Embassy Row

Clash of diplomacy

The Czech ambassador had heard enough diplomatic niceties at a conference on democracy this week and offered some straight talk to his fellow panelists.

“There is a clash between the language of diplomacy and the language of democracy,” Ambassador Martin Palous said.

Mr. Palous questioned why the Community of Democracies, a global forum to promote representative government, includes countries like Russia, where democracy is regressing, and rejects governments like Taiwan, where democracy is robust.

As an anti-communist dissident in the former Czechoslovakia, Mr. Palous said he learned early on that the infant democracy movement there had to rely on itself because of the Western policy of “non-interference in the domestic affairs of state.”

However, that principle does not apply to the Community of Democracies. The more-than-100 nations that signed the Warsaw Declaration, the founding document of the five-year-old coalition, promised to promote free and fair elections and respect human rights. Each of the nations pledged transparency in their elections and judiciary and cooperation with each other in the development of democratic principles.

Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, followed Mr. Palous’ lead and offered a more blunt assessment of the community’s desire to include all nations that will sign the document.

He referred to democratic failures in Russia and Venezuela.

“I raise this in a non-diplomatic but very democratic way,” he told the forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday.

He denounced the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for the recent arrests of four democracy advocates who received a grant from the endowment.

“They are facing treason charges for accepting a grant,” Mr. Gershman said. “This is not an isolated case. … The judiciary in Venezuela is clearly being used to attack [Mr. Chavez’s] democratic opponents.”

Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, agreed that “some democracies have advanced and some have regressed.”

Mamounou Toure, a diplomat from the Embassy of Mali, called for international help in securing the fledgling democracy in the country. Mali will host next year’s meeting of delegates from the Community of Democracies.

Mali faces a threat to democracy from the widespread poverty in the West African nation, which recently emerged from decades of dictatorship.

“Democracy cannot flourish in an impoverished nation,” he said. “Too often the people do not see the fruit of democracy.”

Eye on Iran

A new group led by a rabbi, a Palestinian-American, a human-rights activist and the retired Army captain who negotiated the disarmament of the Iranian resistance will debut on Capitol Hill today.

Americans for Democracy in the Middle East will focus on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program when it convenes at 3 p.m. in Room HC-5 in the Capitol.

The goal is regime change in Iran, said Rabbi Daniel Zucker of Long Beach, N.Y.

The other members of the group’s board of directors are Ahmed El-Sharif, a Palestinian-born medical researcher from Kansas City, Mo.; Sharyn Rohder, a nurse and longtime human-rights activist; and retired Capt. Vivian Gembara.

Capt. Gembara, an Army lawyer, negotiated the surrender in 2003 of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, the armed resistance that was based in Iraq.

“She now realizes that was a mistake,” Rabbi Zucker said.

In May, Capt. Gembara told a congressional hearing that the resistance should have been encouraged to continue its opposition to the extremist theocracy that governs Iran.

• Call Embassy Row at 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail jmorrison@washingtontimes.com.