Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: x i russofobi del ng : Berezovsky is playing us, and it's embarrassing

Berezovsky is playing us, and it's embarrassing
Stefanie Marsh
Belatedly, here's my tuppence on Alastair Campbell's diaries: he was a
spin-doctor, an unprecedentedly successful one. Did anyone seriously
expect him to be anything other than utterly calculating and ruthless?
What stings people most, especially the press, about Campbell is how
he managed to manipulate us so skilfully for so long.
And yet it seems to be happening again, right under our noses. One of
the most skilful media operators of recent times has turned Britain
into the Gullible Man of Europe. He opens his mouth, we take what he
says as gospel. Because of his enormous wealth - enormous wealth
having become one of Britain's favourite preoccupations - and his
shadowy past, he makes us politically correct, environmentally
conscious pauper squares feel a little bit close to the edge, a little
bit glamorous. Much like that gangster chic phase we went through
during which the Kray brothers suddenly became fashionable, we feel
we're playing with big boys now. Only this big boy is playing us. It
is intolerably embarrassing.
I'm talking about Britain's new best friend, Boris Berezovsky, who
arrived on these shores in 2000 and has been wanted for extradition by
his former friends at the Kremlin ever since. The four-times-married
"original Russian billionaire" famously boasted in the 1990s about how
he was part of a small coterie of so-called oligarchs who owned 50 per
cent of Russia's wealth. Despite this, the British people now happily
accept that a man who became seriously rich in the turbulent, shadowy
periods of recent Russian history has now been born again as a
democracy-loving human rights campaigner, as he insists. When,
further, it emerges that an attempt on his life has apparently been
made we unquestioningly accept this as fact, as if real life in 2007
does in fact exactly mirror the plot of an Ian Fleming novel.
Let's go through that "assassination attempt" again. What happened was
this. The first version posited that a Russian man known to M15, armed
with a gun and using a child as a decoy, was about to take aim at
Berezovsky in the Park Lane Hilton when British Secret Service agents
dramatically saved the day by apprehending the gunman. Subsequent
reports present a less exciting scenario. The would-be assassin was
actually staying at the Hilton and there was no gun. Oh, and
Berezovsky was out of the country. Finally, who do you fancy was the
primary source for the stories? It was our £800 million hero, of
course. According to Berezovsky, he's spent his whole time in Britain
dodging bullets, which may be true but raises more questions. First,
what was he doing last month giving a talk at Miller's Academy, a
lecture hall in West London with the security standards of a village
town hall? Secondly, if it really is the life ambition of every former
communist trained assassin to kill this man, why isn't he locked up in
a safe house, as Salman Rushdie was? Why, instead, was he granted a
British passport? And in what way will this passport save his life? We
rang the Home Office, but it wouldn't tell us.
In Russia Berezovsky is wanted on a long list of charges, including
embezzlement and financing Chechen guerrillas. Some of these
allegations are undoubtedly part of a larger smear campaign, but are
they all? And before you switch off to rant some more about that evil
Campbell, here are some more questions, which concern you. Why do we
in Britain think that Berezovsky is in any position to foment this
revolution of his?
Ask anyone in his homeland about how popular he is there and they'll
tell you that he is almost universally loathed. Even Gary Kasparov -
whom Britain erroneously believes also constitutes a threat to Putin's
power (when the champion chess player holds his protest rallies around
Russia a couple of hundred people turn up) - has publicly derided
Berezovsky and angrily denies that he helped to fund Kasparov's
opposition party.
What we must bear in mind about this undoubtedly intelligent,
charismatic and occasionally charming man is that he knows the game,
having had his finger in several influential media pies. In the period
leading up to Putin's election, Berezovsky controlled, among other
publicity vehicles, Kommersant, then Russia's main business newspaper,
as well as ORT, its main television channel. He was one of the
architects of Putin's rise to power and has spent the intervening
years grinding an axe about his fall from grace.
It's not clear what exactly his aim in life now is, other than to
destabilise Russia or dream idly of using "force to change this
regime". To that end, he seems to realise how susceptible we British
are to a bit of prejudiced speculation. Say bad things about the
Kremlin and, parrot-like, British journalists and intelligence agents
will start talking about the "new cold war".
Berezovsky obtained British citizenship after he changed his name to
Platon Elenin. Why he changed it has never been explained. The
Brazilian authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest on charges
of money-laundering.
Does it matter? Think back to 2000, when Mohamed Al Fayed lost his
attempt for British citizenship. Judges at the Court of Appeal ruled
against it on the ground that he was not of "good character". But Al
Fayed provides thousands of British jobs and has poured millions of
pounds into various charities. He also pays British taxes.
By contrast, Berezovsky pays no tax in the UK on foreign earnings,
while the legal cost of fighting Russia's extradition request is
running into millions. In this canny multi-millionaire, has the Home
Office finally found a human form of that previously mythical
creature, the shadowy tycoon with a heart of gold?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2156186.ece
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mica è cretina come il purgibutt dei nazisti amalric questa Stefanie.

 Berezovsky is playing us, and it's embarrassing
non è imbarazzante, basta capire che come passatempo gli scacchi
rendono molto più intelligenti del disfarsi di birra in un pub e forse
i brits tra un secolo potranno capire qualcosa delle mosse politiche
dei russi...