The Voice behind the Stone
// The FSB used a spy scandal to discredit human rights activists
The British Foreign Office spoke out yesterday in defense of British diplomats accused by the FSB and the Rossiya television channel of espionage and aiding noncommercial organizations. In response, the FSB stated that the Britons were “caught red-handed financing a number of nongovernmental organizations.” The Russian state television station fulfilled two tasks at once with Arkady Mamontov's film Spies. First, it challenged Great Britain, which has been too critical of the Kremlin and too tolerant of its opponents. Second, it showed the Russian public that the only trustworthy representatives of civic society in Russia are the members of the Public Chamber.
Exposure
Arkady Mamontov's film Spies caused an international scandal when it was shown on prime time television on Sunday. The film was based on FSB surveillance film, accompanied by commentary by Mamontov. In the course of the film, Mamontov exposed four employees of the British Secret Intelligence Service working in the British embassy in Moscow. According to Mamontov, they worker with Russian citizens recruited by them using a sophisticated electronic device disguised as a stone laying in a public square. The Britons accused in the film are embassy archivists Christopher Peart and Andrew Fleming, assistant to the official representative of British intelligence in Russia Paul Crompton and second secretary of the embassy Marc Doe. Their Russian recruits, who are already in the custody of the FSB, were not named by Mamontov. Mamontov also said that, besides intelligence activities, Dow issued money to Russian noncommercial organizations like the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Eurasia Foundation. Several authorization papers were shown in the film with Dow's signature on them.
Unexpected Airing
Another film by Mamontov, Citizenship, Part Two, about the difficulties of citizens of the former USSR in receiving Russian citizenship, was originally scheduled to be shown in the Sunday evening timeslot. That film was to be replaced with one called Cold, about the recent extreme weather in Moscow, but it, according to the station, was not edited in time. Then Spies was unexpectedly shown. A film that sensational does not appear on a state channel without the approval of the management of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Co. and its general director, Oleg Dobrodeev, in particular.
More evidence of the fact that the film was sanctioned from above was the fact that the scandal caused by it was the lead story on all the state TV news programs the next day. A source at the broadcast company told Kommersant that “the Russian special services offered us material that we evaluated as unambiguously sensational and exclusive. Do you think that, if the BBC received footage on which it was convincingly proved that four of our agents were working in London, that they wouldn't have aired it? The BBC and any television company in the world would make it the top news.” The source denied that the channel was fulfilling an order from “above.”
Declaring foreign diplomats spies on state television is unprecedented in world practice. Col. Sergey Ignatchenko, head of the FSB Public Relations Center, said yesterday that the special services decided to publicize the affair after a meeting last week with the official representative of British intelligence in Moscow. “He was told of the unacceptability of carrying out intelligence against Russia and financing NGOs. In response, he denied it and stated that they are not carrying out any work against us. After that, the decision was made to publish the information in the possession of the FSB,” Ignatchenko said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused yesterday to comment on the spy scandal for journalists. The British Foreign Ministry categorically denied the accusations against the embassy employees. "We are concerned and surprised at these allegations. We reject any allegation of improper conduct in our dealing with Russian NGOs," it said in a statement, adding that London does provide financing for human rights and civic society projects in Russia through nongovernmental organizations.
A Political Decision
It is not by chance that British intelligence became the object of exposure on state television. Relations between Great Britain and Russia have been in a crisis in recent years, since Britain refused to hand over to Russia Chechen separatist spokesman Akhmed Zakaev and several other persons declared wanted by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office. A clear sign of that crisis was the attack by Russian tax authorities on the British Council. In June 2004, the Russian Interior Ministry's Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes demanded that the council present its financial accounts. After a meeting between British Prime Minister Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin and the closing of most of the British Council's programs in Russia, all charges against it were dropped. It is notable that the council's problems began shortly after Putin made his unexpected verbal attack on noncommercial organizations during his address to the Federal Assembly on May 26 of that year.
The law on noncommercial organizations that was passed by the State Duma late last year and signed by the president this year is the logical extension of Putin's words in May. The passage of that law has been harshly criticized in the West. A source at the All-Russia State Television and Radio Co. told Kommersant that the film Spies, which was shown on the same day as the first meeting of the Public Chamber, was not intended to discredit Russian noncommercial organizations. “No one intended to make any attack on public organizations in the film,” he said. “[Moscow Helsinki Group head] Lyudmila Alexeeva is our great compatriot for whom we have immeasurable respect and the film in principle has no relation to NGOs. It is a matter of the stupidity of a person who is involved in intelligence shouldn't work with civic society structures in the same country.”
Alexeeva told Kommersant yesterday that she considers the film Spies “part of a large-scale libel campaign against human rights organizations that the state has undertaken.” She added that “We [the Moscow Helsinki Group] really do function on Western money. For instance, we received three grants from the British embassy between 2002 and 2004. Not one of the documents – I checked personally – was signed by diplomat Marc Doe. Mamontov thought that up.” Andrey Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation, which is continuing the programs of the defunct Eurasia Foundation, told Kommersant that one payment voucher shown on Rossiya, for the financing of a “public schools inspectors” program, had never been seen at his foundation.
Mamontov refused to speak to Kommersant, saying that he had been hospitalized due to health complaints.
The last word in this incident will be had by the Kremlin. As FSB spokesman Ignatchenko noted yesterday, “The issue will be resolved on a political level.” The main crime of the British intelligence agents seems to be that their connections to Russian human rights organizations. If that is true, and their case is decided politically, it will leave the employees of the noncommercial organizations in an unenviable position.
Mikhail Zygar, Alexander Reutov, Arina Borodina, Yulia Taratuta, Vlad Trifonov
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 24, 2006
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