1.

[Translated from Le Monde (Paris)]

Vu & commenté

"EVERYTHING'S FINE!" SAYS THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENT
By Dominique Dhombres

Le Monde (Paris)
August 27, 2008

http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2008/08/27/tout-va-bien-dit-le-president-russe-par-dominique-dhombres_1088489_3232.html

Dmitry Medvedev has never been so much in the limelight. He was everywhere on Tuesday, on every channel. An interview with the BBC, another with LCI [a news channel on French cable TV]. And again, this Wednesday, declaiming in the *Financial Times*. A specialist in Roman law, the Russian president, who knows absolutely nothing about military operations and has till now never pretended to, has suddenly become a strategist. We've seen him decorate soldiers and talk to the highest army dignitaries. His job requires that, of course, since he is from now on "the" president, and Vladimir Putin only "his" prime minister. But it's all happened so fast, the role-playing game is so new that it's hard to really believe it. For him, too.

Take for example the amazing interview he granted LCI. The Russian president received Vincent Hervouët at Sotchi, on the shores of the Black Sea, "a few dozen kilometers from Abkhazia, a province of Georgia, but from now on, for you, an independent country," began the French journalist. So why did Russia recognize the "independence" of the two Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? "It was the least bad solution," answered the Russian president. Sure, Russia "accepts the principle that the territorial integrity is one of the fundamental principles of international law," but, in this case, it doesn't apply... Just as for the Westerners themselves, six months ago, when they recognized Kosovo's independence? At that time Putin spoke elegantly about a "boomerang that was going to come back in their face." Dimitry Medvedev smiled. "Even if it is a boomerang, it would have been better if it hadn't come back. But since it happened, we'll all just have to live with it," he said. The rhetorical pace of the interview was established. And it never changed. Shall we summarize? Russia respects international law, but, faced with these Georgian hoodlums, there are limits! Is this a return to the Cold War? Russia "doesn't want that," but "if that's what the Europeans want, they'll get it"! Where did this former professor of Roman law get such nerve? They came to the great affair of the moment, the port of Poti, whre two American warships were to dock on Wednesday. "We don't control the Georgian port of Poti. We're not blocking it. That's all baloney," he said. Poti? asked, incredulous, the French journalist. Poti! answered Medvedev, mockingly. "In the port of Poti, they unload freight. The American ships are coming. They're restocking Georgia with arms. Everything's fine!" he concluded with a still more amused smile. A change has really come over our Roman law prof. He's become a comic.

--
Translated by Mark K. Jensen
Associate Professor of French
Chair, Department of Languages and Literatures
< Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447-0003
Phone: 253-535-7219
Web page: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@plu.edu