Justice for Manning

Barack Obama had come into power promising the most transparent administration in US history. That hasn’t been the case, to put it mildly. Under his presidency, there were more prosecutions of whistleblowers than under all other American presidents combined, the phones of journalists were tapped and secret kill lists of alleged terrorists maintained. Edward Snowden, who did more than most to reveal the inner workings of the US security state, fled the country rather than face prosecution and then be imprisoned for showing how the National Security Agency engaged in mass spying. This is why it comes as a pleasant surprise that, in one of his final acts as president, Obama commuted the sentence of whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Manning had served in the US Army and was so shocked by her country’s conduct in Iraq that she leaked what came to be known as the Iraq War Logs and Afghan War Diary to WikiLeaks. Her leaks were in the public interest since they proved the US was carrying out secret drone attacks and had committed mass war crimes. Nonetheless, she was sentenced to 35 years in a maximum security prison. While there, she was mostly held in solitary confinement and put on suicide watch. The continued imprisonment of someone who should be feted as a hero was a disgrace and Obama deserves a measure of praise for rectifying this grave injustice.

Obama’s commutation is particularly welcome since it will be criticised not just by the Republican opposition but by his own party. WikiLeaks has become public enemy number one for the Democrats after Julian Assange published the internal emails of Hillary Clinton staffers. The Democrats have, without any proof, become convinced that an unholy alliance between Assange, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump was responsible for denying Clinton the presidency. Equally praiseworthy is Obama’s commutation of the sentence given to Lopez Rivera, a Puerto Rican freedom fighter. Rivera had been fighting for Puerto Rican independence when he was arrested for sedition and classified as a terrorist. He has now served 35 years in prison, making him one of the longest-serving political prisoners. These decisions alone are not enough to whitewash Obama’s largely violent and repressive presidency but they do show that it is possible to achieve political change through unstinting activism and protest. Manning had become a cause celebre for her courage not just in leaking important information but for the way she bore all the indignities flung at her. Although a full pardon rather than just a commutation would have been ideal, there are still many more battles ahead for anyone in the US who believes in justice.