Evo Morales – praag.org

Snowden’s hopes rise on asylum offers

Police outside Sheremetyevo international airport in Moscow

Hopes have risen that Edward Snowden may finally be able to leave Moscow, where he has been stranded in an airport for 14 days, after three Latin American countries offered the fugitive US intelligence leaker asylum.

Bolivia on Saturday became the third country to offer refuge to the former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, with President Evo Morales saying he was willing to take Snowden in “if he asks”.

The offer came not long after Venezuela’s leftist President Nicolas Maduro said he would grant the 30-year-old “humanitarian asylum” and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said his country could offer a safe haven.

The flurry of offers arrived after a series of rejections from many of the 21 countries to which Snowden had applied to last week for refuge.

The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website that has been supporting Snowden’s cause said he had recently applied to six additional countries that it refused to name.

But it was far from clear how exactly Snowden — hidden out of sight of reporters for the past two weeks — could reach another nation from the transit zone of Russia’s sprawling Sheremetyevo international airport.

He has been stripped of his passport by the US authorities and a refugee pass initially believed to have been offered to him by Ecuador has since been declared invalid.

“He has no passport and asylum can only be granted to a specific individual. I have grave doubts that this is now possible,” senior ruling party lawmaker Alexander Romanovich told Moscow Echo radio.

Sheremetyevo only handles commercial flights and Snowden cannot travel past passport control to another airport used by foreign dignitaries.

Even if he got on a commercial flight, the plane carrying him could be grounded — the fate suffered by the jet carrying Morales after several EU states denied it overflight rights over suspicions Snowden was onboard.

Analysts meanwhile said Moscow may be increasingly concerned about getting sucked into a diplomatic spat with Washington that it had never planned for and which it would rather avoid.

— Leftist Latin American leaders offer asylum —

Morales declared however that Bolivia has “no fear” of the United States and its European allies, and that he would be willing “to give asylum to the American, if he asks”.

The offer was echoed by Maduro, who visited Moscow at the start of the week for a gas summit during which he strongly hinted that Venezuela –long a diplomatic irritant for the United States — could welcome the opportunity to help Snowden out.

But he made his intentions absolutely clear in an address at an independence day event in Caracas.

“As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden … to protect this young man from the persecution launched by the most powerful empire in the world,” said Maduro said.

Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega voiced a slightly more toned down message only minutes earlier.

“We are open, respectful of the right to asylum, and it is clear that if circumstances permit it, we would receive Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum here in Nicaragua,” Ortega said at a public event.

So far, only Nicaragua, of the three that have offered asylum, said it had received his formal request; that could mean a petition there is further along in the pipeline than elsewhere.

Ecuador had been seen as the American’s best hope when he arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 after leaking secrets about the extent of the US data surveillance programme to the press.

But the leftist government in Quito has yet to consider his application.

— ‘Russia is not happy he is here’ —

Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to extradite Snowden to the United States while still stressing that he would like to see him gone as soon as possible.

Analysts interpret the mixed message as a sign that Moscow feel like they are being drawn into a fracas with Washington at a time when it would rather avoid additional difficulties to the two sides’ strained ties.

“Russia is not happy that he is here. If it wanted to offer him asylum, this would have been done right away,” said Carnegie Moscow Centre analyst Maria Lipman.

She noted that Putin himself was a former KGB spy who cares deeply about the safety of state secrets.

Alexander Konovalov of the Institute of Strategic Assessments agreed that “there is nothing for us to gain from Snowden”.

Putin has denied ever questioning Snowden about the details of the US spy network and has even suggested that doing so was not worth the effort.

“Snowden’s asylum in Venezuela would be the best option,” said parliament’s foreign affairs committee chairman Alexei Pushkov.

“This country is in a sharp conflict with the United States,” Pushkov tweeted. “It will not get any worse.” – AFP

‘Kidnapped by imperialism’

Bolivia has accused Austria of “kidnapping” its president, Evo Morales.

After a 12-hour interruption during which the president’s plane was stopped and searched by Austrian authorities for US fugitive Edward Snowden, Morales was allowed to fly home. Bolivia’s vice-president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, described Morales as being “kidnapped by imperialism” in Europe. Authorities had suspected Morales was taking Snowden to Latin America.

The unusual treatment of the Bolivian leader touched a sensitive nerve in the region, which has a history of US-backed coups, and presidents rallied in support of Morales.

“Definitively, they’re all crazy,” Argentine President Cristina Fernandez tweeted after a phone call to Morales. Fernandez described Morales as defiant.

” ‘I’m not a thief’,” she quoted him as saying.

Nicaraguan and Cuban officials also decried the incident.

A senior Bolivian diplomat said the Austrians had acted at the bidding of the US, which has been trying to get its hands on Snowden since he revealed details of its secret surveillance programmes.

“We’re talking about the president on an official trip after an official summit being kidnapped,” Bolivia’s ambassador to the UN, Sacha Llorenti Soliz, said.

The plane, which was taking Morales home from an energy conference in Moscow, was stranded at Vienna airport after Portugal and France refused to allow it to fly through their airspace.

The search found that Snowden was not on board.

Bolivia has filed a complaint at the United Nations on Wednesday over what it called the kidnapping of its president.

The country’s ambassador to the UN, Sacha Llorenti, said the enforced rerouting to Austria was an act of aggression and a violation of international law. The US admitted that it had been in contact with other nations over potential flights by Snowden.

“We will demand appropriate explanations from those countries that submitted to North American imperialism and briefly put President Morales in such a helpless situation,” Llorenti told the state radio Patria Nueva. Bolivia’s vice-president, Alvaro García Linera, said Morales was “kidnapped by imperialism”.

South American nations accused the United States of being behind the extraordinary manoeuvring, furious at what they regarded as the humiliation of Morales. In Washington, the state department would not comment on the Morales flight but conceded that it discussed the issue of flights by Snowden with other nations.

“We have been in contact with a range of countries that had a chance of having Snowden land or travel through their country but I am not going to outline what those countries were or when this [contact] happened,” said spokeswoman Jan Psaki.

The diplomatic crisis may have been set off by a remark by Morales during a television interview in Russia, where he had been attending an energy conference. Morales said that he sympathised with Snowden, who is believed to be holed up in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport, and hinted that Bolivia might accept an asylum petition. “If there were a request, of course we would be willing to debate and consider the idea,” Morales told RT Actualidad, the Spanish-language service of the Russian broadcaster RT.

Later that day, soon after Morales was bound for La Paz, Spain, Italy, France and Portugal refused to allow the presidential jet to fly through their airspace over suspicions that Snowden was on board, according to the Bolivian government’s account.

The Bolivian foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, said France and Portugal were the first to cancel air permits. “They say it was due to technical issues, but after getting explanations from some authorities we found that there appeared to be some unfounded suspicions that Mr Snowden was on the plane. We don’t know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of Evo Morales,” Choquehuanca said.

Diverted from their planned route, pilots feared they would not be able to complete their journey. The plane was eventually cleared to land in Vienna, where Morales was forced to spend 13 hours in humiliating limbo while officials worked to resolve the dispute.

It later took off after Austrian officials said Snowden was not on board. But it was unclear whether any officials in Vienna had searched the plane. Austria’s deputy chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, said Morales “agreed to a voluntary inspection”. But the Bolivian defence minister, Ruben Saavedra, later said Morales had refused entry to the inspectors, and that they had only got as far as the door of the aircraft.

In Bolivia, the treatment of the president stirred up patriotic and anti-imperialist sentiment. Several labour and indigenous organisations planned a welcome rally for the president on his arrival in La Paz on Wednesday evening.

The Argentinian president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, attacked the “vestiges of colonialism” in a speech in Buenos Aires. “We believe this constitutes not only the humiliation of a sister nation but of all South America,” she said. An emergency meeting of the Union of South American Nations was expected to be convened on Thursday.

It was widely assumed in South America that Washington was responsible for the presidential plane being refused air permissions. Earlier in the week, the state department said it hoped Snowden would be returned to the US to face charges of espionage and theft after a string of other countries said they would not accept his applications for asylum.

Speaking before the developments in Vienna, the state department rejected claims made by Snowden on Monday that the US had bullied other potential hosts, such as Ecuador, into withdrawing their offer of asylum. The US says it has only impressed upon possible host countries the seriousness of the crimes with which Snowden had been charged. – Reuters/The Guardian

Bolivian leader’s plane ‘skyjacked’ on Snowden fear

The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to land in Austria after various European countries refused to let it cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board, Bolivian officials said Tuesday.

Officials in both Austria and Bolivia said that Snowden was not on the plane, which was taking Morales home from a summit in Russia, where he had suggested that his government would be willing to consider granting asylum to the American.

A furious Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said France and Portugal would have to explain why they canceled authorization for the plane, claiming that the decision had put the president’s life at risk.

“We don’t know who invented this lie” that Snowden was traveling with Morales, Choquehuanca said in La Paz. “We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales.”

In a midnight press conference, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia said that not only France and Portugal, but also Italy and Spain were denying the plane permission to fly through their airspace.

He described Morales as being “kidnapped by imperialism” in Europe.

“The ambassador for Spain in Austria has just informed us that there is no authorization to fly over Spanish territory and that at 9 a.m. Wednesday they would be in contact with us again,” said Defense Minister Ruben Saavedra, adding that the Spanish government had put as a condition for passage the “revision of the presidential plane.”

Earlier, Choquehuanca said that Spain’s government allowed Morales’ plane to refuel in its territory before flying on to Vienna.

French government officials reached overnight said they could not confirm whether Morales’ plane was denied permission to fly over France. Officials at Portugal’s Foreign Ministry and National Civil Aviation Authority could not be reached to comment.

Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg told The Associated Press that Snowden was not with Morales.

Leaks by Snowden, a former NSA systems analyst, have revealed the NSA’s sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic, though U.S. intelligence officials have said the programs are aimed at targeting foreigners and terrorist suspects mostly overseas.

He is believed to be in a Moscow airport transit area, seeking asylum from one of more than a dozen countries.

While Bolivia’s foreign minister had earlier said officials did not know who was behind the “lie” that Snowden was on Morales’ plane, the country’s defense minister later expressed no doubt.

“We want to declare very firmly that it was an American story that Edward Snowden was on this flight,” said Saavedra at the VIP terminal of Vienna’s airport. “This is a plot by the U.S. government to destroy president Morales’ image. We say this simply is a lie. And we will confirm this.”

Morales himself was present during the improvised press conference but chose not to speak to reporters. Morales will remain at the airport until his plane has been cleared for takeoff.

In Washington, the State Department would not comment directly when asked to speak to the matter and referred the AP to statements on Snowden made at the department’s daily briefing. Earlier Tuesday, department spokesman Patrick Ventrell would not discuss how the Obama administration might respond if Snowden left the Moscow airport. “We’re not there yet,” he said.

Snowden has applied for asylum in Venezuela, Bolivia and 18 other countries, according to WikiLeaks, a secret spilling website that has been advising him. Many European countries on the list — including Austria, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland — said he would have to make his request on their soil.

One of Snowden’s best chances of finding refuge outside the United States may hinge on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was also in Russia on Tuesday.

Maduro told Russian reporters that his country has not received an application for asylum from Snowden and dodged the question of whether he would take him with him when he left.

But Maduro also defended the former National Security Agency systems analyst.

“Who must protect Snowden? This is the question. This young man of 29 was brave enough to say that we need to protect the world from the American imperial elite, so who should protect him?” Maduro said in response to a question from journalists covering a ceremony to rename a Moscow street after Chavez. “All of mankind, people all over the world must protect him.”

Maduro was scheduled to spend Wednesday in neighboring Belarus before returning to Venezuela.

In Venezuela, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said that changing the flight’s route without checking on how much fuel it had endangered Morales’ life.

“All the countries that have denied permission for the flight of our brother president, Evo Morales, must be held responsible for his life and his dignity as president.”

Another possible landing spot for Snowden is Ecuador, where Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange has been seeking asylum.

“We are willing to analyze Mr. Snowden’s request for asylum and this position has not changed,” said Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on Tuesday. “What we have said is that we will be able to analyze the request when Mr. Snowden is in Ecuadorean territory or in an Ecuadorean mission.”

Patino added that two weeks ago a hidden microphone was found in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where Assange is holed up. “We want to find out with precision what the origin of the apparatus is.”

Snowden, who recently turned 30, withdrew a bid for asylum in Russia when he learned the terms Moscow had set out, according to Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Putin said on Monday that Russia was ready to shelter Snowden as long as he stopped leaking U.S. secrets.

At the same time, Putin said he had no plans to turn over Snowden to the United States.

Rebuffed by Russia’s president, the Obama administration has recently toned down demands Snowden be expelled from the Moscow airport in a sign that the U.S. believes he is not worth scuttling diplomatic relations between the former Cold War enemies.

On Monday, WikiLeaks posted a statement attributed to Snowden on its website, in which he slams Obama for “using citizenship as a weapon.”

“Although I am convicted of nothing, (the United States) has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person,” Snowden says in the statement. “Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

“Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.” – AP