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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCraig Murray: America’s Vassal Acts Decisively and Illegally
Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and now human rights activist, asks that his latest blog entry be reposted freely as a counter to a possible denial of service attack on his blog.
UPDATE
100,000 HITS IN 100 MINUTES CRASHED THE SITE. WE DONT KNOW YET IF GENUINE INTEREST OR DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. OUR BRILLIANT WEBHOSTS HAVE QUADRUPLED THE RESOURCE, BUT IF YOU CAN HELP TAKE THE STRAIN BY REPOSTING I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL.
I returned to the UK today to be astonished by private confirmation from within the FCO that the UK government has indeed decided after immense pressure from the Obama administration to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy and seize Julian Assange.
This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the centuries arguably millennia of practice which have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.
The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.
Article 22
1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of
transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.
Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each others embassies. Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.
The governments calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the might is right principle in international relations, in the era of the neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.
The British Government bases its argument on domestic British legislation. But the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter its obligations in international law, unless it chooses to withdraw from them. If the government does not wish to follow the obligations imposed on it by the Vienna Convention, it has the right to resile from it which would leave British diplomats with no protection worldwide.
I hope to have more information soon on the threats used by the US administration. William Hague had been supporting the move against the concerted advice of his own officials; Ken Clarke has been opposing the move against the advice of his. I gather the decision to act has been taken in Number 10.
There appears to have been no input of any kind from the Liberal Democrats. That opens a wider question there appears to be no liberal impact now in any question of coalition policy. It is amazing how government salaries and privileges and ministerial limousines are worth far more than any belief to these people. I cannot now conceive how I was a member of that party for over thirty years, deluded into a genuine belief that they had principles.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/08/americas-vassal-acts-decisively-and-illegally/
randome
(34,845 posts)Here is the timeline: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/world/europe/assange-extradition-timeline/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
So let's see who the conspirators are, shall we?
U.K.
U.S.
Australia
Sweden
Swedish prosecutors
The women who made the initial accusations
Interpol
Did I miss anyone?
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)the Bilderbergers, the Freemasons and the Illuminati.
TheMadMonk
(6,187 posts)...her complaint the moment her Agency heritage was raised. And a woman who only complained weeks after the act when she discovered that she wasn't the only Assange groupie.
Swedish prosecutors initially declined to prosecute. Prosecution is only occurring as a result of a A DIRECT MINISTERIAL ORDER.
Sweden's legal system uniquely permits the state to procede with a complaint even if complaining witnesses withdraws both the complaint and their person from Swedish jurisdictions. It also has a history of openly allowing extraordinary extradition, or the next best thing, to take place on its soil.
Australia HAS raised an admittedly tepid and lackluster complaint. And we've caved before on David Hicks.
US is the proverbial and perennial 800 lb guerrilla, sleeping and shitting wherever it pleases.
And the UK is an aging wheezing British bulldog.
And yes. Two years. Two years of making it abundantly clear to anyone who might be inclined to step into Julian's shoes, what sort of living hell can be made of the first "civilian point of contact" of a whistle blower. The ongoing threat of what MIGHT happen is far more powerful than the actuality.
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)With Murray's experience as a diplomat working in various overseas locations, including a period as British ambassador to Uzbekistan, I take it that by now he knows a vassal state when he sees it.