Snowden

The United States, according to its propaganda, has been the paradigm of democracy with respect to human rights and liberty. However, in reality, it has a double standard that hides its violations of basic rights, not only from its citizens but also from millions of people and from sovereign countries throughout the world, because the clandestine actions of the CIA or National Security Agency do not know physical or ethical limits.

The ex-CIA technician Edward Snowden confessed that he was responsible for what could be the most important leak of secret documents from the U.S. government. He supplied irrefutable evidence of espionage carried out by the empire and uncovered a more foul sewer than the one opened by WikiLeaks. The Obama administration has seized unconstitutional power that denigrates the personal and familial intimacy and privacy of human beings.

Snowden is one of those men who abandons everything for a higher purpose. If he were arrested, the United States would sentence him to the death penalty or to life in prison. He has asked the Ecuadorean government for asylum. Even just the announcement that Ecuador would review his petition unleashed a plaintive choir of Creole mercenaries* and offensive threats by the United States.

President Correa defended national sovereignty and offered to give the United States $23 million annually for programs focused on human rights education, an offer that will surely be rejected. Nonetheless, the offer is also useful if the same amount of money is invested in the promotion of human and constitutional rights on a national level. Upon learning them, citizens will know how to demand and defend them to end customary power abuses.

* Editor’s note: The phrase “Creole mercenaries” refers to critical voices from the Euro-descendant community in Ecuador.