The Kremlin's New Deal
Vladimir Putin is offering the elite a new deal they can't refuse. And they don't like it.
The Kremlin's New Deal
Tsar Peter I once proposed to his prosecutor-general that corrupt officials be either exiled to Siberia or executed.
"But then who will be left?" the prosecutor responded, according to the oft-repeated historical anecdote. "We're all thieves."
President Vladimir Putin repeated this tale during his press conference in December to illustrate how difficult it is to combat corruption. He was, of course, painting himself as the good tsar who, regretfully, had to discipline his bad boyars.
But if Putin wanted to be more honest, he could have chosen a popular Soviet-era joke about a minor bureaucrat imprisoned for graft:
The second anecdote is more appropriate for the simple reason that it illustrates that official corruption is not a bug in Russia's operating system, but an essential feature. And it's a feature that Putin has used very effectively to keep the elite motivated and in line.
Putin's deal with the elite was always pretty straightforward: Steal (but not too much for your rank) and nobody will mess with you as long as you give unwavering loyalty to the national leader.
But now, one year after Putin won election to a third term in the Kremlin, he is rewriting the terms of the bargain. Putin's "New Deal" with the elite could turn out to be one of the riskiest and trickiest initiatives of his rule.
And it has nothing to do with fighting corruption. It's all about reestablishing control and ensuring loyalty -- both of which the Kremlin leader apparently believes are slipping.
This week, the State Duma is expected to pass the final version of legislation forbidding certain categories of officials from keeping their assets abroad. According to the daily "Nezavisimaya gazeta," the bill forbids officials from having a bank account abroad, keeping money in any foreign account, or holding bonds issued by any foreign entity. They will also be required to declare any foreign real-estate holdings.
The Russian media calls this the "re-nationalization" of the elite, and part of the logic behind it is the fear that Russian officials keeping assets abroad could turn out to be disloyal.
Such fears were redoubled by new legislation in the United States providing for visa bans and asset freezes against Russian officials who violate human rights. Some European countries are considering similar legislation, and Putin is clearly worried that this would give Western governments unacceptable leverage.
According to the respected political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko, Putin believes officials "should be completely independent of foreign countries and fully accountable to the president."
Additionally, the opposition's successful rebranding of the elite as "swindlers and thieves" has stuck in the public consciousness -- meaning the Kremlin will now need to more convincingly pretend to care about official graft. Some officials who thought they were untouchable will be vulnerable.
"This is a fundamentally new Putin with regard to the elite," political analyst Igor Bunin, director of the Center for Political Technologies, told the daily "Moskovsky komsomolets."
"Previously, he kept the balance between the interest groups; now he has decided to reformat the elite. It had lived comfortably in symbiosis with the regime, and suddenly it was told that it needed to be nationally oriented, and not have accounts abroad."
If Putin follows through with all this, it will change his relationship with the ruling elite pretty dramatically. Putin's elite support was largely based on two services he provided: He was the ultimate arbiter in disputes between warring factions and he was the protector of their wealth and privilege.
Both could now come under question.
"This law is about political, and not legal, control," Dmitry Gorovtsov, a Duma deputy from the center-left A Just Russia party, told "Nezavisimaya gazeta."
"It will be applied selectively and subjectively."
Putin, in essence, is asking the elite to give something up they had become accustomed to, while offering nothing in return. And this comes at a time when many of them are uncomfortable with the traditionalist and xenophobic line the Kremlin has recently adopted.
Whether this is an offer the elite can't refuse is still an open question. Lilia Shevtsova of the Moscow Carnegie Center told "The Washington Post" that Putin risks losing the support of key sectors of the ruling class, which could begin seeking ways to replace him.
Such fears may be the reason the Kremlin toned down an earlier, much stricter, version of the legislation now pending in the Duma.
Meanwhile, all this attention on the elite's property has been a godsend for oppositionists like anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny -- who appears to be delighting in stealing the Kremlin's thunder on the issue.
Navalny was instrumental in detailing and publicizing the undeclared real estate in Miami owned by lawmaker Vladimir Pekhtin, which was initially exposed by the Spain-based blogger Dr. Z.
Pekhtin was forced to resign his seat in the Duma as a result. His departure was followed by the resignations of two more lawmakers with undeclared property issues, Anatoly Lomakin and Vasily Tolstopyatov.
And last week, Navalny turned his sights on Andrei Turchak, the governor of Pskov Oblast whose father was once Putin's judo partner. According to documents Navalny posted on his blog, Turchak is the proud owner of an undeclared villa, worth 1.27 million euros.
And as the whole thing plays out, a funk is settling in among the elite, according to Gleb Pavlovsky, a onetime Putin adviser.
"It seems that Vladimir Vladimirovich’s general idea is that only he should manage everyone, trusting no one. But this is impossible," Pavlovsky told "Moskovsky komsomolets."
"Officials at all levels perceive the president’s strange behavior as a signal: Remain silent, don't act, and don't stand out. Remain sitting, do not move, and be afraid. Stagnation is setting in."
-- Brian Whitmore
"But then who will be left?" the prosecutor responded, according to the oft-repeated historical anecdote. "We're all thieves."
President Vladimir Putin repeated this tale during his press conference in December to illustrate how difficult it is to combat corruption. He was, of course, painting himself as the good tsar who, regretfully, had to discipline his bad boyars.
But if Putin wanted to be more honest, he could have chosen a popular Soviet-era joke about a minor bureaucrat imprisoned for graft:
"The poor guy. Why'd they pick on him?" one colleague asked.
"He stole too much for someone of his rank," another answered.
"He stole too much for someone of his rank," another answered.
The second anecdote is more appropriate for the simple reason that it illustrates that official corruption is not a bug in Russia's operating system, but an essential feature. And it's a feature that Putin has used very effectively to keep the elite motivated and in line.
Putin's deal with the elite was always pretty straightforward: Steal (but not too much for your rank) and nobody will mess with you as long as you give unwavering loyalty to the national leader.
But now, one year after Putin won election to a third term in the Kremlin, he is rewriting the terms of the bargain. Putin's "New Deal" with the elite could turn out to be one of the riskiest and trickiest initiatives of his rule.
And it has nothing to do with fighting corruption. It's all about reestablishing control and ensuring loyalty -- both of which the Kremlin leader apparently believes are slipping.
This week, the State Duma is expected to pass the final version of legislation forbidding certain categories of officials from keeping their assets abroad. According to the daily "Nezavisimaya gazeta," the bill forbids officials from having a bank account abroad, keeping money in any foreign account, or holding bonds issued by any foreign entity. They will also be required to declare any foreign real-estate holdings.
The Russian media calls this the "re-nationalization" of the elite, and part of the logic behind it is the fear that Russian officials keeping assets abroad could turn out to be disloyal.
Such fears were redoubled by new legislation in the United States providing for visa bans and asset freezes against Russian officials who violate human rights. Some European countries are considering similar legislation, and Putin is clearly worried that this would give Western governments unacceptable leverage.
According to the respected political analyst Yevgeny Minchenko, Putin believes officials "should be completely independent of foreign countries and fully accountable to the president."
Additionally, the opposition's successful rebranding of the elite as "swindlers and thieves" has stuck in the public consciousness -- meaning the Kremlin will now need to more convincingly pretend to care about official graft. Some officials who thought they were untouchable will be vulnerable.
"This is a fundamentally new Putin with regard to the elite," political analyst Igor Bunin, director of the Center for Political Technologies, told the daily "Moskovsky komsomolets."
"Previously, he kept the balance between the interest groups; now he has decided to reformat the elite. It had lived comfortably in symbiosis with the regime, and suddenly it was told that it needed to be nationally oriented, and not have accounts abroad."
If Putin follows through with all this, it will change his relationship with the ruling elite pretty dramatically. Putin's elite support was largely based on two services he provided: He was the ultimate arbiter in disputes between warring factions and he was the protector of their wealth and privilege.
Both could now come under question.
"This law is about political, and not legal, control," Dmitry Gorovtsov, a Duma deputy from the center-left A Just Russia party, told "Nezavisimaya gazeta."
"It will be applied selectively and subjectively."
Putin, in essence, is asking the elite to give something up they had become accustomed to, while offering nothing in return. And this comes at a time when many of them are uncomfortable with the traditionalist and xenophobic line the Kremlin has recently adopted.
Whether this is an offer the elite can't refuse is still an open question. Lilia Shevtsova of the Moscow Carnegie Center told "The Washington Post" that Putin risks losing the support of key sectors of the ruling class, which could begin seeking ways to replace him.
Such fears may be the reason the Kremlin toned down an earlier, much stricter, version of the legislation now pending in the Duma.
Meanwhile, all this attention on the elite's property has been a godsend for oppositionists like anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny -- who appears to be delighting in stealing the Kremlin's thunder on the issue.
Navalny was instrumental in detailing and publicizing the undeclared real estate in Miami owned by lawmaker Vladimir Pekhtin, which was initially exposed by the Spain-based blogger Dr. Z.
Pekhtin was forced to resign his seat in the Duma as a result. His departure was followed by the resignations of two more lawmakers with undeclared property issues, Anatoly Lomakin and Vasily Tolstopyatov.
And last week, Navalny turned his sights on Andrei Turchak, the governor of Pskov Oblast whose father was once Putin's judo partner. According to documents Navalny posted on his blog, Turchak is the proud owner of an undeclared villa, worth 1.27 million euros.
And as the whole thing plays out, a funk is settling in among the elite, according to Gleb Pavlovsky, a onetime Putin adviser.
"It seems that Vladimir Vladimirovich’s general idea is that only he should manage everyone, trusting no one. But this is impossible," Pavlovsky told "Moskovsky komsomolets."
"Officials at all levels perceive the president’s strange behavior as a signal: Remain silent, don't act, and don't stand out. Remain sitting, do not move, and be afraid. Stagnation is setting in."
-- Brian Whitmore
Putin's anti-graft ally fends off real estate accusations - Reuters UK
Putin's anti-graft ally fends off real estate accusations
Reuters UK MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of the Russian parliament's anti-corruption committee, an ally of Vladimir Putin, on Monday dismissed as "innuendo" accusations that she had concealed ownership of an expensive flat in Moscow. Irina Yarovaya fended off the ... Duma Anti-Corruption Chief Lives in a $2.9 Million Undeclared Apartment, MediaRIA Novosti all 4 news articles » |
Scandal Hits Duma Anti-Graft Chief
Irina Yarovaya, head of the State Duma's powerful Anti-Corruption and Security Committee, on Monday became the latest United Russia deputy to face embarrassing allegations of ethics violations with the publication of a report accusing her of de facto owning a multimillion-dollar apartment.
-
8:34 AM 3/12/2013 - Mike Nova's starred items
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/11/13
 Worldcrunch |
Will Russia's Cozy Relationship With Venezuela Die With Chavez?
Worldcrunch “No new government is going to continue the sharp anti-Americanism that Chavez governed with," explained Fedor Lukyanov, a representative of the Russian Council on Foreign Relations. "If Maduro wins, the relationship between Caracas and Washington ... and more » |
Will Russia's Cozy Relationship With Venezuela Die With Chavez?
KOMMERSANT/Worldcrunch
MOSCOW - When word first came out in 2011 that Hugo Chavez was suffering from a serious illness, a Russian military source predicted the consequences of the end of the Chavez era: not only could Moscow lose contracts already signed, but it might also never get paid for weapons it has already delivered to Caracas.
Russia has a lot to lose in Venezuela. In total, experts estimate that the projects that Moscow had inked with Chavez are worth no less than $30 billion. And now the guarantor is gone.
People started to expect an announcement regarding Chavez’s death on Tuesday, when his official successor Nicolas Maduro called an urgent meeting with the country’s leadership. But the vice-president only said that the president “was going through his worst hours since Dec. 11 (when Chavez underwent an operation for his cancer),” and used the opportunity to accuse Venezuela’s enemies of provoking Chavez’s illness.
Nicolas Maduro said that America’s military attaché, David Delmonaco, would be removed because he was destabilizing the country. A couple of hours later, the vice-president was on the TV again. “Commandante Hugo Chavez died at 4:25 p.m. local time,” he announced with a shaky voice, and called on Venezuelans to come together and wipe away their tears. “Viva Hugo Chavez,” he said, raising his fist in a symbol of victory.
Thousands of people filled the streets in Caracas, and Venezuela entered a weeklong national mourning. Chavez was buried on Friday, and Russia sent the head of Rosneft energy giant Igor Sechin, Minister of Industry Denis Manturov and the general director of Rostechnology.
Now Venezuela is preparing to elect a new president. No matter who wins, whether it is Chavez’s designated successor or the opposition candidate, experts say that there will likely be serious changes.
“No new government is going to continue the sharp anti-Americanism that Chavez governed with," explained Fedor Lukyanov, a representative of the Russian Council on Foreign Relations. "If Maduro wins, the relationship between Caracas and Washington will improve. If the opposition wins, then the country will totally reorient itself towards the United States.”
The Kremlin has expressed hope that “the positive and constructive Russian-Venezuelan relations will remain unchanged.” But Lukyanov is convinced to the contrary: “The 2000s were an anomaly, when Venezuela became one of Russia’s most important world trade partners, and that anomaly is unlikely to survive Chavez’s death, because it was connected to Chavez personally, to his personal political views and ambitions.”
Another experts says: “many of the agreements between Caracas and Moscow will remain, at least on paper, but others will likely be revisited.”
False friendships, mythical deals
Vladimir Semago, the vice-head of the Russian-Venezuelan Commerce Council is even more emphatic. “Now that Hugo Chavez is gone, all of this pretense of friendship with Venezuela will go, too,” he told Kommersant. “There was never any real partnership between our countries, there were only attempts to convince Russians that Moscow was colonizing Latin America, like it did in Africa during Soviet times.”
According to Semago, one of the most ambitious projects – the creation of an oil consortium that is a partnership between the Russian national companies and the Venezuelan oil company – is a “total myth.”
“The consortium was never allowed to do anything and never accomplished anything. There were only ever two Russian companies that were interested, anyway,” Semago explained.
In 2011, Chavez was able to get an agreement for Russia to extend a $4 billion dollar credit to Venezuela for weapons purchases. “Even though extending this credit was basically suicide, we still did it, because it was important for us to maintain a good relationship with Caracas,” explained a source in the Federal service for military partnerships. “But when it became clear that you couldn’t have a dialogue with anyone but Chavez himself, the other members of the Venezuelan delegation stopped making an effort to work with us.”
Russia has a lot to lose in Venezuela. In total, experts estimate that the projects that Moscow had inked with Chavez are worth no less than $30 billion. And now the guarantor is gone.
People started to expect an announcement regarding Chavez’s death on Tuesday, when his official successor Nicolas Maduro called an urgent meeting with the country’s leadership. But the vice-president only said that the president “was going through his worst hours since Dec. 11 (when Chavez underwent an operation for his cancer),” and used the opportunity to accuse Venezuela’s enemies of provoking Chavez’s illness.
Nicolas Maduro said that America’s military attaché, David Delmonaco, would be removed because he was destabilizing the country. A couple of hours later, the vice-president was on the TV again. “Commandante Hugo Chavez died at 4:25 p.m. local time,” he announced with a shaky voice, and called on Venezuelans to come together and wipe away their tears. “Viva Hugo Chavez,” he said, raising his fist in a symbol of victory.
Thousands of people filled the streets in Caracas, and Venezuela entered a weeklong national mourning. Chavez was buried on Friday, and Russia sent the head of Rosneft energy giant Igor Sechin, Minister of Industry Denis Manturov and the general director of Rostechnology.
Now Venezuela is preparing to elect a new president. No matter who wins, whether it is Chavez’s designated successor or the opposition candidate, experts say that there will likely be serious changes.
“No new government is going to continue the sharp anti-Americanism that Chavez governed with," explained Fedor Lukyanov, a representative of the Russian Council on Foreign Relations. "If Maduro wins, the relationship between Caracas and Washington will improve. If the opposition wins, then the country will totally reorient itself towards the United States.”
The Kremlin has expressed hope that “the positive and constructive Russian-Venezuelan relations will remain unchanged.” But Lukyanov is convinced to the contrary: “The 2000s were an anomaly, when Venezuela became one of Russia’s most important world trade partners, and that anomaly is unlikely to survive Chavez’s death, because it was connected to Chavez personally, to his personal political views and ambitions.”
Another experts says: “many of the agreements between Caracas and Moscow will remain, at least on paper, but others will likely be revisited.”
False friendships, mythical deals
Vladimir Semago, the vice-head of the Russian-Venezuelan Commerce Council is even more emphatic. “Now that Hugo Chavez is gone, all of this pretense of friendship with Venezuela will go, too,” he told Kommersant. “There was never any real partnership between our countries, there were only attempts to convince Russians that Moscow was colonizing Latin America, like it did in Africa during Soviet times.”
According to Semago, one of the most ambitious projects – the creation of an oil consortium that is a partnership between the Russian national companies and the Venezuelan oil company – is a “total myth.”
“The consortium was never allowed to do anything and never accomplished anything. There were only ever two Russian companies that were interested, anyway,” Semago explained.
[Chavez and Putin in 2004 - Photo: Kremlin]
There are even more questions about the future of Russian-Venezuelan military partnerships, because those deals were always intimately connected to Chavez himself. When Chavez visited Moscow in 2004, he signed the first two major military contracts, for over $550 million worth of military equipment. “The work was hard, but as soon as Chavez got involved, it was like there was suddenly understanding on both sides,” said a source familiar with the negotiations. “And in all of the subsequent weapons negotiations he took a very direct role.” In 2011, Chavez was able to get an agreement for Russia to extend a $4 billion dollar credit to Venezuela for weapons purchases. “Even though extending this credit was basically suicide, we still did it, because it was important for us to maintain a good relationship with Caracas,” explained a source in the Federal service for military partnerships. “But when it became clear that you couldn’t have a dialogue with anyone but Chavez himself, the other members of the Venezuelan delegation stopped making an effort to work with us.”
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/9/13
Chavez's 'Bolivarian revolution' was a regional bust
Globe and Mail Outside South America, Mr. Chavez was a polarizing figure: His outspoken anti-Americanism and alliances with the dictators of Iran, Libya and Iraq led him to be demonized by many as a Cold War-style threat. For others, he was a hero: a dark-skinned ... and more » |
Doug Saunders: Hugo Chavez had nothing to do with South America's real revolution
What ended this week, with the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, was a continent-wide experiment in the transformation of human life through politics.
Outside South America, Mr. Chavez was a polarizing figure: His outspoken anti-Americanism and alliances with the dictators of Iran, Libya and Iraq led him to be demonized by many as a Cold War-style threat. For others, he was a hero: a dark-skinned child of the slums who beat down rapacious corporations and gave his country’s oil money to the poor and championed the marginalized.
For the outside world, then, the legacy of his “Bolivarian revolution” is a contest of left and right. But within South America, something much more interesting took place during his 14 years in power – something that offers important lessons.
Mr. Chavez was far from the only leftist to govern a Latin American country in the 21st century: Within a decade of his 1999 election, left-wing leaders had come to office in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay and El Salvador; they now govern about two-thirds of the region’s people.
But they’re not all the same. If the great divide in the 20th century was between pro-American right-wing strongmen and anti-American Marxist autocrats, after 1999, it was between two varieties of left-wing government.
Some countries, notably Brazil and Chile, elected parties that embraced open trade and market economies and used the resulting tax revenues to build social programs and redistribute income. They are the social democrats. Others, notably Argentina and Venezuela, preferred to impose national control of key industries, block trade and foreign investment, control prices and give resource income directly to the poor. They tend to call themselves democratic socialists.
This showdown between social democrats and democratic socialists took place at a fortuitous moment: Oil and natural resource booms were boosting revenues; six decades of intense urbanization had ended in stable populations; and the U.S. had become less confrontational. As a result, poverty declined and the gap between rich and poor narrowed in almost all of these countries. But there was a big difference between the two systems.
A study by economists Darryl McLeod and Nora Lustig found that, in Argentina and Venezuela, inequality was reduced back to early 1990s levels after peaking in the early 2000s. But in social democratic Brazil and Chile, smart policies cut inequality to record-low levels: “Though both regimes reduced inequality and poverty,” once you remove the inevitable effects of rising oil prices, “only the social democratic regimes appear to break with the past, reducing inequality to historic lows.”
The Chavez approach helped the poor by giving them some money and health care. This isn’t to be dismissed: It sharply reduced the worst forms of misery. But neighbouring countries did the same while also creating a sustainable future beyond poverty; they created the business opportunities and economic institutions that make it possible for the poor to enter the middle class.
In Brazil and Chile, according to research by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, the size of the middle class expanded, to a fifth and a third of the population. In Venezuela, during the first half of the Chavez years, it collapsed to 3 per cent from 21 per cent, as the private-sector economy crumbled, and doesn’t appear to have recovered.
Here’s where the difference between Venezuela and Brazil is not simply one of degree, but of a fundamental nature: The populist, highly nationalist socialism of Mr. Chavez did serious damage to the institutions that could give people a path out of poverty. His neighbours spent a decade strengthening them.
Because Mr. Chavez regulated food prices and discouraged commercial farming, slashing agricultural capacity, there are major food shortages and hours-long lineups at government-subsidized supermarkets. Electricity supplies are sporadic, schools teach thin propaganda in place of a curriculum, cities and roads are crumbling, and hospitals are among the worst on the continent. This petroleum superpower has not saved or invested anything. On the contrary, Venezuela has a 20-per-cent deficit and an inflation rate of 30 per cent a year.
The “Bolivarian revolution” was not new politics but rather a copy of Venezuela’s policies of the 1970s and early 1980s, with the same results. Then, it was followed by a post-oil collapse back into poverty. This time, there were other, smarter options. They still exist, just over the border.
Outside South America, Mr. Chavez was a polarizing figure: His outspoken anti-Americanism and alliances with the dictators of Iran, Libya and Iraq led him to be demonized by many as a Cold War-style threat. For others, he was a hero: a dark-skinned child of the slums who beat down rapacious corporations and gave his country’s oil money to the poor and championed the marginalized.
For the outside world, then, the legacy of his “Bolivarian revolution” is a contest of left and right. But within South America, something much more interesting took place during his 14 years in power – something that offers important lessons.
Mr. Chavez was far from the only leftist to govern a Latin American country in the 21st century: Within a decade of his 1999 election, left-wing leaders had come to office in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay and El Salvador; they now govern about two-thirds of the region’s people.
But they’re not all the same. If the great divide in the 20th century was between pro-American right-wing strongmen and anti-American Marxist autocrats, after 1999, it was between two varieties of left-wing government.
Some countries, notably Brazil and Chile, elected parties that embraced open trade and market economies and used the resulting tax revenues to build social programs and redistribute income. They are the social democrats. Others, notably Argentina and Venezuela, preferred to impose national control of key industries, block trade and foreign investment, control prices and give resource income directly to the poor. They tend to call themselves democratic socialists.
This showdown between social democrats and democratic socialists took place at a fortuitous moment: Oil and natural resource booms were boosting revenues; six decades of intense urbanization had ended in stable populations; and the U.S. had become less confrontational. As a result, poverty declined and the gap between rich and poor narrowed in almost all of these countries. But there was a big difference between the two systems.
A study by economists Darryl McLeod and Nora Lustig found that, in Argentina and Venezuela, inequality was reduced back to early 1990s levels after peaking in the early 2000s. But in social democratic Brazil and Chile, smart policies cut inequality to record-low levels: “Though both regimes reduced inequality and poverty,” once you remove the inevitable effects of rising oil prices, “only the social democratic regimes appear to break with the past, reducing inequality to historic lows.”
The Chavez approach helped the poor by giving them some money and health care. This isn’t to be dismissed: It sharply reduced the worst forms of misery. But neighbouring countries did the same while also creating a sustainable future beyond poverty; they created the business opportunities and economic institutions that make it possible for the poor to enter the middle class.
In Brazil and Chile, according to research by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, the size of the middle class expanded, to a fifth and a third of the population. In Venezuela, during the first half of the Chavez years, it collapsed to 3 per cent from 21 per cent, as the private-sector economy crumbled, and doesn’t appear to have recovered.
Here’s where the difference between Venezuela and Brazil is not simply one of degree, but of a fundamental nature: The populist, highly nationalist socialism of Mr. Chavez did serious damage to the institutions that could give people a path out of poverty. His neighbours spent a decade strengthening them.
Because Mr. Chavez regulated food prices and discouraged commercial farming, slashing agricultural capacity, there are major food shortages and hours-long lineups at government-subsidized supermarkets. Electricity supplies are sporadic, schools teach thin propaganda in place of a curriculum, cities and roads are crumbling, and hospitals are among the worst on the continent. This petroleum superpower has not saved or invested anything. On the contrary, Venezuela has a 20-per-cent deficit and an inflation rate of 30 per cent a year.
The “Bolivarian revolution” was not new politics but rather a copy of Venezuela’s policies of the 1970s and early 1980s, with the same results. Then, it was followed by a post-oil collapse back into poverty. This time, there were other, smarter options. They still exist, just over the border.
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/10/13
Doug Saunders: Hugo Chavez had nothing to do with South America's real ...
Globe and Mail Outside South America, Mr. Chavez was a polarizing figure: His outspoken anti-Americanism and alliances with the dictators of Iran, Libya and Iraq led him to be demonized by many as a Cold War-style threat. For others, he was a hero: a dark-skinned ... and more » |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/11/13
Belarusians Had to Mourn Chavez for Three Days
Belarus Digest Anti-Americanism and “resistance to the single-polar world” rhetoric are the main uniting factors here. Such cooperation ... Lukashenka's regime often uses connections like that to show its autonomy from Russia and independence from the West. Also ... and more » |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/11/13
 History News Network |
Hugo Chavez's Sullied Progressive Legacy in the Mideast
History News Network (He also seems not to have distinguished between anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism.) These considerations shaped his Middle East ... Libya was not a socialist country but a post-Soviet, Russian-style oligarchy. Ordinary Libyans, especially in the ... and more » |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/11/13
 Views and News from Norway |
Ex-minister's book made waves
Views and News from Norway “He lashes out with anti-Americanism that he claims is in the bone marrow of the left, like the Conservatives lash out at Russia and China,” Solheim claims. Solheim rather thinks the US is, “in an historic perspective, the most restrained world power ... |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/11/13
As US fades, power vacuum fears rise
Bangkok Post This and the accompanying rise of anti-Americanism is important because it has undercut US soft power and thereby reduced Washington's ability to promote its interests overseas, and indeed those of its allies. ... For instance, in eight of 13 key ... |
via anti-americanism in russia - Google News on 3/12/13
 Forbes |
A Completely Unrealistic Iran Grand Bargain Proposal
Forbes But from everything I've read about the internal mechanics of Pakistan, there is nothing that won't reinforce Pakistani paranoia about India and attendant anti-Americanism. Pakistan could react to this deal in two ways: a) support Taliban extremists ... |
via Russia - Google News on 3/10/13
 The Voice of Russia |
Putin's Russia: Still an Empire, Still Evil
American Thinker Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech before the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida (on March 8, 1983). Today, Russia is just as evil, and has been governed for an extended period as the ... Russia is turning to the East while leaving the door open to the WestThe Voice of Russia all 9 news articles » |
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via World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk by Simon Reid-Henry on 3/12/13
• Read this article in English
¿Qué tipo de democracia requiere un desarrollo eficaz? Ahora que la pompa del funeral de Hugo Chávez ha terminado, y Venezuela se prepara para nuevas elecciones, esta es una pregunta importante.
En los círculos de desarrollo, una versión occidental de democracia liberal se presenta a menudo como algo inseparable del desarrollo. Muchos donantes hacen su ayuda condicional al respecto, ya sea directamente o a través de algunas medidas sustitutivas como "buen gobierno".
Sin embargo, Chávez – en algunos aspectos el Beppe Grillo de América Latina, ya que el último también llegó al cargo en una ola de frustración anti-política – hizo lo contrario. Él utilizó la riqueza petrolera de su país y su propio mandato popular para remodelar la democracia venezolana en una manera que él creía fuese mejor para enfrentar los problemas de desarrollo que tenía el país desde hace mucho tiempo.
Ideas predeterminadas sobre lo que esto ha significado para las libertades humanas básicas han polarizado la opinión sobre Chávez. Desde la izquierda llegaron frecuentemente – y muchas veces ingenuamente – aplausos para cada iniciativa, a pesar de que muchas eran ciertamente de lo peor. La derecha, por su parte, no se demostró dispuesta a mirar más allá de la política de mano a mano para ver si algo estaba bien, sino recordaba la Venezuela antes de Chávez como si esta fuera una especie de auge democrático prelapsario.
El experimento bolivariano merece más que esto. Chávez admitió una vez que, políticamente, era un poco de todo (¿qué otra cosa se puede esperar de un hombre que encontró su camino hacia el socialismo a través de la Biblia?). Por lo tanto, a lo largo de sus 14 años en el poder, jugó a la vez de radical y otras veces de conservador, justamente y deslealmente, mientras perseguía un primordial (y paradójico) objetivo: hacer que la sociedad venezolana sea menos desigual y más democrática mientras él permanecía en el poder el tiempo suficiente para lograrlo.
Eso significaba, en primer lugar, una nueva constitución, seguida de grandes programas sociales financiados por el estado, o misiones, que acanalaron las regalías de hidrocarburos – previamente malgastadas – en algunas de las zonas más pobres del país. El gasto per cápita en salud, por ejemplo, creció de $273 a $688 entre 2000 y 2009, mientras que durante Chávez la tasa de pobreza se redujo de la mitad en poco más de una década; la pobreza extrema disminuyó aún más. Necesarias reformas agrarias también se llevaron a cabo.
Inevitablemente, estas políticas se enfrentaron con una considerable resistencia por las élites venezolanas, aunque no todas. Tras el intento de golpe contra él en 2002, y de nuevo después de ganar su segundo mandato en 2006, Chávez tomó el ritmo de cambio. Entre sus medidas hay que señalar: la matriculación escolar, una campaña de alfabetización masiva, iniciativas locales de salud como el programa Barrio Adentro con personal cubano, y otros proyectos sociales – como la misión Vuelvan Caras – cuyo objetivo era conseguir que los desempleados de largo plazo volvieran a trabajar.
Al mismo tiempo, el proceso original de reforma agraria fue puesto en marcha mientras que se relajó la definición de cuanta tierra podría ser tomada de los individuos. El estado llevó a meterse en un amplio rango de sectores: petróleo, gas, aluminio, los medios de comunicación.
Pero Chávez nunca pretendió que su política llevara beneficios a todos. De ahí la creación de los círculos bolivarianos de inspiración cubana: foros comunitarios donde los participantes se subían las mangas para ponerse a trabajar en el barrio, y que convenientemente también servían como grupos de apoyo chavista. Estos foros participativos y más recientes, como los Consejos Comunales (destinados a fomentar proyectos de desarrollo comunitario) y los Comités de Tierras Urbanas (que surgieron de forma espontánea para hacer frente a la tarea hercúlea de asignación de tenencia de tierra en los barrios pobres), aumentaron la participación local en el proceso de desarrollo. Pero hicieron poco para abordar los problemas igualmente apremiantes de violencia endémica y de anarquía. Para ello, se requería un estado mejor organizado, pero el estado de Chávez estaba demasiado ocupado en mantener a su líder en el poder.
La democracia al estilo de Chávez fue siempre – de hecho cada vez más – informal y poco regulada. Si esto lo convertía en un juego bastante peligroso, había muchos dispuestos a tomar el riesgo por la popularidad de los programas de radio y televisión de Chávez y de sus asambleas públicas. Muchos comentaristas occidentales se apresuraron a burlarse de la idea de un presidente que cantaba en televisión, pero eran igualmente rápidos en honrar a Gustavo Dudamel de El Sistema y a la Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar cuando tocaba en las salas de concierto occidentales.
El experimento bolivariano de Venezuela exige críticas y reconocimientos en partes casi iguales. El Carter Center manifestó su confianza (pdf) en la calidad de las elecciones del año pasado, por ejemplo. Pero la democracia es algo más que lo que pasa en las urnas.
Para los chavistas, por supuesto, este es precisamente el punto: la verdadera democracia es un proceso, una forma de conducirse en relación con los demás. No es sólo una obligación periódica de marcar un nombre en las elecciones. Esto es lo que ha hecho que sea una fuerza tan interesante para el desarrollo. Pero sí es indiscutible que las tasas de participación ciudadana se han incrementado en Venezuela en los últimos 14 años, y que el sistema político se ha profundizado para incluir las bases y las voces de los pobres. Sin embargo, no se discute que, bajo Chávez, cargos políticos eran ocupados por sus partidarios, los procesos judiciales estaban manipulados, los jueces intimidados y los medios críticos sancionados.
En última instancia, no importa que las cosas bajo Chávez hayan sido desordenadas, o incluso que él se alejó del procedimentalismo democrático liberal. Las naciones democráticas ricas y liberales tienen sus particulares puntos ciegos – incluyendo el desinterés creciente de la gente en la participación ciudadana activa, déficits democráticos causados por una injusticia estructural, y desigualdades arraigadas. El espíritu de la democracia es más importante que la tipografía de la letra, y requiere constante reinvención para evitar ser monopolizado por los poderosos.
Chávez fue un soplo de aire fresco. Él demostró que había alternativas al truco revolucionario de pisar los frenos y tirar por la borda a todos los que en el régimen anterior disfrutaron de la buena vida en cubierta. Sin embargo, para conciliar los cambios que él quería hacer con la oposición que encontró, buscó marcar su propio modelo de un futuro bolivariano. Esa retórica simplifica y extingue los destellos de disidencia que la democracia efectiva requiere, y se corre el riesgo de hacer que los países parezcan ser cosas que no son. Hay mucho que aprender de verdad de Chávez, pero no hay ninguna razón por la cual deberíamos aprender de manera acrítica.
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Hugo Chávez showed that the west's ways aren't always best
Venezuela's late leader demonstrated, however messily, that western democracy is not fundamental to development
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Designs on a new democracy … Hugo Chávez at the UN general assembly in New York in September 2005. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images
What form of democracy does effective development require? Now the pageantry of Hugo Chávez's funeral is over, and as Venezuela prepares for elections, this is an important question.
In development circles, a western liberal version of democracy is often presented as inseparable from development. Many donors make their aid conditional on this, either directly or through some proxy measure like "good governance".
Yet Chávez – in some respects the Beppe Grillo of Latin America, since he too swept to office on a wave of anti-political frustration – did the opposite. He used his country's oil wealth and his own popular mandate to refashion Venezuelan democracy in ways that he thought better addressed the country's long-standing development issues.
Predetermined ideas on what this has meant for basic human freedoms have polarised opinion about Chávez. From the left has come frequent – and frequently naive – applause at each initiative, even though many have assuredly been for the worse. The right, meanwhile, has proven unwilling to look beyond the mano a mano politics to see any good at all, looking back at pre-Chávez Venezuela as though it were some kind of prelapsarian democratic heyday.
The Bolivarian experiment warrants better than this. Chávez once admitted that, politically, he was a bit of everything (what else would you expect from a man who found his way to socialism through the Bible?). Accordingly, throughout his 14 years in power he played both radical and conservative, fair and foul, as he pursued one overriding (if paradoxical) objective: making Venezuelan society less unequal and more democratic, while remaining in power long enough to do so.
That meant, first of all, a new constitution followed by large, state-funded social programmes, or misiónes, which ploughed previously squandered oil receipts back into some of the poorest parts of the country. Per capita spending on health, for example, grew from $273 to $688 between 2000 and 2009, while the rate of poverty under Chávez halved in just more than a decade; extreme poverty fell by even more. Long overdue land reform was also implemented.
Inevitably, such policies met considerable resistance from Venezuela's elites, though not from all. After the attempted coup against him in 2002, and again after winning his second term in 2006, Chávez picked up the pace of change. Among his measures were educational enrolment, an outreach-style literacy campaign, local health initiatives like the Cuban-staffed Barrio Adentro programme, and other social projects – such as Vuelvan Caras – designed to get long-term unemployed people back into work.
At the same time, the original process of land reform was cranked up while the definition of how much land could be taken from individuals was loosened. The state took to meddling across a wider range of sectors: oil, gas, aluminium, the media.
But then Chávez never pretended his policies would be to everyone's benefit. Hence the establishment of Cuban-inspired Bolivarian Circles: community forums where participants would roll up their sleeves and get to work in the neighbourhood, and which conveniently served as Chávista support groups on the side. These and more recent participatory forums, such as the Communal Councils (intended to foster community development projects) and Urban Land Committees (which emerged spontaneously to address the Herculean task of allocating land tenure in slums), have increased local participation in the development process. But they have done little to address the equally pressing problems of endemic violence and lawlessness. A better organised state was required for that, but Chavez's state was too busy keeping its leader in power.
Democracy, Chávez-style, was always – indeed increasingly – informal and under-regulated in this way. If this made it a rather dangerous game, there were many prepared to take the risk, with Chávez's television and radio shows and his public assemblies all hugely popular. A good many western commentators were quick to sneer at the idea of a president singing on TV – the very picture of it smacks of government by Simon Cowell – but they were equally quick to garland with praise El Sistema's Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra when they played in western concert halls.
Venezuela's Bolivarian experiment demands criticism and recognition in fairly equal measure. The Carter Center has stated its confidence (pdf) in the quality of last year's elections, for example. But democracy is about more than just the ballot box.
For Chávistas, of course, this is precisely the point: true democracy is a process, a way of conducting oneself in relation to others. It is not just a periodical duty to put a tick by a name. It is this that has made it such an interesting force for development. But if it is beyond argument that citizen participation rates have increased in Venezuela in the past 14 years, and that the political system has deepened to include the grassroots and the voices of poor people, it is not disputed that, under Chávez, political posts were stuffed with his supporters, judicial processes gerrymandered, judges cowed, and critical media sanctioned whenever its toe strayed across a highly diaphanous line.
Ultimately it doesn't matter that things under Chávez looked messy, or even that he departed from liberal democratic proceduralism. Wealthy liberal democratic nations have their own particular blindspots – including waning interest in active public participation, democratic deficits caused by structural injustice, and entrenched inequalities. The spirit of democracy matters more than the typeset of the letter and it requires constant reinvention to avoid being monopolised by the powerful.
Chávez was a breath of fresh air. He showed what can be done short of the revolutionary trick of slamming on the brakes and throwing overboard all those in the previous regime found enjoying the good life up on deck. But to reconcile the changes he wanted to make with the opposition he encountered, he sought to trademark his own model of a Bolivarian future. Such rhetoric simplifies, it snuffs out the flickers of dissent that effective democracy requires, and it risks making countries into things they are not. There is much indeed to learn from Chávez, but there is no reason we should learn uncritically.
Venezuela's Maduro: from bus driver to Chavez's successor
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A day ahead of the papal conclave, faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.
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KGB's former spy chief in Britain says he has no regrets about betraying the Soviet Union as he likens Putin to Mussolini
Three decades ago, Oleg Gordievsky was dramatically smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the boot of a diplomatic car. A strident figure of a man, he passed to the British vital details of Moscow's espionage operation in London.
These days, Gordievsky is a shadow of his former self. He walks with a stick and is stooped, following an episode five years ago in which he says he was poisoned. But though diminished, Gordievsky remains combative and critical of his homeland.
Intriguingly, as Britain and Russia embark on something of a mini-thaw this week with top-level bilateral talks in London, Gordievsky warned that Moscow was operating just as many spies in the UK as it did during the cold war.
Gordievsky, 74, claims a large number of Vladimir Putin's agents are based at the Russian embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. As well as career officers, the embassy runs a network of "informers", who are not officially employed, Gordievsky said, but regularly pass on useful information. They include a famous oligarch.
"There are 37 KGB men in London at the moment. Another 14 work for GRU [Russian military intelligence]," Gordievsky told the Guardian. How did he know? "From my contacts," he said enigmatically, hinting at sources inside British intelligence.
Gordievsky began helping British intelligence in 1974. From 1982-85 he was stationed at the Soviet embassy in London. He was even designated rezident, the KGB's chief in Britain. Back then, the KGB's goal was to cultivate leftwing and trade union contacts, and to acquire British military and Nato secrets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB was divided into the SVR and FSB, Russia's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Vladimir Putin is the FSB's former boss.
According to Gordievsky, Putin's foreign intelligence field officers fulfil similar roles to their KGB predecessors. In these days of capitalism, however, they also want sensitive commercial information of use to Moscow. And they keep tabs on the growing band of Russian dissidents and businessmen who fall out with the Kremlin and decamp to London – a source of continuing Anglo-Russian tension.
Former KGB agents, including Putin, now occupy senior roles in Russia's murky power structures. Many are now billionaires. Gordievsky, meanwhile, was sentenced to death in absentia; the order has never been rescinded. (Under the KGB's unforgiving code, a traitor is always a traitor, and deserves the ultimate punishment.) Gordievsky noted wryly: "I'm the only KGB defector from the 1980s who has survived. I was supposed to die."
In 2008, however, Gordievsky claims he was poisoned in the UK. He declined to say precisely what happened. But the alleged incident has taken a visible toll on his health. Physically, he is a shadow of the once-vigorous man who briefed Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan on the Soviet leadership. Mentally, he is sharp and often acerbic.
Gordievsky said he had no regrets about betraying the KGB. He remains a passionate fan of Britain; he reads the Spectator and writes for the Literary Review. "Everything here is divine, compared to Russia," he said. In 2007 the Queen awarded him the CMG "for services to the security of the UK".
Gordievsky says he first "dreamed" of living in London after the 20th party congress in 1956, when Khrushchev launched his famous denunciation of Stalin. There is, he insists, nothing in Russia that he misses.
Gordievsky has little contact with his two grown-up daughters, Maria and Anna, or his ex-wife Leila. When he escaped to Britain his family remained behind in Russia, and were only allowed to join him six years later following lobbying from Thatcher. The marriage did not survive this long separation. Gordievsky's long-term companion is a British woman, whom he met in the 1990s.
A bright pupil, with a flair for languages, Gordievsky joined the KGB because it offered a rare chance to live abroad. In 1961 Gordievsky – then a student – was in East Berlin when the wall went up. "It was an open secret in the Soviet embassy. I was lying in my bed and heard the tanks going past in the street outside," he recalls.
In 1968, when he was working as a KGB spy in Copenhagen, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. Gordievsky was already disillusioned with the Soviet system; from this point he decided to conspire against it.
It was not until 1974 that he began his career as a double agent in Denmark. Gordievsky met "Dick", a British agent. After Denmark Gordievsky was sent to Britain, to the delight of MI5. In London he warned that the politburo erroneously believed the west was planning a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. In 1985, the KGB grew suspicious and summoned him home. He was interrogated, drugged and accused of being a traitor. He managed to get word to his British handlers, who smuggled him across the Finnish border in the boot of a diplomatic car, an incident recalled in his gripping autobiography, Next Stop Execution.
Gordievsky is scathing about the Soviet Union's leadership. "Leonid Brezhnev was nothing special. Gorbachev was uneducated and not especially intelligent," he sniffed. What about Putin?
"Abscheulich," he replied, using the German word for abominable and loathsome. (Gordievsky speaks fluent German, as well as Swedish, Danish and English, which he learned last.) By contrast, he praises William Hague. "I used to like him a lot. He was sharp."
Asked whether he thought there was any prospect of democratic change in Russia – an idea nurtured by anti-Kremlin street protests in 2010 and 2011 – he replied: "What a naive question!"
He added gloomily: "Everything that has happened indicates the opposite direction." He likens post-communist Russia under Putin to Mussolini's Italy. Theoretically, he suggested, he might return to Moscow if there were a democratic government – but there is little prospect of that.
It is an open question how effective Russia's modern spying operation really is. In 2010, 10 Russian agents, including the glamorous Anna Chapman, were caught in the US, and swapped for a Russian scientist convicted of working for Washington. Gordievsky is familiar with these kind of "deep-cover" operations. He began his espionage career in the KGB's second directorate, which was responsible for running "illegals" – agents with false biographies planted abroad. Many felt Russia's blundering espionage ring was more of a joke than a threat to US security.
Gordievsky, however, said it would be unwise to be complacent about Moscow's intelligence activities. He mentions George Blake – a British spy who was a double agent for Moscow. In 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and defected to the Soviet Union. Blake's and Gordievsky's careers mirror each other: Gordievsky lives on a civil service pension in the home counties; Blake on a KGB pension in Moscow. Reaching for a sip of his beer, Gordievsky described the treacherous Blake as "effective". He added: "You only need one spy to be effective."
Gordievsky said he was convinced that Putin was behind the 2006 assassination of his friend Alexander Litvinenko, who had defected to Britain in 2000. In December it emerged that Litvinenko had been working for the British and Spanish secret services at the time of his death. An inquest into Litvinenko's murder will take place later this year.
Controversially, the foreign secretary, William Hague, wants to keep the government's Litvinenko files secret – to appease Moscow, according to critics.
Gordievsky said he got to know Litvinenko "quite well" in the years before his murder. "He was crazy about fitness. He would run for miles. He visited me at home seven times. He also came with Marina [Litvinenko's wife]. We talked on the telephone. He would talk and talk."
He added of Litvinenko: "He was absolutely in love with the Chechen people. He liked their traditions and independence."
Litvinenko decided to defect after growing disillusioned with the FSB, which he felt had betrayed its ideals, Gordievsky said. In exile in London, Litvinenko remained "very Russian", Gordievsky recalled, attacking the Kremlin and Putin in "typically aggressive Russian style" and writing defiant articles. "I think the main reason he was killed was because he defended [the Putin critic Boris] Berezovsky," he says.
Gordievsky said the operation to slip radioactive polonium-210 into Litvinenko's teacup was approved from the top. He reasoned: "Nobody would dare to carry out an assassination abroad in an important country like Britain without authorisation." The KGB was always adept at using poisons, Gordievsky pointed out: "They made them at a facility outside Moscow called the Fabrika. The KGB also produced a fantastic collection of [fake] foreign passports."
In development circles, a western liberal version of democracy is often presented as inseparable from development. Many donors make their aid conditional on this, either directly or through some proxy measure like "good governance".
Yet Chávez – in some respects the Beppe Grillo of Latin America, since he too swept to office on a wave of anti-political frustration – did the opposite. He used his country's oil wealth and his own popular mandate to refashion Venezuelan democracy in ways that he thought better addressed the country's long-standing development issues.
Predetermined ideas on what this has meant for basic human freedoms have polarised opinion about Chávez. From the left has come frequent – and frequently naive – applause at each initiative, even though many have assuredly been for the worse. The right, meanwhile, has proven unwilling to look beyond the mano a mano politics to see any good at all, looking back at pre-Chávez Venezuela as though it were some kind of prelapsarian democratic heyday.
The Bolivarian experiment warrants better than this. Chávez once admitted that, politically, he was a bit of everything (what else would you expect from a man who found his way to socialism through the Bible?). Accordingly, throughout his 14 years in power he played both radical and conservative, fair and foul, as he pursued one overriding (if paradoxical) objective: making Venezuelan society less unequal and more democratic, while remaining in power long enough to do so.
That meant, first of all, a new constitution followed by large, state-funded social programmes, or misiónes, which ploughed previously squandered oil receipts back into some of the poorest parts of the country. Per capita spending on health, for example, grew from $273 to $688 between 2000 and 2009, while the rate of poverty under Chávez halved in just more than a decade; extreme poverty fell by even more. Long overdue land reform was also implemented.
Inevitably, such policies met considerable resistance from Venezuela's elites, though not from all. After the attempted coup against him in 2002, and again after winning his second term in 2006, Chávez picked up the pace of change. Among his measures were educational enrolment, an outreach-style literacy campaign, local health initiatives like the Cuban-staffed Barrio Adentro programme, and other social projects – such as Vuelvan Caras – designed to get long-term unemployed people back into work.
At the same time, the original process of land reform was cranked up while the definition of how much land could be taken from individuals was loosened. The state took to meddling across a wider range of sectors: oil, gas, aluminium, the media.
But then Chávez never pretended his policies would be to everyone's benefit. Hence the establishment of Cuban-inspired Bolivarian Circles: community forums where participants would roll up their sleeves and get to work in the neighbourhood, and which conveniently served as Chávista support groups on the side. These and more recent participatory forums, such as the Communal Councils (intended to foster community development projects) and Urban Land Committees (which emerged spontaneously to address the Herculean task of allocating land tenure in slums), have increased local participation in the development process. But they have done little to address the equally pressing problems of endemic violence and lawlessness. A better organised state was required for that, but Chavez's state was too busy keeping its leader in power.
Democracy, Chávez-style, was always – indeed increasingly – informal and under-regulated in this way. If this made it a rather dangerous game, there were many prepared to take the risk, with Chávez's television and radio shows and his public assemblies all hugely popular. A good many western commentators were quick to sneer at the idea of a president singing on TV – the very picture of it smacks of government by Simon Cowell – but they were equally quick to garland with praise El Sistema's Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra when they played in western concert halls.
Venezuela's Bolivarian experiment demands criticism and recognition in fairly equal measure. The Carter Center has stated its confidence (pdf) in the quality of last year's elections, for example. But democracy is about more than just the ballot box.
For Chávistas, of course, this is precisely the point: true democracy is a process, a way of conducting oneself in relation to others. It is not just a periodical duty to put a tick by a name. It is this that has made it such an interesting force for development. But if it is beyond argument that citizen participation rates have increased in Venezuela in the past 14 years, and that the political system has deepened to include the grassroots and the voices of poor people, it is not disputed that, under Chávez, political posts were stuffed with his supporters, judicial processes gerrymandered, judges cowed, and critical media sanctioned whenever its toe strayed across a highly diaphanous line.
Ultimately it doesn't matter that things under Chávez looked messy, or even that he departed from liberal democratic proceduralism. Wealthy liberal democratic nations have their own particular blindspots – including waning interest in active public participation, democratic deficits caused by structural injustice, and entrenched inequalities. The spirit of democracy matters more than the typeset of the letter and it requires constant reinvention to avoid being monopolised by the powerful.
Chávez was a breath of fresh air. He showed what can be done short of the revolutionary trick of slamming on the brakes and throwing overboard all those in the previous regime found enjoying the good life up on deck. But to reconcile the changes he wanted to make with the opposition he encountered, he sought to trademark his own model of a Bolivarian future. Such rhetoric simplifies, it snuffs out the flickers of dissent that effective democracy requires, and it risks making countries into things they are not. There is much indeed to learn from Chávez, but there is no reason we should learn uncritically.
Venezuela's Maduro: from bus driver to Chavez's successor
By Daniel Wallis CARACAS (Reuters) - Former bus driver and union leader Nicolas Maduro followed a simple strategy when he began filling in for cancer-stricken Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last year: copy his boss's policies, style and radical rhetoric. Now that Chavez is dead, Maduro appears determined to stick with the same approach as he campaigns for a presidential election scheduled for April 14. ...
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via путинизм - Google News on 3/12/13
Госпропаганда работает очень эффективно, внедряя в общественное ...
Радиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ С этими раскрытыми ртами мы и вкатились в путинизм «нулевых», который наше скольжение просто слегка упорядочил и благодаря заоблачным ценам на нефть придал ему бОльшую устойчивость: теперь мы летели вниз, уже не опасаясь ... |
via здоровье путина - Google News on 3/10/13
Право на идентичность
Эксперт Online ... поставили Хамитова. Определенные приличия все равно будут соблюдать. Путин — прагматик. Реальные политики прекрасно понимают, что не нужно искать конфликтов там, где их нет, но где они могут оказаться очень острыми и непредсказуемыми. «Варяг» — это открытый вызов не какой-то части ... and more » |
via здоровье путина - Google News on 3/10/13
Дайджест российской прессы — 11 марта
РИА Новости Сенатор объяснил, что был избран президентом организации "Мир без нацизма", а совмещать две должности ему не позволяют закон и здоровье. Ранее СФ покинул фигурант списка Forbes Николай Ольшанский, который также сослался на ... Управлять ЦБ наймут неожиданность — Президент Владимир Путин объявил ... and more » |
via здоровье путина - Google News on 3/10/13
В Венесуэле стартовала предвыборная гонка
Российская Газета Лидер оппозиции раскритиковал власти Венесуэлы, которые, по его мнению, как раз не соблюли траур и уже начали предвыборную кампанию Мадуро. Каприлес добавил, что Мадуро все последние месяцы обманывал население страны относительно ситуации со здоровьем Чавеса. Напомним, что в соответствии с ... |
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via путин – Новости Google on 3/9/13
 Уфимский Журнал |
Исходя из нынешних условий, в 2018 Путин будет неизбираем, в СМИ пытаются запретить обсуждение его рейтинга
Уфимский Журнал Судя по Мамуту и разгрому «Газеты.ру», тема собственного рейтинга для Путина действительно является очень болезненной. История с разгромом "Газеты.ру" показывает, что в СМИ установлен фактический запрет на обсуждение рейтинга Путина. А из запрета на обсуждение ... |
via Putin - Google News on 3/9/13
 The Moscow Times |
Miss Russia dares Putin, defends Pussy Riot
Oman Tribune MOSCOW The new Miss Russia took the unusual step on Saturday of contradicting President Vladimir Putin by denouncing the jailing of two members of the Pussy Riot female punk band who performed a protest song in a church. Eighteen-year-old Elmira ... Miss Russia says Pussy Riot sentencing too harshReuters Russian police detain several Pussy Riot supportersGlobalPost Russian police charge Pussy Riot supportersTimes of Malta The Moscow Times -Examiner.com -The Times (subscription) all 18 news articles » |
via Putin - Google News on 3/9/13
 Foreign Affairs |
Anxiety as Putin picks new Russia central bank chief
GlobalPost President Vladimir Putin will in the next weeks choose a new head of Russia's central bank, with economists hoping he picks a dependable figure and not a wild card to head one of its few trusted institutions. The Bank Rossii (Bank of Russia) is facing ... The Putin DoctrineForeign Affairs all 3 news articles » |
via путин – Новости Google on 3/10/13
 inoСМИ.Ru |
Владимир Путин — президент по умолчанию?
inoСМИ.Ru В Российском общественно мнении не наблюдается ни особой поддержки, ни отторжения Владимира Путина. По данным нескольких исследований, сила президента России объясняется исключительно слабостью оппозиции и в частности ее практически полным отсутствием в СМИ. |
via путин – Новости Google on 3/10/13
Путин, Лоренцо и выпущенная змея
Московские новости: Выступит ли президент Путин в роли Савонаролы или Лоренцо Великолепного, чем полезен Навальный и какие люди могут прийти в следующем избирательном цикле? О настоящем и будущем российского политического процесса рассуждает руководитель Центра политической ... |
via путин – Новости Google on 3/10/13
Путин не доверяет отчетам аудиторов и госпредставителей в госкомпаниях
Ведомости Все это делается по поручению Владимира Путина, вышедшему незадолго до отставки Игоря Сечина в мае 2012 г. с должности вице-премьера, знает один из собеседников «Ведомостей»: ФНС и Росфинмониторинг должны изучать сделки и представлять сводный доклад по ним в ... Путин секретно поручил проверить глав госкомпаний на честностьKM.RU Все похожие статьи: 3 » |
via Putin - Google News on 3/10/13
 Gulf Times |
Anxiety as Putin picks new Russian central bank chief
Gulf Times President Vladimir Putin will in the next weeks choose a new head of Russia's central bank, with economists hoping he picks a dependable figure and not a wild card to head one of its few trusted institutions. The Bank Rossii (Bank of Russia) is facing ... The Putin DoctrineForeign Affairs all 3 news articles » |
via путин – Новости Google on 3/10/13
 РБК - RBC.Ru |
Президент Владимир Путин объявил, что определился с кандидатурой будущего главы Банка России -- он отказался назвать имя, заявив лишь, что его ...
СИА (пресс-релиз) Место и время, которое Владимир Путин выбрал, для того чтобы сообщить о завершении выбора будущего кандидата на пост главы ЦБ (напомним, его утверждает Госдума), выглядело достаточно необычным: о том, что с преемником Сергея Игнатьева для представления парламенту ... Владимир Путин определился с кандидатурой нового главы ЦБНЭП 08 Ежедневные экономические вести В.Путин: Новый глава ЦБ РФ будет неожиданной фигуройРБК - RBC.Ru Президент подвел черту под списком претендентовНезависимая газета Все похожие статьи: 8 » |
via Videos by Valera Zaicev on 2/15/13
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Who said Rolls Royce or Maybach are the prestige? Check out Russian car build for Vladimir Putin the Russian President. 7.0 litre engine, 315 bhp, Not so goo...
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From:Valera Zaicev
Views:388
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| Time:06:14 | More inComedy |
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via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Moscow Times <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
Russia has topped Europe in terms of teenage suicides, the Federal Consumer Protection Service said Monday.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Moscow Times <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
The Russian Navy fleet is set to get 24 new submarines and 54 ships by 2020, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a conference call with defense officials Monday.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Associated Press <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
A Moscow court on Monday postponed the trial of dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who accused law enforcement authorities of massive corruption and whose case sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Moscow Times <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
The Communications and Press Ministry asked the government to provide additional tax incentives for the IT industry to stimulate growth, Vedomosti reported Monday.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Moscow Times <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case in connection with the death of actor Andrei Panin on charges of intentional infliction of bodily injury, the committee said in a statement posted on its official website.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by Vedomosti <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
In the latest annual Wealth Report rating issued by Knight Frank consulting, Moscow ranks 30th overall, but is among the leaders for the cost of high-end real estate.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Moscow Times <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/10/13
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Monday that he would no longer maintain his Facebook and Twitter pages.
via The St. Petersburg Times by Natalya Krainova on 3/10/13
Bolshoi ballet soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko and two accomplices have partially confessed to organizing the January acid attack on Bolshoi ballet director Sergei Filin over a work conflict.
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via - Europe RSS Feed on 3/11/13
A day ahead of the papal conclave, faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (£21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna.See more of Mike Nova's starred items ...
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via Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty on 3/11/13
RFE/RL In The Media # "From the Safety of Switzerland" - Masha Gessen, "The New York Times" # RFE/RL's Golnaz Esfandiari was a panelist at Tech@State # "The Wall Street Journal" cites RFE/RL reporting on the convicting of a Kyrgyzstani official for corruption # "Press TV" accuses the RFE/RL, BBC, and VOA of spying, sedition, and more International Press Review Iran # Amos Chapelle photographs Iran # Iran and Pakistan broke ground on a new ...
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by BBC Monitoring <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/11/13
A roundup of today's Russian-language newspapers
via Russia News Headlines - Yahoo! News on 3/11/13
By Daniel Wallis CARACAS (Reuters) - Former bus driver and union leader Nicolas Maduro followed a simple strategy when he began filling in for cancer-stricken Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last year: copy his boss's policies, style and radical rhetoric. Now that Chavez is dead, Maduro appears determined to stick with the same approach as he campaigns for a presidential election scheduled for April 14. ...
via Russia News Headlines - Yahoo! News on 3/11/13
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian security forces killed three suspected militants in the restive North Caucasus province of Kabardino-Balkaria on Tuesday, the Interfax news agency reported. The suspected militants were killed when security forces fired on two cars whose drivers did not respond to demands to show identification documents, Interfax cited unidentified law enforcement officials as saying. The report made no mention of any casualties among security forces. Police could not immediately be reached for comment and the account of the violence could not be independently confirmed. ...
via Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty on 3/11/13
Russia and Nicaragua have broken up a drug-trafficking ring that supplied cocaine to Europe.
via Russia - Google News on 3/11/13
 Eurasia Review |
Nicaragua, Russia Break Up Drug-Trafficking Ring
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty Martin Flores, a Mexican citizen who led the ring, was among those detained in early March. Russia and Nicaragua last year signed a cooperation agreement to fight drug trafficking that includes an exchange of technical assistance, training, and ... Afghan Heroin Supplies To Russia Still High – Antidrug ChiefEurasia Review Afghanistan's opium industry boomingThe Voice of Russia Russia begins procedure of introducing visa regime for CIS citizensAzerbaijan Business Center all 15 news articles » |
via Russia - Google News on 3/11/13
 Press TV |
EU puts pressure on Russia to intervene in Syrian conflict
Irish Times “I think that there is a role for the European Union to have a very frank discussion with Russia about what needs to be done by the international community to deal effectively with the crisis in Syria,” Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said ... Foreigners backing oppositionists don't want peace in Syria: RussiaPress TV EU, Russia pledge to stick to political solution to Syrian crisisXinhua Top Syria opposition official meets Russia's LavrovGlobalPost RIA Novosti -Russia Beyond The Headlines all 45 news articles » |
via Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty on 3/12/13
Security forces in Russia's North Caucasus Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria have killed four suspected militants and detained another eight.
via The Moscow Times Top Stories by The Moscow Times <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com> on 3/11/13
Homophobic attitudes are widespread in Russia and fewer people appear tolerant of homosexuality than eight years ago, a survey released Tuesday said.
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via World news: Russia | guardian.co.uk by Luke Harding on 3/11/13
Three decades ago, Oleg Gordievsky was dramatically smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the boot of a diplomatic car. A strident figure of a man, he passed to the British vital details of Moscow's espionage operation in London.
These days, Gordievsky is a shadow of his former self. He walks with a stick and is stooped, following an episode five years ago in which he says he was poisoned. But though diminished, Gordievsky remains combative and critical of his homeland.
Intriguingly, as Britain and Russia embark on something of a mini-thaw this week with top-level bilateral talks in London, Gordievsky warned that Moscow was operating just as many spies in the UK as it did during the cold war.
Gordievsky, 74, claims a large number of Vladimir Putin's agents are based at the Russian embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens. As well as career officers, the embassy runs a network of "informers", who are not officially employed, Gordievsky said, but regularly pass on useful information. They include a famous oligarch.
"There are 37 KGB men in London at the moment. Another 14 work for GRU [Russian military intelligence]," Gordievsky told the Guardian. How did he know? "From my contacts," he said enigmatically, hinting at sources inside British intelligence.
Gordievsky began helping British intelligence in 1974. From 1982-85 he was stationed at the Soviet embassy in London. He was even designated rezident, the KGB's chief in Britain. Back then, the KGB's goal was to cultivate leftwing and trade union contacts, and to acquire British military and Nato secrets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB was divided into the SVR and FSB, Russia's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Vladimir Putin is the FSB's former boss.
According to Gordievsky, Putin's foreign intelligence field officers fulfil similar roles to their KGB predecessors. In these days of capitalism, however, they also want sensitive commercial information of use to Moscow. And they keep tabs on the growing band of Russian dissidents and businessmen who fall out with the Kremlin and decamp to London – a source of continuing Anglo-Russian tension.
Former KGB agents, including Putin, now occupy senior roles in Russia's murky power structures. Many are now billionaires. Gordievsky, meanwhile, was sentenced to death in absentia; the order has never been rescinded. (Under the KGB's unforgiving code, a traitor is always a traitor, and deserves the ultimate punishment.) Gordievsky noted wryly: "I'm the only KGB defector from the 1980s who has survived. I was supposed to die."
In 2008, however, Gordievsky claims he was poisoned in the UK. He declined to say precisely what happened. But the alleged incident has taken a visible toll on his health. Physically, he is a shadow of the once-vigorous man who briefed Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan on the Soviet leadership. Mentally, he is sharp and often acerbic.
Gordievsky said he had no regrets about betraying the KGB. He remains a passionate fan of Britain; he reads the Spectator and writes for the Literary Review. "Everything here is divine, compared to Russia," he said. In 2007 the Queen awarded him the CMG "for services to the security of the UK".
Gordievsky says he first "dreamed" of living in London after the 20th party congress in 1956, when Khrushchev launched his famous denunciation of Stalin. There is, he insists, nothing in Russia that he misses.
Gordievsky has little contact with his two grown-up daughters, Maria and Anna, or his ex-wife Leila. When he escaped to Britain his family remained behind in Russia, and were only allowed to join him six years later following lobbying from Thatcher. The marriage did not survive this long separation. Gordievsky's long-term companion is a British woman, whom he met in the 1990s.
A bright pupil, with a flair for languages, Gordievsky joined the KGB because it offered a rare chance to live abroad. In 1961 Gordievsky – then a student – was in East Berlin when the wall went up. "It was an open secret in the Soviet embassy. I was lying in my bed and heard the tanks going past in the street outside," he recalls.
In 1968, when he was working as a KGB spy in Copenhagen, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. Gordievsky was already disillusioned with the Soviet system; from this point he decided to conspire against it.
It was not until 1974 that he began his career as a double agent in Denmark. Gordievsky met "Dick", a British agent. After Denmark Gordievsky was sent to Britain, to the delight of MI5. In London he warned that the politburo erroneously believed the west was planning a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. In 1985, the KGB grew suspicious and summoned him home. He was interrogated, drugged and accused of being a traitor. He managed to get word to his British handlers, who smuggled him across the Finnish border in the boot of a diplomatic car, an incident recalled in his gripping autobiography, Next Stop Execution.
Gordievsky is scathing about the Soviet Union's leadership. "Leonid Brezhnev was nothing special. Gorbachev was uneducated and not especially intelligent," he sniffed. What about Putin?
"Abscheulich," he replied, using the German word for abominable and loathsome. (Gordievsky speaks fluent German, as well as Swedish, Danish and English, which he learned last.) By contrast, he praises William Hague. "I used to like him a lot. He was sharp."
Asked whether he thought there was any prospect of democratic change in Russia – an idea nurtured by anti-Kremlin street protests in 2010 and 2011 – he replied: "What a naive question!"
He added gloomily: "Everything that has happened indicates the opposite direction." He likens post-communist Russia under Putin to Mussolini's Italy. Theoretically, he suggested, he might return to Moscow if there were a democratic government – but there is little prospect of that.
It is an open question how effective Russia's modern spying operation really is. In 2010, 10 Russian agents, including the glamorous Anna Chapman, were caught in the US, and swapped for a Russian scientist convicted of working for Washington. Gordievsky is familiar with these kind of "deep-cover" operations. He began his espionage career in the KGB's second directorate, which was responsible for running "illegals" – agents with false biographies planted abroad. Many felt Russia's blundering espionage ring was more of a joke than a threat to US security.
Gordievsky, however, said it would be unwise to be complacent about Moscow's intelligence activities. He mentions George Blake – a British spy who was a double agent for Moscow. In 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and defected to the Soviet Union. Blake's and Gordievsky's careers mirror each other: Gordievsky lives on a civil service pension in the home counties; Blake on a KGB pension in Moscow. Reaching for a sip of his beer, Gordievsky described the treacherous Blake as "effective". He added: "You only need one spy to be effective."
Gordievsky said he was convinced that Putin was behind the 2006 assassination of his friend Alexander Litvinenko, who had defected to Britain in 2000. In December it emerged that Litvinenko had been working for the British and Spanish secret services at the time of his death. An inquest into Litvinenko's murder will take place later this year.
Controversially, the foreign secretary, William Hague, wants to keep the government's Litvinenko files secret – to appease Moscow, according to critics.
Gordievsky said he got to know Litvinenko "quite well" in the years before his murder. "He was crazy about fitness. He would run for miles. He visited me at home seven times. He also came with Marina [Litvinenko's wife]. We talked on the telephone. He would talk and talk."
He added of Litvinenko: "He was absolutely in love with the Chechen people. He liked their traditions and independence."
Litvinenko decided to defect after growing disillusioned with the FSB, which he felt had betrayed its ideals, Gordievsky said. In exile in London, Litvinenko remained "very Russian", Gordievsky recalled, attacking the Kremlin and Putin in "typically aggressive Russian style" and writing defiant articles. "I think the main reason he was killed was because he defended [the Putin critic Boris] Berezovsky," he says.
Gordievsky said the operation to slip radioactive polonium-210 into Litvinenko's teacup was approved from the top. He reasoned: "Nobody would dare to carry out an assassination abroad in an important country like Britain without authorisation." The KGB was always adept at using poisons, Gordievsky pointed out: "They made them at a facility outside Moscow called the Fabrika. The KGB also produced a fantastic collection of [fake] foreign passports."
