"De-communization" is the formula for promoting freedom and human rights globally, concluded a series of panel discussions at the Human Rights in the Contemporary World conference held in Warsaw, April 20-21.
The event brought together an international group of professors, politicians and activists to highlight issues relating to human rights abuses in the former Eastern Bloc countries and in the Asian dictatorships of China, Vietnam and Burma (Myanmar).
The Society for the Freedom of Speech and the Paderewski Institute, both Polish non-governmental organisations promoting freedom and democracy, as well as the Germany-based International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), co-hosted the event.
According to panellist and ISHR Director Manyan Ng, four out of the five countries that the ISHR identifies as the world's worst human rights abusers are communist: Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba, and the People's Republic of China (PRC).
"It is almost like a rule that wherever you have a communist regime, you have serious human rights abuses," said Ng.
Even the fifth country on ISHR's top abusers list, Sudan, enjoys ample support from China, the world's major communist regime, in the form of arms sales, oil trade and economic aid.
"You can go around the world and pick out the pariah governments and almost all of them are supported by China," said David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific who spoke on both days of the conference.
Kilgour talked in particular about the overwhelming evidence he found that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is harvesting the organs of living Falun Gong practitioners to sell for enormous profit. Kilgour terms this "a new crime against humanity."
"The fact that they put people in jail with the goal of organ harvesting, to kill them this way, it's something unimaginable… It's a nightmare. It can't continue," commented forum participant Congresswoman Anna Pakula–Sacharczuk in an interview.
The "nightmare" of living under communism is why Poland has a special responsibility to help others gain freedom from repression, said panellist and long-time Polish anti-communist activist Robert Krzyszton.
Poland was ruled by a communist dictatorship for 44 years until 1989 when the Solidarity movement initiated the fall of the entire Soviet Bloc.
Although Poland set the example for ending communism, the job is seen by many, including Krzyszton, as incomplete. The leaders of the Solidarity movement at the time made a deal with the communists: if they agreed to give up power peacefully, they could keep significant economic power, and would not be prosecuted for their crimes. Some of the conference organizers took part in those negotiations.
The compromise held until the most recent Polish general election in September 2005 which the Law and Justice Party won on a platform of de-communization. The incumbent Democratic Left Alliance, a highly unpopular government filled with past-communists and plagued by corruption, lost the vast majority its seats.
The current governing coalition is now carrying out its promise to expose, and in certain cases bring to trial, people who collaborated closely with the former communist regime—especially those who severely violated human rights.
"It is not by chance that this forum is held [at the Society for the Freedom of Speech], a place of past anti-communist veterans. It's maintaining a certain kind of ethos which brought us freedom, which will bring freedom to others," said Krzysztoń.
Panellist Professor Sen Nieh, President of the Washington DC edition of The Epoch Times, drew a parallel between Poland's de-communization and the Quit the CCP movement currently spreading throughout China.
Two-and-a-half years ago, The Epoch Times first published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party editorial series, which ignited a movement to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Since then, over 21 million Chinese have renounced their ties with communism.
The difference between China and Poland, said Professor Nieh, is that China is doing its de-communization now while the communist party still exists, not 18 years after its collapse, as is the case with Poland. Dr Dayong Li, Director of the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP, explained in his presentation that whoever quits through his center receives a certificate and a number. This number will be vital in post-CCP China to prove who remained a communist-collaborator and who had the courage to remove themselves before the party fell.
Professor Nieh emphasized that quitting the party is not a simple superficial act. Rather, it's an act that takes moral courage. "The most touching thing about this movement is that the people are willing to give up their benefits, power and money, and risk their lives to give up the regime."
One audience member asked who will govern China after communism collapses since Poland still has problems in this regard. Dr Li answered that anyone who meets two criteria is fit to rule. First, they must have quit the party before it fell, and second, they must be elected through a fair, formal, democratic procedure.
Li finished with an analogy, comparing the CCP to a computer virus. Once you get rid of the virus, the computer, i.e. China, will work again. In other words, de-communization is the key to a healthy China.
Looking out at China through the lens of Poland's experience, Congresswoman Pakula–Sacharczuk senses that the regime will soon fall.
"I think that [China's leadership] already knows that the system is ending. These are some of the final moments of the system's existence…I'm convinced that it won't last."
Some material courtesy of NTDTV
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