James
Cogan
A court
document dated August 22 was made public Thursday night which
confirms that the US Department of Justice is in possession of sealed
criminal charges against WikiLeaks’ founder and publisher Julian
Assange. As soon as he is forced out of the Ecuadorian embassy in
London, where he sought political asylum in 2012 and is now being
denied any right to communicate with the outside world by the
Ecuadorian government, a warrant will be issued for his extradition
to the United States.
The
court document, which related to a case that had no remote connection
to Assange, contained two paragraphs that named him. It stated that
the sealing of an indictment was necessary “because… no other
procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has
been charged.” It requested that the charges remain sealed
“until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the
criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest
and extradition in this matter.”
The
Department of Justice would only tell media that Assange was named in
the document “in error.” It did not deny that charges against him
have been filed and sealed. Sources told the Washington Post that
they have definitely been laid.
Regardless
of how the existence of charges has been revealed, it confirms all
the warnings that Assange and his legal and political defenders have
made since Swedish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant against him,
in November 2010, to purportedly answer “questions” over
allegations he had committed sexual offences.
The
Swedish allegations were fabricated against Assange under conditions
in which WikiLeaks had published explosive leaks that exposed US war
crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and imperialist intrigues around the
world.
The
allegations had two purposes. Firstly, they were intended to malign
Assange as an individual and undermine public support for WikiLeaks.
Secondly, they were to be used to force him to Sweden from where he
would have been extradited on to the US to face espionage charges.
Assange’s
decision to seek political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy is the
only reason he has avoided a lengthy prison term or potentially even
a death sentence.
The
court document verifies what has been obvious since Swedish
prosecutors finally dropped their groundless case against Assange in
May 2017, without ever laying any charges against him. The only other
“criminal complaint” against Assange is the British charge that
he breached bail conditions when, out of necessity, he sought asylum.
The plan of the US state has been to wait until he can be imprisoned
by British authorities and then issue its indictment against the
journalist and publisher.
The fact
that the existence of charges has now been made public may well be an
indication that Ecuador has agreed to hand Assange over.
The
court document does not reveal the nature of US charges. As well as
espionage accusations relating to the 2010 leaks, it is also possible
that Assange has been indicted for “conspiracy.”
In 2016,
WikiLeaks published leaked emails that exposed how the Democratic
National Committee sought to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders
on behalf of Hillary Clinton. The documents also provided evidence of
Clinton’s sordid relations with Wall Street banks.
As part
of the hysterical campaign in the US establishment to blame Clinton’s
election defeat on Russian “interference,” the investigation by
special counsel Robert Mueller has implied—without a shred of
credible evidence—that WikiLeaks received the leaks from Russian
intelligence and published them to assist the election of Donald
Trump.
In fact,
Assange publicly compared the choice presented to American voters of
Trump or Clinton as like choosing between “gonorrhea or syphilis.”
In a statement issued on the eve of the 2016 election, Assange
stressed that having received the Democratic Party leaks—from a
source he denied had any Russian connections—WikiLeaks believed it
was obligated to publish them.
Assange
wrote: “The right to receive and impart true information is the
guiding principle of WikiLeaks—an organization that has a staff and
organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends
the public’s right to be informed.”
WikiLeaks,
Assange declared, “remains committed to publishing information
that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power,
would prefer not to see it … It must publish and be damned.”
The
relentless persecution of Assange has not only been aimed at
preventing WikiLeaks from publishing the truth. It is part of an
attempt by the ruling class to intimidate and silence all critical
and independent journalists and media organisations, as well as
would-be whistleblowers around the world.
The
attempt to paint Assange as a criminal has been at the forefront of
sweeping censorship and an assault on fundamental democratic rights
under way around the world. The lurch towards dictatorial forms of
rule is being driven by the terror of the capitalist oligarchs and
their governments that a mass movement of the working class is
developing internationally against ever widening social inequality
and the growing danger that economic and strategic conflicts between
the major powers will lead to war.
As Leon
Trotsky noted in 1937, “the true criminals hide under the cloak
of the accusers.”
The US
state, however, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, has
only been able to conduct and sustain its vendetta against Assange
because of the shameless support it has received internationally.
The
establishment media, particularly publications such as the Guardian
and the New York Times, has completely aligned with the effort to
destroy WikiLeaks and suppress all other independent publications.
Successive
Australian Labor and conservative governments have refused to defend
Assange—an Australian citizen. The entire official Australian
political and media establishment, including the Greens,
parliamentary “independents” and the trade unions, has thrown
Assange to the wolves. None gave support to the rally organised by
the Socialist Equality Party and addressed by filmmaker John Pilger
on June 17 this year, which demanded that the government use its
legal and diplomatic powers to secure Assange’s freedom and right
to return to Australia.
In
Britain, the role of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been
particularly pernicious. Corbyn, who once mouthed support for
WikiLeaks, has refused to publicly demand that the Tory government
drop the bail charges against Assange, guarantee he will not be
extradited to the US and allow him to leave both the Ecuadorian
embassy and the United Kingdom if he chooses.
The
Ecuadorian government, under its current president, Lenin Moreno, has
turned on Assange in order to ingratiate itself with Washington. In
March this year, it cut off his ability to communicate and has taken
additional vindictive measures to pressure him to leave the embassy.
Most
striking, however, has been the abandonment of Assange by virtually
all the middle class pseudo-left organisations in the US, Australia,
Britain and around the world. Flowing from their support for gender-
and race-based identity politics and for the imperialist intrigues in
Ukraine and Syria, which Assange opposed and exposed, they either
maintain a complete silence on his persecution or have joined in
slandering the WikiLeaks publisher as a “rapist” or “stooge”
of Russia or Trump—even as Trump’s administration has stepped up
the US effort to silence him.
The
line-up of forces serves only to underscore that the defence of
Assange, WikiLeaks and all democratic rights requires the independent
political mobilisation of the international working class against the
entire existing political establishment and the capitalist system it
serves.
Every
effort must be made to alert workers and youth to the immense
implications of the persecution of Julian Assange and the necessity
for the most wide-ranging campaign to demand his immediate and
unconditional freedom.
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