From Al-Ahram Weekly

Gamal Nkrumah explores how the curious case of Edward Snowden and his Bolivian benefactor Evo Morales got personal in Europe.

Russia demurs as its star rises. Latin America and the Caribbean, on the other hand, are confident and far from prudish, bold and unabashed. Moscow’s dramatic rise to prominence in the past two years has been all too apparent in the international arena, and especially in the case of Syria. Russia less reticent now when it comes to facing the West in issues such as providing political asylum to the likes of United States National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

The former American intelligence service employee has been desperately trying to secure asylum to avoid prosecution in the United States. Washington asked Moscow to hand him over and Moscow politely declined. Snowden was in limbo. He was stranded at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. The US government revoked Snowden’s passport, complicating the international fugitive’s flight. Bolivian President Evo Morales came to the rescue.

Amid a climate of suspicion, Morales himself became the focus of an international diplomatic debacle. The Bolivian president’s pledge to give Snowden sanctuary set off alarm bells in Western capitals. Latin American leaders in unison used the same brush to tar the image of Western powers.

If Russia is flexing its muscles, the West is loosening its grip on what used to be derogatorily dismissed as America’s backyard. Leaders from across Latin America and the Caribbean railed against the preposterous decision of several European governments to deny entry into their airspace of the presidential jet of President Morales over concerns that Snowden might have been on board.

On Tuesday, Morales was preparing to leave Russia after an energy summit when he told reporters that he would support Snowden’s asylum application. France, Portugal and Spain [the Spanish mainland] all denied permission for the Bolivian presidential plane to land.

Russia appears to be intent on scrapping the rules of yesteryear. The incident caused a diplomatic furore with most Latin American leaders issuing strong condemnations of the action taken by European nations. The Morales presidential jet was eventually routed to Vienna, Austria. Bolivia declared that the unscheduled stop amounted to kidnapping the leftist South American leader.

The outbursts of Latin American leaders seemed to catch Russia by surprise. Snowden applied for political asylum to several Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Where he ends up eventually is not particularly important. What is noteworthy as far as the Snowden affair is concerned is that Latin American countries are eager to provide safe haven to one of Washington’s most wanted men.

The Snowden incident is not the first time in the past few years that a wanted fugitive was given asylum and protection by a South American nation. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa gave refuge to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in August 2012.

“We are with Evo and the outraged Bolivian people. Our America cannot tolerate this abuse! As it goes with Bolivia, so it goes with us all,” Correa tweeted after learning of the Bolivian president’s ill treatment in Europe.

A deluge of denouncements of the audacity of European governments by Latin American leaders followed. “They must be out of their minds. This is a head of state and his plane has total immunity. This level of impunity cannot be,” Argentinian President Christina Fernández de Kirchner was reported to have tweeted

Nicaragua’s Sandinista government condemned France and Portugal’s “criminal actions” and the tiny Central American country’s First Lady Rosario Murillo interrupted a television broadcast on Tuesday evening to denounce what she dubbed as a criminal act.

Cuba issued a statement deploring Europe’s treatment of Morales as one that had “offended all Latin America and the Caribbean”, according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

At stake was not simply saving Snowden, but rather the provocation of the Bolivian president. Latin Americans were especially galled by the fact that no Western leader would have been treated in such a humiliating manner. Running low on fuel, the Bolivian presidential jet was granted permission to land in Vienna, where Austrian authorities searched the plane. To add insult to injury, Snowden was not on board.

The former intelligence service employ, like WikiLeaks’ Assange, has become a pawn in a power struggle between left-leaning and resurgent Latin American countries and the West. Leaders such as Ecuador’s Correa and Bolivia’s Morales do not tread softly when it comes to dealing with the West.

“There was no formal inspection,” an embarrassed Austrian President Heinz Fischer told Kurier newspaper. “Someone from the airport staff sought out the aircraft or the pilot after landing to inquire about the nature of the technical problem,” Fischer expounded.

“There was no search in the forensic sense. There was also no reason to under international law. The plane of a president belongs to his territory and cannot be searched readily,” a bashful Austrian president explained.

Morales told press at the airport in Vienna that he was not a “criminal” and reminded European Union nations that Bolivia and Latin American countries were sovereign nations. “We are no longer in the colonial period,” he angrily retorted.

Moreover, Morales called on the European countries that had closed their airspace to him to account for themselves. Other Latin American leaders shared his indignation. Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro offered Snowden political asylum. “If Snowden stays all alone, he will be destroyed. What kind of crimes did he commit? What kind of bombs did he explode or what kind of missiles did he launch? He tries to fight against controlling weak countries by powerful nations. This is why we say that we share what this young man says and that protecting Snowden will protect peace,” the Venezuelan president stated.

“This is not a provocation against Evo Morales but against Bolivia and all of Latin America. It’s an attack on Latin America,” Morales said. “The United States and almost every European country has intelligence agents all over the world and this man [Snowden] is not a suitcase, an animal or a fly that I can just put in my plane and take with me to Bolivia,” the Bolivian president told reporters after arrival in La Paz, the Bolivian capital.

All this should give new urgency to Latin American unity. Easy enough to say. The question is whether real economic integration and political unification, Bolivarian Revolution-style, can succeed in spite of the Latin American show of solidarity over the Morales skyjacking.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/3294/19/Eyes-on-Ed-and-Evo.aspx