WASHINGTON IN A RAGE
AS ASSANGE TAKES
THE STAGE:
Having been granted political
asylum by the Government of Ecuador, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks,
the internet whistle blowers site, appeared on a balcony of the country's
Embassy in London on Sunday to give a statement to scores of waiting Press and
photographic journalists crowding outside along with a large crowd of Assange
supporters who had also gathered to express solidarity with the controversial
journalist.
With London Metropolitan Police officers standing only yards
away, Assange called on President Obama to abandon what he called a
"witch-hunt" against WikiLeaks. He said an alleged "FBI
investigation" against his whistleblowing website should be
"dissolved" and that the US should go back to its original
"revolutionary" values.
"As WikiLeaks stands under threat, so does the freedom
of expression and the health of our societies," Assange said, standing on
a small balcony just above the pavement, and flanked by Ecuador's yellow, blue
and red flag. He added: "I ask President Obama to do the right thing: the
United States must renounce its witch-hunt against WikiLeaks."
Assange also thanked Ecuador's social democrat president,
Rafael Correa, for granting him political asylum. Correa's decision, announced
last Thursday, has set off a growing international row. Assange also thanked several
other Latin American countries for their support – implicitly warning Britain
that any dispute with Ecuador could rapidly snowball into a conflict with the
entire region.
More than 50 police officers had surrounded the Embassy in Knightsbridge,
south-west London, on Sunday, with a police helicopter in the skies above.
Assange addressed the crowd of
supporters including Tariq Ali and former British ambassador Craig Murray
making speeches from the street.
Assange spoke for 10 minutes. This was his first public
appearance since he arrived at the Embassy two months ago and the latest
surreal episode in a political circus that has seen him go from the High Court to
house arrest in Norfolk and then to an embassy camp-bed in genteel Kensington
and Chelsea.The 41-year-old Australian took refuge in the Embassy after the Supreme Court ordered his extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations of
"serious sexual misconduct" of dubious authorship. Assange stated his predicament was a universal one of
free speech struggling to survive in a "dangerous and oppressive
world". Britain says it is obliged to implement EU extradition law and
will arrest Assange the moment he leaves the building. Speaking from the balcony in southwest London, Assange claimed that the
Metropolitan Police had come close to storming the Embassy late last Wednesday. Britain sent a
letter to Ecuador last week stating that it believes it is entitled to arrest
Assange inside the building under the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act
1987. The claim has enraged the government in Quito, which says the 1961 Vienna Convention protects its – and others' – diplomatic territory.
Assange said: "Inside this embassy in the dark, I could
hear teams of police swarming up inside the building through its internal fire
escape." He said the only reason the UK "did not throw away the
Vienna Convention the other night" was because "the world is
watching". He also thanked embassy staff, "who have shown me
hospitality and kindness, despite the threats we all received".
But, Assange's provocative balcony appearance, in which he
praised "courageous Ecuador" while disparaging Britain, will have antagonised an already hostile Downing Street anxious, as ever, to please its Washington masters.
Assange's supporters claim that if he is sent to Sweden he is in danger of
being extradited to the US to be charged with espionage. Sweden has vehemently
denied this.
On Sunday, Assange said: "Will the US return to and
reaffirm the revolutionary values it was founded on, or will it lurch off the
precipice, dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world?" He said there should be no "foolish talk" about
prosecuting media organisations, mentioning not only WikiLeaks but also the New
York Times, a paper Assange has previously bitterly criticised.
He also called on the US to end its "war on
whistleblowers", and demanded that Bradley Manning, the US army
intelligence analyst suspected of leaking information, be released.
Manning has been charged with transferring classified data
and delivering national defence information to an unauthorised source. He faces
up to 52 years in jail.
Assange called him a hero and "an example to all of
us" – drawing cheers from WikiLeaks fans packing the Knightsbridge
pavement. "On Wednesday, Bradley Manning spent his 815th day of detention
without trial," Assange said. "The legal maximum is 120 days."
Assange also made mention of his children, "who have
been denied their father". He said he hoped soon to be back with them and
the rest of his family, adding: "Forgive me, we will be reunited
soon."
ASYLUM DECISION
The asylum decision was announced by the Foreign Affairs
minister, Ricardo Patiño, in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito and was watched
live by Assange and embassy staff via a video link to the press conference.
Senor Patiño said the Ecuadorian government had conducted lengthy
diplomatic talks with the British, Swedish and US governments. None would give
the guarantees about Assange's future that the South American country was
seeking and had shown "no willingness" to negotiate on the issue. US
authorities were specifically asked if they had any intention to seek Assange's
extradition so they could start legal proceedings against him, and what the
maximum penalty was that he could face.
"The response from the United States has been that it
cannot offer any guarantees. With these precedents in mind the Ecuadorian
government, loyal to its tradition to protect those who seek refuge with us and
in our diplomatic mission, have decided to grant diplomatic asylum to Mr
Assange."
Senor Patiño called for Assange to be guaranteed safe passage to
leave the embassy but the Foreign Office insisted this would not be offered.
ECUADOR SEEKS REGIONAL SUPPORT
Ecuador has secured an
emergency meeting of the Organisation of American States over what Ecuador says
is Britain's threat to invade its Embassy in London to arrest Assange, the
Ecuadoreans are pushing for similar meetings of the Union of South American
Nations, the ALBA association of Bolivarian states and the UN.On the agenda for the OAS
meeting will be both Ecuador's claims that the UK has threatened the principle
of "inviolable" status of its embassy in the UK and demands that the
UK grant "safe passage" for Assange out of the UK. The OAS voted to hold a
meeting Friday 24th following Ecuador's decision to grant political asylum to
Assange. Assange has described the move as a "historic victory"
ECUADOR SEEKS REGIONAL SUPPORT
The decision by the OAS to debate the affair follows a letter from the British Foreign Office to Ecuadorean authorities, warning it believed it had a legal basis to arrest Assange in the Embassy, interpreted by Ecuador as a threat to raid the building – although this has been denied by the UK which says it prefers a "negotiated outcome".
The
US, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago opposed the resolution, but 23 members voted
in favour of the meeting. There were five abstentions and three members were
absent. OAS secretary general José Miguel Insulza said the meeting would be
about "the problem posed by the threat or warning made to Ecuador by the possibility
of an intervention into its embassy". He
added: "What is being proposed is that the foreign ministers of our
organisation address this subject and not the subject of asylum nor whether it
should be granted to Mr Julian Assange. That will be discussed between Great
Britain and Ecuador. The issue that concerns us is the inviolability of
diplomatic missions of all members of this organisation."
Ecuador's
president, Rafael Correa, said in a radio interview on Friday that his nation
was not trying to undermine Sweden's attempts to question Assange. He said:
"The main reason why Julian Assange was given diplomatic asylum was
because his extradition to a third country was not guaranteed; in no way was it
done to interrupt the investigations of Swedish justice over an alleged crime.
In no way."
The British whore press has mounted a smear campaign against Ecuador's President Rafael Correa calling him megalomaniac, dictatorial and unstable, parrotting Washington's
similar propaganda line against any Latin American leaders who fail to comply with US neo-colonialist demands. This is the main issue in this affair, not the allegations in Sweden
against Mr Assange. It should be remembered that these allegations were investigated by Swedish police and Mr Assange was told he could leave Sweden. Sometime later, a different Swedish prosecutor re-entered the case and demanded Mr Assange return to Sweden for "questioning". No criminal charges were ever brought to indictment. This has led to the reasonable suspicion that the second application was politically motivated. The subsequent attempts by Swedish authorities to have Mr Assange extradited from Britain were unjustified since he had already agreed to answer any questions from Swedish police at any time in London. The London High Court, in agreeing the extradition demand, went against majority precedent in European cases which do not allow extradition for mere "questioning" so this decision too, must be suspect of political motivitation. Those who insist
on making this a "feminist" issue are doing Washington's work either by default or by deliberate choice. It is the criminal acts of murder by the USA across the world which should be indicted and its subversion and interference in the internal affairs of countries hostile to US foreign policy which should be roundly condemned by all those who believe in Universal Human Rights and application of International Law to all countries, however powerful.
FearFeasaMacLéinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin
Lunasa/August 21 2012
Craig Murray speech outside Ecuador Embassy, London, 19.08.2012:
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