QUITO, (Reuters) – Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa today cast the Andean country’s tensions with Britain over asylum for WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange as a menace to Latin America, warning the UK that it should think twice before trampling on the region’s sovereignty.
Incensed by London’s threat to break into the Ecuadorean embassy where the former hacker is taking refuge, Correa’s government has accused Britain of “colonial” bullying and has formally granted the Australian asylum.
Britain says it will not allow the anti-secrecy campaigner from Australia to travel to South America because it is obliged to extradite him to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations.
“They’re out of touch. Who do they think they’re dealing with? Can’t they see that this is a dignified and sovereign government which will not kneel down before anyone?” Correa said in his weekly address on Saturday.
“What a mentality, eh? They have not realized that Latin America is free and sovereign and that we’ll not put up with meddling, colonialism of any kind, at least in this country, small, but with a big heart.”
Correa spoke as Ecuador was hosting a weekend gathering of foreign ministers from the ALBA group of leftist-led Latin American nations, and from the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
ALBA, which includes the governments of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Raul Castro in Cuba, issued a strong statement in Caracas this week.
“We warn the United Kingdom … about the grave consequences that carrying out their threats will have in relations with our countries,” it said.
“INVIOLABILITY OF EMBASSIES”
Support for Ecuador appears to be growing in the region.
“Britain … is wrong. The threat is not only an aggression to Ecuador, it’s against Bolivia, it’s against South America, against the whole of Latin America,” Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Friday.
Ecuadorean state media said other nations including Colombia and Argentina were backing Correa’s position.
On Friday representatives of the hemispheric Organization of American States (OAS) called for a foreign ministers’ meeting next week over the Assange affair.
Canada and the United States voted against holding the meeting.
“The central issue is not the right of asylum, it is the inviolability of embassies,” OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said after the vote.
