Police detain Chechnya resident Nurmuhamed Dakuev near a cafe at Pyatnitskoe shosse 17 in Moscow, where he allegedly knifed a man who later died.
Photo: Sergey Topol
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America's Big Stick
// Human Rights is Just One of the Two Faces of American Politics
Many international institutions have opinions on the situation of human rights in Russia and in other countries. Organizations and entities that deal with this subject (and more than a few times a year, mind you) include the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Amnesty International, and both chambers of the American Congress. However, the annual report by the US State Department stands out. In contrast to these other institutions, the State Department's opinion reflects that of the leadership of the world's only superpower. So it stands to reason that the weight of its judgments is correspondingly more significant.
For that reason, the world anticipates the annual human rights report much like Americans themselves await the last day of the tax season, which comes at almost the same time. In the one situation, you pay your taxes and can then breathe a sigh of relief. In the other, you find out your diagnosis and then act accordingly.
Even a disappointing diagnosis from the American State Department of democracy in this or that country doesn't mean that the US administration will immediately take steps to curtail its relationship with the "problem patient." Still, however, the State Department's conclusions will not be without consequences.
The topics discussed in the State Department's annual human rights report unavoidably figure in the course of almost every significant talk between US representatives and their colleagues around the world. And in order to avoid the topics that they find unpleasant, America's partners (assuming, of course, that they want to consider themselves as such) will have to make concessions on other issues that are important to the Americans.
Thus, for the countries that it mentions, the end result of the US State Department's report on human rights is to up the ante in negotiations on other issues with Washington. For example, several years ago Russia was obliged to take a maximally favorable line on a fortified US presence in the former Soviet Central Asian republics in exchange for silencing (or at least muffling) American criticism of the situation in Chechnya.
It turns out that a peculiar division of roles exists between the State Department and the White House. The first points out problems that are painful for America's partners to acknowledge, while the second offers constructive cooperation aimed making these problems magically disappear as long as certain other issues are addressed.
So it is probably no accident that, for Russia, the day of the release of the hard-hitting report on human rights by the State Department coincided with an article in the New York Times that quoted a senior White House official concerning the Bush administration's new plan for cooperation with Russia. The plan foresees more private and active consultations with Moscow on fundamental problems around the world, as well as more personal contact between representatives of the two countries.
It is impossible to separate these two faces of American politics. And to take offense at one of them, or to see in them some kind of plot, is, to put it mildly, short-sighted.
Gennady Sysoyev
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 07, 2007
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