Why Does Kofi Annan Criticise Elections in America?

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International experts expressed strong disapproval of the current rules regulating the American presidential election. According to the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, headed by former-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the non-transparency and utter dependence of the candidates upon large financial donors undermines American society’s belief in the principles of equality and democracy. In its report, the commission, which consists of a number of former world leaders and Nobel Prize winners, said that there’s an alarming tendency evident all over the world showing a sharp growth in the influence of the financial élite on election results. The commission is convinced that one can see this process most clearly in contemporary America.

According to the report, so-called political action committees (PACs) are one of the main reasons for the loss of trust in fair elections by the American people. PACs support this-or-that candidate or bill and can receive and spend a legally-specified amount of money in the course of their activities. By a decision of the US Supreme Court in 2010 (Citizens United), so-called super committees (Super PACs) became legal, which are independent groups that don’t support a particular candidate, but they can receive unlimited donations from whatever source. Referring to statistical data provided by New York University, the report claimed that a majority of Americans think that candidates use Super PACs to gain support bypassing legal regulation, and that they pose a serious threat to the democratic electoral system. The commission believed that American elections have become the plaything of the country’s financial élite, which calls into question the idea of equality as such. Besides that, the commission criticised some state laws in the USA, which have the aim of depriving minority elements of their electoral rights by means of new and stricter requirements to access the voting process.

Ahead of the upcoming presidential election, the problem of the deficiencies in the American election process seems very urgent, especially if we take into consideration the expected vehemence of this contest. Examples of serious errors made by election boards continue to surface with frightening frequency. Some time ago, a team of independent observers (Voter Integrity Project) said that voting lists in North Carolina contained at least 30,000 “dead souls”. Then, a scandal arose around the decision of Florida election authorities to remove more than 2,500 local residents from the voting lists as having no right to vote. Only after human rights groups intervened, 2,625 people had their electoral rights fully restored. The activists justly said that the Florida authorities violated a federal law that bans removing voters from the voting lists less than 90 days before the election.

The abovementioned incidents are only the tip of the iceberg. The American electoral process has proven, yet again, its inability to conform to the democratic principles praised by the American government. However, as long as the imperfect American political process enables candidates to carry out their political machinations, the situation, as before, will remained unchanged.

13 September 2012

Vladimir Gladkov

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_14/Why-Does-Kofi-Annan-criticize-US-Election-System/

UN Envoy to Syria Sez Invasion or Military Intervention Not in the Cards

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On Sunday, Lakhdar Brahimi, the new UN envoy to war-torn Syria, said that a military intervention by Arab forces isn’t in the cards. Brahimi said in an interview to al Arabiya television, “A military intervention in Syria means a failure of diplomatic efforts. For me, this option isn’t available, and, personally, this will be neither today nor tomorrow nor the day after tomorrow”. The 78-year-old diplomat called for a ceasefire in the conflict, which has claimed 25,000 lives since March 2011, according to UN estimates. Brahimi avoided apportioning blame, but said, “The government’s responsibility to stop the violence is greater” than that of the opposition.

Sunday marks the first day at the job for Brahimi, a former Algerian Foreign Minister, and a member of the Global Elders, a group of ex-world leaders and prominent public figures brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007 to tackle various global issues. Brahimi replaced Kofi Annan, a former UN Secretary General who introduced a peace plan for Syria in February that Russia signed off on, but both the Syrian government and the opposition ignored it. The Arab League, a regional organisation comprised mostly of Syria’s opponents, repeatedly blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the conflict and urged him to step down.

2 September 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20120902/175724639.html

Syria: What Next?

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The latest aggravation of the Syrian crisis and the failure of Kofi Annan’s mission pose new challenges for Russia’s foreign policy. Russia confirmed its status as a key player in the Middle East and, so far, prevented (along with China) the development of a “Libyan scenario” in Syria. Now, Moscow faces another serious dilemma… what next? It’s clear that continuing the current policy (adherence to the Annan Plan and diplomatic support for Damascus), which made sense six months ago, is no longer a valid option.

It’s obvious that the Syrian crisis entered a new stage this summer. Judging by how well the double attack on Damascus and Aleppo and the 18 July terror attack were organised, we can say that the once-scattered groups of militants now appear to have a unified command. The opposition managed to acquire weapons and recruit new supporters. For that reason, the Syrian opposition, which has escalated combat actions in recent months, has little incentive to negotiate with the authorities. With the UN split over Syria… between Russia and China on the one hand, and the USA, Britain, and France on the other… the Syrian opposition is feeling pretty confident. The Western powers condemn the violence committed by Assad’s forces; yet, at the same time, they regard violence committed by the rebels as an unpleasant but unavoidable part of the fight against dictatorship.

Russia has a number of possible options, each with its own positive and negative sides. One option is for Moscow to stick to the existing course that, as noted previously, has proved to be fruitless. Moscow could, without any redirection of effort, continue its diplomatic support for the Assad government and block possible UN sanctions against Syria. This tactic saved Damascus from armed intervention last year. However, under the new conditions, it’ll only prolong the conflict, as the balance of forces in the civil war gradually tilts in favour of the opposition (due to arms and finances supplied from abroad and the engagement of mercenaries), ultimately leading to the fall of the Assad government. Another alternative is to pressure the Syrian president to resign in favour of someone close to him. That’d give Russian diplomacy an argument… “Assad’s gone; let’s negotiate”. However, the resignation of the head of the state would certainly be perceived by the opposition as evidence that anything can be achieved through violence, making it even less willing to begin a dialogue with the authorities. Finally, Moscow could try to shift the active engagement in the Syrian crisis onto the shoulders of other states, i.e. China and Iran, and step out of the limelight. Tehran is keen to stabilise the situation in Syria and maintain a friendly régime there, to avoid geopolitical isolation as it faces the threat of foreign incursions. However, China, whose main interests are in the Asia-Pacific region, would most likely follow Russia’s example. That might open up the possibility of a wider war in the Middle East entailing the violent destruction of the Syrian government and military action against Tehran.

Then again, Moscow can try to play a more active role. In addition to diplomatic support to Assad’s government, Moscow can supply the régime with the needed weapons and equipment (to compensate for the support of the opposition by the Western powers and the regional oil monarchies). With the help of intelligence agencies, it could organise the collection and transmission of information on armed opposition groups to the Syrian government. It could organise patrols of the Syrian coast by the Russian Navy to intercept vessels supplying arms to the opposition. It could put pressure on the major sponsors of the militant opposition… Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. The latter option would lead, inevitably, to greater Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict. On the other hand, it’ll show the irreconcilable opposition that it’ll face serious difficulties if it continues to prosecute the war, but it would carry diplomatic costs for Russia’s relations with the Western powers that, unlike Syria, remain Moscow’s key economic partners.

Of course, all these scenarios are purely theoretical. The choice of one or the other of them depends on the Kremlin’s assessment of all potential risks and benefits. Probably, the key role will be played by President Vladimir Putin’s stated allegiance to the principle that foreign interventions shouldn’t interfere in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. Now, we can only hope that the Kremlin’s choice will also reflect Russia’s national interests… and be beneficial for the people of Syria.

27 August 2012

Aleksei Pilko

Senior Research Fellow, Moscow State University (MGU)

Faculty of History

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20120827/175465119.html

Do Drones Know Miranda Rights?

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During a short press conference before meeting UN envoy Kofi Annan today, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made some emotional remarks about the “moral” accusations levelled at Russia and China by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Whilst he didn’t mention the madam secretary’s name, Lavrov said it is “incorrect” to put all the blame for the situation in Syria on Russia and China, not to speak about “threats that they [Russia and China] will pay for it”. Lavrov was obviously referring to Mrs Clinton’s recent statement at the so called “Friends of Syria” conference in France. Mrs Clinton said there that Russia and China would “pay a price” for allegedly supporting Assad’s régime.

One shouldn’t shy away from moral dilemmas, but a question immediately confronts one… WHO are the judges? What makes President Obama and Secretary Clinton qualified to pass moral judgements on the, indeed, intricate problem of the moral responsibility of the Russian, or, for that matter, the Syrian government? What enables the Western press take such a high moral ground on “Russia’s responsibility” for the developments in Syria (with the questions on the moral responsibility of the Syrian opposition and its foreign sponsors wisely avoided). The question is made ever more timely by the fact that, in recent months, Mrs Clinton returned to some of the “tough” policies of former-President George W Bush, who based his approach to the Middle East on an unlimited use of warfare (something Mr Obama now euphemistically calls “leaving all options on the table”).

Yelena Suponina, the head of department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the Russian Institute for Strategic Research, noted, “It’s interesting to note that Hillary Clinton, who started her career as Secretary of State emphasising a certain contrast between herself and former-President George W Bush, at the end of her tenure, returned to some of Bush’s approaches. Obviously, there are some patterns in American Middle East policies that can’t be changed for long”. Were they ever changed? If we believe recently-published stories in American media, in fact, some of the morally-questionable qualities of this policy never changed. A series of articles published in the New York Times revealed even a certain hardening of the White House’s approach. For example, in reality, Obama adopted a “take no prisoners policy” towards terrorist suspects in the Middle East. Under Obama, American drones reportedly killed hundreds of suspects, destroying in the process thousands of civilians, with only ONE MORE PERSON being put in the infamous Guantánamo camp, which the “humane” candidate Obama had promised to close during his electoral campaign.

The NYT’s Jo Becker and Scott Shane wrote in their review of Obama’s drone strategy, “Whilst scores of suspects were killed under Mr Obama, only one has been taken into American custody, and the president balked at adding new prisoners to Guantánamo”. Both authors point up that Obama’s “killing lists” got longer and longer despite the fact that Obama’s America did not suffer from large-scale terrorist acts, unlike George W Bush’s America which went through the 9/11 disaster in 2001. The New York Times kindly noted, “What remains unanswered is how much killing will be enough”, adding that Mr Obama’s own system of evaluating civilian casualties “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants” Obviously, the USA is still at war with terrorism, despite having had no hostile action on its territory for the last 10 years.

Now, how would THIS President Obama react to some unknown “militants” (let’s use the Western media’s preferred term) setting off bombs near US government buildings in DC every day, killing children on their way to school in the process? This is what happens in Damascus. How would Obama treat “combatants” who make “targeted liquidations” of US Army officers (“targeted liquidations” is the term used by the French newspaper Le Figaro to describe the drive-by shootings of Syrian General Mohammed Omar al-Derbas and Colonels Abdel Karim al-Raei and Fouad Shaaban, assassinated before the bombardments of Homs and Houla)? How would he react to someone’s taking a whole detachment of American servicemen as hostages (such was the Free Syrian Army’s action that unleashed the battle for Homs)? So, how would Obama react to such actions? The answer would be… drones, at least; nuclear bombs, at most. Somehow, Obama and Clinton deny the same luxury of self-defence to Assad. Is it just because his bombs aren’t as smart as American ones? Yes, American bombs are smarter, but smart weapons put their owners before ever-more terrible moral choices. The New York Times reports that Obama, when deciding to “liquidate” Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, knew that Mehsud’s wife and in-laws were in the same home. However, the American president still preferred “the killing option”. In a way, his moral position in this situation is even more compromised than that of Assad’s artillerists, who at least don’t know for sure which family their shells are going to kill…

Amnesty International looks somewhat less smart than American bombs when it requires Assad, in the current situation, to hold “fair trials” for terrorists. As if the USA, with its death squads of drones and “signature strikes” against “suspicious compounds”, bothers to have such trials. Gone are the days when former-Vice President Richard Cheney suspected Obama of “giving the terrorists the rights of Americans, letting them lawyer up and reading them their Miranda rights”. Drones know no lawyers, and “smart missiles” don’t recognise Miranda rights.

17 July 2012

Dmitri Babich

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_07_16/Do-drones-know-Miranda-rights/

Russia Submits “Enhanced” Draft Resolution on Syria

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The UN Security Council is set for a showdown on Wednesday as Russia has submitted its own, “enhanced”, draft resolution on Syria to counter a new draft resolution on sanctions prepared by Western countries. The UK, supported by the USA, France, and Germany, drafted a new resolution on Syria on the basis of Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows sanctions and military operations under certain limited situations. Russia, on the contrary, continues to promote UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan as the only way to end the spiralling violence in Syria, despite the failure of a ceasefire stipulated under the deal.

On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Aleksandr Pankin told reporters after a two-hour Security Council meeting on the Russian draft, “We’ve taken into account [in the enhanced draft] concerns over humanitarian situation, human rights, and a localised ceasefire. Kofi Annan discussed this idea with the Syrian leadership in Damascus. It seems to be rather effective”. The new version of the Russian draft focuses, in particular, on the extension of a UN monitoring mission to Syria, which expires on 20 July, for another three months.

Washington and its allies refused to support the original Russian draft; Western diplomats described it as “toothless” and “inadequate”. In response, Russia threatened to veto the Western draft on Wednesday because, if passed, it’d be “a small step towards foreign intervention in Syria”. Both Russia and China… veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council… previously blocked UN resolutions that would’ve introduced tough sanctions against Syria over what Western powers say is the brutal suppression of a now 17-month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad’s régime.

The Syrian conflict, which has grown increasingly militarised over the past few months, has already left between 13,000 and 17,000 people dead, according to Syrian rights activists quoted by the UN. Most recently, intensive fighting between rebels and government forces flared up in the Syrian capital, Damascus, as the Free Syrian Army, a military wing of the Syrian opposition, announced a full-scale military operation in the capital in response to what the group described as “massacres and barbaric crimes” committed by government troops.

17 July 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120718/174656572.html

Russia Sees Blackmail in Western Stance on Syria

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (1950- )

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On Monday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia sees “elements of blackmail” in the West linking new sanctions against Syria with the extension of the international observer mission there, and said it was unrealistic to expect Moscow to force President Assad to step down, saying before a meeting with UN Special Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, “To our great distress, we saw elements of blackmail. They told us, ‘If you don’t give us an agreement on accepting the [UN Security Council] resolution on Article 7 of the UN Charter, then, we’ll refuse to prolong the UN Observer Mission mandate”. The unarmed observers went to Syria following a UN Security Council vote in April, to observe compliance with the Annan peace plan. Lavrov said that Moscow thinks such an approach “is absolutely counterproductive and dangerous; to use the observers as bargaining chips is inadmissible”.

On Wednesday, Britain, France, and Germany presented the UN Security Council with a draft resolution that linked an extension of the UN Observer mission in Syria with the fulfilment by the Syrian government of a series of demands within ten days, including an end to use of heavy weapons. The draft included introduction of a series of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Damascus if it failed to carry out the resolution’s demands, in line with Article Seven of the UN Charter, which allows the Council to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take military and non-military action to “restore international peace and security”. Russia declared that it wouldn’t accept the western draft proposal and countered it with its proposal, which included an extension of the observer mission for another three months to carry out the Annan plan to resolve the conflict.

Lavrov also dismissed calls by Western powers for it to use its influence to persuade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stand down as leader of the violence-stricken Middle East country as “unrealistic”, saying, “They tell us that we should persuade Assad to step down of his own free will. This is simply unrealistic. He won’t leave… not because we’re protecting him, but because he has the support of a very significant part of the country’s population. We’ll accept any decision by the Syrian people on who’ll govern Syria, as long as it comes from the Syrians themselves”. Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that both Russia and China would “pay a price” for what she said was their support for Assad. Western powers repeatedly accused both countries of protecting the embattled Syrian leader.

Lavrov will discuss the mounting crisis in Syria with UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan later on Monday. Annan is also due to meet President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday during a two-day visit to the Russian capital, his second since March. The Kremlin is continuing to push Annan’s six-point peace plan as the only way to bring an end to the spiralling violence in Syria, despite the failure of a ceasefire stipulated under the deal, which rebel forces have said they won’t abide by. Annan’s plan doesn’t call for Assad’s departure. Lavrov said, “We need to pressure both the régime and the opposition to make them stop the violence”, adding that Russia had been able to persuade the Syrian armed opposition to drop what he called “radical demands”, saying, “They continued to talk about a revolution”. Lavrov held talks with two Syrian opposition groups last week.

Moscow has come under increasing international pressure over what Western powers say is its support for the Syrian government, the Kremlin’s sole remaining ally in the Arab world. An almost 17-month revolt against Assad has left up to 16,000 people dead, according to Syrian activists quoted by the UN. The UN and human rights groups, both in Syria and abroad, accused government forces and pro-Assad militia of executing and torturing civilians. Over the weekend, the International Red Cross said that the conflict in Syria was now a “civil war”, officially obliging both sides to observe Geneva Conventions regulations on the non-targeting of civilians.

Russia, along with China, refused to support Western-backed UN resolutions on Syria that it says betray a pro-rebel bias, which could leave the door open for foreign military intervention against the Assad régime. Earlier this year, Putin vowed not to allow a repeat of the “Libya scenario”, which saw the ouster and murder of long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after a NATO military campaign. In a move interpreted as a possible shift in the Kremlin’s position, last week, a Russian arms trade official said Moscow wouldn’t sign new deals on weapons deliveries to Syria until peace was established. Russia insisted its arms supplies to Syria have been of an exclusively “defensive” nature.

Damascus saw the heaviest fighting of the entire uprising against Assad this weekend, the violence in the Syrian capital coming after the defection of Syria’s ambassador to Iraq, the most senior figure to abandon the Assad régime since the conflict began. Lavrov also said Moscow was concerned by what he said was the increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict and the introduction of a “third force” of Islamist extremists, saying, “It’s worrying that, according to multiple eyewitnesses, a so-called third force in the form of al-Qaeda and extremist organisations close to it has become active. This is a tendency that we’ve observed in other parts of the region, it threatens security”.

16 July 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120716/174629132.html