Russian Dissidents Stage Alternative to G8 Summit
July 12, 2006
As preparations for this weekend's G8 summit get underway in St. Petersburg, an opposition group led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov has become a thorn on the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kasparov's opposition group, called Drugaya Rossiya or the Other Russia, is staging an "alternative" G8 conference, condemning the Kremlin's suppression of press and judicial freedoms. The meeting, which opened Tuesday, was attended by Anthony Brenton, the British ambassador to Moscow, as well as two senior state department officials from Washington. The diplomats emphasized that their intention was not to meddle in Russian domestic politics, but simply to gain another perspective.
Criticism of Putin's Russia
As the G8 summit looms, even the Western media is stepping up its criticism of democracy and human rights in Putin's Russia. The Bush administration, particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney, have been openly critical of Moscow's brutal suppression of the Chechnya conflict, in which separatists have been battling Russian forces for more than a decade now.
The West has also criticized Putin's autocratic tendencies. Besides attacks on press freedoms, Europeans and Americans have expressed concerns about the virtual nationalization of key enterprises, such as the Yukos oil giant, and Russia's lax business practices, such as lack of respect for intellectual property rights. The Europeans, who experienced a gas shortfall this past winter due to price disputes Russia had with the Ukraine, are also anxious about relying too heavily on Moscow for their energy needs.
Exposing abuses of power
The Other Russia opposition group, which also includes former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and two former Kremlin advisers, says it wants to expose abuses of power in Putin's Russia.
"The official model imposed by the authorities is a monopoly over the economy, business, politics, ideology and civil society. We stand for alternatives, the right of people to openly debate these alternatives, and freely choose for themselves", said the Kremlin's former chief economic advisor, Andrei Illaryonov in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, however, dismissed the criticisms and said "certain people clearly find it hard to get used to the idea that Russian has regained its strength and is once more to be reckoned with in world politics."
Putin's supporters have argued that issues such as human rights and press freedom need to be seen in perspective, considering that Russia only emerged from Soviet-style repression less than two decades ago. The state no longer exercises control over the private lives if its citizens as it did in the former Communist era. Today millions of Russians have been able to travel abroad, operate their own businesses and own their own homes.
Common global issues
They say that the G8 conference needs to be a forum to discuss issues of common interest, and should not be sidelined by internal dissidents.
For Russia, one of the key items on the summit agenda is its energy exports. Moscow wants guarantees from Europe for its gas supplies, so that it can make long term investments. Europe and the US also view the opening of Russian's oil and gas supplies to foreign investment as essential to long-term stability.
Nuclear non-proliferation and strategies for dealing with North Korea and Iran are expected to dominate summit discussions, with the West favouring a tougher stance towards the rogue states than Moscow.
That doesn't mean that criticism of what Russia views as an internal matter will be off the agenda. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at a news conference at a meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow last month: "We believe we can raise anything among our G8 colleagues. We won't hesitate to talk about our concerns about the freedom of the press, and we do so in a spirit of candor and cooperation."