Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

Smoke clears a bit around the  bizzare decision of Russian Federal Customs service to ban all  exports of human medical specimen. Kommersant Daily that initially reported the story is trying to figure out both how it happened and why. There is still no clear answer, but it looks like there was a combination of potential explanations I have outlined in my previous post on the subject. Let's rehash and keep them in mind:

• Anti-terrorism concerns and belief that the West is working on the anti-Russian ethnic-specific weapon. It is after all a case of grandiose obscurantism on governmental level where paranoid bureaucrats are really exposing their convoluted world view.
• It is a beginning of a PR campaign to counter dismal health care and public health record of the current administration. After all the dreadful life expectancy figures can not be helpful and blaming the West has always worked like a charm in Russia.
  
• Somebody within Putin's coterie is eyeing medical field. I can't fathom how this ban could help improve the field but them vultures think in different terms.
• There is an internal struggle within Putin's coterie and someone with financial interests in medical field is being squeezed.
• The Federal Customs service is setting up a new racket - new opportunities for bribery or extortion.
• Gross Incompetence in implementing regulations.

From the Kommersant account [link in Russian], Federal Customs Head Mr Belyaninov was not very clear. His press conference had to be canceled and only a statement was available later. In that announcement, Belyaninov presented new customs regulations as "some restrictions" rather then a "ban". Which flies in the face of reality, since there are no exports through Moscow and St Petersburg ports of entry. The Customs Head indicated that the "new regime" stops "uncontrolled border crossing by organs and tissues." There is no explanations of what could be wrong with "uncontrolled border crossings by organs".

The next paragraph in the Kommersant article is perplexing. It claims that the Federal Customs Service "indirectly" confirmed that the "main explanation" after all were the concerns among "power structures" [an ugly Russian euphemism for defense, security and law enforcement entities all wrapped in one neat little package] regarding existing theories of biogenetic and ethnic specific weapons development.

Further, during his announcement Mr. Belyaninov indicated that "FCS together with Ministry of Health and Social Development will shortly present new border crossing rules for law abiding exporters". This sort of suggests that no new regs were defined when the initial ban suddenly fell from above like a ton of bricks.

So it appears that reality lies in a combination of the first and the last explanations from my earlier list. Well, add to this the second explanation from the bottom and you have a fairly good picture of how things work in Russia. Some top boss, maybe Putin himself, expressed displeasure with the situation, in light of the report accusing the West of planning to kill all Russians, causing a knee jerk reaction among subordinate professional brownnosers and nobody along the way thought about consequences, except for the customs officials that now have yet another racket opportunity.

My refusal to believe obscuramtism was the core reason behind the ban turned out to be short lived. But realization of how seriously retrograde some people at the top of Russian officialdom are also brings back another point I have yet to get tired of making.

Limiting press freedoms, limiting free flow of conflicting opinions, limiting critical thinking in any way will invariably result in those at the top, limiting themselves from information necessary to make appropriate decisions. That was the downfall of the USSR expressed so vividly by Raisa Gobachev trying to "gotcha" Americans in Minneapolis for showing her Potemkin villages in a drug store.

Quite often if not always, those that adhere to conspiracy theories reveal inner working of their minds more then anything else. They all but shout to the world of what they would have done if they were in a position to.

For now contrary to blatantly contradicting statements from the Customs Head, there is no easing of the ban. Kommersant reports that courier services that specialize in  transporting  medical samples for clinical tests are not taking any orders. Managers of 11 major clinical test companies have sent a letter to Russian Prime Minister Fradkov stating that health of tens of thousands of patients can be threatened. However, it is Saturday in Russia. Is anyone willing to take a flying guess whether there will be a change over the weekend tens of thousands of people be damned?