Sergei Mitrokhin’s blog at the Ekho Moskvi web-site, 15.02.2014

A sluggish and delayed reaction of the IOC to the sentence to environmentalist Evnegy Vitishko [envisaging three years of imprisonment for him for his criticism of Governor’s seizure of public lands] represents another example of vain hopes of international interference in the issue of protection of human rights.

Despite universal public attention to what has been happening in the Krasnodar region, the IOC responded the next day after the sentence of three years of imprisonment for Vitishko came into force: two months (!) after it was imposed. Also the IOC expressed its opinion in a very soft and formal way, and requested only the case file.

But what one can expect from the IOC as such? Complete and final multipolarity reigns there, and it is tolerant to anyone even to dictators-cannibals. The responsibility lies with the Western countries – members of the IOC. Are they ready to sell their principles for the sake of the “beauty of the sport”?

The EU Representation in Moscow has expressed its “concern”. All this softness and circularity represents the Western style of communicating with our government.

They pretended in the West that they were unaware how much property titles of residents of the Krasnodar region (where Sochi is situated) were curbed, so that their property could be expropriated as soon as possible for bulldosing of the lands [from private houses] for construction of Olympic facilities. Now they are blind to the reprisals of civil society activists in the Krasnodar region hosting the Olympics.

I personally handed a petition on these activists to Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle past autumn, but what was the result? It was clear that for them [Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle] gas was all, and [civil activists] Suren Gazaryan [who had to emigrate] and Evgeny Vitishko [imprisoned for three years] were just nothing.

All they managed was to cut Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment by six months only, but presented it as a huge diplomatic victory.

It happens so that some opposition figures like to apply to the West with their aspirations and hopes. They visit Western countries so that to complain to Western politicians of the Russian regime, visit embassies and handing in their complaints there, publish different appeals to foreign politicians, and accuse all those who do not do such things in a lack of an opposition spirit and even corruption. And some of them even regard such activities as their primary political vocation.

The Dust of the Magnitsky List

The situation with the much talked-of Magnitsky List developed likewise. There were so many hopes and calls that for a time being formed the main topics for the oppositional media. YABLOKO did not join the general choir of the afflicted, we treated this campaign in a cool way realising its deliberate meaninglessness.

And we turned out to be right about it. The U.S. adopted a list of 18 Russian officials of the second or even third rank who had to be denied entry to the USA. And has Vladimir Putin’s regime become more democratic after this? Have there emerged more freedom and liberties?

The List even failed to disturb anyone [in the state power bodies].

Maybe it has resulted in a split of the elites in the [Putin’s] ‘vertical of power’?

Many people vested hopes into this, supporting the fashionable Western theory that a split in the elites could lead to a revolution. How naïve these people were! Western analysts do not realize that in Russia a stronger part of the elite, which has the real power, learned to devour or subjugate any of its “split” fragments.

In adopting the Magnitsky Act the most moderate option was chosen: no one from Vladimir Putin’s close circle got into the list. The U.S. Congress decided to publish such a castrated list so that not to complicate the relations with Russia, as the latter plays a prominent role in Washington’s plans.

This is the so-called Realpolitik. The brutal term is hiding fear before brutal regimes, as well as the desire to grovel before them.

Observe Your Own Values!

However, the thesis that the West will not help us does not mean that we do not need it at all. We do not need his infinite impotence in protecting its own values. We do not need the recognition of the rights of other states to sneer – if this is done within their borders – at human rights.

We need a strong West, which would be able to speak with any sovereign dictator in a language of Western values, rather than those of the dictator.

If someone declares some values but does not protect them out of fear, then such a person does not differ from those violating these values. Such a person is even worse than the latter, because he helps to trample the values, justifying the act of trampling on behalf of the values.

Western leaders bear even a greater responsibility for the violation of civil rights in Russia than Vladimir Putin. For him these rights are nothing, and for them they are an icon. One praying for an icon and patiently wiping the coming spits has even more disgrace than the one spitting on the icon.

I think that the Russian opposition and human rights defenders should stop groveling before Western governments begging them to express a hard-line reaction to the arbitrary rule in Russia.

First published at Sergei Mitrokhin’s blog at the Ekho Moskvi web-site

http://echo.msk.ru/blog/sergei_mitrohin/1259264-echo/