From 2013
https:// www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/edward-snowdens-family-at-odds-with-assange-evo-moraless-plane-lands-in-vienna/2013/07/03/55b69f08-e3ed-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html?utm_term=.8178aba2a09f
Edward Snowden’s search for asylum continues, weeks after the former National Security Agency contractor revealed details of U.S. digital surveillance programs to journalists and then fled the country. Bolivian and French authorities gave conflicting explanations of why a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales landed in Vienna Tuesday. Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca said that France and Portugal had denied the plane access to their airspace because they believed Snowden was aboard. He was not, but French officials gave a different account:
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that two officials with the French Foreign Ministry said that Morales’s plane had authorization to fly over France. They would not comment on why Bolivian officials said otherwise. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named, according to ministry policy.
The wire service, citing an unnamed official in Vienna, reported that Morales’s aircraft asked controllers at the Vienna airport for permission to land because it needed more fuel to continue on its journey.
The aircraft took off from Vienna shortly before noon Wednesday, AP reported. Spain said the plane would be allowed to refuel in the Canary Islands, although a foreign ministry official declined to comment on a claim by Bolivia that the permission was contingent on allowing authorities to search the plane, the wire service said.
The White House, CIA and State Department all declined to comment on the situation involving the Bolivian aircraft. But the latest twist seemed to signal that U.S. authorities have been able to marshal support from European countries in what has been a feverish pursuit of the former National Security Agency contractor. It also underscored how Snowden has settled still deeper into isolation as one country after another has rejected his appeals for asylum since his disclosure of a trove of highly secret documents.
Kathy Lally and Juan Forero
One country where it appears Snowden might not be welcome is Ecuador, despite initial indications that he might go there next:
Just a week ago, the country’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, cast the Snowden affair as a struggle between good and evil, in a dramatic news conference monitored worldwide. He left little doubt where Ecuador stood.
“The man who is trying to shine a light and show transparency over acts that have affected the fundamental liberty of all people is now being pursued by those who should be giving explanations to governments and the citizens of the world,” Patiño said, sounding professorial. “It’s a paradox of life that now the whistleblower is being chased by the one who is accused.”
On Thursday, Ecuador defiantly backed out of a preferential trade accord with the United States, saying Obama administration officials were using the trade deal like a weapon to blackmail Ecuador.
“Ecuador doesn’t accept pressure nor threats from anybody, and it doesn’t trade its principles or give them up for commercial interests, no matter how important they are,” Fernando Alvarado, the communications minister, said.
And then, quite suddenly, and at first almost imperceptibly, came a shift in policy from President [Rafael] Correa. . .
Correa said earlier this week that Snowden is “under the care of the Russian authorities.” While he maintains that they’d make a determination on asylum only if Snowden got to Ecuador or an Ecuadoran embassy, he also said Snowden could not leave Moscow for asylum in Ecuador without a U.S. passport, apparently ruling out the possibility that Ecuador would provide him safe passage.
Cont