November 23   
This Date's Issues: 3639 •3640  • 

Johnson's Russia List
#3640
23 November 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: POLL-New poll shows Russians view West as hostile.
2. Bloomberg: Russian Communists Lead Poll Ahead of Parliamentary 
Elections.
3. Reuters: Russia US concerns may be met in current ABM pact.
4. Reuters: Russian PM says no going back on privatisation.
5. Gordon Hahn: on Devane in JRL 3337.
6. Financial Times (UK): Charles Clover, KAZAKHSTAN: Slavs feel the 
squeeze.
7. Moscow Times: Sarah Karush, Registration Law Poses Threat To 
Nongovernmental Groups.
8. Los Angeles Times: Maura Reynolds, Russia's New Chechnya Battle. 
War: Commanders launch campaign for hearts and minds in Gudermes. 
9. Newsday: Michael Slackman, Political Trail of Blood. Crime heavily 
shadows St. Petersburg elections.
10. Moscow Times: Gary Peach, Aksyonenko Railroads Russia's Magnificent 
Seven.
11. Patrick J. Buchanan: A New Americanism.
12. AFP: Suspend Aid To Russia Until Peace In Chechnya, Says U.S. 
Senator McCain.]

******


#1
POLL-New poll shows Russians view West as hostile

MOSCOW, Nov 23 (Reuters) - The majority of Russians canvassed for an
opinion poll published on Tuesday said they saw the West as an unfriendly
force out to harm their country. 


Moscow's ties with the West have taken a turn for the worse this year
following NATO's air strike campaign against Russia's fellow Slavs in
Yugoslavia. Resentment has also been stirred by Western criticism of
Moscow's Chechnya offensive. 


The ROMIR polling agency said that in a survey of 1,500 people in 40
regions, 41.1 percent said they believed the West was attempting to turn
Russia into a Third World country. 


Some 37.5 percent believed Western nations want to split Russia up and
destroy it altogether. 


Only 11.5 percent of those questioned backed the idea that Russia was
supported economically and politically by the West and a mere 3.7 percent
said the West was helping Russia to become a civilised and developed nation. 


Russia's relations with the West have historically oscillated between envy
and admiration on the one hand and revulsion and resentment on the other. 


Some reformist rulers like Tsar Peter the Great in the 18th century have
tried to open Russia to Western influences while others, including Soviet
dictator Josef Stalin, have tried to seal the vast nation from contact with
the outside world. 


Western financial organisations have poured billions of dollars of aid into
Russia since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, but its economy
remains shaky and many Russians have still to see any benefits from market
reforms. 


******


#2
Russian Communists Lead Poll Ahead of Parliamentary Elections


Moscow, Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's Communist Party looks
set to emerge from elections to the lower house of parliament on
Dec. 19 as the biggest single party, a new opinion poll shows.


The poll was carried out by the Russian Center for Public
Opinion, the largest state-owned research company in Russia. The
center was founded in 1987.


The poll, carried out between Nov. 12-15, surveyed 1,600
people. It has a margin error of 3.8 percent. The figures in
parentheses are the findings of the previous poll (Nov. 5-9).


For what party would you vote if elections took place next Sunday?


(The figures represent only the 64 percent of respondents who said
they will vote.)


Communist Party 29% (27%)
Fatherland-All Russia 11% (14%)
Yabloko Party 9% (9%)
Unity movement 8% (7%)
Union of Right Forces 6% (5%)
Zhirinovsky Block 4% (3%)
Women of Russia 2% (3%)
Others 11% (12%)
Don't Know 19% (20%)


(The Russian Center for Public Opinion www.wciom.ru)


******


#3
Russia US concerns may be met in current ABM pact

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Russia's U.N. ambassador suggested that
U.S. misgivings about the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty could be
addressed within the existing pact and without the amendments sought by
Washington. 


Russia has been alarmed by U.S. plans to set up a national anti-missile
shield against potential attacks by ``rogue states'' and has so far
rejected American offers to amend the ABM treaty, which bans the creation
of such systems. 


Ambassador Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Monday that American
concerns could be addressed in the context of adjustments to the ABM treaty
signed in New York in September 1997. These included deployment of
low-speed theatre missile defence systems. 


``We are ready to address their concerns about the increased threats of
missile proliferation,'' he said. ``But this could be perfectly done at
this stage in the context of 1997 New York agreement about so-called
non-strategic ABM defences.'' 


But Lavrov , in rejecting the amendments proposed by Washington, said: ``I
want to make very clear that amendments to the ABM treaty, which would
allow limited national anti-missile defence, would be against the core of
the treaty, which prohibits such a defence and which also prohibits the
creation of a basis for such defence.'' 


His comments followed those of Russian Col.-Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev,
commander of Moscow's Strategic Missile Forces, who said on Friday a joint
commission could examine the threat from rogue states. 


In response, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said ``the idea
that they would want to work closely with us on defining the threat and
then dealing with the threat would be welcome.'' 


Lavrov again appealed to the United States and its allies to keep the ABM
treaty intact or other strategic nuclear pacts would crumble, including the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty or the nuclear test ban treaty. 


``Those (U.S.) amendments would ruin the treaty, and if the treaty is
ruined, you can safely forget about not only continuation of strategic arms
reduction negotiations, but you can well witness the burial of the existing
strategic arms limitation agreements,'' he said. 


At the United Nations, Lavrov, along with the ambassadors of China and
Belarus sponsored a resolution that calls for continued efforts to
strengthen and preserve the 1972 treaty. It was adopted by a General
Assembly committee on November 5, which assures its passage by full
Assembly on December 1. 


Lavrov said he was gratified that NATO nations did not join the United
States in voting against the resolution, which he said indicated
disapproval of American actions on the ABM. 


The Nov. 5 vote was 54 to 4 with 73 abstentions. Voting against the
resolutions, together with the United States, were Israel, Latvia and
Micronesia. Thirteen of the 15 members of the European Union abstained
while France and Ireland, voted for the resolution. 


******


#4
Russian PM says no going back on privatisation

MOSCOW, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Russia's privatisation process, widely criticised 
for putting some of the country's best assets in the hands of a few 
well-connected insiders, cannot be reversed, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin 
said on Monday. 


"There can be no question of deprivatisation or redistribution of property," 
RIA news agency quoted Putin as telling a conference on state property 
management. 


But the 47-year-old premier said that in certain situations there could be "a 
civilised change of ownership." 


Putin was speaking against a background of several bitter disputes over 
ownership of former state enterprises and ahead of a December 19 
parliamentary election in which some candidates have questioned the legality 
of past sell-offs. 


Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, a leader of the centrist 
Fatherland-All Russia movement, separately said on Monday that privatisation 
of certain enterprises should be reviewed, but without turning back the clock 
to the Soviet past. 


"If a privatised enterprise is worth it, if its resources are being stolen by 
new owners, the workers being driven out... and it is discovered that 
privatisation was not carried out correctly, if it was illegal, then we will 
review it retrospectively," Interfax agency quoted Primakov as saying. 


Russia's mass privatisation programme in the early to mid-1990s dismantled 
the centralised Soviet economy and led to the sale of tens of thousands of 
state enterprises. 


But some of the biggest firms, including oil and metals producers, were sold 
cheaply in so-called shares-for-loans deals to a small group of bankers and 
businessmen. 


Other privatisations have also been criticised for being carried out too 
hastily without netting the budget its due. 


Putin said "individual approaches" should be used to resolve disputes such as 
those which erupted recently at the Vyborg pulp and paper mill and at the 
Lomonosov porcelain factory. 


Workers at the Vyborg mill have locked out the plant's British owners despite 
attempts by bailiffs to enforce their rights, while an appeal is pending on a 
court ruling that the 1993 privatisation of the Lomonosov factory was 
illegal. 


******


#5
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 
From: Gordon Hahn <hahn@hoover.stanford.edu>
Subject: Hahn on Devane in JRL 3337


Mr. Devane questions my view that 4,600 civilian deaths in Russia's
military operation (war?) in Chechnya do not constitute genocide -- attempt
at "destruction" of a "group," as defined by Mr. Devane using Webster's (I
believe) dictionary. While Russia's actions fall far short from meeting
even this vague criteria, it seems a better definition is in oder.
International law stipulates that genocide is (parapharsing) an official
state policy intended to bring about the destruction of much, if not all
the members of a particular ethnic group. I find it hard to believe that
any reasonable, unbiased person could have already concluded that this is
Russia's ultimate goal in Chechnya. 


In making his argument, Mr. Devane resorts to invoking "concentration
camps" and the like allegedly under Russian auspices. This astonishing
claim exceeds only the first reports of a "humanitarian catastrophe" in its
outlandishness. I would only note that recent reports show that the UN
Commissioner on Refugees Ogata has denied the imminenece of any
humanitarian catastrophe, no less genocide, and she has visited the camps.
There are numerous reports in the press of Russian supplies -- though
insufficient given Russian economic and infrastructure -- are arriving to
the Chechen refugees. Russia has agreed several times to permit
international organizations fill out the demand for supplies.This hardly
seems a good strategy for genocide. The oft-repeated shortage of
pharmaceudicals is a general Russian problem, not confined to the
"concentration camps" in Ingushetiia. As far as I know or can recall
offhand, not even President Maskhadov, Chechnya's "foreign minister," or
Chechnya's plenipotentiary to the US has used the word genocide to decribe
Russia's goal.


More recent WESTERN reports (See RFE/RL, 22 Nov 99 citing Reuters) claim
the 10,000 Chechen refugees have returned to areas of Chechnya controlled
by the Russian army. This also seems a rather ineffective way to commit
genocide.


******


#6
Financial Times (UK)
23 November 1999
[for personal use only]
KAZAKHSTAN: Slavs feel the squeeze 
By Charles Clover


The arrest of what Kazakhstan's authorities claim is a group of armed Russian 
separatists has provoked debate about the fragile ethnic balance in the 
country, which is divided between a mainly ethnic Russian north and a mainly 
ethnic Kazakh south.


On Saturday 22 people, including 12 Russian citizens, were arrested in the 
north-eastern industrial city of Ust-Kamenogorsk on suspicion of preparing a 
separatist coup.


Authorities said they had found a cache of arms belonging to the group, which 
they say had planned to seize regional governors' offices and security and 
police buildings in the city.


"Their apparent aim was to establish a 'Russian land' in the area, separate 
from Kazakhstan," said Viktor Kunin of the National Security Committee.


Mainstream Russian nationalists in Kazakhstan, while disavowing any 
separatist ideas or links to the group, nevertheless say they are not 
surprised by the incident. The combination of a worsening economy, increasing 
discrimination against Russians and gradual erosion of political rights under 
the authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbayev may have unpredictable 
consequences, they say.


"I would say the ethnic situation is calm overall, but there is certainly a 
rise in nationalist feeling among Slavs here in Kazakhstan," said Gennady 
Belekov, the head of Russkaya Obschina, a Russian cultural association in 
Kazakhstan. Many Kazakh government officials privately express concern about 
what may happen once Russian President Boris Yeltsin, considered the main 
guarantor against renewed Russian imperialism in former Soviet territories, 
steps down next year.


While 1.5m ethnic Russians have emigrated since Kazakhstan became independent 
in 1991, they still account for 30 per cent of the population, living mostly 
in the north.


Mr Nazarbayev has done his best to create an ethnically homogenous homeland 
for both Kazakhs and Slavs. For example, he has named the national university 
after Lev Gumilev, a Russian ethnologist who championed the idea that 
Eurasia's Slavic and Moslem populations were destined to unite.


But as the Kazakh government tries to redress the old Soviet prejudices 
against Kazakhs in jobs and education, many ethnic Russians feel 
discriminated against.


Many Russians believe they cannot rely on democratic institutions to 
safeguard their civil rights. Parliamentary elections in October were marred 
by official obstruction of opposition parties and bias by ballot counters, 
according to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.


Ethnic Russians had tried to organise an election bloc out of Russkaya 
Obschina, Mr Belekov's association. It was not registered as a political 
party due to Kazakhstan's law on organisations, which forbids parties 
organised on "national" principles. The members of Russkaya Obschina ran as 
individual candidates instead, though none won seats.


Murat Auezov, an ethnic Kazakh and a respected intellectual, said: 
"Kazakhstan's Slavic population may have started to lose the belief that in 
Kazakhstan one can defend one's rights in a civilised way. I think Slavic or 
Russian separatism has the potential to transform into a powerful threat as a 
result."


******


#7
Moscow Times
November 23, 1999 
Registration Law Poses Threat To Nongovernmental Groups 
By Sarah Karush
Staff Writer


Russian officials are on the verge of shutting down thousands of 
nongovernmental organizations that failed to meet a bureaucratic registration 
requirement, in what activists said Monday is an attack on human rights 
groups. 


A 1995 law required all nongovernmental organizations to reregister by June 
30, 1999, and many - including prominent organizations such as the Glasnost 
Foundation and environmental guru Alexei Yablokov's Advocacy Center for the 
Environment and Human Rights - were denied registration. 


"We see that the rejections have been received by human rights organizations 
and those groups that keep tabs on bureaucrats," said Valery Nikolsky, head 
of the Voice of the People advocacy group. 


"Organizations that are inconvenient to authorities, let's put it that way," 
added Yury Dzhebladze of the Center for the Development of Democracy and 
Human Rights. 


Nikolsky said he had hoped that an amendment extending the deadline for 
registration until July 1, 2000, would give organizations more time to 
overcome bureaucratic hurdles, but the provision, earlier passed by the State 
Duma, was rejected by the Federation Council, or upper house of parliament. 


The last hope for many organizations is for the Duma to take the rare step of 
overriding the Federation Council's decision with a two-thirds vote. Barring 
that, about 11,000 organizations may be liquidated, the Justice Ministry 
said. 


Vladimir Tomarovsky, head of the Justice Ministry's department for religious 
and public organizations, said most of those groups simply did not bother to 
re-register. He said outright rejections were limited to "individual" cases. 


The Glasnost Foundation and Yablokov's group appealed the rejection of their 
registration in Moscow courts, but the appeals were turned down. Both were 
staunch critics of the Federal Security Service, which Yablokov blamed for 
the rejections. 


But the trend seems to have touched less obviously controversial groups, such 
as the independent political research center Panorama. 


"We were refused for some little formalities, but when we corrected them, 
they said, 'Now it's too late,'" Panorama director Vladimir Pribylovsky said. 


Pribylovsky said his organization likely fell victim to a general tightening 
of rules that may have served as justification for rejecting human rights 
groups or other enemies of officialdom. 


He said the lack of registration could prove problematic if the authorities 
close Panorama's bank accounts, thus making it difficult to receive vital 
grant money. 


******


#8
Los Angeles Times
November 22, 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia's New Chechnya Battle 
War: Commanders launch campaign for hearts and minds in Gudermes. 
By MAURA REYNOLDS, Times Staff Writer


GUDERMES, Russia--What the Russians tell you is that the war has ended 
here in Gudermes. But it hasn't. 
For one thing, the sound of artillery fire thuds steadily through the 
muddy streets of this former railway depot, once the second-largest city in 
Chechnya. The few residents left say the booming from Russian positions north 
and west of town is a constant reminder that their "liberation" by Russian 
forces 10 days ago is no guarantee that peace has come. 
But while the rockets and bullets are confined for now to the outskirts, 
another battle is being fought in town, street by street, house by house. 
It's a fight the Russians have lost consistently, not just in the eight years 
since Chechnya declared independence, but for centuries. 
The battle, to borrow a phrase from the Vietnam War, is for the hearts 
and minds of the Chechen people. And at the moment, the front line is 
Gudermes, which the Russians say they hope to turn into the new capital of a 
new Chechnya. 
"We don't want to repeat the mistakes we made last time," explains Col. 
Yuri P. Em, commander of the Russian regiment that has encircled Gudermes. 
"We don't want to destroy the villages. We don't want to destroy the people. 
This time, there is dialogue, dialogue with the residents and with the local 
authorities. The soldiers aren't storming the towns and villages. We are 
talking to the people." 
The people who are left, anyway. Residents estimate that only 20% to 30% 
of the prewar population of 50,000 remains in Gudermes. Those who are left 
seem to be those who either support the Russians or had no means of escape. 
The fact that they are preaching mostly to the feeble or the converted 
doesn't appear to trouble the Russians. They boast openly of the ease of 
their victory and warm welcome by the local population. 
"The people chased the rebels out themselves," the colonel says. "They 
wouldn't feed the fighters. They are sick of war. When we arrived, there was 
no one left to fight." 


Showcase Staged for Journalists 


Em is part of a Russian propaganda effort to convince locals--and a 
chopper load of foreign journalists flown in for the occasion--that the 
second time around, Russia is doing things right in Chechnya. 
"It took us just one day to encircle Gudermes," Em recalls, showing the 
foreigners around his picture-perfect camp on a hill west of town. "The local 
population came out to greet us--older men, everyone. They thanked us for 
coming into the city, asked us to turn on the gas, the electricity." 
So this weekend, that's what the Russians did. With as much fanfare as 
they could muster on short notice in a war zone, they turned on the gas. A 
couple of Kremlin officials flew in Saturday to do the honors, relighting the 
newly refueled "eternal" flame at the town's World War II monument. 
"Today, we are in Gudermes, a city liberated without a single shot being 
fired," said Nikolai Koshman, the Russian-appointed administrator for 
Chechnya, who was accompanied by Anatoly B. Chubais, the head of Russia's 
state power utility. "The most important task we face now is to restore 
normal life to the citizens of the town and the region." 
It was supposed to be a triumphant moment, full of symbolism and 
reconciliation between Russian and Chechen. But, as hundreds of Gudermes 
residents looked on, in what the Russians can only hope was not a portent, 
the relighted flame sputtered and died within about a minute. 
"They are promising so much," said 37-year-old Isa Natsayev, catching 
the mood. "But so far, we see little." 
Natsayev is a former driver who wants more than anything else to work 
and support his wife and two children. He supported independence in 1991, he 
says, but now "it's more important that the planes stop bombing." 
He says he has stayed in Gudermes as a precaution to protect his house 
from looting by Russian soldiers. He is unnerved by the continued bombing to 
the north and west. 
"I walk around with tablets in my pocket to calm my heart," he says, 
retrieving a small bottle of orange pills from inside his jacket. "The 
airplanes keep bombing. My heart isn't made of iron." 
Indeed, war weariness is palpable in Gudermes. But for all the efforts 
the Russians think they are making, it remains to be seen whether combat 
fatigue can be transformed into political support for Russian rule. 
The previous Chechen war, which lasted for 21 months from 1994 to 1996, 
was about preventing the republic from seceding. This war, which was touched 
off largely by terrorist bombings that killed hundreds in Moscow and other 
Russian cities, has, at least rhetorically, been transformed into a war 
against little except "bandits and terrorists." 
But in Gudermes, it's clear that the issue of independence hasn't died 
and that, for the "liberated" Chechens, relations with the Russians remain 
unresolved. 
Larisa Bashayeva is a 29-year-old secretary whose entire adult life has 
been spent at odds with Russia. She supported independence in 1991 and voted 
for Chechnya's pro-independence president, Aslan Maskhadov, in 1996. But two 
cycles of war and three years of deprivation in Maskhadov's "independent 
Chechnya" have sapped her zeal. 
"Independence is probably impossible to achieve, and simple people don't 
need it anyway," she says. "Eight years ago, there was something to it--there 
was an idea, a vision. But what do we have to show for it now?" 
The only people left who want to fight, she says, are "extremists." And 
she says the Russians are right when they claim that the residents of 
Gudermes chased the rebels out. 
In her neighborhood, "the fighters moved into an abandoned house," she 
recounts. "And everybody, especially the grandmothers, went to them every day 
and asked them to leave. And eventually, the fighters listened to them and 
left." 
But Bashayeva's disgust at war and dislike of the rebels doesn't add up 
to support for the Russians. Her cousin was killed when the Russians stormed 
Grozny, the Chechen capital, in 1995. A few months later, she watched Russian 
aircraft bomb a truck as a family of six, including women and children, was 
climbing aboard. The entire family perished. 


'Worst of All Are the Helicopters' 


As she is speaking, a new volley of rockets booms from the north and she 
casts a glance in the direction of the guns. 
"It's not the artillery that's so bad," Bashayeva says. "The planes are 
worse. But the worst of all are the helicopters. You can look up and see the 
person inside, see his face as he fires at you." 
She says the Russians are making a lot of promises at the moment, 
promises of public services, schools, jobs. Maybe some of those promises will 
come true, maybe "normal" life will come back. But that won't change her mind 
about the Russians. 
"There's no way we can say the Russians are good and thank you so much 
for coming," she says. "I don't feel like a Russian citizen. And I won't feel 
that way in a year or two or even five." 
If the Russian strategy for winning Chechen hearts and minds seems at 
times obscure, so also does the Russian strategy for winning the war. 
Gudermes is a scant 15 miles east of the outskirts of Grozny, which was 
bombed nearly to dust in the last war. Russian officials have refused to say 
whether they plan to retake Grozny, the stronghold of Maskhadov, whom even 
the Russians consider Chechnya's legitimately elected leader. 
But during the past few weeks, Russian forces have been slowly 
encircling the capital, claiming Sunday to have surrounded it "80%." Russian 
officials have said that by the time the war is over, Grozny might be too 
badly damaged to rebuild and that it would make more sense to move the 
capital to Gudermes. 
At first, Col. Em says the firing, audible throughout the town, is just 
target practice. But after a particularly large volley of Grad rockets--an 
expensive and powerful weapon--he acknowledges that they are probably, in 
fact, firing on rebel positions in villages between here and Grozny. 
The soldiers manning the rockets are more forthright. 
"We fire at them every night, in that direction," says Alexei Churkin, a 
19-year-old from the central Russian city of Kirov, pointing in the general 
direction of Grozny. "For the most part, we do all the firing. They don't 
really fire back." 
Gudermes is only one of a string of cities the Russians claim to have 
retaken "without firing a shot." But all that means is that there is no 
street fighting when they roll into town. In Gudermes and elsewhere, the 
Russians have spent weeks lobbing shells and rockets at rebel positions 
first, and they don't enter the towns until the rebels have already abandoned 
them. 
As a result, the real question in this war is whether and where the 
rebels will choose to take a stand. 
In the last war and indeed throughout history, Chechen fighters have 
been able to evade the Russians by seeking refuge in the republic's southern 
mountains. It is not clear whether the Russians intend to pursue them that 
far this time. 
Gen. Alexander G. Mikhailov, who heads the Russians' press information 
center, gives a hint. 
Historically, he says, there are two kinds of Chechens--the mountain 
Chechens and the valley Chechens. "The lowland Chechens would farm and raise 
livestock, and the mountain tribes would just come down and loot. That's the 
reason a line of fortress towns was built at the base of the mountains." He 
implies the same strategy would work now. 
But that would resolve only the military situation, not the historical 
dilemma, not the political one. The residents of Gudermes know full well that 
it is not altruism that has brought the Russians back. 
At 15, Adam Amlayev is part of a new generation in Gudermes, on the cusp 
of fighting age, watching the Russians' return and wondering what it means. 
He says he hopes the war is really over, but if not, he's "ready to fight if 
I have to." 
Fight for what? a visitor asks. "My motherland," he replies. And what is 
your motherland? the visitor persists. Chechnya? Russia? 
Adam pauses. "If there is peace," he says finally, "there will be no 
difference if it's Chechnya or Russia." 


*******


#9
Newsday
22 November 1999
[for personal use only] 
Political Trail of Blood
Crime heavily shadows St. Petersburg elections
By Michael Slackman. MOSCOW CORRESPONDENT


St. Petersburg, Russia - Viktor Novosyolov was a consummate
insider with strong ties to the business community and a thirst to
become speaker of the local assembly. He had connections, political
muscle, and ambition-and they cost him his head.
Early one October morning, Novosyolov was in his gray Volvo sedan
with his bodyguard in the driver's seat as they stopped for a red light
on Moskovsky Prospect. As the engine idled, two men walked off the curb
and detonated the small bomb they had placed on the roof of the car.
This year's deadly electoral season opened in the city that was once
Russia's cultural heart but is now better known as its criminal capital,
or as some here call it, Chicago on the Neva River.
No one knows why Novosyolov was killed, but everyone knows where to
look for the answer to the mystery. It is buried where crime and
politics have become so intertwined it is impossible to tell where one
starts and the other stops. It is a merger that authorities here accept
with the breezy rationalization that Russian life makes it impossible to
survive within the letter of the law.
Novosyolov was a powerful politician who boasted of a good working
relationship with the city's principal criminal gang, a connection that
officials defend as proper - and expected - for a man of his station.
The assassination exposed a blight all too common in this
still-developing country, not yet a decade away from the collapse of the
Soviet system.
Politicians are willing to take extraordinary, at times even
extralegal, measures to stay in power. Many leaders here openly accuse
the St. Petersburg governor of complicity in the murder of a political
rival, a charge that would be unthinkable in a more politically mature
society. The governor adamantly proclaims his innocence to ears already
clogged with disbelief. With parliamentary elections less than four
weeks away, officials across Russia have tried to secure their victories
by confiscating opposition files, arresting opposition campaign workers
and changing the election date.
"Here in this country, people exist for power - not power for
people," said Yuri Vdovin, director of Citizens Watch, a local
human-rights organization. "It happens in Russia today that democracy
has attracted those people who see election as the only way to achieve
access to budget money, and to power. I am afraid the process of
democracy is frozen - at a minimum." St. Petersburg, a city intended as
a window to the West, was long known as an enclave of Russia's
intelligentsia, the vanguard of past and current efforts to develop
democracy. The birthplace of the Bolshevik Revolution, St. Petersburg
demonstrated its desire to banish communism to the dustbin of history
and authorized a city charter that attempted to create a balance of
power between the executive and legislature that exists nowhere else in
Russia.
That optimism has been short-lived.
St. Petersburg has become a place where one legislator was
assassinated and another sits in jail charged with four contract
murders, as well as the attempted murder of a state Duma deputy. It is a
place where the vice governor recently posed for a picture with the head
of the most powerful local crime gang; where the governor signed into
law a bill that was passed by the assembly in blatant violation of city
law and with the acknowledged help of fraud; where a lawmaker kicked
another in the groin during a debate; where government officials say it
is as much their duty to have dealings with the city's top criminal
leaders as with the business ones.
"We have very many bad guys in this city," said Gov. Vladimir
Yakovlev's spokesman, Alexander Afanasyev, who notes the administration
can't avoid dealing with criminals. "What can the governor do? It's his
work. It's his job to take part in important events in the city. If a
bad man comes, too, what? He has to run away?" At one time, St.
Petersburg's criminal stature was overshadowed by the gangland
activities in the capital, Moscow. But that began to change a year ago
with the murder of Galina Starovoitva, a leader of the democratic reform
movement, former chief aide to President Boris Yeltsin and deputy
representing St.
Petersburg in the lower house of the national parliament, the Duma.
She was shot in the back of the head one evening as she returned
home. Her assassination came in the middle of a very dirty local
campaign, even by Russian standards, with beatings of candidates,
vote-buying and efforts to confuse voters by seeking opposition
candidates with the exact same name who were then placed on the ballot.
The taint and the bloodshed, however, galvanized the democratic forces
in the city and turned the local election into a test case for the rest
of the country. Governors rule Russia's regions with virtual autonomy,
but in this city, there was a chance that forces opposing the governor
would take control of the local assembly.
"We had such hopes, to create democracy, before the elections," said
Leonid Livov, director of the Light Center, a human-rights group that
focuses on aiding minority groups. "Unfortunately, our democratic forces
are not united." When the election was concluded, it appeared that the
liberals had prevailed, with their candidates taking half the seats in
the local assembly. But within days, 12 defected to the governor's camp,
leaving just 13 lawmakers out of 50 in the opposition.
For a time, things quieted down. Criminal leaders had so
successfully infiltrated legitimate businesses that they took on the air
of businessmen. The most notorious gang leader in the city, head of the
Tambov gang, Vladamir Kumarin, changed his last name to Barsukov and
took his place as vice president of a local fuel-oil company. When his
firm opened a new gas station in town, he proudly posed at the opening
with the vice governor. Kumarin refused two requests for an interview.
Then the upcoming elections began to approach, and the blood, once
again, began to spill onto St. Petersburg streets.
After Novosyolov was decapitated, the weekly Russian newsmagazine
Vlast, or Power, reported his murder had implications that touched on
his criminal and political connections, underscoring once again the link
between the two.
"In spite of all his influence, he was unable to become speaker
because the governor's image-makers didn't want to allow this to happen,
because he was unpredictable and a threat," the magazine wrote in its
most recent edition.
"With his murder, the legislative assembly has lost one of its
leaders and the Tambov group has lost its political support. This might
entail full-scale criminal war." In the Novosyolov assassination, a
spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said so far they have no idea
why he was killed, but that it was, of course, natural for him to have
relationships with members of the Tambov gang, which she acknowledged
exists and is headed by Kumarin.
"Having such an important position in the city, he is supposed to
have dealing with a wide circle of people," said Tatyana Vasilyeva,
special aide to the regional prosecutor. "But it does not mean he
belonged to criminal structures.
Naturally, Novosyolov had connections with Kumarin. No one denied
this. Now Kumarin is Barsukov, as we call him, and he is an important
businessman." Those in the parliament who are opposed to Yakovlev say
they suspect he had a hand in the murder (something he strongly denies)
although they concede they have no proof to support their theory. "I
don't exclude the fact that he was killed because he knew too much. He
had information that was dangerous to the governor," said assembly
member Mikhail Amosov, who is head of the Yabloko faction, a
reform-oriented party.
"You know, everything can be here," in Russia, said Vdovin, the
human-rights observer. "I have no proof that the governor is behind
these things; I just have a feeling. What is obvious, though, is a
monstrous drive by the governor toward lawlessness and absolute power."
Afanasyev, the governor's spokesman, however, denied all wrongdoing on
the part of the governor, said he was maligned because he was a hard
worker, and he scoffed at the suggestion there was something suspicious
because the governor was always out of town at times of high-profile
murders, such as those of Novosyolov and Starovoitva.
"The only conclusion is the city gangsters are so afraid of the
governor that while he is here, they are hiding their machine guns, and
when he leaves town, they run out and start shooting," Afanasyev said.
Nevertheless, the negative perception of Yakovlev has been
reinforced throughout the city by the governor's recent push to get an
edge in his re-election. The gubernatorial election was slated for April
1, but Yakovlev desperately wanted it moved up to Dec. 19, the same day
as the federal Duma elections. The change would give his opponents
little time to mount a credible campaign, and would ensure, if he were
to lose re-election, a seat in the Duma.
Yakovlev is one of the three leaders of the Fatherland-All Russia
party, along with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and former Prime Minister
Yevgeny Primakov.
Eight times Yakovlev tried to push the vote change through the
legislature, and eight times he failed.
On the ninth occasion, with just 24 hours to go before the deadline,
his luck changed. It started when one of his supporters in the assembly
attacked an opponent of the proposal, kicking the legislator so hard in
the groin that he collapsed onto the floor of the chamber. Then the
media were thrown out, the doors were locked and the vote taken in
secret. This time, miraculously, it was approved - with seven ballots
mysteriously cast by legislators who were not even in the room.
Government auditors protested. But that didn't matter. The bill was
signed, and Yakovlev supporters say a few violations of the law were
necessary for the greater good of the city and their governor.
As the political infighting continues, there is at least one point
on which all sides agree, defensively: Crime has tarnished their city's
reputation, hurting everything from chances for international investment
to tourism. It is something they all are, therefore trying to dispel as
exaggerated, or unfair.
Vasilyeva of the prosecutors office said the crime problem is "not
very different than any other big city, like Moscow or New York."
Legislator Vatanyar Yagya, who supports Yakovlev, put it another way:
"Tell me, where are they not being killed in Russia?"


******


#10
Moscow Times
November 23, 1999 
THE ANALYST: Aksyonenko Railroads Russia's Magnificent Seven 
By Gary Peach 


Over the past six months -- since the government of Yevgeny Primakov was sent 
packing and Russia's economy was effectively placed into the hands of First 
Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko - control over the nation's most 
powerful companies has shifted dramatically. 


If Primakov and his economic team, led by former First Deputy Prime Minister 
Yury Maslyukov, largely left the nation's financial behemoths untouched, then 
Aksyonenko has unabashedly used all possible means to acquire them. 


The logic is simple: He who controls what I like to call the Magnificent 
Seven monopolies - Gazprom, Unified Energy Systems, the Railways Ministry, 
Sberbank, Transneft, Svyazinvest and Rosvooruzheniye - controls Russia. 
Economically, financially and, most importantly, politically. With these 
gargantuan financial machines at one's back one can win just about any 
election in any country. 


No one can say for sure which of the Magnificent Seven is potentially the 
most powerful, but judging by the fuss it raised over the summer, the 
Aksyonenko government apparently considers it to be Gazprom. The result: the 
gas monopoly now has a new chairman in Viktor Chernomyrdin, and Rem Vyakhirev 
has been humbled by vituperative attacks on both his performance and his son 
(also a Gazprom employee). 


At UES, Aksyonenko fell short of his mission to remove CEO Anatoly Chubais. 
Still, Alexander Voloshin, chief of the presidential administration and the 
person who lobbied for Aksyonenko when the government of Sergei Stepashin was 
being formed, managed to get the chairmanship. Why the president's chief of 
staff, in this case a person who has no experience in the energy industry, 
was chosen to chair UES is a question that was never adequately addressed, 
and ultimately confirms the adage that the only economics in Russia is 
politics. 


And the key to controlling the oil industry is Transneft. You can extract and 
refine all the oil you want, but if you can't get it through the pipeline, 
your business will mean nothing. For this reason the government, which 
realized that replacing management legally would take at least two months, 
went the extra mile to take over Transneft, violently executing a change in 
management in an armed siege. 


The railroads, a $10 billion-per-year business and arguably the least 
transparent of the Magnificent Seven, were directly placed back into the 
first deputy prime minister's hands, thereby allowing Aksyonenko to return to 
the industry from whence he came. Not surprisingly, his first order of 
business at his old job was to have rates on both cargo and passenger trains 
raised. 


Next, describing (accurately, if self-servingly) the state of the nation's 
telecommunications system as a "disgrace," Aksyonenko attacked Svyazinvest, 
and eventually had a new general director appointed. For although it is the 
financial weakling of the seven great monopolies, Svyazinvest does wield 
control over Rostelecom, the long-distance phone operator with annual 
revenues of up to $1 billion. 


And though it is unclear what role Aksyonenko himself played in the change in 
management at Rosvooruzhniye, the state monopoly on arms exports, naturally 
the government could not allow its $3 billion to $4 billion annual sales in 
weaponry to be left unaccounted for. A new general director, therefore, was 
appointed. 


Finally, there is Sberbank, where the fight for control has yet to reach its 
conclusion. However, last summer the government did decide to revamp the 
entire strategic concept of Sberbank, which controls over 80 percent of the 
retail banking market and boasts excellent short-term liquidity (perfect for 
an election campaign). As good as any, this was the shot signaling the start 
of a battle to be waged for the heart of Russia's No. 1 financial 
institution. But Sberbank, one must remember, is wholly subordinate to the 
Central Bank, and thus cannot be easily acquired. 


That is why we are likely to see fresh attacks on Central Bank chairman 
Viktor Gerashchenko in the near future. After all, the greatest of all 
financial flows, greater than the Magnificent Seven, is the Central Bank. We 
all know what difference this bank can have in presidential campaigns. 


To be sure, Aksyonenko couldn't have accomplished all this alone. Along with 
Voloshin and Fuel and Energy Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny, he was undoubtedly 
assisted by Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, the figurehead behind 
Sibneft. Those who doubt Aksyonenko's fondness for these two men should 
recall how, in one televised interview, the first deputy prime minister 
expressed admiration for Berezovsky, in particular for his political views. 
Then, in August, he praised Omsk Refinery, a subsidiary of Sibneft, saying it 
was the best in the industry (though apparently Sibneft directors don't think 
so - they recently sacked the entire upper management at the refinery). 


In sum, Aksyonenko, true to his immediate background, has "railroaded" 
Russia's economy. Within six months, billions of dollars of financial flows 
have been relegated to his dominion, and the overall economic prosperity of 
Russia has been disregarded for the sake of the narrow ends of the few. 


******


#11
Excerpt
A New Americanism
Patrick J. Buchanan
(Reform Party presidential candidate)
Speech at Cato Institute, Washington DC
November 22, 1999


Consider our relationship with Russia. Ten years ago, Ronald Reagan was being 
toasted in Moscow. Today, the prevailing wind is anti-Americanism. Not our 
fault, the Clintonites say. But who broke America's word to the Russians that 
if they withdrew the Red Army from Eastern Europe, we would not move NATO an 
inch closer to their frontiers? 


And what reaction do we expect when we collude with two former Soviet 
republics, Georgia and Azerbaijan, to build a pipeline to cut Russia out of 
the oil of the Caspian and ship it to her ancient enemy, Turkey? When enraged 
Russian generals charge us with meddling in the Caucasus, do they not have a 
point? 


That photo of the President in Istanbul, smiling broadly as the oil treaty 
was toasted, while his Energy Secretary crowed about our "victory," was a 
provocation. Be assured: Russian nationalists are surely even now plotting to 
overturn Mr. Clinton's "victory." Mr. Clinton's successes have been in 
Northern Ireland and the Middle East, where America assumed the role of 
peacemaker, rather than military interventionist. That is the role the 
greatest nation on earth should play, one ordained in the Sermon on the 
Mount.... 


As we look eastward, we see a Russia smaller than she was under Peter the 
Great. In an eyelash, she lost a world empire, a European empire, an internal 
empire. Stalin's USSR is now fifteen nations. The collapse of Bolshevism was 
of extraordinary benefit to mankind, and we risk the fruits of that victory 
by treating Russia as a defeated nation to be ignored or taken advantage of. 


We should inform Moscow that NATO's red line will move no further east, that 
we are bringing home all U.S. forces from Europe, that while American oil 
companies may cut deals in the Caucasus, the United States has no vital 
interest there, and no intention of creating any new anti-Russian alliance in 
her back yard. Instead of expanding military alliances to corral and contain 
Russia, why have we not insisted that our European allies expand the European 
Union to include Russia? Let us bring Russia in, rather than drive her out. 


As for Chechnya, it is an ugly brutal war, but the Russians are fighting 
inside their own territory. Americans, whose beloved Mr. Lincoln unleashed 
General Sherman to deal with his rebellious provinces, can surely understand 
the horrors of civil wars, even as we rightly deplore them. 


But no matter our differences with Russia, we must repair the relationship. 
None is more crucial. We could make no greater blunder than to cast aside the 
fruits of our Cold War victory by driving an embittered Russia into the arms 
of Beijing. But that is exactly what our Beltway elites seem to be doing. But 
just as we respect the legitimate aspirations of Europe for an equal place in 
the sun, and Russia's right not to have NATO squat on its doorstep, Europe 
and Russia must respect our inherent right to defend ourselves against the 
ballistic missiles of rogue states.


*******
#12
Suspend Aid To Russia Until Peace In Chechnya, Says U.S. Senator McCain


WASHINGTON, Nov 22, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) U.S. Republican 
presidential candidate John McCain called Sunday for a suspension of most 
U.S. and multilateral aid to Russia until it began peace talks with the 
breakaway republic of Chechnya.


Appearing on CBS television's "Face the Nation" program, the Arizona senator 
called the two-month-old Russian military offensive in Chechnya "a terrible 
thing."


"This is a reassertion of the military authority in Russia," said McCain. "It 
destabilizes the region."


"Georgia would be next on this list, which is one of the really functioning 
little democracies in the whole area ... This has serious implications for a 
lot of peoples besides Chechens."


The war has forced at least 200,000 civilians to flee the region. Fighting 
has reached the outskirts of the Chechen capital Grozny, already largely 
destroyed during the last Russian offensive, which ended three years ago.


McCain said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Export-Import 
Bank should cut off financial assistance to Russia until Moscow takes steps 
to peacefully settle the Chechen conflict.


He argued, however, that the United States should continue to provide 
assistance to strapped Russian nuclear scientists under the so-called 
Nunn-Lugar program to discourage them from selling their expertise to rogue 
states.


"But any other aid we should suspend until there is some kind of peace 
talks," stressed McCain.


*******