Dreams for the new century

Ten years ago, a new Millennium began. Many of us were full of expectations, hopes and dreams.

Now, at the end of the Millennium's first decade, Radio Netherlands Worldwide finds out what has become of all those dreams...

Go to our dossier: http://www.rnw.nl/category/tags-english/dreams

It was a year of huge loss for the Russian human rights movement. At the beginning of 2009, lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot dead in broad daylight in the centre of Moscow. In July, unknown assailants dragged human rights activist Natalya Estemirova into a car in the Chechen capital Grozny. Later that day she was found dead. Shortly afterwards two other Chechen activists met the same fate.

 
The murders bring an end to a decade in which the human rights movement in Russia came under considerable pressure. On the eve of the new millennium, the members of Russia’s oldest human rights movement Memorial didn’t expect anything else, says chairperson Oleg Orlov. At the beginning of the 1990s, there was optimism and everyone was hopeful.

 
Democratic reforms undone
"From 1994, the situation got worse. We were preoccupied with who would take over from President Boris Yeltsin. And we had a clear picture of what was about to happen: we expected someone to come to power who would undo the democratic reforms and put Russia 'on ice'. And that the previous period would be severely criticised. And that is precisely what happened," says Mr Orlov.

 
The cramped Memorial office is on the second floor of an old building in the centre of Moscow. It is bustling with activity, as there is plenty to do in the area of human rights in Russia. The back rooms where Mr Orlov and his fellow human rights activists work just about sums up the human rights organisation’s current position.

 
Change of power
That position is deteriorating, since the unexpected resignation of Boris Yeltsin on New Year’s Day in 1999. In the previous months, Chechen rebels had invaded neighbouring republic Dagestan and heavy bombings had killed hundreds of people in Moscow. Yeltsin’s successor turned out to be a relatively unknown former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin. He did exactly what Mr Orlov had feared.

 
"The second Chechen war was accompanied by a wave of chauvinism, as well as a wave of propaganda against us. We felt like outcasts, isolated from society, a feeling we had never had before. The period we are experiencing right now is just as difficult as the one at the end of the 1990s."

 
Mr Orlov experiences this first hand. In spite of this, there is a incredible sense of calm about him, sitting at his desk in the Memorial’s Moscow office. Which is remarkable when you know that not so long ago he was abducted in the Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, his life threatened, and eventually dumped in the middle of the night in an abandoned field together with a number of journalists. And now he faces trial. He speaks as if it doesn’t bother him.

 
Slander
After the death of Ms Estemirova, he held the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov responsible for her murder. President Kadyrov took him straight to court and won the case. Mr Orlov has appealed and hopes eventually to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. However, in the meantime there is a legal investigation against him for slander. If he loses the case, he could face a prison sentence.

 
Now that the human rights movement is under fire, any help is welcome. For instance being awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament was an important boost. The prize was awarded to three figureheads of the Russian human rights movement: Oleg Orlov, Sergei Kovalev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva.

 
Mr Orlov thinks it’s a wonderful gesture, but has mixed feelings. Russia continues to develop in the wrong direction as far as human rights are concerned. A lot has been achieved, he says. At the beginning of the 1990s, the foundations were laid for a democratic society, partly thanks to Memorial. Now Russia is going back in time and he feels partly responsible for it.

 
Bullet
There is also a sense of bitterness, says Mr Orlov. On the walls of the Memorial office, hang a series of portraits of Natalya Estemirova, the woman who did not receive the prize but earned it several times over, thinks Mr Orlov.
 

"I remember well how Natalya was nominated for the prize together with Sergei Kovalev. At the time, other very worthy people received it, but not Natalya. That was two years ago. Now we have the prize and Natalya got a bullet. And I cannot get rid of that feeling of bitterness."

(RNW translation: nc)