Johnson's Russia List
#6143
19 March 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Boston Globe: David Filipov, US troops help ex-Soviet state fight
militants.
2. Los Angeles Times: Robyn Dixon, Nature of Threat in Georgia Gorge a
Matter of Dispute. Caucasus: As U.S. prepares to train republic's forces in
anti-terror tactics, some analysts question motives.
3. Izvestia: RUSSIANS LIKE GEORGIA BUT NOT THE POLICY OF ITS
LEADERSHIP.(poll)
4. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: YAVLINSKY HAS NOT FOUND AN ALTERNATIVE TO HIMSELF.
5. Danish Radio: Vibeke Sperling's commentary on 1999 apartment bomb
attacks.
6. Business Day (Johannesburg): John Helmer, HONEST CIPHER FOR CENTRAL BANK.
7. Moscow Times: Alexei Pankin, Press Dialogue With the U.S. Ambassador.
8. Moscow Times: Boris Kagarlitsky, Mironov's Glorious Gaffe.
9. Wall Street Journal: Guy Chazan, Russia Intends to Make Concessions On 
Some Issues to Gain WTO Entry.
10. Vedomosti: Tatiana Lysova&Aleksei Nikolsky, PUTIN'S RATING IS AN
OBSTACLE...to Russia's rating in the long run. The West views political
institutions in Russia as weak.
11. Novoe Vremya: Vladimir Shveitser, A NEW LOOK AT OLD VALUES. Social
democrats rendezvousing with liberalism. The programs of Yabloko and the Russian Social 
Democratic Party. 
12. The New Statesman (UK): Far from the Promised Land. Many Britons
still see Israel as a Middle Eastern Hampstead, a land of liberal idealists. But the
liberals are fleeing, and being replaced by Soviet "white trash". John Kampfner
reports.] 

********

#1
Boston Globe
March 19, 2002
US troops help ex-Soviet state fight militants
By David Filipov, Globe Staff

DUISI, Georgia - American military personnel have begun arriving in Georgia
to bring the war on terrorism to a violent and lawless gorge on this former
Soviet republic's border with the separatist Russian republic of Chechnya. 

The Americans will train and equip Georgian troops to reclaim the Pankisi
Gorge, a sparsely populated patch of the Caucasus Mountains where the
United States believes several dozen Islamic extremists connected to the
Qaeda network are hiding.

Beyond that goal, the US military presence serves a larger strategic
purpose: building the stability of the volatile Caucasus by shoring up the
independence from Moscow of former Soviet states such as Georgia. Before
Sept. 11, this US presence would have been unthinkable.

In keeping with President Bush's pledge to hunt down terrorists everywhere,
between 100 and 200 US special operations forces began arriving Sunday to
train Georgian forces to recapture the Pankisi. The United States has
already provided Georgia with supplies and 10 Iroquois military transport
helicopters, and 18 flight instructors arrived last week to work with
Georgian pilots. 

Washington insists that US troops will not participate in combat in the
36-square-mile gorge, which is thought to be the base for armed Chechen
rebels, gangs of kidnappers, and drug lords.

Even if US soldiers do not fire a shot, Georgia is a treacherous place for
them.

''Train and Equip,'' as the six-month, $64 million program is being called,
is the first attempt to station US troops in an area that Moscow still
jealously regards as within its sphere of influence.

The mission also creates a US military foothold in a country that is close
to Iraq. Georgia has already offered the use of its airspace to the United
States for any antiterrorist operations in the Middle East.

''This is about stability in the Caucasus,'' said Georgi Baramidze,
chairman of the Georgian Parliament's security and defense committee. ''But
we want to be front-row contributors in the war on terror.''

In another complication, the mission places American troops just across the
border from Chechnya, where Russian forces are bogged down in a brutal
campaign against secessionist forces that they say are being funded by Al
Qaeda.

Being too closely associated with that war, which the US State Department
criticized only days ago for numerous atrocities, is only one of the risks
inherent in Train and Equip. The US troops arrive at a time when Russia has
been accused of meddling in Georgian affairs by supporting ethnic
separatists there and by trying to undermine support for the government of
President Eduard Shevardnadze. 

Georgia is also ground zero in a significant post-Cold War struggle between
Russia and the United States, over the direction oil from the Caspian Sea
region will take as it makes its way to Europe. The United States has
backed Georgia's efforts to host pipelines that would keep the oil from
going through Iran and Russia.

Shevardnadze, whose popularity and grip on power have slid as his
countrymen increasingly blame him for the ongoing corruption, poverty, and
separatist conflicts of post-Soviet Georgia, last month hailed the
impending arrival of US troops as a new step in the US-Georgian friendship.

''We have been working toward this for eight years,'' Shevardnadze said,
speaking of Georgia's ties to the United States.

The training program is intended to shore up Georgia's borders to prevent
the transit of terrorist groups through the country and help stop the
spread of dangerous nuclear materials, said Valeri Chekheidze, chief of
Georgian Border Guards. He said 500 of his troops would receive training
from US instructors beginning in mid-July.

US instructors also will work with Georgian special forces battalions,
which are meant to form the core of a smaller, more effective Georgian
military. At the moment, Georgian and US defense officials say, Georgia's
post-Soviet army of 27,000 has a bloated officer corps, inadequate
equipment, and few battle-ready troops.

Sunday's arrival of the US soldiers in Tbilisi, the capital, was quiet. A
number of uniformed US soldiers appeared in the Sheraton Hotel but avoided
reporters. Several men eating at the hotel identified themselves as
helicopter pilot instructors but would not say more. The US Embassy here
refused to comment about the troops, even on background.

The gorge is a three-hour drive northeast of the capital. With its
unassuming farming huts, where some 7,000 ethnic Chechens have lived for
200 years, it seems far from the war on terror. Beyond two checkpoints
heavily guarded by Georgian police, who stop and search everyone going in
and coming out, lies the town of Duisi, which looks peaceful enough. 

When the United States announced that its troops would go to Georgia,
everyone in Duisi expected American warplanes to begin bombing, said
Dzharap Khangoshvili, the mayor. It was a good thing they have not, he said.

''There are no terrorists here, only poor people and refugees,''
Khangoshvili said. 

But Khangoshvili's security officer made sure that an American reporter was
well-guarded at all times during a two-hour visit to the town on Sunday.
Young men were walking the street in the garb usually associated with
Chechen rebels - camouflage uniforms, skullcaps, and long beards. The armed
men of at least one Chechen rebel commander, Ruslan Gelayev, have set up in
the Pankisi, making money as the muscle for drug and kidnapping gangs
operating here, said Zurab Pilashvili, a police officer from the district
capital of Akhmeti.

Tensions escalated here after 1999, when Russia sent its troops to retake
control of Chechnya. Thousands of Chechen refugees fled the Russian bombs
that flattened their villages. But armed Chechen militants, using the
countless mountain paths that traverse the border, also made their way into
Georgia. By late 1999, Moscow began pressuring Shevardnadze to let the
Russian Army open a second front against the insurgents in the Pankisi.
Shevardnadze refused, angering the Russian military, whose helicopters
later bombed the border areas. 

Local officials denied that any Al Qaeda members were in the Pankisi. But
they wondered aloud when the Americans would come and help them clean up
the place.

Georgian defense officials, who only this year began acknowledging Russia's
longtime claims that Al Qaeda sympathizers are hiding out in the Pankisi,
now say the militants began moving out soon after the United States
announced plans to send troops.

Russian politicians say this is proof that the United States has other
agendas. Some Russian politicians are worried that the United States may
use operation Train and Equip to establish a permanent military presence in
Georgia. But President Vladimir V. Putin said Moscow backs any efforts to
control the spread of terrorism to the Pankisi Gorge. Russia has long
accused separatist rebels in Chechnya of being Islamic terrorists linked to
Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Georgia certainly would like to free itself from Russia's influence, which
it blames for backing separatist rebellions in two of its provinces,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

''The day I heard the Americans were coming I was the happiest man on
earth,'' said Alexander Rondeli, a political analyst in Tbilisi.

''The feeling was that someone strong and powerful was coming to support me
and my country.''

Even with support and training from the United States, Georgia's borders
will remain porous.

''There are millions of paths to Chechnya,'' said Pilashvili, the Georgian
police officer. ''I don't care which army comes here; no one can control
them all.''

********

#2
Los Angeles Times
March 19, 2002
Nature of Threat in Georgia Gorge a Matter of Dispute
Caucasus: As U.S. prepares to train republic's forces in anti-terror
tactics, some analysts question motives.
By ROBYN DIXON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

DUISI, Georgia -- A band of Arab fighters in the mountains near this
country's Pankisi Gorge have caused sufficient alarm that the United States
is preparing to spend $64 million in part to help the Georgian military get
rid of them.

Philip Remler, a senior U.S. diplomat in Georgia, said in February that
dozens of fighters from Afghanistan, including Al Qaeda members, had fled
to the Caucasus in recent months.

But authorities in this former Soviet republic, both local and national,
dispute that contention. They say that although the Pankisi region has more
than its share of criminal activity, there are probably only a dozen or so
renegade Arabs here. A handful of American military advisors are already in
Georgia in advance of the U.S. program, which will train and equip four
anti-terrorist battalions with 300 to 400 men each to bring the Pankisi
Gorge under control. About 200 Americans will be involved, with a new
contingent arriving this week. Exercises in the six-month training program
are planned for summer.

According to Georgian security officials, however, the immediate threat the
young men in the mountains pose is not to the U.S. or Georgia, but to
Russia. They say the Arabs are waiting for the snow to melt so they can
cross the Caucasus Mountains to the north and join separatists in the
Russian republic of Chechnya in their fight against Kremlin control.

The Georgian security officials, upon whom the U.S. relies for most of its
intelligence about the gorge, do not know the men's nationalities, what
route they took to get to Georgia, whether they ever fought in Afghanistan
or whether they have ties to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

Analysts in Georgia play down any serious or immediate terrorist threat
emanating from the Pankisi Gorge. They see the U.S. program as designed to
avert possible future threats, to prop up the weak and corrupt Georgian
state in a region of U.S. oil interests and to strengthen America's
foothold in the Caucasus.

On Monday, U.S. officials in Washington acknowledged that while they are
concerned about the presence of anti-American Islamic fighters in Georgia,
the principal goal of the new aid program is to stabilize the region by
helping Georgia exert more control over its territory.

They said the Georgian government has been unable to properly police its
borders, and argued that regional stability is threatened if the Russian
government needs to chase terrorists into Georgia.

One State Department official said that the number of Arab fighters in
Georgia was unclear and that estimates ranged from a dozen to as many as 200.

To local security officials such as Imzar Machalikashvili, 27, of this
village in the Pankisi Gorge, reports of Al Qaeda terrorists hiding out in
the area always seemed inflated.

"There's no evidence that there are dozens of Al Qaeda fighters here. At
most, there are 10 to 15 Arabs, and there's no information that they are
connected with Al Qaeda," Machalikashvili said.

"We don't know whose interests are being served, but the threat has clearly
been exaggerated, and the entire situation has been blown out of all
proportion," he added.

Machalikashvili's estimate of the number of fighters was echoed this month
by the minister of state security, the defense minister, the interior
minister and a security officer with the Chechen separatists who is
familiar with the Pankisi Gorge.

Struggling to Be Rid of Russian Interference

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Georgia, a frail former Soviet
republic, has struggled to get out from under often belligerent Russian
interference. But despite close U.S. links and about $900 million in
American aid over the last five years, the country has stumbled because of
colossal bribe taking and other malfeasance in the government, the police
and the military.

Analysts and Western advisors now suspect that most of the aid was stolen,
and some critics even suggest that, if not for the U.S. anti-terror
campaign, the West might have given up on Georgia in disgust.

But Georgia's strategic position in the Transcaucasus--the transit corridor
the United States would like to use to ship oil from the Caspian Sea--means
that was never very likely.

The Pankisi Gorge, a tiny shard of territory in northeastern Georgia, about
8 miles long and 4 miles wide, has been associated with crime and smuggling
for centuries. But after the Soviet collapse and a subsequent decline in
the power of regional authorities, the situation--involving mainly locals
in the business of kidnapping, drug running and arms smuggling--worsened.

There are more than 100 local criminals hiding in the gorge, according to
security officials, who say there are also several hundred separatist
fighters or former fighters who crossed the rugged mountains from Chechnya
to escape Russia's brutal military campaign there.

Recently, Georgia's crime-fighting and security agencies stationed five
Interior Ministry checkpoints in the gorge and arrested some local crime
figures in a bid to reassert their authority. But it still takes only a
$100 bribe to pass through any of the checkpoints, according to Georgian
journalists who have done so.

The Georgian explanation of the Pankisi problem is a quaint one, based on
an ancient Caucasus tradition of extravagant and selfless hospitality. A
looming statue above the capital, Tbilisi, embodies the same idea: that it
is your duty to play host to and defend even an enemy who seeks shelter in
your home.

When thousands of refugees poured into Georgia from Chechnya in 1999,
fighters came with them, some fed up with the conflict, others seeking a
respite. Meanwhile, Arabs and other combatants who wanted to join the
Chechen separatists traveled through Georgia, while others supplied weapons
to the Chechens via the gorge. The local villagers, mainly Kists--ethnic
Chechens in Georgia with close ties to Chechnya--asked no questions.

"They [the Chechens] came here and lead proper lives. No one asks if they
fight or not," said Akhmed Margoshvili, 65, of Duisi. He had seen a few
Arabs in the village a week earlier, he said.

"There are very few of them. I just saw the faces of a very few. I don't
know where they came from or why. You don't see them often," he said. "The
Arabs don't violate anything. If they have problems with somebody else,
it's not our business. We don't want to know about it."

David Lordkipanidze, head of the Akhmeta regional security service, which
covers the gorge, said his men have been in contact with Chechen fighters
who supported the Arabs, bringing them food.

He said that the Arabs arrived in September, before any U.S. military
action against Afghanistan, and that there is no evidence the men had been
fighting there.

Occasionally, some of the Arabs come into Duisi, he said, but they don't
communicate much with the local people.

"Our sources tell us what they are planning and what they're going to do
next. They want to get out of here as soon as the pass [through the
mountains into Chechnya] opens," Lordkipanidze said.

"They're afraid because they hear all these reports about Georgia and
America launching an anti-terrorist operation."

The atmosphere in the gorge is quiet but tense. Young men wearing
camouflage clothing and military caps lounge around a recently built
mosque. Others in military camouflage cruise by in cars. But try to
approach any of these men on foot and they dart down side alleys, turn and
walk briskly away, disappear into buildings or halt their cars a distance
away.

Lordkipanidze claims that the Duisi mosque was funded by Saudi Arabian
money and that the men near the mosque are Chechen Wahhabis--members of a
fundamentalist Islamic movement brought here from Chechnya. Traditionally,
people in Chechnya and the Pankisi Gorge have adhered to the softer Sufi
tradition of Islam.

Lordkipanidze, who lives in Duisi, estimates that 80% of the Wahhabis in
the region are involved in crime.

But the terms under which a foreign journalist could visit the gorge this
month included traveling with Lordkipanidze's subordinate, Machalikashvili,
who prevented any movement toward the mosque or the young men near it,
claiming that here Christians cannot walk by or approach a mosque. That
assertion was contradicted by other locals.

Malika Sadykova, 50, a refugee in Duisi from the Chechen capital, Grozny,
said the Wahhabis have tried to lure young men to fight a holy war.

"I believe they're trying to use the word 'Wahhabism' as a smoke screen for
criminal activity. The Wahhabis distort Islam. They carry around videotapes
that they use to spread the word [of Wahhabism] among the local
population," she said. "They're teaching our young boys that they should
die in this holy war. Wahhabism just destroys our youth."

Concern About Group's Emergence

While officials downplay any terrorist threat, Irakly Alasania, first
deputy minister of state security in Georgia, said Georgian authorities
have been deeply concerned about the emergence of the Wahhabi movement in
the gorge.

He said there has been no evidence that the Arabs in the gorge, whose
number he put at "no more than a dozen," have Al Qaeda links. But he said
it is possible that some have connections with a separatist commander in
Chechnya named Khattab, a Wahhabi who might have Al Qaeda ties. It is known
that Khattab sent some fighters to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban.

Alasania said Georgian officials prevented a Jordanian and a Saudi from
entering the country early last year after receiving information that the
two men were planning terrorist acts against Russia. Officials also
detained five Afghans several weeks ago, though those men insisted that
they were simple refugees, not moujahedeen. The men, who carried no
identification, were sent to neighboring Azerbaijan, from which they had
entered Georgia. There have been no other such cases, Alasania said.

A Chechen security official in Tbilisi representing the separatist Chechen
leader, Aslan Maskhadov, said he had met two Arab fighters, aged 22 and 23,
in the city two weeks earlier. They had intended to go to Chechnya to fight
but were afraid because of reports that the U.S. was planning to assist
Georgia in clearing the Pankisi Gorge.

"They had visas. Later, they went back to the United Arab Emirates. They
said, 'We are not terrorists, and all this pressure has just taken away our
will to fight,' " said the official, who did not wish to be identified.

"They're just young guys. The people who are helping us have no links to
Bin Laden or Al Qaeda," he insisted.

He said that several years ago, there were about 250 Arab fighters in
Chechnya but that most were killed in the war there.

Tbilisi-based military analyst Kakha Katsitadze said there is neither a
major terrorist threat nor a significant Islamic fundamentalist presence in
the gorge. But if no action is taken to control the area, he said, threats
could emerge in the future.

"The problem is not that there are some fighters sitting in the Pankisi
Gorge," he said. "The problem is that there are not effective state
structures to deal with these problems."

Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report. 

********

#3
Izvestia
March 19, 2002
RUSSIANS LIKE GEORGIA BUT NOT THE POLICY OF ITS LEADERSHIP
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

Official visit of President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze to NATO 
headquarters in Brussels begins today. Shevardnadze will meet with 
NATO General Secretary George Robertson to discuss closer contacts 
between Georgia and the Alliance. Most Russians dislike the idea.
     According to the latest opinion poll conducted by sociologists of 
the Public Opinion Foundation, 52% of Russians assume that Russian-
Georgian relations deteriorated within the last twelve months. Even 
more respondents - 58% - refer to Russian-Georgian relations as 'bad' 
when asked to give their evaluation.
     On the other hand, only 15% of respondents say they relate 
towards Georgia in general negatively as against 41% who are of the 
opposite opinion. Moreover, the number of Russians who admit having 
negative feelings with regard to the southern neighbor has gone down 
by half since October 2001.
     Sociologists ascribe these fluctuations in public opinion first 
and foremost to the fact that the major guilty party that is 
responsible for the deterioration of Russian-Georgian relations, 
Shevardnadze himself, was recently "revealed" and verbally 
"destroyed".
     According to the Public Opinion Foundation, Russians associate 
Shevardnadze almost exclusively with every negative feeling they can 
identify. 63% of respondents do not sympathize with the president of 
Georgia (elders amount to 69% in this category and individuals with 
higher education to 73%).
     This is undoubtedly a peculiarity of the Russian mentality, but 
even though sociologists asked their questions about Shevardnadze the 
politician, respondents meant in their evaluation Shevardnadze the 
personality. Every fourth respondent dislikes the nature of the 
president of Georgia. "He does not have an opinion of his on", "A 
political puppet", "He will never miss a chance to do something nasty, 
given a slight opportunity" were the most frequent comments. Even the 
7% of respondents who commented on the flaws of Shevardnadze the 
politician did not mince their words: "He pursues an anti-Russian 
policy", "He does not care about his own people", "When Georgia was a 
part of the Soviet Union, he was a bona fide politician, not anymore". 
Every sixth respondent more or less emphatically advised Shevardnadze 
to step down.
     Georgia's drift from Russia hurts Russians so much because it is 
taking place firstly under a former politburo member ("We elevated him 
in the first place, and this is what we get in return", they tend to 
think). Secondly, under a former foreign minister, a politician and 
diplomat who undeniably played his part in the disintegration of the 
Soviet Union.
     Just one five respondents is prepared to accept the conjecture 
that the Georgian-American cooperation aims first and foremost at the 
war on terrorism and local army training. 15% of all respondents 
suspect official Tbilisi of trying to solve its financial and foreign 
political problems in this manner. 
     20% of Russians are confident of the anti-Russian motives of the 
Americans' appearance in the Caucasus ("They are here to attack 
Russian eventually", "The Americans are out to weaken Russia").
     Generally speaking, sociologists split Russians' attitude towards 
Georgia into several categories. The first category is factual, 
military-political, and negatively painted. The second is cultural-
geographic, portrayed mostly positively. The third and the last is 
historical-nostalgic in manner. It is without a definite emotional 
undertone. 

********

#4
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
March 18, 2002
YAVLINSKY HAS NOT FOUND AN ALTERNATIVE TO HIMSELF
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

     Moscow-based structures and wings of political parties and 
organizations are privileged. They are closer to the federal level of 
power and are therefore more noticeable when there is a quest for 
candidates to fill posts in the central structures of the party.
     The conference of the Moscow branch of Yabloko confirms this 
assumption. The outcome of the conference showed that like any other 
Moscow-based structure, the Yabloko is in the grips of a serious 
personnel crisis, and telling a federal level of an organization from 
the regional one is virtually impossible. The re-election of Yabloko's 
leadership confirmed this. Grigori Yavlinsky was re-elected chairman 
of the Moscow branch of the party. No alternative was available. 
Yavlinsky became leader of the Moscow branch on the eve of the 
election into the Moscow municipal parliament when Vyacheslav Igrunov 
quit the party, citing ideological discord. Six months have passed 
since then and Yavlinsky has failed to find somebody else worthy of 
the post. Yabloko activists assumed that the post might be offered to 
Aleksei Arbatov or Sergei Mitrokhin but both already have too much in 
their hands. Yabloko must have decided to breed a new generation of 
leaders. Yavlinsky now has six deputies, and the Political Council 
comprises 30 activists.
     Addressing his colleagues, Yavlinsky assessed the state of 
affairs as optimistic and said that "a serious conflict was solved", 
level of representation in the Moscow municipal Duma was retained, and 
membership in the party doubled. The Moscow wing of Yabloko drew a 
special program for future election campaigns and adopted a special 
declaration. Apart from municipal problems, Yabloko intends to solve 
problems relating to its potential electorate as well. According to 
party ideologist Mitrokhin, the mayor of Moscow will be asked to 
"establish a foundation for awards for truthful information on 
extortion and bribery" to "prevent corruption among municipal 
officials."

********

#5
From: "Peter Heinlein" <pern2pete@adslhome.dk>
Subject: Vibeke Sperling's commentary on 1999 apartment bomb attacks
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 

David,
The distinguished Danish journalist Vibeke Sperling aired a commentary on
Danish radio last week about the Berezovsky-financed video on the 1999
apartment bloc bomb attacks. With her permission, Pernille and I have
translated the report to English because we feel Ms. Sperling, with her vast
knowledge of Russia, makes several valuable observations that might be of
interest to JRL readers.
Vibeke Sperling is currently Moscow correspondent for the Politiken
newspaper in Copenhagen.
Best regards.
Peter Heinlein/Pernille Kardel


INTRODUCTION: No Russian television channel has thus far dared to show the
documentary "Assault on Russia" which lays out allegations that the Russian
special service (FSB) was behind the apartment bloc bomb attacks that took
place in several Russian cities in September, 1999. At the time, the
Kremlin quickly accused the Chechens. No proof was ever provided that
Chechens were responsible, but the allegations were used to whip up enough
fear and hatred for a new war against them. 

The documentary is based primarily on revelations unearthed by Russian
journalists in the months following the attacks.  But the facts of the
case, and the contradictory statements of officials, which were then
discussed in the open, are now suppressed, possibly because they raise
questions about whether Vladimir Putin may have come to power through
illegal methods.

TEXT:  "Who lied to the president?" wrote the daily Nezavizimaya Gazeta in
a headline after the documentary "Asssault on Russia" was shown last week
in Russia for the first time by the opposition party Liberal Russia. The
video about the 1999 bomb attacks shows that President Putin, who was then
the newly appointed prime minister, had more than just a hard time finding
out what the truth was. Since then he has refused to answer requests for an
independent investigation of what really happened.

After the four bomb attacks caused more than 300 deaths between the sixth
and 16th of September 1999, Russians, who were extremely afraid, created
their own citizen security forces in apartment buildings around the
country. That may have saved the lives of residents in one apartment
building in Ryazan where, on the evening of September 22nd, a suspicious
car and two men were observed carrying bags into the basement while a woman
kept lookout. They fled when confronted by the residents. 

Police and officers from local office of the FSB were called in, and the
building was evacuated. The next day, Prime Minister Putin said the
alertness of the residents had prevented a new terror attack. That account
was repeated by the Interior Minister. But the following day, an uproar was
created when the head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev said the incident had
in fact been an anti-terror exercise arranged by his service. 

By that time, police and FSB in Ryazan had reported that the identities of
the terrorists had been established after police sketches were distributed,
that investigators had found an apartment where the terror attacks had been
prepared, and that the terrorists would soon be caught.  It was also
reported that local specialists had determined that the explosive seized in
Ryazan was hexagen, exactly the same as that used in at least one of the
deadly Moscow blasts, and that the detonator was also the same.

But according to the head of the FSB, what was seized in Ryazan was only
sugar and a few innocent, locally purchased batteries and toys.
Subsequently, Putin changed his explanation and adjusted his statement to
match that of his security service chief.

"Somebody must have lied", as the paper Nezavizimaya Gazeta writes, in the
knowledge that the terror attacks were not carried out by the Chechens but
by the FSB to win support for a new war against the Chechens, and for the
until-then unknown Putin as president.

It is more than awful to allege that the FSB cold-bloodedly killed Russians
in order to advance their plans for Russia's future. And as long as the
crimes were not solved, it is just a conspiracy theory that many Russians
believe in.

The party Liberal Russia chose very symbolically to have the first Moscow
screening of  the documentary at the Sakharov Museum, with the idea of
showcasing a document that alleges the KGB's systematic murder of its own
citizens.

"These kinds of habits die slowly", says member of the Duma, or lower
house, and Liberal Russia's leader Sergei Yushenkov, who has brought 800
copies of the video to Russia from London. According to Yushenkov, the
KGB's methods are carried on (immortalized) in its successor organization
FSB, because the intelligence agency has not been put under parliamentary
control. He hopes the documentary can open Duma members' and the public's
eyes to that.

"Leaders of the FSB have said that the organization is following proud
traditions from the KGB time. And what are KGB traditions? A never-ending
string of crimes against the Russian people. Today the FSB controls
everything, and there is no one to keep an eye on them. The FSB is almighty
and uncontrolled. It is very serious for Russia's future," Yushenkov says.  

And in the documentary a question mark has been raised as to why Putin, the
former FSB chief, retained Patrushev in that position even after the
service chief at least seriously misled Putin about the 1999 bomb attacks.  

Liberal Russia does not claim that the documentary proves the FSB was
behind the bomb attacks, but the party insists that an independent
investigation is necessary, and notes that the very fact that Putin has so
far refused such an inquiry is in itself a cause for concern.

An exiled historian says in the video that it is unthinkable that the
operation in Ryazan was an exercise. "One doesn't make a military exercise
when one is already in a war".

Many residents of Ryazan had talked in a similar fashion, and at least at
the time there was a belief that the FSB had been ready to victimize them
in yet another terror attack, for which the Chechens were to have been
blamed. But what they think today is a different case.

Two French TV journalists discovered this shift a few months ago when they
were working on the story. They found that eyewitnesses who earlier had
been willing to speak no longer wanted, or dared, to do so. One jounalist
from Ryazan who had promised to assist the French team suddenly backed out
of the project after heroin allegedly planted on him was found, and he was
reportedly told he could only avoid a lengthy term in prison by staying
away from the old case.

The exiled historian says that if the Ryazan incident had been an exercise,
the bureaucratically governed FSB would have had a lot of paper to prove
it. It would have been the easiest possible thing to cleanse the service by
providing this documentation.
"But I know from FSB staffers that it doesn't exist", he says.

The claim that this was an exercise was openly laughed at on television at
the time by residents of the apartment block in Ryazan, by commentators in
the press, by politicians, and by many civil servants, including some from
the FSB.  In the documentary, a TV clip is shown wherein FSB agents
defending the claim that it is an exercise are getting themselves caught in
one contradiction after another and are being ridiculed, not least by the
residents of the building. 

One of the great strengths of the documentary is the insight it provides
into the open climate of debate in Russia during President Yeltsin's last
years, as compared to the situation today. Then it was possible to speak
much more openly than today. Now no Russian television station dares to
show the documentary, though it primarily consists of revelations made by
Russian journalists and cuts from Russian TV programs about the case in the
months after.

Liberal Russia is of the opinion that the video provides enough information
to begin impeachment proceedings against Putin. The party does understand,
however, that there is no support for impeachment in the Duma. 

Many commentators agree that the truth ought to be brought to the surface,
but the painful case is suppressed, and even made light of, in most media.
And many who are of the view that the truth ought to surface do not agree
that it should be the whole truth if Putin turns out to have been involved,
and not just been lied to. 

It is the courts that should answer all the open questions in the
documentary, Yushenkov says, but no court seem willing to do so. Instead,
everyone involved in distribution of the documentary is threatened with
court action.  For fear of getting dirty hands from the case, many
politicians and ordinary Russians excuse themselves by noting that the
documentary is just part of a campaign against Putin by the financial
baron-in-exile Boris Berezovsky, who has announced he will knock down
Putin as president.  Berezovsky is no angel, so it is unfortunate that is
is he who is behind production of the video.  He has now threatened to
produce one million copies of the documentary to be distributed in Russia
unless it is shown publicly. That is not likely to happen.

Whatever comes out of the case, the documentary shows an open and infected
wound on  Russia, which would rather forget this case, as well as the war
in Chechnya that resulted and is still going on while the West turns its back.

It can only be hoped that this documentary contributes to reviving western
interest in the innocent victims of something that looks like revenge
without end for crimes which the documentary at least raises the
possibility may have been the nefarious work of Russia's secret services.

********

#6
Business Day (Johannesburg)
March 19, 2002
HONEST CIPHER FOR CENTRAL BANK
By John Helmer 

President Vladimir Putin has surprised the Russian banking community, and 
global emerging market analysts, by dismissing the Central Bank chief Victor 
Gerashchenko, and replacing him with a man, who despite a decade of holding 
senior finance policy posts in Moscow, is totally unknown to have
opinions of his own.

Sergei Ignatiev, 54, currently deputy finance minister, was named by Putin
after the markets closed on Friday. According to parliamentary deputies, he 
will be confirmed as the new chairman of the Central Bank without 
opposition; the vote is scheduled for Wednesday.

Putin's latest appointment follows a string of similar appointments of unknown
middle-aged bureaucrats to such posts as chief executive of the state-owned 
diamond company, Alrosa; and the ministers of railways, energy, and natural
resources.

Roland Nash, strategist for Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital, said 
Monday that Ignatiev's penchant for wearing the same Soviet-made suits for a 
decade is a signal of his "immunity to the lucrative extra-curricular 
activities available in the Ministry of Finance."

A Kremlin source told me that Putin is unable to find capable and 
honest policymakers he trusts. "He is being forced," the source said, "to 
settle for loyalists who can be trusted to run their organizations 
predictably, but who do not have the strength to challenge the vested 
interests."  Putin will be unable to do that until after next year's 
elections, the source claimed.

The firing of Gerashchenko as Central Bank chairman eliminates the last 
surviving officeholder of the Yeltsin presidency, except for one -- Alexander 
Voloshin, the president's chief of staff. Kremlin sources have been saying 
that Putin wants to get rid of him, but cannot find a suitable replacement.

Voloshin claimed Monday Gerashchenko, 64, had retired because he is unwell.

Gerashchenko was recalled to run the Central Bank in 1998, after the 
government and commercial banks defaulted on their obligations, and his
predecessor was allegedly implicated in the looting of state funds, including
the proceeds of a $4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
By cracking down on Russian export transactions, Gerashchenko rebuilt
Russia's international reserves to over $38 billion. 

However, his resistance to new legislation that would have made the Central 
Bank more accountable for its internal operations led him into a bluff with
government officials, in which he said he would resign if he wasn't supported.
To Gerashchenko's surprise, Putin decided to call the bluff, and replace him. 

Gerashchenko's downfall has been endorsed by Russian commercial 
bankers, and some industrialists. The bankers say they want a "reform" 
Central Bank chairman in place as they try to promote less stringent 
supervision of their foreign exchange dealings. The Russian industrialists say
they want to see swifter depreciation of the rouble to improve their export 
sales.

Ignatiev is reportedly favoured by officials at the International Monetary
Fund with 
whom he has been negotiating since 1992. In his early days at both the Finance
Ministry and the Central Bank, Ignatiev was in charge of implementing the
US-ordered
plan to cut ties between the Russian Central Bank and the central banks of
the 
former Soviet republics. With backing from the IMF, that plan aimed to
dismantle
the rouble zone, and make irreversible Finance Minister Yegor Gaidar's scheme
to destroy the economic infrastructure of Soviet finance. That's what
reform meant
a decade ago.

*******

#7
Moscow Times
March 19, 2002
Press Dialogue With the U.S. Ambassador
By Alexei Pankin   

I look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who,
reading the newspapers, live and die in the belief they have known
something of what has been passing in the world around them," said U.S.
President Harry S. Truman after he had left office. 

Why recall these words today? Here's why. Following the press in the past
few days I have experienced a growing optimism about the state of
U.S.-Russian relations. I was especially heartened by the steel knot that
has been tied around the legs of U.S. chickens. For as long as I can
remember controversies like this have been breaking out between the United
States and its closest allies. They were symptoms of healthy relations and,
by this logic, the first U.S. Russian mini-trade war indicates how far our
partnership has come.

The press has also written much about our differences in the sphere of
strategic interests. But if you ask me, once the "nuclear winter" effect
was discovered in the early 1980s, nuclear arms ceased to be a matter of
bilateral relations. Russia could just announce that, if provoked, it would
detonate its nuclear arsenal right here at home. I doubt that anyone would
care to call our bluff.

Simply put, all of these warheads and negotiations on slashing or expanding
arsenals have become a purely domestic affair -- a way to keep diplomats
busy, feed the military-industrial complex and help the press fill pages
and airtime. I have begun to treat negotiations on disarmament as items on
the society page. They may be boring or scandalous but never very serious.

Last Tuesday I was invited to a briefing with U.S. Ambassador Alexander
Vershbow. He called the briefing to address the U.S. Embassy's concern that
the Russian press was painting too negative a picture of U.S.-Russian
relations. And it was then that I recalled Harry Truman. I felt myself one
of his "fellow citizens," and became rather uneasy. But the ambassador
allayed my concerns, convincingly stating that President George W. Bush and
his administration have not changed their policy on partnership with
Russia. It should come as no surprise that chicken legs and warheads
interested me far less than the Russian-American Media Entrepreneurs
Dialogue that opened the same day. Leaders of the National Association of
Broadcasters and the Newspaper Association of America had come to Moscow
for the first phase of the dialogue.

I first asked the ambassador why the associations of U.S. broadcasters and
newspaper publishers, who have no business interests in Russia, were taking
part in the dialogue while the big advertisers like Procter & Gamble or
Johnson & Johnson -- active players in the Russian media market -- were
excluded. He said the dialogue was just getting started, and would require
some fine-tuning.

I then asked why a dialogue between media managers was being overseen at
the government level by the U.S. State Department and the Russian Press
Ministry, neither of which has anything to do with entrepreneurship. He
replied that the United States had no equivalent to the Press Ministry, and
that when the dialogue was still on the drawing board the National Security
Council and the Commerce Department both had their say. The main players in
the dialogue should be professional organizations representing the mass
media, he said.

Having reached this point in my account of the ambassador's briefing, I
cast my mind's eye over our constantly bickering media organizations, led
by the Union of Journalists of Russia. And I elected to stop right there. 

Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals
(www.internews.ru/sreda)
 
*******

#8
Moscow Times
March 19, 2002
Mironov's Glorious Gaffe
By Boris Kagarlitsky   

From the time the Soviet Union first established diplomatic relations with
Israel, Jerusalem has been an obligatory destination for up-and-coming
Russian leaders. Last week, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation
Council, had his turn. Once in Israel, the No. 3 man in the Russian power
hierarchy cancelled a scheduled meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Mironov's decision -- a gross violation of diplomatic protocol -- attested
not so much to his decisiveness as to his lack of experience. It also
highlighted the incompetence of the entire St. Petersburg contingent, which
bureaucrats in the capital have taken to calling the "Northern Alliance."
Mironov's reasons for canceling the meeting, however, did most to betray
his own incompetence. An official who is close to President Vladimir Putin,
he declared that he could not meet with Arafat because this might be seen
as support for terrorism. The Israelis are battling Palestinian terrorists,
and we're battling Chechen terrorists. And the two battles are roughly the
same.

The Israeli far right applauded Mironov's principled position, as did the
Russian hawks who support the war in Chechnya. Strange as it may sound,
however, pacifists should derive the most satisfaction from what happened
-- in Russia, anyway. 

As a convinced opponent of the war in Chechnya, I cannot but congratulate
the leader of the upper house on his outstanding contribution to the
anti-war movement. By equating Chechnya with Palestine (and, by extension,
Aslan Maskhadov with Yasser Arafat), Mironov greatly increased the status
of the Chechen insurgency. Palestine is generally recognized as occupied
territory and the Palestinians as a nation with the right to create its own
independent state. This has been confirmed by a series of United Nations
resolutions, the last of which was passed last week with the backing of
Russia and the United States. That resolution used the term "state" with
regard to Palestine for the first time. 

As for Arafat, you can think what you will about his actions, but he is the
lawful and internationally recognized leader of Palestine. That is why the
Israeli armed forces have not attempted to arrest Arafat or run him out of
the occupied territories, although their tanks often approach to within a
stone's throw of his residence. By placing Chechnya on the same level as
Palestine, Mironov made clear that deep down the Russian ruling elite
recognizes that its troops in Chechnya are an army of occupation.

The top officials in Russia's foreign policy establishment are far more
experienced than the Federation Council speaker. Immediately after
Mironov's unfortunate statement, those officials sprang into action to
explain that he had expressed his personal opinion and that Russia's
position remained unchanged. And Mironov himself has already back-tracked
on numerous occasions. His position on this issue has become more and more
vague with each new interview, though this is a case of too little, too late.

An unlikely coalition of hawks, racists and ultraright groups came out in
support of Mironov both here and in Israel. The unity shown by flag-waving
Russian and Israeli patriots has been truly touching. On the Russian side
you have mostly avid or closet anti-Semites; on the Israeli side, as a rule
more or less open Russophobes. But both groups value the state above all
else and believe that a modern state can be built on the principle of
ethnic and religious exclusiveness. They are both prepared to justify any
and all excesses committed by their soldiers. This united front of
anti-Semites and Russophobes is held together by their common hatred for
Muslims and their unanimous refusal to recognize the human rights of people
of the "wrong" nationality. 

There is no point in trying to explain anything to such people. You'll
never turn a racist into a champion of human rights. But Russian
politicians, who are more or less liable for their words and deeds, would
do well to heed the lessons of the Middle East. The senseless and merciless
wave of Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians is the result of 35
years of occupation, with no end of victims and humiliation. The Chechens
have not yet resorted to suicide bombings of Moscow restaurants. But on its
visits to the Promised Land, the Russian leadership should take the time to
reflect on how the Chechens will behave if they come to believe that what
lies ahead is 10 more years of daily "mopping-up operations."

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.

******* 

#9
Wall Street Journal
March 19, 2002
Russia Intends to Make Concessions On Some Issues to Gain WTO Entry
By GUY CHAZAN 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MOSCOW -- Russia is prepared to make big concessions to join the World
Trade Organization but will resist demands from Europe and the U.S. to open
up its market to imported cars and planes, the country's chief trade
negotiator said in an interview.

Maxim Medvedkov, who also is deputy economics minister, said the government
wanted to keep high import duties to protect struggling domestic car and
aircraft manufacturers from western competition. But he said it was ready
to allow greater foreign access to Russia's banking and insurance market
and to agree to lower levels of state subsidies to agriculture.

"We understand that we have to pay a price for [WTO] accession," he said,
"but our partners understand that we'll never pay a price that would be too
high for our people and for our industry."

Mr. Medvedkov was speaking before the latest round of talks in Geneva on
Russia's bid to join the international trade body, which began Sunday.
Since China signed up last year, Russia is the last big country still
outside the WTO, and Vladimir Putin has made membership a major goal of his
presidency. The bid has received strong backing from the U.S., seen as a
reward for Mr. Putin's decision last year to sign up for the Washington-led
antiterror alliance.

But there is strong resistance to swift WTO entry from Russian businessmen
who fear an inflow of cheap imports could destroy the country's
manufacturing base, especially its ailing auto industry. Prominent among
them are industrialists like Oleg Deripaska, president of Siberian
Aluminum, which has invested heavily in Russia's second-largest carmaker
GAZ. SibAl officials fear cheaper foreign cars could put plants like GAZ
out of business.

The government argues WTO membership would improve Russia's investment
climate and bring an end to discriminatory trade measures imposed on
exports that it says currently cost the country $1.5 billion to $2.5
billion (€1.7 billion to €2.83 billion) a year. It would also help
producers by allowing them access to international trade settlement
procedures.

Mr. Medvedkov said this would benefit Russia's trading partners, too.
Moscow is currently embroiled in a spat with the U.S. over a decision by
the Russian veterinary authorities to ban imported U.S. poultry -- a move
that could cost the U.S. industry $600 million a year. U.S. negotiators
have been in Moscow for over a week holding talks to end the dispute.

Mr. Medvedkov said if Russia were part of the WTO the spat could have been
resolved more quickly using the organization's trade-settlement body in
Geneva. "Now, in our trading relations, there's no judge," he said. "The
only arbiter is Russia's chief veterinary officer."

Mr. Medvedkov was upbeat about Russia's progress in accession talks. He
said the government had reached agreement with its trading partners on
tariffs for three-quarters of all goods. It was successfully shepherding
through Parliament a package of 10 bills bringing Russian legislation into
line with WTO rules.

But he said Russia would resist pressure from the U.S. and European Union
to sign the Agreement on Trade in Civil Aircraft, a nonmandatory treaty
that calls for lower import duties on airplanes. He said Russia's aviation
industry employed one million people and produced planes that could compete
with commercial airliners made by Boeing Co. of the U.S. and Europe's
Airbus Industrie, but would never survive if exposed to competition from
western imports.

"It's impossible to imagine that we'll agree not to support an industry
where we have a clear possibility for growth, where we have a clear
competitive advantage," he said.

A western diplomat familiar with Russia's WTO talks said he doubted
Russia's refusal to sign the civil aircraft agreement would prove a
stumbling block. "It's voluntary, so it can't be a condition of
membership," he said.

******

#10
Vedomosti
March 19, 2002
PUTIN'S RATING IS AN OBSTACLE
...to Russia's rating in the long run
Author: Tatiana Lysova, Aleksei Nikolsky
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE POLITICAL STABILITY CREATED IN RUSSIA BY THE PRESIDENT HAS ITS 
REVERSE SIDE TOO. STANDARD & POOR'S SEES THE FLAW IN THIS STABILITY IN 
THE FACT THAT IT DEPENDS ALMOST ENTIRELY ON VLADIMIR PUTIN - WHICH 
AUTOMATICALLY MEANS WEAKNESS OF ALL OTHER INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT.
   The West views political institutions in Russia as weak 

THE POLITICAL STABILITY CREATED IN RUSSIA BY THE PRESIDENT HAS ITS 
REVERSE SIDE TOO. STANDARD & POOR'S SEES THE FLAW IN THIS STABILITY IN 
THE FACT THAT IT DEPENDS ALMOST ENTIRELY ON VLADIMIR PUTIN - WHICH 
AUTOMATICALLY MEANS WEAKNESS OF ALL OTHER INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 
THIS IS WHAT PREVENTS ANALYSTS FROM RAISING RUSSIA'S SOVEREIGN RATING.

     Russia's macroeconomic indicators look better than ever. This 
assumption was admitted by most speakers at the international 
conference Investments in Russia that took place in New York last 
week. These days, it is the political and court systems that are 
considered major obstacles for foreign investments in Russia.
     Boris Nemtsov was the first one to raise the matter in his 
report. According to Nemtsov, President Putin controls 250 seats in 
the Duma, controls the Federation Council, and has four national TV 
channels in his pocket. Nemtsov says that the Kremlin has a special 
doctrine, stipulating the impossibility of a European-type democracy 
in Russia and advocating a controllable democracy.
     Helena Hessel, Standard & Poor's Leading Analyst and Director or 
Central and East Europe, delivered a report too. Hessel said that 
weakness of political institutions in Russia was one of the major 
obstacles restricting its rating growth. "Political stability in 
Russia rests on a single individual," she said. "We do not consider 
the system in Russia democratic."
     According to Hessel, Russia's rating in December was upped in the 
wake of initiation of the court reforms. Another analyst added that 
the broad support with which all Putin's initiatives are greeted in 
Russia is of course a positive factor. "But we are talking here of the 
distant future which is impossible through concentration of power in 
one pair of hands only. Development of institutions is needed."
     Interros Vice President Sergei Aleksashenko thinks otherwise. 
Since the president's powers will remain effective for the next six 
years, it will provide a sufficient period for making Russia more 
attractive to investors. "There are historical precedents for a 
nation's economy being boosted thanks to a single leader," he said.
     Yevgeny Yasin of the Supreme School of Economics only partially 
shares the fears of excessive concentration of power. "There are two 
options of development for Russia - one relying on businesses and the 
other relying on the bureaucracy. Someone should dominate this pair," 
Yasin said: "On the whole, Putin is a factor of political stability, 
but emphasis in the reforms is still being placed on the bureaucracy, 
including security structures. Potentially, this is hazardous."

*******

#11
Novoe Vremya
No. 11
March 2002
A NEW LOOK AT OLD VALUES
Social democrats rendezvousing with liberalism
Author: Vladimir Shveitser
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC IDEAS IN THEIR PURE FORM REMAIN ABSOLUTELY 
UNWANTED IN RUSSIA. LIBERALISM WITH AN EMPHASIS ON HUMAN RIGHTS, 
TYPICAL OF YABLOKO IN THE PAST, IS NOT POPULAR WITH THE MASSES EITHER. 
HENCE THE ACTIVE SEARCH FOR A NEW SYSTEM OF COORDINATES.
  The programs of Yabloko and the Russian Social Democratic Party.

     The regime's eagerness and determination to reduce Russia's 
multi-party system to what will be essentially a two-party system 
makes it urgent for parties to seek out their own political niches. 
Russian conservatives from the pro-presidential United Russia and 
post-communists from the Communist Party have the least problems with 
this, and are favorites in the race for the next election. The 
conservative-liberal Union of Right Forces may occupy part of the 
political spectrum too. Social-democratic ideas in their pure form 
remain absolutely unwanted in Russia. Liberalism with an emphasis on 
human rights, typical of Yabloko in the past, is not popular with the 
masses either. Hence the active search for a new system of 
coordinates.
     Yabloko and Mikhail Gorbachev's Russian Social Democratic Party 
became pioneers of the program boom among social democrats. Both 
parties proclaim as their objective construction in Russia of a 
democratic (in every sense of the word), fair, and humane society. 
Both parties advocate its construction on the basis of principles of 
social liberalism. There are, however, some differences. These 
principles are fundamental for Yabloko. The Russian Social Democratic 
Party promotes integration of humane, social democratic, and liberal 
values.
     Expressed in the Democratic Manifesto, Yabloko's "Europeism" 
stipulates establishment of a state of general well-being "close in 
its parameters to the European standards". It sets a strategic task as 
well - "joining as a fully fledged member the European Union and other 
political, economic, and defense organizations of Europe." A special 
part of Yabloko's program is titled Russia's European Way.
     Program of the Russian Social Democratic Party doesn't even 
mention the terms "Europe" or "European".
     External attributes are important of course but they do not 
define the vector of program searches of the domestic liberals and 
social democrats. Finding one's niche means finding one's electorate. 
Who do social liberals' program provisions address?
     Both programs claim to be addressing the middle class. Both 
parties, however, differ on what they call by that. The Yabloko 
program makes it clear that the middle class is but an addendum to the 
major social addressee, the intelligentsia. Yabloko member M. Amosov 
from St. Petersburg had his brochure handed out to delegates of the 
January 2002 congress. According to Amosov, the middle class comprises 
small and medium businessmen, well-paid managers, and free-lancers of 
all kinds. Social-democratic construction, on the contrary, assumes 
that the middle class is composed of employees. "They teach, educate, 
and treat the people, ensure security of the people, state, and 
society. These men and women comprise the nucleus of the middle 
class," to quote from the program of the Russian Social Democratic 
Party. According to this construction, owners of small and medium 
businesses comprise an independent category, no yet a social basis of 
the party but surely its natural ally.
     Social democrats in the West know the cost of vague program 
postulates all too well and are ever so careful with wording. The 
category European social liberals appeal to is called middle strata. 
The matter concerns highly-paid employees involved in physical and 
intellectual labor in high-tech spheres. It is exactly them who put 
spiritual immaterial values to the level comparable with material and 
social needs. It isn't hard to see that in Russia of the early 21st 
century, such employees have not yet found their niche in social 
stratification.
     Given all the nuances of its perception in the West and in 
Russia, social-liberal model incorporates some general essence. It 
boils down to the attempt to establish a connection between every 
citizen's individual demands and collectivism as a phenomenon of 
social relations. The idea rests on what is termed as the major 
values. Both programs put liberty on top of the list.
     The Russian Social Democratic Party mentions freedom of choice 
for every individual and his or her responsibility with regard to 
society. Yabloko is more precise. It means freedom of Russia ensuring 
citizens' well-being and security. Both parties associate this value 
with another, justice. A society not split into a prosperous minority 
and impoverished majority is Yabloko's ideal of justice. Equality is 
the third value. It comprises equality of rights and equal 
opportunities for realization of individual potential. Social 
democrats in their turn treat justice as a synonym to equal 
opportunities. The Russian Social Democratic Party also objects to 
unwarranted privileges and social parasitism.
     Both programs mention solidarity as another value. Yabloko merely 
outlines the problem of social solidarity for the strong and the weak 
of society. As far as the Russian Social Democratic Party is 
concerned, solidarity is an equivalent of mutual assistance and mutual 
responsibility of citizens, including assistance and responsibility in 
the war on abuses the regime and businesses allow themselves. Business 
is only condemned in its extreme embodiment. On the whole, however, 
values and program postulates of the Russian Social Democratic Party 
favor private property. Here is one of the key provisions of the 
program. It states that "We call the policy aimed at development of 
businesses within the interests of the population social liberalism." 
The Democratic Manifesto agrees with social democrats, "Social 
liberalism of the 21st century should aim at implementation of the 
reforms within the interests of absolutely all citizens of Russia, and 
not the interests of the prosperous minority alone."
     The parties, both of them, follow the Western model where 
liberals traveled their part of the way treating justice as an 
equivalent of aspirations of the poor, and social democrats recognized 
that freedom was the vital pillar of economic prosperity and 
development of society. Solidarity in this construction is adequate to 
partnership connecting interests of all citizens in a state where the 
law reigns supreme.
     Advocates of social liberalism in Russia understand the enormous 
difference between the tasks existing in the Western states where the 
law reigns supreme and where economies are socially-oriented free-
market ones and in Russia. What is a fact of life in the West is still 
a goal in Russia. Theoreticians of Russian social liberalism are aware 
that on the verbal level the problems are properly outlined by their 
opponents on the right and on the left.
     Only the lazy is no talking of the necessity to build civic 
society and social state in Russia nowadays. Social democrats in 
particular emphasize that the tasks are interrelated. Yabloko agrees 
with that. "Social progress in Russia is impossible without society 
imbued with a sense of responsibility that can criticize and control 
the authorities and force them to promote its interests," its program 
states.
     Both programs call local self-rule one of the factors holding 
civic society and state together. Yabloko objects to all forms of 
administrative and financial pressure on the institution. The Russian 
Social Democratic Party is even more radical in this respect. It 
advocates the principle "as much of self-rule as possible, and as much 
of the state as necessary." Specialists comment in this respect on the 
influence of West European social democratic positions that have 
always relied in their policy on the initiatives from the below. "The 
European trace" can be seen in the opinion of the Russian Social 
Democratic Party on social partnership as a "cornerstone" of civic 
society.
     Social liberals build their own scale of priorities in the 
relations between the state, society, and market. Approving of 
activeness of the state in establishment of economic order, Yabloko 
points out twice (!) that the state should merely advise the market to 
be socially-oriented, without enforcing its will on it in any manner. 
The opinion of the Russian Social Democratic Party is fairly close to 
that - "... there should be as much of the market as possible, and as 
much of the state as necessary." Both programs denounce the liberal-
conservative opinion that economy is the dominating basis of society. 
As far as social democrats are concerned, economy is "a necessary 
means toward social ends."

PUBLICATION OF THE PROGRAMS MAY BE VIEWED AS A START OF SOCIAL-
LIBERALISM IN RUSSIA. WILL THESE IDEAS MEET WITH UNDERSTANDING? IT 
DOESN'T DEPEND ON THE IDEAS THEMSELVES OR THEIR ATTRACTIVENESS. 
EVERYTHING WILL BE DECIDED BY SPECIFIC POLITICAL ACTIVITIES, RESPECT 
COMMANDED BY LEADERS OF THE PARTIES, THE ABILITY TO SENSE THE 
POLITICAL MOMENT AND DEMANDS AND WISHES OF THE ELECTORATE.

********

#12
The New Statesman (UK)
March 18, 2002
Cover story - Far from the Promised Land
By John Kampfner 
Many Britons still see Israel as a Middle Eastern Hampstead, a land of 
liberal idealists. But the liberals are fleeing, and being replaced by Soviet 
"white trash". John Kampfner reports 

The serenity was unnerving. I was staying at Mishkenot Sha'ananim, a 
residence for visiting artists and musicians. Built on the site of a former 
almshouse, it is run by the Jerusalem Foundation, a cultural organisation. It 
is where, it is said, Saul Bellow began writing To Jerusalem and Back.

Most evenings, after interviewing generals in the Israeli army or after 
returning from a torrid trip into the West Bank, where my television crew was 
filming putative Palestinian suicide bombers, I would come back to this oasis 
of liberal culture in the heart of the world's most divided city.

The place is everything Israel was supposed to be - liberal, cultured and 
tolerant of other creeds. It is how British Jewry in Hampstead and Highgate 
and Golders Green likes to picture the "homeland". The young men and women at 
the front desk were not really receptionists, more music and art students 
earning money to supplement their study. They, like so many people of their 
age, now want out of Israel. For the past 18 months, these young people have 
not had a single encounter with Palestinians (apart from training guns on 
them during national service in the army).

These are neither the children of the Holocaust nor of the battle to create 
Israel; their values are no different from those of your average 
twentysomething Londoner. They are Jews who are proud of their people and 
their religion, but who no longer see much hope for the state created in 
their name.

Israel is haemorrhaging idealism. The second intifada - which has led to 
clashes that now claim as many as 40 Israeli and Palestinian lives a day - 
has changed the psyche of the country. Downtown Jerusalem is dying on its 
feet. Only the most courageous or foolhardy go out to any of its once 
thriving restaurants or cafes. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else.

But Israel's crisis predates the latest outbreak of hostilities with the 
al-Aqsa brigades, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In fact, the fear and animosity 
felt towards Palestinians is perhaps the only glue that is binding Israel 
together.

Israel is on a one-way demographic path. Fearful of being overwhelmed by 
Arabs within and the Palestinians without, the Israelis have taken to logical 
extremes their open-door policy for everyone who proclaims themselves a Jew. 
Just about anyone is welcome now, and the more imperilled the country 
becomes, the fewer the questions asked.

On any day at Ben Gurion Airport, you can see an Aeroflot or Transaero plane 
depositing the latest batch of immigrants from the nether reaches of the 
former Soviet Union. In the past few months, the numbers are down from the 
early post-communist years of the 1990s, but what is remarkable - given the 
violence - is that they still want to come at all.

Some of these people bring professional skills with them - computer analysts, 
engineers, doctors, videotape editors. But most of them do not. They are, in 
the words of several long-established Israelis I spoke to, "white trash".

In Moscow, where I spent several years, there was always a difference between 
Russians (or Ukrainians, or Armenians, or whatever they were) and "Sovs" - 
Soviet citizens, whose grasping was matched only by their intolerance of 
others.

Many of the more talented Russians who wanted to get out found their way to 
the United States or western Europe. The rest ended up in Israel. To do so 
under the country's Law of Return, they have to prove Jewish lineage from one 
grandparent. In most Soviet cities, such papers can always be arranged for a 
fee.

There are now one million Russians - or for the most part Sovs - who have 
made aliyah, who have "come home" to Israel. They constitute one-sixth of the 
total population. Scarred by generations of Soviet dictatorship and mental 
mind games, these Sovs know little about Israel and nothing about Arabs. 
Instead, they have brought with them a very Soviet racism. Whereas before, 
they hated the "blacks" of Central Asia or the Trans-caucasus south of 
Russia, they now reserve their hatred for the Palestinians and the Muslim 
countries that surround Israel. They have also imported the "might is right" 
culture that sustained the USSR after the Second World War.

The only Sovs who have any day-to-day contact with Palestinians are the 
organised criminals, who run the lucrative business of selling on stolen cars 
and smuggling weapons into the West Bank and Gaza that Israeli soldiers have 
offloaded to fund their drug habits.

Most of the new arrivals are anything but idealistic, and admit that their 
move to Israel was prompted by an economic imperative. One man I spoke to, 
from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk, told me he was depressed 
about the state of affairs in his new homeland. So did he regret emigrating? 
"Have you ever been to Dnepr?" he asked me. I told him I had; and even by the 
standard of Soviet towns, it is miserable. We agreed that, no matter how bad 
the violence that is engulfing Israel, he might have a point.

Israel is like home from home for the Sovs. They have their own television 
stations, local and beamed in from Moscow, and their own newspapers. They 
have moved in to the concrete blocks in the nondescript dormitory towns that 
pepper the main road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; in many parts of Israel, 
Russian is spoken far more readily than Hebrew or English. They also have a 
strong social safety net, familiar from Soviet times. They do various jobs on 
the side, but know - as in their former country - that they will always be 
assured a minimum income.

It is not religion that drives them. Most of these Sovs have none. But they 
have struck an inadvertent and unholy alliance with other groups in Israeli 
society that has changed the political landscape of the country.

The Likud government of Ariel Sharon is being sustained by a combination of 
Soviets, Sephardim and the ultra-orthodox (the only group that is reproducing 
fast enough to match the Palestinians). These disparate groups have nothing 
in common except their hostility towards some form of equitable outcome for 
the Palestinians. The Soviets look down on the Sephardim - mainly Moroccans, 
Ethiopians, Iraqis and Yemenis; the orthodox Jews look down on the lot. And 
all these groups look down on the Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

These groups together ensured the election of Ariel Sharon - and he is by no 
means the most extreme member of the ruling coalition. The only real pressure 
on Sharon is coming from those more hardline than he. If they manage to oust 
him, they will almost certainly put in his place Binyamin Netanyahu. It is a 
dreadful prospect.

Israel's Labour Party, meanwhile, is in a complete mess. Its troubles are 
compounded by the flight of many of its erstwhile liberal supporters into the 
shoot-first-ask-questions-later camp. The demographics have long been working 
against Labour. The Ashkenazi Jews, those who fled Europe either before or 
after the Holocaust, are diminishing fast as a proportion of the voter 
population. Some are leaving in disgust or despair; and among those who 
remain, the birth rate is falling. Ehud Barak had to fall back on Israel's 
Arab minority to ensure an improbable victory in the 1999 general election. 
That is not something Labour likes to trumpet.

It is now hard to envisage how Labour will get back into office. Barak's 
portrait adorns the wall of the armed forces headquarters in Tel Aviv (he was 
once chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces). But among many generals, 
he is now an object of derision.

One army person to whom I talked spoke of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, 
the only Israeli leader who had the courage to stand up to the virulent lobby 
of settlers, who for years have systematically undermined hopes of a peaceful 
settlement. "Killing him was a terrible thing to do," said the army man. "But 
you can understand the frustrations that might drive someone to do something 
like that."

The schism at the heart of Israeli society is not lost on the more thinking 
Palestinian leaders. "One option we had was to lie low, to do nothing, not to 
fight and to allow Israel to self-destruct," Marwan Barghouti, the head of 
Fatah in the West Bank, told me. Perhaps an example more of hubris than 
strategy, but the remark none the less points to one of the by-products of 
the intifada - it has allowed Israel to paper over its internal 
contradictions.

Security and identity have always been the twin axes of the Israeli psyche. 
The former has never been guaranteed; now the latter is equally imperilled.

On the steep, winding road into west Jerusalem, you pass the Andrei Sakharov 
Peace Garden, a plain but moving monument. Sakharov was an altogether 
different kind of dissident, a man who believed that ideals, rather than 
population or power, provided the raison d'etre of a nation. What would he 
have thought about the state that Israel is now in, and the role his former 
countrymen are playing in it? 

*******