Randy Credico Interviews Renata Avila (06/06/2017)

Supplemental document for: "Theory that Roger Stone's back channel to Wikileaks was Randy Credico", link: https://wakelet.com/wake/2d352ae9-febe-44a1-a7bb-51674a2e4bf5

Renata Avila on "Live on the Fly With Randy Credico", broadcast date: June 6, 2017. Excerpt begins at 41:50 and goes to 58:11.

File link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/a6rm4ydyvurbtmq/wbai_170606_170002randyCrelof%20-%20Renata%20Avila.mp3

RANDY CREDICO
That is Mercedes Sosa. And our next guest knows who Mercedes Sosa is, and so are some of the people in this room, who are from Guatemal- are from Argentina. We have Rene Avila. From Guatemala City, she's a human rights lawyer, and she's part of the Assange legal team, and she has worked with Rigoberta Menchú and other victims of Guatemalan repression. Thank you for being on the show, Renata, you're a very brave individual.

RENATA AVILA
Oh, thank you for having me.

CREDICO
Alright, you know what we're going to do first? We're going to play...because we had you on specifically...you had an article that was written with some of the other lawyers...Margaret Ratner Kunstler, happy birthday Margaret Ratner Kunstler, and Debbie Hermec, and others...in response to _this movie_. I've been watching these...promos, about this movie "Risk". And here is the trailer and we'll be back with you right after the trailer.

AVILA
Thank you.

[audio of trailer for "Risk"]

CREDICO
Well, that's not the same movie that played in Cannes. I'm going to give it over to you, and give us your critique of "Risk", the way it will appear, if it does, on Showtime, uh, Ms. Avila.

AVILA
Well, first off, I would like to address what she left out. And what she failed to mention in this film. What she left out, was the dedicated network of journalists and human rights defenders who participated and collaborated with Wikileaks, through so many years. I mean, she captures a very biased, very American, very white, picture of Wikileaks. And it really really upset me, because, uh, unique effort, with awarded journalists, many female journalists from the south, many human rights defenders, who actually risked their reputation, their life, their everything, by challenging the most powerful actors in the countries, were simply wiped out of the film. I mean, you can barely see, for example, Brazilian journalist Natalia Viana, who is one of the most important journalists in Brazil, or Johannes Wahlström, who is an awarded journalist in Sweden, and many many others, who are simply removed from the film. She also left out the fact that Jacob Appelbaum [though never stated in this interview, Appelbaum would face a series of sexual assault and rape allegations in 2016, and would resign from the Tor Project because of them; details can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/jacob-appelbaum-tor-project-sexual-assault-allegations ] was a journalist co-operating with her, over three years, and she just mentioned, "Oh we had a- a brief relationship-" And she fails to mention that they actually worked side by side, for years. And that he was the one opening the door to many technical networks and many people who wouldn't have trusted her, unless he introduced her to them. I mean, she also fails to mention, I mean, of course, no one would mention that there were very strict agreements, very strict contractual agreements, and those agreements were the conditions for her to film that film. We did [inaudible] in the article, she breached her contractual obligations, she violated express conditions, express terms, the people that allowed to be filmed by her, establish the film [sic]. As a condition. It is really disappointing. It's really offensive, the way she treated the community offering her only trust, knowledge, and access.

CREDICO
It- it- it- so, what was her motivation? What do you think her motivation, how did she go...she had this great- and I guess maybe that is why Julian let her in there, trusted her, because of this film she made about, uh, Ed Snowden, but what was her motivation, to basically do a hit job on him?

AVILA
Well, for me, for me, it's unclear. You know, what is clearer, actually it is a good title for the film, "Risk", because she actually risked the lives and the reputations of really dedicated activists and journalists. Why she risked the life and the liberty and the reputation of so many people, because one of the conditions for her to film and one of the conditions that enabled her access and her journalist work, was that she would never ever take the footage out of Europe. She will never ever take unedited, unencrypted footage out of the premises that she agreed to have this editing at. And she broke all the promises. And she broke all the contractual obligations by taking all the materials, years and years of very sensitive material, out of the U.S., people who never consented to be filmed, people who did not agree to take part in this kind of film. And it is now evidence in an open investigation, that is in the U.S., and can be seized at any time. That can jeopardize the freedom of so many people, and not only that, she's placing, making an active effort of undermining the work of independent journalistic publication.

CREDICO
You know, she's totally uh- what she's done- is underminded her [sic] reputation...you know, I just don't understand her motivation. Why she would do something like this. And the sacrifices that Julian Assange has made. That doesn't come through, in this movie. You've been around him, tell me what it's really like, what he has gone through over the last five years.

AVILA
Well, it is really interesting to me, the biased selection of the film, because she simply removed all the laughs, all the fun, all the...conversations about the impact that these revelations would have in the world, or the human rights activists coming to Julian, trusting him, the problems, and trying to find solutions together, all these dedicated...with limited resources, and incredible surveillance effort, that he did, to make a truly international newsroom, in this precarious conditions, he was placed by this [inaudible] investigation he was under, by Sweden. That is not reflected in the film. Is not reflected in the film that he is someone that was detained, and is still detained under arbitray conditions, and under the most severe surveillance in the world. Who suffered from chronic pain and from many other issues, and was just in an embassy just to keep publishing and keep us informed. And who dares to publish who no one else will publish. And that is not reflected in the film, and it is not only him, it is also the denigration of dedicated people like Sarah Harrison, who actually rescued the source that Laura Poitras left stranded in Hong Kong [this is a reference to Snowden, and arguably a false mis-statement of what took place]. That is not there. And that portrait, by picking, by cherry picking daily situations, like making coffee, asking-, preparing coffee, making a phone call, that was the core part of her job [Sarah Harrison's job]. Like she perfectly knows that Sarah was co-ordinating up to fourteen national media outlets, at once. And she was co-ordinating and researching most relevant histories, stories, revealed in cablegate, in Guantanamo files, by all the publications, that took place in that period of time. It was a seven years period. And she just picked some weekends, some random weekends, where the visitors happened to be American, and make all- a whole film out of really random circumstances. Without a clear purpose, other than making Wikileaks and Julian look bad, and fitting into the narrative right now of female oppression, and white male supremacy, that seems to be very profitable in the U.S.

CREDICO
I see. So you know, between that, and the Swedish- [alleged rape charges against Assange in Sweden] I mean, it's gone. That lasted seven years. How much of an impact will this movie have on the psyche of, you know, women that see it, or reporters that see it, and what will it have on the community of supporters of Julian Assange?

AVILA
I think that it is a mixed opinion, you know, because in the Global South, in countries suffering oppression, this story that she is telling is telling us nothing. We know who Julian is and what Julian does. We basically know he has helped us uncover abuses, including human rights abuses against women everywhere in the world. And we know how the structures of power operate quite well. In the U.S, this narrative is different. And sadly, citizens are constantly bombarded with misinformation. And they have never truly suffered what is clearly an oppressive regime, and what is- what it feels to be truly discriminated and bombarded and droned, as women in the Global South have suffered. And so, I think they deny falling to this false narrative, and they might be misguided to...they might be mistaken to, I mean, identifying who the real enemy is. And the real enemy here, that they did not discuss, is how economic power and political power control the flow of information right now.

CREDICO
Right.

AVILA
And that's what this film fails to address, how this tiny publication under the harshest measures, and extra-judicial financial censorship, and incredible surveillance, managed to circumvent the media monopolies and the power monopolies around the world, and bring truth to the people. That's what the film is not telling you, and that is what the film fails to address. It's more a film about Laura Poitras and her broken heart. [laughs, and CREDICO starts to interrupt: "It's- It's-"] [inaudible] broken promises, and the broken contractual obligrations and missed opportunities, big time.

CREDICO
Yeah. Is there any chance that the film may not air on Showtime? I mean, after all, she violated the agreement with Mr. Assange?

AVILA
Well, one can only hope that justice will be made in this case, and one can only hope that contractual obligations will be _enforced_. In any case, I want to make clear that there was lots of missed opportunities of actually ethical film-makers, who wanted, who really pursued to tell this story, at that level of access. And this betrayal of trust simply illustrated the [missed] opportunity of someone to tell the right story. There's some films out there, right now, telling a different story, and telling the story from different angle, and especially clarifying the circumstances of the case, I can mention one, is "The Rebel and the Judge" [sic, "Hacking Justice" aka "The Challenge: Defending Julian Assange" aka "The Judge and the Rebel" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6654984/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 ], that was premiered almost at the same time, by a Spanish company, and I hope that that story-

CREDICO
Judge [Baltasar] Garzón.

AVILA
Yes. With judge Garzón. It's a really really good film. And I hope that can help counter the narrative and the disinformation that this film produces. I mean, this film even fails to address the issue that he was declared by the United Nations arbitrarily detained.

CREDICO
Right.

AVILA
How can you...how can you not mention this? And how can you not mention all the arbitrary uses of power of the UK and Sweden, and the U.S. in this case? Including in Australia, cancellation of passport, all the surveillance, all the unjust measures to keep him captive, all that is left out, and it is just a sad attempt at making us victims [presumably, a reference to the women of Wikileaks and associated orgs, like the Tor Project], where we were not victims at all. It was even criticized that he has only female lawyers, so it is a contradiction on the one hand - macho culture, tech community - and on the other hand, her portraying all of us, [as] incompetent women preparing coffee. Which was not- cannot be- as far as- it is insulting, you know?

CREDICO
Yes. Listen, we have just thirty seconds, I'm gonna give you the last word, we gotta go here, give you the last minute here, to sum up, anything you'd like to say, we have one minute, put it all in a nutshell for us.

AVILA
Yes. To women: _think_. Someone is trying to suppress your access to complete and accurate information. And someone is trying to fight against that. Who is the enemy here? And who do you need to support? I think that the answer is quite clear. By demonizing Wikileaks, someone is trying to block your right to know and someone is trying to block your opportunities to have access to the full documents that tell you the truth about those in power.

CREDICO
Alright, uh, Renata Avila, human rights attorney, works for Julian Assange. I really appreciate you being on the show, we're going to play some Carlos Mejia Godoy, and we're definitely going to get you back on this show, very soon. Continue the great work that you do, and all that you do. Thank you.

AVILA
You're welcome. Bye.

CREDICO
Alright. Folks, that's it. We gotta get outta here.