International Law and Hypocrisy in the Region: The Case of Ecuador vs. Cuba

2024-04-08 18:20:21

The Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito on April 5 to arrest the former vice president of Ecuador (2013-2017), sentenced to prison for corruption and who has taken refuge there since December. The Mexican government had granted him political asylum, as well as several collaborators of former President Correa accused of corruption who today live in Mexico. Ecuador declared that “no criminal can be considered a political prisoner,” noting that the objective of embassies is to provide diplomatic spaces to strengthen relations between countries.

Mexico immediately cut all ties with Ecuador for its “flagrant violation of international law.” The region’s authoritarians and their friends expressed spirited indignation. Nicaragua cut off relations with Ecuador due to the “reprehensible action” and Venezuela declared that it was an action “that had not even been recorded in the most atrocious dictatorships in the region” and that it created “a worrying precedent,” while Nicolás Maduro called it of “an act of barbarism, something never seen in Latin America.” The Cuban tyranny described the “flagrant violation” of the right to asylum as “unacceptable” and warned that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations must be respected. President Petro of Colombia requested an urgent meeting of the OAS (Organization of American States) to discuss the matter.

The unusual reverence for international law by regimes that systematically violate its most sacred norms suffers not only from hypocrisy but also from severe amnesia. The Cuban regime has raided at least two embassies in Havana with much more serious consequences, including the deaths of actual asylum seekers seeking to escape a dictatorship. There are no reports from regional governments of these atrocious crimes, or their breaking of diplomatic relations with Cuba, or their requests for urgent OAS meetings to sanction it.

Cuban Special Troops raided the Vatican embassy in December 1980 and three young brothers were soon executed following a summary trial. The February 1981 assault on the Ecuadorian embassy left a 15-year-old boy beaten to death. Several dozen asylum seekers served years in prison as a result of both instances. Below are the profiles of the four fatal victims.

Juan Owen Delgado Temprana, 15 years old, died on March 3, 1981 following suffering a fierce beating for requesting asylum with his parents and 12 relatives at the Ecuadorian embassy on February 14, 1981. A week later, a team from the Special Troops broke into the embassy and took them all to the State Security headquarters in Havana, Villa Marista. Owen was brutally beaten, including in the face and head, and was left with an ear almost severed. He was taken to the hospital, where he fell into a coma and died. His body was not returned to his loved ones for burial and several members of his family were sentenced to long prison terms.

Ventura, Cipriano and Eugenio García Marín Thompson, aged 19, 21 and 25 respectively, were executed on January 2, 1981 in the La Cabaña Fortress in Havana. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses, highly persecuted in communist Cuba, and had received several warnings of their imminent arrest under Cuba’s “dangerousness” law. At least one had served political prison for practicing his faith. On December 9, 1980, they forced a door and requested asylum at the Vatican embassy along with two other men and three women. Hours later, elite Special Troops assaulted the complex and detained them despite having been promised that their safe passage to leave the country would be processed. The brothers were summarily tried three weeks later, sentenced to death, and immediately executed for the alleged murder of the embassy butler, which was said to have been staged. Her mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison, along with other family members, for not reporting them to the authorities. Released in December 1986, she died in 1992, still begging that she be given the bones of her children for her burial. The other asylum seekers were sentenced to prison terms of between 15 and 25 years, but were released several years later when the case received international attention.

Cuba Archive also knows of five civilians murdered by agents of the Cuban State while trying to enter embassies in Havana to request asylum.

Esteban Bencomo López, 47, was beaten to death by state agents on April 12, 1980 when he tried to enter the Peruvian embassy to meet with his wife and young son who, along with thousands of Cubans, were seeking to flee the country ( which led to the Mariel exodus).

Julián Espinosa Montesinos, 19, Israel Leal Rodríguez, 23, and Adalberto Hernández Borrego, were shot to death by Cuban guards on December 11, 1961 while trying to enter the Ecuadorian embassy.

Juan Peña Dueñas, 18, was shot dead by Cuban guards on November 18, 1985 while trying to enter the Venezuelan embassy.

Many more have been killed seeking asylum

Many civilians, including many children, have been extrajudicially killed or forcibly disappeared by the Cuban regime simply for attempting to flee Cuba. Archivo Cuba has summarized known cases in a November 2022 report, following the latest massacre perpetrated by the Cuban Border Guard, and has documented many similar cases in its database of deaths and disappearances.

*Maria C. Werlau is Executive Director of Archivo Cuba.

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