generalspeaking

Let The Games Begin...!

"The time that is left for me is time I would like to devote to the activity of paying back my debts to the people ... and by that I mean the people who are still in prison."
"You should see me as a symbol of the fact that the efforts of civil society can lead to the release also of those people whose freedom was never expected by anyone."
"The most important thing for a prison inmate is hope."
"They told me, and repeated again and again, every time: I have to admit my guilt."  
"I think the Russian problem is not just the president as a person. The problem is that our citizens, by a large majority, don't understand that their fate, they have to be responsible for it themselves. They are happy to delegate it, say, to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and then they will entrust it to somebody else."
"For such a big country as Russia, this is a dead end."

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Berlin

Photo provided by the owners of the website khodorkovsky.ru shows former German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, right, welcoming Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the airport in Berlin-Schoenefeld Friday, Dec. 20, 2013. After spending 10 years in Russian jails for what many in the West believe were trumped-up offenses Khodorkovsky left prison a free man Friday and immediately flew to Germany. (AP Photo/khodorkovsky.ru) MANDATORY CREDIT

To ask for a pardon is tantamount to admitting that the state w as right in charging him for embezzlement, for tax evasion. Right to send him a bill for billions in back-taxes, sufficient in size to wipe out his Yukos assets. If he were to satisfy the demands by the Kremlin to plead for clemency, and in so doing admit to having been engaged in criminal actions against the state, he said, he would be condemning all the Yukos employees who had loyally worked for the company, to the status of traitors, guilty of the same charges that were levelled against him, and sent him to prison.

So he did the next best thing that occurred to him, writing to Vladimir Putin, assuring him that his humble servant, former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has seen the error of his ways in challenging Mr. Putin's authority; that while he was not guilty of the charges he had faced that ruined him and sent him to prison, he was prepared to pledge non-interference in Russian politics. That he had no intention for the time being, to risk a return to Russia, is an assurance he gave the journalists eager to query his future plans.

He would not take a leading role in Russian politics...full stop. Nor would he be "involved in the struggle for power", and nor would he fund opposition parties. Clearly a man who learns life's lessons well. He is determined, he said firmly, to work for the release of other prisoners. First among those for whom he plans to agitate for freedom would be his former business partners, languishing in prison, adamant that they will not plead for clemency, and thus 'admit guilt' as charged.

At the very least he should be able to take possession of some millions held in Swiss accounts, still remaining other than those amounts released as part of the billions frozen at Russia's request in its case against Yukos. "At the moment, if I were to go back to Russia, I may not be allowed to leave the country again", he explained. "My financial situation doesn't require me to work just to earn some more money."

As for encouraging a boycott of the 2014 Winter Games, that isn't in his agenda. "It's a celebration of sport, something which millions of people will celebrate. Obviously, it should not become a great party for President Putin." Obviously, quite obviously that is precisely what it is meant to be, and which a proudly beaming President Putin will be presiding over, welcoming the world to Sochi and Mr. Putin's world of gamesmanship.

Labels: Crisis Management, Human Relations, Justice, Olympics, Russia

posted by Pieface @ Monday, December 23, 2013