Mexico sues Ecuador before international justice for the attack on the Embassy

Mexico will take Ecuador before the International Court of Justice. The Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has sued the South American country this Thursday for the violent assault on the Mexican Embassy in Quito on April 5, when the police broke into the diplomatic headquarters under orders from President Daniel Noboa, mistreated the diplomatic staff and He forcibly took away former Vice President Jorge Glas. “The violent aggression is what we are taking before the international court,” said Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena this Thursday in a conference with the Mexican president. The Executive has requested that what happened that day be judged and has asked that Ecuador be suspended as a member of the United Nations (UN). The lawsuit also includes the request to expel him from the organization if it is proven before the Court that the principles established by the founding charter of the United Nations were violated.

“What we are asking is that the multilateral system must be up to the task and we must demand that international justice unambiguously condemn and sanction the serious violations that have occurred and avoid a precedent of impunity,” Bárcena declared. Mexico had been anticipating for days that they were preparing the lawsuit to present it to international justice. Along the way, they sought the support of other countries to be able to give more force to the request. They finally managed to do it with the support of the United States, Canada, the European Union and almost all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The temporary suspension that has been requested, as detailed by the Mexican Government, is "as long as a public apology is not issued recognizing the violation of the fundamental principles of international law." This request has been made “with the purpose of guaranteeing reparation for the moral damage inflicted on the Mexican State,” Bárcena detailed. The lawsuit also seeks to “establish the precedent that any State that acts as Ecuador did will be expelled from the United Nations,” the chancellor explained. “This lawsuit is based on the conviction that the use of force is not the mechanism.”

The images of the assault on the Embassy were recorded on the legation's security cameras and were released by López Obrador this week. The recording shows a dozen police officers with long weapons entering the headquarters, jumping over the walls and breaking down the access door. Once inside, they can be seen manhandling and pointing guns at Mexican officials as they drag Glas out. The brutality of the irruption even changed the lukewarm position that the United States had had towards the assault, and this Tuesday, Joe Biden's Government condemned what happened.