NO PAIN, NO GAIN:

New world order slowly warming up to Russia (JOHN O'SULLIVAN, June 1, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)

Admission [of the three Baltic Republics] to both NATO and the EU came with strict conditions. New member states first had to implement a reform program that would entrench democracy, the market economy and minority rights. Economic reform was painful, but the Baltic states now rank among the fastest-growing countries in the EU. Democratic reforms ensured that the political instability widely predicted a decade ago never occurred. And minority rights -- well, read on.

Objectively speaking, Russia benefitted more than the United States from Baltic membership in NATO. Russia got stable neighbors and a growing market in its backyard. The United States got a small Latvian contingent of troops to help the coalition in Iraq. But objective factors are not everything. Russia still is aggrieved by both the general sense that it has lost influence over what used to be its primary Baltic sphere of influence--and by one highly sensitive regional problem. When the Soviet Union imploded from 1989-91, it left behind Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltics. Ethnic Russians amount to more than 40 per cent of the Latvian population. In the main these are ordinary people who have inherited an uncomfortable historic situation. Because they are the children and grandchildren of people who were planted in the Baltics by a Soviet program of Russification, their presence is resented by many Latvians who ask: Can Russian-speakers ever be loyal Latvians?

But Latvia's membership in both NATO and the EU has had two calming effects. The Latvians need no longer fear Russian intervention--so they can afford to be more relaxed toward a very large national minority. And the new rules of Western organizations prevent overt discrimination against national minorities.

What the government does propose--for instance, requiring schools serving mainly ethnic Russian students to teach the main curriculum through Latvian--is controversial. It can be criticized as likely to hold Russian-speaking students back, but it can also be defended as a necessary step towards fully integrating young Russians in a revived Latvian national identity. It is less a pogrom than a debate...

The End of History doesn't end all problems, but it does make it substantially more likely that they'll be dealt with peacably.

MORE:
'Radical' shift in Turkey's judiciary (Yigal Schleifer, 6/02/04, CS Monitor)

When a pro-Kurdish politician accused ofsupporting a terrorist organization was acquitted recently, the verdict made front-page news here. "Radical," was how the daily Milliyet described the case.

The nation's State Security Courts (DGMs), tribunals that handle terrorism and political cases, cited European human rights law as the basis of the decision. In doing so, they marked a fundamental shift in the way Turkey's legal system is beginning to operate.

"The DGMs Say Hello to Europe," the newspaper's headline read. But the two courts are not the only parts of the judiciary saying "hello" to Europe. Over the past few months, some 9,200 judges and prosecutors have been trained- in the largest program of its kind in Turkey - in the basic foundations of human rights law. It is a massive effort to help the country adopt a model more in line with European standards.

The program, a project of the Turkish Ministry of Justice and the European Union, is one of numerous reforms undertaken by Turkey as it continues its bid to join the EU. One of the largest obstacles on the road to Brussels, thus far, has been the spotty human rights record of its criminal justice system.

"This [training program] is part of being contemporary. At a certain point you have to respect human rights," says Demet Gural, executive director of the Human Resources Development Foundation. "I wouldn't have imagined 10 years ago that the Ministry of Justice, for example, would be conducting human rights training for its staff."

Reforms have ranged from ending the death penalty to loosening the military's control over civil affairs. Hoping to receive a positive answer from the EU this year about when accession negotiations may begin, Turkey has been passing reform packages at a rapid clip.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 1, 2004 11:28 AM