Read Julian Assange - WikiLeaks Online
Authors: Sophie Radermecker
Julian Assange - WikiLeaks (34 page)
In 1946 George Kennan, American advisor and diplomat in Moscow, formulated in his âlong telegram' of 8,000 words the principle of âcontainment,' which inspired American foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the entire Cold War. The goal of containment was to maintain the Soviet zone of influence at the level it had achieved in 1947 and stop any other States from adopting communism.
But in an era when information circulates in real time on the Internet, the role of embassies and diplomats was destined to decline. At a time when the threat of WikiLeaks is defined by an avalanche of documents classified as confidential or
noforn
(not for release to foreign nationals), the risk is that State departments can no longer have an honest conversation with their allies or a secret negotiation with an enemy. It will become more difficult to discuss sensitive subjects within governments.
Secrecy exists, and WikiLeaks has updated its existence. The knowledge of its content, classified top secret will be in an even smaller circle with the danger that the most important elements are no longer even re-transcribed. A former American ambassador to the Middle East explains: “If there are less and less written reports and communication, which is catastrophic when you want to reconstitute what happened, the consequences will be dramatic and a situation that was already not great will deteriorate. Everyone will start passing on information verbally to realize in the end that it will arrive completely deformed.”
Many commentators claim that the memos revealed by WikiLeaks didn't contain anything new. However, amid the writing of American diplomats published to this day, there were some beauties.
In Nigeria, oil giant Shell bragged about having “inserted staff into all the main ministries.” Pharmaceutical firm Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the attorney general responsible for the court case of the clinical trials of the antibiotic Trovan in Kano, Nigeria, which caused the death of several children.
By announcing to the American ambassador in Paris his intention to run for president, Nicolas Sarkozy evoked the need for France to have a term “similar to that of Reagan or Thatcher.” Socialists also marched into the offices of the embassy. Hillary Clinton was worried about the debt the US owes to Beijing: “How do you deal toughly with your banker?” In 2009, New Zealand had “totally re-established” its espionage relations with the United States, exposed in 1985 by the anti-nuclear policy of David Lange's government.
Here's a worldview of newspapers following the release of the diplomatic cables:
The Independent
, Robert Fisk â London
“Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington's Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ultimately destroy the power of Iran.”
Komsomolskaya Pravda
â Moscow
“Even in their worst nightmares diplomats couldn't have imagined that the whole world would read their secret dispatches.”
La Repubblica
â Massimo Razzi â Rome
“November 28, 2010 will be remembered as the day when:
1. Information became dependent on the Internet.
2. Citizens, for the first time, had access to these types of secrets that until now only history dispensed when and how it was decided by the authorities.
3. These same citizens have for the first time the opportunity to dissect numerous recent events and discover the lies of those in power.
4. As well, professional information was faced with a huge challenge and the possibility of emerging victorious.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung
â Nicolas Richter â Munich
“It is a betrayal of state secrets without precedent, whose consequences are unpredictable. The Americans will see the relations they had with many countries will suffer, compromised by the arrogant judgment they made on their politicians.”
Yediot Aharonot
â Sever Plocker â Tel Aviv
“It is doubtful whether in recent years Israel's foreign and defense policy received such significant backing and reinforcement as happened Sunday [November 28, 2010].”
Milliyet
â Can Dündar â Istanbul
“And what will go through the mind of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu when he will be confronted with Americans who consider him a “very dangerous Islamist”? WikiLeaks allows us to realize the dream of a “transparent state”⦠Thanks, WikiLeaks.”
Kayhan
â Teheran
“It is important to note that without the complicity of the Western media WikiLeaks would have never been able to attract the attention of internal public opinion and even less being taken seriously. Why was this information also printed in
The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian, El PaÃs
and
Der Spiegel
if the goal wasn't to convince public opinion of the “danger” of Iran?”
Al-Quds Al-Arabi
â Independent pan-Arab daily published in London
“Didn't the Saudi King think of the dramatic consequences of an attack? These revelations will surely not please Iran⦠Strong tension can be expected in the relations between Iran and its neighbors, Saudi Arabia first.”
La Repubblica
â Giuseppe D'avanzo â Rome
“Here's a summary of what the confidential documents reveal about American diplomacy broadcast on WikiLeaks: it's the Berlusconi we know, but half of the country stubbornly refused to “recognize” because most media, controlled or influenced by the
Cavaliere
, cannot or will not divulge anything.”
The Telegraph
â K.P. Nayar â Calcutta
“Over the next months, when the last telegrams published by WikiLeaks will have been analyzed, it is quite certain that the offices of the Indian prime minister will issue a “top secret” message telling Indian diplomats to be prudent when dealing with their American counterparts.”
El PaÃs
â José Ignacio Torreblanca â Madrid
“Most likely, WikiLeaks has hammered the final nail in the coffin of classic diplomacy”.
One must realize that every newspaper emphasized their choice and interpreted it in their own way. A new party to the truth didn't cover up the necessary filter of the traditional world press, a filter subjected to government pressure, as it was the case for the French paper
Le Monde
, which censored a diplomatic cable exposing prominent French politicians.
3
The diplomatic cable revealed that in June 2009, four days after the death of Gabonese President Omar Bongo, a high-ranking official of the Banque des Ãtats d'Afrique Centrale (BEAC) claimed that the Bongo clan had funneled funds close to thirty million euro to their advantage and to the advantage of French political parties. The scoop was immediately picked up by
El PaÃs,
but not by
Le Monde
, which preferred to say that the information was not sure enough because of a comment at the end of the cable, signed by the American ambassador to Cameroon, Janet Garvey: “The US embassy was unable to assess the veracity of the allegation that French politicians benefited from BEAC's loss.”
However,
Le Monde
âforgot' a cable addressed to the US Secretary of State by the American Embassy in Paris (cable 07PARIS306). This document provided an instructive point of view of the American Embassy in Paris on French media
4
, among others:
“17. Top French journalists are often products of the same elite schools as many French government leaders. These journalists do not necessarily regard their primary role as that of checking the power of government. Rather, many see themselves more as intellectuals, preferring to analyze events and influence readers rather than reporting events.
18. The private sector media in France â print and broadcast â continues to be dominated by a small number of conglomerates, and all French media are more regulated and subjected to political and commercial pressure than are their American counterparts. The Higher Audio-Visual Council, created in 1989, appoints the CEOs of all French public broadcasting channels and monitors their political content.
19. Internet access is growing steadily in France, especially among the younger generation, rapidly replacing traditional media. All the important television and radio channels in France have their own websites, as do the major print media. Blogs are an increasingly popular method of communication for minorities and NGOs, who use them to express opinions they do not feel are reflected in the traditional media.”
“Transparency and discernment are not incompatible,” wrote Sylvie Kauffmann, Executive Director of
Le Monde
. Apparently,
Le Monde
chose discernment and kept the transparency for another cable. It was independent bloggers and journalists who had accused the newspaper of omissions. And the question came back: Could we consider what Julian did as journalism? Is journalism the release of information that's rawer than the information of the mainstream press?
Jack Shafer of
Slate
magazine wrote, “Assange bedevils the journalists who work with him because he refuses to conform to any of the roles they expect him to play. He acts like a leaking source when it suits him. He masquerades as publisher or newspaper syndicate when that's advantageous. Like a PR agent, he manipulates news organizations to maximize publicity for his âclients,' or when moved to, he threatens to throw info-bombs like an agent provocateur. He's a wily shape-shifter who won't sit still, an unpredictable negotiator who is forever changing the terms of the deal.”
Journalists were backing away from Julian despite their continued interest in publishing stories based on the cables posted by WikiLeaks.
The freedom of the press committee of the Overseas Press Club of America has declared him “not one of us.” The Associated Press, which once filed legal actions on Julian's behalf, refused to comment on him.
And the National Press Club in Washington, the venue less than a year ago for a Julian Assange news conference, had decided not to speak out on his behalf.
According to Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director of the Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press, the problem with speaking up for WikiLeaks is that she didn't consider Julian Assange to be a journalist.
She said that though Julian “has done some things that journalists do⦠I would argue that what
The New York Times
does is more journalism. They vet the information⦠They consider outside sources. They take responsibility. They publicly identify themselves⦠They do some value added. They do something original to it.”
But Joel Simon, Executive Director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, believes that if Julian were prosecuted, “it would be because he is a journalist.”
WikiLeaks represented an unconventional newcomer that offered material for anyone to analyze, while circumventing the classic flows of information with all its ethical, political and commercial filters.
With WikiLeaks, journalists were again circumventing the classic path of the information between the sources and the public. WikiLeaks was wedged in between. Already pushed aside by the new way in which the public could acquire information, by speaking out, confronted with a double crisis of legitimacy and confidence from the rest of the population. Journalists didn't like it at all.
A year ago, there was talk of a journalistic crisis (lack of credibility, lack of means for investigative journalists, editors fighting with industrial groups and political pressure), which saw the creation of alternative editorial boards made up of bloggers and freelance journalists who wanted to remain independent. WikiLeaks showed up and gave even more means to these new types of journalism.
“Traditional communication media are no longer alone, now there's the Internet.” â
El PaÃs
“While journalists often stay behind doors waiting for an official press release, this time they are at the heart of diplomatic and political conversations.” â
Le Monde
The journalism WikiLeaks proposed is called âdata journalism.' This mountain of data represents a rich source for investigative journalists who could now do their jobs the way they should: searching for nuggets of information and expose them to the light of day. For those who claim that WikiLeaks' articles were not great revelations, they were at the very least confirmations. Julian's gift was to know how to shine the spotlight on them,
The past is of no importance.
The present is of no importance.
It is with the future that we have to deal.
â
Oscar Wilde
A MAN AND
H
IS
O
PPOSITE
The facts recounted here are real. This is the information that was told and shared by the different parties involved in the sensitive Swedish affair in which everyone had their own story, points of view and versions of the truth.
Here is one part of the truth. It's one version⦠only one of the many possibilities.
5
It was almost 11 a.m., and the auditorium of LO-borgen building in downtown Stockholm was still filling up. The hall seated forty people and was almost full for Julian Assange's conference. There was so much interest in this seminar that it was broadcast live on the Internet as well. A few people stayed standing, mainly technicians. On the side near the open door, photographers with their cameras were waiting. The camera was on a tripod at the
end of the room and was ready to film; the audience eventually sat down and went quiet.
Julian was invited to Sweden by the Christian wing of the Social Democratic Party, called
Broderskap
in Swedish. The following days, he had various meetings with political organizations and journalists scheduled.