Argentina and Ecuador, two countries governed by ideologically opposed political signs, were left on the brink of diplomatic rupture this Wednesday due to the confusing case of a former minister of Rafael Correa convicted of corruption, a refugee for almost three years in the Argentine embassy in Quito and on the run. in the last days to Caracas.
María de los Ángeles Duarte Pesante, Correa’s Minister of Public Works between 2010 and 2014, was sentenced to eight years in prison for having been part of a gang that bribed contracts with the State, a maneuver that involved 7.3 million dollars. In August 2020, the former minister, who has an Argentine minor son, appeared at the embassy and asked for refuge. She was there until, days ago, she left the Argentine diplomatic legation and managed to reach Venezuela.
According to ‘La Nación’, the director of investigation of the National Police of Ecuador, Fausto Olivo, “suggested today that the former minister, who escaped from her diplomatic asylum over the weekend and arrived in Caracas, could have circumvented the controls thanks to to a diplomatic car provided by the Argentine delegation, something that the (Argentine) Foreign Ministry headed by Santiago Cafiero emphatically denies”.
The ambassadors of both countries have been declared “persona non grata” and sent back to Quito and Buenos Aires. Despite the fact that they established a good personal relationship in their first contact in person, in 2021, the presidents Alberto Fernández and Guillermo Lasso have not been able to avoid the serious diplomatic crisis. In recent years, the Casa Rosada insistently asked the Carondelet Palace for a safe-conduct for the former minister to leave the embassy and leave the country, but Quito refused.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Holguín highlighted how “strange” it was for him that Duarte Pesante went from the Argentine embassy in Quito to the Argentine embassy in Caracas, where he met with the representative of Buenos Aires, Oscar Laborde. The Ecuadorian government asked the Argentine to give it access to the security cameras of the embassy in Quito, but was refused, since according to diplomatic conventions it is Argentine territory.
In a statement, the Argentine Foreign Ministry spoke of “deep surprise” and “sadness” at the expulsion of its ambassador and marked the “ineffectiveness” of the Ecuadorian authorities, who could not follow the path of the former miner once she left the headquarters. diplomat in Quito
“Without diplomatic safe-conduct, Duarte could be arrested by the Ecuadorian justice system when she left the Argentine embassy in Ecuador,” reported ‘Infobae’. “Then, fed up with the confinement in the embassy, ??the former minister fled on Saturday to Venezuela. Duarte dodged the Ecuadorian security forces that controlled the access to the residence, took a plane that landed in Caracas and remained under the protection of the dictator Nicolás Maduro”.
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