Human rights policy in international relations is often perceived as either naive or cynical. However, things are more complicated than that, as exemplified by the case of Russia. How should we deal with the continuing human rights abuses of this important country, on which our energy policy is so heavily dependent? First there is the question of how consistently we should publicly address and condemn the human rights abuses of influential and powerful countries. Those who claim to want to achieve something answer with “a frank dialogue spoken with confidentiality.” Naturally, the results of various policies are difficult to measure precisely. But why should we trust the strong-arm politicians in the Kremlin more than the Alexeyevas, Ryschkovs or Kasparovs, or all those NGOs engaged in human rights? The former explain why “anti-government propaganda” cannot be allowed, while the latter give tangible reports of a continuously degrading human rights situation: of unsolved, politically motivated murders, to the discrimination of minorities, the excessive police violence against peaceful demonstrators and an erosion of freedom of opinion and freedom of assembly that gives rise to the impression of a systematic attempt to subvert free elections. If policy in Russia is synonymous with power politics, it would be criminally naive not to address these concerns critically and publicly.
The EU-Russia summit presents a good opportunity to confront Russia with its human rights violations at the highest level. After all, the chancellor also publicly criticized George W. Bush for Guantanamo. Are we employing double standards? Furthermore, those who criticize the USA and Israel should be able to do so emphatically while remembering that these countries are engaged in a battle with an outside enemy, not with their own populace!
Political realists and human rights activists like to build bridges. But what exactly is their use if there is no one on the other side willing to cross them? Almost every signal emanating from the Russian side during the last few months was purely a demonstration of power. Even those Kafkaesque court-proceedings reported on by Chodorkovski or Kasparov’s lawyers seem merely intended to serve this same purpose.
I believe that we must not ignore the signs. That would be naive. Additionally, it would justifiably open us up to the criticism of Russian human rights organizations-that we would be acting cynically towards them in a different but equally as unbearable way as the Kremlin. We should instead expect Russia to simply conform to the commonly accepted European standards. A sound realpolitik and human rights policy towards Russia means reminding President Putin of the words he spoke in front of the Bundestag in 2001, when he referred to a common European history and shared values. These values-recognized in Russia through, for example, the European Convention on Human Rights-would be inconceivable without the many Russian intellectuals, writers, musicians and painters. As the Russian president does not want to be seen as a liar, he should be forced to cross this bridge.
Günter Nooke, German politician and former civil rights activist, is the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the Federal Foreign Office.
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May 19, 2007
Bijan Daniel Khezri, , (8)
In 1989, when blood spilled Tiananmen Square and Mikhail Gorbachev was hailed on Western streets as freedom’s champion, it would have been beyond the most cynical of our imaginations that less than three years thereafter the editorial of the Financial Times writes: “Who was right: Mikhail Gorbachev or Deng Xiaoping? On the face of it, recent events in what used to be the two great bastions of doctrinaire Marxism-Leninism appear to throw that question into stark relief. In the former Soviet Union, the collapse of communism has been accompanied by economic misery and social chaos. In parts of still-communist totalitarian China, however, a form of capitalism is thriving, bringing with it an economic boom and strongly improving living standards…, the lesson Deng drew from the overheating of the economy which preceded Tiananmen is that economic reform necessitates the maintenance of tight political control.” Putin has successfully adopted Deng Xiaoping’s approach.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia was a high-profile victim of a mania for liberalization and democracy. Shock therapy, orchestrated by a group of eminent Harvard economists, in particular Jeffrey Sachs, had disastrous consequences for Russia. Chrysta Freeland’s “Sale of the Century” is an extraordinary account of how shock therapy’s privatization program created the oligarchs, effectively concentrating unprecedented wealth and control of the countries’ entire natural resources in the hands of a few, plunging the country into economic chaos and preparing Russia for authoritarian rule.
The West, rather than criticizing Putin for the regression of democracy and the control of the media, should embrace the stability and broadened wealth creation his presidency has spearheaded. What yardstick shall be applied to measure progress? One certainly finds more happy people in the streets of Russia today than ten years ago - then, presumably, the apex of Russia’s first democracy and free media. The West’s concern about Russia’s human rights says more about the West’s very ignorance and lack of comprehension than the deficiencies of the Putin autocracy.