Hillary Clinton: Russia Election
December 6, 2011 by staff · Comments Off on Hillary Clinton: Russia Election
Hillary Clinton: Russia Election, Issuing new warnings to two U.S. partners Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Russia for a parliamentary election she said was rigged and said election gains by Islamist parties must not set back Egypt’s push toward democracy after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak this year.
She acknowledged the success of Islamist parties in Egyptian parliamentary voting that the U.S. has praised as fair. But many of the winners are not friendly to the United States or U.S. ally Israel, and some secular political activists in Egypt are worried that their revolution is being hijacked. Islamist parties are among the better-known and better-organized in Egypt, and while they were expected to do well in last week’s first round voting, a hardline bloc scored surprisingly large gains.
Clinton addressed head-on the fear that the hardliners will crimp human and women’s rights.
“Transitions require fair and inclusive elections, but they also demand the embrace of democratic norms and rules,” she said. “We expect all democratic actors to uphold universal human rights, including women’s rights, to allow free religious practice.”
Speaking to the election-monitoring Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton repeated criticism of Russia’s weekend elections, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party won the largest share of parliament seats. Opposition politicians and election monitors say the result was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud.
“Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation,” Clinton said. Russia’s top diplomat was present at the meeting in the Lithuanian capital, but the two did not plan to meet separately.
Hillary Clinton Middle Name
November 25, 2009 by USA Post · Comments Off on Hillary Clinton Middle Name
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated exceptional diplomatic skill, political leadership, and vision for the future when she traveled to Morocco Nov. 2-3 to address the 6th annual Forum for the Future meeting of Middle East, North African and G8 industrialized nations.
She presented a remarkable plan to translate President Barack Obama’s historic “New Beginning” speech in Cairo into concrete actions that improve relations among nations and bring meaningful change to people’s everyday lives.
Clinton unveiled a wide range of policy initiatives and appealed for leaders to unite in shaping a future “based on empowering individuals rather than promoting ideologies.” A key to progress, she urged, was “a constructive spirit” to overcome conflicts and recriminations of the past.
To that end, Clinton reiterated the U.S. commitment to facilitating an Israeli-Palestinian peace, and also singled out the Western Sahara dispute, reaffirming longstanding U.S. policy that supports autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the only realistic solution to end the 34-year-old conflict.
She gave a masterful presentation, yet it quickly became clear that old ideologies and recriminations die hard. Even before her departure from Morocco, Clinton was sharply criticized for restating what has been U.S. policy for three successive administrations.
The Algerian press charged that she wasn’t speaking for the Obama administration and questioned her relationship with the president. The Algerian-backed rebel group Polisario Front accused Clinton of misstating U.S. policy on the Sahara and over-praising Morocco for its unarguably impressive record of political reforms, social progress and economic growth over the last decade.
So much for working in a constructive spirit to overcome past conflicts and recriminations.
Clinton has proven her mettle before in handling tough critics — and likely will again. The misrepresentations of fact and venomous tone of these attacks do a disservice to her, but the larger casualty is the public debate on the Western Sahara. The erroneous claims also undermine the efforts of U.N. Special Envoy for the Western Sahara Christopher Ross to resume earnest negotiations, which he has been trying to jump-start for almost a year.
I was U.S. ambassador in Morocco at the time the present U.S. position on the Western Sahara was adopted, and I can confirm Clinton has her facts straight because I participated in the review process in late 1998-early 1999 that launched the policy during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Current U.S. policy on Western Sahara is that “autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution to the Western Sahara dispute” and should be negotiated “within the U.N.-led framework.”