Assange Watch: Julian Assange Talks With Prannoy Roy Of NDTV : Video

By Jerry Smith Mar 21 2011
assangewatch.blogspot.com

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sat down, via satellite, to talk with NDTV's Prannoy Roy about the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh and the cables that he would have you believe are not authentic, what's next to be released and much more.

A 2008 cable from a U.S. diplomat in Delhi said that a senior Congress party official told an embassy official that he and three other MPs from the Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal party had been paid 100 million rupees ($2.2 million) each to secure their votes in a crucial upcoming vote of confidence, which Singh won. Prime Minister Singh has denied the involvement of any members of Congress in the vote buying scandal, questioned the authenticity of the cables and referred to the contents of the cables as "unverified and unverifiable".

Assange said about Prime Minister Singh's charge that the cables are not authentic:

"The comments that I've been hearing from the Prime Minister Singh, these to me seem like a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by suggesting that governments around the world do not accept this material and that it's not verified."

"The cables are authentic but the contents of the cables may or may not be correct. They need to be investigated, interrogated."

“It is not correct to say that all these cables are mere opinions by US diplomats."

"It is very hard to understand why any US embassy official would lie to Washington.”

“They (ambassadors) report what they say are facts, and they also present opinions. It’s important to keep these two different. However, it does not mean that every fact in them is correct.”

"It is wrong to suggest that these are just opinions, these are official reports made by U.S. Ambassadors. Sometimes it is opinion, sometimes not. For example, if this cable about bribery is incorrect, then the U.S. Ambassador to India has a lot to answer for because he has been sending back reports to Washington about senior politicians and behaviour in Indian Parliament, which casts it in very negative light.”

Assange also said about the cable's authenticity:

"There is no doubt whatsoever that the cables are authentic. That is why we are being so heavily attacked by the Pentagon. That is why young intelligence officer Bradley Manning has been imprisoned in the United States for 299 days now. There is absolutely no doubt.

Prime Minister Singh told parliament that the government could not "confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communications", and that many people mentioned in the cables have "stoutly denied the veracity of the contents".

Assange said about the ambassador and the contents of the cables:

“Either he has committed a grave error that would damage Indian and American relations, or the material was correct and he was reporting correctly and he had checked his fact before reporting back to Washington.”

Assange talked about the information to come and said:

“The most serious issue in the cable, I suspect, is yet to be revealed... There is quite a bit of time to go through the material: from Pakistan, China. It is likely to be interest to the Indian population."

“There are some 6,000 cables from the US Embassy...they have been tagged by the state department about India. We have only seen the first part of that till now.”

When asked about where he thinks he can live safely, Assange replied:

"Right now, it is not clear if there is any country that is safe for (us)... But we do have the will of the majority of the people. My friends in Egypt and Tunisia say that these two countries perhaps would be the safest for us now because of the revolution."

When asked about the threats he's received, Assange said:

"We do receive threats from time to time; there are many of them. But we do not take those threats too seriously. It is the people who are not making the threats and are concerned for us that are important."

Talking about the U.S. attempts to influence policies in other countries Assange said:

"It's not at all a surprise, and it is their modus operandi."

"My god, everything those South American Marxists in the 1960s were complaining about in relation with the State Department, it's actually true. It is not just that they are making political rhetoric."

"It does appear that the State Department is an instrument of U.S. industry of all types, and it goes around the world clicking political intelligence, interfering in unions and all."

Assange said of U.S. soldier and accused WikiLeaker Bradley Manning and the treatment he has been receiving:

"Bradley Manning is America's foremost political prisoner. The allegations against him, whether they are true or not, are of a political nature and he has been kept in solitary confinement for 299 days."

"There are people in the United States who are angry about this. The State Department spokesperson resigned over this issue. However it is not getting any big media play."

Assange talked about the influence the U.S. government has with U.S. media and said:

"When dealing with The New York Times over Afghanistan, I discovered Task Force 373, (on) the Russian side. Task Force 373 is an assassination squad working on a list of 2,000 people in Afghanistan and assassinating them. (There is) no judicial mechanism to get on the list or to review the list. I discovered that this group had killed seven children and tried to cover it up. It became the front cover of Der Spiegel. The New York Times also wrote about it. Similarly, with the cables, The New York Times went to the White House and went and showed them everything long before anything was published. That is (the) fact about the United States, and the security sector has grown so fat and so influential that its tendrils merge into most big companies and big media companies. That is the reality of the U.S. economy and the U.S. media."

"Unfortunately, the U.S. media is so strong, (an) aggressive and sophisticated mechanism, that the bias is pushed down in the English language all over the world and to the other English speakers in the world, like the Australian Indians, the Canadians and the British to somehow develop their own media infrastructure and to be able to resist the propaganda."

Assange was asked about the media in India and if he thought they were brave and uncompromising and he said:

"Yes, that is one of the reasons we are speaking right now. That is also one of the reasons we are working with The Hindu because we have seen its good work in the past and also the times India has done some fine stories."

When asked if his colleagues at WikiLeaks are scared and/or leaving, or if recruiting is a problem, Assange answers:

My colleagues are brave; recruiting members is difficult for a variety of reasons. First of all, in this situation we have the FBI trying to bribe a number of people, bribe even volunteers who work with Bradley Manning support groups. Manning himself, his condition is getting worse and worse. Most people believe that it is a result of them trying to crack him open. He is not speaking to interrogators and they are trying to establish a link between Bradley Manning and myself and a few other individuals in WikiLeaks too, and try and embroil us in our journalistic work as people (who) engage in espionage, a dangerous thing."

"As for people leaving WikiLeaks, we have crossed two, that is not many. It is quite heartening. There are security concerns we have. Obviously this situation is difficult and adverse... we have had in the past four years. In 2008, we had two people working with us who got assassinated by the Kenyan police trying to cover up the matter. There are serious threats against us, just like there are against all journalists who try and hold powerful organisations to account. Our situation is a bit more unusual as we have the full brunt of the superpower and any ally can pool in as well.

When asked about his heroes, Assange said:

"Well, I think Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistle-blower, he has become a friend over the past couple of years, fairly described as a hero. There are others in different fields (it takes several names). It is better to say there are people who engage in heroic acts. Every individual is of course human. One must be careful with the hero label. Many people call me, for example, a hero, but I am a man and a human being, just like all of us."

About his mother Assange said:

"She is concerned. However, she is also a fighter. She has been very effective politically in calling attention to my plight and the plight of my organisation, more broadly in Australia. And she also came to London in December (2010), and was a very effective spokesperson. The way she has dealt with the stress of the situation is by firing and engaging with the situation. That helped actually. Everyone should deal with a difficult situation and get on to the job. "

Click here to read the full interview.

This is Assange appearing via satellite with Prannoy Roy on NDTV: