Johnson's Russia List
#6130
13 March 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Mikhail Gorbachev: Communism was `pure propaganda'
2. Interfax: Poll: 39% of Russians back continuation of economic reforms.
3. AP: Liberal party shows film alleging Russian security services'
involvement
in 1999 bombings.
4. BBC: Alexander Koliandre, Opec: Playing Russia's oil game.
5. Reuters: Russia, Belarus move to merge their economies.
6. Financial Times (UK): Robert Cottrell, SIBERIA: Tapping wealth from a
tamed
wilderness: The struggle for control of the region's assets is over. Now
the next
phase of transition to a market economy has begun.
7. Financial Times (UK): Robert Cottrell, SIBERIA: Fuelled by the
frontier spirit:
KRASNOYARSK. Politicians shoot from the hip as they jostle for power and
position
in a region of 3m people that was once located on the extreme outer fringes
of Russia.
8. Reuters: German papers report systematic abuses in Chechnya.
9. Newsday: Anne Nivat, At Risk Beyond Bullets.
10. Albert Weeks: Tales of Kamkin's.
11. The American Reporter: Lucy Komisar, MONEY LAUNDERER GETS OFF EASY IN
SWISS
COURT. (re Borodin)
12. The Chronicle of Higher Education: Bryon Macwilliams, In Russia, a
Small Islamic
University Is a Large Political Thorn. Attending a religious institution is
a political
act in the Tatarstan republic.]
*******
#1
Mikhail Gorbachev: Communism was `pure propaganda'
By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer
March 11, 2002
NEW YORK -- Mikhail Gorbachev says the Soviet communism he served most of his
life was "pure propaganda."
The former Soviet leader told a Columbia University audience on Monday that
by the time he rose to power, with Soviet satellites in space, the ruling
politicians "were discussing the problem of toothpaste, the problem of
detergent, and they had to create a commission of the Politburo to make sure
that women have pantyhose."
Speaking in Russian, Gorbachev offered his views a decade after he helped
topple this "unreal system" with reforms dubbed perestroika.
Before that, he said, Soviet politicians operated with lies.
"We, including I, were saying, 'Capitalism is moving toward a catastrophe,
whereas we are developing well.' Of course, that was pure propaganda. In
fact, our country was lagging behind," Gorbachev said.
Change didn't come easily, either.
Gorbachev said perestroika spun out of control after Boris Yeltsin took over
in 1991. Instead of a gradual shift to democracy, Yeltsin promised Russians
that they "would start moving toward paradise quickly, directly," Gorbachev
said.
"Well, we did move directly _ but into an abyss," with the economy collapsing
and many former Soviet republics declaring independence, he said. "It is
chaos that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin inherited. Chaos in the
economy, chaos in the social sphere, chaos in the federation, chaos in the
army, chaos everywhere."
Now, Gorbachev said, Putin must create new economic incentives.
"Today is our last hope. If it fails, we could see a very difficult situation
in Russia," Gorbachev said.
The former Soviet leader said his Moscow-based Gorbachev Foundation is making
a contribution by developing ties between Russian and foreign high-tech
companies. He said such business would help slow his country's "brain drain."
Gorbachev's speech, titled "Russia: Today and the Future," was part of the
annual W. Averell Harriman Lecture sponsored by the Manhattan university's
Harriman Institute. The academic center is devoted to the study of the
Russian empire, the Soviet Union and the post-communist states.
In the rotunda of the Low Library, Gorbachev began his speech by outlining
his country's history, starting with the 1917 revolution that introduced
communism as an ideal he himself espoused as a youth.
Still, he said he feels "hopeful."
"Putin has achieved a great deal," he said.
And he said the new Russia has made progress by strongly supporting the
United States twice in recent years _ after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
and during the Gulf War.
Earlier Monday, Gorbachev laid a wreath at the World Trade Center site to
mark six months since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"We will always remember the victims, and we will always be together," he
wrote in Russian on a platform overlooking ground zero.
*******
#2
Poll: 39% of Russians back continuation of economic reforms
MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) - While 39% of Russians support further economic
reforms, 22% oppose them and 40% are in doubt, according to a poll conducted
by the Russian Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM).
Furthermore, 60% of Muscovites want Russia to pursue its own path of
historic development, VTsIOM director Yuri Levada told the Trud newspaper.
Some 18% of those polled advocate a return to Soviet ways and 5% want to take
the European path.
"The public is ready to curtail its approval of democratic principles and
endorse authoritarian rule," Levada said. Over 70% of respondents said that
what Russia needed most of all was a strong leader, he said.
*******
#3
Liberal party shows film alleging Russian security services' involvement in
1999 bombings
March 12, 2002
By JUDITH INGRAM
MOSCOW (AP) - Hoping to shame the government into ordering an investigation,
a small liberal party on Tuesday showed the Russian premiere of a film
alleging the secret service organized four 1999 bombings that helped spark
Moscow's second Chechen war and catapult Vladimir Putin to the presidency.
The documentary, with the English title Assassination of Russia, focused on a
murky episode in September 1999 following apartment house bombings in Moscow
and two other cities that killed 300 people and provoked fears of a wave of
Chechen terrorism in Russia.
The bombings, at intervals of three to four days, were blamed on Chechen
rebels and inspired people across Russia to form volunteer patrols in their
neighborhoods to prevent their homes from becoming the next targets.
On Sept. 22, 1999, residents of an apartment house in Ryazan, about 150
kilometers (90 miles) south of Moscow, noticed a car with falsified license
plates parked outside. They alerted local police, who searched the basement
and found large sacks that allegedly contained explosives and were connected
to a timer. The previous bombings had involved similar-looking explosives
disguised as sacks of sugar.
Residents of the building were evacuated, and officials expressed relief that
another explosion had been averted.
However, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service or FSB,
later said that the sacks held only sugar, no explosives, and that they had
been planted as part of an anti-terrorism training drill by his agency.
Many Russians, including the targeted building's residents, were convinced
Patrushev was lying. They pointed to evidence that contradicted his account:
The police sapper who inspected the sacks said they did not hold sugar, and
the Ryazan branch of the Federal Security Service said before Patrushev's
revelation that agents had found an apartment used by the plotters of the
failed Ryazan explosion.
``There are still very many questions to which society has not received
answers,'' Sergei Yushenkov, a legislator from the Liberal Russia movement,
said at Tuesday's premiere. ``To this day, we don't know who committed these
crimes.''
The 40-minute film contains at most circumstantial evidence of FSB
culpability, but it raises the question of how much Putin knew. It
intersperses footage of grieving survivors of the apartment blasts with shots
of Putin's triumphal inauguration ceremony in March 2000.
In just seven months, Putin had risen from the head of the FSB to President
Boris Yeltsin's fifth prime minister to president. Putin's soaring popularity
was largely attributed to his tough handling of the Chechen war.
Yushenkov said that by showing the film, Liberal Russia was pushing for
creation of a public commission to investigate the FSB's alleged involvement
in the September 1999 bombings, and demonstrating the necessity of
establishing controls over the security service, the main successor to the
KGB.
The government has vehemently denied any connection to the bombings.
``I hope that the majority of parliamentary deputies will come to realize the
necessity of creating a system of parliamentary control over the special
services,'' Yushenkov said.
He also said Liberal Russia was trying to organize an appeal to the
Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of then-President Yeltsin's
secret decree of Sept. 23, 1999, declaring a start to the Chechen war.
The film was originally produced by French journalists for NTV, the
independent Russian television station that was taken over by the
state-controlled natural gas company last spring. Much of the footage had
previously been broadcast on an NTV investigative program, and it
demonstrated how far the television station had gone in challenging the
government. With all of Russia's television channels now under state control,
such a film could hardly be made today.
********
#4
BBC
12 March 2002
Opec: Playing Russia's oil game
By Alexander Koliandre
Oil prices have almost returned to their pre-September level amid market
fears of US military action against Iraq, one of the world's leading oil
producers.
The composite "basket price" of Opec crude oil, used by the cartel to monitor
the market, was $22.44 per barrel on Monday - at the lower end of its target
range of $22-$28 for the first time since last September.
However, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday that, despite
the rise in prices, overall demand for oil is still lagging behind economic
recovery in the US.
The agency said it shaved its forecast for growth of global oil demand by
80,000 barrels per day to 420,000.
This brings the world's current total demand to 76.4m barrels a day.
"Upward revisions to US data may fuel heightened optimism about the health
and prospects of the global economy, but the implications for oil demand are
not so bullish," the IEA's report said.
Opec's battle for Russia
No wonder then that Opec, preparing for its meeting in Vienna on Friday, is
trying to persuade non-cartel countries, which account for 63% of the world's
oil output, not to increase their exports.
While the cartel hints at maintaining its current level of production or even
cutting it, possible defiance from Russia looks to be one of its main
concerns.
Russia's pledge to curb oil production in the first quarter of 2002 by 150,00
barrels per day was instrumental in averting a price war threatened by Opec,
and in securing production cuts from cartel members themselves.
As the second quarter approaches, the cartel is trying to persuade Moscow to
keep to its current quotas.
Venezuelan energy minister Alvaro Silva, who arrived in Moscow on Monday,
said he was confident Russia would support Opec's export curbs into the
second quarter.
No promises
But neither him, nor Opec secretary general Ali Rodriguez and the cartel's
president Rilwanu Lukman, could secure a firm pledge from Moscow, which has
limited itself to a promise of a "future cooperation" with the organisation.
Russia said that it was not ready to respond to Opec's demand for a continued
squeeze on Russia's oil exports into the forthcoming months.
Russia's officials fear that cutting output now would lead to the country
losing market share and put an unsustainable pressure on its budget.
The country's revenues are strongly dependent on oil exports and as huge
repayments of the state debt - scheduled for 2003 - approach, Moscow doesn't
want to see a steady flow of much-needed hard currency dry up.
On the other hand, Moscow, doesn't want to start a price war with Opec by
rebuffing the cartel's requests outright.
Export rises amid promised cuts
Russian oil companies have invested heavily in production and started to
increase output significantly in the second part of 2001.
Analysts say that even if Russia makes a commitment to continue curbs beyond
March, it will not mean too much in practice.
"Russia's logic will be to verbally commit and then turn a blind eye on real
volumes of exports," the head of Moscow-based international Petroleum
institute, Yevgeny Khartukov, said.
Unlike the majority of Opec countries, Russia's oil industry is mainly
private.
The government, which owns the pipelines to the West, is only able to control
the main route of the exports.
It said the volume of oil, running out of the country through the pipeline,
is roughly equal to the cut that was promised to Opec.
But the oil companies have proven to be rather inventive in using alternative
means of export - from railroads to sea tankers.
Russia's largest oil company Yukos reportedly shipped an equivalent of
100,000 barrels per day - two-thirds of a promised cut - via Ukraine's port
Feodosia.
Baltic ports of Tallinn and Ventspils also saw a surge in crude oil transit,
and at least two large tankers were loaded in Russia's Black Sea port of
Novorossiisk in January.
In addition, analysts in Kiev said that a re-export of Russian oil through
neighbouring Ukraine and Belorussia rose during the winter.
And the government's decision to lift fuel oil exports quotas paves the way
for an even higher jump in export volumes.
Fighting for market share
The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that oil exports from the
former Soviet Union were up 940,000 barrels per day in February, despite
Russia's promise to cut exports in the first quarter.
Exports from the region was at the second highest level on record in February
at 5.08 million barrels per day.
IEA did not publish separate data for Russia, but the country usually
accounts for up to three-quarters of the exports from the region.
However, Moscow has denied any allegations of not observing the export cut
and is providing a high-profile welcome to the Opec's top brass.
*******
#5
Russia, Belarus move to merge their economies
By Larisa Sayenko
MINSK, March 12 (Reuters) - Russia and Belarus moved to merge their economies
on Tuesday by agreeing to harmonise tax and customs laws, remove all trade
barriers and unify energy prices by next month.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said the agreement brought union
between Russia and neighbouring Belarus a step closer, a goal first agreed in
1996 by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarus leader, Alexander
Lukashenko.
"We have agreed to adopt a set of agreements which will result in creating a
single economic space," Kasyanov told a news conference in the capital Minsk
after meeting Belarussian officials.
"We want these documents to be worked out by April 1 and to take effect from
April 1, or soon after."
The union state is a pet project for Lukashenko, who hopes to lean on Russia
after becoming isolated by the West over Belarus's poor record on human
rights and freedoms.
Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, is more reticent about the proposed
merger, saying more must be done to integrate the two countries' economies
and liberal Russian economists have urged Belarus to implement market
reforms.
Kasyanov said the planned measures would help improve the business climate in
Belarus, where the economy is still run along Soviet-era command lines with
the state keeping rigid controls over prices for major products.
"Business-driven initiative can improve the situation (in Belarus) for the
better," Kasyanov said.
He said Belarus would cancel all privileges for domestic producers while
Russia would set single prices for oil, gas, electricity and railway
shipments for the two countries.
Moscow and Minsk would also unify their customs duties and tax systems, he
said.
Belarussian Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky said Belarus would bring its tax
rates for companies closer to Russian ones. The changes in taxation will not
affect individuals.
Novistky pledged to speed up privatisation in Belarus but stressed the state
would keep controlling stakes in all major companies. The government plans to
privatise Belarusssian oil refineries later this year and Russian oil
companies have expressed their interest in tenders.
*******
#6
Financial Times (UK)
12 March 2002
SURVEY - SIBERIA: Tapping wealth from a tamed wilderness: The struggle for
control of the region's assets is over. Now the next phase of transition to a
market economy has begun
By ROBERT COTTRELL
If the name alone does not make you shiver, take a look at the atlas.
Siberia is that million square miles of near-wilderness stretching down from
the Arctic Circle to the borders of Kazakhstan and Mongolia. A score of big
industrial cities cluster towards its southern end, linked by the
Trans-Siberian railway.
Maxim Gorky, the Soviet-era writer, called Siberia a "land of ice and
chains". But for the Soviet government, and now for Russian industry, it is a
land of natural resources often maddeningly difficult to extract, but
indispensable for growth.
Here lie some the world's greatest reserves of oil, gas, coal, timber,
nickel, platinum and timber. Cascading rivers yield the cheap hydro-
electricity needed to power the smelters and refineries.
The Soviet planners tamed Siberia with their habitual grim extravagance. They
sank oil wells in the west, dug nickel mines in the far north and coal mines
in the south, built refineries and metalworking factories and threw up whole
towns around them.
They added the rail links, roads, pipes and power lines needed to deliver
Siberia's resources across the great internal market that was the Soviet
Union. They used prisoners and deportees among their labour. They ignored
notions of cost and cost-efficiency. They cared little, on the evidence that
remains, for beauty or cleanliness. But they got the job done, and they
transformed the industrial map of Russia in the process.
The task now is to bring that Soviet-era industrial and social base into line
with the demands of both the domestic and the global market economy. Given
the economic interests at stake, there seems little doubt Siberia will get
there in the end. But it is proving a long and complicated business, and, at
times, a messy one.
The first and messiest phase, the struggle for control of assets, is now
largely over. The region's oilfields, mining companies, factories and
smelters have mostly been prised away from local and federal governments and
settled into private hands.
The first private hands were often the well-armed ones of local bandits. But
these have been steadily bought out or forced out by more respectable
Moscow-based business groups - or, in some cases, have gentrified themselves.
"The process of redistributing property the criminal way, when they were
shooting each other and planting bombs, that's in the past," says Boris
Govorin, governor of Irkutsk. "Now we've moved on to the civilised stage."
The names which dominate Siberian business now include the integrated oil
companies such as Yukos, Lukoil, Sibneft and TNK; the state-backed gas and
power monopolies, Gazprom and UES; the aluminium groups, Russian Aluminium
and Siberian-Urals Aluminium; the metals giant, Norilsk Nickel; Alfa-Bank;
and MDM, a relative newcomer which has been buying up coal mines.
Most foreigners prudently held back while the Russians were busy carving up
assets among themselves. But this may soon change, particularly in the energy
sector where new projects present big financial and technical demands.
BP has a leading interest in a natural gas deposit at Kovytka, in Irkutsk,
where development costs could total Dollars 15bn, including the pipelines
needed to take the gas to its main potential customers in China and South
Korea.
The growing power of the Russian business groups has also made its mark on
local politics. Rare are the local governors resourceful enough to keep the
upper hand. In some cases, business leaders have simply moved into politics
themselves.
Last year the chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, Alexander Khloponin, ran
successfully for the governorship of Taimyr, a self-governing enclave within
Krasnoyarsk which is the home territory of Norilsk. A Yukos manager, Boris
Zolotarev, became governor of Evenkiya, another autonomous region of
Krasnoyarsk.
More commonly, the business groups have been striving for close informal
relations with local governors, and spreading their financial and media
patronage around when local elections loom. This sudden injection of big cash
and influence has led to increasingly ferocious campaigns.
Mr Govorin, who narrowly won a second term as governor last year, says local
elections have turned into "battles of money and battles of lies". Alexander
Lebed, who faces re-election as governor of Krasnoyarsk next year, says he
thinks Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, should appoint governors
directly. "That way we can stop wasting a whole lot of money on stupid
elections," he says.
Mr Putin is not likely to yield to Mr Lebed's wishes. But he has been trying
to bring order to local government in other ways. In May 2000 he divided
Russia into seven "federal districts" and gave each a "presidential
representative".
The representative for Siberia, Leonid Drachevsky, is a former diplomat, one
of only two presidential representatives not to be drawn from the ranks of
the army or security services. (The other civilian, Sergei Kiriyenko, a
former prime minister, oversees the Volga region).
By comparison with his colleagues in other federal regions, Mr Drachevsky has
been keeping a fairly low profile. He has gone about his mandated task of
tidying up regional legislation so that it conforms with federal legislation.
He has tried to improve the operations of federal agencies at the regional
level. And, at Mr Putin's request, he has sponsored a "development plan" for
Siberia, drawn up by a consortium of academics, think-tanks and civil
servants, which the federal government may adopt this month.
A draft of the plan shows it to be an ambitious affair. It calls for
everything from new transport corridors to nuclear power stations - and all
this, inevitably, without damage to the environment. It has the air of a
document doomed to be applauded, approved, and then neglected for want of
funds.
At the heart of it, though, is the question sure to define Siberia's
relations with the rest of Russia for decades to come. How much of a claim
should the 20m inhabitants of Siberia have on the wealth of the region? They
are, after all, no longer huntsmen or prisoners or pioneers. They are a
permanent population, they feel the region to be "theirs", and it would be
strange if they did not want to see more of the revenues from natural
resources retained in Siberia and used to produce a more diversified economy.
Companies such as Russian Aluminium and Norilsk Nickel can say in their
defence that they are indeed putting money back into Siberia. They pay some
of the best wages in country. They are investing in new plant and equipment
needed to keep costs down and output growing.
But the prosperity is not widely spread. Save for oil-rich Tyumen and
metals-rich Krasnoyarsk, all the regions of Siberia have per-capita income
levels below the Russian average - which is itself a mere Dollars 100 a
month. In Chita, the poorest region, the figure is half that. Pockets of
poverty deeper still are to be found among the surviving groups of indigenous
peoples of the far north.
A skilled populist might see material here for at least some measure of
political backlash - and all the more so, because relatively low world prices
for oil, nickel and other commodities in recent months are hitting home in
Siberia. Some factories are cutting wages. Some local governments, faced with
falling tax receipts, are cutting public services and running up debts.
In Krasnoyarsk, the impatience is already audible. There, Mr Lebed's most
dangerous opponent next year will probably be Alexander Uss, the locally born
speaker of the regional parliament.
Mr Uss's political block is called, "Nashi!" ("Ours!"). And that one word
also sums up his manifesto. "We want power in this region to belong to people
who consider this region their home," says Mr Uss.
It is a simple formula, and, for better or worse, it may yet catch on.
*******
#7
Financial Times (UK)
12 March 2002
SURVEY - SIBERIA: Fuelled by the frontier spirit: KRASNOYARSK by Robert
Cottrell: Politicians shoot from the hip as they jostle for power and
position in a region of 3m people that was once located on the extreme outer
fringes of Russia
By ROBERT COTTRELL
The Russians still call Krasnoyarsk a "Krai", or "borderland", though it has
long since ceased to be so.
These days Russia rolls on eastwards another thousand miles or so to reach
the Pacific Ocean. But you can tell readily enough why the name has stuck.
Krasnoyarsk has a rough, frontier spirit - and the rough, frontier politics
to go with it.
For almost four years now it has been run by Alexander Lebed, a charismatic
general who burst into civilian life by taking third place in Russia's 1996
presidential election. His bear-like physique, impossibly deep, growling
voice and rich sense of gallows humour made him a national favourite.
"He who shoots first, laughs last" was just one of the phrases Lebed put into
the Russian language. He was still being seen by many as a possible future
president when he decided to try for the governorship of Krasnoyarsk in 1998.
Victory left him presiding over a seventh of Russia's land mass, and 3m
people, instead.
Say what you like about the results, they have never been boring. Under Mr
Lebed, Krasnoyarsk has local politics the way Texas or Tyumen has oil.
According to Mr Lebed himself, his record has been pretty creditable. "Go
out, have a look at the town," he says. "Nobody's demonstrating on the
streets, nobody's dying of hunger, nobody's starting a riot. Come back in
summer and see the mountains, the playgrounds, the beaches. Even in Siberia."
His main problem, he says, is with the regional budget. Last year the
government collected only two-thirds of budgeted tax revenues. This year
looks even worse. Weak prices for nickel are likely to mean sharply lower
profits at Norilsk Nickel, the huge mining group which yields about 70 per
cent of the Krai's tax revenues.
Mr Lebed has appealed to the federal government for additional funds, but the
price of that will be sharp cuts in social spending.
"It seems that we can do the best work of anybody, but still produce the
worst budget performance. It's against nature," he grumbles.
Talk to Mr Lebed's critics, however, and a very different picture emerges.
His relations with business and with his own staff have been impossibly
tempestuous, says Alexander Uss, speaker of the local parliament.
"In three years he has hired and fired more than 40 deputy governors,"
complains Mr Uss. "He just doesn't have the ability to get on with people
that is a vital part of leadership."
Mr Lebed certainly lacked the capacity to get on with Anatoly Bykov, a former
boxer and local tough guy who had risen high in business and politics. By the
end of 1997 Mr Bykov had become acting chairman of Krasnoyarsk's aluminium
smelter, the second biggest in the world, and a leading member of the local
parliament.
Mr Bykov began as an ally of Mr Lebed's, supporting his election campaign.
But the two soon fell out when Mr Lebed began criticising Mr Bykov's business
practices and resisting his ambitions to expand his empire further. By the
end of 2000, Mr
Bykov was in a Moscow jail, where he remains to this day, charged with
conspiracy to murder an associate (who was not, in fact, killed). Control of
his smelter passed to Russian Aluminium.
But that outcome did nothing for Mr Lebed's popularity in Krasnoyarsk. When
elections to the regional parliament were held in December, Mr Lebed's block
finished well behind not only Mr Uss's candidates, but also behind a block
representing the imprisoned Mr Bykov.
So fevered have politics become in Krasnoyarsk under Mr Lebed, that the
question of whether he will get re-elected next year has become almost
secondary. The main question is whether the Krai can hold together at all.
The issue here is the curious status of Norilsk city, home of Norilsk Nickel.
By law, the city pays most of its taxes directly to Krasnoyarsk Krai. But it
is located within a part of the Krai called Taimyr, an "autonomous region"
with a population of 47,000 and its own powers of government.
Those powers were limited in Soviet times. But in 1993 Russia's new
constitution made autonomous regions into full subjects of the federation.
Taimyr, though theoretically still a part of Krasnoyarsk Krai, became at the
same time an equal and separate entity.
And now, while the political clout of General Lebed is diminishing, that of
the Taimyr governor and former boss of Norilsk Nickel, Alexander Khloponin,
is growing.
Opinion divides about Mr Khloponin's ambitions. Some think he might run next
year for the governorship of Krasnoyarsk, and seek to unite it fully with
Taimyr. Or he might push for a deal integrating Norilsk into Taimyr, blocking
the flow of taxes out to Krasnoyarsk.
Sergei Komaritsyn, editor of Vecherny Krasnoyarsk newspaper, thinks Mr
Khloponin is likely to go for the second option. Running for the governorship
of Krasnoyarsk would be a messy and expensive distraction, and it would be
followed by years of work tidying up Krasnoyarsk and stamping a new authority
on it after Mr Lebed had gone.
But by merely uniting Norilsk into Taimyr - which would require, in practice,
the approval both of President Putin's and of the constitutional court - Mr
Khloponin would secure for himself a rich northern power base from which to
plot a further union at leisure, if he so wished.
Mr Lebed dismisses all these possibilities with his customary gruffness. As
for integrating Norilsk with Taimyr, he says, no president would dream of
redrawing a boundary at the behest of a "financial industrial group", meaning
Norilsk Nickel. And if Mr Khloponin wants to run for the governorship of
Krasnoyarsk, says Mr Lebed, "then let him".
If, as seems highly likely, Mr Lebed also runs again next year, his hopes
will rest mainly in the countryside. He is much more popular there than in
Krasnoyarsk city.
But it is not a subject he wants to discuss. "Time will tell," he says. "A
brick might fall on my head tomorrow. Anything is possible."
*******
#8
German papers report systematic abuses in Chechnya
BERLIN, March 12 (Reuters) - The Russian military is still conducting a
systematic campaign of torture and illegal executions in Chechnya despite
assertions life in the province is returning to normal, German newspapers
reported on Tuesday.
German dailies the Frankfurter Rundschau and Sueddeutsche Zeitung said joint
research showed that dozens of Chechen men were disappearing or turning up
dead with their bodies showing signs of torture after being detained by
Russian forces.
In one example, the papers said unidentified soldiers had arrested four
residents of the town of Argun on March 2 and two days later their bodies
were found showing signs of beating and electric shocks. The local military
commander said the men were rebels who had been killed in a battle with
Russian troops.
According to local authorities in Argun, more than 60 men have disappeared
from the town in total, while in neighbouring Tsotsin-Yurt, residents have
appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the European Union
for help, saying 49 men had been killed and 29 have disappeared, the papers
said.
The office of Kremlin Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky declined
immediate comment on the German reports.
The newspapers quoted Alexander Cherkasov from the Russian human rights group
Memorial as saying his organisation had checked most of the alleged cases of
disappearance and confirmed that the list was authentic.
Memorial told the newspapers that about 2,000 Chechen men had disappeared
since summer 1999 and said it had registered 992 dead whose bodies had been
found, although Cherkasov said that figure probably only represented half the
total number murdered.
The German newspapers said that they had managed to conduct their research in
Chechnya without the interference of the Russian authorities who usually
insist on accompanying journalists travelling to the region.
Russian troops returned to Chechyna in 1999 after being driven out in an
earlier war. Despite installing a pro-Moscow administration, they have yet to
eliminate rebel resistance and continue to seal off villages for military
sweeps.
Russia denies its forces carry out systematic abuses in Chechnya and
officials often respond hotly to Western criticism of their human rights
record in the province.
The two German newspapers also said their joint research had shown that
members of the pro-Moscow administration now running Chechnya were embezzling
money intended for rebuilding the shattered province.
The papers said documents from the finance and health ministries showed that
in 2000 half of the money intended for clinics had been misappropriated.
They cited Chechnya's Deputy Health Minister Issa Dudayev as having accused
the government installed by Moscow of concealing corruption and said the
Russian chief prosecutor in the province was not interested in investigating
the allegations.
*******
#9
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002
Subject: a piece about Pearl
From: "Anne Nivat"
Dear David,
Could you please put that piece about Daniel Pearl and the risks of being a
war correspondent on the list? It was published in the Sunday edition of
Newsday.
At Risk Beyond Bullets
By Anne Nivat
March 10, 2002
'I'M SCARED, of course. And this has nothing to do with the usual fear. I'm
having trouble swallowing my saliva, my throat is dry; I no longer
understand what I'm doing here. But here I am, and it is far too late to
leave."
These few words are scrawled in my travelogue for one winter morning in
2000, at the height of the war in Chechnya, that little Caucasian republic
that, since October 1999, has been at war with the immense Russian
Federation. My deceased colleague Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal
surely put those same words to paper. Or, at the very least, they must have
crossed his mind.
Because, as much a war reporter as you are, fear never leaves you, doubts
beset you - with regard to the best attitude to adopt, your choice of
contacts, the degree of confidence to place in this or that person to
obtain this or that piece of information. And at these moments of critical
decision, no editor in New York or Paris can come to your aid; you are
entirely alone.
I can understand why Pearl made his way to a restaurant in the suburbs of
Karachi to meet an intermediary who might help him to discover important
information . . . or simply cause him to lose some time, as this can
happen, too. A good reporter makes a maximum number of contacts. This can
lead to a "good story," as we say in journalistic jargon, or sometimes to
danger, even death.
When he covers a conflict, the reporter is in a permanent state of tension.
His personal security (without any guarantee, even with the best
assurances) depends above all on local alliances he builds and on his
ability to judge situations and keep a cool head. To enter into these
alliances, it is best to appear neutral, which is particularly difficult
when one's native country is taking part in the conflict in question, as
was the case with Daniel Pearl. What is more, too often journalists rely on
money to obtain information, something which appears to save time, but in
fact multiplies the uncertainties. One never knows when a source might
decide that he can get his money "easily," selling information that he has
invented.
I was never kidnapped, but during seven months of reporting in Chechnya
from September 1999 to February 2000, I more than once was in a situation
where all could have ended badly. I remember an icy day spent walking in
the mountains in search of a group of combatants. I was accompanied by a
young Chechen whom I had chosen because I knew he had no special
connections, in order to assure myself of his honesty.
I had managed to gain his confidence and had never paid him: We had become
friends, and we risked our lives together.
As we came into sight of an encampment of fighters, I began to realize that
my companion was not feeling secure. He quietly let slip that we had
stumbled on to an encampment of Wahabis, those fanatical Islamists who do
not particularly appreciate non-Muslim foreigners.
How were these men going to react to the fact that a young French woman had
put out so much effort to find them in order to conduct an interview? I was
not allowed, unfortunately, to visit with the commander, though my
companion was. I moved near the fire to warm myself when suddenly my friend
ordered me to rejoin him immediately so we could leave. Later, he explained
that the commander had asked if I was worth a lot of money and if I knew
how to cook. Having assured him that I was no chef, my companion finally
convinced the commander to allow us to leave. But I had just barely avoided
being kidnapped. I got away because I was with that friend. I wonder
whether Daniel Pearl had found such friends in Pakistan.
I am profoundly shocked and saddened by his death, but not surprised. These
days conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan are given overkill coverage
in the media. News organizations compete to be the first on the scene and
sometimes will broadcast live coverage for hours, even when there is
nothing new to report. News coverage is necessary, of course, but the
excess and hype can put the life of the journalist in danger as, despite
himself, he becomes part of an adventure film, indeed a horror movie, for
which no one has the script.
When I disappeared for several days while reporting in Chechnya in February
2000, French television crews were sent to interview my parents. People
feared for my life. Unaware of all the media fuss, I was trying to continue
my work, but by the time I realized what was happening, it was already too
late. From independent observer, I had become an actor in the conflict, a
symbol even. I had become too visible, too well known. I was arrested and
questioned by the Russian security forces (the former KGB) and deported
from Chechnya back to Moscow.
Pearl also became an actor in the conflict, a target of choice, in his case
because of his American citizenship. This is most likely what got him
killed. In my case, it was precisely my status as a complete outsider that
saved me. Often, in Chechnya, the women with whom I had just escaped an
aerial bombardment - I traveled disguised as one of them - would pose this
question: "What are you doing among us, you are neither Russian, nor
Chechen ... Get out of here while there is still time!" But, I had a
certain amount of protection, being neither Russian nor Chechen, but a
French citizen whose country was not involved in the conflict.
The extreme dangers of reporting need to be taken into account when a
journalist covers a conflict. They are inherent in our line of work. But
this does not mean that we should retreat. On the contrary. Only the
presence of reporters on the ground permits us to avoid the simplification
or the stage-managing of information. It is this belief that allows us to
continue our work. I am certain that Daniel Pearl believed this to the end,
as do I. No reporter goes to cover a war to die in it.
Anne Nivat is author of "Chienne de Guerrre: A Woman Reporter Behind the
Lines of the War in Chechnya."
Copyright (c) 2002, Newsday, Inc.
******
#10
From: "Albert L. Weeks"
Subject: Tales of Kamkin's
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002
In reading about the plight of Kamkin's Russian bookstore (JRL 6128),
I was reminded of the many anecdotes about that venerable
center of indispensable materials on the USSR when it was
located on lower Fifth Avenue in New York City.
I remember vividly when Boris I. Nicolaevsky, ex-Menshevik
epigone of former Soviet emigres who lived in N.Y. during the Cold War
in the 1950s and who knew of at least one undercover clerk
working in the bookstore, told me how I could obtain a copy of the
extremely rare 1950 RSFSR Criminal Code. Virtually, risking his job, if not
his life, the store clerk, evidently a Soviet employee, had hidden the
Criminal Code behind a set of Russian fiction located on the top shelf of a
certain designated stall.
After I was tipped off by Boris Ivan'ich of the little book's location,
I went to the store, climbed a ladder, and duly plucked it out from
behind the innocuous books where it was carefully hidden. I
surreptitiously paid for it ($10.50--the price is still inscribed in
pencil inside the cover) but only when that particular clerk was
at the cash register.
More than once, when entering the store, I would see spooky-looking
people walking about, watching other customers as well as browsing
among the books. These were swarthy-complexioned men wearing dark suits
with distinctive beetle shoulders and wide trouser cuffs and
dressed in white shirts with ties. Everyone knew who they were. Also
roaming about were crisp-looking young, Anglo-Saxon-type guys with
crew cuts and intense looks on their faces. Obviously, they were from
Langley or some other locus of U.S. intelligence in D.C. or Virginia.
******
#11
From: "Lucy Komisar"
Subject: MONEY LAUNDERER GETS OFF EASY IN SWISS COURT
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002
Vol. 8, No. 1801 - The American Reporter - March 11, 2002
Commentary
MONEY LAUNDERER GETS OFF EASY IN SWISS COURT
by Lucy Komisar
American Reporter Correspondent
New York, N.Y.
Just a few days after top Swiss law enforcement officials came to
Washington to assure Attorney General John Ashcroft they were serious about
cracking down on money laundering, a Geneva judge has handed the mildest
possible slap on the wrist to one Russian culprit and declined to indict
several others who laundered $60 million through Swiss banks in a scam
known as "Russiagate."
The fine is less than a third of one percent of the total stolen. The
elected judge's action, which reflects strong political pressures, sends
the wrong message to money launderers and ought to worry Americans.
Geneva judge Bernard Bertossa on Monday (March 4) announced his judgment
against Pavel Borodin, the Boris Yeltsin-era official who, according to
evidence gathered by a Geneva examining magistrate, organized the
laundering of $60 million in Russian kickbacks through Swiss banks and
pocketed more than $22 million of it for himself. Bertossa fined Borodin
$177,000, a very good deal for Borodin and his colleagues and a message to
prospective clients that the going rate for money laundering in Switzerland
is quite reasonable.
There was no trial. In Switzerland, prosecutors can pass sentences in cases
involving offenses not considered very grave. Obviously, stealing and
laundering $60 million is not "grave." There is some irony is Judge
Bertossa's complaint last week in an interview in the Swiss newspaper, "La
Regione Ticino," that the Mabetex inquiry "was blocked in Russia for
reasons purely political, not judicial." He could be talking about
Switzerland. The Swiss had plenty of proof. Swiss judge Daniel Devaud, who
handled the investigation, spoke confidently to me last October of the
wealth of evidence he had collected. He recommended at that time to his
superiors that Borodin be prosecuted for money laundering.
Borodin, who was the Kremlin property manager, had collaborated with Begjet
Pacolli, an Albanian who set up Mabetex Project Engineering, and Russian
Viktor Solposkikh, who established Mercata Trading, both in Lugano,
Switzerland. They arranged padded contracts to renovate the Kremlin and the
Russian presidential plane and, after their cuts, kicked back money to
then-President Boris Yeltsin and his daughters, and to other top Russian
officials, according to Devaud.
The Swiss extradition request details some of the money flows between 1994
and 98. It notes, for example, that seven transfers totaling more than $10
million in "commissions" passed through Lugano's Banca del Gottardo
accounts for four shell companies -- Winsford Investments, Rubens
Investment Ltd., Amati Trading Corp and Peak Trading -- all owned by
Solposkikh, a member of the presidium of Russia's former prime minister
Viktor Chernomyrdin. Borodin also had an account at the bank.
But as the months dragged on, it was obvious that there would be no trial.
Swiss authorities don't want a court proceeding that would expose
politically influential individuals and institutions and might even
dissuade problematic clients from using Swiss accounts. The owner of
Mabetex, Pacolli, had as board member of his Acquarossa Wellness Center
Lugano mayor Giorgi Giudici , who is vice-president of the local ruling
Liberal Radicals. Another party vice-president is Banca del Gottardo
president Claudio Generali, minister of finance of Ticino from 1983 to 87.
The U.S. has strong interests in this case and in the behavior of Swiss
justice. It has an interest in promoting the rule of law and fighting
corruption in Russia because organized crime spills across borders. And the
U.S. depends on the integrity of courts in countries that deal with cases
involving terrorists, drug traffickers and others who threaten the American
security.
On Friday, March 1, Swiss Justice and Police Minister Ruth Metzler and
federal prosecutor Valentine Roschacher met with Attorney General Ashcroft
in Washington to discuss co-operation and mutual legal assistance in the
fight against international terrorism, including the role of Swiss
financial institutions in moving money for terroristists.
At a lunch with Congressional staffers Feb. 27, Roschacher said that "our
own criminal investigation is an example of the determination and the
commitment of Switzerland to join the international efforts in the fight
against terrorism."
What will Swiss justice authorities do to find out what happened to some of
the padded Kremlin payments that went to Pacolli, who they have declined to
indict for his role in the Borodin kickback case? Pacolli owns the virulent
propaganda newspaper "Bota Sot" (the World Today), based in Zurich. It was
condemned by the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe Mission to Kosovo for sowing "hate, intolerance and strife." It
supports the UCK -- the Kosovo Liberation Army (known in the West as the
KLA) -- that is linked to drug and weapons trafficking, prostitution, and
illegal immigration. Robert Gelbard, who was America's special envoy to
Bosnia, said the UCK were "Islamic terrorists."
Under Swiss law, Borodin can reject the prosecutor's decision and request a
trial. He has not indicated his decision. But with $22 million minus
$177,000 in his offshore accounts, he has nothing to complain about.
Americans, however, should protest very loudly.
Lucy Komisar is a New York journalist who writes about offshore bank and
corporate secrecy.
*******
#12
The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 15, 2002
In Russia, a Small Islamic University Is a Large Political Thorn
Attending a religious institution is a political act in the Tatarstan republic
By BRYON MACWILLIAMS
Kazan, Russia
The gray light of late afternoon reflects wanly along dim corridors where
slippers lie on small mats in front of closed doors. Behind the doors young
men are napping.
A man's amplified voice begins to echo up stairwells and into the
corridors. The echoes, in Arabic, resound in part recitation, part song.
The young men stir. They pull on sweat pants and sweaters, slip into their
footwear, and shuffle downstairs to the source.
They are answering both a call to prayer and a higher calling. The latter
is what most unnerves the Russian government.
Attending Russian Islamic University is tantamount to a political act here
in the Tatarstan republic, a landlocked, mostly autonomous region southeast
of Moscow where ethnic Tatars outnumber Russians. The federal government is
waging the second war in a decade in the breakaway republic of Chechnya,
which is heavily Muslim, and is wary of potential conflicts in other Muslim
communities.
Kazan is the northernmost outpost of Islam in the world, and the faith is
undergoing a revival here. But Christianity also is experiencing a
renaissance, here and across Russia. The federal government, in its quest
to instill a sense of national identity, has aligned itself with the
Russian Orthodox Church.
Politicians nationwide, including President Vladimir Putin, use the terms
"bandits" and "terrorists" when referring to adherents of Islam. The
religion is linked to widespread fears of separatism, or a balkan-ization
of the Russian Federation. The rhetoric has intensified since September 11.
'An Alien Society'
Russian Islamic University has come into existence despite that hostile
social and political environment. Both Tatarstan and the university offer a
face of Islam that departs from the one shown regularly on the evening news
in the United States.
"Islam carries the image of the enemy," says Goulnar Baltanova, a
religious-studies professor at Kazan State Technological University in the
capital of the republic. "To the majority of people, Islam is like an alien
society."
The president of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiev -- an authoritarian leader
who, nevertheless, is respected by the populace -- has quashed efforts to
fuse Islam overtly with politics. Yet the faith still has a strong presence
here. A massive mosque is being built in Kazan's kremlin, replacing a
mosque destroyed in 1552. An Orthodox cathedral stands adjacent.
Their histories are, at times, so intertwined that the similarities wash
out the differences.
Even Napoleon once said, "Scratch any Russian and you will find a Tatar.
Islam first came here in 922. Orthodoxy arrived in Russia 66 years later.
From then on, the history boils in cycles of conquest and defeat with such
celebrated protagonists as Ivan the Terrible and the Golden Horde of
Genghis Khan.
In 1236 the Bulgar state was invaded and conquered by Mongols led by the
grandson of Genghis Khan. By 1240 Russia, too, had been defeated by forces
that included Tatars, the descendants of the Bulgars, a Turkic people who
settled in the middle Volga and lower Kama Rivers region during the first
half of the eighth century. The ensuing 250 years would be lived under what
Russians refer to as the Tatar-Mongol Yoke.
Then, in 1552, Ivan the Terrible conquered the Tatar state. Repressive
campaigns against Islam were instituted, and some Muslim Tatars were forced
to convert to Christianity. By 1725 some 40,000 Tatars had been baptized.
In 1740 the government ordered the destruction of mosques that were
recently built, and prohibited their replacement. If Tatars remained true
to Islam, they were deprived of land and nobility. After the Bolsheviks
assumed power in 1917, Tatar spelling was switched to the Cyrillic
alphabet. Mosques and Muslim schools and publications were closed.
"After the [Bolshevik] revolution, all was forbidden," says Gabdrashit
Zakirore, a vice rector at the Islamic university. "But it didn't kill the
soul of Islam."
Since perestroika, the number of recognized Muslim communities in Russia
has grown from 18 to more than 700. State universities have introduced
classes on the Tatar language, culture, and history. The Koran has been
translated directly from Arabic, not via Russian.
"In the last 10 years there has been a new dawn of teaching," says Saveya
Mikhailova, a professor at Kazan State who specializes in Islam. "I teach
on the level of my knowledge. What I know, I teach. All of it. ... Before,
they would have hanged me or something. That was not allowed."
No Room for Terrorism
None of this is lost on the young men at Russian Islamic University whose
pursuit of faith-based scholarship is seen as a direct threat to the
interests of the state in which they hold citizenship. Still, they gather
in a loose semicircle for prayer, wearing their tyubeteiki -- thin circular
hats of black felt, with flat tops and smooth sides about three inches high.
The students say that their religion does not make room for terrorism.
"Islam cannot be a religion of war. It is a religion of grace. It must be a
religion for all people," says Shavket Abubekerov, a third-year student who
is bewildered by the perception that he could somehow be an embodiment of
ethnic discord.
He wears a tyubeteika whose front glints green and yellow. He says that he
enrolled at the university because he lacked the knowledge to continue
serving as the imam, or spiritual leader, in his poor village of 1,000. He
picks up a piece of white chalk and scrawls, in Arabic, a phrase on the
green chalkboard in a classroom: "In the name of the Almighty, I begin."
That phrase is the starting point for all activity -- spiritual and
secular, scholarly and mundane -- at Russian Islamic University. The
four-story building that houses the private institution, which was founded
in 1989, was rehabilitated largely with funds from the Islamic Development
Bank, which has its headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The university is unique in Russia, where approximately 20 million people
characterize themselves as Muslim. But a madrassa, or religious school,
operates in Moscow, and an Islamic research institute is located in the
republic of Dagestan.
The curriculum in Kazan is grounded in the Sunni tradition of Islam, which
is most popular among Tatars. Today Tatarstan is, in some ways, at the
opposite extreme of its grandiose past. The republic and its inhabitants
are not well-known in Russia, let alone the world. Indeed, the nuances of
the religion in society -- and its peaceful coexistence in Orthodox
surroundings -- are so singular that scholars define it as the Tatarstan
Model.
The tenets of the Sunni tradition here are "more peaceful, more civilized,
more open" than the Sufi, or mystical Islam, communities in Chechnya and
the Middle East, says Muhammedshin Rafik, head of the Center for Islamic
Studies, in Kazan.
"Islam in Tatarstan harbors a particular mentality based on the tolerance
of other faiths. Unlike closed Islamic societies that limit outsiders, we
needed to survive [under centuries of Russian rule] so we did the opposite
by creating an open society," Mr. Rafik says.
Mr. Zakirore, the vice rector, says Muslim Tatars do not abide zealotry yet
remain in brotherhood with Muslims everywhere. "What is bad for one
[Muslim] is painful for the other," he says. "But if you are just going to
pray all the time, that is no good. Someone has to work. Someone has to put
food on the table."
Tatars view Islam as inherent in their ethnicity much in the same way
Russians of Slavic origin regard Orthodox Christianity. If one is Tatar, he
is Muslim; one need not practice the faith.
Ironically, the pragmatism of the Tatar Muslims has characteristics
advocated by the federal government: creativity and initiative that could
stimulate a transition to a market economy and a society that more closely
reflects Western values and norms.
Azat Sibgatyllin, a student from the republic of Mariy-El, known for its
pagan practices, says that he maintains a lifestyle in strict adherence to
the Koran that renders hypocritical the assertions that he could
destabilize society. "Elsewhere in the country you can count on one hand
the men who do not need such things as alcohol or drugs," he says. "All of
Russia is like that: immoral."
"Over the past 70 years in Russia the collective conscience has done a
flip-flop. What is bad is considered normal, what is good is considered
abnormal," adds Ildar Gubaidullin, a fourth-year student from Uzbekistan, a
former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
Mr. Gubaidullin believes that the prophet Muhammed arrived with the same
news as Jesus, only with a more contemporary spin. "Russians don't like
[Islam] only because they don't have a full understanding of what it is,"
he says.
There are currently 102 male students -- women are not yet accepted -- at
the Islamic university, which is licensed by the education ministry to
provide undergraduate course work in religious and some secular fields. But
the bulk of the curriculum would not count toward credit at secular
institutions, because the Islamic university rejects the theory of evolution.
Religious instruction begins with the Koran, then by the third year moves
on to Shariah, or Islamic law. Among the secular offerings are computer
science, sociology, history, and philosophy, as well as Arabic, Tatar,
Russian, and English; unlike at the republic's other universities, where
undergraduate instruction is exclusively in Russian, here it is in Tatar
and Arabic.
Education and housing are free for men who are Muslim -- of any race or
nationality -- between the ages of 17 and 35. Food costs about 30 cents a
day. Cleaning and maintenance are done by the students. Sinks are located
in every classroom, and Turkish carpets and tall stacks of books are piled
on parquet-style linoleum.
"Our aim is to teach the basis of Islamic belief ... so that graduates can
competently work with the population," says Abdullah Shanzagaev, dean of
the department that prepares new students for more advanced studies.
The prestigious Kazan State University -- where Vladimir I. Lenin studied
-- also offers extensive course work in Islam. Mr. Shanzagaev insists,
however, that the Islamic university's curriculum extends beyond the course
work in the long-established institution, which was founded in 1804.
"The person who graduates from Kazan State would know everything about
Islam, however, he would not know the Shariah, the Koran. He cannot know
the sensuality of religion," Mr. Shanzagaev says.
Even though the Russian education ministry has licensed some courses, such
as Arabic, at the Islamic university, it does not recognize the
university's diplomas. Students who wish to pursue postgraduate work
elsewhere in Russia cannot. The ministry also will not issue a license
legitimizing the secular curriculum, which blocks any academic exchange
with secular institutions.
Political Compromise
The federal curbs on the development of Islamic education exist because the
government has seen what can happen when the religion breathes faith into a
people. Such forces played a role in the Soviet Union's retreat from a
crippling war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Russia continues to provide
military and political support to secular leaders -- all of whom publicly
oppose a politicization of Islam -- in the five republics in Central Asia.
Authorities have justified the prohibition of Islamic charities and
fund-raising activities by citing a growth in Wahhabism, an extremist
movement with international ties, in the Caucasus and Tatarstan. Wahhabism
is practiced by no more than 5 percent of Muslim Tatars. "They are
aggressive and not popular here," says Olga Korshunova, an assistant
professor of Russian and Tatar history at Kazan State.
The Islamic university may be viewed as a palpable form of political
compromise: Federal authorities do not wish Muslims to travel abroad for
education, then return with extremist views, so they permit the university
to operate while inhibiting the scope of its influence.
"It is important that the [Tatar] ethnicity survives all this," says Damir
Sharafutdin, dean of the department of Shariah, who also teaches Arabic at
the Islamic university.
The chances are good for a strong Tatarstan. It is one of the most
economically advanced republics; it inherited automotive, aviation,
electronics, and other high-tech industries from the Soviet era and has
altered its tax laws to entice investment in the republic.
Possibilities continue to outpace realities, however.
Ms. Baltanova, the religious-studies professor at Kazan State, recently
abandoned a seven-year effort to establish a center for Islamic studies at
the university. She could not obtain the required licenses from the
government. Without them she could not officially invite guest lecturers
and professors from Islamic countries; if she did, they would have been
denied visas. Universities cannot be partners because they are too poor to
help. The students, too, are poor and unable to afford tuition.
"There is a proclamation in Tatarstan that Islam is growing, and that is
good," says Ms. Baltanova. "At the same time, there is no real interest or
[material] support to carry it out in a civilized manner. Islam in
Tatarstan is a big issue, and Islamic education is a big issue ... and they
are not necessarily parallel processes."
An intricate scale model of a future, expansive Islamic university sits on
the floor of the office of Mufti Gousman Iskhakov, chairman of the Muslim
Religious Board of the Republic of Tatarstan. It represents what the
Russian Islamic University one day could become. Mr. Iskhakov gestures to
it, then smiles.
"Great things begin small," he says.
********
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