With its devious and criminal armed attack on the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, the government of Daniel Noboa ran into a dead end. And there is nothing you can do to correct the mistake except reverse and retrace your steps.
This corrective path involves first recognizing the error committed and requesting a public apology from the Mexican government, as demanded by President López Obrador before the International Court of Justice.
A second step would be to free the former president of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, kidnapped by police forces inside the Mexican embassy in Quito, where he was as a political refugee.
Thirdly, it must guarantee Jorge Glas’s departure alive from Ecuadorian territory and his delivery to the asylum country. None of this is impossible or difficult to achieve.
After all this, things will return to normal and the now broken diplomatic relations between Mexico and Ecuador can be resumed.
But what will happen if Daniel Noboa refuses to correct his grotesque mistake. Firstly, the universal condemnation of the Noboist government will continue and fester, with its expected and harmful diplomatic, economic, commercial and financial consequences for Ecuador.
It will also happen that Jorge Glas will continue to be kidnapped and imprisoned and will become a martyr of an authoritarian and discredited government. And also, of course, a factor in the internal and international delegitimization of Noboa. How long can this last in such a situation of political instability. Time is running in favor of Mexico and the former vice president.
It should also be remembered that Glas belongs to a political movement with a deep presence in Ecuadorian society, such as Correismo, and with social and political sympathies and affinities among vast popular and democratic sectors, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Is Noboa against the world a viable political and diplomatic option? The way out of the mess has already been outlined by the Mexican government. Noboa, without internal and global support, only has the path of rectification left. Or will he perhaps think of escalating the conflict further? Ineptitude and arrogance are not good advisors.
As for Mexico, the balance of the matter is highly positive whatever the outcome. The motto is clear: nothing by force, everything by reason and law, as Benito Juárez, the Benemérito of the Americas, advised.
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