http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
About a month ago I asked a former colleague in the British Foreign
and Commonwealth Office what Hague saw as the endgame in the Julian
Assange asylum standoff, and where the room for negotiation lay. My
friend was dismissive – the policy was simply to wait for the
Presidential election in Ecuador in February. The United States and
allies were confident that Correa will lose, and my friend and I having
both been senior diplomats for many years we understood what the United
States would be doing to ensure that result. With Correa replaced by a
pro-USA President, Assange’s asylum will be withdrawn, the Metropolitan
Police invited in to the Embassy of Ecuador to remove him, and Assange
sent immediately to Sweden from where he could be extradited to the
United States to face charges of espionage and aiding terrorism.
I have been struck by the naivety of those who ask why the United
States could not simply request Assange’s extradition from the United
Kingdom. The answer is simple – the coalition government. Extradition
agreements are government to government international treaties, and the
decision on their implementation is ultimately political and
governmental – that is why it was Teresa May and not a judge who took
the final and very different political decisions on Babar Ahmad and Gary
Mackinnon.
CIA supporters in the UK have argued vociferously that it would be
impossible for Sweden to give Assange the assurance he would not be
extradited to the United States, with which he would be prepared to
return to Sweden to see off the rather pathetic attempted fit-up there.
In fact, as extradition agreements are governmental not judicial
instruments, it would be perfectly possible for the Swedish government
to give that assurance. Those who argue otherwise, like Gavin Essler
and Joan Smith here, are not being truthful – I suspect their very vehemence indicates that they know that.
Most Liberal Democrat MPs are happy to endorse the notion that
Assange should be returned to Sweden to face sexual accusations.
However even the repeatedly humiliated Lib Dem MPs would revolt at the
idea that Assange should be sent to face life imprisonment in solitary
confinement in the United States for the work of Wikileaks. That is why
the United States has held off requesting extradition from the United
Kingdom, to avoid the trouble this would cause Cameron. I am not
speculating, there have been direct very senior diplomatic exchanges on
this point between Washington and London.
There was confidence that the Correa problem would soon pass, but the
State Department has since been shocked by the return of Hugo Chavez.
Like Correa, senior US diplomats had convinced themselves – and
convinced La Clinton – that Chavez was going to lose. The fury at
Chavez’s return has led to a diktat that the same mistake must not be
made in Ecuador.
