Anniversary message of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol unleashes criticism and generates dismissals in the Foreign Ministry

“This January 29 marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Peace, Friendship and Limits Protocol, conceived to put an end to the border conflict between Ecuador and Peru. That date marked a historic milestone with the sister country.” This was the message that was posted this January 29 on the official Twitter account of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and that caused a series of criticisms and rejections.

Social networks turned the trend towards the Foreign Ministry and its minister, Juan Carlos Holguín, due to the content of the tweet, which was deleted. Holguín apologized and announced the removal of an official.

Ambassador Fernando Yepez, In a thread of messages on Twitter, he said that the Foreign Ministry’s statement “is shameful, and constitutes another evidence of the lack of training and experience of the new foreign minister. National dignity does not admit these errors.

He added that, on the contrary, the Protocol generated injustice, armed confrontations and distrust between neighboring and brother countries. Current relations with Peru are the result of the 1998 peace with dignity, obtained after the Cenepa war and more than three years of intense negotiations.

That said statement, added Yépez, offends the national dignity and the memory of the defenders of the territorial heritage in the face of the Peruvian invasion of 1941.

Holguín replied: “There is no excuse, but the foreign minister was not consulted and the message was published without consultation by a career official. I have asked for her immediate removal, since it is not possible for an official who joined in 1996 not to know the story”.

The minister indicated that beyond the personal differences that he maintains with Ambassador Yépez, he agrees that the statement is shameful. “The Rio de Janeiro Protocol of 1942 was a sad and tragic instrument that enshrined a serious territorial loss for Ecuador.”

In another reply tweet to the jurist Ramiro Aguilar, who also questioned the message, Holguín said: “It was the responsibility of the Dir. Com. I have asked for your resignation. Part of the COM team is career personnel, from the time of Foreign Minister Patiño. I respect the political leanings of the servers and that’s why I didn’t make any changes. Apologies to the country for this statement.”

This statement was refuted by former President Rafael Correa: “@juancaholguin who serves as foreign minister of Ecuador resorts to the old trusty – “the fault is Correa” – to justify the unjustifiable. Then he just contradicts himself. It is better not to lighten than to darken. In what hands are we! PS If she is a civil servant, why didn’t it happen before?

Release

Later, in its official accounts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, in which it stated that before the text in relation to the anniversary of the signing of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol of 1942, “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility expresses its resounding rejection of the terms of said message, since it ignores the tragedy that the loss of territories through the use of force represented for our country, consecrated through the aforementioned instrument, and is completely far from the foreign policy that Ecuador has observed regarding this matter”.

“With the signing of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol in 1942, a long and complex process began that finally culminated in the signing of the Itamaraty Peace Agreements of 1998, a moment from which peace and cooperation relations have been established in the more diverse fields with the Republic of Peru, for the benefit of the well-being and development of our peoples”, he mentioned.

He added that “the broadcast of the message on the Twitter account was carried out by an administrative official of the Foreign Ministry’s Directorate of Communication, omitting the consultation procedure with the corresponding instances of the institution. For this reason, an administrative disciplinary process has been initiated, in strict compliance with the law.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, while deploring this situation, offers its deepest apologies and presents the assurances that it has adopted the measures leading to an event of this nature not being repeated in the future,” he concluded. (I)