Dear Friends of Beauty, Truth and Goodness,

     We knew Galina Starovoitova. She was a member of 
our Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, 
and was blessed as a couple being newly married at RFK 
stadium in Washington, DC, on November 29, 1998, just 
one year ago today. We love her and miss her. She is a 
righteous lady, a champion, and a martyr of Russia. She 
was our best contact, and was victimized by the evil in 
this society. However, with her passage, tens of 
thousands of more burning, righteous champions will 
rise up in her place and in her spirit and the spirit of our 
True Parents to take up her fight and defeat the mafia, 
the injustice, and the communism threatening Russia 
at its core. Russia may look bad to the world, but I tell 
you that there are thousands who are ready to stand 
up for God and mankind, for their country, their people, 
and for goodness. We pray for her and bless her soul.

     Love, William Stoertz
     Moscow

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NW RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #35; Published 1998.11.25.

IN THIS ISSUE WE MOURN OUR SISTER GALINA STAROVOITOVA
--------------------------------------------

WE MOURN THE PASSING OF OUR SISTER GALINA 
STAROVOITOVA: I received a phone call from a foreign 
representative early the morning after the murder of Galina 
Staravoitova. He had heard it on BBC. I did not know who she 
was. Later that evening I received a call from one of my 
Russian friends, a member of CARP, who was also upset by 
the news. Here is what I learned about this woman.

She was a very progressive politician, speaking up for 
democracy and development of the nation, against the 
nationalists, Communists and reactionaries who want to take the 
nation backwards, to isolate Russia from the west, and to hurt 
the economic development of the nation with crude state 
socialism. She spoke up for freedom of conscience. She began 
her career speaking up for the rights of minorities in the USSR.

I think it also significant in our time the she is a woman. In this 
political world which has created the history of evil and 
suffering for humankind, women have been the main preservers 
of what little heart remains to us and allows ourselves to think 
of ourselves as human, rather than sub-animal--which is too 
often the way we act. Galina Starovoitova's murder is an 
example of sub-animal action. Now with the Completed 
Testament Age it is the Women's Era, and it is women's age, 
time for women to assume authority and show heart. Galina 
was a good example of the best in political leadership.

I thought to myself how special this woman is and how she is 
so missed by her people. She represented St Petersburg in the 
Duma as I understand it. She was a person of heart in the 
heartless world of Russian politics.

In the past before True Parents created the foundation for the 
Completed Testament Age, many good people were killed and 
evil seemed to walk victoriously over all the earth. That is 
changed now and when one of God's people of heart is struck 
down, then 10,000 will rise up in her place. That is what we 
must do for our nation. If we feel the loss of Galina 
Staravoitova, if we grieve, let us not grieve for her but for the 
whole nation, and let us turn our grief into a strong resolve and 
determination to take her place. Let's witness, teach, fundraise, 
teach Pure Love, do charity and make a gather up the righteous 
Russians who will make the society safe for leaders of heart to 
heal our nation.

There is a part of her story which you couldn't know. I also 
didn't know until the foreign representative told me. Galina S 
and her husband were a Blessed couple. She and her husband 
married about a year ago. She attended the Blessing ceremony 
in America. She brought many of her American friends to RFK 
Stadium. They did not superficially drink the cup of love but 
drank with deep understanding the Holy Wine and were 
exceedingly grateful to True Parents for their Blessing.

When we attended her funeral tens of thousands waited in long 
lines out in the cold for the chance to walk by her casket and 
say good-bye. Mrs Tallakson wept uncontrollably, though she 
did not know Galina and did not understand the political system 
in which she labored with great heart and courage. My wife 
said only, "I know God really loves this woman."

The ideas of True Parents are very appealing to the righteous 
educators and politicians, writers and academics of our land 
because in True Parents' teaching they see the healing of their 
nation and they recognize the ideas which their nation 
absolutely cannot live without. They have hope which is far 
stronger than any resentful lies of Satan's last gasps against 
True Parents.

We know that if a politician speaks in favor of Sun Myung 
Moon they risk being crucified by the media--killed by words. 
So we do no ask politician to do that. Galina Staravoitova 
wanted to defend Father Moon anyway. That is the kind of 
person she is. She is iron-will righteous. She made her career 
out of defending people's rights and freedom of conscience. A 
few months ago in Berlin she attended an internal conference on 
Religious Freedom and Freedom of Conscience. She is well 
known in the west as a champion of democracy--partially 
because she speaks good English--she is often a guest on BBC. 
She spoke very righteously in Berlin in the defense of and 
promotion of the Unification Movement of Dr Sun Myung 
Moon.

So let's pray for our sister Galina. A true Russian patriot. A 
righteous person. A true woman. A true politician. A woman of 
heart in the political world devoid of mercy. And let's prepare 
ourselves to take her place. We cannot let evil, much less blatant 
evil, defeat us. We grieve for our children if we do not stand in 
Galina's place.

 --------------------------------

LEADING LIBERAL DEPUTY STAROVOITOVA 
MURDERED: (RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, 
PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, 
No. 226, Part I, 23 November 1998): Though somewhat inured 
to violence, Russia's political elite responded with shock to the 
murder of State Duma deputy and co-chair of the Democratic 
Russia party Galina Starovoitova, who was slain by gunmen in 
her St. Petersburg apartment late on 20 November. Her press 
secretary, Ruslan Linkov, was critically injured in the attack. 
Starovoitova, 52, had been a democracy activist both before and 
after the breakup of the Soviet Union. She served as one of 
Yeltsin's advisers on nationalities policies and more recently led 
efforts to censure Duma deputy Albert Makashov for his anti-
Semitic remarks. President Yeltsin expressed "shock and 
profound anger" at the killing, calling her "one of the brightest 
figures in Russian politics." Historian Dmitrii Likachev said her 
killing seems to signal the "outburst of a new Red Terror" (see 
also "End Note" below). JAC

 --------------------------------

. . . AFTER RECEIVING DEATH THREATS. Linkov, a 
former journalist, reportedly had compiled a report on contract 
killings traceable to Duma Speaker Seleznev and Communist 
Party leader Gennadii Zyuganov, Viktor Krivulin, head of the 
St. Petersburg branch of Democratic Russia told reporters on 21 
November. Starovoitova intended to present the report at the 
next Duma session, he claimed. Starovoitova had been receiving 
death threats in recent months over the reports published in 
"Severnaya stolitsa" about corruption among high-placed 
officials in the federal and St. Petersburg government, Duma 
deputy Ludmila Narusova told Interfax on 21 November. 
Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin told reporters that there is no 
evidence linking Seleznev to the killing, and Federal Security 
Service chief Vladimir Putin said that he has no reason to 
believe the killing was a "political assassination." In October, a 
close aide to Seleznev was shot in St. Petersburg and critically 
injured (see "RFE/RL Newsline, 19 October 1998). JAC

 --------------------------------

THE DEATH OF A DEMOCRAT (by Paul Goble, Radio Free 
Europe)

The brutal murder of State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova 
has deprived Russia of its most consistent defender of 
democracy, human rights, and interethnic cooperation.

But more than that, her death on 20 November in St. Petersburg 
threatens the possibilities of debate in Russia's still fragile 
democracy, to the same extent that the August 1998 devaluation 
of the ruble undermined the country's economy.

And that threat explains both the vehemence of the reaction of 
Russian political leaders and Starovoitova's recent anticipation 
of her own fate and her understanding of the likelihood that 
those who had made the democratic revolution might soon be 
cast aside.

In the decade before her death, at the age of 52, Starovoitova 
went from being an ethnographer to being a leader of the 
democratic movement in Moscow. In both capacities, she was 
never afraid to criticize others who called themselves democrats 
if they failed to defend democratic principles.

Earlier than almost anyone else, Starovoitova spoke out in 
defense of the rights of the Karabakh Armenians, a position that 
led to her 1988 election to the USSR Supreme Soviet from 
Yerevan and membership in that body's Human Rights 
Committee.

 And even before the Soviet Union collapsed, she showed both 
her courage and commitment: In 1990, she won a libel suit 
against the Communist newspaper "Pravda," which had 
accused her of urging extraconstitutional means to change the 
government. But her concern for these human rights and 
constitutional rules was not, as some thought at the time, merely 
a reflection of her ethnographic interests. Instead, it arose from 
her deeply held belief that every individual and every group has 
certain rights that must be protected.

 In 1991-1992, she combined her passion for both ethnography 
and democracy by serving as President Boris Yeltsin's senior 
adviser on nationality issues and as co-president of the 
Democratic Russia Party. And at that time, she also worked 
closely with reformers like Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, 
and Anatoly Sobchak.

 But her relations with all of these leaders, as well as others 
were often stormy, precisely because of her uncompromising 
commitment to principle. She was among the most outspoken 
critics of Yeltsin's ill-fated war against Chechnya. She 
condemned Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's decision to expel "persons 
of Caucasian nationality" from the Russian capital. And most 
recently, she denounced her colleagues in the Duma and some 
members of the Russian government for failing to take a 
tougher line against the vicious anti-Semitic remarks and 
activities of Albert Makashov and other Russian nationalists.

But perhaps because of her willingness to break with allies 
when they backed away from their principles, Starovoitova had 
greater moral than political success. She failed in her bid to run 
for president in 1996, supposedly for "technical reasons," but 
more probably because Yeltsin forces did not want her to draw 
off any reformist votes they felt they needed to defeat 
communist challenger Gennadiy Zyuganov. At the time of her 
murder, Starovoitova was in St. Petersburg to take part in the 
Northern Capital political movement, a group she hoped to lead 
in a liberal challenge to that region's communist governor, 
Vladimir Yakovlev, in upcoming elections there.

Reaction to Starovoitova's death was swift and angry. Her 
former ally Gaidar, speaking for many who had worked with 
her, said that Starovoitova had "paid with her life" to advance 
the cause of democracy in Russia. She believed that "democracy 
in Russia is possible," Gaidar added, arguing that while this 
belief might seem "trivial" to some, her death shows that it "still 
needs to be demonstrated."

In a statement, Yeltsin professed himself to be "deeply 
outraged" by her murder. He pledged that the killers would be 
brought to justice because "the shots that have interrupted her 
life have wounded every Russian for whom democratic ideas 
are dear."

The Russian president dispatched his interior minister, Sergei 
Stepashin, to St. Petersburg to investigate Starovoitova's 
murder. And Stepashin indicated that her death would be 
investigated under the country's terrorism statute.

But as so often in her short but brilliant life, Starovoitova 
herself appears to have described what her murder--the sixth of 
a Duma deputy since 1993--means.

In an interview on Ekho Moskvy a few days before her death, 
she gave what many are certain to see as her last testament to 
the country, people, and principles about which she cared most.

"Any revolution inevitably devours its own children," 
Starovoitova said. "We, the democrats, should recognize that 
this is true even of our peaceful one. But now we want to do 
what we can to save the gains of our revolution from being 
erased--the freedom to vote, the parliamentary system, freedom 
of expression, and freedom of the press."

THOSE WHO KILLED HER WOULD LIKE TO KILL 
THOSE THINGS AS WELL. THOSE WHO REMEMBER 
HER BEST WILL DO WHAT THEY CAN, NOW THAT 
SHE IS GONE, TO PREVENT SUCH EFFORTS FROM 
SUCCEEDING. (Copyright (c) 1998 RFE/RL, Inc. All rights 
reserved.)