Issue #12/93, June 22 - July 6, 2000   

MOST RIDICULOUS

In rural villages in Russia you can now get a healthy, farm-bred hooker for a whole night for just a half-liter of vodka. Maybe this is what Charles Frank, the acting president of the EBRD, meant when he said last week:

“Russia’s prospects have seldom appeared brighter. Economic growth has resumed. The exchange rate is stable. Foreign exchange reserves are increasing. A new government has come to power peacefully and is advancing initiatives that are generally well-received both within and outside of Russia...”

Franks speech, delivered last Wednesday in St. Petersburg, was one of about 18 million “frank reassessments” of Russia’s prospects which hit the airwaves and the broadsheets in the wake of Vladimir Gusinsky’s arrest. These have made for some pretty good reading. Here are some of the highlights, beginning with the continuation of Frank’s speech:

“Then the government prosecutor drops the Vladimir Gusinsky bombshell. Why is this a concern [!]? Because the arrest of the media chief appears to be discriminatory. We don’t know if Gusinsky is guilty or innocent... It begs the question of whether Moscow has its priorities straight.”

Frank’s speech (which was subsequently published by the Moscow Times as an op-ed piece), though cruder than most of the editorials and news articles written by professional journalists and editors, is a good example of the party line most papers dragged out on Gusinsky. The structure of these responses normally went as follows. First, tell six lies about Putin’s past (blowing up your own citizens and starting a phony war in Chechnya hardly qualifies as “coming to power peacefully”). Next, bring up the Gusinsky matter, and pretend to be shocked at this first “bombshell” piece of evidence impugning Putin’s leadership credentials. Then, as always, finish off the whole thing with a “One thing’s for sure; time will tell” ending (“It begs the question of whether Moscow has its priorities straight...”).

Apart from this “best of times, worst of times” approach-which sandwiches the so-called “singular” ugly instance of Gusinsky’s arrest in between lots of sunny economic news that we should keep in mind before we rush to judgement—there were many reporters who opted for the “awkward timing” take on the story. In this version of events, Gusinsky’s arrest came at an “unfortunate time” because Putin happened to be abroad at the time, in search of foreign investment.

This habit of viewing every political act only in terms of its economic sensibility, while insulting generally to the entire concept of liberal rights like press freedoms, has nontheless become par for the course in Western news coverage lately, particularly in the last few years. Adam Tanner of Reuters, a globalist press zealot if there ever was one, sticks to this particular party line in his June 15 article, “Gusinsky deputy sees anti-semitism in arrest”:

‘Malashenko said moves against the free press could only curtail Western investment interest.

“We’re not only talking about the future of the media in Russia but also about the future development of business,’’ he said. “Investment is at risk in any country where the media are under threat.’’

“It has brought a major political defeat for both Putin and Russia in world opinion. This was a major blunder.’’

Sounds grim. But wait—there’s hope! Here’s the curious finish to Tanner’s piece:

“But Malashenko said it was likely some Western investors would probably do business with Russia no matter how stark conditions became, and cited the case of late oil magnate Armand Hammer, who traded with Soviet governments dating back to Lenin.”

Well, thank God for that. Maybe this Gusinsky thing wasn’t so bad after all.

Pieces like Tanner’s are great examples of the difference between lip service and sincere outcry. Just about everyone with half a brain in this world, and that includes a decent percentage even of Reuters correspondents, knows that a country’s level of press freedom has no bearing whatsoever on levels of foreign investment. China, for God’s sake, was just given permanent Most Favored Nation trading status by the United States, and China’s press makes Russian newspapers read like the Federalist Papers. If Putin can guarantee Coca-Cola’s investments here, no one will give a shit how many “media magnates” he jails. And everyone knows it.

Therefore the important thing to do, when your trading partner starts jailing dissidents for no reason, is to make sure your own citizens back home understand that you are (like Captain Renault in Casablanca) “shocked, shocked” at what’s going on. Then, after a loud enough stink has been made, you can quietly go back to pushing for foreign investment into UES subsidiaries. Guaranteed, Tanner will be back on the investment beat now that Gusinsky is out.

Once you’ve done that, you can move on to settle some other old business, such as the rehabilitation of your favorite bloodthirsty gangsters. Andrew Kramer of the AP was apparently writing with a straight face on June 21 when he said:

“Leading tycoon Boris Berezovsky also warned Tuesday of pending authoritarianism under Putin. Berezovsky had close ties with Yeltsin’s inner circle, but has been increasingly critical of Putin.

“The economic course is very liberal, but in the political sphere we are moving toward a rigid authoritarian system,’’ Berezovsky said at an investors’ conference in Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky has it tough these days. Since the Forbes case, and since his TV station turned into an all-Goebbels, all-the-time network, he’s had a progressively harder and harder time out there finding suckers who’ll actually describe him as a legitimate businessman in their publications. You can bet Kramer’s name will stay in his rolodex for a good long time, however.

Last but not least, there was the “What an outrage to put that nice rich businessman in that terrible Butirka prison!” theme. This was a surprisingly common element of Western news stories about the Gusinsky affair. The logic went something like this: because Gusinsky was not really guilty, the state should have at least incarcerated him in a clean, well-ventilated cell, so that his girlish figure would be preserved should he be released back into the business community. The Moscow Times said as much in its June 15 editorial:

‘Now Gusinsky is in the miserable Butyrskaya Prison. We are told that he only shares his cell with two other inmates, and are told that this is fair, because, as the Cabinet so eloquently put it this week, “We have no separate rules or laws for one of the leaders of the World Jewish Congress.” By such truculent logic, if Gusinsky were to contract drug-resistant tuberculosis while he awaits trial for months, as do so many others incarcerated here, the Cabinet could congratulate the nation on its impartial justice.

Well... couldn’t it? After all, nobody deserves to be sent to a place like Butirka, guilty or not. What should Putin have done— given Gusinsky a pair of squash racquets and packed him off to a country club in Danbury, Connecticut? Actually, maybe he should have. After all, that’s what we do. And, as the Financial Times wrote about Putin in its June 15 editorial, “He has a lot to learn.” From people like us, that is

Cards

Links

The Vault

Gallery

Who?