[APCPress] WikiLeaks exposés are a “wake-up call for powerful regimes”, says APC executive director

[Karen Higgs]

WikiLeaks exposés are a “wake-up call for powerful regimes”

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, DECEMBER 9 2010 (APC) – The WikiLeaks 
Cablegate affair is making it clear to governments that they cannot so 
easily control what is secret and what is not, said Anriette 
Esterhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive 
Communication (APC), the world’s longest-running online progressive 
network founded in 1990.

If governments respond rationally, they will realise that it is 
cumbersome and expensive to keep information secret in a connected 
networked world and that they should only incur this expense when really 
necessary, she elaborated.

Esterhuysen pointed to the so-called evidence on weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq. When  government documentation was released in 
WikiLeaks, it was exposed that the UK and the US did not have 
substantive evidence of such weapons. Yet both governments had implied 
in information released to the public that they had evidence, and used 
it to justify going to war.

“We citizens need both carrot and stick approaches in demanding and 
enforcing accountability and transparency from our governments. 
WikiLeaks is a useful stick,” said Esterhuysen.

How the WikiLeaks scandal will pan out is still unclear, but the state 
of affairs “is a healthy development and useful wake-up call for 
powerful regimes,” she added.

The APC released a statement on WikiLeaks on December 7.
http://www.apc.org/en/node/11620/ç

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