ELECTION WON’T HAVE “A SIMPLE OUTCOME”, N.ENKHBAYAR TELLS UB POST

Exclusive interview with N.Enkhbayar, former President and current Leader of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party discussing this election, corruption, his arrest and his trial.

-How do you feel the election campaigning is going?

-Well I think that this is a very unfair election campaign that is going on all over the country. The election vote was designed in a way that Mongolian People’s Party and the Democratic Party will get a favorable election for themselves and they will try to use all their mechanisms and resources to evenly divide all the seats in the parliament between themselves and try to exclude other political parties and to come into parliament as a serious political force. So I am quite unhappy with what is going on, I think it’s a very unfair election campaign and I really doubt that the results of this election will reflect objectively the mood of the population, the reality.

-What do you think needs to be changed to make it a fair election?

-Well I think, first of all, these two political parties have to leave the political arena for a while, I’m not saying they should leave the political arena forever but the present leadership of these two parties are very corrupt and very irresponsible. If these two parties do not win in this election, I think ordinary members of these two political parties will have the chance to remove these oligarchs from the top positions and invite their own political parties according to the reality an then I think these two political parties afterwards would be able to play more responsible and positive role in the life of the society. But if they will again succeed in cheating voters in making all the votes during this election campaign I think the system of oligarchs will stay on and the pressing issues of poverty, of corruption, of unemployment, of inequality, of the gap between the rich and the poor is still be here. Maybe it will get even worse.

-Do you feel that we could see similar scenes to 2008?

-We saw, I think 2008 was a very clear signal, that these two political parties area at a deep crisis and these two parties are not playing a positive role to develop the country further. In fact, on the contrary, they are playing a destructive role to the economy, to the justice system, to the development of the country and we have seen a lot of proof of of this observation for the last four years. They haven’t delivered what they had promised. They didn’t produce any mechanism according to which wealth coming out of mining projects didn’t reach evenly the population of the country, only a few people and a few families got much richer than the ordinary families. They were not bargaining well when they were negotiating with foreign companies on the responsible participation of the Mongolian side in developing mining projects. For example Oyu Tolgoi.

When I was the President I had a meeting with both Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines companies and what I was telling, was let’s try to follow a model which we have worked out with the Russians. Because when Ivanhoe Mines found this property or this mine during its geological survey I agreed that the Mongolian side should agree that for the initial phase, Ivanhoe Mines or its partner should own the majority of the shares in this project so let’s start this project and using geology experts, investment and we guarantee that you own the majority of the shares for this project, but, there is one condition. It shouldn’t be forever, it should be for twenty years or fifteen years, twenty-five years, I don’t know. We have to sit together and try to calculate the real period of time for which you will be the majority shareholder of this project, that was exactly what was done with Erdenet copper mine. Erdenet copper mine was originally Russian owned and we agreed with the Russians that they would give it back after twenty-five years. So it started in 1978 and then in 2003 they gave it back so this is our model and we know it could be taken into account when negotiating on the Ivanhoe project. Mr Friedland said: “It sounds quite reasonable, but I am no longer a majority shareholder within the Ivanhoe-Rio Tinto partnership, Rio Tinto is the majority shareholder now so could you please talk about this project and your idea to Rio Tinto.” At that time, Prince Andrew was a sort of lobbying person for foreign investors coming out of the UK and Australia and I tried to explain to Prince Andrew our position on this issue and he also said “It sounds quite reasonable”, so I would say to the Rio Tinto people that this is a good model and example for other projects and let’s begin this project on this condition. And then unfortunately, after the election of 2009 which I think and I have enough proof to show that 2009 election was also a fraudulent one. So unfortunately after this fraudulent election the negotiation was carried out and again it was reached based on the condition that Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto will forever own 66% of this project and the Mongolian side will forever own 34%, no condition of the possibility of changing the status in the future after twenty or twenty five years of time. We, the Mongolian side, take 34% of this project on loan. So everybody is quite surprised here to learn that something that was found in Mongolian territory should be given as a loan and that there is no possibility for the Mongolian side to have the majority of the shares in the future, like the Russians did in 2003.

That’s why people are not happy that’s we think not the real sort of responsible Government. There are even suspicions among the population of this country that both foreigners and Mongolians when they were negotiating the deal there was a lot of corruption and a lot of misinformation was used and that deal made foreign investors not look very nice to the population of this country. Especially after the famous or notorious Bolor Gold project, that was also a big gold mine and according to the so-called stability unit that was concluded when the present President was the Prime Minister and the present Prime Minister was the license holder of this project during Mr. Elbegdorj’s Government. The stability unit was concluded according to which the Mongolian side was promising that there would be zero taxing on this project and for a quite long period of time, foreign investor didn’t pay any tax to the Mongolian side although it took just gold from the project. Then there was a lot of discussion on this project and finally they changed a bit and started paying tax but very limited taxes. And this whole project is widely accepted in this society that that was a very corrupt, very fraudulent project on which the Mongolian side didn’t gain anything. But Mr. Batbold got a lot of things personally and Mr.Elbegdorj was wrong when he was the Prime Minister and what he did with this stability unit.

-So what was your reaction to being told you cannot run as a candidate?

-It is proof of what I was saying earlier. They have invented a case against me. They have charged me completely on groundless things. They are trying to use Law enforcement agencies and the justice system to remove their political opponents for the election campaign. Not many people did believe in my statement, now they have this proof. I was illegally put in prison and they violated all the Mongolian laws when they were keeping me in the prison. Now they are threatening me with a court sentence, they are removing me with the influence of the General Election Committee which comprises of members of these two main political parties. And they remove me and not only me but others from our political coalition.

-And how are they monitoring you?

-I don’t know how they are doing that; maybe they are using secret service. But they told me don’t go to the countryside. But I was telling them that I am the leader of the coalition and all the leaders of political parties or coalitions are going to the countryside and they are trying to bring out their messages to those voters, so it’s up to the people to decide. Let’s respect their freedom of electing. But unfortunately all this approving that all cases against me will be politically motivated and it will go on for a least one year until the next year’s Presidential Election.

-Do you personally feel scared or worried?

-No I am not. The more they will punish me the bigger the support of the people will be towards me and our coalition.

-What did the officers say to you when you were arrested?

They didn’t say anything to me and they didn’t say anything to my family members. They were just keeping the silence about my whereabouts so my whole family and many people here were very worried. I think it was kidnapping, it wasn’t really an arrest or any legal arrest; it was illegal kidnapping. They were deliberately hiding; only kidnappers do this, only those who abduct people do this sort of thing. So the whole family for three days were trying to find me, phoning, calling all the authorities and they had switched off their phones.

And only on the Monday did they allow to inform about where I was taken to and then all the letters that I wrote to the ordinary people, to my party members, to the members of the parliament, they had been confiscated by my supervisors. I told them you don’t have this right, in the law it is written down that the letters should be sent to the address to which it was written to. They said the law says this but unfortunately my chief is ordering another thing. So I was saying to him and the others, you should follow the law, not the orders of your chief because your chief is giving an illegal order to you. The officer’s chief was violating Mongolian law. He was saying ‘I cannot do anything but violating the law because otherwise I will dismissed or sacked from my position and you have to understand I have family, I have children’ .

-Do you think he was taking your side?

-Yes, psychologically he was on my side. So this is the system that exists here, it is not the rule of law but the rule of chief’s orders. So whatever the chief, or the minister, or the chairman tells you what to do. So I didn’t have any law defending me, or any other means to defend my rights. My family members didn’t have any laws to defend them. There was only one way of fighting with them, there was hunger strike, although it was very destructive of my health I knew that that was the only means to turn to, to fight this system and regime. So I put forward some demands. Let’s investigate the elections of 2008 and 2009, then to try to show to the people what was wrong and who was wrong. I have demanded that we made the justice system here completely independent from the authorities, the law enforcement agencies independent. I have demanded also that all the officials who illegally nominated on those posts within this law enforcement agency should be removed from office. I demanded that they have to deliver all the promises they promised in the election of 2008 and 2009. I demanded they should stop repressing their political opponents and release all the political prisoners including me. So they have strange regulations within the system and one of the strange regulations says that all the people who are on the hunger strike should be shown a full set of breakfasts, full set of lunches and full set of dinners. I don’t know if that happens in the west. So they would deliberately bring in these dishes, very nicely smelling set of Mongolian dishes. And then they would say we have brought you buuz, we have brought for you khushuur, would you like to eat this and I was replying ‘no I’m on hunger strike, you know this so please don’t do this it’s psychological torture, which is prohibited by human rights conventions. They said ‘no no, we have this regulation signed by the minister, by our chiefs, so we have to follow this and bring in three times a day all the food deliberately for you, but you have refused this, so voluntarily you have refused to take the food so you have to sign this. So this torture was going on for all these eleven days when I didn’t have a drop of liquid and slice of bread. Then they said ‘we will forcefully feed you’ and I said according to human rights conventions you have to give me an answer from the demands I have put forward, only afterwards should we talk about stopping this hunger strike, you cannot do this’. So I asked them, ‘what does it mean to forcefully feed me?’ They said, ‘we will tie you up to your bed so that you don’t move’. So I said again that this is a violation of Mongolian law. It’s torture. And then they said, ‘we will bring in a stick which doesn’t break and doesn’t bind and to one end of this stick we will tie a container with some oil and other things and then we will forcefully put it into your anus so that it reaches your stomach and then we will release the container and then we will bring out the stick’.

-What was the oil?

-I don’t know, they just said so that your stomach will be full with all this strange sort of things. I said this is again a violation of my rights, this is an attempt to kill me and this is an attempt to forcefully damage my health so I decided to fight back and I was quite angry and you can presume that when you don’t eat for eleven days you could be quite angry.

-So what did you do?

-So they videotaped this and they said ‘we have here Mr.Enkhbayar, we did not violate any law but he is such an angry person, today he even cursed us and he said bad words and made some gestures and we are very much offended’. That was the videotape they took when I was trying to protect my life and my health and then disclosed this information which is a violation of Mongolian law, a law enforcement agency cannot release all the footage of what they have videotaped when I was on hunger strike. That was only for interior use. So they made this deliberately so that the law enforcement agencies could participate in this PR campaign against me. So that’s why we say that Mongolian democracy is under threat we try to keep this democracy and it’s not only up to the people of Mongolia, it’s up to also the friends of Mongolia. So I was happy when I learnt there are a lot of friends of Mongolia. In the United States, The UK and in the United Nations who were worried about the situation and they call the current President and they made statements about the conditions in which I am kept in. And then it was used again by present authorities as an excuse to attack me. They said that Enkhbayar is complaining to foreigners and that the reputation of Mongolia is being damaged, I was saying to this, that it is not me who is damaging the reputation of the country it is the authorities that are. The reputation of the country is very important for people of the country so let’s try to restore this democracy and then get the better reputation back. And they started attacking those foreigners who supported me in my hunger strike: Senator Dianne Feinstein, General Secretary of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki-Moon and other foreigners who were in support of Mongolian democracy, not really in support of me but in support of democracy. I am quite sure that if I were the President of the country and if I had done the same sort of wrong thing to someone else, to my political opponent the same person would be against me, so it’s not about against me or against Elbegdorj, it’s about being against an authoritarian regime and in support of democracy.

-Do you think there will be protests or even a riot on Thursday and the days following the results?

-Well it’s difficult to say. But certainly according to the mood in the society, the general public is very much against the Mongolian People’s Party especially and to some extent against the Mongolian Democratic Party, people are not going to vote for these two parties especially for MPP. So if MPP makes a lot of votes and succeeds in winning the election of course there will be a very unhappy mood in the society. If the Democratic Party wins this election there will be a very big doubt in the society. So I think except for these two political parties winning the election for the other parties, especially for our coalition would be considered a surprise but positive surprise. So it’s difficult to say whether there will be riots but certainly there will be very unhappy or very doubting mood.

-So do you feel that the population is moving towards support for you?

-Well according to the reception they showed to us, a very warm, a very emotional reception, a very friendly reception. So this makes us think that people emotionally support us but we do understand that there a lot of other factors which do influence the outcome of the election. The present authorities are distributing a lot of cash, they are trying to remove us from the list of candidates, they are trying to register non-existing voters on the addresses where they do not live, they are trying to put as many as possible civil cards for doing votes, threatening, all these things are being used by the present authorities to influence the outcome of the election. But if they do not do this and leave it up to the people to decide on their future as it is supposed to be like any other free democratic society then I think our chances would be very good.

-If you did win, what would the reaction be from the MPP and Democratic Party?

-Well, I think they will do whatever they can do to prevent us from winning this election. They will try to use all the votes against us. So it’s very difficult to expect that we will be able to win. But the general public’s emotion and positive reaction towards us does show that the basis for our success is already here in this society. But again unfortunately because many democratic values have been rejected and laws are not being observed here. It’s diffcult to expect that there will be a simple outcome to this election. It will be much dirtier, much more difficult and many more frauds. Because they are the owners, the hidden owners of these mining projects. If they lose they suspect that maybe also they will lose those mining projects. They are not fighting for their posts, they are fighting for their mining projects, they are the hidden shareholders. So they are fighting against us to keep their stolen money. This is not just about competing at a free election, it’s much dirtier and much more serious for them, they are defending their property which they have stolen from the people and that’s why they spend a lot of cash from those mining projects to steal this election. For the last week they have spent millions of Tugriks to buy the votes.

-And how do they actually do that?

-They just give cash usually at nightime to ordinary people saying take this cash and give me your vote.
-But have you ever done that?

No, no. We haven’t that money. We aren’t in mining projects so we cannot find that amount of money to give cash.

-So you think it’s more an election of who has the most money?

-Unfortunately yes. It’s not about the future of the country, it’s about corruption money used for the outcome of this election.

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