Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

June 22, 2012

What is it about Ecuador?

Colombian Embassy serves up coffee to journalists outside
Ecuador Embassy in London Friday, where Wikileaks Julian
Assange has sought refuge.
Twitter photo borrowed from RT London Bureau.
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

With Wikileaks Julian Assange at Ecuador's Embassy in London, waiting to hear if Ecuador will grant him political asylum, I have to ask myself: What is it about Ecuador?
A few years back, while I was doing the grassroots radio show on the Longest Walk across America, one of the young Japanese walkers needed a quick ticket out of the country to satisfy his visa.
It was nearing midnight and the Internet was coming and going out in the woods. The cheapest ticket I could find was to Ecuador. He spoke almost no English and not a word of Spanish.
I was very worried. He had no US dollars. A good-hearted walker who had just arrived from California quickly loaned him nearly $1,000. All this happened in minutes.
A car arrived, and he was off to the airport. In the weeks that followed, I imagined the worst. (Locked up abroad, sick and hospitalized, wandering and lost.)
Weeks passed. Finally I heard from him. He was back.
"How was your trip?"
Wonderful, he said, laughing, and said something about meeting up with some like-minded Buddhists on the streets of Ecuador, teaming up to explore the Andes, then hiking up near Peru, and having the time of his life.
Let's hope the magic finds Assange.

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