Homework for 1995

While the outgoing year has been a strange assortment of successes and failures, 1995 does not promise to be much brighter in many areas. In 1994 the West still played the dominant role in the world's politics, while several developing countries managed to place themselves in the center of the economic spectrum.

With complete and partial solutions to existing and potential crises, 1994 did bring some new hope in certain areas for mankind. The good news was made possible by the change in attitudes towards many problems among western leaders.

The Palestinian crisis moved towards a comprehensive solution after the leaders in Washington, the main backers and financiers of the Jewish state for decades, stopped regarding Palestinians as mere refugees. And democracy was reintroduced into Haiti because the military leader, who pushed it aside, created a political eyesore Washington could not ignore.

In another part of the world, South African blacks regained what they had lost to the white minority after the apartheid regime finally decided to yield power. The change of mind originated from the winds of change which began sweeping the globe several years ago.

In Northern Island heartening news also came when the warring factions seemed to come to their senses and decided to bury the hatchet. An encouraging development was also seen in North Korea after the death of demigod dictator Kim Il-sung. Although it is not yet clear what position his son Kim Jong-il will take, the one remaining Stalinist regime has started to give the impression to the rest of the world it is less malevolent than before. At least it is no longer as terrifying to its neighbors as Iraq is to Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.

However, during the outgoing 12 months, reigns of terror continued in many countries, with very few efforts to discourage flagrant violations of human rights being made.

The dogs of the wars of attrition were still on the loose in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in many other sections of our planet despotic reactionaries continued to rob their peoples of their democratic rights. While some of the military regimes did try to introduce a decision-making system by ballot, many of them soon returned to the rule of the bullet with no reasonable excuse for the reversal.

The number of democratic countries in this world still remains sadly small because some nations, which insist on boasting, at least to their own peoples, that their political systems are among the best, have expanded the executive branches of their governments to the point they encroach on those nations' legislative and judicial organs. Needless to say, this condition has led to violations of human rights in many cases. In such countries, political magic formulas, misleading euphemisms and development jargon have became sacred texts.

In the face of all of this, the so-called champions of human rights and holders of the beacon of democracy in the West often appear impotent. The West seems to be able to come up with little more than stopgap measures, and even these often come too late to have any significant impact on the careworn peoples they are meant to help. And worse still, even with all their power and influence, the western nations appear needlessly reluctant to take strong action to discourage heartless tyrants from pushing nations back into the dark ages, except when the interests of their own peoples are threatened.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the outspoken leader of the democratic movement in Myanmar is still being isolated from her people by the military regime known as State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). She seems likely to remain in that situation for an uncertain period despite the propaganda gimmicks of the junta, which flirts with hinting at the release of the lady, who is the conscience of the Myanmar people. Worse still, some Asian countries have taken advantage of her suffering by forging economic relations with the military dictators. All of this while the "constructive approach" of the ASEAN countries continues to fail to bear fruit.

The repressive regimes, which have canceled the results of democratic elections, are still ruling supreme in Algeria and Nigeria. In the last mentioned country the people seem to be helpless, but in Algeria the Moslems, under the leadership of the Islamic Salvation Front, have been waging a guerrilla war to wrench back the rights their election gave them. The most militant of their young men are united in a group called Armed Islamic Group. They were trained by veterans of the Afghanistan war against the Soviet troops to attack the interests of the countries they believe to be the backers of the Algerian regime, especially France. Many western observers have predicted that this regime will be the first to bleed to death in the tug of war between authoritarianism and democracy.

But in an overview of all that has gone on around the world in 1994, there is perhaps no bitterer pill to swallow than that of the humiliation of the United Nations and NATO at the hands of the Bosnian Serbs. This embarrassment is unprecedented in the histories of the two organizations, especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has, up to now, wielded the world's most effective military muscle. UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was booed by Bosnians and mocked by the Serbs during his recent visit to the rump Yugoslavia. To make the humiliation even worse, NATO, left impotent by the land-hungry Serbs, had little leeway in its efforts to improve the situation.

This shameful reality has unavoidably made the rest of the world ask whether the West is still reliable in the efforts to make this planet a better place to live.

The question is reasonable enough because so much of the homework set out by 1994 has been left for next year, while President Bill Clinton, the driving force of the peace and human rights train of the West, may find his hands tied at home in 1995 due to the recent Republican take-over of the Congress and some of the nation's more strategic states.