Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [125]
On January 30, 2003, I flew to Strasbourg, France, to meet with Sergei Kovalyov, the chairman of the Public Commission. I had known him for more than thirty years, ever since both of us were members of the small group of dissidents around Andrei Sakharov. A research biologist like myself, Kovalyov was the founder of the first Soviet human rights committee in 1969. When he was arrested by the KGB in December 1974, I passed reports from his trial to Western correspondents in Moscow. Shortly after that, I emigrated, while Kovalyov spent ten years in prison and internal exile for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” Now, at seventy-six, he was one of the few remaining independent voices in the Duma, a former ombudsman in the Yeltsin administration and a top contender for the Nobel Peace Prize as the founder of Memorial, the human rights group that reported on abuses in Chechnya. Kovalyov was in Strasbourg attending the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he periodically blasted the Russian government on the war. We met in an empty restaurant not far from the Council HQ, over a late dinner with ample amounts of wine. He was twenty years older and I always treated him with unqualified respect. Kovalyov’s dislike of Boris was widely known. I wanted to see how much we could still cooperate.
“I have absolutely no problem with Berezovsky vintage 2000,” he said, sipping his Côtes du Rhône. “I do have a lot of problems with him prior to that time.”
He was particularly suspicious about Boris’s role at the beginning of the second Chechen War. He wondered if Boris, as a member of the Kremlin “family,” could have been involved in a secret deal with Basayev to invade Dagestan in September 1999 as part of a plot to elect Putin.
“This is just one theory, Sergei Adamovich,” I said. “Another is that the FSB blew up the apartment houses.” I told him what I thought had happened: the Wahhabi were indeed in collusion with the FSB, but the deal was arranged long before Putin. Later it might have evolved into an election-related plot and led to the Moscow bombings. But Boris, I believed, had nothing to do with it.
“But why don’t you grill him yourself?” I suggested. “You chair the Commission on the bombing. All of this is relevant. Why don’t you go to London and interrogate Boris? Our foundation will pay the costs. Unlike Putin, Boris deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
“Putin also deserves the benefit of the doubt,” said Kovalyov.
“This is not what Yushenkov thinks.”
“If we are not fair, people will not believe us,” Kovalyov said.
“There is a paradox here,” I observed. “If he did not blow up those apartments, he deserves fairness. But if he did, he will wage total war on us, yourself included. Once at war, one does not strive for fairness, but for victory. As they say in English, all is fair in love and war.”
It was a déjà vu conversation, of the kind we had had three decades earlier, sorting out the moral dilemmas of life under the Soviets. In the end we reached the same results this time around: Kovalyov would never compromise his standards under any circumstances; I would change the rules of engagement depending on the behavior of the opposition.
In addition to the Commission’s visit to London to interview not just Boris but also Sasha and Felshtinsky, Kovalyov accepted my offer to bring him to Washington to talk to U.S. policymakers. He also promised to look after Trepashkin. I could not expect anything better.
Kovalyov’s visit to Washington took place from February 10 to 14. As with Yushenkov, it was an exercise in frustration. Remembering the cold shoulder given to Yushenkov, I urged Kovalyov not to stress the controversial