Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 14th, 2016

[Andrei Sannikov]

I will say that yes, it helps to save the lives of people.

Of course, after the Magnitsky law, we lost our good friend Boris Nemstov, who was killed. He was a very strong supporter of the Magnitsky act. You cannot prevent these things from happening, if you are retaining this sort of position on the regimes that perpetrate atrocities against their own citizens, like in Russia and Belarus.

To answer your question, yes, it does help save lives. I can tell you that the attention, any kind of attention, any kind of solidarity, helps people to survive in prison and in penal colonies. However, where it is important as legislation.... When governments know that it's not just a political statement or moral support, but it's legislation that has very specific consequences, that is very powerful.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sir, I'd like to address another question that we're grappling with.

Canada is a big believer in multilateralism, especially with countries that we consider part of the western liberal democracy club of countries. We're tremendous supporters of the UN, but we see that the UN Security Council has not been able to act on sanctions because of a flawed structure. Russia or China, both grave human rights abusers, tend to veto any of those attempts.

Of course, we love to do things in tandem with our European Union allies, but they have a system that requires 28 countries to agree, which is problematic, especially with a situation where you have countries, currently, for instance, Bulgaria and Romania, that are not in favour of sanctions. We may perhaps be seeing a new era of isolationism with our North American colleagues.

Someone said previously on a panel that looking for unity among all of these countries may be searching for the lowest common denominator. In fact, it almost seems as if trying to do things multilaterally may be problematically difficult.

What are your thoughts with regard to a country taking a principled position, a leadership position, and saying we believe that a country should respect human rights? With regard to those who grossly abuse them, especially those officials directly involved in abusing them, we will stand firm and say that they will be sanctioned. We don't want their money or these individuals coming to our country.

What are your thoughts on those points?

[Andrei Sannikov]

I must say that today we are facing a lot of local crises and also global crises. I must say that we lack the type of leadership that you are talking about because especially after the big expansion of the European Union, I think that everybody was kind of complacent about the future development of the world in general. At least we have the bulwark of democracy in Europe, the biggest union of various shared values. But all of a sudden it started to collapse, and it started to collapse because of the complacency of the west in having a very soft reaction to the human rights abuses on the immediate borders of the west, by which I mean in the former Soviet Union.

This kind of a lack of strong and principled reaction created not one, not two, not three, but a group of countries that are very effectively co-operating with each other in the former Soviet Union and other parts of the world not only to calm the western efforts to strengthen democracy and values but also to attack. You must admit that the attacks sometimes are much more effective than the policy of the west to support the values.

I think today that we need this kind of leadership. I am a firm believer in values. I think that in recent years,realpolitik interests, for example, in my country of Belarus, are prevailing in too many cases over the values. The interests are prevailing over the values. That is eroding the fundamentals that we need to be restored today, and not only restored but strengthened. For me there is no question that the attitudes and our respect of human rights are the basic principles on which the west should build its relationship with this or that country.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sir, you just touched on another interesting point, how these countries are influencing the west. There have been investigative reports over the past decade that have outlined in many cases, especially in Europe, how Russian money in particular has corrupted political leadership in many European countries. I guess the most notorious example is that of former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. A couple of weeks before resigning, he signed off on a billion-euro credit for the Nord Stream with tremendous geopolitical consequences in Europe, and then a couple of weeks afterwards he joined one of Gazprom's boards. In fact, when the Estonians removed a Red Army memorial in Tallinn, they were subject to a cyber-attack, which shut down their government, and Mr. Schröder at that time said that it contradicted every form of civilized behaviour. Except, he didn't reference Mr. Putin or the Kremlin; he referenced little Estonia.

You're now in the west. I'm sure you meet with many politicians and leaders in European countries. How insidious is the influence of Russian money among western political leaders?

[Andrei Sannikov]

That's a very good question. I think you do recognize the problem, and you targeted it very well.

I would say that it's expanding, because Russia is operating very effectively in this regard. However, this is combined not only with politicians but with the think tanks in the west that are being bought over and with the mass media in the west that are being bought over or just being paid to present not even the views of Russia but very aggressive propaganda instead of information.

This worries me a lot. I see it, I know about this fact, and I don't see any effective preventive measures, let's say, or any measures to stop it. I still feel that there is a lack of recognition of the dangers. When Ukraine was attacked, when they annexed Crimea and started the aggression in the Donbass region, my first reaction was that this was the beginning of the attack on Europe and on the west in general.

Again, I think it was unexpected for many, but it was expected by us. We knew that it was coming. We didn't expect, of course, the kind of war that was unleashed by Russia, but the aggressiveness of the Kremlin had become more and more apparent for us. We knew that they would be looking for some kind of outlet for this aggressiveness.

We all know of the phrase “Russian World” and how it is promoted by the Kremlin in Belarus but also very effectively in the west. Believe me, there is no such notion of the western or democratic world in Russia or in Belarus. That is not being promoted. The values of the west and liberal democracy are not being promoted in our countries. That is the difference in the approaches, and I am afraid—I hate to say it—they are acting much more effectively. I'm sure that I'm not being too optimistic when I say that the west will put its act together eventually, but so far the dangers are apparent and they are growing, unfortunately.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your courage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Mr. Kmiec, please.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Sannikov, for being with us today. I'm going to focus my questions a bit more on the work done by the opposition in Belarus.

Would it be fair to say that sanctions help protect members of the Belarus opposition, the people who are human rights activists, lawyers, or people like you who are actively opposing, in a democratic way, the Lukashenko regime?

[Andrei Sannikov]

Yes, absolutely. You're absolutely right. It helps protect people.

Another thing is that it creates a kind of opening, because when people who are on the side of the regime, or are members of the regime, or are those who have actually implemented whatever policies the regime has implemented in Belarus, they know that there is a principled assessment of their activities, their wrong activities, and they know the possible consequences. They are being more careful. Vice versa, when the sanctions are lifted, they don't have these kinds of barriers, so the sanctions do create openings for the civil society, for the political opposition, and for mass media or independent media in the countries that are in such difficult situations.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

In your particular case, you mentioned the two businessmen who were targeted by sanctions. Do you think that helped you survive in prison? Do you think you would have finished up like Mr. Magnitsky?

[Andrei Sannikov]

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, it probably saved my life. I was then—pardon me for saying this—the most well-known opposition politician in the prison because my whole family was targeted. Initially, my wife was also in prison. They tried to abduct our little son. Everybody understood that the sanctions were tied to my personal case, as well as those of others, of course.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I noticed that your memoirs of what happened to you and your ordeal are also not allowed in Belarus. They're actually seized at the border, so I know that you're kind of a focal point. I realize that.

[Andrei Sannikov]

Yes.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

You mentioned something about—

[Andrei Sannikov]

I would—

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Go on.

[Andrei Sannikov]

Yes, I agree with you.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I was going to ask about this sanction fatigue concept.

I wasn't born in Canada. I was born in Poland. My family has always talked about Russia in a very different way from how I hear many people in the west talk about it. But this concept of sanction fatigue is, to me, very cultural and the Russian Federation, the Russian government, in whatever iteration it's appeared as, whether it be the Soviet Union or today under Mr. Putin, tries to outlast the west, so it takes actions according to whatever its best interests are and tries to outlast us.

With this concept you've talked about of sanction fatigue, do you think westerners, western governments, take too short a view on what sanctions are supposed to achieve in terms of coercing either the government or coercing people at, say, the prison warden level or at the KGB police enforcement level to take different decisions, take different actions?

[Andrei Sannikov]

I think that sometimes we allow a false rationale, a false logic, to enter the discussion. What people like Putin or Lukashenko try to do is, first, make the best argument they have against sanctions, which is that sanctions hurt the people. It's hypocrisy because the regime is hurting people. This is especially clear in the case of Belarus, because the economy now is in a catastrophic state because of the lack of reforms, because of the lack of anything that people could benefit from. The regimes hurt the people, not the sanctions.

Again, I must stress that sanctions are not magic. They are not a strategy. They are an instrument that should serve the strategy of democratic changes in the countries and the relationship of major countries like Canada, like the United States, like the European countries, with the regimes that are not complying with their own obligations, especially as regards human rights.

Sometimes I hear the argument that there were changes in eastern Europe without sanctions, but it's wrong because the sanctions were there, because it was not only Polish Solidarity that was sacrificing their lives in their fight for freedom but there were also sanctions from the west against the Polish government, especially after the introduction of martial law.

It is one of the the elements of the general policy of any individual country, especially western democracies, with rogue regimes. I think it's a very important element, but it has to be an element of a logical and durable strategy.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

If Canada were to go ahead and create a regime of more targeted sanctions, where we would target prison administrators, special police forces, would it help opposition parties in Belarus in opposing Lukashenko? Would that provide a better means of having a fair playing field for organizations like your own Charter 97 and others who are fighting for human rights, democratic rights?

[Andrei Sannikov]

Yes, absolutely. Again, I've had first-hand experience because some of the wardens in the prison were secretly or confidentially talking to me and saying that they were very afraid. They were afraid of publicity. They asked me not to release their names to the press because they were afraid of being targeted by sanctions. They were afraid, also, that they would be known as criminals, even among their neighbours. It's very interesting, and it's very interesting to know, that the condemnation by the west of the crimes they committed exposes them inside the country because their names become known, which they try to keep secret. It puts them in an awkward position, and not everybody is a scoundrel who is in the situation of serving the regime—

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

If I may interrupt for a second, we've heard before in other testimony that some members of police forces wear it as a badge of honour. I know at least one member at this table here, my colleague Mr. Allison has been sanctioned by the Russian Federation. He can't travel there. I'm sure he's chagrined by that. Is it seen as a badge of honour in Belarus—

[Andrei Sannikov]

Yes.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

—to be the target of western sanctions?

[Andrei Sannikov]

Do you mean a badge of honour for Belarusian colleagues?