Mike Miller on AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (USA) Public Statement No: 213

I would like to comment on a News item entitled: Concerns about imprisonment of Alyaksandr Kazulin; AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (USA) Public Statement No: 213 from
14 August 2006

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGEUR490132006

If you are a regular reader of Adam Goodman and BEINGHAD, you likely already know that I am an outspoken and unwavering supporter of the people of The Republic of Belarus. And, as such a supporter, I must not ever forget to remind the world about their fine, high quality and legally elected president, Alexander Lukashenka.

I would also like to first start by congratulating and honoring Amnesty
International for being the flagship organization overseeing and reporting
on improper prison conditions, illegal torturous occurrences, and general
human brutalities committed against powerless citizens by states, or
individuals empowered by states. Amnesty International has diminished the width, breadth and depth of state sponsored, and or, state empowered mistreatment of prisoners and state captives globally. For this Herculean accomplishment alone, I would like to congratulate and thank Amnesty International on behalf of all humanity and that the world community should frequently read the Amnesty International articles and should be motivated to improve conditions for the tortured and imprisoned, thus improving the composite value of their individual countries, and the world as well.

However, we the global community, should be aware that IMPLIED CONCLUSIONS could be subtly included into Amnesty International articles and reports and in Amnesty International Public Statement number 213 dated August 14, 2006, they have demonstrated 2 of their classic
flaws This article protests both the charges against Kozulin and his sentence. Sadly, this article presents the reader many subtly IMPLIED CONCLUSIONS that I will outline later on. The first flaw that they demonstrated is they failed to describe the precursor events that lead to Kozulin being in police custody. Chiefly, I would like to point to the United States' governments organized attempt to engineer a revolution in the Republic of Belarus by the funding, direction, and manipulation of minority political parties, US approved unregistered NGO's and US funded and controlled "media sources". Secondly, this public statement descries some ALLEGED rough and harsh treatment that Aleksander Kauzlin received while in Belarusian police custody on March 2, 2006 without allowing for reasonable argument to the contrary. For these two reasons, this article should be considered more as propaganda than as a relevant piece of investigative journalism.

Prior, during, and after the recent Belarusian presidential election, the government and people of Belarus were under a tremendous pressure to vote
for a candidate other than Aleksander Lukashenka. The U.S.
government both subtly and overtly financed and orchestrated an attempted
colored revolution and then proclaimed the elections unfair when Lukashenka fairly won the election with 83% of the popular vote. This is a very important fact that Amnesty didn't find pertinent to include in the public statement 213. This fact should have been mentioned in public statement 213 because it would give readers a more clear idea of the ominous U.S. government inspired socio-economic pressures bearing down upon this small country before, during and after the election.

There are many who believe that should such a colored revolution have succeeded, the people of Belarus would have endured a giant crime wave of
gangsters, pimps, drug dealers and violent profiteers invading from all her
borders. These are very pertinent details Amnesty has chosen to omit from
public statement 213.

Kozulin obviously has both personal and political motivation for making his charges against the police. Any reader can see he has both. This fact is omitted from public statement 213.

Article 213 also doesn't discuss how comparatively reliable their sources are.

These details should have been included because they demonstrate to the reader more clearly the predisposing factors leading to an individual (Kozulin) coming into police custody.

In addition to these errors, there are several dangerous and imprudent and unfair IMPLIED CONCLUSIONS that could be inferred by public statement 213:

• The president of Belarus, Aleksander Lukashenka isn't a just, and good man, or a good president. I for one believe he is all of these things.

• The Belarusian authorities as a whole aren't committed to professionally and ethically executing their duties according to both the written laws and the public will of the people of Belarus. I believe they do.

• Aleksander Lukashenka wasn't the most popular candidate. This is false, he enjoyed 83% of the popular vote.

• That Kozulin was merely leading common street protesters on March 25. At this point, the elections had been over for a week and therefore he WAS actually trying to start a colored revolution.

• The "demonstrators" were merely common "demonstrators". Many of the tent camp people were actually paid professionals attempting to start a colored revolution.

• And finally that the U.S. authorities are somehow more ethical or responsible or humane than the Belarusian authorities.

Public statement 213 then concludes by telling readers that the result of continued harassment of civil society by Belarusian authorities is the
stifling of open, public debate and activity within Belarus. Doesn't this statement ignore criminal and subversive activities by the US and EU in engineering artificial issues and artificial public unrest for
the purpose of having a pro-west president in power at the gross expense of
the general public good? Why is it that when the US government decided to fund and inspire opposition candidates with platforms comprised of ludicrous and artificial issues, public debate and civil society were at that point not considered stifled? Moreover, should not an 83% agreement be an obvious enough statement that an independent civil society exists more openly and freely and happily in Belarus than any other former soviet republic?


PS 213 never attempts to juxtapose Belarusian police/judicial practices with American ones. If Amnesty International was going to find so many complaints against the Belarusian government as a whole, and thus question even subtly question its validity, then Amnesty
International should have fairly compared them to their American
counterparts, and proposed an American police response if a comparatively
large number of revolutionaries were attempting to topple the US government
with the funding and motivation of a foreign power. I am sorry, in this article, Amnesty has taken a one sided political stance rather than describing a situation fairly.

This is the root issue behind all of the conflict from the Belarusian elections. The US and EU wish for a continued mono-polar world, and they will stop at nothing, including funding and financing a revolution after a fair election to achieve this goal. Amnesty International serves a valuable purpose to the world by illuminating "concerns", but we the global consumers of their humanitarian/journalistic/informational product must not accept these same products without logical inspection and fair minded consideration. We must remember that even Amnesty International has flaws and a political stance as well.

So in conclusion, let us ask ourselves a couple of questions: Should the country of The Republic of Belarus continue to strive to improve the quality and efficiency and professionalism of their law enforcement and judiciary and
their prison organs? The clear answer is YES!! Of course they should! And so should every other country from A-Z. But we also need to ask ourselves whether or not the Belarusians have displayed a remarkable professionalism, humanity and restraint in the face of a manipulative EU/US economic juggernought. Again, the logical answer is yes.

Would it have been possible for Kazulin to have received better treatment by
the police of his country if circumstances had been different? Perhaps if there would have been much less hysteria and hype he never would have started up in the first place. But the fact is the Belarusian elections were a time of sponsored and engendered hysteria, all staged for the benefit of the media, and as this was so, we should also ask ourselves if Kazulin's criminal charges were not as political as his actions? Kozulin was absolutely flirting with disaster for the attention of the media, all of his gestures were not only wild and volatile, but arguably could have been seen as radical for anyone in any country. He then publicly called for the downfall a popularly elected government. Would the US have put up with this? I think not. To me, Kazulin was taken in exactly the manner in which he worked and found the same end for himself he desired for the regime.

Perhaps this could be considered justice after all.

Please, let us all not forget to thank Amnesty International for the
excellent work that they do for the world in general. We should also remember that even though they are not perfect, we should all be very grateful for them anyway.

Michael Miller
Indianapolis
2006