In his first year in office, Ecuadoran President Lenin Moreno called Assange a “hacker,” an “inherited problem” and a “stone in the shoe.” The language could not be clearer — Moreno has made it plain that the world’s most famous lodger has overstayed his welcome in Ecuador’s London embassy.
Nearly six years ago, it was a different story.
When Ecuador granted Assange political asylum on Aug. 16, 2012, then-Ecuadoran minister of foreign affairs Ricardo Patino said Ecuador believed that the WikiLeaks founder’s fear of persecution was legitimate and praised “his dedicated defense of freedom of expression” in a speech in Quito.
However, what was expected to be a stopover turned into a lengthy sojourn and Assange became one of the world’s most high-profile fugitives. During the past six years, he has refused to step out of the embassy building, fearing that he would be arrested by British police and extradited to the US for questioning over WikiLeaks’ activities.
Sweden dropped its investigation into alleged sexual offences, because it was unable to question Assange, but he remains subject to arrest in the UK for jumping bail.
Even his one-time champion Rafael Correa, who was president of Ecuador from 2007 to last year, told journalists in Madrid that Assange’s “days were numbered.”
Correa said that Moreno, his former protege with whom he is now bitterly at odds, would “throw [Assange] out of the embassy at the first pressure from the United States.”
Assange’s behavior has not endeared him to his hosts. For instance, his tweets in favor of Catalan independence are said to have annoyed the Spanish government, souring relations between Madrid and Quito.
WikiLeaks’ publication of e-mails connected to US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election might be another reason why Ecuadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs Maria Fernanda Espinosa at the start of this year said that Assange’s continued stay was “unsustainable.”
Moreno has been seeking to build bridges with the US, restoring trade ties that were damaged in recent years.
A poll in March showed that 76.2 percent of Ecuadorans wanted the government to expel Assange from the embassy.
In March, Ecuador cut off Assange’s Internet connection, saying that it had acted because he had breached an agreement not to issue messages that might interfere with other states.
In a statement, the government said his behavior on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations.”
Ecuador seems to be hoping that Assange’s uncomfortable confinement will become intolerable.
It is difficult to see how Assange can leave the embassy and not end up being arrested for breach of bail, which could lead to him being imprisoned.
Ecuador has explored a number of other ideas, none of which seems feasible.
In January, the Ecuadoran Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Assange had been made an Ecuadoran citizen in an attempt to resolve the impasse over his continued stay at the embassy.
The British Foreign Office responded by saying: “Ecuador knows that the way to resolve this issue is for Julian Assange to leave the embassy to face justice.”
Espinosa is one of two candidates campaigning to be elected the 73rd president of the UN General Assembly next month. Some in Ecuador have speculated that she might appoint Assange as Ecuador’s United Nations representative to get him UN diplomatic status so he can leave the UK.
However, the Ecuadoran Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that if Espinosa is elected, she would not be responsible for Assange’s case.
Intelligence service documents seen by the Guardian suggest that the UN idea had previously been considered.
Assange’s nomination as Ecuador’s representative to the UN would afford him diplomatic immunity while traveling to UN meetings around the world, one document said.
It also suggested trying to smuggle him out in a diplomatic vehicle, but accepted the fact that to do so he would have to leave the embassy, and risk being detained, before getting into the car. British police in October 2015 ended a costly 24-hour guard of the embassy, but the building remains under covert surveillance.
Correa came to power in 2007 at the tail end of the “pink tide” that swept through Latin America, ushering in leftist leaders such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. Correa styled himself as an anti-imperialist, shunning what was regarded as US interference in the region.
He won three elections and changed the constitution while courting, at the peak of his powers, the highest approval rating of any leader in the country’s history.
The US-trained economist faced criticism when he in 2008 announced that Ecuador was officially defaulting on billions of dollars of foreign debt, forcing the country to seek unfavorable loans, particularly from China.
However, it was Correa’s authoritarian style and constant attacks against the media that drew more international opprobrium. He brought in a communications law that obliged media outlets to carry government messages, and used his weekly TV shows to personally attack journalists, often tearing up newspapers.
Correa came to wider international attention after offering asylum to Assange in 2012. He left behind a wealthier and fairer country, but a much more divided one.
Moreno narrowly won last year’s election as Correa’s successor and the candidate for his Alianza Pais party. Some dismissed Moreno as a puppet of his domineering predecessor, but he soon proved to be his own man.
Moreno, the world’s only head of state to use a wheelchair, made good on a pledge to tackle graft by sacking former vice president Jorge Glas, a close ally of Correa, with Glas later sentenced to six years in jail for corruption.
He criticized Correa for mismanaging the economy and leaving the country saddled with debt, mostly to China.
The result is a bitter feud between former allies. Moreno, who served as Correa’s vice president from 2007 to 2013, has repeatedly hinted that he wants to remove Assange from the Ecuadoran embassy in London.
He has also stressed that his respect for press freedom is one of his key differences with his predecessor.
Moreno has a fondness for singing in public and making jokes. He has written books about humor, which he used to alleviate depression when he was left partially paralyzed after being shot in a robbery in 1998.
He is a leading advocate of disabled rights in Ecuador, for which he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. Moreno was appointed the UN Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility in December 2013.
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