Not quite three months ago, our first developing live story of 2024 was an emergency declaration in Ecuador because of numerous prison breaks and rising violence as the government struggled to react and quell the uprisings. The end of that declaration is virtually staring us eye to eye and here we have another developing story, but one with interesting international implications.
We'll take just a few inches of copy to spotlight a few recent incidents, most related to the prior situation, then dig into this new one.
🇪🇨 Ecuador's youngest mayor found shot to death alongside staffer
Ecuador's youngest mayor, Brigitte Garcia, and a staffer were found shot dead in a car early on Sunday.
National police said they were investigating the deaths of Garcia, the 27-year-old mayor of San Vicente, and Jairo Loor, her communications director, after the discovery of their bodies in the province of Manabi. Both had suffered gunshot wounds, police said in a statement.
Later on Sunday, police said that the gunfire had come from within the car, which was rented, and they were tracking the vehicle's GPS system. Garcia belonged to former President Rafael Correa's Citizen Revolution Movement party.
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
🇪🇨 Guayaquil prison riot put down after inmates demand the ‘end of military occupation’
Prisoners at the Guayas Regional Prison burned mattresses and trash Wednesday night protesting the policies of President Daniel Noboa and the use of the armed forces inside the prison.
With chants of “Out Noboa” and “Out soldiers,” and “We want our prison back,” inmates took control of two prison courtyards early Wednesday evening, broadcasting photos and videos on TikTok.
"We demand that military occupation of this prison end immediately. We demand that the repressive actions of Daniel Noboa end,” one prisoner said in a video.
The riot was short lived, according to the National Police command that assisted the armed forces in restoring order. “The disruptions have been put down and the situation is under control,” the command said in a statement released at 11 p.m.
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
Riot reported in Guayaquil regional prison
Less than two weeks before the end of the state of emergency, which includes the intervention of police and military in prisons, a riot was recorded in the Guayaquil regional prison on the night of this Wednesday, March 27, 2024.
According to preliminary versions and videos spread on social networks, witnesses claim that the prisoners are challenging the police and military.
The prison authority has not yet commented.
Vehicular circulation was closed tonight on the road that connects Guayaquil and Daule.
The excesses occur in the same prison from which last January it was learned that the dangerous leader of Los Choneros, Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, "disappeared." t.me/VenezuelaNewsNetwork 🔸
(Interesting extra - when you have time)
🌎 Crime, violence and drug trafficking are nothing new to any Latin American – with the honorable exception of Cubans. But in recent months there has been a very strange sequence of events, not so much because of the events themselves, but because of the national and international political situation in which they are inserted.
The ongoing imperialist coup works to facilitate western domination and hinder the path to independence for Latin America.
💬 Eduardo Vasco writes
#LatinAmerica #Cuba #Ecuador
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🔸🇪🇨 Ecuador prison riot leaves 3 dead, 6 injured
At least three prisoners were killed and six injured in an overnight revolt in prison in Guayaquil.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa tweeted Wednesday that security forces had prevented a "possible escalation." The riot was the first since Noboa took office in November.
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
🇪🇨 This has never happened before and here it is again.
In the Guayaquil prison, from which the head of the Los Choneros group, nicknamed Fito, had once escaped, prisoners rebelled again. But we are just a couple of weeks away from ending the state of emergency!
At the same time, prisoners broadcast their antics on social networks and found an opportunity to start fires in their cells. In fact, the whole show with the operational measures of Daniel Noboa, which terrorized the country’s penitentiary institutions for a couple of months, disappeared somewhere into the milk.
However, they report that order has already been restored at the scene and the police have taken control of the situation. Just what now? New extension of the state of emergency? Maybe that's all that was required? Otherwise, the locals practically don’t remember how they lived outside of it.
#Эквадор #бунты
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🇪🇨🔥More footage of the prison riot in Guayaquil.
#Эквадор #бунты @sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸🇪🇨 At least eight killed in new Ecuador attack: police
At least eight people were killed and eight others wounded after an armed attack in southwestern Ecuador on Saturday, police said, the latest escalation of violence in the country.
🗣"Several armed subjects aboard a vehicle" opened fire on a group of people in the port city of Guayaquil at around 6:55 pm (2355 GMT), police said in a statement.
"Two people died instantly" and several others died "due to the severity of their injuries" after being taken to health centers, the statement said.
It is the second mass killing Ecuador has suffered in two days.
Five tourists in the seaside resort of Ayampe were kidnapped and killed on Friday by drug traffickers who mistook them for members of a rival gang, according to police reports.
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
🔸🇪🇨 5 tourists killed in case of mistaken identity in Ecuador
Ecuadoran gangsters abducted, interrogated and killed five tourists, apparently thinking they were members of a rival drug gang, officials said this weekend.
Around 20 attackers stormed a hotel Friday in the beach town of Ayampe in southern Ecuador and kidnapped six adults and a child, local police commander Richard Vaca said.
The abducted tourists, all Ecuadorans, were interrogated and hours later the bodies of five adults were found with gunshot wounds on a road, he said.
The assailants "apparently mistook them for adversaries" from a rival drug gang, said Vaca.
President Daniel Noboa said one person has been arrested so far in the case and the government is tracking down the rest of the attackers.
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
🇪🇨‼️🇨🇴 — Ecuador has installed its first mobile headquarters in the province of Carchi, where a hundred police officers will operate to reinforce security and control over more than a hundred informal crossings that connect Ecuador with Colombia.
➡️From the headquarters, located on a 5,000 square meter plot of land, the agents can connect to a satellite that enables monitoring of vehicles within a 20-kilometer radius. Additionally, the police officers also have a circuit of 28 cameras, with 18 of them inside the headquarters and the remaining ones in ten vans that allow real-time visualization of their routes at informal crossings.
➡️The mobile headquarters are part of the government's plan to reinforce security in Ecuador, which is under a state of emergency and facing an "internal armed conflict" against criminal gangs. This was decreed last January by the head of state, Daniel Noboa, amid a growing wave of violence.
Source 🔗 t.me/tupireport 🔸
🇪🇨 Ecuador arrests 14 people in organized crime probe
Ecuador's attorney general said on Wednesday that 14 people had been arrested in a probe into organized crime in the South American country, adding that charges will be weighed in the coming hours.
Those arrested include judges, lawyers and police accused of helping dangerous criminals walk free via legal maneuvers, the attorney general's office said.
Some of those detained have already been accused in the so-called "Metastasis" corruption and organized crime investigation, which already saw judicial staffers and others detained in March and last December.
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
🇪🇨 President Daniel Noboa took a tour of an Ecuadorian prison
🔎 Source
#Ecuador ☠️ Blood Meridian 🔸
This all started two weeks ago and continued up until Friday. The furor of early January had been pretty quiet since. But it seems (almost) coincidental to pop back up just ahead of what came next. I was watching for something different; so it was a surprise scene (or plot twist) that ultimately emerged.
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We had barely gotten past those recent happenings when today's topic exploded onto our screens on April 5.
🇪🇨 🇲🇽 Regarding the incursion at the Mexican embassy in Quito
On the evening of April 5, the Mexican embassy in the Ecuadorian capital Quito was raided with the involvement of the army, police, and armored vehicles. The objective of the incursion was to apprehend former Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been previously convicted of corruption charges and had been in hiding within the Mexican mission since December.
▪️ Following the operation, Glas was detained, Mexico's charge d'affaires was confronted by security forces and thrown to the ground, and several diplomats sustained injuries. In Mexico City, in the midst of these events, they announced the termination of diplomatic relations with Ecuador, the withdrawal of their staff, and an imminent appeal to the International Court of Justice.
▪️ Conversely, the Ecuadorian authorities describe their actions as “safeguarding sovereignty.” They argue that “no individual should face political persecution,” highlighting that diplomatic privileges were misused, potentially endangering national interests.
▪️ Prior to the incursion, Ecuadorian authorities expelled the Mexican ambassador as persona non grata due to President Obrador's “highly regrettable remarks” concerning the recent presidential elections in Ecuador.
This incident is noteworthy as it represents a prominent instance of breaching the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which deems foreign mission premises sacrosanct. Despite this, the Ecuadorian authorities sought to rationalize their actions by claiming that “ an armed conflict persists within the country.”
❗️Given Ecuador's stance, promising prospects emerge for further actions against foreign diplomatic missions and the expulsion of unwelcome individuals.
It will be intriguing to observe the response of US authorities, although they may opt for a formal rebuke and begin advocating for non-interference in other nations' affairs.
High-resolution map
English version
#Mexico #Ecuador
@rybar in collaboration with @sex_drugs_kahlo Original msg🔸
Mexican diplomats in Ecuador were injured during the storming of the embassy when security forces stormed in to arrest the Ecuadorian ex-vice president in hiding. t.me/rian_ru 🔸
There are Police officers with anti-riot equipment who are outside the building, in the north of Quito. t.me/VenezuelaNewsNetwork 🔸
🇪🇨🇲🇽 Mexican presidential candidate from the ruling MORENA party, Claudia Sheinbaum, called the invasion of the Mexican Embassy a gross violation of the Vienna Convention, an insult to diplomacy and international law.
She also expressed solidarity and support for the current Mexican President Obrador in defending national sovereignty.
#Мексика #Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸This is the funniest thing I've read. For reference. Claudia Sheinbaum, a Jewish woman with an American passport, who will replace the less controllable current president of Mexico (this is exactly what he wrote about US pressure - he is forced to leave and transfer the post to her - the opposition is there for fiction) t.me/incognitoraf 🔸
AMLO:
Alicia Bárcena, our Secretary of Foreign Affairs, has just informed me that police from Ecuador forcibly entered our embassy and detained the former vice president of that country who was a refugee and processing asylum due to the persecution and harassment he faces.
This is a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico, which is why I have instructed our chancellor to issue a statement regarding this authoritarian act, proceed legally and immediately declare the suspension of diplomatic relations with the government of Ecuador. t.me/VenezuelaNewsNetwork 🔸
CONAE (Ecuador Idigenous Nationalities Confederation)
https://twitter.com/CONAIE_Ecuador/status/1776469845703262699
What the Ecuadorian government of Daniel Noboa has done is very serious
The violation of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador is a fascist act of extreme gravity that violates diplomatic relations and international law. Embassies represent the sovereignty of the countries that host them and are protected by the principle of inviolability enshrined in the Vienna Convention.
The action of the Ecuadorian Government in illegally breaking into the Mexican embassy in Quito constitutes a clear violation of Mexican sovereignty and absolute disregard for international standards.
It is worrying to see how the authoritarian and fascist government of Ecuador resorts to force to secure its political trophies. This flagrant violation not only affects bilateral relations between Mexico and Ecuador, but also sends a dangerous message to the international community. t.me/VenezuelaNewsNetwork 🔸
🔸Mexico will appeal to the International Court of Justice after the invasion of its Embassy in Quito. t.me/VenezuelaNewsNetwork 🔸
🔸🇪🇨 ❌️ 🇲🇽 Ecuador Declares Mexico Ambassador Persona Non Grata, Orders Her to Leave
🔶️ Ecuador's government declared Mexico's ambassador to the country unwelcome on Thursday due to what it cited as "unfortunate" comments from the Mexican president about the South American country's elections last year.
🔶️ Ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke should leave the country "soon," Ecuador's foreign ministry told Reuters, after describing her as "persona non grata" in a statement.
🔶️ The day before, Mexico's leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador commented on last year's assassination of Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, comparing his killing to recent violence seen in Mexico's current election season in which several local candidates have already been gunned down.
🔶️ In his remarks at a regular government press conference, Lopez Obrador asserted that Ecuador's leftist presidential hopeful, Luisa Gonzalez was unfairly tied to the killing of Villavicencio, and went on to blame media he said were corrupt.
🔶️ Gonzalez, a protégé of ex-President Rafael Correa, lost the presidential contest to Daniel Noboa last October, with the latter taking office in November on a promise to combat drug gangs and tame spiking violence.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-04-04/ecuador-declares-mexico-ambassador-persona-non-grata t.me/CIG_telegram 🔸
🔸🇪🇨🇲🇽 Colleagues here recall other nuances of the difficult diplomatic relations between Ecuador and Mexico, which may be the reason for the current events.
In late February and early March, Ecuadorian authorities requested permission from Mexican authorities to enter the embassy and arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, convicted of several corruption episodes.
Mexico then refused, saying that such actions would “violate the diplomatic immunity of the embassy.”
#Эквадор #Мексика
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🌎 🇪🇨 🇲🇽 Quick commentary:
📝 So now we have Ecuador and Mexico spatting after Brazil's Lula and Venezuela's Maduro and Argentina's Milei vs the President's of Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela within the span of a month leading to multiple ambassador expulsions.
Ecuador's former Vice President finds himself in a situation similar to that of the deposed Presidents of Bolivia & Peru. All of them sought political asylum in Mexico. AMLO deployed the Marines and was able to escort Bolivia's Evo Morales to safety. Peru's Pedro Castillo was arrested by local authorities before he could reach the Mexican embassy. Will Mexico's AMLO call on the military to aid Ecuador's Jorge Glas in avoiding arrest? t.me/CIG_telegram 🔸
🇪🇨🇲🇽 Situation near the anti-crime unit in Quito. Former Vice President Jorge Glas is there after being detained at the Mexican embassy.
#Мексика #Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸🇪🇨🇲🇽 The Ecuadorian authorities, in turn, tell an enchanting version of why it is possible to break into other embassies.
The most ironic thing is that this is being done by a state that for quite a long time provided asylum to Julian Assange in its representative office in London.
So. It turns out that no criminal can be politically persecuted, and diplomatic immunities and privileges served in this case as an abuse that contributed to the violation of the rule of law. Ecuador is a sovereign country and not a single criminal here will go unpunished.
Meanwhile, Ecuador reaffirms its respect for the Mexican people, who share these views on the fight against corruption.
#Мексика #Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸❗️🇲🇽🇪🇨 The head of the Mexican Foreign Ministry announces the immediate severance of diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
#Мексика #Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
📢 🇲🇽 🇪🇨 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico:
"Mexico's diplomatic personnel in Ecuador will leave that country immediately. Mexico hopes that Ecuador offers the necessary guarantees for the departure of Mexican personnel."
📎 SRE_mx t.me/CIG_telegram 🔸
🇪🇨🇲🇽 Mexican presidential candidate from the ruling MORENA party, Claudia Sheinbaum, called the invasion of the Mexican Embassy a gross violation of the Vienna Convention, an insult to diplomacy and international law.
She also expressed solidarity and support for the current Mexican President Obrador in defending national sovereignty.
#Мексика #Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸🇪🇨🇲🇽 Former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa said that he holds Daniel Noboa responsible for the safety, as well as the physical and psychological integrity of former Vice President Jorge Glas.
Moreover, he warned that this was unprecedented and that even in the worst dictatorial regimes, the country's embassy had not been subjected to violence.
#Мексика #Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸🇭🇳🇪🇨🇲🇽 Honduras condemned the attack on the Mexican Embassy in Quito.
🇨🇴🇨🇺🇻🇪 The authorities of Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia joined in condemning what happened at the Mexican embassy in Quito.
#Мексика #Эквадор #Гондурас
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸🇪🇨🇲🇽🇳🇮 I’m still shocked at how successful my crisis analysis turned out. Yesterday, when I wrote that police forces were converging on the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, I was going to add “Is it possible for an assault,” but thought better of it (“Can this really happen?”). Reality, as always, is bolder than all our fantasies.
So far, as a sign of solidarity with Mexico and in protest against the blatant violation of the Vienna Convention, the most consistent country in the region, Nicaragua, has announced the decision to sever diplomatic relations with Ecuador. Honduras has convened an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (CELAC), where the Central American republic currently chairs. Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba gave verbal support to Mexico. We continue to watch. t.me/pqntc1 🔸
🇪🇨 Former Vice President Jorge Glas has been removed from the anti-fraud unit under heavy security.
The destination is still unknown, but it is clearly not a resort.
#Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🔸🇪🇨🇲🇽 So far the situation from the point of view of the reputation of the current president does not look good.
Even if the issue of the legality of granting political asylum for one reason or another is controversial , intrusion into the territory of someone else’s embassy is unacceptable from the point of view of legal norms.
Personally, I am waiting for Daniel Noboa himself to address this matter. The development of the argument is interesting.
#Эквадор #Мексика
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
🇪🇨 Former Vice President Jorge Glas is transported to Guayaquil to be placed in the La Roca prison. Local media focus on this video and the fact that Glas has difficulty walking.
Former President Rafael Correa has already stated that Jorge Glas was beaten.
#Эквадор
@sex_drugs_kahlo - Latin American happiness [no] 🔸
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Only update from this morning:
🇪🇨 Ecuador detains former vice president fearing his possible escape, ministry says
"The president's decision was made because of the real risk of imminent escape of a citizen who was due to stand trial," Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld said.
On the night of Saturday, the Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito using armed vehicles to arrest former Vice President Jorge Glas, who had been sheltering in the diplomatic mission, media reported.
Mexico City suspended diplomatic relations with Quito, saying that Mexican diplomats had sustained injuries as a result of the storming.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is alarmed by the attack on the Mexican Embassy in Quito, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel should be respected.
t.me/sputnik_africa 🔸
But it was precisely the one missing from all day yesterday. The UN weighs in.
Golly gee whiz, seems like some OTHER COUNTRY has a complaint about the inviolable character of Embassies currently (or promised to be soon) presented to the UN Security Council or ICJ for some kind of ruling that we know will be severely truncated, delayed, dismissed, or all three. But here comes Mexico down this same path with all the intent of a bullfighter entering the ring. The presumptive Presidential candidate (Jewish, American dual citizen) is on record upholding Mexico's sovereignty here. Could this display get any more ironic for you?
You can't make this kind of theater up; nor can anything but seeing these two cases side by side through the completely broken (no matter whether you ever thought it worked) International Legal System suffice to prove it's a broken mess. Another System on trial for its life.
What we can see is the destruction of the Old Guard on a really big movie screen. It may be a minor film to some; they’ve successfully relegated international wrangling of this sort to only select individuals and always hand picked the winners. But an impending WWIII (they have created) has raised the optics to a prominence that won't allow for that altered perception magic to work this time.
I'm not saying the blind will see or the lame will walk after this theater plays out. But it will be another impossible to explain dichotomy brick in the Western Wall. Rules for hegemony and sacred cows, not for the masses.
Enjoy today; Eclipse Day is tomorrow! I have basically been shut indoors all day yesterday (and heard all night) constant winds of 50-100 mph. That's apocalyptic enough for me! But it also let me get this together for you, so enjoy along with your other Sunday activities!
Back to
Yes I listened to the same apocalyptic winds last night continuing into today with rain. I don’t have an ark but maybe I should untarp the jet ski in readiness.
Apparently embassies don’t mean what they used to. At least it’s still standing and no one has been killed…yet.
Nice summation of preceding events. Sad about the murdered mayor. Politics in that part of the world doesn’t create longevity.
Turmoil in South America? Which alphabet agency comes to mind?
You covered this very nicely today,Karen. It's clear that embassies are no longer off limits.
While that's not new,It strikes as a new level of vulnerability to the elite. Since we learned nothing for the Iranian Revolution of 1979, we will stumble blindly into a no-win conflict in our backyard, while our fearless leader plays in Caligula 2.5.
I'm sure the rest of 2024 will be even more exciting. I'm expecting to see a re-enlistment campaign for older veterans soon.
Ah, well, it is better than living on a retirement pension . 🪖