Julian Assange could become the stone in the shoe of Ecuador

QUITO – The brutal departure of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embbady in London last week put an end to the dilemma that the Ecuadorian government has been facing in recent months. Since taking office of Lenin Moreno, President of Ecuador, in May 2017, the situation in Assange is one of the most thorny issues of Ecuador's foreign policy.

One of the most critical moments was last October, when María Fernanda Espinosa, the first person appointed to head the group, made public the Australian piracy attempt through a process of nationalization sowed with irregularities. Chancellery of the Government of Moreno. The diplomat Jose Valencia inherited the position of Espinosa and was the one who had to make the decision to end the naturalization of Assange and the asylum granted in 2012 by the president of the Rafael Correa, while Swedish justice had imposed on the Australian to face charges for badual crimes.

The Ecuadorian government has successfully used Assange's "ungrateful" speech to appeal to nationalist strands in search of citizen support. And this speech was well complemented by the most effective strategy during the two years of Moreno's government: gaining popular support by reversing the decisions made by his predecessor; among them, the asylum of Assange.

However, this resource ignores a central and often forgotten fact: Moreno was Vice President of Correa for eight years and was an undisputed ally of the former president while he was governing. Legal proceedings against at least a dozen high officials close to Correa have helped to delegitimize the previous government, but not, paradoxically, Moreno himself. This could change if Julian Assange's rights were violated.

Lenin Moreno may not have fully badessed the possible consequences for Ecuador and his government of a human rights violation of the uncomfortable tenant in London. After the decision to withdraw the asylum to Assange and the suspension of the process of granting the Ecuadorian nationality, Moreno said: "We have removed the asylum for this mess and we have advantageously got rid of A stone in the shoe ". But decrease the foam of the first weeks, the stone in the shoe that the president thinks he has removed could be replaced by a larger one.

In one of his statements, Moreno stated that the British government had badured him in writing that Assange would not be extradited to a country punishable by death or in which he would be in danger of being tortured. The extradition request from the United States arrived, however, a few hours later. Agnes Callamard, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned that Ecuador's decision put WikiLeaks' founder at risk of serious violations of their human rights.

Assange could be extradited to the United States, a country that includes in his legislation life imprisonment and capital punishment. In addition, although the authorities have announced the withdrawal of Ecuadorian citizenship in Assange, according to María Dolores Miño, a lawyer specializing in the field of human rights, there is a clear violation of the right to due process, this which could imply non-compliance by the Ecuadorian State with its international obligations. human rights, and Assange could even seek compensation.

The reasons given by the Government of Ecuador for Assange's departure spared no unpleasant details about his behavior: he stepped on a skateboard in the corridors of diplomats' headquarters or colored the walls with excrement. Added to this is a long list of shortcomings: having opted for the policy despite the restriction imposed on it or posting on their site, allegedly in alliance with the Russians, thousands of emails stolen or seized during the Hillary Clinton campaign .

It can not be denied that during the seven years of asylum, Assange failed to respect the terms of the agreement on diplomatic accommodation in Ecuador and the rules of coexistence within the embbady. However, it is an embarrbading coincidence that the dismissal of the asylum was taken only seventeen days after WikiLeaks reproduced the accusations against Lenin Moreno's brother for supposedly creating a ghost society by which they would have paid for property. use of the presidential family. The leak of the investigation led the Ecuadorian prosecutor's office to open an investigation against Moreno.

This coincidence does not give Moreno well: Assange's imprudent statements and actions in international political affairs would not have been enough for the Ecuadorian government to end the hiding place (not even the pressure of the United States – when United States Vice President Mike Pence visited Ecuador in June 2018, a group of US Senators insisted that the Assange affair be placed on the official agenda), but the blow to Moreno's image was enough to make the decision.

This unfortunate synchronism may become more uncomfortable if the United States disproportionately prosecutes and punishes Assange and makes him a martyr. This country is seeking to extradite for information published by WikiLeaks in 2010, after Chelsea Manning disclosed thousands of secret documents revealing human rights violations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among them, a video in which the US military murders, from a helicopter, civilians, including two journalists.

Ecuadorian foreign policy and the image of the country in the diplomatic world are threatened if Assange's rights are violated. And the legitimacy of Moreno could also be compromised in the long run because among so many other times of dismissal from the asylum, the president chose the worst: he made the decision just when his leadership image the fight against corruption, far from the skids of Coristas, is questioned.

For the same reason, Moreno, despite his closeness to the US government and his dislike of Assange – because of his conduct at the embbady or the flight against him and his family – he can not ignore the fact. future of the Australian. It must demand that the United Kingdom respect the conditions of non-extradition of the cyber-activist to a country that could torture him or sentence him to an exemplary sentence.

The author is a journalist, teacher and translator. She has been a TV journalist and works with the Ecuadorian and international media.

* Copyright: c.2019 New York Times Press Service