The Guyana Government should perhaps monitor closely the implications of the current diplomatic row between the United Kingdom and Ecuador over the declared intention by Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to pursue with arrangements for the extradition to Sweden of the highly controversial ‘Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, currently holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy.
The threat by Britain to resort to firm action, if necessary, at Ecuador’ embassy, and take custody of Assange for extradition to Sweden to face charges for alleged sexual assault of two women, said to be his former Wikileaks’ “volunteers”, followed Ecuador’s decision to grant ‘asylum’ to the 41-year-old Australian.
Assange, who has acquired supporters across the world for his exposures of massive confidential diplomatic cables involving successive administrations in Washington, maintains that the move by the UK to grant Sweden’s request is a ploy to eventually hand him over to US authorities to face trial for leaking sensitive communication detrimental to America’s security interest and relations with friendly nations.
In an angry response to the UK government’s move against taking out Assange from its London embassy, President Rafael Correa warned that his country should not be treated as a “colony of Britain”.
His administration subsequently initiated moves for a special session of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of American States (OAS) to discuss what it regards as the creation of a dangerous precedent in the violation of the sovereign rights of its embassy, that could have multiplying negative effects for other diplomatic missions.
This coming Friday, OAS Foreign Ministers are scheduled to meet to discuss the implications of the impasse between the UK and Ecuador. OAS Secretary-General, Jose Miguel Insulza, has already declared that “the problem posed by the (UK’’s) threat, or warning made to Ecuador about the possibility of an intervention into the embassy in London is an issue that concerns us… It is the inviolability of diplomatic missions of all members of this (hemispheric) organisation …”
In the circumstances, Guyana and other CARICOM members should seek to arrive at a consensual position on the UK/Ecuador diplomatic standoff ahead of Friday’s special meeting of OAS Foreign Ministers.
Latest development, as reported by the BBC, is that Britain’s ambassador to the OAS, Philip Barton, has indicated that his government would continue to work with Ecuador “to bring this matter to an amicable and successful conclusion.”
And so it should be.