After nearly a week in North Korean detention, 29-year-old Australian Alek Sigley found himself a free man. He flew first to Beijing and onward to his wife in Japan, escorted by a Swedish delegation. Beyond saying he was “fine”, Sigley said nothing of his time in detention. But how did he get out?
Sigley, who had been living and studying in the covert city of Pyongyang in North Korea, garnered worldwide attention when he disappeared prompting Swedish authorities to meet with senior officials from the DPRK on Australia’s behalf.
While Prime Minister Scott Morrison “prayed” for Sigley, much more is required to get private citizens out of detention overseas. What went on behind the scenes to secure Sigley’s release and the release of other Australians trapped in heavily militarised countries?
Australia’s diplomatic strings
Australia’s relationship with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is strained, with embassies opening and closing at the flip of a coin. Aid to the country cut was in 2015 and in the 2017 foreign policy white paper, North Korea is defined as a “grave and growing threat”.
So when Sigley vanished, Australia turned to Sweden for assistance. Sweden was the first western country to establish an embassy in North Korea and has a strong humanitarian focus.
Australian National University North Korea expert — and a friend of Sigley — Leonid Petrov said his release wouldn’t have happened without Sweden.
“I don’t think Australia has leverage on North Korea,” he said. “Without Swedish representation, it would have taken longer and been more complicated.”
Rescue from Egypt
Australian journalist Peter Greste was arrested in Egypt in December 2013 along with Al-Jazeera colleagues Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy for “damaging national security” through their “false” reporting. After enduring solitary confinement, months-long trial and hundreds of days in detention they were found guilty and sentenced to seven to 10 years in prison.
Greste told Crikey that while he had regular visits from consular staff in Cairo, there was “more going on behind the scenes that either I or my family knew at the time”.
Despite the presence of an Australian consulate, the challenges were similar.
“The problem for Australia was it never had any real leverage over Egypt — to the extent it had trade, [the government] was never going to sacrifice that over me,” Greste told Crikey.
“Australia had no direct influence or strategic connections with Egypt. So Australia was relying on friends of friends, particularly in the Middle East — the Emirates and the Jordanians, I understand were involved. Now, exactly what those levers were, I honestly don’t know, and it’s only in conversations with diplomats in the years since that I learned that they were involved in working those back channels.”
And while Greste’s case was in some ways a particularly public one, he believes it was the private diplomacy that proved crucial.
“I don’t think I’d be here with a lot of the private deal making,” he said. “The kinds of personal relationships and private connections are vastly more important in solving these problems than we give them credit for.”
It’s all about ‘soft power’
In extradition and extrication cases, Australia can use two methods: official representation or goodwill and relationships. In Greste’s case and that of filmmaker James Ricketson who was jailed in Cambodia, Australia used the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to secure the journalists’ release. In cases such as Sigley’s, Petrov said, there’s more focus on “soft power, communication behind the scenes, and goodwill”.
“Countries like Australia are still treated as suspicious and distrustful because of our involvement in the Korean war,” he said. “Official representation may not have worked, and diplomatic relations are often damaged by Australia’s participation in military exercises.
“Australia is seen as the 51st state of the US. Countries which are in conflict with the US may backfire on Australia’s soft power and ability to resolve sensitive situations. It makes it harder to extradite nationals.”
“North Korea is a state which is fixated on its security because of the continuing military conflict. The authorities consider themselves under pressure with sanctions, and military threat. From their perspective, they’re subject to preemptive strike and the authorities are doing everything to support and protect the regime from foreign interference.”
Greste agreed that the perception of Australian as the “handmaiden of the US” diminishes its capability to wield soft power.
“The reason the Swedes could intervene on our behalf isn’t just because they have an embassy in North Korea, it’s because they have the respect, they are seen as a fair broker and neutral party, and so Sweden’s influence and soft power vastly exceeds its economic or strategic value,” he said. “I think that Australia could and should be the Sweden of the south, much more engaged and be seen as more neutral”.
Does Australia need to move away from the US to protect individual citizens overseas? Write to boss@crikey.com.au with your full name and let us know.
So who is going to help us extricate Julian Assange back to Australia?
Best you don’t assume we have any leverage with the masters we have so faithfully served in the UK and the USA.
Quite right. Some are more equal than others it seems.
Why?
“The reason the Swedes could intervene … [is] …because they have the respect, they are seen as a fair broker and neutral party, and so Sweden’s influence and soft power vastly exceeds its economic or strategic value…”
Compare and contrast with DFAT under former minister Bishop. In October 2013 AusAID was closed, its assets stripped to benefit DFAT, and Australia’s aid work was contracted out to companies like Palladium, which is now giving former minister Bishop a job ….
Interesting that Greste is quoted and there’s no mention of the still imprisoned Julian Assange. Greste, for some reason even after his own experience, isn’t interested in Assange’s plight even though he may face an extreme sentence in the US for doing his job. When will Australia seek Assange’s release?
As I was reading that, Rais, I fair dinkum thought it was satire!! (I didn’t think ‘good’ satire, just satire).
Simple answer to your question – they won’t.
Wednesday of last week, June 26th, was “International Day in Support of Torture Victims”.
Nils Melzer, because of his role as the ‘UN Special Rapporteur on Torture’, chose to pen a piece to be published on the 26th.
This is what he came up with – https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian-assange-b252ffdcb768
“Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange”
Yes, I too wondered why he had chosen “Medium”, the blogging site.
In fact, it was his last resort, as he notes in conclusion;
“This Op-Ed has been offered for publication to the Guardian, The Times, the Financial Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, the Canberra Times, the Telegraph, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Newsweek.
None responded positively.”
I’ve also seen him interviewed (don’t ask where?!), and mention “ABC” in the same context to the above.
You have to look very, very hard around the local traps, even to hear it mentioned – you certainly won’t find mention at the ‘Big 3’.
Nor Crikey, by my reckoning, which I find beyond disappointing, but no surprise.
P.S. It’s well worth reading Melzer’s ongoing deconstruction of the bs ‘evidence’ behind the Svedish ‘rape’ allegations.
But then I thought, oh fer chrissake.
It was self imposed “torture”.
Don’t conflate the experience of Assange with those of genuine torture victims around the world.
The guy did it to himself, while fleeing justice. The hand wringing of his clique at the UN doesn’t change that.
The dramatisation and self aggrandisement of Assange seems to infect everyone who comes into contact with him.
Assange’s troubles began when he recklessly exposed the identities of people whose enemies might want to kill them. Irresponsible and immoral whichever way you cut it.
I take it you haven’t bothered to read a word of Melzer’s findings, or the subsequent follow up.
Melzer, himself, has been involved with “genuine torture victims around the world’, for years – first hand, on site, face to face!
Go and take a look at his CV, rather than mustering bog standard, cheap pejoratives e.g. ‘hand wringing UN clique’.
If you knew the slightest about what’s happened since Melzer wrote the above referenced piece, you’d know that a ‘hand wringing UN clique’ have come for him!!
As for Assange “fleeing justice”, I suggest you consider what sort of justice can come from allegations relying on this ‘quality’of evidence (note “neither his, nor hers”, and “supposedly proved” – such is the ‘quality’of the ‘condom evidence’ on which “justice” hangs);
“”Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon after the US had encouraged allies to find reasons to prosecute Assange, two women made the headlines in Sweden. One of them claimed he had ripped a condom, and the other that he had failed to wear one, in both cases during consensual intercourse — not exactly scenarios that have the ring of ‘rape’ in any language other than Swedish. Mind you, each woman even submitted a condom as evidence. The first one, supposedly worn and torn by Assange, revealed no DNA whatsoever — neither his, nor hers, nor anybody else’s. Go figure. The second one, used but intact, supposedly proved ‘unprotected’ intercourse. Go figure, again. The women even texted that they never intended to report a crime but were ‘railroaded’ into doing so by zealous Swedish police. Go figure, once more. Ever since, both Sweden and Britain have done everything to prevent Assange from confronting these allegations without simultaneously having to expose himself to US extradition and, thus, to a show-trial followed by life in jail. His last refuge had been the Ecuadorian Embassy.”
– Nils Melzer, June 26th.
As for your last paragraph, apart from the fact it was the Grauniad who revealed the encryption key, way back when ‘big media’ were more than happy to ‘partner’ with Wikileaks, this has been a consistent conclusion from those who bother to look closely;
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/no-evidence-wikileaks-disclosures-risk-lives-1.683914
“No evidence WikiLeaks disclosures risk lives”
There’s that pesky word, again – “evidence”.
Having read the uninformed cliche-saturated comment by Mr Anger and the considered and evidence-based response by Mr Thompson, I have to conclude that Mr Anger either doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about, or is a paid servant of anti-Assange interests.
Mr Anger – fyi – https://www.mintpressnews.com/nils-melzer-confirms-what-many-suspected-julian-assange-tortured-and-persecuted-by-us/259334/
Excellent outlet you have provided, DF. It’s also worth noting that was published before Melzer penned his op-ed piece that all global MSM outlets, and almost all Orstryan media outlets, regardless of size, were unwilling to touch.
And, just cos you showed a respect for evidence based considerations of basic human rights, something I was saving up should Mr Anger have reentered the ring.
Ever heard of Suzie Dawson?: Kiwi lass, now living in Moscow – she’s ‘done a Snowden’ because, to put not too fine a point on it, ‘they’ came for her, and she felt she had to get out of Dodge (I’ll leave it to yours and others inquisitive skills to work out why she felt she needed to get out of Dodge).
So, when I made reference earlier to something Mr Anger seemed to have missed, to wit;
“If you knew the slightest about what’s happened since Melzer wrote the above referenced piece, you’d know that a ‘hand wringing UN clique’ have come for him!!”
This ‘note’ from Kiwi Suze explains it right down to the nitty gritty (e.g. ‘pick your ‘worthy rape/sexual assault’ victim);
https://contraspin.co.nz/not-in-my-name-academics-publicly-attacking-un-torture-rapporteur/
“NOT IN MY NAME: ACADEMICS PUBLICLY ATTACKING UN TORTURE RAPPORTEUR”
Suzie is responding directly, to the ‘hand wringing UN clique’ I referred to earlier, who managed to ‘get out of the blocks’ first.
And, by my reckoning, over 80% agreed to sign on, academically accredited as most of them are, simply because someone they knew on social friggin’ media suggested this was ‘a cause’ worth supporting.
To put that alternatively, most of them have minds that have become so damn numb, that ‘friending’ inevitably trumps (HA!) evidence.
And, I do not give a flying you know what about their ‘credentials’, or their ‘solidarity’ – the whole damn lot of ’em are piling on to participate on THE great persecution of an individual – contrary to every damn human rights law borne of WWII – in the 21st century (and, arguably, including a couple of decades at the end of the 20th century).
Now, the kicker. When I read Suzie’s most excellent rebuttal of the bs perpetrated to discredit Melzer’s bona fides in matters of torture, and the victims thereof, I immediately wondered; ‘Has Nils piped up?’
You friggin’ betcha Nils had piped up!
https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-july-2019-7222083dafc8
“Response to Open Letter of 1 July 2019”
The man’s all class – and reason.
Thanks for the link David. No, my question wasn’t satire. It was a mere rhetorical question, asked when you already know the answer.
Still think Rodney Tiffen’s article is the best summary of this mess.
https://insidestory.org.au/wikileaks-deconstructed/
Thanks for the link. What shines through the article for me is the avidity of the American politicians and their advisors to have people who upset them killed.
Rodney’s ‘summary’ is not even close to a ‘best summary of this mess’. Tiffen’s a middle of stream paddler who ignores or baulks the evidence he chooses not to stare at.
So, I’ll see your 70 something Emeritus Professor at Sydney Uni, and raise you an 80 something Emeritus Professor at Sydney Uni, and the founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation;
https://newmatilda.com/2019/06/10/a-tale-of-two-heroes-general-jim-molan-and-journalist-julian-assange/
“A Tale Of Two ‘Heroes’: General Jim Molan and Journalist Julian Assange”
“Two heroes”? He’s jokin’!
And, this reference of his;
“The labelling of Assange has been fostered by threatened charges of sexual assault by Swedish authorities. In her judgement about that issue, Anne Ramberg, Secretary General of the Swedish Bar Association, has said that the handling of the case by Swedish and UK authorities had been ‘deplorable.’ The right to a fair trial within a reasonable time frame had not occurred.”
He got that directly from me – and I have the correspondence to prove it. His response, when I pointed it out;
“Hi David,
Many thanks for bringing this statement to my attention. It’s invaluable. I appreciate that.
Best Wishes,
Stuart ( Rees )”
April 19th, a few days after I found Anne Ramberg’s statement.
Greg Barn’s, lately published at Crikey, responded with this to the provision
of the exact same formation;
“The ABA and Law Council should say similar things”
Greg Barns
Barrister
Salamanca Chambers Hobart
Gorman Chambers Melbourne”
I’m absolutely sure neither Stu nor Greg will be worried at my ‘sharing’.
Didn’t suggest your question was satire, Rais – my reference was to thinking the article in question was satire – until I read the entirety.
One of the side effects of being seen, as so chuffed the Rodent, to be Dep’ty Dawg for the Benighted States in the region?
Dr Ken Elliot, anyone?