“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.
