Russia is "unfree" and unfit to head the G-8

By Aussiegirl

Echoing our thoughts here at UT, the Jamestown Organization states the obvious -- Russia is as unfit to head the G-8 as the Sudan was to chair the U.N.'s Commission on Human Rights. It is perhaps a good thing that Putin has chosen this blatant way of showing his stripes. By being willing to thuggishly use gas as a political weapon, he has unmasked himself and his increasingly autocratic regime as being incompatible with the normal course of business in the club of civilized nations. Putin has demonstrated once and for all that Russia is a rogue regime which cannot be trusted to keep its agreements or honor its business contracts.

AS RUSSIA IS DOWNGRADED TO "UNFREE" IS IT UNFIT TO HEAD THE G-8? - Eurasia Daily Monitor

It is perhaps fitting that the Ukraine-Russia gas conflict has rekindled debates whether Russia truly belongs in the prestigious Group of Eight (G-8) advanced liberal democratic market economies. As the Wall Street Journal Europe (January 3) editorialized, "All of this makes Russia's assumption of the G-8 presidency this month not just ironic but almost as absurd as when Sudan chaired the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Moscow's inclusion in the club was never (and still isn't) justified on economic grounds." The conservative Daily Telegraph (January 3) was even blunter: "The West has to tell Russia that, plainly and simply, its conduct is unacceptable if it wishes to remain part of the club of civilized nations."

In its 2006 world human rights report, the New York-based human rights group Freedom House downgraded Russia from "partly free" to the status of "unfree" (freedomhouse.org). It upgraded Ukraine from "partly free" to "free."

The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute is therefore no longer a conflict between two former Soviet republics but a conflict between an autocratic, non-democratic regime headed by "Putin's Mafia Politics" (Wall Street Journal Europe, January 3) and a democratizing regime headed by Viktor Yushchenko. As the Daily Telegraph (January 3) pointed out, "The methods of gangsterism and blackmail now being used by [Russian gas giant] Gazprom are reminiscent of the Soviet era."

Russia's downgrading to "unfree" places it on a par with other autocratic, non-democratic post-Soviet regimes, such as Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan was promoted to "partly free" due to its "Tulip Revolution" in March 2005.

Russia was downgraded in part due to its growing hostility toward non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society. In late December 2005 both houses of the Russian parliament approved

NRO's Jim Geraghty has a few thoughts as well:

There's a silver lining to Putin using the the state-owned company and its natural gas supplies in a raw attempt to influence Ukranian politics - it's a great clarifier. Please, Mr. President, no more "I looked in his eyes and saw the soul of a good man." The man's a power-hungry thug and felt poisoning Yushchenko's soup wasn't enough. We know what we're dealing with now. We cannot trust Putin.