Tariq Ali: Why Ecuador supports Wikileaks and Assange's rights

August 20, 2012 – GreenLeftTV/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – "Why is it that an Australian, facing prosecution from a European country, decides to appeal for asylum to a South American republic?" Tariq Ali asked and eloquently answered this important question when he spoke outside the embassy of Ecuador in London on August 19, 2012. Ali spoke just before Wikileaks founder Julian Assange addressed the press and supporters from the balcony of the embassy, where he has been granted political asylum by the progressive government of Ecuador.

Ali explained that the support for Wikileaks from Ecuador and other Latin American countries is due to the Bolivarian revolution – a mass movement of the oppressed majority – that is sweeping the continent. He pointed out this started in Venezuela, when the poor rose up and said "no" to the IMF. It then spread to Bolivia and Ecuador and beyond. The Bolivarian movement has won elections and defeated coups. Ali notes that these movements are moving in the opposite direction to the West, challenging corporate interests, reversing privatisation. This is why it is Ecuador that has come to Assange's aid.

Images of the Bolivarian revolution by Peter Boyle.