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Moscow Times
January 12, 2005
Editorial
Silence Is Dangerous

At a time when the Kremlin is becoming a closed box to even the most seasoned Russia watchers, one of the few administration insiders who has openly expressed his views is being punished for doing so.

Andrei Illarionov has never been one to keep silent on matters he believes are important, seeing debate as one of the ways a society is informed about issues thought to be vital to economic growth.

His strong rhetoric, at times irreverent, gets people's attention and helps drive his point home.

Inside the Kremlin, he has been in position to provide his boss, President Vladimir Putin, with an independent view, to help him judge the economic plans and policies put forward by his ministers.

Illarionov has publicly challenged government policies since his appointment in 2000, and his comments, whether criticism of electricity sector reform or support for paying off foreign debt, have influenced the country's economic course.

But as authoritarian tendencies in the Kremlin have grown and voices of dissent have been hushed, he has come to take on the role of the medieval court jester, the one who entertains by speaking the uncomfortable truths but is otherwise ignored.

The public, Illarionov said in his Dec. 30 interview on Ekho Moskvy radio, has a right to know what officials do and think.

"I think it is very dangerous if people holding state office become totally secret and silent and society does not know what they do, does not know their opinion on certain issues and has no way of judging them," he said.

In recent months, Illarionov had grown increasingly critical of the attack on Yukos. He also had criticized plans to do away with gubernatorial elections and harshly blamed government policies for the slowdown in economic growth.

But until his parting shots at the end of the year over the Kremlin's handling of the demolition of Yukos, he had never opposed or contradicted Putin directly.

Illarionov added fuel to the fire by sarcastically praising Russia's interference in the Ukrainian presidential election and warning that Russia's current policies -- the "expropriation of private property" a la Yukos and the dismantling of democratic checks and balances -- could eventually lead to a similar revolution here.

Such criticism, it was later explained by one well-informed official, is not allowed in Putin's Kremlin.

"If you are working in the Kremlin administration, you should not criticize," the official said in commenting Monday on Putin's decision to strip Illarionov of his duties as Russia's representative to the Group of Eight.

If this is so, Kremlin decision-making will become even more opaque, the prerogative of a close circle of advisers accountable only to a president increasingly in danger of being ill-informed and isolated.