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Looks like Natalia wasn't going to play anyway, as her name is missing from before the Georgia war broke out. The FIDE page does, however, list Irina Krush, whom ChessBase claimed had also refused to play in Nalchik.
Then there are the six Georgian women who cannot play. So I wonder will they let a bunch of forfeits stand (that's business as usual) or redo the pairings, or move the tournament (this last would be the most surprising option for FIDE-watchers)?
The good news ... did the CFC save the money for the air ticket?
Holding the World Women's Chess Championship somewhere else will not improve the situation in Georgia. The GCF letter doesn't make any sense.
Yes.
Although time (a postponement along with a change of venue) might allow them to rebuild infrastructure. Georgia does have a team at the W u-16 Olympiad, which is just starting, in Turkey.
So, perhaps there is still a chance that the Georgian women will play in Nalchik. They could play under protest, or something like that, and still make their point.
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
So, perhaps there is still a chance that the Georgian women will play in Nalchik. They could play under protest, or something like that, and still make their point.
We can always hope. But going to an adversary's country implies a more thorough level of engagement than playing them on neutral ground.
And totally OT, it has been almost 12 hours without a new post here. Ye olde boarde, even in its death rattle, is doing better than that. Even the Dark Board....
Holding the World Women's Chess Championship somewhere else will not improve the situation in Georgia. The GCF letter doesn't make any sense.
How would you feel about playing chess or simply playing tourist in a country that is currently invading your own, killing your people, raping your women and destroying everything they can ? To me, it is your insensitive comment that does not make any sense.
Jean: I thought I was pretty clear. The Open Letter makes reference to all sorts of problems in Georgia as a result of Russian troops in their country and then suggests that a different venue is necessary for an event that is outside their country. There's no connection between the premise and the conclusion here. If they wish to make a boycott, or something like that, then they should be open about it. This is simply a disguised call for a boycott and FIDE is right to call this mixing politics and sport.
Of course the situation is terrible but punishing the Nalchik organizers for events out of their control makes no sense. However, for the sake of argument, let's suppose I'm completely wrong here. Have a look at another example of mixing politics and sport ...
Since the US has occupied Iraq for over 5 years now, with 4 million Iraqis displaced (UN agencies estimate: 1.2 million in Syria, 800,000 in Jordan and the rest internally – and barely surviving) and 1.22 million dead according to Iraq Body Count, what steps would you suggest in regard to chess and any other sporting events that the US is involved with?
Isn't that many times more serious than what's going on in Georgia right now? And where does this mixing politics and sports end?
Last edited by Nigel Hanrahan; Wednesday, 20th August, 2008, 06:32 PM.
Reason: italics added
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
Referring to the most recent ChessBase article, here is the full text of what Nathan Baumann referred to:
OFFICIAL WARNING: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against all travel to the Chechen Republic or the neighbouring North Caucasus region, including North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, but excluding Stavropol Krai and the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia. Canadians in Chechnya should leave. The security situation is unstable and dangerous.
Heavy military activity, terrorist bombings, kidnappings, and unexploded mines and munitions are widespread. Canadians contemplating travel to Chechnya despite this warning are taking serious and unwarranted risks. The ability of the Embassy of Canada in Moscow or Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada to render assistance is severely limited or non-existent.
Whether the quote attributed to Natalia was based on an older version of the same government page (her letter was not written yesterday), or really was tampered with, the context seems to lump the location of the upcoming Women's World Championship together with Chechnya. The advice for all of those regions is "Avoid All Travel."
Now, we don't squander our tax loonies to have Foreign Affairs underplay travel dangers. You can be sure that they err on the side of caution. In 1996, at least one Canadian didn't go to the Yerevan Olympiad, in part, at least, because of the Foreign Affairs warning. I went without qualms. But later I did think that maybe I caught a "bug" there. Armenia did have an election during the Olympiad, and as reports say, there were tanks in the street. Call me a fool, but I was among a group of chessplayers, in the main square, taking in the spectacle, and several tanks passed within a few feet of me. So maybe Foreign Affairs was right! In any case, the 2008 warnings for Nalchik are far more dire than whatever they were saying about Armenia in 1996.
IMHO, the Georgian Chess Federation letter fails to make sense on this point: the infrastructure of Georgia is broken, therefore we cannot go to Russia. Well, they went to Turkey for the World Under-16 Olympiad.
That still leaves a lot of points upon which to have sympathy with the Georgians!--and the others who are reluctant to play in Nalchik.
Finally, the FIDE and ECU letters--whose main thrust is "Shut up and obey me!"--show a deep-rooted sexism that we also saw a few years ago when Karpov and Susan Polgar (separately) sued FIDE in Lausanne. Karpov's suit (I am not a lawyer, much less an international sports lawyer, but I do have an opinion) had little merit, but FIDE pandered to him and eventually settled out of court with a generous cash settlement to Karpov. Susan Polgar proved that her suit had great merit. She won. But FIDE did not take the matter with any kind of good grace. The grace was all on the other side, as Susan (AFAIR) did not take a cash settlement--she just wanted to prove that she was right. FIDE has gone overboard in granting "equal rights" to women by equalizing the Women's team size with the National team size at the Chess Olympics, but the underlying attitudes sometimes do come to the surface.
Great minds think alike; fools never differ, and chess columnists rush off to check primary sources when chessbase letters dispute our foreign affairs travel advisories. So did I. Indeed Nalchik is on the severe don't-go-there list, so Natalia was correct in essence even if some (later?) cutting-and-pasting made it seem obscure.
FIDE is making problems by insisting on early entries, firm contracts and buying air tickets way in advance. The contract for the Women's Championship was so detailed it covered brands of permissible clothing. Good grief!
Re Yerevan 1996. They made protecting the chess players a priority so we were probably safer than at Moscow 1994 despite the attempted civil war over the vote (mis)counting. Still, that water was microbial to say the least.
Jean: I thought I was pretty clear. The Open Letter makes reference to all sorts of problems in Georgia as a result of Russian troops in their country and then suggests that a different venue is necessary for an event that is outside their country. There's no connection between the premise and the conclusion here. If they wish to make a boycott, or something like that, then they should be open about it. This is simply a disguised call for a boycott and FIDE is right to call this mixing politics and sport.
Of course the situation is terrible but punishing the Nalchik organizers for events out of their control makes no sense.
An (arguably) poorly built letter is no reason to ignore the basic facts:
1) FIDE should not impose a questionable and unsafe venue for any of its tournaments;
2) FIDE should not force georgian players to attend a tournament in a country at war with its own; it simply makes no sense (to use your own words of wisdom). Sometimes you just can separate sports and politics, especially when politics is actually "War".
3) FIDE should not ignore the legitimate concerns over security from eight other non-georgian players.
Of course it is not about "punishing" Nalchik organizers. They too will one way or the other fall within the collateral damages of their country's behaviour. If only for the legitimate security concerns for all participants, FIDE should postpone that event and find a more suitable and (neutral) venue.
Chess groups seem to always underestimate safety issues and FIDE often puts players in dangerous spots.
I remember Patrick McDonald organized a Pan Am team to Columbia, claiming it was totally safe. The week they left there was a major international news break about child kidnapping in the area.
Not so long ago the WYCC was in Georgia and many claimed people's worries about the area were unfounded. Now there is a war, maybe not in that exact spot but wars can spread ( the chess event was fairly near some Russian military installations ). I believe I read the women's worlds are 60 miles from the war torn region. So that is like attending an event in say Toronto when there is a real war in Guelph. Hardly seems safe to me I don't think armies or war happy leaders like Putin care if there is a chess tournament going on.
I think from attending FIDE events it is pretty clear if anything happened FIDE"s response to Canadian players would be find your own way out it's not our problem.
I presume from your posts you've not attended many FIDE organized international events recently. My point being they don't care enough about the participants well being so you take your chances on any event they organize. Throw in a war and only a fool takes that chance period. If you're from Canada you are such an afterthought ( see WYCC 2005 for example ) that your chances of being taken care of properly in a crisis are almost zero.
Last edited by Duncan Smith; Thursday, 21st August, 2008, 11:55 PM.
An (arguably) poorly built letter is no reason to ignore the basic facts:
1) FIDE should not impose a questionable and unsafe venue for any of its tournaments;
2) FIDE should not force georgian players to attend a tournament in a country at war with its own; it simply makes no sense (to use your own words of wisdom). Sometimes you just can separate sports and politics, especially when politics is actually "War".
3) FIDE should not ignore the legitimate concerns over security from eight other non-georgian players.
Of course it is not about "punishing" Nalchik organizers. They too will one way or the other fall within the collateral damages of their country's behaviour. If only for the legitimate security concerns for all participants, FIDE should postpone that event and find a more suitable and (neutral) venue.
Russia is FIDE. I suspect the FIDE president will do what Russia wants.
I see that my remarks about the horrific loss of life and displacement of millions of Iraqis has been met with silence. Presumably that means that no one who supports a boycott of the Women's Championship in Nalchik also supports some sort of boycott of the Americans over their occupation of Iraq, now in its 6th year with no end in sight. I agree that there should be no boycott of the Americans, but - this says to me that all this is political and people are rather obviously just picking sides.
The British boycotted the World Youth Chess event in Tunja, Columbia in 1989. It made no difference; Columbia is still a narco-state that allows the mass murder of trade unionists. Incidentally, Canada now has a free trade deal with that narco-state.
Finally, the 2006 World Youth Championship in Batumi, Georgia was run without Russians, Belorussians and some Europian countries like Great Britain, France, and Spain, also due to security reasons - as one commentator on Susan Polgar's blog remarked. It sounds to me like this current boycott might just be payback for what happened in 2006.
Politics, politics, politics. There are some exceptional circumstances where it has been mixed with sports - over the participation of Apartheid South Africa in world sporting events, for example. Even so, some found ways around that boycott as well.
In this case, there is plenty of blame to spread around ... just ask the former residents of Tskhinvali in South Ossetia who saw their city virtually levelled by the Georgian attack that began on August 8th. Human Rights Watch says the city still stinks of corpses, two weeks later. Boycott Georgia, because of that? No way.
A Manitoba chess player by the name of Kevin Gentes has an expression, maybe borrowed, that I've heard him use on occassion when people get too wrapped up in arguments. "Just play chess," is what Kevin would say in such circumstances. And his simple chess zen would usually stop the arguments.
Dogs will bark, but the caravan of chess moves on.
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