Posts Tagged ‘Nemtsov’
Echoes of 1970s Debate Resurface Over Current Russia Trade Bill
History is sometimes cyclical.
In 1974, Congress was debating the Jackson-Vanik amendment that would restrict most-favored-nation treatment to the Soviet Union and tie trade relaxation to Soviet willingness to allow Jewish emigration to Israel. The leader of this fight was the late Senator Henry Martin Jackson of Washington, a paragon of friendship to Israel and the Jewish people.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger led the fight against the amendment, claiming that the Soviet Union would view it as intervention into its internal affairs and that as a proud superpower, it would only stiffen its position on Jewish emigration; therefore, quiet diplomacy was the preferred tactic.
In the congressional hearings, American businesses and particularly the Business Roundtable, lobbied strongly against the amendment. It was 1973 and the US economy was reeling due to the aftereffects of a costly Vietnam War and the hike in oil prices following the Yom Kippur war.
It was important for American business to trade with the Soviet Union at a time that the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries were massively buying Western goods and technology in the hope of jumpstarting their economies. The Jackson-Vanik amendment would effectively close the door to American business and make sure that the Europeans would have the Russian market to themselves.
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Kasparov & Nemtsov: Sanction Putin’s Criminals
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate will hold a hearing to discuss the accession of Russia to the World Trade Organization and the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment that impedes American trade relations with Russia. The Obama administration has portrayed it as little more than overdue Cold War housekeeping while touting the imagined economic benefits for American farmers that could result from freer trade with Russia.
But the reality on the ground in today’s authoritarian Russia is far more complex. We support the repeal, both as leaders of the pro-democracy opposition in Russia and as Russian citizens who want our nation to join the modern global economy. It is essential, however, to see the bigger picture of which Jackson-Vanik is a part.
The “election” of Vladimir Putin to the presidency is over, but the fight for democracy in Russia is just beginning. At both major opposition meetings following the fraudulent March 4 election, we publicly resolved that Mr. Putin is not the legitimate leader of Russia. The protests will not cease and we will continue to organize and prepare for a near future without Mr. Putin in the presidency. Getting rid of him and his cronies is a job for Russians, and we do not ask for foreign intervention. We do, however, ask that the U.S. and other leading nations of the Free World cease to provide democratic credentials to Mr. Putin. This is why symbols matter, and why Jackson-Vanik still matters.
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Kasparov, Nemtsov call McFaul’s Bluff
On Tuesday, I wrote about U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul’s objection to tying America’s economic interaction with Russia to the promotion of human rights. McFaul was in Washington for a conference and also to push for repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a piece of Cold War-era legislation that sanctioned Moscow’s trade status for restricting Jewish emigration. Now that Russia is joining the World Trade Organization, Jackson-Vanik disadvantages American businesses, and so it’s time to repeal it.
But I argued that McFaul’s emphasis on repealing Jackson-Vanik was a dodge, since its repeal is uncontroversial. The real issue is whether it should be replaced by legislation that would hold Vladimir Putin’s administration accountable for its atrocious human rights record. Were McFaul not representing the Obama administration, I added, he might very well support such action–McFaul is the author of several books on promoting democracy in the post-Soviet space. Today, Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov, two outspoken Russian opposition figures, take to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to make those points, and a few others.
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An unbeatable insight into the minds that control Russia
Foreigners seeking to explain the paranoia of Kremlin’s elite need only look to the country’s state-sponsored television.
Russia Today, the state-financed television channel for foreigners, is a must-watch. Not because of journalistic excellence: it has glitzy presentation but huge holes in its coverage and bizarre quirks in its editorial outlook. But it does give an unbeatable insight into the minds of the people who run it – and into the regime that sponsors it.
To be fair, I should note that the channel has substantial strengths. It reports thoroughly on official utterances and it covers most of the headline stories in Russia with reasonable professionalism. In that sense it is quite different from the old Soviet media, which simply ignored topics that did not fit the official line. Russia Today has reported, for example, on the grotesque posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in prison after exposing a $230 million (€175m) fraud against the Russian taxpayer, perpetrated by officials. It also rarely misses a story about UFOs or life on Venus.
But the hallmark of Russia Today is anti-Westernism. It gleefully highlights weaknesses, anomalies and double standards in countries that like to criticise Russia. The message is blunt: get your own house in order before lecturing others. Human-rights violations, political corruption and economic weaknesses get a particularly enthusiastic outing, even when the factual basis is tenuous or non-existent. One commentator says that the US is fascist. Another report claims that Nazism is on the rise in Germany and the Baltic states.
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The Right Way to Sanction Russia
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate will hold a hearing to discuss the accession of Russia to the World Trade Organization and the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment that impedes American trade relations with Russia. The Obama administration has portrayed it as little more than overdue Cold War housekeeping while touting the imagined economic benefits for American farmers that could result from freer trade with Russia.
But the reality on the ground in today’s authoritarian Russia is far more complex. We support the repeal, both as leaders of the pro-democracy opposition in Russia and as Russian citizens who want our nation to join the modern global economy. It is essential, however, to see the bigger picture of which Jackson-Vanik is a part.
The “election” of Vladimir Putin to the presidency is over, but the fight for democracy in Russia is just beginning. At both major opposition meetings following the fraudulent March 4 election, we publicly resolved that Mr. Putin is not the legitimate leader of Russia. The protests will not cease and we will continue to organize and prepare for a near future without Mr. Putin in the presidency. Getting rid of him and his cronies is a job for Russians, and we do not ask for foreign intervention. We do, however, ask that the U.S. and other leading nations of the Free World cease to provide democratic credentials to Mr. Putin. This is why symbols matter, and why Jackson-Vanik still matters.
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Nemtsov backs Canadian call for Russia visa blacklist
Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov during a visit to Canada’s parliament on Wednesday backed calls for a Canadian blacklist of 60 Russian officials linked to the death of a young lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky died of untreated heart condition and pancreatitis in an isolation cell in November 2009.
The 37-year-old lawyer’s death after 11 months in a Moscow jail sparked global outrage and came to symbolize problems in the Russian judicial system.
In September, his mother Natalia Magnitskaya alleged that the death of her son was not caused by negligence but was a premeditated murder brought on by months of torture to keep him silent.
The blacklist proposed by Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler “won’t be against Russia, but against the corrupt system in Russia,” declared Nemtsov. “I believe Canada is friendly with Russia as a country.”
Cotler — Canada’s former justice minister — introduced legislation in October calling for those individuals believed to be responsible for Magnitsky’s death to be barred from Canada.
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Moscow protest: Thousands rally against Vladimir Putin
Tens of thousands of people have rallied in central Moscow in a show of anger at alleged electoral fraud.They passed a resolution “not to give a single vote to (PM) Vladimir Putin” at next year’s presidential elections.
Protest leader Alexei Navalny told the crowd to loud applause that Russians would no longer tolerate corruption.
“I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and [Government House] right now but we are peaceful people and won’t do that just yet,” he said.
Demonstrators say parliamentary elections on 4 December, which were won by Mr Putin’s party, were rigged. The government denies the accusation.
A spokesman for Mr Putin, currently Russian prime minister, later said that “the majority of the population” supported him, describing the protesters as a minority.
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The Decembrists
No one’s quite sure what’s going on in the streets of Moscow — or what to call it — but it’s growing and powerful … and could all end badly.
Tonight is the first night without protests here since some 6,000 young people gathered Monday night to express their frustration with the electoral fraud in Sunday’s parliamentary elections and, more broadly, the institution of Putinism. They came out again Tuesday night, where they were met by thousands of drum-beating pro-Kremlin youth activists. And again on Wednesday. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested, and many of them — including anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny, a political rising star since he coined the phrase “Party of Crooks and Thieves” to describe Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia — are still in jail. Moscow is filled with tens of thousands of extra Interior Ministry troops and armored personnel carriers, and the city’s skies crackle with the sound of helicopter blades.
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Interview With Boris Nemtsov On August 1991 Putsch: ‘We Were Romantic…We Were Very Naive’
Boris Nemtsov has played many roles in post-Soviet Russia. He was a reformist member of the Russian Republic’s Soviet-era parliament in 1991, served as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and as first deputy prime minister in the late 1990s. More recently, he has been one of the most visible faces of the opposition. RFE/RL correspondents Robert Coalson and Pavel Butorin spoke to Nemtsov on the 20th anniversary of the failed putsch in August 1991 that precipitated the fall of the USSR.
RFE/RL: It’s been 20 years since the anti-Gorbachev coup attempt and I’d like to start by asking you to take us back to that moment in your life. Where were you, and what were you doing, and what were your hopes and expectations at the that time?
Nemtsov: During those historic days I was in the White House [the Russian parliament building at the time]. I was a deputy of the Russian parliament and I was with [Russian President Boris] Yeltsin as a protector of the White House and freedom in Russia. Really, those were very interesting days and very dramatic days, I want to tell you.
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