Julian Assange has finally discovered what the Indian people have known for some time about their prime minister. That he is really committed - to covering up corruption in his government.
Part of this effort was directed against the Indian Cables of Wikileaks, transcripts of which have been shared by The Hindu, one of our leading newspapers, for the past few weeks. Understandably, this led to a furore in the Parliament. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose to react to the House by saying in the Lok Sabha, that his government “cannot confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communication.”
Outraged by this, Assange in an interview to the same paper, has this to say. “We have not come across this reaction and that reaction disturbed me. Because Hillary Clinton had been involved in informing the Indian government, in December, as well as many other governments, that this was coming. There has been no question as to the credibility of any document we have ever published in the last four years, let alone the [U.S. Embassy] cables – which have been authenticated by the very aggressive action of the State Department towards us and by hundreds of journalists from the most reputable institutions across the world.
“That is why I said I find that statement a deliberate, knowing attempt to mislead the Indian population...Because it is directly from Prime Minister Singh's mouth and he knows better than to do that. While I have heard – I have no proof but the consensus seems to be that – he is not personally corrupt, here's a clear attempt to cover up for the possible corruption of other people. Rather than simply playing it straight, which he should have done, and say, ‘Look, there are allegations. They are serious and we will investigate them and come to the truth of the matter and give a full report to Parliament. I think if he had taken that approach, he would have been served a lot better. So he has acted against his own interests and acted against the interests of his party, which is odd. So I would suggest it means that he has a habit that he was following rather than thinking things through – and a habit of reactively covering up allegations of corruption.”
Wonder what Singh will say to that bit of analysis!
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Part of this effort was directed against the Indian Cables of Wikileaks, transcripts of which have been shared by The Hindu, one of our leading newspapers, for the past few weeks. Understandably, this led to a furore in the Parliament. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose to react to the House by saying in the Lok Sabha, that his government “cannot confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communication.”
Outraged by this, Assange in an interview to the same paper, has this to say. “We have not come across this reaction and that reaction disturbed me. Because Hillary Clinton had been involved in informing the Indian government, in December, as well as many other governments, that this was coming. There has been no question as to the credibility of any document we have ever published in the last four years, let alone the [U.S. Embassy] cables – which have been authenticated by the very aggressive action of the State Department towards us and by hundreds of journalists from the most reputable institutions across the world.
“That is why I said I find that statement a deliberate, knowing attempt to mislead the Indian population...Because it is directly from Prime Minister Singh's mouth and he knows better than to do that. While I have heard – I have no proof but the consensus seems to be that – he is not personally corrupt, here's a clear attempt to cover up for the possible corruption of other people. Rather than simply playing it straight, which he should have done, and say, ‘Look, there are allegations. They are serious and we will investigate them and come to the truth of the matter and give a full report to Parliament. I think if he had taken that approach, he would have been served a lot better. So he has acted against his own interests and acted against the interests of his party, which is odd. So I would suggest it means that he has a habit that he was following rather than thinking things through – and a habit of reactively covering up allegations of corruption.”
Wonder what Singh will say to that bit of analysis!
Read more
Good question. At some point it is not enough to personally refuse bribes, if you are providing cover for serious corruption.
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