Bolivian President's Jet Rerouted On Suspicions Snowden Could Be On Board; Multi-Country Outrage Ensues
from the we-are-all-Bolivians dept
The Snowden saga continues to deliver surprising twists and turns that may well have important geopolitical knock-on effects. The latest involves the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, whose country is rumored to be willing to offer political asylum to Snowden. Here's what happened, as reported by The Guardian:
Bolivia reacted with fury after a plane carrying the country's president home from Russia was diverted to Vienna amid suspicions that it was carrying the surveillance whistleblower, Edward Snowden.
Both Bolivia and Austria deny that Snowden is on board, but no one has been allowed to check. Since being forced to land in Vienna, Morales has now been given permission by France and Portugal to overfly their territory, but not by Spain, which had also refused. The simultaneous revocation of permission to pass over these countries looks rather suspicious. The Bolivian defense minister, Ruben Saavedra, who was on the flight, has no doubts about who is behind it:
France and Portugal were accused of withdrawing permission for the plane, carrying the president, Evo Morales, from energy talks in Moscow, to pass through their airspace.
"This is a hostile act by the United States State Department which has used various European governments."
The Bolivian Vice-President said they had been "kidnapped by imperialism" in Europe.
That framing has now been taken up by other South American governments, who have expressed their outrage at the insult to Bolivia and hence their region. As The Guardian reports in an update on the Bolivian story:
Argentinian president Cristina Kirchner has tweeted that she has been advised that Peruvian president Ollanta Humala will call a meeting of the Union of South American Nations [UNASUR] to discuss ongoing events.
And -- ironically -- Ecuador has re-entered the story after trying to distance itself from Snowden:
Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, has also railed against what he called an "affront to our America," and called on his fellow South American presidents to "take action".
There is clearly a lot of political grandstanding and opportunism here. But there seems no doubt that this latest development will sour relationships between the US and South American nations, at least for a while. Spain and Portugal also come out of this badly, and are likely to lose influence among their former South American colonies. This latest incident shows once again the impact of Snowden's actions, which continue to cause major ripples throughout the entire diplomatic world.
Posting on Twitter, Correa wrote: "Decisive hours for UNASUR! Either we graduated from the colonies, or we claim our independence, sovereignty and dignity. We are all Bolivia!"
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Filed Under: airspace, argentina, austria, bolivia, ecuador, ed snowden, evo morales, france, portugal, russia, spain, us, us imperialism
Reader Comments
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Re: spineless
The US has the ability -- and has shown the propensity -- to unilaterally exert its will regardless of legality, let alone the opinion of any other actor involved.
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Re:
After all, if the aircraft is currently in Austria - a landlocked country - it can essentially be grounded by other countries.
To my mind, overflight permission for non-military flights should only be denied in carefully controlled circumstances.
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Re:
It appears to be a role they are happy with.
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Imagine...
Bolivia might not be a big or a perfect country, and it might not have a big or a perfect president. But when you start disrespecting sovereignty over intelligence community squabbles you are risking serious escalation.
And you're putting the American people at far more risk than Snowden did, whatever his motives.
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Re: Imagine...
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Re: Re: Imagine...
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The US can act with impunity
The US has an effective lock over the entire Atlantic airspace; no one crosses if the US decides not to allow it, and any aircraft can be forcefully diverted. So of course the EU is shit-scared; the EU gave up its military sovereignty through NATO back in the 1980s.
The safest way for Snowden to get across is inside a fitted-out 40' container buried down at the bottom of a centre stack on a Maersk or CSCL ship. And that would require too many people to remain silent for it to succeed.
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Good God. Not even under Republicans, nor even under President Bush, did the leader of our country ever have the balls to start an international incident with another country.
Has Obama totally flipped the script.?
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Re:
Now I'm no fan of the current administration, but really??
Have you ever heard of Iraq? I think that qualifies as an "international incident". Hell we were going to go it alone there. Bush had his fun and now it's Obama's turn.
American politics offer 2 sides of the same coin. The only difference seems to be foreign policy which is either - A.)Force everyone to be like us(Republican), whether they want to or not, or B.)All talk and no action(Democrat), implying we have no spine. (a current example would be the "red line" that keeps moving in Syria, w/respect to chemical weapons).
Either way, we look weak and childish, like the block bully too dumb to get the nuances of mature communication, so we just beat anyone up that sounds like they are making fun of us.
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Re:
Well, there were those two invasions of other countries.
...
I do get where you're coming from -- This interference with a foreign leader's travel (plus searching the plane, which now apparently has happened) is outrageous and runs counter to all sorts of rules of diplomacy (and likely runs afoul of international conventions).
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A) A guy telling the truth about the US illegal global spying
B) Other countries acting like a douche on behalf of the US
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FTFY
Seriously, Obama's (and the entire U.S. Government's) handling of the leaked documents have done nothing but make things worse. They are obviously lying to the American people and the rest of the world. Any credibility the U.S. Government had is quickly being flushed down the toilet.
Oh and bravo Mr. President for giving the rest of the world a license to spy, not only on the U.S. Government, but U.S. Corporations and citizens as well.
Very well played! /sarcasm
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Last I checked, this world is not the property of the US government. In their obsessive-compulsive quest for vengeance against Snowden, this government is acting rogue, like a big bully. The guy's gone, GET OVER IT ALREADY.
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US Arrogance
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Re: US Arrogance
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Re: Re: US Arrogance
The Obama administration has been fanning the flames of fear and paranoia claiming the US is under "attack". Snowden simply exposed (open secret) that the US itself is "attacking".
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This could be the sequel to Team America
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Obama's "Restoration" of US Stature on the World Stage
Obama asserts to have an open and transparent administration. It would seem that Manning an Snowden are complying with that philosophy.
Also since this is the day before July 4, don't forget that the founding fathers; from the perspective of the British, were considered to be lawbreakers, traitors, and revolutionaries.
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Diplomatic Ethics
By all means sir - would you like fuel with that?
You want to overfly when there is a possibility that you are carrying someone who told the truth and embarrassed the US government?
Sorry, sir, that's more than my job's worth.
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Digging out moles
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[ ...] There is no sign that the president is less than fully committed to an imperial presidency and to surveillance and espionage practices that exceed the Constitution and international law. A Turkish professor put it this way in a conversation with the Financial Times the other day: “He talks like the head of the American Civil Liberties Union, but he acts like Dick Cheney.” [...]
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Snowden
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They can't verify the location of who appears to be the most wanted man in the US. Maybe it is time to seriously look beyond whatever Mr Snowden has and question how the fuck they failed to track a single person who is limited to moving inside an airport. PRISM and all of the other programs are just fluff and cover to keep budgets big and give good soundbite. They failed to keep track of 1 man they knew, how the fuck can they deal with the firehose of information they just had to have to keep us safe?
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