Outside View: How Obama’s ‘reset’ button can still affect Putin
Perhaps the biggest waste of U.S. funds in the conduct of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy to date has been its smallest expenditure.
Whatever the U.S. government paid for the “reset” button, delivered to the Russians early in Obama’s tenure as a symbolic gesture of improving a relationship, which had soured under President George W. Bush, it has proven a waste of money.
In Vladimir Putin, we bear witness to an aspiring totalitarian who has successfully used the framework of democracy in his own country to build the foundation of a dictatorship and who perceives opposition, both foreign and domestic, as a danger to the world order he believes will best guarantee his international influence.
He has taken the reset environment the United States sought to create in its relationship with him as a green light to pursue his personal objectives — objectives totally out of sync with those of the United States.
Putin secured the levers of power during his earlier presidency and maintained, as prime minister, control through a hand-picked successor after his two terms in office ended, as was constitutionally mandated. He then restored himself to power as president — but not before orchestrating a constitutional amendment to extend the time in office from two four-year terms to two terms of six-years.
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The FCO’s human rights work in 2011
The FCO’s human rights work in 2011
Written evidence from Hermitage Capital Management
May 2012
Specifically addressing the cross-Government strategy on business and human rights, expected to be published later in 2012, and how it should define the relationship between the FCO’s human rights work and the promotion of UK economic and commercial interests in UK foreign policy.
Short summary:
· British businesses should be able to invest in all countries knowing that they are fully supported by the UK government should they experience business and human rights problems.
· At present there is an apparent conflict between the British government’s promotion of business and its professed support for human rights. Based on our experience, the desire to promote British business takes precedence at the expense of any serious practical promotion of human rights. While this may appear to be the rational strategy at a time of economic recession, upholding human rights actually protects British businesses operating abroad as the Hermitage Capital case demonstrates.
There are a number of measures which the British government could take which would give it the leverage to protect international commerce and at the same time promote human rights:
· The British government should impose visa bans and asset freezes on all individuals involved in human rights abuses and high level corruption affecting British businesses.
· It should conspicuously publish a list ‘naming and shaming’ those individuals banned from entering the UK based on their involvement in such activities.
· UK businesses should be warned against investing in countries with dubious human rights records and with a history of economic aggression – such as Russia – in the same way that the FCO offers travel warnings to British tourists.
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Alekseyeva hopes Europe will follow example of U.S. with “Magnitsky law”
Russian human rights activists have backed the decision made by the U.S. Senate Committee on International Affairs to approve the “Magnitsky bill,” which envisions visa and financial restrictions on some Russian officials.
“It’s a very good decision. I hope some European countries will follow the example of the U.S.,” Moscow Helsinki Group Chairman Lyudmila Alekseyeva told Interfax on Wednesday.
Alekseyeva said no real investigation into the death in a Moscow detention facility of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky has been conducted in Russia. She said the decision made by the U.S. Senate committee is a signal from the international community to the Russian authorities.
“I believe it’s an international verdict,” Alekseyeva said.
Alekseyeva said she does not believe measures taken by Russia in response will be effective.
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McCain Requests Additional Sanctions in Magnitsky Case
U.S. Republican Senator John McCain on Tuesday said he expected President Barack Obama to consider additional sanctions in the case of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s death in 2009.
In his letter to Obama, McCain proposed imposing sanctions against an organized crime group he claims comprises Russian officials and bankers allegedly involved in Magnitsky’s death.
“I write you today to request that you begin a process to determine whether to designate and impose sanctions, under the authority of Executive Order 13581, against a dangerous transnational criminal organization known as the ‘Klyuev Group,’ which publicly available information suggests may have been involved in numerous international crimes,” McCain said in his letter.
“It is possible that one of those crimes was the murder of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer killed in jail in retaliation for exposing the corruption of Russian officials who appear to have been aligned with the Klyuev Group,” he said.
“Publicly available information, much of it uncovered by Mr. Magnitsky himself before his arrest in Russia in 2008, suggests that the Klyuev Group has colluded with senior Russian officials to engage in bribery, fraud, embezzlement, company thefts, and other serious financial crimes,” he said.
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Senate panel OKs bill on Russian human rights Eds
A Senate panel moved ahead Tuesday on legislation that would impose tough sanctions on Russian human rights violators, a bill certain to be linked to congressional efforts to lift Cold War-era restrictions on trade with Russia.
By voice vote, the Foreign Relations Committee approved the measure that would impose visa bans and freeze the assets of those held responsible for gross human rights violations in Russia as well as other human rights abusers. Specifically, it targets those allegedly involved in the imprisonment, torture and death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian jail in 2009.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ben Cardin, enjoys strong bipartisan support in the Senate. The Maryland Democrat said he was optimistic that the House would accept his more far-reaching version. The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a similar bill earlier this month.
“This bill is universal,” Cardin told reporters shortly after the vote. “It’s absolutely motivated by Sergei Magnitsky, but it’s universal in its application.”
The Russian government has expressed strong objections to the bill and suggested that there would be retaliatory measures if it becomes law. The Obama administration has been noncommittal in its public statements about the measure.
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Magnitsky documentary suggests fraud, collusion between Russian officials, police detectives
In April the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that unusually large rebates were issued in 2009 and 2010 by the same tax offices involved in the Hermitage case, amounting to an additional $370 million or more, suggesting the refund scheme persisted beyond the Hermitage case.
On Tuesday, McCain wrote to President Obama, asking him to designate the circle of officials, dubbed the Klyuev group, as a criminal organization abusing global financial systems through extortion, money laundering and theft. Such a designation would result in the freezing of their assets and making it impossible for them to conduct business in dollars anywhere in the world.
According to the documentary and the documents, the key players knew each other from previous tax-refund cases, and from vacations in Cyprus, Dubai, Istanbul, Switzerland and London.
In late 2006, for instance, a company called Rengaz Holdings obtained a $107 million tax refund and deposited the money in Dmitry Klyuev’s Universal Savings Bank. That deal was handled by Klyuev’s lawyer, Andrei Pavlov, and approved by Olga Stepanova, the tax official in charge of Tax Office No. 28, according to documents unearthed by Magnitsky and provided by the Hermitage investigation. All three would later be involved in the Hermitage case.
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U.S. could feel effects of amendment meant to hurt Russia
Almost four decades ago, as the Cold War raged, the U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 aimed squarely at the Soviet Union’s policy preventing Jews from emigrating from the USSR.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment, which denied favorable trade relations to the Soviet Union, worked. In 1991, Russia stopped slapping exit fees on Jews who wished to emigrate and they have been free to leave ever since.
But the amendment has stayed on the books even though it has outlived its purpose, a Cold War relic that infuriated the Kremlin. In reality, it was only symbolic; since 1994, presidents, Republicans and Democrats have certified annually that Russia complies with the amendment. In fact, the U.S. maintains normal trade relations with Russia.
As part of its “reset” with Moscow, the Obama administration urged Congress to abolish the amendment, to “graduate” Russia from Jackson-Vanik. Now, there’s an economic reason to do it.
Last December, after 18 years of trying, Russia was given the green light to join the World Trade Organization. Russia’s Parliament is expected to ratify and approve entry, and President Vladimir Putin to sign it by the end of July. Once that happens, the Jackson-Vanik amendment could end up hurting the U.S. instead of Russia.
Having it on the books means the U.S. is in violation of WTO rules requiring all members to grant other members “immediate and unconditional free trade.” The U.S. would not be able to take advantage of all the concessions Russia will make as a WTO member – including market liberalization, transparency, committing to intellectual property protection, eliminating nontariff barriers and other provisions – and that would mean higher tariffs for American businesses seeking access to Russian markets.
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Let Down by U.S. Decline
Russia’s pro-democracy activists, human rights campaigners and corruption fighters are disappointed in U.S. President Barack Obama. On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit last week, Obama met with his Russian counterpart for the first time since Vladimir Putin began his third time as president. They discussed repression in Syria but Obama failed to say anything publicly about fraudulent elections in Russia and increasing repression against those who exercise their constitutional right to protest. Moreover, the White House opposes the Magnitsky bill in U.S. Congress, which would impose international sanctions on Russian government officials implicated in corruption, murder and other serious crimes.
The lack of an authoritative global voice in support of democracy and rule of law in Russia is certainly bad for Russians, but it is bad for Americans, too.
The United States is a nation in decline not only because its economy is weak, unemployment is high and standards of living are falling. The underlying failure is, above all, moral. Amoral behavior began abroad with an unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq, illegal torture of foreign nationals — for which no one has been held accountable — and extrajudicial killings by unmanned drones.
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The People Versus Vladimir Putin
In one recent controversy, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee and a Putin crony, was alleged to have physically threatened Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta (the newspaper where murdered reporter Anna Politkovskaya worked), in response to Sokolov’s harsh criticism of law enforcement in an organized crime case. At first, Bastrykin angrily denied the accusation; a short time later, he publicly apologized to the newspaper for his “emotional outburst” and behaving inappropriately. By Western standards, it’s shocking that the head of the Russian equivalent of the FBI can keep his job after a de facto admission that he threatened a journalist. By the standards of Putin-era Russia, the apology attests to public opinion’s newfound muscle.
The opposition and the independent Russian press take Putin’s loss of credibility and public support—especially among the educated urban middle class—as a given. Is this shift in opinion real, or inflated by wishful thinking? On the surface, Putin’s approval ratings remain impressive; even harsh critics of the vote-rigging in the March election concede that without fraud, Putin’s share of the vote would still have been over the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Yet a closer look at poll data suggests that Putin’s popularity is indeed waning.
A nationwide survey in April by the Levada Center, Russia’s premier independent polling firm, found that only 38 percent of Russians believed Putin would have won the election if the media had been free to report on abuses of power; about as many said he would have lost, with the rest undecided. When people were asked to name Putin’s positive qualities, the poll revealed that his “positives” had declined drastically in four years. In 2008, 62 percent praised Putin as “hardworking” and “energetic”; the figure was down to 38 percent this year. “Mature and experienced” dropped from 47 to 28 percent; “responsible,” from 41 to 17 percent; “likable” and “charismatic,” from an already-low 30 percent to an abysmal 7 percent.
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
