Would You Go To Oslo To Get A Nobel Peace Prize While Preparing A Bloody Crackdown In The USSR?

The Center for Security Policy today expressed alarm at Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s sweeping orders to his military authorizing the use of force against the citizenry of the USSR and called upon the Bush Administration immediately and unequivocally to denounce this directive.

This move, unfortunately, is just the latest evidence that the Soviet leader is aligned with the forces of authoritarianism in the Soviet Union. It is the clearest indication to date, however, of his determination to resist — violently, if necessary — the pressure from every corner of the USSR for genuine democratic political and market economic reform.

As the Soviets are wont to say, it is no accident that President Gorbachev has declined at such a moment to receive in person the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded earlier this year at the ceremony in Oslo on 10 December. He clearly has no desire to see the crowning triumph of his campaign to woo the West — perhaps as close as an atheist practitioner of Leninist doctrine can come to canonization — become a public relations rout for its coming in the midst of a new campaign of Kremlin repression bearing his imprint.

"It would at the very least be bad form for President Gorbachev if, as he is delivering a bravura performance in Oslo accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, he is directing a military crackdown in his own country offstage," said Frank J. Gaffney, director of the Center. "It would be even worse — it would be criminal — if the United States were simply to ‘look the other way’ as freedom is crushed in the USSR."

Gaffney added, "Silence on the part of Washington and other Western capitals on the coming Soviet crackdown will inevitably be interpreted by the Kremlin as consent. It cannot be justified or legitimized by Moscow’s cooperation — such as it is — in the Persian Gulf crisis or by the Bush Administration’s continuing overinvestment in Mikhail Gorbachev."

Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov announced yesterday that he had been ordered by Gorbachev to authorize his soldiers to use their weapons if harassed by civilians; to seize control of power, water and food if they are restricted by local authorities; and to move against the desecration of any military monuments. The sweeping character of this order affords ample pretext for a military crackdown, particularly as republic after republic refuses to sign on to President Gorbachev’s all-union treaty.

Gorbachev’s smugness in predicting yesterday that, in the end, all republics will sign the treaty and that "even those who are most vocal in condemning it won’t be able to change anything" raised the troubling question: Did Gorbachev get an indication that the United States would acquiesce in his oppression of his opponents, whom he characterizes as "loudmouths" and "demagogues," during his recent rounds of discussions with U.S. officials?

Such a question is hardly inappropriate in light of the Bush Administration’s demonstrated past willingness to align itself with dictators — despite their repressive policies:

• Last July, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie signalled just such a readiness to tolerate Baghdad’s powerplay against Kuwait. Much to her surprise — and that of the State Department — Saddam Hussein read her message as a green light for an invasion.

 

• Within the past month, the United States has taken the extraordinary step of embracing Syria on the dubious grounds that doing so was necessary to engage that historical enemy of Iraq in the anti-Saddam coalition. The deal reportedly involved a willingness to turn a blind eye to Syria’s subsequent destruction of Lebanon’s Christian community.

 

• A high level Chinese trade delegation has been invited to Washington to begin official talks aimed at dispensing with the vestiges of U.S. sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Here too, the Bush Administration is trying to justify this action — which coincides with mounting evidence of Beijing’s intensifying crackdown on dissident democratic forces — as a step needed to maintain the united front against Iraq.

Of course, this phenomenon has also been much in evidence in recent U.S. attitudes toward Soviet repression. The Bush Administration has repeatedly made clear its tolerance of Soviet repression in the Baltics, Georgia and Azerbaijan. A year ago, for example, Secretary of State James Baker suggested that some forms of "crackdown" could be perpetrated by Moscow center without adverse consequences in U.S.-Soviet ties — provided they were undertaken to "maintain order" so as to "prevent violence and bloodshed."

Just ten days ago, moreover, Secretary Baker told Latvian Foreign Minister Janis Jurkans in Paris that the United States was unwilling to confront the USSR over the Baltic states — even though Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov had recently threatened renewed economic coercion if the Balts did not hew to Moscow’s line. Baker said that such a confrontation would be "counterproductive" for all, and that the Baltic question could be resolved through negotiations in Moscow. Adding insult to injury, Western nations, including the United States, subsequently bowed to Soviet demands that the Baltic delegation be ejected from the CSCE Conference and agreed to greatly expanded commitments of food, technology and financial assistance to Moscow.

The Center believes that, against this backdrop, it is scarcely any wonder that Gorbachev is proceeding apace toward a possibly violent domestic crackdown. It urges the Bush Administration for once to throw its weight with the potential victims of such repression — rather than its perpetrators — and in so doing to contribute to deterrence of such an eventuality.