The NTV journalists promptly declared the move "illegal,"
part of a sinister Kremlin plan to shut down the only TV network
that had been critical of Russian policy in Chechnya. "Barricaded
journalists resist a hostile takeover by forces allied with Vladimir
Putin’s Kremlin," shrieks the
New Republic, a magazine notorious for firing editors
insufficiently slavish in their devotion to Al Gore. "The fate of
NTV, the only Russian national television network free of Kremlin
control, hangs in the balance," intones the Financial Times
pompously. "With it hang hopes for genuine media freedom in Russia.
For if NTV fails to retain its independence, other press
organizations will also suffer. And Russia’s weak democracy will be
all the weaker." According to Time, "People close to the
Kremlin have all but admitted…that their move on NTV is politically
motivated. They’ve justified this on the basis that they see NTV as
a rival political party rather than simply a news outlet."
The US Government has been making daily statements expressing
anguish at the plight of NTV. According to State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher, freedom of expression is in grave
jeopardy in Russia because of "political pressure and intimidation
tactics." NTV, he claims, "played an important role in the
development of political and media pluralism in Russia…It is
important that the NTV editorial staff continue to exercise full
control over news and information programming." Based on no evidence
whatsoever, the US Government is accusing the Kremlin of suppressing
free speech. "We’ve seen actions that have led many reasonable
observers to conclude that the campaign against Media-Most is
politically motivated, given the media company’s often outspoken
criticism of the Russian government’s policies," Boucher declares.
"The United States expresses its deep disappointment with setbacks
suffered recently by independent media in Russia." Boucher is also
worried about what rampant capitalism is doing to Russia: "We’ve
been concerned about the lack of open and transparent process in
terms of the shares and the controlling ownership issues, as well as
the overall issue of freedom of speech and freedom of the media in
Russia…So we’re watching this very carefully."
What has really happened at NTV? A company that has been
losing money for years has been taken over by a giant corporation.
The corporation’s first act was to fire a management it deemed
incompetent. It is the sort of thing that happens in the United
States every day. Only when it happens in Russia is free speech
suddenly in jeopardy. Had this been a US corporation taking over an
"anti-establishment" media outlet in the United States business
journalists would have been knocking out drooling stories about the
brilliant Gazprom tycoon who masterminded a sensational coup. There
would be rhapsodies about the total worth of the new company. There
would, of course, be little mention of workers being laid off. Or of
news coverage news coverage giving way to the usual m�lange of
celebrity-puffing, soap reruns and sport. The only issue of any
significance would be how much richer the shareholders have become.
But let shareholders assert themselves in Russia and it’s as if
Stalin is back in the Kremlin.
How Gazprom came to acquire NTV is an intricate story.
Gazprom had been trying to collect debts from Vladimir Gusinsky’s
Media-Most holding company. In 1996 Gusinsky was one of a number of
powerful tycoons surrounding Boris Yeltsin who were terrified that
their man was about to go down to defeat. Gusinsky and Boris
Berezovsky teamed up to ensure Yeltsin’s victory by using their
media outlets to deny his opponents any coverage at all except for
the most unfair and hostile.
Gusinsky was quickly rewarded for his labors. Gazprom was
encouraged to invest $1 billion in Media-Most. The investments came
in several tranches: Gazprom purchased 30 percent of Media-Most’s
NTV subsidiary – Russia’s third largest national television network
– for $130 million. It then bought 14 percent of Media-Most for $260
million. It also guaranteed two loans, for $211 million and $262
million. Gradually Gazprom came to own 46 percent of
NTV.
With Media-Most unable to repay the two loans, Gazprom
Media set out to take over Media-Most’s shares to cover its losses.
This is standard capitalist practice of course. It is how companies
take over other companies. According to Alfred Kokh, General
Director of Gazprom, it was only when Media-Most was unable to meet
its obligations that "Gazprom Media took action to protect its
investment in the firm, now valued at only $200 to $300 million." A
Russian court ruled recently that Gusinsky could not vote the 19
percent stake in Media-Most that Gazprom was trying to seize.
Gusinsky had used the shares as collateral for the loans.
The US coverage of these murky financial transactions has
been the usual combination of tendentiousness and hysteria. Whenever
the US media focus on another country, it is essential that it be
contrasted unfavorably not with the reality of the United States but
the fantasy. Much of the media commentary focuses on the state stake
in Gazprom. Government participation in any media enterprise
precludes it from being free. Evidently government participation in
the presentation of news is unheard of in the West. Most countries
in the world have at least one television network, usually more,
that is state-owned. Even in the super-capitalist United States,
there is such a phenomenon as PBS. Yet the New York Times and
the Washington Post who are much exercised about the fate of
NTV are usually calling for increasing the level of US Government
funding of PBS.
William Safire can always be counted on to whip himself into
lather about the least significant events in Russia. A janitor is
fired somewhere? That means a new Yezhovchina has started. Last June
he started a column in his usual self-aggrandizing ingratiating
style: "I had breakfast recently with the deputy chief of
Media-Most, the last major Russian TV-and-newspaper company to dare
criticize or satirize the men who have ‘democratically’ seized power
in the Kremlin." Safire’s breakfast companion was Igor Malashenko,
who had formerly worked as a propagandist for the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But then no one has ever
accused Safire of being a man of principle. "[A]fter a decade of
blessed free speech in Russia, repressive days are here again,"
Safire sighs.
Safire follows the standard practice of the US Government of
calling an election whose outcome displeases him a "coup." Thus he
invariably refers to Valdimir Putin’s overwhelming election victory
as a "coup." According to Safire, Putin turned against Vladimir
Gusinsky because his "channel’s newscasters do not hew to the
Kremlin line." Odd. Russian prosecutors want him extradited from
Spain because, they claim, he overstated his Media-Most holding
company’s assets to win loan guarantees from Gazprom. These charges
may or may not have merit. We do not know. It is extraordinary
though how people who are willing to believe every accusation of
financial chicanery thrown at Slobodan Milosevic (a man known for
the frugality of his lifestyle), refuse to believe that a wealthy
tycoon who got rich through insider deals in Russia could possibly
have engaged in wrongdoing. Gusinky hardly seems a poster-boy for
free speech. Not to worry; Safire is always ready to turn to a
favorite standby: "Best of all for Putin’s persecution purposes,
Gusinsky is a Jew; unlike Berezovsky and some partners in Oligarchy
Inc., he is not the self-hating, religion-denying kind." How does
Safire know Berezovsky is a "self-hating Jew"? Probably the same way
he knows for sure that the embezzlement case against Gusinky "is
trumped up." Now that Berezovsky and Putin have had a falling out,
doubtless he is a Jew in good standing again.
The New Republic, as usual striving hard to be more
repulsive than any other publication in America, is not content to
pose fraudulently as the champion of press freedom. It has to engage
in its usual racist Slavophobia (last week Sinophobia got its
regular go-around). The Russians, barbarians that they are, could
not care less about freedom: "[A]s NTV’s enemies set about seizing
Russia’s only major independent TV network, not only are the broader
masses not up in arms but many Russians, if not most, are actually
on the government’s side… One recent poll showed that 52 percent of
Russians believe NTV would work the same or better if it belonged to
the government. Another, released last month, revealed that 57
percent want to reintroduce censorship." The New Republic is
hardly one to raise the issue of "censorship." Over the years has
been a firm advocate of the so-called V-chip. "The NTV fight," the
little magazine goes on, "is only Exhibit A of Putin’s drive to
consolidate power. Having cowed parliamentarians in the Duma into
submission, thrown the governors out of the Federation Council, and
silenced the oligarchs who remained after Gusinsky and Berezovsky
were forced out, Putin has no serious opposition left." One wonders
what the New Republic considers to be "opposition." Is anyone
being jailed for his views? Has any political party been suppressed?
Have the police broken up any peaceful gathering? Newspapers are
being closed down – on commercial grounds, much like everywhere else
in the world.
US pundits are unswerving in their demands for the rooting
out of corruption in Russia, the elimination of the so-called
oligarchs, the crackdown on the tax cheats, the calling in of bad
loans. Yet when the Russian Government takes action against a
corrupt oligarch who however enjoys the approval of the US
Government, then it is clearly a case of unjust persecution. The US
media quickly fall into line. Oligarchs who support US foreign
policy overnight become brave fighters for freedom. The US
Government had no problems with the oligarchs so long as their man,
Boris Yeltsin, ensured that Russia remained supine and feeble. A
Russia that blindly supports US foreign policy even when it is
directly contrary to its national interests, as in the case of the
bombing of Yugoslavia, could happily suppress democracy and still
get a clean bill of health from US-funded "human rights" watchdogs
like Freedom House. During the 1996 presidential election the
oligarch-owned media shamelessly promoted the candidacy of the
hapless Yeltsin. Yet USAID, the NED, Human Rights Watch, any of the
innumerable George Soros-funded organizations did not seem to think
the issue merited much attention. In 1993 Boris Yeltsin sent in the
tanks against the Russian parliament. The US Government applauded.
The Western media could not care less about the murder of elected
representatives. But let Russia challenge US interests, however
mildly and ineffectively, as it has done in the post-Yeltsin era and
suddenly the fate of Russia hangs on the fate of an obscure
newspaper that no one had ever heard of up until the
day-before-yesterday. Western concern about the fate of democracy in
Russia is in inverse proportion to Russia’s acceptance of United
States tutelage.
The Safires of this world were cheering on the so-called
"privatization" pursued by Boris Yeltsin so long as it was
strengthening the Yeltsin regime. The media were writing breathless
stories about Russia’s go-go capitalism even as state assets were
being looted. Suddenly it turns out "privatization" was not about
the creation of a free market at all. It was about the enrichment of
a few individuals at the expense of the hardworking masses. This is
shocking news. According to the ever-apoplectic Safire, "Vladimir
Putin was hand-picked by the band of oligarchs who wanted to
maintain iron control of Russia’s economy."
Suddenly it’s "iron control of Russia’s economy." One never
ceases to be amazed at the speed with which the pundits fall into
line with current US policy.
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