SOVIET CRACKDOWN WATCH (PART 11): PERMITS FOR THE WINTER PALACE?

State Department spokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler, today plumbed new depths in the Bush Administration’s practice of looking the other way on repression. In response to questions at the noon press briefing about Mikhail Gorbachev’s newest dictates banning free assembly in Moscow, Ms. Tutwiler actually compared this practice to that used in Washington, D.C. of requiring permits for public demonstrations:

It’s no different than our own country, if a country [sic] wants to have a demonstration here in Washington, D.C. they have to apply for a permit….

 

In case the central authorities missed this latest evidence of the U.S. government’s inclination to take a tolerant view of even Gorbachev’s most brutal anti-democracy measures, Ms. Tutwiler noted:

"…Our position on this [the ban on demonstrations and reports that the Ministry of Interior take-over of law enforcement responsibilities in Moscow] is that it is an internal judgment of the Soviet Union as to what powers should be held by a given level of government….Restrictions of time, place and manner of assemblies and demonstrations are sometimes necessary for public safety or other legitimate grounds….Even concerning this new police rule, this is an internal matter of the Soviet Union and there is just so far that I can go as far as delving myself into legitimate decision that a sovereign government is making concerning it, whether we agree with those decision or not."

 

This policy approach is ominously reminiscent of the minimalist, sotto voce expressions of "concern" about state repression of those seeking individual freedoms and democracy in Soviet Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Baltics, China and Iraq. Unfortunately, such statements come against the backdrop of the following, noteworthy developments in the USSR:

• Particularly illuminating is Gorbachev’s justification for the 26 March orders to the Interior Ministry to take over law enforcement in Moscow and to his cabinet "to take all necessary measures to ensure law and order in the capital and to prevent pressure from being exerted upon People’s Deputies": He maintained that these moves were made necessary because of "continuing aggravation of tension by some political parties and movements."

 

• To implement Gorbachev’s orders, Moscow’s police chief, Petr Bogdanov, was released from his duty and replaced with USSR First Deputy Minister of Interior Affairs, Lieutenant General Ivan Shilov. Interestingly, Shilov was charged last year of "restoring public order" in Armenia and Azerbaijan, among other hot spots.

 

• Vadim Bakatin, the one ostensible reformist member of Gorbachev’s new Security Council, predicts that "decisive measures" will be taken to prevent the demonstration. Toward this end, barriers blocking access to Red Square and Manege Square are currently being erected and tanks, armored personnel carriers and troops are being massed to enforce the ban.

 

• Moscow’s Mayor Gavril Popov has, nonetheless, declared the ban unconstitutional. What is more, leaders of Democratic Russia, the organization sponsoring the 28 March demonstration, told a Moscow news conference yesterday that the rally will proceed as planned.

 

• In a 26 March interview on national television, President Gorbachev set the tone for the coming confrontation:

 

"The authorities will not allow for chaos to rule free. By all means those who are instigating and provoking such turmoil and who would like to go against the Constitution, should be dealt with by those who are guarding constitutional law and order. I am confident of our capabilities in this respect, since we have enormous means at our disposal….We have mapped out steps, calling them our anti-crisis program….I delegated certain powers to the USSR Cabinet of Ministers with the aim of preventing undesirable events, assuring security and safety of our constitutional bodies from turbulent rallies and pressure on Deputies. What kind of a democracy would that be?" (Emphasis added.)

 

• Also on 26 March, the USSR Supreme Soviet ordered miners to suspend their strikes for two months. (As a minor "concession," members of that body did reject a proposal by Soviet Prime Minister Pavlov that would have held the miners liable for losses incurred to date from the strikes!)

 

• In yet another indication of Gorbachev’s true intentions with respect to structural economic reform, his new economic adviser, Oleg Ozherelev, urged in a 27 March interview with the Financial Times the reimposition of central control over all supplycontracts between the state and enterprises, rejected radical privatization plans and called for a further slowing down of the transition to a market economy. It is noteworthy that Ozherelev was recruited from the central Communist Party apparatus, where he worked under former Party ideologist Vadim Medvedev.

"It is shocking that at this defining moment in U.S. and Western policy toward the Soviet Union, the Bush Administration has yet again chosen to deal with Gorbachev in a way that makes April Glaspie’s ill-fated exchange with Saddam Hussein appear ferocious," said Frank J. Gaffney, director of the Center. "In so doing, the Administration has tragically chosen to relegate itself to the sidelines in the desperate bid for freedom taking place in the USSR, the Baltic states, Yugoslavia, Albania, China and Iraq."

"It is high time the Bush Administration provide credible disincentives and impose serious financial and other sanctions for actions of repression being undertaken by Gorbachev to crush genuinely democratic forces," said Roger W. Robinson, a Center Board Advisor. "There is no hiding from the fact that Boris Yeltsin and his popular democratic movement have emerged as a viable and far preferable alternative to Gorbachev and his cadre of hardliners."