Johnson's Russia List
#6249
17 May 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Contents:
1. Moscow Times: Michele Berdy, Better Sorry Than Safe?
2. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
3. The Times (UK): James Dornan, Bush wants Putin to build Star Wars
shield with US.
4. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, Russia's industrial towns long for
good old days.
5. Interfax: Putin has no serious rivals in president election so far -
poll.
6. Interfax: Most Russians support U.S. fight against terrorism - poll.
7. The Economist (UK): What Russia wants. Vladimir Putin's long, hard haul.
Relations between Russia and the West have rarely been better. But what does
it mean in practice? And can it last?
8. Izvestiya: Russian Passport Chief Yuriy Ivashkin on passport exchange
program.
9. Moscow Times: Valeria Korchagina, Duma Gives Nod to Sale of Farmland.
10. RFE/RL: Jeffrey Donovan, Problems In Georgia Loom Large Over
Bush-Putin Summit.]
*******
#1
Moscow Times
May 17, 2002
Better Sorry Than Safe?
By Michele A. Berdy
Michele A. Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, is co-author
of a Russian-English dictionary.
Avoc: (participle) faith in success or good fortune, often unfounded. Can
be translated as faith in good luck, trust in a favorable outcome, counting
on/expecting a miracle or windfall, "with luck," or "God willing."
My trusty Dal dictionary tells me avoc is a conflation of a vot ceychas
(a-vo-ce) which I'd translate as "any minute now." As in, "Any minute now,
Prosya, the rain will come and save our crops" or "You just wait, Vanya,
any minute now my company will pay me the wages it owes me and then we can
buy some drink." Over time, it's come to represent a deeply held belief in
a deus ex machina salvation.
I think of avocas one of those seminal concepts in Russian life, something
that goes into making Russians Russian. It's what Ivan the Fool counted on
to get him out of a jam in Russian fairy tales, and what saved him time and
again, despite his foolishness. Today it's what spurs the driver of the
Mercedes 600SL to slip into the lane of oncoming traffic at 120 kilometers
per hour: with certainty (totally unfounded) that he'll zip back into his
lane before a truck appears.
It's avoc that was responsible for probably half the babies in the country
-- their parents were sure they could make love without protection just
this once "avoc pronecyot" (with any luck nothing will happen -- literally
misfortune will pass us by).
And it's avoc government officials count on when they plan a budget in
which expenditures routinely exceed revenues by 50 percent: Somehow they
are sure that the heavens will open and there will be enough money to pay
the pensioners, the military and state employees. (And if the heavens don't
deliver, maybe the IMF will.)
I can see how avoc took hold of the Russian psyche. Imagine you are a
Russian peasant, circa 1235. You live in a dark and smoky hovel with about
25 of your closest relatives, two goats, five chickens and a pig. Your
daily back breaking struggle to work the land barely produces enough to
sustain life, and you never know when you will be wiped out by a drought,
flash flood, hailstorm, or early or late frost. Or when the local prince
will need all your grain for some campaign in the south. Or when the church
will need it to buy gold leaf for the new cupola. Or when Mongol invaders
will come screaming over the steppes for a round of raping, pillaging and
burning.
There is no way you can pull yourself and your family out of the muck and
mud of poverty by your own efforts. When you are utterly powerless and
without rights, the only thing you can do is hope that God willing the
prince will collect enough grain before the officials get to your house or
any minute now the Mongols will get bored with raping and pillaging and
pass your village by.
We Western plodders, with our Protestant work ethic, our belief that "slow
and steady wins the race," our genetic memories of gentler climates and
richer land, never enjoy the adrenaline rush of avoc. We rarely walk off
the diving board of caution into the void of "it will all work out fine."
When a Russian driver stops dead in the middle of the Garden Ring at rush
hour to consider whether he should pay his cell phone bill now or not, and
it doesn't even occur to him to be afraid that the eight-ton Kamaz behind
him will turn his car into a concertina -- well, this is evidence of a far
deeper belief in a benevolent God than I possess. I envy him.
But a tip for state budget makers: Remember all those babies. Avocdoesn't
always work.
*******
#2
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and
Policy at Boston University
HEADLINES,
Thursday, May 16, 2002
- Izvestya reports that former leader of the Republic of Serbian Krajina
Milan Martic, who recently gave himself up to the Hague, may have
information about the death of Viktor Nogin and Gennady Kurin, Russian
journalists who disappeared in Yugoslavia ten years ago.
- A program for the development of the Russian metallurgical industry was
reviewed by the Cabinet for the first time in ten years.
- The results of the second investigation of the death of Elza Kungaeva
were presented at the Rostov-on-the-Don trial of Colonel Yuri Budanov.
- The Russian State Duma passed the government draft of the law on the
sale of agricultural land in the first reading.
- The participants of the Russian-German youth forum, which opened in
Moscow a week ago, are now in Berlin. Russian First Lady Ludmila Putina
and German First Lady Doris Schroeder-Koepf attended forum events today.
- Russian Security Council Chairman Vladimir Rushailo chaired a meeting on
national security in Kazan. He declared that the Russian security
services will take serious preventative measures against terrorist acts.
"There will not be another Kaspiysk," he promised.
- Tatyana Okunevskaya, one of the most beautiful women in Russian cinema,
passed away today at the age of 89.
- An unidentified man fired an automatic rifle at the car of Deputy
Governor of Smolensk Oblast Anatoly Makarenko. The driver of the car died
and Makarenko's bodyguard was wounded; the deputy governor was unharmed.
An investigation has been initiated.
- The emergency ministers of the eleven Black Sea nations signed a joint
declaration on cooperation. The document lists, among other goals, the
creation of a single registry for dangerous underwater objects, like the
ammunition from the Second World War, which remains on the floor of the
Black Sea to this day.
- Russian President Vladimit Putin will chair a meeting in Sochi on the
socio-economic development of Russia's south. Deputy head of the
Presidential Administration Aleksandr Arbatov, Presidential
Plenipotentiary to the Southern Federal District, and the governors of all
federation subjects in the District will be present. President Putin may
also hold separate meetings with the governors of Daghestan and
Ingushetia.
- In connection with the major forest fires, a state of emergency has been
declared in the Irkutsk Oblast, in Khabarovsk Krai, and on the Sakhalin
Islands.
- The Russian Emergency Ministry sent another shipment of medicine and
supplies to Daghestan.
- In the Chelyabinsk Oblast city of Trekhgorny, 75 children have been
hospitalized with food poisoning. According to preliminary investigations
it was caused by low-quality butter.
- The Federation Council passed a presidential draft of a law on
citizenship yesterday.
- Over 150 houses have been flooded by the Vychegda River in the Republic
of Komi.
*******
#3
The Times (UK)
May 17, 2002
Bush wants Putin to build Star Wars shield with US
From James Doran in Washington
PRESIDENT BUSH will propose next week that Russia and the United States
join forces to develop the controversial Star Wars missile defence system
in a move that will further enshrine new strategic links between the former
foes.
The proposals, which have been discussed in detail by officials from both
countries, mark a dramatic shift by President Putin, who has opposed
American plans for the missile defence system, known as NMD (National
Missile Defence), for the past year.
Mr Bush and Mr Putin will disclose at a meeting in Russia next week that
they are to set up a joint committee to develop NMD. The announcement will
accompany the signing of a treaty to cut both countries’ nuclear arsenals
by thousands of warheads, which Mr Bush described this week as signalling
the end of the Cold War.
The groundwork for the discussions about the missile defence system was
laid on Tuesday by John Bolton, the US Under-Secretary of State, at a
meeting in Moscow with Georgy Mamedov, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister.
A US official said that the meeting focused on the future strategic
direction of the missile defence system. Mr Bush will offer to share
American technology with Russia in joint projects to develop the system,
while Russia is expected to offer strategic advice.
Ronald Reagan first mooted a plan to co-operate with Russia on a Star Wars
missile shield when he was President 20 years ago, but the project was
considered too costly and too controversial to pursue.
Until now Mr Putin has opposed the NMD plans because he believed that the
system could encourage rogue nations, such as Iraq, to begin a renewed arms
race in an effort to surmount the technology.
Last year, after a meeting with Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the
Secretary-General of Nato, Mr Putin offered to co-operate in developing a
rival project with European countries. His apparent motive then, however,
was not one of true co-operation but to further drive a wedge between
Europe and the US over Mr Bush’s plans for NMD.
The proposed alliance will come as America prepares to abandon the 1972
anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia, which prohibits such missile
defence systems. Mr Bush announced in December that the US would scrap the
treaty in June, giving the Pentagon a six-month run-up to prepare for
testing the system, which will be built in Alaska.
The US is expected to begin work to install missile silos and radar systems
at the Fort Greely military base on June 14. Fort Greely is the proposed
site for land-based interceptor missiles, which are designed to shoot down
long-range ballistic missiles.
A senior Administration official said yesterday that the co-operation on
missile defence would “elaborate the extent of the collaboration” between
the US and Russia. “We want to further open up channels,” the official
said. “I think Russia realises that withdrawal from the ABM treaty is now
inevitable and that we have to make progress beyond that.”
The Bush Administration’s proposed defence budget for next year includes
$7.8 billion (£5.3 billion) for missile defence and projected spending for
the following four years that exceeds $30 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Star Wars project could
cost as much as $64 billion by 2015.
After two days of meetings with Nato ministers in Iceland this week Colin
Powell, the US Secretary of State, lauded the arms control breakthrough
with Russia, an expanded Nato-Russia partnership and the tighter UN
military sanctions against Iraq, which had won approval with Moscow’s help.
******
#4
Financial Times (UK)
17 May 2002
Russia's industrial towns long for good old days
By Andrew Jack
In the space of two days this week, Russia agreed a nuclear weapons treaty
with its old enemy and established a new partnership with Nato. But as
Russia opens up, not everyone is happy with what they find.
Last year Norilsk, the centre of the country's nickel industry, reimposed
access controls that it had given up after the end of Communism. Now
Magnetogorsk and Novy Urengoi, cities in the Urals, are seeking to
re-establish their closed status. And in Mirny, the diamond capital of the
republic of Yakutia, six time zones east of Moscow, residents are trying to
escape growing social problems by calling for the closure of their city to
outsiders - just as in Soviet times.
Under Communism, the regime kept such places secret from the curious West.
They also had something to hide from ordinary Russians. Those who worked in
such places had to endure extreme conditions and were rewarded with higher
living standards - potentially the envy of their fellow citizens.
Such logic ended with the fall of Communism - though some large military
bases and research centres still limit access for the same reasons.
Now residents of newly opened towns are disenchanted. Nikoloi Ermolayev,
the outgoing head of Mirny's local administration, says: "We are seeing the
arrival of drugs and bad social elements. We want to close the town to
outsiders."
He is supported by Alrosa, the state-controlled diamond monopoly that runs
Mirny and much of the rest of Yakutia. The company developed the region
over the past 50 years and is the principal employer and political force.
Its former head, Vyacheslav Shtyrov, is the republic's president.
"I wouldn't say that we want to close the town, just limit arrivals to
Russian citizens, or foreigners with a valid visa and permission to visit,"
says Vasily Kozlov, head of Alrosa's social department.
It is already difficult to enter Mirny, with a policeman verifying
passports and official invitations at the airport. But locals say there
should be tougher controls, not targeted against Westerners so much as
residents of the former Soviet empire, those now living in the countries of
the Commonwealth of Independent States. "They come here and consider
themselves at home, studying for free in the schools and university, and
seeking apartments and pensions," says Egor Shishigin, a local academic.
"It's right that there should be limits. They are citizens of other
countries now."
Migrants from Central Asian states in Mirny are resented for their control
of the local street market and are widely believed to be behind the drugs
trade. There are even concerns that they will attempt to steal diamonds.
In truth, everyone in the town is a relatively recent immigrant - Mirny was
founded in the 1950s.
Since then, Alrosa and the authorities have been encouraging workers to
leave. But they have put down roots, and adapted to a climate that swings
from -50°c in winter to +40°c during the mosquito-infested summer.
Mirny is scarred by a 550m-deep open-caste diamond mining pit on the edge
of town, but conditions there are much better than Norilsk, where there is
heavy pollution and the bloody legacy of an industry built originally by
prisoners from Stalin's gulags.
Alrosa pays an average of Rbs15,000 a month - high for Russia - and
employees have two months of holiday a year.
People there fear they could not live as well elsewhere. While many
companies in Russia have shed their Soviet-era social obligations, Alrosa
has increased its paternalistic control. It pays most of Yakutia's taxes,
but also directly finances and manages sports facilities, hospitals,
housing, power plants, the regional airline and even old collective farms.
But now the first generation of employees has retired, the costs of
maintaining them in the far north are heavy, particularly after Alrosa's
first mine by Mirny itself closed last year, and large investment is needed
to develop new sites.
Mr Kozlov says the company has bought apartments for its pensioners in
other parts of Russia to offer in exchange for their ones in Mirny, so the
size of the 41,000-strong town can be maintained. But they are reluctant to
leave and some who quit have since returned. "They have worked here a long
time, have friends, family, and people to keep an eye on them. It's a
difficult process," he says.
It is hard to find people in Mirny who are opposed to limiting access to
their town.
"There is a lot of nostalgia for the past," says Ekaterina Krivoshankina,
who works in a local fur company.
"People of different nationalities worked together and never quarrelled.
Now drugs have arrived. My only question is whether closing the town will
work."
*******
#5
Putin has no serious rivals in president election so far - poll
MOSCOW. May 16 (Interfax) - 48% of Russians would vote for Vladimir Putin if
the presidential election were held next Sunday.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov would get 14% of the votes, while
Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Kemerovo Governor
Aman Tuleyev would get 4% each. 3% would support Chamber of Commerce and
Industry chief Yevgeny Primakov. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky and Moscow
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov would get 2% each.
The Public Opinion Foundation released this information on Thursday with
reference to a poll of 1,500 people in 100 towns and villages in 44 regions,
territories and republics of Russia on May 11- 12.
Putin's rating is 2% down, Zyuganov's is 3% down, while the ratings of
Primakov, Tuleyev and Zhirinovsky are 1% up as compared to the previous poll.
The ratings of Yavlinsky and Luzhkov remain unchanged.
In mid-May 2002, 50% of respondents said they would never vote for
Zhirinovsky, 28% said they would not vote for Zyuganov, 22% for Yavlinsky,
17% for Luzhkov, 12% for Primakov, 9% for Tuleyev and 4% for Putin. (The
indices almost do not differ from those of mid-April - Interfax).
42% of respondents assessed the activities of President Putin as
"satisfactory" (43% in mid-April), 37% said they were "good" (36% in
mid-April), and 7% said they were "excellent" (6% in mid-April).
*******
#6
Most Russians support U.S. fight against terrorism - poll
MOSCOW. May 16 (Interfax) - A total of 72% of Russians are ready to support
the United States in the fight against terrorism, while 21% think differently
and 7% find it difficult to answer the question.
The Monitoring.Ru Group of Companies polled 1,540 town residents and
informed Interfax about the poll results on Thursday.
An analysis of social and demographic parameters shows that people with
high incomes are more willing to support the Americans in their fight against
terrorism. A total of 74% of the respondents with high incomes voiced their
support for the U.S., while only 66% of low- income respondents sided with
the U.S.
*******
#7
The Economist (UK)
May 18-24, 2002
What Russia wants
Vladimir Putin's long, hard haul
MOSCOW
Relations between Russia and the West have rarely been better. But what
does it mean in practice? And can it last?
FOR more than ten years, Russia's relations with the advanced countries of
the western world have been a torrid and unsatisfying mixture of unrequited
love, misunderstanding, dashed hopes, sulks and tantrums. As President
Vladimir Putin prepares to meet George Bush next week in St Petersburg,
things are looking both calmer and more hopeful.
There have been big shifts on both sides. The West is no longer trying to
recast Russia in its own image. The days are gone when politicians in
Washington used the International Monetary Fund as a foreign-policy slush
fund to promote particular policies and politicians in Russia. These days,
Russia runs itself more or less as it likes. The result is a
semi-authoritarian country, still corrupt though perhaps less so than it
was a few years ago, and much more politically stable.
Economic growth is slow but encouraging: Russia registered its third
consecutive year of real growth in 2001, with GDP up by 5%, and at a time
when the world's big economies were sluggish. Although good official
connections in business still matter hugely, the days of central planning
are gone for good, as is the wild era of looting and barter that followed
the collapse of communism. Russia delivers its oil and gas on time and, to
general surprise, is steadily paying off its foreign debts. Compared with
what might have happened, the outside world finds that cheering.
Russians in business and politics alike used to see foreigners either as a
threat or as gullible outsiders fit only for milking. Now expectations are
more sensible. Russia has a more realistic sense of its own weakness: that
it is a global superpower thanks only to its vastness, and in the narrow
sense of its decaying stock of all-but-unusable nuclear warheads. In every
other respect, it is at best a medium-sized power. Its economy is barely
larger than Switzerland's, its population around the same as Pakistan's.
Russia needs good relations with the outside world to stand even a chance
of gaining the investment and know-how necessary to catch up.
No one at the top in Russia sees this more clearly than the impatient Mr
Putin, who since September 11th has moved sharply to portray Russia as an
amenable partner for the West. If sustained, this will be a huge change.
The biggest difference this has made so far is to reverse some policies
that have proved ineffective in the past. Instead of sulking over the
expansion of NATO to former Soviet allies in Eastern Europe, Russia is
building a new relationship with the alliance. Instead of regarding Central
Asia as its own backyard, it is accepting a big, and maybe stabilising,
western military presence there. It is accepting, from a position of
weakness, a deal with America on nuclear weapons—sensibly, given that it
can barely afford to keep the ones it has—and Mr Putin decided not to make
a fuss about America's intention to build missile defences. There are signs
of a shift in Russia's dogged support for Saddam Hussein, and in its
over-cosy nuclear relationship with Iran.
Stopping bad habits is one thing. Starting good new ones is harder. The
main positive shift has been in intelligence-sharing, especially in
counter-terrorism, although even here the Russian side complains that the
West has provided little in exchange, and old games such as snooping on
military technology continue. Elsewhere, practical co-operation is still
limited. Hawks on both sides, but particularly in Russia, are unwilling to
give up their old thinking.
Sidling towards integration
As the summit nears, so the questions accumulate. What do the new relations
mean in practice? How easy will it be to fit Russia into the rich world?
Are the changes sustainable? Can Mr Putin manage to drag his country
single-handedly towards the West? If he faces failure, how will he retreat?
And what happens if he goes?
Economic integration is the most important plank of Mr Putin's new policy.
Russia's share of global trade is pitiful (see chart 1), given the
country's history and level of education. Russia's manufactured exports
still amount to little more than guns and vodka. Excluding oil, gas and
metals, those bits of Russian industry that do sell abroad (steel and bulk
chemicals, for example) rely on artificially low energy prices. Russia
still carries a large burden of debt, about $143 billion; Mr Putin would
like the Americans and Europeans to write off a further chunk of this, but
they are not eager to do so. The economy, after all, is growing, though
much of this is because of high oil prices and the effects of a 75%
devaluation of the rouble after the financial crash of 1998, rather than to
the growth of competitive, well-managed businesses.
Changing that is going to be a long, hard haul. There are promising signs,
however. Private home-grown business has put down solid roots in the past
ten years. More foreign companies are starting to manufacture goods in
Russia or to set up basic consumer industries such as food production. As
chart 2 shows, foreign investment flows into Russia have been tiny. But
western skills in quality control, distribution, marketing and branding
still make a huge difference, especially when local competition is weak and
imports are kept out by tariff barriers and bureaucracy.
Foreigners are also investing in industries that offer better long-term
prospects. Sandvik, a Swedish engineering company, says its factory in
Moscow produces higher-quality goods than its British one, though
productivity still lags. A few years ago it was hard to find any foreign
company manufacturing in Russia for the world market. Now there are several.
The biggest deterrent to business of all kinds, foreign or local, is
Russia's corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy. This raises the cost of doing
business, in bribes or paperwork. It can also threaten a firm's survival.
Get on the wrong side of some powerful local clan, and you may find your
factory stormed by bailiffs, armed with a court order saying that you no
longer own it. This happens less than it once did, but still too often for
comfort. Russia has made progress in building a law-based system,
instituting jury trials and paying judges a bit better. But, as Mr Putin
himself admits, there is a long way to go.
A huge step would be for Russia to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
the body that sets and polices the rules for international trade. On paper,
this would do much to make Russia a more predictable place to do business.
But there are dozens of issues to settle first. Uncompetitive Russian
banks, insurance companies and car makers, not to mention the country's
notoriously inefficient farmers, want lengthy periods of protection against
real competition. Then there is the huge hidden subsidy of cheap energy,
which boosts swathes of the Russian economy but infuriates foreign
companies making fertiliser, steel and so forth. The lethargic and
arbitrary customs system has defied all serious reform attempts so far.
Optimists think WTO membership will finally sort that out, too. So far,
Russia has proved quite good at passing laws but much less good at
implementing them. Membership of the WTO seems certain—after all, China
eventually managed it—but probably not before the middle of the decade.
Chiefly, though, WTO membership will give more recourse to the wronged
rather than prevent abuses happening. More substantial progress may take a
generation. So long as the rich and powerful are mostly above the law,
businessmen of all stripes will take a lot of convincing before they put
big money into Russia.
Rethinking geopolitics
Russia also needs to fit in politically. Compared with the isolation of the
Soviet era, Russia's integration into international bodies has been
stunningly successful. In talking shops such as the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe, a sort of
ante-chamber to the European Union, Russia is an established member. Its
helps with peacekeeping in Bosnia, as well as with peacemaking in the
Middle East.
But there is still a long way to go. Take Belarus, about the last truly
autocratic regime left in Europe, and Russia's closest Slavic ally. The
country's western neighbours speak out regularly on Belarus's rigged
elections, harassment of journalists and members of the opposition, and
other chicanery. But Russia is silent. Despite Mr Putin's visible distaste
for Alexander Lukashenka, his mercurial and eccentric Belarussian
counterpart, Russia endorsed the rigged elections that returned him to
office last year.
Old geopolitical thinking also dies hard in poor Moldova, a former Soviet
republic that abuts Romania. Along Moldova's northern border, a highly
criminalised Russian-backed separatist regime still rules a tin-pot
republic called Transdniestria. Old attitudes still affect relations with
the Caucasus, where the Kremlin's client regimes in forgotten places like
Abkhazia and South Ossetia maintain their miserable misrule. Russia has
been playing a more constructive role of late in trying to solve the
decade-old frozen war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but could do much
more. Russia is also obstinately refusing to normalise relations with its
former Baltic satellites, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are now
close to joining the EU and, most probably, NATO too.
The most pressing practical issue is the Kaliningrad region, a Baltic
exclave of Russian territory acquired only in 1945 and sandwiched between
Poland and Lithuania. It is impoverished, disease-ridden and a prime
business location for smugglers and other criminals. Russia accepts in
principle the need to negotiate a special deal for the time when both
Kaliningrad's neighbours join the EU. But it fears that Kaliningrad may
break away, and wants no exemptions from the Schengen border controls to be
allowed to Kaliningrad that are not also offered to Russia itself.
Most strikingly, Russia is still miles away from western standards on
Chechnya, where ghastly cases of murder, torture and abduction of civilians
at the hands of the miserably paid and led Russian soldiery are everyday
events. Although the Kremlin position has softened a little from the first
year of the war, no political solution is in sight. Although last week's
bomb in neighbouring Dagestan, which killed more than 30 and maimed dozens,
has been blamed on a local warlord, Russians immediately blamed the
Chechens: a reminder that the repeated claims of victory in the conflict
are still premature.
Since September 11th, Russian propaganda has focused on the connections
between the Chechens' resistance and international Islamic terrorism.
Western criticism, never very vocal, has softened a little. In March,
however, the American State Department's annual report on human rights
included harsh criticism of Russian behaviour in Chechnya. Now there is a
new irritant: Chechen-language broadcasts on Radio Liberty, which is
financed by the United States. Some Russian politicians have demanded the
cancellation of the station's broadcasting licence, used for locally based
transmitters of the much more widely listened to Russian service.
Other western allies, such as Turkey, have plenty of blots on their
human-rights record too. But Russia does not want to be another Turkey.
Even if full EU membership is a very long way off, Russians want a serious,
close and settled relationship with Brussels. But it is hard to see those
ties becoming really chummy without some energetic tidying up of the
various post-imperial loose ends. And of that there is still little sign.
Putin almost alone
On acute issues, such as American involvement in the former Soviet empire,
Mr Putin is shunting Russia's policy in the right direction, towards
accepting the inevitable. The next moves—developing good ideas and carrying
them out—will be very much harder for him to make, since almost all the
Russians involved, in the foreign-policy and defence establishments, either
do not understand the new stance or disagree with it vehemently.
The president has allies in the new business elite, especially those
members of it who have global ambitions. Democratic-minded Russians are
increasingly impressed with his vocal criticism of the country's bossy,
corrupt officialdom—although the president's close ties with the security
services, his squeeze on the independent media and the misery in Chechnya
mean that most liberals are still broadly sceptical rather than supportive.
And almost none of these supporters is in a position to keep the new policy
on track.
Yet this weakness seems unlikely to cause problems for Mr Putin at home in
the immediate future. There is neither a convincing alternative policy, nor
anyone to articulate it if it existed. Russia is too weak to challenge the
West. The only powerful potential ally is China, a country which
influential Russians see as a much bigger threat than America. Some top
Russians like to suppose, as the Soviet Union once did, that America and
Europe will eventually fall out, in which case Russia can team up with the
Europeans. At the moment, that seems little more than wishful thinking. So
does another fashionable bit of thumbsucking: the notion that America and
Russia might team up, leaving the European Union behind. The only real
choice is between the sulks, and making the best of it.
Furthermore, the political stage features no opposition leader worthy of
the name. Even if popular discontent reinvigorated the Communist Party,
which is now in outright opposition to Mr Putin, it is very hard to imagine
it making a real bid for power. The Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov, is
unimpressive. The Kremlin has huge resources available for propaganda and
election-rigging. That helped even the sickly, drunken, and highly
unpopular Mr Yeltsin beat Mr Zyuganov in 1996. Mr Putin would find it much
easier.
The president might fall out with the mighty clans who put him in power.
But they are a lot less powerful now. The possible challengers from inside
the political and economic elite are the prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov,
or Russia's electricity boss, Anatoly Chubais. So far, they have been loyal
to Mr Putin. But even if they were able to force his resignation or topple
him by some other means, there would be little change in foreign policy.
Public discontent also looks unlikely to upset things. Opinion polls show
that around three-quarters of Russians distrust America or see it as an
enemy. Yet Russians who can afford to do so consume western products and
visit western countries for holidays, study or business. Most would like
their country to become more “western”', meaning freer and more prosperous.
If Mr Putin and his team become unpopular, it will be because of low living
standards and dismal public services rather than discontent with, say, the
architecture of the new NATO-Russia relationship or a long-term American
presence in Kirgyzstan. So long as integration with the world economy
produces some powerful winners as well as losers, political support for it
looks assured.
In the longer term, the future of Russia's pro-western policy depends on
whether Mr Putin is able to stop the country's decline. High oil prices,
and relief at the stability Mr Putin's rule has brought, have masked other
unsolved problems, such as a demographic collapse (with the population
shrinking by around 750,000 a year), an AIDS explosion (highlighted in a
new World Bank study this week), crumbling infrastructure and ethnic and
regional tensions. Continued decline would lead eventually to another
economic and political crisis some time in the next decade. But that
prospect looks distant now.
Two steps forward, two steps back
The real danger is not that Russia's march to the West goes into reverse,
but that it bogs down for lack of ideas and people. If Russia is unable to
come up with a good idea for joint action against Saddam Hussein, for
example, America will go ahead and do what it wants anyway. Russia may get
a generous serving of the post-Saddam oil and reconstruction contracts as a
reward for keeping quiet—or America may decide that other, more useful,
friends deserve a bigger share.
The argument in Washington seems to be between those who regard Russia as
too weak to matter and those who think that there are big benefits to be
won from co-operation and respect. So far the latter have been winning, for
example in agreeing to Russia's request for the nuclear-weapons cuts agreed
this week (see article) to be backed by a legal document rather than a mere
political declaration. But that could change quickly if Russia cannot keep
up.
Much detailed work is needed on the steps that would admit Russia fully to
the civilised and developed world. One is WTO membership, but without any
bending of the rules. Another is the sorting out of Russia's relations with
its former empire, both inside the former Soviet frontier and beyond.
Third, Russia needs to get to grips with the European Union, starting now
to adjust its laws and habits to allow people, capital and goods to flow
easily across the frontiers in both directions.
Most of all, Russia needs to change at home. A bureaucracy that stifles
business and bullies its citizens is as bad for Russia's relations with the
outside world as it is for Russians themselves. Russia must not allow this
to obstruct the fact that it has many things in common with the West
already, and their number is growing.
*******
#8
Russian Passport Chief Yuriy Ivashkin on passport exchange program
Izvestiya
14 May 2002
[translation for personal use only]
Interview with Yuriy Ivashkin, by Boris Ustyugov; historical comment
by Leonid Smirnov; personal reminiscence by Zoya Sibireva: "You Have To
Look at Things Realistically"
What difficulties have Russians already
encountered and will they encounter in exchanging their passports?
Izvestiya correspondent Boris Ustyugov talks with Yuriy Ivashkin, deputy
chief of the RF MVD [Russian Interior Ministry] Passport and Visa
Administration.
[Ustyugov] Strange though it may seem, many Russians, especially in
rural locations, still know nothing about the passport exchange. Is any
"advertising" being done in this area?
[Ivashkin] In rural locations we are organizing teams of
photographers and passport makers who are drawing up documents on the
spot. Therefore, the countryside right now is actually leading in this
process. For instance, the Siberian Federal District is in first place
today among all the regions for rates of exchange. Already 54 million
people (this is 44 percent of the country's population) have exchanged
passports. Passport reform began in 1997, but we didn't have the
financing to get started on it until the second half of 2000. At that
time we issued 14 million new passports, 23.5 million in 2001, and this
year we plan to exchange another 45-50 million passports. Naturally, in
connection with the shortening of the exchange deadline we are
experiencing certain difficulties with staff and a shortage of time, so
in some offices the procedure for drawing up new documents takes more
than 10 days and lines are forming at passport counters.
[Ustyugov] In practice, replacing a passport takes a month or two,
and during this time the person is almost a nonentity--he can't buy a
plane or train ticket, get money at a bank, make a transaction, or mail a
package. What do you advise people who have surrendered a passport for
exchange?
[Ivashkin] For this there exists a temporary I.D. for a Russian
citizen, Form 2-P, which is issued on request. This is a kind of card
with a photograph you can use when you buy a plane ticket while your
passport is being drawn up. No other document, including anything from
the ZhEK [residential building maintenance office] passport desk, is
considered a substitute for the temporary I.D.
[Ustyugov] Right now people are getting ready for vacation, and some
particularly impatient ones are solving the problem of exchange deadlines
with the help of bribes. Why don't you set up a legal "urgency surcharge"
at the MVD--for instance, charge everyone who wants it 1000 rubles apiece
and draw up a passport for him in three days? On the national scale, this
would solve the problem of financing the entire passport reform.
[Ivashkin] That may happen in the future, but as of today the legal
regulatory base bans official paid services for the passport service. The
minister has signed a special order prohibiting additional charges beyond
that established by law (this is 50 rubles) for issuing documents. In
order to establish an urgency surcharge, we would have to go to the
governmental level, so that they could allow the creation of a state
institution based on the passport and visa service (the MVD cannot engage
in commercial activity). It would be good to work out this question, but
you have to look at things realistically. Creating a structure like that
would probably take a lot of time.
[Ustyugov] During a massive exchange of documents, there is always an
opportunity for committing fraud. What is being done to make sure
citizens can't get two passports--for example, someone who managed to
obtain Ukrainian citizenship but is now registered in Russia, from being
issued a Russian passport as well?
[Ivashkin] In order to prevent mix-ups, in replacing the 1974 USSR
passports we look to see where the person was registered at the moment
the Law on Russian Federation Citizenship was passed, that is, on 9
February 1992. Even if someone resides permanently in Russia now and has
proper registration, if in February 1992 he was registered outside the
borders of the Russian Federation, it doesn't mean that he is a Russian
citizen. We are replacing passports only for citizens of Russia.
[Ustyugov] Have there been any scandals or legal proceedings lately
connected with tourist firms, OVIRs [departments of visas and
registration], and banks refusing to accept the old 1974 documents from
citizens for purposes of drawing up transactions and foreign passports?
After all, the old passport is valid until December 2003 and has currency
in the country alongside the new Russian one.
[Ivashkin] I'm not aware of any such instances, although complaints
from citizens that OVIR has refused to accept their Soviet passport do
come in from time to time. Usually all these problems are resolved
locally, and organizations conduct their operations using the old
passports.
[Ustyugov] Are the notes and number from the old, Soviet passport
entered in the new one? And won't it end up being that a citizen's credit
and tax history can be followed only from the moment he receives his
Russian passport? After all, he carried out all previous property
transactions with the Soviet passport.
[Ivashkin] This January changes were made in the passport provision,
and now the passport services are going to have to put in the new
documents stamps about all previously issued passports, including those
lost or replaced, with which purchases and sales, powers of attorney, or
other transactions were drawn up. In addition, just now the MVD
leadership has approved a decision allowing the citizen to keep his old
passport after it has expired. Although we consider the demands by some
firms in drawing up transactions that the citizen provide information
from his previous passports to be illegal.
[Ustyugov] In general, which notes in particular can there be in
passports and who is going to put them there?
[Ivashkin] When notes are entered that are not provided for by the
passport provision, the passport is considered invalid. Apart from the
usual information about marriage, military obligation, the registration
and existence of children, pages 18 and 19 of the passport are set aside
for notes on the citizen's blood type and INN [taxpayer's identification
number]. These notes are to be entered accordingly by the tax and medical
services. The main thing is that people don't go for them to the passport
service; we don't even have those kinds of stamps. There is also a space
in the passport for filling in a personal identification code. Right now
it's blank, since a system for citizens to acquire a personal code in
Russia has yet to be introduced. In addition, we have approved a draft
law on the identification document; additions have been made to it
according to which, if a citizen so desires, a note can be put in the
passport about his nationality. If the law is passed, we will introduce
the appropriate changes in the passport provision.
[Ustyugov] What sanctions will be applied to those who don't replace
their passport before December 2003?
[Ivashkin] In accordance with the Code on administration violations
for residing on the basis of an invalid passport, a citizen can be held
administratively accountable. Punishment has been provided for in the
form of a citation or a fine.
[Ustyugov] Now the exchange of passports is going to happen twice in
a citizen's life--at 20 and at 45 years of age. But after all, a man
changes outwardly after 45, too. Why did they decide against gluing new
photographs into the passport? After all, won't replacing the entire
blank require additional funds?
[Ivashkin] Naturally, a person changes purely outwardly, and given
substantial changes in appearance a passport can be replaced. However,
practice shows that a passport wears out quickly. Therefore, even after
45 a man will probably have to replace his passport at least once; the
old one will simply wear out. Therefore it was decided to make the
replacement rather than glue in photographs. It's been calculated that
the Goznak factory is going to have to put out 10-12 million new blanks a
year. For comparison: previously we required 4.7 million blanks. But if
Goznak can handle the present volume of 40 million a year, then it will
certainly manage 12 million.
[Ustyugov] What about someone who turns 44 in 2003? Is he really
going to have to get into the passport counter line in half a year.
[Ivashkin] Here the matter remains open for now. It hasn't been
worked out. If additional changes are made in existing regulations, there
are various possibilities. But for now, according to the passport
provision, expired passports are going to be considered invalid here.
[Ustyugov] Will the universal passport system be coordinated somehow
with the census?
[Ivashkin] We're doing work with Goskomstat [State Committee for
Statistics] and our local offices to verify the completeness of the
population count. Verifications are showing that minors and newborns are
often brought in for registration with great delay. The deceased are not
removed right away either by any means. During the census, though,
citizens are not expressly required to show census takers their passport.
[Ustyugov] Are you anticipating a stir at passport counters in the
final months of 2003 and a certain confusion in affairs during the first
months of 2004--when, for instance, dead people turn up with invalid
Soviet passports so that you can't draw up a death certificate?
[Ivashkin] I hope citizens will experience no stir or inconveniences.
But there have always been individual instances. For instance, very
recently a man came in to one of our Moscow offices to exchange his 1932
passport. By the way, this year, the Russian passport and visa service is
going to mark its 70th anniversary. We're taking advantage of this as an
additional reason to remind Russians that living in the Russian
Federation requires a Russian passport.
History
Pyotr I Loved and Lenin Hated Them
The passport and residence permit are by no means an invention of
Soviet power. In Russia, as an authoritarian state that has always liked
to take an interest in its citizens and control them, there has been a
passport system well in place since Pyotr I (previously the literacy rate
had been too low). Here is how the situation with passports in tsarist
Russia was stated in the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia in 1897: "A
passport is not required when absent from one's place of permanent
residence: (1) within the boundaries of the uyezd [at the time, the
lowest administrative district] and no more than 50 versts [approximately
33 miles] beyond its borders and for no more than six months and (2) from
individuals engaged in agricultural work." A man's passport listed his
wife, and married women, regardless of age, could obtain separate
passports only with their husband's consent! At the same time, Brockhaus
notes, "The wife of a person missing without word or suffering from
derangement may be issued a residence permit at the instruction of the
local governor, the town governor, or the chief of police." Further on it
gets even more interesting: "Unseparated members of peasant households,
even adults, may be issued a residence permit only with the consent of
the master of the peasant household. . . . Passports are issued on the
general basis to schismatics of all sects, excepting eunuchs."
Today it is hard to believe this, but Lenin very much disliked
passports. In 1903, when he was still fighting for freedom, he demanded
their abolition in an article, "On Rural Poverty." Lenin was hard to
ignore, and Soviet power did not institute passports until the early
1930s. Under NEP [New Economic Policy] there was no residence permit,
either. Finally, in December 1932, Stalin put an end to this: a decree of
the TsIK [Central Executive Committee] and SNK [Council of People's
Commissars] prescribed the introduction of a unified passport system with
mandatory residence permit for the entire USSR during the course of 1933.
Unfortunately, Soviet power deceived many millions of collective farmers,
who only received passports--whether this is a long or short time--under
a 1974 provision. It was then that passports whose letter and numerical
codes signified whether someone had done time in labor camps, or been a
prisoner of war, or under occupation, became a thing of the past.
By the Way
Long-time Moscow resident Zoya Alekseyevna Sibireva recalls her
life's passport history:
"I didn't have a passport until I was 22. I'd heard something about
the little red books, but in Orekhovo-Zuyevo, where I lived, they weren't
issued. In my student years we had paper documents. Later, in 1932, they
announced a passport system. But they didn't give everyone full-fledged
passports: out-of-town students--including me--were issued temporary
passports, pitiful two-paged papers. They were good for two years, but in
1933 I graduated from the Timiryazevka [the Timiryazev Agricultural
Academy in Moscow] and left for Kirgizia, where there wasn't any passport
system. Therefore I lived with my papers until 1936, when I returned to
Orekhovo-Zuyevo and got a real passport at the police station, a
gray-green one, with my photograph, and I guess my parents written in.
All during the war we carried our passport in our pocket; they were
checked on the streets. And then there was an exchange in 1976, when
everyone was issued these red-brown ones. I would have gotten a new
Russian passport, but I don't much like having my photograph taken. I
think maybe I'll just die--and save one blank."
******
#9
Moscow Times
May 17, 2002
Duma Gives Nod to Sale of Farmland
By Valeria Korchagina
Staff Writer
The State Duma approved in first reading Thursday a government-backed bill
allowing the sale of farmland.
The vote marks one of Russia's most radical steps to liberalize the economy
since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If the bill becomes law, Russia's
farmland will be a commodity for the first time since the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution.
Farmland accounts for 23.8 percent of the country and is worth between $80
trillion and $100 trillion, according to Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev.
Lawmakers voted 256-143 with one abstention for the Cabinet's version of the
bill, 30 votes above the minimum required.
The Duma must pass the legislation in two more readings before it can be sent
to the Federation Council and then President Vladimir Putin for approval.
Putin has indicated that he will sign the bill.
The president signed separate legislation allowing the sale of commercial and
residential land and dacha plots late last year.
In addition to the land under crops or farms, farmland includes wilderness,
buildings, roads, small lakes and rivers and even small forests.
Voting on Thursday took place after a heated, daylong debate in which the
Communists and their allies fiercely denounced the proposal as the sale of
the homeland.
Outside the Duma, about 200 Communist protesters rallied with signs reading
"To Sell Land Is to Sell the Motherland" and "Fire the Government!"
Nearby, a small group of people waving Union of Right Forces flags chanted,
"Forward with reform."
At the start of the discussion, deputies were presented with seven drafts
drawn up by various factions and deputies.
The version offered by the Communists and their Agrarian supporters demanded
a ban on foreigners owning land and attempted to avoid using the word "sale"
altogether.
Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, a Communist, and Agrarian Deputy Oleg Smolin
also attempted to postpone the reading in favor of putting the issue to a
national referendum.
Two versions of the bill were quickly withdrawn in a gesture of support for
the government, leaving five for the deputies to debate. In the late evening,
the government's version was voted the best.
The bill offers a general framework for the sale of farmland that prohibits
foreigners from buying land around national borders or near restricted and
top-secret facilities. It also limits sales in areas where the amount of
farmland per capita is limited.
A list of territories excluded from the market will be part of a separate
presidential decree.
The bill also requires that purchased farmland be purposefully used and
limits the options for converting farmland for other uses.
To further control the turnover of farmland, the bill includes a clause that
gives local authorities first rights of purchase at the asking price.
Regions will be able to decide for themselves issues such as how much
farmland foreigners and individual owners can buy.
"The government-proposed draft foresees tough state control of farmland
sales, with the control levers in the hands of the regional authorities,"
Gordeyev said, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported Thursday.
Foreigners' rights to buy farmland and the size of the plots are likely to be
the focus of debates before the second reading.
The date for the reading has yet to be set.
Although farmland sales are formally allowed in the 1993 Constitution, no
legal mechanism has ever been developed.
The leftist-dominated parliament of the 1990s managed to avoid the issue for
two terms. The 1999 elections changed the political ratio in the Duma.
Even without the legislation, a gray market for farmland has existed in
Russia for years, Ivan Starikov, the head of the Federation Council's
agriculture committee, was quoted by Interfax as saying Thursday.
Starikov estimated that farmland sales already amount to $10 billion a year.
Some 12 million Russians already own farmland, much of which they received
through the privatization of collective farms, The Associated Press reported,
citing government data. However, until the farmland bill is passed into law,
there is little the owners can do with the land.
******
#10
U.S./Russia: Problems In Georgia Loom Large Over Bush-Putin Summit
By Jeffrey Donovan
Arms-control issues are set to dominate next week's summit in Russia between
Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush. But some of the thornier issues
in U.S.-Russian relations will be looming over the talks. As RFE/RL reports
from Washington, analysts are concerned in particular about U.S. military aid
to Georgia and the potential for renewed conflict over the Abkhazia region.
Washington, 16 May 2002 (RFE/RL) -- The United States says its new military
"Train and Equip" program in Georgia is intended to help the Caucasus country
deal with lawlessness and possible terrorist threats in some of its more
remote areas, such as the Pankisi Gorge.
Analysts interviewed by RFE/RL generally concur that the recently begun
program will improve the overall security of Georgia, a chaotic former Soviet
republic that, despite Russian resistance, has sought to align itself with
the West.
But analysts are also concerned that the $65 million military training
program could generate dangerously unintended consequences, such as
emboldening an improved Georgian army to try to seek a military solution to
the standoff over the Russian-backed breakaway region of Abkhazia.
As U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare
to sign an arms-control pact and ring in a much-vaunted "new era" in their
ties at a Moscow summit beginning on 23 May, analyst Fiona Hill of
Washington's Brookings Institution wonders if unforeseen events in Georgia
won't sooner or later spoil their party.
"Georgia is one of the potential flash points -- in fact, more of a flash
point than even Central Asia at this point -- for U.S.-Russian relations,"
Hill said.
To be sure, U.S. officials have repeatedly said the plan to use 150 to 200
U.S. military personnel to train four Georgian battalions for 21 months has
nothing to do with the conflict over Abkhazia, the scene of a war between
separatists and Georgian troops that ended in 1993.
Late last month, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made this observation
to a U.S. Congressional committee: "We have also made it clear, however, that
we don't want to see any improvement in their capability, or that improved
capability used against Abkhazia. There has to be a peaceful solution."
But Hill and other analysts, such as Zeyno Baran -- who runs a Caucasus
program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies -- say
they were spooked earlier this month by a bellicose statement attributed to
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.
In a 6 May dispatch by Caucasus Press, Shevardnadze is quoted as telling
journalists that he supports a "strong and united" Georgian guerrilla
movement. The guerrilla movement was originally set up with the aim of taking
back Abkhazia into Georgia. But regional analysts believe the majority of the
so-called "partisans" now control cross-demarcation-line smuggling
operations, sometimes operating in collusion with Russian peacekeepers and
Abkhaz fighters.
No one was immediately available at the Georgian embassy in Washington to
verify Shevardnadze's comments. But while they have not been officially
denied, Shevardnadze said this week he believes only a peaceful solution can
work in Abkhazia.
Tbilisi has long denied any connection to, or control over, several ragtag
Georgian guerrilla movements reportedly seeking to take back Abkhazia and the
return of some 200,000 Georgian refugees. But Hill, who believes any return
to violence over Abkhazia would be a "foreign-policy disaster" for the Bush
administration, said some observers doubt Shevardnadze's sincerity. "The
accusation has often been from many quarters, you know, that Shevardnadze
encourages [the guerrilla movements]."
And Baran said the Abkhaz side appears to view the potential consequences of
the U.S. Train and Equip program as a direct threat. "I was recently in
Turkey, and a huge Abkhaz diaspora, the largest group of Abkhaz live there --
about 800,000 -- and I met with them. And they're, of course, really
concerned that this Train and Equip program, [will get into] the wrong hands
or [be] uncontrolled. Or maybe some Georgians will get emboldened and decide
that with all the American support, military and political, that maybe they
can just solve the Abkhaz situation militarily."
The stalled Georgian-Abkhazian peace process is overseen by the United
Nations, for which Russia provides peacekeepers. The UN reportedly is working
on a plan that would give the breakaway region, which is recognized only by
Russia, autonomy within Georgian territory.
But analysts say any settlement is conditioned by the state of
Russian-Georgian relations, which have worsened over the last year. And they
say that the worse things get between Tbilisi and Moscow, the more pressure
is put on relations between Russia and the United States.
"I would say over the last year, or maybe longer, [Georgia] has been a thorn
[in U.S.-Russian relations]. And definitely, unless the U.S. and Russia can
work out a way to cooperate on Georgia, and basically have Georgia more
stable, it will definitely be one of the key issues that is going to keep the
U.S. and Russia from the rapprochement process," Baran said.
Moscow has long said that Chechen separatists, some with Al-Qaeda
connections, use the lawless Pankisi Gorge on the Georgian border with the
breakaway Chechen republic as a haven. Last fall, the U.S. said it believed
the Russian military had conducted air strikes in the gorge.
Russia's preoccupation with the Pankisi Gorge was in the news again this week
when nationalist Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dmitrii Rogozin said
he believed the alleged perpetrator of the 9 May bombing that killed 42
people in Daghestan is hiding in the region. Georgian officials have called
those charges unfounded.
The U.S. State Department has not commented on them, but said it understands
Russia's concerns about the Pankisi Gorge.
In remarks before the U.S. Helsinki Commission last week, Assistant Secretary
of State Steven Pifer said Washington's intention is not just to bolster
Georgia's ability to fight terrorists but to reduce the temptation for the
Russian military to strike Georgian territory.
"The training-and-equipment program, which is just beginning in the last
couple of weeks, is intended to help give Georgian security forces the
capacity to deal with these individuals operating in the Pankisi Gorge.
Again, what we're trying to do is help Georgia be in a position to resolve
the problem, because we don't think the situation in Georgia would be
advanced were the Russians to take action across the border," Pifer said.
Nor, however, would it be advanced by fresh hostilities over Abkhazia. But
that is what one Georgian leader is proposing. Teimuraz Shashiashvili, the
governor of the Imereti region, has reportedly laid down an ultimatum to
Shevardnadze that unless he can persuade the international community to get
the Abkhazians to agree to a deal, he will personally lead a guerrilla
campaign to restore Tbilisi's control over Abkhazia.
Shashiashvili also said there is no longer a chance for a peaceful solution
to the conflict and that there will be -- in his words -- "another
Afghanistan" if Russia does not persuade Abkhazia to sign a settlement. The
deadline for the ultimatum is 26 May, the last day of the Bush-Putin summit.
On the other end of the divide, Baran said Abkhazians are worried that
warming U.S.-Russian relations will lead Moscow to "drop" them. And she said
this could tempt some to try to destabilize the situation during the summit.
"Some of these Abkhaz are very concerned that if the Russian-U.S. relations
get even closer, then Russia might just drop Abkhazia as a sort of strategic
tool. And so the Abkhaz might then try to make sure that they are not just
considered to be easily droppable. So they might do something that would
force people to look into it," Baran said.
But Baran and Hill say neither side in the dispute really wants a return to
arms, and that apart from Russia, the whole international community -- led by
the UN -- wants to see a peaceful settlement, with the region returning to
Georgia. Baran said all this concern before the summit may lead Putin and
Bush to focus on Abkhazia.
"We're going to see, over the next couple of weeks, a lot of heating up on
the ground: mutual accusations, probably some ultimatums, and definitely some
misinformation. And it's all hopefully going to come to some sort of quiet
[end] after the summit. People need to see that the Caucasus conflicts are
going to come up [at the summit] and that it's not just going to be the big
questions," Baran said.
But persuading Russia to agree to a settlement on Abkhazia won't be easy.
Baran believes Putin would agree to a deal, but that he needs something in
exchange from Bush to appease hard-liners in the military.
Russia has had a long, complicated affair with Georgia. Former Soviet leader
Josef Stalin -- a creator of the Soviet state -- was Georgian. And the last
Soviet foreign minister, Shevardnadze -- seen by many as a destroyer of the
Soviet state -- is also a Georgian. And Hill said there are so many other
intangibles in the relationship between them that it's very hard for Russians
to "let go" of Georgia.
"Georgian food, music, wine -- everything is all kind of tied into Russia,
into a kind of cultural-culinary level. There are so many intricacies in it.
And [there's] a great deal of romanticism about Georgia. It's all mingled
together. It's really hard to try to talk to Russians about it, to
disentangle everything they're so concerned about," Hill said.
But perhaps next week, Bush and Putin can give it a shot.
*******
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