Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 4 – The death of
naval personnel in the latest submarine disaster is a human tragedy and should
not be transformed into a political battle between those who believe in the
government and those who don’t, Vladimir Pastukhov, a London-based Russian
political commentator.
But that doesn’t mean that the event
and the way it is being handled by the powers that be is not an appropriate
time to focus on another tragedy, the absence of divisions of power which
ensure that more than one side will investigate what happened and report
accordingly, he continues (echo.msk.ru/programs/personalnovash/2456323-echo/).
Instead, in Russia, where there is
no division of powers, the Kremlin is in a position to insist on its point of
view without any possibility that there will be any independent investigations.
And because an increasing number of Russians do not believe whatever the
government says, that transforms what should be viewed as a human tragedy into
a political one.
Those who support the government
will insist that whatever it says is true; and those who oppose it will argue
that the government is lying and, more than that, is guilty of everything that
has gone wrong, an attitude that means that events like this one are a
political tragedy not just for the country as a whole but for the regime
itself.
Over time, some but likely not all
information about the tragedy will leak out, but because it will do so in that
way, those on these two sides will choose from it what they want, thus
reinforcing their positions rather than leading to any willingness to recognize
the complexity of the case.
In normal countries, Pastukhov continues,
the executive may want to keep things secret; but the parliaments will hold
hearings and more will get out in a way that will contribute to the formation
of a common opinion about the tragedy rather than the tragedy growing worse
because it will cause those favoring the regime and those opposing it to move
ever farther apart.
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