[Bear in mind, Mr.
Illingworth is no fan of Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, who made the
decision to grant asylum to Mr. Assange. And like others here, he sees
political motives behind the move. Mr. Correa certainly has a predilection for grand public stances that
portray him as fearless and defiant, whether he is daring rebellious police officers to kill him
if they are “brave enough,” kicking out the World Bank’s representative, expelling the American ambassador or
refusing to let the American military use a prominent base on Ecuadorean soil.]
 |
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
A family walks by graffiti in Quito that says, “Assange is coming ...” Julian Assange,
the WikiLeaks founder, has taken refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London.
|
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — Juan José Illingworth has English bona fides that are hard to
beat. He is the sixth-generation namesake of an Englishman who became one of
Ecuador’s national heroes, fighting for independence from Spain, helping to
lead the young nation, founding its naval academy and drafting the law that
freed the country’s slaves.
But for all of Mr.
Illingworth’s keen appreciation of his family’s ties to the old sod, when the British authorities threatened last month
to enter Ecuador’s embassy in London to seize the asylum-seeking founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, his
sentiments went decidedly against Mother England.
“I’ve always believed
that an embassy is a bulwark of protection,” said Mr. Illingworth, a software
executive and a former legislator. “England cannot violate that.”
Bear in mind, Mr.
Illingworth is no fan of Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, who made the
decision to grant asylum to Mr. Assange. And like others here, he sees
political motives behind the move. Mr. Correa certainly has a predilection for grand public stances that
portray him as fearless and defiant, whether he is daring rebellious police officers to kill him
if they are “brave enough,” kicking out the World Bank’s representative, expelling the American ambassador or
refusing to let the American military use a prominent base on Ecuadorean soil.
But when the tussle over
Mr. Assange turned into a fight pitting tiny Ecuador against a powerful and
imperious Britain, many in this politically divided country rallied around him.
Miriam Vilela, 40, a
seamstress, who sat on a recent afternoon in Navy Park here near a statue of
Mr. Illingworth’s famous relative, had only a vague notion of who Mr. Assange
was, recalling merely that he had “something to do with the Internet.”
But what she was clear
about was that Britain had tried to bully Ecuador, and she was glad that Mr.
Correa had stood his ground. It reminded her of a phrase used by a former
president of Ecuador, Sixto Durán Ballén, to rally the country during its 1995
war with Peru.
“Not one step backward,”
said Ms. Vilela, who supports Mr. Correa because of his policies that help the
poor. “Never retreat. What’s ours is ours.”
Britain ultimately
backed off its threat to invade the embassy, and Ecuador said this week that it
would resume talks aimed at resolving the standoff. There seemed to be little
hope for a quick fix, however. Mr. Assange, who has taken refuge in the embassy since June 19
to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on
allegations that he sexually assaulted two women, told Telesur, a channel based
in Venezuela, that he expected to remain in the building for 6 to 12 months.
Still, London is far
away, and large numbers of Ecuadoreans are busy worrying about making ends
meet. On the streets of Guayaquil, the country’s biggest city, and Quito, the
capital, more than half of the people questioned said they had not heard of Mr.
Assange or of the embassy standoff.
Nonetheless, a few walls
in Quito have been spray-painted with an end-of-days-like slogan: “Assange is
coming. Get ready.”
There have been a
handful of small rallies in support of Mr. Assange’s asylum and against
Britain’s bullying. Last Sunday, a half-dozen activists showed up at the main
square in Quito, Independence Plaza, taking turns holding up a large banner
that said “Welcome Assange” and another one calling for a ban on bullfighting.
Felipe Ogaz, 34, one of
the activists, said that he would gladly offer Mr. Assange the use of the couch
in his two-room apartment, if he ever made it to Ecuador.
“He is an icon who has
made Ecuador be seen not just as a small country but as something important,”
said Patricio Melo, 26, a student who passed by and took a couple of posters of
Mr. Assange.
Mr. Correa has made many
broadly popular changes, improving health care, education, roads and social
services. But he is a lightning rod and delights in picking fights and taunting
his opponents. He has been criticized by human rights groups for cracking down
on popular protests and by dissident groups for seeking to intimidate and
restrict the press.
In granting asylum to
Mr. Assange and butting heads with Britain, Mr. Correa both stirred a sense of
national pride and confirmed some skeptics’ views of him.
Carlos Soria, 45, the
owner of a tiny hardware store near the Quito airport, said he cherished
Ecuador’s tradition of offering refuge to those who need it and approved of
giving asylum to Mr. Assange. “We had to do it for humanitarian reasons,” he
said.
But Mr. Soria, who said
he had never voted for Mr. Correa and did not plan to in the future, questioned
the president’s motives. “I think he did it to get a political advantage, to
increase his popularity,” he said. “This president is always trying to draw
attention to himself.”
Enrique Ayala, the
president of Simón Bolívar Andean University in Quito, said he believed that
Mr. Assange had been politically persecuted and ran the risk of being accused
of a crime by the United States for the release of secret documents and
diplomatic cables. But he said that granting asylum was a mistake.
“It isn’t in the best
interests of Ecuador to have taken this step, which creates conflict with
various countries,” Mr. Ayala said. “The country doesn’t gain anything. I think
it loses.”
Meanwhile, Mr.
Illingworth and his relatives have a privileged perspective on
Ecuadorean-British relations.
Their famous ancestor,
Juan Illingworth, born John in 1786 in Heaton Norris, near Manchester, was one
of many Englishmen who came in the early 19th century to fight against the
Spanish for South American independence, encouraged by a government back home
that was in constant conflict with imperial Spain.
Illingworth fought in
many battles on sea and land; befriended Simón Bolívar, the independence
leader; and was named a general and an admiral. He settled in Guayaquil,
married into a prominent family and had an illustrious political career.
His descendants have
continued to play a major role in the country. An Illingworth has served as
vice president, and there have been many cabinet ministers and legislators.
That includes Juan José,
who served in the National Assembly from 1996 to 1998. During and after his
term in the legislature, he championed greater autonomy for Guayaquil — a
position that earned him his own WikiLeaks moment. Mr. Illingworth is mentioned
in a 2005 State Department cable on the autonomy movement, which was among tens
of thousands of diplomatic cables made public in 2010 by WikiLeaks.
The family has a strong
sense of history and its place in it. Its members walk through a city that has
an Illingworth Street and an Illingworth Passage.
There are at least two
statues and a bust of the Admiral, as their famous forebear is usually called.
(The base of the statue in Navy Park contains a coffer with the Admiral’s
remains. Mr. Illingworth was present a few years ago at the exhumation and was
happy to see that, more than 150 years later, “his skull was in perfect
condition,” he said.)
And what would the
Admiral have thought about the conflict over Mr. Assange?
“He would have felt
uncomfortable,” Mr. Illingworth said. “Part of his heart was with England and
part with Ecuador.”