Posts Tagged ‘putin’
Kidnapping, suspicious deaths and ‘torture’ as critics say Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on opponents is a return to the days of Stalin
IT was a ruthless operation harking back to the era of Soviet oppression as Russia’s secret services snatched a political foe from a foreign capital.
Masked men seized an opponent of hardline president Vladimir Putin in an audacious daylight abduction after the victim had sought sanctuary abroad.
Bound and gagged, Leonid Razvozzhayev was smuggled back to Moscow and says he was tortured.
The clinical operation in Ukrainian capital Kiev nine days ago has added to fears Russia is returning to the dark days of brutal commissar Joseph Stalin and his Gulag forced labour camps of the 1930s, 40s and 50s.
Razvozzhayev, 39, told activists who visited him in detention last week he had been left handcuffed in a dank cellar and not given food or drink or taken to the toilet for two days.
He also says he was threatened with an injection of a “truth serum”, a permanently disabling drug, to make him sign a confession of involvement in a plot to topple the Russian ruler.
“I was in a mask and a hat pulled over my face without slits,” he claimed. “They told me, ‘If you don’t answer our questions, your children will be killed.’”
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Vladimir Putin must find it hilarious that David Cameron won’t back Europe on Russia’s abuses
I’m not sure who will pick up the well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the EU, but it should be the High Representative Cathy Ashton, who will be dining this Sunday with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. Cathy has more steel in her than Corby and Corus put together (albeit wrapped in a paisley shawl), but this will be tough, as the EU is finally beginning to lose patience with Russia.
Successive European leaders used to fly solo to Moscow and do their own little deals with Vladimir Putin, but Russia’s disgraceful intransigence on Syria, together with the departure of Putin’s mate Silvio Berlusconi and arrival of François Hollande in France, has persuaded them that Europe needs to adopt a more united front. All of this puts Cathy firmly in the driving seat in the run-up to the EU-Russia summit later this year.
Sadly, the fly in the ointment is David Cameron, who is trying to play both ends against the middle. British relations with Moscow have been fraught since the murders in Britain of Alexander Litvinenko and in Russia of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who worked for a British firm.
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What is Vladimir Putin up to?
Vladimir Putin’s contempt for the useless fools of the West who fawn upon him has again been revealed by the sentence given to three members of Pussy Riot last week. An appropriate and proportionate response might be to suspend Russia from the Council of Europe until they are free. This won’t happen, as Tory MPs sit with Putin stooge MPs at the Council of Europe and despite hand wringing from a junior minister on the sentence, Cameron and Hague are refusing to criticise Putin.
In 2008, Cameron flew to Tbilisi from his Aegean holiday to show solidarity with the people of Georgia after the Russian invasion and dismemberment of their country. Last week Putin admitted it was a pre-planned and pre-meditated military assault. At a press conference, Russian reporters were astonished to learn: “There was a plan, it’s not a secret”.
Putin made the remarks in response to a TV documentary, The Day That Was Lost, in which Russian generals made outspoken and unprecedented criticisms of the then President, Dmitri Medvedev. The military men accused Medvedev, who was then commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces, of failing to act decisively in the crucial first few hours of the August 2008 conflict – a “tragic delay that cost so many lives” in their view. Putin, who was then prime minister, is portrayed in the film as the saviour of the situation – the man who “provided personal leadership” during the military operation. The then Chief of the General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said that that until Putin “delivered a kick, everyone was afraid of something”.
Now back as president and commander-in-chief Putin was not going to disavow his generals. “There was a plan, and within the framework of this plan that Russia acted. It was prepared by the General Staff at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. It was approved by me, agreed with me.”
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U.S. human-rights measure puts Russia on notice
Finally, there is good news for politically disenfranchised liberals in Russia and for U.S.-Russian relations in the long run.
And that’s not because of Russia’s long-coveted admission to the World Trade Organization next month or the expected scrapping of a Cold War-era law restricting Russian trade with the United States.
Under the boot of Russian President Vladimir Putin for most of the past 12 years, Russian liberals looked with hope to the U.S. Congress to approve a new human-rights bill that would replace the old.
A bill that ties up the scrapping of the old provision — the Jackson-Vanik Amendment — with the adoption of the new one — the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act — was approved in a 24-0 vote earlier this month by the Senate Finance Committee, which gives hope that it will sail through the full Congress.
The 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment that denies Russia normal trade relations has been routinely waived by U.S. presidents since 1992, following the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act would deny American visas to corrupt officials and human-rights violators and freeze their U.S. bank accounts. Prompted by a notorious quarter-billion-dollar corruption scandal in Russia, the Magnitsky bill would cover all foreign nations.
A lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, Mr. Magnitsky died in police custody on false charges of tax avoidance after he was arrested for alleging a $230 million state-orchestrated fraud that he had uncovered.
It is critical that the bill is passed despite opposition from the Kremlin and the White House, which is interested in keeping up appearances in this election year.
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The empty Kremlin
Vladimir Putin’s regime has run out of ideas, but not of nasty tactics.
Every country has laws that constrain political freedom. Anti-capitalist protesters get moved on in London and New York. The Canadian province of Quebec, beset by student unrest, has passed a law that imposes daily fines of up to $35,000 on the organisers. Lawmakers try to stop online piracy and jihadist propaganda. Defamation, at least in theory, is a criminal offence in many democracies. American law says the activity of foreign agents must be registered and disclosed.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is taking what looks, superficially, a similar approach. Four new laws are passed or pending (see article). One introduces big fines for participants and organisers of illegal protests. Another creates a blacklist—as yet unpublished—of “harmful” websites. A third recriminalises defamation. A fourth makes non-profit groups declare any funding from abroad and, if they accept it, label themselves as “foreign agents”. That chimes with Mr Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric, portraying Russia as a besieged fortress, and his opponents as the puppets of its foreign enemies.
Even if Russia had the rule of law and a vigorous free press, these laws would be cause for concern—because they are loosely worded and have been rushed through with much official venom. What makes them worse is the way Russia’s state agencies and public institutions work. They chiefly serve their own interests, acting with impunity and taking political orders from the top. That stokes corruption. It also explains the feebleness of the investigations into the many abuses that have marked Mr Putin’s time in power, such as the death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a whistle-blowing lawyer (see article). Russians have every reason to fear that the new laws will be interpreted selectively and vindictively.
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Mr. Putin tightens the screws
IN THE DAYS of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party was a Godfather-like presence that demanded a monopoly on power and did not tolerate competition. One job of the secret police, the KGB, was to snuff out any dissent or hints of civil society. But prompted by the revolutionary opening of Mikhail Gorbachev, nongovernmental groups sprang to life in the late 1980s. They were at the forefront of the democratic movement that saw the Soviet Union to its grave, and they have proliferated in Russia ever since, defending human rights, fighting for environmental protection, providing charity, monitoring elections, challenging corruption, and broadly filling in the gap between state and society.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, once an officer in the KGB, grew highly suspicious of nongovernmental organizations after the protests known as the Orange Revolution swept Ukraine in late 2004. The demonstrators were seen by the Kremlin as tools of foreign sponsors seeking regime change. A Russian law imposed cumbersome new requirements on foreign groups in the country in 2006.
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Supporting human rights in Russia should be a core strategic interest for US
On Tuesday, July 10, the Russian Duma will vote on ratification of the agreement for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Policymakers in both countries view Russia’s entry as a foregone conclusion. The question before Congress therefore is how best to pressure Russia to respect human rights following its repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
Passed in 1974, Jackson-Vanik tied favorable trade to the freedom to emigrate from the Soviet Union. It provided a foundation for Cold War human rights advocacy. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 26, was meant to fill the void left by lifting Jackson-Vanik.
Named after a Russian anti-corruption lawyer tortured and killed in prison in 2009 after he uncovered a $230 million embezzlement scheme, it would sanction Russia’s worst human rights violators by denying them U.S. visas and freezing their assets in U.S. banks.
However, at the last minute, in order to assuage the Kremlin, the Committee chose not to single out Russia and passed a watered-down version of the bill, applying it to human rights abusers worldwide. Lost is the original purpose of the Act—to show ordinary Russians that the United States wants to see a better Russia—one that does not abuse its citizens and one that can be a strong partner to the United States, an ally with whom we share values.
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Putin seeks to show he won’t buckle to U.S.
The Russian parliament intends to take up a bill Tuesday designed to hamper and frustrate civil society groups that accept money from abroad — which means, effectively, from the United States — in a move that is being portrayed as retaliation for the Magnitsky bill making its way through Congress.
The Russian legislation, which has the Kremlin’s backing, comes at a difficult moment in relations between Washington and Moscow, characterized by sharp disagreements over Syria and missile defense, and deep ambiguities concerning Iran. From the start, the Obama administration has tried to avoid linking one issue to another in its Russia policy — making trade agreements dependent on progress on human rights, for instance.
Indeed, the administration opposes the Magnitsky bill, which would bar from the United States those officials who were involved in the imprisonment and subsequent death of the whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. But the deepening bilateral strains place the White House’s compartmentalization at risk.
The key moment was Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in March elections.
“Deep down, Putin believes the West is an opponent,” said Georgy Mirsky, an expert on Russia’s Middle East policy. “Not an enemy; he doesn’t believe there will be American aggression against Russia, no. But he believes the West is always trying to find a weak spot in our armor, to enrich itself at our expense — and we must respond in kind.”
That explains Putin’s position on Syria, Mirsky said — and it would explain the new attack on nonprofit organizations. Putin has accused civil society groups of working at the behest of foreign powers and of trying to foment political upheaval. He accused Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of giving the go-ahead to anti-government demonstrations in Russia last winter.
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Russia’s growth stifled by corruption
President Vladimir Putin has said he wants to make Russia the fifth-biggest economy in the world.
It currently stands at number 11.
He wants to boost foreign investment as part of his new economic plan.
But some foreign investors are worried about Mr Putin’s return as head of state for another term of six years after allegations of vote-rigging and protests both before and following his re-election.
Furthermore, despite Russia’s rich resources and its place among the world’s fastest-growing economies, there remains a general feeling that the country is underperforming and falling far short of its potential.
According to Angus Roxburgh, former BBC Moscow correspondent and later a public-relations adviser to the Kremlin, there is one overriding reason why Russia is failing to achieve its economic potential and failing to attract outside investors: corruption.
Worsening scenario
“It is something the government acknowledges but seems powerless to combat, despite a regular stream of anti-corruption decrees and initiatives,” he says.
“In fact, it gets worse year by year. According to official figures, the average bribe in Russia is more than $10,000,” he notes.
Transparency International, which ranks countries according to perceived levels of corruption, says Russia has slumped from 46th place in 1996 to 143rd in 2011 .
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