Kasparov Pins Hopes on Obama

The Moscow Times
Issue 4181 / News
06 July 2009

Reuters — U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to meet Kremlin
critics while visiting Russia shows that Washington is no longer
willing to ignore democracy and human rights to cut deals with Moscow,
opposition leader Garry Kasparov said.

Obama will meet representatives of nongovernmental organizations
during his trip to Moscow, and he will also see opposition figures
including Kasparov, a former chess champion who has become one of the
Kremlin’s harshest critics.

`I think the fact of the meeting is more important than anything
else,’ Kasparov said in an interview Friday.

`It sends a signal the [U.S.] administration is probably ready to end
this application of double standards which has been used for Putin’s
Russia by foreign leaders for many years,’ Kasparov said.

Kremlin critics say Western leaders have at times toned down criticism
of Russia’s human rights violations, its poor record on democracy and
its government-dominated media landscape to pursue lucrative business
deals and win Moscow’s cooperation.

`What we always wanted is for America and other Western countries not
to support Putin’s regime by pretending that Putin’s regime was
democratic,’ Kasparov said.

Kasparov heads The Other Russia movement, which relies mainly on
street protests ‘ often broken up by police ‘ and online campaigning
to get its message across. State-controlled media ignore him.

Kasparov will meet Obama along with Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov
and two other leaders of small pro-Western opposition parties ‘ Boris
Nemtsov of Solidarity and Sergei Mitrokhin from Yabloko. Obama has no
meeting scheduled with Boris Gryzlov, the parliamentary leader of the
main pro-Kremlin party, United Russia.

Kasparov predicted that the worsening economic crisis in Russia would
lead to a change in power and that the opposition would gather more
support.
Russians were willing to live without democracy when the country was
said. But they are becoming increasingly angry now that the country is
mired in a deep recession.

`Probably within the next 12 months, the political landscape will look
very different. ¦ I think that eventually the regime will crunch
under the pressure of civil protest,’ he said, declining to describe
specific political changes.

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