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September 20, 2001:
#5452 
#5453
[Second Issue of the Day]
#12
Novaya Gazeta
No. 67
September 17-19
WE SHOULD LISTEN TO THOSE WHO ARE EAVESDROPPING
Russia has over a dozen inadequately supervised secret services
Author: Roman Shleinov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
AN INTERVIEW WITH NIKOLAI RYZHAK, MAJOR GENERAL OF STATE SECURITY
AND FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF MILIATRY COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE. HE SAYS THE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT LACKS THE ABILITY TO DETERMINE
PRIORITIES FOR THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SECRET SERVICES, THEIR STRUCTURE,
AND THEIR ROLE IN SOCIETY.
The participation of security services in promoting the interests of
certain financial and political groups jeopardizes Russia's whole
system of national security. Neglecting their duties, ordinary
officers and the top brass are all too frequently deeply involved in
the process of asset redistribution...
Nikolai Ryzhak: An OSCE meeting took place in Copenhagen
recently. Its conclusion emphasizes that civilian control over secret
services and security structures is a mandatory prerequisite for a
civilized state.
Needless to say, not a single state can afford to have all of its
secrets revealed. Parliamentary control provides a way out of what
might have been a impasse otherwise. In addition to the public sector,
the parliament should monitor all sorts of political operations which
might possibly damage the prestige of the state. Even despite these
controls, Western secret services know about parliamentary culture. In
the United States, for example, this is so because of mandatory
rotation in the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress,
and enlistment of career officers of the CIA, FBI, and NSA. They
absorb some political culture and return to their agencies with a
slightly changed view of the role of secret services in society. That
is why we should only welcome it when officers of the secret services
are given a chance to work in the presidential administration,
parliament, cabinet, and other state structures.
Question: There are so many former officers of the secret
services in the corridors of power in Russia already. What if they
bring their traditional views and methods to the institutions of civil
society?
Ryzhak: I think these fears are groundless. Right now this
process is logical, it was required in the first place by the state
management crisis. The president is forced to rely on people he feels
he can trust, even though such people are not exactly popular with the
public. But they are all he has to rely on.
If the secret services become alienated from society and left
without civilian control, it may result in a dangerous paradox - this
isolation itself will breed abuses.
Question: And yet, the danger remains. See for yourself: the
Russian secret services have proved incapable of withstanding the
temptations offered by large financial groups and the underworld.
Ryzhak: Disintegration and division of the secret services was
once necessitated by the eagerness to consolidate personal power. This
happened ten or eleven years ago. Because of that, to a certain
extent, the state lacks political stability now, while the positions
of the underworld have improved. These days the underworld has
powerful economic roots and pipelines into the political elite. All
this inevitably attracts some corrupt members of the secret services
and law enforcement agencies.
Moreover, Russia is notorious for its perennial eagerness to
accomplish as much as possible by doing as little as possible. These
days, the secret services have very many administrative structures,
generals, and auxiliary personnell while the ranks of actual
detectives and field agents have been depleted. It seems that the
bulky apparatus doesn't want unification of secret services or better
coordination among them. Moreover, the secret services now receive the
bare minimum of funding. Just enough for them to survive.
Question: All too frequently, however, the secret services have
enough to harass business owners, or to send their officers on lengthy
and expensive trips in connection with matters that have absolutely
nothing to do with national security. How all this is monitored?
Ryzhak: Unfortunately, financial monitoring in Russia only
happens in the early stages, when budgets for the secret services are
planned and when the secret services lobby for the necessity of
certain budget items. Monitoring is carried out by the Federal
Assembly and the Auditing Commission as its representative, and by the
presidential administration... It is different in the West, where
parliaments monitor all spending at all stages. In Russia, this
control is more formal and less comprehensive.
The practice of justifying expenses is also vital. The CIA
director, for example, convenes a meeting attended by directors of all
secret services, who discuss and eventually reach an agreement on how
much each secret service needs and will get. In Russia, each structure
is forced to demonstrate its own importance all by itself, and
requests its own budget all by itself too. All this generates
unhealthy rivalry.
Underfunding should not be tolerated when secret services are
concerned. The state is surely in trouble when its secret services are
forced to appeal to all sorts of trusts and foundations for financial
assistance. And this is what has been happening in Russia, you know.
Officers of secret services are forced to seek additional work; and,
deliberately or not, make use of the operational capacities of their
respective secret services to resolve their own financial problems
(merely because that's all they can use). Who can monitor this, when
the law doesn't even mention it?
Question: Would you say the skills of our parliamentarians are
sufficient for effective supervision of the secret services?
Ryzhak: There are virtually no specialists among members of
parliament. The supervisory body must be trusted by those it monitors.
This trust doesn't exist at this point.
On January 10, 2000, the president signed a new national security
concept. It is now 18 months (!) later, and there is virtually nothing
to show for it in terms of legislative development.
Matters of national security are presently regulated by over 70
federal laws, 200 presidential decrees, 500 governmental resolutions,
and lots of other acts. Analysis shows that this whole heap is not
integrated, it cannot be integrated - it is fragmented and
contradictory. Even the term "national security" itself is not defined
in any law.
Some regions have security councils of their own. Despite the
Constitution and its provisions, these regions have their own local
programs of supervision for the secret services.
Take the law on the Federal Security Service (FSB). Prevention of
organized crime and corruption is one of its tasks, right? At the same
time, FSB detectives and investigators and not allowed to work on
incidents which are fairly close to corruption - abuse of power, and
so on... The FSB is not allowed to intervene with this evidence. Only
in exceptional cases, rarely.
Or the law on combating terrorism. The FSB and the Interior
Ministry should combat terrorism, but no law defines the role Interior
Ministry investigators should be playing. The same can be said for
combating drug trafficking and so on. I don't know if any malice is
involved here, or if it all is due to lack of coordination and
incompetence. However, there can be no doubt that the laws are adopted
when they are still underdeveloped.
Question: The anti-corruption law, which is supposed to clarify
the role of secret services, was torpedoed only recently...
Ryzhak: Yes. The same thing happened to the law on legalization
of the proceeds of crime. Why transfer the law to another committee of
the Duma, to Shokhin, at the last possible moment? The law deals with
a lot of operational measures, but it was taken from Gurov all the
same. Was this a coincidence? Why would the Duma deputies who at first
supported the law vote against it? Imagine what pressure must have
been used!
Essentially, the legislative branch of the government lacks the
ability to determine priorities for the activities of the secret
services, their structure, and their role and place in society. It is
because of this that we have over a dozen secret services in Russia
involved in operational and search activities. Unfortunately, it has
not improved the level of security for the individual, society, or the
state.
Question: It's a vicious circle, then. Society cannot get
suitable people into parliament and the secret services, and the
parliament cannot provide proper supervision. What do you think should
be done to break the circle?
Ryzhak: Sad to say, democratic methods alone will not suffice
here. I support the ideas of parliamentary supervision and civil
society myself, but I think that at this particular point it is only
possible in Russia if we have a strong president who - also
importantly - rids the corridors of power of state officials who only
talk of reform, instead of actually doing it.
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