| Washington has not allowed itself such a tone since the collapse of the USSR Yesterday, Washington voiced the harshest criticism of the Kremlin since the start of the “YUKOS case”, and perhaps even since the collapse of the USSR. Republican Senator John McCain, in a special address to US President George W. Bush, expressed “his growing concern that all 400 years of Russian oppression are concentrated in the soul of Mr. Putin.” The senator did not explain which year he was counting from. But he was forced to make such a statement by the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky - when, according to the senator, “masked FSB agents put behind bars Russia’s richest man, the founder of its most successful private company, a leader in introducing Western accounting principles and transparency in business, a generous donor to charitable purposes."
This was done, according to the senator, because “Khodorkovsky committed the worst evil for the Kremlin - he supported the political opposition to President Putin.”
Senator McCain is 67 years old. He is the son and grandson of US Navy admirals and a former Navy pilot. During the Vietnam War, his plane was shot down, the future senator was captured and spent more than five years in the stuffiness and heat in solitary confinement. Three years ago he was Bush's rival in the presidential election. Currently heads the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The senator traditionally defends the rights of indigenous red Americans and residents of the former USSR republics.
In his statement, Mr. McCain described Russian realities this way. “There are almost no free media left in Russia. Intimidation, coercion, murders of journalists, and armed raids by intelligence agencies have driven most of the independent press out of business.” The same applies to politicians - “political arrests, political murders; in today's Russia, as in Soviet Russia and Tsarist Russia, the state uses all its power to suppress." The same applies to Chechnya - “it is plausible that the FSB was involved in the bombings of houses in Moscow.”
Senator McCain is also concerned about the situation in the former Soviet republics. “The occupation by Russian troops of parts of Georgia and Moldova, the annexation of Abkhazia, attempts to seize control of the strait connecting the Azov and Black Seas from Ukraine, the intervention of Russian special services in the elections in Azerbaijan and Georgia, the drawing of Kyiv into the orbit of Moscow, support for the dictatorship of Minsk, manipulation of the troubles of the Russian minorities in Latvia...” The senator is especially concerned that “oil pipelines in Central Asia and the Caucasus pumping gas and oil to the West” are included by President Putin in the sphere of Russian national interests. “Russia has no more rights to speak on behalf of the Central Asian countries than we do,” the senator is indignant.
"In short," McCain concludes, "Putin's government is continuing a 400-year history of authoritarian state control and repression." And the “creeping coup against the forces of democracy and market capitalism in Russia threatens the foundations of American-Russian relations.” The senator proposes that the White House close Russia's access to Euro-Atlantic institutions, not allow Russia to attend the G8 summit in the United States in June 2004, and not repeal the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. And American businessmen should not invest in Russia.
“A blatant example of the remnants of the Cold War and Russophobia, a charge of lies and hatred,” Russian Ambassador to the United States Yuri Ushakov called this speech yesterday. “McCain’s aggressive attack under the guise of careful concern for Yukos and the fate of the market economy and democracy in Russia is an outrageous direct attack on the today and tomorrow of the Russian-American strategic partnership,” the Russian diplomat said.
However, the Kremlin is more concerned about the position of the American government. Albeit on the basis of anonymity, a senior US State Department official told American journalists yesterday that the “driving force” in the “YUKOS case” is clearly a “political factor.” Washington does not undertake to go into legal details - “there may be some legal basis for the charges.” But the Americans emphasize that “the basis of our relations should be the feeling that Russia is moving towards democratization and the formation of a country that would be based on the same values as us.” The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to the statement of an anonymous State Department representative. Andrey ZLOBIN |
|
