I supposed I knew that hosting Julian Assange in their London embassy was costing Ecuador a fortune but it’s still interesting to get some insight into the price tag and some of the itemized costs. It’s really hard to see how the government in Quito can justify the expense.
Over more than five years, Ecuador put at least $5m (£3.7m) into a secret intelligence budget that protected the WikiLeaks founder while he had visits from Nigel Farage, members of European nationalist groups and individuals linked to the Kremlin…
…Documents show the intelligence programme, called “Operation Guest”, which later became known as “Operation Hotel” – coupled with parallel covert actions – ran up an average cost of at least $66,000 a month for security, intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence to “protect” one of the world’s most high-profile fugitives.
An investigation by the Guardian and Focus Ecuador reveals the operation had the approval of the then Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, and the then foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, according to sources.
Correa has defended the decision to give Assange political asylum and described the UK’s behaviour towards Ecuador as “intolerable”. Neither he nor the Ecuadorian government had any immediate comment.
From June 2012 to the end of August 2013, Operation Hotel cost Ecuador $972,889, according to documents belonging to the country’s intelligence agency, known as Senain.
An additional cost came from media consultancy contracts that ran about $180,000 per annum. Meanwhile, Assange decided to spy on his hosts.
But the documents showed the way in which the relationship between Assange and his hosts deteriorated over time.
In an extraordinary breach of diplomatic protocol, Assange hacked into the communications system within the embassy and had his own satellite internet access, according to a source who wished to remain anonymous. By penetrating the embassy’s firewall, Assange was able to access and intercept the official and personal communications of staff, the source claimed.
In 2014, the company hired to film Assange’s visitors was warning the Ecuadorian government that he was “intercepting and gathering information from the embassy and the people who worked there”.
I don’t see how hosting Assange has benefited Ecuador, but I suppose they feel honor bound to keep their commitment in perpetuity. If anything could change that, it’s probably leaks like the ones reported here by the Guardian. If the people of Ecuador grow impatient enough with the situation, perhaps the politicians will ask Assange to leave.
Assange is a menace to society. I feel sorry for Ecuadorean citizens forced to fund this high-priced rapist. For what purpose? He’s loser, who actively sought to have a negative impact on our election system and possibly is still doing so.
The cost, alone, is staggering to house this criminal. I don’t see why or how this makes sense for Ecuador.
I just returned from a trip to Australia. No one I met down there has anything good to say about him. Assange lost whatever good will he had a long time ago by his antics.
Face the music, Assange. Be a mensch.
How has it benefited Ecuador? That’s easy. (From Wikipedia) “The Presidency of Rafael Correa in the early 21st century saw a radical change in the country’s foreign policy. Traditional ties with the United States grew more acrimonious and there were increased ties with the governments of Russia and Iran.”
They were doing it to get brownie points with Russia. Russia may actually have reimbursed them for the expenses, for all we know.
Ecuador got SERIOUSLY screwed over by the US and the IMF.
They were required by the IMF to use American currency, minted in the US, instead of their own currency.
The president who engineered this? Jamil Mahuad, oddly enough an American citizen. By the time Educaorians realized what he was doing, he ran back to the US.
He is currently at Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education … and has a warrant out for his arrest by Interpol.
Why put up with Assange? He’s cheaper than the currency they are forced to buy and it pisses off the US.
Personally, I don’t blame them.
Whoa. Didn’t know any of that. Though Mahuad must’ve been a Ecuadorian citizen too, I mean, being president and all.
He was. He, the minister of Finance and the bankers got away with what is estimated 65 BILLION US.
Can you say more about this? the only knowledge I have is the country had serious inflation problem and adopted the dollar to stabilize its currency. In effect they use the US federal reserve to clear all their accounts. No reserve no payment. so if forces them to adhere to some system. So far, I’m not sure what is wrong??
I don’t really know that much. What I got was from multiple conversations (street, academic, police) while I was in Quito.
The process of using the US Mint is quite expensive. The coins forced upon them cost about 50% more than the face value. Most, if not all, of the folding currency comes from American tourists. You can’t use the Ecuadorian coins in the US.
Its a racket brought to you by the friendly folks of Harvard.
At the risk of contradicting a taxi driver you might run into in Ecuador …there are many reasons a country might not use their own currency, and might prefer the stability of the dollar. Of course, just like using national currency, there are pros AND cons. It’s not rare.
here
here
here
here
here
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yeah, I’d hate to contradict the taxi driver. I’d hate even more to contradict the professor of economics I spoke with for 2 hours
There are many reasons a country would want to use American currency. In the case of Ecuador, it was because the bankers, Finance minister and president stole all the cash.
I just saw on Wikipedia there are 9 countries and 3 territories officially using the dollar and 36 other countries unofficial using it (whatever the hell that means). It has to mean corruption. You know the local Fat Donnie prints all the money he can until the economy implodes. The risk to us is counterfeit since the local Fat Man may still try to print it. I would guess the official users are more trustworthy, but who knows. Maybe this is why we still have so many gold bugs who want to,use gold to back the currency. Meanwhile all those people in the banana republics get screwed. There was a segment on John Oliver touching on this in Venezuela. People are literally starving there but their local Fat Donnie is living high on the hog. This would be one reason we might intervene – to,protect the currency.
What I noticed is how many have chosen the euro.
Wikipedia
It’s not necessarily corruption. One of the previous links discusses that in Ecuador’s case, they received millions and millions in remittances from people living in the US…all in dollars. When people exchanged the dollars for the national currency, that inflated the value of that currency, creating a trade disadvantage. Small economy + large amounts of dollars = instability. Plus the people exchanging dollars get screwed, because the national currency won’t buy as much as the dollars would.
Just one of many reasons.
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Yes it sounds like that can happen. But then lots of people sent dollars to Cuba for many years and never messed up the currency. May depend on how the gov handles it. It is prolly true that if you let two currencies run around, one of them will become the cheap one.
Wonder what the Ecuadorian Embassy cuisine is like. Probably delicious. What a strange existence.
What a dick.
Somewhere I saw a letter from Pamela Anderson to Kanye West asking him to support Assange. It said the embassy cut off Assange’s visitors and internet access because he was rabble rousing Catalonian succession.
So I bet Assange is eager to find a new sanctuary, but I hope the Ecuadorians keep him. I sure don’t want him at large.
I never trusted Wikileaks. I always thought it was a power play by an anarchist criminal. The fact that Assange is in contact with Junior and (ugh) Hannity only makes him more of a criminal. Reaching out to Kanye was another of Assange’s opportunistic attempts to get his fangs deep into Trump. (And an exceptionally lame one.)
I really worry about election security. We’ve fallen behind in so many areas. I’m sure hackers know which states are most vulnerable (or amenable) to hacking. I’m also sure the electorate is as vulnerable to propaganda as it was in 2016. Assange is a clearing house for dark forces. He’d love to screw us. Trump won’t stop him: he’ll welcome all the interference he can get. If he stays in office, 2020 will be the dirtiest election in history. We’ll need UN observers to oversee the election… like every other banana republic.
The need continues to escalate in correlation with the anti-democratic Banana Republican Party’s (BRP!) ratfucking, gerrymandering, and voter suppression campaigns and the foreign election interference they welcome with open arms.