Now that a Guatemalan court has convicted General Erfrain Rios Montt of "genocide" maybe we can better come to terms with the history of the early 1980s when the Reagan Administration was determined to vanquish communism in Central America.

Some of the first oppositionists to Communism came from the left, such as the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. Later, in Eastern Europe, the first stirrings of dissent from below also came from the left.

The first surprise was at the entrance, where the woman who was selling tickets had the courtesy to let me pass free, due to the fact -- she explained -- that I came from Cuba.

In Bratislava, as the Velvet Revolution unfolded in November 1989, musicians played a key role in the Czechoslovak opposition movement. Yes, they participated in the demonstrations and spoke out against the communist authorities. But their main contribution was more prosaic: amps.

The GDR Museum in Berlin is actually two museums in one. And these two parts, both devoted to everyday life in the German Democratic Republic, subtly contradict one another.

In Bulgaria, some people look back on their time during communism as the "calm life." You generally didn't have to work hard. Life was simpler. Of course, as with all nostalgia, these memories are selective.

ISTANBUL — Long before al-Qaida, when the Cold War gripped the world, leftist terrorists staged spectacular attacks in a doomed campaign to over...

Going abroad has, once again, reaffirmed just how much I love my own country, and also how much I enjoy, and can learn, from the rest of the world. Here are three things traveling abroad brought into sharper focus for me:

I met Ognyan Minchev 23 years ago when he participated in the Helsinki Citizens Assembly. On this occasion, we discussed Bulgarian nationalism, ethnic minority issues and the mistakes that were made more than two decades ago when Bulgaria faced several paths of transition.

After years of warning us about a "new cold war" with a possibly nuclear-armed Iran, you'd think the mass media would be celebrating. But no. The Times merely warns us that we have to shift our anxiety to a new target. Why?