Ms. Bonner, chairwoman of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, is the widow of Dr.
Sakharov.
It is not easy to manage the legacy of a great man, especially when the evil that
he had fought, and often defeated, returns with a vengeance after his death. Which
is why it was both in sorrow and in anger that I refused recently to endorse the
plan to erect a monument to my late husband, Andrei D. Sakharov, in his hometown,
Moscow. For I know that Andrei would have turned in his grave if I'd allowed his
name and his likeness to become a part of the Potemkin village that the Russian
government is trying to erect before the complacent West.
When I watched Western leaders toast Vladimir Putin -- who used the occasion of
St. Petersburg's tricentennial earlier this month to highlight the West's acquiescence
in his policies -- I felt grateful that no one had thought of bringing the official
party to the Sakharov statue that had been put up there. Having President Putin
take his guests to Andrei would have been a mockery of his memory, for every policy
of the Putin administration is anathema to what Sakharov believed
in and fought for.
For the past three years I have witnessed the systematic dismantling of democratic
institutions, the suppression of independent media and the instigation of nationalism
and xenophobia. But the gravest crime perpetrated by the government is the ongoing
genocidal war in Chechnya. Stalin said that the death of one person is a tragedy,
while the death of a million is statistics. The grim statistics of Russian policy
in Chechnya is 180,000 dead and 350,000 displaced, which is nearly 50% of the
prewar population. Western leaders may not to be bothered by these statistics;
but for me this is not only a threat to the Chechen people but a symptom of a
grave disease affecting both Russia and the West.
It is a penchant of oppressive regimes to decorate themselves with fake attributes
of democracy -- sham elections, a servile judiciary, manipulated media. In today's
Russia the masquerade is called "managed democracy." To have the West call a surrogate
the real thing is a particular ambition of such regimes, and sometimes a reason
for staging a quasi-democratic exercise. Thus, the recent Chechen "referendum"
that was no referendum, and the "amnesty" that was no amnesty, led Western
leaders to speak in support of a "political process" in Chechnya that is not a
political process.
As I write this, another falsification of Moscow's "managed democracy" has been
unfolding in a London court where a moderate Chechen leader, Akhmed Zakayev, is
fighting extradition. That he is innocent was established in December when Denmark
threw out fake Russian charges. Moreover, there is ample evidence that Russian
courts are not independent, that investigation is based on torture and that the
network of prison camps -- the present day Gulag -- is inhumane. This alone should
disqualify Russia from being granted any extradition request. But this is precisely
the reason why the Kremlin needs Mr. Zakayev so badly: to put Russian and Western
justice on the same footing. I was shocked when the British Home Office found
merit in Russia's demand for Mr. Zakayev's head -- thus awarding legitimacy to
a fake justice system.
I am told that the appeasement of "managed democracy" is the necessary evil needed
to keep an important ally within the coalition against terror. But Russia's only
participation in this war has consisted of supplying arms and material and providing
diplomatic and moral support to Iraq, Iran and North Korea; not counting the genocide
in Chechnya. Legitimizing false democracy, false justice and a make-believe war
on terror casts doubt on the real things, particularly for those who, like myself,
continue to value them. For this reason I cannot agree to have my husband's monument
rise in today's Russia lest it too becomes a fake.