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Julian Assange's mother, Christine Assange, meets with Ecuador President Rafael Correa | Flickr Photo by Presidencia de la República del Ecuador
Ecuador President Rafael Correa has stated the rumor that WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange has been granted asylum is false. Using his Twitter account, he declared, “There is still no decision. I hope Foreign Ministry report.”
The “rumor” is the result of officials in Quito, one of whom The Guardian quoted as saying, “Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange.” The official also said, “We see Assange’s request as a humanitarian issue,” and, “It is clear that when Julian entered the embassy there was already some sort of deal. We see in his work a parallel with our struggle for national sovereignty and the democratization of international relations.”
WikiLeaks had issued no official statement confirming this development. They had not even confirmed via their Twitter account that Ecuador had granted Assange asylum yet the official statements from Quito spread widely and were reported by NBC News, The Atlantic’s blog, Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Beast, and The Daily Telegraph.
The articles published all lacked one important element that would substantiate the news: comment from a spokesperson for WikiLeaks or Assange that would confirm this was really true.
Reuters reported a statement from WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, ”I cannot confirm. I just spoke to him (Assange) and he said he had not been notified either.” The Wall Street Journal reported a “high-level” Ecuadorean official had stated, “”The only spokesman is the president, and he will be the one who announces the official decision.”
These officials in Quito who spoke with The Guardian are not named. It is impossible to know who exactly they were or if they were doing this to undermine the decision. The decision was known to be scheduled for announcement some time this week. Presumably, it will still be announced some time this week as planned. But now the Ecuador government has been able to see how the world might react if asylum is granted.
It would seem as if Assange will be granted asylum. One hint is the British Foreign Office stating ahead of the announcement, “The UK has a legal obligation to extradite Mr. Assange to Sweden. We are determined to fulfill this obligation.” Reuters published a full article giving voice to all the issues the UK has with Assange’s request, including comments from a retired British ambassador who said the “British government should have asked Ecuador to hand over Assange as soon as it learnt that he had sought refuge in the embassy. If the answer had been ‘no,’ the ambassador should have been threatened with expulsion.” They should not have let him remain in the embassy because that sends a message to “every criminal in London ‘All you’ve got to do is to pay a small sum to some ambassador and you can have a free ride.’”
Additionally, Reuters reported the US business community might be seeking to take retaliatory action if Ecuador were to grant asylum. The coercive statements in the article downplay the reality, which is that trade relations between the US and Ecuador have been sour for Big Oil because Ecuador has decided it will not tolerate pollution from Chevron-owned Texaco. There is a long-running legal battle that goes back to the 1990s. Nonetheless, the Washington Post floated the idea in a sneering editorial published when Assange entered the Ecuadorean embassy that the US government could take away trade benefits:
…The U.S. “empire” he professes to despise happens to grant Ecuador (which uses the dollar as its currency) special trade preferences that allow it to export many goods duty-free. A full third of Ecuadoran foreign sales ($10 billion in 2011) go to the United States, supporting some 400,000 jobs in a country of 14 million people. Those preferences come up for renewal by Congress early next year. If Mr. Correa seeks to appoint himself America’s chief Latin American enemy and Julian Assange’s protector between now and then, it’s not hard to imagine the outcome…
If the business and political communities intend to mobilize, it would seem that might have the effect of emboldening Correa and the Ecuador government, who believe they have the right to make a sovereign decision and do not have to submit to any world power.
There’s no decision, but the loose lips of Ecuadorean officials have given the world a preview of what the immediate moments will be like after the decision. Certainly, the world can expect multiple childish and sensational treatments of the story like, “Will Ecuador have to smuggle Assange out of Britain?” There also will be plenty of snide reactions from business analysts, government officials, commentators, pundits, former ambassadors, human rights advocates and others repulsed by Ecuador. That is, of course, if Assange is granted asylum. If he is not granted asylum, there will still be plenty of snide reactions from business analysts, government officials, commentators, pundits, former ambassadors, human rights advocates and others repulsed by Ecuador. The peevish response will just be one focused on how long it took to deny his request and how Assange should stop stalling and face “justice.”
12 Comments
Thank you, Kevin. I’ll be sure to look here for Official word, and for some factual clarity reflected back from these figurative(ly) murky waters…
There sure seems to be a lot of huffing and puffing by the US, Sweden, and the UK about extraditing a man who has yet to be accused or indicted of a real crime. So far this seems not to have gotten beyond the “questions” stage that could have been done before he left Sweden or at some site in the UK. If JA is not granted asylum, he will wind up in Gitmo or equivilent, or killed under some law that only applies by stretching the law beyond its reach.
I admire Ecuador for considering this asylum request on humanitarian grounds, but what’s the holdup? If it’s logistical, I could understand that. But it seems like the actual decision is taking a while, which unnerves me regarding pressure being brought to bear. I don’t know enough about Ecuador to know where all the levers are, but presumably they exist.
RT just posted this YouTube clip…
Assange asylum rumors false, no decision yet…
The holdup is probably the trump card that Ecuador would rather not have to play.
That is, the sticky wicket of getting Assange out of Britain.
Ecuador could issue Assange a diplomatic passport which would abridge Britain’s ability to arrest him outside of the embassy. However, if they were to issue him a dip passport of a kind which transferred diplomatic immunity, it would be a very bold political slap in the face to Britain and the US and Sweden.
I would guess that Ecuador has been negotiating Assange’s exit strategy for these many weeks he has been in the embassy. I’m betting they have now decided how they will proceed to get him out.
And I’m betting they will go the diplomatic passport route. Very gutsy if they do.
I still think JA is already in Ecuador and announced he was seeking asylum after he was already out of the UK.
Under this scenario, then, Ecuador has made a decision to grant asylum, which the President explicitly said they have not done. I categorize the “how to get Assange out of Britain” as logistics, which would only be operative if the decision has been made to grant asylum. Surely the logistics don’t influence the moral decision about granting asylum.
From your mouth to God’s ear.
I am sure Correa is considering the coming coup against him by the CIA if asylum is granted to Assange. We all, after all, like to live as opposed to the alternative.
Welcome to Ecuadorian bureaucracy.
I think the answer is pretty mundane. Correa is quite busy this week, and he wants to huddle with the chancellor and advisers before announcing the decision, which is likely positive either way. They are probably finalizing how they are going to announce it, what the primary arguments will be, etc.
My guess on how they’ll try to get Assange of the UK is this: No dirty tricks. That would look bad.
They’ll probably try to get the UN involved, specifically the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Sweden might get pushed to provide assurances that they will not hand JA over to the US.
Failing all that, I would imagine that Baltazar Garzón could sue the UK in The Hague for human rights violations.
the hold up is the extreme pressure being imposed by Hilary Clinton’s State Department. They were humiliated by the Wiki-releases. That is non-forgivable. They want his scalp, and if I were a betting man, I’d say they’ll get it. The only problem is that having publicized this, they are going to have to treat him plausibly fairly. It’s a hard line to walk, but I’m sure they will find a way to execute him anyway, just like the Rosenbergs.