FADING FREEDOMS- long
by Michael
Hammerschlag
Omon Riot Police- Pushkin
Sq., Moscow, April 14 ©Michael Hammerschlag Capital Times vers- Mar 24, 07
Something amazing happened in St. Petersburg March 3rd, where the
Putinist Mayor has simply banned the (only) liberal Yablocko Party -
there was an old fashioned protest rally over
the assault on freedoms. The police attacked and beat some of the 3000
people, but the amazing thing was that there was a protest at all.
Another Dissenter March was crushed in Moscow on April 14, organized by The
Other Russia, headed by chess master Garry Kasparov (who was arrested) and
former Prime Minister Kasyanov. Outnumbered 5 to 1 by riot police, the 2000
protesters were banned from the central Pushkin Sq. and again attacked when
they tried to march to their approved Turgenev Sq. location. The government had
granted rally permits that day to ultra nationalist, anti-immigrant, and creepy
Putin Youth groups - the Young Guard, who like Nashi, protest and
harass anyone with the temerity to not support Putin’s every proposal. The next
day in Petersburg, the police did it again, beating pensioners and protesters
when they were just returning to the Metro.
Returning here after 13 years has been a
shock- at the incredible prices in the omnipresent luxury stores and malls; at
the 3 million cars and 6 hour traffic jams, at the 160 million cell phones, at
the continual artillery barrage on democracy, and the utter complaisance of the
people, 80% of whom approve of Putin.
Day by day over the last 7 years, power has been consolidated in the
Kremlin: regional governors are now
appointed, not elected; the entire Duma and Senate are dominated by Putin's United Russia, other parties are banned
or harassed; opponents prosecuted; almost every media outlet has been crushed,
or taken over by the Kremlin and their allies.
When I first arrived in Nov
91, a month Metro pass on the best system in the world or a Big Mac were 12¢, tickets to the
Hermitage or Pushkin Museums or Bolshoi Ballet were 4¢, a new 27” color TV
or 6000 mile airplane ticket was $3, the people made $8/month (because of the
insane exchange rate); and Americans were feted as wealthy foreign princes. Now
a baseball cap in one of these luxury malls runs $20-90, a meal in an average
restaurant is $30-40; and brainless goons at the door of every club and
restaurant arbitrarily deny entrance to anyone not rich, beautiful, or elite
enough (the Mafiya had a cure for this in the old days). Then it was messy,
wild, violent; but free, with a vibrant and dynamic media, surging with
hope and enthusiasm at the prospects. It is physically painful to me, having
seen the horrendous price Russians paid for the authoritarian brutality and
promulgation of lies by the Communists, to see it reenacted, step by step in
the new Russia. The Russian penchant for abuse remains undaunted: the first
rule is “Everyone with power abuses it”, and Russians can flip from
insufferable superiority to craven supplication with breathless aplomb,
depending on the perceived status of their interlocutor. Every week there are
more moves to hamper, restrict, and cripple the press, NGO’s, and any foreign
groups.
The respected liberal Moscow
News, whom I most wrote for, just was swallowed by the government news
agency RIA/Novesti, and an executive there said, "You will not find
stories that can be classified as political". Do what? They had 2 editors executed by Stalin- is Vlad the Impaler
really worse than Uncle Joe? 35% now would vote
for Stalin, informed by a 40 part TV series dramatizing his "good
side". In March 11th regional elections, the 2 pro-Kremlin parties overwhelmingly
won all
14 provinces. Surprise. The Kremlin recently concocted their 2nd
party- A Just Russia, as a more liberal clone, but is already alarmed at
its popularity. The only allowed parties who reach
the arbitrary 7% level for “legality” are 2 Kremlin parties, the Communists,
and the neo-right wing Liberal Democrats (Zhironovsky’s)- the last 2
being helpful as a designated protest vote to provide the veneer of democracy,
though even they prostrate themselves regularly for the Kremlin. The banned National
Bolsheviks are to be dissolved- even mentioning their name in the
newspaper will be a crime, prosecutors warned, and they raided a radio station-
Echo Moscva, and confiscated radio tapes of an interview with their
leader. Non-parties, non-persons; haven’t we been here before?
Both Putin and
Moscow Mayor for Life Luzhkov are supposedly quitting next year, Putin because
the Constitution says so (if they don't change it, which the Senate
Speaker just suggested; and Luzhkov just met with Don Putina to get his
blessing to stay Mayor- his wife is a property manager billionaire in a
place where he has the last word on property). Since there is no real
opposition or opposition press, news has the flavor of Czarist court gossip
about who's the most slavishly devoted; as the country waits with bated breathe
which Deputy Prime Minister Putin will throw his support behind- probably
fellow KGB traveler and neo-hardliner ex-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who
was just promoted. But this one party state has shredded the foundations of
democracy, which require a free press and
informed citizenry, and corrupted every institution of a civil society. Passageway
by MacDonalds- Puskinskaya 4/14
The new head of elections,
another Petersburg Putin underling, believes “rule no. 1 is that Putin is
always right.” Russians, as always, subject to maybe 70 million violent deaths last
century, value stability above freedom. One of the last truly free papers- the
english Moscow Times, has been
running hard-hitting commentaries. "As long as people get 80% of their
news from TV, the government doesn't care what we do," says editorial
editor Tom Rymer.
Elsewhere the risks of imperial displeasure are manifest- another
reporter- a former Colonel- who was reporting on military scandals,
was thrown to his death from his apartment bldg March 2nd, or committed suicide
wearing his coat and hat and carrying a bag of oranges- say police. And hanging
over everyone is the pathetic picture of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sitting in a
Siberian cage with a rueful "why didn't I get out" smile... for the
next 20 years. The richest of the so called oligarchs, his terrible mistake was
to meddle in politics, for which they just jimmied up another 15 year sentence
for money laundering, a statue so ridiculously drawn that it would include
every banker in the world. The other media-magnates: Gusinsky and Berezhovsky,
got out by the skin of their teeth, as their media holdings were stolen and
carved up, which is now happening to Khodorkovsky's Yukos Oil Co.
Almost no one is prosecuted in Russia without some
ulterior motive; the question is never: “what did they do”, or “are they
guilty”- that’s hardly relevant; but who powerful wants to hurt them and why.
Dozens of Mayors have been arrested because this pathological administration
sees any other authority in the country as a threat that must be
crushed. The hero Central Bank manager murdered because he was “cleaning out
corrupt banks”, was probably carelessly and arbitrary crushing clean bizneesmeni to loot their assets. The story of Russia is
the corruption of power: as all control and oxygen in the country is sucked
into the Kremlin, they become increasingly terrified of dissent, and dare not
relinquish an iota lest they pay for their manoga transgressions.
Though the Mafiya is overtly gone in Moscow and one can run around with
expensive laptops in safety; the government is acting the part with foreign
businesses; bullying them to sell strategic assets- oil, gas, electricity,
pipelines. Prosecutors are threatening to shut down TNK-BP because they failed
to pump enough gas, but metastasizing monopoly Gazprom has refused to allow
them much access to their pipelines. This is after they blackmailed Shell and
Japanese partners into selling 51% of Sakhalin Is.-2 Project to Gazprom over
"environmental objections". [Note: This country disappeared the
world's 4th largest lake.] After
heavy-handed gas price rises in Ukraine and Byelorus, Putin has caused shudders
across Europe with a possible alliance with Algeria's gas company and talk of a
gas OPEC.
Over 75% of the country's GDP is created by the companies of the
billionaires' "oligarchs'
union". Most things are imported- paid for with their vast stores of raw
materials; the manufacturing base eradicated in the 1992-3 hyperinflation never
was really rebuilt. Meanwhile, business people tout Russia as an "almost
normal" place to conduct business as they poured in $120 billion of
foreign investments last year. But it just took me 6 hours and 7 banks to cash
travelers checks.
America's foolish decision to base our useless interceptor missiles in
Czechia and Poland provoked an antediluvian Cold Warrish response from a
Russian general, but this is after we treacherously ringed Russia by
NATO, against all promises. If NATO ever actually brings in Ukraine,
Russia’s birthplace, it will provoke a final break with the newly rich Russia
and a completely unnecessary new Cold War. Iran is a threat,
especially since Bush empowered them squandering America's force and honor on
his Oedipal obsession with Iraq, but these missiles evoke
specters of Russia’s collapse that enrage virtually everyone here. And a dollop
of security against the extremists in Tehran won’t be worth much compared with
reactivating the thousands of bombs and missiles of the only nation that can
destroy us.
The country is in the grips of another virulent crackdown on
"foreigners", and maybe 2 million southern Moslems, Chinese, Koreans, etc. have fled or been driven out
and the large food markets at the fringes have
been
depopulated. Racist attacks are not rare events. Every Metro station has a
dozen militsia who prowl around like hungry jackals, looking to yank
a confused or solitary wildebeest out of the crowd and terrorize them with
document demands. Americanness or legality is no defense, I was hassled for 20
minutes in the Metro; and car cops stopped and forced me to page slowly
through
the money section of my billfold- even a US rep of Bush I’s
Barracks Gold Co. came into a hostel quaking with fear. A friend who lives outside
the city gets funneled driving through a checkpoint every day, where he is
often forced to pay a bribe. Putin endorses it all with his blanket celebration
of the security agencies.
"You don't understand Michael, there are millions of people beyond
the outer ring like wild animals, who all
want to come in, and our job is to
keep them out," says translator friend Pavel Panov. And he's the liberal.
Michael Hammerschlag spent 2
years in Russia 1991-1994 witnessing the collapse of the Empire and writing for every English
language paper. He reported on Putin's media crackdown for MediaChannel in 2001 and currently has a long global warming
article on the latest scientific findings. Hammernews.com.