Get to know a NATO member: Bulgaria
"NATO’s essential purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.
POLITICAL - NATO promotes democratic values and encourages consultation and cooperation on defence and security issues to build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.
MILITARY - NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military capacity needed to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - NATO’s founding treaty - or under a UN mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations."
http://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/
Let's take a look at what Amnesty International has to say about the state of democracy in some of the newer NATO member states, today's member -- Bulgaria.
"Bulgaria Human Rights
Discrimination – Roma
The Romani community continued to suffer discrimination in education, housing and health care. In January, in shadow reports to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), several domestic and international NGOs highlighted frequent forced evictions of Roma. Roma in informal settlements often lacked security of tenure, exposing them to the threat of forced evictions and destitution. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance reported in June that discrimination against Roma was widespread and included restrictions in access to public places.
Right to adequate housing
In September almost 50 Romani homes were demolished and the families forcibly evicted in the town of Burgas. The local council's decision to demolish houses illegally built on municipal or private land left almost 200 people, who had lived in the area for several years, without accommodation. The NGO the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee reported that police used disproportionate force during the demolitions. Despite claims by the Mayor of Burgas that the families would be provided with alternative low rent council accommodation, no alternative housing was provided; the evicted Roma were only advised to apply for municipal housing. In September members of the community, represented by the NGOs Equal Opportunities Initiative and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, submitted an individual complaint against the forced eviction to the UN Human Rights Committee.
Detention without trial
Bulgaria was again found in violation of the right to a public hearing within a reasonable time under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Criminal proceedings against Valentin Ivanov took more than eight years, commencing in May 1992 and ending in November 2000. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that this exceeded the "reasonable time" requirement, and noted that it had frequently found violations of the same right in cases against Bulgaria in the past.
Torture and other ill-treatment
Bulgaria was found to be in violation of the prohibition of torture or degrading treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights.
In January the European Court of Human Rights found that there had been a violation of the prohibition of torture and a lack of effective investigation into injuries, demonstrating that Georgi Dimitrov had been ill-treated in police custody. Arrested in 2001 on charges of fraud, he alleged after his release from prison in 2004 that he had been beaten by police officers. In March the CERD expressed concern about ill-treatment and excessive use of force by the police against minority groups, particularly Roma. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the European Roma Rights Centre submitted a shadow report to CERD in which they cited cases of police ill-treatment of individuals or use of disproportionate force by the police against Romani communities. In August the Military Court of Appeals upheld the 16 to 18-year sentences imposed on five "anti-mafia" police officers convicted in 2008 of beating to death 38-year-old Angel Dimitrov in the city of Blagoevgrad. The police officers appealed against their sentences to the Supreme Court of Cassation."
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/europe/bulgaria
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"NATO promotes democratic values..." Hmmm. Bulgaria was found "in violation of the prohibition of torture or degrading treatment..." -- not good,not good at all. "Romani community continued to suffer discrimination in education, housing and health care." -- this mistreatment of the Romani community seems to be a pattern in several of the new NATO member states we have looked at so far; Hungary and Slovakia were cited in a similar fashion by Amnesty.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thank you for the heads-up on Bulgaria, uawchild. The military alliance seems to be encircling an enemy that it has helped bring back from the grave - the USSR. We need it to justify all the wars that help prop up a faux democracy that only serves plutocrats. If policies were.left to the people, peace would break out.
It's Becoming Apparent
Ukraine: The Truth
by GARY LEUPP
CounterPunch, APRIL 14, 2015
Reuters headline, April 9: “Ukraine sets sights on joining NATO.”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headline, April 9: “Far-Right Leader Names Ukrainian Military Adviser.”
Moscow’s official line on Ukraine—and it should not be dismissed just because that’s what it is—is that the U.S. has spent about $ 5 billion backing “regime change” in that sad, bankrupt country, ultimately resulting in a coup d’etat (or putsch) in Kiev in February 2014 in which neo-fascists played a key role. The coup occurred because the U.S. State Department and Pentagon hoped to replace the democratically elected administration with one that would push for Ukraine’s entry into NATO, a military alliance designed from its inception in 1949 to challenge Russia. The ultimate intent was to evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the bases it’s maintained on the Crimean Peninsula for over 230 years.
Personally, I believe this interpretation is basically true, and that any rational person should recognize that it’s true. Victoria Nuland, the neocon thug who serves as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and is the key official shaping U.S. Ukraine policy, openly admitted to an “international business conference on Ukraine” in December 2013 that Washington had “invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine achieve [the development of democratic institutions] and other goals.”
She repeated this assertion in an CNN interview, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has proudly reiterated it as well on cable news. The unspoken goal was Ukraine’s membership in NATO.
(Imagine if a top-ranking official in the Russian Foreign Ministry were to boast of a $ 5 billion Russian investment in undermining the Mexican or Canadian government, with an aim towards incorporating one of those countries into an expanding military alliance. John McCain and Fox News would be demanding the immediate nuking of Moscow.)
SNIP...
The U.S. has military personnel stationed in about 130 countries in the world—that is, in two-thirds of the countries who are members of the UN. In contrast, Russia has military forces stationed in, by my count, ten foreign countries, eight of them on its borders. And yet the U.S. press and political class depict Russia and specifically its president Vladimir Putin, a threatening juggernaut. (Just as they once did Saddam Hussein, that lame creature demonized as—as the warmongers always do, before attacking and destroying him—“a new Hitler.”)
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/14/ukraine-the-truth/
