Julian Paul Assange the Australian publisher, writer and internet activist, is awaiting his fate in England where he gave himself up to the police in connection with sexual assault charges issued in Sweden.
The United States and democratic Europe are determined to break his back and shut his mouth forever.
Mr Assange is best known for being the spokesman and editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. The publication of thousands of documents on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have embarrassed and angered US politicians and its allies. The documents also exposed the fact that not all is quiet on the western front.
It all started when Private Bradley Manning managed to defeat the Pentagon security system, using little more than a Lady Gaga CD and a portable computer memory stick.
He apparently sent the information he downloaded to WikiLeaks, which, in turn, shared it with other media around the world including The New York Times. WikiLeaks also published the downloaded cables on its website.
The messages released by WikiLeaks have and will continue to embarrass many politicians. But in my view embarrassment and discomfort are a small price to pay for a healthier democracy.
‘”Information is the currency of democracy,” according to US President Thomas Jefferson, who was the principal author of the declaration of Independence. I would add that information is the lifeblood of democracy.
Transparency and accountability are essential elements of good governance. Witness the secrecy surrounding the power station saga in Malta, which has embarrassed even the most loyal supporters of the Nationalist Party.
In 2008, the Association of Government Accountants commissioned a study by Harris, the famous research and poll group. The findings, published in the same year, concluded ‘’that a lack of government transparency and accountability undermines democracy and gives rise to cynicisms and mistrust’’.
On December 7, before he was remanded in custody (prior to be granted bail), Mr Assange wrote an article The Australian newspaper entitled The Truth Will Always Win.
I am not able to reproduce the whole article. However, I honestly urge readers to go through this brilliant article by Mr Assange. It is a jewel of an article that should terrify those who, like me, value freedom and democracy.
What he wrote should also serve as an eye-opener to us Maltese who today have the misfortune of having a government whose ministers are more willing to hide the truth than to reveal it.
This is what Mr Assange wrote:
‘’I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
‘’These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.’’
He continues:
“Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars and broken stories about corporate corruption...’’
“WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of cables sent by US embassies. Other media outlets, including Britain’s The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
“Yet, it is WikiLeaks, as the co-coordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be ‘taken out’ by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be ‘hunted down like Osama bin Laden’, a Republican Bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a ‘transnational threat’ and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister’s office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.”
Mr Assange concludes his article thus:
“In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said ‘only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government’. The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth’.”