ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR
An International Newsletter, The Latest, Up-To-Date
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis and Commentary
Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World
ANYA
On Saturday, October 7th, Anna Politkovskaya, correspondent
of Novaya Gazeta was killed in the stairwell of her home in Moscow.
Anna Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York
City in 1958, where her Soviet Ukrainian parents were diplomats at the
United Nations. She studied journalism at Moscow State University,
graduating in 1980, and began her career with the Izvestia newspaper.
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR - NUMBER 771
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
WASHINGTON, D.C., TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2006
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1. ANYA
On Saturday, October 7th, Anna Politkovskaya, correspondent
of Novaya Gazeta was killed in the stairwell of her home
Novaya Gazeta, Moscow, Russia, Monday, October 9, 2006
2. UKRAINIAN REPUBLICAN PARTY SOBOR OUTRAGED BY
MURDER OF RUSSIAN JOURNALIST ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, October 9, 2006
3. OBITUARY: ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: CRUSADING RUSSIAN
JOURNALIST FAMED FOR HER EXPOSES OF CORRUPTION
AND THE CHECHEN WAR
Was the daughter of former Ukrainian UN Diplomats, born in New York
By David Hearst, The Guardian
London, United Kingdom, Monday, Oct 09, 2006
4. MURDER IN MOSCOW
The Putin era of brutality claims a victim of rare courage.
LEAD EDITORIAL: The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page B06
5. A MOSCOW MURDER STORY
By Anne Applebaum, Op-Ed Columnist, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Monday, October 9, 2006; Page A17
6. CITY OF KYIV ANNOUNCES COMPETITION FOR DESIGN OF
A MONUMENT TO JOURNALISTS KILLED DURING THEIR DUTIES
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thu, October 5, 2006
7. RUSSIAN REPORTER ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA MURDERED IN
MOSCOW, WAS CRITIC OF RUSSIA'S WAR IN CHECHNYA
IFJ Says Killing an “Outrage That Will Stun World Journalism”
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
Brussels, Belgium, Saturday, October 07, 2006 5:11 PM
8. UKRAINIAN COURT TO RESUME TRIAL OF JOURNALIST
GEORGY GONGADZE MURDER SUSPECTS OCT 11
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, October 4, 2006
9. PRESIDENT BUSH'S STATEMENT ON THE MURDER OF
RUSSIAN JOURNALIST ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
The White House, Office of the Press Secretary
Washington, D.C., Sunday, October 8, 2006
10. BBC ANALYSIS: MEDIA WATCHDOGS BEMOAN RISING
DEATH TOLL OF RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS
The Moscow Times added that pro-Kremlin electronic media "were awash
with speculation that the killing had been ordered by anti-government forces
seeking to replicate the rallies sparked by the killing of Ukrainian journalist
Georgy Gongadze". Politkovskaya's killing, explained Maxim Shevchenko,
a commentator for Russian Channel One TV, was "an attempt to provoke
an Orange Revolution here," RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
ANALYSIS: by Peter Feuilherade of BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Monday, Oct 09, 2006
11. MEDIA UNHAPPY ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN UKRAINE
Launch a protest called "Hands Off Freedom"
UT1, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1800 gmt 15 Sep 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Friday, Sep 15, 2006
12. THE ONLY GOOD JOURNALIST......
Anna Politkovskaya was the 13th journalist to be murdered in Russia since
Vladimir Putin came to power. No one believes he personally ordered her
execution - but there won't be many tears shed inside the Kremlin.
By Tom Parfitt, The Guardian, London, UK, Tue Oct 10, 2006
13. UKRAINE: MEDIA WATCHDOG IFJ ALARMED BY SUDDEN
RISE IN ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS
International Federation of Journalists, Brussels, in English 14 Sep 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Monday, Sep 18, 2006
14. ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
COMMENTARY: By Garry Kasparov, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Monday, October 9, 2006; Page A18
15. A REVERSION? THE OPEN LETTER BY UKRAINIAN JOURNALISTS
STATEMENT: By Journalists and Mass Media Employees
Regarding Assaults on the Freedom of the Speech in Ukraine
Translated into English by Ukrayinska Pravda
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, September 11, 2006
16. KREMLIN RULES
REVIEW & OUTLOOK: The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Saturday, October 7, 2006; Page A6
17. OUR FAILURE IN EUROPE'S EAST
OP-ED: By Bruce P. Jackson, The Washington Post
Washington D.C., Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page B07
18. MOSCOW TRUMPS WEST IN BATTLE FOR CLOUT
IN FORMER SOVIET STATES
By Marc Champion and Guy Chazan, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Friday, October 6, 2006; Page A1
19. THE 'COLOR' REVOLUTIONS: FADE TO BLACK
Whatever happened to Bush's global democratic revolution?
COMMENTARY: by Justin Raimondo
Anti-war.com, Friday, September 29, 2006
20. SEPARATISM IN MOLDOVA: POLITICAL & LEGAL ASPECTS
OF A 'FROZEN CONFLICT'
EVENT SUMMARY: Seminar on Moldova
Washington, D.C., September 29, 2006,
Moldova Foundation, Washington, D.C. Friday, October 6, 2006
21. UKRAINE AND THE EU-WHAT SORT OF FUTURE FOR US BOTH?
SPEECH: By Danuta Hübnerm, Member
European Commission responsible for Regional Policy
Sussex University Wider Europe Conference
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, 6 October 2006
Europa, European Union's portal web site, Brussels, Belgium,
22. UKRAINE AND NATO MEMBERSHIP
Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood - Roundtable VII
October 17-18, 2006, Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C
Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR)
New York, New York, Tuesday, October 10, 2006
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1. ANYA
On Saturday, October 7th, Anna Politkovskaya, correspondent
of Novaya Gazeta was killed in the stairwell of her home
Novaya Gazeta, Moscow, Russia, Monday, October 9, 2006
She was beautiful, and through the years became only more beautiful. Do you
do know why? At first we merely receive our countenance from God, and then
the rest we make of it ourselves in the way that we live.
Still, they say that in maturity the soul begins to appear on face. Her soul
was beautiful.
She was feminine. She knew how to laugh and joke and cry from injustice. Any
injustice, no matter with respect to whom, she took as her personal enemy,
and she fought it with all her strength.
She was amazingly courageous, much more courageous than those many
macho types in their armored jeeps, surrounded by bodyguards.
They threatened her, they tried to intimidate her, and arranged shadows and
searches. She was arrested in Chechnya by "our own" airborne forces, and
they threatened to shoot her.
They poisoned her when she flew to Beslan. She clawed her way back to life,
and, though afterwards she was never really as healthy as before, her
conscience was all the stronger.
Many people, even well-wishers of Novaya Gazeta, now and then said: "Well,
your Politkovskaya - she's too much already..." Not too much! She always
wrote the truth.
It is another matter that this truth was frequently too terrible, that many
people's consciences refused to accept it. And so, as a protective reaction,
they said she was "too much already." Sometimes even our editorial staff.
For the average person, probably, the most difficult thing is to turn away
from a terrible fact. But, if we were to look evil directly in the eye, it
cannot remain; it will pass.
Anya looked evil directly in the eye, and, perhaps, she remained the
conqueror in the worst situations. Perhaps she remained alive where her
lowered eyes would have meant her death.
For us she is still alive. We will be never accept the death of our Anya.
Whoever undertook this brutal murder - in the center of Moscow, in broad
daylight, we ourselves will search for the killers. We have a good idea
where they can be located...
In Europe, and in America, right now the question is being discussed: what
is the state of the independent media in Russia? Novaya Gazeta in recent
years has had three of its leading journalists murdered.
Igor Domnikov. His killers - because of the efforts of honest detectives and
this newspaper - were brought to court.
Yuri Shchekochihin. Even the authorities in his homeland refused to look at
the results of his autopsy... but we are continuing our investigation, and
his killers will be punished.
Now they have taken our Anya Politkovskaya... They killed not just a
journalist, not just a human rights advocate, or a citizen, they killed a
beautiful woman and mother.
While there is still a Novaya Gazeta, her killers will not sleep quietly.
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FOOTNOTE: Anna Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York
City in 1958, where her Soviet Ukrainian parents were diplomats at the
United Nations. She studied journalism at Moscow State University,
graduating in 1980, and began her career with the Izvestia newspaper. AUR
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LINK: http://www.freerepublic.info/focus/f-news/1715913/posts
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2. UKRAINIAN REPUBLICAN PARTY SOBOR OUTRAGED BY
MURDER OF RUSSIAN JOURNALIST ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, October 9, 2006
KYIV - The Ukrainian Republican Party Sobor, which is part of the Our
Ukraine bloc, is outraged by the killing of Russian journalist Anna
Politkovskaya. Ukrainian News has obtained a copy of its statement.
Whatever the official theories of the killing are, the world community will
definitely link it to the professional activity of Politkovskaya, Sobor
said.
"Politkovskaya was one of the few Russian journalists who had courage to
always speak the bitter truth either about genocide against the Chechen
people or transformation of Russia into a police, government-security
state," the statement reads.
With their actions the Russian authorities oppress the freedom of speech
both in Russia and outside it, the party said.
It believes that the western democratic courtiers have a policy of dual
standards in relation to the political regime in Russia and calls on them to
abandon this policy. Russian media reported that Politkovskaya was killed
on October 7. -30-
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3. OBITUARY: ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: CRUSADING RUSSIAN
JOURNALIST FAMED FOR HER EXPOSES OF CORRUPTION
AND THE CHECHEN WAR
Was the daughter of former Ukrainian UN Diplomats, born in New York
By: David Hearst, The Guardian
London, United Kingdom, Monday, Oct 09, 2006
If one word sums up the life and work of Anna Politkovskaya, Russia's
foremost investigative reporter assassinated at the age of 48, it is
bravery. She could have chosen another life. Born and raised in New York,
the daughter of Ukrainian UN diplomats, she was part of a Soviet elite that
looked after its own.
As a child, she had the best of both worlds: her parents could smuggle
banned books out of the country, so she could write her dissertation about
whomever she pleased. She alighted upon a poet shunned by Moscow, the
emigre Marina Tsvetayeva.
She took from her background the social self-confidence that comes from
rubbing shoulders with four-star generals round the kitchen table.
But the earth was moving under the Soviet empire, and unlike many of her
circle who saw perestroika as an opportunity to cash in their privilege,
Politkovskaya moved instinctively in the opposite direction.
After graduating in journalism from Moscow State University in 1980, she
joined the daily Izvestia, before switching to the small independent press,
first with Obshchaya Gazeta, then Novaya Gazeta.
She never saw herself as a war correspondent; indeed, Russia's first
disastrous foray into Chechnya, from 1994 to 1996, almost passed her by. It
is an irony of her story that the war she did not write about was brought to
a halt by crusading journalism.
Nightly reports chronicling the civilian cost of Russian artillery
bombardments, broadcast on the independent television station NTV, had the
same effect as the coverage of Vietnam had done on American audiences 30
years earlier. The Kremlin opted to sue for peace.
At the time, Politkovskaya was writing about state orphanages and the plight
of the old: "I was interested in reviving Russia's pre-revolutionary
tradition of writing about our social problems. That led me to writing about
the seven million refugees in our country. When the war started, it was that
that led me down to Chechnya."
By the start of the second Chechen war in 1999, the Kremlin had learned its
lessons. The absence of reporting from the other side and lock-down on the
battlefield put the Federal Security Service (FSB) in charge and set Chechen
against Chechen. That was when Politkovskaya came into her own as a
campaigning journalist.
She was in little doubt that Russia had been provoked. The relatively
moderate wing of Chechen resistance, led by its former president Aslan
Maskhadov, had run out of money. Into the vacuum swept money from the
Wahhabis and foreign fighters like the Arab known as Khattab.
When 9/11 provided an inter-national parallel, it was only too convenient
for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Shamil Basayev (obituary, July
11), a Chechen warlord who dreamed of creating a Muslim state across the
north Caucasus, linked up with Khattab and invaded Dagestan, a fragile
patchwork of Christian and Muslim tribes and part of the Russian Federation.
Politkovskaya agreed that Russia had to react. "But it was the way they did
it," she said. "It was clear to me it was going to be total war, whose
victims were first and foremost going to be civilian."
What followed was an excoriating series of articles and two books baring
Russia's soul to the atrocities committed in its name - events like the
"cleansing operation" of a village called Starye Atagi from January 28 to
February 5 2002, and the shooting of six innocent villagers on a bus by
members of a GRU military intelligence patrol, who then set fire to the
vehicle to make it look as if it had been hit by rebel rockets.
Politikovskaya always said she wrote for the future; indeed, court action
about that incident grinds on to this day.
Her first book, A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya (2001),
chronicled not so much what Russia was doing to Chechnya, but what Chechnya
was doing to Russia.
Putin's Russia (2004) described how new Russians got their money, through a
combination of violence and old-fashioned thievery: it was to save the dying
embers of democracy at home that she flew repeatedly back into the cauldron
of the north Caucasus.
Politkovskaya had already used up several of her nine lives as a reporter.
She had been locked in a hole in the ground by Russian troops and threatened
with rape, kidnapped, and poisoned by the FSB on the first flight to Rostov
after the Beslan school siege in 2004.
She had acted as a negotiator in the Dubrovka theatre siege in Moscow in
2002, when 129 people died after the special services released gas into the
building. In 2001, she had been forced to flee to Vienna. But she always
came back for more, even at personal cost.
Her husband left her. Her son pleaded with her to stop. Her neighbours,
cowed by the attentions of the FSB in an upmarket street in central Moscow,
shunned her.
For months she had been focusing on Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of a murdered
Chechen president, who nurtured presidential ambitions himself. For some
time, according to Politkovskaya, he had been telling anyone who would
listen that her days were numbered.
"The women in the crowd tried to conceal me because they were sure the
Kadyrov people would shoot me on the spot if they knew I was there,"
Politkovskaya said. "They reminded me that Kadyrov publicly vowed to murder
me. He actually said during a meeting of his government that Politkovskaya
was a condemned woman."
In the last interview she gave, to the independent Radio Svoboda,
Politkovskaya said she planned to publish in today's Novaya Gazeta the
results of a large investigation into torture in Chechnya. The article was
never sent. She is survived by her son Ilya and daughter Vero.
Anna Politkovskaya, journalist, born August 30 1958; died October 7 2006
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LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1890777,00.html
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4. MURDER IN MOSCOW
The Putin era of brutality claims a victim of rare courage.
LEAD EDITORIAL: The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page B06
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA, who was murdered in her apartment building
yesterday, knew it was dangerous to be an honest reporter in President
Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Yet, as he wielded a combination of blandishments and bullying to gradually
reimpose authoritarianism on his country, Ms. Politkovskaya, 48 and the
mother of two, never yielded.
Whether reporting on Mr. Putin's dirty war in the separatist region of
Chechnya or on the diminution of freedom at home in Moscow, she
remained, if not unafraid, unbowed.
Chances are Ms. Politkovskaya's murderer will never be officially
identified. At least a dozen other journalists have been murdered in
contract-style killings in the past six years, according to the Committee to
Protect Journalists, and not one of those murders has been solved. Human
rights advocates and pro-democracy politicians have been struck down in
the same way.
Yet it is quite possible, without performing any detective work, to say what
is ultimately responsible for these deaths: It is the climate of brutality
that has flourished under Mr. Putin. A former KGB agent himself, he
inherited an imperfect democracy and systematically undermined its
institutions.
The media, political parties, local government, private business -- each in
turn was neutered. Loyalty to Mr. Putin has become the quality that matters
most, and any opponent is labeled an enemy, to be bankrupted, imprisoned
or worse. Meanwhile, ugly nationalism was permitted to flourish.
Now you can see these same values being applied to foreign policy. The
independent nation of Georgia, to Russia's south, has not displayed adequate
fealty in Mr. Putin's view; it wants to be a democracy, with normal ties to
the West. So the czar has launched an ugly campaign of threats against the
country and the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians who live in
Russia. It is a dangerous moment.
Through all this, the Bush administration has responded with timid
complaints bracketed, until recently, by absurd protestations that Russia
was moving, overall, in the right direction. France and Germany, dependent
on Russian natural gas, have bowed even more cravenly.
Against these studies in amoral pragmatism, the courage of small nations,
such as Georgia, and lone heroes, such as Anna Politkovskaya, shines all
the more luminously.
"Taking a risk comes with the job," she said in 2002, as she accepted an
award for courage from the International Women's Media Foundation. "And
if you cannot take it any more, if you are unwilling to risk, you have to
leave.
"As for myself," she concluded four years ago, "I am not tired yet."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/07/AR2006100700718.html
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5. A MOSCOW MURDER STORY
By Anne Applebaum, Op-Ed Columnist, The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., Monday, October 9, 2006; Page A17
She wasn't charismatic, she didn't fill lecture halls and she wasn't much
good at talk shows either. Nevertheless, at the time of her murder in Moscow
Saturday, Anna Politkovskaya was at the pinnacle of her influence.
One of the best-known journalists in Russia and one of the best-known
Russian journalists in the world, she was proof -- and more is always
needed -- that there is still nothing quite so powerful as the written word.
The subject of Politkovskaya's writing was Russia itself, and in particular
what she called Russia's " dirty war " in Chechnya. Long after the rest of
the international press corps had abandoned Chechnya -- it was too dangerous
for most of us, too complicated, too obscure -- she kept telling
heartbreaking Chechen stories: The Russian army colonel who pulled 89
elderly people from the ruins of Grozny but received no medals, or the
Chechen schoolboy who was ill from the aftereffects of torture but could get
no compensation.
A hallmark of her books and articles was the laborious descriptions of how
she tried, and invariably failed, to get explanations from hostile and
evasive Russian authorities. At the same time, she had no patience for the
fanatical fringe of the Chechen independence movement either.
Over the years Politkovskaya won scores of international prizes. At home she
was threatened, arrested and once nearly poisoned by the same Russian
authorities who refused to respond to her questions.
The only official acknowledgment of her status was backhanded: In 2002, when
Chechen rebels stormed a Moscow theater, she was called upon to help
negotiate the release of hostages. She failed to keep them alive, and now
she is dead too.
Politkovskaya was not, it is true, the first Russian journalist to be
murdered in murky circumstances since 2000, when President Vladimir Putin
came to power. Among the worst crimes -- all, of course, unsolved -- were
the murders of two provincial journalists from the city of Togliatti,
probably for investigating local mafia; of Paul Klebnikov , the American
editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition, probably for knowing too much
about Russia's oligarchs; and of a Murmansk television reporter who was
critical of local politicians.
Nevertheless, Politkovskaya's murder marks a distinct turning point. There
was no attempt to disguise the murder as a theft or an accident: Her
assassin not only shot her in broad daylight, but he left her body in the
elevator of her apartment building alongside the gun he used to kill her --
standard practice for Moscow's arrogant hit men.
Nor can her murder be easily attributed to distant provincial authorities or
the criminal mafia: Local businessmen had no motivation to kill her -- but
officials of the army, the police and even the Kremlin did. Whereas local
thieves might have tried to cover their tracks, Politkovskaya's assassin,
like so many Russian assassins, did not seem to fear the law.
Of course if this murder follows the usual pattern in Russia, no suspect
will ever be found and no assassin will ever come to trial. But in the
longer term, the criminal investigation isn't what matters most. After all,
whoever pulled the trigger -- or paid someone to pay someone to pull the
trigger -- has already won a major victory.
As Russian (and Eastern European) history well demonstrates, it isn't always
necessary to kill millions of people to frighten all the others: A few
choice assassinations, in the right time and place, usually suffice.
Since the arrest of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003, no other
Russian oligarchs have attempted even to sound politically independent.
After the assassination of Politkovskaya on Saturday, it's hard to imagine
many Russian journalists following in her footsteps to Grozny either.
There are jitters already: A few hours after news of Politkovskaya's death
became public, a worried friend sent me a link to an eerie Russian Web site
that displays photographs of "enemies of the people" -- all Russian
journalists and human rights activists, some quite well known.
Above the pictures is each person's birth date and a blank space where, it
is implied, the dates of their deaths will soon be marked. That sort of
thing will make many, and probably most, Russians think twice before
criticizing the Kremlin about anything.
And there is, at the moment, a lot to criticize. With crises brewing in
Iran, Iraq and North Korea, few have had time to notice the recent
escalation of the political dispute between Russia and Georgia, or to ponder
the political consequences of Europe's increasing reliance on Russian gas,
or to worry much about minor matters such as the deterioration of press
freedom in Russia.
Critics of Anna Politkovskaya's writing did complain, on occasion, that her
gloom could be overbearing: She was one of those journalists who saw
harbingers of catastrophe in every story. Still, it is hard for me not to
write about her murder in the same foreboding tone that she herself would
have used. It is so much like one of the stories she would have written
herself. -30-
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CONTACT: applebaumanne@yahoo.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800919.html
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6. CITY OF KYIV ANNOUNCES COMPETITION FOR DESIGN OF
A MONUMENT TO JOURNALISTS KILLED DURING THEIR DUTIES
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thu, October 5, 2006
KYIV - The Kyiv municipal administration has announced a competition
for design of a monument to journalists killed during performance of their
duties, including Georgy Gongadze.
The press service of the Kyiv municipal administration announced this in a
statement, citing a directive issued by the administration. The competition
will take place from October 4 to December 4.
The Kyiv municipal administration has designated its main department of
town planning, architecture, and municipal environment design as the
organizer of the competition.
The municipal enterprise called Directorate for Restoration and Recovery
Work will place the order for preparation and installation of the monument.
The competition has a first prize of UAH 40,000, a second prize of UAH
30,000, and a third prize of UAH 20,000.
The Kyiv municipal administration plans to install the monument at 115-121,
Chervonoarmiiska Street, near the Maria Zankovetska
Museum.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Kyiv's Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi
initiated erection of a monument to journalists killed during performance of
their duties, including Gongadze, in Kyiv in May.
At the time, Chernovetskyi directed his deputies to organize design of the
monument and determine the place where it will be erected.
In June 2005, the Kyiv municipal council decided to rename Mashynobudivna
Street as Georgy Gongadze Street.
Journalist Gongadze disappeared in September 2000. His headless body was
found in the woods outside Kyiv two months later. -30-
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7. RUSSIAN REPORTER ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA MURDERED IN
MOSCOW, WAS CRITIC OF RUSSIA'S WAR IN CHECHNYA
IFJ Says Killing an “Outrage That Will Stun World Journalism”
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
Brussels, Belgium, Saturday, October 07, 2006 5:11 PM
BRUSSELS - The International Federation of Journalists has described the
killing in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian reporter who was a
fierce critic of Russia’s war in Chechnya, as a “shocking outrage that will
stun journalists across the world.”
The IFJ says the killing reflects a state of lawlessness that is threatening
to overwhelm Russian journalism. The Federation has called on the
government of President Vladimir Putin to act immediately to bring the
killers to justice.
Politkovskaya was shot to death on Saturday. According to news reports,
her body was found in the elevator in the building where she lived.
“The Russian authorities must carry out an urgent and intensive
investigation. We need to know who killed our colleague and who ordered the
attack in the first place,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.
Politkovskaya, who worked for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, established her
reputation on the back of controversial reports about human rights abuses by
Russian troops in Chechnya where she showed remarkable courage in being able
to produce challenging journalism from a lawless region where she had to
face threats from Chechen bandits and Russian or Chechen government death
squads.
Her reputation and trenchant reporting made here a thorn in the side of the
Russian government and when she fell seriously ill with food poisoning in
2004 while on her way to report on the Beslan school siege, many observers
believed it was an attempt on her life.
“She was the bravest of the new breed of brave reporters who emerged in the
dying days of the Soviet Union,” said White. “She faced down threats from
all sides and was an inspiration to journalists both at home and abroad. Her
death is a shocking outrage that will stun the world of journalism.”
The IFJ is next year holding its World Congress in Moscow and Anna
Politkovskaya was invited to be one of the speakers.
“Her courage and professionalism have made her a heroic figure in
journalistic and human rights circles,” said White. “Her death is a tragedy
for her young family and for everyone who knew her, but it also highlights
the desperate and fragile state of democracy in modern Russia.”
Politkovskaya was born in 1958 in New York, where her Soviet Ukrainian
parents were diplomats at the United Nations. She was educated at the
journalism faculty of Moscow State University.
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For more information contact the IFJ at +32 478 25 86 69
The IFJ represents more than 500,000 journalists in over 100 countries
http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=4280&Language=EN
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8. UKRAINIAN COURT TO RESUME TRIAL OF JOURNALIST
GEORGY GONGADZE MURDER SUSPECTS OCT 11
Ukrainian News Agency, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, October 4, 2006
KYIV - The trial of the suspects in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze
will resume at the Kyiv Appeal Court at 10:30 on October 11. The trial
started at 11:00, October 4.
The court heard testimony of the third witness, first deputy editor in chief
of the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia Yulia Mostova.
Mostova reported on her acquaintance with Gongadze and on their relations.
In particular she said that they were friends, opposition journalists, which
made their activity positions closer.
She also reported that she was one of the initiators of journalists' letter
to Former President Leonid Kuchma requesting to take the investigation into
Gongadze disappearance under the personal control.
Mostova read the letter to the president at the session hall and witness
Olena Prytula handed it to Kuchma.
According to Mostova, activity of Gongadze as opposition journalist cannot
be estimated only by his articles at Ukrainska Pravda Internet publishing
house. 'His opposition views were considerably showed in his work at
Kontynent radio,' Mostova said.
She also said that at that moment many journalists criticized the power more
actively than Gongadze did.
'(Gongadze) did not critically threaten Kuchma, but I do not rule out that
certain officials could react on his reports at Kontynent radio, Ukrainska
Pravda and at television,' Mostova said.
Mostova does not rule out that Gongadze murder could be ordered by
officials and also admits that the operation was held to overthrow Kuchma.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the trial of the men suspected of
murdering Gongadze opened at the Kyiv Appeal Court on January 9.
The suspects are three former employees of the Interior Affairs Ministry's
department of external surveillance and criminal intelligence: Valerii
Kostenko, Mykola Protasov, and Oleksandr Popovych.
An international arrest warrant has been issued for another suspect, Oleksii
Pukach, who is a former head of the Interior Affairs Ministry's department
of external surveillance.
The Prosecutor-General's Office has said that only the first part of the
Gongadze murder case - the one involving the people who murdered
Gongadze - was sent to court.
According to the Prosecutor-General's Office, the second part involves the
people who ordered the murder and those who organized it. -30-
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9. PRESIDENT BUSH'S STATEMENT ON THE MURDER OF
RUSSIAN JOURNALIST ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
The White House, Office of the Press Secretary
Washington, D.C., Sunday, October 8, 2006
Like many Russians, Americans were shocked and saddened by the brutal
murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a fearless investigative journalist, highly
respected in both Russia and the United States. We extend our sympathy
and prayers to her family and her friends.
Born in the United States to Soviet [Ukrainian] diplomats, Anna
Politkovskaya cared deeply about her country.
Through her efforts to shine a light on human rights abuses and corruption,
especially in Chechnya, she challenged her fellow Russians - and, indeed,
all of us - to summon the courage and will, as individuals and societies, to
struggle against evil and rectify injustices.
We urge the Russian Government to conduct a vigorous and thorough
investigation to bring to justice those responsible for her murder.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061008.html
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10. BBC ANALYSIS: MEDIA WATCHDOGS BEMOAN RISING
DEATH TOLL OF RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS
The Moscow Times added that pro-Kremlin electronic media "were awash
with speculation that the killing had been ordered by anti-government forces
seeking to replicate the rallies sparked by the killing of Ukrainian journalist
Georgy Gongadze". Politkovskaya's killing, explained Maxim Shevchenko,
a commentator for Russian Channel One TV, was "an attempt to provoke
an Orange Revolution here," RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
ANALYSIS: by Peter Feuilherade of BBC Monitoring
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Monday, Oct 09, 2006
International media freedom watchdogs have condemned the murder on
Saturday 7 October of Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russia's best known
investigative journalists.
Several organizations said the killing reflected the growing lawlessness
threatening journalism in Russia.
Politkovskaya, a special correspondent for the independent Moscow newspaper
Novaya Gazeta, was known for her reports on human rights abuses by the
Russian military in Chechnya.
She was found shot dead in the lift of her apartment building in Moscow.
Politkovskaya had been threatened and attacked numerous times in connection
with her work.
"In seven years covering the second Chechen war, Politkovskaya's reporting
repeatedly drew the wrath of Russian authorities. She was threatened,
jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned during her career," the New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recalled.
CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said: "Her death is a great loss to
journalism, to her country, and to the service of truth. Russia is one of
the most murderous places in the world for journalists, and it has a long
history of impunity in these killings.
This is the time for Russian authorities to reverse this years-long assault
on independent journalism by bringing Anna Politkovskaya's killers to
justice."
According to a report available on the CPJ website (www.cpj.org), 42
journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992, many of them in
contract-style executions. Twelve investigative journalists have been killed
in the six years since President Putin came to power. The vast majority of
the killings remain unsolved.
"Russia is the third deadliest country in the world for journalists over the
past 15 years, behind only the conflict-ridden countries of Iraq and
Algeria," the CPJ found.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in Brussels called on
President Putin's government to act immediately to bring the killers to
justice.
"The Russian authorities must carry out an urgent and intensive
investigation. We need to know who killed our colleague and who ordered
the attack in the first place," said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary.
The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN) described the
murder of Anna Politkovskaya as "tragic and deeply shocking news".
"We condemn this as an outrageous attack not only on a journalist but on
freedom of the press and democracy in Russia. We call on the Russian
authorities to pursue mercilessly the killer or killers and those behind
this cowardly act," said WAN chief executive Timothy Balding.
PRO-KREMLIN MEDIA "AWASH WITH SPECULATION"
Most of Politkovskaya's colleagues, friends and acquaintances interviewed by
the English-language Moscow Times newspaper believed the killing was ordered
by those seeking revenge for her reporting on corruption or Chechnya, the
paper reported on its website on 9 October.
"There can be no other reason," said her friend Alexei Venediktov, editor of
the Ekho Moskvy radio station. "She had no other life apart from her
profession."
Venediktov speculated that she may have been targeted by ultranationalists.
"Her name had been included on several lists of so-called enemies of the
Russian people on ultranationalist web sites," the Moscow Times noted.
The same paper added that pro-Kremlin electronic media "were awash with
speculation that the killing had been ordered by anti-government forces
seeking to replicate the rallies sparked by the killing of Ukrainian
journalist Georgy Gongadze".
Gongadze, who had written several articles critical of former Ukrainian
President Leonid Kuchma, disappeared in September 2000. Two months
later, his decapitated body was discovered near Kiev.
Demonstrations against the killing helped foment the opposition to Kuchma
that led to the Orange Revolution of late 2004.
Politkovskaya's killing, explained Maxim Shevchenko, a commentator for
Russian Channel One TV, was "an attempt to provoke an Orange Revolution
here," RIA-Novosti news agency reported. -30-
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11. MEDIA UNHAPPY ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN UKRAINE
Launch a protest called "Hands Off Freedom"
UT1, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1800 gmt 15 Sep 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Friday, Sep 15, 2006
KIEV - [Presenter] It has been more difficult for journalists to work in
Ukraine at present. This is the conclusion by the Mass Media Institute and
the Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine.
They launched a protest called "Hands Off Freedom!" today. Journalists'
organizations are saying that politicians have increasingly been violating
the professional rights of journalists. They made public several demands to
the authorities.
They demand bringing to book MP Oleh Kalashnykov [of the ruling Party of
Regions over an incident with STB TV cameramen] and Kiev mayor Leonid
Chernovetskyy.
They also demand blocking a bill tabled by Party of Regions MP Vasyl
Kyselyov, who proposed introducing criminal punishment for libel in the
media. They believe that the bill will be a tool for persecuting
journalists, and promise to compile a list of foes of the press.
[Mykhaylyna Skoryk, captioned as head of the Kiev branch of the Independent
Media Trade Union] We are clearly aware what and who prevent us from working
professionally. We want those guilty not to hide behind their MP immunity or
posts but want them to be punished in line with Ukrainian laws.
[MP Andriy Shevchenko of the opposition Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc faction]
The [murdered journalist Heorhiy] Gongadze case and the attitude of politicians
to the freedom of speech in general is a diagnosis to the whole political
system, and this political system is doomed, if key politicians fail to treat
journalists as they should. I think that they should make the conscious choice
in favour of freedom and rights. -30-
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12. THE ONLY GOOD JOURNALIST......
Anna Politkovskaya was the 13th journalist to be murdered in Russia since
Vladimir Putin came to power. No one believes he personally ordered her
execution - but there won't be many tears shed inside the Kremlin.
By Tom Parfitt, The Guardian, London, UK, Tue Oct 10, 2006
The killer was waiting on the ground floor. Anna Politkovskaya, a tall,
elegant figure with steel-grey hair and black clothes, descended in the lift
to collect the shopping bags she had left in her Lada outside on the street.
It was 4.10pm on Saturday.
As the doors opened, a young man in a baseball cap stepped forward and fired
two shots into her heart. The third hit her shoulder; the fourth her head.
But Politkovskaya, 48, was already dead.
Her brutal exit from life this weekend had much in common with the 12 other
assassinations of journalists that have taken place on the watch of
President Vladimir Putin. Yet Politkovskaya's murder provoked the strongest
reaction so far because she was his most fervent critic.
The fear now is that Russia's already fragile independent press could
crumble without its talisman. "It's a loss that's hard to comprehend," says
Andrei Lipsky, deputy editor of the bi-weekly newspaper where she worked,
Novaya Gazeta.
The Moscow Union of Journalists chimed in yesterday in a statement, saying
"the murder of Anna Politkovskaya is a new attack on democracy, freedom of
speech and openness in Russia".
For years Politkovskaya, a mother of two, was a hero to the liberal
opposition. She pursued human rights abuses in Chechnya for Novaya Gazeta
and, occasionally, the Guardian.
She exposed stories of cruelty: the torture and kidnap of civilians, the
sale of corpses by Russian soldiers to relatives desperate to respect
Islamic rites of burial.
She was reckless in her contempt for those she despised, calling her
nemesis, pro-Moscow Chechen prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov, a "coward
armed to the teeth and surrounded by bodyguards" - a terrible insult to a
man in the Caucasus - just days before her death.
But her main enemy was Putin, the man who gained political capital on the
back of the Russian army's second bloody charge into Grozny in late 1999,
and the man she said she hated "for his cynicism, for his racism, his lies,
for the massacre of the innocents that went on throughout his first term as
president".
Following Putin's rise to power, as the Kremlin transformed Russia's once
unruly television stations into anodyne transmitters of sitcoms and
patriotic pap, Politkovskaya's survival served as a fine example that
newspapers were still alive and kicking. But now even that faint hope seems
in danger of being extinguished.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who is a shareholder in Novaya
Gazeta, was quick to express his outrage at the "savage crime" which had
struck "a blow to the entire democratic, independent press".
And many blame the Kremlin for Politkovskaya's death. While her work never
implicated Putin in anything that could have rocked his leadership, she was
the scourge of bureaucrats and the hawkish security officers who dominate
his administration.
Vladimir Pribylovsky, an analyst from the Panorama thinktank, says
Politkovskaya's enemies were numerous. "She was on at least six lists of
'enemies of the state' placed on the internet by ultra-nationalists. In one
of the lists, 'for liquidation' was written next to her name."
"Of course, no one believes that Putin sat in his office and said to two
thugs, 'I want Politkovskaya dead'," says Viktor Shenderovich, a friend of
the reporter who was driven off the NTV channel for lampooning the president
in his programme Kukli, the Russian equivalent of Spitting Image.
"But the fact is he has created the kind of country where it is possible to
kill a journalist - maybe to please him - and then feel untouchable
afterwards." F
or many, the fact that Politkovskaya was assassinated on Putin's birthday,
and two days after Kadyrov's 30th birthday celebrations, raised suspicions
that a henchman of one or both had served up the contract hit as an
unasked-for present.
Equally likely - and one version entertained by Politkovskaya's colleagues -
is that Kadyrov's rivals in the federal security services or the
increasingly splintered leadership in Grozny killed her in order to
discredit him.
Defenders of press freedom think that is splitting hairs. "The result of
Anna's death is simple," says Alexei Simonov, head of the Glasnost Defence
Foundation. "Every journalist will now practise self-censorship: think
thrice, before you write."
Critics say the Kremlin has bracketed critical journalists with others whom
it also sees as unpatriotic wreckers: foreign-funded non-governmental
organisations and radical opposition groups.
New restrictions on Russian reporters were introduced after Chechen
militants took hostages in a Moscow theatre in 2002 and at Beslan, a school
in southern Russia in 2004, causing the deaths of more than 450 people.
Media laws were tightened to limited the right of reporters to cover war and
terrorist attacks.
The facts are certainly chilling. Since 2000, when President Putin was
elected, at least 13 journalists have been murdered, apparently because of
their work.
Before Politkovskaya, the most famous case was the gunning down of Paul
Khlebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, on a Moscow
street in 2004.
It is not just murder that has stunted the independent media. In the past
five years, the NTV terrestrial channel, Izvestia newspaper and the Ekho
Moskvy radio station have been scooped in to the maw of Gazprom, the
state-owned gas monopoly that serves as an arm of Kremlin propaganda.
A sense of perspective is needed: every day the Russian press publishes
articles that criticise the Kremlin. Despite authoritarian trends "Putin is
not a maniac in power, he's not [Belarus president and dictator Alexander]
Lukashenko," says Shenderovich. "It's the groups around him in the Kremlin
who fear the coming of a real democracy that would see them ousted from
power."
Yesterday brought an apparent paradox: while Politkovskaya's death served a
bleak warning to the independent press that the price of dissent is death,
newspapers were their angriest for many months. Predictably, opposition
dailies such as Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta were filled with fury about the
murder.
But the pro-Kremlin press was also in high dudgeon. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the
official newspaper of the Russian government, praised Politkovskaya for
"standing against war, corruption, demagoguery and social inequality."
Even the usually loyal mass-market tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda was happy
to publish a conspiracy theory suggesting Politkovskaya was killed as part
of a complex plan to lever Putin into the presidency for an
anti-constitutional third term.
Some believe the anger in the press shows a stirring among the elite, a
discontent that Putin - so often depicted as an authoritarian who pulls all
the strings - cannot impose order and stop the killing.
But the fact remains that the vast majority of Russians are not getting
their news from newspapers: oppositionists in the press are mostly singing
to the choir.
A poll earlier this month showed that Channel One, Rossiya and NTV - three
television channels directly or indirectly owned by the state - are the main
source of news for 85% of Russians. "Let me ask you something," says
Simonov.
"How may times did Anna [Politkovskaya], one of the most well-known
journalists in Russia, appear on Channel One and Rossiya this year? The
answer is, not once. She was persona non grata". -30-
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LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1891744,00.html
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Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you.
========================================================
13. UKRAINE: MEDIA WATCHDOG IFJ ALARMED BY SUDDEN
RISE IN ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS
International Federation of Journalists, Brussels, in English 14 Sep 06
BBC Monitoring Service, United Kingdom, Monday, Sep 18, 2006
As the sixth anniversary of the murder of Ukrainian journalist Georgy
Gongadze approaches, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has
become alarmed by a sudden increase in attacks on press freedom and on
individual journalists throughout the country.
In August, a series of journalists were kidnapped, beaten and denied access
to press conferences, while the authorities issued new restrictions on the
work of journalists.
The IFJ has also written to the Ukraine politicians calling on them to press
for the prosecution of those responsible for ordering Gongadze's murder
during the parliamentary debate into his death on Friday 15 September.
Three police officers are currently on trial for the murder. Despite this
progress, the leading police officer believed to have actually shot and
killed Gongadze, Oleksiy Pukach, remains on the run. Meanwhile, nobody has
been prosecuted for ordering his assassination.
Gongadze was shot and beheaded in woods outside of Kiev on 16 September,
2000. Evidence provided by the so called "Melnichenko tapes" suggested that
his assassination was ordered by Ukraine's president at that time, Leonid
Kuchma.
"The IFJ is appalled that six years later the people who ordered Gongadze's
assassination remain free," said Oliver Money-Kyrle, IFJ programmes
director. "The recent rise in attacks against journalists is a result of
that failure and will only serve to encourage further acts of intimidation,
assault and murder."
On 9 August, in an act disturbingly reminiscent of Gongadze's own abduction
and murder, correspondents of Nashe Radio Station were kidnapped in broad
daylight in the centre of Kyiv and taken to the forests where they were
assaulted. The next day Fiodor Saliy, Director of the Crimean Broadcasting
Company of Foros, was assaulted.
On 10 August, a Channel Five TV crew were denied access to a press
conference by the newly appointed prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich. The
following day the Kyiv City State Administration informed the media that new
restrictions would limit journalists' access to certain places and events.
Meanwhile, Oleg Kalashnikov, member of parliament for the newly governing
Party of the Regions, has not been punished for brutally assaulting an STB
TV news crew. -30-
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14. ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
COMMENTARY: By Garry Kasparov, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Monday, October 9, 2006; Page A18
NEW YORK -- The news came when I was getting ready to sit down in front of
an audience with the New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, at the New Yorker
Festival on Saturday. Suddenly we had a tragic new topic for our talk about
the crisis in Russia today.
Anna Politkovskaya was dead, shot down in cold blood in her apartment
building. One of the few remaining voices of independent journalism in
Russia, Anna was a fearless journalist best known for her reporting on the
government's atrocities in Chechnya.
To know Anna was to know how profoundly she cared. She felt the pain of
others deeply and communicated that passion in her work. She documented the
illegal acts of the Russian security forces in the Northern Caucasus and the
brutality of Ramzan Kadyrov and other Kremlin proxies in the region.
She tenaciously investigated the government cover-ups around the Beslan and
the Nord-Ost theater terrorist attacks, in which hundreds of civilians were
killed. She took on the most sensitive stories and the most painful
subjects. She was an inspiration because she was never intimidated, because
she never wrote a line she didn't believe in passionately.
And on Saturday -- President Vladimir Putin's 54th birthday -- Anna
Politkovskaya was murdered. Her killers made no attempt to disguise what
their act was, no attempt to make it look like anything other than a
politically motivated assassination. Even Russian politicians who always
worked to contradict and downplay her reports are calling it a political
murder.
But what does that mean in a country where one person is in control of
everything? This brutal episode cannot be taken outside the context of
recent events in Russia. The forces in control here are facing an impending
crisis and fault lines are beginning to appear in the Kremlin's vertical
power structure.
The authoritarian structure that Mr. Putin has built in Russia has been very
profitable for his circle of friends and supporters. Income is siphoned off
from every region of the country. Business and politics have been combined
into a streamlined process for bleeding the nation dry.
Now, however, Mr. Putin and his associates are approaching a dilemma.
The president's term of office ends in 2008 and this efficient machine is
threatening to explode. Should Mr. Putin stay or should he go?
The chaos that will surely occur if Mr. Putin leaves office is relatively
easy to understand. Any mafia-like structure is based on the authority of
the top man. If he leaves, or appears weak, there is a bloody scramble for
his position.
Whoever wins that battle must then eliminate the others to consolidate his
grip, so the fighting is fierce. Perhaps only 10% of the combatants will pay
in blood or incarceration and ruin, but nobody knows who will be in that
10%.
To avoid that dangerous uncertainty, some of Mr. Putin's closest lieutenants
are dedicated to making sure the top man stays right where he is. The
problem with this plan is that Mr. Putin is constitutionally prevented from
staying in office beyond the end of his term in 2008.
The main obstacle is not the Constitution, which can be easily adjusted to
the Kremlin's requirements; the obstacle is that, after he has made so many
statements about his intent to step down in 2008, Mr. Putin would lose
almost all his legitimacy in the West if he exercised this option. Of
course, his regime has never shown concern for the voices of America and
Europe, and feeble indeed those voices have been.
But the money his associates have become so adept at squeezing from Russian
assets resides almost entirely in Western banks. If the Russian government
loses its veneer of legitimacy, these accounts could begin to receive an
unpleasant amount of scrutiny.
So what can the ruling elite do to avoid both the chaos of succession and
the loss of easy relations with Europe and the U.S.? The answer is becoming
clearer every day if you read the headlines and look at the big picture. The
Kremlin is exaggerating and fabricating one crisis after another, all
combining to create an image of imminent peril.
Those who believe they have burned every bridge and cannot afford to see Mr.
Putin step down are trying to build a case that he is the only alternative
to anarchy.
The political showdown with Georgia has led to a government-sponsored racist
campaign against Georgians living in Russia. Mr. Putin's latest statement on
this issue was trumpeted as a major victory by Russian ultranationalists,
who were delighted to hear his unequivocal endorsement of their platform.
Inflammatory language of this sort is, of course, prohibited by our
Constitution, which the president is sworn to protect. But what of that!
I am not even certain whether or not Mr. Putin himself desires to stay on.
It's a stressful job and he certainly will not lack for material comforts
when he retires, unless of course the next government finds itself in need
of a scapegoat.
There is little to be gained from speculating about who exactly ordered the
murder of Anna Politkovskaya. The system that encouraged the crime, the
logic that made it politically expedient for some of those in power, that is
the true face of Mr. Putin's Russia. This is the same Russia that chairs the
G-8 and the same Russian leader who received the Grand Cross of the Legion
of Honor from Jacques Chirac.
With the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, the forces of corruption and
repression in Russia have now made it plain that there is nothing they won't
do to stay in power. This is obviously bad news for my country. But it is
catastrophic for every nation that these forces continue to receive the
approval of the leaders of the free world. -30-
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Mr. Kasparov, former world chess champion, is chairman of the United
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15. A REVERSION? THE OPEN LETTER BY UKRAINIAN JOURNALISTS
STATEMENT: By Journalists and Mass Media Employees
Regarding Assaults on the Freedom of the Speech in Ukraine
Translated into English by Ukrayinska Pravda
Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, September 11, 2006
On August 9, 10 and 11, 2006 Ukraine experienced a row of alarming and
disturbing events that constitute a threat to the freedom of speech in the
Country.
On August 9 correspondents of Nashe Radio Station were kidnapped in broad
daylight in the centre of Kyiv. They were taken out to the forest, assaulted
and intimidated. Ukrainian capital has already experienced such an overt
banditry. However, we do hope that these times are gone.
On August 10 Denis Ivanesko, the newly-appointed press-secretary of Primer
Viktor Yanukovych, forbade Channel 5 from broadcasting press-conference of
Mr. Yanukovych, thus violating the Information Act as well as Television and
Radio Broadcasting Act of Ukraine. The press-service of the Cabinet of
Ministers gave no official explanations regarding this matter.
At midnight of August 10 the director of the Crimean broadcasting Company
of Foros, Fiodor Saliy was assaulted. The stranger attacked him without any
obvious reason and run away as the employees of the TV Company have
appeared.
On August 11 the Press Secretary of Kyiv City State Administration notified
mass media that Kyiv City officials have limited journalists' access to
certain places and events.
MP Oleh Kalashnikov, who brutally assaulted the crew of STB TV Channel,
remains unpunished. De facto he is a member of the Party of Regions faction
in Verkhovna Rada, although the faction leaders urge their party has
expelled Mr. Kalashnikov.
The assault on the Chief Editor of Stolychni Novyny periodical Volodymyr
Katsman is left without the proper investigation too. Investigation of
Georgiy Gongadze murder stays on hold.
We, journalists and employees of the Ukrainian mass media, are deeply
concerned with all events that have happened in such a short period of time.
We hope that these events are just a coincidence and we will still do the
utmost to prevent the return of censorship and pressure.
THEREFORE:
We ask Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko to organize appropriate investigation
of the assaults on mass media employees and to take this investigation under
his personal control.
We offer to establish a Civil Council for the Public Relations Center at the
Interior Ministry of Ukraine aimed at ensuring an operational response to
the crimes against journalists and mass media employees and coordinating
these activities with Interior Ministry of Ukraine as well as giving a sound
and quick assistance to our assaulted colleagues.
We urge Prime-minister Viktor Yanukovych to take all the measures in order
to prevent a limitation of mass media access to the public information.
We demand that the Prime-minister order his Press Secretary, Mr. Denis
Ivanesko, to issue the official document, explaining the position of the
current Ukrainian Government regarding the ban on the live broadcasting of
the press conferences of the Ukrainian government. We also demand that the
Prime-minister promised to prevent such situations in the future.
We demand that the regional administrations and local authorities withdrew
all the limitations regarding mass media access to the public information,
including the accreditation to be given by these state authorities.
We demand that the Office of the Prosecutor General reported on the
investigation of Oleh Kalashnikov's assault at STB TV Channel crew and gave
the necessary information on the other resonant crimes against journalists
and employees of mass media.
We demand that the Party of Regions faction to Verkhovna Rada gave official
information on Mr. Oleh Kalashnikov's membership in this faction and
presented the official papers, proving that Mr. Kalashnikov was expelled
from the faction.
In our turn we confirm our intentions to stand up for the freedom of speech
and our colleagues' safety by all possible means.
We warn that we are ready to start active protests in case the freedom of
speech is jeopardized in Ukraine.
You may support this statement by sending your signatures to
info@telekritika.kiev.ua. -30-
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LINK: http://www.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2006/8/16/6107.htm
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16. KREMLIN RULES
REVIEW & OUTLOOK: The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Saturday, October 7, 2006; Page A6
The world needs to watch Russia's current pressure on Georgia. Its decision
this week to ban trade, travel and postal links to neighboring Georgia isn't
the first time Moscow has tangled with the former Soviet republic.
But it is a fresh reminder of just how paranoid and bullying the Kremlin's
foreign policy has become in the hands of President Vladimir Putin.
The current dispute involves Georgia's arrest last week of four Russian
officers, whom the Tbilisi government of President Mikheil Saakashvili
accuses of being spies. Mr. Saakashvili quickly handed over the four
"hostages" -- as Mr. Putin's government calls them -- to the custody of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which promptly returned
them to Moscow.
That should have been the end of it. Instead, Mr. Putin's rubber-stamp
parliament -- which already bars the import of Georgian goods, including its
famous wines -- now threatens to prevent the 300,000 or more Georgians
living in Russia from wiring money home. Yesterday, Mr. Putin urged the
international community not to "ignore the irresponsibility of the Georgian
government."
His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, alleges that the arrest of the officers
is part of a Western plot apparently hatched in Washington: "The seizure of
our officers immediately followed, I repeat, NATO's decision to grant
Georgia an intense cooperation plan, intense dialogue," he said, noting Mr.
Saakashvili's recent visit to the U.S. as part of the annual meeting of the
U.N. General Assembly.
Maybe Comrade Lavrov really believes the Bush Administration wastes its
time hatching two-bit schemes in the Caucasus to humiliate Mother Russia.
What we are likelier witnessing is another fit of Russian pique at Mr.
Saakashvili's courageous decision to yank Georgia out of Moscow's orbit --
where it had remained for a dozen dreary years after its nominal
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 -- and into the orbit of the
West.
Since coming to office after the 2003 Rose Revolution, the U.S.-educated Mr.
Saakashvili has moved aggressively to reform and deregulate the Georgian
economy.
Customs tariffs have been abolished, income taxes have been cut to a flat
12% rate, inflation has been brought below 10%, growth is in double-digits,
the birthrate is again positive and the World Bank now cites Georgia as a
global role model in the fight against corruption.
Mr. Saakashvili has also sent 900 troops to Iraq and brought Georgia into
NATO's Partnership for Peace program, a likely precursor to actual
membership.
All this can serve as a model for other former Soviet republics such as
Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine as they struggle to prosper. It could also serve as a
model for Russia itself, which may be why Moscow has used every opportunity
to bring Georgia and its leaders to heel.
Mr. Putin continues to provide military and political support to the
breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Earlier this
year, gas and electricity lines to Georgia were mysteriously disrupted in
the dead of winter in what senior Georgian officials believe was an act of
sabotage by Mr. Putin's secret services.
Georgia has now switched to Azeri gas and expects to maintain supplies
through this winter.
That doesn't preclude future acts of mischief by Mr. Putin's KGB government,
in Georgia or anywhere else in the former U.S.S.R. that they consider
properly their own.
Which is one reason to feel grateful that President Bush, after placing too
much faith in Mr. Putin in his first term, has given Mr. Saakashvili the
support he deserves.
"Nobody else would stand up for cases like Georgia except if you're
idealistic," the Georgian told us during a recent visit to our offices in
New York. "And Americans are the most idealistic people in the world."
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17. OUR FAILURE IN EUROPE'S EAST
OP-ED: By Bruce P. Jackson, The Washington Post
Washington D.C., Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page B07
At Warsaw University in 2002, in what many believe to be his finest speech,
President Bush advanced a vision of a free and complete Europe that would
stretch "from the Baltic to the Black Sea."
At the end of next month, when they gather in Riga, Latvia, on the shores of
the Baltic Sea, Bush and the NATO allies will have cause to wonder what
happened to their hopes for Europe's East.
At the most superficial level, things never go well in Europe when the
United States is preoccupied elsewhere. This was true in 1956 during the
Suez crisis, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, and again in 1968, when
the Vietnam War drowned out interest in the suppression of the Prague
spring.
Given NATO's difficulties in Afghanistan and the bloody frustration of the
United States in Iraq, it is not surprising to see Russia bullying its way
around its former empire and threatening energy-dependent Europe.
But the newly powerful Kremlin, flush with oil money, is not the real
problem of Europe's East. Even truculent Turkey, which now seems lost
in a strange haze of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and vaguely Islamist
nativism, is not the problem.
Turkey has been the "sick man" of Europe for at least a century, and Russia
has been a threat to its neighbors far longer. What has changed is that
Europe has finally reached the frontiers of its influence and has no idea
what to do with its new neighborhood.
To the south of Vienna lie Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia,
Albania and Kosovo, which have been waiting on Europe's doorstep since the
wars of Yugoslav succession ended in 1999.
This year at the NATO summit the top three candidates, Albania, Croatia and
Macedonia, can only hope for an honorable mention on the back pages of the
summit communique.
The rest of the Western Balkans has even less interaction with Europe. Over
70 percent of university students in Serbia have never set foot outside
their country.
This may not be surprising to Americans, but it is shocking on a continent
as interconnected as Europe. Albanian students have given up trying to get
visas to visit Italy and now spend their vacations in Libya.
Comparatively, however, the Western Balkans are the most fortunate of the
countries in Europe's East. In December, when Romania enters the European
Union, Europe will border Moldova, whose gross domestic product is roughly
half of Haiti's.
Moldova's wine, by far its most important product, is embargoed both by
Russia, because of Moldova's deviationist pro-Western tendencies, and by the
European Union, because of the high quality and low cost of the wine itself.
In a triumph of enlightened E.U. policy and in keeping with the law of
unintended consequences, Moldova's largest cash export to Europe today is
sexually trafficked women.
Like Moldova and the western Balkans, Ukraine also suffers from the tendency
of both Washington and Brussels to isolate what they do not understand.
Since the early 1990s the United States has pursued a manic-depressive
policy toward the largest country in Eastern Europe -- and for that matter
toward the country with the largest Jewish population remaining in Europe.
At first, in the infamous "Chicken Kiev" speech, delivered by President
George H.W. Bush in 1991, we advised Ukraine to remain part of the Soviet
Union.
We then celebrated Ukraine's independence and its common-sense president,
Leonid Kuchma -- until we decided that Kuchma was an autocrat who sold
radars illegally to Saddam Hussein. It turns out that this did not happen,
but you get the point.
The same unpredictable volatility characterizes the ups and downs of our
response to the coalition government in Kiev today.
Seventeen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States and
Europe cannot maintain a consistent policy toward Ukraine from one day to
the next.
What confounds both Europe and the United States are the complexity of
post-Soviet societies and the impotence of Western institutions.
But instead of combining our efforts with those of the European Union to
end the isolation of Europe's East, we have allowed the fecklessness of the
European Union and the impatience of U.S. policy to re-create what the
Soviet Union used to call its "near abroad."
In effect, a vacuum of crime, underdevelopment and squabbling political
elites now stretches from the Baltic states to the northern shore of the
Black Sea. This is the sad Marshall Plan of our generation.
The problem of Europe's East is simply the loss of political vision in
Washington and Brussels and the failure to keep the commitment to a Europe
that is whole, free and at peace.
One wonders: If this is the best Europe can do in its neighborhood and the
best the United States can do together with Europe, what chances do we have
in the Greater Middle East, where our ideas and influence count for far less
than they do in Europe's unloved East? -30-
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The writer is president of the Project on Transitional Democracies and the
U.S. Committee on NATO, Washington, D.C.
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18. MOSCOW TRUMPS WEST IN BATTLE FOR CLOUT
IN FORMER SOVIET STATES
By Marc Champion and Guy Chazan, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Friday, October 6, 2006; Page A1
In the struggle over influence, energy and the spread of democracy in its
former empire, Moscow has scored big gains and is taking off the gloves at a
time when the West is increasingly preoccupied.
Russia imposed a trade and transport embargo to pressure the pro-Western
government in neighboring Georgia this week akin to the U.S. embargo on
Cuba, following a nasty espionage dispute between the former Soviet states.
The move laid bare the Kremlin's determination to reassert itself in what
Russians call their "near abroad."
When Georgia's arrest of four Russian military officers on spy charges came
up during a presidential phone call Monday, Vladimir Putin's message to
George W. Bush was: Don't interfere.
Hosting Russian minorities and pipelines taking Siberian and Caspian Sea oil
and gas to markets in the West, the former Soviet region has become the
front line of conflict between an increasingly assertive Russia and the
West.
The Kremlin appears to have read the spy dispute as a sign that the West's
willingness to intervene for Georgia is limited.
Just two years ago, it looked like Russia was losing its grip over what had
been part of its empire for centuries. U.S. troops were based across
energy-rich Central Asia, where Moscow was struggling to rebuild its
influence.
Pro-Western governments had swept to power in Georgia and Ukraine,
emboldening the White House to talk about a wave of democratic change
sweeping the region. Russian officials blamed the U.S. for orchestrating the
revolutions and worried openly that Washington had similar plans to install
a friendlier government in Moscow.
Since then, the most important of the uprisings, Ukraine's Orange
revolution, has seen its leaders become mired in infighting, opening the way
for the appointment of an openly pro-Russian prime minister in August.
Last month, he said Ukraine was putting its NATO membership bid on hold.
Central Asian governments that had sought to play the West off against
Moscow have largely shifted into the Russian camp, ousting U.S. military
bases and tightening security and other ties to Moscow.
This year, Russia secured long-term contracts to purchase Central Asian gas,
tightening its control over the supply to Europe.
The turning point in Central Asia came in May 2005, when Uzbekistan's
government killed hundreds of protesters in Andijan.
Criticized by the U.S., the Uzbek government turned to Moscow, which
concurred that it had faced a terrorist threat. Uzbekistan then kicked U.S.
troops out of a military base established to support the war in Afghanistan.
This summer, it joined the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization. Next door, Kyrgyzstan -- where the so-called Tulip Revolution
toppled the government last year -- yesterday wound up joint military
antiterrorist exercises with Russia. The U.S. still runs a military base in
Kyrgyzstan, but the rent it pays increased sharply this year.
As Moscow has reasserted its influence in a region the Kremlin openly refers
to as its backyard, the West's willingness to confront Russia over these
issues has waned.
Preoccupied with problems in Iraq, Washington also needs Russia's support on
critical priorities such as moving to control Iran's nuclear program. Key
European countries, many heavily dependent on Russian natural gas for
energy, are reluctant to pick fights with Moscow.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has emerged as the most-conspicuous
exception to the Russian tide in the region. The U.S.-educated lawyer has
stuck to his pro-Western policies and anti-Russian rhetoric, despite
Moscow's steadily increasing pressure on his government.
His commitment to pull Georgia out of Russia's orbit and into Western
institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has made him a
favorite in the White House. But at a time of rising assertiveness and
national pride in Russia, it has also made him a figure of hate across the
border.
"This is not about Russia's conflict with Georgia, but with the West in
general. It's hard to strike at the West, but Georgia is in reach," Mr.
Saakashvili said in an interview Wednesday.
Mr. Saakashvili says he believes that if push comes to shove, Western
capitals will back him because "core Western values are at stake in
Georgia."
But both U.S. and European officials have been trying to hold Mr.
Saakashvili back from further actions that could provoke Moscow and
precipitate a crisis, diplomats say.
"Europe's reliance on Russian energy has given the Kremlin the confidence to
risk trying to restore its status in the post-Soviet space," says Dmitry
Rogozin, an influential Russian nationalist lawmaker. "Putin knows that
Europe won't want to have an argument with Russia over Georgia."
Moscow's determination to make a showcase of Georgia and demonstrate the
cost of defiance to its neighbors came through clearly when Russia imposed
sanctions even after Georgia returned the detained servicemen under Western
pressure.
"They knew from the very first moment that we would hand the soldiers over,"
said Mr. Saakashvili. A Western diplomat familiar with the matter confirmed
that Russia was informed last Friday the soldiers would be returned.
Georgia, Mr. Saakashvili added, had arrested others Russians on spying
charges before and quickly handed them over, though without going public.
"It looks like for months they had been looking for an excuse to do
something" to Georgia, he said.
When Mr. Bush called his Russian counterpart to talk about the latest
diplomatic moves on Iran, Mr. Putin brought up the Georgia dispute.
Washington had hoped that with the immediate cause of the tensions resolved,
both sides would step back and find ways to ease their differences,
according to American officials.
Mr. Putin, however, had a different message for Mr. Bush. A terse Kremlin
statement after the meeting said he had underlined "the unacceptability and
danger of any actions by third nations that could be interpreted by the
Georgian leadership as an encouragement of its destructive policy."
Within hours Moscow was tightening the screws. It announced it was cutting
off all flights, trains, shipping, roads and postal links to Georgia, which
has a population of about 4.7 million. Since then, it has closed down
Georgian-owned businesses, including a popular Moscow casino, and imposed
restrictions on visas for Georgians.
Parliament this week will consider a bill preventing Georgians making bank
transfers to relatives back home. That could prove a powerful blow, because
hundreds of thousands of Georgians rely on the transfers.
Russian officials have given no indication when they might ease the
restrictions, insisting Georgia take a more deferential line. "Russia does
not want to be provoked. Russia wants to be respected," deputy foreign
minister Alexander Yakovenko said yesterday. "Russia wants the anti-Russian
campaign to stop."
But the pressure could escalate much further. At a meeting with Russian
parliamentary leaders in the Kremlin Wednesday, Mr. Putin discussed the
possibility of Russia recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, two areas of Georgia controlled by Russian-backed separatists
since the early 1990s.
"I think we'll do it by the end of the year," said Sergei Baburin, a
nationalist lawmaker who is deputy speaker of the Russian Parliament, and
who took part in the Kremlin meeting. "If NATO wants Georgia at any price,
then it can have it without Abkhazia and South Ossetia."
Some observers worry the confrontation could even lead to war, although
both Georgian and Russian officials say that is highly unlikely and there are
numerous pressures to deter it -- including U.S. influence over Mr.
Saakashvili.
"There is a growing problem, with no real attempt at negotiations. The
border is closed, there are trade embargoes, blockades. All this leads to
war.
There are clear military objectives on both sides," said Pavel Felgenhauer,
a Moscow military analyst, naming the Russian objective as regime change,
and the Georgian as retrieving Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Mr. Felgenhauer described Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's
suggestion this week that Russia would accelerate the withdrawal of some
troops still based in Georgia -- but outside the enclaves -- as a worrisome
sign. "Those troops aren't assets, but liabilities, potential hostages. You
want to get them out before any conflict," he said.
Mr. Saakashvili said he is now trying to avoid doing or saying anything that
could be seen as a provocation of Russia, something he hasn't always
succeeded with.
He said he is focusing on local elections, which took place yesterday and
could prove a referendum on his popularity. And he opened two big new
hospitals, one of them a teaching facility in Tbilisi, the capital. The
language of the curriculum is English; it used to be Russian. -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write to Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com and Guy Chazan
at guy.chazan@wsj.com.
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19. THE 'COLOR' REVOLUTIONS: FADE TO BLACK
Whatever happened to Bush's global democratic revolution?
COMMENTARY: by Justin Raimondo
Anti-war.com, Friday, September 29, 2006
How quickly we forget. It seems like only yesterday that the headlines were
ablaze with news of the color-coded revolutions supposedly inspired by our
president's commitment to fostering "democracy" throughout the globe.
In an inaugural speech widely derided by those who hadn't quaffed too deeply
of the neoconservative Kool-Aid, George W. Bush declared that U.S. foreign
policy has "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Not content with "liberating" Iraq, while reducing it to a pile of rubble,
the U.S. government went on the offensive on a global scale, hailing the
color revolutions in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Belarus, and Lebanon as
examples of what the president had earlier referred to as a U.S.-led "global
democratic revolution."
It's only a few years later, however, and the "revolution" seems to have
petered out. Worse, in all instances, the "revolution" turned out to be
completely illusory, i.e., little more than a flimsy pretext for
U.S.-engineered regime change on the cheap.
Revisiting the scene of these various "democratic" upsurges, one thing
becomes all too clear: nothing has really changed. Ukraine provides the best
example of this "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" syndrome.
The saga of Viktor Yushchenko's rise - and near fall - as the leader of the
"democratic" resistance to Ukraine's neo-Soviet apparatchiks contained all
the essential elements of the Bush administration's revolutionary narrative:
a handsome, young, rising political star challenges the sclerotic, corrupt,
election-stealing leadership of a decrepit post-communist former Soviet
republic - and nearly becomes a martyr to the cause of capital-D democracy.
In Yushie's case, it was an attempt to poison him, allegedly carried out by
an official of the Ukrainian secret services - and, it just so happens, a
key ally of Yushchenko's election opponent, Viktor Yanukovich.
This alleged assassination attempt badly disfigured the formerly handsome
Yushie's face, and it is fair to say, this event was the turning point in
the election.
The finger was pointed directly at Yanukovich and his supporters, and the
more radical Orange revolutionaries, led by the "gas princess," Yulia
Timoshenko, openly accused the Russian KGB of being behind the plot.
The Western media jumped on the story and unquestioningly accepted the
narrative peddled by the Orange revolutionaries and their sponsors in the
U.S. government, who were covertly (and overtly) funding Yushchenko to the
tune of millions.
This supposed poisoning, however, was diagnosed under the most curious
circumstances: Dr. Lothar Wicke, the former chief of the Rudolfinerhaus
clinic where Yushchenko went for treatment, denied that Yushchenko had been
poisoned at all, and testified that he had been threatened by supporters of
the Orange movement if he failed to come up with the "right" diagnosis.
The poisoning diagnosis was disputed by several Western experts, who
questioned the timeline laid out by Yushchenko and his entourage - Yushie
got sick immediately after dining with the head of the security services,
whereas dioxin poisoning would take at least 3 days to manifest symptoms -
and many doubted that dioxin would be the poison of choice, in any case.
Furthermore, after all that heavy breathing about a Russian-Yanukovich plot
to take out the rising star of the Orange Revolution, the investigation into
who poisoned Yushchenko, and why, never got much further than vague
insinuations directed at the Yanukovich camp, and dark intimations of KGB
involvement.
Two years later, after a long silence, the "investigation" has yet to bear
any fruit: not a single suspect has been charged.
The comic-opera character of this criminal probe is underscored by the first
few paragraphs of a recent Radio Free Europe story:
"Speaking to journalists in Baku on September 8, the Ukrainian president
said the investigation into the alleged poisoning in September 2004 was 'one
step away from the active phase of solving this case.'
"Yushchenko's statement came as Ukraine's prosecutor-general, Oleksandr
Medvedko, announced that investigators had determined the time, place, and
circumstances in which the poisoning attempt took place.
"All that remains, apparently, is to find the individual, or individuals,
responsible."
Ukraine's Keystone Kops know everything about this crime - except who did
it. It has taken them two solid years to get to the brink of "the active
phase of solving this case." Yet how do we account for the longevity of the
passive phase?
One would think that the president would be eager to utilize the full
resources of Ukrainian law enforcement - not to mention the expertise and
assistance of his American allies - to get to the bottom of the plot that
ruined his good looks and almost took his life.
However, we have seen just the opposite: a strange reluctance to pursue the
investigation, punctuated by laconic public pronouncements over the
interceding years, culminating in this most recent Orwellian formulation of
being "one step away" from "the active phase."
Just how seriously we ought to take accusations that Yanukovich - and,
standing behind him, the Kremlin - engineered the poisoning of Yushchenko is
indicated by the post-"revolutionary" politics of Ukraine, now dominated by
a coalition of Yushchenko and Yanukovich supporters.
Would the Yushchenko group agree to share power with Yanukovich and his
party if they really believed their coalition allies had tried to kill their
dear beloved Yushie? Somehow, I doubt it.
In any case, the so-called Orange Revolution has faded to a pale pinkish
hue, with the color almost completely washed out of it. Ukraine is still
corrupt, poor, and owned lock, stock, and barrel by a nomenklatura of
unusual avariciousness. All that has changed is the likelihood of NATO
membership, and that's all the U.S. government ever cared about anyway.
The containment, of the Russian bear - recently stoked by copious infusions
of honey (in the form of sky-high oil prices) - and not the export of
"democracy," was and is the real objective of U.S. support for Yushchenko
and his fellow "revolutionaries."
The same motives can be easily discerned in the case of the former Soviet
republic of Georgia, where the Rose Revolution catapulted Mikheil
Saakashvili to power in 2003.
The Ukrainian Orange phenomenon was modeled quite explicitly on the example
of the Rose Revolution, which featured a disputed election, massive
youth-oriented street protests, and plenty of subsidies from U.S. government
agencies.
The evil neo-communist leftovers from the old order, led by Eduard
Shevardnadze, were swept away by the rising tide of pro-Western, modernizing
young "democrats," exemplified by Saakashvili, said to be a Georgian combo
of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Or so went the official
narrative.
It wasn't long, however, before the wolf disdained his sheep's clothing and
openly began to exhibit distinctly wolfish characteristics, imprisoning his
political opponents and cracking down on the opposition in the name of
"national security."
His latest assault on his political enemies involves busting up an alleged
Russian "spy ring" - which, just coincidentally, includes the leaders of
most of the opposition.
Dozens of Justice Party and Conservative Party (monarchist) leaders and
activists have been arrested and imprisoned on what are obviously trumped-up
charges.
Russian military headquarters in Tbilisi - where the Russians still have a
nominal presence - has been surrounded by Georgian military and police, and
a major standoff is in the making, with Russia calling for an emergency
meeting of the UN Security Council over the matter.
This crisis has a long history. U.S. support for Saakashvili and the Rose
Revolution had, as usual, nothing to do with devotion to the principles of
what is loosely referred to as "democracy," and everything to do with the
geopolitics of oil and the regional objective of encircling - one might even
say strangling - resurgent Russia.
The construction of an oil pipeline that somehow avoids traversing Russian
territory is the dearest dream of the Chevron wing of the Republican party,
and would please to no end the Clintonian Democrats, who, you'll remember,
set up a special office of the U.S. government devoted to making that
pipeline a reality.
The Caucasus is a volatile region, every bit as volcanic and rife with
ethnic and religious fissures as the Middle East. In Georgia alone, several
ethno-religious groupings compete for title to the land and the right of
self-rule in some very cramped quarters, and it takes a scorecard to know
all the players.
Without getting too much into the specifics - the particular historical and
political factors giving rise to the Georgians' struggle with the Ossetians,
the Ajarians, and the Abkhazians - it's important to know that all these
rebellious regions share cultural and political ties to Russia.
Russian-speakers, primarily Orthodox Christians, these peoples see their
history as inextricably bound up with the fountainhead of Slavic
civilization represented by the Kremlin.
Russia, in turn, has given them limited diplomatic, political, and military
support in their respective struggles for self-determination and kept the
Georgian wolf at the door.
However, Saakashvili, in his bid to create a Greater Georgia and prove his
usefulness to the anti-Russian alliance of NATO nations, is taking the
offensive.
Even as he jails the opposition, cracks down on the media, and seeks to
label anyone who fails to march in lockstep to his authoritarianism a
"Russian spy," Georgia creeps closer to full NATO membership.
First Ukraine, then Georgia - the creation of a cordon sanitaire around the
former Soviet Union requires just a few more links, one of which was
provided in the delightfully obscure country of Kyrgyzstan.
In Kyrgyzstan, you'll remember, the classic pattern of these color-coded
revolutions ran true to form: a disputed election, massive street protests,
and the flight of the former leader to Russia.
This was hailed by Condoleezza Rice and numerous commentators as yet more
evidence that the Bushian "global democratic revolution" was taking hold -
inspired, or so we were told, by the American "liberation" of Iraq and the
president's "forward strategy of freedom."
The former president, Askar Akayev, an ex-communist bureaucrat, was accused
by all the pertinent "human rights" organizations to be an election-thief as
well as a mini-Stalin.
Compared to what followed, however, the era of Akayev's rule will go down in
the history of the country as relatively benign: compared, that is, to the
reign of his successor, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, which has been marked
by what the International Herald Tribune describes as "political instability
and deteriorating public security, including a string of high-profile
murders."
The latest outrage is the news that the president's brother tried to have
heroin planted on a prominent opposition leader. Against the backdrop of
mysterious hooligan attacks on the independent media, one thing seems clear:
in Kyrgyzstan, the Tulip Revolution has wilted, and the familiar weed of
autocracy has grown up in its place.
Both Russia and the U.S. maintain military bases in the country - there was,
you may recall, that mysterious incident with the disappearing U.S. officer,
who turned up several miles away from where she was last seen, for reasons
that aren't quite clear.
And now we have this collision in the air over Manas Air Base, involving a
Kyrgyz airliner and a U.S. military refueling aircraft - both reminders of
the shadowy American presence in this far corner of Central Asia.
It was under Akayev that the Russians were granted access to their base near
the village of Kant, not far from the capital city of Bishkek, in 2003.
Shortly afterward, he was overthrown.
While Bakiyev got into a tiff with the U.S. over the price of basing
rights - he wanted $50 million more, to start - his increasingly repressive
regime has not occasioned any reprimands from the Americans.
What may provoke the ire of the U.S. are increasing military and economic
ties with Russia, such as the recent joint "anti-terrorism"military
exercises conducted by Kyrgyz and Russian forces.
Who wants to bet that the guardians of liberty over at Freedom House and the
constellation of "human rights" organizations will suddenly begin to take
note of Bakiyev's shortcomings?
We always said these color-coded "revolutions" were made in Washington, and
now that they have all been betrayed in Washington and on their home turf,
our view - not exactly a popular one at the time these "revolutions" were
occurring - is confirmed. T
he people of these countries still suffer and are in virtually all cases
worse off than before: the only achievement they can rack up to date is the
prospect of NATO membership, or, in the case of Kyrgyzstan, increased aid.
The "revolutions" in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe were
meant not to spread "democracy," but to extend the reach of American
military power, via NATO and more directly.
The American goal is to encircle the Russians and the Chinese, keeping both
in check and extending the far frontiers of the rising American empire deep
into Central Asia. It isn't about democracy, or free markets - it's all
about imperialism, pure and simple. -30-
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LINK: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9768
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20. SEPARATISM IN MOLDOVA: POLITICAL & LEGAL ASPECTS
OF A 'FROZEN CONFLICT'
EVENT SUMMARY: Seminar on Moldova
Washington, D.C., September 29, 2006,
Moldova Foundation, Washington, D.C. Friday, October 6, 2006
EVENT SUMMARY
At a Kennan Institute seminar* on September 29, 2006, David Kramer, deputy
assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs; Elizabeth F.
Defeis of Seton Hall University; Christopher J. Borgen of St. John's
University; Mark A. Meyer of the New York City Bar Association; and William
Hill of Georgetown University gave their assessments of the Transnistrian
separatist conflict in the Republic of Moldova.
In discussing the legal issues involved in the conflict, as well as the
political and diplomatic issues, panelists agreed that the United States,
the European Union, and Russia all had roles to play in the solution to the
conflict.
David Kramer began by laying out the position of the United States
government on the Transnistrian conflict, highlighting three principles.
[1] First, the United States fully respects the territorial integrity of
Moldova.
[2] Second, it considers Transnistria part of Moldova.
[3] Third, it considers separatism unacceptable. Kramer stated that
Moldova has the right to choose whether to allow foreign troops
to remain on its territory, and the U.S. will continue to stress the
need for Russia to fulfill its Istanbul commitments to withdraw its
troops.
He also called for the resumption of the "5+2" negotiations on Transnistria.
Kramer added that he was cautiously optimistic about reintegrating the
breakaway region into Moldova for several reasons, including improved border
control, the implementation of the new customs regime between Moldova and
Ukraine, and the high-level attention being given to the Transnistria
conflict in the United States.
Elizabeth Defeis described the role of the legal assessment team sent to
Moldova by the New York City Bar Association. The team met with high-level
officials in Moldova and the Transnistrian region, as well as with experts
and policy makers in the United States, with an aim toward producing a
comprehensive legal assessment of the situation based on current
international law.
The team was led by Mark Meyer, and included Defeis and Christopher
Borgen, among others.
Borgen summarized the Bar Association's findings. In preparing this report,
the team sought to answer three questions: 1) Does Transnistria have a legal
right to secession? 2) What exactly is the current legal status of
Transnistria? 3) What is the legality of the actions of third parties in the
conflict?
There is no general right to secession under international law. However,
past examples have shown that entities claiming that a secession would be
legal must meet three conditions.
[1] First, the group must constitute "a people."
[2] Second, the group must be able to prove that it is suffering serious
harms.
[3] Third, the group must have no other solution to the problem other
than to secede. The study argues that none of the three conditions
are met in the Transnistrian case.
Therefore, according to Borgen, the region has the status of being under a
belligerent occupation by a belligerent group, which is a de facto regime.
As a de facto regime, it does not have the legal right to change the
underlying economic structure of Transnistria, which it has been doing by
selling assets that belong to the Moldovan government.
Mark Meyer followed by outlining what contribution he believes the New York
Bar Association has added to the discussion of the "frozen conflict."
According to Meyer, the report and its discussion of the rule of law have
"empowered the Moldovan government to understand that it indeed has an
arsenal of weapons that it can use in international forums to bring pressure
on third-party states to adhere to international law and to resolve the
conflict."
He also discussed the legal implications of the commercial activities of the
self-proclaimed Transnistrian government.
William Hill talked about the need to find a way forward to ending this
conflict. Instead of focusing on the past, Moldova needs to make itself more
attractive to residents of Transnistria, so that they can imagine
reintegrating their region into the Moldovan state.
Panelists agreed that reforms and a higher standard of living in Moldova
were a necessary component to ending the conflict.
Hill argued that there need to be "carrots" as well as "sticks" in the
policy adopted by the United States and the European Union.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: *The event was cosponsored by the Moldova Foundation, East
European Studies and the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center
(http://foundationmoldova.org/pagini/eng/842/). Sent from the Moldova
Foundation (www.foundation.moldova.org)
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21. "UKRAINE AND THE EU - WHAT SORT OF FUTURE FOR US BOTH?"
SPEECH: By Danuta Hübnerm, Member
European Commission responsible for Regional Policy
Sussex University Wider Europe Conference
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, 6 October 2006
Europa, European Union's portal web site, Brussels, Belgium,
Ambassador, ladies and gentlemen,
It is good to be back in this beautiful city of Kyiv. I would like to thank
you for the invitation and to thank especially the Ambassador for hosting
this dinner tonight.
It is also a great pleasure for me to attend the Sussex University
Conference on relations between Ukraine and the European Union.
I speak to you tonight not just as European Commissioner but also as a
representative of the University, where I formerly studied and which last
year awarded me an honorary doctorate of which I am extremely proud.
I would like to explore with you tonight the future relationship between
Ukraine and the European Union. Two weeks ago the European Commission
agreed on the text of its recommendation to the Council of Ministers to open
negotiations with Ukraine for a 'new enhanced agreement'.
The Council will now discuss this negotiating framework and decide on the
exact nature of the Union's negotiating position. It is too early therefore
to say what the Union's position will be, but the Commission has proposed an
agreement which goes well beyond the terms of the existing Partnership and
Cooperation Agreement.
One does not have to be a genius to predict that one of the key discussions
will be on whether the agreement gives a perspective of accession to
Ukraine. So tonight I would like to take a little time to explain why the
Union has recently become rather wary of future accessions.
It is certainly true that the European Union is going through a period of
increased uncertainty at present. This has clearly been made worse by the
rejection of the Draft European Constitution in referenda in France and the
Netherlands but it was apparent before then. Indeed it was one of the
reasons that the Union set out to adopt a Constitution in the first place.
One of trends which affects the Union is a general distrust of centralised
power. It is affecting all our Member States and this is reflected in lower
voter participation. At the same time Eurostat opinion polls show that
European institutions enjoy higher legitimacy then national ones and that
people want more Europe.
However, at the same time it is worrying that the citizens of the Union
appear to be doubting whether the Union can deliver those policies which
they expect from it. The Common Foreign and Security Policy could not
produce a unified view on the invasion of Iraq.
Immigration worries many citizens, but it is taking a long time for the
Union to be able to agree an immigration policy with common rules and
procedures. And on energy, it appears that Member States are following
policies, which are sometimes not at all in the interest of other Members.
All this should rather encourage us to undertake the reforms necessary to
solve some of these problems. The draft Constitution tackled many of these
questions - the role of national parliaments and subsidiarity, strengthening
the Common Foreign Policy and institutional reform. Yet in two Member States
it has been rejected by citizens who were demanding the reforms it was
trying to undertake.
It will be necessary for the Union to implement many of the measures
proposed in the Constitution if it is to continue to grow, to be an
effective world actor and to have efficient institutions - and if it is to
continue to integrate with its neighbours.
The 'Angst' which has apparently taken root in the Union is to a large
extent related also to the growing speed of change in every area of life,
but particularly in the economy.
High unemployment in some countries and stagnating living standards make
people worried about their futures and those of their children. It is
claimed the recent enlargement of the Union to the central and eastern
European countries is partly to blame for the economic situation. While the
truth is quite the opposite, some politicians have also found it convenient
to blame enlargement for economic ills.
While this situation will not change the overall integration dynamic on the
European continent, it will no doubt slow down progress.
In my view it is the future dynamism of the European economy which will
determine the future of enlargement and integration.
The crucial economic pressures come from globalisation. The acceleration of
globalisation in the last twenty years has forced continuous economic
adjustment on Europe.
The opening of world trade through successive WTO tariff-cutting rounds and
the development of technology allowing networking at the global level has
meant that competitive advantage has been exploited at the world level.
The low cost of labour and the enormous labour reserves of rural China have
led to that country out-competing the rest of the world in a whole range of
relatively low-technology products.
Globalisation has brought the European Union enormous benefits. As the
largest world trader we have gained greatly from the opening up of trade.
Society as a whole is far better off than it ever could have been if we
lived in a protected market.
Competition has increased, raising productivity and leading to downward
pressure on inflation. The problem however is that meeting global
competition requires a capacity for economic reform and flexibility in the
economy which is often not met in Europe.
The result of these changes has been the loss of some industrial capacity in
the European Union in those sectors where Europe can no longer compete.
At the individual level this has been felt as increasing job insecurity and,
for the unskilled, downward wage pressure.
The worst social tensions have been felt in those European economies which
have inflexible labour markets and where the skill level amongst workers is
rather low. Economies with large manufacturing sectors have also been
affected worse than those which have already lost much of their
manufacturing base and have become service economies.
There are people who want to turn off globalisation. This would be a
disaster and is anyway not possible short of global catastrophe. The only
solution is to adapt our economies to benefit from globalisation. This is
the objective of the Union's Lisbon Agenda, which I probably do not need to
dwell on in this audience.
But progress is slow for several reasons.
Unemployment creates anxiety amongst both those directly affected and those
who think they might be in the future. The result is pressure to slow change
down rather than to speed it up. This is especially the case when low
skilled workers are put out of work, for they really find it difficult to
find equivalently paid unskilled work.
There is no quick fix here. The longer term solution, indeed the only
salvation for Europe, is in better education and training and greater
innovation in business.
However Europe is also an ageing society and innovation and risk-taking
decline as people get older. It is difficult to push ahead with reform in
older societies.
As a result of the resistance to change, politicians are frequently tempted
to go for popular slogans and policies rather than fighting the argument
that we must face up to change or decline. Enlargement and integration have
fallen into this trap because they are easily blamed for some of the evils
of modern life.
This view has no foundations!
European integration, in whichever of its forms - European Economic Area,
accession, association or partnership - normally leads to an increase in
economic welfare for the Continent. This comes about through the normal
economic processes of market opening and increases in the productivity of
capital and labour through free movement.
But what are also often overlooked are the benefits which come from
increasing security on the Continent and increasing cooperation in many
areas of policy.
Let me then come to apply this analysis to the relations between Ukraine and
the European Union.
This process and the generalised Angst, that I have already mentioned, rule
out further enlargement for the present, they should in no way affect the
deeper integration of Ukraine with the Union.
The advantages for Ukraine of negotiating an enhanced agreement with the
Union in the coming months would be considerable. Let me just mention a few.
In trade, Ukrainian companies would be able to access the EU market without
tariffs, except in a limited number of sectors. More importantly, as Ukraine
adopts and implements some of the regulation of the Union's internal market,
these companies would be able to sell in the Union in the same way as
domestic companies and without having to always show that they are meeting
EU standards.
The adoption of EU regulation itself would be an important guarantee for the
necessary reforms which any Government here will have to undertake. Some of
these necessary reforms would aim at making the business environment less
burdensome for companies but at the same time rendering business in Ukraine
more open and transparent.
A reduction in the 'insider economy' has been one of the policy planks of
the President since coming into office and it has been one of the main
recommendations of international observers of the Ukrainian economy.
Integration with the Union will also attract more foreign direct investment
to Ukraine because it will make this country a less risky place to do
business. FDI is vitally important for the modernisation of Ukraine's
economy. One only has to look at Poland to see the significance of FDI for
economic development.
The Union will also of course be providing more financial aid to Ukraine
under the new European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument and this
finance can be used to undertake some of the necessary steps for
implementing the Enhanced Agreement.
One question that will be asked is how this will affect Ukraine's relations
with Russia. My answer would be that it should not at all.
Everyone is aware of the importance of relations with Russia as well as with
the EU. But it is absurd to think that because relations with one side are
improved this is a blow against relations with the other.
To conclude, let me say the following. Romania and Bulgaria are about to
join the Union. The European Commission has said that to continue the
accession process the institutional issues addressed by the Draft
Constitution have to be tackled.
This is not only sensible but necessary. The legal basis for the operation
of the Union, the Nice Treaty, specifies that the current institutional
framework has to change after the number of member states reaches 27.
Already work on how to effect the necessary changes is beginning in various
centres around the Union. I myself participate in a group of 'wise men',
under the chairmanship of Giuliano Amato, set up to think how we can push
forward institutional reform in the Union.
This is a difficult subject given the negative referenda in France and
Netherlands, but it is essential for the future development of the Union.
Together with the review of the budget programmed for 2008-9, success here
would leave the Union in a much better position to face the future and to
promote further integration on the Continent.
Thank you for your attention. -30-
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22. UKRAINE AND NATO MEMBERSHIP
Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood - Roundtable VII
October 17-18, 2006, Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C
Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR)
New York, New York, Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Dear Friends of the UA Quest RT Series [A Reminder Invite]:
You are respectfully invited to be a participant at the seventh annual
roundtable of the Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood series, to be
held in Washington, DC on October 17/18, 2006. This year, the forum will
be entitled "Ukraine and NATO Membership".
The two day conference will bring together government and key
non-government representatives of Ukraine, the United States and Ukraine's
several neighbors as well as experts from the world of academia to examine
and evaluate Ukraine's readiness to assume a place in the Euro-Atlantic
world in one of its two critical dimensions, or more precisely, to accede to
the historically singular security alliance known as NATO.
To facilitate the said examination, the event will run four regular sessions
featuring eight panels, six highlight focus sessions, two working lunches
and two conference receptions. In total, more than seventy speakers have
confirmed their readiness to address the conference proceedings.
You are welcome to attend all of the specified plenary sessions. Your
presence will certainly enhance the proceedings you may choose to join. In
addition, you are welcome to partake in both of the Roundtable's traditional
evening receptions.
Conferences in the Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood series have
convened annually since 2000 and have proven an invaluable forum for the
examination of Ukraine's development as a modern, democratic state.
Previous conferences in this series evaluated Ukraine's relationship with
the United States and the European Union, its transition to a market
economy, and the development of stable, democratic politics.
Past speakers from the government of Ukraine have included Boris Tarasyuk,
minister of foreign affairs; Oleh Rybachuk, former chief of staff under
President Viktor Yushchenko; and former Prime Ministers Anatoliy Kinakh and
Yuriy Yekhanurov.
Among the American and European participants have been Zbigniew Brzezinski,
former U.S. National Security Adviser; Paul Wolfowitz, president of the
World Bank; Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations; Senator John McCain, chairman of the International
Republican Institute; Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Global
Affairs; Guenter Burghardt, former ambassador of the European Union to the
United States; Geza Jeszensky, former minister of foreign affairs for
Hungary; and recognized experts on regional affairs such as Anders Aslund
and James Sherr.
Due to the time constraints involved with organizing such a large forum, we
kindly ask that you respond by October 12, 2006 concerning your acceptance
to participate.
For further information, kindly contact Mykola Hryckowian, UA Quest RTS
Technical Coordinator, by phone: (212) 473 0839, fax: (212) 473 2180, or
e-mail: mhryckowian@earthlink.net, at your convenience.
Yours truly, William Miller, Co-Chair
Bob Schaffer, Co-Chair; Walter Zaryckyj, Program Coordinator
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
RTVII registration and sponsorship information can be found online at the
Center for US-Ukrainian Relations, http://www.cusur.org/rt7/index.html.
For additional information, please contact Mark Romaniw, UA Quest RTVII
Media Coordinator, by phone: (202) 412 6883, fax: (212) 473 2180, or e-mail:
mark.romaniw@cusur.org. -30-
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