Country of the year
Athough Time magazine only honors a Person of the Year, they could well name Ecuador, Country of the Year, if they had such an honor. This relatively small representative democracy of 15,000,000, tucked between Peru, Columbia and the Pacific Ocean in South America, has stood up for the rule of law and human rights against big, bad bully England, and quite likely the good ol' USA as well.
Two months ago Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sought refuge in the Equadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden by England. Assange is wanted for questioning in an alleged sexual assault case which mysteriously surfaced after Assange's Wikileaks began informing the world, through heretofore secret diplomatic communications, about the immoral and quite possibly criminal war conduct of America and other bad actors on the world stage. Assange is willing to speak to Swedish authorities in the embassy or even travel to Sweden, as long as they guarantee he won't be whisked to America so a likely kangaroo court can impose a life sentence or even the death penalty for his daring to expose the shenanigans of the war mongers in Washington. Given this stacked deck against Assange getting a fair shake from the world's most powerful countries, Ecuador has granted Assange assylum should he somehow get out of England without being arrested.
This infuriated the Brits who turned international and the English rule of law upside down, threatening to storm the Ecuadorean embassy to gobble up Assange for the Swedes, and possibly Uncle Sam. This constitutes violating one of the most sacred tenants of world diplomacy: protecting the integrity of foreign embassies as required by the Vienna Convention. It is astounding England would consider such conduct as they recently denounced Iran for not protecting the British embassy when student protesters invaded it. The very prospect of a major power thumbing its nose at human rights and international law is the reason we need Julian Assange and his alleged helpers such as US Private Bradley Manning, to shine the light on their misdeeds. Leave it to little and courageous Ecuador to help hold the flashlight.
Two months ago Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sought refuge in the Equadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden by England. Assange is wanted for questioning in an alleged sexual assault case which mysteriously surfaced after Assange's Wikileaks began informing the world, through heretofore secret diplomatic communications, about the immoral and quite possibly criminal war conduct of America and other bad actors on the world stage. Assange is willing to speak to Swedish authorities in the embassy or even travel to Sweden, as long as they guarantee he won't be whisked to America so a likely kangaroo court can impose a life sentence or even the death penalty for his daring to expose the shenanigans of the war mongers in Washington. Given this stacked deck against Assange getting a fair shake from the world's most powerful countries, Ecuador has granted Assange assylum should he somehow get out of England without being arrested.
This infuriated the Brits who turned international and the English rule of law upside down, threatening to storm the Ecuadorean embassy to gobble up Assange for the Swedes, and possibly Uncle Sam. This constitutes violating one of the most sacred tenants of world diplomacy: protecting the integrity of foreign embassies as required by the Vienna Convention. It is astounding England would consider such conduct as they recently denounced Iran for not protecting the British embassy when student protesters invaded it. The very prospect of a major power thumbing its nose at human rights and international law is the reason we need Julian Assange and his alleged helpers such as US Private Bradley Manning, to shine the light on their misdeeds. Leave it to little and courageous Ecuador to help hold the flashlight.
posted by Walt Zlotow at 4:55 AM
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