The Godfather
FINROSFORUM // The Finnish-Russian Civic Forum strives to promote cooperation between the peoples of Finland and Russia by supporting civic initiatives for democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech.
I want to thank the organisers of this event for inviting me to take part. I am delighted to be here in Finland and to speak about a subject, which is important to the Baltic people, which is known in Finland also, but which is less known in the rest of Western Europe. That subject is Soviet Communism and its legacy today.
A row of wooden stakes with puppet heads stood planted in a forest camp along Seliger Lake in central Russia attended by 20,000 young Russians in July 2010. Mounted above the heads was a large red slogan in Russian, declaring "We are not glad to see you here." The puppets depicted Western political figures, including Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and five judges of the European Court for Human Rights, as well as members of the Estonian Parliament and an assortment of Russian opposition leaders. A Nazi cap adorned each puppet. The camp's organizer was the official Russian Federal Agency for Youth Affairs. Additional "organizational support" came from the Nashi movement, a pro-Kremlin youth group known for its harassment of journalists, human rights activists, and foreign officials. Joining Nashi and the Kremlin in backing the camp was a roster of major Western companies. Intel, Mercedes-Benz, and Tupperware were named as partners or sponsors of the forum. Representatives of two other companies, KPMG and Siemens, also took part in the event.
Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, has told the media that new leaks would expose more secrets not only about the US military but about other "repressive regimes," such as Russia and China. However, Russian reaction may not be as reserved as America's. Is WikiLeaks really ready to take on the world's more callous states? It is certainly talking the talk. In an interview published on 26 Octover 2010, in Russia's leading daily newspaper, Kommersant, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said that "Russian readers will learn a lot about their country" after one of the site's upcoming document dumps. "We want to tell people the truth about the actions of their governments." So far Russia has had no official response. An official at the Center for Information Security of the FSB, Russia's secret police, gave a warning to WikiLeaks: "It is essential to remember that given the will and the relevant orders, [WikiLeaks] can be made inaccessible forever," the anonymous official told the independent Russian news website LifeNews. Some observers say WikiLeaks presents a far more serious challenge to Russia's security services than the sources of previous leaks. For one thing, WikiLeaks has established a reputation for publishing authentic documents, which means the Russian press would be more likely to cover the story and republish the files. The most likely Russian reaction would be to undermine the authenticity of the alleged secrets. "The main tool is to filter it through the state-controlled mass media, which would discredit WikiLeaks and put into question the reliability of its sources," says Nikolai Zlobin, director of the Russia and Eurasia Project at the World Security Institute in Washington, DC. Zlobin says it would take something extremely damning to rattle Russia's political elite: "Russians already believe that their leaders steal and funnel money into offshore banks. It would have to give shocking details about Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, and even then, the complete apathy toward politics would absorb a lot of the shock waves."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2028283,00.html
