Former tycoon takes swipe at Kremlin from jail in Siberia

Nick Paton Walsh

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and now the nation's highest- profile prisoner, yesterday spoke out for the first time from the Siberian penal colony where he is held, accusing the Kremlin of trying to "destroy him physically".

The former oil tycoon will spend up to six years for fraud in the YaG 14/10 penal colony, 373 miles from the town of Chita, where he arrived 12 days ago. He said that by sending him more than 4,000 miles from Moscow, "the Kremlin has tried to isolate me completely from the country and the people and, what is more, they have tried to destroy me physically".

He said the Kremlin, which he accuses of engineering his trial and the break-up of his company, Yukos, for political and financial gain, was "hoping that Khodorkovsky will soon be forgotten".

Addressing "his supporters", he added: "They are trying to convince you, my friends, that the fight is over. That one has to reconcile oneself to the rule of self-serving bureaucrats in Russia. That is not true. The fight is just beginning."

Since his arrest in October 2003, he has adopted the tone of a Soviet-era dissident. His statement, released on the website khodorkovsky.ru, began comparing his fate to that of "political convicts" and the tsarist-era dissidents the Decembrists, who were involved in an uprising in 1825 and were exiled.

Yesterday's statement was the closest Khodorkovsky has come to a call to arms. He said he wanted a "new political elite" for Russia driven by state and social improvement rather than "unrestrained personal enrichment". He said such reformers must be heroes, not conformists: "Courageous, honest and consistent individuals. These individuals are you, my fellow citizens and associates."

Russia "faced large-scale challenges" and had to adapt quickly to the 21st century, rebuilding the military, law enforcement and bureaucracy from scratch. The country also risked losing control of Siberia to China, he said, criticising economic dependence on natural resources such as oil, gas and metals, and adding that Russia had to "make a decisive turn towards the new knowledge economy".

He said that only those unafraid "to support political prisoners and say no to the repressive machine of the criminal bureaucracy has the right to call himself a Man - with a capital letter". He concluded: "The time of conformists is passing, the time of heroes is coming."

Khodorkovsky's imprisonment has begun to give the former oligarch a popular credibility he lacked as the head of Yukos, analysts say. But few think his presidential ambitions have a chance while he is in YaG 14/10. There, he sleeps eight hours a day in a dormitory with 100 others. He is said to be writing a dissertation on local government and has requested Tolstoy's War and Peace, and books on Russian history and religion. Today, he spends the last of three days there with his wife, Inna.

The Guardian, October 28, 2005

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

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