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July-August 2018
INTERNATIONAL
T
HE TERM “elected dictator” first
appeared in
The Irish Times
back in
1859 in reference to the governor of
the Italian city of Modena. According
to the online archive it was not used
again until January 1992 but since then has
made regular appearances especially with ref-
erence to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Recep Tayyipp Erdogan of Turkey who, fol-
lowing an election last month which gave him
access to the almost absolute power allocated
to the presidency by an earlier referendum,
has largely escaped the description..
There may be many reasons why Erdogan
has escaped the demonisation meted out to
Putin but the most likely one can be summed
up by Franklin D Roosevelt’s words on Nicara-
guan dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia: “He
may be a son-of-a-bitch but he’s our
son-of-a-bitch”.
Ireland is one of only five EU countries
that are not members of Nato. It is also, lin-
guistically and geographically, linked to the
Anglosphere unlike the other four: Sweden,
Austria, Finland and Cyprus. Not surprisingly
therefore the mindset of Irish journalists
and commentators is strongly influenced by
the world views emanating from Washington
and London. Hence Erdogan is inclined to
get a far better press here than Putin.
RANTS ON PUTIN
The Irish Times
, where I was a foreign cor-
respondent and later International Editor, is
no exception and has occasionally not let
the facts get in the way of a good rant on
the subject of Putin.
Three specific examples come to mind.
Back in December 2014 Paul Gillespie in
his
World View
column wrote on Putin: “His
authoritarian profile has been sharply ratch-
eted up this year, pursuing critics and
opponents into an expanding gulag of politi-
cal prisons...”. At that time, according to the
Russian Human Rights organisation 'Memo-
rial', there were 46 political prisoners in the
Russian Federation about half of whom were
under house arrest. It would be extravagant
therefore to build an expanding complex of
prisons to house around 20 dissidents.
In a more bizarre article in October 27th
2016 two literary critics, the Belfast-based
Chris Agee and Keith Wright of the Univer-
sity of Strathclyde, warned us that Russia
would use its exclave in Kaliningrad as an
excuse to invade the Baltic States.
“The Port of Tartus in Syria”, they wrote
“is the base of the Russian Mediterranean
Fleet. Sevastopol in now-annexed Crimea, is
the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet
(whose access to the Mediterranean is
through Turkey, a Nato member). Kalinin-
grad, now surrounded by Nato members
Poland and Lithuania is the main base of the
Russian Baltic Fleet”.
So, the argument went, Russia annexed
Crimea to protect its Black Sea Fleet in Sev-
astopol, went to war to protect its
Mediterranean Fleet in Tartus and would
therefore invade either Poland or Lithuania
or both to protect its Baltic Sea Fleet.
It seemed like a logical explanation
except for two important errors.
1) Russia does not have a Mediterranean
Fleet and
2) the repair facility at Tartus is so lim-
ited that almost all of Russia’s major
warships are too big to enter a harbour
where the LE Eithne would just about
squeeze in.
Then came Brian O’Connor’s article last
month in which every available anti-Russian
cliché was used to justify Boris Johnson’s
facile and deeply insulting comparison of
the current World Cup in Russia to Hitler’s
Olympic Games in Berlin. Anyone who
knows Russia can understand how deeply
insulting and xenophobic such a compari-
son feels in a country which lost almost 20
million people in its contribution to Hitler’s
demise. Mr O’Connor’s expertise on Russian
affairs stems from his position as the paper’s
Horse Racing Correspondent. Perhaps we can
expect further fulminations on the subject
from the paper’s expert on tiddlywinks.
Interestingly the one
Irish Times
writer who
steers clear of such hyperbole is Isabel Gorst
who reports for
The Irish Times
from Russia
and carefully confines herself to those curi-
ous items known as “the facts.” In short
The
Irish Times
has become more of a “Viewspa-
per” than a Newspaper.
So let’s look at some facts and compare
Putin and Erdogan in the areas of criticism
that are most frequently raised.
by Séamus Martin
Talk Turkey
Irish media hammer Russia factlessly and
ignore Turkey whose human rights practice
is much worse but which is in Nato
In the past decade just
three journalists have been
imprisoned in Russia while 71
have been jailed in Turkey
bearish on Turkish human rights
July-August 2018
7 1
EXTRATERRITORIAL
ACTIVITIES
Russia faces far more accusations of med-
dling in the af fairs of other countries and the
death of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury from
Novichok poisoning brings that into sharper
focus. The two countries, however, have
something in common in this respect. They
are both at war in Syria.
Russia under Putin has allied itself with
Assad. Turkey under Erdogan is mainly on the
same side as the United States in the conflic t
but the US back s Kurdish militants and Turkey
opposes them. Russia’s involvement in the
conflict in Eastern Ukraine has also been well
documented with the shooting down of the
Malaysian Airlines flight an appalling act by
pro-Russian forces. Russia’s supplying of a
missile system without the component that
identifies the aircraft’s transponder was to
say the least irresponsible. Other instances
of civilian airliners being shot down include
the US missile attack on an Iranian airliner in
1988 and Ukraine’s missile strike on a Rus-
sian airliner carr ying Jewish pilgrims from Tel
Aviv to Novosibirsk in 2001.
ANNEXATION:
Russia annexed Crimea with minimal loss of
life and intends to hold on to it. Turkey, a
Nato member invaded, with ver y severe casu-
alties, and its armed forces still occupy part
of Cyprus, an EU country which, understand-
ably in the circumstances, has no intention
of joining Nato.
POLITICAL PRISONERS:
According to 'Memorial’s' latest report there
are 111 political prisoners in Russia but they
add that the number might be higher. Accord-
ing to Turkish Purge which monitors human
rights in the country 79,774 have been
arrested and 140,452 have been detained
during the current state of emergency. Some
of these may have since been released so
while the precise number of political prisoners
in Erdogan’s Turkey is vastly larger than those
in Putin’s Russia.
ARRESTS AND KILLINGS
OF OPPONENTS AND
JOURNALISTS
Russia and Turkey also have the dubious dis-
tinction of leading the league tables in the
arrest and killings of those opposed to the
government. A s might be expected journalists
figure very prominently in the statistics. The
most prominent journalistic casualty in Russia
was Anna Politkovskaya of
Novaya Gazeta
who was found dead in the lift of her Moscow
apartment in October 2006. I did not know
Anna but I knew her boss, the paper’s deputy
editor Yuri Shchekochikhin who was a twin
target as an investigative journalists and an
opposition member of the Russian Parliament.
Yuri, with whom I occasionally raised a glass
of Armenian brandy in his office at the State
Duma, died a horrible death due to poisoning
in 2003 when he was investigating the busi-
ness and political activities of former KGB
members.
In Turkey the most prominent casualty has
been the ethnic Armenian Journalist Hrant
Dink who had been charged three times of
“denigrating Turkishness” before being mur-
dered by a Turkish nationalist in Istanbul in
January 2007.
A search on the website of the New York-
based Committee to Protect Journalists
revealed that in the past decade just three
journalists have been imprisoned in Russia
while 71 have been jailed in Turkey.
Both countries held elections this year and
the reports from observer missions by the
Ogranisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) were strikingly similar but the
one thing that the countries do not share is
Nato membership. It should be remembered
that despite its posturing on democracy Nato
is a military organization and therefore needs
an enemy to justify its very existence. That
enemy is Russia and despite its authoritarian
regime with all its breaches of human rights
there is no threat to Turkish membership.
Nato’s position has been set out as follows:
“Turkey is a valued ally, making substantial
contributions to Nato’s joint efforts. Turkey
takes full part in the Alliance’s consensus-
based decisions as we confront the biggest
security challenges in a generation. Turkey’s
Nato membership is not in question.”
Séamus Martin is a retired International Editor
and Moscow Correspondent of
The Irish Times
.
He was an international observer at last
month’s Presidential and Parliamentary Elec-
tions in Turkey.
In May T urkish newspaper
Soczu
led with
the headline”Freedom of the Press Special
Edition” on a blank page
Russians love their children too
Apart from its careful
correspondent, Isabel Gorst,
the Irish Times has become
more of a “viewspaper” than a
newspaper, on Russia

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