Embassy Fiasco Threatening to Boil Over in London

[nanuq]

If true, Central and South America may explode.

UPDATE 3-Britain threatens to storm Ecuador embassy to get Assange

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/16/wikileaks-assange-ecuador-idINL2E8JFH5K20120816

QUITO/LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - The diplomatic standoff over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange escalated on Wednesday after Britain threatened to raid Ecuador's embassy in London if Quito did not hand over Assange, who has been taking refuge there for two months.

The Ecuadorean government said such an action would be considered a "hostile and intolerable act" as well as a violation of its sovereignty.

"Under British law we can give them a week's notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

"But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution."

Quito bristled at the threat and said it would announce its decision on Assange's asylum request on Thursday at 7 a.m. (1200 GMT).

"We want to be very clear, we're not a British colony. The colonial times are over," Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said in an angry statement after a meeting with President Rafael Correa.

"The move announced in the official British statement, if it happens, would be interpreted by Ecuador as an unfriendly, hostile and intolerable act, as well as an attack on our sovereignty, which would force us to respond in the strongest diplomatic way," Patino told reporters.

Ecuador, whose government is part of a left-leaning bloc of nations in South America, called for meetings of regional foreign ministers and the hemispheric Organization of American States to rally support in its complaint against Britain.

"We are deeply shocked by British government's threats against the sovereignty of the Ecuadorean Embassy and their suggestion that they may forcibly enter the embassy," the mission said on its website.

"This is a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention."

The embassy, near London's famed Harrods department store, was under tight surveillance, with three police officers manning the entrance and several others patrolling around the red-brick building.

A group of Assange supporters who responded to a rallying call by WikiLeaks on Twitter gathered outside to demand Assange's freedom and streamed the scene live on the Internet.

"We have been here day in day out as a vigil to make sure there is at least a witness to all of this," said Anthony, one of the supporters.

WikiLeaks earlier tweeted saying, "If police storms, they will do so in early hours of the morning. Please stay, & those who can, go to the embassy and #ProtectAssange".

WANTED IN SWEDEN

The Australian former hacker has been in the embassy for eight weeks since losing a legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of rape and sexual assault by two WikiLeaks supporters.

"The UK has a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offences and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation," a Foreign Office spokesman said earlier.

Swedish prosecutors have not yet charged Assange, but they have moved forward with their investigations and they believe they have a case to take to trial.

Assange fears Sweden could send him on to the United States, where he believes authorities want to punish him for publishing thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks in 2010 in a major embarrassment for Washington.

Even if he were granted asylum, Assange has little chance of leaving the Ecuadorean embassy in London without being arrested.

There has been speculation he could travel to an airport in a diplomatic car, be smuggled out in a diplomatic bag, or even be appointed an Ecuadorean diplomat to give him immunity.

But lawyers and diplomats see those scenarios as practically unworkable.

The Ecuadorean government has said it wants to avoid Assange's extradition to Sweden, but approval of asylum would offer no legal protection in Britain where police will arrest him once they get a chance.

"The question of asylum is arguably a red herring," said former British government lawyer Carl Gardner.

Ecuador's leader Correa is a self-declared enemy of "corrupt" media and U.S. "imperialism", and apparently hit it off with Assange during a TV interview the Australian did with him in May.

Correa joked then with Assange that he had joined "the club of the persecuted".

Some, though, find Assange's connection with Ecuador odd, given that Correa is labeled a persecutor of the media by journalism freedom groups.

[vagabond]

Wow, they really haven't moved on from this guy have they? Shouldn't they spend the resources raiding the offices of bank chairmen since they're currently the real, existentialist threat to Britain and the EU? Hopefully just a bit of intimidation theatre.

[muskrat]

Lets see
A. British Bank launders billions in dodgy & illegal trades with super enemy Iran, Sth American drug cartels. Launders extra billions of dollars in fraudulent rates scam.
B. Some Oz hacker has consensual sex with 2 Swedish girls but didnt use a condom.

Which is the greater crime & what is Britain using more resources to police & prosecute.

We'll all know in under 4.5 hours when Ecuador announces its decision. Personally I hope he gets to go to Ecuador.

Cheers M.

[friendlyskies]

I don't even know why Ecuador's pussy-footing around with this. Yes, it probably means a limited economic embargo by the USA and UK, but are the high-end tourons really going to give up visiting the Galapagos? No. Just take Assange already and let this shit get real.

Anyway, this isn't just about Assange, it's also about the Falklands, that's why the UK has to make such a fuss. Correa is a Bolivarian, he campaigned with Hugo and, while he is considered the most moderate of the group (Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador) - an economist and student of Stiglitz - he's very firmly in the Latin America camp. Note that when foreigners engineered the coup in Paraguay a couple of months ago and MERCOSUR (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay) kicked the fake new government out, they let in Venezuela (!) and gave Ecuador and Bolivia non-voting observer status, seen as a precursor to membership. Ie, Ecuador and Argentina are, for the purposes of UK foreign policy, the same country. With spring (and presumably, war) on the horizon....

[el3so]

All of this supposedly over some Scandinavian slit. Hope she was worth it.

As for the bank scandal: no surprises.

[muskrat]

He got diplomatic protection. Now comes the interesting bit.

el3so one of the honeytraps was possibly worth it imho.

Cheers M,

[friendlyskies]

South America gave the EU a big "fuck you" once again! And what is the UK going to do about it? Not a thing, watch. When Venezuela started mocking Bush, everyone was like, "The USA is going to put sanctions on Venezuela," but they didn't have the balls. When Brazil started playing footsie with Putin and buying shitloads of Russian weapons while publicly allying with ALBA and refusing to declare terrorism a special international crime, people were like, "Everyone's going to sanction/divest from Brazil," but once again, no one had the balls. When Argentina nationalized Repsol a few months back, the Economist was all, "Now Spain's going to come down hard on Argentina, or Mercosur, or at least companies are going to divest," but the exact opposite happened - hell, Carlos Slim went in there like a knight in shining bank accounts and bailed out YPF like a champ; today, after 20 years of zero investment in exploration, YPF has already identified all sorts of new wells and increased output by 5%.

So now this. The EU and USA want Assange's blood so bad they can taste it, this is about unsafe sex like Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction, come on. But will they have the balls to take on Ecuador, and South America, mano a mano? I honestly don't think they will.... the UK is so high on good PR from the best-run Olympics of all time that they won't want to rock the boat by messing with the King of the Nerds. Oh, John Foster Dulles is spinning in his grave, hahaha these pipshit Latinos standing up to their natural racial overlords, the superior white race? HERESY! Why has the CIA left ALBA in power so long? This.... this would have been dealt with under the Dulles Brothers' watch, years ago. The shame, the shame....

If the EU and UK do nothing about this, I think we can declare neocolonialism in South America an endangered species, well, if you don't count China - the real victor. Interesting times.

[Kurt]

What the Brits have to quietly do is let Ecuador have their diplomatic coup while London pretends to be very upset yet weak, in exchange for Ecuador supporting the Falklands rather than the Malvinas.

[vagabond]

What the Brits have to quietly do is let Ecuador have their diplomatic coup while London pretends to be very upset yet weak, in exchange for Ecuador supporting the Falklands rather than the Malvinas.

My god, does it really always come back to some sheepshaggers on a near Antarctic island that has no real relevance in the world? *sigh*

Anyway, good for Ecuador though I assume given the US DEA / special forces presence in Colombia if he ever moves there he probably won't be too long for the world. The only person who actually people that seemed to actually care about Wikileaks was the people embarrassed by saying mean things about other diplos at the State Dept, ubernerds, and foreign policy wonks and academics that actually had something to work with.

It's also interesting how this dude gets raked over the coals for getting with some ladies in Sweden, consensually, but the IMF guy got off scot-free (other than losing his job) in a much more murky situation.

Bankers win, freedom of information and transparency loses.

Oh yeah, lets not forget Bradley Manning if he was actually involved. We probably will like most of our media stories (beyond KStew and RPattz) even though if any ordinary citizen decides to have the wherewithal to stand up to the government or even support something like Wikileaks, they could end up the same way in some Kafka-esque trial.