Here, in part, is what I wrote about the Yukos Oil company almost 10 years ago, when Russian President Vladimir Putin was confiscating corporate assets and consolidating political power – all in an effort to reign for life as a latter-day Tsar:
The Putinization of Russia continues apace, and Papa Joe Stalin must be very proud indeed.
He arrested the owner of Yukos Oil (think ExxonMobil by American standards) and then seized the company’s assets because he deemed it in interest of the Russian state. And, when one of his closest advisers questioned the legal, political and economic wisdom of these totalitarian acts, Putin purged him from government (presumably to exile in Siberia). Now, just imagine how much this one act imposed loyalty among the ranks of his remaining advisers…
Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky remains locked up in the midst of a kafkaesque trial on trumped-up charges of tax evasion. But many believe his only crime was using his billions to organize political opposition to Putin. And, as a former KGB officer, Putin knows first-hand how useful the Russian Gulag can be for disposing of potential political adversaries.
(“President Putin Reforming Russian in His Own Image,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 25, 2005)
Now here, in part, is what a panel of judges ruled yesterday, after almost 10 years spent examining complaints arising out of Putin’s arrest of Khodorkovsky and looting of his oil company:
An international arbitration panel in the Netherlands on Monday ordered Moscow to pay $51.57 billion in damages to shareholders in the defunct oil giant Yukos, saying officials under President Vladimir Putin had manipulated the legal system to bankrupt the company.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued rulings in three separate cases that had sought a total of over $100 billion from Russia for expropriating the assets of Yukos, formerly controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man.
‘Russian courts bent to the will of Russian executive authorities to bankrupt Yukos, assign its assets to a state-controlled company, and incarcerate a man who gave signs of becoming a political competitor,’ the court said.
(Reuters, July 28, 2014)
It is impossible not to note the uncanny timing of this ruling. After all, if Putin deigns to even acknowledge it, he will undoubtedly argue that it has more to do with payback for the downing of Flight MH17 10 days ago, than with compensation for complaints some disgruntled Russian oligarch filed against him 10 years ago. Further, that this court is just doing the bidding of the Netherlands (which had 173 nationals on board) because it’s headquartered in The Hague. Never mind that this latter point makes even less sense than arguing that the United Nations is doing the bidding of the United States because it’s headquartered in New York City.
In any case, as indicated above, even I am on record damning Putin almost 10 years ago for doing what the court found yesterday. Therefore, even he will be hard-pressed to sustain the ‘Big Lie’ about this ruling representing a Dutch vendetta against him for MH17.
Unfortunately, continuing my earlier analogy, I suspect the UN will force the U.S. government to pay reparations for practicing slavery before The Hague forces the Russian government to pay compensation for confiscating Yukos….
That said, I feel constrained to note the equally uncanny timing of the British announcing last week (on July 22) that they will open a public inquiry into the notorious 2006 assassination of an ex-KGB spy in London. As it happens, I am on record damning Putin back then for doing what I fully expect this public inquiry to find, namely, that he ordered the hit:
Everyone – from government ministers to Litvinenko’s fellow defectors from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB, the successor agency to its infamous KGB) – has already fingered Putin, himself a former KGB spy, for this crime.
The prevailing suspicion is that Putin targeted Litvinenko because he was becoming too credible in his criticisms of the Kremlin. Litvinenko fled for his life in 2000 after accusing the FSB of killing over 300 Russians in 1999 in a Machiavellian scheme to frame and discredit Chechen rebels.
Then he began publishing the findings of his high-profile investigation into what many suspect was a Putin-ordered hit on journalist Anna Politkovskaya last month. She herself was publishing too many inconvenient truths about that ‘Chechen conspiracy.’ Putin had had enough of them both.
Nonetheless, with all due respect to Scotland Yard and Interpol, no matter how probative the circumstantial evidence of Putin’s guilt, neither he nor his putative assassins will ever be held to account for this murder. And everyone knows it….
(“Putin Probably Ordered the Hit. But No One Will Do Anything about It,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 28, 2006)
In this case, however, Putin could be forgiven for arguing that the announcement of this inquiry really is more about MHI7 than Litvinenko. After all, if Scotland Yard did not have the balls to hold him to account, it’s plainly disingenuous to act as if this inquiry will.
Hail Putin!
Related commentaries:
Putin reforming Russia…
Ordered hit…