The 'March Against Scoundrels,' one of the largest opposition

rallies of the Putin era, Jan. 13. The suspicious death of lawyer

Sergei Magnitsky and a Russian law prohibiting the adoption of

Russian orphans by Americans were the triggers for the march.

 

 

Russia Should Expand Ban on Adoptions By Americans to People of Other Nations (Izvestia, Russia)

 

"Russia, which is rapidly becoming extinct, has no moral right to hand her children over to other countries. ... Moreover, the United States is full of orphans of its own, with some astounding figures being cited - around 600,000, according to 2009 estimates. ... Now you can pounce on me and again call me a cannibal - a cannibal who makes disgusting insinuations against the American middle class ... You can pounce, but reality will continue to make its politically incorrect grimace.”

 

By Eduard Limonov*

                                   

 

Translated By Anastassia Tapsieva

 

January 18, 2013

 

Russia - Izvestia - Original Article (Russian)

It may be about orhphans today, but it all goes back to Sergei Magnitsky: His death in a Russian prison, after implicating top officials in a major tax fraud scheme, is widely regarded as a murder-cover-up in the West, and resulted in the U.S. Magnitsky law, which targets Russian officials. Now Moscow has passed its own legislation in retaliation. The trouble is, the Dima Yakovlev Bill, named for a Russian boy who choked to death after his adoptive U.S. dad forgot him in a car, hurts Russian orphans more than it does Americans.   RUSSIA WEB VIDEO: A view from the street of Russia's largest anti-Putin rally in decades, Jan. 13, 00:01:37

Writer and politician Eduard Limonov on the "March Against Scoundrels."

 

In July 2002, when my comrades and I, in handcuffs and guarded by 18 Special Operations troops in full combat gear, were transported via air from Moscow to a military airfield near the town of Engels, it was unbearably hot.

 

From Engels I was taken to the third ward of the Saratov central prison. It was so hot that the window panes had been taken out.

 

On my first night in the Saratov prison, I couldn’t sleep because the guard dogs howled so frighteningly.

 

In the morning, we learned from the officer of the watch that a prisoner had died that night.

 

That summer, due to the extreme heat, two people died in the third ward.

 

We know from the media that the circumstances of the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky were extremely suspicious. In such cases, the truth is never found, but the fact is that prison is a place that death roams more often than outside prison. Magnitsky "died of death."

 

And then the Magnitsky case came to life, as it continues to do. And now we have the Magnitsky List, voted on by American Republicans to complicate the lives of Democrats led by President Obama.

 

And in the spring, I recall Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov traveling repeatedly to the United States and lobbying U.S. lawmakers strenuously to persuade them to pass the prohibitive "Magnitsky List" in exchange for revocation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The lobbying by Nemtsov and Kasparov was a success. According to the Magnitsky List, dozens of second-rate Russian penal system officials and judicial and prosecutorial staff will no longer be able to show themselves on U.S. territory.

 

The 'March Against Scoundrels,' one of the largest opposition rallies

of the Putin era, Jan. 13. Left to right are Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir

Ryzhkov, Mikhail Kasyanov, and Ilya Yashin. 'The banner reads,

'For Dismissal of The Duma.' The march was held to highlight the

prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and Russia's answer to a

U.S. law called the Magnitsky act that punished Russian officials for

his death that bans the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans.

 

It is curious that then, that such lobbyists have disappeared from the conflict, yet no one faults them for it.

 

A war has ensued on the basis of morality.

 

Generally speaking, Russian penal system officials, as well as judges and prosecutors, have no business being on U.S. territory. Any other judges or prosecutors - and we have lots of them - can, if need be, go on trips for business or exchanges. The United States, where I lived just under six years, is a boring and monotonous country. With the exception of the Empire State building, the Grand Canyon, and Niagara Falls, there is little to be impressed by. For feats of architecture and culture, one should fly out to Europe. American civilization is as boring as the Soviet in its time.

 

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But both sides, having begun in a quarrelsome tone, continue along the same lines.

 

Nemtsov and Kasparov, the quarrelsome lobbyists who succeeded in their bid to spite the Russian regime, were supported by quarrelsome American Republicans, who wanted to spite their own regime. They succeeded.

 

But now, equally quarrelsome Russian lawmakers from the State Duma have joined the fray. They have passed an "anti-Magnitsky" law, containing a series of restrictive measures to complicate the lives of American organizations in Russia, and with the addition of a dirty bomb: a ban on adoption of Russian children by Americans.

 

For several minutes - and no more - there, there was dead silence, and to a certain degree, shock, among the Russian liberal public. And then, an awesomely powerful storm, a tempest, a tantrum of nature and the people, broke out.

 

Unadopted children were all immediately transformed into disabled orphans, even if the disabled are in fact a tiny percentage of the total number of children adopted by Americans. So, in the past seven years, 14,500 Russian children left for the United States, of which only 444 were considered sick or disabled, or approximately 3 percent. I intentionally wrote "were considered," because there have been cases where children considered disabled ceased being disabled after moving abroad.

 

Wall to wall, mountain to mountain, their intolerance to ours. Shouts, the clanking of Internet swords, passionate outbursts of indignation ... Diplomats on both sides, Russian and American, covered their faces in horror.

 

When I wrote on my LiveJournal that Russia, which is rapidly becoming extinct, has no moral right to hand her children over to other countries, there were 1,500 comments in which I was called a cannibal, although that wasn't the worst epithet used against me. And this, even though I actually presented a valid point of view.

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