Rafael Correa: “Jorge Glas has been kidnapped by a narcissist like Daniel Noboa”

Rafael Correa does not know Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president of Mexico. The arrangements for his right-hand man during his time at the head of Ecuador to receive political asylum from Mexico were made with the chancellor, Alicia Bárcenas, whom he knew from his time at the head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (ECLAC). Correa launched a plan to save Jorge Glas, his vice president, his friend since they met in the

from Ecuadorian justice . Glas went to spend Christmas at the Mexican embassy in Quito and there he waited for three months for asylum, which arrived 48 hours ago (Friday from Mexico). The Ecuadorian authorities then had to issue him a safe passage so that he could take a plane and settle in Mexico City, where a new life awaited him, far from what Correismo considers a judicial persecution, a case of

. Instead, in an event that has left the international community speechless, Daniel Noboa, the Ecuadorian president, ordered the police and military to surround the embassy and later storm it to forcibly take away a confused Glas. , scared, incredulous. The world witnessed live with the same astonishment this violation of the sovereignty of a country that concluded with a series of black vans leaving Mexican territory. Glas was inside.

A protester, next to the security convoy that was transporting Jorge Glas to prison, on April 6, 2024. Karen Toro (REUTERS)

Correa is someone eloquent, but in this case he has been left speechless. “Jorge Glas has been kidnapped by a narcissist like Noboa,” he says on the other side of the screen, from Belgium, where he was also granted asylum for the same matter as Glas: an investigation and a conviction by the prosecution for corruption. which some countries consider a ruse orchestrated by opponents of Correism. The former president says he has two hypotheses. On the one hand, it may be that Noboa was not trying to make a splash in the face of the referendum proposed by him, which will be held in three weeks and in which legal reforms and constitutional amendments will be consulted. To name a few, it will have to be decided whether the military can patrol the access roads to prisons, the toughening of sentences and the expropriation of assets of illicit origin. Correa suspects that Noboa did not look so strong and tried to hit the table. “But it's going to go badly for him, this takes away his votes,” he speculates.

The second hypothesis has to do with Noboa's personality. Correa believes that he is a daffodil - sometimes he has been described in the same way -, someone who was born in a cradle of gold, since his father is the richest man in Ecuador, a banana businessman who presented himself five times unsuccessfully for the presidency. He sees him as an immature young man—he is 36 years old—and conceited. When days ago López Obrador suggested that Noboa had won the elections thanks to the commotion generated by the assassination of another candidate, Fernando Villavicencio. Noboa imploded, always according to Correa's theory. “It was all an overacting, his egocentrism overflowed. It drove him crazy that AMLO called him a facho. And he surrounded the embassy with tanks, special forces. A nonsense,” he continues.

The consequences? “Very serious.” The matter, within the magnitude, has remained within reasonable limits because on the other side is López Obrador, a veteran politician who is hardly upset by anything, not even “Noboa's bravado.” Correa highlights that he remains so calm in something that could be cause for

. Isn't the president of Ecuador imitating the Salvadoran, Nayib Bukele? Doesn't he want to show a sheriff, tough guy image? “Bukele wouldn't do that, he's not stupid. He would never dream of breaking international law in such a brutal way. That is entering an embassy, ​​invading a foreign country and kidnapping. Not even Pinochet did that, the Chilean dictator allowed safe passage to four members of a revolutionary indigenous movement sheltered in an Embassy,” he continues. He does not predict a promising future for Noboa: “he will pay for this in The Hague or other international bodies.”

Former vice president Jorge Glas in a detention cell in Ecuador on April 6, 2024. POLICE OF ECUADOR

Correa is really worried about Glas' health. According to what he has been told, he has been mistreated during his transfer to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil, which has the imposing name of La Roca. He considers that the only positive thing this can have is for the rest of the countries in the world to turn their eyes to Ecuador, a country that, sadly, “is marginal, no one pays attention to it.” “Here there is one outrage after another, there is no rule of law in Ecuador.” That includes not only Glas's case, but also his own, which has been bogged down in a UN review for years.

Correismo, according to its leader, can defeat the acting president in 2025, when the country is called to the polls again. It will not be easy. Noboa has gained popularity for his implementation of an internal commotion with which he took the military out to the streets and also introduced them into prisons, the center of operations of the gangs that in the last two years imposed terror in Ecuador. However, Correa marks this event as a before and after. “Noboa is a flower of a day. We can beat him. He has come to power through manipulation. I hope that Ecuadorians will not be fooled again,” he concludes.

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