U.S. editorial excerpts

Japan Policy & Politics, May 2, 2005

NEW YORK, April 27 Kyodo

Selected editorial excerpts from the U.S. press:

MR. PUTIN'S VERDICT (The Washington Post, Washington)

What was ''the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century''? The rise of Nazi Germany? The spread of genocide as a tool of state power?

Some might say it was the crushing of a host of nations by the totalitarian Soviet Union, at the cost of millions of lives. But not Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For him, the greatest catastrophe was not the Soviet Union's rise but its collapse -- an event that freed 14 of those nations, from Latvia to Kyrgyzstan, from Moscow's domination. ''The old ideals were destroyed,'' Mr. Putin lamented during his annual state-of-Russia address on Monday.

Most accounts of Mr. Putin's speech focused on the passages intended for Western consumption: his claim that ''the development of Russia as a free and democratic state'' is now his highest priority; his assurance to Russian and foreign business executives that their investments will not be seized by rapacious authorities, despite the state's recent confiscation of the country's largest oil company; his announced plans to strengthen political parties and make the state-controlled media more independent.

One important test will be his handling of neighbors such as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, which have embraced democracy and rejected Mr. Putin's neo-imperialism. Will he adjust his approach to those countries, and withdraw unwanted Russian troops from Georgia and Moldova?

Another comes today at the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the entrepreneur who built the Yukos oil conglomerate and used it to help finance Russia's liberal democratic opposition. For daring to behave as if Russia were the free and capitalist-friendly country that Mr. Putin describes, Mr. Khodorkovsky was arrested and subjected to a show trial, even as his company, Russia's most modern, was broken up.

Today he will receive his verdict; prosecutors have requested a prison sentence of 10 years. The outcome ought to tell the Bush administration and other Western governments something important about a leader who would set the agenda for the world's advanced democracies.

(April 27)