Agence France Presse — English
April 14, 2007 Saturday

Detained chess champ plots next move against Putin

by Sebastian Smith

MOSCOW

As chess champion Garry Kasparov was almost unbeatable, but from the
Moscow police station where he was held Saturday the great tactician
pondered a much tougher game — how to bring down Russian President
Vladimir Putin.

Kasparov, who made mincemeat of his opponents for 15 years after he
became World Chess Champion in 1985, is one of the disparate figures
leading The Other Russia coalition that held a banned protest march
Saturday in central Moscow.

Some 200 people were detained, among them the former chess king, when
they defied a police warning and attempted to march on the capital’s
Pushkin Square.

Kasparov, a famously aggressive chess player, clearly thought the
risk of arrest worthwhile — particularly given the huge
international media presence at the rally.

"I’m not surprised, I think Kasparov wanted that, so now he’s happy,"
commented another opposition leader, Irina Khakamada.

The same strategy of peaceful disobedience was used at two previous
Other Russia marches in the former imperial capital Saint Petersburg
and Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, resulting in beatings and
arrests. Moscow police were furious.

Kasparov was arrested because "he came and began to provoke police
into taking harsh action, while knowing that the demonstration on
Pushkin Square was forbidden," a police spokesman was quoted as
saying by Interfax.

This intense man of 44, recognisable by his bushy eyebrows and dark
features, makes an unlikely political leader in today’s Russia.

Half-Jewish, half-Armenian and born during the Soviet Union in
Azerbaijan, he is automatically a hate figure for Russia’s
significant number of ultra-nationalists. And his fierce opposition
to Putin is out of step with the vast majority shown by polls to
admire the former KGB officer.

But Kasparov’s main talent seems to lie in coordinating Russia’s
fractured and marginalised opposition.

The Other Russia, which he helped found, includes figures as
disparate as a little-loved former premier Mikhail Kasyanov, the
enigmatic writer and radical left leader Eduard Limonov, and a series
of youth groups.

Their stated goal is to ensure that the March 2008 presidential
election, in which Putin is to be replaced, will be fair.

"Our demands are simple," Kasparov said when he announced his
retirement two years ago. "It’s about putting pressure on Putin’s
regime to restore democratic institutions."

Life on the political chessboard has been far from easy.

After the brutal murder in Moscow of investigative journalist Anna
Politikovskaya, a fierce Putin critic, in October Kasparov said he
feared for his safety.

"I try to protect myself and my family as much as possible but I am
aware that no protection is possible," he said in an interview
published in a Portuguese daily.

During a 2005 tour to meet grass roots groups in the troubled North
Caucasus region, Kasparov found his way repeatedly blocked.

Planned venues for meetings were mysteriously closed ahead of his
arrival and police stood by as youths hurled eggs and tomato sauce.

Kasparov gives the impression of being angry, but he apparently
retains a sense of humour.

After being hit by a member of the public with a chess board, he
quipped: "I’m glad that in the Soviet Union the popular sport was
chess and not baseball."