The United States appears to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar
Throughout the day, on August 6, President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner
of Argentina chaired a historic United Nations Security Council meeting
that revealed a seismic shift in geopolitical consciousness and
incipient strength.
The agenda of Security Council meeting 7015 was: "Cooperation Between
the United Nations and Regional and Sub-regional Organizations in
Maintaining International Peace and Security."
The prelude to this meeting was held, the prior day, August 5, at a
press stakeout given by Elias Jaua Milano, Foreign Minister of
Venezuela, Hector Timerman, Foreign Minister of Argentina, Antonio de
Aguiar Patriota, Foreign Minister of Brazil, Luis Almagro, Foreign
Minister of Uruguay and David Choquehuanca Cespedes, Foreign Minister of
Bolivia.
They spoke on behalf of Mercosur, the Southern
Common Market, following their meeting with United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Their remarks focused on the expression
of outrage contained in the "Annex to the note verbale dated 22 July
from the Permanent Mission of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to
the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, which stated:
"Decision rejecting the acts of espionage conducted by the United States
in the countries of the region." "The President of the Argentine
Republic, the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the
President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the President of the
Eastern Republic of Uruguay and the President of the Bolivarian Republic
of Venezuela, having met in Montevideo, Eastern Republic of Uruguay, on
12 July, 2013, within the framework of the presidential summit of the
Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR),
Condemning the acts of espionage carried out by intelligence agencies of
the United States of America , which affect all countries in the
region,
Strongly rejecting the interception of telecommunications and the acts
of espionage carried out in our countries, which constitute a violation
of the human rights, the right to privacy and the right to information
of our citizens, and which also constitute unacceptable behavior that
violates our sovereignty and is detrimental to the normal conduct of
relations among nations,
Considering the advisability of promoting a coordinated approach to this issue at the regional level,
Decide to:
Work together to guarantee the cybersecurity of the States members to
MERCOSUR, which is essential to defending the sovereignty of our
countries,
Demand that those responsible immediately cease these activities and
provide an explanation of the motives for and consequences of such
activities,
Stress that the prevention of crime and the suppression of transnational
crimes, including terrorism, must be carried out in line with the rule
of law and in strict observance of international law.
Promote the adoption by the relevant multilateral institutions of
standards for the regulation of the Internet which place a particular
emphasis on cybersecurity issues, with a view to fostering the adoption
of standards that guarantee the adequate protection of communications,
in particular to safeguard the sovereignty of States and the privacy of
individuals,
Express our full solidarity with all countries, within and outside our region that have been victims of such actions,
Promote the joint efforts of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs to inform
the Secretary-General of the United Nations of these incidents and
request prevention and sanction mechanisms on the issue at the
multilateral level
Instruct the delegations of the Member States participating in the
upcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly to jointly
present a formal proposal to that end,
Request the Argentine Republic to submit this matter to the Security Council for consideration,
Agree to establish a working group to coordinate efforts, together with
the South American Defence Council and the South American Infrastructure
and Planning Council, aimed at carrying out activities that will render
our telecommunications more secure and reduce our dependence on foreign
technology."
The morning session of the August 6 Security Council meeting consisted
primarily of technical diplomatic presentations. Following
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's statement, Cuban Foreign Minister
Rodriguez Parrella opened the meeting, as President of the Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC):
"The history of Latin American and the Caribbean has changed. Two
hundred years after our independence, the ideas of 'a Nation of
Republics,' and of 'Our America' envisaged by Bolivar and Marti,
respectively, are taking shape. Thus, our Heads of State and Government
decided in the Caracas Declaration that 'in accordance with the
original mandate of our liberators, CELAC must move forward in the
process of political, economic, social and cultural integration -
based on a wise equilibrium between the unity and diversity of our
peoples ...Upon founding CELAC, our Heads of State and Government
reiterated our commitment to the building of a more just, equitable and
harmonious international order based on respect for international law
and the Charter of the United Nations. ...They reaffirmed our commitment
to the defense of sovereignty and the right of any state to establish
its own political system, free from threats, aggression and unilateral
coercive measures, and in an environment of peace, stability, justice,
democracy and respect for human rights. CELAC reiterates that there can
be no lasting peace without development and the eradication of poverty,
hunger and inequality ... CELAC has adopted a unanimous position with
regard to some far-reaching topics on the international agenda, such as,
for example, Argentina's legitimate claim in the dispute concerning the
sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, and - today on the
anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima - on so-called nuclear
disarmament."
The representatives of other regional organizations, and the members of
the Security Council delivered their statements throughout the morning
session of the meeting
When the Security Council resumed for the afternoon session, in a
courageous and brilliant tour de force, the Argentine Presidency of the
Security Council availed itself of the opportunity to publicly denounce
espionage in the service of the resurgence of neo-liberal capitalist
imperialism. In an unusual gesture of solidarity and support
(considering that Heads of State chairing Security Council meetings
seldom remain beyond a perfunctory appearance at the morning session),
President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman
and Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval were present throughout the
afternoon, as the succession of dazzling speeches, delivered by the
Latin American Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela,
Ecuador illuminated the global menace threatened by the United States
National Security Agency programs of surveillance of phone records,
e-mails, web-browsing, those very programs disclosed by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden.
The foreign ministers of Brazil , Venezuela , Uruguay , Bolivia and
Ecuador fiercely condemned the United States plan for worldwide
espionage, which posed a lethal threat to the democratically elected
governments of these Latin American nations and jeopardized their
survival.
It is not surprising that this expression of alarm was voiced by Latin
America, from Argentina through Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil,
Venezuela - in other words from the Southernmost tip of the huge
southern continent to the Caribbean, for this continent, viewed
imperialistically as the "backyard" of the United States, was for many
tragic decades, crushed by military dictatorships inflicting state
terror with impunity, following the blueprint of destabilization and
overthrow, by the CIA and multinational corporate controlled entities,
of their own democratically elected leaders. The tragic destruction of
Latin America's democratically elected governments included President
Arbenz in Guatemala, 1954; President Goulart in Brazil, 1964; President
Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, 1965; President Torres in
Bolivia, 1971; President Allende in Chile, 1973, and more recently the
destabilizations of the democratically elected governments of Honduras
and Paraguay (this is not a complete list)
This more than half-century violation of the will of the people of Latin
America, engineered by agencies of "the Colossus of the North" was a
shattering trauma seared deeply into the consciousness of these leaders,
whose recent triumph over fascist military dictatorships which were
installed and supported by the United States, is a testament to their
moral and intellectual strength and their passion for dignity and
control over their own destinies. The Latin American governments
speaking at the August 6 Security Council are like the canary in the
coal mine: intensely alert and sensitive to imminent or potential
threats of repetition of that horrific period they had endured and so
recently overcome, these governments denounced widespread evidence of
perilous subversive activity, the lethal consequences of which are
predictable and terrifying.
The August 6, 2013 afternoon session of the UN Security Council began
with Mr. Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Foreign Minister of Brazil, who
stated, in English:
"You, Madam President made my task easier by referring to the
interception of communications and acts of espionage. Such practices
violate sovereignty, harm relations between nations and constitute a
violation of human rights, inn particular the right to privacy and the
right of our citizens to information. In that respect, you have
complied with the decision of the States parties of the Common Market of
the South (MERCOSUR) who met in Montevideo last month. Yesterday, the
Foreign Minister of MERCOSUR conveyed to the Secretary-General the
position of Argentina , Bolivia , Brazil , Uruguay and Venezuela with
respect to and in compliance with, that decision. The matter will also
be placed before various United Nations bodies, in accordance with the
decision and the document circulated under the symbol A/67/946. This is
a very serious issue with a profound impact on the international
system. Brazil is coordinating with countries that share similar
concerns for the benefit of an international order that respects human
rights and the sovereignty of states.
I welcome the timely statement made on 12 July by the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay: 'surveillance
programmes without adequate safeguards to protect the right to privacy
actually risk impacting negatively on the enjoyment of human rights and
fundamental freedoms.' Pillay also mentioned Article 12 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 17 and 18 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which established,
respectively, that 'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference
with his privacy, family, home or correspondence,' and that 'Everyone
has the right to protection of the law against such interference or
attacks.'
Brazil also associates itself with the repeated appeals by Ms. Pillay in
various forums that efforts to combat terrorism must necessarily
respect human rights and humanitarian law. Her position was
incorporated into the decision of the Heads of State of MERCOSUR as well
as the Presidential Statement (S/PRST/2013/12) adopted by the Council
this morning... Mention should be made of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)... .a defense alliance that does not seem to frame
its activities clearly under Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United
Nations and has made use of concepts and strategies that raise
problematic and sensitive issues in terms of the articulation between
the regional level and the United Nations system. We are concerned
that, historically, leaders of NATO and member countries have considered
that the organization does not necessarily require explicit
authorization from the Security Council to resort to coercion.
We are also concerned that NATO has loosely interpreted mandates for
action aimed at promoting international peace and security authorized by
the Security Council. As Brazil has maintained, including through the
Brazilian concept of 'responsibility while protecting,' (S/2011/701,
annex), the Security Council should avail itself of the institutional
means of monitoring the adequate fulfillment of its mandates.
We are concerned, as well that NATO has been searching to establish
partnerships out of its area, far beyond the North Atlantic, including
in regions of peace, democracy and social inclusion, and that rule out
the presence of weapons of mass destruction in their territories. It
would be extremely grave for the future of the articulation between
regional and global efforts at promoting peace, as prescribed by the
United Nations, if groups of countries started to unilaterally define
their sphere of action beyond the territory of their own members."
Next, Mr. David Choquehuanca Cespedes, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia spoke:
"Preserving peace is not and will not be the result of the existence of
international policemen, but rather as a result of the promotion of
social justice, equity, complementarity, solidarity and respect between
states......I should like to express our rejection and condemnation of
the practice of espionage on the part of the United States. I should
also like to express the grief and indignation of my people and my
Government over the act of aggression experienced by President Evo
Morales Ayma, which has been described by the international community as
offensive, humiliating, discriminatory, colonialistic, unfriendly and a
violation of human rights and international standards. Given the grave
nature of these facts, we ask the United Nations to clarify these
events and to take measures to guarantee human rights and international
law so that no one will have to suffer such violations again."
Next, His Excellency, Mr. Elias Jaua Milano, Minister of the People's
Power for Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and
Pro-Tempore President of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR)
stated:
"Today we join in the pleasure of the Bolivian people on its national
holiday, and recall the commemoration of the 200 years of the triumphant
entry of the liberator Simon Bolivar after having carried out a
successful campaign that began in December of 1812 in New Grenada. We
must always remember that, when united, we South Americans will achieve
independence, equality and democracy for our peoples....Peace cannot be
achieved in the world without social justice and without eradicating
once and for all hunger, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and the wide
technological divides, in other words, without guaranteeing to all the
resources necessary for their full development in equal
conditions....The instruments, declarations, decisions and resolutions
of MERCOSUR have sought democracy and peace in the region, including by
preventing coups and other attempts to frustrate the democratic will of
our peoples, promoted by fascistic movements represented by political
and economic leaders that are found particularly in media corporations.
These movements attack democratic governments and peoples that have
chosen the path of independence, social inclusion and the grass-roots
democratization of our societies.....
The timely and firm action of MERCOSUR along with other regional and
subregional organizations, managed to stop attempted coups in Paraguay
in 1996 and 1999, thereby guaranteeing democratic order. Similarly, in
2006 and 2007 MERCOSUR condemned and took action to prevent attempts to
divide Bolivia as a way of weakening the democratic government of
President Evo Morales. Likewise, the Foreign Ministers of the countries
members of MERCOSUR condemned the attempted coup against President
Rafael Correa in Ecuador on 30 September 2010, joining with other
regional blocs to issue a joint warning to the world and prevent that
crime from taking place. Although it could not be prevented, MERCOSUR
acted decisively in the parliamentary coup against President Fernando
Lugo of Paraguay in June, 2012. On that occasion the foreign ministers
of MERCOSUR and UNASUR traveled to Asuncion with the intention of
starting a dialogue and preventing the interruption of the
constitutional order. That was not achieved, and the bloc had to
temporarily suspend the Republic of Paraguay until its political,
institutional and democratic situation was normalized through the
holding of elections. More recently, MERCOSUR has been able to
circumvent those situations with peaceful and democratic mechanisms,
without economic blocades, military intervention, indiscriminate bombing
or armed intervention of any kind. We believe that the only way to
defeat violence is with greater democracy and peaceful means. Mercosur
has also participated in issues that affect international peace and
security, such as the coup in Honduras against President Zelaya...
Unfortunately in recent times we have been concerned to see that some
countries have continued to assert their political, military and
economic power and distorted the very essence of cooperation between the
United Nations and regional and subregional organizations. They have
gone so far as to use the Security Council as a platform to encourage
armed interventions against sovereign states and peoples with a view to
promoting the poorly named regime change, in contravention of all
principles of International Law... as Foreign Minister of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela and as Pro-Tempore President of MERCOSUR I take
this opportunity to reiterate our firm condemnation of the insult to the
office of the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia,
President Evo Morales, when some European Governments did not permit the
overflight or landing of the aircraft transporting him. That was not
only a hostile, unfounded, discriminatory and arbitrary action, but also
a flagrant violation of the precepts of international law."
"Similarly, we reject the actions of global espionage carried out by the
government of the United States , which undermine the sovereignty of
States and which we have become familiar with through the revelations of
the former security contractor, Edward Snowden. Given the seriousness
of these reports of computer espionage on a global scale, recognized by
the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union
himself, the United Nations must initiate a broad multilateral
discussion that would make it possible to design agreements to safeguard
the sovereignty and security of States in the light of such illegal
practices. MERCOSUR has begun action to promote a discussion on this
matter so that we can open an appropriate investigation within the
United Nations and punish and condemn this violation of international
law."
"We reiterate our condemnation of actions that could undermine the power
of States to fully implement the right of humanitarian asylum. In this
respect, we reject any attempt to pressure, harass or criminalize a
state or third party over the sovereign decision of any nation to grant
asylum, which is enshrined in all international conventions. Likewise,
we express our solidarity with the Governments of Bolivia and Nicaragua ,
which, like Venezuela , have offered asylum to Mr. Snowden, as
expressed by the Heads of State of MERCOSUR in the decision concerning
the universal recognition of the right of political asylum, issued in
Montevideo on 12 July. These three matters were discussed yesterday
with the Secretary-General of the United Nations"
In her remarkable work, entitled "
The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," (published in 2007) journalist Naomi Klein states, page 573:
"Though clearly drawing on a long militant history, Latin America 's
contemporary movements are not direct replicas of their predecessors.
Of all the differences, the most striking is an acute awareness of the
need for protection from the shocks of the past - the coups, the
foreign shock therapists, the U.S. trained torturers, as well as the
debt shocks and currency collapses of the eighties and nineties. Latin
America 's mass movements, which have powered the wave of election
victories for left-wing candidates, are learning how to build shock
absorbers into their organizing models. ...
Latin America's new leaders are also taking bold measures to block any
future U.S. backed coups that could attempt to undermine their
democratic victories. The governments of Venezuela, Costa Rica,
Argentina and Uruguay have all announced they will no longer send
students to the School of Americas, the infamous police and military
training center in Fort Benning, Georgia, where so many of the
continent's notorious killers learned the latest I "counterterrorism"
(torture) techniques, then promptly directed them against farmers in El
Salvador and auto workers in Argentina....If the U.S. military does not
have bases or training programs, its power to inflict shocks will be
greatly eroded...
Latin America's most significant protection from future shocks (and
therefore the shock doctrine) flows from the continent's emerging
independence from Washington's financial institutions, the result of
greater integration among regional governments. The Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) is the continent's retort to the
Free Trade Area of the Americas , the now buried corporatist dream of a
free-trade zone from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego....
Thanks to high oil prices, Venezuela has emerged as a major lender to
other developing countries, allowing them to do an end run around
Washington, and even Argentina, Washington's former 'model pupil' has
been part of the trend. In his 2007 State of the Union Address (the
late) President Nestor Kirchner said that the country's foreign
creditors had told him, 'You must have an agreement with the
International Fund to be able to pay the debt. We say to them, 'Sirs,
we are sovereign. We want to pay the debt, but no way in hell are we
going to make an agreement again with the IMF.' As a result the IMF,
supremely powerful in the eighties, is no longer a force on the
continent. In 2005 Latin America made up 80 percent of the IMF's total
lending portfolio, in 2007 the continent represented just 1 percent - a
sea change in only two years. 'There is life after the IMF,' Kirchner
declared, 'and it is a good life.'"
Having resisted foreign (and domestic) military control, and foreign
(and neoliberal) economic control, the new peril confronting Latin
America's independent governments emanates from the United States'
National Security Agency's electronic surveillance programs, an
insidious new cyber-age method of total social control of the most
private and intimate spaces of their lives - and identities, their
minds, destroying their capacity to forge networks of solidarity and
obtain the information crucial to their understanding and critical
thinking, without which they are vulnerable to being reduced to the
condition of the "zombies" (so popular in Hollywood's movie narrative),
rendering them confused, docile, easily herded, subjugated, ultimately
exploited and enslaved. This surveillance is tantamount to imposing
total individual and societal control, which is a stealthy form of
isolation, a form of psychological and intellectual solitary
confinement, one of the cruelest forms of torture, which ultimately
leads to the disintegration of the human personality, within an
invisible prison.
This condition is described by the American Civil Liberties Union, and quoted in Charles Savage's August 8 report to
The New York Times:
"Hints of the surveillance appeared in a set of rules, leaked by Mr.
Snowden, for how the NSA may carry out the 2008 FISA law. One paragraph
mentions that the agency 'seeks to acquire communications about the
target that are not to or from the target.' The pages were posted
online by the newspaper The Guardian on June 20, but the telltale
paragraph, the only rule marked 'Top Secret' amid 18 pages of
restrictions, went largely overlooked amid other disclosures....While
the paragraph hinting at the surveillance has attracted little
attention, the American Civil Liberties Union did take note of the
'about the target' language in a June 21 post analyzing the larger set
of rules, arguing that the language could be interpreted as allowing
'bulk collection of international communications, including those of
Americans'....Jameel Jaffer, a senior lawyer at the ACLU said Wednesday
that such 'dragnet surveillance will be poisonous to the freedoms of
inquiry and association' because people who know that their
communications will be searched will change their behavior. 'They'll
hesitate before visiting controversial web sites, discussing
controversial topics or investigating politically sensitive questions.
Individually, these hesitations might appear to be inconsequential, but
the accumulation of them over time will change citizens' relationship to
one another and to the government.'"
The infrastructure for
de facto fascist police state and military control is being established
under the guise of counterterrorism,
(as, earlier, similar fascist states were established under the guise
of fighting communism) a phenomena Latin America recognizes and knows
from horrific historic experience. And their historic memory of this
has not yet been expunged: indeed, many of the leaders of Latin America
today were earlier imprisoned and tortured only a few decades ago under
such fascist police and military states (established ostensibly in the
name of anti-communism), including Chile's former, and possibly future
President Michelle Bachelet, Brazil's President Dilma Roussef,
Argentina's late President Nestor Kirchner, and the world famous father
of Argentina's Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, the late Jacobo
Timerman, imprisoned and tortured for two years during the Argentine
military dictatorship's "dirty war." No doubt, Uruguay 's President
Jose Mujica well remembers those horrors, and Chile 's former President
Ricardo Lago spent considerable time in prison during the Pinochet
dictatorship.
Patino Aroca, Foreign Minister of Ecuador, next delivered, at the August
6 Security Council meeting, one of the great speeches in United Nations
history.
"During the recent summit of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR)
that took place on 12 July in Montevideo, the States convened resolved
to 'request Argentina to submit the matter of the massive espionage case
uncovered by Edward Snowden for consideration by the Security Council.'
They also resolved to 'demand that those responsible for those actions
immediately cease therefrom and provide explanations of their
motivations and their consequences.' In similar terms, the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America spoke at the last Guayaquil
summit which was held just five days ago, when it was decided to 'warn
the international community about the seriousness of these actions,
which imply a threat to the security and peaceful coexistence among our
States"...
"Just a few weeks ago the world saw a sequence of events more akin to a
Cold War spy novel than to modern times. On 5 June, leaks began to
appear in publications in major global media outlets, leaks that were
mixed with almost deathly intent and unspooled as a reality show before
global public opinion. The leaks came from a former 29-year-old
American analyst who sought to escape deportation to his country, where
he would be tried for those leaks. After a journey that began in Hong
Kong and was supposed to end in Latin America, today, it seems to have
stopped, but it may not have completely run its course, despite the
granting of asylum by Russia ."
"During those few days in June we saw the size and the discretional
nature of a massive surveillance apparatus that suddenly brought all the
inhabitants of the planet closer than ever to an Orwellian nightmare.
Although at first it appeared to be a simple matter of wiretapping, it
was later discovered that there was discretionary monitoring of e-mails.
While it seemed initially that the apparatus was being used in
operations against organized crime, later we learned that it was also
being used to gain advantage in trade negotiations with other countries.
If we once thought that they were simply looking at unaffected States,
we now know that everyone - absolutely everyone, debtors and
creditors, friends and enemies, South and North - is considered a
usual suspect by the authorities of the United States of America . Now
we know that our communications are permanently monitored by them."
"No one knows yet if Mr. Snowden will once again manage to leak
information that he claims to possess. Of course, it seems that he will
not do it when he is in Russia . In any case, the wounds opened by
those events should be assessed within the main multilateral forums.
They deserve to be so because not only do they reflect an unacceptable
imbalance in the global governance system, which in no case would help
to build a climate of trust and cooperation between countries, and, in
the final analysis, a climate of peace among nations. They deserve to
be assessed because we have also moved dangerously close to the limits
set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
"The imbalances to which I refer are clear - the United States, like
any other countries, has the need to deal with demands related to its
national security, it goes without saying, but those legitimate demands
must be dealt with in a way that does not affect the rights of
individuals or indeed the sovereignty of other nations. That is to say,
limits must be set. However, we are now faced with the fact that any
limits there may have been have vanished. The national security of the
United States has been placed above all universal moral values."
"Such a drive has meant that the principles of equality and
non-interference in the affairs of States, established in the Westphalia
peace agreement, have now vanished into thin air. The 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights has been violated. The rights to the
privacy of correspondence - article 12 - and to freedom of
expression and opinion - article 19 - the rights of all citizens of
the world, including United States citizens, have been trampled in the
name of a greater goal, that is, national security - or rather, for
the sake of the profits of the national security industry."
"What are the limits, really? Has the time not come for the Council to
take up this question again and discuss it? In the end, does this not
pose a threat to global peace? What mutual trust could possibly exist
among nations under such circumstances? We believe that the time has
come for the United Nations to face up to this matter responsibly."
"As we have seen with the disappearance of such limits, this situation
threatens to build walls between our countries. If it has not done so
already, it could also affect international cooperation against
organized crime; strangely enough, there is even the possibility that
trade negotiations could be disrupted. Paradoxically, even the very
national security of the United States will suffer from the increase in
global mistrust generated by massive espionage."
"The events to which I have referred have also revealed other very
disturbing realities. To start off with, it has re-ignited the debate
on the right of asylum, which all human beings have, as enshrined in
international law, as well as the ability of any sovereign state to
grant it. This is a right that is granted to avoid fear of political
persecution; its legitimacy can only be determined by the country
granting it. Let us also remember its peaceful and humanitarian nature,
which cannot in any case be described as unfriendly towards any other
State, as established in General Assembly resolution 2312 (XXII) on
territorial asylum. I should also quote Ms. Navi Pillay, United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the case at hand: 'Snowden's
case has shown the need to protect persons disclosing information on
matters that have implications for human rights, as well as the
importance of ensuring respect for the right to privacy.'"
"Leaders who should be giving explanations and facing up to the debate
on the limits of what we are discussing, have instead launched a crusade
against the right to asylum - a full-on diplomatic offensive against
countries that have taken to the global stage to show interest in such
an important case. States in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of
Our America (ALBA) have been under pressure, simply because they are
considering a request for asylum. All those countries have signed the
1954 Caracas Convention on Territorial Asylum, which is perhaps one of
the most important instruments of the Inter-American human rights
system."
"The day the United States signs that treaty - even the day it
ratifies the San Jose pact, one of the foundations of the Inter-American
system of human rights - we will be closer to seeing that country
adhere to the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, and it will
become a part of a group of equal nations, committed to complying with
international law."
"Instead of joining this group, we find ourselves with a country that
prefers to lunge forwards and blame the messenger in order to cloud the
message. The final result was that a group of countries decided to
endanger the life of the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia
, forcing him and his entourage to make an emergency landing in
violation of international norms governing respectful relations among
nations."
"It is not the revelation of the offence that threatens the climate of
understanding among nations, it is the offence itself. In a fragile
world where armed conflicts are barely affected by international
pressure, such actions do not help generate trust but tension."
"I would like to conclude with two comments."
"First, the Government of Ecuador fully supports the request of the
Bolivian Government that the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights conduct an exhaustive investigation into
the unjustifiable treatment suffered by President Evo Morales Ayma
during his trip from Moscow to La Paz."
"Secondly, massive global, discretionary and unlimited surveillance must
stop. It is for the Security Council to urgently make that demand of
one of its permanent members, since, theoretically, it is up to this
body to maintain peace on our planet. That, too, is the demand of Latin
America , a zone of peace that, through organizations such as MERCOSUR
and ALBA, has demanded an end to those practices. It is also required
by the spirit of coexistence, which inspired the drafting of the Charter
of the United Nations. It is also the appeal of billions of people in
the world who understand that any action that aims to ensure the
security of a country has its limits, which are the human rights of
everyone on the planet."
The representative of the United States, Mr. DeLaurentis replied:
"Let me address an issue unrelated to our debate that was raised earlier
today, namely, the United States efforts to prevent terrorism and the
recent disclosure of classified information about techniques we use to
do that. All Governments do things that are secret: it is a fact of
modern governing and a necessity in the light of the threats all our
citizens face. Our counter-Terrorism policy is ultimately about saving
people's lives, which is why the United States works with other
countries to protect our citizens and those of other nations from many
threats. All nations should be concerned about the damage these
disclosures can cause to our ability to collectively defend against
those threats."
Contradicting this assertion, a senior United States intelligence
official said, regarding the 'about the target' surveillance that it
"was difficult to point to any particular terrorist plot that would have
been carried out if the surveillance had not taken place." He said it
was one tool among many used to assemble a 'mosaic' of information in
such investigations. "The surveillance was used for other types of
foreign-intelligence collection, not just terrorism investigations," the
official said. This admission that this surveillance is not limited to
preventing terrorism is the most damning indictment of the secrecy of
the program.
The American people, whose taxes pay for these programs, have an
inalienable right to know what are the "other" uses to which these
surveillance programs are being put, in their name. Powerfully refuting
any contention that these surveillance activities are for the purpose
of preventing terrorism is the testimony of United States Senator,
Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee, who said he had been shown a classified list of "terrorist
events" detected through surveillance, and it did not show that 'dozens
or even several terrorist plots' had been thwarted by the domestic
program. "If this program if not effective, it has to end. So far I'm
not convinced by what I've seen," Senator Leahy said, denouncing ' the
massive privacy implications' of keeping records of every American's
domestic calls.
What really is the purpose of this NSA program of global surveillance?
Failing to significantly thwart terrorist activity, it must have an
ultimate purpose. The possibilities are terrifying. The hysterical,
desperate and deadly determination to arrest Snowden suggests that he
may have uncovered something further, something so illegal that the
authors of such crimes will not hesitate to endanger the very lives they
claim to be protecting, in order to prevent exposure. The frantic
orchestration of the actions endangering the life of the President of
Bolivia makes this conclusion unavoidable.
The August 6 Security Council meeting under the Presidency of Argentina
re-enforced the credibility of the United Nations. The Government of
Argentina and her courageous sister nations of Latin America have thrown
down the gauntlet on behalf of the majority of the citizens of this
planet.
David Cameron and Barack Obama last night agreed to take military action against Syria, the Sunday People has reported.
And the US has stationed F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missiles in Jordan in preparation for attacks.
