[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E112-E113]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     RESIGNATION OF SERGEI KOVALEV

                                 ______


                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 30, 1996

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I call the attention of my 
colleagues to one of several deeply disappointing developments in 
Russia. Deputy Sergei Kovalev, our colleague in the Russian Parliament 
and longtime human rights activist, resigned his post as head of 
President Yeltsin's human rights commission earlier this week. Well 
known to anyone who has followed the course of human rights and 
democratic development in Russia, Mr. Kovalev was a political prisoner 
under the Communist regime and he has been highly critical of the 
Yeltsin government's policies in Chechnya. During the first weeks of 
the Russian attack on Grozny, the Chechnya capital, Mr. Kovalev bravely 
travelled to the region to see the facts for himself. For his efforts 
to stop the killing and terrorizing of both Chechens and Russians, he 
was roundly condemned and even threatened by fervent Russian 
nationalists.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Kovalev's resignation comes at a time when President 
Yeltsin appears to be casting off the last of his democratic 
orientation and throwing in his lot with rapid nationalists, allegedly 
reformed Communists, and cabinet cronies. Though he talks a reform 
line, President Yeltsin's actions demonstrate otherwise. In his 
resignation letter, Sergei Kovalev charges that President Yeltsin's 
government is ``trying to run the country in a direction completely 
contrary to the one proclaimed in August 1991.'' This is a very 
disturbing course for Russia, for its neighbors, and for the entire 
world.
  I urge President Yeltsin to return to the path of reform as the only 
genuine guarantee of peace and justice for Russian people, and Mr. 
Speaker, I trust the administration is using every appropriate 
opportunity to make that point to Mr. Yeltsin and his associates.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to have included in the Record 
Sergei Kovalev's letter of resignation to President Yeltsin.
  The text of the letter follows, as reprinted in the January 29, 1996 
Washington Post.

                        The Case Against Yeltsin

                          (By Sergei Kovalev)

       (From a letter of resignation sent Jan. 24 to Russian 
     President Boris Yelstin by Sergei Kovalev, who had been 
     chairman of the president's human rights commission since 
     October 1993.)
       For the past six years I have considered it my duty to 
     promote in every way possible the policy that can fairly be 
     called the ``democratic transformation of Russia'' 
     notwithstanding many reservations. For a long time that 
     policy was closely linked with your name. You were the head 
     of a country on the road to democracy, and at first, you were 
     even considered the leader of the democrats. As long as you 
     remained headed in that direction, I considered myself your 
     ally, or, in those instances when you departed from the 
     overall course or drastically allowed the tempo of advance, a 
     member of the loyal opposition.
       Russia's road to freedom never promised to be easy. Many 
     difficulties were obvious from the very beginning. Many 
     others cropped up unexpectedly. To overcome them, all of us--
     the government, society, each individual--had to make 
     complicated and sometimes tragic decisions. The main things 
     the country expected from you were the will to make changes 
     and honesty. Especially honesty. In electing you, Russia saw 
     not only a politician ready to demolish the former state 
     structure, but a person who was sincerely trying to change 
     himself, his views, his prejudges and his habits of rule. You 
     convinced many--myself included--that humane and democratic 
     values could become the foundation of your life, your work 
     and your policies. We weren't blind. We saw the typical 
     traits of a Communist Party secretary preserved in your 
     behavior. But all Russia, like a man striving to overcome a 
     serious defect, was struggling with itself. We understood you 
     even when we did not love you.
       In recent years, however, even though you continue to 
     proclaim your undying devotion to democratic ideals, you have 
     it first slowly, and then more and more abruptly, changed the 
     course of government policy. Now your government is trying to 
     turn the country in a direction completely contrary to the 
     one proclaimed in August 1991. . . .
       Beginning in late 1993 if not even earlier, you have 
     consistently taken decisions which--instead of strengthening 
     the rule of law in a democratic society--have revived the 
     blunt and inhuman might of a state machine that stands 
     above justice, law and the individual. . . .
       During the tragic days of the fall of 1993 [when Yeltsin 
     dissolved the Supreme Soviet], I decided to stand by you 
     despite my serious inner doubts. I don't deny my 
     responsibility for that support. I believed that the use of 
     force was a tragic necessity given the imminent threat of 
     civil war. Even then I understood that the events of October 
     might encourage the top leaders to perceive force as a 
     convenient and familiar instrument for resolving political 
     problems. But I hoped for a different outcome, that by 
     overcoming the crisis of legitimacy and creating a basis for 
     the rule of law in Russia, the president and the government 
     would do everything possible for our country's peaceful and 
     free development. To a very great extent, the outcome 
     depended on you, Boris Nikolaevich. I believed that you would 
     choose the second path. I was wrong.
       The 1993 Constitution confers enormous powers on the 
     president, but it also places enormous responsibilities on 
     him to be the guarantor of the rights and liberties of 
     citizens, to safeguard their security and to protect law and 
     order in the country. How have you discharged these duties? 
     How have you fulfilled your responsibilities?
     
[[Page E113]]

       You have virtually halted judicial reform, which was 
     designed to make the administration of justice truly 
     independent from the other branches of government. You openly 
     professed the principle, ``Let the innocent suffer as long as 
     the guilty are punished.''
       You loudly proclaimed the launching of a war on organized 
     crime. In order to implement this, you granted exceptional, 
     extralegal authority to the security ministries. The result? 
     The criminals continue to roam freely, while law-abiding 
     citizens have to tolerate the abuse of the uniformed forces 
     without gaining the security they were promised.
       You stated that your goal was the preservation and 
     strengthening of the Russian Federation's territorial 
     integrity. The result? A shameful and bungled civil war which 
     has been raging in the North Caucasus for more than a year. 
     Under the guise of strengthening Russia's defense capability, 
     you've blocked all military reforms which would give Russia 
     an effective modern army. The result? Spending on the army 
     is growing, and the number of generals has increased to an 
     indecent figure. In order to justify their existence, the 
     term of service has been increased and draft deferments 
     have been ended. Meanwhile, soldiers and officers are 
     impoverished, ragged and hungry. And the degradation, ill-
     treatment and corruption, traditional in our army, are as 
     prevalent as ever. Not surprisingly, tens of thousands of 
     young men are evading this medieval recruitment like the 
     plague.
       You speak of a policy of openness, of transparency and of 
     public accountability, yet at the same time you sign secret 
     decrees concerning the most important matters of state. You 
     create closed institutions, and you classify as secret ever 
     more information about government operations and the state of 
     the country. Presidential decisions are made almost in the 
     same backroom fashion as in the era of the Politburo. It's no 
     secret that you increasingly depend on the security services 
     and on their system of clandestine information. Isn't it 
     obvious to you how unreliable and tendentious this 
     information is?
       The thrust of your personnel policy is becoming clearer 
     with each passing day. At first there were quite a few 
     competent, honorable people around you. But you also 
     enthusiastically welcomed individuals whose only virtue 
     consisted in their personal loyalty to you. Gradually such 
     loyalty has become your primary demand when recruiting staff, 
     just as it was in the heyday of the Community Party. . . .
       You began your democratic career as a forceful and 
     energetic crusader against official deceit and party 
     disposition, but you are ending it as the obedient executor 
     of the will of the power-seekers in your entourage. You took 
     an oath to build a government of the people and for the 
     people, but instead you have built a bureaucratic pyramid 
     over the people and against the people. Moreover, having 
     rejected democratic values and principles, you haven't 
     stopped using the word ``democracy'' so that naive people may 
     well believe that ``democrats'' remain in power in the 
     Kremlin. Your policies have compromised the very word, and if 
     democracy is fated to someday exist in Russia (and I believe 
     it will), it will exist not because of you, but in spite of 
     you.

                          ____________________