- Nat Nyuan Bayjay
Monrovia -
On the day that her immediate boss US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being asked by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to resign from the State Department in the aftermath of the US-WikiLeaks’ increased tension, the United States’ Envoy accredited near Monrovia has told FrontPageAfrica that there is nothing ‘thus far’ in the US’ classified report from Liberia.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, responding to an FPA inquiry about her country’s alleged enlisting of Liberia as one of several coastal West African nations in the US ‘Littoral directive’, said Wednesday afternoon: “This is something that is very disturbing. We’re watching it very closely but we have nothing in there that we have put in thus far in any way from Liberia.”
The US Envoy’s response comes on the heels of the controversial web hacker’s request that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton resign her position as head of the US’ State Department when he was asked by Time Magazine if he would like to see the Secretary of State resign or be fired by President Barack Obama.
Besides a secret order being reportedly signed by Clinton, according to a recent WikiLeaks revelation, which "directed American diplomats to act as spies around the world against friends and enemies alike”, the revelation said the ‘directive’ covered the coastal countries of West Africa which includes Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin.
Though the directive on Liberia does not yet appear to have been published by WikiLeaks which has not allowed any much detailed revelation about the nature of the information the U.S. may be seeking, the purported Secretary of State Clinton’s directive however instructs reporting officers to look for information relating to persons linked to the West Africa Sahel region. It reportedly seeks information such as office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cell phones, pagers and faxes; compendia of contact information, such as telephone directories (in compact disc or electronic format if available) and e-mail listings; internet and intranet "handles", internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent flyer account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information.
The US To Cooperate Over ‘Disturbed’ Report
The WikiLeaks’ continual leakage of US’ classified reporting in the media in the face of calls for the website to abort its operations seems to be paying off. The US, in its position, according to Ambassador Greenfield, will be going to cooperate to make the classified document available to the public.
“Our position is that we are going to cooperate to make this document (available) to the public”, the US Envoy told FPA.
Describing the report as disturbing, Greenfield noted, “We had a lot in the press on the US Government’s position on it. We are very disturbed on this, how classified reporting back to Washington has been leaked to the press.”
Clinton apparently sought personal details about Liberia, according to the document, described by the controversial whistleblower website. The revelations by the controversial investigative online journal have unraveled what some are describing as a new window on US diplomacy in Africa.
The documents were first released on November 28, when WikiLeaks published previously secret diplomatic cables.
WikiLeaks, led by the obscure Australian hacker Assange, said it obtained 250,000 US cables in which US diplomats relay conversations and observations that are usually withheld from public view for decades.
A Time Magazine article Wednesday told of Assange’s request for Obama to sack Clinton “if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up.”
“Yes, she should resign over that,” he told the American based magazine from an undisclosed location via Skype with Richard Stengel, Time’s Managing Editor.
“We had a lot in the press on the US Government’s position on it. We are very disturbed on this, how classified reporting back to Washington has been leaked to the press.”
Linda Thomas-Greendfield, U.S. Ambassador accredited to Liberia, responding to a FrontPageAfrica inquiry on the Wikileaks controversy Wednesday.
The Australian hacker doesn’t think his WikiLeaks project is breaking any U.S. law: “We have now in our 4-year history and over one hundred legal attacks of various kinds and have been victorious in all of those matters.”
Assange continued: "It's very important to remember the law is not what, not simply what powerful people would want others to believe it is. The law is not what a general says it is. The law is not what Hillary Clinton says it is.”
The 39 years-old has in recent times come under intense pressure from several other governments with Swedish prosecutors, mid last month seeking an international arrest warrant for him in a rape investigation.
The announcement came after a Stockholm court approved their request to detain Assange for questioning in the case, which stems from his encounters with two Swedish women in August.
Assange is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.
Recent Encounter Reveals Assange’s Anti-US Sentiment
A recent FPA encounter with the controversial Assange in Geneva, Switzerland spoke of how determined Assange is in his defiance of the US.
A November 4, 2010 press conference held at the Geneva Press Club in the diplomatic vicinity of ‘Nations’ in the Swiss city saw the scarce Assange announcing that new revelations were expected, despite threats from the US and other great powers.
He said that despite threats of the Pentagon and multiple attacks on the technical infrastructure of his site, he gave his assurance that he will ensure to continually hunt for critics of human rights worldwide: "These attacks are a form of tax on a powerful journalism. We therefore continue our mission. Our next target country? Russia, among others. Not that we wanted to attack the Russian government, but this is where our job."
The heavily guarded hacker who was flanked by two huge bodyguards despite being in the vicinity of the United Nations told the highly secured venue of the tight Geneva Press Club that his organization’s expert witnesses are also victims: "With my organization, we are here not only expert witnesses on crimes in the field of human rights committed by Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also victims. "
During the conference, Assange’s statements were enough to arouse the anger of the American administration: “In fact, six months ago, our news site has revealed more than 90,000 confidential reports on the Afghan conflict. Two weeks ago, more than 400,000 others, this time on Iraq, were released. In essence, the message is: the U.S. has committed numerous serious abuses in these countries for many years and wanted to hide.”
The expected release of the US’ reported "West Africa Littoral directive" puts Liberian authority at the edge of its seat at it could test the revamped relations that Liberia-a nation coming out of war and dubbed as the US’ traditional friend and African stepchild- has fought to regain with her most respected traditional godfather.
In any case, Liberia is not alone in this as it is only joining the rest of the world in trying to decode the contents of the WikiLeaks controversial unreleased revelations which has successfully drawn the world’s most powerful nation into what is an off-the-battlefront battle by a website’s work only determined to probably send the message that it can keep the US and the rest of its allies busy.
