#6
Novye Izvestia
November 9, 2001
YOU'RE AFRAID OF PUTIN? DON'T GO TO THE TOILET
This joke has become an unofficial slogan...
Human rights activists of the Moscow Helsinki Group meet in Sochi
Author: Georgy Tselms
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
MEMBERS OF THE MOSCOW HELSINKI GROUP HAVE MET IN SOCHI TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE CIVIL FORUM INITIATED BY THE KREMLIN. THE MEETING WAS NEEDED TO GAUGE THE MOODS PREVAILING IN THE PROVINCES. THE CIVIL FORUM ITSELF IS LIKELY TO BE A NON-EVENT.
Members of the Moscow Helsinki Group met in Sochi two weeks before the Civil Forum initiated by the Kremlin. Most leaders of the Moscow Helsinki Group have already made their position clear - they will attend the forum, continue the dialogue with the authorities, and keep up their principles. The meeting in Sochi was needed to gauge the moods prevailing in the provinces.
Participants in the meeting were acquainted with results of an opinion poll among regional Helsinki Groups. Only 15% of respondents thought the Kremlin's idea to convene the Civil Forum was "an attempt to really back up the civil society", 29% took it for "another bureaucratic ploy", and 53% were pretty certain it was "an attempt by the powers-that-be to take over the civil society." It follows that most human rights activists do not labor under any delusions about the upcoming meeting. All the same, they wanted the meeting to take place.
Many human rights activists hope to secure the authorities' financial support and their comrades' moral support. Some human rights activists expect participation in a meeting with representatives of the federal government will gain them access to local bovernment. Some others believe that the authorities should "hear out civil society"...
Some doubts were voiced with regard to all these hopes and expectations. It is reasonable to expect the authorities to be eager to finance rabbit breeders or stamp collectors, but not the civil rights organizations which are supposed to keep an eye on the powers- that-be. As for the idea of listening to civil society, the powers- that-be do not really need such a group of representatives of society for that.
Romantic illusions at the meeting existed side by side with political expertise. Lyudmila Alekseeva, leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group, is confident that the authorities' ploy has already been ruined. At first, the Kremlin considered all public organizations as either constructive (they are to be invited to the forum) and destructive (to be ignored). According to Alekseeva, the authorities even planned some sort of communist congress and so on. The plans were wrecked, and the authorities had to make a compromise with human rights activists. On the other hand, Alekseeva herself admits that she and her followers are going to constitute a minority at the forum.
Human rights activist Valery Borschev believes that the forum is needed to meet with antagonists from the power structures and particularly with Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko, bitter enemy of the draft law on public control. "Let Khristenko voice all his objections in public," Borschev says. Unfortunately, state officials are notorious demagogues. Khristenko will probably get over the forum with minimal losses.
"I do not object to a dialogue with the authorities. I only want the dialogue to be effective," says Lev Ponomarev, leader of the For Human Rights movement. Many human rights activists doubt the effectiveness. Gleb Yakunin for example is pretty confident that human rights activists will be denied the floor at the forum and that their participation in roundtable conferences within the framework of the forum will go unnoticed by the public.
Pessimistic expectations of the meeting were only reinforced by quotes from Gleb Pavlovsky's website. The Kremlin's top political consultant, and the apparent originator of the idea of holding the forum, Pavlovsky criticized the human rights activists, calling them "stuck in yesterday", and urged everyone to try to catch up with Putin.
The meeting gradually revealed the major trend and position - prevent a split in the human rights movement at all costs. "This is precisely the task of organizers of the forum," Yabloko leader Grigori Yavlinsky said. "They want human rights activists fighting one another and leaving the authorities alone. If we avoid the split, the plans of the political scientists in the Kremlin's employ will be disrupted."
"Forums come and go, but life goes on," Yavlinsky added. He recalled the so-called Social Consensus Treaty signed several years ago by thousands of all sorts of phantom organizations. The Treaty died literally the following day. The same story will probably apply to the forum...
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