Posted on 09/15/2004 12:15:42 AM PDT by familyop
ASTANA (Reuters) - Russia rejected on Wednesday U.S. criticism of sweeping political changes proposed by President Vladimir Putin, saying this was strictly Moscow's business.
"First of all, the processes that are under way in Russia are our internal affair," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, referring to comments by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Lavrov, speaking in Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a meeting of ex-Soviet states, said Washington had no right to impose its own model
of democracy on anyone else.
"And it is at least strange that, while talking about a certain 'pulling back', as he (Powell) put it, on some of the democratic reforms in the Russian Federation, he tried to assert yet one more time the thought that democracy can only be copied from someone's model," he said.
"We, for our part, do not comment on the U.S. system of presidential elections, for instance."
In an interview with Reuters, Powell said Putin's proposed changes to Russian electoral law was "pulling back on some of the democratic reforms." He pledged to raise his concerns with the Russian leadership.
Putin on Monday proposed ending direct election of Russia's regional governors and having candidates instead put forward by the president and approved by local assemblies. He also called for an end to voting in constituencies for parliamentary elections, a common means for opposition politicians to win seats in the legislature.
Putin presented the reforms as vital for a national drive to defeat terrorism in the aftermath of the bloody school siege this month in which more than 320 people, half of them children, were killed. His critics say he is exploiting the bloodshed to roll back the democratic gains of post-Soviet Russia.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Keep up the good fight and don't forget what Reagan (should have) taught us.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gg.html
Excerpt, Georgia:
Religions:
Georgian Orthodox 65%, Muslim 11%, Russian Orthodox 10%, Armenian Apostolic 8%, unknown 6%
Ethnic groups:
Georgian 70.1%, Armenian 8.1%, Russian 6.3%, Azeri 5.7%, Ossetian 3%, Abkhaz 1.8%, other 5%
Languages:
Georgian 71% (official), Russian 9%, Armenian 7%, Azeri 6%, other 7%
note: Abkhaz is the official language in Abkhazia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And on the Chechens, Chechnya was not a radical Islamist state when the Russians started pounding them to annex with Russia. Chechens couldn't even get along with the rest of the "Islamic world," because they swore by Allah, drank a lot, etc. They only started wearing bomb belts after the Theatre thing in 2002.
The Russian "Federation" government fought them through the '90s and lost. Now they're fighting them again. After all of the beating on Chechnya, the Russians have accomplished a situation much like the Bosnian thing.
What galls me is the fringe Catholic movement (not like most conservative reasonable Catholics by any means) that has allied with a US fringe Serb movement to try to bring the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches closer together. That, in hopes of starting old Balkan hostilities against Israel again. It's sorta linked up with the Buchananite and Rockwell works. ...weird stuff.
The excerpted info's just above this comment. G'night, Chief.
France withdrew from NATO's integrated military command in march, 1966. But France still is a member of NATO and as such has the same obligations as, say, the UK, in case of a military showdown.
I guess by "KGB media sympathizers here" you mean me.
Anyway, it's very simple actually.
Georgia is not an Islamic state, they don't even like Chechens much, but they do help Chechen terrorists in order to bring some pressure on Russia.
Russia and Georgia have a very serious disagreement regarding breakaway regions of Abhazia and South Ossetia since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Like they did it to Serbia? New greater KLA?
France had already withdrawn for the most part in 1958 or 1959 when it withdrew permission for the United States to use any French ports for resupply in case of war with the Soviet Union...that included forbidding the U.S. to even evacuate it's military dependents through France.
France made it's position regarding the Soviet Union very clear at that time and nothing has changed.
Are you sure about the ports ? It's the first time I hear anything about French ports being closed to NATO traffic in case of war with the Soviet Union. Please forward any link that would indicate such is the case.
Most definately. I was an Army dependent living in Firth, Germany at the time. We had to practise for evacuation, which would have been done in a mixed convoy of personal cars and military vehicles. When this happened the evacuation plans all had to be changed, and it was also one of the few times I saw my father angry enough to kill.
If you research it you will find that France has been only a fair weather, on-again, off-again member of NATO with it's own exceptions to how it participates.
France has always tried to insure that it had a way out if the Soviet's attacked (we're on your side...white flag, white flag).
"Georgia is not an Islamic state, they don't even like Chechens much, but they do help Chechen terrorists in order to bring some pressure on Russia.
Russia and Georgia have a very serious disagreement regarding breakaway regions of Abhazia and South Ossetia since the breakup of the Soviet Union."
So in other words the Georgians tolerate Chechen terrorists in order to put political pressure on Moscow and Russia supports the breakaway governments in Abkhazia and S. Ossetia to put political pressure on Tifilis. IT's all politics.
By the way, are you Byambaa Garid, the Mongolian from Austrialia?
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