Madeleine Albright && Belarus elections
As I wrote several days ago, KGB arrested four NGO activists from “Partnerstva”, making ludicrous accusations that these peaceful observers were planning a military coup d’etat. Today, Madeleine Albright (whom I had a pleasure to meet in Prague two years ago) made a rather strong statement, demanding immediate release of the “Partnerstva” activists.
Madeleine Albright: “The National Democratic Institute deplores this attempt by the Belarusian authorities to deny the basic rights of their citizens to peacefully monitor the March 19 presidential election.
We condemn the recent arrests of civic activists and the accusations leveled against Partnership, whose only interest is to promote a democratic election process and peacefully monitor that process.
By refusing to register nonpartisan monitoring groups and restricting their access to assistance from outside organizations, Belarus is violating its commitments as a member state of the OSCE and other international human rights instruments to which it is a party.
We call on the government of Belarus to immediately release those detained and allow them to continue their rightful monitoring effort without interference.
The Belarus government cannot expect to earn international respect if it does not respect international norms.”
March 7th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
“ludicrous accusations that they were planning a coup d’etat”
Not so ludicrous. Read up on NGOs and the ‘color revolutions’.
Or check the links in my short post.
March 7th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
chromatius: how much do you know about Partnerstva?
March 7th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Like your blog, can you get in touch?
March 7th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
amadee: My contact e-mail is br23net __at__ gmail
March 9th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Follow on Chromatius comment, you may also be interested in this article (the start is hard to readbut towards the end she makes more sense):
From Georgia to Kyrgyzstan via Ukraine, new forms of youthful, tech-savvy mass mobilisation are impelling regime change from below. But is the phenomenon as benign as it appears? Are the movements who inspire the “colour revolutions” catalysts or saboteurs? Sreeram Chaulia analyses a modern face of global democratic politics.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/colour_revolutions_3196.jsp
March 19th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Today you must exercise your right to vote!
One person, one vote can make a difference!