Thursday, September 18, 2003
Building a Free Cuba by a trio of post-Communist leaders (Lech Walesa of Poland, Arpad Goncz of Hungary and the great Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic), is a great reminder of the wisdom and prudence that the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe have to offer both the rest of Europe and the United States.
Few things were so validating to me in my support of the war in Iraq as knowing that Vaclav Havel supported the American position. Eastern European delegates brought a note of sanity to the insane feeding frenzy of the Durban Conference in 2001. In a joint statement on September 2, 2001, the Eastern and Central Europe NGO Caucus released a concise and effective critique of Durban.
Some of its highlights include:
We must emphasize that the language of the chapter "Palestinians and
Palestine" as well as the deliberate distortions made to the chapter
"Anti-Semitism" is extremely intolerant, disrespectful and contrary to the
very spirit of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
and, more relevant to this post:
PS: On top of all the troubles of the NGO Forum, at the closing ceremony,
the delegates had to listen for over two hours to a speech by Fidel Castro.
We are offended by the fact that one of the worst dictators in the
contemporary world, particularly notorious for gross violations of human
rights, was invited to address this world gathering of non-governmental
organizations. Listening to Fidel speak, we only had to wonder why the
organizers had failed to invite Alexander Lukashenko, Turkmenbashi, Saddam
Hussein, or a representative of the Taliban regime.
Other NGOs outside the region also signed onto this document, but the shame of Durban is how few of the thousands there were willing to speak out against the hijacking of the conference by parties that didn't give a shit for human rights.
Havel, Walesa, Goncz and others in Eastern Europe have a real perspective on how Communist regimes can be dismantled. I hope that Europe and Washington can listen to them.
Few things were so validating to me in my support of the war in Iraq as knowing that Vaclav Havel supported the American position. Eastern European delegates brought a note of sanity to the insane feeding frenzy of the Durban Conference in 2001. In a joint statement on September 2, 2001, the Eastern and Central Europe NGO Caucus released a concise and effective critique of Durban.
Some of its highlights include:
We must emphasize that the language of the chapter "Palestinians and
Palestine" as well as the deliberate distortions made to the chapter
"Anti-Semitism" is extremely intolerant, disrespectful and contrary to the
very spirit of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
and, more relevant to this post:
PS: On top of all the troubles of the NGO Forum, at the closing ceremony,
the delegates had to listen for over two hours to a speech by Fidel Castro.
We are offended by the fact that one of the worst dictators in the
contemporary world, particularly notorious for gross violations of human
rights, was invited to address this world gathering of non-governmental
organizations. Listening to Fidel speak, we only had to wonder why the
organizers had failed to invite Alexander Lukashenko, Turkmenbashi, Saddam
Hussein, or a representative of the Taliban regime.
Other NGOs outside the region also signed onto this document, but the shame of Durban is how few of the thousands there were willing to speak out against the hijacking of the conference by parties that didn't give a shit for human rights.
Havel, Walesa, Goncz and others in Eastern Europe have a real perspective on how Communist regimes can be dismantled. I hope that Europe and Washington can listen to them.
