The saying would explain that oxen, despite their size and horns, do not fight among themselves. According to the understanding of the Argentine people, there are those in the group who take advantage of the beneficial situation obtained through obscure actions, but take care to hide the bad skills of their members.

María de los Ángeles Duarte’s evasion, escape, escape or easy exit from the Argentine Embassy in Quito and officially announced three days later, when she was already in Caracas, “carrying out administrative procedures” at the Argentine Embassy in that city, is an episode of the story that it is not told in detail, but for now it fits the saying.

Doubts after the escape of María Duarte

Former Argentine ambassador Gabriel Fuks and other subordinates of the embassy in Quito would contribute to the escape of former minister Duarte, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption. Fuks was never a career diplomat, but he identified himself as a Peronist political leader. He was a legislator and Minister of Security of President Alberto Fernández. Due to his closeness with Fernández and Fuks’ experience in the last position, Duarte’s easy escape does not seem like a coincidence. His appointment as ambassador to Ecuador in 2022 certainly had a not at all “diplomatic” slogan about the asylum that Duarte received, which included the risk of “burning out” and the inspiration that the end justifies the means…

In his escape, Duarte would use the vehicle of the Argentine embassy. And when the police asked Fuks for his house’s security cameras, he refused to hand them over; then he said there were no cameras inside, and then, yes, but damaged. This fueled suspicions that Fuks was involved in the escape concert. Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Carlos Holguín informed the Assembly’s Oversight Commission that there could be “complicity” of officials from the Argentine embassy. The Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, confirmed before the same commission that days before, an embassy official requested the withdrawal of the police patrol car guarding the residence of Ambassador Fuks.

María de los Ángeles Duarte is in Caracas, according to the Argentine government

Given the facts, the declaration of Fuks as persona non grata and the request for his retirement was not excessive. So much so that Argentine congressmen from Together for Change asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Santiago Cafiero, to explain the escape of former Minister Duarte, who was “… investigated, tried and convicted by the highest courts in the country” for a crime (corruption) in which ” … also condemns former President Rafael Correa, (i) who had as one of his main protagonists the then Minister of Transport and Public Works.” The legislators reminded that “conventions regulating diplomatic asylum exclude the possibility of granting asylum to persons convicted of ordinary criminal offences”.

It should be noted that in the scandalous granting of asylum and escape, the collaboration of the ideology shared by Fernández and Correa prevailed. The Argentine showed such symbiosis with the correista chorus in a recent communication to President Lasso: “(I’m sorry that) in Ecuador, justice is put at the service of those who persecute opponents.” (OR)