Al-Fassi, the top official of Istiklyal, Morocco's ruling political party, lies unconscious during Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit to Morocco on September 7, 2006
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Russia's President Descends on Morocco
Yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Morocco for the refueling of the plane that took him away from South Africa and to meet with Moroccan King Muhammad VI.
The Russian president entered the square in front of the royal palace at noon, when the heat in Casablanca hit a value that is simply entirely inappropriate for this time of the year. Mr. Putin met the royal family, the entire royal army, and all the members of Morocco's government.
The royal guards were fairly severe with the journalists. All of us (about 150 people) were made to stand on a podium that was about five meters by five meters. The majority of the journalists had to sit with their legs hanging over the side, and they were warned not to let their feet touch the asphalt during the ceremony. However, when they played the Russian national anthem, two Russian journalists stood up, explaining their behavior by saying that they could not sit swinging their legs from the podium while the national anthem of the Russian Federation was played in their presence. The security services, it seemed, could find nothing to object to about that. They said only that the journalists would have to sit down again as soon as the anthem was finished playing. The journalists sat down, but immediately popped right back up again.
"Why?!" demanded the guards irately.
"Because the Moroccan national anthem is being played," came the reply.
The security guards thanked the journalists for their respect for their proud kingdom.
The journalists, whom I later approached, could not explain only one thing: why standing on the scorching asphalt was better than sitting on the podium.
After Vladimir Putin and Muhammad VI passed each formation of guards and civilians, both group seemed to receive the command "at ease." The guardsmen started to feverishly shift from foot to foot, as if the asphalt were burning their heels, while the civilians began to hug and kiss each other with such passion that it seemed as though they came to see each other as much as to see Vladimir Putin.
But then, on some of the greeters the squeeze from that iron right hand made too harsh an impression. The representative of the ruling Istiklyal party, al-Fassi, crumpled to the ground in a dead faint a moment after his encounter with the Russian president.
The security guards spend a while reviving him before spending an equally long among of time erasing the record of the occurrence from the digital camera belonging to Kommersant correspondent Dmitry Azarov (they ultimately failed to erase it completely).
The next time we saw President Putin was at the airport.
At the airport, a short press conference had been arranged for the president. But again the skirmish between the security guards and the Russian journalists flared up with unexpected vigor. Members of Muhammad VI's security detail approached us, prodding before them several Moroccan journalists with television cameras. It had not been planned to include them in President Putin's press conference. Their participation was denied (not without pleasure), but they, stealing glances at their security guards, refused to leave.
Several members of the Russian president's security detail intervened on behalf of the Russian journalists. I thought that the issue would probably not go so far as to lead to shots being fired into the air, but to exclude the possibility was, if you please, impossible: I could already hear the cries of "This is my country!" (Moroccan) and "This is my president!" (Russian).
The only thing that could stop the argument was the arrival of an aristocratic gentleman to adjudicate the situation. The car bearing President Putin pulled up to the entrance to the room where the battle was going on. The Russian journalists were summoned aboard; the Moroccans were left behind. On board our plane, where we were not the least bit offended by the close quarters, the press conference took place, the dramatic run-up to which turned out to be much more interesting than the press conference itself. However, interesting moments were still to be had if you cared to look for them. Such as when President Putin said, "On our atomic market, we have something to discuss with our partners around the world. We do not see equality on the market for nuclear fuel. Russia's interests are being damaged (clearly, not only in Africa – A.K.). We will press forward until our mutual relations in this sphere with our partners are more balanced and answer more to our interests (if they answer to our interests, then it is hardly likely that the relationship will be balanced – A.K.).
In additional Putin, speaking about national interests in the area of energy resources, announced "We will strive to achieve a certain balance between national interest and private initiative."
It is clear that, in terms of the composition of the official Russian delegation abroad, that balance now appears thus: one bureaucrat, one oil man.
President Putin's drive towards balancing everything with everything else made an impression yesterday. It is hardly likely that the Moroccan journalists who begged their Russian colleagues for a short interview as we stepped off the presidential plane believed that President Putin succeeded in attaining such a balance in the relations between the Russian and the Moroccan mass media.
And it wasn't necessary to herd us onto the podium with their feet.
The royal security guard failed to erase the shot recording the leader of the ruling Moroccan Istiklyal party, al-Fassi, lying unconscious.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 08, 2006
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