DOCSLIB.ORG

Dear Delegates, Congratulations on Being Selected to the Kremlin, One of VMUN's Most Advanced Committees. My Name Is Harrison

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Dear Delegates, Congratulations on Being Selected to the Kremlin, One of VMUN's Most Advanced Committees. My Name Is Harrison Dear Delegates, Congratulations on being selected to the Kremlin, one of VMUN’s most advanced committees. My name is Harrison Ritchie, and I will be your director for this year’s conference. I have been involved in MUN since Grade 10, and have thoroughly enjoyed every conference that I have attended. This year’s Kremlin will be a historical crisis committee. In February, you will all be transported to the October of 1988, where you will be taking on the roles of prominent members of either the Soviet Politburo or Cabinet of Ministers. As powerful Soviet officials, you will be debating the fall of the Soviet Union, or, rather, how to keep the Union together in such a tumultuous time. In the Soviet Union’s twilight years, a ideological divide began to emerge within the upper levels of government. Two distinct blocs formed out of this divide: the hardliners, who wished to see a return to totalitarian Stalinist rule, and the reformers, who wished to progress to a more democratic Union. At VMUN, delegates will hold the power to change the course of history. By exacting your influence upon your peers, you will gain valuable allies and make dangerous enemies. There is no doubt that keeping the Union together will be no easy task, and there are many issues to address over the coming three days, but I hope that you will be thoroughly engrossed in the twilight years of one of the world’s greatest superpower and find VMUN an overall fulfilling experience. Good luck in your research, and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me before the conference. Sincerely, Harrison Ritchie Director: Kremlin Fall of the Soviet Union Overview In the harsh winters of the late 1980s, the Soviet Union, one of the world’s two hegemonic powers, began to prepare for an imminent threat to state security. For years now, the Union had been producing nuclear weapons in an arms race with the United States. Now that conflict had finally reached the Union, however, many were surprised that the threat to Soviet stability did not come from its sworn enemies across the Pacific Ocean, but rather, from within the Union itself. Indeed, ever since Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary in 1985, discontent had been brewing within the Union’s 15 republics. Gorbachev is a reformist of the truest sense; unlike the General Secretaries that had preceded him, Gorbachev rode on a platform of political and economic reform. There was no doubt that the Soviet economy had stagnated, with both morale and productivity reaching a slow decline.1 Gorbachev’s predecessors had all previously ruled with an iron fist, quelling uprisings and controlling the flow of information that reached the general public. Seeing that this standard of rule no longer played to the benefit of the Union, Gorbachev, in conjunction with his Chief of Party Ideology, Alexander Yakovlev, developed the policies of perestroika and glasnost. These policies of economic and political openness, respectively, seemed to usher in a new era of Soviet Ideology - one that Gorbachev hoped would propel the Soviet Union into the 21st century as a superpower whose economy would either match or eclipse that of the United States. Things did not go exactly as Gorbachev planned, however; soon following the reformist bloc’s embrace of glasnost and the subsequent increased involvement of the different republics in Soviet decision making, anti-Soviet sentiments began to blossom, especially in the Baltic republics. Independence movements began to mobilize in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, beginning what might lead to the collapse of the entire Union. In VMUN’s 1988 Kremlin, Gorbachev has decided to call upon an emergency council consisting of important members of his Cabinet and the Presidents of major SSRs in order to discuss how to resuscitate the Union. Timeline March 11th, 1985 - Following the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev is elected to the illustrious position of General Secretary of the USSR May 1985 - Gorbachev makes a speech in Leningrad advocating political and economic liberalization. 1986 - Gorbachev continues to press for liberalization, stressing the importance of his ideologies glasnost and perestroika (meaning openness and restructuring, respectively). December 26th, 1986 - 300 working class Latvian youth gather in the country’s central square marching for Latvian independence. They clash with the military and lives are lost. January 28th - 30th, 1987 - Gorbachev advocates for a new policy of democratization (demokratizatsiya) at the Central Committee Meeting, suggesting that future Communist 1 Harrison, M.. "Trends in Soviet labour productivity, 1928-85: War, postwar recovery, and slowdown." European Review of Economic History 2.2 (1998): 171-200. Print. Party elections should offer a choice between different candidates.2 This policy is strongly opposed by the rest of the Central Committee, and is never implemented. May 6th, 1987 - Pamyat, a Russian nationalist group, stages a demonstration in Moscow. Authorities do not break up the demonstration, and instead keep traffic out of the incoming demonstrators’ way. October 21st, 1987 - Protesters gather in Estonia to remember those who gave their lives in the 1918 war for Estonian independence. These protests culminate in a clash with the military, and marks the first time since 1940 in which the national Estonian tricolor is publicly visible. February 1988 - Close to one million protesters gather in Sverdlov Square in Moscow, declaring that Nagorno-Karabakh, a part of Azerbaijan containing a majority Armenian population, should be made a part of Armenia. Gorbachev refuses to make this change, and protests in both Armenia and Azerbaijan turn violent. April 1988 - Estonian Popular Front is formed, putting pressure on Estonian and Soviet governments to give the SSR more independence. May 1988 - Sajudis, the Lithuanian Popular Front, is founded. June 1988 - The Latvian Popular front is founded. June 16th, 1988 - In Estonia, Karl Vaino, leader of the Communist Party of Estonia, is replaced by the liberal Vaino Valjas. July 5th, 1988 - Armenian troops are sent to disperse protesters at Yerevan Airport; shots are fired and a student is killed. October 1988 - Gorbachev replaces the leaders of the Communist Parties of Lithuania and Latvia with the more liberal-minded Algirdas Brazauskas and Janis Vagras, respectively. Historical Analysis and Current Situation Considering the totalitarian power system and overall oppression of its citizenry that characterized the Soviet Union for most of its existence, it is of little surprise that when Gorbachev finally allowed for increased political participation by the Union’s general populace, protests began to take place almost immediately. Over 50 years of built-up anti- Soviet sentiments were suddenly unleashed, creating a sudden explosion of discontent that even Gorbachev could not have predicted. Indeed, when Gorbachev created his ideologies of glasnost and perestroika, he was not expecting them to be the facilitators of Union-wide collapse. The Soviet government had little experience dealing with large-scale demonstrations, so instead of facilitating and negotiating with independence groups, it instead defaulted to 2 Arias-King, Fredo. "The Perestroika of Demokratizatsiya." Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 13.1 (2005): 5-10. Print. violence.3 The rebellion in the Caucasus is a prime example of this abuse: in February 1988, protests began to spring up in Armenia and Azerbaijan, calling for the rejoining of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast with the Armenian SSR. Several weeks after protests began to take place, the Regional Soviet of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to secede from Azerbaijan and join with Armenia. Both the central Soviet and the regional Azerbaijani governments, however, did not recognize this vote. As such, the Armenian people continued to protest; by February 28th, more than a quarter of the entire Armenian republic’s population had gathered in the Moscow’s Sverdlov Square.4 As Armenia had previously been one of the USSR’s most faithful republics, the scale of demonstration that took place came as a surprise to the central Soviet government. Even as both protests and tensions between the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments continued to grow, Gorbachev refused to recognize the secession of the Nagorno-Karabakh Oblast. Gorbachev did not completely stonewall the Armenians, however; instead of giving the republic its desired Oblast, he replaced the hardliner president with the reformist Suren Harutyunyan, who he hoped would be able to ease tensions between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis. Harutyunyan, however, had an entirely different agenda. In fear of escalation of conflict, he quickly gave in to the protesters, allowing them to fly the outlawed national Armenian flag in Yerevan. The Supreme Soviet in Yerevan, headed by Harutyunyan, began to draft a resolution that would give its approval to the idea of the Nagorno-Karabakh's joining Armenia.5 Within a few weeks, Armenia had transformed into the leading figurehead up to which all independence-desiring republics would look to. The Armenian Nationalist Movement was quick to mobilize, staging protests in the Yerevan airport. On July 5th, Harutyunyan, again acting out of fear, sent in Armenian troops to clear these protests. Things took a turn for the worse, however, when shots were fired and a student protester was killed. There is no sign that these protests are going to stop anytime in the near future, so it will be up to the delegates of the emergency council to try to create a new peace between the Armenian and Azerbaijani SSRs before all-out war breaks out. Also of major importance are the three Baltic SSRs: Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. These states were the first to press for reform, and since 1987 have developed their own Popular Front independence movements. As these states have historically suffered the most abuse out of all the Soviet Republics, they have had a long-standing resentment for central Soviet rule.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Conde, Jonathan (2018) an Examination of Lithuania's Partisan War Versus the Soviet Union and Attempts to Resist Sovietisation
    Conde, Jonathan (2018) An Examination of Lithuania’s Partisan War Versus the Soviet Union and Attempts to Resist Sovietisation. Masters thesis, York St John University. Downloaded from: http://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/3522/ Research at York St John (RaY) is an institutional repository. It supports the principles of open access by making the research outputs of the University available in digital form. Copyright of the items stored in RaY reside with the authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full text items free of charge, and may download a copy for private study or non-commercial research. For further reuse terms, see licence terms governing individual outputs. Institutional Repository Policy Statement RaY Research at the University of York St John For more information please contact RaY at [email protected] An Examination of Lithuania’s Partisan War Versus the Soviet Union and Attempts to Resist Sovietisation. Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Research MA History at York St John University School of Humanities, Religion & Philosophy by Jonathan William Conde Student Number: 090002177 April 2018 I confirm that the work submitted is my own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the works of others. This copy has been submitted on the understanding that it is copyright material. Any reuse must comply with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and any licence under which this copy is released. @2018 York St John University and Jonathan William Conde The right of Jonathan William Conde to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 Acknowledgments My gratitude for assisting with this project must go to my wife, her parents, wider family, and friends in Lithuania, and all the people of interest who I interviewed between the autumn of 2014 and winter 2017.
    [Show full text]
  • Title of Thesis: ABSTRACT CLASSIFYING BIAS
    ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis Directed By: Dr. David Zajic, Ph.D. Our project extends previous algorithmic approaches to finding bias in large text corpora. We used multilingual topic modeling to examine language-specific bias in the English, Spanish, and Russian versions of Wikipedia. In particular, we placed Spanish articles discussing the Cold War on a Russian-English viewpoint spectrum based on similarity in topic distribution. We then crowdsourced human annotations of Spanish Wikipedia articles for comparison to the topic model. Our hypothesis was that human annotators and topic modeling algorithms would provide correlated results for bias. However, that was not the case. Our annotators indicated that humans were more perceptive of sentiment in article text than topic distribution, which suggests that our classifier provides a different perspective on a text’s bias. CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Gemstone Honors Program, University of Maryland, 2018 Advisory Committee: Dr. David Zajic, Chair Dr. Brian Butler Dr. Marine Carpuat Dr. Melanie Kill Dr. Philip Resnik Mr. Ed Summers © Copyright by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang 2018 Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to our mentor, Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Prospects for Democracy in Belarus
    An Eastern Slavic Brotherhood: The Determinative Factors Affecting Democratic Development in Ukraine and Belarus Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Nicholas Hendon Starvaggi, B.A. Graduate Program in Slavic and East European Studies The Ohio State University 2009 Thesis Committee: Trevor Brown, Advisor Goldie Shabad Copyright by Nicholas Hendon Starvaggi 2009 Abstract Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, fifteen successor states emerged as independent nations that began transitions toward democratic governance and a market economy. These efforts have met with various levels of success. Three of these countries have since experienced “color revolutions,” which have been characterized by initial public demonstrations against the old order and a subsequent revision of the rules of the political game. In 2004-2005, these “color revolutions” were greeted by many international observers with optimism for these countries‟ progress toward democracy. In hindsight, however, the term itself needs to be assessed for its accuracy, as the political developments that followed seemed to regress away from democratic goals. In one of these countries, Ukraine, the Orange Revolution has brought about renewed hope in democracy, yet important obstacles remain. Belarus, Ukraine‟s northern neighbor, shares many structural similarities yet has not experienced a “color revolution.” Anti- governmental demonstrations in Minsk in 2006 were met with brutal force that spoiled the opposition‟s hopes of reenacting a similar political outcome to that which Ukraine‟s Orange Coalition was able to achieve in 2004. Through a comparative analysis of these two countries, it is found that the significant factors that prevented a “color revolution” in Belarus are a cohesive national identity that aligns with an authoritarian value system, a lack of engagement with U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past: a Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region
    CBEES State of the Region Report 2020 Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region Published with support from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjstiftelsen) Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region December 2020 Publisher Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES, Sdertrn University © CBEES, Sdertrn University and the authors Editor Ninna Mrner Editorial Board Joakim Ekman, Florence Frhlig, David Gaunt, Tora Lane, Per Anders Rudling, Irina Sandomirskaja Layout Lena Fredriksson, Serpentin Media Proofreading Bridget Schaefer, Semantix Print Elanders Sverige AB ISBN 978-91-85139-12-5 4 Contents 7 Preface. A New Annual CBEES Publication, Ulla Manns and Joakim Ekman 9 Introduction. Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past, David Gaunt and Tora Lane 15 Background. Eastern and Central Europe as a Region of Memory. Some Common Traits, Barbara Trnquist-Plewa ESSAYS 23 Victimhood and Building Identities on Past Suffering, Florence Frhlig 29 Image, Afterimage, Counter-Image: Communist Visuality without Communism, Irina Sandomirskaja 37 The Toxic Memory Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, Thomas de Waal 45 The Flag Revolution. Understanding the Political Symbols of Belarus, Andrej Kotljarchuk 55 Institutes of Trauma Re-production in a Borderland: Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, Per Anders Rudling COUNTRY BY COUNTRY 69 Germany. The Multi-Level Governance of Memory as a Policy Field, Jenny Wstenberg 80 Lithuania. Fractured and Contested Memory Regimes, Violeta Davoliūtė 87 Belarus. The Politics of Memory in Belarus: Narratives and Institutions, Aliaksei Lastouski 94 Ukraine. Memory Nodes Loaded with Potential to Mobilize People, Yuliya Yurchuk 106 Czech Republic.
    [Show full text]
  • Democratic Civil Society - an Alternative to the Autocratic Lukashenko Regime in Belarus
    In: IFSH (ed.), OSCE Yearbook 2002, Baden-Baden 2003, pp. 219-235. Hans-Georg Wieck1 Democratic Civil Society - An Alternative to the Autocratic Lukashenko Regime in Belarus The Work of the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group in Belarus 1999-20012 In the past six years, the three major European institutions - the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union - have promoted the development of democratic structures in Belarusian civil society as a political alternative to the autocratic Lukashenko system imposed on the country through a consti- tutional coup d’état in November 1996. Since then, the Lukashenko regime has been backed politically and economically by the Russian Federation. Testing the Ability of the Lukashenko Regime to Reform After the failure of the alternative presidential elections of May 19993 Alex- ander Lukashenko had nothing to fear immediately from the West’s reaction to the loss of his democratic legitimation. However, he suffered a painful de- feat in another field, which he hoped to compensate for by opening doors to the West: At literally the very last minute, Boris Yeltsin, due to the interven- tions of influential Russian political circles (among others, Anatoli Chubais), evaded Lukashenko’s plan in the summer of 1999 to conduct direct elections for the offices of President and Vice-President of the Union between the Rus- sian Federation and Belarus, in which Yeltsin was to run for President and Lukashenko for Vice-President. The elections were to take place simultane- ously in Russia and Belarus. In view of his popularity in Russia, which he had gained by systematically travelling there, Lukashenko could, also in Rus- sia, certainly have won the vote for the Vice-Presidency of the Union with a large majority.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Space: the Cases of Belarus and Ukraine Goujon, Alexandra
    www.ssoar.info Nationalism in the Soviet and post-Soviet space: the cases of Belarus and Ukraine Goujon, Alexandra Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Arbeitspapier / working paper Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Goujon, A. (1999). Nationalism in the Soviet and post-Soviet space: the cases of Belarus and Ukraine. (Arbeitspapiere des Osteuropa-Instituts der Freien Universität Berlin, Arbeitsschwerpunkt Politik, 22). Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, Osteuropa-Institut Abt. Politik. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-440316 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine This document is made available under Deposit Licence (No Weiterverbreitung - keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Redistribution - no modifications). We grant a non-exclusive, non- Gewährt wird ein nicht exklusives, nicht übertragbares, transferable, individual and limited right to using this document. persönliches und beschränktes Recht auf Nutzung dieses This document is solely intended for your personal, non- Dokuments. Dieses Dokument ist ausschließlich für commercial use. All of the copies of this documents must retain den persönlichen, nicht-kommerziellen Gebrauch bestimmt. all copyright information and other information regarding legal Auf sämtlichen Kopien dieses Dokuments müssen alle protection. You are not allowed to alter this document in any Urheberrechtshinweise und sonstigen Hinweise auf gesetzlichen way, to copy it for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the Schutz beibehalten werden. Sie dürfen dieses Dokument document in public, to perform, distribute or otherwise use the nicht in irgendeiner Weise abändern, noch dürfen Sie document in public. dieses Dokument für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke By using this particular document, you accept the above-stated vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, aufführen, vertreiben oder conditions of use.
    [Show full text]
  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union (Part 1) Introduction
    IntroductionKramer SPECIAL ISSUE: The Collapse of the Soviet Union (Part 1) Introduction ✣ The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was remarkable because it occurred so suddenly and with so little violence, especially in Russia itself. Even now, more than a decade after the fact, the abrupt and largely peaceful end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union seems nearly miraculous. History offers no previous instances in which revolutionary polit- ical and social change of this magnitude transpired with almost no violence. When large, multiethnic empires disintegrated in the past, their demise usu- ally came after extensive warfare and bloodshed.1 As late as mid-August 1991, just before an attempted coup d’état in Moscow, few if any observers expected that the Soviet Communist regime—and the Soviet state as a whole—would simply dissolve in a nonviolent manner. Many long-standing Western theo- ries of revolution and political change will have to be revised to take account of the largely peaceful upheavals that culminated in the breakup of the Soviet Union. Despite the enormous signiªcance of the Soviet collapse, Western schol- ars have not yet adequately explained why and how it occurred. Although a plethora of articles and books on the subject have been published over the past eleven years, the cumulative results of this research have been modest.2 The basic chronology of events from 1985 through 1991 is well-known, but the details of many crucial episodes (such as the failed coup of August 1991) are as murky as ever. There has not yet been a systematic, in-depth assessment 1.
    [Show full text]
  • BELARUS Restrictions on the Political and Civil Rights of Citizens Following the 2010 Presidential Election
    BELARUS Restrictions on the Political and Civil Rights of Citizens Following the 2010 Presidential Election of person. Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. Article 5: No one shall be subjected to in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition spirit of brotherhood. Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, everywhere as a person before the law. Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimi- without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, nation to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective rem- basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person edy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. by law. Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security June 2011 564a Uladz Hrydzin © This report has been produced with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
    [Show full text]
  • AN INTERVIEW with TAIR TAIROV Publisher Suomen Rauhanliitto – Finlands Fredsförbund with Support from Leo Mechelin Foundation April 2020
    40 years since END European Nuclear Disarmament “Detente from below” AN INTERVIEW WITH TAIR TAIROV Publisher Suomen Rauhanliitto – Finlands Fredsförbund With support from Leo Mechelin foundation April 2020 Cover photo of Tairov Timo Mielonen Graphic layout of cover and text Tuomas Nikulin FOLKE SUNDMAN FOREWORD TO THE INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR TAIR TAIROV THE EUROPEAN PEACE MOVEMENT AND THE BREAKDOWN OF THE COLD WAR On April 28th, 1980, an appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament was launched at a press conference which took place in the House of Commons in the UK. The main authors were E. P. Thompson, Mary Kaldor, Dan Smith and Ken Coates, but the text was the outcome of broad consultations and discus- sions mainly within the British peace movements. The END was an early response to the new nuclear arms race that accel- erated from the late 1970s onwards and had a special focus ona Europe. That nuclear threat re-activated many old peace movements and organizations, but it also formed the basis for new movements and action groups all over Europe and other parts of the world. The new wave of peace activities was quite het- erogenous politically and organizationally, the common denominator being a clear stance against the deployment of new medium-range missiles in Europe. The home base of END was the UK and the British peace movement, but it rapidly gained ground all over Europe. END was both a political concept and an organization. Organizationally the most visible part of the initiative were the big END Conventions that were organized in a range of European countries, starting in Brussels in 1982 and finishing in Moscow in 1991.
    [Show full text]
  • Glasnost in Jeopardy Glasnost in Jeopardy
    GLASNOST IN JEOPARDY Human Rights in the USSR April 1991 A Helsinki Watch Report 485 Fifth Avenue 1522 K Street, NW, #910 New York, NY 10017 Washington, DC 20005 Tel (212) 972-8400 Tel (202) 371-6592 Fax (212) 972-0905 Fax (202) 371-0124 Copyright 8 March 1991 by Human Rights Watch All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN 0-929692-89-6 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 91-71495 Cover Design by Deborah Thomas The Helsinki Watch Committee Helsinki Watch was formed in 1978 to monitor and promote observance of domestic and international compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The Chairman is Robert L. Bernstein; Vice Chairs, Jonathan Fanton and Alice Henkin; Executive Director, Jeri Laber; Deputy Director, Lois Whitman; Washington Representative, Catherine Cosman; Staff Counsel, Holly Cartner and Theodore Zang, Jr.; Staff Consultant, Ivana Nizich; Orville Schell Intern, Robert Kushen; Intern, Jemima Stratford; Associates, Sarai Brachman, Mia Nitchun, and Elisabeth Socolow. Helsinki Watch is affiliated with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, which is based in Vienna. Human Rights Watch Helsinki Watch is a component of Human Rights Watch, which includes Americas Watch, Asia Watch, Africa Watch, and Middle East Watch. The Chairman is Robert L. Bernstein and the Vice Chairman is Adrian W. DeWind. Aryeh Neier is Executive Director; Kenneth Roth, Deputy Director; Holly J. Burkhalter, Washington Director; Susan Osnos, Press Director. Executive Directors Africa Watch, Rakiya Omaar; Americas Watch, Juan Mendez; Asia Watch, Sidney R. Jones; Helsinki Watch, Jeri Laber; Middle East Watch, Andrew Whitley.
    [Show full text]
  • Press Coverage of Belarus, a Newly Independent Country in Transition by Katsiaryna Ivanova Shorenstein Fellow, Fall 1998 Minsk State Linguistic University
    The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy Working Paper Series Press Coverage of Belarus, A Newly Independent Country in Transition By Katsiaryna Ivanova Shorenstein Fellow, Fall 1998 Minsk State Linguistic University #2000-3 Copyright Ó 2000, President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved 2 An Introduction into the Situation in Belarus In 1991 the heads of founder states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that is Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine met at a picturesque natural reserve Belarus is proud of, called Belovezhskaya Pushcha, to conclude that the USSR ceased to exist as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality and to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States. Prior to the event Belarus had already declared its sovereignty and independence but did so following the examples of Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine rather than seeking independence itself. When with the collapse of the Soviet Rule independence came somewhat automatically, it caught many Belarusians off-guard and unprepared. With no recent experience of economic autonomy and barely any history as a sovereign state (for Belarus spent most part of its history as a province of Russia, Poland or Lithuania), Belarus began a difficult transition toward a market- oriented economy and to greater self-determination and democracy. Being part of the former USSR, Belarus's economy was largely dependent on Russia and other constituent republics. As the single economic system collapsed, Belarus lost its traditional markets and found itself in a deep economic crisis. Production dramatically dropped. Inflation, budget and trade deficit significantly increased.
    [Show full text]
  • "The Toughest Job in Moscow" by Ina Navazelskis Even on Weekends, the Phones Ring Constantly at Number I0 Pisemsky Street, Home of the Lithuanian Mission in Moscow
    NOT FOR PUBLICATIO'N WITHOUT WRITER'S CONSENT INSTITUTE OF CURRENT WORLD AFFAIRS ILN 15 Turniki I0 1 Viln ius 3 2016 Lithuania Tel: (0122) 77-87-42 March 20, 1991 Mr. Peter Bird Mart in Executive Director Institute of Current World Affairs 4 West Wheelock Street Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 USA "The Toughest Job in Moscow" by Ina Navazelskis Even on weekends, the phones ring constantly at number I0 Pisemsky Street, home of the Lithuanian mission in Moscow. Saturday, March 16, was no exception. Most of Moscow had the day off. A few streets away, visitors to the Soviet capital strolled down the Arbat, one of the most picturesque pedestrian passages in the city. (And a tourist trap.) Hawkers of traditional Russian souvenirs including beautiful boxes with delicate hand-painted designs on a black laquered background, and kitsch paintings of Red Square and Russian Orthodox churches cautiously tried their few words of English on those who stopped to look, hoping to sell their wares for hard currency. Moscovites concentrated on the next street north Kalinin Prospect, one of the ugliest shopping boulevards in the entire Union. They hurried from one boxy glass and concrete department store to the next, packing into the specialized shops such as the International House of Books as well. Just north of Kalinin Prospect, on a quiet narrow side street, the half dozen members of the skeleton crew at the Lithuanian mission were oblivious to the Saturday shoppers. Their world was far removed from the bustle just a few steps away. Yet they, too, were right in their element, in the middle of one of the many diplomatic islands that dot Moscow.
    [Show full text]