Johnson's Russia List
#6242
14 May 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Contents:
  1. The Russia Journal: Otto Latsis, The signal from Voronezh.
  2. UPI: Eli Lake, Analysis: Old, new prolems at NATO summit.
  3. Moscow Times: Vladimir Frolov, Carrots Off or On the Summit Menu?
  4. The Russia Journal: John Helmer, Curly, Larry and Moe enliven Washington.
  5. Catherine Fitzpatrick: re 6241-Warlick/US Visas.
  6. Hugh Olmsted: CRIMINAL CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST ST. PETERSBURG REFORMER 
ALEKSEI KOVALEV.
  7. New York magazine: Carl Swanson, From Russia With Lies.(re New York
Times) 
  8. Los Angeles Times: Greg Miller, Treaty's Dark Side: Threat of Terrorism.
  9. Wall Street Journal editorial: A Gift for Mr. Putin.
  10. Dow Jones/AP: Russian Nationalists Criticize Arms Control Pact With US.
  11. Dow Jones/AP: Lax Nuke Control Casts Shadow On US-Russia Partnership.]

*******

#1
The Russia Journal
May 13-19, 2002
The signal from Voronezh
By OTTO LATSIS

The protests against housing and utility reform in Voronezh began with
grand drama and ended in farce. But this isn't to say they had no
significance. On the contrary, the signal from Voronezh shines a lot of
light on what is really taking place.

It all began with a 25,000-strong protest, an event in itself in today's
Russia, where any major demonstrations seem impossible. Worried by the
scale of the protests, Gosstroi head Anvar Shamuzafarov, who is responsible
for housing and utilities reform, raced to Voronezh to sort out the
situation. The Communists, meanwhile, desperately in need of outbreaks of
popular wrath after losing their positions in the Duma, declared the
protests a new wave of public opposition to the "reforms that are robbing
them."

But among the people protesting was the town's mayor, the very same
official who decided to raise housing and utility prices in the first
place. The mayor justified himself by saying he'd had no choice, as the
governor of the Voronezh region didn't give the city the money required for
housing subsidies.

Two weeks later, the regional legislature gathered to discuss the issue.
The mayor thanked city residents for taking part in the protests and
announced that he was repealing his decision to increase tariffs. But when
he wanted to address the crowd of protesters afterward, no one let him
speak. Indeed, the residents of Voronezh brandished posters calling for the
resignation of the mayor, the governor, the government and the president
himself.

In the end, it wasn't clear just what Voronezh's citizens were trying to
achieve, and they achieved nothing. As for the politicians, it was obvious
that they were more interested in their own popularity than in the
interests of their voters. 

In Moscow, meanwhile, equally ridiculous events were taking place regarding
housing and utilities reform. Shortly before the New Year, the Moscow
government suddenly announced it would send residents two housing and
utilities bills instead of the usual one bill. The first one would show, as
before, the subsidized charge to pay, while the second bill would show 100
percent of the cost before subsidies. Only the first bill must be paid, but
well-off Muscovites could choose to pay the full cost.

The media immediately began mocking this initiative, calling it
economically and legally absurd. But Moscow city authorities have held to
their promise and are sending both bills. Finally, German Gref, the
minister of economic development and trade, who is responsible for drawing
up the reform program, said he is against 100 percent payment.

Now, the politicians' rush to back down from the idea of full payment says
as little in their favor as their previous enthusiasm for showing 100
percent of the cost. Their obsession with this figure suggests they don't
understand the real problem. Everyone knows, for example, that a healthy
patient should have a temperature of 36.6 degrees Celsius. But to make his
patient healthy, a doctor doesn't have to plan the temperature. He must
plan curative measures.

The aim of housing and utilities reform should be, above all, to improve
the quality of services. In a number of cities, local authorities haven't
even been able to ensure the heating stays on throughout the winter.

The next step should be to make the whole system less wasteful and more
effective, thus reducing costs. Only then will it be possible to talk about
raising housing and utility charges to the public.

But, even then, the aim isn't just to free the budget from the burden of
housing and utilities subsidies, but to right a social injustice. Under the
current system, wealthier people with large apartments benefit more from
subsidies than anyone else.

The reform strategy sets out not just the aims but also the means with
which to reach them. This involves, above all, de-monopolizing housing and
utilities, and allowing residents to choose the company that will provide
maintenance services. There also must be a modernization of the sector's
infrastructure - at the moment, water pipes leak, heating systems heat the
exteriors rather than the interiors of buildings and so on. 

Finally, the way housing subsidies are paid must change. Rather than going
to the housing maintenance offices as compensation for their losses, like
they do now, they should go directly to residents. To qualify for
subsidies, residents would have to fill out an application and prove they
can't pay.

Of all these reform steps, the authorities in various cities have done only
two things - begun raising tariffs paid by the population on the way to
having the public paying 100 percent of the costs and introduced new rules
for getting subsidies. 

It quickly became clear that even with the fairest of compensation systems,
many people just cannot afford 100 percent of the cost. When the public
began to protest, officials and politicians began a contest in populism to
see who could abandon the idea of paying 100 percent of costs fastest. It
was all too obvious that their own popularity interested them more than the
fate of reforms and the prosperity of their citizens.

Housing and utilities reform has become the test for the current political
system's ability to carry out reform in general. This ability is turning
out to be dismally low in practice.
 
******

#2
Analysis: Old, new prolems at NATO summit 
By Eli J. Lake
UPI State Department Correspondent

WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell will face new
problems and old ones when he attends this week's NATO foreign ministers
meeting in the Icelandic capital. 

The new ones are the issue of North Atlantic Alliance's expansion, which
the Bush Administration strongly favors, and the establishment of a
relationship with Russia at a meaningful level. 

The old ones include the hardy perennial of a U.S. call for greater burden
sharing, the NATO euphemism for increasing the European financial spending
on defense within the alliance framework, and also the fact that the
meeting of the 19-member organization is taking place against a background
of strained U.S.-European relations. 

Powell will have to convince Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that
NATO-Russian relations are worth maintaining at a significant level.
Washington hopes that Moscow's links with the alliance will not be reduced
to a low-level military representation at NATO like the earlier contacts
between Russia and the 19 NATO powers. 

The Russian issue is particularly delicate because of the upcoming May 23
summit between Presidents Putin and Bush in Moscow. At that meeting the two
leaders are expected to sign a pact committing the United States and Russia
to reduce their nuclear arsenal by two-thirds. Moscow also recently agreed
to a U.S. plan to pare down most U.N. sanctions on Iraq, after blocking the
final list of goods to control under that plan for over one year. 

Powell will have to do the political groundwork necessary to convince his
18 summit colleagues to increase their annual defense budgets to develop
lighter, precision-guided military assets. 

The United States has long pushed NATO allies to commit at least two
percent of each country's gross domestic product for defense spending. But
several countries have actually decreased military spending in the last few
years. Germany for example now spends only 1.4 percent of its GDP on
defense compared with 2.8 percent in 1990. 

All of this constitutes a tall order considering the recent rift across the
Atlantic on foreign policy. 

Before Powell convinced Ivanov and the Spanish government, which holds the
European Union's rotating presidency, to join a new Middle East grouping
with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the Quartet, the Europeans
were in open rebellion against President Bush's approach to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And no NATO member shares the Bush
administration's keenness on military action against Iraq. The issue of
peacekeeping in Afghanistan is another area of difference. 

Furthermore, the Bush administration has recently opposed several
international agreements of great importance to Europe. Most recently
Washington enraged the Europeans by informing the United Nations of the
U.S. intention to not enforce the International Criminal Court.

But despite these strains, State Department officials are optimistic about
Powell's agenda. For example, Russia -- a long-time opponent of expanding
the alliance -- has privately and publicly signaled it will not oppose too
strenuously a robust expansion in November, when NATO heads of state are
scheduled to meet in Prague. 

"The Russians have been telling us, 'We don't think it should enlarge, but
if it does we will not stand in the way,'" one senior State Department
official told reporters in a briefing last week. 

That means that a slate of new members -- Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Slovenia and Romania -- appears very likely to be asked to join
the alliance at the November Prague Summit. The fate of Slovakia will
depend on this fall's elections and whether Slovaks will give former Prime
Minister Vladimir Meciar's party enough votes to form the next government.
Meciar was widely criticized in the 1990s for a ruling style that
disregarded and marginalized the democratic opposition despite winning an
election. 

"One of the most obvious concerns is the Slovak problem," U.S. Committee on
NATO President Bruce Jackson told United Press International in an
interview. "In the early part of the '90s, Meciar was autocratic and linked
to organized crime. That's why we didn't want anything to do with him at
the time." 

As for Macedonia, Albania and Croatia -- the latter is expected to submit a
membership action plan at Reykjavik this week -- most observers admit that
these countries will not have an easy time gaining membership in this round
of NATO expansion. 

NATO members were expected to announce their favorite candidates for
expansion at the Rekjavik summit, but many diplomats do not see a frank and
open debate on new members this time around. One Eastern European
diplomatic source in Washington told UPI Monday, "They will probably not
name names because there's no consensus among the European allies. The
American side is trying to hold the discussion until as late as possible.
They expect a principle yes for a robust enlargement but nothing beyond
that." 

Jackson agrees. "My belief is Secretary of State Powell and the German
minister Fischer will block any attempts to play favorites," he said. 
 
******

#3
Moscow Times
May 14, 2002
Carrots Off or On the Summit Menu?
By Vladimir Frolov
Vladimir Frolov, advisor to the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of 
the State Duma, contributed this article to The Moscow Times. The views 
expressed are his own.
 
Predicting how long President Vladimir Putin will be able to sustain his 
pro-Western foreign policy without getting much in return has become the 
latest growth industry among political pundits on both sides of the Atlantic.

The cliched argument is that Putin courageously stands alone among the 
hostile foreign policy and military elite who deeply resent his latest 
rapprochement with the United States, his support for certain U.S. policies 
and his acquiescence in Russia's failure to secure its traditional interests 
on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, NATO expansion and U.S. military 
presence in Central Asia and the North Caucasus.

The argument then runs that the only way for Putin to sustain his pro-Western 
course is if he is swiftly rewarded with symbolic deliverables by the West; 
otherwise domestic opposition to his policies will gel and Putin will share 
in the fate of his predecessors Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

As the U.S. and Russian presidents prepare for their summit meeting in Moscow 
next week, the race is on to predict what "carrots" George W. Bush needs to 
bring with him to make Putin's pro-Western course more palatable domestically 
and to help him look better in the eyes of his countrymen.

This is really old thinking on the part of the West that should be offensive 
to Putin and to any self-respecting Russian. It betrays a perfunctory and 
highly stereotyped analysis of Russian politics and it also exposes the 
cynically condescending way that many in the West tend to view Russia.

Few seem to be aware that the empty talk about the "right carrots for Putin" 
is doing more political damage to the Russian president than the absence of 
those rewards per se. 

It sounds extremely patronizing and creates the perception of a secret cabal 
to sell out Russia's interests for some personal political gain. Moreover, it 
portrays Putin before the Russian public as being in the pocket of the West 
and creates an incentive for the Kremlin to distance itself from pro-Western 
policies in case the political baggage becomes too heavy.

Putin has been consistent in saying that his push to create a new cooperative 
agenda for Russia's relations with the West, particularly after Sept. 11, has 
nothing to do with expectations of a possible political and economic payoff. 
He has steadfastly refused "to haggle over the price."

There are three major reasons for this.

First, Putin appears to genuinely believe that realigning Russia with the 
West is the right thing to do given the current geopolitical realities. He 
rightly keeps saying that such a policy is inherently in Russia's interests 
as it is the only course that can provide the necessary external conditions 
for Russia's economic and social resuscitation and eventual rebirth as a 
great power.

Having spent the first year in office trying to implement the "Primakov 
doctrine" (building a multipolar world as a constraint on U.S. dominance), 
Putin was perceptive and flexible enough to see how untenable and dangerous 
this policy was. 

It was not lost on him that collecting North Korean and Cuban endorsements 
for the ABM Treaty was not greatly advancing Russia's cause. 

Positioning Russia as a trusted friend of the West would give Moscow much 
more leverage on Western and U.S. policy. 

Putin's choice was a very careful pragmatic calculation, not an emotional 
impulse prompted by the events of Sept. 11. Where Gorbachev and Yeltsin's 
rapprochement with the West was a high-stakes gamble, Putin's move is a 
well-thought-out strategy -- and you do not expect to be rewarded for doing 
something that is so squarely in your interests and that you have been 
planning for some time.

Second, Putin's foreign policy instincts were shaped during Gorbachev's 
perestroika. He seems to be acutely aware that no measure of foreign policy 
success and international prestige can sustain a presidency if your economic 
policy is a dismal failure in the eyes of your own people. Putin is a strong 
adherent of the "It's the economy, stupid" school.

Lastly, Putin saw Gorbachev and Yeltsin taken to pieces politically for 
humiliatingly seeking "Western rewards" for what many in Russia saw as 
unilateral concessions. Bartering weapons cuts for food aid, trade credits 
and IMF loans created such a disastrous perception of Gorbachev's and 
Yeltsin's foreign policy among the Russian public that it became a major 
domestic political liability and facilitated the coalescence of their vocal 
opponents.

Putin learned the lesson well. He is deliberately keeping expectations low 
and has begun (although somewhat late) to publicly make a political case for 
his pro-Western foreign policy. He is not standing alone and has a viable 
political base in the growing Russian entrepreneurial class which is hungry 
for acceptance in the West. His low-key tactics make the policy sustainable 
(and, of course, dominating the entire political scene in Russia clearly 
helps).

Putin is right not to beg the West for petty rewards. He is after something 
more important and priceless -- reputation and respect.

His objective is to turn Russia into an internationally respected country on 
its own merits, primarily through deep internal restructuring and responsible 
international behavior. He wants Russians to respect themselves for their 
economic achievements and see their country genuinely admired 
internationally. 

Like his friend British Prime Minister Tony Blair he may be carefully 
positioning Russia as a "pivotal force for good" in the 21st century.

*******

#4
The Russia Journal
May 13-19, 2002
Curly, Larry and Moe enliven Washington
By JOHN HELMER 

The Three Stooges had three famously ineffective methods of arranging what
to say or do in unison. There was the double-finger poke to the eye, the
rapid nose lift and the skull-crusher.

The slapstick antics of Curly, Larry and Moe were the mainstay of American
television reruns for the generations preceding Beavis and Butt-head. They
are still hilarious to watch. But when it came to getting each Stooge to
follow his pals, all methods always failed.

In preparation for regular U.S.-Russia summits, the Kremlin usually
dispatches a duo or trio of important officials to tickle Washington's
funny bone and reassure the U.S. leadership that no pokes to the eye can be
expected between the presidents - unless they are for laughs. 

For example, just before the last meeting in Moscow, when then-President
Bill Clinton was to meet with freshly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin,
the Kremlin dispatched Andrei Illarionov, the president's economic adviser,
and Anatoly Chubais, the head of the electricity utility. 

Illarionov was a novice, and with his family tie to Harvard's graduate
school, he took himself far too seriously. He failed to understand that the
objective of the mission was to take the pratfall that makes the Americans
hoot and to conceal the less-than-amusing kowtowing expected of his master.

Chubais is an old hand at playing stooge in the tickle game. He has always
had friends at the U.S. Treasury and on Wall Street. He has humored them.
They humored him. That was reassurance enough during the presidency of
Boris Yeltsin, who counted on Chubais to persuade U.S. policy-makers to
think of no alternative (not Grigory Yavlinsky or Alexander Lebed) and
spare no expense in keeping him in power.

There was more than sentimental affection in the laughs Clinton used to
enjoy when he embraced Yeltsin in retirement with more warmth than he
showed Putin in the Kremlin. It's going to be interesting to see if
President George W. Bush pays the same court to the former Russian leader
during his visit to Moscow in two weeks.

Already, the Kremlin has done its best to convince Washington that nothing
has changed. There was Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who publicly
undercut his agriculture minister and the veterinary service to promise the
lifting of the embargo on U.S. chicken imports. Then there was Economic
Development and Trade Minister German Gref, who went to the U.S. capital
and announced that he and the commerce secretary, Donald Evans, had agreed
that there was no steel-trade dispute. Call that the double-eye poke -
hugely amusing to everyone but Russian steelmakers.

Finally, Chubais' protege Alexei Kudrin, a deputy prime minister and the
finance minister, trod the boards after Gref, having told U.S. fuel
consumers to jolly up because Russia has no intention of restricting its
oil exports, let alone prolonging high global oil prices. There's nothing
like watching a man punch himself in the nose to reassure you that he is
harmless.

Russian officials like Chubais used to go to Washington to plead for U.S.
support, less for the president there and more for themselves as the
custodians of the American interest in factional struggles at home. But
Gref, Kudrin and even Kasyanov aren't independent political figures the way
Chubais was during the Yeltsin years. So whose cause - if not Putin's -
have they been pleading with the Americans?

If their antics are meant to persuade the U.S. audience to take Russian
policy-making with hilarity, how exactly does Putin gain?

I have not expected the Bush administration to give ground on verifiable
and irreversible cuts in nuclear arms, let alone to trade an increase in
the number of U.S. space shields for a reduction in U.S. nuclear spears.
Whatever Curly, Larry and Moe may do in the preliminaries, that is the most
serious issue on the summit agenda and hardly a laughing matter. But what
the heck: Jesters have always livened up the feasts of kings - especially
when the meat wasn't appetizing.
 
******

#5
From: "Catherine Fitzpatrick" 
Subject: re 6241-Warlick/US Visas
Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 

I believe Consul General Warlick has performed an important public service
with his post on Johnson's list. We all have noticed how often this visa
debate rages on this list, with increasing decibels and rage and
irrationality. I think there are a number of reasons for frequent
misperceptions and misplaced expectations in the visa process on the part
of Russians. For one, I feel some of the Russians complaining to us (as a
human rights organization we get these complaints) are confusing newly-won
rights to freedom of movement post-1991 with some sort of absolute right to
travel anywhere they wish around the world. They have gotten this image of
entitlement into their head, and nothing will shake it loose. In the Soviet
era, they were barred from travel unless they passed through the Party's
ideological filter and had access to the elites. When these controls were
removed, I have found that Russians often have a difficult time
understanding that international travel  -- entering another country as
distinct from leaving your own -- is not a right. There is no absolute
right of any country to allow in all travellers. There is no international
agreement guaranteeing your absolute right to go to another country. How
could there be? Each country develops their own policies and practices. The
Helsinki Accords is not a binding treaty, but merely an agreement between
countries to facilitate the free flow of movement of people and ideas
across frontiers in the interests of peace and security. If this flow in
fact lessens security, if people exploit this flow to engage in criminal
activity, states will then pull back from that stated objective. States are
not supposed to impede travel groundlessly. But there is no specification
that says states must provide an absolute right to enter their nations. No
country in the world does this, and the U.S. has far more liberal practices
than most countries in the world, and the terrible events of 911 are
evidence of that fact, along with the post-911 scandal of the suicide
bombers receiving their visa extentions posthumously from the INS.
  
A key concept I explain over and over to Russians is what the Consul says
towards the middle of his post: "Under U.S. law, the burden of proof rests
with the applicant to demonstrate that they are not intending immigrants."
This seems cruel, this seems rude, this seems unfair, but it is the law,
and it is hard to envision how you could make it otherwise in a country
with as numerous requests for entrance, with as liberal visa practices as
the U.S. and as many citizens who are "from somewhere else" as the U.S. I
often explain to people coming to our office to complain, claiming that
their "rights have been violated" because they didn't get a U.S. visa, that
there is no right, only a privilege, and that the system does indeed have a
built-in prejudice, in the law, and that is a function of the nature of the
U.S. itself, which is a nation of immigrants. This very built-in prejudice
towards all applicants -- emphatically admitted by officials as a prejudice
-- is misconstrued as rudeness, or a deliberate slap in the face, but it is
merely a requirement to put the burden of proof on you as an applicant to
show you will return. That's all -- you just have to prove you have
legitimate business and will return. If you do, you can be confident of a
fair hearing. 
  
If you are denied a visa, the way to fight your case is not to compile ever
more elaborate complaints about rude U.S. officials and your "rights"
(that's the route most take) but rather to get your host in the U.S. to
provide more elaborate proof that you will return. Usually, if your host
intercedes at the State Department or through Congress or the consulate
itself, they can clarify a case and often solve it. The way it won't be
solved is by screaming about "rights" -- there are no rights in this
situation because it is not about "rights". Yes, if you are a 25-year-old
female with no job and you try to take a vague invitation from someone you
once met at a conference somewhere and get a visa, you may be rejected as a
potential victim of trafficking and a non-returning immigrant. The task
then is to get that vague host of yours to firm up their bona fides and
intercede on your behalf. No doubt there are many who can deluge this list
with their irate letters about doing just that for their Russian colleagues
-- interceding and still getting a "no" (and I've had this experience
myself) -- but yet they have not to my knowledge ever approached the
consulate and the State Department collectively and systematically (say,
all professors who have experienced this difficulty) and worked with U.S.
government officials constructively to devise a mechanism to resolve cases
and problems, rather than just fuming endlessly about "rights being violated."

If you are about to press the send button to describe your own bitter
experience in getting a colleague's visa, then I can only say: 1) did you
call the State Department Russia Desk or Dept. of Human Rights, Democracy
and Labor? 2) Did you fax confirmation of bona fides with more detail again
to the consulate in Russia? 3) Did you ask your congressional office or the
Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe to
investigate and intervene? 4) Did you find others with similar cases and
join together to make higher-level appeals to the U.S. government and
consulate? 5) Did you attempt to publicize your experience in the media? If
you didn't do any of these things, stop complaining about "rights
violations" and "bureaucracies" until you have exhausted all remedies.
  
That fact is, the U.S. consulate is right to ask people to make a
compelling case. I think there are probably far more illegal Russian
emigres in the New York area, for example, than any officials even realize.
The high density of Russian-speaking males with flat-tops and the tell-tale
plastic bags that only Russian men will carry on Fifth Avenue is just one
indication. And far more of them are involved in crime than even can be
grasped -- I have numerous Russian emigre friends and contacts and they all
discuss this crime. It's not politically correct and it enrages would-be
travellers who are legitimate and denied a visa, but it is a harsh reality
and there's no denying it. We see it all over here -- Russians running
gasoline station scams, fake license scams, running cigarettes from other
states with fake labels, engaging in Medicaid fraud, trafficking of women,
etc. etc. Even attempting to document this phenomenon can be a dangerous
enterprise. When I see all the fly-by-night "business visas" available
through various shady outfits here and in Russia, I have to think that our
country has every right to try to institute some kind of safeguards into
the process, and I think that the screen for adult males is fully
warranted, although of course, any truly clever criminal could beat all
those requirements.
  
Yes, the burden of proof has to be on people applying to travel, to show
that they have legitimate invitations for short-term visits. I often find
that the complainers who come to us don't want to work to strengthen their
proof of invitations, through follow-up letters from hosts of conferences,
etc. but want to scream ever more loudly about the violation of "their
rights" and Blame America First, that ever-fascinating international sport.
  
I do want to point out to all the complainers on the list that Russia
currently has *far more restrictive* visa practices for one category many
people may not think about, and that is NGOs. Leave aside businesses, which
usually get top-drawer treatment. Or even leave aside your gigantic USAID
projects like a Counterparts or a Winrock, which have various favorable
fixes in. That's not what I mean. If my counterpart in a Russian human
rights NGO, say, the Moscow Helsinki Group or Memorial Society wishes to
invite me to Russia to work with them short-term on a project or attend a
conference, they must be a group registered by the Ministry of Justice --
no informal gathering will have any status. They must apply for visa
support from MID by supplying to MID my passport information, purpose of
stay, dates, organizational affiliation, title, etc. and they must then get
from MID a confirmation number for that visa support. This process can take
awhile. Then, MID must send a confirmation telex to the Russian consulate
in New York with all this information. Meanwhile, the Russian NGO has to
send me a letter on their stationery, indicating the number of their
group's original registration from the Ministry of Justice, AND that MID
confirmation number for foreign visa support -- two numbers -- the dates of
the trip, my passport and birthdate information again, which is of course a
duplication of the same information I just put on my application, with my
xeroxed passport pages, which I myself have just filed with the Russian
consulate. If any little piece of this paperwork is wrong -- a number not
indicated on stationery, a lack of an address on a stationery, etc. etc.
the visa will be rejected. Indeed, it is on these types of technicalities
that the Russians routinely deny people like me on the first round, often
forcing me to pay the heftier fee for a "24 hour visa processing" of $150
or $200 (if through an agency) although in fact they process the visa over
5-7 days while all the paperwork is re-checked.
  
By contrast, when I wish to invite my counterpart from Russia, I don't call
the State Department and get a confirmation number, I don't fill out a form
with my tax ID number (the rough equivalent to a Ministry of Justice
registration number), nor do I have to send my colleague a letter for them
to submit to the U.S. consulate indicating a) my tax ID number b) the State
Department's confirmation number confirming their bureaucratic decision to
allow me to invite my Russian colleague to the U.S. that time. There is no
such clearance at State, the clearance takes place only in the consulate.
Of course, the consulate can presumably check with State back in Washington
or they have lists in computers, but they do not require that extra layer
of consent for that visit which the Russian authorities require of Russian
NGOs. Instead, as a U.S. NGO, I send an ordinary invitation letter on my
stationery indicating my coverage of costs, insurance, etc. and that is
sufficient -- no extra numbers. No U.S. or Russian officials ever seem to
have worried about trying to create greater "parity" in these processes --
it would be very hard to get the Russians to give up their long-held Soviet
practice of screening foreigners and keeping very close tabs on their
business while in Russia, as well as what their own citizens do with
foreigners, especial NGO foreigners.
  
Few people are aware of these restrictions because they can be applied
unevenly, depending on your degree of "blat" -- no doubt I'll spark a
deluge of hate mail telling me this "just isn't so" -- nor do they ever
think about what a terrible impact this has on trying to spend USAID or
private foundation money effectively in Russia -- you cannot travel easily
and work with people because they have a lot of hurdles to cross. If they
can't get registered, if they can't get that MID clearance number, they're
sunk. Oh, I can hear people even now sniffing "but that's not MY
experience, why I always get it in a jiffy, why it's just a simple
procedure." Well, maybe they aren't a group that works on Chechnya, or the
prison system, or trafficking, so they may not realize that their GONGO
with its fix in a giant ministry has just cleared the path for them without
them even thinking about the implications.
  
Probably the most onerous problem is the question of the "propiska" when
you arrive. If you elect to stay in a private home, the NGO which invites
you has to spend a day at OVIR getting your propiska stamped into your
passport. If you wish to extend your trip, back you go for another stamp.
That forces many travellers to go to hotels, and deliberately overbook them
and even pay the cancellation penalty, just to get the hotel's services of
getting the "propiska" from the police within 24 hours, to avoid the
onerous hassle for their hosts of having to wait on OVIR lines -- OVIR is
often open only certain days of the week and certain hours in individual
districts. And I can just hear more hate mailers screeching -- "but I never
go through that, I always get it in an hour, or it comes to me instantly."
Well, you probably are travelling under the auspices of a large bureaucracy
that has a Tyota Klava or Dyadya Vanya who goes and waits in lines for your
hosts, and is invisible to you.
  
And I'll go you one better, the final indignity, unlike anything that the
U.S. has, is the a requirement to get that propiska with the precise dates
of your stay (not a day less) to the visa control booth upon leaving the
border. There is no U.S. equivalent. You may have to write down your name
and address now more frequently since 911 than you used to, but the police
station does not take an interest in where you spend the night. If you do
not have that stamp in Russia, you can be refused the right to depart the
country, and forced to go back and try to get that stamp. This does indeed
happen, and if you don't believe me, well, just try that the next time you
go to Russia, don't turn in your passport for a propiska, then leave, and
see what happens. I once found a town far outside of Moscow with a
Soviet-style hotel that had never dealt with foreigners, and they simply
didn't want to take my passport because they didn't know what to do with
it. I begged and pleaded, knowing I could face problems at the border. They
didn't know where to put the stamp, so they kept refusing. Finally, I got
the head of this conference complex where I was attending a conference to
give me a written letter showing my dates of stay. This is what I presented
at the border, to explain the shortfall in my propiska, and was held for
hours nonetheless, and nearly missed my plane. Don't tell me how you walzed
through the passport control and they never even glanced at your visa
insert. Mogut zhe kogda khotyat...
  
Again, most people don't see these difficulties, because they are not
travelling as NGOs, they go either as tourists, or business travellers, or
if they are NGOs, their large institutions get their "fix" in with the
Ministry of Science or Chamber of Commerce or whatever, and they don't
realize that all this paperwork is even required. 
  
I can see that the U.S. is making a great deal of effort to streamline and
reform its procedures, and make them responsive to Russians. But I know our
officials are also dealing with a lot of spiteful, nasty people, imbued
only with their own sense of entitlement and umbrage without any clear
perspective of their own place in the world, their own country's equally
onerous procedures, and their own lack in fact of any kind of absolute
right to enter another country as a temporary traveller. I think a closer
look at the actual policies and practices of visas on both sides will
reveal that our side is far more lenient and far more consistent in abiding
by the rule of law (i.e. avoiding bribes, etc.)
  
One frequent complaint I hear is that many people believe that once they
are turned down for a U.S. visa -- and here they feel their rights have
been trampled and they are victims of vicious prejudice -- they fall on to
an international hit list and automatically are turned down for any other
foreign visa they apply for. I have heard from a number of people who
firmly believe that they are "jinxed" by having had one of these "wolf
tickets" and then no EU country, etc. will ever give them a visa. It would
be interesting to hear from Consul General Warlick whether there is indeed
such a policy. If there is not, it is important to publicize it and try to
convince people it does not exist; if it does exist, it seems more
justification for its necessity is needed.
  
*******

#6
From: Hugh Olmsted (holmsted@fas.harvard.edu)
Sent: 5/13/02 
Subject: Aleksei Kovalev

CRIMINAL CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST ST. PETERSBURG REFORMER ALEKSEI
KOVALEV
May 13, 2002

The St. Petersburg city prosecutor's office has brought criminal
charges against a young reform representative ("deputat") in the
city's Legislative Assembly (Zakonodal'noe sobranie), who has been
particularly active on behalf of legal protection for the city's
inherited architectural treasure and ecological health.  He is
Representative Aleksei Anatol'evich Kovalev, who has served in the
city Legislative Assembly under its various names since 1990 and been
twice reelected.  On April 23 of this year he was arrested and clapped
into the infamous prison, Kresty, accused of embezzling two million
rubles of the city's funds, supposedly diverted from a church
restoration project.  After a week behind bars, and numerous
expressions of protest from Russian citizens, Kovalev was released on
his own recognizance with obligation not to leave St. Petersburg.  So
he is currently out of jail;  but the heavy criminal charges of case
no. 77953 still stand, the city prosecutor's office continues to
advance the case aggressively, and the outcome remains unclear.

Below I would like to summarize a bit of the background in the
development of the case, and to suggest how colleagues who might wish
to express their reaction to the recent developments might do so most
effectively.   A strong public reaction has risen in St. Petersburg
and Moscow, including statements of protest from, among others,
Kovalev's fellow deputies in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly,
from "members of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia," and from Federal
legislators in the State Duma in Moscow. Two web sites containing
further information, including latest reports in the press, have been
prepared by Kovalev's supporters in Russia. They are:
http://www.za-kovaleva.narod.ru  and  http://freekovalev.narod.ru.
Considerable documentation is available on these web sites.  More can
be had from the undersigned.

Dr. Hugh M. Olmsted Slavic Specialist, Research Services Widener
Library Harvard University
tel.:  wk: (617) 496-9702
e-mail:  holmsted@fas.harvard.edu

BACKGROUND

In 1986, shortly after graduation from the University, Kovalev founded
and became director of the grass-roots organization "Gruppa Spaseniia
pamiatnikov istorii i kul'tury," the first legal independent public
organization in the USSR, whose goal was the preservation of the
historical, cultural and architectural face of St. Petersburg.  The
group succeeded in defending numerous 18th-19th century buildings from
illegal demolition; among them residences of the authors Dostoyevsky
and Del'vig, and protested demolition of the hotel Engleterre (Rus.
"Angleter").  Kovalev also organized a campaign for the return of
Leningrad churches to the believers, and another to reinstitute the
pre-revolutionary names of the streets and squares of St. Petersburg.

In 1990 he was elected to the Leningrad Council of National Deputies
(Lensovet), to which, under its new name as "Zakonodatel'noe sobranie"
he has twice been reelected.  There he has consistently pursued the
same line, fighting against the transfer of historically and
culturally valuable real estate to private hands by unclear methods to
unclear ends, and for the systematic protection of Leningrad's
historical and cultural monuments.  He succeeded in transferring the
office, "Inspection of Preservation of Monuments" away from the
executive power's jurisdiction and granting it independent status.
Kovalev was the initiator of the 1991 referendum to rename the city
Leningrad"St. Petersburg," and the author of the question in the
referendum.  He organized a new city budget line for historic
preservation, specifically earmarking city funds for the restoration
of monuments, obtained emergency funding for repair work in fifteen of
the churches of St. Petersburg and the environs, and blocked numerous
dubious and dangerous construction and demolition projects not in the
interest of the city's environment.  He also prepared and was
responsible for presenting to the State Duma in Moscow a new draft
Federal law establishing such protection at the Federal level.
Beginning in the mid-1990's, he frequently found himself in opposition
to St. Petersburg Governor V.A. Iakovlev who tended to sponsor
legislation in direct opposition to the direction represented by
Kovalev, including initiatives aimed at weakening local
self-government, rescinding a new constitution that Kovalev supported,
and shifting gubernatorial elections for reasons of political
expediency.

It is not surprising that by all his course of action Kovalev has
managed to make numerous powerful enemies. During the legislative
elections of 1998, he was the target of such political tricks as the
appearance of bogus candidates with names identical to his (he won
nonetheless).  And in late 1999 he was warned by Vice-Governor A.V.
Potekhin that a substantial criminal case would be brought against him
if he refused to back off in his opposition to Governor Iakovlev.
Kovalev ignored the warning .

THE CRIMINAL CASE

In January-February of 2000, a criminal case was actively initiated.
The city prosecutor's office arrested Kovalev's former assistant, A.
Kozev, held him for a number of weeks, beating, torturing, and
depriving him of sleep and food, and threatening him with still worse
treatment, until he finally signed a verbatim text prepared for him by
the authorities and implicating Representative Kovalev in supposed
serious felonies.  At his first opportunity thereafter, Kozev
renounced this confession completely, describing in detail  the whole
story of how it had been extracted.  Kozev's renunciation, together
with considerable other evidence exposing the nature of the charges
against Kovalev, have been presented explicitly, formally, and
repeatedly to St. Petersburg Prosecutor I.I. Sydoruk and other
authorities in attempts to have legality restored to the case.  But
these attempts have been consistently ignored and rejected, and the
confession forced out of Kozev continues to be used as a prime basis
for the charges.  Similar tactics have been used against other parties
forced into furnishing "evidence."  Having thus prepared a case,
Prosecutor Sydoruk attempted to strip Kovalev of his legislative
immunity so that he could be arrested (March 24 of the same year).
This proposal was rejected by the Assembly.

In early 2002, despite Kovalev's continuing legislative immunity, the
prosecutorial authorities made a first overt move against Kovalev
himself.  A warrant was issued for his arrest (Feb. 5), and S.B.
Tarasov, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, was
officially requested by Prosecutor Sydoruk to deliver the warrant to
Kovalev and facilitate his arrest (Feb. 20).  Tarasov responded that
such an order was completely illegal and that he would have no part of
it.  Amnesty International was contacted, in anticipation of a
possible move on the part of the authorities. Immunity was further
reinforced by a decision of a Constitutional Court in Moscow (April
12) affirming legislators' immunity in cases related to their work
duties.

Then, despite the legalities of immunity and the expressed will of the
Legislative Assembly, the Prosecutor's office had Kovalev arrested
(April 23).  His apartment and office and other places he frequented
were searched.  Some of his property was confiscated, including his
computer, on which the only copy of his Candidate
dissertation-in-progress is stored, and $600 for support of his
five-year-old son and his mother-in-law.  Kovalev, a widower, is their
only source of support.

It is worth noting that Kovalev's scholarly pursuits are serious.  He
is a professional archeologist who has directed a number of
substantial excavations in Central Asia, Mongolia, and Tuva; has
published over 30 research papers and monographs on related subjects,
some of them in German; and is a corresponding member of the Deutsches
Archaeologisches Institut.

The investigators conducting the searches were not subtle.  One of
them told Kovalev's five-year old son that his father was a thief.
When they confiscated the $600 left in the apartment, the child's
grandmother asked the investigators what money she was supposed to use
to buy bread the next day.  One of them counted out 100 Finnish marks
and a $1 bill and threw it on the table, saying, "Here, live on
this."  In one of the other searches, when the investigators
discovered evidence of Kovalev's scholarly interests and activity and
confiscated his computer, they remarked, "He should've kept to his
scholarship!  How come he had to go get mixed up in politics?"  That
is, they took no care to conceal that in fact it was not a criminal
case at all, but a political one.

At present Kovalev is out of jail but not out of danger.  The case
continues actively to be prepared against him.  Kozev, the former
staff member forced into giving the prepared testimony, is currently
under psychiatric evaluation which may result in the disallowing of
any and all testimony from him.  But if this should happen the
prosecuting authorities are prepared (as it is separately
documentable) to promote the role of other testimony similarly
obtained from other parties. The whole tone of the proceedings against
Kovalev, their motivation, their disregard for legal niceties, their
methods --  are all too familiar to old Soviet hands.  Perhaps the
equally familiar counter-methods of broad publicity and firm response
can be helpful now as well in forestalling a serious breach of
justice.  And it might be relevant to bear in mind the context of the
upcoming summit between Presidents Bush and Putin, during which such
behavior on the part of the St. Petersburg administration might not be
a point of great pride for the Russian authorities.

POSSIBLE DESTINATIONS FOR TELEGRAMS, FAXES,  AND E-MAIL MESSAGES
concerning ugolovnoe delo no. 77953, brought by Prokuror
Sankt-Peterburga I.I. Sydoruk against Deputat Sankt-Peterburgskogo
Zakonodatel'nogo Sobraniia Kovalev A.A. according to st. 159, ch. 3,
punkt a,b of the Ugolovnyi kodeks Rossiiskoi Federatsii

Anything sent should be copied to the newspaper Kommersant-Daily:
e-mail:  kommersant@kommersant.ru address:
   dlia pisem: Moskva 123308, Khoroshevskoe shosse d. 41
   izdatel' i redaktsiia: ul. Vrubelia d. 4, str. 1
tel.: (7-095) 943-97-71, or 943-97-68;   fax: (7-095) 943-97-28

1) V Upravlenie General'noi prokuratury Rossiiskoi Federatsii po
Severo-Zapadnomu Federal'nomu okrugu, zamestiteliu General'nogo
prokurora Rossiiskoi Federatsii Vladimiru Viktorovichu  Zubrinu
197124, Sankt-Peterburg, Suvorovskii pr., d.62,
tel.: (011-7- 812) 219-48-57

2) Polnomochnomu predstaviteliu Prezidenta Rossii v Severo-Zapadnom
federal'nom okruge Cherkesovu Viktoru Vasil'evichu
193015 Sankt-Peterburg, ul. Shpalernaia, 47
Fax: (011-7-812) 326-64-84

3) Predsedateliu Zakonodatel'nogo Sobraniia SPb Tarasovu Sergeiu
Borisovichu
190107 Sankt Peterburg, Zakonodatel'noe sobranie,
Isaakievskaia pl. 6, kom. 122
Fax:  (011-7-812) 310-52-19
e-mail: iad@la.spb.ru

4) Deputatam Zakonodatel'nogo Sobraniia SPb
190107 Sankt Peterburg, Zakonodatel'noe sobranie,
Isaakievskaia pl. 6, kom. 122
Fax:  (011-7-812) 310-52-19
Sektor pisem:  tel.: (011-7-812) 319-98-78

5) V Gosudarstvennuiu Dumu Rossiiskoi Federatsii s kopiei
103265 Moskva / ul. Okhotnyi riad 1
e-mail: www@duma.ru

*******

#7
New York magazine
May 20, 2002
From Russia With Lies 
BY CARL SWANSON

Two weeks ago, observant readers of the New York Times may have noticed a
curious "Editor's Note" acknowledging that the paper's former Moscow bureau
chief, Patrick E. Tyler, had been completely snookered. It corrected a
March piece that featured an interview with Captain Andrei Samorodov, who
claimed to have served in one of Russia's elite airborne units in Chechnya.
He told of how swastika-sporting Army cadets had instigated several
civilian killings. 

Samorodov went on to say that he'd attempted to stop the violence, only to
be threatened himself. Eventually he went awol, fled to Mexico, and managed
to cross the border into the U.S., where, after six months in an INS
detention center, he was finally granted asylum. 

Besides being gripping journalism, the story was something of a Holy Grail
for Tyler -- and human-rights investigators -- who had been trying to find
witnesses to alleged massacres of Chechen civilians in 1999 at the hands of
neo-Fascist military officers. The kind of story, in other words, that
would make the Russian government squirm. Alas, it was all untrue -- and
the Russians, in a post–Cold War Le Carré remake, turned the tables on Tyler.

"I spent a lot of time in Chechnya," says Tyler, who's a particular
favorite of executive editor Howell Raines, and on several occasions
reported stories that "the Russian government was not happy to see in
print." He first stumbled across the story after seeing a column in the San
Antonio Express-News by a reporter named Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje. Her son
had been taking fencing lessons from Samorodov, and, moved by his plight,
she asked readers to donate money to fly his family to join him. Fascinated
by the idea of a post–Cold War defector, Tyler followed up with his article.

The Russians wasted no time in setting upon this target. First, Izvestia
gleefully mocked his "sensational revelations," then, availing itself of
Samorodov's service record, it reported that the soldier had in fact left
the Army in 1993. The Times sent a reporter to Samorodov's hometown to try
to verify its account, to no avail. And finally, the Kremlin forced the
Times' hand, threatening to hold a press conference trumpeting the error;
the paper quickly printed a correction. 

"I feel terrible that I didn't smell the fraud," says Tyler from his new
office in D.C., where he took over from R. W. Apple last month as the
Times' chief correspondent. "We ran the story because Samorodov had a
compelling account and had been interviewed by the INS. . . . The thing
that gnaws at me is that the Russians have tried to discredit every report
of abuse in Chechnya." And this time he helped them. 

*******

#8
Los Angeles Times
May 14, 2002
Treaty's Dark Side: Threat of Terrorism
By GREG MILLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON -- To generations who came of age during the Cold War, the
nuclear arms agreement announced Monday by U.S. and Russian officials has
the ring of a once-impossible dream.

Thousands of nuclear weapons would be removed from arsenals that defined
decades of hostility between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

But the agreement encountered immediate criticism that it fails to address
the more realistic, post-Cold War threats that the United States faces. In
particular, arms control experts said the treaty would raise the likelihood
that warheads would find their way into the hands of terrorists or rogue
nations because the Bush administration insisted that both countries be
allowed to achieve reductions by storing--rather than dismantling--their
nuclear weapons. As a result, thousands of Russian warheads that might have
been permanently disabled under a more aggressive treaty could instead be
moved into storage facilities whose security is rated uncertain at best,
even by the administration's own recent intelligence assessments.

"Reducing nuclear weapons on both sides is a good thing," said Ivo H.
Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think
tank in Washington. "But we may be no more secure after this agreement has
been implemented than we are today."

Under terms of the treaty, which must be approved by the U.S. Senate and
the Russian Duma, the two countries would over the next decade reduce their
stockpiles by two-thirds, to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads apiece.

The agreement leaves it to the countries to determine how they would make
those reductions. A White House official who asked not to be identified
said the Pentagon is responsible for working out details of U.S.
compliance. Some of the U.S. weapons would be dismantled, the official
said, but others would be placed in "deep storage" or set aside as
"operational spares."

Weapons placed in the latter category would not be available for immediate
use on submarines or bombers or in silos, but they could be quickly
redeployed.

The White House has not spelled out specific scenarios in which it
envisions a redeployment of stored nuclear weapons, and arms control
advocates have said it's hard to envision circumstances in which 2,200
warheads would be inadequate.

But the Bush administration insisted that the treaty allow flexibility for
"uncertain security environments" in the future. The three-page accord also
contains a clause allowing either side to exit the agreement entirely with
three months' notice.

That aggressive posture scored points with conservatives, making the
proposed treaty palatable to some who have questioned the need for any arms
control negotiations in an era when the United States is the world's sole
superpower.

"This is the least bad outcome," said Frank Gaffney Jr., president of the
conservative Center for Security Policy and a former Pentagon official.

The United States and Russia had been pursuing the treaty for much of the
last year and until recently disagreed sharply over how far to go in taking
weapons offline.

Russia, whose economic troubles have strained its ability to maintain its
arsenal, had pressed for language that would have required weapons to be
dismantled. But Russia had little bargaining power in negotiations that
often highlighted the growing disparity between the two countries' fortunes
since the end of the Cold War.

Though Russia preferred dismantling weapons, President Vladimir V. Putin is
now likely to feel politically compelled to maintain parity with the United
States by storing an equal number of warheads, experts said.

"If the United States is storing rather than dismantling its weapons, it
will be hard for the Russians to [do otherwise]," said Robert Einhorn, a
former U.S. assistant secretary of State for nonproliferation.

But Russia's ability to safeguard its nuclear arsenal has come under
increasing doubt.

A report by the National Intelligence Council--a panel representing U.S.
spy agencies--concluded that Russia's security system "was designed in the
Soviet era to protect weapons primarily against a threat from outside the
country and may not be sufficient to meet today's challenge of a
knowledgeable insider collaborating with a criminal or terrorist group."

The report says that security at Russian facilities is already being
tested. Russian authorities, according to the document, have "twice
thwarted terrorist efforts to reconnoiter nuclear weapons storage sites" in
recent years.

Many of Russia's nuclear weapons storage sites "remain off-limits to U.S.
officials," meaning their security conditions have never been evaluated,
the report said.

And economic turmoil in Russia continues to erode its ability to safeguard
its arsenal. In some cases, guards at nuclear facilities have gone months
without pay, and others have launched hunger strikes to demand better
working conditions.

All of which makes Russia's vast nuclear weapons infrastructure vulnerable
to organized crime and terrorist groups who could theoretically sneak out a
warhead in a small pickup truck, experts said.

"The longer those warheads sit around in Russia, the greater the chance
that they get lost or sold," said Tom Z. Collina, director of the global
security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Dismantled warheads also pose a security risk. Their component parts could
still be used to reconstruct a warhead or a "dirty" bomb in which
radioactive material is dispersed by a traditional explosive device. But
the threat would be greater if thousands of Russian warheads went into
storage intact, Collina and others said.

"Certainly it's good to take the arsenals down by two-thirds," Collina
said. "But this treaty leaves unanswered the question of what happens to
the warheads once they're off the missiles." 

******

#9
Wall Street Journal
May 14, 2002
Editorial
A Gift for Mr. Putin

President Bush wasn't kidding when he declared that he and Russian
President Vladimir Putin have become fast friends. The American has now
agreed to breathe life back into the dinosaur bones of arms-control,
largely to assist Mr. Putin in Moscow.

There's really no other justification for Mr. Bush's announcement yesterday
of one more nuclear-arms reduction treaty, a Cold War relic if there ever
was one. He and the Russian will sign it during the President's visit to
Moscow later this month.

Mr. Bush really didn't want another treaty; he had said all along he could
do a Russian deal with a handshake. U.S. national security didn't require
it; the military chiefs long ago signed off on unilateral U.S. reductions
in nuclear warheads, from about 6,000 to fewer than 2,200, that Mr. Bush
had proposed during the 2000 campaign. And domestic American politics
didn't demand it; while Delaware Senator Joe Biden might erupt in ecstasy
at the prospect, U.S.-Russian treaties don't stir American voters these
days, if they ever did.

No, this is Mr. Bush's gift horse to Mr. Putin. The Russian has been under
pressure from his generals and die-hard nationalists to show something
tangible for his embrace of Mr. Bush after September 11. And the American
wants Mr. Putin to wink at the entry into NATO of three Baltic nations when
the alliance enlarges in November.

So especially after Mr. Putin gave Mr. Bush the green light to withdraw
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Mr. Bush felt the need to oblige
him by codifying U.S. nuclear reductions. "The larger relationship is
really what is important here," a senior Administration official told us
yesterday. "It was clearly important to Putin to say that this is something
that would outlive the two men and be legally binding."

Gift horses aren't free, however. The new treaty will reinforce the
outdated and dangerous notion that U.S. security is synonymous with
treaties. Mr. Bush's own Pentagon officials have been fighting that idea
and the arms-control bureaucracy for most of their careers. Mr. Bush has
himself stoutly resisted the arms-control illusion -- for example, by
refusing to submit to the Senate the comprehensive test-ban treaty signed
by Bill Clinton. This explains why White House aides are a bit sheepish in
justifying this treaty, calling it a "transitional agreement" that finally
buries the Cold War, and probably the last of its kind.

At least this one does relatively little mischief. It is only
three-and-one-half pages long, and a third of that is rhetorical
throat-clearing. The pact does nothing to restrict defenses, and it allows
either side to deploy the warheads that remain as each sees fit. It is also
silent on the matter of disposing of nuclear warheads once they are removed
from delivery systems (planes, submarines or missiles). This means that
some of the decommissioned warheads can be used as "spares," which will
help ensure the integrity of the nuclear weapons that remain in the U.S.
arsenal. With fewer weapons deployed, it's vital that all of them work.

Sooner or later, by the way, this is going to require that the U.S. resume
nuclear testing. One of the more dangerous legacies of the Clinton years is
that the U.S. is no longer able to produce new warheads. The Bush
Administration has committed itself to rebuilding that capacity. But Mr.
Bush has also agreed to abide by the test ban's moratorium, even though he
won't submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification.

The explanation for this paradox is that the Bush team likes having the
international monitors that are part of the test ban keep track of foreign
testing. But over time the U.S. won't be able to maintain the quality of
its arsenal without testing new warheads. So better to "unsign" the Clinton
test ban, too.

The real reason the U.S. and Russia don't need this treaty is because of
their improving relationship. Arms-control is dangerous between
adversaries, and it is unnecessary between friends. Mr. Putin has drawn
closer to the U.S. for his own self-interested strategic reasons. He needs
foreign investment, and to get that he needs to become part of the stable,
peaceful Western world. Arms-control is irrelevant to that historic mission.

*******

#10
Russian Nationalists Criticize Arms Control Pact With US
May 14, 2002
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MOSCOW (AP)--Russian nationalist lawmakers on Tuesday accused the Kremlin
of caving in to Washington in reaching a landmark U.S.-Russian arms control
deal, while moderates said the agreement doesn't go far enough.

Outspoken Russian nationalist lawmaker Alexei Mitrofanov called the
agreement "an erroneous decision." He said U.S. missile defense plans
should prompt Russia to increase its nuclear arsenal instead of shrink it.

"We are doing a favor to the United States. They form a shield and we break
our sword. We must reserve the right to have as many missiles as possible
so that we could deploy them under every tree," he told reporters in the
lower house of parliament, or State Duma.

Even moderate lawmakers were cautious in their view of the new pact.

Konstantin Kosachev, deputy chairman of the Duma's international affairs
committee, called the agreement more political than military. "This is not
the maximum we've been striving for," he said.

Vladimir Lukin, a liberal lawmaker and former Soviet ambassador to the
U.S., said the agreement leaves many questions unanswered and was prepared
hastily.

The accord was announced Monday and is to be signed by U.S. President
George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin during a summit in
Moscow next week. It foresees cuts in each country's nuclear arsenals to
1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the about 6,000 that each is now allowed.

The chief negotiators working on the pact, U.S. Undersecretary of State
John Bolton and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, finished
reviewing the document in Moscow on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry said.

The two turned their attention to a declaration on strategic relations that
will also be signed at the summit and will address missile defense systems,
the ministry said in a statement.

No details of the declaration were released.

Putin praised the arms reduction agreement Monday, and Bush said it would
liquidate the legacy of the Cold War.

******

#11
Lax Nuke Control Casts Shadow On US-Russia Partnership
May 13, 2002
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

MOSCOW (AP)--At Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and other major Russian
international gateways, departing passengers and baggage must go through
radioactivity detectors.

It's one of the most visible signs of Russia's efforts to stem the flow of
nuclear contraband to states trying to develop atomic weapons. But in this
country of deep nuclear expertise, long borders and fitful law enforcement,
such showcase controls have limited effect. Critics allege that they serve
to mask Russia's reluctance to stop transfers of nuclear expertise and
ballistic missile components.

"They've stonewalled us," said Stephen Blank, a professor of national
security studies at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania

The dispute has left the single biggest gap in the blossoming strategic
partnership between Moscow and Washington. It's sure to be on the agenda of
the May 23-26 summit between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin,
as it has been at every previous presidential encounter over the last decade.

U.S. officials say they are pressing Moscow hard on the proliferation
issue, but they won't discuss exactly what Washington is demanding, other
than an end to transfers of sensitive technology to Iran.

The United States alleges that Tehran is going all-out to become the
world's next nuclear power. With Russian help, the Americans maintain, that
goal is now just years away.

Russian officials insist their nation has no interest in seeing Iran armed
with nuclear weapons. But Iran is Russia's key economic and political
neighbor in the Caspian Sea region, and is seen here as a force for
stability and a counter to growing U.S. influence in nearby Central Asia.
Moscow also appreciates Iran's refusal to help separatist Muslims in Chechnya.

"The Russian government, for political reasons, may be tolerating a certain
amount of leakage," said Gary Samore, former U.S. President Bill Clinton's
special assistant for nonproliferation, now at the International Institute
for Strategic Studies in London.

However, Vladimir Orlov, director of the PIR Center for Political Studies
in Moscow, says the Russian government has told institutes to severely
limit contacts with Iranian scientists and to train them only with explicit
permission from the security services.

"A very clear message has been sent by Russian officials to facilities
throughout Russia and to Russian universities and technical institutes that
`Iranians' is a bad word," Orlov said, citing unnamed Russian officials.

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons technology.

"There is nothing about production of nuclear weapons in the agreement
signed between Russia and Iran on use of the atom for peaceful purposes,
for generating electrical power," Gholam Reza Shafei, Iran's ambassador to
Moscow, said at a news conference in February.

U.S. officials decline to give concrete evidence for their accusations,
saying they need to protect their sources and methods of surveillance.

A. Norman Schindler, a CIA nonproliferation specialist, told a Senate
subcommittee in September 2000 only that Russian institutions had helped
Iranian counterparts with projects with "direct application to the
production of weapons-grade fissile material."

In a December 2001 story in The New Yorker magazine, investigative
journalist Seymour Hersch reported that Israel had handed the United States
evidence that during the previous year, at least two Russian firms had sent
Iran aluminum and steel materials that could be used for the centrifuges
needed for nuclear bombs.

The Russian government says it has limited its nuclear cooperation with
Iran to peaceful projects like the long-delayed Bushehr nuclear power
plant. In 1995, Russia contracted with Iran to supply a 1,000-megawatt
reactor and finish construction.

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency approved, the United States
and Israel objected vigorously to Russia's participation. It's not so much
the plant that causes concern as the doors it opens in Russia , U.S.
experts argue.

"All the contacts between the Iranian and Russian nuclear establishments,
plus all the money that's flowing from Iran to Russia for the project, give
the Iranians access and allows them to try to acquire from Russia more
sensitive nuclear technology," Samore said.

Analysts from the PIR Center wrote this spring that nuclear specialists
returning from Bushehr had affirmed that "Iran's major objective is to form
indigenous skills to accelerate its nuclear weapons program."

Russia insists the project is legitimate. It says it also has safeguards,
chiefly the requirement that spent nuclear fuel be returned to Russia , not
kept and enriched.

"The people working on the station now are construction specialists. The
designing is being done here, the specialists are in Russia . Training will
be here," said Vladimir Kuchinov, deputy chief of the foreign economic
department of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry.

Sergei Yakimov, chief of the export control department of the Russian
Economic and Trade Ministry, said there is a widespread Russian suspicion
that under the banner of fighting proliferation, Western countries are
protecting their economic interests.

U.S. officials say the Russian leadership has not sent a clear message to
law enforcement agencies that sensitive technology transfers must stop.
U.S. experts accuse Russia's main security agency, the Federal Security
Service, or FSB, of at best turning a blind eye to proliferation.

The nuclear and missile material from military plants "isn't just something
you put in your trunk and drive off," Blank said. "The FSB is in all these
factories."

Beyond the recriminations, some small patches of common ground are
emerging. The United States has quietly dropped its insistence that Russia
pull out of the Bushehr plant, insisting instead that Russian-Iranian
nuclear cooperation end there, a senior U.S. administration official
confirmed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said Bushehr is a highly visible
project, but the real obstacle to closer cooperation is Russia's "overall
pattern of behavior."

*******

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