[governance] Tangential (On Exceptionalism Wikileaks) America's vassal acts decisively and illegally

Sat Aug 18 08:35:32 EDT 2012

Thanks Riaz for keeping us informed about this.

Mawaki

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 3:41 AM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> America's vassal acts decisively and illegally
>
> Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was
> British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector
> of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
>
> http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/08/americas-vassal-acts-decisively-and-illegally/
>
> I returned to the UK today to be astonished by private confirmation from
> within the FCO that the UK government has indeed decided – after immense
> pressure from the Obama administration – to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy and
> seize Julian Assange.
>
> This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention
> of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes
> the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled
> diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most
> subscribed single international treaty in the world.
>
> The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises
> are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or
> qualification elsewhere in the treaty.
>
> Article 22
>
> 1.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.
> 2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps
> to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and
> to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its
> dignity.
> 3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon
> and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search,
> requisition, attachment or execution.
>
> Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the
> Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War,
> defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies.
> Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to
> help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result
> in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.
>
> The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong
> enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the
> “might is right” principle in international relations, in the era of the
> neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.
>
> The British Government bases its argument on domestic British legislation.
> But the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter its obligations in
> international law, unless it chooses to withdraw from them. If the
> government does not wish to follow the obligations imposed on it by the
> Vienna Convention, it has the right to resile from it – which would leave
> British diplomats with no protection worldwide.
>
> I hope to have more information soon on the threats used by the US
> administration. William Hague had been supporting the move against the
> concerted advice of his own officials; Ken Clarke has been opposing the move
> against the advice of his. I gather the decision to act has been taken in
> Number 10.
>
> There appears to have been no input of any kind from the Liberal Democrats.
> That opens a wider question – there appears to be no “liberal” impact now in
> any question of coalition policy. It is amazing how government salaries and
> privileges and ministerial limousines are worth far more than any belief to
> these people. I cannot now conceive how I was a member of that party for
> over thirty years, deluded into a genuine belief that they had principles.
>
> ***
>
> Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)
>
> The Geopolitics of Asylum
>
> Tom Hayden | August 16, 2012
>
> The British a “huge mistake” in threatening to extract Julian Assange from
> Ecuador’s London embassy after the Latin American country granted political
> asylum to the WikiLeaks foundaer yesterday, says international human rights
> lawyer Michael Ratner. “They overstepped, looked like bullies, and made it
> into a big-power versus small-power conflict,” said Ratner, president of the
> Center for Constitutional Rights, in an interview with The Nation today.
> Ratner is a consultant to Assange’s legal team and recently spent a week in
> Ecuador for discussions of the case.
>
> The diplomatic standoff will have to be settled through negotiations or by
> the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Ratner said. “In my memory,
> no state has ever invaded another country’s embassy to seize someone who has
> been granted asylum,” he said, adding that there would be no logic in
> returning an individual to a power seeking to charge him for political
> reasons.
>
> Since Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy seven weeks ago, Ecuadorian
> diplomats have sought the assurance through private talks with the British
> and Swedes that Assange will be protected from extradition to the United
> States, where he could face charges under the US Espionage Act. Such
> guarantees were refused, according to Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo
> Patiño, who said in Quito that the British made an “explicit threat” to
> “assault our embassy” to take Assange. “We are not a British colony,” Patiño
> added.
>
> British Foreign Secretary William Hague said yesterday that his government
> will not permit safe passage for Assange, setting the stage for what may be
> a prolonged showdown.
>
> The United States has been silent on whether it plans to indict Assange and
> ultimately seek his extradition. Important lawmakers, like Senator Diane
> Feinstein, a chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have called for
> Assange’s indictment in recent weeks. But faced with strong objections from
> civil liberties and human rights advocates, the White House may prefer to
> avoid direct confrontation, leaving Assange entangled in disputes with the
> UK and Sweden over embarrassing charges of sexual misconduct in Sweden.
>
> Any policy of isolating Assange may have failed now, as the conflict becomes
> one in which Ecuador—and a newly independent Latin America—stand off against
> the US and UK. Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa represents the wave of new
> nationalist leaders on the continent who have challenged the traditional US
> dominance over trade, security and regional decision-making. Correa joined
> the Venezuelan-founded Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas in June 2009,
> and closed the US military base in Ecuador in September 2009. His government
> fined Chevron for $8.6 billion for damages to the Amazon rainforest, in a
> case which Correa called “the most important in the history of the country.”
> He survived a coup attempt in 2010.
>
> It is very unlikely that Correa would make his asylum decision without
> consulting other governments in Latin America. An aggressive reaction by the
> British, carrying echoes of the colonial past, is likely to solidify Latin
> American ranks behind Quito, making Assange another irritant in relations
> with the United States.
>
> Earlier this year, many Central and Latin American leaders rebuked the Obama
> administration for its drug war policies and vowed not to participate in
> another Organization of American States meeting that excluded Cuba. Shortly
> after, President Obama acted to remove his Latin American policy chief, Dan
> Restrepo, according to a source with close ties to the Obama administration.
> Now the Assange affair threatens more turmoil between the United States and
> the region.
>
> ***
>
> http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2012/08/196589.htm
>
>
> Victoria Nuland
>
> Spokesperson
>
> Daily Press Briefing
>
> Washington, DC
>
> August 16, 2012
>
> TRANSCRIPT:
>
> 12:44 p.m. EDT
>
> MS. NULAND: Happy Thursday, everybody. Let’s start with whatever’s on your
> minds.
>
> Q: Do you have any thoughts at all on the decision by Ecuador to grant
> diplomatic asylum to Mr. Assange?
>
> MS. NULAND: This is an issue between the Ecuadorans, the Brits, the Swedes.
> I don't have anything particular to add.
>
> Q: You don't have any interest at all in this case other than as of a
> completely neutral, independent observer of it?
>
> MS. NULAND: Well, certainly with regard to this particular issue, it is an
> issue among the countries involved and we're not planning to interject
> ourselves.
>
> Q: Have you not interjected yourself at all?
>
> MS. NULAND: Not with regard to the issue of his current location or where he
> may end up going, no.
>
> Q: Well, there has been some suggestion that the U.S. is pushing the Brits
> to go into the Ecuadorian embassy and remove him.
>
> MS. NULAND: I have no information to indicate that there is any truth to
> that at all.
>
> Q: Do -- and the Brits -- Former Secretary Hague said that the Brits do not
> recognize diplomatic asylum. I'm wondering if the United States recognizes
> diplomatic asylum, given that it is a signatory to this 1954 OAS treaty
> which grants -- or which recognizes diplomatic asylum, but only, presumably,
> within the membership of the OAS. But more broadly, does the U.S. recognize
> diplomatic asylum as a legal thing under international law?
>
> MS. NULAND: Well, if you're asking for -- me for a global legal answer to
> the question, I'll have to take it and consult 4,000 lawyers.
>
> Q: Contrasting it with political asylum. This is different, diplomatic
> asylum.
>
> MS. NULAND: With regard to the decision that the Brits are making or the
> statement that they made, our understanding was that they were leaning on
> British law in the assertions that they made with regard to future plans,
> not on international law. But if you're asking me to check what our legal
> position is on this term of art, I'll have to take it, Matt, and get back to
> you.
>
> Q: Yeah, just whether you do recognize it outside of the confines of the --
> of the OAS and those signatories.
>
> And then when you said that you don't have any information to suggest that
> you have weighed in with the Brits about whether to have Mr. Assange removed
> from the embassy, does that mean that there hasn't been any, or just that
> you're not aware of it?
>
> MS. NULAND: My information is that we have not involved ourselves in this.
> If that is not correct, we'll get back to you.
>
> [...]
>
>
> Q: All right. And then just back to the Assange thing, the reason that the
> Ecuadorians gave -- have given him asylum is because they say that -- they
> agree with his claim that he would be -- could face persecution --
> government persecution if for any reason he was to come to the United States
> under whatever circumstances. Do you -- do you find that that's a credible
> argument? Does anyone face unwarranted or illegal government persecution in
> the United States?
>
> MS. NULAND: No.
>
> Q: No?
>
> MS. NULAND: No.
>
> Q: And so you think that the grounds that -- in this specific case, the
> grounds for him receiving asylum from any country -- or any country
> guaranteeing asylum to anyone on the basis that if they happen to show up in
> the United States they might be subject to government persecution, you don't
> view that as --
>
> MS. NULAND: I'm not -- I'm not going to comment on the Ecuadoran thought
> process here. If you're asking me whether there was any intention to
> persecute rather than prosecute, the answer is no.
>
> Q: OK.
>
> MS. NULAND: OK?
>
> Q: Well -- wait, hold on a second -- so you're saying that he would face
> prosecution?
>
> MS. NULAND: Again, I'm not -- we were in a situation where he was not headed
> to the United States. He was headed elsewhere. So I'm not going to get into
> all of the legal ins and outs about what may or may not have been in his
> future before he chose to take refuge in the Ecuadoran mission.
>
> But with regard to the charge that the U.S. was intent on persecuting him, I
> reject that completely.
>
> Q: OK, fair enough. But I mean, unfortunately, this is -- this case does
> rest entirely on legal niceties. Pretty much all of it is on the legal
> niceties, maybe not entirely. So are you -- when you said that the intention
> was to prosecute, not persecute, are you saying that he does face
> prosecution in the United States?
>
> MS. NULAND: Again, I don't -- that was not the course of action that we were
> all on. But let me get back to you on -- there was -- I don't think that
> when he decided to take refuge, that was where he was headed, right?
> Obviously, we have --
>
> Q: No, I mean, he was headed to Sweden.
>
> MS. NULAND: Right, but obviously, we have our own legal case. I'm going to
> send you Justice on what the exact status of that was, OK?
>
> Q: OK, there is -- so you're saying that there is a legal case against him.
>
> MS. NULAND: I'm saying that the Justice Department was very much involved
> with broken U.S. law, et cetera. But I don't have any specifics here on what
> their intention would have been vis-a-vis him. So I'm not going to wade into
> it any deeper than I already have, which was too far, all right?
>
> Q: (Chuckles.) OK, well, wait, wait, I just have one more, and it doesn't
> involve the -- it involves the whole inviability (sic) of embassies and that
> kind of thing.
>
> MS. NULAND: Right.
>
> Q: You said that -- at the beginning that you have not involved yourselves
> at all. But surely if there -- if you were aware that a country was going to
> raid or enter a diplomatic compound of any country, of any other country,
> you would find that to be unacceptable, correct?
>
> MS. NULAND: As I said --
>
> Q: I mean, if the Chinese had gone in after -- into the embassy in Beijing
> to pull out the -- your -- the blind lawyer, you would have objected to
> that, correct?
>
> MS. NULAND: As I said at the beginning, the -- our British allies have cited
> British law with regard to the statements they've made about potential
> future action. I'm not in a position here to evaluate British law,
> international -- as compared to international law.
>
> So I can't -- if you're asking me to wade into the question of whether they
> have the right to do what they're proposing to do or may do under British
> law, I'm going to send you to them.
>
> Q: Right, but there's -- but it goes beyond British law. I mean, there is
> international law here too, and presumably the United State would oppose or
> would condemn or at least express concerns about any government entering or
> violating the sovereignty of a diplomatic compound anywhere in the world,
> no?
>
> MS. NULAND: Again, I can't speak to what it is that they are standing on
> vis-a-vis Vienna Convention or anything else. I also can't speak to what the
> status of the particular building that he happens to be in at the moment is.
> So I'm going to send you to the Brits on all of that. You know where we are
> on the Vienna Convention in general, and that is unchanged. OK?
>
> Q: OK. Well, when the Iranians stormed the embassy in Teheran, back in 1979,
> presumably you thought that was a bad thing, right?
>
> MS. NULAND: That was a Vienna-Convention-covered facility and a
> Vienna-Convention-covered moment. I cannot speak to any of the rest of this
> on British soil. I'm going to send you to Brits. OK?
>
> Q: A very quick follow-up. You said there is a case against him by the
> Justice Department. Does that include --
>
> MS. NULAND: I did not say that. I said that the Justice Department is
> working on the entire WikiLeaks issue. So I can't -- I can't speak to what
> Justice may or may not have. I'm going to send you to Justice.
>
> Q: Is there a U.S. case against him?
>
> MS. NULAND: I'm going to send you to Justice, because I really don't have
> the details. OK? Thanks, guys.
>
> (The briefing was concluded at 1:19 p.m.)
>
> DPB #146
>
>
>
>
>
>
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