Assange’s arrest and Moreno’s pact with Trump

Lenin Moreno, dreadful president of Ecuador, has shown his human misery to the world, handing over Julian Assange –not only refugee but Ecuadorian citizen as well– to the British police. This jeopardizes the life of Assange and humiliates Ecuador. “World Mourning Day”, was the reaction on Twitter of former President Rafael Correa, in the face of the journalist’s arrest.

"The greatest traitor of Ecuadorian and Latin American history, Lenin Moreno, allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange. Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget”, Correa denounced.

The news came after a statement by the Ecuadorian president that announced the withdrawal of the diplomatic asylum granted to activist Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder, with the pretext that "he has repeatedly violated daily-life protocols to guarantee his stay in that diplomatic building”, and hours later he added: “We have withdrew the asylum status for this miserable hacker and gotten rid of a pebble in our shoe”.

Ecuador withdraws the diplomatic asylum of Assange and the British police arrest the activist.

However, it’s no coincidence that the withdrawal of the asylum and the Ecuadorian citizenship granted in 2017 is decided after Wilkileaks published a report on the involvement of the Latin American leader in a corruption dealing called INA Papers.

And the fact is that Moreno was accused last February of alleged corruption after a denunciation by Ronny Aleaga, lawmaker of Ecuador’s National Assembly for Revolución Ciudadana (Citizen’s Revolution), party of former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. That denunciation involves one of his brothers with accounts in tax havens and a luxurious property in Spain in a triangulation of an offshore company.

The deputy assured before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s office in Madrid that President Lenin Moreno has committed “possible crimes”, such as illegal association, money laundering, bribery and loot".

With a lot less than this any other Latin American president would have been forced to leave office or go to jail. Ironically, the persecuted individual here is Rafael Correa, victim of an arrest warrant issued by the “Ecuadorian justice” that bans him from returning to the country to campaign in the coming elections.

Likewise, a video posted on Twitter by Javier Alexander Roa, from TELEGRAM channel, highlights a meeting of the Ecuadorian head of state and Donald Trump’s adviser less than a year ago to reach an agreement.

The agreement comprised that if Moreno handed over Assange, Donald Trump would relieve Ecuador’s debt with U.S. and clean the image of the Ecuadorian president so he wouldn’t be involved with the tax havens where he has his fortune. In addition, days after the meeting, it was leaked that Moreno had received $18 million.

We all witness today that the most hypocritical president on earth honored his part of the deal, and handed over the man who has published over 10 million documents, many of them uncomfortable for higher spheres of power in U.S.

The betrayal to the sovereignty of Ecuador meant by the arrest of the human rights activist, who owns both Ecuadorian (to date) and Australian citizenship, is actually the only promise that Moreno has fulfilled in his dark tenure.

Assange has taken refuge in Ecuador’s Embassy in London (UK) since June 2012, when Quito granted him political asylum to avoid his extradition to Sweden, where an arrest warrant is pending against him under the accusation of an alleged sexual assault case.

WikiLeaks founder thinks that Sweden would extradite him to U.S., where he could face death penalty for the leaks of the website.

The also computer expert could be tried for “conspiracy to commit hacking” for having helped former Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning get the password to access thousands of classified defense documents, and disclose them later.

The cyber activist, described by the head of the television channel RT and Sputnik news agency, Margarita Simonyan, as the leading journalist of the present time, is facing an uncertain future right now. His arrest, gloomy day for press freedom, undoubtedly, is part of a plan of the United States to extradite him.

Simonyan says that the last time she talked with him he stated that he was ready for everything and would go until the end and when asked why he did it, he replied: “Because I hate lies”.

For his part, Javier Couso, GUE/NGL deputy at the European Parliament remarked that the arrest of Assange is an attack against the truth and war crime victims revealed by Wikileaks, and one more chapter of the sale to Donald Trump of a country in pieces under the tyranny of Lenin Moreno.

Likewise, journalist and lawyer Eva Golinger, described the president as a traitor to his own nation and someone surrendered to the agenda of Washington. A person without principles, morality and conviction. "What he did to Julian Assange today will stain him for all history. He has violated the sovereignty of Ecuador and the human rights of a citizen”.

Although Moreno is described by many as a traitor and coward, others consider he is a right-wing politician infiltrated into the left since progressivism times. His geopolitical role in the region was just to progress in power until reaching the presidency and from the legitimacy of the left to destroy Latin American integration that affects the imperial hegemony so much.

But the good thing of this incident is that Moreno finally took off his mask. The miserable and dirty move he made this Thursday will remain as the biggest fraud in the history of Ecuador and one of the greatest betrayals in Latin American history.

Translated by Jorge Mesa Benjamin / CubaSi Translation Staff