Buffalo Expatriate

Returning from Odesa this morning, I was still carefully weighing the events from my experience as an international oberver to the Ukrainian Parliamentary elections on Sunday. Overall, it was quite different from Ivano-Frankivsk last year on many levels. First, working with the IRI/Solidarty Center gave me the freedom to go to whatever polling place I wanted as I was not given a schedule or list within the oblast, and luckily, I was stationed with another Fulbrighter, Emmet Tuohy, who was brave and skilled enough to rent a car and knowledgable of the city and area so that we were able to go out to some rural stations, which proved to be a most interesting experience. I’ll get back to that.

Currently, for those who haven’t heard, not all of the votes have been reported yet. In fact, the delays in vote-counting have already raised suspicions similar to those of the 2004 election that led to the Orange Revolution. President Yushchenko has already demanded an investigation into the delays:

This process bears signs of purposeful delays.

I demand that the Central Election Commission and the Prosecutor General’s Office give comprehensive explanations. I have ordered law enforcement bodies to immediately start an investigation into the causes and circumstances of the delays in the sending of original protocols.

I would like to say clearly to those political forces that hope to get into parliament through manipulations: words and actions will not be at variance and falsifiers will be punished. Do not challenge the law and your own fate. It will be impossible to alter the actual choice of the people. I firmly believe in the unification and victory of Ukrainian democracy.

According to the Central Election Commission, 98.41% are reporting. The Regions Party (Yanukovych) is in the lead with around 34%, as expected, but the Tymoshenko Blok has made significant progress with a little over 30%. Our Ukraine (Yushchenko) also made some gains increasing from 13 point something to over fourteen percent, which may not seem signifcant, except between the two former Orange Coalition members, they have more than the Regions, Litvin (former Parliament speaker) Blok, and the Communists combined. At the moment, anyway. With numbers this close (45.09 to 43.515 from the likely coalitions), it’s no wonder both sides are already trying to declare victory without the final results being available. The Socialists led by now former Parliamentary Speaker Moroz didn’t clear the 3% threshold for seats. I would assume it has a lot to do with the game-playing that led to the coalition crisis last summer, and his defecting to the Regions-led coalition that was in power before the elections.

I’m not quite sure what to expect in the next couple weeks. According to an article by Helen Fawkes with the BBC before Sunday, it was apparently “widely expected that once again there will protests in the streets, legal challenges in the courts, and further political turmoil in Ukraine” following these elections. It is possible with such close results and with the power the Rada has gained since the constitutional changes were made in 2004/2005, people will continue to challenge the results until all avenues are exhausted. The parties will definitely do whatever it takes (hopefully within democratic and legal bounds) to make sure every vote is counted. Because it matters in this system. Ukraine votes on a party list system where people don’t actually vote for candidates, they vote for parties which have already submitted a list of candidates. After the votes are tallied, the parties receive a proportion of seats based on the percentage of votes they receive. A party must receive at least 3% of the votes in order to have seats in Parliament. So, the important thing being that every vote really does count and vote-rigging can have serious effects on the make-up of the Parliament, especially in close cases like this. Yulia Tymoshenko has already said she plans to challenge the results in the eastern region.

To be honest, I’m not sure at this point what I can share about my experience as an election observer. I’ll have to call around tomorrow to find out what I can and cannot say at this point, mostly because I was afforded a great deal of rights as an international observer and I may have seen some sensitive material that I shouldn’t discuss on my public blog. The IRI has already released an official statement with its positives and negatives, but obviously there are few specifics. I think I can say that the majority of sites I visited had few serious problems so when they write that the election “broadly met international standards,” I agree with that. However, I did encounter more problems than I did in Ivano-Frankivsk last year. It’s possible this is due to the fact that I have more experience now (and more knowledge of the Ukrainian election law than I ever could hope for) and I know what to catch now. Well, anyway, I’ll stop talking in circles and catch up on this tomorrow, hopefully. For now, I’m exhausted and in desperate need of a shower as I was thwarted this morning after coming home from the train station by a complete lack of hot water in the apartment. More soon…

I apologize for the serious breaks between my posts. Surprise, surprise my schedule has gotten a little out of control, particularly in this week before the elections. As it turns out I will be stationed in Odesa, which should prove to be interesting. But I’ll obviously post more about that later. This is my first post from my fantastic digs at the IOM Mission in Ukraine (as I still do not have internet in my apartment). I finally have a permanent office for the duration of my research! Before I have to run to another election-related event, I wanted to post about these extemely important developments in Burma as the government of Myanmar has turned to violence to suppress the tens of thousands of monks who are at the heart of the protests of the military junta in power.

From the NY Times:

On Wednesday, in a chaotic day of huge demonstrations, shooting, teargas and running confrontations between protesters and the military, many people were reported injured and half a dozen were reported to have been killed, most of them by gunshots.

Beginning the second day of their crackdown on nationwide protests in Myanmar before dawn today, security forces raided at least two Buddhist monasteries, beating and arresting dozens of monks, according to reports from the capital, Yangon.

The BBC is reporting that now there are more regular citizens protesting on the streets 1) in a show of solidarity with the monks and defiance to the government and 2) because so many monks have been arrested already.Two members of the National League for Democracy including Myint Thein, the spokesman for the party led by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, were also arrested last night. Reports coming in have indicated there have been as many as 70,000 people filling the streets against government orders to disband. This is the largest uprising against the military junta since 1988, when at least 3,000 people were reported to have been killed by the government in response to the protests.

This time again, as the crowds have continued to grow over the last few weeks, the military has become more and more violent. Military vehicles, fire trucks with water canons, and riot police armed with (and using) tear gas have been dispersed throughout Rangoon, mostly targeting the Buddhist monasteries. The BBC Article has an easy-to-read Q&A about the situation with some background information.

And China could not make its position more obvious, even if it tried. There is no way to hide behind diplomatic language on the position of your country on this crisis. Some of the official statements of China read:

According to participants in the closed session, Wang Guangya, the Chinese ambassador, told council members that the conflict in Myanmar was a domestic one that had to be settled by the people of Myanmar and that even a statement by the council would “not be useful.”

Addressing reporters outside the council chamber, Mr. Wang said, “The situation there has some problems, but does not constitute a threat to international and regional peace.” His words were carefully chosen since the council can become involved in only those crises that are deemed threats to international security. -NY Times

“China hopes that all parties in Burma exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu

Complicated? There’s a word. I think the violent repression and murder of protesters and monks has already brought this situation passed “complicated.” China is also the country that blocked a Security Council Resolution condemning the current violence on Wednesday, as well as a Resolution last January with a similar effect towards violent government suppression, specifically towards ethnic minority regions and calling on the government to begin a substantive political dialogue that would lead to a genuine democratic transition.

Russia’s hands are dirty here as well, as another of Burma’s major trading partners with the military regime. There are even plans to sell Burma a nuclear research reactor from Russia. Both are responsible for vetos on Resolutions directed towards Burma. Both are also major inhibitors to a response in Darfur as well, also claiming the conflicts represent internal matters. Pattern, anyone?

Unfortunately, although the U.S. has taken a strong response through sanctions, the support Burma receives from China and Russia will probably be able to keep the government afloat for a while. The U.S. was, in part, responsible for helping to bring the situation in Burma to the formal agenda of the UN Security Council a year ago.

THAT is in part because of people like Myo Thant, who served as an assistant to Aung San Suu Kyi until he was able to gain refugee status in the U.S. and came through Journey’s End Refugee Services, where he and I were working before I left. Myo is one of the hardest working activists I have ever met. Myo was there during the 1988 uprising and subsequent crackdown. He, and the monks, citizens, and activists in and from Burma have a dream for their country. This may be the time they will be able to realize it.

More after my return from Odesa…

Well I was going to post a little update on what’s been going on with me here, but I’ll do that tomorrow. This is much more exciting! Unfortunately, it’s about two weeks old, but I just received an email about it from Citizens for Global Solutions. Here’s a link to the Post article about it:

An unprecedented gathering this week of international war crimes prosecutors — those seeking justice for recent atrocities and two who made history at the Nazi trials at Nuremberg 62 years ago — issued a joint appeal to the world community to arrest war criminals still at large and turn them over to stand trial….

The general thrust of arguments Wednesday during day-long public and private meetings was that certain war crimes suspects remained free because of politics and that arresting them would end a culture of impunity.

“To turn these over is a political decision now, not a legal one. We have done our job,” Crane said of the suspects. “Let the word go out to warlords and leaders all over the world. However powerful, however mighty, however feared you may be, the law is above you. The law will bring you down,” said Desmond de Silva, deputy prosecutor at the Sierra Leone tribunal.

Was anybody present for any of the public meeting? Totally fantastic. The document itself was signed by nine international prosecutors- Whitney R. Harris and Henry T. King Jr. from the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg; Luis Moreno-Ocampo, from the ICC; Jallow, from the tribunal for Rwanda; Crane, de Silva and Stephen Rapp from the Sierra Leone court; David Tolbert from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and Robert Petit, from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The actual text of the Declaration is quite short, but it makes its point clear.

The Post article has some great quotes from the participants of the gathering. I particularly liked the one from David M. Crane, the first chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone about coping with the difficult and horrific material from the Charles Taylor case, which has been dragging on.

Crane recalled how, after three years in Sierra Leone, and still decompressing from the horror of atrocities, he asked Nuremberg veteran King what it took to cope with the pain.
“About a coupla glasses of Scotch” was the answer. With Nuremberg’s Grand Hotel serving it at 20 cents a shot, it was the cheapest remedy, said King, 88.

Ha! That’s great. More seriously, it goes to the incredible difficulty these prosecutors go through in order to acheive success in cases on crimes against humanity. More personally, these are the people I look to for inspiration in my field. It’s an area I would seriously like to become involved in eventually, and it is part of the reason I took up the topic of human trafficking for my Fulbright reasearch.

There has been so much going on in the time I’ve been adjusting to life back in Ukraine. Just caught the BBC article on the earthquake in Indonesia. The 6.2 quake has effected over 200,000 people on the island of Java with the death toll surprassing 3,000 (two-thirds of which were in Bantul. The article offers photos, video footage, and interviews from victims, however depressing it may seem. Thankfully, officials are saying the quake is not likely to cause a tsunami. However there is the possibility of volcanic activity from Mount Merapi, where there has been some debris from the volcano already.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that disasters like this in places like Indonesia affect people even more than they would in a wealthier country capable of banding together and affording to rebuild (the case of Katrina notwithstanding). I remember before I left for India in May, I was reading about the response to the Tsunami versus the response to the Gularat earthquakes that had hit three years or so before. Depending on the development of the local government and economy, it meant the difference of months versus years of living in makeshift housing, especially for the poor. This is the case even when there is foreign aid involved.

In the case of the recent quake in Indonesia, they seem to be having particular problems with medical staff.

Local radio said there were not enough doctors to cope with the numbers of injured.

People were ferried to hospital in lorries and buses, or made the journey on foot, because of a shortage of ambulances.

Aftershocks have forced medical staff to move injured patients outside.

Orlando Guzman says people here, who have been living in fear of a volcanic eruption for weeks, are very much still on edge. Many are still afraid to go back to their houses.

Mosques, churches and hospitals have been housing people who have fled their homes.

There are, of course, direct ways you can help ease the pain of the victims of this latest quake. International Medical Corps is in an looking for assistance to fund their efforts.

Something to keep in mind if you hear about international disasters and are looking for information or ways to help, Relief Web has a continually updated site with everything you need to know about the response by international organizations and who is appealing for funds. The link above will take you directly to the Indonesian quake site, but it’s easy enough to navigate through to get back to the homepage.

So I’ve been getting a little feedback from some of my readers (ya know, all 10 of you [just kidding]) and one thing people have been commenting on is how serious I seem to be about most of my posts. Which is true and I stand by the seriousness of what I write about. But I can see the value in a good laugh, even about subjects that need a critical eye (and mouth more often, really).

Unrelentingly, I have to start out with something serious. I read the Times this morning and found an extremely long, but well written article about the consequences of taking the focus off of Afghanistan since 2003. The article provides disturbing evidence of the deterioration Afghanistan has been going through during the last few years.

Then, conveniently, a good friend of mine sent me a video of The Word from the Colbert Report. It was related and it’s the kind of humor that throws my head back, but can still be disturbing if you really think about it.

I went over this article today in the Times about the Iraqi refugees that have flooded out of the country in the last two years. The topic has been a dominant appeal from the updates I receive from the UN newscentre, whose bodies are helping to deal with everything from IDPs (internally displaced persons) to refugees in neighboring countries. Syria and Jordan are apparently handling the brunt of the situation with somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million Iraqi refugees according to the UNHCR. Ironically, the U.S. is housing less Iraqi refugees now than it did in any of the years between 1992 and 2001. NPR reported in June that the first Iraqi refugees had arrived to the U.S.

The first wave of Iraqi refugees has arrived in the United States: 63 resettlement cases arrived in June and more are expected to come in September. U.S. officials have pledged to resettle 7,000 Iraqis by the end of this year.

Apparently since then, the U.S. has taken in, in total, a little less than 200 and the UN has referred about 9,100. But still, seven thousand? There are over 2 million Iraqi refugees that have fled the violence since 2003 and we’re accepting 7,000 of them? The UNHCR also estimates there are about 50,000 Iraqis fleeing every month now. The Times article cited that there were so many Iraqis fleeing to Jordan that, “Rejections became so common that Iraqi Airways now offers a 30 percent discount to returning passengers who have been turned away [by Jordanian authorities].”

The Jordanian government, under pressure from the United States, finally agreed to let Iraqi children without residency attend public schools, which is service that has not been extended to any other non-resident foreigners in the country.

Not only is this a burden on the surrounding countries, but it has consequences for trying to build a stable Iraq because the people that are fleeing Iraq are the former middle class. Or at least they were the middle class. Many of them are struggling to survive abroad with the cost of basic living stretching the last of their assets in the face of joblessness.

It is a painful new reality for an important part of Iraq’s population, the educated, secular center. They refused to take sides as the violence got worse. And their suffering augurs something larger for Iraq. The poorer they grow and the longer they stay away, the more crippled Iraq becomes. “The binding section of the population does not exist anymore,” said Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, who now spends most of his time in Jordan. “The middle class has left Iraq.”

The article also includes a few personal accounts by Iraqi refugees living abroad that are truly difficult to take in. Most of them include the story of family members being killed or left behind. There is a very well done video of one such story through an interview with a woman and her family who now live in Jordan (mixed with statistics).

All I have to say it really bugs me when people give the UN a bum rap for their role in this whole crisis, but the UN agencies have been busting their resources to alleviate the burden this situation has placed on the international community. The Security Council didn’t even back the war, and yet here the UN is raising funds, helping Iraqi refugees through resettlement, getting their children into school, etc. Sometimes in the intensity of controversy, we forget that the UN is more than the Security Council. We forget the extent of their work in every corner of the world.

Anyway, the article is a great read because Americans are obviously not as exposed to the plight of the Iraqi refugees as the numbers are so small. Check out the video if you get a chance, too.

Sorry for the delay in posting. Most of my online time lately has been drained on trying to find a flat in Kyiv and it has been a pretty brutal process. I should have my flight to Ukraine booked by tomorrow for August 29th so let’s hope I find one before then.

But the past is passed, the future’s now. Today marks the 62nd anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. I can imagine this year’s events were marked by a little uneasiness as the topic of the necessity (or lack thereof) of the use of the atomic bomb by a major public official was breached earlier this year in a June speech by former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma.

“I understand that the bombings ended the war, and I think that it couldn’t be helped,” he said.

He subsequently stepped down after public outcry. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized on Sunday for the former Minister’s remarks and today, he spoke to a crowd gathered in Hiroshima of about 40,000 (including some of the 252,000 survivors) for the memorial that he is committed to upholding Japan’s non-nuclear stance in international politics.

“Japan has been taking the path toward global peace for 62 years since World War II. The tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never be repeated in any place on Earth,” said the Japanese prime minister, in a speech at the Hiroshima ceremony.

“We will take an initiative in the international community and devote ourselves wholeheartedly toward the abolition of nuclear weapons and realization of peace,” Abe said.

Not that I’m ever cynical, but I wonder if the contents of his speech are at all provoked by his party’s rather dismal loss recently after a series of scandals, including the former Defense Minister.

The Prime Minister’s speech was followed by a rather passionate address by Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba that clearly stated Japan ought to abide by the pacifist Constitution and to ” say no to wrong and outdated policies of the United States.” Secretary General Ban Ki Moon also contributed to the ceremony through Sergio de Queiroz Duarte, the U.N.’s high representative for disarmament affairs.

“Today our challenge … is to make the world safer for succeeding generations. This requires us to continue to work toward a world free of nuclear dangers, and ultimately, of nuclear weapons.” -SG Moon

This all brings back American Foriegn Policy in Fall 2006 because we were talking about this very issue: whether Japan should respond to North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons. The topic was being brought up by prominent Japanese politicians at the time, some of whom felt the topic should at least be debated and the Constitution should be reviewed. Prime Minister Abe and the Japanese public have at least made a decision on that for the moment.

“We promise that we will comply with provisions of the Constitution, sincerely seek global peace, and adhere to the three non-nuclear principles,” he said.

BBC Video recounting today’s memorial

NPR released today that both the DOJ and the U.K.’s Office of Fair Trading fined British Airways for illegal talks with other airlines on how much extra to charge on passenger and cargo flights, to cover fuel costs. So the U.S. charged them $300 million, which, by the way, BA had set aside before May apparently in anticipation of fines and the cost of legal action. Virgin Atlantic, another airline in cahoots with BA, was given immunity for blowing the whistle.

Kind of surprising to me was that this was the first time first time the U.K. and the U.S. have simultaneously brought action against a company. And this investigation has been going on for a more than a year.

The reason this grinds my gears is because our group took British Airways to and from India and the whole experience made me nuts. It wasn’t the first time I’ve flown BA or the first time I had to go through Heathrow, but man, what a disaster. First, BA lost our luggage in Heathrow, even though we had about a four hour layover and we were using the same airline. I would have taken both my bags aboard if they allowed two carry-ons because it was just two parts of the same backpack. Regardless, I didn’t have any other clothes than I what I wore to India for the first week I was sweating in 100 degree weather in Chennai. Did it matter a lot to me? Not really. It was just the fact that a major international airline could be so inept. And apparently crooked.

When asked about the situation,

British Airway’s CEO Willie Walsh insisted that passengers had not been overcharged because fuel surcharges were “a legitimate way of recovering costs.”

However, he acknowledged that the conduct of some of the carrier’s employees had been wrong and could not be excused. “Anti-competitive behavior is entirely unacceptable and we condemn it unreservedly,” he said.

If you’re caught, right? Just hope you’re able to handle the heat once the criminal investigation is over.

The UK’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, has called for renewed efforts to combat global poverty and reach the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) by their set date of 2015. In a speech he gave earlier today outside the United Nations, he immediately called attention to the crisis in Darfur, which he has been strongly pushing for action for since he came to office in June. Britain, as well as France, have put together a timeline for the 19,000 member hybrid force to be deployed to Darfur which is expected to be voted on later today.

Immediately we will work hard to deploy this force quickly.

And the plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a ceasefire, including an end to aerial bombings of civilians; drive forward peace talks starting in Arusha, Tanzania this weekend on 3 August; and as peace is established, offer to and begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction.

But we must clear if any party blocks progress and the killings continue, I and others will redouble our efforts to impose further sanctions.

The message for Darfur is that it is time for change.

He was also quite frank about addressing the lagging global commitment to the MDGs and international development, specifically referring to the UN 2007 Report on the Millenium Development Goals, which gave a rather grim review of the progress being made (or lack thereof in some cases). But Brown is confident that if dedicated efforts are made together, these goals are not out of reach. And he has been reaching out to everyone on these issues: business leaders, government leaders (12 of which have already thrown their support behind him including the current G8 host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as the coming year’s host, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe), NGOs, IGOs, and civilian leaders.

I must admit, it is refreshing to see a Western leader finally grow some balls and stick to commitments made, even if he himself did not make those commitments (although I know he was involved as Chancellor of the Exchequer in some of these efforts). Will he stick to them? I could see him getting burned out quickly if things don’t seem to be going the way he wants them to go. Especially since he’s dealing with the situation in Iraq as well. But he’s reviving world leadership in international development goals that are doomed to fail if people don’t commit to them. I’ll be waiting and voting in anticipation of new U.S. leadership in this area as well.

Most people seem to forget that Sudan has strong connections with Al’Qaida and Osama bin Laden, but yesterday a U.S. federal judge ordered Sudan to pay $7.96 million to the families of 17 sailors killed in the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole. This follows the ruling back in March that found the Sudanese government partly responsible for the attacks. Partly? Let’s see. The support the Sudanese government has given Osama bin Laden includes allowing the group to establish training bases, run businesses and use Sudanese diplomatic passports to carry explosives. Hell, during the trial, the lawyers representating the Sudanese government “did not offer opening statements or closing arguments or question any witnesses.” At this point, I think the link is pretty solid despite the Sudanese government’s refusal of any connection to the terrorist organization. This is among the recent parade of denials the Sudanese government is putting forward. According to The Economist, President Bashir is denying any violence in Darfur at the moment.

In fact most of Sudan’s western region is “secure and enjoying real peace”, he [Bashir] announced after a rare visit to Darfur last weekend. “People are living normal lives”, he said.

You know, President Bashir, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. This quote comes amidst energized efforts by the new British and French administrations to get something done about the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.