Asia Times: Who's behind media mogul's arrest?


	June 17, 2000	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Who's behind media mogul's arrest?
By Paul J Saunders

WASHINGTON - The detention of Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky for questioning in an embezzlement case raises important questions about domestic developments in Russia. This is true whether or not Russian Vladimir Putin had advance knowledge of the arrest, which he called ''unexpected'' in comments released during an ongoing trip to Spain.

Gusinsky has been under pressure from the Russian government for a number of months, since his media empire supported former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov against Putin in the run-up to parliamentary elections last fall. The Moscow headquarters of Media-MOST, his media holding company, were raided by heavily armed tax police just a month ago. The raid was purportedly related to illegal surveillance activities by his company's security force. Given Russia's ruthless business environment, the earlier charges are not easy to dismiss.

In the weeks since the May 11 raid, Gusinsky has sought to position himself and Media-MOST as persecuted defenders of Russia's free press because his television station and newspapers have opposed the Putin government and its war in Chechnya. While Gusinsky is right to question the government's motives, pressure on independent media is only a part of reason for the campaign against him.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, a leading democratically-oriented member of the Russian State Duma who serves as deputy chairman of the parliament's Security Committee, argues that the arrest is the latest step in ''a struggle under way between two oligarchs using the presidential administration and its subservient prosecutor's office''. He suggests that the arrest was orchestrated by a group of powerful business and government leaders clustered around Alexander Voloshin, Putin's chief of staff.

Shchekochikhin's perspective is particularly significant given that he also serves as deputy editor of Novaya gazeta, a muckraking Moscow newspaper known for controversial exposes of official corruption and other scandals. Novaya gazeta has itself been a target of government pressure, most recently after publishing an interview with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov that the government's press ministry construed as supporting the Chechen ''terrorists''. Thus Shchekochikhin's emphasis on Kremlin intrigue, rather than an anti-media campaign, has a certain credibility.

Because Gusinsky was detained under Article 90 of Russia's criminal code - which allows the government to hold him for up to 10 days for questioning without filing charges - we should expect further developments soon. First and foremost, of course, the prosecutor general's office must decide whether or not to file formal charges.

Even if no charges are filed, this episode will likely not be the last action against Gusinsky and Media-MOST. As Shchekochikhin noted, there is ''a struggle under way''. The case could easily be kept open as a constant reminder to Gusinsky of his vulnerability.

If, on the other hand, Gusinsky is charged and prosecuted, it will be a major political development in Russia. Despite years of blatant, high-level corruption in Russia, no prominent public figures have been tried for such activities. Gusinsky's case could thus create new rules in Russia's ugly internal squabbles, possibly encouraging greater caution - or greater ruthlessness - by his remaining rivals.

As the process moves forward, three questions loom large:

First, regardless of the outcome of Gusinsky's detention (which is impossible to predict) and the outcome of any criminal case (which is impossible to evaluate lacking the specifics of the case), will the media magnate receive due process? Deviation from appropriate legal procedures would be a discouraging development, particularly given the multiple politically-related motives for targeting him.

Second, will Gusinsky be the first - or the last - of Russia's oligarchs to suffer whatever fate awaits him? If he is the last, political explanations for Gusinsky's removal will become even more compelling. The case against him would then be at best a very selective application of justice. On the other hand, if Gusinsky is but the first victim of a broader move against Russia's oligarchs, the consequences for Russia's political and economic future could be profound. Destroying the oligarchs' hold on the country is a must in creating a level playing field for investors - Russian and foreign alike - and in reducing Russia's pervasive corruption more generally. Yet, in combination with Putin's moves against regional elites, elimination of the oligarchs as a source of independent power could facilitate the emergence of an authoritarian regime in Russia.

Third, what did President Putin really know? He claims that Russia's prosecutor general moved against Gusinsky independently, without his knowledge. Putin made the same claim last month after the raid on the Media-MOST offices - and earlier this year after the detention of Radio Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky - and last fall about the media campaign against Luzhkov and Primakov, who led a key party competing with the pro-Putin Unity party in December's elections.

If Putin did not in fact know about these developments, his lack of control over his own government and political allies is disturbing. If, however, he was aware of them, his continuous attempts to create ''plausible deniability'' give credence to concerns about the political impact of Putin's seventeen-year KGB career.

It is far too soon to make judgments about the implications of Gusinsky's arrest - but it is more than appropriate to consider them.

*Paul J Saunders is the director of The Nixon Center, a non-partisan research organization in Washington, DC

(This article was distributed by The Global Beat Syndicate, a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. (c) 2000 New York University. All Rights Reserved. For more information on Global Beat, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat)