[Peace-discuss] Greens cave under US pressure

[C. G. Estabrook]

["Progressives" in Australia as in America show their true colors - basically, 
yellow...]

Greens remain silent on witch-hunt against Australian citizen Julian Assange
By James Cogan
4 December 2010

The Greens, whose parliamentary votes help keep the minority Labor government of 
Prime Minister Julia Gillard in power, have maintained a deafening silence on 
the global witch-hunt that has been mounted against WikiLeaks’ editor and 
Australian citizen Julian Assange.

A matter of principle is at stake. Julian Assange has courageously risked his 
personal liberty, safety—and even his life—to publish documents provided to 
WikiLeaks by whistleblowers within the American political and military 
establishment. The web site has brought to the light of day evidence that the 
United States’ government is responsible for mass killings, torture, illegal 
spying on its international counterparts, and other crimes.

In retaliation, the US government of President Barack Obama is attempting to 
destroy WikiLeaks. It has declared the media organisation’s actions to be 
“criminal” and is trying to whip up an international lynch mob against Assange. 
American internet regulators have been pressured to close down WikiLeaks’ domain 
name, forcing it to establish a raft of new web addresses, such as 
www.wikileaks.ch <http://www.wikileaks.ch/>, which currently remains accessible.

High ranking figures within the American political establishment, such as Sarah 
Palin and Senator Joe Lieberman, have called for Assange to be prosecuted and 
sent to prison. Others have made open death threats against him, including an 
advisor to the Canadian prime minister, who told a television audience that the 
web site editor should be “assassinated”.

Under such conditions of persecution and threats by a foreign government, any 
Australian citizen living overseas would expect to find sanctuary in the closest 
Australian embassy or consulate and support from diplomatic staff. The 
Australian government would be obligated to do everything it could to defend the 
democratic rights of its citizen.

Julian Assange, who is believed to be in England, has been denied any such 
protection. The Gillard Labor government has closed ranks behind its US ally and 
condemned Assange’s actions as “illegal”. Like the Obama administration, it is 
trying to fabricate criminal charges against him under Australian law, and 
Attorney-General Robert McClelland has declared the Labor government will 
provide “every assistance” to the prosecution of Assange in the US.

McClelland has also demanded that other governments detain the WikiLeaks’ editor 
and extradite him to Sweden, where he faces politically-motivated allegations of 
sexual misconduct. Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens has condemned the Swedish 
arrest warrant as “persecution and not a prosecution”.

Not a single member of the parliamentary Labor Party has raised one word of 
opposition to the witch-hunt being conducted against Assange or condemned the 
death threats made against him. The opposition Liberal and National parties have 
thrown their support behind Gillard, while the rural independents, Rob 
Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter, have also kept their mouths firmly shut. 
Tellingly, they have been joined by Andrew Wilkie—a former whistleblower on the 
Iraq war lies, and now an independent supporting Labor. This is despite the fact 
that Wilkie told journalists on Wednesday that the Swedish charges of sexual 
misconduct against Assange “could be a set-up”. From the mass media through to 
civil liberties organisations, barely a voice can be heard speaking out in 
defence of Assange.

The silence of the Greens is, however, the most politically significant. Greens’ 
parliamentarians such as leader Bob Brown and MP Adam Bandt have spared no 
effort in presenting themselves as the “progressive force” in Australian 
politics, and staunch defenders of human rights and civil liberties. Yet they 
have felt no need to issue so much as a press statement in defence of Assange 
and WikiLeaks.

On Thursday, the WSWS contacted Bob Brown’s office, seeking an interview with 
him on his attitude to the persecution of WikiLeaks and Assange. Two days later, 
there has still been no response.

On Thursday, Brown took the time to arrange a press conference to condemn 
Japanese whaling, but made no mention of Assange. On Friday, Bandt issued a 
press release on workers’ Christmas pay, and gave an interview later in the day 
to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but, like Brown, made no 
condemnation of the Labor government’s blatant attacks on Assange’s democratic 
rights, and no calls for the Australian’s citizen’s defence.

Yesterday, Julian Assange issued a passionate statement over his treatment by 
the Australian government. In a posting to the British /Guardian/ web site, he 
wrote:

“I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during 
the last weeks, the Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, and the 
attorney-general Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my 
return impossible but they are actively working to assist the United States’ 
government in its attacks on myself and our people.”

Assange concluded: “This brings into question what does it mean to be an 
Australian citizen—does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated 
like David Hicks at the first possible opportunity, merely so that Australian 
politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties?”

David Hicks was the young Australian detained by the US military in Afghanistan 
and illegally imprisoned without charge—with the endorsement of both the former 
Howard Liberal government and the Labor opposition—for almost six years in the 
Guantánamo Bay prison camp. In order to avoid indefinite detention in what he 
has since described as a hell on earth, Hicks was ultimately forced to plead 
guilty to fabricated terrorism charges and serve an additional period of 
imprisonment in Australia.

The fate of Julian Assange could be far worse.

For the Labor Party and the Australian ruling class as a whole, the liberty and 
lives of Australian citizens count for nothing when measured against their 
desire to preserve the Australia-US strategic alliance. Australian imperialism 
depends upon Washington’s backing to assert its economic and geo-political 
domination in what it regards as its “sphere of influence” in the South Pacific 
and South East Asia.

The silence of the Greens makes clear that, for all their posturing, they line 
up completely with the ruling elite when it comes to defending the crimes and 
secret machinations of the capitalist state.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/gree-d04.shtml