Thursday, December 9, 2010

JULIAN ASSANGE – US OF 2008 AND 2010

Julian Assange, founder, WikiLeaks Website surrendered before the British authorities and got duly imprisoned in a British jail. An enraged USA could derive sort of solace, when the news of his imprisonment flashed across the world within seconds of his surrender and arrest. Mr.Assange whether it is true or not and incase it is true, how far it is true, still remains a riddle that he had sexually assaulted two ladies and upon their lodging complaints he was arrested. Julian Assange denies it and in the same breath admits to the ‘fact’ that, true, he did have sex with those ladies but it was consensual sex.
Whether he did commit such a crime or not is immaterial here as the bigger issue of releasing the classified diplomatic cables for the world as a whole to go thru’ thus putting USA in a spot.
First the release of more than 95000 diplomatic cables relating to British Military’s merciless torture of Taliban prisoners and then the leak of 250000 classified cables from across various US embassies to the Headquarters the so far unknown truths spilling over. America was plunged into a diplomatic crisis. Soon followed their denials, baseless denials they were as the classified diplomatic cables were very much before the public to go thru and denials a part of fire-fighting exercise. US’s and the close ally UK’s protests and indignation turned against Julian Assange naturally, seriously mulled entrapping the fellow at any cost. And the alleged ‘sexual assault’ of two ladies and their lodging of complaints against him came in handy and the complaints reached before Interpol and Assange’s hide and seek game started from there-on.
Meanwhile Assange made it public before the world his apprehensions that he was fearing for his life and such an apprehension is quite plausible in a world where wheeling and dealing is the order of the day. Greed for accumulating wealth at any cost is not at all a phenomenon confined to not only a few parts of the world but it engulfs the entire world.
Hence the itch to do away with the trouble makers here I mean the whistleblowers to keep hot issues tormenting the conscience of the rulers and business men of developed, developing and least-developed countries swept under the carpet for a prolonged period. Hence the ways and means of silencing such sources are part of the game.
We in India, have witnessed a lot of whistleblowers, being done to death one by one incase after repeated warnings, pressures and reminders of dire consequences of the establishment get ignored by sticking to one’s integrity and principles. The professional killers if and when entrusted with the job of getting things cleanly done, they get the jobs cleanly done without leaving any evidence. The only condition being one thing the ones who authorize them or entrust them with the job should have to agree to the terms and conditions, thus fixing the deal. Always the amounts involved come to crores and crores of rupees.
As far as USA and Britain are concerned, Assange too like Bin Laden, is a daily nightmare giving them many sleepless nights and if he still continues to evade the fate about to fall upon Bin Laden perforce he is caught alive, it is due to the voices of human rights activists the world over. International pressures and compulsions could deter even a super power from going to the extremes.
One fact which is amusing and at the same time worth pondering and wondering about is it was US especially the Democratic party and its leaders Barack Obama, US President and Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State, even in the run-up to the Presidential elections in 2008 were vocal in their opinions that freedom of speech and expression and the right to criticize the wrong policies and programmes of a nation be it of US or for that matter any other nation should not at any cost be obstructed. Then it was quite undreamt of a democracy or for that matter all liberal democracies becoming the establishment fighting against the internet freedom. While China was up in arms against Google one year ago both Obama and Hilary Clinton were vehement in their attacks on China for putting hurdles in the path of Google and both advocated for easy access to information through internet. During that time they were against the authoritarian tendencies of certain countries towards internet freedom. Even after the elections, such opinions by these leaders reverberated across the land and after one year in saddle when it came to be adversely affected with the release of classified diplomatic cables pertaining to that country’s dealings where the hell ran away the tall words of these two for good. Now US is baying for the blood of Julian Assange and he is put in prison at its allies like Britain. Its grand claims of world’s biggest democracy resembles a man with a clay feet.
Add to its head-ache, Assange’s lawyer and confidents are busy making preparations to release the next set of 250000 classified cables any day soon.
Meanwhile Julian Assange’s home country Australia has come to the fore with extending all kinds of possible help to the whistleblower.

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