Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Did Sweden Pay Cambodia For the Pirate Bay Co-founder?

Posted by samzenpus on from the money-makes-the-world-go-round dept.

An anonymous reader writes "At the start of this month, news broke that The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm had been arrested in Cambodia. A bunch of updates followed, including that Svartholm would be deported to Sweden, and that the two countries of course collaborated on his capture. The latest tidbit, as of today, is the craziest one yet: Sweden essentially paid Cambodia tens of millions of dollars. The Government of Sweden has agreed to give 400 million Swedish Kronor ($59.4 million) to Cambodia for various reasons, including democratic development, human rights, education, environment protection, climate change, sustainable development, and poverty reduction. You name it (just don't say international arrests)."

6 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. No, you tell me. by loshwomp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did Sweden Pay Cambodia For the Pirate Bay Co-founder?

    Why are you asking me? You're the one writing the article, so how about answering some questions and providing factual information instead of weaseling around with headline questions?

  2. So? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Governments do this all the time. Jimmy Carter's famous Camp David Accords peace treaty between Sadat and Begin wouldn't have happened unless Carter bribed Egypt with $1.3 billion dollars per year in "aid". Not to be left out, Israel received a $3 billion bribe, I mean, foreign aid, for their part in the peace treaty. For accepting these bribes, Begin and Sadat shared a Nobel Peace Prize. Suddenly, everyone is shocked, shocked to find that aid is going on here?

    Try this from now on: any time you hear the word "foreign aid", mentally substitute the word "bribe". You'll see it's a quite normal state of affairs among nations.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  3. It's Sweden, again !! by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the allegation of Sweden paying Cambodia, for them to body snatch a single person, - Gottfrid Svartholm, - so that they can then "deported" the guy back to Sweden - We would know what will happen to Mr. Julian Assange when he step on Sweden's soil --->

    Mr. Assange will end up be "sold" to USA, just like Mr. Svartholm was sold to Sweden

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:It's Sweden, again !! by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From the first comment in the article:

      Exactly who is giving that money to Camobdja I've checked the aid numbers and they say nothing about 400 million Crowns. Sweden do give ~150 million Crowns per year to Cambodja. See: http://www.openaid.se/countries/kambodja

      So Sweden apparently already has a regular aid budget to Cambodia.

      Sweden's annual foreign aid budget is $5,3B USD, and is generally considered to be well-run. Even if the reported number is accurate, that would only be 1% of the reported annual aid budget, an amount not at all inappropriate for a country like Cambodia.

      Oh, and humans suck at detecting coincidence intuitively. The sample size of possible events one could find suspicious is enormous, as is the search space on individuals around whom you might suspect a conspiracy exists. Conspiracies feed themselves because of this.

      --
      Alanis, you oughta know: she's older than you, more mature than you, and can show some restraint in a theater
  4. Re:Damn Neutrals by lordholm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sweden is not neutral. Sweden has had a policy of being non-aligned in order to keep the ability of being neutral in the case of war. Sweden was never de-jure recognised as neutral. Although to some, Sweden, may be seen as de-facto neutral, the actual fact is that Sweden has been involved in numerous armed conflicts during the last century. In WWII Sweden who stayed outside of the main conflict, sided with Finland and even sent troops, both air force and army (including officers) that took part in combat operations, all-though technically they where sorted under Finnish flag, the fact is that they where endorsed by Sweden, how also sent over lots of arms.

    In addition to this, Sweden has been a member of the EU since the 1990s, and even though the EU did not have mutual defence guarantees until the Lisbon treaty, the fact is that no EU state would remain neutral in the case of another one being attacked.

    Sweden has also removed "neutrality" from their foreign policy documents. So, it has not been neutral nether de-facto or de-jure since before WWII. And especially, given the membership of the Union, the old motto of "non alignment in order to be able to be neutral in the case of war" has not been true for 20 years.

    --
    "Civis Europaeus sum!"
  5. Re:Conspiracy or not by muffen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Total previous budget 3.5 million SEK, new budget for today 400 million SEK - no anomaly there...

    3.5 million? really? this just shows that slashdot mods really dont care about facts and are happy to mod post with no reference with completely made up numbers.

    Here are the actual numbers ... and for those of you who don't read swedish, Sweden has given between 150 - 200 million a year since 2009, and the 400 million allocated now is for 2 years, so theres no change there at all from last year.