Results tagged “europe”

Sandra Kalniete, a former Ambassador from Latvia to the UN, pens a strong op/ed on EU relations with Russia.

Russia acts with open hostility toward efforts by Central and Eastern European countries to find historical truth. Putin has emphasized on several occasions that Russia will not take responsibility for crimes committed by the Soviet Union in Central or Eastern Europe. At the same time, he has expressed his admiration for Stalin and his regret of "the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century": the fall of the Soviet Union. More than one-fifth of the Russian population considers the NGO Memorial's documented proof regarding the scale of Stalinist terror as untrue. It is with great justification that the Sakharov Award, given every year by the European Parliament, went to Memorial for fighting to condemn Stalin's crimes and expose human rights violations in modern day Russia.

When assessing democracy's current retreat in Russia - there is no other way to refer to the state's control of the press, the narrowing of representative government, the lack of effort to critically re-evaluate Stalinism and Bolshevism, the war in Chechnya and other human rights abuses - we must realize that, given long-term EU interests, it is not possible to sacrifice values and succumb to the temptation of pragmatism. Whenever Europe has sacrificed basic values in the name of realpolitik, dramatic and tragic consequences have followed.

A new biography of the great Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski has been published, which several British media have misinterpreted as some sort of exposé of fictions in his reporting.  In an interview with the author Artur Domoslawski on the NYT Lede blog, he denies that his book exposed any problem with Kapuscinski's journalistic ethics, and comments here about his work under the Polish communist regime.  Somewhere between all the truth, facts, fiction, politics, and propaganda, Kapuscinski wrote some really great books - despite the fact that Domoslawski essentially reveals that he worked as a spy.  This isn't likely to be any kind of problem (and nor should it be), but it makes for an interesting contrast with Milan Kundera and the Czechs.

Q:  What information came to light about Kapuscinski's cooperation with the Communist intelligence apparatus? Did he have to cooperate in order to be allowed to work? And was there anything in the records that came to light that make you feel that he was compromised?

A:  Kapuscinski was a part of the Communist establishment as a true believer -- that has never been a secret -- and occasionally he collaborated with the intelligence service while he was an international correspondent, just as many journalists in the U.S. collaborated with the C.I.A. (The problem was described at length by Carl Bernstein in 1977 in "The C.I.A. and the Media.") Kapuscinski considered Communist Poland his country, his fatherland. You can't just say that he was compromised. What compromise is it for a Communist -- a true believer -- to collaborate closely with his state and its agencies? For him it was something obvious. He might have though at that time that he was doing a good thing fighting Western or American imperialism in Africa or Latin America, if, for example, he was writing an analysis of the dirty operations of the C.I.A.

At the same time as the two presidential couples - the French and the Russian - were attending an exhibition in the Louvre with the pompous name «Rus' the holy», another exhibition was opening in a private gallery not too far from the Louvre - one of drawings dedicated to the shameful trial in the so-cal led «YUKOS case».

Appearing at the exhibition opening were the artists (in their number Sergei Kuznetsov and Katya Belyavskaya), lawyers ( in their number Elena Liptser), journalists (in their number Elsa Vidal from Reporters without Borders), philosophers (among them André Glucksmann)...

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.

Image: Drawing by Ekaterina Belyavskaya from the «YUKOS case» exhibition.

Quiet. Modest.  They looked at the wonderful drawings. They mentioned the upcoming court session in Strasbourg on the claim by YUKOS shareholders. They discussed cultural news and what is being written in general in the mass information media of the two countries...

About the arrival of Medvedev they practically didn't recall.

Say what you will about Europe's last dictator Alexander Lukashenko, the guy is a smart political operator. From Pavol Demeš on RealClearWorld:

Lukashenko is at his chess game again - and winning. Top Western officials are writing him letters, negotiating, and asking him politely to do the things they would like him to do. Fact-finding missions are coming to Belarus to discover what they knew before. While Poland and the EU take the time to consider their next step, Lukashenko is already way ahead of them. Indeed, his plans likely include making a grand display of stopping the attacks and beginning a reconciliation process between Belarusians and Poles. But before he does that, he'll ask for further international financial assistance and other benefits from the very people and institutions who are now asking him to stop persecuting his country's minorities. And when that assistance arrives, he will use it to extend his control over domestic resistance and opposition before the new round of elections early next year.

So everybody is talking about this $1 million challenge posted by Russian Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin on his Twitter for someone to "prove that NATO is not pursuing military planning against Russia."  Don't bother trying to win, as Julia Ioffe points out, "Conveniently, it doesn't matter whether Rogozin possesses such a sum because Rogozin a) believes beyond a doubt that NATO is in fact out to attack Russia, and b) was asking a rhetorical question."

Blogger Luke Johnson makes a good point that NATO can barely keep its guys together on a nasty campaign in Afghanistan, so any idea of actually entering conflict with Russia is ludricrously far-fetched.  I can appreciate how the hawks in the Kremlin dislike NATO expansion and seek to curb it by talking about war, but really the interests are more in terms of political influence in the region than any realistic scenario of conflict.  Seriously, Russia - look what happened after the invasion of Georgia: squat!  Could there be any greater acid test to prove that there exists no desire, grounds, expediency, or political will on behalf of NATO members to attack Russia?

The full version of this article can be read on the Huffington Post.

While the fast friendship and personalism between Sarkozy and Medvedev are important, the motives behind the alliance have been obscured (for example, it is difficult to believe that anyone expects progress toward Iran sanctions). Taking the advice of Jean-David Levitte, the key architect of France's new Russia policy, Sarkozy is acting in concert with other European leaders to make a public show of support and preference for Medvedev over Vladimir Putin, and thereby encourage change from within the government in Russia.

In reality, it is the perfect example of how well the ruling diarchy works in Russia to disaggregate critical EU states and sow divisions on the continent. With frequent speeches about democracy, anti-corruption, legal nihilism and rule of law, Medvedev represents everything that Europe wants Russia to be on the surface, without actually having to pursue any such ideals in practice. For many European leaders, the Medvedev brand provides a convenient excuse - the easiest way to launder their pandering to Moscow for multi-billion-euro arms and energy contracts without sacrificing the pretense of values.

Somewhere in a plush Italian villa, Berlusconi is feeling very jealous.  Cue up a Barry White album for this blog post on the Times of London by Charles Bremner.

What a difference three years make. Campaigning for election in early 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy hammered Russia over human rights and promised to break with the cosy, uncritical relations that President Chirac pursued with Moscow. This week, President Sarkozy has thrown France into Russian arms, receiving President Medvedev on a state visit with the ardour of an eager suitor. (...)

Carried away with the new Franco-Russian honeymoon, Medvedev was lyrical on his visit to Mayor Bertrand Delanoe at the city hall. "Our interest in each other has always been mutual," he gushed."To use a word full of emotion, I would even describe this interest as 'rapturous'." (...)

In his banquet speech, Sarkozy reminded Medvedev of western worries about Russia. "Your attachment to the rule of law, to the respect for legality, for judicial security, for the defence of human rights greatly helps the rapprochement between our nations," he said. 

One would have to be lovesick to say something so laughably untrue and obsequious...

Writing on RealClearWorld, A. Wess Mitchell and Robert Kron of the Center for European Policy Analysis argue that NATO giving Central Europe the cold shoulder will have far-reaching costs, and that measures of reassurance must be made.

First, it fuels division in NATO and the EU, as the absence of a convincing security guarantee in Central Europe may act as a stimulus to intra-European strategic divergence and political disunity. Insecure members are more likely to focus exclusively on the pursuit of hard power guarantees at the expense of the "normal" politics of integration. The less these needs are met, the wider the rift between "older" and "newer" member states will become.

So today Viktor Yanukovych was sworn in as the fourth president of Ukraine, after having won a low-turn out but free and fair presidential election, just six years after having attempted electoral fraud to gain the nation's highest office.  Although Yulia Tymoshenko has withdrawn her legal challenges to the election, she still hasn't publicly acknowledged her recognition of the new president, and left the Rada only half-filled with representatives to hear the inauguration speech (show me an inauguration ceremony where the new president gets to hold up a scepter and wear a huge gold necklace, and I'd want to be there...).

President Yanukovych gave a short, terse, and "unemotional" speech, remarking "Ukraine is in an utterly difficult situation, given the absence of a state budget, colossal foreign borrowing and people's poverty. (...) We need to renew the system of effective governance and restore a functional government. I call on the parliament to support my efforts and to work in a synchronized regime with the president."

Nicholas Gvosdev has a new article here which discusses how U.S. interests will be impacted by the election of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, and what policies with Russia he is likely to pursue.  He congratulates the Obama administration's "low-key" response to the election, and argues that it's wrong to try to divide Ukraine into pro-West and pro-Russia factions.  While it's clear that we can forget about NATO expansion (which I am not sure is a goal of this administration), as well as energy sovereignty (Gvosdev doesn't mention the resurrection of the extremely problematic RosUkrEnergo in the transit trade), there is still a major area left unexplored in this presentation:  the potential impact Yanukovych will have on Ukraine's young democracy and democratic development in the post-Soviet sphere. 

Isn't that a U.S. interest as well?  Was it ever one?

"It's the biggest man-made construct in the Baltic Sea," said Tapani Veistola, officer at the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation. "The main problems are the nutrients and heavy metals spread during construction and that there is no plan for dealing with the pipeline after it's no longer in use."

"We still have some doubts" over the project's impact on the environment, Estonia's Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said Feb. 10. "The concerns of Estonian scientists have not been adequately answered."

Keep your eyes peeled for the lawsuits...

Here goes a bit from my latest in the Huffington Post on the outcome of the presidential elections in Ukraine and the return of Viktor Yanukovych.  Though it was published after I had already posted my article, I liked this line from the Economist:  "...old habits will die hard. The practice of buying judges or appointing prosecutors to safeguard business interests is alive and well. The temptation to bend the rules again to win a valuable asset could prove too much to resist."

The supreme irony of the Yanukovych victory is that there are many good reasons why this outcome is bad for Putin and good for Medvedev, and detrimental to the siloviki while opening opportunities for the seemingly yearning reformers within part of the state. As the historian Timothy Garton Ash has noted in the Guardian, "there is no evidence that the oligarchs behind him want Ukraine to cease being an independent country. Their interest is to play both sides, Russia and the European Union."

[Though the following post has nothing to do with Russia, I had been receiving some questions so I am making this information available to those interested. --Thanks, RA]

As announced in a press release dated 9 December 2009, my law firm, Amsterdam & Peroff, has been retained by RPG Industries to defend its fundamental rights and interests in the Czech Republic. The case, which already had a political dimension given the intervention attempt on behalf of a member of government, has taken on a much larger meaning in national politics as this week we announced at a press conference the introduction of a historic complaint before the Constitutional Court regarding the separation of powers and other basic guarantees.

It is my argument that certain members of the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) are acting in violation of the constitution to carry out a classic populist tactic right before an election - promising voters an intervention against private property to purchase their support. Nevertheless, in legal terms, their claim is groundless.

Not long ago we posted a video testimony of Labour MP Gisela Stuart commenting on the ongoing show trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.  Below are several more testimonies from  Ed Davey, Greg Hands, Julia Goldsworthy, and Malcolm Bruce.

As you may be aware, 2010 has been declared the Year of Russia in France and the Year of France in Russia, aimed at deepening bilateral relations through "150 cultural and communications events, 38 economic projects and over 70 events in science, education, sports and youth exchanges."  But apart from sending some wonderful museum exhibits back and forth between Moscow and Paris, what will the role be for the alleged participation of French and Russian civil society?  Feeling that they have been left out of the festivities, today in the leading French daily Le Monde, leaders of various human rights NGOs (including Amnesty, Reporters without Borders, and Memorial) authored an opinion article calling for an "Alternative" series of exchanges between real advocacy groups in both countries.  Below is an English translation of the editorial.

Le Monde, January 27, 2010

• The civil society is not invited to the celebrations of the Year of France and Russia"

• An 'alternative' program to shed light on a people whose freedoms are not respected

The historical ties between France and Russia are part of a long tradition of exchanges and mutual fascination. Our two countries have maintained cultural but also intense economic and strategic relations, which have seen moments of decline but, more recently, renewed strength.

We've had a few blog posts around here in recent weeks that the Ukrainian presidential front runner is often inaccurately portrayed, and that his victory isn't exactly a win for Moscow.  But here the Economist goes for the full role reversal between Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko.  Wait, wait - I'm confused ... which one is most like Putin, and which one is at the service of the gas trade?

On Yanukovych:

Yet his "pro-Russian candidate" label is misleading. He represents the Russian-speaking east, but has done little to advance Russia's interests, instead jealously guarding those of such tycoons as Mr Akhmetov. What Mr Akhmetov wants is a politically and economically stable Ukraine. Yet some of Mr Yanukovich's team do not inspire confidence. They include a former finance minister, Mykola Azarov, architect of the repressive tax inspectorate, as well as the creators of the opaque gas-trading scheme with Russia. Mr Yanukovich wants to renegotiate today's gas agreement, which excludes shady intermediaries.

On Tymoshenko:

Is it just me, or has there been a major rebranding of Viktor Yanukovych in this electoral campaign?  In the video news clip below and in several interviews with the Western press, the once fiery anti-Orange politician now seems focused on emphasizing the "responsibility" of his approach, hard working substance over his rival's style, and commitment to the rules and expectations of international legal frameworks.  Perhaps the rebranding shows that Viktor is finally taking the advice of his imported campaign advisers...

Though Sen. John McCain was recently in Georgia to receive an award for his outspoken support both during and after the 2008 Russian invasion, his reputation in Ukraine might be a bit tarnished among the pro-democracy liberals once Viktor Yanukovych takes over with a victory int eh polls.

As we reported a few years ago on this blog, McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis and his partner Paul Manafort have been retained by Yanukovych and the Party of Regions for several years now to manage their campaigns domestically and assist in lobbying Washington (which would of course kick into high gear with a Yanukovych victory).  At the time, they had not registered themselves as representatives of foreign interests:  "My own anecdotal conversations with people who run in the Russia and Eastern Europe circles indicate that Rick Davis was a fixture and a well-known advocate for Yanukovich. What's interesting was that Davis never filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that he did work for Yanukovich and today denied he ever did it," Moira Whelan wrote at the time. 

Actually, it's pretty easy to track down just three registered contracts through FARA, exceeding $60,000 in fees and disbursements from Yanukovych's party to Davis Manafort in 2007 ... Drop a comment if there is further registration info that I have missed.

The name of the two campaign managers slash lobbyists also pop up again in an AP report today about how all the Ukraine candidates have hired out for high powered U.S. campaign managers.  So while McCain's connection to Yanukovych is indirect and probably meaningless, it is still interesting how these relationships (such as the tie to Deripaska) fly in the face of public statements on Russia and countries of the former USSR.

Yevgeny Kiselyov's column in the Moscow Times brings up an important point I have been mulling over this weekend, right as Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions lurches toward a comfortable lead for the next run-off vote against Yulia Tymoshenko.  Exactly how much would his leadership change the country's relations with Europe and the United States, or how different would they be from Tymoshenko's administration?

Some of the most divisive issues are pretty much off the table.  NATO membership talks are completely stillborn with Washington's reset policy, and it looks like short of openly declaring that accession will never be granted, the Obama Administration is probably wishing that Bush had never strung Georgia and Ukraine along this far.  With regard to EU membership, there is some saying about hell freezing over first which would apply.  The Eastern Partnership (EaP) appears aimless, and few in the West seem to be mourning the fall of the Orange Revolution.  Yet despite all lamentable failures of Europe to embrace Ukraine along with its flaws, it is not in the country's long-term interests to surrender political sovereignty to Russia and isolate their economy from important political and trade links to the West ... and Yanukovych knows this, and will have to fight hard to achieve international legitimacy, independent of Russia, if he hopes to stick around for very long (plus the Rada is going to be absolute chaos for whomever wins).

After the jump, a few of the reasons why Kiselyov thinks that a Yanukovych victory does not exactly translate into Russian control over Ukraine.

Megan Stack of the Los Angeles Times has an interesting interview with the likely winner of today's elections in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich.

You have said that you would keep Ukraine out of NATO, and also that you believe integration into the EU is in Ukraine's strategic interests. Why one and not the other?

Integration into the EU is connected with making the lives of people better: economics, the defense of human rights, the development of the country in the direction of democratic values. This is in the interest of the majority of people, that Ukrainians should enjoy European standards of living. People are also looking for the harmonization of the Ukrainian legal system, to have the same rights and freedoms as in Europe.

Joining NATO, from the point of view of Ukrainians, will politically destabilize us, especially taking into account the closeness of another [Russian-led] defense system on our borders. Ukrainian folk believe that Ukraine must preserve its neutral status, and must not join any military organization. This is proved by polls.

Meanwhile we believe that Ukraine has to build a partnership with NATO using the principles of those EU countries that are not members of NATO. We believe that Ukraine can and must take an active part in the creation of a European collective defense system. And also must support the initiatives of both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.