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The Essay That Helped Bring Down the Soviet Union
The Essay That Helped Bring Down the Soviet Union
Op-Ed: The New York Times
It championed an idea at grave risk today: that those of us lucky enough to live in open societies should fight for the freedom of those born into closed ones.
By Natan Sharansky, Mr. Sharansky, the author of “The Case for Democracy,” is a former spokesman for Andrei Sakharov. He spent nine years in Soviet prisons and the gulag.
Fifty years ago this Sunday, this paper devoted three broadsheet pages to an essay that had been circulating secretly in the Soviet Union for weeks. The manifesto, written by Andrei Sakharov, championed an essential idea at grave risk today: that those of us lucky enough to live in open societies should fight for the freedom of those born into closed ones. This radical argument changed the course of history.
Sakharov’s essay carried a mild title — “Thoughts on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom” — but it was explosive. “Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of mankind by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships,” he wrote. Suddenly the Soviet Union’s most decorated physicist became its most prominent dissident.
For this work and other “thought crimes” the Soviet authorities stripped Sakharov of his honors, imprisoned many of his associates and, eventually, exiled him to Gorky.
In 1968, when this work was published, I was a 20-year-old mathematician studying at the Moscow equivalent of M.I.T. Although we dared not discuss it, my peers and I lived a life of double-think: toeing the Communist Party line in public, thinking independently in private. Like so many others, I read Sakharov’s essay in samizdat — a typewritten copy duplicated secretly, spread informally and read hungrily.
Its message was unsettling and liberating: You cannot be a good scientist or a free person while living a double life. Knowing the truth while collaborating in the regime’s lies only produces bad science and broken souls.
Sakharov’s essay, which coincided with the Prague Spring, helped energize democratic dissident movements that were just budding in a post-Stalinist world. The largest of these was one I would soon join: the so-called refusenik movement to allow the Soviet Union’s long-oppressed Jews the freedom to emigrate.
Some Russian dissidents mistrusted the Zionist movement as particularistic and unpatriotic, fearing it would distract from their broader human rights agenda. Not Sakharov. He supported the refuseniks because he recognized the right to emigrate as a gateway to democratic entitlement that opens everyone to embracing freedom in a closed society.
By the mid-1970s I was serving as Sakharov’s spokesman, and I remember after yet another friend of ours had been sentenced to prison, he told me: “They want us to believe there’s no chance of success. But whether or not there’s hope for change is not the question. If you want to be a free person, you don’t stand up for human rights because it will work, but because it is right. We must continue living as decent people.”
Sakharov’s decency made him a moral compass orienting not just the East, but also the West. He insisted that international relations should be contingent on a country’s domestic behavior — and that such a seemingly idealistic stance was ultimately pragmatic. “A country that does not respect the rights of its own people will not respect the rights of its neighbors,” he often explained.
As Sakharov and his fellow dissidents in the 1970s and ’80s challenged a détente disconnected from human rights, Democrats and Republicans of conscience followed suit. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan disagreed about many specific policies, but both presidents linked human rights and foreign policy. President Carter treated Soviet dissidents not as distractions but as respected partners in a united struggle for freedom. President Reagan went further, tying the fate of specific dissidents to America’s relations with what he called the “evil empire.”
Approaching the fight to win the Cold War as a human rights crusade as well as a national security priority energized Americans. It reminded them that, regardless of the guilt and defeatism of the Vietnam War or the shame and cynicism of Watergate, the country remained a beacon of liberty.
This anniversary of Andrei Sakharov’s heroic essay comes during similarly dark days for the United States.
Despite the dramatic discontinuities between Donald Trump and Barack Obama, in divorcing human rights from foreign policy President Trump is following President Obama’s lead.
Mr. Obama repeatedly prioritized engaging dictatorial regimes rather than challenging their human rights records. His eagerness to strike a nuclear deal with 
Iran muffled his moral voice during Iran’s Green Revolution of 2009. And he refused to make diplomatic progress conditional on demands that Iran stop supporting terror globally or executing its own people at home.
Mr. Trump has taken America’s human-rights-free foreign policy to absurd new heights. His assertion that North Koreans support Kim Jong-un with “great fervor” undermined America’s moral standing, sabotaged North Korean dissidents and legitimized an evil dictator. His shocking refusal to confront President Vladimir Putin of Russia over his country’s blatant interference in the 2016 United States presidential election highlights his unwillingness to protect Americans’ democratic rights, let alone Russians’ human rights.
The wisdom of Sakharov’s essay may not be in fashion these days, but the truth it contains is eternal. People all over the world are waiting for an American leader to recover it.
Natan Sharansky, the author of “The Case for Democracy,” is a former spokesman for Andrei Sakharov. He spent nine years in Soviet prisons and the gulag. This essay was written with Gil Troy, a historian at McGill University and the author of “The Zionist Ideas.”
Collection of Popular International News on Cambodia’s Fake Election 29 July 2018
View the stream on youtube on “Political Behaviour” of a “Populist Authoritarian” in Cambodia from a series of daily “Political Analysis on Cambodia Election 29 July 2018”
The Japan-China rivalry is playing out in Cambodia’s election
Reported by Nyshka Chandran, July 19, 2018
The United States and the European Union have suspended funding to the National Election Committee, which is meant to be independent, but is widely believed to be controlled by the ruling party. The United Nations, meanwhile, has warned that the election won’t be “genuine” and urged Phnom Penh to lift a ban on the CNRP, which is advising Cambodians to boycott the vote.
Courtesy: The Diplomat
According to CNRP Deputy President Mu Sochua, Tokyo should withdraw its cooperation: “Cambodia needs to move forward, and it can only do so with democracy … that’s why we continue to explain to Japan that the only chance to help Cambodia is to side with democracy.”
The CNRP has tried reaching out to Beijing to explain its argument, but so far has been unsuccessful, Sochua told CNBC over the phone.
“To support Mr. Hun Sen is to support dictatorship and with dictatorship, no government can protect their investments,” she said, adding that “Mr. Hun Sen will keep giving more concessions to Chinese companies, so if Japan wants to protect its investments, it should stay on the side of democracy.”
In recent public comments, Japanese officials have urged Phnom Penh to hold free and fair elections, but didn’t touch on on the government’s human rights violations. Japan’s embassy in Cambodia told CNBC that Tokyo’s assistance was aimed at enhancing the credibility of the electoral process.
“Although Japan supports the technical and logistical aspects of the electoral process, they are not, at least in their own view, necessarily endorsing the legitimacy of the election itself,” echoed Deth Sok Udom, a political science professor at Phnom Penh’s Zaman University.
Ultimately, Abe may find he has to choose between maintaining economic power in Cambodia or upholding democratic standards.
“I suspect that Japan would opt for the first strategy,” Chambers said.
Continue to read more details by CNBC…
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Hun Sen retains his tight grip on Cambodia, and freedoms can wait
Opined by Markus Karbaum, July 19, 2018
However, while the regime uses economic development as the main pillar for its legitimacy, most Cambodians are not part of the ruling CPP patronage network and hardly benefit from the economic rebound. Education and health care in the country are still considerably underdeveloped compared to most of its neighbours.
As pointed out by the Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2018, red tape and nepotism prevail. And Cambodia remains the most corrupt country in Southeast Asia, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International. These conditions contributed to the rise of the opposition CNRP as the regime has, so far, been completely unwilling to transform its governance style.
Instead of protesting against the growing social imbalance and the inefficient public sector, for years Cambodians have been migrating in increasing numbers. This trend has left many unable to find regular work abroad, putting Cambodians at the greatest risk among all Southeast Asians of becoming victims of human trafficking, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index.
In effect, a population exchange has taken place, as initially Vietnamese and recently more and more Chinese citizens resettle in Cambodia, at least with the goodwill of the Hun Sen government.
Continue to read more details on South China Morning Post…
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What has gone wrong in Cambodia?
Opined by Milton Osborne, July 19, 2018
As David Chandler notes of the political opposition at the time in his A History of Cambodia, “The royalist party soon lost its voice in decision making as well as its freedom of manoeuvre.”
Tired of the problems in Cambodia that had been exercising Western governments for more than a decade, no external players intervened to change the course of events. Similarly, there was never any sign at that stage that Moscow and Beijing had any interest in becoming directly involved in opposing the CPP’s actions.
The complex political history of the period from 1993 to 1997 is well documented in David W. Roberts’ Political Transition in Cambodia: Power, Elitism and Democracy. A disclosure: I reviewed this book for Pacific Affairs in 2001 and commented that it could be read as a justification for Hun Sen’s political behaviour. But I found persuasive, then and now, his endorsement of a view offered by long-term observer of Cambodia Steve Heder that the key players of the period – Sihanouk, Sam Rainsy, and Ranariddh – were all characterised by “deeply illiberal, anti-democratic and anti-pluralist tendencies”.
This lack of action in 1993 was followed by the unwillingness of external players to take any measures that mattered after Hun Sen’s brutal coup de force in July 1997 that saw the CPP overwhelm Prince Ranariddh’s FUNCINPEC.
Roberts tellingly quotes Henry Kissinger as asking rhetorically in 1998, “Why should we [the West] flagellate ourselves for what Cambodians did to each other?” Then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan claimed in 1997, shortly after Hun Sen’s coup, that the UNTAC intervention was “successful in helping to establish national institutions which could lead to stability and economic development”. This latter comment seems to typify the worst kind of readiness of an international civil servant to gloss over the realities of a complex set of circumstances.
The sanctions that followed the events of 1997, which included the US Congress cutting off aid to Cambodia and ASEAN postponing the admission of Cambodia to membership, also marked the beginning of Hun Sen’s ever closer relations with China. Having helped the Khmer Rouge for decades – before, during, and after the period of Pol Pot’s rule – Beijing now changed its policy and embarked on support for Hun Sen and the CPP, which continues to the present day.
It is China’s support that has enabled Hun Sen to weather repeated criticisms of his regime while building up the military strength that ensures his survival. The return for this Chinese largesse has been Cambodia’s reliable support for its foreign policy objectives, most notably in relation to the South China Sea. And Hun Sen has never ceased to contrast Chinese aid offered “without strings” with aid from Western nations tied to conditions.
Analysis of the 2013 national election, in which the CPP’s vote declined significantly, suggested that social media and the voting pattern of younger Cambodians had begun to play an important part in shaping political opinion. These facts might explain the serial courses of action that Hun Sen has taken to neuter any effective political challenge from his opponents, most particularly the dissolution of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.
Everything suggests that Hun Sen has set his course and will not be deflected from it. In doing so he is showing himself more inclined to double down on authoritarian action than to reflect his little known chess playing abilities. And there is no reason to think any external player that matters will do anything to divert him from his present policies.
Continue to read The Interpreter…
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Hun Sen is tempting fate in Cambodia’s election
Opined by Thitinan Pongsudhirak, July 17, 2018
Harsher measures from the U.S. and EU could target the Cambodian garment and footwear sector, which constitutes about 80% of the country’s exports. As they represent Cambodia’s largest export markets, the actions of the U.S. and EU have been tempered by concerns over the adverse consequences on Cambodian workers.
But if Hun Sen keeps continues to crack down after the election by further persecuting the opposition and violating human rights, the U.S. and EU might play hardball as well. This is what Sam Rainsy, another CNRP leader who lives in exile, has been urging.
Voter turnout will be critical in the upcoming election. The CNRP is trying to keep voters at home by promoting a “clean-finger” campaign, referring to the fact that ink is applied to the index finger of those who vote. While offering cash inducements to voters, Hun Sen has threatened yet undefined punitive measures for those who refuse to vote. After the election results are announced, China will likely give its automatic blessing, while Western democracies will demur. Japan will face a dilemma after providing election monitoring assistance.
Post-election Cambodia will resemble a simmering powder keg. Social unrest is possible in the aftermath, especially if turnout is low and coercion and violence are rife. Hun Sen is banking on the notion that growth and development can deliver to him elected authoritarian rule despite excluding nearly half of the electorate.
Demographic trends and social media pose a threat to Hun Sen. Two-thirds of Cambodia’s 16 million population are between 15 and 64 years of age, with another 30% under 15. The new generation born after the 1993 election is increasingly connected to social media. Registered Facebook users in Cambodia, for example, have doubled to 6.8 million in just the past two years.
The writing is on the wall for Hun Sen, but his battle-hardened instincts will be to fight tooth and nail to remain in power. Even as he resorts to increased manipulation and repression, Cambodia’s young electorate will become more agitated while Western condemnation intensifies and the political opposition rallies from outside the country.
China therefore should realize that its coddling of Cambodia’s elected dictator does not fit well with Beijing’s aspirations to become a responsible global leader. Hun Sen would be better off reviving the U.N.-led power-sharing plan of 25 years ago which mirrored the country’s popular will. His deeply flawed election this time is likely to set the stage for his demise down the road.
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Cambodia’s ‘dirty dozen’ have no place in Australia
Op-Ed: The Sydney Morning Herald
Cambodia’s ‘dirty dozen’ have no place in Australia
In June, Human Rights Watch released a report, Cambodia’s Dirty Dozen, profiling 12 senior generals in the military, police and gendarmerie who are responsible for serious and systematic human rights violations. They owe their senior positions in the security forces to their political and personal links with Hun Sen.
The abuses in which the 12 are implicated include violations of human rights, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed from the 1970s to the present. Most of the 12 have been implicated in the use of unnecessary, excessive, and sometimes lethal force against protests about unfree and unfair elections, land confiscations, labour abuses and low wages. Many have also been involved in non-political abuses against the ordinary population, such as land seizures, murder, torture, and arbitrary detention.
Some, like Pol Sarouen and Kun Kim, are running as Cambodian People’s Party candidates in the upcoming election.
The Australian government has invested many millions of dollars to promote democratic reform and rule of law in Cambodia over the years. Yet the corrosive effect of the politicised leadership of the Cambodian security services and impunity for human rights violations thwart these efforts.
To begin to address this problem, the Australian government should support independent investigations into these individuals and others involved in serious human rights violations in Cambodia.
And as a matter of urgency, it should place a travel ban on these officials and any others involved in human rights violations to prevent them travelling to Australia.
Australia still provides training to Cambodian security forces and it’s possible that some of these generals may come to Australia for training programs or holidays. In assessing visa applications, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection considers “relevant public interest criteria, including foreign policy interest, national security and character requirements”, which would include credible allegations of human rights abuses.
In addition to travel bans, the Australian government should go one step further and impose asset freezes against these generals and against senior members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has been in power for almost 40 years through repression and massive corruption. The Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011 allows for imposing these kinds of targeted sanctions in situations of international concern, such as “the grave repression of the human rights or democratic freedoms of a population by a government”. However, the government has used these measures very rarely.