Dual American-Chilean national Gonzalo Lira died of pneumonia in a secret Ukrainian prison last week where he was being held after his arrest for criticizing the Ukrainian authorities, allegedly justifying “Russian aggression”, and then trying to flee the country last summer after he was temporarily released. The US Government (USG) is responsible for this since it could have easily secured his release if any of its representatives had the political will to do so, yet they instead let him languish and ultimately die.
Before his last disappearance over the summer, Lira predicted that he’d probably die if he was caught trying to cross the Hungarian-Ukrainian border, which his ultimately what happened. He’d previously claimed that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland of “EuroMaidan” infamy personally hates him, and this probably accounts for why American officials didn’t try to secure the release of their detained citizen abroad despite doing so for others and having the means if they wanted.
The fact of the matter is that it’s officially a matter of US policy to provide support for those of its citizens who’ve been detained abroad and to work as hard as possible to secure their release, especially whenever their alleged crime concerns something even remotely connected to them exercising the freedom of speech. Lira’s case would have been a textbook example of this had he been arrested for his alleged crimes in Russia, China, or Iran, but because they were committed in Ukraine, the USG was silent.
Officials apparently calculated that it’s better to let him languish and ultimately die, in between which he claimed that he was tortured per the last video that he shared on Twitter prior to his disappearance, than to secure his release and return to the US where he might then continue railing against Ukraine. These expectations backfired, however, after top influencers from Tucker Carlson to Elon Musk raised maximum awareness of his plight and now his ultimate demise as the arguable result of mistreatment.
Lira earlier revealed that he was suffering from a raft of health problems, which the USG was aware of, but representatives did nothing to ensure that he was at least treated with the bare minimum of human decency in line with international law. If they wanted to, they could have seen to it that his problems were properly treated while in prison in order to avoid his death, but nobody seemed to care. The outcome lends credence to his prior claim that Nuland personally hates him and likely wanted him dead.
This travesty of justice is important for many reasons, not least of which is that it discredits the USG’s stated policy of supposedly always helping those of its citizens who’ve been detained abroad. Quite clearly, double standards are applied based on who they are, where they were detained, and the context of their alleged crimes. In other words, the entire process is politicized, and only those whose cases are considered to be in alignment with the USG’s interests are supported while all others are ignored.
The second point is that the personal animosity that members of the USG like Nuland had towards Lira partially account for why they didn’t wager that securing his release and return to the US, or at least providing him proper medical treatment, would deflect from claims that Biden is beholden to Kiev. Trump and his supporters previously claimed that the president is caught up in such a web of corruption there that everything that his administration does towards Ukraine must be seen in that light.
Biden, or rather his policymakers, could have attempted to partially discredit those claims by securing Lira’s release and return or at least his proper medical treatment while in prison so as to then present this as supposed proof that the alleged conflict of interest between him and Ukraine doesn’t really exist. After all, if it did (or so the narrative would go), then his administration wouldn’t champion the rights of its citizen who was detained for exercising his freedom of speech despite this making Zelensky look bad.
The last point to make is that the USG’s culpability for Lira’s death in a secret Ukrainian prison is meant to send a message to all American dissidents abroad that their officials literally want them to die for the faux crime of speaking out against their policies. The Kiev regime maintains a growing kill list that’s ironically named “peacemaker” (“myrotvarets” in Ukrainian) and which includes a slew of American and other Western citizens like Lira.
Each of them could also be detained or killed without the USG caring after the precedent established by his death. Some might self-censor their views in public while others will remain defiant, but none of them should have to think that the USG tacitly endorses a similarly dark fate for them as well. It’s this awareness among them and the wider public that’ll inflict the most damage to America’s reputation over the long run, which its officials could have prevented had they helped Lira when they had the chance.
