December 8, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3668 • 3669  • 3670

Johnson's Russia List
#3670
8 December 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Yeltsin shaky at ceremony, China trip still on.
2. The Times (UK): Michael Evans, Cities under siege. Russians undeterred
by lessons of history.
3. Washington Post editorial: War Crimes in Grozny.
4. Reuters: Russian Duma to decide START-2 ratification Monday.
5. St. Petersburg Times: Robert Coalson, Partisan Media Ruins Vote.
6. The Guardian (UK): Martin Woollacott, Watching the fall of Grozny. 
The west may wish to halt the Russian advance but it cannot.
7. Inter Press Service: Petrodollars Behind the Chechen Tragedy.
8. BBC Monitoring Service: ELECTION DEBATE BROADCAST ON RUSSIA TV PROGRAMME 
ON 6TH DECEMBER.
9. Andrew Miller: The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same.
(re education)]


*******


#1
Yeltsin shaky at ceremony, China trip still on
By Mike Collett-White

MOSCOW, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who has just
recovered from pneumonia, put in a somewhat shaky performance at a Kremlin
signing ceremony on Wednesday, reviving doubts about his health. 


However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin dismissed the worries, saying
Yeltsin planned to go ahead later on Wednesday with a planned trip to China. 


The 68-year-old president, who left hospital on Monday after a week's
treatment for pneumonia, was reading from a text hailing Russia's union
treaty with neighbouring Belarus when he appeared to lose his train of
thought. 


As he searched a white booklet he was holding, television footage showed
Yeltsin lean unsteadily towards his right, prompting Belarussian leader
Alexander Lukashenko to leave his seat quickly and reach out to support him. 


The ceremony in the white and gilded splendour of St George's Hall came
hours before Yeltsin was due to leave for informal talks in Beijing with
Chinese President Jiang Zemin. 


Doctors familiar with Yeltsin's long history of illness told Ekho Moskvy
radio station on Tuesday that they had opposed the president's planned
trip, given his fragile health. 


Diplomats in Moscow said they had heard the trip may indeed be postponed,
but spokesman Yakushkin told Reuters the president was due to leave for
China ``at around 10 p.m..'' 


Russian media and Kremlin sources have been stressing the political
significance of the Chinese meeting for Yeltsin, who is keen to find an
ally amid mounting alarm and criticism in the West about the military
campaign in separatist Chechnya. 


YELTSIN STILL ABLE TO TAKE SWIPE AT WEST 


Despite Yeltsin's laboured speech and slow, stiff gait on Wednesday, he was
still able to take a swipe at countries opposed to Moscow's military
campaign against rebel fighters in Chechnya and to the Russia-Belarus treaty. 


``The union of the states of Russia and Belarus is built on a foundation of
maintaining the sovereignty and independence of the participating
countries,'' he said. 


``It is not aimed against anybody, not even against Clinton.'' 


U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Monday Russia would ``pay a heavy
price'' if it continued killing civilians in Chechnya. 


Ukraine was also in Yeltsin's thoughts after President Leonid Kuchma told
Paris daily Le Monde in an interview that he believed Russia ``will suffer
great losses from this union (with Belarus).'' 


As Lukashenko spoke of rising bilateral trade which would result from the
merger, Yeltsin interrupted him and said: 


``With Ukraine we will never have that kind of growth. With Belarus it is
possible.'' 


The signing of the controversial union agreement was postponed from last
month when Yeltsin fell ill. 


The president travels little these days because of his poor health, though
the Kremlin has said he hopes to spend the first Orthodox Christmas of the
third Christian millennium in Bethlehem on the West Bank.


*******


#2
The Times (UK)
8 December 1999
[for personal use only]
Cities under siege 
Russians undeterred by lessons of history
BY MICHAEL EVANS DEFENCE EDITOR


THE Russian ultimatum to the people of Grozny, now encircled by a huge 
concentration of troops and armour, has provided graphic proof that Moscow is 
now determined to complete the military operation in Chechnya, whatever the 
opposition from the outside world. 


The siege of Grozny is to become the destruction of Grozny, and there is no 
guarantee that Russia will wait until the December 11 deadline before moving 
in, especially now Western governments are focusing on Chechnya. 


Historic sieges of past generations should serve as a warning to the Russian 
military commanders that, whatever their troops and tanks achieve in the 
streets of the capital, they will be in no position to celebrate a "victory". 


Even if the Russian military succeed in taking the city, they will have to 
decide what to do about the network of underground Cold War bunkers spread 
out beneath the capital, where many of the Chechen fighters and civilians are 
taking sanctuary. 


The great sieges of the past offer little room for Russian optimism. In the 
siege of Masada in AD70, a Roman legion surrounded the mountaintop fortress 
in southeast Israel where the Jewish inhabitants had refused to surrender. 


It took the Roman legion of about 15,000 soldiers almost two years to 
overcome the fortress, defended by fewer than 1,000 people. The attack on 
Stalingrad began in August 1942, but the Germans never managed to take the 
city because of determined defence by the Red Army, and lost an estimated 
200,000 soldiers. 


The people of Sarajevo and Mostar experienced the same terror now facing the 
citizens in Grozny. Sarajevo was shelled mercilessly by the Bosnian Serbs in 
the hills around the Bosnian capital, and the Bosnian Muslims in Mostar 
received similar treatment from the Croats. Yet the majority of people never 
abandoned the cities. 


But Charles Blandy, of the Conflict Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst, 
said: "I think the Russians mean business and they cannot contemplate the 
thought of defeat, especially after their experience in the 1994-96 Chechen 
war." 


*******


#3
Washington Post
8 December 1999
Editorial 
War Crimes in Grozny


RUSSIAN ARMY officers say they will destroy anyone who has not left Grozny,
the capital of Chechnya, by Saturday. They couch this as a warning to
civilians to decamp. But thousands of people remaining in Grozny are too
old, feeble or wounded to move. Many are cowering in basements, without
heat or electricity, in fear of Russia's constant bombardment; they may not
have seen the leaflets that the Russian military dropped from the air. Even
those who are aware of the ultimatum may decide it is too dangerous to
leave; the bombing continues without pause, and Russian troops on more than
one occasion have massacred civilians who were fleeing as ordered.


This strategy -- to level a city and kill everyone within it -- is not an
acceptable method of war, even within a conflict that may itself be
justifiable. When Serbian forces used disproportionate force against
civilians in Kosovo, an international court of the United Nations indicted
Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes. When Indonesian forces razed
towns and cities in East Timor, the United Nations launched a war crimes
inquiry, which is continuing. Now is the time to begin gathering
information on Russia's tactics in Chechnya, and to let Russia's leaders
and generals know that no one should be immune from prosecution for such
atrocities.


A few world leaders are beginning to put an accurate label on Russia's
methods, although President Clinton and Vice President Gore are not yet
among them. "It's really getting to the point where it's crossing the line
into potential crimes against humanity," Canada's foreign minister, Lloyd
Axworthy, said yesterday. "You could have 30,000 people there -- very old,
disabled, sick, who can't move -- who are subject to major bombing, and so
I think it's very important in the next couple of days that we try to put a
restraint on that." It's telling, and sad for Russian democracy, that the
world leaders who support Russia's actions are dictators, such as those of
China and Belarus. 


No outside leader has disputed Russia's right to fight terrorism. Chechen
militants struck into the neighboring province of Dagestan earlier this
fall, at considerable cost of life. Russian officials also blame Chechens,
though without any evidence, for several apartment-building bombings in
Moscow and elsewhere that claimed hundreds of lives. Russia's government
describes the current military campaign in Chechnya as aimed at those
terrorists. But the true aim seems to be more the eradication of a people
than of a band of criminals. 


*******


#4
Russian Duma to decide START-2 ratification Monday


MOSCOW, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament
will decide on Monday whether to discuss ratifying the U.S.-Russian START-2
nuclear arms reduction pact that day, Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev said
on Wednesday. 


A Duma deputy told reporters earlier the Duma's managing council had voted
4-3 to include a ratification debate in Monday's agenda. But Sergeyev later
said the final decision on the agenda had been postponed until Monday. 


The START-2 accord would slash the two countries' deployed nuclear warheads
by up to two-thirds from about 6,000 each to no more than 3,500 each by the
year 2007. The U.S. Senate has ratified the treaty, the Communist-dominated
Duma has held back, saying the pact is against national interests. 


"The ratification debate is on the agenda for Monday," Georgy Tikhonov, a
senior member of the pro-Communist People's Power group, told reporters in
the middle of the council's meeting. The Duma meets on Monday with the main
aim of ratifying a merger pact with Belarus signed earlier on Wednesday. 


Sergeyev, who has vigorously advocated ratifying the START-2 as the only
way for Russia to afford to modernise its deterrent, said after the
council's meeting it had been agreed to make the final decision before the
Duma meets on Monday. 


Ultra-nationalist party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said estimates showed
200 deputies in the 450-seat chamber were ready to vote for ratification
and 200 against. He told reporters: "It was decided to hold more
consultations to win a solid majority of 250 votes." 


The START-2 accord would slash the two countries' deployed nuclear warheads
by up to two-thirds from about 6,000 each to no more than 3,500 each by the
year 2007. The U.S. Senate has ratified the treaty, the Communist-dominated
Duma has held back, saying the pact is against national interests. 


"The ratification debate is on the agenda for Monday," Georgy Tikhonov, a
senior member of the pro-Communist People's Power group, told reporters in
the middle of the council's meeting. The Duma meets on Monday with the main
aim of ratifying a merger pact with Belarus signed earlier on Wednesday. 


Sergeyev, who has vigorously advocated ratifying the START-2 as the only
way for Russia to afford to modernise its deterrent, said after the
council's meeting it had been agreed to make the final decision before the
Duma meets on Monday. 


Ultra-nationalist party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said estimates showed
200 deputies in the 450-seat chamber were ready to vote for ratification
and 200 against. He told reporters: "It was decided to hold more
consultations to win a solid majority of 250 votes." 


*******


#5
St. Petersburg Times
December 7, 1999
MEDIA WATCH
Partisan Media Ruins Vote
By Robert Coalson
Robert Coalson is a program director at the National Press Institute. The 
views expressed here are not necessarily those of NPI.


HOW do you create a groundswell? It turns out to be a lot easier than you 
might think.


During the Cold War, the KGB (and, it goes without saying, the CIA) made an 
art of it. In 1983, according to Alvin Snyder's book "Warriors of 
Disinformation," the KGB planted the story that the CIA had developed the 
AIDS virus as an ethnic weapon against blacks in a small, pro-Soviet 
newspaper in India. The story was then picked up by both Tass and Novosti and 
sent out to more than 600 client media outlets throughout the Third World. By 
1987, a U.S. government study in Nigeria found that a majority of people had 
heard the story and thought it was "probably true."


I recently created something of a groundswell myself inadvertently. In 
October, I wrote in this column about a case of prior restraint in Astrakhan. 
That column appeared in both The Moscow Times and its sister paper, The St. 
Petersburg Times. Somehow, a newspaper down in Astrakhan found out about the 
column and wrote an article about how the city had become the subject of 
international indignation.


"This outrageous and unprecedented violation of the Constitution and 
democratic norms by our region has now been trumpeted before the entire 
world," the paper wrote. "For example, just recently publications about it 
appeared in The St. Petersburg Times and The Moscow Times. Progressive 
opinion both globally and in Russia has reacted sharply to this infringement 
of freedom of speech." Ironically, in the column I stressed the point that it 
was a tragedy that no one anywhere had paid any attention to this case.


It is worth thinking about such examples now as the election season moves 
into the home stretch. They provide a clue about how the country's various 
media empires function and how they determine the result of elections without 
contributing to democracy. Why, for instance, does Gazprom own more than 100 
money-losing regional newspapers?


In an ideal democracy, elections would be a matter of well-informed citizens 
going to the polls and making well-considered choices at the end of an 
informative and creative campaign. Such elections would represent the 
culmination of a consensus-building process that bestowed a mandate of 
authority not only on particular individuals but also on a direction for the 
whole society. Such a mandate generates stability, as even the losers feel 
that they participated and had a fair hearing.


Russia is far from an ideal democracy. Public trust in the media is, 
rightfully, virtually non-existent. Of course, people continue to watch 
television and read the newspapers, but they do not do so in hopes of getting 
useful information. Because it is not possible for even extremely 
conscientious citizens to vote on the basis of reliable information, citizens 
here must cast their ballots largely on the much flimsier basis of how they 
"feel" about the candidates.


In such a system, the media is a tool through which political forces sway the 
sentiments of the electorate. It doesn't matter to the oligarchs that the 
public does not trust their media; they use their control of multiple media 
outlets to build groundswells of emotion and to shift public sentiment in 
ways that are convenient to them. The impact of the media is increased 
because citizens whose passions run highest are most likely to vote - while 
those trying to make rational choices are more likely to stay home in 
frustration.


The result is that elections in Russia do not represent any sort of 
consensus, but merely reflect the way the nation "felt" on a particular day. 
No mandate is conferred, although the mere fact that elections were held at 
all allows the victors to call themselves "democratically elected leaders." 
Such a process is a recipe for further instability that in turn must be 
countered by continued heavy-handed state control.


Elections without information have nothing in common with democracy; that is 
why the failure of Russia to even begin the process of building a responsible 
and secure non-state media system will condemn the country to years of more 
of the same. The country needs to find some way to break out of this cycle, 
but the people who come to power through such a process are not going to be 
the ones who will do it.


*******


#6
The Guardian (UK)
8 December 1999
[for personal use only]
Watching the fall of Grozny 
The west may wish to halt the Russian advance but it cannot
By Martin Woollacott


As the Russians close in on Grozny, the difficult truth is that there is 
almost certainly nothing we can do to avert the onslaught. If western 
countries were to immediately announce the fullest range of sanctions on 
Russia, the attacks would go ahead all the same. They would only be called 
off if Russia had some powerful reason of her own to do so, and none is 
visible. There might be a sliver of a chance of a reprieve if the deadline 
were extended and the Chechen government offered talks in which the 
withdrawal of Chechen extremists would be the first item for discussion, but 
that is inherently unlikely. 


Western forbearance and attempts at quiet persuasion would be, and have been, 
similarly unproductive. Russian policy is, in the short term, unalterable. 
But, in the longer term, the west can help shape a saner attitude in both 
Moscow and Grozny. That is indeed their only hope, and ours too, since 
Chechnya is a conflict with a potentially destructive impact not only in the 
Caucasus and Russia but anywhere in the world where minorities are at harsh 
odds with central governments. 


To suggest that the Russians cannot be stopped is a dismal thing when 
civilians are at such risk, especially those who may soon start coming out of 
the capital along "safe" routes which may not deserve that description. It 
would of course be worse if Russia had not attempted to get some civilians 
out of the line of fire and nobody can say that the reduction of Grozny has 
not been a looming prospect for many weeks. Certainly, more should have been 
done at an earlier stage. However, to argue now that all the west's means of 
punishing Russia should be used at once in a diplomatic equivalent of the 
Chechnya campaign itself - all guns blazing away until victory - is surely 
foolish. 


The likely side effects should give anyone pause. Trying to bring in legal 
international sanctions would probably wreck both the United Nations and the 
west's whole relationship with Russia. Threatening to bring the Baltic 
nations swiftly into Nato could have the effect of entrenching the 
reactionary wing of the Russian military for years to come. Calling in debts 
would wreck what is left of the Russian economy and could well send the world 
economy into a destructive spin. Cutting payments for the scrapping of 
nuclear weapons would be plain dangerous. 


What makes more sense is to work out a policy fitted to the likely evolution 
of Russia's war against Chechnya. The military moment in the Caucasus, the 
sense that triumph is close, will soon pass. The Chechens may turn the next 
stage of the war into a bloodier struggle for Russia than it has been so far. 
But even if the Russians do take Grozny without many casualties on their side 
and successfully seal off the mountainous country to the south, Russia will 
then be hard up against the business of how to hold Chechnya and how to work 
out a stable relationship with an alienated and angry society. It will be 
looking at a huge political problem that could affect the country's affairs 
for the worse for years to come. There will be a new parliament and soon 
afterwards a new president in Moscow - a leadership likely to be more 
interested in solutions than in military grandstanding for the polls. As the 
conflict moves into this phase, both the west and the Muslim world could have 
a serious influence on the outcome through a judicious mixture of pressure, 
diplomatic help, and, in the event of an acceptable settlement, economic aid. 


What Robin Cook sketched out yesterday is enough to send some signals to 
Moscow. The European Union will reconsider some aid, the International 
Monetary Fund will delay its next instalment, the G8, of which Russia is only 
a member because of its democratic credentials, will engage the Chechnya 
question next week. To moves like these might be added suspension from the 
Council of Europe, and, in America's case, suspension of Export-Import Bank 
loans. What the west should also make crystal clear is that it envisages no 
solution that does not recognise the government of President Aslan Maskhadov, 
overwhelmingly elected in 1997. As Anatol Lieven of the International 
Institute for Strategic Studies argues, this falls short of a western 
recognition of Chechen independence, leaving that as a question to be settled 
between Russians and Chechens, but sets the west against an imposed puppet 
government of the kind some in Moscow are contemplating. 


It also helps opens the way to diplomatic mediation, for which the best 
framework is that of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 
If we could instantly stop the war in Chechnya, of course we should do so. 
But since we cannot, it is better to deploy our resources as skilfully as we 
can for the long game of persuading the Russians out of their folly than to 
give in to the temptation to stage a sort of fireworks show of western 
displeasure. 


*******


#7
Inter Press Service
Conflict-Caucasus: Petrodollars Behind the Chechen Tragedy


MOSCOW, (Dec. 7) IPS - As the Russian army tightens its grip around the 
Chechen capital of Grozny and Moscow becomes increasingly assertive, analysts 
stress that manoeuvring over huge oil-transit deals is the real issue of the 
Chechen war. 


Today, Russian Primer Minister Vladimir Putin rejected politely, but in 
unequivocal terms, the Western criticism for Russia's ultimatum yesterday to 
Grozny's civilians -- to leave the city before Dec. 11, or die under 
artillery and air fire. 


Human rights activists argue that thousands of elderly and ill civilians 
trapped in Grozny face death in the coming days. The Russian military dismiss 
the allegation, arguing that most of those left in the city are Muslim 
rebels, using civilians as a human shield. 


It has been often said that disputes over oil transit are behind the tragedy 
in unruly Chechnya -- seen as the biggest security threat in the region. 


Russia has been keen to use its Baku-Novorossiisk export route for 
Azerbaijani "early" oil exports. But the pipe crosses over 153 kilometers of 
Chechen territory, which makes it unreliable as long as the country is 
lawless. 


"Early" oil is the first crude to be exported from three Azerbaijani offshore 
fields being developed under a multi-billion-dollar project. 


Larger quantities are expected to flow early next century from the Caspian 
basin, considered to be one of the world's most important new sources of 
fossil fuels. 


At first the Russians tried to negotiate with the rebellious Chechens' 
leaders. After a hard bargaining process, on September 9 1997 Russian and 
Chechen officials signed an agreement to allow the Azerbaijani oil travel 
through the separatist republic. 


Under this agreement, Transneft, the Russian operator, agreed to pay a 
43-cent fee per ton of oil, down from the $2.2 initially demanded by the 
Chechens. Russia also agreed to take care of maintenance and security, but 
the flow was soon halted after armed gangs began stealing large amounts of 
oil. 


Then the Russians decided to build an alternative pipeline in Dagestan -- to 
bypass the Chechen section. But inroads by Chechen militants into Dagestan 
last August showed that this option was unsafe too. 


It was then that the second Chechen war commenced. 


In addition, it is feared that terrorist threats may hold up the construction 
of a 1,600-kilometer link between the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan and a 
Black Sea port near Novorossiisk, known as the Caspian Pipeline Consortium 
(CPC). 


The consortium -- established back in 1992 by the governments of Russia, 
Kazakhstan and Oman -- is Russia's main hope to become the main agent in 
moving Caspian oil, said Vladimir Stanev, Russia's deputy Fuel and Energy 
minister. 


In December 1996, 50 percent of CPC's shares were sold to international oil 
corporations, effectively turning the consortium into the largest 
privately-financed oil infrastructure project in the former Soviet states. 


The project, worth $2.5 billion, is expected to be completed by June 30, 
2001, CPC's director general Viktor Fedotov told IPS. 


The 750-kilometer Russian section of the pipeline is expected to be finished 
by the end of December 2000 with the first tanker scheduled to leave in June 
next year. 


The consortium plans to start pumping half-a-million barrels per day by 
October 2001. Shareholders have invested some $700 million during 1999, and 
they plan to raise the figure up to $1.3 billion in 2000, Vagit Alekperov, 
head of Russia's LUKoil said. 


Some 60 percent of the investment comes from the two largest private 
shareholders -- LUKoil and Chevron, he said. 


On Dec. 2, Prime Minister Putin met with Fedotov, Alekperov and Chevron's 
president of international operations Richard Matzke, promising the 
government's support to the project. 


Putin, nominated by the ailing President Boris Yeltsin as his chosen 
successor, is also widely seen as the mastermind of the military campaign in 
Chechnya. 


The CPC will be a great success, Matzke announced. "My general attitude is of 
complete satisfaction with it. CPC will bring wealth to all participants," he 
told IPS. 


"After meeting with Putin we are sure that we are going to honor our 
commitments," Alekperov commented. "We have a variety of exploration projects 
in the Caspian and our oil will also go through this CPC pipeline," he said. 


LUKoil, which has drilled its first offshore well in the north Caspian Sea, 
holds a 12.5 percent stake in the consortium. The pipeline will transport oil 
from the Tengiz and possibly also from the Karachaganak oil fields, where 
LUKoil has 5 and 15 percent stakes respectively. 


The CPC pipeline -- expected to have an initial capacity of 28.2 million tons 
of oil a-year and a maximum of 67 million -- is presumed to be the Russian 
response to the Baku-Ceyhan oil-pipeline project signed between Turkey and 
Azerbaijan at the OSCE summit in Istanbul last month, at a ceremony attended 
by President Bill Clinton. 


This new link -- heavily supported by the US -- would leave Russia virtually 
out of the business of transporting Azerbaijani oil from the Azeri, Chirag 
and Gyuneshli offshore fields. 


The Russian government expects revenues of some $23.3 billion from the 
project within the next 40 years, while Kazakhstan plans to earn $8.2 
billion. However, now the planned revenues look far from certain as the 
trans-Georgia pipeline and a new terminal at Supsa on the Black Sea are ready 
for oil exports. 


"We advocate a diversity of oil transit projects," Alekperov said. 


However, given the size of proven Caspian reserves -- "the CPC and Georgian 
routes will definitely be enough to transit Caspian oil within the next 10-15 
years," he said, implying that Ceyhan pipeline is not economically viable. 


Some Russian analysts argue that Turkey and the US are supporting the Ceyhan 
project so as to elbow Russia off the Caspian. Furthermore, Ankara's quiet 
support to the Chechen militants has been said to be designed to sustain 
volatility in the northern Caucasus -- which would make it impossible for the 
competing CPC project to proceed. 


There have also been fears that in case of a Russian military success in 
Chechnya, Turkey could simply close the Bosporus and Dardanelles for Russian 
oil transit, using environmental concerns over possible spills as an excuse. 


"I do not think Turkey could go that far to block -- in clear violation of 
international treaties -- oil shipments from the Black Sea in favor of its 
pipeline to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Stanev, the Russian deputy 
minister said. 


Whoever right -- manoeuvring over crude transit and big oil dollars are 
likely to remain a factor in an ongoing Chechen tragedy. 


******


#8
ELECTION DEBATE BROADCAST ON RUSSIA TV PROGRAMME ON 6TH DECEMBER
BBC Monitoring Service


Programme summary of Russia TV Round Table programme, presented by Ivan 
Kononov:


The five participants had one minute each to make their opening remarks:


Dmitriy Golovanov, speaking on behalf of the Russian Socialist Party said: 
"In brief, the main aims and tasks of our party may be formulated in the 
following manner, with the following slogan `He who has the incentive to work 
has few worries', which means support for Russian producers of goods, support 
for Russian industry, because those who want to work, should work. But 
unfortunately, in the extent of the taxes and requisitions by officials in 
Russia do not allow us to work normally." He went on to expand on this, 
saying that once industry operates properly, taxes and wages are paid, it 
will be possible to look after the socially underprivileged. .


Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, speaking on behalf of Zhirinovskiy's bloc, said: "I 
represent Zhirinovskiy's bloc and you need to vote for us because we have 
been around for 10 years. Ten years ago, they all had the right to set up a 
political party. Why didn't they set them up at that time? Because they were 
afraid, because they didn't want to. They didn't need to. Ten years have gone 
by, and they all want to get into parliament within the framework of the 
political structures and get some kind of mandate. Why? But we were with you 
right from the start, 10 years ago. We defended the country right from the 
start, in August 1991. The rest of them did not exist at all. There were the 
Communists. And we took part in adopting the constitution, within the 
framework of which they have all received freedom of speech today. If it had 
not been for the work we did not adopting the new constitution, since the 
previous one had been destroyed - that was already the fifth constitution, 
there would not be any elections today


And finally, the party of power, whom do they hate? Precisely the LDPR 
[Liberal Democratic Party of Russia] and Zhirinovskiy's Bloc. They are 
tormenting us even now. They still have not take a decision whether the party 
will stand in the elections. This is the best proof that we are in 
opposition."


Konstantin Remchikov, speaking on behalf of the Union of Right Forces: "Vote 
for the Union of Right Forces, 23 on the list, because, unlike Zhirinovskiy' 
bloc, we did not set up a party of action, but started reforms in this 
country. And, in actual fact, reform has been developing in the direction 
outlined throughout the 10 years. This is the reform that has been going on 
throughout the world." He goes on to appeal to the intelligentsia, to the 
burgeoning middle class to vote for his party and said that pensioners should 
vote for them if they want their pensions paid.


Sergey Atroshenko, on behalf of the All-Russian Party of Pensioners, 
reproached those in power for failing to pay pensions all these years and 
calls upon pensioners to think about why they only received a pension rise 
and promises of pensions are being made on the eve of the elections. He 
promised that pensioners would get what was theirs by right.


Ella Pamfilova, speaking on behalf of the For Civic Dignity movement: 
"Naturally, unlike others, I never try to avoid my responsibilities. I am 
deeply convinced, and many people who are watching at the moment are well 
aware, even when I was on my own, I managed to do a great deal over these 
years. And in the capacity of minister as well. I think that it would be even 
more complicated and difficult if I had not been in power. But now it is not 
sufficient to be in power on your. I think that those parties who have a 
wealth of experience, including those that have existed for 10 years, those 
who have been conducting the so-called reforms for 10 years. Well, in general 
they managed to achieve some results, in general they had the opportunity to 
fully show what they could do as a political force. I can give an account of 
the specific things I have done. I think that at the present time it is not 
sufficient to be on one's own in politics. This is precisely why I am 
reckoning on the support of those people who know me for the specific things 
I have done. If you support us, then my strong team, the movement for Civic 
Dignity which I head will have many more opportunities to defend your 
interests.


Kononov then asked all of them the following question: "I would like to know 
what, in your view comes first, the economy or ideology?"


Golovanov said that it was difficult to say which came first, but the economy 
did not seem to be working well when it was not driven by ideology.


Kononov rewords the question: "What shape should ideology take when it has 
such a broad spectrum and differs so much among the political forces?"


Zhirinovskiy replied: "Naturally initially there should be the economy, but 
ideology has come in its wake. But Russia is a special country and the Russia 
medium, taking into account the Communists. Unfortunately, ideology has come 
first. The reforms were started by the alliance of right-wing forces. These 
were terrible reforms and have been a complete failure. That is, the idea was 
right. That society needed to be reformed. To begin with, they should have 
aimed at the economy. They concentrated on ideology. Let us break it up. And 
we broke up the country, the Soviet Union, but we did not create a new 
Russia." Interrupted by the presenter, Zhirinovskiy concludes by reproaching 
the reformers in an agitated manner.


Remchikov said that they had brought about private possession, that everyone 
had a country cottage, most had a car. He added that people now travelled 
abroad freely, people had access to information, the Internet, and could read 
books other than Marx and Lenin. These, he said, were the actual 
achievements, those who valued these achievements would vote for their party.


Zhirinovskiy interrupted, saying that people could not afford all these 
things.


Atroshenko said that the Communists were always comparing current 
circumstances with what had been, but in reality the comparison should be 
drawn with other Western countries. He stressed that importance of allowing 
people to earn a decent wage.


Pamfilova responded: "I am just amazed at what the Union of Right Forces is 
saying. I have the feeling that they are talking about another country. Take 
a look, 90 per cent of the new poor were the intelligentsia, doctors, 
teachers. What are you talking about. This is not a reform. This is a phantom 
reform which unfortunately, has led to, and I want to reiterate once again, 
to material and moral ruin. This is the conclusion. But why is this. One must 
turn the economy into a goal in itself. Any country - take a look round the 
world - had a lofty idea, and then the economy was successful, when there was 
a lofty idea, a unifying idea. Therefore, you understand, spiritual poverty 
us more terrible than physical poverty. We have to start from this. What we 
are proposing, I think there should be a different approach at the moment, a 
new approach. What I am insisting on is a strategy of developing a 
purpose-oriented approach, the compatibility of all spheres, a balance of the 
economy, of the economic sphere, the social sphere, the intellectual and the 
ecological sphere. That is possible. That is feasible. There is no need to 
contrast them against one another. The need to be mutually intensified. This 
is my approach , our approach."


Asked how she formulated that idea that should bring about progress in the 
economy and the country, Pamfilova said: "Let's be honest about it at the 
present time. At the present time, we are all aware of the threat of the 
country collapsing. We are all aware of a spiritual collapse and physical 
degradation. This is the main thing that is worrying everyone, irrespective 
of their views, left-wing, right-wing, and so on, when people are normal 
people, when they are not ready to sell themselves and to sell their country. 
This is what is worrying everyone. "She concluded by saying that in the past 
people had always worked to get out of difficulty.


Remichukhov heatedly responded that there is no spiritual collapse, that 
people are reading books and going to the theatre.


Golovanov concluded that the main thing is that people in Russia should feel 
themselves to be owners of the huge amounts of natural resources, but they 
have not been monopolized by the state, but by clans and oligarchs and this 
was why people are poor in an extremely rich country. He party is setting out 
to make people feel that they are the owners in their own country.


Zhirinovskiy concluded that the poor had had a better life under the 
Communists, but it had been impossible to become rich. He said that people 
had now been allowed to buy everything and go abroad, but no money was 
forthcoming in which to do it. He said that the average wage throughout the 
country was R10 per day and that millions of people could not afford to pay 
for gas and electricity and could not even afford a bicycle, let alone a car. 
He said that they could not afford to buy medicines and 1.5m people were 
dying as a result of poverty every year.


Each participant was given 30 seconds to make their concluding remarks.


Pamfilova asked people who had not yet made up their minds to vote for her 
movement, and assured them that they would not be making a mistake..


Atroshenko urged pensioners to vote for their own party which promised them 
higher wages and therefore better pensions.


Remchikov urged viewers to vote for his party because it will get it right.


Zhirinovskiy told viewers "not to vote for the Communists, because they have 
made everyone poor and people are discontented. This is why no one came out 
to defend them when they lost power. And under no circumstances vote for any 
reformist forces. All the reformers have committed crimes." Zhirinovskiy 
concluded by railing against these "swindlers".


Golovanov urges those people to vote for the Russian Socialist Party who want 
to be owners in Russia, owners of not only spiritual values, but also 
material wealth.


Source: Russia TV, Moscow, in Russian 1635 gmt 6 Dec 99


*******


#9
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 1
From: "andrew miller" <andrewmiller@mail.ru> 
Subject: The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same


The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same


Whoever said that, he was pretty sharp.


There is a brilliant moment in Stanley Kramer's wonderful film "Guess
Who's Coming to Dinner" when Sidney Poitier, having locked himself up with
his father - who opposes Poiter's planned union with lily-white Katherine
Houghton - boldly declares:


You are thirty years older than I am. You and your whole lousy
generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be, and
not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead
weight of you be off our backs.


It's quite impossible to feast on Kramer's "Dinner" anywhere in Russia.
Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are as unknown quantities in Russia as
Lada Dance and Dimitri Yakubovsky are in the USA. "Dinner" was made during
the height of the Cold War and showed Americans struggling constructively
and honestly and non-violently (more or less) with the country's racial
divide - it was therefore of course banned from viewing in Russia and has
yet, like most positive aspects of American or any other foreign culture,
to make anything like a serious appearance on the Russian radar screens.
This is a pity, of course, as Russians might gain much consolation from
reflection Poitiers's elegant declaration. He later says he loves his
father very much, which would help Russians to understand that you can
speak the truth about your country, or family, while still loving it -
indeed, because you do - which is something that they still don't get.
Perhaps, they never will.


Yet, it is the Americans who could most benefit from having "Dinner" with
Kramer. Because Russians now face just the same dilemma that Poitier and
his people faced in the 1960's (that is, many of the oppressed people
themselves stand in the way of progress), with one key difference: Russia
has no Poitiers, none at all. Americans try to find them in folks like
murdered Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova, but they are not there.
Starovoitova never made any such statement. There are no kids, anywhere in
Russia, seeking to throw off the mantle of the parents who obliterated
their nation by launching a dollar-for-dollar arms race with a country
whose GNP was five times larger and which, by the incidental way, didn't
actually mean them any harm. There are no children of Tienamen in Russia,
and there never will be


Much more important, though, even if there were a nucleus of such kids in
Russia, they would have no time to wait for their parents to lay down and
die. The Russian economy, broken beyond repair and imploding like a vice,
would crush them long before they ever go their golden chance to make the
world anew. Yet these facts, which must now be viewed as beyond dispute,
are, so far as I can tell, not any part of U.S. policy toward Russia.


Before making any further policy toward Russia, I urge Americans to stop
and reflect about something very simple yet very much ignored: What do you
think Russian kids are studying in 1999, and from whom? Do you imagine
that in the ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall Russia has carried
out some kind of Stalinesque purge of its educational institutions,
replacing tired old apparachik teachers and tired old politically oriented
textbooks with brand new ones? By whom would those books have been
written, by whom would those teachers have been trained? Who, in a country
with less than $1,000 of GDP per capita, would have paid for them? Perhaps
there might have been a bit of progress in Moscow or St. Petersburg (about
that, see below), but what about the vast territory outside those "two
capitals" where 90% of Russia actually lives?


Or perhaps you imagine that when the wall fell, all those teachers (who'd
gained their positions through political maneuvering in the Soviet system
that intimately and cleverly wound politics and teaching together)
magically changed their attitudes and started afresh in a brave new world
of new ideas - all the while being paid, say, $20 or so per month to do it?


Of course, that isn't so. Not even in the two capitals, much less
anywhere else (that is, where the vast majority of the populace actually
lives). Those teaching Russian students today were educated, at best,
during the years when he USA was boycotting the Moscow Olympics - at worst
under Joseph Stalin. How many foreign teachers visit Russia, accepting
poverty wages and living conditions that are dangerous in so many ways?
And of those who visit, how many are given the opportunity to remake the
Russian system in light of their experience? Just name one, I challenge
you. We struggle every day just to avoid being fired.


In fact, the curriculum of most Russian universities is still prescribed
by bureaucrats in Moscow - and many of those bureaucrats are still active
members of the Communist party. Teachers don't give their own final
examinations or control course content, and they aren't allowed to do
research. Even if they were, there would be no venue for publication
except by their own subsidy, no one would read what they wrote, and if they
did no reform would occur. Most Russian students still study most subjects
using books written before Gorbachev. If you imagine that Russian kids are
now hip to the lame political rap laid down by these texts and discount it,
you obviously haven't met or talked with many. And what do you make of the
virulent anti-Westernism and especially anti-Americanism that recently
bubbled forth during the Yugoslavia conflict? Simply a failure of
Americans to explain themselves? How do you account for the fact that
Russians still haven't seen "Dinner" - or for that matter been to
"Casablanca." During the Yugoslavia conflict, for example, many Russian
kids loudly proclaimed that America doesn't understand war because one has
never been fought on its territory (they still haven't heard about 1776, or
1812, or 1846 or 1865 (or, for that matter, Littleton) - not even in
Moscow, believe it or not - just ask Prime Minister Putin, for example -
see his recent piece in the New York Times).


Any foreigner who has ever worked in a Russian university can confirm that
the administrations of these places, by and large though of course there
are noble exceptions, give every impression of simply biding their time,
waiting until the ultimate and inevitable return of the Soviet system under
which, after all, they were relatively well paid, respected and
significant. The fact that that system was insolvent and headed for
oblivion is of little consequence to them when they remember the lovely
vacations they used to have at the seaside, and the useful assistance of
the secret police whenever little Johnny pulled little Suzy's braids.


They go on "teaching" and the students go on "learning" without
complaint. The students study for free, of course, and indeed are paid a
salary directly by the national government, so they are in a poor position
to rock the boat. The only active student protest in Russia occurs when
these stipends accumulate significant arrearages. They are not waiting for
their parents to die in order to lose deadweight - most aspire to that status.


I have worked as a teacher in Russian universities for three years. The
mere fact that I held such positions is a testament to the fact that there
are progressive, and even heroic, educators in Russia. Should anyone like
a list of them with the intent of providing them some assistance (virtually
none is being provided now, shamefully), I would be happy to provide it.
But for every Hero, there is a fleet of Submarines. I could write
something about these heros if I were asked, though I don't know what good
it would do. The university I'm about to discuss has a formal sister
relationship with America's Fairfield University, but has nonetheless made
little headway.


I recently offered to teach a few classes in American literature at the
Alexander Herzen State Teacher's College in downtown St. Petersburg. The
school is one of Russia's leading institutions of higher learning, training
the cream of Russia's future teaching crop. I had two classes of seniors
(in Russia this means they'd completed three y ears of study but had two
more to go, having graduate high school a year or two earlier than their
American counterparts). I took over the classes from other teachers about
three weeks into the fall semester. They were majoring in English, going
to be come English teachers.


The students were studying literature from a book called "Analitical
Reading" [sic] which had been written a year before most of the
twenty-year-old seniors had been born. As I learned on the first day, none
of the students had ever heard of John Steinbeck, Toni Morrison, Sinclair
Lewis, Pearl Buck or Nathanial Hawthorne. Most thought, and said, the
reason Americans don't follow British English is because they are lazy and
ignorant. Many recognized the names Faulkner and Hemingway, but none had
ever read one of their novels. The university operates no bookstore. There
are only two places to buy books in English in Piter - one is a British
shop called "Anglia" which stocks mostly British works, and the other is
the bookstore of the State University - Russia's Yale - which has two or
three shelves and little selection. Before you can go to the library to
ask for Morrison, of course, you'd have to have heard of her.


Before I arrived, the students had been spending two weeks studying each
of the three-page extracts from a famous (almost always British) writer,
along with two or three pages of "commentary" by the Russian author. The
assigned task for my class session was three pages from "The Lord of the
Flies" by William Golding. Prior to that, the students had perused a few
pages from "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens (I asked the students what a
"chancery" court was as that was the title of the chapter they'd read -
none knew, but they could discuss the interstices of technical grammar like
anything). The moral of these tales, that is the fundamental corruptness
of Western jurisprudence and the bleak prospects of people left to their
own devices (especially capitalist children on a desert island, who are as
likely as not to kill and eat each other without a firm guiding hand), was
lost on nobody. Least of all me.


When I asked the students why they didn't complain about using such a
book (the commentary to the Golding piece contained a dozen errors in
linguistics not counting the title), they said that no one would listen so
what was the point. When I asked if they might not learn more by reading,
say, a page each day rather than one every other day, they said that what
good would knowledge do them and everybody else was reading a page every
other day, so what was the point? When I asked them if they'd ever visited
the American Studies room set up by Fairfield University, a sister school
of Herzen, which is supplied with dozens of recent American magazines and
newspapers as well as a working photocopy machine, they . . . repeated
themselves. That room is often either empty or locked when I pass it -
reading Newsweek does precious little to help Russian students pass their
neo-Soviet examinations, you see. And there are no free trips to America
connected with it.


Now, I wonder what would happen if I were to take a trip south of Moscow
to, say, Tula - where the elected governor is a Communist? Do you suppose
things would be more encouraging? Or further south, to Kursk, where the
elected governor is convicted coup-plotter Alexander Rutskoi? Actually,
I've been to those places and done just that, and there are in fact several
heroic educators in those cities who are struggling mightily, with no
funds, to do something new. 


They die a little every day they try to carry on. Makes me regret not
going to medical school.


Andrew Miller
St. Petersburg, Russia
andrewmiller@mail.ru


******