Investigative journalist killed in Russia

[url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/spicer/20061010.html]Who killed Anna Politkovskaya?[/url]

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Politkovskaya had been one of the rare reporters brave and committed enough to cover the war in Chechnya from the Chechen side. Her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, is considered one of the few independent dailies still in circulation.

She was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies in the rebel province in the Caucasus, accusing him of creating the violent despair that leads to terrorism, for instance, during the bloody hostage-takings at the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow in 2001, and the school in Beslan in 2004.

There is some evidence that could help determine why she died.

At least two closed-circuit television cameras – one in her apartment building, the other in the supermarket where she was buying bottles of mineral water – caught her likely killer on tape.

There are at least four theories on who killed her, and they reveal a lot about Russian society today.

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If the killer is on video there is no excuse for his not being found. If he is killed by others, then THAT investigation will eventually lead to the actual decisionmakers.

If they can't find anyone, that's because it is the secret police itself which comminssioned the killing.

The point being what - that her death was intended as a birthday present? [img]confused.gif" border="0[/img]

It may have been a complete coincidence about Putin and his birthday but then they do tend to play political hardball in Russia. Bankers, Journalists and Opponents of any kind are often dispatched, so it is not impossible that there was a message. I don't know one way or another.Suffice to say she was a thorn in his side.

Moscow News has a few stories about the murder.

The following story quotes Putin himself:

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Anna Arutunyan/MN: Whatever the case, Politkovskaya's death is added to the roster of dozens of journalists killed in Russia (and, contrary to current Western headlines, by far not all of them during Putin's time). The loudest among them - the murders of Vladislav Listyev (1995), Dmitry Kholodov (1994), and Paul Klebnikov (2004) - are still murky, pointing to a trail not so much of a government-sanctioned crackdown on the press, but on debilitating corruption in Russia's law enforcement and siloviki structures (incidentally, Pavlovsky, a pro-Putin analyst, speculated that the Politkovskaya's murder could be linked to siloviki structures). ["siloviki" are ex-security or ex-military people in positions of political power, much like Putin himself - N.Beltov] Probably one of the most sober assessments of the impact of Politkovskaya's murder on the nation's future was given by none other than President Putin. "The influence Politkovskaya had on political life in Russia was very insignificant," he told journalists during a visit to Germany this week. "The murder dealt a more serious blow to the reputation of the government than did her publications."

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The Moscow News piece above presents Politkovskaya as more of a newsmaker or activist rather than a journalist. The impression one gets, from this piece anyway, is of someone better known outside her country than in it.

[url=http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2006-39-4]MN - Journalist murder a conundrum[/url]

[img]http://img.rian.ru/images/5460/60/54606067.jpg[/img]

Gary Kasparov, former world chess champion, has made some public remarks about being worried about his own safety in light of the recent murder of Politkovskaya.

There is also a 25 000 000 Ruble reward for info about the murder of Politkovskaya from the magazine that she worked for. I saved the following quote a few days back but I can no longer find the link.

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Shareholders of [i]Novaya Gazeta[/i] announced a reward in the amount of 25 mln rubles ($930, 000 US) for any information that can help the investigation," said Vitaly Yaroshevsky, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper. He said the editor's office received the offer by e-mail earlier today from Alexander Lebedyev, a member of parliament who is among the newspaper shareholders together with former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev."

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[img]http://english.mn.ru/2006/e38/32.jpg[/img]

Anna Politkovskaya

Here is a link for Politkovskaya's newspaper and the offer of a reward. If you Google the name of the newspaper you can find an online translation of it (not very good). I've had to delete a link as it is causing sidescroll and I've forgotten how to use tiny url. Sorry!

[url=http://novayagazeta.ru/]Official site of Novaya Gazeta (Russian)[/url]

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

Let's muddy the waters as much as possible: it could be Bush! It could be Chechens! It could be
the mafia!

Or, it could be the person on the video which they apparently have, showing the shooting.

If they can't find the killer, it's because there was high-level complicity.

[url=http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/09-10-2006/84949-anna-0]Pravda Online [/url] (not to be confused with the newspaper of the same name) notes:

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Pravda: The radical opposition basically blames the Kremlin for the tragedy since it initiated a campaign against the liberals and the human rights activists accusing them of cooperating with the West to Russia’s disadvantage. [b]However even the harshest opposition does not assume the government’s direct involvement in the crime. [/b]

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It seems that some critics of Putin [i]outside of Russia[/i] DO assume the government's direct involvement in the crime. Maybe they just don't trust the ROOSKIES or something. [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]

Pravda is now what could be called a Russian nationalistic online publication. It's a tabloid style with a curious mixture of serious stuff along with alien abductions. The paper by that name is more on the left in Russia.

[i]Siloviki[/i] corruption, rather than straight out complicity by the Putin regime, seems pretty plausible to me. Politkovskaya made a lot of enemies by virtue of her work. Even in Canada investigative journalists have to be very careful. I know one of them - and he always puts his own name in the background of anything he's involved with (outside of his investigative journalism job) so as not to get any publicity whatsoever. If such precautions are taken in Canada - what about Russia?

Mind you, no place that I can think of is as dangerous for journalists, of all types, as present-day Iraq. The US authorities trying to kill the Italian journalist is well known.

I'm not familliar with all the ins and outs of the Russian legal system of today. I get the impression that, like many other countries, corruption is a real problem. You get what you pay for, as it were. Well, hopefully, with the million dollar reward, the perpetrators will be apprended and prosecuted.

It seems that the restoration of capitalism in Russia for 15 years hasn't done much for their civil society, has it?

One of the ironies about her death is that the discussion in the west is about who killed her more than a story about what her outrage was at the war in Chechnya. A discussion on that war would have been a better memorial to her work.

Seems to be part of a spate of killings:

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[url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aGS5MxeCajYs&refer=e... News Agency Itar-Tass Executive Killed in Moscow [/url]

By Sebastian Alison

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The business chief of Russian news agency Itar-Tass, Anatoly Voronin, was killed last night in his apartment in central Moscow, the agency reported.

Death was the result of multiple knife wounds, according to police, Itar-Tass reported. Several theories are being investigated, the agency said.

The body of 55-year-old Voronin was found at his home by his driver, the news agency said. He had worked at the agency for 23 years. His death is the latest in a spate of high-profile killings in Russia in little over a month.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
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Finding the killer is a test for Russia. Failure will suggest complicity.[/b]

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I guess they failed a similar test with flying colours in the USSA when three Bush family biographers suicided themselves. What do you think the odds were, Jeff? Then there was UN weapons specialist David Kelly, 1.5 million Iraqis from Crazy George I through Crazy George II, thousands of U.S. soldiers sent home in plastic bags, a few hundred thousand Afghans, Serbs, and a bit of "peripheral" damage by those multi-billion dollar "smart bombs" ... etcetera. Democracy-shamocracy, isn't that right, comrade comissar?

[ 18 June 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

So, they've charged some people, but the shooter remains at large and the alleged link to the Security Services (i.e. the one who can tell us who ordered the murder) gets charged with a lesser offence.

It reminds me of how three privates and a lieutenant are the ones convicted for Abu Ghraib.

If it were a competition, we'd have to include things like the attempted poisoning of the present Premier of the Ukraine.

But it isn't a competition, and even though Iraq is an ongoing atrocity, it is important to remain vigilant elsewhere.

During the time of the Gulag, Soviet defenders always would say: "What about the negroes in the South", because they didn't want any attention on what they were doing.

Let's not make that same mistake with Putin.