ANCLAS senor associate Sean Burges has an op-ed in today’s The Australian setting out one of the possible reasons behind Ecuador’s decision to grant Julian Assange asylum.
Burges argues that Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa is engaging in a diversionary political tactic. Upsetting the UK and the US carries remarkably little cost for Ecuador, but the noise it makes helps burnish Correa’s credentials as a latter-day David standing up to the imperial Goliaths of the UK and the US. This helps Correa keep his domestic political base happy so that he can continue pursuing the transformative political and economic policies that are being resisted by Ecuador’s media-owning traditional power elite.
