The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1985 (8. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1985-05-01 / 3. szám

12 Diplomats under Close Watch A new book entitled MID (Ministerstvo Ino­­strannykh Diel - Ministry of Foreign Affairs) provides a rare insight into Soviet diplomatic life. Written by Nicolas Polianski, himself a former Soviet diplomat, the book reveals that behind the often austere buildings of Russian diplomatic missions lies a closed and strictly controlled world characterised by trivia and boredom. Although Polianski was not a member of the „ruling classes" of the MID, he was never­theless well placed to observe various aspects of Soviet diplomatic life. When first employed by the MID he expected that his career would reflect his personal and professional capabili­ties. Such a belief, understandable in what claims to be an egalitarian society, was, how­ever, soon dashed. SAD ANNIVERSARY... (Continued from page 11) Tang accused the Vietnamese leaders in Hanoi of being ideologues striving to model Vietnam on the USSR. He mentioned his bitterness in 1975 over learning that after years of fighting alongside the North Viet­namese, he and other members of the Provisional Revolutionary Government were to be deprived of their posts in the subsequent struggle for power. In a similar Press statement on June 9, 1980, Tang referred to the union of North and South Vietnam in 1976. This, he said, was followed by the enforced „re-education“ of South Vietnam’s intellect­uals, members of professions, government officials and non-Communist nationalists. Arrests were being made continually, and the population of the prison camps, the „Viet­namese Gulag,“ swelled. He added that the corrupt Communist Party bureaucracy was ruining the economy and conducting „the most stupid and criminal class struggle.“ In 1979, Tang fled from Vietnam by boat, the only member of the former revolutionary leadership to do so. He had been a non-Com­munist founder-member of the South Viet­namese National Liberation Front and was given the post of Justice Minister in 1969. Since 1975 well over 1,750,000 people have fled from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Vast numbers of South Vietnamese have escaped their Hanoi-colonised homeland in small boats, risking death on the high seas. The past decade has also proved that the fears that absorption of South Vietnam was only a step along Hanoi’s road towards the eventual control of the whole of Indo-China were far from groundless. In 1978, Hanoi invaded Cambodia, and it retains about 160,000 troops there despite repeated United Nations demands that they be withdrain. At least 500,000 Vietnamese settlers have been moved into Cambodia in recent years. Vietnam also has about 40,000 armed forces in Laos. Hanoi has more than 1,220,000 regular armed forces, trained and equipped by the USSR, and about 1,500,000 paramilitary personnel. The Russians have about 7,000 military advisers and instructors in Vietnam, about 800 in Cambodia and about 500 in Laos. He maintains that it was easy to predict the path of a young diplomat’s career if his family's connections with the „ruling classes" are known. For this reason certain ambassadors enjoy some freedom of movement while others are tightly controlled by Moscow. A Soviet diplomat’s main hope is to go abroad. But a young diplomat must first con­vince his bosses that the he is worthy of the „honour" of serving in an embassy and that he will not be lured away by the attractions of foreign countries. Only when the diplomat is passed as „reliable" is he considered a „person authorised to travel". A Soviet diplomat is less well paid than other diplomats; a month’s salary abroad never­theless is equivalent to a year’s average pay within the USSR. The Soviet authorities evidently think that the attraction of living abroad with such „privileges" as owning a oar and wearing Western clothes is sufficient reward. Generally diplomats are paid in local cur­rency but this is „changed" into so-called „convertible roubles". The convertible rouble, worth about five ordinary roubles, is a notional monetary unit from which foreign currencies paid to Soviet citizens when abroad are converted according to an official rate published in Izvestia at the beginning of each month. With his convertible roubles a Soviet diplomat on return to the USSR can, at special shops called „Beriozkas," buy goods not normally available to the Soviet public. Salaries paid in developing countries entitle the diplomat to yellow striped vouchers which have a lower purchasing power than those of the corresponding vouchers relating to pay earned in the West. Less valuable still are the blue vouchers exchanged for salaries earned in Warsaw Pact countries. Their purchasing power is marginally higher than that of the ordinary rouble. Particularly restricting for the Soviet diplomat is the security role within the embassy played by the KGB. This extends to the wives of KGB agents keeping a close eye on the activities of other Soviet wives. MID is published by Editions Belfond. Sandinists Practise Racism “The government shows a nineteenth-century lack of sensitivity in its treatment of minorities, and is at times downright racist... It has to be said that the revolution does not travel well.“ These unusually frank comments on the policies of the Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua towards the Indian and Creole communities of its Caribbean coast region recently appeared in the British social work journal New Society. Their author, novelist Paul Pickering, was highly cri­tical of the Sandinists’ policy of “integration“ and iits effects on Nicaragua’s ethnic minorities. The authorities attempt to justify the process by claiming that they are rescuing the Miskitos from years of “colonial neglect“. The fact is, however, that the Miskitos have always had a distinctive culture quite separate from that of the Spanish-speaking Pacific coast region. Adherents of the Moravian Church, they are predominantly English-speaking descendants of Sumo, Rama and Carib Indians,, former black slaves and British, French anu Dutch buccaneers. They have developed a way of life closely de­pendent on their traditional land holdings — now under threat from Sandinista collectivisation directives. In addition the authorities in Managua, Ni­caragua's capital, have sought to impose a literacy programme in Spanish, conducted by Cuban tea­chers, and to undermine the position of the Moravian Church to which the vast majority of the Miskitos belong. All these measures have stung the Caribbean coast community into re­sistance. Pickering discovered some unlikely critics of Sandinista policies on his travels. A former Red Army Faction terrorist from West Germany, now turned playwright and novellist, commented in an interview that the Sandinistas should have foreseen the consequences of their policies. “It does remind you,“ he said, “of Alabama in the 1950s. The whites have the guns, and the blacks have nothing... The Managua govern­ment has made mistakes, and is beginning to pay for them. “The Sandinistas and the Contras (anti-San­­dinista rebels) are the hammers, and the poor Miskitos the anvil.“ * Mass grave found: The Washington Post recently reported that the rotting corpses of 50 (to 60 people had been discovered in Esteli, Ni­caragua. The bodies “showed signs of being shot, stabbed and mutilated“, providing evidence of what appeared to be the largest known execu­tion of political prisoners by the Sandinista regime. According to the newspaper, it was under­stood that the State Security Service (DGSE) had carried out the killings. MAY-JUNE, 1985 THE GUAEDIM OF LIBERTY (NEMZETŐR) Bwyow hailli»4^*k®eÉMHiâWi A rtfchlfclirf rn+mHv+tmmlm. Erscheint 2monatlich. Einzelpreis für Deutschland DM 4,— Edited by the Editorial Board Verleger, Herausgeber und Inhaber TIBOR KECSKÊSI TOLLAS Journalist, Schriftsteller, München Ferchenbachstraße 88, D-8000 München 50 FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Verantwortlicher Redakteur (Editor): MIKLÓS VÁRY Ferchenbachstraße 88, D-8000 München 50 Druck (print): DANUBI A DRUCKEREI GMBH Ferchenbachstraße 88, D-8000 München 50 AFRICA REPRESENTATIVES & SALE CAMEROON: L. T. JOHNSON, Divisional Inspectorate of Education, NKAMBE, North West Province, Republic of CAMEROON. EAST AFRICA: (2— Sh, by air) (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania): General-Representative: International African Literary Agents. P.O. 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