MOSCOW, April 19 (AFP) -
Moscow engaged Washington in a war of words Thursday following harsh US criticism of the state takeover of Russia's last private television network and closure of two liberal publications.

US accusations that Russia was exerting "political pressure and running an intimidation campaign" against independent media "are not based in fact and are far-fetched," an undisclosed foreign ministry official told the state RIA Novosti news agency.

The problems of NTV television, the Segodnya daily and Itogi weekly -- all once part of the former Media-MOST empire owned by exiled tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky -- "are purely financial, and not political," the diplomat said.

"Everything that has happened to NTV, Segodnya and Itogi was caused by commercial and financial (problems) and has nothing to do with freedom of speech," the Russian official said, adding: "Nobody switched them off."

In its most severe criticism yet of media clampdowns under President Vladimir Putin, Washington on Wednesday blasted Russia for this week's closure of independent media outlets, saying they put freedom in jeopardy.

"The United States expresses its deep disappointment with setbacks suffered recently by independent media in Russia," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement Wednesday.

He said the closures, coupled with the filing of tax evasion charges against the TNT television channel to which many of the old NTV reporters have moved, appeared politically motivated to all objective observers.

"These actions lead reasonable observers ... to the conclusion that the campaign against Media-MOST is politically motivated, given the media company's often outspoken criticism of the Russian government's policies," Boucher said.

NTV television, Russia's sole remaining nationwide independent television station, was taken over earlier this month by state-dominated gas giant Gazprom after a high-profile standoff with staff.

On Tuesday, bosses allied to Gazprom shut down Segodnya, a daily recently grabbed from Gusinsky by the huge gas company, along with the respected Itogi weekly, also formerly owned by the exiled magnate.

Boucher said the United States was "extremely troubled" that the closures had severely reduced the Russian people's access to independent news and opinion.

"Freedom of speech and pluralism in the media are essential elements of a democratic system and are among the most important gains the Russian people have achieved over the past 10 years," he said.

"These gains are put in jeopardy so long as the Russian government continues to use political pressures and intimidation tactics to limit the people's access to unfiltered sources of information," Boucher added.

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#2
Christian Science Monitor
April 20, 2001
Russian reporters, take note: self-censorship in the offing
Public reaction weakens this week with latest hits against independent media.
By Scott Peterson
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

If victory at war requires knocking down one opponent after another, then the Kremlin's clean sweep against three independent media voices this week has largely cleared the battlefield.

The take-no-prisoners clampdown on Itogi magazine and Sevodnya newspaper on Tuesday, just after the weekend takeover of NTV - Russia's last independent television station, which once reached an estimated 60 percent of the country's TV sets - has left journalists reeling.

But while results are most severe for the independent journalists now scrambling to find or create new outlets, analysts say that President Vladimir Putin's strategy of reining in critical press is meant to resonate across the Russian media.

The blows are undermining the Media-Most empire of oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, which has been a consistent critic of Kremlin corruption and Russia's wars in Chechnya, and which Russian prosecutors say has debts up to $800 million.

A sizable chunk of that is owed to the state-connected gas monopoly Gazprom, which called in its debt by taking control over the media outlets, appointing new management teams, and forcing many journalists to resign or renegotiate their contracts.

Dual American-Russian citizen Boris Jordan, NTV's new chief, has promised press freedom - but insisted that all reports be cleared through him.

"They are taking Stalin's view, that if the enemy doesn't surrender, he must be completely annihilated," says Sergei Strokan, foreign editor of Itogi, as he packs up his office. "I don't think the people who are doing this will stop until this is completely screwed down."

Financial reasons used to justify the NTV "coup," and the changes at Sevodnya - which lost $3 million last year - Mr. Strokan says, don't apply to Itogi, which turns a small profit and is published in cooperation with the US magazine Newsweek. Pending resolution of the crisis, Newsweek announced it had suspended ties with Itogi.

"Can there be any logic to it?" Strokan asks. "This brand [of independent journalism] doesn't exist without us. They are replacing merit with loyalty. It will be a disaster."

Turbulence has taken a toll on former NTV journalists, who are trying to export their critical eye to other stations. A radio edition of Itogi will be broadcast on Ekho Moskvy, NTV's sister radio station that, its editors fear, may be next in Gazprom's crosshairs. Some Russian newspapers are making space in their pages for Sevodnya writers.

An overnight takeover left Itogi journalists locked out - and told that new "staff cuts" applied to all of them. Sevodnya journalists were told 1-1/2 hours before press time that Tuesday's edition would not be printed.

But reverberations of the latest events are likely to impact Russia's entire media scene.

"Finances have nothing to do with it," says Alexei Simonov, head of the Foundation of Glasnost [Freedom of Speech] Protection in Moscow, who notes that no other indebted TV channels have been called to account. "In Russia all acts of state power are demonstrative, and this is a message to all Russian journalists. It does not mean that the Kremlin is going to crack down on freedom of speech. The newspapers will do it themselves."

That analysis may be reinforced by timing. Sevodnya's publisher, for example, had previously said the paper might be shut down by May 1, and the paper "would have died quietly" with no intervention, notes Sergei Ivanenko, an opposition member of the Information Committee in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

"It was obvious, but still the executive power preferred to use the force to intimidate the other journalists," he says. "This is the beginning of a massive crackdown on the freedom of speech in Russia. The aim of the Kremlin is to block the access to independent information."

Old Soviet-style police methods of control have simply given way to "economic strangulation," Mr. Ivanenko adds. "If Gazprom was interested in financial aspects, it would never have destroyed NTV, because its value fell radically after it was abandoned by its best journalists."

The tug of war is also playing out in Spain, where a court on Wednesday refused to extradite Mr. Gusinsky, who has been held since December on a Russian arrest warrant. While criticizing the oligarch's business dealings and claims of political persecution, the court said his media empire had been subject to "questionable circumstances and peculiarities."

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday that Russian tactics of "political pressure and intimidation" had "put in jeopardy" press freedoms gained in the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Of greater surprise to the independent journalists, however, has been the lack of popular support at the critical moment. Thousands demonstrated in favor of NTV, twice in Moscow and once in St. Petersburg, prior to the crackdown.

But during the latest events "nobody came," says Masha Lipman, deputy editor of Itogi. "It means the energy of protest has faded away. I'm afraid there is only a small demand in Russia for press freedom."

Monitor researcher Marina Lemoutkina in Moscow contributed to this report.

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#3
strana.ru
April 19, 2001
Russians identify national interests with nation's
international authority

"Russia's national interests" is a phrase many Russians know - 64% of them know what it means or at least have heard this word combination. Most Russians link the notion to the country's international prestige.

The figure appears in a sociological survey published by the Public Opinion Foundation on April 19. The poll was conducted among 1,500 adults living in towns and countryside on April 14.

43% of respondents gave their views on the meaning of Russia's national interests.

In the opinion of 10% of them, Russia's main national interest will be served if Russia occupies a worthy place in the international arena ("revive prestige," "increase international authority," "boost Russia's rating in the eyes of the rest of the world").

6% identify Russia's national interests with the interests of the dominant ethnic group. They speak of the need to "protect Russians" ("everything for the Russian people in Russia," "only Russians should hold the reins of power," "Russia for Russians, "aliens should not be allowed to come to Russia, especially those from the southern republics" and "salvage the remnants of the Russian nation").

Another six percent feel Russia's national interests will be served if the country's territorial integrity is maintained ("a single state with a single border," "territorial integrity," "don't give the Kurils to the Japanese," "don't allow autonomous republics to cede from Russia").

Five percent see economic revival as serving Russia's national interests ("revival of industry and agriculture," "a strong economy," "development of production so that we will not be a raw materials appendage").

Three percent mention higher living standards in this connection ("national interests are the living standards of ordinary people," "a good life for the population").

Another three percent believe Russia's national interests are served by ensuring peace inside the country and peaceful coexistence with other countries ("living in peace with everybody," "make sure there is no war," "bring the war in Chechnya to an end," "peace with other nations").

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#4
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
April 19, 2001
FOCUS ON THE SOVIET UNION
The CIA as a guest of Princeton University
United States and Russia ought to cooperate on missile defense
Author: not indicated
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, http://www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE CIA RECENTLY LOOKED BACK AT ITS SURVEILLANCE AND ANALYSIS OF THE SOVIET UNION FROM 1947 TO 1991. THE CIA IS STILL COLLECTING INFORMATION ON RUSSIA, AND NOW THE IDEA OF A "MISSILE UMBRELLA" HAS BEEN REVIVED. RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES HAVE YET TO BREAK FREE OF THEIR COLD WAR PAST.

In mid-March, a CIA subdivision organized a conference at Princeton University, called "CIA Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947- 1991".

The conference topic turned out to be very timely. All discussion made it clear that this type of analysis remains important because the notion of "the Soviet Union of the Cold War era" is to some extent applicable to contemporary Russia.

Conference participants recalled the SS-20 missiles and other weapons which used to concern the West. Indeed, the pointless deployment of vast numbers of mid-range missiles throughout Europe greatly disturbed the West. The Kremlin disregarded the American threat to deploy American missiles in Europe unless Moscow withdrew its own. Marshal Ustinov, once a gifted organizer in the defense sector, was a powerful driving force in the Soviet military that would not heed reason.

Actually, all these important matters merited only about 10% of declassified CIA documents. There were many more of them. Clarence Smith, who delivered the report, emphasized that the methods and techniques of analysis could not be revealed - because information on contemporary Russia is still being collected. At the same time, his statement to the effect that "considerable progress in the analysis of Soviet scientific-technical capacities gave the United States and its allies a decisive advantage and eventually resulted in victory in the Cold War" is disputable. The Cold War did not end in a victory for the United States. It ended in the collapse of the system within the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's regime saw the futility and absurdity of the Cold War, and did all it could to end it. This was politics, not science or technology.

The reasoning that it's better to destroy the enemy 25 times over rather than once is fatal reasoning. This is an atavism, a throwback to the era when common sense gave way to the insatiable desire for defense spending. Moreover, a study of Soviet-American relations does not even reveal the reasons which made the Cold War imperative. Historian John Lukacs emphasized that the Cold War was a war of misunderstandings.

The SDI idea has been revived. These days, US political leaders say they do not need a "nuclear umbrella" against a threat from Russia; they need it as a defense against countries which hate the United States and are out to develop their own missile programs in order to be able to strike at the United States. There is some rational argument here. In that case, why can't Russia and the United States design and deploy a system of protection together? Let the "nuclear umbrella" protect the United States, Europe, and Asia. A joint effort would save time and money. And the program itself would become more realistic, because it will concern a shield against attack by other countries whose military and technical capacities are no match for Russia...

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#5
Itogi
April 17, 2001
A TASTE OF THE COLD WAR.
No one needs an open confrontation between the US and China.
The outlook for relations between Russia, China, and the
United States.
Author: Alexander Golts
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html ]
SOME SAY THAT THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA ARE BOUND TO CLASH EVENTUALLY. THE KREMLIN SHOULD DO EVERYTHING IT CAN TO PREVENT SUCH A CONFRONTATION. RUSSIA SHOULD ALSO RECONSIDER ITS OWN ARMS SALES TO CHINA, WEIGHING UP REVENUE VERSUS POTENTIAL DANGERS.

The day Beijing announced its intention to release the crew of the American spy plane, the Carnegie Foundation in Moscow screened the film "Thirteen Days" about the Caribbean crisis of 1962. A discussion followed. Robert McNamara, then defense secretary, and General Anatoly Gribkov, then deputy chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Soviet General Staff, were unanimous that the Caribbean crisis had been a perfect illustration of how misinterpretation and failure to understand the opponent's motives could result in a global catastrophe. When the American U-2 was shot down over Cuba, Washington took it a clear indication of Moscow's aggressive intent. But that plane was shot down against the Kremlin's orders.

A comparison of the realities of that distant era with what is happening today shows that authors of numerous articles exaggerate when they interpret the recent events as a lead-up to another Cold War, this one between the United States and China. These days, nations prefer to resolve conflicts. The detention of the American aircraft by China has been successfully resolved, the scandal over Russian diplomats expelled from the United States is almost forgotten already.

A Cold War between America and China is unlikely. With trade turnover amounting to $116 billion a year, both countries understand that escalation of the conflict and the desire to humiliate the other may result in a real confrontation, which no one really needs.

And yet, as soon as the crew of the American aircraft had safely made it to the United States, official American statements became noticeably sharper. In particular, the Pentagon announced that reconnaissance flights would continue despite demands from Beijing to put an end to them. This means that we should not rule out the possibility of the worst-case scenario.

Aleksei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee: The incident with the American aircraft is one of the first episodes in an upcoming American-Chinese confrontation. China is developing into a superpower, and the United States is one already. Their rivalry is inevitable.

Beijing and Washington alike have reasons to treat each other with apprehension. Washington does not think Beijing will be able to combine a strict communist ideology with a liberal economy much longer. A political crisis is bound to eventuate, and the hawks might come to power in China.

The United States has its own share of hawks, who believe that Washington should structure its relations with Beijing the way it did with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Two years ago, even the liberal Clinton administration "generally accepted" the conclusions of the Congress report on Chinese espionage in the United States, and on the threat China posed to America. The recommendations boil down to the following - the United States should construct another Iron Curtain and bar China from access to American high technology. We cannot expect the new US administration to be more moderate than its predecessor. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced recently that China is not yet an enemy of the United States, but already a rival.

Even the theoretical possibility of an open confrontation between the United States and China poses some difficult questions for Russia. While Moscow has repeatedly called the United States a strategic partner over the past decade, it has still done its best to preserve Cold War-like relations with Washington. Yeltsin was certain that Russia's nuclear arsenals were the best guarantee that Washington would take Russia seriously.

When the Kremlin finally saw that talking to the United States on equal terms was no longer possible, Yevgeny Primakov's idea of a multi-polar world was born. Its essence was fairly simple. Russia was to become the center of an anti-American coalition, retaining its status as a great power. It is in accordance with this concept that the Kremlin has been bombarding Beijing with proposals for "strategic partnership" all these years. Until recently, Beijing declined the offers politely but firmly.

As soon as the incident with the US spy plane happened, and the prospect of an open confrontation drew a little closer, representatives of Chinese foreign policy research centers began sending all sorts of messages to Moscow - to the effect that Beijing was actually prepared to move in this direction. There have been persistent and fantastic rumors in Russian diplomatic circles that the treaty Putin and Jiang Zemin are supposed to sign this summer will include an article on security cooperation. This would bring Russia and China even closer to each other. Arbatov does not rule out this possibility, though he doubts that it is in Russia's interests. Arbatov says the United States has been too rough with regard to Russia, pushing it toward China.

Economically speaking, Russia is much weaker. That is why it would play a secondary role in an alliance with China. As for China, it has already made it clear that Russia's interests will be the last to be taken into account. Moscow depended on China heavily in the matter of US plans to deploy a national missile defense. In mid-March, Beijing made a statement objecting to the creation of a regional missile defense system which would protect Taiwan. Moreover, China made it clear that strategic missile defense systems concerned it much less than regional ones.

There are many top politicians in Russia who share the opinion of the military-industrial complex that a confrontation between the United States and China would benefit Russia politically and economically. They say Beijing is the largest buyer of Russian military hardware. China spends over a billion dollars a year on Russian military hardware (amounting to one-fifth of trade turnover), and this figure will only increase as soon as an American-Chinese confrontation begins in all earnest. All this is because China lacks technology and an advanced defense sector, so necessary in arms races.

In fact, Russia all too frequently sells military hardware on terms which are much too favorable for the customer. Even had it been otherwise, arms sales to China would not have promised anything good for Russia.

Dmitry Trenin, Deputy Director of the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Foundation: Selling Russian arms to China is a threat to our national security, even at the present level of sales. We should stop and analyze everything thoroughly. We should forget purely financial considerations - how many millions Russia might earn. We should give some thought to what Russia may lose, if and when it is involved in an American-Chinese confrontation against its will.

Moscow claims that the military hardware it has been selling to China cannot disrupt parity in the Asia-Pacific. And yet, it recently sold destroyers with the Moskit system to China; and there is no known defense from the Moskit. The United States has pledged to protect Taiwan, so it is predictably worried.

Moreover, Russia is busily arming a nation with which it has an extensive shared border - an overpopulated nation with economic problems - a nation which cannot be called democratic by any stretch of the imagination. Russian generals seem to assume that China will be busy with Taiwan for the next decade, so there is no reason in the world we should not sell China the latest weapons systems, which the Russian army itself does not have. Ten years from now these weapons systems will be outdated in any case. In the meantime, with the money earned Moscow will be able to create new weapons systems and re-equip its own Armed Forces.

Fortunately, state officials responsible for foreign policy refused to be intimidated by the hawks who demanded open support for China in the latest American-Chinese incident. Washington and Beijing have reached an agreement already, and we would have been in a very awkward position if we had supported China.

Arbatov: Preventing American-Chinese discord from escalating into a confrontation is the only reasonable policy for Russia right now. Under no circumstances should the Kremlin make an alliance with any one state against another.

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#6
The Russia Journal
April 20-26, 2001
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WANG PEI AND GENNADY LYACHIN?
From John Helmer in Moscow

Wang Pei was the Chinese fighter pilot who was killed on April 1, after his interception of a US electronic warfare and espionage aircraft led to a collision of the two aircraft over the South China Sea. All 24 Americans on board their craft were saved, after they made an emergency landing at a Chinese airbase.

Gennady Lyachin was the Russian commander of the "Kursk" submarine, when it sank to the floor of the Barents Sea on August 11 last year, following an explosion that may have been triggered by a collision with a foreign submarine. Lyachin and 117 of his crew died.

While the causes of the casualties are different, and may be a little easier to establish in the Chinese case than in the Russian, the political context in which the US government has been obliged to apologize to China, but not to Russia, is more similar than politicians in Washington and Moscow are prepared to acknowledge.

Washington's claim to be free, under international law and custom, to use international waters and airspace for "surveillance" operations against China and Russia is no defence or justification for what has happened.

International waters and airspace, the lawyers point out, are open for innocent passage of ships and aircraft whose missions do not threaten littoral states or other vessels. Evidence of hostile intention changes the character of passage, and allows those threatened to defend themselves. When aggression meets defence, there is no haven in international space, and international law provides no protection. Aggressor and defender are close to war.

According to Lieutenant Shane Osborn, pilot of the surviving US Navy aircraft, "I wasn't happy with the aggressive nature of the intercept." He was referring to the third of three passes Wang's jet made, in order to induce the American aircraft to change course, away from the Chinese military targets it was monitoring. The nature of the monitoring, like many forms of espionage and military reconnaissance, is so close to aggression, it is best not to get caught, because the innocent alibi is unbelievable.

To the Chinese side, it was Osborn and his spy plane that initiated aggression. Interception was part of China's right of self-defence. And so was the perilous risk Wang took in moving his aircraft within a few feet of the American.

It could be said that, in exercising their demand for an American apology, the Chinese were fortunate they had hold of the US Navy crew and their aircraft, alive and intact. To most Chinese, they should have been treated as if they were Taiwanese forces, since indeed the purpose of the American operations is to prevent China from recovering its sovereignty over that island.

To most Americans, including White House tacticians who fear the poll damage that hostage situations do to presidents, the few words required to achieve the return of the Navy crew meant less than the effect.

But suppose it had been the Americans who perished, and the Chinese pilot who survived. Would the Bush Administration limit itself, as Beijing has done, to demanding an apology from the Chinese government? Would sorry be too little, and the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike force to the crash zone be too much? That depends on whom you judge to have been the aggressor; and also what risk and cost American voters would accept from escalating their demands against China.

It should be obvious to everyone that maritime vessels and aircraft conducting electronic espionage, with the capabilities to jam defences and coordinate attack, are aggressors, though not necessarily causes of war. The longer the stand-off range from which the US Navy and Air Force attacks targets, the less justification Washington can claim for its operations in international waters. Is the rehearsal and simulation of attack and defence, which US Navy Orions regularly conduct on their missions along the Chinese coast less hostile in intention, because they are the preliminaries, not the real thing?

Twenty years ago, when Muammar Qaddafi of Libya tried to test the doctrine of innocent passage by drawing a line across Mediterranean waters near his coast, declaring that US military aircraft crossing the line would be deemed to have hostile intent, Washington responded by shooting down the Libyan interceptors. Later, when Libyan air defences had been exhaustively probed and mapped, the Reagan Administration sent more than one hundred aircraft to attack Qaddafi in the largest assassination attempt ever attempted.

Libya was a small power, with weak means of national defence and virtually no allies. China and Russia are very different. But how different is Russia from China?

It is now eight months since the "Kursk" went down, and the official, but unsubstantiated version of what caused the loss, remains a collision with a US submarine. US and Russian negotiations have been held in the interval on a code of practice for submarines operating at close quarters in so-called surveillance operations. These negotiations have had no evident result. Presumably, the rehearsal and simulation of war under the sea goes on, as before.

The Kremlin has many domestic problems still to be solved from the loss of the "Kursk", and there is now a new administrator, Sergei Ivanov, in charge of Russia's defence. Noone should know better than Ivanov, a former general of Russian intelligence, the parallels and differences between espionage and reconnaissance in force; and the means for countering both.

It is therefore time for the new minister to make a clear statement of what he understands to have happened to the "Kursk", and how responsibility for the deaths of the 118 Russians should be distributed. If Ivanov believes that a foreign intruder triggered the explosion that destroyed the "Kursk", isn't it time for him to follow the Chinese lead, and demand an apology? And if Moscow doesn't demand an apology from Washington, is that because the Kremlin has evidence of what happened that it shares with the US, but not with the Russian people?

When it comes to saying sorry, what is the difference between Wang Pei and Gennady Lyachin?

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#7
Moscow Times
April 18, 2001
There Are Fascists Frolicking in the Forests
By Stephen Shenfield
Stephen Shenfield is an independent researcher based in Providence, Rhode Island. His latest book is "Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies and Movements." He contributed this essay to The Moscow Times.

Of all the strange sects in Russia today, the Church of Nav - also known as the Society of Nav or as the Sacred Church of the White Race - is perhaps the strangest.

Its founder, Ilya Lazarenko, began his political career in 1990, when at the age of 16 he joined one of the many splinter groups of Pamyat, the Russian Gathering Pamyat of taxi driver Igor Shcheglov. In November 1991, Lazarenko proceeded to set up an organization of his own, the Union of Russian Youth. I happened to pick up the first issue of its journal, Nash Marsh (Our March) at a red-brown rally in Moscow's Oktyabrskaya Ploshchad. Most of the four pages of smudged typescript were about Benito Mussolini.

In 1993, Lazarenko's organization was renamed the Front of National-Revolutionary Action. In 1994, it became the National Front Party. Its doctrine was fascist in the classical sense, envisaging a "Great National-Socialist Russian Empire" under a "national dictatorship."

Lazarenko's party soon went into rapid decline. Many members left to join rival fascist organizations. So Lazarenko looked for a way of holding his remaining members together and hit upon a novel idea. He would enroll them in a new church, a "military-spiritual occult brotherhood" of devotees of Nav. And so the Church of Nav was inaugurated - on Hitler's birthday, April 20, 1996. Meanwhile, the party National Front continued to exist, with the same leader and the same members. On Feb. 14, 1998, it staged a rally at the U.S. Embassy under the stirring slogan: "Freedom for Texas!"

But who on earth - or rather, in heaven - is Nav?

Lazarenko and his followers are pagans, but of a special kind. Most Russian pagans believe in the gods that the Slavic tribes used to worship before they adopted Christianity. The most important ones were Perun, the god of storms, thunder and lightning, and Svarog, the god of fire and the sun.

The Church of Nav despises such "primitive peasant cults" for having "no serious occult-magical content or coherent theology." Its members regard themselves not as pagans, but as Ariosophists. Ariosophy - Greek for "wisdom of the Aryans" - was a mystical racist doctrine that grew up in Central Europe 100 years ago and influenced the early Nazis. Nav is the supreme deity to whom the devotees of the Church of Nav pay homage, the "father-of-all" (vsyo-otets). They also revere the "Shining Gods" and the avatars - earthly incarnations of deities in Hindu mythology - who constitute a divine hierarchy under Nav.

The Book of Genesis tells us the material universe was created out of the primeval void by a god called Jehovah, which is an anglicized variant of the Hebrew Yahweh ("I Am Who I Am"). One of Jehovah's sidekicks, an angel called Satan, or Lucifer, had the temerity to rebel, for which he was cast out of heaven. Satan took up the position of lord of hell and master of the evil forces of the universe.

The Ariosophists add an intriguing twist to the story. Jehovah - whom they call Yav - is still the creator of the material universe. But he is no longer the supreme deity. That honor belongs to Nav.

Before the material universe came into being, there existed not a mere void, but a perfect self-sufficient, and purely spiritual universe, the creation and realm of Nav. But the "criminal" Yav somehow captured the energies of Nav's universe, and used them to form the material universe, which was imperfect and therefore subject to corruption and degradation.

Thus the role of the good and rightful supreme god is taken by Nav, while Jehovah becomes the rebellious and malicious angel - that is to say, Satan.

To combat the disease set loose by Yav's crime, Nav created a race of people, the Aryans or Whites, who were to carry his spirit into the material universe. For their earthly homeland, Nav gave the Aryans a large island near the North Pole called Hyperborea. Later, the Aryans migrated south to Eurasia, taking with them their high culture, and founded there all known civilizations.

But racial mixing and spiritual decline brought them to their present sorry condition, their native gods forgotten and their race dying. A crucial role in their downfall was played by Judeo-Christianity, cunningly invented to break their magical tie with the Aryan gods and enslave them to Jehovah.

The Aryans must recognize themselves as part of the divine hierarchy, and return to the faith of their ancestors. They must set themselves "morally higher than the Adamite, slave of Jehovah" by means of "mutual aid and self-sacrifice, love for order and hierarchy, mutual respect, pride, love of honor, lack of pity or fear, irreconcilability to enemies and loyalty to brothers." They must mend the broken magical ties that once united them with the gods, and arouse the gods from their slumber.

In this mission, they may avail themselves of the help of avatars such as Vodan, "bringer of runes and runic magic, a mighty weapon in the hands of the Aryans." When the epoch of the restoration of the ancient cult dawns, the awakened Shining Gods will prepare themselves for the Final Battle against Jehovah.

And that will complete the current cycle of existence!

Recruits to the Church of Nav must "belong to the White Race, observe Aryan moral norms, and have a good self-image." Participation in both political actions and religious rituals is compulsory. "Excessive" consumption of alcohol is forbidden, as are use of narcotics and "cultural entertainments of a non-Aryan nature."

Instead of such entertainments, adepts read the Book of Nav, also called The White Stone. Within the church, there exist inner brotherhoods called Clans of Nav, recruits to which must satisfy even stricter requirements, and who must attend regular clan seminars.

Photos of some of the rituals - most of which take place in a wintry forest setting - are displayed on the Church of Nav's web site, with adepts attired in sinister white robes and tall, black conical hoods, evidently copied from the Ku Klux Klan, holding aloft poles topped by lighted torches. There are also martial scenes of adepts about to engage in wrestling matches in a chamber prepared for ritual use, with a priest clad in a black robe and headdress present to bless the fighters.

Do sects like the Church of Nav matter? Why not let them enjoy the rituals that give their lives a grandiose ultimate meaning and divert their attention from the uninspiring reality of Russia in decay?

The trouble is that the religious rituals are not ends in themselves. Lazarenko is a politician. He created his church as a political - and paramilitary - instrument. An instrument to be used when the time is right.

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#8
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
April 16, 2001
The Fine Art of Spying
By Elfie Siegl

MOSCOW. The tunnel the Americans built under the Russian Embassy in Washington was actually not necessary, says Valery. The colonel of the Russian internal secret service FSB, who refuses to reveal his surname because he is in active service, should know what he is talking about.

He works at the KGB museum in Moscow, which documents the Soviet Union's successes in exposing above all U.S. spies and Russian defectors. Colonel Valery explains some of his employers' activities to visitors in a virtual whisper. It has become second nature to him because somebody could be listening, for whom the information is not intended.

The museum entrance is strongly guarded, the visitors hand-picked. Cameras, phones and tape recorders are strictly forbidden. However, if a cell phone rings, the colonel merely frowns. Nor does he take notice of recording devices that are switched on.

Like many state-funded Russian authorities, the secret service is suffering from a lack of cash. Maybe that is why part of the building that houses the museum has been rented to the Seventh Continent supermarket.

A lavishly illustrated book on the history of the Russian secret service sells well. The agents trace their origins back to 1380. That was when, at the battle of Kulikev field, an agent called Tyutshev, a member of the Boyar, who were the senior group in the prince's retinue, misinformed the enemies of Moscow's Prince Dimitry about the strength of the Russian troops.

Anybody who is allowed to enter the foyer, which is decorated with gigantic marble pillars and is the size of a railroad hall, is considered either trustworthy or suspicious. The doors of one of the many cursed authorities have opened to receive that person. The gray administrative building stands in one of Moscow's best locations, and its name still makes people shiver today. This is where the Soviet secret service, the KGB, set up its headquarters, the Lubjanka, with offices for its leading officers, archives and prison cells. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian internal secret service FSB took over the Lubjanka.

The KGB museum was founded in September 1984. The exhibits in the Demonstration Hall bear witness to the heroic history of the service. Their purpose was to make young KGB recruits familiar with the traditions of the Soviet secret service. But this is a one-sided aim. Twenty thousand employees of the KGB died in the years of the great repression -- from the late 1930s until Josef Stalin's death in 1953, Colonel Valery says. "Our best people were destroyed, more here than in any other Soviet organization," he says.

In the museum, you can neither see nor read anything about the several million victims of Stalin's repression for which the KGB and its leaders shared responsibility. The idea for the museum came from Yuri Andropov, the Kremlin leader from 1982-1984, who headed the secret service for many years. One showcase displays his desk set, KGB identification cards and some photos of colleagues.

Five years later, during the period of glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, the exhibition was made accessible to the public. Groups of workers, army officers, students and schoolchildren were shown around the four rooms displaying more than 2,000 exhibits.

Despite its one-sidedness, the museum was considered a sensation. Even former CIA directors came to see how the Soviet Union and later Russia demonstrated its successes in exposing U.S. spies. Representatives of almost all secret service agencies around the world have visited the museum, says Colonel Valery.

Visitors are treated to exhibits such as Feliks Dzerzhinsky's death mask from 1926, for example. The founder of the Cheka -- the precursor to the KGB -- was a supporter of the free-market economy and was convinced that the young Soviet Union could conquer all its enemies if its economy flourished.

The story of Nikolai Kusnetzev is also documented here. Because of his excellent knowledge of German, the Soviet secret police smuggled him into Nazi Germany's military, the Wehrmacht, as an officer at the start of World War II in the former city of Königsberg, now known as Kalingrad. He is said to have killed five German generals. When he felt his cover was about to be blown, he killed himself by detonating a grenade.

The Cold War then followed. The motto the KGB adopted from communist leader Vladimir Lenin was that a real war was made up of a tightly organized hinterland. During this period, it was not so much the Germans as the English and Americans who were spied on.

They, however, did not remain inactive, as the museum documents. Objects such as bugging devices, machine guns, ink pens with poisonous capsules, rapiers disguised as walking sticks and forged ID papers were among the booty taken from defectors or exposed spies.

Colonel Valery is especially proud of a soccer-ball sized device used in detecting radioactivity, which sent signals via a satellite when an enemy nuclear missile was being prepared for liftoff. This technical achievement, however, was a U.S. invention. The Americans had installed it in the vicinity of Moscow, and the Russians discovered it.

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#9
Russia: Analysis From Washington -- A Religious Flowering
By Paul Goble

Washington, 19 April 2001 (RFE/RL) -- A newly published study shows that there has been a remarkable growth in the number and diversity of religious organizations in Russia over the last decade.

In the current issue of the "Religions" supplement to "Nezavisimaya gazeta," researcher Mikhail Tulsky reports that the number of congregations in Russia has gone from 5,000 in 1990 to more than 20,000 now and that many denominations which had never been present in that country before now have a foothold.

But perhaps the most intriguing finding of Tulsky's study is that the government's requirement that Russian religious groups re-register with the state has not been as discriminatory as many critics have claimed.

According to Tulsky, who had access to Justice Ministry files both for the country as a whole and for the city of Moscow in particular, there are now 10,913 Russian Orthodox congregations registered in Russia. In addition, there are 3,048 Muslim groups, 197 Jewish organizations, and 193 Buddhist temples registered with the state, all significantly more than ten years ago.

Tulsky says there has been an explosion in the number of Protestant Christian groups. There are now 2,910 Evangelical groups, 330 Jehovah's Witnesses meetings, 213 Presbyterian congregations, and 476 other protestant communities.

And there are now 106 Hare Krishna groups registered, along with 20 Bahai communities, 17 Unification Church congregations, and 41 pagan groups. The last, Tulsky says, has shown particularly rapid growth, up by almost six times over the last five years alone.

In short, Tulsky says, Russia has not been this religiously diverse before in its officially registered faiths.

But most attention up to now has been directed precisely at those religious groups which either have not sought registration or have been denied it. According to Russian Justice Ministry files, some 3,000 congregations which existed in the past have not sought the required re-registration.

Most of these appear simply to have ceased to exist as corporate bodies, Tulsky reports. But another 1,500 congregations have applied for but failed to get registration. It is these groups that have attracted the most attention from human rights activists.

Many of the religious groups denied registration have said that they are the victims of official discrimination, a claim that seems to be true in a number of cases. But some groups appear to have been victimized either by their own failure to meet registration requirements or by simple bureaucratic incompetence.

According to figures about Moscow cited by Tulsky, 90 percent of the groups "denied" re-registration in fact failed to present the necessary documentation.

Perhaps the outstanding example of the last phenomenon was a decision, later reversed by Russian courts, not to register the Salvation Army as a religious group in Moscow because of what some officials said were its "obvious militarist links."

Moreover, Tulsky notes, the rate of registrations was roughly similar across most of the major faiths -- 65 to 75 percent of Orthodox groups, 78 percent of Protestant Christians, 80 percent of Jewish groups, and 65 percent of Buddhist temples -- a pattern which challenges claims of systematic discrimination in the registration process overall.

But Tulsky's findings and arguments do not address what is perhaps the most fundamental issues concerning registration: Why should groups have to register with the state at all. And why should those which do not register be denied the right to function legally.

In most countries, governments require pro forma registration of religious and other nongovernmental groups for tax purposes if nothing else. But they generally do not preclude religious groups from functioning if they do not register with the state.

Russian legislation, unlike that in most other countries, denies religious congregations which do not register the right to open bank accounts, rent property, and even prepare literature for their members and those they seek to convert.

Nonetheless, the registration process even if it discriminates against religion as such has not been as discriminatory to specific groups as many have assumed. And Tulsky's study makes yet another contribution by highlighting just how diverse Russia is now in religious terms.

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#10
BBC
18 April, 2001
Russian 'ice expedition' to save seals

A unique seal population in Siberia - which has been greatly reduced by pollution over the last five years - is also under threat from poachers.

But Russian television says an "ice expedition" organised by Russian members of the international organisation Greenpeace is succeeding in limiting the number of seals killed by the poachers this year.

The "nerpa" seals only live in the fresh waters of Lake Baikal, the oldest and largest body of fresh water in the world, and is the lake's only mammal.

The television said that poaching the seals for their beautiful and valuable fur had become the only way for local people to make a living.

April is the busiest season for the poachers on Lake Baikal because the valuable female seals are at their most vulnerable.

Killing them is easy because the females will not abandon their new-born pups.

Poacher

But it also a busy time for the seals' protectors. Since 10 April the expedition members have covered several hundred kilometres.

The poachers are first detected from a powered glider, then they are intercepted. Both the dead seals and those still alive are confiscated and the poachers are fined.

The television said most poachers were local residents, for whom this well may be the only way to earn a living.

"One has to live somehow. I would work, if they paid me wages at that timber warehouse," one poacher told the television.

Greenpeace members, the report said, appreciated the problem and said they were not fighting the local village men. All they wanted is to prevent the ringed seal from being destroyed.

The television said the fur went to China, where it was processed and dyed to resemble mink and other furs. The Chinese pay good money for the furs.

The very presence of Greenpeace's expedition had helped to preserve the seals and their cubs, because many of the hunters have not dared to go out hunting, the TV said.

This year, eight out of 10 baby seals were saved.

The Baikal seal does not have any natural enemies - only man, the TV said.

Only five years ago, the population of what the TV said was the lake's most precious resource was 100,000. By today this figure has almost halved, mostly by industrial pollution in the lake, it said.

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#11
Russian Rights Envoy Praises Humanitarian Aid, Blasts Human Rights Watch

MOSCOW, Apr 19, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A top Russian rights envoy in Chechnya praised the efforts of international humanitarian organizations to relieve the plight of the war-torn republic's people, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported Wednesday.

However, Vladimir Kalamanov sharply criticized the New York-based Human Rights Watch group, accusing it of flinging dirt at Russia.

Kalamanov in particular praised the Polish Humanitarian group for supplying the capital Grozny with drinking water and the Danish social council for providing agricultural seeds for 10,000 farmers.

The UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) also sent aid to Chechnya's eastern region of Kurchaloi, Kalamanov said.

"We are glad that our criticism reached its goal and now the situation is changing for the better," the envoy said, adding that "it is pleasant to hear that aid is reaching Chechen civilians."

However, Russian authorities did not find common ground with the Human Rights Watch group, which recently charged the Russian army with committing atrocities against the Chechen population.

"Attempts to fling dirt at Russia will not bring the desired effect," Kalamanov said.

The rights body said it had documented numerous cases of civilians who went missing after arrest by federal forces and whose bodies, with bullet wounds and signs of torture, were found later dumped near villages or in hospitals.

Russia launched its self-styled "anti-terrorist" operation against Chechnya's separatist administration on October 1, 1999.

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#12
Jamestown Foundation Monitor April 18, 2001

RUSSIAN DEFENSE SHUFFLE: WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Roughly three weeks after President Vladimir Putin launched his reshuffle of the Russian Defense Ministry leadership, commentators in Russia remain divided over its meaning and significance. Some have bought into the Kremlin's interpretation of the move, seeing the appointment of former Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov to the defense minister post as a sign of Putin's determination both to radically restructure the armed forces and to begin a process to "civilianize" the Defense Ministry. Others, however, have taken a more skeptical view. They have suggested that the installation of several former KGB officers, Ivanov among them, into top Defense Ministry posts in itself hardly constitutes a looming "civilianization" of the ministry. And, while virtually all Russian commentators agree that Ivanov's authority within the military will, by dint of his close association with Putin, be unchallenged, some have suggested that the specifics of his military reform program indicate that the Kremlin may in fact be more interested in cosmetic changes than in the sort of radical reforms which most experts believe necessary. In other words, while all Russian commentators appear to agree that the appointment of Putin's closest political ally to the post of defense minister reflects the earnestness of presidential interest in the armed forces, they disagree over whether the Russian president's first priority is to reform the army, or merely to ensure reliable Kremlin control over it.

Many of those taking a more skeptical view of Putin's defense reshuffle have aimed their criticism in particular at the Kremlin notion that the new appointments are intended to "civilianize" the Defense Ministry. That is, that the appointment of Ivanov and Aleksei Moskovsky, each of them technically civilians, and of a former top Finance Ministry official (and a woman to boot), Lyubov Kudelina, to defense and deputy defense minister posts marks a radical break with Soviet and Russian military tradition. By suggesting a transition to a more typical Western and democratic form of civilian-military relations, one in which civilians exert political control over the uniformed officer corps, the new appointments also appear designed to bolster Putin's claims that he is continuing along the path of domestic political reform. It is probably no coincidence in this context that Ivanov's appointment will now also permit Moscow to send an ostensibly civilian defense minister--rather than a uniformed and bemedaled former strategic rocket forces commander--to mix and mingle with Western defense chiefs at NATO and other international security gatherings.

But do these appointments really mark an important stage in Russia's evolution toward Western style democracy? Those with doubts have pointed to several features of the Defense Ministry changes which would seem to undermine the Kremlin's claims. The respected military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, for example, suggests that the Kremlin continues, despite the recent changes, to reject one of the fundamental characteristics of democratic political-military systems: the oversight by parliamentary bodies of key defense spending and developments policies. Felgenhauer points to Putin's April 3 state-of-the-nation address to argue that the Russian president remains opposed to meaningful parliamentary participation in the state budget process. He suggests that, in that regard, the Kremlin's views divert sharply from those of Russia's liberals, who at a recent defense policy conference called for the declassification of the defense budget and for more parliamentary say in the formulation of defense appropriations (Moscow Times, April 12).

Another well-known Russian defense analyst, Aleksandr Golts, has argued much the same case. In a pair of articles published earlier this month, he noted that Ivanov had operated with notable secrecy over the past year while, as Security Council secretary, overseeing the drafting of the Kremlin's current military reform program. Despite its importance to Russia's political and economic future, that program remains in many of its essentials a state secret. There is little evidence that it will presented--"civilian" defense minister or not--for broader public discussion prior to its implementation. And the appointment of Kudelina, he says, argues no better for the likelihood of more transparency from the Defense Ministry in the future. During her time overseeing the military budget as a deputy finance minister, Golts says, Kudelina insisted on maximum secrecy.

Golts goes on to argue, moreover, that Putin's recent Defense Ministry reshuffle shows no indication at present of moving the country toward what Golts says is an essential condition for real defense reform: the broader demilitarization of Russian society. "Real demilitarization of political institutions would have to start by removing the military status from the dozens of ministries and government agencies which run on military lines." Instead, he says, current government plans may even envision subordinating more nonmilitary agencies to Ivanov's Defense Ministry. As a result, Golts says, "we may end up with a military monster, composed of over two million personnel, despite all the planned [troop] reductions" (The Russian Journal, April 3; Itogi, No. 13, April 2001).

Perhaps the most skeptical view toward the motives which underlay Putin's defense reshuffle, however, was expressed in the immediate aftermath of Ivanov's appointment by a commentary published in the Russian newspaper Novye Izvestia. In it, Sergei Agafonov argued that the installation of a "qualified accountant" (Kudelina) and several former security service officers in the Defense Ministry in no way ensures either the ministry's civilianization or that real reform of the armed forces is about to be launched. Indeed, Agafonov contends that these appointments are most significant for what they say about Putin's distrust of the military top brass. "Ivanov in the Defense Ministry is not a civilian in the military for the sake of building a civilized democracy," he writes. "This is the final phase of a clever covert operation [by the Kremlin] aimed at taking over a vital part of the security apparatus" (Novye Izvestia, March 30).

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