Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06MOSCOW922
2006-01-30 13:11:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Moscow
Cable title:  

A RANGE OF EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE PUBLIC CHAMBER

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PINR RS 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO6170
PP RUEHDBU
DE RUEHMO #0922/01 0301311
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 301311Z JAN 06
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0006
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 000922 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR RS
SUBJECT: A RANGE OF EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE PUBLIC CHAMBER

REF: MOSCOW 585

Classified By: Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs Kirk Augustine.
Reasons: 1.4 (B/D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 000922

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR RS
SUBJECT: A RANGE OF EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE PUBLIC CHAMBER

REF: MOSCOW 585

Classified By: Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs Kirk Augustine.
Reasons: 1.4 (B/D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: As the Public Chamber gets down to work
following its inaugural plenary on January 22, its members
have differing expectations about what it will accomplish.
Publicly, many members expressed at least guarded optimism
about the Chamber. Privately, views differ appreciably. One
Chamber member told us that though he holds modest
expectations, he aims to use the body to encourage religious
freedom and still hopes Chamber members will propose
amendments to the controversial NGO legislation. Valeriy
Fadeyev, a Chamber member who was instrumental in the body's
creation, now voices little enthusiasm, and others told us
privately that he lost interest when he realized how much the
Kremlin would control the body. It appears from members'
comments that Presidential Administration Deputy Head
Vladislav Surkov will play a pivotal role in the Chamber's
activities. The Kremlin will apply its guiding hand over the
Chamber's predominantly malleable members, but on some issues
the body -- or at least some of its members -- may display an
element of independence which we should encourage to the
extent possible. END SUMMARY.
.
HOPEFULNESS IN PUBLIC STATEMENTS
--------------


2. (SBU) In the aftermath of the Public Chamber's inaugural
plenary (reftel),many of its members have given interviews
about their expectations. Most have been predictably -- if
sometimes guardedly -- upbeat, although they have differed
somewhat in their identification of the Chamber's primary
purposes. In a radio interview, Chamber Secretary Yevgeniy
Velikhov said he was hopeful the body would mobilize civil
society, fight corruption and encourage better moral values
in society. However, he implicitly conceded that he was not
entirely sure about the Chamber's functions, beginning his
reply to the question of what the body would do by saying:
"As far as I understand the law...and what the President said
at the first meeting." Chamber member and First Channel
television producer Aleksandr Shkolnik acknowledged in an

interview that the Chamber still needed to gain the public's
acceptance. Suggesting that he was hopeful this would take
place, Shkolnik said that the Chamber's main goals were to
develop a public dialogue on issues and to encourage citizen
activism. Chamber member and journalist Aleksey Chadayev
argued in an interview that the body could at minimum provoke
the Duma to become more active.


3. (SBU) Meanwhile, plans are under discussion for the work
of Chamber committees. In another interview, Velikhov said
that two committees dealing with foreign policy might produce
resolutions on Iran and the UK spy scandal. Pavel Gusev,
chair of the Chamber committee on media, said his committee
will work on media freedom, with a particular focus on the
regions, including through press monitoring. Gusev said that
his committee, having already received inquiries about
regional government harassment of media in two regions, would
investigate them and send inquiries to regional officials if
necessary. The committee also could send its representatives
to a region to check out a complaint -- and, he seemed to
imply, thus pressure officials there into changing their
ways. Gusev took a swipe at the Duma, complaining that it
had totally disregarded his committee, and the Chamber more
broadly, as it considered new draft legislation that would
limit the number of commercials on television. Gusev also
complained that with just one staffer, his committee was
limited in what it could accomplish. Other members of
Gusev's committee also weighed in, with Yelena Zielinskaya,
for instance, saying that the committee might develop plans
for the establishment of a public television station.
.
INFLUENCING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, NGO LEGISLATION
--------------


4. (C) In private conversations, we have heard other views
about the Chamber. Bishop Sergey Ryakhovskiy, a Chamber
member who heads a network of Protestant organizations in
Russia, told us January 24 that the success of the body was
very much an open question. The Kremlin had formed the
Chamber to strengthen its relations with, and gain better
control of, civil society with an eye to the 2007-08
elections, Ryakhovskiy argued. Because most of its members
were Kremlin-friendly and the Kremlin oversaw its activities,
the Chamber could easily prove a rubber stamp. This would
become apparent within half a year, Ryakhovskiy posited, and
if it proved true, its more independent-minded members would
begin to drift away. Whether the Kremlin itself would remain
interested in the Chamber over the longer term was also an
open question, Ryakhovskiy said; one small indicator was how

MOSCOW 00000922 002 OF 003


well the building destined for the Chamber's use would be
renovated.


5. (C) Nonetheless, Ryakhovskiy argued, his inclusion on the
Chamber offered him the opportunity to try to use it to push
his core goals, and he intended to do so. One goal is to
promote religious freedom, notably for denominations not
favored by the government, like Protestants and Catholics,
Ryakhovskiy continued. He had already begun using the
Chamber to work closely with two other members, Rabbi Berl
Lazar and Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin, and he intended to use his
prerogatives as a member to investigate accusations of
religious discrimination in the provinces and to inform the
public about them. Ryakhovskiy added that he had reached out
to the Chamber's members representing the Russian Orthodox
Church, but had yet to receive a positive response.


6. (C) Noting that he was on the Chamber's committee on civil
society, Ryakhovskiy said he also planned to use it to work
on the recently passed NGO legislation. As a Chamber member,
he could mobilize NGOs throughout the country to investigate
implementation of the legislation, Ryakhovskiy related.
Beyond that, he had already received the agreement of his
committee's chairperson, Mariya Slobodskaya, to begin working
on amending the legislation. Ryakhovskiy acknowledged that
such an effort might not get far. The Kremlin might well put
a quick stop to it, and even his committee's deputy
chairperson, Aleksandr Ignatenko, had reacted very
non-committally to the proposal. Still, the Chamber had
expressed its desire to weigh in on the legislation while it
was being drafted, and Ryakhovskiy hoped he could build on
those sentiments even now, after Putin signed the bill.
.
DISILLUSIONMENT FROM A FOUNDER?
--------------


7. (C) As we have noted previously, Ekspert magazine chief
editor Valeriy Fadeyev had been among the key players in the
Chamber's formation. In a January 23 meeting, however, he
struck us as surprisingly unenthusiastic about it. Asked
about his plans as a Chamber member, Fadeyev replied that he
would prefer to work on other projects. Had Chamber member
and businessman Vladimir Potanin agreed to head the committee
charged with economic issues, Fadeyev might have joined that
committee, he commented, since that might have offered the
chance to have at least some serious impact. Because Potanin
had opted to head the Chamber's committee on charitable work
and voluntarism, Fadeyev had opted to join a committee on
globalization and regional development, which had an unclear
role and was unlikely to require him to do much work.
(Indeed, that committee's Chairman, Andranik Migranyan, told
us January 23 that he had developed the idea for such a
committee and now had to figure out what it would actually
do.)


8. (C) Nezavisimaya Gazeta owner Konstantin Remchukov, who is
not a Chamber member but works closely with Fadeyev on the
"November 4 Club" of rightist political leaders, told us
January 25 that Fadeyev had become disillusioned with the
Chamber. Fadeyev had been a leading figure in defining an
ideology for the United Russia party, but when that effort
was squashed at the United Russia congress in December,
Fadeyev had become unhappy with the Kremlin, according to
Remchukov. Since then, Remchukov recounted, Fadeyev had come
to realize the full extent to which the Kremlin would control
the Chamber, and his enthusiasm for working in that body had
also declined.
.
SURKOV'S PROMINENT ROLE
--------------


9. (C) Ryakhovskiy highlighted to us the pivotal role Surkov
played in the Chamber. A moving force in its creation,
Surkov had then been directly involved in establishing its
membership and activities. Surkov would continue to play an
active role, relying on one of his advisors, PA Domestic
Politics Administration deputy head Mikhail Ostrovskiy, to
attend meetings and deal with key details, Ryakhovskiy said.
Indeed, Ryakhovskiy reported, he would soon be meeting
Ostrovskiy and Aleksandr Kudryavtsev, head of the PA's office
in charge of religious affairs, to discuss Chamber business.


10. (C) Remchukov agreed that Surkov had a predominant role
in the Chamber's activities. He reported that, having been
politically outmaneuvered by PA Deputy Head Igor Sechin,
Surkov had been instructed by Putin to become less engaged on
foreign policy issues. According to Remchukov, Sechin rather
than Surkov had also been tasked with weakening former PM
Mikhail Kasyanov's political efforts. As a result, Remchukov
said, Surkov now had more time to devote to the Chamber.
.
COMMENT

MOSCOW 00000922 003 OF 003


--------------


11. (C) The Public Chamber was designed to strengthen the
Kremlin's grip over NGOs and to help realize Putin's vision
of a civil society that is compliant rather than independent.
The Kremlin populated the Chamber predominantly with
pro-Putin figures, and Surkov will no doubt do his best to
ensure that they do not stray from the Kremlin line.
Already, the Chamber is being portrayed as helping implement
Putin's national projects and as fighting the excesses of
bureaucracy, which the Kremlin blames for many of the
country's problems. That the media committee will focus on
media freedom in the provinces suggests that it will be used
to bludgeon regional officials rather than to encourage
broader media independence.


12. (C) As noted previously (reftel),however, even Putin's
creations have sometimes spun out of the control of the
Kremlin, and we cannot rule out that the Chamber could do so,
at least on some occasions. Chamber members sought to slow
the passage of the controversial NGO legislation; while they
may have done so primarily to boost the Chamber's reputation
rather than to fight for a more independent civil society,
they did complicate matters for the Kremlin. Some analysts
have explained that episode as related to intra-Kremlin
infighting that spilled over to the Public Chamber because of
Surkov's close association with that body, suggesting that
the Chamber may potentially serve as a barometer reflecting
internal Kremlin tensions.


13. (C) We do not expect Ryakhovskiy to have much success in
amending the NGO legislation, particularly in the current
atmosphere, but he could have greater success in encouraging
better treatment of religious minorities. While we do not
have high hopes for the Chamber, its members may sometimes
display an independence that we should encourage to the
extent possible.
BURNS