[CivilSoc] Vladimir Potemkin, by Elena Bonner

[Moderator]

The following essay appeared in the 17 June 2003 issue of The Wall Street
Journal.
VLADIMIR POTEMKIN
by Elena Bonner
It is not easy to manage the legacy of a great man, especially when the evil
that he had fought, and often defeated, returns with a vengeance after his
death. Which is why it was both in sorrow and in anger that I refused
recently to endorse the plan to erect a monument to my late husband, Andrei
D. Sakharov, in his hometown, Moscow. For I know that Andrei would have
turned in his grave if I'd allowed his name and his likeness to become a
part of the Potemkin village that the Russian government is trying to erect
before the complacent West.
* * *
When I watched Western leaders toast Vladimir Putin--who used the occasion
of St. Petersburg's tricentennial earlier this month to highlight the West's
acquiescence in his policies--I felt grateful that no one had thought of
bringing the official party to the Sakharov statue that had been put up
there. Having President Putin take his guests to Andrei would have been a
mockery of his memory, for every policy of the Putin administration is
anathema to what Sakharov believed in and fought for.
For the past three years I have witnessed the systematic dismantling of
democratic institutions, the suppression of independent media and the
instigation of nationalism and xenophobia. But the gravest crime perpetrated
by the government is the ongoing genocidal war in Chechnya. Stalin said that
the death of one person is a tragedy, while the death of a million is
statistics. The grim statistics of Russian policy in Chechnya is 180,000
dead and 350,000 displaced, which is nearly 50% of the prewar population.
Western leaders may not to be bothered by these statistics; but for me this
is not only a threat to the Chechen people but a symptom of a grave disease
affecting both Russia and the West.
It is a penchant of oppressive regimes to decorate themselves with fake
attributes of democracy -- sham elections, a servile judiciary, manipulated
media. In today's Russia the masquerade is called "managed democracy." To
have the West call a surrogate the real thing is a particular ambition of
such regimes, and sometimes a reason for staging a quasi-democratic
exercise. Thus, the recent Chechen "referendum" that was no referendum, and
the "amnesty" that was no amnesty, led Western leaders to speak in support
of a "political process" in Chechnya that is not a political process.
As I write this, another falsification of Moscow's "managed democracy" has
been unfolding in a London court where a moderate Chechen leader, Akhmed
Zakayev, is fighting extradition. That he is innocent was established in
December when Denmark threw out fake Russian charges. Moreover, there is
ample evidence that Russian courts are not independent, that investigation
is based on torture and that the network of prison camps--the present day
Gulag--is inhumane. This alone should disqualify Russia from being granted
any extradition request. But this is precisely the reason why the Kremlin
needs Mr. Zakayev so badly: to put Russian and Western justice on the same
footing. I was shocked when the British Home Office found merit in Russia's
demand for Mr. Zakayev's head--thus awarding legitimacy to a fake justice
system.
I am told that the appeasement of "managed democracy" is the necessary evil
needed to keep an important ally within the coalition against terror. But
Russia's only participation in this war has consisted of supplying arms and
material and providing diplomatic and moral support to Iraq, Iran and North
Korea; not counting the genocide in Chechnya. Legitimizing false democracy,
false justice and a make-believe war on terror casts doubt on the real
things, particularly for those who, like myself, continue to value them. For
this reason I cannot agree to have my husband's monument rise in today's
Russia lest it too becomes a fake.
Ms. Bonner, chairwoman of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, is the widow of
Academician Andrei D. Sakharov. The web address of the foundation is
http://asf.wdn.com/