Russia and the Missing Journalist

...it is open to pressure from the outside world, but only if that pressure is exercised by those with diplomatic or economic power...

...Occasionally, however, the persecution of a reporter has wide-ranging repercussions, even to the point of threatening the credibility of a national government...

...They comprised an alternative, independent press...

...But the rule of law remains fragile, and the Babitsky case is especially troubling, coming as it does at the beginning of the Putin leadership...

...In 1981, the Munich headquarters of Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe was severely damaged by a bomb placed by an international gang of terrorists directed by the legendary Carlos the Jackal in an operation financed by the Romanian secret police...

...Although secretary of state Madeleine Albright did raise Babitsky with lower ranking Russian officials, she did not discuss the case in her one-on-one meeting with Putin...

...Initially established as purveyors of raw propaganda, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty evolved into Cold War versions of National Public Radio, disseminating news and cultural features from a democratic perspective...

...Moscow spent more money trying to jam the radios' transmissions than the United States spent on their broadcast operations...

...Dissidents were sometimes traded for jailed foreign communists—Vladimir Bukovsky reached the West in a swap for the imprisoned leader of the Chilean Communist party...

...The chechen rebels have denied that any exchange took place and clearly have no interest in mistreating a journalist who was providing honest war coverage...

...Throughout most of the Cold War, Radio Liberty reporters worked from Munich, since travel to the Communist world was strictly prohibited...

...Yastrzhembsky treated the matter as standard procedure, blandly declaring that henceforth "Babitsky's life lies with the other side...

...He moved from political reporter to war correspondent, covering the first Chechen War, the civil war in Tajikistan, violent turmoil in the north Caucasus, and the 1999 conflict in Dagestan, which helped trigger the latest Chechen offensive...

...But the incidents are usually forgotten—regrettably, few know the names of the 40 or so Tutsi journalists slaughtered by the Hutus in Rwanda...

...BY ARCH PUDDINGTON Each year organizations that monitor press freedom record hundreds of cases in which journalists are beaten, terrorized, or murdered in the line of duty...

...view of world events, the two "freedom stations" focused on developments within the audience countries...

...During the Cold War, Radio Liberty, along with its sister organization, Radio Free Europe, played a prominent role in what came to be known as American public diplomacy...

...The disappearance of Andrei Babitsky may prove to be just such a case...

...During the first Chechen war in 1994, few restrictions were placed on battle coverage, and Babitsky was just one of a number of Russian reporters who informed the Russian people that their army was suffering major defeats—accompanied by heavy casualties—at the hands of the Chechen "bandits...

...Babitsky was hated by the authorities because he, practically alone among independent-minded Russian journalists, challenged the official line with battlefield reports rather than by commentary or propaganda...

...Finally, the administration should keep in mind that one of Boris Yeltsin's first acts as president was to issue a broadcast license to Radio Liberty as a reward for its role as freedom's ally in Russia...

...Several weeks passed, during which Russian authorities issued a series of contradictory reports: Either Babitsky's freedom was at hand or, quite the opposite, he was being investigated on various criminal charges...

...Clinton's comments have been seized on by the Russian press as tantamount to an endorsement of Putin, who is already riding high in the polls...

...In the late 1980s, however, Radio Liberty took advantage of Gorbachev's glasnost and began to hire Russian freelancers to report on political developments from within the country...

...Meanwhile, President Clinton chose this unfortunate moment to hail Putin as "highly motivated," "highly intelligent," and "straightforward," the latter an incredible description in light of the lies and obfuscation that have emanated from his office regarding Babitsky...

...Babitsky is the 36-year-old Russian reporter who disappeared in mid-January while covering the chechen conflict for Radio Liberty, the American-sponsored radio network that broadcasts to the countries of the former Soviet Union...

...Russians are told that the army's offensive has been directed exclusively against terrorists and that great care has been taken to prevent civilian casualties...

...The motives are sometimes economic, more often political...

...Its journalists provide listeners with news that is not only free of formal government censorship, but unaffected by the network of media moguls, party leaders, and criminal overlords that exercises an unsavory influence over the content of Russian-owned media...

...Where the Voice of America emphasized American culture and the official U.S...

...By arresting and possibly murdering Babitsky, the Russian government is sending a chilling message to other journalists tempted to contradict the official line on Chechen...

...When jamming proved insufficient, more direct methods were deployed...

...Andrei Babitsky was one of the first non-emigre journalists hired by Radio Liberty...

...Putin has centered his presidential campaign on the restoration of order, and he has made a priority of controlling news coverage of the increasingly savage war against Chechnya...

...Russia is not the Soviet Union...

...Two Radio Liberty journalists were assassinated during the 1950s...

...The East Germans refined this tawdry practice by trading human beings to West Germany for hard currency...

...The Soviets regarded both Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe as little more than criminal entities...

...At the same time, they have contributed to a sour mood among Russian liberals, who fear that the treatment of Babitsky could be a harbinger of further curtailment of civil liberties...

...Russian society has made considerable political progress since Soviet times...

...On February 3 came the stunning announcement that Babitsky had been "exchanged" by the Russian army for three prisoners-of-war...

...among other things, he covered live the attempted coup of August 1991 and the later attempt by forces opposed to Boris Yeltsin to seize control of the parliament building...

...That the persecution of a Radio Liberty journalist has marked the early months of Putin's administration should serve as an early warning that more trouble may lie ahead...

...Subsequently, a videotape was released showing Babitsky being led away, purportedly by chechen rebels...

...The Clinton administration must also make clear that the United States will not stand aloof if the "highly motivated" Putin begins to chip away at the freedoms achieved under Yeltsin...

...This has given rise to rumors that Babitsky was handed over to a quisling chechen group allied with the Russians, a thoroughly frightening scenario...

...And for good measure, practically every language service of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty was infiltrated by Communist spies...

...Even though a Russian citizen, Babitsky is, in the truest sense, one of our own, a dedicated democrat who is working to build a free press in a country where press freedom remains an aspiration, and is doing so for an American-sponsored radio network...

...Little mention has been made of the devastation of Grozny, the flood of refugees streaming from the war zone, the flattening of villages, or the increasing charges of torture and execution by the Russian army...

...At a time when the United States is spending millions of dollars to build "civil society" and independent institutions in countries where democracy lacks firm roots, Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to major Russian cities through AM frequencies rather than shortwave, remains one of our more effective tools...

...Since then, Russian officials, from acting president Vladimir Putin on down, have dismissed the journalist's fate as irrelevant, while holding to the ludicrous story of a POW swap...

...That the American government ought to secure Babitsky's freedom, if possible, goes without saying...

...Babitsky's fate may also be the government's way of intimidating Radio Liberty...

...Russian presidential spokesman Sergei Arch Puddington is vice president for research at Freedom House and the author of Broadcasting Freedom: the Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, forthcoming from the University Press of Kentucky...

...during the 1970s, Romanian agents made several attempts to kill Radio Free Europe commentators, while the Bulgarian secret service did succeed in murdering a freelance contributor, Georgi Markov, in the infamous "poisoned umbrella" case...

...At first Babitsky was reported to have been detained by the Russian military, and his imminent release was expected...

...This was followed by a second tape showing a haggard Babitsky indicating he was unharmed and simply wanted to go home...

...Surrounding the Babitsky incident is the heavy stench of Soviet times, when those with inconvenient opinions were packed off to the gulag— often on trumped-up criminal charges—or sent to mental institutions, having been diagnosed as suffering from "sluggish schizophrenia...

...Yet despite Radio Liberty's long and distinguished record, the disappearance of one of its journalists has evoked a distressingly tepid response from the Clinton administration...