Julian Assange
Out of context: Reply #136
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- TheBlueOne0
"Diplomatic immunity is the cornerstone of international politics. Without it — no matter what you may think of diplomats — no meaningful communication is possible among states. Which, obviously, makes conflicts more likely. If a major state, like Britain, attempts to introduce exceptions or "suspensions" of diplomatic immunity the precedent surely would be followed by others. A Chinese dissident, for example, might then be extracted by force from a U.S. diplomatic compound, or a British diplomat found "spying" in Moscow might be detained indefinitely. Such unhappy possibilities should be avoided at almost any cost.
How to explain the British government's threat to Ecuador over Julian Assange? First, it's August. On the continent the serious set are on vacation. It's an enduring tradition that seems to have spread to Her Majesty's government. Presumably more senior (if not more elderly) diplomats were unavailable to curb Whitehall's enthusiasm. According to the New York Times, however, wiser heads have now engaged. Second, British government lawyers drastically over-interpreted a 1987 law passed in response to a female police constable having been killed during a 1984 siege of the Libyan Embassy in London, the gunman later having escaped thanks to diplomatic immunity. No similar set of circumstances exists here; by this non-lawyer's reckoning the law simply does not apply.
But, third, one must now take seriously Julian Assange's fears of ultimate extradition to the U.S. As Mark Weisbrot points out, the Swedes have behaved in an unusually duplicitous fashion, declining to send investigators to interview Assange in Britain or, now, to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. And forcing Assange to Sweden would never have become such a startlingly high priority for the British government unless something much bigger than rape allegations were at stake. At some point, sooner or later, we'll find out just how much pressure the U.S. has been exerting. Until then we must assume the worst.
To me, Assange's options seem limited. Unless the major states of South America, as one, were to demand and oversee the peaceful transfer of Assange to Ecuador he may well be in for a long stretch of Embassy captivity. It's happened before. See, for example, Cardinal József Mindszenty, who lived for fifteen years in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.
The only other way out would be for the U.S. to publicly renounce any interest in extraditing Assange if he were in Swedish custody. Assange then, with his mind at ease, could submit himself to Swedish justice. But don't hold your breath..."
http://www.electricpolitics.com/…
George Kenney, former Yugoslav desk officer at the State Department headquarters in DC, who resigned his commission in 1991 over disagreements regarding Clinton's US policy towards the Yugoslav civil war.