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The
Guardian has today
published a whole series of attack piece articles on Julian Assange which plainly exult in the fact he has now been silenced by the cutting of his communication with the outside world. They also include outright lies such as this one by Dan Collyns:
In fact Julian Assange was questioned for two days solid in the Embassy by Swedish procurators and police in November 2016. The statement he gave to them at that time I
published in full. Following that questioning it was plain that there was no hope of a successful prosecution, particularly as the only physical evidence Swedish Police had was a condom Anna Ardin claimed he had worn but which had no trace of his DNA - a physical impossibility.
Dan Collyns is a freelance journalist based in Peru, but
the Guardian's editors certainly know it is blatantly untrue that the investigation into Assange was dropped because he could not be questioned. They have knowingly published a lie. "Facts are sacred" there, apparently.
The
Guardian article gives another complete lie, this time in the Harding penned section, where it says that "sources" reveal that Assange had hacked into the Embassy's communications. That is completely untrue as are the "facts" given about Julian's relationship with the Embassy staff, whom I know well. It is plain that these "sources" are separate from the Ecuadorean security dossier published in Focus Ecuador by the CIA. I would bet any money that these anonymous "sources" are as always Harding's mates in the UK security services.
That the Guardian should allow itself to be used in a security service disinformation campaign designed to provoke distrust between Assange and Embassy staff, is appalling.I had a front row seat in 2010 when the
Guardian suddenly switched from championing Assange to attacking him, in a deeply unedifying row about the rights and money from a projected autobiography. But they have sunk to a new low today in a collaboration between long term
MI6 mouthpiece Luke Harding and the
CIA financed neo-con propagandists of Focus Ecuador.
The
Guardian pieces are full of truly startling revelations. Would you ever have guessed, for example, that Julian Assange was visited by his Wikileaks colleague Sarah Harrison, his friends Vaughn Smith and, err, me, and his lawyer Gareth Peirce?! This great scandal, Harding states in an assertion as evidence-free as his entire "Russia hacked the elections" book,
"will interest Mueller". Despite the fact none of these visits was secret and mine was broadcast live to the world by Wikileaks on Brexit referendum night.
The aim of the "Guardian" piece is of course to help urge Ecuador to expel Julian from the Embassy. There is no doubt that the actions of Lenin Moreno, under extreme pressure from the USA, have been severely disappointing, though I am more inclined to praise Ecuador for its courageous defiance of the US than blame it for eventually caving in to the vast resources the CIA is spending on undermining it. It is also worth noting that, post the Francoist human rights abuses in Catalonia, it was Spain and the EU joining in US pressure which tipped the balance.
Julian's principled refusal to abandon the Catalan cause, against direct Ecuadorean threats to do precisely what they have now done, has not received the credit it deserves.
The same Blairites who supported the latest Israeli massacre will this morning be revelling in the Guardian's celebration of the silencing of a key dissident voice. I have no wish to try and understand these people.
Comment: Another write, Mike Head at the World Socialist Web Site,
points out that the Ecuadorian government, led by Lenin Moreno, has fallen completely in line with US imperial policy:
Ecuador's government cut off Assange's communications just one day after it welcomed a delegation from the US Southern Command (Southcom), the Pentagon's arm in Latin America and the Caribbean, headed by General Joseph DiSalvo. Southcom said discussions were held to strengthen "security cooperation."
There is no doubt that the US intelligence apparatus and political establishment are driving the conspiracy against Assange. Last year, WikiLeaks began publishing more incriminating files about the CIA's global operations. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said putting Assange on trial for espionage was a "priority." CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, declared that WikiLeaks was a "non-state hostile intelligence service."
The article also tears apart the propaganda nonsense that the Ecuadorian government spent millions on a spy operation to support Assange:
The Guardian based its unverified accusations against Assange on "secret records" it had "seen," together with Focus Ecuador, a right-wing website. It charged that Ecuador's intelligence agency "bankrolled a multi-million-dollar spy operation" to "protect" Assange in the embassy. Over six years, this activity had cost $5 million.
A closer examination of the story, however, indicates that the surveillance was conducted primarily against Assange and WikiLeaks. A security firm watched Assange around the clock and installed CCTV cameras throughout the embassy.
"Operation Guest" logged every visitor that Assange had for six years, and spied on his every movement in the tiny embassy, monitoring his mood, habits and sleeping patterns, the Guardian reported. Agents recorded each visitor's purpose of visit, their passport information and arrival and departure times.
"Every month, the security company sent a confidential list of Assange's visitors to the Ecuadorian president," the newspaper stated. "Sometimes, the company included stills from secret video footage of interesting guests, plus profiles and analysis."
Clearly the Ecuadorian government arranged to have the
Guardian publish this story in order to spread the nonsensical idea that Assange was a drain on the country's resources in the form of security protection. It should be clear to anyone with two firing neurons that if there was any spy operation, it existed solely to surveil Julian Assange and monitor his activities at all times.
The ex-president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has also
mocked the story as "sensationalistic" in an exclusive interview with The Intercept, saying that the Embassy security procedures were "modest and routine" instead of the scandalous or unusual description the Guardian wishes to depict them as.
Correa has also denounced the Ecuador's treatment of Assange and called the capitulation of the current Ecuador government to the US as no longer maintaining "normal sovereign relations with the American government - just submission."
Comment: Another write, Mike Head at the World Socialist Web Site, points out that the Ecuadorian government, led by Lenin Moreno, has fallen completely in line with US imperial policy: The article also tears apart the propaganda nonsense that the Ecuadorian government spent millions on a spy operation to support Assange: Clearly the Ecuadorian government arranged to have the Guardian publish this story in order to spread the nonsensical idea that Assange was a drain on the country's resources in the form of security protection. It should be clear to anyone with two firing neurons that if there was any spy operation, it existed solely to surveil Julian Assange and monitor his activities at all times.
The ex-president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has also mocked the story as "sensationalistic" in an exclusive interview with The Intercept, saying that the Embassy security procedures were "modest and routine" instead of the scandalous or unusual description the Guardian wishes to depict them as. Correa has also denounced the Ecuador's treatment of Assange and called the capitulation of the current Ecuador government to the US as no longer maintaining "normal sovereign relations with the American government - just submission."