August 2011

A World of News and Perspective

■ INSIDE: MEDICAL SPECIAL SECTION

MEDICAL Q A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

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■ VOLUME 18, NUMBER 8 INDEPENDENCE

SOUTH AMERICA

Georgia, Ukraine: Still Charting Their Post-Soviet Journey

State Department Keeps Pace With High-Tech Times From cell phone and Internet access to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, the digital revolution has been a source of inspiration for people around the world — and a source of newfound power and energy for diplomats at Foggy Bottom. PAGE 21

National Geographic has documented countless countries around the world but has a special bond with Mexico. PAGE 34

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

Nancy Birdsall admits that the Center for Global Development, which she co-founded a decade ago, has a “very grand mission” — nothing less than reducing global poverty and inequality. But it approaches that mission in a very specific way, with exacting analysis and innovative thinking — and a bit of tough love mixed in — to show that “what happens in rich countries can affect poor countries.” PAGE 6

UNITED STATES

National Geographic’s Affinity for Mexico

■ AUGUST 2011

Tough Love: Scrutinizing the Rich-Poor Nexus Of Development

Twenty years after gaining their independence from the Soviet Union, Georgia and Ukraine are still very much entangled with their huge neighbor, as they steer between Russia and the West while carving out their own path in a complex post-Cold War journey. PAGE 8

culture

Q August 2011

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

COLOMBIA’S FTA SAGA When Gabriel Silva Luján was Colombia’s ambassador here in the 1990s, the focus was “drugs, drugs and more drugs.”

Today, the relationship is much broader but still consumed by a single issue: a free trade agreement that Silva admits may not happen this year. “Maybe that’s why they sent me here. I always take jobs no one else wants.” PAGE 13

Business Savvy Couple Promotes Twin Island of Trinidad and Tobago With extensive and varied backgrounds in business development, Ambassador Neil Parsan and his wife Lucia MayersParsan, a former local hire for the U.S. Embassy, immediately set about promoting Trinidad and Tobago as an attractive Caribbean destination — not just for tourists, but for investors. PAGE 35

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August 2011

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August 2011

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August 2011

CONTENTS THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

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8 Georgian soldiers

[ news ] 6

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE Nancy Birdsall, co-founder of the Center for Global Development, wants to help poor nations by helping wealthy ones figure out what works and what doesn’t in international development.

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“Possible Worlds”

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BOOK REVIEW Swedish Diplomat Jan Eliasson details the do’s and don’ts of international mediation in “The Go-Between.”

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LAW

COVER PROFILE: COLOMBIA

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After years of fits and starts, it’s make-or-break time — yet again — for Washington’s far-reaching but longdelayed free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

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34

COVER: Photo taken at the Embassy of Colombia by Lawrence Ruggeri.

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FILM FESTIVALS From bullying to sperm donation, the top docs at the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival take a no-holds-barred approach to nonfiction.

PHOTOGRAPHY

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CINEMA LISTING

No other country has been featured more extensively in the pages of National Geographic than Mexico, offering an unparalleled visual diary of national identity and culture.

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EVENTS LISTING

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DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

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WORLD HOLIDAYS / APPOINTMENTS

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CLASSIFIEDS

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REAL ESTATE CLASSIFIEDS

DIPLOMACY Public diplomacy is undergoing a seismic shift as the State Department taps Sillicon Valley expertise to develop high-tech tools to stay relevant in a rapidly innovating world.

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[ culture ]

ECONOMICS

FILM REVIEWS “Life, Above All” chronicles the uplifting fortitude of a South African girl forced to shoulder burdens beyond her years.

TELEMEDICINE It seems like something out of a sci-fi movie but science developed on space shuttles in orbit is revolutionizing telemedicine back on Earth.

DINING The Queen Vic toasts the storied English pub tradition with its focus on — what else? — drinks. Fortunately, there’s good food to wash it all down with as well.

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Gabriel Silva Luján says the skepticism over the U.S.Colombia free trade agreement is only natural “because we have been waiting for five years.” The real question is how much longer are Colombians willing to wait?

ART From elegant lithographs to edgy Guerrilla Girl posters, three very different exhibitions are electrified by alternating currents whose only connection is, in a word, gender.

Ovarian cancer is extremely difficult to diagnose and treat — which is exactly why doctors are so excited about a new category of drugs that take aim at the DNA that drives cancer cells.

Outsiders often wonder whether Ukraine will veer toward Russia or the West, but the country’s ambassador, Olexander Motsyk, says that’s an oversimplified view that obscures a more practical reality.

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CANCER TREATMENT

HISTORY “Family Matters” pulls back the curtain on imperial life during China’s golden age of prosperity with portraits of the privileged few who wear that prosperity on their sleeves.

[ medical ] 27

PHOTOGRAPHY Fiction and reality collide in the imaginations of Mexican artists whose “Possible Worlds” are absolutely fantastical.

38

They are known as the Irvine 11 — a group of Muslim students in California whose misdemeanor trial for disturbing the peace has raised disturbing questions about First Amendment rights and the specter of Islamophobia in a post-9/11 America.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

37

Ovarian cancer

Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia’s new ambassador, has been praised for his tough-talking boldness, which he’ll need in abundance to help Tbilisi fulfill its equally bold ambitions.

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August 2011

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES Business is in their blood, so it’s only natural that Ambassador Neil Parsan and his wife Lucia Mayers-Parsan quickly got down to the business of promoting their island of Trinidad and Tobago in their first diplomatic posting.

P.O. Box 1345 • Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345 • Phone: (301) 933-3552 • Fax: (301) 949-0065 • E-mail: news@washdiplomat.com • Web: www.washdiplomat.com Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Victor Shiblie Director of Operations Fuad Shiblie Managing Editor Anna Gawel News Editor Larry Luxner Assistant Editor Julie Poucher Harbin Contributing Writers Raymond Barrett, Michael Coleman, Jacob Comenetz, Carolyn Cosmos, Rachel Hunt, Ky N. Nguyen, Gail Scott, Gina Shaw, John Shaw, Gary Tischler Photographer Jessica Latos Director of Sales Ben Porter Account Managers David Garber, Christina Langer, Chris Smith Graphic Designer Cari Bambach The Washington Diplomat is published monthly by The Washington Diplomat, Inc. The newspaper is distributed free of charge at several locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area. We do offer subscriptions for home delivery. Subscription rates are $25 for 12 issues and $45 for 24 issues. Call Fuad Shiblie for past issues. If your organization employs many people from the international community you may qualify for free bulk delivery. To see if you qualify you must contact Fuad Shiblie.

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August 2011

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PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

Nancy Birdsall

Slashing Global Poverty

By Scrutinizing the Rich

by Michael Coleman

N

ancy Birdsall spent 14 years in research, policy and management positions at the World Bank, and later served as executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank.

She also spent a few years — from 1998 until 2001 — thinking big thoughts about global development at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. That’s why now, armed with that invaluable experience, Birdsall feels perfectly qualified to critique those other institutions as founding president of the Center for Global Development, which recently marked its 10th anniversary.

“You can’t sit in the World Bank and be very effective at criticizing what the World Bank does,” Birdsall said with a laugh during a recent interview with The Washington Diplomat. “Places like the World Bank and United Nations are full of enlightened people who are trying to do the right thing and because of that, they are not that easy a target.

“You have to understand what they are doing, and their problems and their constraints,” added Birdsall, who also boasts a Ph.D. from Yale University. “I wanted to have a place that was independent but had people with that kind of insider knowledge. I wanted it to be independent.”

Independent — it’s a word that crops up frequently in Birdsall’s discussion of her think tank dedicated to global research and policy analysis, with special emphasis on crafting messages and communicating them to the outside world. Whether taking on Nigeria’s debt crisis or ranking nations on their propensity to help the poor, the Center for Global Development (CGD) aims to cultivate a sense of shared global prosperity — using rigorous policy analysis and innovative thinking that pairs research with action. In particular, CGD analyzes the effectiveness of foreign aid and shines a spotlight on how rich countries impact poor ones in terms of education, health, migration, trade, climate change and a host of other issues.

“We call attention to the fact that what happens in rich countries can affect poor countries,” Birdsall said.

To do that, CGD’s work spans the development spectrum.

There’s practical advice in the form of “wonkcasts” discussing how the U.S. and G-20 can better scrutinize the billions of dollars spent on food assistance, for instance, or working papers on why increasing temporary labor migration to the United States would be a more effective humanitarian response to natural disasters in other nations than traditional disaster relief.

Among its more far-reaching accomplishments, CGD advocated for a “cash on delivery aid” approach that dovetailed with its efforts to make foreign assistance more accountable. CGD took the idea further by linking payments more directly to a single specific result — “kids who actually complete school and take a test, for example, rather than inputs such as classrooms and books,” Birdsall said.

The center also pushed for a landmark $1 trillion international effort to help developing countries cope with the 2008 economic crash. It also advocated for debt relief from the International Monetary Fund for the world’s most heavily indebted countries and the creation of a club to independently evaluate development investments in response to what the center calls “the shocking lack of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in development.”

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PHOTO: CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

“

We call attention to the fact that what happens in rich countries can affect poor countries.

— NANCY BIRDSALL

”

President of the Center for Global Development

Birdsall cultivated the idea for the Center for Global Development in the late 1990s. While at the Carnegie Endowment, she crossed paths with Ed Scott, an immensely successful businessman and philanthropist who, impressed with Birdsall’s vision, helped provide the resources to make her ambition for a new global poverty think tank a reality.

“It was a huge opportunity,” Birdsall said.“He made it possible for me to go out and get some of the very best people to do some things that required the kind of independence we needed.”

There’s that word again — independence. Although Birdsall constantly stresses CGD’s ability to operate without pressures from government, business or other interests, she said the center’s approach isn’t adversarial. She explained that her strategy is to pick the right targets and work with — not against — government and quasi-governmental bureaucrats who direct money and implement policy decisions.

“The treasury and trade representatives in government and people who work in public service face all kinds of restraints,” Birdsall said, sympathetically. “It’s more about working with them and picking our targets. But developing ideas from the outside is what really matters.”

One of those ideas is the center’s Commitment to Development Index, which Birdsall calls CGD’s “signature

initiative.”

The basic idea is explained on the center’s website: “Which rich countries are doing the most to help poor ones? Rich and poor nations are linked in many ways — by foreign aid, commerce, the environment, and more. Each year, the CDI rates rich-country governments on how much they are helping poor countries via seven key linkages: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology.The CDI then takes the average for an overall score.”

In 2010, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands took the top three spots, respectively, while the United States came in eleventh place. Japan and South Korea came in last place among the richest countries.

“It captures very well our whole purpose by ranking countries in terms of their policies, programs and practices across a range of areas,” Birdsall explained. “It’s very solid work but it’s also based on the concept that if you communicate effectively something people can understand … you can help inspire change.

“One of the reasons the index is important is that we are trying to remind people every year that what rich countries are doing in developing countries is not only about aid, it’s about the U.S. — for example, what we’re doing on climate change, which is nothing for all practical purposes,” Birdsall continued.“We are doing harm by neglecting our contributions to the changing climate, which is disaster for poor people around the world.

“What are we doing on trade? The U.S. does better and has had a more open economy than many European countries and certainly more than Japan,” she added.“It’s not just about aid. It’s about all these other facts.”

Birdsall noted that the index is increasingly attracting attention in major traditional and online publications, including the Huffington Post and the New York Times.

“We think we’re starting to shape a little bit how we think about this issue because now there are countries like China August 2011

and India, while they are relatively poor, what they do in the banking and financial sector and what they do on the climate issue matters for people in Africa and for people everywhere,” she said. “The concept is fundamentally to look at the rich and powerful — rich countries or rich forces — and how they are affecting others.”

Of course, not every nation appreciates the ranking, especially if they are listed near the bottom.

“Every index is controversial and we knew that from the beginning,” Birdsall said. “For every part of that index … we are extremely analytically rigorous and transparent in how each of these factors is being measures.

“Our approach is very much, ‘Great, let’s talk about it and have debate.’ We are not saying this is perfect. We’re putting it out there for others to scrutinize and complain about, and we’ve made adjustments over time when data becomes available that can enrich it or make it better.”

The center also spends a good deal of time analyzing what works in poor countries and what doesn’t. For example, Birdsall said family planning — access to birth control and education about fertility — makes a huge difference in the lives of not just girls, but entire societies. She used the example of Pakistan, which has a relatively strong economy, compared to Bangladesh, which is poorer.

“In Bangladesh, where there is much better access to family planning and there are higher education levels for girls and boys, a lot of things are better there than in Pakistan, although Pakistan’s income per person is higher,” Birdsall explained.“Why are these differences there? That’s an interesting question. What happened in Bangladesh that didn’t happen in Pakistan — we don’t know enough about that. Is it about leadership? Is it about differences in the ethnic makeup of those countries? That’s what we’re trying to understand.

“It’s also worth trying to understand in Pakistan what is the most effective way to get started if you do have leadership that says,‘We want to have better access to schools and health care and family planning,’” she added.

Speaking of Pakistan, the center has been deeply involved in analyzing U.S. policy in the turbulent South Asian nation — especially timely given the recent announcement that the administration is shelving hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Pakistan, while Congress clamors for further cuts to development aid as well. The study, titled “Beyond Bullets and Bombs: Fixing the U.S. Approach to Development in Pakistan,” draws lessons from past experiences and offers practical recommendations to U.S. policymakers on the effective deployment of foreign assistance and, more broadly, other non-aid instruments for achieving sustainable development in

Pakistan.

The study’s findings do not give cause for optimism. As the title suggests, the report denounces the overwhelming security focus “while neglecting low-cost, low-risk investments in jobs, growth, and the long haul of democracy building,” wrote Birdsall, who convened the study group and is the report’s lead author.

But U.S. policymakers have in recent years tried to formulate a non-military development strategy for Pakistan. Here again though there is cause for concern, as outlined in the report’s introduction: “U.S. policymakers view Pakistan as one of the most critical fronts — perhaps the most critical front — in the U.S.-led effort to combat violent extremism. President Obama has said that economic development is the central component of his administration’s Pakistan strategy.And Congress has authorized a three-fold increase in nonmilitary aid — a total of $7.5 billion — to Pakistan over the next five years. Will it work?

“Prospects are not encouraging. The effectiveness of the massive new American aid push is imperiled by the same old problems that have undermined the effectiveness of billions of dollars that the United States and other donors have spent on development in Pakistan over the past three decades: weak governance, political instability, and widespread corruption.”

Birdsall was adamant, however, that those who insist on cutting off U.S. aid to Pakistan because they view the nation as an untrustworthy partner — including some within her own organization — are shortsighted.

“Mend the [aid] program, don’t end it,” Birdsall said.

“You need to have a program that is flexible over time, where people’s judgment matters and you shift [focus],” she explained. “The British and the World Bank have been working for five or more years in the largest single state — Punjab — on reforming the education system.We recommend the U.S. co-finance what they are doing.

Why reinvent the wheel?”

She also said Congress should ease up on its pressure to have appropriations sent to Pakistan spent so quickly.

“If you can’t spend the money well, don’t spend it,” she said. “Congress puts way to much pressure to disperse the money. Maybe it wasn’t time to spend it. If there is pressure to spend money, we’re not going to spend it well.”

Birdsall did endorse a controversial plan to build a massive hydroelectric dam in the country, saying it would not only help solve Pakistan’s energy challenges, but send an important signal to the nation’s leaders about U.S. intent.

“A lot of development and environmental people don’t like [hydroelectric dams] because if they’re not done well they displace people and create engineering problems,” she said. “But the

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fact is, Pakistan is in deep trouble in terms of a lack of energy. It would take five or 10 years to get the thing built, but the U.S. has the engineering capacity and we could bring private sector investors.”

She added: “It would be a long-term commitment and it would have lot of risk, but if they looked at it carefully, it would clarify to Pakistan that the U.S. is in this for the long haul; that we are not just there to try to drive their government into counterterrorism.”

Birdsall also stressed that the center’s report is not all about throwing money at Pakistan.

“The most important thing we said in that report is that it’s not just about aid,” she said.“We should open our markets to exports from Pakistan.

If we took Pakistani exports without the very high tariffs they are subject to now, we could generate a lot of jobs for young people in Pakistan who are otherwise in the streets.”

“U.S. aid to Pakistan is not a reward for good behavior,” Birdsall added in a wonkcast.“We have to think about aid as an investment in the future of U.S. security. If you keep in mind the proposed $1.5 billion a year represents less than what we spend in Afghanistan in a week, then you get the point.”

As for foreign aid — which similarly accounts for a small sliver of total U.S. federal spending — Birdsall is a longtime proponent of and expert on the USAID program. Not surprisingly, she has some opinions about the program implemented

by President John F. Kennedy as the primary overseer of U.S. civilian aid to other countries that in recent years has seen its stature — and funding and, many say, independence — shrink since 9/11.

“I believe it’s very problematic to have the aid program so embedded in the State Department,” she told us.“The State Department’s work is diplomacy — negotiating and talking and dealing with

immediate problems, the urgency of now.

“I’m of the view that the taxpayers would be better off if there were a cabinet-level agency, or not necessarily a cabinet-level agency but an independent agency like the Environmental Protection Agency,” she argued. “Not everyone at the center agrees with me.They might think it’s not practical politically.

“But they [USAID] need more autonomy. The head of the USAID should be reporting to the president and not just responsible for the aid programs, but for being the voice in my government about what our trade policy is and what our climate policy is.They don’t need to be determining our policies, but they need to be a voice in the discussion of what that policy should be.”

For her part, as she celebrates her center’s 10th anniversary, Birdsall seems well positioned to serve as an effective voice not only for U.S. aid but for development issues around the world. And that effectiveness stems from being an honest, independent voice — whether it’s openly talking about how USAID can learn from its mistakes to which wealthy nations are shirking their global responsibility to improve the lot of their poorer counterparts.

“We think of ourselves as a think tank plus,” Birdsall says of her center, which she admits has a “very grand mission: to reduce poverty and inequality in the world.”

“We do that in a very specific and focused way, which is to scrutinize, to gather evidence on the costs and benefits of what the rich world is doing, what the major global institutions that are part of globalization are doing and not doing,” she says.

“Those things that are done in the rich world can transform the lives of people in the poor world.”

Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Post-Soviet Independence

Georgia’s ‘Force of Nature’ Blows Into Washington

by Larry Luxner

I

f it weren’t for the Star of David around his neck, Temuri Yakobashvili might not be alive today. So says Georgia’s new envoy to the United States, and the first openly Jewish ambassador ever to represent any former Soviet republic in Washington.

During an interview last month, Yakobashvili recalled the incident that nearly cost him his life back in early 1991, at the height of Georgia’s struggle for independence 20 years ago.

“It was right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we were in a civil war. A curfew had been declared by the opposition, and I was visiting friends who lived in the center of Tbilisi,” he told The Washington Diplomat.“When I went out on the street, a group of men with guns saw me.

I thought they were enforcing the curfew, so I handed them my documents, but they were pro-regime.They said, ‘Aha, you support the curfew. That makes you our enemy and we’re going to kill you.’

“But in the photo on my identity card, I was wearing a Magen David visible from under my shirt. When one of them saw that, he said,‘Oh, you’re Jewish. Only because of that we are letting you free. You’re on the wrong side, but you’re good people.’”

To say that this Hebrew-speaking, onetime Zionist youth activist wears his Judaism on his sleeve would be an overstatement.But it’s clearly an important part ofYakobashvili’s identity — along with his fierce Georgian national pride and his outspoken, candid and somewhat undiplomatic demeanor.

“He’s a true force of nature. He’s one of Georgia’s top strategic thinkers, and he’s blunt and frank in a way that’s refreshing,” says Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council, calling his longtime friend Yakobashvili “the right person to be representing Georgia” on Capitol Hill.“He’s got to build a bipartisan constituency that backs this audacious vision of Georgia in the West, and I think he’s got the fortitude and the intellect to do so.”

Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says Yakobashvili has a solid reputation as an intellectual with a tough personality.

“He’s had a very distinguished career in Georgian foreign affairs and he set up one of their first and most important think tanks.As a result, he has the potential to be very effective,” said Hill, predicting that Tbilisi’s new man in D.C. “is not going to be a faceless, colorless diplomat who just represents the Georgian government.”

Colorless he is definitely not. The Washington Jewish Week recently described Yakobashvili, who was raised in a secular Jewish home, as “a broad-shouldered man with the build of an ex-rugby player” who once got himself arrested for dancing “Hava Nagila” in Moscow’s Red Square during Hanukkah. The newspaper’s Adam Kredo says he’s “still seen by some as the consummate political malcontent, an outspoken critic who’s more at home on a picket line than in an embassy.”

On the job less than five months, the 44-year-old diplomat is a physicist by training and comes to Washington with a long resume. A graduate of Tbilisi State University with a degree in physics, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs upon Georgian independence in 1991 and held a variety of senior positions, including director of the

Page 8

The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

“

We are trying to reinvent ourselves as a modern nation-state and a modern country that has to find itself in a globalized world.

— TEMURI YAKOBASHVILI

”

ambassador of Georgia to the United States

Department for the U.S., Canada and Latin America. In addition, Yakobashvili is co-founder and executive vice president of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, and co-founder of the Atlantic Council of Georgia as well as the Council of Foreign Relations of Georgia.

He’s also a passionate collector of Oriental and modern Georgian art. Hanging on the walls of his spacious office at the Georgian Embassy fronting Massachusetts Avenue are two works by Georgian painter Irakli Sutidze; one depicts a Roman soldier, the other a tax collector. There’s also another painting, “Man on a Horse,” just outside his office — and another 52 pieces of Georgian art on the walls of his residence.“Wherever I work, I have pieces of art from my collection,” the diplomat said.

We asked Yakobashvili how he sees his role in Washington, representing a Caucasus nation of 4.7 million that many Americans tend to confuse with the Peach State of the same name.

“I’m relatively new here, but what I see is that 95 percent of people’s attention are on domestic issues, and only 5 percent on international relations. And within that 5 percent, you have almost 200 countries that must compete for attention,” Yakobashvili explained as he leaned back, enjoying a cigarette.

“These days, the role of ambassador is different than what it used to be. Nowadays, journalists can be much more informed than ambassadors. Since this also allows greater transparency, the notion that an ambassador lies on behalf of his country is not true anymore. You cannot lie. People can check things out very quickly.”

And these days, people are openly questioning whether Georgia’s stridently pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is exhibiting some decidedly un-Western governing tendencies.

On May 26, Georgia marked its 20th anniversary of independence from the former Soviet Union with a military parade down Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue attended by Saakashvili, a graduate of Columbia Law School who took power after a bloodless coup in 2003. But the parade took place only after anti-riot police — using tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets — had dispersed hundreds of opposition supporters from the parliament building after five days of antigovernment rallies.

Saakashvili has said the protesters were instigating violence against the police, while protesters in turn accuse the president of amassing power and trying to silence the opposition. A dominant figure in Georgian politics, Saakashvili remains fairly popular while the opposition remains largely in disarray, leading to speculation as to what will happen in 2013 when Saakashvili must step down as president.

Hill of Brookings said that Georgia under Saakashvili is far from being the “full-fledged democracy” he pledged it would be after the 2003 Rose Revolution that swept him into office.

“A lot of us who have been watching Georgia’s progress have been somewhat disappointed in the last few years,” she told The Diplomat.“Georgia, like the Baltic states, had

See GEORGIA, page 10 August 2011

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Post-Soviet Independence

Ukraine Marks Its Independence, But Critics Say It’s Backsliding

by Larry Luxner

U

kraine, sandwiched between Eastern Europe to the west and Russia to the east, has always straddled a critical geopolitical juncture. The positive spin is that historically, it’s been a crossroads of civilizations.

Spin aside, since gaining independence two decades ago this month, Ukraine has teetered back and forth between two very different worlds as the world wonders which direction — east or west — the former Soviet republic will ultimately go.

Olexander Motsyk says that’s an oversimplified view that obscures a very complicated journey. Motsyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, spent an hour last month explaining to The Washington Diplomat how difficult the past two decades have been for his Texas-sized country but also how far it’s come.

“At the beginning of the 11th century, we were the biggest and most powerful state in Europe,” said the affable ambassador, launching into a brief lesson on medieval Ukrainian history.“Prince Yaroslav the Wise had a big family.All his children were married to princes, queens and kings of European countries. But after the Mongol invasion, we lost our independence and only 20 years ago we regained it again.”

Motsyk says he can’t stress enough how important that sense of pride is for Ukraine’s 46 million inhabitants.

“Most of the time, we were under foreign domination. And during the Soviet period, the manmade famine and repression by Stalin at the end of the 1930s took millions of lives,” he said. “During the two world wars, Ukraine lost more of its population than any other nation in the world.

To be independent means to have your own state, and to be a democracy — not to be under domination.”

Motsyk spoke to us in his upscale Georgetown embassy’s Washington Room — so named because, according to legend, it’s where a well-connected friend of George Washington invited wealthy Maryland and Virginia property owners to dinner in order to get them to donate land for the nation’s new capital.

“Ukraine proclaimed its independence on Aug. 24, 1991, and this proclamation was confirmed by a national referendum on Dec. 1, and more than 90 percent of our population voted in favor,” the ambassador said. “Immediately the next day, the world recognized Ukraine as an independent state, and we bought this building in 1992.”

Steven Pifer, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, has known Motsyk for 10 years.“He’s a career diplomat and he’s very professional,” said

August 2011

Pifer, now director of the Arms Control Initiative at the Brookings Institution. “I feel some sympathy for him. One of his jobs is to defend Ukraine, and that’s not an easy case to be defending lately.

“In terms of governance and democracy, unfortunately Ukraine has been backsliding over the past year,” Pifer told us.“That’s the view not only of domestic critics of the government, but increasingly the view of Western diplomats. The State Department and the European Union have both expressed concern.”

As has Freedom House, which in 2005 declared Ukraine the first former Soviet state outside the Baltics to be completely free. But this year, Ukraine fell back into the “partly free” category — an ominous develPHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

“

To be independent means to have your own state, and to be a democracy — not to be under domination.

— OLEXANDER MOTSYK

”

ambassador of Ukraine to the United States

opment for a country that on Aug. 24 celebrates its 20th anniversary of independence as a democracy.

“Ukraine is not headed in the right direction under the current government when it comes to democracy and human rights,” warned David J. Kramer, president of Freedom House. “Left unchecked, current trends in Ukraine will lead toward greater authoritarianism, and that would be a huge setback for Ukraine and also damage hope for reform in Eurasia as a whole. Both forces inside Ukraine and countries in the West have a responsibility to engage and push aggressively against further backsliding.”

Yet if Ukraine really is backsliding into Soviet-style authoritarianism, the government’s political turnover is enough to cause full-on whiplash. In 2004, a massive protest erupted against the fraudulent election of incumbent Viktor Yanukovych

as president. Those elections were eventually annulled and a revote was held, in which his rival, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner in what became known as the highly touted Orange Revolution.

But after political infighting, rampant corruption and a tanking economy seemed to paralyze the government of the proWestern Yushchenko, Ukrainians quickly soured on the Orange Revolution (also see “Democratic Luster Fades From ‘Color Revolutions’” in the May 2010 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

So six years after being kicked out of power, Yanukovych returned to the scene, handily winning the 2010 election, which was widely seen as free and fair. He quickly pledged to enact a more pragmatic, balanced foreign policy — repairing relations with Russia without abandoning the European Union — while shoring up the

country’s faltering economy.

On that front,Yanukovych does seem to have delivered a measure of political stability. And that may be having some economic benefits, especially in terms of foreign investment — a welcome development for weary Ukrainians who saw their economy tumble by 15 percent in 2009, necessitating a multibillion-dollar emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Yet it’s also dashed hopes that the former Soviet republic would embrace widespread democratic change as Yanukovych consolidates his power.Asked how Ukraine stacks up to other former Soviet states 20 years after achieving their independence, Motsyk said “it would not be polite to compare, for me as an ambassador.”

But he insists that Ukraine respects the Orange Revolution even though Yanukovych rules the country today, calling it “an important page in Ukrainian history. Be sure that those democratic changes that were brought are not under threat.

Ukraine will not slide from the road to democracy.”

He also angrily denies suggestions that Ukraine is slipping back toward authoritarianism and rejects the narrative that the country must choose between Russia and

See UKRAINE, page 10 The Washington Diplomat Page 9

from page 8

Georgia the potential to really move forward quickly. But in my view, it’s much more difficult than people assume. It’s not just an issue of parties and having elections.They’re building new states at the same time they’re moving toward democracy, and these states — unlike the U.S. or Europe — have become dependent on the personality of the president. Georgia has also been beset by the problems of the last changes of government, which have taken place on the streets and through revolutions. So in many respects, Georgia still has a long way to go.”

In his defense, Yakobashvili says his country is working hard to prove the critics wrong, noting that Georgia now topsTransparency International’s list of countries fighting corruption and is rated the safest country in Europe.

“Seven years ago, the World Bank ranked us 163rd in terms of best places to do business. Now we are in the top 15,” he told us. “Nobody’s immune from mistakes, but we’re also quicker in fixing mistakes. I would seriously challenge the notion that we’re backsliding. I don’t see any indications of that. In fact, our electoral system is improving, and our media laws have significantly improved in the last year or so.”

The ambassador added: “Popularity is a very tricky issue. It cannot increase when you are conducting reforms. You’ll be remembered not by how much you tried to stay popular, but by how much you spent on the population to improve their lives.

“There are ups and downs, but now in postwar Georgia, the government is still popular because the people see how much we’re doing to address their concerns. Obviously, our major challenges are the economy, jobs, health care and education.

Our birthrate has increased and we have more people returning to the country than leaving, because they see more opportunities.”

Yakobashvili also offered a philosophical approach to his country’s 20th anniversary of independence.

“Post-Soviet Georgia is, in a certain sense, a classic case of a liberated colony, but unlike the other colonies that were liberated when other empires collapsed, Georgia has had 3,000 years of statehood. We are trying to reinvent ourselves as a modern nation-state and a modern country that has to find itself in a globalized world,” he said.

“And a big part of our success is due to U.S. support. I can say without any exaggeration that without U.S. support, Georgia would not be an independent state.”

Yet America’s so-called reset in relations with Russia has left pro-Western former Soviet states wondering if they’ll be left out in the cold. And as much as Georgia tries to reinvent itself into a modern country, it can’t seem to shake the past when it comes to its huge neighbor.

Much of Georgia’s preoccupation — some say obsession — with Russia stems from its brief but bruising war with Russia that killed about 400 Georgians and created some 30,000 internal refugees, although those numbers are disputed by both sides.

According to a European Union-led independent fact-finding mission, the August 2008 war was sparked when Saakashvili ordered an attack on separatists in South Ossetia, one of two disputed territories with Russia (Abkhazia being the other).The president denies instigating the attack, saying a Russian invasion was already under way in the separatist enclave. But most outside experts agree that Saakashvili probably miscalculated — badly — giving Moscow an opening that it took ruthless advantage of as it quickly routed the overwhelmed Georgian forces and seized control of the two breakaway regions, which today remain under Russian occupation.

The EU inquiry report said that “years of provocations, mutual accusations, military and political threats and acts of violence” on both sides led to the war, which had its roots in the early 1990s, when South Ossetia and Abkhazia gained de facto independence from Georgia after the Soviet col-

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The Washington Diplomat

CREDIT: U.S. MARINE CORPS PHOTO BY GUNNERY SGT. ALEXIS MULERO

A Georgian army color guard stands at attention at the Vaziani Training Area in Georgia, where Georgian battalion forces recently concluded a six-month training mission with U.S. Marines in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan. Georgia, which is a major troop contributor to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, has tried to step up its military cooperation with Washington as a hedge against what it calls Russian aggression.

lapse.

Moscow though seized on the report to lay the blame squarely on Saakashvili. Pure Kremlin propaganda, counters Yakobashvili.

“Georgia’s war with Russia was a reflection of Russian sentiments to restore the Soviet Union.

This war was not about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It was about attacking Western interests,” he argues. “Those who say Georgia fired the first shots are either naïve, or misinformed, or trying to hide their impotence. It’s very interesting to blame Georgia when Russia attacked a neighboring country by six different means including land forces, ballistic missiles and cyber warfare. So all this talk about who fired the first shot is a spin

from page 9

Ukraine the West.

“You know that the United States reset relations with Russia. We also have made a kind of reset,” he explained.“The previous government did not have very good relations with Russia, but Russia is our very big neighbor. We are interested in trade and economic cooperation.

We have many things in common. In the past, we have suffered together and now we have very good relations with Russia at the peopleto-people level. So we want to develop friendly and mutually beneficial relations.”

He added: “My country does not choose between reforms and democracy. Both are very important for the Ukrainian people. Ukraine is trying to become a member of the EU, and in order to become a member, a country should not only have a good economic track record but also freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.We are on the way to democracy, and we will not slide from that road.”

And even though admission into the EU could still be seven to 10 years away — if not more — Motsyk said it remains the country’s chief foreign policy objective. But in second place is improving relations with the United States, and in third place, normalization of Ukrainian ties with Russia.

“The main task of foreign policy and security is the protection of national interests in the world, and the nonalignment policy is one of these mechanisms,” Yanukovych said in a televised speech to the nation following his presidential win last year.

A few months after Yanukovych took office,

that Russia is promoting.”

Yakobashvili in fact previously served as deputy prime minister and state minister for reintegration in the Georgian government. In that capacity, he orchestrated Georgia’s “engagement strategy” for improving ties between his country and Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

But the fundamental problem, wrote Guardian columnist George Hewitt in a February 2010 column, is that neither South Ossetia nor Abkhazia “have the slightest wish to be ‘reintegrated’ into a unitary Georgian state.” Reminding his readers that Iosep Dzhugashvili — better known to the world as Joseph Stalin — was from Georgia, Hewitt added that the war was “sparked by

Ukraine’s Parliament approved a bill that cements the country’s neutrality and prevents it from joining NATO or any other military bloc, but allows it to cooperate with NATO and pursue political and economic integration with Europe.

“There’s no denying that Yanukovych has swung his country toward its former Soviet overlord,”Time magazine’s James Marson wrote in an October 2010 article.“Since taking office, he has declared Ukraine a nonaligned country, putting an end to longstanding efforts to join NATO — a goal of all of his predecessors that had enjoyed mixed popular support and irked Moscow. In April [2010], he signed a controversial deal to extend the stay of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on Ukrainian territory until 2042 in return for cheaper gas supplies.

“Yanukovych says the previous administration’s failures forced him into the gas trade-off to keep Ukraine’s crucial steel mills and chemical plants pumping. Strong leadership and good relations with Russia bring much-needed stability, he says, but European integration remains the main strategic goal.”

Yet despite all the rhetoric of neutral realignment,Yanukovych’s critics say he’s firmly come down on the side of repression, at least when it comes to muzzling dissent. Of particular concern is the government’s increased pressure on independent media, according to Pifer, who moderated a July 7 panel discussion hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council on Ukraine’s future.

“In general, the range of political opinion is reduced compared to a few years ago. Secondly, the October 2010 local elections had significant flaws and did not meet the standards set by the previous five elections,” he said. “Third

Saakashvili’s assault on Tskhinvali” and that “it is precisely because of repeated Georgian attacks over many years that the Abkhazians and South Ossetians have no trust in Tbilisi.”

In the meantime, Russia has been pouring money into the two breakaway republics to solidify its hold on them, while Georgia tries to keep the world interested in an issue that’s long faded from the headlines and settled into a de facto stalemate.

Still, to date, only three countries besides Russia itself have formally recognized the “independence” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia: Venezuela, Nicaragua and the tiny Pacific island of Nauru — an eight-square-mile coral atoll with 11,000 inhabitants that survives on exports of phosphate formed by ancient bird droppings. Since its December 2009 decision to establish ties with the two breakaway republics in exchange for $50 million in Russian aid, not a single country has followed Nauru’s example.

“This is a huge diplomatic blow to Russia,” Yakobashvili said. “Not even the closest allies of the Russian Federation have recognized them.”

Georgia and Russia themselves severed diplomatic relations after the 2008 war and there’s no Georgian Embassy in Moscow. Rather, the two countries communicate through the protection of Switzerland.

There have been some EU-mediated talks in Geneva since the war, but the acrimony between the two remains as palpable as ever, with sporadic border clashes and, most recently, Saakashvili accusing Russian military officers in Abkhazia of trying to plant bombs inside Georgia, while Russia denounced Georgian special forces for raids inside Abkhazia. Tbilisi also regularly accuses Moscow of espionage, and last month Saakashvili had three photographers, including his personal photographer, arrested on charges of spying for Russia. (Georgia subsequently released a statement by one of the photographers admitting he’d been coerced by Moscow into cooperating, although his supporters have questioned the confession.)

Moscow dismisses the affair as Georgian para-

are the activities of Ukraine’s KGB successor, which monitors civil society groups and does other inappropriate activities for a security service. And corruption, which was a problem before, is now increasing.”

But perhaps the most worrisome trend, says Pifer, is what he calls “the selective prosecution of key opposition figures,” the most prominent of which is former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The once-popular Tymoshenko, who narrowly lost to Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election, now faces up to 10 years in jail on charges that she abused her power while in office. She’s also the target of several other pending criminal cases involving her 2009 decision to force the then-chief of Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz to sign an unfavorable deal with Russia’s Gazprom without consulting her government. The Yanukovych government says that deal was a sellout of Ukrainian national interests.

“Most Western observers say the charges are completely trumped up. Most people could say she showed bad judgment, but it’s hard to see how that was a criminal activity,” said Pifer.“But it’s not just Tymoshenko. There seems to be an abuse of the judicial system to settle political scores.”

Yanukovych denies having anything to do with his political adversary’s trial, which at times has devolved into chaos as the outspoken Tymoshenko denounces it as a “farce.” The president though told reporters in Kiev that “the prosecution and the court are making their own conclusions and decisions. I do my best not to interfere and to avoid jumping to

See UKRAINE, page 12

August 2011

noia, but Yakobashvili counters that Russian money has been used “in a nasty way” to manipulate internal Georgian politics and sow fear in his country.

“This is not homegrown, it’s Russian-instigated. We have solid facts and our public is aware of these facts. I’m not talking about speculation, but court-approved intercepts of telephone conversations and videotaped materials,” he insisted. “We’ve had more than 10 terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure, including the U.S. Embassy last February, and we have hard evidence that Russia is behind this — not some junior officer taking the initiative but coming from Moscow.”

For this reason, one of Georgia’s top priorities — aside from joining NATO, the prospects for which took a severe beating after the war with Russia — is the procurement of defense-weapons capabilities from the United States. Other than supportive rhetoric though, neither the Bush nor Obama administrations have given Tbilisi what it really wants: air defense and anti-tank systems to protect itself against Russian “aggression.”

Saakashvili recently told Newsweek that “Russia has occupied 20 percent of our territory. Russia keeps embassies not in Tbilisi but in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They refuse to deal with our elected government. We are willing to talk to Russia at any moment about anything, but they haven’t been willing to get into a bilateral dialogue. Now they’ve deployed S-300 [surface-to-air] missiles to Abkhazia.”

Yet Damon Wilson of the Atlantic Council says Washington has no intention of “opening the floodgates of weapons” to Saakashvili, who some speculate was under the — apparently false — impression that the United States would back him militarily in the South Ossetia conflict.

“The U.S. has never been a leading arms supplier to Georgia,” Wilson told The Diplomat. “Most of our equipment is either too expensive or not compatible.What’s important is a normalization of military relations. This signals to the rest of the world that the U.S. is on board.”

Inaction on the part of the White House, he added, “has had a cascading effect on all NATO allies,” leading Georgia to buy weapons from its more traditional arms supplier like the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Israel.

“At the end of the day, what Georgia wants from the United States is a real sense that we’re with them on this audacious journey.This is a former Soviet republic that wants to join NATO. That entails a

lot of risks, and they fundamentally want to know that we want to help them down that path,” said Wilson.“If we want to help it meet NATO standards and fight with us in places like Afghanistan, we need to be in there helping them do that, just as we did for other countries. This doesn’t mean giving them offensive weapons or arming them to the teeth. But Georgia has a right to self-defense like any other country.”

Similarly, Yakobashvili points out that Georgia not only participated in the liberation of Iraq but also ranks as the world’s largest per-capita contributor of troops in Afghanistan, although in the same breath he insists there shouldn’t be any quid pro quo for its contributions.

“Despite our population we have 1,000 troops there, and we’re adding another contingent of more than 200 soldiers,” he said.“We do it for ourselves, not because we expect something from the United States. We have an enormous stake in the success of the Afghani operation, because what’s at stake here is the future of NATO and the West. We look at this from a strategic point of view, not from what Georgia can get in a quid pro quo manner. If, God forbid, the U.S. fails in Afghanistan, that will mean the U.S. will retreat from many areas, exposing Georgia to threats and increasing our vulnerability.”

The ambassador added: “There’s an excessive focus on Georgia trying to buy weapons.What Georgia wants is security, and how this security is achieved, I think, is the larger picture.Weapons are a very marginal part of it, and obviously every sovereign nation needs weapons to defend itself. Unfortunately for us, we are not geographically located in a place like Switzerland that can afford neutrality.”

Yakobashvili scoffed at a May 10 article in the Atlantic titled “Georgia’s Dangerous Quest for American Weapons,” in which Joshua Kucera reported that Yakobashvili’s predecessor, Batu Kutelia, was relieved of his duties “because of his failure to get arms” from the United States.

“My predecessor is now deputy head of our National Security Council, so it’s silly to comment on that,” said the ambassador.

“People who spread that kind of information are smoking badquality hash or they have illusions — or they’re deliberately inventing stories out of the blue.”

In that same article, Kucera wrote that “Georgia spent about $1.5 million on four top D.C. lobbying firms last year alone, far outpacing comparable countries.Those lobbying efforts include an aggressive

press campaign arguing that the State Department is enforcing a ‘de facto embargo’ by quietly blocking Georgia’s attempted arms purchases, although there is no evidence of such an embargo.”

Yakobashvili insists that his government spends “no more than $1 million per year” on K Street lobby shops, and currently employs only two such firms: Orion Strategies and the Podesta Group.

“The good thing about lobbying in Washington is that anybody can check how much we spend,” he said.“Having a lobbyist in the U.S. is not such a strange or bad thing. And if we’re trying to compare things, right after the [2008] war, 11 employees of very prominent lobbyists were laboring for the Russian government on Georgian initiatives. Are we that stupid or naïve that we wouldn’t have our own tools? Can we afford not to react? In the modern world, if you don’t have your voice out there, you do not exist.”

As part of that strategy, the embassy under Yakobashvili has also been trying to highlight other aspects of Georgian life — beyond relations with Russia — and recently held a wide-ranging cultural showcase at the National Portrait Gallery that attracted hundreds of people.The event featured concerts, a performance by the Georgian National Ballet, photography show of Georgians in the American Wild West, a three-dimensional art exhibit and massive wall projections to celebrate the 20th anniversary of independence.

Along those lines,Yakobashvili says he’ll also lobby for Georgia to be featured in a next year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival because it would benefit from positive press — in the same way Colombia, which was featured in this year’s festival, is attempting to erase the drug-related stereotypes of the 1980s by focusing on the country’s biodiversity and rich cultural heritage.

Yakobashvili clearly hopes to make a big splash in Washington, touting his nation’s progress in moving beyond its Soviet past — something he sees reflected in his own two children, George and Miriam.

“I’m quite confident that we made a huge step forward and there’s no way back,” he told us.“We all hope that at least our kids will never have to go through what I experienced and what my parents experienced: the oppressive regime of the Soviet Union. I want them to have a free choice.”

The tough-talking ambassador added: “I remember one of the very rare occasions I was speechless was when my son asked me, ‘Who was Lenin?’ I was so happy he was ignorant on that issue.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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conclusions.”

But Freedom House’s Kramer, speaking at that same July 7 conference, called the Tymoshenko trial “outrageous” and warned that it is destroying Ukraine’s prospects for integration into the 27-member EU. “I’ve taken recently to wearing a bracelet for Belarus, another country I follow very closely,” he said.“I certainly hope that we do not have to start wearing the same kind of bracelet for Ukraine.”

For his part, it’s clear that Motsyk resents any comparisons to Belarus, whose nickname — “Europe’s last dictatorship” — stems from the fact that President Alexander Lukashenko has held onto power there since 1994 (also see “Belarus: Back to Square One With Europe’s Last Dictator” in the March 2011 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

“We do not agree with Belarus on how the presidential elections were conducted, especially after many candidates were arrested,” the ambassador said. “Many times we have appealed to the Belarusian government to free political detainees.”

A graduate of Kiev State University, Motsyk was Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland for five years before coming to Washington last summer. He also previously served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey as well as deputy minister and deputy state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — which he joined in the early 1980s, long before Ukrainian independence, since the country always pursued its own foreign policy as a Soviet republic. Ukraine even had its own vote, along with Belarus, at the United Nations.

In fact, Motsyk’s first overseas posting was in New York, from 1992 to 1995, as counselor, second secretary and first secretary at Ukraine’s mission to the United Nations.

In the early 1990s, Ukraine — home of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster — gave up its

PHOTO: IRINA AFONSKAYA / ISTOCK

A military ship is docked at the port in Sevastopol along the Black Sea in Ukraine. Last year, shortly after coming to office, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych raised eyebrows when he agreed to extend the lease of a Russian naval base in Sevastopol by 25 years. In return, Moscow said it would cut the price of natural gas to its neighbor by about 30 percent.

nuclear weapons and joined the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty.And in April 2010,Yanukovych, following a meeting with President Obama, pledged to destroy Ukraine’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that it had inherited from the Soviet Union. A White House statement said Obama “praised Ukraine’s decision as a historic step and a reaffirmation of Ukraine’s leadership in nuclear security and nonproliferation.”

Ukraine has also made impressive economic strides, expanding its gross domestic product by 75 percent from 2000 to 2008 to lift per-capita GDP to about $6,700 today, although the growth admittedly came from a low starting point.

“In 1991, we were not even a state, but a part of the former big superpower. We started almost from zero. In 2009, Ukraine was in severe crisis; it was terrible,” the ambassador said, noting that the country’s economic crisis slashed GDP by 15 percent that year. “But now we are not doing badly.

Last year, our GDP increased by 4.5 percent, and this year, it’s forecast to grow by 4.7 percent.”

Motsyk also pointed out that “Ukraine’s bureaucracy today is less than it was under the previous government.As part of the economic reforms, this government has drastically cut the number of bureaucrats and cabinet ministers.And every ministry’s budget has been cut by 30 percent.”

In 2008, Ukraine joined the World Trade Organization. That same year, a Trade and Investment Cooperation Agreement was signed with the United States.And by this December, the country hopes to finalize a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU. “For some years, up until 2005, the U.S. was the leading foreign investor in Ukraine.We regret that American investments haven’t flocked to Ukraine since then,” Motsyk said, though he acknowledged that Ukrainian exports to the United States rely too heavily on a few products. In fact, three product groups — iron and steel, energy materials and inorganic chemicals — account for 80 percent of such exports. But that’s not all Ukraine’s fault, he added.

“The United States applies anti-dumping and countervailing measures even to this limited range of metallurgical and chemical industry products. These measures were put in force long before the U.S. granted Ukraine market economy status, and they greatly hinder the pace of development of bilateral trade cooperation, since sanctions were imposed on sensitive Ukrainian export items.”

Despite the slowdown in new U.S. investment, during the first three months of this year, bilateral

trade came to $745 million, a 53 percent jump over the same period in 2010. Motsyk is hoping total U.S.-Ukrainian trade for 2011 will reach $3 billion, up from last year’s $2.4 billion. He noted that Ukraine has a broad industrial base, with exports of manufactured goods such as airplanes, turbines, metallurgical equipment, diesel locomotives and tractors.

In addition, Ukraine is one of the world’s 10 largest food exporters and contributes to the U.N. World Food Program.

“With one-third of the world’s most fertile black soils reserves, we used to be the breadbasket of Europe in the past,” he said. “Now we are working toward regaining this status, and Ukraine is currently one of the five largest exporters of barley, rapeseed and corn, and the sixth world producer of wheat. We have huge opportunities for American investors to exploit Ukrainian resources.”

Ukraine may have an abundance of wheat and barley, but it’s facing a dearth of people — which could trump politics or business as the country’s biggest long-term problem. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the country’s birth rate is falling by 0.8 percent annually, the fastest such decline in the world. This means that if current trends continue, Ukraine — which had 52 million inhabitants in 1991 — is likely to lose 28 percent of its current population in the next 40 years, shrinking to 30 million in 2050. By then, Ukraine will have even fewer citizens than its much smaller neighbor, Poland, which is also losing population.

But Motsyk, ever the optimist, doesn’t buy that argument.

“That tendency is temporary. We are now very close to stopping the decrease in population,” he insists. “At the beginning of our independence, many people left Ukraine looking for employment, but now they’re coming back because the situation in Ukraine is improving. I’m sure that by 2050, we will definitely have more than 52 million people.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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August 2011

COVER PROFILE

Ambassador Gabriel Silva Luján

Colombia Reaches Crossroads With Free Trade Agreement

by Larry Luxner

P

ALMIRA, Colombia — Off to the side of a highway 28 kilometers east of Cali, Fabiola Montealegre runs Palmitropicales, a rather sophisticated cut-flower and exotic foliage business. Her five-hectare farm is filled with ginger lily, golden opal, bird of paradise and other highly sought-after varieties destined for export to the United States.

The only problem is, she’s not exporting.

With the recent elimination of Andean trade preferences and no permanent U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to fall back on, Montealegre said shipments to her most lucrative market have screeched to a halt.

“We’re a small company, and my family has been in agriculture for a long time,” said the 43-year-old businesswoman, who used to work at the Organization of American States in Washington.“But without trade preferences and no FTA, our flowers have become too expensive, and importers are buying from cheaper sources like Costa Rica.”

Montealegre is only one of thousands of Colombian exporters frustrated with the perpetual lack of progress on the FTA, and irritated that the Obama administration let lapse the long-standing benefits under the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) — which rewarded South American countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru) that worked to eradicate drug trafficking by expanding alternative economic opportunities.

The pact quietly expired in February without much of an uproar in the United States, though it was a big deal for Colombian exporters and for markets like Miami, which enjoyed duty-free access to Andean products such as flowers under ATPA. But today, the prospects for free trade on Capitol Hill are anything but rosy.After years of fits and starts, a widely anticipated July 1 deadline imposed by its most ardent supporters came and went — and still no FTA, not with Colombia, let alone South Korea or Panama (see related story). Now those supporters are reluctant to predict what will happen next on the Hill, where legislators are consumed with the battle over raising the debt ceiling, after which they’ll go on summer recess. Once they return in September, with all eyes looking toward the 2012 election, the idea of pushing free trade at a time of 9 percent domestic unemployment could be a political hot potato.

“There’s a natural skepticism in Colombia, and also in many sectors in the U.S., about the possibility of achieving FTA approval this year,” said Gabriel August 2011

Silva Luján, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States. “That skepticism is understandable, because we have been waiting for five years.”

Silva told The Diplomat that when he returned to Washington last fall as ambassador (he had previously served here as ambassador from 1993 to 1994), the odds were against FTA approval in 2011.

“No one really believed it was going to happen,” he admitted. “Maybe that’s why they sent me here. I always take jobs no one else wants.”

For example, he said, “I took over as CEO of the Colombian Coffee Growers’ Federation in 2002, in the midst of the worst coffee crisis in 150 years. Coffee was 40 cents a pound. Now it’s around $3 a pound.And I was minister of defense in the last year of President [Álvaro] Uribe’s term, after some very successful defense ministers. So no one wanted to be the last minister to run his most cherished policy, democratic security.”

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

“

Ten years ago, Colombia could be dismissed as a small opportunity for American companies.

Now, it’s critical.

”

— GABRIEL SILVA LUJÁN

ambassador of Colombia to the United States

Silva says his stint as ambassador in Washington is much more interesting this time around.

On May 31, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a high-level dialogue in Washington with her counterpart, Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguín. The talks focused on energy, technology, education, culture and environmental issues.

“It’s like a dream come true,” said Silva.

“When I came here the first time, the only issue was drugs, drugs and more drugs.The country was in the process of starting the fight against the cartels. That was the core issue of bilateral relations.

Now we have a much broader agenda.”

The irony is that Silva talks about the FTA as if the odds are no longer stacked against its passage — but they clearly are.

Even though it won approval in a mock

markup by the Senate Finance Committee, as of press time, the agreement must still be approved in a similar markup by the House Ways and Means Committee.

President Obama — who Republicans say has let the three FTAs languish since taking office — must then choose whether to accept or reject the committee’s recommendations before sending the final bill to Congress for a vote. Oh, and then Congress — where bitter partisan feuds have ground legislation to a virtual halt and Democrats and Republics remain sharply divided over how to address the country’s sluggish unemployment — must actually vote in favor of the Colombia pact, the most contentious of the three FTAs. Moreover, because the summertime deadline for the three deals has essentially lapsed, all of this must now happen

in a crowded fall calendar where every piece of legislation will be scrutinized for its impact on the 2012 election. And no matter its merits, free trade just doesn’t play well politically when American voters can’t find work.

But Silva hasn’t given up the FTA fight and hopes to turn that argument around on its head by showing that the pact — under which all tariffs on Colombian imports into the United States will be phased out over time, as would tariffs on U.S. exports to Colombia — will create, not kill, American jobs.

In recent weeks, the embassy has embarked on an email blitz to hammer that point home, sending out a barrage of press releases and news bulletins. The latest was a July 13 email headlined “The Message is Clear: It’s Time to Approve the U.S.-Colombia FTA,” which asserted that the FTA’s passage would boost American exports by $1.1 billion, increase the nation’s GDP by nearly $2.5 billion, and support thousands of jobs in both countries.

Silva warned that “every day and every month the FTA is delayed, it’s costing American jobs.The two economies don’t compete against each other. We don’t

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produce cars, planes or capital goods.The increase in trade enhances both countries’ economic growth.We are not taking market share from each other, and that makes Colombia unique.”

Moreover, Colombia is a strong U.S. ally in the region and bilateral relations have never been better, although the ambassador concedes that the FTA logjam has really soured the mood back home.

“There is still significant skepticism in Colombia for two reasons: this delay, and because the trade preferences that have supported us for 20 years — and that were approved when I was ambassador 17 years ago — were not renewed. It’s a critical trade policy that allowed free access for Colombian products in the U.S. as support for Colombia’s efforts against organized crime and drug trafficking. They expired in February, badly hurting our economy. So there are reasons to be skeptical. People are very bitter about this situation. It’s not enough that the president tells them this is part of U.S. domestic politics. They don’t care.”

Asked why ATPA benefits were allowed to run out, Silva suggested that “they were a victim of internal discussions between Republicans and Democrats on trade policy.” But, he added, “that’s domestic politics and we don’t get into that.”

In the event though that the Colombia FTA is eventually approved, then ATPA and another program that expired at the end of 2010, the Generalized System of Preferences — which is designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential dutyfree entry for up to 4,800 products from more than 100 countries and territories — would be renewed as well.

Silva said that would be a boon to American workers. “Slowly but surely, Americans have realized that delaying the FTA is destroying jobs in America,” the ambassador insisted. Noting that Colombia must import 70 percent of its corn and 95 percent of its wheat due to limited domestic production, he pointed out that “in 2008, U.S. farmers were the largest providers of agricultural products to Colombia.The U.S. had 46 percent of the Colombian food import market. That’s since fallen to 20 percent.”

“We were not going to wait for the U.S., so we’ve signed free trade agreements with Mercosur, Chile and Mexico,” he added, referring to the Mercosur trade bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. “We’ve renegotiated an agreement with Canada, and also one with the European Union. These countries compete headto-head with American farmers, in particular Brazil and Argentina.”

That is why Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, is so gung-ho about passing the FTA — now.

“Time is of the essence,” he said.“It’s important that Congress acts quickly to vote on the package

by August recess. If not, we stand to lose this opening and it will come at a cost to America’s farmers and ranchers. After more than four years, we cannot afford to miss this opportunity.”

Doug Wolf, president of the National Pork Producers Council, agrees, saying it’s imperative that the deal is approved before Congress adjourns for a month. “U.S. pork producers need new and expanded market access to remain competitive in the global marketplace,” he said. “And the way to get that is through free trade agreements.”

Yet after the July 1 deadline fell by the wayside, the likelihood of significant movement this summer began to fade.And even if the FTAs are taken up again when Congress starts in the fall, opposition still abounds.

The ambassador says there’s still a chance for action, however slim.“The mood in Washington is brighter than in Colombia,” he told The Diplomat last month. “Things have changed significantly in the last six months, increasing the possibilities of having the FTA and the trade preferences approved this summer. Once it’s approved, it takes six months to a year to implement, so the trade preferences would be a bridge.”

Perhaps Silva, 53, is an incurable optimist. Or maybe he’s just putting his best face forward, hop-

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

Soldiers take a break along a roadside kiosk in Valle del Cocora, Colombia. In recent years, the Colombian military has made impressive gains in its decadeslong fight against FARC rebels trying to overthrow the government.

ing against hope that Congress will endorse the FTA in the face of strident opposition by labor unions and other groups deeply critical of Colombia’s weak track record on human rights and political violence.

Under President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia has tried address those concerns, completing a so-called action plan in April to better protect labor union members and leaders, more than 3,000 of whom have been killed over the last three decades in anti-union violence.

In 2008, while running for president, Obama himself in fact blasted the pact in a speech to the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s annual convention — only days after then-President George W. Bush asked Congress to quickly pass it. Obama vowed to fight the FTA with all the resources at his disposal “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.”

Even though Obama has since reversed course and is now urging its passage, some Republicans who’ve been pushing for the deal for years are now blocking it because Democrats are linking it to the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which retrains and provides health care to U.S. workers who lose their jobs because of free trade agreements. Democrats had attached the program, which costs roughly $1 billion a year, to the FTA to appease the unions and bring them on board.

While Republicans deride TAA as a taxpayer boondoggle, Democrats still have lingering concerns about worker rights not only in the United States but back in Colombia — worries that have stalled the FTA for years. Silva though says that anyone who opposes the pact on those grounds is “looking backwards” at a Colombia that no longer exists.

“They see the Colombia that was very violent, and changing those perceptions isn’t easy, particularly when you haven’t been there lately. But the numbers speak volumes. Today, Washington has a higher murder rate than Bogotá. In 2002, we had 1,600 kidnappings. Last year, we had not even 50 kidnappings, and still less this year.”

He added: “Most of their concerns have to do with violence against union leaders and murders of activists, and protection of labor rights. In general, the country has improved dramatically, but now with President Santos, we’re going even further — not because it’s required for the FTA but because of our own convictions.”

In fact, he points out that Vice President Angelino Garzón is “one of the most recognized labor leaders in decades,” and that shortly after his inauguration a year ago this month, Santos reinstated the Ministry of Labor, which had been dismantled by Uribe.

“The action plan that was agreed on between the Obama and Santos administrations codifies and organizes many of the initiatives that the government has already proposed,” the ambassador said, noting that even the AFL-CIO recognizes the “significant progress” made since Santos took office.

“Labor leaders in Colombia say this is a comAugust 2011

pletely different reality, and that the action plan is probably the biggest advance in protecting labor rights in 20 years.These things are being done not because the U.S. is demanding them, but because President Santos has a very progressive agenda.”

He added that Colombia has been off the International Labor Organization’s annual blacklist for two years now, and that if his country’s newly stringent labor standards are good enough for Canada and the 27-member European Union — which have the toughest labor codes in the world — then they should be good enough for the United States as well.

“There are other considerations. Sometimes, the argument about labor rights hides other motivations like protectionism — or people who don’t want to break out of their old molds for ideological reasons,” Silva suggested without naming names.

To be sure, he said,“Colombia has been affected by negative stereotypes, but we have made tremendous progress in the last 10 years defeating violence, improving human rights and reducing the presence of organized crime. On the economic side, Colombia has had consistent growth in the last decade, and is now the third-largest economy in Latin America.Ten years ago, Colombia could be dismissed as a small opportunity for American companies. Now, it’s critical.”

Under Plan Colombia — a U.S. financial and military aid program aimed at helping the country fight drug trafficking and end a guerrilla insurgency that’s gone on since the 1960s — Colombia has received more than $7 billion in assistance in the last 12 years.While annual allocations have dropped in the last few years, Colombia remains the largest single recipient of U.S. aid in Latin America.

As a result, the government has scored some major defeats against the country’s largest rebel group, the communist-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It has also broken most of the country’s major drug cartels, forcing the business to relocate to Mexico and Central America.

“If you go to Colombia now, you’ll see now that

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, is home to 7.5 million inhabitants and ranks as one of South America’s largest metropolitan areas. Colombia is also the third-largest economy in Latin America, and supporters of a free trade agreement between Bogotá and Washington argue that it would boost American exports by $1.1 billion and support thousands of jobs in both countries.

it was worth it,” said Silva, who is adamantly opposed to the decriminalization of marijuana and other illegal drugs. “Without that fight, we would have lost the country.”

For the last seven years, the country has been receiving $10 billion to $15 billion annually in foreign direct investment, particularly in the mining sector. Colombia provides 67 percent of all coal imported by the United States and now ranks as the world’s fourth-largest coal producer. It’s also the third-largest source of petroleum in Latin America after Mexico and Venezuela, with significant increases in gold and nickel production as well. As a result, Colombia is the sixth-largest market in the world for Caterpillar, a manufacturer of

bulldozers and other earthmoving equipment.

“In the last eight years, since that Berlin Wall of violence and fear fell in Colombia, people have discovered how diverse our country is. It’s like when people flocked into East Germany. Now they’re flocking to Colombia because of all the opportunities.”

Agriculture represents one of the biggest such opportunities.In fact,while running the Colombian Coffee Growers’ Federation, Silva presided over the opening of the nation’s first Juan Valdez Café, at the Organization of American States Washington headquarters at 19th and F Streets. Since then, the chain has grown to nearly 180 outlets, 150 of which are in Colombia. There are also Juan Valdez

outlets in Ecuador, Chile and Spain.

“The coffee federation is a very unique organization. It’s a model of how you can organize small farmers for their own benefit,” Silva said.“In countries like Colombia, the small farmer rules, and the federation protects the farmer from commercial interests that are not as fair as they should be.”

To help Colombia sell its side of the story, the embassy has hired two firms to advise it. Peck, Madigan, Jones & Stewart has signed a four-month, $100,000 contract with Proexport Colombia, the country’s trade and tourism agency, to “work toward opening the U.S. market and services to Colombia by seeking the approval of the FTA,” according to Justice Department records.The contract began April 13 and expires Aug. 12.

In addition, Proexport has hired Elmendorf | Ryan to lobby for the FTA’s passage, making it the first foreign government client for the firm, which is noted for its ties to pro-business Democrats.

Proexport is paying Elmendorf | Ryan $140,000 for its services over a four-month period.

Silva is also personally reaching out to Capitol Hill. During his second tenure as ambassador, he’s brought 40 members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, to Colombia.

“We have taken those members who opposed the FTA, and they continue to oppose it. That’s perfectly OK,” he said.“But I believe that now, the U.S. understands that the FTA is not a concession to Colombia. It’s a win-win agreement.”

What happens, though, if all of Silva’s lobbying efforts fail and the FTA doesn’t get considered — much less approved — this year, or even next?

“My attitude toward life is that I never predict disasters. I don’t act on the basis of what won’t happen. I don’t even ask myself,” he replied. “But we trust this administration and our friends in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. It’s difficult, it’s hard and we still have a long way to get there, but I’m convinced it’s going to work.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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ECONOMICS

Free Trade

Colombia, Panama, South Korea Hold Out Hope for Elusive FTAs

by Larry Luxner

L

awmakers and business executives in Bogotá, Panama City and Seoul are nervously watching what happens in a fourth capital — Washington — as Congress wrangles over a series of far-reaching, longdelayed free trade agreements whose passage seemed tantalizingly close over the years but has yet to be realized (as of press time).

“Two of the agreements were signed four years ago. The other agreement is coming up on its fifth anniversary. All three of the agreements promise nothing but economic growth, more jobs, and deepening friendships with democratic allies,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) complained in remarks to the American Enterprise Institute on June 30. “So what is the holdup?”

The holdup has been years of debate, delays, broken promises and supposed breakthroughs, tough economic reality, political posturing and finger-pointing — as well as deep soul searching over how to best help American workers (also see “South Korea, Colombia, Panama Haven’t Given Up FTA Fight” in the November 2010 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

The hope was to finally overcome these obstacles and approve the long-delayed agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia by a de facto deadline of July 1, or at least before Congress adjourns for the August recess — the reasoning being that after the summer break, election-year politics could make the three FTAs untouchable.

As of mid-July, officials from both sides of the political aisle said there was still a chance for immediate passage, although in the same breath they blamed the other for the logjam.The sticking point du jour: renewal of the controversial $1 billion annual Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which helps American workers displaced by outsourcing or increased imports with job training and health care.

On May 16, President Obama, in a bid to placate Democrats and leery American workers, said he wouldn’t submit the trio of free trade accords to Congress unless lawmakers reauthorized TAA, which Republicans lambasted as a stalling tactic, deriding the 50-year-old program as a taxpayer giveaway to big labor.

But just as Republicans such as Hatch accuse Obama of dragging his feet with the FTAs, the president has fired back that he’s just waiting on the GOP to get moving.

“I’ve got three trade deals sitting ready to go, and these are all trade deals that the Republicans told me were their top priorities,” Obama said at a July 15 press conference to discuss efforts to raise the debt ceiling.“They said this would be one of the best job creators that we could

Page 16

The Washington Diplomat

have…. And yet it’s still being held up because some folks don’t want to provide trade adjustment assistance to people who may be displaced as a consequence of trade.”

The pressure had been on to pass the FTAs by July 1, the date a separate accord between South Korea and the 27-member European Union took effect. Similarly, Colombia (which already has a deal with the EU) is set to have a trade agreement with Canada take effect Aug. 15.Technical discussions at the congressional level had in fact made headway in recent months.

But July 1 quickly came and went, with free trade hopes frustrated yet again.

But the saga isn’t over yet. White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said the administration would send Congress the trade deals with Colombia, Panama and Korea “very soon,” suggesting that the Korea deal (which could be voted on separately from the other two pacts)

PHOTO: STEVE FECHT / GENERAL MOTORS

Automotive workers put General Motors vehicles together at the Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas. The automotive industry has been among the most opposed to a U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the pact (already renegotiated to placate some of the concerns) would limit U.S. auto exports to Korea’s notoriously insulated market while opening up the floodgates for cheap Korean car exports to the United States.

“

Time is running out and the stakes are high.

— HAN DUK-SOO

”

ambassador of South Korea to the United States

would include TAA. “We can no longer wait,” Daley said at a U.S.- Korea Business Council dinner in Washington. “If there’s no agreement on an alternative approach in the very near future, we will move forward to seek passage of the FTA with TAA.There is no time to waste playing politics as usual.”

But all summer long it’s already been politics as usual, with lawmakers sparring over the debt ceiling, which if not raised

by Aug. 2, could plunge the already-tenuous U.S. economy into a tailspin.

Where the FTAs stand in the midst of the all-consuming debt debate remains to be seen. Congress adjourns in August and faces a crowded legislative calendar when it returns in the fall.

BIPARTISAN BRINKMANSHIP The Democratic insistence on Trade Adjustment Assistance has definitely thrown a wrench into the FTA negotiations — which perhaps is the point — but

it’s also just the latest maneuver in a bipartisan game of brinkmanship. Republicans have been criticized for their all-or-none ultimatum of bundling all three pacts together, instead of passing each FTA on its own merits, which may have bolstered South Korea’s chances because it carries the most economic weight. The GOP tactic of blocking confirmation of Obama’s trade-related nominees until there was movement on the FTAs also hasn’t panned out.

More recently, Republicans hitched more than two dozen health amendments to the Korea FTA that had nothing to do with the agreement, but served to chip away at Obama’s health reform law by repealing the insurance requirement or changing how much ambulatory surgical centers get paid.

The political showmanship became sadly comical on June 30, when Republicans boycotted a panel hearing on the FTAs in part to protest their linkage with Trade Adjustment Assistance but also

to complain that Democrats scheduled the markup late in the afternoon right before a holiday weekend — not enough time to consider the nearly 100 amendments that have been attached to the trade pacts. For their part, Democrats bristled at the absence as they stared at empty chairs and effusively praised the virtues of free trade — all while they’ve been busy thwarting the agreements for years.

And just as Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to jam through a “shotgun markup,” in the words of Sen. Hatch, Democrats blame Republicans for trying to ram through a raw deal. “While Republicans have been sitting on the sidelines willing to accept seriously flawed trade agreements, Democrats have been working to fix trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration,” Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee,recently told Politico’s Richard E. Cohen.“When each is fixed and considered separately on its merits, there will be a broader base of Democratic support.”

On July 7,the Senate Finance Committee held a mock markup on the bill, which passed by a vote of 18-6. About a dozen Republican senators have since dropped their objections to the TAA provisions, but it remains unclear if their GOP colleagues August 2011

will follow suit and allow the legislation to be hitched with the Korea FTA. “It’s ironic and sad that Republicans are holding this up over TAA,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the New York-based Council of the Americas.“All told, these three agreements represent about $13 billion in annual exports. I don’t think the Republicans are going to hold up $13 billion in annual exports for $1 billion in TAA expenditures.”

To that end, Sabatini told The Diplomat that he remains optimistic that all three FTAs will eventually sail through Congress.

“The points of convergence are now better than ever,” he insisted. “Basically, it’s been sidelined because of the debt ceiling negotiations, but it’s there, both sides are publicly committed to it, and there’s no way to walk back from it.”

Sabatini explained his optimism by pointing out that “before, what held it up were elements of the Democratic Party like labor and those who don’t have any interest in free trade at all. They decided they wanted to pick on Colombia because it was low-hanging fruit. Obama has already demonstrated that that’s not the issue. Now it’s people who are in favor of free trade who are holding it up.”

One congressional aide who asked not to be identified was less sanguine. “There’s mixed opinions on that, but you can say supporters are still hopeful and there is momentum, but that can only last so long,” the aide told us. “We’re almost there, and I would hope people wouldn’t want to just give up on that.”

All three nations have offered concessions to soothe American worries. Panama, for instance, passed legislation that increased tax transparency, while Colombia pledged to crack down on violence against labor union members, more than 3,000 of whom have been killed over the last three decades. Meanwhile, South Korea’s government, along with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk,

reworked their agreement to address concerns over auto and beef imports.

Indeed, it’s been a long journey for three accords that were originally thought to be shoe-ins after they were first signed back in 2006 and 2007 during the height of the economic boom, when the Bush administration passed a rash of FTAs with countries such as Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Oman, Peru and Singapore.

But then the economy tanked and the three FTAs encountered fierce resistance, languishing in Congress mostly because of Democratic concerns that they would kill American jobs.

Indeed, the lack of progress ultimately boils down to a simple calculus: Free trade comes at a heavy political cost at a time of high unemployment domestically, and Democrats — and a few Republicans — won’t stick their necks out for Colombian flower-pickers when American voters can’t find work.

Free trade proponents counter that the agreements create jobs, spur economic growth and allow the United States to compete globally with nations that already enjoy tariff-free trade with one another. However, after the economic crash of 2008 and a stubborn unemployment rate of 9 percent, those widely touted benefits have come under greater scrutiny. Critics say free trade with nations that have less stringent labor and environmental protections has steadily eroded the American middle class, outsourcing blue- and white-collar jobs while depressing wages back home.

SOUTH KOREA’S SALES PITCH In the middle of the debate — and in a current no-man’s land on Capitol Hill — lie South Korea, Panama and Colombia, whose ambassadors have been acting more like salespeople lately trying to

get Americans to buy their free trade pitch — perhaps none more so than South Korean Ambassador Han Duk-soo, who’s crisscrossed the country to promote the so-called KORUS-FTA, venturing into the very places such as Michigan, Ohio and Alabama that feel directly threatened by the pact.

Most recently, Han visited Boston to participate in an event hosted by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and State Street Corp., officially marking the end of his nationwide tour that’s taken him to dozens of U.S. cities to meet with autoworkers, business leaders and local officials (also see “South Korean Envoy Stumps for FTA” in the Sept. 10, 2010, news column of the Diplomatic Pouch online).

“Time is running out and the stakes are high,” the ambassador warned June 28, days before the July 1 deadline had passed.

Of the three countries seeking FTAs with the United States, South Korea is by far the most economically significant. Its population of 49 million and national economy of nearly $1 trillion translates into annual per-capita GDP of just over $20,000. The South Korean economy grew by 6.1 percent last year and is projected to expand by another 4.5 percent this year, according to the IMF. By comparison, Colombia has 46 million inhabitants, total GDP of $435 billion and annual per-capita income of $9,500. Neighboring Panama has only 3.2 million people, but its service-based economy is thriving and last year jumped by 7.5 percent. This year, it’s projected to expand by 8.5 percent, according to the United Nations, making it Latin America’s fastest-growing economy. Panama’s $44.8 billion GDP also translates into annual percapita income of $12,700 — the highest in Central America.

The KORUS FTA would be America’s most significant trade pact since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994. Signed June 30,

2007, KORUS must still be ratified by the legislatures of both countries, although it has the support of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, whose party holds a majority in the National Assembly.

If ratified, the deal could boost U.S. exports by as much as $10.9 billion a year when in full effect, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. Nearly 95 percent of bilateral trade in consumer and industrial products would become duty free within three years of KORUS entering into force — removing tariffs in a wide range of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to financial services.

But it’s the agricultural and automotive sectors that have received the most attention. The FTA would phase out a 40 percent tariff on U.S. beef — South Korea is already the fifth-largest market for U.S. farm products, importing about $5 billion worth in 2010 — and eventually eliminate an 8 percent Korean tariff on U.S. vehicles, while the United States would cut its tariff on Korean exports by 2.5 percent. Although the percentages seem to favor U.S. automakers, South Korea imports only a tiny fraction of American cars compared to what the United States already buys from Seoul.

That’s partly why labor unions are so bitterly opposed to the KORUS FTA. Despite a reworking of the deal last year to better protect U.S. automakers, they still worry it will limit U.S. auto exports to Korea’s notoriously closed-off market while opening up the floodgates for cheap Korean car exports to the United States.

Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) calls the deal a “fundamentally flawed trade agreement that will cost us jobs in the United States.” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) says “the war on the middle class continues. Its greatest battle of 2011 will be the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement.”

Just the opposite, says the country’s ambassador

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in Washington, as he tries to dispel fears that the FTA will displace American factory workers.

The agreement “will actually make things better, not worse, for the auto industry and its workers,” Han told a group of business leaders late last year in Detroit, during a trip that included meetings with senior executives from Ford and Chrysler.

And during a visit to Denver, he told Colorado officials that “agriculture will be one of the best beneficiaries of the Korea-U.S. agreement. It’s urgent for us to implement this agreement as soon as possible.”

All the more urgent, supporters say, because the European Union is stepping in to fill the U.S. void. The EU’s pact with Korea, which took years to negotiate and was finally signed in Brussels last October, will remove nearly all tariffs between the two economies, as well as many non-tariff barriers.

The European Commission predicts the FTA — the EU’s first with an Asian country — will generate up to 19 billion euro (about $25 billion) in new trade for EU exporters.

The Obama administration says the KORUS FTA would boost America’s GDP by $10 billion annually and support 70,000 jobs — all the more reason, Republicans argue, why the president shouldn’t dawdle while Europeans gain access to Seoul’s increasingly affluent market.

But many Democrats and unions dispute those figures. Organized labor cites a report from the Economic Policy Institute showing that the pact could actually increase the U.S. trade deficit by $16.7 billion and cost up to 159,000 jobs over the course of its first seven years.

Among other things, opponents say KORUS gives foreign investors the right to enforce FTA privileges by suing the U.S. government in foreign tribunals for violations of FTA rights; opens up U.S. environmental, health, zoning and other policies to challenge by foreign investors in foreign courts; and requires that foreign-based companies in South Korea — like those in all FTA nations — have the same access to state and federal government contracts as that of U.S.-based companies.

The negative sentiment is not only on the American side, critics also point out.“The Korean Embassy misrepresents Korean public opinion,” said Public Citizen, noting that a May 2008 poll showed 55 percent of Koreans opposed the trade pact, while only 29 percent supported it. According to the New York Times, a deal related to KORUS “provoked the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the end of military dictatorship in the late 1980s” and almost brought down the Lee administration.

LABOR FEARS The U.S.-Colombia pact is equally controversial, though for different reasons. Like his Korean counterpart, Colombian Ambassador Gabriel Silva

PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

Thanks to its widespread mining and infrastructure investments, Colombia now ranks as the sixth-largest market in the world for Caterpillar, one of the U.S. companies hoping that a long-stalled free trade agreement with Bogotá finally comes to fruition.

has been touting the FTA’s benefits (also see cover profile), saying it’ll pump $2.5 billion into the U.S. economy and increase yearly U.S. exports to South America’s second-largest country from the current $12 billion to just over $13 billion.

Silva warned that delays in the FTA and the recent expiration of preferences under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) have already cost jobs in both countries.

August 2011

“For the many Colombian exporters that have been negatively impacted by a new wave of damaging floods, the renewal of preferences is critically important. We hope that the forward movement of the FTA also leads to the extension of ATPDEA preferences as soon as possible,” said the ambassador, who served as defense minister under former President Álvaro Uribe and once headed the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation.

Silva also praised the White House’s recent acknowledgement of Colombia’s completion of a so-called “action plan” on labor rights, which had been a main bone of contention between the two countries. He told us in June that the plan, agreed to on April 22, will make consideration of the FTA by Congress a “reality” in the near term.

“Colombia believes wholeheartedly in the steps outlined in the action plan and is committed to continuing to achieve each of the objectives it sets forth because they are in line with President [Juan Manuel] Santos’s vision for Colombia and our unwavering commitment to improve labor rights and standards, and ensure the safety and protection of all of our citizens.”

Yet some Democrats and human rights NGOs aren’t impressed. They acknowledge that the Santos government has committed to expand protection programs for trade unionists and designate 100 labor inspectors to address workplace abuse, but they say the “action plan” doesn’t go far enough.

“The last six months have seen an increase in attacks and threats against community leaders and human rights defenders,” said Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), which staunchly opposes the proposed FTA.“We find it incomprehensible that the plan fails to address steps to dismantle the paramilitaries and successor armed groups that are the source of so much of this brutal violence.”

Last year, according to WOLA, 51 trade unions were killed in Colombia, making it still the world leader in anti-union violence.

Added Kelly Nicholls, executive director of the U.S. Office on Colombia:“We have yet to see any plan from either the U.S. or Colombian governments that spells out how they intend to mitigate the potentially devastating impacts on poor farmers who cannot compete with largescale, subsidized U.S. farm exports. If this is not addressed, these farmers could be pushed into the illegal market.”

TheWashington-based Center for International Policy (CIP), saying it “won’t stand for this FTA,” warns there’s little time to waste.

“In Colombia, human rights defenders, AfroColombians, indigenous communities, trade unionists, millions of displaced people, struggling small-scale farmers and many others are relying on us to protect them from the devastation this trade agreement would bring to their lives and their country,” CIP told its supporters in a May 13 email blitz. “Administration officials have indicated that they would like to approve the FTA by this summer. If we have any chance of stopping them, we have to act now to make it clear that this is both a bad political and moral decision.”

CANALS AND CONVENTIONS Of the three countries still clinging to hope for an FTA with the United States this summer, probably Panama’s bid is the least controversial.

Mario E. Jaramillo, Panama’s recently appointed ambassador in Washington, says he believes the pacts will ultimately be approved.

“All three FTAs will be passed, but Panama will get the most votes by far,” Jaramillo confidently told The Diplomat during an interview back in May. “That’s because we’re such a small country, we don’t manufacture anything, there’s no risk of the U.S. losing jobs to us, and we’ve always had a great relationship with the United States. We’ve never had labor issues. And more than 80 percent of congressmen and senators have had some relationship to Panama. We’re going to get at least 300 votes, and we don’t August 2011

even have a lobbyist.”

In late April, Panama — in an attempt to silence critics who have accused it of being a haven for laundered drug money — signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with Washington that allows U.S. authorities to go after Americans with bank accounts in Panama who are suspected of evading taxes.

But the TIEA also has an added benefit: It makes Panama far more attractive as an incentive-travel destination.

“When U.S. companies hold a convention in Panama, all their expenses related to that convention can be deducted from their taxes. It wasn’t like that before,” explained Jaramillo.

“Since Panama didn’t have that, it wasn’t certified as a convention center and was losing out to Mexico and Caribbean destinations. But now, conventions held in Panama are tax-deductible under U.S. law.”

The ambassador says that could significantly boost convention business in Panama, which currently has 20,000 hotel rooms but is in the process of adding another 8,000.

Efforts to push through the FTA coincide with a lucrative $5.3 billion expansion of the aging Panama Canal to accommodate larger and larger ships.

“This is the first time Panama has ever been run by a businessman,” said the country’s president, Ricardo Martinelli, a self-made millionaire and chairman of Panama’s Super 99 grocery chain. “Usually in Latin America, the politicians become businessman after they leave office, but this was the other way around.”

Speaking to a packed crowd at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Center the day after meeting with Obama at the White House, Martinelli boasted that his government has cracked down on price-fixing, illegal kickbacks, tax fraud and corruption within Panama’s police force — a problem that seems to have grown with the arrival of thousands of foreign workers taking advantage of Panama’s rapidly expanding economy.

“We regularized a lot of illegal immigrants that were here,” he said. “They were using our schools, our hospitals and our roads but were paying no taxes. That was also a big source of corruption. Every time they were stopped in the streets and asked for IDs, they bribed the officers.”

Martinelli, whose five-year term of office expires in mid-2014, said Panama now ranks as the second-most competitive economy in Latin America after Chile, and is one of the few countries in the region with investment-grade bond ratings.

As such, expanding Panama’s service-based economy is a top priority for his administration — and the planned canal expansion will pump tens of billions of dollars into the country in the coming decades.

“The canal represents 8 percent of our GDP, and this year, the Colón Free Zone will do $27 billion in business,” he explained.“And regarding the canal’s expansion, more money is being spent in the United States than in Panama, because all U.S. ports will have to increase their draught in order to accommodate the world’s largest ships. In Port Elizabeth, N.J., a bridge worth over $1 billion has to be built to accommodate post-Panamax ships.

“The East Coast of the U.S. will greatly appreciate the expansion because it’s very difficult to get merchandise from China, put it on a truck. It costs money and pollutes the environment instead of going through the canal.”

All of which makes it easier for U.S. lawmakers to support a free trade agreement with Panama. Martinelli, calling the FTA a “no-brainer,” said he foresees the treaty sailing through Congress in the next 60 to 90 days.

“We don’t expect any difficulty at all getting it approved,” he said — in May. “I don’t see how little Panama can hurt the U.S. job market. On the contrary, it will create more jobs for the U.S. economy.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 19

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DIPLOMACY

Technology

Innovating Public Diplomacy For a New Digital World

by Jacob Comenetz

A

seismic shift is under way at the U.S. Department of State as Foggy Bottom increasingly draws on Sillicon Valley expertise to develop tools and strategies for remaining effective — and relevant — in a rapidly innovating world.

Though all sections of the State Department are affected, public diplomacy in particular has had to adapt its perspective and overhaul its outreach to stay current in a constantly evolving technological landscape.

From basic cell phone and Internet access to social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, the so-called digital revolution has fundamentally changed the world as we know it — a world where half the population is under the age of 30. Most recently, this digital revolution has sprung up in the Arab world, where it’s been a source of inspiration for an agitated citizenry, a source of consternation to authoritarian rulers, and a source of endless debate among scholars and pundits as to what role it’s really playing in the ongoing unrest.

More and more, it’s also being seen as a source of power for diplomats.

The paradigm of network as power was put forward by international relations scholar Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently left her post as director of policy planning at the State Department. The notion that we live in a networked world and America’s ability to capitalize on this connectivity will impact its global standing remains highly influential among key foreign policy players in the Obama administration (exemplified by the president’s first-ever “Twitter town hall” on July 6). As New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote in a recent op-ed, “There are many more networks in our future than treaties.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has led the push to use technology as a platform for diplomacy as part of what she calls “21st-century statecraft,” leveraging traditional foreign policy statecraft with the networks, technologies and demographics of our interconnected world. Put more simply, the State Department needs to innovate to keep up with the high-tech times.

Clinton’s two speeches on “Internet freedom,” the first in the winter of 2010 and the second during the throes of the Egyptian uprising last February, established the phrase “freedom to connect” as a new tenet of American diplomacy, bolstered by the Obama administration’s recent International Strategy for Cyberspace, which lays out U.S. foreign policy priorities in the realm of cyber issues. Clinton has described cyber diplomacy as “a new foreign policy imperative for which the State Department … will continue to have a leading role.”

“We inhabit a moment of uncertainty and possibility that allows for and requires entirely new ways of thinking,” said Judith A. McHale, who served as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs from spring 2009 to July 2011, at a June 21 discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations.

McHale focused on the image of an inverted pyramid from a January 2010 New York Times op-ed page, in which U2 singer Bono shared “10 ideas to kick off the

August 2011

PHOTO: STATE DEPARTMENT

“

Here in the State Department, we do what we call 21st-century statecraft. That’s just a fancy way of saying that we are trying to use technology to open up doors that are otherwise closed.

— HILLARY CLINTON U.S. secretary of state

”

new decade.”The image represented how the traditional power relationship between the ruler and the ruled has been overturned by recent developments in communications technology. The events in Egypt and the Arab world made it a particularly relevant metaphor, she noted.

“In a world where power and influence truly belongs to the many, we must engage with more people in more places,” said McHale.“That is the essential truth of public diplomacy in the Internet age.”

Whereas in the past, practitioners of public diplomacy could expect that audiences would come to them (or diplomats would physically go to them), McHale said that today this is no longer the case. In a networked world, the State Department has to deal with “an increasingly savvy and motivated set of influencers on a global stage, each armed with a vast array of affordable, adaptable tools to spread their message.”The only solution, she argues, is to become a part of the conversations, to go out and engage with people wherever they may congregate in the real or virtual world. “We must be out there

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveils the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), which uses mobile cell networks to provide basic health information to vulnerable women around the world — part of Clinton’s “21st-century statecraft” vision to transform the U.S. Foreign Service’s approach to technology.

in as many ways as possible and at every hour of every day,” she said.

Under Clinton, the State Department has indeed expanded its presence in the virtual world. A glance at State’s revamped website reveals links to Facebook and Twitter sites, a Flickr stream of photographs, YouTuberelated videos, “Dipnote” blogs and RSS feeds. Beyond gaining a foothold in the cyber world, the State Department is trying to integrate technology into its every facet of its work, rethinking public diplomacy and reinventing outreach efforts such as educational exchanges.

Last month for instance, 37 women from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and the Palestinian territories came to the United States for a five-week mentorship with their American counterparts at 24 U.S.based technology companies as part of “TechWomen,” a State initiative that harnesses the power of technology and international exchange to empower women and girls worldwide.

At the closing luncheon of the TechWomen initiative at the State Department, Clinton outlined some of the other projects in which technology is playing a redefining role. “We’re working with farmers in many parts of the world who are now using mobile phones to find the best prices for their crops,” she said.“We’re working with health professionals so that pregnant women and new

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 21

Continued from previous page

PHOTO: STATE DEPARTMENT

Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, center, participates in the State Department’s first global “Twitter Q&A� on June 29 at the U.S. State Department, whose main official Twitter feed, @StateDept, hosted the session.

Times documented a widespread U.S. government campaign to deploy “shadow� Internet and cell phone systems to undermine authoritarian governments that block telecommunications. “The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya,� wrote James Glanz and John Markoff, citing a $2 million State grant used to develop an innocuous-looking suitcase that can be quickly set up to generate wireless Internet access over a large area.

The reporters also referenced a $50 million State-Pentagon program to create an independent cell phone network in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban — noting that the effort revved up after

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the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “The Obama administration’s initiative is in one sense a new front in a longstanding diplomatic push to defend free speech and nurture democracy. For decades, the United States has sent radio broadcasts into autocratic countries through Voice of America and other means. More recently, Washington has supported the development of software that preserves the anonymity of users in places like China, and training for citizens who want to pass information along the governmentowned Internet without getting caught,� Glanz and Markoff wrote.“But the latest initiative depends on creating entirely separate pathways for communication. It has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler.�

This cool new frontier is also refreshing the face of public diplomacy, which has evolved from traditional democracy-promotion efforts such as the shortwave radio broadcasts of the past to today’s webchats on how mobile-money applications can help impoverished nations like Haiti.The Broadcast Board of Governors, responsible for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, is still around and finding fertile new ground in nations such as Kyrgyzstan and Iran. But it too is embracing new modes of communitication to compete in an increasingly crowded media space.

And officials such as Public Diplomacy Undersecretary McHale still regularly make oldfashioned visits to personally meet with international audiences, but the World Wide Web has simply made the world of diplomacy that much larger. That’s why McHale has been leading the

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mothers can get good advice about how to care for their newborns via text messages. We’re working with students so that they can learn English through mobile language apps.And we’re working with civil society so that you can use the Internet to uncover corruption and advocate more effectively for political and economic reform.�

She added: “Here in the State Department, we do what we call 21st-century statecraft. That’s just a fancy way of saying that we are trying to use technology to open up doors that are otherwise closed.�

Examples of opening up 21st-century doors abound. In the Virtual Student Foreign Service (VSFS) program, students become virtual “eInterns� at the State Department and their work can be done remotely from their dorm rooms, wherever in the world they are. Traveling abroad? The new “Smart Traveler� iPhone application — also compatible with the iPod touch and iPad — features a dashboard of country-by-country information, travel alerts and warnings, maps, U.S. embassy locations, and more.

A recent edition of “Tech@State� — which connects tech innovators and those interested in diplomacy and development to help improve the education, health and welfare of the world’s population — explored how “serious gaming� can spark social change.The all-day conference at the George Washington University brought together young entrepreneurs from media ventures such as playmobs, Applications for Good, LOLApps, icivics and Gamification.

The explosion of digital technologies, however, is a double-edged sword, and the movement to tap the power of technology can have stealthy undertones. The U.S. government, beyond the benign arena of public diplomacy, is simultaneously attempting to use various networking technologies to circumvent censorship and maintain its “hard power� edge in cyber space.

In the recent article “U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors Abroad,� the New York

charge to not only redefine public diplomacy, but boost its status in U.S. foreign policy. “Policymaking and public diplomacy were at one time seen as separate and far from equal disciplines of our foreign policy apparatus, and the organization was structured accordingly,� McHale noted in her CFR speech. The process of uniting them began with the abolishment of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) by President Clinton in 1999, and the integration of its successor into the State Department is vigorously continuing under the present administration, she said.

One structural change has been the creation of seven new deputy assistant secretaries of state for public diplomacy — six in the regional bureaus, plus one in public affairs for interacting with international media. McHale explained that the reasoning is “to have public diplomacy at the highest level within the State Department participating in and informing our policy decision making.�

The State Department — like the U.S. government as a whole — is still trying to navigate this new technological terrain and is continually tweaking its approach. A notice on the main website page for the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) from January of this year, for example, outlines a host of changes based on a comprehensive three-month business review.

Among the changes was the decision to do away with America.gov, a democracy-promotion website created in 2008 for publishing articles and multimedia content on cultural and political topics relating to U.S. foreign interests. Since March 31, the website content has been archived and won’t be updated.

In an interview with The Washington Diplomat, IIP Coordinator Dawn McCall explained that the decision to redirect resources from America.gov was the result of moving away from the “self-creation� of products, including “static� websites, toward actively engaging with the communities that State is trying to reach — going out directly to these communities on the web instead of just assuming they’d visit America.gov.

The resources of IIP, which has 280 personnel in Washington and around the world, will now be focused on providing content and support to America’s 450 embassy websites around the world.

According to a press release, IIP’s “expanded use of web-enabled engagement channels demonstrates the Bureau’s commitment to shift its strategy from a static web site to seeking audiences proactively on the platforms they frequent in their language.�

McCall underscored the importance of engaging publics in their own language as much as possible as part of a genuine two-way conversation. “The underpinning of IIP is engagement, the conversation,� she said.“It is education to foreign publics.And we weren’t doing that.We weren’t engaging with audiences; we were engaging with our own self-created media, and the website was one of them. “So my thought when I came in here is that it’s easy to self-create lots of things, check a box of ‘I’ve written that article, I’ve made that video and put it on our own property,’� McCall explained.

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“But my feeling is we have to be more aggressive, and we have to go out and find a place to place that information that we’ve written, about whatever subject it might be, or to engage in a conversation around that particular subject.”

A senior government official who requested anonymity said the decision to discontinue America.gov was a good one, arguing that the website had reinforced an artificial notion of “us” and “them,” while its newsroom had taken away valuable resources from the State Department’s foreign posts.

The new forms of engagement dictate a change in the type of content being produced as well. In an April 24 post on the Hillicon Valley blog of the Hill newspaper, the only media coverage of the demise of America.gov turned up by a Google search, IIP Principal Deputy Coordinator Duncan MacInnes said the bureau is now “teaching people to write shorter.”

“Chunky; chunk the information down,” he told the Hill.“We’ll produce an article, we’ll reduce that to a 200-word piece that can be used for a Facebook page and three or four tweets that can be used on a Twitter feed and instant messaging.”

Likewise, McCall pointed to the need to produce different types of content, such as shorter articles and videos for social media platforms.

“Obviously, being in an electronic and social media world, we had too many long things we were writing … not enough of what I would call short features,” she said.

“And we are also providing to our posts on a daily basis social media feeds, in [foreign] languages, which gives them some tweets, some Facebook entries, some links to more detailed information. So just taking look at the environment you’re operating in and seeing where people are going and what kinds of conversations they’re having, and where they’re seeking out information.”

Even as IIP and the State Department’s public diplomacy specialists aim to forge a cutting-edge strategy for social media engagement, some have

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questioned the idea that the Internet can be an effective tool in international relations or, specifically, promoting democracy abroad.

Evgeny Morozov’s 2010 book“The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom” offers one of the most sustained critiques of the viewpoint that “there is no problem that social networking cannot solve.”

“Every new article or book about a Twitter Revolution is not a triumph of humanity; it is a triumph of Twitter’s marketing department,” Morozov wrote.“In fact, Silicon Valley’s marketing geniuses may have a strong interest in misleading the public about the similarity between the Cold War and today: The Voice of America and Radio Free Europe still enjoy a lot of goodwill with policymakers, and having Twitter and Facebook be seen as their digital equivalents doesn’t hurt their publicity.”

On a broader scale, Morozov denounced what he calls the “Internet freedom agenda” — “the notion that technology can succeed in opening up the world where offline efforts have failed,” he wrote in the Foreign Policy article “Freedom.gov.”

For all the hype and positive headlines, the State Department has yet to produce any tangible successes from its tech-based strategies, Morozov argues, noting that its “enthusiasm for technology has surpassed its understanding of it.”

He detailed how two programs — Haystack, a privacy-protecting and censorship-circumventing technology offered to dissidents in Iran, and an anonymous SMS tip line to help Mexicans share tips about drug cartels — both largely failed because they couldn’t ensure anonymity, putting the users at even greater risk of exposure.

But the biggest flaw in State’s approach, Morozov argues, is that it makes Silicon Valley look like Washington’s propaganda tool. “Clinton went wrong from the outset by violating the first rule of promoting Internet freedom: Don’t talk about promoting Internet freedom,” he wrote.“The State Department’s online democratizing efforts have fallen prey to the same problems that plagued

Bush’s Freedom Agenda. By aligning themselves with Internet companies and organizations, Clinton’s digital diplomats have convinced their enemies abroad that Internet freedom is another Trojan horse for American imperialism.”

Indeed, companies such Google, Facebook and Twitter — whose ultimate aim is profits not democracy promotion — remain conflicted as to what their responsibilities are in nations such as China and Iran that routinely block the flow of information.

Moreover, just because the world is more interconnected does not mean it’s necessarily any less complicated. In an April interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, leading social media expert Clay Shirky criticized the idea that the State Department could effectively use Twitter, which limits tweets to 140 characters, due to a fundamental conflict between the type of transparent communication fostered by the medium and the inherently nuanced nature of international diplomacy.

Shirky argued that foreign policy is simply too prickly an area for effective use of the medium.

“What I think is really startling about the State Department’s use of Twitter is the way in which it has become painfully obvious that they actually can’t say the same thing to everybody,” he said.

“Even if the State Department had some much more integrated way in which it wanted to use Twitter, foreign policy is the single hardest issue to manage in a democratic government.”

Still, the State Department is using a range of 160 different Twitter accounts to manage its “conversation with the world.” Tech-savvy internationalists often caution that communication technologies are “agnostic” to political outcomes and can potentially benefit dictators just as much as democratic leaders, but there remains a strong sense that non-engagement carries serious risks.

Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation to Secretary Clinton, offered The Diplomat plenty of arguments to counter those who would discount the utility of Twitter as a diplomatic tool. He

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described it as a “progressive agent of change” because, like other network technologies, it “tends to distribute power away from large institutions and nation states and toward smaller institutions and individuals by elevating ideas and voices of all kinds.”

Ross admited Twitter posed “interesting challenges for large institutions because it is a community that privileges immediacy, interactivity and provocative creativity.” But he emphasized the value of the tool, and digital diplomacy more broadly, in allowing the U.S. government to interact with non-traditional audiences.“In short, digital media allows more people to participate in diplomacy,” he said.

But despite the growing buzz around Twitter in the United States, Ross also pointed to the perhaps more significant explosive growth of mobile phone use in the developing world, calling it a “game changer” for foreign service officers. In fact, mobile subscriber penetration has reached more than 5 billion people worldwide out of a total world population of 6.9 billion, according to the United Nations, which estimates that by 2012, half the people living in remote areas will have a mobile phone.

While historians likely debate what role cell phones and social media will have on society far into the future, what is already evident is that they are but one facet of a broader generational shift, enabled by new modes of digital communication, that is upending the relationships between people and governments around the globe.

As these technologies continually reinvent the ways in which people interact, they will fundamentally redefine the practice of diplomacy. And as the juggernaut of cyber connectivity marches forward, diplomats will need to keep pace if they want to connect with the people who find themselves newly empowered in ways never before possible.

Jacob Comenetz is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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BOOK REVIEW

Isak Svensson and Peter Wallensteen

‘Go-Between’ Examines How Eliasson

Navigated Minefield of Mediation

by John Shaw have a long-standing interest in the career of Jan Eliasson, the Swedish diplomat who served as his nation’s ambassador to the United States from 2000 to 2005 and then later became president of the United Nations General Assembly and Sweden’s foreign minister. I wrote a book about his diplomatic experience in Washington called “The Ambassador: Inside the Life of a Working Diplomat.”

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During our many hours of interviews, Eliasson mentioned his experiences as an international mediator. Since the focus of our discussions was on his diplomacy in the United States, we never lingered over his extensive mediation work, which included high-profile stints as a point man for mediating the Iran-Iraq war and Darfur conflict in Sudan. However, I often thought that I would like to learn more about this consequential aspect of Eliasson’s career.

“The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the Styles of Mediation” is an important, informative and interesting book about Eliasson’s work and the art of international mediation in general.

It is written by Isak Svensson and Peter Wallensteen, two Swedish professors who interviewed Eliasson extensively and had access to his journals and records.

Svensson is an associate professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden and director of research at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand.Wallensteen has held the Dag Hammarskjöld Chair in Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University since 1985 and has also been a professor of peace studies at the University of Notre Dame since 2006.

In “The Go-Between,” the authors use Eliasson’s considerable track record as a mediator as the device to explore contemporary international mediation. Concerned about what they perceive as a wide gap between the practice and theory of mediation, they review and draw lessons from Eliasson’s work in an attempt to bridge this divide.

The authors argue that for all its high-stakes drama and allure,“at its core, mediation is a practical diplomatic skill.”

Svensson and Wallensteen examine six case studies of Eliasson’s international mediation: two missions to halt the war between Iran and Iraq, first in the early 1980s and then in the late 1980s and early 1990s; two efforts at humanitarian diplomacy, in Burma (Myanmar) in 1992 and Sudan that same year; and two attempts to end internal armed conflicts, first in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994 and then in Darfur between 2006 and 2008.

The authors say that not only was Eliasson involved in these very different endeavors, he was active in all phases of the mediations — from pre-negotiations, to substantive talks to end conflicts, to efforts to implement agreements, and then eventually to terminate his involvement. The “Go-Between” touches on the many facets of Eliasson’s approach to mediation: his cultivation of personal relationships, his commitment to cultural understanding, his use of international principles to shape the mediation, his attempts to create inclusive negotiations, his skill at working with the media, and his efforts to build public support

Page 24

The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE

“

[A]t its core, mediation is a practical diplomatic skill.

— ISAK SVENSSON AND PETER WALLENSTEEN

”

authors of “The Go-Between: Jan Eliasson and the Styles of Mediation”

for his work when the time was appropriate.

Svensson and Wallensteen’s study is primarily focused on the process of mediation by examining how Eliasson entered, prepared for, pursued, and finally concluded his international mediation efforts. But they also note that Eliasson’s work led to tangible and consequential successes: agreements not to attack civilian villages in the Iran-Iraq war in 1984 as well as to secure the exchange of Iraqi and Iranian prisoners of war in 1990; a full ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994; an agreement in 1992 to allow Rohingya refugees from Burma to resettle in Bangladesh; and securing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Southern Sudan in 1992.

On this last point, the authors distinguish between humanitarian and political mediation. Humanitarian mediation is usually short term, immediate, and initiated with limited resources and without regard to the phase of the crisis. Political mediation, on the other hand, requires a long-term commitment, more institutional support, and a coherent framework for cooperation within the international system.

Svensson and Wallensteen are intrigued by the working

styles assumed by mediators and say that four dimensions should be carefully considered. First, there is “scope,” which refers to the boundaries of the mediator’s engagement. Is it inclusive or exclusive? Second, there is “method,” which refers to how a mediator tries to influence the perception of the parties in the mediation process. Is it forcing or fostering? Third is “mode,” which refers to the issue of transparency and openness. Is the mediation confidential or open?

Finally, there is “focus,” which refers to what the mediator is trying to accomplish. Is it narrow or wide? Put differently, is the mediator trying to get a broad peace agreement or rather trying to halt an immediate conflict and ease the suffering of affected populations.

The authors view international mediation as a complex, multifaceted process and delve into five of its central components — the first of which is the entry of the main mediator.This, they argue, is a critical factor that has not received sufficient attention either by academics or practitioners. The initial mandate, they write, determines the way a mediator enters the conflict, conducts the mediation, involves the international community, and completes the assignment.

“In our analysis of Eliasson’s mediation efforts, it became clear that the mandate is of crucial importance for what a mediator can do. It determines what strategies and tools a mediator may use. It sets the outer parameters of mediation, but still leaves some leeway for the mediator,” they write.

The two key elements of the mandate are its origin and its operational aspects. Svensson and Wallensteen say that a multilateral mandate gives mediators access to professional and communication resources, legitimacy, and informational clout. It also creates opportunities for the division of labor between different actors. But multilateral mandates also have limitations, namely that the mediator has no coercive power to use against the parties.

A second aspect of the mediation process pertains to the mediator’s preparation. Among other things, he or she needs to assess the situation and determine if the environment is conducive to a settlement. The mediator studies the issues in dispute, tries to persuade the parties that their differences are resolvable, and searches for common ground. The mediator must also decide what parties to include in the talks, a challenge that is often both complex and hugely consequential.

A third feature of the process is how a mediator uses the instruments at his or her disposal in the negotiations.

This refers to establishing principles and goals for the talks, framing issues, and skillfully using language to find areas of agreement and solutions to practical problems. “A good repertoire of synonyms in the diplomatic toolbox is essential for mediation,” Svensson and Wallensteen write. “By reformulating contentious concepts or words the international mediator can open more possibilities for the parties to find common ground on which agreements can be reached. Changes in wording can be critical.”

The authors cite a telling example from Eliasson’s mediation in Southern Sudan in 1992.A stalemate preventing the delivery of humanitarian supplies was broken when Eliasson’s team developed the concept of “humanitarian corridors” rather than relying on the more politically charged notion of a ceasefire. “This concept created a

See BOOK REVIEW, page 54 August 2011

LAW

United States

Legal Battle Over Campus Protest Raises Questions of Free Speech

by Raymond Barrett

T

hey are known as the Irvine 11.

They are a group of young Muslim students now facing trial in Orange County, California, on misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace after disrupting a speech given by Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at the University of California–Irvine on Feb. 8, 2010.

They are also the lead actors in an incident that has escalated from a minor campus protest to a lengthy legal investigation, which along the way has raised questions regarding First Amendment rights, the specter of Islamophobia in a post-9/11 America, and accusations of judicial impropriety and prejudice within the local district attorney’s office.

A quick Internet search for “Irvine 11 video” leads to YouTube, where one can witness the event that sparked it all. The video opens with Ambassador Oren being warmly introduced to the crowd by faculty and students; the protest commenced shortly after he began his speech. In a clearly orchestrated act of civil disobedience, the students took turns interrupting the ambassador with cries such as “You, sir, are an accomplice to genocide” and “Michael Oren, you are a war criminal.”

Despite repeated calls by university staff to show respect and allow a guest to speak, the protests went ahead, to the cheers of some in attendance and to the dismay of others. Taking turns to decry the speaker, the students then walked from their seats to be escorted from the room by campus police. They were subsequently arrested and later released. Of the 11 charged, eight are from UC Irvine while three are students with UC Riverside.

After a misdemeanor criminal investigation that lasted more than a year, their trial is finally set to start later this month despite accusations of legal impropriety and overreaction. The 11 students have been charged with conspiracy to disrupt a meeting and another count of disrupting a meeting, and if convicted face jail time (up to six months in prison), community service or parole. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said charges were filed because of an “organized attempt to squelch the speaker” and that the students “meant to stop this speech and stop anyone else from hearing his ideas, and they did so by disrupting a lawful meeting.”

Supporters of the students — including some Jewish groups and 100 campus faculty members — say they were exercising August 2011

PHOTO: STAND WITH THE ELEVEN

their right to free speech, that their protest was peaceful, that criminal prosecution is excessive, and that they’re being unfairly targeted for being Muslim and for criticizing Israel.

MUSLIM STUDENT UNION In the aftermath of the protest, the spotlight fell on the role of the Muslim Student Union, of which many of the protestors were members. Subsequently, the MSU was suspended from the university for a year (a rare instance in which the school recommended to ban a student group for something other than hazing or alcohol abuse), but the suspension was later

Reem Salahi, defense attorney for the so-called “Irvine 11,” talks to reporters outside a courtroom in Orange County, California. Her clients, a group of Muslim students from the University of CaliforniaIrvine, are set to go to trial this month on misdemeanor charges after disrupting a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in a case that’s generated a firestorm of controversy.

dropped. She says the students had a specific purpose in mind: to protest the devastating 22-day bombing campaign carried out by the Israeli government in the Gaza Strip that started on Dec. 27, 2008, in response to repeated rocket fire from the strip into nearby Israeli towns.A report by Amnesty International found that the bombing campaign killed some 1,400 Palestinians (13 Israelis died) and large swathes of Gaza had been razed to the ground.

“

Each of the Irvine 11 students merely used his First Amendment right to briefly and peacefully challenge the representative of a foreign government involved in egregious human rights violations.

The Israeli ambassador was able to finish his speech, despite the brief interruptions.

— AMEENA MIRZA QAZI

”

deputy executive director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Greater Los Angeles Area

reduced to three months.

To find out what motivated the protesters (their attorneys had advised against speaking to the press), The Washington Diplomat spoke with Marya Bangee, coordinator of Stand with the Eleven — a community group that has campaigned to have the charges against the students

In Bangee’s eyes, the ambassador’s speech was part of a public relations exercise designed to burnish the image of the Israeli government after a storm of negative reaction following the Gaza military campaign. “The invasion and subsequent massacre of Gaza, it was kind of an obligation to the people who had been hurt and

killed during the invasion,” Bangee said.

Also, some of the protestors were Palestinian and had an extra motivation.

“They had a personal investment in speaking. They had family members in Gaza … some of whom were killed,” she added. In fact, one of the protestors had three family members killed during the bombardment.

They were 13, 14, and 23 years old.

The Muslim Student Union also claims it has been unfairly singled out because of its religion. “The Muslim Student Union and their supporters said the reason the school is investigating them is that there is pressure from outside … Jewish groups or Israel supporters from outside the school,” said Mona Shadia, a reporter who has covered the Irvine 11 case extensively for the Los Angeles Times.

At the same time, some say the union isn’t the innocent victim it’s portrayed itself as, suggesting dubious connections.

“One of the pro-Israel groups,” Shadia noted,“made the allegation in the past that the Muslim Students Union had … raised funds for Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. and Israel.”

Perhaps most important though in terms of the legal case is that defendants are accused of meeting with other members of the Muslim Student Union six days before Oren’s speech to discuss strategies to respond to the meeting — giving rise to the conspiracy charge that the disruption was planned ahead of time.

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 25

Continued from previous page

DISTRICT ATTORNEY DRAMA While this case clearly touches on issues with global implications, namely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, perhaps the most intriguing element has been the local controversy surrounding the Orange County District Attorney office’s handling of the case. Most recently, accusations of improper conduct and bias culminated in a judge removing the lead investigator and his three deputies from the case over the unauthorized use of privileged documents.

Shadia described how in the course of their investigations, the district attorney subpoenaed emails between the students and the Muslim Student Union pertaining to the protest — including around 20,000 privileged documents between the students and their lawyer. One of those emails was used to bring new charges against one student. The defense successfully argued these communications were subject to client-attorney privilege, and on July 1, Orange County District Judge Peter Wilson barred lead investigator Paul Kelly and three assistant district attorneys from the case.

It was a legal victory for the defense, although they were pushing to have the entire DA’s office kicked off the case, which Wilson declined to do. He did order prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any evidence used at the trial was not illegally obtained.

An update on the Stand with the Eleven website in May highlighted further possibility of bias within the district attorney’s office. “Members of the OC DA, including the head district attorney Tony Rackauckas and his chief of staff, Susan Schroeder, have compared the alleged conduct of the Irvine 11 to the Ku Klux Klan protesting Martin Luther King Jr. In a video interview, Ms. Schroeder also insinuated that the Irvine 11 are anti-Semitic.”

Another factor that has surprised some observers is the district attorney’s decision to pursue the case with such zeal. Bangee, a key supporter of the

Irvine 11, highlighted a case whereby President Obama was heckled by anti-abortion protestors while giving a speech at the University of Notre Dame, but no charges were brought against the hecklers.

Similarly, John L. Esposito, founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for MuslimChristian Understanding at Georgetown University, wrote in a June 16 Huffington Post article that “he can think of no place where freedom of speech and dissent has been, and continues to be, more important than university and college campuses.”

“When College Republicans interrupted Muslim speaker Amir Abdel Malik at UCI, the protest was so overwhelming, UCI’s College Republicans literally shut the speaker down, as similar protestors have done to other Muslim speakers at UCI,” he pointed out.“They had large, premade signs, went on stage, surrounded the speaker, took the speaker’s microphone and shut down the meeting. Did the UCI administration in this case and others move quickly to punish these disruptors, as they have in the Irvine 11 case? Were they accused of a conspiracy to disrupt? On the contrary, no one was prosecuted for this far more offensive conduct.”

Even some of the UC Irvine faculty such as law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky who criticized the protest have said that university discipline was enough and that the incident didn’t warrant criminal charges.

As such, the students suspect that prejudice against Muslims and political grand standing may be the reasons the district attorney convened a grand jury and assigned top investigators to the case. “This grand jury cost around a hundred grand,” Bangee said, noting that “the editorial board of the LA Times came out and said this is an example of the Orange County DA pandering to the right-wing conservative community in Orange County because he is up for election this year.”

ORANGE COUNTY TENSIONS The case has also thrown an unsavory light on

possible cultural tensions in Orange County, which now has a significant Muslim population in what has traditionally been a bastion of white conservatives. “Irvine has a big Muslim community and a big mosque. It is a very diverse community.

Anaheim has a large Arab community. There are a lot of Palestinians in Orange County,” said reporter Shadia. And these demographic changes have brought with them controversies that some local politicians have been quick to exploit.

One incident that has lodged in the minds of many Muslims residents was a protest outside a charity event organized by the Islamic Circle of North America in the city of Yorba Linda north of Irvine. In an ironic parallel with the Irvine 11 case, Muslim parents and their young children were heckled entering the building by an emotional crowd intent on sending a message.

“Outside of this fundraiser dozens of people showed up waving American flags shouting, ‘Go back home’ and intimidated children. There is a level of Islamophobia in Orange County,” said Bangee.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) made a particular note of the presence of local politicians such as Congressman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Councilwoman Deborah Pauly who peppered their speeches with some incendiary language. Pauly made her view of the fundraiser very clear:“What’s going on over there right now, make no bones about it, that is pure unadulterated evil,” she charged. “I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in Paradise.”

THE POLITICS OF PROTEST The Irvine 11 case is set to go to trial in August and both the defense and the prosecution will argue that this is a matter of First Amendment rights — the right to free speech.The district attorney is arguing that the ambassador’s right to free speech was impeded by the students. Ameena Mirza Qazi, staff attorney and deputy executive director at CAIR-Greater Los Angeles Area, coun-

ters that the students were exercising their right to use the First Amendment to craft their own protest, which was nonviolent.

“Each of the Irvine 11 students merely used his First Amendment right to briefly and peacefully challenge the representative of a foreign government involved in egregious human rights violations.The Israeli ambassador was able to finish his speech, despite the brief interruptions,” she said.

When contacted, the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the case. A press officer said it would be unlikely that the embassy would comment on an ongoing legal matter.

Norman G. Finkelstein, a political scientist whose latest book is “This Time We Went Too Far” on the Gaza war, and no stranger to controversy himself, believes the Irvine 11 case is not simply a “free speech” issue for the university. Finkelstein — an outspoken critic of the Israeli government who often faces vociferous opposition while speaking on university campuses and was previously invited to speak at UC Irvine by the Muslim Student Union — believes the way a university welcomes a guest speaker is of great significance.

Citing the effusive welcome given toAmbassador Oren at UC Irvine, Finkelstein insisted that university authorities had in fact “taken sides” on the controversial issue of the Gaza bombing campaign. “The university hardly acquitted itself like angels,” he said. “They took a stand. It was not about freedom of speech; they also took a political position.”

Referring to the manner in which the students had conducted their protest, he said, “They did it with honesty and integrity.”

However, Finkelstein insisted that he did not agree with the tactics of interrupting the ambassador. “I did not agree with what they did with Michael Oren,” he said.“If we used [the students’] tactics, I wouldn’t be able to speak anywhere.”

Raymond Barrett, author of “Dubai Dreams: Inside the Kingdom of Bling,” is an Irish writer and journalist.

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Page 26

The Washington Diplomat

August 2011

MEDICAL ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

Promise of PARP

■ August 2011

PHOTO: ANDY NOWACK / ISTOCK

Enzyme Inhibitor Offers Exciting New Option in Ovarian Cancer Treatment

by Gina Shaw

Ovarian cancer is extremely difficult to diagnose and treat.

Its symptoms are often confused with other, more benign conditions like gastrointestinal problems, and by the time the disease is recognized, seven or eight out of every 10 patients already have advanced-stage cancer where survival rates are low.

Continued on next page

■ INSIDE: Medical science developed for the International Space Station may be transforming the lives of patients back on Earth. PAGE 30 ■

MEDICAL August 2011

The Washington Diplomat Page 27

Continued from previous page Last year, according to the National Cancer Institute, there were more than 21,000 estimated new cases of ovarian cancer in the United States and 13,850 deaths. Unfortunately, even when there is a good response to initial treatment, between 70 percent and 90 percent of women with ovarian cancer eventually have a recurrence of their disease (also see “Ovarian Cancer: The ‘Silent Killer’ Speaks” in the May 2006 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

“Ovarian cancer is often a chronic disease,” said Dr. Barbara Goff, director of gynecologic oncology at the University of Washington and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.“So we need to find agents that keep the disease from growing, and at the same time are relatively nontoxic.”

That’s why doctors in the field are so excited about a new category of drugs called PARP inhibitors. PARP — short for poly (ADPribose) polymerase — enzymes regulate the process by which our bodies repair damaged DNA. Of course, most of the time you want damaged DNA to be repaired — but not if it’s the DNA of a cancer cell. Like their healthy counterparts, cancer cells also have DNA repair machinery that can reverse damage caused by radiation and chemotherapy drugs, helping them survive and grow uncontrollably. Research has suggested that certain types of cancer cells are more dependent on the PARP process for survival than regular cells, meaning that you can design a drug that inhibits PARP that will cause a lot more problems for your cancer than it will for the rest of your body.

Ovarian cancer is one of these types of cancer, and PARP inhibitors are a hot new field of study for the disease. At the annual

Marjan Roshankar, D.D.S. 2440 M St. NW Suite 328 Washington DC 20037

“Ovarian cancer is often a chronic disease…. So we need to find agents that keep the disease from growing, and at the same time are relatively nontoxic.”

— DR. BARBARA GOFF, director of gynecologic oncology at the University of Washington and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in June, the excitement over PARP combating ovarian cancer was palpable, driven by a new phase II study of a PARP inhibitor called olaparib.

Among 265 women with relapsed ovarian cancer, those taking olaparib averaged 8.4 months before progression of their disease, compared with 4.3 months among those taking placebo — or nearly twice as long, a dramatic finding.

The new trial also demonstrates that olaparib (and, theoretically, other drugs that act on the same pathway) may be effective in a larger subgroup of ovarian cancer patients than previously thought. Like many “targeted therapies,” PARP inhibitors don’t necessarily have the same effectiveness against everyone with a certain type of cancer (like ovarian or breast cancer).

A trial published last year showed that olaparib shrank tumors in women with ovarian cancer who had mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes — inherited mutations that are associated with a high risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer. But only about 5 percent of ovarian cancer patients carry a mutation in one of those genes. The new study included not just women with BRCA

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mutations, but also those with “high-grade serous tumors” — cancers that in many ways look very similar to those found in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, but do not actually involve mutations in those genes.

The drug was effective in those women too, which significantly expands the pool of ovarian cancer patients that olaparib or another PARP inhibitor might benefit.

“Even if you don’t have a germline mutation, up to half of ovarian cancer patients have something wrong with their BRCA protein,” said Dr. Ursula Matulonis, director and program leader of medical gynecologic oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Scientists at Dana-Farber have been looking for ways to overcome — and even take advantage of — the BRCA factor. Because most types of cancer cells have normal BRCA proteins, PARP inhibitors are less effective on them. To get around this, researchers have been working to convert “BRCA-competent” tumor cells to something more akin to BRCA1 mutated cells that would be sensitive to antiPARP drugs.

In a paper published online by Nature Medicine in late June, Dr. Geoffrey Shapiro and colleagues at Dana-Farber reported that the BRCA1 repair protein is dependent on another protein, CDK1, known primarily as a regulator of the cell division cycle. When the scientists blocked CDK1 in cancer cell lines, BRCA1 function was disrupted, making the cells susceptible to being killed by a PARP inhibitor.

The new findings, Shapiro said in a press release, “suggest that by blocking CDK1, we can disable BRCA1 in many types of cancers and make them sensitive to a PARP inhibitor.

It could extend the use of these drugs to a much larger group of patients.”

In a study involving lung cancer cells implanted in mice in the laboratory, the researchers “found that if we deplete cancer cells of CDK1, we disrupt DNA repair and the cells become very sensitive to PARP inhibitors,” said Shapiro, the senior author of the report who heads Dana-Farber’s Early Drug Development Center. Shapiro added that a clinical trial combining a CDK1 blocker and a PARP inhibitor in a variety of solid tumors is being planned.

Goff of the University of Washington said

PHOTO: TITI MATEI / FOTOLIA

advances in this new class of PARP inhibitors holds exciting promise. “It’s also very well tolerated and doesn’t have a lot of safety concerns, so it’s a very reasonable maintenance drug that you can put a patient on for an extended period of time.”

Prior to PARP inhibitors, the only real “targeted therapy” available for patients with ovarian cancer has been bevacizumab (Avastin), an anti-angiogenesis agent. (That’s a drug that blocks the formation of new blood vessels to feed the tumor.) In a phase III study presented at last year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, patients taking bevacizumab as a “maintenance therapy” after chemotherapy went an average of 14.1 months with their disease under control, as compared to 10.3 months in patients taking a placebo.

Bevacizumab, though, is an expensive medication and has some significant side effects, including a small risk of life-threatening gastrointestinal perforations and bleeding in the lungs. Moreover, the Food and Drug Administration is still considering revoking Avastin’s approval as a treatment for breast cancer due to questions over its cost and clinically proven effectiveness.

“For certain patients, bevacizumab is definitely a good drug, but it’s very exciting to have a new option, an oral medication that is relatively nontoxic. In this study, most patients were able to stay on the drug and tolerated it very well,” said Goff.

This is not likely to be the last such advance. PARP inhibitors are a big area of interest for cancer researchers, and there are several more agents in the pipeline that could be used to treat not only ovarian cancer, but other types of cancer as well. And because ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cancer killer of women, is very difficult to detect in its early stages, and one in 55 women will develop the disease during her lifetime, that’s encouraging news indeed.

Gina Shaw is the medical writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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MEDICAL Page 28

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August 2011

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MEDICAL August 2011

The Washington Diplomat Page 29

[ telemedicine ]

Out of This World Space-Pioneered Ultrasound Technology Sparks Terrestrial Health Care Advances

by Carolyn Cosmos

W

hile the end of NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program that carried astronauts into orbit is mourned, or perhaps applauded by some, its demise may be greatly exaggerated. Not only does NASA have its eye on deep-space missions to places like Mars, private companies, largely funded by the space agency, will still propel astronauts into Earth’s orbit. But perhaps one of the most indelible imprints the program has left on mankind is the science developed aboard shuttle flights and the International Space Station — which may be transforming the lives of people back on Earth.

In fact, as the Atlantis space shuttle lifted off from Florida’s coast on July 8, a remarkable scenario was unfolding along the Pacific coast of Nicaragua in a region called Tola.Two days after the launch, an international team descended on the rural town of Las Salinas to deliver a health care technology that had its genesis on the International Space Station.

The medical team of doctors, mostly from the United States and Italy, is working with a nongovernmental organization called the Mission of Grace Foundation along with indigenous Nicaraguans,local authorities,regional hospitals and Nicaragua’s Ministry of Health to train doctors, nurses, villagers and even farmers in a revolutionary ultrasound technology, then linking them with health practitioners around the world using Internet-based telemedicine communications, mostly in the form of video conferencing.

The hope is that this high-tech tapestry of people, Internet and institutions will bring modern diagnostics and health education to all parts of Tola.The idea is to strengthen the region’s existing medical structures using outside help that will then be continued by Nicaraguans themselves.

Telemedicine is transforming health care around the world, connecting patients and doctors through interactive audiovisual media that allows someone from a remote town in Kentucky, for instance, where specialists may be hard to come by, to consult with a top-notch doctor at a New York hospital.

The field is still evolving as experts debate the pros and cons of consulting and conducting medical exams from afar, but PHOTO: NASA already, ever-more sophisticated technology is building on the Former International Space Station Commander Leroy Chiao performs an ultrabackbone of telemedicine — producsound exam on his Expedition 10 crewmate, Russian Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov, ing results that once seemed out of this as part of a project to develop techniques for non-physician crewmembers to conworld. duct ultrasounds while in space — research that has also revealed the possibilities One of the people helping to take of ultrasound technology in telemedicine. health care into unchartered territory is Alberta Spreafico, outreach strategist people in emergency medicine and primary care to perform ultraat the Henry Ford Health System in sound procedures — which use high-frequency sound waves that are Detroit and the director of sustainable beamed into the body, causing return echoes that “visualize” organs development for Winfocus, the World and structures beneath the skin. Health care professionals use these Interactive Network Focused on Critical images to view the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, liver and other organs, UltraSound based in Milan, Italy. Both as well as the fetus in pregnant women. And unlike X-rays, ultrasound Winfocus and Henry Ford are at the does not involve exposure to radiation. heart of the Tola team and behind simiSo how did this advanced imaging technique appear in a Nicaraguan lar endeavors in Honduras,Mozambique, town? It all started high above the clouds, in outer space.

Lesotho, Madagascar, Brazil, India, China, Ten years ago, with long-range space travel and inevitable accidents Congo and Malaysia. in mind, NASA needed a way to get more diagnostic information about — LEROY CHIAO, NASA astronaut Major leaps in development don’t injured or sick astronauts back to Earth. They turned to Dr. Scott necessarily require great wealth anyDulchavsky, chairman of surgery at Henry Ford Hospital who became more, Spreafico told The Washington Diplomat, citing increasingly inexpensive a member of NASA’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). technologies that can offer less developed parts of the world access to top-tier “We did not have X-ray machines or CT scans in orbit and didn’t plan to, but health care. we did have ultrasound on the space station,” he said.

A prime example is the Winfocus Global Ultrasound Program, which has had a presence in 50 countries over the last seven years, training more than 30,000 See TELEMEDICINE, page 32

“We were seeing what ultrasound could do….

We had shown it would work in the austere environment of space.”

MEDICAL Page 30

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August 2011

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Telemedicine But it wasn’t that simple. Ultrasound, though cheaper than other imaging procedures, was typically limited to scans of the abdomen and pelvis. Its hand-held scanner emitted sound waves that bounced back to make pictures of tissues or organs on a screen, but the waves were easily blocked by air or gas, the pictures sometimes lacked contrast, and a radiologist was needed to analyze the images. Worse, an ultrasound unit was big and bulky (even the one in orbit weighed in at 170 pounds), and ultrasound training took more than 200 hours.

“Everyone said we couldn’t [widely] use ultrasound,” Dulchavsky recalled.“But I made it my mission.”

Dulchavsky developed novel methods of analyzing ultrasound images, commissioned new software and hardware, and, with help

Above, Dr. Gordon Lee, an emergency physician from Hong Kong, teaches a “basic echo course” in Thailand as part of the Winfocus Global Ultrasound Program. Below, Winfocus co-founder Dr. Via Gabriele shows how to perform an ultrasound using a portable echo machine.

from commercial partners, pushed for smaller machines. Finally, by using educational videos and computer-based training, he slashed the learning curve for a practitioner to be able to analyze ultrasound images down to about three hours.

“We trained custodial personnel to conduct ultrasound exams. After about five minutes, they had a diagnostic accuracy in the high 90s,” said Dulchavsky,whom one colleague described as a “bulldog.”

NASA called his project Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity (ADUM) and tested it on the International Space Station (ISS). It logged 80 hours of orbiting exams between

PHOTOS: THE WORLD INTERACTIVE NETWORK FOCUSED ON CRITICAL ULTRASOUND

Based in Milan, Winfocus (the World Interactive Network Focused on Critical UltraSound) has trained more than 30,000 people in emergency medicine and primary care to perform ultrasound procedures throughout the world, including rural settings in nations such as Mozambique, above.

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2003 and 2005, leading to an atlas of the normal human body in space (it’s not the same as yours or mine), a “pocket book” ultrasound exam guide, and terrestrial spinoffs of the technology.

In fact, ADUM produced more than 1,000 scientific investigations, many in collaboration with NASA’s international partners in Canada, Europe, Russia, Japan and Brazil, and this research has yielded more than 300 scientific publications so far to inform future missions beyond Earth’s orbit as well as health care missions closer to home.

The Johnson Space Center in Houston trained astronauts to use Dulchavsky’s methods in space while receiving guidance from researchers and flight controllers on the ground. One of the testers was NASA astronaut and ISS Expedition 10 Commander Leroy Chiao, a chemical engineer with expertise in aerospace materials and space telescopes. He now works with NASA to evaluate space-station science and medical projects.

Chiao flew four missions on three shuttles — Columbia, Endeavor and Discovery — and conducted four spacewalks. He worked on ISS assembly and “tightened bolts” on the second walk and installed science experiments in 2005. That year, his work inside the space station also yielded sophisticated ultrasound images that hadn’t been done before — pictures of teeth and eyes, while floating in space.

“We were seeing what ultrasound could do,” Chiao told The Diplomat. “We had a link to a physician on the ground who would say, ‘OK, that looks pretty good. Now move the probe to

the right.’ It was telemedicine.”

It was also telemedicine on a whole new level.

“We had shown it would work in the austere environment of space,” said Dulchavsky, who further tested the technology in extreme environments on Earth. In 2008, he diagnosed pulmonary edema in a climber on Mount Everest from his office in Detroit, and thanks to a newly portable ultrasound machine, a pregnant Inuit woman in Canada had a reassuring checkup from Chiao from the comfort of her home.

Detroit’s hockey team started using the portable ultrasound to look at injuries without making a trip to a hospital, and before long the U.S. Olympic Committee began using its diagnostics worldwide.

Dr. Luca Neri had seen the potential of portable ultrasound as a new doctor working in Mozambique. In 2004, the Milan-based doctor founded Winfocus with an emphasis on incorporating ultrasound into emergency and primary care in places with limited medical resources.

He immediately contacted Henry Ford Health System and joined forces with Dulchavsky in 2006. Today, Neri, Dulchavsky and Spreafico manage the Winfocus team’s sustainable development projects, traveling the world and personally participating in local training sessions and international conferences.

“Most of mankind is living with resourcepoor primary care,” Neri recently wrote in an email to The Diplomat. This problem, he said, can be mitigated with inexpensive portable ultrasounds, which he called “the stethoscope of the future” — capable of greatly improving the “blind, risky and costly” emergency procedures commonly used around the world.

Winfocus’s work has attracted the attention of the United Nations, with Neri and Spreafico recently presenting a progress report to the 2011 U.N. Infopoverty Conference.

Like the space program itself, Neri aims high: “We are creating a new paradigm,” he said.

“We’re reimagining health care accessibility … throughout dozens of countries [for] hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.”

Carolyn Cosmos is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

MEDICAL Page 32

The Washington Diplomat

August 2011

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PHOTOGRAPHY

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

Business Boost With long resumes and big ambitions, the Parsans of Trinidad and Tobago are relying on their business savvy for their first diplomatic posting. PAGE 35

BURSTof

MEXICO

PHOTOGRAPHY

Surreal Possibilities “Possible Worlds” is an otherworldly exhibit conjured by nine Mexican artists who use conventional photography and untamed imagination to construct alternate visions of reality. PAGE 37

National Geographic is known for its vivid, arresting images of countries around the world, but the iconic magazine has a special affinity for Mexico, as seen in an expansive exhibit of photographs that offer an intimate look at a country many of us romanticize and even stereotype, but don’t fully understand or appreciate. PAGE 34

HISTORY

Imperial Portrait “Family Matters” puts a face on China’s golden age of prosperity with regal portraits depicting the uppercrust of the Qing dynasty court. PAGE 38 PHOTO: DAVID ALAN HARVEY–NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

DINING

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The Queen Vic brings jolly good British spirit to the H Street corridor. PAGE 40

A young girl rises above the ravages of AIDS in “Life, Above All.” PAGE 42

[ photography ]

Penetrating Picture ‘Lens of National Geographic’ Captures Century of Mexico PHOTO: KIP ROSS–NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

by Michael Coleman

M

exico and National Geographic magazine go way back.

The iconic publication is, of course, known for its vivid, arresting images of native people from all around the world. But National Geographic has a special affinity for Mexico.

In fact, feature articles accompanied by photographs of Mexico and its people have graced no fewer than 150 editions of the glossy magazine over the last 100 years.

Now, National Geographic has teamed up with the Mexican Cultural Institute to present a special exhibition of the magazine’s Mexico-themed photography documenting the country’s history, culture, people and landscapes. The exhibition includes 132 photographs — in stark black and white and bursting color — drawn from the National Geographic Society’s archives in Washington.

You’ll want to make time — at least an hour — to take in this expansive, thought-provoking exhibition, curated by Juan García de Oteyza and Christina Elson. It’s organized into seven different sections on two floors of the institute. Together, the photos offer an intimate view of a country many of us romanticize and even stereotype, but don’t fully understand.

Photos on the first floor showcase the heroic discoveries of late 19th-century explorers, and especially the discovery of Mayan ruins. A pair of photographs shows ruins in the PHOTO: GEORGE STEINMETZ–NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Palenque archaeological zone located in the southern state of Chiapas Among the more than 130 photographs in near Guatemala. A black-and-white “Mexico Through the Lens of National photo captures the ruin as it was Geographic” are, from clockwise top: a girl discovered, covered in dense foliage carrying flowers in Chiapas by photographer and looking like something out of an Kip Ross; whale bones washed up beside a Indiana Jones film. A color photo lagoon in Baja California-Mexico by George next to it depicts the site after restoSteinmetz; an explorer measuring the eye of a ration and preservation. It’s a visually colossal head by Richard Hewitt Stewart; and a compelling case for continued birthday procession in Oaxaca by David Alan investment in archaeology and presHarvey; as well as Harvey’s image of the Tulum ervation. ruins at first light, pictured on the culture cover.

The Mayan section also features Sartorial pageantry is also on stunning images of sites paired with display in a photo called “Trique artistic renderings. National PHOTO: DAVID ALAN HARVEY–NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO: RICHARD HEWITT STEWART–NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 15th Birthday Celebration.” In it, Geographic has been a long-term supporter of Maya research, and these carefully crafted images reveal the evolution of our young women and men dressed in traditional garb exploding with color move down a mountainside — a procession of happiness. knowledge of ancient Maya writing, art and architecture, beliefs, and daily life.

A more contemporary-seeming view of Mexico can be found in a portrait of a home Nature lovers will want to linger in this section, which is replete with images of Mexico’s spectacular beauty and stunning geography. A photo of a monarch butterfly in Zona Pedregal in Mexico City in the 1960s. Several women clad in what was thenresting near a pool of water is simultaneously simple and complex, as the fragile, lone modern clothing perch outside a home constructed with the clean lines and contemporary stylings of something one might have found in Southern creature shows off its intricate, beautiful markings with a California at around the same time. mirrored image reflecting from the water.

Mexico Through the Lens However, hardship finds a home in this exhibition, as well.

Similarly, stark white whale bones jutting from the sand of National Geographic One of the most iconic images here is that of an 80-year-old near a lagoon in Baja, California-Mexico evoke thoughts of through Oct. 22 basket weaver in Chihuahua. The woman’s grimacing face is prehistoric beasts — and the notion that we are all mortal, Mexican Cultural Institute tightly framed, peeking out from underneath a drab head covno matter how big and powerful we might be. ering. It’s a face etched with years of toil, the crevasses so deep The more sinister side of nature is also on display, most 2829 16th St., NW as to almost be disturbing.Yet like the others, this old woman memorably in the breathtakingly beautiful image of the For more information, please call (202) 728-1628 wears vibrant colors proudly, her bright orange poncho lendPopocatepetl volcano rising above a church on a pyramid in or visit www.instituteofmexicodc.org. ing vitality to her world-beaten — yet determined — visage.

Cholula, Puebla. The image — captured at either sunrise or The exhibition also trots out some old photographic tropes — the lady making tortisunset, it’s hard to tell — is perfectly composed, with the snow-capped peak straining toward the top of the frame and a cool, blue-tinged mist hovering along the bottom, mak- llas and people carrying things, for example — that have come to define foreigners’ perception of the Mexican people and their way of life. ing it look as if the volcano is floating in air.

But thankfully, the show goes much deeper than that, providing us with a penetrating Viewers in this exhibition will be consistently struck by the vibrant colors of Mexico, whether they be in the landscape or in the clothes that Mexican people wear.A cheerful view into a proud nation and a society that offers so much more than popular culture young woman photographed in Chiapas carrying a gourd filled with flowers is a vision would sometimes have us believe. of lovely hues, from the white flowers to the yellows, blues and greens in her vivid Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. blouse.

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August 2011

[ diplomatic spouses ]

Down to Business Couple of Natural Promoters for Trinidad and Tobago

by Gail Scott

W

hen Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Trinidad and Tobago’s new and first-ever female prime minister, chose Neil Parsan, a loyal supporter of her People’s Partnership political coalition, as her top envoy to the United States, she knew she was getting not one but two natural-born promoters for her twin island republic.

Both savvy in business — by education and by running successful businesses and working in finance — Ambassador Parsan and his wife, Lucia Mayers-Parsan, a former local hire for the U.S. Embassy in the capital of Port of Spain, immediately got to work promoting their country’s inviting culture and attracting more diversified businesses to their Caribbean paradise just off the tip of Venezuela. Although he was credentialed in February, Dr. Parsan, a former practicing veterinarian and one of the youngest ambassadors to ever represent Trinidad and Tobago, and the whole family have only been here for about a month.

According to the country’s foreign affairs minister, Surujrattan Rambachan,“Dr. Neil Parsan was selected our chief diplomat to the United States, Mexico and permanent representative of the Organization of American States because of his business acumen and diplomatic skills. His appointment represents the new paradigm of Trinidad and Tobago: change, business-focused trade diplomacy and planning for the future. He is bright and experienced with a keen eye for opportunities that fit the developmental strategies of our country.”

In fact, the twin island nation has not only been blessed with an abundance of natural beauty, it’s also been blessed with hydrocarbon resources, making it an economic powerhouse in the Caribbean — with a per-capita GDP of more than $20,000, one of the highest in Latin America. Trinidad and Tobago is the fifth-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world The day after arriving in Washington to take up his post, Ambassador Neil Parsan of Trinidad and the single largest supplier of LNG to the United States, providing two-thirds of all LNG and Tobago and his wife Lucia Mayers-Parsan headed to Alaska for a trip hosted by the State imported into the country since 2002, and currently supplying approximately 40 percent Department Protocol Office as part of its “Experience America” initiative, which takes foreign of U.S. imports.

While serene and lush, the island of Tobago is much smaller, less populated and home ambassadors to various U.S. states and cities to meet with public and private sector officials. to the nation’s tourism market. Trinidad, the size of Delaware, with a population of 1.3 dozens of ambassadors to meet with public and private sector officials in Alaska. million, drives the nation’s economy, attracting investment from international businesses “I knew we were going so I put a couple of sweaters in my luggage but everything else thanks it its high growth rates and respected reputation. Some 150 U.S. companies have was packed away for the move and hadn’t arrived in Washington yet,” Lucia said. “I did chosen to invest there, including Exxon, 3M, Citicorp, Burger King,Wendy’s and the coun- have to buy a coat up in Alaska but the cold wasn’t unbearable so that I needed hats and try’s favorite fast food, Kentucky Fried Chicken. gloves. It was a wonderful trip. Alaska is breathtaking, or “My husband loves KFC,” said Lucia, who holds an interas some of the Nordic ambassadors on the trip said, national MBA and has a background in business developAnything is possible with him.

‘Alaska has even more impressive scenery than what we ment and export-import services. “It is his favorite. At have at home in our countries.’

Living with him is not boring…. home we sometimes have KFC more than once a week,” “I expected the breathtaking surroundings and great she admitted. seafood but what pleased me most were the people,” she I love his drive, his ambition.

But during their first few weeks in Washington, the added. “Alaskans are so friendly and warm…. The tribal couple has yet to find a KFC worthy of the same adorapeople are so simple and humble. Otherwise, everyone is He doesn’t settle for anything. tion. “Your KFC is not as spicy and crunchy as ours back from somewhere else: Our Alaskan cab driver was from home,” she said. “Of course, we love chicken in Trinidad Chile and there are so many Europeans you almost feel — LUCIA MAYERS-PARSAN but whether it’s our chicken or the spices they use there, like you’re in Europe, except Alaska is not as sophisticatour KFC is much better than what we have found here so wife of Ambassador Neil Parsan of Trinidad and Tobago ed a place as the countries in Europe and there is a differfar.” ent history to the land, culturally and historically.”

Between us on the long yellow couch is their 3-year-old Lucia, 40, is no stranger to North America, having visited Washington twice before for daughter Amaya, who also clearly likes a few American brands.The normally ebullient little training programs tied to her work at the American Embassy back home. She also has girl had just fallen asleep moments after talking nonstop into her bubble gum-pink “Dora three cousins who live here, while her older brother lives in Florida, her younger sister in the Explorer” toy cell phone, with her very first stuffed Samantha Doll by her side.

Houston, and her older sister in New York.

Outside the Parsans’ residence on a hill overlooking Rock Creek Park from 17th Street, Lucia is Roman Catholic but her husband was brought up as a Hindu — the two main it was one of D.C.’s “dog days” of summer, with high heat and even higher humidity mak- religions in Trinidad and Tobago. The islands though are extremely multicultural, with a ing it hard to do almost anything.That’s another thing that’s different between Washington mix of religions and ethnicities. Many waves of indentured workers have landed on these and Trinidad, Lucia observed. sunny isles over the decades, the largest among them being East Indians and Africans, as “Well, the temperatures are about the same but at home, since we are always on an well as Europeans, Chinese and even the Lebanese. island, we always have a breeze and the humidity doesn’t seem as bad.This summer is the “We have a lot of holidays at home,” Lucia explained,“because we celebrate all holy days first test but later this year, in the peak of winter, that will be my real challenge, the ulti- of all the religions represented: Catholics, Protestants, especially Baptists and some mate test,” she said.

Pentecostals, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and even Mormons…. Our prime minister and all of “We arrived in Washington and the next day, we left for Alaska at 5:30 the next morning us have different native clothes in our closet so we can easily dress for each special reliwith the State Department and the other diplomats,” she recalled, referring to a June trip Continued on next page hosted by the State Protocol Office as part of its “Experience America” initiative that took

“

”

August 2011

The Washington Diplomat Page 35

Continued from previous page gious occasion. For instance, I have five or six saris and several Indian outfits with pants and skirts. I have two African caftans, too. Our own independence or national day is Aug. 31 — not a particularly good day to celebrate in Washington since it’s always so humid and hot here then and so many people are out of town.”

Nevertheless, Lucia is excited about being in the nation’s capital, not only because of the potential to help their country, but also because of the prospects of landing an interesting job in international business here while their daughter begins preschool.

Her husband also knows a thing or two about interesting jobs, having been a veterinarian, anato-

my lecturer at the University of the West Indies, as well as a business consultant and director of several local and regional companies. He remains a director at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business Alumni Board and vice president of the Private Hospital Association of Trinidad and Tobago.

“Anything is possible with him. Living with him is not boring,” Lucia said.When asked if he harbors any political ambitions, she raised her eyebrows and simply said, “His family has always been in politics.”

“I love his drive, his ambition,” she added. “He doesn’t settle for anything. He is passionate in what he believes but he is a Virgo man and he is extremely critical and stubborn. He is also is own worst critic.”

In response, the ambassador laughs and delivered a quick response: “She has been a tremendous support for me from the day we first met to now, as the wife of a diplomat. Her support and interest in what I am doing has not waned. She has a certain strength that I can always know that she is one of only two or three people who if I ask for something, I will never have to ask again or check on if the task has been done or done correctly.”

So how did these two first meet? “My 2-year-old dog Duke — a German shepherd mix — was very sick and I took him in because he wasn’t eating and I was worried,” Lucia recalled.

I asked the ambassador what he thought when he first saw her.

“That’s a sick dog — and that’s a beautiful woman.”

“He asked me for dinner that night and we were married three years later,” she said.

And now they both find themselves in Washington, minus the dog but with a daughter — and a very new life. After a career in medicine and business, this brand-new ambassador is obviously well versed in promoting all that his homeland has to offer.

“My job here is to remind as many people as possible that our twin island nation is a great value for not only tourism and eco-tourism, sailing and yachting, but our diverse society and fabulous winter carnival, which is second in the world only to Rio’s,” he explained.“We are a nation of multiple natural resources and a skilled, experienced workforce to handle many businesses — from the creative film industry to textile manufacturing and non-energy based industries like ‘downstream energies,’ including special chemicals like ammonia, methanol and urea. I want to help formulate and guide this principle growth while still maintaining our statehood and wonderful way of life.As we become more Western, we want our country

Ambassador Neil Parsan of Trinidad and Tobago and his wife Lucia Mayers-Parsan and their 3-year-old daughter Amaya arrived in Washington during one of the hotter summers in recent memory — which, Lucia says, “is the first test but later this year, in the peak of winter, that will be my real challenge.”

to retain its heritage intact.”

He added:“My other role is to reach out to our large Diaspora — 500,000 — in New York, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.We became a republic 50 years ago so on August 31 next year, we will have huge celebrations in all those cities. We have already begun planning the carnivals.”

Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat and lifestyle columnist for the Diplomatic Pouch.

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[ photography ]

Quite Possibly Unreal Reality and Fiction Collide in Fantastical Mexican Imagery

by Gary Tischler

I

[

n the compulsively fascinating exhibition “Possible Worlds: Photography and Fiction in Mexican Contemporary Art,” now at the Art Museum of the Americas, there’s an inordinate amount of hefty intellectual lifting going on, buttressing the stunning photographic work of a number of Mexican artists — but at times weighing down images that look ready to take flight into the wilder recesses of your dreams.

The exhibit was done in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, which is hosting its own massive photography show based on the National Geographic Society’s archives (see story on page 34) — offering an interesting contrast between the National Geographic images that document Mexico’s evolution and the otherworldly images conjured by the country’s artists.

Curator Marisol Argüelles of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City has obviously given a lot of serious thought to the idea of photography as an artistic vehicle for creating alternative worlds, or “possible worlds,” where fiction and reality collide and erupt in ideas about what lurks behind and beyond our everyday surroundings. Here, that collision has sprung a series of photographs by nine Mexican artists who, in addition to their own vast imaginations and photographic skills, tap film, literature, fantasy, science fiction, electronic music and other contemporary influences to create surreal worlds that speak to the possibility of the unknown.

“I looked at many photographs and works, and artists, and I wanted to explore the ideas of photography as emerging from its prison of what you call documentarian traditions — that it deals in reality, that it documents and shows the world as it is,”Argüelles explained.“These photographers have clearly moved beyond that. They try to show worlds that exist and come from the human mind, not the observable world.”

Argüelles, in the exhibition’s wall texts, has enlisted quotes, epigrammatic selections and references that are often provocative and sometimes impenetrable — a maze of words by philosophers, academics and poets to complement the artwork on display. It’s an interesting selection of supportive ideas by a literary cast of characters, from Roland Gérard Barthes, the Frenchman who influenced schools of theory including existentialism and Marxism, to the great 20thcentury Polish poet of resistance and hope Zbigniew Herbert.

Reading the quotes, you’re moved, especially by this one from Herbert: “An important part of contemporary art declares itself a partisan of chaos, gesticulates on the void or tells itself the story of its confined soul.” This observation, found in the “Apocalypse” section of the exhibit, comes from a man who experienced the invasion and occupation of his country by two of the most oppressive, violent political forces ever imagined: Nazism and Soviet-Stalinist communism.

Yet deep thoughts aside, many of the works hardly need words to express their visceral impact, which sometimes isn’t so much noble as it is uninvitingly disPossible Worlds: Photography and Fiction turbing — the memories of dreams that in Mexican Contemporary Art aren’t easy to forget, barren post-apocathrough Aug. 28 lyptic landscapes, and contemporary pop fiction obsessions like creepy little Organization of American States Art Museum sci-fi creatures. of the Americas These nine contemporary artists — 201 18th St., NW Mauricio Alejo, Ricardo Alzati, Katya For more information, please call (202) 458-6016 Braylovsky, Alex Dorfsman, Daniela or visit www.museum.oas.org.

Edburg, Rubén Gutiérrez, Kenia Nárez, Fernando Montiel and Damián Siqueiros — conjure spellbinding visions, eerie nightmares, strange hallucinations and alternate but still very human realities.

The notion though that photography is primarily a tool of realism and documentation seems to a somewhat false one from the get-go. Today’s photo-shoppers are hardly radical or new. Fiction is created the minute we click, crop and frame what

August 2011

]

PHOTOS: ART MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAS

From top, Mauricio Alejo’s “Bubble,” Damián Siqueiros’s “Icaro I” and Kenia Nárez’s “Capricho núm. 4” are among the surreal digital prints by nine contemporary artists in “Possible Worlds: Photography and Fiction in Mexican Contemporary Art,” now at the Art Museum of the Americas.

appeals to our vision.To create fictional photography is just another step forward in the process, entering the swinging doors in and out of dreams.

Mauricio Alejo and Alex Dorfsman are clearly both conjurers, making the ordinary threatening, fantastical and illusionary — where a living room becomes a circus, sofas swallow arms, and a ghostly white sheet floats over the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Kenia Nárez tracks a girl in a barren landscape with an equally barren, naked sheep bereft of fur clung to her back, looking like an alien backpack. i l l lik I particularly likedd Damián Siqueiros’s visions of groups of people, vaguely human and very anxious, rearranging themselves like a deranged company of impoverished dancers.

Daniela Edburg’s works almost encapsulate the exhibition, and excite nothing less than memories of personal dreams. In her exquisitely arranged, posed and constructed photographs — that look nothing less than Vanity Fair fashion shoots of the conceptual kind — a family cheerfully picnics against the specter of a nuclear mushroom cloud in the distance just before it incinerates their superficially pleasant landscape.

The people in Edburg’s photograph — filled with lush colors and happy consumers — are stylish even when they’re not entirely in the frame.

Dreams, and nightmares have of course changed. When the baby boomers were young, this vision of nuclear calamity was a constant fear, no more so than during the Cuban missile crisis, when all-out nuclear war was a very real possibility. It never happened, but we continued to dream the imagery.Today’s images though have turned the less-than-merciful cloud into something chic, like a pulverizing handbag, yet another accessory.

We may no longer think of atomic mutants stomping out entire cities, but we still enjoy imagining relentless ghouls for some reason. Thirsty vampires and love-struck werewolves never go out of style. Nor do these possible worlds, or the possibility of the surreal where what’s “real” is in the mind of the beholder.

Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 37

[ history ]

Qing Family Album Imperial Court Portraits Illuminate Chinese Golden Age

by Jacob Comenetz

I

[ Page 38

f his lavish robes, trimmed with tiger fur and featuring an intricate dragon pattern, did not make the point clearly enough, the man’s no-nonsense gaze would remove any doubt as to his high status in the Qing dynasty court of 18th-century China.

The identity of the nobleman, depicted on a hanging silk scroll in ink and color, is unknown.

But the mystery surrounding the courtier, with his aristocratic accouterments, only adds to the portrait’s allure. Viewing it, you gain a sense of the cultural milieu and upper-class lifestyle of the Chinese golden age of prosperity, or shengshi, of 300 years ago.

During its zenith in the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century, the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912, presided over a dramatic increase in population and territory. This impressive growth contributed to expanded wealth and a cultural flourishing, including the development of a distinctive style of portraiture, as seen in the painting of our tiger fur-laden nobleman.

Visitors have until January 2013 to take in the portrait of an “Unidentified Courtier in Front of a Table,” as well as 15 additional paintings of members of the Qing dynasty, related by blood or marriage, currently on display at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The exhibition, “Family Matters: Portraits from the Qing Court,” draws on the Sackler’s extensive collection of such portraits — some of which are nearly life-size — that were collected by Richard G. Pritzlaff, a New Mexican rancher in the late 1930s and 1940s, and acquired by the museum in 1991.

While the majority of the portraits depict their subjects in a similar manner — a headon, flattened perspective, with emphasis on the elaborate robes and carpets — the women are generally depicted adorned with dazzling jewelry made of gold and pearls or inlaid with turquoise kingfisher feathers, while the men are seen riding horses, relaxing in a garden, meditating quietly with rosary beads, or seated in a formal setting among their favorite possessions.

Family Matters: The exhibition’s introductory panel informs us of a divergence Portraits from the Qing Court in purpose between the male and through Jan. 16, 2013 female paintings.Whereas most of Arthur M. Sackler Gallery the portraits of Qing women were 1050 Independence Ave., SW painted to facilitate the practice of ancestor For more information, please call (202) 633-1000 worship, the portraits of men featured in this or visit www.asia.si.edu. show were painted from life and had other purposes, both formal and informal.

The origins and purpose of the striking “Portrait of the Qianlong Emperor in front of the White Pagoda,” a large ink and color on silk painting that greets visitors entering the exhibition, for example, are shrouded in mystery.

Though the face of the man crossing the elegant white “Gold Tortoise Jade Rainbow Bridge” on horseback in the imperial park west of the Forbidden City resembles that of the Qianlong Emperor (1735-96), fake seals call into question its supposed origins in the imperial court.The emperor’s relaxed pose, and the lack of a substantial entourage, likewise cast doubt on its provenance.

One possible explanation for these peculiarities is that the painting may have been

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The Washington Diplomat

created to help shape the image of the emperor to suit his tastes. The Western watch hanging from his belt, reflecting his penchant for such timepieces, and the white pagoda in the background, representing his Tibetan leanings, may have helped tailor his persona within the court.

Another standout portrait, the first on the left as one enters the exhibition room, features a richly dressed woman with a possibly spurious identification. The “Beauty Holding an Orchid” includes a title slip in English indicating that she is Lady Liu, concubine to the Yongzheng Emperor, father of the Qianlong Emperor. But a lack of clearcut clues from her headdress, robes and jewelry, however elaborate, remove all certainty concerning the portrait’s courtly origin. The piercing eye contact and other signs, sexually suggestive in their time, point to its potential use in the pleasure quarters of the city.

In addition to the 16 portraits, the Sackler exhibition includes several decorative objects similar to those portrayed in the paintings. An imperial noblewoman’s summer surcoat, worn to add formality to noble vestments, features a five-clawed dragon, indicating its wearer to be of the highest rank.The exquisite detail of three headdress ornaments in the shape of a moth, PHOTOS: NEIL GREENTREE / FREER GALLERY OF ART, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION phoenix and caterpillar turning into From clockwise top, a butterfly incorporate brilliant blue “Portrait of an Unidentified kingfisher feathers, then a soughtCourtier in front of a Table,” after ornamentation. Seeing these “Portrait of the Qianlong stunningly beautiful articles helps Emperor in front of the one envision the Qing court in all its White Pagoda” and regal glory.

Though most of the portraits in “Beauty Holding an Orchid” the exhibition conform to the rathare among 16 portraits at er rigid formula of courtly painting, the Sackler Gallery that a handful departs from this practice, offer a glimpse inside the revealing another aspect of contemlavish court of the Qing porary art and culture. The painting dynasty during China’s of “Yinxiang, Prince Yi (1686-1730), golden age of prosperity.

Enjoying an Outing by Boat,” for example, shows the prince gently drifting on a pond in the summertime, raising an orchid as two attendants hold his hat and a book and writing brush at the ready. The painting of “Hongyan, Prince Guo (1733-1765), Reading in a Spring Garden,” similarly depicts the lifestyle of the idealized gentleman-scholar of the day.

The Sackler will present a second exhibition focused on the Qing court later this fall called “Power|Play: China’s Empress Dowager,” spotlighting Grand Empress Dowager Cixi, China’s supreme leader for more than 45 years. These lavishly staged shots of Cixi and her court reflect the convergence of Qing court pictorial traditions, modern photographic techniques and more Western standards of artistic portraiture.

“Family Matters” serves as a tantalizing introduction to the Qing court. Four of the portraits here and most of the objects have never before been publicly shown, while the remaining 12 portraits have not been on display for over a decade.This fact, combined with the ability of the portraits to shed light on the still-influential shengshi period in Chinese history, provides a compelling case for a late summer trip to the Sackler.

Jacob Comenetz is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

August 2011

[ art ]

Thinking Women From Lithographs to Guerilla Posters, a Thought-Provoking Ride PHOTO: TAMARIND INSTITUTEW

by Gary Tischler

I

[

t would be hard to imagine the three eclectic, edgy and completely unrelated exhibitions now at the National Museum of Women in the Arts being shown in any other venue, except perhaps the Katzen Arts Center at American University, which also stages highly divergent, offbeat exhibits at the same time. From elegant lithographs and paintings to shocking posters, going through the three exhibitions is like riding a wave of alternating currents whose only connection is, in a word, gender.

Not that I’m complaining.You couldn’t ask for three more diverse, inviting and rewarding exhibitions than “Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years of Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind,” “The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back” and “Susan Swartz: Seasons of the Soul.”

Any one of these exhibitions, including the relatively small (but large-scale) Swartz display of luminous paintings, would be worthy of an individual visit allowing for time and thoughtfulness to take each in. But taken together, a curious thing happens:Your intake process and experience adjusts to everything you’re seeing.

For instance, of the three, the exhibition of 75 lithographs by 42 women artists from New Mexico’s Tamarind Institute, founded in 1960 by artist June Wayne, requires work and study, as well as appreciation. It also doesn’t hurt to be interested in the process that goes into making fine art lithographs, which is helpfully explained in text, photographs and videos.

At the Tamarind Institute, artists work with master printmakers to produce lithographs whose process is every bit as important, if not quite as fascinating, as the original spark of artistic inspiration and the visual result of that spark.

The exhibition is both thrilling and technical, exploring the soul and methods behind a complex chemical process that can be difficult, painstaking and filled with rewards for the printmakers themselves.

This is not just about the final result but the glue, if you will, involved, and the details of wiping, adding, separating each color and running them individually through flat, specially prepared stones. But for someone who isn’t interested in the mechanics of a computer, or the engineering of a car, the process can be a bit much.

Fortunately, the works themselves are wonders. It also doesn’t hurt that this survey of 50 years of artwork features many recognizable names, including Judy Chicago, Elaine de Kooning, Louise Nevelson and Margo Humphrey, who conjured a witchy, particularly Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years irreverent piece. Humphrey’s “The Last Bar-Bof Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind Que” is a vibrantly colored, folksy riff on the Last Supper punctuated by a bold night sky, The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back bright tablecloths, a dove and a striking red watermelon.

Susan Swartz: Seasons of the Soul The lithographs here are amazing, varied, through Oct. 2 and no doubt the process itself contributed to National Museum of Women in the Arts a kind of exactness of color, emotion and 1250 New York Ave., NW imprint. But looking at them, knowing that For more information, please call (202) 783-5000 they’re all lithographs, matters less than the or visit www.nmwa.org. artistic endgame.

Switching over to “The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back” is indeed a big switch. Posters, newsletters, stickers and erasers make up more than 70 works by the Guerilla Girls, a group of anonymous, gorilla-masked artistactivists who use populist art to critique the sexism and racism they see pervading contemporary culture.

There is a consistency in the breadth and depth of work here, and the gut-punch emotional response it’s meant to elicit.These artists are in the feminist, agitprop business, who have not only produced inflammatory, funny, angry, in-your-face media works that expose gender bigotry and unfairness wherever they find it, but have of late dispersed into performance groups as well.

There’s less subtle analysis going on here than in the lithography show.The point

August 2011

]

PHOTO: UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO MUSEUM COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA MUSEUM OF ART

At the National Museum of Women in the Arts, lithographs from the Tamarind Institute in the exhibit “Pressing Ideas,” such as Margo Humphrey’s “The Last Bar-B-Que,” above, stand in stark contrast to the nearby work in “The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back,” in which gorilla-masked artist-activists use in-your-face posters to tackle sexism and racism.

PHOTO: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS

is obvious — sexism, especially within the art world itself, and there’s plenty to scream about in loud poster art. Yet here too, though, you have to make an effort to take in the humor along with the serious messaging. It’s an energized sort of effort, because everything is big and brazen. You can practically hear the bullhorns at the demonstrations in these works.

The Guerrilla Girls emerged in the mid-1980s with posters, placards and ads that forced people to take notice with text like,“Definition of a hypocrite: an art collector who buys white male art at benefits for liberal causes but never buys art by women or artists of color.” Another flashy yellow poster depicting a gorilla-masked naked woman asks,“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” — noting that less than 3 percent of the artists at the Met were women, while 83 percent of the nudes were female.

You should take your time here, listening to the Guerrilla Girls telling truth to power. But the ride can be exhausting, so much so that by the time you make your way to the room barely containing the 13 paintings by Utah-based artist Susan Swartz, the effect is soothing, cooling and refreshing.

Swartz manages to capture the sun’s golden effect on forests seemingly lit from the inside, using her brush to depict the incandescent individuality of birch trees.

These abstract landscapes fill up the museum space much like actual trees in a forest. They’re spectacular, not so much as metaphor, but as reality. If the previous exhibitions are about manmade process and politics, this is about natural wonder, although even here, Swartz, a fervent environmentalist, aims to highlight issues of preservation.

The forest is a respite but it’s still a thicket of thought — and you’ll be doing plenty of thinking as you wander the halls of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 39

[ dining ]

Hearty Cheers The Queen Vic British Pub Adds Royal Fun to H Street

by Rachel G. Hunt

T

he evolving Atlas District, heart of the H Street corridor revitalization in Northeast, became a bit more spirited this spring with the opening of the Queen Vic British pub. The brainchild of Ryan Gordon and his British wife Roneeka Bhagotra, as well as partner Kevin Bombardier, the Queen Vic is named after a pub in the longrunning British television soap opera “EastEnders.”

Like its namesake, the Vic gives guests a glimpse of this storied English tradition, offering them first and foremost a comfortable spot to — what else? — drink. The Queen Vic’s drink list features more than 30 beers from Great Britain as well as a few Indian varieties that pair nicely with the curries on the menu. For the more adventurous, the Vic offers beer and hard cider-based cocktails that are nothing if not inventive. Noel’s seduction, a bizarre concoction of Guinness, Kahlua and Frangelico, is dark, rich and makes a perfect dessert if you forgo the more solid options.

One of the distinctions between a pub and a restaurant seems to be the ratio of seats at the bar/lounge to dining table seating — and by this token the Vic fits squarely into the pub category.The space is rather small (seating about 100 guests total) and situated in a narrow renovated row house that’s dominated by large bars on both the first and second floors.Though a drinking spot, the acoustics are good and the noise volume is not bad.The owners have Roasted marrow bones are among the all-natural, sustainable done a painstaking renovation of the space to create the feel of a classic English pub, com- dishes at the Queen Vic, where executive chef Adam Stein butchplete with a red and black façade, dark woods, large-screen TVs over the bars playing vari- ers in-house and adheres to a philosophy of utilizing the whole ous sports (mostly football, the British variety) and an English phone booth that houses an animal in his cooking.

ATM machine. Alas there is no dartboard.

The Queen Vic has frequently been referred to as a gastropub.The distinction between on his pub immersion journey before the Vic’s opening, chef a pub and a gastropub lies in the increased emphasis on the quality of food in the latter. Stein visited the Bhagotras’ restaurant to learn how to make And by this token, the Queen Vic certainly deserves the classification. But unlike a number authentic chicken tikka masala and vegetable curries. And the of spots that have opened (and some closed, like CommonWealth) that have identified results make you glad he took the trip. These are not the pale, themselves (sometimes erroneously) as gastropubs, the Vic does not itself lay claim to this watered-down versions of the dishes sometimes found in pubs title but focuses instead on offering diners an ideal pub experience that just happens to in England; they have the rich and complicated flavors of their have really great food. And the Queen Vic does. origin and are as worthy a choice as any dish on the menu.

To give patrons the experience that Bhagotra remembers growing up in Great Britain, The Queen Vic sports the obligatory chalkboard on which the owners sought out Adam Stein to serve as executive chef for the Vic. Stein, who had Stein announces his specials for the evening. It is in these served as executive chef at the Looking Glass Lounge in D.C.’s Petworth area (another dishes that you most clearly see the work that has earned the evolving neighborhood facing the same sort of challenges as H Street), is a young but Vic a nod as a gastropub. On a recent evening, Stein offered accomplished chef. He follows a farm-to-table approach in his menu building and cooking, butter-poached trumpet mushrooms. The sauce was so rich basing his dishes on locally sourced, seasonally available, and sustainable ingredients. He and delicate that it was tempting to butchers in-house and makes his own charcuterie so that pick it up and drink it as a sort of even classic pub dishes like bangers and mash are straight exquisite soup.That same night, lightly dressed roasted beets from the source. Likewise, Stein’s fish and chips, a deliciously were paired with micro greens, crisped onions and fennel The Queen Vic greasy version, uses sustainably caught fish that vary with and dusted with pollen. Both dishes rivaled anything you’d British Pub local availability so that each visit you might find a different find in D.C.’s highest-end locales. fish on the plate. Stein’s cooking principles extend to utilizThe Queen Vic offers only a few desserts though. There’s 1206 H St., NE ing the whole animal, so the menu offers a range of offal (the no spotted dick, but you can get an Eton Mess — chopped (202) 396-2001 entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal) in fresh strawberries, meringue pieces (quite a bit overcooked www.thequeenvicdc.com the guise of beef heart tartar, roasted marrow bones, panon a recent visit) and thick, barely sweetened whipped seared chicken livers and head cheese. cream.The lemon custard tart on a short crust with that same Hours: Monday - Thursday, 5 p.m. - 2 a.m.; Though he doesn’t have a British pub cooking backwhipped cream is satisfyingly sweet and sour. And the sticky Friday, 5 p.m. - 3 a.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. - 3 a.m.; ground, Stein has put together a menu that features many of toffee pudding — with a spongy cake, super-rich toffee sauce Sunday, 11 a.m. - 2 a.m. the most traditional pub favorites. Stein’s Welsh rarebit is a and surprisingly salted whipped cream — is perhaps the Appetizers, small plates: $5 - $25 rich and cheesy appetizer made up of thick slices of housemost interesting of the three choices. grilled white bread and thrice-cooked chips, available sepaThe Gordons are no strangers to the H Street corridor. As Entrées: $12 - $18 rately or with fish, steak, or the delicious lamb and beef part owner and former bartender of the Pug, a much-beloved Desserts: $6 burger — perfect with Vic’s house-made aioli, mustard and bar in the area, Ryan Gordon has witnessed bars and restauDress: Casual commercial ketchup. (Our waiter tells us that in English gasrants come and go in the neighborhood, and understands tropubs, no one will eat the house-made ketchup, preferring what his customers want. The service is informal but excelthe store-bought stuff, so they don’t bother getting fancy lent. Most servers seem delighted with your visit and want to with the ketchup either.) For fans of the big English breakfast, the Vic offers the Full Monty: make sure you try as much as you can from the menu, and that you enjoy every bite. The eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms, beans and toast.This hefty delight can be had at food usually arrives quickly and as ordered (though a busy night might tend to slow things both brunch and dinner. down a bit in the small space).The prices, although not that low, are reasonably doable.And Bhagotra, who grew up in Britain and Wales, got her first taste of the restaurant trade in the drinks are mighty good. And that is, of course, what it’s really all about. her parents’ award-winning Indian restaurant, Bokhara Brasserie, so the inclusion of a few curries on the Vic’s menu, as is the case with many English pubs, seems only natural. In fact, Rachel G. Hunt is the restaurant reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

PHOTOS: JESSICA LATOS

wantto

[ ] go?

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August 2011

August 2011

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[ film reviews ]

A Daughter’s Resilience Coming of Age Amid Ravages of AIDS in ‘Life, Above All’

by Ky N. Nguyen

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ere’s a very rare treat for the discerning cineaste and linguistic enthusiast. South African films have made it to D.C. screens before, but I cannot recall watching any feature shot in the Sotho language.“Life, Above All” — South Africa’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2011 Academy Awards — has already won the François Chalais Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The lauded movie by South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz’s (“Mapantsula,” “Paris, Je T’Aime”) lauded movie, is based on Allan Stratton’s “Chanda’s Secrets,” his international award-winning novel about AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.

The film is a bleak look inside modern South Africa and the ravages of the AIDS epidemic, but the somber subject matter is balanced by the astonishing fortitude of its star, a young girl who is more mature than many of the adults in the movie.

In a tiny, dusty village outside Johannesburg, 12-year-old Chanda (stunningly played in a tour-de-force debut performance by 15-year-old actress Khomotso Manyaka, who occupies the screen in nearly every scene) doesn’t have an easy life. Her mother Lillian (Lerato Mvelase) battles the debilitating symptoms of AIDS. Her constantly drunk stepPHOTO: DREAMER JOINT VENTURE GMBH ALSBRIK 2010, SONY PICTURES CLASSICS father Jonah (Aubrey Poolo) also suffers from AIDS. At a Khomotso Manyaka, 15, gives a tour-de-force debut performance as a young South African girl struggling very young age, her closest pal Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane) is already prostituting herself to truckers to to keep AIDS from tearing apart her family in “Life, Above All.” — for Uday, becoming integrated into the highest social order in Iraq and making make money for survival.

Mrs. Tafa (Harriet Manamela), her more affluent appearances as a member of the “royal family.” He learns to walk and talk like Uday, Life, Above All neighbor, looks down upon Chanda’s family. At a spoiled bad boy who’s exploited his privileged birth to party lavishly in unbeliev(Sotho (Sepedi) with subtitles; least her younger siblings Soly (Thato Kgaladi) and able opulence and rage endlessly without any legal checks. Yahia is forced to 106 min.)

Iris (Mapaseka Mathebe) live in blissful ignorance. abandon his moral beliefs while playing the character of Uday, a sadistic psychotic Landmark’s E Street Cinema Amidst all the chaos, Chanda’s English teacher with insatiable demands for sensual pleasure and brutal violence, fueled by loose Opens Fri., Aug. 5 has good intentions but is unable to make his women and an unlimited supply of a variety of drugs.

Yahia becomes intimately close to Sarrab (French actress Ludivine Sagnier of smart student — who must shoulder the burdens ★★★★✩ “Mesrine,” and “The Girl Cut in Two”), of caring for her Uday’s tantalizing mistress who can’t family — go to school. Immediately following the escape her own ghosts. In 2003 Baghdad, loss of her newborn sister, Chanda hears a rumor Iraq’s impending war with Kuwait casts that has spread like weeds throughout the village. a shadow on Uday’s mobster organizaThe gossip devastates her already-struggling family, tion, an unstable apparatus on the precicompelling her mother to go into exile to escape pice of collapse. Under threat of death to the community’s harsh scorn — and worse. Ever himself and his family, Yahia can’t find loyal to her mother and family, Chanda believes the any easy way out, even though he senses rumor to be unfounded and based on superstitious the end may be near. prejudice. So she departs on an epic journey to find New Zealand director Lee Tamahori her mom and the truth. (“Once Were Warriors,”“Die Another Day,” This enlightening quest fuels a compelling, uni“Along Came a Spider”) deftly succeeds versal coming-of-age story about a fearless young in crafting a thrilling account of the last girl who bravely summons a deep well of courage days of Baghdad for the Black Prince. inside her to navigate her own way through the hazards of the modern world.

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‘The Devil’s Double’: Black Prince of Baghdad

Key to the Past PHOTO: SOFIE VAN MIEGHEM

In the chilling “The Devil’s Double,” an adaptation of Latif Yahia’s autobiographical novel, British actor Dominic Cooper (“An Education,” “Mamma Mia!”) not only appears in his first important lead role, he must master starring as a double threat on screen. Cooper does so with gusto as both Iraqi army lieutenant Latif Yahia and Uday Hussein, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s notoriously barbaric son, known as the “Black Prince.”

Yahia is commanded to act as the “fiday” — or body double

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French director Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s “Sarah’s Key,” adapted from the novel by Tatiana De Rosnay, explores difficult ethical issues of the Holocaust in fascinating ways. In July 1942, in the middle of a Parisian night, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) is arrested along with her Jewish family by the French gendarmes. Sarah makes the difficult decision to protect her younger brother by locking him in the cupboard of a bedroom — their secret childhood hiding place — with the intention to free him after the family comes back.

Dominic Cooper, left, stars with Ludivine Sagnier in “The Devil’s Double,” inspired by the true story of an Iraqi army lieutenant who became the body double for Saddam Hussein’s notorious son Uday.

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The Devil’s Double (English; 108 min.)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 5

★★★★✩

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August 2011

[ film festivals ]

Golden at Silverdocs Annual ‘Nonfiction Nirvana’ Winners Offer Window Into World

by Ky N. Nguyen

T

he AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival wrapped up in June at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Md., and other venues across town, offering seven days of some of the top docs the world.And the winners of the annual filmmaking showcase — now in its ninth year — offer a glimpse into the crème de la crème of what Variety magazine dubbed the “nonfiction nirvana” highlighted at the festival.

Below are the winners whose documentaries reveal a slice of life around the planet: Sterling Award for Best World Feature ($5,000 cash award) “Family Instinct,” directed by Andris Gauja, doesn’t hold back in its penetrating look at an unusual Latvian household defined by the incest between Zanda and her incarcerated brother Valdis, whose forthcoming freedom from prison will definitely shake up things.

The Sterling Award World Jury observed that “a slice-of-f#@ked-up-life portrait, the director of this film clearly had fly-on-the-wall access to his subjects, but some scenes, shot from multiple angles, are so formally composed as to seem staged. That’s not a bad thing: For all the desperation and depravity of the story, the filmmaker rescues a narrative of deep sadness and yearning that’s as touching as the circumstances are shocking.”

Special Jury Mention “Position Among the Stars,” directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich, looks at the slums of Jakarta through the point of view of the Shamuddin family, living with their fears, dreams and struggles in Indonesian society.

According to the jury, the film, the final part of a trilogy, “explores a multi-generational family at the cusp of societal upheaval [and] is the culmination of a filmmaker’s aesthetic, thematic and philosophical mission.”

Sterling Award for Best U.S. Feature ($5,000 cash award) “Our School,” directed by Mona Nicoara and Miruna Coco-Cozma, explores how three country-dwelling Roma (Gypsy) children ranging in age from 7 to 16 attempt to assimilate into Romania’s public school system.

The jury said it was impressed by the “intimate depiction of a marginalized and underrepresented community, whose voice is seldom heard. The filmmaker brings to light a

timely human rights issue with compassion and intimacy.”

Special Jury Mention “The Bully Project,” directed by Lee Hirsch, tracks five children and their families over an entire school year, examining how their lives are affected by bullying, a growing concern in American society. “This tortuous experience of youth is shared by many, but is bravely revealed in this film through characters who confront their experience and work to reclaim their dignity,” the jury noted. “The filmmaker’s access shows the enormous trust established with his subjects. The result is a film that doesn’t reduce people to their worst experience, but rather elevates them to a level of marginalized heroes and heros we should all aspire to emulate.”

Special Jury Mention “When the Drum Is Beating,” directed by Whitney Dow, recounts the complicated history of Haiti and the toughness of Haitians via Septentrional, the most lauded band in Haiti over six decades.

“The synergy of place is the motif in this beautifully crafted ode to a people,” the jury said of this “ambitious, multi-dimensional articulation of the identity of a country seen through layers of history, inter-generational, political and natural disasters set against a lyrical and poetic narrative backdrop.”

Sterling Award for Best Short Film ($2,500 cash award) “Guañape Sur,” directed by János Richter, travels across a rocky island off Peru’s coast

“Family Instinct” director Andris Gauja accepts the Sterling Award for Best World Feature at Silverdocs 2011. where thousands of seabirds breed. Every 11th year, hundreds of workers make an arduous pilgrimage to the island to collect the seabirds’ excrement for fertilizer despite an extreme landscape that reminds viewers of the constraints the environment places on humans.

Honorable Mention “Still Here,” directed by Alex Camilleri, shows how Randy Baron, who’s been HIV-positive for over 20 years, witnessed AIDS tear apart his partner and multiple pals, who died in the 1980s when a diagnosis of AIDS was a death sentence.

Audience Award Feature In Al Morrow’s “Donor Unknown,” Jeffrey, a free-spirited anonymous sperm donor living in Venice Beach, is connected with the more

August 2011

Audience Award Short In Matt Morris’s “Mr. Happy Man,” 85-year-old Johnny Barnes has stood at the same intersection for years, waving at people while screaming, “I love you!”

Whole Foods Market and Silverdocs Grant for Works in Progress ($25,000 cash grant each) Margaret Brown examines the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s impact on her hometown of Mobile, Alabama, in “The Great Invisible,” while Ian Cheney dissects the plight of urban waterways in “Bluespace.”

Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

Flash forward 67 years later,American out to be where Sarah’s family Sarah’s Key reporter Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott lived. Bertrand’s family had pur(Elle S’Appelait Sarah) Thomas) is researching the Vel’d’Hiv chased the flat in 1942 follow(French with subtitles and English; 101 min.)

Roundup, the French police’s mass ing the eviction of the Starzynski Landmark’s E Street Cinema detentions of Jewish citizens during family. Julia’s investigations World War II. She and her husband unveil a sequence of secrets ★★★★✩ Bertrand (Frédéric Pierrot) take possesconnecting her to Sarah while sion of the Parisian apartment where he grew up, which turns also raising defining issues about her own romantic life, transforming professional search into a personal journey of critical emotional self-discovery.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays an American reporter researching the French police’s mass detentions of Jewish citizens during World Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

War II in “Sarah’s Key.”

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PHOTO: JULIEN BONET / THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY

than 15 children he helped to create in this unique meditation on the definition of family.

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The Washington Diplomat Page 43

[ film ]

CINEMA LISTING *Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.

English

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

August 2011 Baby boomer Mark Wexler travels the world from Okinawa to Iceland to Las Vegas searching for the secrets of long life.

way back to wife in a winking parody of Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

5 Days of War

AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 19 to 25

Cantonese

Directed by Renny Harlin (U.S., 2011, 113 min.)

To Catch a Thief

Lifeforce

La Comédie Humaine (Yan gaan hei kat)

An American journalist, his cameraman and a Georgian native become caught in the crossfire of the five-day war between Russia and Georgia.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1955, 106 min.)

Directed by Tobe Hooper (U.K., 1985, 116 min.)

Directed by Chan Hing-kai and Janet Chun (Hong Kong, 2010, 100 min.)

Theater TBA Opens Fri., Aug. 19

As jewel robberies proliferate in the South of France, police start to grow suspicious of former cat burglar Cary Grant’s supposed “retirement,” but he’s more interested in fireworks over Cannes with fire-and-ice Grace Kelly.

A space shuttle’s rendezvous with Halley’s Comet reveals an alien spacecraft containing hundreds of humanoid creatures who come to life on Earth and begin draining the life force of human victims, turning them into vampire zombies, in this bigbudget bomb — and camp masterpiece.

This high-energy buddy comedy stars Chapman To as Spring, a hit man from the mainland who falls ill while on assignment in Hong Kong and is nursed back to health by geeky screenwriter Soya.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Aug. 5, 7 p.m., Sun., Aug. 7, 2 p.m.

Drunken Master (Jui kuen) Directed by Yuen Wo-ping (Hong Kong, 1978, 110 min.)

The aimless Wong Fei-hung joins a fearsome martial arts master to learn the mysterious “drunken boxing” technique in the film that established Jackie Chan’s career and serves as a perfect example of the martial arts movies that influenced hip-hop’s pioneers.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Aug. 19, 7 p.m., Sun., Aug. 21, 2 p.m.

Echoes of the Rainbow (Sui yuet san tau) Directed by Alex Law (Hong Kong, 2009, 117 min.)

Working-class Hong Kong in the 1960s is seen through the eyes of 8-year-old “Big Ears,” who witnesses the everyday trials and triumphs of a poor family.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Aug. 12, 7 p.m., Sun., Aug. 14, 2 p.m.

Super Ninjas Directed by Cheh Chang (Hong Kong, 1982, 107 min.)

Watch as a Chinese kung fu family faces off against a squad of deadly ninjas — accompanied by the hard-hitting sounds of DJ IXL and DJ Excess of the Kolabz Crew, also known as Hop Fu, which take the hip-hop/kung fu connection to a whole new level.

Freer Gallery of Art Sat., Aug. 20, 2 p.m.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Directed by Terry Gilliam (U.K./W. Germany, 1989, 126 min.)

Somewhere in the middle of Europe, circa 1740, an eccentric old man interrupts a performance of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” in the town square, claiming to be the real Baron Munchausen, the inveterate teller of tall tales and tide-turner of the Turkish invasion — and to prove it, he tells the story himself.

Directed by John Madden (U.S., 2010, 100 min.)

This unsparing look at the development of humanity against the background of global catastrophe poses the question: Why did we not prevent our doom while we still had the chance to do so?

(Screens with other shorts as part of “Climate.Culture.Change” series.)

Three former Mossad agents are famous for the 1965 death of war criminal Max Rainer but 35 years later, a local European paper publishes an article that the criminal is alive and the agents, now in their late 60s, decide to complete the assignment they never did.

(English, German and Hebrew)

The Washington Diplomat

The Avalon Theatre Wed., Aug. 24, 8 p.m.

Directed by Mike Cahill (U.S., 2011, 92 min.)

The Devil’s Double

On the night of the discovery of a duplicate planet in the solar system, an ambitious young student and an accomplished composer cross paths in a tragic accident.

In 1987 Baghdad, an Iraqi army lieutenant is thrust into the highest echelons of the “royal family” when he’s ordered to become the body double to Saddam Hussein’s son, the notorious “Black Prince” Uday Hussein, a reckless, sadistic party boy with a rabid hunger for sex and brutality.

Attack the Block Directed by Joe Cornish (U.K., 2011, 88 min.)

A teen gang in South London defends its block from an alien invasion.

Theater TBA Opens Fri., Aug. 19

A Better Life

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Directed by Joel Coen (U.K./France/U.S., 2000, 107 min.)

George Clooney mugs and charms his way through the Depression-era South, escaping from a chain gang with two fellow cons and circuitously making his

PHOTO: JONATHAN HESSION / SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Don Cheadle, left, as Agent Wendell Everett and Brendan Gleeson as Sgt. Gerry Boyle in “The Guard.”

The Future

Another Earth

Three Seasons in Hell (Tři Sezóny v Pekle)

Page 44

A young woman, after witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin.

(English and Spanish)

Directed by Franny Armstrong (U.K., 2009, 92 min.)

A gardener in East L.A. struggles to keep his son away from gangs and immigration agents while trying to give his son the opportunities he never had.

(English and Spanish)

The Avalon Theatre Wed., Aug. 10, 8 p.m.

Directed by Nicolas Roeg (U.K., 1976, 139 min.)

The Debt

Directed by Chris Weitz (U.S., 2011, 97 min.)

A 19-year-old nonconformist poet living in 1947 Prague is blind to the Communist behemoth looking over him, and instead lives a bohemian life with sexually liberated girls writing lyrics for underground rock bands.

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Directed by Olivier Megaton (U.S./France, 2011)

The Age of Stupid

AFI Silver Theatre Through Aug. 18

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 26, 11 p.m., Sat., Aug. 27, 11 p.m.

Colombiana

Theater TBA Opens Fri., Aug. 26

Czech

Directed by Tomás Masín (Czech Republic/Germany/Slovakia, 2009, 110 min.)

AFI Silver Theatre Fri. Aug. 5, 7:20 p.m., Sat., Aug. 6, 7:20 p.m., Sun., Aug. 7, 2:45 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre Thu., Aug. 4, 7:30 p.m.

Goethe-Institut Mon., Aug. 8, 6:30 p.m.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Directed by Lee Tamahori

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 5

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark Directed by Troy Nixey (U.S./Australia/Mexico, 2010, 100 min.)

A young girl sent to live with her father and his new girlfriend discovers creatures in her new home who want to claim her as one of their own.

Theater TBA Opens Fri., Aug. 26

Frenzy Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.K., 1972, 116 min.)

A down-on-his-luck ex-RAF pilot is on the run from accusations of being the Necktie Killer, while the chief inspector must contend with his wife’s “gourmet” cooking during discussions of the case.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 27, 2:45 p.m., Tue., Aug. 30, 7 p.m.

Directed by Miranda July (Germany/U.S., 2011, 91 min.)

When a couple decides to adopt a stray cat, their perspective on life radically changes, literally altering the course of time and space and testing their faith in each other and themselves.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 5

The Guard Directed by John Michael McDonagh (Ireland, 2011, 96 min.)

An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is teamed up with an uptight FBI agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 12

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Directed by David Yates (U.S./U.K., 2011, 130 min.)

In the epic finale, the battle between the good and evil forces of the wizarding world escalates into an all-out war. But it is Harry Potter who may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice as he draws closer to the climactic showdown with Lord Voldemort.

Area theaters

Highlander Directed by Russell Mulcahy (U.S./U.K., 1986, 116 min.)

Dealt a deadly blow while defending his Scottish clan from the marauding, unkillable Kurgan, Connor MacLeod miraculously returns to life, wandering the heath until he encounters a centuries-old Spanish swordsman (Sean Connery), who, like MacLeod, is a born immortal.

AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 27 to Sept. 1

How to Live Forever Directed by Mark Wexler (U.S., 2009, 94 min.)

In this uncut 35th anniversary release, space oddity David Bowie lands on 20thcentury Earth seeking water for his drought-stricken planet but instead uses his highly advanced technology to become a wealthy industrialist who succumbs to American decadence in the form of TV, booze, sex and stock issues.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Midnight in Paris Directed by Woody Allen (Spain/U.S., 2011, 94 min.)

Traveling to the French capital for business with their family, a young engaged couple is forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.

AFI Silver Theatre Through Aug. 18

Miller’s Crossing Directed by Joel Coen (U.S., 1990, 115 min.)

In the Coen brothers’ ripping yarn of 1930s gang warfare, Italian mob boss Jon Polito wants to rub out Jewish gambler John Turturro, but he’s protected by Irish godfather Albert Finney, who’s sweet on Turturro’s sister.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 6, 5 p.m., Sun., Aug. 7, 5 p.m.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again Directed by Blake Edwards (U.S., 1976, 103 min.)

Inspector Dreyfus has recovered from the Clouseau-induced psychosis of the previous film, until he’s informed that the bumbling French inspector has replaced him as head inspector, driving Dreyfus over the edge.

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 5, 5:10 p.m., Sat., Aug. 6, 12:40 p.m., Sun., Aug. 7, 12:30 p.m.

Project Nim Directed by James Marsh (U.K., 2011, 93 min.)

In the 1970s, Nim the chimpanzee becomes the focus of a landmark experiment to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. What we learn about his true nature, and our own, is

August 2011

comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Secret Ceremony Directed by Joseph Losey (U.K., 1968, 109 min.)

Prostitute Elizabeth Taylor forms a surrogate mother-daughter bond with strangely childlike Mia Farrow, who resembles her dead daughter.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 21, 5:15 p.m., Mon., Aug. 22, 7 p.m.

A Shot in the Dark Directed by Blake Edwards (U.S./U.K., 1964, 102 min.)

The bumbling Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) investigates a series of murders in which every clue points to the maid, but ever oblivious, Clouseau distrusts everyone except the obvious suspect.

AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 1, 7 p.m., Thu., Aug. 4, 5:30 p.m.

The Smurfs Directed by Raja Gosnell (U.S., 2011, 86 min.)

When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours — smack dab in the middle of Central Park.

Area theaters

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Directed by Wayne Wang (U.S./China, 2011, 104 min.)

In 19th-century China, 7-year-old girls Snow Flower and Lily are matched as laotong — or “old sames” — bound together for eternity. In present-day Shanghai, the laotongs’ descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of modern demands.

What unfolds are two stories, generations apart, united by the everlasting notion of love, hope and friendship.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Tabloid Directed by Errol Morris (U.S., 2010, 87 min.)

Thirty years before the antics of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears were gossip fodder, Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney made her mark as a tabloid staple with her single-minded devotion to the man of her dreams, which led her on a surreal global journey all the way to a cloning laboratory in Seoul, South Korea.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

The Taming of the Shrew Directed by Franco Zeffirelli (Italy/U.S., 1967, 122 min.)

The splashy star casting of real-life husband and wife Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as Shakespeare’s famously bickering couple Petruchio and Kate made Franco Zeffirelli’s debut film a major international hit.

AFI Silver Theater Sun., Aug. 14, 12:20 p.m., Wed., Aug. 17, 6:30 p.m.

Topaz Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1969, 127 min.)

Informed by a Soviet defector of secret shipments to Cuba, CIA man John Forsythe asks French agent Frederick Stafford to be his man in Havana.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 21, 12:20 p.m., Tue., Aug. 23, 6:45 p.m.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front Directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman (U.S./U.K., 2011, 85 min.)

Part coming-of-age tale, part cops-androbbers thriller, this film offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the Earth Liberation Front, the radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s “number-one domestic terrorist threat.”

In this Cold War thriller from Alfred Hitchcock, Paul Newman plays a rocket scientist on assignment in East Germany, while his fiancée Julie Andrews, shedding her Mary Poppins image, is inadvertently drawn into the web of intrigue and danger.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 20, 12:20 p.m., Mon., Aug. 22, 4:30 p.m.

Directed by Julie Bertucelli (France/Australia/Germany/Italy, 2010, 100 min.)

Blindsided with anguish after her husband’s sudden death, Dawn — along with her four young children — struggles to make sense of life without him against the mystical backdrop of the Australian

A young, extroverted left-wing activist who sleeps with her political opponents to convert them to her cause is successful until she meets her match in a Jewish, middleage, middle-of-the road scientist. (French, English, Greek and Arabic) Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 12

People – Dreams – Actions (Menschen – Träume – Taten)

The Whistleblower

Directed by Fred Cavayé (France, 2010, 90 min.)

Samuel Pierret is a nurse who saves the wrong guy — a thief whose henchmen take Samuel’s pregnant wife hostage to force him to spring their boss from the hospital.

An ecological model settlement called “Seven Linden Trees” in Altmark, Germany, becomes a microcosm that vividly reflects the problems of society at large. (Screens with other shorts as part of “Climate.Culture.Change” series.)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 5

Goethe-Institut Mon., Aug. 22, 6:30 p.m.

Sarah’s Key

Silent

Directed by Larysa Kondracki (Germany/Canada, 2010, 118 min.)

In this political thriller inspired by actual events, an American police officer who becomes a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia uncovers a dangerous web of corruption and cover-up in a world of private contractors and multinational diplomatic doubletalk.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 5

French

To save her boss (the couturier Pommier), Jacqueline dupes a rich patron (the visiting American art lover Rochedufer) into placing a huge order, but Rochedufer trumps her by asking for a rendezvous, which leads to surprising revelations.

[Screens with “Le Chapeau de Madame” (France, 1907, 7 min.)]

National Gallery of Art Sat., Aug. 6, 2 p.m.

Directed by Alfred Machin and Henry Wulschleger (France, 1927, 72 min.)

Fear strikes Provençal villagers when a crime wave ensues just after a mysterious stranger and his valet move into a nearby country home. [Screens with “La Main” (France, 1920, 19 min.)]

National Gallery of Art Sun., Aug. 7, 4:30 p.m.

(Elle S’Appelait Sarah) Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner (France, 2010, 101 min.)

In modern-day Paris, a journalist finds her life becoming entwined with a young girl whose family was torn apart during the Nazi’s notorious Vel’d’Hiv Roundup in 1942.

(French, English, Italian and German)

Algol – Tragedy of Power (Algol – Tragödie der Macht) Directed by Hans Wreckmeister (Germany, 1920, 120 min.)

Above Water (Über Wasser)

A human who is given a prototype machine by an inhabitant of the planet Algol that if used, would allow him to rule the earth. The protagonist’s faith in progress expresses a fundamental cause of climate change. (Screens with “The Bill – Die Rechnung” (Germany, 2009, 4 min.) as part of “Climate.Culture.

Change” series.)

Directed by Udo Maurer (Austria/Luxembourg, 2007, 82 min.)

Goethe-Institut Mon., Aug. 15, 6:30 p.m.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

German

From different parts of earth, the film reports on the existential significance of water, demonstrating that climate change will dramatically affect regions that contributed little to the problem.

(Screens with other shorts as part of “Climate.Culture.Change” series.)

Sotho Life, Above All Directed by Oliver Schmitz (South Africa/Germany, 2010, 106 min.)

Das Boot

A daughter’s loyalty to her mother drives this touching coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of modern South Africa.

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (W. Germany, 1981, 149 min.)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 5

Goethe-Institut Mon., Aug. 29, 6:30 p.m.

by Washington Diplomat film reviewer Ky N. Nguyen

Please see International Film Clips on pages 44 and 45 or detailed listings available at press time.

GOETHE-INSTITUT “Climate.Culture.Change” (Aug. 8-29) demonstrates how humans cause, are affected by, and can potentially solve climate change.

“24 Hours Berlin – A Day in the Life” (Sat., Aug. 27, 6 a.m. to Sun., Aug. 28, 6 a.m.) is a marathon screening looking at a day in Berlin filmed by 80 cameras.

(202) 289-1200, www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/kue/flm/enindex.htm

Hitchcock Retrospective, Part III” (through Sept. 5) continues the massive comprehensive review of the British master of suspense.

“Blake Edwards: A Screen Remembrance” (through Aug. 7) showcases early films by the American director. “Dennis Hopper: A Screen Remembrance” (through Sept. 8) looks back at the work of the iconic American actor. “Keeping Up With The Coen Brothers” (through Sept. 5) reviews the black humor of the American siblings.

“Totally Awesome 5: Great Films of the 1980s” (through Sept. 7) revisits memorable flicks from the ’80s. Finally, “NIH Science in the Cinema” (through Aug. 10) features free DVD screenings discussed by an expert guest.

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE (AFI) SILVER THEATRE “Elizabeth Taylor: A Screen Remembrance” (through Sept. 6) looks back at the legacy of the beloved, beautiful British actress. “Alfred

(Aug. 5-28), now in its 17th year, provides a wide perspective of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s broad collection. “This Other Eden: Ireland and Film” (Aug. 27-Sept. 25) starts a survey of Irish films, many from the Irish Film Institute in Dublin.

(202) 842-6799, www.nga.gov/programs/film

FREER GALLERY OF ART

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

The 16th Annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival (through Aug. 21) concludes on Sun., Aug. 21, with a screening of the Jackie Chan classic “Drunken Master” (2 p.m.) followed by “The Hip-hop/Kung Fu/Afro-Asian Connection: A Panel Discussion” (4 p.m.), presented in partnership with the exhibition “RACE: Are We So Different?” at the National Museum of Natural History.

“Recovered Treasure: UCLA’s Annual Festival of Preservation”

(202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp

(301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver

August 2011

The Avalon Theatre Sun., Aug. 28, time TBA

Directed by Andreas Stiglmayr (Germany, 2007, 90 min.)

Le Manoir de la Peur

The Tree

Directed by Michel Leclerc (France, 2010, 102 min.)

At the height of World War II, a young submarine crew heads out to sea on a top-secret mission that all but ensures most will never make it home alive, as they attempt impossible wartime feats while also trying to understand the ideology of the government they serve.

(German, English and French)

Point Blank (À Bout Portant)

Directed by Donatien for Franco-Film (France, 1929, 97 min.)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1966, 128 min.)

The Names of Love (Le Nom des Gens)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 12

L’Arpète

Torn Curtain

Repertory Notes

countryside.

The Washington Diplomat Page 45

[ around town ]

EVENTS LISTING **Admission is free unless otherwise noted. All information on event venues can be found on The Diplomat Web site at www.washdiplomat. com. Times and locations are subject to change.

Unless listed, please call venue for specific event times and hours of operation.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

August 2011 Through Oct. 2

intent and methods, or do the people viewing it help define the work through their perceptions of it? Encompassing the works of four individual artists and one collective, this exhibit sets out to show that both the artistic process and the audience’s perception help inform art’s meaning.

In the Tower: Nam June Paik A new exhibition featuring 20 works by groundbreaking contemporary artist Nam June Paik (1923–2006) is the third in a series of shows installed in the Tower Gallery that centers on developments in art since the midcentury.

American University Katzen Arts Center

ART

National Gallery of Art Through Aug. 14

Through Aug. 12

Stefan Zweig – An Austrian from Europe In 1992, the city of Salzburg honored wellknown writer and political observer Stefan Zweig with an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of his death — a retrospective that now comes to Washington with more than 120 photographs and numerous reproductions and other documents on his life. Admission is free but registration is required and can be made at www.acfdc.org/events-registration.

Embassy of Austria Through Aug. 13

The Last Full Measure: Civil War Photos from the Liljenquist Family Collection Portrait photographs of the young men who fought and died in the American Civil War serve as a memorial to those who gave their lives during the devastating conflict, displaying the faces of 360 Union soldiers — one for every 1,000 who died — and 52 Confederate soldiers, one for every 5,000.

Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building Through Aug. 14

Charles Sandison: Rage, love, hope, and despair This mesmerizing digital projection by Scottish-born artist Charles Sandison uses computer technology and color-coded words to represent different emotions, states of being, and patterns of human behavior.

Corcoran Gallery of Art Through Aug. 14

Mads Gamdrup: Renunciation In a series of 16 spectacular, large-scale color photographs, Danish artist Mads Gamdrup explores the desert as a place of unexpected promise, highlighting empty landscapes in the United States, Iceland, Egypt and Morocco.

Corcoran Gallery of Art Through Aug. 14

E • CO River degradation. Torrential rains in Brazil.

The consequences of nuclear power in Eastern Europe. Environmental issues are captured by professional photographers from across Latin America and Europe in a body of work first shown in Spain to highlight professional photographers’ challenges in the rapidly evolving digital media landscape.

Washington Color and Light

Through Oct. 9

Artists associated with the Washington Color School and their contemporaries were united by an exploration of the language of abstraction, a desire to experiment with materials, and a love of color.

This exhibition reveals the artistic innovations and individual approaches that shaped new directions in abstract painting and sculpture from the 1950s to the late 1970s.

NASA / ART: 50 Years of Exploration

Corcoran Gallery of Art

National Air and Space Museum Through Aug. 20

Women by Women This group exhibition of work by five women artists portraying women explores conceptions of femininity.

Heiner Contemporary Gallery Through Aug. 21

Race to the End of the Earth A century ago, two teams led by Britain’s Robert F. Scott and Norway’s Roald Amundsen braved starvation and Antarctica’s frozen environment in a race to be first to the South Pole. An array of breathtaking photographs, historic artifacts and interactive exhibits recount this true-life adventure tale while examining classic and modern methods of polar travel, science and technology — as well as the human instinct to explore our world.

National Geographic Society Through Aug. 28

Fragments in Time and Space Fragments in Time and Space draws primarily on the Hirshhorn’s collection to present works by artists such as Tacita Dean, Thomas Eakins, Douglas Gordon, Ed Ruscha and Hiroshi Sugimoto, encouraging viewers to reconsider the way they perceive and experience the world — from a single moment in time to an idea of the infinite.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The Goethe-Institut Through Sept. 3

Fame, Fortune, and Theft: The Shakespeare First Folio This exhibition traces the global history of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the first published collection of the Bard’s plays, depicting the ways in which this single book influenced the industries of conservation and book-collecting from the 1620s through the 21st century, eventually becoming a cause for idolatry in itself.

Folger Shakespeare Library Through Sept. 4

Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border After a visit to his native Moscow, Vasily Kandinsky recorded his “extremely powerful impressions” in his 1913 masterpiece, “Painting with White Border,” which, for this exhibition, is reunited with more than 12 preparatory studies from international collections, including the Phillips’s oil sketch, and compared with other closely related works.

Through Sept. 4

The artists of “Possible Worlds” are part of a new generation of photographers who break away from traditional photojournalism and offer imaginative, alternative ways of documenting the natural world, influenced by film, literature, fantasy, science fiction and electronic music.

For the first time in a museum exhibition, the Phillips Collection presents recent works from Frank Stella’s “K “series inspired by the 18th-century composer Domenico Scarlatti’s harpsichord sonatas.

Organization of American States Art Museum of the Americas

Stella Sounds: The Scarlatti K Series

The Phillips Collection Through Sept. 5

The Capitoline Venus gute aussichten: young German photography 2010/2011

The Washington Diplomat

graduate photography students, come to Washington on the exhibition’s worldwide tour.

Possible Worlds: Mexican Photography and Fiction in Contemporary Art

Through Aug. 14

Page 46

Ramiro Martínez Plasencia’s “Shipwreck” is among the works at the American University Katzen Arts Center in “Registro 02,” which sets out to show that both the artistic process and the audience’s perception help inform art’s meaning.

The Phillips Collection

Through Sept. 2

Is a work of art defined by the artist’s

PHOTO: KATZEN ARTS CENTER

Through Aug. 28

American University Katzen Arts Center

Registro 02

More than 70 pieces of art — from the illustrative to the abstract — offer a look at the works commissioned by the NASA Art Program, which was established soon after the inception of the U.S. space program in 1958 as a way to communicate the accomplishments, setbacks and sheer excitement of space exploration over the past five decades to the public.

Works by eight winners of gute aussichten, the seventh annual German competition for

Through Sept. 30

Democratic Principles This exhibit of 22 portraits by Elizabeth McClancy represent contemporary progressive political leaders in ways that reveal the magnitude of the challenges they face and the leadership they must assume.

A special panel discussion on June 8 at 7 p.m. features Howard Dean and will discuss the next of the arts in democratic development. For information, visit www.democraticwoman.org.

The Woman’s National Democratic Club Through Oct. 2

The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous artist-activists, critique the sexism and racism pervading contemporary culture through their populist art production, which includes posters, books and live performances in which they wear gorilla masks.

National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Oct. 2

Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years of Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind Featuring 75 works by 42 artists including Elaine de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Margo Humphrey, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith and Kiki Smith, “Pressing Ideas” explores the breadth of experimentation in lithography and women’s contributions to a workshop that stretches creative boundaries.

National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Oct. 2

Left Behind: Selected Gifts from the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection

Through Oct. 22

Mexico Through the Lens of National Geographic With more than 150 articles, no country has seen more coverage in National Geographic magazine than Mexico, generating a stunning archive of visual imagery documenting the country’s culture, history and physical beauty — a slice of which can be seen in this selection of 132 photographs drawn from the National Geographic’s archives.

Mexican Cultural Institute Through Oct. 23

Chris Martin: Painting Big Chris Martin’s large-scale abstract paintings are tactile and stitched-together, incorporating found objects and collage into their abstract geometries and rhythmic patterns and relating as much to the physical world as to his own memories and experiences.

Corcoran Gallery of Art Through Oct. 28

Publishing Modernism: The Bauhaus in Print How is it that an art school that was open for a mere 14 years — during which time it suffered chronic financial shortfalls, survived a turbulent political situation, claimed just 33 faculty members, and graduated only about 1,250 students — came to have such a lasting impression on modern design and art education? Despite these difficulties, the Bauhaus did precisely that.

National Gallery of Art Through Nov. 6

Perspectives: Hale Tiger Multimedia artist Hale Tenger, born in Izmir, Turkey, creates videos and installations that examine the tangible and intangible traces of events, filming the façade of the St. George Hotel in Beirut — the site of the assassination of Rafik Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon — while it was being renovated from 2005 to 2007.

Featuring photographs of unpopulated spaces in which a human presence is not evident but implied, this exhibition celebrates recent gifts from the Podestas to the Phillips.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

The “Capitoline Venus” — on loan to the United States for the first time — is one of the best-preserved and most famous masterpieces from Roman antiquity.

National Gallery of Art

The Phillips Collection

John Taylor Arms (1887–1953), an

Through Nov. 27

The Gothic Spirit of John Taylor Arms

August 2011

Sat., Aug. 13, 7 p.m.

La Familia Lobato & Young and Corrupted Participants of GALA Theatre’s Paso Nuevo and Summer Youth Program are proud to present two new and original productions: “La Familia Lobato,� a bilingual play exploring the intricacies of family relations and cultural identity, and “Young and Corrupted,� a series of new monologues, scenes, songs and other pieces. Admission is free.

GALA Hispanic Theatre Through Aug. 14

Clybourne Park

PHOTO: SCOTT SUCHMAN / THE STUDIO THEATRE

Tom Story stars in “POP!� — a murder-mystery extravaganza at the Studio Theatre that imagines who shot the famous pop art icon.

American printmaker, believed in the uplifting quality of Gothic art and the power of close observation, skillfully transcribed.

This exhibition presents selected examples from the artist’s entire career, from his early New York works to his finest images of European cathedrals.

Upton’s new adaptation of “Uncle Vanya,� starring Cate Blanchett in the classic tragicomedy by Anton Chekhov that lays bare the fruitlessness of human endeavor with warmth, humor and insight. Tickets are $59 to $120.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

National Gallery of Art Through Aug. 7 Through Nov. 27

POP!

Italian Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection: 1525-1835

Who shot Andy Warhol? This musical murder-mystery extravaganza recreates the freewheeling, adrenaline-driven atmosphere of Warhol’s infamous Factory, complete with a cast of colorful characters — and suspects. Tickets are $38 to $43.

The splendors of Italian draftsmanship from the late Renaissance to the height of the neoclassical movement are showcased in an exhibition of 65 superb drawings assembled by the European private collector Wolfgang Ratjen (1943–97).

National Gallery of Art

MUSIC Fri., Aug. 5, 8:30 p.m.

NSO at Wolf Trap: Tan Dun - Martial Arts Trilogy Composer Tan Dun leads the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) in the “Martial Arts Trilogy,� featuring three concertos based on his film scores for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,� “The Banquet� and “Hero.� Tickets are $20 to $52.

Wolf Trap Thu., Aug. 11, 7:30 p.m.

Oktet9 Eight young men touring the world as part of the Slovenian a capella choir group Oktet9 come to Washington for a special pre-season event on behalf of the Embassy Series. Tickets are $30, including a wine and cheese reception, and can be purchased at www.embassyseries.org.

Embassy of Slovenia

THEATER Aug. 4 to 27

Uncle Vanya The Sydney Theatre Company returns with an exclusive U.S. engagement of Andrew

August 2011

In the 1950s, a white community in Chicago splinters over the black family about to move into their neighborhood. Fast forward to present day and that same house now represents very different demographics, as neighbors pitch a horrifying yet hilarious battle over territory and legacy that reveals how far our ideas about race and gentrification have evolved — or have they? Tickets start at $45.

annual “Free For All,� a Washington tradition that has offered free performances to the public for the past 20 years, kicks off the company’s 25th anniversary season with a revival of its acclaimed production of “Julius Caesar� and his famed life-anddeath struggle for power in Rome.

Sidney Harman Hall Through Aug. 21

wonder, a Billy the “boy detective� faces a mystery he can’t comprehend: the shocking death of his young sister and crime-solving partner Caroline. Ten years later, a 30-year-old Billy returns to his quiet New Jersey town after an extended stay at St. Vitus’ Hospital for the mentally ill determined to right old wrongs.

Call for ticket information.

Signature Theatre

Wicked Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz — one is smart, fiery and green, literally, while the other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good makes for what the New York Times calls “the defining musical of the decade.� Tickets are $37 to $250.

Through Oct. 2

Oklahoma!

The Boy Detective Fails

The best-selling show in Arena Stage’s 60-year history is back for 12 weeks.

Inspired by the toughness of the prairie, Artistic Director Molly Smith sets her production in the robust world of territory life filled with a cast as rich and complex as the great tapestry of America itself, set against the backdrop of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s timeless music. Please call for ticket details.

In the twilight of a childhood full of

Arena Stage

Kennedy Center Opera House Aug. 25 to Oct. 16

Woolly Mammoth Theater Company Through Aug. 14

The Importance of Being Ernest SCENA Theatre offers a gender-bending take on Oscar Wilde’s timeless tale of class and marriage that both revels in and mocks the “double life� created by protagonist Jack as “his� alter ego indulges in pleasure outside of British society’s mores.

Tickets are $27 to $40.

H Street Playhouse Aug. 18 to Sept. 4

Julius Caesar The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s

The Studio Theatre

CULTURE GUIDE English Classes Learn English in a friendly & supportive environment. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Information about American culture also included.

Great location for Embassy personnel.

Mondays and Wednesdays from 7-9 pm, only $60 for a 10 week course.

Sponsored by: The Global Neighborhood Center 3855 Massachusetts Avenue, NW (Christ Church) Washington, DC 20016

202-363-4090

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301.933.3552 The Washington Diplomat Page 47

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT U.S. Diplomats Overseas Celebrate

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Philip D. Murphy is surrounded by staff members of the U.S. Consulate General in Hamburg at the consulate booth in Wolfsburg, Germany, where the diplomats cheered for the U.S. women’s soccer team at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Canada’s Man in Motion

Indonesian Ambassador Dino Patti Djalal celebrates with the crowd at the Indonesia Festival on the Washington Monument grounds, where more than 5,000 participants broke the Guinness World Record for the largest Angklung ensemble, simultaneously holding the tradition Indonesian instrument made of bamboo tubes.

STATE DEPARTMENT PHOTO BY HEIKO HEROLD

Ambassador of Palau Hersy Kyota, left, and Ambassador of New Zealand Mike Moore talk to the audience at the annual Pacific Night reception held at the Embassy of New Zealand.

Ambassador of New Zealand Mike Moore and his wife Yvonne, center, join members of the Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre Group at the annual Pacific Night in Washington, D.C., with support from fellow Pacific representatives from Australia, American Samoa, Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Northern Mariana Island, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

PHOTOS: EMBASSY OF CANADA

Judith Heumann, special advisor for international disability rights at the State Department, center, received the Rick Hansen Difference Maker Award at the Canadian Embassy.

PHOTO: EMBASSY OF INDONESIA

Indonesia Breaks Guinness Record

Pacific Night at New Zealand

From left, Rick Hansen, dubbed Canada’s “man in motion,” Ambassador of Canada Gary Doer, and Cultural Counselor at the Canadian Embassy Shannon-Marie Soni pose atop the Canadian Embassy during a reception for the “Rick Hansen Difference Maker Awards,” which honored leadership in the areas of accessibility and/or spinal cord injury research.

August 2011

Maestro Maazel

PHOTO: USAID / JENN WARREN

From left, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice, and Ambassador R. Barrie Walkley inaugurate the new U.S. Embassy in Juba, South Sudan on July 9, 2011, at the official celebrations for the new nation.

The Washington Diplomat

From left, Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the United Nations Jim McLay, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, and Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Esther Brimmer attend the annual Pacific Night celebrations held at the New Zealand Embassy.

Maestro Lorin Maazel, left, joins actress Dame Helen Mirren for a post-performance soirée following a special concert fundraiser at the Music Center at Strathmore for the Castleton Festival, which brings together young talent with experienced professionals to the Maazels’ Castleton Farms in Rappahannock County, Va., for a summer series of opera and concert performances.

PHOTOS: LESLIE MAAZEL

PHOTOS: EMBASSY OF NEW ZEALAND

Ambassador of Australia Kim Beazley, left, talks with Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) at the Pacific Night reception, which featured wines from New Zealand and Australia and dishes such as chicken estufao from Guam, bobo rice from the Marshall Islands and grilled milk fish from Papua New Guinea.

Jeremy Irons, center, joins Dietlinde Maazel and Leslie Maazel for a special concert — which featured a program of music by the Castleton Festival Orchestra, inspired by Shakespeare — to raise funds for the Castleton Festival, held at the Maazels’ Castleton Farms in Rappahannock County, Va., and founded by world-renowned conductor Lorin Maazel and Dietlinde Maazel in 2009.

Bahamas Independence

Ambassador of the Bahamas Cornelius Alvin Smith, right, greets Ambassador of Belize Nestor Mendez at the celebration to mark the 38th anniversary of independence of the Bahamas held at the Organization of American States.

Page 48

The Washington Diplomat

From left, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Nicaraguan Embassy Alcides Montiel, and Mrs. and Ambassador of South Korea Han Duk-soo attend the Bahamas Independence Day reception.

From left, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Alexandre Noghès, Lucia Mayers-Parsan, Assistant Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Albert Ramdin, and newly appointed Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago Neil Parsan attend the Bahamas Independence Day reception at the OAS.

From left, U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Marshall joins newly appointed Ambassador of the Czech Republic and Mrs. Petr Gandalovic at the Bahamas Independence Day reception.

August 2011

Monaco’s Princely Celebration

PHOTO: EMBASSY OF MONACO

From left, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Alexandre Noghès and his wife Ellen welcome Ambassador of Yemen Abdulwahab A. Al-Hajjri to the reception celebrating the accession of Prince Albert II to the throne of Monaco, as well as the prince’s recent wedding to Charlene Wittstock of South Africa.

Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Alexandre Noghès, left, joins Jeffrey Bader, formerly with the National Security Council who is now a visiting scholar at Brookings Institution, at Monaco’s National Day and wedding celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

From left, Ambassador of Luxembourg Jean-Paul Senninger, Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago Neil Parsan, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Nicaraguan Embassy Alcides Montiel, Mrs. and Ambassador of Honduras Jorge Ramon Hernandez-Alcerro, Ambassador of Bangladesh Akramul Qader, Ambassador of Mongolia Bekhbat Khasbazar, and Ambassador of the Bahamas Cornelius Alvin Smith celebrate Monaco’s National Day.

Former U.S. Chief of Protocol Selwa Roosevelt, left, joins Ambassador of Morocco Aziz Mekouar at Monaco’s National Day and wedding celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

Ambassador of Thailand Kittiphong Na Ranong, left, and Ambassador of South Korea Han Duk-soo attend the reception celebrating the accession of Prince Albert II to the throne of Monaco, as well as the prince’s recent wedding to Charlene Wittstock of South Africa.

PHOTO: EMBASSY OF MONACO PHOTO: EMBASSY OF MONACO

From left, Ambassador of Cyprus and Mrs. Pavlos Anastasiades join Mrs. and Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn at Monaco’s National Day and wedding celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

From left, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Alexandre Noghès, Ellen Noghès, Reza Pahlavi, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Monaco Embassy Lorenzo Livio Maria Ravano attend the celebration marking Prince Albert II of Monaco’s accession to the throne.

Ambassador of Chile Arturo Fermandois Vöhringer and his wife Carolina Santa Cruz Fermandois attend the celebration marking Prince Albert II of Monaco’s accession to the throne.

ASEAN Ambassadors Tour

‘Zayed and the Dream’

From left, Rosa Djalal, Deputy Undersecretary of the Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration Michelle O’Neill, and Ambassador of Indonesia Dino Patti Djalal attend the 18th U.S. Ambassadors Tour Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel hosted by the US-ASEAN Business Council.

PHOTOS: LARRY LUXNER

From left, U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Scot Marciel, Executive Director of the Asia Society Jack Garrity, and Richard Herold, who specializes in international government relations at General Electric, attend the U.S. Ambassadors Tour Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental.

August 2011

From left, Shamim Jawad joins Shaista and Ray Mahmood Monaco’s National Day and wedding celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

From left, Marie Therese Royce and Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) join Marie Elena Perluisi and Rep. Pedro Perluisi (D-Puerto Rico) at Monaco’s National Day and wedding celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

From left, General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce Cameron F. Kerry, North American Representative for the Asian Development Bank Alessandro A. Pio, and recently appointed Philippine Ambassador to the United States José L. Cuisia Jr. attend the U.S. Ambassadors Tour Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental.

Ambassador of Brunei Darussalam to the United States Dato Yusoff Haji Abdul Hamid, left, joins his U.S. counterpart, Ambassador Daniel Shields, at a reception for the 18th U.S. Ambassadors Tour Dinner, which brings key U.S. ambassadors to Southeast Asia back to the United States to spread the word about the vital importance of the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region to U.S. interests.

PHOTOS: IMARGOT SCHULMAN

From left, former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq issues and Mrs. Michael Corbin, and Ambassador of Lebanon Antoine Chedid attend a reception hosted by the United Arab Emirates Embassy at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the U.S. premiere of Caracalla Dance Theatre’s “Zayed and the Dream.”

From left, Head of the Media Department at the United Arab Emirates Embassy Bader Bin Saeed, UAE Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ahmed Al-Jarman, and Abdulkhaleq Ali Saeed Bin-Dhaaer Al-Yafei of the UAE Mission in New York attend a Kennedy Center reception for “Zayed and the Dream,” which follows the journey of seven horsemen as they travel through the sands of time in the deserts of Arabia.

The Washington Diplomat Page 49

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

The Washington Diplomat

August 2011

Jordanian National Day

From left, Ambassador of Kuwait Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Ambassador of Singapore Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador of Lebanon Antoine Chedid, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Yousef Al Otaiba, and Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Adel A. Al-Jubeir talk at the Jordanian National Day reception.

From left, Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Iraqi Embassy Brig. Gen. and Mrs. Ali Al-Aaragy, Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Malaysian Embassy Brig. Gen. Othman Bin Abdullah, and U.S. Army Foreign Liaison Dan Hartman attend the Jordanian National Day reception.

Former Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher, now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, left, joins Ambassador of Yemen Abdulwahab A. Al-Hajjri at the Jordanian National Day reception.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

Ambassador of Jordan Alia HatougBoura, left, and U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sánchez attend the Jordanian National Day reception.

Ambassador of Jordan Alia Hatoug-Bouran greets guests at the Jordanian National Day reception held at the Embassy of Jordan.

Ambassador of Kuwait Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, left, talks with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns at the Jordanian National Day reception.

From left, Ambassador of the Netherlands Renée Jones-Bos, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Yousef Al Otaiba, and Ambassador of Kuwait Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah attend the Jordanian National Day reception held at the Embassy of Jordan.

From left, Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Romanian Embassy Col. Laurentiu Dragusin, Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Jordanian Embassy Brig. Gen. Aisha Bint Al Hussein, and Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Serbian Embassy Col. Ljubomir Nikolic attend the Jordanian National Day reception.

From left, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Kuwaiti Embassy Nabeel Al Dakheel, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Adel A. Al-Jubeir, and Ambassador of Kuwait Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah attend the Jordanian National Day reception held at the Embassy of Jordan.

Pakistani Summer BBQ

Montenegro National Day

PHOTOS: LARRY LUXNER

Kunal Sharma, a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, left, joins Sana Ali, social secretary to Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani, at the Embassy of Pakistan’s annual summer BBQ.

From left, Aparna Pande, Ahson Haqqani, Mira Haqqani and Hissan Hasan Haqqani — all relatives of Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani — attend the annual summer barbeque at the Pakistan Residence.

British Ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, left, and Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani attend the Pakistani BBQ, which featured American fare as well as Pakistani tandoori.

Political bloggers Daniel Pipes, right, and Danielle Avel attend the annual summer barbeque at the Pakistan Residence.

Page 50

The Washington Diplomat

From left, Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Egyptian Embassy Maj. Gen. Mohamed Abdelfattah Elkeshky, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Yousef Al Otaiba, and Assistant Military Attaché at the Egyptian Embassy Lt. Col. Housam El Shahawy attend the Jordanian National Day reception.

Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic, left, greets outgoing Ambassador of Austria Christian Prosl at the Montenegro National Day reception held at the University Club.

Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic, left, and Ambassador of Uzbekistan Ilhomjon Tuychievich Nematov attend the Montenegro National Day reception held at the University Club.

August 2011

Portrait of Georgia

Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Albanian Embassy Col. Idriz Haxhiaj, left, joins Ambassador of Armenia Tatoul Markarian at the Portrait of Georgian Independence Day celebration.

PHOTO: ANNA GAWEL

Ambassador of Georgia Temuri Yakobashvili, left, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Georgian Embassy David Rakviashvili, both dressed in traditional attire, welcome guests to “Portrait of Georgia,” a cultural showcase held at the National Portrait Gallery to celebrate the 20th anniversary of independence that featured art exhibitions and musical and dance performances.

Slovenian Independence Day

Mrs. and Ambassador of Uzbekistan Ilhomjon Tuychievich Nematov attend the Portrait of Georgia celebration that featured performances by the Georgian National Ballet and Shin musical group, among others, at the National Portrait Gallery.

From left, Mrs. and Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn greet Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Borislavova Poptodorova at the Slovenian Independence and Armed Forces Day reception held at the Slovenian Embassy.

Bostjan Zeks, the minister for Slovenians living abroad, center, speaks to the audience as Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn, left, and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), right, look on at the reception marking the 20th anniversary of Slovenian independence held at the Slovenian Embassy.

Ambassador of Tajikistan Abdujabbor Shirinov, left, joins Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) at the Slovenian Independence and Armed Forces Day reception.

Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn, left, welcomes Ambassador of Kosovo Avni Spahiu to the Slovenian Independence and Armed Forces Day reception.

CALM WATER POOLS 301-534-0330 calmwaterpools@gmail.com | August 2011

www.calmwaterpools.com The Washington Diplomat Page 51

AROUNDTHEWORLD

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

HOLIDAYS

APPOINTMENTS

AFGHANISTAN

Send Us Your Holidays and Appointments

Aug. 19: Independence Day Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Fax to: The Washington Diplomat at: (301) 949-0065 E-mail to: news@washdiplomat.com Mail to: P.O. Box 1345, Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345

ALBANIA

Day Aug. 30: Eid-ul-Fitr

SUDAN

PANAMA

SWITZERLAND

Aug. 15: The Founding of Panama City

Aug. 1: National Day Aug. 15: Assumption

PARAGUAY

SYRIA

Aug. 15: Founding of Asunción

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

ALGERIA

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

CONGO, REPUBLIC OF

GHANA

LEBANON

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

PERU

GREECE

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 15: Independence Day

Aug. 15: Assumption

LIBERIA

Aug. 30: St. Rosa of Lima

AUSTRIA

COSTA RICA

GRENADA

Aug. 24: National Flag Day

PHILIPPINES

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 15: Assumption/ Mother’s Day

Aug. 1: Emancipation Day

LIBYA

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

GUATEMALA

Aug. 7: National Day Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 26: Laïlatoul-Kadr Aug. 30: Aïd-El Fitr

ANDORRA

AZERBAIJAN Aug. 30: Ramazan Bayramy

BAHAMAS Aug. 1: Emancipation Day

CROATIA

BAHRAIN Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

BANGLADESH

Aug. 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 30: Eid-al Fitr

CYPRUS BARBADOS Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 1: Kadooment Day

Aug. 15: Assumption

DJIBOUTI Aug. 30: Eid El Fitr

BELGIUM Aug. 15: Assumption

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Aug. 16: Restoration Day

BENIN Aug. 1: National Day Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

BOLIVIA

EAST TIMOR Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Constitution Day

Aug. 6: Independence Day

ECUADOR

BRUNEI

Aug. 10: Independence Day

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

POLAND

THAILAND

Aug. 15: Assumption

LIECHTENSTEIN

Aug. 15: The Ascension of St. Mary

Aug. 12: HM the Queen’s Birthday

GUYANA

Aug. 15: National Holiday (Assumption)

PORTUGAL

TOGO

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 15: Assumption

QATAR

TRINIDAD and TOBAGO

Aug. 4: Freedom Day

Aug. 15: Assumption (Zoline)

HUNGARY

LUXEMBOURG

Aug. 20: National Holiday

Aug. 15: Assumption

ICELAND

MACEDONIA

Aug. 4: Commerce Day

Aug. 2: National Day (Ilinden)

INDIA Aug. 15: Independence Day Aug. 30: Idu’l Fitr

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Aug. 13: Proclamation of Independence Aug. 15: Assumption

CHAD Aug. 11: Independence Day Aug. 30: Aïd-El Fitr

CHILE

FRANCE Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 7: Battle of Boyacá

Page 52

ST. LUCIA

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 1: Emancipation Day

MALAWI Aug. 1: August Monday

SAUDI ARABIA

IRAN Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

IRAQ

Aug. 9: Tish’a B’Av

ITALY Aug. 15: Assumption

JAMAICA Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 6: Independence Day

JORDAN Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

KAZAKHSTAN

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

MALTA Aug. 15: Assumption

SENEGAL Aug. 15: Assumption

MAURITANIA Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

SEYCHELLES Aug. 15: Assumption

MOLDOVA Aug. 27: Independence Day Aug. 31: National Language Day

SENEGAL

MOROCCO

Aug. 9: National Day Aug. 30: Hari Raya Puasa

Aug. 14: Commemoration of Oued Eddahab (Reunification Day) Aug. 20: Revolution of the King and the People Aug. 21: King’s Birthday Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

SINGAPORE

SLOVAKIA Aug. 29: Slovak National Uprising Day

Aug. 30: Idd-Ul-Fitr

NIGERIA

Aug. 15: Liberation Day

KYRGYZSTAN

Aug. 28: Assumption (Mariamoba)

Aug. 31: Independence Day

The Washington Diplomat

UGANDA Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

UKRAINE Aug. 24: Independence Day

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

UNITED KINGDOM Aug. 30: Summer Bank Holiday

URUGUAY Aug. 25: Independence Day

Aug. 15: Assumption

SOUTH KOREA

Aug. 30: Id-el-Fitri

SPAIN OMAN Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 15: Ascension of the Virgin

PAKISTAN

SRI LANKA

Aug. 14: Independence

Aug. 30: Id-Ul-Fitr

Jose L. Cuisia Jr. became ambassador of the Philippines to the United States on July 7, having previously served as commissioner (representing the Employer’s Group) of the Social Security System from Ambassador September to December Jose L. Cuisia Jr. 2010. In addition, Ambassador Cuisia was governor of the Central Bank and chairman of the Monetary Board while concurrently serving as chairman of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) Board from 1990 to 1993. He was also president and CEO/administrator of the Social Security System and director of the Philippine National Bank. Ambassador Cuisia has a long career history in banking and insurance with financial institutions such as the Philippine American Life & General Insurance Co., American International Group, Far East Bank & Trust Co., and Union Bank of the Philippines. He also sat on the board of a number of leading companies in the Philippines, including SM Prime Holdings, Phinma Corp., Genesis Hotels and Resorts Management, and Manila Water Co. Ambassador Cuisia holds a bachelor of arts in social science and a bachelor of science in commerce (magna cum laude) from De La Salle University, as well as a master’s in business administration-finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1970 as a university scholar. He is married to the former Maria Victoria Jose, with whom he has five children.

COMING & GOING

Aug. 30: Ramadan Bairam

VENEZUELA

Aug. 3: Independence Day Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

GEORGIA

TURKMENISTAN

Aug. 26: Heroes’ Day

KENYA

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 30: Seker Bayram Aug. 30: Victory Day

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 17: National Day

Philippines

TURKEY

SOUTH AFRICA

NAMIBIA Aug. 9: National Women’s Day

KUWAIT

Aug. 13: Women’s Day Aug. 30: Aïd El Fitr

UZBEKISTAN

NIGER

Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Eid-al-Fitr

TUNISIA

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 30: Constitution Day

GAMBIA

Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 30: Eid-Ul-Fitr Aug. 31: Independence Day

SLOVENIA

GABON

Aug. 15: Assumption

COLOMBIA

MADAGASCAR

Aug. 30: Hari Raya Puasa Aug. 31: National Day

ISRAEL

Aug. 20: Day of Restoration of Independence

Aug. 1: August Monday

MALAYSIA

Aug. 3: Armed Forces Day Aug. 15: Constitution Day

Aug. 15: Assumption

ST. KITTS and NEVIS

Aug. 17: Independence Day Sept. 30: Idul Fitri

Aug. 1: Public Holiday

ESTONIA

Aug. 15: Assumption

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

IRELAND

CAPE VERDE

RWANDA

INDONESIA

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

ST. VINCENT and THE GRENADINES

Aug. 5: Independence Day Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 15: Assumption

LITHUANIA

Aug. 15: Assumption

HAITI

Aug. 30: Eid El Fitr

ERITREA

TANZANIA

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

BURKINA FASO

CAMEROON

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Aug. 8: Farmers’ Day (Nane Nane)

EGYPT

Aug. 15: Assumption

TAJIKISTAN

Aug. 30: Eid Ul Fitre

Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

BURUNDI

August 2011

Summer and fall are a time of transition for many embassies when the diplomatic turnover is especially high. To help you keep track of all the comings and goings, the following ambassadors are bidding farewell to Washington this summer: Croatia: Ambassador Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović In Washington since April 2008, she recently took up her new position as NATO’s assistant secretary-general for public diplomacy.

Finland: Ambassador Pekka Lintu In Washington since January 2006 Germany: Ambassador Klaus Scharioth In Washington since March 2006, he will return to Berlin to serve as dean of the Mercator Kolleg Project for International Affairs.

India: Ambassador Meera Shankar In Washington since May 2009, she will be succeeded in the fall by Nirupama Rao, India’s foreign secretary since 2009.

YEMEN Aug. 30: Eid al-Fitr

Malta: Ambassador Mark Anthony Miceli-Farrugia In Washington since May 2007

ZAMBIA Aug. 4: Farmers’ Day ZIMBABWE Aug. 11: Heroes’ Day Aug. 12: Defense Forces’ National Day

Peru: Ambassador Luis Miguel Valdivieso Montano In Washington since April 2009

Visit our website at www.washdiplomat.com to view all ambassador biographies.

August 2011

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from page 24

Book Review about“humanitarian corridors”that allowed muchneeded supplies to be transported to the suffering population.

A fourth feature of mediation relates to the challenges of handling cooperation and competition during the process. The authors note that increasingly there are a number of parties that aspire to be part of the discussion, and in some cases, there can be competing efforts that are not coordinated with the lead mediating mission. The presence of various willing mediators invites the primary parties to go forum shopping, looking for the best interlocutor to help them achieve an acceptable outcome.

Finally, the authors observe a simple but important truth: All mediation efforts must end. Sensing the right time and appropriate terms for talks to conclude is a critical skill.“The dynamics surrounding the cessation of mediation are as important for international mediators as those surrounding their entry and work during the mediation process,” they write.

Svensson and Wallensteen say that some mediators use the threat to leave talks as a tactic during negotiations, but add that Eliasson believes threats are more risky than helpful.“Threats are dangerous to use for the mediator.You always have to be ready to implement them or otherwise you will lose your credibility completely,” Eliasson told the authors.

“Therefore, I am skeptical about using the threat of withdrawal as a mediating strategy.”

Svensson and Wallensteen argue that mediations are important even when they don’t produce dra-

Page 54

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matic successes.“Mediation tends to reduce significantly the duration of conflicts, to increase the likelihood of negotiated settlements, and to facilitate the preventive transformation of crises, among other things,” they write.

They point out that in Eliasson’s mediation efforts, the goal was often to maintain communication between the primary parties, reduce the human suffering from the conflict, stop the fighting for a specific period of time, prevent a resumption or spread of violence, and explore the elements of a more durable peace agreement. They also emphasize that it’s not the mediator who stops the war, but the conflicting parties.“Wars end only when the warring parties are willing to end them,” they write, adding that a mediator may help to increase the awareness of the need to end a war.

Svensson and Wallensteen say their study of Eliasson illustrates the challenges that mediators face going forward. One is the crucial need to incorporate lessons from past mediation efforts into future endeavors. They describe Eliasson as part of small cadre of elite international mediators that includes Jimmy Carter, George Mitchell, Martti Ahtisaari and Lakhdar Brahimi.

“The pool of experienced mediators is remarkably small,” they write. Consequently, it’s critical for these experienced mediators to help train and mentor future mediators. “Today’s many ad hoc mediation attempts may lead to ineffective or even counterproductive third party interventions.There is a need to create systemic approaches to learning, sharing, training and knowledge production in the field of international mediation.”

To that end, the authors argue that more interna-

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tional resources should be allocated for international mediation.They also believe that mediations should be built around teams in which people with different backgrounds, areas of expertise and skills work together under one mandate.This team approach would tackle complex issues and also provide an opportunity to train young mediators by involving them in real world negotiations.

“The Go-Between” is a useful, informative and significant book. It is clear and well organized, but also demanding to read, with occasionally dense prose and considerable detail on the art of mediation. It’s not light summer fare to take to the beach.

The book’s most important accomplishment is to provide concrete examples about how a skilled mediator tried to tackle humanitarian challenges or search for political agreements. Studying Eliasson’s work in Iran, Iraq, Burma, Darfur and other troubled hotspots gives the reader a crash course on how a superb professional operates under tremendous pressure. The book also provides a lucid framework to study and think about international mediation in general.

But “The Go-Between” has, in my view, several weaknesses. Perhaps most significantly is the fact that Eliasson himself sometimes gets lost and his voice muted amidst all the discussion of mediation theory. Even within the parameters of the book that Svensson and Wallensteen set out to write, I think a different structure would have been more successful.A brief biographical section followed by a clear narration of the six Eliasson-led mediations would have given the reader a better foundation to evaluate the Swedish diplomat’s work. As it is, various aspects of the six mediation case studies are

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strewn throughout the book. Even with my extensive knowledge of Eliasson’s career, I often struggled to recall the chronology and even the central challenge of each mediation. The authors do provide a helpful chronology in the appendix, but I would have preferred a brief but clear narration of each mediation early in the book.

Moreover, the authors raise intriguing issues, but don’t fully flesh them out. For example, they are sympathetic to the idea of creating teams of skilled negotiators rather than building mediations around lone stars such as Eliasson.This seems sensible, but I wish they had expounded on this idea more. Are there downsides to this approach? How do you begin to implement it? And what does Eliasson think of this?

I also wish the authors had allowed Eliasson to explain more clearly how he has changed as a mediator over the decades as his experiences have expanded and the global scene has become more complicated. Svensson and Wallensteen offer several observations on how Eliasson’s style has evolved, but these are disappointingly sketchy and undeveloped.

My hope is that one day Eliasson will write a memoir of his impressive career.While all memoirs have to be assessed carefully and read critically, Eliasson’s story would be compelling. Students of diplomacy would certainly profit from a personal account of his extensive and successful career that has included high-level bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and highly consequential international mediations.

John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

August 2011

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