Browder at the University of Iceland.

The festivities hall of the University of Iceland was crowded Friday 20 November when US investor Bill Browder told his story at a meeting arranged by RNH, the Public Book Club (Almenna bokafelagid) and the Institute of International Affairs at the University of Iceland. The grandson of American communist leader Earl Browder, Bill Browder grew up in a left-wing environment of intellectual excellence and little interest in pecuniary affairs. Rebelling against his family, he decided to become a businessman, studying finance at Stanford University and moving to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in order to operate a hedge fund there. For a while, his Hermitage Capital had great success, even if conditions were unstable: In one day, the fund lost 900 million dollars, which it managed however to regain later. In Russia, Browder witnessed the outrageous behaviour of the Russian oligarchs and their allies in power. For a while, he welcomed Putin as a reformer, but his view was to change. Putin turned against Browder; he was denied entry into Russia; and his friend and legal adviser Sergey Magnitsky was imprisoned, maltreated and eventually left to die. This had much impact on Browder who vowed not to rest until the perpetrators of this intentional crime had been brought to justice.

Browder’s audience 20 November 2015.

Eventually, Browder succeeded in having the US Congress pass a law whereby Magnitsky’s murderers were blacklisted in the United States. He is advising other legislatures around the world on similar laws. The European Parliament has already passed resolutions about the Magnitsky case, but the European Commission has not implemented them which would mean blacklisting Magnitsky’s murderers in Europe. Browder had stated his case in the news magazine 60 minutes and in countless television and radio interviews, as well as in films on Youtube and in a best-selling book, Red Notice, which the Public Book Club has just published in Icelandic. At present, Browder’s book is appearing in 22 languages. Wherever he has the opportunity, Browder warns against the Putin regime in Russia which is, he says, both cruel and corrupt. Browder’s visit to Iceland was widely reported in the local media: The news magazine of the government television station interviewed him, and he was also featured in the daily Morgunbladid and in the business weekly Vidskiptabladid.

Many of those who attended Browder’s lecture blogged about it. Former Justice Minister Bjorn Bjarnason who chaired the meeting wrote: “This is an unbelievable, yet true story which is reminiscent of past accounts of individuals against a totalitarian regime in Russia—a regime which operates without any regard whatsoever for human rights. Vladimir Putin’s methods become ever more unpleasant, and he increasingly builds his power on fear, creating the belief that national security is at risk, if he does not have his way both home and abroad.”

Literary critic Ragnhildur Kolka wrote: “The incredible story of a man fighting the mafia of Russian President Putin. I could have remained there for a day listening to his talk, how he became a super-investor in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, and how he gained billions, only to lose much of it again to the oligarch mafia. The story is utterly absorbing, but it is also the tragic tale of a young man who participated in this fight and became the victim of the criminal elements in Putin’s regime.” The RNH participation in this event forms a part of the joint project with AECR, Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

RNH Academic Director Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson gave a talk at the annual conference of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience in Wroclaw City Hall in Poland 17–18 November 2015, describing the  joint project by RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe of the Victims”. An important part of the project is the production online of works which were published in the past against totalitarianism, while a limited number of copies are also printed for libraries and others interested. In 2015, three books were published in this series, Articles on Communism by British philosopher Bertrand Russell on 17 June, the 60th anniversary of AB, the Public Book Club; Women in Stalin’s Slave Camps by Elinor Lipper and Aino Kuusinen on 19 June, the 100th anniversary of women’s voting rights in Iceland; and Out of the Night by Jan Valtin (aka Richard Krebs) on 23 August, Memorial Day for the victims of communism and national socialism in Europe.

In 2016 it is planned to publish five works on totalitarianism, both online and on paper: Khruschev’s Secret Speech on Stalin 25 February, 6o years after the speech was delivered; El campesino: Life and Death in the Soviet Union, by Valentín González and Julián Gorkin, 17 July, 80 years after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War; Baltic Eclipse by Ants Oras and Estonia: A Study in Imperialism by Andres Küng, both on 26 August when a quarter of a century has passed since Iceland was the first Western country to resume diplomatic relations with the three Baltic countries; and Service, Servitude, Escape by Aatami Kuortti 25 December, a quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More works are being prepared for republication, including The Hungarian Revolution by Erik Rostbøll and I Chose Freedom by Victor Kravchenko.

In Wroclaw City Hall. Prof. Gissurarson in centre of 2nd row.

Conference participants were invited to a special meeting celebrating the 50th anniversary of a public declaration by Polish bishops on the necessary reconciliation of Poles and Germans after the terrible events of the past. “We forgive and ask for forgiveness.” Three cardinals were present at the meeting, as well as the Polish Minister of Culture and the Mayor of Wroclaw. At the conference the threats faced by the Ukrainians were discussed, and also attempts by old communists in Central and Eastern Europe to limit access to documents and other evidence of their past misdeeds. At the end of the conference Professor Gissurarson asked for the floor and expressed his own gratitude and that of other participants for the great efforts Dr. Neela Winkelmann, the Executive Director of the Platform, has undertaken in the service of a good cause. He welcomed her continuing employment by the Platform. Göran Lindblad, former MP for the Swedish Moderate Union, was re-elected Platform President. Three members joined the Board of Trustees, American author Anne Applebaum, former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa and Czech actor Ondrej Vetchý. At the conference, three institutes and associations were accepted to the Platform which now counts 51 members.

Gissurarson talking.

Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson, former government minister Ogmundur Jonasson of the Left-Green Party, and Dr Vilhjalmur Egilsson, presently President of Bifrost College and a former Member of Parliament, discussed the David Oddsson Era at a meeting of Politica, the association of politics students at the University of Iceland, Thursday 12 November. A large meeting hall at the University was full to the brink. Gissurarson pointed out that on the most common criteria in politics, Oddsson had been a successful politician: As Mayor of Reykjavik, he had increased the share of the Independence Party in each of the elections he fought, bringing it up to more than 60% in the 1990 municipal elections; Prime Minister from Spring 1991 to Autumn 2004, he had held office longer both totally and continuously than any other Icelandic politician. Indeed, 1991 was a turning point in the Icelandic economy. Government subsidies from several funds and agencies to loss-making enterprises were abolished, and the waiting room at the Prime Minister’s office consequently emptied; inflation fell, and monetary stability was introduced; a government deficit was turned into a surplus; government companies were privatised, and the revenue used to reduce, and almost to eliminate, public debt; pension funds were strengthened and made sustainable; laws were passed to increase the protection of individual rights; and the economy was opened upon and foreign trade facilitated when Iceland joined the European Economic Area. When Oddsson resigned in 2004 as Prime Minister, the great expansion of the banking sector had not really begun. In 2004, Iceland had been one of the best countries in the world to live in, prosperous and stable.

Professor Gissurarson also discussed common criticisms of the Oddsson Era. The Prime Minister had been faulted for supporting the 2003 Iraq War; but the support had only consisted in a declaration of support for an old ally after the decision, in which Iceland was not involved in any way. This was different from the acceptance by the left-wing government of 2009–2013, in which Ogmundur Jonasson served, of the NATO air raids on Libya; within NATO, Iceland had had a veto which it had not used in this case. In the second place, the privatisation of the banks for which Oddsson was sometimes criticized had begun in 1990 when one of the three commercial banks owned by government had been sold by the left-wing government of the time. The two sales of the Oddsson government had been scrutinised by the Icelandic National Audit Office which had delivered thorough reports on them and not found anything significantly wrong with them. Professor Gissurarson’s talk formed a part of the joint project of RNH and AECR, Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism”.

Jonasson talking.

Ogmundur Jonasson said that he belonged to the same generation as David Oddsson. When they had become politically active in the early 1970s, the left wing had been spirited and full of ideas whereas the right wing had been intellectually sterile. This had changed with the arrival of Oddsson and his supporters who had been inspired politically by Reagan and Thatcher and intellectually by Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan; suddenly the right wing had become full of ideas, while the left wing stagnated. However, Oddsson and his group had broken with the consensus of the previous few decades—the golden age of the mixed economy; they had been indifferent to, or even welcomed, increased inequality of wealth and income and they had also advocated a more materialistic way of thinking; “greed was good.” Dr Egilsson recalled the 1980s when a spiral of wage increases and inflation had run out of control while the over-regulated economy had offered few opportunities to enterprising individuals. It had been necessary in the early 2000s to privatise the two government banks because they had not been able to compete with the bank which had been privatised already in 1990. There was no doubt, Egilsson argued, that most enterprises were better run by individuals seeking profit than by government officials. Egilsson added that as a Member of Parliament he had found it easy to work with Oddsson. He had not engaged in any micro-management, but he had been swift and resolute in decision-making and true to his own words.

In the discussion following the three talks, former government minister Gudni Agustsson, who had led the Progressive Party in a coalition government with Oddsson’s Independence Party, asked for the floor. He said that he and Oddsson had become good friends over the years, even if they had initially had a lot of disagreements. He could not understand however why Oddsson abandoned his earlier policies of a bilateral agreement between Iceland and the European Union (like Switzerland has) instead of membership in the European Economic Area, and of a wide dispersion of ownership of shares in the privatised banks. Agustsson added that Oddsson had as governor of the Central Bank of Iceland saved the country from catastrophe. He had been the author of the plan to ring-fence Iceland which everybody supported now as the only feasible plan out of the quagmire which the banking crisis had been for Iceland. Dr Egilsson commented that in his opinion Oddsson had performed well as a governor of the Central Bank. He could not understand why it had been a priority of the left-wing government taking power in 2009 to drive him out of the Bank.

The meeting was taped, and thousands of people have watched it on Youtube:

Gissurarson Slides 12 November 2015