Voice of America, October 23, 2013
Alexei Pimenov
The late Congressman Tom Lantos tried hard to convince Mikhail Khodorkovsky not to return to Russia. “Mikhail listened,” recalls the late congressman’s daughter, Katrina Lantos Swett, “but decided to return nevertheless. We know what happened next.”
Katrina Lantos Swett, who heads the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, said this at an October 22 conference on Capitol Hill commemorating the tenth anniversary of the arrest of the Russian oligarch who has fallen from grace.
The son of the former Yukos CEO, Pavel Khodorkovsky—president of the Institute of Modern Russia, which was the main organizer of the conference and the exhibit—characterized the past decade as a time of lawlessness and, simultaneously, of growing protests. The Lithuanian ambassador in Washington, Žygimantas Pavilionis, paid tribute to the role of Yukos in the economic transformation of post-Soviet countries. “We achieved our freedom,” affirmed the diplomat. “But we paid a high price for it, which is especially felt in the energy sphere. We are not forgetting that Yukos was a partner, just as we are not forgetting that our differences are with the Russian government, and not with the Russian people. And, when needed, we will always come to the Russian people’s help.”
“I am thinking today about the past decade, but above all, about the past 18 months,” said David Kramer, president of the human rights organization Freedom House. “I am talking about the period of time since Putin’s formal return to the presidency, which was marked by the ‘Bolotnaya Square case,’ the kidnapping of Leonid Razvozzhayev, the conviction of members of the Pussy Riot punk feminist band, and the return of punitive psychiatry in the case of [Mikhail] Kosenko. And, on the other hand, [this period of time was marked] by a clearly insufficient reaction by the international community to these human rights abuses—the most severe in the entire post-Soviet period.”
How is this explained? “At international forums, the most interesting things are happening behind the scenes,” noted Katrina Lantos Swett. “Recently I had an opportunity to talk to some Russian officials who are responsible for protecting human rights. And this conversation had a sobering effect on me. I felt blatant arrogance on the part of my interlocutors. Their attitude can be summed up in the words: ‘We don’t care about your arguments.’”
Among other things, Lantos Swett recalls, the conversation touched on the case of [Sergei] Magnitsky, “the story of a man who stood up against corruption and was put on trial posthumously.” “It is an unprecedented case in modern history—at least, in the history of democratic states,” she continued. “We can remember others—the slain [Anna] Politkovskaya, the imprisoned Khodorkovsky—and ask ourselves: What kind of society is this?”
“Especially considering that all these prominent names are no more than the tip of an iceberg,” emphasized Lantos Swett.
