It has become fashionable to speak of change and liberalization in Russia under President Dmitry Medvedev. May 7 marked his one-year anniversary in office. He has recently granted an interview with an opposition newspaper, allowed a few human-rights activists to criticize Russia's regime, and even started a blog. There is also a new administration in Washington that wants a fresh start with foreign powers.
However, Mr. Medvedev's gestures have not been matched by policy. It is more appropriate to think of Russia as living under Vladimir Putin's ninth year in power. Mr. Putin is now prime minister but still in charge. His agenda of oppression and plunder is still the course in Russia. The Kremlin's willingness to install its candidates in office and persecute its opponents remains undiminished.
Last month, the Putin government inserted itself into the mayoral election in Sochi, a resort town on the Black Sea that has been selected to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) picked the subtropical Sochi after what must have been an extraordinary lobbying effort on behalf of the Russian government. Sochi has a near total lack of infrastructure needed to support an event as large as the Olympics. Getting the city ready for the Games will result in a massive looting of the state treasury to construct, among other things, vast new developments on swampland. Russia is budgeting $15 billion for the project, while Canada is spending $2 billion on the 2010 Vancouver Games. Look for friends of Mr. Putin to benefit from the coming splurge on construction.
Sochi's residents are being pushed out of their homes and construction will proceed regardless of whether cemeteries or wetlands stand in the way. The construction will be an ecological as well as a human-rights catastrophe. Will the IOC intervene or say even a word? Will the leaders of the Free World be so eager to press the reset button with Russia that they too will say nothing?
Sochi's residents are speaking up and, surprisingly, in the mayoral election held there in late April there was a real opposition candidate. Sochi native Boris Nemtsov is a charismatic leader who served as deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. As has become standard practice in our elections, however, the United Russia incumbent, Anatoly Pakhomov, refused to debate or even mention his rival. Meanwhile, the media dutifully served up United Russia propaganda by publishing outlandish slanders against Mr. Nemtsov. (Including accusations that he tried to sell the Olympiad to the South Koreans, who lost the bid to Sochi.)
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