The Putin path: Civil liberties and human rights in retreat

Problems of Post-Communism

Volumn 47, Issue 5, 2000, Pages 3-12

  Mendelson, Sarah E ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0034259106     PISSN: 10758216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2000.11655897     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. This article draws on the author's interviews with numerous political and social activists in Russia and the United States between December 1999 and May 2000 and on experience working with and studying democracy-assistance programs since 1994.
2. An absurd example of an attempt to stop criticism came when the government pressured NTV to remove an unflattering puppet of President Putin from its satirical puppet show Kukly. Geoffrey York, "Piqued Putin Cancels Satirical TV Show," Globe and Mail (May 30, 2000).
3. The disappearance of Babitskii and the raid on Media-Most prompted the production of special editions of Obshchaia gazeta, which often occurs when journalists perceive a threat to freedom of the press.
4. Congressional testimony before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, May 23, 2000. Some argue that this story lends credibility to the speculation (for there is no proof) that the FSB (and not Chechens) planted the bombs in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia in the fall of 1999.
5. Human rights violations are not new in the post-Soviet era. Many Western and Russian organizations tracked abuses during the Yeltsin era, including the proliferation of "filtration camps," where Chechens were detained and tortured in the first war in Chechnya (Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch), hazing and torture of military conscripts (Mothers' of Soldiers), and treatment in prisons and jails (Amnesty International and Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights). Labor activists argue that the wage arrears that Russian workers have long had to endure are also a form of human rights abuse (Irene Stevenson, executive director, American Center for International Labor Solidarity, September 9, 1998).
6. On the harassment of environmentalists, see Thomas Nilsen and Jon Gauslaa, "How the KGB Violates Citizens' Rights: The Case of Alexander Nikitin," Demokratizatsiya 5, no. 3 (summer 1997): 407-21. Joshua Handler, "Under Suspicion," IEEE Spectrum (March 2000), recounts the earlier cases of Aleksandr Nikitin and Grigorii Pasko as well as his own experience with the FSB in October 1999, when his research materials were confiscated, and he was eventually driven out of Russia. Handler was an environmental activist with Greenpeace before enrolling in a doctoral program at Princeton University. Another example of a non-Russian being run out of the country by the FSB involved a program officer for the National Democratic Institute (a United States-based NGO). In the fall of 1999, after repeated harassment, the FSB ordered this person to work for the FSB or else. This person then fled the country. NDI has asked that this person's name not be printed.
7. On the harassment of environmentalists, see Thomas Nilsen and Jon Gauslaa, "How the KGB Violates Citizens' Rights: The Case of Alexander Nikitin," Demokratizatsiya 5, no. 3 (summer 1997): 407-21. Joshua Handler, "Under Suspicion," IEEE Spectrum (March 2000), recounts the earlier cases of Aleksandr Nikitin and Grigorii Pasko as well as his own experience with the FSB in October 1999, when his research materials were confiscated, and he was eventually driven out of Russia. Handler was an environmental activist with Greenpeace before enrolling in a doctoral program at Princeton University. Another example of a non-Russian being run out of the country by the FSB involved a program officer for the National Democratic Institute (a United States-based NGO). In the fall of 1999, after repeated harassment, the FSB ordered this person to work for the FSB or else. This person then fled the country. NDI has asked that this person's name not be printed.
8. On the treatment of service-provision groups, author interview, Iurii Dzhibladze, president, Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, March 24, 2000.
9. On the face of it, a re-registration campaign need not be problematic. Some activists have argued publicly that there was, in fact, "a solid rationale for requiring re-registration. The list of registered organizations ... on file at local Departments of Justice [wa]s virtually meaningless," given the large number of groups that sprang up after the collapse of the Soviet Union. See the exchange by Sarah C. Lindemann, president of ECHO, May 26, 1999, in response to Paul Goble, "Analysis From Washington: A Threat to the Growth Of Civil Society," RFE/RL Newsline (May 24, 1999), as carried on Johnson's Russia List.
10. See "On the Violations Committed in the Course of Registration and Re-Registration of Public Associations in the Russian Federation in 1999" (report prepared by the Information Center of the Human Rights Movement and the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, Moscow, February 15, 2000). See also Press conference with Sergei Kovalev, April 18, 2000, distributed by the Federal News Service. Emphasis added.
11. See "On the Violations Committed in the Course of Registration and Re-Registration of Public Associations in the Russian Federation in 1999" (report prepared by the Information Center of the Human Rights Movement and the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, Moscow, February 15, 2000). See also Press conference with Sergei Kovalev, April 18, 2000, distributed by the Federal News Service. Emphasis added.
12. On shutting down NGOs, author interview with Dzhibladze, and with Alyson Ewald, Sacred Earth Network, May 17, 2000. On Ustinov, author interview, Masha Lipman, deputy chief editor, Itogi, May 18, 2000.
13. On shutting down NGOs, author interview with Dzhibladze, and with Alyson Ewald, Sacred Earth Network, May 17, 2000. On Ustinov, author interview, Masha Lipman, deputy chief editor, Itogi, May 18, 2000.
14. For details on the most prominent case, see http://www.bellona.no/ nikitin/ as well as Nilsen and Gauslaa, "How the KGB Violates Citizens' Rights." Nikitin is a retired military officer who worked for a trans-national environmental group, the Bellona Foundation, on a report about the dangers posed by nuclear waste from the Russian Northern Fleet. He was jailed for this work and accused of treason and later acquitted by a three judge panel at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. As this article went to press, in an unprecedented move, the prosecutor general's office appealed to the eleven-member Presidium of the Supreme Court to reopen the case against Nikitin (Nikitin's congressional testimony before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, July 20, 2000).
15. Anti-nuclear activists Vladimir Sliviak and Alisa Nikulina were especially targeted. Press conference, "FSB Fight Environmental Activists: New arrests are more than possible," October 21,1999, National Press Institute, Moscow; press release, "A Story of Political Repression in Today's Russia as a Piece of Art," March 20, 2000, Anti-Nuclear Campaign of the Socio-Ecological Union. The federal authorities tried to link some other incidents involving Western groups to the bombings. These groups were run out of Russia and have asked not to be identified.
16. Julie Corwin, "Environmentalists Fear More Pressure from Federal Authorities," RFE/RL Newsline 4, no. 44 (March 2, 2000). The Russian environmentalists are part of a trans-national network like the ones described in Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
17. Julie Corwin, "Environmentalists Fear More Pressure from Federal Authorities," RFE/RL Newsline 4, no. 44 (March 2, 2000). The Russian environmentalists are part of a trans-national network like the ones described in Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
18. A March 21, 2000, letter to Putin was signed by Bill Pfeiffer, executive director, Sacred Earth Network; Eliza K. Klose, executive director, Initiative for Social Action and Renewal in Eurasia (ISAR); Thomas Jandl, director, Bellona USA; David Gordon, director of programs, Pacific Environment and Resources Center; Michael Mariotte, executive director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service; Mark Dubois and Shalini Ramanathan, international coordinators, Earth Day 2000 Network. According to Alyson Ewald of the Sacred Earth Network, there have been unintended positive consequences in a few cases. In areas where the authorities are merely carrying out orders rather than truly trying to shut down organizations, the NGOs have used the scrutiny as an opportunity to explain to the authorities various environmental issues that affect everyone and, at the same time, have demonstrated (through a full accounting of their books) that their organizations are "clean" and in compliance with local laws. Author interview, May 17, 2000.
19. "On the Violations Committed in the Course of Registration and Re-Registration of Public Associations in the Russian Federation in 1999"; Boris Pustintsev, Citizens' Watch, St. Petersburg, "Russian Authorities Declared War on Human Rights NGOs"; author's e-mail correspondence with Alyson Ewald of the Sacred Earth Network.
20. Geraldine Fagan and Lawrence Uzzell, "Church-State Relations in Putin's Russia," Keston News Service, Issue 4, no. 14 (April 14, 2000), available at http://www.keston.org. The Keston Institute has been following freedom of religion in Russia for over thirty years.
21. On the increase in expulsions of foreign missionaries, see http:// www.keston.org. The author thanks John Finerty for help on this section.
22. Pavel Podvig, researcher for the Center for Arms Control Studies, to Michael Stevenson, vice president and provost, York University, May 10, 2000. For more information on this case, see http://www.hro.org/ actions/sutyagin/index.htm.
23. This organization, of which the author is a member, is a formal network of American and Russian scholars. It receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation to conduct meetings twice a year where members can discuss policy issues with decision-makers in Washington, discuss scholarly work with one another, and print and distribute their own work.
24. Author e-mail correspondence with Podvig.
25. In fact, according to Grigorii Yavlinskii, the leader of the political party Yabloko, the FSB is also targeting student volunteers who worked for his party on the December 1999 parliamentary campaign and the March 2000 presidential campaign. Yavlinskii claimed that "students are being forced to sign agreements of cooperation with special services, their relatives are being threatened, some are being expelled from school for declining to cooperate or for not agreeing that fast. Some people were told that if you don't provide us the information we need, then we might send you to fight in Chechnya" (interview with Yavlinskii, June 15, 2000, Radio Ekho Moskvy by Aleksei Venediktov as carried on Johnson's Russia List.)
26. On human rights abuses by Russian federal forces in Chechnya, see Amnesty International, Recommendations to the 56th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights at http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aipub/ 2000/EUR/44601400.htm; Human Rights Watch at http://www.hrw.org; Peter Bouckaert, "The Real War Begins," Washington Post (February 25, 2000) (Bouckaert has gathered evidence of "more than 100 summary executions committed by Russian troops during the takeover of Grozny"); Rachel Denber, deputy director, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch, Congressional Testimony, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, May 23, 2000. In an e-mail correspondence with the author, a program manager for Halo Trust, the British de-mining organization, who had been in Chechnya from September through December 1999, wrote, "We are able to provide independent confirmation of the excessive use of force with complete disregard for civilian casualties."
27. On human rights abuses by Russian federal forces in Chechnya, see Amnesty International, Recommendations to the 56th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights at http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aipub/ 2000/EUR/44601400.htm; Human Rights Watch at http://www.hrw.org; Peter Bouckaert, "The Real War Begins," Washington Post (February 25, 2000) (Bouckaert has gathered evidence of "more than 100 summary executions committed by Russian troops during the takeover of Grozny"); Rachel Denber, deputy director, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch, Congressional Testimony, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, May 23, 2000. In an e-mail correspondence with the author, a program manager for Halo Trust, the British de-mining organization, who had been in Chechnya from September through December 1999, wrote, "We are able to provide independent confirmation of the excessive use of force with complete disregard for civilian casualties."
28. On human rights abuses by Russian federal forces in Chechnya, see Amnesty International, Recommendations to the 56th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights at http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aipub/ 2000/EUR/44601400.htm; Human Rights Watch at http://www.hrw.org; Peter Bouckaert, "The Real War Begins," Washington Post (February 25, 2000) (Bouckaert has gathered evidence of "more than 100 summary executions committed by Russian troops during the takeover of Grozny"); Rachel Denber, deputy director, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch, Congressional Testimony, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, May 23, 2000. In an e-mail correspondence with the author, a program manager for Halo Trust, the British de-mining organization, who had been in Chechnya from September through December 1999, wrote, "We are able to provide independent confirmation of the excessive use of force with complete disregard for civilian casualties."
29. Physicians for Human Rights, War Crimes in Kosovo: A Population-Based Assessment of Human Rights Violations Against Kosovar Albanians (Washington, DC, August 1999). Physicians for Human Rights, News Release, "Medical Group Releases Final Data on Russian Atrocities in Chechnya; Calls on Clinton to Take a Stand on War Crimes," June 2, 2000. See http://www.phrusa.org for their forthcoming study on Chechnya. It is worth noting also that, when asked to compare the destruction in Kosovo to that in Chechnya, the program manager from Halo Trust hesitated, but then gasped, "It was a joke." Based on his work for Halo Trust in Bosnia from 1993 to 1995, in Kosovo from June to August 1999, and in Chechnya from September to December 1999, he claimed that what he had seen in Chechnya was the "worst destruction anywhere." Author interview, May 31,2000.
30. Physicians for Human Rights, War Crimes in Kosovo: A Population-Based Assessment of Human Rights Violations Against Kosovar Albanians (Washington, DC, August 1999). Physicians for Human Rights, News Release, "Medical Group Releases Final Data on Russian Atrocities in Chechnya; Calls on Clinton to Take a Stand on War Crimes," June 2, 2000. See http://www.phrusa.org for their forthcoming study on Chechnya. It is worth noting also that, when asked to compare the destruction in Kosovo to that in Chechnya, the program manager from Halo Trust hesitated, but then gasped, "It was a joke." Based on his work for Halo Trust in Bosnia from 1993 to 1995, in Kosovo from June to August 1999, and in Chechnya from September to December 1999, he claimed that what he had seen in Chechnya was the "worst destruction anywhere." Author interview, May 31,2000.
31. Author interview, Anne Nivat, March 21, 2000. On Katyr-Yurt and Aldi, Appendix 1, Physicians for Human Rights Witness Testimony on Killings at Aldi and Katyr-Yurt (courtesy Doug Ford, senior project associate, PHR). See also Human Rights Watch report on Aldi. Mass killings are said to have taken place at Staropromyslovsky (December 22-January 21) and Alkhan-Yurt (December 1-18) in addition to Aldi (available at http:// www.hrw.org).
32. Author interview, Anne Nivat, March 21, 2000. On Katyr-Yurt and Aldi, Appendix 1, Physicians for Human Rights Witness Testimony on Killings at Aldi and Katyr-Yurt (courtesy Doug Ford, senior project associate, PHR). See also Human Rights Watch report on Aldi. Mass killings are said to have taken place at Staropromyslovsky (December 22-January 21) and Alkhan-Yurt (December 1-18) in addition to Aldi (available at http:// www.hrw.org).
33. Author interview, May 18, 2000.
34. BBC Monitoring, "Daily Says Press Ministry Imposes 'Iron Curtain' on Foreign Media," Segodnia (May 17, 2000). On Lesin, see Robert Coalson, "Media Watch: Lesin Is Press Enemy No. 1," Moscow Times (July 7, 2000), as carried on Johnson's Russia List.
35. BBC Monitoring, "Daily Says Press Ministry Imposes 'Iron Curtain' on Foreign Media," Segodnia (May 17, 2000). On Lesin, see Robert Coalson, "Media Watch: Lesin Is Press Enemy No. 1," Moscow Times (July 7, 2000), as carried on Johnson's Russia List.
36. Aleksandr Gamov and Evgenia Uspenskogo, "Vladimir Putin: Gosudarstvennii perevorot Rossii ne grozit" (Russia Is Not in Danger of a Coup d'Etat), Komsomolskaia pravda (July 8, 1999), 8-9. Geraldine Fagan and Lawrence Uzzell of the Keston Institute, in "Church-State Relations in Putin's Russia," argue that the FSB pays particular attention to Western missionaries, believing them to be covers for intelligence activity.
37. One study suggests that Russian leaders' meetings with the queen are "royal rewards," doled out for "good behavior and royal snubs for actions that displeased the British government." Ann E. Robertson, "Kings, Queens, Tsars, and Commissars: Russia Gets the Royal Treatment," Demokratizatsiya 4, no. 2 (spring 1996): 201. Boris Yeltsin considered Queen Elizabeth's 1994 visit to Russia "the utmost recognition that our country is on the road to democracy." Wendy Sloane, "Not All's Forgiven as Queen Tours a Tsarless Russia," Christian Science Monitor (October 19, 1994), 9, as cited in Robertson, "Kings, Queens, Tsars, and Commissars," p. 221.
38. One study suggests that Russian leaders' meetings with the queen are "royal rewards," doled out for "good behavior and royal snubs for actions that displeased the British government." Ann E. Robertson, "Kings, Queens, Tsars, and Commissars: Russia Gets the Royal Treatment," Demokratizatsiya 4, no. 2 (spring 1996): 201. Boris Yeltsin considered Queen Elizabeth's 1994 visit to Russia "the utmost recognition that our country is on the road to democracy." Wendy Sloane, "Not All's Forgiven as Queen Tours a Tsarless Russia," Christian Science Monitor (October 19, 1994), 9, as cited in Robertson, "Kings, Queens, Tsars, and Commissars," p. 221.
39. One study suggests that Russian leaders' meetings with the queen are "royal rewards," doled out for "good behavior and royal snubs for actions that displeased the British government." Ann E. Robertson, "Kings, Queens, Tsars, and Commissars: Russia Gets the Royal Treatment," Demokratizatsiya 4, no. 2 (spring 1996): 201. Boris Yeltsin considered Queen Elizabeth's 1994 visit to Russia "the utmost recognition that our country is on the road to democracy." Wendy Sloane, "Not All's Forgiven as Queen Tours a Tsarless Russia," Christian Science Monitor (October 19, 1994), 9, as cited in Robertson, "Kings, Queens, Tsars, and Commissars," p. 221.
40. See for example, Strobe Talbott's testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, April 4, 2000.
41. "NATO-Russia Relations Have to Get Back on Track Says Robertson," Agence France-Presse (May 19, 2000).
42. Author interviews with sources in Russia, Bosnia, and Washington, DC. For an oblique reference to this problem, see "Remarks by Ambassador Jacques Paul Klein, Special Representative of the Secretary General, at the Beijing Plus Five Review, March 29, 2000," available at http:// www.unmibh.org/news/srsgspe/29mar00.htm. The author thanks Madeleine Rees of the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina for sharing the "Report on Joint Trafficking Project of the UNMIBH/OHCR." On trafficking more generally, see "Crime and Servitude: An Expose of the Traffic in Women for Prostitution from the Newly Independent States" (report by the Global Survival Network in Collaboration with the International League for Human Rights).
43. Jacques Paul Klein, in a briefing that he has given for several years throughout the United States and Europe, tells of how, when confronted with Russian troops trafficking in Eastern Slavonia, he flew to Moscow and threatened to make the story public unless the Russian general staff disciplined its soldiers. He claims that the Russian military responded immediately by replacing the troops. The trafficking stopped, and the Russians were instrumental in catching a person indicted for war crimes.
44. Dragoljub Ojdanić, the Yugoslav defense minister, convicted of war crimes by the Hague Tribunal, was hosted in early May by the Russian Defense Ministry. NATO's Permanent Joint Council met later in the month with officials from the Russian Defense Ministry in Florence. 34. While the UNCHR did pass a resolution (25 in favor, 7 opposed, and 19 abstentions) calling for a national investigation into abuses, human rights groups consider it to be weakly worded. The vote followed Mary Robinson's visit to Russia. There, she was prevented from seeing what she wanted to see, and Putin refused to meet with her. But instead of insisting, in strong, clear language, on the need for national and international independent commissions to investigate human rights abuses, she spoke of the need for an investigation (for how could she not?). According to human rights groups around the world, and most importantly inside Russia, she dropped the ball. Without an international commission working alongside a national one, few think a national review will be independent of the Russian state.
45. "Council of Europe Deputies Angry Over Soft Stance on Chechnya," Agence France-Presse (May 16,2000). This approach may ultimately prove embarrassing. Amnesty International had a report on Chechnya seized at Sheremetevo airport by border guards while en route to a meeting that the Committee of Ministers was sponsoring in Vladikavkaz, Russia. "Amnesty International Material Seized as 'Anti-Russian Propaganda,'" May 30,2000 available at http://www.amnesty.org/news/2000/44603200.htm. Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch argues that the Russian government has long tried to "divide and rule" the international organizations, playing one against the other, often quite successfully. Author interview, May 31, 2000.
46. Romano Prodi, "Moscow's Mandate for Change," Financial Times (May 26, 2000).
47. The argument that policymakers offer for the small amounts of assistance in the early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union (i.e., that there was little capacity to absorb the funds or the work of Western groups) may be correct but does not explain why the democracy-assistance figures subsequently went down just as capacity was increasing. It also does not explain why so much more was allocated to market reform at a time when capacity in the economic sector was equally limited. Moreover, the argument that NGOs engaged in democracy assistance cost less than the corporations under contract for economic assistance (and therefore were paid more) does not reflect the marketplace but the fact that the building of democratic institutions was a lower priority for U.S. policymakers.
48. The phrase in quotation marks comes from Irene Stevenson, executive director of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity in Moscow, in a speech she gave on September 9, 1998, in Washington, DC, shortly after the ruble was devalued. She was making the argument that the "demand [for programs] is enormous," while the "amount of money is cut continuously."
49. For a detailed assessment of the results of democracy assistance to the entire region, see Sarah E. Mendelson and John K. Glenn, "Democracy Assistance and NGO Strategies in Post-Communist Societies," Working Paper (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2000) (available at http://www.ceip.org/programs/democr/NGOs/ index.html).
50. American NGOs that receive funding from USAID have material motivations to support this tendency. Fearful of losing funding from Congress, they participate in the gathering of "success stories" that are paraded around Capitol Hill. See, for example, "Russia's Economic and Political Transformation: Some Results of USAID Support to Date," USAID Report (spring 1995).
51. President Clinton's tribute to Boris Yeltsin, "Remembering Yeltsin," Time (January 1, 2000); Strobe Talbott's testimony, April 4, 2000; and President Clinton's address to the Duma, June 5, 2000 (transcript available from the White House at http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov). All cite the presence of 65,000 NGOs in Russia. None of these speeches mentions the difficulties NGOs have encountered in Russia over the last year.
52. Michael McFaul and Sarah E. Mendelson, "Russian Democracy: A U.S. National Security Interest," Demokratizatsiva 8, no. 3 (summer 2000): 330-53.
53. One observer noted that civil liberties and freedom of the press were not even on the summit agenda. Robert Coalson, "Media Watch: Clinton's Moral's Obligation," Moscow Times (June 2, 2000).
54. On the concept of defense by other means (used in a different context), see William Perry, "Defense in an Age of Hope," Foreign Affairs 75, no. 6 (November/December 1996): 64-79; Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999).
55. On the concept of defense by other means (used in a different context), see William Perry, "Defense in an Age of Hope," Foreign Affairs 75, no. 6 (November/December 1996): 64-79; Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999).
56. No one in the U.S. government worries about Great Britain's nuclear weapons, but they worry about North Korea having nuclear weapons. This dynamic is elaborated in Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (spring 1992): 391-425.
57. "Putin's War," New York Review of Books (February 10, 2000).