Putin's grip
The Russian president's crackdown on political opponents in wake of Beslan tragedy is widely criticized.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposals to give the Kremlin more power than any other time since the fall of the Soviet Union have been met with widespread criticism and concern.
Among Putin's reforms announced Monday: the country's 89 regional governors will no longer be elected by popular vote. Instead, he will appoint them and regional assemblies would approve the appointments.
He also announced on Monday that seats in the Duma (Russia's national parliament) allocated to single-member constituencies will be replaced with a fully proportional system. The move "could see the few remaining independent voices
forced out of the federal parliament," reports
The Globe and Mail of Canada.
Putin said the changes were vital to national security after the
recent school siege in the southern town of Beslan, which ended with the deaths of more than 300 people, half of them children.
Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the Institute of National Strategy, told the Russian daily
Vedomosti that Putin's reforms would be no more successful than other attempts to
consolidate power, reports
Reuters.
"Our current system of power is very much like a Russia-wide organized crime gang," he wrote. "The main aim of such gangs is to amass money on specific territories and guarantee the safety of those providing the money. Of course, even gangs need stability. But stability in their own way ... when leaders remain in place for decades."
The Age of Melbourne, Australia quotes the Russian opposition party Yabloko as saying: "The
last link in the system of checks and balances, which has prevented an excessive concentration of power in one pair of hands, is being abolished."
The
Financial Times served up its criticism in no uncertain terms.
President Vladimir Putin yesterday
took a chainsaw to the fragile roots of Russian democracy. In announcing plans to reduce the independence of regional governors and the national parliament (Duma) he claimed to be trying to strengthen Russia's defences against terrorism. In truth, he was doing nothing of the kind. He was simply exploiting the Beslan massacre to seize new powers for the Kremlin. ...
Once it has begun, the advance of authoritarianism is hard to stop, especially in a country with weak democratic traditions. Mr Putin need only glance at Russia's own history to see how dramatic the dangers can be.
The Economist calls Putin's efforts to equate the Beslan tragedy to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001 "disingenuous" and offers
criticism of Putin's handling of the Chechnya crisis.
Governments that go to war have a duty not only to win, but also to stop future ones breaking out. And that means understanding their root causes – which is not at all to imply excusing or condoning them. Stressing the Chechens' links with al-Qaeda lets Mr Putin wriggle out of acknowledging that America's and Russia's terrorist threats are more different than they are alike. Al-Qaeda's jihad is the product of complex circumstances, in many countries, in which America's foreign policy was only one contributory factor.
Russia's conflict in Chechnya is home-grown, nurtured in a republic that has been systematically destroyed in the struggle for power. Russia has tried to wipe out Chechnya's separatists, first through direct military force, and more recently through "Chechenisation" – ie, foisting the problem on to a local strongman (the latest luckless candidate, Alu Alkhanov, was put in place in rigged elections only two weeks ago). But the result has been to breed an anarchy in which soldiers and separatists alike kidnap and murder the innocent with impunity.
The
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German daily,
questioned Putin's ousting of political opponents.
Giving the security services a good working over and moving in against corruption - there's certainly no problem with that. Both are long overdue anyway. ...
Whether the terrorism can be rooted out by simply kicking out political opponents, at a time of national mourning and a general calling-to-arms and disguised as a nation-saving exercise, well, that's questionable, to say the least.
The New York Times reports that some Bush administration officials concede that they have what it calls "
growing doubts" about the nature of Putin's leadership.
And not just over the brutal crackdown on the rebels in Chechnya that seems not to be working, but also over other steps that hark back to a Russian authoritarianism of old: prosecution of dissenters and business leaders, fettering of the free press, distribution of Russian assets to cronies, meddling in the internal affairs of Georgia and other neighbors, and the country's peremptory cancellation last year of exploration deals with American oil companies. Last week Putin reacted to suggestions that Russia's problems with terrorism could have political solutions with what the
Times called a "bitter outburst." He said: "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?"
EU Business reports that the European Commission urged Putin Tuesday to
respect democracy and human rights as he boosts security after recent terrorist attacks. Emma Udwin, spokeswoman for EU external affairs commissioner Chris Patten, said:
"...all of us who are faced with the challenge of tackling the modern evil of terrorism have to at the same time pay due respect to democracy and human rights. ... That is a challenge everywhere, and we trust that President Putin will also bear that in mind in the changes that he makes."
Russia is also taking other counterterrism measures. The
BBC reports that Russia is to invest
more than $5 billion more in its security services to help combat terrorism.
The Associated Press reports that Israel is "quietly moving to
upgrade anti-terror cooperation with Moscow in the wake of a series of devastating attacks in Russia" by sending intelligence officers to Russia and hosting at least two senior Russian officers in Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile,
Agence France-Presse reports that the US and Russia carried out a "
secret operation" last week to remove weapons-grade uranium from Uzbekistan.
Also...
•
Britain must go nuclear, energy chief tells ministers (
The Times of London)
•
Targeting two elections? (
The Economist)
•
Does God endorse George Bush? (
Slate)
•
Pakistan shells Waziristan school (
BBC)
•
Raising the Pressure in Iraq (
The New York Times)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
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