Complaints by the USCF Board that FIDE is Corrupt

[samsloan]

[quote="Grayson" Gary Walters ]We made a decision in the last FIDE
election to resist this vote buying, and in general the bad image of
chess being conveyed to the rest of the world. I'll limit myself here
by way of example to the visit by the President to Qaddafi. As a
result, we supported Karpov.

1) that we fully inform the FIDE VP--now for the sake of discussion on
our Board--with our strategies, votes, and concerns, knowing full well
she has chosen against us on at least the ticket endorsement and that
she now owes FIDE the same high duties she owes us, and that we will
trust that our hopes will be championed and our views and comments
kept secret, or

2) that there may be a conflict, but that she can recuse herself and
step out when FIDE issues arise, and we'll at least have a US leader
on the FIDE Board?

Which is it, or is it something else?[/quote]

Your simplistic statements above shows your lack of knowledge about
FIDE. Prior to Beatriz, Steve Doyle of New Jersey was Vice-President
of FIDE. FIDE has always tried to have one USCF representative on its
board. Prior to now nobody has ever claimed that there is a conflict
of interest for an official of the USCF to be on the FIDE Board.

You say that FIDE is corrupt because the FIDE President went to visit
Qaddafi just before Qaddafi fell. You forgot to mention he also went
to visit Saddam Hussein just before Saddam fell. Guess where he has
been visiting lately: Syria !

Kirsan admitted at a short speech he made in Khanty-Mansiysk, that he
does these funny things to provide publicity to chess and FIDE. He did
the same thing when he offered to pay $10 million to buy "The World
Trade Center Mosque", which made headlines in New York.

The 2010 election in which Kirsan was re-elected was run by Carol
Jarecki. I was there. I personally witnessed Carol Jarecki searching
every FIDE delegate to make sure that they were carrying no electronic
equipment (such as a camera or a cell phone to photograph the ballot
as has been alleged in the past). Carol Jarecki personally closely
watched every voter in the voting booth fill out his ballot and put in
the ballot box. She also counted the ballots. Are you seriously
suggesting that Carol Jarecki was in on the conspiracy to buy votes
and rig the election?

Kirsan won the 2010 election by almost exactly the same vote count as
he won in 2006. It is very simple. Kirsan gets all the African, South
American and Asian votes. The opponent gets almost all of Europe plus
Canada and the US. Karpov was a poor candidate with a bad reputation
but they could not find anybody else to run. Richard Conn, Candidate
for Deputy President on the Karpov Ticket, made a laughing stock of
himself when he said at the General Assembly Meeting, "I did not speak
to Jorge Vega because I do not know who Jorge Vega is." At the moment
he said this, Jorge Vega was sitting right in front of him, facing
him, with a big name card saying, "Jorge Vega, FIDE Continental
President for the Americas". How can a man be running for the number
two position of FIDE without knowing who the four Continental
Presidents are?

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="Grayson"][quote="samsloan"][quote="Grayson"]We made a decision
in the last FIDE election to resist this vote buying, and in general
the bad image of chess being conveyed to the rest of the world. I'll
limit myself here by way of example to the visit by the President to
Qaddafi. As a result, we supported Karpov.

1) that we fully inform the FIDE VP--now for the sake of discussion on
our Board--with our strategies, votes, and concerns, knowing full well
she has chosen against us on at least the ticket endorsement and that
she now owes FIDE the same high duties she owes us, and that we will
trust that our hopes will be championed and our views and comments
kept secret, or

2) that there may be a conflict, but that she can recuse herself and
step out when FIDE issues arise, and we'll at least have a US leader
on the FIDE Board?

Which is it, or is it something else?[/quote]

Your simplistic statements above shows your lack of knowledge about
FIDE. Prior to Beatriz, Steve Doyle of New Jersey was Vice-President
of FIDE. FIDE has always tried to have one USCF representative on its
board. Prior to now nobody has ever claimed that there is a conflict
of interest for an official of the USCF to be on the FIDE Board.

You say that FIDE is corrupt because the FIDE President went to visit
Qaddafi just before Qaddafi fell. You forgot to mention he also went
to visit Saddam Hussein just before Saddam fell. Guess where he has
been visiting lately: Syria !

Kirsan admitted at a short speech he made in Khanty-Mansiysk, that he
does these funny things to provide publicity to chess and FIDE. He did
the same thing when he offered to pay $10 million to buy "The World
Trade Center Mosque", which made headlines in New York.

The 2010 election in which Kirsan was re-elected was run by Carol
Jarecki. I was there. I personally witnessed Carol Jarecki searching
every FIDE delegate to make sure that they were carrying no electronic
equipment (such as a camera or a cell phone to photograph the ballot
as has been alleged in the past). Carol Jarecki personally closely
watched every voter in the voting booth fill out his ballot and put in
the ballot box. She also counted the ballots. Are you seriously
suggesting that Carol Jarecki was in on the conspiracy to buy votes
and rig the election?

Kirsan won the 2010 election by almost exactly the same vote count as
he won in 2006. It is very simple. Kirsan gets all the African, South
American and Asian votes. The opponent gets almost all of Europe plus
Canada and the US. Karpov was a poor candidate with a bad reputation
but they could not find anybody else to run. Richard Conn, Candidate
for Deputy President on the Karpov Ticket, made a laughing stock of
himself when he said at the General Assembly Meeting, "I did not speak
to Jorge Vega because I do not know who Jorge Vega is." At the moment
he said this, Jorge Vega was sitting right in front of him, facing
him, with a big name card saying, "Jorge Vega, FIDE Continental
President for the Americas". How can a man be running for the number
two position of FIDE without knowing who the four Continental
Presidents are?[/quote]

The vast majority of your post has nothing to do with my comments, or
else supports them. I have no idea what you're talking about when you
say that Carol Jarecki was governing over the election booths. You
don't seriously think that I'm suggesting that anyone was buying votes
at the election booths, do you? As for Richard Conn, what has that to
do with anything here? As for Hussein et al., good point. You'll
note that I limited myself to one example in the original post. And
as for general proposition of FIDE having a US representative on the
Presidential Board, I have no issue with that. You need to read a
bit more deeply. You seemed to have missed the point.[/quote]

If you do not understand what I am talking about, then you should stop
talking so much yourself and try to learn more about the subject. The
exact claim made about previous FIDE elections was that the delegates
carried cell phone cameras into the voting booths and took pictures of
their own ballots. They then used the pictures to prove that they had
voted for Kirsan so that they could get paid.

This is the reason that this time Carol Jarecki was there making sure
that no electronic equipment such as cell phones were carried into the
voting books and she also stood on the other side of the voting booth
and watched the voter fill out his ballot.

The end result it the vote count in 2010 was the same as in 2006 with
just one vote different.

Richard Conn certainly was an issue. He knew nothing about chess. He
was Kasparov's attorney and Karpov's candidate for deputy president.
The fact that Karpov has a bad reputation going back to his KGB days
was most definitely an issue. If you do not understand that, then you
know nothing about chess. Then the USCF under Goichberg filed a case
to disqualify the Kirsan ticket on the ground that Beatriz was on the
ticket. Essentially, the USCF was fining a court case against former
USCF President Beatriz Marinello. I said from the beginning that the
USCF was going to lose this case, but everybody else was so sure that
you were going to win.

Sam Sloan

[samsloan]

[quote="Grayson"]We made a decision in the last FIDE election to
resist this vote buying, and in general the bad image of chess being
conveyed to the rest of the world. I'll limit myself here by way of
example to the visit by the President to Qaddafi. As a result, we
supported Karpov. Beatriz, reading the tea leaves correctly, thought
we hitched our wagon to the wrong star. We did, if winning is all
that matters. Most of us suspected so as well at the time we did it.
Nevertheless, it was the decision of this Federation to resist, losing
effort or not. It is my proudest moment as an EB member. (Some of
you are thinking there's a legacy soon forgotten ;) ) [/quote]

Your proudest moment is when you voted to sue Beatriz Marinello
because FIDE President Kirsan went to visit Qaddafi? Pray please tell
us of some other moments of which you are not so proud.

Probably you are not aware that Libya has organized some of the
biggest and most successful chess events in recent years, including a
FIDE World Championship. Qaddafi provided the money.

We can no longer look down from a supposed position of moral
superiority. Is our own president much better?

I was shocked when Bill Kelleher ran for FIDE Vice-President and was
defeated by the candidate from Libya and the candidate from Iran.
Later I found out the reasons for this and it was not corruption or
vote buying. The men from Libya and Iran have done fantastic jobs of
chess organizing. Chess was even illegal in Iran not long ago. Now,
Iran is a world power in chess. The youth team from Iran finished
second in a world youth competition held in Istanbul, second only to
the team from India. The USA is nowhere near as strong.

Sam Sloan