Ecuador: Media Distorting Our Words. We're Pulling Out of US Trade Agreement. Offer US Economic Aid

[Catherina]

9. Why Ecuador would be an ideal refuge for Edward Snowden

Why Ecuador would be an ideal refuge for Edward Snowden

This country has already been dragged through the mud for sheltering Julian Assange, and it is willing to stand up to the US

Mark Weisbrot
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 June 2013 12.00 BST

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The media took advantage of the fact that most of the world knows very little about Ecuador to misinform their audience that this government "represses the media". The same efforts are already under way in the Snowden case. Without defending everything that exists in Ecuador, including criminal libel laws and some vague language in a new communications law, anyone who has been to the country knows that the international media has presented a gross caricature of the state of press freedom there. The Ecuadorian private media is more oppositional than that of the US, trashing the government every day.

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The great irony is not that Snowden should enlist help from Ecuador, or even Russia and China for that matter, in escaping political persecution. Has any journalist or human rights advocate criticised the thousands of Salvadoran refugees who escaped US-sponsored murder and repression in the late 1970s and 80s by fleeing to the United States, "the world's greatest purveyor of violence," as Martin Luther King once described it?

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Washington would almost certainly retaliate against Ecuador for granting asylum to Snowden. In addition to commercial sanctions, there are possible covert actions. In 2010 there was a coup attempt against Correa; although there is no direct evidence of US involvement, the police who led the uprising had a long relationship with US officials, including funding. Many in Ecuador's government believe that Washington was involved, and if it wasn't, this would be the first coup attempt in at least 60 years against a left-wing government in Latin America that Washington had nothing to do with.

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If Washington is ultimately forced to respect international law in this case, it will be because many countries, most strikingly in South America, no longer fear US retaliation. Since Snowden did a huge public service by revealing government wrongdoing, this is another example of how US citizens – contrary to what our media tells us every day – actually benefit from the development of a more multipolar world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/27/ecuador-ideal-refuge-edward-snowden