A Country That Eats Together Stays Together
Russian President Boris Yeltsin's walk-out from the European security summit in
Istanbul to protest against Western criticisms of the war in Chechnya provoked
some gloomy comment in the European press Friday. Die Welt of Germany's front-page
lead lamented, "No hope for the Chechens." The Guardian of London said
in an editorial that Russia's allowing a "token" visit by a representative of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to the embattled
republic "will do nothing to halt the gut-wrenching mayhem in Chechnya, where
there remains no prospect of a ceasefire or even of a de-escalation." Noting
that 66 percent of Russians support the war waged by "hawkish" Russian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin, the paper warned there are real signs Russia is
breaking away "from the fickle embrace of western economic and political
neo-liberalism."
"Men
like Mr. Putin, harnessing nationalism, fear and prejudice, seem to promise a
stronger, prouder, better future," the Guardian added. "It is the
Chechens who are presently paying with their blood for this illusion. But if
the trend intensifies, post-Yeltsin, we may all pay for it." The Independent of London
took a hard editorial line. Saying that the Kremlin's attitude toward human
rights has scarcely changed since the time of Leonid Brezhnev, the paper said
Russia should be threatened with expulsion from the OSCE if it doesn't pull
back from Chechnya. In Italy, however, La Repubblica of Rome reported Russia's acceptance of
an OSCE representative under the headline: "Moscow yields on Chechnya." In
Moscow itself, the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta said the Kremlin would only
start peace talks after the military campaign has reached its "logical
conclusion," but that the country will be at a loss about whom to conduct them
with, having branded the republic's present leaders as bandits and
terrorists.
Leaving Belfast after presiding over 11-week negotiations to rescue the
historic Northern Ireland peace agreement that he brokered last year, former
U.S. Sen. George Mitchell received a lavish tribute from the Times of London
Friday. The paper's Ireland correspondent wrote: "To a province of naysayers,
he brought proverbial American can-do spirit. Into a cauldron of recrimination
and hatred he injected reason and calm. He was studiously neutral, utterly
unflappable and unfailingly optimistic as bombs, killings and expulsions
threatened to derail the peace process. Nobody else could have done what he
has." In Dublin, the Irish Times quoted Mitchell as saying that sharing meals had
been the key to the new rapprochement between the Catholic republicans and the
Protestant Unionists. The talks were "very tough" until the venue moved to the
U.S. ambassador's residence in London, he said. "We sat in the ambassador's
living room. We shared meals together. … I insisted that there not be any
discussion of issues at the meals, that we just talk about other things so that
they could come to view each other not as adversaries but as human beings and
as people living in the same place and the same society and wanting the same
thing."
As the
new military regime in Pakistan began court proceedings against the ousted
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on corruption and kidnapping charges--he is accused
of refusing to let the military coup plotters land as their plane was running
out of fuel--the Times of India ran an editorial Friday saying that
Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf (yes, that's his name, Mr. Bush) has "wiped out the last
vestiges of democracy in Pakistan." It said that his crackdown on corruption
has put out of action not only Sharif and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto,
the leaders of the country's two main political movements, but also "almost the
entire Pakistani upper crust." Musharraf "has acted in a manner which suggests
that Pakistan may undergo a quiet political decapitation," the paper said. It
also reported Friday that Indian Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi has
asked her country's president to commute a death sentence of one of four people
convicted of assassinating her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,
because she was the mother of a small child. The convicted woman, identified
only as Nalini, was the "back-up human bomb" who stood ready to kill herself
with Gandhi if the first suicide bomber failed.
For
the second time this week, Ha'aretz of Israel reported Friday that the United States
refuses to take another Middle Eastern state off its list of countries that
support terrorism. The first was Iran, and the second, Syria, a country with
which Israel is poised to embark on peace talks. The Jerusalem Post ran an editorial speculating about
the significance for relations between Israel and American Jewry of the
decision taken in Atlanta to merge three American Jewish organizations into
one, the United Jewish Communities. Without offering an answer, it said that
both Israelis and American Jews face identity problems, though of different
kinds. "Israelis have been temporarily spared the brunt of the American Jewish
assimilation crisis, because secular Israelis remain Jews," it said. "Yet
Israel faces an assimilation crisis of its own, that of how to maintain an
identity within the increasingly inviting outside world."
Overriding all other
stories in Britain Friday was the news that Cherie Blair, the wife of Prime
Minister Tony Blair, is expecting her fourth child next May at the age of 45.
This will be the first baby born to a serving British prime minister in over
150 years.
