Posts Tagged ‘obama’
It is not time to normalize trade relations with Russia
The Obama administration should “go slow” on normalizing trade relations with Russia until Moscow shows it’s serious about curbing human rights abuses.
A key part of “normalization” is extending Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status to Russia. This has been denied since 1974, when passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment barred the U.S. from granting that status to any country that restricts emigration.
Designed primarily to free Soviet Jews and other minorities from state repression, the amendment is largely non-responsive to conditions in post-Soviet Russia.
That’s why every American president, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, has routinely granted Moscow a waiver from the amendment since the collapse of the Soviet empire.
But that’s not to say that today’s Russia boasts a stellar human rights record. Indeed, basic rights, including the right to own property, are attacked persistently and systematically.
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President Obama must stand up for Russia’s dissidents
A network of student presidents from universities around the world, College-100 (or C-100), has done a sterling job of exposing corruption in Russia, producing the video below about the case of Sergei Magnitsky.
To get you up to speed, Mr Magnitsky was a Russian tax attorney who uncovered a $230 million tax fraud perpetrated by corrupt bureaucrats working in league with the FSB (the KGB’s successor agency). Instead of thanking him for his spadework, which might have recompensed the Russian taxpayer, the state allowed the very criminals Mr Magnitsky had exposed to arrest and torture him to death in a gruesome year-long pre-trial detention. Russia is now trying Mr Magnitsky posthumously for the crime no one -not even his jailers – believe he committed.
European parliaments, the House of Commons, the European Union and the United States Congress are all mulling separate forms of legislation to issue travel bans and asset freezes to the 60 known conspirators in Mr Magnitsky’s persecution (the logic being that criminals in Russia like to go abroad to spend their stolen fortunes).
The US Senate bill, sponsored by two-thirds of the Senate, actually threatens to impose sanctions and visa restrictions against anyone from any foreign country credibly accused of “gross human rights violations.” In other words, it’s a universal proscription that might come in handy the next time a lawyer tries to do his job – or smuggles himself into a US embassy.
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G8 absence threatens US-Russian rapport
When the G8 leaders gather at Camp David on Friday, one will be missing. Vladimir Putin, who was scheduled to have a post-summit meeting with Barack Obama, US president, sent his Dmitry Medvedev, prime minister, at the last minute instead.
The reason for his absence is still hotly debated in Moscow – almost no one believes the officially proffered reason that Mr Putin wants to stay in Moscow to interview prospective cabinet officials.
The cancellation casts a sudden pall over US-Russian relations, especially in the wake of Mr Putin’s aggressively anti-western campaign for the presidency, which he won on March 4. He barely let a public appearance go by without accusing the US of secretly plotting to overthrow him.
His absence seems to realise the worst predictions that the re-election of Mr Putin would mean the end of the tentative thaw in relations known as the “reset”, described in March by outgoing president Mr Medvedev as “the best three years in Russia-US relations in a decade”. Those may indeed now be over.
“The beginning of the Obama-Putin relationship doesn’t look optimistic,” said Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow, who declined to guess at the reasons for Putin’s absence, underlining the extent to which even senior experts are puzzled by the Kremlin’s Byzantine ways.
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, the think-tank, said: “The [US-Russia] relationship is certainly wrong-footed at this point.
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Putin Snubs G-8 to Punish Obama for Criticism, Official Says
President Vladimir Putin is showing U.S. President Barack Obama his displeasure over the criticism of Russian elections and the lack of progress on a planned missile shield by skipping the Group of Eight summit for the first time as president, said Alexei Pushkov, a senior lawmaker.
The U.S. has “nothing to propose” to Putin at this week’s meeting, while “strong handshakes and smiles” are probably not a priority for him as Russia forms a new government, Pushkov, the head of the foreign-affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Russia’s relations with the U.S. are showing strains as Putin begins his third term as president. The two countries have locked horns over missile defense, the future of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Putin has accused foreign powers of financing the biggest anti-government protests in a decade to destabilize Russia, saying that U.S. criticism of a December parliamentary election emboldened the opposition.
“Why does the U.S. think it can be sure the Russian president will pay a visit?” Pushkov said. “The American side thinks it can call the parliamentary election illegitimate, send its ambassador to meet with the radical opposition that shouts ‘Russia without Putin,’ doubt the presidential election and criticize Russian authorities for half a year.”
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‘Obama has sided with Putin Against Congress’
How can Medvedev transmit that Obama will be “more flexible” after the election when the president is already doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding with Congress? Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl on the “Magnitsky bill” — a piece of legislation, authored by Democrats, that aims to restore human rights to the center of U.S.-Russian relations.
This sanction strikes at the heart of the web of corruption around Putin. Moscow’s bureaucratic mafiosi rely heavily on foreign bank accounts; they vacation in France, send their children to U.S. colleges and take refuge in London when they fall from Putin’s favor. The fear and loathing provoked in Moscow by the bill is encapsulated by item No. 3 on Putin’s new priority list: “Work actively on preventing unilateral extraterritorial sanctions by the U.S. against Russian legal entities and individuals.”
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Putin Signs Decree Seeking Closer U.S. Ties, ‘Firm Guarantees’ On Missile Shield
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty
May 07, 2012
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree stating that Moscow will seek closer ties with Washington, but will not tolerate interference in its affairs.
The document, signed on May 7, hours after Putin was sworn in for a third term as president, also says that Moscow wants “firm guarantees” that a planned U.S.-led NATO missile shield is not aimed against Russia.
It says Moscow aims to bring cooperation with Washington “to a truly strategic level” but relations must be based on equality and mutual respect.
The decree serves to send a message to U.S. President Barack Obama ahead of a meeting between the leaders later this month at G8 and NATO summits in the United States.
Washington maintains that the missile shield, which is due to be completed by about 2020, is meant to counter a potential threat from rogue states, including Iran. Russia says the system could gain the capability to intercept Russian missiles by about 2018.
Russia’s Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov on May 3 repeated warnings that Russia might opt to station short-range missiles in its Kaliningrad exclave to counter the shield.
He was also quoted as saying that Russia may consider a preemptive strike on the system in Europe if the project continues as planned.
U.S. State Department responded by insisting that the shield would not alter the strategic balance between the countries.
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Medvedev the Phony
The Russian political circus has extended its tour. Four years ago, Dmitry Medvedev was chosen to keep warm the seat of Vladimir Putin, and now as Putin returns to the presidency, Medvedev will assume the post of prime minister. This job swap, announced last September, might have been accepted by most Russians without a murmur several years ago, but Russia has changed dramatically since then. The swap instead has deepened resentment among many in the country, who view it as a slap in the face. In December, hundreds of thousands of Russians took to the streets against the rigged election, which in their eyes made Putin’s presidency illegitimate.
But where does this leave Medvedev? “Who?” some might ask dismissively. “Putin’s puppet?” others might sneer. To many Russians, the outgoing president is viewed as a nonentity whose primary concrete legacy will be the absurd reduction of Russia’s time zones from 11 to 9. During his putative presidency, the Russian system displayed unmistakable signs of decay, demonstrated by the growing role of repressive organs and their criminalization, the fusion of power with property, and the ruling elites’ attempts to pass their wealth and positions to their families and friends. Medvedev would often utter liberal-sounding ideas — his anodyne comment that “freedom is better than non-freedom” caused quite a flutter of excitement, briefly — but the follow-through on his proposals was never there. He had the power only to speak, not act. The more he tried to be taken seriously, the more comical and pathetic he looked. Often, Putin would be caught by cameras looking at his protégé with condescending amusement.
Why, then, would Putin keep Medvedev on as prime minister? Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, or nearly any other high-level official, would arguably be a more effective choice. But effectiveness isn’t Putin’s goal. Instead, his criteria are based on loyalty, keeping a corrupt architecture intact, and eliminating potential threats. This is how the personalized system in Russia works: By stepping aside and not running for reelection, Medvedev has demonstrated his loyalty to Putin, and in turn, Putin has shown that he rewards loyalty. The only silver lining of Putin’s return to power may be how it reveals Medvedev’s supposedly reformist presidency for the farce it really was.
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A Discussion With Russian Civil Society Leaders
BY THOMAS O. MELIA / APRIL 26, 2012
Thomas O. Melia serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Today I was delighted to welcome to the State Department a dozen inspiring civil society advocates from Russia who work tirelessly to protect the human rights and dignity of prisoners, and for the rule of law. We were joined by Deputy Secretary William Burns, formerly our ambassador to Russia, USAID Deputy Administrator Donald K. Steinberg and Assistant Administrator Alexander, as well as Mark Kappelhoff, Chief of the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. As we are seeing increasingly in Russia and in many countries across the globe, the United States included, civil society is an essential driver of progress and accountability on an array of important issues, including prison reform.
Prison reform, including prisoner’s rights, is a central theme for the Civil Society Working Group (CSWG) of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, established in 2009 by Presidents Obama and Medvedev. I co-chair the CSWG along with Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Special Representative for Human Rights, Democracy, and Rule of Law. The United States and Russia share an obligation under international law to protect the human rights of people in our custody. Through the CSWG we are connecting activists from across the United States and Russia who are working for improvements in prison conditions and the protection of the human rights of inmates.
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Bill Could Complicate U.S.-Russia Relations
Republicans and Democrats don’t agree about much on Capitol Hill these days, but there is one bill gaining bipartisan support. It’s legislation that would punish human rights violators in Russia by naming them and denying them visas to the U.S. But the Obama administration is not on board yet. U.S. diplomats worry it could complicate relations at a time when the U.S. needs Russia’s support most.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I’m Melissa Block.
Bipartisanship is rare on Capitol Hill these days but one bill is gaining support from both Republicans and Democrats. There’s a problem, though, the Obama administration is leery of it.
As NPR’s Michele Kelemen reports, the bill involves human rights abuses in Russia. And U.S. diplomats are worried it could complicate relations at a time when the U.S. needs Russia’s backing on a range of issues.
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