Politkovskaya's Death, Other Killings, Raise Questions About Russian Democracy
Daria Solovieva | Bio | 31 Oct 2006 World Politics Watch
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Over the last month, Russia has experienced a surge of contract killings, with five high-profile murders -- a potent reminder that the country is far from the stable democracy its leaders say it is. The Oct. 7 murder of the anti-Kremlin journalist and human rights advocate Anna Politkovskaya is the most prominent of these, and the latest of 11 murders of Russian journalists in the last six years.
Sadly, however, Politkoskaya's is not the most recent such killing. Aleksandr Plokhin, manager of the Moscow branch of the state-owned Vneshtorgbank, was shot dead on Oct. 10. And Anatoly Voronin, an executive at the state-owned ITAR-TASS news agency, was stabbed to death in his flat in Moscow Oct. 13.
In a political climate with virtually no vital opposition parties or movements, Politkovskaya, 48, was easily the most outspoken critic of Putin's regime. Her coverage of the Chechen wars and her numerous books, such as "The Dirty War" and "Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy," offered sharp criticism of Putin's government and a rare glimpse into the lawlessness and brutality of the Chechen conflict. Her reporting provided evidence to open multiple criminal cases that led to charges of rape, murder and corruption against Russian and Chechen officials. In some cases, her reporting is the only documented evidence available of abductions, disappearances and torture in the first and second Chechen wars, as most of the media were prevented from covering the war by the Russian government.
Politkovskaya focused on the subjects most media outlets considered too sticky or "Western" to tackle: Chechnya, corruption in the Russian military and Russia's spotty human rights record. She disputed the Kremlin's assurances of the stabilizing situation in the North Caucasus, a war-torn region on Russia's southern border currently run by a Kremlin-backed Chechen militia. "There were more abductions in the first half of this year than in the first half of last year. . . . And those are figures just of those people whose relatives reported abductions and whose bodies were never found," she said in her last interview for Radio Free Europe. Besides Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya was employed as a Caucasus analyst, no major Russian paper reported anything on the subject.
Politkovskaya's reporting made her a wide array of enemies -- and not just in the Kremlin. She has conducted her own investigations into corruption charges against Russian military officials and Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, who is known to have threatened her. One Russian general called her "more dangerous than an atomic bomb" and said he would like to shoot her for everything she has written. In the years before Anna Politkovskaya was found dead on Oct. 7, with three bullets in her chest and one in her forehead, she reportedly had been buried alive in Chechnya, thrown into a dungeon, threatened with rape and poisoned on a plane to Beslan. According to one report in the Russian media, she "was tracked and her movements observed, probably for months, by a well-organized gang of men and women."
Politkovskaya was not oblivious to the risks she was taking; she accepted them as part of the world she felt it was her duty to write about. She even acquired a dark sense of humor. She asked her British literary agent, Toby Eady, three months before she was found dead, "If I am killed, would my children have to pay back my publishing advance?" Articles on this Issue Before EU Accession, Bulgaria Steps Up Fight Against Organized Crime Chen Case Sheds Light On China's Money Laundering Problem More on Organized Crime In an interview two days before her death, on Kadyrov's birthday, she said it would be her dream to see him on trial for complicity in abduction, torture and murder. Novaya Gazeta is conducting its own investigation of Kadyrov, who publicly denied involvement in Politkovskaya's death. "The Chechens never settle scores with women," he explained.
President Putin's reaction was to blame "the shadowy forces intent on damaging Russia's reputation on the international stage." As to what these shadowy forces might be, the former KGB officer offered the first in a series of conspiracy theories surrounding the murder. "We have information, and it is reliable, that many people hiding from Russian justice have long been nurturing the idea of sacrificing somebody in order to create a wave of anti-Russian feeling in the world," he said during his visit to Germany.
As Politkovskaya was a U.S. citizen, born in New York to Soviet diplomats, many state leaders, including President Bush, have called for a full investigation of her death. Most remain doubtful of a successful outcome. Robert Amsterdam, the lawyer of jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is also skeptical. "We need to stop reporting that this is a real investigation. It is a violation of her [Polikovskaya's] memory," he said.
Politkovskaya's death has not only aided the perception of Russia as a backsliding democracy with no regard for basic human rights and freedom of speech. It has also raised new questions about the underlying problem of the rule of law, the instability in the Caucasus region, and the prevalent corruption in all layers of government -- the ongoing struggles of Putin's presidency.
It has also raised further questions about the effectiveness of Russia's particular brand of "managed democracy" -- whether it is a democracy at all or a return to authoritarianism. Some see the murder as a wake up call to Russia's weak opposition parties and movements, and several journalists and human rights advocates see it as the beginning of a "kind of new and very black page in Russian history," as Igor Yakovenko, general secretary of the Russian Journalists Union put it.
President Putin has done little to dispel the idea that the killings are part of a government crackdown on opposition and independent media sources. In fact, he seems content to suggest that the heavy-handed Russian state is here to stay, even after his presidency ends in 2008. In a three-hour TV phone-in this week, Putin assured the public he will continue to exert influence even after he steps down. "Even when I no longer have governing power and the levers of presidential rule, I think that, without adjusting the fundamental law to my personal interests, I will be able to keep your trust," he said.
Daria Solovieva is an executive support officer at CHF International, a non-profit emergency management and disaster relief provider in conflict zones worldwide.