Herald.com | 09/26/2005 | Pacifist dreams need international backing

Herald.com 09/26/2005 Pacifist dreams need international backing

Some of my best friends are pacifists. Some are even militant pacifists. Truly, I respect their conviction and their idealism. I must confess, however, that I am less than impressed with the results that their methods have been producing.

A few years ago, I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting two nations, Tibet and Burma, whose people have spent decades struggling for freedom by following the spiritual and political guidance of their pacifist leaders. The leaders of the quest for freedom in Tibet and Burma (renamed Myanmar by its despotic military rulers) are two of the most extraordinary human beings alive today. The Western world has recognized their cause and their integrity, honoring Tibet's Dalai Lama and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi with the Nobel Peace Prize. They have gained worldwide fame and have brought attention to the suffering of their people. And yet, they and their followers have failed miserably in achieving their goals.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's religious leader and the head of its government-in-exile, has spent more than four decades trying to muster diplomatic support in his quest to secure Tibet's independence from China. By now, he doesn't even ask for independence, having lowered his demand to mere autonomy for Tibet under Beijing's rule. We still call them demands but, even as he travels the world with a popularity that eclipses major rock stars, his political muscle has faded along with the bleached Tibetan flag bumper stickers on American cars left over from more optimistic days.

China represses Tibet

As China pushes ahead, quickly becoming an economic superpower, the people of Tibet endure under Beijing's repressive rule, and Tibet's culture within its traditional Himalayan highlands shrinks, making way for China's mighty economic engine. The Dalai Lama, it seems likely, will have to wait until his next incarnation before achieving his and his people's dream of a free Tibet.

The situation in Burma is even more depressing. The country was once the rice-basket of Asia. Today, after decades of despotic military rule, poverty, hunger and disease -- especially AIDS -- are rampant. The country is now one of the poorest in the world.

The remarkable woman who has led her people's determined push to break the shackles of dictatorship, Aung San Suu Kyi, is the only Nobel Peace Prize winner in the world currently under arrest. Fifteen years ago, when Burma's generals inexplicably allowed elections, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 80 percent of the seats in parliament. The generals immediately rejected the result and placed Suu Kyi under arrest, where she has spent most of the time since the election, as have many of her supporters.

As the Burmese people languish under a regime whose well-documented practices include forced labor, rape, torture and execution of opponents -- even for nonviolent activities -- the world has attempted a number of strategies to bring about change. After multiple special envoys, scattered sanctions and many, many speeches, the result, according to a recent State Department, is that the prospects for reform continue to decline.

Last week, two men who've had more success with nonviolence, South Africa's Desmond Tutu and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel, released a report urging the U.N. Security Council to take action on Burma. They argue that Burma -- a major exporter of drugs, refugees and disease -- has become a regional threat. These men of peace correctly conclude that, ``Binding Security Council intervention [is] necessary to return to democratic rule.''

Havel and Tutu are absolutely right. Nonviolence is a beautiful theory, but bumper stickers alone don't overthrow dictators.

Last January, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice listed Burma among the world's six ''outposts of tyranny,'' many Burma activists allowed themselves to believe that perhaps now the world would put some muscle behind its rhetoric. So far, however, Burma's generals have grown stronger -- and its people poorer and weaker -- because action against the regime has been inconsistent. China has helped arm Burma, while the United States, Europe and Asia each have a different policy to bring about change.

Burma has lived under military dictatorship since 1962. Beijing's soldiers entered Tibet in 1949. It would be nice if the long wait for freedom would come to an end.

Generals and despots, it appears, do not yield to nonviolent means as quickly as democratic societies do. More effective and unified international pressure is required. If there is any chance that nonviolence will help these millions of oppressed people, then supporters of freedom in Tibet and Burma urgently need to redouble their efforts and rethink their strategy.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

Herald.com | 09/17/2005 | Summit produced parade of missed opportunities

The parade of world leaders was enough to take your breath away. Kings, emirs, presidents and prime ministers smiled for photographs, shook hands, and rose to the podium at this week's historic United Nations summit in New York. Stirring speeches and memorable phrases loftily gave the impression that the organization and its member nations are moving with unstoppable determination to make the United Nations -- and the world -- a better place.

And yet, this week's gathering celebrating the 60th anniversary of the U.N.'s founding had already become a failure of historic proportions even before it began.

You could already smell the whiff of hypocrisy rising from midtown Manhattan as more than 170 nations' leaders began arriving for the anniversary extravaganza. Once the General Assembly agreed on the document signed at the summit, it took all the diplomatic skill of politicians and civil servants to put a positive spin on the final agreement: a monument to under-achievement.



The United Nations began with much promise and optimism at the end of World War II. Today, however, there are few who disagree that the world body is in desperate need of reform and revitalization. For a moment it seemed we got lucky. An intersection of events produced the perfect opportunity to achieve meaningful change. The anniversary summit would come only days after the Volcker Report, which not only pointed a bright spotlight at endemic corruption and mismanagement in the U.N.'s Iraq Oil for Food program, but also produced credible and specific recommendations for improvement.

On Tuesday, delegates reached a last minute compromise on a summit document, producing little, if anything, of substance. Kofi Annan, barely restraining his disappointment, said the 35-page agreement was not all bad. And U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called it, ''a good beginning.'' But I would bet they didn't quite believe their own words and found more truth in the statement of the Amnesty International U.N. representative, who called the entire exercise, ``a squandered opportunity.''

Even Annan, the world's top diplomat, called failure to agree on the issue of disarmament, ``a real disgrace.''

Once again, the United Nations let down those most in need. Some felt most disappointed by the watered-down language on improving the lot of the poorest of the poor. ''By any stretch of the imagination,'' declared a despondent representative of the charity Oxfam, ``they failed on this point.''

The delegates could not even agree on a definition of terrorism, even though they say the problem is urgent, global, and requires international cooperation.

So, if you're one of the billion people who struggle to live on one dollar a day, the United Nations let you down. If you fear becoming a victim of terrorism, the United Nations let you down.

You won't be surprised, then, to hear that the victims of human rights abuse were also let down.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission is the rare U.N. organ that everyone agrees is a shameful travesty. The Commission became a membership magnet for the worst regimes on earth. If you are a despot, you jockey for a seat on the Commission, thus managing to protect your regime from criticism. The fox-in-the-hen-house membership usually includes regimes guilty of the whole catalog of human rights abuses. Members usually include countries such as Sudan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Sierra Leon, Zimbabwe and other such well-known ''defenders'' of human rights.

Replacing the commission with a new Human Rights Council was one item on the summit's agenda that seemed a fairly sure bet. The Council would include only countries that respect human rights, and it would sit year-round, allowing it to condemn abuses with authority and without having to wait for its annual session.

Instead of creating this new body, negotiators decided to defer the issue to the ineffectual General Assembly until some time in the future.

There is plenty of blame to share on this debacle, along with a multi-national effort to paint the meeting as a success. Once again, world leaders have failed to muster the courage and skill to turn the United Nations into an organization that would make a real difference in the lives of those who most need its help. They have failed to move resolutely in a direction that would take the organization closer to the goals its founders envisioned 60 years ago. And they have again betrayed the most urgent needs of the weak, the impoverished, and of those who want to see the nations of the world work together for the common good.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

09/07/2005 | In Europe, bewilderment at America's suffering

Published Wed, Sep. 07, 2005


In Europe, bewilderment at America's suffering

By FRIDA GHITIS


AMSTERDAM - The world has long seen the United States as a towering giant, a muscular nation of great wealth, efficiency and might.

To some, it stands as a generally benevolent power, using its strength in positive ways. Others maintain America is an arrogant and selfish nation.

Until now, however, all sides had seen America as largely invincible.

Then came Katrina: nature's wrath compounded by government incompetence -- and the agony of the American giant.

The suffering that came in the hurricane's wake exposed a new side of America.

Wrenching images of despair from New Orleans broke hearts the world over. But they also produced a confusing swirl of emotions among critics and admirers of the United States. The reaction from America's friends and foes everywhere shared one common element: bewilderment.

That's why so many reports about the chaos and sorrow chose to drench their narrative in irony, repeatedly reminding us they were showing America, "the world's only superpower."

The sight of America -- the efficient, the powerful, the mighty -- now anguished and overwhelmed has left the planet thoroughly perplexed.

The undeniable reality is that nature's unfathomable wrath was made infinitely worse by a combination of gov-ernment negligence, incompetence and wishful thinking.

In addition to profound sympathy for the victims, the most commonly expressed sentiment I hear in the streets of Amsterdam is disbelief.

"I ask myself," 52-year-old Hans said simply, "why?"

An avowed admirer of America, he winced, visibly pained by the suffering he saw on television and the astonishing disorganization that made it so much worse.

"I'm really disappointed," he said with a sigh.

The feeling was repeated in every conversation.

"Such a big country; so much money," said 29-year-old Hiske, shaking her head. "How could this happen?"

While many were quick to note the power of nature, others also rushed to point out the now-exposed underbelly of American society.

Europeans have long had a fascination with the more threadbare patches of America's social fabric. That fabric tore precisely in those places, and that's where the critics focused their attention: When the call for evacuation came, the government did nothing to help the poor leave.

Most of the desperate in the Superdome were impoverished African-Americans. Then came stories of armed gangs shooting, robbing and raping in the toxic waters of apocalyptic New Orleans.

Poverty, racial inequality, cities awash in weapons and a society that emphasizes self-reliance, leaving the poor and the weak to their own inade-quate devices: That is the image that America's critics like to emphasize.

And that is exactly what floated to the surface in the immediate aftermath of the Katrina catastrophe.

The joyful celebration with which al Qaeda greeted the disaster -- "answered prayers" members called it -- was not openly repeated in Europe, not even by America's sharpest critics. But some politicians rushed to score points.

In Germany, where voters are about to go to the polls, the environment minister blamed Washington's inattention to global warming even before the hurricane had moved away.

There was no shortage of comments bitterly contrasting America's readiness to go to war with its lack of readiness to prepare for this disaster.

For the millions who live below sea level in Europe, however, the New Orleans disaster brought a special unease.

Two-thirds of the Dutch population lives below sea lev-el, and reassurances from water management officials have only partially allayed fears awakened by Katrina.

Holland, which spares no expense keeping out the sea, has a long and painful history of deadly floods.

Sitting outside his home by an Amsterdam canal, Jan Eisinga, 78, remembered the 1953 Zeeland floods that killed 1,800 people. He spoke proudly of his country's state-of the-art anti-flood barriers, but warned that everywhere, in the United States and in Europe, we abuse nature, heightening all dangers.

In some quarters, the agony of America may have brought some secret joy. Here, however, the most powerful emotion, after sympathy for the victims, was the shock at seeing a once-mighty United States unprepared and overwhelmed.

Beyond that, America's vulnerability makes everyone feel a little less safe.

Venice, London and the Netherlands are rushing to check their defenses.

"If it can happen in America," mused Patrick, a muscular Dutch window washer preparing to climb his scaffold, "maybe it can happen here."

He looked at the water flowing in the canal a few feet away and confessed, "It's terrifying."


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Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.