The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Then, the South American country was in the midst of a commodities-fueled economic boom. Now, it is stuck in a long recession.
The fact that Ecuador is currently negotiating loans from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank — two institutions where Washington wields outsize influence — may be an “additional factor” in the decision to cut Assange’s internet, said Santiago Basabe, an Ecuadoran political scientist.
Correa’s government “is trapped between the pressure Assange exerts with the relevant information in his possession, and pressure from the United States to stop embarrassing information from being published,” he said.
Assange lifeline severed
Losing his internet connection is a particularly low blow for Assange, whose computer had been his link to the outside world.
It is unclear how long Assange will remain in the Ecuadoran embassy.
He denies the accusations against him, but refuses to travel to Sweden over fears he would be handed over to the United States.
Prosecutors dropped their sexual assault case against him last year after the five-year statute of limitations expired.
But the limit on the rape allegation will not run out until at least 2020.
Sweden and Ecuador have agreed to a deal for him to be interrogated by Ecuadoran prosecutors, with questions posed by their Swedish counterparts.
The session was recently postponed until November 14.
Cooped up in a small apartment in the embassy — a redbrick Victorian building in a chic district of London — the 45-year-old Australian reportedly has a sparse existence.
He has a treadmill, a microwave and a sunlamp, and had until now spent the overwhelming majority of his time on the web.
“It’s not worse than a prison cell,” a friend and supporter, Vaughan Smith, told AFP after visiting Assange in August 2012.
“The primary reason that it’s not worse is that he can use a computer and the internet. He can work, and that is his prime concern.”
