Introducing the first "how-to" guide for bringing democracy to the world without the use of violence:
BREAKING THE REAL AXIS OF EVIL
HOW TO OUST THE WORLD'S LAST DICTATORS BY 2025
By Ambassador Mark Palmer

Beyond Saddam Hussein are North Korea's Kim Jong-il, Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei, and 42 other dictators that continue to oppress their people, threaten their neighbors, give birth to terrorists and develop weapons of mass destruction. These dictators simply cannot be ignored and allowed to remain in, and gain, power. The United States and other democratic nations have significant security and moral interests in ousting the remaining 44 dictators, but is military force our only answer?

Ambassador Mark Palmer's BREAKING THE REAL AXIS OF EVIL: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025 (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., October 2003) tells for the first time the story of all the world's remaining dictators, their vulnerabilities, and how we can remove them…in most cases without the use of violence. Ambassador Palmer designs a new architecture of international political and military power, one that focuses on bringing together the world's democracies and democrats, and describes what individuals and non-governmental organizations can do to help open the remaining closed societies.

Ambassador Mark Palmer lived for eleven years in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Hungary, and held policy positions during the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and first Bush Administrations as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. One of the first venture capitalists into central and eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he has founded independent national television stations in six countries. He is active in promoting democracy, including as Vice Chairman of Freedom House, America's oldest human rights organization. He lives in Washington, DC.

In “Breaking the Real Axis of Evil”, Ambassador Palmer recommends:

First, a new mind-set must be developed among people both inside and outside dictatorships to accrete a critical mass of real belief that democracy can and will be achieved. The first strategic objective must be to strengthen this conviction, to take as a simple truth that ordinary people have the power to get rid of their oppressors.

Second, the Community of Democracies must reach out to the democrats inside dictatorships and establish a dialogue, process and deadline with the dictators themselves to achieve full democracy.

Third, democrats must develop the political and economic tools and techniques for the nonviolent removal of their oppressors. The past quarter-century abounds with examples: the Indonesian students who filled the streets against Suharto; the predominantly young people of Poland's Solidarity trade union movement who pushed out Wojciech Jaruzelski; the Hungarian students who got the barbed wire cut along the Austrian border; the young East Germans who ripped down the Berlin Wall. Lessons can be learned.

Removal of dictators is first and foremost a domestic political matter, undertaken by the people living under tyranny. Over the past 25 years, a change in domestic consciousness, strategic organization and coordinated, mostly nonviolent action has contributed overwhelmingly to repeated successes. What is not always so clear is the critical part played by the international community. Indeed, it is remarkable that the relatively small efforts of outside democrats had such a significant impact. Imagine what outsiders could do with a creative strategy backed by money and determination.

The Community of Democracies must adopt this common goal: All dictators out by 2025. It must then use its majority within the United Nations to have this goal and program adopted as a matter of binding international policy and law.

Ousting dictators must be brought from the fringes to the center of national-security and foreign policy. Progress over the last generation is encouraging. Now it is time to finish the job – to go beyond outrage, say enough is enough, and join together the world’s democracies and democrats to oust the last dictators and build universal democracy.

The book has been widely distributed and discussed within the US Congress, the Department of State, the US and foreign print and electronic media and universities and foreign embassies in the US. Several outcomes are apparent.

Congressional Human Rights Caucus Co-Chairs Wolf and Lantos, after reading Ambassador Palmer's book, proposed legislation, based in part on the book’s Action Agenda, and presented it early in the new Congress. The ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2005 (S. 516 and H.R. 1133) was introduced on March 3, 2005, by them and Senate co-sponsors McCain and Lieberman. The bill moves democracy promotion to the center of American diplomacy, provides for extensive training for our Foreign Service Officers and gives them new tools to support non-violent change in non-democratic countries. The Act passed the House International Relations Committee in June and has been presented to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by its sponsors Senators McCain and Lieberman. The U.S. Department of State already has begun to implement some of the Act’s provisions. One of the recommendations from the book – establishment of the International Democracy Transition Center— has already been established in Budapest with growing international support, including from the United Nations Development Program. During the April 2005 meeting of the Community of Democracies in Santiago, Chile, Secretary of State Rice and other ministers spoke about the Center and it was endorsed in the communiqué.

Praise for BREAKING THE REAL AXIS OF EVIL:

"Ambassador Mark Palmer's democracy manifesto is a radical blueprint for democratic change everywhere dictators oppress their people, and an impassioned call for a foreign policy true to America's founding principles."-Senator John McCain

"I watched Ambassador Palmer in action in Budapest, as he helped galvanize and even march with Hungarian democrats. I recommend his book to my colleagues in the Congress and in democratic parliaments around the world."-Cong. Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader

"Mark Palmer's prescription for the "End of Dictatorships" is a fundamental contribution to the debate about the world's future."-Professor Francis Fukuyama, Johns Hopkins University

"During and after the three world wars (2 hot, 1 cold) of the twentieth century we and our allies have freed much of the world. Mark Palmer shows us how to finish the job. Bravo."----R. James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA and Chairman of the Board of Freedom House

"Open societies provide the only basis for a more peaceful, prosperous world. Mark Palmer is at the cutting edge of change in the right direction."-George Soros, investor and philanthropist

"Mark Palmer's vision of a 100% democratic world is bold and important." Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

"Ambassador Palmer is 'Mr. Human Rights.'"-Ambassador Max Kampelman, former Head of the U.S. Delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe


BREAKING THE REAL AXIS OF EVIL
HOW TO OUST THE WORLD'S LAST DICTATORS BY 2025
AMBASSADOR MARK PALMER
October 2003
320 PAGES ? 6 X 9
$27.95 CLOTH
ISBN 0742532542
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

 



In Focus, CECHE's new online publication, brings into focus lifestyle-related chronic diseases and environmental issues worldwide. It reaches health professionals and policy-makers in over 50 countries

Latest Issue | All Issues


MONITOR Quicklinks
- Latest Issue
- New Dietary Guidelines
- Global AIDS action
- Obesity Spreads
- WHO tackles epidemic
- Anti-Tobacco Forces
- PAST ISSUES
MONITOR Subscription subscribe
unsubscribe

 

 

 



Questions? Comments? Concerns? E-mail CECHE at CECHE@comcast.net
CECHE LogoGo back to the CECHE home page