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Has the human rights situation in Russia improved during Putin’s term of office?
Uncle_Putin 28 December, 2009, 14:45 Well said Marzipan6. I enjoy watching the RT broadcasts on my local cable, but their coverage seems to be excessively "Kremlin-friendly." I take it for what it's worth--keeping up on basic current events and human interest stories, not so much for serious and probing political coverage.
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Daniel 12 February, 2010, 13:56 Russia owes its very survival to vladimir putin after the chaos inflicted on it after the collapse of the soviet union.Was it not putin who made russia debt free and kept the vultures away from the door?He brought stability with a fist of iron and created the open and dynamic country you see before you today believe it or not. All countries have issues and problems but at least when they are visible they can be addressed and not hidden by stealth.Putin is not afraid to show his beliefs either in this politically correct secular onslaught.Dont forget the fact that he got to where he is today by his own ability and not because daddy gave him the keys to the office
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Free Thinker 10 March, 2010, 14:19 Well said, Marzipan! Unfortunately, it takes an Eastern European (or a well-informed westerner) to truly know and understand the things that you write about. I read your posts with great interest and I find that your opinions are excellently argued. In essence, you are right in your analysis of Russia. The responses that Kremlin apologists generate to your posts are however mind-boggling. They respond with purely emotive illogical arguments that are designed to cloud the issue and divert attention from what is actually being discussed. In truth, how can you blame them? If they were to argue on facts they would have nothing to say. The sad truth is you may be wasting your time trying to express your opinion to them, these are things they have been psychologically conditioned to negate. For them, Russia can do no wrong and anyone who says otherwise is a fascist by default.
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vse.berlin 11 March, 2010, 18:57 Free Thinker May be I will have a stronger opponent. You see, the problem of M6 is that he cannot see the forest for the trees. He can pedantically and meticulously count every Estonian life lost in the last century. Basically my sympathy is with him. However, all the time he fails to see the broad picture. If you go through Pete blog you will find that Bianca and some other guys put all the efforts to make him see the events of the last century in a more broad sense. He just refuses to understand and finds save heaven in bodies count and bashing whatever Russian. There is no point to argue. Did you ever try to argue with quibbling teenager? If you did you understand what I mean. If we speak particularly about Estonia, I can safely argue that Russians never had anything against Estonians per se. The tragedy is that Baltic States ever since were and are a playground for the big guys. This land all the time has been contested by Sweden, Germans, Danish, Russians.. M6 can add some more names. Right now Sweden quickly regains former influence in the region. What will happens next nobody knows. May be Germans will come once again. And Estonians are always in between. To my opinion they make a big mistake by taking sides. Who is against prospering, peaceful and neutral Estonia? But again they have taken hard anti Russian stance. If you look at the situation from the Russian prospective it is a pain in the butt to have a downright hostile state in just some km from Petersburg. It calls to die hard memories about the eve of WWII. I would add that M6’s fixation on Russians is just evidence that he is still not free from Russian influence .And btw, meaning of “free”. May be for M6 it is time to recall old Friedrich and try to answer the dilemma “Estonians are free from something” or “Estonians are free for something”
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Free Thinker 12 March, 2010, 16:55 RE: VSE Berlin Here is what I think regarding the debacle between Russia and the Baltic states. I think the two sides have a perspective problem and thus serially fail to see the others' point of view. Russia has a long Imperial history in the Baltics and throughout this time it undertook measures that left a permanent mark on those people. I don't believe that this factor is up for dispute. Russification policies were aggressively pursued during Tsarist times and after WW2 these previous ethnic cleansing policies were again adopted by the Soviet Union in an increasingly aggressive manner, the large (soviet sponsored) influx of Russia immigrants into the Baltics is testament to this. To these countries Russia represents the geopolitical vector that undermined their sovereignty as well as their right to exist as independent states. Whilst it may be true that the area has been occupied by various empires throughout the last couple of hundred years, arguably the period of Russian domination brought with it the greatest amount of social, economic and cultural pressure on Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians. I do not believe that what I have said up to now is in any way controversial, the demographic statistics of the Baltic states (Estonia and Latvia especially) bear testament to this. Due to these historical events the the people of the Baltics carry with them a unique sensitivity regarding Russia. Whilst, in a perfect world, it may be desirable to for all peoples to let go of their historical grudges and preconceptions, this is easier said than done, especially when Russia (historically) denied the Baltic States their very existence. Whilst many people may not necessarily agree with the attitude undertaken by many Estonians ,for example, I'm sure that one can understand why they feel the way they do.
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vse.berlin 14 March, 2010, 00:29 Well, this is last time I argue on this level. It is just sort of
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vse.berlin 14 March, 2010, 00:30 Cntd. That
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Free Thinker 14 March, 2010, 16:08 RE: VSE Berlin In response you your current post (00:30), it seems to me that the problem lies in your insistence on viewing the world in a two tier manner. According to this view you see smaller countries as automatically having to bend over backwards to cater for the wishes and whims of larger, more powerful neighbors. You view European secourity in a two tier manner whereby the rights and interests of more powerful countries override the interests of smaller and weaker states. This vision is consistent with my earlier (un-posted) reply, in which I pointed out that part of the problem in Russo-Baltic relations lies in Moscow's failiure to understand another perspective other than it's own. The false premise in your argument concerns Russia's perception of itself. Russia sees itself as an empire (or quasi-empire) and hence it thinks Russia's legitimate concerns are more important than the concerns of its neighbors. Let me be more specific. I do not see the Baltic states as pawns in a giant game of geo-political chess. I think that by taking this approach you are nominalizing and trivializing their right to self determination, as well as their right to determine the course of their own destiny. Hence the actions undertaken by those countries should be seem as a tangible expression of the will of the people there, rather than actions undertaken to please foreign superpowers. Secondly, Russia has no de-facto right over the Baltic states or any of its neighbors. I Know that this goes against Moscow's insistence on special "spheres of influence", but I still hold the line on this one. You speak as if Russia somehow has the right to demand access to the Baltic sea via the Baltic states, you also suggested that Russia somehow has the right to have legitimate concerns on its northern flank based on the actions of Estonia & company. I think that such a world-view is particularly chauvinist and unhelpful in 21st century Europe.
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vse.berlin 15 March, 2010, 01:04 Free Thinker While I can agree that Russian policy toward the Baltics is far from elegant at the same I wish that what you said could be true and we would live in the perfect world. Legitimate concerns about security are declared
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Free Thinker 15 March, 2010, 12:09 RE: VSE Berlin To demand that Baltic states remain "more or less neutral" goes back to what I said earlier in my previous post, as well as in another post that RT has decided to ignore. This neutrality demand again again places Russia's interests and concerns above those of Eastern Europe. Would it be OK for tha baltics and other European States to demand that Russia remain neutral? Would it be OK for these countries to make same sort of demands of Russia that Russia directs towards them? My answer to this is a firm NO. Whilst it is true that there are certain countries that indeed tried to play this appeasement game with Russia (and the USSR), this is not a morally acceptable solution and it sets the wrong precedent in terms of Moscow's expectation of its neighbors. Finland, for example, engaged in a policy of aggressive appeasement and neutrality out of fear that it may anger Russia. It made massive territorial and economic concessions to Moscow after the Winter War , after which Russia demanded it make further concessions (which led the country to participate in Operation Barbarossa as part of an attempt to recapture its lands). Eventually, after the war Finland lost yet more territory and throughout the next 40 years the country was turned into a police state whereby any criticism of the USSR was forbidden and ordinary Finns themselves were not allowed to publicly speak or write about the Winter War, the Continuation War or the treatment their country had suffered at the hands of Russia. The funny thing is that most Russian politicians today hold Finland up as a role model for those in the "near-abroad" space to follow. Russia's version of a fair and mutually respectful relationship with its neighbors indeed seems to be a one way relationship.
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Free Thinker 15 March, 2010, 12:19 Re: VSE Berlin On another note, I suggest you re-check your facts regarding the policy of Russification pursued throughout the Russian Empire. In palces lake the Baltics, Finland, Moldova and Poland this policy was indeed very agressively pursued and it was targeted at all members of society with the explicit aim of turning the people in those countries into Russians. Let me privide you with an extract that I found on Wikipedia listing "Kevin O'Connor, The History of the Baltic States" as a primary reference: Its Governor General (of Lithuania), Mikhail Muravyov, prohibited the public use of spoken Lithuanian and closed Lithuanian and Polish schools; teachers from other parts of Russia who did not speak these languages were moved in to teach pupils. Muravyov also banned the use of Latin and Gothic scripts in publishing. He was reported saying, "What the Russian bayonet didn't accomplish, the Russian school will." ("что не доделал русский штык — доделает русская школа.") This ban, which was only lifted in 1904, was disregarded by the Knygnešiai, the Lithuanian book smugglers, who brought Lithuanian publications printed in the Latin alphabet, the historic orthography of the Lithuanian language, from Lithuania Minor, a part of East Prussia, and from the United States into the Lithuanian-speaking areas of Imperial Russia. The knygnešiai became a symbol of the resistance of Lithuanians against Russification. You might also want to check your earlier comment regarding the "spheres of influence" as I believe this to be the exact term used by the Russian government and the Russian presidency in outlining its "new" foreign policy approach in the former soviet space.
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Free Thinker 15 March, 2010, 12:49 RE: VSE Berlin I would also like to point out that your comments ignore the principles of governance in the 21st century, those of self determination. This self determination means that the government itself becomes the representative of the people's will and acts accordingly, as a representative of the people. This political reality thus undermines your earlier statement regarding the Baltic area being a pawn in big power politics. It is certainly true that the people of the the Baltics have shifted to the West, but this was done in accordance with the wishes of the citizenry. Of course, these wishes were driven by the fear that ordinary people there have of Russia, but there it is. Russia, on the other hand, does not have a functioning democracy and, in essence, it is an illiberal state with no credible democratic institutions. Elections are only approximately fair, which in the end is utterly irrelevant if the country itself does not have a liberal political and civil environment where contrasting opinions can be heard and debated. In this sort of system, I think that your earlier comments regarding the essence of an empire and imperial ambitions are justified. The people of Russia have very little say regarding the political direction of their country, and for this reason Russia has a great deal of difficulty in understanding the attitude of the Baltic states. Russia implicitly assumes that the political realities in it's own system also exist in other countries and thus if the Baltics are pursuing pro-American policies it MUST automatically be because they are pawn of big power geo-politics. This sort of misunderstanding is inevitable and extremely dangerous.
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vse.berlin 16 March, 2010, 14:31 Free thinker Well it was very educational and wordy. All this rhetoric does not answer the question. Why all the anti Russian hysteria started after Putin halted the plunder? During Gorbachev/Yeltsyn West did not care that much about sensitivities of EE or Baltics. And overnight Baltics and all other EE countries suffering came fore. Strange isn’t’ it? And I repeat I do not believe that hostility is “tangible expression of the will of the people”. Playing nationalistic card is easiest but most dangerous way.. And this is exactly what happens in the EE and Baltics. Baltic decided to move West, absolutely understandable and good luck. But why to demonize the neighbor? What is remarkable is that before further NATO military move the campaign against barbarian Russians is greatly intensifying. If Russians bent under the demand the campaign is going down but if Russians do not obey Russophobia is just flourishing. And you speak about the will of the people. I’m far from unequivocal support of Russian foreign policy. It is far from being elegant but at the end it never was. Moreover until recently it was reactive and not proactive, what is understandable. Russians had enough to do at home. Where some signs that overblown reaction to Baltics obsession is going to be toned down, relation with EE looks more promising. We’ll see how it will develop. And if I would be in your shoes I would tone down the arrogance. You are not in a position to teach anyone to anything. And please apply the principle you announced to yourself. You consider that you have all the right to demand from Russia anything anytime but you deny any Russian concern. How can it be?
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Free Thinker 16 March, 2010, 20:22 I don't concur with your suggestion that the world suddenly started vilifying Russia upon Putin's accession to power. As I recall, Putin was initially welcomed by the international community and the West was glad to see someone in power who could stop the rot of the Yeltsin years. I also recall that many of Putin's initial reforms were lauded by most objective observers, as Russia was desperately in need of more order and administrative competence following the chaos of the 90s. The problem is that, in time, all of this started going in the wrong direction. Whereas a greater degree of administrative competence is was certainly needed, there is a great deal of difference between this and moving towards authoritarianism. After a while critical opposition television media started being gagged, this was followed by the increased harrassment of journalists as well as the increasingly illiberal and political environment. These factors made the outside world increasingly suspicious of Russia because the country was seen as backsliding on its earlier political reforms. In general, genuinely democratic and free societies are less likely to be a treat to their neighbors and are less likely to engage in aggressive foreign policies. In any country, the people are fundamentally good and decent and it is always the case that politicians and various elites seek to pervert and divert the resources of a a country to accomplish evil things. Democracy acts as an excellent check against these abuses because once every while those in charge have to explain themselves and be held to account. When this mechanism no longer works, like it no longer works in Russia, those in leadership positions have a free hand to pursue personal ideological campaigns that can lead to distrust and conflict on the international scene.
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Free Thinker 16 March, 2010, 20:38 RE: VSE Berlin It is no accident that democracies never go to war with each other and the fact is that as Russia started becoming assertive at home, its foreign policy also started to shift. Whilst in the 90s, the Russian Federation pursued a conciliatory approach with much of Eastern Europe, the Putin era was marked by increased confrontation and an escalation of tensions. Russia's rhetoric changed markedly and it openly started interfering in, and commenting on, the domestic affairs of many of its neighbors. The Baltics experienced this sort of attention when Russia started targeting their naturalization policies. Soon after this the Kremlin stepped up its active olicy towards its "near abroad" in other places like the Ukraine where it got involved in the domestic politics of that country by actively supporting Yanucovich's 2004 campaign, whilst at the same time it was quickly critical of the new leadership in Georgia. The Kremlin's attention then spread to other places as well, especially other Eastern European states. Endless rows with Poland ensued followed by attempts to isolate Poland from the rest of the EU by applying bilateral trade sanctions on its products. Romania also came into the cross-hairs of the Kremlin because of its "imperialist policies" regarding the the Republic of Moldova. The list just goes on and on..........
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Free Thinker 16 March, 2010, 20:55 RE: VSE Berlin The trouble with all of this is that many Russians regard Putin as the savior of Russia. They regard the country's turnaround since the 90s as directly attributable to him and hence he is seen as some sort of father figure for the entire modern Russian nation. This sort of thinking is understandable, but erroneous. Russia's economic turnaround did not happen in isolation and indeed it was associated with a general world-wide boom in the developing world that was accompanied by large capital inflows from the West. This global boom, initially driven by western consumerism, favored Russia mainly because of its raw materials and also (to a lesser extent) because of its comparatively low wages (at the time). The fact that this economic development did not happen in isolation, as many Russian's believe, was visibly exposed when Russian GDP started to free-fall along with the financial collapse in the the US. Economic growth and prosperity would have come to Russia regardless of who had been in power and it is extremely misleading to suggest that Putin was the architect of Russia's economic miracle. Secondly, many Russians unfortunately have come to associate the relative political liberalism of the 90's with economic collapse during that era. Russia's economic collapse had to do with an unreformed communist system that was structurally unsuited to a capitalist framework, it was not the liberal political environment that brought this about, but rather the inadequacy of the previous (unreformed) economic system. Personally, I think that the current situation is a genuine sad state of affairs. Russia lost a golden opportunity to reform itself as a credible and respected world power when it abandoned its political reforms. There is only one thing worse than not learning from history, and that's learning the wrong lessons from it. This is has always been Russia's story .
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vse.berlin 18 March, 2010, 14:36 Moderator, why do you ban me all the time? I behave pretty much in the notorious political-correctness frame. Ok, one more try and I will give up FT, There is no need to lecture me. This stuff I heard many times. And nothing in what you said refute the fact that Western media applauds when the Russia kills itself and goes nuts when Russia tries to assert itself. All these concerns about poor Russians who are inherently faulted normally serve only one purpose: bent down, relax and enjoy. The trouble is that everyone feels free to demand from Russia anything anytime but if Russia tries to say something immediately outcry comes. Oh this aggressive Russia, oh millenniums of oppression by wicked Russians. When Putin came to power, the money was not the main concern. The main concern was local barons who torn apart the country for petty personal gains. Freedom of press at that time was freedom of oligarchs who owned entire media landscape. If you take this in account, than Russians now enjoy vastly improved freedom of speech and it is evolving fast. Second. Liberal democracy cannot be built without substantial wealth and democratic structures. Your call for declaration of liberal democracy in the country without any separation of powers and torn apart by different forces equals to the calls to self annihilation. Is it what you want? If you speak about liberalization of economy in the conditions of 90th than you call for Morgenthau plan for Russia disguised under sentiments of “help”. Right now looks like the time is getting ripe to introduce reforms. And this is exactly what is going on.
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