Playing at Murder
// View on the scandal
It is certainly important to find out who poisoned Litvinenko.
Politically, all possible answers have already been given. Enemies of the Kremlin believe it is FSB. Moscow propaganda will, on the contrary, look for the traces of “the Kremlin’s enemies” and Boris Berezovsky personally. Enemies of the Kremlin’s enemies will, naturally, say there is no point in poisoning Litvinenko for FSB (right, why should FSB need it?), but the negative effect of that poisoning on the Kremlin is huge. Which is also true. President Putin gave similar straightforward explanations about Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. Putin assured Europe that the journalist was not harmful enough to be assassinated, but that her murder was indeed very harmful for the Kremlin.
This sensible reasoning, as well as the arguments of the Kremlin’s enemies, on the one hand, and the enemies of the Kremlin’s enemies – on the other hand, do not play a big role in the overall situation. The effect caused in the West by Politkovskaya’s murder, and now Litvinenko’s poisoning, reflects the general acquired impression of modern ways of Russian elite and Russian authorities, which has been forming in the recent years.
Let us look at other Russian news of the same week. For instance, a senator will soon be recalled from the parliament’s upper chamber. Press writes that he evaded taxes, bribed investigators, and that he is allegedly connected to a gang of killers. And no one is shocked by all that, and no one gave official explanations – whether it is true, whether there is such evidence against him? The senator’s colleagues recall him for the fact that he kept heading a commercial firm despite the law (aren’t they big purists!). But it is untrue as well, as it turns out. One lie drives another, and a new frame-up contradicts an old one.
Or, for instance, Baisarov’s case. Chechen policemen shot dead an FSB lieutenant-colonel in the center of Moscow, with Moscow police as witnesses. Yet, FSB Lieutenant-Colonel Baisarov is on the other hand an alleged kidnapper and murder organizer, depending from where to look on him. So, it is unclear whether Baisarov was killed by the “accomplices of authorities” or by their opponents. And of which authorities? And if Baisarov did kill as well, did he do it as an FSB officer or as a terrorist? And where does “the Kremlin’s hand” end, and “the Kremlin’s enemies’ hand” begin? Is the hand of the enemies of the Kremlin’s enemies the hand of the Kremlin? It is only clear that peaceful life is setting in in Chechnya, and what is more, this peaceful life is already leaving Chechnya sometimes, touring either in St. Pete or in Moscow.
Political murders can be different. Sometimes, politicians of great influence are killed. Other political assassinations have a different purpose – to cause a resonance in the society. That is, they reflect and focus on the established system of norms and morals of acting elites, and the conflicts glowing in them. Meanwhile, reasonings about the parties’ comparative benefit from this or that murder only prove that such benefits are estimable and taken into account in that system.
“Gongadze case” destroyed Kuchma’s regime not because the opposition’s version that the president ordered the journalist’s murder turned out to be true, but because everything else that made the opposition’s version look true to the public was indeed true. “YUKOS case” and the peculiarities of settling Chechen issue have dramatically changed the bar of the admissible and possible in Russia. On the one hand, it became apparent that the replotting of influence spheres in Russia’s administrative machine is turning into fighting without rules. On the other hand, many centers of power have appeared, and the bar of impunity is very high for them. And these are the necessary backdrop scenery for “playing at murder”.
Kirill Rogov, vice editor in chief of Kommersant
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 23, 2006
|
