Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and the US

S P SETH

When you are pitted against a superpower like the United States, as Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks organization are, your odds of escaping that net are pretty low. Assange’s supposed crime is that by allowing WikiLeaks to release a multitude of US diplomatic cables, as well as the sordid crimes of its military in the Iraq war, he has earned the ire of the US government. Even though he is not a US citizen and hasn’t committed any cognizable crime, the US reportedly has a judicial process against him in motion, if he were ever to fall into their clutches. The result of such a process will be a foregone conclusion with the US military reportedly regarding Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States. According to Julian Assange’s US attorney, Michael Ratner, “An ‘enemy’ is dealt with under the laws of war, which could include killing, capturing, detaining without trial etc…”

Understandably, Assange is not keen on this for simply exercising his right to disseminate information for public good.  And to avoid being possibly extradited to the US from Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on sexual assault charges made by two women when he was in that country, he is now holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London having been granted asylum by that country’s government. After having exhausted all the legal avenues available in UK to stop his extradition to Sweden, he broke his bail conditions to take refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. And that is where he is now stranded, unable to go anywhere for fear of arrest by the British authorities for breaching bail conditions, and extradition to Sweden.

Whether or not Sweden will extradite him to the US if asked,   is not quite clear. But considering that there is reportedly a grand jury indictment against him in the US, Sweden might not be able to resist the US request. As for the sexual assault case,  Assange was questioned on this when he was in Sweden, but at the time nothing incriminating was found and he was allowed to leave the country. However, not long after that, the sexual assault case was reopened in Sweden and Assange was asked to return for questioning. To avoid extradition, he jumped bail and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. At no stage did Assange deny the sexual encounter with the women, maintaining that it was consensual. The only complaint is that he used a torn condom in the act against the said female’s wishes, which in Sweden might border on rape.

Whatever the legal merits or otherwise of the case, it is a bit odd, if not outrightly suspicious, why when Assange was first found not to have any case to answer, the Swedish authorities subsequently sought his extradition from UK for further questioning? It is important to note that at no time has Assange been actually charged with sexually assaulting the two women. It still is a matter of investigating the complaint against him. For which he is prepared to be questioned in London. But the Swedish authorities have insisted on his return to Sweden to complete their enquiries.

It is this juxtaposition of events, which raises questions of what transpired in the intervening period. Not unreasonably, Assange and his supporters fear the worst suspecting he would end up in a US jail like Private Bradley Manning, who was put into solitary confinement for allegedly leaking the US material to WikiLeaks. Considering that Julian Assange has reportedly been declared an ‘enemy’ of the US, it is not an unreasonable fear.

Considering further that no less a person than the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, called him “a high-tech terrorist”.  Biden’s opposite number in the 2008 presidential election and leader of the US Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin, has urged that Assange should be “hunted like bin Laden.” Not surprisingly, Assange is refusing to oblige without credible assurances that he wouldn’t be extradited to the United States by being lured into Sweden on a sexual assault complaint.

Now and then there are individuals and organizations that stand up for certain principles. In Assange and WikiLeaks’ case, they have sought to throw some light on the dark recesses of the US’s secret world of policy making, and the impunity with which it acts against its own much publicized human rights advocacy. Sadly, they have to pay a high price to promote larger public good. This is not right.

In a different era, Daniel Ellsberg, a former US defence department official, took on himself to release the Pentagon Papers in 1971 about the murky side of the US involvement in the Vietnam War, suffering utmost persecution by the then Nixon Administration. Recalling his experience recently, he said, “If I released the Pentagon Papers today, the same rhetoric and the same calls would be made about me.” He added, “I would be called not only a traitor, which I was [called] then, which was false and slanderous, but I would be called a terrorist” too. Now Ellsberg is a highly admired living legend. Will Assange also have a happy ending? Let us hope so. But at present he finds himself a hunted man.

 The sad thing is that his own Australian government has abandoned him, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard calling the WikiLeaks disclosures “grossly irresponsible” and illegal. It is not surprising, though, because when an Australian citizen has fallen foul of the US government, Canberra has tended to line up with its powerful ally.

But it is not all that bad in Australia. Commenting on the Assange affair against a backdrop of American policies, the Sydney Morning Herald said editorially, “As it is, we now have an American president who continues with indefinite detention outside the protection of the US constitution, who orders the killing of US citizens, who allows punishment of Manning [the US soldier who allegedly passed on the cables to WikiLeaks], and who continues to keep American officials immune from prosecution in the International Criminal Court for war crimes.”

With implied praise for Ecuador, it added, “With Assange, we now have a democratic government in the American hemisphere granting asylum to someone on the basis of well-grounded fear of political persecution in the United States.”  In other words, Canberra might have abandoned him, but many people in Australia would like their government to be proactive on his behalf.

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.