The SEU TIMES, Socio-ecological Union Newsletter, January 26, 2001
RUSSIA - DEMOCRACY GAMES OVER?
Dear friends!
This issue is devoted to the latest developments in Russia concerning civil and environmental rights and policies.
We think that what happens in Russia today is significantly undercovered by Russian and international media.
During the last press conference one of the SEU leaders called this situation "a conspiracy of silence". It has several causes - starting from the newly emerging political censorship to simple unwillingness of journalists to do their work (that goes mostly to western counterparts).
It is a crucial moment when it is decided if Russia will become totalitarian - the evil empire - again or not.
It seems that official international community prefers to have any regime that would allow the highest possible grade of resource use - from forest felling and mineral resource extraction to nuclear waste storage. The game of democracy in this world is over, and our worst prognoses about the globalization prospects are coming true, unfortunately.
Our only hope is for the international public community - we still believe that in some countries public pressure may influence governmental policies even on international level.
If there was someone left who believed to the claims of their governments and different international financial organizations to observe the situations with environmental and human rights in the region and put the pressure on officials - do not believe the damn lies!
In spring we addressed international authorities on abolition of our environment protection agencies - there was no reaction. Our own authorities called all public concerns "a cryout of bureaucrats that lost their jobs". In the fall World Bank has approved another forest credit without questioning what will happen to it as the Forest service was abolished.
In October on the governmental order Central Election Committee killed the referendum by rejection 700 000 signatures of more than 2 500 000.
In November whistleblowers' Pasko case was renewed, while marshal Ugryumov, Pasko's main prosecutor, has changed his position from head of Pacific Fleet FSB branch to a much higher one - deputy head of the national FSB, responsible for anti-terrorism work.
In December, having hands free from referendum, Duma voted for the law allowing the nuclear waste import to Russia. This caused a tide of public actions in many regions of Russia, but it hardly found place in the national media, remaining in the regional inserts.
"The greens' best hope is foreign pressure… Many in the West also worry about Russia's greens themselves." - wrote the Economist this January.
Speaking of worrying for greens own safety - on January 24 SEU leaders Svyatoslav Zabelin apartment in Moscow was breached in. Nothing was stolen, but papers were demonstratively tossed and thrown out of their places. We think it is a "warning" from certain interest group.
It is quite possible that soon any attempts of international pressure will be treated as proof of espionage and attempts to destroy Russian state. At least some propaganda preparations are made for that.
The brightest example is the paper released by one for the PR centers doing work for the Government, before the start of the Right Defense Meeting in Moscow (you will read the article about it in this issue). The meeting participants were to speak about the true situation with the human rights in Russia and reveal the changes that will soon occur in Russian justice system returning to the thirties of the Soviet era. Many of the meeting participants were the witnesses of Soviet totalitarian regime "correctional measures"; many of them were in prison or were forced to emigrate.
The article published even before the meeting started called this meeting "something far away from real needs and thoughts of the Russian people". It even did not deny the changes coming up, thus telling us that these changes are inescapable and inevitable, only saying that ordinary people do not see any threat in them. Vice versa, they trust the existing regime as it gives hope for order and prosperity. It also calls the right defenders losers that have lost their chances to participate in building the new country. It goes on with a statement of traditional "civilizing" role of the government in Russia, meaning that Russian public is no good itself. However, it praises the interest of people "for their own good, without looking on to so-called civilized countries". That is why, it says, the losers, the rights defenders, have the far-away abroad public as the only audience…
The paper is frightening both in its form and meaning - as even the rhetoric and wording seem to be taken either from Stalin's thirties or from some classic anti-utopian book about worlds totalitarian future.
There is no mistake - the kid's gloves are off. The Russian government is using both propaganda and force to silence the opposition. However, the world, will not benefit from that. It is crucial for the world safety that the iron curtain doesn't fall upon the significant part of Eurasia - because nuclear and chemical pollution, desertification, deforestation and climate change, wars and diseases know no borders.
Yes, we'll keep on trying to make a breach in this new iron curtain of silence. But a lot depends on you - spreading this information to other organization or to the media, questioning your officials on their policies on Russia and other CIS countries, sending protest and support letters, talking about the problem on your organizations meetings or conferences. Include the related problem in different conference resolutions, if possible! Protest your government funding harmful; projects in the region! Protest your energy companies sending nuclear waste to Russia! Protest your TNC drilling oil in fragile ecosystems of Caspian and Sakhalin seas! Protest against timber products from old growth or other valuable areas! If you participate in international environmental processes like conventions and other agreement setting - watch and pressure delegations from Russia - because there is almost no real public participation of Russian NGOs in these processes for certain reasons and anyway additional pressure would not harm. Show the officials and TNCs you do care about what happens further than your place! Because this is what they count on - not in my backyard thinking.
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