by
Mike Head
The US
is increasing its pressure on Ecuador to evict WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange from its London embassy, where he took political
asylum in June 2012. He would then be arrested immediately by British
police and subjected to extradition proceedings to face trumped-up
espionage charges in the US that could see him jailed for life or
even executed.
On
Wednesday, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Relations
Committee sent a threatening letter to Ecuadorian President Lenín
Moreno insisting that he “hand over” Assange to the
“proper authorities” as a precondition for improving
relations with the United States.
In a
bipartisan letter, Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, and former
Foreign Relations Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida
Republican, declared: “We are very concerned with Julian
Assange’s continued presence at your embassy in London and his
receipt of Ecuadorian citizenship last year.”
Engel’s
role makes even more explicit the leading part being played by the
Democrats in the drive to lock away Assange for good and silence
WikiLeaks itself. In June, on the eve of a visit to Ecuador by Vice
President Mike Pence, 10 Democratic Party senators called on the
Trump administration to demand that the Ecuadorian government renege
on the political asylum it provided Assange six years ago.
Written
in bullying and contemptuous language, the Engel-Ros-Lehtinen letter
warns that any further “significant progress” and
“warming” in Washington’s relationship with Moreno’s
government on a “wide range of issues,” including
“economic cooperation” and financial aid, depends on
Ecuador terminating Assange’s political asylum.
The
letter effectively confirms that if Assange is forced to leave the
embassy, on whatever pretext, the British government will deliver him
into the hands of the US. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government
has repeatedly refused to give Assange an assurance he will not be
extradited to the US.
“On
numerous occasions, Mr. Assange has compromised the national security
of the United States,” the letter states. “He has done so
by publicly releasing classified government documents along with
confidential materials from individuals connected to our country’s
2016 presidential election.”
The
thousands of secret US files published by WikiLeaks document US war
crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, anti-democratic plots and
interventions around the world, and massive global surveillance and
computer hacking by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies.
The
letter also refers to the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory concocted
by the US spy agencies and the Democrats to accuse WikiLeaks of
aiding Russian “interference” to secure Donald Trump’s 2016
victory. In reality, WikiLeaks published documents, which it insists
were not provided by Russia, proving that top Democratic Party
officials sought to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders in the
primary elections and that Hillary Clinton gave speeches to Wall
Street bankers pledging to protect their interests.
The
letter brands Assange “a dangerous criminal and a threat to
global security,” who “should be brought to justice.”
The truth is that Assange and WikiLeaks have courageously continued
to publish leaked documents that expose the truly “dangerous
criminals”—the US ruling class and its allies, and their
illegal invasions, assassinations, regime-change operations and mass
surveillance.
As for
“justice,” the American intelligence, detention and judicial
agencies have a documented record of torture, frame-ups, show trials
and incarceration of “enemy combatants” without trial.
The
letter adds: “Most recently, we were particularly disturbed to
learn that your government restored Mr. Assange’s access to the
Internet.” This is also a false assertion.
Last
Friday, under the guise of partially restoring Assange’s right to
access the internet and receive visitors, Moreno’s government
sought to impose a new “special protocol” that provides a pretext
for terminating the asylum that the previous Ecuadorian government of
Rafael Correa granted him in 2012.
Anyone
seeking to visit Assange would have to give the Ecuadorian embassy
three days’ notice and wait for written authorisation by the head
of the embassy, which could be arbitrarily refused or cancelled
without any reason being given. Visitors would have to provide the
Ecuadorian authorities with full ID details and either hand over or
clear all mobile phones and other communications devices.
Assange,
whose health has been severely compromised by being trapped inside
the tiny embassy for six years, would have to submit to compulsory
quarterly medical evaluations that could provide the pretext for a
forced “medical evacuation.”
Far from
restoring Assange’s basic democratic rights, the protocol would
reinforce the political silencing imposed by Ecuador in March. In
direct violation of the right to asylum, it seeks to forbid him from
making any comments that criticise or could offend any government,
particularly those with “good relations” with Ecuador.
Assange
would have to “comply scrupulously” with a “prohibition”
on carrying out any “activities that could be considered as
political and interference in the internal affairs of other States,
or that may cause harm to the good relations of Ecuador with any
other State.”
The
protocol states that failure to comply with any of its obligations
“will entail, in addition to other possible consequences, the
termination of the asylum of Mr. Julian Assange.”
One of
the possible grounds for a US application to extradite Assange may
well be an indictment against the WikiLeaks editor by the Mueller
investigation into purported “Russian interference” in the 2016
presidential election. A concerted effort has been waged by US
intelligence agencies, the Democratic Party and media outlets such as
the New York Times and the Guardian to slander Assange as an agent of
both the Putin regime and the Trump campaign because WikiLeaks
published the damning exposures of Clinton.
In what
may be related to the attempt to link WikiLeaks with Russia, Moreno’s
government this week released documents purporting to reveal that it
sought to get Assange out of its embassy last December by naming him
as a political counsellor to the country’s embassy in Moscow.
British
authorities, however, flatly rejected a request for Assange to be
given an Ecuadorian diplomatic ID card. According to the documents, a
letter dated December 21, 2017 from Britain’s Foreign Office said
UK officials “do not consider Mr. Julian Assange to be an
acceptable member of the mission.”
Russia’s
embassy said on Twitter that the material was “another example
of disinformation and fake news.” The embassy repeated its
denial of similar reports produced by the Guardian last month.
WikiLeaks associate and former British whistle-blower Craig Murray
has also publicly rejected claims that Assange wanted or requested to
go to Russia.
The
files were made public on Tuesday at the instigation of right-wing
opposition legislator Paola Vintimilla, whose Social Christian Party
opposed the former Correa government’s decision to grant Assange
nationality. Assange, an Australian citizen, was compelled to turn to
Ecuador in 2012 because the Labor Party-led government in Australia
fully lined up with the Obama administration and denied him his right
to assistance and protection against persecution.
Under
Moreno, who assumed the presidency in May 2017, Ecuador’s
government has turned against WikiLeaks and Assange as part of its
efforts to reforge relations with Washington. The decision to cut off
his communication and visitation rights on March 28 this year was
taken one day after the US and Ecuador held top level military talks.
Moreno has since repeatedly threatened to repudiate Assange’s
political asylum in an apparent effort to pressure him into
“voluntarily” leaving the embassy.
As the
conspiracy against the WikiLeaks editor escalates, the World
Socialist Web Site reiterates its call for all defenders of
democratic rights to fight for the unconditional freedom of Julian
Assange. It is an essential component of the broader struggle in
defence of freedom of speech and an independent and critical media in
opposition to the growing censorship of oppositional views by
governments and corporate giants such as Facebook and Google.
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