Going Against the Grain – in Bolivia and elsewhere

Re-engineered clock, Congress Bldg, La Paz, Bolivia

Anti-clockwise running clocks have appealed to me since I first saw one years ago on the wall of a colleague’s restaurant back in New Zealand. A year or two later I found the source – a shop in London’s West End specializing in scissors, pens, corkscrews and other equipment designed for perhaps the world’s last unrepresented minority, left-handers.

Maybe there is something about being left-handed that makes one sympathetic to misfits and rebels in general. Possibly that’s why some societies, overtly or covertly, have attempted to discourage left-handedness in children, and why the English word sinister derives from the Latin word for left-handed.

I have to tell you, this awareness dawned upon me slowly. Learning to write in the days of fountain pens, I developed a characteristic ‘left-hander’s hook’ to avoid producing lines of smudged ink. At an early age I must have made the pragmatic decision to use scissors with my right hand, just as, after coming to Turkey, I learnt to make Turkish coffee with the standard cezve[1]. Since, however, I took the decision to ‘come out’ as a left-hander, I find myself applauding every small victory for my cack-handed brothers and sisters.

So, I felt a sense of camaraderie when I read a news item reporting that the government of Bolivia has made the bold decision to re-engineer the nation’s clocks so they run counter-clockwise. I’m quoting from an article that appeared in The Guardian last week:

“Bolivia turns back the clock in bid to rediscover identity and 'southernness'

“In the latest – and by far the most literal – sign that times are changing in Bolivia, the numerals on the clock that adorns the congress building in La Paz have been reversed and the hands set to run anticlockwise in proud affirmation of the Andean nation's "southernness". According to Bolivia's foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, the horological initiative is intended to help Bolivians rediscover their indigenous roots.

" ’We're in the south and, as we're trying to recover our identity, the Bolivian government is also recovering its sarawi, which means 'way' in Aymara," he said. "In keeping with our sarawi – or Nan, in Quechua – our clocks should turn to the left.’

“Clocks are an evolution of the sundial, and in the northern hemisphere a sundial's shadow runs clockwise, while in the southern hemisphere it moves counter clockwise – making the modern clock a representation of light in the northern hemisphere.

“The clock face volte-face is not the first time a left-wing Latin American nation has played with time in recent years. In 2007, the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez put Venezuela's clocks back half an hour in an attempt to get Venezuelans biologically more in tune with the sun. The previous year, Chávez decided that the white horse on the country's coat of arms ought to gallop to the left instead of the right to better express the aspirations of his Bolivarian revolution.”

Well, I have documented previously my appreciation of Chavez and his Ecuadorean brother-in-arms, Rafael Correa. It’s pleasing to see Chavez’s successor carrying on the good work. One of the new President’s first acts was to establish a Ministry of Happiness charged with boosting programs for alleviating poverty, disability and social inequality. The article I read reported that Venezuela was ranked the happiest country in Latin America (according to the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s World Happiness Report for 2013), and 20^th happiest in the world, placing ahead of the UK, France and Germany. Such news items make me happy too, and I am happier still to have occasion to learn a little more South American history.

Christchurch wizard avoids census, 1981

Before delving into that subject, however, I would like to pay brief tribute to another revolutionary figure. Not many countries have an official wizard these days – at least not in the developed world – so I take some pride in the fact that we in New Zealand do. Our wizard, born in England as Ian Brackenbury Channell, has filled the role since 1990, having been promoted by the Prime Minister of the day from his previous position as Wizard of the South Island city of Christchurch which he had held since 1974. Prior to that he had served as Official Wizard at Sydney’s University of New South Wales since 1967. Well, that’s quite a career, isn’t it! Check the link above if you want to learn more, but one of his early feats of wizardry was producing a world map using the Hobo-Dyer Projection which placed the South Pole at the top. The purpose was, amongst other things, to illustrate the point that much of our received knowledge is arbitrary, and based on assumptions forced upon us by Western/Americo-European predominantly Northern Hemisphere political and economic systems.

Wizardly world map - rightside up

But to return to South America. Evo Morales has been President of Bolivia since 2006 when he won an absolute majority (53.7%) in a democratic election – two events which have been pretty rare in that country since it gained independence from Spain in 1809. As with most post-colonial states, government seems to have remained in the hands of the economic and social elite, with little of the country’s mineral wealth trickling down to the indigenous poor, until a widely supported revolution in 1952 brought the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement to power. Their policies of universal suffrage, land reform, rural education and nationalisation of the lucrative tin mines kept them there until, surprise, surprise, they were ousted by a military coup in 1964 – with, if we can believe Wikipedia, the assistance of America’s very own CIA, who were also instrumental soon after in the killing of legendary Bolivian revolutionary Che Guevara in 1967.

The remaining years of the 20^th century seem to have been filled with a procession of military juntas and weak coalition governments characterized by corruption charges, violent suppression of opposition, free-market economic policies and privatization of state assets. Large-scale protest action increased from 1999, prompted especially by the transfer of water supply to private ownership and the consequent doubling of prices. Another key issue was the development of Bolivia’s huge reserves of natural gas – who would do it, where they would do it and who would benefit?

Street protests and general chaos continued for the first years of the new century, possibly explaining in part why a majority of Bolivian voters gave their support to Morales. His identity as a cocalero supporter, footballer, trade union activist, and his indigenous Aymara family background are perhaps also relevant. According to 2010 figures, 55 percent of Bolivia’s ten million people are Amerindian, and a further 30 percent Mestizo[2]. The Wikipedia entry claims that the country has 34 official languages – which may account for some of the difficulty in electing a representative government, and certainly adds lustre to Morales’s achievement in gaining a clear majority of votes.

One of Morales’s first acts as President was to reduce his own salary and those of his ministers by 57%. Undoubtedly, his government’s leftist policies of agrarian reform, combatting the influence of United States and trans-national corporations, increasing taxation on the hydrocarbons industry, and aligning the country with other ‘rebellious’ South American states like Ecuador and Venezuela, have provoked serious opposition from conservative groups within Bolivia, as well as upsetting those influential foreign corporations. At the same time, their attempts to compromise a little with the opposition have led to accusations from the left that they are forsaking their socialist agenda. Hard to please everyone.

Still, Morales’s football skills help to offset some of the criticism in a football-mad country – he is said to be the world’s oldest active professional soccer player! And the cocalero label is an interesting one too. Coca is a plant native to western South America whose leaves have been used for millennia by indigenous peoples. When chewed, they act as a mild stimulant while also suppressing hunger, thirst, pain and fatigue. ‘Addiction or other deleterious effects from the consumption of the leaf in its natural form have not been documented in over a 5,000 year time span, thus leading to the logical conclusion that coca left in its natural form causes no addictive properties at all.’

Interestingly, when I googled coca, I got 360 million results – all ten on the first page and 7 out of 10 on the second page referring to Coca Cola! The big problem with coca, of course, is that its active ingredient can be extracted and sold, as cocaine, to serious drug-users, especially in the United States. Isolation of the crucial molecule in 1898 is attributed to a German scientist, Richard Willstatter, who was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. While having some limited medical value as an anaesthetic, cocaine’s major use in those early years was apparently to increase the productivity of African American workers, giving them increased stamina and a resistance to extremes of heat and cold.

These days, however, usage has spread to wealthier sectors of Western societies. It is the second most popular illegal recreational substance in the USA, having acquired a reputation as a rich man’s drug – the business is said to have a street value exceeding the revenue of Starbucks. Understandably, then, the United States government is keen to cut off the trade at its source. Unfortunately, with the collapse of the Bolivian economy in the 1980s and the consequent rise in unemployment, profits to be made in exporting the product led to the establishment of coca as an important cash crop. Another example of unintended consequences resulting from meddling in the affairs of foreign states.

So, what is a Bolivian President to do? Clearly the chewing of coca leaf is a relatively innocuous cultural tradition of many of his voters. Equally clearly, imposing a total ban on growing the stuff will have undesirable economic and political consequences. The only long-term solution would seem to be controlling the local market, and developing the country’s economy to improve the conditions of the 53 percent of the population currently subsisting below the poverty line. Probably we should all be wishing him luck – but I suspect not everyone is. Nevertheless, from what I’ve been reading, Bolivia has a longish history of producing nationalist leaders capable of giving foreign interests a run for their money.

Original Tupac Amaru

Rap music arrived in the world too late to get much of a hold on my musical taste buds – but as a teacher of young adults I’ve had some very peripheral contact – at least enough to have heard of Tupac Shakur, if only as a bad boy who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996. I was surprised to learn, then, that he is one of the best-selling music artists of all time – and that he took his name from the 18^th century leader of an indigenous uprising against Spanish rule in what later became Bolivia. At that time, the rebellion was unsuccessful, and the Spanish took their revenge in the brutal manner popular with colonial powers.

That original Tupac, however, undoubtedly paved the way for the successful struggle, a few years later, of Simon Bolivar, whose triumph over Spanish forces led to the first union of independent nations in South America. At that time most of the present Latin American countries did not exist as separate entities, so Bolivar is seen as a key figure in the emergence of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, as well as Bolivia itself.

I wrote a previous post on the subject of benevolent dictators where I examined the legacy of Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. A key theme of that post was the esteem bordering on idolatry that citizens of modern Turkey hold for the founder of their republic – leading to the question of what other leaders occupy a comparable place in the hearts of their people. Well, according to Wikipedia, busts or statues of Simon Bolivar are about as preponderant in towns and cities of Latin America as are those of Atatürk in Turkey. Bolivia, of course, and, news to me, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are named after him, as are the currencies of both countries. More surprisingly, there are also statues to be found in Paris, New York City, Ottawa and two small towns in Missouri and Italy. At least four towns in the United States are apparently named for Bolivar, as was a ballistic missile submarine of the US Navy. Ankara, New Delhi and Cairo have, respectively, a street, a road and a square named after him. Even Spain, despite losing the jewels in their imperial crown as a result of his activities, boasts a couple of monuments in his honour – and an extra-terrestrial rock in the asteroid belt is officially known as 712 Boliviana.

So go for it, Señor Morales. Left-handers of the world are with you!

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[1] These coffee pots are now available in a left-handed version

[2] of mixed native American and European descent – not highly thought of by the 15% white minority

Edward Snowden and Abdullah Gül - Influencing the world!

Amidst the doom, gloom and despondency that seems to fill a large part of the news media's daily output, it is  occasionally reassuring to see some glimmer of hope for a positive future. I was delighted to see that Time magazine has included Edward Snowden among its 'Pioneers' in its latest list of the World's 100 Most Influential People. Also on the list is Abdullah Gül, President of Turkey - though sad to say, not Julian Assange, whom the world seems to have forgotten about. I assume he is still holed out in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Time magazine and Rafael Correa - brothers-in-arms in the fight for freedom!?

Edward Snowden

By Daniel Domscheit-Berg

The renegade in exile

Edward Snowden’s story is one of choices. He is said to be a computer genius, but he has chosen to do what is right rather than what will enrich him, and he has chosen to do what is right rather than what is lawful. Showing a sense of great responsibility, he has exposed a global system of surveillance whose sheer dimensions are unfathomable.

This system threatens the very foundation of individual freedom throughout the world. And it threatens the basis upon which our democracies are built. Cynically, it does so by undermining and exploiting the very tools of communication and sharing that are meant to enable, engage and enrich us.

Snowden has given us a window of opportunity in which to make an informed, self-determined choice about this system. Our responsibility is to make sure it will not be the last choice we make. We must not waste time—for his sake, for ours and for the sake of our children. Our future is at stake.

(Domscheit-Berg, a German technology activist, is a former spokesman for WikiLeaks)

Capitalism and Democracy – Julian Assange and the search for truth

How many airline meals can you eat on a return trip from Istanbul, Turkey to Auckland, New Zealand? How many hours can you sleep? How many times can you clamber over your co-passenger in the aisle seat to visit the toilet or stretch your atrophying muscles? How many movies can you watch? I lost count, but I can tell you that Singapore Airlines are marginally better than their Malaysian neighbours in most departments – especially their inflight entertainment package.

Interesting as cinema -
but seemed to lose
sight of the main point

The films I watched, going and coming over half the world’s circumference have all faded from memory – except one, and I want to tell you about it.  ‘The Fifth Estate’ is a dramatization of three years in the life of maverick Australian computer genius Julian Assange and his Internet whistle-blowing creation Wikileaks. The film, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch in the leading role, was released in October 2013 with very little media attention. Had it not been for Singapore Air’s inflight movie programme, and the ineffable boredom of twenty-plus hours in a cattle-class cabin, I would have missed it for sure.

As cinema entertainment, the film is less than riveting. Assange himself apparently refused to cooperate in its making, calling it ‘a massive propaganda attack.’ According to Forbes magazine, ‘The Fifth Estate’ was the biggest movie flop of 2013. In what some might consider a sad case of insensitive and offensive political incorrectness, they entitled their list ’10 Box Office Turkeys of 2013.’

Well, that’s Forbes, whose owners apparently call their magazine ‘The Capitalist Tool’, so you probably wouldn’t expect them to be awfully sympathetic to Assange and his revolutionary website. I don’t know what your criteria are when choosing a movie for an evening at the cinema, but media hype and box-office takings have never been high on my personal list. I haven’t seen, and have no intention of seeing The Hunger Games 2, Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, Fast and Furious 6, or any of the other Hollywood serial blockbusters targeting the appetites of dysfunctional adolescent US males.

Who needs to see dystopian post-apocalyptic future worlds on screen – when we’re surrounded by dystopia in the here and now? On the other hand, if those gremlins in the White House and the Pentagon are precipitating the world into apocalypse now, that’s something I do want to know about – and I applaud the heroic efforts of non-conformists like Assange, Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning in bringing Washington's dirty secrets out into the open.

The biggest problem with the film, in my opinion, is that it focuses too much on the character of Assange himself. That’s to be expected, of course, in a Hollywood movie. In the end, as with The Social Network, about Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, story-telling becomes the object of the exercise. You need character development, human interest and some kind of moral or social message. If you want to see a documentary about Wikileaks and its impact on global politics, don’t expect to find it here.

Unfortunately, when historical truths are glossed over, distorted or forgotten, cinematic fiction often becomes the accepted version. News media seem to have pretty much lost interest in Julian Assange. He has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012, besieged by local constabulary tasked with apprehending him so that he can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations that he raped or molested (you’d think it would be clear one way or the other) two women aged 26 and 31.

Circumstances surrounding events in Sweden in 2010 are murky to say the least. At first the case was thrown out by the Chief Public Prosecutor but police apparently continued investigations and it was reopened. MPs in Sweden recently called on prosecutors to travel to London to conduct their questioning – but they refused. Assange claims to have text messages from the two women saying that Swedish police encouraged them to bring charges of rape. Whatever the truth of the matter, Assange denies the accusations and believes there is a plot to have him extradited from Sweden to the United States where far more serious charges will be brought against him – with the threat of life imprisonment or even execution.

It’s hard to know. Undoubtedly Uncle Sam and his current administration were seriously embarrassed by Wikileaks’ revelations about their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their spying on leaders of supposedly allied countries. It would be perfectly understandable if they wanted to get Assange and shut him up for good, one way or another. The matter is complicated somewhat by his being an Australian citizen – though the government of that democratic nation seems conspicuously unwilling to stick up for him.

One thing the film does demonstrate very clearly is the way Assange’s enemies (and they must be many and powerful) have managed to shift the debate from the actual revelations about US skulduggery, to the character of the man himself. The concluding scenes of The Fifth Estate suggest that Assange is an egotist and showman, more interested in self-aggrandisement than in truth and justice. Police action in Sweden and the UK has painted him as a serial rapist trying to avoid the legal consequences of his depraved behaviour. The United States Government portrays him as a virtual murderer with the blood of patriotic US personnel on his hands.

News media, for the most part, accepted the spin and disseminated it – before subsequently losing interest. Public attention was diverted from serious questions such as whether US military personnel should actually be in Iraq or Afghanistan; what is the true nature of their activity in those countries; and whether anyone in the world is safe from surveillance by the US government.

A similar pattern of behaviour is evident in the treatment meted out to two of Wikileaks’ sources, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Elizabeth (aka Bradley) Manning. Snowden has been in Russia since June 2013, having been offered temporary sanctuary. This was necessitated by the US Government’s revoking his passport and charging him with espionage and theft of government documents. A recent article in the Washington Post questions Snowden’s commitment to democracy and open government on the grounds that he has taken sanctuary in a country accused of violating these principles. The implication is that the guy would better demonstrate commitment to truth and freedom by returning to the USA where he could be tried and put away for the rest of his life, as seems to be the case with poor Chelsea Elizabeth.

Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning is the 26 year-old US private who turned over vast quantities of military documents relating to the conduct of American military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. In July 2013 he/she was convicted of espionage and theft and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. The day after sentencing, Manning made a public announcement that he now wished to be known as Chelsea and would be undergoing hormone therapy to confirm what he/she considered his/her true identity as a woman.

Well, it’s easy to see how some might consider that Manning’s personal problems would account for erratic behaviour and explain to some degree why he would do what he did with those confidential military documents. It’s easy to understand how some, within the news media and US society at large might want to focus on Manning’s sexual identity and lose sight of the greater issue of what those documents actually revealed.

The Wikileaks story, as it is currently unfolding, raises an interesting question about individuals who achieve beyond the limits of normal human expectations. The high achiever with feet of clay is axiomatic. Should Bill Clinton be remembered for having presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history – or for having sex with that woman? If the current Prince of Wales ever becomes King Charles III of Great Britain, will we want to think of him as a committed champion of the environment and other worthy causes, or as a guy who once compared himself to a tampon in the service of his mistress? Shane Warne is arguably one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game of cricket – but one could easily tell a different story by focusing on his foul mouth, marital infidelities, use of banned substances and the taint of match-fixing.

It takes a certain kind of character to blow the whistle on an employer. Most of us put up with the dirt we see in our workplaces. We turn a blind eye, rationalise it away, or conspire to become part of the problem in the interests of career advancement or mere job security. It takes rare courage to speak out, to go to the media or some other outside party and divulge corporate corruption and evil-doing. A healthy society needs to act on information thus obtained to ensure that corporations and governments are truly accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, all too often, the whistle-blower is denigrated and punished, and the real criminals escape to continue their wicked ways.

As an interesting comparison with the foregoing, there’s another computer whizz-kid global citizen I’ve been keeping an eye on over the last year or so – a certain German entrepreneur born Kim Schmitz. Schmitz, like Bradley Manning, also changed his name, though not his sexual identity. Now known as Kim Dotcom, he is resident in New Zealand, having taken refuge there from the long arm of US law, which was pursuing him to answer charges of copyright infringement related to his highly successful file-sharing site, Megaupload.

Unlike Snowden and Assange, whose search for sanctuary was denied by all of the so-called free nations of the world, Dotcom was welcomed with open arms (albeit in conditions of some secrecy) by the government of New Zealand, who granted him residency under the ‘investor plus category’[1] – reserved for immigrants undertaking to invest $10 million in the country; this in spite of a history of convictions in Germany for computer fraud, data espionage, insider trading and embezzlement.

After being granted residency in New Zealand, Dotcom was convicted in absentia by a Hong Court for similar offences, but the New Zealand government declined to extradite him because it did not consider the crimes sufficiently serious. Upsetting the United States of America, however, is a different kettle of fish, and the slippery gentleman was arrested at his Auckland mansion by NZ  police in January 2012 in a high profile operation involving, reportedly, 76 officers and two helicopters. According to Wikipedia, ‘assets worth $17 million were seized including eighteen luxury cars, giant screen TVs and works of art. Dotcom's bank accounts were frozen denying him access to US$175m (NZ$218m) in cash, the contents of 64 bank accounts world-wide, including accounts in New Zealand, Government bonds and money from numerous PayPal accounts.’

Since then, Dotcom has been released from jail, a court decided that seizure of his funds and property had been illegal, he is seeking compensation from the NZ Government, and has made claims that the US Government prosecuted him in return for contributions to President Obama from certain Hollywood studios. He has subsequently opened a new website called ‘Mega’, released a music album and two singles, and founded a political party. When I was in New Zealand in January I saw several city buses sporting large portraits of Dotcom advertising his album. Clearly the man has a gift for self-preservation and publicity.

So what makes him different from Julian Assange? The obvious factor is money. Dotcom is a multi-millionaire whose wealth has enabled him to buy refuge with a respected member of the international community of nations, pay for the best legal representation and command the assistance of municipal mayors, ministers of the Crown and even the Prime Minister himself. Assange, on the other hand, made little or no money from his Internet activities, lived out of a suitcase, was dependent on the goodwill of friends and supporters, and, when the chips were down, became a hunted man with the international community ganging up to hound him.

A less obvious difference between Assange and Dotcom is the political leader under whose wing they are sheltering. Dotcom seems to have bought the protection of a capitalist government, of a prime minister who is the privileged friend of big business, whose ethical standards are, apparently, up for negotiation. Assange, in contrast, found that, when all had deserted him, he was offered protection by the president of a country who has fought for its national interests, reduced its high levels of poverty, indigence and unemployment, and been re-elected for a third term in office with an increased majority. Rafael Correa of Ecuador may not be the US’s favourite neighbour, but he is doing the world and the cause of democracy a great service.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Personal_life

Freedom of Speech in Other Places – apart from Turkey

'No nation can achieve stability and economic growth if half the population is not empowered.'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton uttered the words recently in a speech she made in Tokyo (Time, 23 July 2012). Apparently she was referring to Afghanistan, and the sad plight of that nation’s women – oppressed, downtrodden and disenfranchised. No doubt Mrs Clinton feels genuinely sorry for her disadvantaged sisters in Muslim countries, but is she aware that the average voter turnout in US presidential elections since 1992 is 52%? I can’t help feeling Madame Secretary might more profitably focus on the 48% of her own citizens who seem to feel that democracy in the land of the free has little to offer them – and look for ways of empowering them.

I mentioned in my previous post, a book called American Theocracy, where the writer Kevin Phillips posits an unholy alliance of Big Oil, the Debt/Finance Industry and fundamentalist Christianity which he claims have united to govern the United States. The book was published in 2006, and Phillips’ primary concern was President George Dubya Bush, and what he saw as the Republican Party sell-out to that Big Three. Phillips details the elements of the partnership:

• Encouragement of continued profligate oil consumption, refusal to develop alternative fuels and limit carbon emissions;
• Continued encouragement of consumer-driven economic growth fuelled by the debt/finance industry;
• Deregulation of the finance sector, tax-cuts for the wealthy and calls for reduced government spending on social programmes;
• Refusal to accept the case for global warming, and support for the lobby against abortion and in favour of teaching creation/intelligent design in schools, are all part of the plan.
• The beauty of it is that it appeals to all of the Big Three: unfettered capitalism does not conflict with the beliefs of the religious loonies convinced that end-times are upon us and only Jesus can save the world, so there’s no need for social welfare programmes – bankers don’t really care what kind of rubbish kids get taught in schools and no doubt abortion, like everything else, will always be an available option for the rich.

Did anyone seriously believe that the Iraq invasion wasn’t about oil? Or that George W Bush is a true follower of Jesus? Honestly, if I thought Jesus loved the 43rd president, I’d have to rethink my whole understanding of Christianity.

As you may have realised, this post doesn’t have much to do with Turkey – or at least only peripherally – so at this point you may want to switch to another channel. My focus here is Ecuador, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the USA, Chile and Venezuela, not necessarily in that order.

Rapist or champion of freedom of the press?

No doubt, like me, you’ve been following news items from London about Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks guy. That he’s been accused of sexual assault by a couple of women in Sweden; that he’s holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in the plush neighbourhood of Knightsbridge; that the London Metropolitan Police Force has mobilised significant manpower to ensure that he can’t sneak out of the country; that the UK Government seems committed to extraditing the guy to Sweden so that he can be questioned about the alleged offences.



I have to admit I didn’t pay much attention to those Wiki-leaks when they first surfaced. I’ve always been fairly cynical about governments and politicians, and I guess I felt that nothing would surprise me. I had to do a check in the archives to see what all the fuss was about, and I can see why the US government and military would be unhappy to have such information made public. Those ‘Afghan War Logs’ and ‘Iraq war Documents’ showing that there were significantly more civilian deaths over there than official sources had been letting on; and that there seemed to be a policy of ignoring complaints of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. Then there was that embarrassing video showing a couple of helicopter gunships mowing down apparently unarmed civilians, along with a Reuters journalist or two.

So, you can also kind of appreciate why the US army was quick to arrest a young private suspected of passing on the above material to the Wiki people. Bradley Edward Manning  is 24 years old and openly gay, with some history of psychological problems. In spite of that and his lowly rank, because of his high-level IT skills, he was posted to Baghdad and put in a position where he had access to databases storing extremely sensitive classified information. Private Manning, apparently disturbed by what he saw, and believing that the public had a right to know, took the difficult decision to blow his whistle. As a result, he has been in custody (much of it of a particularly unpleasant nature) awaiting trial on a number of charges, at least one of which carries the death penalty – though prosecutors say they won’t ask for it.

Which is where WikiLeaks comes in. According to its website ‘WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists.’  Well, if you’ve ever considered blowing the whistle on an employer, or heard about someone who did, you’ll be aware that the action carries some risks and dangers. And given that few institutions, from the corner grocer up, are as squeaky clean as they could be, you might think that there is a place in the world for an organisation like WikiLeaks. Julian Assange clearly thinks so – and that is what has landed him in trouble.

It is fairly evident that the US Government is keen to get its hands on this gentleman, and probably put him away for a long time, as a salutary lesson to others who might be tempted to emulate his obsession with transparency and freedom of information. His own government in Australia has indicated a lack of sympathy, and an inclination to cooperate with the USA. There is some evidence that plans are proceeding in secret for a grand jury indictment. Several high profile politicians and political commentators in the US have even recommended that Assange should be assassinated.

Interesting then, that an apparently unrelated and somewhat bathetic affair has arisen to threaten the WikiLeaks boss’s liberty. Two women in Sweden made complaints of rape and sexual assault against him in 2010. Despite clear evidence that Assange was consensually in the beds of the ladies concerned, and that the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office originally decided that there were no grounds for a rape charge, nor for having him arrested, this decision was subsequently overturned, and Swedish Police issued an international warrant for his arrest. Assange gave himself up to police in London, but, when it became clear that UK authorities were determined to extradite him to Sweden, he sought and was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy. It seems his fear is that, once in Sweden, the US Government will arrange for him to be sent to the US, where, he suspects, retributive justice will be swift and sure.

Assange and his lawyers believe that the Swedish business has been organised to give US authorities time to prepare a more serious case against him. They have asked the Swedish Government to guarantee that they will not authorise Assange’s extradition to a third country (the USA) – which they have refused to do. In the mean time, the Brits have police swarming all around the embassy to ensure the WikiLeaks man doesn’t sneak out. They even went so far as to imply to the Ecuadoreans that force could be used to apprehend him – a threat which they later retracted. Nevertheless, you have to ask, where does a relatively minor South American nation like Ecuador fit into this business?

Apart from a lifetime of eating their bananas, I confess to an appalling ignorance about Ecuador. Now that I know it is about the size of New Zealand, with a population of around fifteen million, I can understand why. However, it seems the small Latin American country has assumed some international fame (or notoriety) since the election of President Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado in 2006. Despite having studied economics in the US, Correa seems to be leading his nation’s march with a different drum. With the aim of reducing poverty and unemployment, and minimising Ecuador’s dependence on foreign companies and capital, he negotiated major restructuring of its external debt and a greater share of its oil profits. His government refused to renew the US military’s lease on the Pacific coast airbase of Manta, has been resisting IMF pressure to monitor its economic plan, and pursuing policies encouraging conservation in Ecuador’s share of the Amazon basin. Correa has apparently even endeared himself to the main group of indigenous people by learning their language. To tell you the truth, he doesn’t sound like such a bad guy to me.

One problem he has, however, in his relations with his large northern neighbour, is that he is good mates with Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela since 1999. Some sources suggest that Venezuela’s oil reserves could be larger than those of Saudi Arabia, and at present it is the US’s third most important source of oil. Little wonder then that there is some disquiet in upper echelons of the US Government that Chavez ‘probably doesn’t have the interests of the US at heart.’

Chavez’s self-styled policy of Bolivarianism opposes imperialism, capitalism and neo-liberalism, and has focused on participatory democracy and nationalising industries (especially oil). He has been influential in the establishment of the Bank of the South, a partnership among South American nations to provide finance for ‘the construction of social programs and infrastructure.’ In 2002 he was ousted in what may be one of history’s shortest-lasting successful military coups. Chavez maintains that the US was involved in planning the coup, and even its military leaders are on record as saying they believed they were operating with US approval. Whatever, the result was a huge outpouring of popular support for Chavez, resulting in his reinstatement a mere forty-seven hours later.

This got me wondering if there are any leaders of South American countries that are loved by US and British governments – and one surprising name I came up with was Augusto Pinochet, dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990. General Pinochet came to power when a military coup, reputedly endorsed by the Nixon administration and the CIA, ousted the elected government of President Salvador Allende. Pinochet’s regime was characterised by free-market economic ‘reforms’, restrictions on labour unions and privatization of state assets, not to mention the imprisonment, torture, and or ‘disappearance’ of tens of thousands of civilians, some of which, unfortunately, were Spanish nationals. As a result, the General was arrested in the UK in 1998 and the government of Spain sought his extradition to face numerous charges of human rights violations. A protracted legal battle ensued, at the end of which Pinochet was released after Tony Blair’s Home Secretary, Jack Straw, overruled a House of Lords decision to extradite him to Spain. Apparently former US President Nixon, and former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had both interceded with Blair’s government on Pinochet’s behalf.

OK, Nixon we’ve touched on above, but what was Mrs Thatcher’s interest here? Well, it seems that General Pinochet’s military had given major support to the Iron Lady’s Falkland Islands campaign back in 1982. Some sources say that Chile provided invaluable intelligence about Argentinean air attacks, tied up elite Argentinean forces with threats of cross-border incursions, and even allowed British aircraft to operate with Chilean colours. Given that Dame Maggie probably wouldn’t have won a second term in office without the jingoistic patriotism generated by the Falkland Islands victory, you can see how she might have felt she owed General Augusto a favour or two. Unfortunately for Julian Assange, he clearly doesn’t have the same ties of ‘friendship’ in high level international political circles.

Even so, you might think that the British Government could take a slightly less hard-line approach to the WikiLeaks guy, if the issue really is just a matter of a couple of somewhat debatable sex offences in Sweden. As a comparison, I’d like to tell you about an on-going affair in my beloved homeland, New Zealand.

Kim Dotcom is a 38 year-old computer genius of German-Finnish parentage, currently resident in New Zealand, but very much wanted by authorities in the USA to answer charges of copyright infringement against his highly profitable company Megaupload. Admittedly, Mr Dotcom (or Schmitz, if you prefer), has a somewhat murky record of shady business practices preceding his Megaupload activities, but knowing this, the NZ government granted him permanent residency in 2010. Subsequently, however, NZ police raided his palatial home in January this year, and took the internet entrepreneur into custody – since when there has been a continuing legal shemozzle over the question of extradition. Most recently, a NZ High Court judge has ruled that in seizing Dotcom’s property, police exceeded the authority of their warrants, and the case is continuing. As an interesting aside, a prominent NZ Member of Parliament and strong supporter of the Prime Minister, has been accused of soliciting and obtaining a large donation from Dotcom for election purposes – but probably that has nothing to do with the larger matter. Whatever the case, I’m feeling kind of proud of my country for standing up to US corporate interests.

And I’m also feeling a little sorry for Turkey, as its government continues to field international criticism on human rights and freedom of the press issues. Is hypocrisy too strong a word to use for grand-standing politicians who seek votes by criticising other sovereign states while refusing to acknowledge the dubious practices of their own?

At the recent Pacific Forum in the Cook Islands, evidence has emerged of increasing competition between the USA and China for influence in the Pacific region. China, apparently, is making significant financial investment in tiny developing nations, and US officials are not happy, despite the fact that the US economy would probably implode without Chinese monetary input. One US spokesperson was quoted as saying:

" . . . we have consistently been calling for increasing transparency in the Chinese military posture." Apparently the United States also ‘hopes to boost the forum as a regional alliance to combat shared threats such as climate change, encourage economic development and protect marine stocks in the face of overfishing’.

Run that by me again: the US government is calling for military transparency, and is acknowledging the threat of climate change?