>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >RUSSIA INFO-LIST - >from International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - ISWoR >********************************************************************* >If you appreciate receiving this mail please distribute it to your friends and >post it to internet forums; if not, send a "no more" message to: >International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >*********************************************************** >ISWoR web-site - http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html >*********************************************************** > >SHOULD WORKERS SUPPORT BABITSKY? > >Below is an abridged version of an article by Lisa Taylor. The full version, >and a selection of other documents and statements on the Chechen war, are now >available in a "Discussion" section of our website at the following URL: > >http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/discuss/Chechen.html > >SHOULD WORKERS SUPPORT BABITSKY? > >by Lisa Taylor (abridged version) > >Andrei Babitsky, journalist with Radio Free Europe, has gone missing in >Chechnya. His reports roused the anger of the Russian authorities’Ķ. > >In the west there has been a mounting reaction, not just from the US-funded >human rights organisations ’Ķ but also from the media and the governments >themselves. ’Ķ. Romano Prodi has demanded on behalf of the EU an >on-the-ground >investigation into Babitsky’Äôs disappearance; from the OSCE to the US State >Department, from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to NATO Sec-Gen >George Robertson, from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to President >Clinton - all the western top brass have added their voices of hypocritical >outrage. Hypocritical because, it must be remembered, the forces who >conducted the NATO bombing of civilians in Serbia, in Iraq, the US and >European support for countless bloody dictatorships can hardly be considered >as spokesmen for humanitarianism and democracy. > >This is not to deny the barbaric nature of Putin’Äôs intervention into >Chechnya, but simply to remind (if it indeed needs to be reminded at all) of >the bloodsoaked record of those leaders. > >In Russia, after months of parroting of the regime’Äôs line on Chechnya, some >powerful media interests are now attacking the Kremlin’Äôs handling of the >war, >and have granted important space to the Babitsky case’Ķ’Ķ While the west has >reported this new development as an awakening of the "independent" and >honourable side of the Russian media, in fact it represents nothing of the >kind. Rather, it expresses the flaring up again of a major inter-capitalist >dispute that has been going on for some time between two rival groups of >Russian oligarchs, one with its power base in the Kremlin, the other allied >to Moscow mayor Luzhkov and owning a large proportion of NTV and related >media.. > >But lately it is not just capitalist leaders, NATO, and competing Russian >oligarchs raising their voices for Babitsky. A significant minority of the >western left has recently come under this spell too. Certain Marxist groups >who have come on the streets to protest the NATO’Äôs bombing of civilians in >the Balkans, anarchists who have battled the police in Seattle ’Ķ are now >finding themselves in alliance with right-wing campaigners over Babitsky. >What is going on? > >Who is Babitsky, and more importantly, what is Radio Free Europe, which he >has served for the past ten years? > >In 1991 Babitsky was decorated by Yeltsin for his coverage of the events that >brought him, Yeltsin, to power. But this is not at all the point. Like all >journalists working for the merged broadcasters Radio Free Europe/Radio >Liberty (RFE/RL, or Radio Svoboda), Babitsky’Äôs brief was to cover events in >a >way that would please [his] directors ’Ķ, and by extension, their political >masters, the US capitalists. > >The history of RFE/RL is notorious. It was born as an official affiliate of >the CIA at the dawn of the Cold War’Ķ > >Through the Cold War years the stations were famous for the McCarthyite >nature of their broadcasts. ’Ķ Their directors were prepared to use any and >all anti-Soviet forces (except anti-capitalist ones!) in their work. So, for >example, the wartime nazi collaborators and unreconstructed fascists Trifa >and Stankevich became broadcasters for RFE/RL ’Ķ > >Today the RFE/RL continues to receive US money (they themselves admit to a >budget of $70 million for the year 2000, although the real figure is >undoubtedly much higher) and to act on behalf of US capitalist interests. >Their director Tom Dine, doubled for years as a top executive with the USAID >- the main US agency responsible at the beginning of the nineties for >restoring capitalism and implementing privatisation in Russia. > >It is important to remember just how devastating the consequences of the >restoration of capitalism have been in Russia. A decade of privatisation has >created a situation of mass poverty. With millions unpaid or unemployed as a >result of mass redundancies, there is severe hunger, third-world style TB and >other epidemics. The freezing weather claims countless lives while heating >fuel is exported to the west. The average life expectancy of a Russian worker >(once close to western levels), is now just 56. > >The policies actively promoted by Radio Free Europe and its sister station >Radio Liberty have played, and continue to play, a major role in this >devastation of workers’Äô lives.. > >RFE/RL devote an entire section of their internet website to the latest >progress in NATO expansion eastward. They make no attempt to disguise their >enthusiastic support for this’Ķ > >Some left-wingers, motivated by their genuine and justified solidarity for >the ordinary Chechen people, have asked "But surely it is right to support >ALL the antiwar forces on this issue, left or right, after all, it is Russia >who is the aggressor here, and Putin the main enemy." > >In any war-torn region of the world, and especially in the Caucasus, there is >a complex interplay of forces going on, a rivalry of different capitalist >interests, in which national and ethnic hatreds are stirred up and >manipulated as a weapon by capitalists NOT JUST to distract and derail >workers struggle at home, NOT JUST to aid the expansion of the rich elite of >one country, but also as a weapon used BY ONE NATION’ÄôS SET OF CAPITALISTS >against another. > >That this last factor is present in the Chechen war (and is in fact the wider >context in which all the events are actually occurring) is not well >understood by most of the western left, who see the war only only as a tool >of Putin, to ensure his own power and further the interests of the Russian >energy barons in the Caspian. They do not see or talk about the massive role >of the anglo-American oil barons, or the role of European and other >capitalists (often in competition to both Russian and US interests). One of >the most striking (and least reported) features of the war was the massive >haste with which the US tied up multi-billion dollar contracts with the >Caspian- bordering countries for its planned Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, a pipeline >dreamed up by US strategists in 1999 with the specific aim of bypassing >Russian territory. > >But isn’Äôt the US in close alliance with Putin, and isn’Äôt this why NATO has >taken no direct military action against Russia up till now? After all it was >the US who put Yeltsin into power, wasn’Äôt it? > >That the US capitalists have up till now failed to intervene militarily >against Russia is due to one simple reason - caution. They are aware that >they cannot deal with Russia as they did with Serbia. Belgrade could never >launch nuclear weapons at them in response to attack. Moscow can. > >For most of the last decade it would have been possible to speak of the US >and Russian capitalists in harmonious partnership. However, the rouble >collapse and debt default of 1998 cut millions of workers and pensioners’Äô >living standards (already low) in half and aroused the mass anger of the >population against Yeltsin. The IMF responded by cutting off all credits to >Russia, demanding that the oligarchs reach into their own pockets, and also >cut back drastically on social welfare provision at a time when it was more >needed than ever. An anti-western and especially anti-American feeling began >to grow rapidly among all classes. Yeltsin was hated for his "comprador" >role. Ultra-nationalism was given a massive boost. > >Then when NATO intervened in the Balkans, both rich and poor Russians >correctly perceived this as a stepping stone to political conquest of the >energy-rich Caspian region. To control world energy resources is to control >world power. The US billionaires were taking no chances in a post-Soviet >world where the emergence of the EU, rapidly growing China and the link up of > either of these giants with Russia would be a major threat to their position >as the number one economic power. Russia, now politically unstable due to the >mass poverty, could no longer be trusted. Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin, >yesterday’Äôs "democratic" heroes, desperate to save their political skins, >went on television dropping dark hints of nuclear war’Ķ. A new Cold War had >begun. > >As workers, as internationalists, we do not side with any of the capitalist >elites - neither Russian, nor American, nor European, nor any other in the >area. ’Ķ Yes, it is acceptable to make a temporary united front with the >reactionary government of tiny Chechnya against the aggression by the >military superpower Russia, while trying our best at the same time to build >unity between the millions of ordinary Russian and Chechen people, with the >aim that workers and poor people will eventually overthrow their bosses’Äô >elite in both countries. But we cannot extend our temporary unity with >Maskhadov to include unity with the most powerful capitalist force in the >world - the US’Ķ. > >Surely [Russian workers] would support a Chechnya solidarity campaign >organised by western workers’Äô organisations? > >The advanced and internationalist-minded Russian worker activists understand >very well the class nature of western (and all) societies. They do not get >misled by the class-collaborationist lies of Russian nationalists. They try >to explain that the killing of Chechen civilians and the wasting of Russian >young men’Äôs lives is for Putin’Äôs career, not for some mythical "national >interest". ’Ķ But if Russians hear that workers in the west are shouting for >Babitsky, for Radio Free Europe, what then? How are they to explain this to >the millions of workers inundated day and night with nationalist propaganda. >Will the workers not just say "The patriots are right, they are united with >their capitalists in a project to destroy us all!" > >With treacherous acts like supporting Babitsky we will destroy the precious >efforts of those brave militant activists who have been prepared to stick >their necks out at a time when the Government, and the largest force on the >"left", Zyuganov’Äôs Communist Party, as well as most of the population, has >been supporting the war. > >To support Babitsky is to take the sides of US bosses against the bosses and >the workers of another country, Russia. And indeed against all the workers of >that region, including the Chechens ... A continuation of the war, a >prolonging of the suffering and murder of Chechens would serve US capitalist >interests perfectly ’Ķ After all, this will guarantee the profitability of >the >US preferred pipeline, the Baku-Ceyhan, for no Caspian government will make >contracts to ship oil through a country eternally at war. > >But isn’Äôt the concept of journalistic freedom, of the need for independent >journalists to be able to move all over the world without political >interference or control, a universal value that we all should support, if we >believe in democracy? > >There is no such thing as an "independent" political journalist. Every >journalist is under political control - the control of his editors and those >who finance his paper, radio, TV station etc... In fighting for Babitsky we >are not defending "independent" journalism. We are defending the right of a >powerful and well-financed giant radio network with 35 million listeners, >dedicated to promoting free-market and pro-US capitalist policies, to give >its view of the war over that of the Russian capitalist view.. > >There are thousands of people missing in Chechnya - old people, sick people, >children. Some may be in Russian camps, some trapped in Grozny under >bombardment, some trying to escape on mined and bombed roads. It would make >sense to try to compile a list of such people, and for workers >internationally to present a demand to Putin - where are they?. The workers’Äô >movement internationally must (as International solidarity with Workers in >Russia - ISWoR does) support the efforts of Russian worker activists who try >to explain the true nature of the war and its role in derailing workers’Äô >struggles’Ķ.. But photos of Babitsky and the mention of Radio Free Europe on >our demo’Äôs against the war, will only deliver Russian workers, on a silver >platter, into the waiting arms of the ultra-nationalists. And with it, the >hopes and longings of the suffering Chechen people. >END >***************************************************************************** > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
