EurasiaNet Organization
Jan 16 2005

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANNUAL REPORT PAINTS BLEAK PICTURE IN MANY FORMER
SOVIET STATES
Andrew Tully 1/16/05
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL

The Iron Curtain fell nearly 15 years ago, but Human Rights Watch
says it is mostly business as usual in much of the former Soviet
Union. That’s according to “World Report 2005,” the annual survey
conducted by Human Rights Watch.

According to the rights advocacy group, all of Russia is effectively
controlled from Moscow, elections in Belarus are laughable, abuse of
prisoners is the norm in Uzbekistan, while Armenia and Azerbaijan are
run by authoritarian regimes as the two countries continue their
standoff over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Only Ukraine shows tentative signs of becoming an open society, but
democratic developments there are too recent to show a trend.

In Russia, the report says, police torture and the violent hazing of
military recruits continues. And it blames the government of
President Vladimir Putin for the disappearances and extrajudicial
executions of opponents in Chechnya. At the same time, it criticizes
Chechen rebels for similar abuses, as well as for the deadly school
siege in Beslan in September.

The Human Rights Watch survey also points out that Putin has drawn
virtually all power to himself. It points not only to the Kremlin’s
control of all electronic media, but also to Putin’s move to have
regional governors not elected locally but appointed by the
president.

Rachel Denber, Human Rights Watch’s acting executive director for
Europe and Central Asia who oversaw the study of the countries of the
former Soviet Union, said no one should be surprised at Putin’s moves
to centralize power in the Russian presidency, given that he has
always favored a rigidly strong central government.

Denber told RFE/RL that Putin probably believes that centralizing
power will help keep politicians honest. But she added that it might
be just as difficult for members of the presidential administration
to stay honest as it is for local governors.

“I’m sure that from the Kremlin’s perspective, having governors
appointed is a path toward decreasing corruption. But from another
perspective, you could just look at that as moving corruption to a
different place,” Denber said.

Belarus, too, continues to be run as if it were a Soviet state,
according to Human Rights Watch.

It points to the elections for the 110-member Chamber of
Representatives in October, in which the opposition did not win a
single seat. The report says this was accomplished, at least in part,
because the state controls all national television stations and most
radio outlets.

And it accuses the government of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of
harassing the country’s media through the closing of independent
newspapers and arresting journalists on libel charges.

Denber said such behavior is nothing new in Belarus. But she said the
fact that Belarusians are seeing more of the same year after year
makes matters worse there.

“When you see a lack of change, when you see a repetition of
elections that are empty exercises and that shut out the opposition,
that is tantamount to things getting worse,” Denber said. “When you
see the state continuing to crack down on civil society groups and on
the press, it’s more of the same, but it actually constitutes a
worsening of the situation.”

The human rights records of neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan are
also not improving, according to the report. It says the political
life of Armenia, for example, continued to focus throughout 2004 on
the fraud-tainted presidential elections of the previous year.

The survey says there were calls for the resignation of President
Robert Kocharian, and notes that the government violently broke up
protests, raided opposition offices, arrested opposition leaders and
supporters, and even attacked journalists.

The political life of Azerbaijan, meanwhile, was similarly affected
in 2004 by the presidential election of 2003, which also was
fraudulent. Last year, the report says, Azerbaijani opposition
leaders were subjected to unfair trials in which they were charged
with responsibility for some of the violence that followed the
election.

All of this takes place against the backdrop of the on-again,
off-again conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the predominantly Armenian
exclave in Azerbaijan. Denber said the leaders of both nations have
subtly used the dispute as a way to keep people’s minds off each
country’s political shortcomings.

Another trouble spot is Ukraine. Human Rights Watch details what it
calls the mostly successful efforts of the government of President
Leonid Kuchma to limit political freedoms since the country achieved
independence in 1991.

The document says these political abuses led to the presidential
election in November, in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was
declared the winner, even though most outside observers found it
riddled with fraud.

Supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko rallied in vast
numbers in downtown Kyiv, and the country’s Supreme Court eventually
called for a new election a month later — which Yushchenko won.

Denber said that, given 13 years of political corruption in Ukraine,
Yushchenko’s election offers real hope to the Ukrainian people
because they have demonstrated their own power as engaged and
educated voters. And she said their insistence on fair elections won
them powerful allies in Europe.

But Denber added one caveat: “There’s a huge onus now on Yushchenko
precisely because there are these expectations. And it would be
really sad if, instead of delivering on promises, the new government
ends up not delivering and in the process perverting the rule of law.
And that would make a lot of people very disillusioned.”

She said a disillusioned Ukrainian electorate could lose faith in the
system and eventually turn to a leader like Putin — one who promises
greater strength, but delivers less democracy.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress