Assange: The Dutch need Wikileaks right now

[Joanne98]

Dutch newspapers and television have for days been snowed under by Wikileaks revelations about the Netherlands. Wikileaks boss Julian Assange says it’s no coincidence that this is happening just now - Dutch MPs will soon be voting on a proposed new mission to Afghanistan.

Mr Assange thinks it is important that the Dutch public has access to all the information at this crucial time:

“We have a lot of work to do so we have to prioritise which country we are going to try and help get out this material for first. And this particular case for the Netherlands, well, there’s this very important vote for it in parliament. So we listened to what Dutch journalists said, and tried to get this out to the Netherlands before that vote.”

Mr Assange says it doesn’t matter to him which way the Dutch MPs vote, “as long as there’s openness”. The leaks involve diplomatic reports from the United States embassy in The Hague. These are interesting, says Mr Assange, because US ambassadors to small countries are not so guarded in what they say:

“In my view, the greatest value in this material is to these small regions. Because it is in the smaller regions that we see more fulsome disclosures. We see less cautious language used by diplomats in their correspondence.”

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/assange-dutch-need-wikileaks-right-now

[xchrom]

1. recommend