CommunistCrimes.org

U.S. criticizes Russia for arrests during rallies on Aug. 31

2010-09-03

September 2, 2010

Washington

The United States reminds Russia that it must observe basic human freedoms, including the freedom of assembly, following mass arrests during unsanctioned opposition rallies in Russia in August 31, the U.S. Department of State said.

Russian police detained almost 200 protestors at unsanctioned opposition rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Tuesday.

"The United States reiterates the importance of embracing and protecting universal values, including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly enshrined in the Russian Constitution, as well as in international agreements with which Russia has signed," Philip Crowley, the department's assistant secretary, told a daily press briefing.

In Moscow, police arrested some 70 people, including the Other Russia opposition party leader Eduard Limonov, Left Front opposition movement leader Konstantin Kosyakin and co-chairman of the Solidarity opposition movement Boris Nemtsov.

Police in St. Petersburg detained 90 protesters, including Olga Kurnosova, leader of the United Civil Front opposition movement.

"We are concerned by actions by the Russian Government in recent years, shrinking the space for civil society. We have concerns about intimidation of citizens, intimidation of journalists, intimidations of nongovernmental operators who are working on behalf of the Russian people. It is part of our ongoing dialogue with the Russian Government, and we hope and expect that Russia will live up to its human rights obligations," Crowley added.

Russian opposition groups rally on Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow on the last day of each month that has 31 days in defense of their right to freedom of assembly, as enshrined in Article 31 of the Russian Constitution.

Source

RIA Novosti

U.S. expands sanctions on North Korea

2010-09-03

August 30, 2010

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama issued an executive order Monday giving broad new authority to impose financial sanctions on North Korean entities and individuals doing business with and for the secretive communist state.

Stuart Levey, Treasury Department under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the new order "targets a wide range of illicit activities undertaken by the government of North Korea."

Obama specifically named three North Korean entities, but his order covers much more ground, directing the State and Treasury departments to target any individuals or entities that facilitate North Korean trafficking in arms and related materiel; procurement of luxury goods; and engagement in illicit economic activities, such as money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods and currency, bulk cash smuggling and narcotics trafficking.

This new executive order supplements existing but more limited U.S. sanctions established in 2008 by President George W. Bush, which targeted proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.

And it makes it possible for the U.S. to go after individuals and companies in other countries who assist or sponsor financial relationships with the North Koreans that include any of the banned types of transactions.

The action comes just days after former President Jimmy Carter returned from North Korea having secured the release of a US citizen who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor by the government there for entering the country illegally.

Robert J. Einhorn, special Advisor to the State Department for nonproliferation and arms control, told reporters that the timing of the sanctions announcement after the Carter visit was purely a coincidence.

Source

www.cnn.com

Cuban Journalists talk about their release seven years after the “Black Spring”

2010-09-02

see interviews http://en.rsf.org/cuba-journalists-talk-about-their-02-09-2010,38247.html

The words “Definitive Departure” were stamped in the passports of all the Cuban journalists who were released in July and August in exchange for a forced exile. A total of 27 of them were arrested because of their opinions during the “Black Spring” crackdown of March 2003, and were given sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years in prison.

Nineteen of them were still in prison at the time of the dynastic transfer of power between the Castro brothers in February 2008. Now – together with four other journalists who were arrested subsequently – six of the original 27 are still waiting to be released from prison and, almost certainly, to be sent into exile as well.

Have they recovered their “freedom”? Not according to the journalists who were interviewed for this video in Madrid on 19 and 20 August, just as three more were arriving from Havana. “I will be free when my country is free,” said Ricardo González Alfonso, Reporters Without Borders correspondent and founder of the magazine De Cuba.

The forced exile of these independent journalists is clearly not a sign of the “opening” on the part of the Cuban government that some have been hoping for. We nonetheless welcome the fact that these men, whose only crime was to try to do reporting that was not controlled by the authorities, can finally start a new life.

We also hail everything the Spanish government and the Cuban Catholic Church have done to help them. And we finally reiterate our view that the absurd US embargo that has been in place since 1962 must be lifted in order to force the Castro regime to keep its international undertakings.

Source

Reporters Sans Frontiers

The August 'Revolution'

2010-09-02

August 31, 2010

by Brian Whitmore

Vladimir Putin's provocative interview with "Kommersant," which hit the newsstands Monday, provided a fitting end to what has been a tumultuous August in Russia.

Putin taunted and belittled the opposition, which has found its voice and has shown a renewed confidence of late, saying they do little more than "say things around the corner from a public toilet and the whole world hears about it because all the television cameras will be there." Those who attend non-sanctioned demonstrations, he added, can expect to "be beaten upside the head with a truncheon."

It was vintage, trash-talking Putin, complete with the scatological "waste 'em in the outhouse" style rhetoric has become his trademark when he wants to play tough guy. The "Kommersant" interview was one of a series of media appearances Putin granted as he drove a vintage yellow Lada on a manly four-day road trip across Siberia.

Putin's stunt appeared designed to deflect media attention away from a series of victories for Kremlin opponents.

The most dramatic of these was President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to suspend the felling of Khimki forest, slated for destruction to make way for a new Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, pending further study. Environmentalists had been trying to save the forest for years. Mikhail Beketov, the editor of a Khimki newspaper who reported on the issue was severely beaten in 2008. Efforts to stop the felling crystallized with spirited protests this summer.

Medvedev also decided to review the country's forest code, enacted by Putin in 2007, which ecologists say heavily favors the timber industry at the expense of protecting Russia's woodlands.

And finally, the decision not to retain the embattled Georgy Boos as governor of Kaliningrad met a key demand of the opposition in Russia's Western exclave, who had been agitating for his removal since January.

Medvedev's most recednt nods to opposition sentiment came just days after thousands gathered on Moscow's Pushkin Square for a demonstration in defense of Khimki forest.

They also reversed decisions made by Putin's himself, reviving the inevitable chatter about whether the ruling tandem is on the verge of splitting up.

But what is more interesting, and in the long run more consequential, than this palace intrigue and tandem tea-leaf reading is the exciting dynamic that is emerging in Russian society -- and the ruling elite's confused, and often confusing, reaction to it. A coalition is emerging around the idea that the way Russia has been run for the past decade has reached the point of diminishing returns, will no longer cut it, and needs to be changed.

In many ways, Russian civil society began to come of age in the crucible of this long hot August.

This was visible in the case of Yevgenia Chirikova, the previously apolitical mother of two who spearheaded the protests to save Khimki forest.

You could see it in the meteoric rise of Noize MC, an earnest and clever 25-year-old rapper who is making a name for himself by railing against police brutality and official impunity (and who comes across in interviews as wise and level-headed beyond his years).

A more mature Russian civil society is also exemplified by the thousands of volunteers like Dr. Liza who mobilized to help their fellow citizens during this month's relentless forest fires, as the authorities appeared hapless and clueless. Dr. Liza's very public dishing of the ruling United Russia party, which has sought to co-opt her for their own political purposes, encapsulated the emerging dynamic perfectly.

And a reinvigorated civil society was clear as day as rocker Yury Shevchuk emerged as the poet bard of the democratic opposition, railing against the regime at a concert, berating Putin at a televised meeting, and headlining last weekend's Pushkin Square protest rally.

All this does not yet constitute an August Revolution (my headline was intentionally over the top), but Russian society is clearly waking up from its long slumber and people appear more ready than at any time in recent memory to demand more from their rulers.

The question now is: How will the elite respond to the changed atmosphere? Will Medvedev's recent piecemeal concessions to public sentiment be the order of the day? Or will it be more of Putin's tough talk -- and police-state tactics? Or -- as is most likely -- will it be a little of both?

Despite its factionalism, the ruling elite's main priority is hanging on to power and preserving the essence of the current political status quo. The disagreements are over how best to achieve this end. The siloviki favor cracking down. The technocrats and 'civiliki' favor loosening things up. And as a result, the regime appears schizophrenic.

That schizophrenia was on display today when police broke up a protest rally in Moscow by the Strategy 31 movement, detaining opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and others.

In a recent interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service, opposition politician Vladimir Ryzhkov said the elite is experiencing "nervousness and fear of increasing social activism and protest sentiment," and trying desperately to get things back under its control.

"The authorities are alarmed by the fact that such a peripheral issue like a forest in the Moscow suburbs attracted over three thousand people to Pushkin Square," Ryzhkov said. "We cannot talk about a split in tandem. But it is correct to speak of the authorities' confusion and fear of a growing civil society and opposition sentiment."

As I have blogged here, the political situation in Russia increasingly resembles that of the early perestroika period. In a recent article in Slon.ru, political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky makes a similar argument.

"The ghost of Khimki forest that is haunting Russia is the harbinger of a new perestroika, a replay of the one that took place nearly a quarter century ago, " Belkovsky wrote.

"The inefficiency of the system, which was based on total corruption, is approaching a critical level. The government, meanwhile, is not ready to make any changes that are not purely formalistic in nature."

The summer is over and Russia has navigated another tumultous August. And the autumn political season is about to begin.

Source

Radio Free Europe

STATEMENT BY THE EUROPE-CUBA NGO NETWORK IN SUPPORT OF EU

2010-09-02

The Europe-Cuba NGO Network welcomes the recent steps by the Cuban government which show some progress in the area of human rights and democracy. We also appreciate that the Cuban government has acknowledged the existence of political prisoners on the island by releasing a significant number of them. The international community, however, should make sure that the release of these prisoners is unconditional, their exile only optional, and their living and working conditions are adequate. In relation to this, we call on the Cuban government to immediately release Dr. Oscar Elķas Biscet and other prisoners who have expressed their desire to stay in Cuba. In September, the European Union will decide on the future of its Common Position on Cuba, as the revision was postponed in June until the autumn months. In light of the efforts of Spanish government to replace the Common Position with a bilateral agreement, we call on the EU to maintain its Common Position as a sign of support for democracy and human rights in Cuba. It is important to stress here that the maintaining of the Common Position was recently officially supported by the released political prisoners exiled in Spain. As a document, the Common Position does not represent an obstacle to progress in EU-Cuba relations. In paragraph 4, the Common Position states that the European Union will support progress towards democracy in Cuba by, apart from other means, intensification of political dialogue and economic cooperation. In this light, the EU can apply additional interim measures that will reflect recent developments on the island - such as fostering of people to people dialogue through diplomatic and academic visits, and the deepening of dialogue with the Cuban authorities. It is also necessary to reinforce, to extend and to intensify at an institutional level the dialogue with the democratic opposition and independent civil society. If the Cuban government continues and reinforces respect for human rights and democracy with further positive steps, the EU should consider official lifting of the diplomatic measures introduced in 2003. However, if taking any steps that would lead to closer cooperation between the EU and Cuba, the EU must set criteria which reflect overall progress in the area of human rights and democracy. These criteria might include patterns of documented harassment and acts of repression against political prisoners, political dissidents and independent civil society in general, as well as ratification and implementation of the ICCPR and ICESCR, etc. Progress should then be revised in the current semiannual cycle, without using additional instruments, as was the case in June, when the EU decided to provide extra three-month period before reviewing the Common Position on Cuba.The Europe-Cuba NGO Network would hereby like to express its hope that these steps of the Cuban government mark the beginning of its opening a dialogue on human rights and democracy, becoming thus a partner for the EU and its members.

This statement has been endorsed by the following organizations:

Asociación de Iberoamericanos por la Libertad, Spain

Cuba Futuro, Netherlands

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, United Kingdom and Belgium

Freedom House Europe, Hungary

Fundación Hispano Cubana, Spain

International Society for Human Rights, Germany

IKV Pax Christi, Netherlands

KIC (Christian Democratic International Center), Sweden

People in Need, Czech Republic

People in Peril Association, Slovakia

Cuba Video: The “Ladies in White” Steadfast Until Every Political Prisoner is Free

2010-09-02

NEW YORK (September 1, 2010) – In order to provide an accurate backdrop with regard to the announcement of the Cuban government’s release and forced exile of 52 political prisoners, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) releases an exclusive video documentary short of the “Ladies in White,” a civil society group inside Cuba that organizes peaceful Sunday marches for freedom and human rights.

The world-renowned group is formed by the wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and supporters of political prisoners who were arrested during the “Black Spring” government crackdown on Cuban dissidents. During the four-day period that occurred in March 2003, 75 independent journalists, librarians, and democracy and human rights advocates were arrested and ultimately convicted with sentences ranging from 6 to 28 years.

Currently, 26 of the prisoners have been released and exiled to Spain, while another prisoner was released to the United States for medical treatment. At least five of the prisoners have refused to accept exile, meaning they choose to remain in prison unless they are granted unconditional release and allowed to stay in Cuba.

“The release of these innocent individuals is a welcome development and cause for celebration, but we must remember that the mechanism of repression remains firmly entrenched in Cuba. None of these arrests should ever have been made in the first place,” said Thor Halvorssen, president of HRF. “It should be made clear that their release does not indicate a reversal of conviction or pardon. These men are still considered treacherous criminals by the Cuban government. If they are allowed to stay in Cuba it shall be with the specter of certain and continuous political persecution and harassment,” he continued.

The Ladies in White have declared that they will continue protesting every Sunday until all of the Black Spring prisoners have been released. In the video, Laura Pollan, spokeswoman for the Ladies in White, relates the history of how the group formed following the Black Spring and discusses recent events that have brought international attention to Cuba’s political prisoners.

“The government states that there's a lot of freedom in Cuba, that it's a paradise,” said Pollan. “I'd invite those people who believe that Cuba is free to come and live here; to come and live here like a regular citizen, without bringing dollars; to come to work, and make what a regular worker makes; to come and live in a humble house, buy their food with a ration book, and express themselves here as much as they do in their own countries against their governments and other individuals, so that they see what the outcome is in Cuba,” she continued.

The Cuban government has been under pressure to release its political prisoners following the February death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a political prisoner who went on a hunger strike to protest Cuba’s treatment of its prisoners. The death of Zapata prompted another dissident, Guillermo Fariñas, to launch his own hunger strike.

“The whole world is awakening and removing its blindfold with regards to Cuba,” said Pollan.

“The prisoners should be allowed to choose for themselves whether to remain in Cuba or leave the country. Those prisoners who have refused a forced exile are courageously willing to sacrifice their own freedom and stand up for freedom of expression for all,” said Halvorssen. “This is a powerful threat to a regime that has held power for 51 years and ruthlessly persecutes its opponents.”

With the release of the 52 political prisoners, Cuba’s criminal code—which allows the “pre-emptive” arrest of an individual before committing any crime—remains unchanged, as do laws allowing for the arrest of anyone writing anything critical of the Cuban government.

“The cyclical release of political prisoners in Cuba is usually followed by the arrest of more dissidents who have committed some kind of ‘thoughtcrime’ or who have done nothing but exercise their right to free speech. Further, there are still an untold number of political prisoners in Cuba’s jails, and Raúl Castro could simply replace these 52 prisoners with another crackdown on Cuba’s opposition voices tomorrow,” said Halvorssen. “Any significant reform involves more than window dressing to obtain European credits or editorial kudos from the foreign media. Why not a full transition to democracy and the respect of basic civil rights and civil liberties?” he added.

Source

HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION

EU lawmakers criticize Russian handling of rally

2010-09-01

By DAVID NOWAK, Associated Press Writer

Four European Union lawmakers joined a banned opposition rally in central Moscow on Tuesday and criticized Russian police for violently detaining an opposition leader and dozens of other protesters.

Heidi Hautala, who heads the EU parliament's subcommittee on human rights, called the detention of former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov at the rally "a violation" of his rights. Nemtsov is now an opposition leader.

Baton-wielding police officers also violently pushed around her colleague, Dutch lawmaker Thijs Berman.

"This is an amazing way of dealing with democracy, shocking," Berman told The Associated Press.

Dozens of police officers heavily cordoned off the square where the rally was held and hauled away protesters as they chanted "Down with the police state!" and "Russia without Putin!"

Moscow police told the Interfax news agency that more than 60 people were detained. Police also detained some 70 protesters at a similar rally in St. Petersburg.

Opposition groups have been calling rallies on the 31st day of each month to honor the 31st article of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees the right of assembly. Most of the rallies have been banned or dispersed by police as unsanctioned.

On Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russian police would keep breaking up opposition protests unless the dissidents obtain official permission to rally — permission they are routinely denied.

"You will be beaten upside the head with a truncheon. And that's it," Putin declared.

The EU lawmakers were visiting Russia to attend a Sept. 1 commemoration ceremony for the 2004 hostage-taking raid on a school in Beslan in which 334 people died — more than half of them children.

Source

On September 2, Tibetans will commemorate the 50th founding anniversary of Tibetan democracy

2010-09-01

The Tibetan parliament, on behalf of the Tibetan people, will honour His Holiness the Dalai Lama with a ‘Golden Seal’ for leading the Tibetan freedom struggle and for establishing democracy in Tibetan polity. Over 30 parliament members from 14 different countries will attend the event.

Ballet pulled off Shanghai Expo for Tibet dedication

2010-09-01

By Kalsang Rinchen

The British Council and English National Ballet have cancelled a planned performance of a new ballet because the composer dedicated the score to the people of Tibet, reported The Times Saturday.

The British Council said it deeply regretted the ballet had become a political vehicle and it was therefore "not appropriate" for it to go ahead. "The British Council is a nonpolitical organisation that runs a range of cultural relations programmes in China to build and strengthen longterm cultural, academic and economic ties between the two countries," a statement by the counil said.

Pete Wyer, the British composer, has been a supporter of the Tibet movement against Chinese rule. Wyer, told The Times that the dedication was purely personal and was not endorsed by the British Council or intended to be a political statement.

It is not clear if pressure from China or its Embassy in Britain has led to the move to cancel the performance.

Wyer has earlier composed an opera about a Tibetan nun imprisoned for expressing her support and loyalty for the exile Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing reviles as a “separatist” seeking to split the motherland. A choral work called “Tibetan Sanctus” composed by Wyer will be performed in Washington next year.

The ballet titled 'The Far Shore' was a part of a series of cultural programmes to mark Britain’s “national holiday” at the Shanghai Expo on September 8. The ballet was to be performed by six British and six Chinese dancers in the presence of Duke of York, Brtish Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese Premiere Wen Jiabao.

Choreographed by Van Le Ngoc, a Vietnamese dancer with ENB, the ballet is based on Swan Lake. Wyer said his score was "intended to reflect the joyousness of a happy ending as love triumphs over all". The score for 'The Far Shore' was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra at Angel Studios.

More than 190 countries are participating in the Shanghai Expo which began on May 1 and will go until October 31.

Source

THE TIMES

Support Tibet—boycott China

2010-09-01

I recently returned from a trip to Tibet. I witnessed firsthand the brutal and oppressive military Chinese occupation of this helpless and peaceful land. The Chinese government is working hard to eradicate a culture and colonize Tibet with Chinese settlers. Just mentioning the Dalai Lama will send you to jail for eight years.

What can we do to help? The Tibetans are actively engaging in passive, non-violent resistance. I say let us stop giving aide to the oppressors. Every time we buy a product "Made in China," we help to finance the genocide taking place in Tibet. Let's make a point of buying comparable products made elsewhere. And maybe for a few bucks more buy something made in the U.S. that actually provides jobs to our work force. In the 1980s, a successful divestment campaign in the U.S. helped topple the South African racist regime.

Let's ask questions to our financial institutions and political entities. Are you doing business with Chinese financial institutions and why? I told Tibetans that they are not alone. Will you prove me right?

Jean Jacques Bohl

Hailey

The views expressed in this piece are that of the author and the publication of the piece on this website does not necessarily reflect their endorsement by the website.

Source

www.phayul.com/news/

Political prisoner in Cuba reaches 62 days on hunger strike

2010-08-31

Cuban political prisoner Julián Antonio Monés Borrero affirmed on Tuesday, August 31^st that he remains on hunger strike until he is granted the certification of conditional release he has a right to according to the Castro regime's prison regulations, which he has demanded since July 1^st.

“Until I am given the official document personally, and I can read it, sign it, keep the original and submit a copy….I will not yield”, declared Monés Borrero by telephone to the Cuban Democratic Directorate from the Juan Bruno Zayas Surgical Hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

According to the unjustly imprisoned activist, on August 18^th he received a visit by a high ranking delegation from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), who asked him to end his protest. The individuals who were present in that delegation were the brigade general Marcos Hernández, chief of jails and prisons of the national MININT, coronel Lázaro Díaz, and lieutenant coronel Luis Manuel Cuesta Freda. Also responsible for his case are the MININT delegate coronel Miguel Reyes, and coronel Calzadilla, chief of Counter Intelligence for the Guantanamo province.

“They showed me a document stating that as of the morning of September 3^rd I am free, and will be driven by an automobile to my home with my wife and family members in Baracoa, my birthplace,” stated Monés Borrero.

“However, until then I will continue my hunger strike,” pointed out the activist.

The human rights defender described the seriousness of his health situation. He currently has a blood pressure of 60 over 40. His weight has decreased from 73.5 to 44.6 kilograms. His pulse is 63, and has lost equilibrium to the extent of needing a wheelchair, although he spends most of the time lying down. Monés Borrero suffers from strong pains in his right leg and right lung, needing analgesic injections to calm them.

“I will not yield under any circumstance. I know my health is poor. I know I am bringing death closer every day, and that death surrounds me each night, of that I am certain,” affirmed Monés Borrero.

The political prisoner repeated his plea to the International Red Cross and the General Secretary for the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon, that they might intercede on his behalf and his immediate freedom.

On July 17th Monés Borrero was transferred from Aguadadores Prison, where he remained in a punishment cell under military watch, to the Boniato Provincial Prison.

Julián Antonio Monés Borrero is a delegate for the Miguel Valdés Tamayo Human Rights Movement. He is a native of Baracoa, and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment in 2008 after wearing a white t-shirt with the word “CAMBIO”, meaning “CHANGE”.

Source

www.directorio.org

Police Arrest Dozens As Opposition Activists Rally Throughout Russia

2010-08-31

Russian opposition and human rights activists have held regular, unauthorized protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and a number of other major Russian cities.

Reports say that some 60 people were detained in the capital alone.

Four EU lawmakers visiting Russia earlier attended an opposition rally in central Moscow and criticized police for arresting its organizers.

Heidi Hautala, who heads the EU parliament's subcommittee on human rights, called the arrest of former Russian Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov at rally "a violation."

Another prominent opposition figure, Eduard Limonov, was also detained.

Opposition and rights activists try to hold protests in each month that includes 31 days to call attention to Article 31 of Russia's constitution, which guarantees freedom of assembly.

Authorities routinely deny permission for the demonstrations -- permission the activists say they do not need -- and police break up the protests before they can begin, often by dragging protesters away.

In Moscow, rallies were previously held on Triumph Square, but this month the Moscow city government fenced it off and announced plans to build an underground parking garage in the area.

Source

www.rferl.org

Cuba's Cash-for-Doctors Program- Thousands of its health-care missionaries flee mistreatment

2010-08-31

By MARIA C. WERLAU

For decades, Cuba has "exported" doctors, nurses and health technicians to earn diplomatic influence in poor countries and hard cash for its floundering economy. According to Cuba's official media, an estimated 38,544 Cuban health professionals were serving abroad in 2008, 17,697 of them doctors. (Cuba reports having 70,000 doctors in all.)

These "missionaries of the revolution" are well-received in host countries from Algeria to South Africa to Venezuela. Yet those who hail Cuba's generosity overlook the uglier aspects of Cuba's health diplomacy.

The regime stands accused of violating various international agreements such as the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and ILO Convention on the Protection of Wages because of the way these health-care providers are treated. In February, for example, seven Cuban doctors who formerly served in Venezuela and later defected filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court against Cuba, Venezuela and the Venezuelan state oil company for holding them in conditions akin to "modern slavery."

They claim the Cuban regime held the funds Venezuela remitted for their services and then paid them-an arrangement they say is a form of "debt bondage." They also say they were forced to work extremely long hours in dangerous areas, including urban zones with high crime rates and the jungle. (The Venezuelan government and its oil company are challenging the court's jurisdiction to hear the case; Cuba hasn't responded.)

Starting in 2002, Hugo Chávez agreed to pay-mostly with subsidized, cheap Venezuelan oil-for Cuba to provide health care to marginalized populations in Venezuela at no cost to patients. But in the past several years he has expanded the effort to other countries, helping to build support for his regional Marxist agenda while keeping the Cuban economy afloat.

Cuba won't release its agreements with host countries, but details have emerged in open sources, including in Cuba's official media. These show that typically the host country pays Cuba hard currency for each health worker and provides accommodations, food and a monthly stipend generally between $150 and $350. Cuba covers airfare and logistical support, and it pays salaries to the health-care workers out of the funds it holds.

Cuba's global health projects also receive support from the developed world. In 2005, at least $27 million was donated to Cuba's Haiti mission, including from France and Japan. International goodwill also translates into direct aid. In 2008, Cuba received $127 million from OECD countries. These transfers explain the recent rise in Cuba's export of services, to $8.6 billion in 2008 from $2.8 billion in 2003. Representing 75% of GDP, they generate far more income than any other industry.

Cuban doctors go abroad because at home they earn a scant $22-$25 a month. When they work in other countries, they typically get a small stipend in local currency while their families back home receive their usual salary plus a payment in hard currency-from $50 to $325 per month.

But with the state as sole employer and the citizens forbidden from leaving the country without permission, the system is tailor-made for exploitation. Several Cuban doctors who have served abroad tell me that in addition to very long hours they may not drive a car, leave their dwellings after a certain hour, or speak to the media. In some countries they are only allowed to associate with "revolutionaries." Thousands of Cuban health professionals have deserted world-wide. Almost 1,500 have made it to the U.S. alone since 2006, according to a Department of Homeland Security report in March.

Cuba's profitable global business has ramifications for its own health-care system. It's been extensively reported, by Cuba's independent journalists as well as by the occasional Westerner who ends up in a hospital for the common people, that Cubans face a chronic shortage of doctors and dilapidated health facilities. Patients or their families must even bring their own food and linens to the hospital.

Meanwhile, the mass production of Cuban doctors for export has led medical associations in host countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Portugal to question their experience and credentials. Some Venezuelan doctors have complained of being fired and replaced by Cuban missionary physicians. And a few years ago the Bolivian press reported that the country's medical association was complaining about thousands of unemployed health professionals who were earning considerably less than what Mr. Chávez was paying for Cubans.

Humanitarianism cannot be selective. Cuba's health workers deserve full protection of local and international laws, its citizens deserve access to adequate health care, and patients everywhere deserve accountability from their health-care providers.

Ms. Werlau is executive director of nonprofit Cuba Archive, a human rights organization.

Source

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The New Challenge to Repressive Cuba

2010-08-31

by Daniel Wilkinson

For decades, the Castro government has been very effective in repressing dissent in Cuba by, among other things, preventing its critics from publishing or broadcasting their views on the island. Yet in recent years the blogosphere has created an outlet for a new kind of political criticism that is harder to control. Can it make a difference?

There are more than one hundred unauthorized bloggers in Cuba, including at least two dozen who are openly critical of the government. The best known of their blogs, Generation Y, gets more than a million visitors a month and is translated into fifteen languages. Its author, thirty-four-year-old Yoani Sánchez, has won major journalism awards in the US and Europe and in 2008 Time magazine named her one of the world's one hundred most influential people. Sánchez has set up a "blogger academy" in her apartment, and she helped found the website, Voces Cubanas, which hosts the work of thirty independent bloggers.

Like other government critics, these bloggers face reprisals. Last November, for example, Sánchez reported being detained and beaten by Cuban security agents. Weeks later, her husband and fellow blogger, Reinaldo Escobar, was subject to an "act of repudiation" by an angry mob of government supporters on a Havana street. Such public harassment, as Nik Steinberg and I reported in our recent New York Review piece, is commonly used against "dissidents" on the island, along with police surveillance, loss of employment, and restrictions on travel.1
(The Cuban government requires its citizens to obtain permission to leave the island, and those marked as "counterrevolutionaries" are generally denied it.)

And then there is the perennial fear of the "knock on the door"-as Sánchez puts it-announcing the beginning of an ordeal that has been endured by countless critics: arrest, a sham trial, and years of "reeducation" in prison. Cuba has more journalists locked up than any other country in the world except China and Iran. (In early July, after the archbishop of Havana and the Spanish foreign minister interceded directly with Raúl Castro, the Cuban government announced that it would release fifty-two political prisoners who have been held since 2003. However, that group does not include any of the many other Cuban dissidents arrested since Raúl Castro took over from his ailing brother in 2006.)

Policing the Internet, however, is not so easy. The Cuban government controls the island's Internet servers, just as it controls the printing presses and broadcasting transmitters. But the inherent porousness of the Web means that anyone with an Internet connection can disseminate new material without prior approval. The government can block the sites it does not like (it blocks Generation Y in Cuba, for instance), but it cannot stop other sites from springing up to replace them.

The biggest challenge for Cuban bloggers isn't outright censorship. It's simply finding a way to get online. To set up a private connection requires permission from the government, which is rarely granted. Public access is available only in a few government-run cybercafés and tourist hotels, where it costs approximately five US dollars an hour, or one third of the monthly wage of an average Cuban. As a result, bloggers often write their posts on home computers, save them on memory sticks, and pass them to friends who have Internet access and can upload them-for example workers in hotels and government offices. Others dictate their posts by phone to friends abroad, who then upload them through servers off the island.

No amount of resourcefulness, however, can change the fact that most people in Cuba are unable to access even the unblocked blogs. Indeed, the bloggers themselves are not always able to read their posts online. Some have never even seen their own sites.

Still, by reaching large audiences abroad, the critical blogs pose a threat to the Cuban government's international image-which explains why the government and its supporters have reacted so virulently, attempting to discredit the bloggers as pawns or even paid mercenaries in the service of US imperialism. Granma, the official state news organ, published an article in its international edition dismissing Generation Y as "an example of media manipulation and interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation." The editor of the pro-government blog Cubadebate put it this way: "The United States has been waging economic and political warfare against [Cuba] for the past 50 years. And this is just the latest form of that warfare."

Yoani Sánchez herself, when asked by another blogger about the "external factors" that had contributed to Generation Y's popularity, acknowledged that attention by The Wall Street Journal and other foreign publications had helped bring new visitors to her site. "But," she went on, "what happened was the readers came and they stayed. Users could have come once and not come back. Press coverage doesn't make a website."

So why do the readers come back?

I asked the Cuban novelist José Manuel Prieto what the bloggers' appeal was for Cuban exiles like himself. "First, it's their moderation," he said. "They criticize the Cuban government without calling for its overthrow." Indeed, Sánchez, Escobar, and others are unequivocal in their condemnation of the US embargo against Cuba, a position that until recently was taboo within much of the exile community. In late May, for example, a group of Cubans, including Sánchez, Escobar, and several other bloggers from Voces Cubanas, signed a public letter to the US Congress, urging support for a bill to lift travel restrictions to Cuba.

But more than their politics, Prieto said, what's appealing is their measured tone. Sánchez herself puts it this way: "I have never used verbal violence in my writings. I have not insulted or attacked anyone, never used an incendiary adjective, and that restraint may have garnered the attention and sympathy of many people." Ironically, the bloggers' moderation may be their most subversive quality. It makes it harder for the Castro government and its supporters to dismiss them as right-wing ideologues.

If these blogs are to serve as a catalyst for change, however, it will not be by influencing Castro sympathizers, who are less likely to read them anyway. Instead it will be their growing audience within the exile community, whose leaders have largely shaped US policy toward Cuba-policy that, as Steinberg and I have observed, is widely seen as a failure and in urgent need of a new direction. Like the Cuban leaders, the anti-Castro hard-liners have sought to discredit opposing views by questioning the motives and allegiances of those who hold them. They accuse critics of the US embargo of ignoring the Castros' repressive policies. But this charge does not work with the independent bloggers in Cuba who question US policy. For not only are these writers themselves victims of the repression, they are today among its most credible witnesses.

Whether the bloggers can ultimately influence US policy is an open question. In any case, their objectives appear to be more modest-and more profound. They are not polemicists or pundits so much as poets and storytellers. They are less concerned with proposing new policies than chronicling the costs to ordinary people of the repressive policies already in place. The bloggers' ability to evoke the realities of daily life in Cuba, Prieto says, is another principal source of their appeal.

Here is Sánchez describing one of Havana's many sex workers:

With a tight sweater and gel-smeared hair, he offers his body for only twenty convertible pesos a night. His face, with its high cheekbones and slanted eyes, is common among those from the East of the country. He constantly moves his arms, a mixture of lasciviousness and innocence that at times provokes pity, at others desire. He is a part of the vast group of Cubans who earn a living from the sweat of their pelvis, who market their sex to foreigners and locals. An industry of quick love and brief caresses, that has grown considerably on this Island in the last twenty years.

Here she recounts the daily chore of getting water:

On the corner there is a hydrant which, at night, turns into the water supply for hundreds of families in the area. Even the water carriers come to it, with their 55 gallon tanks on rickety old carts that clatter as they roll by. People wait for the thin stream to fill their containers and then return home, with help from their children to push the wagon with the precious liquid....

I still remember how annoyed my grandmother was when I told her I couldn't take it anymore, having to use the bathroom when there was nothing to flush with. Then we had to pull up the bucket on a rope from the floor below, helped by a pulley installed years before on the balcony. This up-and-down ritual has continued to multiply until it has become standard practice for thousands of families. In their busy daily routine they set aside time to look for water, load it and carry it, knowing that they cannot trust what comes out of the taps.

Another blogger, the forty-year-old novelist Ángel Santiesteban, records the struggle over scarce bread outside a bakery:

When the bread comes out of the oven, the mobilization starts, disorganized shoving.... Everyone shouts, offended if someone tries to join an acquaintance in the line or tries to sneak into a possible gap with the objective of cutting in; but the violators don't listen, the insults don't matter, hunger is worse than shame, and they keep on pushing.

Claudia Cadelo, the twenty-seven-year-old author of the blog Octavo Cerco, begins a post with this account:

I met him when I was eighteen: intelligent, tall, good-looking, mulatto, bilingual, and a liar. He said he was an Arab and that was a lie, he told me he had traveled and that was a lie, he told me he had a "yuma" girlfriend who was going to get him out of the country, and that too was a lie. But I liked him anyway, I like dreamers. We became friends.

Then life took us on two different paths: I got tired of waiting for a way to leave the country; while he chose the infinite wait. Once or twice a year we see each other, every time we are further apart: I deeply enmeshed in the thick of things, he waiting and waiting.

The post then takes us up to the present. The friend, now fifty, is still waiting, his old lies exposed, his charm long gone:

He is not alone, the "infinite waiting" has claimed almost all of my friends-the petition, visa, permit to leave, permit to live abroad, permit to travel or scholarship-everyone is waiting for that paper that will take them far away, very far from The Land of No-Time.... I have come to define it as a physical and spiritual state: you haven't gone, but you are not here.

Source

human rights watch

http://www.hrw.org

The workers united: The strike that shook the Kremlin

2010-08-30

Thirty years ago, ordinary people challenged an armed dictatorship, and won.

On 31 August 1980, the strikers in the Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk forced the Communist authorities in Poland to sign an agreement. It promised them – among many other lesser things – a free and independent trade union, the liberation of political prisoners, plural and uncensored media and the right to strike.

read more

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-workers-united-the-strike-that-shook-the-kremlin-2065271.html

Poland Celebrates 30 Years Of Solidarity, Gdansk Accords

2010-08-30

by Breffni O'Rourke

Poland is marking the 30th anniversary of the Gdansk accords, which gave rise to the Solidarity trade union -- the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc.

Various events marking the historic occasion are being held around Poland, centered on the Baltic coast towns where Solidarity had its birth.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski set the tone for the celebrations in a speech he gave on August 29 in the port of Szczecin.

"On this special day, we can face all these people with pride and satisfaction and pay a tribute to their heroic fight for the abolition of the system and commemorate with pride that the fight was not only successful in knocking down communism, but it also established the base for an effective and wise reform," he said.

The Gdansk accords were signed on August 31, 1980, between the communist government and striking workers along the Baltic coast. The accords allowed a free trade union, the right to strike, and pay rises. They also limited censorship, freed political prisoners, and permitted the weekly broadcast of Catholic Mass on state-controlled radio and television.

Based on these accords, the Solidarity trade union was formally recognized on October 24 and eventually grew to a membership of 10 million Poles -- more than one-quarter of the country's population.

Days Of High Tension

Behind the government's astonishing list of concessions lay the strong personality of Lech Walesa, a dockyard electrician who had become the head of the strike committee two weeks before the accords were signed.

They were days of high tension, with no one sure whether the Polish government would decide to crush the strikers by force or whether Moscow would lose patience and send troops into Poland. To this day, Walesa says he can hardly believe what was begun at the time -- and ultimately achieved a decade later.

"If anyone had told me then that I would live to see the time when there would be no communism and no Soviets in Poland, that Poland would be sovereign and independent, I would not have believed that we could achieve that," Walesa said.

Speaking at a commemorative concert in Gdansk on August 29, Walesa emphasized Solidarity's seminal role in the subsequent collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe and the region's incorporation into the European Union.

"If I could bring my father back to life for a moment and tell him there are no Soviets in Poland, no soldiers stationed at the Polish-German border, there are no borders and in general almost no borders exist in Europe, he would die of a heart attack for the second time," Walesa said.

'Terribly Tired'

But Walesa and Solidarity have long since drifted apart. Once Solidarity had taken a leading role in the replacement of the communist government in 1989, Walesa went on in 1990 to be Polish president.

The latest rift between them came when he was displeased that the union lent its backing to the unsuccessful conservative candidate Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the presidential election earlier this year.

Walesa declined to attend the August 29 celebration in Szczecin, writing on his blog that he was "terribly tired" and just wanted to be left to rest in "peace and quiet."

Reporters said he was unlikely to attend today's conference in Gdansk, at which President Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk were to speak.

Source

www.rferl.org

Chinese Communist party demands reforms in Tibetan monasteries

2010-08-29

A fresh purge appeared to be in the offing in Tibet with a top leader of the Communist Party of China calling for reforms in Buddhist monasteries by appointing monks and nuns who are "politically reliable".

In a move that could be aimed at weeding out pro-Dalai Lama elements in the clergy, Du Qinglin, head of the United Front Work Department of the Party's Central Committee, also demanded that "greater, concerted and solid efforts" must be made to implement democratic management in the monasteries.

"Concerted and solid efforts must be made to implement democratic management in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries," Du was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency, in what appeared to be a fresh effort to strengthen government's hold on Tibet's influential religious centres in the politically sensitive Himalayan province.

"Competent Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns who are politically reliable, extraordinarily learned and widely respected should be selected to monastery management committees through thorough democratic consultation," he said.

As per the prevailing rules, the posts of all the top monks known as Lamas have to be made with the approval of the Chinese government.

Du, also vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks of sweeping changes in the powerful clergy in Tibet during a two-day conference on democratic management of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries at Xigaze in Tibet Autonomous Region, which began yesterday.

His remarks were timed even as another powerful Communist Party leader He Guoqiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo undertook a tour of the politically sensitive province visiting the Potala Palace, which was the seat of the Dalai Lamas.

Tibet's provincial capital Lhasa witnessed large scale riots in 2008 before the Beijing Olympics in which large numbers of Tibetan mainly monks were killed.

The riots were directed against non-Tibetans in which several monks reported to have taken part. Chinese government blamed the Dalai Lama for instigating the riots, which he has denied.

Du said that in implementing monastery democratic management, the lawful rights of monasteries, orderly religious activities of monks and nuns, and normal religious practice of believers must be ensured.

Monasteries play a very vital role in Tibet where Buddhism and Monks or heads of various sects of the religion wields spiritual and political influence over the masses.

Many of the top monks of Tibet including the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head, who fled to India in 1959 were selected through the complex process when they were children and then graduated through these institutions.

The 11th Panchen Lama, Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu, regarded as the second spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism sent a congratulatory message to the conference which was attended by some 150 people from Tibetan Buddhist circles and relative governmental organisations.

Source

www.dnaindia.com

Falun Gong Practitioner Dies in Custody Eight Days after Abduction

2010-08-27

New York—A middle-aged woman from Hebei province died in mid-August in police custody eight days after being abducted from her home for practicing Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned.

Ms. Yan Pingjun (闫平君), a seamstress in her forties, died around August 10, 2010. She had been abducted from her home on August 2. Yan is one of many recent cases emerging from China of Falun Gong practitioners dying in custody within hours or days of being detained. Fifteen percent of the documented cases of Falun Gong deaths in 2009 involved practitioners who had died within two months of their latest detention.

"The death of Pingjun Yan in custody is a clear reminder that the life of each and every Falun Gong practitioner, who number in the tens of millions in China, remains at risk under the communist regime's campaign against us," says Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Gail Rachlin.

According to sources inside China, Yan was abducted from her home shortly after 9am on August 2, when officers from Ning’an Police Station burst into the house. They ransacked the home, confiscated her son’s computer, took Yan’s Falun Dafa books, and extorted 550 yuan from the family. The previous day, Yan was apparently followed home by police after visiting the relatives of Xia Junying, a Falun Gong practitioner and close friend who had been detained on July 15.

After her detention, Ms. Yan was confined to the Hebei Province Legal Education Training Center (河北省"法制教育培训中心"). “Legal Education Training Center” is a common euphemism for facilities where Falun Gong practitioners are taken for brainwashing efforts to force them to renounce their belief. Such efforts routinely involve physical violence and torture. A week and a half later, guards informed her family that Yan had died around August 10, claiming it was due to a fall from the third floor of the building.

It is a common phenomenon for Chinese security agencies to inform family members that a Falun Gong practitioner who died in custody had “fallen from a building” or “died of a heart attack.” However, eyewitness testimony or other evidence has often revealed that the individual in fact died from torture or other physical abuse. In one such case from April 2009, 39-year-old Ms. Sun Min died in police custody within hours of being detained. Sources inside China who viewed the body reported marks from electric batons and blows with a heavy object. Yet, in their notice to the family, police claimed that they had found her dead on April 23 after she fell from her apartment (news). Falun Gong refugees and torture victims have reported having guards warn them that the officers can beat them as much as they would like because if the practitioner dies, it will only be listed as a suicide.

Police forbade Yan’s family from setting up an arrangement to mourn her death. According to acquaintances of Yan’s, the woman was in good health before her detention. Additional investigations continue into the full details surrounding her death.

Source

www.faluninfo.net

four Tibetans were shot dead and thirty more were injured by Chinese police

2010-08-27

Police in China’s southwestern Sichuan province have responded with lethal force to a group of Tibetans protesting the expansion of a gold mining operation they say is harming the environment, according to Tibetan sources.

At least four people were killed when police officers opened fire on a crowd outside the Palyul (in Chinese, Baiyu) county government offices in Sichuan’s Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, sources said.

As many as 30 Tibetan protesters were wounded in the Aug. 17 shooting, with some believed to be critically injured and receiving medical care in the provincial capital of Chengdu.

The number of dead in the incident could not be independently confirmed.

Drakpa Yeshe, a Tibetan based in Nepal, said Aug. 25 that he had spoken recently with relatives in the area.

“Lately I heard that about four people died in the shooting in the Palyul incident,” Drakpa Yeshe said.

“Those who were seriously injured were taken to a hospital in Chengdu. Among them, two are reported in serious condition.”

Drime Gyaltsen, a Tibetan monk living in India, said he was informed by sources in Palyul that additional security forces had been sent to the area to quell further unrest.

“Additional forces arrived from the neighboring Kardze and Dege counties. Right now all the roads leading to Palyul are blocked and residents are not allowed to move about freely,” he said.

An on-duty officer who answered the phone at the Palyul police station said he had only recently joined the force and was not fully informed regarding the confrontation.

“That incident is not resolved yet. I don’t know the details. You can call tomorrow when our senior officials come to our office,” he said.

Mining protests

Drime Gyaltsen said that on or around Aug. 13 a group of Tibetans from Tromtar township’s Sharchu Gyashoe village, led by village leader Tashi Sangpo, traveled to the Palyul county government headquarters to express concerns about an increase in mining activities in the area.

The group complained that gold mining operations by the Chinese-owned Kartin Company had led to an overcrowded population, severely degraded the fertility of their farmland, and adversely affected the local grassland habitat.

“The county officials refused to hear their plea and, instead of listening to them, had the petitioners detained,” Drime Gyaltsen said.

“The Tibetan villagers saw this as deliberate bullying, and about 40 additional Tibetans arrived at the Palyul county center demanding the release of those detained and calling for officials to compensate them for the destruction of their land,” he said.

The group picketed in front of the county government office for three days, and in the early hours of the fourth day police used an incapacitating gas on the crowd and attempted to take them away in waiting vehicles, Drime Gyaltsen said.

“When some of the protesters affected by the gas were being forced into the vehicles, their comrades who were unaffected … resorted to shouting and began protesting. At that time, the police fired their weapons,” he said.

“The first target was Tashi Sangpo … He was shot in the leg and his relatives rushed to his aid. In the commotion and shooting, one Tibetan was killed outright, and about 30 were injured. Among them five were reported seriously hurt.”

“In the scuffle two police were also injured. One was wounded in the eye and the other suffered injuries to his hand and legs.”

According to a report by Tibetan website phayul.com, three Tibetans were killed in the shooting, including Tashi Sangpo’s relatives Soeso and Papho.

An official of the Palyul county government said in a telephone interview that negotiations with the Tibetan protesters are ongoing.

“Regarding that incident, some compromises have been made and negotiations are being conducted,” the official said.

“We are aware that the mining activities are negatively impacting the natural environment. The Chinese government is taking action to investigate the mining activities.”

US must publicly pursue a clear Tibet policy

2010-08-27

Over the past few years, Beijing's repressive policies have increasingly alienated Tibetans. One indication was the March 2008 uprising and riots across Tibet. Yet Beijing responded not by moderating its policies but by intensifying repression—launching a "patriotic education" campaign and targeting members of the educated elite, many of whom have long gotten along with, and even flourished within, the communist system. Among these are the writer Tragyal, long associated with the state publishing house, who awaits trial on charges of "splittism," and Dorje Tashi, a businessman and hotel owner, who received a life sentence in June for allegedly collaborating with human-rights groups abroad.

Beijing has taken the same approach to criticism from abroad over its handling of Tibet, significantly raising the stakes by identifying Tibet as a "core interest." Beijing has given notice that unless the world adopts a "correct understanding" of Tibet by spurning any view contrary to the Communist Party line, there will be consequences for bilateral relations and it will be difficult for China to cooperate on the global economic recovery or other issues.

Washington has bent under the pressure. President Obama refused to schedule a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after his November 2009 visit to Beijing, although he did speak about Tibet there. Afterward, U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Jon Huntsman adopted Beijing's line, stating that the president's meeting with the Dalai Lama, and recent U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, had "trampled on a couple of China's core interests." These actions have serious implications for U.S. support for Tibet, for activists for freedom inside China, and the Dalai Lama and his democratic government in exile.

Often, when Chinese officials present their position on Tibet, senior U.S. officials cede ground by saying nothing publicly. Indeed, the words "Tibet" and "Dalai Lama" have gradually disappeared from the administration's vocabulary. Washington's official statements about the April earthquake in Yushu, an area that is 97% Tibetan, did not refer to Tibetans or Tibet.

The silence was even more troubling at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, major talks the U.S. and China held in Beijing in May. State Councilor Dai Binguo presented China's view on Tibet in his remarks at a joint session but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not respond or mention Tibet publicly. It was left to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, to state the U.S. position.

At a routine press briefing several days later, State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley deflected a question about the way Tibet was handled during the talks, saying "It's hard for me from halfway around the world to describe everything we discussed," despite having just given remarks on the U.S. positions on Burma and North Korea presented during the S&ED.

The silence of the Obama administration is peculiar since U.S. policy on Tibet is clear. Spelled out in the Tibet Policy Act, it supports, among other things, talks between the Dalai Lama and Beijing and respect for Tibetans' human rights and religious, linguistic and cultural heritage.

Past administrations have faithfully carried out this policy. The 2009 annual report on negotiations between Beijing and the Dalai Lama, required under the Act, recounts extensive contacts about Tibet between President George W. Bush and General Secretary Hu Jintao as well as between Chinese interlocutors and other American officials, such as the coordinator for Tibetan affairs, a position first created by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The current Tibet coordinator, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Maria Otero, was not included in the giant U.S. delegation to the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Her predecessor in the post, Paula Dobriansky, traveled to China four times and met with the Dalai Lama 13 times. The 2010 report, due in March, was only submitted to Congress on Wednesday.

The administration's downplaying of Tibet undermines Chinese liberal intellectuals and activists who have criticized Beijing's policies on Tibet at great risk to themselves. After the March 2008 uprising, a Chinese think tank called the Open Constitution Initiative issued a report challenging Beijing's position that the riots were incited by the Dalai Lama and criticizing the crackdown that followed. This organization was later shut down and its staff harassed.

In addition, 29 intellectuals, lawyers and activists signed an open letter in March 2008 supporting dialogue with the Dalai Lama and urging and end to official propaganda vilifying him and Tibetans. One of them, Liu Xiaobo was later prosecuted on subversion charges for his writings and sentenced to jail for 11 years.

American officials should know by now that nothing is gained by acquiescing to China's overbearing behavior on Tibet or any other issue. Adapting to Beijing's "correct understanding" of Tibet undermines not only the Dalai Lama and human rights for Tibetans, but also America's own "core interest" in seeing these respected in Tibet and China as well. To be credible, America must clearly and publicly pursue a well-established policy on Tibet.

Source

www.savetibet.com

Protestors in Havana Demand Release of New Political Prisoners

2010-08-26

Three activists from the Cuban Resistance movement carried out a peaceful demonstration before the Provincial Tribunal of Havana to demand freedom for eight Cuban pro democracy activists who face false charges and unjust sentences for participating in important public protests in Havana and Baracoa.

The activists who took part in the protest at the Tribunal on the morning of Thursday, August 26, were Eriberto Liranza Romero, Ermógenes Guerrero Gómez, and Sarah Martha Fonseca Quevedo. After the protest, the activists were arrested by the regime’s repressive forces and their whereabouts are unknown at the time of this release.

“This protest's demands are the immediate release of these eight young people who are being charged with public disorder and contempt,” stated Yaimí Alfonso, Eriberto Liranza Romero’s wife, by telephone to the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

In Havana, activists Michel Irois Rodríguez, Luis Enrique Labrador Díaz, and Eduardo Pérez Flores have been on hunger strike since their arrest on August 16^th, demanding their immediate release. On that same date, these activists, along with additional members of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience National Front, demonstrated on the steps of the University of Havana in defense of the Cuban people's basic rights, and against the tyranny of the current Communist regime.

Sarah Martha Fonseca Quevedo, who was detained on August 26, also participated in the August 16^th protest and was detained on that occasion for several days along with Rodriguez Ruiz, Labrador Diaz, and Perez Flores.

In Guantánamo, activists Néstor and Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina, Enyor Diaz Allen, Roberto Gonzalez Pelegrin, and Francisco Luis Manzanet Ortiz are being held at the State Security Operations Center on spurious charges of “public disorder” after leading a powerful protest in the city of Baracoa on August 11^th and 12^th against the arbitrary arrests of Yordis Garcia Fournier and Eriberto Liranza Romero.

The five activists are currently on hunger strike demanding their release. Enyor Diaz Allen, Roberto Gonzalez Pelegrin, Francisco Luis Manzanet Ortiz began the hunger strike on August 12^th and the Rodriguez Lobaina brothers began theirs on August 20^th.

According to reprots from independent journalist Jorge Corrales Ceballos, Gozalez Pelegrin is at the Dr. Agostino Neto Hospital’s prison ward while Manzanet Ortiz is in the intensive care unit due to the effects of his protest.

“I hold the Cuban government responsible for the physical and psychological…integrity of [these]… peaceful human rights defenders, who struggle for peace and democracy in Cuba,” declared Yaimí Alfonso.

Source

www.directorio.org

Constant Invocations of Cultural Determinism Threatens Russia, Scholar says.

2010-08-26

by Paul Goble

Both supporters and opponents of the current Russian regime routinely argue that Russian cultural traditions explain why the country has not become a democracy with the rule of law, “an ‘iron’ argument” that is not nearly as compelling as those on either side of the political divide who invoke it believe.
In a posting on the Slon.ru portal, Vladimir Gelman, a Russian professor at the University of Texas at Austin, says that many of those who rely on cultural determinism to explain why in Russia political and legal institutions are so ineffective and weak are not only failing to consider other factors but justifying their own passivity (slon.ru/blogs/gelman/post/442402/).
Still worse, he suggests that this view, if it remains unchallenged, could lead to a situation where Russia would be confronted with a choice between “the destruction of this country” in order to achieve decent administration or “the introduction on its territory of external administration by those countries where institutions are more effective.”
“The most popular answer” to the question “’why in Russia are political and legal institutions so ineffective and the state of democracy and rule of law so depressing’” is that the country’s inherited “cultural tradition” represents an insurmountable barrier to “successful institutional development.”
It is used by both “apologists of the current Russian political regime” like Vladislav Surkov and its most thoroughgoing critics like Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Gelman writes, and it is invoked by scholars in the Russian Federation and those outside, who routinely cite polling data in support of this idea.
One of the implications of this approach, he continues, is that “it is possible to assert that the citizens of Russia in the sphere of politics and law have exactly the situation they deserve – namely an authoritarian state not based on law.” And another is that because that is so, “the preservation of the current status quo in our country is justified.”
But Gelman argues that those who assert that in all the political and legal misfortunes of Russia, its culture is ‘guilty’” are at the most only partially correct, as a closer examination of the situation demonstrates.
First of all, the Russian scholars points out, “many comparative investigations show that from the point of view of attachment to the ideals of democracy and rule of law, Russians are not so different from a variety of other post-communist countries which have been more successful in the sphere of institution building.”
The World Values Survey, for example, found that Russia was among a group of Orthodox post-communist countries like Bulgaria and Romania. And other more recent research showed that Russians are “not much more than their East European neighbors” inclined to a revision of the results of privatization.”
Second, Gelman insists, “it is far from obvious that cultural barriers on the road to the establishment of democracy and the rule of law are completely impassable even in the short-term.” Over the last decade, such institutions have taken root in countries like Mongolia and Benin.
“And even if one were suddenly to suggest that Russians are more anti-democratic than the residents of Benin and suffer from a deeper legal nihilism than the residents of Saudi Arabia,” Gelman continues, “this does not mean that our country is not in a position to follow their models.”
And third, he says, constant invocation of the cultural determinist model with regard to Russian institutions of democracy and rule of law can involve “far-reaching political consequences” because if one says that “it is impossible in principle to improve [such] institutions in one or another country,” there are only two ways out.
Either the resolution of these problems will require, the Russian historian says, “the destruction of this country (just like the fate of the Soviet Union),” or there will be a need for “the introduction on its territory of external administration by those countries where [such] institutions are more effective.
It is therefore “completely possible that sometime or other Russia will proceed along one of these paths or even both together, but so far our country, of course, is not prepared to discuss these outcomes in a serious fashion” or to consider the ways in which Russians themselves could take things into their own hands and change the outcomes.
Gelman says that when he hears about “the cultural incompatibility of Russia with democracy and the rule of law,” he recalls two visits he made to a major regional center in the middle of the 1990s and then somewhat more recently, a visit that highlighted not the dead hand of culture but the powerful impact of political choices.
When he visited this city the first time, there was trash everywhere, something that local officials said reflected “the local culture.” But when he returned, the trash was gone, not because the culture had changed, but because there was a new mayor who organized communal services more effectively.
“Perhaps,” Gelman writes by way of conclusion, “it is time for [Russians] to stop referring to the impassible barrier created by the cultural ‘inheritance of the past,’ and simply learn how to choose worthy rulers and to create effectively working institutions.”

Source

windowoneurasia.blogspot.

Another Presidential Rescue Mission in North Korea

2010-08-26

by Bruce Klingner

August has become the month when former U.S. Presidents fly to Pyongyang to gain the release of U.S. citizens incarcerated for illegally entering North Korea. Last year, Bill Clinton attained the freedom of two U.S. journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Now, Jimmy Carter has arrived in North Korea seeking the freedom of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a U.S. missionary sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing into North Korea and demanding the regime improve its human rights record.

Several Risks to U.S. Policy

The Carter mission has been billed, as Clinton’s visit was last year, as a “purely humanitarian mission” to secure the release of a U.S. citizen. The trip, however, carries several risks for U.S. policy toward North Korea.

Carter may again be tempted to go rogue and impose his own viewpoint on U.S. policy. In 1994, pressure on North Korea was building as a result of its clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons. Amidst the resultant tensions, former President Carter took it upon himself to visit Pyongyang and unilaterally negotiate an agreement with North Korean leader Kim Il-sung.

The Clinton Administration was unaware of the parameters of Carter’s freelance diplomacy. U.S. officials later stated that they only became aware of the scope of Carter’s deal as they watched his CNN interview from North Korea describing it. U.S. negotiators subsequently commented that it was difficult to undo an agreement worked out by a former President, and thus Carter’s freelancing came to form the basis for the 1994 Agreed Framework—an arrangement undone in 2002 by North Korean cheating.

Carter’s vision for resolving current tensions would be the polar opposite of the current U.S. two-track policy of pressure and negotiations to induce North Korea to return to compliance with its previous denuclearization commitments. Carter would likely eschew the Obama Administration’s current emphasis on punitive measures for Pyongyang’s violation of U.N. resolutions and provocative behavior, including the unprovoked attack on, and sinking of, the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan.

Even if Carter restrained himself by staying on script, his mission risks undermining ongoing U.S. efforts to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and comply with both U.N. resolutions and international law. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced last month that Washington would impose sanctions on additional entities in violation of U.N. Resolution 1874. U.S. Special Advisor for Nonproliferation Robert Einhorn stated that additional targets would be named within weeks.

Misinterpretations

North Korea may interpret Carter’s visit as an indication that the Obama Administration wants to move beyond the Cheonan incident. Similarly, South Korea may question the resolve of its U.S. ally. Senior South Korean officials commented privately that Washington advocated a softer response than Seoul during last month’s bilateral military exercises, which were meant as a strong signal to Pyongyang. Carter’s visit may appear to be an extension of this perceived softness.

China will likely cite North Korea’s meeting with former President Carter as a signal that Pyongyang is willing to return to the stalled nuclear negotiations. Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei is visiting Seoul and Tokyo this week to again peddle claims of “progress” with Pyongyang and to discuss ways to resume the six-party talks. Beijing will therefore argue against any new U.S. punitive measures and could even advocate for abandoning international sanctions imposed against Pyongyang for repeatedly violating U.N. resolutions.

Despite euphoric expectations that Clinton’s visit last year—as well as that by U.S. envoy to the six-party talks Ambassador Stephen Bosworth in December 2009—was the precursor to a breakthrough in nuclear negotiations, Pyongyang did not abandon its recalcitrant stance.

The Message Must Remain the Same

One can only hope that the Obama Administration implored Carter to remain within narrowly defined negotiating parameters limited only to Gomes’s release and to not discuss security issues. Pyongyang announced last year that it would not return to six-party talks unless the U.S. initiated peace treaty negotiations and removed its “hostile policy,” defined as removing U.S. troops from South Korea, abrogating the bilateral defense treaty with Seoul, and ending the U.S. extended deterrence (i.e., the nuclear umbrella).

The U.S. should continue to insist that North Korea abide by all of its previous commitments to completely and verifiably abandon its nuclear weapons programs. Until North Korea does so, the Obama Administration should signal that it will not abandon punitive measures imposed on Pyongyang for its defiance of U.N. resolutions and international law.

To date, the U.S. and the international community have been reluctant to fully enforce Resolution 1874, preferring instead to focus only on North Korean noncompliance. It is past time for the Obama Administration to also identify and target foreign companies, banks, and governments that facilitate North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

The Obama Administration’s comprehensive two-track policy of increasing pressuring on North Korea while simultaneously holding open the door for negotiations with promised benefits for North Korean compliance provides a more viable policy than an overreliance on any one policy tool. However, the Administration’s “strategic patience” policy is insufficient as a long-term strategy. Simply containing North Korea in a box is problematic for several reasons:

It allows Pyongyang to expand and refine its nuclear and missile delivery capabilities. This not only further undermines the security of the U.S. and its allies but also sends a dangerous signal of de facto acceptance to other nuclear aspirants.
Pyongyang may not obligingly stay in a box. The North Korean nuclear genie has already escaped the peninsular bottle since Pyongyang proliferated nuclear technology to Syria and possibly Iran and Burma as well.
North Korea may not meekly acquiesce to a steadily declining condition. In the past, Pyongyang has reacted to feelings of weakness by lashing out in a provocative manner. It would not be unexpected if North Korea were to revert to escalatory tactics.

Given these realities, the Administration needs to strengthen its long-term policy toward North Korea.

Contingency Plan Needed

The United States and its allies must face the reality that America may be trying to negotiate the non-negotiable and that there may not be any magical combination of benefits and punishments that gets Pyongyang to abandon its decades-long quest to develop nuclear weapons. Washington should, therefore, engage in extensive contingency planning with its allies over possible next steps for policy toward North Korea, particularly in light of the uncertain outcome of a leadership succession in Pyongyang.

Bruce Klingner is Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.

Source

http://www.heritage.org/

Russia's New Nobility -The Rise of the Security Services in Putin's Kremlin

2010-08-26

by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan

ANDREI SOLDATOV and IRINA BOROGAN are Co-founders of the Web site Agentura.ru . Their book The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB, from which this essay is adapted, will be published this fall by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

In December 2000, Nikolai Patrushev, who had succeeded Vladimir Putin as director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), gave an interview to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. He described the FSB's personnel: "Our best colleagues, the honor and pride of the FSB, don't do their work for the money," he said. "They all look different, but there is one very special characteristic that unites all these people, and it is a very important quality: It is their sense of service. They are, if you like, our new 'nobility.'"

Over the last decade in Russia, the FSB, the modern successor to the Soviet secret police, the KGB, has been granted the role of the new elite, enjoying expanded responsibilities and immunity from public oversight or parliamentary control. The FSB's budget is not published; the total number of officers is undisclosed. But even cautious estimates suggest that the FSB employs more than 200,000 people. For ten years, Putin, a KGB and FSB veteran himself, has held power in the Kremlin as president and now prime minister. He has made the FSB the main security service in Russia, permitting it to absorb much of the former KGB and granting it the right to operate abroad, collect information, and carry out special operations.

When Putin was elected president, in 2000, the Russian secret services were in an extremely difficult position. They had been left behind in the mad rush to market reforms and democracy of the 1990s, and their ranks had thinned due to the lure of big money in Russia's new capitalist economy. Those who remained faced daunting and dispiriting new challenges: the festering war in Chechnya and the resulting rise of terrorism in Moscow and other cities far from the Chechen battlefield. FSB officers faced pressures of corruption that far exceeded those of Soviet times. The organization also suffered from deep public distrust, a legacy of both the repression carried out by the Soviet KGB and the chaotic first decade of Russia's post-Soviet experience.

Source

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/

Venezuela vote race starts, Chavez foes eye gains

2010-08-25

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his opponents launched campaigns on Wednesday for legislative elections that test the socialist's support after a year of recession.

Buoyant Chavez supporters organized parties and fireworks around Caracas after midnight to kick off a race dominated by criticism of the government's record on tackling Venezuela's appalling murder rate.

"Let's go to battle!" Chavez's campaign chief Aristobulo Isturiz bellowed at one raucous nocturnal rally.

Struggling opposition parties are all but guaranteed gains in the September 26 vote after they boycotted the last election for lawmakers five years ago, leaving parliament in the major U.S. oil supplier entirely in the hands of the president's allies.

The elections -- a barometer of backing for Chavez's policies ahead of a presidential vote in two years -- are also a chance for opponents to take back a little of the power he has accumulated over more than 11 years in office in the OPEC nation.

Despite sky-high crime and economic woes, the ex-soldier who has polarized Venezuela between supporters of his pro-poor policies and those who call him a dictator remains Venezuela's most popular politician.

Opposition parties have fielded unity candidates to increase their chances of denting Chavez's grip on parliament.

They hope to capitalize on his relative weakness after months fighting crises such as electricity cuts and a scandal over rotting food that dragged his ratings below 50 percent.

"This is his worst moment in 11 years," anti-Chavez newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff said. "But his emotional link with a large sector of the nation remains very powerful."

Most analysts expect Chavez's socialist party to hold a reduced majority in the parliament, helped by changes to electoral districts that critics call gerrymandering.

There is a slim chance the opposition will win the most seats, which would create headaches for Chavez and cause political instability.

Their goal is to win at least a third of seats in the legislature, which would limit the ability of Chavez's socialist party to change major legislation.

CRIME AGENDA

Usually an expert at setting the political agenda, especially ahead of elections, Chavez seems to have been caught off balance by a campaign from opposition media to highlight the government's failure to tackle violent crime.

Venezuela has one of the world's highest murder rates with between 13,000 and 16,000 people killed last year according to leaked police numbers and a non-governmental watchdog, respectively. Already-high murder figures have soared since Chavez took office.

Last week a court ordered two newspapers to desist from publishing violent pictures after they printed a gory archive photo of bodies piled up in a morgue.

The government, which also responded angrily to a New York Times story comparing Venezuela violence to Iraq, says it is working hard to bring down crime and that a new national police force has slashed homicide rates in a Caracas pilot project.

A handful of lawmakers who defected from Chavez's ranks in 2007 are the opposition's only presence in the current national assembly parliament, which has given Chavez a legislative carte blanche since 2005.

He has used that power to start remolding one of the continent's most Americanized nations as a socialist society, while expanding his sway over courts and other institutions.

Critics say the 56-year-old ally of Cuba is following his mentor Fidel Castro and installing an autocratic communist dictatorship in the baseball-mad nation studded with fast food restaurants and shopping malls.

Chavez, who has lost just one of over a dozen elections since 1998, says he is a democrat committed to freeing Venezuela from U.S. "imperialism" and local oligarchs.

Source

www.Reuters.com

Cuba and the Number of "Political Prisoners"

2010-08-25

The question of the number of "political prisoners" in Cuba is subject to controversy. According to the Cuban government, there are no political prisoners in Cuba, rather they are people convicted of crimes listed in the penal code, particularly the act of receiving funding from a foreign power. In its 2010 report, Amnesty International (AI) describes "55 prisoners of conscience," of whom 20 were released in July 2010, followed by another six on August 15, 2010 after mediation by the Catholic Church and Spain, and later another two. Thus, according to AI, there are currently 27 "political prisoners" in Cuba. Finally, the Cuban opposition and, more precisely, Elizardo Sánchez of the Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CDHRN) put the number at 147 political prisoners, minus the 6 recently freed, in other words, 141.The Western media favor this latter list.

First, before raising the question of the exact number of "political prisoners" in Cuba, it is worth clarifying one aspect of this issue, i.e., the existence or non-existence of financing of the Cuban opposition by the United States.

This policy, carried out clandestinely from 1959 to 1991, is now public and confirmed by many sources. Indeed, Washington has acknowledged this fact in various documents and official statements. The 1992 Torricelli law, in particular section 1705, states that "the United States Government may provide assistance, through appropriate nongovernmental organizations, for the support of individuals and organizations to promote nonviolent democratic change in Cuba." The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 provides in Section 109 that "the President [of the United States] is authorized to furnish assistance and provide other support for individuals and independent nongovernmental organizations to support democracy-building efforts for Cuba." The first report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba proposed the development of a "solid support program that promotes Cuban civil society."Among the measures envisaged was funding, totaling $36 million dollars, destined to "supporting the democratic opposition and strengthening an emerging civil society." The second report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba proposed a budget of $31 million to further finance the internal opposition.The plan also provided for "the training and equipping of independent print, radio, and TV journalists in Cuba."

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana -- the U.S. Interests Section (USINT) -- has confirmed this in a statement: "The U.S. policy has long been to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, specifically to families of political prisoners. We also allow private organizations to do the same."

Laura Pollán, of the dissident group "Ladies in White", admits receiving money from the U.S.: "We accept help, support, from the extreme right to the left, without conditions." The opposition leader Vladimiro Roca admits that Cuban dissidents are subsidized by Washington, claiming that the financial assistance received is "totally and completely legal." For the dissident René Gómez, financial support from the United States "is not something that has to be hidden nor that we have to be ashamed of." Similarly, government opponent Elizardo Sánchez confirmed the existence of U.S. financing: "The key point is not who sent the aid, but what is done with the aid."

The Western press admits this reality. Agence France-Presse reported that "the dissidents, for their part, appeal for and accept such financial assistance.The Spanish news agency EFE refers to "opponents paid by the United States." According to the British press agency Reuters, "the US government openly provides federally-funded support for dissident activities, which Cuba considers an illegal act." The U.S. newsgathering agency Associated Press says that the policy of manufacturing and financing internal opposition is not new: "Over the years, the U.S. government has spent many millions of dollars to support Cuba's opposition". It states, "Part of the funding comes directly from the U.S. government, whose laws promote the overthrow of the Cuban government."

Wayne S. Smith is a former diplomat who was head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana from 1979 to 1982. According to him, it is completely "illegal and unwise to send money to the Cuban dissidents". He added that, "No one should give money to the dissidents, much less for the purpose of overthrowing the Cuban government" since "when the US declares its objective is to overthrow the government of Cuba and later admits that one of the means of achieving that goal is to provide funds to the Cuban dissidents, these dissidents finds themselves de facto in the position of agents paid by a foreign power to overthrow their own government."

Let's recall now the position of Amnesty International. The organization speaks of 27 "political prisoners" in Cuba as of August 15, 2010. Nevertheless, at the same time AI recognizes that these individuals were charged for having "received funds and/or materials from the United States government in order to engage in activities the authorities perceived as subversive and damaging to Cuba". Thus, the organization found itself in a contradiction, in that international law considers the financing of the internal opposition in another sovereign nation to be illegal. Every country in the world has a judicial arsenal establishing the illegality of such conduct. U.S. and European laws, among others, strongly sanction the act of receiving funds from a foreign power.

The list put together by Elizardo Sánchez is longer and includes all sorts of individuals. Among the 141 names, ten were freed due to health, leaving a total of 131 people. With regard to these 10 individuals, Sánchez explained that he keeps them on the list because they could be jailed again in the future. Another four individuals served their sentences and left prison. Thus 127 people remain. Another 27 people are to be released prior to October, according to the agreement signed between Havana, Spain, and the Catholic Church.

Of the 100 remaining individuals, about half were imprisoned for violent crimes. Some carried out armed incursions into Cuba and at least two of them, Humberto Eladio Real Suárez and Ernesto Cruz León, are responsible for the deaths of various civilians in 1994 and 1997 respectively.
Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban Parliament, emphasized these contradictions, "Curiously, our critics talk about a list... Why don't they explain that they are asking for freedom for the person who murdered Fabio di Celmo?"

The Associated Press (AP) also emphasized the dubious nature of Sánchez's list and indicates that "some of those would not normally be seen as political prisoners." "But a closer look will find bombers, hijackers and intelligence agents." The AP points out that among the 100 people, "about half were convicted of terrorism, hijacking or other violent crimes, and four are former military or intelligence agents convicted of espionage or revealing state secrets."

For its part, Amnesty International confirms that it can not consider the people on Sanchez's list to be "prisoners of conscience" because it includes "people brought to trial for terrorism, espionage and those who tried, or actually succeeded, in blowing up hotels", according to the organization. "We certainly would not call for their release or describe them as prisoners of conscience."

Miguel Moratinos, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who played a pivotal role in the agreement for the liberation of the 52 prisoners, also has called into question the validity of Sánchez's list and has underscored its imprecise character: "They don't say that 300 must be freed, because there are not 300. The Cuban Human Rights Commission's own list, a week before I arrived there, spoke of there being 202.The day before I arrived in Cuba, the Commission said there were 167."

After the freeing of the other 27 persons included in the June 2010 agreement, there remained only one "political prisoner" in Cuba, Rolando Jiménez Pozada, according to Amnesty International. The Associated Press for its part points out that in fact this individual is "jailed on charges of disobedience and revealing state secrets."

Curiously, the list developed by Sánchez, which is the least reliable of the lists and which has been criticized from all sides due to the inclusion of individuals convicted of grave acts of terrorism, is favored by the western press.

The Cuban government has made a notable gesture by proceeding to free prisoners considered to be "political prisoners" by the U.S. and some organizations, such as Amnesty International. The primary obstacle to the normalization of relations between Washington and Havana -- from the point of view of the Obama government -- no longer exists. That being the case, it is up to the White House to make a reciprocal gesture and put an end to the anachronistic and ineffective economic sanctions against the Cuban people.

Cuba Travel Ban: Will the White House Fight to End It?

2010-08-24

by TIM PADGETT

After it looked a couple of months ago as if a bill lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba had the momentum to pass Congress, it now appears stalled in the House of Representatives. The bill, which would also make food sales to Cuba easier, cleared the House Agriculture Committee but still needs a vote in two other committees - Financial Services and Foreign Affairs - and it may not even come up for a full vote this year. So as reports surface that the Obama Administration plans on its own to expand legal travel opportunities to Cuba, the question is whether such a move will spur or spoil the House bill - whose passage would mark the biggest shift in U.S. Cuba policy since a trade embargo was issued against the communist island in 1962.

President Obama, according to Administration and congressional sources, intends before the year is out to loosen restrictions on visits to Cuba by U.S. students, entertainers and other goodwill ambassadors. Backers of increased American engagement with Cuba applaud the proposal, which is part of the President's executive prerogative under the embargo. In reality, the action would simply be taking U.S. policy back to the Clinton Administration, before former President George W. Bush all but froze that kind of people-to-people contact with Cuba. But it's less clear if Obama intends his new regulations to be a signal of support for eliminating the entire travel ban - which only Congress can do - or an unspoken message that this is as far as he wants to take the battle against the embargo's dogged supporters on Capitol Hill. (See pictures of the sad decline of Cuba's salsa scene.)

The bill's bipartisan backers, not surprisingly, see it as the former. House staffers say the White House Cuba regulations will be a shot in the arm for the broader travel legislation when Congress returns from its recess next month. Embargo foes agree. "This is the Administration essentially saying, 'We've done what we can, and now we want Congress to take the larger step,'" says Jake Colvin, vice president for global trade issues at the independent National Foreign Trade Council in Washington, D.C. "This bill still has a lot of hurdles, but this implicit White House support gives it momentum again."

Echoing the optimism is Patrick Kilbride, senior director for the Americas at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The organization represents a sizable bloc of farmers and businesspeople, many of them Republican-aligned, who want the Cuba embargo scrapped so they can reap the $1 billion in annual sales to the island that a recent Texas A&M University study says they're losing out on. "We think these new [travel] steps are a very positive signal that the [Administration] would like to move forward" to lift the full travel ban, says Kilbride. He also confirms that the chamber is considering scoring the votes of Representatives and Senators if and when the bill finally hits their floors.

The House bill seems slowed at this point by more serious opposition from the chamber's pro-embargo forces and especially the pro-embargo lobby, led by the US-Cuba Democracy PAC, a major contributor to congressional campaigns. The Senate version, which deals only with the travel ban, has yet to get a Foreign Relations Committee vote and most likely faces a filibuster from pro-embargo Senators if it can ever get to the full chamber. (See pictures of Fidel Castro's years in power.)

But another reason to be confident, says Colvin, is that "this is the best diplomatic environment we've seen in a long time" for dismantling the embargo. That's because last month, Cuban President RaÚl Castro, after a dissident hunger striker died earlier this year, released 52 political prisoners who were locked up in 2003 by his elder brother, then President Fidel Castro (who ceded power to RaÚl in 2006 due to ill health). Obama last year had left the ball in Havana's court when he reversed his predecessor's policy and let Cuban Americans travel and send remittances more freely to Cuba. RaÚl's prisoner release, say diplomats, now makes the next move Obama's, and many see his new travel regulations as part of that. But it's doubtful the Castros will feel international pressure to reciprocate, with further democratic or economic openings in Cuba, unless the travel ban that's been in place since 1963 is eradicated.

Proponents of doing just that insist there's more consensus than ever in the U.S. to ditch the Cuba embargo and its travel ban, which, after almost 50 years, have utterly failed to dislodge the Castro regime. Opening Cuba to Americans, they believe, will do more to stimulate democratization there than isolating it has. Even a majority of Cuban Americans now agree.

Still, for all the good vibes the bill's backers feel from the White House right now, some note warily that Obama has been loath to spend political capital in Cuba, or the rest of Latin America for that matter. Critics, for example, point to his decision last year to stop applying pressure against coup leaders in Honduras, who'd ousted a leftist President, when conservative Republicans in Congress objected. (Comment on this story.)

Embargo supporters, including Cuban-American Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat, are already blasting Obama's plans to relax Cuba travel. "This is not the time to ease the pressure on the Castro regime," Menendez said this month, insisting it will only give the brothers "a much needed infusion of dollars that will only extend their reign of oppression." As a result, says one congressional aide who asked not to be identified, when it comes time for the White House to give the bill more full-throated support, "there's a fear they may just decide that the fight's not worth it."

But Democratic Congressman Howard Berman of California, a co-sponsor of the bill, says tearing down the travel ban is about more than Cuban rights - it's also about the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens to travel freely abroad. "Letting U.S. citizens travel to Cuba is not a gift to the Castros - it is in the interest of our own citizens," Berman said after the House committee vote this summer. "It's time to trust our own people and restore their right to travel." It's the sort of argument Obama usually agrees with. But now he may need to show how strongly he concurs when Congress returns next month.

Source

www.time.com

SUPPORT TIBET

2010-08-24

Won't you help the International Campaign for Tibet work to expose the injustices afflicted upon the Tibetan people by the Chinese government?

Today, the core of the Tibetan culture and religious leadership are under threat from the People's Republic of China.

I'm sure you know that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima - recognized at the age of six by the Dalai Lama to be the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama - was abducted with his family fifteen years ago by the Chinese government. Since that time, no one has been permitted to see or speak with him.

But the Panchen Lama is not the only important Tibetan lama who the Chinese authorities seek to control.

The Karmapa, another important Tibetan religious figure, made the decision at only 14 years of age to leave his monastery in Tibet.

Asked how he came to that difficult decision he replied, "In Tibet there is religious freedom only in our minds."

"To carry out my responsibilities legitimately as the Karmapa, I must further my religious education and receive the teachings of other lamas. The Chinese authorities refused to let these teachers come to me in Tibet, so I had to leave my monastery and my community to find these teachers in exile."

Today in Tibet, the most prominent figures of one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated religious cultures face serious threats to their abililty to guide their people in wisdom and compassion.

The Panchen Lama remains in Chinese custody.

The Karmapa has been forced into exile.

And the Dalai Lama - forced from his homeland more than 50 years ago by the Chinese government - is continuing his efforts on the international stage to end what he describes as a kind of cultural genocide in his homeland.

China wants the world to ignore its policies in Tibet. It wants not only to choose the Panchen Lama and other teachers, but to select the next Dalai Lama to lock-in political and religious control over the Tibetan people.

The mission of the International Campaign for Tibet is clear: We must hold the Chinese government accountable for the violations against religious freedom, and we must ensure that the world responds with one voice. The future of Tibet is for the Tibetans to determine.

Please be as generous as you can by making a donation to support our work to protect Tibetan Buddhism and culture.

With my thanks,

Mary Beth Markey
President

P.S. The Tibetan people must be allowed basic human rights and the religious freedom to choose their own spiritual leaders. Your support will go to work right away to support ICT's efforts on behalf of the people and culture of Tibet. Thank you!

Prefer not to donate online? Download a copy of our "donate by mail" form.

International Campaign for Tibet
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Raise no flags

2010-08-24

A Moscow court is today expected to consider whether three prominent members of Russia's political opposition are guilty of “insubordination towards the police.” The absurd case underlines the extent to which freedom of assembly and of expression have been squeezed in today's Russia., even as President Dmitry Medvedev promises greater political competition.

The case concerns Boris Nemtsov, perhaps the most credible leader of the opposition and a former deputy prime minister, as well as Lev Ponomaryov, a veteran human rights campaigner, and Mikhail Shneider, a prominent opposition activist.

Their crime, in the eyes of Moscow’s Kremlin-directed police force, was to bear aloft a giant Russian flag in the capital on Sunday to celebrate “Flag Day.” This day was conceived to commemorate 22nd August 1991, when Boris Yeltsin and his allies defeated a hard-line Communist coup against the then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev—a gutsy show of defiance that, in effect, marked the end of more than 70 years of Soviet dictatorship and led to the birth of an independent Russia, along with the revival of its tricolour flag.

Obliterating the achievements of the 1990s and portraying those years as a lost decade has been one of the main themes of Vladimir Putin's rule since 2000, despite the fact that the Russian prime minister has been one of the main beneficaries of those changes. Two months ago Solidarity, Mr Nemtsov's opposition movement, published a damning report on Mr Putin's ten years in power.

So the current occupants of the Kremlin were not keen to join the weekend celebrations. As Mr Nemtsov began to walk along Moscow’s Novy Arbat Street bearing the flag, the police pounced—despite having earlier granted Mr Nemtsov and his fellow activists permission to hold a small rally on the street. Mr Nemtsov spent more than 12 hours in custody before he, as well as Mr Ponomaryov and Mr Shneider, were charged with “insubordination towards the police.”

Writing on his blog (http://b-nemtsov.livejournal.com/78747.html) , Mr Nemtsov later described the authorities as "dangerously incompetent... To prevent people carrying the state flag, thereby shaming Russia in front of the whole world, is a clear sign of progressive political paranoia.”

Yet the authorities still have a chance to, partially, redeem themselves. The judge hearing the case can dismiss the charges against Mr Nemtsov and his colleagues. A decision to hand down punitive fines, or, more seriously, to sentence the activists to short stints in prison—the maximum sentence is 15 days—would not only send a chilling message to Russian society, it would signal to Russia’s international partners, such as the United States, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe what Mr Medvedev says about political freedom.

UPDATE: A court has ruled that there is not enough evidence to convict Mr Nemtsov of insubordination towards the police and sent the case back to the police for further investigation. Mr Nemtsov says the decision shows that the case against him was fabricated: "The very fact that this case has been returned to the police shows that I was illegally arrested. The judge did not quite have the courage to directly say so."

Source

www.economist.com

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is detained by police at a rally in Moscow on August 22

2010-08-24

Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is being charged in two separate courts in connection with helping organize unsanctioned protests in Moscow.

The co-leader of the Solidarity movement was arrested on August 22, when he and around 100 other activists tried to march through the capital carrying a giant Russian flag. They were marking Flag Day, which honors the tricolor flag adopted 20 years ago by democratic Russia following the Soviet collapse.

Police also detained around 20 others, including another Solidarity member, the prominent human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, for taking part in the unsanctioned march, although officials said the activists had permission to hold a stationary rally.

Speaking by telephone to RFE/RL's Russian Service shortly after his arrest, Nemtsov said the decision to stop the march showed the mentality of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's government.

He called Russia's current authorities "the ideological heirs" of the 1991 coup organizers. "For them the Russian flag is a symbol of freedom, a symbol of human dignity, a symbol of democracy. They hate freedom, despise dignity, and consider democracy the biggest threat to their power," Nemtsov said.

Nemtsov is being charged with refusing to obey the police. He's being accused of the same charge later on August 24 in a second court over another unsanctioned protest in July, when he was briefly arrested.

The charismatic former deputy prime minister -- who was once tapped by ex-President Boris Yeltsin to be his chosen successor -- denies both charges. He faces possible fines and prison sentences of up to 15 days in each case.

Nemtsov and the other marchers were on their way to another protest in central Pushkin Square on August 22, when up to 2,000 demonstrators protested the building of a highway though a protected forest in the northwestern Moscow suburb of Khimki. The turnout was higher than during other recent rallies, over an issue that's becoming a national symbol of opposition to the authorities.

City officials had rescinded earlier permission for organizers to hold a concert, and police blocked participants carrying musical instruments and sound equipment to the square. But some musicians, including veteran rocker Yury Shevchuk, nevertheless sang songs without a microphone and strummed acoustic guitars.

On August 21, 3,000 protesters attended a rally in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad to demand Putin's resignation and a return to the direct elections of regional governors. But that protest was significantly smaller than a rally of 10,000 there last January.

WATCH: Musicians perform at the rally without microphones or equipment, while activists in the crowd chant "Send the route around the forest!" and "Russia without Putin!" http://www.rferl.org/content/Russian_Opposition_Leader_Faces_Court_Hearings/2136136.html

Source

www.rferl.org

Medvedev Seeking a New ‘USSR – a Union of Sovereign Super-loyal States,’ Moscow Paper Says

2010-08-24

by Paul Goble

Taking advantage of a “marked” decline in US activity in the former Soviet space, President Dmitry Medvedev is moving to “minimize” what some in Moscow see as the negative “consequences of the most serious geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” by setting “a certain Union of Sovereign Super-loyal Republics.”
In this way, the editors of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” argue today, the USSR is reappearing albeit in a somewhat different form, and it future development, they suggest, will depend in the first instance “on the political will and professionalism of those carrying out” this policy direction (www.ng.ru/editorial/2010-08-24/2_red.html).
Entitling their lead article in English “Back in the USSR,” the paper’s editors say that recent diplomatic moves by Medvedev, although most of them have attracted little attention except for the extension of the Russian base in Armenia, reflect “a significant link” in a chain of events to reverse what Vladimir Putin called “a geopolitical tragedy.”
At their meeting in Sochi, the paper notes, “Medvedev received assurances of loyalty form Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov, once the Russian president announced that Tajik citizens could remain on the territory “from now on” for three months before they have to register with the government.
And at the meeting of the Organization of the Collective Security Treaty (known under its Russian acronym as ODKB), Medvedev secured not only the extension of Russian basing rights in Armenia but also improved “the tonality” of relations with Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka and won approval for the ODKB as the venue for discussions of Kyrgyzstan’s future security.
Moreover, Medvedev was able to win support for his plans to present a new and broader charter for ODKB at that organizations summit meeting in December. (For concurring analysis, see Andrey Lavrov’s article at novopol.ru/-odkb-hochet-pribavit-v-vese-text88919.html. For a more skeptical view, see Aleksandr Golts’ essay at www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=10345.)
At the Yerevan meeting, the editors of “Nezavisimaya” point out, all the ODKB signatories were represented – except Uzbekistan, which can be expected to go along with measures that will increase the effectiveness of that grouping. Among the Central Asian states, only Turkmenistan remains on the sidelines.
But it is not only Medvedev’s moves which lead the paper to its conclusions. The Moscow paper’s editors point to the failings of GUAM, the Georgian-Ukrainian-Azerbaijani-Moldovan grouping, over the same period as indicative of Moscow’s regaining of dominance in the post-Soviet space.
The visit of Moldova’s acting President Mihai Ghimpu to Georgia and his joint declarations with President Mikhail Saakashvili suggest that this anti-Russian grouping of states is living out its last days, given that neither Ukraine nor Azerbaijan will want to follow the Ghimpu-Saakashvili line and that Belarus’ Lukashenka won’t join that body either.
(In support of “Nezavisimaya’s” argument about the fate of GUAM in general, see Bogdan Tsyrdya’s essay posted online today at www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=3229. And for a critique of the notion that GUAM could ever become GUBAM and a dismissal of Russian worries on that point, see Yaroslav Butakov’s piece at www.win.ru/school/5270.phtml.)
But it is the decline of American attention to and support for the non-Russian countries around the Russian Federation that the Moscow paper’s editors view as the main reason for their conclusions about what Medvedev -- and it should be added Putin --are currently seeking to do and with some success.
“Taking into account the marked reduction in the activity of Washington [in this region] and the corresponding weakening of its opposition to Moscow, there has appeared,” the editors say, “if you will the optimal chance if not for the liquidation of ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,’ then for the minimization of its consequences.”
And that, they somewhat provocatively suggest involves “the creation around [the Russian Federation] of a certain Union of Sovereign Super-loyal Republics.” And while this would represent “a kind of USSR,” it would hardly be like the one that existed before the events of 1991.
What the editors of “Nezavisimaya” do not say but what they may intend or at least what many of their readers may conclude is that the reappearance of that acronym even as an expression of intent is likely to provoke anti-Russian feelings in many of the former Soviet republics and thus become a major o

bstacle to loyalty Moscow so clearly wants.

Source

windowoneurasia.blogspot

Swedish Government honored the victims of Communism and Nazism at August 23 Day Of Remembrance

2010-08-23

‘Freedom in an Unfree Country’ – Ekho Moskvy at 20

2010-08-23

by Paul Goble

Ekho Moskvy, an island of “freedom in an unfree country,” is now able to celebrate its 20th anniversary, its chief editor says, because it makes Russia look good to Moscow’s Western partners, because its radio audience is too small to affect elections, and because it serves as an alternative source of reliable information for the powers that be.
In an interview published in the current issue of “New Times,” Aleksey Venediktov says that these three reasons are fundamental, but he suggests that the profitability of the station for its owner, Gazprom, and his own skills as an editor committed to reporting facts rather than have warded off numerous threats to the station (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/25781).
Asked directly how he explains why the Kremlin puts up with the independence of Ekho Moskvy, Venediktov says that first of all, there is a simple explanation: You, [the powers that be] tell me, are a display case for [Russia’s] Western partners,” who cannot say there is no freedom of speech in Russia as long as Ekho Moskvy is on the air.
Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once told him that while in Soviet times, a foreign visitor had to visit the Kremlin, [Lenin’s] Mausoleum, and the Bolshoi Theater, now, “the three obligatory places for visiting are the Kremlin, “Ekho Moskvy,” and the Bolshoi Theater.”
“Another explanation,” the editor says, is that “we are not an electoral resource,” not only because the station does not take sides but because unlike Russian television, “Ekho Moskvy” has an audience of “less than a million in Moscow and less than three million in Russia as a whole.” The station is influential, “but not on voting.”
And a third explanation, he suggests is that “we are an alternative source of information for people taking decisions, [who] understand that we are not playing on behalf of America, Israel, Chechnya, Luzhkov, Putin or someone else,” but rather serve as “a channel through which comes a flood of information from which it is possible to choose.”
The interview however showed that despite these advantages, Ekho Moskvy would likely have been shut down at various points had it not been for the editorial and even political skills of Venediktov himself. Shortly after the station went on the air in 1990, Venediktov says Mikhail Gorbachev told him, many wanted to close it as a “hostile” radio station.
During the August 1991 putsch, the station was taken off the air three times, he continues, and there have always been threats and in the most “varied situations” that “we will take you off the air if …” But the crackdown on most of the electronic media that began in 2000 did not lead to the station’s closure.
At the time of the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war, Venediktov continues, there was “a real threat” not that the station would be closed but that the station would be forced to change its approach by means of his replacement, something that apparently was under active discussion in the Kremlin.
But again, Ekho Moskvy and Venediktov dodged the bullet, in no small measure because he and his colleagues recognized that “[Russian] laws are such that the powers that be at any movement can close electronic media,” and that it is “more difficult to open than a paper. Therefore we try not to violate the laws.”
Asked directly “who today can close Ekho Moskvy,” the station’s chief editor answered just as directly: Putin, Medvedev and “functionally, Gazprom” which holds the license but would do so only on “orders from above.” But Gazprom has no problems with the station because it is profitable and thus “we are satisfied and it is satisfied.”
As to the other top leaders, Venediktov said he has maintained good relations with them not as a journalist but as an editor committed to freedom of information and prepared to explain to them and to others that such freedom is good for them as well. Up to now, that strategy has worked, but Venediktov admits that he lives with fear of closure “every day.”

Source

windowoneurasia.blogspot.com

China may cut execution cases

2010-08-23

"China currently stipulates that 68 crimes are punishable by the death penalty," the Xinhua news agency reported. "The draft amendment eliminates capital punishment for 13 economy-related non-violent offenses, a drop of 19.1 percent."

A draft amendment has been submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for a first reading. Draft laws are typically read two to three times before being voted on.

If adopted, it would be the eighth amendment to the country's Criminal Law, which was implemented in 1997.

China has been under fire from human rights groups for the number of executions it carries out each year.

Amnesty International said China has refused to provide figures on its use of the death penalty.

"Although media coverage is permitted in selected cases, information on the number of executions is classified as a state secret and individuals disclosing state secrets can be held criminally responsible," the group's website said. "Amnesty International therefore does not know the exact number of executions carried out in 2009. However, evidence from previous years and current sources indicates that the figure is in the thousands."

Amnesty said 17 other countries were known to have carried out executions last year, killing at least 714 people.

Source

www.edition.cnn.com

23 August: The Europe-wide remembrance day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes

2010-08-23

On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded a treaty of non-aggression known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (hereinafter the MRP) after its signatories, the Soviet Union's People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov and Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany Joachim von Ribbentrop. In the secret protocols that accompanied the treaty of non-aggression, the two totalitarian powers divided Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania in violation of international law into respective spheres of influence, which led to Nazi Germany starting the Second World War on 1 September 1939 with its attack on Poland. The MRP and its three secret protocols resulted in comprehensive military and economic co-operation between Nazi Germany and the USSR from 1939 – 1941. The USSR's significant political and economic support for Nazi Germany allowed the leadership of Nazi Germany to occupy a great part of Europe and begin the widespread persecution and murder of Jews in its occupied territories. Nazi Germany's support for the USSR made it possible for the USSR to carry out wide-spread oppression in territories occupied by the USSR.

On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR—until now its partner—after disagreements between the two totalitarian powers intensified. Although at the beginning of the Second World War the USSR had been acting in co-operation with the aggressor, in the end of the war the USSR was one of the victors. And the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact essentially remained in effect: The lasting occupation of the Baltic states by the USSR went on.

Although the MRP and its secret protocols were well-known to democratic Western nations, the USSR denied the existence of secret protocols to the MRP until 1989,because the secret protocols were considered evidence of the annexation of the Baltic states. It was only after the Baltic Way demonstrations of 23 August 1989, when two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania created a human chain set on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Pact, that a special Soviet commission examining the Pact admitted their existence. On 24 December 1989 the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union declared the secret protocols of the pact to be null and void as of the moment of their signing.

Remembering the MRP as well as its aftermath, the European Parliament on 2 April 2009 approved the resolution "European conscience and totalitarianism". The resolution suggests that member states of the European Parliament declare 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, to be observed with dignity and impartiality. The Estonian Parliament approved its support of the resolution on 18 June 2009 and declared 23 August as Remembrance Day.

North Caucasus will be independent within a generation, Solovey says

2010-08-22

In an interview on the National Democratic Alliance portal, Valery Solovey, a professor at MGIMO, a former expert at the Gorbachev Foundation and the author, with his sister Tatyana Solovey of ‘The Revolution that Did Not Take Place” (in Russian, 2009), argued that Russian “nationalism will triumph only together with the ideas of democracy” .
This is not immediately obvious, he suggests, because at present, Russian nationalism “has recognized the need for radical changes” but has not yet “transformed itself” as is required. The “democratic and human rights” trends within it are becoming more important, and Russian nationalism is “objectively” part of civil society, independent of the state and even opposed to it.
The old themes of Russian nationalism no longer can win general support, Solovey says, and as a result, he argues, the idea that will make it attractive to the population at large will be “a synthesis of Russian nationalism and the principles of democracy and a social state.” Indeed, “historically, nationalism and democracy if not twins are in any case quite similar.”
Like many analysts, Solovey says that Russian democratic nationalism must be oriented “above all to the middle class.” As for himself, he has “no doubts that the Russian middle class would begin to invest in nationalism, if the political prohibition on such investment were lifted and if the present ban on any political and social activity were removed.”
According to Solovey, Russia will “willy nilly have to repeat the experience of Eastern and Central European countries where democratic changes took place in nationalist forms and where the national-liberation revolution developed as a democratic one.” And that is true despite Russia’s differences.
The core element of Russian history, the MGIMO scholar continues, “consists of the conflict between the Russian people and the empire,” relations between the two being “dialectical: Russians not without basis considered the empire their child. They created it and put into it their resources and their lives. But in return, the empire exhausted” them.
Russian nationalism, Solovey says, “attempted to make sense of this contradiction, not wanting to separate itself from the empire. But while [they] were seeking a way out of this dead-end, history resolved everything for them. Russia no longer is an empire. And the task of nationalists consists in building in Russia an effective and full-bodied national state.”
Of course, there are still some “imperial” elements, first and foremost the North Caucasus. But Solovey says that that region “hardly in historical time will remain within Russia. Sooner or later, the question about its separation or falling away will become a practical issue. And [Solovey says that he] is certain that this will take place during our lifetime.”
Many Russians even “now think so, but still have not decided to say so aloud. It is perfectly obvious,” Solovey continues, “that we are losing colossal resources on these territories without receiving anything in return.” In fact, “we are taking away resources from Russians and Russia.”
“In the Caucasus nothing is being produced besides hatred and conflicts which are then being exported into Russia proper,” he says. “For a long time, the Caucasus has not been viewed as an inalienable part of Russia.” Ethnic Russians began leaving there in the 1970s, and “Russians no longer consider these places their own.”
The current powers that be in Moscow are not capable of drawing the necessary conclusions and taking the necessary actions. That is because, Solovey says, its leaders are interested not only in the defense of empire but see the North Caucasus as “a remarkable pretext for theft of particularly enormous size,” as the spending on the Sochi Olympics shows.
Solovey says that he “knows people who have fought in the Caucasus in the name of the unity and integrity of Russia and who fought heroically and have numerous medals but who now say: we fought for nothing; it isn’t worth fighting for these territories.” It would be better to let them go and invest the money and effort elsewhere.”
President Dmitry Medvedev’s constant suggestions that a supra-national Russian identity must be developed, Solovey remarks, remind him that “just as someone who is ill talks all the time about health and an alcoholic about vodka, so too those who talk about the need to form an identity are those who have serious problems with exactly that.”
“There is no all-Russian identity,” Solovey says. “The level of civic self-consciousness is extremely low.” Moreover, “society is atomized,” and the powers that be are doing everything they can to ensure that there will not appear even the smallest amount of “civic activity.” Indeed, “people do not feel themselves citizens of a single space.”
Russians “have nothing which unifies [them] except May 9th. [They] have no capable military, no effective economy and no effective social system. All conversations about a non-ethnic Russian identity are empty verbiage.” Ethnicity, however, can provide the basis of identity – and not just for non-Russians.
Solovey says that the Russian Federation must become a federal state, one in which “Russian oblasts and krays must have no fewer rights than the national republics.” Indeed, he suggests, “real federalism will only strengthen Russia” because “people will know that they can really participate in the life of their own region. This will stimulate them.”
Unfortunately, the current powers that be in Moscow “are totally opposed to everything Russian, to everything national. Their main opponent is the Russian people which “needs freedom and democracy,” while the powers need something else. Consequently, as long as they are in office, they intend “to hold on to their positions in Russia to the last – to the last Russian.”
And if that requires them to use force against the Russian people, Solovey concludes, the current rulers will “use it unsparingly … without any limitations,” sowing chaos in what is now the Russian Federation but saving neither their positions nor the system they have set up, at least not for very long.

An independent Cuban blogger has launched the island's first digital magazine VOCES

2010-08-20

An independent Cuban blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo has launched the island's first digital magazine, with a variety of contributions from well-known authors in and out of the country but free of "any type of -isms." "It's a vehicle for the rainbow of opinions in this critical moment that Cuba is going through," he said.

"We want a more rational Cuba, without any type of -isms," the 38-year-old Pardo said by phone from his home in Havana.

The magazine's debut Monday marked yet another expansion of the island's blogosphere, where Cubans are increasingly writing about everything from their frustrations with daily life to dissident activities and praise for the government.

About 200 Cubans, usually journalists working for official media, write blogs that have government approval and about 100 others identify themselves as "independent" bloggers, expressing a range of criticisms of the country's communist system.

Voces' first issue carried 22 articles by authors such as popular Havana bloggers Yoani Sanchez and Claudia Cadelo, Miami essayist Emilio Ichikawa, Havana writers Ena Lucia Portela and Wendy Guerra and Ivan de la Nuez, Antonio Jose Ponte and Juan Abreu, who all live in Spain.

"The group of writers they have are among the best young Cuban voices anywhere," said Ted Henken, a Baruch College professor who follows the island's bloggers and writes his own, El Yuma.

Sanchez's article in Voces, commenting on Fidel Castro's recent public appearances, noted that "the man who was known as No. 1, the maximum leader, The Horse, or by the simple personal pronoun 'He,' now appears shorn of his former charisma to confirn that THAT Fidel Castro — fortunately — will not return."

With 66 pages in PDF format to allow faster downloads, the magazine uses eye-catching graphics and high-resolution photos, all in black and white except for a color cover photo of the vastness of the ocean off Havana.

By Wednesday, Voces had received more than 700 visitors in just one of the several blogs that posted it, and Pardo said copies were circulating in Cuba on CDs, flash drives and the domestic network known as the "intranet."

Though the Cuban government blocks access to dissidents' blogs, people on the island can access the magazine on proxy servers, using the country's many computer clubs and computers at government offices.

Pardo said a friend with a printer also had run off five hard copies of the magazine, with the hope they would be photocopied and passed on to other readers.

A 38-year-old graduate in biochemistry from the University of Havana, Pardo said he left the field 10 years ago and has been working as an independent photographer, writer and blogger.

He also produces the blog, Boring Home Utopics, which describes itself as "the Collective Memories from a Unique Man in the Brave New Zoociety" and Pardo as a "postographer" who "resides and resists in Habanaught."

Pardo said Voces magazine, which he hopes to issue monthly, has no editorial policy and welcomes writers with all kinds of opinions so it can publish "the best of what is circulating out there."

Asked about the possibility that Cuban authorities will try to block him from publishing a second edition, he told El Nuevo Herald that he was optimistic.

"This is a magazine that is nowhere and everywhere," Pardo said. "Now we'll see if this yeast ferments and we can make a delicious bread."

Voces can be viewed at http://vocescubanas.com/boringhomeutopics/

Source

www.caribbeannewsnow.com

Congressmen Urge State Department to Return Vietnam to List of Human Rights Violators

2010-08-20

Members of the a congressional human rights commission want the State Department to reinstate Vietnam as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) after hearing testimony Wednesday on the lack of religious freedom in the Communist-controlled country.

“I fear that when the U.S. granted Vietnam normal trade relations in 2001, we lost crucial leverage that puts pressure on the Vietnamese government to improve a very poor record on human rights,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said at the hearing. “Over the last year, we’ve seen Vietnam’s record on human rights and religious freedom take a turn for the worse.”

Wolf pointed to examples of religious persecution in Vietnam, including in the town of Con Dau, where authorities decided to “demolish all the houses in the parish, along with a 135-year-old cemetery on parish grounds, to make way for a green resort.” In May, police allegedly turned violent against parishioners holding a peaceful funeral procession to protest the demolition.

In his testimony, Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) described what happened during the funeral procession: “Vietnamese officials and riot police disrupted that sad and solemn occasion, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd, beating mourners with batons and electric rods. More than 100 people were injured, dozens were arrested, and several remain in custody and, reportedly, severely beaten and tortured by Vietnamese officials. At least two innocent people, perhaps more, have been murdered by Vietnamese police.”

Smith said the Vietnamese government justifies the violence “because the villagers of Con Dau had previously been ordered, some through coercion, to leave their village.” He added that they were not compensated for the displacement, and he said nothing justifies “government-sanctioned murder and other human rights abuses.”

Insisting that the Con Dau incident was not an isolated event, Rep. Wolfl said that he and some congressional colleagues are calling on the Obama administration to re-designate Vietnam as a country of particular concern. “I understand the State department will designate CPCs in the next few months, and I urge the State Department to add Vietnam back on the list. Considering Vietnam’s record, he said, it would “really be a black mark” on the State Department if Vietnam is not put back on the list.

The State Department reports that the majority of the 86 million people in Vietnam are Buddhist. Among them, many subscribe to what’s known as a “triple religion,” combining Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.

Due largely to the French influence in the country, Catholics make up another 8 to 10 percent of the population. Another 4 to 9 percent consist of those who subscribe to Hoa Hao, Cao Daie, Muslim and Protestant sects. The remaining people do not consider themselves religious.

Because of concerns about the lack of religious freedom, the State Department included Vietnam on the CPC list as recently as 2006. However, in that year, the State Department lifted the CPC designation, citing significant improvements.

According to the 2009 International Religious Freedom report – the latest submitted by the State Department – the Vietnamese government has recognized an increasing number of religious sects in recent years.

In February 2009, representatives from the Vatican met with Vietnamese government officials and issued a joint statement stating that “positive progress has been made in the religious life in Vietnam.”

However, the State Department’s report did point out several continuing problems, such as government restrictions on missionaries. The State Department also acknowledged reports that officials have impeded religious activities based on political activism, discouraged conversion to Protestantism and put a Catholic priest under house arrest.

The State Department points out that Vietnam’s 2004 “Ordinance on Religion and Belief” specifies that “the ‘abuse’ of freedom of belief or religion ‘to undermine the country's peace, independence, and unity’ is illegal.” The law, the State Department said, “also warns that religious activities must be suspended if they negatively affect the cultural traditions of the nation.”

Also testifying Wednesday was Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.), a Vietnamese-American Catholic whose father fought for the South Vietnamese Army during the Vietnam War and was placed in a Communist re-education camp.

Cao insisted that torture in Vietnam continues to this day. “The Vietnamese government has shown no progress on the issue of human rights.” He said that Vietnam does not allow land ownership, but rather land use rights, allowing the government to strip farmers of their homes and farms and turn them over to private developers. “All land disputes with Catholic Church in Vietnam result in violence,” he said.

Rep. Wolf said that in addition to suppressing religious freedom over the last year, “the Vietnamese government has ratcheted up pressure on peaceful human rights and democracy advocates, arresting numerous bloggers, lawyers and political activists.” Wolf also took issue with the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, which “has repeatedly subordinated issues of human rights and religious freedom to trade and commerce.”

The congressional human rights panel also heard testimony from Ted Van Der Meid, commissioner at the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which Congress created in 1998 as part of the International Religious Freedom Act to examine and analyze the state of religious freedom in countries around the world.

“Sadly, we cannot conclude that religious freedom conditions have improved markedly in recent years,” Van Der Meid said in his written testimony. “Vietnam continues to backslide on human rights and there remain too many religious freedom violations, too many individuals detained for independent religious activity or peaceful religious freedom advocacy, too many cases of discrimination and forced renunciations of faith targeting new converts to Protestantism, and too many stories of government approved violence targeting Buddhists and Catholics.”

Van Der Meid said the Con Dau case is similar to a number of violent clashes between the Catholic Church and the Vietnamese government over property rights. “In the last several years, disputes over religious property have led to harassment, property destruction, detention, and violence, sometimes by ‘contract thugs’ hired by the government to break up peaceful prayer vigils,” he said. “In addition, lawyers for those detained at peaceful prayer vigils have been intimidated and briefly detained.”

Both Rep. Smith and Van Der Meid noted that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has met with officials in Hanoi and expressed concern for human rights in Vietnam. They urged her to back up her concerns with action. Smith emphasized that CPC status officially designates a country in which there is “ongoing and pervasive violence of religious liberties and the persecution of believers.” Vietnam, he said, “fits that definition like a glove.”

Smith faulted both the Bush and Obama administrations for failing to link human rights issues with trade issues.

The three congressmen testifying before the panel all reiterated their support for the legislation they introduced in July, H. Res. 1572, which condemns the Vietnamese government for the violence in Con Dau. Rep. Smith sponsored the bill, which has four cosponsors, including Reps. Cao and Wolf.

Also testifying at Wednesday’s hearing were relatives of the alleged victims of violent religious persecution in Vietnam, and T. Kumar, director of International Advocacy at Amnesty International.

Source:

CNSNews.com

Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy Members Request International Solidarity

2010-08-19

Violent crackdown on Cuban youth activists in Baracoa, Cuba by Cuban State Security. A woman 8 months pregnant is strip searched and abused. Brothers Néstor & Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina are 2 of the 5 detained activists. Activists began hunger strike on August 12. Their number will increase on August 23, the 6 month anniversary of Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death. Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a valiant defender of the liberty of the Cuban people, died on February 23, 2010 murdered by the Castro regime which refused to guarantee respect for his basic rights. An Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, Zapata Tamayo engaged in a hunger strike of over 80 days to demand such a guarantee and to protest against terrible mistreatment he suffered in the Communist regime’s prisons,

See http://www.directorio.org/pressreleases/note.php?note_id=2808

‘Parade of Sovereignties’ after 1991 Putsch Marked Real End of USSR, Markedonov says

2010-08-19

by Paul Globe

It has long been customary to view the meeting of the presidents of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus as the date on which the Soviet Union died, but in fact, Sergey Markedonov argues, the three of them did not so much cause its death as, like three doctors at a morgue, recognized the patient was no longer living.
In fact, the leading Moscow commentator argues, the USSR died as a result of “the parade of sovereignties” which the failed putsch sparked at the end of August and the beginning of September 1991, a parade that reflected an underlying defect of the Soviet political system

(www.chaskor.ru/article/parad_perehodyashchij_v_raspad_9712).

Writing on the 19th anniversary of the start of that putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev, Markedonov notes that the coup led ever more of the republics, union and otherwise, to declare themselves “sovereign.” The three Baltic countries recovered de facto independence during the coup, and six union republics declared themselves sovereign within three weeks of that event.
   Indeed, he suggests, “the rapid acquisition of independence of the former union republics … resembled ‘the triumphal march of Soviet power’ in October-November 1917. Equally rapid was the sovereignization [of these republics] at the end of summer and the beginning of fall 1991.
Ukraine adopted a declaration of independence on August 24. Moldova did the same on August 27. Azerbaijan on August 30 adopted a resolution on “the restoration” of the Azerbaijani statehood that the Bolsheviks had suppressed in April 1920. And on August 31, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan followed with their independence declarations.
   Armenia, as Markedonov notes, was a special case. It had earlier voted to meet the Soviet constitutional requirements for leaving the union. On September 21, its people voted overwhelmingly to do so, and two days later, Yerevan adopted its Declaration on State Sovereignty.
   But again, “as had been the case with the triumph of the SR-Bolshevik bloc [at the start of Soviet times], so too the triumph of sovereignization did not become ‘the end of history’” at the end of Soviet times. Instead, autonomous formations like Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdniestria followed suit as did South Ossetia and Abkhazia within Georgia.
As for the Russian Federation, the Chechens declared independence in the fall. Moreover, many other non-Russian republics already had or were soon to declare themselves sovereign, including Tatarstan, Sakha, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, and Tyva. And some ethnic Russian regions did as well.
What this “incontrovertibly” shows, Markedonov says, is that “the Soviet Union already before its official collapse had in fact ceased its existence.” But as one Russian deputy put it at the time, “the parade of sovereignties will lead to a war in which all will suffer, including those who started it.”
It is important to recognize why these declarations were the proximate cause of the demise of the USSR, Markedonov says. And to explain the background of that, he quotes with approval Russian émigré writer Yuri Slezkin’s observation that “the USSR was established by nationalists and destroyed by nationalists.”
The basic components of the Soviet state were not individuals but “socialist nations,” Markedonov continues. And that state “institutionalized ethnic groups as the main subject of policy and government law. Not the rights of any individual but the rights of nations were considered to have priority.”
That conception in turn led to “the formation of ideas about the ethnic property of this or that ethnos for a territory designated as a national republic, an autonomous formation within a national republic, and even for ethnically based districts.” That in turn led to “the formation of ethno-national movements for self-determination.”
Moreover, that inherent flaw in the Soviet system was exacerbated when members of various nationalities found, on the basis of post-World War II censuses that the percentage of titular nationalities in each republic was increasing, while the share of non-titular groups was falling, sometimes very fast.
Markedonov concludes: “In the words of Karl Heinrich Marx, the Soviet elite and the communist party itself became the grave digger of the union state and the party as a system of state administration.” At the time of the putsch, “quantity (errors, crimes, repressions, mutual demands and suspicions) passed into quality.” And the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/

2010-08-18

Weeks after a prominent Tibetan arts dealer was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges his supporters say were trumped up after he crossed powerful local officials, a second Tibetan businessman has been sentenced to life in jail. Dorje Tashi, a property developer and owner of the Yak Hotel in Lhasa, was convicted of funding overseas Tibetan groups, including the office of the Dalai Lama, according to Urgen Tenzin, executive director of the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, an India-based NGO. Dorje Tashi had been arrested in the spring of 2008 following deadly unrest in the Tibetan capital and was sentenced in June, although details of his case have still not been officially released.

As one of China's richest Tibetans, Dorje Tashi was an unusual target. In the past efforts by Chinese authorities to root out dissent in Tibet has focused on groups whose political loyalties were considered suspect, like monks and people who had recently made pilgrimages to India, where the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, lives in exile. Tashi ran a business conglomerate involved in hotels, tourism and real estate, and was responsible for the employment of hundreds. He was noted in the state-run press for contributing to various charitable causes, and his financial success was a symbol of the type of prosperity and modernity China wanted to promote in the restive Himalayan region. (Watch TIME's 10 questions video with the Dalai Lama.)

His case has strong parallels to that of Karma Samdrup, a 42-year-old arts dealer who had also been touted in China for founding the Three Rivers Environmental Protection group. He was convicted in June of buying $10,000 worth of antiquities looted from an archaeological site in the northwest region of Xinjiang, charges that had been dropped in 1998 after Samdrup showed he was allowed to trade in relics, and denied knowledge of any crime in acquiring the objects. Samdrup's supporters allege the old charges were reinstated to punish him for attempting to help his brothers, Jigme Namgyal and Rinchen Samdrup, who were arrested after accusing local police of poaching. Rinchen Smadrup was sentenced to five years for "inciting separatism," the International Campaign for Tibet reported, while Jigme Namgyal is serving a 21-month term in a labor camp.

The arrests and heavy prison sentences of these men indicates that two years after the deadly unrest in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas, Chinese officials' suspicion of Tibetans has spread to other levels of society, including to people generally thought to be closely aligned with the Chinese state. But while China's efforts to encourage development in Tibet has helped build a class of successful Tibetan businesspeople, that prosperity hasn't built unswerving loyalty to Beijing. "It does suggest that how ever much money you pour into Tibet, you can change the physical landscape and the actual social landscape, but it doesn't change the cultural topography," says Robbie Barnett, director of Columbia University's modern Tibetan studies program. "The fact is they can create people who say this system benefits us financially, but it may not change their sense of cultural values." (See photos of a new side of Tibetan culture.)

The convictions come as a prominent Tibetan writer is facing trial for writing a book that questions China's policies towards Tibet. Tragyal, who goes by a single name and writes under the pen name Shogdung, was a scholar and editor in the western province of Qinghai who had previously advocated the government line and criticized Tibetans' religious bent. But in the now-banned book "The Separation Between Sky and Land," which was published this spring in Tibetan in China, he wrote that the March 2008 protests moved him to speak out, even though he fears for his safety. While not calling for independence, he asked for a review of the government's Tibet policy. His trial on charges of encouraging separatism has been delayed, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, an overseas activist group. But it seems unlikely he will avoid punishment. "I may lose my head because of my mouth," Tragyal writes in "The Separation Between Sky and Land." "But this is the path I have chosen, so the responsibility is mine."

Source

www.time.com

Vietnamese leader calls on police to stop political parties forming

2010-08-18

Hanoi - Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has called on police to ensure no alternative political parties are formed that might threaten the control of the communist government, state media reported Wednesday.

In a speech Tuesday at a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the public security forces, he told police to fight the "cunning plots of hostile forces," the police newspaper Cong An Nhan Dan reported.

"The police are determined not to allow political opposition parties to be established to oppose our government," Dung said.

The official Vietnam News said Dung congratulated police for having "ceaselessly strengthened their solid political spirit and loyalty to the party, state and the people."

On August 13, Ho Chi Minh City police arrested Pham Minh Hoang, 55, a maths professor, on charges of belonging to the banned foreign-based political group Viet Tan.

The government often steps up arrests of political activists in the period preceding the Communist Party congress, which takes place once every five years. The next one is slated for the first half of 2011.

Source:

www.vietnamhumanrights.net

Middle-aged Falun Gong Practitioner Dies in Tianjin Prison Camp

2010-08-17

A middle-aged Falun Gong practitioner, who had been severely tortured in custody, died last month in a prison camp in Tianjin, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. The death of Mr. Zhu Wenhua (朱文华), age 53, brings to 50 the number of Falun Gong practitioners known to have died in Tianjin since 1999 due to persecution. The confirmed death toll of Falun Gong practitioners nationwide is 3,406, but overseas human rights experts say the real death toll is likely many times that figure.

Zhu, a former employee of Tianjin’s International Heat and Ventilation Equipment Company, was abducted by police in 2003. In March 2004, Zhu was “sentenced” to eight years in a prison camp following a sham trial at Nankai District Court.

Zhu was taken to Tianjin Municipal Prison (天津监狱), where he has been held since and tortured. His family was notified that on July 19, 2010 Zhu died in custody.

"Zhu's tragic death is another reminder that behind the facade of progress and modernity, a China run by the Communist Party remains a barbaric and lawless place for Falun Gong practitioners," says Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Erping Zhang.

According to sources inside China, while in custody at the camp, Zhu was severely tortured because he refused to renounce his faith in Falun Gong. During one torture session, guards beat him so badly that one of his legs was broken, leaving him disabled.

Throughout Zhu’s time at the camp, his family was denied the opportunity to visit him. On one occasion, his nearly 90-year-old mother appeared at the camp in person requesting to see her son, but prison personnel refused to allow her access to him.

In late July, the prison administration notified Zhu’s family that he had died on July 19, 2010, allegedly of a heart attack -- a common cause cited by prison camp authorities when prisoners actually die from torture-related injuries. His family doubts the official version of events, and believes that he was tortured to death.

Stricken by grief at the news of Zhu’s sudden death, his elderly mother passed away within two weeks of her son.

Source

www.faluninfo.net

U.S. Department of Justice Decree an Important Step in Ending Chinese Communist Party Persecution of Falun Gong Overseas

2010-08-16

The decision represents an important precedent in resisting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) efforts to extend the persecution of Falun Gong beyond China’s borders, the Falun Dafa Information Center said Monday.

On three separate occasions during May 2008, employees of the Lucky Joy restaurant in Flushing ejected ten patrons, both Chinese and Caucasians, including an eight-year-old girl, because members of their parties wore shirts displaying the tenets of Falun Gong or other wording expressing support for the persecuted group.

Following an investigation conducted jointly by the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York that found such actions to be discriminatory, the restaurant’s owners admitted wrongdoing. They have also resolved to take various measures—including a mandatory training for all employees and development of internal policies and monitoring mechanisms—to prevent a recurrence of such an incident in the future.

more http://www.faluninfo.net/article/1069/?cid=84

Conference on History, Memory and Politics in Eastern and Central Europe

2010-08-16

The conference will examine current issues and their link with historical perspectives in Eastern/Central Europe and Russia through panels composed of international academics, journalists, historians and activists.

"The subject of this conference is extremely topical. The conference offers Canadians the rare opportunity to directly engage with some of the extraordinary individuals who are active in affecting issues and examining historical perspectives in the region," says
conference organizer and award winning documentary filmmaker, Marcus Kolga.

In addition to Mr. Nemtsov, the conference will feature presentations by Ukraine expert and analyst Taras Kuzio; Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Chairman, Dr. Lee Edwards; renowned Finnish-Estonian commentator and analyst, Dr. Iiviâ Anna Masso; Russia's RTVi Washington bureau chief Vladimir Kara Murza; award winning Finnish-Estonian historian and filmmaker, Imbi Paju; among others.

The conference begins at 9:30 a.m. on August 23rd at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre. The event is being kindly sponsored by the UofT's Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies as well as the National Estonian Foundation, The Central and Eastern European Council of Canada, The Black Ribbon Day Foundation and Up North Magazine.

The conference coincides with Black Ribbon Day, the first annual Canadian day of remembrance for the victims of European communism and Nazism, which was adopted by the Parliament of Canada by a motion introduced by MP Bob Rae and MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj in November 2009.

http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/history_communism.php

Russian History Rewritten, Again

2010-08-13

by Vladimir Kara-Murza

Russia is famously a country with an unpredictable past. With a brief exception of the 1990s, regimes of the day freely rewrote the historical narrative for their own expediency. A famous Soviet-era joke advised that the latest edition of the encyclopedia had a regrettable misprint: instead of “distinguished statesman, hero of socialist labor” the paragraph should read “enemy of the people, convicted foreign spy.”

Under ex-KGB apparatchiks who seized control of the Russian government a decade ago, the discussion of Soviet crimes became unfashionable. The new leaders declared the USSR’s dissolution “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” reinstated the Stalinist national anthem, approved a school textbook referring to Stalin’s mass purges as “adequate to the task of modernization” and suggested decorating Moscow with posters of Stalin for the 65th anniversary of victory in World War II.

The latest attempt at rewriting history came with a new textbook, History of Russia 1917–2009, coauthored by Moscow University professors Alexander Barsenkov and Alexander Vdovin. The Educational Methodical Association, which is comprised of faculty deans from across the country, has officially recommended the book for use in universities. Intended to rear a new generation of Russian history teachers, the book refers to the 1917 Bolshevik coup as “the great revolution” (p. 11) and calls Stalin a “great hero” in terms of nation-building (13). His policy of forced collectivization that condemned millions of peasants and their families to the Gulag is justified as necessary for the future victory over Nazism (283). So, indeed, is the Great Terror: the textbook quotes (without challenging) Molotov’s assertion that “we owe it to 1937 that we had no fifth column during the [second world] war” (253). According to Professors Barsenkov and Vdovin, “the gigantic diversity of opinions” about Stalin prevents a definitive conclusion about his role in history, although “attempts to judge his role merely negatively,” according to them, “are not succeeding” (391).

The authors appear to be preoccupied with the “Jewish question.” Several passages in the textbook, according to Russian historian and sociologist Anatoly Golubovsky, merit investigation under the racial incitement provisions of the Russian criminal code. The authors lament the “evident disproportion” of Jews in cultural and scientific professions (299) and meticulously count percentages of Jewish members of the Academy of Sciences, the Writers’ Union, and the universities (424). The deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 is explained by a secret plan to establish a Jewish republic on the peninsula (349), while NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria is said to have “allegedly” had “Jewish origins” (388).

Turning to more recent events, the authors assert that Soviet tanks sent to disperse pro-independence demonstrators in Tbilisi, Baku, and Vilnius in 1989–91 were fighting “extremists” (649); the three young Muscovites crushed to death by armored vehicles during the KGB-led coup attempt in August 1991 are referred to as “peaceful” citizens and “defenders” of the Moscow White House (seat of the pro-democracy forces). Both “peaceful” and “defenders” are placed in quotation marks (649), and while it is not immediately obvious what the quotation marks are supposed to mean (the young men were not armed, and they did defend the White House), they are clearly intended as an insult.

In the best-case scenario, university officials who approved this book have simply not read it, relying on the authors’ academic credentials. In the worst case, this is a deliberate attempt to poison the minds of yet another generation of Russian students with a neo-Soviet interpretation of history.

Moscow had to abandon its plan to decorate the city with Stalin posters after it hit a wall of determined public opposition. The Russian academic community has already begun organizing against the offensive textbook. The latest attempt at rewriting history may yet be defeated.

Source

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/

Without democracy, no reform

2010-08-13

In maintaining Cuba on the official list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for another year, the Obama administration last week said Havana provides safe haven to terrorists belonging to three outlaw organizations. Additionally, Cuba, according to the United States, “permit[s] U.S. fugitives to live legally in Cuba. These U.S. fugitives include convicted murderers as well as numerous hijackers.”

The statements could not come at a worse time for those who want to lift Washington’s ban on American tourism to the island, apparently including Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Ortega traveled to Washington recently to speak with Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser. The National Security Council released a statement from General Jones, but kept mum about what the cardinal requested.

The Washington Post, however, reported that Cardinal Ortega “subscribe[s] to the rosier view” of those who believe that despite Fidel Castro’s opposition, “Raúl [Castro] is determined to press forward with a program of change that will extend for years, rather than months.” Ortega said it is “not realistic to begin” with the “democratic reforms” that Obama has demanded as a condition for improved relations. Yet, without democracy and the civil and economic rights that accompany it, all other reforms will fail and can only serve to extend the hold of the Castro dictatorship.

Ortega’s visit undergirds efforts by some in Congress to allow tourism and extend bank credits rather than insist on cash payments to U.S. exporters. The administration’s newest terrorism report spoils those plans: “Cuba continued to provide physical safe haven and ideological support to members of three groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States” — FARC, ELN and ETA. The first two groups operate in Colombia. ETA is responsible for many murders in Spain.

The latest assessment comes despite Cuba’s protests and efforts by sympathizers to have its name removed from the terrorist list. Cuba has been on the list under five presidents, Republican and Democrat, since 1982. The closest Havana got to being removed was in the 1990s, when Ana Belen Montes, then the highest Defense Intelligence Agency official responsible for assessing Cuba’s threat, almost convinced some well-meaning colleagues of Cuba’s innocence. She was arrested in 2001 and a year later was sentenced to 25 years after pleading guilty to spying for Havana.

About the cardinal’s visit, the NSC quotes General Jones saying: “The United States government desires to see all political prisoners unconditionally released from jail in Cuba with the right to remain in Cuba upon release.” Jones also called “for the immediate release of [USAID contractor] Alan Gross, who has been held without charge since early December 2009” in Havana, for allegedly giving laptops and cell phones to Cuban dissidents.

But if the NSC was reticent about quoting the cardinal, The Washington Post was not, concluding that Ortega has a benign view. The Cuban prelate brought the message that Raúl Castro “is ready to talk with the United States” because Castro wants “U.S. trade and investment” in order to “revive” Cuba’s economy.

Yet many Cubans believe that a dialogue between Raúl Castro and the cardinal, or even with Washington, is not enough. The road to Cuba’s “revival” should start with the release of all political prisoners, as President Obama has asked. The cardinal should take a message back: Forget about U.S. foreign investment and tourism saving the Castro regime; free the Cubans’ economic capacity, which is much more than allowing them to own single-chair barbershops or to manufacture paper flowers at home. Cubans, not foreigners, can jump-start the island’s manufacturing, trade and agricultural production, but only under the sole proven economic system: free enterprise.

As a first step, Raúl could reduce the taxes on remittances, as President Obama has asked, and permit those funds sent by exiles to finance significant economic activity. That would be real change, ameliorating the current economic crisis and providing employment for many un- and underemployed Cubans while liberating them from their dependence on the state.

That might not be what Raúl Castro wants, but most Cubans, Catholics and non-Catholics would welcome it.

Otto Reich - former assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Venezuela.

Frank Calzón -executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in Arlington, Va.

Source: www.miamiherlad.com

Cuba to free 6 more dissidents

2010-08-13

So far, 20 prisoners have been freed and flown to Spain as part of a deal brokered by Spain and the church last month. Another jailed dissident was taken to Miami, Florida.

"This will bring to 26 the number of prisoners who have accepted the proposal to leave prison and move to Spain," the archbishop of Havana's office said in a written statement.

Cuba agreed to free 52 political prisoners by mid-November. They were arrested during a crackdown on opposition in 2003.

Cuba says the prisoners were on the payroll of an enemy government, charged with trying to destabilize the country.

The Catholic Church provided a list of the six men to be freed, but did not specify a release date.

source:

www.cnn.com

'Statue Of Limitations: A Russian-Georgian War Over Stalin'

2010-08-12

by James Kirchick

During the brief war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, one of the earliest targets was Gori, a nondescript industrial town near the border of South Ossetia, one of the two separatist provinces over which the conflict was fought. Russian jets bombed the city, hitting apartment buildings and a school. A missile thudded onto the grounds of the city’s hospital; cluster bombs exploded in the square. According to the Georgian government, at least 60 people died.

It was curious, therefore, that two local landmarks escaped the bombardment entirely. Gori’s singular claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of one Iosef Dzhugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin. During the height of the Russian attack, both J. Stalin’s State Museum and a 20-foot-high bronze statue of the Soviet leader, which gazed impassively over Gori’s central square, were left unscathed. To the town’s residents, this was evidence of Russia’s abiding reverence for the former Soviet dictator.

Although the war ended more than two years ago, resentments between Russia and Georgia still run high. And, while Georgia lacks the military strength to regain its lost territories, it has other means of pushing back against its powerful northern neighbor, many of them related to Stalin.

In May, I visited the Stalin museum on a trip sponsored by the Georgian government. The museum’s website describes Stalin as an “outstanding person.” Inside the colonnaded marble building, which was built in 1957, is a shrine to one of the twentieth century’s most prolific murderers. Mawkishly heroic portraits in the socialist realist style line the high walls. One shows Stalin standing with an arm placed awkwardly around the shoulder of his smiling daughter, Svetlana, who defected to the United States in 1967—a fact the museum neglects to note. The sparse, tiny cottage where Stalin grew up has been relocated to the grounds, as has the green, armor-plated personal train carriage, in which Stalin, who had a fear of flying, rode to the Potsdam, Tehran, and Yalta conferences. An eerie, darkly lit chamber contains his death mask, while the lobby gift shop offers an array of kitschy Stalinalia: paperweights, mugs, and ash trays. My tour guide, a young woman with jet-black hair, led me unenthusiastically from one painting to the next, reciting rote phrases about the great leader’s accomplishments. There is no reference in the entire museum to the more than 20 million people who died under Stalin’s rule, and so I asked her about the Great Purge of 1937-1938, when hundreds of thousands of peasants, officials, intellectuals, artists, and other “counterrevolutionaries” were executed or dispatched to the gulags. “There were a lot of people killed and shot,” she ventured.

The museum, however, is about to get a radical makeover. According to Culture Minister Nikoloz Rurua, whose department pays for its upkeep, the renovated version will no longer glorify Stalin but will instead be “a museum about a museum.” He explained, “We are preserving the propaganda part of the original museum, but we are bringing in some of the real information about Stalinism and the Bolshevik regime.”

During his lifetime, Stalin was never really clear as to how he felt about the country of his birth. In public, he styled himself as a Russian leader, dismissing Georgia as “that small area of Russia.” Yet, in private, he “talked Georgian, ate Georgian, sang Georgian, [and] personally ruled Georgia through the local bosses,” writes Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of two acclaimed biographies about the Soviet leader, in Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. His homeland did not benefit from his interest. As a young Bolshevik leader in Moscow, Stalin engineered the Red Army’s 1921 invasion of Georgia, which led to a brutal 70-year occupation. “[The Bolsheviks] exterminated the crème de la crème of this country,” says Alexander Rondeli, head of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. According to Montefiore, Georgia suffered more from the purges on a per capita basis than any other Soviet republic.

Yet, by the time Stalin died in 1953, he had become an improbable emblem of Georgian pride. For all his crimes, he was by far the most important person to emerge from this tiny country in the Caucasus mountain range. In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev gave his “secret speech” denouncing Stalin’s “cult of personality” and launching the era of de-Stalinization. Georgians took it personally. Two weeks later, thousands gathered in Tbilisi to commemorate the third anniversary of Stalin’s death. Soviet troops fired on the demonstrators, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. Ronald Suny, a historian of the Caucasus at the University of Michigan, has written that the demonstrations were “the first open expression of Georgian nationalism in forty years.” Georgians had grown to revere Stalin as the man who had defeated fascism in World War II. For years, residents of Gori gathered at the museum to commemorate his birth and death.

More recently, however, as Georgia has sought to place Stalin in his proper historical context, Russia has been busy rehabilitating him. In a quasi-reversal of Khrushchev’s secret speech, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, during a national TV appearance in December, that it is “impossible to make a judgment in general” about Stalin. As president, Putin called the downfall of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century and pushed for Russian school textbooks to portray Stalin in a more positive light. (A manual issued to teachers states that Stalin behaved “entirely rationally ... as a consistent supporter of reshaping the country into an industrialized state.”) At one of Putin’s first meetings with Georgia’s pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was elected in 2004 following the Rose Revolution that forced former Soviet bureaucrat Eduard Shevardnadze from power, the Russian leader reportedly said, “Thanks for giving us Stalin.”

The Kremlin’s readoption of Stalin has only given Georgia’s Westward-looking leaders even greater incentive to reject him. “In the new Georgia, Stalin is no longer Georgian,” Montefiore says. “He’s a Russian emperor.” In 2006, Saakashvili opened the Museum of Soviet Occupation across the street from the parliament in Tbilisi. Putin was said to have been so incensed that he complained about it to Saakashvili in a face-to-face meeting. Acknowledging that Stalin and his ruthless secret police chief Lavrenti Beria were of Georgian stock, Saakashvili reportedly replied that Putin could build a museum of Georgian oppression in Moscow and that he would donate the funds for it.

Late one night in June, a group of workers began to wrap cables around the Stalin statue in Gori. A police cordon encircled the monument, in order to keep away anyone who might object to what was about to happen. Soon enough, a small crowd gathered and watched as the workers hoisted the statue from its pedestal with a crane, laid it onto a flatbed truck, and drove away. Two days later, government authorities pulled off a similar nocturnal sacking of another Stalin monument, this time in the western town of Tkibuli.

This wasn’t, to be sure, quite as dramatic as the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. The Georgian government had acted under the cover of darkness for fear of reprisal, perhaps either from Gori’s older residents or from locals who make money from the steady trickle of tourists curious about the dictator’s hometown. But no backlash came. David Bakradze, the chairman of the Georgian parliament and a close Saakashvili ally, says that the removal of the statue was a small act but, nonetheless, an important expression of Georgian principles. “If one thinks of the modern values of Georgia and where Georgia will be tomorrow, Stalin’s statue will not be a part of Georgia’s future.”

The spot in the town square where Stalin stood for 58 years will not be left vacant. In its place will stand, according to Rurua, the culture minister, a new monument “to the victims of this person [Stalin], of the totalitarian regime, and of the August war.” As for the statue itself, the government did not destroy it. It will be moved to the courtyard of the revamped museum, to join Stalin’s train car and childhood cottage, historical artifacts at last.

James Kirchick is a writer at large for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a contributing editor at The New Republic.

Trial delayed for Tibetan writer imprisoned for critique of Chinese policies, expression of Tibetan identity

2010-08-12

Tibetan writer and editor Tragyal, best known by his pen name, Shogdung (meaning "Morning Conch") is facing trial on the charge of inciting splittism after writing a book critical of Chinese policies in Tibet. According to new reports, the authorities may be delaying Tragyal's prosecution, although it is not clear whether this means the authorities are seeking evidence for further charges against him, or querying the basis for the prosecution.

Tragyal was detained on April 23, 2010 from his home in Xining following the publication of his now-banned book, 'The Line between Sky and Earth.' The book is a strong indictment of Chinese policies in Tibet and a discussion of events since March, 2008, in which he describes Tibet becoming "a place of terror" and gives a detailed analysis of the 2008 spring protests as a re-awakening of Tibetan national consciousness and solidarity. Tragyal's arrest is one of the most significant in the context of a broadening crackdown on Tibetan writers, artists and educators since protests against the Chinese state began in March, 2008.

According to ICT sources, Tragyal has been described as achieving the status of a "hero" among Tibetans and his book is selling widely underground. Tragyal is being detained in Xining No. 1 Detention Center according to various sources but is family have not been allowed to see him yet, not even to take food. Tragyal suffers from various chronic ailments, such as kidney stones and stomach problems, but the delivery of his medication to him has not been permitted. The family's popular bookshop, 1+1 in Xining was closed on April 15 and copies of Tragyal's book seized.

In a report yesterday, Tragyal's daughter Yeshi Tsomo said that the trial appeared to be delayed, and was quoted by Radio Free Asia as saying: "The police told us that his case is quite special because it has to do with different ethnicities." (Radio Free Asia, August 11).

A Western scholar who has read the book in Tibetan and who asked not to be named described it as the most daring and wide-ranging critique of China's policies in Tibet since the 10th Panchen Lama's famous '70,000-character petition' addressed to Mao Zedong in 1962. Shogdung openly reflects in his book on the risk he is taking by writing it: "I have written of four fears, the fear of contemplating the cruelty of the régime, fear of the danger of government and individuals falling into extreme nationalism, fear for one's own life and wellbeing, and fear for the future, and at this point, I have one more fear. I am naturally terrified at the thought that once this essay has been made public, I will eventually have to endure the hot hells and cold hells on earth. I may 'lose my head because of my mouth,' but this is the path I have chosen, so the responsibility is mine."

Tragyal's detention is particularly significant because he is a well-established editor and an 'official intellectual' whose views have been seen by many Tibetans as close to the Party and the Chinese state. This was since he wrote an article in 1999 denouncing Buddhism and Tibetan people's profound religiosity as an impediment to development.

In a letter written in Chinese to his employer clarifying why he wrote his new book and dated April 15, Tragyal explains: "This book represents the view of an intellectual about the 'March 14, 2008' events. The first part mainly contains my feelings regarding the tragedy of March 14. After the tragedy occurred, the life of the people and their goods have suffered great damage, and I have expressed my sadness at that. Nationality matters are very serious ones. If they cannot be solved in a proper way, then violence and violent incidents may arise. From the bottom of my heart, I am very preoccupied by this and very frightened too.

"I believe that the problem of the Tibetan nationality is complicated and urgent. If it is not solved in accordance with the people's thoughts, things difficult to fathom may occur. This is why, based on Article 35 of the [Chinese] Constitution that states that the society enjoys the right of free speech and of publishing, I put this right into practice and I expressed my ideas. My hope is that the Tibet issue can be resolved in the best way, by the core principles of kind heart, tolerance, freedom, equality, human rights and human values."

In 'The Line between Sky and Earth' (Tibetan: gnam sa go 'byed), Tragyal apologizes for his previous writings and for his failure to speak out in the months following the protests that swept across Tibet from March, 2008, saying, "When at leisure to do so, I have stated that 'Freedom is a hundred and a thousand times more valuable than my own life, and I will fight for it,' with as much bravado as you please, yet this year, when Tibetans were staging a peaceful revolution for the sake of freedom, I shrivelled up, saying and doing nothing, and acting unconcerned. This was not out of stupidity, perversity or cunning, neither was it an outward display of integrity or discretion. It was because, one, I was quite unprepared, two, I was scared for myself, three, I was worried about what I stood to lose: ultimately, I was in fear for my own personal wellbeing."

Tragyal is one of a group of intellectuals who have contributed to the translation and publication, into Tibetan, of such works of Western literature as Rousseau's "The Confessions," Montaigne's "Essays," and other writings. He and other Tibetan intellectuals in the area particularly relate to the works of Czech writers Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera, whose works were banned by the Communist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism ) regimes of Czechoslovakia until the downfall of the regime in the Velvet Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution ) in 1989.

The Western scholar who has read the book in Tibetan explained why Tragyal's book is so important: "It draws from some historical written sources that have appeared recently, to expose the deafening silence of contemporary China's historiography and ignorance of the sufferings experienced by scores of Tibetans during the decade that followed the entry of the Chinese People's Liberation Army on Tibetan territory, in the 1950s. It summarises the deep frustration felt by most Tibetans at their feeling of powerlessness in a theoretically multi-national state, which in reality plays scant attention and shows little respect for cultural values of its 'minorities.'"

Tragyal's daughter, Yeshi Tsomo, 25, was quoted by the New York Times today as saying: "I've read the book again and again, but I don't see anything that breaks the law. I fear the government won't care because they probably don't like the idea behind the book." (New York Times, August 11, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/world/asia/12tibet.html?_r=2 .

The book, which is based on a thorough knowledge of the Western world's intellectual history, ends with an explanation of the concept of 'civil disobedience' and its rightful applicability to Tibetans in China today. Tragyal also makes a passionate appeal for peace and for Tibetans to follow a path of non-violence. He gives a vivid account of his fears for the future, including of the outcome of extreme Chinese nationalism, as well as a more personal and existential terror of his own imprisonment, writing: "It scares me to think how my basically unwell body would cope just with deprivation of food and sleep, never mind the sufferings of the hottest and coldest hells. At that time, when your life depends on what story you can tell, there is a good chance that you might disgrace yourself, weep and wail, and while pleading for leniency and forgiveness, mention a few names. It is terrifying to think that there is no certainty that one's determination never to become a lackey of the régime would not be shaken from the foundations. So it is that just thinking about a single aspect of the dictators' torture methods brings terrible and unending fear. Whether this is because of my cowardice, or thinking I know all about what I have never experienced is uncertain, but fear is fear, and there may not even be an explanation for it."

In his book, Tragyal pays tribute to the heroism of Tibetans from all walks of life since March, 2008, writing: "Last year's large-scale revolution was something I had never even dreamed of and that came without warning. [...] When the Tibetan people came out of nowhere on an active quest for freedom, rights and democracy, it left me astounded. We are always going on about awareness, about courage, but for it to manifest visibly and tangibly in a short time was unimaginable."

Tragyal is the most high-profile of some 31 writers, bloggers, intellectuals and others now in prison after reporting or expressing views, writing poetry or prose, or simply sharing information about Chinese government policies and their impact in Tibet today.

Federal Land Chosen for Memorial to Victims of Communism

2010-08-12

The land has been allocated to Tribute to Liberty for the Memorial to Victims of Totalitarian Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge by the National Capital Commission (NCC). Design for the memorial will be chosen through a national design competition planned for 2011.

Alide Forstmanis, Tribute to Liberty board chair says she is happy with the result of the site selection process. “The central location and the beauty of the site are fitting for this memorial. We are pleased with the land the NCC has found for us.”

Mrs. Forstmanis says the memorial will “commemorate the losses and hardships of all those who suffered under Communism, and will pay tribute to Canada which was and is a land of refuge for those who seek liberty.”

Tribute to Liberty is a registered charity and can issue tax receipts for donations to the Memorial to Victims of Totalitarian Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge. Tribute to Liberty’s grassroots fundraising campaign, the Pathway to Liberty, allows donors to tell a story of a victim of Communism or make a dedication with their donation. The campaign is online at www.tributetoliberty.ca.

Amnesty International Calls for Urgent Action for the mother of murdered Cuban prisoner of conscience

2010-08-11

Reina Luisa Tamayo is the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience who died on 22 February 2010, having spent several weeks on hunger strike whilst in prison. Since her son's death, Reina Luisa Tamayo has organized weekly marches on Sundays in the town of Barnes, Holguin Province, Cuba, to honour her son's memory.

Relatives and friends accompany Reina Luisa Tamayo on these weekly marches from her home to attend mass at the Nuestra Señora de la Caridad Church, in Barnes and from there to the cemetery where Orlando Zapata Tamayo is buried. Last Sunday, 8August, the group reported that as soon as they tried to leave Reina Luisa Tamayo's house to start their march, they were confronted a few metres away from the house by hundreds of government supporters who blocked their way and beat some of the participants. They were pushed back to the house and followed into the house's garden. The participants tried twice more to leave the house and resume the march but they were again violently confronted by the government supporters, who stayed outside the house until late in the afternoon. According to Reina Luisa Tamayo, during all this time a police patrol was close to her house watching as the events unfolded and failing to intervene.

The group have reported how prior to 8 August, they have also been confronted by government supporters and state security officials who have gathered around Reina Luisa Tamayo's house and prevented them from marching, sometimes preventing them from reaching the church, the cemetery, or both. They have also reported how state security officials and police officers have set up check points on the routes to Reina Luisa Tamayo's house on the day prior to the march to prevent people from reaching the house and joining the march.

source : www.directorio.org

Wave of Arrests against Cuba's Internal Resistance Confirm Raul Castro's Will to Repress

2010-08-10

A crackdown launched on Sunday, August 1, 2010 against the civic resistance movement in Eastern Cuba is continuing with new arrests, beatings, and threats against human rights defenders in Havana. The attacks began on August 1 in the city of Banes against the family and friends of murdered opposition activist Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Spanish daily ABC published an interview with indepenent journalist Caridad Caballero Batista in which she stated that “repression has intensified against opposition activists, especially in the country's eastern region. They do not attempt to hide it. Representatives from the Catholic Church and western journalists have to come to see what is happening here.”

Arbitrary arrests were documented in the cities of Banes, Holguín, Antilla, Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas, Bayamo, Baracoa and Guantánamo.

Activists from several Havana-based organizations sounded the alarm over the disappearance of human rights defenders beginning early in the morning of August 5^th. According to Sarah Martha Fonseca Quevedo, leader of the Pro-Human Rights Party affiliated to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, some 16 activistas were being held at National Revolutionary Police stations.

This repression has been unleashed while Raul Castro addressed the National Assembly of People's Power, stating that “There will be no impunity for enemies of the fatherland” and that “the defense of our sacred conquests, of our streets and squares, will continue to be the first duty of revolutionaries.” This same message was sent by SMS text message to the mobile telephones of several leaders of the internal resistance movement in Eastern Cuba as a veiled threat by the regime's repressive apparatus.

http://www.directorio.org/pressreleases/note.php?note_id=2799

Promotion of Mao's Grandson a Definite Political Gesture

2010-08-10

Mao Xinyu was officially promoted to major general of the People’s Liberation Army on July 20, thus becoming China's youngest major general.The promotion has been regarded as a compromise among factions, whereby Mao is used as a sort of decoration to placate traditional communist political forces.

“I sense that Hu Jintao's regime is assigning the young Mao the role of a crown prince; also, promoting him to this role will demonstrate Hu's loyalty to Mao Zedong's relatives and his loyalty to Mao Zedong's political thought,” said Yang Meizhong, a China expert at the Japan-based Mitsubishi Research Institute.

Whether Mao Xinyu’s promotion was related to the still privileged status of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong—whose policies lead to the deaths and persecution of tens of millions—was a question of contention to some as it smacked of state-sponsored nepotism.

Pattern of Harsh Prison Sentences Emerging in China

2010-08-10

The Chinese regime has been notorious for using detention to stifle dissent and advance the state’s agenda. Over the last two years, these abuses have worsened, with more detentions and longer sentences being meted out.The recent increase in detentions has seen an increase in the state’s use of the charge “endangering state security” (ESS).The most recent official statistics suggest that as many as 1,500 Chinese were convicted on state security charges in 2009—more than three and a half times the number convicted for ESS in 2004. More arrests and indictments for ESS were carried out in 2008 and 2009 than in the 5-year period from 2003 to 2007.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40704&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1

Karaganov calls on Russians to repent for ‘Russian Katyn’ – the victims of Stalin

2010-07-28

Russians have manifested “nobility and sympathy” to Poland over the Katyn massacres, but “so far, they have not found in themselves the strength to recognize that all Russia is one large Katyn” filled with “the nameless graves of millions of victims of the regime” that ruled over the Soviet Union for most of the last century, says a Russian prominent analyst Sergei Karaganov.

Moreover, Sergey Karaganov argued in an essay in “Rossiiskaya gazeta” last week, their failure to do so not only has contributed to mutual distrust between the people and the powers that be and to the moral decay of Russian society but also threatens the ability of Russians to move forward toward a better future (www.rg.ru/2010/07/22/istoriya.html).

Russia’s problems today have deep roots, all of which deserve to be discussed in full, the Moscow commentator said. But among these roots, he argued, one of the most important and the one he focused on in this essay is “the inheritance of Soviet socialism” – that is, “Stalinism” and its consequences.

“Over the past year,’ Karaganov noted, “both the president and prime minister have condemned Stalinism. And all the same, we have not been able to make the decision to reject his inheritance, to repent for the outrages committed by us and our ancestors over ourselves and our own people.”

Some say that this cannot be done lest it offend the veterans, he continued, but that is “a cowardly and intellectually unworthy argument.” To accept it fully would mean that Russians could never honestly examine their own history because there would always be some group of “veterans” who might be offended.

And others say that Stalinism cannot be denounced fully because it would give support to “foreign Russophobic attitudes.” But those attitudes, Karaganov acknowledged, are “objective” and will “exist” regardless of what Russians do. Moreover, they are as strong as they are because “we ourselves are not able to escape from the worst in our history.”

“Without bowing before the victims of Stalinism and without recognizing the guild of their own country before them,” Karaganov went on, “we will remain inheritors only of another part of our people – their executions, guards, and snitches, of those who voluntarily de-kulakized the country and destroyed the churches,” and who then “often became victims as well.”

Historians dispute just how many victims the Soviet regime had – “many millions or even tens of millions,” Karaganov said, “but one thing is beyond debate: The Soviet Stalinist regime destroyed in a large part the best, the most outstanding, the most committed to work, and the freest.”

Everyone in Russian now regularly recalls that “the majority of Russian families and families of other countries which were formed as a result of the disintegration of the USSR lost relatives in the years of the Great Fatherland War. But no smaller number of families lost relatives during the Civil War, Collectivization,” and other Soviet crimes.

To regain their self-respect, Karaganov says, and to “overcome the inheritance of the accursed 20th century,” Russians must not only “rehabilitate the victims of the regime but recognize our guilt before them – and provide them at the very least with the same rights as those who worked in the rear and perhaps even the veterans of the war.”

These people “did not fight because they couldn’t: they were sitting in camps, digging coal and iron, cutting forests, and building roads.” And they in this way “forged the weapons of Victory” just as much as those who are now recognized as heroes. There should be monuments to them right alongside the monuments to the others.

Indeed, Karaganov continued, “alongside the monuments to fallen soldiers should be raised crosses or other obelisks to our compatriots who fell from the hands of this regime.” Young people should be encouraged to gather the names of these victims of Stalin and erect monuments to them.

Such a movement “could become one that would unify the peoples of the former USSR and unify [Russians] with [their] former inmates of the unfree socialist camp. For the regime destroyed the best of all peoples – Russians and Ukrainians and Georgians and Kazakhs and Estonians and Tatars and Jews and Hungarians and Poles and Czechs.”

And such a movement would also highlight the reality that “among the executions also were represented” all these nationalities. Once that is recognized, “the streets of Russian provincial towns should bear the names” not of those who helped build the Stalinist system but “of the best sons and daughters of our people who were destroyed by us in the 20th century.”

There were of course many remarkable Russians who lived at that time, and they must be remembered, but the 20th century beyond any question was “a catastrophe for Russia.” That must be acknowledged, if Russians are to “have the chance with a pure conscience and the main thing with self-respect to look into the future.”

Karaganov’s argument is not a new one: Russian human rights activists have been making it for years. But his offering of it now is intriguing, one more indication that there may be hope for repentance from the most unexpected quarters, a reality that provides some hope for Russia at a time when so many indicators are pointing in a negative direction.

Paul Goble

Heinrich Boell conference on the topography of terror.

2010-07-23

In their recent conference in Tbilisi on Stalinist terror a new program for topography of terror was presented. In cooperation with Georgian historians and historical archives a program is launched where first information is gathered on buildings which are connected with Stalinist terror - headquarter of NKVD (later KGB), prisoners, buildings from where deportations were organized, houses of famous victims. Based on gathered information and testimonies of witnesses guided tour is organized in Tbilisi and special webpage is build up with virtual tour.

On the conference representatives from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia shared their experiences on similar projects in their countries. Participants of the conference welcomed the removal of last statues of Stalin in Georgia, but were worried on attempts to restore the glorification of Stalin in Russia and now after the change of power also in Ukraine. Attempts to justify the Stalinist terror and murder of tens of millions people is dangerous as such kind of attitude can easily lead to new bloodshed and terror.

Clinton Presses Vietnam on Human Rights

2010-07-22

Mrs. Clinton made her comments during a two-day visit to Hanoi aimed, in part, to herald the strengthening U.S.-Vietnam relationship 15 years after the two nations normalized ties. The American envoy said growing ties between Washington and Hanoi could serve as a model for reconciliation among former wartime foes. Still,Mrs. Clinton emphasized that Vietnam's emergence as an Asian economic power depends on its willingness to open its political system. The American envoy said that Hanoi, even as Washington's friend, should expect to face pressure from the West on human rights.

"It is true that profound differences exist, particularly over the question of political freedoms," Mrs. Clinton told a lunch on Thursday honoring the restoration of U.S.-Vietnam relations. "The United States will continue to urge Vietnam to strengthen its commitment to human rights and give its people an even greater say over the direction of their own lives."

Criticism of Vietnam's human-rights record has intensified recently as Vietnamese authorities have arrested several dissidents. Authorities have detained roughly a dozen human-rights activists and critics over the past year, including four prominent campaigners who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in January after being convicted of attempting to overthrow the government.

One of those dissidents, a U.S.-trained human-rights lawyer named Le Cong Dinh, was given a five-year sentence after admitting in court that he had broken the law by joining a banned political party.

The government also has instructed Internet-service providers to block access to social-networking web sites such as Facebook over the past year, prompting concerns that some international companies might be scared off by the tightening controls.

STALIN MUSEUM IN GORI MUST BE REPLACED WITH MUSEUM OF COMMUNIST CRIMES

2010-07-22

Stalin statue in Gori, Georgia is gone. That was a good news. The remaining question is what to do with the Stalin museum in Gori. One possibility is just to dismantle it. This is nevertheless not the best solution. More effective would be to make this museum part of new museum of worldwide communist crimes. Such of proposal was just supported by the participants of recent Boell conference on Stalinist crimes in Tbilisi and presented to president Mikhail Saakashvili.

By Mart Laar the first part of museum must describe the crimes of communism is different places in the world, describing how 100 million people were killed under communist regimes. Modern technology can be used in museum, which allows also to build a data-bank of communist crimes. It is important namely not only create a museum, but also a research and study center. Such of museum would not need large storages or collection, most important is to present history via modern facilities. The second part of the museum constitutes current museum of Stalin, which demonstrates in its absurd way elegantly what totalitarianism really is. The third part of museum is dedicated to the crimes of communism in the Caucasus countries, specially in Georgia.

To make this dream reality large international cooperation is demanded. There exists soon several museums, collections and foundations in the World dedicated to the questions of communists crimes. All of them must be invited and called to cooperation. Main task lies of-course on Georgian authorities, who will carry the main burden of the project but can create at the same time something absolutely extraordinary. „This is of course a big dream, but without dreams nothing big is created", said Mart Laar. „With such museum we can create the monument to all these nameless victims of communism, lying in the graves without crosses around the World".

Interview with a Cuban Dissident Ricardo González Alfonso

2010-07-21

Cafeteria of the Hotel Welcome, where the Spanish government is lodging the 11 Cubans who arrived in Spain on 14 July

Seven of them are journalists and one of the seven is Ricardo González Alfonso, who has been the Reporters Without Borders Cuba correspondent since 1998. He was arrested along with 74 other Cuban dissidents during the notorious “Black Spring” of March 2003 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Spanish section of Reporters Without Borders went to greet him on his arrival at Madrid’s Barajas airport and, because of the enormous international interest, organised a news conference for him and the other journalists on 17 July.

In the following interview, he talks about his impressions since his release and his plans for the future.

What were your initial feelings on leaving prison?

There have been various feelings. The first is one of being physically in Madrid and mentally still in Cuba. In conversations, I find myself saying ‘here’ and I am referring to Cuba. There was a more intimate and personal feeling, the one I had when I woke up next to my wife for the first time in seven years and four months. In prison, there were conjugal visits ever five months, then every three months and finally every two months, but they were three-hour visits. And you missed waking up beside your wife. But there is a detail that is worth recalling: when I was on the plane flying to Spain, I saw a knife for the first time in a long while. A metal knife. Something very simple but forbidden inside prison. It surprised me. It almost frightened me. Another detail: the emotion you feel facing you first plate of hot food in seven years. It is a jumble of little things that may give an idea of the confusion I feel at this moment, and the need to adapt psychologically to the new circumstances.

How did you experience your release, from the moment you received the news until you left Cuba?

Everything began with a rumour, which I heard in the national prison hospital, where I was being treated for a foot infection. A fellow inmate, a reliable person I trusted, told me that he had heard on the radio (in the Combinado del Este building where he was) that they were going to free 45 prisoners. That was the first news. A little later, in the same hospital, I met another colleague, Julio César Gálvez (another journalist, who was also released). He told me he had heard something similar but he still did not have any details. When I got back to my cell, I asked for the newspaper, Granma, and there I saw that the news was confirmed. It spoke of releases but did not give the names of the chosen detainees.

Later, at around 6 pm on the same day, 8 July, I got a call from Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, telling me that my name was on the list of prisoners who were going to be released and flown to Spain, if I was willing. I said that going to Spain could be interesting. When I met my wife Alida, she was thinking of emigrating to the United States. But I was not contemplating emigrating. So we decided that we would separate when her exit permit arrived (which in Cuba is issued by the interior ministry). But, as the years went by, we became closer and more in love with each other, and Alida’s exit permit did not arrive. Finally, a few days after I was arrested, Alida’s one-way exit permit finally arrived, presumably to get her to abandon me. But she refused to abandon me. She rejected the permit and decided to stay here with me. It was obviously the kind of decision that creates a strong bond between two people, stronger than the initial commitment to each other.

When the releases first began, in the first half of 2005, we talked about it and I told her that, if they released me and then took a year to give me an exit permit, we would stay in Cuba. But if they gave us the exit permit before the year was up, we would leave. Years later, I am a granted a release together with an immediate exit permit. So, I kept the promise I had made to my wife, in response to her loyalty to me, and we decided to emigrate. The first phase was difficult for me, because my younger son from my first marriage did not want to leave his mother, and his mother did not want to emigrate. But her friends and I managed to persuade her. I was fortunate in finally being able to emigrate with the two children from my first marriage, with my wife, of course, and with my children’s mother. So I can say I am one of the few Cubans with all of his family united.

When you were told of your imminent release, did Cardinal Ortega tell you that you could choose between staying in Cuba or leaving?

No, it was very clear. What he told me was that those who left with me would be able to return without a permit. This is exceptional. Any Cuban who emigrates definitively has to apply for a re-entry permit in order to return. This of course violates article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that is the situation in our country. The cardinal also told me that, for the first time in 50 years, the property I left behind, my home, would not be confiscated. Those were the details he gave me. But he told me I had to take an immediate decision.

In other words, you had to give him your reply in the course of the same phone call?

Yes, at once. The cardinal said that the processing was going to be very fast that not a minute could be lost. I had to give him my reply at once.

The conditions in which you were held for the past seven years, what were they like?

There were various stages. The investigative phase and the trial itself, a total of 36 days, were spent in Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters. The light was on all the time. I had to sleep next to the light in a windowless cell. The water for bathing and drinking was rationed. The interrogations were in the morning, the afternoon, the night and in the early hours. So you had only short spells for sleeping. This went on until the trial. After the trial, the same conditions continued but we were allowed out of our cells in the morning and afternoon and were able to converse, because there was no longer any point interrogating.

We were there until 24 April 2003, when we were sent to the top security prison, Kilo 8 in Camagüey, where the conditions were very harsh. I was in a cell in which, where the bed ends, the little bathroom begin. A cell so narrow that the water store is in this small toilet. There was no shower, just a water tube over the toilet, toilet in inverted commas, what we call a Turkish toilet. That is where you had your breakfast, lunch and dinner and where you received medical attention. From Monday to Friday, when it was not raining, we were allowed into a courtyard where, if I stretched my arms out, I could touch the walls on either side. It was like a cell, but instead of a roof it had bars. If it was noon, you had the sun overhead. At other times, there was glare from the sun. Then the situation changed. We spent three months without electricity. Then we were three months with the light on all the time.

This was all in Camagüey?

Yes, I am still referring to Camagüey’s Kilo 8 prison. It is 533 km from Havana, where my family lived. During the last month, we were able to turn the light off and on. That was a big advantage. While there, I wrote a book of poems called “Man without a face” that reflected all the abuses taking place there. Not just the abuses to which I was being subjected because of my ideals, for defending freedom of expression, but also what the ordinary offenders were undergoing. I was punished for writing the book. They sent me to a special wing holding Cuba’s most dangerous inmates, ones that no other prison accepted, to the point that there were no people in Camagüey province in the prison. They were all from other provinces.

One told me that three of them were there to harass me, to steal things from me and to be verbally abusive. Not physical mistreatment, but verbal aggression, insults and so on. One of them admitted that he had been sent by State Security, that he would be rewarded for the role he was playing. To end this punishment, I was forced to go on hunger strike. I told the authorities that I would call off my hunger strike if they recognised that they were punishing me for writing a book or if they gave me the same treatment as my colleagues, the treatment that I had been receiving before, which was bad but not as bad as this.

Later, when I already had gall-bladder and liver problems, I was sent to Agüica prison, in Matanzas province. I was in poor health all the time I was there. They took me to the national prison hospital several times and I was operated on three times there. From there, I was transferred to Havana’s Combinado del Este prison on 7 December 2004. At first, I was in Building No. 2. Then I was admitted to the hospital again. From there we were sent back to prison without a medical discharge because we had staged a protest. In the final stage, the last two or three years. I had a cell to myself, thanks to the protests and hunger strikes and the international campaign by my wife Alida.

As a result, I managed to obtain conditions that were better than those available to ordinary offenders – the possibility of having my cell door open from 6 am to 6 pm and of having a light that I could turn on and off. As for the rest, it was the prison discipline that everyone has to accept. Except that I refused to wear the ordinary offender’s prison uniform because I was not an ordinary offender. I wore regular clothes. This led to my sister being harassed when she came from New York to visit me. The Cuban political police pressured her at Havana’s José Martí airport to try to persuade me to wear prison uniform. She was 71 at the time and they put her under so much psychological stress that she fainted.

What can you tell us about the food and the hygiene in the prisons where you were held?

Here again there were phases. For example, when I was in the windowless cell in Camagüey and being punished for going on hunger strike, the floor had a carpet of rodents. It was part of the punishment. My bed was just two steps from my toilet. The ceilings of the cells were incredibly damp. I saw this in all the prisons where I have been, without exception. There was so much humidity that we used plastic bags to channel the water leaking from the pipes so that it did not drip on us while we were sleeping or eating. Using Cuban ingenuity, the inmates made channels for the water by tying plastic bags. The walls were permanently damp in my last two cells. Water dripped from the walls and the leaks.

And how did all this affect your health?

Well, I am allergic to humidity. I had to be treated with antihistamines all the time. I suffer from migraines. I was always on analgesics to control those. I was 53 when I entered prison and 60 when I left and, logically, all that humidity made my osteoarthritis worse.

Was the medical treatment satisfactory?

I can say that I received privileged treatment compared with the ordinary offenders and even the other political prisoners who are not regarded as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.

What is your view of the government’s decision to release detainees?

The Cuban government clearly found that it had no choice but to release detainees. There was an combination of events beginning with Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death, the heroic hunger strike by Guillermo Fariñas, the marches by the Ladies in White on the streets of Havana, the support of various international organisations, the support of the Cuban exiles, the pressure from certain democratic governments in various parts of the world and the very critical economic situation. All these factors created a situation that favoured our release.

At a time when a dialogue had started between the Catholic Church and Raúl Castro’s government, Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos decided to step in as an observer in the dialogue, in order to facilitate the departure of the 2003 Black Spring detainees, so that they could go to Spain. As for the detainees who have decided not to leave Cuba, despite the government’s pressure, I have to say that they have all my admiration and respect. It is significant that the regime did not release them before those of us who agreed to emigrate. When a prisoner has to emigrate in the way we did, which was straight from prison to the airport, there is a series of steps that have to be taken including a medical check and the issuing of a visa. But when you release a prisoner who wants to stay in Cuba, all you have to do is open the door.

They arrested 75 men in the space of 72 hours seven years ago. Now they have decided to release 52, and ten of them want to say. Will they be able to do that? I wonder why the government does not release them, when it is easier than releasing those who were going to emigrate. It is inconceivable that all those who decide to stay in Cuba should remain in prison. I fear that they are holding them as hostages to pressure the European Union, which has to decide in September whether or not to lift its common position towards the Cuban government.

What do you think is needed for the situation in Cuba to change radically?

There is no magic wand for political, economic and social changes. Various factors coincide. That is how it happened in all the totalitarian regimes at the end of the 1980s. The economic crisis, the disillusion with totalitarian policies that do not satisfy human needs, the exhaustion and attrition of social inequality, the internal and external pressure – they are all factors that accumulate. But we can see that there exist circumstances that are slowly favouring change. This word ‘change’ is one that is in the minds of all members of Cuban society. Not just the opposition, but also sectors of the leadership and the government. The only thing is that they want a change that will save a dying man, while the opposition and civil society want a change that will give birth to democracy.

What are your plans in this new stage of your life, in which you are far from your country for the first time?

My legal status has not yet been clarified. All the formalities are being sorted out at this moment. I would like to know as soon as possible under what circumstance I and my family will be able to remain in Spain. The fight for freedom of expression and for the release of my colleagues is not something I am going to start now. We began as soon as we landed at Madrid airport and we have continued. We will continue to say the same thing: that the release of all the political prisoners is an essential first step for Cuba’s total democratisation, which is after all the only thing that guarantees a person’s freedom.

Interview by Alessandro Oppes, Reporter without border Spain

source:

http://en.rsf.org/

New regulations pose threat to liberal press in China

2010-07-21

“China has no press law, but the accumulation of draconian regulations has gradually created a legislative straitjacket for the media,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These new rules add to the laws on state secrets and subversion that have been used by the authorities many times to punish journalists.”

The press freedom organisation added: “We urge Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to have these new Propaganda Department directives cancelled or else they will be a permanent threat hanging over the liberal press and investigative journalists.”

Chinese journalists told Reporters Without Borders that under the latest restrictions imposed by the Propaganda Department:

1. Newspapers must stop exchanging articles with news media in other provinces. 2. Media based in metropolitan areas (Dushi Bao) are forbidden to do their own reporting on national or international stories or modify the coverage of these stories that the official media provide.

The Propaganda Department offices in four southern provinces and Beijing have called the editors of the main liberal news media directly to order. The international news sections of local newspapers in Hunan province have been carrying only the official news agency Xinhua’s dispatches since the start of the month. Several editors in Beijing, Guangdong and Shandong confirmed that they were going to stop exchanging articles with newspapers in other provinces.

According to the Hong Kong-based daily Ming Pao, the new regulations have been in place since 1 July 2010. It said officials are also insisting on an end to negative reporting about the police and judicial authorities. The new directives may have been prompted in part by the joint editorial published by 13 newspapers in March that led to Economic Observer deputy editor Zhang Hong’s dismissal (http://en.rsf.org/china-censorship-...).

The Communist Party Central Committee has since 2004 forbidden the media to practice yidi jiandu (inter-regional reporting). But the liberal press, especially newspapers in the southern provinces, continue to carry reports about sensitive issues in other regions. An expert on Chinese media said “the 2004 order from party leaders complicated the work of investigative journalists.”

A Beijing-based investigative reporter told Reporters Without Borders that, if applied rigorously, the new regulations would “kill all reports that are the least bit negative in the provincial newspapers.” He added: “Even if you doubt that the authorities will enforce these regulations to the letter, they will be able to use them to punish individual media. That puts the local newspapers in a position of weakness. Everything is being done to ensure that no scandals appear in newspapers in neighbouring regions.”

The leading regional newspapers such as Guangdong’s Nanfang Dushi Bao have few correspondents in other Chinese provinces and depend on exchanging news reports with other local media. “It is less risky to publish a sensitive story about an official in a neighbouring province than about those in our own province,” a Shanghai-based journalist said.

Around ten Chinese media, including the business magazines China Economic Times and Business Watch, were recently sanctioned for reports they had published (http://en.rsf.org/china-space-of-sa...).

In response to an increase in social unrest, the central government has embarked on new phase of news control. Internet censorship has been stepped up at the behest of Wang Chen, the head of the government’s Information Office (http://en.rsf.org/china-authorities...), while the official media, including the news agency Xinhua, have been told to increase their international presence into order to get the “Chinese version” across.

http://en.rsf.org/china-new-regulations-pose-threat-to-21-07-2010,37992.html

Cuban prisoners of conscience exiled to Spain on the European Common Position Regarding Cuba

2010-07-19

''We, the Cuban prisoners of conscience exiled to Spain in recent days, aware of the manifest willingness of some European countries to modify the E.U.’s “Common Position” regarding Cuba, declare our disagreement with an approval of this measure, as we understand that the Cuban government has not taken steps that evidence a clear decision to advance toward the democratization of our country.

Our departure for Spain must not be considered a good-will gesture but a desperate action on the regime’s part in its urgent quest for credits of every type.

It is for that reason that we ask the countries of the European Union not to again soften their exigencies intended to achieve changes toward democracy in Cuba and to secure for all Cubans the same rights that European citizens enjoy.''

The campaign to remove the Stalin statue from D-Day monument

2010-07-19

NOTE: A confirmation email will be sent to your email address after signing the petition. Please check your inbox and press the confirmation button. Due to the overwhelming volume of people signing the petition, the confirmation email may be delayed.

CITIZEN'S PETITION TO REMOVE THE STALIN STATUE
FROM THE NATIONAL D-DAY MEMORIAL,
BEDFORD, VIRGINIA

TO: NATIONAL D-DAY MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
And
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR KENNETH SALAZAR

I, the undersigned, STAND for the memory of all the Allied troops of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Poland, Australia, and Norway who gave their lives on D-Day or in the ensuing combat on the Western Front.

I STAND for the American veterans currently living in the State of Virginia, and in all other States, who survived D-Day, risking their lives to liberate Western Europe from tyranny.

I AFFIRM that the true history of World War II must be protected from distortion and misinformation which threaten to erase or alter well-established and documented facts.

I RECOGNIZE, on the basis of overwhelming historical evidence, that neither Joseph Stalin nor Soviet forces played any part in the D-Day landings at Normandy.

I AFFIRM that a bust of Joseph Stalin has no place at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, whose stated purpose is to "honor the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of Allied forces on D-Day," June 6, 1944, and that a Stalin statue should not be displayed with statues of the leaders of the Western Allies responsible for the triumph of D-Day.

I therefore PETITION the Officers and Board of Directors of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation to remove the bust of Stalin from the grounds of the Memorial immediately; I further PETITION Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar to ensure that if the National D-Day Memorial should come under the National Park Service, no bust or statue of Stalin will be included or allowed; in so acting, the National D-Day Memorial Foundation and Interior Secretary Salazar will safeguard the sacred memory of D-Day for ourselves, our veterans, and future generations.

More info here

''we're passing from Chavez's tropical socialism to open and glaring communism''

2010-07-16

The phalanx of simple five-storey apartment blocks, some still being built, anchors the "Cacique Tiuna Commune". This is one of a network of "socialist communes" that Chavez and his supporters want to extend across the nation in a political and legislative offensive to dismantle "bourgeois" capitalism.

Not surprisingly in a country whose politics is as flammable as gasoline, the project enshrined in a package of "power to the people" laws is stoking a political firestorm.

Fueling the political debate is the proximity of legislative elections on September 26.

The government says the communes will help end poverty. But furious opponents, who already denounce Chavez as a repressive autocrat, say the initiative heralds outright communism in Venezuela and so violates its pluralist constitution.

"A barrier is being crossed ... we're passing from Chavez's tropical socialism to open and glaring communism," says Emilio Grateron, mayor of Chacao, an opposition stronghold entrenched in a more wealthy eastern neighborhood of Caracas.

Displaying colorful murals of Venezuela's 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, and one of Argentine guerrilla legend Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the 2,220-inhabitant Cacique Tiuna Commune is conceived as a showcase "socialist" community among the dirt-poor hilltop slums that hem in the capital.

Chavez and the laws' promoters deny the communes project is a bid to railroad the country into Soviet- or Cuban-style Marxism. They say the legislation is compatible with the 1999 Constitution and follows socialist goals of ending decades of inequality in Venezuela and giving more say to the poor in the running of their own lives and that of the country.

"We're headed for socialism here, I haven't deceived anyone," the combative Venezuelan leader told his ruling PSUV party in a meeting this week. He blasted local Roman Catholic bishops who have criticized the communes program, calling them "troglodytes" and "fascists".

Chavez says the bishops and business "oligarchs", media tycoons and foreign "imperialists" who populate his full pantheon of ideological foes are misrepresenting the communes project as a pretext to destabilize his government.

The former soldier survived a brief coup in 2002. Opponents say he is conjuring up fake threats to throw a smokescreen over his failure to turn around the deteriorating economy and put a brake on rampant violent crime.

In the upcoming elections, opponents are expected to dent the National Assembly majority of Chavez's PSUV, which has been shaken by a scandal over the discovery of thousands of tonnes of rotten government-managed foodstuffs and polls showing weak public backing for more socialism and expropriations.

Chavez is still popular in his 11th year of rule, but his support is under strain as the economy slumps. It contracted 5.8 percent in the first quarter of this year and inflation is persistently high at an annualized rate of 31 percent in June.

FRESH ASSAULT ON PRIVATE PROPERTY?

Chavez's searing leftist rhetoric and his investor-scalding track record of strategic oil, industry and mining nationalizations have made him an anti-capitalist and anti-U.S. standard bearer in Latin America and the world.

The largely pro-Chavez National Assembly has initially approved the communes bill and some related laws. A second final approval is pending, and supporters say they hope this can happen before the elections.

"We're talking about government by the people," said Ulises Daal, a pro-Chavez parliament deputy and one of the main promoters of the project. He says the legislative plan to set up self-sustaining, self-governing "socialist communes" builds on the existence of some 36,000 Chavez-inspired "communal councils" that already dot the country.

Daal said 214 communes were already "under construction". Some have introduced barter markets and their own currencies.

Grateron and other opposition mayors have launched a noisy counter-offensive. They say Chavez is trying to force through by law a shift to all-out socialism he failed to introduce in a 2007 constitutional referendum that he narrowly lost, the only nationwide ballot he has not won.

Opponents single out the Communes Law's repeated references to "social" and "collective" ownership.

"It's a clear orientation toward the reduction and disappearance of private property," said Noel Alvarez, president of the Fedecamaras private business group.

However, the Communes Law text does say Venezuelans can "possess, use and enjoy individual and family property and patrimony", and Daal insisted that private property remained unaffected by the legislation and was guaranteed.

IDEOLOGY, OR APATHY

Neither ideological nor productive fervor were much visible at the Cacique Tiuna Commune, which boasts a plastics plant, a vegetable garden, a "socialist" carpentry shop and a plant nursery.

During a visit last week, the plastics plant was idled, the irrigated garden was awaiting "refinancing" to start and at the carpentry shop only a handful of laborers worked under the stern gaze of a mural depicting the historic Indian chief Tiuna after which the commune is named.

"The Comandante (Chavez) wants this to be a showcase community," said Yamilet Ramirez, the Commune's spokesperson. "The idea is that it should be self-supporting."

But the Cacique Tiuna commune seemed some way off its intended goal as a self-sustaining, self-governing community.

"People don't seem enthusiastic, they don't want to participate, I don't know why, since it's for them," said the head of the carpentry shop, Alexis Valdiviezo.

He himself did not have an apartment in the commune but was brought in six months ago by the Basic Industry Ministry to oversee the creation of a "socialist" carpentry network.

"I'm living in a hotel," said Valdiviezo, who said he had been promised an apartment in the commune by Chavez.

But for many of the commune inhabitants, the apartments, built with a primary school, a state MERCAL grocery and a soon-to-be opened high school, represent a huge improvement on their previous slum accommodation in hilltop shanties.

"We like it, of course ... this benefits all the people," said Ines Herrera, who works as a cleaner at the primary school. "There is a bit of apathy, but that's normal".

"No one here is shouting about Marx or Lenin," said Ramirez.

"FRONTIER OF CHAOS"

In the same way that Venezuela's oil income has bankrolled Chavez's socio-political projects over the last few years, a host of government ministries and their budgets are clearly heavily engaged in supporting the emerging communes.

A clause of the Communes Law stipulates that existing state governorships and municipal mayorships should make funds available to finance projects for the communes. This has led to worries by opposition mayors that the new structures will monopolize funds, accompanied by political discrimination.

The Commune Ministry's own information sheet on the Cacique Tiuna community notes among its weaknesses: "There were commune members who hold an ideology opposed to the government".

The legislation foresees each commune having its own parliament, elected in open assemblies, and a five-member council to ensure the execution of decisions taken. A Communal Bank, and communal justice system will also be created.

Critics say the creation of these parallel systems alongside existing state and local structures will generate confusion. "It's the frontier of chaos," Grateron said.

Source: www.reuters.com

Events of the 20th Century Have Greatly Influenced the Russian Soul

2010-07-07

RussiaProfile.Org, an online publication providing in-depth analysis of business, politics, current affairs and culture in Russia, has published an unusual Special Report on the mysterious "Russian soul". Fifteen articles by both Russian and foreign contributors examine this concept, which has been used by Russia watchers for some 150 years, from a contemporary perspective. The following article is part of this collection.

The concept of the mysterious Russian soul has been around at least since the middle of the 19th century. Both foreign and Russian writers, philosophers and political thinkers, from the Marquis de Custine and Fyodor Dostoevsky to Nikolai Berdyaev and Alexander Solzhenitsyn expressed their views on the Russian national character. Generally perceived as the antipode of the capitalist and rational West, the Russian soul embodied such traits as altruism, openness, spirituality, generosity, conscientiousness, willingness to sacrifice a personality for the community, the ultimate search for a universal truth and indifference toward wealth.

RIA Novosti/Russiaprofile.org
July 6, 2010
Evolution of the Homo Sovieticus
Events of the 20th Century Have Greatly Influenced the Russian Soul
By Elena Rubinova

The 20th century forced many changes upon the Russian soul. The Soviet ideological machine put much effort into the gigantic experiment in social anthropology called "the new Soviet man" or the "Homo Sovieticus," whose soul and nature were supposed to become even better. In the mid 1970s "The Russians," a famous book by the American journalist Hedrick Smith, gave a vivid description of the Russians living in the Soviet Union as generous, mystical, emotional, and essentially irrational and impulsive, despite the constant ideological pressure "the builder of the communist society" was subjected to.

In addition to the traditional merits assigned to the Russian soul, this special breed of man was believed to be hard-working, collectivistic, and patriotic. He could live on very basic things and forego comfort as one of the negative manifestations of a bourgeois society. The concept of "the new Soviet man" disappeared together with its epoch, but some of its notions remain firmly rooted in the minds of contemporary Russians. "Back in 2004, one fourth of the population called themselves Soviet people. Now this figure does not exceed 12 to 13 percent. But even if people stopped labeling themselves as 'Soviet,' this does not mean that the Soviet mentality no longer exists," said Boris Dubin, a leading sociologist and the head of social and political research at the independent Levada Analytical Center. The phenomenon of the Russian soul outlived the empire that perished in 1991 and took on a new life in the new times.

A psychological study called the "Russian Character and Personality Survey" was an international research project initiated by the University of Tartu in Estonia in collaboration with some 40 Russian universities. The results of the poll, conducted in 34 of Russia's regions, found that 76 percent of those polled are fully convinced that Russians have a unique national character that can't be compared to any other. The image of Russia and its dwellers as unique is still actively retranslated in the West, especially at times when no other explanation is available for the paradoxes and nuances of Russian life and politics.

It is important to emphasize, though, that studies are often conducted on different levels. Sociologists mostly deal with values and cultural practices that change much faster, while psychologists focus on the "super values" and personality characteristics that morph very slowly. In the latter case the differences are mostly noted when comparing generations. "When speaking about the Russian national personality traits from a psychological viewpoint, we need to draw a line between different generations. They vary too much to generalize," said Olga Makhovskaya, a psychologist and a senior research fellow at the Institute of Psychology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

All experts agree that the past 20 years have influenced the Russian cultural milieu and lifestyle patterns no less than the previous 70 years of socialism. The transformations of the post-communist era have had a profound impact on the Russian soul, so when researchers study the current generation of Russians, they find the opposite of the values and traits they expected.

The collective individual

In any society, individualism and collectivism are the two opposite ends of the same spectrum that bears special significance due to its pivotal role in social and political discourse. Collectivism takes its roots in the communal living of the old Rus and the orthodox moral values (such as "sobornost," or "community spirit"), as opposed to the individualism of protestants. In Soviet times, collectivism had institutionalized forms such as collective farms or communal apartments.

A long-term study titled "The Soviet Person" conducted by the Levada Center between 1989 and 2009, in five "waves" of different surveys, and the so-called longitudinal studies of public opinion, looked at the main trends in the social development of Russian society and the current generation of Russians. "Russian collectivism is often labeled as a very special Russian personality trait and social dimension. On the contrary, our studies find that modern Russia is a highly atomized society with a high degree of mistrust: three quarters of Russians do not trust each other and say that they can rely only on family members or close relatives. Only personal or family ties matter," said Dubin. "Our society is fragmented into very small groups that are linked by very traditional personal or family relations. It lacks modern institutionalized forms that unite people in other societies. Russians are united only in the collective self-representation expressed by the abstract word 'we'."

Comparative studies of modern Russia and other European countries carried out by Alexander Demidov of GfK RUS, a global market research organization, also attest to the fact that contemporary Russia is one of the most atomized societies in Europe, with an obvious lack of "super ideas" or "super values" able to unite or motivate society.

Mythically simple

When talking about themselves Russians claim that they are open, friendly, and simple-minded, as opposed to the cold, calculating Germans, the cunning Uzbeks, reserved Englishmen or shrewd Jews. But the discrepancy between this myth and reality is most obvious to researchers in the "openness" category. An average Russian is traditionally believed to be more open-minded than citizens of many other nations. But in the course of the study conducted by Tartu University, over 3,700 participants in various Russian regions were asked to fill out a questionnaire and rate Russians' personality traits using a 30-item National Character Survey (NCS), especially designed for this study. In the end, the average "openness" of Russians was assessed below the cross-cultural average of auto stereotypes across 49 nations.

Another trait that is most often referred to as typically Russian is simple-mindedness, as opposed to complicated personality types of other nations.

"Russians are hardly simple," said Makhovskaya. "Simple-mindedness is explained differently by psychologists, as a mechanism to cover aggression. It's convenient to always be able to say that 'we are simple and were fooled.' Russians are unpredictable and irrational, rather than simple-minded, and can outsmart many. Simplicity is part of the national mythology." The majority of answers that sociologists get in the course of opinion polls emphasize simplicity and openness in the Russian character. "Those are hardly psychological characteristics of Russians or of their mindset, but a very deep Russian modus of relationship with the state and power. It is very convenient for authorities to operate with society members when they follow this track. In this regard, today is no different from the 19th century or the Soviet times. It's a matter of national propaganda to translate these self-characteristics and dependence on them into national pride. At this stage we see how this grows into the general myth about the 'special Russian way'," said Dubin.

A spacious pocket

The generosity of the Russian character often comes as a surprise to foreigners. The phrase, a "wide soul," has become a platitude, but its meaning is not so easy to define. On a pedestrian level generosity, as opposed to greed, is still part of the Russian nature. Russians are still fond of making handsome gestures and surprising friends with generous gifts. Dividing up expenses at a meeting between friends or checking the bill at a restaurant is regarded as petty. The so-called "new Russians," who flocked to European resorts in the past decade, have become renowned for leaving enormous tips.

But the Russian character is made up of both coldness and warmth. The notion of solidarity applies to those close and dear, but it's hardly a social phenomenon. The social indifference that characterizes modern Russia is not so much a matter of generosity, but a consequence of mistrust toward all government and even non-governmental institutions. Even if the average Russian wants to help somebody it is through donating to the closest parish or giving something directly to a poor relative. Russian attitudes toward charity are incomparable with those of the world's richest countries -- the recent catastrophic earthquake in Haiti and the Russians' response to it clearly illustrates the situation.

A wave of compassion rolled through the world and people of various nationalities donated to various charitable organizations. During one evening organized by ZDF television and Bild, the Germans managed to collect € 20 million ($ 24.6 million). The Swedes transferred € 5 million ($ 6.1 million) in aid in the very first days after the disaster. Needless to say, the United States, where 90 percent of the population is involved in some kind of charity, topped the donor list. On the state level Russia also granted approximately € 13 million ($ 16 million) via the UN and dispatched a mobile hospital and a team of doctors, but this was hardly a consequence of the "Russians' eternal compassion," as Dostoevsky put it. Most Russians remained indifferent toward the initiatives of the Russian Red Cross. At the end of January it was reported that Russians had not collected any private donations for Haiti.

New spiritual wealth

Maybe the Russian soul is still searching for truth and eternal values, but nowadays this translates into the triumph of a consumer culture at various levels -- from the super rich to the lower middle class. Rene Descartes' famous phrase "I think, therefore I am" can in today's Russia easily be twisted into "I consume, therefore I am," to express the so-called "conspicuous consumption."

Back in 2004, according to R-TGI Market Research, over 57 percent of Russians said that they had enough money not only to look after everyday needs, but to enjoy shopping for pleasure. Avid consumers flocked to malls and chain stores as fast as developers could build them. From 2000 to 2007, consumer demand in Russia grew by 20 to 30 percent annually. Despite the economic crisis, 28 percent of families took out consumer loans over the past two years, a poll conducted by the Levada Center in 2009 found.

Psychologists, however, see this radiant phenomenon from an unusual angle, and point out the Russian flavor of this consumer feast: "Even Western psychoanalysts confirm that suffering is one of the psychological norms of existence for Russians, from the time of Dostoevsky and even earlier. It is very deep in the back of their minds. So even the consumer culture that is trying to instil a penchant for life and joy sometimes looks a bit like a sad clown," said Makhovskaya. The Levada Center also performed a special survey among wealthy urban Russians who represent the upper middle class.

"Up to 60 to 70 percent of the respondents were convinced that in Russia, they can lose everything for various reasons, and do not evaluate their position as stable. They were not sure that their children would be able to inherit their wealth. This is the main reason to spend everything today, and get whatever this money can buy," said Dubin.

Molding the young

For vigorous supporters of capitalism, work and careers remain the main reference points in life. For the majority of Russians aged 18 to 25 the primary goal has been realizing their aspirations to a prosperous life and imitating the established patterns of social success. This is often defined as an "identity crisis" rather than going back to national traditions or archaic patterns. "Young people are pragmatic but at the same time have a high level of anxiety and conformism. They live by the necessities of the day without greater ideas or convictions. They evaluate education mostly according to the dividends it can bring. They are very individualistic and this defines their lifestyle. It's a kind of short-term type of consciousness, and a rather shallow personality type. In former times this would be called philistine," said Mahovskaya.

The majority of young people, as the most dynamic part of society, understood their newly-acquired freedom not as an opportunity to build a civil society, but primarily as a chance to live securely and to consume as much as possible. "Until recently, the majority of Russian youth was very conformist, it did not have its counterculture that would be opposed to consumerism. Everybody including the young was struggling for access to the consumer market. Quite recently, though, we have seen gradual shifts," said Karin Kleman, a French sociologist who has been studying Russian youth culture.

So far there is very little room in Russia for the anti-globalist movement, groups of ethical consumers or environmentally-friendly youth -- all widespread phenomena among young people in the West. Sociologists also note another trait of the young generation of Russians who did not live in the Soviet Union. Unlike other segments of the population, young Russians are open to social networking, they are more cosmopolitan -- but only if the situation is stable. If something extraordinary happens, the compensatory mechanism which justifies a special "Russian way" switches on even for young people. "Despite the fact that young people are heavy consumers of Western culture and products, once it's necessary to make a choice, the young adopt the standards and stereotypes of the majority. In a very simple situation, when a Russian team wins or loses in some sports competition, young people are just as intolerant or even xenophobic as the rest. The majority share views on the exclusivity of Russia and the Russians and animosity toward the outer world," said Dubin.

Change, however, is coming, albeit slowly. In the past three to four years, sociologists have finally begun talking about an independent youth culture in Russia. "It is mainly, but not exclusively, growing on the Internet, used by one third of the population in 2008, where this emerging culture has rich forms," said Alexei Levinson, the head of the Social Research Department at the Levada Center.

EGP STATEMENT: 07.07.2010. European Greens Express Concern About Tibetan Environmentalist’s 5 year Prison Sentence

2010-07-07

The European Green Party has expressed serious concern about reports that a Tibetan environmental activist, Rinchen Samdrup, has been sentenced to five years in prison by a Chinese court.

EGP Co-Spokesperson, Philippe Lamberts, says: "It is extremely worrying that one of Tibet's leading environmentalists has been given a five year prison sentence, simply because an article in support the Dalai Lama appeared on his website. The fact that one of Mr Samdrup's brothers was given a 15 year prison sentence just over a week ago means that there can be no doubt that Rinchen Samdrup and his family are being targeted because of his environmental activism. In particular, Rinchen Samdrup has challenged powerful local interests in his campaign against poaching, including accusing a police officer of poaching, and this is obviously the reason behind the prosecution of Mr Samdrup."

"As a member of the European Parliament's Delegation to the Republic of China, I will be looking into this case as a matter of urgency. I will raise this matter with the Chinese authorities and ask for an explanation of the circumstances surrounding Rinchen Samdrup's case."

Georgian authorities pull down another Stalin monument, at night to avoid protests

2010-06-27

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Authorities in Georgia on Sunday tore down another monument to Soviet dictator and native son Josef Stalin.

The monument in the town of Tkibuli in western Georgia was taken down two days after authorities tore down a bigger and more famous monument to Stalin in his hometown of Gori.

Both statues were brought down in the middle of the night in an apparent bid to avoid protests and media attention.

Stalin was born to a modest family of cobblers in 1878. Both monuments in his honor were erected before his death in 1953.

The Georgian government says a younger generation who have embraced Western ideals of freedom favor the dismantling of Stalin's monuments.

"A memorial to Stalin has no place in the Georgia of the 21st Century," President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday. Saakashvili's government said a memorial to the fallen in the Russian-Georgian war of 2008 will replace Stalin's statue in Gori.

Georgia's Culture Minister Nikolos Rurua said the government will also soon rename Georgian streets still carrying Stalin's name.

But Rurua said that the body of Stalin's mother that rests alongside the nation's most prominent figures shouldn't reburied as some in Georgia have suggested.

"The mother of Stalin carries no responsibility for what her dictator and tyrant son did to people," Rurua said on Imedi television Sunday. "Reburying her body isn't a good idea."

Stalin's mother Keke Dzhugashvili, born in 1858 to a peasant family in Gori, died in 1937. She was buried at the Mtatsminda Pantheon, a cemetery in Tbilisi where Georgia's writers and other cultural and public figures were buried.

The Western-leaning Saakashvili began a crackdown on Soviet-era monuments last December when a massive World War II memorial was tore down in Kutaisi, drawing protests from the Georgian opposition and from Russia.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin laid a cornerstone to a smaller replica of that monument in Moscow last month.

Stalin-era mass grave yields tons of bones

2010-06-11

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) - Russia has uncovered at least 495 skeletons, many with head gunshot wounds, in a mass grave probably dating back to purges under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s, municipal authorities said Wednesday.
At least 3.5 tonnes of bones were extracted from the site on the outskirts of the Pacific Ocean port of Vladivostok after it was discovered by workmen building a road, the city government said in a statement.
Millions of Soviet citizens were executed or died in labor camps during Stalin's rule from the 1920s until his death in 1953, but discoveries of mass graves became less frequent after a surge in finds that followed the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Experts were checking the hypothesis that the bodies were victims of Stalin's purges.
"Practically all of the skulls have bullet wounds," said Yaroslav Livanksy, the head of a group of volunteers who helped to excavate the site.
He said money and clothes from the 1930s had been found at the site. A crushed child's skull was discovered close to a bead bracelet and a small slipper.
Irina Fliege, a senior researcher with Russian human rights group Memorial, which collects information about Stalin-era killings, said she had no doubt that the victims were shot by Stalinist forces.
She said far more bodies were likely to be found as adjacent sites are studied.
"This happens all over the country, it's impossible to say how often," Felige said. "All we can to is put up monuments to remember the dead."
(Reporting by Alexei Chernyshov; Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Source here

"Stalin will not be forgiven for anything"

2010-05-13

Sergei Buntman: Once again, you praised Dmitry Medvedev – you never miss a chance to praise him. Come on, Matvei! You’re a journalist.

Matvei Ganapolsky: I get your joke, but I discovered something important in Medvedev’s interview. He helped me to find my bearings. You and I have said many times that it is not quite clear what kind of state we live in. You remember that I said Russia consists of many Russias. Russia has become free and largely de-Bolshevized. Now, each of us has our own views that we share on the Internet, with our friends, with our political leaders, and Russia also has a personality of its own. It has its own direction, economy, foreign policy. It has its attitude toward Khodorkovsky and it also has an attitude toward Stalin. It is very important for me to sort out Russia’s attitude toward Stalin and his personality. As it turns out, for Medvedev as president, there is no place in modern Russia for Stalin as a builder—and he built a lot of things—or as a hero.

I want to repeat this short comment, which I find very important. It contains, if you like, my ideology and my assessment of the Russian president. I think it pays to distinguish this assessment from the point of view of the state and from a personal viewpoint. You may joke about it, but…

SB: Well, how can I make a joke, you won’t let me…

MG: Until 2012, for reasons you know very well, I will live in a country which, as a state structure, as a state entity, rejects Stalin and does not support moves that glorify him at the official level. This is what the state should be doing. Mind you, the state does not forbid people from carrying his portraits and praising him, and so on. I want you to know that this is very important to me. I am not going to discuss Medvedev’s whole speech, or his interview. He said quite a lot there. He spoke about foreign policy and much of what he said I cannot agree with. But to me this detail is the important one. I understand now that in a sense — I agree with the state regarding Stalin.

SB: How can you say in the same breath that Stalin will not be forgiven even though he built things and it’s good that Medvedev said this. Stalin will not be forgiven for anything. Medvedev said it, and Putin said it. They said it here and there. That’s all well and good.

MG: No, Putin didn’t say it…

SB: Come on, he did say it…

MG: You see, you didn’t listen to me closely enough. Putin said it as his own personal point of view because Putin is a smart man and he wants everyone to love him in 2012.

SB: I understand, but that’s beside the point.

MG: Medvedev said: This is the ideology of the state I lead. That’s worth a great deal, Sergei.

SB: You cannot simultaneously say that Stalin cannot be forgiven for his repressions and speak about a state ideology. You cannot talk at the same time about a future world conflict. This creates a mess in people’s minds. It’s a good thing Medvedev said it, very good. It is wonderful that he keeps repeating it. But this does not signify the destruction of Stalinism. And yet, Stalinism must be destroyed as an ideology. He will come again, and is coming again, not in the guise of old men with moustaches, but in the guise of young men who have a mishmash in their heads and who could be sent anywhere on any mission for whatever ideology.

MG: I agree, but what Medvedev said, the statement, the sentence, this is part of the de-Stalinization of the state.

SB: A small part of it.

MG: Compared to the other things he said there, yes, it is a small part.

SB: At the 20th party congress, the 22nd party congress and throughout perestroika, everybody was saying that Stalin was a criminal. So, has de-Stalinization taken place? No, it has not. You cannot, with your other hand, use Stalin’s methods.

MG: Talking about the official attitude toward Stalin before 2012, if one proceeds from what Medvedev said in his interview, I understand there will be no City of the Sun or State of the Sun. I understand that Medvedev is only human. I appreciate that he is saying things that I agree with.

SB: OK, let’s wrap it up. I think that in order to put an end to Stalinism and his principle of running the country single-handedly, it is not enough to say that Stalin killed a lot of people and he cannot be forgiven for this. Take the Germans. They sorted out Hitler and Hitlerism with the help of the Allies. They built an absolutely new country.

MG: Well, I will convey your request to Dmitry Medvedev. If he has the guts to do what you say, he will do it. If not, let history judge him. We have both said this many times

http://rbth.ru/articles/2010/05/13/stalin_will_not_be_forgiven_for_anything.html

Iakob Djugashvili: The more we leave Stalin behind the nearer we get to Hitler

2010-04-26

Q: How can you defend the reputation of Stalin?

A: Stalin’s epoch and Stalin’s role in it are two different things. Stalin is called a dictator and is blamed what he did not do. A dictator has real power and controls the police structures in order to make the social, political and other structures of the country do what he wants. Stalin had no state post before 1941, not one policeman or solider was subordinate to him, but he was a leader. His colleagues believed in him because Stalin was not born in 1924 and they had come through the revolutionary struggle together. The structure of collegiate rule showed that everything Stalin said or wrote was put in practice.

Q: There are two opinions about Stalin. He is still worshiped by some in Georgia, while others condemn him. What did Stalin do for Georgia, good or bad?

A: I am very much against discussing Stalin in terms of Georgia or even Russia; he was the leader of the Soviet Union. Unlike the present day Russia and Georgia the Soviet Union served its people. Stalin should be considered as a unifying force, not only by the people of Russia and Georgia but all the people under the pressure of Western fascist marionettes.

Q: A memorial monument has been built for the Poles who were shot in Katyn during Stalin's rule. What do you think about this?

A: I will tell you some interesting things about Poland. In 1934 (after the Nazis had taken power in Germany) Poland became an official ally of Germany. In summer 1938, when Germany annexed Austria, Poland did not fulfil its obligations to its ally France and did not oppose the German invasion of Austria. In autumn of the same year under the Munich Agreement not only Germany swallowed Czechoslovakia but Poland too grabbed the Stettin region of Czechoslovakia.

Poland knew this would happen but did not agree it even with the parties to the Munich pact. Poland then wrecked talks with the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain about forming and anti-Hitler pact. On 1 September of the same year Germany invaded Poland and on 10 September the patriots, Government and Generals of Poland led by Sikorski leave Polish territory proudly and bravely.

On 13 April 1942 Goebbels, in order to split the Soviet Union from its allies, declared that in 1940 Jews from the Soviet Union had shot several thousand Polish officers. Two days later, on 15 April, exiled head of the Polish Government and ally of Britain Sikorski publicly confirmed Goebbels' statement without making any investigation or giving any facts.

In 1943 the British plotted to land forces in Norway to cut off the Germans in the Baltic. But the Germans found out about this. English patience ran out and in 1994 a plane Sikorski was flying from Morocco to England came down in the Straits of Gibraltar. Only the English pilots survived, Sikorski and his child died.

The Polish Government of that time betrayed all its allies (even its own people) and thus provoked the Second World War. Goebbels' propaganda trick brought 1.8 million volunteers into the German Army, prolonged the war and increased the sacrifice.

The issue of Katyn came to the fore again in 1989 when traitors were running the Soviet Union. They wanted to dismantle the Soviet Union and one of the essential means of doing so was to tear up the Warsaw Pact. Poland would then join NATO.

Now the fascist West needs the issue of Katyn to force the Russian Federation to pay it compensation. I have studies the material on this issue and it has convinced me that the Germans shot the Poles in the Forest of Katyn near Smolensk in 1941 when they controlled Smolensk. Today everyone blames the Soviet Union for shooting Polish people at Katyn and uses the issue to further their political career or for other purposes. These people are the spiritual children of Goebbels and I consider them my enemies.

The format of our conversation does not give me the opportunity to go further into this issue, which is why I advise people who still have dignity and clear thinking to read Yuri Mukhin’s book Katyn Detective, his film Katynskaya Podlost and his latest book, Sud Nad Stalinim in which Yuri Mukhin, Sergey Strigin and Mikhail Shved, who have investigated this issue, present their arguments. I want to make your readers interested by telling them that Sergey Strigin discovered 43 signs of falsification in the arguments of Special Packet #1.

Q: Do you see the collapse of the Soviet Union as a negative thing? Do you not think that this was one of the darkest periods of Georgia’s history?

A: Yes, it was a dark period. The cannibal Communists created such unbearable conditions that the population of Georgia increased from 2.7 million (according to data from 1914) to 6.7 million (according to 1986 Soviet data), of which 70 percent were Georgians. An unprecedented horror was inflicted on the education system, it was free of charge and one of the best in the world. But this is nothing compared to the cruelty called free healthcare. Not only hospitals but also medical-sanitation system (sanatoriums, cottages, pioneer camps) were free. I agree that this was really a genocide of the Georgian people, now without irony.

The Soviet Union, like any other country, was not immune to crises. These are normal. But it did not look like other countries because its philosophy was rather progressive. Hence it threatened other kind of crises. The trouble with the Soviet Union was that the avanguard of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party, turned into the shelter of the parasites. Stalin understood this very well even in 1936, when he sought to limit the powers of the party. Stalin presented a constitution in 1936 which would have allowed not only members of the Communist Party but others to participate in elections.

Stalin campaigned against the oligarchs of the party. He lost this battle but survived. Stalin still tried to oppress them at the 19th Congress in 1952, but unfortunately this attempt cost him his life. He was killed. The direct successor of Stalin was Khrushev’s anti-Stalin campaign, which was nothing more than the masking of this crime by halting the reforms launched by Stalin.

The Communist Party became a nest of non-Communists. Why are we surprised that today the words “Communist” and “Bolshevik” are terms of abuse? I believe wise and honest people were trying to cure the ills of the Soviet Union, but foolish and dishonest people wanted to wreck it.

Q: Your father Evgeny Djugashvili sued Novaya Gazeta…

A: Today we do not have normal conditions in Russia and it is impossible to demand that any person or mass media outlet be held responsible for their words. We used the court as an alternative forum for discussion. We got an unprecedented result because the process revealed the true nature of the anti-Stalinists. They had no arguments to defend their positions with.

Q: Now you have brought a second court case about Stalin…

A: At this moment a second case is underway against Ekho Moskvi, which stated that "Stalin signed a secret order according to which the death penalty can be applied to all juveniles above the age of 12 and charged with serving as "enemy of people" and other offences. Just think what kind of nonsense Ekho Moskvi is preaching. If this order was secret how did the court manage to pass the sentence? I will not make further comment. Let us wait for the court hearing.

Q: How did you assess Merabishvili’s statement in his interview with Kommersant about offering the Russians money to blow up Stalin’s monument?

A: Stalin’s monument was not the issue. The truth and immortality of Stalin gives these people no rest. As someone once said, the more we leave Stalin behind the nearer we get to Hitler. The West is heading towards a new Hitler and with its lap-dogs pushes us in the same direction.

Source

http://www.geotimes.ge/

SANDERS: Vietnam, in sadness but not in shame

2010-04-26

America's more than 1.5 million Vietnamese-Americans this week will mourn the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the Republic of [South] Vietnam.

Defying conventional wisdom, many will remember and honor the bravery and sacrifice of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. They want recognition for the heroic struggle that South Vietnamese troops put up against overwhelming odds after the withdrawal of American forces and the cutoff of U.S. military aid. Fortunately, a new group of revisionist scholars is setting the record straight, even in the face of the long history of American media and academic malfeasance on the Vietnam disaster.

The mourners also will recall the enormous loss of life and suffering — "the bloodbath" which, again, conventional wisdom has tried to deny — that followed Saigon's fall. Thousands died in "the Vietnamese gulag," communist "re-education camps" where Prime Minister Pham Van Dong publicly admitted that more than 1 million people had been imprisoned. Few but the Vietnamese remember that in addition to the 255,000 boat people who reached the shelter of the miserable refugee camps, thousands drowned at sea, often refused entry by neighboring countries.

That is not in any way to minimize the enormous loss of life and the sacrifice of Americans in what was a noble if tragic struggle. But it is an effort to retell the whole story of "Vietnam" for fellow Americans, particularly younger generations who have grown up amid a vast media and pseudo-scholarly distortion of facts. The remembrance also glories in the thousands of young Vietnamese now serving with distinction in the U.S. armed forces.

Unfortunately, in Vietnam itself, the oppression continues unabated. The communist regime persecutes religious and ethnic minorities, and in its own ham-handed way, attempts to stamp out political dissent. An endlessly feuding politburo guides the one-party state — so enmeshed in petty personal rivalries and ideological confusion that it publicly arrested the Communist Party official newspaper editor after he wrote an anti-Chinese editorial. And, since 1995, when Sens. John McCain of Arizona and John Kerry of Massachusetts — both veterans of the war — pushed for U.S. diplomatic recognition without quid pro quos, official Washington has obfuscated the true nature of the regime. U.S. policy has naively and ignominiously sought favor with Hanoi through economic and trade concessions in a fruitless effort to promote political liberalization.

Although Vietnam's economic team long ago adopted "the Chinese model," tattered Soviet-style central planning, incompetence and unbridled corruption have led to shortages, inflation and rising debt. Nevertheless, the indomitable Vietnamese entrepreneur, with his traditional thirst for education that finds an echo in the success of America's Vietnamese immigrant communities, has produced a growing gross national product for a youthful population nearing 90 million.

Ironically, remittances from the American emigres to unfortunate relatives left behind has been the most powerful economic prop for the regime, totaling as much as $8 billion in 2008. That compares with $5 billion annually in aid from the multilateral agencies and bilateral aid programs. These remittances contribute 5 percent of the GDP, adding to the money sent home by a half-million workers abroad and spending by another 400,000 ethnic Vietnamese tourists annually. Capital from the American emigres, often arriving via the black market, funds small entrepreneurs who make Greater Ho Chi Minh City-Saigon the country's overwhelming economic hub, the cash cow for Hanoi's kleptocrats. The U.S. remains Vietnam's largest official investor as well, with some $1 billion in registered capital. More foreign investment would come were it not for the tangle of kickbacks and intrigues between the central Hanoi government and regional party bosses.

Trying to counteract the effects of the worldwide credit crunch and recession, the communist planners in 2009 threw more than $1 billion — over 1 percent of GDP — at the currency. But while credit expanded by nearly 40 percent, the price of dollars soared despite two massive devaluations.

Exporters, struggling with the high-priced dollar, have difficulty financing dollar imports of raw materials and components in the battle against their heavily subsidized Chinese competitors. And foreign exchange outflows are draining reserves. The business community is bracing for another round of inflation, probably even greater than the crisis year of 2008.

By Sol Sanders

more http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/26/sanders-vietnam-in-sadness-but-not-in-shame/

the shadow of the crimes and lies of the Stalin regime continue to lie on present-day Russia.”

2010-03-05

“The Katyn crime,” Memorial says, “is not only the murder in the spring of 1940 of almost 22,000 Polish citizens. It is also a half century of lies and falsifications during which the Soviet Union in spite of the evidence denied its responsibility … and tried to convince the entire world and its own citizens that the crime was the work of the Hitlerites.”
The rights group points out in its appeal that the situation in that regard began to change “only in 1990” when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev handed Polish leaders the names of those who had been killed and “certain other documents which showed that the operation of the destruction of Polish citizens was carried out by the NKVD of the USSR.”
That step forward, Memorial says, was extended in 1992, when Russian President Boris Yeltsin published documents which showed the involvement of the political leadership of the Soviet Union – including among others Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan and Beria -- in the commission of this crime (www.memo.ru/2010/03/05/katyn.htm).
And a highpoint was reached in 2000 when memorial cemeteries were established at the sites of the executions, a moment at which it appeared to Russians, Poles and the entire world that “the lies and omissions on Katyn had come to an end and that there was no longer any basis for distrust toward our country.”
But then the situation changed, Memorial points out, and in a profoundly negative way. In 2004, Russia’s Chief Military Prosecutor ended the criminal case, and the Inter-Agency Commission for the Defense of State Secrets, under the direction of then-President Vladimir Putin, classified the relevant documents.
The classification of these documents, Memorial says, “violates the operative Russian law “on state secrets” which does not permit classifying documents if they concern “information about the violation of the rights of human beings and citizens and also the violation of the law by organs of state power and the officials in them.”
“Despite that,” Memorial continues, the two agencies it referred to have “refused to this day to change their decisions about the classification” of the documents concerning Katyn. In doing so, the rights group says, these government institutions have not only violated other Russian laws but retreated from the assessments of these crimes by Moscow in the past.
“From our point of view, the shooting of military prisons and civilians without trial must be qualified in correspondence with Points B and C of Paragraph Six of the Statute of the International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg as war crimes and crimes against humanity,” crimes for which there is no statute of limitations.
But in addition to these reasons for changing course, Memorial writes in its appeal to Medvedev, there is a practical one from the point of view of Russia: the continuing failure of the Russian authorities to recognize these crimes “is conceived by public opinion within the country and abroad as a turning away from the march toward the truth begun in the 1990s.”
Indeed, these “attempts to reanimate the Stalinist falsified version of the events are being undertaken not only in the yellow press but even from the tribune of the parliament.” And as a result, “the shadow of the crimes and lies of the Stalin regime continue to lie on present-day Russia.”
To change that, Memorial calls on the Russian president to declassify the Katyn documents, to renew the investigation of the Katyn case, and to rehabilitate by name “in correspondence with Russian law” all those who were shot by the decision of the Soviet leadership on March 5, 1940.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s appearance at the Katyn forest cemetery in April 2009 was a welcome step, but “all the same, considering the importance and neuralgic quality of the issue,” Memorial says, we consider the personal participation of the President of Russia to be a necessary step.”
According to Memorial, “a clear and unambiguous denunciation of the crime committed by the government organs of the Soviet Union by a decision of its leadership and a declaration about the steps it will take in order to pull ‘the Katyn case’ out of the dead end in which it is now could become a turning point in the relations between Russia and Poland.”
But more than that, the human rights organization says, “such a declaration is needed not only for the reputation of Russia in the world. Much more important, it is necessary for the successful future of our country which will be impossible without an honest assessment of the totalitarian past.”

By Paul Goble

http://www.globalmuseumoncommunism.org/content/window-eurasia-memorial-calls-medvedev-denounce-katyn-crime-against-humanity

Prague Hosts Conference On Crimes Of Communism

2010-02-24

At the three-day event, government officials, intellectuals, and former dissidents -- most from Eastern and Central Europe -- are also considering threats to democracy.

Jiri Liska, the vice president of the Czech Senate, opened the conference by stressing the need to fully examine the communist past and take action today.

"It is our duty, responsibility, and commitment not only to all the millions of victims of communist totalitarianism, but also -- perhaps even more so today -- a commitment, for the sake of our free and democratic future, to keep [examining] our past," Liska said.

Failure to deal properly with the communist past, Liska cautioned, has led to a basic distrust of the democratic institutions that replaced communism.

Most Central and Eastern European states have condemned their communist pasts. Many have brought in laws barring communist-era officials from holding key public posts. In Poland several former top communists, including General Wojciech Jaruzelski, are on trial for "communist-era crimes."

But prosecutions have been rare. While he called for punishing those responsible for such crimes, Liska acknowledged the difficulty of doing so.

"I think, however, that we have to admit that totalitarianism is a phenomenon that represents a crime against society and morality as a whole, and not only by some of its expressions, that it resists hard the simplest redress of grievances or achievement of justice," Liska said. "At least that's what it appears from the inside, from inside the countries that have emerged from totalitarianism."

Still, Liska maintained that fully opening the archives and studying the deportations, executions, and forced labor camps of communist-era Europe would produce results -- and allow names to be named.

The keynote speaker, Harry Wu, who spent nearly 20 years in the Chinese system of forced labor camps, or laogai, served as a reminder that in some parts of the world, communism is not a thing of the past.

"Communism is a crime. But today you have a conference to talk about it, and that's great," Wu said. "We have to clean it up. But the communists are still running things inside China. We cannot forget that."

After his release in 1979, Wu immigrated to the United States, where he founded the Laogai Research Foundation to study human rights abuses in China.

He added that while the West engages China economically, it must not ignore the repressive nature of its communist regime.

China is one of four communist states in existence today. The others are Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam. Some also consider North Korea to be a communist state.

Others scheduled to speak at the conference include:

Nikita Petrov, vice-chairman of the Russian human rights group Memorial;
Zianon Pazniak, leader of the Belarusian opposition movement under communism;
Vytautas Landsbergis, former President of Lithuania;
and Laszlo Tokes, the bishop whose persecution helped spark the Romanian revolution.

The conference is being organized by the Prague-based Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, which started work in 2008.

In the same year, the Czech capital also hosted the signing of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, which called for a thorough accounting of crimes committed under communism.

source:

Radio free Europe

Yushchenko initiates creation of international tribunal for Communist crimes

2010-01-19

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko said he is convinced the decision made by the Kyiv Court of Appeals in the case involving the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine will become a precedent for changing the approaches to the definition of genocide in international law and is calling for the creation of an international tribunal for Communist crimes.

Yushchenko has proposed to the leaders of the countries of Eastern Europe hurt by Communist regimes (Russia, Poland, Georgia, the Baltic states, etc.) to sign an international agreement on the creation of such a tribunal outlining the principles of its creation and activities, and charter, the Ukrainian presidential press service reported on Jan. 14.

Yushchenko recalled that the Kyiv Court of Appeals on Jan. 13 issued a ruling in the criminal case investigated by the Ukrainian Security Service involving the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine, which is believed to have killed millions of Ukrainian peasants.

"The decision made by the Ukrainian court takes the debate on the Holodomor from a political to a legal realm. Now the only argument in this debate can be facts, not political or historical stereotypes and myths," the president said.

Yushchenko also said he is convinced that this ruling "is an additional argument for the Ukrainian parliament in favor of introducing criminal liability for denying crimes against humanity."

Source: Kyiv Post

Kyiv court accuses Stalin leadership of organizing famine

2010-01-14

The Kyiv Court of Appeal, in a ruling on Wednesday, accused Josef Stalin and other leaders of the former Soviet Union and Soviet Ukraine of organizing mass famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, the Ukrainian Security Service said in a press release.

However, the court quashed criminal proceedings against Josef Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Stanislav Kosior, Pavel Postyshev and other Bolshevik leaders accused of organizing the famine, known as Holodomor, due to their deaths.

Source: Kyiv Post

Google to end censorship in China over cyber attacks

2010-01-14

Google, the world's leading search engine, has thrown down the gauntlet to China by saying it is no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service.

The internet giant said the decision followed a cyber attack it believes was aimed at gathering information on Chinese human rights activists.

The move follows a clampdown on the internet in China over the last year, which has seen sites and social networking services hosted overseas blocked - including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube - and the closure of many sites at home. Chinese authorities criticised Google for supplying "vulgar" content in results.

Google acknowledged that the decision "may well mean" the closure of Google.cn and its offices in China.

That is an understatement, given that it had to agree to censor sensitive material - such as details of human rights groups and references to the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 - to launch Google.cn.

Google was in contact with the US state department before its announcement. Spokesman PJ Crowley said: "Every nation has an obligation, regardless of the origin of malicious cyber activities, to keep its part of the network secure.

"That includes China. Every nation should criminalise malicious activities on computer networks."

In a post on the official Google Blog, the company outlined a "highly sophisticated and targeted" attack in December which it believes affected at least 20 other firms: "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered, combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web, have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

Hillary Clinton stepped into the debate, urging Beijing to respond to Google's announcement.

The US secretary of state said in a statement: "We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation."

She added: "The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy."

Human Rights Watch praised the decision and urged other firms to follow suit in challenging censorship. "A transnational attack on privacy is chilling, and Google's response sets a great example," said Arvind Ganesan, director of the group's corporations and human rights programme.

Google said the cyber attack originated from China and that its intellectual property was stolen, but that evidence suggested a primary goal was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Two accounts were accessed but Google believed only account information and subject lines were obtained. It is notifying the other targeted companies and working with US authorities.

Its investigation had shown that, separately, the accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appeared to have been routinely accessed by third parties.

The company added that it was sharing the information not just because of the security and human rights implications "but because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech".

Acknowledging the potential consequences, it stressed: "This move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China."

The message, headlined "A New Approach to China" and signed by David Drummond, senior vice-president of corporate development and chief legal officer, said the company launched Google.cn in 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China "outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results".

At the time Google promised to monitor conditions in China and reconsider its approach if necessary.

But Evgeny Morozov, an expert on the political effects of the internet and a Yahoo fellow at Georgetown University, questioned why Google had made the decision after four years.

"They knew pretty well what they were getting into. Now it seems they are playing the innocence card ... It's like they thought they were dealing with the government of Switzerland and suddenly realised it was China," he said.

Morozov said it was hard to see the logical connection between the security of human rights activists and Google's self-censorship, particularly given that the firm had chosen not to comment on whom it believed responsible for the hacking. It had become easier for "pretty much anyone" to launch cyber attacks in the last few years, he added.

He added that it could have been damaging for Google if news of the breach had emerged later and it appeared the company had done nothing.

Google has only a third of the search-engine market in China, which is dominated by the Chinese giant Baidu. Although its revenues have continued to rise, many analysts believed it was finding business hard going. In June Google suffered intensive disruption to search functions and Gmail for over an hour, after authorities told it to scale back search functions.

China has the world's largest internet population.

Rebecca MacKinnon, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, said her research showed Google had censored less than Baidu. Google's decision "certainly sets an example in terms of a company trying to do what's best for the user and not just whatever increases the profit margins", she added.

Nart Villeneuve, research fellow at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab - which examines the exercise of political power in cyberspace - said the decision to give such a full account of the attacks and link it to human rights issues was unprecedented.

Google's decision to launch the censored service was highly controversial at the time. It was attacked by campaigners and accused of "sickening collaboration" in a Congressional hearing.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry referred the Guardian to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. But an employee at MIIT said it was not responsible for handling the query, because it dealt with only the technical side of internet issues. He added that many other departments dealt with other aspects of internet management, but added that he did not know who the Guardian should contact in this instance.

Source: The Guardian

Josef Stalin's grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili sues Moscow radio station for libeling dead dictator

2009-12-28

A Moscow radio station says it is being sued by Josef Stalin's grandson who claims the station wrongfully dishonored the dictator.

The lawsuit is the second of its kind filed by Yevgeny Dzhugashvili.

Ekho Moskvy radio said Saturday the suit was filed against program host Matvei Ganapolsky who read a phrase from a book saying Stalin had approved the shooting of children as young as 12.

Ganapolsky then added: "What kind of bastard would say even one word in his defense."

Stalin's legacy has been a subject of fierce debate in Russia. He ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens during the purges, but he is revered by many for turning a struggling nation into a superpower.

Dzhugashvili lost a similar libel case in October.

Source: Daily News

Liberal MPs Pass Motion To Mark August 23rd As Black Ribbon Day

2009-12-03

OTTAWA - Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic, the Hon. Bob Rae, passed a unanimous Resolution in Parliament today to commemorate the victims of Europe's totalitarian regimes.

"Millions of Canadians of Eastern and Central European descent whose families have been directly affected by either Nazi or Communist crimes have made unique and significant, cultural, economic, social and other contributions to help build the Canada we know today," said Mr. Rae. "We must unequivocally condemn the crimes against humanity committed by totalitarian Nazi and Communist regimes and offer the victims of these crimes and their family members' sympathy, understanding and recognition for their suffering.

"Every victim of any totalitarian regime has the same human dignity and deserves justice, remembrance and recognition by the Parliament and the Government of Canada."

Twenty years after the fall of the totalitarian Communist regimes in Europe, knowledge among Canadians about these regimes, which terrorised their fellow citizens in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 40 years, is still alarmingly superficial and inadequate.

This annual day of remembrance is to be held on August 23rd to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes.

"Called Black Ribbon Day, the establishment of this Day of Remembrance on August 23rd will show Canadians and those around the world that Canada will not stand for crimes against humanity, and we will be counted among those who stand up for victims of systematic and ruthless abuse.

"Canadians must not allow these crimes to go misunderstood and unrecognized."

Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Special Advisor on Emerging Democracies to Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, went on to explain the personal impact of this motion.

"My parents were refugees who arrived on Canada's shores having survived the hatred, genocides and wars unleashed by two of humanity's greatest tyrants," he said. "Stalin, responsible for the famine and genocide of Ukrainians, the Holodomor; and Hitler, who unleashed the Holocaust, divided Europe and cost the lives of close to 100 million souls.

"Let us all remember this dark part of history to ensure that the world will never stand by in the face of crimes against humanity - so that Europe's people can never again be divided."

RESOLUTION TO ESTABLISH AN ANNUAL DAY OF REMEMBERANCE FOR THE VICTIMS OF EUROPE'S TOTALITARIAN REGIMES

1) WHEREAS the Government of Canada has actively advocated for and continues to support the principals enshrined by The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights and The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260 (III) A of 9 December 1948;
2) WHEREAS the extreme forms of totalitarian rule practiced by the Nazi and Communist dictatorships led to premeditated and vast crimes committed against millions of human beings and their basic and inalienable rights on a scale unseen before in history;
3) WHEREAS hundreds of thousands of human beings, fleeing the Nazi and Soviet Communist crimes, sought and found refuge in Canada;
4) WHEREAS the millions of Canadians of Eastern and Central European descent whose families have been directly affected by Nazi and/or Communist crimes have made unique and significant, cultural, economic, social and other contributions to help build the Canada we know today;
5) WHEREAS 20 years after the fall of the totalitarian Communist regimes in Europe, knowledge among Canadians about the totalitarian regimes which terrorised their fellow citizens in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 40 years in the form of systematic and ruthless military, economic and political repression of the people by means of arbitrary executions, mass arrests, deportations, the suppression of free expression, private property and civil society and the destruction of cultural and moral identity and which deprived the vast majority of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe of their basic human rights and dignity, separating them from the democratic world by means of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, is still alarmingly superficial and inadequate;
6) WHEREAS Canadians were instrumental during the 1980's in raising global awareness of crimes committed by European totalitarian Nazi and Communist regimes by founding an annual "Black Ribbon Day" on August 23rd, to commemorate the legal partnership of these two regimes through the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT every victim of any totalitarian regime has the same human dignity and deserves justice, remembrance and recognition by the Parliament and the government of Canada, in efforts to ensure that such crimes and events are never again repeated;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Parliament and the Government of Canada unequivocally condemn the crimes against humanity committed by totalitarian Nazi and Communist regimes and offer the victims of these crimes and their family members sympathy, understanding and recognition for their suffering;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Government of Canada establish an annual Canadian Day of Remembrance for the victims of Nazi and Soviet Communist crimes on August 23rd, called "Black Ribbon Day," to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the infamous pact between the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes.

Czechs celebrate fall of communism 20 years ago

2009-11-17

PRAGUE - With their country in deep political crisis, Czechs took to the streets throughout the country Tuesday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of decades of repressive communist rule.
They will celebrate with exhibitions, concerts, speeches and rallies. Thousands of people in the capital, Prague, plan to participate in a reenactment of a student protest - an evocation of the event that triggered the Velvet Revolution that peacefully toppled the communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia.
Nov. 17, 1989, began with fiery speeches at a university campus in Prague, inspiring thousands of students to march downtown toward Wenceslas Square. As darkness fell, police cracked down hard, beating demonstrators with truncheons and injuring hundreds in the melee.
Uncowed, the crowds mushroomed in the ensuing days, with demonstrators chanting: "You have lost already!"
They were right. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and communism in the region, by Dec. 10, Czechoslovakia had a new government. On Dec. 29, Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who had spent several years in prison, was elected the country's first democratic president in a half century by a parliament still dominated by communist hard-liners.
On Tuesday, Havel, President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Jan Fischer, joined hundreds of people laying flowers and lighting candles at a monument marking the site of the brutal clash.
"The demonstration, the march set the history into motion," said Havel, who was applauded by the surrounding crowd.
Earlier Tuesday he praised the memory of those who helped overthrow the repressive regime, naming dozens including his late wife Olga.
"We often tend to forget our fellow colleagues, friends, and the open-minded people in everyday life," Havel told the Czech Senate.
The peaceful nature of the historic change and the leading role of Havel were praised by many.
"Your spirit, your courage inspired the world," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a video message broadcast at a concert organized by Havel over the weekend, featuring rocker Lou Reed, soprano Renee Fleming and folk singer Joan Baez.
"You are the model," Vice President Joe Biden said during his recent visit to Prague.
"As I travel through Eastern Europe - as I travel to Ukraine and Georgia and other places, you are the model for democracy that they look to," he said.
A survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed that, of nine post-communist countries, only in the Czech Republic and Poland did a majority say that people were better off than they were at the transition from communism.
The Czech Republic is now a member of NATO and the European Union.
But the euphoria of revolutionary days is long gone.
Besides the economic downturn, the country has been in political limbo since the government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek was embarrassingly ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in March in the middle of the Czech EU presidency, just days before Obama's visit to Prague.
Havel said Tuesday he was concerned about "a loss of trust in politics, the gap between the public and the politicians."
Havel said his nation of 10 million is still on the right track, enjoying a democratic society with the rule of law, respect for human rights and a free-market economy.
Eighty-eight percent of Czechs say they are not satisfied with the current political situation, a recent public poll showed. The Median agency surveyed 1,374 people aged 18 and older questioned in September and October. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
"People have a reason to be dissatisfied," said Bohumil Dolezal, a political analyst.
"The political situation has been unstable for a long time," he said.
Currently, the country has a weak, caretaker government; a new government will be formed only after general elections in May.
Still, Dolezal said "we've got something to celebrate," because for most the revolution "was an unprecedentedly positive change in our lives."
Simon Panek, a student leader in 1989, said most people might be disgusted by politics, but "20 years ago we gained the essential thing: freedom."
Havel recently warned that democracy and freedom could not be taken for granted.
"The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not come to en end," he said. "It may have ended in its classical way as we know it from the 20th century, but new, much more sophisticated ways of controlling the society are being born and we need to be cautious," Havel said.
Ten years ago, Havel, as president, honored former President George H.W. Bush, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Poland's 1980s pro-democracy leader, Lech Walesa, at the Prague Castle for their contributions to the fall of communism.
This time, only heads of Eastern European parliaments will participate in a conference in the Senate.
Organizers of the re-enactment of the student rally said they invited more than 800 original participants, as well anti-Communist dissidents - but no politicians other than Havel.
"We do it for normal people," said Michal Pokorny, an organizer. "It's a great anniversary but we wanted a nonpolitical celebration."

Source: Yahoo News/AP

After the wall fell

2009-11-16

BERLIN -- For some time now, I've been trying to put my finger on what has been bothering me about the exhaustive and perfectly blameless celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There is nothing wrong with holding dozens of conferences, after all, and I'm all in favor of the many new books. In Washington, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed a joint meeting of Congress. In Los Angeles, a fabulously kitschy "Wall" was constructed and then knocked down by "invited dignitaries" (although, in deference to the habits of the natives, the timing of that event had to be changed from afternoon to midnight, so as not to disrupt L.A. traffic).

Here in Berlin, there are conferences, books and dignitaries in abundance: Everyone who is anyone is in town, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Hillary Clinton, and plenty of kitsch is in evidence as well. A Berlin culture committee has set up a "long line of oversize dominoes" -- painted in graffiti-style designs -- that also will be knocked down, symbolizing "the power of people to bring change." Traffic doesn't pose the cosmic problem in Berlin that it does in Los Angeles, so this event was scheduled to take place during working hours.

Myself, I celebrated the anniversary Sunday, on the day before the great events, simply by doing something that would have been impossible on Nov. 8, 1989: I walked down Unter den Linden -- a street I first visited on a freezing cold day back when it was still the dark and deserted centerpiece of East Berlin -- and through the Brandenburg Gate, which once stood stranded in the no man's land between East and West. I passed people sitting in cafes, eating lunch, window shopping. And I thought about what an extraordinary, almost unbelievable success it has all been.

This view -- that the past two decades have been, in a friend's words, the "best in Central Europe for 300 years" -- is not universal. On the contrary, the majority of those books and conferences have focused on the many unsolved problems, the mistakes that were made and the resentments that are still felt all across the former Eastern bloc. The majority of the news focus -- in Germany, Poland and Hungary, as well as in the United States -- has been on the persistence of Eastern poverty, on the perception of Western indifference, on the "invisible walls" that still divide people.

But what did we think Central Europe would look like 20 years after Nov. 9, 1989? I can promise you, having been in Berlin then myself, that no one had the slightest idea. Angela Merkel herself has said that she thought it was ridiculous even to speculate on the possibility of a united Germany, so absurd did that idea seem -- even after the fall of the wall. Indeed, so outlandish did the notion of NATO expansion seem that when officials in the new democratic government of Poland first raised the idea, American diplomats in Warsaw angrily told them to forget about it.

Back then, most of those who did make predictions saw a dark future. The rise of virulent, angry nationalism was forecast by more than one expert. Others foresaw the rise of anti-Semitism and the growth of neo-Nazism; Germany was going to become "the Fourth Reich." Many in the West protested, preemptively, against the "witch hunts" that might be conducted against former communists. Now that he is a revered symbol of freedom, nobody remembers that the Polish Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, was tapped as a potential right-wing demagogue, too.

Some truly awful things did happen: In Yugoslavia there was a bitter war. In Russia, revanchism has returned. Authoritarian dictators run several of the former Soviet republics. But the heart of Central Europe -- Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria -- is peaceful and democratic. More than that: The inhabitants of Central Europe are healthier, more prosperous and more integrated with the rest of the continent than they have been for centuries.

This, then, is what I think was bothering me about the commemorations: Too many of them treat too much of the past two decades as a foregone conclusion, focusing on what didn't happen rather than what did. Too many have taken the achievements for granted. Too many of us forget that there are few historical precedents for the past two decades. "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven." When Wordsworth wrote those words about the French Revolution, the post-revolutionary terror was a recent memory, the Napoleonic wars were still raging and his poem was an ironic comment on the naivete of youth. But we are now as far from the events of 1989 as Wordsworth was from 1789, and here in Central Europe there is no need for irony at all: Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.

Source: Washington Post

Polish Dissident Says Life 'Probably Not A Paradise, But It's Not Hell Anymore'

2009-11-13

Adam Michnik, the editor in chief of Poland's "Gazeta Wyborcza" and a leading member of the Polish democratic opposition from 1968 to 1989, was in Prague this week to attend a conference marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. He spoke to Irina Lagunina of RFE/RL's Russian Service about Russia, the West, and the post-Soviet letdown felt in the former Eastern bloc countries.

On Russia and the fate of the former Soviet bloc countries, 20 years after communism:

"In all of our [postcommunist] countries there is a tendency toward our own kind of Putinism. What is Putinism? Putinism, according to [chief Kremlin ideologue Vladislav] Surkov, is a sovereign democracy. A sovereign democracy means that I am the sovereign; I can imprison all my opponents, in spite of Strasbourg, The Hague, or Brussels.

"When I was in Moscow, I went to court to watch the Khodorkovsky trial. It was a trial typical of the early days of Stalinism. Of course, not like in 1937; it was more like the Industrial Party trial. On the other hand, when I bought [the Russian newspaper] 'Vedomosti,' what did I see? An article written by Khodorkovsky, where he commented on a speech by [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev. This is not a normal authoritarian regime; it is something else. It is a mutant, I would say. Russia today is a mutant, a cross between an authoritarian regime and a democracy.

"With regard to our countries, this is not exactly a full-grown version of Putinism. It is a kind of Liliputinism. Look at Poland. We have had twins in power. That was a Polish version of Liliputinism. Look at Slovakia -- they have [Vladimir] Meciar, [Robert] Fico, [Jan] Slota. If you look at the Czech Republic, look at the president -- despite the slogans, the Czechs like him just as much as the Russians like Putin."

On the disappointment felt in post-Soviet countries that democracy has failed to cure all ills:

"Where does this disappointment come from? I would say we had a complex. We were good nations, very good people, but we lived under the Bolshevik, Soviet regime. And [we thought] if we got rid of that regime, we would become richer, make the same amount of money as people in the United States, enjoy the same social protection as people in Scandinavia, but continue working the same way we did under the old regime in Poland. This is a very difficult task. In this sense, we're out of luck. We have to start working differently. We will not be America or Scandinavia.

"But in the end, I think that 25 or 24 years after perestroika, the balance is absolutely positive, despite the fact that each of our countries has its own scandals, corruption, crime, and authoritarian tendencies. Compared to the Brezhnev years of stagnation, it is just a different world.

"After any revolution, the revolutionaries become disappointed after their victory. Because although they were the ones who had done the fighting, it was other people -- who were perhaps dishonest, who were thieves -- who came to power. That's life. Freedom and democracy are for everyone, not only for decent, heroic revolutionaries. Society has respect for decent, heroic revolutionaries for only the first five minutes after the revolution. Then it forgets them. And then it doesn't like them anymore.

"I don't think anyone should hold a grudge against democracy or society. There shouldn't have been any illusion that it would be a paradise. This is probably not a paradise, but it's not hell anymore.

"Many people -- perhaps fewer among dissidents or revolutionaries -- thought that if the pressure of a totalitarian police state was lifted, everything would be all right. It was not a utopia, but it was an illusion that democracy solves everything. Democracy does not just solve everything. Democracy offers freedom and basic civil rights. But democracy cannot decide who of us will be happy."

On Russian foreign policy:

"I think that the Caucasus and Moldova are great mistakes in the Kremlin's policy. I think this may be the result of an imaginary inferiority [complex] -- that now [the Kremlin] will show everyone who wears the pants in the family, and teach the damned Georgians and those traitors in Estonia a lesson. But realistically, looking at this complete nonsense, this policy will not bring anything good for Russia."

On dependence on the West:

"All of our countries have this trend that they blame foreigners for anything that goes wrong. At the time of the Soviet Union, of course, it was the Soviets, and now it's Brussels, with its dreadful conditions and standards. I have heard this from very serious people, for example, in Budapest. Maybe it is happening in Ukraine, too. Someone [in Ukraine] asked me: Why doesn't Europe support us? [My answer was]: What kind of support can there be when you're putting on the kind of theater performances like the war between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko? What can Paris, Berlin, or Warsaw do about it?"

Source:

Radio Free Europe

Very Little to Celebrate

2009-11-07

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who ended the Cold War and forever ended the threat of a global nuclear holocaust, has a simple answer for those who continue to blame him for the collapse of the Soviet Union and for “giving away” the former Soviet satellite states to the West. “What did I give away?” Gorbachev asks. “I gave Poland to the Poles and Czechoslovakia to the Czechs and Slavs.” And as it turned out, Russia went to the Russians as well.

Gorbachev never tires of reminding people of his political program at the time that the Berlin Wall fell: “We made an agreement [with Western leaders] to build a free Europe, a unified system of security … that would serve the interests of Germans, Russians, Europe and the whole world.” That is the principle value of perestroika, glasnost and Gorbachev’s “new thinking”: Every individual was given the chance to determine his own path. The only problem is that everyone chose different paths and traveled down differing roads over the past two decades.

Now, 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell Nov. 9, 1989, we see how much Europe and Asia have expanded and become stronger, while Russia has declined and continues to lag behind.

From the moment that the Cold War ended, the West started expanding and strengthening its two principal economic, political and security structures — NATO and the European Union. NATO experienced three waves of expansion, adding 12 new states and bringing its total number of members up to 28. The EU also expanded three times, bringing its number of member states to 27 with a combined population of almost 500 million. The number of countries aspiring to join both organizations also increased.

The East has gone through its own period of intense development. It has become an engine of growth for the global economy. China began its unprecedented perestroika even before the Gorbachev era. In 1990, the size of China’s economy ranked No. 11 in terms of gross domestic product, and today it is No. 3. Even during the current crisis, China has maintained a GDP growth rate of about 8 percent. As a whole, Asia took advantage of the end of the Cold War to open its doors to globalization and to become the second-largest economic center in the world after the combined force of the United States and the EU. The other major power in the East, India, has also strengthened both its democracy — the largest in the world — and its economy since the Berlin Wall fell.

In contrast to the successes in the East and West, Russia — the country that did so much to inspire all these changes — has ended up the biggest loser in the post-Cold War era. Twenty years later, the country has experienced a triple defeat. First, Russia has failed to modernize its economy or social sphere. Second, it has not been able to build an effective political system, creating instead a one-man authoritarian regime. Russia has lost its international reputation and its former superpower status, leaving it almost entirely without allies or the support of global public opinion.

The structure of Russia’s economy has significantly worsened over the last 20 years, and it continues to deteriorate. Fully 86 percent of Russia’s exports, constituting up to one-third of the country’s entire GDP, consist of raw materials, while 80 percent of the country’s imports are finished products. By comparison, Soviet-era raw material exports accounted for only 48 percent of GDP. Today, hydrocarbon exports account for up to 70 percent of Russia’s consolidated budget income. More than 70 percent of all shares traded on the Russian stock market are for companies from the raw materials sector.

Moreover, every attempt to create a modern, high-tech economy has ended in failure. The average Russian income remains at almost the same level as it was 20 years ago, while 20 percent of Russians now live below the poverty line. A mere 10 percent of the population earns more than 50 percent of all wealth in the country, and in 2008 the country’s 53 wealthiest Russians owned capital equaling 30 percent of the national GDP. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, Russia dropped 12 places since last year, down to 63rd of 132 countries. For the first time, Russia fell behind countries such as Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia and even Azerbaijan.

Similar declines were seen in recent years in the areas of democracy and human rights. According to Freedom House, Russia moved from being a “free” state in the early 1990s to becoming firmly entrenched on the list of “unfree” states. According to a democracy rating conducted by The Economist magazine, in 2008 Russia found itself at the record-low 108th place among 167 countries. The picture is similarly bleak for ratings of freedom of speech, freedoms of nongovernmental organizations and so on.

This degradation has not been lost on Russia’s neighbors, which are distancing themselves as much as possible from Moscow. Instead, they consider Western institutions to be the better model for development. Only five former Soviet republics have relatively good ties with Russia — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — and even they are taking cautious steps backward. The other former Soviet republics have either distanced themselves from Moscow or else broken ranks with Russia completely. The Kremlin is rapidly losing its two major means of influencing others — the “hard power” of economic and military incentives and threats and the “soft power” of attracting partners through its own example, culture and policies.

In short, Moscow is finding itself increasingly isolated from the international community. While the rest of the world is commemorating the 20th-year anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia is left wondering why it has so little to celebrate.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio

Source: The Moscow Times

Russia's search for an identity*

2009-11-03

On Friday, as Russia recognized its annual commemoration of political
prisoners, President Dmitry Medvedev published a
videoblogin which he
condemned Joseph Stalin's crimes and called on the nation not to
forget about past political repression or its victims. Medvedev called
Stalin's repression "one of the greatest tragedies in Russian history" and
expressed concern that "even today it can be heard that these mass victims
were justified by certain higher goals of the state." He said that "no
development of a country, none of its successes or ambitions can be reached
at the price of human losses and grief." His statement, which led the
state-controlled television news, was sharply at odds with official rhetoric
of the past decade.

Medvedev's address may have sounded radical, but many here are skeptical
that the president's words will actually bring change. The number of
alarming signals of Stalin's rehabilitation is growing. And in general over
the year and a half of his presidency, Medvedev's often well-intended
rhetoric has not been matched with policy.

But it would be wrong to dismiss the speech and conclude instead -- as
observers at home and abroad sometimes do -- that Russia has made a
definitive turn "back" toward the Soviet Union and an admiration of Stalin.
In fact, perceptions of Stalin are conflicted, and this conflict reflects
Russia's attempts -- very feeble, so far -- to reinvent itself as a modern
nation.

On the one hand, there is evidence of a warming in attitudes toward Stalin.
In one recent example a stanza from the old Soviet anthem was
returnedto
the Kurskaya metro station in Moscow. Those lines "Stalin raised us,
he
inspired us to loyalty to the people, to the labor and heroic deeds" had
been removed in the 1950s as part of Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization
campaign; they were brought back this fall when the station's original decor
was restored. Another instance is the prosecution, on a far-fetched pretext
of privacy violation, of a provincial historian conducting archival research
of the fates of ethnic Germans deported and killed on Stalin's orders. In
December, Stalin came in third in a TV station's poll of greatest Russian
historical figures. Contest organizers are rumored to have tinkered with the
results after discovering that the man who masterminded the extermination of
millions of his compatriots actually finished first.

Yet the peak of Stalin's terror is also recognized for what it was. In 2007,
72 percent of respondents told the Levada polling agency that the repression
of 1937-38 were "political crimes that can't be justified." The day of
remembrance of political repression, officially introduced in 1991, is not
marked by major national events, but on Thursday, just outside the infamous
Lubyanka building, the KGB's headquarters and prison, the names of Stalin's
victims were read for 12 straight hours by any who wanted to participate.
Other commemorations were staged elsewhere in Russia.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently met with the widow of Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, and they discussed how best to teach his work "The Gulag
Archipelago" in schools. Two years ago, Putin visited a site of mass
executions in the 1930s. The Gulag volumes are available in bookstores, as
are a broad range of works about the history of Communist terror and books
that take a much more positive view of Stalin. Likewise on television,
praise of Stalin and his henchmen appears side by side with series and
programs based on works by Solzhenitsyn and other chroniclers of Stalin's
repression.

The perception of Stalin and his crimes has much more to do with the nature
of Russian statehood than with the monstrous actions of the man himself.
Russians cling to the image of Stalin as the embodiment of the great state,
and he is particularly inseparable from the triumph of the Soviet Union over
Nazi Germany. The implication is that individuals may have been cowed, and
that the ferocious state treated them mercilessly, but the state was the
vehicle that inspired Russia's victory in world War II, its greatest
achievement of the 20th century. Ruling elites today are no longer
ferocious; rather, they are seen as greedy and self-serving, but the model
of the omnipotent state and the impotent people is still generally accepted.

For the government, this acceptance of Stalin and the paternalistic
state-society pattern may be handy as a way to consolidate power. But some
in the decision-making circles do seem to realize that current social,
political and economic models are unable to produce growth and development.
From Putin and Medvedev down, modernization has become the mantra. But
modernization is incompatible with a statehood based on the specter of
Stalin and faith in the magic empowerment of the apathetic people by forces
of the state. Unless Russia reinvents itself and takes real steps to
encourage people's entrepreneurship and creativity, talk of modernization
will remain hollow.

Medvedev's speech points in the right direction, but it must be accompanied
by changes in policy to carry weight. Moreover, for change to succeed, the
president will need to build a constituency that will trust him, share his
objectives and work toward their implementation. As long as there is no such
constituency in sight, Stalin's name engraved in marble in the Moscow metro
will outweigh Medvedev's humane words.

*Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal,
writes a monthly column for The Post.*

Source: Washington Post

Memory of National Tragedies is as Sacred as the Memory of Victories

2009-11-01

Georgian activists called for Bolshevik/Totalitarian symbols to be removed from Georgian buildings

2009-10-25

http://virtualcollector.blogspot.com/2009/10/ban-communist-and-nazi-insignia.html

Proposed monument offends Communist Party

2009-10-12

The leader of the Communist Party of Canada is decidedly unhappy about a proposed monument in Ottawa that will honour "victims of totalitarian communism."

Party leader Miguel Figueroa is asking other "left and progressive organizations" to urge the National Capital Commission to reverse its approval for the project, which Figueroa describes as "defamatory."

In a letter to NCC Chairman Russell Mills, Figueroa said the monument, proposed by the groups Tribute to Liberty and the Open Book Group and supported by other organizations and politicians, "smacks of the type of vicious anti-communism which plagued our country (among others) during much of the latter half of the last century.

"In our considered view, the monument would constitute an unjust attack on the pride Canadian Communists feel for our pioneering contributions to Canada since 1921, such as fighting fascism, organizing industrial workers into unions,

initiating the movements to win unemployment insurance, public health care and other social programs, campaigning for peace and disarmament, fighting for the full national rights of Aboriginal peoples and Quebec and in defending Canada's sovereignty."

The monument, which is expected to be unveiled in 2011, has a budget of $1.5 million, which will come from private sector fundraising.

The backers of the project had originally suggested a "monument to the victims of communism," but added the word totalitarian because of concerns of NCC board members that the memorial could be perceived as "unduly critical of Canadians who might associate themselves with communism," one of the backers of the project told the Citizen in September.

After discussions with the NCC, the groups also agreed to add the phrase "Canada -- A Land of Refuge," to recognize Canada's role as a refuge for victims of oppressive regimes.

The monument also has political champions, including Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who told the National Post he took the idea to the prime minister after a meeting with the Czech and Slovak Association in Toronto three years ago, when he was secretary of state for multiculturalism.

In a letter to Kenney last year, the prime minister said he "would strongly support the idea of such a monument."

The NCC will be working with the groups supporting the memorial to plan a project approach and a national design competition.

Source: The Ottawa Citizen

North Korea drops communism, boosts 'Dear Leader'

2009-09-28

SEOUL — North Korea has revised its constitution to give even more power to leader Kim Jong-il, ditch communism and elevate his "military first" ideology, South Korea's Unification Ministry said on Monday.

Though there is little doubt over the 67-year-old Kim's power, secured by his role as chairman of the National Defence Commission, the new constitution removes any risk of ambiguity.

"The chairman is the highest general of the entire military and commands the entire country," according to a text of the constitution enacted by the reclusive North in April and only now released by the South Korean government.

Parliament passes 1939 Soviet invasion resolution

2009-09-24

Poland’s lower house of parliament has issued a resolution condemning the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of WW II.

The unanimously passed resolution recalls that the entry of Red Army forces on 17 September 1939 had been an act of “undeclared war infringing Poland’s territorial sovereignty in breach of international law”.

The lower house resolution stresses that the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact signed by the Third Reich and the Soviet Union served as the basis for what has been termed the “4 partition of Poland”, making it a victim of two totalitarian systems - Nazi and communist regimes.

The document - agreed after prolonged and sometimes angry debate among political parties - also takes note of the Stalinist policies of ethnic cleansing which led to the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of people of various nationalities, including Soviet citizens, in gulags.

Heated discussion over the past few days concerned the description of the 1940 Katyn massacre of Polish POWs by the Soviet NKVD, which some members of parliament, particularly those from the Law and Justice opposition, insisted on being described as “genocide”.

The compromise text refers to Katyn as exhibiting the “characteristics of genocide”.

Source: Polskie Radio

Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Trajectory Reflects ‘Shock of Loss’ of Stalinist Empire

2009-09-19

Vienna, September 18 – Vladimir Putin was wrong to say that “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe from Russia’s point of view was the collapse of the USSR,” the Levada Center’s Aleksey Levinson argues. In fact, it was the falling away “of the entire Stalinist empire,” one that embraced the non-Russian republics, the socialist bloc, and part of the third world

“This was a utopia realized as an empire,” Levinson argues in an essay posted online today, “and an empire realized as a utopia.” And “the shock of [its] loss” many Russians feel and their sense of being “defenseless” against the rest of the world, he says, explains both their search for a new utopia and their political configurations (www.politcom.ru/8824.html).

The Gorbachevian elite, the Levada Center analyst suggests, “attempted to realize a utopia of openness, while the early Yeltsin one pursued one of encapsulation and paralysis.” And that in turn opened the way to “the current form of utopia [in Russia] – [one based on] a neurotic-aggressive expression of resentment.”
This latest utopia is being used by the new elite “which is carrying out a policy of the symbolic punishment of former colonies,” an attempt, Levinson suggests, “to realize now an anti-empire as an anti-utopia.” But that is far from the only thing that is going on as a result of this shock of loss.

“Left in a position of one-on-one with the rest of the world, Russia is at the same time living through the phantom of the imagined reconstruction of the empire/utopia and the [simultaneous and very different but real] need to become a national state,” a need that the Moscow ethnic specialist Emil Pain has argued.

And consequently, atone and the same time, “Russia is painfully losing the imperial resource but surprisingly acquiring a national, national-confessional and ethnic resource,” a development that is promoting “a phenomenon never before seen in the history of Russia – the symbolic unity of the ruling elite and the public.”

One example of this, Levinson says, is the almost universal approval among Russians of military actions against Georgia last year, a level of support they did not manifest for Moscow’s earlier campaigns in Afghanistan and Chechnya, when many parents did not want to send their sons to fight.

Another reflection of this “consolidation” of the nation, he suggests, is the nature of the support for Putin. “To the extent that the figure of the president symbolizes this new (pseudo-imperial and really national-ethnic) unity, and not anything else, its position (as expressed for example in ‘ratings’) does not depend on anything else,” including his actions.

As the old system collapsed, the ruling elite first sought to employ “universalist (‘all-human’ and ‘democratic’) values,” but these turned out not to be much in demand. And consequently, as the process of devolution proceeded, elites turned ever more to “particularistic and pseudo-universalistic ideological values,” which have proved more popular.

The collapse of the empire also opened broad channels for mobility, leading to the emergence and fusion of the political powers that be, business and the force structures – “from the legal to the illegal” – and their interpenetration from the local level to that of the Russia as a whole.

In this, Levinson says, “there are just as many similarities with the Soviet infrastructure (the CPSU plus the KGB plus the leadership of the economy) as there are distinctions from it. But it is not, he insists, “an artificially articulated ‘vertical’ but rather a naturally occurring molecular or crystal structure.”

This system, he continues, “is relatively young and its channels of mobility are not yet stopped up,” but it “is sufficiently mature that it is concerned about its own reproduction.” At the same time, Levinson says, “the present elites have sufficient freedom of action and sufficient room for maneuver in any particular direction.”

All this would seem to “promise this regime long years of a peaceful life,” but “Russia entering into the phase of transforming itself into ‘a national state’ faces difficulties from an unexpected side:” a demographic crisis which “even the wises behavior of the powers that be and society” cannot cope without extraordinary difficulties.

That is because, Levinson points out, “the logic of the construction [by ethnic Russians] of relations with various ‘others’ whose national and ethnic flowering has been delayed by circumstances and the logic of [their own] situation where they are experiencing a sharp demographic squeeze and ethnic crisis are contradictory.”

As other nations have felt in the past, Russians now have a sense of being “a ‘disappearing people,’” one whose existence is threatened by demographic decline and by the demographic rise of people who often are viewed as fundamentally different than and hostile to the Russian nation.

In this situation, “one cannot exclude that the demographic crisis, the fear of losing control over too broad a territory and too extended borders which they do not want to use political means to defend will generate another breakthrough of the military under the pretext of putting all human resources of society under its control.”
At the very least, “the anti-Western rhetoric which seems such a convenient means of integration of society … will lead to anti-Western jests and actions in politics and economic behavior,” even though “the projection of this line in the next decade promises the gradual loss of Russia of its place … in that part” of the world “dominated by the West.”

Given that this is the likely trajectory of Russia’s development, “the most acceptable policy” for the West with regard to that country “will be [its] marginalization” all the more so because “contemporary Russia … has ever less to offer than West besides raw materials and arms (for [the West’s] enemies).”

And that suggests, given “the logic of the international situation,” that Russia should “reorient” itself toward China. An equal partnership is not possible, Levinson argues, but anything less is something Russian society, given its current situation, won’t accept, leaving post-imperial but not yet national Russia in an increasingly difficult position.

Original text here

Window on Eurasia: Russia Must Face Up to the Tragic Reality of the Hitler-Stalin Alliance, Memorial Says

2009-09-17

Vienna, September 17 – Today’s Russians are in no way responsible for Stalin’s alliance with Hitler, but they must acknowledge its immorality if their calls for the creation of a new collective security system are to be taken seriously, the Memorial human rights organization says in a statement released on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Unfortunately, and despite some hopeful signs to the contrary, the rights group says, in recent weeks, “Russian television channels and certain government bureaucrats have carried out a broad propaganda campaign” to justify the Soviet-German pact of August 23, 1939, and its consequences (www.memo.ru/2009/09/16/70_anniversary_17th_sent_1939.htm).

The declaration continues that “August 23, September 1 and September 17 represent a triune date that has forever linked the names of the two dictators.” The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact would have been “amoral” as even was evident to the Bolshevik leadership at the time of its signing. “Not be accident,” Memorial says, “the protocols attached to it were kept secret.”

But the August 23 pact “had political consequences,” first by guaranteeing to Hitler that he would not face a two-front war if he attacked Poland as he did on September 1, 1939, and then by opening the way in the first instance for the partition of pre-war Poland “between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.”

In addition, Memorial points out, that amoral alliance between the Nazi and the Soviet dictators led “to the loss of independence of the three Baltic countries and an aggressive war against Finland for which the USSR in 1939 was excluded from the League of Nations. And it also led to “the mass ‘purges’ and deportations” from the territories Stalin occupied.

“Attempts to lay blame for these crimes on the Soviet people or even more on contemporary Russia,” Memorial argues, “have no basis. The population of the USSR did not have any idea” about or control over what the Soviet leaders were doing. “Soviet citizens did not strive to acquire ‘greater living space’ or to enslave neighboring peoples.”

Instead, the Moscow human rights group says, “responsibility for the sharp change in policy toward Hitlerite Germany, a shift toward ‘a friendship sealed in blood’ lies not on the people but on Stalin and on his companions in the Politburo. Not the [Soviet] people, but Stalin [personally] was a scrupulous partner of Hitler between 1939 and 1941.”

As Memorial adds, it was “the peoples of the Soviet Union [who] had to correct the consequences of the criminal policy of Stalin at a cost of tens of millions of lives and unthinkable deprivations” first when Hitler turned on his ally and invaded the Soviet Union and then when Stalin re-imposed his own order after the war.

Russians today do have one responsibility “before themselves, before the rest of the world and before the future,” however. And that is, Memorial insists, “to give a precise assessment of Stalin’s foreign policy in 1939-1941 and to reveal the entire truth about” what happened during that period.

Unfortunately but “not surprisingly,” as the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II approached, “ever more politicians have appeared in Russia who are justifying the partnership of Stalin and Hitler” and making ever more attempts to “create out of real history a glamorous picture” of the national past.

That may work “for internal consumption,” Memorial concedes. But this picture “calls forth well-deserved abhorrence from the external world.” And that must matter to Russians now and in the future because “the further the Russian authorities depart from honest assessments of the past, the stronger will be the negative effect -- and the greater harm to Russia’s authority.”

The Memorial statement says that it welcomes Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s declaration in a Polish newspaper that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was “amoral.” But the rights activist group continued, Putin failed to make any mention of the secret protocols to that pact or “the events that followed it which were tragic for the peoples of Eastern Europe.

“That hardly makes possible the strengthening of trust between Russia and her neighbors,” Memorial says, because “a half truth is always insidious and at the same time more offensive than a direct lie.” Such “mutual distrust” made a system of collective security “impossible before the Second World War,” and it can have a similar effect now.

Unlike the situation of 70 years ago, however, “the present distrust to a remarkable extent is based on different treatments of history. To overcome this distrust [now],” Memorial suggests, is quite simple: It is enough to speak the truth to the end and open for researchers all the materials kept in the archives of various countries involving the pre-war period.”

“Until that is done” – and in Russia now, many of the relevant archives that were partially opened in the 1990s are now being closed again – “all calls for the creation of new systems of collective security and in the first instance those originating from Russia will not be taken seriously.”