Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Browder on investing in Russia

The Hays Advantage Podcast

William Browder, chief executive officer of Hermitage Capital Management, talked with Kathleen Hays on June 22 about the investment climate in Russia on Bloomberg Radio’s The Hays Advantage.

Browder on investing in Russia.

America’s silence makes us complicit in Russia’s crimes

The Washington Post, by David J. Kramer

After opposition protests in Russia were violently suppressed in May, July and August, spokesmen for the National Security Council and the State Department expressed “concern” and “regret” that Russian authorities were not respecting the freedom of assembly. During the May 31 crackdown, one journalist who days before had interviewed NSC Russia expert Michael McFaul had his arm broken. When McFaul and Undersecretary of State William Burns met with a group of human rights activists and others this month in Moscow, longtime activist Lev Ponomaryov was notably absent. He had been arrested for giving an interview critical of the mayor of Moscow during which he allegedly “stepped on the foot of a militia officer.” Burns lamely called it “regrettable” that Ponomaryov was unable to attend.

The activists who met with Burns and McFaul urged the United States to take a more public and critical position about the deteriorating state of human rights in Russia. Indeed, Burns and McFaul should have recognized Ponomaryov’s arrest as a slap in the face by Russian officials and condemned it. A raid before their visit on the Moscow offices of the New Times by masked and heavily armed security forces triggered no official response from Washington, though McFaul met with the editors of the journal. What will it take for higher levels of the Obama administration to unequivocally condemn arrests of activists, violence against protesters, pressure on journalists and murders of government critics?

Alas, speaking the truth about Russia isn’t likely to happen as long as the Obama administration spins its “reset” policy with Russia as one of its major foreign policy successes. Worse, administration officials have on numerous occasions rejected the notion of “linkage” between human rights problems and the U.S-Russia relationship. Such attitudes signal to Russian officials that there are no consequences for behavior such as cracking the heads of protesters, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently advocated in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant, or the Moscow prosecutor’s office demanding organizational and financial documentation from leading human rights groups, as it did after the McFaul-Burns visit.

Given that the United States has little leverage over Russia, some in and outside the U.S. government argue that we should focus on areas where we can work together, such as in dealing with Iran, North Korea and nonproliferation. This thinking overlooks the effect that domestic developments have on Russia’s foreign policy. A growing values gap will reduce areas of common interest between our governments.

So what could be done? For starters, the administration should repudiate its policy of publicly rejecting linkage. Instead, officials should state that a deteriorating internal situation in Russia will affect the bilateral relationship and affect Russian elites’ ability to pursue their interests in the West. Using clear language, they should condemn human rights abuses.

Second, the U.S. government should refuse to help Russian leaders with economic modernization in the absence of any political liberalization. Doing so simply plays into their agenda and runs the risk that we will be seen as complicit in the elites’ phony, top-down drive for modernization.

Third, McFaul, a longtime democracy advocate, should terminate his Civil Society Working Group, of which Vladislav Surkov, first deputy head of the presidential administration and the architect of Russian’s “sovereign democracy” concept, is co-chair. This group should never have been launched with Surkov’s involvement.

Fourth, U.S. support for Russian membership in the World Trade Organization should be suspended unless Russia abides by the rules of the organizations in which it is already a member, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Group of Eight and the Council of Europe. Having Russia join the WTO and defy its rules, too, would make a mockery of all these organizations and will not help Russian reforms.

Fifth, the administration should consider denying visas to Russian officials who authorize or engage in human rights abuses. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) proposed this after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in jail last year after being deprived of medical care. Washington should look into applying this approach to other cases, including the farcical trial of the oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev. Depriving Russian officials the opportunity to visit America, educate their children here and hide their money in U.S. bank accounts would get their attention in a hurry.

Sixth, U.S. officials should have serious discussions with European counterparts to encourage them to pursue similar approaches. Some governments want to ignore rights abuses while they promote engagement and business strategies with Russia, but any potential impact will be greater if this is a joint U.S.-European initiative. In Britain, the idea of a visa ban has already been raised in some circles.

The human rights situation in Russia is bad and likely to get much worse as the March 2012 presidential election nears. Those in power will do anything to stay in power. Russia’s future and political development will be determined by Russians, but the West should do no further harm by perpetuating the current system. Enough already with U.S. expressions of “regret” about the deteriorating situation inside Russia — it’s time to call it like it is: Condemn what’s happening there and consider consequences for continued human rights abuses.

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Magnitsky case a matter of concern to United States – State Department

Interfax

The U.S. State Department has taken seriously the letter of U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin who called for banning entry to the United States to several Russian officials believed to have something to do with the death of Sergei Magnitsky.

“I can say that, of course, we take seriously the concerns raised by Senator Cardin and take seriously the letter that he wrote to Secretary of State Clinton,” U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs William Burns has said in an interview with Interfax

Russian activists ask USA, EU refuse entry to those involved in lawyer’s death

Echo Moscow

[Presenter] Russian human rights activists and public figures have sent an appeal to the leaders of the USA and EU countries in connection with the case of Sergey Magnitsky, a lawyer for [investment fund] Hermitage Capital. They are calling for a ban on travel to those countries for officials who were involved in the lawyer’s death. Those guilty of his death must be punished, a member of the European Academy and professor from the Literature Institute in Moscow, Marietta Chudakov, who also signed the appeal, has said.

Buy Russia When Oil is Cheap

HedgeTracker

If you wonder why I recommend a shower after investing in Russia, Bill Browder will give you the reasons at length in this video from earlier this year. Bill is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, one of the firms that pioneered equity investment in the former Soviet Union in the nineties.

After a decade of pursing a campaign of activist investing that brought major changes in corporate governance in big companies like Gazprom (OGZPF.PK) and Sberbank (SBRPF.PK), a mafia connected government struck back with a vengeance. It deported Browder in 2005, arrested his lawyer, and pressured him to provide false testimony against his boss, which he refused. A year later, the man died in prison from “natural causes.”

Dmitri Medvedev’s Modernization Thaw

AEI

Almost two and a half years into Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency, Russia is an authoritarian country, where democratic opposition is harassed and barred from politics; where elections are manipulated and their results falsified; where riot police and troops brutally attack peaceful demonstrators; where all national television and most print media are censored or self-censored; where rapacious bureaucrats from top to bottom extort businesses; where citizens are terrorized by police, while courts are owned by the state or higher bidders; and where corrupt local authorities silence, maim, and kill journalists with impunity.

Real-Life Russian Nightmare

CNN

See full video here.

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world.

We have a great show planned for you today. It’s three of the most compelling, fascinating interviews we’ve done on GPS. First up, a real-life thriller with a tragic ending. William Browder was once the biggest foreign investor in Russia. That made him a target. Browder himself got out alive, but one of his loyal lieutenants was not so lucky. It’s an amazing story. You won’t want to miss it.

Visa-free travel between Russia and the EU? Yes, but not yet

EuropeanVoice

Removing visas for Russians at this point would undermine the EU’s Eastern Partnership and the rule of law.

The political momentum behind visa-free travel between Russia and the European Union is growing. It is supported by the big European countries and the European Parliament, and has the enthusiastic support of the Russian leadership. Speaking in Krasnoyarsk recently, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, said that the majority of EU countries back the idea: those that oppose it did so for “political” reasons.

That is an interesting use of the word “political”. One could just as well say that the countries that favour the idea do so for “political” reasons. In their case, they put good relations with Russia ahead of other priorities.