POST-COLD-WAR COMM1E UPDATE: Hundreds of Russians demonstrated outside the U. S. embassy in Moscow last week in protest of NATO actions in the former Yugoslavia. Soviet flags were unfurled, and placards hoisted that read “We will bury you, America” — a touching echo of Nikita Krushchev’s most famous utterance.
Meanwhile, the people of Hong Kong participated last week in what is likely to prove their last free election and voted overwhelmingly for pro-democracy candidates. Only an hour after the polls opened, the People’s Republic of China announced its intention to dissolve the legislature when it takes over control of the British colony in 1997 — a fresh reminder in these post-Cold War days of what a communist regime is really like.
And proving that even after the Cold War an American president can still kowtow to Communists, the Dalai Lama was granted a measly half hour with Vice President Gore in the White House. The meeting was punctuated by a ten-minute cameo appearance by President Clinton in the vice-presidential office. The president declined to receive the Dalai Lama on his own turf, the Oval Office, so as not to antagonize Tibet’s tormentors in Beijing.
SCOTT M. MORRIS
