A new demonstration of Moreno’s submission
Quito, April 11, 2019. The Socialist Youth of Ecuador expresses its total rejection of the measure taken by Lenin Moreno in the withdrawal of political asylum from the journalist Julian Assange leading to his subsequent arrest in London. What is presented as an alleged sovereign action by the Ecuadorian state is clearly an act of political retaliation and defenselessness in terms of human rights. Assange, who received Ecuadorian citizenship last December, has been exposed and handed over by the very state that considers him to be a national.
The withdrawal of asylum cannot be read as an exclusively administrative-diplomatic act. On the global stage, gestures play a powerful role and the Ecuadorian government had to complete a set of them in order to regain its place in the lap of multilateral submission. It is no coincidence that the boycott of UNASUR, the recognition of Guaidó in Venezuela, and the surrender of Assange, occurred within the framework of the return of the IMF to the country. This gesture will cost Ecuador dearly, and confirms the cracking of its fragile political discourse. Inside the country, the American embassy, the chambers of commerce, and high civil society have returned to rule with an accumulated thirst for revenge.
For the popular camp and the left there can be no place for half measures and reductionisms. We must be unwavering in the defense of human rights and resistance to contemporary forms of imperialism. The grant of asylum to Assange represented both. The Ecuadorian government has given a new indication that it is walking in the opposite direction, exposing itself shamefully before the international community. Moreno, Chancellor Valencia and the group of presidential advisers will be directly responsible for what happens to Assange in the future.
The words of the old fighter Alfaro, a forerunner of popular liberalism in Ecuador, resonate powerfully today: “if instead of facing danger I had committed the vileness of switching to the enemy camp, we would have had peace, much peace, the peace of colonialism.” As a youth organization of the left, we join every action that raises the voice of protest and reveals the servile performance of the Ecuadorian government. We also call on progressive forces worldwide to publicly denounce what happened and to remain alert for possible new aggressions in this case.
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