Former World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov, who has taken a prominent role in Russian politics in the last several years, has an Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times arguing that those who support freedom in Russia should be more criticial of Russian President Putin:
The right of Russians to elect their governors and parliamentary representatives is steadily eroding, with more and more influence accruing to the executive. Even Aleksandr Veshnyakov, the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission who has rubber-stamped the results of every election under President Putin, recently said that if all the new legislation proposed by Mr. Putin’s United Russia Party were passed, elections here “would be a farce.” Opposition activists and journalists are routinely arrested and interrogated. The Kremlin, in complete control of the judiciary, loots private businesses and then uses state-controlled companies to launder the money abroad.
Mr. Bush and Europe’s leaders apparently believe it is best to disregard such unpleasantness for the sake of receiving Russia’s cooperation on security and energy. This cynical and morally repugnant stance has also proven ineffective. Just as in the old days, Moscow has become an ally for troublemakers and anti-democratic rulers around the world. Nuclear aid to Iran, missile technology to North Korea, military aircraft to Sudan, Myanmar and Venezuela, and a budding friendship with Hamas: these are the West’s rewards for keeping its mouth shut about human rights in Russia.
All of this is hardly surprising considering its happening under the rule of a former KGB apparatchik. What remains to be seen is whether the Russian people will stand for it.
Profile Of A Dead Chechen Warlord
The most wanted man in Russia, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, has been killed today by the country’s special forces. While the precise circumstances of his death have yet to be publicized, one can only hope that his final breaths on