America’s Vassal Acts Decisively and Illegally 437

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I returned to the UK today to be astonished by private confirmation from within the FCO that the UK government has indeed decided – after immense pressure from the Obama administration – to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy and seize Julian Assange.

This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.

The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.

Article 22

1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter
them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises
of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the
mission or impairment of its dignity.
3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of
transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution.

Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies. Murder in Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to help Uzbek dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.

The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong enough power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the “might is right” principle in international relations, in the era of the neo-conservative abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.

The British Government bases its argument on domestic British legislation. But the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter its obligations in international law, unless it chooses to withdraw from them. If the government does not wish to follow the obligations imposed on it by the Vienna Convention, it has the right to resile from it – which would leave British diplomats with no protection worldwide.

I hope to have more information soon on the threats used by the US administration. William Hague had been supporting the move against the concerted advice of his own officials; Ken Clarke has been opposing the move against the advice of his. I gather the decision to act has been taken in Number 10.

There appears to have been no input of any kind from the Liberal Democrats. That opens a wider question – there appears to be no “liberal” impact now in any question of coalition policy. It is amazing how government salaries and privileges and ministerial limousines are worth far more than any belief to these people. I cannot now conceive how I was a member of that party for over thirty years, deluded into a genuine belief that they had principles.

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437 thoughts on “America’s Vassal Acts Decisively and Illegally”

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  • Mary

    A good piece from Paul Craig Roberts.
    .
    Auggust 16, 2012
    Ecuador President Rafael “We Are Not A Colony” Correa Stands Up To The Jackbooted British Gestapo

    .
    ‘A coward dies many deaths; a brave man dies but once.
    .
    The once proud British government, now reduced to Washington’s servile whore, put on its Gestapo Jackboots and declared that if the Ecuadorean Embassy in London did not hand over WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, British storm troopers would invade the embassy with military force and drag Assange out. Ecuador stood its ground. “We want to be very clear, we are not a British colony,” declared Ecuador’s Foreign Minister. Far from being intimidated the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, replied to the threat by granting Assange political asylum.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/americas/ecuador-to-let-assange-stay-in-its-embassy.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&emc=na
    .
    The once law-abiding British government had no shame in announcing that it would violate the Vienna Convention and assault the Ecuadorean Embassy, just as the Islamic students in the 1979 Khomeini Revolution in Iran took over the US Embassy and held the diplomatic staff captive. Pushed by their Washington overlords, the Brits have resorted to the tactics of a pariah state.’
    .
    I think the aphorism is one of Mandela’s.
    .
    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/08/16/ecuador-president-rafael-we-are-not-a-colony-correa-stands-up-to-the-jackbooted-british-gestapo/

  • jawbone

    Jon @ 12AM, 8/17 — Someone seems have put a horse’s head in whoever edits the The Guardian. Quite the good little fluffers of the current government they’ve become, at least re: foreign affairs and, of course, wars.
    .

  • jawbone

    BTW, since many embassies have guards, with weapons I assume – or is that forbidden in London?, or even military personnel posted as guards, could the London bobbies busting into the embassy be greeted with gunfire?

    A shootout at the Not OK Embassy? At High Noon?

  • PCMcGee

    Holy shit! You sheep are so gullible. You would let them turn this into you vs them, when the banks are the only crime you should be focusing on. Welcome to Idiocracy.

  • Shashi

    This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.

  • PCMcGee

    Holy Crap! You sheeple are actually going to let this turn into You vs Government? The Government is for, by and of, remember? The Banks, remember the Banks? Remember 777 drop on the Stock Market, while congress voted? Too big to Jail?? Wake Up, World!

  • kingfelix

    “the rights of a man who has poked a gorilla with a stick and is complaining that it now wants to kill him.”
    .
    You, Sir, are an American, and I claim my five pounds. Only Americans have this marked tendency to attempt to argue everything by analogy (and the analogy is almost never valid.)
    .
    Please return to your hole and await further orders.

  • anon

    “This came about after the 1984 Libyan shooting.”
    .
    That’s a lie that’s been repeated and repeated. Especially in the last year or so. It is amazing and shocking how people will believe something that is provably wrong just because they have heard enough people say it before.
    .
    Do some research, physical evidence proves that Yvonne Fletcher was not shot from the Libyan embassy
    .
    Here’s a documentary from C4 Dispatches program made in the 90s.
    .
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l1J11WNQAs
    .
    I suspect you dumbed down morons will continue knee-jerking “Libyan Embassy” every time you hear “Yvonne Fletcher” even if you watch this a thousand times.

  • Mary

    “Cowards die many times before their deaths,
    The valiant never taste of death but once.” Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)
    .
    Shakespeare of course but used by Mandela.
    .
    There is a terrible state of affairs in S Africa where the infighting in the ANC is obscuring the collapse of decent government. The head of the police is giving a press conference today. LonMin who own the Marilana mine is a successor to Goldsmith’s Lonrho plc. They employ 28,000. Cyril Ramaphosa is one of the directors. He held the position of Secretary General in the ANC and is said to be a multi millionaire. http://www.miningweekly.com/article/lonmin-gives-cyril-a-fair-crack-at-the-platinum-mining-whip-2011-10-03
    .
    Businessman
    Among other positions, he is executive chairman of Shanduka Group, a company he founded. Shanduka Group has investments in the Resources Sector, Energy Sector, Real Estate, Banking, Insurance, and Telecoms (SEACOM). He is also chairman of The Bidvest Group Limited, and MTN. His other non-executive directorships include Macsteel Holdings, Alexander Forbes, Standard Bank and SABMiller. In March 2007 he was appointed Non-Executive joint Chairman of Mondi, a leading international paper and packaging group, when the company demerged from Anglo American plc.
    Wikipedia
    .
    Zuma’s loss of the Presidency is being predicted and the CEO of LonMin has been hospitalized. What next as 19 miners lie dead at Marikana?

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Jon, at midnight – and with this shameful intimidation of a sovereign embassy, it is indeed ‘midnight’ for the UK and international law – I am not the least bit surprised by the craven line the Guardian is taking. This is how liberal imperialism works, dialectically-speaking. It is the same logic which argues that to destroy a country is to free it.
    .
    Anon, at 07.29am, regarding PC Fletcher, absolutely. Did the SIS (MI6) assassinate her? In any case, that situation – and the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy siege in London a few years earlier, were entirely different situations from the situation in relation to the wholly peaceful Ecuadorian Embassy, a mission which is simply doing its job in offering a political dissident asylum.

  • John Goss

    Jon, couldn’t agree with you more about the Guardian editorial. What is even worse is the top comment says something ‘Great editorial this’ when in fact it is the establishment view. I credit most readers with the intellect to see it for what it is.

  • Ron

    Our political system is proven to be broken: the “Elected” government no longer serve the People. They Rule the People!
    It is ABUNDANTLY clear that the vast majority of British People support the Truth delivered by Assange and his co-publishers. And RESENT the Big Brother attempts by the the US, Sweden and British quislings to capture him for later, convenient execution.

    With modern technology (web/encryption/relaible ID) we can withdraw the previous need to grant a vote proxy to these people any more, and vote for ourselves on every issue we see fit. Fine-granular Referenda if you like.
    We can usefully employ career-polititians as clerks to our Process. If they don’t like that, they can stand at the far end of the jobCentre queue. They are no longer FIT FOR PURPOSE.

  • Jonangus Mackay

    For the US, the British & Swedish governments, the spurious War on Terror justifies their repeated if necessary violation of international law. They regard Assange as part of that war. Ergo: a legitimate target.

    http://t.co/acyKAWkq

  • John Goss

    I am re-posting Yonotan’s link which should be read in order to understand the full facts of what happened to Assange and why the attempt to get him extradited to Sweden is a blatant set-up. For example on 10 August
    .
    ‘Just prior to his visit, Assange is warned by Australian intelligence
    officials that he is a likely target of efforts to discredit him, possibly
    by means of a “honey trap” (i.e. an orchestrated sexual encounter of a compromising nature).’

    .
    And how they stitched him up.
    .
    “20 August 2010
    Accompanied by Anna Ardin, Sofia Wilén visits a Stockholm police station — by their own account, for the limited purpose of obtaining assistance in compelling Assange to take an HIV test. Ms. Wilén is interviewed by a police officer who is a friend and political ally of Ms. Ardin.
    .
    On the basis of very little information, including what appears to be a decisive
    utterance by Ms. Ardin, prosecutor #1 decides to arrest Assange in absentia on suspicion of rape and other sex crimes. When Ms. Wilén is informed of that decision, she is unable to continue the interview and leaves without approving the written account of it. News of the warrant is leaked to a Swedish tabloid and, within hours, global media are full of articles and headlines linking Assange’s name to the word “rape”.’

    It is worth reading all 49 pages, and worth posting widely to the ignorant (not those who contribute to this blog). I am distributing the document.

  • Shona

    Fantastic, I think it’s a tremendous effort by Britain to warn us what’s going on. If they had wanted Julian then he would have been taken last night. The fuss is at the exact right tone to piss off the masters of Britain, which is Israel/America from what I can gather.

  • Komodo

    I doubt if our CPS would have considered it worthwhile pursuing a case in which:
    (Day 1), Assange sleeps with (feminist)woman met at function, who
    (Day 2) throws a party to celebrate the influential people she has been meeting, inviting Assange and a close friend. With whom Assange
    (Night 2) also sleeps; the DNA evidence for either event being nonexistent.
    .
    Any charge of rape (under Swedish definition) hinges on whether Assange failed to use protection on either occasion, and whether this was without the knowledge of the other person. Had Assange only slept with Ardin, it would have been her word against his that it was nonconsensual, and there would be some difficulty, I imagine, in proving that unprotected intercourse had taken place at all. But two women telling the same story would be a different matter. Never mind that one of them was so untroubled by Assange’s alleged behaviour that she invited him to her party the following night….
    .
    More on this:
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/

  • Passerby

    kingfelix,
    Thanks for the laugh, and your five pounds is safe with me, when I see you will buy you a pint.

  • MarkU

    What extraordinary behaviour from our barely-elected government. It seems incredible that a case as frivolous as the Assange case could be regarded as sufficient to warrant so egregious a violation of international law and accepted international norms.

    It seems very likely that the diplomatic row will spread to other nations. Asserting the right to invade another nations embassy (especially on such a wafer-thin pretext) is no small matter. In South America in particular, the UK is already unpopular over the Malvinas/Falklands issue, I suspect that a degradation of diplomatic relations with the whole continent is likely to occur.

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