Assange and Ecuador: no monopoly on hypocrisy (WW4Report) [View all]

[struggle4progress]

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Fri, 09/14/2012 - 19:39

... Keane Bhatt of the Manufacturing Contempt blog on the website of the venerable North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) calls out the mainstream media, e.g. The Economist and the Los Angeles Times, for hypocrisy in pointing out that Rafael Correa's Ecuador, where Julian Assange is seeking asylum, has a less than stellar record on press freedom. By contrast, Bhatt notes, no eyebrows were raised when Emilio Palacio, an editor at the Guayaquil daily El Universo who was convicted of libel against Correa in Ecuador, fled to Miami last year—despite the fact that the USA doesn't have a stellar record on press freedom either ...

At issue in the libel case was an editorial Palacio wrote accusing Correa of "crimes against humanity" by ordering his troops to fire on a civilian hospital during the 2010 coup attempt. Bhatt notes the favorable coverage Palacio has received, e.g. on National Public Radio. But he also downplays the nature of the case against him in Ecuador, writing only that he was "sued by Correa." In fact, as Huffington Post and BBC News noted, he was convicted of criminal charges, and faced prison time in his home country, as well as millions of dollars in damages.

Bhatt also says Palacio's claim was made "without a shred of evidence." In fact, the hospital in question was that in which Correa was being held in during the abortive coup, and shots were exchanged when he was rescued by forces loyal to him—although no patients were hit. So, there were certainly no "crimes against humanity," but neither was there "no evidence" for the claim that Correa's forces had fired on a hospital. Bhatt also calls out Palacio's editorial for referring to the democratically elected Correa as a "dictator." He doesn't note that Correa used the same rhetorical abuse, hailing the conviction of Palacio as a blow against Ecuador's "media dictatorship" (NYT, Feb. 27).

Bhatt also links to a commentary in The Guardian which notes that Palacio and three co-defendants from El Universo were finally pardoned by Correa, and accuses human rights groups of "inventing a media crackdown in Ecuador." Sorry, we can't go along with that. Palacio's case is actually the least egregious, but there is indeed a media crackdown underway in Ecuador. And as we (but few others writing in English, alas) have noted, its primary targets have not been bourgeois organs like El Universo, but Ecuador's indigenous and campesino movement that opposes the Correa government over the free hand it has granted the resource extraction industries ...

http://www.ww4report.com/node/11508