Russian chairman of CIS security body reports success in combating drugs

ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
11 Mar 05

United Nations, 11 March: Combating drugs is one of the most effective
directions of work of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO), its secretary-general, Nikolay Bordyuzha, told ITAR-TASS. A
presentation ceremony of CSTO, an international regional organization,
embracing Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and
Tajikistan, was held at the UN headquarters on 10 March.

“As a result of several successful operations we have reached a
very high level of interaction among CSTO members,” Bordyuzha said.
“Together with the six member-states, Iran, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan
took part in the latest operation, known under the code name of Kanal
[Russ: canal],” he added. This helped create a “antidrug security
belt along Afghanistan’s northern borders”, he said.

The effectiveness of the CSTO work in combating drugs cannot be
measured in confiscated kilograms and tonnes of narcotics alone,
Bordyuzha said. “We have reached a new level of coordination among
appropriate antidrug structures. This helps us create the necessary
data bank, and conduct so-called controlled deliveries,” he added.

At the same time Bordyuzha acknowledged that one could only reduce
the flow of drugs from Afghanistan with the use of prohibitive
measures. “Afghanistan should be restored, relevant power-wielding
structures should be created and interact properly, and stability
should come to stay,” he said.

Death of a Patriot

COMMENTARY

The Wall Street Journal
March 10, 2005
Page A16

By THOMAS DE WAAL

Some nine years ago I interviewed Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen
separatist leader who was killed on Tuesday, in the middle of a beech
forest in southern Chechnya. He was brimming with confidence and looking
forward to swapping the woods for the halls of the Kremlin. The volatile
rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev had been assassinated and now Maskhadov,
his natural successor, was being invited for talks in Moscow by
President Boris Yeltsin. In retrospect, that was the high watermark of
Maskhadov’s authority as both successful warrior and peacemaker. Those
talks in the Kremlin helped lead to a peace settlement that ended the
first Chechen war of 1994-96. Maskhadov then went on to be elected
president of Chechnya in 1997 in a vote that was recognized by Russia
and the world.

At that time there were hopes that Maskhadov could become a latter-day
Chechen Ataturk, a martial leader who had turned to politics and would
build up some kind of statehood in his unfortunate republic. Announcing
his death this week, the Russian authorities called him a “bandit” and
“terrorist.” Neither description was true. Maskhadov was a tragic
figure, a guerrilla leader who could not transcend his own limitations
as a politician and the appalling situation around him.

Everyone has failed in Chechnya. Maskhadov failed in his attempts to
lead his republic from 1997-99, not managing to confront a rising tide
of radical Islam and criminality. That anarchy was the prelude to the
Russian government’s second military intervention in Chechnya in 1999.
And although he repeatedly called for negotiations with Moscow over the
last five years, Maskhadov failed to rein in the radicals who have
turned from partisan war to acts of terrorism, like the one in Beslan
last September.

The most colossal failure in Chechnya has been that of the Russian
government. Its soldiers have done everything in their power to make
Chechens feel an alienated people and a conquered nation. No one knows
exactly how many civilians have died there since 1994 but the number
runs into the tens of thousands and is a catastrophe for this small
republic. The city of Grozny, its only urban and professional center,
still lies in ruins more than a decade after the fighting started.
President Putin’s latest policy of “Chechenization” — delegating
political and economic power to a loyal pro-Moscow government — has put
an end to full-scale fighting; but in practice it has empowered a brutal
and criminalized group that is implicated in daily abductions and
killings. Little wonder that terrorism still sprouts in the cracks left
by this cataclysm.

Killing Maskhadov risks being a Pyrrhic victory for Moscow. His standing
had declined in recent years, but his election still made him an
important political symbol for many ordinary Chechens. Now that that
symbol has been killed, a whole constituency will feel disenfranchised.
Maskhadov’s death will strengthen the radical Shamil Basayev, who has
claimed responsibility for the death of more than 330 people in Beslan,
half of them children.

The West has failed, too, in Chechnya and has never given it the
attention it deserves. All too often the subject has been pushed down
the list of topics under discussion. In 1994, a more forthright stand
against the bombing of Grozny might have made Boris Yeltsin think again,
but Western politicians hesitated to pick up their telephones. Other
Westerners have lectured Russia without taking into account its real
security concerns, or offering any practical assistance.

Much Western categorization of Chechnya has been misleading and
superficial. To call the conflict a front in the “international war on
terror” obscures more than it reveals. The number of international
jihadis in Chechnya is tiny and it remains essentially a homegrown
problem. Terror is now one part of the equation but simply killing
terrorists will not solve the problem. But nor is this “deliberate
genocide.” Moscow still promises the Chechens high levels of autonomy
and pours money into Chechnya. The problem is that the executors on the
ground of whatever policy there is — Russian soldiers and their Chechen
cronies — tend to be brutal, xenophobic or highly corrupt. It is not
even very helpful to think of this as a colonial war: Most Chechens now
probably reject independence and accept that they should be part of
Russia — if only Russia would respect their elementary rights.

Is there a way forward? Clearly the time for polemic is past and the
Western institutions making a difference on this issue are those that
seek to engage on as practical level as possible. The European Court of
Human Rights delivered an important verdict on Feb. 24, upholding the
claims of a group of Chechen civilians who had lost relatives to Russian
violence and demanding the Russian government pay damages. The money is
less important than the signal that sends to ordinary Chechens that the
outside world cares about their rights and to Russian soldiers that
their behavior is under scrutiny.

Above all, Chechnya needs reconstruction. President Putin himself
pronounced himself shocked when he flew over the ruins of Grozny last
year and saw himself that a Russian city in the early 21st century still
resembles the hulk of Stalingrad in 1945. Unemployment is nearly
universal. But, as ever, economic rehabilitation falls foul of the
perennial problem of systemic corruption, both in Moscow and Grozny.
Western governments have enormous experience of bringing reconstruction
and aid to war-shattered regions in the Balkans. To help rebuild Grozny
and its destroyed university, oil institute, factories and schools would
be to offer a real pledge in the future of Chechnya.

This, of course, needs the consent of the Russian authorities — and a
very real obstacle remains in the form of the pro-Moscow Chechen
government, which monopolizes power and rewards only its friends and
business-partners. Parliamentary elections are due later this year in
Chechnya and a positive step from Western governments would be to offer
support and recognition for them — on condition that they are as
democratic as the situation in Chechnya allows and include a wide range
of Chechens who have been hitherto shut out from the political process.

The Chechens are Europeans too, if very distant and alienated ones. The
death of Maskhadov should be a moment to try to lure these unfortunate
people with the promise of practical assistance, not push them further
into the embrace of revenge and terror.

Mr. de Waal is Caucasus Editor at the Institute for War and Peace
Reporting, in London. He is co-author, with Fiona Hill and Anatol
Lieven, of a recent Carnegie Endowment for Peace policy brief, “A
Spreading Danger: Time for a New Policy Toward Chechnya.”

URL for this article:
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Jews Without Borders
by Daniel Lazare

The Nation
review | Posted March 9, 2005

Although revered in certain circles as something close to holy writ, Edward
W. Said’s famous 1978 study Orientalism is rife with contradictions that
over the years have become more and more difficult to ignore. It hops
disconcertingly between Orientalism as an academic pursuit, as a mental
attitude and as a system of colonial oppression. At times it suggests that
Orientalism began in the eighteenth century with the rise of modern European
imperialism; elsewhere it implies that Orientalism settled like a miasma on
the Western mind as far back as the ancient Greeks. We are left with the
impression that Europe has been unalterably bigoted whenever it has gazed
eastward, although why that is not equally the case whenever it has looked
to the south, the west or, for that matter, the north is never clarified.

In Said’s hands, Orientalism becomes a metaphysical force, over and above
history, politics and other such mundane factors–“always and everywhere the
same,” as Valerie Kennedy puts it in her valuable study Edward Said: A
Critical Introduction (2000). Orientalism is also frequently tendentious
(not least when accusing others of the same tendency) and solipsistic. If
Western culture is “hegemonic both in and outside Europe,” Said explains at
one point, it is because a “major component in European culture is…the
idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the
non-European peoples and cultures.” Europe is superior because it thinks
it’s superior, in other words, which begs the question of why other cultures
that also think of themselves as superior, most notably Islam, have fallen
further and further behind.

ADVERTISEMENTStill, a badly made argument can be just as provocative as a
well-made one, which may be why Said’s Orientalism has engendered a raft of
spinoff investigations in such fields as postcolonial and subaltern studies,
anthropology and history. Now another front seems to be opening up with
regard to Jewish Orientalism, an area especially ripe for investigation
since Jews have never been fully comfortable in either the Oriental or
Occidental camp. Indeed, as the perennial odd man out, their role, for
better or worse, has been to disrupt the binary worldview of everyone from
the Crusaders and jihadis to the imperialists and their Third World
opponents, and now Said and his legion of followers.

Just how disruptive can be seen from Tom Reiss’s lively new book, The
Orientalist, a study of the interwar journalist Lev Nussimbaum, best
remembered–to the degree he is remembered at all–as the author of a
picturesque 1937 novel called Ali and Nino. In Nussimbaum, Reiss has chosen
as his subject one of the most bizarre figures in twentieth-century letters,
which is saying a great deal. Born in 1905 to a millionaire father and a
left-wing mother who committed suicide for unknown reasons when he was still
a child, Nussimbaum grew up in the booming oil city of Baku at a time when
it was poised precariously among Russians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, not
to mention czarists, nationalists and revolutionary socialists of various
stripes.

“Surrounded by teachers, servants, playthings,” he would later write, but
with no children his own age, he lived a cosseted existence until the
Russian Civil War put an end to his idyll in 1918. Fleeing across the desert
by camel, he and his father got as far as Persia, then headed back when Baku
appeared to be safely in the hands of the Whites. When control passed to the
Reds, they fled again, this time west toward the Black Sea port of Batum,
where they boarded a ship bound for Constantinople, now Istanbul. There the
young Russian-Jewish refugee declared himself a fervent czarist despite the
fact that the recently deposed Nicholas II had headed what would be the
world’s most anti-Semitic government until the rise of Nazi Germany some
sixteen years later. Sailing on to Italy, Nussimbaum arrived in time to see
Mussolini’s Black Shirts taking to the streets and was deeply moved.

“A strange feeling came over me,” he recounted. “I felt…welded into unity
with these people, about whom I knew nothing but that they were called
fascists and were against the Bolshevists…. It was the first time I had
the feeling that I wasn’t alone.” Attending a Russian-language Gymnasium in
Berlin in 1922, Nussimbaum adopted another creed. Fascinated with the Muslim
culture he had witnessed firsthand in Baku as a boy, he changed his name to
Essad Bey and converted to Islam in the presence of the imam of the Turkish
embassy. Born an Ashkenazi Jew, he now billed himself as a Muslim aristocrat
of mixed Turkish and Persian descent, a relative, no less, of the Emir of
Bukhara. A prolific writer with a vivid prose style, Nussimbaum also
developed a thriving journalistic career as an expert on Soviet Central Asia
and the Muslim East. He dashed off books and articles with alarming ease on
everything from the Baku oil industry to biographies of Lenin, Stalin,
Mohammed, Nicholas II and the Iranian strongman Reza Shah Pahlavi (father of
the shah overthrown in 1979). He was “a Weimar media star,” Reiss writes, “a
professional ‘Man of the Caucasus.'” Friends and rivals were left guessing
as to whether he was a genuine Turk, a member of some other exotic Asian
nationality or, as a growing number of German rightists and Turkish
nationalists suspected, merely another “Jewish falsifier.” “Who is this
Essad Bey?” demanded Leon Trotsky, writing from exile to his son in 1932. He
was not the only one who wanted to know.

Yet Nussimbaum sailed blithely on. He was happy purveying tales of the
mysterious East at a time when Central European readers had never been
hungrier for stories of whirling dervishes and hidden mountain kingdoms. His
writing satisfied a desire for the primitive, the instinctive and the
exotic, themes that the Nazis would also play upon and amplify. The novel
Ali and Nino, which he published in Vienna in 1937 under the pseudonym
Kurban Said, was the culmination of his efforts, a Caspian Romeo and Juliet
featuring a Muslim hero who is as wise as Mohammed, as lusty as Tarzan and
as brutal as Horst Wessel. Ali and Nino should have been a hit with
Nussimbaum’s German-speaking readership, given the political sensibilities
of the day. But doors were closing on Jewish writers no matter how
fascistically inclined, and the book fell from sight.

Jews Without Borders
(page 2 of 4)

Because the details of Nussimbaum’s life are so sketchy, Reiss has chosen to
pad The Orientalist with material on the history of Russian radicalism, the
rise of the German Freikorps, the 1922 assassination of Walther Rathenau and
a good deal else besides. Some of it is well done, but much of it is
embarrassingly simplistic. In general, Reiss has absorbed all too well the
political line of The New Yorker, where he published a lengthy article on
Nussimbaum in 1999. This is the ideology of the golden mean über alles, the
belief that moderation and reason are one and the same, that the truth lies
always in the middle, and that extremists of the left and right are brothers
under the skin. As a result, The Orientalist fairly oozes with the sort of
old-fashioned anti-Bolshevism that has Red Army soldiers all but eating
babies for breakfast. Because left and right are conjoined in Reiss’s mind,
he is not concerned with the question of which, specifically, is responsible
for what. Indeed, he holds them equally culpable for the horrors of the
twentieth century, although he seems to regard the left as a bit more equal
than the right. By undermining prospects for liberal reform, he claims, the
radicals who assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881 “indirectly caused the
deaths of tens of millions who would perish in the famines and gulags of the
next century.” Thanks to its ruthlessness, the Cheka served as the model for
Hitler’s Gestapo. The only force rivaling the Bolshies in terms of sheer
bloodthirstiness, he adds, were the Mongols, although Reiss does not seem to
hold Lenin responsible for the rise of Genghis Khan.

The idea that the Soviets paved the way and that Hitler was merely reacting
to the horrors of Bolshevism was the subject of the famous Historikerstreit
(historians’ war) of the 1980s, in which Jürgen Habermas accused such
right-wing historians as Ernst Nolte of trying to shift the blame from the
Nazis to the Communists–but this is placing Reiss in more serious
intellectual company than he probably deserves. The Orientalist does better
once the scene shifts to Weimar Germany, where Nussimbaum, following his
conversion to Islam, plunged deeper and deeper into right-wing politics. In
1931 he associated himself with the German-Russian League Against
Bolshevism, a group whose members for the most part either were Nazis or
soon would be. He joined another far-right group, known as the Social
Monarchist Party, which dreamed of the day when the kaiser would return to
head a German workers’ state. He hooked up with the Young Russian movement
of Alexander Kazem-Bek, an exile group that was also heading in a fascist
direction. (Kazem-Bek called himself Glava, or leader, and by the late 1930s
his followers were sporting blue shirts, organizing rallies and punctuating
his three-hour speeches with cries of “Glava! Glava!”) Nussimbaum’s works
were so highly regarded on the far right that Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry
included them in its recommended reading list of “excellent books for German
minds” following the Nazi takeover in 1933. But then, two years later, the
Nazis woke up to the fact that “Essad Bey” was actually Lev Nussimbaum, and
his books were banned.

ADVERTISEMENTReiss argues that Jewish Orientalists were better than their
Christian equivalents because they revered the East and were not out to
misappropriate it for their own imperialist purposes. In fact, as someone
who seemed to care little about the East except as a backdrop for his own
imagination, Nussimbaum pretty much fits the standard Orientalist model as
Edward Said described it. On the other hand, if he appropriated the Orient
for his own purposes, he has been appropriated right back by the Orient,
where Ali and Nino, according to Reiss, has emerged as the national novel of
“liberated” Azerbaijan since the fall of the Soviets in 1991 (although its
champions, he says, refuse to believe its author was a Jew). Appropriation
is a game played by both sides.

Nussimbaum is interesting as a case study, but is he really worth an entire
book? Ultimately, the answer depends on our assessment of his literary
worth. Reiss, who has clearly put an enormous amount of labor into this
volume, writes that Nussimbaum’s dozen-plus works of nonfiction are still
“readable” after all these years, while Ali and Nino remains “his one
enduring masterpiece.” In an afterword to a recent edition by Anchor Books,
Paul Theroux goes even further, comparing Ali and Nino to Madame Bovary,
Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Don Quixote and Ulysses–“novels so full of
information that they seem to define a people.”

This makes Nussimbaum seem very important indeed. But is such lofty praise
warranted? Not by a long shot. Overwrought and melodramatic, Ali and Nino is
a minor bit of exotica that in ordinary times would be no more than a
curiosity but, after September 11, is deeply repellent. Imagine a young
Osama bin Laden crossed with Rudolph Valentino, and you’ll get an idea of
the kind of hero–and values–the novel celebrates. Nussimbaum presents Ali,
an Azeri khan, or chieftain, as a noble son of the desert: brutal,
passionate and imbued with an Al Qaeda-like contempt for Western ways. Thus
a chemistry textbook, in his view, is “foolish stuff, invented by
barbarians, to create the impression that they are civilized.” Women have
“no more sense than an egg has hairs,” while European law is contemptible
because it does not accord with the Koran. In Baku’s Muslim quarter,
Nussimbaum writes,

People shrug their shoulders and do justice in their own way. In the
afternoon the plaintiffs come to the mosque where wise old men sit in a
circle and pass sentence according to the laws of Sharia, the law of Allah:
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Sometimes at night shrouded
figures slip through the alleys. A dagger strikes like lightning, a little
cry, and justice is done. Blood-feuds are running from house to house.
Sometimes a sack is carried through the alleys when the night is darkest. A
muffled groaning, a soft splash in the sea, and the sack disappears. The
next day a man sits on the floor of his room, his robe torn, his eyes full
of tears. He has fulfilled the law of Allah: death to the adulteress.

How murdering an adulteress reflects the principle of equity connoted by “an
eye for an eye” is not explained, but then, Nussimbaum is above such prosaic
matters. When Ali stabs a Christian acquaintance merely because he has taken
his beloved Nino out for a ride, he narrates the act with sadistic glee: “I
know where the deadly spot is. But I want to hear the enemy’s pitiful voice
just once more…. My muscles are taut. Just above the heart my dagger
becomes one with the enemy’s body. He writhes, again, and yet again.”
Observes a companion: “Beautifully done, Ali Khan. I’ll admire you forever.”
When Ali’s friend advises him to finish Nino off as well since she has
dishonored herself, he magnanimously refuses. His friends, meanwhile, dream
of an Azerbaijan purged of Armenians, and when the Turkish Army briefly
occupies Baku, Ali contentedly observes the city’s Russian population
timidly slinking by in his presence: “For the first time in my life I was
really at home in my own country.”

Jews Without Borders
(page 3 of 4)

Happiness here is the ability to make others feel humiliated and afraid. One
searches Ali and Nino in vain for a note of disapproval, some indication of
critical distance, a hint that the author does not like all that he surveys,
but it is soon evident that Nussimbaum operates in an irony-free
environment. He is not so much a novelist as a fantasist, and Ali is not so
much a fictional character as an exercise in wish fulfillment. Forced to
flee Baku under ignominious circumstances while still in his early teens,
Nussimbaum clearly wishes that he could have been a handsome desert prince,
galloping his noble steed along narrow mountain trails, making love to the
beautiful Nino (in real life, Nussimbaum often found women to be sexually
repellent), machine-gunning Bolsheviks and dying heroically at his post.
Banned by the Nazis, hemmed in by growing anti-Semitism, he transferred his
animus to the Soviets, who in his view–and apparently Reiss’s–were the
cause of it all. Sick and impoverished, Nussimbaum died in Italy in 1942.
The Anchor Books edition of Ali and Nino, noting only that the author left
Berlin after Hitler took power, makes it appear that he was an anti-Nazi
refugee. In truth, he was fervently rooting for the Axis right to the end.
“Oh,” he wrote a few months before his death, “the victory will be such a
thrilling experience!”

Rather than presenting a progressive alternative to Western stereotypes of
the Arab and Muslim world, as Reiss implies, Jewish Orientalism was a
complex, ambiguous affair, hence disturbing to both East and West. As Ivan
Davidson Kalmar and Derek J. Penslar indicate in their new compendium,
Orientalism and the Jews, all sides in the great debate over “the Jewish
question” have used such labels for their own purposes. Anti-Semites have
argued that Jews are displaced Orientals because they wanted them out of the
Christian West, while some Zionists have agreed because they wanted them out
as well. Other Zionists rejected any such Oriental tag because they believed
that the purpose of a Jewish state was not to adapt to prevailing
circumstances in the Middle East but to Europeanize them. John Efron, a
professor at the University of California, Berkeley, describes how both
Christian anti-Semitism and the stifling Jewish Orthodoxy of his day led the
nineteenth-century German-Jewish scholar Abraham Geiger to celebrate the
Islamic tolerance that had allowed Jews to flourish in Muslim Spain. The
historian Heinrich Graetz, Efron goes on, similarly observed that under the
Arabs, “the sons of Judah were free to raise their heads and did not need to
look out with fear and humiliation. Unhindered, they were allowed to develop
their powers in the midst of a free, simple, and talented people.”

ADVERTISEMENTIgnaz Goldziher, who lived a generation or two later than
Geiger or Graetz (he died in 1921), was even more extreme in his
identification with the Orient, which he hoped to use as a cudgel against
both Christians and Jews. After a visit to Damascus in 1890, he wrote, “I
truly entered in those weeks into the spirit of Islam to such an extent that
ultimately I became inwardly convinced that I myself was Muslim and
judiciously discovered that this was the only religion which, even in its
doctrinal and official formulation, can satisfy philosophical minds.” Pace
Edward Said, Goldziher did not believe that “the Orient and everything in it
was, if not patently inferior to, then in need of corrective study by the
West.” On the contrary, he believed the Muslim East was superior to anything
the West had to offer, which is why he hoped to make use of it “to elevate
Judaism to a similar rational level.”

If Goldziher did not choose the Nussimbaumian solution of outright
conversion, he stopped just short. Like Geiger, he regarded Islam as the
continuation of the healthy mainstream of Abrahamic monotheism, from which
Eastern European Talmudism had deviated. Jacob Israel De Haan, who was born
in the Netherlands in 1881, took a different route, although in some
respects to the same end. As Michael Berkowitz tells it in another
contribution to Orientalism and the Jews, the multitalented De Haan was many
things to many people. To Dutch readers, he was famous as a poet and
pioneering advocate of gay rights, but also notorious as an outspoken
advocate of man-boy love, a stance that got him kicked off the Dutch Social
Democratic newspaper Het Volk, where he was responsible for the children’s
column. Among certain Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews, he was a saintly figure,
revered for both his piety and his efforts to defend the Haredi community in
Palestine against the impending Zionist state.

Nowadays we don’t think of the ultra-Orthodox as particularly friendly to
homosexuality, much less man-boy love. Yet Berkowitz, who teaches modern
Jewish history at University College, London, astutely argues that while De
Haan devoted quatrain after quatrain to the beautiful Arab boys he
encountered in Palestine following his move there in 1919, his poems were
imbued not just with erotic yearning but with “ambivalence and restraint”
that the rabbinate might have found reminiscent of biblical love poetry.
“What do I see when I see you?” De Haan asks in one poem:

Everything but you.
I hear the faraway melody.
Of the heartbreaking song.

Jews Without Borders
(page 4 of 4)

As David laments in a similar vein about his adultery with Bathsheba in
Psalm 51: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”
Moreover, Berkowitz contends that the ultra-Orthodox attitude toward
homosexuality is not as uniformly hostile as one might think. Rather than
consistently attack homosexuality, he says, the rabbinate often treated it
as “a minor transgression.” He notes that there are “prominent homosexual
and homoerotic motifs in Jewish mysticism and poetry,” that at least one
rabbinic authority stresses “the imperative of exclusive male bonding in
mystical community-building” and that it should be remembered that “the
world of the Haredim is a closed circle of men, which is in great part
obsessed with controlling and directing the sexual energy of its community.”
As is often the case, no community is more sexually charged than one devoted
to sexual asceticism, which is why a poet who mingles the mystical and the
erotic and who writes about subterranean passions that other members of the
community might also feel (even if they cannot bring themselves to admit it)
could play such an important and valued role.

What united all these concerns for De Haan was his characteristically
idiosyncratic concept of Jewish Orientalism. Whereas Goldziher saw Eastern
European Orthodoxy as degenerate, De Haan saw the Haredim as a natural part
of the Palestinian landscape, where he hoped they would continue to coexist
peacefully with the Arab community. This was at a time when the main body of
Jewish Orthodoxy still rejected Zionism as a deeply heretical effort to
“hurry” the coming of the Messiah by abandoning the Diaspora and returning
to the Holy Land before God had given his express approval. In embracing
Orthodoxy and rejecting Zionism, De Haan “reconceived the Orient,” to quote
Berkowitz, “as an enclave for pious Jews, under the tutelage of British
colonialism, and in close communion with Palestine’s Arabs”–a dangerous
stance in a period when Jewish nationalists were just beginning to flex
their muscles.

ADVERTISEMENTIn 1924 De Haan was assassinated. Although suspicions have long
settled on the far-right Revisionist Zionist movement of Vladimir
Jabotinsky, Berkowitz argues that the hit was ordered by the top echelons of
the mainstream Zionist movement for a variety of reasons: because De Haan
had entered into negotiations with the Arab elite; because, as a
correspondent for leading Dutch and British newspapers, he had published
numerous stories that were embarrassing to the Zionist establishment; and
because he was about to expose improprieties involving Zionist land
purchases, including a plot to murder a local Jew who had refused to
cooperate in an important real estate deal. The movement itself has never
admitted complicity, and Walter Laqueur’s all but official History of
Zionism (1972) omits any mention of the assassination.

With De Haan out of the way, the majority of Orthodox Jews made their peace
with Zionism, Jewish-Arab relations went into free fall and the Zionist
regime that emerged after 1948 was hostile not just to the Palestinians but
to Jews from the Middle East and North Africa as well. As Amnon
Raz-Krakotzkin, a historian at Ben-Gurion University, points out in another
essay in Orientalism and the Jews, a series of articles in the newspaper
Ha’aretz in 1949 summed up the dominant attitude toward the new wave of
Jewish immigrants from Arab lands:

We are dealing with people whose primitivism is at a peak, whose level of
knowledge is visibly one of absolute ignorance, and worse, who have little
talent for understanding anything intellectual. Generally, they are also
slightly better than the general level of the Arabs, Negroes, and Berbers in
the same regions.

De Haan’s Orientalism did not provide a way out for the Jews of Palestine
since, among other things, it made no allowance for the Arabs’ legitimate
aspirations for independence from the British. But Zionist Occidentalism has
not provided a way out either. Rather than siding with the East or the West,
perhaps the real aim should be to rise above both.

–Boundary_(ID_gT2mtnjKGuvgRXQ5n8YtYA)–

Tragedy hits family seeking residency
By The Denver Post

DenverPost.com

11 March 2005
Denver, CO

Article Published: Wednesday, March 09, 2005

A construction accident has brought tragedy to an Armenian family
that has been fighting with the help of friends and neighbors in
Ouray County to stay in the United States.

Ouray resident Max Noland, the American husband of the eldest daughter
of the Sargsyan family, died Monday when he slipped off the roof of
a home he was building near Durango Mountain Resort. He was impaled
by an object on the ground and died before paramedics could transport
him to Durango, said family friend Pete Whiskeman.

Noland married Nvart Idinyan Sargsyan in 1999 after she was divorced
from Vaughn Huckfeldt, an American the family claims defrauded
Armenians who were trying to obtain U.S. visas.

The family has been fighting to become U.S. residents for nearly
six years. Whiskeman said the Sargsyans’ many supporters will be
regrouping to determine how Noland’s death affects the immigration bid.

CIS collective security treaty presented to UN CTC

ITAR-TASS
11.03.2005, 07.34

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 (Itar-Tass) — General Secretary of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (ODKB) Nikolai Bordyuzha
briefed on Thursday the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) on
the potential, tasks and mission of the organization that unites
six CIS countries ~V Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Russia
and Tajikistan.

~SI felt the interest of CTC members in the information about the
activities of our organization~T, Bordyuzha told Tass. He said ODKB
actively works to create the necessary legal and information conditions
for efficient operations of special services and law enforcers in
fighting terrorism.

He said CTC members were mostly interested in the potential of the
organization, the level of interaction of member-states, the programs
under implementation and practical results, as well as human rights
observation.

ODKB became an international regional organization after its charter
came into force on September 18, 2003 and after its registration by
the UN Secretariat in December 2003. It enjoys the observer status
at the UN General Assembly.

~SI am sure that in the final end a truly efficient system of
collective security will be created that will include not only concrete
operations and activities of special services, but of executive bodies
of all countries as well~T, Bordyuzha said.

COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS TO HOLD SIXTY-FIRST SESSION AT PALAIS DES NATIONS
FROM 14 MARCH TO 22 APRIL 2005

The principal human rights organ of the United Nations, the Commission on
Human Rights, will conduct its annual six-week session for 2005 from 14
March to 22 April.

i-Newswire, 2005-03-11 – The Commission, which was created in 1946 and is
made up of 53 Member States, will begin its session at the Palais des
Nations with a three-and-a-half-day ~Shigh-level segment~T featuring speeches
by government officials of elevated rank and by heads of various United
Nations agencies and intergovernmental organizations.

It will then work its way through an agenda covering such topics as the
right of peoples to self-determination; racism and all forms of
discrimination; the question of the violation of human rights around the
world; economic, social and cultural rights; civil and political rights;
issues relating to women, children, migrants, minorities and indigenous
peoples; and the promotion and protection of human rights.

Under various agenda items, the Commission will consider the situation of
human rights in Colombia, the Sudan ( including Darfur ), Iraq, occupied
Palestine, the occupied Syrian Golan, Cuba, the Democratic People~Rs Republic
of Korea, Belarus, Myanmar, Cyprus, Cambodia, Somalia, Burundi, Liberia, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Haiti,
Nepal and Timor-Leste.

Trends and themes in the field of human rights deemed pressing enough to
warrant the appointment of Special Rapporteurs, Special Representatives,
Independent Experts, or Working Groups also will be reviewed. Reports will
be presented, among other things, on combating defamation of religions; the
effective implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action;
contemporary forms of racism; women~Rs ownership of property and adequate
housing; the effects of structural adjustment policies and foreign debt on
the full enjoyment of human rights; the right to food; cultural rights; the
effects of unilateral coercive measures, poverty, and globalization on human
rights; arbitrary detention; torture; arbitrary executions; freedom of
expression; the independence of the judiciary; trafficking in persons,
especially women and children; and the rights of children, migrants,
internally displaced persons and indigenous peoples.

In addition, as in previous years, the Commission will consider particular
situations of alleged violations of human rights in specific countries in
closed meetings under what is called the ~S1503 procedure~T.

The Commission on Human Rights in January elected Makarim Wibisono of
Indonesia as Chairperson of the sixty-first session. Hernán Escudero
Martínez ( Ecuador ), Mohamed Saleck Ould Mohamed Lemine ( Mauritania ) and
Anatoliy Zlenko ( Ukraine ), were elected as Vice-Chairpersons and Deirdre
Kent ( Canada ) was elected Rapporteur.

Questions to Be Examined

Specific Country Situations Concerning Human Rights

Under its agenda item on the organization of work of the session, the
Commission will remain actively seized with the grave situation in the
occupied Palestinian territory. It will have before it the report of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in
Colombia ( E/CN.4/2005/10 ). It will also have before it the report of the
Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan, Emmanuel Akwei
Addo ( E/CN.4/2005/11 ) who was appointed in July 2004 on a one-year
mandate.

Under its agenda item on the report of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, the Commission will have before it the reports of the former Acting
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, on the situation of
human rights in the Darfur region of Sudan ( E/CN.4/2005/3 ), and on the
present situation of human rights in Iraq ( E/CN.4/2005/4 ).

Under its agenda item on the right of peoples to self-determination, the
Commission will have before it the report of the Secretary-General on the
situation in occupied Palestine ( ECN.4/2005/13 ).

Under its agenda item on the question of the violation of human rights in
the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine, the Commission will have
before it the report of the Secretary-General on the situation of human
rights in the occupied Syrian Golan ( E/CN.4/2005/26 ). It will also have
before it the report of John Dugard, the Special Rapporteur on the violation
of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine (
E/CN.4/2005/29 and Add.1 ) and the report of the Secretary-General (
E/CN.4/2005/28 ).

Under its agenda item on the violation of human rights and fundamental
freedoms in any part of the world, the Commission will have before it the
report of the Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Christine Chanet, on the situation of human rights in Cuba(
E/CN.4/2005/33 ). It will also have before it the report of the High
Commissioner on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People~Rs
Republic of Korea ( E/CN.4/2005/32 ) and the report of the Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in that country, Vitit
Muntarbhorn ( E/CN.4/2005/34 ).

Reports by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in
Belarus, Adrian Severin ( E/CN.4/2005/35 ); by the Secretary-General on
cooperation with representatives of United Nations human rights bodies (
E/CN.4/2005/31 and Add.1 ); by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro ( E/CN.4/2005/36 ); and by
the Secretary-General on the question of human rights in Cyprus (
E/CN.4/2005/30 ) will also be considered.

Under its 1503 Procedure, the Commission will deal confidentially with
situations of alleged violations of human rights in particular countries.
Following established practice, the Chairperson of the Commission will
announce in a public meeting the countries that have been examined under the
procedure, as well as the countries no longer being dealt with under it.

Under its agenda item on advisory services and technical cooperation in the
field of human rights, the Commission will consider the report of Peter
Leuprecht, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on technical
cooperation and advisory services in Cambodia ( E/CN.4/2005/116 ); the
report of Ghanim Alnajjar, the Independent Expert on assistance to Somalia
in the field of human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/117 ); the report of Akich Okola,
the Independent Expert on advisory services and technical cooperation in
Burundi ( E/CN.4/2005/118 ); the report of Charlotte Abaka, the Independent
Expert on technical cooperation and advisory services in Liberia (
E/CN.4/2005/119 ); the report of Titinga Frederic Pacere, the Independent
Expert on technical cooperation and advisory services in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo ( E/CN.4/2005/120 ); the report of Monica Pinto, the
Independent Expert on technical cooperation and advisory services in Chad (
E/CN.4/2005/121 ); the report of the High Commissioner on assistance to
Sierra Leone in the field of human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/113 ); the report of
Cherif Bassiouni, the Independent Expert on technical cooperation in the
field of human rights in Afghanistan ( E/CN.4/2005/122 ); the report of
Louis Joinet, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in
Haiti ( E/CN.4/2005/123 ); the progress report of the Office of the High
Commissioner on human rights assistance to Nepal ( E/CN.4/2005/114 ); and
the report of the High Commissioner on technical cooperation and advisory
services in Timor-Leste ( E/CN.4/2005/115 ).

Report of High Commissioner for Human Rights

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it the annual report
of the High Commissioner ( E/CN.4/2005/12 ).

Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and All Forms of Discrimination

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it the report of the
High Commissioner on combating defamation of religions ( E/CN.4/2005/15 )
and the progress report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of
racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou
Diene, on the situation of Muslim and Arab peoples in various parts of the
world in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001 ( E/CN.4/2005/19
).

Concerning the World Conference against Racism, the Commission will have
before it the progress report of the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights on the implementation of relevant recommendations of the second
session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective
Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (
E/CN.4/2005/16 ), a note by the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the
possibility of the development of a racial equality index ( E/CN.4/2005/17
), the report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective
Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (
E/CN.4/2005/20 ), the report of the Working Group of Experts on People of
African Descent ( E/CN.4/2005/21 ), and a note by the Secretariat
transmitting the recommendations adopted by the independent Eminent Experts
on the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (
E/CN.4/2005/125 ). The Commission will also have before it a note by the
Secretariat transmitting the report of the regional workshop for the Latin
American and Caribbean region, held in Brazil on 1-2 December 2004 (
E/CN.4/2005/22 ).

The Commission will also have before it the reports of the Special
Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diene ( E/CN.4/2005/18 and Add.
1-6 ).

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Under this agenda item, the Commission will consider:

— The report of Okechukwu Ibeanu, the Special Rapporteur on the adverse
effects of the illicit movement of toxic and dangerous products and wastes
on the enjoyment of human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/45 and Add. 1 ); and a note
from the secretariat transmitting the report of the former Special
Rapporteur, Fatma Zohra Ouhachi-Vesely, on her mission to Turkey (
E/CN.4/2005/44 );

— A consolidated document which includes the analytical report of the
Independent Expert on the effects of structural adjustment policies and
foreign debt on the full enjoyment of human rights, Bernards Andrew Nyamwaya
Mudho, and his report containing preliminary draft general guidelines to be
followed by States and by private and public, national and international
financial institutions in the decision-making and execution of debt
repayments and structural reform programmes ( E/CN.4/2005/42 and Add. 1 );

— The report of Jean Ziegler, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food (
E/CN.4/2005/47 and Add. 1-2 );

— The report of the High Commissioner on the establishing a thematic
procedure to implement the promotion of the enjoyment of the cultural rights
of everyone and respect for different cultural identities ( E/CN.4/2005/40
);

— The reports of Miloon Kothari, the Special Rapporteur on adequate
housing, on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate
standard of living ( E/CN.4/2005/48 and Add. 1-3 ) and on women~Rs equal
ownership to property and adequate housing ( E/CN.4/2005/43 );

— The report of the Secretary-General on human rights and unilateral
coercive measures ( E/CN.4/2005/37 );

— The report of Arjun Sengupta, the Independent Expert on human rights and
extreme poverty ( E/CN.4/2005/49 );

— The comprehensive analytical study of the High Commissioner on
globalization and its impact on the full enjoyment of human rights (
E/CN.4/2005/41 );

— The report of Vernor Munoz Villalobos, the Special Rapporteur on the
right to education ( E/CN.4/2005/50 );

— The report of the Secretary-General on access to medication in the
context of pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria (
E/CN.4/2005/38 );

— The report of Paul Hunt, the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone
to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health ( E/CN.4/2005/51 and Add. 1-4 ); and

— The report of the Working Group on options regarding the elaboration of
an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights ( E/CN.4/2005/52 ); and the report of the Secretary-General
( E/CN.4/2005/39 ).

Civil and Political Rights

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it:

— The report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on
human rights and forensic science ( E/CN.4/2005/56 );

— The report of the Office on the conclusions of the expert seminar on the
interdependence between democracy and human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/58 ) and
the report of the Office on the same subject ( E/CN.4/2005/57 );

— The report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on
enhancing the role of regional, sub-regional and other organizations and
arrangements in promoting and consolidating democracy ( E/CN.4/2005/127 );

— The note by the Secretariat ( E/CN.4/2005/67 ) transmitting to the
Commission the final report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights and
terrorism, Kalliopi Koufa, submitted to the fifty-sixth session of the
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights(
E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/40 );

— The report of the Working Group on arbitrary detention ( E/CN.4/2005/6
and Add.1-4 );

— The report of the former Special Rapporteur on the question of torture,
Theo C. van Boven ( E/CN.4/2005/62 and Add.1-2 ). A study on the policy to
control the trade, production and proliferation of torture technology is
included in that document;

— The report of the Secretary-General on the operations of the United
Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture ( E/CN.4/2005/54 and Add.1 ),
and a note by the Secretariat transmitting the final evaluation report on
the function of the Fund ( E/CN.4/2005/55 );

— The annual report of the Secretary-General on the status of the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment ( E/CN.4/2005/53 );

— The report of Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions ( E/CN.4/2005/7 and Add.1-2 );

— The report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
( E/CN.4/2005/65 and Add.1 );

— The report of the Working Group on a draft legally binding normative
instrument for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance (
E/CN.4/2005/66 );

— The report of Ambeyi Ligabo, the Special Rapporteur on the right to
freedom of opinion and expression ( E/CN.4/2005/64 and Add.1-5 );

— The report of Leandro Despouy, the Special Rapporteur on the independence
and impartiality of the judiciary, jurors and assessors and the independence
of lawyers ( E/CN.4/2005/60 and Add.1-4 );

— The note of the High Commissioner on the third consultative meeting on
the revised version of the basic principles and guidelines on the right to
reparation for victims of [gross] violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law ( E/CN.4/2005/59 ); and

— The report of Asma Jahangir, the Special Rapporteur on the elimination of
all forms of religious intolerance ( E/CN.4/2005/61 and Add.1 ).

Integration of the Human Rights of Women and a Gender Perspective

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it the updated
report of the Secretary-General on integrating the rights of women into the
human rights mechanisms of the United Nations and the elimination of
violence against women ( E/CN.4/2005/68 ) and the report of the
Secretary-General transmitting the joint work plan of the Division for the
Advancement of Women and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights ( E/CN.4/2005/69 ).

It will also have before it the report of Sigma Huda, the Special Rapporteur
on trafficking in persons, especially women and children ( E/CN.4/2005/71 );
and the report of Yakin Erturk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against
women, its causes and consequences ( E/CN.4/2005/72 and Add.1-5 ).

Rights of the Child

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it the report of
Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for
children and armed conflict ( E/CN.4/2005/77 ). It will also have before it
the report of the High Commissioner on the abduction of children in Africa (
E/CN.4/2005/74 ). It will also consider the substantive progress report of
the Secretary-General on the study on violence against children (
E/CN.4/2005/75 ) and the report of Juan Miguel Petit, the Special Rapporteur
on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (
E/CN.4/2005/78 and Add.1-3 ).

Specific Groups and Individuals

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it the report of
Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of
migrants ( E/CN.4/2005/85 and Add.1-4 ). It will consider the report of the
High Commissioner on the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic,
religious and linguistic minorities ( E/CN.4/2005/81 ). It will also
consider the analytical report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on
human rights and mass exoduses ( E/CN.4/2005/80 and Add.1 ); the note by the
Secretary-General transmitting the mission report to Darfur, Sudan, by the
former Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced
persons, Francis Deng ( E/CN.4/2005/8 ), and the annual report of
Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally
displaced persons, Walter Kalin ( E/CN.4/2005/84 and Add.1 ); the report of
the Secretary-General on the United Nations Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms
of Slavery ( E/CN.4/2005/86 and Corr.1 and Add.1 ); the report of the
Secretary-General on the protection of human rights in the context of human
immunodeficiency virus ( HIV ) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome ( AIDS
) ( E/CN.4/2005/79 ); and the report of the Office of the High Commissioner
on the human rights of persons with disabilities ( E/CN.4/2005/82 ).

Indigenous Issues

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it the report of the
High Commissioner in her capacity as Coordinator of the International Decade
of the World~Rs Indigenous People 1994-2004 ( E/CN.4/2005/87 ); the report of
the Working Group of the Commission on Human Rights to elaborate a draft
declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples in accordance with paragraph
5 of General Assembly resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994 ( E/CN.4/2005/89
and Add.1 ); and the report of Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the Special Rapporteur
on human rights and indigenous issues ( E/CN.4/2005/88 and Add.1-4 ).

Promotion and Protection of Human Rights

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it, among other
reports, the quinquennial report of the Secretary-General on capital
punishment ( E/CN.4/2005/94 ); the report of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights on the role of good governance in the promotion of human rights (
E/CN.4/2005/97 ); the report of Diane Orentlicher, the Independent Expert
assigned to update the Set of Principles for the protection and promotion of
human rights through action to combat impunity ( E/CN.4/2005/102 and Add.1
); the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the protection of
human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism (
E/CN.4/2005/100 ); and the report of Robert Goldman, the Independent Expert
on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering
terrorism ( E/CN.4/2005/103 ).

The Commission will also consider the report of Hina Jilani, the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights
defenders ( E/CN.4/2005/101 and Add.1-3 ); the report of the
Secretary-General on development of public information activities in the
field of human rights, including the World Public Information Campaign on
Human Rights ( E/CN.4/2005/92 ); the report of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights on progress made towards the implementation of a world
programme for human rights education to begin on 1 January 2005 (
E/CN.4/2005/98 ); and the report of the Office of the High Commissioner
containing a compilation of the essential aspects of the replies received on
the pre-draft declaration on human social responsibilities ( E/CN.4/2005/99
).

Effective Functioning of Human Rights Mechanisms

Under this agenda item, the Commission will have before it, among other
reports, the report of the Secretary-General on regional arrangements for
the promotion and protection of human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/104 ); the report
of the Secretary-General on national institutions for the promotion and
protection of human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/106 ) and the report of the
Secretary-General on ways and means to enhance participation of national
institutions in the work of the Commission and its subsidiary bodies (
E/CN.4/2005/107 ); and the report of the High Commissioner on the
composition of the staff of the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights ( E/CN.4/2005/109 ).

Other Issues

Under its agenda item on the right of peoples to self-determination, the
Commission will have before it the report of Shaista Shameem, the Special
Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights
and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination (
E/CN.4/2005/14 ). It will also have before it the report of the third
meeting of experts on traditional and new forms of mercenary activities as a
means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination
( E/CN.4/2005/23 ).

Under its agenda item on the right to development, the Commission will have
before it the report of the High Commissioner on the right to development (
E/CN.4/2005/24 ) and the report of the Working Group on the right to
development ( E/CN.4/2005/25 ).

Under its agenda item on the work of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights, the Commission will consider the report of the
Sub-Commission on its fifty-sixth session (
E/CN.4/2005/2-E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/48 ) and the report of the Chairperson of
the fifty-sixth session of the Sub-Commission ( E/CN.4/2005/90 ). It will
also have before it the report of the Office of the High Commissioner on the
responsibilities of transnational corporations and related business
enterprises with regard to human rights ( E/CN.4/2005/91 ).

Under its agenda item on advisory services and technical cooperation in the
field of human rights, the Commission will consider the report of the
Secretary-General ( E/CN.4/2005/110 ) on the Board of Trustees of the United
Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human
Rights.

Composition of the Commission

The composition of the Commission for 2005 is the following. The term of
membership of each State expires on 31 December of the year indicated in
brackets:

Argentina ( 2005 ), Armenia ( 2007 ), Australia ( 2005 ), Bhutan ( 2006 ),
Brazil ( 2005 ), Burkina Faso ( 2005 ), Canada ( 2007 ), China ( 2005 ),
Congo ( 2006 ), Costa Rica ( 2006 ), Cuba ( 2006 ), Dominican Republic (
2006 ), Ecuador ( 2007 ), Egypt ( 2006 ), Eritrea ( 2006 ), Ethiopia ( 2006
), Finland ( 2007 ), France ( 2007 ), Gabon ( 2005 ), Germany ( 2005 ),
Guatemala ( 2006 ), Guinea ( 2007 ), Honduras ( 2006 ), Hungary ( 2006 ),
India ( 2006 ), Indonesia ( 2006 ), Ireland ( 2005 ), Italy ( 2006 ), Japan
( 2005 ), Kenya ( 2007 ), Malaysia ( 2007 ), Mauritania ( 2006 ), Mexico (
2007 ), Nepal ( 2006 ), Netherlands ( 2006 ), Nigeria ( 2006 ), Pakistan (
2007 ), Paraguay ( 2005 ), Peru ( 2006 ), Qatar ( 2006 ), Republic of Korea
( 2007 ), Romania ( 2007 ), Russian Federation ( 2006 ), Saudi Arabia ( 2006
), South Africa ( 2006 ), Sri Lanka ( 2005 ), Sudan ( 2007 ), Swaziland (
2005 ), Togo ( 2007 ), Ukraine ( 2005 ), United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland ( 2006 ), United States of America ( 2005 ), Zimbabwe (
2005 ).

ANNEX

List of thematic and country-specific procedures and other mechanisms of the
commission on human rights:

Country-specific procedures

Belarus
Mr. Adrian Severin
( Romania )
Special Rapporteur

Cuba
Ms. Christine Chanet
( France )
Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Democratic People~Rs Republic of Korea
Mr. Vitit Muntarbhorn
( Thailand )
Special Rapporteur

Myanmar
Mr. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro
( Brazil )
Special Rapporteur

Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
Mr. John Dugard
( South Africa )
Special Rapporteur

Sudan
Mr. Emmanuel Akwei Addo
( Ghana )
Independent expert

Thematic procedures

Adequate housing
Mr. Miloon Kothari
( India )
Special Rapporteur

Contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance
Mr. Doudou Diène
( Senegal )
Special Rapporteur

Education
Mr. Vernor Muñoz Villalobos
( Costa Rica )
Special Rapporteur

Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
Mr. Philip Alston
( Australia )
Special Rapporteur

Extreme poverty
Mr. Arjun Sengupta
( India )
Independent expert

Freedom of opinion and expression
Mr. Ambeyi Ligabo
( Kenya )
Special Rapporteur

Freedom of religion or belief
Ms. Asma Jahangir
( Pakistan )
Special Rapporteur

Highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
Mr. Paul Hunt
( New Zealand )
Special Rapporteur

Human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people
Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen
( Mexico )
Special Rapporteur

Human rights defenders
Ms. Hina Jilani
( Pakistan )
Special Representative of the Secretary-General

Human rights of internally displaced persons
Mr. Walter Kälin
( Switzerland )
Representative of the Secretary-General

Human rights of migrants
Ms. Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro
( Costa Rica )
Special Rapporteur

Illicit movement and dumping of toxic waste
Mr. Okechukwu Ibeanu
( Nigeria )
Special Rapporteur

Impunity
Ms. Diane Orentlicher
( United States of America )
Independent expert appointed by the Secretary-General

Independence of judges

and lawyers
Mr. Leandro Despouy
( Argentina )
Special Rapporteur

Mercenaries
Ms. Shaista Shameem
( Fiji )
Special Rapporteur

Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering
terrorism
Mr. Robert K. Goldman
( United States of America )
Independent expert

Right to food
Mr. Jean Ziegler
( Switzerland )
Special Rapporteur

Sale of children, child

prostitution and child pornography
Mr. Juan Miguel Petit
( Uruguay )
Special Rapporteur

Structural adjustment policies

and foreign debt
Mr. Bernards Andrew Nyamwaya Mudho
( Kenya )
Independent expert

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Mr. Manfred Nowak
( Austria )
Special Rapporteur

Trafficking in persons, especially in women and children
Ms. Sigma Huda
( Bangladesh )
Special Rapporteur

Violence against women, its causes and consequences
Ms. Yakin Ertürk
( Turkey )
Special Rapporteur

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Ms. Leila Zerrougui
( Algeria )
Current Chairperson

Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
Mr. Stephen J. Toope
( Canada )
Current Chairperson

Working Group on People of African Descent
Mr. Peter Lesa Kasanda
( Zambia )
Current Chairperson

Technical cooperation programmes

Afghanistan
Mr. Cherif Bassiouni
( Egypt )
Independent expert appointed by the Secretary-General

Burundi
Mr. Akich Okola
( Kenya )
Independent expert

Cambodia
Mr. Peter Leuprecht
( Austria )
Special Representative of the Secretary-General

Chad
Ms. Mónica Pinto
( Argentina )
Independent expert

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mr. Titinga Frédéric Pacéré
( Burkina Faso )
Independent expert

Haiti
Mr. Louis Joinet
( France )
Independent expert appointed by the Secretary-General

Liberia
Ms. Charlotte Abaka
( Ghana )
Independent expert

Somalia
Mr. Ghanim Alnajjar
( Kuwait )
Independent expert appointed by the Secretary-General

1503 procedure

Uzbekistan
Mr. Latif Huseynov
( Azerbaijan )
Independent expert

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The Salt Lake Tribune
FRIDAY
March 11, 2005

Huntsman Sr.’s exploits earn him ‘Giant’ award

Jon Huntsman listens to his wife Karen during an interview in his office in
Salt Lake City. (Steve Griffin/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Jon Huntsman Sr. built the world’s largest privately held petrochemical
and plastics business with 121 locations in 44 countries. He donated
$225 million toward the establishment of the Huntsman Cancer Institute
at the University of Utah and has received Armenia’s highest award –
the Medal of Honor – after contributing to the reconstruction of
that country following a devastating 1988 earthquake. For those
accomplishments and philanthropic endeavors, Huntsman was honored
Wednesday as a “Giant in Our City” by the Salt Lake Chamber. “Jon
Huntsman is the epitome of everything the ‘Giant in our City’ award
is about,” said Chamber President Lane Beattie. “He is a giant in
his industry. He is a giant in our community – supporting countless
charitable causes. He also is a giant where it matters most – in
his family,” Beattie said. Huntsman and his wife, Karen, are the
parents of nine, including son Jon Jr., Utah’s governor. They have 52
grandchildren. A native of Blackfoot, Idaho and a former U.S. Navy
gunnery officer, Huntsman has received a dozen honorary doctorates
and is chairman of the Board of Overseers at the University of
Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the country’s highest-rated
business school. He is on the American Red Cross board of governors
and two years ago received the “Humanitarian of the Year” award from
CNN’s Larry King. Previous “Giant in Our City” honorees include LDS
Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, Questar executives R.D. “Don”
Cash and D.N. “Nick” Rose, former Salt Lake Organizing Committee
leader Mitt Romney, banker Spence Eccles, former chamber leader Fred
Ball and retired Utah Power executive Verl Topham. – Mike Gorrell

Exchange of Fire on Front Line Becomes Regular

Baku Today
11/03/2005 10:31

Today at 8.55 a.m. Armenian army’s subdivisions fired Azeri
army’s positions in Gapanly village, Terter region on northeast of
Karabakh. Fire has been opened from Seysulan village in the same
region earlier occupied by Armenians.

Azerbaijan Defense Ministry press office reports that yesterday
Armenians violated cease-fire three times. On March 9 at 11.10
a.m. Gapanly village has been fired from the same positions.

On the same day from 12.20 to 12.30 p.m. Armenian forces fired Azeri
army’s positions in Gyzyl Hajyly village, Gazakh region. Fire has
been opened from Berkaber village, Armenian Ijevan region.

>>From 1.45 to 2.00 p.m. Armenians were firing Azeri positions
from occupied villages Shikhlar and Bag Garvend, Aghdam region,
using firearms.

In all cases the Azeri side opened a return fire, casualties are not
reported by Azeri Defense Ministry.

Forbes.com

International

Privatization Progress In Central Eastern Europe

Oxford Analytica, 03.10.05, 6:00 AM ET

In terms of the private sector share of gross domestic product, the new EU
member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE-8) have achieved
substantial convergence towards the developed Western countries. Private
activities generate over 80% of national income in the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia, 75% in Lithuania and Poland, 70% in Latvia
and 65% in Slovenia.

This article is part of Oxford Analytica’s Daily Brief Service. Click here
for information about how to subscribe.

Furthermore, the 2004 Transition Report of the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development gives the whole CEE-8 a ranking of 4.3 (in a
range of 1.33 to 4.33) in small-scale privatization, a structural indicator
comparable to the average of advanced capitalist economies. In contrast to
the Soviet successor states (e.g., Armenia and Georgia), whose high private
income shares reflect the outsized role of retail trade and services with
little value-added, private small and medium-sized enterprises in CEE make a
significant contribution to regional manufacturing and local job creation
along with a growing integration in foreign trade.

However, nearly a year after EU accession and 15 years after the 1989
revolutions, the CEE-8 still exhibit significant gaps in large-scale
privatization. The EBRD identifies Poland and Slovenia as the main laggards,
with Latvia and Lithuania occupying intermediate positions behind the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia. However, even early reformers like
Hungary, which began large-scale privatization in the early 1990s, have
encountered delays privatizing major state-owned enterprises. The CEE-8’s
remaining SOEs are clustered in four sectors: financial institutions,
energy, telecommunications and transport.

In November 2004, Poland’s Treasury Ministry divested its shares of PKO BP,
the country’s largest state-owned bank, via a public issue on the Warsaw
Stock Exchange (WSE). Ministry officials conceded that the offer price was
lower than what might have been obtained–underscoring that political
considerations can influence the use of public offerings as a divestiture
tool in CEE. Major insurer PZU may follow this year.

Following the global trend towards cross-border consolidation, foreign
mergers and acquisitions are driving bank privatization in other CEE-8
countries, where political concerns over the remaining “national assets”
being bought by foreign firms are generally less than in Poland. For
example, in January 2005, Austrian-based Erste Bank exercised an option to
purchase the residual 20% shares of Slovakia’s Slovenska Sporitelna to
supplement its assets in Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia.
Possible candidates for further privatization in Hungary include the Land
Credit and Mortgage Bank.

Under pressure from the EU to restructure their energy sectors, CEE
governments are turning to strategic foreign investors to buy shares in
state energy companies: The authorities in Bratislava are in discussions
with Italy’s Enel to sell 66% of power monopoly Slovenske Elektrarne; Nafta
Polska, the state agency overseeing energy privatization in Poland, is
negotiating with ConocoPhillips (nyse: COP – news – people ), possibly to
purchase a 17.5% stake in oil group PKN Orlen; PKN is expected soon to
finalize its purchase of a 63% stake in the Czech Republic’s Unipetrol,
signalling the growing importance of intraregional investments in CEE power;
and regional investors are also figuring importantly in the divesture of
state shares of Hungary’s energy giant MOL, which initiated trading on the
WSE in December 2004 to augment its long-standing listing on the Budapest
bourse.

However, political factors have impeded energy privatization in CEE-8. For
example, citing unacceptably low bids, the Czech government cancelled a
tender for coal-mining firm Severoceske Doly in March 2004. The low offer
prices reflected conditions (notably the effective exclusion of foreign
buyers) imposed to avoid mine closures. The country’s accession to the EU
removed the foreign investor restriction and opened the way for a renewal of
the Severoceske tender in 2005. The government must now reconcile the allure
of an attractive offer price (which would boost privatization revenues to
lower its budget deficit) with the socio-economic fallout of a foreign
divestiture (which might heighten unemployment at marginal mines). The
government has postponed the privatization of energy firm CEZ beyond the
2006 parliamentary elections.

The Czech government has pursued a more proactive strategy in the telecoms
sector, launching an aggressive restructuring of Cesky Telecom (CT)–the
last state-owned telephone company in the CEE-8–to maximise the firm’s
attractiveness to foreign buyers. From a $78 million loss in 2003, the
company reported a $235 million profit in 2004, the best performance of any
telecoms operator in CEE. This will be the country’s flagship privatization
this year. Government authorities have invited tenders from five bidders
(including Belgacom, Swisscom, Telefonica and Tiscali), whose final offers
are due by March 29, and anticipate proceeds surpassing $2 billion for the
51.1% stake.

Rising fuel costs, eroding pricing power and diminishing margins have
complicated divestiture of CEE-8 transport sectors. The Czech Republic has
deferred privatization of Czech Airlines and Czech Airports until after the
2006 elections. Similarly, the Hungarian government has postponed selling
railway firm MAV and bus company Volan until after the next electoral cycle.
However, Hungarian officials are proceeding with plans to divest state
shares of troubled national airline Malev–problems in privatizing the
company have exemplified the challenges to divestiture of state-owned
carriers in CEE.

The CEE-8 stock exchanges (led by Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic states)
posted stellar performances in 2004, well surpassing those of the West
European bourses. This largely reflected the salutary effects of EU
accession, strong GDP growth and increasing trading activity. However, the
regional stock market surge also demonstrates the growing use of initial
public offerings as a privatization method in CEE. This phenomenon is most
pronounced on the WSE, which, in addition to issues by MOL and PKO, has
served as an IPO platform for Polish liquor companies (Polmos Lublin) and
biotechnology firms (Bioten). Notwithstanding the controversy surrounding
the PKO offer price, the CEE stock markets will be important mechanisms for
divestiture of the region’s remaining state banks.

Yet IPOs are unlikely to become dominant privatization venues for CEE’s
energy, transport and telecoms sectors, whose large capital requirements
favor strategic foreign investors. Among a dwindling number of regional
divestiture targets, those sectors are apt to attract the bulk of
privatization-related foreign investment as “second wind” FDI ramps up in
the new member states.

Economic factors–namely the absorptive capacity of local equity markets and
the strategic calculations of Western investors–are likely to shape the
final phase of CEE privatization during the second half of the decade.
However, political sensitivities remain, and will continue to complicate and
potentially delay some major sell-offs.

Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic consulting firm drawing on a
network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading
universities and research institutions around the world. For more
information please visit , and to find out how to subscribe to
the firm’s Daily Brief Service, click here.

Three Azeri Soldiers Imprisoned In Karabakh Feel Good – Report

Baku Today

Turan 11/03/2005 10:32

Albert Voskanian, coordinator of international working group searching
for missed, hostages and POWs in the Karabakh conflict zone, visited
yesterday three Azerbaijani POWs Hayal Abdullayev, Khikmet Tagiyev
and Ruslan Bakirov.

After the meeting Voskanian told journalists that he was interested
in psychological and physical condition of prisoners, conditions
of their holding, quality of food and etc. “POWs did not lodge
any complaints. They are in a good mood and want to go back home,”
said Voskanian.

Azeri army soldiers were taken hostage on February 15, 2005 on
the northeastern section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani front. The
circumstances of their imprisonment are unclear.