Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [180]
Congregated around a large tray of fruit, Russia’s best-known civil rights activists, Oleg Orlov, Tatiana Kasatkina (“Memorial”) and Svetlana Gannushkina (“Citizens’ Aid”), modestly dressed, discussed the course of the Second Chechen Campaign in funereal tones. Not three steps away from them the same topic was being discussed by official “representatives of the Russian people” Mikhail Margelov and Dmitriy Rogozin, chairmen of the Foreign Relations Committees respectively of the Soviet of the Federation and of the Duma, resplendent in the latest Parisian male fashions. They were studiedly pretending not to have noticed the human rights activists, and were discussing when they would next be obliged to return to Strasbourg to defend Russia from another attack by the human rights camp.
At last we were called through to the sumptuously decorated hall, solemn, bravura symphonic music flowing from the amplifiers, such as accompanies cosmonauts en route to a launch.
The President of the United States of America was manifestly not a hundred miles away. It was time for his speech. We were directed to our seats. Democrat Grigoriy Yavlinsky analysed the principles behind the allocation: “Those seated closest to Bush are those most persecuted.” And indeed, Pavlovsky was awarded a seat right at the back, while Novaya gazeta merited the third of approximately 30 rows, between Yavlinsky and the head of the Russian Mormons. In front of me was the broad back of Yevgeny Kiselev, sacked director of the now closed NTV television station; Jews, Muslims and Catholics made up the first row, and were accordingly those deemed to be suffering most under the present regime.
A clipped command was issued to “fasten the cordon,” and we were enclosed around the perimeter. It would not be permissible to go out, we were advised, even to the toilet or to smoke, until the presidential motorcade had departed from Spaso House. His back to the podium, a young man from the American security services stood facing the social, political and religious leaders of Russia, his eyes looking simultaneously in every direction. “He’s checking for al-Qaeda,” Yavlinsky quipped.
Another half-hour passed until finally there was a rustling behind the curtains and several men wearing black suits simultaneously brought in identical “nuclear briefcases.” This was apparently a traditional ploy to confuse any possible enemy, who would not know which was the briefcase.
Condoleezza Rice was in the same group. The omnipotent National Security Adviser was wearing less than perfectly tailored black trousers and a rather chilly yellow jacket, with black piping along its imaginary pockets and real sides. She had no perm, something that Matvienko would never countenance in public.
“There’s Condo-Liza Petrovna,” the Soviet of the Federation quipped somewhere behind, in accordance with the sense of humor they have there.
Laura Bush was announced next, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the ambassadorial couple, Lisa and Alexander Vershbow. Proud and serene, not even carrying a handbag, Laura came out in a grey suit with white buttons and black open-toed sandals. Powell sat down and crossed his legs. Glory be, he got away with it: unlike the socks of Russian men, which are invariably too short, Powell’s were magnificently long. Unfortunately, something seemed to be annoying him and he sternly viewed the “Russian opinion-formers” as if they’d done something to upset him. By contrast, Lisa Vershbow beamed enchantingly, and the Ambassador glanced benevolently out at all of us from under his eyebrows.
The great moment arrived. A rather gorgeous Afro-American in a chocolate-brown three-piece suit, the President’s personal bodyguard, materialised