Ecuador ’s President Rafael Correa announced that his government remains decision for grading asylum to Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.
Thus, a diplomatic thriller began. Four countries, Ecuador – Britain – Sweden – USA, play this game and all the people in the world watch, again, the “film”: Wikileaks and secrets.
These days journalists, diplomats, analysts wonder why Ecuador tries to save Julian Assange. Read four different articles by four famous columnists about this question.
The Latin Mouse that roared at the British bulldog
By Philip Dorling / The Sydney Morning Herarld
Ecuador has decided to grant diplomatic asylum to Julian Assange. The decision comes as no surprise. What comes next is much more difficult to predict.
There could be a protracted impasse in which Assange remains in Ecuador's London embassy until further negotiations secure a resolution to his complicated circumstances.
Or Britain could be impatient and precipitate a diplomatic breach by sending police into the embassy to seize the WikiLeaks publisher to fulfil the UK's legal obligation to extradite him to Sweden.
Ecuador's feisty President Rafael Correa was probably always going to agree to Assange's asylum bid. When interviewed by the WikiLeaks publisher this year he expressed sympathy for Assange, including a shared dislike of US foreign policy and welcomed him to the ''club of the persecuted''.
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Nonetheless, with a keen sense of the importance and forms of international humanitarian law, the Ecuadoreans obliged Assange to submit a large dossier setting out the grounds for his fears that if extradited to Sweden he might then be extradited to the US to face essentially political charges arising from the alleged leaking of secret US military and diplomatic reports by US Army private Bradley Manning.
If there was still doubt about which decision President Correa would make, it should have been dispelled by the UK's ill-advised response to reports that Ecuador had already decided to grant asylum.
Telling Correa's strongly nationalist government that the UK reserved the right to violate the diplomatic immunity of its London embassy was bound to trigger a strident response, and it certainly did with Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino fuming about ''written threats'' and declaring that Ecuador was no colony to be ''mocked'' and ''beaten savagely'' into submission by the UK.
Ecuador never was part of the British Empire, though British capital once played a big role in the republic's economy, and anti-colonialist rhetoric directed against the Anglosphere still resonates strongly in Quito.
What hopes Britain had of negotiating a ''jointly agreed text'' to cover public relations aspects of Assange's ''voluntary'' departure from the embassy probably disappeared in a flash.
What next? More negotiations and a protracted impasse? Assange certainly isn't going anywhere. He would be arrested the moment he stepped outside the embassy. But he has always known a ticket to Quito would never be forthcoming from this manoeuvre.
Instead, as a clever strategist, he has succeeded in putting his claims of political persecution back in the spotlight.
He has already bought himself two more months of freedom of speech, something he values highly, and he would easily prefer a room in Ecuador's embassy to a Swedish prison.
Assange may further delay his extradition to Sweden, and in the meantime more of the likely US prosecution case against him will emerge in Bradley Manning's court martial.
British Crown Prosecution Service guidelines state that diplomatic premises are inviolable and may not be entered [by police] without consent of the ambassador or head of mission.
Britain has not revoked the diplomatic status of the Ecuadorean embassy and would be loath to do so and send police into the embassy It would set an appalling precedent that could be exploited by numerous regimes to pursue asylum seekers who seek refuge.
But that step may come. The UK, Sweden and the US may all eventually decide enough is enough. Whatever happens, Assange appears certain to stay in the headlines for some time.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-latin-mouse-that-roared-at-the-british-bulldog-20120816-24bu0.html#ixzz23uXOfHzM
Ecuador leader seeks moral halo in asylum fight
By Frank Bajak / Associated Press
An economist schooled in the United States and Belgium, Rafael Correa was judged among the more cerebral of Latin America's new breed of leftist leaders well before Julian Assange strolled into his country's London embassy and gave Ecuador's president a chance to seize the global spotlight.
Correa's decision to grant asylum to the WikiLeaks founder Thursday seems anything but an emotional roll of the dice.
The former lay missionary knew he was apt to deeply offend the United States, Britain, Sweden and likely the European Union.
He knew he would be inviting commercial and political retaliation that could hurt his small petroleum-exporting nation of 14 million people.
No such retaliation has yet come, but the standoff is young.
Britain says it won't allow Assange safe passage out of the country. Sweden, where Assange is wanted for questioning for alleged sexual misconduct, summoned Ecuador's ambassador to issue a stern protest.
Offering asylum to the man responsible for the biggest-ever spilling of U.S. secrets was apparently too attractive for Correa to resist.
It let him stake a claim to moral high ground, associating himself with a man whose adherents see him as a digital age Robin Hood crusading against abuses of big governments and corporations and who believe the Swedish extradition request is a pretext for shipping Assange to the United States to face a kangaroo court.
Correa stressed in a radio interview Friday that granting Assange asylum doesn't mean he agrees with everything the WikiLeaks chief does or says. He said he doesn't wish to impede Sweden's investigation, just ensure due process.
U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House's Western Hemisphere subcommittee, has met with Correa several times and believes he understands the gamble.
"He's a very smart guy and this wasn't done in a vacuum," Engel said. "The reason is to kind of be the head of the poke-the-United States-in-the-eye group."
That club includes Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba — the latter formerly the top Latin American destination for people fleeing U.S. and European prosecution.
"It's not just done because Julian Assange should have freedom or shouldn't be persecuted," Engel said of Correa. "If that were the case, why is he persecuting his own journalists?"
Correa was the reason the director of Ecuador's main opposition newspaper did some asylum-seeking of his own early this year, holing up in Panama's embassy in Quito for 14 days when Ecuador's high court upheld a criminal defamation ruling against him and other top editors.
Correa later pardoned them and forgave a $42 million damage award against El Universo, but free press and human rights groups say Ecuador's president remains a threat to any speech not to his liking.
He has also used media ownership restrictions enacted by a loyal congress to diminish the power of opposition-owned media, which he claims are intent on destroying him.
Political scientist Vicente Torrijos of Universidad del Rosario in Colombia said giving Assange asylum provides Correa "a huge smoke screen to try to hide his treatment of the press."
Torrijos called it "propagandistic pragmatism" likely to please those who like to cheer on anyone who stands up to the United States and its allies.
Such people have played a big role in electing leftist leaders across South America as U.S. influence waned over the past decade.
Marta Lagos, director of the Chile-based Latinobarometro polling firm, said she found it remarkable how Correa seized an opportunity to become standard-bearer of the sovereignty of little nations fed up with the sometimes imperious U.S. meddling in Latin America, as exposed in 2010 when WikiLeaks unleashed a quarter-million cables sent home by Washington's diplomats.
"It made the world bigger," she said. "There have been very few times when an emerging, underdeveloped country like Ecuador has committed an international political act of this potency."
Correa, 49, met the 41-year-old Assange for the first time in May, in a long-distance video hookup, when the Australian ex-hacker interviewed the president for his Kremlin-funded TV program.
"Your WikiLeaks have made us stronger," Correa told Assange. "Welcome to the club of the persecuted."
A month later, Assange was bedding down inside Ecuador's embassy in London.
One cable published by WikiLeaks prompted Correa to expel a U.S. ambassador in 2010 for alleging a former Ecuadorean police chief was corrupt and suggesting Correa had looked the other way.
Correa has spurned U.S.-backed multinational lenders and alienated international capitalists as he courts the likes of Russia, Iran and China. The latter is now Ecuador's main lender and buys most of its oil.
At home, analysts don't think the Assange embrace will have much effect on Correa's high popularity. His approval ratings top 70 percent, in large part due to generous social welfare spending.
Outside is another question.
"It is hard to see how Correa comes out a winner," said Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. "There are no gains, only potential losses."
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said he was surprised by the move.
"Ecuador's diplomatic relations with Europe, especially the U.K., are in danger of collapsing," he said.
Engel expects the decision will alienate the U.S. Congress, prompting it to vote against renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act, which allows Ecuadorean goods into the United States free of tariffs.
Forty-five percent of Ecuador's exports go to the U.S., accounting for about 400,000 jobs.
Trade with Sweden and Britain, by contrast, are piddling. Ecuador exported $23 million in goods, mostly food, to Sweden and $134 million in goods to Britain last year. Sweden doesn't even have an embassy in Ecuador.
A preferential trade pact with the European Union expires at the end of 2013 and if it's not renewed, Ecuador's exports could be cut 4 percent, costing it jobs. Talks on renewing that pact already have been stalled for six months.
Correa, in typical fashion, proclaims that he doesn't want a free trade agreement. He wants a different sort of pact, one that would protect Ecuador's weaker agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
It's a bit like Correa's proposal for preventing oil development in Ecuador's pristine Yasuni rainforest reserve. He has been asking European nations to pay Ecuador not to drill in the reserve.
So far, commitments have been few.
Associated Press writers Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador; Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Colombia; Karl Ritter in Stockholm and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.
Julian Assange asylum: Ecuador is right to stand up to the US
By Mark Weisbrot / The Guardian
Ecuador has now made its decision: to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. This comes in the wake of an incident that should dispel remaining doubts about the motives behind the UK/Swedish attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. On Wednesday, the UK government made an unprecedented threat to invade Ecuador's embassy if Assange is not handed over. Such an assault would be so extreme in violating international law and diplomatic conventions that it is difficult to even find an example of a democratic government even making such a threat, let alone carrying it out.
When Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño, in an angry and defiant response, released the written threats to the public, the UK government tried to backtrack and say it wasn't a threat to invade the embassy (which is another country's sovereign territory). But what else can we possibly make of this wording from a letter delivered by a British official?
"You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy. We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange's presence in your premises, this is an open option for us."
Is there anyone in their right mind who believes that the UK government would make such an unprecedented threat if this were just about an ordinary foreign citizen wanted for questioning – not criminal charges or a trial – by a foreign government?
Ecuador's decision to grant political asylum to Assange was both predictable and reasonable. But it is also a ground-breaking case that has considerable historic significance.
First, the merits of the case: Assange clearly has a well-founded fear of persecution if he were to be extradited to Sweden. It is pretty much acknowledged that he would be immediately thrown in jail. Since he is not charged with any crime, and the Swedish government has no legitimate reason to bring him to Sweden, this by itself is a form of persecution.
We can infer that the Swedes have no legitimate reason for the extradition, since they were repeatedly offered the opportunity to question him in the UK, but rejected it, and have also refused to even put forth a reason for this refusal. A few weeks ago the Ecuadorian government offered to allow Assange to be questioned in its London embassy, where Assange has been residing since 19 June, but the Swedish government refused – again without offering a reason. This was an act of bad faith in the negotiating process that has taken place between governments to resolve the situation.
Former Stockholm chief district prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem also made it clear that the Swedish government had no legitimate reason to seek Assange's extradition when he testified that the decision of the Swedish government to extradite Assange is "unreasonable and unprofessional, as well as unfair and disproportionate", because he could be easily questioned in the UK.
But, most importantly, the government of Ecuador agreed with Assange that he had a reasonable fear of a second extradition to the United States, and persecution here for his activities as a journalist. The evidence for this was strong. Some examples: an ongoing investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks in the US; evidence that an indictment had already been prepared; statements by important public officials such as Democratic senator Diane Feinstein that he should be prosecuted for espionage, which carries a potential death penalty or life imprisonment.
Why is this case so significant? It is probably the first time that a citizen fleeing political persecution by the US has been granted political asylum by a democratic government seeking to uphold international human rights conventions. This is a pretty big deal, because for more than 60 years the US has portrayed itself as a proponent of human rights internationally – especially during the cold war. And many people have sought and received asylum in the US.
The idea of the US government as a human rights defender, which was believed mostly in the US and allied countries, was premised on a disregard for the human rights of the victims of US wars and foreign policy, such as the 3 million Vietnamese or more than one million Iraqis who were killed, and millions of others displaced, wounded, or abused because of US actions. That idea – that the US should be judged only on what it does within its borders – is losing support as the world grows more multipolar economically and politically, Washington loses power and influence, and its wars, invasions, and occupations are seen by fewer people as legitimate.
At the same time, over the past decade, the US's own human rights situation has deteriorated. Of course prior to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, millions of African-Americans in the southern states didn't have the right to vote, and lacked other civil rights – and the consequent international embarrassment was part of what allowed the civil rights movement to succeed. But at least by the end of that decade, the US could be seen as a positive example internally in terms of the rule of law, due process and the protection of civil rights and liberties.
Today, the US claims the legal right to indefinitely detain its citizens; the president can order the assassination of a citizen without so much as even a hearing; the government can spy on its citizens without a court order; and its officials are immune from prosecution for war crimes. It doesn't help that the US has less than 5% of the world's population but almost a quarter of its prison inmates, many of them victims of a "war on drugs" that is rapidly losing legitimacy in the rest of the world. Assange's successful pursuit of asylum from the US is another blow to Washington's international reputation. At the same time, it shows how important it is to have democratic governments that are independent of the US and – unlike Sweden and the UK – will not collaborate in the persecution of a journalist for the sake of expediency. Hopefully other governments will let the UK know that threats to invade another country's embassy put them outside the bounds of law-abiding nations.
It is interesting to watch pro-Washington journalists and their sources look for self-serving reasons that they can attribute to the government of Ecuador for granting asylum. Correa wants to portray himself as a champion of free speech, they say; or he wants to strike a blow to the US, or put himself forward as an international leader. But this is ridiculous.
Correa didn't want this mess and it has been a lose-lose situation for him from the beginning. He has suffered increased tension with three countries that are diplomatically important to Ecuador – the US, UK and Sweden. The US is Ecuador's largest trading partner and has several times threatened to cut off trade preferences that support thousands of Ecuadorian jobs. And since most of the major international media has been hostile to Assange from the beginning, they have used the asylum request to attack Ecuador, accusing the government of a "crackdown" on the media at home. As I have noted elsewhere, this is a gross exaggeration and misrepresentation of Ecuador, which has an uncensored media that is mostly opposed to the government. And for most of the world, these misleading news reports are all that they will hear or read about Ecuador for a long time.
Correa made this decision because it was the only ethical thing to do. And any of the independent, democratic governments of South America would have done the same. If only the world's biggest media organisations had the same ethics and commitment to freedom of speech and the press.
Now we will see if the UK government will respect international law and human rights conventions and allow Assange safe passage to Ecuador.
Ecuador's decision to grant Assange asylum is a bold act of hypocrisy
By Roger Noriega / Fox News
Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa granted Wikileaker Julian Assange political asylum Thursday in a bid to whitewash his own image as an oppressor of free speech. The theatrical Correa called for a gathering of Latin America’s leftist cadre to confront any backlash, declaring, “No one is going to terrorize us!”
In June, Assange jumped bail in London after exhausting all appeals in British courts in his effort to evade extradition to Sweden, where he faces several separate rape and molestation accusations. He has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where, according to published reports, he continues to direct his Wikileaks enterprise.
The British government reacted to Ecuador’s decision today by repeating its obligation to extradite Assange, who has exhausted his appeals in the local courts and is now a fugitive. Britain’s Foreign Office said it would continue to seek a “negotiated solution,” but it alluded to the laws governing diplomatic property. Ecuadorean authorities feigned outrage at the suggestion that British authorities might violate the immunity of their embassy in London.
Here’s were the hypocrisy kicks in. Ecuador – a country with one of region’s most politicized and corrupt judicial systems – claims that Assange can not find justice in the British, Swedish or US courts.
Ecuador wraps itself in the rule of law in defending Assange, while the Correa regime has mounted a relentless assault on the country’s democratic institutions and independent courts since he took power in 2007. Ecuador is clearly using the Assange case as a cudgel against the United States, although the man has never been charged in U.S. courts. And Ecuador pretends to be a promoter of global free speech by protecting the Wikileaks founder, while Correa has used his own country’s courts, regulators and police to harass what’s left of Ecuador’s independent media.
By the time Assange entered the Ecuadorean embassy, Correa had already come under intense international criticism for his attacks on free. One of his first assaults came in 2008, when he sent armed police to occupy two popular television stations (as well as 200 other companies) belonging to the Grupo Isaias, which he considers a political foe.
Another case involved a personal lawsuit brought by Correa last year against the owners and editor of the Guayaquil newspaper, El Universo, over a critical column. Correa’s kangaroo courts faithfully delivered a $40 million judgment in his favor, in an opinion that many suspect was drafted by the president’s own legal counsel. [ http://www.cpj.org/2012/02/el-universo-sentence-a-dark-precedent-for-free-pre.php ]
Even since the Assange circus brought Correa’s sorry record under scrutiny, on July 28, his government announced that it would no longer issue lucrative publishing contracts to “mercantilist” newspapers and television stations. Milton Coleman, president of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) and senior editor of The Washington Post, observed that such policies “to benefit some media and punish others” violate of regional norms protecting independent journalism. The IAPA also has expressed great concern that the Correa regime has threatened to shut down the Andean Foundation for the Observation and Study of Media (Fundamedios), which has lodged formal complaints before the regional authorities regarding abuses of press freedom.
In an even more brazen attack launched late last month, government labor regulators raided the Quito offices of the venerable Vanguardia magazine – seizing computers and other property. The magazine’s owner characterized the action as a “political reprisal.” Reporters Without Borders noted that the raid effectively silenced the weekly publication known for its investigative reporting, noting in a statement, “The list of closed or embargoed media has been growing….”
To his immense credit, a stalwart liberal in the U.S. Senate, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has been a vocal critic of Correa’s campaign to “silence his critics” in the media and to hamper the work of the region’s watchdog on freedom of expression. “Personal attacks and inflammatory charges by top officials weaken democratic discourse and have no place in a country with a long commitment to civil liberties,” Leahy said in a statement to the Senate earlier this month.
By strutting on the world stage as an advocate for Assange, Correa hopes to launder his image as a repressive autocrat. By manufacturing a confrontation with Britain and the United States, he is preening to replace the cancer-stricken leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, as the leader of Latin America’s incorrigible left.
The sad fact is that behind this whole affair are two misfit hypocrites hiding their sordid and self-serving agendas. Justice will be done if they are made to answer for their abuses.
Roger Noriega held senior positions in the State Department in the administration of President George W. Bush (2001-05) and is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His firm, Vision Americas LLC represents U.S. and foreign clients.
Roger F. Noriega was Ambassador to the Organization ofAmerican States from 2001-2003 and Assistant Secretary of State from 2003-2005. He is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and managing director of Vision Americas LLC, which represents U.S. and foreign clients, and contributes to www.interamericansecuritywatch.com.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/16/ecuador-decision-to-grant-assange-asylum-is-bold-act-hypocrisy/#ixzz23uZK3KXH
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