The Senior Program Manager for Eurasia at Freedom House Sam Patten has given interwiev for “Azadlıq” daily newspaper.
Biography:
Sam Patten is the Senior Program Manager for Eurasia at Freedom House. He brings a decade of experience in the former Soviet Union together with a background of foreign policy, democratization and communications work at the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Senate. From 2008-9, Patten served as senior advisor for democracy promotion to former Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky. In the region, he headed the International Republican Institute (IRI)’s Moscow office from 2001-2004 and re-opened IRI’s Kazakhstan program in 2003. Prior to the first free election in Iraq, he directed IRI’s political programming out of Baghdad from 2004-5 where he oversaw public opinion research, media development and Get-Out-the-Vote activities. As a private consultant, Patten helped manage the campaigns of democratically-focused political leaders in Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Albania and Northern Iraq. He has also worked as a foreign policy and defense advisor to U.S. Senator Susan Collins and a speechwriter to U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe.
1. After the post-election crackdown on the opposition in Belarus, many international organizations, most notably, the European Parliament discussed the possibility of imposing sanctions on Belarus for human rights violations. How necessary and effective is the method of imposing sanctions on a national government which keeps violating human rights? Is Belarus any different than Azerbaijan which has a similar record of human rights violations?
A number of foreign policy experts recently sent the attached letter to Secretary Clinton urging her to take strict measures against the regime in Belarus for its manifest violations of human rights and democratic norms since the December 19 election. One such measure is tightened sanctions, along the lines of those proposed by the European Parliament. I believe this makes a lot of sense especially if they are “smart” sanctions such as those levied against stakeholders of Belneftkhim and other concerns held by members of the regime. Yes, there is a concern that sanctions might inadvertently have a negative effect on the Belarusian people, but Aleksandr Lukashenka has a worse effect than any sanctions on his own people and Belarusians are smart. Increasingly, they are coming to understand that Lukashenka is the problem—one that isolates them from their neighbors European continent to which they belong, and one who is holding their country back—to its significant detriment—in the past. Sanctions will be properly understood as the consequence of this dictator’s mis-governance.
2. Many international organizations dealing with human rights and democracy programs create lists of the people who are subjected to unfair attacks in their home countries. There are quite a number of lists of imprisoned journalists, persecuted dissident. What about the lists of government officials who are notorious for human rights violations? Does it make any sense to make such a list so that world knows not only those who are victimized by authoritarian regimes, but also get to know the people who are actively participating in human rights abuses in such countries?
Those who are responsible for human rights abuses and denying fundamental freedoms to citizens of any country have names and faces. In the case of Belarus, we know who these people are and they should absolutely be held to account for the actions of the regime they serve and from which they profit. As you will see in the attached letter, one of the measures this group of experts—with whom I strongly agree—is precisely what your question proposes. The United States and the European Union members would ideally coordinate on who should be on such a list, and include their family members. I understand this may sound harsh, but family members of those in the Belarusian regime certainly benefit from the crimes that are committed so there is no reason they should be allowed to travel, shop, vacation or study in the West while the families of those not serving in the regime, ie. the majority of the Belarusian people, are increasingly denied engagement with the West. Responsibility begins and ends at home, and such a measure would make the dictator and his henchmen more acutely aware of the real impact of their crimes against human freedom.
3. The Wikileaks publications revealed damaging information for the government of Azerbaijan as well. Several articles written by local experts indicated that the Wikileaks reports caused damage to Azerbaijani government because the regime was authoritarian. Do you agree that Wikileaks reports have caused more damage to the authoritarian regimes than to the countries with open political systems?
The WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables has not surprisingly raised much debate around the world, and while the discussions about access to information are worth having, the release of classified information bearing on the safety of individuals was, in my view, reckless. The extraordinary thing about WikiLeaks is not all the information that the cables divulged about what diplomats think privately about various authoritarians, but rather how few real cover-ups there seem to have been out there. Imagine that hundreds of thousands of classified cables could be released and there be no major revelations about government cover-ups. What they did reveal about the thinking of diplomats was in many cases complimentary to the authors. Personally, I’m pleased our diplomats in Azerbaijan understand that authoritarianism and corruption are major problems there, indeed handicaps to your country’s development. But if they didn’t, they would be guilty of malpractice or exercising diplomacy while simultaneously blind and deaf. Was endangering the security of brave civil society and opposition activists worth this revelation? I don’t think so, but that was not, apparently, part of WikiLeaks calculation.
4. Are there any pro-active programs of the Freedom House for the immediate future aimed at fostering the democratization process in Azerbaijan, or the programs of your organization will be limited to assessing the situation in the country and issuing reports based on those assessments?
I very much hope that Freedom House will have the opportunity to develop programs and presence in Azerbaijan. Last year, we participated in a freedom of expression task force that visited Azerbaijan and made a number of specific recommendations. Azerbaijan was the world’s first Muslim democracy at the time of its creation and again, briefly, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and it is a country with great human energy and promise with much to contribute. Similarly Freedom House would like to be able to do more to contribute to the efforts of those in Azerbaijan working for a freer, more transparent society, and we will work hard in the coming years to find ways of doing this.
