Was the above headline written by any of the numerous communist newspapers in Russia, or uttered by the leader of some Communist Party?
Absolutely not! It was an anti-Soviet newspaper in Toronto, Canada, called The Sun - and also - by its writer who certainly has no love, understanding or admiration for anything that even looks "left"!
If this Matthew Fisher, who is on a temporary assignment in Russia, is able to dig up this terrible indictment of life under Capitalism in Russia, sometimes we at NSC wonder as to why the patriotic movements there cannot unite their ranks and even on this issue alone organize the population in order to get rid of these tyrants, that even Western capitalist apologists have a hard time making excuses for? Below we publish this article in full, with thanks to Matthew Fisher, the globe-trotting correspondent of the Toronto Sun newspaper.
It is a wonder and a disgrace that anyone in the Washington-based IMF or in the Clinton White House is surprised by the allegations that senior officials in Moscow stole between US $10 billion and US $15 billion and stashed it in the West.
As Bill Clinton, John Major, Helmut Kohl and Jean Chretien were slapping Boris Yeltsin on his back in the lavish, renovated state rooms of the Kremlin a couple of years ago, congratulating the Russian president for having transformed his country into a market economy, and doing everything they could to encourage Yeltsin's countrymen to reelect him, the plundering of Russia was already proceeding at a fantastic pace.
Even VIPs traveling to Moscow for just one or two days in a cocoon of bodyguards and advisors could have got a sense of what was going wrong there if they wanted to. Sweeping into the capital in high speed motorcades, they would have to be blind not to notice that although Russia has always a begging bowl out, there are far more top-of-the- line Mercedes-Benz and BMW sedans on the road than in any western city except, perhaps Beverley Hills, Ca., USA.
It is not uncommon to see $100,000 black Mercedes-Benz 4x4s bearing presidential administration plates parked until the wee hours of the morning outside casinos where weapons scanners and sky betting limits are de regeur. It is the same obscene story near outrageously expensive hotels such as the Metropol and the National or even Russia's State Bank.
While swarms of babushka's (women) beg for kopeks in the Metro tunnels nearest the Kremlin, fleets of chauffeur-driven German luxury sedans wait for thousands of faceless politicians and bureaucrats.
Western investigators would do well to talk to foreign businessmen and financiers about what tricks they employ in Russia where corruption is as commonplace as vodka. They should also closely examine the books of every western company doing significant business in Russia.
In big, small and often imaginative ways, Westerners have gleefully abetted those who have looted Russia.
The former manager of a Finnish company with extensive operations in Moscow which cater to Russia's obscenely well-heeled elite told me how she kept everything running smoothly for years. She sent platters piled high with smoked salmon and other delicacies to leading municipal administrators every morning.
A British agent who works for a well-known multinational corporation explained to me recently what it took for him to build a big factory in Moscow. Scores of municipal officials whose approval was required were handed British visas and tickets to London. The trips were ostensibly to familiarize officials with the company's operations. In fact the bureaucrats were given rooms at swank hotels by Hyde Park and several thousand dollars for any "expenses". The factory manager chortled as he explained that the travelers invariably spent their days shopping and their nights at grand restaurants and clubs.
A respected American investment bank spent a small fortune to hire a well-connected former Soviet oil executive as the boss of its Moscow office. The man's principal duty was to arrange luncheons and dinners with very senior government officials so the bank could discuss the placement of Western loans.
This same bank often arranged British, German and Swiss visas for meetings with government officials which could have been held much more easily in Moscow. The officials whose expenses were all paid for by the bank, insisted that they wouldn't discuss anything about the money that Russia was being given unless they could travel to the West.
At a chance meeting in a restaurant in London last summer, a senior investment banker from the same company volunteered that his company's Moscow operation attracted snakes willing to close their eyes to almost anything because it was possible to make very, very big bucks there.
Investigators tracing what has happened to the billions given to Russia and the billions which have disappeared from privatized former state enterprises, should cast a wide net.
A good place to start might be with real estate agents who work London's toniest neighborhoods. Several of these agents gleefully acknowledged that an endless parade of Russians with bottomless pockets, including diplomats and government officials, have replaced Saudis and Iranians as their best customers.
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