Johnson's Russia List
#6237
12 May 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Contents:
  1. New York Times: Thom Shanker, U.S. Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear 
Tests.
  2. The Observer (UK): Oil fuels US army role in Georgia. Nick Paton Walsh 
in Tbilisi finds that pipeline protection is a key motive behind a US 
operation training Georgia's army to fight terrorists.
  3. Reuters: Tributes held for 42 victims of Russia blast.
  4. RIA Novosti: Dagestan blast suspects plead not guilty.
  5. BBC Monitoring: Russia rounds up 40 suspects over Dagestan attacks.
  6. Reuters: Paul Taylor, "Whither NATO" could become "Wither NATO."
  7. Baltimore Sun: Bill Glauber, Russians lend toughness as Israel faces 
up to terror. Immigrants bear grief of conflict, determined to persevere 
in new land.
  8. BBC: Caroline Wyatt, Far-flung veterans of the Soviet empire.
  9. National Journal: Bruce Stokes, Fowling Up Russia's WTO Accession.
  10. Los Angeles Times: Mary Mycio, Chernobyl Gets Glowing Reviews.
Travel: Visitors can see rare horses and breathe surprisingly fresh air 
in a strange twist on adventure tourism at the site of reactor disaster.  
  11. Forbes.com: Heidi Brown, Bear's market.
  12. RFE/RL MEDIA MATTERS: Oleg Rodin, REPORTING FROM NIZHNII NOVGOROD, 
RUSSIA'S 'THIRD CAPITAL'
  13. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Developments in 
the Chechen Conflict. Andrei Babitsky, Correspondent for Radio Liberty.]

*******

#1
New York Times
May 12, 2002
U.S. Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear Tests
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, May 11 — Administration officials have briefed Congress on what
they described as disturbing intelligence indicating that Russia is
preparing to resume nuclear tests, even as President Bush is scheduled to
meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss arms control
later this month, government officials said.

Selected members of the House and Senate met in small, closed sessions and
were told of a new analysis by the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence
Committee, a panel that collects the views of many federal agencies on
nuclear issues.

Among the members of Congress who received the briefing, the reaction
ranged from alarm to skepticism. Some debated whether the intelligence
report was a tactic to help clear the way for the United States to resume
nuclear testing. Others were so concerned that they drafted legislation
this week that would call for access to Russian nuclear sites and allow
work on a new generation of American nuclear warheads.

The assessment described technical activities on a Russian island above the
Arctic Circle that is the equivalent of the American nuclear test range in
Nevada, officials said. The pattern of work on the island, Novaya Zemlya,
matches known Russian activities in preparation for past nuclear tests,
officials said.

The briefings to Congress were not the first time the American intelligence
agencies had warned of activities on the island, though, and some
government analysts have raised questions over the months about whether
Russia may already have detonated tiny nuclear devices.

Russian officials steadfastly maintain that their nuclear weapons program
remains within the constraints of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The
treaty was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, but has not been
ratified by the Senate. President Bush has said it does not adequately
protect the nation's security interests, although the Bush administration
continues to honor the test moratorium.

Operations to gather intelligence on the Russian nuclear program are among
the most sensitive missions undertaken by the United States, and disputes
over exactly what is occurring on Novaya Zemlya have divided intelligence
analysts and administration officials in past years.

Officials insisted that the Congressional briefings had nothing to do with
pushing a hard-line agenda ahead of Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. Putin this
month. The timing of the briefings "was coincidental," one administration
official said.

One member of Congress, who was present at the briefing and remained
skeptical of the evidence of Russian testing, said, "The administration
seems to want to resume nuclear testing and to develop new nuclear weapons."

The only public reference to the briefings came on the floor of the House
on Thursday, when Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania,
made passing reference to the intelligence analysis. Mr. Weldon said the
briefing he attended was at the "code word level" of classification, and he
said he was so alarmed that he drafted an amendment to the 2003 defense
authorization bill.

The version of his amendment that passed the House this week would allow
the United States to conduct research and conceptual design work on a new
class of nuclear warheads. Language was deleted that would allow the United
States to resume testing if the government certified that another nation
had resumed testing. But in setting up what Mr. Weldon called "an
aggressive level of transparency," the amendment would establish a program
for Russian scientists to visit the Nevada nuclear test site in exchange
for visits by Americans to Novaya Zemlya.

"There may be something going on in Russia that we don't understand, that
may trouble us — and they may feel the same about something we're doing on
our side," Mr. Weldon said in a telephone interview after the vote. "It's
best to counter that, and not to recreate feelings that existed in the cold
war, but take this opportunity to engage."

Mr. Weldon, who described himself as "Russia's best friend but her toughest
critic," said he remained deeply concerned that conservative elements in
Russia's Defense Ministry, its foreign intelligence service and its atomic
energy ministry "want to move us and Russia away from a close dialogue" and
might be responsible for the worrisome actions at Novaya Zemlya.

Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council, said today
that the White House would have no comment on intelligence matters. On the
question of Russian nuclear testing, he said, "We are concerned that we may
not be able to know if any entity were testing in a way designed to avoid
detection, and we expect Russia to abide by the testing moratorium it has
declared for itself."

The intelligence report on Novaya Zemlya was included in a broader briefing
to Congress on cooperative programs between the United States and Russia to
reduce threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, a project
that includes tracking Moscow's compliance with a number of arms control
agreements, including the test-ban treaty.

When internal administration debates over Russian nuclear testing surfaced
previously, just more than a year ago, the director of nuclear weapons
development and testing at the Russian atomic energy ministry denied any
violation of the comprehensive test ban, a stance repeated by a variety of
Russian officials in the intervening months.

In an interview in February 2001 with The New York Times, Dr. Nikolai P.
Voloshin said that work at Novaya Zemlya was to ensure the reliability of
aging warheads, not to develop new weapons. He noted that the test-ban
treaty defined no specific "threshold" for a violation, but said simply
that nuclear explosions should not occur. "It doesn't specify whether one
neutron or two neutrons can be emitted," he said.

Advocates of the test-ban treaty pointed out that it had provisions under
which the United States could seek to inspect the Russian test site, and
they expressed concerns that the briefings for Congress were part of an
administration campaign to resume nuclear tests in Nevada.

"The Bush administration appears to be slowly but steadily moving in the
direction of removing the obstacles preventing a resumption of U.S. testing
and developing a rationale for resuming testing," said Daryl G. Kimball,
executive director of the Arms Control Association. "While it is clear that
this administration has no interest in seeking ratification, it must be
careful not to provoke other nuclear states and further alienate allies who
support the test ban treaty."

The administration's recent assessment of the nation's strategic arsenal,
called the Nuclear Posture Review, suggests it may be necessary to resume
testing to make new nuclear weapons and to ensure the reliability of
existing ones.

The Bush administration has no formal plans to resume nuclear testing, but
the president has said he does not support the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, describing it as not verifiable and not enforceable.

Mr. McCormack, the National Security Council spokesman, today repeated
administration policy that "the United States has no plans to resume its
nuclear testing program." He emphasized that the administration would
"continue to observe the nuclear testing moratorium consistent with our
right to take measures to ensure stockpile safety and integrity in
extraordinary circumstances."

Officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy and State, and at the
National Security Council have discussed whether President Bush should
renounce Mr. Clinton's signature on the test-ban treaty. Just this week,
the Bush administration formally renounced American support for the treaty
creating an International Criminal Court; that treaty likewise had been
signed by Mr. Clinton but was not ratified by the Senate.

*******

#2
The Observer (UK)
12 May 2002
Oil fuels US army role in Georgia 
Nick Paton Walsh in Tbilisi finds that pipeline protection is a key motive
behind a US operation training Georgia's army to fight terrorists

Captain Kelly Smith's eyes widened with horror as he entered the control
tower. Standing in the ruins of a Georgian army firing range, he sighed. 'I
was hoping to see some electrical equipment here,' he muttered, amid the
debris. 

Smith is one of 26 American soldiers who arrived two weeks ago in Tbilisi,
the first of a 150-strong force designed to train and equip the crumbling
Georgian army. Washington and Tbilisi have said Georgia is under threat
from 'terrorists' in the Pankisi Gorge on the border with war-torn
Chechnya. They say the Georgian military needs Western help to prevent the
gorge's terrorists - some reportedly al-Qaeda - from moving farther inland. 

The £44 million deployment is still at the 'surveillance stage', but within
a month US troops hope to run a 'terrorism school' here at the Vaziani
base. For now they are staying at a five-star hotel in Tbilisi until the
lights at the base work. 

When the Soviet army pulled out 10 years ago, it left devastation behind. 

Half the windows in the barracks are missing, and every building on the
firing range has been gutted. The Georgian army has had to dig new trenches
at the range by hand as the Russians removed the plans explaining the
complicated wiring system that runs under the base. 

'A mechanical digger might damage it,' said Mirian Kiknadze, spokesman for
the Georgian army. While Smith, 32, said the exact nature of the training
was 'still under negotiation', it will be more about improving
'infrastructure than anything else'. 'Train and Equip' is expected to last
21 months. The Georgian army needs to be able to defend itself before it
can tackle the terrorists who the Pentagon says live on its borders. 

The focus of these operations will be the Pankisi Gorge, a series of
hamlets in the mountains infected by the bloody anarchy of neighbouring
Chechnya. It is now guarded by Georgian special forces, backed up by
America with £100m in aid and 10 Huey helicopters. Local police maintain
the area has been calm for a month, despite confirming that 10 days ago
three men were kidnapped from their car in broad daylight, reportedly by
Chechens. 

Police blockades have been installed on the road into the gorge. Soldiers
mill around the outposts, or sit nervously behind sandbags, each carrying
half a dozen spare magazines for their AK-47s. Outsiders are officially
unwelcome. 

Last week a man's body washed downstream to the soldiers' base camp. These
huge men are permanently armed, on edge. 

David, from the Georgian Secret Service, smiled as he spoke of the days he
spent being trained in San Antonio, Texas, but stiffened when he admitted
'there is no guarantee that any of us are safe'. He added: 'We don't know
when we can leave.' 

Matters have deteriorated in the past weeks. A Chechen warlord, Gulayev,
was in the gorge a week ago, informed sources said. Refugees have strained
the local villages. 'Life here is terrible,' said Shota Shalisu, a farmer.
'Every day we hear gunfire. There are many Arabs here.' 

Few doubt Pankisi is home to drug-runners and banditi from the Chechen war.
America maintains the bandits have to be kept in check or they could
destabilise the country. 

But Kakha Katcitadze, a senior government adviser, told The Observer that
the gorge would not create 'vital dangers for Georgia'. America has other
goals. 

'There are some problems in Pankisi, but I think it is mostly a social
issue. I am not so worried about it. Anti-terrorism is not the only reason
for the relationship between the United States and Georgia. Georgia is also
the shortest route between the [oil reserves] of the Caspian Sea and Turkey.' 

An international consor tium of oil companies including BP, America's
Chevron, Russia's Lukoil and France's Total considers Georgia the ideal
route by which oil from Azerbaijan and Central Asia can reach Turkey and
the West. 

The present single pipeline is soon to be joined by two others, more than
doubling the network's capacity. American training helps protect the
pipeline - and its steady supply of oil to Western cars. 

BP recently sent a risk analyst to the area to explore opportunities for
expansion. 'The pipelines will of course benefit from the military
presence,' said a BP spokeswoman. 

'It is in British interests that the pipeline works. BP is a major
sponsor,' Katcitadze said. The British military has been giving the
Georgian army English language courses, for years, he added. 

'We understand ourselves as a nation as part of the West, and want to go
back to where we were before Soviet times.' 

But above all, increased Western support will protect Georgia from Russian
interference. 'Ninety per cent of Georgians hope that the Americans will
stay here,' he said. 'There is an old proverb, "You can choose your friends
but not your neighbours".' 

*******

#3
Tributes held for 42 victims of Russia blast
By Clara Ferreira-Marques

MOSCOW, May 11 (Reuters) - Grieving relatives and officers paid their final
respects on Saturday to 42 people killed in a bomb blast in the southern
city of Kaspiisk that shattered Russia's solemn Victory Day celebrations.
 
Russian television showed troops standing to attention by coffins draped in
the national flag at Kaspiisk in Dagestan, a neighbour of the rebel
Chechnya region.
 
"What kind of a holiday was this? People died while they were celebrating,"
Vice-Admiral Vladimir Masorin told ORT public television. "Today we don't
even know who to blame."
 
Thursday's attack, condemned by President Vladimir Putin as an act planned
by "scum who hold nothing sacred," was staged two weeks ahead of a summit
in Moscow and St Petersburg between Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush.
 
A remote-controlled mine exploded as an army band marched through Kaspiisk,
home to a large Russian military base. War veterans and children had massed
in the town to mark the Soviet Union's 1945 victory over Germany.
 
Itar-Tass news agency, quoting Dagestan's Health Ministry, said the death
toll had risen to 42 after another victim succumbed to his injuries in
hospital. Seventeen children were among the dead.
 
Thursday's blast, the latest in a string of explosions targeting regions
adjacent to Chechnya, is likely to strengthen Moscow's hand in pursuing a
tough policy in Chechnya.
 
Eight people died in April in a market-place blast in North Ossetia, west
of Chechnya, and a military convoy was attacked by guerrillas operating
inside Dagestan the same month.
 
Officials investigating Thursday's blast arrested three men in Russia's
second city St Petersburg on Friday, Interfax news agency said, quoting
prosecutors.
 
"We have very strong arguments linking these people to the terrorist act in
Kaspiisk," Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky was quoted as saying.
 
SUSPECTS FLOWN TO DAGESTAN
 
On Saturday, the three arrested men were flown from St Petersburg to
Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital on the Caspian Sea. NTV television showed
the three men being frogmarched off a plane by police in balaclavas. One
had his face still covered with a brown canvas bag.
 
Later on Saturday, a plane flew the bodies of 13 victims to Moscow, from
where they would be sent to their home towns.
 
"We will not abandon the families, we will take care of them," Vice-Admiral
Masorin said. "We, as commanders, take the blame ourselves. We should have
been able to guarantee their security."
 
ORT said families of servicemen who perished would be given roughly $1,600
in compensation while relatives of other victims would receive $650.
 
Moscow returned to Chechnya in 1999 after an unsuccessful 1994-96 campaign
and says it holds nearly all the region. But its troops have failed to put
an end to guerrilla attacks.
 
Putin blamed Thursday's attack on "terrorists," Kremlin shorthand for
Muslim Chechen rebels. But Chechen's rebel leadership denied the accusations.
 
Akhmed Zakayev, envoy to Chechnya's ousted President Aslan Maskhadov, was
quoted by the Chechenpress website as saying Maskhadov had banned all
military action in "friendly Caucasus republics." Maskhadov said Chechnya's
leadership condemned acts targeting civilians.
 
********

#4
Russia: Dagestan blast suspects plead not guilty 

Makhachkala, 12 May, RIA-Novosti correspondent Dekabr Beybutov: The three
men suspected in organizing terrorist acts in Makhachkala deny their
involvement in the blasts, which resulted in loss of life.

A RIA-Novosti correspondent reports that on Sunday [12 May] the Dagestani
Interior Ministry gave central news agency journalists an opportunity to
meet the three men who had been arrested in St Petersburg and flown to
Makhachkala. The men are suspected of being involved in the terrorist act
in Kaspiysk [on 9 May] and similar crimes, in which many people were killed.

The men were identified for the first time. They are brothers Artur and
Zaur Mamayev, and their namesake Shamil Mamayev. All three were born in
Makhachkala, where, before their departure for Chechnya, they were engaged
in the production of footwear.

The law-enforcement bodies say that the men were trained as terrorists in
the detachment of famous field commander Rappani Khalilov, who was born in
Dagestan.

The men deny their involvement not only in the terrorist act in Kaspiysk
but also in other explosions perpetrated by criminals in Makhachkala
lately. However, Artur Mamayev has pleaded guilty to a terrorist act in
which no-one was hurt - the blowing up of a UAZ vehicle near the military
prosecutor's office in Makhachkala in late February.

So far, all three deny categorically their involvement in particularly
serious crimes, but this will be made clear during the investigation into
the terrorist acts in Dagestan.

*******

#5
BBC Monitoring
Russia rounds up 40 suspects over Dagestan attacks 
Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 0800 gmt 12 May 02

[Presenter] Today, in Makhachkala [capital of Dagestan], representatives of
the Federal Security Service are expected give first comments on progress
in the investigation into the terrorist attack in Kaspiysk...

We now have a live link-up with our correspondent in Makhachkala, Ilyas
Shurpayev. So, Ilyas, have there been any first comments?

[Correspondent] Yes, Olga, just a few minutes ago Russian Deputy
Prosecutor-General Vladimir Kolesnikov came out with the first comment. He
said those who had ordered the terrorist attack were already known, quite a
lot was known, including the mechanism of the execution of this attack.
However, in the interests of the investigation, he cannot reveal any
information at all. Vladimir Kolesnikov said that it was done to protect
those who, as he put it, are in the trenches, i.e. work under cover among
the terrorists.

Nevertheless, Vladimir Kolesnikov said that he could make public the
information they had just received. About 40 people have been detained on
suspicion of participation in and organization of terrorist attacks carried
out on the territory of Dagestan over the past year and in early 2002. Many
of them underwent training in Chechnya, some in the Pankisi Gorge in
Georgia and others even in Afghanistan.

The deputy prosecutor-general said several terrorist groups may operate on
the territory of Dagestan that were not directly connected with each other
but were controlled by the same organization...

*******

#6
FEATURE-"Whither NATO" could become "Wither NATO"
By Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS, May 12 (Reuters) - "Whither NATO?," the eternal question about
the future of the U.S.-led defence alliance, risks turning into "Wither
NATO," a lament for the decline of a once mighty military organisation.
 
No, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation -- the team that won the Cold
War without firing a shot -- is not about to die.
 
Nine ex-Communist nations are vying for invitations to join the 19-member
alliance in November, former foe Russia is on the brink of a new
relationship, NATO soldiers patrol the Balkans, and partners galore are
seeking enhanced defence cooperation.
 
"NATO has never been busier," says Secretary-General George Robertson ahead
of its semi-annual meeting of foreign ministers in Reykjavik, Iceland, on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
 
But since the Bush administration sidelined NATO from its military response
to the September 11 attacks on the United States, the alliance has been in
a crisis of self-doubt.
 
New threats and security challenges lie far beyond NATO's area. The United
States, far ahead of Europe in military technology and defence spending,
does not want its hands tied by having to share decision-making with
allies. Future wars are unlikely to involve the alliance collectively.
 
"Many people in the Pentagon see NATO as a relatively marginal, European
organisation," Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform,
wrote in the NATO Review magazine.
 
Because of frustrations at waging war by committee over Kosovo in 1999,
"the United States is unlikely to want to use NATO to run another serious
shooting war," Grant argued.
 
The European Union would take on some of the peacekeeping, and NATO as it
expands, would become primarily a political, pan-European security
organisation, focused on "Europe and its near abroad," he said.
 
HALFWAY HOUSE
 
Grant's vision may delight Russian President Vladimir Putin, keen to see a
more political, less military NATO, and France, which has sought a European
alternative ever since President Charles de Gaulle quit NATO's integrated
command in 1966.
 
Many European analysts see a new division of labour emerging in which the
United States fights wars and leaves Europe to clean up, doing peacekeeping
and "nation building."
 
But U.S. strategic analyst Ronald Asmus, one of NATO's most ardent
advocates in Washington, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for
Europe in 1997-2000, warns that such limited horizons could spell doom for
the alliance.
 
"If NATO is not involved in the central strategic issues facing our
countries, it will cease to be central in our policies. A 'political' NATO
is a halfway house for the alliance's demise," Asmus wrote in a rejoinder
to Grant.
 
Republican Senator Richard Lugar made the same point: "If NATO remains
focused on Europe, the alliance will be reduced to what might be called the
housekeeping function of managing security on an already stable continent,
and it will cease to be America's premier alliance for the simple reason
that it will not be addressing the major security issues of our time."
 
Lugar warned that the debate about "what NATO is for" would sharpen if
events in the Middle East or Iraq became a central issue in U.S.-European
relations later this year.
 
Stopping short of advocating a "global NATO," Asmus argued that the
alliance must have the capacity to act in Central Asia, the Middle East and
the Gulf.
 
The main problem, he said, was not the Bush administration's unilateral
instincts, but Europe's repeated failure to invest in defence or to take
new threats from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction seriously.
 
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns put it more diplomatically, calling
this a year of "transformation" for NATO that should lead to new defence
capabilities, new members and new relationships.
 
"It is no secret there is a capability gap between the United States and a
large majority of our European allies. The U.S. doesn't wish to see a
two-tiered alliance develop," Burns told reporters last week.
 
WIDENING GAP
 
Yet the military gap seems certain to grow still wider. The $45 billion
increase in defence spending planned by President George W. Bush this year
is more than the entire defence budget of Britain or France, the two
leading European military powers.
 
The post-Cold War slide in European defence spending may have been halted,
but there is no political support in Europe for a significant increase in
military outlays.
 
Burns said that while the Bush administration wanted a robust enlargement
from the Baltic to the Black Sea, its top priority was improving the
alliance's military capabilities to tackle new "unconventional and
asymmetric" threats.
 
The United States wants an allied commitment by a NATO summit in November
in Prague to fund "a single-digit number of absolutely critical
priorities": strategic air and sealift, precision-guided munitions, more
special forces, secure communications and air-to-air refuelling.
 
Since September 11, Washington's chief nightmare has been terrorists armed
with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
 
Many Europeans see this either as a remote possibility or as a challenge
for law enforcement, intelligence cooperation and civil defence rather than
the armed forces.
 
And few, if any, European governments see NATO playing any collective role
in either the Middle East or a war to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
 
Burns brushed aside the debate about how far "out of area" NATO should be
prepared to go, and whether the alliance would ever take collective
military action again.
 
He noted that seven NATO allies had special forces fighting alongside the
United States in Eastern Afghanistan now, and 16 were involved in the ISAF
peacekeeping force in Kabul.
 
They were able to do so because they had trained and planned together in
NATO, Burns said.
 
COALITIONS OF THE WILLING
 
To some, this is NATO's new role -- not a "global cop" but a training
ground, tool kit and sorting office for "coalitions of the willing," formed
by the United States or major European allies to meet the security
challenge of the moment.
 
That would give Washington the flexibility it sought when Deputy Defence
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told NATO in the wake of September 11 that "the
mission defines the coalition."
 
But some European diplomats say it could undermine the burden-sharing
tradition on which NATO was based and circumvent the principle of taking
all decisions by consensus.
 
*******

#7
Baltimore Sun
May 12, 2002
Russians lend toughness as Israel faces up to terror
Immigrants bear grief of conflict, determined to persevere in new land 
By Bill Glauber
Sun Foreign Staff

TEL AVIV - The smokejumper from Siberia was used to leaps of faith,
parachuting into remote forests to fight fierce fires. Four years ago,
jobless in the former Soviet Union, he took another plunge, leaving a
tattered Siberian city named Novosibirsk and taking his wife and four
children to Israel.

"It was," he said, "like a miracle."

He had left a country that in every sense seemed to be in a deep freeze and
arrived in another warmed by a hot desert wind.

He found a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, working 80 hours,
supporting his family, making sure his four kids got the best schooling,
the best clothes. And 11 months ago, he allowed his 16-year-old daughter
Mariana to go with her friends to a seaside disco in Tel Aviv.

He still remembers the night - Mariana with her short hair and long limbs,
laughing and trying on clothes with her friends, dancing to a Madonna
single, and then, out the door, forever.

The next time he saw her was at the morgue, her body still warm, a shrapnel
wound in the back of the head. Mariana was among 21 killed in a suicide
bombing that ripped through the heart of Israel's new immigrant community
from the old Soviet Union.

So now, Victor Medvedenko, a sad-eyed 47-year-old with a weathered face,
trim beard and rueful smile, is left to sit in his apartment at night
contemplating his family's destroyed dreams.

'That day my daughter died, of course I regretted coming to Israel,"
Medvedenko said. "I kept thinking, 'I'm guilty and I can't change
anything.' But now, I am ready to fight for this land."

For immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict has proved as testing as the hard life they left behind. More than
900,000 people have immigrated here from the former Soviet Union since
1989, but no one foresaw the physical dangers.

"I have a friend in Russia with two sons who asked me about the problems of
life in Israel," Medvedenko said sitting in front of a television showing
the Russian news and watching his wife, Tatiana, work on a Russian
crossword puzzle. "I'm afraid to give advice. It is good to visit the
country, but I told him, 'The decision is on you, not on me.'"

Since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the
flood of immigrants from the former Soviet Union has slowed to a trickle,
with only 4,559 arrivals in the first three months of this year. Two years
ago, in a similar three-month period, more than 12,000 former Soviet
citizens arrived. From 2000 to 2001, the number of immigrants declined by
about 30 percent - falling from 50,817 in 2000 to 33,522 in 2001.

Israel's security situation and an improvement in conditions in the former
Soviet republics are often cited as reasons for the decline.

Those who do come usually stay; only around 8 percent return. The pattern
has continued during the present crisis even though a third of those killed
by the suicide bombers have come from the former Soviet Union.

"People coming here in the last 10 years are pretty well educated about
Israel," said Yuli Edelstein, Israel's acting minister of immigrant
absorption, who arrived from Moscow 8 1/2 years ago. "We knew what things
were like, but we also knew we were jumping into the water."

From finding jobs to securing housing to educating their kids, the new
immigrants quickly sought to climb the ladder to respectability and
prosperity. They have proved themselves to be true believers in an Israeli
Dream by establishing high-tech businesses, theater groups, schools,
newspapers and radio stations, and weaving themselves into the society's
fabric.

More secular than the rest of the Jewish population and politically more
conservative, the new immigrants have made a quick impact in the country's
day-to-day life. And they are decidedly hawkish, overwhelmingly supporting
military incursions. If anything, they want the government to strike harder.

"I would call the Russian public here more hard-nosed in terms of the
conflict," Edelstein said. "I think the origins are from experience. We
don't believe in this whole thing of negotiating with the terrorists. We
believe in a hard line with the terrorists."

There is also a great deal of mistrust in the Russian community about
dealing with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who reminds many of them of
a Soviet-style dictator leading a repressive regime.

'They come to associate the Palestinian nationalists with the former
Communist oppressors they had back in Russia," said Dimitri Segel, a
professor of comparative literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Segel, who arrived from Russia in the 1970s, said the new arrivals "tend to
be more patriotic and less pampered than some parts of the Israeli
population who are more of the Western liberal mold."

He added the Russians have an ability to absorb the blows of attacks by
Palestinian militants.

"The Russians tend to bear it better than the rest of the community," he
said. "The conditions back in Russian mostly were very bad for people. And
then, we don't have this supercilious indoctrination to expect peace any
moment. We are much more realistic."

Among the tough realists from the former Soviet Union are Roman Peres, 32,
Yuri Magner, 42, and Hanuka Solomon, 48, self-made businessmen and local
politicians. Peres and Magner are on the local government council in the
town of Yokneam, while Solomon chairs the building committee in the city of
Hadera.

All three have been in Israel for a decade or more but have seen in the
past few months the country has taken the new immigrants to its heart.

"Israelis finally had to come to the conclusions that Russians accepted
this country with all the problems," said Solomon, who runs a construction
firm.

Magner, who runs a high-tech firm, said former Soviet citizens are quite
capable of enduring whatever is thrown at them.

"Many of us arrived in 1991 when rockets were falling from the sky during
the gulf war," he said. "We got used to the danger quickly. Russians are
generally stronger than other people because of the long time fighting with
different regimes."

In the conflict with the Palestinians, the three men said, the government
should strike back harder. They cautioned that they didn't want Israel to
turn the West Bank or Gaza Strip into Chechnya, where the Russians have
fought an exceptionally brutal war - but they did want a stern response to
prevent future terror attacks.

"We didn't come here to die on Israeli streets," said Peres, an executive
with a food company.

It was the suicide bombing last June at the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv
that put a spotlight on the new immigrants' grief and resilience. Israelis
were stunned by the carnage that left young women looking like bloodied
dolls at the disco entry. The next day, Hebrew papers published headlines
in Russian.

But for the relatives of those killed, the grief has remained immeasurable.

In life, Mariana Medvedenko and her best friend, Anna Kazachkov, 15, were
inseparable. They died together that night. Photographs of them, each girl
smiling, adorn their parents' homes. The two families, the Medvedenkos and
Kazachkovs, seem bound by the shared tragedy.

Anna's mother, also named Anna, keeps a memorial candle lighted for her
daughter, a smiling girl with strawberry-blond hair who wrote in a diary:
"I want to be an engineer. I want to be loved. And my dreams to come true."

The mother, a doctor who brought her family to Israel in 1999, cleaned
houses and studied for tests to regain her credentials as a physician,
remains haunted by a conversation she had with her mother before leaving
Belarus.

"My mother said the situation was very dangerous in Israel," the elder Anna
said. "I said, 'No, Momma, we will come to Israel and it will be fine.' I
always return my thoughts to that moment."

Her daughter is dead, her medical career stalled because she can't
concentrate enough to pass the exams.

Victor Medvedenko, too, is haunted by his decision to take his family to
Israel. He has learned to live with the regret, even if his loyalties are
divided. His parents are buried in Russia. His daughter is buried in Israel.

He gathers strength by re-reading an essay his daughter wrote months before
her death.

"Here," Mariana wrote, "we're happy and it is possible to live without fear
for your life."

*******

#8
BBC
11 May 2002 
Far-flung veterans of the Soviet empire  
By Caroline Wyatt 
BBC Moscow correspondent  
 
Last week, Russia held its annual military parade on Red Square to
celebrate Victory Day, the anniversary of its defeat of Nazi Germany in
World War Two. 

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Red Army held similar parades
of military might in the cities that were part of its empire. 

I remember watching the Soviet parades as a teenager in East Berlin in the
1980s, and felt awe-struck and a little afraid. 

Several years later, I watched the Red Army go home at last. The
unthinkable had happened - the Soviet Union had collapsed, and Berlin was a
free city. 

The Berliners watching them were in spiteful mood. "You know they've stolen
everything, to take home with them, don't you?" said the old man next to me. 

A remnant of that army 

"Their barracks have been stripped bare - they took the bath-tubs with them
and even the lavatory seats." 

I wondered what sort of places these men were going back to, so desperate
that they needed East German plumbing. 

Last week I found out when we flew to the Central Asian nation of
Kyrgyzstan. It's one of the poorest, yet most beautiful former Soviet
republics, with lakes and mountains to rival Switzerland's. 

Our local driver was a cheerful man in his early 40s called Adil. He met us
at the tiny airport in Osh, his red Volkswagen mini-bus unusually well-kept
compared with the battered Ladas beside it. 

Our conversation was limited - until we suddenly discovered that we both
spoke German. He said he had learned his in Berlin, and Dresden, serving
with the Red Army in the late 1980s. 

Adil flashed a gold-toothed smile, and spent the next two days happily
reminiscing. He had clearly had the time of his life as a young man in
Germany. 

Sausage stall 

He was grateful to the Soviet Army for giving him the chance to travel,
though he remembered the parades less fondly. 

Somehow he had managed to stay on when his comrades left and found a job in
a factory in Dresden, and later at a sausage stall in Berlin. 

He loved the beer, the women and the freedom - in that order. But after a
few years, Adil decided it was time to go home. 

Before he did, he saved enough money to buy a second-hand Volkswagen to
drive home - 3,000 miles across countless new republics. 

Divisions 

At last he arrived back in Osh, and went on to marry, father three children
and set himself up as a taxi driver in his red van. 

It wasn't a bad living, he told me, but nor was it a good one. He was
silent, as our translator Aibek explained that the family we had
interviewed that morning lived on less than $7 a month. 
 
The breakfast they had prepared for us - bread rolls and tea - was what
they would eat for lunch and supper too. 

That night we took Adil and Aibek to the best restaurant in town, for
traditional Kyrgyz food - huge meat shashliks in spicy sauces. 

As we ate, they talked about the divisions that rack their tiny country.
With just five million people, it is home to around 70 different ethnic
groups. Adil and Aibek were both Uzbek - the minority. 

When Stalin carved up Central Asia, he deliberately made a nonsense
patchwork of the borders, so that many were left stranded outside their
homeland when the Soviet Union fell. 

Adil said it was hard for Uzkbeks to find work - they were seen as
trouble-makers, and sometimes singled out as Muslim extremists. 

Adil poured another beer, and sighed. One of his friends had managed to
emigrate to Australia, to work as a sheep-shearer. He looked wistful, and
asked whether it was easy to get a visa to work in Britain. 

Not really, I said, and it would be another long drive. 

Adil admitted he would rather stay in Osh. His ambition was to run a car
workshop - he just needed the money to set it up. 

Maybe in a few years. As we left, I dashed off to the loo - the one in my
hotel wasn't working. There, amid the rusty, leaking Soviet plumbing, it
suddenly occurred to me why Adil's comrades had taken back east Germany's
finest pipes and lavatory seats. 

Before we parted, I asked Adil if he had taken anything back from Berlin or
Dresden? He looked surprised. No, he answered, only the red Volkswagen. 

*******

#9
National Journal
May 11, 2002
ECONOMICS: Fowling Up Russia's WTO Accession
By Bruce Stokes

Robert Liuzzi, president of CF Industries, a major producer of nitrogen
and phosphate fertilizer, has a problem, one he shares with poultry
producers and several other politically well-connected American
industries. But unlike many people with a problem, Liuzzi has some
leverage to get what he wants.

His problem is Russia. And Liuzzi's leverage is twofold: Moscow's fervent
desire to join the World Trade Organization; and the Bush administration's
equally strong hopes of rewarding Russian President Vladimir Putin for his
support of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The White House's reward, which
Bush would like to deliver in his upcoming summit with Putin, is granting
Russia permanent normal trade relations, a prerequisite for Washington to
sign off on Russian membership in the WTO.

But the legislative calendar, the political influence of the fertilizer
and poultry industries, and congressional Democrats' desire to retain some
leverage of their own over the Russian WTO accession are likely to thwart
President Bush's desire to deliver normal trade relations when he meets
with Putin in late May. Nevertheless, the administration will persist. And
the issue of Russian readiness to abide by international trade rules, and
the question of appropriate congressional input in judging that readiness
will persist as well.

After a strong rebound from its 1998 economic crisis, the Russian economy
is slowing. To boost exports-and, even more important, to introduce
greater competition into its domestic economy and thus increase
productivity-Russia needs to open its own markets and attract greater
foreign investment.

To that end, the Russian Duma has already passed about 300 of the
estimated 340 legal changes needed to qualify Russia for WTO membership.
And Putin, who currently commands a strong Duma majority, hopes to
complete the WTO accession negotiations before the Duma elections late
next year.

To support Putin, the Bush administration and most of the U.S. business
community are pushing Congress to eliminate the Jackson-Vanik amendment to
the 1974 Trade Act, a provision that forces an annual review of Russia's
trade benefits to ensure that Moscow permits Jews to emigrate. Jewish
groups acknowledge that there is no trouble emigrating from Russia these
days. But to some in Congress and to some U.S. businesses, more is at
stake than emigration.

Russia is the world's largest exporter of nitrogen fertilizer. U.S.
producers gripe that their Russian competitors pay only one-sixth the
world price for natural gas (the principal ingredient in nitrogen-based
fertilizers). This unfair price discrepancy reflects the Russian
government's continued dominance of the Russian natural gas market, they
say. Before Moscow is accorded normal trade relations or WTO membership,
the U.S. industry wants its Russian competitors to pay market prices for
their raw materials.

American farmers have a different problem. The Russian market accounts for
nearly two-fifths of total U.S. poultry exports and about a quarter of
overall U.S.-Russian trade. But Moscow recently banned importation of U.S.
chickens for a time, alleging that the meat was contaminated with
salmonella and other pathogens. Americans contended that the action had
more to do with Moscow's pique over U.S. steel tariffs than with
scientific evidence of unhealthy fowl. Burned by past Chinese, European,
Japanese, and Korean use of sanitary standards to block other U.S.
agricultural exports, poultry producers are determined not to let Russia
do the same.

Congress, meanwhile, has a procedural concern about Russia joining the
WTO. "In recent years," said Rep. Sander M. Levin, D-Mich.,
"Congress has generally not granted [permanent normal trade
relations] until a country has completed its accession to the WTO, or at
least completed its WTO accession negotiations with the United States. The
reason is obvious. The ultimate vote on [granting normal trade relations]
gives Congress an important lever to ensure that [the terms of accession]
reflect congressional priorities."

If the administration wants to reward Putin with normal trade benefits,
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has suggested a second, separate up-or-down
congressional vote on Russia's WTO accession agreement, after the granting
of normal trade relations. Administration officials and business lobbyists
object, arguing that it would impose a burden on Russia not faced by any
other WTO applicant.

The concerns of fertilizer and poultry producers may sound like just more
special-interest whining. But such practical problems are perfect examples
of why it is so important to get Russia, or any country, to play by the
rules before it is accorded the benefits of WTO membership. Years ago, for
geopolitical reasons, Japan was allowed to join the WTO's predecessor
before Tokyo eliminated its protectionist industrial policies. Japan took
advantage of that leniency, and the world has been paying the price ever
since.

Congress is right to demand a final review of Russia's WTO accession
accord, either as part of granting Moscow normal trade relations or in a
separate vote. This safeguard does not mean that Russia might become the
next Japan. But letting Moscow off the hook would demonstrably hurt some
U.S. industries. More important, it would send all the wrong signals to
Beijing, a recent WTO entrant, suggesting that China need not live up to
WTO standards either. And that would be a problem, indeed.

******

#10
Los Angeles Times
May 11, 2002
Chernobyl Gets Glowing Reviews
Travel: Visitors can see rare horses and breathe surprisingly fresh air in a 
strange twist on adventure tourism at the site of reactor disaster.  
By MARY MYCIO, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- Yuri Zayets pointed his binoculars toward a distant 
copse of birches and shouted excitedly from midway up the fire tower: 
"They're over there, grazing near the forest."

It had taken nearly two hours of driving through the unique radioactive 
wilderness born of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster to find them, but one 
of the world's few wild herds of rare Przewalski horses finally came into 
view.

"Stay here," Denis Vishnevsky, a zoologist with the Chernobyl Ecology Center, 
said after the group of official guides and a journalist piled out of their 
minibus to see the short but powerfully robust horses, introduced here in 
1998 to eat what was supposedly "excess" vegetation in the depopulated area. 
"They'll come to us." "Chernobyl safaris," mused Rima Kiselytsia, a guide 
with Chernobylinterinform, the agency that shepherds all visitors to the 
"Zone of Alienation" around the now-decommissioned reactor, an area that once 
was home to 135,000 people. "It's a strange idea, but I like it."

Chernobyl tourism has been a hot topic in Ukraine since January, when a U.N. 
report urged Chernobyl communities to learn to live safely with 
radiation--such as consuming only produce grown outside the zone. The report 
suggested specialized tourism as one of several possible ways to bring money 
into a region that has swallowed more than $100 billion in subsidies from 
Soviet, Ukrainian and international government funds since the nuclear 
accident 16 years ago.

Back in the town of Chernobyl, where the zone's administration manages the 
Rhode Island-sized no man's land around the destroyed reactor, one official 
said economic benefits of tourism will never be more than minor.

But he doesn't reject the idea outright. "The U.N. is 12 years too late," 
said Mykola Dmytruk, deputy director of Chernobylinterinform, referring to 
technicians who have been coming to the zone for that long. "We've been 
allowing tours since 1994."

A few Kiev tourist agencies advertise Chernobyl excursions on their Web 
sites, but so far the zone administration doesn't actively promote the idea. 
"A great deal still isn't known," said Dmytruk, "and we warn everyone about 
the risks, even scientists."

The risks, though small, are real. And so is the desolation. But the 
aftermath of the accident has created a misleading stereotype of the zone as 
a toxic wasteland, a nuclear desert devoid of life, and certainly not a place 
a sane person would want to visit.

In fact, by ending industrialization, deforestation, cultivation and other 
human intrusions, radiation has transformed the zone into one of Europe's 
largest wildlife habitats, a fascinating and at times beautiful wildness 
teeming with large animals such as moose, wolves, boar and deer. It now is 
home to 270 bird species, 31 of them endangered--making the zone one of the 
few places in Europe to spot rarities such as black storks and booted eagles.

And traveling to Chernobyl may qualify as a kind of adventure tourism. The 
very knowledge of the buzzing background of radiation imbues even the prosaic 
act of walking down the street with an aura of excitement. It isn't the same 
adrenalin punch as bungee jumping in the Andes, but it is a palpable 
sensation--like being surrounded by ghosts.

By law, no one can enter the zone without permission. But except for children 
under 17, the administration may give permission to pretty much anyone. The 
vast majority of the nearly 1,000 annual visitors are scientists, 
journalists, politicians and international nuclear officials, but the zone 
has hosted a handful of what Dmytruk calls "pure" tourists--including three 
Japanese in 2000--and it can put together customized programs, such as 
safaris in search of Przewalski horses, which some experts believe are the 
ancestors of all domestic horses but far more aggressive..

"If a group of Californians want to go bird-watching, we can organize that," 
Dmytruk said, adding, "so long as they know the difference between plutonium 
and potatoes."

Of course, Chernobyl isn't Club Med. But 16 years after the fourth reactor 
bloc spewed radiation around the globe, the risks are mostly manageable. 
About a quarter of the cesium and strontium have already decayed, and 95% of 
the remaining radioactive molecules are no longer in fallout that can get on 
or inside a visitor, but have sunk to a depth of about 5 inches in the soil.

From there, they have insinuated themselves into the food chain, making the 
zone's diverse and abundant flora and fauna radioactive indeed. An antler 
shed recently by a Chernobyl elk was stuffed with so much strontium that it 
cannot be allowed out of the zone. But three Przewalski foals born in the 
wild, though radioactive, have grown to adolescence with no visible effects.

Such radioactivity now has receded to the background. On an average day, a 
visitor might receive an extra radiation dose about equivalent to taking a 
two-hour plane trip, zone officials say.

That is, if the visitor follows the strict but simple safety rules: "Don't 
eat local food, stay on the pavement, and go only where your guide takes 
you," Dmytruk said.

It is almost impossible to smell fresher air in an urban setting than here in 
the town of Chernobyl, where the number of cars seen on a warm April day 
could be counted on one hand and songbirds frequently provide the only sound.

"It is one of the zone's many paradoxes, but because human activity is banned 
nearly everywhere, the region is one of Ukraine's environmentally cleanest," 
Dmytruk said. "Except for radiation."

Today, villages are slowly succumbing to encroaching forests. In the 
abandoned town of Pripyat, less than two miles from the nuclear reactor, 
empty black windows stare blindly from high-rise buildings at kindergartens 
littered with heartbreakingly small gas masks.

It may seem like an odd place for a rewarding tourism experience. But nowhere 
else can a visitor stand amid a herd of wild Przewalski horses like a 
character in Jean Auel's Ice Age novels, or watch a pair of rare white-tailed 
eagles circling above the ghostly high-rises of Pripyat, a moving monument to 
the devastating effects of technology gone awry and nature's near miraculous 
resilience and recovery. 

*******

#11
Forbes.com
May 13, 2002
Bear's market 
Heidi Brown

The good news is that Russian equities are hot. The bad news for Moscow is
that much of the action is abroad, in places like London.
As a result of a variety of factors--including a crucial 13% flat tax that
has made Russians comfortable with investing money rather than hiding
it--Russia's financial markets are developing quickly. Daily volume grew 86%
between 1999 and 2001. 

But there's still a long, long way to go. The RTS, the country's
seven-year-old stock exchange, sees just $18 million in volume daily. 

According to estimates, from 40% to 60% of trading in the shares of Russian
companies takes place in London and New York. Since they often list in both
Moscow and the West or just in the West, Russia says do svidaniya to at
least $100 million a year in trading commissions, investment-banking
business and clearance and settlement fees. 

The numbers could get big really fast if, as rumored, a Western company
makes a takeover bid for one of the Moscow-listed oil companies with
billions in market capitalization. While none of the oil biggies are listed
in the West, Lukoil plans to list in New York in the fall. Translation:a
huge windfall for bankers in New York. 

"This is clearly not the focus of the Russian government,"says Boris
Fedorov, a cofounder of United Financial Group, an investment bank in
Moscow. "If they had a clear-cut vision and asked investors what they want,
they could bring three quarters of the volume back to Russia." He's
referring to restrictions against foreigners' trading in the banking sector
and also to controversial rules that prevent free trading in the shares of
Gazprom, the world's largest provider of natural gas. 

This situation is not unusual. The stock markets of advanced countries often
host a large proportion of a developing country's equities. "The reality is
that a major U.S. institution investing money in Russia is going to place
orders with those firms it knows well," says John Auerbach, a cofounder of
Auerbach Grayson, an international brokerage network in New York. 

But large institutions aren't the only ones trading Russian shares in
London; United Financial believes that a sizable percentage of the capital
is in fact coming from Russians. Hard-currency accounts in domestic banks
have grown more than 60%, to $8.5 billion, over the past 18 months--proof
that tax reform is encouraging people to come clean about their worth. Yet
despite that, offshore accounts still contain billions of dollars of stashed
Russian wealth. 

Russia is also losing the opportunity to expand its homegrown long-term
capital;what local money there is comes mostly from short-term traders. 

When Wimm-Bill-Dann, a consumer-products company based in Moscow, wanted to
go public, it went abroad.It listed in New York, using the services of ING,
which pocketed $15 million from the deal (most of the people who worked on
the transaction are in London). Because of foreign-exchange rules to protect
the ruble, Russians who play by those rules cannot own shares and so
couldn't participate in Wimm-Bill-Dann's New York IPO. 

Compare this with South Korea. Today Seoul has a healthy investment-banking
sector; it did six IPOs last year, raising $2.5 billion. Investment banks
with offices there took $150 million of that. Koreans invest actively. But
this stems partly from Seoul's own strictures: Only now is it relaxing
currency controls. 

In the more free-wheeling Russia, companies such as United Financialfollow
the money and expand out of Moscow. "We're indifferent--we can build in
London," says Fedorov's partner, Charles Ryan. "But it's like that joke
about Russia's having a perfectly good banking system--in Cyprus. It's the
same with financial markets." 

*******

#12
RFE/RL MEDIA MATTERS
Vol. 2, No. 19, 10 May 2002

REPORTING FROM NIZHNII NOVGOROD, RUSSIA'S 'THIRD CAPITAL'
By Oleg Rodin
Oleg Rodin is the RFE/RL correspondent in Nizhnii Novgorod.

In the past decade, the news scene in Nizhnii Novgorod, Russia's
third-largest city, has changed dramatically. In the 1980's,
there were only a few newspapers and they were all subject to local
censorship. TV viewers could see only three or four channels, which
were strictly controlled by the special services. Today, there are
several dozen newspapers and 15 TV channels -- plus a dazzling array
of video material accessible through satellites and video cassettes.
	With a population of some 1.5 million, Nizhnii Novgorod is
Russia's third-largest city. Situated high on the banks of the
Volga River, the city was established in 1221 and is the site of a
trade fair going back to medieval times. In recent years, the fair
has prospered and attracts visitors from far and near. For most of
the Soviet period, Nizhnii Novgorod was known as Gorky in honor of
the beloved, though official, writer Maksim Gorky, who was born here.
Some wanted to change the city's name to Sakharov to honor the
Soviet Nobel laureate, who spent seven years in internal exile here.
	Nizhnii Novgorod is home to several human rights
organizations, which have sprung up in the past 10 years. There are
local branches of the International Society of Human Rights and the
Committee to Protect the Rights of Victims of Repression plus newer
groups to protect the rights of migrants and refugees. The Committee
of Soldiers' Mothers does a lot of important work to protect the
rights of recruits and soldiers along with their parents. The Nizhnii
Novgorod Society for Human Rights publishes its own newspaper, "The
Right to Defense," and distributes legal documents and materials on
human rights violations via the Internet. 
	Nizhnii Novgorod residents who want access to the Internet
can go to our city libraries, schools, universities, post offices,
and to the mayor's office. Many residents also have Internet
access at home or at work. Nizhnii Novgorod also has websites on our
city or region. For example, cityline.nnov.ru provides information on
our city; innov.ru is a business news site, gubernator2001.nnov.ru
provides news on regional elections, admcity.nnov.ru is the city
administration's site, whoiswho.nnov.ru gives news on leading
local figures, and infonet.nnov.ru/nsn is a regional news site. And
there are other sites. Various businesses or even ordinary citizens
have their own websites which local providers make available either
free of charge or rather inexpensively. Many Nizhnii Novgorod
newspapers and journals have their own websites (see
http://www.sandy.ru/massmedia/papers/nnpapers), as do local
politicians (see http://www.politkuhnya.ru) and the governor (his
server is under reconstruction). These websites provide a lot of
varied information, news, and opinions. Certainly, such websites are
helpful to the journalist as sources of background information.
	My work day as a journalist usually starts when I read the
newspapers, watch TV, and listen to the radio. I also get
press-releases via e-mail as well as talking by phone with the press
services and other reporters. I may take part in press conferences,
attend work sessions of the city government and listen to interviews
and briefings. I think about all these materials and send suggestions
for possible topics plus brief summaries via e-mail to editors. After
that, I prepare reports, record them on my computer, and send sound
files via e-mail. Digital radio receivers, mobile telephones, video
cameras, the dictophone and fax, Internet and e-mail, and new
computer programs are very helpful to more efficiently and
effectively process information. My work is very intense, but
interesting since I can examine many facts and opinions so as to get
an objective view of life in my city and region.
	During election campaigns, the local media splits into clans
which back one or another political movement or candidate. Sometimes
-- as during last year's election for the governor of Nizhnii
Novgorod Oblast -- local papers and airwaves are flooded with
compromising materials. These materials were then aimed both at
election candidates and even at local journalists. A veritable media
war erupted. Probably the most vivid example was the cruel criticism
directed at the journalist Gennadii Grigorev. He aired on the TV show
"Marker" Sergei Kirienko's (our regional presidential envoy)
private negative opinion of our previous governor Ivan Sklyarov. As a
result, presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii made a special
visit to Nizhnii Novgorod. Yastrzhembskii declared that Grigorev had
engaged in a provocation comparable to the scandal surrounding Radio
Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky in Chechnya. In this political
climate, journalists had a difficult time providing objective
information about regional events and so readers suffered. Not to
mention that journalists had been pitted against each other.
	If there are no elections or scandals to be covered, the
local media usually reflects daily events, culture and sports events,
lots of incidents of crime, and the "spicy" life of the business and
political elite. There is, however, a widespread view that nowadays
almost all local media outlets and journalists are in the pocket of
various politicians and businessmen. Therefore, in order to receive
more objective information on the situation in our country and
region, people must turn to independent news sources. 

*******

#13
Hearing: Developments in the Chechen Conflict 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 
May 09, 2002
Washington DC

Andrei Babitsky
Correspondent
Radio Liberty

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission, I appreciate the opportunity to
appear before you today and to offer my views on the war in Chechnya. My
testimony is limited to a specific but very important aspect of the issue,
namely, the situation of journalists. I will be glad to address other
issues during the question and answer session. 

Early in the morning of November 2, 1999, two cars left the Chechen village
of Semashki, moving towards Katyr-Yurt. The road went through the regional
center of Achkoi-Martan; with its Russian guard post nearby. Without any
warning, Russian soldiers in the guard post opened fire with automatic
weapons on the approaching cars. . There were three young men in one car
and two women in the second. The three men were seriously wounded right
away, but one managed to get out of the car and hide in the nearby brush.
The women were not hurt and the soldiers let them pass --but only on foot.
The soldiers pulled the two wounded men from the car and tied them up with
barbed wire. After a brief consultation, the soldiers poured fuel on the
wounded men and set them on fire. Already engulfed in flames, the Chechens
managed to shout to the women, who were waiting nearby, to tell their
relatives in Semashki that they had been killed by Russian soldiers. There
have been many such episodes in the second Chechen war, but no one knows
about most of them. I learned about this incident only because at that time
I was located illegally in Achkoi-Martan. 

Today, after the snows have melted in Chechnya, many burial sites have been
found where people are buried who were killed after "mopping-up operations"
or after detentions at guard posts. No one knows why these people were
killed -- either those whose corpses were found recently or in the more
distant past. In most cases, the corpses bear marks of torture while the
victims were still alive. In other cases, the corpses were mutilated after
the victim was dead. But one can say that these people were not put to
death by court order. They were killed as part of the anarchy and arbitrary
rule which is now the order of the day in Chechnya. According to the
Russian human rights organization Memorial, every month there are from 30
to 50 cases of extra-judicial killings of civilians who are taken from
villages and cities during special or so-called "mopping up operations." I
also think that in many cases the military's arbitrary acts are possible
because of the successful official campaign to silence reporting on Chechnya. 

From the onset of the second Chechen campaign, the Russian military and
political authorities succeeded in establishing a censorship regime that
immediately screened out journalists whose reports on the war were not in
accord with the official position. At the start of the war -- both
voluntarily and after official pressure -- most Russian media outlets began
to reflect the official position which excluded reports on the massive
human rights violations committed by military personnel against the
civilian population. Some Russian media outlets continued to publically
report on the crimes committed by the military against civilians. These
include four Moscow-based, relatively small circulation newspapers --
"Novaya Gazeta," "Novaya Izvestiya," "Nezavisimaya Gazeta," and
"Kommersant" -- and various Internet sites. The issue is not so much how
Russian journalists assess the general situation in Chechnya. Most
reporters are in agreement with the official Russian position that it is an
anti-terrorist and anti-separatist war. This does not mean, however, that
Russian journalists would not report on crimes conducted by the military
against the civilian population. The main issue is that the Russian
military and the Kremlin have banned reports on killings, torture and
kidnappings of civilians by the Russian military. The lack of information
about Chechnya is one of the most effective ways to create a situation in
which killers and kidnappers in epaulets can operate without legal
accountability. 

In the first months of the military operations, one could manage to get
into the territory of Chechnya via informal channels. This was the only way
foreign journalists could carry out their work after Russian officials --
without any explanation -- had denied them their right to be in the
conflict zone. Several foreign journalists who remained in Chechnya or
Ingushetia without the necessary official permission have been deprived of
their accreditation or denied Russian visas. Last year, the Russian
government denied my acquaintance, the Czech journalist Petra Prokhazkova,
entry into Russia for the next five years, although her husband is a
Russian citizen and a permanent resident of Ingushetia. I also know of
another eight foreign journalists who covered the war in Chechnya who have
been put on a visa blacklist by the Russian security forces and the Russian
Foreign Ministry. They will not be allowed to enter Russian territory for
five years. 

Today, the Russian authorities have virtually resolved the problem of
reporting on human rights violations in Chechnya. Television was the first
target of the Kremlin campaign to suppress such information, even during
the days of such independent TV stations as NTV and TV6. Direct TV
broadcasts from Chechnya are totally under the control of the Russian
military, since the only TV satellite relay dish is located in the main
Russian military base in Khankala. The Khankala base is the command center
for the Unified Group of the Russian Federation Armed Forces of the
Northern Caucasus which oversees the activities of the Russian army, the
Russian Security Services (FSB) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD)
troops. It is also where the Unified Group has its Press Center and its
daily press releases serve as the basis of all information from the
conflict zone. Access to Chechnya is in effect limited to those journalists
who are willing to agree to twenty pages of extremely strict rules of
accreditation which violate Russian law. (I can go into further detail on
accreditation at a later point.) The Press Center of the Russian Federal
group of the Russian Forces in the Northern Caucasus carefully monitors the
reports of journalists who have been in Chechnya. It also denies entry to
those journalists whose reports -- in the opinion of the military censors
-- contain defamatory material about Russian military personnel. On the
territory of Chechnya, journalists are required to restrict themselves to
the territory of the Khankala military base. They may leave Khankala only
if they are accompanied by Press Center officers. There are a few
journalists who continue to work in Chechnya, but only after they have made
incredible efforts and ignore official regulations. They do so at the risk
of their lives..During her last assignment in Chechnya about one month
ago,"Novaya Gazeta" reporter Anna Politkovskaya was forced to illegally
escape from Chechnya after FSB officers made threats against her life. She
was collecting material about the killing of civilians by members of a
special detachment of the Russian Federation Armed Forces Main Espionage
Directorate (GRU) in the Shatoi region. 

Having resolved their assigned tasks in the conflict zone, the Russian
authorities and the FSB are starting to bring under their control those
regions which neighbor Chechnya, first of all Ingushetia, which shelters
over 150,000 Chechen refugees. In the last few months, and without any
explanation, the FSB has expelled several groups of foreign reporters from
Ingushetia. Journalists have been detained, held for hours of
interrogation, and threatened with physical reprisals. The FSB in
Ingushetia told one of my acquaintances -- a foreign reporter whose name I
cannot reveal for obvious reasons -- that they would break her hands if she
did not leave the republic. The FSB officers told the journalist that they
had to operate this way because they had no formal reason to expel her from
Ingushetia. 

The Russian authorities want to convince the public of the need to conduct
this war. But they are also convinced that the Russian troops and the FSB
are justified in using brutal methods against the civilian population in
Chechnya. I do not believe that President Vladimir Putin is not informed
about the Chechen war. Due to his previous KGB career, Putin knows that the
security services and the Russian army operate without public or judicial
control. Even if Putin is not aware of operational details, he is well
informed of the nature of the Chechen war. President Putin is also the
ideological and operational center of a politically planned military
operation. From the very start, this military and political campaign has
aimed at making a ghetto of the war zone. This ghetto is shut off from the
sight and influence of the outside world. 

*******

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