Presidents of Argentina Albert Fernandezand Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, exchanged accusations in separate letters published on Tuesday in social networks, amid the crisis over the escape in Venezuela of a former minister convicted of corruption, who took refuge in the Argentine embassy in Quito.
Fernández considered Lasso’s decision to withdraw the ecumenical ambassador to Buenos Aires to be grave, unfair and excessive in the midst of a diplomatic crisis.
Lasso, on the other hand, thought that “working in the flight of the fugitive” would contribute to impunity in the country.
The crisis arose from the flight to Venezuela of the former minister Maria de los Ángeles Duarte, a refugee from Ecuadorian justice, who until March 14 was a refugee in the Argentine embassy in Ecuador.
Duarte, along with former president Rafael Correa, was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison as an asylum seeker in Belgium. The former president believes that political persecution is ruling.
“too much”
“He who enjoyed the full freedom of the legation was an exile. “Argentina had neither the job of guarding her nor the ability to stop her movements,” Fernandez said in a message published on Twitter.
He added that Duarte’s departure from the diplomatic residence, where he had been in exile with his son for more than two years, was “beyond the will and ability of the diplomatic authorities of Argentina” to decide.
“The overreaction of the president (Lasso) to expel the Argentine ambassador is what really damages the good bond that Argentines and Ecuadorians defend against him,” he said.
“The gravity and injustice of that sentence shows that it is an excess that really damages the relationship between our peoples,” added the Argentine President.
Fernández urged Lasso to “wait for those responsible for the administration, which does not exercise due diligence, so that the free circulation of the person whose capture does not follow”.
Feeding “impunity”;
Lasso responded to Fernández in a letter also posted on Twitter, in which he stated that his decision to declare the now first Argentine Ambassador Gabriel Fuks a persona non grata was “correct”.
Fernández told Lasso in his letter that “thinking about what you did and correcting the mistake will be enough”. The Ecuadorian president added to this statement that “there is no place for condescension among the heads of state” and accused the former ambassador of acting as a “political operator”.
“Cooperating in the escape of refugees from justice, impunity, evil that affects the whole country”, also noted Lasso, who asked if Argentina’s politics would grant asylum to refugees.
Earlier, Lasso had used the same social network to send Fernandez a message.
“I am very sorry that @alferdez, the president of Argentina, has put his personal friendship and political identity with @MashiRafael (ndlr, Rafael Correa) ahead of the fraternal relationship between the Argentine and Ecuadorian peoples,” he said at the time.
The Ecuadorian president is in Buenos Aires to participate with other former presidents in the Human Rights forum presided over by the Argentine president.
At the last minute
