COMMUNITY OF DEMOCRACIES
In an article titled "Democratisation And Failed States: The
Challenge of Ungovernability" published in the summer 1996 issue of
"Parameters", the quarterly journal of the US Army War College, Dr.Robert
H.Dorff, Visiting Professor of Foreign Policy at the US Army War College and Associate
Professor of Political Science at the North Carolina State University, traces the
evolution of the idea of a community of democracies to the Clinton Administration's first
National Security Strategy entitled "A National Security Strategy of Engagement And
Enlargement" published in July 1994.
The Strategy projected the US strategic objective as
"protecting, consolidating and enlarging the community of free market
democracies."
Dr.Dorff said:"The US post-Cold War strategy of engagement
and enlargement began with public pronouncements in the last year of the Bush
Administration and then was formally articulated under President Clinton. Fundamentally
based on the premise of the "democratic peace" (democracies do not go to war
with other democracies), this strategy entails the active promotion and expansion of the
community of democratic, free-market countries as a way of applying national resources
toward the pursuit of strategic objectives. In theory, the strategy meshes very well with
two basic US interests. First, it is consistent with the goal of promoting values, among
which democracy and market economies are certainly key. Second, it implies the ability to
reduce the risks of confrontation through the use of a variety of instruments, not just
military, and with a number of approaches short of the US' acting as global policeman,
which leads to crisis response through multilateral, multinational and collective security
arrangements."
At an Open Forum of the US Secretary of State on November
10,1999,Mr.James Robert Huntley, writer and international affairs consultant, explained
the theme of his recent book "Pax Democratica: A Strategy For the 21st
Century".
He traced the evolution of international relations through four
phases, namely, the age of the empire, the balance of power, international co-operation
and the current phase of community-building among democracies and claimed that democracies
rarely went to war with each other and rarely indulged in internal violence against their
own people,
He made the following suggestions for the future implementation
of Pax Democratica:
*** A framework treaty for the community of democracies.
*** A caucus of democracies at the UN to speak in a co-ordinated
voice.
*** An international parliamentary assembly of democracies.
*** Unions of democracies on specific issues, such as education,
economics and global security.
*** An international court of human rights.
*** Improved crisis prevention by democracies.
*** Membership based on an annual review of each nation's efforts
in democracy.
*** Increased education efforts.
*** The strengthening of international institutions such as the
UN by the Community of Democracies.
Speaking at the same forum, Mr.Penn Kemble, Special
Representative of the US Secretary of State for the Community of Democracies Initiative,
described the aim of the Initiative as the revitalisation of democracy in the
international system. Mr.Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the Brookings Institution said that the
idea of Pax Democratica was to see if a viable means existed to build an approach to peace
around an idea and institutions rather than around a nation.
Subsequently, on November 22,1999, Mr.Bronislaw Geremek, formerly
of the Solidarity funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and now the Polish
Foreign Minister, announced in Warsaw that the first international meeting of the
Community of Democracies would be held at Warsaw on June 26-27, 2000, under the joint
sponsorship of the US, Poland, Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Mali and South Korea.
In a statement issued in Washington the same day, the State
Department endorsed the initiative and said: " The goal of the Community of
Democracies Ministerial is to strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of existing
international organisations in their support for democracy. Governments attending the
meeting will affirm their commitment to a core set of universal democratic
principles……They will develop a common agenda to bolster democratic institutions
and processes, improve co-ordination of democratic assistance programmes and more
effectively respond to threats or interruptions to democracy."
130 countries have been invited to participate at the Foreign
Ministers' level and it is too early to say how many would be attending and at what level.
It has been reported that only the UK, Switzerland and Sweden in Europe have responded
positively to the US-inspired initiative, whereas the other West European countries, while
willing to attend, look with askance at the initiative as possibly yet another US attempt
to further marginalise the UN General Assembly.
Mr.Penn Kemble used to be on the Board of Directors of one of the
NED's core affiliates, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI).
His sister Eugenia used to be the Director of the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI),
another core affiliate of the NED.
He also headed the Executive Committee of the Coalition for a
Democratic Majority, a neo-conservative group within the Democratic Party. Mr.Kemble, who
was allegedly part of the clandestine cell set up in the White House during the Reagan
Administration by Col. Oliver North of the Iran-Contra case, also headed the PRODEMCA,
Friends of the Democratic Centre in Central America, until it was wound up. The NED's
financial assistance to the anti-Sandinista elements in Nicaragua used to be allegedly
funneled through PRODEMCA by Mr.Kemble, who was reputed to be an expert in the clandestine
financing of foreign political groups co-operating with the US in its national objectives.
Under his stewardship, the PRODEMCA used to place full-page
advertisements in the 1980s in the "Washington Post", the "Washington
Times" and the "New York Times" calling for congressional funding of US $
100 million to assist the Contras. Col. North allegedly used the PRODEMCA to funnel money
to the Contras and the PRODEMCA acted in tandem with Carl Channel's National Endowment for
the Preservation of Liberty.
Amongst the others posts held by Mr.Kemble in the past were as a
member of the Board of Directors of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, of the Social
Democrats, USA, of the radio programme advisory committee of the US Information Agency
(USIA), in which capacity he used to advise on the running of Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty by the CIA from Munich and the Voice of America and as a writer and producer at
WETA-TV.
Mr.Kemble was a close associate of Ms.Jeane Kirkpatrick, the US
Permanent Delegate to the UN during the Reagan Administration, who was also a member of
the Coalition for a Democratic Majority and the Committee on the Present Danger, both of
which were strongly anti-communist. She was also associated with other anti-communist
organisations such as the Committee for the Free World, PRODEMCA, the American Enterprise
Institute, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Social Democrats, USA,
and the highly secretive Council for National Policy. She is also a member the Board of
Advisers of the Centre for Religious Freedom, an outfit of the Freedom House.
In his present job, Mr.Kemble works closely with Dr.Mort
Halperin, a former anti-CIA and anti-Vietnam war leftist, who is now Director for Policy
Planning in the State Department. Interestingly, the Division in the State Department to
implement the Community of Democracies Initiative has brought together two individuals
with diametrically opposite track records---Mr. Kemble, an active practitioner of covert
political activities abroad under Mr.Reagan, and Dr.Halperin, a principled opponent of US
covert activities abroad, who suffered in his career because of his opposition. He was the
victim of alleged witch-hunting by Dr.Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration.
Mr.Clinton's attempt, during his first term, to make Dr.Halperin Assistant Defence
Secretary was frustrated by Conservative elements in the Congress because of his past
opposition to the US involvement in Vietnam and his criticism of the CIA's meddling in the
internal affairs of other countries---particularly in the Third World--under whatever
pretext.
According to media reports, the forthcoming Warsaw meeting is
jointly being funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation of Poland, founded in 1998 by
Mr.George Soros to counter the resurgence of communism in East Europe and the Freedom
House of the US, which was founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie to
oppose Nazism and Communism in Europe.
The Freedom House was a strong supporter of the NATO and worked
in close co-operation with the CIA and Col. North's clandestine cell in the Reagan White
House in carrying on psywar against the USSR and other communist countries and in
funneling assistance to the Afghan Mujahideen and the Arab mercenaries, including Osama
bin Laden, through various front organisations such as the Afghanistan Information Centre,
the Afghanistan Relief Committee, the Committee for a Free Afghanistan, the American
Friends of Afghanistan etc.
The Freedom House receives its funding from the USIA, the Agency
For International Development (AID), the NED and a number of ostensibly private
foundations, one of which is the Soros Foundation.
The late William Casey, the Director of the CIA under Mr.Reagan,
and Col. North, whom Casey used to call "my son", encouraged the setting-up of a
network of so-called non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to be used for covert political
activities abroad without the direct involvement of the CIA, on the model of the Freedom
House set up in the US by Mrs.Roosevelt and others in 1941 and the foundations set up much
later by the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (the Federal Information Service), the West German
external intelligence agency, to funnel financial assistance to the anti-communist
elements in the then East Germany, the anti-Salazar forces in Portugal, the anti-Franco
forces in Spain and the Eurocommunist elements in France and Italy.
Many of these NGOs of Casey-North parentage are still active and,
interestingly, a common name occurring in the lists of money-givers of almost all these
organisations is the Soros Foundation.
Since the Govt. of India has agreed to co-sponsor the Warsaw
meeting and play a prominent role in it, it is important to keep in mind the past track
record of the Freedom House in relation to India, the present Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
led Government and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Every year, the Freedom House rates the countries of the world on
the basis of the quality of their democracy. It gives marks for their political rights and
civil liberties and places them in three categories--Free, Partly Free and Not Free. Till
1997-98, only Japan and South Korea in Asia were rated "Free" by the Freedom
House, whereas Afghanistan, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bhutan, Myanmar
and Indonesia were rated as "Not Free". The other countries, including India,
were rated "Partly Free".
It does not recognise Kashmir as a part of India, rates it as
"Not Free" and places it in a special category called "Related And Disputed
Territories" along with Nagorno-Karabakh, Hong Kong, Tibet, Abkhazia, East Timor,
Irian Jaya, Kurdistan, the Israeli-Administered Territories, the Palestinian-Administered
Territories, the Transdniester in Moldova, Western Sahara, Macao, Chechnya, Cyprus,
Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico and Kosovo.
In 1998-99, it upgraded India as "Free" with the
following explanation:" India's civil liberties rating changed from 4 to 3 and its
status changed from Partly Free to Free, due to the continued growth of civic
organisations that are actively working to strengthen human rights protections and for
methodological reasons."
In its "Overview" of India, it said inter alia: "
In December 1992, Hindu fundamentalists, incited by the BJP and militant Hindu
organisations, destroyed the 16th century Babri mosque in the northern town of
Ayodhya, setting off weeks of deadly communal violence……. Many observers believe
Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, the hardline BJP leader, is the real power behind the
Vajpayee government. More broadly, observers suggest that the government is ultimately
controlled by the National Volunteer Service (RSS), a far-right Hindu group modeled after
the 1930s European fascist parties. Vajpayee and other BJP leaders are RSS members and the
RSS reportedly vetted key cabinet appointments. The Vajpayee government reportedly
replaced the Governors of several key States with RSS supporters and placed pro-RSS
bureaucrats into top posts."
In its report on Kashmir for 1998-99, it continued to rate it as
"Not Free" and said: "Kashmir's political rights and civil liberties
ratings changed from 7 to 6 due to limited gains in political participation and freedom of
expression since a return to home rule in 1996."
In its "Overview", it said inter alia: "The new
Hindu nationalist BJP government in New Delhi did little to address human rights abuses or
other concerns in the disputed territory…. The conflict has been exacerbated by New
Delhi's failure to honour pledges of self-determination for the territory, which India
claims it cannot do until Pakistan withdraws its troops from territory under Islamabad's
control."
The report took notice of alleged human rights violations by the
security forces as well as the militants, but refrained from blaming Pakistan's
cross-border terrorism for the violence in the State. This is due to the fact that the
staff of the Freedom House worked closely with Pakistan's military and intelligence
establishment, with the Arab mercenaries led by Osama bin Laden, with the various Afghan
Mujahideen groups and with the prominent activists of organisations such as the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (previously known as the Harket-ul-Ansar) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba
against the Soviet troops and then against the army of the former President, the late
Najibullah, in Afghanistan. In the Freedom House too, as in the Pakistan area division of
the CIA and the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), there are still fond
memories and feelings of gratitude for the past co-operation of Pakistan's military and
intelligence establishment.
It remains to be seen whether the recent changes in the US
perception of Pakistan are reflected in the 1999-2000 reports of the Freedom House on
India and Kashmir.
The Freedom House set up in 1986, a special unit called the
Centre For religious Freedom (it was formerly known as the Puebla Institute). Even though
it is supposed to monitor the violations of the religious rights of all religions of the
world, it focuses mainly on the religious rights of the Christians in non-Christian
countries and had organised in 1996a conference on "Global Persecution of
Christians". It publishes a bi-monthly newsletter on anti-Christian persecution.
A document of the Centre on Ms. Nina Shea, Director of the
Centre, says as follows on her: " A human rights lawyer, she has been an
international religious freedom advocate for 13 years and is nationally known for her book
on anti-Christian persecution, "In the Lion's Den." In 1999, she was appointed
to serve as a member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which was
created under the International Religious Freedom Act to monitor religious persecution and
recommend policy responses to the US government. From 1997 to 1999, she served on the
Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad to the US Secretary of State.
"Newsweek" magazine accredited Shea with making Christian persecution
Washington's hottest cause".
And, she has been trying to make the alleged increase in
atrocities on Christians in Gujarat since the BJP came to power in that state a hot cause
for the Christian organisations of the US. Her Centre brings out annual country reports on
the human rights of Christians in different countries of the world. For its 1998-99 report
on India, it has just adopted in toto, without modification and without independent
verification, a statistical analysis titled " A Register of Atrocities Against
Christians" provided to the Centre by the Catholic Bishops' Conference in India. Her
Centre has also been giving wide dissemination to the allegations made by the United
Christian Forum for Human Rights, of which Mr.John Dayal is the Convenor.
Ms.Shea was also recently in the forefront of the campaign in the
US against PetroChina's attempts to raise capital in the US. Her Centre campaigned against
PetroChina on the ground that China was helping in the oil exploration efforts of the
Government of Sudan, which was committing atrocities against the Christians of southern
Sudan. Her campaign was motivated by concern for the human rights of not the Buddhists of
Tibet, but the Christians of Sudan.
There is no harm in India participating in the forthcoming Warsaw
conference on the Community of Democracies, but keeping in mind the above-mentioned
worrisome aspects of some of the dramatis personae and the birth of the idea itself from
the USA's post-Cold War national security strategy to promote US strategic objectives, a
cautious approach is called for. Over-enthusiasm and wishful-thinking that India is now an
equal partner of the US in a new jehad for democracy would be unwise.
The USA is advancing the idea from behind the scene with the help
of some NGOs and personalities of Cold War parentage to promote its strategic interests.
The mask is that of Warsaw, but the face behind the mask is that of Washington. We should
avoid letting ourselves be used by Washington in this venture to advance its interests
unless there is a genuine convergence of the interests of the US and India.
B.RAMAN
20-4-00
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai.
E-mail:corde@vsnl.com)
