Rice shows support for Russian rights activists

MOSCOW —  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Russian human rights activists Saturday in a low-key gathering that seemed designed to provide a gesture of U.S. support without triggering Kremlin anger.

The event came the day after Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with President Vladimir V. Putin and other top Russian officials in talks that, at least in public, had frosty overtones. Russia’s objection to a planned U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe was a key topic of those discussions.

Traveling back to Washington on Saturday, Gates said that despite Russian officials’ public rejection of new proposals made during the meetings, he believed that Putin was “intrigued by a couple of them” and was taking them seriously.

The proposals, which would expand the planned Eastern European-based program to incorporate Russian radars and personnel, are aimed at persuading Putin to withdraw his objection. The plan would place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.

Moscow has expressed fear that the antimissile bases in Eastern Europe would be a step toward a global system aimed at devaluing Russian and Chinese nuclear deterrents, and that the system could be modified for offensive missiles that would be near Russia’s border.

Washington says the proposed system is needed to defend Europe and North America, citing the possibility of missile attacks by Iran.

Before beginning the closed-door portion of the meeting with the human rights activists, Rice told them she understood their goal to be the creation of “institutions that are indigenous to Russia, that are Russian institutions but that are also respectful of what we all know to be universal values.”

These values include “the rights of individuals to liberty and freedom, the right to worship as you please and the right to assembly, the right to not have to deal with the arbitrary power of the state,” she said.

Democracy advocates criticize what they say are authoritarian trends under Putin, including establishment of state control over nationwide television networks, political pressure on the courts, ending the direct election of governors and establishment of a pliable parliament.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s oldest human rights organization, said she told Rice that the country’s halting progress toward democracy in the 1990s had been rolled back under Putin.

Putin became acting president Dec. 31, 1999 and won election the following March. He is required by the constitution to step down after his second term, which ends in spring, but he has indicated that he might retain political influence by becoming prime minister.

“Starting with 2000, this process was curbed and the country was pushed back toward authoritarianism,” Alexeyeva said. “I said that elections became a farce, and we can’t replace the authorities even if we wanted to, and that human rights and freedoms were greatly limited.”

Tatyana Lokshina, head of the Demos Center, a human rights think tank, said the group also talked about instability in the northern Caucasus. Rebels are gaining support there, she said, because of abuses by authorities.

Lokshina added, however, that she told Rice the United States had lost international leverage on human rights issues because of its actions in Iraq and its imprisonment of suspected terrorists at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Rice showed interest in each participant in the meeting, said Grigory Shvedov, editor of the Caucasian Knot, an Internet publication dealing with the Caucasus region. “But when she spoke, she was very general and did her best to avoid direct answers to blunt and pointed questions,” he said.

Gates said while flying home that he was surprised by Putin’s unexpectedly long opening remarks at the Friday meeting, comments in which the Russian president upbraided the Bush administration for the course of its foreign policy. But Gates also told reporters that he did not believe that the Russian president’s words signaled an unwillingness to compromise.

“I considered his introductory comments theater,” Gates said. He suggested that the tough Russian stance was a defensive reaction aimed at giving officials time to think about the new proposals.

Gates said the decision to present the proposals to Putin was made at the last minute because he and Rice decided that the talks needed a new impetus if the two sides were to reach agreement before Putin and President Bush left office.

There appeared to be little room for compromise, however. Gates said that Russia remained firmly opposed to construction of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic, both former Warsaw Pact members; the U.S. remained steadfast that it would continue negotiations with both Warsaw and Prague.

“I said it struck me as kind of odd that they were prepared for us to put missile defense sites anywhere else, just about, except the Czech Republic and Poland, including in Russia,” Gates said. “Our concern is that your talk about partnership is really only about stopping in the Czech Republic and Poland, and we’re not going to do that.”

david.holley@latimes.com

peter.spiegel@latimes.com

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Holley reported from Moscow and Spiegel from Mildenhall, England. Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.