January 24, 2001   

This Date's Issues:   5047 • 5048

Johnson's Russia List
#5047
24 January 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Christian Science Monitor: Scott Peterson, The cold war that Moscow always manages to win. In Russia, removal of snow and ice is serious business.
2. AFP: First the misery, then the bill for victims of Russian freeze.
3. Washington Post: Michael McFaul, Moscow, Misreading Bush.
4. Bloomberg: Chechens Accuse Pro-Russia Forces of Kidnapping US Aid Worker.
5. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, The Complex Battle Against Corruption.
6. strana.ru: Putin's meeting with oligarchs to establish truce.
7. Reuters: Fraud probe into Russia's Gusinky set to wide.
8. RFE/RL:  Roland Eggleston, OSCE: Diplomats Say Russia Resents Criticism Of Actions In Chechnya.
9. Laura Belin: Moscow Times on human rights congress/5046.
10. Sarah Karush: Re 5046/MT-Human Rights.
11. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Russia Seen Able To 'Get Along' With Republican Presidents.
12. AP: UN: Reports Of Russian Tactical Nukes Underscores Risk.
13. Adam Ulam's memoirs.
14. BBC Monitoring: Russian prosecutor-general distances himself from Borodin case.
15. strana.ru: "Anti-Semitism practically does not exist in Russia."]
 
******

#1
Christian Science Monitor
January 24, 2001
The cold war that Moscow always manages to win
In Russia, removal of snow and ice is serious business.
By Scott Peterson

'Move your cars!" bellows Nadia Gulyeva into a megaphone to the sleeping
residents of a downtown apartment block. "Icicles will be raining down!"

Ms. Gulyeva - whose voice is so powerful that some residents snidely remark
that she doesn't need amplification - is on the front lines of Russia's
annual war against ice.

In a familiar Moscow winter ritual, men armed with shovels and spades
scrape the sloping tin roofs clear of snow and ice, sending down one
avalanche after another.

"These icicles are so small," says Ms. Gulyeva of the 3-foot spears hanging
overhead. The orange-clad Gulyeva says she has seen icicles as tall as she
is, and other reports describe 5-yard-high spires of winter beauty.

While the hunt for icy stalactites may seem quaint to those in warmer
climes, it is serious business.

So far this year, seven Muscovites have been wounded by falling spears or
blocks of ice. Eleven others, according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets
newspaper, have made bogus claims for "moral compensation" after pretending
to have been hit.

"It's a very serious problem," says Valeri Frolov, deputy head of utilities
for the city administration. "Moscow has 9,000 buildings with iron roofs;
the streets are often narrow and difficult to maneuver."

A normal winter here produces 50 snowstorms and so many icicles that 125
miles of warning ribbon are draped across the sidewalks like Christmas
tinsel.

Muscovites look skyward while walking on winter days in the city. Call it
"defensive walking" - that furtive glance upward every time a Russian
pedestrian passes a strip of red-and-white ribbon near a drain spout. The
ribbons mark off the many danger areas, where gleaming icicles threaten to
transform themselves into daggers.

After Gulyeva's megaphone warning is heeded, two helmeted experts, dressed
like mountain climbers, skid down the buildings on ropes from the roof.
They attack ice formations built up on drains and balconies with ice axes
and hatchets, dispatching boulders of ice five floors down to crash on the
pavement.

"I love the fresh air, and it is useful for everyone," says climber
Vladimir Akimov, a history graduate who works on the roofs because "it's
difficult for a historian to earn anything."

He wears a Balaclava ski mask under his yellow helmet and carries an
assortment of carabiners and a belay device. Swinging from metal guard
rails that are required by law on every Moscow roof, he hacks at the ice
chunks like a lumberjack, and dislodges more with every well-placed kick of
his boots.

Mr. Akimov belongs to one of 500 teams that attack the ice.

Coping with winter in Moscow is a mammoth task. Making sure that icicles
fall safely - and clearing the capital's 3,000 miles of roads of snow - is
a three-shifts-a-day job that employs up to 30,000 people.

Officials speak with pride of their efforts to preempt the effects of major
snowstorms by deploying snow plows, trucks, and salt spreaders across the
city - with the help of weather forecasts that these days are tailormade
and come from four outlying stations.

Snow plows ply Moscow's streets three abreast throughout the night.
Vehicles fitted with special conveyor belts and custom-made arms gather
snow that has piled up on roadsides, depositing it in dump trucks.

"If we don't work, there will be no food in the shops, kindergartens will
be empty, and the city will stop," says Boris Korshukov, who in charge of
the city's snow brigades.

"During an official tour of Helsinki, Finland, we passed the presidential
palace, and there was a big pile of snow there," Mr. Korshukov recalls
incredulously.

"I asked, 'Why is that there?' and they said, "It will melt by spring.'
Here, it is forbidden to leave any snow on Red Square."

******

#2
First the misery, then the bill for victims of Russian freeze

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Jan 23 (AFP) -
Arctic conditions chilling Russia's Far East looked set Tuesday to take a
political and financial toll amid growing anger at mismanagement of the
region's energy supply.

Local officials complained bitterly about neglect by the authorities in
Moscow and the numerous heating failures that they say are the fault of the
state power facility UES.

For Vladivostok mayor Yury Kopylov, speaking on local radio, the UES was "a
company of crooks", and town hall officials were compiling a list of
complaints to present to prosecutors who were investigating the causes of the
power outages.

An official at Krasnoyarmaysk said town officials had been forced to declare
a state of emergency "because the fuel oil ran out."

With President Vladimir Putin on Friday threatening to take action against
whoever was found responsible for the crisis that has seen thousands of
people deprived of heating in conditions of extreme cold, officials had
reason to be nervous.

Despite the talk of structural reforms, he said, "no one is taking any
concrete responsibility for the situation," a comment on the regularity with
which each of the various parties has sought to shuffle off the blame onto
the others.

The Primoriye region, along Russia's Far Eastern seaboard, has been plagued
by a succession of heating failures which have caused states of emergency to
be called in towns such as Artyom and Spassk-Dalny.

The breakdowns have been attributed to a variety of causes, including lack of
preparations, inadequate and run-down fuel supplies.

Around 18,500 people, 4,500 of them children, were Tuesday without heating in
the region.

Twelve people have died in the Vladivostok region since Sunday, nine of them
in fires caused by defective heating equipment. Three others, believed to be
homeless, were found dead in the streets of the port city.

At Vladivostok the situation appeared to be improving Tuesday, with power
supplies returning to something like normality.

However the economic fall-out was likely to compound the toll in human lives.

The cost of heating repairs in the region was set at 6.5 million rubles
(230,000 dollars) in an early estimate, with Vladivostok alone set to pay out
more than 1.5 million rubles to reheat frozen systems and replace burst pipes
and radiators.

However the commercial loss due to the forced closure of the port and the
general economic paralysis throughout the region is likely to add up to
considerably more.

The government in Moscow said it had already paid out 450 million rubles more
than it usually budgets to cope with winter conditions.

Heating facilities elsewhere have also come under strain, with thousands of
residents of Russia's second city Saint Petersburg being deprived of warmth
after a pipe burst during a cold snap (minus 12 degrees Celsius, plus 10
degrees Fahrenheit).

In the White Sea port of Archangelsk, authorities were forced to cut off
heating after seas whipped by violent storms threatened to spill into the
water-heating system.

And in Moscow, despite a relatively mild winter to date, two new deaths from
hypothermia Monday brought the overall toll since the start of the winter to
145.

******

#3
Washington Post
January 23, 2001
Moscow, Misreading Bush
By Michael McFaul
The writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace and an assistant professor and Hoover fellow at
Stanford University.

A wave of Soviet nostalgia is sweeping Russia. A former KGB official now
runs the country. His comrades still in the KGB (now called the FSB) have
revived old Soviet practices of harassing and arresting journalists,
academics, human rights activists and nonofficial religious leaders. When
President Putin called for the reinstatement of the Soviet hymn as the
Russian national anthem, the parliament endorsed his idea without pause.

Now Putin's team is waiting for the final piece of the Soviet era to fall
into place-a more realpolitik relationship with the United States. Putin
supporters have even coined a term for it-neo-Nixonism.

Russia's state media openly championed the benefits of a George W. Bush
victory for Russia. Under Bush, so Putin's people believe, the United
States will no longer care about domestic politics in Russia, such as human
rights, independent media or the war in Chechnya. With Bush in power, so
the thinking goes in Moscow, the Kremlin will have a free hand to roll back
democracy in the name of restoring law and order.

They also believe that Russia once again will be treated like a great
power. They are nostalgic for the good old days of detente-superpower
summits, arms control and discussions about balancing American and Russian
power in regional conflicts.

Obviously, Putin and his people have a cartoonized understanding of the new
Bush administration's foreign policy philosophy, a crude reading of how
foreign policy is made in the United States and a flawed historical reading
of Nixon's policy toward the Soviet Union. It is not the job of the new
Bush team to give history lessons or civics courses about the U.S. policy
process to its Russian counterpart. But it is imperative that the new Bush
foreign policy team signal clearly and immediately to Moscow its true
intentions regarding Russia, which above all else should reflect no
nostalgia for the "good old days" of the Cold War era.

To be sure, the new Bush team should assign greater emphasis to traditional
strategic issues in the U.S.-Russia relationship. The era for international
micromanagement of Russia's domestic reforms ended long ago. In
consultation and cooperation with their Russian counterparts, members of
the new Bush team should give first priority to reducing nuclear arsenals,
increasing control over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
checking Russia's hegemonic aspirations toward its neighbors and beginning
a real dialogue on national missile defense. But this set of priorities
should in no way be cast or interpreted as a return to the old practices of
superpower detente.

Previous administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, have mastered
multi-track diplomacy when issues of human rights and religious freedom
were pressed vigorously, though not always publicly, at the same time that
strategic issues were being negotiated. The Russians need to understand
that the Bush administration can devote greater attention to these
strategic issues while at the same time continuing to promote democracy.

In introducing his future secretary of state, Colin Powell, Bush stated
clearly that "our stand for human freedom is not an empty formality of
diplomacy but a founding and guiding principle of this great land. By
promoting democracy we lay the foundation for a better and more stable
world." The Russians did not seem to hear this part of the speech or
similar rhetoric during the Bush campaign. It needs to be communicated loud
and clear and soon.

Support for democratization abroad, including Russia, has strong bipartisan
support on Capitol Hill. Because their own parliament is so weak, Kremlin
officials underestimate the role of Congress in the making of foreign
policy. The Bush team should signal quickly to its Russian colleagues that
it has no intention of challenging this bipartisan support, especially when
the new administration is seeking bipartisan coalitions on other issues.

The Bush foreign policy team also would do well to politely remind Kremlin
officials that Russia has changed dramatically since the days of detente.
Not only is Russia radically weaker today in traditional power measures but
Russian society is much stronger. During the Nixon era, the United States
had only one real point of contact in the Soviet Union, the state. Working
with Kremlin leaders was not a choice; it was the only option. Today,
though weak and embattled, a private sector, a civil society and a
political class independent of the Kremlin exist in Russia. These new
pockets of independent power offer the United States a wide range of
contact points to engage the Russian people. The Bush administration should
cut all democratic and economic aid to the state and redirect these funds
to Russian society.

Through state-to-state channels, the Bush team must pursue strategic issues
with Putin and his team. Through societal channels, however, the new
administration can promote market and democratic ideas within Russia.

>From Wilson to Reagan, American support for democracy abroad endured as a
bipartisan theme of American foreign policy, and it will not disappear with
a change in administration. The sooner the new Bush team communicates this
message to the Russians the better.

******

#4
Chechens Accuse Pro-Russia Forces of Kidnapping US Aid Worker
 
Grozny, Chechnya, Jan. 23 (Bloomberg)
-- Separatist guerrillas in Russia's southern republic of
Chechnya said bodyguards of the region's pro-Russian administrator kidnapped
U.S. aid worker Kenny Gluck Jan. 9, Agence France-Presse reported.

The allegation is based on information obtained by Chechen security services,
AFP quoted a spokesman for the separatist leader, Aslan Maskhadov, as saying.
The abduction was carried out because Gluck criticized the policies of
administrator Akhmad Kadyrov, the spokesman said.

Kadyrov rejected the allegation. ``Maskhadov is mad,'' he told AFP. ``This is
the usual sort of disinformation you get from the Chechen leadership.''

Gluck was heading a mission for Medecins Sans Frontieres, an international
medical aid organization. He and his bodyguards were ambushed by armed,
masked men outside the Chechen town of Stariye Atagi. A second U.S. citizen
traveling in the convoy, Jonathan Little, managed to escape.

Chechnya declared its independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
but was invaded by Russian forces at the end of 1994. In the summer of 1996,
the Russians withdrew from the republic, though Russia never recognized
Chechnya's independence, and Maskhadov was subsequently elected president.

In 1999, Russia invaded Chechnya again after Islamic militants from the
breakaway republic crossed into neighboring Dagestan, in southern Russia. The
republic's de facto independence was ended after fighting lasting several
months.  Chechen separatist guerrillas are still active.

Russian and Chechen reports indicate as many as 56,000 civilians, soldiers
and rebels have died in the conflict.

******

#5
Moscow Times
January 24, 2001
The Complex Battle Against Corruption
By Yulia Latynina

Pavel Borodin, secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, is sitting in a New
York jail, facing possible extradition to Switzerland. With the notable
exception of President Vladimir Putin - who has the habit of maintaining
silence about any arrests - the whole nation has reacted with outrage to
this event. One businessman I know captured the mood perfectly when he told
me, "Well, they've found a fine person to arrest! Others don't do anything
but steal, while Borodin at least built something!"

It looks like they got Borodin just as he was hitting his stride. The
former Kremlin property chief continued to show a healthy interest in
architecture. His latest project was the proposed federal parliament
complex in St. Petersburg, which carries a projected price tag of $2
billion. Not so much, but it's worth noting that this is about two-thirds
of the amount that Russia presently is trying to avoid paying out to the
Paris Club. Ironically, the parliament complex was to be built not by the
Swiss company Mabetex, but by America's Cushman & Wakefield.

This connection encourages speculation that Borodin traveled to America
not, as was reported, to attend the inauguration of President George W.
Bush, but to tend to his own business. Otherwise, it seems likely that
someone would have told him that Bush's inauguration would be held in
Washington, not New York.

It isn't right when foreigners decide which Russians are corrupt and which
aren't.

Nonetheless, I find myself sharing my compatriots' outrage. As Pushkin put
it, "Of course I despise my fatherland from head to toe, but it upsets me
when foreigners share this sentiment."

It isn't right when foreigners decide which Russians are corrupt and which
aren't. It is still worse when the person deciding is someone like Swiss
investigating judge Daniel Devaud, a man of known leftist leanings. As
Russian television commentator Mikhail Leontiev wryly observer, Devaud is
sparing no effort in the struggle against Russian capitalism. Devaud's
battle has found support in the global financial community, which for some
reason suspects there is some direct connection between the huge profits
Mabetex received and Russia's refusal to pay its debts.

Of course, if foreigners think the arrest of two or three bribe-takers is
going to put an end to corruption in Russia, they are sadly mistaken. I
imagine that if we took half of all our bureaucrats out tomorrow and shot
them, the other half would just work twice as hard to take up the slack.

Incidentally, Devaud has no legal proof that Borodin is guilty of anything.
Most likely this is indicative not of Borodin's clean hands, but of the
ineffectiveness of any prosecutor - even Switzerland's. Even the arrest
order says that Borodin is being detained not as a suspect, but as a
witness. It notes that he has repeatedly refused to appear and testify.

If you look at the case that has been prepared so far, it is far from clear
what crimes Devaud thinks Borodin may have committed. He needs Borodin to
come and tell him what he should be arrested for. And judging from what
I've heard, Russian prosecutors are using just the same approach in their
questioning of employees and managers of Media-MOST.

Yulia Latynina is the creator and host of "The Ruble Zone" on NTV television.

******

#6
strana.ru
January 23, 2001
Putin's meeting with oligarchs to establish truce
Nikolai Ulyanov, Strana.Ru observer

President Vladimir Putin's meeting with prominent Russian businessmen
scheduled for January 24 (the first such meeting that was held in the
summer of 2000 and was mainly a getting-acquainted gathering) is arousing
mounting interest. The reason for this is that the meeting will finalize
the results of the almost one year "war" that the new Kremlin team has been
waging against the most politically-engaged businessmen.

It should be recalled that one of the main postulates in Putin's
pre-election platform (winter of 1999-2000) and in his annual message to
the Federal Assembly (spring of 2000) was the thesis of "equidistance of
the oligarchs from authority."

But during the rule of Boris Yeltsin, oligarchs had managed to organically
weave themselves into the fabric of power to such an extent that Putin's
words about "equidistance" were viewed by many either as a purely
pre-election ploy that would soon be forgotten, or as a romantic pipe dream
of a young politician that would inevitably crumble upon collision with
real life.

However, the post-election period in Russia has shown that the warning
addressed to the oligarchs was an absolutely sober warning rather than a
romantic pipe dream. At the beginning, very many oligarchs did not
understand Putin. They continued to push lucrative contracts, privileges
and preferences through the executive branches of power via time-tested
channels.

But the sobering up after the hangover came quite rapidly. It was suggested
to Boris Berezovsky that he return the controlling package of the ORT
Company to the State.

Vladimir Gusinsky was asked to pay off credits given him by Gazprom or on
guarantees of that company. In the course of several days, documents were
seized in the Moscow office of Roman Abramovich.

The leaders of LUKoil Vagit Alekperov and the Interros Group Vladimir
Potanin were asked to return the monies they owed to the State.

During that period, in Moscow they said that Putin had "lined up" the
oligarchs to remind them of their vulnerability and offered them new rules
of the game, i.e., they would have to be satisfied with what they had
already received from the State, they would not try in ultimatum form to
pressurize the President and the government either in the political or
financial spheres.

The majority of the oligarchs understood the President and became
law-abiding businessmen of stature. And Vladimir Putin will be meeting
precisely with these businessmen in the Kremlin on January 24.

Only two oligarchs did not agree with the new rules of the game. They were
Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky - the most powerful ones from the
point of view of their capabilities of manipulating public opinion. The
outcome of their argument with the Kremlin is well known - one is under
arrest in Spain, the other is in self-exile in the United States and Great
Britain.

It is known that Oleg Deripaska (Russian Aluminum), Vagit Alekperov
(LUKoil), Mikhail Hodorkovsky (YUKOS), Kakha Bendukidze (United Machine
Building Plants) and Vladimir Potanin (Interros) will participate in the
January 24 meeting in the Kremlin.

It is especially interesting whether the head of the Unified Energy Systems
of Russia Anatoly Chubais received an invitation to that meeting in the
Kremlin? That oligarch was one of the most influential during both terms of
Boris Yeltsin's presidency. At the beginning, Chubais' relations with
Vladimir Putin seemed to be shaping out fairly well. However, a shadow fell
on the relationships of that politician cum businessman with Putin after
Chubais (who is considered to be the ideologist and financial wizard of the
parliamentary faction of the Union of Right Forces) came out with several
off-the-cuff political statements and tabled his own plan for restructuring
the Unified Energy Systems (a plan that has raised the Kremlin's doubts as
to whether it is unselfish). In Moscow now there is talk that very soon
there will be one obstinate oligarch less.

Therefore, Putin's meeting with oligarchs loyal to the Kremlin will
register the moment of the end of the fierce struggle for control over
public opinion in Russia and the beginning of a era of constructive
cooperation between authority and big capital.

*******

#7
Fraud probe into Russia's Gusinky set to widen
By Jon Boyle
 
MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Russia's top law officer said on Tuesday a fraud
probe into media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky was extending throughout his
empire and that he was confident the tycoon would be extradited from Spain.

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov dismissed complaints by Gusinsky that
legal probes into his business affairs were part of a Kremlin-orchestrated
campaign to muzzle him and his independent media outlets.

"We are not prepared to bring them to account for what they think or say,"
Ustinov said on state-run RTR television.

"First of all we are checking the economic aspects of their activities.
These investigations are pushing us towards a comprehensive revision of the
entire holding's activity," he said.

The Russian authorities had enough evidence to support their case to bring
Gusinsky back to Russia, Ustinov said.

The media magnate was detained at his Spanish home last December by police
acting on an international warrant, but released a few days later after
paying a one billion pesetas ($5.6 million) bail.

He remains under police guard at his luxury villa in southern Spain pending
a decision on his extradition on fraud charges.

RUSSSIA SAYS IT HAS STRONG CASE

"The documents we presented to the Spanish side should fully confirm that a
crime was committed, connected with theft through fraud by Gusinsky, and
may become grounds for his extradition to Russia," Ustinov said.

In Spain, Russian Deputy Prosecutor Vasiliy Kolmogorov briefly discussed
the extradition request with Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who won renown
for his ultimately unsuccessful bid to try former Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet in Spain for human rights abuses.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Kolmogorov denied reports he had
handed over documents asking for the confiscation of property owned by
Gusinsky. He also repeated Russia's denial that the case was politically
motivated,

Gusinsky's Media-Most group is locked in a bitter battle with
state-dominated gas giant Gazprom for control of a blocking stake in its
flagship NTV station, the only national television channel outside Kremlin
control.

The 19 percent shareholding is held by Gazprom as collateral against loans
that mature this summer. In November, Media-Most handed Gazprom a large
chunk of shares to cover other debts.

CNN founder Ted Turner has emerged as a potential bidder for the stake, but
reports say he wants Kremlin guarantees that the authorities will not
interfere in the bid.

NTV has been broadly critical of Russia's war in Chechnya, championed by
Russian President Vladimir Putin, and backed the president's ill-fated
rivals in 1999 parliamentary elections.

Gusinsky was briefly jailed last summer and released, he says, after
agreeing to sell his entire Media-Most holding to Gazprom. He later reneged
on the deal, saying it had been signed under duress, and fled to Spain.

Since then he has refused to return to Russia to answer prosecutor's
questions, sparking warrants for his arrest.

*******

#8
OSCE: Diplomats Say Russia Resents Criticism Of Actions In Chechnya
By Roland Eggleston

Diplomats at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
say Russia is unhappy with criticism of its operations in Chechnya and
Moldova and wants changes in the way the organization operates. The new
Romanian chairman of the OSCE, Mircea Dan Geoana, is expected to travel to
Moscow shortly to discuss the problems.

Vienna, 23 January 2001 (RFE/RL) -- Russia's criticisms of the OSCE came to a
head at the end of last year when Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov vetoed
an official statement due to have been issued after a meeting of OSCE foreign
ministers in Vienna.

The draft statement called for an independent investigation of alleged
atrocities against civilians in Chechnya. Other parts of the document
criticized Russia for making what it said was little progress on the
withdrawal of its troops from Moldova.

The Russian veto shocked the meeting. It was the first time that Moscow had
vetoed an OSCE statement since the collapse of communism 10 years ago.

In Vienna this week, some diplomats said they feared it could herald a return
to the old days when Moscow routinely vetoed statements after OSCE meetings
because they were not to its liking.

Russia denies this. Its chief delegate at OSCE headquarters in Vienna, Oleg
Belous, says Russia vetoed the statement because it pointed the finger only
at the former Soviet Union. He says Russia wants a balanced consideration of
international problems, including those in the West.

Belous says Russia also wants a return to the principle that most OSCE
agreements and documents require consensus -- that is, the agreement of all
the organization's members. Consensus is still the guiding principle at OSCE,
but Russia claims it has been undermined and is not properly implemented.

Most of the criticisms in the Vienna statement vetoed by Russia were
published anyway. The then OSCE chairwoman, Austrian Foreign Minister Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, repeated them in a so-called chairman's statement, which was
not subject to a veto. Russia said later her comments did not reflect the
consensus of the meeting and Russia was not bound by them.

In a speech before using his veto, Ivanov criticized what he perceived as an
exaggerated OSCE focus on problems in the former Soviet Union, particularly
the conflict in Chechnya.

He charged that OSCE meetings focused on problems in the Caucasus, Moldova,
Georgia, and Central Asia but rarely discussed problems in the West which, he
said, was riddled with xenophobia, racism, and crime.

Diplomats said the focus of Ivanov's remarks was the statement's language on
Chechnya. The proposed declaration said foreign ministers "urge Russian
authorities to facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid to Chechnya." It
deplored the continued loss of life and material damage in Chechnya and
called for a "prompt and independent investigation and prosecution of all
alleged atrocities against civilians and other violations of human rights."

Diplomats in Vienna say they are reluctant to comment on the matter because
negotiations are underway with Moscow to end the dispute. But they agreed
that Russian operations in Chechnya frequently come under fire at OSCE
meetings -- although few details emerge because the meetings are closed.

Last year's chairwoman, Ferrero-Waldner, unsuccessfully pressed Russia to
allow an OSCE mission to return to Chechnya so it could assist in finding a
political solution to the conflict and encourage a dialogue. The mission was
forced to leave because of the fighting in the breakaway republic and it is
now based in Moscow.

The Russian foreign minister was also critical of a passage in the proposed
statement which said there was "growing concern" that Russia was making
little progress in withdrawing its military forces from Moldova. At an OSCE
summit in Istanbul in 1999, Russia signed a statement which said some forces
would leave by the end of this year and that all Russian troops would be gone
by the end of next year.

In another comment, the proposed declaration expressed concern over Russia's
decision to require visas for most citizens of Georgia. The order came into
effect last month.

Russia's dissatisfaction is being taken seriously by the OSCE. German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder discussed it with President Vladimir Putin
during Schroeder's recent visit to Moscow, but the German Foreign Ministry
declines to give any details of the talks. The OSCE's secretary-general,
Slovak diplomat Jan Kubis, was in Moscow earlier this month to try to defuse
the crisis and the organization's new chairman, Romanian Foreign Minister
Mircea Dan Geoana, will go to Moscow shortly, probably sometime next month.

In the meantime, Moscow has circulated a paper at OSCE headquarters calling
for changes in the way the organization works and the freedom of the chairman
to make statements in the name of the organization.

European diplomats say the paper indicates Russia wants closer control of the
chairman -- who serves for only one year. The paper argues that when making
comments on crisis areas such as Chechnya, the chairman should reflect what
it calls a consensus view of the OSCE, including Russia. In Russia's view, if
there is no consensus, then the chairman should not speak in the name of the
OSCE.

Our correspondent has seen the Russian paper. He reports that it states: "The
chairman should comply strictly with the official position of the OSCE as
expressed in OSCE documents and decisions." The paper says the chairman
should not make what it calls "one-sided statements" in the name of the OSCE
or issue statements that do not reflect consensus among members.

In Russia's view, major issues should be discussed in closed meetings of
small groups before they come up at the weekly meeting of the OSCE's
Permanent Council, which is now its main forum for considering crises and
other problems. Moscow wants various opinions on a problem to be identified
and followed by political consultations aimed at finding compromises.

The Russian paper suggests that these private meetings should "shun
publicity" and not publicize draft documents. Nor, it urges, should
statements made to the meeting by individual countries be publicized.

*******

#9
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001
From: laurabelin@excite.com (Laura Belin)
Subject: Moscow Times on human rights congress/5046

Dear David,

I was shocked by the Moscow Times editorial about the recent human rights
congress in Moscow. On the one hand, the newspaper agrees that several
Kremlin initiatives would restrict the basic rights of Russian citizens as
well as political participation. On the other hand, citing a couple of sound
bites from the congress, the newspaper blames human rights activists for
"provoking confrontation rather than facilitating a dialogue that could lead
to real improvements." Does the Moscow Times think the Kremlin wants a
dialogue with human rights activists, if only they did not use such
intemperate rhetoric? I would advise the newspaper's editors to visit the
strana.ru website to see how analysts working on behalf of the Kremlin try
to discredit human rights activists and belittle their concerns.

Even more bizarre, the newspaper that claims to share the activists'
concerns goes on to say that using expressions like "state of emergency"
"gives the government every excuse to ignore the views of liberals." Do the
editors of the Moscow Times think that the Russian authorities are obliged
to listen only to critics who politely "pressure from within"? Within what
exactly?

Naturally, reasonable minds differ about what would be the most effective
political strategy for activists seeking to curb human rights abuses in
Russia. If the Moscow Times does not care for the activists' strategy, fair
enough. But the newspaper should not imply that the authorities have every
reason to ignore the concerns of those who use angry words, or worse, treat
them like citizens who have "declared war" on the Russian state.

Laura Belin
St. Antony's College, Oxford

*******

#10
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001
From: Sarah Karush <karush@imedia.ru>
Subject: Re: 5046/MT-Human Rights

I don't know if it's bad form to publicly criticize the editorial-writers
of one's own newspaper, but I'm going to take that risk to set the record
straight on last weekend's "emergency" human rights congress.

Tuesday's editorial in The Moscow Times accuses the organizers of the
congress of being alarmist and confrontational, of drawing battle lines
between activists and the government. Russian human rights advocates may be
guilty of all those things, but that was definitely not the tone of the
congress - at least the seven hours of it that I witnessed. I regret if my
news article on the event gave that impression. The most alarmist,
confrontational speaker whom I heard was Grigory Yavlinsky. He was there as
a guest, not a participant.

The congress was not an attack on Putin. The organizers looked around and
saw a Constitution under attack, a hostile atmosphere for the media, a
brutal war that the country has ceased to notice and a weak and fragmented
civil society. After lengthy debate, they decided that this constituted an
emergency.

They didn't exempt themselves from blame for this emergency. Yelena Bonner,
who could not attend the congress due to illness but sent a written
address, criticized the human rights community for losing sight of their
values and engaging in petty infighting. Many other speakers, notably
Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group, urged consolidation.

Certainly some of the congress participants were critical of Putin. But
this was not a knee-jerk reaction. They did not call an emergency congress
immediately after Putin became president. Instead, they waited a year and
carefully observed his actions in Chechnya, in relation to the media and in
the legislative process.

The editorial said human rights advocates should engage the authorities,
not confront them. What about their cooperation with rights commissioner
Oleg Mironov, who spoke at the congress? Despite his Communist background
and many politically incorrect statements (from the human rights point of
view), the country's leading activists never slammed the door in his face.
They defended him from his own employees, who said he had no right to
criticize the president. Now they are allies, if not partners.

Putin's point of view was also represented at the congress. Vladimir
Kartashkin, the chairman of the president's human rights commission, was
invited to speak. He assured the participants that Putin has no intention
of rewriting the Constitution, that the law on parties is not so bad after
all, and that there is no human rights emergency. No one booed him off the
stage.

Perhaps it is the authorities who are not ready for engagement. After
announcing the transfer of control over the war in Chechnya to the FSB,
agency spokesman Alexander Zdanovich said he was certain the human rights
advocates would oppose the transfer. "They have nothing to worry about," he
said. "I wanted to inform you of this beforehand." But at least one
prominent activist - Oleg Orlov of Memorial - said he saw nothing
inherently bad in the transfer and perhaps some positive aspects.

It's easy to dismiss the pravozashchitniki as Zdanovich does. They often
sound like a broken record and some of them can be downright paranoid. Most
of them don't know how to write a press release that's less than five pages
of small type. They may deserve criticism, but the congress shouldn't be
the target of it.

In my view, the congress was a pretty big achievement. It brought together
more than 1,000 activists from across Russia - people with very different
agendas and outlooks - and let them share information and forge links. As
an observer, I found it very informative ... and engaging.

*******

#11
Russia Seen Able To 'Get Along' With Republican Presidents 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta
January 20, 2001
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Nikolay Paklin:  "Forty-Third"

   Today Washington ses a changing of the guard. 
George Bush Junior, the new, 43d, President of the United States,
officially takes up office.  The Republican Party is getting its hands on
the reins of power of the world's strongest country -- the United States.
   People in every world capital are now scratching their heads over how
relations with the new U.S. President and his administration will shape
up.  Moscow is no exception -- all the more so as relations between our
two nuclear powers will largely determine the political climate in the
world.
   On the eve of the change of power in Washington many Russian and
foreign political scientists had been voicing the view that the advent of
a Republican to the White House would lead if not to a deterioration then
at any rate to a cooling in U.S.-Russian relations.  It was asserted that
the Republican Party is more conservative than the Democrats and,
therefore, Moscow should allegedly expect nothing good from it.  As if to
confirm this, Republican leaders, including George Bush Junior, "hit a
nerve" with Moscow by campaigning for the development of a national
missile defense system.
   But what is typical is that as the inauguration has drawn nearer the
tenor of the statements has started to change.  More and more American
analysts are now talking about the prospects for good-neighborliness in
relations between the new Republican administration and Moscow.  "Taking
office, the new U.S. Administration in America, President Bush, and his
advisers realize that it is high time to improve relations between the
United States and Russia," Thomas Graham, senior scientific staffer at
the influential Carnegie Center, has noted -- "it seems to me as though
the new administration is ready to meet Russia halfway.  There are
grounds for serious discussions and there is hope that we will reach
agreement as a result and that the new agreements will become a firm
foundation for our relations not just in 2001 but for many years to
come."
   At the same time, the myth created above all by sorry excuses for
Russian analysts about a "special partnership relationship" with Bill
Clinton and the Democratic Party administration is being dispelled
overseas.  "I affirm that the United States shares moral responsibility
for the terrible misfortune that has befallen Russia," claims Professor
Stephen Cohen of New York University, a major American specialist on our
country's history who has just published the book "Failed Crusade" -- an
analysis of Bill Clinton's policy on Russia.  "Gripped by the idea of
turning Russia into something akin to America in the shortest time
possible, the Clinton administration virtually imposed on the Russian
Government an economic policy that led to the formation of a small group
of oligarchs and the total robbery of the country."
   In this connection it is apposite to recall that it was during the
rule of the Republicans in the United States that our countries achieved
decisive changes for the better both in relations with each other and in
world affairs as a whole.  People of the older generation recall the
enthusiasm with which Republican President Richard Nixon was welcomed to
Moscow in 1972.  That was the first visit to our country by a U.S.
President.  Yet Nixon had previously figured virtually among the
McCarthyites who had organized a "witch hunt" in the United States. 
Richard Nixon signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty -- the
famous SALT I -- with the USSR.  The unlimited-duration ABM Treaty, which
has been the cornerstone of stability in the world for three decades now,
was signed then too.  Richard Nixon has gone down in history as a
politician who rejected confrontation with our country and embarked on
the path of negotiation.
   History repeated itself with President Ronald Reagan too.  Paying
homage to his election rhetoric, he called the Soviet Union an "evil
empire" and announced a policy of preparing for "star wars."  But when he
was reelected for a second term, he changed policy sharply.  In December
1987 he signed the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and
Shorter-Range Missiles with us.  His summits with Soviet leaders
effectively brought the Cold War to an end.
   This policy of Ronald Reagan's was continued by his Republican
successor in the presidency -- George Bush, a former head of the CIA. 
Incidentally, his son, the new U.S. President, has invited many of those
who held key positions in Washington not just during his father's
presidency but under other Republican Presidents as well to join his
administration.
   Of course, historical parallels are very subjective.  But it is also
clear that Moscow has been able to reach agreement and get along with
Republicans when they are in power.  There have been polemics, but things
have never gotten to the point of acute crises, as they have with
Democratic Presidents.

*******

#12
UN: Reports Of Russian Tactical Nukes Underscores Risk
January  24, 2001

GENEVA (AP)--Concerns that Russia could redeploy tactical nuclear weapons it
withdrew from Europe in the 1990s underscore the risks the world faces from
the long-overlooked class of arms, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

"This is a very worrying possibility," said Patricia Lewis, director of the
U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, noting recent fears expressed in
Washington and elsewhere that Moscow might want to rely on the shorter-range
weapons because it perceives itself as weaker in the face of an expanding
NATO.

Lewis said the U.N. think-tank commissioned a study into the problem more
than a year ago after a spate of reports that Russia was placing new value on
the weapons.

Both the U.S. and Russia withdrew many of their tactical weapons from Europe
following individual declarations in 1991 by then Presidents George Bush and
Mikhail Gorbachev.

Tactical nuclear weapons are "the least regulated by arms control
agreements," said the 84-page study by scholars at California's Monterey
Institute of International Studies and Germany's Peace Research Institute.

Because they are not controlled by treaty they can be redeployed without
violating international law, the study concluded.

The U.S. and Russia continue to work on efforts to further limit long-range
"strategic" missiles already governed by a series of accords between Moscow
and Washington, but they have paid little attention to tactical weapons.

The arms also are vaguely defined. "Tactical" can cover anything from a
battlefield round of nuclear artillery meant to destroy a military
headquarters to a missile that could be fired between Western Europe and
Russia or between India and Pakistan, wiping out a city or region, the study
noted.

It said the U.S. still has about 150 tactical warheads deployed in seven
European countries - Belgium, Germany, Greece, Britain, Italy, the
Netherlands and Turkey.

"Great Frustration" Found Among Nations
 
Less is known about the number or location of Russian weapons, but the study
estimated that around 4,000 are deployed.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen recently expressed fears about
Russian plans for the weapons because of "the continued deterioration in
Russian conventional and strategic forces."

He said this deterioration has caused Russian military planners to emphasize
threats to use tactical nuclear weapons to deter a large-scale conventional
attack.

The study was released as the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament opened its
annual session with the body still deadlocked about choosing a new class of
weapons for an arms-control treaty.

Christopher Westdal of Canada, current president of the conference, said he
had talked with officials in Britain, China, France, Russia, the United
States and elsewhere and found "great frustration."

But Westdal said he had no assurance that he can break the logjam that has
blocked the conference since it negotiated the 1996 treaty to ban tests of
nuclear weapons.

The U.S. continues to push for negotiating a ban on the production of the
"fissile material" - plutonium and enriched uranium - needed to make nuclear
weapons.

Some countries, including many non-nuclear states, have been insisting that
the U.S. and other big powers first agree to get rid of their nuclear
weapons.

******

#13
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 1
From: "James Beale" <James@Russia-On-Line.com>
Subject: Adam Ulam's memoirs

Hello friends

Understanding the Cold War: A Historian's Personal Reflections is the final
work of noted Harvard historian, Adam B. Ulam.  In it, engaging stories of
his personal life are interspersed with his reflections on the dominant
events of the twentieth century, notably the rise and fall of the Soviet
Union.  The book proceeds from his dramatic departure at 16 from Lwow
Poland, only six days before Hitler's invasion, to his long tenure as one of
the leading voices at Harvard's renowned Russian Research Center (now the
Davis Center for Russian Studies).  In recounting his life and summarizing
the main themes of his 18 published books, Ulam has left a legacy that is at
once intensely personal and historically illuminating.  Steven Kotkin,
Director of Russian Studies at Princeton University, in a lengthy
appreciation in the New Republic (Nov. 6, 2000) lauds Ulam as a "zestful
storyteller [who] favors the winning anecdote and the wink and nod over the
tedium of score-settling."

Taken from the Press Release on the books publication, Leopolis Press

Understanding the Cold War:
A Historian's Personal Reflections
by Adam B. Ulam
Leopolis, 327 pp.
Paper
ISBN: 0967996007
Price: $30.00

Postage and handling (within the US) $3.00 for the first book, plus 50 cents
for each additional item.
Please send you orders to sales@Russia-On-Line.com
or to : fax to 208-246-3670
or by mail to:
Russia Online, Inc.
PO Box 558
Kensington MD 20895-0558
USA
Shop online:  http://russianbooks.safeshopper.com

*******

#14
BBC Monitoring
Russian prosecutor-general distances himself from Borodin case
Source: Russia TV, Moscow, in Russian 1730 gmt 23 Jan 01

["Details" presenter Sergey Pashkov] For the first time ever on a Russian
national channel, I have in the studio with me Prosecutor-General Vladimir
Ustinov...

[Ustinov] All issues relating to the failure of the prosecution system can be
appealed against and resolved in courts. And we believe this is our state's
achievement and yet another guarantee that our actions are correct. Here is
an example: last year we issued almost 500,000 sanctions for the arrest of
criminals. And there were hardly any appeals against them. Effectively zero
per cent of our sanctions have been rescinded. Therefore, the claim that we
make a lot of mistakes when we order arrests is not true...

[Pashkov] Everybody now talks about Borodin. They say: Pal Palych Borodin
arrived at the JFK airport in New York and, as a result he found himself in
Brooklyn prison. All this is linked to the Swiss Prosecutor's Office...

[Ustinov] We have worked closely with the Swiss Prosecutor's Office. In
particular, I had three meetings with the Swiss prosecutor-general... But we
were conducting what was essentially a parallel investigation. They gave us
the information we needed while we sent them the information they needed. But
when we heard from the Swiss that Pavel Borodin had bank accounts abroad,
with proceeds made from money laundering in Moscow, we requested the details
of these accounts and ordered forensic tests, because Borodin clearly says: I
have no bank accounts and there is no evidence testifying to my
self-interest. Our forensic experts gave us an unequivocal answer: we cannot
use this material for tests because their quality is poor. What the Swiss
sent us was a copy. You can read the signature but not conclusively. So the
experts said they could not give us any conclusive results. We then asked for
the originals, but the Swiss refused because, as they said, the originals
must not leave Switzerland... The investigation we carried out ourselves
showed conclusively that no unnecessary repair works in the Kremlin was
carried out... We could not really investigate the issue thoroughly because
we did not have the original documents. Either the Swiss could not hand them
over to us, or they did not want to hand them over, for some reason. In other
words, we have no evidence that Borodin is guilty and that is why we have
dropped the case...

[Pashkov] The prosecutor's office and you as its head are being accused by
some media that you are a tool at the hands of the state in the suppression
of media freedom.

[Ustinov] The fact that we have launched proceedings against the Media-Most
does not mean we are encroaching on media freedom. Media-Most has had many
outlets: papers and periodicals and television companies, and during
questioning we sometimes have to summon people who work for these outlets but
this does not mean that we are going to take them to court for what they
think or say. All we are inspecting is the economic component of the outlets
we are investigating. Our inspection is increasingly instigating us to carry
out a comprehensive inspection of the entire holding company...

[Pashkov] Is there any chance of returning Gusinskiy to Moscow.

[Ustinov] I believe the documents we are submitting to Spain must fully prove
that Gusinskiy's part in a case of embezzlement. We have no doubt that we
will get this. That we had to look for Gusinskiy and now ask for his
extradition shows that he wants to get away from responsibility. No-one was
going to keep Gusinskiy in custody. No-one! Absolutely no-one entertained the
idea of supporting him at the expense of the small budget of our state.

[Pashkov] You did support him for three days, nevertheless.

[Ustinov] And we are now often reproached we have released him, but people
forget that at that very time, the State Duma adopted the amnesty law, under
which anyone, whatever the crime, including a murder, had to be released if
the person in question had received government awards.

*******

#15
strana.ru
Janaury 23, 2001
"Anti-Semitism practically does not exist in Russia"
By Viktor Sokolov, Strana.ru observer
 
Israeli President Moshe Katzav supposes that "there is practically no serious
threat of anti-Semitism in Russia," but he will touch on this issue without
fail during a talk with the Russian leadership. To all appearances, he will
do this to make sure that his supposition is correct, after which he will try
to convince others that this is so.

It is especially important now that human rights violations, specifically the
freedom of expression in Russia, a problem closely associated with the case
of Vladimir Gusinsky and his NTV company, are on the agenda at the PACE
session in Strasbourg. The case gives rise to talk in the West about
oppression of oligarchs in Russia, among whom there are many Jews. The talk
has greatly increased of late, and some politicians are making use of it.
Though it is of little use in fact. So, if the Israeli guest, after his talks
with the Russian leadership, especially with President Vladimir Putin, the
guarantor of rights and liberties in Russia, arrives at the conclusion that
anti-Semitism is absent in the Russian Federation, this will greatly help the
Kremlin, and specifically the Russian delegation in PACE, to defend national
interests.

Incidentally, Moshe Katzav believes that there is no anti-Semitism in Ukraine
and Georgia either. In a talk with journalists before his trip to Moscow he
even expressed gratitude to the Russian president for his "efforts to combat
anti-Semitism."

And still, the main topic of the Russian-Israeli summit talks in Moscow will,
naturally, be not anti-Semitism but an increase of the Kremlin's role in
bringing about a settlement of the conflict between Palestine and Israel,
where the Clinton Administration has failed to achieve anything despite the
desperate efforts to go down in history as the main Middle East peacekeeper.
Now Ehud Barak and his team are making just as desperate efforts to make
progress towards peace before the election of the head of the Israeli
government is held February 6. The election is ever closer, but the problem
is not solved. This is why the Israeli head of state has decided to enlist
the support of other influential countries, among which are Ukraine and,
naturally, Russia. According to the Israeli president, "Russia was and
remains to be a great power and its role in world affairs is great indeed.
This fully refers also to the peace settlement process in the Middle East."

For Israel it is important to become as friendly with Russia as possible, so
that Moscow could use its firm ties with Palestinians and achieve
long-awaited peace. Russia's more active mediation would be of great help to
Israel. But the question is whether it is good for Russia to get deeply
involved in the settlement process. If Russia's mediation produces no
results, as was the case with the U.S., it may cost Putin his prestige.
Therefore the Kremlin will agree to play an active role in this if it is
absolutely sure of success. And this will determine the character of the
present talks in Moscow.

*******

CDI Russia Weekly:  http://www.cdi.org/russia

Johnson's Russia List Archive (under construction):  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson