Ex-communist Europe

Eastern approaches

  • A Russian scandal

    Where's the money? On Blueberry Hill?

    Mar 8th 2011, 12:44 by G.F. | PRAGUE

    RUSSIA hasn’t lacked for immodest public performances on the part of its prime minister, Vladimir Putin. In his drive to portray himself as Russia's national leader since stepping down as president more than two years ago, he has been photographed riding horseback bare-chested, fitting a satellite transmitter to a (sedated) tiger and riding in military planes.

    But the spectacle of his singing in English was among the most wince-inducing. His wooden, heavily accented rendition of "Blueberry Hill" at a gala concert in December was like a scene from a comedy: uncharacteristically nervous ex-KGB officer tries, and fails, to project a softer side.

    Surprisingly, Mr Putin's wasn't the most appalling display that evening. That was provided by the many Hollywood celebrities in attendance. Kevin Costner, Gerard Depardieu and Goldie Hawn, among others, laughed, clapped and sang along in support of the authoritarian ruler. Sharon Stone flashed a victory sign amid the hearty applause.

    The concert was billed as a charity event to raise money for ill children. But it has ended up reinforcing Russia's image as one of the world's premier kleptocracies. Last week, after the mother of an ailing child made enquiries, it emerged that the funds raised during the concert never reached the hospitals to which it had been promised.

    "A very strange situation has arisen," the mother wrote in an open letter. "Before and after the concert there was talk about handing over funds, and now it appears that no one had promised anything."

    Mr Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the prime minister was only a guest at the concert, and was not involved in the fundraising. He declined to say who was responsible for handling the proceeds, but assured that the government is satisfied the "work is being carried out." He later provided a list of three hospitals in Moscow and St Petersburg he said would receive medical equipment bought with proceeds from the concert.

    But it is unclear who has the money and how it will reach the hospitals. A spokeswoman for the Federation Foundation, the charity that organised the event, said it was only involved in planning the concert and had nothing to do with the donated funds. At the same time, a former musician named Vladimir Kiselyov, believed to have responsible for spearheading the event, warned reporters to mind their business and "not to look for anyone."

    "No one will tell you anything," he said.

  • Estonia's election

    Estonia busts another stereotype

    Mar 7th 2011, 20:33 by E.L.

    ANDRUS ANSIP, Estonia's prime minister, is a happy man. Whatever the result of the coalition negotiations in the next few weeks, his strong showing in Sunday's parliamentary election means he is certain to keep the prime minister's post that he has held since 2005. Along with the eternal Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg (who beats him by a decade), Lawrence Gonzi of Malta (2004), José Sócrates of Portugal (2005), and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain (also 2005), that makes him one of the longest-serving heads of government in Europe. Poland's Donald Tusk is a runner-up, a few months behind. Silvio Berlusconi of Italy has been around longer too, but not in continuous office.

    Mr Ansip's electoral victory is remarkable given his government's record: it has pushed through an austerity programme (around 9 % of GDP) that in most countries would have had voters rioting in the streets, not queuing to re-elect their government. Estonia's economy shrank by a seventh in 2009 and unemployment rocketed to nearly a fifth of the workforce. Salaries shrank by up to a quarter in some workplaces. 

    But now a recovery is strongly underway, driven by sharply rising exports, chiefly to Finland and Sweden. Growth in the last quarter of 2010 was over 6%, though unemployment is still stubbornly high at nearly 14%. In January, Estonia joined the euro. It is one of a handful of countries in the euro zone (apart from Luxembourg) that actually meets the single currency's debt and deficit rules.

    Mr Ansip's free-market Reform party campaigned on a familiar programme of more tax cuts and economic growth. He believes that Estonia will become one of the five richest countries in Europe. That may take some time, but voters seem willing to trust him. Reform gained two seats, giving it 33 mandates in the 101-member parliament.

    His coalition partner in the previous government, the conservative IRL, did well too, gaining four seats to reach a total of 23. IRL is the result of a merger between the Isamaaliit (which literally translates as Fatherland Union, though it prefers, oddly, to be known in English by the Latin Pro Patria) and the Res Publica party (which really does have a Latin name).

    The party's roots are partly in the dissident movement, but it is increasingly business-friendly too. That would make a good match for Reform in theory. But its leader, the historian and former prime minister Mart Laar, does not get on easily with Mr Ansip (a former Soviet Communist Party instructor). So Mr Ansip may turn to the Social Democrats instead. They were the biggest election winners, jumping from 10 to 19 seats. He can have a narrow majority with them, or a big one with IRL. It is a nice choice to have. (Two small parties, the Greens and an agrarian grouping, fell out of parliament altogether).

    The new government is unlikely to bring many surprises. Mr Ansip is a manager, not a visionary. The big question is what happens to the opposition Centre Party, backed mainly by the country's large Russian electorate. Its vote dropped slightly, meaning a loss of three seats to only 26 in the new parliament. The party's leader, Edgar Savisaar, was at the centre of a row about clandestine party funding, involving the Russian railways minister and a donation to a Russian Orthodox Church being built in a Tallinn suburb (he is the mayor of the capital city). Estonia's internal security service regarded the payments as close to treason—a view echoed by other political leaders who hoped to see Mr Savisaar crash and burn, or at least be toppled by party colleagues wanting to save their election chances. Mr Savisaar denied all wrongdoing. The election seems to show that his core voters seem him as the victim of a stitch-up, not a villain.

    But Mr Savisaar, a fixture on the landscape since the Soviet era, is no longer at the height of his powers either physically or politically. The Social Democrats would love to woo his voters, who are currently in a political ghetto cut off from power at a national level. This election result gives the Social Democrats, under their 37 year-old leader Sven Mikser (a name to watch) a credible chance to create Estonia's first mainstream centre-left political party, untainted by any suspicions about its ethnic or geopolitical loyalty. If and when that happens, Estonia's politics will not just be stable, but outright boring.   

    PS An editing error meant that I left out Mr Zapatero and Mr Socrates in the long-serving prime ministers in the initial version. Sorry. I have also added Mr Gonzi of Malta and Mr Berlusconi to the pantheon. 

  • The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

    Still just about frozen

    Mar 7th 2011, 17:00 by G.E. | TBILISI

    COULD Azerbaijan and Armenia be on the verge of renewed war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian-populated enclave inside Azerbaijan conquered and occupied by Armenia in 1994? On the face of it, no. On Saturday the presidents of the two countries met to discuss the issue in the southern Russian resort town of Sochi, with Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, acting as honest broker.

    They made some pleasant noises. Both parties committed to resolve their differences peacefully, and to implement fully an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war made in October. They also agreed to investigate ceasefire violations, under the aegis of the OSCE.

    Such measures could restore some confidence. But they will do little more. Often described as “frozen”, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been warming up. A recent report from the International Crisis Group says that ceasefire violations rose by 53% last year. At least 25 soldiers were killed in skirmishes. Hours before the Sochi talks began, reports emerged of the death of an Armenian soldier from Azerbaijani sniper bullets. In total, 3,000 people have been killed in skirmishes along the boundary line since the May 1994 ceasefire took effect.

    Both countries have stepped up their bellicose rhetoric. Ilham Aliev, Azerbaijan's president, warned of war in at least nine separate speeches in 2010, and has shown no sign of letting up this year. His Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargysan, has strongly underlined his country’s readiness to repel any attacks. Recent military exercises in both countries suggest this is not empty bravado.

    Moreover, both leaders are putting their money where their mouth is. In oil-wealthy Azerbaijan, defence spending has grown by an average of 50% every year since 2003. This year defence will account for one fifth of Azerbaijan's total public spending, and more than the entire Armenian budget. But Armenia too has increased its weaponry, with help from its Russian friends.

    Popular attitudes in each country are unforgiving, with commemoration of past injustices at this time of year reinforcing hard-line attitudes. Azerbaijanis recently marked the 19th anniversary of the Khojali massacre, while Armenians mourned the 23rd anniversary of the anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait.

    Neither leader appears minded to make concessions. Yet the status quo is unacceptable, particularly to Azerbaijan, which hosts over 580,000 displaced people and smarts at the occupation of 16% of its territory.

    How much does it matter? As Thomas de Waal, a well-known commentator (and former contributor to The Economist) notes, Nagorno-Karabakh is hardly a foreign-policy priority for outsiders. But as the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia demonstrated, frozen conflicts can turn hot very quickly.

    Beyond the human suffering that renewed conflict would entail, Azerbaijan is both a major supplier of, and transit route for, oil and gas. The south Caucasus is also a major supply route for western countries’ efforts in Afghanistan. Outside powers have many reasons to pay close attention.

    The chances of pre-meditated war, the ICG argues, are slim. Both sides appear to believe that grandstanding is a useful negotiating tactic. The danger is that it increases the chances of front-line skirmishes provoking an accidental war.

    At least key mediators are saying the right things. Matt Bryza, the American ambassador to Azerbaijan, recently said that resolving the conflict “is more important than any other issue in the region”. Last Thursday a Russian government spokesman said his country would be putting in “all its efforts”. But the fact that negotiations are still to progress beyond basic confidence-building measures shows how far there is to go.

  • Protests in Croatia

    Et tu, Zagreb?

    Mar 6th 2011, 15:39 by T.J.

    THE English-language Croatian Times reports that there may be ancient pyramids in the historic port town of Dubrovnik. Could this be a case of Balkan pyramid envy? In 2006 we reported on a tourist boom in the Bosnian town of Visoko following the discovery of pyramids there.

    Another Croatian city, Zagreb, appears to be taking a different sort of lead from Egypt. The capital has been rocked by a series of protests that are partly being organised, Egypt-style, via Facebook. One demonstration, a week ago, turned violent. As many as 10,000 took to the streets on Friday night. Here is Balkan Insight’s take:

    As in previous protests this week, the demonstrators first tried to reach St Mark's Square, the seat of the government and parliament, but were turned back by the police because protests are prohibited in that square.

    The demonstrators then headed for the headquarters of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, party, chanting "HDZ thieves," "We want elections" and "We want change". They stayed there for about 15 minutes and then moved to Vukovarska Street.

    The protesters also accused the Croatian opposition of failing to improve the situation in Croatia, saying that they were only concerned with their own self-promotion.

    Croatia has faced a number of anti-government protests in recent weeks, including one on Saturday that saw violent clashes between police and demonstrators. More than 30 people were injured and dozens arrested in the rally, at which protesters called on the government to step down.

    Friday's rally was also supported by Croatia's teachers' union, as well as several smaller opposition parties, including the nationalist HDS SB party of Branimir Glavas, a convicted war criminal.

    The protest passed without incident, with only a small number of police providing security. The traffic along the march route was disrupted.

    Thus far the opposition Social Democrats have kept their distance from the protests, which is hardly surprising given that they are coming under attack too. Another reason for their discomfort may be that some of the protestors have been seen burning EU flags.

    Croatia hopes to join the EU soon, but last week there were contradictory reports on the final stages of its accession process. “Lack of reforms hits Croatia’s EU hopes” reported the Financial Times. By contrast the Southeast European Times wrote that Jadranka Kosor, Croatia's prime minister, thought EU accession talks could be finalised by June.

  • War crimes in ex-Yugoslavia

    Another arrest

    Mar 4th 2011, 16:55 by T.J.

    GENERAL JOVAN DIVJAK, regarded by many as one of the few heroes of the Bosnian war of 1992-95, has been arrested at Vienna airport on a Serbian warrant. Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s interior minister, said he had been detained in connection with the so-called Dobrovoljacka Street case, in which soldiers in the Yugoslav army were killed by Bosnian forces during their retreat from Sarajevo in May 1992.

    Mr Divjak, a Serb who had served in the Yugoslav army before the wars, was (and is) regarded as a hero in Sarajevo because he decided to join the Bosnian army when war broke out. He played a crucial role in the defence of the Bosnian capital, which was encircled by Bosnian Serb forces, who were armed and funded by Slobodan Milosevic-led Serbia.

    Mr Divjak's stand against what he regarded as ethnic fascism was seen as treachery by many Serbs. But as the war progressed he was sidelined by his own side, like many other prominent non-Bosniaks who had decided to throw in their lot in defence of a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Hercegovina.

    Exactly a year ago Ejup Ganic, a former Bosnian leader, was arrested in London on charges on a warrant relating to the same case as Mr Divjak's. In July he was released after the judge said that he believed the case to have been brought for political purposes, and “as such amount[ed] to an abuse of the process of this court.” In 2003 the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague dismissed the Ganic case, claiming there was no evidence against him.

    The issue of war crimes continues to be a source of tension between the former Yugoslav states. Yesterday a Bosnian court released Tihomir Purda, a Croatian soldier, who had been arrested in Bosnia on a Serbian warrant that alleged he had killed captured Serbian soldiers in the Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991. Mr Purda's release came after Serbian prosecutors withdrew the case on the grounds that the initial investigation in 1992 had not been conducted according to proper legal standards.

    His arrest had led to violent protests in Zagreb. According to the Croatian press Mr Purda was flown home in a Croatian government plane.

  • Hungary

    Don't call it Megszorítás*

    Mar 2nd 2011, 15:29 by A.L.B

    Don’t mention the ‘A’ word in Budapest this week. Or indeed anytime until spring 2014, when Hungary’s next general election is likely to take place.

    Hungary’s right of centre Fidesz government unveiled its much heralded reform package on Tuesday. Named after Kálmán Széll, a nineteenth century Hungarian politician, it plans to cut the budget deficit to 2.5% in 2012, to 2.2% in 2013 and to 1.9% in 2014. There will be annual savings of 550 billion forints ($2.8 billion) in 2012 and 900 billion forints in 2013 and 2014. The overall aim is to lower Hungary’s public debt, currently the highest in the region, to between 65% and 70% of GDP by the end of 2014. The plan even calls for a debt ceiling to be enshrined in the country’s new constitution. The controversial bank tax will remain in force an extra year, until 2013. A reduction in corporation tax for larger companies has been postponed.

    These are bold and controversial moves and show the government is thinking strategically about Hungary’s deep structural problems. But please do not confuse the new measures, unveiled by Tibor Navracsics, the deputy prime minister, and György Matolcsy, the economy minister, with an austerity package. As Mr Navracsics said: “austerity does not lead anywhere, it is a dead end”.

    Austerity is a dirty word in Hungary, conjuring up visions of slick-suited bankers jetting in from the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, demanding that the government slash and burn welfare and public services. Yet that is what the government is doing, even if it will not admit it. The package calls for drastic reductions in subsidies for disability pensions and subsidies for drugs and public transport. Hungary’s welfare and medicine bill certainly needs cutting. Anecdotal evidence abounds of healthy Hungarians who bribe a doctor (about 200,000 forints, or €750, does the trick) for a certificate that they are unfit to work, after which they spend the rest of their days sponging off the public purse. Hungarians, especially the elderly, are also often over-medicated. Many doctors dole out drugs like sweets, rather than recommend lifestyle changes that might involve exercise or altering a diet high in fats, salt and sugar.

    Mr Matolcsy says the new measures should help the economy grow by an extra 4-6% a year, and create 300,000 new jobs. This will be easier said than done. Foreign investors remain wary of Hungary after the government’s crisis taxes imposed last year on the retail, telecommunications and retail sectors. Income tax is now fixed at 16% but employment costs remain high, with employers having to pay more than a quarter of payroll in social security and pension charges. That is one reason why unemployment remains at 11% and Hungary has the lowest employment rate in the European Union, at 55%.

    Another reason for the poor employment record is that so many of the jobless have low skills, inadequate training and no knowledge of foreign languages. “The Hungarian labour force is underutilised in volume, but the question is what kind of labour it can carry out, because of its poor skills set,” says Peter Duronelly, of the Budapest Fund Management Company. “The package has the seeds of future success and some good plans for more blue collar jobs and technical education, which is good in the long term, but will not generate a five per cent growth in GDP in 2014.”

    Reforming Hungarian healthcare is a political minefield as Fidesz knows only too well. In 2008 the former Socialist-Liberal government introduced a 300 forint fee for a visit to the doctor in an attempt to cut the national medicine bill. Fidesz shot down the measure by organising a referendum, in part as a means to destroy the government’s legitimacy. Not surprisingly, the majority voted against paying for something they had enjoyed for free and the fee was abolished. The government never recovered. But Hungary’s endemic culture of welfare entitlement remained, and was further entrenched. Now Fidesz has to grapple with a drugs bill much larger than it would be, had the party not sabotaged earlier attempts at reform.

    The new package received a mixed welcome from analysts and there was concern at the lack of detail. The forint remains a weak spot, especially if markets turn jittery because of crises elsewhere. Ilan Solot, at Brown Brothers Harriman, says: “The main disappointment was that the government has reconsidered some of its tax reduction promises, including the possibility of abolishing or reducing the bank tax in 2012 and the previously announced plans to reduce the corporate tax rate from 19% to 10% in 2013.”

    But whether or not the government uses the ‘A’-word, Hungary is having to tighten its belt. “The spending cuts and revenue changes are good measures. Whatever the government’s spin, they are austerity,” said Peter Attard Montalto, at Nomura International Plc. Just don't tell the voters.

    *Austerity

  • Macedonia's ethnic disharmony

    How many building booms can one city take?

    Mar 1st 2011, 16:20 by T.J. | SKOPJE

    OBELIX, the fat Gaulish friend of cartoon character Asterix, has a catchphrase: "These Romans are crazy!" Walk around Skopje, the Macedonian capital, and you find yourself thinking the same about Macedonians. I don’t mean this to be snide. But the pace of building in and around the city does bring to mind the Mansions of the Gods.

    Skopje has long needed sprucing up. But opponents of Nikola Gruevski, who have long accused the prime minister of populist nationalism, will hardly be dissauded by the nature of the construction boom (which the government has christened Skopje 2014). With an election in the offing, Mr Gruevski will no doubt enjoy taking credit for the new structures mushrooming throughout the city centre.

    In Skopje’s central square a massive plinth is being built. It will soon be topped with a huge statue of Alexander the Great. Many Macedonians could not give a fig for Alexander. But they will be delighted to see the Greeks, who have been blocking Macedonia's EU and NATO integration over an objection to the country's name, turn apoplectic with rage when it is unveiled. The Greeks accuse the Macedonians of appropriating Alexander and trying to steal their Hellenic culture.

    But that is just one element. Museums, domes, a new foreign ministry, a bridge bedecked with statues of lions and, as in the Asterix book, a triumphal arch are all springing up, transforming the centre of town. Some of the buildings suit the landscape, but the new constitutional court (pictured), with its massive Corinthian columns, seems a trifle overpowering.

    Skopje 2014, which we first wrote about last year, has accentuated bitter disputes between the majority Orthodox Macedonians and Muslim Albanians, who make up a quarter of Macedonia's population. Whenever someone suggests building or rebuilding a church in Skopje, the Albanians demand the same for a mosque. Tensions invariably mount.

    The most vivid example brought small groups of Macedonians and Albanians to fisticuffs. Recently, a church-like steel skeleton appeared on the site of an old church inside Skopje's fortress (pictured). The authorities claimed they were merely building a museum in the shape of a church. But Albanians reply that under the original church is an older Illyrian structure; as, they say, they are descended from Illyrians, the site should be theirs. Construction has now stopped, but the issue reveals the delicate balance between Macedonia's two communities, in which religion, identity, land and power are all deeply entwined.

    The erection of statues of historical figures and grandiose public buildings looks like an expression of ethnic Macedonian identity. But they are not the only ones; their structures are merely the most visible to outsiders visiting Skopje's centre. Visit Albanian districts in and around the capital and you come across hundreds of new mosques.

    Macedonia’s Albanians have a reputation of being much more religious than their brethren from Albania or Kosovo. Their mosque-building has even begun to alarm Albanians from Albania, where they have been labelled as "Talibans" in television chat shows.

    Yet the Democratic Union for Integration, a Macedonian Albanian party, which is in coalition with Mr Gruevski, has strictly secular roots. So one wonders whether there is a sub-plot to the mosque-building frenzy. In most cases, a new mosque declares not only the glory of Islam, but that the land on which is stands is Albanian. The paradox is that you can find Albanian-controlled town halls flying American flags a stone’s throw from new mosques sporting Saudi Arabian ones from their minarets.

    This is one reason why the church-museum affair is so touchy. Many Macedonians say they keep quiet about the often illegally-built mosques for the sake of social harmony. That is why it irks them that an attempt to build something that merely resembles a church becomes a huge incident. Albanians, by contrast, see Skopje 2014 and related projects like the church-museum as a project designed to shove “Macedonian-ness” down their throats. To be continued.

  • Poland and the middle east

    Strong friends

    Feb 28th 2011, 18:57 by E.L.

    POLAND'S foreign minister Radek Sikorski [full disclosure: an old friend of mine] has just been in Israel, where he gave an interesting interview to the Haaretz daily. It was interesting for three reasons: for what he said, for the questions asked, and for the comments. These give a vivid snapshot of the furious emotions still swirling around the issue of the Holocaust in Nazi German-occupied Poland. For some in Israel, the Poles still are loathesome Nazi accomplices. For most Poles, the mass murder of Jews was part of a wider and grimmer picture of totalitarian regimes acting in a destructive frenzy of aggression. Here is an excerpt of the interview, with comments from me in square brackets:

    What is the meaning of the phenomenal renewal of Jewish culture in Poland today? Should we really accept the thesis, heard more and more, that Poland is a philo-Semitic country nowadays? [this an interesting reversal of the usual thesis that Poles imbibe anti-semitism with their mother's milk]

    "I am surprised at your surprise. The fact that a large portion of the world's Jews lived in Poland before the Holocaust needs to be taken into account. For generations, Poland absorbed Jews while they were expelled from other countries. [good point for Poland to make about Germany and Russia] The Holocaust that took place on our soil was conducted against our will by someone else. So what is happening now is simply that free Poland is returning to its natural self.

    "Before coming to Israel, I reviewed statistics about anti-Semitism worldwide, and was proud to discover that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Poland was minuscule in comparison to most western European nations and the United States. And furthermore, it has been more than half a century since a murder with an anti-Semitic context has taken place in Poland. Poland is today renewing its tradition of tolerance and we are proud of this."

    What is your opinion of the debate taking place now in Poland about what is known as the "third phase of the Holocaust," and books such as Jan Gross' "Golden Harvest" (set for release later this year ) about Poles who robbed Jewish property during and after the Holocaust? Does this testify to a new wave of self-examination in your country? [the Jan Gross book is a huge hot potato in Poland. His previous books dealt with a wartime pogrom at Jedwabne, and the post-war killings of Holocaust survivors at Kielce]

    "I have a principle not to comment on texts that I have not read, but the last time I checked the definition of the Holocaust, it was said to be a phenomenon in which a state uses industrial methods to eradicate an entire ethnic group. Horrendous events took place in Poland; there were periods during the Holocaust when people behaved heroically and others behaved like scum, but the Holocaust was the creation of the German state. We mustn't be confused about that."

    There is an ongoing debate in Israel about high school students' trips to death camps in Poland, with critics claiming these visits lead to radical nationalism among pupils. In Poland, criticism is directed at the focus on the camps, and the absence of emphasis on modern Poland and a thousand years of shared history. What is your take on these issues?

    "Our two peoples experienced hell in the 20th century and [we] have not yet managed to heal [our] wounds. We visit Katyn in Russia to honor our dead [where more than 20,000 Polish officers and senior government officials were murdered in 1940 at Stalin's orders], and you come to Poland because the Nazis chose our land to commit their grisly crimes. [interesting link of Jewish suffering at German hands and Polish suffering at Soviet hands]

    "One of the reasons we are in Israel is to reshape these visits. We would like them to emphasize the identity of the perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust, so that the younger generation will not receive mistaken ideas about them. We also want young people to absorb the sense of modern Poland, tolerant and prosperous, in order to deepen understanding of the positive aspects of our relations. We would like to be seen as a place where one can live, not only die. [gentle criticism of Israeli polonophobia here]

    "In the past I visited an air base in northern Israel, and saw a very well done documentary about a flypast of Israeli pilots over Auschwitz - a wonderful statement of victory over evil. But we want to ensure that the next generation of Israeli pilots knows who built Auschwitz and who operated it. Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has promised me that such documentary films will correctly emphasize the facts." [please stop distorting our history]

    This week's Economist has an article on a related theme, highlighting the popularity in Poland of the Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich.

    One success Mr Schudrich cites is Poland’s rigorous investigation of a pogrom in 1941 in Jedwabne (now marked by an official apology from the country’s president). Another was more personal. In 2006 he was punched by a skinhead (he hit back). The attack brought condemnation from media and politicians alike: the thug was seen as the outsider, not the rabbi. Behind the scenes, Mr Schudrich works hard to rebut simplistic outside judgments, as in 2009, when Britain’s Labour Party tried to brand the Polish allies of their opponents, the Conservatives, as anti-Semites

    Again, the vituperative comments are revealing, including one reader who says that because the Economist is run by Jews, it won't tell the "truth" about communism. Given that we are probably the most dyed-in-the-wool cold warriors you could find in the mainstream media, and devoted a cover to Ronald Reagan when he died, headlined "The Man who beat Communism" I find that quite odd. 

    This week's European Voice column on the region highlights Poland's potential clout in the wider Middle East. 

    Arabic-language material on Poland is scanty: Wikipedia has no entry for Poland's ‘Takaful' movement (the rough equivalent of ‘Solidarity').

    Yet Poland's credentials are impressive. It is the only big country in the ex-communist world that has a functioning system of law-governed political freedom (‘democracy' in shorthand). Russia, and now (sadly) Ukraine do not count. And Poland is one of the Big Six in the EU. Its heavyweight political leadership easily commands high-level attention.

    Second, it has ‘street cred'. This is a country where mass protest, with a strong religious element, beat down an elderly military leadership that was trying to sustain an economically failing authoritarian regime. Some of Poland's leading figures (in both the main parties) were movers and shakers in those days too: they shook the system and moved Poland out from captivity into freedom.

    Third, the leaders of Solidarity (unlike some counterparts elsewhere) made the most of their victory once they won it. They did not adopt a vindictive winner-takes-all approach (in retrospect, some think they were too soft on the old nomenklatura, but I think that minimising the risk of bloodshed by allowing some room for the losers was the right decision). Poles know how to organise a round table; how to deal with an over-mighty intelligence service or armed forces loyal to the old days; how to carry out economic reform; and how to turn a monolithic mass pro-democracy movement into a multi-party political system.

    Fourth, the Polish leadership knows all too well how weak-kneed, lily-livered and hypocritical west European politicians can be. While the Poles were struggling to regain their geopolitical birthright as a sovereign state in the heart of Europe, politicians in Brussels, Paris, Bonn and London were worried about ‘stability'. If the dependable old commies left the stage, maybe ‘radicals' would take their place. In the West, people conjured up all sorts of ghosts from the past (and from their own imagination), ranging from ultra-nationalists and anti-Semites to strike-crazy syndicalists and (contradictorily) even rip-roaring low-cost capitalists who might disrupt the cosy world of west European business. 

    When Mr Sikorski has sorted out Polish-Jewish relations, perhaps he could put this issue on his to-do list too.

  • Hungary's secret-police archives

    Closing down history

    Feb 28th 2011, 18:04 by T.E. | BUDAPEST

    SHREDDING a historical archive is an unorthodox step, but this is, in effect, Hungary’s answer to the 20-year conundrum of what to do with the files left behind by its communist-era secret police.

    The government is planning legislation that will allow the subjects of files compiled by the security services to take home documents that refer to them. Then they can do what they like: burn them, bin them or publish them.

    Individually, the reports hold little of interest to anyone other than their subjects. But taken together they constitute a priceless record of Hungary’s post-war history. Once dispersed, the archive will no longer serve as a trove for historians seeking to shed light on Hungary’s chaotic 20th century.

    "Without the archive, we lose the ability to find out who we are as a society," says János Kenedi, a historian of Hungary’s security services. "And it’s society as a whole that’s committing hara-kiri, because it’ll be the files’ own subjects who’ll destroy the archive”.

    Bence Rétvári, a junior minister tasked with drafting the legislation, which is due to be passed in November, says the reports are the "immoral documents of an immoral regime… The individual should decide whether he wants to make them public or put them in a drawer."

    Secret-police archives have been a problem throughout ex-communist Europe. For one, they provide a wealth of material to blackmailers. Péter Medgyessy, a Socialist former prime minister of Hungary, never recovered after it was revealed, in 2002, that he had been an informer. And then there is the personal cost in broken relationships when files reveal individual betrayals and deceptions, sometimes decades after the fact.

    No country has found the perfect answer. Hungary’s archives have been open to authorised historians with an approved research topic. Other countries allow individuals to consult (but not remove) the files of which they are the subjects. In Romania, files on prominent figures in politics and the church are, notoriously, missing, with no explanation of how they vanished.

    Historians are worried. Christopher Adam, a historian at Carleton University in Canada, has written:

    It is very difficult to see the destruction of Hungarian archives as anything other than a crude political move on the part of politicians who are concerned about potentially unpleasant and embarrassing documents on their relationship with the former regime that may one day be found by historians. Such documents may even suggest that some of the most fervent anti-communist politicians today were of a rather different opinion only two decades ago.

    Mr Adam has started up a protest petition, which has been signed by a host of world-class historians. One is Cambridge’s Richard Evans, who said the destruction of the archive would be a “scandal”.

    Mr Kenedi, who has devoted years to researching stories of persecution and unjust imprisonment in the 1950s and 1960s, points out that the documents remain useful. Moreover, he points out, many never made it into the public archive. About a third of the political police’s files remain in the hands of five successor organisations, where they are classified for 60 to 90 years. These will not be released.

    “What the national security services think important is being preserved,” he says. “And everything else is being destroyed.”

  • Libya's Balkan connections

    Qaddafi's Yugoslav friends

    Feb 25th 2011, 17:13 by T.J.

    THE Balkan press and the region's intrepid Facebookers are having a field day digging out pictures of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, the beleaguered Libyan leader, with, variously, Stipe Mesic and Haris Silajdzic, former leaders of Croatia and Bosnia, Boris Tadic, the current Serbian president, and Behgjet Pacolli, who on Tuesday was elected president of Kosovo.

    (As everywhere else, in these countries news bulletins have been reporting on the evacuation of citizens from Libya. Some have been having a rough time. There have been reports of Bosnians and Serbs coming under attack. Some Croats have already made it home but one group may have to be rescued by a Montenegrin ship.)

    The former Yugoslav states have a long, even intimate relationship with Mr Qaddafi. He has been in power so long that among the pictures that have been appearing in the press are ones of him with Tito, who died in 1980 (the picture above is from 1973).

    The Balkan press have also been running stories about Sofija (now Safija) Farkas, Mr Qaddafi’s second wife, a Bosnian Croat from Mostar. Her eldest son is Saif al-Islam, Mr Qaddafi’s once heir apparent, whose televised "rivers of blood" speech earlier this week was the first significant Qaddafi response to the Libyan uprising.

    Throughout the Yugoslav war years, Mr Qaddafi (senior) was staunchly loyal to the then Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic. He even aligned himself with the Orthodox Serbs against Bosnia’s and Kosovo’s Muslims.

    Serb-Libyan ties remain strong. So strong, in fact, that on Tuesday Dragan Sutanovac, the Serbian minister of defence, was forced to describe as “total stupidity” reports that Serbian warplanes were bombing anti-Qaddafi protestors.

    There are strong business links, too: in the past few years the former Yugoslavs have been building on connections from the cold-war non-alignment years to expand business ties in Libya and elsewhere in north Africa. As we reported earlier this year, Serbia is interested in selling arms and building armament factories and military hospitals in the region. The Bosnians are in the construction industry, working for big companies like Energoinvest and Hidrogradnja. In October there were reported to be nine Croatian companies employing 500 workers in Libya.

    But not everyone is having a fine time of it. There was much chortling across the Balkans last year when Mr Pacolli took a large party of Kosovars to Libya as part of his attempt to get Mr Qaddafi to abandon his pro-Serbian stance and to recognise the country. At one point the whole party was flown to the middle of a desert to meet the Libyan leader.

    On arriving, Mr Gaddafi ordered them to sing and dance. When they ran out of tunes they were reprimanded by an aide. Eventually the good colonel told them they could stop, before dismissing them with words to the effect that he would never recognise Kosovo as long as their leaders remained American poodles. With that, the humiliated Kosovars were sent home.

    Whatever happens next in Libya, Croatian tour operators are already licking their lips. They reckon tens of thousands of tourists will now opt for a safe holiday on Croatia's beaches over an uncertain one in Egypt or Tunisia.

  • Kosovo's organ-trafficking scandal

    Is the mud sticking?

    Feb 24th 2011, 16:17 by T.J. | TIRANA

    KOSOVO marked the third anniversary of its independence on February 17th in sombre mood. Only last July the country's leaders were riding high last year in the wake of an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that its declaration of independence had not been illegal. Now their reputations are in tatters.

    First came allegations of fraud in last December’s elections, which angered its strongest supporter, the United States. Soon afterwards, a report produced by Dick Marty, a Swiss politician and former prosecutor, made lurid claims about the involvement of Kosovo's leadership in organised crime. In the last few days two new documents [PDF: download site] have come to light that appear to bolster the most nightmarish of those allegations. 

    First, a disclaimer. In Balkan politics, the dictum, “if you are not with us, you are against us” usually applies. Some readers have attacked this blog simply for reporting on the Marty affair. As a fog of confusion, claims and counter-claims swirls over the allegations laid against Kosovo's leaders, we lay out here what is already known about the issue, and what is new.

    The allegations

    Last December, Mr Marty delivered a report to the Council of Europe that alleged that Hashim Thaçi, who has just begun a second term as Kosovo's prime minister, was close to people who, after the 1999 Kosovo war, had kidnapped some 500 Serbs, Albanians and others, all of whom were eventually killed. Some of them, the report claimed, were murdered so that their organs could be harvested and sold. Mr Thaçi has vigorously denied the claims.

    Mr Marty's allegations were not new. Their first public outing was in a 2008 book by Carla Del Ponte, the former prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY), and Chuck Sudetic, a former ICTY analyst.

    Now, however, documents have been leaked to the Serbian press that appear to strengthen Mr Marty’s claims. They contain transcripts of original interviews with witnesses gathered by a key source known to me and handed over confidentially in 2003 to the then UN administration in Kosovo (UNMIK). The witnesses in the documents are quoted as saying they believed kidnapped Serbs and others had been killed for their organs.

    At the time there was no corroboration for these claims. But they did inspire UNMIK investigators and a team from the ICTY to visit, in February 2004, the now-infamous “yellow house” in rural north Albania, near the town of Burrel, where the witnesses said the killings had taken place.

    A forensic report [PDF: download site] produced by UNMIK says that the team found traces of blood at the yellow house, but that these did not constitute “conclusive evidence” of criminal acts. Neither ICTY nor UNMIK undertook a search for bodies, and no full criminal investigation was ever undertaken. Yet the traces, as well as medical paraphernalia found outside the house, could have been considered to be corroborative physical evidence of the claims made in the witness statements we now know about.

    Why did UNMIK shelve the case? Political expediency, basically. It had to work with the men implicated by the witnesses on a daily basis. The implications of what a criminal investigation might uncover horrified those in the UN charged with building a modern and stable administration in the post-war territory.

    As for the ICTY, its prosecutors concluded that, even if crimes had been committed, they were beyond their jurisdiction because the had taken place after the Kosovo war had ended. Several years later, in a mysterious and embarrassing move for which it has never been properly taken to task, the ICTY destroyed the physical evidence collected at the yellow house. Had it been kept it might have yielded the DNA samples critical for a full criminal investigation.

    As Mr Sudetic notes, because neither UNMIK nor the ICTY pursued the case, they were able to claim that they had no evidence to support the allegations. This was not, however, the case for Mr Marty, who conducted a much more thorough investigation. Albanians and others say that Mr Marty was opposed to Kosovo’s declaration of independence, and claim his report is part of a campaign to smear the new state.

    Mr Marty has also been attacked for not revealing details about his sources. He says their lives would be in danger if their identities were known. How convenient, retort the sceptics.

    The new evidence

    But the new documents will dismay Mr Marty's critics. They make for sickening reading about what happened in Albania after the war (although it is important to acknowledge that the claims they contain have never been tested by a proper criminal investigation). They also include details of the witnesses' identities, although not their names.

    The first document is dated October 30th 2003. It is an internal ICTY text containing an annex with the witness statements gathered by the external source that had been sent to it by UNMIK. The second, dated December 12th 2003, is from the director of UNMIK's department of justice.

    A summary of the witness statements in the first document states that between June and October 1999, 100-300 people, mostly Serb men, were abducted and taken to Albania. Between 24 and 100 of them were then taken to secondary detention centres, from where they were moved again to a “makeshift clinic” where “medical equipment and personnel were used to extract body organs from the captives, who then died.” The organs were then taken to Tirana airport and flown to Turkey and other destinations.

    The document states that the witnesses were all ethnic Albanians who had served in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Four of them had been involved in the transport of at least 90 Serbs to central and northern Albania. Three of them delivered captives to the “house/clinic” near Burrel (the yellow house), the document states, two of them said they had helped dispose of human remains near the house, and one said he delivered body parts to Tirana airport.

    The document also notes that none of the sources claimed to have witnessed the medical procedures. But they all claim that the operations and the transport of body parts took place with at least the knowledge, and in some cases the active involvement, of mid- to senior-level KLA officers.

    At one point, the document quotes the sources as saying that: "The operation was supported by men with links to Albanian secret police operatives of the former government of Salih Berisha." Mr Berisha is, again, Albania's prime minister today.

    The names

    Significantly, the new documents do not mention Mr Thaçi's name. But they mention Ramush Haradinaj and his brother Daut. Mr Haradinaj is a former KLA commander and prime minister of Kosovo. In 2008 he was acquitted of war crimes by the ICTY, but he is now being retried on some counts after the prosecution successfully alleged witness intimidation

    Mr Haradinaj is a political foe of Mr Thaçi. The details revealed in the new documents might cheer the prime minister, as they appear to shift responsibility from his shoulders to Mr Haradinaj’s.

    But as the evidence they contain was not used in Mr Haradinaj's original war-crimes trial, it seems likely that prosecutors felt they were unable to stand up the claims. Moreover, Mr Haradinaj's name does not appear in Mr Marty’s report. The situation remains murky.

    The EU’s police and justice mission in Kosovo, EULEX, is to investigate Mr Marty’s claims, which go far beyond those of organ trafficking. But the new documents are unlikely to help in the search for justice. One well-placed source says that the hunt is already on in Kosovo to identify the witnesses. 

    After the leaks, anyone with knowledge of these events is unlikely to testify unless they receive guarantees of protection for years to come, including new identities and relocation abroad. That is a tragedy. 

    Everyone needs to know, once and for all, where the truth lies in this story, not least the families of the disappeared, as well as Kosovars whose leaders are now increasingly isolated internationally—in part thanks to these allegations.

     

  • Tibet now, the Baltic then

    Why care about Tibet

    Feb 22nd 2011, 10:25 by E.L.

    ANOTHER recent column in "Wi(l)der Europe" at European Voice deals with Tibet. 

    The Dalai Lama is visiting Europe this August. The continent's senior politicians are not exactly jostling to see him. His website shows only a few public talks (in Toulouse and Copenhagen, if you're interested). That's not new. The website also shows a depressingly sparse series of official engagements in 2010: one meeting with the Slovenian government minister dealing with the diaspora; another with the speaker of the Swiss parliament. 

    The reason is simple. China is important, and goes into ritual hysterics at any foreign behaviour that seems to promote ‘splittism'. Even American politicians prefer to meet the personally saintly, politically moderate Tibetan leader away from the cameras and with plenty of provisos.

    For most European countries, the cowardice over Tibet is just regular pusillanimity: the same attitude that leaves Georgia in the lurch, Ukraine in the cold, Belarus in the dark and Russia ruled by murderous bandits.

    In the case of the leaders of the Baltic states, a failure to meet the Dalai Lama when he travels there in August is especially shameful and outrageous. It is also self-destructive.

    More than anyone else in Europe, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians know what it is like to be Tibetan: to be occupied by a big foreign power; to become an ‘uncountry' and your heroes ‘unpersons'; to have your cultural, social and political elites jailed, tortured and deported; to have your language pushed to the margins of public life; to be subject to huge forced migration that aims to dilute and eventually eradicate your national identity.

    They know what it is like to have their representatives shunned abroad; their case drowned out by hostile propaganda; their efforts met with patronising disdain; to be told that their cause is hopeless and that they have nothing to look forward to but slavery and extinction.

    That was nearly the Baltic states' fate under Soviet rule. It happened to other countries – who remembers Circassia, Ural-Ide, or the Kuban Cossacks now? So, since they regained statehood in 1991, the Baltic states have had a lot to celebrate. Even inside the EU and NATO, they continue to make a big deal about the continuity of their independence. They are not breakaway bits of the Soviet Union, but old countries that are back on the map.

    Estonia has just celebrated, quite rightly, the 91st anniversary of the Tartu Peace Treaty, in which Soviet Russia promised solemnly and in perpetuity to respect Estonia's frontiers and independence. The handful of émigré diplomats who kept faded flags flying in dusty embassies during the hopeless Soviet decades are, rightly, honoured heroes. Countries such as Britain (which in 1967 gave back to the Soviet Union the Baltic states' gold reserves, entrusted to the Bank of England for safe-keeping) and France (which handed over their Paris embassies) and Sweden (which sent Baltic refugees to their deaths in Stalin's camps) are, rightly, criticised and have, rightly, apologised and made good their misdeeds.

    But if you like to use a righteous moral compass to navigate the depths of history, you cannot abandon it when it comes to shoals of the present. Especially when you are dealing with a cause that so closely resembles your own. If the Baltic prime ministers and presidents will not meet the Dalai Lama, then their solemn talk about anniversaries, statehood and continuity is just self-indulgent, hypocritical windbaggery. Sometimes you have to take a stand, even if it is painful and seemingly pointless. The Baltic states expected that of others. If their leaders will not stand up for that principle now, it lessens the chance that others, in future, will stand up for them.

     

  • Psychological warfare

    Eastern front worries

    Feb 22nd 2011, 10:00 by E.L.

    OUR CEE correspondent's weekly column at European Voice, the Economist's sister paper in Brussels, is called "Wi(l)der Europe". He recently attended a psychological warfare conference in eastern Estonia, and writes as follows:

    It brought together Estonian spooks, politicians, military officers and journalists with experts from the US, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The Chatham House rule means I cannot name names. But three big issues are clear. 

    The first is that Estonians feel they and their neighbours are in the middle of an undeclared war. They believe that a co-ordinated and well-financed Russian campaign is trying to undermine the basis of their statehood, to dub them as Nazi collaborators, and to woo their Russophone population into discontent and outright fifth-columnry. A powerful presentation by a senior government official highlighted specific examples, and the themes and outlets involved.

    Multiple interpretations of this are possible. I suspect that not every negative commentary or slanted news item in Russian media is directly ordered from the top. The bias may in many cases be unconscious. Yet it is striking how the negative news switches on and off depending on which of the Baltic states Russia is trying to befriend, and which to bully. I can see why the Estonians are so worried (were I Finnish, incidentally, I would be worried too). An analysis of the Russian lexicon used in foreign information-warfare operations was particularly insightful. Watch out next time you see the word ‘humanitarian' in this context and study closely what may be behind it.

    The second is that the remedy may be worse than the disease. The military analysis outlined at the conference was bleak, urgent and striking. I can see that governments need to undertake offensive information-warfare operations (in the US, it has the anodyne title ‘public diplomacy'). And I can see why defensive measures are necessary too. But it would be a mistake to regard the local media as either an enemy or a partner in this.

    Some Estonian officials seem quite sincerely to believe that their own journalists are a bunch of lazy, corrupt, good-for-nothing propagandists whose corrosively negative and sensationalist coverage is damaging the national interest. In particular, they suggest that national myths should be treated reverently: just as one does not sit down with a child and go through a family photo album pointing out infidelities, cruelties, hypocrisies and other hidden black spots behind the happy pictures, so the job of journalists is to cherish the things that create national identity, not to mock them.

    I profoundly disagree with this, and said so. The big contrast between Russia and Estonia is that the Estonian media is free to be rude, sarcastic, trivial and disrespectful. That is tiresome on occasion, but it is better to have the noise of the playground than the silence of the prison cell. It would be horrible to see Estonian journalists taking the same reverent and obsequious attitude to their leaders that their colleagues across the border display. A free media is a great platform for those involved in national defence to counter hostile propaganda and to promote their own ideas. But the media must be free to start with.

    The third big worry is money. How does a small country sustain the high-quality media that democracy needs? The smaller the market, the greater the pressure to sensationalise and to bow to commercial (or political) ‘sponsors'. I am a small-government hawk who refuses to have a television because I dislike the BBC's compulsory licence fee. But in a place like Estonia, tax-payer support for good journalism – for example, in public TV and radio – is a vital question of national security. They should broadcast better programmes in Russian too.

  • Georgian refugees

    Return of the Meskhetians

    Feb 18th 2011, 17:33 by G.E. | TBILISI

    IN NOVEMBER 1944, Stalin and his henchmen considered an offensive against Turkey. To eliminate a possible fifth column, they ordered the deportation of roughly 100,000 Meskhetians, Soviet citizens in southern Georgia suspected of Turkish ties, to central Asia. Thousands died en route. Officials dispatched the survivors to special settlements. Leaving without permission was a crime punishable by 15 years in a gulag.

    It was far from unusual. By the time he died in 1953, Stalin had deported six million people to remote parts of the USSR, including eight entire ethnic groups. Five of them (the Karachai, Kalmyks, Balkars, Chechens and Ingushs) returned home in 1957. Over 30 years later, the end of the cold war and the fall of the Soviet Union opened up opportunities for two others: an independent Ukraine welcomed back the Crimean Tatars, while Volga Germans resettled in reunified Germany.

    But for the Meskhetians, worse was to come. In 1989, Uzbek thugs led a pogrom against them in the Ferghana Valley, killing 112 and causing another 87,000 to flee. The United States eventually took in 11,500. An estimated 415,000 Meskhetians are now scattered throughout Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.

    This year may offer a ray of sunshine. In 2007, under pressure from the Council of Europe, the Georgian government passed a law that allows Meskhetians to return. But the provisions are stringent. Applications have to be in English and Georgian, not the Russian or Turkish most Meskhetians speak. Applicants should provide proof of deportation, an almost impossible requirement given that the records in Georgia were destroyed by fire, and those in central Asia are all over the place. The law confers no obligation on the state to provide housing or any other assistance to the returnees.

    This has not put people off from applying. According to the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), a think-tank, around 12,000 applications have been received, mostly from Azerbaijan. Prominent businessmen provided funds for translation, but they could only cover 5,000 of the applicants.

    Tom Trier, ECMI’s regional director, acknowledges that many people want the right to return. But it is less clear they will actually come. Most Meskhetians in Azerbaijan enjoy a tolerable standard of living, while Samtske Javakheti, the region of Georgia they once called home, is impoverished. Roughly 1,000 Meskhetians have managed to return to Georgia on their own account since the early 1980s. Most of them settled elsewhere in the country.

    With the window for applications now closed, Georgian officials are wading through mountains of forms. The ECMI is hoping that the government will consider removing the requirement for deportation documents and replacing it with something more practical, like witness statements, or even waiving it altogether.

    If all goes well, Georgia may greet the first returnees in autumn. The numbers will probably be small, at first. Even so, their return would symbolise official recognition of past injustices. For those who experienced the deportation and their descendants, that is no mean thing.

  • Belarus

    Don't let up

    Feb 17th 2011, 16:04 by A.O. | MOSCOW

    TODAY saw the opening of the first trials of the opposition activists, such as Vasily Parfenkov (pictured), beaten up and arrested on the night of Belarus's presidential election, on December 19th. They are charged with taking part in mass unrest. But the unrest was a provocation by Belarus’s plain-clothed security services, who smashed windows and then quickly retreated, leaving the protesters to be bludgeoned by police.

    Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the president of Belarus, is a Stalinist thug, and there is no justice in his courts. But his behaviour is that of a hostage-taker, and he is susceptible to pressure. A few weeks ago, a day before the European Union imposed visa bans on Mr Lukashenka and his cronies, he allowed some of his political hostages—including Vladimir Neklyaev, a presidential candidate, and Irina Khalip, a celebrated journalist for Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper—to be released from detention to house arrest. But Ms Khalip’s husband, Andrei Sannikov, another presidential candidate, remains behind bars. So do tens of other less-known but no less brave opposition activists.

    Following the EU sanctions Mr Lukashenka cannot travel to the West. So he appears to have turned eastwards, for a Russian holiday of snow and sun. His plane has been spotted by Russian journalists in Sochi, a sea and skiing resort patronised by Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister and president. Apparently neither Mr Putin nor Mr Medvedev would see him or join him on the slopes. But they seem happy to provide him with shelter.

    In the past, some Western countries, such as Lithuania, made the pathetic argument that Mr Lukashenka ought not to be pushed too hard for fear he would end up in Russia. A better policy would be to lobby Russia to kick him out. The more pressure is applied to Mr Lukashenka, the more likely he is to let his prisoners go.

  • The Khodorkovsky case

    Another verdict

    Feb 16th 2011, 18:27 by A.O. | MOSCOW

    JUST when the curtain was almost drawn on the second show-trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former tycoon who is Russia’s most celebrated political prisoner, an extra has emerged to utter words that have had an explosive effect. Natalia Vasilyeva, an assistant to Judge Viktor Danilkin, who found Mr Khodorkovsky guilty, has said his verdict was imposed on him from above after the first draft was rejected.

    Throughout the trial Mr Danilkin had to consult the higher-ranking Moscow City Court, said Ms Vasilyeva, who also works as a press secretary in Mr Danilkin’s court. “The verdict was brought from the Moscow City Court, I know it for sure,” she said. The end, including the sentencing of Mr Khodorkovsky to 14 years in jail, was brought to Mr Danilkin after he began reading the verdict, Ms Vasilyeva added in her taped interview.

    Mr Danilkin promptly rejected his assistant’s statement. But human-rights activists and members of a civic council patronised by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, have called for an investigation. And Ms Vasilyeva has vanished behind the curtain as suddenly as she had appeared.

    The content of her statement did not come as a surprise to anyone who watched the trial. As Ms Vasilyeva put it, “everyone in the judicial community understands perfectly that this is a rigged case, a fixed trial.” Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, pre-empted the verdict by declaring that Mr Khodorkovsky was a thief who belonged in jail. Mr Khodorkovsky’s defence team claimed to have evidence that Mr Danilkin was acting under pressure. In most countries all this would have led to investigations and perhaps resignations. In Russia the main intrigue is why Ms Vasilyeva, who got her legal qualifications only in 2009 after working as a cook, spilled the beans.

    The obvious explanation—that she acted of her own volition because she was disillusioned with the system—seemed too implausible for the conspiracy-laden world of Russian politics. Most observers agreed that the 16-minute interview must be part of some larger game. One theory is that Ms Vasilyeva was trying to help Mr Danilkin save face. Another is that it was part a wider rebellion by judges against Olga Yegorova, head of the Moscow City Court, who oversaw Mr Khodorkovsky's first trial. Ms Yegorova is a notorious figure in the Russian judicial system; she has often been accused of putting pressure on district judges. Mr Khodorkovsky’s verdict will take effect only after an appeal is heard by the Moscow City Court.

    Yet another theory is that it is part of an attempt by Mr Medvedev to find a politically acceptable solution to the Khodorkovsky case, which he inherited from Mr Putin. At the Davos World Economic Forum, Mr Medvedev stressed that the sentence had not yet come into force and admitted that even his own “high-ranking colleagues” had talked to him about the case behind the scenes. A few days later he agreed that a group of independent legal experts should review the case.

    On February 15th, Viacheslav Lebedev, chairman of Russia’s Supreme Court, suggested reviving an old Soviet practice under which a maximum sentence for a person charged with different crimes should not exceed the sentence attached to the most serious charge: in Mr Khodorkovsky’s case, nine years. Since he has been in jail since October 2003, this would mean releasing him in October 2012—conveniently, just a few months after the next presidential election.

  • Crises in the Balkans

    While you were watching Egypt...

    Feb 15th 2011, 19:10 by T.J. | SKOPJE

    SHARP-EYED observers have noted that some of the protestors that brought down Egypt's president used the clenched-fist logo of Otpor, the well-organised, foreign-financed civic resistance movement that helped topple Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Parts of the Serbian press, notes Florian Bieber, an academic who works on Balkan affairs, have claimed that former Otpor activists helped train some of the opposition groups. 

    With the world's attention on the Arab world, the political instability gripping much of the western Balkans has largely been ignored. Yet so serious is the unrest here—including mass demonstrations in Belgrade, Tirana and Skopje—that one diplomat told me his country’s foreign ministry had asked him if he thought that Egypt-style revolution might sweep northwards into the Balkans. (His answer was an emphatic “no”.) Here is a round-up of recent developments:

    Kosovo held an election on December 12th, but still has no government. Following allegations of “industrial-scale” fraud, re-runs had to be held. Until an apparent breakthrough yesterday, the country’s politicians had been unable to secure the basic outlines of a deal which would permit the formation of a government. Now, however, a faction within the Democratic Party of Kosovo of Hashim Thaci, the acting prime minister, has been forced to drop its insistence that its man, Jakup Krasniqi, the acting president, be given the job formally.

    Behgjet Pacolli, a tycoon, now looks set to become president. In exchange his party, the New Kosovo Alliance, will enter into coalition with Mr Thaci. Mr Pacolli is married to a Russian, which, given Moscow's refusal to recognise Kosovo's independence, leaves some Kosovars appalled.

    Two years after independence, Mr Thaci has never been so weak politically. He has been weakened by a row with Fatmir Limaj, the outgoing minister of transport, who enjoys much support in the party. Internationally, his standing has been shredded by a recent Council of Europe report making all sorts of lurid allegations against him. EULEX, the EU's police mission in Kosovo, is now investigating. Partly as a consequence Kosovo’s European integration process has failed to get off the ground. Five of the EU's 27 members do not recognise Kosovo.

    The situation in Macedonia is little better. Nikola Gruevski, the prime minister, has set off for Washington seeking support for his attempts to speed EU and NATO integration, but he may get his ear chewed off when he arrives. Solving the almost 20-year-old name dispute with Greece appears less of a priority in Skopje than ever. Construction of a giant plinth that will support a statue of Alexander the Great is proceeding briskly, guaranteeing fresh outrage in Greece.

    The Social Democratic opposition has pulled out of parliament, and Macedonia is gripped by the saga of A1 Television, whose bank accounts have been frozen for a second time by the courts. Mr Gruevski's opponents say that the government is trying to muzzle the last bastion of free speech in the country. Nonsense, claim government supporters. The courts are simply clamping down on tax evasion. In fact, the two arguments do not contradict each other. The smart money is on an early election in June. 

    Meanwhile a small group of Albanians and Macedonians fought a pitched battle in Skopje castle on February 13th, where the government has begun building what it says is a museum, in the shape of a church. The problem is that the castle is in an Albanian, and hence Muslim, part of town. When the Albanians protested, saying that the structure was being built over an ancient Illyrian site, Pasko Kuzman, the chief archaeologist, said construction would stop. But builders went in at night to continue their work, which led the Albanians to try and dismantle the structure. And so on, and so on.

    Over in Albania the prime minister, Sali Berisha, has accused the opposition of staging a coup, following a demonstration on January 21st that went horribly wrong when Republican Guards allegedly fired on opposition supporters, killing four. The demonstration sprang from charges by the opposition, led by Edi Rama, the Socialist mayor of Tirana, that Mr Berisha was returned to power in June 2009 by fraudulent elections. Unlike Macedonia, Albania is a member of NATO, but its EU integration path has effectively stalled.*

    The Serbian government has been holed and is taking on water—but has not sunk yet. Mladjan Dinkic, head of the G17 Plus party and Serbia's deputy prime minister, had been openly criticising his governmental colleagues from President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party. On February 14th Mirko Cvetkovic, the prime minister, moved to sack him. Mr Dinkic resigned today but stopped short of pulling his party out of the government.

    How long the Serbian government can limp on like this is anyone’s guess. Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the opposition Serbian Progressive Party, has said that unless new elections are called before April 5th he will lead more protests in Belgrade. Watch this space.

    Last but not least, Bosnia and Hercegovina. Elections there were held on October 3rd, but there is still no government at state level. No surprise there. Progress on anything, let alone EU integration, has been stalled in Bosnia since 2006 in the wake of the failure of the so-called "April Package" of constitutional reforms. Al Jazeera recently announced plans for a Balkans channel, based in Sarajevo and broadcasting in what it delicately calls “the regional language”. Given the station's role as the cheerleader of revolt in Tunisia and Egypt, one can understand diplomats' concerns.

    *This paragraph has been updated: thanks to op-timist in the comments.

  • Russia and Britain

    Lavrov in London

    Feb 14th 2011, 18:53 by E.L.

    RUSSIA'S foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is visiting London this week, amid some talk of a "reset" in British relations with Russia. They have been in the deep freeze (or at least the cool box) since the murder in London in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian emigre who had become a British citizen. The investigation is still open and many in British officialdom are convinced that the murder came about with the active help of Russia's FSB. Others think it is time to move on: if BP, Britain's largest company, can snuggle up to Rosneft, Russia's best-connected one, why can't politicians be cordial and constructive too. 

    James Sherr of Chatham House has written a punchy briefing paper on Anglo-Russian relations. He notes

    To many inside Russia, Britain is cast in a hypocritical, even devious light. It is not Russia, it is argued, but the UK that has halted anti-terrorist cooperation thanks to the Alexander Litvinenko affair; the UK has given asylum to 30 individuals who Russia wanted extradited for terrorism and organised crime; the UK-hosted Nordic-Baltic summit is not about 'economic growth, enterprise and job creation', but another anti-Russian project.

    But also that

    Britain's influence is shrinking, not growing. The Deepwater Horizon and Lockerbie affairs have damaged the special relationship with the US. The UK's Strategic Defence and Security Review has gutted the capabilities that monitor Russia's expanding naval and air activity in Britain's northern waters. And, the savaging of the BBC Russian and Ukrainian services has further diminished Britain's profile. Russians are acutely aware of their economic deficiencies relative to the UK. But they are increasingly less impressed by the UK's ability to convert economic strength into political influence.

    The visit may be aimed at smoothing a trip to Moscow by David Cameron later this year. If that improved the deplorable rudeness and delays faced by ordinary Russians trying to get visas to come to the UK, that would be good news. But it is easy to see a trap too.

    New prime ministers often think that their charm and personality can repair relations with Russia. Tony Blair and George Bush both tried charming Vladimir Putin, but came to regret it.

    The big point is that if BP wants to do a deal with with Rosneft, knowing that it consists of assets around which swirl a great deal of what might be politely call murk, controversy and questionability, it can do so at its own peril. But British foreign  policy towards Russia must not be guided or held hostage by such deals.  

    BP may well have proven Mr Putin right about the cynicism (and amnesia) of foreign businessess. But he should be at least proven wrong about the alignment of the British state policy and BP's corporate interests. Britain should take the lead in introducing visa bans for those who perpetrated the torture-killing of the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and for those who benefited from the fraud that he uncovered. It should also impose similar restrictions for those who were involved in the second, farcical, trial of the jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

    Drawing clear distinction between private business interests and public interests is important, and particularly so after the BP-Rosneft deal.

  • Václav Havel

    Not leaving just yet

    Feb 14th 2011, 14:00 by G.F. | PRAGUE

    SOME Egypt-watchers are wondering what lessons the Arab world could draw from the experiences of those who threw off communism's shackles in 1989. One might be that there is life after revolution. One of the greatest heroes of that time, Václav Havel, is still having fun. Eight years after stepping down as president of the Czech Republic, the 74-year-old playwright, former anti-communist dissident and, for many, greatest living Czech will add a new line to his CV next month with the release of his first feature film. "Leaving" follows the fortunes of a chancellor of an unnamed country dealing with the loss of power after stepping down.

    Speaking in his colourful Prague office—decorated with a life-size sculpture of a female figure and photos of him with various international dignitaries—a frail-looking Mr Havel insists the plot is not autobiographical. And, he says, the villain of the film, who succeeds the protagonist in office, is not a disguised version of his own successor, and arch-rival, Václav Klaus.

    Never mind that this character's name, Vlastik Klein, bears more than a small resemblance to that of the Czech president. Or that "Vlastik", a diminutive, sounds belittling, while klein literally means "little" in German. (Although Vlastik could instead be a play on vlastinets, Czech for "patriot", something Mr Klaus rarely misses an opportunity to call himself.) "It's a coincidence," says Mr Havel. "Maybe I should have named the character differently to avoid needless misunderstanding."

    In the film, the protagonist is threatened with losing his lavish state villa if he refuses to give Klein his public backing. In a not-too-subtle nod to Chekhov's play, Klein wants to destroy the villa's cherry orchard to build a gaudy shopping mall, complete with brothel.

    The film is an adaptation of Mr Havel's play of the same name, his first in 20 years. It premiered in Prague in 2008 and was later staged in London and New York. But Mr Havel says he began the script in 1988, before setting it aside when other concerns became rather more pressing the following year. He says he wanted to explore the experiences of prominent academics and others who lost their status after Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring in 1968.

    "It was about a hundred thousand people who were used to enjoying their vocations," he says. "Then suddenly their jobs were taken away. It's not easy for a top university professor to become a baker or window-washer, and many didn’t handle it well." These travails, says Mr Havel, influenced the play "much more than what's happening now, more than Klaus and Havel."

    Yet there is certainly no love lost between the two men. Mr Havel has described Mr Klaus, a notoriously prickly Eurosceptic and champion of climate-change doubters, as “utterly unbearable”. A staunch free-marketeer, Mr Klaus served as prime minister under Mr Havel, who believes his reforms in the mid-1990s brought about "gangster capitalism".

    "Everything was privatised at a great pace," he says, "which of course gave big opportunities for all kinds of crooks." Corruption still permeates the Czech Republic today, Mr Havel adds, because the social demoralisation wrought by 40 years of communism will take generations to overcome.

    Whether or not "Leaving" settles scores, it does fulfil one of Mr Havel's lifelong dreams. Born into a wealthy family of intellectuals and entrepreneurs that included an uncle who founded Czechoslovakia's renowned Barrandov film studios in the 1920s, Mr Havel says he was barred from attending film school by the communist authorities. Unlike playwriting, which results in a "semi-product" completed by the stage director, he says, film directing has been a new experience for enabling him to "interpret myself".

    As for whether he finds his role as a leading moral voice in the world gratifying, the one-time political prisoner who later rode scooters through the Prague castle laughs. "When I hear such descriptions, I mainly blush."

  • Refugees in Ukraine

    Shut out

    Feb 10th 2011, 18:09 by S.T.

    THE walls of fortress Europe have grown increasingly impenetrable of late. A planned fence on the Greek border with Turkey has received some attention. Not so the situation in western Ukraine, where there a growing community of refugees, mainly from Afghanistan and Africa, seeking entrace into the European Union have congregated. Effectively trapped in limbo, these asylum-seekers are subject to abuse, exploitation and torture. 

    The border crossing between Ukraine and Poland at Shehyni shows up the disconnect between Ukraine and its EU neighbours. On the Ukrainian side, merchants peddle cut-price booze and tobacco in dusty little shops. A smattering of middle-aged women gather in a dark café to tape packs of cigarettes to their arms and legs like bands of ammunition. They trundle through a long maze of gates and turnstiles on their way to the orderly Polish border control-office, where they will test their acumen with exhausted-looking young border guards. Outside, a dog travels freely between the EU and Ukraine via a small hole in the fence. 

    A lengthy, costly and often humiliating visa regime has made travelling west nearly impossible for most Ukrainians. After shelling out at least a month’s worth of the average Ukrainian salary for the proper clearances, travellers must often report back to the appropriate Kiev-based embassy with visual evidence of their movements: this usually means an impromptu slideshow with their digital camera. Ukraine has made numerous concessions in hopes of easing these restrictions; EU citizens can enter Ukraine for three months visa-free, for example.

    January 1st marked the anniversary of one of the most problematic of these concessions. More than a year ago the EU signed an agreement with border countries, including Ukraine, that would see them accept third-country nationals who had illegally entered the EU via their territory. In return, Ukraine received €35m to spend on migration management and the hope that visa requirements for its own citizens would be eased. But as a recent Human Rights Watch report has found, the agreement has been a failure for just about everyone—especially asylum-seekers.

    The report says that as of December 2009, there were 2,334 recognised refugees in Ukraine, more than half of whom were Afghans. Human Rights Watch interviewed 161 of them, living in various communities in Ukraine’s western fringe. The report paints an unsettling picture of desperate people subject to violence, extortion and arbitrary detention at the hands of the Ukrainian authorities.

    The report holds authorities on both sides of the border accountable. It hammers Ukrainian refugee law, and accuses the EU of failing to take its share of responsibility for ensuring refugee protection. Bill Frelick, director of the Human Rights Watch Refugee Programme and co-author of the report, agreed to answer a few questions.

    How would a typical asylum-seeker end up in Ukraine?

    Most seem to enter via Russia. Some enter Russia legally, depending on where they are coming from. Many, if not most, have no idea they are going to Ukraine and certainly do not plan to end up there. I remember one Afghan, dumped by his smuggler in a market in Kiev, thinking he was in Germany. He asked some Afghan men in the market where he was. The answer, which he gave to me in English, was, "Dude, you're in Ukraine."

    What is daily life like for these asylum-seekers?

    Many, particularly those with darker skin, feel quite vulnerable. We heard a number of accounts of racist and xenophobic attacks. Police harassment and bribe demands are another constant.

    Do EU citizens realise that asylum-seekers are treated terribly in buffer countries?

    By reporting on the treatment of returned migrants and asylum-seekers in places like Libya, Turkey, and Ukraine, we are hoping to draw attention to their treatment. This report is the third I've written on this subject. (The previous two focused on the Greece/Turkey border and the nexus of Italy's forced return of boat migrants and Libya's mistreatment of returnees.

    What impact has the change of government in Ukraine had?

    It hasn’t had any particular impact on readmission. But the constant churn in bureaucracies has paralysed Ukrainian asylum procedures. For example, just before we arrived to release our report, on December 10th, the state entity responsible for asylum procedure was dissolved.

    The report mentions an improvement since a previous Human Rights Watch investigation, in 2005.

    That related specifically to the physical layout of detention centres, and the conditions of detention in terms of cleanliness and overcrowding. This is directly attributable to EU-funded initiatives. We saw no improvement in the functioning of the asylum system or the brutal treatment of migrants in custody.

    How common is it for refugees to abandon their quest to get into the EU and make an attempt at integration in Ukraine?

    We met a group of African and Middle Eastern residents, working in some of the markets in Kiev, who had made an attempt at integration. Some had married Ukrainian women. But all said they were marginalised in Ukrainian society and subject to harassment.

  • Protests in Serbia

    Belgrade calling

    Feb 9th 2011, 15:12 by T.J.

    THE next general election in Serbia should be over a year off, but campaigning has already begun—and with a bang. On Sunday [thanks: drkdv in comments] Saturday the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) held the biggest opposition rally in Belgrade since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000. The party's leader, Tomislav Nikolić, demanded that a general election be called by April 5th, and threatened more protests if he did not get his way.

    The government shrugged this off, but the public’s discontent is clear. Teachers and police have been on strike; health workers may soon join them. The economy is nominally recovering, but few people feel it. Unemployment stands at 19%. And the ruling coalition has been quarrelling in public. Tensions are evident within the biggest party, President Boris Tadić’s Democrats. The government has lost authority, admits Mlađan Dinkić, the deputy prime minister. Big changes are needed, he says, to avert a serious electoral defeat.

    The SNS may know what it is opposed to, but it is less clear what is for. The party was formed in 2008 by unhappy members of the extreme nationalist Radical Party, whose leader is on trial in The Hague for war crimes. It professes to be pro-European. Mr Nikolić has even said, grudgingly, that he would arrest Ratko Mladić, a fugitive general who is wanted by the war-crimes tribunal.

    One official retorts tartly that saying you are pro-European costs nothing. When the SNS's deputies were asked to put their votes where their mouth is, during debate on a parliamentary resolution to condemn the 1995 Srebrenica massacre by soldiers commanded by Mr Mladić, they balked.

    One senior SNS official argues that the Belgrade protests have broken the optimistic picture of Serbia presented by the government to the outside world. He notes, too, that the SNS has a hard time getting a fair hearing in the media.

    That the SNS is popular, and that most Serbs are unhappy with their lot, is hardly news, says Marko Blagojevic, a Serbian pollster. Recent events, especially splits in the government, make it hard to predict when an election might be held. But he doubts if SNS supporters have the stamina to keep up weeks of protests. He also says that, if there were an election now, the government that emerged would look much the same as the current one. Why? Because, unlike the Democrats, the SNS has few potential coalition partners. Others are less sure, suggesting instead that the two parties could go into (awkward) coalition together.

  • Georgia and IDPs

    Homeless in Georgia

    Feb 4th 2011, 13:10 by G.E. | TBILISI

    OVER the past couple of weeks, a new poster has appeared on Tbilisi’s streets. On the left-hand side, police evict a young family from a building in Tbilisi. Move right, and the picture fades into an image of SS officers deporting Jews. On top of all this sits the face of Koba Subeliani, the government minister charged with the accommodating those who fled Georgia’s wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and underneath him, the word “Stop!”

    Nearly 1,500 displaced people have been evicted in the past two weeks. With the Government offering alternative accommodation outside the capital only, many fear losing their livelihoods as well as their homes. Yet comparison with the Nazis’ crimes is wildly undeserved. As we have written before, the Georgian government is within its rights to carry out these evictions. The buildings in question were not registered as official "Collective Centres", and none of the inhabitants thought they could live there indefinitely.

    Georgian policies towards the displaced population are more enlightened than, say, those of neighbouring Azerbaijan (host to over 580,000 people who fled the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s). The government aims to allow the 250,000 or so people to integrate where they are, providing homes for them to own, the chance to earn money and full access to social services. But to do so, the state needs an estimated $1bn; so far, it has only $200m.

    The approach has been ham-fisted. When the evictions first began in August 2010 UN officials and diplomats reacted with a barrage of criticism. In response, officials called a moratorium on further evictions until they had agreed a procedure acceptable to all parties. Evictions resumed on January 20th, but independent monitors said the agreed procedures were poorly implemented. Many people did not know the precise dates they would be evicted. Too few of those displaced during Georgia’s war with Russia in 2008 received the compensation to which they are entitled. Officials paid too little attention to the worst-off, despite clear guidelines to the contrary. And some of the much-touted alternative accommodation that the Government offered is clearly inadequate, especially in the middle of winter.

    Some opposition politicians encouraged people to stay put. They clashed with police, and led protest demonstrations outside Parliament.  But young Georgians have used Facebook to organise protest events of their own, almost without exception, with the proviso "politicians not welcome". The episode reflects the broader state of politics in Georgia. In seeking crude political gain, opposition politicians discredit themselves and reveal their weakness. In contrast, President Saakashvili’s government looks strong: having won a convincing victory in municipal elections last year, it can now push through unpopular measures with ease.

    But as Transparency International, an NGO, argues it would have been far better to start with a proper public debate about the evictions. Patience is not one of the Saakashvili government’s virtues. In the drive for modernization, it likes dramatic change rather than careful planning and orderly administration.

  • Thoughts from abroad

    1989 in Egypt

    Feb 4th 2011, 12:53 by E.L. | LONDON

    OVER at European Voice, the Economist's sister-paper in Brussels, the Wi(l)der Europe columnist has been pondering the lessons of 1989 for the protestors in Egypt

    He cautions

    It would be quite unfair to draw a direct comparison between Soviet rule in eastern Europe and US alliances in North Africa and the Middle East. The US did not invade these countries. It did not deport their elites to the wilds of Wyoming, in cattle trucks. It did not force them to learn English at gunpoint, ban religion or impose an alien economic and cultural system. Nor did it buttress its geopolitical interests with tanks. The Soviet Union did all those things, and more, in eastern Europe. 

    But he also points out some perturbing parallels

    One big lesson of revolutions is that they are easy to steal. The nimblest insiders from the old regime get their money out quickly, or launder their reputations. If the regimes fall in Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, watch out for clever spooks and apparatchiks amid the fog, spreading rumours, manipulating events, while busily re-inventing themselves as lawyers, academics and businessmen. 

    Sometimes the stealing is more straightforward (and not just because works of art in government buildings or museums can be pinched). Money will vanish from state and party coffers and head for Cyprus, Panama, or (if it is a really large amount) London. Power vanishes but turns into wealth. Then the wealth can buy back power, whether by investments in media or in donations to political parties. Money is democracy's Achilles heel. 

    The biggest danger is that people want change but get chaos. Authoritarian regimes may be crooked behind the scenes, but they keep crime and violent disorder away from the citizenry. The eruption of gangsterism between the Baltic and Black seas after 1989 chilled many people's enthusiasm for the new order. 

  • Russian justice

    Murky waters

    Jan 30th 2011, 20:31 by G.F. | PRAGUE

    A COURT in Russia's far northern region of Arkhangelsk is hearing testimony from six men accused of hijacking the Arctic Sea, a cargo ship, in 2009, the bizarre disappearance of which prompted international speculation about a secret Russian arms sale to the Middle East gone awry.

    The defendants, who face up to 15 years in jail on charges of kidnapping and piracy, have pleaded guilty, although five of them dispute details of the indictment. But the circumstances surrounding their case are so murky, and the official version so implausible, that their relatives are convinced they were duped into covering up something the Russian government wants to remain secret.

    The Russian navy says the ship was carrying timber from Finland to Algeria when it was hijacked by six armed pirates, most of them unemployed ethnic Russians living in an impoverished neighbourhood of the Estonian capital, Tallinn. The disappearance triggered an international search on the high seas until Moscow claimed it had freed the ship's crew after discovering the vessel off the west coast of Africa.

    But reports from Israel said the Arctic Sea had been first intercepted by Mossad, and that the Israelis had warned the Kremlin to stop its shipment - or they would seize it themselves.

    After their arrest, the alleged pirates claimed they had been hired to conduct temporary environmental work - gathering evidence of illegal pollution from ships - and were training on a rubber boat in the Baltic Sea when a storm blew them off course. They said they were rescued by the Arctic Sea and later set up for a cover meant to save the Kremlin embarrassment.

    But prosecutors in Arkhangelsk say the defendants attacked the ship and threatened to use weapons against the crew before demanding a ransom of €1.5m. Russian media have reported a lawyer for the defendants as saying their pleas stated they were promised €10,000 each for the hijacking. Three men have already been sentenced by other Russian courts over the affair: a Latvian businessman accused of organising the alleged hijacking received four years and two of the "pirates" got three and seven years in prison.

    As if the story weren't strange enough, last year a handwritten letter allegedly penned by one of the jailed men - an unemployed roofer before the Arctic Sea incident - appealed to the international community to take concerns over pollution in the Baltic Sea seriously. "We know how to save the Baltic Sea basin from serious environmental catastrophe," it read.

    Only a few crew members are taking part in the trial in Arkhangelsk. They've been barred from talking to reporters about the alleged hijacking. In Tallinn, the defendants' families fear the worst.

    Alexei Bartenev, the brother of one of the defendants, says the case remains a mystery. "Only those on board know what happened," he says. Mr Bartenev wonders why Russia is trying a case involving a ship registered in Malta, owned by a company in Finland, and alleged to have been intercepted in Swedish waters by residents of Estonia. He also wonders why the eight alleged hijackers and some of the crew - 16 people in all - were flown from Africa to Russia on two large Ilyushin-76 cargo planes capable of carrying 40 tons each, if not also to carry weapons or other illicit cargo. "All I can say is that it's very suspicious."

    The trial could drag on for months, if only for the prosecutors to read through the 43 volumes containing their accusations. In the meantime, Mr Bartenev says his brother’s state-appointed defence lawyer doesn’t inspire confidence.

  • Latvian politics

    Harmony in minor key

    Jan 29th 2011, 22:23 by K.S. | LONDON

    While Hungary's government and its media law remains a stormy issue, Latvia's media landscape is quite clouded enough even without government intervention. Worries about shrinking press freedom have intensified following a purge in the Russian-language station TV5. This follows its sale by News Corporation to Andrejs Ēķis, a leading figure in the tycoon-heavy “For a good Latvia” party.

    This led to the sacking under murky circumstances of a popular anchorman and producer at TV5, Oļegs Ignatjevs. TV5 executives cited falling ratings (link in Latvian). Company documents suggested he was fired according to a “staff reduction” programme. But others blame Riga’s hyper-senstive mayor Nils Ušakovs, a chairman of the opposition Harmony Centre.

    “My bosses asked me several times not to criticise Harmony Centre. It was very awkward,” says Mr Ignatjevs. He was not the first journalist to misbehave: in May 2010 news director Vladislavs Andrejevs left TV5 in a similar fashion. TV5 directors deny all allegations in both cases.

    Ignatjev's firing is the latest in a series of moves that have consolidated power over the media and forced independent journalists to find work elsewhere; in December Aleksandr Krasnitsky, the respected editor-in-chief of the daily Telegraf, was sacked after the paper published a story about a schoolboy threatened with expulsion for slandering Ušakovs. Mr Krasnitsky worries that accepting job offers from other publications could jinx them with the same fate as the now-neutered Telegraf. 

    The big question in all this is how Harmony Centre has become so influential. Despite being in opposition, its magnetic qualities over the media remind some people of the Kremlin's "party of power". Although it is not landing many punches on the governing coalition, it is clearly the most popular party in Latvia according to opinion polls.

    Oppositionism at a time of economic austerity is always likely to play well. But the real reason for Harmony's good rating may be its role as a receptacle for protest votes, chiefly from those who dislike Latvia's mainstream "nationalist" parties, who have made for the most part little effort to win hearts and minds of the country's ethnic Russians and Soviet-era migrants. 

    After independence was restored in the early 1990s, the only ideology left standing in Latvia was that of an ethnically-based nation-state. As both Western-type democracy and nationalism were already booked by Latvian parties, Harmony Centre (the name of the party was different then, but the same people still run it) had to offer its electorate a much milder stance towards Russia. Harmony Centre's big task now is to build on that and gain votes from other quarters, portraying itself not as a Kremlin poodle but as a European-style centre-left party. Naughty journalists who interfere with that mission must expect speedy punishment. 

    Latvian nationalist parties campaigning for the country's language may be playing into Harmony's hands. In July 2010 the parliament approved broadcast media language restrictions, which required 65% of air time to be conducted in Latvian. That  forced local Russian TV and radio to change its formats and made them less attractive to the ethnic audience. However the pro-Harmony First Baltic Channel, a branch of the Moscow-run First Channel, does not have to follow any rules. So ratings for the more independent Russophone media are falling, while First Baltic Channel entrenches its position. Does anyone remember the mistakes made by Czechoslovak ethno-enthusiasts in the 1930s?

About Eastern approaches

Eastern approaches deals with the economic, political, security and cultural aspects of the eastern half of the European continent. It incorporates the long-running "Europe.view" weekly column. The blog is named after the wartime memoirs of the British soldier Sir Fitzroy Maclean.

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