Letters to the Editor

Peddling an obsolete ideology

I was greatly disappointed by the unbalanced treatment of the current Argentine situation in this article (“Argentine earns respect on rights,” World, Tuesday). Some of the points omitted are crucial:

• PresidentNestor Kirchner’s human rights campaign is one-sided. He has attacked the military for its violations of human rights but has ignored the Montoneros and ERP (People’s Revolutionary Army) members who undertook kidnappings and assassinations. At least a mention of that lack of balance was warranted.

• Mr. Kirchner presided at the ceremony at the Memory Museum during which the museum was turned over to Hebe Bonafini, a woman who celebrated in Havana the attack of September 11, gloating about Americans being killed. During that ceremony, the Argentine flag was lowered and a red flag with a picture of Che Guevara was raised. Many Argentines, not necessarily human rights violators, resented that.

• Mr. Kirchner suffered a severe public opinion rebuke when the father of Axel Blumberg, a young man who was kidnapped and murdered, organized a protest of the lax policy toward criminal actions. About 200,000 people responded in a demonstration to demand security from the government.

• Mr. Kirchner is sitting on an economic powder keg as a result of his stance on the $100 billion in private debt with bondholders. In one of his demagogic actions, he ordered the write-off of 75 percent of that debt. It so happens that several million Argentines hold such bonds in their private pension planaccounts.The International Monetary Fund postponed addressing this issue in its review of Argentina’s line of credit to pay its public debt.

• Finally, the energy crisis provoked by the highhanded dismissal of the legitimate interests of private utilities in trying to earn an adequate rate of return from their investments threatens the economic recovery. In another arbitrary action, a futile effort to cope with the problem by unilaterally suspending gas shipments contracted with Chile has caused an international incident.

Mr. Kirchner is a provincial man with an obsolete ideology from the ’70s whose demagogic antics are rapidly losing appeal and whose administrative incompetence is leading to a ruinous outcome for one of the great nations in this hemisphere. Readers of The Washington Times deserve better information than is provided in this article.

ERNESTO F. BETANCOURT

Bethesda

Fight against terror unites old allies

Helle Dale’s April 7 Op-Ed (“NATO turns east”) captures well the momentous event when seven Eastern European nations joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With this round of expansion, neighbors such as Hungary and Romania are allies again, just as they were during most of two world wars. This time, they were brought together by the urgency of fighting terrorism.

But the speedy European integration does not bring much relief to the Hungarian minorities of Eastern Europe. They still face social and political discrimination, especially when attempting to regain the communal institutions that define their ethnic identity. The ethnic Hungarians outside Hungary have sizable populations, particularly in regions of Romania and Slovakia, where some key anti-Hungarian measures remain firmly in place well after the end of communist rule.

The Hungarian minorities are unique because their status was not achieved through migration but because of the arbitrary and undemocratic redrawing of Hungary’s borders in the aftermath of World War I, which left them no option other than to become foreign nationals in their ancestral land. And although these communities are active in the political life of their respective countries, this positive contribution to building democracy does not mean acceptance by the majority. The Hungarian minorities have to constantly battle the full power of the state when it comes to issues of communal identity.

In Romania, a form of persecution is taking place. Despite repeated and lawful petitions to restore the Hungarian autonomous university taken away by the communists in 1959, it is denied by the Romanian leadership, despite promises to the contrary made after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, an event in which the Hungarian minority played a pivotal role. Similarly, Romanian authorities are stifling the emergence of young Hungarian community leadership by placing endless bureaucratic hurdles to the restitution of well over 2,000 religious and civic educational institutions.

With allies like these, who needs enemies?

JANOS SZEKERES

Washington

A just cause

The United States has a duty to intervene in Sudan (“Remember Rwanda, act on Sudan,” Editorials, Tuesday). President Bush made an active commitment to protecting basic human rights and extending freedom to every corner of the globe in his 2002 National Security Strategy statement. As such, we must intervene to stop the ethnic cleansing and displacement of African civilians in Sudan. Our national security depends on our taking a strong stance against every instance of tyranny and oppression we see, and there is no greater tyranny than that of the state over the people. It is the inalienable right of every Sudanese person to possess political and economic freedom; as the foremost international power, we must be the guarantors of these rights to the oppressed.

The Sudanese government is supporting the northern Arab militias in an ethnic-cleansing campaign that has displaced 4 million and killed 2 million southern Sudanese, mainly Christians and animists. The Sudanese government is supplying the militias with weapons, as well as supporting their campaign by airstrikes on the border region in dispute.

In addition to the sanctions imposed by the Sudan Peace Act signed by President Bush in 2002, we, as Americans and as the foremost international power, need to send a clear message to the Sudanese government that we have stopped tolerating these activities. Indeed, despite a recent cease-fire negotiated by the United States with the Sudanese government, there has been a new slew of aerial attacks on the southern Sudanese. We need to pressure the government multilaterally, with the aid of the United Nations, over this massive human-rights violation. We need to send international peacekeepers who will make sure that humanitarian aid reaches those who need it. Most of all, we need the government to stop encouraging the militia, and indeed, to punish them.

JEONG OH

Cambridge, Mass.

Mubarak’s scapegoa

In the interview with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (“Mubarak insists Palestinian, Iraqi solutions linked,” World, Wednesday), we read the following: “I [Mr. Mubarak] was preparing a meeting between Sharon and the prime minister of Palestine [Ahmed Qureia]. It was supposed to be held on the 16th of last month. … But there are elements on both sides that don’t want peace to prevail. [An Israeli military operation at Ashdoud in the West Bank] canceled the whole meeting.”

Did you understand a thing? I did not. First, Ashdod is a port city in Israel to the north of Gaza and not in the West Bank. Second, there was not any Israeli military operation that day in Ashdod but a terrible act of terror two days earlier performed by two suicide terrorists who penetrated from Gaza (for the first time since beginning of the current war in 2000). They hid in the container belonging to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that was delivered to Ashdod from Gaza with merchandise bought by Israel with the intention to give work and income to people of Gaza. Ten Israeli citizens were murdered, and dozens wounded.

BORIS ALEINIKOV

Arlington, Va.