Minority Issues in Eastern Europe

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

The number of people found to be illegally present in the European Union increased by 22 per cent to reach nearly 700,000 in 2021, according to data released May 19 by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.

Altogether, 23.7 million non-EU citizens were living in EU countries, making up 5.3 per cent of the total EU population.

The post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe, now members of the EU, see such immigration as the principal threat to their identity, and some have refused to accept quotas regarding refugee distribution.

Historic minorities

In part, this is a protest directed at Brussels’ high-handedness: Who is the EU to impose anything against the will of its member states? Mostly, however, it is opposition to the very idea of diluting the national fibre by admitting foreigners.

These countries already have historic minorities within their borders, which many are not too happy about either. But a criterion for their entry into the EU included respect for and protection of minorities.

For many, this was an unpleasant reminder of the Minority Treaties that had been imposed upon them in the aftermath of the First World War. These treaties had been bitterly resented by some. Poland, for instance, renounced its treaty in 1934.

But the demographic structure of the area changed radically after the Second World War, due primarily to the mass murder of Jews and the expulsion of Germans.

Delicate issue

Yet ethnic and religious minorities do exist. Poland guarantees rights for the three per cent of its population that is not of ethnic Polish stock. Most numerous remain the Germans.

This is a delicate issue in Poland because of the Nazi occupation and mass murders during the Second World War and the fact that present-day Polish boundaries encompass territories that were previously German. Poland also recognizes 12 other ethnic and national minorities and one linguistic minority.

The post-Communist regime in Hungary adopted a progressive law governing the eight per cent of the population not of Magyar descent. It has defined 13 groups as national minorities and has offered them financial support administered largely by local councils.

On the other hand, Hungarians comprise large minorities in neighbouring Romania and Slovakia. Their ethnically based political parties have played a pivotal role in national politics and have participated and often served as a critical element in governmental coalitions. An ethnically Turkish party in Bulgaria has also played a major role in that country.

Anti-Roma sentiment

Except for Poland, the condition of the sizeable Romani population in these countries is a matter for national and international concern. According to official figures, Roma in Romania number 621,000. Unofficial figures sometimes place their number almost four times higher.

Romania may contain the highest number of Roma. Proportionately, however, Roma are equally or more important in several other East European countries. The Bulgarian census records 320,000 Roma; that, too, may be an under-estimation. Bulgarian Roma are predominantly Muslim and many declare themselves as Turks.

In Hungary, Roma constitute the largest minority, at slightly over 200,000. Slovakia reports slightly over 100,000 Roma but the true figure may also be up to five times higher. In any case, they are less numerous than Slovakia’s Hungarian minority.

The Czechs believed they had no minorities left after the post-war expulsion of the Germans. They were surprised to learn that they had a substantial Roma population, formally numbering only 13,000 citizens but with perhaps as many as 300,000 people. It turned out most had come from Slovakia to occupy houses in the Sudetenland area abandoned by the Germans.

The level of anti-Roma sentiment is stronger in the Czech lands than in any other part of the region. Czech Roma continue to struggle against policies of forced female sterilization and a system of educational apartheid which puts Roma children in classes destined for “backward” pupils.

The condition of Roma throughout the post-Communist world has worsened since 1989 and they have experienced a wave of racially motivated violence. Socialism had proletarianized the Roma, making them virtually indistinguishable from their non-Roma neighbours.

With the closure of factories where Roma once worked, the unemployed now live in self-contained ghettos characterized by sub-standard infrastructure and terrible hygiene conditions. They are convenient scapegoats for societal ills, real and imagined.

China’s Approach to Peacekeeping

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

China has become increasingly active in peacekeeping, as evident in United Nations peacekeeping operations. China only engages in peacekeeping through the UN.

In 1989, China sent 20 staff officers to the United Nations Transition Assistance Group in Namibia, marking its first presence in a UN peacekeeping operation. China sent its first cadre of peacekeeping personnel to Cambodia in 1992.

By 2022, China had become the eight-largest provider of UN peacekeeping forces globally. It had contributed 2,158 peacekeepers to 25 UN peacekeeping missions, far outnumbering the combined troop contribution of other permanent members of the UN Security Council.

UN officials have worked with their Chinese counterparts to prepare a wider array of rapid reaction capabilities, including helicopters. China established two training centres, one in Hebei and the other in Beijing, to hone the peacekeeping skills of the Chinese police and military.

Its initial contributions tended to involve specialized units including police, engineers, and field hospitals. China also opened a logistics base in Djibouti, in part to support its peacekeepers in Africa, and set up two standby peacekeeping contingents, enabling the rapid deployment of 330 Chinese police and 8,000 military personnel.

Chinese officers have commanded the UN missions in Cyprus and Western Sahara, both relatively small and militarily low-risk enterprises. It deployed a full infantry battalion with the UN for the first time in 2015, in South Sudan, but has not sent any other large contingent on another mission to date.

 Its financial contribution has also increased tremendously since the first peacekeeping-related payment in 1982. In 2020–2021, China contributed 15.21 per cent of the overall UN peacekeeping budget, making it the second-largest donor following the United States.

Beyond peacekeeping, China has also expanded its participation in conflict mediation and post-conflict reconstruction, especially under President Xi Jinping. The dramatic expansion of China’s economic footprints in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Central and Western Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America have made Beijing a stakeholder in these regions’ conflicts and fragility.

Through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation started in 2000, the Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2013, the South-South Cooperation Fund established in 2015, and the China–United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund in 2016, China has become the largest provider of commercial investment and development loans for many developing countries, include many war-torn ones. China’s bilateral programs in conflict-affected settings are mainly economic; the Chinese consider this peace through development.

While China remains indifferent to democracy, human rights and other liberal norms, it doesn’t undermine these norms. China’s aid and investment does not favour any particular regime type, nor does it hinder democracy promotion efforts by the West in these countries.

China’s peacebuilding programs focus on strengthening the capacity of the post-conflict governments, including training for governmental officials, financial support to national anti-terrorism forces, and joint peacekeeping exercises. When it comes to civil society building, human rights and gender promotion, electoral assistance, legislative reforms and other efforts to install democracy, China has little interest.

China has played a constructive role in many major crises. China promoted the unanimous passing of Resolution 1769 in 2007, during its rotating UN Security Council presidency, that authorised the deployment of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation to Darfur, where Sudan was accused of genocide. China also voted in favour of Resolution 1264 in 1999, which authorised the creation of an International Force for East Timor led by Australia.

One of China’s priorities is securing senior political and peacekeeping posts for Chinese nominees. While Beijing has placed its candidates at the head of a number of UN agencies, it has filled fewer peacekeeping-related posts.

Chinese media and officials portray these deployments as proof of the country’s commitment to multilateralism. They also allow People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel a chance to gain operational experience abroad. Peacekeeping postings may also give the PLA opportunities to gather intelligence on other UN units and the countries where they are deployed.

China’s measured engagement in peacekeeping has paid dividends, and its contribution looks like a pragmatic attempt to advance its interests through the UN. Beijing has also framed peacekeeping as a rare area for multilateral cooperation with Washington at a time when relations between the two powers have deteriorated.

 

Ukraine's Nationalism Problem

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

On June 29, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany embarrassed his government by referring to Stepan Bandera, a Second World War collaborator with Nazi Germany, as a Ukrainian patriot. Andriy Melnyk in an interview contended that nationalist Stepan Bandera “was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles.”

Naturally, the Russians took note of it to reiterate their claims that the country is run by Nazis, which is ridiculous. But Israel, Poland, and Jewish groups were also offended.

“The statement made by the Ukrainian ambassador is a distortion of the historical facts, belittles the Holocaust and is an insult to those who were murdered by Bandera and his people,” stated the Israeli embassy in Kyiv. Polish deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz wrote that “such an opinion and such words are absolutely unacceptable.”

Days later, he posted a tweet saying he “DECIDEDLY rejects” the “absurd allegations” posted by the Israeli Embassy.

President Zelensky fired him on July 9. But the problem lies with Ukrainian nationalism itself.

CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE

Bandera is an extremely controversial figure in Ukraine, with some hailing him as a hero in his fight for Ukrainian statehood against the former Soviet Union, but with most acknowledging that he was a fascist who collaborated with Nazi Germany.

During that period large numbers of inhabitants of central, eastern and southern Europe joined the German armed forces.

Among them were around 250,000 soldiers who identified themselves as Ukrainian. They served in the Wehrmacht, as well as the Waffen SS; a considerable number also served in the auxiliary police.

The two groups Bandera led — the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) — engaged in atrocities against Jews as well as Poles, Russians and other Ukrainians in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during the Second World War.

Over the last several years, though, streets have been named and statues created after people like Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, a UPA general.

Polish authorities will seek to have Ukraine acknowledge the truth about the crimes, Polish President Andrzej Duda indicated July 11. “It was a dramatic event, which took lives of over 100,000 people.” On July 11, 1943, when OUN-UPA squads attacked about 100 Polish settlements in Volhynia, in eastern Poland.

As well, before 1939, the 1.5 million Jews living in the Soviet republic of Ukraine constituted the largest Jewish population within the Soviet Union, and one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. Based on present-day borders, one in every four Jewish victims of the Holocaust was murdered in Ukraine.

DECOMMUNIZATION

Following its 2014 revolution, Ukrainian lawmakers passed a series of bills known collectively as the Decommunization Laws, meant to sever the country’s ties to its Russian and Soviet past.

One of the bills prohibited what it called the “public denial of the legitimacy of the struggle for independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century.”

In practical terms, these bills paved the way for the rehabilitation of some Ukrainian ultranationalist leaders who had collaborated with the Nazis.

In their 1983 book The Invention of Tradition, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger described how each nation must create for itself a national identity. It needs to have what they called a “usable past” – one recounting the glorious stories of its writers, statesmen, military heroes, and others who fought on its behalf.

It is essential to recognize the importance of history, tradition, and memory to successful nationalism. The purpose is to provide a national state with a set of homogenous myths to serve as “cultural glue.”

The French student of nationalism, Ernest Renan, in his famous 1882 lecture “What Is a Nation?” emphasized “the common memories, sacrifices, glories, afflictions, and regrets,” while John Stuart Mill in Considerations on Representative Government, published in 1861, contended that the “identity of political antecedents and the possession of a national history” are imperative.

But if a historical past and memory are indeed crucial ingredients for a viable nationalism, what was the new Ukrainian state to do? Where could the nation find the stuff for patriotism, for sentiment, pride, memory, or collective character? It had been subjugated by other powers for centuries.

NATIONALIST DILEMMA

For today’s Ukrainian nationalists, this also eliminated the entire period – most of the twentieth century — in which Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. That era is viewed in a completely negative light – these were the decades of the Holodomor mass starvation of the 1930s, the Stalinist repression, and so on.

We know that millions of Ukrainians supported the USSR and fought in the Red Army against Hitler. But they’re not usable, so to speak. They were Ukrainians, but not genuine Ukrainian nationalists.

Even when Ukraine became an independent state, in 1991, it was under the rule of longtime former Communist apparatchiks like Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, the first two presidents.

There had been no uprising against Moscow’s rule, as was the case in the Baltic states. The country became sovereign by default, so to speak. Only in 2014 did genuine anti-russian nationalists gain power.

So what past can they use? Unfortunately, most of the anti-russian/anti-soviet fighters in the 1941-45 period felt they were forced to ally with Nazi Germany, which they saw as their best hope to free themselves from Soviet Communist domination.

But these same people, like it or not, also were involved in the murder of tens of thousands of Jews, Poles, and pro-soviet Ukrainians, or were at best indifferent to the slaughters. And therein lies the dilemma.

Even now, the slogan Slava Ukraini (glory to Ukraine), remains problematic, because it was popularized by those wartime Ukrainian paramilitary organizations.

 

Sri Lanka Collapsing Due to Economic and Political Crises

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

With an economy hit hard by the pandemic, rising energy prices, and populist tax cuts, the south Asian island nation of Sri Lanka lacks enough foreign currency to pay for imports of essential goods.

The government has blamed the crisis on the COVID pandemic, which affected Sri Lanka’s tourist trade. But that really was the last straw.

Tens of thousands of protesters demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s removal stormed his official residence on July 9 and both he and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have now agreed to resign.

The Rajapaksa family has monopolized politics in the island nation for decades. After helping Mahinda win the presidency in 2005, his brothers Chamal, Gotabaya and Basil took over ministries that controlled three-quarters of the national budget and built popular support despite allegations of human rights abuses and corruption.

But by 2019, when Gotabaya became president, the family was marred by infighting and dysfunction. Rajapaksa’s brother Mahinda, prime minister since 2019, quit after government supporters clashed with opponents in early May.

Nine people died and more than 300 were wounded in the violence, with rioters burning buses and torching hundreds of homes owned by allies of the Rajapaksas. A lawmaker from their Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP) was beaten to death.

Acute shortages of fuel, food and medicines have helped to push the cost of living to record highs in the country. Official data released June 30 showed consumer prices in the capital, Colombo, rose 54.6 per cent from a year earlier. The inflation rate for food is 57 per cent, according to official data. The mayor said that the capital has enough food only until September.

On June 27, the government announced it would ban private vehicles from buying gasoline and diesel until 10 July. Only buses, trains and vehicles used for medical services and transporting food would be allowed to fill up with fuel.

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is $700 million in debt. As a result, no country or organization in the world is willing to provide fuel, even for cash. The country has sent officials to major energy producers Russia and Qatar in a bid to secure cheap oil supplies.

Schools in urban areas have been shut, while officials told the country’s 22 million residents to work from home. Government officials have been given every Friday off for three months.

Hospitals are in desperate need of a range of life-saving drugs and equipment. Medical staff have been forced them to suspend non-essential operations, and reuse or ration some equipment.

The largest doctor’s union, the Government Medical Officers’ Association, has published a list of badly needed items, which include antibiotics, blood pressure medicine and anti-depressants. The IT industry has also been heavily affected as firms face power cuts and internet outages.

Sri Lanka has suspended payments on its foreign loans and introduced capital controls amid a severe shortage of foreign currency. Meanwhile the Sri Lankan rupee has weakened by nearly 80 per cent, making the costs of imports even more prohibitive.

In May, the country defaulted on its debts to international lenders for the first time in its history, while the International Monetary Fund has failed to conclude a deal for a $3 billion bailout package for the nation.

The government is also seeking assistance from India and China to import essential items. The new prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said that the country needed at least $5 billion over the next half year to pay for food, fuel and fertiliser.

Wickremesinghe told parliament on June 22 that the nation faces “a far more serious situation” than the shortages alone, and he warned of “a possible fall to rock bottom.”

He added that things would get worse before they improve. “Our economy has completely collapsed,” he told them.

Until recently, middle-class families generally enjoyed economic security. Now they are struggling to manage three meals a day. “They have really been jolted like no other time in the last three decades,” remarked Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo.

Shanta Devarajan, a professor of international development at Washington’s Georgetown University, added that the country is on the verge of becoming a “fragile state.”