Democracy Digest Democracy Digest
The Bulletin of the Transatlantic Democracy Network - www.demdigest.net

Oct 27, 2006

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Politkovskaya Murder – a Landmark of "Neo-Soviet" Resurgence

"We have old Byzantine traditions to eliminate unwanted people," said Anna Politkovskaya, with chilling prescience. "Even a hint from a top official to his subordinates is sometimes enough for them to act." Her slaying on October 7 "smacked of fascism", Zbigniew Brzezinski told a memorial meeting organized by the National Endowment for Democracy and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Politkovskaya's lonely heroism, a principled stand for transcendental values against the prevailing corruption, is the most impressive kind, said the former national security adviser. It offers redemption to the indifferent but confers responsibility at a time when moral indifference is tantamount to complicity.

Echoing such sentiments, the Hudson Institute's David Satter invoked Hannah Arendt's account of individual resistance to inhuman "holes of oblivion", while former Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov, recalled Politkovskaya's concern for his security in exile while she was the one in the "dragon's jaws." With her killing, said the NED's Carl Gershman, "a light went out, and with the rising crackdown on dissidents that is reminiscent of the Soviet period, a darkness is now spreading over Russia."

"This was not just a crime against Politkovskaya," said former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, normally supportive of Putin. "It is a signal and a lesson for the whole of society." The killing, the latest in an appalling series of politically-motivated murders, clearly marks a distinct turning point. "Until now, we critical spirits believed in a civilizational minimum at the least," said Russian philosopher Michail Ryklin. "Now the message is: none of you are safe anymore. Notability, Western friends, respect and awards can no longer protect."

The government's reaction to her death – indifference giving way to insult - was telling. After two days of silence, betraying an "attitude of complicity", Putin dismissed Politkovskaya as "extremely insignificant." In doing so, he demonstrated not only his personal coarseness, but inadvertently confirmed the veracity of her insights into the regime. "Their line is wholly neo-Soviet," Politkovskaya wrote, "humans have no independent existence; they are cogs in a machine whose function is to implement unquestionably whatever political escapade those in power have dreamed up. Cogs have no rights, not even to dignity in death."

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Backlash Hits Russian NGOs

Russian police violently dispersed a group of activists demanding the authorities track down Politkovskaya's killers. Police in Nazran, capital of southern Ingushetia, detained several protesters and trampled photographs of Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in her central Moscow apartment block. "The meeting was broken up with brute force," said Oleg Orlov of the Memorial human rights group. "The police threw our pictures of Politkovskaya onto the ground and stamped on them." Orlov this week resigned from the Presidential Council on Promoting Civil Society and Human Rights in protest at Politovskaya's murder.

On October 14, the highest court in Nizhny Novgorod shut down the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a group that exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya. In February, a court convicted its director, Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, of inciting ethnic hatred and gave him a two-year suspended sentence. Prosecutors justified this latest shutdown under a new law that makes it illegal for an NGO to be led by anybody with a criminal record. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights says prosecutors claimed that the society qualified as an extremist organization because it failed to issue a public denunciation of Dmitriyevsky following his conviction. The court ruling showed "how easily Russia's anti-extremism legislation and the NGO legislation ... can be used for the disproportionate and illegitimate curtailment of human rights."

Russia this week allowed dozens of foreign NGOs to resume operations and accelerated the registration process of others suspended last week after they allegedly failed to comply with a tough new law. Yury Zhibladze, head of the Moscow-based Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights in Moscow, estimated only about 160 out of an estimated 500 foreign NGOs were able to register by the initial deadline. Among the groups allowed to restart work were the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute.

The decision to speed up the registration process came after the suspensions provoked an international outcry, exposing the dark underbelly of Russia's ersatz democracy. Even Putin's close advisers are conceding that the new NGO law is excessively bureaucratic and needs to be changed. "The law creates so much red tape that many organizations can't cope," said Ella Pamfilova, who counsels Putin as head of his Council on the Institutions of Civil Society and Human Rights. Western governments urged Russia to allow nonprofit groups to continue operating but there is concern that attention is overly focused on large international NGOs while the Kremlin is more aggressively targeting Russian groups.

The Ministry of the Interior this week proposed to increase punishment under article 282 of the Criminal Code to more than five years in prison for "establishing an extremist organization with the intent to commit other types of crimes" and "establishing an extremist organization with the purpose of inciting ethnic animosity". Such provisions have been very broadly defined to close down peaceful NGOs critical of the Putin regime.

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… But West's Reaction Is Muted, Mixed

"To take fundamental freedoms for granted is to put them at risk," warned José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, recently. "We have only to look at what is happening today to freedom of expression and thought to realise the dangers." Indeed, the European Union said the closure of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society which, it noted, has a distinguished record as a defender of human rights in Russia, should be reviewed as a matter of urgency.

And the European Court this month issued a landmark judgment against Russian authorities who had proscribed the Salvation Army on the grounds that the Christian charity was a foreign "paramilitary organization". The European Court has emerged as a court of last resort for Russians aiming to force the state to comply with the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The council of Europe was established after World War II to defend human rights, parliamentary democracy, and the rule of law. Russia ratified the convention in 1998 and is committed to accept the court's decisions as binding.

But EU member states were divided over confronting Putin at a meeting last week, reflecting tension between taking the moral high ground on human rights and securing energy supplies. Putin was able to exploit EU divisions as France, Greece and Luxembourg pushed to tone down criticism of Moscow.

Responsibility for the death of Anna Politkovskaya rests not only on Russian society, power structures, and the regime's "cold indifference and cynicism", says veteran human rights activist Elena Bonner, but also on an international community that has forgotten the 1975 Helsinki Agreement that human rights violations cannot be an exclusively internal affair for any country.

But Politkovskaya was not without her detractors in the West. You will search in vain for a popular democratic alternative "in the circles represented by Anna Politkovskaya," sniped Anatol Lieven, a consistent defender of the Putin regime. While she may not have been a political leader, Politkovskaya stood "in the tradition of the great Soviet dissidents," Russia expert Mike McFaul has argued, while Christopher Hitchens believes she showed how large swaths of the former USSR suffer a "worst of both worlds" system, blending Mafia capitalism with KGB-style government (estimates suggest that some 6,000 former KGB agents hold key government positions).

Putin's advocates abroad argue that he ended the chaos and rampant corruption of the Yeltsin era through a "Bismarckian" model that offered social order with an expanded safety net. Under this "dictatorship of law," Russians concede civil rights in exchange for stability and economic growth. Yet rule of law remains a fragile prospect and Russia's long-term economic growth requires that it attract inward investment which, in turn, demands that its legal and corporate governance become more transparent and accountable. This will not occur, says one analyst, "without an independent press that reliably reports about conditions that affect commerce - or if the Russian government continues to intervene on behalf of its political favorites."

In fact, Russian institutions have become "far less open, far less transparent, far less pluralist, far less subject to the rule of law, and far less vulnerable to the criticism and counterbalancing of a vigorous opposition or independent media", according to a recent task force of the Council on Foreign Relations. The emerging "new forces" rooted in big business interests underpinning Putin's regime have little interest in greater transparency and accountability. "In China they were concentrated around the military commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party," says Sergei Markov, an analyst close to the Kremlin. "Putin's power will focus around a system of mega corporations."

"The West looks away coyly every time the current Russian regime shows its true face," Chechen journalist Mainat Abdullayeva complains. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, of the European Parliament's Greens group, accused the EU of turning a blind eye to Putin's complicity because of its energy dependence on Russia. "You talk about bringing the perpetrators to justice, but one of the perpetrators is going to be having dinner with you," he said, berating EU leaders prior to last week's summit meal with Putin.

The fundamental problem of Western policy is its assumption that the Cold War is over, says Russia specialist Anders Åslund. But Putin has been "reviving one feature after another of a police state, including authoritarian rule and an anti-Western foreign policy." Russia's GDP has risen from $200 billion in current dollars in 1999 to $920 billion this year. Flush with oil revenues, the Kremlin is increasingly "aggressive with its neighbors... and repressive with its citizens."

For its part, the Kremlin is unabashed about its efforts to divide the West and promote a relativist approach to democracy. EU foreign policy in post-Soviet states should avoid promoting democracy, says Russia's EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov. "Promotion of democracy is more part of the agenda on the other side of the Atlantic," he insists. "Any attempt to make a mechanical shift of democratic patterns from one country to another is detrimental to the notion of democracy," Chizhov claimed. "They [Swedish people, for example] might seem to be more free [than people in Turkmenistan] to an outsider. But if you ask them how they feel, the people in Turkmenistan might say that they are more happy."

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Chávez's Venezuela: Democracy vs. "Narcissism-Leninism"

Venezuela's abortive efforts to secure a seat on the UN Security Council appear to have rebounded as the democratic opposition highlights the country's diminishing reputation and resources that President Hugo Chávez has frittered away on foreign policy adventures. Chávez has "pilfered our national assets, created poverty and social chaos in our country, and aligned his regime with the most despicable dictatorships of the planet," says the International Venezuelan Council for Democracy. Visiting Belarus, for example, Europe's last remaining dictatorship, Chávez called it "a model social state like the one we are beginning to create".

The most worrying manifestation of Chávez's international mission has been his solidarity with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, says Michael Shifter of Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. The Tehran-Caracas axis is emerging as a key element in a larger pattern of collaboration between authoritarian petro-states. Chávez's re-election in December "would give him at least another six years to consolidate Venezuela's position as a strategic hub," according to one sympathizer. Perhaps equally disturbing is that Chávez induces so much complacency if not active support on the part of US and European commentators and politicians.

The UN campaign also drew attention to the Chávistas' deplorable human rights record. New York-based Human Rights Watch, for instance, reports that Venezuela's UN voting record on human rights resolutions is considerably worse than that of any other Latin American state bar Cuba. Chávista hostility to external monitoring of human-rights abuses, or threats to democracy, is reflected in pending legislation that threatens to restrict the activities of NGOs receiving foreign funding and in Venezuela's hostility to the Organisation of American Status "democratic charter" which aims to limit OAS membership to countries that adhere to democratic rules.

Berlin-based Transparency International has denounced Venezuela's proposed "Law on International Cooperation," currently being discussed in the National Assembly, expressing concern about civil society's ability to function without "stifling" government control.

The bill would require all organizations to register with the Chávista government, says TI, and its "scope would be defined directly by the presidency under a regulation outside of legislative procedure." The proposed law would increase existing regulation of local and international NGOs, and subject civil society to "considerable restrictions, with government allowed to interfere in their objectives, activities and funding sources."

The bill calls for a "Fund for International Cooperation and Assistance" and TI believes it is "unclear" in the draft legislation "whether funds received by civil society would end up being managed by the government through this fund." Civicus, a leading global civil society group, also fears the proposed law would "erode many of the gains made by civil society" Chávez rejects OAS democratic standards because he believes that representative democracy is a "bourgeois" façade to be replaced with a "participatory" Chávista-dominated "Units of Popular Power". These bodies would bypass intermediary representative institutions and stress the identity between the people and the caudillo in a new form of hybrid regime - Narcissism-Leninism.

Earlier this year, Chávez floated the prospect of amending Article 130 of Venezuela's Bolivarian constitution to allow an 'indefinite' number of re-elections, indicating a long-term project described as "neo-authoritarian" by Tulio Hernández, a professor at the Universidad Central and previously a supporter of Chavez. "Because it does not conceive of alternation as a principle of governance, but instead of the need for continuity," the Chávista regime "carries the stigma" of Latin America's "dictatorial military and revolutionary Marxist projects," says Hernández. "Both extremes started out with the premise that they needed long periods of time to be able to carry out their political project."

A de facto presidency for life would be the culmination of a series of measures which have steadily degraded democratic institutions. As in communist Cuba, critics have been harassed and vilified as US mercenaries or CIA agents. Venezuelan journalists' union has decried the "climate of aggression and threats against media and journalists", in large part conducted personally by the president. One such dissident, Sergio Aguayo Quezada, recently secured a judicial ruling against his persecution by a prominent Chávista.

Chávez has sought to marginalize critics and opposition groups by distorting and politicizing the provision of democracy assistance grants by US-based groups since 2002, such as technical training for political parties and electoral observers by the NED-associated International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute. Contrary to claims that such aid seeks to undermine the government, the programs are also open to Chávista parties. "It isn't designed to favor one party or another," said the National Democratic Institute's president, Ken Wollack. "All parties have participated."

The opposition has finally united behind a single candidate, social democrat Manuel Rosales, to challenge President Hugo Chávez in the 3 December presidential elections. But the fairness of the election will be closely monitored, despite assurances from the head of the electoral council, that voting procedures would not be compromised.

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Arab Democracy – Distant Prospect or Compelling Imperative?

The prevailing conventional wisdom has it that the United States has retreated from its push for democracy in the Arab and wider Muslim world. "A lot of regimes are detecting a green light to go back to the past," says the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin.

That's not such a bad thing, some would argue. Arab democracy "belongs in the distant future, at best," claims a leading foreign policy analyst. "Islam will increasingly fill the political and intellectual vacuum in the Arab world," according to Richard Haass, president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. With Arab nationalism and socialism relics of the past, Islam will provide the basis of majority politics across the region.

Creating mature democracies is a difficult process that, even if successful, takes decades, Haass writes in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. In the interim, the U.S. must continue to work with nondemocratic governments, he says, while conceding they are "likely to remain authoritarian and become more religiously intolerant and anti-American." Rather than promoting democratization, Haass argues, the West should reform educational systems and promote economic liberalization, while encouraging the authorities to delegitimize terrorism, shame its supporters, and address the grievances that motivate Arab youth to turn to violence.

Some might argue that this amounts to little more than a restoration of the status quo ante, a prescription for glacial modernization rather than gradual democratization. It is also reminiscent of what Richard Youngs of Madrid's FRIDE think-tank calls Europe's flawed approach to Arab democracy. Despite a declared commitment to democratic reform and the transfer of considerable resources to Arab regimes – the European Commission commits $1 billion a year to the MEDA aid program alone – the European Union and leading member states have consistently prioritized security and other concerns. While $800 million was made available to address illegal immigration from the Southern Mediterranean, for instance, a "paltry" S10 million was committed in the same year to European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) projects in the region. EU governments give less democracy assistance to the Middle East than to any other region except Central Asia

European reform initiatives have been hampered by four key weaknesses: a perception in the region that the EU is not fully committed to democracy; a reluctance to employ conditionality, offering incentives to governments in return for reform; a "scatter-gun approach" of ad hoc initiatives rather than a coherent reform strategy; and a failure to support independent, socially-rooted reformers. "In private EU officials increasingly acknowledge that 'we have been too timid'", notes Youngs, a leading authority on democracy promotion, "but such self-criticism awaits translation into concrete policies," partly because of divisions between EU member-states. France and Spain have dragged their feet on political reform while Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK have undertaken notable initiatives, albeit as national projects rather than through European programs.

EU funding rules give incumbent regimes a veto on grant giving while the Barcelona process has generated a plethora of "weak talking shops" - Euromed parliamentary, NGO, trade union and youth forums and cultural initiatives to promote 'dialogue between civilisations' – which, for the most part, "provide PR opportunities for repressive Arab regimes while doing little to help ordinary citizens." Similarly, EU officials concede that most 'governance' projects have had a negligible impact on democratic reform. The Syrian regime exploited administrative reform programs to consolidate power over decision-making without any increase in accountability, while an Algerian judicial reform initiative continued even as the regime was dismissing independent judges.

"Regional processes of democratization, despite the inevitable setbacks, can only contribute to the struggle against fanaticism and violence," says Israeli analyst Uriy Shavit. But, he cautions, "democratic reform … will not be considered trustworthy if it gives rise solely to pro-Western leaders."

The widespread Arab belief that democracy promotion is an American ruse to replace unfriendly governments with pliant client regimes is in part based on inconsistent application of supposedly universal standards, especially when human rights violations in pro-Western regimes are overlooked. "Consistent standards will have the double effect of forcing Arab regimes to ease their grip on society," says Shavit, "while convincing these regimes' opponents that they are not alone in their struggle for reform."

Such universalization of standards will require a more evenhanded attitude toward "alleged processes of reforms, the real purpose of which is to prevent the possibility of democratization." Shalit rejects the essentialist argument that there is something unique about Arab societies that renders them unfertile terrain for democracy. Rather, the principal obstacle to democratization is a specific paradigm, rooted in colonial experience, which equates Western-style governance with submission to the economic interests and religious faith of the West.

A new doctrine that attempts to sever the connection in the Arab mind between democracy and the promotion of Western power is required. "So long as America continues to discriminate between liberals, advocates of the pan-Arab idea, and Islamist activists," Avit claims, "then democratic leaders like Riyadh Seif in Syria, whose commitment to liberalism has withstood over four years of incarceration, will not gain the support of his own people."

Some observers claim that the prospect of Islamist parties refusing to cede power once in office is exaggerated. "There are hundreds of political parties in the Muslim world, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco, Yemen, Pakistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh," says a former intelligence agency analyst. "Those parties and their supporters have participated in many elections, and some times they have won and some times they have lost, but they have largely recognized the results. Political Islam is not a threat—the threat is if people become disenchanted with the political process and democracy, and opt for violence."

Arab democrats themselves warn that "emboldened by the impression that America is wavering in its support for democracy, some autocrats have recently intensified repression." Too many in the West appear to have forgotten the compelling analysis of the UNDP Arab Human Development Report which outlined the demographic and other imperatives that render the status quo unsustainable, one reason why Arab and Muslim activists and thinkers entreat the West "to do all it can to ensure that a small number of authoritarian rulers will not control the future of more than 300 million Arabs, more than half of whom are not yet 20 years old."

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Vietnam's Web-propelled Dissidents

"The government of Vietnam is very nervous about the Internet. They want to stop it but can't," says Tran Hue, a political dissident in Vietnam. Not the least of its benefits is facilitating international solidarity. "For many, many years we were working alone inside Vietnam," he says Hue. But dissidents now use the Internet to get support from Vietnamese overseas. "With the Internet, the fight for democracy has accelerated very quickly,'' says another activist.

One such exiled activist, Cong Thanh Do, was recently imprisoned by the communist authorities, claims his Web-based democratic party has "hundreds" of members, most of whom live in Vietnam. Party members communicate by e-mail, using pseudonyms to protect their identities. "If you want to have a positive effect, you have to be inside, not outside," Do observes. "Without the Internet, we wouldn't be able to form the party."

The regime has reacted, according to a new Amnesty report, by tightening the net through censorship. "In Viet Nam, the click of a mouse can land you in jail," according to T. Kumar, Amnesty International USA's advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific. "In the climate of fear they've created, informers track Web users, and people who assert their right to free expression are persecuted. Amnesty is asking people to go to support its campaign against Internet repression by e-mailing Vietnamese authorities to demand the release of activists imprisoned for expressing their political beliefs online.

With the communist state hosting November's summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping, Vietnam's rulers are demonstrably nervous about the country's growing dissident movement. On October 12, Bloc 8406 – named after the date of its manifesto, first issued on the 8th April 2006 - issued an open letter to APEC leaders, calling on them to "support us, in contributing to the promotion of democracy in Vietnam." The group's Manifesto for Freedom and Democracy in Vietnam has attracted over two thousand signatures, says activist Nguyen Van Dai.

A foreign ministry spokesman acknowledged the existence of the group but said it was illegal, claiming it "abused the mask of 'democracy', making wrong, distorted and fabricated arguments about the situation in Vietnam." The regime wants the APEC summit to launch Vietnam into the WTO, but Vietnamese-American leaders are pressing the US Administration to question the compatibility of an open market and a closed society.

Dissidents are braced for a clampdown. "A favorite tactic of the communist regime," says Bloc 8406, "is to round up dissidents prior to international events, use the individuals as bargaining chips before the event, and then resume the harassment and arrests after the regime has achieved its immediate goal - whether it be a smooth meeting or winning trade privileges."

Bloc 8406 claims inspiration from South Korea's peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. In August, it announced a four-phase proposal for Vietnam's democratization, including the restoration of civil liberties, the establishment of independent political parties, drafting a new constitution and democratic elections for a new representative National Assembly.

The process of doi moi ("change for the new") has delivered exceptional economic growth but the subsequent phase of coi troi ("loosening bonds", a Vietnamese glasnost) has failed to deliver greater political freedom. With the Communist Party now "effectively dead as a source of ideals or morality", the government seems concerned that an older generation of dissidents, including veteran communist Hoang Minh Chinh and 77-year-old Buddhist monk Thich Quang Do, have not only inspired a second generation of dissidents motivated by the collapse of Soviet communism but an even younger generation who have drawn lessons from their travels. "All the Vietnamese students, when they have the occasion to go abroad, they understand the reality, and they want the true democracy for Vietnam," says one such activist, Nguyen Tien Trung.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

  • Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich was this week awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize, the European Parliament's top human rights award, for his fight for democracy in the ex-Soviet republic. The prize, named after former Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, is awarded by the parliament annually to a person or group considered to have made an exceptional contribution in the fields of human rights, international cooperation or promotion of democracy and rule of law. Milinkevich ran unsuccessfully against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in elections last March. The award will boost morale amongst the country's beleaguered democrats. The European Union this week extended the list of names on its Belarus visa ban and asset freeze list "in light of recent events", targeting individuals "considered responsible for the crackdown on civil society and democratic opposition". The upholding of a five year jail sentence for Belarusian opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin last month prompted the move.

  • The "push-back by autocrats like Vladimir Putin" and the crackdown on dissent by dictatorships like China are some of the reasons why Canada should give greater priority to democracy promotion in its foreign policy. So argues Tom Axworthy, one of Canada's leading democracy promoters. Many individual Canadians work for democracy promotion but largely for institutions created by other states or international organizations, leaving an organizational vacuum in the country's foreign policy machinery. Natan Sharansky writes that "Those who seek to move the earth must first, as Archimedes explained, have a place to stand". Canada, Axworthy suggests, must stand with the world's democrats, making the case for more energetic engagement and resources. "We owe it to ourselves and to those who share our values to make a serious effort to promote democracy abroad," he concludes.

  • A current NED grantee, the Moscow-based Independent Council of Legal Expertise, and a former grantee, the CLEEN Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria, were among the nine organizations to receive up to $500,000 as recipients of the MacArthur Awards for Creative, Effective Nonprofits that demonstrate unusual effectiveness and creativity. They will also have their work featured in a series of fall seminars open to other nonprofits in an opportunity for mutual learning.

  • Lin Mu, considered one of China's pro-democracy pioneers, died recently. Lin Mu was a veteran communist who served several official posts. An enthusiastic supporter of the Tiananmen movement, he was stripped of his party membership after the protests were crushed by the Chinese military. In 2002, Lin published an open letter through Human Rights in China, urging the Communist Party to release all prisoners of conscience and to embrace democracy and rule of law.

  • Serbia is in "a difficult transition from communism to capitalism, from a single-party state to a democracy, but the time has come to make a clear decision," on Serbia's European aspirations, says Ralf Fücks, president of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

  • "In the name of democracy, its values, the freedoms it guarantees, the respect for the rule of law which underpin the whole system," leading French intellectuals, including André Glucksmann and Bernard Henri-Lévy, have signed a declaration appearing in Figaro and elsewhere, urging European leaders to "confront the danger that the Iranian leadership now presents to the world and live up to Europe's "historic responsibility to oppose the return of barbarism."

  • A leading Burma democracy activist was sentenced to three years in prison last week after a trial in which he was denied legal representation and defense witnesses. Win Ko, a member of the youth wing of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, was arrested October 6 at the Letpadan train station after collecting some 400 signatures as part of a petition demanding the release of Suu Kyi and detained political prisoners.

  • Prominent Syrian writer and pro-democracy activist Michel Kilo was denied release on bail after more than four months in detention. The National Organization for Human Rights had expected Kilo to go free after his family posted bail. Kilo, 66, was among a dozen activists arrested in May.


    RESOURCES

  • Freedom House has launched a new web-based resource on press freedom. The website includes global and regional pages highlighting annual trends and data from the organization's annual Freedom of the Press survey. Other features include annual overview essays summarizing the state of global press freedom, interactive maps, and reports and ratings for every country in the world.

  • Democratic systems must evolve from technical into substantive democracies, and democratization linked to meeting human needs, concludes a new handbook from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). Democracy, Conflict and Human Security suggests that the viability of democracy will be influenced by the legitimacy it achieves and its ability to respond to human needs of democracy, drawing on case studies from Bosnia, India, Liberia, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The publication can also be downloaded, free of charge here.

  • Islam and the West. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Azar Nafisi, Mahmood Mamdani Omar Ahmad, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, and Lawrence Wright. George Packer, moderator. Much polemic, some insight. Free to view here.

  • An excellent new blog, Zimbabwe - Outpost of Tyranny highlights the analysis and organizing undertaken by the country's beleaguered civil society activists and democratic opposition.


    OPPORTUNITIES

    Program Officer for Multiregional and Global Programs
    The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a congressionally funded, private, nonprofit grant making organization that works to support freedom around the world, seeks a Program Officer to manage its multiregional and global grants programs, as well as to serve as a principal point of contact and coordination between the Programs staff and the Endowment's newly established Center for International Media Assistance. The Program Officer reports to the Vice President for Programs, Planning and Evaluation. The position is based in Washington, D.C.

    The Program Officer will work with the six regional offices of the Programs, Planning and Evaluation section of the organization, and will liaise on behalf of that staff with the Center for International Media Assistance. The Program Officer will work with the senior Programs staff to develop and manage the NED's multiregional and global grants program, develop the Endowment's strategy for multiregional and global grants, set priorities, and monitor and evaluate multiregional and global discretionary and core institute projects. Full details here. Send resume to jobs@ned.org. Place POMRGP in subject line of your e-mail.

    Program Assistant for Europe and Eurasia
    The National Endowment for Democracy seeks a Program Assistant for its Europe and Eurasia section. The position is based in Washington, DC. The Program Assistant will provide administrative support to the Europe and Eurasia Program staff. Full details here or email (preferred; specify position title in the subject line): jobs@ned.org

    Russia: Resident Civic Trainer
    NDI seeks an experienced community organizer or non-profit organization lobbyist to train civic groups in Russia. Position is based in Moscow with travel around Russia. The trainer will design and implement plans for assisting grassroots-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and coalitions of organizations. The trainer will advise these NGOs on election monitoring, advocacy campaigns on public policy issues, and management and growth of single NGOs or NGO coalitions. The trainer may also be required to evaluate the political environment and identify new NGOs with which to work. Interested applicants can apply now using the on-line resume tool. Please cite the exact position title in the cover letter. Russia: Resident Civic Trainer

    Resident Assistant Program Officer, China
    The International Republican Institute seeks a Resident Assistant Program Officer to work with the Resident Country Director, the Program Officer in Washington, and the Regional Director in the design and implementation of IRI's programs in China. S/he assists with developing program and project plans, and identifies key players and partners for specific IRI programs in China. The RAPO helps to oversee program implementation and travels frequently to monitor projects. Full details here. Please send resume and cover letter to IRI, Attn: Human Resources/RAPO Hong Kong, 1225 Eye Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20005 or e-mail to: personnel@iri.org or Fax to Human Resources at 202-408-9462; No phone calls please. IRI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

    Resident Program Officer, Levant and Persian Gulf, Location: Amman, Jordan
    The International Republican Institute seeks a Resident Program Officer to be responsible for designing and implementing IRI programs in Levant and Persian Gulf countries. S/he develops long and annual plans for country programs, and is primarily responsible for managing relationships and daily operations on the ground. S/he serves as liaison between IRI Washington headquarters, USG and local government officials, and program grantees. Full details here.

    Please send resume and cover letter to IRI, Attn: Human Resources/RPO Levant and Persian Gulf, 1225 Eye Street, NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20005 or e-mail to: personnel@iri.org or Fax to Human Resources at 202-408-9462; No phone calls please. IRI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

    Project Director, Freedom House, Jordan (Amman)
    Freedom House seeks a Project Director for its Tawasol –Together Achieving Women's Advancement in Services, Opportunities and Legal Rights project in Jordan, a project of the RIGHTS Program. The RIGHTS Program is a global project in which Freedom House leads a Consortium of organizations to address rule of law reform and human rights promotion and protection. The Project Director will take the lead role in directing and implementing the Tawasol/Women's Rights in Jordan project and managing an office in Amman, Jordan. Contact Information: Sekou Jackson Phone: 202-296-5101 humanresources@freedomhouse.org

    Partners for Democratic Change
    Partners for Democratic Change is seeking senior and mid-level staff for a civic advocacy program in Kyrgyzstan and a policy dialogue program in Kazakhstan. They are seeking candidates with expertise in the following areas: * Civil society development and coalition building; * Advocacy; * Policy reform; * Public participation and public information campaigns. Location: Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan. Contact: Andrea Gibney Email: agibney@partnersglobal.org Fax: 415-896-5005.


    EVENTS

    29 October-1 November 2006. Sixth International Conference on New or Restored Democracies, Doha. Full details here. Foreign ministers, government officials, heads of parliaments and civil society organisations from 192 countries will discuss issues related to democracy, political reform, effective governance, and the role of democracy in development and combating poverty.

    October 30, 2006: "The Democracy Bureaucracy", 2:00-3:30 p.m., Kenney Auditorium, Nitze Building, 1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. President Bush has made the spread of democracy the central strategic goal of U.S. foreign policy. But is the U.S. Government properly organized to do so? Freedom House deputy director Thomas Melia will present his views on this topic, drawing from his recent article "The Democracy Bureaucracy." Other panelists include Stephen Krasner, Director, Policy Planning, U.S. Department of State and Anne Richard, Vice President, Government Relations, the International Rescue Committee. UNDP Senior Advisor, David Yang, will moderate the discussion. To RSVP, go here.

    October 30, 2006 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm. Democratization in the Western Hemisphere: Prospects and Challenges, Dr. Jorge Castaneda, Former Foreign Minister of Mexico. New School for Social Research, 65 Fifth Avenue, (Between 13th and 14th Streets), New York. Discussion chaired by Carl Gershman, President, NED. This event is part of the New York Democracy Forum co-sponsored by the Foreign Policy Association, National Endowment for Democracy, Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, and New School for Social Research. Admission: free. Advanced registration is required – go here. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

    Wednesday, November 1, 2006 12:00-1:00pm. 6th Floor Moynihan Board Room, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC. Rethinking the Effects of Political Inclusion: Lessons from Jordan, featuring Jillian Schwedler, Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and author of Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen. Please RSVP: mep@wilsoncenter.org or fax (202) 691-4184

    November 1, 2006, 6:00 p.m. lecture. Third annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture: Toward Islamic Democracies, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, chairman, Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, Professor of Political Sociology, American University, Cairo. Reception to follow. A joint initiative of the Washington, D.C. based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, the lecture is named for one of the great democratic scholars and public intellectuals of the twentieth century, Seymour Martin Lipset. The National Endowment for Democracy, 1025 F Street, NW Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20004. (N.B. NED's new address). R.S.V.P. by October 27, 2006 to (202) 378-9690 or rsvp@ned.org. Acceptances only.

    U.S.-European Forum on Global Issues: Political Change in Europe and America and Its Impact on the Alliance. Thursday, November 02, 2006, 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., Falk Auditorium, The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Moderator: Philip H. Gordon, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Panelists: Thomas E. Mann, Senior Fellow, Brookings; Charles Grant, Director, Centre for European Reform, London; Christoph Bertram, former Director, German Institute for International & Security Affairs; Nicolas de Boisgrollier, Visiting Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe, Brookings Register event registration here. 4th November, 2006. Solidarity with Zimbabwe's Trade Unions, Trades Union Congress, Congress House, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3LS. British unions team up with Action for Southern Africa to host a major conference in central London on solidarity with Zimbabwe's trade unions that continue to be a target for the government. Keynote Speakers include: Lovemore Matambo, President, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Kate Hoey, MP. Full details here.

    December 6. AFL-CIO 815 16th St., Washington, DC. AFL-CIO Solidarity Center sponsors the US launch of Hadi Never Died. Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, by Abdullah Muhsin and Alan Johnson (TUC Publications, 2006). Buy online here. The event will take place at their Global Organising conference on Dec 6. Heba F. El-Shazli, Regional Program Director, The Middle East and North Africa, The Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO, is organising the event.

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