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Turkmenistan: Ashgabat Closing Door on Foreign Donors?

2013-05-24

Under a presidential decree issued in January, the text of which was recently obtained by EurasiaNet.org, Berdymukhamedov ordered the creation of a state commission to supervise all foreign-funded “projects and programs,” as well as place strict controls on outside money granted to “legal and physical entities” in Turkmenistan. The decree covers all forms of non-governmental organizations, including religious groups.

If implemented in its entirety, the decree would enable the government effectively to take financial control of all forms of non-profit activities in the Central Asian state. It also provides the state with a legal instrument that it could use to starve non-governmental organizations of funding.

Berdymukhamedov’s decree promises to create a nightmarish experience for “foreign states, international organizations, financial institutions, foreign companies and foundations, public associations … religious groups and religious organizations” that seek to fund projects in Turkmenistan, or give grants to local individuals or entities.

In addition to the creation of a state commission for the “coordination and control of activities for state registration of projects and programs,” Berdymukhamedov ordered the creation of a state registry of all types of foreign donors.

An addendum to the presidential decree makes it clear that Berdymukhamedov worries that foreign money could be used to weaken his authoritarian grip on Turkmenistan. A provision in the addendum effectively prohibits outside funding for any type of activity deemed political.

Czechs turn Soviet nuclear warhead depot into Iron Curtain museum

2013-05-21

The mighty underground cement bunker was ordered by the Soviet leadership under Nikita Khrushchev, and built in the mid to late 1960s in a forest near the village of Misov southwest of Prague, 60 km (37.5 miles) from the west German border.

It was one of three such places in the former Czechoslovakia, and a dozen across Soviet Warsaw Pact allies, but the only one believed still to be intact.

"This was the most secret place in Czechoslovakia. No Czechs had access there," said Vaclav Vitovec, head of the Iron Curtain Foundation that is preparing to open the site in August.

Inside the bunker, buried under a forest and protected by machine-gun posts, there are thick concrete walls, two pairs of heavy iron gates and four chambers for storing up to 80 nuclear warheads that could be mounted on missiles. A twin bunker sits some 100 meters away.

A succession of smaller rooms hosts the remains of equipment, from loading cranes to helium and vacuum pumps used to maintain the warheads, a diesel engine, gas masks, air filters and varioustools.

All of this will be on display along with pictures and texts on the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Historians say the site was so secret that it is not even known whether nuclear warheads were actually ever placed there.

"The is no information anyone from the Czechoslovak side was ever there. And the Soviet side is silent. We do not have information that would confirm it," said Prokop Tomek, a historian at the Military History Institute. "(But) it was without doubt built for this purpose."

Short- to medium-range missiles that could carry nuclear warheads were deployed in Czechoslovakia and some even provided to the Czechoslovak army.

The warheads could be mounted on the rockets and fired within two hours to clear the path for the Czechoslovak army marching to Germany, as set in Cold War plans.

The Iron Curtain Foundation leaders citing former Czechoslovak and Soviet generals, are convinced the depots were used. They say tools and equipment found on the site also indicate the facility was in operation. A 170-strong Soviet unit under direct command from Moscow was deployed there permanently.

Soviet forces that invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 pulled out after the fall of Communism in 1990-1991, including special units deployed at the three nuclear depots.

Since then, the Misov bunker was used for storing tonnes of Czechoslovak banknotes which were pulled out of circulation when the country broke up in 1992, and as a storage place for the remains of 4,000 World War II German soldiers.

Back to no future

2013-05-17

The moment of truth for a nondemocratic leader is when he needs to revive his fading authority and legitimacy. A snatched electoral victory over a year ago brought Vladimir Putin no new popularity, indeed quite the opposite. Since his return to the Kremlin, his words and actions have reflected entirely negative emotions, such as fear of his own people, distrust of the elites around him, and a desire to avenge himself on those who have dared oppose him. Much of his energy goes on proving himself right and his critics wrong: he even accuses these of working for foreign powers and endangering national security. Putin has not recovered from the humiliation and scare of last year’s political contest, and is now facing tough economic and social challenges. The choice he has made is to try to restore his authority with a combination of targeted repression, doctrinaire ideology and an increase in control over institutions and companies. This is an unlikely recipe for success.

Weakened legitimacy

Vladimir Putin was reelected on a controversial vote in March 2012. He could have won his new mandate more honestly, had he accepted the possibility of a second round runoff, but he was determined to win an absolute majority in the first round. He wanted to humiliate the other ‘authorised’ candidates by raising himself high above them, proving that he was the one and only - and a loyal Central Electoral Commission conferred on him a generous 63% of the vote. A year on, all the voters’ associations and NGOs that investigated election fraud are being harassed and some, like the Golos association, might have to close down. Key figures of the movement for free elections are also being prosecuted.

Putin’s election in 2000 and 2004, and Dmitry Medvedev’s election in 2008, were ‘managed’ ballots as well. This time, however, things turned out less manageable than usual. The widespread and vocal public protest of the winter of 2011-12, news of which flew around the country in a few keystrokes, exposed all of the regime’s rottenness and trickery. And the anger of a revitalized civil society was directed at the leader in person, under the ubiquitous slogan: ‘Putin, ukhodi!’ (Putin - out!). His party fared badly in the parliamentary elections of December 2011, and in Moscow itself its performance was a complete disaster.

Throughout the 2000s, Vladimir Putin built his power and legitimacy on order, rising living standards and Russia’s growing global status. However, he will have more difficulty delivering in all three of these areas in the months and years to come, and he will be held to account for it. Public outcry against all-encompassing corruption will also not die down, a further blow to his shaky popular legitimacy. Only 22% of Russians would like Putin to be reelected in 2018, and according to a Levada Centre poll in March 2013, 58% believe that ‘there is more corruption than they have been told about’.

Weaker authority - stronger repression

When authority is waning, the temptation is often to show force. Repression is always an option; deterrence works. Russia has not experienced such fierce repression since the darkest days of Brezhnev in the 1970s. And the consequences will be much more disturbing than a Soviet-type crackdown on dissent, for Russia today is an open country, a capitalist economy with an internet-savvy public. However, to resort to brute force means to bury the real issues and act as though nothing serious has happened in society and within the elites. Denial leads to self-deception. How can administration heads, businessmen, cultural and scientific elites show dynamism and innovation when the leadership spends more time suppressing and controlling than creating incentives for a much belated modernisation?

After 14 years at the helm (since August 1999, when he became Yeltsin’s Prime Minister), Putin has reached the limits of his capacity, but is not prepared to devolve more responsibility onto more able people. He does not fully trust his lieutenants and fosters divisions among them, as the current anti-Medvedev media campaign illustrates. Medvedev may be an easy scapegoat, but this will not help the regime - the Prime minister is, after all, part of the inner circle of power. Putin is short on ideas and policies, and needs them badly, but fears ideologies of all kinds. Consequently, he is trying to establish a doctrine that he thinks will please the ordinary Russian, reassure the elites, and keep the ‘dissidents’ in check.

A credo, but no ideas

Putin has no ideology of his own, no strong beliefs. He is using classic populist tactics that rely on quick judgment and tough actions. But will others not outflank him? Is he not unleashing dangerous passions just for the sake of rebuffing democratic politicians? Is he not becoming more dependent on the Church, on the men in uniform, on corrupt judges, on thinkers and movements on the far right? Even if he himself does not share the radicalism of their positions, he is singing along to some of their tunes.

The politically correct credo follows a few simple motifs: state-dictated nationalism, Russian and Orthodox supremacy, the foreign threat, and Russia’s ‘special path’ (osobyi put’), all pitched against the ‘liberal’ western model. No utopia, no grand design, no modernisation. Putin likes to talk of ‘spiritual identity’ and ‘traditional values’, concepts recalling both Tsarist and Soviet times, as former deputy and opposition leader Vladimir Ryzhkov noted after Putin’s state-of-the-nation address in December 2012.

The official nationalist discourse reveals serious contradictions. It promotes a ‘rossiisky’ identity, by which it means a ‘non-ethnically based’ Russian nation formed predominantly of … ethnic Russians! It often claims that minority ethnic groups, especially Muslims from the Caucasus area, do not quite belong to the ‘rossiisky’ nation. The presidential Council of Inter-Ethnic Relations is busy producing school textbooks to teach this ideology of a ‘single nation’. Moreover, after his election on 4th March 2012, Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he was a president for all Russians, but would fight against the ‘traitors’ who had endangered his rule and Russia’s security.

Another problem with this patriotic rhetoric is that Putin has no monopoly on nationalism. The most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, at present on trial and facing a prison sentence, calls for an end to federalism and a unitary state, and for an end to subsidies to the North Caucasus. The Kremlin propaganda machine is clearly losing steam. They can put Navalny behind bars, but they will not outwit him in the battle for ideas.

If there is an ideological slogan in the Kremlin, it is ‘the economy first’, i.e. growth, more money to spend, more power to control people and organizations. And this is where the system breaks down. The Russian economy has now stopped growing and may go into negative figures before the end of this year. All Russian and foreign assessments are in agreement about sombre short term prospects.

Self-Defence

The economic nationalism credo is a sign not of a change of direction, but an intensification of recent trends. The regime is aging and can’t expect a second wind. So it has few options left if it wants to stay in power and silence its now numerous critics and opponents. It must increase its control of the political space still further, and exert still more pressure on already powerless public institutions such as the Duma, the courts and the media. Putin must convince the outside world that he still wields significant power throughout Russia. And he tries to convince himself, and everyone else, that the Russian people are satisfied with his rule. But inside the ruling elites doubts and insecurity are mounting.

Vladimir Putin is a man of action, not a man for thinking and forward planning. A state ideology is an encumbrance, imposed by the changing domestic economic and political context and rising challenges from larger and more competitive economies such as like China, India and even the USA. The more the regime clamps down on the media, NGOs and opposition movements, the more it is obliged to construct a self-serving narrative about Russian history and ‘specialness’. Putin is not, however, a neo-fascist leader seeking to strengthen his power by appealing to the masses. He is weary of crowds. That came out clearly in February 2012 when, in order to counter opposition demonstrations, he grudgingly let his henchmen organise huge pro-regime gatherings in Moscow.

This attitude is typical of aging personalised regimes. It reveals a highly conservative and protective attitude, for the leaderships’ primary concern is self-defence. The Kremlin has to fend off the political stamina of people as different as Navalny, Udaltsov, Nemtsov, Ryzhkov and Chirikova, all of whom are more attractive, more modern, more forward-looking. Putin’s official oratory, in contrast, is anchored in the past, and offers little to lift the spirits of young people and the aspiring middle classes.

The key question is not whether Putin can stay at the helm until the end of this six-year term but how his succession may be managed relatively painlessly for the elites and the public alike, in 2018 or earlier. Russian observers often prefer not to think about Putin’s impending fall because they are afraid of its consequences and they know they may be blamed for any subsequent disorder. In fact, timing is crucial here. The longer Putin clings to power, the more he will have to face the side-effects of ‘mature’ Putinism (‘mature socialism’ was the polite way of describing the aging Brezhnev leadership), and the more unpredictable events will be.

The Russian president made his mark on politics with the slogan ‘the dictatorship of the law’. Is he now considering a ‘dictatorship of beliefs’? Utopia is out of the question, nationalism is failing to galvanise society, and nobody wants any new wars. Only a comprehensive economic and social strategy with a compelling forward vision might succeed in reuniting the many diverse communities and regions of Russia. But such a strategy requires a political determination that Putin no longer possesses. The man is too afraid of taking risks, he will not embark on the major reforms that would imply more adherence to the rule of law, and so pave the way for a real succession contest. As the Russian joke goes, Putin is making progress, moving away from 'bezalternativnaya sistema' to 'bezperspektivnaya sistema' - from a no-alternative regime to a no-future regime.

An inconclusive election at an unhappy time

2013-05-14

After a campaign marred by wiretapping scandals and accusations of vote-rigging, Mr Borisov’s centre-right GERB party won 31% of the vote against the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which got 27% of the vote, according to preliminary official results. The Turkish minority party, DPS, came third with about 11%. The fourth party to enter parliament was Ataka, an ultra-nationalist group, which received about 7% of the votes.

“For the first time in Bulgaria’s new history a party has won two consecutive elections,” said Georgi Markov, a former judge at the Constitutional Court. “However, also for the first time, a party has won with such a few number of votes, just about a million.” The outcome of the vote suggests a hung parliament, observers say. With 98 deputies GERB is well short of a majority in the 240-seat parliament. The party lost about a third of its votes compared with the elections in 2009.

GERB’s slim lead means that weeks of horse trading and backroom deals are likely to ensue. This is about the last time Bulgaria needs at a time when people are angry and disillusioned with the political elite. A coalition including GERB seems unlikely because all party leaders refused to negotiate with Mr Borisov. A minority government led by GERB is also improbable. In fact, there are a few options for a stable government according to Ognyan Minchev, a political analyst. “The results will probably be a ‘hidden’ coalition, whether it’s called a programme or expert government.”

The leader of the Socialists, Sergey Stanishev, proposed such a programme cabinet led by the BSP and supported by DPS and Ataka. How such a configuration would work is unclear: the nationalist Ataka has long antagonised the Turkish minority party and wanted it banned.

This was a listless election at an unhappy time. Voter turnout was at a record low with just above 50%. The run-up to the election was overshadowed by scandals. A day before the elections prosecutors found 350,000 unaccounted-for ballots at a printing house whose owner is reportedly close to Mr Borisov’s party. That led the opposition to accuse GERB of trying to rig the vote. “This was a preparation for the total falsification of the elections,” said Mr Stanishev. Allegations of illegal wiretapping led prosecutors to accuse GERB's campaign manager and Tsvetan Tsvetanov, a former interior minister, of "deliberately allowing his subordinates, the directors of the wiretapping department, to commit crimes". Mr Tsvetanov, who cannot be charged because he has immunity as a parliamentary candidate, has denied any wrongdoing.

A recent report by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation said that “what remains after the protests and the elections is the large discrepancy between those in power in politics and business and the ‘simple’ citizens. It gives the impression that the Bulgarian society is split not along the ‘left’ and ‘right’ lines but by ‘above’ and ‘below’. To overcome this division is one of the biggest future challenges for the Bulgarian policy. Otherwise there is the danger that the gap between policy and those who do not feel represented by it will grow further.” The new government (if it can be cobbled together) has a big job at hand.

In Latvia, V Is for Victory – or Vanquished

2013-05-10

Five days ago, on the other side of the river, ethnic Latvians also lay flowers at a soaring monument covered with stars and heroic statues, listened to folk concerts, and ate grilled meat in celebration of the end of Soviet rule and the restoration of its independence on 4 May.

Though relations between the two communities are largely normalized in daily life, politicians continue to argue over the rights of ethnic Russians and the country’s other “non-citizens” – nearly 300,000 people who moved to Latvia during the Soviet era, and their descendants, but who were not eligible for Latvian citizenship after the fall of the Soviet Union. Those tensions often come to a head during this patriotic week in May, when two very different interpretations of history are on display.

The Victory Day festivities are a particularly sore spot for Latvian nationalists, who view 9 May merely as the day one occupier left and another took its place. Ethnic Russians – who account for a quarter of the country’s population – on the other hand, see it as an occasion to celebrate their heritage and collective identity. Or, as University of Latvia’s social sciences dean, Juris Rozenvalds, told the Russian-language Vesti segodnya newspaper, to show the governing authorities that “we are here, we are many, and we must be taken into account.”

Rozenvalds believes the government is weary of 9 May not because of what it represents, but because the substantial numbers (more than 150,000 people attended the events last year) seem to legitimize the Russian community’s active presence in Latvia. He said 2012’s failed referendum to elevate Russian to official language status or bids to make Orthodox Christmas a public holiday were similar appeals – and rejections – for recognition by Latvia’s largest minority.

Last week, Latvia’s National Alliance Party, a junior member of the governing coalition, urged the demolition of the Soviet Victory Monument and recommended turning the site into an amusement park. “As long as the monument stands, it will remind you of the consequences of Latvia’s occupation and encourage Russia’s military hopes for the restoration of the empire,” Aleksandrs Kirsteins, a National Alliance parliamentary candidate, told Delfi.lv. Other political leaders proposed placing an exhibit on communist crimes and Stalinist-era atrocities near the monument to serve as a reminder of what the Latvian people experienced after the Soviet liberation.

The Soviet Victory Monument was already the target of a failed bomb plot in 1997, while relocating a similar memorial in Tallinn led to two days of riots in 2007. Notably, an independent poll conducted earlier this week revealed 79 percent of Riga’s residents want to keep the Victory Monument in place and intact – 28 percent of which felt it should be restored, not destroyed. Although nearly half of Riga’s population ethnically identifies as Russian, the poll showed even 54 percent of primarily Latvian-speakers thought the monument should remain.

The National Alliance’s suggestion comes on the heels of an unsuccessful effort to ban public displays of Soviet and Nazi symbols before Victory Day. Parliament approved the first draft of the bill in early April, but it was later downgraded from “urgent,” meaning it now requires three readings to pass instead of the expedited two, RIA Novosti reported.

Police have prepared for provocations from Latvian or Russian radicals this year, but organizers sought to avoid trouble by asking people to bring only flowers to the festival and to leave their Soviet-style flags at home.

The Republic of Latvia officially commemorates the defeat of Nazism on 8 May, when the president and other government officials lay wreaths at Brothers’ Cemetery. Last year, however, Nils Usakovs, Riga’s first ethnic Russian mayor, also laid a wreath at the Victory Monument on 9 May.

At the time, he noted the veterans were able to defeat the Germans precisely because they united and did not differentiate people by ethnic background or language. The sentiment echoed Rozenvalds’ conviction that ethnic associations must be stripped from these holidays so that they become more about respecting two versions of history rather than a case of “us” versus “them.”

20 years of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic

2013-05-06

On May 5, 1993 at the XII session of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, the new Constitution was adopted. Since then, the Republic of Kyrgyzstan became known as the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Constitution of the Kyrgyz SSR, adopted in 1978, has lost its power. It is an important date for all the Kyrgyz people because the adoption of a new constitution meant one of the most important stages in the state history – the independence of the Kyrgyz Republic.

The most important key points in the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic of 1993 are the principles of independence, freedom of speech and power of the people. The Constitution has 9 chapters and 114 articles. Each of them carries unique and significant promise to the Kyrgyz nation.

The Constitution of 1993 was revised four times in 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2003 during the regimen of the first President Askar Akayev in favor of strengthening powers of the President. And on October 21, 2007, by the Decree of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, was held a referendum which adopted the new Constitution proposed by the President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. And it was signed on October 23, 2007.

Further in connection with the change of government in 2010 there was a referendum on a new Constitution in 2010. An important point in the new constitution can be considered the strengthening of the role of parliament in the government. However, despite the numerous changes in the most important “document” of the country, the main laws and regulations of the Kyrgyz Republic have the common ground – the very first edition of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic dated May 5, 1993, which celebrates this year its 20th anniversary. And it is a really significant event for the whole nation.

Turkmenistan International Relations

2013-04-30

Although the Turkmen Constitution declares the country to be a secular democracy and a presidential republic, the country has an authoritarian government controlled by the president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and his Democratic Party. Berdymukhamedov remained president following a February election that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights determined to have had limited choice between competing political alternatives. The three most important human rights problems noted were arbitrary arrest; torture; and disregard for civil liberties, including restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and movement. Other human rights problems included citizens’ inability to change their government; interference in the practice of religion; denial of due process and fair trial; arbitrary interference with privacy, home, and correspondence; discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons; and restrictions on the free association of workers. Officials in the security services and elsewhere in the government acted with impunity. There were no reported prosecutions of government officials for human rights abuses, says the report.
Source: state.gov

Turkmenistan To Report to UN Human Rights Council
On April 21 – 28 a Turkmen delegation will visit Geneva, Switzerland, to report on the human rights situation in the country to the United National Human Rights Council in the Framework of the Universal Periodic Review.
Source: Turkmenistan.ru

Human Rights Watch: UN Reviews Should Urge Concrete Improvements
Turkmenistan’s and Uzbekistan’s highly repressive policies are coming up for rare international scrutiny on April 22 and 24, 2013, Human Rights Watch said on April 22. United Nations member countries gathering at the Human Rights Council in Geneva for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure should seize the opportunity to expose and denounce the ongoing repression in both countries and press for concrete steps to end abuses. The governments of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan stand out as among the most repressive in the world, Human Rights Watch said. Both also stand out for their failure to heed recommendations made during their previous Human Rights Council reviews, in December 2008. 

“The extraordinarily high levels of repression in both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, coupled with their governments’ refusal to acknowledge problems, let alone to address them, underscores the need for a strong, unified message,” said Veronika Szente Goldston, Europe and Central Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Ashgabat and Tashkent need to hear, loud and clear, just how unacceptable their abusive records are, and what specific changes they need to make.”  In submissions on Turkmenistan and on Uzbekistan, drawn up in advance of the reviews, HRW highlighted key concerns with respect to both countries, and the steps needed to address them.  One immediate step both governments should be urged to take is to end their longstanding denial of access to the UN’s own rights monitors. Ten UN rapporteurs have requested such access to Turkmenistan, while the number of UN rapporteurs barred from Uzbekistan has reached 11, Human Rights Watch said.  Cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is another pressing issue. On April 12, the ICRC took the unusual step of announcing publicly its decision to end prison visits to detainees in Uzbekistan. It cited its inability to follow the organization’s standard working procedures for such visits, including being able to access all detainees of ICRC concern and to speak to detainees in private. Turkmenistan’s prisons, too, remain closed to outside scrutiny.  “Both governments’ exceptionally poor record of cooperation with the UN and beyond should be a key feature of their Universal Periodic Reviews,” Szente Goldston said.  Other key concerns in Turkmenistan, noted by HRW, include:

- The government’s longstanding use of imprisonment as a tool for political retaliation. As a result of more than two decades of this practice, unknown numbers of people languish in the country’s notoriously abusive prisons on what appear to be politically motivated charges. Recently the government freed four such prisoners, two of whom had served out their six-and-a-half-year sentences in full. But their release only underscored the question of how many more remain behind bars.

- Draconian restrictions on freedom of expression and association, which authorities enforce by threatening, harassing, or imprisoning those who dare to question its policies, however modestly. The severe repression of civil society activism makes it impossible for independent human rights defenders and journalists to work openly.

- Interference with and control of residents’ right to leave and return to Turkmenistan through an informal and arbitrary system of travel bans commonly imposed on activists, their families, and relatives of exiled dissidents.

“The upcoming UPRs of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will serve as a stark reminder of just how little has changed in both countries in the nearly four-and-a-half years since their initial reviews under this procedure,” Szente Goldston said. “What these governments’ partners need to ask themselves is: what more can be done to bring about better compliance? The answer is clearly more, not less, pressure.”
Sources: hrw.org, hrw.org

Turkmen Delegation Visited Hungary to Study Education, Sports and Tourism Sectors
A Turkmen delegation consisting of the Heads of the Ministry of Education, National Education Institution, National Institution for Sports and Tourism, and a number of universities visited Hungary to study Hungarian experience in education, sports, and tourism. During the visit, Hungarian and Turkmen officials agreed to conduct joint training activities for sporting events in preparation for the Fifth Asian Games in closed premises and martial arts (to be held in Ashgabat in 2017).
Source: Turkmenistan.ru

Turkmenistan Hosted XII International Exhibition and Conference «White City Ashgabat»
Turkmenistan hosted the Twelfth International Universal Exhibition and Conference “White city – Ashgabat,” which brought together representatives of Turkmen ministries and departments andcompanies from France, Germany, Turkey, Italy, China, Russia, UAE, Holland, Slovenia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan specializing in the construction of transport infrastructure, town planning, architecture, power supply, the petrochemical industry, gas supply, telecommunications and services of communications, food and processing industry, public health and environmental protection, landscape gardening of territories and design, water supply, heating as well as manufacturing of consumer goods.
Source: Turkmenistan.gov.tm

Turkmenistan to Take Part in UN Economic and Social Council
Turkmenistan’s Deputy Finance Minister Geldy Saryev and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Turkmenistan’s Central Bank, Merdan Annadyrdyev, will visit New York on April 22 – 23 to take part in the meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) “Coherence, coordination and cooperation in the context of financing for sustainable development and the post-2015 development agenda.”
Sources: Turkmenistan.ru, un.org

Russia: Worst Human Rights Climate in Post-Soviet Era

2013-04-24

The 78-page report, “Laws of Attrition: Crackdown on Russia’s Civil Society after Putin’s Return to the Presidency,”describes some of the changes since Putin returned to the presidency in May 2012. The authorities have introduced a series of restrictive laws, begun a nationwide campaign of invasive inspections of nongovernmental organizations, harassed, intimidated, and in a number of cases imprisonedpolitical activists, and sought to cast government critics as clandestine enemies. The report analyzes the new laws, including the so-called “foreign agents” law, the treason law, and the assembly law, and documents how they have been used.

“The new laws and government harassment are pushing civil society activists to the margins of the law,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government crackdown is hurting Russian society and harming Russia’s international standing.”

Many of the new laws and the treatment of civil society violate Russia’s international human rights commitments, Human Rights Watch said.

Several of the new laws seek to limit, or even end, independent advocacy by placing new, draconian limits on association with foreigners and foreign funding. The “foreign agents” law requires organizations that receive foreign funding and supposedly engage in “political activities” to register as “foreign agents.”Another law, adopted in December, essentially bans funding emanating from the United States for “political” activity by nongovernmental organizations, and bans groups whose work is “directed against Russia’s interests.” A third law, the treason law, expands the legal definition of treason in ways that could criminalize involvement in international human rights advocacy.

The report documents the nationwide campaign of intrusive government inspections of the offices of hundreds of organizations, involving officials from the prosecutor’s office, the Justice Ministry, the tax inspectorate, and in some cases the anti-extremism police, health inspectorate, and the fire inspectorate. The inspection campaign, which began in March 2013, was prompted by the “foreign agents” law.

Although many organizations have not received the inspection results, at least two have been cited for failing to register as “foreign agents,” and others have been fined for fire safety violations, air quality violations, and the like, Human Rights Watch said. Inspectors examined the groups’ tax, financial, registration, and other documents. In several cases they demanded to inspect computers or email. In one case, officials demanded that an organization prove that its staff had had been vaccinated for smallpox, and in another the officials asked for chest X-rays of staff to ensure they did not have tuberculosis. In yet another case, officials demanded copies of all speeches made at the group’s recent seminars and conferences.

“The government claims the inspections are routine, but they clearly are not,” said Williamson. “The campaign is unprecedented in its scope and scale, and seems clearly aimed at intimidating and marginalizing civil society groups. This inspection campaign can potentially be used to force some groups to end advocacy work, or to close them down.”

The Warsaw ghetto uprising: A Polish-Jewish hero

2013-04-19

Last week, more than a hundred volunteers showed up to work on cleaning and restoring the dilapidated Jewish cemetery, perhaps the strongest visual testament to the fact that this city was once one of the largest Jewish centres in the world – and is no more. Almost none of them were Jewish. They told me they had come out of a sense of duty.

The event had been listed on a website devoted to the anniversary commemorations, which are extensive. From now until the May 16^th when the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street was destroyed, marking the end of the uprising and effectively of all Jewish life in Warsaw, the city hosts ceremonies, exhibitions, concerts and lectures devoted to Poland’s Jewish heritage.

The new Museum of the History of Polish Jews is co-ordinating much of the proceedings. It has used the occasion to officially open as an educational centre even though its permanent exhibition is a year away from being ready evidently hoping its impressive architecture and cultural programme will trump the dubious symbolism of its emptiness.

The guest of honour is Simcha Rotem (pictured above), nom de guerre ‘Kazik’. At 89, he is the only former member of the Jewish Combat Organisation (ŻOB) still in good enough health to make the trip. I met him in Israel, where he has lived since shortly after the war, last month. Though tired and in low spirits, he told our correspondent he had decided long ago that if he could possibly make it to this anniversary, he would, regardless of what kind of commemoration was planned for the sake of the memory of his comrades who are no longer alive.

Some of those comrades did live for years after the war though—thanks to Kazik. His is an astonishing story of courage and luck in hellish circumstances. As a 19-year-old, fair-haired ruffian from the Warsaw district of Czerniaków, Kazik did not look Jewish. For that reason the insurgent leader, Marek Edelman, chose him to go to the Aryan side and try to organise a rescue operation for the Jews trapped in the ghetto, already in flames.

After a week on the Aryan side, Kazik finally found two sewer workers who thanks to much goading with vodka in one hand and a pistol in the other, showed him an underground route back into the ghetto. Emerging on Zamenhofa street, he found nothing but smouldering ruins.

It’s at that point that Simcha Rotem’s testimony ends Claude Lanzmann’s epic documentary, Shoah: he believes he is the “last Jew” and has nothing left to do but wait for the Germans. But that is not what he did.

Returning to the sewers, he hears voices: a dozen or so fighters. They say there are more hiding elsewhere, and he tells them to gather and make their way through the sewers to a manhole under Prosta Street, just outside the ghetto.

Simcha Rotem to this day does not know exactly people he saved: “A few dozen. Do you think I had time to count them?” he exclaims. After meeting the group in the sewer, he had returned to the Aryan side and organised for two vans to pick up the survivors at dawn. Only one van arrived, at 10am, and its driver had to be held at gunpoint to prevent him from driving off while the Jews were coming out of the manhole.

After it seemed that no-one else was emerging from the manhole, Kazik told the van to move off. Against all the odds, the few dozen made it to safety the forests north of Warsaw. Yet some had remained underground. Simcha Rotem has had to live with the idea that perhaps he could have done better. But today he says he feels it was the only decision he could make in the circumstances: “The Germans were 100 metres away. It was broad daylight. It was now or never.”

Asked whether his memory of that moment is still vivid today, Simcha Rotem is almost offended: “It is not the sort of thing a person could forget”. His anger at the Nazis is still very much alive, too: “I regret in a way that we didn’t get revenge on the SS. Because they were not conscripts, they chose to do what they did. So they were murderers. And murderers should be hanged. They were not people, but animals walking upright.”

Fear that the world could forget the horror of the Holocaust, or that it could happen again, animates those who do remember it ever more as their numbers dwindle. Irena Boldok, who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto aged eight or nine, gives talks in schools and elsewhere as a member of the Children of the Holocaust association. She speaks gloomily about the experience: “some of them understand, not many. It’s hard to talk to fourteen-year-old kids. It is like a history lesson for them.”

According to the Polish psychologist Barbara Engelking, one reason the ghetto uprising did not happen sooner is that Jews in the Warsaw ghetto maintained the illusion that they might live: the death camps were simply beyond human imagination. With fewer and fewer survivors around to remind us of the horrors of the Holocaust, marking the anniversaries of its key events becomes an ever more important way of ensuring that we don’t forget something that was so unthinkable at the time.

1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place

2013-04-18

In January 1913, a man whose passport bore the name Stavros Papadopoulos disembarked from the Krakow train at Vienna's North Terminal station.

Of dark complexion, he sported a large peasant's moustache and carried a very basic wooden suitcase.

"I was sitting at the table," wrote the man he had come to meet, years later, "when the door opened with a knock and an unknown man entered.

"He was short... thin... his greyish-brown skin covered in pockmarks... I saw nothing in his eyes that resembled friendliness."

The writer of these lines was a dissident Russian intellectual, the editor of a radical newspaper called Pravda (Truth). His name was Leon Trotsky.

The man he described was not, in fact, Papadopoulos.

He had been born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, was known to his friends as Koba and is now remembered as Joseph Stalin.

Trotsky and Stalin were just two of a number of men who lived in central Vienna in 1913 and whose lives were destined to mould, indeed to shatter, much of the 20th century.

It was a disparate group. The two revolutionaries, Stalin and Trotsky, were on the run. Sigmund Freud was already well established.

The psychoanalyst, exalted by followers as the man who opened up the secrets of the mind, lived and practised on the city's Berggasse.

The young Josip Broz, later to find fame as Yugoslavia's leader Marshal Tito, worked at the Daimler automobile factory in the suburb of Wiener Neustadt, and sought employment, money and good times.

Then there was the 24-year-old from the north-west of Austria whose dreams of studying painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts had been twice dashed and who now lodged in a doss-house in Meldermannstrasse near the Danube, one Adolf Hitler.

In his majestic evocation of the city at the time, Thunder at Twilight, Frederic Morton imagines Hitler haranguing his fellow lodgers "on morality, racial purity, the German mission and Slav treachery, on Jews, Jesuits, and Freemasons".

"His forelock would toss, his [paint]-stained hands shred the air, his voice rise to an operatic pitch. Then, just as suddenly as he had started, he would stop. He would gather his things together with an imperious clatter, [and] stalk off to his cubicle."

Presiding over all, in the city's rambling Hofburg Palace was the aged Emperor Franz Joseph, who had reigned since the great year of revolutions, 1848.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, his designated successor, resided at the nearby Belvedere Palace, eagerly awaiting the throne. His assassination the following year would spark World War I.

Vienna in 1913 was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which consisted of 15 nations and well over 50 million inhabitants.

"While not exactly a melting pot, Vienna was its own kind of cultural soup, attracting the ambitious from across the empire," says Dardis McNamee, editor-in-chief of the Vienna Review, Austria's only English-language monthly, who has lived in the city for 17 years.

"Less than half of the city's two million residents were native born and about a quarter came from Bohemia (now Bavaria in Germany and the western Czech Republic) and Moravia (now the eastern Czech Republic), so that Czech was spoken alongside German in many settings."

The empire's subjects spoke a dozen languages, she explains.

"Officers in the Austro-Hungarian Army had to be able to give commands in 11 languages besides German, each of which had an official translation of the National Hymn."

And this unique melange created its own cultural phenomenon, the Viennese coffee-house. Legend has its genesis in sacks of coffee left by the Ottoman army following the failed Turkish siege of 1683.

"Cafe culture and the notion of debate and discussion in cafes is very much part of Viennese life now and was then," explains Charles Emmerson, author of 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War and a senior research fellow at the foreign policy think-tank Chatham House.

"The Viennese intellectual community was actually quite small and everyone knew each other and... that provided for exchanges across cultural frontiers."

This, he adds, would favour political dissidents and those on the run.

"You didn't have a tremendously powerful central state. It was perhaps a little bit sloppy. If you wanted to find a place to hide out in Europe where you could meet lots of other interesting people then Vienna would be a good place to do it."

Freud's favourite haunt, the Cafe Landtmann, still stands on the Ring, the renowned boulevard which surrounds the city's historic Innere Stadt.

Trotsky and Hitler frequented Cafe Central, just a few minutes' stroll away, where cakes, newspapers, chess and, above all, talk, were the patrons' passions.

"Part of what made the cafes so important was that 'everyone' went," says MacNamee. "So there was a cross-fertilisation across disciplines and interests, in fact boundaries that later became so rigid in western thought were very fluid."

Beyond that, she adds, "was the surge of energy from the Jewish intelligentsia, and new industrialist class, made possible following their being granted full citizenship rights by Franz Joseph in 1867, and full access to schools and universities."

And, though this was still a largely male-dominated society, a number of women also made an impact.

Alma Mahler, whose composer husband had died in 1912, was also a composer and became the muse and lover of the artist Oskar Kokoschka and the architect Walter Gropius.

Though the city was, and remains, synonymous with music, lavish balls and the waltz, its dark side was especially bleak. Vast numbers of its citizens lived in slums and 1913 saw nearly 1,500 Viennese take their own lives.

No-one knows if Hitler bumped into Trotsky, or Tito met Stalin. But works like Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mr Hitler - a 2007 radio play by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran - are lively imaginings of such encounters.

The conflagration which erupted the following year destroyed much of Vienna's intellectual life.

The empire imploded in 1918, while propelling Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky and Tito into careers that would mark world history forever.

North Korea marks Kim Il-Sung's 101th birthday

2013-04-15

Girls in red and pink jackets skipped along streets festooned with celebratory banners and flags and parents carried babies in pushchairs, bundled up against the spring chill as residents of the isolated, impoverished nation began observing a three-day holiday.

There was no sense of panic in the North Korean capital, where very few locals have access to international broadcasts and foreign newspaper headlines speculating about an imminent missile launch and detailing the international diplomacy under way to try to rein Pyongyang in, including a swing through the region by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to try to calm down emotions and coordinate Washington's response with Beijing, North Korea's most important ally.

Foreign governments have been struggling to assess how seriously to take North Korea's recent torrent of rhetoric - including warnings of possible nuclear war - as it expresses its anger over continuing U.S.-South Korea military maneuvers just across the border. Officials in South Korea, the United States and Japan say intelligence indicates that North Korean officials, fresh off an underground nuclear test in February, are ready to launch a medium-range missile.

North Korea's own media gave little indication today of how high the tensions are.

The Rodong Sinmun, the Workers' Party newspaper, featured photos and coverage of current leader Kim Jong-un's overnight visit to the Kumsusan mausoleum to pay respects to his grandfather. There was only one line at the end of the article vowing to bring down the "robber-like U.S. imperialists."

Kim Jong-un's renovation of the memorial palace that once served as his grandfather's presidential offices was opened to the public on Monday, the vast cement plaza replaced by fountains, park benches, trellises and tulips. Stretches of green lawn were marked by small signs indicating which businesses - including the Foreign Trade Bank recently added to a U.S. Treasury blacklist - and government agencies donated funds to help pay for the landscaping.

Braving the cold, gray weather, people lined up in droves to lay bouquets of fake flowers at the bronze statues of Kim and his son, late leader Kim Jong-il, in downtown Pyongyang, as they do for every major holiday in the highly militarized country, where loyalty to the Kims and to the state are drummed in citizens from an early age. They queued at roadside snack stands for rations of peanuts, a holiday tradition. Cheers and screams from a soccer match filled the air.

"Although the situation is tense, people have got bright faces and are very happy," said Han Kyong Sim, a drink stand worker.

Today marked the official start of the new year according to North Korea's "juche" calendar, which begins with the day of Kim il-Sung's birth in 1912. But unlike last year, the centennial of his birthday, there are no big parades in store this week, and North Koreans were planning to use it as a day to catch up with friends and family.

But while there has almost no sense of crisis in Pyongyang, North Korea's official posture toward the outside appears to be as hardline as ever.

On Sunday, it rejected South Korea's proposal to resolve tensions through dialogue. North Korea said it has no intention of talking with Seoul unless it abandons what it called the rival South's confrontational posture. South Korea's unification ministry spokesman, Kim Hyung-suk, called that response ''very regrettable" but said that the South remains open to dialogue.

A top North Korean leader, Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, also told a gathering of high officials on Sunday that the North must bolster its nuclear arsenal further and "wage a stronger all-out action with the U.S. to cope with the prevailing wartime situation," according to footage from the North's state TV.

South Korea's defense minister, Kim Kwan-jin, told a parliamentary committee in Seoul today that North Korea still appears poised to launch a missile from its east coast, though he declined to disclose how he got the information.

Kerry, during his trip, has warned North Korea not to conduct a missile test, saying it will be an act of provocation that "will raise people's temperatures" and further isolate the country and its people. In Tokyo on Sunday, Kerry said the U.S. was "prepared to reach out" but Pyongyang must first lower tensions and honor previous agreements.

North Korea has also pulled workers from the Kaesong factory complex on its side of the Demilitarized Zone, the last remaining symbols of inter-Korean rapprochement, in a pointed jab at South Korea. South Korean-run factories provided more than 50,000 jobs for North Korea, where two-thirds of the population struggle with food shortages, according to the World Food Program.

North Korea has issued no specific warnings to ships and aircraft that a missile test is imminent, and is also continuing efforts to increase tourism.

Belarusian Historians Struggle to Find Their Place

2013-04-12

His interview followed several politically-motivated dismissals at Hrodna State University. The dismissals prove that the authorities are afraid of alternative initiatives and thus, exclude them from the public sphere.

But the policy of the Belarusian authorities is far from consistent. On the one hand they ban the white-red-white flag of the 1918 Belarusian National Republic (BNR), while at the same time they permit a BNR public rally in the centre of Minsk. State media even organised a roundtable acknowledging the role of the BNR in Belarusian history. At the same time they dropped charges against Arche magazine where many Belarusian historians have published their work.

One thing is certain - the Belarusian authorities are aware of the power of pulling ''cultural-historical" strings to reach their short-term political goals. Belarusians historians know it only too well.

Book on History of Hrodna Sparks Dismissals

The local authorities in Hrodna have a problem tolerating a different historical narrative, like the one published in a recent a book on the history of Hrodna, a regional centre in the West of Belarus. The book called 'Hrodnaznaustva' came out in Poland in 2012 and immediately raised lots of controversy. As a result several contributors to this book could not continue their work and left the university. The authorities gradually, and efficiently, appear to have gotten rid of the authors - historians who no longer are permitted to teach at the university, or any other state university.

In September 2012, Andrej Czarniakevich, a historian who co-authored the book lost his job at Hrodna State University. It became clear that the region's governor, Siamon Shapiro, personally decided to dismiss the historian. The reason given was that the publication was published abroad using an 'unclear' source of financing.

Viachaslau Shved, another contributor to the book is a well-recognised professor who has been working at Hrodna State University for many years. At the end of March he lost his position as the dean of the Department of Belarusian Culture and Regional Tourism. Later on, Shved failed to win a new round of competition for his position as professor and as a result lost his job. He has since suggested that the procedure was politically motivated.

Another historian, Igor Kuzmin, left the same university in protest of the politics of the local officials who are clearly interested in maintaining control and censorship in the field of education.

A Roundtable with the Academics: the BNR Recognised

However, Belarusian authorities are not always tough on different interpretations of history. Proclamations made about the first Belarusian state founded on 25 March 1918 remain a bone of contention for those who adhere to the Soviet version of the history and those who oppose it. The authorities do not recognise 25th of March as a national holiday, while the opposition does.

Usually the authorities allow public rallies on that day. This year, while giving permission to hold the annual event, they stipulated that the organisers were not to bring white-red-white flags of the BNR to the event. Over a thousand people participated in the rally. Police arrested only seven people - a rather modest number by Belarusian standards.

A major Belarusian state newspaper used the anniversary of the BNR as an occasion to discuss its historical importance. The state newspaper 'Zviazda' organised a roundtable with the participation of scholars from the National Academy of Sciences. Historians and philosophers discussed the Belarusian National Republic and the role of intellectuals in the process of forming national awareness amongst Belarusians. For Belarus, this was a very unusual event.

One of the participants, Mikalaj Smiakhovich from the National Academy of Sciences, highlighted the role of the Belarusian intelligentsia. In his opinion, historians perceive the BNR today as a national form of the Belarusian state: ‘95 years ago the Belarusian nation obtained the right to have its own state’. Aliaksandr Kavalenia, director of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences, talked about the mission intellectuals for the further development of the Belarusian state.

Any Hope for Belarusian Historians?

Aleś Smalanchuk's interview for Radio Svaboda, mentioned above, gives a rather sad picture of the situation with Belarusian historians and historiography. The state suppresses alternative historical narratives, though occasionally it tolerates and allows some challenging initiatives. At the same time, no educational institutions in the country can seriously take responsibility for the promotion and support for the independent teaching of Belarusian history.

Commenting on the recent dismissals of historians in Hrodna, Smalanchuk also criticised the European Humanities University, a Belarusian university in exile. He noted that even at this university, which is supposed to support independent teaching and studies of Belarusian history, a number of prominent Belarusian historians such as Zakhar Shybieka and Valiantsin Holubeu have had to leave.

According to Smalanchuk, the university no longer admits new people to study history and political science and the administration is on the verge of demonstrating contempt for the Belarusian language and history with its current policies.

In short, Belarusian historians are struggling to find a favourable working environment not only in their home country, but abroad as well.

Goodbye Lenin: Tajikistan's new historical narrative

2013-04-09

In a Monday evening in May 2011, under cover of darkness and with protection from police barricades, builders dismantled the 22 metre-high Lenin statue in the centre of Khojand, Tajikistan’s second city in the north of the country. The anecdote popular among locals is that Lenin welcomed the opportunity to relocate as, from his vantage point overlooking the city’s football stadium, he had grown bored of watching the local football team continually lose. The tallest statue of Lenin in the world now stands on a piece of scrubland on the outskirts of town with a view of rundown Soviet-era tower blocks, dilapidated factories and cows grazing at the base of his crumbling plinth – not a spectacle that panders to the Communist ideology.

Yet the local government, as part of a national directive, was interested in a different discourse which would emerge from the removal of Lenin and his replacement with the ninth century ruler of the Samanid dynasty and the supposed father of the Tajik nation, Ismail Somoni.

The even taller statue that stands on Lenin’s former plinth represents the national narrative that the Tajikistani government is embracing in their attempt to engender a sense of national identity for the inhabitants of Tajikistan, a country fragmented along ethnic, regional and religious lines. (‘Tajikistani’ refers to the inhabitants of Tajikistan and ‘Tajik’ to the ethnic group).

Reviving the past

In 1991 frenzied crowds toppled the statue of Lenin in the capital, Dushanbe, but the outbreak of civil war in 1992 stalled progression. Peacekeeping and stabilisation took precedence over establishing legitimacy for the existence of a country, which the Soviets founded as a constituent republic in 1929 but had never existed as an independent state. Often the government of a country which has undergone social and political change chooses to rewrite the country’s history, highlighting elements favourable to current and future policies. Yet, in contrast with other countries which found independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the five-year civil war and continued political instability meant that the building of a Tajikistani national narrative has been tentative.

In neighbouring Uzbekistan, soon after perestroika, President Islam Karimov ordered the removal of all the Lenin statues that littered the country’s urban landscape. The purging of statues of the Soviet leader not only eliminated constant reminders of the Soviet past, but also facilitated the government’s progression towards a new historical focus for the nation: the narrative associated with the Turco-Mongolian ruler Amir Timur. Born on Uzbekistani soil, the founder of the Timurid dynasty, Timur, conquered Persia, Northern India and Syria and established the now Uzbek city, Samarkand, as the capital of his empire. He is more commonly known in the West as Tamerlane or Tamburlaine, deriving from the Turkic epithet ‘Timur the lame’, referring to his battle injuries rather than his capabilities. Thus the monuments to the fourteenth-century conqueror, which sprung up across Uzbekistan in the early 1990s, were associated with an attempt to appropriate a history for the country which went back further than its inception as a Soviet republic in the 1920s.

As the nucleus of the national narrative, references to Somoni in Tajikistan are hard to avoid. Over the past fifteen years, it has been becoming more prominent in the public arena: for example you could fly to Somoni Peak (renamed from Communism Peak in 1998) on Somon Air (established in 2008) and pay with somoni (the currency replaced the ruble in 2000). The Tajikistani President, Emomaili Rakhmon commented ‘we must regard the history of our nation like a pure and holy mirror.’ He is presumably eager to emulate the celebrated features of Somoni, who presided over a dynasty renowned for strong leadership, triumphs in the sciences and arts and for opening a new trade route which absorbed business from the Silk Route. The rewriting of history and the construction of a historical myth assert Tajikistan’s presence as an independent state with a unique history, rather than just a sovereignty of Soviet conception.

A narrative to unite

The recent removals of Soviet figurehead statues in Tajikistan and their replacement with Somoni and a select few other Persian cultural figures are the latest indication of government emphasis on eradicating the Soviet past by emphasising the narrative of Somoni. The renewed momentum came ahead of twentieth anniversary celebrations of Tajikistan’s independence in 2011 and in anticipation of the presidential elections later this year.

In the build up to the 2006 elections, the government declared a year of celebrations to mark the fifteenth anniversary of independence and the 2700th anniversary of the Year of Aryan Civilisation. The joint celebrations of Tajikistan’s independence and the ancient inhabitants of the same territory provided a rallying point to unite the population in celebration of its past in an election year. Rakhmon went on to receive 79% of votes.

In the current climate, analysts do not foresee Rakhmon losing power in the 2013 elections after twenty one years as head of state. Nonetheless the state is weary of the opposition voice, all too evident when at the end of 2012 a staggering 131 websites of Tajikistani, Russian and European origin were blocked in one fell swoop. Popular dissatisfaction with increasing poverty and poor social conditions make the state fearful of the risk of contagion from the surrounding region, namely from the north with Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 Tulip Revolution, China’s troubled Xinjiang province to the east, continuing instability to the south in Afghanistan and the international shake-up/stir following the Arab Spring.

The French political scientist, Olivier Roy, demonstrates that Tajikistan is ostensibly divided according to ethnic and religious groups, yet the real allegiances of the people lie with local community networks. The influences of these regional sub-loyalties are less predictable and more difficult to manipulate from the national level.

Moreover, the Tajikistani government attributes the increased internal instability to rifts in the Islamic population, more specifically to the growth of Islamic extremism. The country is predominately home to Sunni Muslims, President Rakhmon included in this number, with a growing Shi’a Muslim population. The validity of the Islamic threat is questionable as little more than hysteria on the part of a government keen to delegitimise the nearest political rivals, even if they have little chance of achieving power.

The greatest threat to Rakhmon’s leadership, however, is the Islamic Renaissance Party, which has been tarred with the label of extremism. Since 11 September, the Tajik government has manipulated global anti-Islamic sentiment in order to further invalidate the Islamic voice in the eyes of the public. 2011 witnessed Tajikistan’s first suicide bombing which the government attributed to Muslim extremists. Predating Islamic presence in the region, the historical narrative of Somoni unsettles historical justification for the existence of Islam in Tajikistan.

Grandfather Lenin and Mother Russia

The Lenin in Khojand was taken down without prior public consultation, at night when few people were on the streets, and consequently only a few dozen people gathered to watch the dismantling process. The authorities had successfully avoided public demonstrations, which could have sparked greater unrest, considering the divergent population and extensive political, social and economic grievances in the region.

That said, the removal of the Lenin was not accepted as if the local authorities had just been rearranging the city’s street furniture. In Parliament, the Communist Party accused the government of discrediting and snubbing a large chunk of the country’s cultural history. Public reaction, however, has been mixed, as evidenced by the heated debates which ensued in the national blogosphere. On the one hand bloggers question why the country is being encouraged to erase from its memory a system which brought the country into existence and facilitated the social benefits and industrial investments associated with being a Soviet republic. On the other, people are only too pleased for the destruction of statues which act as reminders of the pain and suffering of life under rule from Moscow. Discusssing the statues, one well-known blogger claimed there was little difference between the brutalities inflicted by Lenin and Hitler.

By relocating the Lenin statues, as in Khojand, or removing them completely as in other parts of the country, the government is encouraging the population to partake in ‘collective amnesia’, a term coined by Benedict Anderson in his celebrated book Imagined Communities. The Soviet narrative accounts for two-thirds of Tajikistan’s existence and is still part of the population’s active memory, so the success of collective forgetting this narrative is questionable. Somoni lacks relevance to the population that was educated under the Soviets: even if children are now growing up being taught about the country’s early history in the classrooms, they play under the bust of Grandfather Lenin still found in most school grounds.

Despite the flaws inherent in being a Soviet republic, many in the country yearn for the financial and social advantages they remember under that system. After the dissolution of the USSR, independence brought Tajikistanis a decade wracked by civil war and social unrest, followed by an era of high unemployment, decreasing literacy levels and a ranking among the twenty countries worst hit by escalating food prices in 2011.

The Soviet myth is kept alive through the close connection Tajikistan has retained with its former hegemony. In the past five years the country has attracted interest from the world’s major powers, highlighted by Hillary Clinton’s 2011 announcement of the creation of a ‘New Silk Road.’ Tajikistan is in the enviable position of being a participant in the game of playing Russia against China, as both countries are keen to establish Central Asian trading partners. Yet the country is not in a position to remove the crutch of Mother Russia, still considered as a vital source of finance by Tajikistanis. Tajikistan’s high unemployment is most noticeable in Russia where there are currently 600,000 Tajikistani migrant workers – the unofficial figure is purported to be much higher.

Back to the USSR

Eighteen months ago, the directions I had been given to my accommodation in the small northern city of Istaravshan related to the Lenin statue which stood on the corner of the main bazaar. Unfortunately for me, the locals I stopped for help could not recall the statue which had been removed little more than a week prior to my arrival. Yet, once I eventually found my destination, I ventured 50 metres inside the market to find the USSR Café. In a Tajikistani backwater, I discovered an establishment filled with Soviet kitsch, Stalin quotes and Lenin paraphernalia, catering not for tourists, but the local market-goers, daydreaming of a more prosperous era for the country as they eat their Central Asian staples of plov and shashlik.

The Tajikistani government is trying to institute a fabricated narrative of an ancient population to carpet over the issues which threaten national security. A referendum reverted the city of Leninabad to its pre-Soviet name, Khojand, in 1991; the region in which it is located was Leninabad until 2000 when it was renamed Sughd; the statue of the eponymous Soviet leader was surreptitiously removed in 2011; yet the main street continues to bear the name of the founder of the Soviet state. Even if the Somoni construct holds for the presidential elections later this year, the fractured population remembers the prosperous, stable and developing country characterised by Soviet rule.

A microcosm of Bulgarians' plight

2013-04-08

Kaolinovo is the town with the highest unemployment rate in Bulgaria. Over 64% of the workforce in this municipality in north-eastern Bulgaria are without a job, five times the national average. Bulgaria ranks among the worst performing European Union (EU) countries for employment trends since the beginning of the global economic crisis, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Almost 430,000 jobs have disappeared since 2008. More than half of unemployed have fallen below the poverty line. As a consequence of poverty, unemployment and high utility bills, Bulgaria saw the largest nationwide protests in 16 years during the last two months. The demonstrations put an end to Boyko Borisov’s centre-right government. Six people set themself on fire during the demonstrations. Four of them have died.

Back in Kaolinovo, Dimitrina, a middle-aged shopkeeper, admits she doesn’t understand politics. She points to the shelves in her store: “I have 40 breads and I cannot sell them since yesterday. People are penniless.” A few who work on “the Project” are employed, she says meaning the couple of dozens construction workers renovating the main square and the children’s playground , a project financed by the EU. The rest of the municipality’s 12,000 people, predominantly of Turkish ethnic origin, are either jobless or work on the tobacco fields. Few lucky ones, says Dimitrina, have a job at a nearby mining facility for kaolin, a white rock used in the paper and porcelain industry that gives the town its name. “Before the factory employed 500 people, now it’s no more than 20-30,” she says.

A few hundred metres away from her store, Sevdalin has a similar story to tell. The old man runs a “Store for 1 Lev”, a cheap shop that sells everything from cosmetics to church candles with prices that rarely exceed one Lev (half a euro). Despite the prices, however, the store is empty. “Whatever it costs, when you don’t have any money, you simply can’t buy anything,” says Sevdalin with a sad smile on his wrinkled face.

Six years after joining the EU, Bulgaria remains its poorest member. People in the country earn an average monthly wage of €400 ($520) with pensions of less than half that. According to a new report by the European Commission, nearly half of the population (which stands at 7.3m) is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Unemployment rose to above 12% in February, the highest since 2005.

“The half a million job losses in the last four years are the main reason for the stagnating household incomes and the increasing burden on the social budget,” says Georgi Angelov, an economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia. Excluding EU funds, nearly half of the state budget is allocated for social spending. The employment crisis hit those without educational qualifications the worst: just 15.5% of Bulgarians with a basic education are employed.

This helps explain the high jobless rate in Kaolinovo where two thirds of the people have never made it to middle school. “I may not have been to university, but I can count the money I made so far today,” says Sevdalin. “It’s zero.”

Learning about Slovakia's past

2013-04-02

Just under 60% of survey respondents named Father Tiso when asked to name an official who worked with the collaborationist government. Hardly anyone could name another official and about one-third of those surveyed said they could not name a single state official from that era. Younger people knew much less. "Particularly striking is the level of ignorance and lack of information in the youngest age group," said Monika Vrzgulováof the Holocaust Documentation Centre, which organises education programs. She spoke during the mid-March unveiling of this privately-financed study, staged in a palace that served as the German embassy between 1939 and 1945.

Father Tiso was hanged for treason in 1947. His body was buried in secret so as to not attract mourners. Still, his place in history has remained contentious as fringe elements have revived his name as a symbol of Slovak nationalist pride and sought to cast him as man who had little choice but to cooperate with Nazi Germany. Asked what she recalled of the image presented of Father Tiso during her school education, Natália Semianová, a 19-year old from the western Slovak town of Šaštín-Stráže said: "I was confused. We didn't go deep into it."

Among the survey’s bright spots were signs that Tiso-apologism is on the decline. The number of people who perceive Father Tiso positively is nearly half what it was 20 years ago, with just 14% of respondents saying they viewed him in a good light. Results were less rosy among those aged 17-24. Six in ten were unable to utter even Father Tiso when asked to name a collaborationist official. Three-quarters answered "I don't know" when asked to define the word "Aryanisation”. Few were able to give any estimate of how many Jews had lived in Slovakia before the war. There was no sign that youth doubted the occurrence of the Holocaust, they just had not learned much about it.

Slovakia was home to labour camps at Nováky, Sereď and Vyhne, which were also used as transit points for deporting Jews and Roma to extermination camps, like Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland. Temporary camps also existed at one time or another in Žilina, Poprad and the capital’s Patrónka district. About 70,000 Slovak Jews were deported during the war, and an estimated 60,000 of them perished. Slovakia has only five million residents even today.

Historical research on the Vyhne camp in particular is scarce and the picture is complicated by the so-called Vienna Award of 1938, a Nazi-brokered deal that gave a third of Slovakia's territory back to Hungary, its former ruler. In the postwar years both Slovakia and Hungary have avoided responsibility for what happened on that territory, which includes Slovakia's second largest city, Košice.

An admittedly unscientific survey of students at Comenius University in Bratislava by our correspondent found that most had some knowledge of this unfortunate chapter of Slovak history. “We are educated enough to know that it was not made up,” said Miroslava Germanová, 23, of Trebišov, who noted that her parents had taken her to the Terezín concentration in the Czech Republic so that “we saw it with our own eyes. Still there was a notable concern that racism and racists were increasingly common among their contemporaries. "I can call some of them my friends," said Roman Cuprik, 22, a native of Košice. "When we meet we aren't discussing these topics because it can spark a bad mood. What worries me is that racism is more sophisticated, that it is hiding behind certain words."

Ms Semianová contends that racism is a problem within her generation, a group of people only now reaching an age where they will enter the work force. Eventually, they will become political leaders of the country. "I hadn't thought about it, but that is kind of terrifying," she said.

'Lasting Liberty Day' Celebrated, US Congratulates Estonia

2013-03-27

The one-time holiday is being marked with various events, such as a Government Office-sponsored quiz (Estonian only) and the deadline of ERR News's own short story writing contest.

In a brief address, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said the day was a chance to think about "where we were when we started out the second time [in 1991]." "It is not at all a day for parties. It is a day of dispelling fears, a day of hope," he said.

Today is also an official flag day, and church bells will peal at noon.

The republic has lasted for 34,730 days since 1918, with a Soviet occupation lasting nearly 19,000 days from1940 to 1991.

The US, one of the countries that did not recognize the loss of de jure independence, congratulated Estonia on the occasion, sending greetings through Ambassador Jeffrey Levine

Russia: New Pressure on Civil Society

2013-03-25

A wave of inspections of nongovernmental organizations in Russia is intensifying pressure on civil society since the adoption of a series of restrictive laws in 2012. Teams of officials from a variety of government agencies have inspected at least 30 groups in the past two weeks in Moscow, and many more in at least 13 other regions of Russia.

The inspections appear to target groups that accept foreign funding and that engage in advocacy work, and are part of a broader crackdown on civil society that began in 2012, the organizations said. The Russian prosecutor’s office has stated publicly that it plans to inspect between 30 and 100 nongovernmental organizations in each of Russia’s regions, which could amount to thousands of groups throughout the country. According to media reports, the prosecutor’s office in St. Petersburg alone plans to inspect about 100 groups.

“The scale of the inspections is unprecedented and only serves to reinforce the menacing atmosphere for civil society,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Russian authorities should end, rather than intensify, the crackdown that’s been under way for the past year.”

On March 21, 2013, five officials from the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and the Tax Inspectorate arrived without warning at Memorial society, one of Russia’s most prominent nongovernmental groups, to conduct an inspection.

A television crew from NTV, a pro-Kremlin station, arrived with the inspectors to film the proceedings. It is not clear how NTV learned about the inspection since most government inspections in the current wave are unannounced.

Nevertheless, later that day, the station aired a news report alleging that Memorial may be in violation of the “foreign agents” law. In recent years, NTV has broadcast numerous shows seeking to portray Russia’s political opposition as foreign-sponsored.

“The foreign agents law was, from the start, aimed at demonizing advocacy groups in Russia,” Williamson said. “It’s distressing, but sadly unsurprising, that NTV is part of the effort to discredit independent voices.”

Also on, March 21, the prosecutor’s office inspected the offices of at least four other human rights organizations, all in St. Petersburg.

Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, a human rights group that provides advice about laws governing nongovernmental groups, said that the inspections are to determine whether groups are complying with a raft of regulatory laws. The laws include one adopted in November that requires any group that accepts foreign funding and engages in “political activity” to register as a “foreign agent.”

“There has long been a fear that Russia’s new NGO law would be used to target prominent critical organizations,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia director. “The spate of inspections in recent weeks appears to confirm this suspicion. The bigger fear is that this is just round one, and that, after the smearing, the forced closures will come.”

The “foreign agents” law was roundly criticized in Russia and abroad, including by the United Nations high commissioner for human rights and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, of which Russia is a member.

For months after the law’s adoption it was not clear how and whether it would be enforced. However, at a February 14 meeting with the Federal Security Service, President Vladimir Putin said, “We have a set of rules and regulations for NGOs in Russia, including rules and regulations about foreign funding. These laws, naturally, should be enforced. Any direct or indirect interference in our internal affairs, any form of pressure on Russia, on our allies and partners is inadmissible.”

In late February, the media began to report on inspections of nongovernmental groups by the prosecutor’s office in the Saratov region in southern Russia, and then on March 5, the wave of inspections began in Moscow.

In most cases the inspections are carried out by a team of prosecutorial, Justice Ministry, and tax officials. In some cases the inspectors also examine whether a group’s work is “extremist,” in response to an alleged complaint filed by an individual or government agency. Some inspections have included agents from the Federal Security Service, fire department, sanitation department, and other agencies.

The scope of the inspections appears to be far-ranging. Memorial and several other groups that were inspected said that officials showed the representatives of the groups documents referring to the officials’ authority to check for “compliance with the laws of the Russian Federation” in general.

But a document leaked to the media that provides instructions to local prosecutors’ offices for conducting inspections specifically urges them to analyze sources of foreign funding for the groups and their involvement in political activities, as well as any evidence of “extremism.”

In many cases the officials have provided no advance notice about the inspection. In some cases, the officials have refused to present documents authorizing the inspection but have ordered the representatives of the group to provide immediately all documents the inspectors demand. Several organizations stated on social media that officials thoroughly examined the premises and attempted to probe more intrusively into the groups’ offices, searching libraries for “extremist” literature and requesting to look into computers.

“The inspections are initiated by the prosecutor’s office, which has a wide-ranging jurisdiction,” Dalhuisen said. “This allows the authorities to bypass some of the legal protections groups have under laws regulating NGOs.”

Since Putin’s return to the presidency in May 2012, a parliament dominated by members of the pro-Putin United Russia party has adopted a series of laws that imposed dramatic new restrictions on civil society. A June law introduced limits on public assemblies and raised relevant financial sanctions to the level of criminal fines. Two more laws were passed in July. One re-criminalized libel, while the other imposed new restrictions on internet content. Another law, adopted in November, expands the definition of “treason” in ways that could criminalize involvement in international human rights advocacy.

In December, Putin signed a law allowing the suspension of nongovernmental organizations, and the freezing of their assets, if they engage in “political” activities and receive funding from US citizens or organizations. Organizations can be similarly sanctioned if their leaders or members are Russian citizens who also have US passports.

Russian law envisages unannounced inspections of nongovernmental groups under a variety of circumstances. The “foreign agents” law, for example, authorizes “unannounced” (vneplanovye) inspections upon a request by the prosecutor’s office, among other grounds.

“This ongoing harassment of human rights defenders is contrary to Russia’s international commitments and indicates a fear of free and open discussion about the human rights situation in Russia,” said Andrew Anderson, deputy director of Front Line Defenders.

EU Praises Georgia, Moldova, Armenia In Neighborhood Report

2013-03-21

The package will be a key factor in determining how much EU funds that will be granted to the individual member states later this year.

Stefan Fuele, the EU commissioner for enlargement and neighborhood policy, said in Brussels that the EU needs to increase efforts to help the countries in the report meet goals to become members of the European Union.

"The Eastern Partnership countries need our continued support to deliver on their commitments, and it is my conviction that they deserve an ambitious future," Fuele said.

This year's report shows that Georgia, Moldova, and to a certain extent Armenia have reformed the most in the recent year and will benefit from additional funds from Brussels.

Here are highlights of the report that pertain to countries in RFE/RL's broadcast area.

Armenia

The commission has urged the Armenian government to step up its work to implement and enforce human rights legislation. The report also underlined the need to address shortcomings in Armenia's recent presidential elections. It stated that freedoms of assembly and expression were generally respected but media independence remained insufficient.

The report also took note of Yerevan's efforts to reform its judiciary and fight corruption. On the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the EU urged Armenia to intensify efforts with Azerbaijan to reach an agreement and ensure "unimpeded access" for EU representatives to the area and surrounding regions.

Despite the criticism, the EU still said that Armenia qualifies for its "more for more" principle in which extra reforms lead to additional EU funds for the upcoming year.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan has come under heavy criticism again in the commission's report. The report stressed the need for Baku to "make significant further efforts to meet its commitments in building deep and sustainable democracy" in areas such as the electoral process, the protection of human rights, and the independence of the judiciary. The Azerbaijani government was also urged to increase efforts to investigate cases of harassment against journalists and activists as well as to enact legislation on freedom of media and assembly in line with international standards.

The report called for Baku to reach an agreement with Armenia over its separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The document noted progress on issues mentioned in past reports, such as the forced evictions and demolitions
from homes in Baku for modernization projects.

Belarus

The European Union has again refrained from issuing an assessment of Belarus within its annual EU neighborhood reports. Instead of the detailed recommendations like those issued for five other Eastern neighbors, Brussels instead published an overview of the current political and economic situation in Belarus. The EU still lacks an agreement on a political action plan with Minsk.

The document mentioned grave concern about the lack of respect for human rights, the rule of law, and democratic principles. It stressed that the EU remains committed to a policy of critical engagement towards Belarus, including support for the country's civil society and contacts with Minsk on technical issues.

The EU still has 243 individuals on a visa ban and assets freeze list after the violent crackdown on the opposition following the country's presidential election in December 2010.

Georgia

The EU's annual neighborhood report contains mostly praise for Georgia. The document notes Tbilisi has acted on most of the previous EU recommendations such as strengthening the freedom of expression, fighting corruption, continued judicial reform, and improving the lives of internally displace people. October's parliamentary elections, which resulted in the first democratic transfer of power in Georgia's history, were deemed broadly free and fair.

The report stressed the need to respect the roles of the prime minister and the president after several months of political infighting between the two offices. Brussels also underlined that the country suffers from a lack of judicial independence and labor rights need to be improved.

Along with Moldova, Georgia is set to get the majority of the additional EU funds available for neighbors that carry out most reforms.

Moldova

The European Commission has praised Moldova's progress toward fulfilling the criteria meant to bring the country closer to European integration. The report singles out Moldova as one of the top reformers among the former Soviet republics. The document highlights a Constitutional Court decision which validated the election of a new president, ending a long political and constitutional deadlock.

It also endorses reforms in areas such as social assistance, health and education, but notes that political uncertainty has returned with the fall of the ruling coalition earlier in March.

The report urges more efforts to combat corruption and more reforms in justice and law enforcement. It calls on Moldova to "engage pro-actively" with its separatist Transdniester region in order to find a solution to the conflict.

Ukraine

The commission has told Ukraine that "much remains to be done" by Kyiv in order to implement the bloc's recommendations made in an association agreement initialed last year. The report said that among the top priorities are the need to fight against conflict of interest and corruption in the judiciary.

The report urges the establishment of a reliable electoral system, clear rules for balanced media access for candidates and for the authorities to address the cases of politically motivated convictions. Other demands include the need to stop the introduction of protectionist trade measures.

Ukraine, the only former Soviet republic to have initialed an association agreement with the EU still hopes to sign the deal by the end of this year.

China overtakes UK to become world's fifth largest arms exporter

2013-03-20

It is the first time Britain has not figured in the top five weapons suppliers since 1950, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report.

China's arms exports in 2008-2012 grew by 162 percent compared to the previous five years, with 55 percent going to Pakistan "due to large outstanding and planned orders for combat aircraft, submarines and frigate".

"China's rise has been driven primarily by large-scale arms acquisitions by Pakistan," Paul Holtom, a research director at SIPRI said in a press release.

"A number of recent deals indicate that China is establishing itself as a significant arms supplier to a growing number of important recipient states."

Pakistan has long been China's key ally in South Asia. The report also named Myanmar, Bangladesh and Venezuela as importers of Chinese arms.

The global arms trade grew by 17 percent in 2008-2012 over the previous period, the report said, with the US and Russia still the main exporters, holding market shares of 30 percent and 26 percent respectively.

They were followed by Germany and France in the rankings.

European countries beset by economic troubles were attempting to re-sell recently acquired combat aircraft to cut costs, the report added, with Portugal and Spain looking for buyers for F-16 and Eurofighter aircraft respectively.

East Asian countries are seeking to boost their naval capabilities amid territorial disputes, the document said, adding that the top five importers of major conventional weapons worldwide were all Asian.

India was the world's biggest buyer, followed by China, Pakistan, South Korea and Singapore. Both India and China obtained most of their imports from Russia.

China has boosted its domestic weapons production since it faced bans on Western military imports following the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Beijing does not release arms export figures but foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that it always takes "a responsible and prudent attitude towards international arms sales" and abides by UN Security Council resolutions.

"China has three principles on arms exports," he said at a regular briefing. "Firstly, they must relate to legitimate defence purposes. Secondly, they must not threaten regional and global stability. Thirdly, they must not interfere with countries' internal affairs."

Armenia: Yerevan Keen to Opt Out of New Russian-Led Bloc

2013-03-15

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who won a second term in a disputed election in February, has successfully navigated apparent Russian pressures and moved his country closer to the West – the European Union, in particular – while maintaining, and even deepening, Armenia’s military alliance with Russia. After a meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on March 12, Sargsyan gave no indication that his administration’s multi-vector policy will change.

The press services of the two leaders announced in early March that the talks at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow would touch upon “integration processes” in the former Soviet Union. It was a clear reference to Armenia’s possible accession to the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. But the talks themselves did not appear to produce a breakthrough on the issue.

Putin makes no secret of his hopes to turn this trade bloc eventually into a closely-knit Eurasian Union of loyal ex-Soviet states, a grouping that Kremlin critics regard as an attempt to partially recreate the USSR. The Kremlin-linked speakers of both houses of Russia’s parliament promoted the idea during separate visits to Yerevan in July last year.

Putin and Sargsyan reportedly discussed the possibility of Armenian membership in the Customs Union during their three meetings in 2012. Armenian leaders gave no such promises in their public statements made after those talks. Armenian media commentators speculate that Putin wants a final answer from Yerevan soon.

Official Russian and Armenian sources did not report or hint at any agreements on the matter after the Novo-Ogaryovo meeting. Putin and Sargsyan similarly did not mention it in their televised opening remarks. Putin merely praised Russia’s “special relations” with Armenia,saying they are “successfully developing” in both economic and political areas. “We have big, promising, good joint investment plans,” he said.

“If there were even tentative agreements on the Customs Union, they would have probably been reflected in the official press releases on the meeting,” commented Alexander Markarov, a political scientist heading the Armenian branch of the Moscow-based Commonwealth of Independent States Institute.

“In all likelihood, there were no major changes in the two sides’ positions on this issue and Serzh Sargsyan again succeeded in at least winning time,” the Yerevan-based news service 1in.am agreed in a commentary.

Over the past year, Armenian leaders have publicly objected to joining the Customs Union, arguing that their landlocked country has no common borders with Russia, Kazakhstan or Belarus. Citing Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, Viktor Khristenko, the Russian head of the Customs Union’s executive body, has questioned this line of reasoning.

In a February interview with the Russian daily Moskovskie Novosti, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan came up with another argument against Customs Union membership – that Armenia has a more liberal trade regime than any of the union’s three member states and lacks vast natural resources.

Yerevan is reluctant to acknowledge publicly another, arguably more important reason: joining the Russian-led union would essentially preclude the signing of a comprehensive Association Agreement between Armenia and the European Union. A key element of that agreement is the creation of a “deep and comprehensive free trade area,” which envisages not only the lifting of all trade barriers, but also harmonization of Armenian and EU economic laws and regulations. A spokesperson for Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign and security policy chief, told RFE/RL in December 2012 that Armenian entry into the Moscow-led Customs Union “would not be compatible” with the Association Agreement.

The Armenian government has since continued to express strong interest in concluding its association talks with the EU in time for a planned November 2013 summit in Vilnius on the EU’s Eastern Partnership program for six ex-Soviet states. Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian discussed preparations for the summit at a March 7 meeting with Philippe Lefort, the EU’s special envoy for the South Caucasus.

The Armenian push for integration with the EU reflects President Sargsyan’s broader strategy of complementing the alliance with Russia with closer partnership with the West.

During his first term, Sargsyan earned plaudits in Western capitals for stepping up cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and embarking on a US-backed rapprochement with Turkey. Analysts believe this is one reason why US President Barack Obama and other Western leaders congratulated him on his disputed reelection.

Remarkably, there have been few indications of Russian discontent with this policy. Russian policy-makers might be safe in the knowledge that, with no solution to the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in sight, Armenia will remain heavily reliant on military ties with Russia in the foreseeable future.

Sargsyan was instrumental in securing a 2010 deal that extended the presence of Russian troops in Armenia until 2044, and Putin has responded accordingly.

In January, he authorized his government to sign a new Russian-Armenian defense accord that calls for joint arms manufacturing. Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Valery Gerasimov, discussed the planned deal during subsequent trips to Armenia. Sargsyan thanked Putin on March 12 for “good progress” in defense cooperation.

But appearances can be deceiving, cautioned analyst Markarov.

“Armenia has been trying to circumvent the Customs Union, while favoring other, bilateral formats of cooperation with Russia,” he said. “It has to listen to Russia more than any other foreign power. But listening doesn’t mean always obeying.”

Hungarians Ask President Not to Approve Amendment

2013-03-12

The parliament passed the amendments earlier on Monday, with a sweeping majority of the governing Fidesz party’s lawmakers voting in favor of the amendment.

In a reaction to the move, the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland said the amendments raise concerns on the rule of law, EU law and Council of Europe standards.

“Unfortunately, experts from the Council of Europe and from the European Commission did not have the opportunity to discuss and clarify in detail the content of these amendments before their adoption,” the European officials said in a joint letter to the Hungarian parliament.

Protesters were gathering Monday evening on Budapest’s picturesque hill to call the president’s attention with signs saying, “Don’t sign, Janos!”

Mr. Ader, a former official at governing Fidesz party, is widely expected to smooth the path to the amendments’ passage.

The protesters were forced out of the square in front of the presidential palace as the counterterrorist unit TEK closed the area citing security reasons.

In a response, Student Network, a group of undergraduates asked Prime Minister Viktor Orban to lend them his wrench, recalling the moment in 2007 when, as part of the opposition, he used it to take apart cordons around the parliament.

“We’re mostly students and young people, we haven’t got much money,” the organization said.

Protests also took place in front of the Hungarian embassy in Berlin Monday as Mr. Ader is there at a meeting with his German counterpart.

North Korea vows end to nonaggression pacts after U.N. vote

2013-03-08

A day after the isolated regime in Pyongyang had threatened a possible "preemptive nuclear attack" -- something analysts say they think it is unlikely and currently unable to do -- its official news agency reeled off a number of agreements with South Korea that it said would no longer apply.

It's the latest installment in a week of furious rhetoric from the North, fueled by its anger over the U.N. vote on the new sanctions, a response to the Pyongyang's recent nuclear test, and joint military drills by the United States and South Korea, which take place in the region each year.

North Korea watchers and U.S. officials say that the recent frenzy of ominous language from North Korea under its young leader Kim Jong Un makes the situation on the Korean Peninsula more worrying and unpredictable.

South Korea has warned the North that it will retaliate strongly and sternly if its citizens are threatened. South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who took office late last month, said Friday that Seoul would respond strongly to any provocation from Pyongyang, the semiofficial news agency Yonhap reported.

A military clash could risk drawing in the United States, which has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as part of the security alliance between the two countries.

The most recent skirmish between the two Koreas took place in November 2010, when the North shelled an island on the South's side of the border, killing several people. Pyongyang claimed Seoul had provoked it by carrying out training exercises off their shared coast.

A week of strong threats

The North's comments Friday doubled down on statements it had made earlier this week, promising to abolish the armistice agreement that stopped the Korean War in 1953, and threatening strikes on the United States and South Korea.

Claiming its enemies are "hell bent on confrontation and war fever," Pyongyang said it was now revoking "all agreements on nonaggression reached between the north and the south," a declaration it has made in previous years

It also said it was nullifying the joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The North, which conducted its third underground nuclear test last month, had said recently that denuclearization of the region was "impossible" because of what it described as the United States' hostile policy toward it.

And it stated that it was immediately cutting off the "north-south hotline," three days after it had already said it planned to terminate its military telephone line with the United States. The phone line is meant to serve as a tool to defuse potential flash points along the heavily militarized border between the two Koreas.

New U.N. measures

Tensions are particularly high at the moment because of the new measures against the North adopted unanimously Thursday by the U.N. Security Council.

"These sanctions will bite, and bite hard," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said after the vote.

China, North Korea's key ally, could have used its veto power to block the sanctions. Instead, after weeks of negotiating, it signed on to the final draft.

"China is a country of principle," China's U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong said. "We are firmly committed to safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."

The goal of the new sanctions is to stymie the activities of North Korean banks and cash couriers who might be funneling money to the secretive regime's nuclear and missile programs.

The U.N. resolution also outlines measures to step up scrutiny of suspicious sea shipments and air cargo. And it expands restrictions to encompass several institutions and senior officials in the North's weapons industry, as well as a range of materials and technology known to be used in uranium enrichment. It also blocks the sale of luxury goods -- such as yachts and certain high-end jewelry -- to North Korea.

Questions over sanctions' effectiveness

Some doubt whether the new measures will make much difference.

Sanctions imposed after previous nuclear tests and rocket launches have failed to deter Pyongyang.

China will go a long way toward determining whether the new sanctions really do have "bite," analysts say.

"As long as China allows North Korea to operate, as long as China provides food, energy assistance, and investment, the sanctions really don't matter," said Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute.

North Korea notoriously allows many of its people to live in malnutrition and starvation. Still, the country needs a functioning economy, partly to finance its military, Bandow explained.

Russians And Stalin: ‘What Is Not Positive In History, They Prefer To Forget’

2013-03-04

RFE/RL correspondent Robert Coalson asked Aleksei Levinson, social research director of the independent Levada Analytical Center in Moscow, about these changing views and how we can understand them.

RFE/RL: According to your research, what is the view of Stalin in Russia at present and what sort of dynamic in that opinion have we seen in recent years?

Aleksei Levinson: The evaluation of Stalin might seem a little bit contradictory because, according to the results of our survey conducted in February, people on the one hand agree that Stalin played a positive role in the life of our country. About 49 percent say that. And somewhat fewer -- 32 percent -- say that he played a negative role. That is, a majority think that Stalin played a positive role.

But when asked about the significance of Stalin's death, more than half -- 55 percent -- say that they associate his death with the end of terror and mass repressions and the release from prison of millions of innocent people. Considerably fewer -- just 18 percent -- say that the death of Stalin meant the loss of a great leader and teacher.

I think it is important to explain this contradiction. I think that this is just an apparent contradiction because Russian public opinion is attempting to extract the positive moments from Stalin's life -- saying he played a positive role and, of course, they mention the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the victory of Russia over fascist Germany. But also they extract positive moments from Stalin's death -- that wrongly condemned people were released.

This also corresponds with the way that Russians remember the repressions of the Stalin period. They unambiguously approve of the rehabilitation of those who were wrongly convicted -- and, in fact, the rehabilitation process went quite far in our society. But there has been virtually no lustration. There have been no trials of those who participated not in the role of victims but in the roles of executioners or compromised judges.

According to our surveys, Russians do not want such a trial to take place. Again, we see that they want to take as much that is positive from history -- even such a bloody and difficult history -- as they can. And as for what is not positive -- they prefer to forget about it.

RFE/RL: Is the process of evaluating Stalin somehow coming to an end or do you expect to see more changes in the future?

Levinson: This process, as far as we can tell, has stabilized to a considerable extent. We saw over the last decade, over the Putin period, that Stalin has been transformed from one of the practically forgotten figures of the past into the most important figure. Of all the figures of the past that are recalled in the Russian public consciousness, only Stalin has had such an extraordinary career over the last 15 years. I think this must be connected with how Putin is trying to position himself and with how he is viewed.

Contemporary Russians, for the most part, see a kind of equation of the old authorities and the current ones, most of all from the concept of the strong leader. But I would say it isn't that they consider Putin to be the modern Stalin, but rather the reverse -- today's image of Putin is taken into consideration when we look at Stalin. This is an important distinction.

RFE/RL: Have you asked Russians about where they get their information about Stalin from – from the state media or schools or politicians?

Levinson: I would say here that information about Stalin is not needed at all. It does not change the situation -- it is not needed. For the public mind, the eroding mythical image that already existed is sufficient. They don't really know anything in particular about Stalin. They know three things -- he was great; he won the war; he spilled a lot of blood of Soviet people.

From these three elements is formed the ambivalent image that can be viewed from both a positive side and a negative one. That is why, in a real sense, it is not definable. Criticizing Stalin doesn't produce any effect. People already know that he was a tyrant and a murderer. Praising Stalin also doesn't add anything to his image. Praising or criticizing him is just a symbolic way of conducting the struggle between various groups within contemporary Russian society -- or between different layers of the Russian public consciousness.

RFE/RL: You wrote in one article that Russians realize that Stalin is viewed much more negatively in the West than in Russia. How do they feel about this difference?

Levinson: The thing is that these days, anti-Western rhetoric and anti-Western positions are very widespread in Russian society. So it isn't difficult in such an environment to include the idea that the West is trying to deprive us of our glory; that they want to minimize our role in the victory over Germany. In this context, these fit together logically. This context is very broad because quite a few people believe that the West in general is encroaching upon not only Russia's history but also on Russia's wealth and on everything that Russians value. These ideas are very widespread at present.

RFE/RL: Is there anything else that you think is important to add about Russians' attitudes toward Stalin?

Levinson: I would like to emphasize once again that the present situation in Russia is one of great tension in the realm of symbols. There isn't so much going on in terms of real political changes in either direction. But there are a large number of attacks and parries in the symbolic sphere where opinions are clashing within the public consciousness. This is characteristic of the present situation and this -- by the way -- is a huge contrast to Stalin's times, when in addition to these kinds of tensions, there were also real actions such as the repressions and other huge-scale processes.

Chinese Intellectuals Urge Ratifying Rights Treaty

2013-02-27

The petition calling on the party-controlled National People’s Congress to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came a week before the congress holds its annual full session, which is to install Xi Jinping as China’s president, succeeding Hu Jintao.

Copies of the document appeared on Chinese blogging Web sites and Internet forums, but were often quickly removed. It was unclear whether government censors demanded the removals.

Ratification of the treaty would “promote and realize the principles of a country based on human rights and a China governed by its Constitution,” the petition said. “We fear that due to the lack of nurturing of human rights and absence of fundamental reverence and assurances for individuals’ freedom, rights and dignity, if a full-scale crisis breaks out, the whole society will collapse into hatred and brutality.”

The call, also circulated by e-mail, carried the names of 121 backers, including several who said they lived in Hong Kong or Macau.

The petition was the latest display of the demands for political change confronting China’s new leadership. Several people who signed it said they hoped to press Mr. Xi and his colleagues to live up to vows of greater respect for the rule of law and citizens’ rights that Mr. Xi and other officials have made since he became Communist Party leader in November, when Mr. Hu retired from that post.

“This has become increasingly important because on the one hand violations of rights have become so common, while on the other hand citizens’ awareness of their rights has risen sharply,” said Cui Weiping, a translator and essayist in Beijing who signed the petition. “This proposal is really quite mild,” said Ms. Cui, who formerly taught at the Beijing Film Academy. “I see this as giving the government a chance to show that it is willing to make improvements.”

Since Mr. Xi came to power, Chinese advocates of political liberalization have urged the Communist Party to abide by the Constitution, which in theory offers some protection of free speech and other rights. Some reform advocates see some signs of hope in the government’s vow to overhaul “re-education through labor,” which is used to jail citizens without trials, and some point to Mr. Xi’s own promises of greater official accountability.

“Any organization or individual must act within the scope of the Constitution and the laws,” Mr. Xi said Saturday at a meeting of the Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Mr. Xi has, however, also said that the top-down, one-party rule must remain sacrosanct, and the drafters of the petition took care not to challenge the party directly, instead calling on it to live up to past vows to respect citizens’ rights.

“This is an important moment when the new leadership has expressed its commitment to rule of law, and we want those words to be acted on,” said He Weifang, a professor of law at Peking University and a prominent advocate of political liberalization, who confirmed he signed the petition.

But the Chinese government appears reluctant to ratify the treaty, despite saying over many years that it was preparing to do so, said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. The Chinese government signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1998, but ratification by the legislature would bring greater international scrutiny through a monitoring committee, Mr. Bequelin said.

The covenant came into force in 1976, and 167 states are party to it. Yet even North Korea has acceded to the treaty, with no discernible improvement in its harsh treatment of its people, Mr. Bequelin said. “What is at stake in ratification for the Chinese government is not so much the international legal obligations that would come, but rather the domestic pressures to live up to its own promises,” he said.

The New York Times

'Auschwitz volunteer' reports win US THE PROSE award

2013-02-26

Captain Witold Pilecki’s reports, published by the independent Aquila Polonica publishing house in the United States, received the award from the Association of American Publishers, which brings together over 300 large American publishing houses.

Pilecki’s reports, ‘The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery’, was awarded in the 'biographies and autobiographies' category.

The book has also been named Editor’s Choice by the New York Times.

Captain Pilecki’s reports have been translated by Jarek Garliński, the son of the historian and Auschwitz prisoner Józef Garliński.

The 400-page book has an introduction by the renowned historian Norman Davies and a foreword by Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland.

In September 1940 Witold Pilecki volunteered to be captured and imprisoned in Auschwitz to bring out the story of German atrocities.

In 1943 he escaped from the camp, reached Warsaw and a year later fought in the Warsaw Rising. After the war he went to Italy and joined the Second Corps but was subsequently sent by the Polish intelligence to Poland as a spy.

However, he was captured and executed by the communist authorities in 1948.

He was rehabilitated in 1990 and in 2008 received posthumously the Order of the White Eagle, the highest Polish state distinction. (mk/pg)

Russia leases planes to Cuba, writes off Soviet debt

2013-02-22

Moscow will write off part of the $30 billion debt and will offer a 10-year refinancing plan for the remaining amount, according to the preliminary agreement, Russia's industry and trade minister Denis Manturov told reporters on the sidelines of the talks.

"There was an accumulated debt on loans allocated by the Soviet Union and we have now prepared an agreement that should undergo all the necessary procedures," he said.

Manturov said the final decision on debt settlement will be signed by the end of the year.

Russia will also lease three Ilyushin-96-400 long-haul jets, three AN-158 regional planes and two TU-204SM mid-range aircraft to Cuba under the agreements inked in the presence of Medvedev and Cuban leader Raul Castro.

Moscow will provide sovereign guarantees to a syndicate of Russian banks financing the deal, Manturov said.

Medvedev and Castro were seen chatting informally and broadly smiling during the ceremony. The Cuban leader greeted reporters in Russian.

Russia and Cuba enjoyed close relations during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and Washington.

The volume of trade between the two countries last year was roughly $200 million. Oil companies from Russia, the world's largest energy exporter, are drilling into Cuba's offshore oil deposits.

Reuters

Hungary Court Annuls Ban on Fascist, Communist Symbols

2013-02-22

The decision sparked a nationwide outcry, with the government now seeking alternative ways of banning the symbols. Jewish organizations said the decision hurts all Hungarian Jews, while Hungary’s communists said the move does nothing to address the issues it fights for.The ban was too broad and imprecise, the court ruled. Banning symbols of tyranny may be justified in the interest of defending human dignity and the constitutional order, but the regulations in place disproportionately restrict freedom of expression, it said. In its Tuesday decision, the court reversed a verdict from 2000. In doing so, it pointed to the example of the European Court of Human Rights, which struck down the ban on symbols of tyranny.

The president of Mazsihisz, the alliance of Hungary’s Jewish communities, said the case highlights the importance of treating fascist and communist symbolism differently within the law.

“The current decision is just like throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” Mazsihisz President Peter Feldmajer said.

“This decision doesn’t mean we’ll start marching up and down the streets wearing red stars, this isn’t what our fight is about,” said Zsuzsanna Fogarasi, vice-president of the Hungarian Communist Workers Party, a minor left-wing opposition that still adheres to the ideas of communism. She said the ruling doesn’t solve issues such as unemployment.

Ms. Fogarasi also said it was “weird” that the court enabled the usage of fascist symbols.

“People marching under flags with a swastika think about killing other people,” she added.

Antal Rogan, the governing Fidesz party’s parliamentary group leader, said the decision offends not only Jewish communities but also all the living victims of communism in Hungary.

“The decision could have grave consequences because anybody can walk around in the streets with SS-badges, red stars and swastikas from May 1 onward,” Mr. Rogan said, adding the Basic Law may need to be modified to keep the symbols out of sight.

Bulgaria government to resign

2013-02-21

The PM said he had decided to go after protesters against rising electricity prices clashed with police in Sofia. At least 14 people were injured during Tuesday's demonstrations.

"I will not participate in a government under which police are beating people," Mr Borisov said.

The street protests across Bulgaria - the EU's poorest country - which began two weeks ago, were initially over high electricity prices but soon took an anti-government turn. The PM tried to calm the protests on Tuesday by promising to slash prices and by sacking his finance minister. He also pledged to punish foreign-owned power companies that he said charged too much. But many Bulgarians remain deeply unhappy over high energy costs, power monopolies, low living standards and corruption.

Parliament will vote on the resignation on Thursday. If it is accepted, President Rosen Plevneliev, a political ally of the prime minister, will have to appoint an interim government to rule until the next parliamentary elections. It was not immediately clear whether or not a parliamentary election scheduled for July would now be brought forward.

Many of the protesters in Sofia and other major Bulgarian cities had demanded the resignation of the centre-right GERB party government and the re-nationalisation of power distributors. The government lost support after it abandoned plans in March 2012 to build a new nuclear power station at Belene, close to the Romanian border. A controversial referendum last month on whether to build a second nuclear power plant was invalidated by a low turnout, although more than 60% of those who voted backed the idea.

Russian Ambassador: Lithuania was incorporated into Soviet Union “rather peacefully”

2013-02-15

“The published archival materials undeniably show that Soviet Lithuania existed. By the way, it is noted in the introductory article containing references to archival materials that Lithuania’s incorporation into the internal system of the Soviet Union happened rather peacefully,” the Russian diplomat said.

“The documents, in my opinion, have great importance for the description and evaluation of a period of common history difficult for all of us and not only all of us. To my mind, it’s very important also because efforts have recently been made in historical literature as well to falsify the truth, to diminish the Soviet Union’s role in the victory against Fascism,” Chkhikvadze said.

The introductory article written by Ceslovas Laurinavicius of the Lithuanian Institute of History says the periods between August, 1940 until August, 1945 can be divided into four stages. According to Laurinavicius, the first stage could be considered the period between August, 1940 until June, 1941 when stepped-up destruction of Lithuanian state institution and the country’s incorporation into the Soviet Union’s internal system took place.

“It is worth noting that this process started without any clear signs of resistance (apart from protests by Lithuanian diplomats accredited to foreign countries), and, unfortunately, this circumstance has so far been subjected to speculations of various kinds,” Laurinavicius writes.

Later in the article, the historian also describes the fourth stage from 1944 until the end of 1945.

“Liberation from Nazism did not mean the restoration of statehood for Lithuania. A cruel Stalinist regime came into the country, which only heated up rising national resistance. The inertia of cruelties continued in Lithuania, a guerilla war was long and bloody,” the article says.

Kyrgyzstan: Journalists are self-censoring and reporting only on what are considered safe topics

2013-02-13

Appearances can be slightly deceiving when it comes to gauging the operating environment for reporters in Kyrgyzstan. Reporters Without Borders, in its 2013 World Press Freedom Index, indicated that Kyrgyzstan’s media climate is the most favorable in Central Asia, ranking it 106th, out of the 179 countries evaluated.

The Reporters Without Borders report looks at Kyrgyzstan as a whole. Local observers, however, say that conditions in the northern and southern sections of the country are markedly different. Southern Kyrgyzstan was the scene of widespread inter-ethnic violence in 2010 and tensions have remained highthere since then, with ethnic Uzbeks feeling particularly skittish. Given the situation, the quality of journalism in the region is suffering, according to a Bishkek-based media watchdog, called Journalists.

“The sad reality is that journalists in southern Kyrgyzstan try to defend themselves by heavy self-censorship,” Aigul Matieva, a media lawyer and attorney for Journalists, told EurasiaNet.org. “Media people do not dare to write openly about their concerns, as they are low-paid and vulnerable.”

Local officials in southern Kyrgyzstan deny that the media climate is repressive. “The government does not interfere in work of journalists,” Kamil Sydykov, the head of the Osh Mayor’s Press Service, told EurasiaNet.org. “They decide how they write and what they write about. We do not control them, and do not give them instructions.”

Journalists in southern Kyrgyzstan contend that authorities don’t need to be heavy-handed because, based on what has occurred in the region over the past two-plus years, it’s easy for anyone to anticipate what can happen to those who contradict the official line. Cholpon S., a local journalist from Osh, who asked to change her name for security reasons, readily admits that she avoids writing anything critical of the policies and practices of government officials, both on the local and national level.

Cholpon is not an exception as many journalists admit to being concerned about their personal security. Stanislav Polishuk, a freelance reporter based in Osh, says journalists self-censor their stories because they realize “in case of trouble nothing can protect him or her.”

Begaim Usenova, the head of Institute for Media Policy in Bishkek, says the threat of lawsuits is a significant factor in media self-censorship. Kyrgyz courts are not deemed independent and officials have been known to use the judicial system to enforce their political will.

Azerbaijan: Government Detains Outspoken Critics

2013-02-08

In January, mass protests in the town led to clashes with police. On February 4, 2013, Baku’s Nasimi District Court remanded the two men – Ilgar Mammadov, a political analyst and chair of the opposition group “REAL,” and Tofig Yagublu, deputy chair of the opposition political party Musavat and a journalist with opposition daily Yeni Musavat – to two months’ pretrial custody. A court also remanded Ismayilli residents Mirkazim Abdullayev and Elshen Ismayilli to two months’ pretrial custody on the same charges.

“We’re concerned that last month’s violence will be used as a pretext to silence two outspoken government critics,” said Giorgi Gogia, senior South Caucasus researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should release Mammadov and Yagublu from pretrial detention and produce credible evidence that the charges are justified.”

According to a charge sheet issued by the Prosecutor General’s Grave Crimes Investigation Department, Mammadov and Yagublu are accused of instigating protests and violence on January 24 in Ismayilli, a regional center about 200 kilometers northwest of Baku.

In a January 29 joint statement, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Interior and prosecutor general’s office said that Mammadov and Yagublu went to Ismayilli on January 24 and “urged residents to resist police, [and] block the traffic in order to violate socio-economic stability.”

“Azerbaijan’s harsh political climate and this government’s record of imprisoning people for political reasons suggests retaliation in this case,” Gogia said. “We fear that the authorities are trying to put the blame for protests on government critics, instead of investigating the roots of the unrest.”

The recent arrests in Baku and Ismayilli came shortly after the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly adopted a report highly critical of the Azerbaijani government’s human rights record. The assembly said that “it is alarmed by reports … about the alleged use of so-called fabricated charges against activists and journalists.” It further elaborated that “the combination of the restrictive implementation of freedoms with unfair trials and the undue influence of the executive, results in systematic detentions of people who may be considered prisoners of conscience.”

Vietnam jails activists for subversion amid crackdown on dissidents

2013-02-04

A court in Vietnam has sentenced a man to life in prison and given jail terms of up to 17 years to other defendants after they were found guilty of "subversive activities", according to the state-run Vietnam Television.

The verdict follows a series of harsh punishments handed down for dissent in the communist-ruled country, at a time of reported political infighting among the leadership centred on how to reform the economy and tackle management problems at big state firms that have led to bad debt.

The people's court of Phu Yen province gave a life sentence to Phan Van Thu, head of a group that wanted to establish a new government in Vietnam, the television station said in a news bulletin.

Jail terms of between 12 and 17 years were handed to others in the case, the television station said without elaborating. "Their action has seriously violated the laws," it added.

People's Police newspaper, run by the public security ministry, said Thu and others had joined forces in a tourist resort in the central province of Phu Yen from 2004, printing anti-government documents until their arrest in February 2012.

Thu had spent time in prison for anti-government activities in the late 1970s, the newspaper said.

In January, 13 political activists were found guilty of anti-state crimes and sentenced to prison, a ruling condemned by rights activists as part of a crackdown on dissidents.

Late last month police arrested the human rights lawyer Le Quoc Quan in Hanoi after he wrote an article criticising the Communist party, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2013, published on Friday.

"The Vietnamese government is systematically suppressing freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and persecuting those who question government policies, expose official corruption, or call for democratic alternatives to one-party rule," the report stated.

Among other cases, on 24 January security forces detained a blogger in the northern province of Hung Yen and sent him to a mental institution, according to a letter to Vietnam's leaders from the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights.

Last week, the authorities deported Nguyen Quoc Quan, a US national of Vietnamese origin, after keeping him in prison without trial since April last year.

Quan was accused of subversion and of being a member of Viet Tan, an outlawed pro-democracy group based in the US, the Communist party newspaper Nhan Dan wrote.

Quan's trial, which had been scheduled for 22 January, was dropped, He was freed on 30 January, the Viet Tan group said.

Guardian

Turkmenistan: Ashgabat Talks Privatization and WTO, Surprising Observers

2013-01-31

For almost two decades, Turkmenistan took steps to seal itself off from outside influences and tightened the state’s grip over all aspects of the economy. But now, Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the country’s self-proclaimed protector, is signalling a desire to open up his country’s Soviet-style command economy.

Given Berdymukhamedov’s poor track record on making good on his liberalization promises, few are taking him at his word. Since assuming power in 2006, Berdymukhamedov’s many reform initiatives, such as efforts to expand educational opportunities, broaden access to the Internet and create a competitive political system -- have all gone unfulfilled.

But past performance hasn’t stopped Berdymukhamedov from making grand assertions about future results. In early January, he announced that his government would start selling off select state-owned assets. A week later, on January 19, Berdymukhamedov ordered the establishment of a governmental commission to start membership talks with the World Trade Organization (WTO).

It is unclear what is up for grabs, and if foreign firms can participate, but one official told Reuters the sell-off would not extend to the lucrative oil and gas sector -- the cash cow of Turkmenistan’s economy. The sectors eyed for privatization, the official indicated, would include transport, construction and communications.

Observers say it will be hard for Turkmenistan – which has no experience with large-scale privatization, has an anaemic private sector, and is listed in global rankings as one of the world's most corrupt and repressive countries – to attract investment outside its oil and gas industries.

The privatization drive and WTO membership “are promising on paper, but in reality are simply red-herrings and are unlikely to be realized successfully under the current Turkmen administration," said Kate Mallinson, a senior political risk analyst at the London-based GPW think-tank, noting that Berdymukhamedov also promised in 2011 to introduce international accounting standards and a national stock exchange. Little has been said since about those projects.

Mallinson believes that the small circle of corrupt elites running most of Turkmenistan’s economy has no incentive to change. "The Soviet-style command economy is currently tightly controlled by a few elite members close to the president and the government, which is continuing its monthly carousel rotation of ministers and neo-patrimonial power mechanisms,” she said. This group “is under-qualified to undertake such a significant transition to a market economy."

Turkmenistan ranked 170th out of 176 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index in 2012, while the World Bank does not even include Turkmenistan in its annual Doing Business report.

It will be vital for any investors venturing into Turkmenistan's opaque economy to schmooze with top members of the regime, says Alice Mummery, a Central Asia analyst at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit. "The state apparatus is secretive and close relationships with political insiders are essential for conducting business. Only the most risk-inclined investors will be prepared to enter the country," Mummery told EurasiaNet.org.

Dmitry Alexandrov, head of research at Moscow-based Univer Capital, says he views the promised reforms with caution, but believes that should Berdymukhamedov manage to create a clear "ladder of responsibility and a [road]map" for investors, the government’s privatization drive might attract some interest. Privatization is a good starting point, Alexandrov said, because it makes it possible to "tune and check the mechanism of counteraction and collaboration between investors and government." Future membership in the WTO would hinge on a successful privatization campaign, Alexandrov added.

Even if the Turkmen government manages to carry out its privatization plan for 2013-2016, drafted in November and endorsed by Berdymukhamedov this month, the country would still struggle to liberalize the economy, Mummery said.

"It is highly unlikely that privatization in some areas of the non-oil economy will lead to any substantial opening up of the Turkmen economy. The authorities will remain overwhelmingly dependent on revenue from the energy sector, which limits their incentive to pursue market-friendly reforms," Mummery said.

Turkmenistan also must improve the regulatory environment, Mallinson at GPW believes, easing the Byzantine tax regime and introducing a transparent judiciary to attract foreign companies outside the energy sector. "The only foreign companies queuing up outside the Turkmen governments’ doors are international oil and gas companies eager to access Turkmenistan’s vast gas reserves,” she told EurasiaNet.org. Turkmenistan is believed to have the world’s fourth-largest gas reserves.

“Turkmenistan’s isolation from Western markets also thwarts anything but the largest players from entering the market,” Mallinson added. “Consequently, the main winners of the forthcoming privatization are likely to be Russian, Turkish and Chinese companies." China is already the leading destination for Turkmenistan’s gas.

When it comes to WTO membership, the experience of neighboring countries with far more open economies has shown accession to be a lengthy process. Before joining in 2012, Russia negotiated for 19 years; Kazakhstan, which opened membership talks in 1996, is still negotiating. Turkmenistan’s WTO aspirations are hampered by the "leadership's commitment to 'permanent neutrality,' which tends to guide policy in the closely related areas of foreign relations and diversification of gas export routes." Moreover, she added, the openness required of WTO membership could destroy “the economic mechanisms by which the rule of the competing cliques around the president are […] maintained."

Whether economic liberalization could possibly lead to wider democratic reforms may hinge on Turkmenistan's choice of foreign partners. "Human rights reform is unlikely to accompany any kind of economic liberalization, particularly with the exponential growth of Chinese influence on the Turkmen economy," Mallinson cautioned.

Originally published by EurasiaNet.org

North Korean Leader Vows ‘High-Profile’ Retaliation Over New U.N. Sanctions

2013-01-29

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has ordered his top military and party officials to take “substantial and high-profile important state measures” to retaliate against American-led United Nations sanctions on the country, the North’s official media reported Sunday.

North Korea did not clarify what those measures might be, but it referred to a series of earlier statements in which Mr. Kim’s government has threatened to launch more long-range rockets and conduct a third nuclear test to build an ability to “target” the United States.

Mr. Kim threw his weight behind his government’s escalating standoff with Washington when he called a meeting of top security and foreign affairs officials and gave an instruction in his name. He inherited the posts of supreme party and military leaders from his father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011.

By calling such a meeting and having it reported in state news media, Mr. Kim appeared to be asserting his leadership in what his country called an “all-out action” against the United States, unlike his father, who tended to remain reclusive during similar confrontations.

“At the consultative meeting, Kim Jong-un expressed the firm resolution to take substantial and high-profile important state measures in view of the prevailing situation,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency, or K.C.N.A. “He advanced specific tasks to the officials concerned.”

The K.C.N.A. dispatch, which was distributed Sunday, was dated Saturday, indicating that the meeting in Pyongyang, the capital, took place then. That was the same day on which the North’s main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said that the United Nations Security Council’s resolution last Tuesday calling for tightening sanctions against the North left it with “no other option” but a nuclear test.

The resolution was adopted unanimously — with the support of the North’s traditional protector, China — as punishment for its Dec. 12 rocket launching. The Security Council determined that the launching was a cover for testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology and a violation of its earlier resolutions banning North Korea from conducting such tests.

The North rejected the old resolutions, as well as the latest one, insisting that launching rockets to put satellites into orbit was its sovereign right. Its successful rocket launching in December, coming after a failure last April, was the most visible achievement that Mr. Kim’s government could present to its people, who have suffered decades of poverty and isolation. In North Korean propaganda, defending the rocket program is likened to protecting national pride and independence — even if the country has to pay a high economic price.

Last Thursday, North Korea said that its drive to rebuild its moribund economy and its rocket program, until now billed as a peaceful space project, would be adjusted and redirected toward efforts to foil hostilities by the United States. On Sunday, it said the Security Council’s action “has thrown a grave obstacle” in the way of its efforts to focus on “economic construction so that the people may not tighten their belts any longer.”

Still, it said it had to “defend its sovereignty by itself” because “different countries concerned” failed to “fairly solve the problem.” In the past few days, North Korea, without citing China by name, expressed bitterness and defiance against its longtime Communist ally for endorsing the American-led Security Council resolution. On Saturday, Rodong Sinmun reaffirmed its dislike of “sadae,” or toadying to big countries, including China.

China provides all of North Korea’s fuel and remains its biggest trading partner, but analysts believe that its influence on the recalcitrant government in Pyongyang is limited. China has been thus far reluctant to use its economic leverage, fearing that it would only drive its neighbor into more provocations, which would be a blow to China’s interest in maintaining stability in the region.

International attention has focused on the Punggye nuclear test site in northeastern North Korea, where the country conducted its two previous underground nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009. Enough preparations have been made there recently that a third test could happen on short notice from the North Korean leadership, South Korean officials said.

In a report issued Sunday, the Institute for National Security Strategy, a research organization affiliated with South Korea’s main intelligence service, said that North Korea might use provocations this year to tame the government of President-elect Park Geun-hye, who will be sworn in next month.

“It will wait and see until the new government’s North Korea policy shapes up,” it said. “If the policy is not favorable, the North may lash out with provocations.”

Choe Sang-Hun, The New York Times

Tajikistan's economy grows 7.5 pct in 2012

2013-01-22

Tajikistan said its economy grew 7.5 percent last year, slightly faster than in 2011 and buoyed by remittances from migrant workers and growth in its mining industry despite a slump in key export, aluminium.

More than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan, which borders China and Afghanistan, is the poorest of the 15 post-Soviet republics and is a net importer of oil and gas. It relies heavily on aluminium and cotton exports, as well as remittances from the approximately 1 million of its 7.5 million citizens who live and work abroad, mainly in Russia.

In nominal terms, Tajikistan's gross domestic product (GDP) rose to 36.161 billion somoni ($7.6 billion) last year, the state statistics agency said on Monday. In the previous year the economy grew 7.4 percent. Industrial output growth accelerated to 10.4 percent in 2012 from 5.9 percent in 2011. It was driven by a 24 percent rise in the extraction of mostly oil, gas, coal, non-metal ores and edible salt, and by a 9.5 percent rise in manufacturing production. Worker remittances rose 13.2 percent in January-September from a year earlier to $2.4 billion or 46 percent of gross domestic product, but full-year data is not yet available.

Easing inflation, which slowed to 6.4 percent by the end of 2012, from 9.3 percent a year earlier, helped the economy.

However, Tajikistan's foreign trade deficit widened to $2.4 billion last year from $1.9 billion in 2011, as exports of primary aluminium dropped by 18.9 percent to $556 million in 2012.

The country has implemented reforms to try and transform to a market economy and hopes to join the World Trade Organisation this year after getting the go ahead in December after 11 years of talks. It would be only the second Central Asian republic after Kyrgyzstan to join the trade body.

Russia extended its military presence in Tajikistan for 30 years in October to secure the southern fringes of its former Soviet empire after NATO troops leave Afghanistan. As part of the deal to prolong its presence, Moscow provided a package of agreements that could bolster Tajikistan's economy, including better terms for Tajik migrant workers in Russia. Other deals pledged cooperation building hydropower facilities and removing import duties on Russian light oil products used in Tajikistan.

Russian military and economic support is particularly important to Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, whose rule has been challenged by chronic poverty, the growth of radical Islam and sporadic outbreaks of violence.

Reuters

As Tibetan burnings increase, China seizes residents, TVs, goes on propaganda offensive

2013-01-21

The measures include criminalizing the suicides, arresting protesters’ friends and even confiscating thousands of satellite TV dishes.

The harsh measures provide an early indication that the country’s new leadership is not easing up on Tibet despite the burning protests and international condemnation.

For months, as Tibetans across western China doused themselves in gasoline and set themselves alight, authorities responded by sending in security forces to seal off areas and prevent information from getting out, but those efforts did not stop or slow the protests. The self-immolations even accelerated in November as China’s ruling Communist Party held a pivotal leadership transition.

Then the government went on the offensive in December, announcing through a state-owned newspaper that the burnings are the work of foreign hostile forces keen on separating Tibet from the mainland and that those who help others self-immolate are liable to be prosecuted for murder. Arrests quickly followed.

Nearly 100 Tibetan monks, nuns and lay people have set themselves on fire since 2009, calling for Beijing to allow greater religious freedom and the return from exile of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

This week, police in Gansu province of western China announced the arrests of seven people accused of helping a Tibetan villager self-immolate in October and said investigations showed that two of the men were members of the overseas-based Tibetan Youth Congress, which they said had “masterminded” the protest.

It was only the latest example of harsher measures being used in an effort to stem the unrest. Last month, authorities in Qinghai province announced they had detained “major” suspects allegedly involved in five self-immolations, while police in a county in Sichuan province said a monk and his nephew were being held for similar reasons.

Qinghai authorities said on Monday they had conducted a sweep of households in restive Tongren county and seized and destroyed more than 1,800 illegal satellite TV dishes. Local newspapers have run commentaries condemning the Dalai Lama and decrying what they describe as the “slaughter of life.” State broadcaster CCTV has aired documentaries of the same theme and a historic drama series about the life of a Tibetan serf-turned-Chinese patriot.

U.N. rights chief seeks international investigation on North Korea

2013-01-14

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay called on Monday for an international investigation into what she said were decades of serious violations in North Korea.

She voiced regret that there had been no improvement since Kim Jong-un took power a year ago.

Pillay, in a rare statement on North Korea, said: "Because of the enduring gravity of the situation, I believe an in-depth inquiry into one of the worst - but least understood and reported - human rights situations in the world is not only fully justified, but long overdue."

Pillay regretted that international concerns over North Korea's controversial nuclear program and rocket launches were overshadowing "the deplorable human rights situation in the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)".

The reclusive country's network of political prison camps, believed to contain 200,000 people or more, were marked by rampant violations, including rapes, torture, executions and slave labor, she said.

"There were some initial hopes that the advent of a new leader might bring about some positive change in the human rights situation in DPRK," she said. "But a year after Kim Jong Un became the country's new supreme leader, we see almost no sign of improvement."

Reuters

China to reform controversial forced labor camps

2013-01-07

China's "re-education through labor" system, in place since 1957, empowers police to sentence petty criminals to up to four years' confinement without going through the courts, a system that critics say undermines the rule of law and is used against political activists.

The announcement by state news agency Xinhua contradicted earlier media reports that cited domestic security head Meng Jianzhu as saying China would scrap the system. Those reports were removed from media websites without an explanation.

"The Chinese government will this year push the reform of its controversial re-education through labor system, according to a national political and legal work conference on Monday," Xinhua reported.

State broadcaster CCTV had said earlier on its microblog site, citing the party's newly appointed Political and Legal Affairs Committee head, Meng, as saying: "Use of the re-education through labor system will end this year, after approval from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress."

The labor camp system has come under fire from intellectuals, rights lawyers and activists, and even state media.

State media has taken up the case of people it believes have suffered miscarriages of justice under the system such as Ren Jianyu, a village official sentenced to a labor camp after he criticized the government.

Media also rallied to the defense of Tang Hui, a woman who was sent to a labor camp in August for demanding that the men who had raped her daughter be given harsher punishment. She was later released.

China has 350 labor camps throughout the country, housing about 160,000 inmates, according to Xinhua, which cited the bureau of "re-education through labor" under the Ministry of Justice.

Whether China reforms the system hinges on the power of security agencies, which are responsible for reining in social unrest that threatens the party's efforts to maintain stability.

Reuters

Azerbaijani media accepts controversal financial aid

2013-01-07

Under the decade-long rule of President Ilham Aliev, Azerbaijan has earned one of the worst press freedom records in the world. Journalists face harassment, attack, and blackmail, landing Aliev on Reporters Without Borders' list of "predators of press freedom" for six years running.

But Baku also supports the very same media that local journalists and rights monitors like Reporters, Amnesty International, and Freedom House say are under attack. Indeed, since 2010 the government has handed out millions of dollars to newspapers and other outlets through the State Support Fund for the Development of Mass Media.

For many news outlets, the aid is the only thing keeping the proverbial presses running in Azerbaijan's anemic advertising market. Prominent editors say they have no choice but to apply for the money despite the conflict of interest and other drawbacks, namely the risk of self-censorship.

And while some journalists insist that accepting the taxpayer-funded aid doesn't necessarily jeopardize their reporting or integrity, Arif Aliev, chairman of the Yeni Nesil (New Generation) journalists' union, suggested that recipients are making a deal with the devil.

"But I cannot blame them," he said, adding that foreign support is falling alongside ad spending. "The media have three options: close; continue with the money [they have] and see quality deteriorate; or get state aid and betray journalistic principles."

DESPERATE TIMES, DESPERATE MEASURES

Established in 2009 under the auspices of the president, the mass-media support fund claims to contribute to media independence and development, as well as freedom of thought, through direct aid and funding for special reporting projects on important social and political issues. So far, 5.4 million manats ($6.9 million) have been distributed to dozens of independent, opposition. and state-run news outlets.

The twin Azeri-language Ayna and Russian Zerkalo newspapers together make up one of the most read independent publications in Azerbaijan with a circulation of roughly 8,000. Last April, one of Ayna/Zerkalo's reporters was beaten by security officers of the State Oil Company as he tried to film the company-ordered demolition of houses in Baku's Sulutepe district. But the papers have also received 198,500 manats from the fund, according to government figures, to report on social issues like the family's role in society.

Editor in chief Elchin Shikhli said he doesn't like taking the money, but that he has no choice with monthly ad revenue down some 50 percent since 2009. Baku doesn't try to influence story structure or content, he said, but the aid does come at a cost.

"It leads to self-censorship," Shikhli said. "Unconsciously, it is always in my mind that I need that money, and I try to avoid things that could affect our future, even if I haven't been warned."

Though figures on the larger advertising market are scarce, other prominent Azerbaijani media are just as desperate as Ayna/Zerkalo.

"Journalism is about to die in this country," said Rauf Arifoghlu, editor of the popular opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat. "Instead of closing, we prefer to continue publishing. Devoting one page to an issue mandated by the government is better than closing the newspaper after more than 20 years."

Arifoghlu spent 17 months in prison for helping organize mass protests in October 2003, after then-Prime Minister Aliev was declared the winner of elections to succeed his ailing father Heydar as president. Yet as editor of Yeni Musavat, he has accepted 223,500 manats in aid for covering the secessionist Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan and Armenia fought over the mostly Armenian-populated territory in the early 1990s, and a tenuous ceasefire is in place today.

Arifoghlu said he rarely clashes with officials because the newspaper's coverage of Nagorno-Karabakh often scans with the government's anti-Armenia position, though it occasionally faults Baku's approach to resolving the conflict.

"When we do that, we get friendly criticism from the government," he said, laughing. "But in general, [the state aid] does not affect our freedom to criticize the government."

"IT IS OUR MONEY"

Aliev of the New Generation journalists' union insisted that government aid to media, whether independent, opposition, or state-run, can't help but lead to dependence and self-censorship. At the same time, he said, the support is doing little for the press.

"The quality of newspapers and their websites is not improving. It is shameful to have [such a low] quality of newspapers in a country with so much money," Aliev said, referring to Azerbaijan's considerable oil wealth. "Newspaper circulation is not increasing, and the advertising market is very poor. The assistance isn't changing anything."

But Rashad Majid, a member of the council responsible for overseeing the media support fund and a newspaper editor himself, said the aid is more about providing a critical lifeline.

"We should understand that the financial assistance aims to save collapsing media - to help them survive, not to develop them," he said. "To do [the latter], the advertising market needs to improve."

Ad money is so scarce, experts say, because Azerbaijan's economy is dominated by energy majors like British Petroleum and Lukoil on fat government contracts, not small and medium sized businesses that need advertising to promote their goods and services. Majid also noted peculiarities within Azerbaijani society, citing the country's thriving construction industry, which, for cultural reasons, doesn't see advertising as key to business development.

Outlets which back the opposition, especially, struggle to find advertisers. But Aflatun Amashov, chairman of the Press Council, a pro-government media monitor, said last summer that legislators are working on a strategy to distribute advertising equally across the country's 40 daily newspapers, 200 online papers, over 20 television stations and various other media, though it's unclear how this would work in practice.

For its part, Baku stridently defends the fund. Bakhtiyar Sadigov, a legislator with the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, editor of the state-run Azerbaycan newspaper, and a member of the media fund's oversight council, recently called "ridiculous" accusations that Baku is trying to manipulate the press financially. The aid program is voluntary, he said, and the government must support media while the advertising market remains weak.

Some journalists are sympathetic to this view. Yadigar Mammadli, chairman of the Democratic Journalists' League, said the aid needn't necessarily lead to self-censorship because it is taxpayer money and targeting it to the country's development, including the media environment, is an appropriate use.

"Media should take advantage of it," he said. "The money is from the state budget, not the personal account of any official. Those media that receive the assistance should show that they cannot be manipulated and should feel absolutely free to criticize the government. That is how they can make the government realize that it cannot suppress the voice of society with its own money."

Rahim Hajiyev, deputy editor of the opposition newspaper Azadliq, which has seen several staff members arrested and even attacked for their reporting, echoed Mammadli. While the fund is little more than a PR campaign to improve Baku's image abroad, he said, accepting assistance doesn't compromise Azadliq.

"It is our money," Hajiyev said. "No one can ever tell me what to write because he or she allocates money to me from the state budget, a budget formed by all Azerbaijani citizens for their own future."

China shuts website of leading reformist magazine

2013-01-04

China shut the website of a leading pro-reform magazine on Friday, apparently because it ran an article calling for political reform and constitutional government, sensitive topics for the ruling Communist Party which brooks no dissent.

"Yanhuang Chunqiu" (China Through the Ages) is an influential Beijing magazine that features essays from reformist retired officials.

In a message posted on its official Sina Weibo microblog, the magazine said that it had been informed on Thursday that the site's registration had been canceled and that it had not been given a reason. "The magazine is trying to find out details," it said.

Attempts to open the website (www.yhcqw.com) bring up a cartoon picture of a policemen holding up a badge and the message that the site has been closed.

However, the article which seems to have offended the censors, written in the form of a new year's message, is still up on the magazine's microblog.

"In more than 30 years of reform, the abuses caused by political reform lagging economic reform have become daily more visible, and the factors for social instability have gradually accumulated. Promoting reform of the political system is an urgent task," the piece says.

Analysts have been searching for signs that China's new leaders might steer a path of political reform, whether by allowing freer expression on the internet, greater experimentation with grassroots democracy or releasing jailed dissidents.

But the party, which tolerates no challenge to its rule and values stability above all else, has so far shown little sign of wanting to go down this path, despite president-in-waiting and party chief Xi Jinping trying to project a softer and more open image than his predecessor.

Weibo users flocked to offer their support for the magazine and to excoriate Xi.

"People who are putting their hopes in Xi need to wake up," wrote one.

Xi, who became party boss in November, takes over from Hu Jintao as president at the annual meeting of parliament in March, part of a generational leadership change.

Last month, a prominent group of Chinese academics warned in a bold open letter that the country risks "violent revolution" if the government does not respond to public pressure and allow long-stalled political reforms.

Reuters

Lithuania to pay compensations to those who refused service in Soviet army

2013-01-03

Lithuania will this year pay monetary compensations to persons who refused service in the Soviet army and were thus aggrieved, the Defence Ministry said on Monday.

The one-off compensation of 4,000 litas (EUR 1,159) will be available to persons who refused to serve in the Soviet Armed Forces after Lithuania declared independence on March 11 1990 and were consequently taken to Soviet army divisions by force, sentenced to jail for withdrawal from the Soviet army or boycott of call-up, were forced to return and continue their service until Sept. 7 1991.

The one-off compensations will be paid in line with a resolution of the 2008-2012 parliament.

Some 150,000 litas are envisaged for the purpose in the Defense Ministry's budget this year. Should the compensation sum exceed the amount, other compensations will be paid out in January of 2014.

Cuba cuts state payroll, private sector jobs grow 23% in 2012

2012-12-28

Cuba's drive to slash state payrolls and spur private-sector growth picked up surprising steam in 2012 as President Raul Castro moved ahead with reforms to the Soviet-style economy, according to figures unveiled recently with little hoopla.

The number of private or "non state" workers rose 23 percent in 2012, while state sector employment dropped 5.7 percent, according to a report from Economy Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez. The unemployment rate grew to a record 3.8 percent, not including Cubans who did not seek work.

The wide-ranging year-end report to the National Assembly, which met in Havana last week, indicated the government is quietly making progress toward its goal of moving toward a more market-oriented economy while maintaining the socialist system in place the last half century.

Just a few years ago, the state employed more than 85 percent of Cuba's labor force, but that is changing as the government battles heavy indebtedness, economic stagnation, poor retail services and pilfering.

The report said the government cut 228,000 public jobs in 2012, on top of the previously announced 137,000 in 2011, closing in on its goal to slash 20 percent, or nearly a million jobs, from its bloated payrolls, by 2016.

At the same time, the number of private, or "non-state" workers as Cuba calls them, rose to 1.1 million jobs, double the number reported two years ago.

Starting in 2013 the state plans to turn more than 200 medium-sized businesses, from shrimp breeding and produce markets to construction and light manufacturing, into private cooperatives. The experiment will be expanded if successful.

Yzquierdo reported that unemployment was a record 3.8 percent in 2012, or a bit more than 250,000 out of a potential labor force of 6.8 million people. He admitted that the figure did not include a million Cubans who he said "did not actively seek employment."

Many of those without jobs still enjoy free health care, education, subsidized food ration and other government services while also dealing in Cuba's vast black market, engaging in minor business activity and trading on the margins of the law.

Marc Frank, Reuters

Love, Lust, and Lies under Communism: Family Values and Adulterous Liaisons in Early East Germany

2012-12-28

Port, A.I., 'Love, Lust, and Lies under Communism: Family Values and Adulterous Liaisons in Early East Germany', Central European History, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2011), 478-505.

According to a joke that made the rounds in the former Soviet Union, women from different countries held on to their husbands in different ways: the German by her skills as a housewife, the Spaniard by her passionate lovemaking, the Frenchwoman by her refined elegance—and the Russian by the party committee. This sexist quip was a not so oblique reference to the ways in which the communist party intervened in the private domestic affairs of its members. But—even leaving aside the obviously offensive—it was not entirely accurate, for the practice was just as common in other communist countries as well. This included the eastern half of postwar Germany, where, as in the Soviet Union, the wives of adulterous members of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) sometimes appealed to local functionaries for assistance with their straying husbands.

Utopian Visions of Family Life in the Stalin-Era Soviet Union

2012-12-28

Kaminsky, L., 'Utopian Visions of Family Life in the Stalin-Era Soviet Union', Central European History, Vol.44, No.1 (2011), 63-91.

Soviet socialism shared with its utopian socialist predecessors a critique of the conventional family and its household economy. Marx and Engels asserted that women's emancipation would follow the abolition of private property, allowing the family to be a union of individuals within which relations between the sexes would be “a purely private affair.” Building on this legacy, Lenin imagined a future when unpaid housework and child care would be replaced by communal dining rooms, nurseries, kindergartens, and other industries. The issue was so central to the revolutionary program that the Bolsheviks published decrees establishing civil marriage and divorce soon after the October Revolution, in December 1917. These first steps were intended to replace Russia's family laws with a new legal framework that would encourage more egalitarian sexual and social relations. A complete Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship was ratified by the Central Executive Committee a year later, in October 1918. The code established a radical new doctrine based on individual rights and gender equality, but it also preserved marriage registration, alimony, child support, and other transitional provisions thought to be unnecessary after the triumph of socialism. Soviet debates about the relative merits of unfettered sexuality and the protection of women and children thus resonated with long-standing tensions in the history of socialism.

More from Less: Ideological Gambling with the Unity of Economic and Social Policy in Honecker's GDR

2012-12-28

Allinson, M., 'More from Less: Ideological Gambling with the Unity of Economic and Social Policy in Honecker's GDR', Central European History, Vol. 45, No.1 (2012), 102-127.

In the numerous analyses of the economic failings of the German Democratic Republic, considerable attention and blame have attached to the extensive social policy program of Erich Honecker, leader of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) after 1971. The “unity of economic and social policy” encompassed the GDR's entire political economy under Honecker. It was an attempt—a last-ditch attempt, as it transpired—to incentivize higher production, but also to fulfill the party's promise of higher living standards. In sum, the intention was to secure both the GDR's long-term economic viability and popular support via (modest) consumerism and an extensive program of social welfare measures. In so doing, the SED would prove the economic, social, and political theories that underpinned the whole ideology of “real existing socialism.”

Talking About Health and Well-Being in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia

2012-12-28

Abbott, P. & Wallace, C., 'Talking About Health and Well-Being in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 23, No.2 (2007), 181-202.

Residents of Ukraine and Russia perceive their living conditions and health as very poor. This is coupled with concerns over access to social services and health care. There is a strong interaction between the poor quality of life after the economic and political collapse and the views of individual citizens about their ability to take responsibility for their health. The collapse of the former supportive system was a ‘cultural trauma’ that affected citizens' capacity for looking after their own health and well-being. In such a context of transition economies, the concept of agency is of limited explanatory value.

The Evolution of Human Rights Thinking in North Korea

2012-12-28

Weatherley, R. & Jiyoung, S., 'The Evolution of Human Rights Thinking in North Korea', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.24, No.2 (2008), 272-296.

The official discourse of human rights in North Korea has shown signs of evolution in recent times, reflecting a variety of philosophical foundations and a need to respond to mounting criticism from the West. While Confucianism and Marxism have been key in influencing North Korean rights thinking, some of the more recent official pronouncements on rights have a distinctly nationalistic or ‘juche-oriented’ complexion. This shift in emphasis reflects the growing importance of juche to North Korea's state ideology in light of what is perceived as an increasingly hostile international environment that has confronted North Korea since the end of the Cold War and in particular in consequence of its highly controversial nuclear weapons programme.

Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism

2012-12-28

Moore, C. & Tumelty, P., 'Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, No.1 (2009), 73-94.

The end of the Cold War ushered in a new period of instability in the Caucasus, as groups formerly associated with the Communist Party sought to wrest power from newly formed political movements, which themselves sought independence from the successor to the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States. In the immediate post-Cold War period a number of alliances, formed by groups with radically different agendas, shaped the ensuing political uncertainty across the region. In Chechnya, a number of historical relationships influenced the formation of nationalist and communist coalitions, particularly in the early and latter part of the twentieth century. Moreover, in the post-Soviet period, a series of coalitions and alliances – such as the Abkhaz Battalion – melded together national and regional groups, which themselves had an impact on the first Russo-Chechen War of the 1990s. Following the end of the first war in 1996, a series of other alliances, partially influenced by religion, linked members of the Chechen diaspora community with indigenous radical figures and foreign jihadis who espoused Salafism. This, in turn, expanded what had ostensibly been a nationalist movement into a regional conflict beyond the borders of Chechnya, a development that sheds light on the second Russo-Chechen War.

‘Enverists’ and ‘Titoists’ – Communism and Islam in Albania and Kosova, 1941–99: From the Partisan Movement of the Second World War to the Kosova Liberation War

2012-12-28

Schwartz, S., '‘Enverists’ and ‘Titoists’ – Communism and Islam in Albania and Kosova, 1941–99: From the Partisan Movement of the Second World War to the Kosova Liberation War', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, No.1 (2009), 48-72.

‘Enverists’, or supporters of Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha, and ‘Titoists’, referring to sympathizers with the architect of communist Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, are terms used in Albanian discourse over Kosova. But they are generally misconstrued to suggest differing orientations towards the rival regimes, when they more properly refer, as Albanian sources demonstrate, to attitudes about the fate of Kosova itself. ‘Enverists’ in Kosova very rarely supported Hoxha and ‘Titoists’ were not necessarily loyalists of Yugoslavia. Rather, the terms signify a distinction between those who saw the Albanian national question as one involving all Albanians, in Albania proper, Kosova, and neighbouring territories (‘Enverists’) and those who viewed the problem of Kosova as a separate question (‘Titoists’).

From Reform and Transition to 'Coloured Revolutions'

2012-12-28

Cheterian, V., 'From Reform and Transition to 'Coloured Revolutions', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, No.2/3 (2009), 136-160.

Peaceful revolutions known as ‘coloured revolutions’ have overthrown the previous paradigm known as ‘transition’: rapid privatization and democratization reforms, to move post-socialist societies to a Western model of governance. In a number of post-Soviet countries, transition did not lead to the promised results. To understand this failure, the economic side of transition – mass privatization – should be contrasted with the political side – democratization and political pluralism. The coloured revolutions reflected the rehabilitation of political change after a decade of change driven by economic priorities. Yet the recent wave of revolutions, in their turn, are led under neo-liberal banners, promising more privatization, restructuring, and cutting of social spending, an ideology that seems anachronistic when set against the needs of our times.

Rethinking the Political Economy of Conservative Transition: The Case of Vietnam

2012-12-28

Fforde, A. 'Rethinking the Political Economy of Conservative Transition: The Case of Vietnam', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 26, No.1 (2010), 126-146.

The transition ‘from plan to market’ under a politically conservative regime in Vietnam, where the communist party remains in power, can be seen as an example of a process in which evolving endogenous forces drove and resourced institutional change. Two sets of phenomena are analytically important. The first may be understood as the creation and seeking out of economic rents in the ‘neo-classical’ sense of resources available ‘below economic costs’; the second, more ‘classical’, concentrates upon the central importance of ‘appropriable resources’. These two are both important because, in trying to understand emergent capitalism after transition, they push to the fore the historical emergence of factor markets (land, labour and capital). Social networks created during transition for ‘rent-switching’ later support advantageous access to resources created for plan implementation and may then, as a form of capitalism emerges, be used to access resources in forms appropriate to market-oriented activity. It becomes clear that ‘rent-switching’ may have effects upon static economic efficiency that are positive during transition but negative afterwards, so that the significance of ‘rents’ depends upon context.

Stresses and Opportunities of Transformation: The Impact on Health

2012-12-28

Rose, R. & Bobak, M., 'Stresses and Opportunities of Transformation: The Impact on Health', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 26, No.1 (2010), 80-100.

The combination of stresses and opportunities following the transformation of the communist bloc countries affected the health of individuals in contrasting ways. Since individual health reflects an accumulation of conditions over a lifetime, the differential evolution of the mean level of health in communist bloc countries and OECD countries has been maintained subsequently. Within-nation differences in individual health have also continued. A multiplicity of explanations exist for health differences, including individual socio-economic resources, stresses, opportunities and national context. Survey data from the 13-country New Europe Barometer, which spans ten new EU member states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, show that psychological resources affecting how individuals respond to the combined stresses and opportunities of transformation are of particular importance, and so too is living in a society transformed from part of the communist bloc to part of the European Union.

Politicians Versus Intellectuals in the Lustration Debates in Transitional Latvia

2012-12-28

Zake, I., 'Politicians Versus Intellectuals in the Lustration Debates in Transitional Latvia,' Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 26, No.3 (2010), 389-412.

The process of transitional justice in Latvia after 1991 and the public debates that surrounded it created a number of controversies. One such notable conflict dealt with lustration, and it involved Latvia's political establishment and intelligentsia. While the politicians supported the public's right to have full access to the secret KGB files, the intellectuals demanded that Latvia's society should be protected from making mistakes in its judgments and therefore the available documentation should be studied first by state-appointed experts. Each position addressed the issue of lustration from a distinctive perspective, and these reflected not merely political disagreements. Instead, they reflected conflicts of vision that had deep historical roots.

The Party Isn't Over: An Analysis of the Communist Party in the Czech Republic

2012-12-28

Lach, J., LaPlant, J.T., Peterson, J. & Hill, D., 'The Party Isn't Over: An Analysis of the Communist Party in the Czech Republic', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2010), 363-388.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) has remained electorally relevant in the Czech Republic. An analysis of the historical roots of the party within the context of the other communist parties in Central Europe can help illuminate the factors that have contributed to the resilience of the party. Furthermore, an exploration of the party platform and leadership reveals how the party has endeavoured to remain relevant. The KSČM averaged 17 per cent of the vote across seven elections in the first decade of the century. A multivariate analysis of electoral support for the KSČM across the seven elections highlights the conspicuous influence of unemployment, population density, and the crime rate. The party is a study in contradictions and its continued electoral success will ensure weak coalition governments in the Czech Republic.

The Politics of Corruption: Political Will and the Rule of Law in Post-Communist Romania

2012-12-28

Ristei, M., 'The Politics of Corruption: Political Will and the Rule of Law in Post-Communist Romania', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 26, No.3 (2010), 341-362.

Once a rarely discussed issue, corruption has become one of the most debated problems in the past 15 years, particularly in the context of democratization. For post-communist countries, corruption has represented a particular challenge, undermining their process of democratic consolidation. Even in the absence of a tradition of the rule of law and of democracy, there is promise in the fight against corruption when there is political will to combat it. The case of Romania demonstrates that European Union (EU) pressure, electoral pressure and the political will of the domestic political leadership combined to secure the establishment of the rule of law and combating corruption in the Romanian judiciary between 1997 and 2006.

Communism for the Twenty-First Century: The Moldovan Experiment

2012-12-28

Tudoroiu, T., 'Communism for the Twenty-First Century: The Moldocan Experiment', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 27, No.2 (2011), 291-321.

Abstract. For most of the first decade of the present century, Moldova was governed by the Party of Communists of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin, who displayed impressive political skills as the president of the republic and party leader. In office, the party engaged in a political reorientation towards Europe in 2004–5 and an ideological transformation in 2008, yet the party remains a superficially reformed, non-transmuted communist successor party. During eight years in office, 2001–9, it led a semi-consolidated authoritarian regime similar to the neo-communist constructs of Ion Iliescu in Romania and Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria. The crisis of 2009 weakened the party, however, with defections of leading communists to other parties. Moldova has thus returned to a situation of ‘pluralism by default’ and a hybrid political regime, in which the communists, though weakened, remain a potent political force.

Labour Management in Belarus: Transcendent Retrogession

2012-12-28

Danilovich, H. & Croucher, R., 'Labour Management in Belarus: Transcendent Retrogession' , Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 27, No.2 (2011), 241-262.

Labour management practices at enterprise level in Belarus are more negative for workers than those under the Soviet system. Welfare has largely disappeared, as has Soviet-style informal bargaining; wage payment may be in kind; training is minimal; job insecurity is extreme and trade unions perform a corporatist role. Thus, as Burawoy argued, ‘involutionary retrogression’ has indeed taken place, but in what may be denominated a ‘transcendent’ form.

Modernisation, Neo-Modernisation, and Comparative Democratisation in Russia

2012-12-28

Sakwa, R., 'Modernisation, neo-modernisation, and comparative democratisation in Russia', East European Politics, Vol. 28, No.1 (2012), 43-57.

There has long been a debate over whether development is a prerequisite for democracy, and by the same token, whether democracy is a precondition for development. This debate is part of the larger literature examining problems of ‘transition’, a term which is at best no more than a code word for the processes shaping accelerated and conscious transformation of a society from one type of social order to another. For some three decades, the field of comparative democratisation has focused attention on the mechanics of political transition and the creation of new democracies, accompanied by analysis of the reasons for ‘failed transitions’. While linear versions of modernisation theory have been discredited, the creation of capitalist democracies on the western model has encountered resistance. The two versions of the neo-modernisation paradigm (critical and civilisational) help us to examine the ‘transition’ dynamics of developing societies as well as providing a framework to critique existing theories.

Governing the Post-Communist State: Government Alternation and Senior Civil Service Politicisation in Central and Eastern Europe

2012-12-28

Meyer-Sahling, J-H. & Veen, T., Governing the post-communist state: government alternation and senior civil service politicisation in Central and Eastern Europe', East European Politics, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2012), 4-22.

Recent debates on the transformation of the state in Central and Eastern Europe have centred on the impact of political competition on state politicisation. The presence of robust competition, including coherent governments and critical oppositions are said to reduce the potential for state politicisation. This article challenges this perspective. It concentrates on the impact of patterns of government alternation on senior civil service politicisation. The article emphasises problems of political control of senior bureaucrats, which are argued to emerge after regular wholesale alternations between ideological blocs as opposed to other types of alternations. The article relies on data from an expert survey that was conducted in eight Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004. It develops an index of politicisation that captures the range and intensity of senior civil service politicisation. It then conceptualises senior civil service politicisation as a mode of governing the post-communist state and traces the variation in politicisation to patterns of government alternation in Central and Eastern Europe since their transition to democracy.

Shaping the Post-Soviet Space? EU Policies and Approaches to Region-Building

2012-12-27

Laure Delcour, Shaping the Post-Soviet Space? EU Policies and Approaches to Region-Building (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).

This book offers an insightful analysis of the policies designed and implemented by the European Union in the former Soviet Union from the angle of region-building. The author provides a comprehensive analysis of the EU’s various approaches to regional co-operation with and between post-Soviet countries, in concurrence with the EU’s attempts to encourage inter-regionalism. The book is a timely contribution to the literature, which has focused more on the bilateral relations between the EU and newly independent states (NIS), or the specific initiatives of the EU, rather than on regionalism or the NIS. As a result, Delcour’s book fills a gap in the literature by providing an extensive focus on regionalism and inter-regionalism between the EU and the NIS… The volume presents a theoretically informed, empirically rich and methodologically sophisticated analysis… Overall, Delcour has written a comprehensive and highly convincing book. It should be regarded as an important contribution to European studies, and therefore is highly recommended to those interested in the EU’s external policy and relations with Russia and the neighbourhood countries.
Journal of Common Market Studies

Tajikistan Blocks Scores of Websites as Election Looms

2012-12-27

Tajikistan blocked access to more than 100 websites on Tuesday, in what a government source said was a dress rehearsal for a crackdown on online dissent before next year's election when President Imomali Rakhmon will again run for office. Rakhmon, a 60-year-old former head of a Soviet cotton farm, has ruled the impoverished Central Asian nation of 7.5 million for 20 years. He has overseen constitutional amendments that allow him to seek a new seven-year term in November 2013.

The Internet remains the main platform where Tajiks can air grievances and criticize government policies at a time when the circulation of local newspapers is tiny and television is tightly controlled by the state.

Tajikistan's state communications service blocked 131 local and foreign Internet sites "for technical and maintenance works". The blocked resources included Russia's popular social networking sites www.my.mail.ru and VKontakte (www.vk.com), as well as Tajik news site TJKnews.com and several local blogs.

"The government has ordered the communications service to test their ability to block dozens of sites at once, should such a need arise," a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Predominantly Muslim Tajikistan, which lies on a major transit route for Afghan drugs to Europe and Russia, remains volatile after a 1992-97 civil war in which Rakhmon's Moscow-backed secular government clashed with Islamist guerrillas.

Rakhmon justifies his authoritarian methods by saying he wants to oppose radical Islam. But some of his critics argue repression and poverty push many young Tajiks to embrace it.

Tighter Internet controls echo measures taken by other former Soviet republics of Central Asia, where authoritarian rulers are wary of the role social media played in revolutions in the Arab world and mass protests in Russia.

The government this year set up a volunteer-run body to monitor Internet use and reprimand those who openly criticize Rakhmon and other officials.

In November, Tajikistan blocked access to Facebook, saying it was spreading "mud and slander" about its veteran leader.

The authorities unblocked Facebook after concern was expressed by the United States and European Union, the main providers of humanitarian aid for Tajikistan, where almost a half of the population lives in abject poverty.

Asomiddin Asoyev, head of Tajikistan's association of Internet providers, said authorities were trying to create an illusion that there were no problems in Tajik society by silencing online criticism.

"This is self-deception," he told Reuters. "The best way of resolving a problem is its open discussion with civil society."

Moscow-based Central Asia expert Arkady Dubnov told Reuters that Rakhmon's authoritarian measures could lead to a backlash against the president in the election. "Trying to position itself as the main guarantor of stability through repression against Islamist activists, the Dushanbe government is actually achieving the reverse - people's trust in it is falling," he said.

Dmitry Solovyov, Reuters

Standoff Between Georgian President, Premier Turns Even Uglier

2012-12-27

President Mikheil Saakashvili responded on December 21 to the arrest of several former senior officials in connection with suspected bribery and tax evasion by implicitly threatening to dismiss Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and the government he heads.

Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream (KO) coalition defeated Saakashvili’s United National Movement (ENM) in a close-fought parliamentary election on October 1. Since then, the new leadership has arrested a number of former senior officials, including former Interior Minister Bacho Akhalaya, who is widely suspected of condoning torture and abuses in the country’s jails.

It has also announced its intention to reverse some crucial decisions taken by the ENM, including the relocation of the Georgian parliament from Tbilisi to a new building in Kutaisi (Georgia’s second-largest city) that cost some 360 million laris ($217.5 million).

Saakashvili and his closest associates, including former parliament speaker David Bakradze and Ivanishvii’s predecessor as prime minister, Vano Merabishvili, have retaliated by accusing the new government of incompetence, failing to deliver on its election campaign promises, and of seeking to destroy everything positive the ENM accomplished during its nine years in power. They have also criticized as politically motivated reprisals the arrests of Akhalaya and other senior members of Saakashvili’s team.

That criticism, and the concern expressed by NATO, EU, and U.S. State Department officials over the resulting perception of “selective justice” have not deterred the new government from what it says are its ongoing efforts to bring to justice former officials suspected of serious financial and other crimes.

At the same time, it is conceivable that Saakashvili has interpreted that international concern as an expression of tacit unequivocal Western support for himself and his team, just as some argue he misconstrued crucial U.S. communications on the eve of the ill-fated attack on Tskhinvali in August 2008 that triggered a brief but devastating conflict with Russia.

The most recent escalation of tensions began on December 19, when former Energy Minister Aleksandre Khetaguri, former Justice Minister Nika Gvaramia (since last month head of the TV channel Rustavi-2), and four other people were arrested in connection with the alleged payment of a $1 million bribe to avert a tax inspection that could have uncovered tax evasion on the part of the Telasi electricity distribution company, which is partly owned by the Russian energy giant RAO EES. Overriding a request by the prosecution, the Tbilisi City Court released Khetaguri, Gvaramia, Telasi head Devi Kandelaki, and former Deputy Economy Minister Kakha Damenia three days later on bail of 30,000 laris ($18,127) each.

Then on December 21-22, the Interior Ministry summoned former Prime Minister Nika Gilauri, former Finance Minister Dmitry Gvindadze, and former Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Vera Kobalia for questioning in connection with what the Interior Ministry termed a deliberate attempt by unspecified government agencies to bankrupt Ivanishvili’s Cartu Bank.

Also last week, the Georgian parliament's KO faction passed in the first reading draft legislative amendments changing the composition of the High Council of Justice, the body empowered to appoint, dismiss, and discipline judges. In addition, parliament discussed draft legislation that would subordinate the state protection service responsible for ensuring the security of the president and other top officials to the prime minister. It is currently subordinate to the president.

Anger on streets as Slovenian star wanes

2012-12-21

A startling crisis has hit Slovenia, a small country hailed until recently as the star of post-communist transition in eastern Europe and a promising new member of the euro zone. Recent revelations of political graft and cronyism, coupled with economic downturn, have led to public demonstrations against the current political elite. Two of the rallies directed against Maribor's mayor Frack Kangler turned violent in early December - dozens were arrested after protesters hurling firecrackers and chunks of concrete clashed with riot police.

Protesters accused Kangler, who took office in 2006 and was re-elected two years ago, of overseeing a corrupt administration that has sold municipal utilities and services to favoured partners while local people have lost jobs in the slump. Among irritations to push people onto the streets, was a city contract for a private company that installed speed cameras around Maribor in October. Hundreds of fines, typically of 250 euros - an average week's salary - were handed out on the first day, enraging motorists. Word that the private contractor would keep 90 percent of the money caused new talk of city hall graft.

Consequently, Kangler has promised to step down on December 31 to make way for a new election of mayor.

However, the Maribor mayor is not unique in his legal problems. Premier Jansa himself faces a trial on charges of taking bribes from a Finnish arms exporter during a previous term in office. And Kangler's counterpart in the capital Ljubljana has also been questioned over corruption allegations.

Prime Minister Janez Jansa's conservative coalition, which benefited from recession to oust the centre-left a year ago, faces no scheduled election until 2015. But the fury of the crowds against Kangler, a coalition ally, has revealed the weight of pressure for change and a potential for instability.

Further protests are planned for Friday the 21st, both in Maribor and other towns including the capital Ljubljana. Police, who turned water cannon and tear gas on demonstrators in Maribor, are preparing.

But until this year, Slovenia was widely seen as a calm and prosperous trailblazer among its more troubled in the former Yugoslavia. It joined the European Union in 2004 and three years later, as the IMF put it at the time, "sound macroeconomic policies were crowned with success when Slovenia entered the euro area" - the first ex-communist state to do so.

Despite warnings from the IMF, underlying problems, stemming from generous state benefits, a rigid labour market or state support for favoured businesses, were largely hidden until the global crisis that hit Europe's credit markets in late 2008.

Things went sour with the onset of the global downturn. From GDP growth in 2007 of 6.9 percent, the highest in the euro zone, Slovenia's export-oriented economy hit a wall, weighed down by lack of demand at home and abroad and a credit crunch caused by mismanagement of local banks. The government expects GDP to shrink 2 percent this year and a further 1.4 percent in 2013. And with unemployment at 12.1 percent, people are unhappy.

"We expected we would easily take over the positive sides of capitalism but were not ready to give up the privileges of the previous system and were not ready to work hard enough to preserve a welfare state with a lot of social security," said Borut Hocevar, a political analyst at Finance daily newspaper.

Exporting Renault cars, Gorenje household appliances and drugs made by Krka and Lek, Slovenia's per capita GDP had reached 91 percent of the EU average in 2008, by far the highest among ex-communist members. But it fell to 84 percent by 2011.

Looking ahead to Friday's rallies, Finance's Hocevar said they reflected a wide spread of discontent over issues ranging from poor local administration and corruption to government efforts to cut welfare benefits inherited from communist times:

"At the moment," he said, "It is not clear whether this wave of dissatisfaction will persist or whether the protests will calm down."

Based on Zoran Radosavljevic and Marja Novak/ Reuters

Kyrgyzstan: Cold Snap Sparks Energy Emergency

2012-12-18

Temperatures in Bishkek have been hovering around -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) since December 14 and are forecast to drop further this week. When the cold hit, Kazakhstan cut its supplies of gas to northern Kyrgyzstan, citing cuts from Uzbekistan. The chain reaction, resulting in an immediate shutoff across most of Bishkek, prompted many residents to turn to electricity for heating and cooking, which overloaded the system, causing widespread blackouts.

The government has said little about the crisis, but a representative of Kyrgyzgaz, the state-controlled gas-import monopoly, told Kloop.kg that residents could expect gas supplies to resume within “a week.”

At least eight homeless people froze to death over the weekend, the 24.kg news service reported. On December 17 a handful of residents gathered in central Ala-Too Square to protest the three-day-old gas cutoff, but they quickly dispersed due to the extreme temperatures. Later in the day, a prominent newspaper editor called on residents to burn tires in the streets.

The shortages should come as no surprise. Even before the latest cold snap, Bishkek mayor Isa Omurkulov said on December 7 that the city faces up to 900 outages per week, Tazabek.kg quoted him as saying.

Part of the problem is that Bishkek has roughly doubled in population since the Soviet collapse in 1991: by some estimates the city is home to over a million people, though no one knows for sure. But the impoverished independent country does not have the resources to expand or even maintain the aged energy grid.

Industry experts have warned that Kyrgyzstan’s energy system faces, in the words of a 2011 American government-sponsored study, a “catastrophic breakdown.” The study warned that without urgent attention and investment, a failure could take months to repair, and said infrastructure needs investments of between $1.5 and $2.1 billion, or up to 35 percent of GDP, simply to become reliable.

For years experts and multilateral donors, such as the Asian Development Bank, have told Kyrgyzstan to increase its energy tariffs, which are among the lowest in the world. But successive governments have avoided the delicate issue, fearing a public backlash. A sudden spike in energy prices helped precipitate the fall of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in 2010.

Officials acknowledge the need to increase tariffs to encourage conservation and raise funds for repairs. Sayragul Doolatova, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Energy and Industry, says that next April most consumers can expect a 10 percent rise in energy fees.

Critics say that is not enough. But they also point out that widespread corruption makes such measures effectively meaningless.

MP Omurbek Abdyrakhmanov, a member of parliament’s Committee on Budget and Finance, says corruption infiltrates every level of Kyrgyzstan’s energy system, from distributors and importers to individual households and large companies.

Some believe Kazakhstan’s sudden gas cut-off, at such a sensitive time, was designed to pressure Kyrgyzstan to sell Kyrgyzgaz to Russia’s Gazprom. A Kyrgyz delegation is scheduled to fly to Moscow on December 18 to discuss the sale. Kazakh media reported on December 17 that Kyrgyzgaz owes KazTransGas, its Kazakh counterpart, $26.6 million.

Putin Restores Worker Award of Soviet Era

2012-12-13

When secretaries, financial analysts and the like spilled onto the streets of Moscow in antigovernment protests last winter, Vladimir V. Putin took one look and dismissed them as a crowd of "office plankton."

And then he set about burnishing his credentials as a champion of real, working-class Russians, a project that continued on Monday with his decision to dust off a relic of Soviet heraldry: the set of lapel pins called the Hero of Socialist Labor award, now conspicuously shortened in these capitalistic times to the Hero of Labor.

Mr. Putin, who was elected this year to his third term as president, has brought back the Soviet anthem, military parades and political repression. But until now he had not set about restoring the grandeur of the Soviet lapel pin collection for civilians - awards marked by the heads of Lenin and ribbons that once caused jackets to sag.

"Of course, I think that it would be good for us to revive the Hero of Labor award, only we need to think - we shouldn't make a complete copy of it from the Soviet times," Mr. Putin told a meeting of political supporters, the Interfax news agency reported Monday. "We need to be sure it covers working people, no matter where they work, and those who work with their heads and their hands."

Igor Kholmanskikh, a rough-hewed, working-class former tank factory foreman who started a pro-Putin movement in the Ural Mountain industrial area, first proposed reviving the award in August.

Mr. Putin is believed to be swiveling to the political left through the embrace of movements like Mr. Kholmanskikh's. The intention is to co-opt expected discontent in industrial regions, where support is still stronger than in the urban centers, in case the price of oil, the mainstay of the Russian economy, declines in coming years.

As wages level off, medals and awards that raise status without costing hard currency might substitute as compensation, as practiced in the Soviet period, beginning principally in the 1930s, when such status symbols, rather than salaries, measured accomplishment.

By the 1980s, medal inflation had rendered such awards all but meaningless, as nearly everybody had some, and they became the objects of near universal derision - eventually sold by the hundreds in canning jars on the sidewalks of East bloc countries.

The Hero of Socialist Labor award was created in 1938. It went to coal miners, milkmaids, tractor drivers and others who applied more than the typical amount of elbow grease to their work, thus contributing to "the growth of the might and glory of the U.S.S.R.," according to an entry about the award in the Big Soviet Encyclopedia.

The award came in the form of two pins - a ribbon and a medal with a cameo of Lenin.

A revision of the rules in 1949 clarified that workers who received the award three times would also have a bronze bust made in their likeness, along with the six pieces of chest decoration. Mr. Putin did not say whether the new award would lead to any busts for repeat winners.

Other awards went to so-called shock workers who took on difficult jobs. Mothers who had 10 children or more were called Hero Mothers.

But in the late 1980s, after the devaluation of lapel pins under Leonid Brezhnev, the government scaled back to ban multiple awards to the same person, then abolished the Hero of Socialist Labor award altogether with the Soviet Union's demise
.

Tomato protest to be held against corruption in Bulgaria

2012-12-12

Disgruntled Bulgarians are organizing themselves on social networks to stage on Wednesday, December 12, a repeat of the "Tomato Revolution." The rally is called for 4:30 pm, this time in front of the central Court building in the capital Sofia. It is organized by a group of citizens, who took part in a "tomato" protest in front of the building of the Parliament on November 24.

They have submitted a request with the City Hall to have a permit to hold the demonstration, listing the goal as a civil protest against corruption and the meddling of the executive power in the justice system and voicing demands for judicial reform under the recommendations of the last EC monitoring report - a full overhaul of the Supreme Judicial Council, VSS, decentralization of the Prosecutor's Office, an effective Chief Prosecutor, and civil control on the judiciary.

One of the organizers has been summoned at the City Hall Tuesday and asked to sign a warning protocol, which he refused. The demonstrators now say that this was an intimidation attempt, and pledge to approach the Prosecutor's Office on grounds the Meetings and Manifestations Act has been violated. They also inform that the protesting Bulgarians will bring tomatoes, but will throw them only if their calls remain unheard.

The first "Tomato" protest took place Saturday, November 24, and was organized in support of Bulgarian dissident, poet and publicist, Nikolay Kolev Bosiya (The Barefooted), who was threatened with up to two years behind bars for throwing a tomato at the Parliament on November as an act of protest against the rampant corruption in the country.

Bosiya recently sent a letter to the Parliament, the President, the Prime Minister, the Supreme Judicial Council, the Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio, threatening to throw tomatoes at their buildings, as he deemed them responsible for the widespread corruption, crime and lack of media freedom in Bulgaria. He also specified the date (November 20) and the order of his "tomato assault," saying he would start from the Parliament at 10 am.

"I can no longer remain a hostage to hope and good manners. Go to hell!" the letter ends.

Kolev's threat did not go unnoticed and he was anticipated by some 40 police officers as he approached his first target. He was arrested after he threw one tomato. He is to take part in the Wednesday rally and will be one of the speakers.

Nikolay Kolev, 61, was imprisoned several times during the communist regime in Bulgaria (1944-1989) for opposing the communist dictatorship.

How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement under Stalin

2012-12-11

Markevich, A. 'How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement under Stalin', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 63, No. 8 (2011), 1449-1468.

Abstract. The article examines the control system that Stalin established to enforce his orders. Historical records demonstrate that Stalin designed the system's scope, organisation and credentials to maximise its cost-effectiveness. On several occasions Stalin deliberately limited the system's size and stimulated whistle-blowing in an attempt to mitigate running costs. In contrast, distorted preferences and constraints on inspectors’ loyalty contributed to the multiplication of the number of monitoring agencies. Because his orders were incomplete, Stalin authorised his inspectors not only to monitor, but also to intervene in operational matters wherever necessary.

The Prospects of Economic Reform in North Korea: Comparisions with China, Vietnam and Yugoslavia

2012-12-11

Szalontai, B. & Choi, C. 'The Prospects of Economic Reform in North Korea: Comparisions with China, Vietnam and Yugoslavia', Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 64, No. 2 (2012), 227-246.

Abstract. The article investigates the political and diplomatic factors influencing the prospects of North Korea's post-2002 experiment with market-oriented economic reforms. Comparing the North Korean situation with the experiences of Yugoslavia, China and Vietnam, it concludes that a certain degree of political liberalisation, the successful normalisation of P'y[ocheck]ngyang's relations with the US, South Korea and Japan, and the decoupling of foreign economic assistance from military negotiations are essential preconditions of a successful reform process in North Korea. In the absence of these preconditions, economic crises alone are insufficient to stimulate a comprehensive reform programme, although they might inspire certain superficial corrective measures.

Twenty Years of Transitional Justice in the Czech Lands

2012-12-11

David, R. 'Twenty Years of Transitional Justice in the Czech Lands', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 64, No. 4 (2012), 761-784.

Abstract. Nascent democracies usually adopt measures of transitional justice to deal with the legacies of undemocratic regimes. This article examines one of the most comprehensive programmes of transitional justice which has been implemented in the Czech Republic since 1990. Based on a survey conducted in 2010, 10 policies are assessed by means of descriptive statistics, and by examining their effect on the perception of justice, truth and reconciliation. Property restitution is viewed as the most successful policy for dealing with the past; it contributes to the positive perception of both justice and truth but it undermines the perception of reconciliation.

Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe: Elite Purges and Mass Repression

2012-12-11

McDermott, K. & Stibbe, M. (eds). Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe: Elite Purges and Mass Repression (Manchester & New York; 2010).

This wide-ranging collection of essays is the first book in English to examine the impact of Stalinist terror on Eastern Europe in the years 1940 to 1956. Covering the Baltic states the authors investigate terror both "from above," in the form of elite purges and show trials, and "from below" in the guise of large-scale arrests and deportations of ordinary people. Key questions addressed include the relative importance of Soviet influence versus "local" factors; the persecution of particular groups, such as 'kulaks," church leaders, the middle-class intelligentsia and members of non-communist left-wing parties; cases where repression was more, or conversely less, intense than elsewhere; and the relevance of key events such as the Tito-Stalin split of 1948, the Rajk trial of 1949 and the Slánský trial of 1952. This book highlights areas of considerable diversity, making this volume an excellent starting point for all scholars and students interested in the wider history of political trials, forced labor and state-sponsored violence in the twentieth century’s "age of extremes."

The Unfinished Revolution: Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe

2012-12-11

Mark, J. The Unfinished Revolution: Making Sense of the Communist Past in Central-Eastern Europe (New Haven, CT & London; 2011).

While the West has repeatedly been sold images of a victorious people's revolution in 1989, the idea that dictatorship has been truly overcome is foreign to many in the former Communist bloc. In this wide-ranging work, James Mark examines how new democratic societies are still divided by the past. While some view 1989 as a betrayal and defeat, and continue an 'unfinished struggle' against the former regime, others seek to heal the divisions of history, and ex-Communists proclaim themselves to be the real liberators from dictatorship. This book also presents the voices of ordinary people who lived through Communism to uncover the variety of ways in which they now come to terms with their choices and experiences. Drawing on a broad range of themes and sources - speeches, public ritual, protest, international disputes, museums, memorials, forensic archaeology, secret police archives, and interviews - this is the first work to integrate the study of politics, culture, and social memory across east-central Europe.

Stalinist Society 1928-1953

2012-12-11

Edele, M. Stalinist Society 1928-1953 (Oxford University Press: Oxford; 2011).

Stalinist Society offers a fresh analytical overview of the complex social formation ruled over by Stalin and his henchmen from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. Drawing on declassified archival materials, interviews with former Soviet citizens, old and new memoirs, and personal diaries, as well as the best of sixty years of scholarship, this book offers a non-reductionist account of social upheaval and social cohesion in a society marred by violence. Combining the perspectives from above and from below, the book integrates recent writing on everyday life, culture and entertainment, ideology and politics, terror and welfare, consumption and economics. Utilizing the latest archival research on the evolution of Soviet society during and after World War II, this study also integrates the entire history of Stalinism from the late 1920s to the dictator's death in 1953. Breaking radically with current scholarly consensus, Mark Edele shows that it was not ideology, terror, or state control which held this society together, but the harsh realities of making a living in a chaotic economy which the rulers claimed to plan and control, but which in fact they could only manage haphazardly.

Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918-1923

2012-12-11

Smith, S.B. Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918-1923 (Pittsburgh; 2011).

Abstract. The Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) were the largest political party in Russia in the crucial revolutionary year of 1917. Heirs to the legacy of the People’s Will movement, the SRs were unabashed proponents of peasant rebellion and revolutionary terror, emphasizing the socialist transformation of the countryside and a democratic system of government as their political goals. They offered a compelling, but still socialist, alternative to the Bolsheviks, yet by the early 1920s their party was shattered and its members were branded as enemies of the revolution. In 1922, the SR leaders became the first fellow socialists to be condemned by the Bolsheviks as “counter-revolutionaries” in the prototypical Soviet show trial. Scott B. Smith presents both a convincing account of the defeat of the SRs and a deeper analysis of the significance of the political dynamics of the Civil War for subsequent Soviet history. Smith reveals a complex and nuanced picture of the postrevolutionary struggle and demonstrates that the Civil War—and in particular the struggle with the SRs—was the formative experience of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state.

When History Matters: Baltic and Polish Reactions to the Russo-Georgian War

2012-12-11

Lašas, A., 'When History Matters: Baltic and Polish Reactions to the Russo-Georgian War', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 64, No. 6, 1061-1075.

The outbreak of the Russo-Georgian war sparked a very strong and swift reaction from the Baltic states and Poland. In contrast to other European states, they did not hesitate to accuse Russia of initiating the conflict and sought to punish it for its alleged imperialist ambitions. Traditional variables of national economic, geopolitical or security interests fall short of accounting for such acute sensitivity by Baltic and Polish politicians. Instead, this article argues that identity politics driven by historical–psychological legacies provide the most plausible explanation. The case illustrates how third parties decide their level of engagement in conflicts that have limited strategic importance to them.

The Role of the Soviet Past in Post-Soviet Memory Politics through Examples of Speeches from Estonian Presidents

2012-12-11

Jõesalu, K. 'The Role of the Soviet Past in Post-Soviet Memory Politics through Examples of Speeches from Estonian Presidents', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 64, No6 (2012), 1007-1032.

Abstract. This article analyses the dynamics of memory politics in post-Soviet Estonia from the 1990s to the present day. It focuses on speeches by Estonian presidents, which are treated as a specific type of commemorative activity and studied in relation to other social memories. The analysis seeks to link the meaning conveyed in the speeches to the presidents’ personal experiences during the Soviet period. The article shows that in these speeches, the primary discourse used with regard to Soviet times was that of ‘rupture’ as well as the related discourse of ‘resistance’.

Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society

2012-12-11

Barnes, S.A. Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society (Princeton, NJ & Oxford; 2011).

Death and Redemption offers a fundamental reinterpretation of the role of the Gulag--the Soviet Union's vast system of forced-labor camps, internal exile, and prisons--in Soviet society. Soviet authorities undoubtedly had the means to exterminate all the prisoners who passed through the Gulag, but unlike the Nazis they did not conceive of their concentration camps as instruments of genocide. In this provocative book, Steven Barnes argues that the Gulag must be understood primarily as a penal institution where prisoners were given one final chance to reintegrate into Soviet society. Millions whom authorities deemed "reeducated" through brutal forced labor were allowed to leave. Millions more who "failed" never got out alive.

Drawing on newly opened archives in Russia and Kazakhstan as well as memoirs by actual prisoners, Barnes shows how the Gulag was integral to the Soviet goal of building a utopian socialist society. He takes readers into the Gulag itself, focusing on one outpost of the Gulag system in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan, a location that featured the full panoply of Soviet detention institutions. Barnes traces the Gulag experience from its beginnings after the 1917 Russian Revolution to its decline following the 1953 death of Stalin.

Death and Redemption reveals how the Gulag defined the border between those who would reenter Soviet society and those who would be excluded through death.

Communism in Russia: An Interpretive Essay

2012-12-11

Sakwa, R. Communism in Russia: An Interpretive Essay (Studies in European History, Houndsmills; 2010).

After the Revolution in October 1917, Soviet Russia tried to establish an alternative form of social organization based on the ideology of communism and the practices of Soviet democracy. This system inspired millions and achieved the industrialization of Russia, but ultimately it failed. The dissolution of the communist order by 1991 was accompanied by the disintegration of the country.

Communism in Russia:
• provides a fresh, clear and concise view of the history of communism and Russia in the twentieth century, and the interaction of the two
• offers an original analysis combining the history of an ideology and the fate of a nation
• traces the connections and tensions between communist ideology and Russian realities, and explains the reasons for the collapse of the system
• Incorporates the latest research and scholarship on the subject.

Politics, Murder and Love in Stalin's Kremlin: The Story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina

2012-12-11

Gregory, P.R. Politics, Murder and Love in Stalin's Kremlin: The Story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina (Stanford, C.A., 2010).

"A story told to show the horrors of fate, of personal mistreatment and suffering of real people."

(From the foreword by Robert Conquest)

A founding father of the Soviet Union at the age of twenty nine, Nikolai Bukharin was the editor of Pravda and an intimate Lenin's exile. (Lenin later dubbed him "the favorite of the party.") But after forming an alliance with Stalin to remove Leon Trotsky from power, Bukharin crossed swords with Stalin over their differing visions of the world's first socialist state and paid the ultimate price with his life. Bukharin's wife, Anna Larina, the stepdaughter of a high Bolshevik official, spent much of her life in prison camps and in exile after her husband's execution.

In Politics, Murder, and Love in Stalin's Kremlin: The Story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina, Paul Gregory sheds light on how the world's first socialist state went terribly wrong and why it was likely to veer off course through the story of two of Stalin's most prominent victims. Drawn from Hoover Institution archival documents, the story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina begins with the optimism of the socialist revolution and then turns into a dark saga of foreboding and terror as the game changes from political struggle to physical survival. Told for the most part in the words of the participants, it is a story of courage and cowardice, strength and weakness, misplaced idealism, missed opportunities, bungling, and, above all, love.

Before National Communism: Joining the Latvian Komsomol under Stalin

2012-12-11

Swain, G. 'Before National Communism: Joining the Latvian Komsomol under Stalin', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 64, No. 7 (2012).

Abstract. In 1959, Indriks Pinksis, Eduards Berklavs and Vilis Krūmiņš were among the prominent targets of Moscow's National Communist purge of supposed ‘bourgeois nationalists' operating within the leadership of the Latvian Communist Party. A decade earlier all three had been active leaders of the Latvian Komsomol. This article explores the Stalin years of the Latvian Komsomol, and argues that the Komsomol was only able to win an acceptable number of recruits when it abandoned attempts to recruit on the basis of wartime activity or class allegiance and focused on recruiting ethnic Latvians. However, this raised the same issues later faced by the National Communists: as membership was extended to those with a ‘doubtful’ background, and the press played down ‘proletarian internationalism’, Moscow took fright. In early 1953 the Latvian Komsomol experienced a purge similar in tone to that which would take place within the Latvian Communist Party more broadly in 1959.

1989 and the Transformations in Eastern Europe

2012-12-11

Cox, T. (ed.). 1989 and the Transformations in Eastern Europe, Europe-Asia Studies Special Issue, Vol. 63, No.9 (2011).

Introduction by T. Cox

In the first decade after the regime changes that brought an end to communist rule in Eastern Europe, a central focus of academic writing on the events of 1989 was a theoretical debate on the significance and character of the changes. Among the issues raised were the question of whether they should be understood as revolutions, or as a hybrid of reforms and revolutions, whether they marked a shift from traditional to modern society, or a transition from state socialism to capitalism, or from totalitarianism to liberal democracy, or some more nuanced form of transformation. On the whole, the debate made a significant contribution to our understanding of the complexity of the issues involved in the changes taking place in Eastern Europe and helped to bring a focus on the region into the mainstream of comparative social and political research.

In contrast, much of the academic work on 1989 that has been produced in the period around its 20^th anniversary has adopted a more cautious attitude to the big issues and a more detailed focus on empirical enquiry. This shift in focus reflected in the essays collected here, which provide detailed examinations, thoughtful and considered appraisals of developments, and 'middle-range' theoretical discussions of patterns of cause and effect. Read more...

Contents:

Kramer, M. 'The Demise of Soviet Bloc', 1535-1590.

Bartha, E. 'Welfare Dictatorship, the Working Class and the Change of Regimes in East Germany and Hungary', 1591-1610.

Szirtes, G. 'The Poetics of Transition', 1611-1626.

Cox, T. 'The Picnic on the Border: An Interview with László Vass', 1637-1638.

Gledhill, J. 'Three days in Bucharest: Making Sense of Romania's Transitional Violence, 20 Years On', 1639-1669.

Swain, N. 'A P ost-Socialist Capitalism', 1671-1695.

Lee, A.S. 'Reform in Central and Eastern Europe', 1697-1718.>

Lyons, P. and Bernardyov, A. 'Satisfied, Sceptical or Simply Indifferent? Current Public Opinion towards the Fall of Communism in the Czech Republic', 1719-1744.

Blitz, B.K. 'Evaluating Transitions: Human Rights and Qualitative Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe', 1745-1770.

After the Party, the After-Parties? The Effects of Communist Successor Parties on Economic Reform in Central and Eastern Europe

2012-12-11

Lee, A.S. 'After the Party, the After-Parties? The Effects of Communist Successor Parties on Economic Reform in Central and Eastern Europe', Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 63, No. 9 (2011), p. 1697-1718.

Abstract. With the rise of globalisation and the diffusion of neoliberal economic reform throughout the world, the relevance of partisanship for economic reform has become the subject of much controversy. Set against the existing scholarship of partisan effects in the OECD countries and Latin America, post 1989 Central and Eastern Europe presents an intriguing case for several reasons. As in the developed and developing countries alike, countries from Central and Eastern Europe also faced global economic pressures, but unlike them, they simultaneously needed to construct a market economy. Indeed, after the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the creation of a liberal capitalist system became one of the central goals proclaimed by the new democratic governments. This goal became reinforced by the desire for and the concrete steps taken towards rapid economic and political integration with the European Union (EU).

Post-Soviet Developmentalism and the Political Economy of Russia's Electricity Sector Liberalization

2012-12-11

Wengle, S. A. 'Post-Soviet Developmentalism and the Political Economy of Russia's Electricity Sector Liberalization', APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper (2010).

Abstract. Observers of Russian state market relations typically consider the state as an entity engaged in creating rent-seeking opportunities for bureaucrats, or for the most powerful economic interests. The trajectory and outcomes of electricity sector reforms demonstrate the limits of this perspective and serve to highlight a developmental strand in Russian economic policy, which I call post-Soviet developmentalism. I found that post-Soviet developmentalism is key to understanding the patterns of market institutions that have emerged in the newly liberalized electricity sector. A close analysis of the institutional underpinnings of new electricity markets suggest that they were shaped in political bargains, in which the government sought to enlist Russia’s oligarchic conglomerates for its developmental agenda. Institutional patterns cannot be adequately explained if the state is largely seen as a predator or as captured by oligarchic interests. Finally, the paper suggests an analytical lens to understand the role of industrial geography in the creation of market institutions.

Coloured by Revolution: The Political Economy of Autocratic Stability in Uzbekistan

2012-12-11

Murtazasvili, J. 'Coloured by Revolution: The Political Economy of Autocratic Stability in Uzbekistan', Democratization, Vol. 19, Issue 1 (2012).

Abstract. Uzbekistan contains all the ingredients that observers have long argued would lead to not only regime change but civil war: economic, political and religious repression. Despite the presence of these factors, the autocratic regime in Uzbekistan has remained remarkably stable in the face of revolutions in neighbouring countries. This article suggests three complementary reasons why the regime has remained firm as others crumbled around it, including relatively strong economic performance, state capacity to repress revolutionary aspirations and government co-optation of local institutions. Understanding autocratic stability requires that we move beyond the ‘agency-structure’ debates that pervade the literature on post-communist institutional development toward a more encompassing explanation that recognizes how institutional and structural factors both liberate and constrain individual choices.

Building States and Markets after Communism: The Perils of Polarized Democracy

2012-12-11

Fry, T. Building States and Markets after Communism: The Perils of Polarized Democracy (Cambridge, 2010).

Abstract. Does democracy promote the creation of market economies and robust state institutions? Do state-building and market-building go hand in hand? Or do they work at cross-purposes? This book examines the relationship between state-building and market-building in 25 post-communist countries from 1990 to 2004. Based on cross-national statsitical analyses, surveys of business managers, and case studies from Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Uzbekistan, Timothy Faye demonstrates that democracy is associated with more economic reform, stronger state institutions, and higher social transfers when political polarization is low. But he also finds that increases in political polarization dampen the positive impact of democracy by making policy less predictable. He traces the roots of political polarization to high levels of income inequality and the institutional legacy of communist rule. By identifying when and how democracy fosters markets and states, this work contributes to long-standing debates in comparative politics, public policy, and post-communist studies.

The New Grand Bourgeoisie under Post-Communism: Central Europe, Russia and China Compared

2012-12-11

Szelényi, I. 2010. 'The New Grand Bourgeoisie under Post-Communism: Central Europe, Russia and China Compared', World Institute for Development Economics Research Working Papers.

Abstract. In the former socialist redistributive economies, the transition to market economy and the conversion to private ownership followed different trajectories. The paper offers an overview on how a new class of grand burgeoisie was formed in three different regions of the transition: Central Europe, Russia and China. In Central Europe this new class often was recruited from the ranks of the socialist technocratic elite who used their managerial skills, inside knowledge and politial connections to convert public property into private wealth. The large propertied class of Central Europe is well formed, and private property rights are secure. In Russia, the new grand burgeoisie was typically 'appointed' by the top political boss, and as leadership changed, the members of this class had to assure the new leader of their loyalty. Failure to do so meant loss of property, exile or jail. In China, the transition to market economy occurred 'from below'. Many of the wealthy started out with small private businesses that expanded over time. Once they became known to be wealthy, they needed political protection and were vulnerably to political rivalry. Private property in China – much like in Russia – is still rather insecure, and politics are in command.

Struggle against discrimination in Romania's elections

2012-12-06

In Romania's strident political environment, dominated by ex-spooks, dodgy businessmen and their sons and daughters, Iulian Craciun is a refreshing exception. If elected on December 9th, the 34-year old IT expert would be the first disabled person ever to enter the Romanian Parliament.

Mr Craciun's first task would be to see that the marble staircase leading to the "House of the People", a monstrous building designed at the orders of the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the 1980s and now housing the Romanian parliament, is fitted with wheelchair ramps. For now, the guards have instructed him to use the back door of the parliament where there is such a ramp.

Mr Craciun's bid reaches beyond rights for disabled persons. "I am sick and tired to see that the majority of young Romanians have no models in life, no will and no motivation to do something with their lives," he told our correspondent. After having run for two years a motivational project called StartEvo, which had famous artists, journalists and entrepreneurs tell their success stories and offer mentoring to young Romanians with a business idea or an unexploited talent, Mr Craciun hopes to replicate this effort at national scale. He joined the ranks of the Civic Force, an offshoot of the larger Democratic-Liberal Party (PDL) of President Traian Basescu, because it was "the least worse option". All political parties in Romania are guilty of something, he says. All have weird members. The new party, whose candidates are running on joint lists with the PDL, is "the newest political entity and there are a lot of fresh people".

The Senate race for Mr Craciun's Bucharest constituency is an uneven one, as his main opponent from the Social-Liberal bloc (USL) of Victor Ponta, the prime minister, is no other than Dan Voiculescu, one of the most influential media moguls and a former Securitate (secret police) operative. Mr Voiculescu, whose wealth is estimated at €650m ($850m), is on trial for corruption and money laundering and has used a trick to avoid sentencing: Earlier this year, he resigned from the Senate so that his file is sent to another court. If elected, the court would be changed again and meanwhile, his alleged deeds may hit statute of limitations.

"I started with almost zero chances. He is one of the wealthiest Romanians, I am a normal person. He has thousands of employees, I have thousands of friends. He owns 40% of all media in Romania, I have a Facebook page," Mr Craciun admits. But he is confident that Romanians will listen to his message of hope, of changing something in his country, first by starting with practical education and "resetting" the role models in society. His trump card is the fact that he has made it against all odds, that he graduated from university, got a job and started his own business despite his muscular atrophy and a society which offers few opportunities for disabled persons. "Yes, Mr Voiculescu's TV channels tried to diminished my presence. They say I am being used by others and I should stay home and take care of my health. Fortunately, I am totally different that any other candidates and I am un-attackable: I was not enrolled in the old Securitate, I did not work with the state, I did not steal."

Opinion polls this week show a strong lead for the USL, at over 60%, while Mr Craciun's party is rated at a meagre 17%. But the mere fact that Mr Craciun is running, against all odds, is a sign that perhaps not all hope is lost for the young generation in Romania.

China and Russia concerned over North Korean rocket launch plans

2012-12-04

China has expressed concern over its ally North Korea's plans to launch a long-range rocket in mid-December. All sides should work for stability and avoid acts that raise tensions, the foreign ministry said in a brief statement. It acknowledged North Korea's right to the peaceful use of outer space, but said that had to be harmonised with restrictions including those set by the United Nations Security Council.The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on December 3 that a launch would be in violation of UN resolutions.

Pyongyang says the rocket will carry a satellite into orbit. Many view it as a disguised test for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could carry nuclear warheads. The North Korean launch, set for 10 December to 22 December, is likely to heighten already strained tensions with Washington and Seoul as South Korea plans to hold a presidential election on 19 December and President Barack Obama prepares to begin his second term.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency, citing a government source in Seoul, reported that the first stage of the rocket has already been placed in position at the North's Sohae satellite launch station. It would be North Korea's second launch attempt under leader Kim Jong-un, who took power following his father Kim Jong-il's death nearly a year ago. That first launch eight months ago earned North Korea widespread international condemnation, despite ending in an embarrassing misfire.

The United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea are all involved in the stalled six-party talks with North Korea on its nuclear weapons program.

China is North Korea's only major political ally and its main source of food and fuel for keeping the North's moribund economy from collapsing. However, Beijing has been highly resistant to using any of its leverage to moderate North Korea's behaviour, fearing that could cause an implosion leading to political chaos and a wave of refugees crossing its border.

Time to pay taxes in Communist Cuba

2012-11-28

The landmark regulations will change the relations of Cubans with their government and are a signal that market-oriented reforms, launched since President Raul Castro succeeded his brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008, are here to stay.

The recently published code constitutes the first comprehensive taxation in Cuba since the 1959 revolution abolished just about all taxes.

In the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country's main benefactor, the Cuban government imposed a few scattered taxes, but mostly preferred to maintain low wages so it could fund free social services.

The government's free market reforms introduced over the last two years, are designed to encourage small businesses, private farming and individual initiative, along with plans to pay state workers more. Under the new tax code the state hopes to get its share of the proceeds.

The government also envisions replacing subsidies for all with targeted welfare, meaning that the largely tax-free life under a paternalistic government is on its way out.

"This radically changes the state's relationship with the population and taxes become an irritating issue," said Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence analyst who lives in Miami and writes often about Cuba.

The new code covers 19 taxes, including such things as inheritance, environment, sales, transportation and farm land, various license fees and three contributions, including social security.

A sliding scale income tax - from 15 percent for earnings of more than 10,000 pesos (about $400) annually, to 50 percent for earnings of over 50,000 pesos, (about $2,000) - adopted in 1994, remains in the new code for the self-employed, small businesses and farms, but it also includes a series of new deductions to stimulate their work.

TAX DEDUCTIONS

For example, farmers may deduct up to 70 percent of income as costs, and small businessmen, who are taxed by income not profit, up to 40 percent, plus various fees and secondary taxes they pay.

A labor tax of 20 percent will gradually be reduced to 5 percent by 2017, and small businesses with five employees or less are exempt.

Eventually all workers will pay income taxes as well as a new 2 percent property tax, but both measures are suspended until "conditions permit" them to go into effect.

The government admits, with an average pay of about 450 pesos per month, or $19, many workers do not earn enough to make ends meet.

"They collect taxes for all these things around the world, it's normal," said Havana economist Isabel Fernandez.

"But here we face two problems. On the one hand we are not used to paying for anything and on the other our wages are so low we can't spare a single peso," she said.

Under the old system, large and small state-run companies, which accounted for more than 90 percent of economic activity, simply handed over all their revenues to the government, which then allocated resources to them.

The reforms call for large state-run businesses to be moved out of the ministries and become more autonomous.

Under the new tax system they will pay a 35 percent tax on their profits, but can take advantage of a myriad of deductions ranging from amortization and travel to sales taxes, insurance and environmental protection.

Many smaller businesses will become cooperatives or be privately leased and taxed based on income.

The state-owned Cuban National News Agency said Cuba had studied the tax systems of a number of other countries, including several with capitalist economies.

"The experiences of China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Brazil, Spain and Mexico were taken into account, but they were refined to the particularities and conditions of the island," the new agency said.

The new code is not etched in stone - it can be amended each year as part of the annual budget passed by the National Assembly, and temporarily modified for different reasons by the executive branch of government.

"Like the reforms, it is a work in progress, a work that has barely begun and will take time to put in place," said a Western businessman who has worked in Cuba for almost two decades.

But, he added, "this is of course a major step forward toward the 21st century and a modern state."

A New Documentary focuses on Communist Ideals in Eastern Europe

2012-11-27

Slavoj Zizek's new film, The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, is meant to be a wake-up call, not a propaganda film. While most things we see on the big screens are idealised, romanticised, stereotypical versions of reality (and especially of morality), the "big problems" eat away at us because public opinion avoids tackling them. This is especially true for Eastern Europe, where years of dictatorial regimes taught the population to not ask too many questions and less than 25 years of democracy haven't yet produced a particularly opinionated generation. In several short scenes, Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher, film-maker and the protagonist of the movie, uses examples from film, music, history and current events to discuss various ideologies.

One of the fascinating points Zizek makes in the film is how the financial crisis became a source of violent outbursts and protest movements across Europe. He believes Europe no longer faces "an accident", something that can be fixed, but rather is undergoing a structural phenomenon. Crisis has become a way of life, with the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer until the poor act out. What these protests lack, though he says, is a coherent agenda. Putting it this way, most of the manifestations of protest in Europe, including the Eastern countries, have been nothing but rage episodes or wannabe-copies of what a public manifestation should look like.

And Zizek may have a point. In May 2010, one of the biggest Romanian protests of the past decade took place in Bucharest. Over 30,000 people protested against the Emil Boc government and the austerity measures he had implemented. Far from touching on any violent frustration, the protest turned into what will be remembered as one of the largest-scale dance parties in Eastern Europe. People performed carefully synchronised choreographies on a well-known Romanian party-classic: the Penguin Dance. It's on YouTube. And thus the grand reason why everyone gathered was forgotten. As Zizek would say, it started out from a spirit of revolt, but wasn't followed by an actual revolution.

Communist past, leftist future?

It is impossible to watch The Pervert's Guide to Ideology without stumbling upon the fact that Zizek is a self-confessed communist with a declared interest in Lenin. What people need, he argues, is "a strong body able to reach quick decisions and to implement them with all necessary harshness". He believes the socialism implemented in Eastern Europe went terribly wrong and that Stalinism was a perverse torture inflicted upon citizens. However, he wonders why the emancipatory movement ended up so tragically and points out that an attempt at social change - even a leftist one - should not be thought to end in disaster.

Wherever you might fall in the political spectrum, Slavoj Zizek's film is proof of a larger phenomenon - a modern version of communism that is becoming fashionable and targeting the young, cinema-consuming audiences. This re-emergence of leftism has been obvious in Europe since the beginning of the financial crisis and it is only growing stronger with the liberals' failure to overcome it. We now have modern socialist parties that advocate free health care and the right to state pensions, promise stability in the job market, and oppose war and the expansion of NATO. Most importantly, they challenge the status quo of capitalism. It is the case with the main opposition party in Greece, Syriza, which in 2012 became the second largest group in the Greek Parliament. A much less radical version of this is the Romanian USL, the liberal-socialist coalition that won the local elections in June.

Within this context it is even more crucial to distinguish between ideology and strategy - most of these parties are socialist only by name and televised speeches. The USL is not leftist, it is nothing. It is a bunch of people taking advantage of a void in the political landscape - namely a serious alternative to the capitalist waste Slavoj Zizek criticises. In the long run, people will always end up regretting having voted for them. The restless search for leftist solutions by young generations and mavericks like Slavoj Zizek is a sign that neither of these parties have filled or will ever fill that void.

Leftism in the East

Having leftist views is still a delicate subject in Eastern Europe, especially for youngsters - people don't say it loudly, they only share their opinions in the voting booth. Politically correct society usually perceives such people as those who learned nothing from the past and it is slow in drawing a line between historical communism and modern leftism. This is another reason why Slavoj Zizek has become extremely popular - he has always been outspoken about his beliefs, even ostentatious.

Eastern Europe hasn't forgotten its past. But more and more people want a leftist approach in running their countries and bringing the economy to life. They want a different approach, something that has nothing in common with Leninism or life under Nicolae Ceaușescu. Wanting a liberal left capable of producing solutions in a time when democratic capitalism is failing is not unreasonable. It just takes a bit of courage - and escaping ideology, says Zizek - to admit it.

In his new movie, Slavoj Zizek takes that courage and multiplies it by a million. He talks about adopting leftism with passion and naturalness. He adds some of the most iconic films and cultural trends of the past century to this mix and invokes a myriad of arguments for his positions. Some are logical and reasonable, others provocative, and some are difficult to imagine - like releasing oneself from all ideologies, living uninfluenced by anything.

Looking at Everything

At its heart then, Zizek proposes that we should constantly question our past and our present, as well as how we imagine our future. He puts communism back on the table and invites us to think about it once more, from a different point of view, with new information at hand. He encourages us to demand a real change in the social and economic order and go beyond the capitalism we've come to accept.

Putting aside his efforts to turn us into little Leninists, Zizek's film lets us admit that we're disappointed with our leaders, our political options and our world. So, let's get our hands out of our pockets and admit that we need to re-examine our options - maybe create new ones. Let's look at everything.

Bosnia: A country in A Coma

2012-11-23

Bosnia and Herzegovina at the moment is in a serious political crisis, to the point that it could be compared to a comatose state. Since the signing of the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, there have been more or less important crises, but today is by far the biggest. There has been no progress on the Euro-Atlantic path from the second half of the last government's term (2006-2010), but rather constant setbacks. The last step was taken in 2008, with the signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU. Stagnation has increased under the government ushered in by the parliamentary elections of 2010.

I believe that the cause of all that is the failure of the so-called "April package" of constitutional amendments. Since then, the international community has stepped out of the decision-making process. The leaders of different political parties continue to act only on a national [ethnic] basis, and in recent years have clearly demonstrated that they cannot agree, and often do not even want to, because the introduction of European legislation puts them at a disadvantage. Their goal is to keep Bosnia in a state of disorder as long as possible, because this is the only way political leaders, under the guise of defending alleged national interests, can remain in power. Bosnia was way ahead in the process of approaching the EU, but in a very short time it ended up at the bottom of the race on a regional level.

The creation of a new parliamentary majority in June, a few months after the formation of the Council of Ministers, has only deepened the divisions within the country, behind the screen of a false defense of national interests. People were expecting a lot more from the social-democratic option, particularly from [Bosnian Serb leader] Milorad Dodik's Independent Social Democratic Party (SNSD) and [Bosnian Muslim leader] Zlatko Lagumdzija's Social Democratic Party (SDP). In the end, however, it turned out that these two parties, in combination with the nationalists, are the main generators of the crisis. This will surely last up to the elections in 2014, with possible aggravations.

ROOTS OF THE PARTY CONFLICT

The SDP, after a decade in opposition, had developed a strong desire to go to the government, especially to strengthen its position in the state-owned companies, where power is concentrated. The government of the [Muslim-Croat] Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the two entities into which the country is divided, for months after its formation has dealt exclusively with the appointment of directors of companies and public institutions. Allegedly, conflict broke out between the SDP and the Bosnian Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA) because of the SDA's opposition to the adoption of the budget for 2012. In fact, the reasons are much deeper.

The SDP wanted to amend the Law on Internal Affairs of the federation in order to dismantle the independence of the police and rule the media, primarily the federal television. The SDA opposed this. The SDP also got companies formerly run by the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (Stranka za BiH), SDA's partner in the previous government. The financial situation of these companies was not brilliant, so the SDP sought to expand its influence, finding the only chance in telecommunications - the Telekom is the most profitable state company. The SDA, however, tenaciously defended this company from being controlled by the SDP. I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The SDP decided to discontinue any relationship with the SDA and began to fire its public servants. It found a strong partner in the BiH Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), another party only interested in positions of power. The bitter rivals joined to pursue the division of the state treasury in the interests of the party, under the false claim of defending national interests.

A RECENT SERB-BOSNIAK AGREEMENT

A detailed look at the recent agreement between the Serb SNSD and Bosniak SDP shows that Lagumdzija and Dodik want to turn Bosnia and Herzegovina into another Belarus and play the role of undisputed lords. Lagumdzija would become the lord of the Federation, Dodik of the country's other political entity, the Republika Srpska. Dodik already is, but the agreement with Lagumdzija would keep him there for years, perhaps decades. Just consider that the proposed amendment to the electoral law, contained in the agreement, provides for the closure of the list of candidates, which means that the next seats in parliaments and assemblies would belong to political parties rather than those who are elected. The introduction of the so-called "imperative mandate" is the worst form of suffocation of democratic processes and demonstrates the complete disregard of citizens' will.

Lagumdzija and Dodik also want to eliminate the main center of the counting of votes at the state level, which only in the last elections unveiled 100 attempts at electoral fraud. Were it not for this control system, all those irregularities would have passed and the election results would have been far different in many municipalities. If the elections were conducted by the electoral commissions of entities and municipalities, as suggested in the agreement, not only would the electoral process in Bosnia fall apart, but this would open up the possibility of manipulation and electoral engineering.

This is a really crucial aspect that would guarantee the presidents of SDP and SNSD maximum durability in power, no matter the will of voters, who have significantly soured on these two parties in the last administrative elections. SDP and SNSD fear defeat in the 2014 elections, and with this agreement they seek to avoid it. Civil society organizations, for the first time, have joined together to oppose the agreement and urged local and international institutions, primarily the Council of Europe, to do something in defense of democracy in Bosnia.

The agreement between Dodik and Lagumdzija also contains an attack on the independence of the judiciary, in particular through the proposed amendments to the system of appointment of judges, which would be transferred from the High Council of the Judiciary to parliament. Other problematic issues relate to the functioning of the Central Bank and public energy companies. The verdict of the Strasbourg Court in the case of Sejdic-Finci, [which struck down the country's constitutional provision that sets aside high political offices only for Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks] was not taken into account simply because it would be against the interests of political leaders and in favor of citizens.

ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONALS

In recent years, the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has adopted a rather passive role. The Office of the High Representative has virtually disappeared, the OSCE mission now acts more as a consultant than anything else, just like the office of the Council of Europe. The same can be argued for the delegation of the European Commission in Sarajevo and its representative, Peter Sorensen, from whom we expected much more pressure on local politicians to lead the country along the Euro-Atlantic integration path. Instead, everyone constantly repeats that the whole responsibility lies with local leaders. I agree, but Brussels must have seen that local politicians do not have a shred of sense of responsibility.

The interests of parties continue to be dominant over those of citizens, which is why we are where we are: in a coma. Rumor has it that the Lagumdzija-Dodik agreement is supported by the international community, but I do not believe it. Otherwise, Stefano Sannino, director general for EU enlargement, would not have written to the Bosnian government warning it not to touch the resources of the state electricity company. The international community, however, could and should do more.

I think it is imperative that Bosnia become part of NATO and an EU candidate at least. If the international community exerted more pressure on the government to achieve these goals, many things would change. Citizens may breathe a sigh of relief, and international officials could reduce their influence. Invitations to local leaders to assume their responsibilities, however, will not bring anything. The greatest progress and reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina were made between 2002 and 2006, when the international community had an important role in decision-making. Sad, but true.

A SOLUTION

Simply, party leaders should work for the welfare of citizens. But they have already proved they do not want to. Since I do not think it possible to have an agreement without the SDA, nor even a functioning parliamentary majority, the political crisis will last two more years for sure.

The 2014 elections will be an opportunity to finally solve things. I think it is necessary to amend the electoral law and introduce compulsory voting at least for this election. It is not an anti-democratic measure; it is also applied in developed countries such as Finland, Belgium, and Australia. This system would discredit forever the parties' claim to have the citizens' full support. That 40 percent to 45 percent of voters who now do not go to polls, because they are totally disappointed with the present state of things, could change the situation. Should the situation remain the same after 2014, however, we could say that it is the will of the citizens of Bosnia. Until then, neither Dodik nor Lagumdzija can be leaders in Bosnia, because the votes they obtained is hardly 10 percent of the whole electorate.

Czech Prime Minister Necas warns of loss of historical memory

2012-11-20

It is being constantly confirmed that freedom and democracy are not granted, Necas said.

"I firmly believe this and I want to believe that we are not losing historical memory," Necas said.

The Communists' success in the autumn regional and Senate elections as well as the Communists having their first regional governor 23 after the fall of the Communist regime is a certain warning, he added.

In the regional elections, held in mid-October, the Communists scored excellent results, having received the second highest number of votes nationally after the Social Democrats and having won in two regions.

Necas said the anti-government demonstration of trade unions and civic group to be held in Prague later today was a right of people in a free society.

"We are free people in a free country, we have the right to express freely our views, this is part of democracy," he added.

November 17 is a state holiday in the Czech Republic, the Day of Struggle for Freedom and Democracy commemorating the start of the anti-communist "velvet" revolution in 1989 and of the Nazi persecution of Czech university students in 1939.

The student demonstration on November 1989 was held exactly 50 years after the Nazi rule brutally suppressed a rally against it, detaining a number of students some of whom were eventually executed.

Xi Jinping: the 'big personality' taking charge in China

2012-11-16

Xi Jinping, who has been confirmed as the man who will lead China for the next decade, cuts a contrasting figure to his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

While Hu is determinedly anonymous, Xi is "a big personality", according to those who have met him. Standing over 6ft tall, he is confident and affable. He boasts a ready smile and a glamorous second wife – the renowned People's Liberation Army singer Peng Liyuan. He has expressed his fondness for US war movies and, perhaps more surprisingly, praised the edgy independent film-maker Jia Zhangke.

This is, in part, a generational and social shift. Xi is 59 and, like the other rising stars in Chinese politics, grew up in the era of reform and opening.

Xi was born in 1953 to Xi Zhongxun, a Long March hero who later became a vice-premier, and Qi Xin. He grew up in the relative comfort of Zhongnanhai, the party elite's red-walled Beijing compound. But when he was only nine his father fell from grace with Mao Zedong. Six years later, as the cultural revolution wreaked havoc, young Xi was dispatched to the dusty, impoverished north-western province of Shaanxi to "learn from the masses".

Although he has openly criticised the cultural revolution, Xi embraced the party; in a WikiLeaks cable an academic who knew Xi as a young man suggested he "chose to survive by becoming redder than red". Family links helped him to win a place studying chemical engineering at the elite Tsinghua University, followed by a post as aide to a powerful military leader, Geng Biao – the beginning of his useful People's Liberation Army (PLA) connections.

He transferred to southern Fujian province in 1985, climbing steadily upwards over 17 years. Most of his experience has been earned in China's relatively prosperous, entrepreneurial coastal areas, where he courted investors and built up business, proving willing to adopt new ideas.

After the toppling of Shanghai's party secretary, Chen Liangyu, in a corruption scandal, Xi took charge of the city in 2007. Barely six months later his elevation to the politburo standing committee – the top political body – signalled that he was expected to succeed Hu. In October 2010 his appointment as vice-chair of the central military commission cemented his position.

Some hope he shares his father's liberal sympathies: Xi senior was not only a noted economic reformer, but an ally of reformist leader Hu Yaobang. Some say he criticised the military crackdown on Tiananmen Square's pro-democracy protests in 1989.

They say that grassroots organisations burgeoned during the vice-president's stint in Zhejiang, and there was progress in the election of independent candidates at local polls. But the Chinese Human Rights Defenders network has argued the province also saw "zealous persecution" of dissidents, underground Christians and activists: "His track record does not bode well," it wrote. Other China watchers point to shattered hopes that Hu might prove politically liberal.

In any case, to read Xi as a man in sole control of the agenda is to fundamentally misunderstand the Chinese political system. He will be "first among equals" in the nine-member standing committee, say analysts. Hu and other former leaders will still exert influence; and 2011's five-year plan has plotted the immediate course. His leadership will be shaped by his colleagues and framed by external forces.

Polish nationalism: Punching for Poland

2012-11-13

In recent years the occasion has been a chance for small groups of demonstrators with extremist views to try their luck against the law-enforcement arm of the Polish state.

After a day of relatively peaceful marches, the riots in the evening resulted in 22 police injuries and 176 arrests. Most of the trouble was around representatives of Poland's tiny far-right organisations, the Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski [National Revival of Poland] and the Młodzież Wszechpolska [All Poland Youth], who attacked the police with flares, bottles, bricks and even petrol bombs. They were dispersed with truncheons, tear gas and verbal warnings that rubber bullets were about to be used.

Of the several marches that took place, one included Polish anti-fascist demonstrators with banners that crossed out swastikas and the "white power" symbol. Another with 10,000 attendees was led by president Bronisław Komorowski, a political centrist, who called on Poles to put political differences to one side. "Today public life is poisoned by excessive rows," he said. "We should be critical, but criticism should not mean mutual destruction." Roman Giertych, the former leader of the radical-right League of Polish Families, walked at the president's side, apparently a changed man.

Rights Groups Slam Azerbaijan Over Freedom Of Speech

2012-11-09

The condemnation came as Baku this week is hosting the United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum, an international meeting to discuss public-sphere Internet policies.

In Baku on November 7, Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, called the crackdown by Azerbaijani authorities on journalists, rights supporters, and protesters an “embarrassing trend” for the oil-rich Caucasian nation.

Mijatovic said she met with President Ilham Aliyev and other top Azerbaijani leders. The OSCE representative called for reforms, including decriminalizing alleged defamation to a civil offense.

She suggested that abuses of freedom of speech had become routine in Azerbaijan and said she had raised the issue with Azerbaijani authorities.

"I don't think there is a need for me to repeat that all the cases that happened in Azerbaijan in relation to free speech, particularly related to the safety of journalists, and bloggers, and media activists," she said. "We raised all of them and continue to raise this with the authorities [of Azerbaijan]."

Human Rights Watch has called on Azerbaijani authorities to mark its hosting of the Internet forum by releasing at least eight imprisoned journalists and three human rights defenders.

In its report, the U.S.-based rights watchdog said freedom of expression is “severely limited” in Azerbaijan. The report describes what it calls “Azerbaijan’s record of imprisoning journalists, human rights defenders, and political opposition activists, in most cases on bogus criminal charges, in apparent retaliation for their investigative journalism or political activism.”

The Human Rights Watch report says that since early 2006, Azerbaijani authorities have not authorized a single opposition protest in the center of Baku, instead forcing all demonstrations into designated zones on the outskirts of the capital.

It says such a blanket ban on assembly in central Baku runs counter to Azerbaijan’s international obligations to respect freedom of assembly and expression.

On November 2, the Azerbaijani Parliament adopted amendments to the law on public gatherings to significantly increase fines – to up to $10,000 -- for organizing or participating in illegal demonstrations.

Towards a truly incorruptible state?

2012-11-06

Could those who believe that the recent arrest of dozens of corrupt ticket inspectors will make fare dodging less common in Romania in two years time please raise their hands? You there holding up both your hands, do you also believe that revenue from customs and excise has increased because in February 2011, a number of customs officers and border guards were arrested? Well, you are wrong. Only one thing is certain, we have spent a small fortune on investigation and the infiltration of police forces etc... We have had spectacular arrests in the middle of the night that were followed by release orders issued by the courts a day later. Innumerable cases have been opened, some of which went to court for hearings which will require the hindsight of a few years to assess their utility or futility. But on fundamental level, nothing has changed.

Of course, the customs agents and the ticket inspectors clearly were at fault. But the manner in which we have chosen to fight systemic corruption is completely ineffective.

Productivity that never took off

Systemic corruption only occurs when there is a major discrepancy between what the state claims to do (or to offer) and what it really does. For example, the state claims to provide medical treatments at prices in-line with the state health insurance system, but the reality is that the insurance system is doubly inadequate. First and foremost because if it were true and everyone began to request these services (tests, surgery), state insurance funds would be not be enough to cover a quarter of the resulting costs. And secondly, because the state pretends to believe that doctors and nurses can do their work for the wages they are paid, which is simply not possible. The shortfall between the official cost of services and the real cost of work is therefore offset by bribes paid by patients to supplement their insurance cover. This is how the balance is established between supply and demand and more realistic prices are set. Arrests are not about to change this. Let's not forget that they have proved to be ineffective since the time of Nicolae Ceauşescu, who arrested various managers in the hope of boosting productivity, which consistently failed to take off.

The problem of the health service can only be resolved by correcting failed public policy. This also applies for the Romanian rail network (CFR), where fare dodging soared after the virtually simultaneous implementation of the IMF's clever advice to raise ticket prices and a no less brilliant homegrown plan to cut ticket inspectors wages by 25%. Likewise for customs services and the bid to eradicate cigarette smuggling which peaked in January 2010, in the wake of the government's decision to raise excise duties. Notwithstanding the European Commission reports that have praised the DGA (Anti-Corruption General Directorate), two thirds of Romanians consider - and I am inclined to believe them - that corruption has continued to increase.

Structural imbalances

If we are to have any success in building a modern state, we will have to put a stop to public policies that create conditions for systemic corruption that cannot be eliminated by repression in the form of the Anti-Corruption General Directorate. The DGA can effectively be deployed to combat large-scale corruption - which is what it was created to do. However, the bulk of corruption in this country, which has been generated by poor policies, can not be eradicated by prosecutors. It can only be tackled by action to redress the imbalances that have been introduced by the state. And such action has nothing to do with repression. However, no initiatives of this kind have been implemented, while repeated arrests, which do not change anything, have become increasingly common. Why?

The answer to this question is, I am afraid, very simple. To forge ahead with a policy of modernisation, you have to have modernists led by a head of state or of government who understands the issues at stake and wants to change the state - a system reformer like Mikheil Saakashvili. I regret to inform you that we have no such leader: neither our ex-president Emil Constantinescu, or our current President Traian Băsescu have any desire to change the system. And that is not to mention post-revolutionary president Ion Iliescu, who deliberately sought to establish the current system guided by the mistaken belief that more state control reduces corruption, whereas in fact the opposite is the case.

The launch, on the insistence of the European Union, of a number of anti-corruption agencies, which have partial political autonomy has highlighted a major anomaly: politicians do not behave as they should, and even behave as they shouldn't by obstructing anti-corruption agencies. At the same time, anti-corruption agencies with a brief to provide reports to Brussels try to do what they can, and even attempt to do something they are unable to do when instead of fighting corruption, they target ill-conceived policies - although perhaps they engage in this exercise simply to impress Brussels.

It makes you wonder: is this strategy designed to ensure that those who are arrested will be replaced by others who do exactly the same thing, while the state is dragged into court cases that will carry on for years? Prosecutors are resorting to repression in their attempt to address structural problems in the fields of customs and railways. But these problems can only be resolved by improved policies, and most importantly by politicians who have the will to take action.

Poland pays off communist dept

2012-11-01

Edward Gierek, Poland's communist leader for 10 years, fueled the boom while accumulating almost $40 billion in debt in the process from the 'London Club' of financiers.

"Before the maturity date, we will have bought the last of the bonds," said Piotr Marczak, director of the Department of Public Debt in the Ministry of Finance. Poland was able to sell of its debt by selling government bonds to organizations of private creditors, such as the London and Paris Clubs.

In the 1970s, Gierek took advantage of foreign loans and raised Poles' expectations of a Western consumerism lifestyle.

Gierek's relatively reformist regime was described as the "human face of socialism" although the reforms came at a high price.

At the time, the Polish people were less concerned about when and how they would have to pay off the debt. Many decisions were made under the slogan: "For Poland to grow strong and the people to live prosperously."

In the 1980s, when it came time for Poland to pay off the borrowed money, it didn't have the means. Polish creditors went to organizations which help countries to pay off commercial banks. In the 1990s, Poland was able to make a repayment schedule and pay the Paris Club in three years. Up until yesterday, the last of the outstanding communism loans was to the London Club.

Edward Gierek rose to power in the 1950s and 1960s organizing communist control over coal mines and industrial plants. He soon became the recognized leader and in 1970 was the first secretary of the Polish Communist Party. Gierek replaced Władyslaw Gomułka, who was swept aside during food riots in which scores of workers were killed by the police.

Gierek promised the Polish people a higher standard of living. He kept good relations with Western politicians and was able to receive western aide. The country acquired the license to build Fiat cars and sell items such as Coca-Cola and Marlboro cigarettes from America. Warsaw was able to build the main train station and a major highway, the Wisłostrada.

Nonetheless, Gierek's reforms were still bound to the Soviet Union, which had controlled Eastern Europe since the end of World War II. The economy started to shift in the 1973 and by 1976 price increases were inevitable. Protests broke out on the streets because store shelves were empty.

The credits given to the regime were squandered on consumer durables, and not investment, and soon ran out, paving the way for a rise in anti-communist sentiment and riots in 1976, which culminated in the foundation of the Solidarity trade union in 1980.

Victims Of Soviet Repression Honored

2012-10-30

On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, human rights activists in Russia and other ex-Soviet states are expected to hold vigils.

They will remember the millions of people who fell victim to state-executed repressions, such as mass deportations and imprisonment in forced labor camps, from the 1917 October Revolution to the 1991 collapse of the communist regime.

Also, in Moscow, a rally in support of political prisoners will take place on New Pushkin Square on Tuesday evening to coincide with a national day of remembrance for victims of political repression.

City Hall granted permission for the rally, which will run from 7 to 9 p.m. and has a maximum sanctioned turnout of 2,000 people, after an application was lodged by rights groups including the Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial and For Human Rights.

China hints at move to strengthen Communist rule

2012-10-23

State news agency Xinhua did not elaborate on what the amendments could be, though they have previously formed the guiding principles on which major policy decisions such as moving China in the direction of a market economy have been based.

"The meeting stressed the importance of making a draft amendment to the CPC (Communist Party of China) Constitution that conforms to the needs of the CPC's theoretic innovation, practice and development and will also promote the CPC's work and strengthen its construction," Xinhua said, citing a statement from the meeting of the politburo.

The party "constitution" is less a legal document and more an organizational guide and compilation of the ideological justifications that China's Communists have accumulated - and often quietly shelved - in their evolution from a party of Mao Zedong and mass revolution to one of mass markets and dynamic growth.

heng Li, an expert in Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington, told Reuters the amendments could include new language on the rule of law and intra-party democracy.

The constitution has also cemented legacies of previous leaders, enshrined landmark policies such as letting capitalists into the party, and stressed economic modernization as a priority of the nation.

In 2007, the party issued an amended version of its charter enshrining the slogans and enhanced influence of President Hu Jintao, who steps down as party leader on November 8 at the 18th Congress.

The changes were a symbolic victory for Hu in this top-down one-party state where ideological jargon is the language of power, telling officials and citizens which leaders to heed.

Mexico City to Review Azerbaijan Statue

2012-10-23

Mexico City's government has appointed a committee to review and recommend a solution to the controversy over a statue of Azerbaijan's "founder of the nation" that was erected on the city's main boulevard, authorities said Monday.

The Stalinesque bronze statue of the late authoritarian leader Geidar Aliyev was erected by the Azerbaijani Embassy, which paid for the renovation of part of the city park where the statue sits.

A second statue donated by the Caucasus republic appears in another park Azerbaijan paid to renovate in downtown Mexico City.

Protesters have said they are offended by a monument to an authoritarian figure like Aliyev, who led Azerbaijan first as Communist Party boss during Soviet times and then as president from 1993 to his death in 2003.

The city's leftist government said it had appointed a three-member commission of academics and experts to review complaints about the statues.

Felipe Leal, the head of the city's department of urban development and housing, said the commission should look at the monument "with objectivity, a critical eye, to recommend what should be done in this case."

The secretary for Azerbaijan's ambassador in Mexico, Manuel Luna, said the city could run into problems if it removed the statue in the park.

The project in the park involved a signed agreement that stipulates the statue must remain in place for 99 years," Luna told local media, adding that the issue "could affect our diplomatic relations."

Leal acknowledged that an agreement had been signed but said that "the city has to respond to the concerns of the community ... and evaluate what repercussions there might be."

He said the committee should take only a couple of weeks or so to make its recommendations, adding that the whole affair "may lead us to re-evaluate how these [project] approvals are made."

Azerbaijan's ambassador to Mexico, Ilgar Mukhtarov, wrote that Azerbaijan has lavished attention on Mexico because it was one of the first countries to recognize Azerbaijan after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

"This monument is not intended to improve anybody's reputation, because the world's perception of Heydar Aliyev does not require any rescuing," Mukhtarov said.

The second Azerbaijani statue downtown depicts a woman, her arms uplifted in mourning, commemorating Khojaly, a village where hundreds of Azerbaijanis were reportedly killed during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Advocates say a monument to Mexican suffering would have been more appropriate for a site once used as a police interrogation and torture center.

And Armenian sympathizers said the second statue's reference to genocide in Khojaly cannot be compared to the mass killings of some 1.5 million Armenians in the region in 1915.

Cuba opens the door for travelling

2012-10-18

It has taken half a century but Cuba has finally bowed to the inevitable and announced the lifting of foreign travel restrictions on its citizens. From next January they will no longer require exit permits to go overseas, leaving North Korea as the only communist state left that continues to immure its own people. The move - announced on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis - is the most significant act of liberalisation yet from Raúl Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel as Cuba's president four years ago.

His cautious programme of economic modernisation, which has already seen modest moves towards private ownership and some market reforms, was ratified by last year's party congress, the first for 13 years. There is no doubting Mr Castro's reforming instincts but the speed of change is woefully slow. Cuba remains an impoverished country - the average monthly salary is $20 - where corruption and cronyism are rampant. But the lifting of travel restrictions may mark a step change in the process. Freedom of movement will inevitably sharpen Cubans' appetite for greater economic freedoms - or even more dramatic developments. After all, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall that triggered the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

This latest move will be watched with keen interest by the United States, which will be the destination for most Cubans who decide to use their new-found freedom of movement. Since 1966 Washington has granted Cubans automatic residence if they can reach the United States - as many thousands have, usually in makeshift vessels. Raúl Castro has dropped his brother's anti-American posturing, recently declaring that good relations between the two countries would be "mutually advantageous". He seems to be backing his words with actions.

Russia Asks Afghanistan for Help With Soviet MIAs

2012-10-16

Russian ambassador Andrey Avetisyan said the two countries are preparing an agreement that would regulate future efforts to recover the servicemen, who went missing during a decade of guerrilla warfare in the impoverished nation.

Difficulties remain, he noted, in accessing some areas believed to contain soldiers' graves because of the current war between international forces, the Taliban and other insurgents.

"We are talking about places where nobody goes, remote points where fighting is still heavy," he told reporters.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979, telling the world it aimed to transform Afghanistan into a modern socialist state. Moscow sought to prop up a communist regime facing a popular uprising, but left largely defeated on Feb. 15, 1989 by anti-communist mujahedeen forces receiving massive support from the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others.

A Russian veterans group says 265 soldiers remain unaccounted for. About 20 are thought to have resettled in other countries after they deserted, while 30 to 40 may still be in Afghanistan or Pakistan.The Soviets maintained a garrison of about 80,000 troops in Afghanistan through much of that war. Nearly 700,000 rotated through the country and about 15,000 died in the 10-year conflict.

One of those was Nikolai Bystrov, an army lieutenant captured by guerrillas fighting the Soviet occupation. He later became the personal bodyguard of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud who battled the Taliban during the 1990s.

Aleksander Lavrentyev, deputy head of a veterans group searching for Soviet MIAs, said his group had received excellent help from Afghan authorities, the Red Crescent, NGOs and ordinary citizens - including those who had fought on the opposing side - in locating the remains of 15 soldiers in the past 4 years. Of those, five were positively identified while the rest were still undergoing forensic testing.

"But now time is passing and it is becoming more and more difficult to find witnesses of those events," he said.

The move to resolve the remaining MIA cases comes as the U.S.-led NATO coalition is preparing to draw down its forces in Afghanistan and hand over responsibility for the war in 2014 to the Afghan security forces.

Despite the presence of up to 140,000 foreign troops, NATO has not been able to defeat the guerrillas who have successfully regrouped after their crushing defeat by U.S.-led forces in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Russia has backed the international coalition in the war, providing air and land transit routes for troops and equipment. But Moscow has been critical of the alliance's plans to pull out while the Taliban remain undefeated.

The Soviet Union Planned To Leave 100 Nukes On Cuba

2012-10-12

The Soviet Union secretly planned to leave 100 nuclear weapons on Cuba after the end of the crisis but were so scared by Fidel Castro's instability that they made up a law to retrieve them.

Documents released by the US National Security Archive disclose how close Cuba came in 1962 to becoming Latin America's first nuclear power.

Minutes of a meeting with Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet deputy prime minister, show Castro was furious at the USSR ending the crisis by agreeing to remove its strategic missiles.

Unknown to Washington, the Soviets had left 100 tactical nuclear weapons on Cuba, and documents suggest they planned to train Cubans how to use them.

But Mikoyan was so concerned at Castro's erratic behaviour during a diplomatic visit that he wrote back to Moscow that they must urgently take back the remaining bombs.

"What do you think we are?" an emotional Castro asked during the four-hour November 22 meeting. "A zero on the Left, a dirty rag. We tried to help the Soviet Union to get out of a difficult situation."

Mikoyan was driven to cite a non-existent Soviet law banning the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to other countries. "And when are you going to repeal that law?" Castro asked. "We will see," he said.

The documents, which came from the archives of Mikoyan's late son, feature in a new book titled The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis.

Collapse of Post-Soviet System?

2012-10-08

The post-Soviet world, so painfully built, is now collapsing. Along with its collapse, the fate of Ukraine lies in the balance. President Yanukovych is not a politician suited for his times and will himself soon realise that his authoritarian tendencies are a decade too late.

Many representatives of Ukraine's political, media and business elite are gearing up for a long life in the underground. What else can they do? For over two years of being in power, President Viktor Yanukovych has gathered almost all of the power in the country up into his hands. What he has done, together with other politicians from the Party of Regions, cannot be called anything else than a simple coup d'etat. By changing the constitution he has brought back old privileges to the institution of president, which, incidentally, he currently holds. He has marginalised the role of the government, parliament, and the judiciary, subordinated the defence sector, and switched off the voice of the people and the opposition.

Right now in Ukraine something is being born which resembles Alexander Lukashenko's regime in Belarus. There is only one difference: Lukashenko took several years to become a dictator, while Yanukovych has become one by exploiting the rights he enjoys as president, something which has happened with the complete indifference of Ukrainian society. All this, once again, confirms the thesis of the analysts who are not driven by romantic ideals but by realistic views of politics. And these analysts openly say that the Orange Revolution of 2004 was not Ukrainian society's aspiration for democracy, but for wealth. An irresponsible populist during the "revolution", Viktor Yushchenko became, for a short time, the idol of millions of Ukrainians.

But his reputation of being the country's "messiah" was not the result of his pro-democracy slogans or promises to imprison those who made fortunes out of bribes and kick-backs. Viktor Yushchenko became a "messiah" because of his competence, when he was still prime minister, to make sure that salaries and pensions were paid on time in the public service sector - something unprecedented in the history of independent Ukraine. This is when the real revolution took place.

Thus, a person who voted for Yushchenko wasn't expressing his or her support towards freedom, but to prosperity. The mindset of such a voter was simple: since Yushchenko can pay us on time, he can also provide prosperity to Ukraine. Today, the same disappointment, felt a few years ago by those who originally voted for Yushchenko, is now being felt by the poor, marginalised and deprived Yanukovych electorate.

The consumerist state

Why would one compare Yanukovych to the president of Belarus? The analogies are there, but the conclusions will be different. Lukashenko has been ruling Belarus for 18 years now, whereas his "Ukrainian" twin-brother is not likely to stay in power that long. First of all, the Belarusian dictatorship has a very consumerist nature, meaning the regime doesn't understand what economic reforms are.

The Soviet understanding of entrepreneurship and development clearly still prevails in Belarus, as well as the social policy model based on the assumption that it is the state that protects the citizen. The majority of goods are, of course, funded with Russian money. Moscow has been subsidising Belarus in many different ways: cheap oil and preferential loans. This consumerist financing of the Belarusian regime has been taking place for the last two years.

But once the Kremlin decides to stop financing its younger brother, Belarusian society will experience real poverty. And poverty will lead to the collapse of the system. This collapse will not be accompanied with spectacular social protest but will be rather quiet and led by internal problems: collusions and fights within the power elite, and mistakes being made by the ruling elite. On the other hand, should Russia start having economic problems, which is most certainly going to happen, Moscow will no longer be able to continue sponsoring the Belarusian regime and it will collapse in less than a few months.

Lukashenko will either get eliminated by those in his closest circles or delivered, by them, to justice. Ukraine is different to Belarus as it has always supported itself. It is true that we have been getting cheap natural gas, something which was arranged by Leonid Kuchma through reaching an agreement with the former Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin. Th is gas helped the unreformed branches of Ukraine's enterprises to survive. But this policy has ended for good. Moscow won't help Kyiv in the way it has been helping Minsk. It cannot and does not want to.

At the present stage of the collapse of the post-Soviet world, pains are being felt by Kyiv, but the same pains are being felt by all post-Soviet states. These countries can be called consumerist but only in a sense that their elites and societies together still use Soviet resources and means. There are, of course, countries - such as Georgia - where these resources have reached their end; the government in Tbilisi has been forced to give some freedom to small businesses as well as combating corruption.

But there are also countries where the natural resources are more bountiful. Among them is Ukraine and Russia. Their end, however, is also near and will be tragic. It was foreseen in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR when voices could be heard that without economic reforms, the natural resources that he post-Soviet countries would run out in 20 or 25 years. And today, that collapse of the post-Soviet space is starting to take place.

Time is up

Yanukovych is simply late. Had he been Ukraine's president in 1994 (like Kuchma), he would still be governing Ukraine today and we would be wondering when the end of this 18-year old nightmare might be; just as we are wondering: when Lukashenko's dictatorship will end? Even if Yanukovych had become president a little bit later, perhaps in 2004, he would also have been able to enjoy a few years of leading an unlimited authoritarian regime; all until the arrival of the economic crisis.

And yet oddly enough, it was this economic crisis that brought Yanukovych to power. And that is why his regime is protected. However, the age of collapse, which is now fast approaching, requires dialogue and trust, not repression and theft of all that is still left in the country. Yanukovych clearly does not fit into the former category.

Another issue will emerge on the day when Yanukovych's time is up. This is the most interesting question and one for which there is still no single clear answer. Ukrainian society is wrapped up in the jacket of paternalism and hasn't grown up to face its serious challenges. It lacks a sense of civic obligation. And for that reason alone, Ukraine will not be Georgia. It will be more like a Georgia if it were governed by an opposition who doesn't want to take up any reforms. We are awaiting a time of terrible populism.

The face of this era could be Yulia Tymoshenko or somebody like her, although this person may perhaps create a political climate in which the debate about reforms will start. These reforms will be taken up by new generations of politicians and economists, although none of them will happen particularly quickly.

Between the collapse of the authoritarian regime and the first reforms, we should expect to wait, at least, between four to seven years. And the reforms themselves will need between three to five years to be implemented. The maths is simple: in about fifteen, or perhaps even as little as eight years time, Ukraine will be a relatively normal country. Only then will it start resembling today's Poland.

Translated by Iwona Reichardt

Vitaly Portnikov is a Ukrainian journalist with Radio Svoboda and the independent television channel TVi.

New dig launched in Poland for victims of communist terror

2012-10-05

A mass grave has been located which historians believe may be the resting place of members of the National Armed Forces (NSZ), one of the chief Polish resistance groups to stay active following the end of the Second World War.

Victims appear to have been shot in the back of the head, a characteristic trait in executions carried out by Poland's Soviet-modelled secret police.

Researchers have indicated that the remains may belong to the underground division of Captain Henryk Flame (codename Bartek).

Captain Flame was himself shot down by a policeman in a restaurant in the Lower Silesian village of Zabrzeg on 1 December 1947.

Today's excavation comes under the auspices of a nationwide programme entitled "The search for unknown burial places of victims of communist terror in the years 1944-1956."

The work is being carried out with the cooperation of two state-backed bodies, the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), and the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites (ROPWiM).

This August excavations were also held at unmarked graves in Warsaw's historic Powazki cemetery, where a number of Poland's most noted resistance fighters are believed to have been buried.

DNA tests have been carried out on relatives of about 100 prominent victims of Stalinist repressions that may have been interred at the Warsaw cemetery.

Saakashvili Lost, Georgian Dream Becomes the Ruling Party

2012-10-03

The polls got it wrong. And so did most Western observers. Despite widespread fears of a deadlocked, disputed election and protests on the streets, Georgia is -- so far -- on the path toward a surprisingly orderly transfer of power following parliamentary elections of Monday, Oct. 1. Mikheil Saakashvili, the hyperactive reformist president who has governed Georgia since coming to power following a peaceful uprising in 2003, conceded defeat in a televised statement on Tuesday. Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream party will now control Parliament and, crucially, will be in place when constitutional reforms go into effect next year devolving key powers to the prime minister.

Most opinion polls had been predicting a victory for the governing party, the United National Movement (UNM), and most of the mental effort in Western capitals had been focused on the problem of how to persuade Georgian Dream to accept defeat gracefully. I realized something was wrong with this conventional wisdom when I traveled through western Georgia two weeks ago and encountered a palpably pro-opposition mood, even in the booming port city of Batumi, which has been the showcase of Saakashvili's new Georgia. But I also got it wrong, predicting that the two main parties would divide the popular vote equally but that the UNM would win the most seats.

The missing factor in most calculations was Georgia's silent majority: the large number of voters who responded "don't know" and "refuse to answer" in the pre-election polls. (That said, the late-breaking scandal of leaked video footage of abuse in Georgian prisons surely also shifted a large number of undecided voters.) But one can't discount that Georgian politics remain quite feudal. Many Georgians voted for Ivanishvili because he successfully projected himself as the country's next leader and attracted the crowds on the street to prove it. The momentum simply went Ivanishvili's way, and many voters deserted one ship for another.

Constitutional deadlock beckons. Saakashvili will still serve as president, with the same powers he currently possesses, for a year or more, while a new opposition-dominated Parliament challenges him and probably forms a new government. The new constitution, which endows the job of prime minister with stronger executive powers, takes effect only when Saakashvili's term ends. The French call what happens in the meantime "cohabitation," but it will be taking place in a political culture with an aversion to compromise, where the two sides just recently declared each other mortal enemies and without European rules or institutions to buffer the country against shocks. There are also bound to be calls for an early presidential election and questions about the legitimacy of Georgia's rather lax rules on election timing. In January 2013, Saakashvili will have completed the full five years of his second term in office, but Georgian legislation allows for elections to be held at any point in the calendar year of 2013, permitting Saakashvili to serve out the entire year of 2013, should he choose to.

And there will be tensions not just between the two new big players in Georgian politics but within their ranks. Georgian Dream is a coalition of very diverse politicians, united mainly by their opposition to Saakashvili. And the president's UNM combines real reformers with do-nothing bureaucrats. Expect it to take a while for a working government to emerge out of all this.

Whatever happens, this is the beginning of the end of the Saakashvili era. The president has earned his place in history as a state-builder and modernizer. But this election shows that Georgia was tired of his furious and divisive style of government. Georgia's revolutionary phase is now over. Saakashvili is a supremely talented politician, and still only 44, but it is hard to imagine a scenario where he comes back to power. He has made too many enemies.

But it is more than plausible that one of Saakashvili's allies will win high office in the future, when the political mood in Georgia changes again. One key Saakashvili lieutenant, the mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava, keeps his job in any case and probably has ambitions for the future. But what's immediately clear is that this was not an election Saakashvili wanted to lose -- indeed he used all the means at his disposal to win it by making liberal use of state resources and the power of the country's two most powerful television stations.

That strategy failed -- and it is to the credit of Saakashvili and his government that they are accepting their defeat. The key factor in ensuring Georgia's historically democratic election was the massive and close Western scrutiny of the election. Western officials will now inevitably be involved behind the scenes in helping manage and mediate the messy political transition as Georgian politicians now find themselves in unknown territory, forced to actually negotiate with each other.

They will need time to get to grips with the new reality of how, as the president declared, "democracy works."

Russian Writer Vladimir Voinovich Builds Optimism On A Foundation Of Pessimism

2012-09-28

Writer Vladimir Voinovich burst onto the Soviet literary scene in the 1970s with the satirical novel "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin."

But as the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union ossified, he soon fell afoul of the authorities. Stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the Soviet Union in 1980, Voinovich settled in Munich and worked for RFE/RL's Russian Service.

In 1986, he published his classic dystopian novel "Moscow-2042," which depicts a totalitarian Soviet Union run by a combination of the KGB, the Orthodox Church, and the Communist Party.

Ahead of Voinvovich's 80th birthday on September 26, RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Yury Vasilyev spoke with the author about how present-day Russia compares to his dark vision of the future.

RFE/RL: Did you think that you would see so much of what you predicted in "Moscow-2042" already in 2012?

Vladimir Voinovich: Well, there are only 30 years left until 2042.... But, to be honest, I didn't expect this. I described a future that I hoped would never happen -- it was not a utopia, but a dystopia. But now reality, it seems, is already exceeding what I wrote then. In my novel, the country is ruled by the KPGB -- the Communist Party of State Security.

And there was an ideological pentagon -- patriotism, security, religion, and so on. I have heard many times that the patriarch is sometimes referred to as Father Zvyozdony [editors' note: Father Zvyozdony was the major general of religious service in "Moscow-2042"].

But the stupidity and vulgarity that are becoming the banner of our times -- no one could have expected that. The most idiotic laws are passed, the most monstrous trials are going on. Take the notorious Pussy Riot case. That exceeded everything that could be written in satire.

RFE/RL: "Moscow-2042" was published in 1986 -- a time of transition, perestroika. Now many in Russia are speaking of another looming transition. Do you see such a thing coming?

Voinovich: In 1986, perestroika was just getting under way. But already then -- in its very first stages, I viewed it with enormous hope. But, to get back to the novel -- since those times I have begun to think that reality somehow moves in the other direction and, God willing, things won't turn out as they did in my novel.

But then I look and I see -- no, things are unfolding as I imagined them, as if someone didn't want reality to drift too far [from the novel]. I don't consider myself a prophet. But some things really do seem prophetic.

But it wouldn't be right to compare the present with those times because the beginning of perestroika was the beginning of hope. But events now produce a despairing pessimism, the kind that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

RFE/RL: Then can you compare the present with the years before perestroika, when you were expelled from the Soviet Union. Did the hopelessness of those times differ from the current hopelessness?

Voinovich: The situation then, surprisingly, fostered hope. I could see that the Soviet authorities were doing stupid things that would ultimately lead to destruction or to an attempt at renewal, which, in fact, happened in the mid-1980s with the arrival of [Mikhail] Gorbachev. When I left in 1980, I was saying all the time that radical change would begin in the Soviet Union in five years. Maybe I was off by a couple of years, but that isn't important -- I turned out to be pretty correct. If you build your optimism on the expectation of collapse, then I guess you can say the same thing about the present.

RFE/RL: Let's take a look at the ideological pentagon of your novel. Populism -- we already have that. Party loyalty -- only about half of what we had back then, but we still have it. Religiosity -- no doubt about that. State security -- well, of course. Vigilance -- we have that. Four and a half out of five. What can we expect going forward, according to "Moscow-2042"?

Voinovich: I already said that we are once again in a phase when it is possible to make optimistic forecasts based on pessimistic assumptions.

This is because all branches of power are working as one. The Duma writes some laws; the courts try Pussy Riot; the church does its work -- in short, all the social institutions and branches of power are approaching some sort of explosion. That explosion will definitely come because it isn't possible to upset such a large -- and daily growing -- number of people day after day.

Someone once said that you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

RFE/RL: That someone was Abraham Lincoln, and he didn't really have Russia in mind.

Voinovich: Yes -- our history shows that most of the people can be fooled for a very long time. But now all this idiocy is coming into clear contradiction with the fact that we have some level of openness: RFE/RL's Russian Service exists, there are some opposition publications, the Internet can't be controlled, although they try to restrict it.

But against this background, it all looks very stupid. A naked person only seems natural in a sauna. When he goes out into the street, people will either laugh at him or stone him.

RFE/RL: People often say about you that your predictions were self-fulfilling.

Voinovich: Yes, they have said that. They've even proposed that I write another book -- with an optimistic view of the future. It really does seem that reality is trying to imitate my imaginings -- so if I think up something optimistic, then reality will imitate that.

RFE/RL: And do you take such suggestions seriously?

Voinovich: As soon as we finish this interview, I'll start working. I'll write a glorious future -- communist -- and then we'll [see]… By the way, in Soviet times they more or less said the same thing -- that writers must depict the glorious future and then people will imitate it and it will be brought about.

Translated from Russian by Robert Coalson

No Real Freedom in Belarus Elections

2012-09-25

Many OSCE commitments on citizen’s democratic rights to associate, to stand as candidates and to express themselves freely were not respected in yesterday’s parliamentary elections in Belarus, concluded the international observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA).

The elections were not administered in an impartial manner and the complaints and appeals process did not guarantee effective remedy, the observers found.

“This election was not competitive from the start,” said Matteo Mecacci, Special Co-ordinator, who led the short-term OSCE observer mission. “A free election depends on people being free to speak, organize and run for office, and we didn’t see that in this campaign. We stand ready to work with Belarus to take the steps forward that are in our common interest.”

“The lack of neutrality and impartiality on the part of election commissions severely undermines public confidence in the process,” said Antonio Milošoski, Head of the OSCE/ODIHR long-term election observation mission. “Citizens should feel confident that their votes are counted as cast, but the lack of proper counting procedures or ways for observers to verify the results raises serious concerns.”

While there was an increase in the number of candidates put forward by parties, prominent political figures who might have played a role remained in prison or were not eligible to register because of their criminal record. Arbitrary administrative decisions also constrained the field of contestants, limiting voters’ choices.

Despite improvements made to the electoral law in amendments in 2010 and 2011, the legal framework does not adequately guarantee the conduct of elections in line with OSCE commitments and international standards.

On a positive note, political parties could, for the first time, nominate candidates in constituencies where they maintained no regional office, increasing the number of political party nominations. Nonetheless, overly technical application of the law resulted in the exclusion of one in four nominees.

The election campaign was barely visible throughout the four-week campaign. Although the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and there is a high number of media outlets, coverage of the campaign did not provide a wide range of views. Candidates who called for an election boycott had their free access to media coverage denied or censored. Media coverage focused on the President and government, with minimal attention given to candidates.

While early voting and election day procedures were assessed positively, the process deteriorated considerably during the count. A significant number of observers were not given a meaningful opportunity to observe the count and evaluated the process negatively in a significant number of the polling stations observed. The continued lack of properly delineated counting procedures meant that an honest count could not be guaranteed.

Helsinki Group Head Alekseyeva: Refusal of USAID Means Return To Soviet Way

2012-09-20

The Kremlin has ordered the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to cease its operations in Russia.

The move will be a serious blow to the many nongovernment organizations and rights groups that relied on USAID for a significant part of their funding.

RFE/RL correspondent Tom Balmforth spoke to human rights veteran Lyudmila Alekseyeva about the likely impact of the cessation of USAID's financing on the Moscow Helsinki Group she heads and Russia's human rights sphere as a whole.

RFE/RL: How important has USAID funding been to your organization?

Lyudmila Alekseyeva: It's not [just] about our organization. It's about the human rights sphere in [Russia]. I think it really helped.

In 1997, USAID issued a large grant for us to monitor the human rights situation in Russia. Of course, the Moscow Helsinki Group could not conduct work of this scale on its own and it worked together with human rights organizations from 80 different regions. Each of these collected material and compiled reports on the situation. We then did reports on the basis of this material.

We of course taught them how to work. This three-year grant helped lay the ground for monitoring work in our country.

RFE/RL: What impact will the cessation of USAID funding have in general in Russia?

Alekseyeva: Of course it will have very sad consequences. It will reduce the effectiveness of human rights organizations. But I think that the cessation of the work of USAID is entirely logical after the law on NGOs came into force requiring social organizations financed from abroad to register themselves as foreign agents.

If we decline to do this and if organizations like us decline to do this, then [the authorities] will still stop our activates and won't allow us to make use of their bank accounts. If we agree to register [as foreign agents], we also won't be able to [to work effectively] because a certain section of the population will stop trusting us because the authorities have created a psychological understanding that everything from abroad is hostile and aimed at Russia's demise.

Even worse, the Kremlin will probably issue an order to bureaucrats telling them not to cooperate with organizations that have registered themselves as foreign agents.

RFE/RL: In what ways will the Moscow Helsinki Group suffer specifically from the cessation of USAID funding?

Alekseyeva: We will remain without funding because we don't receive Russian financing. The state won't finance us because we defend citizens whose rights are violated by Russian bureaucrats. Our state won't fund that kind of organization. Business here won't finance us either because every businessman understands that if he finances an organization that is not useful to the authorities, then he puts his own business under threat.

We don't have any other sources of financing apart from abroad. It will seriously reduce the efficiency of our work. We won't be able to continue, for instance, our educational projects that we've had for many years.

RFE/RL: So how will you get around this problem in practice?

Alekseyeva: The Moscow Helsinki Group was founded in 1976 during the Soviet period, when of course there was no financing whatsoever either from abroad or from Russia. It received its first grant only in 1993, when it was already an internationally renowned organization.

We will lose the efficiency of our work. We will return to the way we worked in the Soviet Union. Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, human rights workers find themselves once again in the same position.

[We'll get around it by] volunteering. Back [in Soviet times], we distributed our documents on human rights violations through samizdat. Now it is much easier than it was back then.

Information will come to us -- we can find out things through the Internet and people approach us directly via telephone or online. We will put out material on citizens' human rights violations.

RFE/RL: Why do you think the Russian authorities have made this move now?

Alekseyeva: Because now a serious attack is being carried out on all the rights of citizens -- on their voting rights as well as their right to expression and on the right to unite. All of these rights are guaranteed by our constitution, but the authorities have already long forgotten about its existence.

Russia and North Korea Agreed to Decrease the Debt from the Soviet Era

2012-09-19

Russia and North Korea have signed a deal to decrease DPRK's debt of previous eleven billion dollars. The deal on settlement was revealed by Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak to Prime news Agency on Tuesday. Pyongyang's debt to Russia now includes the conversion from the rubles to dollars which gives an initial discount of 90 per cents of total. The negotiations over the issue has been current for the last four years without a mutual outcome. Remaining 1 billion debt would be used in a "debt for aid exchange" which means plans to assist with joint education, health and energy projects in North Korea.

Hungary detains suspect for killings after 1956 uprising

2012-09-12

It was the first time that any of the Soviet-backed leaders of the time is brought to justice in the country. More than two decades after the fall of communism, the prosecution of Bela Biszku, 90 - who has been detained on suspicion of war crimes - could reopen old wounds in the central European country which has still not fully faced up to this tragic chapter of its history.

The ruling Fidesz party, led by fiercely anti-communist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, pushed through a law last year which stipulated that war crimes and crimes against humanity do not lapse, opening the way to dealing with crimes committed after the 1956 uprising.

On Monday Biszku was detained on suspicion of war crimes for having directly supervised a Military Council that ordered the shootings of civilians during protests in Budapest and in the eastern Hungarian town of Salgotarjan in December 1956.

Hungary's uprising in 1956 was the first serious blow to the Soviet bloc established after Soviet tanks drove out Nazi German troops from Central Europe at the end of World War Two. Though the uprising was crushed, its impact was lasting and it played a role in the collapse of Soviet rule three decades later.

Large numbers of civilians were killed in the backlash against the uprising, whose figurehead Imre Nagy was executed for treason for establishing a government in defiance of Moscow's rule over eastern Europe.

In Salgotarjan, 46 people were shot dead by Hungarian and Soviet armed forces, the prosecutors said.

"Today ... prosecutors have detained and heard as a suspect Bela Biszku, one of the key designers and one of those responsible for the reprisals that followed the 1956 revolution and uprising," Tibor Ibolya, acting Budapest chief prosecutor, told a news conference.

He said Biszku had denied the accusations. He could face a life sentence if found guilty.

Biszku came to public attention in 2010 when a documentary film was aired on his role in the suppression of the uprising.

"This is a symbolic case that has been long overdue since the regime change (collapse of communism)," said Maria Schmidt, director of Budapest's House of Terror Museum, which is a memorial to the victims of Nazi and communist terror regimes.

Biszku said in an interview in 2010 that the fight for the communist system in 1956 was a "just" struggle, and as interior minister he had worked to restore public order.

"First of all I believe this was not a revolution, but a counter-revolution," Biszku told Duna television in 2010.

"Biszku had serious responsibility in the retaliation that followed the 1956 uprising," said Laszlo Eorsi, a historian working at Budapest's Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. But Eorsi also said the timing of the detainment could serve to distract public attention from other sensitive issues, like tough credit talks with the IMF.

Prosecutors refused last year to launch criminal proceedings against Biszku, saying whatever he had done was too far in the past.

But the ruling parliament majority pushed through a law last year, in line with a convention adopted by the United Nations in 1968, which stipulated that war crimes and crimes against humanity do not lapse.

Memos show US hushed up Soviet crime

2012-09-11

In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.

The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeatGermany and Japan during World War II.

Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940.

The evidence is among about 1,000 pages of newly declassified documents that the United States National Archives released and is putting online. Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who helped lead a recent push for the release of the documents, called the effort's success Monday a "momentous occasion" in an attempt to "make history whole."

Historians who saw the material days before the official release describe it as important and shared some highlights with the AP. The most dramatic revelation so far is the evidence of the secret codes sent by the two American POWs — something historians were unaware of and which adds to evidence that the Roosevelt administration knew of the Soviet atrocity relatively early on.

The declassified documents also show the United States maintaining that it couldn't conclusively determine guilt until a Russian admission in 1990 — a statement that looks improbable given the huge body of evidence of Soviet guilt that had already emerged decades earlier. Historians say the new material helps to flesh out the story of what the U.S. knew and when.

The Soviet secret police killed the 22,000 Poles with shots to the back of the head. Their aim was to eliminate a military and intellectual elite that would have put up stiff resistance to Soviet control. The men were among Poland's most accomplished — officers and reserve officers who in their civilian lives worked as doctors, lawyers, teachers, or as other professionals. Their loss has proven an enduring wound to the Polish nation.

Lithuania published the names of KGB officers

2012-09-06

The records list specific activities and names of the agents from the 1980s.

“These lists were published for the first time and there is information about all districts” said Terese Birute Burauskaite, the director of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. “There was a central unit in KGB- we published the materials according to departments, governing agencies, and also the sub-divisions in cities and districts.”

There were five KGB departments in the bigger cities of Lithuania, and 44 sub-divisions in other districts.

Burauskaite said that she cannot state the exact number of people in the lists but suggested there are at least a few hundred.

According to the calculations of the Baltic News Service the lists contain the names of 53 KGB staff officers who worked in Vilnius, around 300 names from Kaunas and 98 from Klaipeda areas.

Hungary, Armenia and the axe-murderer cause a diplomatic storm

2012-09-05

It has pulled in Russia, America and the European Union, and led to a new war of words in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

Safarov used an axe to murder a sleeping fellow student, an Armenian officer called Gurgen Margarjan, while both men were at a NATO English-language course in Budapest in 2004. Safarov justified himself by referring to Armenian atrocities against Azerbaijan in the conflict of 1988-94. He told the court that Lieutenant Margarjan, an Armenian, had taunted him about the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh from where he was a refugee.

Hungary sent Safarov home, it says, on the understanding that he would serve the rest of his sentence in prison there. But on arrival in Baku, he was immediately pardoned, hailed as a national hero and promoted to major.

Armenia has reacted with fury and has severed diplomatic relations with Budapest. Angry protestors burnt the Hungarian flag in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, and pelted the consulate with tomatoes. Serzh Sarkisian, the president of Armenia, said the country was ready to fight if need be. “We don't want a war, but if we have to, we will fight and win. We are not afraid of killers, even if they enjoy the protection of the head of state."

Patrick Ventrell, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said that the United States was “extremely troubled” by the pardon of Safarov and would be seeking an explanation from both Budapest and Baku.

Russia, which has been deeply involved in efforts to ease relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, said that the actions of the Hungarian and Azerbaijani governments “contradict internationally brokered efforts” to bring peace to the region.

Hungary condemned the decision to release Safarov and said it had been misled by the Azerbaijan government. Hungarian officials said they had received assurances from Azerbaijan that Safarov would be released on parole only after serving at least 25 years.

The Hungarian media has reported that Azerbaijan has been pressing Hungary to release Safarov since his conviction. Many scent a dirty deal behind the scenes. The main theory is that Azerbaijan had promised to buy state bonds from Hungary in exchange for Safarov’s release.

Poland celebrates 1980 Solidarity August agreement anniversary

2012-08-31

President Bronislaw Komorowski will present honours to 40 activists of the democratic opposition and members of the Solidarity trade union.

The centrepiece of the celebrations will be a special Mass attended by Lech Walesa, held at St. Brigid's Basilica in Gdansk, northern Poland, where strikes which started at the Lenin Shipyard led to the historic signing of the social contract with the communist authorities.

This morning, flowers will be laid at the foot of the Monument to Fallen Shipyard Workers at the Gdansk shipyard and 300 pigeons will be released into the sky.

An exhibition, "Anna Walentynowicz. + Legend + Solidarity 1929-2010, prepared by the Institute of National Remembrance, will be opened, in remembrance of one of the leading lights of the Solidarity movement, who died in the Smolensk air disaster in April 2010.

Hungarian Anti-Roma Marches

2012-08-27

On August 5th, Devecser, a village in western Hungary, was inundated by neo-Nazis. In a village of little more than 5,000, most of the indignant mob was bused in.

Devecser is sadly notorious: two years ago it was hit by a wall of caustic red sludge when the retaining wall of a waste reservoir of a nearby aluminium plant collapsed. The disaster killed four and injured 120.

The leaders of the groups marching included Gabor Ferenczi of Jobbik, a far-right party that won 16% of the vote in the last election in 2010. The party, though no stranger to such set-piece confrontations, had previously shied away from sharing a podium with certain neo-Nazi groups.

This time was different. Zsolt Tyirityán, a leading figure in the Outlaw Army, stood in front of the village church arguing for racial warfare and the need to "exterminate Roma from public life". Devecser's mayor, Tamas Toldi, a member of the ruling rightist Fidesz party, says he was unable to stop the gathering, which he had been told was a peace march.

Mr Toldi says he was "really angry" at the speeches, but it would have been "unwise" to try and stop proceedings in mid-flow because the police would not have been able to assert their authority. The 200 or so on duty were mustered locally and not trained or equipped to deal with an angry hoard of neo-Nazis.

Not a peep of condemnation has come from Fidesz, which controls a two-thirds majority in parliament. With an election due in early 2014, Fidesz, which has lost voters to Jobbik, knows that there are hardly any votes in standing up for the Roma. The party also doesn’t want to alienate its lunatic fringe or create a barrier to Jobbik voters who might be tempted to switch to Fidesz.

"At the time we were really scared," says Ibolya Domotor, one of four elderly Roma women sitting in the shade of a tree on a street the march passed through. Roma and Hungarians have rubbed along there for decades without serious problems, she says. A police patrol is reassuring, as long as it lasts.

It all began with a slanging match down the street when a Roma driver was blocked by a car on July 23rd. Two days later the row escalated into two bloody scuffles, allegedly involving knives, baseball bats and spades. The only previous trouble was when some of a Magyar family's nine Rottweilers—the same family whose guest had blocked the Roma driver—crawled under a fence and killed their neighbour's German shepherd. (The Roma driver also happened to be the father of the owner of the killed German shepherd.)

The precise details and motivation of the neighbourly battle after the car incident are murky. But within days a post on kuruc.info, a far-right propaganda web site, called for “real Hungarians” to come to the aid of compatriots facing oppression from Roma. "The problem is that the minority do not accept the laws of the majority," says Akos Nemeth, lawyer for the Hungarian side. "I am afraid it will become civil war."

The village's Roma population of around 30% are unrepresented on the council and struggle to secure jobs. Like anyone else those Roma who own houses have seen their value plummet. But the re-housing programme brought by the red mud disaster saw a few Roma, who previously lived in Roma-only neighbourhoods, re-housed in mixed areas. Some of them have found it hard to adapt to their new surroundings, says Alfred Kiraly, a Roma member of an initiative to coordinate the recovery effort after the sludge disaster.

The majority of the inhabitants of Devecser still supports the Roma, but no one of any note is prepared to speak up. Mr Toldi says he is privately called a "Roma-lover" for arranging for Roma to work for their welfare and in trying to reconcile differences with committees of local representatives to agree on codes of neighbourly conduct.

The Eastern Approaches Blog - http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/08/hungarian-anti-roma-marches

North Korean leader seeks trip to China for economic help

2012-08-24

It is not clear whether China will be prepared to host him, as requested, in September when Beijing will be preoccupied with its own leadership change. The leadership may also have its doubts about the unproven Kim Jong-un, who after only four months in office, defied his giant neighbor by conducting a long-range rocket test.

A source with ties to both Pyongyang and Beijing told Reuters on Friday that Kim's uncle, Jang Song-thaek, effectively the second most powerful figure in Pyongyang, had asked for the visit when he met Chinese leaders on a visit to Beijing last week.

"It will be a state visit. This was one of the most important missions of Jang Song-thaek's visit," the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

China's foreign ministry declined to comment on the proposed visit, which would be Kim's first trip abroad since he took office and became the third of his line to rule North Korea.

Kim, in his late 20s, appears to be trying hard to soften the dour image of his dictator father whom he succeeded in December.

He has appeared waving and smiling at public events, even attending a pop concert that included Disney characters, and at times - just as unusually for a North Korean leader - accompanied by his wife.

But for most of North Korea's 22 million people, who are among the Asia's poorest, little has changed.

Some analysts see Jang as the driving force behind the North's promise of economic reform. Kim's uncle made his trip to China to press its leaders to provide greater backing for an economy brought to its knees by decades of mismanagement and international sanctions over missile and nuclear tests.

MAY BE LOATH TO HOST KIM

Beijing may be loath to host Kim in September at a time when China is preparing its own leadership change and because of the April rocket test, analysts said.

"North Korea has been nice to China only in the past one and half months," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

"Heaven knows whether North Korea will change again in a few months."

The proposed visit also comes when there are doubts over how willing Chinese companies are to put money in their neighbor, with its complex and contradictory investment laws.

One Chinese mining company this month took the rare step of turning to the Internet to air grievances over what it saw as the North's unfair business practices.

Observers said new special enterprise zones in North Korea, aimed at building up business with China, have met with little or limited success.

United Nations estimates show that a third of North Korea's population is malnourished and it says the economy still has to regain output levels seen in the 1990s, when a devastating famine and the withdrawal of Soviet aid hit the country hard.

Chinese investment is the only viable large-scale option for the North.

"Jang Song-thaek went to China and discussed economic issues but the visit did not turn out to have the major impact that was expected. So Kim Jong-un will go to ask for the economic aid and long-term cooperation that they need," said Yoo Ho-yeol, professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul.

NUCLEAR THREAT

China will expect to extract a price from Kim and will want the North to commit to return to talks with regional powers, so-called Six Party talks, aimed at defusing the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula, Yoo said.

For the reclusive North, that nuclear threat has long been its only real diplomatic leverage with the outside world, especially the United States.

Kim's father oversaw two nuclear tests and his long range missile tests were seen by the United States as attempts to develop a ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

While the most recent missile test in April went spectacularly wrong, and saw sanctions even further tightened, the North is believed to be pushing ahead with plans to conduct a third nuclear test.

The source who disclosed Kim's request for a visit said that the North retained the capacity to carry out another test.

"There is no doubt North Korea has the capability, but China is strongly opposed to it," the source said. The source predicted the first nuclear test in 2006 and correctly identified Jang's rise to power in Kim Jong-un's administration

"North Korea wants a permanent peace treaty to replace the armistice in exchange for dropping plans for a third nuclear test. It's been 60 years and time to (formally) end the war with a peace treaty," the source added.

A formal peace treaty to end the 1950-53 Korean War, rather than the armistice in place, has been a longstanding demand from Pyongyang, which wants diplomatic recognition from the United States.

Washington and its ally South Korea, which is host to some 28,000 troops, insist the North give up its nuclear ambitions before any peace treaty and large scale economic aid.

With the U.S. presidential election and Chinese leadership change this year, Pyongyang has little leverage beyond its nuclear threat, analysts say.

But they add that Beijing cannot give up on Pyongang, which acts as a buffer to U.S. ally South Korea, and knowing that the North's collapse could send columns of refugees fleeing across its border.

Recent satellite images have shown North Korea making progress in tunneling associated with a nuclear test, although it has been impossible to independently verify the images.

Siegfried Hecker, a U.S. nuclear expert who has visited the North's main Yongbyon nuclear facility four times since 2004 and was the last foreign expert to visit the site in late 2010, wrote in a report published on August 6 that the North could be technically ready for a test within two weeks.

Hecker and co-author Frank Pabian wrote that North Korea might conduct a simultaneous test using plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

The North's previous tests have used plutonium and the use of highly enriched uranium would give Pyongyang a second route to a nuclear weapon.

"Whether and when North Korea conducts another nuclear test will depend on how high a political cost Pyongyang is willing to bear," Hecker and Pabian wrote.

"Beijing has continued to expand aid and trade with North Korea, but has also applied significant diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang not to test."

Benjamin Kang Lim for Reuters - http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-north-koreas-kim-jong-un-asked-china-062051913.html

Russia openly accuses the west of instigating Syrian opposition groups

2012-08-23

Moscow has been Syria's key protector throughout the 17-month uprising that has evolved into a full-blown civil war, shielding Assad's regime from international sanctions and providing it with weapons despite an international outcry.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said the West "has done nothing" to urge the Syrian opposition to start a dialogue with the government.

"Instead, they are engaged in openly instigating it to continue their armed struggle," it said in a statement.

It claimed that the Western approach to the Syrian civil is "hypocritical" and is not helping to resolve the conflict that has killed an estimated 19,000 people.

Russia and China, both veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members, have blocked proposals to call on Assad to step down.

Russia has said that its opposition to sanctions against Syria is driven not by support for Assad himself, but by a respect for international law that forbids foreign military intervention in internal conflicts without U.N. Security Council authorization.

Russia has called for talks between the Syrian regime and its foes. It staunchly opposes any plans that would demand Assad's ouster, saying that only the Syrian people can decide the country's fate.

In New York, U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council that the United Nations views the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria "with growing alarm."

He said about 2.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance while the number of displaced people in Syria and the flow of refugees to neighboring countries is growing.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, who visited Syria last week, told a news conference at U.N. headquarters that U.N. agencies last month provided food for more than 820,000 people across Syria.

"But when you're talking about 2.5 million people affected, we need to do a lot more," she said.

Feltman and Amos appealed for additional funds to meet the humanitarian needs of Syrians still in the country and the refugees.

During her visit, Amos said she appealed to the Syrian government to allow international aid agencies to deliver food and humanitarian supplies to the needy.

But she said the government will only authorize aid from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and local partners because it is worried that international aid will go to the rebels - despite her repeated assurances that humanitarian aid is neutral and impartial.

The deeply divided Security Council is scheduled to hold a ministerial-level meeting on Aug. 30 on the humanitarian situation in Syria.

---

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SYRIA_DIPLOMACY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Trial Of Kazakh Opposition Leaders Opens

2012-08-17

Kozlov, who is the leader of the unregistered Algha (Forward) opposition party, and the others face charges of forming and leading an illegal group, inciting social hatred, and calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional structure of Kazakhstan.

The charges are connected to last year's mass strike by oil workers in the western part of the country that ended in violence in December 2011 when 17 people were killed, most of them in the town of Zhanaozen.

Kozlov and the others claim the charges against them are politically motivated.

Visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake said in Almaty on August 15 that the United States will closely follow the Kozlov's fate.

Blake expressed hope that the trial is conducted fairly and does not set back democratic reforms in Kazakhstan.

China signals strong support for decaying North Korea economy

2012-08-15

Vice Commerce Minister Chen Jian, writing in Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, said priority would be given to two economic zones China and North Korea set up just over a year ago and which would represent a rare major foray by isolated Pyongyang into international commerce.

The comments coincide with this week's trip to China by Jang Song-thaek, the powerful uncle of young dictator Kim Jong-un and seen as likely to be a driving force for reforms.

"We will support big Chinese companies who are willing to invest in North Korea to broaden the economic and trade cooperation with North Korea, to push the two sides to upgrade two-way trade and investment structures and study the feasibility of cooperation on big projects," Chen wrote.

In a statement issued after a meeting between Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming and Jang, the ministry said the joint economic zones had "entered a substantive development phase".

Their development has "important meaning for further consolidating and developing traditional friendly relations and ... for promoting regional peace and prosperity", it added.

North Korea's official media said Jang had gone to China to discuss commercial projects between the two countries.

The trip is seen as the latest sign that Kim is looking seriously at ways to revive his reclusive country's decaying economy which has been in decline for years and is unable even in years of good harvests to feed its 24 million people.

North Korea already relies heavily on China to support its economy, dragged down by decades of mismanagement and international sanctions over its weapons programmes.

China, for its part, lives in terror of a political or economic collapse in North Korea which could send a wave of refugees into its poor northeast.

"Only North Korea's economic opening up can truly ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," said Wei Zhijiang, an expert on the two Koreas at Zhongshan University in southern China.

"China wants to play an important constructive role in North Korea's economic opening up and integration into the international community," he added.

Belarus orders Sweden to close its Minsk embassy

2012-08-09

Belarus has ordered Sweden to close its embassy in Minsk by the end of the month, days after it expelled the Swedish ambassador. The incident is the latest dispute between Belarus and western nations, in particular EU states that have challenged the former Soviet country and its longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko, over a perceived stifling of human rights.

An EU spokesman, Sébastien Brabant, reiterated the 27-member bloc's "grave concern" over the decision earlier this month to bar the Swedish ambassador and said it was "urgently seeking clarification" over Minsk's latest move.

Sweden said its envoy, Stefan Eriksson, had been expelled because he had met the Belarus opposition and because Sweden had given books containing material on human rights to a Belarussian university.

Belarus, however, said it merely chose not to extend the envoy's accreditation, but added that Eriksson's activities were aimed at the "destruction" of Belarussian-Swedish relations.

Sweden responded by barring the Belarussian ambassador from entering Stockholm and asking two Belarussian diplomats to leave. Sweden's foreign minister, Carl Bildt, tweeted that Lukashenko's "fear of human rights (is) reaching new heights". "Lukashenko has now chosen to step up the conflict with Sweden even further," he wrote. "The purpose is most likely to make it as difficult as possible for the various co-operation programs we have (there) concerning – not the least – civil rights and freedom."

Lukashenko, known in the west as "Europe's last dictator", has ruled Belarus's population of 10 million since 1994, repressing opposition groups and independent news media while preserving a quasi-Soviet economy with about 80% of industry in state hands.

The latest diplomatic row comes weeks after a pair of Swedish activists were reported to have used a plane to drop hundreds of teddy bears bearing human rights messages into Belarusian territory. Lukashenko fired two generals over the incident. Bildt, however, said there was no word that the toys were connected to the expulsion.

Azerbaijani Opposition Plans New Wave Of Protests

2012-07-31

That near certainty is, however, unlikely to deter the opposition Public Chamber from stepping up its ongoing efforts to create the “level playing field” that it considers a prerequisite for truly free and fair elections.

The Public Chamber comprises representatives of several long-established opposition parties. It was established some two months after the November 2010 parliamentary election in which mainstream opposition parties failed to win a single one of the 125 mandates.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) assessed that ballot as failing to meet a number of key conditions for democratic elections.

Two senior Azerbaijani officials -- presidential adviser Ali Hasanov and Ali Akhmedov, who is one of the deputy chairmen of the ruling Yeni Azerbaycan Party (YAP) founded by Aliyev’s father and predecessor as president, Heidar Aliyev -- have affirmed in recent weeks that YAP will nominate Aliyev as its presidential candidate. Those statements put to rest persistent speculation that Aliyev’s wife Mehriban might run in his place.

A second YAP functionary, party deputy executive secretary Mubariz Gurbanly, similarly affirmed that Aliyev is YAP’s only candidate for next year’s ballot.

He dismissed as “incomprehensible” and “a lie” opposition speculation to the contrary.

Gurbanly also rejected as lacking any legal foundation the argument adduced by Ali Kerimli, head of the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party and a leading Public Chamber member, that Aliyev does not have the right to seek a third presidential term because the amendments to the Azerbaijan Republic constitution passed in 2009 that abolished the ban on one person serving more than two consecutive terms are not retroactive.

At a session in Baku on July 22, Public Chamber members reached agreement on launching a new wave of protests this fall to demand the creation of conditions conducive to a free and fair ballot.

Specifically, they plan to call for the release of political prisoners, guarantees of freedom of assembly and the media, and amendments to the Electoral Code.

Time to scrap “Eastern Europe”

2012-07-24

Eastern Approaches - http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2012/07/%E2%80%9Ceast%E2%80%9D-dead

One Chechen's Cry From A Russian Jail -- 'Do These People Have Hearts?'

2012-07-23

Imran -- who asked that his full name not be used out of fear of reprisals from the Russian authorities -- is now serving an 18-year sentence on a collage of terrorism-related charges in a prison in Russia's far-northern Arkhangelsk region.

Speaking by telephone exclusively to RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service, Imran claimed he had a good idea what was coming when the security forces took him away that day because they'd already come for him before.

"The first time they picked me up during a sweep in 2003, in September, at six in the morning," he said. "They were Russian troops. For three days they held me in a cell -- they beat me, tortured me. When they weren't able to make me confess to any crimes, they said: 'Just confess to anything. It doesn't matter to us -- it only matters that you confess.'"

According to Imran, he was released after those three days, but the authorities held on to his passport. The second time was far worse than the first:

"For 10 days they beat me," he said. "They tortured me until I lost consciousness. If my relatives hadn't found out where I was being held, they would have simply killed me. Then they handed me over to prosecutors. When they did that, I saw that my passport was in the hand of the investigator. They had prepared the case against me in advance."

Imran admits he fought in the first Chechen independence war in the early 1990s, but says he had lived peacefully since that uprising ended in 1996. He says that he wanted to leave the war-ravaged republic but that he had to remain to take care of his elderly mother.

'Sufficient Proof Of Torture'

Imran's case has been taken up by local legal-rights activists with the Russian Justice Initiative (RJI), who have filed a complaint on his behalf with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Anastasia Kushleiko, a lawyer with RJI, confirmed the details of Imran's case. She believes the ECHR should overturn the entire prosecution.

"In Imran's case, his entire sentence is ultimately based on confessions that were obtained as a result of the torture he underwent, repeatedly, beginning right after he was detained and continuing during the investigation," she said. "And there is sufficient proof of this -- actually, I'd say more than sufficient, very strong evidence that he was tortured."

Activists claim that the Chechen and Russian authorities have carried out a policy of removing as many men from Chechnya as possible through questionable legal processes.

The office of Chechnya's human rights ombudsman says 20,000 Chechens have been sent to serve prison terms in other parts of Russia for "security reasons," while independent activists say that figure is more like 30,000.

The case against Imran was also based largely on the testimony of a boy who was 16 at the time.

Imran says when the boy was called to testify at his trial, he recanted his evidence, saying he'd been tortured and only agreed to the statement to save his own life. That witness was then sentenced to seven years in prison as Imran's co-conspirator.

Evidence Discrepancy

Among the charges against Imran and the boy was that they carried out a bombing in May 2003. However, the charge sheet also said that Imran illegally acquired the explosives for that attack in June 2003 -- one month after the blast. In Imran's words, when his lawyer asked the judge about this discrepancy, the judge was scornful.

"The judge answered my lawyer, laughing in his face: 'If we let him go, then we'll have to let the boy go too. We'd have to admit our mistakes, and we don't want to admit them,'" Imran said.

Repeated requests to the office of Chechnya's human rights ombudsman to comment on this case went unanswered.

Imran's 18-year sentence on a hodge-podge of charges based on questionable evidence stands in stark contrast to the few cases of Russian officers prosecuted for crimes committed in the North Caucasus.

Russian Army Colonel Yury Budanov, for instance, was sentenced in 2003 to 10 years in prison for raping and murdering an 18-year-old Chechen women in 2000.

Budanov was granted early release in 2009 -- and was murdered on a Moscow street in 2011. A monument has been erected in his honor at the site.

Now all Imran's hopes for justice lie in Strasbourg. But lawyer Kushleiko laments that the wheels of justice at the European Court of Human Rights turn achingly slowly.

"The problem with the European Court of Human Rights is that all cases of this type take a very long time to be processed," she said. "For example, Imran's complaint was filed in 2007 and it has not yet been communicated. That means the court has not yet begun considering it and hasn't issued an inquiry to the [Russian] government that we could discuss. The complaint remains with the court. We know that it has been received, but unfortunately such cases take a very long time."

In the meantime, Imran waits in his far-northern prison. He says there are about 20 Chechen prisoners serving time with him and that they are poorly treated compared to Russian prisoners. He claims that their sentences are longer and that they regularly spend time in solitary confinement for little or no reason.

No Hope Of Parole

Imran says his relatives are technically allowed to visit him once a year, but that he doesn't encourage them to make the trip because prison officials generally find excuses to cancel or postpone the visit.

Although Imran believes he is technically eligible to apply for parole after serving 12 years, he has no hope it would be granted.

"With the [baseless] violations that I have and which all the Chechens here have, we will never in our lives see any parole," he says. "No matter how hard I tried to be a model prisoner, they won't let me get by without violations. They just make them up -- it is obvious what they are doing.

"If you don't break any rules, they just pin something on you. Not just once, but over and over. Will I ever get parole? There is not a single Chechen here without violations -- we all have reports, we have all been in solitary."

Imran has a lot of time to think about what has happened to him since the day more than eight years ago when the soldiers came to his house. He has also though about the thousands of young Chechens who have stories just like his.

"They sent us away to Russian prisons for 15, 20 years for nothing," he said. "Who is going to pay attention to this? Why doesn't anyone do anything? And I wonder -- do these people have hearts? Do they have any honor?

"Could it be that their mothers gave birth to them without hearts? I think about this a lot. Can such injustice really exist -- can't something be done about it? We are waiting for a miracle. We are hoping. But…"

Amina Umarova for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

http://www.rferl.org/content/chechen-prisoner-claims-innocence-denounces-russian-jailers/24653825.html

Monitoring the Monitors - Online Censorship In China

2012-07-12

The 500m people who use the internet in China have long been aware of the presence of the censors who watch their movements online and delete their more inflammatory posts. Now those monitors may have to get used to someone watching over their shoulders.

Teams at Harvard and the University of Hong Kong have been using new software that allows them to watch the censoring of posts on Chinese social-media sites more closely than before. And now they have started to release some of their key findings.

According to one report, a team of researchers at Harvard found that 13% of all social-media posts in China were censored.

“The Chinese government made the decision to allow its people to have social media, but they also built a vast machine to monitor what is said,” says Gary King, a professor in the university’s government department and the report’s lead author.

Mr King and his team used programs developed by a company he co-founded, Crimson Hexagon Inc, to monitor activity surrounding 85 sensitive topics, ranging from last year’sprotests in Inner Mongolia to Ai Weiwei, China’s best-known artist overseas, as well as governmental policies and other subjects that might conceivably spur mass protests. Their monitoring has been able to identify when posts bearing these terms appear and disappear—and with that, how long it takes for each to be taken down.

The team has built up a database comprising more than 11m posts that were made on 1,382 Chinese internet forums. Perhaps their most surprising result is that posts critical of the government are not rigorously censored. On the other hand, posts that have the purpose of getting people to assemble, potentially in protest, are swept from the internet within a matter of hours.

“We thought they were concerned with how they looked, but that’s not the case,” says Mr King. “Clearly the goal is actually to repress people gathering.”

Rebecca MacKinnon, the author of “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom”, agrees. “The goal has never been total control. The goal is to keep the Chinese Communist Party in power,” she says. “Total, stifling, straitjacket control is not possible unless they want China to be North Korea, which they don’t.”

In contrast to the Harvard team’s approach, researchers at the University of Hong Kong have developed a program that concentrates solely on China’s most popular microblogging site, Sina Weibo. The program monitors the accounts of 300,000 users who each have more than 1,000 followers: “the most influential group”, according toKing-wa Fu, an assistant professor and one of the developers of WeiboScope.

They found that by monitoring Sina Weibo’s account-holders’ profiles at different times of day they were able to witness the work of the censors almost in real time and to identify individually the posts that they disappeared. The researchers then examined the removed posts to try divining what had made them objectionable to the censors.

“What we are finding is a constantly morphing list of keywords, a cat-and-mouse contest between people and censors,” said Mr Fu.

These programs mean that, increasingly, researchers are able to create a more transparent picture of censorship in China—and to pinpoint the most sensitive topics at any given time. More intriguing perhaps, with a bit of luck and savvy researchers might be able to predict when something big is about to happen in a certain sector or to a certain individual.

When Mr King’s team analysed data connected to the Bo Xilai scandal, to the arrest of Ai Weiwei and to other recent censor-worthy news they found clear signals in retrospect: a noticeable ramping up of censorship related to those topics, days before the news broke.

Put simply, if these database-researchers happen to be looking in the right place, the censors might inadvertently become their best tipsters.

So far the teams have been focused on looking back on data regarding past events. Having reached their initial conclusions, they are ready to chase more elusive quarry. “Now we will watch going forwards,” says Mr King.

Censors beware: you are being watched.

Via Analects - http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/07/online-censorship

Why Russia Locks Up So Many Entrepreneurs

2012-07-05

Businessmen have complained for years that people have been able to frame commercial rivals - by paying corrupt police officers to plant evidence and make arrests to order. But only now are they being taken seriously.

More and more well-heeled entrepreneurs have been joining, even leading street protests in recent months, with reform of the courts one of their main demands.

Perhaps those protests influenced President Putin's decision last month to create a post of "ombudsman for business rights" - but he might also have been persuaded by the $84bn in capital that left Russia last year, a record amount. Russians are investing overseas because they fear for the safety of their businesses at home.

"The economy will be completely destroyed," says entrepreneur Vladimir Perevezin. "Because businessmen are not safe in our country - anyone could be sent to jail."

Perevezin knows what it's like. He was imprisoned for more than seven years after being framed, he says, for money laundering.

His friend Valery Gaiduk was also imprisoned for three years, convicted of fraud. "I'm 100% sure that a rival paid to have me arrested," he says. He had been co-owner of a successful dental practice, but he claims police officers took a $500,000 bribe to frame him.

At the root of the problem is the criminal justice system itself. Statistically, once officially accused of a crime in Russia, there is little chance of proving your innocence. Less than 1% of all criminal cases that make it to court result in a not guilty verdict or acquittal - and that figure comes from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Critics say that in practice, if not in theory, courts operate on an assumption of guilt. The prosecution takes the word of the police, and the judge takes the word of the prosecution - no matter how unconvincing the evidence may be.

"If a person ends up in a police cell as a suspect - he will find himself in court no matter what, and the court will find him guilty. That's guaranteed," says Marat Khisamutdinov, a former police officer.

It's not surprising then that, off the record, many Muscovites are prepared to admit paying bribes to police officers when arrested - even if they're innocent.

"It's best to solve the problem as soon as possible, at the police station," Khisamutdinov says.

"You only really need to pay the lowest arresting police officers. The rest of the machine works automatically."

It's much more expensive, by all accounts, to buy your release once the wheels of justice have begun to turn. Valery Gaiduk says he was offered freedom for $300,000, but did not pay as he was unsure the deal would be honoured.

One of the few judges prepared to talk openly about the failings of Russian courts is Sergei Zlobin, who resigned as head of the Volgograd regional criminal board four months ago. His portrait of life as a modern Russian judge is extraordinary.

"Often there are huge gaps in the evidence," Zlobin says.

"Investigators make serious mistakes, but the system is such that even these mistakes are used as evidence against the defendant, and the guilty verdict must be issued anyway - otherwise the judge will face problems."

Khisamutdinov says he would not advise his son to join today's police

Zlobin says that in the thousands of cases he heard in the 15 years he was a judge, he only ever issued seven not guilty verdicts - and five of them were later overturned. Issuing a not guilty verdict, he says, was not only a "waste of time" it was risky.

Judges come under all kinds of pressure from the Federal Security Service, prosecutors and the chairman of the court not to acquit defendants, he says, including blackmail. The result? Many innocent people are locked up.

Zlobin and his family have received threats and abusive messages since his resignation. He knows it's risky to speak openly, but says his conscience compels him to do so.

"Sometimes I just had to follow the instructions from above. Now, with hindsight, I understand that what I was doing was wrong, and moreover, it was illegal... and I deeply regret it."

Several judges and lawyers told me that the system acts to protect itself, rather than the letter of the law.

Asked if he had ever accepted a bribe to arrest someone on false charges, former police officer Marat Khisamutdinov refuses to answer.

Would an officer would feel guilty about framing an innocent person? "No" he answered. "You don't know him, you'll never see him again, and you get a financial reward - so why do you care?"

The business community will be watching Boris Titov's next move very closely.

He has hinted at a possible amnesty for prisoners serving time for "economic crimes", if it is their first offence.

This could affect more than 100,000 businessmen.

It would not, however, have any implications for the most famous jailed businessmen - Mikhail Khodorkovsky (once Russia's richest man) and his partner Platon Lebedev - as both have been convicted more than once.

Rebecca Kesby for BBC News

The Loneliness of the Autocratic Ruler

2012-07-04

If President Vladimir Putin's legislative intentions toward Russia's fledgling civil society are not clear by now, it's not for lack of trying on his part.

New legislation is reportedly in the works that would create a register of websites with illegal content -- and require providers to block such sites. The legislation's original stated purpose was to combat child pornography and pedophilia. But as Gazeta.ru reports, quoting members of the ruling United Russia party, it will also be used to battle "extremism" -- the Kremlin's favorite euphemism for any opposition activity.

The legislation, currently being considered by the State Duma, comes as lawmakers are also set to debate a bill requiring any NGO receiving funding from abroad to register as a "foreign agent." And, of course, it comes on the heels of a recently passed law imposing draconian fines on participants in unsanctioned demonstrations.

Likewise, it is also becoming clear that Putin doesn't plan to show much mercy for disloyal former friends and allies.

Just ask Federation Council deputy Lyudmila Narusova, the mother of socialite-turned-social activist Ksenia Sobchak and widow of the man who launched Putin's political career -- the late former St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak.

Prosecutors are reportedly pouring over a television interview Narusova gave, looking for evidence of extremism. Additionally, the ruling United Russia party is seeking to expel Narusova from the upper chamber of parliament.

Part of the assault on Narusova can surely be traced to the Kremlin's increased irritation with her daughter's opposition activities. And part of it was likely sparked by her vocal opposition to the law imposing harsh penalties on anti-regime demonstrations.

Narusova would not be the first Putin ally to fall from grace. Sergei Mironov lost his perch as Federation Council speaker when he was too vocal in his support for a second term for Dmitry Medvedev and too critical of United Russia. State Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov saw his taxes investigated and his security company eviscerated when he became a vocal critic of the regime.

The ramping up of the pressure on civil society and the retribution against perceived turncoats suggest that the ruling elite -- or at least the part of the elite that currently has Putin's ear -- is spooked by the longevity and intensity of the opposition to the Kremlin since December.

In a thoughtful piece published on opendemocracy.net, Maxim Trudolyubov, the opinion-page editor at the daily "Vedomosti" wrote that ever since popular uprisings in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004, "Putin's main concern has been to avoid revolution," but his actions might paradoxically lead to one:

Despite all their efforts, it is the country's current rulers that have created the conditions for revolution. By rewriting Russia's electoral legislation (the last few years have seen amendments to 55 laws relating to electoral processes), the Kremlin's political managers have made elections controllable. Businesses have been intimidated by expropriation, their owners prevented from financing undesirable political activity. The development of a civil society has been strangled by restrictions on the not-for-profit sector. The entire thrust of Putin's policies has been to eliminate everything natural and unpredictable.

The result has been that all genuine, not imitation, political activity has been excluded from the political arena. The Kremlin's apparatchiks spent years working out how to restrict the opposition's legal room to maneuver, and they succeeded: they destroyed the conditions necessary for the development of a political mainstream. And by doing so, they created a powder keg.

Trudolyubov isn't the first respectable commentator to suggest that Russia is on the brink of serious upheaval. Olga Kryshtanovskaya, one of the country's leading sociologists; the Center for Strategic Research, a top think tank; and former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin have come to the same conclusion.

It is not just that Putin is creating a powder keg. With his pressure on civil society and his moves against former supporters, he is also isolating himself and his increasingly shrinking inner circle.

And with potential economic storm clouds on the horizon -- either from volatile commodities prices, or contagion from Europe, or both -- isolated is not where he needs to be. If the crisis comes, Putin will own it -- and he'll be mostly all alone.

Brian Whitmore for The Power Vertical blog

Russia and China, Challenges for Liberal Democracy

2012-06-28

Liberal democracy faces a new and decisive challenge — figuring out how to deal with the “post-Communist oligarchies” of Russia and China. These regimes — authoritarian, capitalist and eagerly integrated into the global economy — are without precedent. Figuring out how to deal with them is the greatest strategic and moral question the West faces today. How we answer it will determine the shape of the 21st century, much as the struggle with Communism and fascism shaped the 20th.

This is the assertion Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian intellectual and former leader of the Liberal Party, made in a powerful lecture in the Latvian capital, Riga, at the beginning of this month. Mr. Ignatieff’s thesis came to mind during the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, held last week as the gracious former imperial capital for which the forum is named glowed in the pure white light of the summer solstice.

Central to Mr. Ignatieff’s argument is his insistence that “history has no libretto.” It isn’t marching toward any particular destination, including liberal democracy: “As late as Benedetto Croce, liberals still thought of their creed as being the wave of the future and thought of history as the story of liberty.”

When it comes to Russia and China today, we still hope we will all eventually sing along to this seductive libretto. “It is a cliché of optimistic Western discourse on Russia and China that they must evolve toward democratic liberty,” Mr. Ignatieff argued. Sadly, though, we’re wrong: “But we should not assume there is any historical inevitability to liberal society.”

As Mr. Ignatieff explained to me in a telephone conversation this week: “The simple point is that we thought they were coming towards us. What if they are not?”

The optimistic Western cliché Mr. Ignatieff described was very much the conventional wisdom in St. Petersburg. It is what the visiting Western business titans wanted to believe, and it is what the presiding Russian government chiefs wanted them to believe.

Klaus Kleinfled, the chief executive of Alcoa and chairman of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, said in an interview that President Vladimir V. Putin’s opening speech at the conference was “very, very good. He was basically clear that he stays on the course of reforms. He stays on the course of modernization.”

When I suggested that Mr. Putin might instead be taking Russia backward — freedom of assembly was sharply curtailed this month and several activists, including Putin’s goddaughter, were questioned by the police and had their homes searched — Mr. Kleinfeld demurred.

Referring to the reformist promises of Mr. Putin’s speech, Mr. Kleinfeld said, “We have to take that at face value.” Mr. Kleinfeld also said that Russia’s progress needed to be judged in historical context.

“How the country has emerged in the last 20 years, I think, is pretty amazing. I think most people that are easy with their criticism measure Russia against countries that had much, much more time to go into a market economy,” he said. “Some of these processes take a little time to struggle themselves through. They are on a good path.”

What is striking is what you might call the “libretto” assumption in these remarks: Russia is on the right path, just give it time.

At least when they speak English, this is a view that Mr. Putin’s people are eager to endorse. When I asked Igor Shuvalov, the suave and sharply dressed first deputy prime minister what he made of Mr. Putin’s speech he, too, spun it as proof that Russia is on the path to becoming more like us.

“I was very pleased that yesterday what he announced was completely in line with a new generation. It was everything which any citizen of the European Union, or other developed countries, wants. It’s exactly how Putin sees the future for Russia in just a few years,” Mr. Shuvalov explained.

“We are passing the way all developed countries pass,” he said.

This is a useful theory for Russian leaders — and for Chinese ones, too — and a comforting one for their Western business partners. It is useful because assurances that you are on the path toward Western-style liberal capitalism can serve as a catch-all justification for whatever illiberal policy you happen to be pursuing at the moment. Think of it as the dictator’s version of St. Augustine’s prayer to be made good, but not yet.

Believing that the duo Mr. Ignatieff calls the “post-Communist oligarchies” are on the liberal capitalist path is comforting for the liberal capitalist companies that do business with them, too. After all, for all the kowtowing required to do business in Russia and China, the rewards are vast.

Consider the experience of BP, the oil giant based in London, which paid $7 billion in 2007 to establish a 50 percent stake in TNK-BP, its Russian joint venture. BP’s trials at the hands of both its Russian partners and the Russian state are the stuff of legend. But shareholders and the board care more about the $19 billion BP has received in dividends since making the deal. That’s quite apart from BP’s share of TNK-BP, which analysts think could be worth between $25 billion and $30 billion.

The optimistic cliché of inevitable liberal evolution is convenient and comforting. But that doesn’t make it right.

If Russia and China really are not marching inevitably toward liberal democracy, as Mr. Ignatieff argues, that is a problem not just for their repressed people, but also for us.

Mr. Ignatieff says that our attitude toward Russia and China is a question of such great import because both countries “are attempting to demonstrate a novel proposition: that economic freedoms can be severed from political and civil freedom, and that freedom is divisible.”

He is right that this is the fundamental operating proposition of Russia and China, and he is right that it poses the most serious challenge that the very idea of liberal democracy faces anywhere today.

It is no surprise that this question was not on the agenda in St. Petersburg. But surely it should be much more squarely on the agenda in Western capitals — and even in Western boardrooms.

Chrystia Freeland for The New York Times

Eastern Europe's coming labor force implosion

2012-06-27

Although the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe was overall clearly a good thing, one has to concede that the transition away from it did cause a lot of hardship for many people, especially since it was usually done in an incompetent and corrupt way. As a result of this widespread hardship, many felt that they couldn't afford children and birth rates across Eastern Europe plummeted in the early 1990s.

In Poland for example, the crude birth rate (births per 1000 people) fell from 18.2 in 1985 to only about 10 in the 1990s. Because it has been roughly 20 years since the early 1990s and because people born then would therefore be in their late teens now, we can see this collapse in the change in the number of 15-19 year old.

In Estonia for example, the overall population was roughly unchanged at 1.34 million between 2007 and 2011, but the number of 15-19 year olds fell by nearly 28%, from 102,500 to 74,400 Some people, when analyzing Baltic state demographics has misinterpreted these numbers as signs of mass emigration as 15-19 year olds are usually counted as part of the working age population. Yet in reality most 15-19 year olds are still in school something that both means that they usually still live with their parents and therefore don't make decisions about emigration and it also means that they are effectively not part of the working age population even if official statistics say they formally are. The latter means that though the formal labor force in Estonia and other Baltic and Eastern European countries have already begun to shrink significantly, the number of people that really have jobs or are searching for them hasn't begun to shrink significantly-yet.
If we look at the next age group, 20-24 year olds, it has only shrunk by about 0.5% between 2007 and 2011 and the number of 25-29 year olds actually increased, numbers that first of all refute the hypothesis of mass emigration at least for Estonia and secondly means that in 2011, the labor force hadn't effectively shrunk even though it had formally done so because of the massive drop in the number of 15-19 year olds.

However, 15-19 year olds in 2011 will of course be 20-24 year olds in 2016 and 25-29 year olds in 2021, and as the 2011 15-19 year group gradually move to the 20-24 year group, this means that the real labor force will start to shrink rapidly in the coming decade. This will only get worse as the number of 10-14 year olds in Estonia was even fewer than the number of 15-19 year olds, 61,400 compared to the 74,400 who were 15-19 year olds and the 105,700 who were 20-24 year olds.

The total drop in the number of young workers will therefore over the next decade or so will therefore be more than 40%! The exact magnitude of this demographic collapse probably differ somewhat between different Eastern European countries, but given that Estonia was one of the best run of the Eastern European countries after communism, it is at least as likely that the numbers in most countries will be worse, not better, than in Estonia.

As Estonia and most other Eastern European countries have high unemployment, this needn't put a stop to growth during the coming years. Germany for example have managed to grow somewhat in recent years despite a shrinking working age population by both reducing unemployment and increase the labor force participation rate. However, as the labor force will begun to shrink dramatically, growth in Eastern Europe will be strongly inhibited, especially since their relative poverty (GDP per capita was only €12,000 in Estonia in 2011, compared to €32,000 in Germany) will make it more difficult for them than for Germany to attract the kind of workers they need.

By Stefan Karlsson for The Christian Science Monitor

Lithuania will ask foreign experts to estimate the damage of Soviet occupation

2012-06-22

Committee has to come up with an action plan in only couple of weeks. Although Lithuania is constantly proposes to consider the damages made, Russia refuses to even talk about it. Victims do not believe that the day when they will receive Russia’s apology or financial compensation will ever come.

The chairman of Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees, Povilas Jakučionis told INFO TV that foreign experts, that have the necessary experience in negotiatiting compensations, are being approached . “What we have in mind is Balkans, some countries in Africa, where genocide took place and was recognized,” he told and expressed the hope to finish the work before 1 July.

The Committee also asks the Government for additional money to fund the experts’ work.

Foundation To Build Museum for Victims of Communism

2012-06-20

Dr. Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOCMF), announced last week that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban had made a “major commitment” to a “brick-and-mortar museum” that morning.

“We are confident that our other friends and supporters here in America and around the world will step forward and join the international campaign to build an international museum on communism on or near the Mall, here in Washington,” he said at a June 12 event celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Victims of Communism Memorial.

A nonprofit educational organization, the VOCMF was founded by an act of congress to commemorate the over 100 million victims of communist rule, the organization’s website states.

The VOCMF presently runs the online Global Museum on Communism, the only museum on the Internet dedicated to telling the story of communism, Dr. Edwards said.

The site not only includes timelines, maps, individual country sections, and profiles of tyrants and heroes, but also provides interactive areas to upload personal experiences and provide feedback.

Edwards said the online museum has had over 125 thousand hits from over 180 countries including from China, Vietnam, and Cuba.

A leading historian of American conservatism, Dr. Edwards also announced the rollout of an educational curriculum on communism for high school students that incorporates the Global Communism Museum.

“It is a dynamic, interactive 10-lesson plan for teachers to help them instruct their pupils about the history, philosophy, and legacy of communism,” he said.

Azerbaijani Parliament Moves To Shield Aliyev, Family From Scrutiny

2012-06-15

Lawmakers approved a bill that would grant wide-ranging immunity from arrest and prosecution to Aliyev and his wife for any crime committed during his presidency or while acting in his capacity as president.

Pro-government lawmaker Alasgar Mammadli tells RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service that the country's "political landscape makes such protections necessary."

More controversially, parliamentarians adopted amendments to a 2005 law on commercial information that bars government officials from distributing information about companies if doing so "contradicts the national interests of Azerbaijan in political, economic, and monetary policy, the defense of public order, the health and moral values of the people, or harms the commercial or other interests of individuals."

It also says that corporate information can only be revealed with the permission of all individuals named in the records.

Heretofore, data on corporate ownership and shareholders has been available on the website of the Tax Ministry, which was required by law to provide registry details to citizens within one week of receiving a written request.

Activists and journalists are alarmed and concerned that the new bill -- which must be signed by the president before becoming law -- will seriously restrict the public's ability to monitor corporate activity and uncover corrupt practices.

The new amendments were submitted by the parliamentary committee on legal policy and state building, and committee Chairman Ali Huseynli rejects the allegations, saying the measure merely clarifies the process for obtaining information.

Civil society activists believe the amendments were prompted by a spate of investigative reports exposing details of the business interests of Aliyev's family -- particularly his daughters, Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva. Reports by RFE/RL Azerbaijani Service correspondent Khadija Ismayilova and others have used corporate records in Azerbaijan and other countries to link the Aliyev daughters to lucrative interests in telecommunications, mining, and construction.

Civil society activists in Azerbaijan have vowed to fight the amendments and are urging Aliyev not to sign them. Rasul Jafarov, head of the Baku-based Human Rights Club, told eurasianet.org that his group will campaign locally and internationally against the measure."

Corruption is a serious problem in oil-rich Azerbaijan. The country ranked 143rd out of 183 countries in the latest corruption index by the NGO Transparency International.

European Parliament Honors Baltic Deportation Victims

2012-06-15

On Wednesday, the remembrance ceremony was opened by MEP Tunne Kelam, who called the 1941 deportations a tragic episode of a shared European past, crimes against humanity that were carried out during peacetime.

"These were the first mass deportations in the territory of the current members of the European Union,” Kelam said in a speech.

Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis also spoke at the event, saying it was essential to build awareness among other nations of the totalitarian crimes of communist regimes.

By tradition, the event took place next to a memorial plaque, placed on a wall in the European Parliament's guest entrance hall, that was presented to the European Parliament by a Baltic delegation six years ago.

Also speaking at the event were the European Parliament's former president Jerzy Buzek; former Latvian foreign minister Sandra Kalniete, who was born in Siberia to deported parents; the president of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, Göran Lindblad, who, as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe initiated a resolution on the crimes of communist regimes; and the head of the Swedish delegation to the European Parliament, Gunnar Hökmark, who started the so-called Monday movement.

Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic's genocide trial under way at UN war crimes court

2012-05-17

On the second day of the 70-year-old's genocide trial, Yugoslav war crimes tribunal prosecutors will focus on the bloody climax of the 1992-95 Bosnian war, when Serb forces systematically executed some 8,000 Muslim men and boy in the U.N.-protected enclave in northeastern Bosnia and buried them in mass graves.

Mladic is accused of commanding Bosnian Serb troops who waged a campaign of murder and persecution to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory they considered part of Serbia. His troops rained shells and snipers' bullets down on civilians in the 44-month-long siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

He has refused to enter pleas, but denies wrongdoing.

On Wednesday, the frail, 70-year-old defendant had an angry exchange of hand gestures with the families of massacre victims in the public gallery, separated by the bulletproof glass in the courtroom. "Vulture!" said one woman in the gallery.

Mladic fled into hiding after the war and spent 15 years as a fugitive before international pressure on Serbia led to his arrest last year. Now he is held in a one-man cell in a special international wing of a Dutch jail and receives food and medical care that would likely be the envy of many in Bosnia.

But the fact that he is jailed and on trial is seen as another victory for international justice and hailed by observers as evidence that - more often than not - war crimes tribunals get their indicted suspects, even if years later.

Prosecutors say they will use evidence against Mladic from more than 400 witnesses, although very few of them will testify in court. Much of their evidence already has been heard in other cases and will be admitted as written statements.

Lithuania invites Germany to cooperate in creating ambitious EU Eastern partnership policy

2012-05-17

“The Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius will be the biggest event during Lithuania’s Presidency and its success will depend on cooperation between the EU and Eastern Partnership countries at an early date. We hope to work very closely with Germany, our friend and partner, in creating an ambitious Eastern Partnership policy,” the Minister said.

The interlocutors also discussed the EU’s multi-annual financial framework, the future of Europe and issues of energy security.

“Saving has enabled Lithuania to return to growth – we have overcome the crisis on our own. However, the Commission’s proposed provisions of the new multiannual financial framework related to the cohesion policy so far would only punish the Baltic States despite our rally and excellent abilities to absorb the assistance. This is totally unacceptable to us. We expect understanding from our EU partners and Germany’s support for decisions that reflect our efforts,” Ažubalis said.

Link emphasized that the Baltic States set a positive example, as countries which efficiently absorb and use the EU support for smart growth. The meeting discussed possibilities to boost growth in the EU by exploiting all the possibilities of the internal market, for example, better implementation of the services directive and the common patent system.

Ažubalis stressed that German support for the elimination of “energy islands” in Europe was very important to Lithuania. The Minister presented the Visaginas nuclear power plant project as a very important one for Lithuania’s energy independence.

The meeting discussed further strengthening of bilateral partnership, which would enhance political, economic and cultural ties between the countries, and contribute to the creation of Europe’s future.

Serbia Stays EU-Focused

2012-05-11

The two parties’ coalition in parliament will have 111 seats – enough to rule but by only a slim margin, and may cause difficulties for the coalition in the near future. The opposition party, the Serbian Progressive Party which was recently criticized for, ironically unlike its namesake, being "far right" did not win the election after all, despite winning the most number of seats in terms of a single party.

The presidential election will go into a second round. According to the Serbian-based Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, the incumbent president, Boris Tadic, won at least 26 per cent of the vote. Many criticized his opponent, Tomislav Nikolic for swaying to wherever “the wind blows” . The Democratic Party and the Socialists have been on good terms since 2008 and offered their support to Tadic. He is expected to win in the run-off election on May 20th 2012.

Serbia is also criticized for not having come to terms with its past. May 9th was the 62nd anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, putting the idea of reconciliation and coming to terms with the past in everybody's minds. This also brought up the sooner-than-later possibility of Serbia’s membership to the EU as a topic to be discussed as early as next year.

But will the focus on EU membership for Serbia have any effect on the attitudes of Serbs? One of my sources from Belgrade wrote in reference to the elections, “We just don't support any of those choices given there.” The best thing the West can do is to “help Serbia [through] more investments, which can help suppress monopolies. Although that is not the best solution, with this kind of politics and political leaders Serbia has now, nothing else seems to do anything good for [the] Serbian people.”

However, investments and more money is not the only answer. Jelena Petrovic, a PhD candidate in the War Studies Department of King’s College London, wrote in her essay (which won the St. Gallen’s Wings of Excellence Award at the annual St. Gallen’s Symposium in Switzerland).

She identified several factors as “weak links” in the chain contributing to this increase. They are the lack of the familial unit’s proactive involvement, the low quality of the educational system, the lack of objectivity in the media, and the “political elites’” use of “historical revisionism” to win seats in their respective parliaments. In other words – more money is not the only solution.

Putin-Medvedev swap in Russia completed

2012-05-09

Putin did not much like the startlingly critical questions Medvedev faced from lawmakers before the vote. Communists and leftists challenged Medvedev over his failed reforms and the lack of progress on modernizing Russia's economy, the stated priority of his four years as president.

In characteristically colorful language, Putin struck back by blaming the economic difficulties on the Communists who ruled the Soviet Union until 1991. The Soviet economy was based on heavy industry and produced shoddy consumer goods.

Putin, who had just exited the prime minister's office, began a third presidential term on Monday and immediately fulfilled his promise to nominate Medvedev for his old job.

The job switch, which was announced in September, offended many Russians by its implication that their votes were no more than a formality in the highly controlled political system that Putin created after coming to power in 2000. This anger helped galvanize a protest movement that brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets of Moscow for a series of unprecedented demonstrations.

Parliament, where the Kremlin party has a majority, approved Medvedev's appointment on Tuesday with a vote of 299-144.

But before the vote, lawmakers from all four factions were allowed to question Medvedev.

The harshest criticism came from Just Russia, a leftist party created by the Kremlin, which has become more critical in recent months as some of its members have joined the anti-Putin protest movement.

Just Russia lawmaker Nikolai Levichev reminded Medvedev of his promise in 2008 to promote innovation, investment, institutions and infrastructure as part of a program called the four I's.

"These did not become the bases of the economic development of the country," Levichev said. "Instead of this a fifth 'I' appeared: the imitation of all these reforms." After the vote, the mild-mannered Medvedev thanked the parliament members for their support.

Meanwhile the police dispersed about 100 people who spent the night in a downtown Moscow street in a silent protest against Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. The series of anti-Putin protests resumed in Moscow as ex-premier Vladimir Putin was sworn in as president for a third term on Monday.

Uzbekistan and Belarus among World's Worst Media Censors

2012-05-04

In a new report released on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said all three countries are guilty of seeking to cut off access to information by muzzling journalists and blocking websites.

In Uzbekistan, where the regime of longtime leader Islam Karimov has maintained a stranglehold on the press, the CPJ says all independent media outlets have been effectively eliminated.

Mahoney also notes that five reporters are currently serving prolonged prison terms in the country, which ranks sixth on the CPJ list. These include Muhammad Bekjannov and Yusuf Ruzimuradov of the "Erk" opposition newspaper, who were imprisoned in 1999 and have now been jailed longer than any other reporters worldwide.

"No independent media outlets are based in Uzbekistan," Mahoney says. "Access to some outside websites and even key words are blocked. Five reporters are serving extended prison terms. Foreign journalists are excluded."

In Belarus -- 10th place on the CPJ list -- the controversial 2010 reelection of authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka was seen as delivering the death blow to what remained of the country's free press.

Mahoney says even before the elections and the massive public protests that followed, Lukashenka's regime had routinely subjected journalists to criminal prosecution and failed to investigate the suspicious deaths of at least three journalists.

These include Aleh Byabenin, the founder of the outspoken Charter 97 website, who was found hanged at his family's dacha in 2010.

"The government of Belarus has raided newsrooms, confiscated equipment, imprisoned journalists, and banned reporters from traveling," Mahoney says. "The remnants of its independent press operate underground. Independent websites are blocked and access to the Internet requires identification."

Other countries on the CPJ's top 10 censorship list include Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba. Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and China were listed among the runners-up.

CPJ's censorship list ranks countries according to website access, journalists' freedom of movement, and the presence of privately owned media.

European Heads Vow To Skip Euro 2012 Over Tymoshenko

2012-05-02

Georg Streiter said that any travel plans by Merkel are "conditional on the fate of Ms. Tymoshenko and conditional on the rule of law in Ukraine."

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have also indicated they are prepared skip all Euro 2012 matches in Ukraine because of mounting concern over Tymoshenko, the former heroine of the 2004 Orange Revolution and runner-up to Viktor Yanukovych in a 2010 presidential race.

Spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen told reporters in Brussels on April 30 that Barroso has no plans to travel to Ukraine unless officials in Kyiv take steps to address the "very, very serious situation" involving Tymoshenko.

"It is clear that as things stand now, [Mr. Barroso] has no intention of going to Ukraine or participating in events in Ukraine at this point in time," Ahrenkilde said.

Viviane Reding and Stefan Fuele, the EU's justice and enlargement commissioners, have likewise called off travel plans to Ukraine, which is co-hosting the Euro 2012 championship with Poland.

Dennis Abbott, the spokesman for Androulla Vassiliou, the EU education, culture, and sports commissioner, said Vassiliou might travel to matches in Poland but would steer clear of Ukraine as long as the human rights situation there remains unchanged.

"If the current situation stands, this situation regarding human rights in Ukraine, and in particular the situation regarding the treatment of Mrs. Tymoshenko and other opposition figures, then the commissioner [Androulla Vassiliou] feels that it would be entirely wrong to go to Ukraine," Abbott said.

The mounting calls for a boycott come amid claims by Tymoshenko that she has been beaten by prison guards in the Kharkiv prison where she is serving a seven-year sentence for abuse of office in a case that she and many rights activists say is politically motivated.

Tymoshenko, 51, has also declared a hunger strike and has repeatedly refused medical treatment for severe back pain related to a herniated disk. A new trial against her on charges of tax fraud allegedly committed during the 1990s began on April 19.

The European Union and the United States say they also believe the pro-Western Tymoshenko's jailing last autumn was politically motivated, and have called for her release.

Philippine communist rebels 'kill 11 soldiers'

2012-04-27

A three-vehicle Philippine army convoy was ambushed by New People's Army (NPA) rebels near the mountain town of Tinoc on the main island of Luzon, said Major-General Rommel Gomez, army commander of the northern Philippines. "These people are terrorists," Gomez said of the attackers. "We are still on pursuit operations."

An army captain was among 11 soldiers killed in the early morning attack, army spokesman Colonel Loreto Maguddayao told AFP, and a civilian who played in a military brass band also died. Two other soldiers and another civilian were wounded.

"This is considered one of the most daring attacks by the NPA in this area in recent years," Maguddayao said.

The apparent target was the local battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Eugenio Batara, who was also in the convoy as it drove back to camp after visiting a remote mountain outpost but escaped unhurt, Maguddayao added.

About 100 soldiers, policemen and police aides were killed in NPA attacks across the country last year, down from 184 in the previous year, the military has said.

The NPA is the armed unit of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and has been waging one of Asia's longest running communist insurgencies since 1969.

Tirana Opens Museum Wing Depicting 'Communist Terror'

2012-04-25

According to museum director Luan Malltezi, a similar section opened in 1996, but this has a more complete depiction of the communist terror in Albania.

"We set up a working team of museologists, conducted thorough research at the Ministry of Interior archives and [consulted] with politically persecuted people. This section was rebuilt from the beginning and it has a time line from 1945 -- before Enver Hoxha came to power -- until 1991. It includes murders from before the country’s liberation. Enver Hoxha was criticised for this by his comrades, but still he continued to strengthen his power," Malltezi told SETimes.

There were 23 prisons and 48 deportation camps in Albania. According to partial records kept by the interior ministry, 5,157 people were killed; another 9,052 died in political prisons; 17,900 were imprisoned and 30,383 were deported during this period.

In addition to this wing at the National Museum of History there is also the National Liberation War section.

The exhibit has not escaped the attention of active communist party members. "I have seen this section passing by, driven by curiosity. Of course it has some truth in it, but it depends on how you interpret the facts," party leader Hysni Milloshi told SETimes. "My personal opinion is that society today doesn’t need a section against communism, [rather] one for these last 20 years of pluralism.

Ejsi Hysa, 22, was one of the first to visit the new exhibition. He told SETimes, "I think it is necessary that young people learn what is communism, to comprehend that Enver Hoxha was child of this communism and to understand that no ideology can bring heaven on earth."

Macedonia On The Brink As Leaders Try To Calm Ethnic Tensions

2012-04-19

Ethnic animosity has been simmering between Macedonia's two largest ethnic communities for a decade, since an armed rebellion by ethnic Albanians was brought to an end with the help of Western diplomacy.

In March, violence erupted in the capital, Skopje, after two ethnic Albanians were killed in the western town of Gostivar by an off-duty police officer during an apparent argument over a parking space.

On April 13, fears of ethnic conflict were stoked further by the discovery of five slain Macedonian fishermen beside a lake at the village of Smiljkovci north of Skopje. Four of the victims were in their late teens or early 20s. The fifth was a man in his 40s.

Authorities have not announced a motive for the killings nor named any suspects. But speculation about the gangland-style executions has focused on tensions with ethnic Albanians.

Skopje resident Violeta Mitreska tells RFE/RL she hopes such speculation does not bring a return to the ethnic violence seen in Macedonia a decade ago.

But not all temperaments are so cool in the former Yugoslav republic. On April 16, hundreds of angry young Macedonian Slavs marched in Skopje to protest the Smiljkovci killings. They chanted nationalist slogans and blamed ethnic Albanians for the killings.

Riot police later clashed with the stone-throwing demonstrators and prevented them from marching across a bridge to a mainly Albanian neighborhood in the capital. The police action won praise from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Meanwhile, fearing ethnic conflict could escalate out of control, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov has issued calls for restraint and a speedy investigation into the Smiljkovci killings.

Macedonia's interior minister, Gordana Jankulovska, also warned that speculation about who carried out the Smiljkovci killings could fuel ethnic tensions.

"The Ministry of Interior appeals to all citizens to restrain from speculation and not to encourage the fueling of passions or to encourage interethnic intolerance," Jankulovska said.

Macedonian political analyst Jove Kekenovski says the two communities should have developed peaceful coexistence by now. But instead, he says, poverty and unemployment have contributed to social frustration and rising tension.

Washington Welcomes Release of Political Prisoners in Belarus

2012-04-18

Belarussian authorities released over the weekend former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov and his campaign manager Dmitry Bondarenko.

“This, coupled with previous releases, represents a significant step,” spokesperson Mark Toner said in a statement on Monday.

“We urge the Government of Belarus to immediately and unconditionally free all remaining political prisoners and ensure the full restoration of their civil and political rights,” the statement said.

Both Sannikov and Bondarenko were arrested in 2010 on charges of inciting mass riots after presidential elections.

Hundreds of demonstrators attempted to storm the government headquarters in protest against President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election for a fourth term. Dozens were arrested and went on trial, receiving various prison terms.

The United States and the European Union have demanded that Minsk release all political prisoners. Only Sannikov and Bondarenko asked Lukashenko for a pardon.

“Enhanced respect for democracy and human rights remains central to improving relations between the United States and Belarus,” Toner said.

North Korea rocket launch fails

2012-04-13

The reclusive communist state admitted today in an announcement on state TV that a satellite launched hours earlier from the west coast failed to enter into orbit. The US and South Korea also declared the launch a failure.

The Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite was fired from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri, along the west coast, at 7.38am (11.38pm Thursday BST) but failed to reach orbit, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said. "Scientists, technicians and experts are now looking into the cause of the failure," KCNA said.

US and South Korean officials said hours earlier that the rocket splintered into pieces about a minute after lift-off over the Yellow Sea, calling it a provocative failed test of missile technology.

In response to the launch, Washington announced it was suspending plans to contribute food aid to the North in exchange for a rollback of its nuclear programmes.

The US North American Aerospace Defence Command said it detected and tracked the launch of the rocket - which it called a missile - over the Yellow Sea; the first stage fell into the sea 100 miles west of Seoul, South Korea, while stages two and three failed. "At no time were the missile or the resultant debris a threat," Norad said in a statement.

The US, Japan, Britain and other nations had been urging North Korea to cancel a launch seen as a covert test of the rocket technology also used to send a long-range missile to strike the US

North Korea refused to back down, saying the rocket would carry only a civilian satellite, touting it as a major technological achievement to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, on Sunday.

Still, the rocket failure is a major embarrassment for Pyongyang, which has invited dozens of international journalists to observe the rocket launch and other celebrations.

Mass Opposition Protests Staged In Baku

2012-04-10

The protesters also demanded the release of a dozen political activists detained during antigovernment protests last year.

The demonstration on April 8 was the first that have been sanctioned by Azerbaijani authorities after similar protests last year ended in a violent government crackdown.

Organizers of the rally claimed that more than 10,000 people took part in the demonstration. Baku police, however, put the number of protesters at around 1,200.

A statement by Baku police said the protesters were members and supporters of several opposition movements, including the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, (APFP), Musavat (Equality), and the People's Party, as well as several nongovernmental organizations and youth groups.

Ali Kerimli, the leader of the APFP made a speech at the rally calling for greater freedoms in the country. "The Azerbaijani government led by Ilham Aliyev is carrying out a policy that has been destroying the Azerbaijani opposition, and stifling independent voices – by banning demonstrations – over the past seven years," he said.

Isa Gambar, the leader of the Musavat opposition party, likened the situation in Azerbaijan to Arab countries that experienced a wave of popular uprisings leading to regime changes last year.

"We have always been sure the wave of the changes, democracy and freedom in the world will come to Azerbaijan, too,” he said. “However, at the same time, we want this process to take place in peaceful ways, without confrontation and – unlike the Arab countries -- without bloodshed. That is our choice. If events take a different turn, the responsibility for that would lie with Aliyev's government."

Notebook's positive portrayal of dictator Stalin sparks row

2012-04-05

Sales of the notebooks, which show Stalin wearing full military uniform and numerous medals, have been brisk. But human rights groups say a man blamed for millions of deaths should not be shown in such a positive way.

The publisher has refused to withdraw the book, which is part of a "Famous Russians" series. Artyom Belan, art director of the Alt publishing house that produced the notebooks, told Associated Press that he deserved to be included. "If we do a series of great Russians, should we strike the 20th century from the list altogether?" he said.

AP says a large store in Moscow specialising in academic books ran out of stocks of the Stalin book on Wednesday.

The books have attracted criticism from the Russian Public Chamber, a government oversight committee. "When children see this magnificent cover with handsome mustachioed Stalin, they perceive him as a hero," said historian Nikolai Svanidze in a statement seen by AP.

Russian Education Minister Andrey Fursenko said he did not like the books but added that he had no powers to stop their sale.

Stalin ruled the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953, and historians say he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. But he is also praised for his leadership during the Second World War, and since Vladimir Putin came to power he has attracted a much more positive portrayal in Russia.

Vietnam: The Communist Party sticks to its principles and the economy stalls

2012-04-04

The most immediate concern is inflation, which last year rose to above 20% for the second time in three years (see chart). Vietnam now has Asia’s highest inflation rate, a fact that government censors have asked local journalists to stop reporting. Thousands of businesses have gone bankrupt, property prices have collapsed and banks and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are riddled with bad debts.

The reversal has been sudden. Vietnam’s GDP increased by more than 8% a year from 2003 to 2007, when the country attracted a surge of foreign investment. Now the World Bank is predicting that growth will average 6% a year in the five-year period up to the end of 2012. McKinsey, a consultancy, argues that unless Vietnam boosts its labour productivity by more than half, growth is likely to dwindle to below 5%. That will be well short of the government’s target of 7-8%. As McKinsey argues, “the difference sounds small, but it isn’t.” By 2020, Vietnam’s economy could be almost a third smaller than it would have been had economy continued to grow at 7% a year.

Everyone, even communist leaders, agrees on the main reasons for the slowdown. The poorly run, corrupt and wasteful SOEs, which account for about 40% of output, weigh the economy down. The formula of low-wage, low-cost manufacturing no longer works as it once did. Countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh now undercut Vietnam in cheap manufactures. Yet the country has failed to move up the value-chain into more productive activities and higher-tech goods.

Frustratingly, however, realising this and doing something about it seem to be two different things in the minds of Vietnam’s communist rulers. A few optimists were hoping for changes at a three-day meeting of senior party cadres last month. Alas, there was a lot of breast-beating and little else. Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party, urged the party to reform if it wanted to avoid an existential threat. But although his speech was made public, the rest of the meeting—in time-honoured fashion—took place behind closed doors.

Calls by the party to reform or die are not new. “They’ve been saying that for 20 years,” says Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnamese politics at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. What is missing, now as in the past, is any detailed plan about how to implement reforms such as restructuring the clunky state-owned sector, streamlining public investment and improving transparency.

Tibetan exile who set self on fire in India dies

2012-03-28

Jamphel Yeshi, 27, set himself alight Monday at a demonstration in New Delhi. He ran screaming past other protesters and the media before falling to the ground, his clothing partly disintegrated and nearly his entire body covered in burns.

About 30 people have set themselves on fire over the past year in ethnic Tibetan areas of China in protest against Beijing's heavy-handed rule in Tibet. Activists say China's crackdown is so oppressive in those areas, Tibetans have no other way to voice their protests.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Senate panel passed a nonbinding resolution mourning the deaths and calling on China to end what it describes as repressive policies targeting Tibetans.

Beijing has blamed the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India for decades, for inciting the self-immolations and has called the protesters' actions a form of terrorism.

President Hu Jintao is in New Delhi for a summit for the BRICS summit that includes India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa on Thursday.

Wednesday also marked the day China calls Serfs Emancipation Day, when in 1958 government troops took control of Tibet, and the Dalai Lama fled into exile.

Indian police and soldiers have orders to restrict the movement of New Delhi's Tibetan population while Hu is in town, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said. Police have surrounded the city's Tibetan neighborhoods, erecting barricades and refusing to allow young people to leave, except for medical or court appointments under police escort.

Hundreds of Tibetan activists have been rounded up, including poet Tenzin Tsundue, who had just finished speaking to the Tibetan Woman's Association when he was taken into custody Tuesday night under laws that allow "preventative detention."

Activists condemned the crackdown. "This action is unlawful and a complete surrender to the Chinese pressure and the surrender of our own national pride," Indian intellectual Rajiv Vora said in a statement.

Candles Lit to Remember Victims of Soviet Regime

2012-03-26

During the four days in March 1949, families were given only an hour or two at night to pack their belongings. They were then herded into railroad cattle cars, regardless of age or sex, to be taken to their new destinations, either forced labor camps or collective farms. Some managed to escape; many perished on the way, others never made it back to Estonia.

According to Tanel Tsirgu, head organizer of the memorial event, candles are ignited by students so that people would stop and give thought, at least for a moment, to the fundamental values of life. One candle will be lit for every deported person. "If the memory of the crimes committed against innocent people is kept alive, deportation will never happen again," Tsirgu said.

Candles will also be lit by expat Estonian organizations in Finland, the United States, Germany, Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium and Latvia.

Belarus executes two men accused of Metro bombing

2012-03-21

The EU and human rights groups have strongly condemned the execution of two young men in Belarus following their conviction for a deadly attack on the Minsk metro last April.

Late on Saturday, state television reported that Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov, both 26, had been put to death. In Belarus, execution is performed by a shot to the back of the head. Kovalyov's mother said she had received a note from the authorities saying the death sentence on her son had been carried out.

European governments said they were dismayed by the sentence and described the men's trial as deeply flawed. The Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, described as "Europe's last dictator" by the former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, had rejected pleas for clemency from the EU.

"Belarus is the only country in Europe which still executes people," Thorbjørn Jaglan, the secretary general of the Council of Europe, said. "With its disrespect of basic human rights and democratic standards, the government of Belarus is increasingly isolating its country and its people from the rest of the world."

Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said she sympathised with the families of the 15 people who died and the 300 injured in the metro bombings, but stressed there was clear evidence that the two accused were not accorded due process "including the right to defend themselves".

Human rights activists said they were appalled by the executions, saying they deprived society of the opportunity to learn the truth. "The government was in a rush to throw a white shroud over all the contradictions and discrepancies," Lyudmila Gryaznova said. "The execution of the so-called terrorists, whose guilt remains under suspicion, gives the appearance that the government is concealing the traces of the crime."

The two executed men were convicted in November last year after what activists said was a clumsy show trial. Kovalyov consistently protested his innocence. Investigators claimed he was aware of the plans to bomb the subway but failed to tip the authorities off. Defence lawyers said the evidence presented in court was circumstantial and inconclusive.

Belarusians angered by the executions came to lay flowers or light candles outside the subway station. "The government shot these boys so quickly that I have even more doubts about their guilt," Tatyana Snezhinskaya, a teacher, said. "The death penalty should be abolished. We should not take the lives of people, especially of those who might be the victims of judicial errors or political orders."

Macedonian President Calls for End to Interethnic Violence

2012-03-15

Since last week, at least 14 people have been injured in clashes in Skopje and the Albanian-dominated northwestern town of Tetovo. Ethnic Albanians make up about 25 percent of Macedonia's 2-million-strong population.

The clashes were the worst ethnic violence in the country since an armed conflict in 2001 between security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels. Ivanov said Macedonia has "turned a new page" and vowed that "all those who use violence...will be punished."

The OSCE secretary-general, Lamberto Zannier, on a visit to Skopje on March 13, condemned the recent violence and welcomed the quick response of authorities.

China removes top leadership contender Bo from post

2012-03-15

Bo Xilai has been sacked from his post as head of the city of Chongqing in a move that exposes growing ideological divisions just as a new generation readies to take power. His abrupt downfall, announced on Thursday by the official Xinhua news agency, threatens to kindle tension between his supporters, who favor a more traditional, state-dominated version of socialism, and liberal critics, who saw him as a dangerous opportunist.

Bo was removed as party boss of Chongqing, a sprawling urban region in the southwest that he turned into a bastion of Communist revolutionary-inspired "red" culture and egalitarian growth, a day after being rebuked by Premier Wen Jiabao in a news conference broadcast across the country.

The telegenic Bo had been a strong contender for top leadership, but his career prospects came under intense speculation after Vice Mayor Wang Lijun, his longtime police chief, went to ground in February in the U.S. consulate in nearby Chengdu until he was coaxed out and placed under investigation. In a separate statement, Xinhua said Wang had also been removed from his post. It gave no other details. Xinhua said Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang will replace Bo.

While Bo might be kept on in some role until the Communist Party leadership succession later this year, his hopes for promotion to a top job were finished, said Chen Ziming, an independent scholar in Beijing who follows party politics. "This will affect the leadership politics for the 18th Congress, because this opens up new uncertainties about who is in contention," said Chen.

The 18th Party Congress late this year will see China's biggest leadership transition in nearly a decade, with Party Chief Hu Jintao and other elders due to retire and hand power to a younger generation headed by Vice President Xi Jinping.

"Well, the good news I guess, is that the risks of leftism and extremism in Chinese politics have just taken a nose dive," said David Zweig, a scholar of Chinese politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. But Bo has plenty of fans in China, attracted to the idea of a "Chongqing model" of development that promises greater social equality. They are likely to be riled by his removal.

The man who takes over Chongqing from Bo, Vice Premier Zhang, studied economics in North Korea and is a former party boss in the export-dependent southern province of Guangdong.

Serbia wins support for joining EU

2012-03-02

Serbia took a large step towards integrating with mainstream Europe on Tuesday when European Union foreign ministers called for the country to be made a candidate for union membership.

The breakthrough came despite surprising resistance from neighbouring Romania, and followed a deal last week when Belgrade abandoned boycotting the attendance of Kosovo at regional and international meetings because it views Kosovo as part of Serbia and refuses to recognise its independence.

The decision by the foreign ministers, which needs to be endorsed by EU government heads at a Brussels summit on Thursday, puts Serbia on the path to EU membership, leaving behind the legacy of the 1990s when Balkan wars and ethnic pogroms earned it the status of an international pariah.

But while Belgrade now faces long years of arduous negotiations before it can become a member, Brussels has not yet named a date for opening the negotiations. EU governments will push for greater rapprochement between Serbia and Kosovo before agreeing to start talks.

North Korea starts the cat-and-mouse nuclear game again

2012-03-01

North Korea watchers are wearily familiar with the game of diplomatic cat-and-mouse, which played out in 2002 and 2009, where the leadership in Pyongyang offers concessions in return for short-term economic gains, and then reneges on its side of the deal.

Those who oppose this latest engagement argue that it will serve only to bolster the regime which has pledged to make their near-destitute country "prosperous" by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of their 'Great Leader', Kim Il-sung.

It is for this reason that Hillary Clinton was adamant yesterday that North Korea's leaders would be judged 'by their actions', in an attempt to reassure the sceptics that the Obama administration will not be lead on the same merry dance as George W Bush was in 2009.

Then, in a leap of faith that turned out to be woefully misplaced, President Bush – having declared the North part of the 'Axis of Evil' in 2002 – agreed to remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2007, only for negotiations to founder when the North refused to meet its commitments to disarm.

President Obama initially pledged that he would not repeat that mistakes, promising "strategic patience" with Pyongyang, a vision that has now been modified in the hope that talks, while not necessarily leading to disarmament, might yet slow the process of nuclear weaponisation down.

But there are, as yet, few concrete reasons to believe that negotiations will be any different this time round, since North Korea has no obvious motivation for giving up the nuclear weapon that represents its sole bargaining chip in its negotiations with the US.

The danger is that when talks resume, Pyongyang negotiators will seek to manipulate them into a creeping, de facto acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear state, a position the US has promised to avoid.

In Beijing there are hopes that Kim Jong-un, the babyfaced son of Kim Jong-il might yet embrace Chinese-style economic opening up and reforms, but in Washington analysts saw yesterday's announcement not as a departure from the old leadership, but in continuity with it.

Estonian Official Arrested, Suspected of Selling Classified Materials to Russia

2012-02-23

A senior national security official, Aleksei Dressen, along with his wife Viktoria, were detained Wednesday morning at Tallinn Airport, and are under investigation for selling classified information to the Russian Federation's intelligence service, the FSB.

Allegedly, Dressen was in possession of a storage device containing classified documents when he was arrested. The official's wife is suspected of acting as a courier. According to the charges, Dressen, 43, has in recent years sold information to the FSB in return for monetary rewards. Dressen has been working as an investigator for KAPO, Estonia's national security agency, since 1993.

In 2009, Herman Simm, who is serving a 12.5-year prison sentence for selling classified NATO information to Russia, became the only Estonian to be convicted of treason after restitution of independence.

The case that became public today has no relation to Simm, according to the Prosecutor's Office, although in late 1990s, Dressen served with Simm on a government committee supervising trade and transit of strategic goods, headed by then minister of foreign affairs, Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

Latvia's failed referendum

2012-02-22

Around 75% of those taking part in the poll voted against the idea, on a 70% turnout. But if the organisers wanted to polarise Latvian society, they may count the result as a success. It revived long-standing disagreements about history: was Latvia "occupied" by the Soviet Union in 1940, or merely "annexed", or simply "incorporated", and with what degree of legitimacy? Are the mainly Russian migrants of that era "occupants"? Has Latvia, which returned to the map of the world in 1991, been amazingly generous in allowing them to stay, or despicably stingy in not giving them automatic citizenship?

In practice, Latvia is a kind of bilingual society, with some awkward asymmetries. Almost all ethnic Latvians (around two-thirds of the population) know at least some Russian, though they may resent speaking it. Some Russians have Latvian citizenship anyway, if they or their ancestors were citizens of the pre-war republic. Others have adopted Latvian citizenship enthusiastically (as of April last year the number of naturalisations was 135,840). Others are bilingual but refuse to consider applying for citizenship; others defiantly refuse to speak Latvian at all, even after 22 years of independence. There are other quirks too: the language people speak at home is not necessarily the same as their declared ethnicity; Latvia has plenty of mixed marriages (unlike neighbouring Estonia). Some people who are nominally part of the Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities may be Russophone in practice.

In recent years the language issue has been off the boil. International human-rights bodies have largely accepted the Latvian argument that having some sort of language hurdle for citizenship is justified. The number of non-citizens (around 300,000, or one in six of the population) is in slow decline, though more because of demography than naturalisation, which has slowed to a trickle. Non-citizens have restricted voting rights and are barred from some jobs (and rules about knowing Latvian also apply to jobs dealing with the public).

The referendum has pushed the issue up the political agenda, and entrenched Latvian fears of assimilation and intimidation by the big eastern neighbour. They fear that the local Russians (and Russia itself) regards Latvian independence as a temporary aberration. Russia does little to counter that impression: its Russia Today television channel habitually smears Latvia (and Estonia) as Nazi-loving ethnocracies.

Latvia's neighbours are worried too. The Estonian MP Marko Mihkelson said "Russia's official position, in which it does not recognize the results of the referendum as fair, unfortunately convinces us that polarization and deepening of internal tension in Latvia are in Moscow's interests."

In an extended polemic, the Lithuanian commentator Rimvydas Valatka argues: "The central issue is the fact that such a referendum, so humiliating to Latvians, could take place in a NATO and EU country in the first place." Instead of encouraging Latvian Russians to accept reality and integrate "Russia continues to pit part of the population against the Latvian state," he says.

Serbs in north Kosovo reject ethnic Albanian rule

2012-02-17

The step is seen as a slap in the face to efforts by Serbia and the EU to resolve differences over the territory.

Many Kosovo Serbs fear that Belgrade, which is hoping to win official EU candidate status in March, will eventually give up its claim to Kosovo, leaving them at the mercy of the ethnic Albanian government.

As expected, the results of the vote showed almost 100-percent rejection of the authority of the Kosovo government, but it has no legal weight and has been dismissed by both Belgrade and Pristina as well as the international community.

The referendum, which asked voters if they accept Pristina institutions, was held ahead of the fourth anniversary on Friday of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, a move rejected by Belgrade. "Out of those who voted, 99.74 percent answered 'no' to the referendum question" if they accept Pristina institutions, Ljubomir Radovic, a spokesman of the referendum commission told reporters after all the votes were counted.

In all four Serb-dominated municipalities in northern Kosovo, where 75 percent of voters cast ballots out of the 35,500 eligible to vote, only "69 votes were with marked 'yes'," Radovic said.

The vote has been dismissed by the international community as little more than an opinion poll that could damage prospects for more EU-sponsored talks between Belgrade and Pristina.

UN Chief Hails Kyrgyzstan's Peaceful Transfer of Power

2012-02-17

Ban said at a meeting on February 16 in Vienna with Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev that the Central Asian country's "peaceful transfer of power" consolidated Kyrgyz democracy and set an example for other countries in the region.

Protesters ousted former President Kurmanbek Bakiev in April 2010 after which Kyrgyzstan held parliamentary elections in October 2010 and presidential elections in October 2011.

Kazakbaev and Ban also discussed the reconciliation process in Kyrgyzstan, as well as cooperation against drug trafficking and peace efforts in Afghanistan.

Romania: new government, old problems

2012-02-10

Traian Basescu, now Romania’s president, has lost his prime minister, the low-key Emil Boc, amid protests over austerity, corruption and general incompetence. In January Mr Basescu, in typically impulsive style, phoned a live television programme to denounce Raed Arafat, a popular Palestinian-Romanian who founded and ran the ambulance service, for his “leftist views”. Mr Arafat promptly resigned. After violent demonstrations, the government junked plans to privatise the emergency services and reinstated Mr Arafat. Two members of the Senate then defected to the opposition, costing Mr Basescu’s Democratic Liberal party, which languishes in the low teens in the opinion polls, its hold on the upper house.

The street protests have continued. Their causes range from ecological to monarchist, but are mostly about government arrogance. After two weeks Mr Basescu apologised. Mr Boc, in office since 2008, stepped down on February 6th, along with his cabinet, to “diffuse social tensions” and stabilise the economy. By the standards of nearby Hungary and Greece, Romania’s economy is actually quite stable. This year’s growth forecast is 1.5-2%, only marginally down on previous estimates despite the euro-zone crisis. That said, the deal still requires Romania to cut the budget deficit from 4.4% of GDP in 2011 to 1.9% this year. The government plans to adopt the euro in 2015. Romanians, weary of tax rises, pay cuts and poor public services, would find austerity policies more palatable if politicians stole less and communicated better.

Another big task is meeting European Union worries about the rule of law, which are holding up Romania’s accession to the Schengen passport-free travel zone. An ex-prime minister, Adrian Nastase, has just been sentenced to two years in jail for fraud (part of a vendetta by Mr Basescu, say his supporters). But no big fish have been netted on big charges; a culture of impunity is barely dented. An EU report on February 8th praised some modest progress in corruption prosecutions, but bemoaned “clear shortcomings” in dealing with criminality among judges.

Mr Basescu has nominated Mihai Razvan Ungureanu as prime minister. A polyglot Oxford-educated historian who previously headed the foreign-intelligence service, he should win approval this week in parliament’s lower house.

Turkmenistan will hold another sham election

2012-02-10

Turkmenistan will hold a presidential election 12 February. Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who has been president since the country’s last president-for-life died in office in December 2006, will win It is only Turkmenistan’s third presidential election since it gained independence in 1991. Berdymukhamedov’s predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, won the first contest in 1992 with 99.5 percent of the vote. In February 2007, Berdymukhamedov, who at the time was acting president, took 89 percent of the vote.

A leading election monitoring group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, announced in January that it would not monitor the poll. It noted that Turkmenistan places “undue restrictions on the right to stand as a candidate” and lacks laws that provide for the registration of political parties. The OSCE will, however, send a team to Turkmenistan to further review election laws and processes.

Meanwhile, Yevgeniy Sloboda, chief of an election monitoring team from the Commonwealth of Independent States, told reporters last week, "All candidates contesting for the post of president of Turkmenistan have equal opportunities for carrying out the election campaign." Sloboda said Turkmenistan’s leaders “are set to further democratize society and ensure transparency of the election and openness of the election process for international observers.”

Oddly, these “candidates” have all been announced less than two months before the election. That does not leave them enough time for an election campaign. But then again, the only one really campaigning is Berdymukhamedov. There are no rallies, no speeches, no posters, no advertisements, none of the trappings of a regular democratic election. All of the “candidates” are male. Radio Free Europe reports that a female schoolteacher from Ashgabat had her application rejected. It’s hard to say whether it was because she’s a woman or because her candidacy was supported by the Civil Society Movement, an actual NGO.

China is engaged in the most repressive crackdown on Tibetans since 2008

2012-02-02

The government in Beijing is calling the new campaign the “Nine Must-Haves.” Beginning in early December, the government is forcibly imposing the policy throughout ethnically Tibetan regions in several western provinces, including Sichuan, Qinghai and Tibet. It calls for communist officials at every level in this vast area to vigorously implement the nine specific measures.

The nine measures, or Nine Must-Haves, require every Tibetan monastery, school, community center and household to have a composite portrait of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, representing four generations of Chinese communist leadership; a Chinese national flag known as the Five-Starred flag, with the biggest yellow star at the center symbolizing the core leadership of the Chinese Communist Party; and a road leading to the facilities so it is easier for forces from outside to visit. The policy also demands these entities to have a supply of water; a source of electricity; radio and television sets, which will be powered by the mandatory availability of electricity; access to movies; a library; and copies of the Communist Party of China state-controlled newspapers, the People’s Daily and Tibet Daily.

The ideological campaign is aimed at forcing Tibetans, who are deeply religious and devout toward their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to give up their Buddhist beliefs and declare loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders. Portrait of the Dalai Lama or any other forms of his image are banned in China.

Last week, the Tibetan government in exile, based in India, published an open letter to Hu Jintao, the current Chinese Communist Party leader, expressing “deep concerns” over the repressive policies.

According to reports from the region, Chinese troops since Jan. 23 have indiscriminately shot and killed at least six Tibetans in Tibetan regions of Sichuan province. Scores more were wounded.

Bulgarian President Remembers Victims of Communism

2012-02-02

On Wednesday Bulgaria marked for the second time the official Day of Gratitude and Homage to the Victims of the Communist Regime.

"Freedom and democracy ought not only be used, but also fought for, including in hard times," said Plevneliev upon laying a wreath at the monument. "Getting to grips with our recent history is a necessary condition for taking in earnest the values on which our society is founded," added the Bulgarian President. "The deaths of those Bulgarians who fell at the hands of the communist regime is one of the most vivid symbols of repression against the Bulgarian people," stated Plevneliev.

February 1 was chosen for commemoration because on this date in 1945, the so-called People's Tribunal sentenced to death 3 regents, 67 members of the parliament, 22 ministers, 40 generals and colonels of the royal army and a number of other public figures. The sentences were executed on that same day.

"In the history not only of Bulgaria, but also of many other European countries, the 20th century has been marked by ideologically motivated violence. We must do more to remember the victims who fell," said the Bulgarian President.

Members of the diplomatic corps in Bulgaria, cabinet representatives and MPs were also present at the ceremony at Bulgaria's Memorial for the Victims of Communism.

Situation in Cuba: the Communists Convene

2012-01-27

Castro has lowered expectations for any new economic reform announcements, saying that internal party affairs will be the business at hand. But many Cubans will be watching for signs of who is rising in the party's ranks — and who could take over after Raul and Fidel Castro, both in their 80s, are gone.

During the 47 years that Fidel Castro ruled this island, he often surrounded himself with younger, hand-picked proteges like economic planner Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. They were always on TV, seemingly groomed as the next generation of Cuban leaders. But in 2009 they were sacked, caught on secret recordings disparaging the Castros and their trusted circle of aging comrades. Raul Castro has made clear that the island's next leaders will have to rise through the party ranks in Cuba's provinces, says Rafael Hernandez, editor of the Havana journal Temas.

Cuba's old leadership was a debate topic this week for Republican primary candidates in Florida facing questions about what would happen if Fidel Castro dies. The retired comandante fired back in one of his opinion columns Wednesday, calling their contest "the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance" he has ever heard.

That's about all Fidel Castro does these days. He's 85 and hasn't appeared in public in months. His brother Raul is firmly in charge, and whoever succeeds him is likely to follow the example he has set, gradually opening the economy to ease Cubans' frustrations. But major political reforms are not in the offing, says Miriam Leiva, a former diplomat who became a dissident writer in Havana.

"The main thing is that they don't let the population decide anything. And they want to [stay] in power and decide everything," Leiva says, "because the Cuban population is accustomed to just accepting what comes from power, and Cubans know they cannot change anything."

Putin’s Oponent Yavlinsky Loses Chance to Run for Kremlin

2012-01-25

Some analysts said the removal was part of the Kremlin’s plan to allow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to win in the first round of the vote, though others denied ulterior motives behind the decision.

Yavlinsky collected two million signatures in support of his bid as required by law, but two consecutive checks, the second of which was wrapped up Tuesday evening, showed 25.66 percent of them to be invalid, commission secretary Nikolai Konkin said. The law caps the amount of faulty signatures at five percent. “The commission will hold a session later this week to officially refuse registering Grigory Yavlinsky” for the March 4 vote, Konkin said.

The commission also refused registration to Irkutsk Governor Dmitry Mezentsev, an alleged Kremlin ally, also over faulty signatures. But it approved the two million signatures collected by billionaire-turned-politician Mikhail Prokhorov.

Prokhorov will be the only independent to be included on the ballot, along with candidates from the four parliamentary parties, who were not required to collect the signatures. One of the four is Putin, fielded by the ruling United Russia party and expecting to return to the presidency after two consecutive terms in office in 2000-2008. Yabloko’s senior party boss Ivan Bolshakov promised the party would fight Yavlinsky’s removal, Rusnovosti.ru reported.

Yabloko party's founder, Yavlinsky, is set to appear at the anti-government rally in Moscow on February 4, which 21,000 have signed up for on Facebook as of Tuesday evening. Yavlinsky, 59, has been active in politics since the late 1980s, and ran for president twice, in 1996 and 2000. He is known for his critical stance on the Kremlin, and retains a small, but viciously loyal core constituency among intelligentsia and the middle class in big cities.

Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Center said the two to four percent that Yavlinsky could have garnered may be crucial for Putin’s first-round victory. Yavlinsky’s removal “was precisely because they’re banking on winning in the first round,” Petrov said.

Hungary PM likened to Chavez over controversial laws

2012-01-20

Orban, in Strasbourg to defend his government, pledged on Wednesday to row back on disputed laws which have triggered EU legal proceedings against Budapest and inspired MEPs to liken him to Cuba's Fidel Castro or Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Brushing aside the charges, Orban said he stood up for "Christian and family values" and claimed to have brought Hungary back from the brink in 18 months -- decreasing debt, overhauling taxes and health and protecting minorities.

The EU commission on Tuesday threatened to drag Budapest to court for reforms undermining the independence of its central bank, judiciary and data protection authority. It gave Orban a month to reverse the laws. The right-wing Hungarian leader is hoping to obtain a credit line from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund but talks were suspended in December amid concern over the controversial legislation. But he told a press conference after the debate that lasted most of the afternoon that he would not allow government policy to be dictated.

Barroso said he and Orban would be working over the coming days to find legal solutions, vowing to handle "with the highest priority" an issue that spawned accusations Orban was building a "totalitarian" regime. "Today I received a letter by PM Orban. He has indicated to me his intention to modify the relevant legislation," he told the parliament. Wider principles of democracy and freedom in general needed to be addressed, Barroso said, referring to "concerns expressed regarding the quality of democracy in Hungary".

Mercedes apologises for using Che Guevara image

2012-01-17

The high-end car company, known for its impeccable - and pricey - motor vehicles, used the late leader to promote a new car-sharing program, much to the horror of Cuban activists and political conservatives. In place of the star that adorns Guevara's beret in the original, Mercedes affixed its corporate logo.

Activists reacted with horror to the appropriation of Guevara, whom many political conservatives and Cuban-Americans consider a mass murderer who helped subjugate Cuba. In a statement Thursday to msnbc.com, Daimler said the image was just "one of many images and videos in the presentation," which it said was intended to represent "the revolution in automobility enabled by new technologies, in particular those associated with connectivity."

"Daimler was not condoning the life or actions of this historical figure or the political philosophy he espoused," the company said, adding: "We sincerely apologize to those who took offense." Daimler's statement was welcomed by Ernesto Suarez, who organized an online petition calling for Mercedes-Benz to apologize.

Here's Daimler's full statement to msnbc.com: In his keynote speech at CES, Dr. Zetsche addressed the revolution in automobility enabled by new technologies, in particular those associated with connectivity. To illustrate this point, the company briefly used a photo of revolutionary Che Guevara (it was one of many images and videos in the presentation). Daimler was not condoning the life or actions of this historical figure or the political philosophy he espoused. We sincerely apologize to those who took offense.

Kim Jong-il body will be embalmed and put on display in tradition of communist rulers

2012-01-15

Following a communist tradition that dates back to the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, whose embalmed body is still on display at a marble mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow, Kim's body will have its organs removed before being soaked in a chemical bath. The body is likely to be exhibited in the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, where his father, Kim Il-sung, is on display, Independent reports.

The procedure is likely to be performed by an institute in Moscow that looks after Lenin's corpse. The institute worked on the body of the older Kim, as well as on the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, Czechoslovakia's Klement Gottwald and Angola's Agostinho Neto.

Last month, one of the institute's specialists gave a rare interview to a Russian tabloid in which the embalming process was discussed: "It's not a pretty sight," said Pavel Fomenko, who was part of the team that embalmed Kim Il-sung. "First, all the internal organs are extracted, the veins are dissolved and the blood taken from the tissues," he said.

"The body is placed in a glass bath filled with the embalming solution, then closed and covered with a white sheet... Gradually, the water in the cells of the body is replaced by the solution." Mr Fomenko said the process takes around six months, and that the embalmed body then requires meticulous aftercare every week.

Mr Fomenko, now 78, said that Russia was prepared to help with the embalming of Kim Jong-il, and recalled that the North Koreans had paid around $1m for the embalming of Kim Jong-il's father.

"I remember that when Kim Il-sung died, there were reports that he had been buried. But at the same time they were asking us to prepare our products and some days later we took off for Pyongyang."

Kim senior is now on display inside a glass coffin on the top floor of the Kumsusan Palace. Visitors are required to bow three times when viewing the body, and must first pass through a full-body dust-remover, to prevent contamination.

When Kim Jong-il's body is laid to rest alongside his father's, it will be the first time that two embalmed leaders have been displayed together since Joseph Stalin's body was removed from the Lenin mausoleum in 1961, eight years after his death.

Kim died of a suspected heart attack on 17 December, aged 69, and his body was put on display before his carefully choreographed funeral on 28 December. It was also announced yesterday that memorial towers will be built for him in Pyongyang, and that his birthday, 16 February, will become a national holiday known as "Day of the Shining Star".

Kim Jong-il obituary

2012-01-12

Kim Jong-il, who died aged 69 after a heart attack, was the general secretary of the Workers' party of Korea and head of the military in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). He was one of the most reclusive and widely condemned national leaders of the late 20th and early 21st century, and left his country diplomatically isolated, economically broken and divided from South Korea.

Kim's early life was spent in the shadows of his father Kim Il-sung, who returned to Korea in 1945 after independence from Japan, and established, initially with Soviet and Chinese support, the DPRK. He was to witness the Korean war from 1950 to 1953, in which hundreds of thousands of Koreans, Chinese and Americans as part of a UN force fought across the country, returning almost to the point at which they had started. The armistice signed in 1953 settled the border between South and North Korea at the 38th Parallel.

With the arrival of the cold war, relations between the two countries were almost completely broken off, with whole families split for the ensuing decades, some for ever. This event led to the creation of the wholly unprecedented worship of Kim Il-sung.

Kim Jong-il was educated at the newly founded university in Pyongyang, graduating in 1964. The 1960s and early 1970s were the golden years for the DPRK. It undertook rapid industrialisation, economically outstripped its southern competitor and enjoyed the support of both the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. A state ideology, mixing nationalism and basic Marxist economics, going under the name "Juche", was constructed, and Kim Il-sung effectively silenced, disposed of and cleared away any opposition, isolating the country and exercising an iron grip on the military, the state media, the government and party apparatus.

In 1973 he became party secretary of the propaganda department, and, in 1974, was designated his father's successor, creating in effect the world's first communist family succession. In 1980 he was elevated to the Politburo, and was granted the title "Dear Leader", as opposed to "Great Leader", which had been granted by his father to himself. In 1991, he was named commander of the DPRK armed forces. The death of his father in 1994 led to his being appointed general secretary of the Workers' party, the ultimate seat of power.

Kim inherited the very worst legacy of the cold war, a country torn apart by colonisation and war. The economic template for the country had been set in the 1950s and 1960s, long before he had any say. Its unsustainability only became clear in the very final years of Kim Il-sung's life. Kim Jong-il finally had to deal with a complex network of interests in the army and party after his father's death, something which, combined with the immediate impact of bad harvests, created the terrible famines that claimed up to a million North Korean lives from 1995 until 1999. North Korea progressed towards its own nuclear programme in 2003. The election of Barack Obama as US president in 2008 served to provoke a period of harsh rhetoric, nuclear testing, missile launches, and diplomatic aggression.

International politicians who met him were impressed by his memory for facts and his quick and easy wit. But there is little dispute about his responsibility for a system that saw widespread human rights abuses and perhaps the worst record for press freedom and government transparency in the world.

The Death of the Playwright-President: Vaclav Havel (1936–2011)

2012-01-12

Havel's death at age 75 was announced on Dec. 18. The man who wrote absurdist dramas that ridiculed the brutal communist flunkies who ruled his country — indeed, the Soviet bloc — had had severe health problems for years.

Havel was no longer President after the end of his term in 2003. But he remained iconic and relevant, even after reformers and other dissidents — such as Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia and Lech Walesa in Poland — lost their luster.

Havel spent most of his life feeling like an outsider. As a child, he was a shy bookworm embarrassed by his family's real estate fortune. In 1948 Havel became a different kind of pariah when the communists seized power in postwar Czechoslovakia, confiscating his family's property and barring him from high school. Drafted into military service, Havel wrote a rousing drama for his battalion that army officials praised until they took a closer look and realized that this chubby, polite soldier was making fun of them. After the army, he got a job as a stagehand at Prague's Theater on the Balustrade. He wrote acerbic plays that stuck audiences' noses in the ridiculousness of their totalitarian world. These were the relatively relaxed political days leading up to the 1968 Prague Spring, when the communists allowed some criticism. After invading Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring, the authorities banned Havel's writings and harassed friends who talked to him. Those were lonely years, but Havel beat back depression and wrote plays, started an underground press and founded the human-rights group Charter 77. That earned him prison time; the longest stretch began in 1979, when Havel received a 4½-year sentence.

When they released him, he kept being Havel and got arrested again; his last arrest came just months before the Velvet Revolution. Havel didn't start the revolution — that happened when police beat unarmed students on Nov. 17, 1989 — but he masterminded it. He told the beaten-down Czechs they could prevail. They believed him and filled Wenceslas Square, giddy with their own courage. And Havel, backed by these people who had rediscovered their backbone, negotiated the communists out of power.

Then he was President, an East European leader utterly unlike the geriatric robots who preceded him. Havel performed the normal duties of Presidents, but to Czechs, his most important role was as a guide, even a talisman. Havel resigned as President of the soon-to-be-defunct Czechoslovakia and returned six months later as President of the newly formed Czech Republic.

Toward the end of his life, Havel hit hard times. His wife died in early 1996, leaving him too lost to even help in planning her funeral. Within a year, doctors had removed half his cancerous right lung.

However, the democratic revolution had not built the civil society he had dreamed of. He himself would leave government after the end of his presidential term in 2003. What he did leave help build, however, was an intellectual renaissance, not just for Czechs and Slovaks but also for the half of Europe that had lived behind the metaphorical Iron Curtain and was desperate to reconnect with the free West after five dehumanizing decades as Soviet satellites. Eastern Europeans had looked to Havel's writing and political activism and heard the voice of 600 years of enlightened humanism.

Czech Republic will pay anti-communist fighters

2011-12-03

An anti-communist resistance law was passed in Czech Republic. Those who participated in the struggle against the communist regime are now entitled to demand recognition of their actions - the appropriate status and one-time financial compensation.

People who until 1989 took part in the fight against a totalitarian dictatorship will be able to demand formal recognition of the status of the fighter with the communist regime and one-time financial compensation, iHNed.cz reports.

Claims for recognition can be submitted to the Ministry of Defence, which has launched dedicated Internet portal and the telephone line.

The law came into force on a symbolic day when the Czech Republic recalls the 22-th anniversary of the "velvet" revolution, which resulted in the communist regime collapse.

According to law members of resistance will receive 100 000 Czech korunas (about 3850 euros). Spouses of deceased participants of resistance will be receive half of that amount. If the resistance fighter pension is lower than the average, the state will as a gift enhance their pension to the level of the average.

Those who are denied recognition of the status of the fighter with the communist regime will apply to the so-called ethics committee which will consider the request again.

Orban: Hungary must close post-communist chapter

2011-12-02

Hungary must end its prolonged post-communist period, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at the founding session of the Hungarian Diaspora Council in parliament.

Orban said post-communism was not just a "feeling" but a structure, one where constitutional institutions are generally weak, where old social networks from the previous regime triumph over market regulation, and where monopolies and cartels squeeze out competition, Politics.hu reports.

He said whereas the Czech Republic had shred this system within five to six years and Poland managed to close the era within a decade, Hungary is among the last states to put an end to post-communism.

Such an attempt was seen at last year's elections, when very many people voted for Fidesz who had never thought of doing this before in the belief that a substantial parliamentary majority was needed to end post-communism, Orban said.

The prime minister said now the government saw its mission to close the post-communist chapter, which is why the past 18 months had been so hectic, charged with debate over changes to the labour code or the public education system, which he said were all logical consequences of the government's efforts to draw a line under the post-communist period.

Orban told the Council, comprising representatives of the Hungarian communities all over the world, that the policy of the nation had proven successful over the past twenty years, but efforts to unite Hungarians scattered over the globe had so far been in vain.

Orban said that in times of economic hardship, the nation needed all its members to help out in efforts to boost economic growth. "14-15 million Hungarians can do much more than 10 million," he said.

Senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church is outraged by glorification of Stalin

2011-11-13

Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion, who is considered to be second person in current hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, gave a negative assessment to the statements made among the clergy and monastic, which give a positive attitude towards Stalin's role in history and condemn intelligentsia.

"I think that history has made everything clear and nostalgia for stalinism, especially from the lips of a priest, to me sounds like some kind of blasphemy"- Metropolitan Hilarion said in an interview published in newspaper "Rossiyskaya Gazeta".

Metropolitan Hilarion made that remark after newspaper asked him to comment on the statements of the Secretary of the Ivanovo eparchy abbot Vitaly Utkin, who in his blog, made no secret of respect for Stalin.

"How can someone worship the Holy New Martyrs and at the same time respect Stalin? It's like to worship John the Baptist but at the same time have respect for Herod, who beheaded him. How can we glorify the victims and executioner simultaneously?" - Metropolitan Hilarion wondered.

This is not the first time Hilarion publicly condemned Stalin. In 2009 being senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church he called him „a monster", accusing him of genocide, shortly before a European security forum equated the crimes of Stalin and Hitler.

At that time his words have stirred heated debate in the Russian media and blogosphere, American Orthodox Institute reports.

"I think that Stalin was a spiritually-deformed monster, who created a horrific, inhuman system of ruling the country," Archbishop Hilarion had said.

"He unleashed a genocide against the people of his own country and bears personal responsibility for the death of millions of innocent people. In this respect Stalin is completely comparable to Hitler.", he said.

Cuba allows private home sales first time in 50 years

2011-11-06

Cuba has approved a law allowing individuals to buy and sell homes for the first time since the early days of the revolution, official media say.

The law, which takes effect on 10 November, applies to citizens and permanent residents only. Correspondents say this is the most important reform so far in a series of free-market changes introduced by President Raul Castro, BBC News reports.

A housing shortage has meant that many Cubans live in overcrowded apartments.
An article in the Communist Party daily Granma said details of the new law would be published in the government's official gazette.

The change follows the legalisation in October of the purchase and sale of cars, though with restrictions that still makes it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles.

Black-market

The ban on property sales took effect in stages after Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959.
Parents were able to pass property on to their children, but buying and selling property was not allowed.

The rules have meant that for decades Cubans could only exchange property through complicated barter arrangements, or through even murkier black-market deals, often involving illegal payments and bribes.

With the new law, Cubans will be allowed to own a maximum of two properties - their main home and a holiday home. A popular aspect of the law will be the abolition of the government agency which regulated house swaps - a system much open to abuse.

Currently, three to four generations of a single family often live together in small apartments, because of the severe housing shortage. Divorced couples have often been forced to live together for years while they seek separate housing.

"Many people have lived and live with the fear of losing their homes because they acquired them in an illegal way. Now they'll be able to legalise them and to sleep in peace," said Osmel Gonzalez, a self-employed food vendor in Havana.

Raul Castro has said repeatedly that the Soviet style system in Cuba is not working since he took over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, but he has vowed that Cuba will remain a socialist state.

Former King of Romania makes historic speech and calls to break with the bad habits of the past

2011-10-30

The former king of Romania and the last wartime leader still alive addressed the Romanian parliament for the first time since his forced abdication in 1947.

Sitting resplendent on a throne-like chair King Michael I, 90, called for politicians to provide greater democracy and to restore the dignity of a country that has struggled to bring wealth and prosperity to all of its people since the overthrow of the despotic regime of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, Telegraph.co.uk reports.

The king had been afforded the rare privilege of addressing both houses of the Romanian parliament in honour of his 90th birthday.

"The time has come after 20 years to ... break for good with the bad habits of the past", said the king. Taking a swipe at the country's present ruling elite, often chided for apparent self-interest and corruption, he added in 2011 "demagogy, selfishness and attempts to cling to power" should not have their place in Romania.

"All united, we have to pursue our efforts in order to become once more respected and dignified", he said in a speech that won a standing ovation and shouts of "Long live the King!" from some MPs.

Michael ruled Romania as a child from 1927 to 1930, and again from 1940 to 1947, overseeing a tumultuous period for the country which saw the country fall under fascist then communist rule, while in the meantime switching sides in the Second World War. In 1947 he abdicated after the communist government said it would shoot 1,000 people if he failed to step down. Michael left for exile and was only allowed to return in 1992.

Despite the genuine warmth the king's address received not all politicians were happy with his presence in parliament. President Traian Basescu refused to attend, describing Michael's abdication as a "betrayal" and calling him "Russia's servant".

Although there is little sentiment in Romania for the re-establishment of the monarchy some politicians resent the king's willingness to use his position to highlight their shortcomings and the country's problems.

After his address to parliament the king attended a glittering birthday meal attended by members of other European royal families, including King Carl Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Hungary is planning to cut pensions of its communist-era leadership

2011-10-29

More than 20 years after the fall of communism in Hungary, legislators are considering slashing the pensions of the leadership that ran the dictatorship.

Those pensions are often much higher than the average €300 ($418) a month received by Hungarian retirees today because of the high salaries the apparatchiks paid themselves, The Washington Post reports.

Deputies from Hungary's governing Fidesz party say they favor imposing a "reparations tax" on the pensions of thousands of former functionaries from the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party - which ran the country during most of the communist regime ending in 1990.

Other parties want to recalculate individual pensions to exclude wages received for political duties.
Maria Wittner, the Fidesz lawmaker who initially proposed the legislation, said Tuesday that any savings stemming from the pension cuts should benefit veterans of the 1956 anti-Soviet revolution.

In 1957, Wittner was condemned to death for taking part in the uprising. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison, from where she was released in 1970.

Communist-era decision makers continue to reap the advantages of having served the dictatorship through their higher pensions, said Janos Lazar, head of the Fidesz parliamentary faction.

"They need to give back to society the part of their pensions above the bare minimum," Lazar said, adding that while the rules to determine whose pension would be cut have yet to be determined, in 1987 the communist party had some 5,700 people in leading positions.

Lawmakers from four of the five parliamentary parties - all except the Socialist Party, the former communists - met to coordinate their proposals and agreed that pensions would not be cut below minimum living standards.

A preliminary draft of the legislation is expected to be ready within two weeks.

Cuba may make unprecedented move and impose term limits on leaders

2011-10-23

The Communist Party of Cuba has announced that it will consider President Raul Castro's unprecedented call for term limits for all government officials.

A statement said the party conference in January would discuss a maximum of two five-year terms. The document also called for the promotion of qualified young leaders, BBC reports.

Earlier this year, President Castro said Cuba must prepare a new generation to take over. Raul Castro, who is now 80, said the same limits would apply to him. He took over from his brother, Fidel, in 2008. Between them, they have ruled Cuba for 52 years since 1959.

The statement on the proposal for term limits will be discussed at party meetings in the coming months. It said the aim was to achieve a "gradual renewal in leadership".The proposal also spoke of a need to promote racial and gender diversity in positions of responsibility.

However, it reaffirmed the Communist Party's position as the only one allowed in Cuba. The document also warned that the government's foreign enemies were "lurking and waiting to pounce".

"The imperialists pin their hopes on the supposed vulnerability of the new generations... They try to foment division, apathy, dismay... and a lack of confidence in the leadership of the revolution and the party," it said.

President Castro raised the issue in April at the start of the first congress of Cuba's ruling Communist Party for 14 years. He said the party leadership was in need of renewal and should subject itself to severe self-criticism.

In his speech then, Raul Castro said the limit of two consecutive five-year terms would apply to "the current president of the Council of State and his ministers" - a reference to himself.

The proposal is unprecedented under Cuban communism.

Well-known anti-communist activist dies in Romania

2011-10-16

Ion Diaconescu, an anti-communist activist who helped Romania's push toward democracy, has died. He was 94.

Diaconescu, whose was imprisoned for 17 years by the communists for his political beliefs, died Tuesday night, said former Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea. No cause of death was given, but Diaconescu had recently been treated for heart problems, Associated Press reports.

Parliament held a minute of silence last week on Wednesday for Diaconescu who was acclaimed as a politician who was guided by principles, not personal interests.

"Today's politicians only think about their own interests. ... That is why Romania is crawling along," said Romania's best-known political dissident, Doina Cornea. Like Diaconescu, Cornea was put under house arrest by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu for criticizing the communist regime.

"Ion Diaconescu understood that faith and principles are national treasures, and he didn't betray these (values), enduring 17 years in communist prisons," said Cornea.

Diaconescu entered politics in the late 1930s as a member of the youth organization of the Peasant Party. He was arrested in 1947 after the Communists came to power in Romania and survived prison, unlike tens of thousands of Romanians who died in the communist gulags.

He was released under an amnesty for political prisoners in 1964 and helped re-establish the center-right Peasants' Party after communism ended in Romania in 1989.

Diaconescu was speaker of Parliament's Chamber of Deputies from 1996 to 2000 and headed the Democratic Convention, a loose governing coalition that was marred by political infighting. A consensus seeker, he was widely respected, even by his political rivals.

Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu and current President Traian Basescu both paid tribute to him Wednesday. Basescu said Diaconescu remains "a symbol of the fight against communism."

Former Romanian President Emil Constantinescu said Diaconescu was "a symbol of communist resistance in Romania and Eastern Europe, and a symbol of honesty and honor" in politics.

Diaconescu's open coffin was put on display at the Peasant's Party headquarters on Wednesday. He was not survived by any close relatives.

He was buried in Bucharest on Thursday.

Pope says faith suffered "acid rain" under communism

2011-10-15

Pope Benedict has praised Catholics in eastern Germany who held on to their Christian beliefs despite the "acid rain" that corroded their faith under the Nazis and communism.

The pope said mass for some 30,000 people in the medieval main square of this city in former communist East Germany, where only about seven percent of the people are Catholic, Reuters reports.

"You have had to endure first a brown and then a red dictatorship, which acted on the Christian faith like acid rain," he told the crowd from the altar, set against a hill dominated by Erfurt's cathedral and another Catholic church.

About two hours before the mass a man fired an air gun at security staff at a checkpoint in Erfurt, police said. Detained on the spot, the unidentified man told police he was protesting at the strict security measures.

The pope's third trip to his homeland since his election in 2005 has attracted small crowds and some protests against the church's positions on homosexual marriage and birth control, and a sexual abuse scandal.

The 84-year-old praised those who remained faithful despite the pressures of the Nazi and communist regimes but appeared disappointed there had been no resurgence in faith since German reunification in 1990.

Benedict held a surprise meeting in Erfurt with victims of sexual abuse by priests. Church officials said on Saturday there were three men and two women present, chosen from many victims around Germany who had asked to meet the pope.

"There was no dispute, that wasn't the atmosphere of the conversations, but to really listen, and it was obvious that the Holy Father felt deep regret, he expressed that clearly," said Bishop Stephan Ackermann.

About 700 Germans have filed for compensation for abuse by priests and Church personnel. A record 181,000 Germans left the Church last year, many in protest at the abuse scandal.

A Vatican statement after his meeting with victims at the Erfurt seminary said the pope had been "moved and deeply shaken" and had assured victims the Church was "committed to the promotion of effective measures to protect children".

Victims' associations have said the Vatican has not done enough to bring the perpetrators of abuse to justice. German victims joined 8,000 protesters on a march through Berlin, where the Pope began his visit.

Hong Kong snubs North Korea leader's "lovely" grandson

2011-10-15

A 16-year-old grandson of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has reportedly been denied a visa to study in Hong Kong, despite being described by his prospective school as a "lovely kid" with a "good sense of idealism", Telegraph reports.

Kim Han-sol was accepted by an international school run by the United World Colleges (UWC) network but his visa bid was turned down despite several requests, the former school principal said.

Hong Kong's immigration department declined to confirm whether the teenager had applied for a visa, saying it did "not comment on individual cases", but suggested such a decision would be in line with general policy.

The department said people from countries including North Korea, Nepal and Cambodia were barred from obtaining a student visa - although exceptions are given in certain cases based on merit.

"The government will take into account factors which include immigration and securities considerations, economic, social and cultural ties between Hong Kong and the country," it said.

Former school principal Stephen Codrington, who interviewed Kim Han-sol, described him as a "lovely kid, very bright, charismatic" with "good English" and a "good sense of idealism", the South China Morning Post reported.

The 16-year-old's father is Kim Jong-Nam, the North Korean leader's exiled eldest son, according to the Post. The pair are said to have lived in Macao - an hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong - since the father fell out of favour with Kim Jung-Il years ago.

Kim Jong-Nam is understood to have once been the front-runner to succeed the North Korean leader. But youngest son Kim Jong-Un is now being groomed to take over one of the world's most isolated countries.

Following the visa denial in Hong Kong, Kim Han-Sol was enrolled at another UWC school - in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar. A school spokesman said last Friday he was still waiting for a Bosnian visa and was yet to arrive. The Bosnian school said the enrolment was the result of the UWC's special outreach programme for North Korea.

The UWC is a worldwide network of schools and colleges, which promotes international understanding and is attended notably by pupils from war-affected areas.

Earlier this week a Facebook account believed to belong to Kim Han-sol was unearthed, depicting a trendy teenager with dyed hair who believes in democracy and lists 'Love Actually' as his favourite film.

Platform of European Memory and Conscience to be established in Prague

2011-10-14

On Friday, 14^th October, heads of 19 organisations dedicated to researching and raising awareness of the European totalitarian legacy will sign the founding document of the platform. Among the initiators there are six organisations from the Baltic States.

The ceremony will take place in the Lichtenstein Palace in Prague and will include the Czech Republic’s Prime Minister Petr Nečas and Vice-President of the European Parliament László Tökés.

Mr Uve Poom, head of one of the founders—the Unitas Foundation—expressed his enthusiasm for the newly created platform: “So far we have mainly focused more on the Baltic co-operation and this will make the creation of Pan-European projects considerably easier. The Unitas Foundation has a special focus on innovation in education and we hope to share our activities with other platform members. For example, our project “Different Nations—Shared Experiences” could be of help to other European nations wishing to share their history and raise consciousness on past events.

The Platform of European Memory and Conscience unites governmental and non-governmental institutions and organisations active in research, documentation, awareness raising and education on totalitarian regimes. The European Parliament and the European Commission were among the numerous institutions which called for the creation of a Pan-European co-operation network to increase collaboration among national research institutes specialising in the subject of totalitarian history.

Other founders from the Baltic States in addition to the Unitas Foundation include the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, the Occupation Museum Association of Latvia, the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, and the Occupation of Latvia Research Society.

The Unitas Foundation was established in 2008 by the former two-time Prime Minister of Estonia, Mart Laar, the US philanthropist Mr Damian von Stauffenberg and entrepreneur Meelis Niinepuu with a mission to build reconciliation within and between societies divided by totalitarianism.

Deputy Speaker: Communism is still alive in Malaysia

2011-10-09

Deputy speaker of Malasian parliament Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar says the communist ideology is still very much alive in the country today, and urges the people to be aware, Borneo Post reports.

According to him, the ideology was more subtle this time; the proponents waging psychological warfare against the government. "Even though they have ended the physical war against us, the communist element is still very much alive", he said.

"Their former leader Chin Peng is still active spreading the ideology. It is not physical but psychological warfare," said Wan Junaidi.

He said that Chin Peng had admitted that the ideology was still there, thus the people must be very careful. Recently, Malaysian Ex-servicemen Association (PBTM) president Datuk Muhammad Abdul Ghani acknowledged in the association's website that there were some irresponsible groups using schools and colleges to revive the communist ideology.

"What is regrettable is that they are undermining the peace and the rule of law in this country, and discrediting the present government," he said.

Bulgaria opens Museum of socialist art

2011-09-28

Twenty-two years after the fall of its communist regime, Bulgaria opened last week its first-ever museum of the state-sponsored, propaganda art characteristic of that era.

The Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia exhibits some 77 sculptures, 60 paintings and 25 smaller plastic art works created between 1945 and 1989 by the most renowned sculptors and painters of the time, YAHOO!7 NEWS reports.

Mostly commissioned by the regime for propaganda purposes, the collection contains numerous full-length statues, busts, heads and portraits of the Soviet Union's founding father Vladimir Lenin, Bulgaria's first communist leader Georgy Dimitrov and long-ruling dictator Todor Zhivkov.

Innumerable stone and bronze sculptures, paintings, statuettes, red stars and hammer-and-sickle symbols adorned public squares and key buildings across Bulgaria during the 45-year reign of its communist regime.

Other works glorify the life of the working classes and the feats of the partisan movement that brought communism to Bulgaria in 1944. "It was high time to put that era where it belongs -- in a museum," Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov said at the opening.

Displaying them, however, was expected to turn into "one of Sofia's biggest tourist attractions to both foreigners and younger Bulgarians, who did not live Communism," Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said.

Georgia's Ilia State University has launched a master’s program in Soviet and post-Soviet systems

2010-11-05

TBILISI - The 1968 student movement in Germany was the first time young people en masse asked their parents publicly: were you a Nazi? Many historians cite the era as the start of the country’s reassessment of its Nazi past.

In Eastern Europe, the reassessment of the totalitarian past began in the 1990s and continues. Lustration laws were adopted almost simultaneously in the mid-1990s in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Baltic states.

But despite 70 years under the Soviet regime, that period of history has not been systematically studied in Georgia. The facts that most people think they know are superficial and mainly based on oral accounts.

The country has produced practically no serious literature analyzing the period. And the national security archives, which might have provided fruitful ground for scholars, were opened only several years ago and are not complete; some records were destroyed in the 1990s and some material remains in Russia.

This year, however, scholars will start to fill in the blank spots. Ilia State University has launched a master’s program in Soviet and post-Soviet systems, an organization was launched devoted to researching the Soviet past, and a trickle of young people has begun studying the security archives.

“The Soviet era for us is the past that hasn’t become history. Actually we still live with those traditions, because we haven’t studied our most recent past,” said Sergo Ratiani, director of the university’s new Soviet studies program, which has attracted 14 students in its inaugural year.

The courses will start in January, with lectures by Georgian and foreign professors. The university will also have books and other foreign materials translated into Georgian and will make information from the country’s security archives more accessible to students, Ratiani said.

Tako Tolordava, a third-year social sciences student at Ilia State University, was one of the first to sign up. She became interested in Soviet history last year when she attended lectures on the Soviet regime and its legacy.

“I discovered that my knowledge of the Soviet past was really spotty. If we don’t analyze that period properly, the problems that we have today won’t get solved, we won’t even be able to create a civil society for a long time,” Tolordava said.

Lasha Bakradze, a historian and critic who teaches a course on the fundamentals of Soviet history at the university, said Georgians may have been reluctant to confront this part of their past because they live in a small society, with many clan connections. Genuine lustration and research into security archives could unearth uncomfortable information about people close to them.

Bakradze also cautioned that these new studies must not be co-opted by ideologues and that Georgians must not think of themselves only as victims. “We were victims and we were offenders. This must be a scientific pursuit without ideological pressure,” he said.

Keeping that distance could be a challenge, said Timothy Blauvelt, country director for the American Councils for International Education in Georgia. Blauvelt has lectured on the history of Sovietology in Western countries. “I know that when you have experienced it yourselves, it’s hard to stay objective, but if you want to research and study the issue from the scientific point of view, it’s better to be distanced from the epoch and from your own feelings” Blauvelt said.

But Ratiani, the program’s director, said objectivity should not necessarily be the scholar’s goal. He said the Soviet Union, just like Nazi Germany, was a definite evil and to look for the positive sides of the regime would be misguided. “We must find the reasons that led us to totalitarianism. We must stand for our principles and values.”

Though it lacks a similar program in Soviet studies, Tbilisi State University has seen mixed interest in the subject in the last two years. A Russian studies program launched there in 2008 includes courses on the history of the Soviet Union and on the ideology of the Soviet system. Still, only 10 students have enrolled in Russian studies at the university.

The director of the program, Dali Kandelaki, blames the university for not properly promoting the courses.

According to one of the program’s students, however, it also suffers from a lack of literature and professors sufficiently versed in the subject. David Jishkariani, 24, who said he supplements his studies with outside research, chose Russian studies as his master’s program after the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. “I finally came to the conclusion that we need to study Russia thoroughly, especially the Soviet and post-Soviet epoch. We’re in a transitional period in Georgia and if we want to get over it successfully, we must know where we’ve been,” he said. Jishkariani is researching the Stalinist persecutions of 1937 in Georgia, during which thousands were murdered or deported.

Along with Bakradze, the historian, Jishkariani and a handful of others helped launch a new organization called the Soviet Past Research Laboratory. Its first project will be a map of places in Georgia connected with terror and repression, including houses where the repressed families lived, prisons, places of execution, and houses where secret organizations met. By the end of the year the group plans to launch a website where it will upload photos and texts about the Soviet period as well as some materials from the country’s security archives.

Bakradze said Georgia can learn from Germany’s experience. “No real changes will come until we investigate and understand the past.”

Source

http://www.tol.org/client/article/21909-the-past-that-hasnt-become-history.html

Independent Journalist and Youth Activist Violently Arrested after National Civic Resistance Front Meeting

2010-11-04

A group of activists from the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front held a meeting in the Párraga Municipality of the City of Havana to restructure the organization, which coordinates nonviolent resistance actions on a national level. Upon walking out to the street, they noticed officers from the Castro regime's political police and Rapid Response Brigades surrounding the household, in preparation for a repudiation rally. The activists then began to shout anti-dictatorship and pro-freedom slogans, and sang the national anthem.

“Agent Juan had the audacity to enter the household and we began to shout anti-Castro slogans, and he ran off due to our shouts for freedom and democracy. At that time, a group of opposition activists from different organizations were meeting in Havana,” stated Eriberto Liranza Romero, from the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, and one of the coordinators of the Front in the City of Havana.

According to a later statement made his wife Yaimí Alfonso Lirea during a telephone conversation with the Cuban Democratic Directorate, the activists were attacked by political police around 5:30 PM, and Liranza was violently arrested.

Some of the activists in attendance at the meeting were: Rafael Hernández Fajardo from the Hard Line Front, Niola Camila Araujo from the Cuban Civic Foundation, Ermógenes Inocencio Guerrero Gómez and Boris Rodríguez Jiménez Frente from the Hard Line Front and the Frank País 30th of November Democratic Party, Eriberto Liranza Romero and Raúl Parada Ramírez from the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, Modesto Leopoldo Valdivia Varela from the Unity and Liberty Cuban Movement for Human Rights, Ernesto Herrero Viel from the Independent Union of Light Industrial Workers affiliated with the National Independent Workers Confederation ofCuba/Confederación Obrera Nacional Independiente de Cuba (CONIC), Eli Hernández Rodríguez of the País 30th of November Democratic Party and Benito Aguirre De la Cruz of the Marti Civic League.

The activists stated that they were supported by the residents of Párraga while the police attacked the household, placing themselves between activist Eriberto Liranza Romero and an aggressor from the Rapid Response Brigade known as Michel who was holding a machete, in order to protect the activist. According to Yaimí Alfonso, the neighbors also helped to remove the children who were inside the household to protect them from the attacks.

Source

http://www.directorio.org/pressreleases/note.php?note_id=2857

Independent Journalist and Youth Activist Violently Arrested after National Civic Resistance Front Meeting

2010-10-28

Source

http://www.directorio.org/pressreleases/note.php?note_id=2857

Heavy sentences for VietNam labour activists condemned

2010-10-27

Amnesty International has condemned the nine and seven-year prison sentences given to three activists in Viet Nam for carrying out their legitimate work on labour rights.

Doan Huy Chuong, Do Thi Minh Hanh, and Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung were today convicted and sentenced after a speedy trial yesterday for ‘disrupting security’. They had distributed leaflets and supported workers’ rights at a factory.

“The authorities should immediately release three labour organisers, and stop this needless crackdown on government critics and peaceful activists” said Donna Guest, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific.

“Today’s harsh sentences, and the continuing arrests of activists and bloggers, paint an increasingly bleak picture of freedom of expression and association in Viet Nam.”

Doan is a founding member of the unofficial United Workers-Farmers Organization (UWFO) and previously spent 18 months in prison between 2007 and 2008 on the charge of ‘abusing democratic freedoms’. Do and Nguyen are members of Victims of Injustice, a petitioners’ movement.

The three activists are the latest to be convicted in an ongoing wave of arrests and trials of activists, organisers and bloggers.

There have been at least seven other trials of 17 dissidents in Viet Nam since September 2009, and seven further arrests in the last five months alone.

There have been two arrests of Vietnamese bloggers in the last few weeks: Phan Thanh Hai, known as Anh Ba Saigon and Nguyen Huong Tra, known as Do Long Girl. The prominent imprisoned blogger and journalist Nguyen Hoang Hai known as Dieu Cay completed a prison sentence for politically-motivated charges last week, but instead of being released, is now under investigation for ‘spreading propaganda against the state’.

Four more activists are awaiting trial for ‘attempting to overthrow the state’ following their arrests in July and August. Three of them - Nguyen Thanh Tham, Tran Thi Thuy and Pastor Duong Kim Khai - have campaigned for social justice for farmers, while the fourth, Professor Pham Minh Hoang, had protested against bauxite mining in the Central Highlands. All are members of the overseas Vietnamese network Viet Tan, which calls for political reform.

At least 30 prisoners of conscience are currently imprisoned in Viet Nam, including members and supporters of banned political groups, independent trade unionists, bloggers, businessmen, journalists, and writers.

The trial, conviction and sentencing of the three labour activists comes on the eve of the ASEAN summit in Ha Noi, beginning on 28 October.

Source

http://www.vietnamhumanrights.net/website/AI_102710.htm

Three Vietnam labour activists on trial

2010-10-26

A founder of an independent trade union and two other labour activists went on trial in Vietnam Tuesday charged with disrupting security, a court official said.

Doan Huy Chuong, Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung, and Do Thi Minh Hanh, are on trial in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh, said the official who declined to be named.

"A verdict is going to be issued Wednesday," she said. "The accused have not asked for defence lawyers."

US-based Human Rights Watch said the trio, all in their twenties, were arrested in February for distributing anti-government leaflets and helping workers to organise strikes for better pay.

Chuong was earlier arrested in October 2006 after helping to found the United Workers-Farmers Organization (UWFO), which Vietnam has banned. He was later sentenced to 18 months' jail by a court in southern Dong Nai province for "spreading distorted information to undermine the state," government-controlled media reported at the time.

Vietnam bans labour unions that are independent of the ruling Communist Party.

The charge of disrupting security is punishable by between two and 15 years in prison upon conviction.

Source

http://www.vietnamhumanrights.net/website/AFP_102610.htm

3 monks sentenced to varying prison terms in Tibet's Dhingri

2010-10-26

Dharamsala, October 26 - 3 monks of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Dhingri in south western Tibet under Shigatse prefecture have been sentenced to varying prison terms, the Voice of Tibet reported Monday.

Tenzin Gephel and Ngawang, both monks of Shelkar Choede monastery, have been sentenced to 12 years in prison while another monk of the same monastery has been sentenced to 5 years in jail. However, the dates of trial and verdict announcement are not known as of now.

The 3 were arrested along with 10 others on May 19, 2008 when Chinese work team officials arrived at the monastery to force patriotic reeducation upon the monks in the monastery.

The monks were forced to denounce the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama during the patriotic reeducation campaign but the monks stood defiant despite warnings of expulsion and even arrest saying that the Dalai Lama was their root religious teacher and that they revered him greatly.

A total of 13 monks were arrested on May 19, 2008. 10 were released after a year in 2009. The local Chinese authorities have stopped admission of new monks to the monastery since the incident.

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28430&article=3+monks+sentenced+to+varying+prison+terms+in+Tibet's+Dhingri

Tibetian Youth Congress:China has no "moral right" to host Asian Games

2010-10-26

By Phurbu Thinley

Dharamsala, October 26: The largest pro-independence Tibetan youth organistion on Tuesday protested against China's hosting of the Asian Games next month, saying it lacks "moral right" to hold such an important international sporting event.

"Generally the spirit of any international games represents friendship, solidarity and promotion of peace and freedom. The Asian Games in particular is about helping weaker countries, helping them rehabilitate and develop an understanding of mutual friendship and cooperation," the Tibetan Youth Congress said in a press statement.

The statement said a country hosting such an important event "essentially should not only represent but respect these principles."

Calling China the "biggest colonizer" in modern times, TYC said it should not have been given the right to host the forthcoming 16th Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou from November 12 to 27. Instead of "promoting peace and friendship", the organisation said China continues to use its "military and economic might to stifle smaller and weaker countries".

"So long they do not conclude the occupation of Tibet, words such as freedom, truth and peace for the Chinese government is just another rhetoric. Therefore China has no moral right to host such an important sporting event," the organisation said.

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28431&article=China+has+no+%22moral+right%22+to+host+Asian+Games%3a+TYC

EU plans to relax its stance toward Cuba

2010-10-26

The European Union plans to relax its firm position toward Cuba and has instructed its High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, to explore ways to improve trade and diplomatic relations with the Castro regime, a European diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse.
The firm position will remain in place for now, however.
Ashton was asked by the E.U. foreign ministers meeting Monday in Luxembourg to consider a revision of the European Union's 1996 policy toward the Cuban government in the light of the recent release of political prisoners, the source said.
This policy, called the "common position," prevents the normalization of relations with the island in the absence of improvements in human-rights observance and democratic progress. A dialogue has existed since 2008 but remains very limited.
The idea is to "explore ways to try to move forward" on the issue, said the European diplomat.
Ashton intends to report on her efforts in December, possibly at a meeting of foreign ministers, the source told AFP.

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz13V54Df4u

American held in Cuba expresses regret to Raul Castro

2010-10-25

Judy Gross said that in the letter, which Castro read but did not respond to, she pleaded with him to free her husband Alan because their daughter has been diagnosed with breast cancer and he is needed at home.

Alan Gross, 61, who worked for a Washington-area company contracted under a U.S. Agency for International Development program to promote democracy in Cuba, was arrested at the Havana airport on December 3 and has been held on suspicion of espionage and subversion.

In an interview this weekend, his wife denied he was a spy and said he went to Cuba five times last year to help Havana's Jewish community gain Internet access to Jews worldwide.

Cuban officials say Gross committed "serious crimes" by giving restricted satellite communications equipment to local dissidents, but no legal charges have been filed.

His detention has stalled efforts by Washington to improve ties with the communist-led island.

Judy Gross criticized the White House for not doing enough to seek release of her husband, whom she called a "pawn" caught up in a decades-old ideological feud between the United States and Cuba. She said she has heard nothing from President Barack Obama.

The White House said on Sunday it shared her "concern and frustration with the continued unwarranted detention of her husband."

"Administration officials have repeatedly made clear to Cuban authorities that Alan Gross should be released immediately to be able to rejoin his wife and family -- and we will continue to do so," National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said in a statement.

In an August 4 letter to Castro, she wrote, "I recognize today that the Cuban government may not like the type of work that Alan was doing in Cuba."

"But I want you to know that Alan loves the people of Cuba, and he only wanted to help them. He never intended them, or your government, any harm," she said.

"To the extent his work may have offended you or your government, he and I are genuinely remorseful," she wrote.

She told Castro her family needed Gross home since his 26-year-old daughter, whose name she asked not be used, was diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.

The only response came at a meeting this month with Jorge Alberto Bolanos, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, who offered mother and daughter visas to visit Gross in Cuba. He said President Castro had read her letter.

Source

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69N0RK20101024

Vietnam: Free Peaceful Bloggers and Government Critics

2010-10-25

Human Rights Watch

New York, October 23, 2010

Vietnam should immediately drop charges against the peaceful online critics Nguyen Van Hai, known as Dieu Cay, and Phan Thanh Hai, known as Anhbasg, and release them, Human Rights Watch said today. The government’s politically motivated prosecutions of independent bloggers and critics of the government violates their rights guaranteed under international law and spotlights the country’s poor human rights record, Human Rights Watch said.

On October 20, 2010, the day the blogger Dieu Cay’s 30-month prison sentence on trumped-up “tax evasion” charges was to finish, police officials refused to release him. Police said he would be held pending investigation of a new charge that he had violated article 88 of the Penal Code by carrying out “propaganda against the Socialist Republic.” His former wife, Duong Thi Tan, who was preparing to pick him up from the prison, was detained and interrogated by police in Ho Chi Minh City, and authorities searched her house.

“The Vietnam government is shameless in constructing charges and rationales to keep peaceful critics like Dieu Cay behind bars,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The pre-Party Congress crackdown is swinging into full gear and government critics are being targeted.”

Dieu Cay is the founder of an independent group called the Club of Free Journalists. The tax charges were widely viewed as a pretext to muzzle his criticism of the government and its policy toward China. On October 18, police in Ho Chi Minh City also arrested Phan Thanh Hai, another member of the group. Two other members, Ta Phong Tan and Uyen Vu, both bloggers, were placed under intrusive police surveillance at their homes. Police also briefly detained a democracy activist, Do Nam Hai, on October 19.

“In a country where the state controls all traditional media outlets, independent bloggers have emerged as important sources of news, information, and social commentary,” Robertson said. “The government should embrace the key role that independent bloggers are playing in society instead of harassing and imprisoning them.”

The repressive measures against bloggers have coincided with a recent wave of arbitrary arrests that appear to be part of an official effort to stifle critical voices in the months before the Vietnamese Communist Party Congress, in January 2011. Vietnam bans opposition political parties and independent media and requires all associations, religious groups and trade unions to come under government control.

On August 13, the police arrested Pham Minh Hoang, known by his pen name, Phan Kien Quoc, of Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnic University, who is a contributor to a website critical of Chinese-operated bauxite mines in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Police accused him of working with Viet Tan, an overseas opposition party, and attending meetings at which methods of nonviolent resistance were discussed. Others arrested for alleged involvement with Viet Tan in recent months include Duong Kim Khai, a Mennonite pastor arrested on August 10 in Ho Chi Minh City; and land-rights petitioners Tran Thi Thuy, arrested on August 10 in Dong Thap, and Nguyen Thanh Tam, arrested on July 18 in Ben Tre.

Three labor rights activists – Doan Huy Chuong, Do Thi Minh Hanh, and Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung – are scheduled for trial in Tra Vinh province on October 26, charged with “disrupting security.” The three were arrested in February for distributing anti-government leaflets and helping workers to organize strikes for better pay. Also scheduled for trial next week are six villagers from Con Dau parish in Da Nang province who were arrested in May when police forcibly dispersed a funeral procession to a cemetery located on disputed land.

The 17^th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which begins on October 28 in Hanoi, provides an excellent opportunity for ASEAN heads of state and other governments to raise concerns about the persecution of government critics, Human Rights Watch said.

“Participants to the ASEAN summit should ask their Vietnamese hosts what they think a ‘people-centered ASEAN’ really means to a Vietnamese blogger in prison,” Robertson said. “ASEAN should insist that Vietnam immediately release these prisoners and respect the ASEAN Charter’s human rights principles.”

For more Human Rights Watch Reporting on Vietnam, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/vietnam

20 Tibetan students detained, protests over language continue in Tibet

2010-10-25

More protests against the Chinese government's education policy have been reported on Sunday as thousands of students took to the streets of Chentsa County to demand that the government revert its decision to replace Tibetan language as medium of instruction in Tibetan schools by Chinese language.

Sources also said that 20 students were detained following protests on Saturday in Chabcha County.

Sources say that teachers and school staff also joined the protest on Sunday that started around 7.30 in the morning yesterday. Students in Chentsa also protested on 19th and 21st October.

Meanwhile, similar protests have been reported from other areas as well. The first protests were reported from Rebkong on 19 October when Tibetan students from 6 different schools carried out protests demanding “Equality of People, Freedom of Language”.

The past few days saw protests by thousands of Tibetan students in Chabcha, Chentsa, Khrigha, Golok and Beijing where 400 Tibetan students held protests against the forced replacement of Tibetan language by Chinese as the medium of instruction.

Meanwhile, a letter of appeal signed by several teachers was submitted to the Qinghai government on October 15 urging the provincial government to reconsider its decision to change the medium of instruction from Tibetan to Chinese. Khabda.org, a Tibetan language blog says it has obtained a part of the letter submitted in both Tibetan and Chinese.

The incomplete letter, Khabda.org says, contains signatures of 103 teachers but adds about 300 teachers signed the original letter.

Citing the Chinese constitution, the teachers wrote in the letter that the Article 4 of the Chinese constitution provides for all ethnic groups the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their own folkways and customs.

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28417&article=20+Tibetan+students+detained%2c+protests+over+language+continue+in+Tibet

Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Unwillingness to Support Russian Nation Reflects Its Own Imperial Agenda, Kazan Scholar Says

2010-10-25

by Paul Goble

Like their Soviet predecessors, the current powers that be in the Russian Federation are quite prepared to sacrifice the national interests of the ethnic Russian people in the pursuit of an imperialist agenda, but this sacrifice will not serve either Russian national interests or Moscow’s imperial goals, according to a Kazan sociologist.
Aleksandr Salagayev further argues that “the legal vacuum which characterizes the situation of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation and the position of the powers that be who are ignoring this contradiction is the source of inter-ethnic conflicts with migrants, the extremism of Russian organizations in Russia and the weakness of Russian diasporas abroad.
In a 3200-word essay posted on the Regnum.ru news agency, Salagayev, a specialist on social and political conflicts at the Kazan State Technological University, traces the long and complicated history of the relations between the ethnic Russian nation and the states within which it has existed (www.regnum.ru/news/1337042.html).
Prior to 1917, he notes, “Russians were an imperial nation.” The state’s slogan, “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality,” applied only to them, but the Russian nation included the Great Russians, the Little Russians (Ukrainians), and the Belarusians, as one might expect an imperial people, as opposed to a nation, to do.
The country’s nationality policy changed dramatically with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Their ideas about “proletarian internationalism,” Salagayev argues, instituted “a double standard” with the rights of the non-Russians being protected and the rights of the ethnic Russians as a community being ignored or at least slighted.
While that balance shifted over time, the Kazan scholar says, many now believe that “the main cause of the destruction of the USSR was the weakening of the Russian ethnos and the loss of its role in economic and state-political life which took place after the October 1917 coup” that brought the Bolsheviks to power.
In the first years of Soviet power, the communist tilt toward the non-Russians was most pronounced, with the non-Russians being given republics and the ethnic Russians, routinely denounced for “great power chauvinism,” being denied one repeatedly. Salagayev notes that efforts to form a Russian republic were blocked by Soviet leaders in 1922, 1923, 1925, and 1926.
After Stalin declared “the final solution of the nationality question in the USSR” in 1934, the Russian nation was redefined. No longer was it “the former oppressor nation” with a historic “debt” to the others, but rather the Russian nation became the elder brother – or as “Leningradskaya Pravda” put it in 1937, “the eldest among equals.”
But despite the rhetorical change, Russians were still expected to provide funding for the non-Russians to help them catch up with modernity, a policy that continued throughout the rest of the Soviet period and one that by “ignoring the interests of the Russian people [was] inevitably accompanied by Russophobia” on the part of the regime.
That is because this attitude “was expressed not so much in the denial of the ‘positive features of the Russian nation and its positive contribution to world history’ as in a fear of the Russian national factor … and the possible resistance from the side of the most numerous people of the communist reconstruction of the country and the world.”
Indeed, KGB and then CPSU leader Yuri Andropov famously observed, Salagayev recalls, that “the chief concern for us is Russian nationalism; as to the dissidents, we would take them all in one night.”
In short, “self-determination of the Russian people was assessed as chauvinism but the self-determination of other peoples was considered as a necessary condition of their national development,” Salagayev says. And as a result, “the national interests and the interests of Russians in autonomous formations were simply ignored.”
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this policy continued. “Ethnic mobilization” seized “all the ethnic groups” of the country except the ethnic Russians “who despite the actual loss of their imperial status preserve the illusions about their imperial destiny, responsibility for the fate of Russia and other such myths.”
Ethnic mobilization among ethnic Russians thus has been dominated by marginal groups like the RNE and Primorsky partisans and by “the spontaneous ethnic mobilization of Russians” in relatively small cities such as Kondopoga. In his article, Salagayev lists 22 such cases of the latter since 1999.
None of these efforts can be called successful, he says, largely because Moscow opposed all of them. The 1996 law on national-cultural autonomy did not apply to Russians and efforts beginning in 2001 to adopt “a law on the Russian people” were blocked by the powers that be and have come to nothing.
“In thus preserving the imperial ambitions of Russians,” Salagayev continues, “the powers that be are not showing any interest in the fate of the Russian people and in fact are struggling against those who recognize the real situation, calling such people Russian extremists or Russian fascists.”
Moscow continues to subsidize the non-Russian republics at far greater rates than the predominantly Russian areas, but its failure to support the Russian nation is undercutting its own imperial strategy because it is leading ever more ethnic Russians to flee non-Russian areas back to the center of the country.
In Salagayev’s opinion, “the situation is very similar to the policy of support of the national borderlands of the Soviet Union at the expense of the central oblasts which are populated primarily by Russians, a policy which in the final analysis led to the collapse of the USSR. It is obvious that such a policy will preserve the territorial integrity of Russia.”
The Kazan scholar suggests that there are two possible solutions to this situation, a “radical” one in which ethnic Russian oblasts would be formed and non-Russian republics liquidated, and a “moderate” one in which ethnic Russians would gain the same right to form national cultural autonomies that other nations now have.
Salagayev adds that some combination is likely, and he concludes by suggesting that Moscow must address the Russian question at home if it is to have any hope of protecting compatriots abroad, many of whom have been reduced to the status of “second class citizens” there in a way paralleling that of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation itself.

Source

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/10/window-on-eurasia-moscows-unwillingness.html

Vietnam: Free Peaceful Bloggers and Government Critics

2010-10-24

Human Rights Watch

New York, October 23, 2010

Source

http://www.vietnamhumanrights.net/website/HRW_102310.htm

Prisoners refuse to be freed if they cannot resume political activism

2010-10-22

The Cuban government might release this weekend several political prisoners who have refused to be sent to Spain, says the Spanish daily El Mundo.
One of the prisoners, Pedro Argüelles Morán, told the newspaper that he and others had been informed by the authorities that they could be released as early as today Sunday.
The release would come one day before the meeting in Luxembourg of the European Union, where the continuation of the Union's "common position" toward Cuba will be debated.
According to El Mundo, the prisoners who refuse to leave the island say that they will accept their release only if they can "continue their political and journalistic endeavors as human-rights activists."
They also want the authorities to expunge their police records.

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz13V2Sxg5d

Analysts see award to Fariñas as fourth setback in a week to the Castro regime

2010-10-22

A prestigious human rights prize awarded to dissident Guillermo Fariñas on Thursday was the fourth admonition to the Cuban government this week that its reforms are not enough, Cuba watchers said Thursday.
Fariñas, 48, a psychologist and independent journalist whose 135-day hunger strike earlier this year put him near death, was awarded the Sakharov prize and more than $60,000 by the European Parliament.
The Raúl Castro government had no immediate comment on Fariñas' prize, but Cuba watchers noted that it was the latest in a string of setbacks that Havana suffered just this week:
• President Barack Obama declared that Cuba has not changed enough to merit U.S. gestures.
• Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, often criticized as too friendly to Havana, was replaced.
• The European Union was reported unlikely to end a policy that ties assistance to Cuba's human rights record.
"These are four messages to Cuba that it's not doing enough, that it needs a more defined policy of change," dissident Havana economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe told El Nuevo Herald.

Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz13Uk6GtMC

Chinese dissidents plan their own WikiLeaks

2010-10-22

by Choi Chi-yuk

A group of Chinese dissidents plan to launch their own version of whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks to expose central government secrets and promote democracy.

The organisers have signalled their intentions through social networking sites such as Twitter. They aim to launch "Government Leaks" on June 1 next year and they are calling on people to upload confidential government information to their database.

"I think by making government secrets open we can promote democracy in China. This is a fight against the dictatorship, and to return the right to information to the people. I believe it will advance China's political reform," said the founder of the website, who identified himself as "Deep Throat" when talking to the South China Morning Post (SEHK: 0583, announcements, news) .

Deep Throat said a team of professionals had been aseembled to run the site, including journalists, editors, lawyers and hackers - who would help defend against possible cyberattacks.

The founder said he was inspired by Watergate, the US scandal of the 1970s, and the success of WikiLeaks, which gained worldwide recognition after it published a massive trove of US intelligence documents relating to the war in Afghanistan, a move that infuriated the Pentagon and energised opponents of the war.

Ironically, the founders of WikiLeaks include some Chinese dissidents, according to its website, and it has recently launched a Chinese language version. The Chinese WikiLeaks has not so far published any sensitive information on the Beijing government though.

Deep Throat said at first he tried to form a partnership with WikiLeaks. "I sent them a letter on October 1, to all three e-mail accounts listed by WikiLeaks. I told them that I wanted to co-operate with them. But the e-mails never went through as their system was always down. I ended up with three undelivered e-mails in my box," he said.

"Government Leaks has no relations with WikiLeaks, but you can call us the copycat version of WikiLeaks in China," he said.

Unlike WikiLeaks, which is based in Europe where the freedom of speech and rights to information are guaranteed by the European Union's constitution, Government Leaks would inevitably anger the central government.

Many technology-savvy net activists on the mainland feel Government Leaks is too open in its approach. They say the idea is naive and dangerous. Some fear it could become a trap for the authorities to round-up whistle-blowers.

John Kennedy, the Chinese language editor of Global Voices Online, who is more widely known in China by his pseudonym Feng 37, described it as "a blind man riding a blind horse" - a Chinese idiom of things doomed to fail.

Kennedy, a Canadian national, said five out of the seven e-mail service providers of Government Leaks are based on the mainland - meaning they would be subject to severe surveillance by the authorities. "No one would send them anything, except those stupid guys," he said. He also criticised the website for lacking encrypted links to protect informers.

Another mainland net activist, calling himself Zola, also questioned if the security technology of Government Leaks could provide enough protection to whistle-blowers. "In the worst case, the informer could be prosecuted for illegally possessing state secrets," he warned.

He cited the example of mainland journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2005 for leaking state secrets. Shi was incriminated by the central government after the authorities obtained a secret document he sent to an overseas website through a mainland-based Yahoo China server.

Deep Throat said informers' safety would be treated as the most important issue. Government Leaks would not use normal e-mail accounts to communicate with informers. It is also studying encrypted technologies to receive reports. "We will also keep contacting WikiLeaks and see if they can help," he said.

Another challenge for the website is verifying information and fact checking. Deep Throat said he would invite well-known public figures to help authenticate documents.

"We are not formally launched yet. But once the site is up, we will definitely run things through them before publishing them."

Since making the open call for information a few months ago, Deep Throat said Government Leaks was receiving four or five documents on average each week.

But he said most of the information would hardly be considered classified. "Some are out-dated. Some is actual information that is available on the internet. So far we have got only one document that really fits the bill."

Zola said he would not send any sensitive information to Government Leaks unless he was 100 per cent certain about safety.

He does not suspect Deep Throat's motives and background, but he is sceptical over Government Leaks' ability to overcome the daunting technological and legal challenges it faces.

"They have got to have the right mentality in terms of the seriousness of security in the first place. Then they have a chance of being in full command of the network technology. Only then, can privacy and, hence, the safety of both the website operators and potential informers be secured."

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28408&article=Chinese+dissidents+plan+their+own+WikiLeaks

Tibetan students' protests reach Beijing

2010-10-22

by Barbara Demick

Between 200 and 300 students at the Central University for Minorities protest plans to elevate Chinese to the main language of instruction in Tibetan schools in Qinghai Province. Earlier in the week, as many as 9,000 people protested in Tibetan communities in Qinghai and Sichuan provinces with banners reading "Equality for minorities; equality for languages."

The protests were set off by plans of education officials in Qinghai to use only Chinese-language teaching materials except for language lessons in Tibetan and English. Qiang Wei, the province Communist Party chief, has been quoted recently speaking out in favor of students learning a "common language" — shorthand for Mandarin Chinese.

"Chinese law says that ethnic minorities have the right to study their mother tongue first in school — that's why the students are angry," Xiong Kunxin, a professor at the Central University for Minorities in Beijing, said on Friday.

A source at the university who did not wish to be identified said between 200 and 300 students participated in the two-hour protest at midday, after which the president of the university and teachers called them into classrooms and asked them to write out their complaints in Chinese.

Among Tibetans, the language of instruction in schools is a flashpoint for protest. While many families wish their children to learn Chinese in order to attend college and apply for better jobs, they also worry that Chinese officials are seeking to diminish their language, culture and religion.

The largest of the protests this week was in Tongren, known as Repkong in Tibetan, a city in Qinghai province that has frequently been the scene for ethnic clashes. These were the largest demonstrations by China's Tibetans since 2008, when clashes erupted in the city of Lhasa and spread through most of the Tibetan communities in China.

As many as 6,000 people were reported to have demonstrated Tuesday, although there were no reports of violence. Free Tibet, a London-based advocacy group, said that police did not interfere with the protests.

"The Chinese are enforcing reforms which remind me of the Cultural Revolution. This reform is not only a threat to our mother tongue, but is in direct violation of the Chinese constitution which is meant to protect our rights," the group quoted a former middle school teacher from Tongren saying.

"The Chinese have been talking more and more about promoting the 'common language,' but now they are re-allying implementing these policies with textbooks and also broadcasting," said Tsering Shayka, a Tibetan historian based in Canada, who has been blogging about the protests.

In July, there were protests in Guangdong about plans to switch the language of many television shows from Cantonese, the language widely spoken in southern China, to Mandarin.

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28410&article=Tibetan+students'+protests+reach+Beijing

Blogger’s detention prolonged illegally, two other bloggers arrested

2010-10-21

Nguyen Hoang Hai, a blogger better known by the pen-name of Dieu Cay, should have been released yesterday or the day before on completing a two year jail-sentence, but he is still being held and has reportedly been transferred to a different prison. His wife was also briefly arrested.

“The authorities seem to be seeking a pretext for keeping Dieu Cay in detention and are acting in a completely illegal manner,” Reporters Without Borders said. “He must be released without delay and the harassment of his family members must also stop.”

Arrested on 19 April 2008, Dieu Cay was sentenced by a Ho Chi Minh City court on 10 September 2008 to two and a half years in prison on a trumped-up charge of tax fraud designed to silence a troublesome dissident.

He had written about the protests accompanying the Olympic torch relay prior to the 2008 Beijing Games and was arrested just before the torch was paraded through Ho Chi Minh City. He had been under close police surveillance since taking part in protests at the start of 2008 against China’s claim to sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel Islands.

Reporters Without Borders also calls for the immediate release of two other Vietnamese bloggers who have reportedly just been arrested.

One of them is Phan Thanh Hai, who is also known by the blog name of Anh Ba Saigon. The police reportedly arrested him at his home on 18 October, seizing three computers. He is facing a possible four-month jail sentence on a charge of “propaganda against the state,” according to his wife.

She quoted the police as say he was arrested for posting false information in his blog, in which he writes about Vietnam’s territorial disputes with China and the bauxite mining being carried about China in Vietnam. He has also expressed his support for other Vietnamese dissidents.

A series of hacker attacks on dissident websites, including the site of To Hai, a famous composer who became a dissident, is also currently under way. Reporters Without Borders condemns the increase in these cyber-attacks, which are designed to sabotage websites that tackle sensitive issues.

Vietnam is ranked 165th out of 178 countries in the world press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders released yesterday.

Source

http://www.vietnamhumanrights.net/website/RWB_102110.htm

Cuban dissident wins Sakharov Prize

2010-10-21

STRASBOURG, France—The European Parliament awarded its annual human-rights prize on Thursday to Guillermo Farinas, the Cuban dissident whose 134-day hunger strike helped draw attention to the plight of political dissidents jailed in a 2003 crackdown.

Cuba began freeing the 52 political prisoners earlier this year after an agreement ironed out with the help of the Roman Catholic Church, prompting Mr. Farinas to end his protest.

Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas spoke on the phone at his home in Santa Clara after hearing news of his winning the Sakharov Award.

A 48-year-old psychologist and freelance journalist, he has spent more than 11 years in prison for a variety of offenses, though he wasn't behind bars during the hunger strike. He decided to launch his protest after the death of a jailed political prisoner following a long hunger strike.

Cuba's government considers him a common criminal paid for by Cuba's enemies in Washington, and notes that some of his legal troubles include an assault on a co-worker and other violent behavior. Mr. Farinas has said all the charges are linked to his activism.

Reached by telephone at his humble home in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara, Mr. Farinas said the award sent a strong signal to the government in Havana.

"The award is a very direct message to Cuba's leaders, who have done so little" to respect human rights, he said. Mr. Farinas warned he will begin another hunger strike if the Cuban government doesn't fulfill its July 8 pledge to free all 52 political prisoners jailed in 2003 within four months. To date, 39 have accepted exile in Spain in return for their freedom. At least some of the remaining 13 appear to be holding out because they don't want to leave Cuba.

The European Parliament said it will invite Mr. Farinas to come to Strasbourg on Dec. 15 to collect the assembly's 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The prize carries a cash award of €50,000 ($69,745).

The prize is bound to rile Havana's communist leaders and complicate efforts to improve their relations with Europe that have been strained since the crackdown on dissent.

Cuba's leaders are already angry over the recent decision to award the Nobel Prize for literature to Mario Vargas Llosa, the Chilean author whose disdain for Fidel and Raul Castro is well-known, and the Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed pro-democracy activist in China, an important Cuban ally.

Previous winners of the Sakharov Prize include Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's opposition leader, and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Europe's top human-rights prize was awarded twice before to Cubans: in 2002 to pro-democracy activist Oswaldo Paya and in 2005 to a dissident group, Ladies in White.

Mr. Farinas, a former Cuban soldier, is a contributor to the independent press agency Cubanacan Press, which is maintained by anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.

Since 2006 he has repeatedly chosen hunger strikes to protest what he says is the lack of freedom—notably the internet censorship—and shaky respect for human rights in his country.

The Sakharov Award was announced four days before the EU foreign ministers are to assess the 27-nation bloc's relations with Cuba. The EU's view has long been that Cuba must improve its human rights record before relations can be upgraded. Spain spearheads a bid to improve relations, but the bloc's former communist members in Eastern Europe oppose this.

Mr. Farinas said he opposes any improvement in European relations with his country, and he brushed off the release of political prisoners as insufficient. "The release of prisoners is not enough to make Cuba a democratic country," he added.

Source

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566102690123906.html#printMode

Giving Fariñas the Sakharov prize debases the award, Spanish member of the EP says

2010-10-21

At least one Euro-deputy does not share the European Parliament's enthusiasm over Guillermo Fariñas.
Maria Muñiz de Urquiza, 47, a Spanish socialist member of the EP, said Thursday in Strasbourg that presenting the Sakharov Prize to the Cuban dissident "discredits" the award. The prize has been "politicized," she said, and the EP ignored recent positive developments in Cuba.
Giving Fariñas the credit for the prisoners' release "implies ignoring or trying to minimize the efforts of Spain's foreign policy and of other agencies, like the Catholic Church, and focusing only on Cuba, as if human rights violations didn't exist anywhere else in the world," Muñiz told the Europa Press news agency.
The award "has been utilized politically from the standpoint of sectarianism" without considering events in Cuba, "where a gradual release of political prisoners has been taking place."
The Parliament "has decided to give the award again to a well-known cause that is being solved, whereas there were others [...] that deserve international recognition," she said.
Cuban dissidents were given the Sakharov Prize in 2002 and 2005 (see our previous blog item).
Rewarding another Cuban oppositionist "absolutely devalues the Sakharov Prize," Muñiz said. "It discredits and diminishes it, because you cannot pay attention to only one cause of human rights violations in the world, which, in any case, is being solved."

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz130Y8qxqP

Repeal of 'common stance' seems unlikely

2010-10-20

The European Union is expected to reaffirm next Monday its "common position" toward Cuba, although it might accept some "gesture" from Havana that would enable it to negotiate another type of relation, Europa Press reported Wednesday.
The Common Position conditions European nations' diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba to progress in human rights observance and economic liberalization.
A change in the common stance requires a unanimous vote from the 27 European Union nations. According to diplomatic sources interviewed by the news agency, at least two countries – Germany and the Czech Republic – will vote against change.
The EU's foreign-policy chief, Catherine Ashton, reportedly has already drafted a statement revealing the Union's decision and proposing that new possibilities be explored.

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz130Zkv7AP

Cuba not doing enough, Obama maintains

2010-10-19

United States policy toward Cuba will remain unchanged despite Cuba's release of imprisoned dissidents and its announced changes in economic structure.
That's not enough, President Obama told Hispanic reporters Tuesday at a Washington gathering. No transcript of the meeting was made immediately available by the White House.
"Any release of political prisoners, any economic liberalization that takes place in Cuba is positive, positive for Cuban people, but we've not yet seen the full results of these promises," Obama said, according to Agence France-Presse.
"We want to continue to explore the possibilities of changing relations [...] but before we take any more steps, we want to see that the Castro regime is serious about different ways to deal with the situation," Obama said, quoted by El Nuevo Herald.
"We need more information before we make a definitive decision or take additional steps," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
As to the release of prisoners, "there are still political prisoners in Cuba," the president said. He did not go into specific figures.

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz130b1aMkx

Amnesty International asks U.S. to review case of five Cubans and show clemency

2010-10-18

Amnesty International this week issued a public statement expressing "its concerns about the fairness of the trial of five men convicted in 2001 of acting as intelligence agents for Cuba and related charges.
"Cuban nationals Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino, and U.S. nationals Antonio Guerrero and René González were tried in Miami and convicted on various counts, including acting and conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the Republic of Cuba," the document says.
The five are serving terms ranging from 15 years to life in U.S. federal prisons.
"In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on 4 October, [...] Amnesty International said that, while it did not take a position on whether the five men were guilty or innocent of the charges against them, it believed there were doubts about the fairness and impartiality of the trial which have not been resolved on appeal.
"A central, underlying concern related to the fairness of holding the trial in Miami, given the pervasive hostility to the Cuban government in that area and media and other events before and during the trial," the document went on, adding that "there was evidence to suggest that these factors made it impossible to ensure a wholly impartial jury."

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/#ixzz130aKEvAX

Labor Union Activists in Vietnam Charged with 'disrupting security'

2010-10-18

Vietnamese authorities have brought charges against three labour activists for 'disrupting security,' an official said Monday.

The indictment said the three often contacted and received money from Tran Ngoc Thanh, chairman of the Warsaw-based Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers, to print and distribute anti-government leaflets and to foment labour strikes.

It said 'those offenders' crimes are very serious, operated and organized with the intention to destroy the country's security, and need punishing.'

The accused are Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung, 29, Do Thi Minh Hanh and Doan Huy Chuong, both 25 years old, said Nguyen To Toan, deputy head of security department No 2 of the prosecutor's office.

In November 2006, Chuong established the United Workers-Farmers Organization of Vietnam (UWFO) to advocate for labour rights. He was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison in December 2007 for
'abusing democratic freedoms,' but was released on May 13, 2008 due to poor health.

His father, Doan Van Dien, 55, a co-founder of UWFO, was also sentenced to four-and-a-half years in December 2007.

Hung and Hanh were accused of distributing anti-government leaflets and soliciting farmers' complaints about government confiscation of their land.

The three face jail sentences of five to 15 years if convicted.

Authorities in Vietnam have jailed dozens of democracy activists and independent bloggers over the past year.

Source

http://www.vietnamhumanrights.net/website/DPA_101810.htm

Forced Eviction Victims in China: We Want a Home

2010-10-15

by Sophia Fang
Epoch Times Staff

Victims of forced eviction in Beijing, Shanghai, and other areas in China expressed their grievances on World Habitat Day. They went on protest walks and talked about their experiences of forced government demolition and eviction.

Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was crowded with people during the weeklong Chinese National Day holiday. But some came instead to observe World Habitat Day designated by the United Nations for the first Monday of October every year.

Former Beijing human rights attorney, Ni Yulan, told Voice of America (VOA) that she and many other people went to Tiananmen Square to stage a protest walk, and that they were closely followed by police.

“The purpose of our walk was to protest the illegal demolition and illegal confiscation of personal property. As ordinary Chinese citizens, all we are asking for is a shelter, so we can live a normal, simple, and undisturbed life,” Ni said.

Ni was forced by authorities to vacate her home during the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Ni said when she protested the eviction, she was arrested and sexually molested by police and other officials. Later she was sentenced to two years in prison on grounds of “interfering with public order.” While in prison, she was severely tortured, making her permanently disabled. In addition, her license to practice law was revoked. Ni is now a homeless petitioner, confined to a wheel chair.

Ni was released from prison on April 14. In June, when the Southern People Weekly published an exclusive interview with her, authorities immediately had the article deleted from the website, and the Central Propaganda Department threatened the magazine with an investigation. By that time the news had already been widely circulated by bloggers and aroused public sentiment.

Ni’s husband, Dong Jiqin told Sound of Hope Radio: “World Habitat Day advocates a home for everybody. The government, and corrupt government officials, have no right to take our homes away from us. Didn’t the government say that the right to live is the primary right? We do not have a home to live in. Therefore, we have been deprived of our right to live.”

Dong has initiated an arts event called, “I Want a Home” which consists of a photo collection from forced demolition victims.

Dong said in another interview with VOA: “There are many people whose homes were forcefully demolished. Many protested by setting themselves on fire, throwing Molotov cocktails, or lying under the bulldozers. People have been using all sorts of ways to protest the illegal, forced demolition. That is why I started the ‘I Want a Home’ photo collection.”

Some people sent photos showing themselves in front of the ruins of their former homes, holding a piece of broken tile in their hands, a symbol of their defeat and painful loss.

Among the protest walkers was a woman named Wang Yuqin. Her husband had recently been released from prison after a two-year term for splashing sulfuric acid on the demolition team.

Someone Cares

In Shanghai, people walked outside the Municipal Bureau of Housing Support. Police dispatched vehicles and blocked the public from getting close to the building.

In Zhejiang Province a group of about two dozen victims of forced demolition went to the provincial government building to appeal. They were stopped by police, and one person was arrested.

A woman by the last name of Zhu, who used to live in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, told Radio Free Asia that several dozen families in her district were evicted during one week in September. She said that everyone who participated in the walk is homeless.

“Now those corrupt officials are celebrating National Day, but we are homeless. What can we do about it? Today’s protest made us feel that at least some people care about us,” Zhu said.

The United Nations has designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day. It is meant for people to reflect on the state of their towns and cities, and on the basic right of all to adequate shelter.

Source

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/43981/

After Eight Years of Torture, Falun Gong Practitioner Dies under Mysterious Circumstances

2010-10-15

Falun Gong practitioner Cai Fuchen, a government employee from Jilin province, died in police custody in mid-September after spending eight of the last ten years as a prisoner of conscience.

Mr. Cai last spoke with family members on September 5th, 2010, and reported that his condition was deteriorating. Prolonged torture and abuse had left Mr. Cai weak and emaciated, and he was under constant surveillance. Approximately ten days later, the family was told that Mr. Cai was dead. Prison authorities claimed he had jumped from a third-storey window—an assertion commonly associated with attempts to cover up deaths caused by torture or ill-treatment.

Mr. Cai, a father in his 40s, was abducted by security forces on May 26, 2004, while he and five others were working to create literature about the persecution of Falun Gong. Upon taking him into custody, police beat Mr. Cai, badly injuring his legs. In August, 2005, he was "sentenced" to ten years at the Gongzhuling Prison in Jilin province. Because he practiced Falun Gong meditation in public, Mr. Cai previously spend two years in a labor camp from 2000 - 2002.

Over the course of the eight years he spent imprisoned, Mr. Cai reportedly suffered from repeated torture as authorities attempted to force him to denounce his faith in Falun Gong. According to the accounts of witnesses and family members, during his time at Gongzhuling Prison Mr. Cai had been hung up by his wrists, deprived of sleep, held in solitary confinement, and shocked with electric batons. Criminal inmates were directed to keep constant watch over Mr. Cai, and prevented him from having contact with others.

A Family Torn Apart

After Mr. Cai's abduction in 2004, his elderly father went to a local government appeals office to request the release of his son. Instead, the father was taken into police custody himself. He never saw his son again, and died in 2005.

Due to repeated harassment and a suspension of the family’s pay, Mr. Cai’s wife, Zhang Yanhong, has been forced into hiding to avoid being persecuted herself. Their teenage son was also subject to harassment by authorities, who followed him to and from school. He is now in the care of extended family, but has dropped out of school, unable to cope with the harassment.

"Cai Fuchen spent most of a decade as a prisoner of conscience during the prime of his life, and his family was torn apart," says Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center. "Considering there are tens of millions of Chinese citizens practicing Falun Gong and the stories of their families are similar to Mr. Cai's, it becomes clear just how devastating the Communist Party's campaign against Falun Gong has been for the Chinese people."

Source

http://www.faluninfo.net/article/1089/?cid=84

Chinese activists urge Beijing to release Liu Xiaobo

2010-10-15

By Tania Branigan

BEIJING - More than 100 Chinese writers, lawyers and activists have released a letter urging the government to release the Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo and other political prisoners.

The letter, issued late last night, comes amid the detention and monitoring of dissidents, which they believe reflects the government's anxieties about the award as well as a major political meeting that begins today.

It calls for the government to approach the award with "realism and reason" and follows a spate of angry denunciations of the prize. Yesterday a foreign ministry spokesman said the Nobel committee was "encouraging crime" in China by giving the award to Liu, who is serving 11 years for incitement to subvert state power.

A series of furious editorials and opinion pieces have also attacked Norway and the prize committee.

The letter describes Liu as "a splendid choice", adding: "We call upon the authorities to release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who are in detention for reasons such as their speech, their political views, or their religious beliefs. We ask that legal procedures aimed at freeing Liu Xiaobo be undertaken without delay, and that Liu and his wife be permitted to travel to Oslo to accept the Nobel peace prize."

The writers also call for China to embrace universal values and say they are ready to engage actively in the promotion of political reform after the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, raised the issue.

Some signatories to the letter received threatening calls from the police even before it was published it, said Xu Youyu, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"We thought we had to say something," he told Associated Press. "The government is still doing the same things."

Other signatories include the well-known lawyers Teng Biao and Pu Zhiqiang, academic Cui Weiping, Tibetan poet Woeser and journalist Li Datong.

Li said: "He has already won the Nobel peace prize and you [the government] are still keeping him in prison … If something is right, we have to support it."

Others unconnected to the letter have also been affected. Yu Jie, author of the book China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao , said police had met him off a flight from America.

"There are three domestic security cops who are watching me. When I am home, they are downstairs; when I go out, I have to go in their car. Now I am in the supermarket buying stuff and they are here as well," he said.

"I think it is because of Liu Xiaobo winning the prize – I am a good friend of his and they are afraid that I might participate in some related 'activities.'"

Liu's wife Liu Xia, who has been placed under house arrest , tweeted yesterday that Ding Zilin, the head of the Tiananmen Mothers, and her husband, Jiang Peikun, had disappeared. She had earlier said that Liu Xiaobo had dedicated his Nobel award to "the dead spirits of Tiananmen".

Ding and Jiang's number was unobtainable and other members of the group – made up of those bereaved by the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 – said they had been unable to reach Ding for several days.

"We are increasingly concerned about the escalation of measures taken against dissidents and activists at the moment," said Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

He added: "There is a flagrant contradiction. On the one hand they argue the Nobel should not be awarded to a criminal. At the same time they are implementing unlawful measures against dozens of people, including Liu Xia."

Dissidents often face greater pressure in the run-up to major political meetings.

The party plenum, a meeting of top leaders, may be used to give Xi Jinping, heir apparent to president Hu Jintao, a promotion. But observers believe that Wen and others are pushing to at least discuss political restructuring. Wen has repeatedly raised the need for political reform in recent speeches and interviews. Most Chinese media outlets have not included those remarks in their reports although the boundary-pushing Southern Weekend ran them yesterday.

"Even the premier of our country does not have freedom of speech or of the press," a group of party elders complained in another open letter this week. It called for an end to censorship – a step seen by many as the first move towards broader changes.

Source

www.guardian.co.uk

Dead Cuban Hunger Striker's family Can Emigrate

2010-10-14

Cuba has authorized the family of dissident Orlando Zapata, who
died in February after an 85-day hunger strike, to emigrate directly to
the United States, Zapata's mother told AFP Thursday.

"They told me that the government had authorized the departure of the
whole family and that we are going directly to the United States, but
I'm not going until they give me my son's ashes," said Reina Tamayo, the
dissident's mother.

In a related development Thursday, opposition leaders said five other
dissidents had been granted approval to go the United States.

Tamayo said the government's offer was communicated to her October 11 by
Roman Catholic Bishop Emilio Aranguren of the eastern province of
Holguin, where she lives.

Aranguren was traveling and unavailable for comment, while officials at
the U.S. Interest Section in Havana had no immediate comment. Tamayo
said she had received no information from the U.S. Interest Section.

Tamayo, 62, was in Havana Thursday to meet with officials in the office
of Cardinal Jaime Ortega to learn of the details of the offer.

Ortega held a high-level meeting with President Raul Castro in May that
resulted in the government agreeing to release 52 of the 75 political
prisoners it jailed in a widespread 2003 crackdown.

Tamayo's four adult children -- three sons and a daughter -- along with
their families were also authorized to travel to the United States.
Church officials agree that they should leave "because we are being
harassed, we cannot live here," Tamayo said.

The slow process of releasing Cuba's political prisoners is supported by
Spain, which has welcomed 38 prisoners of the released prisoners and
their families. One ex-prisoner traveled to Chile, and another traveled
to the United States.

Orlando Zapata, a 42 year-old laborer who was single and had no
children, died on February 23 after an 85 day-long hunger strike. His
death unleashed a wave of criticism in the United States and European Union.

Cuba denies it holds any political prisoners and calls dissidents
"mercenaries" funded by the United States and a conservative
Cuban-American "mafia."

Meanwhile, Elizardo Sanchez, a key leader of the Cuban opposition, said
five other dissidents who had been released from prison in recent years
from the same group had been granted permission to go to the United States.

He said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Jorge Olivera, Carmelo Diaz, Roberto de
Miranda and Margarito Broche, who were released from prison for health
reasons, were contacted because "apparently there is a tendency by the
authorities to permit the emigration of those released."

Espinosa and Olivera reportedly rejected the offer, while Diaz, Miranda
and Broche accepted.

Source

http://cubadata.blogspot.com/2010/10/dead-cuban-hunger-strikers-kin-can.html

Tibetian Nun mentally unsound after prison torture, discharged to family: rights group

2010-10-14

Dharamsala, October 13: A Tibetan nun jailed in May 2008 had become “mentally unsound” after being reportedly tortured in prison and was handed over to her family in September 2008, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) based here said in a statement to the press.

The Chinese Public Security Bureau (PSP) and People's Armed Police(PAP) arrested 36 year old Sonam Choedon, a nun of Puruna Nunnery in Lhoba Township, Kardze County, Kardze “Tibet Autonomous Prefecture” on May 14, 2008.

“Confirmed information” received from sources indicate that Sonam suffered severe head injury on being knocked on the head several times with rifle butt during her detention. “Her head injury seems to have rendered her mentally unstable and she is said to be crying constantly at her home and requires 24 hours care.”

Around 200 nuns of Puruna Nunnery and Yangteng Nunnery carried out protests against the Chinese Government in Kardze County in 2008 during the nationwide uprising that sparked off from the Tibetan capital Lhasa. Several nuns were arrested in the aftermath of the protests. Trulku Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche, an influential Lama who heads the 2 nunneries, was also arrested on May 18, 2008 and sentenced to 8 years in prison in December 2009.

Sonam Lhatso was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Bhumo to 9 years, Sokha and Yangchen Khando to 3 years and Tashi Lhamo to 2 years, according to the TCHRD. All were nuns of Puruna nunnery.

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28323&article=Nun+mentally+unsound+after+prison+torture%2c+discharged+to+family%3a+rights+group

Chinese elders call for more freedom

2010-10-14

BEIJING — Twenty-three retired Chinese Communist Party officials, led by Mao Zedong’s former secretary, have challenged the government to improve press freedom, just days before meeting to discuss the nation’s new leadership.

The group, drawn from the military, state media, and academia, accused “invisible black hands’’ of suppressing a speech last month in which Premier Wen Jiabao called for greater political openness to match the country’s economic gains. The open letter by party elders including Li Rui, Mao’s secretary, was published on the Internet.

“What right does the Central Propaganda Department have to muzzle the speech of the premier?’’ the letter said, referring to a branch of the party that focuses on ideology. “What right does it have to rob the people of our nation of their right to know what the premier said?’’

The letter’s release two days before the party’s central committee meeting reflects an internal debate over the future of political reform, said Huang Jing, a visiting professor at National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. The move may also be a sign that the reformist camp is in retreat following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, he said.

The Nobel award was widely viewed in the party as “a deliberate move to make the Chinese government look bad’’ and this mentality has emboldened opponents of political change, Huang said. Publicly releasing the letter was a “desperate last effort’’ on the part of the reformists.

Liu was given the Peace Prize for his struggle to promote human rights and democracy, the Nobel committee said Oct. 8. The 54-year-old writer was ordered jailed last year for 11 years for subversion for his role in organizing Charter 08, an open letter calling for direct elections and freedom of assembly as guaranteed by China’s constitution.

Of the 303 Chinese academics, lawyers, and retired party officials who signed the letter in 2008, five were also signatories in the latest petition, based on a list published by Human Rights in China, a pressure group. These include Hu Jiwei, former editor of the party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, and Du Guang, a retired professor of the Central Party School.

Du was questioned by security officers in January after he described Liu’s sentence as “stupid and shameful,’’ according to a report on the website of Radio Free Asia.

A link to the Chinese-language version of the letter could not be opened inside China, with screens showing “network error.’’ A search in Chinese for Li Rui’s name on Google.com in China generated the following message on Microsoft Corp.’s web browser: “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.’’

The Communist Party Central Committee plenum is to begin tomorrow in Beijing.

Source

Bloomberg News

International Parliamentarians (INPaT) Join Call for Liu Xiaobo's Release

2010-10-13

A network of parliamentarians in more than 30 countries applauded the Norwegian Nobel Committee for making the right choice of awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo today, and joined the international call for his immediate release from prison.

"The peace prize award to Liu Xiaobo represents a recognition of human rights defenders and advocates of free speech and democratic rights who work under a very difficult political environment in the People's Republic of China, including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Inner Mongolians," said Co-Chair of the International Network of Parliamentarians on Tibet (INPaT) Mr. Matteo Mecacci from Rome. "As we congratulate Liu Xiaobo, we add our voice for his release from incarceration."

INPaT acknowledges that with regard to the grave human rights situation prevailing in Tibet, Liu Xiaobo supports His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Middle Path Approach policy that strives to realise a genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people within the framework of the Constitution of China.

Following the 2008 Tibetan Uprising, Liu Xiaobo joined Chinese scholars to sign a document called, ""Twelve Suggestions on Dealing with the Tibetan Situation" which appealed: "We hold that we must eliminate animosity and bring about national reconciliation, not continue to increase divisions between nationalities. A country that wishes to avoid the partition of its territory must first avoid divisions among its nationalities. Therefore, we appeal to the leaders of our country to hold direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama. We hope that the Chinese and Tibetan people will do away with the misunderstandings between them, develop their interactions with each other, and achieve unity. Government departments as much as popular organizations and religious figures should make great efforts toward this goal."

INPaT believes that today's award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo is not only a sign of hope for human rights defenders around the world but also a clear message that the international community must hold the Chinese authorities accountable on obligation to international human rights standards.

We fully support the Nobel Committee's view that "China's new status must entail increased responsibility" when it is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights. The Committee recalled that: Article 35 of China's constitution lays down that "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration".

Matteo Mecacci, Co-Chair, INPaT
Thomas Mann, Co-Chair, INPaT
8 October, 2010
Amsterdam

Source

http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/tibet-news/international-parliamentarians-inpat-join-call-liu-xiaobos-release

Open letter from ex party officials calls for end to media censorship in China

2010-10-13

A group of former high-ranking political and cultural officials published a rare, strongly worded open letter to the top legislature calling mainland media censorship unconstitutional and saying it should be abolished.

They also demanded that media products and books from Hong Kong and Macau - popular among mainland readers - be made openly available on mainland newsstands and in bookstores.

The letter, published online, calls the lack of free speech, which is enshrined in the 1982 constitution, a "scandal of the world history of democracy". It even cites Hong Kong in the colonial era as an example of somewhere that enjoyed freedom of speech and publication.

In particular, the group of 23 well-known individuals condemned the Communist Party's central propaganda department as the "black hand" with a clandestine power to censor even Premier Wen Jiabao's repeated calls for political reform and to deprive the people their right to learn about it.

For the last few weeks, well-connected professionals in Beijing have been talking about the party propaganda authorities' almost open insult to the premier by deleting his points on political reform the day after he made his speech in Shenzhen.

Open letters of this kind rarely lead to any reform, but can land the authors in trouble with the authorities. However, in this case, the high profile of the signatories means they are unlikely to be punished.

The open letter coincided with the imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. But several initiators of it said the two events were unrelated; rather, the open letter had been initiated earlier than the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize and was directly triggered by the injustice to Xie Chaoping , an investigative reporter.

In mid-August, Xie was taken from his home in Beijing by police from Shaanxi province, 1,000 kilometres away, under the charge of "illegal business operation". But Xie and his supporters believe the actual reason was the book that he had published about forced migration to make way for a water project and related official corruption. Xie was released after 30 days' detention for lack of evidence but still has to spend the next year "waiting for trial".

Among the leading sponsors are Li Rui , former secretary of Mao Zedong who was sacked after disagreeing with Mao's disastrous economic programme; and Hu Jiwei, former publisher of the party's mouthpiece the People's Daily, who was removed for trying to reflect the people's voices. Both men are in their 90s. Li confirmed that he had put his name on the open letter.

Zhong Peizhang , former news bureau chief of the Central Propaganda Department and another sponsor of the letter, said the petition was to fight for the rights of expression. He said the current press environment was unsatisfactory.

Author Tie Liu , another sponsor, said Xie Chaoping's case was a brilliant opportunity that the sponsors should grab. "These veteran media professionals have not been able to speak their minds for so long that they all felt bottled up and frustrated," Tie said. "The situation the press is in must change."

"The press environment has deteriorated in recent decades," said Tie, citing in the letter the example of Li Rui's article, which could be published in 1981 but was just recently censored from a book. "As the radio, TV, print media and the internet are all tightly controlled, people nowadays have no channels to file their petitions but sometimes have to turn to foreigners. This could lead to chaos and public disturbance."

He said he had received more than 500 signatures from people aged from their early 20s to 97. "All petition signatories used their real names, and 90 per cent of them are party members," Tie said.

Sha Yexin , author and former president of Shanghai People's Art Theatre, said freedoms of the press and expression were better for the party's governing in the long run if they were ensured. "Freedom of the press actually serves as a decompressor," Sha said, adding that the suppression of information and a totalitarian society were behind disasters such as the Cultural Revolution and the anti-rightist campaign.

Dai Qing , an author and activist, said even if there was a 0.001 percent chance the petition would lead to change then it must be done.

The open letter begins by citing article 35 of the Chinese Constitution (the 1982 edition) that all citizens have freedoms of speech, of publication, of assembly, of association and of demonstration. But it points out that for 28 years these constitutional rights have existed only in words but never really in practice.

Citing words by President Hu Jintao and Wen in support of freedom of speech, the open letter says the reality in today's China is worse than that of the former British colony of Hong Kong, where mainlanders can find many books on Chinese politics they can't find at home.

Sponsors of the open letter seemed most outraged by the fact that even Wen had been censored. They cited examples of his speech in Shenzhen on August 21, a talk with journalists in the US on September 22 and his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 23.

Wen talked about political reform on all those occasions, but it was not mentioned in reports by Xinhua.

"What right does the Central Propaganda Department have," the open letter asked, "to place itself even above the Communist Party Central Committee, and above the State Council?" Wen, as premier, heads the State Council - the executive branch of the state elected by the National People's Congress.

The letter calls on the NPC to enact a new law of news and publication to replace "the countless rules and regulations" that hamper freedoms of speech and publication.

Most importantly, it says the media should gain its "relative independence" from direct control by the party or state apparatus. It notes that the mainland's censorship system lags behind Britain by 315
years and France by 129 years.

The signatories to the letter include

1. Li Rui, former deputy head of the CCP Organisation Department/former
secretary for Mao Zedong

2. Hu Jiwei, former editor-in-chief of People's Daily

3. Yu You, former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily

Li Pu, former vice-president of Xinhua News Agency

4. Zhong Peizhang, former chief of News Bureau of the CCP Central
Propaganda Department

5. Jiang Ping, former President of China University of Political Science and Law

6. Zhou Shaoming, former deputy director of political dept of Guangzhou
Military Command

7. Zhang Zhongpei, former head of Palace Museum; head of council of
Archaeological Society of China

8. Du Guang, professor of the Central Party School

9. Guo Daohui, former editor-in-chief, China Legal Science Magazine

10. Xiao Mo, former head of the Institute of Architectural Art of China Art Academy

11. Zhuang Puming, former vice-president, People's Publishing House

12. Hu Fuchen, former editor-in-chief, China Worker Publishing House

13. Zhang Ding, former president of Social Sciences Academic Press of
China Academy of Social Sciences

14. Ouyang Jin, editor-in-chief of Pacific Magazine in Hong Kong

15. Yu Haocheng, former president of Qunzhong Press

16. Zhang Qing, former president of China Film Publishing House

17. Yu Yueting, former president of Fujian TV station

18. Sha Yexin , former president, Shanghai People's Art Theatre, author

19. Sun Xupei, former president of Journalism Institute of China Academy
of Social Sciences

20. Xin Ziling, former director of Contemporary China Editorial Bureau
under the National Defence University

21. Tie Liu, editor of private publication The Past with Traces, author

22. Wang Yongcheng, professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University

Eight proposals for change that the letter seek are

1. Dismantle the system where media organisations are all tied to certain higher authorities.

2. Respect journalists and their due social status. Protection and support should be rendered to them when they are covering mass actions and exposing official corruption.

3. Revoke the ban on cross-provincial supervision by public opinion.

4. No Web administrator should be allowed to delete any items or post any of their own items at will, except for cases where the state information or citizens' privacy is truly affected. Abolish cyber-police and the "50-cent army" [paid favourable commentators].

5. Guarantee to all citizens the right to know the crimes and mistakes committed by the political party in power; there should be no areas in the Communist Party's history where recording and debate are forbidden.

6. Launch pilot projects, preferably in the magazines Southern Weekend and Yan Huang Chun Qiu, in the reform of developing media organisations owned by citizens. A democratic political system should not tolerate the party in power and the government squandering taxpayers' money on self-congratulation.

7. Allow media and publications from Hong Kong and Macau to be openly distributed.

8. Change the mission of propaganda authorities at all levels, from preventing the leak of information, to facilitating its accurate, timely and smooth spread; from assisting corrupt officials to censor investigative and critical articles, to supporting the media's supervision of the Communist Party and the government; from closing down publications, sacking editors-in-chief, and arresting journalists, to resisting political privilege and protecting media and journalists.

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28330&article=Open+letter+from+ex+party+officials+calls+for+end+to+media+censorship+in+China

The Reduction of State-Sector in Cuba

2010-10-13

After more than five decades of centralized planning, Cuba’s labor force has been characterized by relatively low worker productivity, morale, and discipline; the predominance of the state sector as the country’s principal employer; lack of adequate inputs; access to obsolete technologies and production techniques; the absence of modern managerial systems and practices; and the traditional rigidities commonly associated with centrally-planned economies (CPEs).

To confront these deficiencies, and as part of a concerted effort to transform the Cuban economy, on September 13, 2010 the state-controlled national labor federation (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba, CTC) announced a plan to reduce the number of workers employed by the state by 500,000 from October 4, 2010 to March, 2011. The displacement of these half-million workers represents the first stage in a multi-tiered strategy to reduce the number of workers employed by the state sector by 1,000,000 (or 19.4%).

Displaced state workers will be relocated to sectors with deficits (i.e. insufficient workers) such as agriculture, construction, law enforcement, education, and industry (Ravsberg, 2010). Most of the reductions will apply to “bureaucratic functions” such as management and administration, to increase the share of “productive workers” (or “blue collar” workers) to 80% of the workforce in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and ministries (Ravsberg, 2010). The state will issue 460,000 new licenses for self-employed workers in areas in which it can supply essential inputs (Ravsberg, 2010).

Self-employed workers will be able to directly negotiate the provision of their services to the state-owned producers, thereby creating new contracting opportunities between the state and the emerging private sector (i.e. self-employed workers). In addition, self-employed workers will be able to make contributions to the state-run social security fund, open bank accounts, obtain loans to expand their operations, and will pay taxes on their income or earnings (Ravsberg, 2010).

These measures, along with previously announced increases in the retirement age by five years to 65 years for men and 60 years for women, are part of a series of economic policy transformations implemented by the Cuban government in response to the severe economic crisis confronted by the island since 2008. As a response to this crisis, Cuba has implemented a series of economic changes including austerity measures focused on energy conservation, fiscal transformations to reduce the ratio of the fiscal deficit to gross domestic product (GDP), transfers of non-productive state-owned lands to cooperatives and private producers, and the liberalization of consumption.

The principal reasons given for the reduction of workers in Cuba’s state sector were the un-sustainability of the current system, under which the majority of the economically active population (83%) works in the state sector, the need to improve worker productivity, the heavy fiscal burden that unproductive workers represent for the state, and the need to reactivate the economy by increasing output and improving efficiency.

Approximately 83% of Cuba’s economically active population is employed by the state sector; the rest work cooperatives (4.8%) and the private sector (12.2%). There are an estimated 141,600 legally-registered self-employed workers (cuentapropistas) in Cuba, representing just fewer than 3% of the economically active population, but close to 17% of all non-state workers (ONE, 2010b). The agricultural sector is the country’s principal employer with 902,000, or 17.5% of the economically active population; other important sectors include education (695,600 workers), health care (671,200 workers), and industry (667,800 workers) (ONE, 2010b).

In 2009, the median monthly salary in Cuba reached 429 pesos (CUP), representing an increase of 3.4% with respect to 2008. At the prevailing exchange rate of 25 Cuban pesos (CUP) per convertible peso (CUC), this was the equivalent of 17.16 CUC or 18.53 USD per month.

Labor force participation has been relatively stable over the last decade. While nominal salaries and pensions were increased in 2005, their real purchasing power (adjusted for inflation) has declined due to repressed inflation (i.e. higher prices) in parallel markets. Liquidity has accumulated due to limited supplies in peso markets and limited opportunities for small entrepreneurs (both legal and illegal) to invest surplus earnings or income in their businesses or real property.

From a fiscal perspective, Cuba’s mostly state-employed work force has turned into an increasingly unsustainable burden for the state. Official statistics reveal that generous subsidies mostly in the form of free social services (e.g., health care and education), subsidized workplace meals, paid vacations, workplace-sponsored distributions of consumer goods packages, along with other direct and indirect transfers, including goods provided through the rationing system, have resulted in the explosion of fiscal expenditures, forcing the transformation of the labor market.

The experiences of other former communist countries that have transitioned to the “reformed” or “market socialist” model (e.g. China and Vietnam) suggests that once the forces of a more autonomous labor force are unleashed it is difficult to contain or reverse the economic reform process. The creation of new, alternative, economic spaces to allow an emerging (and increasingly autonomous) private sector to perform essential economic functions, which the state is unable to provide or cannot provide efficiently, has contributed to increased household incomes, better living standards, and economic growth.

However, despite the potential benefits provided by this type of economic transformation, due to existing levels of differentiation among the Cuban labor force, particularly in terms of age, transferable skills, and educational attainment, it is reasonable to expect that the recently announced measures will negatively affect some segments of the labor market disproportionately. Some of the most vulnerable groups include low skilled workers, workers with limited amounts or quantities of accumulated human and financial capital, workers with little or no knowledge of how markets work, workers without any desire, energy (or physical vigor), or attitude and aptitude to work as entrepreneurs or to become self-employed, and older workers near the end of their productive economic lives.

As Cuba’s experience with self-employment during the 1990s indicates, the transfer of state workers to the emerging private sector will contribute to increased income and social inequality. This phenomenon, however, even though it is likely to become more pronounced, is not new to most Cubans on the island: one of the lasting legacies of the market-oriented reforms of the 1990s has been increased inequality, and its acceptance by the majority of the population, particularly among those who were young or were born after the “Special Period.”

Another unintended consequence of the transfer of workers from the state sector is likely to be an increase in poverty. As some unprepared workers are (involuntarily) transferred to the non-government sector, and given no option but to fend for themselves by setting up small-scale businesses, many will fail, pushing them into poverty, leaving them emotionally stressed, and uncertain about their futures.

Source: http://cubacenter.org/english/the-reduction-of-state-sector

Arrests, censorship and propaganda in reaction to Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel

2010-10-13

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has said, “freedom of expression is essential in all countries.” Except in China, apparently. There have been many acts of censorship, intimidation and propaganda since the 8 October announcement that jailed dissident intellectual Liu Xiaobo is the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, at least 40 human rights activists and journalists have been held or questioned for trying to celebrate Liu’s award.

In one of the latest developments, 1984BBS, a chat forum used by many journalists, has been closed under pressure from the police.

Reporters Without Borders urges the Chinese government to release all of Liu supporters who are being held just for expressing their joy about the award. It is regrettable that the authorities are stepping up harassment of writers and journalists, including members of Independent Chinese PEN Centre, the writers’ association of which Liu was for many years the president. Reporters Without Borders also calls for the restrictions on the freedom of movement of Liu’s wife to be lifted.

The government’s credibility will be badly damaged if it denies the Chinese people access to any information about Liu’s Nobel Peace Prize except its own hostile reactions. Why do the Communist Party’s leaders not let Chinese citizens judge the award’s historic significance for themselves?

Chinese media coverage of Liu’s Nobel is still limited to Beijing’s angry reaction. The national television service and most newspapers, even the most liberal ones, are saying nothing. Newsrooms received a clear order from the Propaganda Department on 8 October: “It is forbidden to relay information” about the award.

Some Chinese foreign-language media including the English-language version of the nationalist newspaper Global Times and the French and English versions of People’s Daily reported the government’s reaction. Youth Daily ran a story headlined: “Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo named – an insult to the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Foreign TV stations continue to be jammed whenever they carry a report referring to Liu. Online censorship is still intense. Some bloggers, such as the writer Han Han, have protested by posting empty messages to symbolise the impossibility of referring to Liu.

An open letter has meanwhile been released by 23 retired Communist Party officials and intellectuals urging the country’s highest authorities to carry out political reforms and to respect the guarantees of free speech and media freedom in article 35 of the Chinese constitution. The appeal has been systematically removed from the Chinese blogs and websites where it had been posted.

The Open letter from Party elders calls for free speech: http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/10/13/8035/

Wave of arrests

The arrests began on the evening of 8 October. Supporters of Liu have been arrested in Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan and even in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Initial eight-day detention orders were issued for three of them – Wang Lihong, Wu Gan and Zhao Changqing.

A former journalist who served a jail sentence, Liu Jingsheng, said police had been posted outside his home. Liu Xiaobo supporters without Beijing residence permits have been sent back to their province of origin. Gao Jian, for example, was sent back to Shanxi, where the local authorities are now interrogating him.

Three students attending the People’s University (Renmin Daxue) in Beijing were arrested after unfurling banners supporting Liu in Tiananmen Square at 6 p.m. on 8 October. There has so far been no word about what has happened to them since their arrest.

Wei Qiang, a 21-year-old student from Shaanxi who is attending Beijing’s Central School of Fine Arts (Zhongyang Meishu Xueyuan), was interrogated at a Beijing police station after trying to disseminate information about Liu’s Nobel within the school.

Dozens of university academics, students and lawyers have also been placed under house arrest. From time to time, Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, manages to post messages on Twitter. But the Beijing police have forbidden her to leave her home.

Liu Xia was able to tell her husband on 10 October that he has been awarded the Nobel. Although he had already been told by prison guards, he burst into tears and said he dedicated it to the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Since then, the conditions in which he is being held have improved. Liu Xia said he now has better food and has been allowed a small stove so that he can cook in his cell, which he shares with five other inmates.

Source

http://en.rsf.org/chine-arrests-censorship-and-propaganda-13-10-2010,38536.html

Investigative Journalists Dissect KGB’s Enduring Legacy

2010-10-12

Few Russian journalists have followed the country's security services as closely as Moscow-based investigative reporters Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan. In their new book, "The New Nobility: The Restoration Of Russia's Security State And The Enduring Legacy Of The KGB," Soldatov and Borogan chronicle the resurgence of the Federal Security Service (FSB) during the presidency of Vladimir Putin. RFE/RL correspondent Nikola Krastev caught up with Soldatov and Borogan in New York, where they discussed their book.

RFE/RL: What main conclusions are drawn in the book?

Irina Borogan : A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that Putin was raised within the ranks of the KGB, and many people thought that he was a part of a KGB conspiracy to seize power in the new Russia. But after analyzing the FSB's activities, we concluded that this was not the case. The FSB has, however, become the pillar of the new power structure and extended its methods of secrecy and suspicion and its determination to suppress any form of discussion or criticism of the state. And the application of these methods have had a very negative effect on society. We don’t have open discussions, political contests, or free exchanges of opinions.

RFE/RL: What are the lines of comparison between KGB and FSB?

Andrei Soldatov : If we are talking about numbers, the Soviet KGB, of course, was a mightier structure, because the Soviet Union was bigger than Russia. But if we look at it in relative terms, we have to say that the modern FSB is a stronger organization in some respects than the KGB. This is one of the major conclusions of our study. There is little comparison with the KGB in this regard because the KGB was fully under the control of the Communist Party. There were party cells within each department and section of the KGB, and KGB officers were quite fearful of displeasing the party apparatus. A 1959 regulation clearly stated that the party cells within the KGB were authorized to report all KGB shortcomings to the higher levels of the party apparatus. There is no such thing today.

RFE/RL: A lot has been said about the economic interests of the FSB. What is the real situation?

Borogan : The FSB is as corrupt as, or even more corrupt than, many other Russian institutions. They are more powerful than the civil institutions, because they can initiate criminal prosecutions against businesses and use [such criminal cases] to their own advantage, including for material gain. FSB officers have been appointed to important positions in various companies. When they are appointed, for example, to the board of directors of large companies such as Gazprom, they receive excellent compensation, and in that regard, they are acting more as company employees than FSB officers.

RFE/RL: What can we expect from the FSB during the 2012 presidential campaign?

Soldatov : First of all, I would like to say that for [President] Dmitry Medvedev, the FSB is playing a very important role. He does not intend to relinquish what has been achieved by the security apparatus during Putin’s reign. He is quite satisfied with the results and with the political stability. It is unthinkable at this point to even conceive of the idea of some real political opposition to the Kremlin. At the same time, because Medvedev did not have personal experience within the security apparatus, he is not exclusively focused on the FSB. He is, for example, relatively flexible and is using the Interior Ministry [MVD] for the same purposes. Don’t forget that one of his first decrees was to give the MVD broader powers in the fight against the extremism. In Russia, "extremism" is often associated with public discontent, with people who may pose a threat to political stability. So, I don’t think the FSB will be the main tool used by Medvedev or Putin in the [2012] political campaign.

There’s one more argument that we tried to analyze in our book -- that the FSB has become so difficult to manage that neither Russian society nor Kremlin can now control it. It is not clear to what extent even Putin or Medvedev can count on the support of the people who are within FSB now. Who within its vast apparatus will stand by them and actively support them? All this is a big question.

Source

http://www.rferl.org/content/Investigative_Journalists_Dissect_KGB_Legacy/2188408.html

Furious China blocks visit to Nobel winner’s wife – APFurious China blocks visit to Nobel winner’s wife

2010-10-12

By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – China on Monday blocked European officials from meeting with the wife of the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner, cut off her phone communication and canceled meetings with Norwegian officials — acting on its fury over the award.

As China retaliated, U.N. human rights experts called on Beijing to free imprisoned democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo, who was permitted a brief, tearful meeting with his wife Sunday. Liu dedicated the award to the “lost souls” of the 1989 military crackdown on student demonstrators.

Liu, a slight, 54-year-old literary critic, is in the second year of an 11-year prison term for inciting subversion.

In naming him, the Norwegian-based Nobel committee honored Liu’s more than two decades of advocacy of human rights and peaceful democratic change — from demonstrations for democracy at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 to a manifesto for political reform that he co-authored in 2008 and which led to his latest jail term.

Beijing had reacted angrily to Friday’s announcement honoring Liu, calling him a criminal and warning Norway’s government that relations would suffer, even though the Nobel committee is an independent organization.

On Monday, it abruptly canceled a meeting that had been scheduled for Wednesday between visiting Norwegian Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen and her Chinese counterpart. Berg-Hansen was in China for a weeklong visit to the World Expo in Shanghai.

“If the meeting has been cancelled due to the Peace Prize, we find that to be an unnecessary reaction from China,” said Norway’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ragnhild Imerslund. “We have not received any reason for cancelling the meeting.”

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama criticized China for its response to the Nobel Peace Prize award, saying the government “must change,” the Kyodo News agency reported. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who won the Peace Prize himself in 1989, said Beijing must recognize that fostering an open society is “the only way to save all people of China.”

Also Monday, four U.N. human rights experts released a statement calling for China to immediately release Liu. The independent U.N.-appointed investigators, who examine issues ranging from breaches of the right to free speech to arbitrary detention, called on China to release Liu and “all persons detained for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

European diplomats, meanwhile, were prevented from visiting his wife, Liu Xia, who has been living under house arrest since Friday. Liu Xia has been told that if she wants to leave her home she must be escorted in a police car, the New York-based group Human Rights in China said.

She reported that her phone communications, along with her Internet, has been cut off; both her and her brother’s mobile phones have been interfered with, HRIC said. She is not being allowed to contact the media or her friends, the group said.

Simon Sharpe, the first secretary of political affairs of the EU delegation in China, said he went to see Liu Xia at her home in Beijing to personally deliver a letter of congratulations from the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.

Sharpe was accompanied by diplomats from 10 other countries, including Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy and Australia.

But three uniformed guards at the main gate of Liu’s apartment complex prevented the group from entering, saying someone from inside the building had to come out and fetch them.

“We were told that we could only go in if we called somebody from the inside and if they came out to meet us. But of course, we can’t call Liu Xia, because it’s impossible to get through to her phone,” Sharpe told reporters at the entrance to the compound.

Sharpe read out a message from Barroso that said the decision to award Liu was “a strong message of support to all those around the world who sometimes with great personal sacrifice are struggling for freedom and human rights.”

The Beijing public security bureau and the foreign ministry had no immediate comment on why authorities were apparently restricting the movements of Liu Xia, who has not been charged with anything. But “soft detention” is a common tactic used by the Chinese government to intimidate and muffle activists and critics.

In recent days, Beijing has also stepped up its harassment of other activists, detaining several when they tried to organize a dinner to celebrate Liu’s Nobel.

Zhang Jiannan, who runs an Internet forum on political matters, told The Associated Press that he and other activists had gone out Friday to celebrate Liu’s victory. He was placed under house arrest Saturday and warned by police not to participate in political activities.

“Our (bulletin board system) had been warmly discussing Liu Xiaobo winning the award and passing the news to more people. I think police feel the pressure. They want to crack down on this circle of dissidents, and I and my site became a good target to set an example for others,” he said.

Zhang said he has agreed to shut down his website because he is fearful of police retaliation against his family.

On Monday, lawyer Pu Zhiqiang was the latest to be detained by police, according to his assistant, who did not want to be identified. Pu had sent out a message via Twitter Sunday that said security officials had showed up telling him not to accept interviews with foreign media.

In Australia, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Monday he would raise to Chinese authorities Canberra’s objections to the 11-year prison sentence imposed on Liu and to restrictions placed on the movements of the dissident’s wife.

Source

http://www.asiaworks.com/news/2010/10/11/furious-china-blocks-visit-to-nobel-winners-wife-ap/#more-1675

Window on Eurasia:Russian Officials Preparing for More and Larger Street Clashes Ahead

2010-10-12

by Paul Goble

Until recently, Russian officials and most systemic politicians have played down the risk of massive street clashes and the need to prepare for them, but in the course of the last week, a “Novaya Versiya” commentator notes, members of both groups have expressed concern about this possibility and outlined steps to counter it.
In recent months, Mikhail Sukhodolsky, the first deputy minister of internal affairs, said last week, the number of crimes connected with popular clashes and disorders “has markedly increased, and for objective reasons, [such crimes and the milieu from which they spring] are generating a serious social response (versia.ru/articles/2010/oct/11/massovie_besporyadki)
In the past, “Novaya Versiya” analyst Ruslan Gorevoy says, officials had been restrained in making any such assessment, but “now they are speaking about [this problem] openly,” apparently because “it is becoming ever more complicated to rein in protest attitudes by bloodless means” and law enforcement bodies want to justify in advance the use of force
The powers that be, Gorevoy says, have been preparing for just such a possibility. On the one hand, both the central and regional offices of the MVD have set up special “rapid reaction” forces to disperse street demonstrations, and perhaps more important, the Duma has passed a law denying those charged in such cases of the right to a jury trial
Moreover, he continues, the belief that “in the near future mass disorders are inevitable” appears to be shared “not only by representatives of ‘the extra systemic opposition [who may have a vested interest in making such predictions] … but also by those whose responsibilities include not allowing such excesses to occur and in the worst case to suppress them.”
“Militia officers, court officials, and legislators as one firmly declare about the inevitability of force actions,” Gorevoy notes, although their explanations for this possibility vary. Militia officers blame the failure of the courts to punish those who have taken part, judges blame shortcomings in legislation and politicians blame “irresponsible opposition figures.”
For example, Sergey Markov, a political scientist and Duma member, says that “disorders like those which we observed not long ago in Riga and Sofia today can occur in all countries of the world except those where there is a socially oriented economy. They can even break out in Russia.”
Indeed, Markov said, “there are already elements of a pre-revolutionary situation in Russia” but “there are only elements” and they are more social-economic than political because of the resources of the existing regime and the absence of credible alternative political leaders who could exploit such “elements.”
One measure of the spread of such concerns is the increasing popularity of insurance policies against the consequences of mass violence, Gorevoy says. When such policies were offered two years ago, only five firms bought them. Now, they are far more popular, with one in every four firms insuring itself against such problems
More significant, however, the “Novaya versiya” analyst continues, is that the formation of the MVD special units was completed in August, a development that prompted the deputy minister of internal affairs to talk about the ability of his institution to cope with anything that might happen.
Sukhodolsky said that “the crime-generating situation can deepen with the growth of protest attitudes called forth by dissatisfaction of the labor capable population of the country as a result of the non-payment of wages, threats of firings, and also unpopular measures taken in the framework of the anti-crisis program.”
Because of that risk, he continued, MVD units must give “heightened attention” to the risks of street violence and be ready to counter it before it spreads.
More junior MVD officials speaking on condition of anonymity told Gorevoy that the organs knew how to disperse street actions even in Soviet times, “and after the Moscow events of 2002 … our people developed detailed instructions literally minute by minute on how to effectively and quickly disperse any group, even one numbering in the thousands.”
Not long ago, these officials said, they had received from MVD officers in Moscow and Moscow oblast a special “circular” in which “were enumerated ‘the structures destabilizing the social structure’ which could be involved in the initiation of massive street clashes” – including nationalists and extreme right groups especially in certain regions.
That document and other officials and analysts stressed that all these clashes are local and have not yet come together in any country-wide fashion. Consequently, they believe, Gorevoy continues, that there is no basis for particular concern. But he asks rhetorically, is that in fact the case?
If it is, then why did Sukhodolsky feel compelled to talk about “the heightened aggression of certain citizens of Russia toward the militia” and take note of “the growing aggression and wildness in behavior of certain groups of citizens”? Perhaps he wants a change in the rules of engagement or to prepare the leadership for harsher actions.
But if that is the case, then the increasing frequency and size of such clashes does represent a real threat, perhaps not of a revolution but certainly of a problem that the powers that be are now far more worried about than they were only a few months ago and are thus getting ready to defend themselves.

Source

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/10/window-on-eurasia-russian-officials.html

North Korea's heir debuts at giant military parade

2010-10-11

see photos http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/features/article_1590524.php/North-Korea-Parade-Pictures?page=2

By Benjamin Kang Lim

North Korea's leader-in-waiting, the youngest son of ailing ruler Kim Jong-il, took center stage during a big military parade on Sunday, making his first national appearance in the secretive state.

Kim Jong-un stood near his father on the dais, clapping and saluting thousands of goose-stepping soldiers, and reviewing missiles, tanks and artillery rockets.

The young Kim's prominent role at the parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung Square marked his military debut and showed his standing in one of the world's largest armies.

Until his appointment as a general last month -- along with his naming to a key political post -- little was known about the young Kim other than that he was educated in Switzerland.

"The future of our country is rosy and bright because Kim Jong-un was elected vice chairman of the military commission of the Workers' Party," said a government official, who asked not to be identified.

"We have a proverb in Korean that great teachers produce great students and great parents produce great children.

"Kim Jong-il is healthy enough to lead our country and to give spot guidance in every field including economic, agricultural, industrial, military and arts."

Kim Jong-il, 68, is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008 but he has shown no sign of losing his grip on power and was reappointed last month as secretary-general of the ruling Workers' Party.

He stood for over an hour during the parade and waved to the crowds, but limped noticeably and reached to the balcony for support.

State television broadcast the parade live, giving North Koreans their first real look at their next leader, known only to be in his mid- to late-20s.

A stable succession would be a relief to North Korea's economically powerful neighbors -- China, South Korea and Japan -- which worry that a regime collapse could result in massive refugee flows and domestic unrest.

The young Kim, the third son of the ailing leader, is poised to continue dynastic rule in the isolated state which also has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

SHOW OF STRENGTH

Among the guests at the parade, the biggest in the North in years, were foreign diplomats and Communist Party officials from China -- the destitute North's only major ally on which it relies for food and fuel aid.

Foreign media were also invited to watch the parade which marked the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party and gave the world its first independent look at the protege.

Kim Jong-il, who now has a large, unexplained mark on the right side of his face, was greeted with thunderous applause and chants of "Long Live Kim Jong-il."

Thousands of soldiers marched to the tune of brass bands in the square, dominated by a giant portrait of the state's founder, Kim Il-sung.

A sea of red and pink flowers, waved by spectators, served as a backdrop to the show of power.

"This military parade shows that we are certain of success if the United States dares to attack us," said Kim Yoon-jong 21, a factory worker at the parade wearing traditional red, white and pink dress.

"We have a single mind, which is stronger than nuclear weapons," she said through a translator.

Later on Sunday, father and son returned to a brightly lit Kim Il-sung square for a fireworks display and a spectacular pageant of dancing and music.

The military parade was the climax of celebrations which started at the end of last month with the staging of a rare party conference to pick a new leadership.

After months of speculation, the untested Jong-un was made second-in-command to his father on the ruling party's powerful Central Military Commission, as well as being appointed a party Central Committee member.

Rising with him were the leader's sister Kyong-hui and her husband, creating a powerful triumvirate ready to take over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since its founding after World War Two.

Source

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6981MS20101010

More lists of Cuban prisoners are drawn, given to Madrid in hopes of intercession

2010-10-11

Three Cuban émigré groups in Spain have asked the Spanish government to accept their list of dissidents now in Cuban prisons and work toward their release.
According to the news agency EFE, the groups are Cuba Democracy Now, the National Front of Cuban Political Prisoners, and the Demobilized Army of National Liberation.
Their request came at the end of a three-day meeting in Madrid in which they discussed the status of the opposition movement on the island and the outlook for a post-Castro Cuba.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos recently said he would welcome a new list of political prisoners so the Spanish government could review it and intercede for them in Havana. Spain's opposition Popular Party already has given him a list of 28 names.

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/

Cuba to free 3 prisoners not in church deal of 52

2010-10-11

by WILL WEISSERT (Associated Press)

Cuba will release into exile in Spain a lawyer jailed for allegedly revealing state security secrets and two hijackers, none of whom were on a list of 52 political prisoners the government has agreed to free in a deal with the Roman Catholic Church.

The church said Saturday that Rolando Jimenez Posada, an attorney considered by Amnesty International to be a "prisoner of conscience," has agreed to accept early release from prison in exchange for leaving Cuba with his family.

Two other inmates, Ciro Perez Santana and Arturo Suarez Ramos, will also be freed and sent to Spain with their relatives. Both were held for "piracy," which translates to hijacking an airliner or a ferry in an attempt to flee to the U.S.

Perez Santana was arrested in 1994 and had been serving a 20-year sentence, while Suarez Ramos was arrested in 1987 and got a 30-year sentence.

The three weren't among the 75 opposition activists, community organizers, dissidents and independent journalists defying state controls on media who were arrested in a 2003 crackdown on political dissent. Twenty-three of that group were released before July, when Raul Castro's government promised church leaders it would free the remaining 52.

The release of inmates not in the group of dissidents indicates Cuba is expanding its moves to liberate other prisoners considered by international human rights organizations as jailed for their political beliefs.

Cuba had previously maintained it held no political prisoners, saying the 75 were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges that included treason and taking money from the U.S. to destabilize the island's communist government.

Jimenez Posada, the lawyer, was arrested in April 2003 and was serving a 12-year sentence for disrespecting authority and "revealing secrets about state security police" after he publicly pledged support for the political prisoners captured the previous month.

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega "called Rolando this morning at around 11 and told him we should be ready to go" to Madrid, Jimenez Posada's wife, Lamasiel Gutierrez, said Saturday night, when reached at her home on Isla de la Juventud, south of mainland Cuba.

London-based Amnesty International had listed Jimenez Posada as the only "prisoner of conscience" who would have been left in Cuban jails if the government made good on its pledge with the church to free the 52 dissidents.

But Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, says there are about 105 more inmates she considers political prisoners. Some of those have been convicted of violent crimes, however, and Sanchez says only about 40 would fit into the classic definition of nonviolent political prisoners.

All but 13 of the dissidents covered in the deal with the church have been freed. At least seven of those still jailed have rejected freedom because they don't want to leave Cuba.

Why Cuban authorities are pushing to reduce the number of political prisoners is not known, though some people have speculated it may be part of an effort to promote reconciliation with the United States.

The administration of President Barack Obama has long suggested it may be time for a new beginning with Cuba, but it has also said Cuba's government needs to embrace small economic and social reforms before a true thaw can take place.

In addition to freeing political prisoners, Castro's government announced last month that it will lay off a half-million state employees and reduce restrictions on self-employment, small businesses and pockets of free enterprise as a way of modernizing and overhauling its state-dominated economy.

Source

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iUXtrV2QU_hugo-6AVuxgVM2n5JQD9IOH7600?docId=D9IOH7600

China tightens control of Tibetan monasteries, blames "separatists"

2010-10-11

The State Administration of Religious Affairs issued the 'Management measure for Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples' to be applied from November 1, saying it was devised in response to a growing foreign influence and 'separatist activities.'

Monks at some monasteries had been influenced by 'internal and external separatist forces' and engaged in 'disrupting national unity and splitting the nation,' the administration said in a notice on the new rules posted on its website.

'The existence of these problems has seriously influenced the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism ... and even given the Dalai clique an opportunity to plot and spread confusion in Tibetan areas, and to engage in destructive separatist activities,' it said, referring to the exiled leader, the Dalai Lama.

The stricter management of monasteries was designed to help 'maintain the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism and build a socialist harmonious society,' the notice said.

The notice followed the reported sentencing of two monks accused of leading anti-Chinese protests in 2008 in Lhasa, the capital of China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

The Lhasa Intermediate People's Court sentenced Jampel Wangchuk and Kunchok Nyima to life imprisonment and 20 years in prison, respectively, in June, the Indian-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reported on Friday.

The two men were monks at Dreprung, one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and were in a group of about 350 monks who marched into Lhasa from the monastery on March 10, 2008, TCHRD said.

Police arrested the two monks and some 40 others in April 2008, but there was no confirmation of what happened to them until last week, the group said.

Courts have already sentenced dozens of other monks and lay Tibetans who joined the 2008 protests, according to state media and exile groups.

The protests began in Lhasa on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule and escalated into ethnic violence and rioting that left at least 21 people dead, according to the government.

The protests grew into widespread demonstrations against Chinese rule in many Tibetan areas of China.

Exiles said they had evidence that dozens more died in the violence, many of them Tibetan protestors attacked by Chinese security forces.

In July, US-based Human Rights Watch called for an investigation of China's abuses in its Tibetan regions, saying witness accounts had confirmed the use of 'disproportionate force and deliberate brutality' during and since the 2008 protests.

The State Administration of Religious Affairs said it began drafting the new management measure for monasteries in late 2008.

It said the measure would protect all 'lawful activities' at monasteries, including training on Tibetan Buddhist texts, publishing, and receiving donations from domestic and overseas organizations and individuals.

After the 2008 protests, the government increased security, turned away journalists from Tibetan areas, limited access by foreign tourists and temporarily suspended communications in some places.

Source

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28311&article=China+tightens+control+of+Tibetan+monasteries%2c+blames+%22separatists%22

Nobel euphoria fails to mask tough reality in China

2010-10-11

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – The euphoria overseas and in some domestic circles at dissident Liu Xiaobo’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize has failed to mask deeper unease that his victory will likely bring little change in Communist Party-ruled China.

Liu, 54, has been a thorn in the government’s side since 1989 when he joined student protesters on a hunger strike days before the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement and has been in and out of jail ever since.

Yet in today’s booming and bustling Beijing — with its luxury boutiques, well-dressed residents and sleek new subway lines — the heady days of 1989 are a distant memory and public discussion is taboo. Few people know who Liu is.

“I’ve never heard of him,” said one Beijing businessman waving his hand dismissively, who gave his family name as Han, in comments typical of those heard on the street when Liu’s name is mentioned. “I’m too busy to watch television.”

The award was largely ignored by Chinese media, apart from a few brief newspaper articles carrying the Foreign Ministry’s condemnation of the decision as an “obscenity.”

The popular tabloid the Global Times, however, published an angry commentary saying the Nobel Peace Prize was in danger of becoming “a political tool of the West.”

“It is disrespectful to the majority of Chinese and another arrogant display of Western ideology,” it wrote of the award.

The government’s grip on power is as tight as ever, and it has shown no signs of relaxing its stance toward the small band of Chinese “rights defenders” who continue to mount seemingly futile legal challenges against the Party.

Many signers of the “Charter 08″ petition which called for sweeping political reforms have either been locked away, put under house arrest or otherwise harassed. Perhaps the most famous of whom is Liu, jailed last Christmas Day for 11 years.

“Is China going to bow to international opprobrium? I think it very unlikely,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher on China with Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.

“But the prize will add fuel to continued pressure on the Party to adapt further to respond to social demands, which now include a functioning legal system, rule of law, greater freedom of expression and freer media.”

Where once human rights were a hot topic of discussion during meetings between Chinese leaders and their counterparts in the West, these days the lure of China’s red hot economy amid a global downturn has muted criticism.

“Liu’s winning will put more of an international spotlight on the situation in China which has been lacking and that’s good,” Xinna, the wife of imprisoned ethnic Mongolian rights activist Hada, told Reuters from the northwestern city of Hohhot.

“But controls on us are tougher than even a few years ago. Things I could once read on the Internet are no longer accessible,” she added, speaking by telephone.

“The restriction on the flow of information means that some activists I know had never heard of Liu until yesterday. This does not give me much hope going forward,” said Xinna, whose husband is one of China’s longest-serving political prisoners.

The mobile telephone of Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, was turned off on Saturday. She told Reuters on Friday that the police were forcing her out of town to prevent her from talking to reporters, and that she was being taken to see her husband in jail.

There was a heavy security presence outside Liu’s jail in the northeastern city of Jinzhou, some 350 km (220 miles) from Beijing, with police searching passing cars and preventing people getting close to the drab detention buildings.

Still, some long-time activists see a glimmer of hope, pointing to comments by Premier Wen Jiabao in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen in August calling for political reform to safeguard the country’s economic health.

“If Wen is clever, he should use Liu’s winning of the peace prize to exert pressure on the conservative faction in the Party,” human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told Reuters.

“There are those who think that the leadership does not speak with one voice on this issue. Liu’s prize could act as a starting point for reform.”

Source

http://www.asiaworks.com/news/2010/10/09/nobel-euphoria-fails-to-mask-tough-reality-in-china-reuters/

Obama joins Dalai Lama in calling for release of jailed Nobel peace laureate

2010-10-08

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=28299&article=Obama+joins+Dalai+Lama+in+calling+for+release+of+jailed+Nobel+peace+laureate

Imprisoned Liu follows in footsteps of Suu Kyi, Sakharov

2010-10-08

By Simon Hooper

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel Peace Prize while serving jail term in China
Former dissidents to win prize include Aung San Suu Kyi, Andrei Sakharov
Iranian laureate Shirin Ebadi says she has been subjected to harassment
First laureate to win prize while in detention was anti-Nazi campaigner Carl von Ossietzky

The award of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo follows an occasional precedent of recognizing human rights campaigners who are either imprisoned or subjected to state restrictions or harassment.

In announcing the prestigious award, Norwegian Nobel Committee President Thorbjoern Jagland cited Liu for his "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." Liu is currently serving an 11-year jail sentence in China for inciting subversion of state power.

Reacting to the award, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Mao Zhaoxu said Liu was a "convicted criminal" whose actions had been "in complete contradiction to the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize."

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel Peace Prize

But Geir Lundestad, director of the Nobel Institute, said the Nobel Committee had a "very strong tradition of awarding the prize to human rights activists of many different kinds.

"This is a tradition we are very proud of, and this is a tradition for which the Norwegian Nobel Committee has received much applause," Lundestad said.

"We felt that if we were serious about this tradition, we did have to come to terms with the question of China in this perspective, and this is what we then did this year."

Unless Liu is released to collect his prize in Oslo in December, he will join a short list of laureates including Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa who have been unable to receive their medal in person.

Suu Kyi was awarded the prize in 1991 for her "non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights" one year after her pro-democracy party won a landslide win in national elections. But the result was suppressed by the country's military rulers. Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest and has remained in detention for most of the time since then.

Her acceptance speech was delivered by her son, Alexander Aris, who said: "It is my deepest hope that... the ruling junta may yet heed such appeals to basic humanity as that which the Nobel Committee has expressed in its award of this year's prize."

Myanmar's leaders said earlier this month that Suu Kyi would be released in November days after the country's first elections in two decades. But Suu Kyi's lawyers have expressed skepticism about the junta's pledge.

Sakharov, a Soviet nuclear physicist turned human rights campaigner, won the award in 1975 but wasn't allowed to leave the Soviet Union to collect his prize. Instead, his acceptance speech was read by his wife, Elena Bonner Sakharova.

"I beg you to remember that the honor which was thus granted to me is shared by all prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union and in other Eastern European countries as well as by all those who fight for their liberation," Sakharova said, on behalf of her husband.

In 1979 Sakharov was exiled to the closed city of Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, and lived under constant state surveillance until his return to Moscow in 1986 as Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika saw many dissidents freed.

Polish trade union leader Walesa, recognized for his work as leader of the anti-communist Solidarity movement, was also unable to collect his peace prize in 1983, fearing he would not be allowed to freely return to Poland if he did so, according to the Lech Walesa Institute website. Instead, he sent his wife, Danuta, and son, Bogdan, to Oslo on his behalf.

Walesa had been frequently detained and kept under state surveillance since the mid-1970s and when martial law was imposed in Poland in 1981, Walesa has been arrested and interned for almost a year in a remote country house.

"With deep sorrow I think of those who paid with their lives for the loyalty to Solidarity; of those who are behind prison bars and who are victims of repressions," Walesa said in an acceptance speech read out by his wife.

In 2009, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store raised concerns about the treatment of Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, claiming that the 2003 winner's medal had been confiscated by the Tehran regime. Norway also claimed Ebadi's husband had been arrested and severely beaten.

But Iran denied confiscating the medal, and said Ebadi was the subject of a tax evasion probe.

Ebadi received the prize for her focus on human rights, especially on the struggle to improve the status of women and children. Following the arrest of her sister, she told CNN earlier this year that she said she had been warned to stop her human rights activities.

"In the past six months they have put significant pressure on me as well as on members of my family; my husband, my brother and my sister, who were summoned on several occasions to the intelligence ministry and told that if I did not cease my human rights activities they would be arrested."

Argentinean human rights campaigner Adolfo Esquivel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 after spending more than a year in prison without trial between 1977 and 1978. He was cited for raising awareness about the "dirty war" carried out by Argentina's military rulers which saw thousands of political opponents "vanish without trace," according to the Nobel Prize website.

In 1960, the Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to the then-president of the African National Congress, Albert Lutuli, for his work opposing South Africa's apartheid regime.

Lutuli spent almost a year in detention between 1956 and 1957 on treason charges which were later dropped. A series of travel bans confined Lutuli to a 15-mile radius around his home and in 1960 he was arrested and given a suspended jail sentence for publicly burning his identity papers in a gesture of solidarity with demonstrators killed in the Sharpeville massacre.

Lutuli's ANC comrade, Nelson Mandela, imprisoned from 1964 until 1990, had to wait until after his release to win the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing the honor with apartheid South Africa's last president F.W. de Klerk, for the pair's work in ending racial segregation.

Anti-Nazi campaigner and journalist Carl von Ossietzky was the first Nobel Peace laureate to be awarded the prize while in prison in Germany in the mid-1930s. Von Ossietzky had already served a seven-month jail term between 1931 and 1932 for betraying military secrets after publishing an article revealing details of Germany's secret rearmament.

In February 1933, with Hitler consolidating his grip on power, von Ossietzky was arrested by secret police and imprisoned, first in Berlin and then in concentration camps at Sonnenburg and Esterwegen-Papenburg where fellow prisoners said he was forced to perform heavy labor despite suffering a heart attack.

Having been cited for the peace prize for 1935, Berlin refused to release him to collect the award in 1936 and demanded that he decline the honor, which Von Ossietzky refused to do. Suffering from tuberculosis he remained in captivity and then in hospital under surveillance until his death in 1938.

According to the Nobel Prize website, Von Ossietzky's last public appearance was at a court hearing at which his lawyer was sentenced to two years hard labor for embezzling most of his prize money.

Source

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/08/nobel.prize.detainees/index.html?hpt=C1

Window on Eurasia: ‘In Uzbekistan, It’s 1937 Again’ with Show Trial of VOA Correspondent

2010-10-08

The ongoing Tashkent trial of a VOA stringer, Ferghana.ru says, shows that “in Uzbekistan, it’s 1937 again,” with the major difference being that the regime does not feel it has to use torture to gain confessions to crimes those charged did not commit but rather can count on elastic laws and equally flexible “expert conclusions” for the same ends.
Yesterday, the trial of Abdumalik Boboyev (the pseudonym for Malik Mansur, 41) began in the Uzbek capital. The Voice of America Uzbek Service correspondent is charged with slander, libel, illegal border crossing, and “the preparation of materials containing a threat to public security and public order” (www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6754).
Under Uzbekistan law, the severity of the fourth charge is increased because “the crime was committed ‘with the use of financial or other material support received from religious organizations and also from foreign governments, organizations and citizens” – in this case from the US government’s Voice of America. If convicted, Boboyev could face eight years in jail.
The way this case has been handled highlights just how political it is and how little the facts have to do with either the charges being brought or the verdict reached. According to Ferghana.ru, internal evidence from the experts’ conclusion suggests that the case was prepared almost a year ago.
Boboyev, however, was not shown these documents until the end of September and his lawyer withdrew ostensibly because of a crowded schedule. This conjunction of events highlights the political rather than legal nature of the case. But the real evidence for such a conclusion is to be found in the statement of the experts.
Prepared by Rustam Mukhamedov of the Center for Monitoring Mass Communications of the Uzbek Agency for Media and Information – an institution that has acquired notoriety in the past (see www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6472), this document is, in the words of the Ferghana.ru translator, the most “stupid and illiterate” text he had ever encountered.
That 6700-word document, available online as of yesterday in Russian, is Kafkaesque both in the language it uses and in the logic it employs, qualities that are most clearly demonstrated by extensive quotations as the expert who prepared this is nothing if not long-winded.
For example, the expert concludes that Boboyev used materials from the media of Uzbekistan itself without checking whether the facts were correct and moreover took money “from abroad” in order to “distract the population of Uzbekistan, violate good neighborly relations among citizens and awaken in them distrust to the powers that be and judicial system … sow panic among the population, detract from the dignity and image of Uzbekistan among society, create conditions for the commission of crimes” by disseminating “unchecked one-sided information about Uzbekistan, about [its] existing customs and traditions and cultural wealth.”
In support of such sweeping and obviously political conclusions, the expert offers quotations from the broadcasts and web posting that Boboyev made. One of these that the expert argues violates Uzbekistan’s law reported that “Uzbekistan is one of the countries where freedom of speech is severely limited and where officials exert pressure on journalists, In the country has been established full control over television, radio and the press. Independent internet sites are blocked.”
According to the Uzbek expert, Boboyev’s crime in this case reflected his failure to indicate “from what source” he got this information,” which the expert continues both “baselessly shows “the unjust actions of the judicial system of the country” and “openly defiles the employees of the judicial organs and the law enforcement structures of Uzbekistan.”
Such quotations could be multiplied at will to show that the accusations against Boboyev in fact serve as an indictment of the Uzbek officials and the Uzbekistan government who brought them in the first place. But they also call attention to two other realities that deserve more attention than they often receive.
On the one hand, governments like the one in Uzbekistan have learned that they can write and use laws in ways that subvert the very meaning of law with the additional benefit for themselves that many outside observers will limit their criticism of these regimes because it appears that they are law-based. In fact, as this case shows, they are only “law-like.”
And on the other, the attack on Boboyev, for that is what it is, highlights the continuing importance of international broadcasting and the increasing role of the Internet – throughout the Uzbek expert’s document, the web is referred to almost as many times as broadcasts – in limiting government assaults on freedom of information and promoting freedom more generally.
For all those reasons and so that justice will be done in what is clearly an unjust political system, people of good will there and around the world need to support Boboyev in what will otherwise be his unequal struggle against a regime that by its actions shows why courageous people like himself remain so important.

Source

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/10/window-on-eurasia-in-uzbekistan-its.html

STATEMENT FROM LIU XIAOBO’S WIFE, LIU XIA

2010-10-08

STATEMENT FROM LIU XIAOBO’S WIFE, LIU XIA

October 8, 2010

I am grateful to the Nobel Committee for selecting my husband, Liu Xiaobo, to be the recipient of the

2010 Nobel Peace Prize. It is a true honor for him and one for which I know he would say he is not

worthy. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to former Czech Republic President Václav Havel,

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, and so many others who courageously

nominated him for the Prize.

I hope that the international community will take this opportunity to call on the Chinese government to

press for my husband’s release. As the Committee recognized, China’s new status in the world comes

with increased responsibility. China should embrace this responsibility, have pride in his selection, and

release him from prison.

BACKGROUND

Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese scholar and democracy activist who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for

“inciting subversion of state power” on December 25, 2009, for his role in drafting Charter 08. The

Chinese government previously detained Dr. Liu for his peaceful democracy advocacy on four occasions,

including his participation in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Dr. Liu was one of four intellectuals

who negotiated with the army for the safe passage of students out of the Square. Under China’s

Constitution, both the President and the Standing Committee on the National People’s Congress have the

power to grant special pardons (Articles 80 and 67 (17) respectively).

Freedom Now serves as international counsel to Liu Xiaobo, as retained by his wife Liu Xia.

1750 K Street NW, Suite 350 • Washington, DC 20006 • +1 (202) 223-3733 • www.freedom-now.org

Our mission is to free prisoners of conscience through focused legal, political and public relations advocacy efforts.

Source

http://www.freedom-now.org/

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to China dissident Liu Xiaobo

2010-10-08

Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has been named the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

Making the announcement in Oslo, Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said Mr Liu was "the foremost symbol of the wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China".

Mr Liu's wife and some Western nations have called for his immediate release.

China said the award was a violation of Nobel principles and could damage relations with Norway.

Mr Jagland admitted he knew the choice would be controversial. He told local television before the announcement: "You'll understand when you hear the name."

'Curtailed freedom'

Mr Jagland, reading the citation, said China's new status in the world "must entail increased responsibility".

In the weeks leading up to this announcement, Beijing was very strong on its statements. It said that Liu Xiaobo was not a suitable candidate. Beijing regards him as a criminal and said the award could damage relations between China and Norway.

Many Chinese people will see this as an attack by the West on what they stand for and certainly many nationalists will see this as an example of the West trying to demonise China.

The statement of the Nobel Peace Prize committee will not get a lot of traction with ordinary people. The authorities have very effectively given him no publicity whatsoever.

"China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights."

Mr Jagland said that, in practice, freedoms enshrined in China's constitution had "proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens".

Mr Jagland said the choice of Mr Liu had become clear early in the selection process.

Mr Liu, 54, who was a key leader in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, was jailed for 11 years on Christmas Day last year for drafting Charter 08, which called for multiparty democracy and respect for human rights in China.

The Nobel Foundation citation read: "Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both China's own constitution and fundamental human rights."

Ending the citation, Mr Jagland said: "The campaign to establish universal human rights in China is being waged by many Chinese, both in China itself and abroad.

Liu Xiaobo's wife talks to the BBC about visiting her husband.

"Through the severe punishment meted out to him, Liu has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China."

Beijing quickly condemned the award, saying it could damage China-Norway relations.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said: "Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who violated Chinese law. It's a complete violation of the principles of the prize and an insult to the Peace Prize itself for the Nobel committee to award the prize to such a person."

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said it would be "negative for China's reputation in the world" if it chose to punish Norway over the award.

10 Years of Peace Prize Winners

2010: Liu Xiaobo
2009: Barack Obama
2008: Martti Ahtisaari
2007: Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
2006: Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank
2005: IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei
2004: Wangari Maathai
2003: Shirin Ebadi
2002: Jimmy Carter
2001: Kofi Annan and the United Nations

Mr Liu's wife, Liu Xia, said she was "so excited" by the award.

She told AFP news agency: "I want to thank everyone for supporting Liu Xiaobo. I strongly ask that the Chinese government release Liu."

Mrs Liu said police had informed her they would take her to Mr Liu's prison in the north-eastern province of Liaoning on Saturday so she could give him the news.

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.5m; £944,000) and will be awarded in Oslo on 10 December.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said China should free Mr Liu so he could attend the ceremony.

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also welcomed the award and called on China to release Mr Liu.

Thorbjoern Jagland with the citation

Rights group Amnesty International said Mr Liu was a "worthy winner".

But Catherine Baber, deputy Asia-Pacific director, said: "This award can only make a real difference if it prompts more international pressure on China to release Liu, along with the numerous other prisoners of conscience languishing in Chinese jails."

No candidates are announced ahead of the Peace Prize but others mentioned in the media included Afghan women's rights activist Sima Samar, Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, former German chancellor Helmut Kohl and Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The Nobel committee had to defend last year's controversial Peace Prize choice of US President Barack Obama.

see video on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11499098

In China when Parents Lose Children they Lose the Right to Look for Them

2010-10-07

An often overlooked group among the swelling ranks of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) least-wanted, and the nation’s most disenfranchised, are the parents of missing children.

Groups of parents take to the streets of Beijing with a long banner displaying photos of their missing children. On Sept. 29, The Epoch Times interviewed several of them. “Nowadays, there is only one child in every household. Losing a child is like the end of the world,” said one parent. “We show these photos in Beijing to raise awareness so this will not happen to other families.”

One parent said that when they were searching for their children in Beijing, the police chased them every day. “A friend of mine in Beijing called me yesterday and told me that Beijing CCP officials and police arrived at the place where we had held our activity right after we had left. They were looking for us, wanting to arrest us and send us home.”

According to one of the parents, security officials want them to simply hush up, because “The CCP believes that it is a shame for the CCP that there are so many missing children.”

They did not mean to embarrass the regime, this parent said, but instead want stricter laws on human trafficking. “The CCP needs to take this seriously. Tragically, there are more and more cases of broken families happening now in China.”

One of the parents, Zheng, said: “I am from a village in Hebei [a northern Chinese province]. I lost my son when he was 15. It’s been four years and I can't find him.” In the summer of 2006, Zheng sent his son to Beijing to see the world and to help his uncle sell kebabs. One morning, the uncle woke up and Mr. Zheng’s son, who had been sleeping alongside him, was gone. No one could find him.

Over 30 parents from various places in China holding a large banner with photos of their children in Beijing. (Epoch Times Archive)

“I have looked many places for my son over the past four years. In our village, there is no benefit of any kind and we were totally dependent on our son taking care of us in our old age. My wife has mentally collapsed. She cries every day and stays next to the telephone, waiting for a phone call. I can't stand being at home,” Zheng said.

“After I lost my child, I especially paid attention to news and information regarding missing children. The communist regime lies and tries to cover up for these crimes. For example, when there are two children missing, the state-run media reports that there is only one child missing; when two missing children are found, they report that ten were found,” he said.

While searching for his son, Zheng met other parents whose children are also missing. “My car is covered with pictures of missing children from Shenzhen, Guangdong, and Shanxi. There are more and more children missing in China now.”

Zheng says that parents have gained support from the media in countries such as the U.S. and New Zealand. “They left messages in our QQ [Chinese Internet chat tool] and told us to ask if we need any help.”

When he and ten parents recently went to Shenzhen and to put up posters of their missing children, the local police arrested them and confiscated their car—they were accused of shaming the communist regime. “These parents called me and I quickly placed a call to a media outlet in the U.S.,” Zheng said. Phone calls were made to the police by both domestic and international media, and the police released the parents the next day.

Another parent, Li Jiancheng, also lost his son. “In early September this year, my wife woke up one morning to find that our four month old son who was sleeping right next to her was gone. Nothing else in the house was missing. We called the police and they came but they didn't find any clues. We have been looking for our son ever since,” Li said.

Li’s friend in Beijing said that in the process of helping Li look for his missing son, he has helped others find over 80 missing children of a similar age. Li’s son is still missing.

Source

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/43793/

Anniversary Of Russian Journalist Politkovskaya's Slaying

2010-10-07

Rights activists and acquaintances of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya are marking four years since her murder in the Russian capital.

Politkovskaya, a critic of then-President Vladimir Putin and his policies in Chechnya, was shot outside her Moscow apartment in what supporters claim was a contract killing.

Criticized for its handling of the case, Russia's chief investigator's office say they have launched a worldwide search -- with the help of Interpol, among others -- for the suspected killer, Rustam Makhmudov.

Russia also says it is extending its probe until February.

Russian rights activists say the lack of progress in the probe proves such murders can be committed with impunity in Russia, where a number of high-profile murders of rights activists and journalists have gone unsolved.

Source

http://www.rferl.org/content/Anniversary_Of_Russian_Journalist_Politkovskayas_Slaying/2183183.html

China's 'wild swan' on Mao and memoir

2010-10-07

by Grace Wong and Susannah Palk for CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Jung Chang came to fame in 1991 for her account of life in Communist China
Her books "Wild Swans" and "Mao: The Unknown Story" are banned in mainland China
She says she feels frustrated by China's repression of expression
She hopes the country will find a way to debate the past without inhibition

China is one of the countries we're featuring on Global Connections, a segment on CNN's Connect the World that takes two very different countries and asks you to find the connections. We asked author Jung Chang to give us her view on China and how it's changing.

London, England (CNN) -- Whether in the form of personal history or political biography, Jung Chang has spent her writerly life telling the story of China's tumultuous recent past.

The best-selling author of "Wild Swans," an account of three generations of women in her family, Chang gained a following for her frank portrait of life in China in the 20th century.

More recently, she's made waves with "Mao: The Unknown Story" -- the scathing, 800-plus page biography of the Chinese leader that she wrote with her husband, historian Jon Halliday.

Born in 1952 in Sichuan, a province in China's southwest, Chang came of age during the height of the Cultural Revolution. She served briefly as a Red Guard and worked a variety of odd jobs in the countryside before turning to studying English.

She left China for Britain in 1978 to further her studies and earned a doctorate in linguistics. She rose to literary fame after "Wild Swans" was published in 1991. "Mao: The Unknown Story," which took a decade to research, was released in 2005.

CNN caught up with Chang, who currently lives in London, and asked her about China and why it's so important to remember the past.

CNN: Your memoir and biography of Mao use different means to tell a story about China's recent history. Why is it so important to tell this story?

Jung Chang: Well, it's very important to me. "Wild Swans" is the story of my family -- my grandmother, my mother and myself. I started writing the book after my mother told me the stories of her life and my grandmother's life. So those things are written primarily for myself.

And then with Mao, there is still a lot of myth about him perpetuated in China today. I feel the Chinese don't know about the real man and the world still knows relatively little about him. I, myself, when I started writing the book in the early 1990s felt I didn't know all that much. I wanted to find out more, then tell the story to the world.

CNN: Your books are banned in China. How does that make you feel?

JC: I feel frustrated and very unhappy of course. The Chinese should be allowed to remember. What happened under Mao affected so many people's lives, and that sort of agony and that terrifying past has not been properly processed in people's memories. I think that's not healthy.

But my books are published in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is still largely separate from mainland China, which is wonderful from my point of view as a writer. It means many copies have gone into mainland China from Hong Kong.

CNN: China is such a rapidly changing country. What changes stand out most to you?

JC: I think particularly in the initial years what stuck me most was the dramatic diminishment of fear. When I was growing up, we lived in fear all the time. People aren't living like that any longer.

People are under the impression that China is what it is today because Mao had laid the foundation. Far from it. Mao held the country back. The dramatic change that happened after Mao died was because he had died. The force and the terror that held the Chinese back, was suddenly removed.

Of course now there is a dramatic improvement in people's lives, in all aspects, not only material but in terms of personal freedom, the freedom of travel and lots of other personal freedoms.

Of course, having said all that, there are still many things that frustrate me. There is still no freedom of expression in the public arena. Books are banned, including my books, which is intensely frustrating.

CNN: What future do you see for the country and what do you hope for?

JC: If there isn't anything dramatic happening, I think the country will probably go on as it is for a very long time. People's lives will probably continue to improve slowly but there will still be repression in many ways.

I hope, of course, for the obvious and the best -- I want people to enjoy the kind of freedom they do in Britain for example. From my point of view as a writer, I hope the country will find a way to talk about the past in an honest way -- to debate about the past without inhibition.

CNN: What do you miss most about China?

JC: I sometimes ask myself this question, but I realize I don't miss any particular thing. What I miss is something intangible. China -- as a culture, as a people -- is something that I care about. It is under my skin.

But exactly what it is that makes me feel restless, I'm not sure. I guess I miss the whole place, the people who have been through so much and the country, which is so old and yet so young and energetic. It has experienced so much tragedy and yet remains so optimistic and upbeat. All these things make tears come to my eyes.

Source

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/china.jung.chang/index.html?hpt=C2

Window on Eurasia : Those Who Say Authoritarianism Inevitable in Russia Share Blame for Putin’s Suppression of Freedom, Ryzhkov Says.

2010-10-06

by Paul Goble

People in Russia and the West who provide support for “the myth of Russia’s historically predetermined path toward enslavement and authoritarianism” are contributing “to the continued suppression of human rights” there and thus providing “a valuable service to Vladimir Putin,” according to a former Duma deputy and now Ekho Moskvy host
But such people should remember, Vladimir Ryzhkov continues, that “each new article or book promoting these shame theories leads directly to … Russia’s continued backwardness, poverty and enslavement and [also to] an increase in Russians who emigrate to the West seeking freedom and prosperity” (www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/historically-determined-to-be-an-autocrat/418431.html and www.echo.msk.ru/blog/rizhkov/715893-echo/ ).
Putin and those around him such as Kremlin first deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov “don’t believe Russians can be trusted to vote,” Ryzhkov says, because the Russian prime minister and his supporters do not believe that the Russian people are “smart or civilized enough to vote responsibly.”
But that “condescending” view, the Ekho Moskvy journalist says, “is by no means limited to voting.” Putin and his entourage also “believe that the masses are not able to do anything,” that “Russia needs ‘a benevolent tsar’ with an iron-like power vertical to explain to the ignorant masses what is best for the country.”
When Putin eliminated the election of governors in 2004, he argued that this “would somehow help defend the country against terrorism,” but he also said that “if the people were allowed to vote, they might elect the ‘wrong’ candidates.” And since that time, he has repeated that argument “as a justification for squashing [all] political competition.”
Given that in Putin’s view, Russia’s “liberal and leftist opposition” parties are “a radical and revolutionary force,” he is fully justified in blocking them from being “elected by naïve and misguided” citizens. Only “the ‘systemic opposition’” can be permitted because those parties “obey his orders and help the Kremlin create the impression” that democracy exists.
Further, Ryzhkov continues, “to help ‘the kind tsar’ carry out his duties,” Putin placed “the major television channels under government control” and ensured that his pocket party, United Russia “dominated” those places where elections did take place or was in a position to “falsify” the outcomes, a classic example of “the end justifying the means.”
“The only exception” to Putin’s belief that “the people are ignorant and can’t be trusted with electing officials,” of course, was the elections of 2000 and 2004 when “by some miraculous stroke of fate,” Russians showed “unprecedented wisdom and responsibility” and voted for him.
In order to buttress his claims, Ryzhkov says, “Putin and his ideologues” – liked Surkov – “try to package their disdain in pseudo-historical terms,” arguing that “Russia has a unique ‘historical tradition’” and has “always been dominated by a strong autocrat in the Kremlin,” something no one is in a position to change at least for the present.
And while “Putin allows for the possibility that one day Russians might be able to overcome this 1000-year-old legacy” and become “mature and responsible enough” to take charge of their own affairs,” he makes it clear that that will occur only “sometime in the future, presumably long after Putin retires.”
This view, Ryzhkov says, allows Putin and his supporters to argue that “the systematic destruction of [Russia’s] democratic institution” that they have carried out was “not the result of manipulation, usurpation and the abuse of power but rather a natural and unavoidable manifestation of [the country’s] ‘predetermined historical path.’”
Such an argument “completely ignores” the history of liberal reform movements in Russia’s past, “including those pursued by Alexander II, Nicholas II, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,” Ryzhkov says, and thus should be dismissed as “cynical” and “cheap” political propaganda.
But at least, Putin is pushing this line to advance his own power. What is worse, Ryzhkov suggests, is when others in Russia and even more abroad “reinforce the myth of Russia’s historically pre-determined path toward enslavement and authoritarianism” by their writings.
They are whether they know it or not “providing a valuable service to Putin” and other opponents of democracy and freedom in Russia and thus making “their own contribution to the continued suppression of human rights in Russia now” whose people deserve the chance to take control of their own fate.

Source

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/10/window-on-eurasia-those-who-say.html

Trade groups want the Cuba-travel vote in upcoming lame-duck session of Congress

2010-10-06

A number of business associations are planning a lobbying blitz during the lame-duck session to repeal the U.S. travel ban to Cuba.
The bill ran into trouble last week when Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, postponed a markup of the legislation.
Despite the setback, lobbyists for business and farm groups say that this Congress may be their best opportunity to see the bill passed and signed into law. Republicans are expected to make big gains in the midterm elections and are seen as less likely to vote for a bill that loosens restrictions on Cuba.
The National Farmers Union, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), the National Pork Producers Council, and other groups plan to lobby lawmakers to take up the bill again during the lame-duck session.
“A vote by the committee that has jurisdiction over the travel provision of the bill would send a strong signal,” said Jake Colvin, a vice president at NFTC. “We have always thought the committee vote would be tougher than the floor vote. If you can get it out of committee, you can win on the floor.”

Source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/

Democrats Delay Hearing on Travel Ban to Cuba, As Its Envoy Hews Hard Line at United Nations

2010-10-06

by Benny Avni

On the eve of hearings that had been set to open in the United States Congress on whether to ease the ban on Americans traveling to Cuba, Havana’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, has been taking a hard, even strident line here at the United Nations, very much at odds with the way Fidel Castro is trying to portray Cuba in the American press these days.

It has prompted old hands here at the United Nations to quote another, albeit different kind of, Marxist — Groucho, who famously asked: Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

The House Foreign Affairs Committee had been scheduled to hold tomorrow hearings that liberals had hoped would lead to a vote to lift the travel ban. But late today, the Democrats appear to have pulled back, not wanting to take up the matter before the congressional elections in November. Advocates of ending the ban were reported yesterday by Reuters to be disappointed, having sensed momentum in recent weeks.

The Atlantic Magazine, the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Times and others have recently reported that Cuba and the Castro brothers are mending their ways, decentralizing the economy, distancing themselves from world tyrants, and even finding kind words for Israel and the Jews.

Mr. Parrilla, however, was, in his address at the annual General Assembly debate, as rigid as ever, blaming America’s aggression for all the isle’s troubles, saying Israel is behind all that’s wrong in the Middle East, and expressing solidarity with Venezuela’s caudillo, Hugo Chavez.

“The Cuban revolution will unyieldingly and tenaciously continue down the path that has been sovereignly chosen by our people, and shall not cease in its endeavors, befitting the ideas of Marti and Fidel,” the Cuban foreign minister told delegates at the opening debate of the U.N. General Assembly Monday.

And no, for Cuba the holocaust-denying Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not the aggressor. “As Comrade Fidel has pointed out, powerful and influential forces in the United States and Israel are paving the way to launch a military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Mr. Parrilla warned, adding that the General Assembly must stop such a plot to commit a “crime against the Iranian people” and such “an assault against international law” in order to prevent a nuclear war.

Mr. Parrilla’s entire speech was an old-style Cuban assault on America and Israel, harking back to the glorious days of the Cold War when the Castros drew as much attention at international fora like the U.N. as is now reserved for Mr. Ahmadinejad or Mr. Chavez.

But wait a minute. Hasn’t Fidel Castro mellowed with age? Isn’t Cuba’s new powerhouse, Raul Castro, turning the country and its sclerotic system around?

Didn’t the older Castro tell the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and the Council’s Julia Sweig that the Cuban model no longer works (although he later recanted, saying that, though he’d been accurately quoted by Mr. Goldberg, he meant to say that the capitalist system isn’t working)?

Also in that Atlantic interview, Mr. Castro – who has championed Palestinian terrorists since the 1970s, when he also severed his country’s relations with Israel – talked about the suffering of the Jewish people and stressed the uniqueness of anti-Semitism. He even berated Mr. Ahmadinejad about his holocaust denial.

President Peres was so impressed that, while in New York late last week, he wrote a thank-you letter to Castro, which was hand delivered to Cuba’s ambassador to Turtle Bay. In it Mr. Peres congratulated Mr. Castro for the “intellectual depth” he displayed in Mr. Goldberg’s interview.

Meanwhile, the New York Times issued on its front page a dispatch of Elisabeth Malkin detailing the younger Castro’s plan to fire “more than half million” public sector employees – a step representing the “clearest sign yet that economic change is gathering pace” in Cuba.

Trouble is, the Times story, filed from Mexico City, showed scant evidence that any of the changes described in it were actually taking place beyond reports in Granma and other state-owned press outlets or official statements from state-sanctioned workers unions.

“These are things that they’re constantly announcing that they’re going to do,” said the former Mexican foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda. But the record in the last four years – since Fidel’s ailment forced Raul to take over as president – shows that “none of it ever really happens,” said Mr. Castaneda, a long-time Cuba watcher whom I have known for years because he is my cousin and who, in any event, has clashed with the Castro brothers on many occasions.

The elder Mr. Castro’s interviews may seem like a repudication of much of his 50 years in power, but, as Mr. Parrilla’s speech shows, they – and reports disseminated by the government’s own propaganda organs – do not indicate any real change in Havana’s ideology or policies.

They’re mostly designed to end a situation in which, in Mr. Parrilla’s words, “for all American citizens or foreigners residing in that country, traveling to Cuba continues to be illegal.” Cuba is starved for an American cash infusion, which it hopes would save its economy from collapse. Mr. Parrilla said here that Washington hasn’t revolutionized its policies under President Obama despite Havana’s hopes.

Source

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/cuban-minister-hews-hard-line-at-united-nations/87097/

Dissidents Proclaim Communist Rule in China ‘An Arrow at the End of Its Flight’

2010-10-06

By Matthew Robertson

WASHINGTON, DC—Regime collapse in China may not be on the tips of the lips of the many Western observers, but the Chinese dissident community has something else to say.

Gathered on Sept. 27 in the U.S. Capitol to mark the anniversary of the 61st year of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) successful insurgency and seizure of political power, the themes were multiple: a discussion of all things evil the CCP has done; the announcement of the publishing of the book “Lessons in Democracy” in Chinese; a discussion of why the CCP’s monopoly on power is now in jeopardy, or as Wei Jingsheng put it: why “the CCP is like an arrow at the end of its flight”; and a discussion of why the mass of renunciations of the CCP by Chinese people (called “tuidang”) has become more than a headache for the regime.

Organized by the Wei Jingsheng Foundation and the Asia Democracy Alliance, the event featured half a dozen speakers, including: Kama Namgyal, chair of Dokham Chushigandruk, a Tibetan human rights group; Ge Defang, U.S. Director of the League of Chinese Victims; Ni Yuxian, chair of the Chinese Freedom and Democracy Party; and executive director of the Global Service Center for Quitting CCP Dr. Li Dayong, who spoke about the implications of the renunciation campaign he helps coordinate.

Wei Jingsheng began the forum by dismissing Deng Xiaoping’s much vaunted nostrum of “reform and opening up,” which has not actually made the masses of Chinese much richer. “We know that China has two hundred to three hundred million in abject poverty,” he said.

He argued that China’s apparent wealth is concentrated among a small elite, and was obtained through exploiting both the West and the Chinese masses. “Everyone knows that workers’ wages are extremely low in China—and they use cheap products sent to the West to cause trouble with the markets here.”

In sum, Wei said, when the CCP was under Mao, it was a disaster for the Chinese people, but in the thirty years under and since Deng, “they not only bring disaster to the Chinese people, but to the whole world.”

“So here we’re looking at the 61 years of the CCP’s rule from every aspect.”

One such aspect was Mao’s “Little Red Book,” and how everyone used to carry one around; Roland Watson, author of the newly translated “Lessons in Democracy,” suggested this idea be subverted by a sort of “little blue book of democracy.”

“It would be much better in China if everyone had a little book about democracy that they read, that they could study,” Watson said with a wry smile. “It doesn’t have to be mine, it can be any other book about democracy,” sitting at home or in the car.

‘Tuidang’

The last speaker, Li Dayong, thought he had something close to such a book. Called the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” and published by The Epoch Times, it is a volume that has spread similar to how “samizdat” used to spread in the Soviet Union, in unconventional ways that confound the CCP’s strict censorship regime.

The book is a global indictment of communism, and especially the Chinese kind. The campaign to renounce the CCP began in December 2004, soon after the publication of the editorial series. “Nine Commentaries” provides an unvarnished examination of the nature and history of the CCP.

The result of the publication was an open call to the Chinese public and those concerned with China’s future to “renounce” the CCP, a peaceful campaign that has been led by Falun Gong practitioners, one of the most severely persecuted groups in modern China.

The grassroots movement that resulted soon formed the Global Service Center, which collects (and encourages) renunciations via phone, fax, or Internet. The total number of renunciations are tallied online, and now number over 81 million.

Renunciations are counted for any individual who has ever been a member of the Young Pioneers of China, the Communist Youth League of China, or the Chinese Communist Party proper; the former two mass organizations are used by the CCP to indoctrinate China’s young people, and cover the ages 6-14 and 14-28 respectively.

Though formal membership may have expired, renunciations are still collected from former members of these organizations—which includes a large proportion of China’s population.

On the surface the CCP appears not to have responded to the tuidang movement, Li Dayong says, but the response inside Party has been a frenzy of activity: those who distribute the book in China are punished severely, and political cleansing movements the likes of which had not been seen since the 1950s—complete with forced confessions, focused lessons in groupthink, renewal of the oath to join the CCP, and re-education meant to maintain the “advanced nature” of the Party cadres at all levels—sprang up.

“Tuidang” statements are related partly to disaffection with the cross-strata strife of Chinese society—such as entrenched corruption, environmental damage, the decay of behavioral standards, the absence of basic social trust, the capricious violence of the Party elite, their expropriations of land and property, the deprival of basic human rights, etc.—but overall, according to Li, are about the Chinese people’s repugnance at the CCP’s immorality.

“I wish to point out that instead of being a political movement aimed at bringing down the CCP, the essence of renouncing the CCP lies in the spiritual revolution in each individual,” Li stated.

Nevertheless, the impact of the tuidang campaign may bring that about anyway. Li concluded with a Chinese saying: “Not only can water float a boat, but also sink it”—meaning that while the CCP has thus far ridden successfully on the backs of the masses, the renunciation campaign may mean things turn out differently.

Dissidents are hopeful. “I hope that the great mass of Chinese who have suffered injustice will take tuidang further; I hope it catches on like a prairie fire,” said Ge Defang, director of the League of Chinese Victims.

source

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/43755/99999999/1/1/

The fatal fact of the Nazi-Soviet pact

2010-10-06

I'm honoured that Efraim Zuroff and Dovid Katz chose to respond to my article about the 28 September 1939 treaty on borders and friendship between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. I agree with them that the Holocaust must be regarded as central to the war and the century; I have just published a book, Bloodlands, that seeks to anchor the Holocaust, along with the other mass killing campaigns of the time and place, in European history. Though we share this concern, I find myself troubled by the form that their central argument takes.

Zuroff more stridently, and Katz more gently, reason thus: first, it is right to resist Baltic supernationalists and Holocaust obfuscators who equate Stalin and Hitler; second, when Snyder writes an essay about the Soviet-German alliance of 1939-41, he gives comfort to such people; third, it is therefore legitimate to (falsely) claim that Snyder equates Stalin with Hitler, take a strong stand against that proposition, and associate him along the way with the Baltic supernationalists and the Holocaust obfuscators.

I didn't and don't equate Hitler and Stalin. Katz puts "somewhat equal" in quotations, but I never use any such phrase. Zuroff says that I "posit" that the Soviet Union was Nazi Germany; I most certainly do no such thing.

What I try to do, in the 28 September article and generally, is understand what it means for a vast east European territory and several east European peoples to have been touched by both Nazi and Soviet power. Despite some critical remarks of Bloodlands in an otherwise perceptive and generous (London) Times review of 26 September, which perhaps Zuroff and Katz read, I don't equate Stalin with Hitler in that book either. Instead, I try to reckon with the crimes that both regimes committed in the lands between Berlin and Moscow, where 14 million people, including more than 5 million Jews, were killed in the 12 years that both Hitler and Stalin were in power.

I quite agree with Katz that the current political climate in the Baltics (and not only there) obfuscates the role that local populations played in the Holocaust. Where I would beg to disagree is with the legitimacy of associating my argument about the importance of the treaty on borders and friendship with current politics – not least since, as Katz very likely knows, I write about the participation of Balts and other locals in the Holocaust, and my work has not had an easy reception in Lithuania. I worry that arguing in the way that Zuroff and Katz do confirms the pattern of polemic that has persisted in discussions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for decades: scholarship is ultimately politics, and politics is ultimately a matter of being on one side or the other. What matters then, unfortunately, is not what we actually say, but our imputed ideological commitments or perceived political agendas.

Katz and Zuroff claim that there was only one genocide in eastern Europe, the Holocaust. The mass murder of the Jews was, indeed, unprecedented in its horror; no other campaign involved such rapid, targeted and deliberate killing, or was so tightly bound to the idea that a whole people ought to be exterminated. The Holocaust was, of course, a genocide, but calling it such is not the best way to stress its special character. Genocide – by the UN definition – involves "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such". Genocide is committed by "killing members of the group", "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group", "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part", "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group" and "forcibly transferring children of this group to another group".

So, the Germans committed genocide not only when they sought to murder all of the Jews, but when they gassed and shot the Roma. When Germans shot Belarusian women and children to take men as workers, that was genocide; in part, because their war plans assumed the violent depopulation of that country.

Zuroff mentions Hitler's dream of Lebensraum: German colonial planning to create living space in the east explicitly foresaw the starvation, shooting, physical removal or assimilation of tens of millions of Slavs. So, when the Germans starved 4 million of so Soviet citizens to death, most of them prisoners of war held in starvation camps, that too was probably genocide. When the Germans, like the Soviets, specifically targeted educated Poles in 1939-41, that was genocide. When the Germans shot tens of thousands of Poles in 1944, with the intention of making sure that Warsaw would never rise again, that was genocide, too. Far less dramatic measures, such as the kidnapping and Germanisation of Polish children, were also, by the legal definition, genocide.

As for the Soviets, Rafal Lemkin, who gave us the term "genocide", saw Stalin's application of famine and terror to Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s as a "classic case" of genocide. During the campaign to collectivise Soviet agriculture, Stalin spoke of "liquidating the kulaks as a class". Soviet agitators send to enforce collectivisation spoke of beating prosperous peasants "into soap".

It is hard not to see the Soviet "Polish Operation" of 1937-38 as genocidal: Polish fathers were shot, Polish mothers sent to Kazakhstan, and Polish children left in orphanages where they would lose their Polish identity. As more than 100,000 innocent people were killed on the spurious grounds that theirs was a disloyal ethnicity, Stalin spoke of "Polish filth". During the second world war, the Soviets deported entire peoples from the Caucasus and Crimea, in some cases burning down villages and shooting people who were difficult to move.

To be clear: I am not saying that these events were equivalent to the Holocaust. I am saying that a number of German and Soviet policies meet the standard of genocide.

I am awed by Zuroff's work seeking surviving Nazi criminals. Katz's choice to teach Yiddish and rebuild Jewish studies in Vilnius, which, before the Holocaust, was a world centre of Jewish life and scholarship, deserves a world of praise. I agree with both of them that the Holocaust is more important than the treaty on borders and friendship. My article, however, enquired about the relationship between the two, and that found little echo in their responses.

We all agree that Hitler had the horrible aspiration to eliminate the Jews from Europe. But how exactly was Hitler to do so in summer 1939, with fewer than 3% of European Jews under his control? Hitler needed war to eliminate the Jews, and it was Stalin who helped him to begin that war. As I said in my original article, we don't know how the war would have proceeded without the treaty on borders and friendship; what we do know is that the war as it actually happened, with all of its atrocities, began with a German-Soviet alliance.

What if the Soviets had simply opted for neutrality in 1939? How exactly would the Germans have overcome the British blockade without Soviet grain? Or bombed London without Soviet oil? Or won their lightening victory in France without security in the rear?

How well would the Gestapo have dealt with Polish and Jewish opposition without the de facto help of the more experienced and effective Soviet NKVD? The NKVD deported not just Poles and Balts, but tens of thousands of Jews to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939 and 1941. Had these Jews remained in Poland rather than suffering and dying on the steppe or in the gulag, would Jewish resistance to the Germans have been more significant? Anyone who believes that Stalin's alliance with Hitler is irrelevant to the Holocaust must have answers to such questions; Katz and Zuroff don't provide any.

As I wrote, and as Zuroff stresses, Stalin had strategic reasons for choosing an alliance with Germany in 1939. My respondents have chosen a moral tone, and in moral discussions of the war, strategic justifications are not usually admitted as legitimate excuses for collaboration with the Nazis. Between 1939 and 1941, Stalin was Nazi collaborator number one. If we examine the war in terms of the Holocaust, why should Stalin's strategic actions be exempt from moral interrogation?

To recall the treaty on borders and friendship is not to minimise Hitler's atrocious intentions, but rather to enquire into Stalin's role in helping or hindering their realisation. Though I do not see an equivalence between the Nazi and the Soviet regimes, I do see an interaction between German and Soviet power, one which is crucial to the history of all the east European peoples, including and, indeed, perhaps especially, the Jews.

In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Moscow reversed its alliances. Katz is quite right to recall that the Red Army, three and a half years later, liberated Auschwitz. But we ought not to romanticise. The Red Army paused on the Vistula river for months in 1944, while a few days' march to the west, the Germans transported the last significant population of Polish Jews from the Lodz ghetto to Auschwitz and gassed them.

And how did Auschwitz, previously the Polish town Oswiecim, come to bear that infamous name? After the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, it had been assigned to Germany in the treaty on borders and friendship in September 1939.

Source

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/05/holocaust-secondworldwar/print

Window on Eurasia: Moscow Institute Pushes Recognition of ‘Newest States’ in ‘Near Abroad’

2010-10-05

by Paul Goble

Staunton, October 5 – The director of an independent Moscow institute established just before the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war and which has promoted the diplomatic recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since that time now says that international recognition of the independence of Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh is “inevitable.”
In a comment to the Regnum news agency yesterday, Aleksey Martynov not only made this declaration but elaborated an original legal theory on post-Soviet state construction, one that is clearly at odds with Moscow’s declared position but one that likely has supporters in the Russian capital (www.regnum.ru/news/1332158.html).
The director of the Institute of the Newest States, as his organization styles itself, argues that “the recognition by Russia of the statehood of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in June 2008 and the upcoming recognition of the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic and Nagorno-Karabakh put the final period in the history of the USSR.”
That is because, Martynov said, “Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh like Abkhazia and South Ossetia politically and legally need only recognition by Russia as the legal successor of the USSR. Subsequently, the entire world will simply be obligated to recognize these countries just as it recognizes the Russian Federation.”
If the members of the international community do not follow Russia’s lead in this, he continued, the director of this institute which has offices in Moscow and many other cities and maintains its own website in Russian and English (www.iines.org/), that would mean their “non-recognition of Russia itself with all the consequences that would flow from that.”
The reason for that, he argued, is that “not one of these newest recognized countries [the former union republics of the USSR] has taken upon itself responsibility for the common Soviet past” preferring instead “to condemn and curse it. Only Russia [which has done so] can as the metropolitan country decide the fate of the newest states in the zone of its strategic interests.”
“After the establishment of the Kosovo precedent” by the Western powers, Martynov continued, “any references to the priority of territorial integrity” need not be recognized. “Borders of states in the contemporary world” are defined by their capacity to prevent their further change, something that can of course be tested at any time.
Elsewhere in his interview, the director pointed to what he clearly viewed as his institute’s latest success, and he did so in a way that highlighted its connections with the Russian powers that be. Martynov noted that last week, a representative of South Ossetia had visited Algeria at the same time as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,
“Such coincidences in the time of the visits,” he argued, “are far from being accidental.” But to the extent that is the case, his institute might appear to fall into the category of a GONGO, that is “a government organized non-governmental organization,” one capable of promoting the government’s goals without the government having to take responsibility.
And if that is true, then the argument Martynov put forth yesterday may represent something more than the views of a single independent activist. Instead, it perhaps should be read as one part of a debate behind the scenes in Moscow as to how the Russian Federation should proceed in the future in its “near abroad.”
According to its website, “the International Institute of the Newest States is an international non-governmental organization that was created in June 2008 by a group of scholars, political scientists and international experts in the areas of conflict studies and international law” (www.iines.org/node/1).
The institute’s headquarters is in Moscow, but it has representational offices in “Kyiv, Warsaw, Simferopol, Tskhinval, Sukhum, Yerevan, Tiraspol, Western Sahara, Bucharest, Belgrad, Stepanakert and other places.” And it styles itself as “the largest expert discussion space for consideration and study of the phenomenon of the appearance of the newest states.”
The institute, the site continues, organizes “scientific conferences, symposia, and roundtables, the monitoring of social-political development of the newest states and monitoring of the media.” And it supports “the publication of materials and books of [Institute] experts” on these states and “the formation of democratic institutions and civil societies” in them.

Source

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2010/10/window-on-eurasia-moscow-institute.html

Released Cuban prisoners in Spain can come to U.S.

2010-10-05

by JUAN O. TAMAYO

Former Cuban political prisoners and relatives living in Spain will be allowed to come to the United States swiftly under a special parole program, a senior State Department official announced Monday.

The ex-prisoners' applications for U.S. entry will be processed on a case-by-case basis but are expected to take an average of about one month, the official added.

Most of the 36 recently released prisoners and scores of relatives in Spain want to move to the United States, but normal U.S. migration procedures bar that because they already have safe haven in Spain.

The Homeland Security and State Departments therefore agreed to allow them entry under the Significant Public Benefit Parole (SPBP) Program, said the official, who under State Department rules could not be identified or quoted directly.

SPBP has been used in the past to allow U.S. entry to people such as Colombian labor activists and Iraqis who fear for their lives, the official told El Nuevo Herald in a telephone briefing from Washington.

Consular officials at the U.S. embassy in Madrid have reached out to many of the the former political prisoners to inform them of the program's eligibility and other requirements, the official said.

At least one application already is being processed and several other former political prisoners will be interviewed this week, he added. SPBP allows the new arrivals to quickly receive work permits and eventually residency.

Former political prisoner Normando Hernández confirmed from Madrid that U.S. consular officials have requested information from the ex-prisoners and relatives, but seemed unclear on the details.

``We don't know under what conditions'' they would be granted U.S. entry,'' he told El Nuevo by telephone, ``What we want is that all the families be able to go as political refugees.''

``You are making very happy and sad, because we know we will be a burden to our families'' in the United States, Hernandez added when told some of information from the State Department official.

Cuban ruler Raúl Castro promised on July 7 to release 52 political prisoners, the last still in jail from a 2003 crackdown that sentenced 75 peaceful dissidents to prison terms of up to 28 years.

Thirty-six were already freed in several small groups after they agreed to leave directly from prison to the Havana airport and a flight to Spain, along with several relatives each. Another three have agreed to leave but are waiting for space on Madrid-bound jetliners.

Many of newly arrived Cubans in Spain have complained of their poor housing conditions, uncertainties about their legal status in Spain and the stipends they receive to cover their expenses.

Twelve other jailed dissidents have said they will refuse to leave Cuba, but are expected to be freed in the next month as part of Castro's July 7 agreement with the Cuban Catholic church and the Spanish government.

Former political prisoners still in Cuba can apply for U.S. entry at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, although that process usually takes several months.

The State Department official said the decision to allow in the Cubans from Spain was a recognition that the freed dissidents should have a choice on where they live, and is in keeping with the Obama administration's goal of helping Cuban family reunifications.

Parole is a special immigration category under which foreign nationals who otherwise would not be immediately eligible for U.S. entry can be admitted into the country.

In 2006, the Bush administration established the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) program to allow in Cuban medical personnel who defect while assigned to work in third countries.

The CMPP program requires the applicants to be Cuban citizens, ``conscripted'' by the Havana government to work or study in a third country and have no ineligibilities that would prevent admission into the United States, according to a State Department Web page.

Julio Cesar Alfonso, president of Solidaridad sin Fronteras, a Miami organization of Cuban doctors, estimated in 2008 that 6,000 doctors had defected in the previous five years.

About 5,000 were already in the United States, Alfonso added but it was not clear how many of those had arrived under the Cuban Medical Parole Program.

Source
www.miamiherald.com

Vietnam Putting Professor on Trial for Online Dissent

2010-10-05

by Patrick Goodenough

Less than a week after Vietnam’s president met with President Obama to discuss issues including human rights, the communist government in Hanoi has announced it try a dissident math professor on political charges that can carry the death penalty.

Pham Minh Hoang, 55, has been indicted under an article in Vietnam’s penal code outlawing “activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration.” He was arrested on August 13.

State-run media Wednesday quoted a Public Security Ministry official, Col. Nguyen Xuan Mung, as saying that Hoang, since returning to Vietnam in 2000 after studying in France, had carried out activities on behalf of a “terrorist organization,” Viet Tan.

The activities included writing 29 articles over the past eight years and sending them to Viet Tan for posting online. Mung said the articles contained “distorted information” on the policies of the Vietnamese state.

He also attended a course in Malaysia last year, along with his wife and another man, to discuss issues including non-violent activism aimed at changing the country’s political system.

And in the early part of this year, Hoang held small-group courses on recruiting members for Viet Tan, Mung stated.

He said Hoang, while in custody, had expressed remorse for violating the law and had written an appeal for clemency.

Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform Party), which is banned in Vietnam, says it promotes peaceful change to a multiparty democracy. The organization has members in the United States, France, Australia and other countries with sizeable Vietnamese-origin communities.

U.S.-based Viet Tan representatives accused the government of convicting Hoang through state media despite his political activities being “entirely peaceful.”

“Every person has the right to publish articles, attend political meetings and discuss issues that affect their country,” said spokesman Duy Hoang.

“Once again, the Vietnamese Communist Party has demonstrated that its more interested in maintaining dictatorial power than permitting an open debate on the serious issues facing the country,” Duy Hoang added.

Viet Tan said its materials on “non-violent tactics used in advocating for peaceful change” had long been available on its Web site. “Everyone can freely access these documents and see for themselves Hanoi’s falsehoods.”

(Civil disobedience tactics the group has promoted include reducing productivity at work, writing appeals and petitions, and distributing news via the Internet or mobile phone.)

Viet Tan also challenged the government to publish Hoang’s writings in state newspapers, to enable people to judge for themselves “whether he’s a criminal or a patriot.”

According to the free-speech advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, Hoang’s online articles have focused on education, the environment and defense of Vietnam’s sovereignty in its relations with China. (The two countries are embroiled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.)

Reporters Without Borders says at least 19 journalists, bloggers and cyberactivists are being detained in Vietnam. It recently wrote to the country’s prime minister, urging him to include them in a group of prisoners to receive amnesty in honor of a national holiday on September 2, but to no avail.

People convicted under article 79 of Vietnam’s penal code – the article cited by Mung – may be sentenced to lengthy prison terms or even to death.

Earlier this year the International Federation for Human Rights, a coalition of more than 150 rights groups, urged Vietnam to declare a moratorium on the death penalty, calling capital punishment “particularly dangerous in a one-party state such as Vietnam, where the judiciary is totally subservient to the Communist Party.”

Official statistics are not available, but some 83 death sentences were handed down last year and nine executions carried out, according to media reports.

Critics of the Hanoi government have long accused it of trying to have it both ways – reaping the benefits of significantly improved diplomatic, trade and military relations with the U.S. while restricting freedom of expression and religion and clamping down on peaceful opposition to the one-party state at home.

In late 2006, the U.S. awarded permanent normal trade relations to Vietnam, paving the way for it to join the World Trade Organization the following year.

The Bush administration also removed Vietnam from the list of “countries of particular concern” drawn up under the International Religious Freedom Act.

In doing so it cited improvements in the religious freedom area, but the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent panel set up under the IRFA, called the move premature and has been urging its reversal ever since.

This year, Vietnam chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), at a time when the Obama administration is seeking to strengthen ties with the 10-member grouping as a counterweight against China’s regional ambitions.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Hanoi over the summer and will be returning next month, as will Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Last week, Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet joined other ASEAN leaders in a summit with Obama in New York. The Asians pledged to “strengthen cooperation with the United States in addressing issues related to human rights,” according to a statement released by the White House.

Source

www.vietnamhumanrights.net

Photos Smuggled from China Show Bloated Falun Gong Practitioner Shortly Before Death

2010-10-05

NEW YORK—A retired steel worker from Hebei province died on September 6, 2010, just over six months after being released from a prison camp where he had been tortured and forced to do hard labor for practicing Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned.

Photos of Mr. Zhang Yunping (张云平) taken days before his death and smuggled out of China show the 58-year-old’s emaciated chest and bloated stomach.

"Yunping's death demonstrates the terrible reality facing businesses across China today," says Falun Dafa Information Center executive director Levi Browde. "They either have to identify Falun Gong practitioners to be sent off for brainwashing or forced labor and in many cases actively participate in the persecution of employees, or face severe reprecusions themselves from the ruling communist party."

A significant majority of Falun Gong adherents report that the practice has brought relief from health problems. Denied the right to practice in custody and subject to physical abuse, some practitioners experience a recurrence of old diseases or contraction of new ones. They are then routinely denied the necessary medical attention, often until they are so close to death that treatment would be ineffective. Nearly 1 out of 5 Falun Gong deaths documented in 2009 were the result of, in addition to torture, such denial of the right to health. (report)

Zhang was a former employee of the Tangshan Steel Group Service Company. Following the launch of the Communist Party’s campaign against Falun Gong, the firm’s management and security personnel actively participated in persecuting him. At the end of 2000, the company suspended him from his position and turned him over to a “brainwashing” center located at the Tangshan Textile and Garment School. During the two months that Zhang was held at the center, he was subjected to endless doses of anti-Falun Gong propaganda, relentless efforts to force him to renounce his faith, and his company deducted 2,500 yuan from his annual salary.

After retiring in 2001, Zhang fled home to escape consistent harassment from the firm’s management. In 2002, an agent from the company’s police unit abducted and threatened Zhang’s wife in a bid to discover his whereabouts. The following year, his pension was suspended, leaving the entire family in a difficult economic situation.

It is common across China for businesses and schools to, under direct pressure from Party officials, send employees who do now renounce their Falun Gong practice to brainwashing centers to be forcibly “transformed.” When that proves ineffective, many fire employees or cut of pensions to retirees.

After searching for nearly two years, the Hebei authorities captured Zhang on March 30, 2003. Shortly afterwards, a judge at Lubei District Court “sentenced” him in a sham trial to eight years in a prison camp. In April 2004, Zhang was taken to Jidong Prison.

Due to the harsh conditions at the prison camp, his health deteriorated and he became increasingly weak, but was forced to continue to perform hard labor as late as August 2009. A wound on his finger from a nail became infected, but prison officials delayed hospital treatment until late September, at which point Mr. Zhang was also diagnosed with diabetes and tuberculosis.

Following repeated pleas from his family, prison officials released Zhang on medical parole in February 2010. He never recovered from the injuries and diseases incurred in custody and died on September 6, 2010. A series of photos taken by acquaintances less than a week before his death and smuggled out of China show Zhang both emaciated and bloated. (photos)

Source

http://www.faluninfo.net/article/1088/?cid=84

Cuba talks of releasing terror prisoners

2010-10-04

by JUAN O. TAMAYO

Cuba is offering to free a new group of nine prisoners -- including six convicted of terrorism -- in a possible sign that it's willing to release up to 80 more, a human rights activist said Monday.

The nine, all but one not generally considered to be political prisoners, must go into exile if freed, said Elizardo Sánchez, head of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

About 80 other prisoners fall into the same category as the eight -- cases tried in courts that handle state security cases and did not involve bloodshed -- and could also be freed, Sánchez added by phone from Havana.

The offer marks the first confirmation that Cuban ruler Raúl Castro plans to go beyond the 52 dissidents he promised to free in July, the last still jailed from a group rounded up in 2003. Thirty-six already have been freed and sent into exile in Spain.

``It seems he wants to erase this stain on his political image,'' Sánchez said. ``He wants to get rid of all these kinds of prisoners to reduce the international criticism and . . . obtain political and economic concessions.''

Three of the nine -- Leudis Arce Romero, Lazaro Avila Sierra and Francisco Reyes Rodríguez -- received life sentences on terrorism charges for plotting to hijack a plane to the United States in 2003 though the attempt was never carried out, Sánchez said.

Three others were convicted of terrorism and sentenced to eight to 10 years for hijacking a boat to leave the island, he added. They are Reinier Concepción García, Juan Marimón Gómez and Marcos Zayas Acanda.

Pavel Hernández Manfarrol was sentenced to six years for trying to leave illegally through the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, Sánchez added, and Domingo Osuna Mederos was convicted of piracy for plotting to hijack a boat.

The ninth, Orestes Paino Viera, is an opposition activist convicted in 2008 of disrespect for government authorities and resisting arrest, according to the human rights activist.

Sánchez said he confirmed the Cuban offer in talks with six of the prisoners and relatives of the other three. He could not confirm that one or two additional prisoners received the same offer.

The offer to the nine again raised the question of just who is a political prisoner in a country where the government considers many actions as crimes against the security of the state.

Sanchez's commission lists as ``political prisoners'' nearly 100 Cubans convicted in courts that consider crimes against the security of the state, even if their crimes involved bloodshed. Amnesty International counts as ``prisoners of conscience'' only those convicted on nonviolent opposition to the government.

Ladies in White spokeswoman Berta Soler said that the women's group will soon hand Catholic Church officials its own list of who it considers to be jailed for political reasons.

Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega told journalists that the government will free ``others'' beyond the 52 but said there were several lists of ``political prisoners.''

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos last week asked members of Spain's legislature to provide him with lists of Cubans they consider to be political prisoners.

Ortega and Moratinos were at the July 7 meeting with Castro in which the Cuban ruler promised to release the 52 dissidents within the next four months.

Moratinos has said that Castro was willing to release ``all'' the political prisoners, while the president of Cuba's legislative National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, said the country would free those who did not bear responsibility for the loss of lives.

Source
www.miamiherald.com

D-DAY FOUNDATION ERRS AGAIN--REMOVES STALIN BUST BUT PROMISES TO REINSTALL IT

2010-10-04

Statement by Dr. Lee Edwards, Chairman
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

The National D-Day Memorial Foundation has erred again, and badly. Its decision to remove the Stalin bust but to reinstall it in the future is a grave insult to the brave Americans and others who stormed the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944-no Soviet troops participated in D-Day operations. It is also a serious misreading of the history of World War II, which was launched following the Stalin-Hitler pact of August 1939. There would have been no need for the D-Day invasion if there had been no cynical "non-aggression" agreement between the Soviet and German dictators.

The D-Day Memorial Foundation attempted to cover up its retreat on the June installation of the Stalin bust by stating it would remove not only the Stalin bust but all the busts of World War II leaders, including FDR and Churchill. It would then "reintroduce" all of the busts, including the Stalin bust, and "congregate them" somewhere in the memorial. This plan is even worse than the original placement of the Stalin statue because grouping Stalin with FDR, Churchill and other allied leaders would give the Soviet dictator a moral as well as a political equivalence he does not deserve.

The D-Day Memorial Foundation insisted that its decision was not "a reaction to special interests" that had expressed their opposition, thereby insulting the American Legion which had urged the removal of the Stalin bust. As for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, we admit proudly that we have a special interest in educating people about the myriad crimes and victims of communism, millions of whom died as a result of Joseph Stalin's tyranny.

Stalin-who was responsible for more deaths in the 20th century than any other dictator save Mao Zedong--has no place at a National D-Day Memorial. The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation pledges to continue its national campaign for the permanent removal of the Stalin bust from the D-Day Memorial.

Source

www.victimsofcommunism.org

Who said the Chinese never speak out?

2010-10-04

The electronic Great Wall around China is getting taller and more effective. The government still controls most of the print media. Communist Party and government leaders continue to order arrests of journalists, bloggers and intellectuals. Directives from the Central Propaganda Department and local officials trample on media freedom.

But, with perseverance and courage, journalists, Internet users, bloggers, artists, lawyers and intellectuals are managing to open breaches in China’s censorship. In recent weeks, Reporters Without Borders has noted a series of encouraging victories by these tireless free speech activists.

It is up to the Chinese above all to wage the fight against censorship in China, but they need the support of the international blogosphere and information sector companies. The fight for free expression in a country that is now a major international power also needs significant solidarity gestures.

That is why Reporters Without Borders is supporting Chinese intellectual Liu Xiaobo’s candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize. A staunch defender of free expression who was given an 11-year jail sentence for helping to draft the Charter 08 manifesto, Liu Xiaobo embodies the peaceful and selfless struggle for freedom being waged by activists in China and many other parts of the world.

Effective protests

Recent events in China suggest that a turning point is being reached in the possibilities for effective action by journalists and Internet users against repression and censorship.

“I will never regret writing this book,” Xie Chaoping claimed when he was freed on 17 September after being detained for several weeks in the central province of Shaanxi for writing about the Sanmenxia dam. He was released for lack of evidence after winning a strong show of support from the Chinese public. More information: http://en.rsf.org/china-journalist-...

“I wrote the truth,” said Economic Observer reporter Qiu Ziming at the end of July after the authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang withdrew the libel charges they had brought against him for accusing a local battery manufacturer of improper practices. When Qiu went into hiding and protested his innocence in his blog, he won an enormous amount of support online and was transformed into an Internet hero. More information about Qiu: http://en.rsf.org/china-business-re...

“The Beijing police chief apologised to me, the magazine Caijing and all the journalists,” Caijing deputy editor Luo Changping wrote on Twitter on 21 September. Luo, who was arrested by the Beijing police for a story headlined “Security companies given special task of intercepting petitioners,” said the police finally promised not to prosecute anyone in connection with the article. To follow Luo on Twitter: http://twitter.com/lianyue

Journalists sticking together

These positive developments were the result of public support, which is having an increasing impact on the Chinese authorities. In some cases, this “agitation” was initiated by news media or informal groups of journalists in certain regions.

“The Internet’s development opens up new possibilities,” Xiao Jianfeng, the editor of Hunan Ribao (Hunan Daily), wrote after the authorities closed down an online discussion forum that was appreciated by many journalists. “If a website is closed, another is created elsewhere. The government is mistaken. Suppressing and closing websites is not a good method. It should instead try to solve the problems.”

Launched by Nanfang Dushi Bao, a newspaper based in southern China, the Dushibao Lianmeng (Association of Metropolitan Journalists) website was used by the staff of 13 local newspapers for exchanging information and discussing issues.

Some of the debates on Dushibao Lianmeng, such as the one about the residence permit system known as the “hukou,” upset some Communist Party leaders. The journalists had all called for the abolition of the system, which discriminates against rural residents working in the cities. The Propaganda Department recommended closing the forum in the conclusions of its March investigation into this “incident.”

Ye Du, a journalist based in the southern city of Guangzhou who belonged to the forum, said mutual assistance among news media is quietly growing in China despite new regulations. For example, if a newspaper cannot report a local story because it has been censored by the provincial authorities, a newspaper from another province may take on the job of covering it. While regretting the forum’s closure, most of its participants think its disappearance will have little impact on press freedom as another one will soon spring up in its place.

“The police do not have the right to arrest journalists without reason,” said the banner displayed by ten journalists in Yichun, a northeastern city near the Russian border, on 28 August. They were protesting against the detention of four fellow-journalists, who had been arrested by the local authorities while covering a plane crash in which 42 people were killed. The ten journalists staged two silent and anonymous demonstrations outside the local Propaganda Department office. The images of the protest circulated immediately online. The detained journalists were freed in the afternoon and received apologies from the local authorities.

The Chinese love plays on words. Their language lends itself to punning as it has lots of homophones.

Internet users have been attacking the online censors with humour and creativity for years. The resistance against censorship has come above all to be represented by a mythical creature called the “Cao Ni Ma” (Grass Mud Horse), a homonym for “Screw Your Mother.” Internet users mock the Party’s censorship by posting bogus animal reports and songs about the Cao Ni Ma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKx1...

More recently, stories of an imaginary lizard called Yake (Ya Ke Xi in Mandarin) have circulated in response to a Chinese New Year show on state TV that showed Uyghurs from the troubled western province of Xinjiang singing the government’s praises and repeating that the Communist Party Central Committee’s policies were “good” (“yakexi” in Uyghur).

Shocked by the crudeness of this propaganda when the situation in Xinjiang is so problematic, humorists invented a lizard (“xi” in Mandarin) called Yake who patrols and censors the Internet and symbolises Central Committee policies. According to its creators, Yake is now dying out in Russia (after a golden era there) but is still thriving in Cuba, North Korea and China. Yake, who has a forked tongue, feeds on river crabs (“he xie” in Mandarin). “He xie” is a homonym of the word for “harmonising,” President Hu Jintao’s political leitmotiv and a government euphemism for censorship.

In all, Chinese bloggers and Internet users have invented about ten creatures to represent China’s online censors.

Cartoons are also increasingly being put into the service of media freedom. When Xie Chaoping, the author of the book about the Sanmenxia dam, was detained, lots of cartoons appeared in support of the campaign for his release.

The Meaning of the Venezuelan Election Results

2010-10-01

by Thor Halvorssen

CARACAS, Venezuela -- An avalanche of media has declared Hugo Chavez's loss of a two-thirds majority significant. It isn't. On Monday, Venezuela's electoral council announced that political opposition groups had won the majority of the votes in the election for the national assembly, Venezuela's legislature. They simultaneously announced that the Chavez party would retain most of the seats. In other words, those who received the most votes get minority representation. This is puzzling.

Already, Chavez's party is underlining that while they don't have a two-thirds majority (the proportion needed to have control) they do have a three-fifths majority and that this is sufficient to pass an "enabling law" granting Chavez the equivalent of dictatorial powers. So here is the scenario: Before the election he ruled with absolute power including the subservience of the judicial and legislative power and control over the means of production. Now, without the legislature, he will simply get them to quickly pass a law making his absolute power official.

The Chavez government manipulates rules, laws, and institutions as it sees fit. This has been the case for several years and will be its lasting legacy. Despite the outgoing national assembly being a lame duck legislature, be prepared to see them pass all sorts of laws despite having no mandate.

Too many ignore or are simply unaware of the reason why Chavez had full control of the legislature in the first place -- in 2005, all opposition parties boycotted the legislative elections because they were protesting the lack of democracy, the manipulation of the electoral system, the systematic violations of human rights, and the use of the state treasury by Chavez for his own party's benefit. Voters rejected the election en masse with only 17 percent of eligible voters turning out. The OAS and the EU released scathing reports on the entire process. The bleak turnout made that assembly legal but illegitimate. That the opposition was not able to turn all of these facts into a victory and force a redo of that election is baffling. Meanwhile, the Chavez spin machine set into action and the world was led to believe that he had such unanimous support that he ended up with the entire legislature.

After that, the opposition parties ended their boycott and got back into politics, admirably using tactics different from those of the president. Despite the government's use of violence, a politicized judiciary, the shutting down of media critical of the president, the misuse of public funds for the president's party, the cult of personality financed by the state, the use of imprisonment to go after political opponents, the presence of a fear-inducing Cuban intelligence apparatus, and the abuse of federal emergency management laws to control the airwaves for several hours a day to spread political propaganda, the democratic elements in Venezuela are to be commended. What they pulled off on Sunday is extraordinary.

I was asked why, if Chavez is such an autocrat, he didn't rig the election outright. The answer is that Chavez has not yet obtained what his government refers to as "communicational hegemony". There is still one television channel left on the air, Globovision, which provides critical news and analysis despite both of its key owners being in forced exile. The two other remaining independent channels were silenced -- one by being shut down and the other by being bribed and blackmailed. Once the government has the monopoly on media, then it will be impossible, as in Cuba, to have any critical or opposing viewpoints. Any election result is then plausible in a scenario of self censorship and fear.

Chavez's poll numbers are down considerably given that issues such as crime -- Venezuela has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world (worse than Afghanistan or Iraq) -- and inflation -- Venezuela has the worst rate in the hemisphere -- affect everybody. In the face of these domestic failures he was not going to win outright had the elections been free and fair. That said, the game was stacked: the government used an endless supply of state oil funds to compete against political parties lacking state support, and enforced numerous restrictions on political donations to the opposition. In addition, voter intimidation is rife and loyalty oaths are required from government employees. Imagine what the results would have been had there been an equal playing field.

Given that they couldn't do a simple "we got more votes" trick, the electoral council, controlled entirely by Chavez, chose instead to do political alchemy. This means he did rig it! Consider that the opposition obtained 52% of the votes (probably much more had it been a clean fight) yet does not have a majority of the seats. It is political alchemy resulting from politicized redistricting. For instance, in Caracas the opponents of Chavez got 484,844 votes versus 484,103 of the Chavista party. And the ten seats get split: three for the winners and seven for Chavez. I strongly hope those who cried foul during Bush v. Gore will come out swinging against this injustice just four hours south of Palm Beach County.

It is clear that, even with a stacked deck, the numerical majority of Venezuelans are indicating that they want something different. International elites constantly lecture about how Venezuelan elections are a contest of poor versus rich. The truth of the matter is that the Chavez family and those in government are most of "the rich" -- starting with his brothers Adán, Argenis, and Adelis Chavez and longtime government cronies Diosdado Cabello and Jose Vicente Rangel both of whom merit inclusion in the Forbes Billionaires list. Not surprisingly, Venezuela ranks close to the bottom in Transparency International's corruption index -- tied with Angola and the Congo.

To those in the Chavez political machine, the election simply means a change of tactics. To Chavez personally, it is devastating. He has shown that he cannot stand an opposing voice. His word is final. To quote him, speaking in the third person: "He who betrays Chavez dies politically." Chavez is the revolution. He is the voice of the people. He rules, he doesn't govern. A true leadership contest is unthinkable. If you were to drive from the main airport to the city of Caracas you will see dozens of billboards with his image -- all paid for with state funds and all of them inappropriate in a democracy. It is all about him, all the time. Step out of line and you get expropriated, harassed, persecuted, or even prosecuted and thrown in prison.

A rejection of this sort is humiliating for Chavez. It is sure to cause him an existential crisis. It apparently was agonizing enough that he didn't even poke his head out on his "Balcony of the People" to say hello to his dejected supporters and admit the rout. He chose as a substitute his Twitter account from where he fantasized a "solid victory." A few hours later, he called the international press "revolting" and "liars" and was particularly graphic about CNN's coverage of the elections. During the last referendum, which was the last time the opposition won a majority of votes in a national electoral contest, Chavez went on television and called it a "shit victory" and then proceeded to merrily ignore the results of the election.

Chavez cannot declare defeat. He cannot leave power because this would lead to charges of murder, drug-trafficking on a global scale, corruption charges unlike anything seen in the hemisphere's history, and -- most problematic due to the crimes against humanity element -- charges of collaborating with Colombia's FARC terrorists. While in power he will be untouchable but out of power the line of plaintiffs, prosecutors, and critics is long and includes groups as politically diverse as Reporters Without Borders, the Inter-American Court of Justice, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the families of the victims of the April 11th massacre.

Chavez doesn't know what to do. He has two years to figure it out. It is highly unlikely that he will allow a fair electoral contest. He has disqualified Leopoldo Lopez, a candidate that has outpolled him, forced Manuel Rosales, the last candidate that challenged him, into exile, and opened judicial investigations into those on the electoral horizon. Chavez will do everything and anything in the next two years to get another term. But this should be a surprise to no one. He has already said it numerous times: he plans to stay until 2030.

Source

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thor-halvorssen/the-meaning-of-the-venezu_b_744927.html

Germany marks 20 years since reunification treaty

2010-10-01

By Matthias von Hellfeld

On the night of October 3, 1990 thousands of people celebrated German reunification in Berlin. That night was the culmination of months of difficult negotiations, months when it wasn't at all clear how it all would end.

As the night sky lit up with fireworks on October 3, 1990, many people stood below with tears in their eyes. They were witnessing a historic moment that neither the Germans nor the rest of Europe had been sure was possible.

The citizens of the German Democratic Republic had overthrown their country's communist system and chased their leaders from office with a peaceful revolution. Not one gun had been fired, no violence had been used and no one had been hurt. On that day 20 years ago, East Germany joined West Germany to become one country.

Just before the fireworks began, German President Richard von Weizsaecker put German reunification in the context of European unity. "We Germans are conscious of our responsibilities and hope to work toward peace in a united Europe," he said.

Rudolf Seiters, the then-head of the German Chancellery, had just gotten through some busy months himself. As a confidant of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, he'd been present at several key events in the run-up to reunification. He had spent the night before the unification ceremony at the Bundeshaus, the West German government's home in Berlin during the years when the capital was in Bonn. But it was impossible to sleep with his mind full of the events that had led up to this day.

"I thought about my negotiations for the freedom of the embassy refugees, the image of Hans-Dietrich Genscher on the balcony of the German embassy in Prague, the speech I gave to parliament when the Berlin Wall came down because Helmut Kohl was in Warsaw," he said, "and then the incredibly important speech that Helmut Kohl gave in front of the Frauenkirche in Dresden.

323 busy, exciting days

Just 323 days passed from the fall of the Berlin Wall to reunification. For the political leaders of the two Germanys those days were full of complicated negotiations and far-reaching decisions. In East Germany, nothing would stay the same.

Following the first free elections in East Germany in March 1990, the newly elected officials turned their centralized communist country into a federal system that could easily be united with West Germany to form one country. The government surveillance program was dismantled and the deutschmark was introduced. All in less than a year.

The rush was not without reason. Reform movements across Eastern Europe had come to a head and the people were in uproar. They wanted the freedom to travel and they wanted a change in political systems.

The massive protests had been triggered by the Glasnost and Perestroika reforms in the Soviet Union. "It was meant to be a very carefully controlled process," said Seiters. "It wasn't just those in Moscow who were worried, but also people in Western European countries as well."

All eyes on Germany

The move to unite the two Germanys was looked upon with skepticism in a few European capitals. There was a fear of a strong, united Germany at the center of the European continent. French President Francois Mitterrand was not a fan of the idea and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was openly against reunification at first.

The developments in Europe met with resistance in the Soviet Union as the former world power lost its influence over the countries in the Warsaw Pact, the counterbalance to NATO. In the West there were concerns that a coup overthrowing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev could put German reunification at risk.

The Germans were lucky with their timing. There wasn't any international development at the time that distracted the world from the German reunification process. A few months later and it could have all gone differently.

In early August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait and declared its lands a new Iraqi province. In mid-1991 the world held its breath again as several generals and part of the Red Army did attempt a coup against Gorbachev. If these events had taken place a year earlier, they would have made the German reunification process more difficult and probably more drawn-out. Instead Germany took center stage in geopolitics during those 323 days.

Elections for a united Germany

Two months after reunification Germany-wide parliamentary elections were held for the first time since 1932. West Germany's ruling coalition of Christian Democrats and the economically liberal Free Democrats were the clear winners. Helmut Kohl went from being the chancellor of West Germany to being the first chancellor of a reunified Germany.

Source

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6028796,00.html

Monument to commemorate Germany’s unification opened in Berlin

2010-10-01

A monument to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachyov, former US President George Bush senior and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has opened at the site of a what used to be a checkpoint through the Berlin Wall.

Opening the monument, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said that it is thanks to Gorbachyov’s courage, Bush’s circumspection and Kohl’s decisiveness that Germany was finally reunited.

Source

www. english.ruvr.ru

Award the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo

2010-10-01

Reporters Without Borders is circulating an open letter from Chinese philosopher Xu Youxu calling for imprisoned intellectual Liu Xiaobo, one of the authors of the Charter 08 pro-democracy manifesto, to be awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Reporters Without Borders supports his call. Norway’s Nobel Committee is due to announce the winner on 8 October.

I am here to urge your support of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize being bestowed upon the founder of China’s Charter 08, Liu Xiaobo.

In spite of Liu Xiaobo’s many friends and supporters, I came to know him quite late, and we first met personally only a few years ago. In the mid-1980s, when Liu Xiaobo rose to prominence within the literary world, I was a visiting research fellow at Oxford, and became familiar with his ideas through Chinese periodicals published overseas. Contrary to the view held by many, what brought Liu such attention at the time wasn’t merely the sharpness of his writing or his pointed critiques, but also how thorough he was in his thinking and how much more influential his criticisms were of mainstream ideology and dogma in China than those of other intellectuals.

Throughout the student-led democracy movement of 1989, I had the opportunity to observe Liu Xiaobo. He had been lecturing abroad for quite some time, but when signs of suppression began to appear and others began making arrangements to flee overseas, Liu Xiaobo instead chose to discontinue his academic pursuits and return to Beijing to immerse himself in the struggle for democracy. On the nights of June 3rd and 4th, I was in Tiananmen Square, not far from the Monument to the People’s Heroes. Liu Xiaobo, along with three other intellectuals, was taking part in the student hunger strike; it was they, who, on the early morning of the 4th, convinced the students to peacefully evacuate the Square and begin discussion with the soldiers suppressing them, negotiating a smooth withdrawal. I remember clearly the difficulty and pain Liu Xiaobo and his comrades-in-arms— raised as they had been with the most radical type of an education — experienced in reaching this decision, one which only later was understood to have saved the lives of several hundred students.

Liu Xiaobo’s involvement in the 1989 democracy movement illustrates his transformation from an eminent cultural critic to public intellectual concerned with social and political problems and human rights activist. His activities in 1989 can be seen as formative in the entirety of his following writings and other works, characterized by an unwavering bravery and refusal to back down in the face of danger and suppression, by the pursuit and defense of human rights, humanism, peace and other universal values and, finally, adherence to the practice of rational dialogue, compromise and non-violence.

For many years, Liu Xiaobo has been the most representative figure and foremost organizer in mainland China’s struggle for human rights and democracy. He has been at the forefront of protests made in support of writers and intellectuals imprisoned for their work, in appeals made for farmers and urban residents deprived of land and home, in advocating for protection of the religious and cultural rights of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang, and in fostering constructive dialogue toward seeing peaceful coexistence between Han and all ethnic minorities. In a series of protests aimed at upholding the fundamental rights of all Chinese citizens, Liu Xiaobo placed consistent emphasis on the fact that the rights and freedoms of all Chinese citizens are protected both by the Chinese constitution and in law, as well as a series of United Nations and international declarations and covenants signed by the Chinese government which safeguard human and civil rights. Liu placed particular emphasis on seeing the Chinese government’s obligation and responsibility to abide by its own constitution and laws as well as international covenants as commitments to both the Chinese people and the international community.

In launching and signing Charter 08 in 2008, Liu Xiaobo’s intent was to reaffirm, with the Chinese government already recognizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and having signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that these are the norms with regard to interaction between the Chinese people and the Chinese government: to be a qualified and responsible member of the international community would require China to adopt the universal values embodied within these two documents. For this, Liu Xiaobo was imprisoned, his third arrest as a result of striving for freedom and democracy in China. On Christmas Day, 2009, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison. In his final statement to the court, Liu Xiaobo said that he had neither enemies nor hate; to those who kept him under surveillance and arrested him, to the police who interrogated him and to the public attorneys who prosecuted and judge who sentenced him, the message Liu Xiaobo felt it most important to convey was that despite their various roles leading to his imprisonment, he considered none of them his enemy.

As a political theorist and public intellectual also concerned with social and political problems and the defense of human rights, as well as a signatory to Charter 08, I strongly feel the need to point out that in the judgment read by the court which sentenced Liu Xiaobo, evidence cited to prove Liu’s guilt included his participation in Charter 08, that he collected signatures for it, and even the content of the Charter itself—naked provocation of the universal values held by humankind, common norms held by the international community, and especially of the Chinese people themselves.

As I see it, the Nobel Peace Prize both embodies and represents the core values of civilized society: respect for life and faith, the sanctity of the individual and the right to express one’s self. Given that Liu Xiaobo and many others signatories of Charter 08 have faced persecution and oppression merely for reaffirming these values, the blatant challenge they face behooves a response from the civilized world; to bestow the Nobel Peace Prize upon Liu Xiaobo is one of the strongest responses which could be sent. This would, clearly and unambiguously, reaffirm the values held most dearly by humankind, serve as monumental support for the struggle for the freedom and democracy which China’s 1.3 billion people lack, and would mark a major step in defense of world peace. Chinese authorities are able to destroy this country’s constitution and trample upon its laws wantonly, which is why external voices, voices from the international community, are needed to make Chinese authorities pay heed. Bestowing the Nobel Peace Prize upon Liu Xiaobo would serve as indirect opposition to the current state of affairs, as well as a both authoritative and effective signal.

Liu Xiaobo’s ideas and actions, in my view, are entirely congruous to the actions and ideas held by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi; all have endeavored to use tactics of non-violence in effecting gradual change, of persuasion and compromise in upholding human rights and in making the transition toward a peaceful society. With protest movements now taking place all across China within every community and at every level, it is imperative we remain vigilant in preventing violent trends from taking hold. Awarding Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize would have just such an effect: people struggling for human rights in China and around the world would find hope and strength in rational, non-violent resistance, and see anew the possibility of putting violence and authoritarian rule where they both belong—in the past and behind us all.

Cordially Yours,

Xu Youyu

Philosopher and professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Holder of the Olof Palme Chair, Sweden, 2001-2002

Source

Reporteurs Without Borders

Search for oil won’t cure the Cuban economy

2010-10-01

BY FRANK CALZON, executive director at the Center for a Free Cuba, a human-rights and pro-democracy organization

Havana needs the embargo ended and dangles the possibility of great profits before American companies. Why the Castros would want to do a favor to American capitalists is a question cooler heads should be asking, but even some who are not Castro sympathizers have fallen for the trick.
The Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg, who was just in Havana, has fallen for it. He wrote: “Cuba is beginning to adopt the sort of economic ideas that America has long demanded it adopt, but Americans are not allowed to participate in this free-market experiment because of our government’s hypocritical and stupidly self-defeating embargo policy. We’ll regret this, of course, when Cubans partner with Europeans and Brazilians to buy up all the best hotels.”
In a recent article in The Financial Times, the Council of the Americas’ Christopher Sabatini wrote about reports suggesting “that oil exploration may soon begin off Cuba’s coast, potentially testing the current U.S. trade embargo.” Sabatini is careful in his wording, but the message, repeated elsewhere, is clear: “Let’s get in while the picking is good. This Cuban oil is a sure thing.”
On such questionable certainties fortunes have been lost. Foreign companies that have spent millions in similar pursuits, in partnership with the regime, have yet to recover their investments.
Be that as it may, it is probably true that there is oil very deep off Cuba’s shores; although the discovery and production of such crude, if it’s there, remains a matter of years. Cuba depends on Hugo Chávez’s largess, as it depended on Moscow’s. The Castros have turned the island into a beggar state; before 1959 Cuba purchased the oil it needed in the international market with the funds generated from its Cuban sugar industry and other enterprises.
Cuban sugar was to Cuba what oil is to Texas. The island was known as the sugar bowl of the world. Now, the sugar industry that made possible modern Cuba is no more, its mills abandoned, its workers idled. Cuba buys sugar for its domestic needs from the Dominican Republic.
This is not the first time that the possibility of substantial oil production has been mentioned in the context of the embargo, which denies Havana access to international financial institutions including the World Bank. Havana is broke, and because of a “liquidity crisis” has frozen the bank accounts of foreign investors operating on the island. For more than 20 years Havana has been unable to make payments to many foreign creditors.
Even if oil was to be found, it does not mean the Castro brothers will use those resources to benefit Cubans, as billions of wasted foreign aid, misused loans and squandered subsidies during half a century demonstrate.
What the Castro brothers need in a hurry is dollars. Havana is broke. Raúl Castro just announced the layoff of half a million government workers. The oil dollars are perhaps in the future, but the speculation is designed to “test” the U.S. embargo, to get U.S. companies to lobby to end it, so that the regime could be thrown a life saver in the form of international credits.
Is this the time to gamble that oil will be found and get on line before the end of the Castro dynasty? And are there any assurances that its income will not be used — as Chávez does with his petro-dollars — to subsidize anti-American regimes around the world?
The Cuban ship of state has entered troubled waters. The internal opposition continues to speak out. The regime, desperate as it is for dollars, doesn’t have the courage to allow its citizens to produce, sell and export their own products and put an end to the economic crisis. Fidel and Raúl Castro might hope that the lure of quick oil profits could end the embargo and bring millions into their coffers so that they do not have to adopt real economic reforms. For that to happen, Washington would have to ignore the situation in Cuba, as well as U.S. interests.
In the meantime, there does not seem to be enough time left, or enough oil, for Cuban oil to calm its troubled waters.

Source

www.cubacenter.org

Vote to lift Cuba travel ban is put on hold

2010-09-30

Backers of lifting the ban on travel to Cuba had been hoping for a favorable vote Wednesday out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but chairman Howard L. Berman called off the vote on Tuesday. "It now appears that Wednesday will be the last day that Congress is in session before an extended district work period. That makes it increasingly likely that our discussion of the bill will be disrupted or cut short by votes or other activity on the House floor," the California Democrat said in a statement.
"Accordingly, I am postponing consideration of H.R. 4645 until a time when the Committee will be able to hold the robust and uninterrupted debate this important issue deserves. I firmly believe that when we debate and vote on the merits of this legislation, and I intend for it to be soon, the right to travel will be restored to all Americans."
The National Foreign Trade Council and USA-Engage had just sent out an email in support of the bill, which would lift restrictions on travel by American citizens to Cuba and U.S. agricultural and humanitarian exports to the country.
Supporters had considered it the best chance at getting the travel ban lifted – particularly if Republicans take control of the House in November and Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen becomes committee chair.

Source
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/

Yuri Luzhkov: last of Russia's rebels?

2010-09-30

By Alexey Kovalev

I saw him once on that sweltering July afternoon when I went to see a rock festival and ended up covering a terrorist attack that killed 16 people and wounded around 50. He swooshed past me and other corralled journalists with his 50-strong entourage of guards, aides and senior police officers, barking orders and generally looking tough and effective. This was the man who lent his name to an architectural style (albeit in an ironic way) and a whole era.

Yuri Luzhkov is not simply a political survivor, staying in office for 18 years, the same time as Leonid Brezhnev, his trademark round cap is now as much a historical symbol as the late secretary general of the CPSU's bushy eyebrows and senile mumblings. His political ambitions far exceeded one of the biggest cities in the world: Luzhkov is famous for his megalomaniac projects, such as diverting Siberian rivers to the south. Although officially he's the second mayor of Moscow, hardly anyone remembers the first, the humble and almost faceless Gavriil Popov from who Luzhkov inherited a grim, litter-strewn, barely illuminated city and turned it into a glowing, bustling metropolis. Future mayors of Moscow will have to try very hard to outdo his achievements, both positive and negative.

And now he's finally gone. The Cap, The Beekeper, the "sturdy manager", the bane of gay people and conservative architects, the mayor of Russia's capital who outlived two presidents and defied the third. It is this defiance – and not his blatant disregard of common sense, architectural aesthetics or public opinion – that proved to be Luzhkov's undoing and resulted in what many regard as President Medvedev's first serious political decision. Conspiracy theorists and pundits are having a field day, generating page after page in an attempt to untangle the impossibly complicated knot of opposing forces between the Moscow administration and the Kremlin.

On the ground, Moscow greeted the news with cheers in blogs and smiles on the streets, sarcastic gifts of prison biscuits laid in front of the mayoral office (hinting at countless allegations of corruption that many hope will result in a sentence) and a record-breaking traffic jam, the dramatic crimson-streaked map of which has already been dubbed "Luzhkov's Farewell". Now everybody's waiting for the new mayor to be announced – as of 2004, Muscovites, as well as all other Russians, have no say in choosing their own regional leaders. Luzhkov, with his typical militant posture, has already announced that he is not abandoning politics, and political commentators expect him to run for president in 2012 or form an opposition party (he has quit United Russia of which he was one of the founding fathers). It is worth remembering what happened to Mikhail Khodorkovsky when he had similar ambitions. One doesn't have to be a fortune-teller to predict that the ex-mayor will be reminded of each and every one of the allegations made against him while in the office.

And, by God, does he have many. Most anti-Luzhkov commentators deride his forced eviction as a half-measure: if even a fraction of the allegations voiced in petitions, books, TV features and blogs posts are to be tried in court, Rod Blagojevich will seem a beacon of moral integrity compared to Moscow's ex-mayor. For thousands of campaigners against Luzhkov's countless evils – gay-bashing, obliteration of historic Moscow and allegations of corruption, etc – it's now painfully obvious that none of their efforts have made the slightest difference and there's absolutely no guarantee that the next mayor will do any better. If there isn't a medical condition called obsessive-compulsive construction, the world health organisation should introduce one, if only for Luzhkov's sake: throughout his 18 years as mayor he spent every Saturday personally overseeing one of Moscow's epic construction sites, shaping the city to his own chaotic and kitschy taste. According to an entry in the Russian Wikipedia, the "Luzhkov style" encompasses elements of postmodernism and eclecticism, borrows the style of anything from rococo to Stalinist Empire and hi-tech and is characterised by an inefficient and unsystematic arrangement. To many Muscovites it's just goddamn ugly. We feel like strangers in our own city, we hate the infamous "infill development" ruining our parks and courtyards, these behemoths of bad taste with faux towers and balusters.

To be fair to him, he did some good things too: the reconstruction of Moscow's circular road, once a pothole-ridden, two-lane "highway of death", and the addition of another orbital route. He was responsible for a change in social funding too – although if you aren't a pensioner for who the extra 500 roubles (£11) really matters, or don't regularly ride the circular, you will have hardly noticed. Ah, yes: the streets are much cleaner than they used to be – at the expense of hundreds of thousands of semi-legal immigrant workers whose presence did cause its own problems. His almost comical obsession with apiculture (comical, that is, until the infamous story about him showing more concern for his beloved bees than Muscovites when a deadly blanket of smoke engulfed Moscow this August) has been the stock of countless jokes, and every caricature of him invariably features an angry swarm buzzing over his "helicopter pad" headgear, ready to defend their master.

Now, I have received dozens of amused and outraged comments from both Russian and foreign readers to my last Cif article where I called Luzhkov a "rebellious mayor". So what do you think now, after his angry letter to Medvedev where he blasts the president for failing to uphold democracy (although Luzhkov's own democratic record is far from clean, to say the least)? It reminds me of Andrey Kurbsky, once Ivan the Terrible's close friend and ally who later became his arch-enemy. The correspondence between him and the infamously ill-tempered monarch, where Kurbsky calls for greater accountability of the tsar and against autocracy, is a classic of political epistolary verse. Kurbsky is called by many historians the first Russian dissenter – Luzhkov may well be the last. I couldn't help but feel a tinge of sympathy towards a man so suicidally reckless and anti-authoritarian in the present atmosphere of all-encompassing lick-spittling. A few years ago, when I signed petitions and went to rallies calling for Luzhkov's resignation, I didn't pause for a second when asked whether or not I wanted to see him as the mayor of Moscow. Now I've just caught myself thinking that I'm not quite so sure.

Source

www.guardian.co.uk

Winning ugly in Russia

2010-09-29

by Aurel Braun

After weeks of political melodrama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired Moscow’s defiant mayor, Yury Luzhkov – “fired” is the term the President emphasized. The dismissal came after some of the most vitriolic Soviet-style attacks by state-controlled Russian television on Mr. Luzhkov. The firing tells us a good deal about the state of democracy in Russia, the democratic credentials of Mr. Medvedev, and the risks for anyone trying to have an independent power base in Russia.

Now, it is difficult to mourn the seeming political demise of Mr. Luzhkov. True, in the past 18 years, he has played a large role in making drab Moscow into a dynamic city, grand and gaudy, which produces almost a quarter of Russia’s GDP. Critics, however, rightly have long contended that Mr. Luzhkov ran the city like a private fiefdom. Corruption is indeed widespread.

However, Mr. Medvedev – who has the constitutional power to dismiss governors and Moscow’s mayor, and who officially declared that he had lost trust in the mayor – was upset by Mr. Luzhkov’s earlier criticism that suggested the President was a weak leader, and by the mayor’s defiance in the face of subsequent presidentially directed media counterattacks. For, in a country where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Mr. Medvedev’s allies have enormously enriched themselves at the expense of the population at large, and in a city with the second largest number of billionaires in the world, singling out one individual for alleged corruption – Mr. Luzhkov – after decades of the Kremlin accepting and even praising him, is disingenuous.

First, such “selective justice” highlights the glaring gap between claims to a rule of law by the Kremlin and the reality of arbitrary rule. Second, it casts doubts on Mr. Medvedev’s carefully nurtured image as a democratic politician who has pushed whenever possible for liberalization and modernization. During the past few weeks, as he directed a Soviet-style media campaign against Mr. Luzhkov, it has been difficult to see how he has differed from Russia’s paramount political leader, Mr. Putin. Third, it has also become evident that, as Russia is moving toward parliamentary and presidential elections, the Kremlin leaders are not prepared to tolerate someone with an independent power base like Mr. Luzhkov.

Of course, we could all be surprised, and Mr. Luzhkov’s firing might be an indication that Mr. Medvedev is moving to centre stage. In that case, the firing would signal the beginning of a wide-scale campaign that would truly address the vast corrosive corruption throughout the country, and Mr. Medvedev would have to move against the numerous siloviki – political operatives from the security and military services – who have phenomenally enriched themselves. There is little sign of this. It may also be possible that Mr. Medvedev is beginning to challenge Mr. Putin, and will stand as his own man for re-election in the presidential contest in 2012. There is little credibility to this, since Mr. Medvedev does not have a substantive power base, and Mr. Putin continues to control the preponderant ruling United Russia party.

More likely, Mr. Medvedev is working closely with Mr. Putin, and the relationship is one of concentric circles, with the tough Prime Minister in the centre. The “kinder, gentler” Mr. Medvedev is then part of the same regime, where the iron fist quickly emerges whenever a challenger, even one with a record of supporting Mr. Putin, opposes a “component” of the ruling system. This perhaps should be a lesson to Mr. Medvedev, who ironically may find his current victory a Pyrrhic one.

The next moves are up to Mr. Luzhkov and Mr. Putin. In the weeks to come, we should get further clarification about the political lineup in a country where attachment to democracy looks ever more dubious.

Aurel Braun is a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto.

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www.theglobeandmail.com

China arrests 2 monks in Lhoka after protests over teacher’s visit

2010-09-29

Two monk officials of a monastery in Tibet’s Lhoka region have been arrested, following a protest by monks of the monastery against Chinese authorities earlier this month. Gyurmey Tenzin and an unidentified monk official of Mindroling monastery had approached the local Chinese authorities to allow Dralha Rinpoche -- an heir lama to the throne of Mindroling, which is one of the six lineages within the Nyingmapa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism -- to visit the monastery.On September 19, around 50 monks of Mindroling monastery protested against the authorities and demanded that their revered teacher, Dralha Rinpoche, be allowed to visit the monastery. Chinese authorities cordoned off the monastery by deploying armed soldiers around the monastery and prepared for assault. The monks and local Tibetan populace remain apprehended by the turn of events. The monastery has been closed to outside visitors. More than 80 Chinese work team officials have arrived at the monastery where monks have been subjected to patriotic reeducation sessions. Mindroling monastery in exile, which has been rebuilt near Dehradun, has confirmed that activities of Dralha Rinpoche are being strictly monitored by Chinese authorities and his movements in Tibet are under close surveillance.

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