The Edward Snowden Affair (21 page)

Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, was reported as being “deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of U.S. authorities spying on EU offices” and made the statement, “On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations.”
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France even chimed in. The country’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, responded, “These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable.”
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Germany’s minister of justice became livid once more. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger labeled America’s actions as “utterly inappropriate.”
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Steffen Seibert proclaimed, “The monitoring of friends … this is unacceptable. It can’t be tolerated. We’re no longer in the Cold War.” During a press conference the day after Poitras’ article premiered, Obama rebutted by snidely telling reporters, “If I want to know what Chancellor Merkel is thinking, I will call Chancellor Merkel. If I want to know what President Hollande is thinking on a particular issue, I’ll call President Hollande. If I want to know what David Cameron is thinking, I call David Cameron. Ultimately, we work so closely together, that there’s almost no information that’s not shared between our various countries.”
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Yet some critics speculated that Germany knew about and was complicit in the domestic spying.
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Snowden’s first public statement since his arrival in Russia came on July 1.
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Posted on WikiLeaks,
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Snowden outlines Washington’s hypocrisy by juxtaposing Obama’s declaration that he would not “wheel and deal” to get the intelligence leaker back with his subsequent “order” for Biden to pressure Ecuador to reject Snowden’s asylum petition. He continues to comment on his abandoned nation’s political duplicity: “Although I am convicted of nothing, it [the United States] has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. 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.” It is clear Snowden does not consider the charge of theft to be legitimate, because he acknowledges and refers to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 14 of UDHR has two clauses: “(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
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Snowden closes by announcing he is “unbowed” in his convictions.

The courageous indictment arrived at a time when Washington was becoming very concerned about two of the three most viable future homes for Snowden. The presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia were alongside Putin during the two-day Gas Exporting Countries Summit. As it had done several times before, the U.S. government was on the verge of stacking the deck against itself when Snowden was concerned. A world divided was about to make one Latin American country’s asylum decision very easy.

Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, was preparing to leave the energy conference when he told Russia’s Interfax news agency, “We [the people of Venezuela] think this young person has done something very important for humanity, has done a favour to humanity, has spoken great truths to deconstruct a world that is controlled by an imperialist American elite.” When asked if he intended to take Snowden back to Venezuela with him, Maduro sardonically responded, “What we’re taking with us are multiple agreements that we’re signing with Russia, including oil and gas.”
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Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, informed
Actualidad
, the Spanish-language provider for the Russia Today news network, “If there were a request, of course we would be willing to debate and consider the idea.”
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Morales had also recently congratulated Correa for threatening to back out of the ATPDEA.
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Neither world leader had been informed that their country had already received Snowden’s asylum request.

Late Tuesday, Bolivian Air Force flight FAB-001 left Moscow with Morales onboard en route to Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. As it passed over Austria, Portugal informed Morales’ flight crew that the aircraft’s reservation to refuel in Lisbon had been cancelled for “technical reasons.” As the Dassault Falcon 900EX
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changed flight paths and rerouted to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, French authorities reported it could not permit FAB-001 to fly over due to “technical issues.”
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Morales had no choice but to make a circle and land in Vienna. Once in Austria’s capital, the aircraft was subjected to a “routine” inspection by Austrian authorities, and all of its passengers’ passports were verified. Twelve hours later,
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Morales departed. FAB-001 was now cleared to refuel in the Canary Islands on the condition its passengers consent to another inspection, this time by Spain.

Austria later claimed it had merely responded to FAB-001’s request to refuel. Audio records confirm that the flight crew had cited a possible fuel indicator problem. Purportedly, they were unsure how much fuel they had. Even if this were the case, they could have easily made it to Lisbon: Assuming it had not been refueled during the two-day layover in Moscow and granting the greatest benefit of the doubt in respect to distance, the FAB-001 would have been forced to refuel in Lisbon after crossing 5,382 Atlantic miles. During the return voyage to Bolivia, it would have been scheduled to stop in Vienna and not Lisbon because the Dassault Falcon 900EX has a flight range of only 4,598 miles.
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The aircraft wouldn’t have had the fuel to make the 4,850-mile round trip to Portugal from Moscow. Vienna and Lisbon are 1,037 and 2,425 miles from Moscow respectively. It is clear the FAB-001 had been refueled in Moscow and could have easily made it to Lisbon.

The problem Morales encountered was that he had attempted to cross allied airspace. After expressing support for Correa and suggesting Bolivia might harbor Snowden, Washington wanted to intimidate Morales as well as confirm that the American exile, which had not been seen in days, was not being flown out of Russia. After Morales was forced to land, the U.S. ambassador to Austria, William Eacho, made several calls from his embassy to various officials. He “claimed with great certainty that Edward Snowden was onboard” while referencing a “diplomatic note requesting Snowden’s extradition.”
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After first denying Morales had been forbidden passage, Spain’s minister of foreign affairs, José Manuel García-Margallo, conceded on national television, “They told us that the information was clear, that he [Snowden] was inside [the airplane].” He did not specify who “they” were and declined to comment whether he’d been contacted by American authorities, yet he added that other European countries’ similar responses were based on the same information he’d been issued.
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When later questioned, France’s president, Francois Hollande, apologetically stated there had been “conflicting information” about the airplane’s flight manifest.
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The U.S. government declined to comment, saying the matter should be redirected to the countries involved.
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Morales arrived in La Paz close to midnight on Wednesday, July 3.
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He was met by cheering crowds. An emergency meeting was quickly organized, and a portion of the Union of South American Nations (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas or “UNASUR”) assembled the following day. As protesters burned France’s flag in front of Bolivia’s French Embassy
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and international headlines quoted Bolivian vice president Alvaro Garcia’s assertion that Morales had been “kidnapped by imperialism,”
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the presidents of Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Suriname and Bolivia met in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to discuss the issue. Since it had already refused to acknowledge Snowden’s asylum petition, Brazil felt it only needed to be represented by an advisor. Due to their strong ties to the U.S., Colombia, Peru and Chile were not in attendance. Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, tried to remain politically neutral. He tweeted, “We’re in solidarity with Evo Morales because what they did to him is unheard-of, but let’s not let this turn into a diplomatic crisis for Latin America and the EU.”
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Maduro informed the UNASUR congregation that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had contacted his government officials, attempting to pressure them not to accept Snowden’s asylum request.
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It could be argued the U.S. knew Snowden wasn’t on the flight but had deliberately commandeered Morales’ airplane to set an example for any nation that might want to host him. It proved Snowden’s arrival in a receptive country would be arduous, if not impossible. But this is unlikely. To merely make the point in the wake of any present asylum offers atop creating international ill will while asking favors of already hostile EU members would be politically expensive. France had recently suggested the free-trade talks between America and the European Union should be postponed.
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The most likely explanation for Washington’s actions was it merely acted before thinking. What it accomplished was inflaming already-strained relations with South America and gave various Latin American nations a reason to collectively discuss Snowden.

The impact of the Morales incident was twofold. It solidified the Latin American coalition whose members already viewed the U.S. and its allies as antagonistic to their countries’ political philosophies and practices. “We are not colonies anymore,” announced José Mujica, president of Uruguay. “We deserve respect,” he continued, “and when one of our governments is insulted we feel the insult throughout Latin America.”
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In a speech in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner declared, “[These actions are] vestiges of a colonialism that we thought were long over. We believe this constitutes not only the humiliation of a sister nation but of all South America.”
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Morales had told the UNASUR summit members, “My only sin is that I’m indigenous and anti-imperialist, [that I question] those economic policies planned and implemented by politicians that just starve us to death.”
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The other consequence was that economic sanctions against the offending nations might ensue. In response to the Spanish ambassador to Austria first requesting to inspect FAB-001 when it was grounded in Vienna before telling Morales he could refuel in the Canary Islands only if he consented to another search, Maduro proclaimed, “We’re going to re-evaluate our relations with Spain.”
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Morales left the impromptu conference stating, “My hand would not tremble to close the US Embassy. We have dignity, sovereignty. Without America, we are better off politically and democratically.”
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Morales was so outraged that he refused to accept an apology from France’s foreign minister, who professed there was “never any intention to block the access to our air space.” Bolivia’s leader shot back, “What happened these days is not an accident but part of policies to continue intimidating the Bolivian people and Latin American people.”
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Upon arriving in Cochabamba for the UNASUR meeting, Maduro said, “We’re here to tell president Evo Morales that he can count on us. Whoever picks a fight with Bolivia, picks a fight with Venezuela.”
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It was little surprise that the next day, July 5, Venezuela granted Snowden asylum. Nicaragua did as well. Maduro implied his country’s decision was based in part on the Morales plane incident: “I, as head of state of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, offer humanitarian asylum to the young American, Edward Joseph Snowden, the ex-functionary of the CIA, so that he can come to live in the country of [Venezuela’s founder Simon] Bolivar and [late President Hugo] Chavez and [escape] U.S. imperial persecution.”
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Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega quietly justified his nation’s motives: “We are an open country, respectful of the right of asylum, and it’s clear that if circumstances permit, we would gladly receive Snowden and give him asylum in Nicaragua.” Both countries had already received and rejected extradition requests from the U.S.
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The Central American country’s entry onto the international stage was largely symbolic. Pundits doubted the sincerity of Ortega’s offer. They suspected he was using the opportunity to appeal to regional heads of state.
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Even though it was not delivered in person, Snowden’s application had been accepted at Nicaragua’s foreign ministry in Moscow.
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As expected, the next day Morales announced Bolivia was “willing to give asylum” to Snowden.
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Unlike Maduro, Morales explicitly affirmed Bolivia’s offer was due to the European debacle. He stated the offer was a “justified protest” in response to what had taken place.
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Until now the United States had appeared justified in its persecution and hunt for Snowden because a large number of nations had rejected him in less than a day, and a majority had done so in under a week. But when not one but three countries suddenly consented to host the American exile, it insinuated that Snowden’s actions could be legitimate, especially since the offers came from smaller, less powerful nations which many believed would be made to suffer for their decision. Publicly the White House characteristically downplayed the countries’ defiance. When asked for an official response to the first nation that made an asylum offer, an unnamed U.S. official stated, “You’d have to ask the Venezuelans what it means, as it is their offer.”
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In actuality, Washington could say little to Venezuela. Even though Kerry called Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua mere hours after Maduro made his announcement,
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declaring that if Snowden should arrive in the South American country, the U.S. would close NATO airspace and cease oil deliveries, Venezuela’s officials knew he was bluffing. The global economy could not survive without the resources provided by the world’s largest oil exporter.
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As expected, Capitol Hill let the ATPDEA expire,
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but as a sign of protest, Bolivia had resigned from the treaty four days prior.
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The U.S. government didn’t take Nicaragua’s offer seriously: For Snowden to arrive in the country, he would first have to travel through Venezuela.
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