User talk:Jasra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hey Jasra! You know that to get Democratic Belarus you've got to find a Leader, have you got one?
P.S. J. T. Don't take seriously.
P.P.S. Forgot to sign. Ilyak 12:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Don't you know (have article link) on who've they choose?
Anyway, people would not vote for someone unknow (only if as "vote against"). So they would have to make him popular somehow. Ющенко was an ex-prime minister, for sure: He had his publicity and also had pro-himself media.
My cousin (двоюродный брат) lived in Belarus for a while and he've said he have not met much pro-opposition people, and ones he met wasn't really taken seriously by anyone.
I've noted your interest in ex-USSR political life. Have you visited ex-USSR? If yes, where?
Ilyak 15:28, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
P.S. I don't really understand people who care for Belarusian authoriarity, but not about, say, things happening in Turkmenistan. That's strange. Or you have no interests in outside Europe?
Hi!
As far as profession is concerned - physicist.
Oh, physicist. As far as I remember, belarussian politican who took part in "ussr break" treaty (в Беловежской Пуще), was a physicist too. Moreover, the great Soviet/Ukrainian science fiction writer Савченко describes him as "the only fair person of them tree" (i.e. Ельцын(rf), Шушкевич(bel) и Кравчук(ukr)). So maybe another physicist have chances. Ex-mayor is good too, we'll see if he would be able to get popularity.
As far as I understand, Lukashenko, while being somewhat tyrannic, still is not "for sale, sold" as many and many political leaders in post-soviets are. Neither do he act like a colonial government. People aren't sure anyone new will share same positive traits. New president may: 1) get popularity. 2) piss off Russia. 3) say a few promising words about joining EU. 4) lose popularity. And the country is disrupted - main russian markets (furniture, heavy- and preciese- device manufacturing) are lost during piss out, european markets are closed to them, and EU will not, to be honest, taking belarus in for nearest 10 years regardless of what belarus do. That's exactly what other rainbowrevoluting states did so far. Consider Саакашвилли (new georgian president) has lost his popularity from 90% to 50% for now, and new ukrainian government is disrupted - main orange engine Тимошенко was expelled and now she is in opposition, expect more. But Ukraine was not dependant on Russia - it exports steel worldwide, while their steel production was still hurt by revolution, - for Belarus that standard "pissing off Russia" may mean serious economic troubles. EU will not make markets for them, EU always have its own industry and Chinese are cheaper anyway.
About Turkmenistan - in Europe we can sometimes forget that, but there are places where democracy isn't just the priority. First example is Turkmenistan. Their beloved President (permanent president, as it tends to be in such countries - not very democratic, eh?) has closed all the hospitals outside capital. He said that they lack of capable medics, and if someone will become ill he can always travel to capital. Nice, eh? And, for sure, they don't have medics because he had also cut length of university study to one year. From, as you might guess, sovietic 5.5 years. In short, he's ruining his country. What's strange is that this info is not on Turkmenistan, while Belarus have quite a few phrases about human right violations. If you can read russian language I can give you a few links about it, consider yourself.
By the way, what's your positions on other indepence/separatist movements, like in Transnistria in Moldova or Abkhasia in Georgia? They might be less mass-shouted-at, but there are still people dying.
I must admit I do not know much about the situation in the countries you mentioned.
(sigh) And this is how that 'human rights' thing works. You know precisely that in distant Chechnya things are very bad, because you've seen it numerous times on TV, and was told about that. Moreover, you know that, say, elections xxx (for exapmle, referendum on Belarussian flag) was reported unjust by some cryptious ogranization that is surely paid by someone and for a reason. Meanwhile, you don't really know that same thing happens in something like 500 km from you (Moldova, that's between Ukraine and Romaina). That's because noone likes to sharpen it on things that should be under control but in meantime they aren't. Moreover, article for Chechnya does say words about human violations and Ichkeria one does not say such words; from which you might assume that Ichkeria was a much more hospitable place than Chechnya is. But, in fact, Ichkeria was a bandit-in-law country, with ethnical confrontations (my uncle lived in Grozny in early 9x and was forced to leave, so assume I know it) and slavery. Chechnya is a bad place for now - it's unsafe, different nationality people don't like one another and that - but at least there is a portion of law here for now.
I'm not defending a bunch of Russian and Chechen bastards, which made every effort to make this war happen, but from a personal view it looks like that.
On other hand, every man will tell you that if you had to recount votes for 10 times to actually get 'correct' result, there's something wrong with your election system. But that's USA, and no obscure organizations even allowed to say something about it.
All the questions of separatism should be solved by talks, not by force.
That is a very good opinion, and, as you might see, it was respected in some cases. USSR willingly gave some authonomy to developed and economically parts of country populated by a nation, that's how SSRs was formed. That was a point in lenin's doctrine. And when USSR collapsed it did it by the borders of SSRs. Now, quite a few SSRs have integrity problems - Russia, Georgia, Moldova among them. In two of these 3 there was a war. That's sad, but that shows you two things: 1) If part of country have a separate government, it might, under circumstances, go independent. That's beacuse their leaders prefer to be first among 10 than 10th among 1000. And leaders can easily provoke a tide of nacionalism and separatism to do so. 2) This part of country should be not interdependent economically with rest of country. It should be able to live on its own. Its authonomy should be accepted by the whole country to some extent.
If first condition is met, and second is not, we'll get another Chechnya, Kosovo, or Abkhasia. This might be evil or not, this might be just or not, but this, as I believe, is how things work.
- First - election in the US - the problem that Bush and Gore got very similar number of votes is different. There was a question whether a machine counting is a proper way to count, but this way of counting was accepted before election started and it could not favor any of the candidates.
As far as I know, problem was not only in machine counting votes. I have got a long technical article about these elections and about which real weirnesses happened during them, if you can read Russian fine, I will point you to that article. One of the points of it that republicans influence main voting machine maker, Diebold, and that in areas with machine voting results, for some reason, seriously differ from earlier years' always in favor of Republicans. But, another point, they don't have obscure organizations like OBSE which always say then did not like some elections if they elected something they don't like, and never say a word about elections whose result they did like.
- On the other hand the access of people not sharing Lukashenko's views to the media looks limited. Correct me if I'm wrong (i.e. prove that opposition to Lukashenko has the same or comparable access to media). When the access to media is limited, even if the referendum or elections are fair the government can get a "proper" result.
When you have to choose a banner, I don't think you need to see a lot of POWs, consider them, and choose carefully. It is just a matter of personal taste.
But anyway, how does it work in, say, USA? Each party have a lot of supporting indistries and corporations. They favor 'their' party (Republicans - real sector, Democratians - IT and financial). They invest money in publicity and stuff.
On other hand, in most post-USSR countries we don't still have such system. Understand that, in russia as of 2000, if Oil companies wished to push some candidate, they could summon a LOT of publicity for him. Buying out half papers, a few TV channels and so on. But they did not do that. Same in Belarus. Opposition candidates just have not got money to finance publicity, and noone who have wants to give that money. Or you expect government to finance candidates? That would not work. See, in Ukraine, a real lot of people did not wanted Янукович to be elected. They loathed him. And not just ordinary people, but governments of a few big cities including capital, and a lot of commercial organizations. First gave areas, second gave money, and suddently Ющенко have got quite a lot of publicity. Лукашенко, i beleive, really suppresses opposition, but he does all right in other areas. And people care about that except for some marginal percent, say, 10%. Assume you can somehow overthrow Лукашенко and elect someone else. That 10% might become happy, but the rest? I doubt new randomly chosed leader will do all right. I double doubt he will do all right if he'll be pushed by europe. Europe, having put money into him, will ask him to work out these money. That's what we call "Colonial government" - when leader of country have to work for another country. Noone wants that, believe me.
- As far as Chechnya is concerned - I know many Chechens who fled their country to Poland or Western Europe. They admitted that there was chaos after the first war, but they blame the Russians for creating such situation.
First war, maybe. I don't myself know much about what happened there, I was too young. But, in the meantime before first war my uncle's family was forced to leave Grozny. There was tension between russians and chechens growing, and I happely reflect first war as a reaction on violences against ethnical russians in chechnya. That's like Kosovo war - what do you think of Kosovo. Of course, there was bastards involved from both sides. From Chechnya side ruling bastards made situation hot by encouraging nationalism and violence, from Russian - bastards who actually started this war. I guess this war would better NOT happened, and AT THAT POINT chechnya released as an independent country.
- Chechnya was informally blocked economically.
That might have happened. But sorry, newly-independent and inadvanced country is a best place for narcotrafic, banditism and other such things. I would've think now we should have expelled Chechnya, built a high wall around it, and passed people only unidirectional - Chcchens in, Russians out. And that way they have to do whatever in their box. And I'm not alone in this position.
- The lack of recognition did not allow establishing normal relationships with other countries.
Which ones? They really needed relationship with Russia, but that could not happen after their suddent independence, and with other Caucasian republics, noone prevented them from that. What else do they need? Taiwan, in fact, does not suffer from such problem :)
- Can you say that the war in Chechnya ended?
In can say that, currently, there is no war in Chechnya. More, it seems that Chechnya is slowly calming. But that may change to worse, I hope it will not.
- Do you believe the hostilities can ever end?
I do. Remember Great Britain? First there were Celts, then there Romans, conquered island. There was a lot of resistance for centuries. Then there came Anglo Saxons, conquered island again, few hungred years more of brutality and resistances. Now, could you differ Celt from Anglo Saxon? Have you herad about any 'hostilities'?
- Do you think giving independence and recognizing Chechnya internationally would end the hostilities?
That would do the trick in 1991, except from that they'll drive out and/or kill something like 200 000 Russians from their newly-independent state. As this happened in other 'independent overnight' countries, FYI. For some reason these 'newly independent' countries develop nacionalistic movement that cause a lot of violence even if they are already independent. They can't do without it, and, for that sole reason, I don't think independence should be provided to anyone who ask. Some areas can become countries without becoming blood bath, some just can not. I, as you may assume, don't like Russians being killed.
Now, how would you inagine Chechnya independence? Russia suddently drops government there and moves army out? Oh, bandits will come down from mountains, kill everyone who was associated with Russian government, kick out and/or kill rest of russian population, again wreak chaos over the whole country. Moreover, they'll continue to terrorise russian southwest near chechnya. After another one Beslan or Nord-Ost we'll have to do third chechen war, excatly because noone will tolerate such things happening near his borders.
Nation which fights its independence by killing children* and innocents clearly does not deserve this freedom. No respectable countries I know took this barbaric route to fight their independence, if you know one, I listen.
- In Beslan, in fact, there was mostly Ossetian children killed. Chechnyans** don't just hate Russians, they just don't care about any lifes in general, be them whatever nationality, even if their own (see their terrorism against other Chechnyans now).
- There I say only about Chechen bandits and otherwise armed fighters, not Chechens as nationality.
Ilyak 09:23, 8 October 2005 (UTC)