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	The crisis of democracy in America by Gara LaMarche The Open Society Institute USA   30 - 6 - 2005   (Gara LaMarche is vice-president of the Open Society Institute)   The pillars of American democracy – the open society, the culture of law, a free media, independent science and academia – are under assault from the radical right, says Gara LaMarche of the Open Society Institute. A serious, coordinated response is needed, founded on robust and honest debate.   In the preface to the revised (1952) edition of The Open Society and its Enemies – from which the foundation employing me, the Open Society Institute (OSI) draws its name – Karl Popper wrote that his mood of depression over open society had passed, “largely as a result of a visit to the United States”. Popper’s spirits would not be lifted by a visit today.   In the last few years, radical-right political leaders have moved from the fringe essentially to control much of the national and many state governments. They, the fundamentalist clerics and their followers who comprise the “base” to which they feel most accountable, and the network of think-tanks and attack media which support them, make clear their intent to roll back the Great Society and the cultural, social and political gains of the 1960s. Now, with fights over social security and the courts, they are targeting the New Deal.   Some of these figures and institutions wish explicitly to return United States government, and its relationship to its citizens, to what it was before the Progressive Era. But their combined efforts to remake American society suggest a more recent and disturbing parallel: the McCarthy era.   It is tempting to take some satisfaction from the radical right’s recent missteps, and wait for the benefits of the backlash. But meanwhile it is doing steady damage to key elements of open society, the very elements that can monitor and check the abuses of a power-hungry political majority. We ignore it at our peril.   Why have I come to take so dire a view of our situation, and why do I think there is a serious and coordinated threat to open society – at times, it seems, even to enlightenment values – that calls for a serious and coordinated response? Before answering these questions, I want to retrace the history of the Open Society Institute’s activities and the thinking which lies behind them.   In the first ten years or so of George Soros’s philanthropy, he established foundations in countries that were in transition from closed to open societies, helping to create and take advantage of the “revolutionary moment.” Most of these, in eastern and central Europe and the states of the former Soviet Union, were shaking off decades of communism.   What they had in common was the absence of any meaningful checks on the power of the state. Elections and courts were rigged; political opposition was suppressed; any independent activity in media, the academy, the law and the arts that would serve to challenge official truth was crushed. Religion, in so far as it was tolerated, was in effect an arm of the state. In light of this legacy, the main task of the Soros foundations was to support the creation or re-emergence of independent institutions.   Click on the link below to access the complete article. Visit the related web page
	UN supports Haiti in trying to create a 'Culture of Dialogue' among Opponents by UN News Haiti   2 August 2005   UN mission calls on political parties in Haiti to focus on children's rights.   Launching a training course on child protection today, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) called on the political parties contesting the upcoming elections to put children at the centre of their plans, because too often, no one has taken responsibility for their rights, especially during conflicts.   "Children are the first victims in times of conflict," MINUSTAH's child protection expert, Andreas Brandswatter, said. It was therefore important to monitor their rights and strengthen the national capacity to enforce them by training those in charge of these areas, he said.   UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative Adriano Gonzalez-Regueral said the political parties had to become acquainted with the realities that Haitian children face and change their programmes into plans of action whereby they could grapple with sexual abuse, violence, exploitation and lack of education.   The parties had to do this work both during and after the elections, he added. About 40 political parties were participating in the training course in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the next sessions would take place on the 4, 16 and 18 August, MINUSTAH said.   26 July 2005   With general elections scheduled for October, the interim Government of Haiti and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today wrapped up a two-day workshop bringing together all political factions and civil society to discuss the environment, the budget and anti-poverty strategies, with a view to making a peaceful transition, the UN mission said.   "In a country where it is acknowledged that a culture of dialogue has often been lacking, it is not a simple matter to bring together so many protagonists of different tendencies and divergent interests to listen to the views of the Government and development partners on the nation's present and future," UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator in Haiti Adama Guindo said, congratulating the Government.   The workshop also looked at the possibility of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, targets for tackling such socioeconomic problems as extreme poverty and hunger and inadequate education in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, UNDP said.   According to official statistics, 56 per cent of the 8.5 million Haitians live on less than a dollar a day. "The incidence of poverty in Haiti is thus three times higher than the average in any other country in Latin America and the Caribbean," UNDP said.   In these circumstances, Haiti will be unable to achieve the MDGs, UNDP said, and one of the messages emphasized at the workshop was the critical need for a national poverty-reduction strategy.
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