(*)     This paper was inspired by roots which were to appear, and come into focus, only several years later - i.e. in the 1997 essay The Dawn of Monotheism Revisited (www.solami.com/a1.htm) and Franz Blankart's magistral 2002 good-by lecture Europa Helvetica (www.solami.com/BLANKART.htm).  It was prepared in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall (www.solami.com/Berlinwall.htm), i.e. at a time when very few anticipated the Internet, with fewer still envisioning its vast social, economic and political ramifications (www.solami.com/selex.htm).  It reflects a joint - and essentially on-going - effort by numerous contributors to the CORUM Research Group, directed by J.A.Keller.  Without necessarily sharing the views expressed, had then contributed in various ways:  A.Albonetti, P.Dimier, B.Elbert, A.Fleury, C.Freitas, P.Martin, E.Querio, F.Ruiz, H.D.Schultz, W.Simon, M.Soleiman, F.Sturm, P.Tschopp, a.o.  The editor, of course, is alone responsible for eventual errors and omissions.  He also wishes to express his gratitude notably for the librarian and data processing assistance kindly provided by Mr.Michael Stopford (Executive Assistant to the Director General of the United Nations Office in Geneva), and by Mr.Pierre Pelou (Director of the UN Library in Geneva) and his staff, notably Irina Gerassimova,  M. and N.Wasser and S.Welander.
 
 

CONTENTS (the pagination is that of the word format at: http://www.solami.com/nations.doc)

backcover text
Introduction     1

A Where do we come from, where do we stand, and where do we go?
    Yugoslavia as a revealing case     3
    Is democracy yet perhaps a too demanding form of government?     6

B Some memorable quotes from
   Centesimus Annus, 1991 Encyclical by Pope John Paul II     11

C How do we get where?
    "Train and educate man!" Shift powers back to the Citizens!     14
    Stop criminalizing cash, decriminalize the market, and guarantee
        the right to ANONYMOUS, UNDISCLOSED private property!     14
    Direct income tax? Yes, but only a negative income tax!     18
    Further qualitative factors affecting a nation's ideal size and structures     19
    The Baltic, Kurdish, Kurile, Palestinian, Philippine (US Bases)
        and other lose ends of history in light of principles associated
        with individual as well as with national landholdings     21

D 700 years-old Switzerland: an example worth looking at?     23

E Other alarm signals
   Pacta sunt servanda? Not invented here!
        We have Lex Americana, and Pax Americana is around the corner!     26
    The legal hierarchy, in many places, has evolved aberrantly     30

F A Russian Commonwealth as a leader of Europe's regeneration?
    A look at some roots     31
    Which USSR Republic wants what?     32
    In the divorce: Georgia versus USSR     35
    The Soviet Union at present     37
    Some observations on related human motivations     45
    Some paths to implement the people's real will     47
    An opportunity for a Soviet European Initiative     50

G More lessons from the past for Europe's future     53
    Forgotten treaties     53
    Citizens' Europe     54
    Customs-free Geneva - Europe's D.C. of the future?     55

H Check list: key ideas and concrete practical measures for statesmen and lawmakers,
providing for the reappearance of the Citizen-entrepreneurs, the reanimation of the
homo oeconomicus as society's and the market's indispensable central driving force     56
 

ANNEX

SANTIAGO RESOLUTION
A Letter to President Vaclav Havel
Points essentiels du PLAN BRIAND
 
 

(backcover text)

Introduction

Naturally, the transformation of a nation that has lived its time is always an opportunity. Moreover, Victor Hugo's reminder is still valid: "No army in the world can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come". But it might also be helpful to bear in mind the less noticed side of that same coin: "No force in the world is strong enough to push through an idea whose time has not come". In any case - be it that the soul of the Citizens and the body politic, that the nation and its environment need healing - clear-sighted, courageous and competent use of the available cards is indispensable. And while able manoeuvering may spare the people avoidable hardship by better preparing it for the inevitable, delays-by-suppression invite needless calamities - just like some medicine is worse than the illness it intends to cure, and many measures taken to fight ecological desasters do more harm than good.

Coming to think of it, a nation's evolution and devolution, its constitution, dissolution, reconstitution and fusion, essentially are no less natural processes than the seasonal growth, the full projection, the crumbling and the eventual disintegration of flowers, trees, leaves and other appearances of nature. And like a tree provides the supporting structure for its fruits and leaves (and not the other way around) a nation derives its legitimacy essentially from its (presumed-to-be more effective) protection and support functions for its Citizens. The British philosopher Hobbes might agree - albeit for other reasons and with some conclusions apparently at odds with ours.

Indeed, this state legitimacy cannot be accepted as boundless. For there is also another side to that other coin, ie. the state's obligation to protect its subjects against any foreign aggression and hassling. Hobbes, naturally, did not anticipate today's economic, fiscal and administrative aggressions by foreign powers against individuals. Nevertheless, his writings suggest that he would have almost certainly relentlessly condemned the collusion of national authorities with foreign powers against one's own Citizens and residents. Yet, that is precisely what is going to happen - on an unprecedented scale - when the abolition of inter-European border controls will be compensated with increased "mutual administrative assistance". Instead of saving taxpayer money, the planned implementation of the Schengen and other - mostly secret - agreements may turn out-of-job customs and other officials into no less effective operators of invisible supercomputer-assisted data and fiscal curtains.

We are already far down the road to an Orwellian cashless society with its ill-considered implicit cash criminalization. Contrary official assurances notwithstanding, the envisaged comprehensive electronic surveillance notably of money transfers within and beyond national borders will undoubtedly surpass even the most zealous customs apparatus when it comes to effectively curtail the free movement of persons and capital - under fiscal and other pretexts. To illustrate:

a) the OECD and the Council of Europe - of all liberty organizations - played midwife to INTERFIPOL, the nascent international fiscal police [now FATF] (see footnotes 14, 17, 37); and
b) evidence suggests that Swiss officials routinely and dutifully have advised their US colleagues on such matters as how to promptly break the Swiss bank secrecy - and get away with it (see p.28).

Thus, as Locke and any other human rights supporter worth this description would call for, a state's legitimacy - in law and in fact, and more than ever - must be subordinated to the legitimate aspirations of each Citizen to privacy, the pursuit of happiness and to economic, cultural and political freedom. This, of course, is not to belittle the importance of competent executives and the dependence on them by modern societies. In fact, the competence of the governors is seen as a key factor determining a nation's ideal size and structures, its viability and its ultimate fate.

For many outsiders, Switzerland comes close to being ideal both size and organization-wise. The Wall Street Journal (June 1) has just added another, the 700-year anniversary hymn on Switzerland - as if our Swiss gnomes had found the stone of wisdom. Being opposite to the European Community's outlook and structure, and serving, rather than plain-levelling of its Citizens and communities, Switzerland, the Journal advises, should maintain and continue to develop its own standards and not bother with the European Community - except to consider EC members' eventual applications to join it.

For awake insiders though, that view of Heidiland needs correction. Some foreign journalists, notably of the Wall Street Journal, have long ago become alert to and outspoken about significant dangers eroding Switzerland's foundations and prospects. Clearly, that has yet to make a dent on Swiss leaders. In fact, those critics have all but lead to increased Swiss public awareness - thanks to an army of domesticated myopic, self-contented and/or self-censoring Swiss journalists. And that does not bode well if one cares to look at the prospects of another example of a small but disoriented state: Kuwait.

Being dynamic, the factor competence offers reason for hope and despair - like other home-made growth, stability and disintegration factors. Its importance rests in the fact that it may, essentially, compensate other weighty mostly dynamic factors which, basically, are outside a nation's control or influence.

Political borders mostly reflect static factors, such as geography (mountains, rivers), natural resources (soil fertility, water, percipitation, oil), climate, etc. Yet, as living testimony to the endless power shifts in the history of mankind, they continue to be subject to very strong dynamic factors, e.g. the economic and political fortunes and ambitions of a people and its leaders, their education, ethnic roots, religion, nationalities and laws, ecological desasters, and resultant testings of tolerance levels, tensions and conflicts within their society or with neighbors.

What we now see unfolding in and around the Soviet Union and the Mideast (e.g. concerning Kurds, Palestinians) thus should come to nobody's surprise. Moreover and inescapably, other areas and continents will be affected. Yet, it need not frighten us either, provided those concerned will recognize and seek to understand the underlying forces and the opportunities they offer. And - admittedly a big if - provided they'll manage to adequately channel these forces and, in the event, to properly take advantage of these opportunities.

What is called for, therefore, is a more flexible mindset, more imagination and courage in seeking to accomodate the very real and therefore not really and for long suppressable factors. And a prepardness to consider an eventual redrawing of political borders above all in terms of possible national quality gains - rather than a quantitative loss or even a national catastrophe. For they may, if not alone, also better reflect, and in a timely way accomodate, the dynamics of the people's legitimate economic, political and cultural aspirations and evolution.

Here are some thoughts on these forces and on their interplay. A stock-taking on what a viable nation seems to be made of. And some reflections on possible paths to get there - or to get lost.
 
 

AWHERE DO WE COME FROM, WHERE DO WE STAND, AND WHERE DO WE GO?

Yugoslavia as a revealing case

"At a minimum," Jim Hoagland recently wrote ⁽¹⁾, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union (and he might have added: Quebec, Corsica, Catalonia, Flanders, Scotland, South Tyrol and yes, even Geneva) are synonyms for either open or latent nationality crises which "force the world to rethink the automatic allegiance to 'territorial integrity' that national governments have pledged since World War II as a way to avoid wars and avoid responsibility for each other's problems." Jonathan Eyal ⁽²⁾ followed up with a lucid demonstration on how

The pressure the EC brought to bear to change all that to plain-levelled European standards has not only completely failed its objective. The Swiss voters, on June 2, 1991, rejected the VAT (value-added-tax) system used in the EC. This vote is widely seen as a popular rejection of EC pressures - and a resounding no vote to Swiss membership in the present EC architecture.

Of course, this vox populi vote of no confidence is not likely to make a dent at the EC (just as, a few years ago, the world's only - and negative - popular vote on membership in the political UN did not mean its end either). Yet, Europe could still benefit from this vote in that it might contribute to the joint development of more appropriate forms of cooperation. In its June 4 editorial, the Wall Street Journal Europe, for one, thus alerted "Europeanists" to "suggestions that membership in their club is losing its appeal." (emphasis added)

Moreover, if the ever more often reactive than active, the more self-serving than serving chancelleries of Western Europe, under any leadership ⁽⁵⁾, succeeded to stampede the European Community (EC) into some sort of "life-preserving" action or intervention in Yugoslavia's actual overdue account-taking and account-settling, that might turn out to be a not-so-enchanting repeat of history - it might benefit less Yugoslavia's presently constituent republics and their people than it would strengthen the bureaucrats and their institutions in Brussels and elsewhere. Given the historically inescapable fate of every and all repressive structures (with the Soviet Union merely a very big and actual case) this - if one really cared - would not exactly bode well for the present, regretfully plain-levelling EC either.

But the problem of national awakening, of people's all-too-long suppressed legitimate aspirations, goes much deeper. It leads straight to the question of the legitimacy of our leaders, of their decision-making-by-non-opposition-due-to-saturation, and of the resultant "decisions". This disquieting question applies not only to the new and the yet-to-be-born democracies. Even in a country like Switzerland, where voters are invited to cast their ballots several times every year on numerous communal, cantonal and national questions, the only formal sovereign, i.e. the Citizen, increasingly, and visibly so, throws in the towel. In the face of his creeping emasculation by growing regulations and criminalizations of essential market functions (see e.g. footnote 14), by a judicial system tending to protect the institutions rather than the individual, and by thus unwittingly favored private and public bureaucracies everywhere, he sees himself more and more in a nation of sheep. The ARIGIN syndrom, i.e. official ARrogance, IGnorance and INcompetence, increasingly dominates the political and the private economic landscape.

What's more, ours is a time of manifest information saturation. Under the pressure of the information flood - which, moreover, is vastly accentuated by the ever-more proliferating computers - both the ordinary Citizen and the decision-maker in politics and the economy increasingly takes to evasive, defensive measures. More and more, our leaders feel compelled to submit to the discipline of requiring one-page memos, with most everything else either left unattended or to be resolved by the geriatric method, i.e. trusting that the problem, like an "unproductive" or increasingly dependent senior Citizen, will simply fade away, e.g. by a natural death, or resolve itself otherwise.

Increasingly rare are those who still find the time to look for and apply wisdom developed in sometimes lengthy books, such as Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. As a result, even the following truisms directed at our leaders ⁽⁶⁾ increasingly seem to be lost sight of:

Is democracy yet perhaps a too demanding form of government?⁽⁷⁾

The formula of free markets as the linchpins of free societies by now is almost universally recognized and strived at. Instructive testimony to that effect can be found not only in developments in the formerly "socialist" countries, but also in the Pope's latest Encyclical (extracts seen to be particularly noteworthy and helpful are reproduced below). The question then arises as to which structures of society might best be suited to given circumstances in order to effectuate the desired changes. And which ones might best assure the achievement and maintenance of a maximum of individual freedom contributing to the Citizen's and his community's overall welfare. Particularly in countries whose actual social, economic and political conditions reflect decades of manifest mismanagement of human and natural resources. Where high infant mortality rates testify to ecological desasters and constitute telltale signs of a society's inevitable collapse ⁽⁸⁾. Where many Citizens have effectively lost the feeling for many immaterial values and material goods. And where the soul of an entire people, its body politic is gravely ill, profoundly disturbed and in urgent need of healing.

Under such conditions, which formula suits best, that of "Pinochet" (with the military in command), of "Ozal" (with the military at bay), or which other free market formula, e.g. with the military mostly heading the nation's class rooms? ⁽⁹⁾  Could a monarchist presidency or a constitutionally constrained parliamentary monarchy provide the glue for getting basically not incompatible ethnic groups to effectively focus their energies on developing their own and their overall national welfare? And, in short, what are the essential requirements for a democracy to catch roots and to work?

Or, as we asked above, is democracy yet perhaps a too demanding form of government for very many freedom-aspiring people in this world? On the bottomline of many cases, democracy may appear as the most desirable, the most viable political framework for building a modern society. Yet, has it really and sufficiently been understood by all those who whole-heartedly favor it, that this most complex and exacting form of government is totally incompatible with the up-side-down Citizen-state relationship we can see everywhere around us?

With this last question in most cases answered in the negative, we have thus defined what essentially we have to aim for. Namely first, the resuscitation of the Citizen, the responsible, risk-taking and enterprising homo oeconomicus so that he may again take charge as the only true sovereign in his country. Thus effectively taking back the priority, if not the leadership role which is incumbent solely on him and which, by his default and for too long, he has left to the abounding public "servants" to which he has become used to submit in his daily chores.

All this requires a corresponding educational effort. It is to begin with one's self and in one's own family, e.g. learning to better respect and communicate with each other and nature, to receive and radiate human warmth, to respect eternal values and principles, to receive and transfer knowledge, to seek answers to one's problem within oneself, the family, and - only secondarily - on the community or "higher" levels which, in fact should constitute those levels of a society which are second to that of the Citizen.

It requires adapting the educational system to the needs of a genuinely free, market-oriented society. Which calls not only for trade schools providing specialized professional training. But it also involves the retransformation of the universities which in many countries now work best as vehicles for large-scale youth unemployment, as mainly self-serving incest vehicles producing mostly superficialists and specialists in passing examinations, rather than Citizens capable and willing to ask the right questions at the right place and themselves mastering the challenges and complexities of modern society. It needs an alertness to Orwellian realities and dangers ⁽¹⁰⁾. And it requires self-assuming Citizens to turn to defensive measures, such as overloading surveillance systems, and turning the phone system into an anti-Orwellian information and tax-free nation-wide barter vehicle (eg. as France's Minitel; see footnote 63).

Most importantly, it requires effective incentives for mobility of the mind and the body in order to reach and go beyond one's own cultural horizon. Strengthening the links between Europe's constituant peoples on the level where it counts most, i.e. that of its Citizens, might be achieved by deliberately favoring the acquisition of a second nationality, thus introducing a mental openness and concern for a second country. An Atlanticpass, a passport document available to American, Canadian and European Citizens could be another effective link booster. It might be issued on the basis of existing - but mostly forgotten or disregarded - bilateral friendship, commerce and establishment treaties ⁽¹¹⁾.

Moreover, a genuine catalyst for building a viable, confederated Europe might be created in the form of a general Europass. Issued to all Citizens of member countries not only of the European Community but of the much wider Council of Europe⁽¹²⁾, it could re-install the crucial Europe-wide freedom of movement, establishment and exercise of a profession as basic liberties. As such it would not be limited to an exclusive rich man's club. Instead it would encompass the enterprising and thus mutually most beneficial Citizens ⁽¹³⁾ of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and of all those countries who effectively abide by the Human Rights Convention of the Council of Europe.

And second, political and fiscal conditions must provide the fertile terrain for such grown-up genuine Citizens to do their thing, to prosper and to find happiness by and for themselves, their family and the community they discovered to fit them best.

Incidently, the LAFFER supply-side curve on tax loads versus tax revenues, on closer analysis and somewhat surprisingly, appears to be applicable as well even to such basic institutions as democracy. For the more a society deprives its individual members of the possibility to practice fundamental rights, freedoms and responsibilities - under whatever ill-considered pretext, such as fighting tax avoidance ⁽¹⁴⁾ - the less they seem inclined, for themselves, for their families and for society as a whole, to develop and put to work their inherent potentials.

To be sure, there are ever more numerous and sophisticated social constraints, namely laws, regulations and, more and more, purportedly innocent and simple "guidelines" (the stuff the EC bureaucracy produces in avalanches). Actually, the more innocent and sensible they are made to look, the more they are likely to be wild-grown outgrowths of - always primarily self-serving - bureaucracies, with ever less attempts to provide even an appearance of constitutional legality and effective legislative control. And the more the regulations are clumsy, crushingly voluminous texts, the more likely they have emerged from the same bureaucracies. Make no mistake, even if they bear the formal seal, the imprimatur of constitutional lawmaking, they have little more than that. This situation will continue as long as lawmakers have not managed to escape the effects of the information saturation which makes them dependent on these bureaucracies.

The results of all this have been foreseeable. The Citizen's saturation with ever denser, Citizen-emasculating and in the end self-defeating laws, regulations and "guidelines" increasingly constitutes a program for social and economic decline and even failure. Thereby the creators and erstwhile beneficiaries of most regulations, i.e. the public "servants", are not spared (contrary to most of their comrades in the West, even the communists in the East have begun to learn that lesson - some the hard way, others merely faster than expected ⁽¹⁵⁾).

Apparently, this "social LAFFER curve" is beginning to be recognized and taken seriously elswhere as what might thus be called the "GORBACHEV curve", the "YELTSIN curve" or, perhaps most appropriately, the "SHEVARDNADZE curve". And while many of our Western leaders got elected on the promise "to get the Government off the back of the people", indications prevail that since they took office the grip of the bureaucracy they inherited has not losened decisively. In fact, in many areas it even continues to grow virtually unchecked. And in some cases it has reached proportions which signal dismaying prospects for some Western democracies - the purported banner-bearers of individual freedom and free markets.

These phenomena, of course, are nothing new either. Moses led his people into the desert with 10 commandments; and by the time they returned to their promised land they had some 600 laws on the books. Cicero raised his voice against such legal activism. And in the early years of the United States' history, some congressmen already expressed grave concern that the production rate of 50 new laws was surpassed in the preceding year. A revealing decisions on where, in the event, Europe is headed was furnished by the EC apparatus: in order to assure fair trade in Europe's future unitary market, the EC recently stepped in to keep Spain from favoring computer key boards adapted to the peculiarities of its rich language (e.g. ~) which, in effect forces Spain to simplify and change its language ⁽¹⁶⁾.

Even with the planned economies essentually gone or on the way out, all this may not really change to the better and by itself. In some cases "inaction" may be as valid as "action" but our upbringing still hinders us from recognizing this to be true not only on ecological matters and in agriculture (farmers are already paid for not working their land), but in politics as well. Citizens will have to get used to the idea to elect (respectively to vote out of office) representatives LESS on their contributions to new laws, and MORE on their successes, or failures, to prevent them, or to simplify or even abolish unsuited laws.

Under such generally disquieting circumstances we may find reason to look beyond the surface of things. To seek to better understand the underlying currents of events surrounding us now and in the future. And to recognize the developments unfolding in the formerly "socialist" countries also as mirrors of what has and is still going fundamentally wrong in our own Western societies. Moreover, we have every reason and interest to treat our Eastern brethren with the dignity they deserve. To accept them as co-responsibles for our mutual cultural heritage. And to demonstrate our solidarity with them not only in terms which are appropriate for meeting their urgent material and immaterial needs, but also in ways and areas recognizing their important role as capable contributors and full partners in the reconstruction of our common European environment.

Such considerations emerge from less evident, but by no means less important questions concerning

- the existence of man;
- man's cultural, including man's religious heritage of which he is the beneficiery and the guardian; and
- the role of man, and his responsibilities and the relations between him, society and the state whose passport he bears.

Centesimus Annus, the Encyclical Pope John Paul II recently gave us, has been found to be in this sense an enormously enriching document providing morally and intellectually solid guidance in our time of turmoil and break-up of outdated structures. It seems helpful to all those in search of better defined aims and better considered ways and means to get there. The following chapter thus draws extensively from this authoritative source.
 
 

BSOME MEMORABLE QUOTES FROM CENTESIMUS ANNUS
the Encyclical Letter by Pope John Paul II, of May 1, 1991

CHOW DO WE GET WHERE?
"TRAIN AND EDUCATE MAN!" - SHIFT POWERS BACK TO THE CITIZENS!

The aims we have developed and which we propose are thus:

Stop criminalizing cash, decriminalize the market, and
guarantee the right to ANONYMOUS, UNDECLARED private property!

In France, e.g., with changing governments, the Citizen's traditional right to anonymous possession of gold has repeatedly been confirmed or abolished by law. This reveals the by now widely forgotten key characteristic of gold, cash and private property in general, namely their anonymity. In most states, in law and in practice, the privacy of private property - cash, gold, bank accounts, etc. - tends to be threatened rather than protected. This demotivating and progress-retarding upside-down situation calls for the corresponding privacy and burden of proof principles to be enshrined in the national constitutions.

What's more, the umbilical cord between the Citizen and the state must be cut. For the present situation is seen as an intolerable perversion of Citizen-state relations, with the Citizen now obliged to take down his trousers before the taxman so as to prove what he declared to be his income by substantiating his figures with bank extracts, salary certificates, bills, etc. All the while the taxmen, increasingly, have discretionary power over the thus extorted information ⁽¹⁷⁾. Involving the signature as a signal element of each Citizen's personality and status in society, this outgrowth of all-too-long tolerated fiscal arrogance and fiscal inquisition can even be seen as the linchpin of society's present decline.

Indeed, a hallmark of a civilized nation is its strict adherence to such fundamental principles as the rule of presumed innocence and of the burden of proof of wrongdoing to unvaryingly rest with the state. These principles have been burnt into Western society's collective mind notably by the inquisition and its degrading practices of mental and physical torture to extort confessions. By now, the lessons of these dark ages are not only on the books but are routinely and generally well applied in most civilized countries in penal matters.

But this is not the case in all civil matters. Not even in Switzerland whose Civil Code (art.8) explicitly says that "the burden of proof rests on whoever derives a claim from a fact." And it is particularly not the case in fiscal matters - even though they regularly entail penal clauses. In fact they provide the state with an insidious instrument for effectively persecuting real or framed criminals on unrelated charges (e.g. Al Capone's conviction in the 30ties was only for tax evasion; see also footnote #14) - all of which entails an unwitting transformation of social values and a corruption of justice and the state apparatus.

Such aberrations and perversions of banking, fiscal and other principles can also become counter-productive, e.g. for policemen who have grown accustomed to let bankers do their job. For the number of countries offering safe and efficient banking havens is still growing - also in response to the growing pressure to develop new sources of hard currency income. The real criminals are thus likely to be able to find alternative safe havens elsewhere, while the regular bank customers see their fundamental rights to privacy increasingly pierced on ever thinner grounds and pretexts ⁽¹⁸⁾.

Are bankers a state's legitimate long arms against the citizens? Are they to exercise their profession with a double, eventually conflicting loyalty? And, moreover, can there be any real substitute to solid police foot work? To be sure, there is no such thing as a criminalistic panacea in any field. Evidence also suggests that the drug problem may in fact be abused to promote hidden agendas, such as "bringing down the walls of Swiss bank secrecy" for marauding SEC, IRS and other US regulators (see chapter "Other alarm signals") ⁽¹⁹⁾. Or what rationale lies behind the fact that the drug campaign focus has been on the tail of the animal (i.e. on the "drug money") while its head, i.e. the US supplies of the chemicals needed for drug production, are hardly touched and have accounted for between "80 and 90%" of the supplies reaching Columbia? ⁽²⁰⁾  This brings back memories of the prohibition, a past American drug problem. And it suggests that the US authorities could do better showing their willingness and capacity to do a proper police job in their own backyard ⁽²¹⁾.

With most narco-dollars effectively hiding behind a screen of mostly legitimate businesses and customs, it has, of course, been tempting to criminalize these businesses and practices. This, in some cases, has been done with foreseeably paltry results if the objective was indeed to bring the big narco-players before justice. At the same time, the economic, social and political risks and costs of these measures have been disproportionately high. Swiss rent-payers, e.g., have discovered the costs of letting their country be fingered, culpabilized and stampeded into questionable and holier-than-the-Pope banking policies: their apartment rents skyrocked with the drying up of flight capital which, for decades, had secured low interest rates, thus fueling its economy and real estate market.

Once the public will have become aware of what is really going on behind the various nice-sounding smoke screens, the return to sensible practices will likely be swift, radical and durable. Real narco-dollars may then still be caught in the net, but more through sound police foot work and less because bankers let themselves be pushed into an alien role, a dubious secondary loyalty to serve as police auxiliaries. In fact, with the pseudo-criminal activities no longer binding scarce resources, police may then have a better chance to bring their investigative powers to bear on the real narco-criminals. Capital merely fleeing illegitimate fiscal confiscations may thus again become available for legitimate investments, as it will then no longer be mistaken for criminal proceeds. Until then, awake bankers in awakening countries may find capable politicians to capitalize on the related opportunities.

In summary, the inquisition mentality is not only a matter of past aberrations. Adapted to modern society, it is very much alive in various forms in most Western countries. E.g. as the Schengen agreement between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherland and Luxembourg shows, the imminent abolition of the intra-European borders will not result in reduced government payrolls and savings for the taxpayers due to laid-off customs official. These "public servants" will merely be retrained and become inland investigators chasing notably tax avoiders and evaders and suspected violators of whatever new crimes their colleagues might have gotten into the books (like cash changers, cash transferors, tax cash launderers, etc.). Moreover, they will be assisted by supercomputers providing effective electronic surveillance of most economic activities of unsuspecting regular Citizens. These systems, planned to be based in Paris and Strasbourg will remain effectively uncontrolled for as long as the taxpayers will tolerate it.

All of which shows that both present and planned fiscal and related practices are and likely will remain extremely harmful to the taxpayer's state of mind, his knowledge of his rights and obligations, and his capacity and willingness to exercise these fundamental prerogatives in ways favorable both to his individual pursuit of happiness and, eventually, to his community's well-being.

A key counter-measures will provide for the burden of proof to be shifted back to the taxing authority. At present, the taxpayer's signature under his tax filing only binds him, i.e. it engages his civil - and eventually his penal - responsibilities. It must again become binding for both, state and Citizen. Otherwise every Citizen's signature is officially devalued and his personality denigrated. And the signal instrument to reverse this aberration - i.e. society's unwittingly tolerated and even promoted trend to denigrate its own Citizens - may be found in the decriminalization of tax avoidance and the formal re-introduction of the right to privacy, to ANONYMOUS, UNDISCLOSED private property even in fiscal matters. Switzerland, for one, has preferred to responsibilize its Citizens rather than to criminalize its tax evaders. It hasn't gone broke sticking to that road and, in fact, may thus have equipped itself with a potent -and readily available - weapon in the increasingly world-wide competition for foreign investors.
 

Direct income tax? Yes, but only a negative income tax!

The U.S. Taxpayer Alliance ⁽²²⁾ calls for "Implementation of a 10% flat tax en route to complete abolition of the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] and the income tax system". Its program says:

More serious is the proposition to do away with the income tax. For this taxation form is notoriously inefficient (30-50% effective return due to wastefulness and high administrative costs). It is in violation of fundamental principles and generally undignified and denuding (it is a self-incrimination and undermines Citizen morality; see also preceding chapter). And it is unfair particularly to the low-income taxpayer (for he can practically never manage to organize a significant tax break; he also has to invest a disproportionate amount of his time filling out complicated tax forms, and he gets a disproportionate exposure to the public powers).

The case for abandoning the income tax thus looks good even from a treasury point of view - provided an adequate substitute can be found. The most efficient tax to be considered to that end might be a VAT system, combined with a negative income tax which might provide for global - and thus unbureaucratic - direct and commensurate compensation of low-income Citizens who paid an unfairly high VAT every time they purchased goods or services.
 

Further qualitative factors affecting a nations's ideal size and structures

To be sure, there is no permanent ideal size of a nation, and the leaders of even the longest enduring nations, such as the Swiss Confederation, risk losing the family silver and put the national existence at risk if they fail to adequately attend to the qualitative factors which make up a nation and which provide for its continuity. Also, small can indeed be beautiful. Small nations may indeed be easier to govern. And competently governed small nations may indeed be more likely to withstand the hurricanes of history, to prosper in rapidly changing circumstances, and to provide for conditions conducive to their residents' individually successful pursuit of happiness. But, make no mistake about it, by and for itself smallness is no virtue - just as bigness is no guarantee against failure. Essentially, it is the quality, i.e. the competence, the industriousness and the morality of its Citizens and of their leaders which really matters, which makes the difference, and which ultimately determines the ideal size and thus the fate of any and every nation at any given time in history. To illustrate:

Indeed, it will be exclusively up to these people and their leaders to set the course which will decide whether, in what timeframe and under what conditions all their miseries eventually will lead to the consolidation or the break-up of states which presently are still held together with difficulty and no clear purpose or viable unifying theme. And whether, in the event, the resultant structures can and will be molded into dignified, recognized and viable members of the family of nations. And though all data and ideas compiled in this paper are aimed and may effectively be used to that effect, we invite everybody to beware of illusions as to the real world.

The not-invented-here and the ARIGIN syndrom in high places, i.e. said critical mass of arrogance, ignorance and incompetence, are indeed quite human and thus omni-present phenomena. Yet, it deserves to be repeated that they are also sure-fire recipes for failure anywhere, for any nation, big or small. Also, just like in the wilderness, the forces of history have a way of sooner or later catching up with societies whose leaders have lost their moral moorings and whose manifest moral corruption and decadence - as the Pope in his latest Encyclical makes unmistakably clear - have become an intolerable insult to fellow humans everywhere. Characteristically, their only real power of conviction is the power of the gun or the power to bribe - usually on the basis of unearned wealth whose real purpose apparently still escapes their present guardians.
 

The Baltic, Kurdish, Kurile, Palestinian, Philippine (US bases)
and other lose ends of history in light of principles
associated with individual as well as with national landholdings

The saying goes that an individual may lay claim to the land

For example, some Baltic problems might find a prompt and even regionally stabilizing solution on this path. Reference is made to what is already called the reawakening 4th Baltic State, i.e. the Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly East Prussia; for details see chapter on the proposed Soviet European Initiative). Using as vehicle the never-abrogated Memel Convention of 1924 and the related treaty rights of the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Lithuania, interested parties might negociate with the USSR for a mutually beneficial long-term lease agreement involving related territory and eventually leading to the establishment of a prosperity-generating Baltic Hong Kong.

Also, Messrs. Yeltsin and Kaifu might find happiness for their people with an agreement for a long-term lease of the Kurile islands to the Russian Federation - in return for leasing to Japan a continental settlement zone facing the Pacific (which, incidently, could not only provide badly needed development impulses to the Russian Federation, but could offer the Japanese people a well-prepared refugee area whenever the widely expected cataclysm will hit its islands).

Foreseeably, in the Mideast, reliable adequate water supplies will soon become a key economic and political factor - perhaps even surpassing the importance of oil. The countries making up Kurdistan and which, water-wise, are dependent on this veritable water castle (from which flows notably the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers), might thus develop viable political solutions around this common denominator. Interested riparians might complement existing ⁽²⁷⁾ or conclude new water development agreements entailing the long-term lease to the Kurds traditionally living in these upper catchment areas. And they might find it possible, indicated and mutually advantageous to entrust these Kurds with corresponding trustee or water guardian functions providing for the equitable implementation of the related agreements.

In the case of the Palestinians, a similar solution (e.g. involving Jordan or Southern Iraq [or, temporarily, Iraq's Diyala district www.solami.com.babylon2]) may provide for early statehood of this people, too - independent of the fate of current Mideastern hagglings which may lead to genuine peace negotiations, "in our time" or "insha'allah".

The case of the US bases in the Philippines, for some time now, might find an answer imposed by nature, i.e. by the volcanic eruptions foreshadowing even more profound effects in that and seismically related regions. If both parties will find it indicated to negotiate a succession bases treaty to the one running out this fall, they might also agree to a lease exchange formula. To that effect the United States might offer a mutually beneficial long-term lease to the Philipphines of some continental or overseas US territory, in exchange for, e.g., a rent-free substitute for, or a corresponding long-term extension of their present bases agreement.
 

D     700 YEARS-OLD SWITZERLAND: AN EXAMPLE WORTH LOOKING AT?

When in 1291 three liberty-minded Citizens representing the inhabitants of three valleys in the center of Europe's alps promised to assist each other in fending off the imposition of foreign rule, taxes and judges, they laid the basis for one of the most durable and instructive experiments in nation-building. 4-languages rich Switzerland has its roots in the French, German, Italian and Romansch cultures. As Europe's water castle, it also gives birth to four of Europe's most important rivers (Rhine, Rhône, Po and Donau). Perhaps then a look at what the Swiss Founding Fathers really agreed upon in 1291 may be of interest not only to those seeking inspiration for addressing actual nationality problems, but also to those trying to fathom what may have lead Heidiland off its successful original track. Here then is a translation of Switzerland's basic document:
 

THE SWISS FEDERAL PACT OF 1291

In the name of God, the Almighty, amen.

It is accomplishing an honorable and beneficial action for the public well-being to confirm in the established forms the conventions aimed at peace and security.

[1.] Let it be known to everybody, considering the prevailing evil and in order to better defend and maintain, in their integrity, their families and their property, that the People of the valleys of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, in good faith, have pledged to assist each other with help, with advice and with all favors, persons and goods, inside their valleys and beyond, with all their power and resourcefulness, against all and against anybody nourishing bad intentions or who committed a crime, an offense or an injustice against any one or more of them, or concerning their property.

[2.] Each Community has pledged to come to the aid of the other, whenever that is necessary, to help against and, in as much as that is indicated, at its own costs, to resist and revenge the attacks of ill-intended people, having previously made such an oath which is herewith effectively renewed,

[3.] notwithstanding each person's right, to the best of its abilities, to be obedient and helpful to his [or her] master.

[4.] After joint consultations, we have also unanimously agreed, set and ordered that the People of the above-named valleys will, under no circumstances, receive or accept a judge who is not one of us [i.e. a resident Citizen], or who has bought his judgeship with money or any kind of favor on any way.

[5.] Should a difference occur among any of the Confederates, it is incumbent on those who carry the most respect to intervene and appease the difference with the most effective means considered indicated. All other Confederates shall unite against the party which refuses the [arbitration] sentence.

[6.] Also they have agreed to the following rules to be observed: he who, with intent and without being provoked, caused somebody's death, shall, as is indicated by the infamy of this crime and unless he can show his innocence, be put to death when he is caught; if he escaped he shall never be allowed to return. Those giving shelter and protection to such an evil person shall be banned from these valleys unless the Confederates have called them back.

[7.] He who, with intent, by day or in the dark of the night, set fire to the property of a Confederate, shall have lost forever his rights as a member of our Communities, and he who shelters and protects this offender shall in our valleys compensate the injured.

[8.] Moreover, the property in the valleys of any Confederate who, by way of robbery or otherwise, inflicted any damage on the property of any other Confederate, shall be sequestrated in as much as is needed to compensate said damage in due course.

[9.] Also, nobody among ourselves shall seize the other's property without a valid public title or a guarantee, and then only with a special authorization from his [the competent] judge.

[10.] Each one shall be obedient to his judge and if that becomes necessary, shall indicate the judge which he is prepared to recognize.

[11.] Whoever opposes or refuses obedience to a [competent] court and thus causes damage to anyone among us, shall be liable to render satisfaction which is to be enforced by all other Confederates.

[12.] Should war or a conflict break out among the Confederates and one party refuses to respect the laws and customs, all other Confederates shall protect the other party.

[13.] The above-mentioned laws, set as they are in the interest and for the benefit of all, shall, God permitting, remain in force forever. In witness whereof the present act, set up at the request of the aforesaid, has been validated with the affixed seals of the above-mentioned Communities and valleys. Done at the beginning of August in the year of the Lord 1291.

What then makes Switzerland still tick after seven centuries?
In a nutshell the answer may be:

Switzerland's sovereign political entities, its 26 cantons, still evolve. Some of them continue to split, like the Canton of Berne which is about to transfer sovereignty over part of its territory to the Canton of Basel-Landschaft and which, 10 years ago, even gave birth to the Republic and Canton of Jura. Others, notably the Republic and Canton of Geneva, seem to be moving again into a more independent orbit (see chapter on Geneva). Sometimes the Swiss government is overrun by events; it also has its wings cut by the popular vote (see Switzerland's unique UN vote). And it may happen again with the government's handling of Switzerland's relations with the - as presently setup - moribund EC.

Modern Switzerland, in 1848, was largely modeled after the United States and its Constitution. It managed to survive virtually unscathed the tempests ravaging Europe in the first half of this century. This has been recognized to be due, to no small degree, to its policy of permanent armed neutrality resulting from events in 1515 when, in the battle of Marignano, Swiss soldiers of fortune fought each other because of service on opposing sides. An agrarian state until the last century, the evolution of its society and economy is seen to have benefited decisively from the influx of enterprising foreigners from its major European and American trading partners who were encouraged to settle freely by way of fully valid friendship, commerce and establishment treaties which, symptomatically, are being mostly ignored in practice.

In recent years, the thus developed basis of Switzerland's enviable prosperity has indeed been undermined by official neglect of individual rights and - no less alarmingly - of fundamental sovereignty and fiscal principles. Pressures of neighboring governments and, particularly, American officials working in growing factual power vacuums have been allowed to cause havoc on the libertarian structures and laws of the country (e.g. the published and the unpublished cooperation agreements and, more visible, the growing numbers of lex americana, i.e. the laws against insider trading, money laundering, and export controls).

These testimonies to friendliness bordering on servility and worse would, of course, be quite worthy of a banana republic. Another question is whether they are compatible with the dignity of an independent country like Switzerland with its rich cultural inheritance. And, as indicated before, still another question is:

On its present course, Switzerland may indeed not continue to be a successful experiment in political, economic and social engineering. For indications are that on this course it may have been successful despite, rather than because of its leader's actions and inactions. That, of course, would not exactly be assuring. Particular significance thus falls on the question of another "invisible hand" - that of US judges and US officials and their effective reach into Switzerland.
 
 

E     OTHER ALARM SIGNALS

Pacta sunt servanda? Not invented here!
We have LEX AMERICANA, and PAX AMERICANA is around the corner!

On June 15, 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court ⁽²⁸⁾, in the Aerospatiale case, in effect, handed down a blanc check for the U.S. Administration and the U.S. Judiciary for disregarding treaty obligations and channels for obtaining evidence abroad. The Court approved recourse to the national means of coercion - such as the subpoena power and contempt of court citations - if they promise quicker results at less costs, i.e.

However, this opportunistic disregard for fundamental legal principles and treaty obligations formally entered into by the United States also constitutes an illegal exercise of power. For this blatently arrogated and executed treaty breaking power not only severely undercuts the U.S. President's treaty-making power, but it also flies in the face of the U.S. Senate's constitutional advice and consent rôle and, moreover, is not seen to be compatible with either the text or the background of the U.S. Constitution's respective provisions. Indeed, in their Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, the Representatives of the United States invoked notably

We would like to believe that this was indeed what the former Swiss Attorney General,Hans Walder, had in mind when, with his "LEGAL OPINION" of October 26, 1981, he advised his friends at the US Securities and Exchange Commission on how to break the Swiss bank secrecy without exposing the banks in question to Swiss criminal proceedings. Walder's advice ⁽³¹⁾:

Not surprisingly, some Swiss lawmakers thus wanted Walder to be tried for economic high treason. But they eventually threw in the towel upon learning of Walder's possibly very ancient source of inspiration, and after considering the argument with which the then Minister of Justice Häberlin, in 1928, fought in Parliament against the adoption of the penal clause (art.267 CP) that would have to serve as basis for prosecution:

Further down the road, in another unfamous case ⁽³⁴⁾, the New York Times headlined its editorial "This is Gunboat Law", saying:

The legal hierarchy, in many places, has evolved aberrantly

The U.K. High Court, on April 4, 1991, upheld an order for Nazir Chinoy, a manager of the Luxembourg-based BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) to be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for allegedly taking part in a conspiracy to launder profits from illegal drugs - despite allegations that the evidence against Mr.Chinoy was obtained in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Lord Justice Thomas Bingham said

This is another example ⁽³⁷⁾ of how rules originally intended to safeguard interests of the Citizen have been lost sight of, respectively have gradually been voided or turned to the relative advantage of the state institutions. For said, in effect, deprivative British rule seems to have its origin in the 1627 Petition of Right, whereby the King granted in Parliament that

A look at some roots

In 1914, the Russian Empire, after its 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States, was limited to an area which embraced most of the Euro-Asian continent. It included Finland, the Baltic States, Poland and Moldavia in Europe and stretched all the way to Vladivostok and beyond (excepting e.g. the Kurile islands).

As was common practice then, the Russian diplomats, too had woven a dense network of bilateral commerce agreements, thus securing its industry and commerce most-favored-nation status with most of its trading partners in Europe, the Americas and the Far East⁽³⁸⁾. Neither Lenin nor any of his successors abrogated these treaties; they may thus be dormant and avail themselves for reanimation by able diplomats.

Expanded trade and commerce will be crucial for those charged with the herculian task of cleaning up the economic mess brought about by over 70 years of mismanagement of human and natural resources. In the event, the reanimation or recovery of such fundamental, even if ancient rights, might significantly contribute to the viability also of those republics which have already chosen, or which may yet opt for genuine independence. And their leaders, too may thus strengthen the chances of success of their perestroika programs by seeing to it that these key principles will be heeded on every administrative level:

Reforms must aim for conditions liberating and responsibilizing Citizens, and they may be considered to be successful only if

Which USSR Republic wants what?

The Referendum of March 17, 1991, intended to take the Soviet peoples' temperature on the future of their centralized union, symptomatically, broke up into fragments. Yet, on the surface of the official figures, with 80% of the eligible voters participating in the USSR's first substantial exercise in democracy, and with 76% of those voting said to favor the maintenance of the USSR, the will of the majority of its peoples seems to be clear - or not? On closer analysis and in light of the questions asked, the results are more complex and colored differently.

Of the USSR's 15 republics, only 5 strictly followed directives from Moscow, asking their voters bewilderingly:

The Ukraine (another "independent" UN member state) asked:

"Do you want the Ukraine to be an independent state?"

Six republics - Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Armenia and Moldavia - boycotted the vote. They also did not sign the new in effect economic break-up Union Treaty of April 23, 1991 ⁽³⁹⁾.

On February 9, three out of four eligible Lithuanians cast their ballot and 90% of them voted for independence (thus even meeting the Soviet secession law's prohibitive requirement of two-thirds of all eligible voters). The Georgian and the Baltic governments already refuse to recognize Soviet law. On March 3, 73% Latvians and 77% Estonians voted also for independence, with about half of the Russians living there estimated to have boycotted that poll. Georgia voted for its independence on March 31 (see also next chapter). While Armenia will hold its independence poll coming September 21⁽⁴⁰⁾; its independence leader Levon Ter-Petrossian who, last August, became Armenia's first non-communist president, reportedly said it would be impossible for his republic to break away from the Soviet Union five years from now, as he envisages, unless the Armenians were able to surmount historical enmity and normalize relations with Turkey whom it has traditionally accused of genocide against the Armenian people in 1915⁽⁴¹⁾:

Even if the government, as it says it has, already effectively declared said pact between Germany and USSR as "nul and void" it is somewhat disturbing to note that the new treaty, through its unreserved support of the principle of the inviolability of existing frontiers and territories, at least in effect, seems to confirm the results of the Hitler-Stalin pact. As such it would undercut rather than promote Moldavia's case. Moreover, with its article 4, it obliges either party to abstain from entering into any security arrangement which is directed against the other party - a formula which cannot serve as model, raising disturbing intervention specters in its present form. Indeed, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland are rejecting it.

Finally, in the interest of Romania and its leadership, it must be assumed that all this has not really escaped their attention. Or that now, after they had let their negotiators lose on a secretively handled rush job, they are glad to have awakened and critical lawmakers which seriously check the results developed in the power vacuum and, if found lacking, refuse ratification. We have not yet seen evidence of such willingness to play the parliamentary game, to let the elected lawmakers stop an apparent wildcat train before it can cause further damage.
 

In the divorce: Georgia versus USSR

Georgia's centuries-old ambitions for national independence, according to an account by one of its emigrés⁽⁴⁴⁾, have been, and continue to be, frustrated mostly by its own policies and sons. In 1783, Zar Irakli II, signed a union treaty with Russia in order to better protect his native Georgia against expansionist designs by neighboring muslims. Still, Georgia's dream of national independence evaporated not under the onslaught of Turkish hordes but when, at the beginning of the last century, it fell under the rule of the Russian empire. And though, in 1918, its social-democratic government proclaimed independence, the bolcheviks prevented the mencheviks from making this independence stick and from defending it against the 1921 agression of the Russian bolcheviks - which, eventually succeeded with the help of such Georgian sons as Stalin, Ordjonikidzé and Makharadzé.

On this background, Tenguiz Goudava fears that the family silver is again about to be stolen. And that a unique chance to finally attain genuine national independence is being wasted due to what he identifies as "national infantilism" which has brought a new "national father-figure" in the person of the dissident leader Zviad Gamsakhourdi, but who is seen to have already successfully manoeuvered the majority of his fellow-Citizens and lawmakers into granting him little less than ominous, dictatorial powers.

To be sure, the Round Table-Free Georgia political bloc last fall apparently won, hands down, 166 of 250 seats in the republic's Supreme Soviet. But these elections were boycotted by both the radical national liberation movement of the National Democratic Party, the National Independence Party and other opposition groups making up the unofficial "National Congress". The conflictual relations between Georgia's Supreme Soviet and the National Congress seem to characterise the actual political scenery inside Georgia. Fueled by illusions, it might jeopardize its relations with the USSR and the outside world in general.

Of course, it is always - and particular in the case of formerly tightly closed societies - extremely difficult to fairly and reliably assess from the outside the eventual direction of what is really going on anywhere. And it is the more difficult and hazardous if it concerns the social fabric of a nation which is in the midst of the most complex processes to rediscover, reanimate and organize itself and to eventually find and occupy its proper place in the family of nations.

Still, the significance of what is happening in Georgia for the future of the USSR - and perhaps for Europe as a whole - makes it advisable to look for some objective if not conclusive clues. Among them may be mentioned the apparently unanimous decision, taken last December by the deputies of Georgia's Supreme Soviet, to essentially abrogate the autonomous region of South Ossetia. This, reportedly, has given rise to a bloody revolt there - in an already tense unsettled multi-ethnical context.

Perhaps unwittingly, it also provided - and continues to provide - the USSR's central government an opportunity to intervene. Thus, the residents of South Ossetia and of another Georgian region, Abkhazia, obtained directly from Moscow the means to participate in the March 17 vote on the maintenance of the USSR -which they approved by large majorities. Though this may indeed set the stage for these regions' separation from Georgia, this eventual quantitative reduction of Georgia might also be seen as an example of qualitative national gains in the form of being unburdened from energy-absorbing simmering regional conflicts, and correspondingly enhanced national unity, coherence and vitality.

On May 26, the voters of Georgia, by some 70%, brilliantly elected Mr.Gamsakhourdi as President of the Republic. On the same day, radio Franceinfo carried an interview where Mr.Gamsakhourdi indicated Georgia's interest in UN membership and closer economic and political ties with the countries and institutions of Europe. That would seem to be welcome news. For it might help the people, leaders and institutions of Georgia to become better acquainted with the real world and the uncircumventable requirements accompanying its aspirations to become a recognizable independent state based on genuine democracy. To that effect it might be helpful to consider concrete measures effectively turning the page on some past practices, measures which would convincingly disprove the allegations contained in the above-mentioned unflattering - and perhaps somewhat excessive - account given by Mr.Goudava, e.g.:

Moreover, the growing world-wide demand and competition for scarce private and public foreign investment capital all but rule out significant soft credits for dictators anywhere. Georgians may thus yet discover the real world and quickly adapt to the indispensable conditions any sensible investor of today and tomorrow would ask from his prospective debtor:

According to the CIA's annual Report to the U.S. Congress on the Soviet Union (as reported in Switzerland's Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 17, 1991), the Soviet Union actually endures its worst depression ever. Its gross national product for 1991 is thus estimated to be declining by 10%-15% (1990: -4%), with inflation exceeding 100% - assuming governmental measures not to cause Citizens to come out in open rebellion. At the end of 1990, the Soviet Union's external debt reportedly reached $45.4 billions - compared to $20.9 billions in 1986 - with a correspondingly growing debt servicing, credibility and new-credit problem. Its hard currency earnings from its oil exports are expected to decline 1991 by 25-60%, while hardly any other export sector is seen, at present, to offer positive perspectives.

Against this below-detailed backdrop, the circumstances surrounding