AMERICAN RADIO FREE EUROPE FIGHTS IN COURTS AGAINST ARMENIAN JOURNALIST. AND SCORES AGAINST AMERICA
Czech TV channel CT-1 has a popular sports rubric called "Desperate Fighter".Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Prague is a weighty contender to be featured there. It keeps fighting after defeating itself.
RFE/RL is the largest civil American institution abroad financed by American Congress. The Radio is subordinate to the Federal agency BBG (Broadcasting Board of Governors) in Washington.BBG is appointed personally by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. Ex officio, it includes the Secretary of State,presentlyHillary Clinton. Simultaneously, BBG serves as the Board of Directors for the same RFE/RL. Call it a division of power if your common sense permits. In case of total lack of common sense,Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty can be defined a "private independent Radio" as RFE/RL represents itself in all 28 languages it uses for broadcasting to the 21 countries -- of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Yes, RFE/RL is an impressivecandidatefor the title of "Desperate Fighter".
Recently, an American NGO FreeMediaOnLine published on its web-portal an article,"Two Women Fighting to Uphold America's Principles at America's Freedom Radio." Quote:
" A human-rights lawsuit brought in Prague by Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian against American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is again before the Czech Supreme Court. The date of the trial has not yet been set. It is the sixth time her case will be heard by the Czech judges. In the ongoing court ping-pong, where the ball is human fate, RFE/RL is represented by a Wall-Street law firm, White & Case. By now, the score is 3:2 for RFE/RL. But the moral parameters as measured by personal suffering and the international media reaction cannot be expressed in numbers (...) The Anna Karapetian's lawsuit is not the only one of its kind. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has received a legal complaint from a Croatian citizen, Snjezana Pelivan, also a former RFE/RL employee. She charges that the Czech Republic tolerates discrimination based on national origin by RFE/RL, an American employer. Her case is also pending."
Indeed, for RFE/RLwith its proudly proclaimed mission "to promote democratic values and institutions," "strengthen civil societies by projecting democratic values," "provide a model for local media..."the battlefield for public trust and positive American image abroad should be not in foreign courts but in foreign public opinion. Comprehension of this simple fact is, again, the matter of common sense. But also of a moral compass and political responsibility to American taxpayer whose money is usedto finance the peculiarbrand of "public diplomacy" performed by RFE/RL - BBG.
The Battle Lost From Outset
In fact, RFE/RL, a highly visible overseas institution of American public diplomacy, has lost the court battlefrom the outset, just by entering the courtroom -- on moral and political grounds.
For who is the real arbiterin the court tournament between unemployed Anna Karapetian, mother of three minor children, and RFE/RL with its Wall Street lawyers paidby American publicmoney? It is public opinion reflected by media voices in the countries of RFE/RL broadcasting area, and in the Czech Republic where this American Radio has its headquarters routinely compared by local media to a fortress. To quote the Armenian magazine ORER (Days) published in Prague in several languages:
"Internet provides virtually endless number of international publications triggered by the ongoing Karapetian's and Pelivan's lawsuits -- in English, Russian, Czech, Croatian, Armenian, Slovak, Arabic, Farsi, etc. The tenor of those media voices is invariably devastating to public reputation of RFE/RL, the United States, and the Czech Republic: hypocrisy, betrayal of ideals, violation of human rights, lawlessness, double standards, moral disaster, fraud, cynicism, and so on. Not a single such publication ever appeared or was even mentioned in "RFE/RL In The News" or "RFE/RL's Newsroom" sections of the extensive RFE/RL website.Understandably, the Radio's website also never mentioned that Czech Parliament already twice, on June 11, 2009, and February 4, 2010, discussed the abhorrent RFE/RL's labor policies of "no-rights-to-foreigners". Such information is not to be highlighted for the scrutiny by U.S. Congress and American public."
Similarly, the website of BBG, which informs the visitors that BBG"makes all major policy determinations governing the operations of RFE/RL" and "provides worldwide personnel management policies, programs, and services", also never mentioned the lawsuits brought against RFE/RL by Karapetian and Pelivan. In this respect, the policies of those American institutions entrusted by U.S. Congress with the task of objective information, remind the old Soviet joke about Stalin who met Napoleon in hell and asked: "If you had my tanks in Waterloo, you'd win the battle, right?" Napoleon answered: "Forget the tanks! If I had your newspaper Pravda, nobody would ever learn about Waterloo."
However, Napoleon and Stalin did not live in the age of the World Wide Web, which today conditions international public opinion and public reputations. RFE/RL and BBGbureaucracies stillbelieve that nicely packaged, if misleading,success reportsto American Congress are more important than curtailing by peaceful resolutions Karapetian's and Pelivan's lawsuitsdevastating for American image abroad.
Earlier this year, RFE/RL placed an ad for international search of an additional PR-dealer and lobbyist to be based in Washington.He/she:
"will join a 10 (!) person communications and government relations team", "participate in all aspects of RFE/RL's outreach to internal and external audiences", "coordinate interviews and briefings with United States Government officials." Major required qualification: "Exposure to think tanks & Congress."
The American public organization "BBG Watch" informs that the BBG
"has also asked Office of Personnel Management for approval to hire a public relations guru at a salary of about $150,000. The BBG already has a well-staffed public and Congressional relations department."
It is the American Congress and State Department who are real targets of RFE/RL-BBG bureaucrats , not the dwindling foreign audiences pushed away, in particular,by the shameful for American reputation Karapetian's and Pelivan's human rights lawsuits. In Moscow, for instance, the size of RFE/RL audience fell below statistical error. Twoprominent Russian journalists are working on the book analyzing the crash of"Radio Svoboda" as RFE/RL is known in the former Soviet Union.
No-Rights-To-Foreigners Is a Policy of No-Human-Rights
In November 2006, Anna Karapetian's employment at RFE/RL Armenian Desk was terminated without any preliminary warnings and any provided reason. Simultaneously, the management of RFE/RL requested that Mrs. Karapetian signs a letter stating that she accepts the termination and will not question it in courts. She refused. In retaliation, the American employer, who in 1995 invited Anna Karapetian to Prague, withheld her severance compensation for twelve years of impeccable service. For her family, which moved together with her from Yerevan to Prague, she was the only breadwinner. In a similar fashion, two years earlier was terminated the employment of Snjezana Pelivan.
RFE/RL employs in Prague hundreds of foreigners on the same labor contracts as those of Karapetian's and Pelivan's. In her appeal to President Obama Anna wrote:
"Signing a standardized RFE/RL Employment Agreement 'governed by the applicable laws of the United States, the laws of the District of Columbia or the Policies of the Company', all non-American journalists trustfully and proudly placed themselves under the protective hand of RFE/RL, a beacon of human rights (on air). Only after landing jobless on the streets of Prague, I discovered that I and several hundred of my non-American colleagues, mostly from the target countries in RFE/RL broadcast area, being foreigners working for an American employer outside the United States, are exempt from legal protections provided to Americans by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Civil Rights Act of 1964, District of Columbia Human Rights Act of 1977, or by any other American labor law. RFE/RL foreign employees are intentionally placed in a legal vacuum."
She never got an answer. Never got a reply from Washington also the Czech Senator Jaromir Stetina,Vice-chairman of the Senate caucus of the governmental coalition party TOP 09, member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Policy, Defense and Security.Senator Stetina personally protested human rights violations also in Cuba and Belarus. In Russia, he is a persona non grata.In hisinternationally circulated Open letter to Hillary Clinton, "From Fame to Shame: Stop Human Rights Violations and National Discrimination of Foreign Employees at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty", he noted:
"Absurd as it may sound, but in Czech courts RFE/RL corporate lawyers refer to the Communist law of 1963 written to allow Soviet enterprises to use Soviet labor regulations in politically subjugated Czechoslovakia. Formally, the post-Communist Czech Republic still has on book some regulations dating back to the Communist era, which allowed foreign companies to use foreign labor laws if they did not contradict the fundamentals of the "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic".
In Czech courts, RFE/RL insists that that law permits it to apply American laborlaws to its foreign personnel working today in the Czech Republic.In particular, to use the "employment-at-will" doctrine allowing terminations of employment without any stated reason. Czech employees of the Radio are protected by post-Communist labor legislation of the Czech Republic, which excludes unmotivated terminations. American citizens at RFE/RL, an American employer abroad, have the protection of American labor and human rights laws enforceable in American courts.
Being foreign employees of American employer abroad, Anna Karapetian and Snjezana Pelivan had at RFE/RL no legal protection at all.As far as 1991, American Congress ruled in the Federal Civil Rights Act:"With respect to employment in a foreign country, such term ("employee") includes an individual who is a citizen of the United States." Time and again, American courts, heeding to the will of Congress, refused to apply American labor laws to foreigners employed by American companies overseas.Incidentally, the most quoted of such American court casesalso has "an Armenian trail". It is by now encyclopedic " Vladimir Shekoyan v. Sibley International".
If It Suits Them, They Will Use Sharia Laws
Senator Stetina branded RFE/RL labor policies as "patiently indecent, unfair, cynical and hypocritical."A respectable Philadelphia attorney-at-law Alice W. Ballard wrote to the American Law Institute:
"Employment-at-will doctrine leaves employees vulnerable to malicious, immoral, and capricious terminations. It is unsupportable in principle and evil in action. Academic opposition to the rule is nearly unanimous. There are at least 74 law review articles condemning the rule as unsound law, immoral in result, bad economics, and unjust policy."
In forty three U.S. states the courts on different occasions ruled the "employment-at-will" doctrine to be contrary to "public policy". In ten of those states, it was found to violate also "the Covenant of good faith and fair dealing".
Deciding on November 30, 2010 for Anna Karapetian, the Court for Prague-1 stated:
"The reference to American laws in the Employment Agreement concluded between the disputing partiesis illegal as directly contradicting not only the American laws and American court practice but also the Czech law. The defendant (RFE/RL) who is subordinate to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and who uses the services of corporate lawyers in Washington and Prague, intentionally abuses legal inexperience of its employees in American legislation and court practice."
However, last May, the Prague City Court, even accepting the undeniable fact that American courts would not use inapplicable to Anna Karapetian American labor laws, decided for RFE/RL by applyingalmost half a century old the Communist law. Now the dispute is again in the Czech Supreme Court. "Providing its foreign employees with deceptive work contracts based on inapplicable to them American labor laws, American RFE/RL violates, in the first place, legal sovereignty of the United States", writes Anna Karapetian in her appeal submitted to Supreme Court. Ping-pong in Czech courtswill go on until stopped either by Congress or State Department.
The sameapplies to the case of Snjezana Pelivan against Czech Republic pending in Strasbourg - unless on the same American institutions in Washington dawns the realization that it is somewhat strange way to reward the friendly country for its hospitality to American RFE/RL - by a lawsuit. Out of 158 cases against Czech Republic tried by the European Court of Human Rights, Prague has won only 5.
It is obvious that the Communist law, which dates back to the time when anti-Communist RFE/RLfoughtfrom Munich Communist lies andlawlessness, suits well present-day RFE/RL bureaucrats in Prague.They use Communist law to deprive the Radio's foreign employees of any court protection. Intentionally placed in legal vacuum, the non-American journalists, editors, producers who constitute the vast majority of RFE/RL editorial staff, have, in the words of respectable Czech newspaper "Lidove noviny", the status of "rightless aborigines".That statusalso prevents foreign employees from staging any open protests against unfair treatment. Slovak DS Magazine wrote that at RFE/RL "Everybody knows that any protest will end in a termination." But it is also obvious that the management of American RFE /RL would never dare to defy the will and laws of the U.S. Congress unless it was directed to do so from above - from BBG.
But how the recourse to Communist law tallies morally and politically with the missionof American RFE/RL and BBG? "For their own convenience, those guys will use even Sharia laws. Take Steven Korn, new president of the Radio. He's already half a year in Prague and changed nothing. Political feeling -- zero. Doesn't speak a single foreign language. Could not find Balkans on the map, I was told," says Snjezana Pelivan.
"Those guys"
RFE/RL headquarters in Prague boast its new logo supposedly depicting torch.Bewildered Czech journalist Ondrej Neff once compared "that thing" either to ice cream cone or pot with marihuana. After 9/11, BBG intellectuals decided that the time-tested RFE/RL logo resembling American Liberty Bell, could be offensive to some listeners... Insiders call Radio Free Europe a "Europe Free Radio". Out of its 28 broadcasting languages,18 are spoken by predominantly Muslim people. It did not escape the attention of international media that the majority of discriminated by RFE/RL foreign specialists is Muslims. Last year inApril,Hillary Clinton in a public ceremony named Walter Isaacson, at that time freshlynominatedBBG Chairman, to vice-chair "Partners for a New Beginning", the American initiative aimed at Muslim world.
Mr. Isaacson seemingly feels it morally compatiblewithhis Muslim-oriented assignment to serve simultaneously, as BBG chairman, on the Directors Board of RFE/RL where the bulk ofdiscriminated employees is Muslim. Just as it was before his assignment. Nothing changed.
About a year and a half ago,Foreign Policy Magazine published in Washington, wrote:
"Observers will be looking to see whether Isaacson exerts control over the organization, which is currently run mostly by BBG Executive Director Jeff Trimble, rather than the board."
Jeff Trimble prior to moving in 2007 to BBG, served in Prague as RFE/RL acting president and is personally responsible for Anna Karapetian's arbitrary termination with its devastating to U.S. image consequences. Heis running BBG till this day. Evidently, he is held in high esteem by
Mr.Isaacson as an able manager and leader.
To outside "observers", it is not so evident. The latest yearly survey of 37 federal agencies released in October by Office of Personnel Management, again places BBG at the bottom of the list. Just as in previous years when Mr. Trimble took the reins at BBG. In the most important category, "Leadership and Knowledge Management", BBG securely holds the last place. Last year in May, Senator Tom Coburn called BBG "the most worthless organization in the federal government." This year in April, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, held the hearings, "Is America's Overseas Broadcasting Undermining Our National Interest and the Fight Against Tyrannical Regimes?" The case in point was the BBG decision to stop as of October 1, 2011, broadcasts of the Voice of America to China. The BBG intention was vehemently opposed by American media and public organizations ("incompetence and idiocy of the BBG", "plain stupid", "flatly erroneous", "ineptitude", "hapless and inept BBG", "deceit", and the like). The bottom line: At present, due to congressional intervention, VOA broadcasts to China will continue.In addition, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put forward an unprecedented condition. It "directs the BBG to notify the Committee when BBG broadcast hours are reduced or increased". In plain language, it means that BBG cannot be trusted to act in American interests on its own and should be placed on a short leash of congressional oversight.
Hopefully, such an oversight will put an end also to the BBG-sponsored disastrous "public diplomacy" performed by RFE/RLin foreign courts. "I think it was Winston Churchill who said that America will always make the right decision. After trying everything else," smiles Anna Karapetian.
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