Inconvenient Journalists

Russia - at least her former president, has long had a problem with nosy journalists, those scourges and scolds who appear so confoundingly able to uncover monstrously-embarrassing activities that the state engages in, hidden from public view. Their unfortunate determination to air charges of human rights abuses must surely rate as a conspiratorial effort by Russia's many enemies, within and without its geography, to raise an aura of criminal infamy where none exists.

Prime minister Vladimir Putin is as puzzled as anyone about the sad fate of so many of Russia's journalists who have stubbornly undertaken to uncover human rights abuses by their government. His metaphorical shoulder-shrugs have been substantially successful in separating him from the violent acts of mysterious assassinations of those who bring opprobrium to his solid reputation as an human-rights-observing politician.

Not his fault if impetuously-determined news hounds think it's their patriotic duty to unveil instances of what they purport to be executive-branch decisions that diminish the quality of Russian responsibility to human rights obligations. This is a hard world we inhabit, and if people are incautious enough to make enemies of - that is, those who feel that the government is administering the affairs of Russia well and properly - government simply has its hands tied; it cannot be everywhere at once, protecting the physical well-being of those critical of them.

Add yet another Russian journalist to those who fear that their lives will be ended just as surely as the (incautious) assassinated, murdered, despatched, violated, silenced and butchered Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova, Natalya Estemirova, Gadzhi Abashilov, Anatoly Voronin, Vladislav Listyev, Dmitry Kholodov, Viktor Popkov, and others. Mikhail Voitenko too now fears for his life, and has fled his native country.

He has been encouraged to do so by unnamed but sinister-voiced government spokespeople whose telephone warnings he has had little option but to heed: "I was advised to leave. I'm afraid." They said, "Mikhail, we've all had enough of you!" They said, "There are serious people who are behind this case and they are very upset." Well, in Russia, one does not, with impunity, upset serious people.

And seriously, claiming that it is highly likely that the hi-jacking of the Arctic Sea cargo ship reflected undercover manoeuvrings by government agents to deliver, undetected by the world at large - and most importantly, Israel or the United States - fissionable materials, or missiles, or other highly advanced weapons systems, is not guaranteed to earn one longevity and acclaim in this world. Well, one of the two, anyway.

A hold-full of timber to Algeria was not likely to be the cause of an off-coast hi-jacking, nor the purported 'disappearance' of a large ocean-going vessel. Mr. Voitenko is not alone in wild speculations that the ship was in fact carrying a clandestine weapons cache meant for delivery in the Middle East. The likeliest destination appears to have been identified as Iran, perhaps Syria, no really big surprise.

Mr. Voitenko isn't exactly going out on a limb, describing cloak-and-dagger operations, since the European Union's rapporteur on piracy and just incidentally a former commander of the Estonian armed forces, Admiral Tarmo Kouts, was quoted in Times magazine: "There is the idea that there were missiles aboard, and one can't explain this situation in any other way."

As there is little love lost between Russia and Estonia it is not surprising that Russia's envoy to NATO, issued a terse statement about Admiral Kouts needing to stop "running his mouth".

Perhaps, given the high profile-interest turned on this peculiar event and the many unanswered questions hanging over it, which official Russia seems imperviously determined to ignore, Mr. Voitenko's sojourn in Turkey will be a safe one. Even arrogant autocrats don't like to bring more attention to themselves than they need to, when all eyes are already turned in suspicion on them. Life can be so unfair; they'll have to sop it up.

Meanwhile, there are a number of 'pirates' in Russian custody, and the Russian crew members of the temporarily-boarded-and-abducted vessel are saying nothing, on stringent instructions. And then there is the curious fact that Russia's force-disproportionate dispatching of destroyers and submarines to look for a ship carrying lumber appears peculiar beyond rationality.

Oh yes, eleven crew members and the eight pirates rated two huge military cargo planes to fly them to Russia? Howkum?