Facing Trial, Ex-Mongolia President Calls Charges a Political Ploy
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia — As he prepared to go on trial for corruption on Thursday, this country’s previous president lay in a wrinkled hospital bed, where he was recovering from a 10-dayhunger strike he waged to protest being held in detention by the current government.
Gaunt, barefoot and dressed in hospital-issue white pajamas, Nambaryn Enkhbayar bore little resemblance to the populist leader who dominated Mongolian politics until he was defeated in 2009 by Tsakhia Elbegdorj, who now runs the country. But even in his apparently frail state, Mr. Enkhbayar angrily dismissed the charges against him and criticized the timing of the trial as a ploy to remove him from the political arena just weeks before parliamentary elections.
Mr. Enkhbayar and his supporters in Mongolia and abroad view the trial as worrying evidence of the country’s slide away from rule of law and a fair and open democratic process. By contrast, his opponents describe Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution as long delayed justice for a man they say routinely twisted the law for his own benefit when he was prime minister and later president.
Tethered to an IV, Mr. Enkhbayar called on the authorities to postpone the trial as a sign of their commitment to due process.
“If this is a political case, let’s do it now,” he said in fluent English. “But if we live in real democratic country and this is not just political theater, let’s take more time.”Landlocked between Russia and China, Mongolia contains vast troves of natural resources like coal, copper and gold that have attracted intense interest from mining giants around the world and turned the nation into a pawn in a global game involving China, the United States, and Russia. Washington has lauded the country for its smooth transition from Soviet satellite to thriving democracy, though the controversy surrounding Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution has drawn widespread criticism from, among others, Amnesty International and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.
After losing to his rival three years ago, Mr. Enkhbayar broke away from the party of the current prime minister and founded the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which has formed a coalition seeking to challenge the government in next month’s elections.
Mr. Enkhbayar, in his first interview with a Western news organization since being released from detention, cast his trial as part of a conspiracy hatched by greedy government officials seeking to prevent him from reclaiming their ill-gotten treasure for the broader public.
“Mining is the reason they’re so cruel and antidemocratic in trying to prosecute me,” he said. “Copper and gold have made people crazy.”
In a dawn raid by police officers in April that was broadcast live, Mr. Enkhbayar was taken to jail by authorities who said he had repeatedly ignored their attempts to question him about alleged corruption charges going back a decade. To challenge his prosecution, Mr. Enkhbayar’s family and supporters hired a team of international and Mongolian lawyers. Rather than tackle the merits of the charges, which they say are stale and insubstantial, the lawyers have focused on procedural irregularities in their efforts to free him.
Mr. Enkhbayar claims that the government broke Mongolian law by preventing him from meeting privately with his lawyer. “They put up a glass wall between us and forced us to speak through a phone, which was obviously tapped, and watched us via a camera,” he said.
His lawyers say that following his release last week for medical treatment and the sudden announcement of a court date, the government delivered 50 binders of states’ evidence just days before the trial, too little time for them to review the material and prepare a defense. “It is impossible that he could have a fair trial in these circumstances,” they wrote in a statement about the flaws in the case.
Those who support the prosecution say Mr. Enkhbayer is no innocent victim but simply trying to regain power to get his own hands on Mongolia’s mineral wealth.
“This is really a case of him finally being brought to justice after years of the people being too afraid to file complaints,” said Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, a Stanford University-educated member of the current president’s Democratic Party.
Ms. Tsedevdamba said that during Mr. Enkhbayar’s time in power the police were much more brutal than today and that the government arrested journalists for writing critical articles under a law banning slander of the state. This case, she said, proves that Mongolia has made significant progress.
“When they came to arrest him nobody was beaten and the press could broadcast openly,” she said. “Those are marks of democracy in action.”
Mongolia’s vibrant media has watched Mr. Enkhbayar’s detention and trial closely, and much of the controversy has unfolded in the glare of cameras. For weeks, tales of his deteriorating health and desperate pleas from his family members boosted his party, said Sumati Luvsandendev, director of the Sant Maral Foundation, a political polling organization in Ulan Bator. “The arrest created an image in people’s minds that the government was using our criminal code for political purposes,” he said.
But in an age of 24-hour news and social media, Mr. Enkhbayar’s latest actions caught on video seems to have turned the public against him. The government recently broadcast images of him walking around and acting aggressively toward medical personnel. That has fractured the image of a frail victim mistreated by the authorities.
“His team was portraying him as half dead but footage shows him in quite good shape,” Mr. Luvsandendev said. “How he was portrayed in the local media has really damaged his credibility. It’s one thing to be accused of corruption and another to be ridiculed.”
Mr. Enkhbayar’s supporters, in response, publicized a report from a medical commission set up to assess his health condition that suggested he needed more time for his body to recover. “Even though his health is improving, internal organs are still in a critical state,” it said.
Gaunt, barefoot and dressed in hospital-issue white pajamas, Nambaryn Enkhbayar bore little resemblance to the populist leader who dominated Mongolian politics until he was defeated in 2009 by Tsakhia Elbegdorj, who now runs the country. But even in his apparently frail state, Mr. Enkhbayar angrily dismissed the charges against him and criticized the timing of the trial as a ploy to remove him from the political arena just weeks before parliamentary elections.
Mr. Enkhbayar and his supporters in Mongolia and abroad view the trial as worrying evidence of the country’s slide away from rule of law and a fair and open democratic process. By contrast, his opponents describe Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution as long delayed justice for a man they say routinely twisted the law for his own benefit when he was prime minister and later president.
Tethered to an IV, Mr. Enkhbayar called on the authorities to postpone the trial as a sign of their commitment to due process.
“If this is a political case, let’s do it now,” he said in fluent English. “But if we live in real democratic country and this is not just political theater, let’s take more time.”Landlocked between Russia and China, Mongolia contains vast troves of natural resources like coal, copper and gold that have attracted intense interest from mining giants around the world and turned the nation into a pawn in a global game involving China, the United States, and Russia. Washington has lauded the country for its smooth transition from Soviet satellite to thriving democracy, though the controversy surrounding Mr. Enkhbayar’s prosecution has drawn widespread criticism from, among others, Amnesty International and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.
After losing to his rival three years ago, Mr. Enkhbayar broke away from the party of the current prime minister and founded the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which has formed a coalition seeking to challenge the government in next month’s elections.
Mr. Enkhbayar, in his first interview with a Western news organization since being released from detention, cast his trial as part of a conspiracy hatched by greedy government officials seeking to prevent him from reclaiming their ill-gotten treasure for the broader public.
“Mining is the reason they’re so cruel and antidemocratic in trying to prosecute me,” he said. “Copper and gold have made people crazy.”
In a dawn raid by police officers in April that was broadcast live, Mr. Enkhbayar was taken to jail by authorities who said he had repeatedly ignored their attempts to question him about alleged corruption charges going back a decade. To challenge his prosecution, Mr. Enkhbayar’s family and supporters hired a team of international and Mongolian lawyers. Rather than tackle the merits of the charges, which they say are stale and insubstantial, the lawyers have focused on procedural irregularities in their efforts to free him.
Mr. Enkhbayar claims that the government broke Mongolian law by preventing him from meeting privately with his lawyer. “They put up a glass wall between us and forced us to speak through a phone, which was obviously tapped, and watched us via a camera,” he said.
His lawyers say that following his release last week for medical treatment and the sudden announcement of a court date, the government delivered 50 binders of states’ evidence just days before the trial, too little time for them to review the material and prepare a defense. “It is impossible that he could have a fair trial in these circumstances,” they wrote in a statement about the flaws in the case.
Those who support the prosecution say Mr. Enkhbayer is no innocent victim but simply trying to regain power to get his own hands on Mongolia’s mineral wealth.
“This is really a case of him finally being brought to justice after years of the people being too afraid to file complaints,” said Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, a Stanford University-educated member of the current president’s Democratic Party.
Ms. Tsedevdamba said that during Mr. Enkhbayar’s time in power the police were much more brutal than today and that the government arrested journalists for writing critical articles under a law banning slander of the state. This case, she said, proves that Mongolia has made significant progress.
“When they came to arrest him nobody was beaten and the press could broadcast openly,” she said. “Those are marks of democracy in action.”
Mongolia’s vibrant media has watched Mr. Enkhbayar’s detention and trial closely, and much of the controversy has unfolded in the glare of cameras. For weeks, tales of his deteriorating health and desperate pleas from his family members boosted his party, said Sumati Luvsandendev, director of the Sant Maral Foundation, a political polling organization in Ulan Bator. “The arrest created an image in people’s minds that the government was using our criminal code for political purposes,” he said.
But in an age of 24-hour news and social media, Mr. Enkhbayar’s latest actions caught on video seems to have turned the public against him. The government recently broadcast images of him walking around and acting aggressively toward medical personnel. That has fractured the image of a frail victim mistreated by the authorities.
“His team was portraying him as half dead but footage shows him in quite good shape,” Mr. Luvsandendev said. “How he was portrayed in the local media has really damaged his credibility. It’s one thing to be accused of corruption and another to be ridiculed.”
Mr. Enkhbayar’s supporters, in response, publicized a report from a medical commission set up to assess his health condition that suggested he needed more time for his body to recover. “Even though his health is improving, internal organs are still in a critical state,” it said.
Comments
Post a Comment