VZCZCXRO0874
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DE RUEHMO #0547/01 0641546
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O 051546Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2258
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 000547 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/05/2019 
TAGS: PGOVREL PREL KDEM PHUM PINR SOCI RS
SUBJECT: PAMFILOVA EXPECTS GREATER RESONANCE WITH MEDVEDEV 
ON CIVIL SOCIETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS 
 
REF: MOSCOW 370 
 
Classified By: Ambassador John Beyrle; reason 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  Ella Pamfilova, recently re-appointed by 
Medvedev as the head of the Presidential Council on Promoting 
the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, admitted 
on March 4 that the Council had not been very successful 
during the last year of Putin's presidency, but was 
optimistic that Medvedev would view its work differently. 
She said that unlike the Office of the Ombudsman and the 
Public Chamber, the Council was independent of the rest of 
the government and its job was to advise Medvedev.  She 
expects that she will meet with Medvedev every two months, 
and that he will meet with the entire Council, whose members 
include some harsh government critics, no less than twice a 
year.  Pamfilova looks forward to improved relations between 
Russia and the U.S., and believes that current economic 
crisis may give Russian citizens the impetus to ask for a 
voice in how they are governed.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) On March 4 Ambassador Beyrle met with Ella 
Pamfilova, re-appointed by Medvedev February 10 as head of 
the Presidential Council on Promoting the Development of 
Civil Society and Human Rights (reftel).  Pamfilova was first 
appointed to this position in November 2004 by Putin.  Prior 
to this she had served as the chair of the President's Human 
Rights Commission created in 2002 and runs her own human 
rights NGO "For Civil Dignity" that focuses on children's 
issues. 
 
The Council's Final Year Under Putin Not "Successful" 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶3.  (C) In a surprisingly candid admission, Pamfilova said 
that the last year of the Council's work under Putin was not 
very successful, after which she felt she no longer wanted to 
continue as its head.  She explained that in mid-2007 the 
Council had developed a plan for observing the upcoming 
December 2007 State Duma elections that received a cold 
response from the Kremlin.  Despite this, after Putin asked 
she agreed to stay on and work with Medvedev because she had 
a good working relationship with him when he was Chief of 
Staff at the Presidential Administration.  She added that 
while he was Chief of Staff, Medvedev struck her as a very 
smart man who knew not only his job, but also what other 
people on the staff were doing.  She recalled that she and 
the Council were more effective while Medvedev was Putin's 
Chief of Staff, during which time he often asked her opinion 
on different subjects. 
 
¶4.  (C) Despite her and the Council's undefined status during 
the first nine months of Medvedev's presidency, she decided 
to weigh in after the government proposed a new stricter law 
on espionage in December 2008.  Pamfilova said that she wrote 
a letter to Medvedev as head of the Council questioning the 
law, even though an earlier letter from Human Rights 
Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin had already been rebuffed.  To her 
shock, she continued, Medvedev said that he agreed with her 
and asked that the proposed law be taken back for reworking 
by the Presidential Administration.  She believed that any 
new law passed by the Duma will take into account her 
concerns.  She has also discussed with Medvedev her and the 
Council's opposition to restrictions on non-governmental 
organizations, one of which she still heads.  She said the 
Council is interested in the implementation of Putin's Decree 
485 from June 2008 that provided that grants from foreign 
sources will be taxed to the Russian NGO recipient unless the 
foreign organization is included on a list of exempt 
organizations.  She joked that as the heads of NGOs, she and 
several members of the Council are the "fifth column" that 
receives foreign funding about which Putin often speaks. 
 
Pamfilova Approves of the "New Look" of the Council 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶5.  (C) Pamfilova took pains to separate the work of the 
Council from that of the Office of the Ombudsman and the 
Public Chamber, institutions she felt were part of the 
government.  The Ombudsman's office was like a legal 
institution, whereas the Council's job is to provide advice 
to the President.  She said that her job is unpaid, although 
the Presidential Administration does provide the Council 
incidentals like small, but prime office space on Novaya 
Ploshad (she said the Council has a largely volunteer staff), 
a car and money to hold conferences.  She denied she was an 
government official ("chinovnik") because she is not 
subordinate to anyone.  She said she saw herself as head of 
the Council, not as a human rights advocate, but nonetheless 
a conduit (perhaps the only one) through which the Council's 
 
MOSCOW 00000547  002 OF 003 
 
 
members, who she described as more interested in Russia's 
democratic development than those people on the Public 
Chamber, could get their points across to the government. 
While she only met with Putin every quarter, she said that on 
February 10 Medvedev agreed that they would meet every two 
months ("and more often, if necessary") and that he would 
meet with the entire 36-member Council no less than twice a 
year. She admitted that access to Medvedev will be key to the 
success of the Council. 
 
¶6.  (C) She noted that, given Medvedev's professionalism, she 
will insist that proposals made to him must be of the highest 
quality.  She added that the initial topics that the Council 
will discuss during its first full session on April 10 will 
be new legislation governing NGOs, restrictions on meetings 
and demonstrations, and mass media.  She also expects that 
with the addition of Kiril Kabanov from the NGO National 
Anticorruption Committee, and Yelena Panfilova from 
Transparency International's Moscow office to the Council, 
that anticorruption will also take center stage.  She said 
she was buoyed by Medvedev's recent statement during an 
official visit to Spain that he expected the Council to 
criticize the government, but added that she would have the 
Council start "softly" so that it could have greater success 
later. 
 
Possible Movement on Greater Democratization, Human Rights 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Pamfilova ventured that one possible effect of the 
current economic crisis could be that Russian citizens will 
ask for a greater role in how they are governed.  She noted 
that because of the crisis, Russians may believe less in the 
national superiority complex that they had come to believe 
under Putin and will see themselves as part of the rest of 
the world that is suffering through the current global 
crisis.  She added that part of the reason for her support 
for liberal democrats is that they have good values that 
should be passed on to future generations.  Ambassador Beyrle 
noted a recent discouraging poll in which only eight percent 
of Russians said they believed they could influence the 
political process.  Pamfilova said that people need to change 
the way they see themselves and their government; without 
this, the people will not ask for better governance.  She 
noted that the crisis has already seen the rise of the 
"avtomobilisti" movement initially as a reaction to a 
economic problem, but that it has made people question how 
the government makes decisions. 
 
¶8.  (C) Another issue on which she thinks the Russian 
government may change its position is Protocol 14 of the 
Council of Europe dealing with the European Convention on 
Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 
Strasbourg.  Pamfilova said that the Russian government has 
not supported Protocol 14 for several reasons, especially 
since they do not see anything in it for them.  Pamfilova 
explained that in addition to the fear of the added ease with 
which Russian citizens could appeal directly to the ECHR, the 
Russian government does not feel that their fellow Europeans 
will "like us any more" if they agree to the Protocol and 
Russian citizens themselves have not asked their own 
government to accede to it.  Pamfilova hoped that if this 
began to matter more to the people, the government might be 
convinced to change its stance on the COE's Protocol 14. 
 
Pamfilova Welcomes "Reset" in Russian-U.S. Relations 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶9.  (C) Pamfilova said that after the effects of the August 
2008 conflict with Georgia on Russian-U.S. relations, she is 
hoping for an improvement.  She added that Lukin had invited 
her to participate in the next session of the dialogue 
between the Ombudsman's office and the Carnegie Endowment to 
be held in Washington this spring; she doubted she could 
attend because of the Council's start-up commitments, but 
agreed to try to visit the U.S. this year.  She remembers 
meeting with Secretary Clinton during one of the Secretary's 
visits to Moscow as First Lady during the 1990's. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10.  (C) Pamfilova is candid, direct, and dynamic, all 
essential qualities to move the civil society, human rights 
and democratization portfolio forward in Russia.  She is 
greatly respected within the human rights community for her 
history of forthright criticism of the Russian government's 
actions in Chechnya.  In Medvedev, she believes she may have 
an interlocutor who is more willing to take into account the 
interests of the Council.  While circumspect in her comments, 
 
MOSCOW 00000547  003 OF 003 
 
 
she clearly sees a real distinction between him and Putin on 
these issues. 
BEYRLE