EDITORIAL: Russia and the WTO

EDITORIAL: Putting our Money where our Mouth is

Today (below), we report on the latest developments in Russia’s bid to enter the World Trade Organization and win repeal of the Jackson-Vannick amendments passed by the the U.S. Congress to sanction the USSR. Once again, Russian policymakers turn out to have vastly, and publicly, overestimated their abilities to impress their American counterparts and convince the U.S. to approve their bid. Despite having a presidential sycophant in George Bush, many in the U.S. are deeply concerned about the level of dishonesty in commercial behavior prevalent in Russia, and are blocking Russia’s progress.

There are two schools of thought on whether Russia should be admitted to the WTO, and until now LR has taken no position (though we’ve often and emphatically said Russia should be booted out of the G-8, we’ve seen the WTO as a different animal). Today, we take one. We’re against WTO admission. Here’s why.

One school of thought is that the Kremlin doesn’t really want to be admitted to the WTO, only Russia’s liberals do. Under this school of thought, we should support WTO admission, since it will give the West increased leverage in Russia by opening Russia’s markets more fully to Western trade. Following the “catch more flies with sugar” line of reasoning, this school believes we can kill the Kremlin with kindness.

The other school of thought is that Russia is an evil empire in the making that must be opposed exactly the way the USSR was. This school believes that the Kremlin wants WTO admission desperately, because allowing Russia into international organizations confers a certain amount of legitimacy that the Kremlin can use to bolster its image among the Russian people along with sham elections and occasional bribes. This school contends that Russia’s increasing isolation makes it increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to reign in the Russian population, which in the age of the Internet can find out just how utterly the Kremlin’s policies are being rejected in the West.

It’s impossible to know for sure which version of reality is correct, and it’s definitely a good idea to do the opposite of what the Kremlin wants (any other policy would betray not only Western security but the fate of the people of Russia) because the Kremlin is so fundamentally duplicitous and dishonest. And for that very reason, we must err on the side of rejection. The WTO is a trading organization. Trade implies a fair bargain, that Russia can be trusted in international commerce, that it won’t be wolf in the hen house. Russia has proven time and again that it can’t be trusted, and its scores for societal corruption from Transparency International are among the very lowest in the whole world.

To put it mildly, you wouldn’t buy a used car from this country. The Kremlin is most likely trying to reap the benefits of WTO admission without paying any of the costs; once it’s been admitted, the idea of ejecting it will be out of the question. Russia routinely ignores international law, as it did when it allowed Iranian General Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr into the country recently. It ignores the world’s wishes on providing nuclear technology to Iran, just as it ignores U.S. national security in providing caches of weapons to madman Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Russia wouldn’t vote to allow the U.S. into the WTO if the U.S. were providing weapons like those to Chechyna, yet it expects U.S. support for its own bid. Hypocrisy is the natural outgrowth of duplicity. Therefore, it can’t be admitted.

Finally, it’s clear that the U.S. and Russia are on the brink of a new arms race and a new cold war; the latest flareup is over the installation of defensive U.S. missile systems in Eastern Europe. Quite simply, it would be insane for the the U.S. to provide such an enemy with the economic juice WTO membership could provide, much less the propaganda value.

If the rest of the world was united in opposition to the Kremlin as it should be, and if it had a solid plan for concerted action to protect itself from the neo-Soviet Union, and if Russia’s liberals were similarly united and dynamically vocal about wanting WTO admission as a lever, that would be one thing. It’s not the case. The world has been pusillanimous in the extreme, and Russia’s liberals have been disorganized and lazy (as usual). Blocking WTO admission seems to be the only message the U.S. is currently capable of sending that is in any way tangible that it opposes the rise of the neo-Soviet Union, so it can — it must — send that message. As is so often the case, it appears that the U.S. is the only country in the world willing to put its money where its mouth is where democracy and liberal values are concerned. So, once again, it must lead the world to the waters of liberty and hope it will drink.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Hey, hey, ho, ho — US says whoa! to Russia’s WTO

On Tuesday, Vedemosti reported:

On Monday, at an event titled “Russia in the WTO: Prospects and Strategic Possibilities,” Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia expected to conclude bilateral talks on World Trade Organization membership with Vietnam and Cambodia by the end of May. He also said that he expected to conclude multilateral talks with the organization as a whole by the end of July, meaning that Russia would gain membership to the trade body “by the end of 2007, or in the worst case in the early part of next year.” The outcome of negotiations with Georgia, the last bilateral deal that has to be sealed, is still unclear, but Moscow can probably expect help from Washington on this front. Last week U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed unconditional support for Russian WTO accession.

Once again, it seems the Kremlin has got carried away with itself. During the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting, as LR reported then, Alexei Kudrin declared Russia was minutes away from WTO admission. Didn’t happen. Now, the Moscow Times reports that Gref is caught equally far off base. Once again, we see Russia living in a world of illusion of its own making, utterly detached from reality and heedless of the consequences, just as in Soviet times.

A senior U.S. trade official said Russia was making only slow progress toward entering the World Trade Organization and that Congress was not close to dropping a key trade restriction.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared to be taking a harder line than U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who said last week that the United States would do all it could to help Russia enter the WTO.

Schwab said Monday that Congress was not ready to repeal Cold War-era legislation known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment to normalize trade relations with Russia.

“The question that I get asked when it comes to Jackson-Vanik and permanent normal trade relations with Russia is: ‘Is the WTO ready to let Russia in?’ And the answer is: ‘Not yet,'” Schwab said at a news conference in Washington.

Schwab called the news conference to announce that the United States would complain to the WTO about copyright violations in China, which is a WTO member. She mentioned Russia in response to a reporter’s question.

Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman at the U.S. trade representative’s office, was unable on Tuesday to immediately comment on Schwab’s remarks.

Gutierrez sounded more upbeat about Russia’s WTO progress when he visited Moscow last week. Speaking on the sidelines of an investment conference, he said the United States was “very supportive” of Russia’s WTO bid and that “we want to help in any way we can.”

In return, Washington expects Russia to combat intellectual property rights violations by closing plants that produce counterfeit optical disks and shutting down a popular web site for music downloads, Allofmp3.com. Russia should also better define its laws on imports of encryption technology, Gutierrez said.

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at the conference that it would be difficult to drastically improve protection of intellectual property rights this year.

The Economic Development and Trade Ministry had no immediate comment about Schwab’s statements.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and Congress appear to have decided that it would be premature to rescind Jackson-Vanik before the multilateral stage of WTO talks ends, said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and a strong supporter of Russia’s bid.

The delay gives the U.S. business community a chance to speak to Congress members about what they are doing in Russia, he said. “We’ve already started this process,” he said. “I travel to the U.S. every two weeks and speak with congressmen and senators.”

Sergei Prikhodko, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser on foreign affairs, said Tuesday that the United States was living in the past by refusing to lift Jackson-Vanik.

“This legislation was adopted in the time of the Soviet Union as a reaction to discrimination by the Soviet authorities in terms of restricting people’s movement,” Prikhodko said at a news conference. “Is anything like that happening now? Then why is this measure still in force? Russians are free to travel anywhere they want.”

Jackson-Vanik was adopted in the 1970s in response to Soviet restrictions on the rights of Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate.

Prikhodko said Russia had as much right to be in the WTO as any current member.

“Our results over the past few years — in macroeconomics and in the development of every industry, not only the ones that extract resources — show that we in no way lag behind the dozens of other countries that are WTO members,” he said.

But, he acknowledged: “Perhaps we still have work to do.”

State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Pekhtin criticized Schwab’s remarks as an example of U.S. double standards in dealing with Russia. “The U.S. is restricting Russia’s chances of joining the WTO, and that can’t fail to worry us,” he said, Interfax reported.

Russia hopes to join the WTO before Putin leaves office early next year. Schwab sounded a more optimistic note in November when Washington and Moscow announced the completion of bilateral talks over WTO entry.

Differences, however, remain over the protection of intellectual property and agriculture.

Putin on Tuesday signed into law a raft of bills that toughen punishment for piracy. Copyright violators will face up to six years in prison, instead of five years, and a fine of up to 500,000 rubles (about $19,200).

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Hey, hey, ho, ho — US says whoa! to Russia’s WTO

On Tuesday, Vedemosti reported:

On Monday, at an event titled “Russia in the WTO: Prospects and Strategic Possibilities,” Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia expected to conclude bilateral talks on World Trade Organization membership with Vietnam and Cambodia by the end of May. He also said that he expected to conclude multilateral talks with the organization as a whole by the end of July, meaning that Russia would gain membership to the trade body “by the end of 2007, or in the worst case in the early part of next year.” The outcome of negotiations with Georgia, the last bilateral deal that has to be sealed, is still unclear, but Moscow can probably expect help from Washington on this front. Last week U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed unconditional support for Russian WTO accession.

Once again, it seems the Kremlin has got carried away with itself. During the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting, as LR reported then, Alexei Kudrin declared Russia was minutes away from WTO admission. Didn’t happen. Now, the Moscow Times reports that Gref is caught equally far off base. Once again, we see Russia living in a world of illusion of its own making, utterly detached from reality and heedless of the consequences, just as in Soviet times.

A senior U.S. trade official said Russia was making only slow progress toward entering the World Trade Organization and that Congress was not close to dropping a key trade restriction.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared to be taking a harder line than U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who said last week that the United States would do all it could to help Russia enter the WTO.

Schwab said Monday that Congress was not ready to repeal Cold War-era legislation known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment to normalize trade relations with Russia.

“The question that I get asked when it comes to Jackson-Vanik and permanent normal trade relations with Russia is: ‘Is the WTO ready to let Russia in?’ And the answer is: ‘Not yet,'” Schwab said at a news conference in Washington.

Schwab called the news conference to announce that the United States would complain to the WTO about copyright violations in China, which is a WTO member. She mentioned Russia in response to a reporter’s question.

Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman at the U.S. trade representative’s office, was unable on Tuesday to immediately comment on Schwab’s remarks.

Gutierrez sounded more upbeat about Russia’s WTO progress when he visited Moscow last week. Speaking on the sidelines of an investment conference, he said the United States was “very supportive” of Russia’s WTO bid and that “we want to help in any way we can.”

In return, Washington expects Russia to combat intellectual property rights violations by closing plants that produce counterfeit optical disks and shutting down a popular web site for music downloads, Allofmp3.com. Russia should also better define its laws on imports of encryption technology, Gutierrez said.

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at the conference that it would be difficult to drastically improve protection of intellectual property rights this year.

The Economic Development and Trade Ministry had no immediate comment about Schwab’s statements.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and Congress appear to have decided that it would be premature to rescind Jackson-Vanik before the multilateral stage of WTO talks ends, said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and a strong supporter of Russia’s bid.

The delay gives the U.S. business community a chance to speak to Congress members about what they are doing in Russia, he said. “We’ve already started this process,” he said. “I travel to the U.S. every two weeks and speak with congressmen and senators.”

Sergei Prikhodko, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser on foreign affairs, said Tuesday that the United States was living in the past by refusing to lift Jackson-Vanik.

“This legislation was adopted in the time of the Soviet Union as a reaction to discrimination by the Soviet authorities in terms of restricting people’s movement,” Prikhodko said at a news conference. “Is anything like that happening now? Then why is this measure still in force? Russians are free to travel anywhere they want.”

Jackson-Vanik was adopted in the 1970s in response to Soviet restrictions on the rights of Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate.

Prikhodko said Russia had as much right to be in the WTO as any current member.

“Our results over the past few years — in macroeconomics and in the development of every industry, not only the ones that extract resources — show that we in no way lag behind the dozens of other countries that are WTO members,” he said.

But, he acknowledged: “Perhaps we still have work to do.”

State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Pekhtin criticized Schwab’s remarks as an example of U.S. double standards in dealing with Russia. “The U.S. is restricting Russia’s chances of joining the WTO, and that can’t fail to worry us,” he said, Interfax reported.

Russia hopes to join the WTO before Putin leaves office early next year. Schwab sounded a more optimistic note in November when Washington and Moscow announced the completion of bilateral talks over WTO entry.

Differences, however, remain over the protection of intellectual property and agriculture.

Putin on Tuesday signed into law a raft of bills that toughen punishment for piracy. Copyright violators will face up to six years in prison, instead of five years, and a fine of up to 500,000 rubles (about $19,200).

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Hey, hey, ho, ho — US says whoa! to Russia’s WTO

On Tuesday, Vedemosti reported:

On Monday, at an event titled “Russia in the WTO: Prospects and Strategic Possibilities,” Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia expected to conclude bilateral talks on World Trade Organization membership with Vietnam and Cambodia by the end of May. He also said that he expected to conclude multilateral talks with the organization as a whole by the end of July, meaning that Russia would gain membership to the trade body “by the end of 2007, or in the worst case in the early part of next year.” The outcome of negotiations with Georgia, the last bilateral deal that has to be sealed, is still unclear, but Moscow can probably expect help from Washington on this front. Last week U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed unconditional support for Russian WTO accession.

Once again, it seems the Kremlin has got carried away with itself. During the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting, as LR reported then, Alexei Kudrin declared Russia was minutes away from WTO admission. Didn’t happen. Now, the Moscow Times reports that Gref is caught equally far off base. Once again, we see Russia living in a world of illusion of its own making, utterly detached from reality and heedless of the consequences, just as in Soviet times.

A senior U.S. trade official said Russia was making only slow progress toward entering the World Trade Organization and that Congress was not close to dropping a key trade restriction.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared to be taking a harder line than U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who said last week that the United States would do all it could to help Russia enter the WTO.

Schwab said Monday that Congress was not ready to repeal Cold War-era legislation known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment to normalize trade relations with Russia.

“The question that I get asked when it comes to Jackson-Vanik and permanent normal trade relations with Russia is: ‘Is the WTO ready to let Russia in?’ And the answer is: ‘Not yet,'” Schwab said at a news conference in Washington.

Schwab called the news conference to announce that the United States would complain to the WTO about copyright violations in China, which is a WTO member. She mentioned Russia in response to a reporter’s question.

Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman at the U.S. trade representative’s office, was unable on Tuesday to immediately comment on Schwab’s remarks.

Gutierrez sounded more upbeat about Russia’s WTO progress when he visited Moscow last week. Speaking on the sidelines of an investment conference, he said the United States was “very supportive” of Russia’s WTO bid and that “we want to help in any way we can.”

In return, Washington expects Russia to combat intellectual property rights violations by closing plants that produce counterfeit optical disks and shutting down a popular web site for music downloads, Allofmp3.com. Russia should also better define its laws on imports of encryption technology, Gutierrez said.

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at the conference that it would be difficult to drastically improve protection of intellectual property rights this year.

The Economic Development and Trade Ministry had no immediate comment about Schwab’s statements.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and Congress appear to have decided that it would be premature to rescind Jackson-Vanik before the multilateral stage of WTO talks ends, said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and a strong supporter of Russia’s bid.

The delay gives the U.S. business community a chance to speak to Congress members about what they are doing in Russia, he said. “We’ve already started this process,” he said. “I travel to the U.S. every two weeks and speak with congressmen and senators.”

Sergei Prikhodko, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser on foreign affairs, said Tuesday that the United States was living in the past by refusing to lift Jackson-Vanik.

“This legislation was adopted in the time of the Soviet Union as a reaction to discrimination by the Soviet authorities in terms of restricting people’s movement,” Prikhodko said at a news conference. “Is anything like that happening now? Then why is this measure still in force? Russians are free to travel anywhere they want.”

Jackson-Vanik was adopted in the 1970s in response to Soviet restrictions on the rights of Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate.

Prikhodko said Russia had as much right to be in the WTO as any current member.

“Our results over the past few years — in macroeconomics and in the development of every industry, not only the ones that extract resources — show that we in no way lag behind the dozens of other countries that are WTO members,” he said.

But, he acknowledged: “Perhaps we still have work to do.”

State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Pekhtin criticized Schwab’s remarks as an example of U.S. double standards in dealing with Russia. “The U.S. is restricting Russia’s chances of joining the WTO, and that can’t fail to worry us,” he said, Interfax reported.

Russia hopes to join the WTO before Putin leaves office early next year. Schwab sounded a more optimistic note in November when Washington and Moscow announced the completion of bilateral talks over WTO entry.

Differences, however, remain over the protection of intellectual property and agriculture.

Putin on Tuesday signed into law a raft of bills that toughen punishment for piracy. Copyright violators will face up to six years in prison, instead of five years, and a fine of up to 500,000 rubles (about $19,200).

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Hey, hey, ho, ho — US says whoa! to Russia’s WTO

On Tuesday, Vedemosti reported:

On Monday, at an event titled “Russia in the WTO: Prospects and Strategic Possibilities,” Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia expected to conclude bilateral talks on World Trade Organization membership with Vietnam and Cambodia by the end of May. He also said that he expected to conclude multilateral talks with the organization as a whole by the end of July, meaning that Russia would gain membership to the trade body “by the end of 2007, or in the worst case in the early part of next year.” The outcome of negotiations with Georgia, the last bilateral deal that has to be sealed, is still unclear, but Moscow can probably expect help from Washington on this front. Last week U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed unconditional support for Russian WTO accession.

Once again, it seems the Kremlin has got carried away with itself. During the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting, as LR reported then, Alexei Kudrin declared Russia was minutes away from WTO admission. Didn’t happen. Now, the Moscow Times reports that Gref is caught equally far off base. Once again, we see Russia living in a world of illusion of its own making, utterly detached from reality and heedless of the consequences, just as in Soviet times.

A senior U.S. trade official said Russia was making only slow progress toward entering the World Trade Organization and that Congress was not close to dropping a key trade restriction.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared to be taking a harder line than U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who said last week that the United States would do all it could to help Russia enter the WTO.

Schwab said Monday that Congress was not ready to repeal Cold War-era legislation known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment to normalize trade relations with Russia.

“The question that I get asked when it comes to Jackson-Vanik and permanent normal trade relations with Russia is: ‘Is the WTO ready to let Russia in?’ And the answer is: ‘Not yet,'” Schwab said at a news conference in Washington.

Schwab called the news conference to announce that the United States would complain to the WTO about copyright violations in China, which is a WTO member. She mentioned Russia in response to a reporter’s question.

Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman at the U.S. trade representative’s office, was unable on Tuesday to immediately comment on Schwab’s remarks.

Gutierrez sounded more upbeat about Russia’s WTO progress when he visited Moscow last week. Speaking on the sidelines of an investment conference, he said the United States was “very supportive” of Russia’s WTO bid and that “we want to help in any way we can.”

In return, Washington expects Russia to combat intellectual property rights violations by closing plants that produce counterfeit optical disks and shutting down a popular web site for music downloads, Allofmp3.com. Russia should also better define its laws on imports of encryption technology, Gutierrez said.

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at the conference that it would be difficult to drastically improve protection of intellectual property rights this year.

The Economic Development and Trade Ministry had no immediate comment about Schwab’s statements.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and Congress appear to have decided that it would be premature to rescind Jackson-Vanik before the multilateral stage of WTO talks ends, said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and a strong supporter of Russia’s bid.

The delay gives the U.S. business community a chance to speak to Congress members about what they are doing in Russia, he said. “We’ve already started this process,” he said. “I travel to the U.S. every two weeks and speak with congressmen and senators.”

Sergei Prikhodko, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser on foreign affairs, said Tuesday that the United States was living in the past by refusing to lift Jackson-Vanik.

“This legislation was adopted in the time of the Soviet Union as a reaction to discrimination by the Soviet authorities in terms of restricting people’s movement,” Prikhodko said at a news conference. “Is anything like that happening now? Then why is this measure still in force? Russians are free to travel anywhere they want.”

Jackson-Vanik was adopted in the 1970s in response to Soviet restrictions on the rights of Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate.

Prikhodko said Russia had as much right to be in the WTO as any current member.

“Our results over the past few years — in macroeconomics and in the development of every industry, not only the ones that extract resources — show that we in no way lag behind the dozens of other countries that are WTO members,” he said.

But, he acknowledged: “Perhaps we still have work to do.”

State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Pekhtin criticized Schwab’s remarks as an example of U.S. double standards in dealing with Russia. “The U.S. is restricting Russia’s chances of joining the WTO, and that can’t fail to worry us,” he said, Interfax reported.

Russia hopes to join the WTO before Putin leaves office early next year. Schwab sounded a more optimistic note in November when Washington and Moscow announced the completion of bilateral talks over WTO entry.

Differences, however, remain over the protection of intellectual property and agriculture.

Putin on Tuesday signed into law a raft of bills that toughen punishment for piracy. Copyright violators will face up to six years in prison, instead of five years, and a fine of up to 500,000 rubles (about $19,200).

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Hey, hey, ho, ho — US says whoa! to Russia’s WTO

On Tuesday, Vedemosti reported:

On Monday, at an event titled “Russia in the WTO: Prospects and Strategic Possibilities,” Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Russia expected to conclude bilateral talks on World Trade Organization membership with Vietnam and Cambodia by the end of May. He also said that he expected to conclude multilateral talks with the organization as a whole by the end of July, meaning that Russia would gain membership to the trade body “by the end of 2007, or in the worst case in the early part of next year.” The outcome of negotiations with Georgia, the last bilateral deal that has to be sealed, is still unclear, but Moscow can probably expect help from Washington on this front. Last week U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez expressed unconditional support for Russian WTO accession.

Once again, it seems the Kremlin has got carried away with itself. During the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting, as LR reported then, Alexei Kudrin declared Russia was minutes away from WTO admission. Didn’t happen. Now, the Moscow Times reports that Gref is caught equally far off base. Once again, we see Russia living in a world of illusion of its own making, utterly detached from reality and heedless of the consequences, just as in Soviet times.

A senior U.S. trade official said Russia was making only slow progress toward entering the World Trade Organization and that Congress was not close to dropping a key trade restriction.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab appeared to be taking a harder line than U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who said last week that the United States would do all it could to help Russia enter the WTO.

Schwab said Monday that Congress was not ready to repeal Cold War-era legislation known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment to normalize trade relations with Russia.

“The question that I get asked when it comes to Jackson-Vanik and permanent normal trade relations with Russia is: ‘Is the WTO ready to let Russia in?’ And the answer is: ‘Not yet,'” Schwab said at a news conference in Washington.

Schwab called the news conference to announce that the United States would complain to the WTO about copyright violations in China, which is a WTO member. She mentioned Russia in response to a reporter’s question.

Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman at the U.S. trade representative’s office, was unable on Tuesday to immediately comment on Schwab’s remarks.

Gutierrez sounded more upbeat about Russia’s WTO progress when he visited Moscow last week. Speaking on the sidelines of an investment conference, he said the United States was “very supportive” of Russia’s WTO bid and that “we want to help in any way we can.”

In return, Washington expects Russia to combat intellectual property rights violations by closing plants that produce counterfeit optical disks and shutting down a popular web site for music downloads, Allofmp3.com. Russia should also better define its laws on imports of encryption technology, Gutierrez said.

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said at the conference that it would be difficult to drastically improve protection of intellectual property rights this year.

The Economic Development and Trade Ministry had no immediate comment about Schwab’s statements.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and Congress appear to have decided that it would be premature to rescind Jackson-Vanik before the multilateral stage of WTO talks ends, said Andrew Somers, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and a strong supporter of Russia’s bid.

The delay gives the U.S. business community a chance to speak to Congress members about what they are doing in Russia, he said. “We’ve already started this process,” he said. “I travel to the U.S. every two weeks and speak with congressmen and senators.”

Sergei Prikhodko, President Vladimir Putin’s adviser on foreign affairs, said Tuesday that the United States was living in the past by refusing to lift Jackson-Vanik.

“This legislation was adopted in the time of the Soviet Union as a reaction to discrimination by the Soviet authorities in terms of restricting people’s movement,” Prikhodko said at a news conference. “Is anything like that happening now? Then why is this measure still in force? Russians are free to travel anywhere they want.”

Jackson-Vanik was adopted in the 1970s in response to Soviet restrictions on the rights of Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate.

Prikhodko said Russia had as much right to be in the WTO as any current member.

“Our results over the past few years — in macroeconomics and in the development of every industry, not only the ones that extract resources — show that we in no way lag behind the dozens of other countries that are WTO members,” he said.

But, he acknowledged: “Perhaps we still have work to do.”

State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Pekhtin criticized Schwab’s remarks as an example of U.S. double standards in dealing with Russia. “The U.S. is restricting Russia’s chances of joining the WTO, and that can’t fail to worry us,” he said, Interfax reported.

Russia hopes to join the WTO before Putin leaves office early next year. Schwab sounded a more optimistic note in November when Washington and Moscow announced the completion of bilateral talks over WTO entry.

Differences, however, remain over the protection of intellectual property and agriculture.

Putin on Tuesday signed into law a raft of bills that toughen punishment for piracy. Copyright violators will face up to six years in prison, instead of five years, and a fine of up to 500,000 rubles (about $19,200).

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Now, the Kremlin Moves Against the Blogosphere

Bloomberg reports on the Kremlin’s attempt to establish a chokehold on Russia’s blogosphere:

President Vladimir Putin has already brought Russian newspapers and television to heel. Now he’s turning his attention to the Internet.

As the Kremlin gears up for the election of Putin’s successor next March, Soviet-style controls are being extended to online news after a presidential decree last month set up a new agency to supervise both mass media and the Web.

“It’s worrying that this happened ahead of the presidential campaign,” Roman Bodanin, political editor of Gazeta.ru, Russia’s most prominent online news site, said in a telephone interview. “The Internet is the freest medium of communication today because TV is almost totally under government control, and print media largely so.”

All three national TV stations are state-controlled, and the state gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, has been taking over major newspapers; self-censorship is routine. That has left the Internet as the main remaining platform for political debate, and Web sites that test the boundaries of free speech are already coming under pressure.

In December, a court in the Siberian region of Khakassia shut down the Internet news site Novy Fokus for not registering as a media outlet. The site, known for its critical reporting, reopened in late March after it agreed to register and accept stricter supervision.

Plug Pulled

Anticompromat.ru, which wrote about Putin’s pre-presidential business interests, had to find a U.S. Web server after a Russian service provider pulled the plug March 28, saying it had been warned by officials to stop hosting the site.

Last year, the authorities shut down a Web site called Kursiv in the city of Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow, that lampooned Putin as a “phallic symbol of Russia” for his drive to boost the birthrate.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia isn’t restricting media freedom and that the new agency isn’t aimed at policing the Web.

“If you watch TV, even federal TV channels, you’ll hear lots of criticism of the government,” Peskov said in an interview. “This new agency will be in charge of licensing. It’s not about controlling the Internet.”

Putin, 54, isn’t allowed to run for re-election in 2008 under Russia’s two-term constitutional limit. Instead, he is promoting two potential successors: First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a 41-year-old lawyer, and Sergei Ivanov, 54, a KGB colleague of Putin who oversees much of Russian industry, including transport and nuclear power. The two, who both come from Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, have become fixtures on state-controlled television.

Gorbachev’s Complaint

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policy of glasnost, or openness, ushered in media freedom in the late 1980s after decades of Soviet censorship, has condemned the state propaganda on the airwaves.

“The one thing I can say is that it’s pointless today to watch television,” Gorbachev, 76, said on the 20th anniversary of the launch of “perestroika,” his drive to allow more political and economic freedom that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While most Russians rely on television for news, increasing numbers are turning to the Internet. Around a quarter of the adult population — 28 million people — are regular Internet users, according to the Public Opinion Foundation, a Moscow-based research organization. In 2002, only 8 percent fell into that category.

A Mass Medium

“When the Internet becomes more of a mass medium, then governments start getting worried, and they start treating it like the mass media,” said Esther Dyson, who helped establish the Internet’s system of domain names and addresses, and has consulted extensively in Russia.

“You can’t control the Internet, but you can control people,” she said in a telephone interview during a visit to Moscow.

Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations in Moscow, predicted in a telephone interview that “pressure on the media is going to worsen” as the presidential succession draws nearer.

Reporters who write critically about government policies are subjected to intimidation, arrests, attacks and other forms of pressure, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights said March 27 in its annual report.

Facing Prison

Viktor Shmakov, editor of the newspaper Provintsialny Vesti in the oil-rich Bashkortostan republic, is facing up to 10 years in prison. Prosecutors charged him with inciting mass disturbances after his weekly urged readers to attend an opposition rally last year.

Russia is the second most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq, with 88 killed in the past 10 years, according to the Brussels-based International News Safety Institute.

Last October, Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent reporter and Kremlin critic who uncovered human-rights abuses by security forces in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow.

A journalist for the Kommersant daily, Ivan Safronov, who was investigating Russian weapons sales to Iran and Syria, fell to his death from a window in his Moscow apartment March 2.

The government, meanwhile, has been expanding Gazprom’s media role. The company already took control of independent channel NTV in 2001 and bought long-established Russian daily Izvestia in 2005.

Last year, Kommersant, once owned by tycoon and exiled Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky, was sold to Alisher Usmanov, a steel magnate who is head of a Gazprom subsidiary. And Gazprom said in November it will acquire Russia’s biggest-selling daily, Komsomolskaya Pravda, which has a circulation of 800,000.

Vladimir Rakhmankov, editor of the Web site that lost its Russian server after mocking Putin, said the Web crackdown is part of the final phase of a campaign to stifle free speech.

“Thank God the Internet is difficult to close down, but I think they will go after journalists who write things they don’t like,” he said.

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Cuban Missle Crisis Redux

Writing in the Post Chronicle Viktor Litovkin, an RIA Novosti military commentator, discusses the presence of Russian weapons in America’s backyard, seeking to justify provocative Russian weapons sales in Latin America.

In recent years Russia has become one of the key arms suppliers for Latin America, ousting the United States from markets it once dominated, according to a report by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) in Washington.

“Moscow’s developing bilateral security relations with Latin American governments have become a matter of some concern for Washington,” the study says. It contains both official reports and information leaks about Russia’s contacts with Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico on past and future deliveries of Russian weapons, including fighter and transport planes, helicopters, missiles, air defense systems, tanks, armored personnel carriers, launches, submarines, and even small arms.

According to the study, “it cannot be denied that at a certain point Moscow’s military sales may have gradually altered the geo-security landscape of much of the Americas. These results are not likely to please Washington policymakers.” The report also cites figures from the Congressional Research Service, showing that between 1998 and 2001, Russia supplied $300 million worth of arms to Latin America, and $600 million worth between 2002 and 2005. Congress forecasts a growth in Russian weapons deliveries to the region in the next few years. The question is, why all this is taking place in the United States’ “backyard,” as Washington has always described countries south of the 30th parallel?

The answer is not as obvious as it may seem at first sight. It is not only that some South and Central American countries have leaned leftward in recent years, with so-called “popular leaders” coming to power, above all in Brazil, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It is also that they believe Washington’s policy in the region is selfish and has nothing to do with maintaining mutually beneficial relations of partnership with its southern neighbors. In addition, the harsh control always exercised by the United States over Latin American governments and their foreign policies and economic development has eased somewhat lately.

Washington is now having problems in the Middle East, and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan shows no sign of letting up. Iran, refusing to obey UN Security Council resolutions, is also showing defiance. Nor has it been plain sailing in relations with NATO strategic allies, with France and Germany coming out against the occupation of Mesopotamia. The cozy picture of a unipolar world is beginning to fall apart.

What is more, Washington’s run-of-the-mill techniques of exerting pressure on unfriendly regimes in South America by applying economic sanctions are not working. Neither in Venezuela, nor even in Colombia, where Washington has always felt at home. The United States’ refusal to supply spare parts for F-16 fighter jets in service with Venezuela’s air force prompted President Hugo Chavez to ask Russia to sell him the latest Russian multi-role Su-30MK fighters.

Surely Moscow could not refuse this request. Arms exports are for Russia not only a way to profit from and re-equip its defense sector, but also business pure and simple. These transactions stem from a desire to earn money for economic development and make the country’s army more defense-capable. Rosoboronexport, Russia’s only arms dealer that exports and imports military equipment and defense services, says that Russian arms deliveries to Latin America are not aimed to oust the U.S. from this market. They have little if any effect on the balance of forces in the region, where the United States continues to prevail. This is easy to see if you open any reference book with a breakdown of the military equipment and weapons in service with any regional army, air force, or navy, including the renowned publication The Military Balance 2006-2007.

Moreover, arms exporters say, there is nothing personal about this work; it is just business. Any other country would do the same were it in Russia’s place, especially the United States, whose exports are displacing Russian arms in Eastern and Central Europe, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Outdated American arms are being foisted on these countries at high prices. Washington is pursuing the same policy towards Georgia and Kazakhstan. The American company Raytheon, for example, is trying to clinch a deal with Kazakhstan on upgrading its air defense forces. Warships made in the United States are already plying the waters of the Caspian Sea under the Kazakh flag. They are few and far between, it is true, but the fact remains that U.S. military equipment has managed to get into a land-locked sea. It is not, therefore, surprising that Russian weapons should have penetrated Latin America. Business is business.

If the United States fails to defer to Russia’s business interests in the former Soviet Union, why should Russia take into account its business and, to be blunt, its selfish interests in South and Central America? Reciprocity in business and partner relations has not been banned yet. On the other hand, it is not Moscow that is forcing its weapons on Caracas, Buenos Aires, Managua, Rio de Janeiro, and other capitals. They themselves want to buy Russian arms, perhaps because they are just as good and in some cases even better than American ones. They are no less effective in combat than what is made in the United States, and they are sometimes much cheaper. The main point is that Moscow, unlike Washington, does not link its arms business to the political views of a country’s government. The new Russia has learned from the mistakes of the U.S.S.R.

Let’s answer the question the author asks: “If the United States fails to defer to Russia’s business interests in the former Soviet Union, why should Russia take into account its business and, to be blunt, its selfish interests in South and Central America?” The answer is simple: Because the U.S. is a nation with a vastly larger economy and military establishment, as well as numerous powerful allies across the globe (of which Russia has not a single one). Because doing so will antagonize the U.S. into a new cold war Russia cannot even fight, much less win, and thereby cause Russia to go the way of the USSR. Because no amount of profit is worth that risk, and because the amount of profit Russia actually gets from these deals is insignificant on a per capita basis.

Isn’t that reason enough, Mr. Litovkin? Do you really think the U.S. will accept that since its own policy failures in Latin America gave Russia the opening, it must accept Russian provocation? Would Russia follow that logic if America tried to provide these kinds of weapons to the Chechen rebels?

Are you, Mr. Lukin, prepared to allow Russian pride to be the basis for Russia’s destruction, just as Soviet pride destroyed the USSR? If so, then you are far more dangerous to Russia than any foreign enemy.

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Annals of Russophile Gibberish

Writing in the Guardian, Russophile nutjob Gyula Hegyi (pictured), a Hungarian socialist member of the European parliament, says that Europe should leave monuments to the Soviet Army in place rather than dismantle them. Here’s the crazed diatribe in full, with LR’s running commentary.

Across central and eastern Europe, nationalists are exploiting the painful history of the second world war to whip up anti-Russian feeling and rehabilitate the far right as social and economic discontent grows – and the process is mirrored in Russia. The latest in a string of such moves is the decision by the Polish authorities to block the reopening of the permanent Russian exhibition at the site of the Auschwitz death camp because of its description of some of its victims (from annexed pre-war Polish territory) as Soviet citizens. It’s difficult to imagine a more sad and cynical debate than one about the citizenship of the massacred millions. Most were of course Jewish, and in the eyes of the Nazis both Poles and Russians were regarded as Untermenschen.

LR: What’s actually difficult to imagine is how this writer could fail to understand that referring to a Pole as conquered and enslaved by Russians as a “Soviet citizen” is the same an adding horrific insult to injury. If America had invaded and conquered Russia in World War II, how would Russians feel about being called “America citizens” in a museum?

The Polish decision comes after Estonian MPs decided to remove a Soviet war memorial from the centre of Tallinn a few weeks back. The act authorising its removal is the Law on Forbidden Structures Act, a rather Orwellian name for a new cold war against history. The “forbidden structure” in this case is a 2m bronze statue of a Soviet soldier erected in 1947 to commemorate Red Army soldiers killed fighting the Nazis.

LR: Is she really accusing Estonia, a democracy and a member of the EU, of being an Orwellian dictatorship, victimizing the free speech rights of poor, innocent little Russia, run by a proud KGB spy? What is she smoking? Where can LR get herself some of that wacky weed?

Bronze and marble soldiers are being toppled across eastern Europe. The campaign began in 1989-91 with the withdrawal of Soviet troops: Soviet memorials were demolished, Russian-sounding names of streets and squares changed, and red stars from walls cast away. In some countries, the tensions calmed after the turbulent transition period, but in the Baltic republics this anti-historical cold war seems to be a permanent crusade. The removal of the Tallinn memorial is only the tip of the iceberg. A draft bill recognises the Estonians who served in the German army, including in the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, as “fighters for Estonia’s independence”. Service in the SS is added to the record of work on retirement, while service in the Red Army as part of the anti-Hitler coalition is not. Latvian rightwingers are also active in rewriting history. The marches of Latvian SS legions are well known – and even the most anti-communist friends of Latvia in the US and western Europe are shocked by these state-sponsored Nazi parades. Most Latvian Jews were murdered by Latvian police, and it is disgusting to read Latvian websites and books that put the blame on the Jewish victims of the Holocaust as “collaborators of Stalin”.

LR: So, now those who oppose the glorification of of Soviet rape, torture and murder in the Baltics are Nazis, are they? Isn’t that special. This is a rare occasion when words fail LR. She can only gape slack-jawed in horror. Is this woman on the KGB’s payroll?

Of course, there are many in the Baltic republics who reject this whitewashing of the Nazi past. And there are democrats in the Estonian and Latvian parliaments (not to mention the strong left in Lithuania), the media and NGOs, who defend the anti-fascist memorials and oppose the Nazi cult rallies. The Estonian president spoke out against the “irresponsible behaviour” of supporters of the “forbidden structures” law. Many Latvians oppose the SS rallies and call for equal rights for the country’s Russian minority. These democrats need more support from western and central Europe. Soviet memorials are respected in Berlin, and visitors to the rebuilt Reichstag can still see the graffiti carved on the old walls by Russian soldiers in 1945. Germany has set a good example on how to handle its Nazi past, but only a few eastern nations are ready to learn from it. In my hometown, Budapest, the main Soviet memorial on the Szabadsag (Freedom) Square survived leftwing and rightwing governments. But last September, extreme rightwing rioters who set fire to the state television offices also attacked the memorial. In some Hungarian communities, newly elected rightwing mayors began their jobs by removing Soviet memorials and symbols.

LR: So, if you oppose the existence of monuments to Soviet dictatorship, you are not a democrat. How many monuments to American heroism in World War II are there in Russia, LR dares to wonder . . .

In the west, the memory of the anti-fascist coalition is largely still intact, and only a few extremists claim it would have been better to have been allied with Hitler against the Soviet Union. But in the east, the fall of the Berlin wall created a vacuum in history. The new politicians and media failed to tell the complicated truth about the war, the old pro-Soviet cliches were replaced by anti-Soviet cliches. The tragedy of the Baltic republics under Soviet rule does not change the fact that the death camps of Auschwitz were created by the Nazis and liberated by the Red Army. And the crimes of the Stalinist regime do not alter the fact that millions of Soviet soldiers died for the freedom of Europe.

LR: As blogger Tim Worstall writes: “And the crimes of the Stalinist regime do not alter the fact that millions of Soviet soldiers died for the freedom of Europe.” Err, shouldn’t we correct that? “And the crimes of the Stalinist regime do not alter the fact that millions of Soviet soldiers died for the conquest of Europe.”

The Baltic republics should remember Stalin’s victims, and we have to understand their mixed feeling towards Russia. But those who sacrificed their lives against the Nazi regime should be heroes for every democrat. I have memories of Soviet armed intervention. I was five years old during the 1956 uprising in Hungary. I played with my friends on a Soviet tank burnt out by Molotov cocktails. I know how heroic the fight against the Soviet soldiers was. They had come as liberators but, due to the geopolitical reality, they became oppressors. Opposing the occupation didn’t mean we wanted the Nazis back. The huge sculpture of a woman on Budapest’s Gellert Hill, erected by order of Marshall Voroshilov, still welcomes the liberators from the east. The soldiers died, we remember their heroic deaths – and life goes on. That’s why we have memorials. It is a lesson across eastern Europe and the Baltic republics as well.

LR: “Due to geopolitical reality”???? Not due to aggression, greed and imperialism? Gosh, it seems that the Soviets enslaved hungary only because of the forces of fate. Who knew? It’s a sad commentary on the state of the modern world that this individual can get a column published in a major newspaper.

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April 11, 2007 — Contents

WEDNESDAY APRIL 11 CONTENTS

(1) Annals of Cold War II: Documenting the Horror of a Rogue Regime

(2) Annals of Russian Incompetence: First the Alcohol, now the Markets

(3) Annals of Russophile Gibberish

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