Trade Sanctions as a Test of U.S.-Russian Relations
To the Editor:
Re “Russian Opposition Urges U.S. to End Cold War Trade Sanctions” (news article, March 13):
Rewarding President-elect Vladimir V. Putin with the revocation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which for almost 40 years has linked the Kremlin’s human rights performance to United States trade benefits, would add insult to the injury of President Obama’s congratulating Mr. Putin for his “victory” in last week’s “election.”
If anything, the link should be strengthened by having Congress enact the “Magnitsky bill,” which restricts travel to the United States by corrupt officials of Mr. Putin’s regime.
But the administration strives to abandon the whole notion of linkage. Initiated by Senator Henry M. Jackson and the Soviet Nobel laureate Andrei D. Sakharov, American legislative pressure is as important today as at the time of Soviet repression. Appeasement of Mr. Putin would be a betrayal of this legacy.
VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY
ALEX GOLDFARB
TATIANA YANKELEVICH
London, March 13, 2012
The writers are, respectively, a former Soviet political prisoner; a former assistant to Andrei D. Sakharov; and a former director of the Andrei Sakharov Program on Human Rights at Harvard. займ на карту срочно без отказа микрозайм онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php unshaven girl
Don’t Hand Russia the Moral Victory of Abolition of Jackson-Vanik: Graduate, and Pass Magnitsky Bill
The year was 1975, writes Alex Goldfarb (in a book excerpted in snob.ru to come out soon which I’m translating).
Six Russian Jewish men sat at a kitchen table in Moscow in January. The scene was reminiscent of a famous panting by Russian artist Ilya Repin, said Masha Slepak, an activist and wife of prominent Soviet refusenik leader Vladimir Slepak. Except it was the opposite of Repin’s scene — no one was laughing or triumphant. The writers — all scientists who had been denied permission to leave the Soviet Union — were dejected, and feeling betrayed. They were writing to President Gerald Ford, and they were protesting his waiver in 1975 of the 1974 Jackon-Vanik Amendment, which had been passed due to the efforts of Sen. Henry Jackson, over the objections of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The Jewish refusenik movement leader and human rights leaders such as Andrei Sakharov had applauded the Jackson-Vanik Amendment when it was passed in 1974; now it was in jeopardy. Alex Goldfarb, who served for a time as the Soviet dissident movement’s press officer, writes in his memoirs of how depressed the Jewish activists felt after Ford’s decision. A successful lever had been established after great debate; it was going to work — and now the political capital was in danger of being squandered.
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Lavrov Dismisses Magnitsky Sanctions as ‘PR Stunt’
The recent steps by western countries introducing travel bans against Russian officials linked to the high-profile death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 are nothing but a PR stunt, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
Magnitsky, who was detained after accusing officials of fraud, reportedly died due to torture and neglect. Two doctors were charged over his death in August last year.
“In line with international law, any country can refuse issuing a visa to anyone from any other country without giving any explanations. That is why all of this is to a large extent a pure PR stunt to show off how ‘cool’ we are. We are making lists and will not let anyone in,” Lavrov said.
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Irwin Cotler condemns continued culture of corruption and impunity in Russia
Liberal Justice and Human Rights Critic Irwin Cotler today condemned the culture of corruption and impunity in Russia, epitomized by the fraudulent Parliamentary elections and the unprecedented posthumous prosecution of murdered whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky. Said Cotler, “The Putin Presidency will be tested by its commitment to the rule of law, human rights, and the integrity of the democratic process”.
In particular, Cotler noted that Russian renewal will be tested by the following indicators:
Halting the harassment and intimidation of NGOs, activists, human rights organizations, and the like.
Ensuring and enhancing freedoms of assembly and association for human rights defenders, dissidents, and their lawyers
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McFaul Pushes for Trade Status
The Obama administration will not support any human rights or democracy legislation in exchange for Congress repealing the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, the U.S. envoy to Russia said in Washington on the eve of a gathering of U.S. ambassadors Tuesday.
U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul spoke about relations with Russia, telling scholars at two think tanks that refusing to lift Jackson-Vanik would not make Russia more democratic.
“If you don’t believe me, ask Navalny,” Ambassador Michael McFaul said, referring to an open letter published on the blog of Vladimir Milov, leader of the Democratic Choice movement, on Monday evening. The letter, which was also signed by Alexei Navalny and other key opposition figures in Moscow, urged the United States to remove the largely symbolic Cold War trade restriction.
The signatories included organizers of demonstrations against President-elect Vladimir Putin who recognize the lagging enthusiasm of protesters but have found it nearly impossible to unite around a common policy agenda.
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End of Jackson-Vanik Shouldn’t Be the End of Russian Accountability
Vladimir Putin’s brazen election fraud, conducted twice in the last few months, has put the Obama administration in an uncomfortable position politically. The administration touts its “reset” policy as a success, but with Russia’s recent attempts to shield Iran’s nuclear program and protection of Bashar al-Assad at the Security Council–not to mention the election-year efforts to stir up anti-Americanism–that policy is increasingly defined by American concessions to Russia.
The reset has also put its architect, current Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, in the unenviable spot of having to defend his signature achievement. McFaul has a long and distinguished career writing about Russian democratization, and the inherently political job of a diplomat requires him to either excuse or ignore behavior by the Putin administration that he has been warning against all along. But the issue that put McFaul on the defensive is the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment, which punished the Soviet Union’s trade status for its restrictions on Jewish emigration.
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Diary: Russia to put British whistle-blower on trial… except he’s dead
The Russians are defiantly sticking to their plan to have a trial with an empty dock. There will be two accused. One will be absent because he is a British businessman, banned from Russia from 2005. The other cannot be there, because he is dead. The dead man is Sergei Magnitsky, whose case is now an international cause célèbre. While he was working for Hermitage Capital, an investment fund run by the US-born British businessman, William Browder, he gathered evidence that 60 Russian officials had defrauded Russian taxpayers of £147million.
Other members of his legal team fled Russia after receiving threats, but Magnitsky stayed, was arrested in 2008, and died the following year, aged 37, from the ill treatment he had suffered in prison.
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Russia to Try Browder With Dead Hermitage Lawyer for Tax Evasion
Russia plans to try William Browder, head of London-based Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., for tax evasion, along with Sergei Magnitsky, the fund’s lawyer who died in custody in 2009, RIA Novosti said.
“Magnitsky and Browder are both accused of severe crimes, which deprived the state of several hundred million rubles,” Alexander Yagodin, a senior Interior Ministry official, said in an interview with RIA Novosti, published today on the state- controlled news service’s website. Calls by Bloomberg to the ministry’s investigative branch weren’t answered today.
Yagodin denied that Magnitsky, who President Dmitry Medvedev’s human rights commission said was facing fabricated charges when he was beaten to death, had uncovered corruption by Interior Ministry officials. The Hermitage lawyer said he was abused and denied medical care in an effort to force him to drop fraud allegations against officials before his death in November 2009 after almost a year in pre-trial detention.
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EU should target Russia’s big spenders
Vladimir Putin has succeeded in returning to the Russian presidency despite several tumultuous months of anti-regime protests, but his rule is likely to be entering its final phase.
Many of those who view Putin’s regime as illegitimate do so because of electoral fraud and rampant corruption, and the protest movement has demanded a more European Russia: clean elections, an end to the Putinist monopoly on power and a halt to rampant graft.
There is, however, next to nothing the West can do to play politics inside Russia. In fact, bombastic comments from American officials have only helped Putin frame the movement as Western-funded to a nation deeply suspicious of foreign meddling.
But with Putin far weaker than in his previous presidential incarnation, the European Union can exercise real influence in Moscow, thanks to its role as Russia’s largest trading partner and hydrocarbon consumer, cultural magnet, and the destination of much of the proceeds of Russian corruption.
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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
