January 23, 2001   

This Date's Issues:   5044 • 5045 • 5046

Johnson's Russia List
#5044
23 January 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. UPI: Martin Walker, Russia-watching -- where to look.
2. Reuters: Jon Boyle, Putin plan shows Chechnya fatigue, not exit scheme.
3. Interfax: Interest in Internet declines in Russia, experts believe.
4. Moscow Times: Yevgenia Albats, Russia's Recipe for Chaos.
5. strana.ru: Sergei Markov, Contradictions in human rights movement in Russia.
6. Christian Science Monitor: Elizabeth Olson, Test of Swiss anticorruption drive. Prosecutors want to extradite a former Yeltsin aide arrested last week in the US. Russia objects.
7. RFE/RL: Don Hill, Borodin's Extradition Case In U.S. Raises Legal Questions.
8. AFP: Russian press freedom still under attack: meeting.
9. RFE/RL: Julin Corwin, THE INCUMBENCY ADVANTAGE.
10. Reuters: Ron Popeski, Putin puts liberal changes to criminal law on ice.
11. BBC: Alex Kirby, 'Blast sank Kursk, not collision.']

*******

#1
Analysis: Russia-watching -- where to look
By MARTIN WALKER, Chief International Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 (UPI) --  Mounting alarm among Western governments
about the fate of media freedoms in President Vladimir Putin's Russia is
likely to be fueled by two new concerns this week.

Putin is planning to replace Russia's 1993 constitution with a new
document, drafted by his own hand-picked team, an emergency conference of
Russian and international human rights campaigners was told in Moscow over
the weekend. They dubbed it a 'nomenklatura' constitution -- after the
Russian term for the old Soviet elite -- which would erode political rights.

At the same time, Ukraine and Russia signed two military pacts. The first
commits both countries to cooperate, rather than compete, on selling arms,
and to restore some of the joint research and production agreements on
weapons manufacture that were dropped when Ukraine became independent after
the Soviet collapse 10 years ago.

The second pact, a 52-clause military agreement signed in Kiev last week,
gave Russia the right to participate in planning of all military exercises
being held in Ukraine in the future, and the two countries agreed to
establish a joint naval force in the Black Sea. This poses a double threat
to the regular NATO-Ukraine naval exercises staged annually in the Black sea
over the past eight years, and could give Russia's military a powerful
influence over Ukraine's defense policies in the future.

The incoming Bush administration, which strongly supports NATO enlargement
to include other former Soviet Union republics like the Baltic states of
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, has little choice but to keep a close watch
on the warming Ukraine-Russian military relationship. Its implications would
be highly important for European security in general, and not just the
prospects for US-Russian relations.

Russia defense ministry spokesman Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov said the
purpose of the agreement with Ukraine was "jointly to parry foreign
threats."

Ukraine, with a population of 52 million, currently has its own defense
cooperation pact with NATO, which the new agreements with Russia could
undermine. Strategically located on the Black Sea coast between Russia and
Eastern Europe and the Balkans, it is, after Russia, by far the most
populous and potentially richest of the former Soviet republics. Ukraine's
independence has become an important interest for the United States, NATO
and the 15-nation European Union, with which Ukraine also has an economic
partnership and cooperation agreement.

This suggests three of the crucial successes of the Boris Yeltsin years,
press and political freedoms, and the withdrawal of Russia's military
influence behind its own borders, are now simultaneously in question.

"Whether those positive accomplishments of Yeltsin are legacies depends on
whether or not they turnout to be reversible. It's one thing for them to
survive his tenure; it's another whether they survive some troublesome
trends we see under President Putin," said outgoing U.S. deputy secretary of
state Strobe Talbott, the top Russia expert of the Clinton administration,
in a farewell interview this week with Newsweek. "I'd put particular
emphasis on civil society and the free press, because there's unquestionably
a crackdown taking place now on the free media."

"The other issue is Russia's treatment of its neighbors. Georgia has been
subject to a definite escalation of pressure from Russia in recent months",
Talbott added.

Talbott's concern about the fate of civil society in Russia under Putin
was powerfully endorsed at the Moscow human rights conference over the
weekend, when leading liberal politicians pledged to back the current
constitution against plans to rewrite it.

"We will defend it using every parliamentary and extra-parliamentary
means", said Grigori Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party in
the Duma.

"The situation with human rights today evokes alarm and concern", Russia's
Human Rights Commissioner Oleg Mironov, who was appointed by the Duma, told
the conference.

Putin has introduced a bill before the Duma (parliament) that would cut
back the role of small parties with a much higher share of the vote required
for parties to qualify for a parliamentary seat. Putin seeks to replace the
current multi-party system with a new three-party structure, dominated by
his own Unity party in the middle, while the former Communists on the left
and the liberals and free market conservatives on the right would be
marginalized.

Despite his determination to modernize Russia and integrate its economy
with the West through bodies like the World Trade Organization, Putin
remains by Western standards a dubious democrat. A strong believer in state
authority, who puts order before liberty, he says his goal is to establish
in Russia "the dictatorship of law."

In his clearest statement  of political views, the essay "Russia at the
Turn of the Millennium," published in December 1999, Putin argued: "Russia
will not become a second edition of, say, the United States or Britain,
where liberal values have deep historic traditions. Our state and its
institutions and structures have always played an exceptionally important
role in the life of the country and its people. For Russians, a strong state
is not an anomaly to be gotten rid of -  it is a source of order and the
driving force of any change. "

*******

#2
ANALYSIS-Putin plan shows Chechnya fatigue, not exit scheme
January 22, 2001
By Jon Boyle
 
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's decision to withdraw some
troops from Chechnya is politically risky and points more to war fatigue in
the Kremlin than a coherent exit from the conflict, analysts said Monday.

Putin announced Monday a partial pullout from the separatist republic and put
the FSB domestic security service he once ran in charge of the 15-month
"anti-terrorist" operation.

A Putin decree placed FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev in charge of a new military
staff responsible for the troubled region and gave him a mid-May deadline to
produce results.

"This does not mean the end of the anti-terrorist operation. On the contrary
it will be continued, and not less intensively, but with the use of different
means and forces and with a different emphasis," Putin said in televised
remarks.

"Putin wants to show everybody that the war has ended," said Alexei
Malashenko of Moscow's Carnegie Center.

"Putin likes to put aside the Chechnya problem because he's tired of it and I
don't believe he has devised a final strategy for Chechnya," he said.
"Perhaps he wants to prove to himself that the war is ended."

Military analysts said Putin was making a virtue of necessity, pulling out
bored troops no longer in the frontline of the guerrilla war but whose
worsening discipline only made Russia more vulnerable to Western criticism
over human rights.

Putin's surprise announcement coincided with the opening of a Council of
Europe session which will consider reinstating

Russia's voting rights in the 41-nation rights and democracy group, suspended
over the Chechnya war.

The Strasbourg-based body has called for thorough investigation of widespread
allegations of massacres, rape and pillaging by soldiers during the war in
Chechnya. So far only 10 complaints out of 500 have made it to the legal
system, Council of Europe rapporteur Lord Judd complained last week.

Putin, whose meteoric rise to the presidency from relative obscurity was
fueled by strong public backing for his tough line on Chechnya, has sought to
isolate the rebel leadership and replace it with a pro-Moscow civilian
administration.

Last June he picked Chechen religious leader Akhmad Kadyrov to lead the
pro-Russian local government, hoping he could build support among Chechens
tired of the death and destruction associated with Chechnya's independence
bid.

"Perhaps he (Putin) dreams that the local administration headed by Akhmad
Kadyrov will be able to play a more important role," said Malashenko,
pointing to recent visits by the Chechen official to the Kremlin.

"Perhaps Kadyrov proved to Putin that he's able to do something," he added.

SNATCH SQUADS

Last month army chiefs, stung by criticism from Putin at their failure to
eliminate leading rebel commanders, devised a plan to scatter many of the
80,000 troops serving in Chechnya in more than 200 towns and villages across
the republic.

Under the new strategy, crack squads would either snatch or kill rebels like
Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and field commanders Shamil Basayev and the
Arab-born commander Khattab.

"You don't need army units to carry out this sort of fighting," said Yury
Gladkevich, an expert with the AVN military news agency in Moscow.

"The majority of army and Interior Ministry units are already not actively
involved in military actions because the main rebel forces have been
destroyed. They have been forced to become idle and that has led to serious
disciplinary problems."

Reported human rights abuses have served to further alienate ordinary
Chechens who have returned to the republic to rebuild shattered homes despite
the lack of basic amenities, a suffocating security clampdown and fears for
the future.

Malashenko said Putin's decree could signal that Putin no longer felt he had
to negotiate with rebel chiefs despite strong pressure from the West to do
so.

"If Putin really believes that Patrushev may resolve all the problems in
Chechnya, it means that he won't negotiate any more," he said. Reporting the
war would also be more difficult.

The spring, when rebel activity normally increases as guerrillas take
advantage of the cover provided by sprouting foliage to step up their
attacks, would be the acid test for Putin's strategy, he said.

But there are risks, warned Gladkevich: "If this turns out to be wrong,
naturally his reputation as commander-in-chief will fall."

Independent Moscow military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Moscow should
adopt Britain's strategy in Ireland: divide Chechnya into north and south,
and funnel arms and funds to its chosen ally to ensure he prevailed in the
inevitable power struggle that would erupt in a newly independent rump
Chechnya.

*******

#3
Interest in Internet declines in Russia, experts believe
Interfax

Moscow, 22 January: Andrey Vakulenko, director of the Internet-Incubator and
a representative of the Apartners company, said that interest in the Internet
has decreased in Russia in the past year.

He said at a press conference in Moscow today that a crisis may break out in
Russian Internet in the first half of 2001. "But this will be no
catastrophe," he said.

"The belief that technological potential of the Russian Internet projects is
incredibly high is largely unfounded," Vakulenko said.

"Russian Internet companies must become integrated with the new Internet
business ventures and earn money," he said.

"They must get integrated with the world technology and work at a world
level, not just focus on the local market or copy Western projects,"
Vakulenko said.

"Those whose projects were intended for profit from the very beginning will
be moving forward," he said.

The press conference was timed to coincide with the publication of a book
entitled "Russian Internet on the Brink of Great Changes," published on the
initiative of the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX).

IREX representatives, citing the Public Opinion Fund, said that Russia has
over 3m Internet users, most of whom are aged between 20 and 29. One quarter
of them are Muscovites and one eighth residents of St Petersburg. Fifty per
cent use Internet in their offices, 25 per cent at home and about 20 per cent
at educational establishments.

*******

#4
Moscow Times
January 23, 2001
Russia's Recipe for Chaos
By Yevgenia Albats  
 
The defective nature of Russia's system of governance was evident once
again last week during the very public scandal between Andrei Illarionov,
President Vladimir Putin's chief economic adviser, and the government of
Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.

Illarionov smashed the Cabinet - and Kasyanov in particular - first for its
maneuvers in regard to the scheduled debt payments to the Paris Club and,
second, for its overall bad institutional performance that will lead,
according to Illarionov, to another crisis in the second part of this year.

This is not the first time that Illarionov has publicly criticized the
Cabinet. Last month he was equally critical on the issue of restructuring
Unified Energy Systems. That time he got support from Putin's chief of
staff, Alexander Voloshin. This time, though, the Kremlin has distanced
itself from Illarionov's statements.

I don't mean to discuss whether Illarionov is right or wrong, although it
is worth mentioning that Illarionov was among the few who correctly
predicted the 1998 financial collapse. My real subject is, "Why all these
public disputes?" They seem especially bizarre since both sides claim that
they have support of Putin himself and are expressing not just their
personal opinions but those of the president.

In previous years it would not have been too hard to find the answer. All
one had to do was to figure out which oligarchic group stood behind each
side. The whole purpose of the infamous information wars was to get
President Boris Yeltsin's attention and to make him issue his divine
rulings in favor of one or another group.

This is no longer the case. For one thing, Illarionov is widely known for
his independent views. Second, the oligarchs are so scared and exhausted by
the constant attacks of the different punitive organs - from the tax police
to the prosecutor's office - that they prefer to stay as far away from
politics as possible. Finally, Putin has demonstrated repeatedly that he
makes his decisions without regard for what the elites - and even public
opinion - may have to say.

In fact, Illarionov is performing a service for both the president, and the
public. Under conditions in which the whole system is based on lies and
distortions - and this description applies not just to present-day Russia,
but to the Soviet system as well - Illarionov is faithful executing his
obligations as Putin's independent adviser. He presents well-grounded and
reasoned positions that disclose what the government would prefer to keep
secret both from the president (who is no expert in economics) and the
general public.

In a situation in which both the executive and the legislature increasingly
speak with one voice that reflects the views of the president and in which
the media (except for NTV) are increasingly mere mouthpieces of the
Kremlin, Illarionov is becoming a crucial source of dissenting information
about the real state of affairs in the country.

All this will be good except for one "minor" problem. And that problem is
that both Illarionov and the Cabinet belong to the same branch of
government - the executive. Therefore, they are supposed to work in
cooperation. Discontent within one body inevitably creates chaos. However,
such chaos is the logic outcome of the Russia's present institutional
structure.

The Kremlin has the power and authority to give directives to the
government and even to dismiss it. However, the Kremlin cannot be held
accountable for its own directives or for the misdeeds of the government.
The Cabinet formally bears all responsibility for both the country's
economic performance and for the well-being of its citizens. However, no
government move can be made without the Kremlin's approval.

As we have seen many times in recent months, Putin (unlike his predecessor)
is reluctant to make any decisions that may hurt his high popularity
rating. The result is a lot of noise about upcoming reforms, but no real
deeds.

Russia's system of government has proven ineffective and too expensive. The
executive branch should be reformed in a way that gives the president both
power and responsibility. We simply cannot sustain both a Kremlin and a
White House. Russia needs a civilized system of checks and balances under
which the executive branch carries out policy and the legislature and
judiciary check its performance. The public must be in an informed position
to sit as judge. The system under which we presently labor is nothing but a
dead end.

Yevgenia Albats is an independent, Moscow-based journalist.

*****

#5
strana.ru
January 22, 2001
Sergei Markov: Contradictions in human rights movement in Russia
Sergei Markov, Director of the Institute for Political Studies. Senior
Lecturer, MSU
 
It can be said that the situation with human rights in Russia is very far
from optimistic. But the situation in the Russian human rights movement
itself is also far from optimistic. There are several vivid problems that do
not allow the human rights movement to advance.

The first problem is that it is politicized. The attitude of the main leaders
in the human rights movement towards human rights abuses is that it is a
selective attitude. Some human rights abuses are brought to the public's
attention every day while others are simply ignored.

Chechnya offers the most striking example of a politicized human rights
movement. The leaders of Russian human rights champions have totally ignored
those flagrant human rights abuses perpetrated by the regimes of Dudayev,
Maskhadov and Basayev-Khattab in Chechnya and neighboring regions. These
abuses were committed against all peoples - not against the Vainakhs (i.e.,
not Chechens nor Ingushetians). These violations were barbaric and systematic
in nature. The leaders of Ichkeria (Chechnya) advocated an ideology of racism
and anti-Semitism. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people fled from
Dudayev's-Maskhadov's Chechnya. Thousands were killed, turned into slaves and
subjected to horrible tortures. This, in fact, was nothing but a policy of
genocide by the Basayev-Maskhadov regime against the Russian population
living in Chechnya.

However, the leaders of the Russian human rights movement simply closed their
eyes to all these actions since they advocated the old Soviet human rights
ideology that viewed any anti-Russia and anti-Moscow political movement as
anti-empire, and because of that, it was regarded politically justified. As a
result, in 1994-1995 one could see the formation of quite a strange situation
that even then began to shape out as an alarming trend. On the one hand, the
Russian government's Chechen military campaign was very unpopular among the
population. However, the chief opponent of that war in Chechnya - Sergei
Kovalyov not only failed to win popular support but found himself more and
more in public and political isolation. Society did not support a unilateral
approach to politicizing human rights problems. The Soviet-era human rights
leaders have demonstrated the same approach in respect to abuses of the
rights of Russians living in Latvia and Estonia - total disregard of the
problem.

The second problem is connected with determining the causes of human rights
abuses. In Soviet times, it was the State that was the main abuser of human
rights. That is why the human rights movement in the USSR naturally
crystallized in an atmosphere of profound mistrust of the Soviet State.
However, in post-Soviet Russia the sources of human rights abuses changed,
but the human rights movement retained its traditional Soviet-era human
rights ideology.

The rights of the overwhelming majority of rank-and-file citizens in Russia
today are being abused not by the State but by powerful "interest" groups
that stop at nothing to satiate their bottomless appetites. For example,
ordinary soldiers suffer not from abuses on the part of officers, but from
mockery on the part of hostile national groups that have de facto seized
control over army units from taps to reveille. It is precisely the organized
criminal national groups that are responsible for the deaths of most Russian
enlisted men. Those interned in prisons and camps also suffer not so much
from the arbitrariness of the wardens as from the terror of criminal
organizations that control life in such camps.

Millions of people were robbed of their savings by criminal organizers of
financial pyramids while the State and ordinary investors were helpless to do
anything about it. The State institutions whose duty it was to act as
guardians of law were in essence privatized by powerful private "interest"
groups: financial, financial-political, financial-criminal.

Gripped by mistrust towards the State, and especially towards the Russian
State, the human rights movement practically ignored these mass abuses of
human rights. In such conditions, the majority of citizens in Russia
hopefully looked towards the restoration of the State, hoping that it would
be able to bridle the "interest" groups. But the human rights champions, on
the whole, opposed the restoration of State institutions, mistrusting them in
principle. And this once again led to the isolation of the human rights
movement from the majority of the population.

This isolation of the human rights movement from the population is
intensified all the more by the interest that human rights organizations
display towards foreign grants. If at the beginning of the 1990s, the
population, as a whole, took an indifferent or positive attitude towards
that, then after the beginning of the NATO eastward expansion process, and
especially after the start of air strikes on Yugoslavia, society's attitude
towards those groups that exist largely on the monies from sponsors in the
NATO members, changed. Ordinary citizens who suffer from systematic abuse of
their rights view the human rights champions not as their allies but as
aliens pursuing some kind of policy of their own that has nothing to do with
the needs of an ordinary person.

Thus by the end of 2001 the human rights movement in Russia found itself in
an impasse - excessive politicization, scathing criticism of Russia abroad,
criticism which is financed mainly from NATO member counties, selective
attitude to human rights violations, fierce struggle for money (most evident
in the Soldiers' Mothers movement), actions running counter to the hopes of
the majority of the country's population. This impasse is still more
dangerous since the human rights situation in Russia really excites
apprehensions.

In these conditions an extraordinary congress of human rights campaigners was
held in Moscow. Unfortunately, it has not only failed to break the impasse,
but has deepened the crisis of the human rights movement still more, because
its leaders wished to go on politicizing the movement. The congress set the
goal of creating "not a political opposition but an opposition with political
goals," as it was put by one of the leaders in a communist-style casuistic
manner. The chief instruments in attaining that goal will be monitoring all
political parties from the human rights point of view and then appealing to
world public opinion, calling for reprisals against Russia in international
organizations. All this only strengthens the population's distrust for the
human rights movement.

This movement will become a really influential force in Russia when it
rejects Western grants and faces the most humiliated sections of the
population. Then it will get people's support and will be able to find its
place in the Russian society. In fact, receiving Western grants for human
rights activities is nothing bad in itself. But combining these grants with
active political position of criticizing the Kremlin lead to alienation of
human rights crusaders from the population.

Today, the politicization of the human rights movement and the ideology of
hatred for the state left over from the Soviet years isolate it from the
society and prevent it from exerting influence on the situation in Russia.

*******

#6
Christian Science Monitor
January 22, 2001
Test of Swiss anticorruption drive
Prosecutors want to extradite a former Yeltsin aide arrested last week in the
US. Russia objects.
By Elizabeth Olson
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Tarnished by repeated disclosures that dictators and crime kingpins were
storing ill-gotten gains in its banks, Switzerland has been working to
restore its reputation.

For more than a decade, this Alpine banking redoubt has taken steps -
including establishing a federal office to track money-laundering and setting
aside some of its famously strict bank-secrecy rules - to convince the world
that it will no longer turn a blind eye to questionable activities. Those
found with vast, suspect accounts include the late Nigerian dictator Sani
Abacha and Peru's disgraced former intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

Former Swiss attorney general Carla del Ponte, now UN chief war crimes
prosecutor, won renown investigating alleged corruption. In recent years, a
tough chief prosecutor in Geneva, Bernard Bertossa, has taken up the often
bumpy crusade. The effort received a boost last week, when a former top
Kremlin official was arrested in New York by federal agents acting on an
international warrant issued here.

Pavel Borodin's detention set off an international diplomatic scuffle. Moscow
has called on the US to free Mr. Borodin - who had come to attend President
George W. Bush's inauguration.

Borodin, a one-time aide to former President Boris Yeltsin and benefactor to
current President Vladimir Putin, denies any wrongdoing. Swiss officials say
he has promised to return to Geneva to answer investigators' questions if the
warrant is withdrawn. He is being held without bail pending a hearing set for
Jan. 25.

The Swiss are watching carefully, to see how other nations support their
efforts in the case. "This is a test of how serious the world is in tracking
down corruption," says Carlo Lombardini, a Geneva lawyer who specializes in
money-laundering cases. "The Swiss are serious; let's see if the Americans
are serious. If Borodin is not extradited, it means that no one really cares
about what happens here."

The Swiss have reason to be skeptical. As part of their effort, they have
blocked more than $1 billion in suspect funds in recent years. Since most of
the accounts involve foreigners, the Swiss - not infrequently - are forced to
unfreeze them for lack of evidence from other nations that the money is the
product of illegal activity.

The resignation last year of the entire federal money-laundering office -
complaining about overwork and underpay - was a further blow to Switzerland's
efforts. But the Swiss say they will press ahead because - economically and
politically - Switzerland cannot afford to be seen as a haven for dirty
money.

"Over the last 10 years, Switzerland has recast its anti-money-laundering
laws by strengthening the penal code, self-regulation, and stepping up
international cooperation. We recognize that no financial center can, in the
long run, live off dubious monies," says James Nason, spokesman for the Swiss
Bankers Association in Basel.

After a two-year investigation into alleged money-laundering and bribes
involving renovations of Kremlin buildings, Swiss authorities were flummoxed
last month when Russian officials announced they were dropping the inquiry
because of insufficient evidence against Borodin. Swiss investigators had
provided a dossier suggesting that as much as $65 million in kickbacks was
shared in the scheme. Their probe centered on two Swiss-based companies,
Mabetex and Mercata, which investigators allege paid enormous bribes to key
officials, including Borodin, Mr. Yeltsin, and members of his family.

Borodin, accused by prosecutors of taking some $25 million for himself and
his family, left his powerful post as manager of Kremlin properties when Mr.
Putin became president last year. But Putin - who first came to Moscow as
Borodin's deputy - appointed his benefactor executive secretary of the still
evolving Russia-Belarus union.

In unusually frank comments, Swiss prosecutor Mr. Bertossa told a Russian
newspaper that Moscow's dropping the inquiry showed "a double standard of
jurisprudence ... one for friends and one for opponents."

Some Moscow lawmakers, who said the arrest strained US-Russian relations,
still agreed Borodin should be held accountable. Oleg Naumov, a member of the
foreign affairs committee in Russia's Duma, or lower house of parliament,
says: "The right thing is to prove in the Swiss court that Borodin is not
guilty, and, first of all, it is he who should be interested in such a
scenario."

Since Switzerland does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, its case
turns on the United States sending Borodin here. If that does not happen, the
sometimes wobbly efforts to stamp out money laundering will be seriously
undercut.

Already, Geneva was dealt a setback when it failed to convict suspected mafia
boss Sergei Mikhailov in 1998 on organized-crime charges. Prosecutors claimed
Moscow authorities failed to cooperate. Embarrassingly, a Swiss court last
year ordered the city to pay Mr. Mikhailov an unprecedented $450,000 in
damages.

Despite tightened reporting requirements in 1998 for accounts held by
politicians, some $650 million linked to Nigeria's Mr. Abacha turned up in
Swiss banks, as well as millions said to belong to high-ranking Yugoslav
leaders. And Swiss officials helping Peru investigate clandestine arms deals
uncovered $75 million in Swiss accounts linked to Mr. Montesinos.

The Abacha sums are even larger than that stashed by former Philippine
strongman Ferdinand Marcos, the discovery of which prompted Switzerland's
cleanup drive.

For their part, some Swiss bankers complain the government has gone
overboard, undercutting their competitive position by setting rules stricter
than those of other world financial centers. For example, they say that
Britain requires a higher level of evidence to reveal suspect sums.
Neighboring Austria only banned anonymous accounts last year.

Switzerland, meanwhile, last year outlawed bribery of foreign officials and
ended tax deductions for corporate "commissions."
 
*****

#7
Russia: Borodin's Extradition Case In U.S. Raises Legal Questions
By Don Hill

When U.S. authorities detained a prominent Russian official in New York last
week, an international furore resulted. Russia lodged an official protest.
The U.S. State Department said the detention was purely routine. An
international law expert tells RFE/RL correspondent Don Hill that -- by
international law and custom -- extradition proceedings generally follow
standard procedures.

Prague, 22 January 2001 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. officials detained former Kremlin
official Pavel Borodin last week as he stepped off an airplane in New York,
reportedly on the way to attend George Bush's inauguration as U.S. president.

Swiss authorities had asked that Borodin be held for extradition to
Switzerland on charges involving accepting bribes for awarding Kremlin
contracts.

International reaction was immediate. Russia officially protested. Borodin
himself suggested that he was entitled to diplomatic immunity. News accounts
said that the action by the outgoing U.S. administration might embarrass the
incoming one.

In a telephone interview, international law expert and Northwestern
University professor Anthony D'Amato says that most extradition proceedings
move along standard lines long settled by international treaty, law and
custom.

D'Amato says that extradition is, in theory, a simple legal procedure set up
by reciprocal treaties and custom to enable one country to enlist another
country's aid in apprehending a person charged with a crime. It differs, he
says, from deportation, the purpose of which is for a country to rid itself
of an unwanted foreign national.

He says the purpose of extradition is criminal justice:

"To make sure that fugitives are returned to their home country to face
trial. Or to another country to face trial."

After a person is detained by a country on an extradition request from
another country, the next step usually is an extradition hearing. It's
important to recognize, D'Amato says, that this is not a trial on the merits
of the criminal charges. An extradition hearing is for one purpose only, he
says, and that is to determine whether the extradition request is a valid one.

"The function of those hearings is to ascertain whether the person is in fact
the person they are looking for -- there's no mistaken identity -- and to
give the person a chance, at least, to bring up any impediments to the
extradition, anything that would cause the extradition to be illegal."

The Northwestern University professor says there are a variety of possible
impediments to extradition. The request may be in an improper form. There may
be flaws in the treaty providing for extradition between the requesting
country and the country receiving a request.

One important impediment to extradition is the "dual criminality rule." In
order to be an extraditable offense, the crime charged must be one that
constitutes a crime in both the requesting and requested nation. D'Amato says:

"For example, if Germany wanted to extradite someone for using Nazi regalia,
that's not a crime in the United States. So the United States would not
extradite a person to Germany for a crime like that. It has to be a crime in
both countries."

Under international law, a country can refuse to give up a fugitive if the
punishment established for the crime in the requesting country would be one
deemed excessive or otherwise improper in the nation receiving the request.

European countries, for example, have refused U.S. requests for extradition
when capital crimes such as aggravated murder were alleged. Most European
countries do not allow execution of convicted criminals for any reason.

D'Amato says that the other extreme -- when a crime is too minor -- also can
block extradition.

"Another impediment would be that the crime has to be punishable by at least
a year in prison, so [that] people will not be extradited for minor offenses."

It's true that an extradition hearing does not supersede a criminal trial.
But a country receiving an extradition request is entitled to require that
some evidence be shown that a prosecutable crime actually did occur. This is
known as making a "prima facie" case (that is, a case on the face of it).

D'Amato says a defendant in an extradition hearing is entitled to demand that
a prima facie case be made, but any such challenge would be limited.

"Yes, not much of a case. You're not going to have a full-blown trial in the
United States. A person's not going to [get a chance to] say, 'Well I'm not
guilty.' So it's not as though you have a constitutional right here to some
kind of trial. You don't."

Our correspondent asked D'Amato what the United States, for example, could do
if it suspected that it were being asked to extradite a person for hidden
political reasons. Would it have the right to object on those grounds?

"Yes, and the 'political offense' exemption is an important one. If the
person, say, is accused of anti-government propaganda or something like that,
or espionage, [those would be] political offenses. And international law,
international customary law, has interpreted extradition treaties as not to
require the home state, the requested state, to give up such a person."

Borodin's lawyer says that Borodin should be released because the crime that
Swiss authorities are alleging is groundless in Borodin's home country,
Russia. For Borodin's actions in Switzerland to constitute a criminal
offense, his lawyer says, they would have to be rooted in some criminal
activity in Russia.

D'Amato says an extradition hearing ordinarily would not go that deeply into
the validity of the criminal charges. Borodin's lawyer, D'Amato says, is
entitled to bring up extradition impediments, but that type of defense isn't
likely to succeed.

"I don't think that's a very good [defense], because that's what you would
just call a plain defense to his prosecution in Switzerland. He would simply
say, "I'm innocent of these charges because there was no crime in my home
country." So that's something you would say that properly he should raise as
a defense in his criminal trial, but I don't think -- I'm pretty sure -- that
extradition doesn't penetrate that far into the defendant's defense."

Extradition law has aroused unusual public interest in the last two years.

The case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, released by British
authorities last year for health reasons despite a Spanish extradition
request, attracted wide attention. Pinochet, now back home in Chile, faces
questioning by a judge tomorrow in his home country on charges of murder and
human rights abuses.

There is a major distinction, however, between the Pinochet and Borodin
cases. Borodin is charged with breaking specific laws in the prosecuting
country, Switzerland. The crimes Spain alleges against Pinochet occurred in
Chile. Spain's claim to the right to prosecute is based not on its statutes
but on the fuzzier, higher grounds of "crimes against humanity."

*******

#8
Russian press freedom still under attack: meeting

STRASBOURG, Jan 22 (AFP) -
Attacks on the freedom of the press in Russia are still common with
intimidation, threats and harassment being par for the course for some
Russian journalists, a Council of Europe public meeting here was told on
Monday.

"In the year 2000, 15 journalists were killed and 73 were subjected to
attacks," Alexei Simonov, president of the Foundation for the Defence of
Glasnost -- the former Soviet policy allowing open political discussion --
told the meeting.

He added bleakly that, "in no part of Russia is the situation looking very
good" for the media.

Russian authorities, "want to hide, to cover up certain things. They don't
want the media to enlighten the public on mistakes made by powers," head of
the private NTV channel Yevgeny Kiselyev told the hearing.

Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky -- whose controversial coverage of the war
in Chechnya from the side of the separatists aroused the criticism of Russian
President Vladimir Putin -- said "the pressure hasn't eased off".

"It has continued for the media who tried to attract public attention to the
death of civilians" during the bloody campaign led by Moscow to crush
separatist rebels in the region, he added.

Babitsky was the last journalist to leave the Chechen capital Grozny before
it was captured by Russian troops in February last year.

He was first arrested on January 16 last year as he left the shattered
Chechen capital after a stint behind rebel lines.

He has since faced a court hearing accused of holding a forged passport -- a
charge which he says came on orders handed down by the Kremlin for his
critical reports on the Russian campaign in Chechnya.

Babitsky said last year that he hoped that the Russian authorities were still
just finding their feet in dealing with press freedom, but he now says that
he is not so sure.

"Today it is clear that things are not going to calm down." He says that
activities by Russian authorities to curb the freedom of the press "are going
to continue and even grow".

This opinion is echoed by a colleague, Grigori Pasko, accused of spying and
released under the terms of an amnesty. "I have no passport to allow me to go
abroad... I was pressurised by the court and military authorities" he says.

"My telephone is tapped, my mail is intercepted... they have forbidden
newspapers from publishing my stories," insists the journalist who was
accused of spying after writing articles for the Japanese press on
radioactive Russian navy waste being dumped in the Sea of Japan.

Russia's Communications Minister Mikhail Lesin declined to take part in the
Council of Europe open meeting which was being held at the opening of the
winter session of the Council's Parliamentary Assembly.

*******

#9
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001
From: corwinj@rferl.org (Julie Corwin)
Subject: regional elections/5043

Dear David, I agree wholeheartedly with  the excellent piece on regional
elections in today's JRL-- the outcome of the 2000 races hardly shows the
Kremlin's omnipotence. Perhaps your readers would be interested in this more
general overview of the results of the 2000 regional elections. Regards, Julie
Corwin

RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 7, Part I, 11 January 2001
THE INCUMBENCY ADVANTAGE
By Julie A. Corwin

     Last year, almost half of Russia's 89 federation
subjects conducted elections for their regional leaders. At
first glance, it appears that candidates supported by the
Communist party performed best. But a closer review of the
results of 2000 gubernatorial elections shows that incumbency
bestows the best advantages, while party identification
and/or support means little. The results also demonstrate
that the Kremlin's ability to influence regional voters'
gubernatorial selections is severely limited.
     Of the 44 regional elections, 29 incumbents were re-
elected (see table in "RFE/RL Russian Federation Report," 3
January 2000). And, in two additional regions, Krasnodar Krai
and Kaluga Oblast, the "successor" tapped by the governor,
who chose not to seek re-election, also won. In almost every
case where incumbent governors managed to move up election
dates and therefore give their competition less time to
prepare, the incumbent won. For example, the elections held
on 26 March to coincide with Russian presidential elections
resulted in a clean sweep--seven victories for seven
incumbents.
     Both Communist Party leader Gennadii Zyuganov and Unity
leader Sergei Shoigu have hailed the results of the 2000
gubernatorial elections as mandates for their parties. At the
end of last month, Shoigu was so pleased about the outcome of
regional elections that he boasted that Russia has a new
"belt" -- a "Unity belt" instead of a red belt, while
Zyuganov claimed that the results of elections held on 19
December, in particular, represented a "notable success" for
the Communist party.
     The Communists managed to hold on to many regions.
Twelve communist incumbents were re-elected; only three
incumbents were defeated, former Novosibirsk Governor Vitalii
Mukha, former Voronezh Governor Ivan Shabanov, and former
Ulyanovsk Governor Yurii Goryachev. However, in Ulyanovsk,
the Communist Party withdrew its support for the incumbent
Yurii Goryachev in favor of General Vladimir Shamanov, who
won. Communists also won in two additional regions, Ivanovo
and Kamchatka Oblasts, unseating incumbents from other
parties.
     But the ties of the winning Communist candidates to
their party in many cases are quite loose. Most winning
candidates, not just Communist victors, emphasized their
allegiance to the practices and person of President Vladimir
Putin. In Kamchatka Oblast, for example, Mashkovtsev, a
Communist Party obkom secretary, presented himself during his
campaign as a comrade-in-arms of President Putin and his
presidential envoys, pledging to rid the region of corrupt
bureaucrats. At the same time, incumbent Communist governors
de-emphasized their party affiliation, stressing instead
their support for and from President Putin and the stability
that their re-election would ensure.
     Unity's performance in the 2000 elections demonstrates
even more strongly the weakness of Russia's political
parties. On the one hand, almost a dozen candidates backed by
Unity were elected. On the other hand, three incumbents
supported by Unity were unseated, while two more, former
Chukotka Governor Aleksandr Nazarov and former Kursk Governor
Rutskoi, either withdrew or were withdrawn from the race just
before their elections were held. In a number of regions, the
local branch of Unity either backed or tried to back a
candidate different from that supported by Unity's Moscow-
based organization. Also in a number of regions, the local
Unity branch backed the same candidate as the Communist
party.
     Of course, from its very beginning Unity's leaders
adopted a more pragmatic than ideological posture. More
recently, at its second congress last October, Unity declared
itself "the party of presidential authority." But for a
"presidential" party, Unity appears surprisingly clueless
about who the president and/or his administration, favors in
a given region. In Udmurtiya, for example, the local Unity
branch favored a challenger to the incumbent Nikolai Volkov,
while Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov and presidential
envoy to the Volga federal district Sergei Kirienko both
visited the republic shortly before the elections, boosting
Volkov's chances. A local Unity branch also supported former
Kursk Governor Rutskoi, despite numerous reports that the
presidential administration would favor almost anyone but
Rutskoi.
     Unity members weren't the only election-watchers
guessing about the presidential administration's preferences
in a variety of regional races. After President Putin openly
backed Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matvienko in her
failed effort to unseat St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir
Yakovlev, the Kremlin wisely chose not publicize its
preferences henceforth, adopting an official position of
neutrality towards all regional elections. Nevertheless,
Moscow-based newspapers carried a variety of reports about
the Kremlin's plans in specific regions. "Novaya gazeta" even
claimed to have a document detailing a number of specific
scenarios for several regions.
     During the 2000 elections, only seven of the candidates
that the Kremlin supported were victorious, while 13 other
candidates failed. Of the seven victors, two were incumbents
in relatively successful regions; three others were
challengers in regions with unpopular governors with
administrations dogged by charges of corruption, such as
Kaliningrad and Voronezh Oblasts and Marii El Republic. And
the victor in Marii El, Leonid Markelov, was only supported
by the Kremlin in the election's second round. Another
candidate, Colonel General Vladimir Ruzlyaev, had the
Kremlin's initial backing. Despite reports that the Kremlin
was seeking to install former military or intelligence
officers as the heads of regions, only four were actually
elected. And one of those, Moscow Governor Boris Gromov, was
not supported by the presidential administration.
     The presidential adminstration's apparent inability to
decisively influence the outcome of regional elections makes
it even easier to understand why President Putin made reform
of how the federation is administered one of his first acts
after his election. Since the Kremlin is likely to be stuck
with whomever voters select as their regional counterparts,
the best way to implement their own agenda may be to weaken
the governor's office itself.

*******

#10
Putin puts liberal changes to criminal law on ice
By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW, Jan 22 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin backed away on Monday
from a pledge to amend criminal code procedures to limit arbitrary arrests by
prosecutors, changes Russian liberals see as a key to upholding democracy.

But officials said the change of heart was based on technical considerations
rather than a new policy direction.

One Kremlin source suggested that broader changes might be in store to
government structures and other institutions as the president gears up for
his annual state of the nation address.

The deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Dmitry Kozak, confirmed that
Putin had withdrawn amendments proposed this month to the Criminal Procedural
Code that would have required arrests or searches to be approved by a court
order instead of prosecutors.

But Kozak told reporters the changes were vital and said they would be
implemented once related "financial, technical and organisational" issues had
been resolved.

Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin officials as saying Putin wanted time to
come up with the extra 3,000 judges and 6,900 legal clerks they said were
required. Unbudgeted annual expenditure of about $50 million was also needed.

Disappointed liberals said Putin's decision to halt the changes amounted to
caving in to top security officials -- the prosecutor general, the interior
minister and the head of the FSB domestic security, the job Putin once had.

"(They) really went to work on him and apparently persuaded the president to
withdraw his bill," Viktor Pokhmelkin of the Union of Right-Wing Forces party
told Reuters. "The president has shown his weakness and dependence on
security structures."

Liberals had called for changes to the procedures, which date from the 1960s,
to rein in prosecutors and uphold provisions of the post-Soviet constitution
guaranteeing personal freedoms and setting strict limits for detention
without charge.

Many of Russia's prominent criminal cases in recent months have involved
masked, armed officers searching offices and sometimes private homes at the
behest of prosecutors.

Some have been shown on television, especially those linked to fraud
proceedings against Vladimir Gusinsky, head of Russia's only national
independent media group, now fighting extradition in Spain. Liberals see that
case as a test for press freedom.

Putin, who advocates a "dictatorship of law" as a cornerstone of society,
praised prosecutors this month for eschewing their Soviet-era role of a
"cover for lawlessness."

Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov demanded an end to both bribe-taking and
heavy-handed tactics.

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE WORKS?

Despite Putin's change of heart, the Kremlin source said the administration
was weighing up a series of changes to the way the government and public
institutions are structured.

The proposed changes, still in the early planning stages, might involve
overhauling and merging ministries, broadening legal reforms, creating labour
tribunals and a complete rethink of health care and education.

"At issue here are basic structural changes, social reforms and benefits.
Some feel these ought to be done quickly before 2003, when Russia comes up
against a series of big debt repayments and other problems," said the source.

"There may also be companion political changes which may give Putin greater
leverage over institutions."

It is not certain when Putin will make his annual speech to a joint session
of both houses of parliament.

Some political sources suggest it might be as early as this week. If so, the
Kremlin advise parliamentary leaders by Tuesday. Building a strong state and
upholding the rule of law were key themes in his first such address last
July.

The daily newspaper Sevodnya, in a commentary written before Putin's decision
on the amendments became official, agreed he might have other priorities in
mind.

"It would appear Putin has withdrawn the amendments only for the moment," it
said. "It cannot be ruled out that the president merely wants to work out his
own system of checks and balances."

*******

#11
BBC
22 January, 2001
'Blast sank Kursk, not collision'
By environment correspondent Alex Kirby

US scientists say they have evidence which suggests that the Russian
submarine Kursk was sunk by two explosions, not by a collision.

They say forensic seismology explains the last moments of the Kursk, which
sank in the Barents Sea with the loss of all on board.

Senior Russian Navy officers have insisted that the Kursk sank after
colliding with a foreign submarine.

But the scientists believe a torpedo accident probably caused the disaster.

They are Dr Keith Koper and Professor Terry Wallace of the University of
Arizona and Dr Steven Taylor and Dr Hans Gartse of the Los Alamos National
Laboratory.

Unique features

Writing in Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union, they
say the explosions which sank the Kursk on 12 August last year triggered
shock waves which were recorded by seismic stations in the Baltic and beyond.

Analysing the seismograms, they say, inclines them to rule out the collision
theory.

Underwater explosions are highly efficient producers of seismic signals. The
Kursk seismic data, the authors say, possess features unique to such
explosions.

Seismic stations recorded two explosions at the time the Kursk sank. The
first was clearly recorded at only a few nearby stations.

But the second, 135 seconds later and 250 times larger, was recorded up to
3,100 miles (5,000 km) away. It released energy equivalent to about five tons
of TNT.

The authors say an earthquake is a very unlikely cause. They consider whether
the second explosion was one big event or several smaller ones, possibly
including the Kursk's impact on the seabed.

They say the most compelling seismic evidence that the second "event" was
dominated by an explosion was the observation of a bubble pulse.

This results from the oscillations of a bubble of hot gases unleashed by an
explosion as it rises towards the surface of the sea.

The authors say the spectral pattern produced by an underwater explosion and
recorded by seismic stations provides strong evidence that the second
explosion was one massive event, not several smaller ones.

Torpedo malfunction

In 1999 Israeli scientists carried out a series of tests in the Dead Sea, and
the authors say these have let them establish the approximate size of the
main explosion on the Kursk.

They believe the first blast happened when the vessel was near the surface,
as its periscope was still up once it had settled on the bottom.
 
That explosion produced a seismic record consistent with 550 pounds (250 kgs)
of high explosive, equal to the warhead of a modern torpedo.

The scientists believe a torpedo misfired or exploded prematurely, and that
the Kursk absorbed a large part of the energy released.

They say the main blast is consistent with the explosion of between four and
eight SS-N-19 ship-to-ship missiles, which the Kursk carried, or of one
cruise missile with a conventional high explosive warhead.

They do not believe the signal came from the submarine hitting the seabed, as
it would have sunk in much less time than the 135 seconds that elapsed
between the two explosions.

Fire on board

They say the Kursk may have remained above the seabed for a time after the
first blast, or the second blast may have happened once it had struck the
bottom, but only after fire had reached other warheads on board.

Professor Wallace told BBC News Online: "I think we'll never know for sure
what the initial explosion was.

"But you'd have to make out a pretty compelling case that the sound of any
collision had been muffled.

"It's very hard to imagine a scenario that supposes a collision or some other
mechanical failure."

*******

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