Posts Tagged ‘institute of modern russia’
Not Stupidity, but Malevolence
Critics of the current Russian regime often call its actions “stupid” and detrimental to its own image. According to author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek, however, what looks like government “stupidity” is actually a well-thought out strategy.
It is nice to think of your adversary as an idiot. It makes you feel better about yourself and reassures you by trivializing the threat: what foolishness did he or she think of this time? The same holds true when the adversary is the government. We fume about the Russian government doing this or that. How can it be so stupid? Does it not realize that it is undermining its own position and the image of the country? What we fail to appreciate is that the government understands everything it does; we just don’t understand its real motives. We judge the regime’s objectives, logic, and morals by our standards, when its own standards are completely different. Many of our troubles come from this lack of understanding.
Many of the government’s initiatives damage Russia’s image and result in international scandals. Prison sentences for members of the punk band Pussy Riot mobilized protests by top figures in the European music industry. Laws directed against homosexual propaganda have elicited fierce criticism of the Russian government from all corners of the world. The government’s insistence on protecting the law enforcement mafia in the Magnitsky case drew the world’s attention to a new instrument of government influence that violates human rights.
And we continue to wonder: What does the government think it is doing? How can it fail to foresee the possible consequences of its actions? Unfortunately, we just don’t understand the government. It very likely weighs its actions in advance and expects consequences. As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is anything but stupid. It simply has different objectives. In the Pussy Riot case, the government wanted to demonstrate that Russia is a religious and fundamentalist country, rather than a secular one; that the sentence handed down in the farce trial was a reflection of the people’s will; and that individual freedom pales before the power of the inferior mob.
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Civil Society Leaders Urge EU to Pass Magnitsky Sanctions
On June 5, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament held a seminar on Russian political prisoners. The event took place on the eve of the “Bolotnaya Square” trial, widely viewed as politically motivated. The participants stressed the urgent need for the EU to take a firm stand with regard to human rights abuses in Russia.
The situation regarding political prisoners in Russia has been deteriorating since 2011, when unprecedented mass protests against fraudulent elections were held all over the country. A group of prominent political leaders, policy experts, and human rights activists gathered to discuss the situation at the European Parliament. They included Lyudmila Alekseeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group; Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management; Anna Karetnikova of the Council of the Human Rights Center “Memorial;” Mikhail Kasyanov, co-leader of the Republican Party of Russia—People’s Freedom Party and a former Russian prime minister; Vadim Klyuvgant, a lawyer for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Nikolai Kavkazsky; Vladimir Kara-Murza, IMR senior policy advisor and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Russian opposition; and Pavel Khodorkovsky, president of the IMR. Leonidas Donskis, a member of European Parliament and the ALDE Group spokesman on human rights, moderated the seminar. The event was also dedicated to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s upcoming 50th birthday on June 26.
In his opening remarks, Donskis noted that “the human rights saga in Europe is an interesting combination of Russian, Ukrainian, East European courage and Western organization.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West had high hopes for Russia, as the era of Boris Yeltsin was very promising in terms of democratic development and political freedom. But today Russia is sliding back to the “obese of Soviet legislation,” and Europe is finding itself at a crossroads: should it lower its standards for countries that play a crucial role in international trade, like China and Russia, or should it continue to apply universal standards of human rights and dignity? In Donskis’ opinion, if the standards are lowered, it will be a historic failure for Europe and a betrayal of great minds such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, who shaped the entire discourse of human rights. The EU legislator also stressed that Russian political prisoners exist, calling Mikhail Khodorkovsky a symbolic figure in this group, and suggesting that he stopped being just a Russian political prisoner and became a European political prisoner. “As long as corruption exists as an international phenomenon, every fighter against corruption or every fighter for human rights becomes an international figure… These people fight for Europe,” Donskis observed.
Mikhail Kasyanov said there are thousands of cases of human rights abuses in Russia, and about one-third of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights are coming from Russia. But the public is largely unaware of this situation, because “there is a taboo” on discussing it. Kasyanov reminded the audience that Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and therefore needs to abide by its obligations; Russia has signed up the European Convention on Human Rights, but is not fulfilling its provisions. The former Russian prime minister added that in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovksy and Platon Lebedev, reputable Russian lawyers and independent international experts have been clear that the evidence was fabricated, and that these two people should therefore be released. Kasyanov also recalled the case of Sergei Magnitsky and the sanctions that were imposed by the U.S. against officials involved in his death, as well as against other human rights abusers. He called for similar measures to be undertaken by the EU, emphasizing that they do not target Russia, but rather deprive criminals and human rights abusers of privileges.
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Moscow Recruits Interpol
The Russian authorities have requested an Interpol Red Notice against William Browder, head of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund and a key architect of the Magnitsky Act. Author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek notes that Interpol has a history of honoring the Kremlin’s politically motivated requests.
At the end of April, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court issued an arrest warrant in absentia for British citizen William Browder. The Russian justice system is accusing him and the late Sergei Magnitsky of purchasing Gazprom shares between 1999 and 2004. Browder could only be arrested in absentia because he is not willing to appear in the Tverskoy District Court, rightly believing that “justice” there is nothing but fiction. Sergei Magnitsky is not in the courtroom either. In 2009, he was killed in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison to prevent him from publicly exposing the crimes of a gang of police investigators and tax officials.
According to a statement by the Russian Interior Ministry, Browder “acquired more than 130 million Gazprom shares worth at least 2 billion Rubles at domestic-market prices, which caused large-scale damages to the Russian Federation.” The nature of the crime is unclear. The point is that at the time it was forbidden for foreign investors to buy Gazprom shares on the market. On Browder’s initiative, Russian citizens and Russian legal entities founded dozens of companies, which then purchased Gazprom shares (for the market price) and waited for the day when they would be able to sell them for a higher price on the international market. This is a normal speculation, with its risks and its investments. There is nothing illegal here. Apart from an understandable resentment of someone who bought something cheaply and intends to sell it at a higher price, there is nothing objectionable in these actions. According to the Russian “justice” system, however, this is a crime.
The case does not have any prospects in court. It will be impossible to carry out the sentence. Magnitsky is dead, and Browder is beyond the reach of Russia’s authorities. The fact that a dead man is being tried posthumously makes the trial not only pointless but also immoral. Nevertheless, the regime decided to take this shameful step, and the reason is clear. The international scandal that resulted from Sergei Magnitsky’s death, and US sanctions that followed with regard to those connected with this crime motivate the Kremlin to prove its innocence by accusing the deceased of committing a crime, along with his colleague William Browder.
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On April 19–20, the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC) held its 10th annual conference in Washington DC. The key topics of discussion included the deteriorating political and human rights situation in Russia, and the prospects for EU visa sanctions against Russian human rights abusers modeled on the US Magnitsky Act.
JBANC’s 10th annual conference brought together diplomats; government officials; political, business, and NGO leaders; journalists; and policy analysts from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Russia, and other countries. This year’s keynote speaker was William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and former employer of Sergei Magnitsky, the Moscow attorney who was arrested, denied medical care, and died in prison after uncovering a $230 million tax fraud scheme involving Russian officials. Not one of the officials linked to the theft—or to Magnitsky’s unlawful prosecution and death—has been punished; indeed, some have received awards and promotions.
“I realized that it is impossible to achieve justice for Sergei inside of Russia,” Browder said in his remarks to an audience that included Magnitsky’s mother, widow, and youngest son. “So I decided to seek justice outside of Russia.” Over the past three years, the Hermitage CEO has been leading international efforts to get those implicated in the Magnitsky case—as well as other Russian human rights abusers—blacklisted from Western countries. In the United States, the visa ban and asset freeze were effected by the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a measure passed and signed into law last year. On April 12, the US government published its first public blacklist under the Magnitsky Act. Browder vowed to continue his efforts to achieve similar sanctions in the European Union, despite persistent threats to his own life and an Interpol arrest warrant issued by the Russian government.
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Bill Browder: “The Impunity Bubble Is Broken”
After the Magnitsky Act was passed by the U.S. Senate, Bill Browder, founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital and one of the bill’s most active proponents, spoke at Columbia University Law School. He told the story of Sergei Magnitsky, who exposed the largest embezzlement scheme in Russian history, was jailed and died in Moscow prison. Ian Hague, co-founder of Firestone Management, and Kimberly Marten, acting director of the Harriman Institute, also shared their views on the issue.
It so happened that the event entitled “Failed Mafia State” at Columbia University Law School was held on December 6th, the same day the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was passed by the U.S. Senate. On December 14th, the bill was signed by President Obama and came into full effect. The new law imposes a visa ban and asset freeze on individuals involved in the imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, as well as on those responsible for other gross human rights violations in Russia.
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The Magnitsky Sanctions in Canada
The passage of the Magnitsky Act in the United States was not the end, but the beginning of the global campaign to ban human rights abusers from traveling to the West and using its financial systems. This week, the Canadian Parliament turned its attention to this issue, hearing the testimony from IMR Senior Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza and Hermitage Capital CEO William Browder.
Less than a week after the U.S. Senate passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which imposes a targeted visa ban and asset freeze on Russian human rights abusers, the same subject was brought up for discussion at the Canadian Parliament. On December 11, the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights held a hearing on Magnitsky’s case in the context of the human rights situation in Russia. Testifying at the hearing were Vladimir Kara-Murza, a member of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition and a senior policy advisor at the Institute of Modern Russia; and William Browder, the CEO at Hermitage Capital Management, the investment fund Sergei Magnitsky represented. The hearing was held with a full turnout of Subcommittee members.
“The tragic story of Sergei Magnitsky, whose only ‘crime’ was to stand against corruption, is symptomatic of the general situation in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where state-sanctioned theft and extortion, politically motivated prosecutions, wrongful imprisonment, police abuse, media censorship, suppression of peaceful assembly, and election fraud have become norm,” Kara-Murza said at the hearing, pointing to the recent repressive laws on public rallies, NGOs and high treason, as well as to criminal cases against opposition activists as evidence that ,“if that is possible, the situation is growing worse.”
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Russia’s Victory in Congress
The Magnitsky Act, passed this week by the U.S. Congress, imposes visa and financial restrictions on Russian officials implicated in corruption and human rights violations, thus giving Russian citizens a tool for defending themselves against the authoritarian system. According to IMR Senior Policy Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza, this is the most pro-Russian law ever adopted in a Western country.
Politicians are often accused of indifference, cynicism, a lack of principles and an adherence to realpolitik. These accusations, alas, are often accurate. But sometimes this “system” can be breached.
On December 6th, the U.S. Senate adopted H.R. 6156, previously passed by the House of Representatives, on a vote of 92–4. The bill simultaneously repeals the cold war-era trade-restricting Jackson-Vanik Amendment and introduces targeted visa and financial sanctions on corrupt officials and human rights violators from Russia. This law is dedicated to the memory of Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow attorney who died in police custody in 2009 after being denied medical care and, according to members of the Presidential Human Rights Council, beaten by rubber truncheons. His “guilt” consisted of uncovering a $230 million tax fraud that involved law enforcement officials (it was the same officials who subsequently placed him under arrest.)
In accordance with the ruling group’s “one hand washing the other” principle, those implicated in the “Magnitsky affair” were not only spared punishment, but were actually rewarded; Interior Ministry officials linked to the attorney’s persecution and death received awards and career promotions. As for the prosecutors, they continue with the posthumous investigation of Magnitsky himself, in an attempt to “transfer” the accusations onto him.
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Kremlin Diplomacy, Soviet-Style: Putin’s Russia Revives “Look Who’s Talking” Routine
The foreign policy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia is increasingly reminiscent of Soviet days, not only in substance, but in style. As IMR senior policy advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza points out, the Kremlin is adopting the “look who’s talking” tactic frequently used by the USSR.
“In the U.S., not only presidents, but even Members of Congress are not elected from among the true representatives of the workers. . . . The people elected as Members of Congress and of state legislatures, as governors and judges, are those who have the support of the moneybags. . . . The vast majority of seats in the American Congress are always occupied by representatives of the propertied classes.”
—Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister, 1957–1985
“It would be a stretch to say that American citizens have the right to elect their president, and it cannot be said that an average American has the right to become president. . . . The entire 223 years of the history of organizing and holding democratic elections in the U.S . . . are full of examples of violations of voting rights of American citizens. . . . The electoral system and electoral laws of the United States of America . . . do not conform to the democratic principles that the U.S. has declared fundamental to its foreign and domestic policy.”
—Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Russian Central Electoral Commission since 2007
“During the presidential or congressional campaigns, candidates are judged according to criteria that would be deemed unseemly in other countries. . . . The ability to look good, smile, make the right gestures and wear a tie of an appropriate color are placed above all else. . . . It is in the interest of the ruling class to have candidates for high office with pretty faces, scenic oratorical gestures, artificial smiles and ties of all the colors of the rainbow.”
—Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister, 1957–1985
“The practice of television debates in America began with the famous television debate between Kennedy and Richard Nixon on September 26th, 1960. Henceforth the leader of the nation had to worry not only about the cogency and logical harmony of his speeches, but also about the color of his tie and the presence of a dazzling smile on his face.”
—Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Russian Central Electoral Commission since 2007
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The Home Stretch: the Magnitsky Act in Congress
On July 26, 2012 the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee approved the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which had been passed in 1974. Last month, key Congressional committees had unanimously passed the Magnistky Act, a law imposing severe sanctions on those who have violated human rights in Russia and elsewhere. Vladimir V. Kara-Murza, a leading Russian journalist, activist, and, until recently, the RTVi Washington Bureau Chief, reports on the repeal of the historic amendment and the passage of the Magnitsky Act. As he explained to IMR, Kara-Murza was forced out of his position at RTVi precisely because of his participation in the preparation and advocacy for the expansion of the Magnitsky Act.
It took the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee only forty minutes on Thursday, July 26th, to mark up the repeal of the well-known Jackson-Vanik Amendment. For forty years, the latter has been an irritant in the relations between the White House and the Kremlin, and had come to symbolize a rare victory of a principled approach over realpolitik. The amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, proposed by Democrats Senator Henry Jackson and Congressman Charles Vanik, restricted U.S. trade with Moscow in protest of the restriction to the freedom to emigrate from the USSR. The Nixon-Ford-Kissinger administration opposed the amendment unanimously with Brezhnev’s Politburo. It took Andrei Sakharov’s open letter, in which he urged Congress to “rise above the transitory group interests of profit and prestige” to convince hesitant lawmakers. “Abandoning a principled policy would constitute a betrayal of the thousands of Jews and non-Jews who want to emigrate, of the hundreds in camps and mental hospitals, of the victims of the Berlin Wall,” wrote Sakharov. “It would amount to a total surrender of democratic principles in the face of blackmail and violence.”
For two decades now there has been talk of repealing the amendment, which had long since fulfilled its historical mission. Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton announced an agreement to that end at their very first meeting in April 1993. A repeal in the early 1990s would have been most logical, especially since, in addition to the freedom of emigration, post-Communist Russia has attained many other democratic freedoms, including freedom of the press and free elections. At first, it was the U.S. Congress that could never quite get around to repealing the amendment; later, events in Russia (the Chechen wars, Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the take over of NTV, the Yukos case) were not conducive to inspiring a grand gesture from Washington. In any case, the status quo had no effect on trade, since the application of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment toward Moscow has been waived since 1989.
In the best traditions of realpolitik, a repeal of the amendment was necessitated by U.S. economic interests. After Russia was officially invited into the World Trade Organization at the December 2011 Geneva ministerial conference, American businesses (large and small) and the agricultural lobby dramatically increased pressure on Congress to repeal the act. The retention of formal restrictions on trade with Russia would have prevented U.S. exporters from reaping the benefits of Russia’s WTO membership (including lower tariffs and conflict-resolution mechanisms), thus giving a competitive advantage to Moscow’s trading partners from the European Union and China. Economists predict that as a result of Russia’s WTO accession and the establishment of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with the U.S., American exports to Russia will double (from the current $9 billion a year) in the next five years. In Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike declared their support for repealing the amendment. The Obama Administration marked this issue as one of its priorities.
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