"My relations with President Bush is close and frank - those of a partner
and an ally."News From the Soviet Union
Here are some of the statements made by Putin in an interview on October 6, 2003, in Moscow!
"My relations with President Bush is close and frank - those of a partner
and an ally."
"Mr. Bush’s interests in the sphere of fighting radicalism in our countries coincide."
"Yes, there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the question is as to what happened to them?"
" I agree that Russia now is weak and what it holds in the world and what are or are not capabilities as opposed to the USA."
"It took Western Europe centuries to evolve into democracies and while inquisition ended in Europe centuries ago, our inquisition in Russia ended only ten years ago."
"Our country is following an irreversible trajectory towards capitalism?
"Our position vis a vis USA is pragmatic and very flexible."
"We are willing to have US Exxon-Mobil acquire a large stake in the Russian oil company Yukos"
"Boris Yeltsin made decisive achievements in bringing freedom to Russia and my mission is to consolidate those gains. Even if some elements want to change the present path in Russia, it is impossible for this country to make a U-turn."
In other words, Mr. Put-in is a lackey of US Imperialism!
From newspaper
FOR BOLSHEVISM
Bryansk, Russia
Last September 2 Putin signed a decree for calling the upcoming elections to the Russian Duma that will cost any candidate trying to get a cushy seat in the Duma from $70 thousand to $300 million dollars.
It is estimated that there will participate 15-20 parties with their candidates for a seat in the Duma. Each candidate must gather 200,000 signatures in order to qualify to run or if he or she cannot get the 200 thousand signatures, he or she must give a deposit of $1 million dollars.
The question is very logical and relevant - where do these candidates get such money? The candidates of the bourgeois parties are getting subsidized by the business interests, hoping that if elected, these businessmen will benefit from the state orders and coffers.
To be a candidate in the CPRF block could cost you $1.5 million. There are all sorts of shady deals being made between candidates, business interests, governors, mayors and their ilk. Even the present bourgeois media notes that the parties that are now in the DUMA, including the CPRF, have long stopped representing the interests of the masses.
This is shown by just one example - the unity of the bourgeois parties pus the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) has been responsible for passing of many anti-peoples laws in the Duma, such a the new, very reactionary Labour Law that the trade unionists of Russia are struggling against.
The candidates that will fill the seats of the Russian Duma are those that will represent the capitalist class, including also behind the scenes the interests of the transnational corporations of the West and they will follow the dictates of President Putin and the oligarchs to the full.
There is no place for Communists in the present Duma! This is the organ of the bourgeois state, far removed from the interests of the working class or their interests. Duma elections are a game of the big business, we as Bolsheviks have no place in there.
The policy of the All Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks is to boycott the elections. But this boycott means that we must be much more active in this election than ever, in order to present the truth and the ideals of Bolshevism to the electorate and to spread our printed word into every district where all candidates are running!
Statement:
From DeWaarheid
The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia at the Hague has made a decision to give Slobodan Milosevic only three months to prepare his defense. It is an outrageous and scandalous decision. It is a direct violation of the international law, which presumes the equality of sides in a court process.
As is widely known, the ICTY prosecutors have been collecting the evidence for more than four years. In that work, hundreds of the ICTY employees took part. And now it is decided that President Milosevic has to prepare his defense in only three months. He has to collect evidence and to communicate with his witnesses, while being in a prison cell. That is complete absurdity.
The particular cynicism of the ICTY behavior is seen in the fact that Milosevic still doesn’t receive a qualified medical aid, despite the fact that his health condition raises the most serious concern.
All of this is taking place parallel to complete isolation of President Milosevic from his political allies in Yugoslavia and from his family. As is known, the persecution of the members of Milosevic’s family under false excuses has deprived his wife and son of the possibility to visit him at the Hague prison.
We strongly condemn the ongoing attempt of political slaughter of the Serbian leader and the persecution of his family members.
We demand the adjournment of this trial for two years, so that President Milosevic can prepare his defense in an appropriate way.
We insist on his release from detention for the recuperation of his health and for more effective preparation of his defense.
Alexander Zinoviev
Chairman of the Committee
COMMENT:
An excellent letter of protest was signed by many Russian scientists, writers, professors and academic figures. The protest letter is weak, as it does not point the finger at this illegal US set-up and financed court or does it condemn the US-NATO invasion and genocide attacks and dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Also, where is the demand of the United Nations against this travesty of justice?
A Texas Welcome
By Thomas Korosec
Pavel Lashko and Boris Andeev the "New Russians", both students at the University of Texas at Arlington, in America for only about a month when they received a rude cultural lesson that they will not soon forget. In these post Sept. 11th times, young foreign men are not allowed innocent mistakes.
Last September 6th the two students wandered on their bicycles into an employee parking lot of the Arlington police station, looking for someone to give them directions. Rather than giving them answers, police immediately locked them in handcuffs, held them for questioning by an agent of the Department of Homeland Security and charged them with criminal trespassing.
The parking lot was unguarded and it was behind the police station. They did not know that this was a police station and stopped to ask direction to the Indoor Climbing Gym. Nowhere is there a sign stating that this was the parking lot of a police station. There they spotted two police officers when they asked for directions. Instead, the officers ordered them to stop.
The students explained that they are lost and asked for directions. They were asked for their ID’s and produced their UTA student certification cards. After being arrested, the students heard the police officer talk on his radio that "These are Pakistanis." The students yelled back: "No. no, no., we are Russian students".
"We take building security seriously in the wake of 9-11", said Sergeant Will Johnson and he also thought that the students were Middle Easterners.
It seems that the police officers were paranoid and since there are over 3,000 foreign students at the university, the feeling among the students is that they should not be harassed. Arlington police and US Border Patrol criminal investigators, after a long hassle identified these two students that were in the country legally. The local Kiwanis Club posted their bail and are hiring a lawyer for their defense.
The two spent over six hours in jail before one of their roommates arranged for the bail to be paid. They were charged $390 each to post their $750 bails.
The two students said that their American friends were very upset and tried to help them and that if this happened in Russia, the Russians would not help them at all.
Here is a comment from Irina Malenko from N. Ireland who sent us this piece. She wrote: " These "New Russians" showed again their slave mentality. Why aren’t these students raging against the lack of "freedom and democracy" in America or about the violation of their human rights, as they would have raged back at home. These are the representatives of the present privileged class in Russia and they are bought, with their skin and their bones, as the saying goes!"
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