Saturday, 25 August 2012

Wikileaks’ Assange and Ecuador’s ‘stand for justice’


By Aliyu Musa

The present diplomatic stand-off between London and Quito could be another major test for international law and international relations especially as the crisis lingers. And for keen observers it will be interesting to see how it unfolds and who emerges winner or loser.

At the centre of the row is Julian Assange, the 41-year-old Australian who founded internet whistleblower Wikileaks. He is currently holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London as he tries to avoid extradition to Sweden to face alleged sexual misconduct charges. Many believe this allegation has more to do with the embarrassment Wikileaks caused America by publishing trenches of secret US diplomatic cables than actually giving his alleged female victims justice.

Last week his bid to escape extradition got a boost with Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa’s decision to grant him political asylum. This action, possibly meant to spite London and draw local and international sympathies for both Ecuador and Assange, followed a threat by Britain to strip the Ecuadorean embassy of its diplomatic status and, therefore, make its premises accessible to British police who insist on arresting Assange.

Assange’s main accuser is Sweden on whose shores two female Wikileaks volunteers claimed he raped them. It now seriously wants him back in Stockholm to face justice, while Britain feels legally obliged to hand him over. And the US is silently watching, waiting for a chance to get hold of him, and make him face the same ordeal as his ‘co-conspirator’ Bradley Manning.

It’s natural that the Ecuadorean embassy’s action would vex Britain and last week’s Foreign Office letter to the embassy explaining the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 under which it could revoke its diplomatic status was, perhaps, meant to express this frustration and remind the Ecuadorean government of this possibility.

Yet Britain should have taken into consideration its obligation under the 1961 Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations which expressly states (Article 22): “The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving state may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.”

Aware of this provision and probably propelled by all these happenings President Correa swiftly granted Julian Assange political asylum in his country and, through his Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, convened a meeting of foreign ministers across South America to shore up support for his action.

The implications of this move are clear. By claiming that Britain has, by its letter to the embassy, threatened to storm its premises Ecuador has successfully forestalled any plan to do so. And by seeking the support of its South American allies it has drawn international interests into the crisis. It makes Britain’s position more awkward as its disagreement with Argentina, another South American country, over the Falkland Islands is yet to be resolved. Like the case of Argentina, countries in the region would see this as another attempt to trample on their sovereignty and spurn it by all means.

Nonetheless, there is very little they or Ecuador can do to make Assange enjoy his asylum status fully. He needs to steal his way out of the UK to do so, which in the meantime is clearly impossible. If he steps out of the embassy he is as good as in the net of British police. If he remains in the embassy he will be condemning himself to indefinite introverted confinement. So, for him it’s a difficult case either way.

President Correa, despite his not too impressive image as a defender of freedom of speech, is in a win-win situation. Back home, journalists face some of the harshest retributions if they criticise him; he’s currently jailing and readying blogger Alexander Barankov for extradition to Belarus; and the Committee to Protect Journalists says freedom of expression in Ecuador is under siege.

But election in his country is almost at the door and he’s not planning on losing his job. With his bold effort to take a ‘stand for justice’ on behalf of Assange the election could be like a walk in the park for him.

Even if the imbroglio drags, that is if Assange does not get pushed to the point of risking arrest to step out of his refuge too soon, it is very unlikely that Britain would risk further escalation by storming the embassy to take him. So, the three major powers – US, Britain and Sweden – would need another means of making Ecuador pay for standing between them and Assange. Hence, for now it could be a triumph for Ecuador too and a lifeline for smaller nations that always end up in the belly of bigger ones.
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