Orwell Does Sochi

[don]

from the New York Times coverage . . .

But all that (pageantry) should not overshadow the bigger issues of these Games, including Russia’s oppressive antigay law and its suffocating restrictions on freedom of speech. Those two issues cannot be lost amid the chaos surrounding these Games, and even the competitions about to begin.

It is a certainty that at the same time athletes are celebrated for winning medals, some Russian citizens will be treated far less well — cruelly in fact — for speaking their mind or for being gay. Dmitry Chernyshenko, the head of the Sochi organizing committee, even tried to stifle athletes from speaking their minds about politics in official interview areas in the Olympic Park. But Bach, at his first Olympics as president of the I.O.C., quickly overruled him.

That was not the first time Bach, who is from Germany, took a stand at these Games.

meanwhile, waiting in the wings for a surprise appearance . . .

[bill]

Re: Orwell Does Sochi

http://www.backpagelead.com.au/index...gangster-games

07 February 2014 13:12

The Gangster Games are about to start. Not even the pre-games' spin of the new IOC President, Thomas Bach, can mask the fact that corruption and the suppression of human rights have plagued the lead up to the Sochi Olympics.
The cost blow-out has been already well documented. The current $US51 billion price-tag is $US12 billion above the total cost of the Beijing summer Olympics and a staggering $US45 billion in excess of Vancouver.
Bach this week stressed the blow-out was not related to the Games, but stemmed from Putin's decision to revamp the region into an all-weather tourism playground.
But many would disagree. Putin's opponent Boris Nemetov has consistently claimed that over $US30 billion of the Sochi budget has been squandered on corruption.
This isn't surprising. The building of Sochi's Olympic venues was marred by gangsterism and stand-over tactics. Construction workers still remain unpaid, while those who've had their houses demolished have not received compensation.
Even the dogs are copping it. Sochi has a stray dog problem. One even wandered amongst the performers at a rehearsal for the opening ceremony in Fisht Stadium earlier this week. Pest control firm, Basya Services, has been contracted to kill the dogs.
One of the main reasons Sochi – a no snow resort – got the games over the more favoured and wintery cities of Austria's Salzburg and South Korea's Pyeongchang was gangsterism.
One of Sochi's campaigners was the Uzbek standover merchant, Gafur Rakhimov.
An Olympic heavy, Rakhmiov is alleged to have made millions running heroin throughout Asia, Europe and the UK. The Australian government was well aware of Rakhimov's drug-running. Before the 2000 Sydney Olympics the Immigration Minister, Phillip Ruddock, banned the Uzbek from entering the country.
Rakhimov will watch the Sochi games in Dubai. These days he's a wanted man in Uzbekistan.
It's a staggering fall from grace. Rakhimov was once vice-president of the Uzbek national Olympic committee and praised by the country's President, Islam Karimov, for his services to international sport.
Rakhimov was also instrumental in getting Sochi the Games. He successfully lobbied Asian IOC members to support the city against its more highly fancied opponents.
But the gangsterism doesn't stop there. The building of the Games' venues was a magnet for the Russian mob.
The Georgian-born career mobster, Aslan Usoyan, alias Ded Khasan, is reputed to have made his fortune in the Afghani heroin trade. After Sochi won the right to host the Games, Usoyan made sure he got a cut from real estate sales, labour agreements and the control of the port.
In January 2013 he was shot dead in one of his Moscow restaurants. No one's yet been charged, but suspicion has fallen on the Georgian thug, Tariel 'Taro' Oniani, and his gang. Oniani is said to have wanted a slice of the Sochi action and it is speculated that Georgian mobsters were behind the killing.
Yet this turf war has been ignored. Instead press reports focus on the city's cordon sanitaire, the suppression of political dissent and the attacks on the rights of gays and lesbians.
Just the other day Sochi's Mayor warned gays to leave their 'habits' at home.
Under the IOC's charter, the use of the Games for political purposes is banned. But Putin's treatment of gays and lesbians, his suppression of dissent and the presence of Jihadists on Sochi's borders ensure these games will be the most political for some time.
Already they have had their first terrorism glitch. Despite the drones, naval convoys, ground-to-air missiles and the 100,000 security personnel, one of the so-called 'Black widows', Ruzanna Ibragimova, has apparently slipped through the city's 'ring of steel.' Police are doing the rounds of hotels and the airport in an attempt to capture her.
Ibragimova has form. Her husband was a jihadist who was killed last year, and she is connected to the terrorist Caucasus Emirate led by Doku Umarov.
A terrorist attack on the Games is unlikely. But the fear of an attack remains. It has been used by Putin to clamp down on political dissent and the activities of environmental and human rights activists in the region.
All this will be probably forgotten once last year's snow comes out of the freezers and the games begin. There'll be fine speeches about the Olympic spirit and family, but no mention of the gangsterism and repression.
The founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, would be spinning in his grave to see his ideal reduced to Putin's gangster games.
Tom Heenan teaches sport at Monash University

[cobben]

Re: Orwell Does Sochi

The Swedish state TV journalists have been digging.

Stockholm company moves Olympic money to tax havens
(article in Swedish only, my translation of two small pieces)
Stockholmsbolag flyttar OS-pengar till skatteparadis

. . .

The complicated structures with various companies, owners and transfers makes it difficult to track how the Olympic money is moved from the investments in Sochi to holding companies in Sweden and elsewhere.

According to various estimates about half the Olympic budget has been embezzled, about SEK 150 billion and money from one of the largest projects goes via Sweden.

. . .

Putin's office has politely declined to comment on UGs information but the President made the following statement during a press conference in mid-January:

- If anyone has this information, please tell us, we will be grateful. But so far no one has been able to present any evidence. But we understand and we are used to it. There are always forces that are fighting against everything, including the Olympics. And why is that? Yes it is well their job. Maybe they have had a tough life that made them bitter towards everything, said Vladimir Putin.