Senator John McCain believes that the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt should be a warning to Putin. "I don't think all these events are confined to the Middle East... These winds of change that are blowing, I think I would be a little less cocky in the Kremlin with my KGB cronies today if I were Vladimir Putin", the senator said in interview with the CBS.
Apart from Putin, McCain suggested to be "a little less secure" for the Chinese leader Hu Jintao. According to him, recent events cannot be confined to the Middle East because human rights are universal.
"The wind of change is felt here", said McCain. In addition, he expressed confidence that these events entail a wave of protests in countries neighboring Egypt and Tunisia. At the same time, he regretted that in countries like Iran and Syria such demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the authorities.
In this regard, he praised Mubarak, "who prevented bloodshed". He said thanks to the deposed dictator for helping the U.S. to fight against Al-Qaida and said that recent events "showed that changes can occur without violence".
It is to be recalled in this connection that during 2 weeks of protests in Egypt, according to official data, over 300 people have been killed and up to 5,000 injured.
McCain has previously also criticized the Kremlin regime. He and an U.S. Senator, Joe Lieberman, characterized an administrative arrest of Boris Nemtsov and other Russian opposition politicians after a rally on the Triumph Square in Moscow on Dec. 31 as "shameful" and "outrageous".
Republican Senator John McCain and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman are convinced that Boris Nemtsov and his associates were arrested unjustly, because they "peacefully sought to exercise their basic constitutional right to freedom of assembly".
"What makes this episode all the more shameful and outrageous is that the Moscow municipal government had granted a license for the rally at which these individuals were evidently arrested", a statement by the senators says. - In this respect, the treatment of Mr. Nemtsov and other members of the opposition should provide a stark warning to the rest of the world about the disregard for rule of law that has come to characterize contemporary Russia. Despite the start of a new year, it seems the same old culture of legal nihilism continues to reign in Russia".
Last December, during a debate in the U.S. Senate on the START Treaty with Russia, McCain linked this issue with the case of the ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky. During the, McCain again criticized the Russian government, asking his colleagues if they could trust Russia to fulfill its obligations under the treaty on strategic offensive arms, given the fact how the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky is being treated.
"If Russian officials demonstrate such a blatant disregard for the rights and legal obligations owed to one of their own citizens, how will they treat the legal obligations, be it this Treaty or any other, the senator said.
"The Russian government seems to be trying to bury some inconvenient news, announcing the Khodorkovsky's verdict in festive period, and after we will probably be finished debating the possible ratification of the START treaty with the Russian Federation", said the senator.
McCain criticized Putin's remarks about Khodorkovsky and read the senators articles about corruption and harassment of opposition in Russia from Western media, criticized the attacks on journalists who are not being investigated by Russian authorities, and recalled that Russia "continues its occupation of Georgia".
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
