Hillary Clinton and Her Divisions

On the eve of yesterday’s second round of the presidential election, the head of American diplomacy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visited Poland. She criticized a number of countries — including Russia — for the harassment of human rights activists and restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly. She announced the establishment of a fund to assist non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Towards the end of her speech, Clinton evoked the historical anecdote about Stalin.

Clinton visited Poland as a part of a European tour, which also includes visits to Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. She arrived in Krakow on Saturday morning to attend the Community of Democracies conference — an organization founded 10 years ago by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek. Clinton’s speech, entitled “Civil Society: Supporting Democracy in the 21st Century,” was the most important speech at the conference. At least that is what Washington thinks.

While stressing that civil society — in addition to representative government and a functioning market — is one of the three pillars of a free country, Clinton highlighted the countries where the government infringes on citizens’ right to act against an organized position. The first was North Korea, which “banned all civil society.” In Cuba and Belarus, it is subjected to extreme pressure. Iran has “turned its back on a rich tradition of civil society,” says the head of American diplomacy. In general, over the past six years, governments in 50 countries have imposed new restrictions on NGOs, and the list grows. Clinton referenced Zimbabwe, DRC, Ethiopia and the Central Asian states. Venezuelan authorities also tried to stop independent voices.

In this list (although Clinton did not say that the names of the country in a hierarchical order to improve the situation with civil society), Russia and China were listed towards the end. The Obama Administration has repeatedly been criticized for “forgetting” the value of the agenda in collaboration with Beijing and Moscow for the sake of promotion of other interests. “In Russia, while we welcome President Medvedev’s statements in support of the rule of law, human rights activities and journalists have been targeted for assassination, and virtually none of these crimes have been solved,” said the Secretary of State.

It is known that the U.S. State Department makes extensive use of estimates given to other countries by American non-governmental organizations. In late June, one of these NGOs — Freedom House — published a study titled Nations in Transit 2010. It argues that over the past decade in virtually all countries in the post-Soviet territories (excluding the Baltic countries), indices of democracy have deteriorated, and the most severe degradation has taken place in Russia.

Washington, judging by Clinton’s words, is going to create together with other members of the Community of Democracies an “objective, independent mechanism for monitoring repressive measures against NGOs,” and work with regional organizations to ensure freedom of assembly.

Clinton also announced the creation of a fund to help oppressed NGOs obtain legal support, mobile communications, Internet access, etc. The U.S. has already allocated $2 million, and expects that its example will be followed by other states and the private sector.

During her speech, Clinton repeatedly praised Poland and the Poles for their contribution to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the development of democracy. “Pope John Paul II, as Stalin would say, had no battalions, but his moral authority was as strong as the army,” she said. This is a famous historical anecdote, according to which during the Second World War, Vyacheslav Molotov drew Stalin’s attention to the fact that it would be nice to include the Vatican in the anti-Hitler coalition, because it has unquestionable authority among the millions of Catholics. To this Stalin allegedly sarcastically asked: “How many divisions does the Vatican have?”

By the way, the military aspect of Clinton’s visit to Poland was the signing of an amendment to the Polish-American ABM Treaty. It takes into account the technical changes in the project in connection with the new architecture of a missile defense system of the United States. According to Clinton, the system “is a purely defensive system. It is not directed at Russia. It does not threaten Russia.” The secretary also stressed that the U.S. wants to cooperate with Moscow on missile defense, but Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said: “We want this system to be more transparent, in particular, the Russian Federation to be convinced that this system is built for the stated purposes, that is why we will provide the possibility of inspection.”

The Poles, meanwhile, went to the polls. As recalled by RIA Novosti, in the first round of elections on June 20, none of the 10 candidates received the necessary votes to win. In the second round, the candidate of the ruling party Civic Platform and Speaker of the Sejm, Bronislaw Komorowski, and leader of the Law and Justice Jaroslaw Kaczynski remained. Over 41.54 percent of the citizens voted for Komorowski, while 36.46 percent voted for Kaczynski.

A sociological study conducted on July 1 by GfK Polonia gave a sensational result: the winner of the race was to be Jaroslaw Kaczynski — the twin brother of the president who died in a plane crash near Smolensk. At the same time, recent research conducted by the Millward Brown SMG/KRC indicated that Komarowski would win in the second round of elections.