Johnson's Russia List
#6042
27 January 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russian spy base in Cuba closed - Raul Castro.
2. UPI: Moscow, Baku clinch important deals.
3. Reuters: Uzbek vote, blasted by West, set to prop Karimov.
4. AFP: Chechen leader to keep power as long as Russian troops remain.
5. Newsday: Liam Pleven, Russia: War Damaging Al-Qaida, Chechen Ties.
6. Marcus Warren: Tribute to Dmitry Pinsker.
7. The Russia Journal: Ajay Goyal, A man of intellect, integrity.
8. The Russia Journal: Dmitry Pinsker, Democracy falls victim to cartel.
Russia’s parties are conspiring to put their interests over those of 
voters’.
9. Asia Times: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan, Part 2: The games nations 
play.
10. Wall Street Journal: Robert Hughes, Russians Are Everywhere On 
Performing-Arts Scene.
11. strana.ru: Michael Stedman, “The Department” Makes Fields Less 
Foreign. Helping hands for a community reborn.
12. New York Times: Patrick Tyler, Police in Chechnya Accuse Russia's 
Troops of Murder.
13. Washington meeting: THE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE IN CHECHNYA.]

*******

#1
Russian spy base in Cuba closed - Raul Castro
  
BAUTA, Cuba, Jan 26 (Reuters) - A Russian spy base in communist-run Cuba has 
finally been closed and its electronic equipment is waiting to be transported 
back to Moscow, the head of Cuba's armed forces Raul Castro said on Saturday. 

"The Lourdes base exists no more. It has been dismantled and the complete 
withdrawal is the Russians' responsibility," Raul Castro, the No. 2 in Cuba's 
political hierarchy after his brother President Fidel Castro, told reporters. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin pleased Washington and infuriated Havana 
last October by announcing that Moscow was pulling out of the spy station 
less than 100 miles (160 km) from U.S. soil. 

The decision to evacuate Lourdes, which Moscow used as a listening post for 
monitoring U.S. communications throughout the Cold War, spelt the end of four 
decades of Russian military presence in Cuba. 

The full dismantling of the base, just outside Havana, apparently ran into 
operational snags in early January and was delayed beyond 
previously-announced dates, diplomatic and military sources said. 

Raul Castro confirmed, however, that the base was no longer operational. "The 
antennae are down. Nothing works any more. There are a few Russians still 
there until they finish collecting the equipment and decide by what air or 
naval means they take back what remains there," he said. 

"When all the Russians have gone, you can be invited to visit the remains of 
the base, the buildings that are there," he added in comments to reporters 
after a government rally in the town of Bauta, outside Havana. "Maybe by then 
we will know what we are going to do with it in the future." 

Raul Castro said the Christmas and New Year festivities were the reason the 
full dismantling of the base had taken longer than expected. 

When Moscow announced its withdrawal from Lourdes, Bush called the 
intelligence center a Cold War relic whose demise would help cooperation 
between the United States and Russia. 

But Cuba's ruling Communist Party said the financial saving for Russia, cited 
as its main motive, was negligible and the closure would pose a security 
risk. 

"From the Lourdes center, Russia was receiving 75 percent of the strategic 
information it needed to prevent an aggression and it has been the principal 
tool for controlling the fulfillment of the (nuclear) disarmament agreements 
with the United States," a government statement said soon after the 
announcement. 

*******

#2
Moscow, Baku clinch important deals 

MOSCOW, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Following a decade of lukewarm ties,
Russian-Azerbaijani relations could soon grow into a strategic partnership,
Azerbaijani President Geidar Aliyev said Saturday at the end of his
three-day visit to Moscow.

During Aliyev's stay, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin clinched a
deal defining the future of the Soviet-made missile tracking station,
located in Azerbaijan, that has been a chief irritant to Moscow-Baku ties
over the last decade.

Under the deal, the radar, based near the town of Gabala, will be operated
by 1,500 Russian servicemen over a 10-year lease period that will cost the
Kremlin $7 million per year.

At the same time, Moscow agreed to pay $31 million in overdue payments for
electricity supplies to the radar over the 1997-2001 span.

The agreement was reached after a number of previous attempts failed,
mostly due to major disagreements over the lease term, property rights and
participation of Azeri troops in the work of the radar.

Baku insisted on a short-term, three-year lease, claiming that the station
was the property of Azerbaijan and insisted that Russia should also allow
deployment of Azeri air defense troops to guard Gabala.

Moscow rejected property claims and sought a long-term lease up to 20 years.

Baku also urged the Kremlin to share intelligence information gathered at
Gabala, while local residents lodged separate protests alleging the radar's
work endangered ecological situation in the area. 

The new deal provides for Azeri troops at Gabala and will also ensure that
the data obtained by Russia's radar systems are shared with Baku.

The Gabala radar was built in 1985 to monitor ballistic missile launches of
the Soviet Union's southern neighbors with a maximum tracking range of
7,200 kilometers (4,464 miles).

During the U.S.-led "Desert Storm" operation in the Persian Gulf in 1991,
the radar at Gabala provided Moscow with valuable information from the region.

Another irritant in relations between Moscow and Baku -- the division of
the Caspian -- is also not far from being solved, Aliyev said Saturday.

The two countries, along with ex-Soviet Kazakhstan, see eye to eye on the
issue and have "practically agreed their positions on it," Azerbaijan's
leader said. 

Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan favor division of the oil-rich Caspian's
seabed into five sectors in proportion with the five Caspian countries'
respective shorelines.

This option doesn't suit the two remaining Caspian states, Iran and
Turkmenistan, who favor partition into five equal sectors as their
shorelines are considerably smaller.

Russia and Azerbaijan have both signed preliminary agreements on the issue
with Kazakhstan and are now expected to sign a bilateral deal confirming
their intentions.

Analysts hope that the problem can finally be resolved at a long-delayed
five-nation summit on the Caspian, scheduled to be held later this year.

Aliyev's talks Saturday with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov were
highlighted by the Azeri leader's pledge that Russia play a bigger role in
solving the territorial dispute over the Armenian-held enclave of Nagorno
Karabakh.

The enclave, located in Azerbaijan and taken over by the ethnic-Armenian
majority living there in the armed conflict in the early 1990s, has defied
Baku authorities and proclaimed self-styled independence.

More than 30,000 people were killed in the conflict and an additional 1
million Azeris driven out of the region.

Russia, fostering traditionally strong ties with Armenia, has remained
largely reserved during the conflict, prompting Baku to conclude it was
siding with the separatists.

Such attitude has apparently changed as both Putin and Ivanov assured
Aliyev that the Kremlin would seek the end to the conflict through
political means at a negotiating table, so that there would be "no winners
and no losers."

*******

#3
Uzbek vote, blasted by West, set to prop Karimov
By Dmitry Solovyov
  
TASHKENT, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Ex-Soviet Uzbekistan, newly allied to the United 
States, stages a referendum on Sunday on extending the president's term, a 
vote denounced in the West as a ploy to prolong President Islam Karimov's 
stay in office. 

Karimov, a 63-year-old former Communist party boss, has enthusiastically 
embraced the U.S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in next-door Afghanistan 
and allowed the deployment of at least 1,500 U.S. troops at Uzbekistan's 
Khanabad airbase. 

But although Karimov has hosted top U.S. officials, he has also come under 
fire for crackdowns on the opposition and sluggish economic reforms in his 
nation of 25 million. 

Voters will be handed ballot papers asking "yes" or "no" to approve a 
proposed extension of the president's five-year term to seven years, without 
mentioning Karimov by name. 

Those in favour need only drop the papers in a ballot box, while those 
opposed must mark their choice in an adjacent booth in the same manner as 
Soviet-era elections. Voters will also be offered food and the festive 
atmosphere of Soviet-style polls. 

Karimov's current second term, which constitutionally must be his last, 
expires in 2005. 

An official suggested on Friday that the constitution might be amended again 
after the vote to give Karimov a chance to run for a third term. 

With the opposition muzzled, the free press banned and thousands of political 
opponents in prison, many voters view the referendum as a routine act to 
extend Karimov's term. And many see Karimov as a source of stability. 

"I will definitely go and vote tomorrow for Karimov's seven years. In fact, I 
want Karimov to keep power for life," Umit, a 25-year-old construction 
worker, told Reuters in Brichmulla, a mountain community 100 km (60 miles) 
from Tashkent. 

"Who else is there around to be our president?" 

TELEVISION, POSTERS CALL FOR HIGH TURNOUT 

On the eve of the vote, a handful of posters dotted central Tashkent urging 
voters to cast ballots. 

State television showed various preparations, including footage of a woman 
entering an office "to familiarise herself with procedures." It also said 
monitors from 32 countries would attend the vote, including many ex-Soviet 
states. 

But the United States said it would not send observers as past polls had been 
"neither free nor fair." Human Rights Watch, a democracy and human rights 
group, described the vote as "a blatant grab for power." 

Karimov has avoided public comment on the referendum, called by a compliant 
legislature last month. A 1995 referendum, staged when Karimov was part-way 
through his first five-year term, extended his mandate to 2000. 

In January 2000, Karimov won his second term with over 92 percent support in 
a poll largely ignored by international observers who said there was no 
chance for a genuine contest. 

Few real alternatives have emerged to Karimov, in power for all but a short 
period since taking over the local communist party in 1989, two years before 
the collapse of Soviet rule. 

Karimov exhorts Uzbeks, who are mainly Muslims, to endure hardships in return 
for "stability" and "predictability." He says a tight rein is needed to fight 
"religious extremism." 

A second referendum question asks voters to change the present single-chamber 
parliament into a bicameral legislature. 

Voting begins at 6 a.m. (0100 GMT) and closes at 8 p.m. (1500 GMT). 
Preliminary results are expected early on Monday. 

*******

#4
Chechen leader to keep power as long as Russian troops remain
January 27, 2002
AFP 
 
Aslan Maskhadov, whose mandate expires on Sunday, will remain the president
of Chechnya as long as Russian troops are deployed in the breakaway
republic, his spokesman said.

Maskhadov was elected for a five-year term on January 27, 1997 in between
the two most recent wars the Kremlin has waged in Chechnya.

"If the armed forces of another state, in this case the Russian Federation,
are on Chechen territory, no presidential or parliamentary elections can be
held," the spokesman, Mayerbek Vachagayev, told Moscow Echo radio Saturday.

The Russian army swept into Chechnya in October 1999 on what Moscow called
an anti-terrorist campaign that followed a series of bombings in Russia in
which almost 300 people died.

The campaign played a large part in winning Vladimir Putin, who was prime
minister at the time, the Russian presidency.

The head of Russia's central electoral commission said Saturday that the
mandate of Maskhadov, whom Moscow now refuses to recognise, "expired long
ago, he ended it himself by his own acts."

However Sergei Yushenkov, a liberal member of Russia's lower house of
parliament said: "independently of the fact that the presidential mandate
of Aslan Maskhadov is expiring, he remains the legitimate president."

Yushenkov said on Moscow Echo radio that no election could be held in a
country at war.

In a statement sent to AFP in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia,
where thousands of Chechen civilians have taken refuge, several separatist
leaders called on the West to help find a solution to end the war.

"You who are developed countries, where freedom is an essential element of
the constitution, you should understand that Aslan Maskhadov is the only
person who can actually speak in the name of the Chechen people," they said.

Talks have been held between Russian officials and representatives of the
Chechen presidency, but the Kremlin has refused all contact with Maskhadov
himself.

The head of the UNHCR refugee agency Ruud Lubbers, during a visit to the
region, denied Maskhadov was a "terrorist", saying that he was a key figure
in resolving the Chechen conflict.

*******

#5
Newsday
January 26, 2002
Russia: War Damaging Al-Qaida, Chechen Ties
By Liam Pleven
RUSSIA CORRESPONDENT

Moscow - In the months since the United States launched its campaign in
Afghanistan, the Kremlin's chief spokesman on Chechnya said Friday he has
seen no signs of activity between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist
network and rebels in the breakaway republic.

"I don't have any confirmation at this moment that since the beginning of
the operation in Afghanistan there have been any new people - foreign
mercenaries - who have been captured, or any messengers [or] financial
agents who would be coming with money from somewhere," said the spokesman,
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

"Therefore, I can assume that a heavy blow has been delivered against those
connections that existed before," Yastrzhembsky added in an interview
Friday at his office near the Kremlin. "Whether or not it is final, one
needs time to answer that question."

Yastrzhembsky's comments came in the wake of Newsday's disclosure earlier
this week that a videotape found recently in a former al-Qaida house in
Kabul contained footage of bin Laden lecturing on how the prophet Muhammad
fought infidels and other footage of an Arab fighter named Khattab, a
shadowy figure believed to have been one of the key leaders of the current
Chechnya uprising, consulting with Chechen rebels and men who appeared to
be Arabs.

Newsday reported that the videotape appears to have been produced in 2000
for propaganda or to show potential donors how al-Qaida helps the Chechens,
though bin Laden did not actually mention Russia or Chechnya in his speech.

Though some analysts have questioned the depth of any links between
al-Qaida and Chechen rebels, Russian officials in the past have cited the
alleged ties as evidence that the battle they are fighting in Chechnya is
part of the same struggle against international terrorism that compelled
the United States to launch its campaign in Afghanistan in October.

But Yastrzhembsky's comments indicate the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan,
which Russia has supported politically, has had an impact. That is
potentially significant because Russia has bristled at Western criticism of
its conduct in Chechnya. And earlier this week, the Russian foreign
ministry released a statement that described a meeting in Washington on
Wednesday between a State Department official and Ilyas Akhmadov, a
representative of Chechen rebels, as "contradicting the spirit of
cooperation and partnership of both countries" in fighting terrorism.

Yastrzhembsky explained how the war in Afghanistan may have damaged
al-Qaida's ability to assist Chechen rebels.

"According to our estimations, our modest estimations, in al-Qaida camps in
Afghanistan, there have been 350 mercenaries trained for Chechnya. ... So
the mere destruction of these camps in Afghanistan, I think, is a direct
contribution to our fight against terrorism in the territory of Chechnya,"
he said. "I believe that now, both financial connections and sending off
mercenaries have become much more difficult."

Yastrzhembsky stopped short of saying that the connections had been
completely disrupted, saying only that he had not seen evidence that the
connections had been preserved since the campaign in Afghanistan began.

"But we don't think al-Qaida has limited its existence to only
Afghanistan," Yastrzhembsky said. "That's why I don't rule out that
al-Qaida branches might be located in other countries and, through these
branches - not Afghan ones - the support could be resumed." 

*******

#6
From: "Marcus Warren" <markusw@rinet.ru>
Subject: Tribute to Dmitry Pinsker
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 

I wanted to draw the attention of the JRL readership to the tragic death
last week of Dmitry Pinsker, political editor of the recently launched
Ezhenedelny Zhurnal.

To describe Dima as one of the most outstanding journalists of his
generation is to tell but half the story. I knew he was a relative youngster
but, like many, I was astonished to learn that he was a mere 30 years old
when he died. And yet in a career that lasted little more than a decade he
emerged as one of the most astute, well informed, best connected and
independent-minded journalists covering Russian politics. Full stop. Of any
generation. He was also a highly generous colleague, a wit and a joker. His
prose was recognised as having few equals for its style or facility.

His family, friends, colleagues and an impressive selection of big names
from the Kremlin, White House and the Duma paid their last respects to Dima
at the House of Actors on the Arbat on Friday. Among those who spoke were
Sergei Parkhomenko (his editor-in-chief for the last six years), Sergei
Buntman of Ekho Moskvy, Sergei Dorenko, Konstantin Eggert and Danila
Galperovich of the BBC's Russian Service, Alexander Zhukov and Sergei
Yushenkov from the Duma and Vladimir Mau. There were others too.

Below is a link to a fuller obituary (in Russian) on the Zhurnal website. It
includes bank details for those who would like to help Dima's widow and
three children.

http://www.ej.ru/002/tema/pinsker/index.html_Printed.html

May I also make a small suggestion? JRL readers involved in supporting the
Russian media might care to name new scholarships, prizes or grants in his
honour. Would there were no need to remember him this way!

Marcus Warren
Moscow Correspondent
Daily Telegraph

*******

#7
The Russia Journal
January 25-31, 2002
A man of intellect, integrity
By AJAY GOYAL 

Dmitry Pinsker, The Russia Journal’s political columnist, died Tuesday
night from an internal injury following an accident on Sunday. He was only
30. Dmitry was one of those men whose own intellect and integrity made the
subject he covered – Russian politics and politicians – seem trivial. 

Our gentle, kind friend was a celebrated journalist who became an
international authority on Russian politics. He was already well known in
Russia. It will be hard for us to fill the void he has left. Many of our
readers intuitively turn to Pinsker’s column, "On Politics" as the first
thing they read in The Russia Journal.

Pinsker did not have a political agenda. After he and his colleagues from
Itogi, others from Sevodnya and NTV and now TV6 were ousted from their
jobs, he never succumbed to bias due to the persistent anger many
journalists feel toward the establishment. His reporting was always objective.

Pinsker possessed a penetrating insight that could cut through the
superficial pretensions of civility in Russian politics. He did not need to
quote the Russian political elite to tell us what they were thinking – he
already knew. He had the true gift of knowing the real intentions and
machinations behind the smokescreens created by politicians and their
spin-doctors. His understanding and analysis of the intrigue and
machinations within the Kremlin, the State Duma and regional politics was
always on the mark. Few could explain so much in so few words and
articulate the complex world of Russian politics in such a simple and
straightforward style. We all respected this quality in him.

Until last year, Dmitry was the political correspondent for Itogi news
magazine. It was published by the media baron Vladimir Gusinksy, whose
anti-Kremlin politics led to the sacking of all the journalists that had
created the publication and the closure of his television station, NTV.
Pinsker was out of a job, but he never quit. The following months were
spent in patient preparation for a new magazine called Yezhenedelny
Zhournal (The Weekly Magazine). To pay the bills in the interim, he worked
at Echo of Moscow – where he had started his career in 1991 – and accepted
our longstanding offer to write a column for us.

In 1999, in an effort to publish in-depth political commentary and news
analysis for non-Russian speaking readers, we drew up a list of the top
journalists in Russia. Pinsker’s name was on the top, and he was the first
journalist we approached.

His first two articles got him into trouble with our young Western
editorial team at the time. In 1999, his coverage of Yevgeny Primakov’s
cabinet was harsh and unrelenting, upsetting some of our editors, who
stopped running his articles. 

However, in the summer of 2000, a new team of editors at The Russia Journal
brought Pinsker back. He quickly became one of our most popular columnists
in an impressive lineup. None of his analysis and commentary has ever been
challenged by anyone.

Only last week he was planning an article about the degeneration of
Russia’s right-wing politicians, the so-called "Yeltsin reformers" into an
irrelevant political organization that is nothing more than a lobbying
outfit with access to the Duma and the Kremlin. 

Dmitry Pinsker is survived by his wife, Olga, and three children, Ilya, 9,
Maria, 5 and Sofia, 3. 

(A memorial service for Mr. Pinsker will be held Friday at the Dom Aktyora
(House of Actors), 35 Arbat Ul., at 1 p.m.)
 
******* 

#8
The Russia Journal
January 18-24, 2002
Democracy falls victim to cartel
Russia’s parties are conspiring to put their interests over those of voters’ 
By DMITRY PINSKER

Russia’s right-wing political movement lost yet another government seat
last Sunday when Semyon Zubakin, governor of the Altai Republic, lost in
the second round of elections to Mikhail Lapshin, leader of the Agrarian
Party. The defeat was decisive – Zubakin received only 23.5 percent of the
votes compared to Lapshin’s 68 percent.

Perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that the right in Altai lost not
to Lapshin as the former left-wing National Patriotic Union activist, but
to Lapshin who took shelter under the wings of the "party of power" at just
the right moment. As a result, Lapshin received the support of United
Fatherland, while the Kremlin itself kept silent throughout. But the moment
the victory was in his hands, Lapshin hastened to make a reverential bow in
Moscow’s direction, saying, "I’d especially like to tell Vladimir
Vladimirovich [Putin] that the Altai Republic is an ideal place to develop
alpine skiing. It’s a wonderful place here."

Meanwhile, Zubakin, though seen as representing the right, didn’t get the
support of either Russia’s Choice or SPS. Add to this the fact that he had
the whole of the republic’s business elite and bureaucracy against him and
it’s no surprise that Zubakin suffered such a fiasco.

Zubakin only came to power in this conservative republic four years ago by
chance. He was elected on his promises to fight corruption, and the funny
thing is that he actually did try to fight it. And this is the result. But
the right’s reluctance to support a progressive and reform-minded regional
leader looks odd to say the least. The only logical explanation is that
once again the right is trying to avoid any conflict with the Kremlin
administration over what looks like a trivial matter. The days when parties
needed loyal governors in the regions to guarantee them support during
national elections are over. Today, these guarantors sit in the Kremlin.

A glance at statistics for all elections over the last year suggests that
theories of some analysts and Kremlin officials about a creeping "red
comeback" are correct. But of all the electoral winners, only Tula governor
Vasily Starodubtsev can be called a genuine "red." There are "brown"
national-patriot governors such as General Shamanov in Ulyanovsk and
Nikolai "Bat’ka" Kondratenko’s successor Alexander Tkachev in Krasnodar.
There are representatives of the ruling party, and there are chance people,
like Sergei Darkin in Primorye, who have ended up in their jobs as a result
of Kremlin spin doctors’ cunning and complex plans going awry. But to use
former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomydin’s term, most of them are of a
"worker’s hue" and demonstrate their loyalty to the Kremlin and to Putin
personally in deeds – not just words – rather than feeling devoted to any
party.

This would explain why the federal authorities have, to a large extent,
lost interest in local elections of late. But in the case of the right,
these explanations still lack meat. Their candidates haven’t won anywhere;
they’ve lost almost all "their" regions. The first of these wasn’t even the
Altai Republic, but Nizhny Novgorod, once seen as the stronghold of Russian
liberalism. Boris Nemtsov is a former governor of this region and it is
here that Sergei Kiriyenko, presidential representative in the Volga
federal district and co-chairman of SPS, has his headquarters.

A candidate’s political affiliation was never such a determining factor in
regional elections. Unlike in parliamentary elections, the vote for
governor or republic president was always motivated more by personal
principles than by ideology. People voted for a particular individual
rather than for a political platform. This explains why Shamanov,
associated by the public with the uncompromising fight against the "damned
Chechens," won in Ulyanovsk, and why victory in Nizhny Novgorod went to
former regional Communist boss Gennady Khodyrev, who symbolized in people’s
minds the tranquility of Brezhnev-era stagnation.

Recent elections have added a new detail to this picture. The outcome of
voting is decided long before election day either by the local elite alone
or with the participation of interested Kremlin groups. Whatever the case,
it isn’t decided by secret ballot at the polling stations. Such practice is
creating a system whereby election results can be predicted in advance
without the voters’ help at all. This is convenient for all the various
political elites.

But then, none of this should be surprising, especially after the December
elections to the Moscow city Duma. Just before these elections, the right
and the centrist parties displayed a complete disregard for voters’
opinions and put their own corporate interests before their basic
democratic principles. Political analysts call the kind of agreement
reached by SPS, Yabloko, Unity, Fatherland and the Moscow government a
"cartel of the elite." This kind of cartel is a direct road to the creation
of a corporate state and destruction of what democracy has so far managed
to bloom. There is no force in the country today ready to resist this
movement. The Moscow city Duma elections showed that the supporters of
liberal ideas are committed to democratic institutions only in words.
  
******

#9
Asia Times
January 25, 2002
Pipelineistan, Part 2: The games nations play 
By Pepe Escobar 

Two months ago, the White House was deliriously happy with the official
opening of the first new pipeline of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium - a
joint venture including Russia, Kazakhstan, Oman, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil
and a bunch of other minor players. 

This $2.65 billion pipeline links the enormous Tengiz oilfield in
northwestern Kazakhstan to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black
Sea: from there, the sky - ie the world market - is the limit. Bush II,
according to the White House, is developing "a network of multiple Caspian
pipelines that also include the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa, and
Baku-Novorossiyisk oil pipelines, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas
pipeline". So one of the key nodes in the American petrostrategy is
composed by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. 

The pipeline consortium for Baku-Ceyhan, led by British Petroleum, is
represented by the law firm Baker & Botts. The principal attorney is none
other than Texan superstar James Baker - secretary of state under Bush I
and chief spokesman for the Bush II 2000 campaign when all gloves were off
to shut down the Florida vote recount. 

Texas-based, scandal-prone Enron, together with Amoco, Chevron, Mobil,
UNOCAL and British Petroleum, were all spending billions of dollars to pump
the reserves of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Baker, Scowcroft,
Sununu and Cheney have all closed major deals directly and indirectly on
behalf of the oil companies. But now the Enron scandal has just exploded
right in the face of the oil industry - and Bush II's administration. It
will be very enlightening to see what the American tradition of
investigative journalism will make of all this. 

Enron once had a market value of $70 billion. It filed for bankruptcy in
December 2001 after admitting it ovestated its profits by almost $600
million. Paul Krugman wrote that "Enron helped Dick Cheney devise an energy
plan that certainly looks as if it was written by and for the companies
that advised his task force". The Enron big-time crooks - close pals of
Cheney and Bush II - dwarf any Asian "crony capitalists" Americans were
carping about before and after the Asian financial crisis. 

There's no shortage of crooks in the oil industry. Turkmenistan and
Azerbaijan have intimate relations with Israeli military intelligence. A
so-called "former" Israeli intelligence agent, Yousef Maiman, president of
the Mehrav Group of Israel, is nothing less than "Special Ambassador",
official negotiatior and even policymaker responsible for developing the
enormous energy resources of Turkmenistan. 

Maiman is a citizen of the gas republic by presidential decree - signed by
the Turkmenbashi himself, the fabulously megalomaniac Saparmurad Niazov,
former member of the Soviet Politburo. Maiman, according to the Wall Street
Journal, is actively involved in advancing the "geopolitical goals of both
the US and Israel" in Central Asia. He certainly does not beat around the
bush: "Controlling the transport route is controlling the product." Nobody
knows where Mehrav's money comes from. 

Mehrav's planned pipelines bypass both Iran and Russia. But after the
conquest of Afghanistan, oil sources in Singapore say Mehrav may consider
dealing with Iran. It's all to do with the importance of the Turkish
market. Russia and Turkmenistan are fiercely competing to conquer the
Turkish gas market. Considering the strategic relationship between Turkey
and Israel, the Israeli game remains preventing Turkish strategic
dependence on Iran. Turkey is a NATO member and a key US ally. The US and
Britain routinely strike against Iraq from Turkish bases - from which they
patrol the unillateraly-declared Iraqi "no-fly zones". These "no-fly zones"
are obviously not sanctioned by the UN. 

Mehrav is also involved in a murderous project to reduce the flow of water
to Iraq by diverting water from the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers to
southeastern Turkey. And Magal Security Systems, an Israeli company, is
also involved with Turkey: it will provide security for the 2,000 km-long
oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean port of
Ceyhan. 

Crook-infested Enron - the biggest donor to the Bush campaign of 2000 - was
ubiquitious: it conducted the feasibility study for the $2.5 billion
trans-Caspian pipeline being built under a joint venture signed almost
three years ago between Turkmenistan and Bechtel and General Electric. The
go-between in the deal was none other than the Mehrav Group. Chairman
Maiman spent a fortune hiring the Washington lobbying firm Cassidy and
Associates to seduce official Washington with the trans-Caspian pipeline
project. 

The intrincate relationship between Israel, Turkey and the US means that as
much as the trans-Caspian pipeline, the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is also
absolutely crucial. It could be extended to bring oil directly to thirsty
Israel. During the Clinton years, oil giants were under tremendous pressure
to build East-West pipelines. But all of them preferred to build
North-South pipelines - much cheaper, but with the inconvenience of
crossing Iran, an absolute anathema for Washington. 

Russia already has a contract with Turkmenistan to purchase 30 billion
cubic meters of gas a year. This represents a big blow to the US field of
dreams, the trans-Caspian gas pipeline. This also means that Russia will
never let go of its sphere of influence without a tremendous fight. The
Central Asian republics are on its borders, Russia has dominated them for
centuries and they are home to millions of Russians. Russian is still the
language they all use to do business with each other. 

Thanks to master political chess player Vladimir Putin, Russia is now on
the cosiest terms possible with Washington - and US-Iran antipathy is
apparently receding. Russia may eventually become a partner in at least
some of Washington's petrostrategy games in Central Asia - like the Caspian
Pipeline Consortium. The regional map also reveals that Iran, besides
holding important gas reserves, offers the best direct access from the
Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, where oil and gas can be quickly exported
to Asian markets. 

Iran assumes, not entirely without reason, that it is the rightful guardian
of Central Asia because of centuries of ethnic, historical, linguistic and
religious ties. And Iran is very conscious that American military links and
now physical presence in Central Asia are part of a strategy to encircle
it. But even amid so many geopolitical and ideological pitfalls, the fact
remains that as long as the US is militarily involved in Afghanistan, there
will be some sort of US-Iranian diplomatic engagement. 

Under the control of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC),
pipelines from Central Asia will also reach China's Xinjiang. Oil sources
in Singapore stress that this will certainly spell a slump for the sea
routes across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Washington is more than
aware through its think tanks of the consequences: an extremely likely
strategic realignment between China, Japan and Korea. 

The Chinese have their sights on only one terrifying prospect: the
encirclement of China by the US. UNOCAL is dreaming about profits.
Washington is thinking about the robust Chinese economy. Whatever "war
against terror" distractions, China remains the key strategic competitor to
the US in the 21st century. With Afghanistan in the bag, UNOCAL dreams of
monster profits in the Asian market - much higher than in Europe - while
Washington closely monitors the Chinese economy: growth of 8 percent in
2000, 7 percent in 2001, and needing all the oil and gas it can get.
Chinese strategists are working around the clock to develop local forms of
energy production. 

What happens next will be closely linked to the deliberations of the
Shanghai Five, now Shanghai Six, or more burocratically, the Shangahi
Cooperation Organization (SCO): China and Russia, plus four Central Asian
republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Takijistan and Uzbekistan). Manouvering
with extreme care, China is using the SCO to align Russia economically and
politically towards China and northeast Asia. At the same time, Russia is
using the SCO to maintain its traditional hegemony in Central Asia. The
name of the game for solidifying the alliance is Russian export of its
enormous reserves of oil and gas. 

Since the NATO war against Yugoslavia and the de facto occupation of Kosovo
- where America built its largest military base since the Vietnam War -
China and Russia have their minds set on Chechnya and Muslim Xinjiang. For
the moment, at least, America has absolutely no way of interfering in these
domestic problems, since China and especially Russia are endorsing the war
against terrorism. 

The Taliban were never a target in the "war against terrorism". They were
just a scapegoat - rather, a horde of medieval warrior scapegoats who
simply did not fulfill their contract: to insert Aghanistan into
Pipelineistan. All the regional players now know America is in Central Asia
to stay, as Washington itself has been stridently repeating these last few
weeks, and it will be influencing or disturbing the economy and geopolitics
of the region. The wider world is absolutely oblivious to these real stakes
in the New Great Game. 

The US at the time of the Gulf War did not show any interest in replacing
"Satan" Hussein. That would seriously compromise the American design to
establish bases on the Arabian peninsula on the convenient pretext of
helping poor Arab sheikhs against the Iraqi Evil Monster. 

More than a decade later, Satan Hussein is still there, Bush I is now Bush
II, and assorted Pentagon hawks are still fuming, trying to fabricate any
excuse to blow Saddam back to Mesopotamian ashes. But Saddam will not be
attacked, because Saddam is the ultimate reason for American military bases
in the Gulf - a splendid affair because on top of it all it is a free ride,
the expenses being paid by the ultra-flush sheikdoms. Now, after the (also
unfinished) New Afghan War, American forces are already establishing
themselves in Central and South Asia to once again "protect the interests
of the free world". 

It is never enough to remember that after the end of the communist regime
in Afghanistan, the American strategy was to deliberately let Islamic
extremism go wild - a perfect way to scare the unstable regimes in the
Central Asian neo-republics. Islamic fundamentalism has always been a key
card in the American strategic design since the Cold War days when the CIA
subcontracted to the Pakistani ISI the arm-them-to-their-teeth policy
regarding the mujahideen. It is always easy to forget that the
good-guys-turned-bad-guys were once were hailed by Ronnie Reagan himself at
the Oval Office as "the moral equivalent of the founding fathers". 

America has been trying hard to "get" Afghanistan - the heart of Asia in
Antiquity, the Pipelineistan crossroads of Asia nowadays - for more than 20
years. In the process, the mujahideen transformed Afghanistan, with CIA
blessing, into the world's leading producer of heroin, opening the crucial
and ultra-profitable drug pipeline Afghanistan-Turkey-Balkans-Western
Europe. More than a martini, oil-arms-drugs is the classic CIA cocktail.
This "Drugistan" road has just been spetacularly reopened after the fall of
the Taliban. 

Pipelineistan is not an end in itself. Oil and gas by themselves are not
the US's ultimate aim. It's all about control. In Monopoly, Belgian writer
Michel Collon wrote: "If you want to rule the world, you need to control
oil. All the oil. Anywhere." If the US controls the sources of energy of
its rivals - Europe, Japan, China and other nations aspiring to be more
independent - they win. This explains why pipelines from the Caucasus to
the West have to be America-friendly - ie Turkish or Macedonian - and not
"unreliable", meaning Russian-controled. Washington, always, has to control
everything: that's what Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger always said. The
same goes for the military bases in Saudi Arabia, and now in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. 

There's no business like war business. Thanks to war against Iraq, the US
has its military bases in the Persian Gulf. Thanks to war against
Yugoslavia, the US has its military bases in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Thanks to war against the Taliban, the US is now in Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Not to mention the base in Incirlik,
Turkey. The US is also in the Caucasus - in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Iran,
China and Russia are practically encircled. There's no business like show
business. Raise the curtains. Enter Pipelineistan. (Applause).  

******

#10
Wall Street Journal
January 25, 2002
Russians Are Everywhere On Performing-Arts Scene
By ROBERT J. HUGHES 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Russians are not only coming, this winter, they're everywhere on the
performing-arts scene. It's a matter of timing: Many more Russian musicians
have recently begun to make a mark in the U.S., leading to an increase in
the demand for Russian music and art.

From a five-year survey of the works of Shostakovich in Los Angeles to a
staging of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" in Portland, Ore., and even a
Russian-American children's circus in New Hampshire, here's a look at all
things Russian.

The Seagull
Through Feb. 3
Portland Center Stage
Portland Center for the Performing Arts
Newmark Theatre
1111 South West Broadway
Portland, Ore.
503-274-6588
www.pcs.org

Anton Chekhov was a doctor who turned his observation of the human
experience into masterful short stories and enduring stage works. A new
production of "The Seagull" made headlines last summer, when New York's
Shakespeare Festival staged it with Meryl Streep. This version uses the
same Tom Stoppard translation. The story follows self-involved actors and
hangers-on at a summer theater who entangle in a round robin of thwarted
love and ambition. Tickets are $23 to $44 most evenings and matinee
performances, and $18 for Thursday noon performances.

War and Peace
Feb. 14-March 19
Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera House
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York City
212-362-6000
www.metopera.org

The sweep and length of Tolstoy's novel of the Napoleonic wars has not
deterred filmmakers, choreographers and composers from adapting it for
stage and screen. Now, the Metropolitan Opera has a new production of
Prokofiev's "War and Peace" to tempt Tolstoyites. Prokofiev, who finished
the opera during World War II, was fascinated by the parallels between
1812, when Russia crushed Napoleon's invasion, and the similar situation
with Germany during his time. Russian-born conductor Valery Gergiev leads
the orchestra. Tickets are $50 to $275. Performances are at 7:30 p.m.

Eugene Onegin
Friday night, Jan. 27 and 30; Feb. 2, 5 and 8
Houston Grand Opera
Wortham Center
Brown Theatre
510 Preston St.
Houston
713-227-2787
www.houstongrandopera.org

Tchaikovsky's operas are emotional and highly dramatic. In recent years,
their standing has risen, due partly to electronic subtitles, which help
audiences understand the melodramatic plots. This opera, derived from a
story by Alexander Pushkin, tells of young Tatyana, who is rebuffed by
Eugene Onegin after pouring her heart out to him. The bored Onegin then
flirts with Tatyana's sister and duels with her fiancé. The cad gets his
comeuppance -- Tatyana marries someone else, and Onegin can never have her.
Tickets are $18 to $225. Evening performances will be held at 7:30 p.m.

Russian American Kids Circus
Jan. 25
Lebanon Opera House
51 N. Park St.
Lebanon, N.H.
603-448-0400
www.lebanonoperahouse.org
www.rakidscircus.org

Moscow Circus on the Hudson. This circus act is made up of Russian-American
boys and girls ages six to 16 who tackle gravity-defying acrobatics. Based
in Brooklyn (home to a huge Russian immigrant community), the group was
founded by a former member of the Moscow Circus. It presents a circus-type
show in a theater setting, incorporating elements such as flying
acrobatics, unicycling and juggling. Performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Seats
are $15 for adults; $9 for children. The troupe will be appearing in New
Jersey next month. In April, it begins a tour of other cities, including
Athens, Ga., and Springfield, Mo.

Russian Dreams
Feb. 7-9
Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall
3711 Woodward
Detroit
313-576-5111
www.detroitsymphony.com

This program features a work by Alexander Borodin, a 19th-century musician
who was also a scientist and wrote music to relax himself after a hard day
at the lab. On the program is his "Overture to Prince Igor," from his
operatic masterpiece (which was completed by Rimsky-Korsakov after his
death). Also on the bill is Shostakovich's setting of sonnets by the artist
Michelangelo, and Stravinsky's ballet "Petrushka." Performances are at 8
p.m. on Feb. 7 and 8, and at 8:30 on Feb. 9. Tickets are $20 to $75.

The Russian Connection: Fechin, Bongart and Gaspard
Through Feb. 17
Frye Art Museum
704 Terry Ave. and Cherry St.
Seattle
206-622-9250
www.fryeart.org

This show from the Frye's permanent collection offers works of three
20th-century émigré Russian artists who settled in the U.S. Their styles
are similar to fauvists and German expressionists, but less anguished than
the latter. Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955) painted peasants in his native
Russia, then the peoples in and around Taos, N.M. His student Sergei
Bongart (1918-1985), a native of Kiev, finally found a home in Seattle. He
had a more abstract style than Fechin. Leon Gaspard (1882-1964), who
painted the landscape and people of New Mexico, also continued to paint
images of his Russian homeland. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to
Saturday, open until 8 p.m. Thursday, noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is
free.

Boris Godunov
March 13, 16, 19, 22 and 24
Florida Grand Opera
Miami-Dade County Auditorium
2901 West Flagler St.
Miami
305-547-5414
www.fgo.org

The 19th-century Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's greatest achievement
was the opera "Boris Godunov," from 1874. It's a pageant of Russian court
and peasant life. The opera is noted for its choral writing -- the voices
of the Russian peasants resounding against Boris, the guilty usurper of the
throne. What listeners like -- and subsequent composers have mimicked --
was Mussorgsky's ability to make singing sound as natural as speaking. This
production will be performed March 13, 16, 19, and 22 at 8 p.m. and 24 at 2
p.m. Tickets range from $19 to $135.

Russian Romantics
Feb. 16
North State Symphony
California State University Chico
Laxson Auditorium
2nd and Normal streets
Chico, Calif.
530-898-6333
www.csuchico.edu

This is a program of Russian composers, which features a Russian pianist.
Moscow Conservatory-trained Alexander Tutunov performs Tchaikovsky's Piano
Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor. Also on the program is Mussorgsky's
"Pictures at an Exhibition," originally several short piano pieces that
French composer Ravel later strung together and orchestrated. In the 1970s,
the synthesizer-power-guitar group Emerson, Lake and Palmer introduced
their version to college kids. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $18
for adults, $15 for seniors, and $10 for students.

The Worcester Chorus: Choral Masterworks of Rachmaninoff
March 23
Music Worcester
St. Spyridon Church
102 Russell St.
Worcester, Mass.
508-754-3231

This concert includes Rachmaninoff's version of the Russian Orthodox divine
liturgy. His choral music is like Tchaikovsky's -- melodic and dramatic.
And he thought bigger was better -- he called for a lot of singers. This
concert showcases the 120-member Worcester Chorus. Performance begins at 8
p.m., and tickets are $20.

All-Russian Program
Friday night, Saturday, Sunday
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
135 N. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles
323-850-2000
www.laphil.com

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has begun a five-year cycle devoted to the
works of 20th-century composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who wrote numerous
symphonies, chamber and other works, often under pressure from the Soviet
government. Featured is his Symphony No. 2, "To October," and Symphony No.
3, "The First of May." Over the next five years, the orchestra will perform
the composer's complete symphonies and string quartets culminating in 2006,
the centennial of his birth. The concerts are at 8 p.m. Jan. 25 and 26 and
2:30 p.m. Jan. 27. Tickets are $12 to $78; some $10 rush tickets for
seniors and students may be available two hours before the performance.

Semyon Bychkov, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne
Feb. 24
George Mason University Center for the Arts Concert Hall
Mason Drive
Fairfax, Va.
703-993-8888
www.gmu.edu

Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov is leading Cologne, Germany's WDR Symphony
Orchestra on its first U.S. tour, in a program featuring works by fellow
Russian Shostakovich and the works of other composers born in the 20th
century. On the program is Shostakovich's monumental 11th symphony, which
evokes the Russian Revolution and the ravages of Soviet regimes, using
tunes of songs that political exiles sang. The orchestra also will be
appearing in various cities in California, New York and elsewhere. Tickets
here are $50, $42 and $25. Program is at 7:30 p.m.

Rachmaninoff's Beloved Second Concerto
Jan. 31
Mahaffey Theater
Bayfront Center
400 First St. South
St. Petersburg, Fla.
813-287-8844
www.stpete.org/mahaffey.htm
www.floridaorchestra.org

If you saw the movie "Shine," you have heard piano music by Rachmaninoff.
Up-and-coming pianist Lang Lang will be performing Rachmaninoff's second
concerto ("Shine" featured his third) -- a real test of a pianist's
endurance and technique -- in a series of concerts. It's a stirring
show-off piece. Mr. Lang appears with the Florida Orchestra on Jan. 31 in
St. Petersburg, and also at Tampa's Performing Arts Hall on Feb. 1 and Ruth
Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Fla., Feb. 4. St. Petersburg concert is at 8
p.m.; tickets are $20 to $38.

*******

#11
strana.ru
January 25, 2002
“The Department” Makes Fields Less Foreign
Helping hands for a community reborn
By Michael Stedman

Moscow's community of expatriates - in days past an enigmatic bunch
numbered in the hundreds - now rates in the thousands, even given the mass
executive exodus to manicured lawns back home after the 1998 money
melt-down in Russia.

Faint hearts among the gray-suited took to the skies nearly four years ago
when the crisis crashed an environment built on what was then judged fools'
gold. But now, new testimony emerges of Russia's economic rebound, and the
return of international confidence in the country's potential.

It's to be seen on the streets and the offices of the capital - in human
guise. And it's been measured in very personal terms in a new survey of the
diplomats, journalists and corporate folk assigned to represent foreign
organizations in Russia.

The review has been conducted by Russia's Main Department of the Diplomatic
Corps Service, tasked to provide support and facilities to foreign personnel.

Vivid imaginations would jump at associating "The Department" with shadowy
organizations, which, in less open times, were the stuff of which many a
Cold War spy thriller were written.

But today, its officials have a far more catholic clientele to deal with
than, "honest men sent abroad to lie for their country" - as diplomats have
long been dubbed - or dodgy dealers eyeing dead-letter drops for those
running the spies.

The survey indicates that growing numbers of far more ordinary expatriate
workers coming to Moscow are making increasing demands on Russian officials
tasked to help them in new foreign fields with housing, medical treatment,
transport and recreational facilities. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan
Sergeyev, head of the agency helping the foreigners, has just revealed
results of this year's survey. He told a press briefing reported by Russian
media that the embassies of 138 countries were now represented in the
Russian capital.

Twenty-three "international organizations" were operating, more than 1,000
offices of foreign firms were doing business, and journalists and back-up
personnel were working at the bureaux of more than 200 foreign news
organizations, the minister was reported as saying. These employed more
than 6,000 specialist staff from 35 professions within a community of
people numbering more than 15,000 and living in 7,500 apartments, the
survey found.

******

#12
New York Times
January 25, 2002
Police in Chechnya Accuse Russia's Troops of Murder
By PATRICK E. TYLER

GROZNY, Russia, Jan. 22 -- Nearly two years after major hostilities ended
here 
in Chechnya, the devastated republic in the Caucasus, Russian troops are 
killing civilians in a campaign of executions and looting that takes place 
alongside military operations aimed at destroying rebel forces, according to 
Chechen police officials.

Chechen police authorities working under the republic's pro- Russian 
government said in interviews over the past week that Russian Interior 
Ministry units, known by their acronym, Obron, have been scouting 
neighborhoods during mine-sweeping operations for residents who appear to 
have money or property worth stealing. 

At night, the soldiers return in armored personnel carriers, some with 
identifying markings, and burst into the houses, stealing household goods and 
killing witnesses, Chechen police investigators say.

In the central Leninsky district of Grozny, skeletal shards of buildings 
teeter above a landscape of debris that evokes scenes from European cities 
destroyed in World War II. The rubble now lies sealed under a winter blanket 
of snow as thousands of Chechen families eke out an isolated existence in 
bomb-damaged homes.

In Leninsky, the largest of Grozny's four districts, Chechen investigators 
have documented 17 cases in the last 12 months implicating Interior Ministry 
troops in killing civilians during looting. One of the most notorious of the 
units is known as Obron-22, the Chechens say. 

But in each case, military and civilian prosecutors have refused to bring 
criminal cases, the police said. Instead, the prosecutors set aside files as 
inactive or return them with demands to provide the names of soldiers 
involved.

"These units burst into people's houses on the pretext of `mopping up' 
operations and commit murders," said Alvi Magomed-Mirzoyev, a police 
lieutenant colonel who returned to Grozny from Moscow a year ago to lead a 
criminal investigation department in Leninsky.

In Moscow, the Interior Ministry, the Defense Ministry and prosecutors were 
asked to comment on these allegations, but declined. 

Chechen police authorities are drawing up a republic-wide list of unsolved 
killings of civilians in which federal forces have been implicated by 
witnesses, but which prosecutors have refused to pursue. One senior member of 
the Chechen administration in Grozny, taking a significant risk, provided 
documents on 163 such cases compiled under the heading, "Some cases of 
detention by representatives of the federal forces of civilians who 
subsequently disappeared or were found dead."

"These are the conditions we are living under," he said as he handed over the 
document and disappeared into a police headquarters building where Chechen 
recruits are certified and inducted into the new force.

A typical case in the file is that of Magomed H. Vakhidov, 57, once mayor of 
Urus-Martan, just south of Grozny. He fled Chechnya when the second war with 
Russia broke out in September 1999; a year later he sought and received an 
amnesty to return home.

But at 3 a.m. on July 20, 2001, a squad of Russian soldiers fired smoke 
grenades into his home and then burst in and arrested him, according to the 
documents. Russian military authorities denied taking him into custody. On 
July 31, his body was found in the gardens of a state farm, badly mutilated 
from torture, electric shock, knife wounds and burns from a blow torch.

Russian officials routinely attribute such killings to "rebels." But, as one 
Chechen police official noted, "the rebels do not travel in armored personnel 
carriers." 

A number of unsolved cases relate to Chechen rebels who took advantage of 
amnesties issued by Moscow and by Russian military commanders. 

In March 2000, after Russian forces had driven rebel forces from Grozny, 
Roman S. Bersanukayev, 19, turned himself in to the commander of Russia's 
245th Motorized Rifle Regiment near Martan-Chu, near Urus-Martan. 

When his relatives asked the local office of the Federal Security Service 
about his status, they were given a document showing that no criminal 
proceedings would be lodged against him. They also received an amnesty 
certificate signed by the Russian military commandant for the district, Y. A. 
Naumov. But Mr. Bersanukayev then disappeared from federal custody and is 
feared dead.

"I am an officer and I took an oath to Russia to uphold the law," said 
Colonel Magomed-Mirzoyev, the policeman, "but I am sick and tired of being 
afraid and I hate the lawlessness that is going on here, and I want to do 
everything I can to bring it to an end."

On a visit to Paris this month, President Vladimir V. Putin asserted that 
Russian troops committing acts of violence against Chechen civilians were 
being held accountable and that judicial and law enforcement organs were 
functioning normally. "About 20 servicemen have already been brought to 
justice," he said.

By lending strong support to President Bush's war against terrorism, Mr. 
Putin has successfully blunted Western criticism of Russian conduct in 
Chechnya. Several governments have suggested that Russia had more 
justification for its actions than had been acknowledged.

But the situation on the ground has continued to fester. 

Chechnya's top prosecutor, Vsevolod Chernov, said this week that 212 criminal 
cases based on reports of missing people had been opened in the last year. 
"In some cases, the disappearance of people can be connected to special 
operations conducted by federal units," he said, but "sufficient legally 
substantiated evidence" was necessary to bring the cases to court. 

Local police officials tell a different story. They say criminal cases sent 
to Mr. Chernov are technically open but are frozen by the inability of 
criminal investigators to interview Russian soldiers who may be witnesses or 
suspects involved in crimes against civilians. 

The police investigators say that they have tried to gain access to Russian 
military units, but that they are afraid to approach Russian military 
prosecutors, who must approve any contact with federal soldiers.

The military prosecutors are housed at Russia's main military base, at 
Khankala, on the southeast edge of Grozny. The base is known to Chechens as a 
place where detainees are taken and sometimes never return. 

"If the shelling of a civilian neighborhood involved federal servicemen, I 
wouldn't be able to send my investigator because he might not come back," 
Colonel Magomed-Mirzoyev said.

Earlier this month, a senior official of the new Chechen administration, 
Ruslan Yunusov, deputy minister of the Chechen Emergencies Ministry and a 
veteran of the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan, was shot dead by 
federal troops in front of the Russian military police headquarters here when 
he tried to arrest Russian soldiers in an armored personnel carrier. The 
soldiers were suspected of wounding one of Mr. Yunusov's officers on Dec. 29.

Several high-profile cases against federal troops have been brought to court 
in the past year, like the murder trial of Col. Yuri Budanov, accused of the 
rape and murder of an 18-year-old Chechen woman in March 2000. The trial 
began nearly a year ago and has suffered numerous delays over demands for 
psychiatric evaluations by military officials to determine whether Colonel 
Budanov was temporarily insane when he strangled the woman in a fit of rage 
over the deaths of his comrades at the hands of rebels. 

Chechen officials also point out that there appear to be no active 
investigations of reports of civilian massacres during the intense Russian 
military campaign that was begun in Chechnya by Mr. Putin after he became 
prime minister in 1999. That campaign followed incursions by armed men — 
Russia called them Islamic extremists — and terrorist attacks that left
more 
than 300 dead in Moscow and other Russian cities. 

A martial-style curfew is enforced so strictly here that ambulance service is 
halted at night, when lethal mayhem takes over. Russian forces hide in their 
fortified checkpoints as rebels creep into the city to shoot at them or to 
lay mines to blow up military convoys the next day. 

In addition to reported abuses by Interior Ministry forces, regular Russian 
Army troops continue to inflict punitive raids on Chechen towns and villages, 
as they did earlier this month in Tsotsin-Yurt, just southeast of Grozny, 
after two suspected rebels fleeing federal forces took refuge in a house 
there on Dec. 30. The rebels were killed, and a large column of Russian 
armored forces surrounded the town. 

Town residents said that over the next several days, soldiers seized young 
and middle-aged men from their homes and looted a number of houses, all in 
violation of military pledges made last year calling for Chechen authorities 
to be present to observe such "mopping up" operations.

Seven civilians died during the initial gun battle, town officials said, two 
of them after they were used as human shields by soldiers attacking the house 
where the suspected rebels holed up. 

One of the men used as a shield was Idris Zakiyev, a 42-year-old tractor 
driver with four daughters. The other was Musa Ismailov, 43, an elder of the 
mosque who performed a traditional dance at Chechen funerals; he had five 
children. 

"They were shot at short distance and their bodies showed signs of 
mutilation," said Ilyas Zakiyev, a brother of Idris. 

Even now, weeks later, Russian units have blocked all roads into Tsotsin-Yurt 
and more than 15,000 residents are being held virtually as prisoners, forced 
to pay a bribe — amounting to a day's wages in many cases — to enter or 
leave. Entering Tsotsin-Yurt on Monday, this reporter saw Russian soldiers 
collecting these tolls from Chechen drivers passing the checkpoints. 

Turko Aliev, 51, the chairman of the town elders' council, was among the 
first to meet with the Russian commander who ordered the assault on the town. 
The commander threatened to open an artillery attack in 30 minutes unless the 
elders sent the mayor out to meet him and to identify the seven corpses laid 
out before Russian news reporters as "rebels."

"I told him that was impossible because the mayor was in Grozny, but he 
replied, `You now have 28 minutes,' " said Ilyas Zakiyev, who accompanied the 
elders. 

At that moment, Mr. Aliev stepped forward as chairman of the council and 
identified the bodies of Idris Zakiyev and Mr. Ismailov, the mosque elder.

The town officials were allowed to take the two bodies away in a car, which 
Mr. Aliev said he drove through a gantlet of checkpoints where one Russian 
soldier stopped him and threatened to kill him.

"Where can we complain?" asked Mr. Aliev, as he stood in a makeshift morgue 
at the town mosque to make the final grim accounting from the raid on the 
village: three bundles of tattered clothing that belonged to unidentified men 
blown up in a field on the edge of town. 

*******

#13
Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT
From: ZvanersM@rferl.org
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 

The National Endowment for Democracy
AND
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya
invite you to a briefing on
THE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE IN CHECHNYA
with
Ilyas Ahkmadov, Foreign Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Andrei Babitsky, Russian war correspondent for RFE/RL
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former National Security Advisor, Counselor at the
Center for Strategic 
and International Studies
Wednesday, January 30 at 2pm 2168 Rayburn Building
(Refreshments will be served)

In 1999, Mr. Ahkmadov was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Chechen 
President Aslan Maskhadov.  In 1997, President Maskhadov was elected in 
internationally monitored elections by the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe. 

Andrei Babitsky was kidnapped by the Russian secret services while 
reporting on the Chechen conflict.  For his reporting from Chechnya, 
Babitsky received the 2000 prize for journalism and democracy from the 
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.  Mr. Babitsky 
recently returned from three months of reporting in Afghanistan.

Dr. Brzezinski was National Security Advisor to President Carter from 1977 
to 1981.  He serves as co-chairman of The American Committee for Peace in 
Chechnya.

Please RSVP to rsvp@ned.org by Tuesday, January 29.

* Please call Jodi Herman at NED at (202) 293-9072 with any questions 
about the event.  Media should contact Matt Brady at ACPC at (202) 
296-5101, ext. 134.

******