Putin Blamed in Politkovskaya's Diaries

[CHIMO]

Source: Reuters

LONDON -- Slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya's diaries, published in English this week, paint a damning picture of a Russia where democracy is stifled, fascism is on the rise and ethnic minorities are brutally repressed.

For her, one man is to blame -- President Vladimir Putin.

Politkovskaya's hard-hitting account of Russian news and politics over two years, including the State Duma elections in 2003 and the Beslan school siege in 2004, was completed shortly before she was murdered in Moscow in October. She was 48.

The 300-page collection of reportage and reflection


Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/03/23/018.html

[President Kerry]

1. good..

i hope this helps trigger international outrage at that s.o.b. He's no better than Mugabe or Saddam at silencing opposition, and the whole lot of them deserve the same fate.

[shance]

2. Why does something feel so contrived here? How do we know those diaries are legit?

It very well could be that this piece is legitimate and she indeed blames Putin and that Putin is to blame.

On the other hand, how do we know?

This is the same media who lied to us about Lee Harvey Oswald and probably Osama Bin Laden and who knows what else?

Who to believe?

[EstoniaKat]

3. You might want to adjust your tin foil

Politkovskaya has been writing about the decline of freedom in Russia under Putin for years. Unfortunately, it took her assassination for most people in the West to have even heard of her.

I would suggest you pick up a copy of "Putin's Russia", which has been available in English for several years, and then decide.

[TheLastMohican]

4. Sorry

I wouldn't trust that woman who was living on US money grants, had US citizenship and wrote whatever pleased her bosses in Washington. She went as far as to paint every Russian soldier fighting the chechen terrorists with a black paint.
If you ask any Russian about her she is despised there not because she wrote about bad Putin's policy but because she didn't work for Russia.

If anybody would go and press Putin with these diaries they would make things worse, the Russians would rally around s.o.b. as Putin against her.

[jollyreaper2112]

5. hm

I wouldn't trust Putin, either. Yeltsin was their George W. Putin is their...well, he'll probably end up writing his own page in history. Not a Lenin, not a Stalin, probably more comprable to the less famous 20th century dictators.

[EstoniaKat]

7. You obviously have little experience reading anything she wrote

She was very pro-Russian soldier. Especially the draftees, that are beaten and act as virtual serfs for their commanding officers; running errands, planting and harvesting gardens, and running contraband for them. And suffering beatings and hazing on a constant basis.
She showed compassion for the Russian nuclear sub captains, that live on the Pacific, but are not paid. Their families only survive on canned and pickled goods that the families gather in the summer.

You are right in one aspect. Russians don't know that she wrote these stories, because they were told in "Putin's Russia," which was never allowed to be published in Russian in Russia.


Don't think she was telling the truth? Welcome to the new Soviet Union:

Supreme court ban on liberal party wipes out opposition to Putin

[PittPoliSci]

6. Strange that Putin is so popular in Russia.

If her claims are true, that is.

[Psephos]

8. Strange to someone who's not from Russia, perhaps. n/t

[Marie26]

9. Look, Putin is a dictator wanna-be

There's a reason Bush liked him so much. I'm glad Politkovskaya's diaries are coming to light - it means her voice has not yet been silenced.