I remind that on June 29th 2002 on the final session of the governmental commission investigating the Kursk loss, the official cause was named – a torpedo explosion. Minimally there was one honest expert in the commission – the adm. Motzak. I have reported his opinion above.
After the pronouncing of the official verdict, Russian media have forgotten about the Kursk under the pressure of the Kremlin, the FSB and well, time. But some have not forgotten about this tragedy – whom would you think? – Foreigners, of course. Only recently History Channel in Canada showed documental series about submarines. Two series were dedicated to the Kursk. Russian internet-forums were full of discussions about the Canadian movie. Here is its description, taken from an Internet site as told by Stringer on August 1st 2005.
“First they showed what we have already seen and heard. How and when it happened, how our military commanders reacted. The usual images. Hysterical women and all that. Accusations to Putin that he stayed on the Black Sea. They showed Ilya Klebanov, if you remember, at that time he was Deputy Primer Minister. They showed how Klebanov silently stood in front of hysterical women, not knowing what to answer.
We already relaxed, expecting that they will start to criticize Russians as usual. And suddenly an unexpected turn. … They showed that there were two American submarines in the training area. They were on a special mission, spying over the training. One sub, the Memphis, was covered by another, the Toledo. It seemed that there was only one submarine on radar and sonar screens. Then the Memphis emerged from its leading sub, in order to have a better view of the launching of a ballistic missile from the Kursk, but it miscalculated the trajectory and the distance. The Americans found themselves on the opposite trajectory and frontally collided with the Russians. They damaged the Kursk’s most vulnerable second compartment. But the most terrible happened later. The captain on the second American sub Toledo decided that the Russians have in some way attacked the Memphis and without giving it a second thought launched a torpedo at the Kursk. The torpedo hit right in the loosened part on the junction of the second and third compartment and exploded inside. The movie showed a computer variation involving the three subs about what has happened. Our planes have registered oil marks in the water on the trajectory of the leaving foreign submarine. (Some newspapers wrote that this was a foreign submarine, a British one, it seems, and we have all read about this).
Now about what we did not know. It turns out that the Russians were following these two American submarines before all of these events and knew for sure that these were Americans on a spying mission. After the collision and the attack on the Kursk the defense minister Sergeev sent two counter-submarine squadrons. Putin in the South was immediately informed. And at the same moment Americans entered in contact with Putin. After speaking with the Americans Putin called the planes back. … The CIA director urgently arrived in Moscow for consultations. All this time Putin was in contact with Bill Clinton. In the end, nobody was allowed near the submarine, although the entire world was offering qualified assistance. After all we all thought that somebody could be saved. A few days later the Russians agreed to let the Dutch, but with the strict order not to go near the submarine’s head. The Dutch managed to open the hatch in the eighth compartment; they found some messages left by the crew and confirmed that nobody had survived inside the sub. After this our divers got to work. They did not care about the sub anymore, its reactor and the dead sailors. It turns out that they were removing the debris and fragments of the American Memphis from the seabed around the Kursk. The Russian newspapers that managed to publish satellite images of a ‘suspicious foreign’ submarine in repairs in a Norwegian harbor were instantly threatened by the FSB. This submarine was in fact the American Memphis and it took it seven days to get to Norway instead of the usual two. The other American submarine Toledo left to the USA in zigzags, following an unusual trajectory. Two representatives of the Russian military and political leadership Igor Sergeev and Ilya Klebanov who insisted on the American track as the public version were in the end forced to resign. Some time later (about two weeks after the tragedy) the entire Russian debt to the USA was canceled and the United States gave a new $10-billion credit to Russia. Each family of the sailors dead on the Kursk got the unthinkable by Russian shabby standards compensation of 25 thousand rubles.
Nevertheless, Putin had to salvage the sub in order to raise his political image. A year later a contract with A Dutch firm, the only one that agreed to lift only the middle and the rear part, was signed for salvaging the Kursk. All the other firms agreed to lift the whole vessel for lesser money. The Dutch sawed off two head compartments and brought all the rest on the ground. Here we were shown zoomed-in images of the sub on their arrival. Right at the spot where it was sawed off there was a huge round hole and its borders were crumpled inside. Our TV certainly did not show this, because this part of the fuselage was instantly declared classified and was later liquidated actually as all video footage. The film presented testimonies of experts who confirmed that only an American new model torpedo (I do not remember its exact name) could leave such marks, burning the extern layer and bursting inside.
An astonishing movie. Especially here, in Canada. One thing is for sure: the idea of an American track was not even put in doubt. The film was made with the participation of British, Canadian and independent American journalists.”
My comment: Some confusion with the name of the killer-sub (was it Memphis, Toledo or Jimmy Carter) is easily explained: the spy-sub did not leave a visiting card after it rammed the Kursk. And if it did, it was picked up by Putin’s guys from the FSB.
PACK OF SWINDLERS
(MANIPULATING THE ELECTIONS)
The address to the RF president Putin entitled “We don’t need such a president” begins with the words: “Mr president, we have a long list of pretensions to you.
1. The manipulation of elections – both for State Duma and for president.”
What manipulation and what scale of it did the nazbols have in mind? Let us find out. The State Duma elections took place on December 7th 2003. Already a few days later there were voices that affirmed that the results of the elections were manipulated. The next day, December 8th, an exit-pull was made public by Romir Monitoring research holding. The poll was ordered by The Moscow Times newspaper, the Soros Fund and the Renaissance Capital Investment Bank. 42 828 people were polled. According to the results both the Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko have made it into the Duma. More precisely they should have. Here are the Ramir numbers:
United Russia 34,1 %
CPRF 13,2 %
LDPR 10,9 %
Block Rodina 9,5 %
Against All 6,8 %
SPS 6,1 %
Yabloko 5,8 %
The official site of the CPRF. Based on their parallel count on records. 10 838 records of district electoral commissions were counted. The CPRF got the following results:
United Russia 33,6 %
CPRF 12,77 %
LDPR 11,50 %
Block Rodina 10,66 %
Yabloko 5,92 %
SPS 5,11 %
Against All 5,26 %
So we see that according to Ramir data and the communists’ calculations both Yavlinsky’s party and the Union of Right Forces have reached the 5% barrier and made it into the State Duma. On November 11th 2003 the Vedomosti newspaper wrote: “The CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov has accused the Central Electoral Commission of manipulating the results of Duma’s election, which harmed the SPS and Yabloko. … According to the communists the CPRF was not much harmed by the manipulation, but the SPS and Yabloko had in reality obtained correspondingly 5. 1% and 5. 9%. The block Rodina has lost votes as well – officially it obtained 9% but the communists calculated that it was 10. 6%. The distortions, as the communists calculated it, favored United Russia – it must have obtained not 37.1% of the votes but 33.1%. ‘We can’t admit the results of a voting that was a one hundred percent fraud,’ Zyuganov declared.”
&nb
sp; The same day the Kommersant wrote: “The usually reserved CEC head Alexander Veshnyakov has yelled yesterday: Tthis isn’t serious, it’s a swindle!’ This is how the head arbiter of Duma’s battles reacted to the declaration of the CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov about the 3,5 million votes added to United Russia fraudulently according to the communists’ alternative counting. … ‘We are ready for cooperation, but not for swindling!’ The usually reserved and politically correct Veshnyakov started to yell yesterday on a CEC session: ‘We will harshly punish both for manipulation and for slander! And we will not turn the right cheek if we’re hit on the left.” Then Kommersant continues: “Gennady Zyuganov declared that already based on the records of the electoral commissions (it is their copies that the CPRF reads) we studied we can make the conclusion that at least 3,5 million ballot-papers were fraudulently added. These nonexistent votes were thrown in favor of one of the parties. Considering that according to the yet unofficial data of the CEC (the official data will be available December 18th) slightly over 57 million people took part in the elections, a manipulation with 3,5 million ballot-papers is something very serious. These are 6. 1% of votes that not only have allowed improving the total result of the party in power, but also did not allow the right-wing parties to make it into the Duma, ‘washing down’ their real result. Besides adding votes the CPRF leader has accused the CEC of overstating the real data about voters’ participation. ‘The voters’ participation was not 56%, as the CEC said, but 53,5%’, Zyuganov declared. He expressed his assurance that in reality both Yabloko and SPS have overcome the 5% barrier and made it into the Duma. ‘We can’t admit the results of a voting that was a one hundred percent fraud. We request that the ballot-papers be recounted by hand’, Zyuganov said. Also he emphasized that ‘in a zone of total manipulation they categorically refuse to give us the copies of the records. And this zone is not only Tatarstan, Mordovia and Bashkiria but Moscow as well.”
In her turn Irina Khakamada declared to Kommersant: “According to our data, since we also have a parallel voting count, there was, in fact, a fraudulent addition of ballot-papers on the elections and when such things happen, then purely automatically the indicators of the parties situated on the margin of the 5% barrier decrease.” And here is the opinion of David Atkinson, head of the delegation of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly on the Russian elections, as expressed to Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “On one hand, four years ago we recommended to Russia to take a series of measures in order to improve the voting and Russia has followed our advices. On the other hand we can’t ignore the deliberate distortion of Russia’s real political picture by TV channels controlled by the State in favor of a single party at the expense of all the others – as during the pre-electoral campaign, as long before it. The deliberate lack of objectivity from the State and semi-State media is unacceptable for the Council of Europe. Therefore we came to the following conclusion: although these elections were free, they were unfair and the Russian advancement towards democracy has significantly slowed down. Based on this we insistently urge Russia to create and strengthen an independent media system, first of all, a system of television and radio broadcasting totally free of any influence and control from the State.”
On 17.12.03 the site Strana.ru published an article by Olga Bobrovskaya. Among other things the journalist writes: “Vadim Solovyev, member of the Central Election Committee with deliberative functions from the CPRF declared that 60 thousand records among those obtained by his party’s members directly in the regional election committees ‘don’t correspond to the CEC official records, which were entered into the counting system and published on the Internet.’ The communists have worked with 87 643 records, which makes up 93,1% of their total quantity. According to Solovyev about 60 thousand records are invalid, since the number of votes for different parties and for “Against All” does not correspond to the number of ballot-papers given out for the voting. … After collecting all the evidence of manipulation, the CPRF leadership headed by Gennady Zyuganov sent a letter to the CEC, in which it declared that it was necessary ‘to hold a complete recounting of ballot-papers’ in Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Mordovia, Tatarstan and the regions of Amur, Orlov, Rostov, Samara and Saratov and not to publish the final election results until the completion of the above-mentioned recounting. Otherwise the Communist Party ‘would undertake all the measures stipulated by the Constitution for the protection of the citizens’ electoral rights, including mass protest actions and an appeal to international courts’. Which means the Supreme Court and then the European Court of Human Rights.”
However only on September 27th 2004 did the Communist Party together with the Yabloko party with S. V. Ivanenko (from Yabloko), E. A. Kiselev (famous liberal journalist), D. A. Muratov, V. A. Rizhkov (independent State Duma deputy), G. A. Satarov (liberal, president of the Indem Fund), V. G. Solovyev (KPRF) and I. M. Khakamada (SPS) address the RF Supreme Court. They demanded the cancellation of the Central Electoral Commission’s enactment of December 19th 2003 Number 71/615-4 “About the establishment of the total results of the elections of the State Duma deputies”.
All the declarations, independently from their political views were united by the fact that they consider that their rights and freedoms were violated during the elections. Thus, the Yabloko party affirms, “at least 170 from the 225 electoral commissions’ records do not correspond to reality”. The declaration also spoke about “the injustice and unbalance of the information provided about the participants of the election campaign.” Thus, the monitoring of TV programs on the results of the electoral campaign showed that almost a third of the total time dedicated to political parties and electoral blocks during the campaign was used by TV channels to inform the voters about a single party – United Russia. The counting of the time distribution in news stories during the campaign showed that United Russia got about 28% of the total time, KPRF – 13% and Yabloko – 8,5%. The injustice and unbalance in informing the voters were especially obvious on State channels (First Channel, VGTRK Russia and TVC), which are financed by the taxpayers and should not give the priority to any political party. These channels were even more obviously favoring United Russia, giving it an average of 40% of the time, despite the fact that 23 electoral associations took part in the elections. This situation was worsened by the fact that in Russia national State channels have the largest scope of broadcasting territory (the First Channel – 99%, VGTRK Russia – 97,4% and TVC – over 70% of the country’s territory).
Not only the time but also the trend of the information was unjust and unbalanced. The total amount of information made public by the main TV channels about United Russia was equal to 860 minutes and 48 seconds. And the amount of information that was illegal pre-electoral publicity was equal to 529 minutes and 09 seconds, or 61,5%. It was the State channels that broadcasted 75% of positive information about United Russia. At the same time over half (331 minutes and 22 seconds or 66%) of the total amount of information broadcasted about the CPRF by the five leading TV channels (524 minutes and 54 seconds) consisted of negative publicity. Even these numbers are enough to affirm that the victory of United Russia was obtained not only at the price of direct manipulation, but was also prepared by the media by presenting dishonest and unjust information.
In their address to the Supreme Court the plaintiffs have also said that many RF courts have many times violated the right to defend one’s electoral rights in court. As a rule, plaints about laws violations by electoral commissions, media and individuals are not answered; there were many cases of refusals to open criminal cases about these violations.
The Supreme Court examination of this declaration began on November 15th and ended on December 16th 2004. During this time 19 court sessions were held. The court refused almost every petition of the plaintiffs: about calling over one hundred witnesses to court, about adding two hundred documents to the case, about requesting evidence from the CEC, the Ministry of Press and other State bodies and
channels. Besides the Supreme Court did not examine more than 1% of the evidence presented by the plaintiffs during the court sessions. The Supreme Court has also simply refused to examine the question about the manipulation of elections on 57 thousand electoral districts, supposedly because this question is not in the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction, directly ignoring part 4 of article 75 of the Federal Law “About the principal guaranties of electoral rights and the rights for RF citizens to take part in a referendum”.
During the trial the lawyers have petitioned four times (on November 16th and 29th and two times on December 6th) to challenge the judge V. U. Zaytzev for several reasons, among them:
– He refused to satisfy numerous petitions about examining evidence and calling witnesses;
– He did not read out some written documents accordingly to their real content;
– And some other judicial reasons.
All of these reasons were single-handedly turned-down by the judge V. U. Zaytzev.
Limonov vs. Putin Page 8
