During her Polish visit Clinton was in Krakow for the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Community of Democracies, "a joint venture between one of Radek's [Radoslaw Sikorski's] predecessors and one of mine: Minister Geremek and Madeleine Albright." Though neither was present, one for fairly obvious reasons, she added: "Thank you, Madeleine, and thanks to the memory of Minister Geremek."
Her comments were delivered under the rubric of "Civil Society: Supporting Democracy in the 21st Century," and included blasts at the targets of the day:
"North Korea, a country that cannot even feed its own people, has banned all civil society. In Cuba and Belarus, as Radek said, civil society operates under extreme pressure. The Government of Iran has turned its back on a rich tradition of civil society, perpetrating human rights abuses against many activists and ordinary citizens who just wanted the right to be heard.
"The idea of pluralism is integral to our understanding of what it means to be a democracy....[The] iron curtain has fallen. But we must be wary of the steel vise in which many governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit." [16]
China, Russia, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Congo, Ethiopia and Burma/Myanmar were also singled out for chastisement under the Steel Vise rubric. (So far has the U.S. progressed from the Iron Curtain motif/trope).
Three facts must be registered on this score.
During her secretary of state confirmation hearing in the Senate in January of 2005, Clinton's immediate predecessor Condoleezza Rice updated the U.S. international enemies list with what she called "outposts of tyranny." They were (and evidently still are) Belarus, Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe. At the time the BBC asserted that Rice's "comments were reminiscent of Mr Bush's 'axis of evil' speech in 2002, in which he identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as threats to US security." [17]
As seen above, Clinton in Krakow castigated all six of the "tyrannical outposts."
Second, during a question and answer period two days later in Georgia in which Clinton had the opportunity to prove her mettle on matters of human rights, freedom of expression and so forth, she demonstrated the difference between how a faithful client state is treated as opposed to any nation, whatever its political system may be, that pursues a foreign policy not entirely subordinated to U.S. diktat.
On July 5 Georgian head of state Mikheil Saakashvili spared no pains proving which category he was in, telling Clinton: "Mrs Secretary of State, you can see shelves of works by Thomas Jefferson and books by authors of the US constitution in my study. I read them frequently." [18]
It is not likely that Saakashvili, who received his law degree in the U.S., would make that claim under oath, though the truth has always been an elastic concept, a nebulous notion to the Columbia Law School graduate.
When Jailing Children, Rigging Elections And Repressing News Media Are Acceptable
During a meeting with Georgian women, a human rights lawyer asked Clinton:
"I want to tell you that there are more than 61 political prisoners in the country. And I want to ask you, when you had a meeting with President Saakashvili, ask him why does it happen that he has so many political prisoners in Georgia today, why the judiciary is not independent in Georgia, why the Georgian people are deprived of a free choice during the last elections in the country, why media is not free in Georgia, why don't we have free electoral environment?"
She added, "after I became [an opponent of] Saakashvili, then it happened so that many of my family members are in prison. My brother is in prison, just because I am an opponent and (inaudible) Saakashvili. My child has also been a victim when he is at school (inaudible). There was a (inaudible) to imprison him (inaudible). And these (inaudible) opposition, and because I fight for supremacy of law, rule of law, and freedom and democracy."
The "community of democracies" heroine from Foggy Bottom responded:
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