces.
On the night of April 5, Ecuadorian police raided the Mexican embassy in Ecuador’s capital to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas, who had taken refuge in the diplomatic headquarters since December to avoid an arrest warrant. The invasion, which violates the international law of sovereignty over the embassy, took place moments after Mexico made Glas’ request for political asylum official.
At the time, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the act. Mexico has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in The Hague, to suspend Ecuador from the United Nations (UN).
In his speech at the Summit this Tuesday, President Lula said that something similar did not occur “not even in the worst moments of disunity and disagreement recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean” nor did it occur “in the dark times of military dictatorships on our continent.”
Read too: Brazilian government condemns invasion of the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador
In this sense, he said that the invasion was “unacceptable and does not only affect Mexico”. With this, he demands a “formal apology from Ecuador” and recalled that the absolute inviolability of missions and diplomatic personnel is established by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961: “it is one of those pillars of international law that does not admits exceptions, whatever the justification.”
Therefore, he understands Mexico’s appeal to the International Court of Justice as positive and wishes for the prompt normalization of relations between Ecuador and Mexico.
Check out President Lula’s full speech below:
My dear companion Xiomara Castro, president pro-tempore of CELAC, whom I thank for the timely and necessary convening of this meeting,
Dear friends, heads of State and Government and other representatives of our CELAC,
It saddens me greatly that, less than two months after the Kingstown Summit, we are meeting to discuss the invasion of the Mexican Embassy by armed police forces from Ecuador.
A measure of this nature had never occurred, not even in the worst moments of disunity and disagreement recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Not even in the dark times of military dictatorships on our continent.
What happened in Quito, on the 5th, is simply unacceptable and does not only affect Mexico.
It concerns all of us.
A formal apology from Ecuador is a first step in the right direction.
I also think that Bolivia’s proposal to form a commission made up of CELAC countries is positive, to monitor, together with the Ecuadorian government, the evolution of the situation and the health of former vice-president Jorge Glas.
This would give us time to advance discussions on the necessary safe conduct for your departure from the country.
The gravity of the situation imposes on us the duty to clearly express the region’s unequivocal rejection of what happened.
The absolute inviolability of diplomatic missions and personnel, as established by the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, is one of those pillars of international law that does not admit exceptions, whatever the justification.
Latin America has a pioneering humanitarian tradition in defense of the right to diplomatic asylum.
Exactly 70 years ago we signed the Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum.
The International Court of Justice itself has already dealt with the issue and was very clear about it in the Haya de la Torre Case, between Colombia and Peru.
Therefore, absolutely nothing justifies the scene we saw in Quito.
Our challenge now is to find ways to rebuild trust and dialogue.
We need to look ahead and look for ways to overcome this crisis.
We should not wait for this conflict to come from outside. We need to value our own means and instances.
This is essential for CELAC to continue to be the integration and consultation mechanism par excellence in our region.
Our region has already been a victim of colonialism and unilateral action by great powers. We don’t want this for our people.
We are a plural region. We will continue to have differences of views and opinions, but we are, above all, committed to resolving them based on dialogue and diplomacy.
In this sense, I see Mexico’s appeal to the International Court of Justice as positive.
It is also essential that CELAC continues working to reestablish dialogue and normalize relations between Ecuador and Mexico, two important partners of Brazil, fundamental to the consolidation of regional integration.
And finally, I want to appeal to everyone to make a commitment to work so that episodes like this never happen again in our region.
Thank you very much
Source: vermelho.org.br
