- A row between Russia and America over Moscow's response
to the Beslan tragedy escalated yesterday when George Bush voiced concern
that a sweeping Kremlin security overhaul "could undermine democracy".
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- Hours after Russia warned Washington not to meddle in
its internal affairs, Mr Bush expressed disquiet at moves by his Russian
counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to fight Chechen terrorism by amassing more
power for himself.
-
- "As governments fight the enemies of democracy,
they must uphold the principles of democracy," the president said.
"I'm ... concerned about the decisions that are being made in Russia
that could undermine democracy."
-
- His remarks hinted at US unease that Mr Putin could use
the "war on terror" to roll back post-Soviet reform.
-
- Mr Putin's chief initiative in response to the carnage
at Beslan, blamed on Chechen militants, has involved abolishing elections
for both constituency MPs and regional governors, and appointing the latter
himself.
-
- Mr Bush warned: "Great democracies have a balance
of power between central gov ernments and local governments, a balance
of power within central governments between the executive branch and the
legislative branch and the judicial branch."
-
- The issue is the biggest diplomatic spat between Russia
and the US for four years, in which relations between Mr Putin and Mr Bush
have been relatively good.
-
- But when Colin Powell, the US secretary of state accused
the Kremlin earlier yesterday of "pulling back on some democratic
reforms", it drew a sharp riposte from Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign
minister. "The processes that are under way in Russia are our internal
affair," he said.
-
- Although Mr Powell's rebuke was relatively mild, the
Russian government is not in the mood to accept such criticism so soon
after the Beslan atrocity, in which 320 people died, half of them children.
-
- Mr Lavrov said the US had no right to impose its model
of democracy. "And it is at least strange that, while talking about
a certain 'pulling back', as he [Powell] put it, on some of the democratic
reforms in the Russian Federation, he tried to assert yet one more time
the thought that democracy can only be copied from someone's model,"
Mr Lavrov said, adding pointedly, in view of the outcome of the US 2000
election: "We, for our part, do not comment on the US system of presidential
elections, for instance." He also pointed to repressive measures after
September 11. The US introduced a homeland security law that reversed previous
legal rights, and had held hundreds at Guant·namo Bay in Cuba and
the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan for more than two years without trial.
-
- The outgoing EU commissioner, Chris Patten, was more
outspoken than the US, telling the European parliament yesterday that a
resolution of the Chechen conflict lay in far-sighted and humane policies,
rather than in reversing democracy. He hoped "the government of the
Russian Federation will not conclude that the only answer to terrorism
is to increase the power of the Kremlin".
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- The British government has studiously stayed out of the
row. The Foreign Office decided last week to postpone its annual report
due to be published today, which would have been highly critical of human
rights in Chechnya.
-
- The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has so far refused
to comment on the changes in Russia. Asked on the BBC last week, he said
it was inappropriate so soon after Beslan.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1305414,00.html
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