The US imperialists must not control our sources of information!

Vanguard February 2011 p. 3

HANDS OFF ASSANGE!

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have performed a huge service to the people of the world by providing a platform for the publication of information that our rulers want kept from us.

Information released to date substantiates US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the existence of death squads and corruption in Kenya, of crony capitalism and speculative manipulation behind the financial collapse of Iceland and of unethical behaviour on the part of Sarah Palin.

Closer to home, Kevin Rudd has been outed as a cheerleader for the use of force by the US against China. In his March 24, 2009 advice to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the then Prime Minister called for a readiness to “deploy force” unless China “integrated itself effectively into the international community”. This is tantamount to declaring that China’s diplomatic pursuit of its own national interests, particularly if they challenge US global leadership, is the action of a rogue state that must be dealt with militarily.

Agents of imperialism

Wikileaks has revealed the existence of senior Labor politicians who report to the US embassy on matters that they are not even prepared to share with the Australian public. It is a master-servant relationship that stinks to high Heaven.
Julia Gillard’s condemnation of Assange represents the sacrificing of yet another Australian civilian to the interests of the US imperialists.

Shooting the messenger

Calls for Assange’s assassination by US Senators and media shock jocks show the latent fascism that resides in the belly of the beast.

Attempts are made to first discredit and then to destroy Assange. US imperialism cannot allow him to be a popular martyr. So allegations of rape are brought against him by two women who are closely connected through their work for anti-Cuban organizations in Sweden. The allegations are really of minor sexual misconduct but the smear is to label Assange a “rapist” in order to dissipate support for him.

The key issue is not Assange’s personal behavior but his challenge to US imperialism’s control of information about the actions of governments and corporations and how they control, bully, subvert, intimidate, murder and lie.

The imperialists even use parts of the hundreds of thousands of leaked documents to suit their own purposes. They know that no-one has the time to read through all of the documents on Wikileaks. So sections of the media select leaks that can be redacted (information deleted) or refashioned so as to suit US strategies for demonizing North Korea, for destabilizing Pakistan, for isolating and attacking Iran.

In turn, we must ensure that the campaign against Wikileaks in the U.S., using the 1917 Espionage Act, will not be utilized as a means to wage a campaign to control the internet. In this regard, we should also stand firm in preventing the prosecution of Julian Assange in the US.

Lessons for Australia

We should also note the fragility of human rights and liberties in Australia which have seen Assange in court here once before, and which had led him to seek asylum in Sweden.

Human rights in Australia are poorly defined and not well protected. There is no national Bill of Rights and international conventions and treaties on human rights to which Australia is a signatory are not enforceable under Australian law.

Real human rights

The CPA (M-L) submits that real and enforceable human rights for the majority of Australians will only become operative with the winning of genuine national independence from imperialism, and the ending of the capitalist system with its right to rule vested in the handful of the rich and powerful and protected by bourgeois law.

Nevertheless, the CPA (M-L) values the pursuit of human rights under the existing conditions of Australia’s economic and political system and supports the better definition and protection of those rights as being consistent with the immediate interests of the majority of the population.The CPA (M-L) supports a referendum on the creation of a new republican Constitution, to include a Bill of Rights, in which the right to know is enshrined.

Hands off Assange!
Defend the right to know!
No to imperialist control of information!