Good Neighbours or Thugs?
Russia seems forever to be having problems with its neighbours. Could it be because they covet natural resources that neighbouring countries sit on? Loss of face accompanying loss of hegemony? When the U.S.S.R. was a reality, Soviet Russia embraced its neighbours, kept them under its wing, bore the benefits of their natural resources, and prided itself on enforcing peace between otherwise-unwilling neighbours under their avuncular umbrella.Everyone was a socialist/communist, everyone added to the general distribution pot; everyone benefitted. Or so the story went. Coersion wasn't all that much spoken of, and it took a Kruschev to identify Joseph Stalin for the mass murderer that he was. But then Stalin likely felt fairly secure in his bloody orders, since the Communist Manifesto believed that, among other things, people were expendible in the process toward a greater good for all.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) Russia has felt discomfitted, adrift, abandoned, bereft of her former glory, anxious for restoration of her place in the world as one of the-then two superpowers. Gorbachov was a truly good man, intelligent and honest in his intent; Yeltsin was an ibecilic embarrassment to his country, and Vladimir Putin is a throw-back to the old days of KGB operatives running things.
In Moscow's ongoing dispute with Georgia - yet another disconnected Soviet state that wants desperately to go its own way, to find that ever-elusive prosperity and stature in a union with its western-oriented neighbours - vicious hostility masks the real intent of re-absorption. Russian spies were discovered operating in Georgia, were apprehended and Moscow undertook rather radical measures in response, from cutting off air, road, rail and sea communications and suspending postal links, to undertaking new low-level tricks to identify illegal Georgian immigrants for deportation.
Geogians working abroad within Russia in their hundreds of thousands have traditionally sent back much-needed funds to their home state, and these funds too have been cut off by Russia's central bank. Vladimir Putin has instituted a crackdown on foreign traders in food markets to "protect the native Russian population". Restoring old habits, dividing the population, ensuring that Georgians are viewed by native Russians as suspect.
Wasn't it just last month that Russia warned Ukraine yet again in a manner that would be certain to centre its attention on whom its true benefactors are, and to cease and desist from its overtures to western interests by raising gas prices, then halting them temporarily, then restoring them again? Did this bring Ukraine reluctantly to heel?
Since Vladimir Putin became Russia's President no fewer than thirteen independent reporters highly critical of activities coming out of the Kremlin under Mr. Putin have been murdered through contract killing. Not one of these cases has been solved. Now it was Anna Politkovskaya's turn, a seminal event in her life-and-death she well knew was on the near horizon, but she would not be silenced. On the cusp of filing her most recent article detailing torture and kidnapping of civilians by officers loyal to Chechnya's Moscow-backed Prime Minister, her life has been snuffed out.
Not a word from the Kremlin. Internet blogs are full of theories such as that this was a gift for Mr. Putin on the occasion of his 54th birthday, and an incidental gift to Chechnya's Prime Minister, a few days shy of his birthday as well.
Crowds of protesters have participated in vigils in Moscow and St.Petersburg, representing Russians who have no doubt that the Kremlin knows who murdered Ms. Politkovskaya, and why.
posted by Pieface @ Monday, October 09, 2006
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