[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 31, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9314-S9315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE RUSSIAN ELECTIONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on June 16, something happened that has 
tremendous implications for the American people and for people 
everywhere. On that day, Russia, which just a few years ago was the 
greatest threat to democracy in the world, held a democratic election 
to select its President.

[[Page S9315]]

  That alone, Mr. President, is reason to celebrate. Despite calls from 
people across the Russian political spectrum who still do not 
understand what democracy is about to cancel the election, the Russian 
government stuck by its commitment to democracy--
  No decisions were taken by secretive Politburos.
  Parties representing the full spectrum of political sentiment 
participated. Candidates crisscrossed that vast country making promises 
to win the votes of ordinary people.
  And in the end, most stunning of all, there was a graceful concession 
speech by the losing candidate, the leader of the Communist party that 
only a little while ago we regarded as the personification of tyranny, 
committing the party to challenge irregularities in the election ``in 
the courts, not in the streets.''
  Mr. President, this was not a perfect election. There were 
irregularities. There may well have been instances of ballot box 
stuffing. I was quite concerned about the extent to which media 
coverage of the election appeared to favor one candidate. But it also 
occurred to me that, if I were a newspaperman covering an election in 
which one major party had a record of advancing democracy and the 
freedoms associated with it and the other had a 70-year history of 
suppressing the freedom of newspapers like mine, I might have tended to 
advocacy rather than neutrality too. That is not an excuse, but despite 
the irregularities, there is general agreement that the will of the 
Russian people was heard in this election.
  The Russian people voted for democracy, and the tremendous 
significance of that should not be lost on anyone. Despite all of the 
hardship they are experiencing. Despite the crime and corruption. 
Despite their loss of empire. Despite the fact that the standard-bearer 
of the forces of democracy has made many mistakes, the brutal war in 
Chechnya being the most egregious, and is in poor health.
  The Russian people voted for freedom. Freedom to speak their minds. 
Freedom to associate. As ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is 
not someone I admire, put it in explaining why he would not support the 
communists: freedom to decide where to spend his vacation. For some, it 
came down to things as simple as that, things which we take for 
granted.

  Mr. President, the world has changed profoundly in the last decade. 
Communism as a world force is gone. Whatever the future may bring in 
terms of the distribution of power in the world, the age of ideological 
confrontation between communism and democracy is over. While there 
remain many aggressive forces in the world, I cannot help but feel that 
the world will be a safer place when its two greatest powers are both 
committed to democracy and the protection of individual rights.
  And I think we owe credit to President Clinton, Secretary of State 
Christopher, and Deputy Secretary Talbott. Over the past 3 years, they 
have braved the attacks by those, including some in this chamber, who 
cannot bring themselves to give up their cold war notions about evil 
empires and would have us focus only on the vestiges of the old and 
ugly in Russia and ignore all that is new and promising.
  Where do we go from here? As the ranking member of the Foreign 
Operations Subcommittee, I have watched as funding for foreign 
assistance has been slashed over the past 18 months, including 
assistance to Russia. Assistance to Russia is being phased out over the 
next 2 years, even though it is obvious that it is going to take the 
Russian people at least another decade to be able to take control of 
their own lives instead of expecting the government to do it for them, 
and that our assistance would be valuable to them.
  President Yeltsin has won the support of his people to continue 
reform. But the Russian economy remains a shambles. The Russian 
Government has no money to finance its reforms. Crime is rampant. There 
are still pensioners on the streets of Moscow hawking pairs of 
children's rubber boots in order to survive.
  Aid from the United States cannot possibly solve these problems 
directly. The problems are so immense that only the Russian people 
working together will be able to.
  But what our aid can do is show them the way. Most Russians still 
have only a faint notion of what a market economy offers. Most also 
still carry the perceptions drilled into them by their Soviet masters 
that Americans are their enemies.
  I have not been fully satisfied with the results of our aid program 
in Russia. There has been confusion, a lack of strategic thinking, and 
boilerplate approaches that did not fit the unique conditions there. 
Too much of the money has ended up in the pockets of American 
contractors, without enough to show for it.
  But some programs have given the Russian people hope for a 
better future. People-to-people exchanges are an example of how we can 
help change old ways of thinking. I believe the thousands of exchanges 
of ordinary citizens that we have sponsored over the last 4 years 
played a role in President Yeltsin's victory. Farmer-to-farmer 
programs. Business exchange programs. Academic exchange programs. Civic 
organization development projects. They have shown the Russian people 
what is possible.

  Americans have learned from these exchanges too. We have learned that 
the Russian people are not ogres. Like us, they are mostly worried 
about the welfare of their families. But they are learning for the 
first time that it is possible to have a system of government whose 
primary aim is the defense of individual rights, and which actually 
serves them.
  Mr. President, there remains much to criticize in Russia. The 
democracy that exists there is fragile, and the future unpredictable. 
The future is far from predictable. There will continue to be setbacks, 
and instances when Russia behaves in ways that are inconsistent with 
international norms. I have been horrified by the brutality of the 
Russian military in Chechnya. While it has been reassuring to see the 
outpouring of protest against this barbarity by the Russian people 
themselves, President Yeltsin and his security advisors need to 
recognize that Chechnya's future is not going to be decided by bombing 
its people into submission.
  Having said that, let us today recognize how much has changed for the 
better in Russia compared to just a few years ago. And I hope we will 
also reaffirm our commitment to support reform in Russia. We know how 
to put our aid dollars to good use there, and there is much good yet to 
be done.

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