Environmentalists Under Pressure
Western media has a habit of focusing attention on the repression by the Russian government of middling protest movements, where small groups of elderly dissidents clamor for democracy and free speech, and are often beaten by police truncheons and arrested in a familiar, dystopic cat-and-mouse game. It's all very ridiculous, and in a way becomes easier for the outside world to ignore given the evident disorganization, weaknesses, and occasional vanity shown by some in the opposition.
However it's not just these groups that directly challenge the power and legitimacy of the state (because, of course, they audaciously suggest that free elections should have a role in democracy). A better illustration of the impact of Russia's lawless environment and vacuum of tolerance for popular participation and civic development can be seen in the treatment of the country's burgeoning green movement - the scores of protesters who gather in various corners of the country not to denounce Putin, not to question Medvedev's policies, but rather to attempt to conserve environmental areas and protest the country's natural wonders.
One example of how the Kremlin treats environmentalists is underway at the Khimki Forest Park outside of Moscow, which is under threat as construction begins for a new Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. After failed negotiations and ignored pleas and petitions, the authorities began sawing down centuries-old trees, prompting some activists to deploy themselves to the woods to prevent the destruction of the beloved park.
The ongoing saga at Khimki took an alarming turn this week, when the activists guarding the site were assaulted by a band of masked thugs allegedly representing Teplotekhnik, the company that was hired to clear way for the highway. Several activists were beaten, at least one severely. Yevgenya Chirikova, who runs the campaign against Khimki's deforestation, told Radio Free Liberty
that the police took an hour to arrive, and that even then:
When the police arrived, the men had already reached our camp and were threatening to beat us. I explained that I was the mother of two young children, that I feared for my life and my safety, that dozens of people came here and I was afraid they would hurt me.
I asked the police officers to stay and check their documents, but they refused and tried to leave. I had no other choice than to lie under their vehicle's wheels.
The fact that police arrested not the perpetrators of the violence but rather the activists who had been beaten reveals something important about how Russia's broken system stifles civil society. Some observers have pointed out that there is a perverse interplay at work in which the interests of the contractors - not necessarily the central government - are valued much more than the concerns of the community to local authorities. It is, in essence, a breakdown of the representative model when these repressions of civil protests, complaints, or even minor disagreement over a road through the forest can be privatized and violently dealt with.
The one silver lining here is that the event seems to have spurred Russian rock star Yury Shevchuk to take up the Khimki activists' cause. Shevchuk's off-the-cuff verbal sparring with Prime Minister Putin, if you remember, made international headlines a few weeks back. Over tea with Putin, Shevchuk's honesty about fixing abuses of power, restrictions on free speech and the "rich dukes with their privileges," struck a nerve, both domestically and abroad. This time, he was similarly curt, journeying to Khimki to record an interview at Chirikova's apartment:
"I see that they are fun, wonderful people. They are fighting for the last things we have, for out trees, our water, our skies," he says in the video.
"Moscow region forests are not interesting for our bureaucracy - they all have houses in the places where the forests are guarded," he said. "They see themselves as temporary; they know that they will live somewhere else when they retire."
Though the destruction of Khmiki now seems inevitable, Shevchuk hit on a more profound irony at play, in that these demonstrators posed no direct threat to the "rich dukes," who nevertheless chose to debase themselves by tacitly condoning the official response. Across Russia these days other environmental groups face similar fates. Earlier this month 2000 residents of a small town near Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, staged a rally against environmental pollution, that even local businesses-perhaps spurred on by President Medvedev's threats last year to oust local politicians who condone unrest- took measures to upstage. Similarly, the activists seeking to protect the famous Lake Baikal have found themselves under pressure, including having their offices raided several times by police.
Considered alongside the Khimki debacle, these events sharply contrast with several statements by the president last month on how the economy and the environment shouldn't contradict one another in Russia. While some hope that the president will step up and intervene to save their cause (sounds like a familiar kind of expiring patience), other environmentalists now consider the devastation of the ecology around Sochi a foregone conclusion, but one that pales in comparison to other potential environmental catastrophes in the making in Russia, where the number of environmental inspectors has been cut from 5600 to 300 over the last decade.
It's clear that protest movements which threaten or criticize the Kremlin's grip on power are not allowed to go anywhere, but it's the intolerance for these other civic movements which really show what kind of country is being built, and how quickly this destruction of rule of law can turn around and negatively impact national and public interests - regardless of one's political stance on the current leadership.
By James Kimer, Guest Commentator to the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev Communications Center