Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/geisteswissenschaften/kriegsvideo-collateral-murder-eine-bittere-lektion-11871106.html

“Shortnews: Libyen: 100 tote Zivilisten durch Alliierte Luftschläge” (Nachrichtenschlagzeile)

“Die zehn Jungen aus der Provinz Kunar im Osten Afghanistans sammelten gerade Feuerholz, als US-Kampfhubschrauber das Feuer auf sie eröffneten. Die Soldaten hielten die Kinder im Alter von neun bis 15 Jahren für Taliban. Neun der Jungen starben bei dem Angriff aus der Luft, nur einer überlebte.” Frankfurter Rundschau, April 2011

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2011/06/01/zivilistentotung-in-afghanistan-und-libyen-brasiliens-medien-stellen-das-problem-erstmals-auf-gleiche-stufe-zitieren-regierungen-beider-staaten/

THE ASSANGE CASE

Frei Betto*

The world was taken by surprise in 2010 by the publication of a number of compromising documents showing that many governments and authorities say one thing and do another. The mask had fallen. Everyone saw that the king was naked.

The WikiLeaks website monitored by Australian Julian Assange published secret documents which caused shame to governments and authorities who had no arguments to justify such abuse and immorality.

Machiavelli had already said, in the 16th century, that politics have at least two faces. One exposed to the public eye and one which moves behind the scenes of power.

Bush and Obama admitted torture in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in the naval base of Guantanamo while they accused Cuba, in the UN’s Human Rights Commission in Geneva, of mistreating prisoners…

WikiLeaks invented nothing. They merely used reliable sources in order to gather confidential information which were usually embarrassing for governments and authorities and disseminating them. Thus the site fulfilled an important pedagogical role. Today authorities must think twice before saying or doing things which will prove embarrassing if they fall in the public domain.

In spite of delicate situations, the cynicism of governments seems incurable. Instead of admitting their mistakes and behind the scenes intrigues they prefer to act like the fox in Aesop’s fables, written by La Fontaine. Since the grapes cannot be reached, it can allege that they are green…

Julian Assange is accused – not of lying or divulging false documents – but of  raping prostitutes in Sweden.

Now, with all due respect to the oldest profession in the world, we all know that prostitutes offer themselves to whoever pays them. For money – or the threat of extradition when they are foreigners – some can be induced to make untrue declarations, such as the strange accusation of rape.

Very strange, considering that relations with prostitutes often appear as consensual rape. The client pays for the right to use and abuse a body which is denied reciprocity, with no affection or libido. Hence the sense of fraud which affects him when he leaves the brothel. He loses his semen, his money…  and he does not find what he was seeking – love.

In fact governments and authorities denounced by WikiLeaks are the ones who raped ethics, decency, another’s sovereignty, international agreements and laws. Assange and his site were merely the vehicle capable of making the world aware of documents containing rigorously secretly kept information.

Those who deserve to be punished are they who, in the shadow of power, conspire against human rights and international legislation. They should at least indulge in public self criticism, admit their abuse of power and violation of golden principles, as occurred in the case of Brazilian ministers who allowed the US ambassador in Brasilia to manipulate them.

Assange is exiled in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Rafael Correa’s government has already conceded him the right to exile in that country. However the British government, from the height of its majestic authoritarianism, threatens to arrest him if he leaves the embassy en route to the airport, to board a flight to Quito.

Neither the Brazilian dictatorship nor Operation Condor did this much concerning hundreds of persecuted refugees in Southern Cone country embassies. This is why the OAS (Organisation of American States) has indignantly called a meeting of its associates to deal with the Assange case. He is afraid he will be arrested on leaving the embassy and handed over to the Swedish government who in turn would hand him over to the USA where he is accused of espionage, a crime punishable even by death under US law.

Assange does not refuse to appear before Swedish justice and respond to the rape accusation. He is only afraid of being the victim of a diplomatic trap and ending up in the hands of the government most discredited by WikiLeaks – who occupies the White House.

The Assange case has already given invaluable service to global morality: it has shown that there are no sacred secrets under the sun. As it says in the Gospel of Luke (12:2-3) “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops”.

*Frei Betto is a writer, author of “A obra do Artista – uma visão holística do Universo” (The Work of the Artist – a holistic vision of the Universe) (José Olympio). www.freibetto.org <http://www.freibetto.org/> twitter: @freibetto.

ABOUT FREI BETTO

He is a Brazilian Dominican with an international reputation as a liberation theologian.

Within Brazil he is equally famous as a writer, with over 52 books to his name.  In 1985 he won Brazil’s most important literary prize, the Jabuti, and was elected Intellectual of the Year by the members of the Brazilian Writers’ Union.

Frei Betto has always been active in Brazilian social movements, and has been an adviser to the Church’s ministry to workers in São Paulo’s industrial belt, to the Church base communities, and to the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST).