Ecuador's Nine Reasons For Evicting Assange

Foreign Minister José Valencia went to the National Assembly and gave nine reasons for evicting Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

1. Interference in the affairs of other countries, thus hurting Ecuador's relations with those countries. The U.S. is the biggie here, of course.

2. Bad behavior and lack of respect toward Ecuador. This included, and I am not making this up, riding a skateboard around.

3. Threats toward the Ecuadorian state and the London embassy. He made lots of wild accusations against Ecuadorian officials.

4. The UK's position on had not changed since 2012: no safe conduct for Assange. This had become inconvenient because it offered no way out.

5. He has health problems. Ecuador claimed that if he got worse the embassy had no way of helping him. Not to mention the health of his poor cat, who seems to have been given away.

6. Diplomatic asylum should not be a way of avoiding justice.

7. There is no request for extradition. This, in fact, was wrong because the U.S. did have such a request but Ecuador did not know about it.

8. Ecuador had sufficient guarantees from the UK about not extraditing him. I wonder whether Lenín Moreno really cares.

9. Inconsistencies in his naturalization as an Ecuadorian citizen (which is now revoked). Who knows about this, and as a reason it's worth just about as much as his Ecuadorian citizenship was, which is zero.

Let me gather these together and condense them into two, easy to understand reasons:

1. He is a royal pain in Ecuador's ass.

2. Lenín Moreno wants a good relationship with the United States and Assange made that impossible.