The Snowden Affair: Denying President Morales’ Plane Fuel Seen As Attempted Assassination
Last edited Mon Sep 30, 2013, 12:41 PM - Edit history (1)
The Snowden Affair: Denying President Morales’ Plane Fuel Seen As Attempted Assassination
By Asad Ismi
Global Research
Sunday, Sep 29, 2013
September 29, 2013 - On July 2, the United States put pressure on several European countries to prevent a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales from landing to refuel at any of their airports. The excuse for this unprecedented denial of landing rights was the unfounded claim that Morales was hiding American whistleblower Edward Snowden on board his presidential jet. The plane was running dangerously low on fuel by the time it was eventually permitted to land at an airport in Vienna. There is reason to believe this was actually an attempt to kill Morales as well as Snowden.
Morales had been attending a conference on energy in Moscow, where Snowden had taken refuge to escape arrest by the U.S. government for exposing details of its secret surveillance of American citizens. Morales’ plane was scheduled to fly from Moscow to Lisbon in Portugal to refuel, but shortly after it took off from Moscow, Portugal suddenly revoked his landing permit without giving any reason. This prompted a planned change of route to refuel at Spain’s Canary Islands, but Spain also denied Morales’ plane landing rights as did France and Italy.
By this time, the Bolivian president’s jet was running dangerously low on fuel, imperiling his life and the flight crew’s. Finally the plane was allowed to land at Vienna, Austria. The president of Bolivia had survived what could justifiably be termed a combined U.S.-European assassination attempt.
It is hard to imagine a more deadly, hostile, and insulting treatment of a head of state which incredibly continued at the airport in Vienna, where Spain’s ambassador to Austria actually demanded to search President Morales’ plane. Morales of course refused to submit to such a humiliating breach of his diplomatic immunity.
José Manuel García-Margallo, Spain’s foreign minister, later admitted that the decision to hamper Morales’ journey home was based on “a tip” that Edward Snowden was on board. “They told us that the information was valid, that he was inside,” the minister explained. He did not divulge the source of this specious information, but no one doubts that it came from Washington.
More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_66053.shtml
= new reply since forum marked as read
