Latvian anxieties influence its latest election

It is fall in Northern Europe - and real fall in one of the Northernmost European countries not on the Scandinavian peninsula.

The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Summer is short, and now it is over. Graphic from www.lesechos.fr

In Latvia, the middle of the Baltic three, an election just took place that resulted in a return of a center-right coalition to governance, consisting of three parties, the Unity party, the Nationalist Alliance and the Union of Greens and Farmers.

What's the significance?

From a Reuters news article, "Years of austerity after the global financial crisis have dented the coalition government's popularity. But the conflict in Ukraine has shifted focus from the economy to security in a country where ethnic Russians make up almost 21 percent of voters and have heavily backed the pro-Russian opposition Concord party.

Augusts Brigmanis, leader of the Union of Greens and Farmers summed it up this way, "That is what the voter expects from us: stability for the country, a steady political course and Western values, and we will guarantee that..."


Mr Brigmanis, the 62-yr old leader of the Union of Greens and Farmers party. Photo from www.delfi.lv

Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma stated, "This election is different because of what is going on in Ukraine ... The situation is escalating there again and people are worried what will happen because we have a border with Russia." Straujuma has increased defense spending and joined Baltic neighbors Estonia and Lithuania in pressing for a bigger NATO presence in their nations.


Laimdota Strujuma, leader of the Unity party and currently the Latvian Prime Minister, has emphasized suspicions regarding Russian restlessness across a number of former USSR satellite nations.

The coalition upped its number of seats in Parliament to 61 from 47, while Harmony (or alternatively called Concord), a center-left party garnered 24 seats. While this opposition party espouses "equality, justice and solidarity," it is perceived as a pro-Russian party in a nation where ethnic Russians comprise over 21 percent of Latvia's population.

It might not have gone this way without the Russian meddling in Ukraine and the bold takeover of the Crimean Peninsula. Now, the large majority of Latvians are in no mood to ignore Russian assertiveness.

A couple interesting points.

What is a Green Party doing in a centre-right coalition? For that matter, what is the connection between Greens and farmers?

Apparently, the Green party in Latvia is much more centrist than leftist as in much of Western Europe. And from Wikipedia, "Latvians are supportive of traditional small farms and perceive them as more environmentally friendly than large-scale farming: Nature is threatened by development, while small farms are threatened by large industrial-scale farms. This perception has resulted in an alliance between green and farmer's parties, which is very rare in other countries."


Latvia has steadfastly supported its small farm heritage. Photo from pulitzercenter.org

(This sounds vaguely similar to Modi's concerns clear around the globe in India, where he steadfastly supports space for India's myriad small farmers facing industrial, transnational food industries in so much of the West.

Winter in Latvia is tense, from a geopolitical legacy.

From a Policy Review source, we read, "Latvia is one of the most energy import dependent countries in the EU. With the exception of peat and timber, Latvia had no significant domestic energy resources and received 93% of its imported energy from Soviet republics in 2007."


Mechanized peat harvesting in Latvia. Photo from www.legro.nl

It also has a large legacy of Soviet era apartment blocs with inefficient heating and power designs. So Latvia is very much aware of its over-dependence on Russian gas supplies and is working steadily to increase diversity in its sources.


Old Soviet era apartment blocks in Liepāja, Latvia. Photo from en.wikipedia.org

Well, let's keep Latvians in mind as winter approaches. They are nervous about Russian energy reliability, as much as they are about the Russian state agitating among the 20 percent of the population that is Russian. And by happenstance, Latvia is poised to take over the European Union's rotating six-month presidency in January.

A couple more pictures of this country of just two million.


Riga, Latvia's capital. Photo by Aleksandrs Kendenkovs, courtesy of the Latvian Institute, www.latvia.lv


Winter in Latvia - heating and energy are important. Photo from www.aidi.lv

PS. Another rarity, Latvia's Defense Minister,Raimonds Vējonis, is from the Union of Greens and Farmers party ..

Refugees and other flows from regional conflicts grow

"The first casualty, when war comes, is truth" is a statement that has been often repeated and modified. It is attributed to Hiram Johnson (1866-1945), a "staunchly isolationist" Republican senator from California in reference to World War 1. (Hmmm, the 100th anniversary of what is considered the precipitant act of that war was held this week. As the Australian Broadcasting Service (ABC) concisely summarizes, "the Archduke Ferdinand - the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne - was shot dead with his wife Sophie on a June morning in 1914. Ferdinand's murder by Gavriol Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb, set the Great Powers marching to war. More than 10 million soldiers died, as empires crumbled and the world order was rewritten.")

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Yes, the 100th year commemoration of the assassination, carried out by the Bosnian, Gariol Princip, was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but not without controversy!. Apparently the killing is seen very differently by Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs. To some in Bosniak parts of the country, Princip was a terrorist; to some Serbs, he is largely viewed as an ethnic Serb nationalist, while others see in him a pan-Slav idealist. In this picture by the BBC, a Serbian flag is carried in the eastern B-H town of Visegrad at a separate commemoration more sympathetic of Princip.

So where was I? Teatree's POINT is that one could come up with other firsts besides truth being the first casualty. While there is little doubt that truth is quick to go - yes, yes, and yes - Teatree observes that the wrenching of civilians from their homes may even come sooner.

Three refugee flows

Inside Iraq

We've read much of Syria's streams of civilians heading to Turkey and Jordan - hundreds of thousands - and some were even a couple years ago fleeing to Iraq. But with ISIS in Syria and Iraq making the news this past two weeks, tens of thousands of Iraqis themselves are fleeing in all directions - mainly to safe parts of their now divided country.

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Iraqis from Mosul fled everywhere, but many into the autonomous Kurdish controlled region. Photo from redstate.com

Between Russia and the Ukraine

There are thousands on the roads in Eastern Ukraine. Some are heading to Russia or pro-Russian strongholds in the east of the country, while some Eastern Ukrainians are headed west to safer Ukrainian territory. The UN puts a number on internal movements - 54,000 - but notes that another 110,000 Ukrainians have gone to Russia since the first of the year.

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Pro-Russian civilians (or those simply concerned for their families' safety) going through border crossing into Russia. Photo from www.euronews.com

From Central America to the U.S.

There isn't exactly a war or conflict going on in several Central American countries - Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, - but it is clearly a desperate situation that stems from poverty, the rise of gangs, and violence of drug cartels in these small nations. What is unique is that children are being sent on their own to the U.S., no doubt assuming the U.S. is much less likely to return children than it would adults traveling alone.

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Central American families (not strictly just children) arriving in great numbers. An ABC article states, "The Department of Homeland Security says more than 52,000 unaccompanied minors have been detained along the U.S. border with Mexico this fiscal year. In addition, authorities have apprehended 39,000 adults with small children. The numbers reflect a significant uptick over last year, when just 24,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended. The majority in the surge hail from Central American countries, and a disproportionate number are young women and under age 13, officials say." Photo from rt.com

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Countries under great stress, and parents sending children north Graphic from Mother Jones.com

One other flow

We've seen it before: in Libya after the overthrow of Gaddafi, unsecured weaponry flooded North African countries, and many say these weapons fueled the uptick of strength in Boko Haram and was responsible for the surge of conflict in Mali.

Today, a new flood of weapons is on the move. In Iraq, vast amounts of weaponry, along with vehicles and armor, changed hands. It came from Iraqi army units that melted in front of ISIS fighters, and immediately seized by ISIS itself.

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This graphic shows, if nothing else, that the border between Iraq and Syria is for now, a moot boundary. A sand berm that once delineated the line was bulldozed out by ISIS forces. ISIS or ISIL? These are Western terms, the militants refer to themselves as simply jihadis for "al-Dawla", Arabic for the State. That's the main point, they don't view the Syrian or Iraq boundaries as significant, as they are trying to establish their own Caliphate. Graphic from the BBC

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Not "just" small arms, but vehicles, tanks, missiles - and in many cases American made - have passed into ISIS hands. These incidentally are coming through early breaks in the sand berm that once delineated Syria from Iraq. Photo from www.vg.no

And so they go ...

Iraq, left on its own, backed to the edge

The news from Iraq this week has been bad. Very bad. A growing body of Islamic extremists, gathered from a territory carved out of Eastern Syria during the ongoing Syrian civil war, calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has exploded into Sunni lands in eastern Iraq.

Taking advantage of the poor and divisive governance by Iraqi leader Maliki, ISIS has played on the resentment of Sunnis, chasing a shocked Iraqi army from several cities including Iraq's second largest city, Mosul.

The interesting presentation in this BBC graphic, shows thin little yellow lines as the controlled territory of ISIS. What is really is showing is that the Iraqi population and cities of Western Iraq are for the most part along waterways, the vacant land inbetween is simply empty desert.

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Al Raqqa, Syria, has long been in the hands of anti-Assad rebels, and has become, unfortunately, the urban headquarters for ISIS, one of the most ruthless factions of Islamic extremists. Photo from www.timesofisrael.com

So, the first point suggested by Teatree to muse upon, is that due to Western inaction to support moderate Syrian opposition, extremists have consolidated their control of the anti-Assad forces. Not only do they want to remove Assad - the chemical weapons user who has just manipulated his third Presidential term - but more importantly establish their own "Caliphate." Just as the Taliban gained an actual footprint in ruling Afghanistan in the 1990s, ISIS now has a base, and it has gained it in the middle of the Syrian civil war.

Iraq, left to itself, sinks into sectarianism

In the West, the US and UK in particular, the shocking collapse of Iraq has quickly degenerated to large degree into a rehash of whether President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are either completely, or mainly to blame.

What can at least be said is that Iraqi President Maliki has done nothing, really, to attempt to create a big house government, including Sunnis and the Kurds in the past 8 or so years. Becoming more sectarian, ie, favoring his fellow Shiites, Maliki has by neglect lost most of the country (For a detailed description of Maliki's rule, read the New York Time link in the comment section). The Sunnis are hostile, and unfortunately choosing badly in accepting (or tolerating) ISIS gains. The Kurds, on the other hand, have never felt part of a national Iraqi identity, and in the midst of this recent chaos have quickly moved to consolidate their hold on Kurd land in Northeast Iraq.

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Kurds have consolidated their hold in Iraq's northeast, Sunnis have marginalized themselves to the west, and dabble dangerously with ISIS (or alternatively ISIL), while the Shia homeland in SE Iraq is in danger of becoming a vassal of Shia Iran. Graphic taken from a CBC.ca article

One point of debate

US President Obama, fulfilling a political campaign promise, quickly pulled all US troops out of Iraq within three years of being in office. One could say, and many do, that he left a fragile - clearly fragile - nascent democracy surrounded by hostile or indifferent neighbors and plenty of internal strife. Yet no stabilizing force at all could be left there, the White House explains, because the two countries could not agree on future immunity for US forces if they were to remain in the country. Teatree will only point out that it seems the US was excruciatingly polite in negotiations to so quickly give in to this one country. Given the US propensity during the same time and continuing to this day, to strike targets repeatedly at will with drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, with or without those nation's official approval, one can only wonder whether a political promise was the major reason for such a complete hasty Iraqi withdrawal, regardless of the consequences which we are now witnessing.

In contrast, after the Balkan war ended in the mid-90s, nearly 50,000 NATO troops stayed to ensure the peace, building fragile bridges between wounded and wary ethnic populations for several years, before slowly winding down their presence. Even today, 20 years later, over 5000 troops remain. One could highlight the value of stabilizing forces in South Korea, Japan, and even Germany for decades, but that would belabor the point.

KFOR troops in Kosovo, keeping the fragile peace between neighboring Serbia and Muslim Kosovans, and earlier between a number of nations, Croatia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, etc. Photo from fredbellomy.com

Iran steps closer to Shia arc
Iran, already pleased with Maliki in Iraq, have offered him assistance in fighting ISIS. With this opening to create a closer relationship with Iraq, Iran moves towards its long term goal of establishing an arc of influence: from Iran into Syria where it supports Assad, and linking with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now with Iraq on the edge, the possibility of an uninterrupted arc is within reach. And while Russia has robustly supported chemical-weapons man Assad in Syria, in contrast the West timidly continues its searches for appropriate groups it might support among the Syrian opposition. (Hint - these moderate groups have long since left the building ...).

The current three - Hezbollah's Nasrullah, left; Iran's Rouhani, center; and chemical-man Assad from Syria on the right. Suddenly the three buddies have half of Iraq in their pocket, with just ISIS rabble to clear out in-between. Poster photo from irannewsupdate.com

What's ahead?
Aside from sectarian bloodletting on a scale we've not seen yet even in Syria or during the US occupation of Iraq, we are possibly seeing a preview of what lies ahead in Afghanistan as soon as the US pulls its combat troops out by the end of this year, and even the trailing training force of 10,000 within a year after that.

What else? Under this current US administration, the West is likely to retreat to a limp posture of the past - lobbing a few tomahawk missiles here and there, and launching more drone strikes safely from a distance, though no doubt without anyone's permission. That fastidiousness of gaining permission was reserved for the former Iraq alone.

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Drone strikes are apparently the US default strategy (permission granted or not), with no chance for immediate battlefield death or injury for US armed forces. But doesn't it appear that the U.S. might be losing a bit of the "hearts and minds" battle? Photo from org.salsalabs.com

Certainly there will be no large scale commitment of US combat troops back into the Iraqi theater - that ship has sailed. Though how US troops in Kuwait will somehow remain exempt from extremist attacks remains to be seen. And our erstwhile allies Jordan and Israel may also believe our reassurances of steadfast US support leaves something to be desired.

And onward the world moves ...

Putin's Russia searches for partners

On May 29, Russian President Putin stood with two national leaders from Belarus and Kazakhstan, to announce the formation of a rival to the European Union (EU), called the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU). The three countries would provide an alternative economic trading zone to the EU, with the intent of attracting other countries, one assumes, who are unable to become members of the EU. Both Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have indicated their interest in becoming members

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The founding members of the Eurasian Economic Union - from left, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, and President Putin of Russia. Photo from www.uznews.net

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Here in Cyrillic script, are the founding EaEU members. The gray vacancy in the southwest of the map is Ukraine, which at one point, no doubt, was assumed to become a founding partner in this alternative to the EU. Graphic from democraticbelarus.eu

Critics consider the EaEU as a Putin effort to revive the soviet empire without the communist ideology. Ukraine, however, is missing. In fact, Ukraine was trying to move towards the EU over the past years, which ultimately led to Putin's clampdown and annexation of the Crimean peninsula, as well as fueling separatist movements throughout the east of the country.

President Putin called the official establishment of the EaEU as the "central event of the year" (apparently surpassing his annexation exercise), but even among the founding three members, there was hesitation. As one article from uznews observed, "It should be noted that the signing of the document did not go as planned by Moscow. Kazakhstan, for instance, spoke out against “Russian revenge-seeking” and decided to not include such “murky” points as “common citizenship”, “foreign affairs”, “passport and visa regimes”, “common borders”, “inter-parliamentary cooperation”, and “export control”.

Belarus also signed the agreement with many corrections having rejected allegations of its economic and political weakness while its leader, Alexander Lukashenka, underscored more than once that his country is entering the union as an equal partner and will not tolerate any infringements on its sovereignty."

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The new EaEU is most likely the latest attempt to solidify the influence of Russia with its neighbors. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, there was much fanfare over the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) which, who knows, perhaps was trying, at least with the name, to imitate the British Commonwealth. Even then, the three Baltic states had quickly and emphatically moved away from CIS consideration. Graphic from www.canros.com

Other Putin moves:

Defiant of Western sanctions for his land grab on the Crimean Peninsula, Russian President Putin also trumpeted a long term energy deal with China, selling up to $400 billion of oil and gas over 30 years. This time Putin called the deal, a “watershed event.” The agreement includes building new pipelines and terminals heading away from Europe, where most of Russia's oil and gas exports now flow. $400 billion sounds like a lot, but with Putin plowing $50 billion into the Sochi winter Olympics alone, it can be squandered ...

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Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at oil and gas agreement event The previous day, the two countries announced a broader energy cooperation framework agreement. Photo from cntv.cn

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Lots of new pipelines over extensive miles - all concentrated in the east of Russia and headed towards China. Graphic found in www.srbijadanas.net

Secondly, and perhaps not completely unrelated, a prospective EaEU member, Kyrgyzstan has concluded its agreement with the United States in which it provided an airbase at Manas for NATO operations in Afghanistan. While the timetable was agreed on several years ago, its coincidental timing emphasizes Russia's efforts to consolidate its previous allied borders.

The US Manas air force base in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan ... Photo from defence.pk

From a Washington Post article, we read, "Kyrgyzstan, a mainly Muslim nation of 5.5 million, remains poor and volatile after violent revolts that have deposed two presidents since 2005. It lies on a drug-trafficking route out of Afghanistan and is next door to China, which is boosting its economic ties with resource-rich Central Asia. After his election in 2011, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev assured Moscow the U.S. air base would be shut.

In December 2012 he ratified a deal leasing the base to Russia for 15 years from January 2017, after Moscow agreed to write off some $500 million of Kyrgyz debts. The agreement can be automatically extended for five years after its expiry. Neighboring Tajikistan also receives Russian economic aid and ratified a deal in October to extend by three decades Moscow's military presence on its land, which may face security threats after NATO troops leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014."

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With the Western war effort quickly winding down in Afghanistan, the US is relinquishing its Kyrgystan air base and will accomplish any further resupplying by air from Romania ... It looks like a stretch, but then again, the US seems to have every intention of leaving Afghanistan, as well as leaving the country to an even more uncertain future. Graphic from www.stripes.com

Elections - from Donetsk to Ukraine to India

Three elections - one just past in two jurisdictions of Eastern Ukraine, a national election in Ukraine coming soon, and a countrywide election in India begins today. Between the three, lots of implications.

Let's start with the farce:

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Donetsk and Luhansk - the two Ukrainian oblasts (similar to provinces, states, prefectures) in the far east of the country - have now held referendums on separating from Ukraine. The two jurisdictions hold about 6.5 million people out of Ukraine's total of 46 million. Teatree assumes, however, that the Crimean population of 2 million should be subtracted from the 46 for all practical purposes as the first dismemberment of the country Ukraine, courtesy of Mother Russia's expansion by arms. Graphic from the BBC

The BBC puts it this way, ""Self-rule" referendums have been held in Ukraine's easternmost areas, with pro-Russian separatists claiming nearly 90% voted in favour in Donetsk region. BBC reporters at polling stations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions spoke of chaotic scenes, no voting booths in places and no electoral register. At least one person is reported to have been killed by armed men loyal to Ukraine's government. Ukraine called the vote a "criminal farce" organised by Russia. Western countries have also condemned the vote. Separatist leaders ignored a call by the Russian president to delay it."

So, if we read the western accounts at least, there was no "voter ID" describing who is eligible to vote - is that important? We currently hear of this same issue in the US, a charge that requiring voter ID is an attempt to suppress voters ...

It could be true that of those who actually placed a ballot in a box, that 75-90% indicated a preference for an independent region (from Ukraine), but was it representative of the whole Donestk and Luhansk population? Were others intimidated from showing up at the polls, were the poll booth locations well known, established? All those "details" seem up in the air. And of course, the idea of a modern nation comes with some control as to when elections can be called for - rather than just anyone's whim, or who is armed beyond the recognized authority. So, if nothing else, the procedures of these spontaneous elections in Eastern Ukraine can be learning case studies for what constitutes valid elections, and how representative democracy is ensured.

A strange picture - courtesy of the BBC - the uniformed man is Valery Bolotov, the Luhansk oblast's self-declared "people's governor", and the meek gentlemen in the background is there to ... show his subservience? Photobombing to declare his interest in the Beatles?

Next, the May 25 national Ukrainian elections

These nationwide elections are the ones sanctioned by the Ukrainian government (which of course Russia nor the Eastern breakaway oblasts nor Crimea recognize. They, Teatree assumes, still hold Yanukovych as the official Ukrainian president, complete with his mansion outfitted with gold-plated toilets ...).

The election is to provide all Ukrainian citizens the right to officially signal the legitimacy (or not) of the current leadership of acting President Oleksandr Turchynov who took over after Yanukovych fled the scene. Originally scheduled for 2015, the presidential election was moved forward to fill the vacuum from Yanukovych's departure. It will be monitored by over 1000 election officials from the European Union.

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Acting President Turchynov slated for becoming official in late May. Photo from www.veooz.com

The outcome of this election is virtually assured - acting President Turchynov will be installed as a new official Ukrainian leader - and equally likely, it will be a unpredictable, dangerous event. The aftermath of the election will also be fraught with further tension. Though the European Union will be able to deal with an internationally recognized government, Russia will likely not accept the outcome - or simply ignore whoever is legitimized. With the new government in place, the EU is poised to place more sanctions on Russia, while Russia in turn is likely to demand payment for natural gas from the new government - a debt that was growing under Yanukovych, but is now suddenly and spitefully due. What will happen during the election itself in the Donetsk and Luhansk is speculative. At least in Donestsk, the people's governor has said there will be no May 25 voting. Period.

The election in India

Halfway around the globe in the world's biggest democracy, voting has begun which will decide which party will hold the most seats in parliament and therefore provide leadership for this nation. Be it far from Teatree to assume he can begin to explain the myriad of parties and tensions and hopes of all the many platforms, alliances, and rivalries attendant to this vote. So just a few points to make.

With over 814 million voters eligible to cast ballots, there apparently have been several phases of voting, culminating this week. Graphic from en.wikipedia.org

From wikipedia, we read, "The 2014 general election is taking place in nine phases in India, the longest election in the country's history, from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha. Voting will take place in all 543 parliamentary constituencies of India to elect members of parliament in the Lok Sabha. The result of this election will be declared on 16 May, before the 15th Lok Sabha completes its constitutional mandate on 31 May 2014.

According to the Election Commission of India, the electoral population in 2014 is 814.5 million, the largest in the world.There is an increase in newly eligible voters of 100 million since the last general election in 2009. ...Incumbent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ruled himself out as a prime ministerial candidate."

Indian political parties are, to no surprise, numerous. There are 1500 + unrecognized parties, over 40 state parties, and 6 national parties. The two major national parties have been the well known Indian National Congress which has produced a number of leaders with the last name of Ghandi and/or Nehru, as well as the party of India's current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party has become the major rival, and what is interesting is its more public stance as a Hindu-based party.

The BJP head, a Mr Narendra Modi, if his party triumphs with the largest number of parliament seats, would then become Prime Minister. And early exit polls in today's first day of voting indicates this outcome is likely.

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Mr Narendra Modi, the likely next Prime Minister of India? Photo from high-definition-wallpapers2013.blogspot.com

A Wall Street Journal article describes the likely outcome and controversy around this candidate, "Mr. Modi appealed to voters by promising rapid development and an economic turnaround in a country fed-up with slowing growth, corruption scandals and indecisive leadership. He is also expected to take a tougher stand on security, particularly with neighbors Pakistan and China.

But Mr. Modi is seen by critics—and many among India's large Muslim community—as a hard-line Hindu leader, evoking distrust in a nation with a long history of communal violence. He is accused of not doing enough to stop religious riots in his state in 2002 in which some 1,000 people died, most of them Muslims—events that led to a rejection by the U.S. of Mr. Modi's visa in 2005. Mr. Modi denies those allegations, and a court in December said there wasn't sufficient evidence to prosecute him."

So tensions are intertwined in this election as with most others. However, one item caught Teatree's attention in some of the coverage of the election. A sizable number of Muslims are voting for Modi, because they are ready to accept his statements at face value that he is not favoring any ethnicity or freezing any out. He is for practical development. Muslims, especially vocal in the small but well known city of Varanasi, say they are tired of being promised broad tolerant support by the Indian National Congress, yet little results. They are tired of being considered a safe voting pool. They are ready to accept Modi's more immediate promise of practical and focused development projects. It seems like a significant step for Muslims to bravely reach out and support such a candidate. Their position emphasizes that no ethnic group grasping for active involvement within a democracy wants to be taken for granted, be viewed and marginalized as a safe bloc of votes, rather a bloc that is sought out, respected, and made part of responsible governance.

For a much more eloquent narrative on this Muslim perspective, read, "Varanasi: Why many Muslims find hope in Narendra Modi

Varanasi is a city of India on the banks of the river Ganges - described as small (a mere 1 million), but religious and holy. Photo from www.elllo.org

So many aspects enter into elections, eligible voters, outcomes, promises, rejections, and governance. The whole gamut is contained in these three elections during May 2014.

Debacle in Syria - a presidential election amid gas attacks

Now overshadowed by the West-Russia confrontation in Ukraine, there is apparent growing consensus that Syrian President "Bashar al-Assad and his leadership are there to stay" as a new BBC article puts it.

The Syrian opposition, early dominated by a young demographic wishing for an "Arab Spring" in their own land, has morphed through various phases - from a militarized but responsible opposition that was essentially starved out by possible Western aid, to the current splintered, radicalized, rebels, dominated by hateful Islamic extremists of various sorts, each in turn supported by regional powers with their own agendas.

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2009 marches for better Syrian governance were, in hindsight, impossibly naive and optimistic. Photo from ctv.news

Syria's Assad was bolstered early on by steady, robust Russian military and non military aid, as well as forceful intervention by Iran's Hezbollah, coming from Lebanon. Iran and Hezbollah may have their own agendas, ie creating an arc of influence from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea, but in the process, found supporting Assad was part of that calculation.

The regional actors: former Iran President Ahmadinejad, beleaguered Syrian President Assad, and Islamic leader of Hezbollah, Nassrallah. The fourth influential supporter, Russia's President Putin, is busy elsewhere ... Photo from www.ipsnews.net

Assad's use of chemical weapons in the summer of 2013 was a horrific act and political miscalculation that almost, almost, resulted in a significant Western intervention. But diplomacy "won" the day, resulting in an agreement to remove the chemical weapons arsenal from Syria.

From marches asking for reform, to today's ghostly ruins and chemical weapon use against its own people, Syria's Assad and his allies leave this legacy. Photo from www.popularresistance.org

Now, nearly 9 months on, 80-90% of the chemical percursors have been removed, leaving Assad apparently free for the occasional use of basic chlorine gas attacks. Chlorine is an element not under WMD classification, so any negotiations to prevent its use for this horrific specific purpose will be safely stretched out over months, if not years, if at all.

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Syrian children caught up in the latest gas attack by their government. Okay, to use moderate and enlightened diplomacy-speak, Teatree will insert "allegedly" into the picture caption. Photo from www.therepublic.com

A multi-year effort to bring a negotiated end to the conflict, led by the US, and artfully opposed by Russia (with Iran and Hezbollah in quiet agreement), has effectively petered out due to the new Russian incursion into Ukraine, where once again the US believes its own negotiating prowess (with virtually no track record to support such faith) will win the day.

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U.S. President Obama, symbolically just barely relevant to the occasion as illustrated in this photo, has also been left sputtering over Russia's military move into the Crimean peninsula (followed by a quick referendum that formalized the takeover), "That is not how-- international-- law and international norms are observed in the 21st century." Photo from offshorebalancer.wordpress.com

So, on we go to a Syrian Presidential election set for June. As the BBC article puts it, "The pressures on Mr Assad are now so light that he is preparing to have himself re-elected for another full seven-year term, rather than opting for a compromise two-year extension, an idea kicked around a few months ago when diplomacy was active."

Taken in March 2014, from Assad's own facebook page. Assad, his wife, and various synchophants ... Photo and description from gulfnews.com

Want to bet on who will win?

Jews (among other minorities) at risk in the Ukraine?

Among the several outrages of Russian President Putin's stance and actions on Russia's Western borders, is the opening it has allowed for extremists to re-emerge. As one young woman remarked after a stay in Eastern France five years ago, "In the U.S., Hitler may have been relegated to the rubbish bin, but in Europe, he continues to loom large ..."

As Putin out-bluffs and out-maneuvers Western European nations and the US (earlier in Georgia, in Syria, and now in the Ukraine) expanding his de-facto Mother Russia borders, anti-semitic flyers have emerged in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

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Donetsk, with a population of 1 million, is one of several eastern Ukrainian cities that have experienced pro-Russian militants emerge, storm and occupy government buildings. Graphic from the Washington Post

As reported in the Guardian newspaper, masked men were confronting people at Donetsk's only remaining synagogue last Wednesday, distributing the notices. "The flyer asks all Jewish citizens aged 16 and older to register with the "Donetsk Republic commissar for nationality affairs" and pay a $50 fee, "given that the leaders of the Jewish community of Ukraine support the Banderite junta in Kiev and are hostile to the Orthodox Donetsk Republic and its citizens. Those who refuse to register will be deprived of citizenship and forcibly expelled from the republic and their property will be confiscated."

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The chief rabbi of Donetsk, Pinchas Vyshetsky, holds one of the flyers. Photo from http://yalibnan.com

The masked men apparently left quickly when confronted, but news of the incident quickly spread worldwide with reactions from anger to grief. Within another few hours, the new pro-Russian militants holding court over the city denied their involvement, saying it was an effort to discredit their position. All of which may be true.

Ukraine has had a long checkered history of anti-semitism, and in broader terms, much of Eastern Europe has similarly. In World War II, Jews were attacked both spontaneously and with planned intention by significant elements within these nations, only to be surpassed by or incorporated willingly into the Nazi's program for a final solution. In Ukraine alone, nearly 900,000 Jews were killed during the Nazi occupation. (At the same time, to emphasize the complexity, Ukraine citizens are 4th in number in Israel's "Righteous among the Nations" recognition.)

Hitler, neo-Nazis, fascism and communism still deeply divide this Slavic nation.

While the West saw most of Ukraine's population supporting a pro-European stance, disgusted with previous president Yanukovych's self-enrichment and personal political agenda, there was nonetheless more than a fringe presence of a variety of ultra-nationalists involved the removal of the pro-Russian leader.

As a recent Washington Post article observed, "for Ukraine and Russia, no era or actor is more omnipresent in today’s crisis than World War II and Stepan Bandera. Born in an obscure village in 1909, Bandera in the early 20th century fought for an independent Ukraine, which at the time was carved up between Poland and the Soviet Union. Honoring what they see as his legacy as a thorn in the side of the Soviets, Ukrainian nationalists have strung up a massive poster of their hero in this city’s Independence Square, using him as a rallying cry against the new menace in Moscow.

But if Bandera is idolized by some in the capital and western Ukraine, he is reviled as a fascist in much of the heavily ethnic-Russian east and south as well as in Russia itself. There, memories are still fresh of Soviet-era campaigns that sought to discredit Bandera, and his quest for a Ukrainian homeland, by playing up his ties to Germany’s Third Reich."

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Stepan Bandera poster in central Kiev during the recent uprising against Yanukovych. In modern Ukraine, Bandera is an individual who represents the tensions of a divided country where to some he is loved, and loathed by others. As the WP article puts it, "How do you unite a nation that clings to different heroes?" Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post

What the flyers represent on one level, then, is an attempt to discredit one group or another with links or reminders of Nazi ideology. And as the Chief Rabbi of Donestsk puts it, ""I think it's someone trying to use the Jewish community in Donetsk as an instrument in this conflict. That's why we're upset..."

Indeed, the conflict in Ukraine has quickly turned into a geopolitical chess match - Russia dredging up its anger over the Balkan War, now 20 years old, (mainly pounding away at its mantra - don't interfere with sovereign internal affairs) and other past slights, implying there is still much to be redressed to "protect" Russian remnants throughout Eastern Europe. And lost in all this, Teatree wonders whether there is any interest or capability by either pro-Russian militants or Ukrainian authorities in Donetsk to pursue culprits who passed out anti-semitic flyers, putting the local Jewish population in the forefront as a pawn in the larger maneuverings.

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Another of the many charges thrown at Russia by Europe and the US, is the presence of organized Russian military elements or under its direction, in the guise of pro-Russian citizens of Ukraine. For Russia, always having stood by the concept of "non-interference" in other nations' affairs - this charge seems intertwined with hypocrisy. Photo from www.pri.org

The anti-semitic incident brings to the forefront the issue of fundamental governing responsibilities and the many levels that fall short of the mark

Most modern societies are characterized by a ceding over the responsibility of sanctioned violence, or the enforcement of law and order, to the duly authorized government (city, county, state, province, oblast, and federal levels). In exchange, the government is expected to actively pursue and end unsanctioned violence, as well as incidents of persecution directed at individuals or groups among the population.

(Interestingly, in the US, there is a pronounced, and constitutionally enshrined, right of citizens to be wary of giving government that very tool. Yes, the government should take the lead, vigilante justice is not the preferred approach, but there remains a right to bear arms.)

As one of the better articles Teatree has read on this Ukraine drama, Ukraine crisis: Donetsk anti-Semitic leaflets stir old fears it concludes, "As the stand-off between Russia and Ukraine deepens, so does the dangerous power vacuum that it has created. Like any conflict, it has already begun to unleash long-dormant religious and ethnic tensions. Minority groups here fear that they will be the biggest victims of this conflict between two Orthodox, Slavic nations."

So one could create a hierarchy of good governance in protecting its citizens as follows:

#1 Active, principled pursuance by the government of criminal elements, including proactive steps towards strengthening the rule of law, is the ideal.

#2 A major step down is a studied indifference to rights, especially of minorities, or any sphere of lawbreaking. Many nations have fallen short of this at various eras. One only needs to look at the US' Jim Crow laws allowed for so many decades and clear into the 1960s ...

#3 Active persecution or favoritism shown regarding one minority or class over another. One can take one's pick of all sorts of examples of this. Naziism and Communism probably rank the most odious, with the common thread being statism, or the importance of the state itself, over the individual. Islamic theocracies follow ...

#4 Sheer incompetence and corruption keep governments from fulfilling their responsibilities. It seems Nigeria with all its oil wealth, falls into this category, apparently unable to tackle its Boko Haram insurgency.

#5 Sheer inability of a central government to maintain law and order; anarchy, militias, and warlords reign instead. Afghanistan's recent history immediately after the Soviet Union withdrawal comes to mind that culminated in a new low - governance by the Taliban.

Whether one young Jewish boy of the 15,000 Jews left in Donetsk, or the Tatars of Crimea, it seems under the new Russian expansion, that many face an uncertain and constricted future. Photo from the BBC

Russia confronts the West over Ukraine

In a recent post (February 23, 2014) on the Ukrainian revolution, the reader can find a number of maps and graphics that merely underscore the recent moves by Russia to address Soviet Empire legacies.

Here, in mid March, Russia under the leadership of Putin, has used the ruse of protecting ethnic Russians in the Crimean Peninsula (part of Ukraine)to first activate troops already stationed in the oblast as part of its Black Sea Fleet, to hold key access points of the region (airports, border crossings, infrastructure).

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Possession is 9 tenths of the law goes a meaningless phase that somehow seems pertinent here. Despite howls of outrages from the US, Western Europe, and the Ukraine, Russia has a firm grip on the Crimean Peninsula. Graphic from the http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/files/2014/03/military.gif

In a second major move, Putin and pro Russian leadership in the Crimea hastily organized a referendum asking whether the residents would rather be part of Russia or remain with the Ukraine. The voting results on Sunday night, March 16, were 95% for joining Russia.

Ethnic Russians in the Ukraine ecstatic about rejoining their homeland.

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UK Foreign Secretary William Hague (left), US Secretary of State John Kerry, and UK Prime Minister Cameron (right) talk and talk about the Russian fait accompli Photo from uk.gov

Russian President Putin, and military leaders on the move. Where is the "mission accomplished" banner? Photo from http://www.veooz.com

Items to ponder:

Russia claims that it is concerned over the safety of Russians (ethnic, formal citizenship??), using that as the prime reason to have made its Crimean move. There are a lot of of Russian remnants around Europe. This Crimean incursion is the third such move in the past several years. Two breakaway provinces in Georgia claimed affinity with Russia, and Russian arms ensured they could make their choice.

The precedent being set here certainly opens the door for many ethnic groups to claim affinity with neighboring nations. It may embolden or further inflame longstanding ethnic enclaves in nations, however the pattern Russia has established is: 1)safety of ethnic Russians at stake; 2) military moves to ensure safety; 3) once in control, hold a referendum of some sort to allow protected Russians their voice. Other groups around the world may or may not find a champion to militarily protect them before a vote.

Even China seems a little ambivalent - after all both China and Russia have long been the champions of internal affairs being the responsibility of the sovereign nation. "Don't interfere in Syria, don't interfere in Libya, don't interfere in Darfur," "certainly not Tibet," and even now the sole supporters of North Korea - all these stances have suddenly been cast aside when it comes to Ukraine.

We'll see whether Europe and the US for that matter have the fortitude to make Russia feel the pain - with economic sanctions for example. Will such sanctions be painful enough to be noticed, or would it be more of a salve for the Western leadership to say, look what we've done.

To date, Russian President Putin has apparently looked over the current crop of Western leaders, including the US, and decided he can make these moves with little concern - a bit of spitting, perhaps some sanctions that are more than likely to be tolerated, but nothing he is not willing to pay.

The Ukranian revolution continues ...

The last two weeks in Ukraine have been dramatic and well covered in the world media. It isn't often to see a capital city torn up, dozens killed, the pro-Russian President ultimately leaving for a more friendly and secure headquarters in the country's east, and a stunning reversal where a former Prime Minister is suddenly released from prison with Parliamentary approval after languishing on trumped-up charges for nearly two and one-half years.

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Destruction in Ukraine's capital city Kiev was well documented - streets torn up for the stones to throw, but later plenty of gunfire that ended up killing more than 70 citizens - both protesters and police. Photo from www.rawstory.com

With the drama paralleling the two week run of the Olympics in Sochi, Russia in terms of media coverage and world interest, Teatree assumes that the Ukranian developments represent just the latest chapter in a long running history of tension, with a return to some sense of normalcy still to be seen.

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Ukraine's modern boundaries, it must be emphasized, are just the current version of a land who has been sliced and diced among several larger empires over the past several hundred years. Today's Ukraine also has a population of just under 46 million people, noticeably less than the 52 million residing in 1991 when the Soviet Union broke apart. For further reading, probe the European traditions of Lviv, the major city in Western Ukraine, with that of Kharkviv, a major city in Eastern Ukraine. Graphic from orientalreview.org

As Canada's National Post reported Saturday, "KYIV, Ukraine — Hours after her release from prison, former Ukrainian prime minister and opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko appeared before an ecstatic throng at the protester encampment in Ukraine’s capital Saturday, praising the demonstrators killed in violence this week and urging the protesters to keep occupying the square.

Her speech to the crowd of about 50,000, made from a wheelchair because of the severe back problems she suffered in 2 1/2 years of imprisonment, was the latest stunning development in the fast-moving Ukrainian political crisis.

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko speaking to Kiev crowd after her release from prison. Interesting to think that she has come from a prison in Kharkviv, while the ousted president Yanukovych is headed there for relative security. Photo from www.newsfiber.com

Only a day earlier, her arch-rival, President Viktor Yanukovych, signed an agreement with protest leaders that cut his powers and called for early elections. Parliament, once controlled by Yanukovych supporters, quickly thereafter voted to decriminalize the abuse-of-office charge for which Tymoshenko was convicted.

Yanukovych meanwhile appeared to be losing power by the hour. He decamped from Kyiv to Kharkiv, a city in his support base in eastern Ukraine, while protesters took control of the presidential administration building and thousands of curious and contemptuous Ukrainians roamed the suddenly open grounds of the lavish compound outside Kyiv where he was believed to live.

In Kharkiv, Yanukovych defiantly declared that he regarded parliament’s actions as invalid and bitterly likened the demonstrators who conducted three months of protests against him to Nazis. “Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and banditry and a coup d’etat,” he said. “I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed.”

President Viktor Yanukovych, appearing to have lost political support in the nation's capital has moved to a more secure city just miles from the Russian border Photo from dev.rpp.com.pe

Finally, on Sunday, the Ukraine Parliament (invalid according to President Yanukovych) also stripped Yanukovych of his position, and appointed an interim president until elections could be held - possibly by May. The new leadership promptly indicated their preference to orient the country towards the EU, with neighborly relations with Russia, and a new government will likely be installed in the next few days.

Photo and caption from NBC news, "Newly elected Speaker of Parliament Oleksandr Turchynov speaks during a session of the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, 23 February 2014. Ukraine's parliament voted to appoint its speaker Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president and he will temporarily take over the duties of Viktor Yanukovych, whose whereabouts remained unknown."

Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union

Since the Soviet breakup in 1991, the politics in the Ukraine have coalesced around a sizable pro-Russian segment and the majority wishing to orient towards Western Europe. In 2004, after more than a decade of decline and uncertainty, an Orange Revolution briefly brought to power western leaning leadership, including Yulia Tymoshenko, but in 2010, after further stagnation and unsure leadership, Viktor Yanukovych won a disputed election and quickly created an oppressive state leaning towards Russia, then engineered charges and a trial that placed his major rival Tymoshenko in prison.

As a BBC article describes those years, crucial economic decisions were made regarding the country's dependence on Russian natural gas as well as Russian military presence at its bases on the Crimean peninsula. These agreements set the seeds for further tensions. "In 2006, Ukraine was forced to agree to pay almost twice the former price for Russian gas after Russia briefly to cut supplies in a move that sparked alarm in western Europe as well. In January 2009, Russia again cut gas supplies in a row over unpaid fees."

A visual from a UK Telegraph article noted that one of the first items Yanukovych negotiated in 2010 on his ascendance to power was an agreement to allow Russia continued use (to the year 2042) of its Crimean Peninsula navy bases. In the graphic, the pipeline symbolizes the Ukrainian need for Russian natural gas, and Russia's linked interest in secure naval bases. The Crimean peninsula itself has a particularly complicated history - belonging to several entities over the years, and even unique within Ukraine as an autonomous oblast (equivalent to more familiar province, state, or prefectures).

The Ukraine tension but the most recent of several legacy issues of the former Soviet Union

The Soviet Union could be compared to other former empires that have broken up. Once broken, there are legacy regions still in play for decades to come - in the past we've discussed Kaliningrad, an exclave of Russians south of the three Baltic nations. In addition to the turmoil in Ukraine on Russia's southern border, there are two other recent hotspots. One happens to be just a few miles to the southeast from now-famous Sochi Russia, in the small country of Georgia. Here, the northwestern most province called Azbhakia has moved towards association with Russia. Further to the east, still in Georgia, is South Ossetia, also now in the Russian sphere of influence. In the latter case, Russian military might was a determining factor in a short conflict in 2008 resulting in South Ossetia's current status as in partnership with Russia.

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Interestingly, Sochi Russia, site of the 2014 winter Olympics, is just miles from a breakaway province of Georgia, which has been given recognition and support by Russia. South Ossetia is further to the east. Graphic from www.ft.com

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The Black Sea - Yalta, where Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt framed the ending scenarios and agreements for a post WWII Europe; Sevastapol Ukraine, site of major Russian naval base; Sochi, Russia, winter Olympics, 2014; Azbhakia, Georgia, supported by Russia as in its sphere; Ukraine, split down the middle, and even Moldova's eastern slice on the other side of a river - Trans-Dniester, treats itself as independent and pro Russian.

Trans-Dniester (literally "across the Dneister" river), is an example of an impoverished enclave of a half million, longing for the shelter of Mother Russia's arms. (A common description, not Teatree's characterization.) Graphic from www.visionofgoodhope.co.uk

Random thoughts

It occurs to Teatree that Ukraine as just one example of ethnic/historic tensions where disparate forces work to pull apart a modern nation. And, in point of fact, there are also many examples of small regions around the world isolated from former association with past empires.

Much of Africa is the most common example, where dozens of countries still struggle with ethnic tensions - the legacy of arbitrarily imposed borders by European colonizers 130 years ago. Ukraine is one of several remaining trouble spots of the recent Soviet Empire. Another striking example is the Falkland Islands just off the coast of Argentina. Argentina declared sovereignty over those islands in 1982, the islanders objected, and the UK said no as well, resulting in a short war between the two countries. To this day, the population of just a little over 2000 remains a part of the United Kingdom at their own preference, much to the chagrin of Argentina, and possibly a headache for the UK.