Johnson's Russia List
#6400
13 August 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Contents:
1. Novye Izvestia: Sergei Agafonov, GIVE US A RULER...The president and
other public servants are costing Russia too much.
2. Kontinent: Alexander Tarasov, RUSSIAN SKINHEADS: A SOCIAL PORTRAIT.
Analysis of social motives behind the skinhead movement in Russia.
3. The Globe and Mail (Canada): Mark Mackinnon, New battles loom over
Russia's great lake. Plan to pipe water to a thirsty world pits
entrepreneurs against ecologists. (Lake Baikal)
4. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
5. The Guardian (UK): Paul Brown, Communism, alcoholism... and now oil.
Deal for pipeline from their remote Siberian land poses yet another threat
to beleaguered Evenks.
6. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: HOW SHALL THE PANKISI GORGE BE CLEANED UP?
Sergei Karaganov, head of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council, says
the operation in Georgia needs a UN mandate.
7. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Aleksei Arbatov, CHECHNYA: TIME TO GO ON THE
OFFENSIVE. The federal government needs to declare a state of emergency.
8. The Globe and Mail (Canada): Beverley Smith, Russian mob craves power,
expert says.
9. New York Times: Sabrina Tavernise, Handful of Corporate Raiders
Transform Russia's Economy.
10. Moscow Times: Alexei Pankin, A Glimpse of the Media Sector in 2109?
11. Reuters: Harmony on the Volga for Russia's Muslim Tatarstan?
12. Reuters: Poll dims hopes for peace in breakaway Karabakh.]
*******
#1
Novye Izvestia
August 13, 2002
GIVE US A RULER...
The president and other public servants are costing Russia too much
Author: Sergei Agafonov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
PRESIDENT PUTIN IS SHOWING SYMPTOMS OF AN URGE TO SHOW OFF THAT WAS
NOT (AND COULD NOT BE) SATISFIED IN HIS YOUTH. STATE OFFICIALS LOOK TO
THE PRESIDENT AND COPY HIM. RUSSIA CANNOT AFFORD TO FINANCE ALL OF
THEIR ASPIRATIONS FOR LUXURY AND EXCESS.
Miners demonstrated in protest in Moscow on Monday, after almost
three years of respite from such demonstrations. Tired of empty
promises of "a normal life", coal-miners from Vorkuta became the first
to remind the authorities of the true situation in Russia.
There can be no doubt that other categories of citizens will
follow suit, driven into the streets by payment delays for wages and
welfare benefits, uncontrolled inflation, creeping rises in tariffs
for services, transport, gas, and electricity... The reserves of trust
and patience the electorate made available to Putin are about to run
out.
Information about the escapades of public servants close to the
president is leaking past even the cunningly established information
barriers; it can only outrage ordinary citizens.
We have to admit that neither the president nor the people with
whom he has been creating the hierarchy of governance over the past
two years can boast of a sense of tact in demonstrations of their
administrative power and ever-increasing prosperity financed by the
state budget.
Regular meals at the Hermitage and the Russian Museum with
foreign VIPs; expensive trips which paralyze normal life over entire
regions; the presidential stables and mountain slopes for his personal
use; millions of rubles wasted on reconstruction of winter, summer,
and seaside residences - all these are symptoms of an urge to show off
that was not (and could not be) satisfied in Putin's youth.
State officials look to the president and copy his style. Putin
recently signed a decree allocating millions (of dollars, of course)
for the construction of a residence for General Latyshev, presidential
envoy for the Urals federal district. The mansion will be classic,
including a chapel and everything else that may be required by a new
Russian civil servant with insatiable assistants. We have only seven
presidential envoy, but each of them has deputy presidential envoy,
and they in their turn have assistants... But there is only one nation
from which they all feed.
The dream of a well-educated, enlightened, psychologically stable
ruler has always existed in Russia. It has never come true yet.
*******
#2
Kontinent
No. 32
August 2002
RUSSIAN SKINHEADS: A SOCIAL PORTRAIT
Analysis of social motives behind the skinhead movement in Russia
Author: Alexander Tarasov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
NEO-LIBERAL REFORMS ARE THE MAIN FACTOR IN THE APPEARANCE OF A NEO-
NAZI YOUTH MOVEMENT. IN RUSSIA, THEY GENERATED SOME ADDITIONAL SOCIAL
PROCESSES THAT HAD A DIRECT EFFECT. THE CHANGES OF THE PAST DECADE
HAVE HAD A DISASTROUS IMPACT ON FAMILIES.
Neo-liberal reforms are the major reason, and not in Russia
alone. In Britain, the first country where a large-scale skinhead
movement arose, it owed its appearance to Margaret Thatcher's neo-
liberal reforms. In the United States, the skinhead movement blossomed
forth from Reaganomics. The same happened in Germany, when a right-
wing government set out to "dismantle the welfare state". Neo-liberal
reforms led to the appearance of skinhead movements even in countries
like Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, and Thailand.
Neo-liberal reforms in Russia generated some additional social
processes that had a direct effect on appearance of the movement. In
order to make ends meet, many Russians began working three or four
jobs at once. Needless to say, they ceased to see their children at
home - with a serious impact on family-raising.
All this occurred simultaneously with the process of total
dehumanization of Russian society. Russian television over the last
decade has raised a whole generation which is certain that violence is
normal, and that problems should be solved through violence.
Data on social origins of skinhead movement is clearly
insufficient, but what information is available indicates that
skinheads are not from the "social bottom". As a rule, skinheads are
children of the "Soviet middle class" whose living standards and
social status have deteriorated over the decade of reforms. The
"economic reforms" of the 1990s turned a lot of previously highly-paid
employees - like engineers and academics - into petty traders,
vendors, etc. These people encountered psychological trauma and social
humiliation.
Dissatisfaction with life experienced by children in these
families eventually transformed into nihilism, racism, and chauvinism.
There are some cities in Russia (Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar,
Voronezh, Volgograd) where most skinheads are children from the
families of small and medium-sized traders and street vendors, small
and medium business owners, civil servants, and so on; i.e. children
of the bourgeoisie. Sociologists say that children of Russian business
owners are much more chauvinistic than children from other social
strata. They probably think in terms of the family business already
and view others as potential rivals.
Polish researchers did a poll in private schools in Russia in
1999, assuming that the future elite was being taught there, the elite
the Poles would have to deal with sooner or later. About a fifth of
Russian teenagers were found to be nationalists. As a rule, all these
young people came from the families of vendors and business owners.
This category deliberately emphasized a gap between itself and the
majority of the private school students (about 60%, children from
wealthy families openly demonstrating disdain of everything Russian
and eager to move to the West).
The category called nationalist intended to keep living in
Russia. Demonstrating loyalty to Russian traditions, they emphasized
hatred of religions other than Orthodoxy; especially Islam. Over 80%
of young men in this category described themselves as racists.
All the young nationalist respondents planned to go into
business, dreamed of becoming millionaires and owing companies. Like
the pro-Western group, they denounced collectivism. Asked about their
targets of hatred, these young men named communists, anarchists, and
enemies of private property in general on the list - along with
Negroes, Asians, and Jews.
All nationalists advocated a harsh policy with regard to
Chechnya.
The department for combating juvenile extremism set up in the
Moscow police force after the Tsaritsyno riots had registered over
1,000 skinheads by May. It enabled specialists to draw certain
conclusions about the social origins of approximately a fifth of
Moscow's neo-Nazi skinheads.
Almost 35% live in single-parent families; and 90% of these
families broke up in the 1990s, the period of economic upheavals.
The parents of 58% of the skinheads are street vendors or work in
the restaurant business, and 22% have businesses of their own. Around
8% of the skinheads have mothers who are housewives. The fathers of
21% work in private security companies; the fathers of 6% are
officers; and at least one of the parents is a civil servant in 12.8%
of the families. One or both parents are manual workers in 4% of the
families; or teachers, doctors, and so on in 3.2% of the families.
In other words, the classic portrait of a neo-Nazi teenager as a
member of the bourgeoisie is true in Russia as well. It is clear,
however, that foreigners cannot be blamed for the decade of economic
deterioration in Russia. It follows that provoking racial and ethnic
conflicts in Russia nowadays benefits the authorities, because they
prevent dissatisfaction directed against the regime as such.
So we should not be surprised that skinheads from the People's
National Party are being trained at the Moscow OMON base...
(Translated by A. Ignatkin)
*******
#3
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
August 13, 2002
New battles loom over Russia's great lake
Plan to pipe water to a thirsty world pits entrepreneurs
against ecologists
By MARK MACKINNON
IRKUTSK, RUSSIA -- Five time zones west from Moscow, just above Mongolia,
Lake Baikal is so clear that swimmers who brave its cold, tempestuous
waters would risk vertigo if they looked down.
The lake fills a crevice that runs 1,600 metres in depth and more than 600
kilometres in length. It is also the world's largest source of fresh water,
with more volume than Canada's Great Lakes put together and enough to
account for four-fifths of Russia's supply. And as locals like to remind
visitors, it is the world's oldest lake, perhaps 25 million years old,
which would make it 24 million years older than just about any other.
Baikal, remote and rugged, has long been appreciated for its unique place
on the planet and unparalleled ecosystem. With more than 2,500 species of
plants and animals in its waters and along its shores -- three-quarters of
them endemic to the region -- it is as diverse a place as one can find in
Siberia. But if Lake Baikal was once seen as a living museum for Earth, it
is now being thrust into an uncertain future.
As Russia hurtles into a new century of free-market enthusiasm, its new
capitalists want to build a pipeline, several thousand kilometres long,
from the world's largest reservoir to the parched lands of China. The idea
is about more than improving Russia's exports. It has pitted entrepreneurs
against environmentalists in a struggle over the country's vast base of
natural resources, and how best to develop them.
At Lake Baikal, the two sides have been clashing for decades over using it
for industrial development, with the environmentalists mostly losing. For
45 years, a massive cellulose plant has been spilling chemicals into the
southern end of the lake that Russians reverently call the Pearl of Siberia.
"It's not that it's in a terrible place," one municipal official said.
"It's in a beautiful place. It just happens to make terrible things."
As in many post-Soviet states, the authorities around Baikal do nothing to
hide their belief that pumping up the region's sagging economy is more
important than mitigating any damage their projects could do to the natural
surroundings. Even Vladimir Fialkov, the chief scientist in charge of
studying Lake Baikal, envisions a day when Baikal water will be pumped to
China, and possibly to the thirsty billions of Africa, the Middle East and
the United States.
"Our analysis shows it is the most pure water in the world," said Mr.
Fialkov, who heads the Limnological Institute in the lakeside town of
Listvyanka.
Within minutes of meeting a journalist, he pulled out a half-litre bottle
of "Baikalskaya" fresh water and put it on the table. "Please, try some,"
he said.
Some officials believe the only reason not to build a pipeline right away
is that as the world grows thirstier, demand will drive up prices and make
an expensive pipeline project easier to finance.
The majestic lake is deep enough to satisfy humanity's demands for another
50 years.
"If it's profitable to export oil and gas by pipelines, it will eventually
be profitable to export Baikal water by pipelines too," said Anatoli
Malevsky, chairman of the Irkutsk regional government's natural-resources
committee. "When the shortage of water is higher, the price of water will
be higher too."
Baikal's value has long been known to Russians, just as it has long been a
cause for ecologists. At least 336 rivers and streams flow into the lake,
and its basin has for decades been a base for mining, timber and
shipbuilding industries. In Soviet times, schoolchildren were taught to
refer to the crystalline lake as the Sacred Sea, and practised drawing its
jalapeno pepper-shape in class.
Then, in the 1950s, the government decided to build the enormous cellulose
plant on the southern shores, in the village of Baikalsk. Local anger gave
birth to the first real environmental campaign of the Soviet era -- decades
before Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power. "Really, perestroika and glasnost
were what gave the environmental movement a chance to voice itself more
loudly. But that first fight over Baikal was the start," said Jennifer
Sutton, head of the Baikal Ecological Wave, an environmental group based in
the neighbouring city of Irkutsk.
A pattern for the next 45 years of wrangling over Lake Baikal was set: The
environmentalists won a public-relations war and generally made life harder
for the bureaucrats who wanted to build the cellulose plant. In 1987, the
Gorbachev government ordered the Baikalsk mill to be "reprofiled" so that
its activities would be harmless within six years. In 1996, the United
Nations declared Lake Baikal a World Heritage Site.
Opponents of the mill acknowledge today it is one of the cleanest operating
plants in Russia.
But environmentalists say many of their victories have been hollow, which
they fear will be the case again in their fight to stop any plans for a
water pipeline to China.
New laws, including a tax on polluters to pay for the damage they cause,
are frequently dodged. Moreover, a court recently ruled that the
polluter-pay tax is unconstitutional, leaving open the question of what
regime, if any, the government will introduce to replace it.
The decree to clean up the Baikal mill also led nowhere. The plant
continues to spew dioxins, sulphur oxides and chlorinated organic compounds
into the lake, polluting an area of more than 30 square kilometres from its
southern tip.
"Building the plant there was one of the biggest mistakes the Soviet
government ever made," said Roman Pukalov, chief Baikal campaigner for
Greenpeace Russia. "The government knows that now, but the plant is still
there because of local corruption."
While Baikal remains startlingly pure, the location of several plants along
the Selenga River, its largest tributary, has meant that sections of the
lake are deteriorating.
Inside the 30-kilometre zone around the cellulose mill, there were once 30
species of crustaceans. Today, only four can be found. Species of plankton
crucial to the ecosystem have also disappeared, and scores of Baikal's
signature species, the nerpa freshwater seal, have turned up inexplicably
dead on the shores.
Ms. Sutton worries most about the plankton because they eat bacteria and
thereby play a crucial role in keeping the rest of the lake clean. While
they can handle almost any type of natural bacteria, the tiny organisms
have proved no match for the tonnes of industrial waste that have been
discharged into the lake in recent decades.
"These endemic species are very sensitive to pollution," she said. "You
destroy the natural filter, you'll destroy the lake eventually."
In many ways, the continuing battle for Baikal, whether over the quality of
its water or its purpose, epitomizes the state of Russia's environmental
movement. The greens are waging public-relations battles, and winning some,
but have yet to declare victory.
"We raised public awareness 40 years ago [during the struggle against the
Baikal cellulose plant]," one veteran Russian environmentalist said. "But
that's about it. Now, the situation is worse, not better, than it was then."
Part of the problem is that Russia's system is not yet a truly democratic
forum, and remains a place where the most powerful vested interests
eventually get their way. Last year, in its biggest show of strength to
date, the green movement collected 2.5 million signatures calling for a
referendum on two of the biggest ecological questions facing the country:
the government's plan to start accepting foreign nuclear waste for storage,
and President Vladimir Putin's plan to abolish Russia's two main
environmental-protection agencies.
The country's Central Election Committee, however, rejected the request,
disqualifying nearly 700,000 of the signatures for "technical reasons" such
as incorrectly filled-out passport details. That left the movement below
the two million signatures the Russian constitution requires to trigger a
referendum. The greens have not made another attempt.
While that failure could easily be laid at the feet of an obstructionist
political system, some veteran observers say it's also a sign that the
environmental movement in Russia has yet to catch up to its counterparts in
Western Europe and North America.
"Without a civil society, there's no pressure on politicians, and therefore
there's no political will to get things done," said Alexei Yablokov, a
former top adviser to former president Boris Yeltsin. "We have no civil
society."
Though the groups spearheading the Baikal campaign -- Baikal Ecological
Wave and Greenpeace -- are among the most developed non-governmental
organizations in the country, they have not been able to penetrate the
political process far enough to influence decisions.
At the Irkutsk natural-resources committee, Mr. Malevsky has lost his
optimism about the lake's future, even as he promotes it as a source for
water exports. He said that in the two years since Mr. Putin came to
office, the closing of environmental-protection agencies and the transfer
of their tasks to the Natural Resources Department have meant fewer people
doing environmental monitoring and policing. "Nowadays, enterprises can
cause air pollution and water pollution and not pay at all," Mr. Malevsky
said.
Budgets have also shrunk unexpectedly, leaving programs such as water
purification around the Baikal cellulose plant in the lurch.
"Unfortunately, over the last few years, we have seen a worsening of the
ecological situation across the country," he said. "A lot of ecological
programs are going to have financial problems because of this terrible
federal law."
In Canada and other Western countries, environmental groups and their
political allies would mount a public-relations offensive, leaking reports
to the media and lobbying sympathetic politicians to press the government
to reverse course.
But in a remote corner of Russia, drumming up support for the world's
oldest lake has been as difficult under a democracy as it was under the
Soviet regime -- in part because the people fighting for Baikal feel they
are not yet living in a true democracy.
"A developed democracy has a developed civil society," Mr. Yablokov, the
former Yeltsin adviser, said in an interview.
"In Russia, we're just not there yet. We're allowed to take part in the
debate, but we're not allowed to win."
*********
#4
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba_sch@hotmail.com)
Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information, Moscow office
HEADLINES,
Monday, August 12, 2002
- Hearings on the case of Emily Garmin – a six-year-old girl who was
kidnapped from Moscow by her father in late July – began in Ohio. The
mother, Lolita Garmin, could not attend the hearings because she has not
been able to get a US visa.
- The 90th anniversary of the establishment of Paratroopers divisions in the
Army was celebrated today.
- Life in Russia’s southern region is beginning to return to normal.
Experts are, however, concerned about the possible spread of infection in
the flooded regions – in the Novorossiisk area a campaign of vaccinations
against hepatitis, typhoid fever, and other infectious diseases has been
initiated. The sanatoriums and hotels in the most affected regions have
been placed under a quarantine.
- Deputy Emergency Minister Gennady Korotkin named other priorities at a
Novorossiisk meeting, including: the inspection of the coastal areas, the
underwater inspection of the bottom of the River Dyurso and the provision of
potable water.
- Twenty search-and-rescue divisions are searching for the bodies of the
victims in Krasnodar Krai.
- Another storm may descend on Krasnodar Krai on August 15th – to prevent
more flooding, the reservoirs near the Glebovka and Abrau-Dyurso settlements
are being partially drained.
- The Procurator’s office has opened a criminal case into the deaths of
people living or camping on the Black Sea coast – it will investigate why
houses were built and tents set up so closely to the reservoirs.
- Film Director Sergei Soloviev presented a 30-minute pilot version of his
film “O Lyubvi” [About Love] at the Vyborg Russian Film Festival.
- Special Presidential Envoy for Kaliningrad Dmitry Rogozin met with
Lithuanian authorities to discuss the protection of Kaliningrad residents’
right to freedom of movement. Moscow is strictly against the introduction
of a visa regime. Rogozin also criticized the recent Lithuanian proposal to
supply Kaliningrad residents with special magnetic IDs.
- The 50th anniversary of the execution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
leaders was commemorated today. The 13 victims of Stalinism were not
rehabilitated until the early 1990s.
- Representatives of the United Russia Party have proposed changes to the
system for reviewing the budget. Aleksandr Bespalov told journalists: “We
find it logical that, before being submitted to the Duma, the budget should
be presented at the State Council for all of the governors to see. It will
make it clearer. Now, the governors keep blaming Moscow – sometimes it’s
completely unjustified. Sometimes it’s justified. But it would be simpler
to just take the document and show it to those who will have to execute it.”
United Russia representatives have also promised to pay special attention
to social provisions for agricultural settlements.
- Russian miners picketed the Energy Ministry in Moscow demanding the
payment of seven-months’ worth of wages and the establishment of a special
organ for dealing with the mining industry. Representatives of the
protesters met with the directors of the ministry.
- The Kursk nuclear submarine sank two years ago today, taking with it the
lives of 118 sailors. A mourning ceremony was held in St. Petersburg.
Monuments to the victims were dedicated in Moscow and Vedyaevo.
- Federal service troops killed two rebels and wounded a third during a
special operation in the Urus-Martan region. One of the men had an Interior
Ministry ID; federal service officers say that he was the one who got
ammunition and fighters through block posts.
- Russian Defense minister Sergei Ivanov declared that the official policy
of the Georgian government is to blame for the situation in the Pankisi
Gorge and the deaths of the Russian border troops.
- President Putin chaired a Kremlin meeting on the upcoming school year and
on preparations for the winter.
********
#5
The Guardian (UK)
13 August 2002
Communism, alcoholism... and now oil
Deal for pipeline from their remote Siberian land poses yet another threat
to beleaguered Evenks
Paul Brown in Evenkia, Siberia
The Russian oil company Yukos is to build a 1,550-mile pipeline from
Siberia to China to supply oil and gas, after discovering a new oilfield in
eastern Siberia which has reserves equal to those of Kuwait.
The deal, which will have oil flowing in three years, is of huge strategic
importance to both Moscow and Beijing - providing Russia with a steady
income and China with a guaranteed 600,000 barrels of oil a day to help
fuel its industrial expansion.
The major part of the £1.5bn cost of the pipeline will be borne by Yukos
but the Chinese will pay £300m to continue it from their border to Daqing,
a further 500 miles away.
Peresada Vladimir, foreign affairs adviser to Yukos, said the pipeline
would allow the remote oil fields of the vast, underpopulated region of
Evenkia in eastern Siberia to be pumped out. He added that the oil field
was difficult to exploit, but that the economics of piping such large
amounts of oil direct to China made it viable and minimised the risk.
The first oil to go to China will come from existing fields in west Siberia
but will be supplemented and replaced by oil from the new fields as they
are developed, making Yukos the largest oil company in Russia.
But Yukos, keen to polish its international image as environmentally sound
and responsible, has a problem. The oil field is home to the Evenks, a
reindeer-raising and -hunting people who claim the oil fields as their
exclusive territory and have the backing of federal law, which reserves the
area for their use.
The Evenks have the support of the United Nations Environment Programme and
Grid, a Norway-based organisation which helps the Russian Association of
Indigenous Peoples of the North (Raipon).
The Evenks have clung on in their remote roadless wilderness despite Stalin
liquidating their medicine men and mystical religious leaders and
"disappearing" their tribal chiefs. Later, Soviet policies turned them from
herders into collective reindeer farmers.
Ironically, the freedom that the end of communism might have brought to
enable them to return to their centuries-old way of life brought further
disaster.
As the collective farms were abandoned and privatised, the reindeer were
sold or swapped for vodka supplies with newly arrived oil prospectors who
needed fresh meat. Almost no domesticated reindeer remain, although there
are still some living wild in the almost unbroken forests.
Oil men say that Evenks, desperate for drink, were prepared to swap
once-prized reindeer for vodka; the Evenks claim the oil men shot some of
their reindeer herds from helicopters. Both versions of events are true.
Now the ancient Evenki saying "No reindeer no Evenk" is perilously close to
coming true. The unique sub-species of sturdy, broad-backed reindeer bred
by the Evenks, which they use for riding through the forest to hunt elk,
deer, bear and trap sable, mink and red squirrel for the St Petersburg
markets, is close to extinction.
The Evenks, deprived of their way of life, have high rates of alcoholism,
suicide and murder.
In the village of Kuyumba, home to 150 adults and 50 children - nearly all
of them native Evenks - six people have committed suicide in the last three
years and 24 have been murdered, according to the local doctor, Natalia
Goncharova. Ten of the murder victims were women.
Dr Goncharova is herself an Evenk and has spent 35 years in the village.
She said: "With their traditional way of life gone, these men do not want
to work. I would say 30% were alcoholics, and there are only 20 people in
the community who do not drink at all.
"I get called to people who are fighting drunk and I inject them to calm
them down. This is not an easy job."
The average life expectancy in the village is 40 for men and 45 for women
and the latest concern is that 10 villagers have died of stomach cancer in
the last six years. The water supply comes from a local stream which has
not been tested for contamination.
Across the river from the village is an oil depot supplied by barge in the
spring, the only time the river has enough water to be navigable. The rest
of the time the way to travel is by canoe, the main Evenk form of
transport, or in the helicopters used by oil companies.
Baranov Petrovich, manager of the Evenk Drilling Enterprise, a subsidiary
of Yukos, is blunt about the Evenks. "They will either have to accept
assimilation or they will be exterminated. The Evenks live for momentary
advantage. They want to use of the shoulders of working Russians to carry
them into the good life."
Despite his anger, he employs three "sober" men from the village in his
depot and concedes local people have a point when they say oil drillers
have polluted the river and shot much of the game.
"You cannot have development without cost. Of course the river has suffered
but it will recover. Russians have the same rights to hunt and eat, they
are also better at it than the Evenks; a Russian would get 100 sable when
an Evenk would get 10 pelts and then come home to sell them for vodka."
He says that oil will bring advantages. Roads and bridges will be built and
prosperity will bring schools and medicines.
But back in Moscow the future of the Evenks is a sensitive issue. Backed by
Raipon, which supports 24 groups of native peoples who are virtually
unknown outside Russia, the Evenks know that the primary issue is land
rights.
Pavel Sulyandziga, head of Raipon, said: "The Evenkia question is the most
intense conflict of indigenous peoples in Russia. The key to saving them is
respect for land rights so the indigenous communities can resume their way
of life, which will in turn protect natural areas and ensure sustainable
subsistence economies."
The problem is that the oil fields are in the Evenk territories and the
local government of Evenkia has not translated federal law into local land
rights. However, in spite of this protection, the newly elected governor
for the region, Boris Zolotarev, has granted Yukos drilling rights in the
same areas. There is deep suspicion because he is a former senior Yukos
employee.
The territory's Moscow office is located in Yukos's plush Moscow
headquarters where the Evenkia vice-governor, Eldar Verdiev, told the
Guardian: "The fact that the governor has such close ties with Yukos could
be an advantage. If he says to the company that he needs some help for the
Evenks he is far more likely to be listened to because he knows the people
at the top."
With the number of domestic reindeer down to a few dozen, the governor has
decided to buy 500 from another region to interbreed with the remaining
Evenki herds in the hope of revitalising the stock.
Although the issue of land rights remains unresolved, this is seen as the
first positive step for the Evenks since Stalin intervened in their lives.
Living on the edge
· Evenkia is 1.5 times the size of France
· The total population of Evenkia is 18,000, of whom 3,000 are native Evenks
· The temperature in the region varies from -68C in winter to 30C in summer
· Evenkia is in the geographical centre of Russia, yet it has no roads, and
relies on air transport and canoes or small motorboats
· Evenkia's wildlife includes bears, wolves, elk, reindeer and sable
· In the south there is thick pine and birch forest, fading to the north
into tundra
· There are oil, gas, gold, and diamond reserves
********
#6
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
August 13, 2002
HOW SHALL THE PANKISI GORGE BE CLEANED UP?
Sergei Karaganov, head of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council, says
the operation in Georgia needs a UN mandate
Author: Lidiya Andrusenko
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN RELATIONS, NEVER VERY WARM, ARE NOW IN A DEEP
POLITICAL CRISIS. A LEADING ANALYST SAYS THE PROBLEM IS THAT TBILISI
IS NOT IN CONTROL A SIZEABLE PART OF THE TERRITORY OF GEORGIA. FOR
RUSSIA, THE SITUATION IS INTOLERABLE; SOME ACTION WILL HAVE TO BE
TAKEN.
An interview with political scientist Sergei Karaganov
RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN RELATIONS, NEVER VERY WARM, ARE NOW IN A DEEP
POLITICAL CRISIS. MOSCOW ACCUSES TBILISI OF BEING UNABLE AND RELUCTANT
TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF THE PANKISI GORGE; AND CLAIMS THAT THE
GEORGIAN GOVERNMENT IS TRANSFORMING ITS TERRITORY INTO A NEST OF
TERRORISM. TBILISI CLAIMS THAT RUSSIA IS TRYING TO INTERFERE IN
GEORGIA'S INTERNAL AFFAIRS, AND MAINTAINS THAT GEORGIA MAY FIND ITSELF
DRAWN INTO THE RUSSIAN-CHECHEN CONFLICT...
Question: There is an impression that relations between Russia
and Georgia are rushing headlong into a political blind alley with
only one way out - a military operation on the territory of Georgia.
Many Russian politicians advocate this, from Federation Council
Speaker Sergei Mironov to Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
Sergei Karaganov: This is indeed a blind alley. To a considerable
extent, the problem is that Tbilisi is not in control a sizeable part
of the territory of Georgia. In some past incidents, it has even been
forced to rely on Chechen guerrillas and terrorists for a solution to
its domestic problems. Tbilisi now understands that the problem must
be solved; but doesn't want to solve it together with Russia.
Question: Why do Georgian leaders object to cooperation with
Russia?
Sergei Karaganov: Because it would be another humiliation for
them. Besides, they would like to drag the Americans in there. But the
problem is intolerable from Russia's point of view. On the other hand,
I understand that we have a lot of intolerable problems, and that we
should seek lawful solutions to them. In the first place, we should
announce (not at the top level, perhaps, but at the level of the media
- this will do) that we are dealing with a collapsing state here - and
that we all want Georgia to survive, and that our actions against
guerrillas in the Pankisi Gorge are actually assistance to Georgia.
Secondly, we should raise the matter at the United Nations, and
in our contacts with the Americans. What I mean is that this should be
an international operation. Even the Americans consulted with everyone
before attacking Afghanistan.
We should not over-dramatize the situation.
Question: You mean we need a substantial international mandate?
Sergei Karaganov: Right. We need a mandate, or at least we should
explain our actions. We should stop threatening to invade a country
where the situation is not as unequivocal as it was in Afghanistan.
First and foremost, we ought to say that we will act in accordance
with the UN mandate and all other mandates and in cooperation with
international forces.
Question: To get the mandate, we would have to present a great
deal of documentary evidence proving that Georgia is indeed a nest of
terrorism. That would be difficult, I think, since Prosecutor General
Vladimir Ustinov with his team went to Georgia last week and could not
even present documents for several detained guerrillas. Where are the
guarantees that we will persuade the UN?
Sergei Karaganov: We should bear in mind that the gangs are based
in the Pankisi Gorge and they are acquiring weapons. That much is an
established fact.
Question: Do you think the situation in Chechnya is all but
settled, and that the corridor on the border, which the guerrillas
have been using, is the only obstacle?
Sergei Karaganov: No, the situation is not settled yet. On the
other hand, it has been stabilizing. There is no solving the problem
unless we cut supply lines and deprive guerrillas of any chance to
escape. Moreover, we should bear in mind that the terrorists who are
hiding in the mountains and villages now will find themselves trapped
by winter. We have to prevent them from escaping into the Pankisi
Gorge to rest and recover.
Question: A few words about the United States now. It has
launched a global counter-terrorism operation. It is only logical to
expect it to track terrorists down and destroy them. And yet, the
Americans have sided with President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia.
What is this? Double standards, as usual?
Sergei Karaganov: Yes, the usual practice of double standards. At
the same time, I would not say the Americans have sided with Tbilisi.
They are only repeating that it's necessary to respect territorial
integrity. We say the same. I think we will be able to reach an
agreement with the Americans, particularly since we do not intend to
encroach on the sovereignty of Georgia, no matter how insubstantial
this sovereignty is.
Question: Is Russia using double standards? I mean the situation
in the Kodor Gorge. Russia supports Abkhazia there.
Sergei Karaganov: As far as I know, we have never disputed the
territorial integrity of Georgia. Besides, the Abkhazians are not like
the Chechens. They are not after anyone else's territory. They are
only defending their own territory. There is a terrorist war in
Chechnya; and relative peace in Abkhazia (not counting terrorist acts
committed by Georgian guerrillas, that is). The situation is
complicated because Georgia is not in control of a great deal of its
territory, if I may repeat that. Some large regions of Georgia are de
facto independent. It is just that the Abkhazians challenged Tbilisi
publicly. All the rest have done so quietly.
Question: If the situation is as you describe it, what will
happen to Georgia? Shevardnadze is not immortal either...
Sergei Karaganov: I do not want to decide anything for the
Georgian people. They have done themselves substantial harm. Georgia
was the wealthiest republic of the former Soviet Union; it is now one
of the poorest CIS nations. Unfortunately, I do not see a simple
solution; and even replacing its leader will not help. I can only
emphasize that Russia needs a stable Georgian state, and that a
deteriorating Georgia brings only trouble.
Question: Why is Russia making strong political statements,
verging on armed conflict, rather than using economic leverage?
Sergei Karaganov: I think it's because we still lack a
coordinated policy with regard to Georgia. I do not perceive a clear
plan of action yet. Perhaps no such plan exists; or perhaps it cannot
exist, since the situation is very complicated.
Question: Does it occur to you that Putin might be set up in the
situation with Georgia? Is there any danger that Russian-American
relations will deteriorate because of Georgia?
Sergei Karaganov: The danger of a quarrel with the United States
over Georgia is infinitesimal. As for the president, and your
assumption that someone is setting him up, I do not see that either. I
think, however, that statements about hypothetical hostilities on the
territory of another country should only be made by the foreign
minister or the president himself.
********
#7
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
August 13, 2002
CHECHNYA: TIME TO GO ON THE OFFENSIVE
The federal government needs to declare a state of emergency
Author: Aleksei Arbatov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
AN ANALYSIS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL CAUSES AND NEGATIVE FACTORS IN THE
CUL-DE-SAC OF CHECHNYA. A NUMBER OF MEASURES ARE NECESSARY IN ORDER TO
CREATE A FAVORABLE POLITICAL FOUNDATION FOR NEGOTIATIONS AND TO
IMPROVE THE SITUATION. FIRSTLY, MISTAKES MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED AND
CHANGES MADE.
Chechnya is the worst problem confronting the Russian government.
The situation there may be described as deadlock, or a blind alley.
The federal government cannot establish stable political and military
control over Chechnya. The armed opposition cannot defeat the federal
troops - so it has launched a guerrilla war.
At the same time, it is clear that if the war is not ended within
the next few years, then - given the instability in the rest of the
North Caucasus and Trans-Caucasus - an escalation of the conflict is
likely, in terms of geographical extent and the scale of force
involved, with unpredictable consequences for Russia and other
nations. And another defeat for Moscow in Chechnya and the federal
government's withdrawal from there would probably entail the collapse
of the entire North Caucasus, with catastrophic consequences for the
Russian state.
The fundamental causes and negative factors in this cul-de-sac
appear to be as follows.
First of all, the overwhelming majority of the people of Chechnya
do not support the federal government; a substantial number of them
assist the rebels and constantly replenish their ranks. As is usually
the case in partisan warfare, many of the guerrillas are not engaged
in war full-time; they are often close to home, interspersing battle
with civilian labor, and even having contact with federal forces and
the government of Chechnya.
Furthermore, "preventive operations" (cleanup operations,
searches, or purges) and revenge taken by federal troops for guerrilla
attacks most often target civilians - thus motivating them to support
the armed opposition. Therefore, despite official figures about heavy
casualties among the guerrillas, the numbers of them in the field at
any given time (two to three thousand) remain practically unchanged.
There is also the point that Chechnya's borders are completely
open; with the paradoxical exception of the 82-kilometer external
border with Georgia, kept comprehensively and securely closed by the
Federal Border Guard Service. But outside this sector of the border,
the guerrillas are practically unrestricted in their movement into and
out of Chechnya, for the purpose of keeping their troops supplied with
weapons, ammunition, medicines, supplies, reinforcements, money,
drugs, and so on.
Another important factor is that the troops, the federal forces
and agencies, along with the entire population of Chechnya, are living
in a state of war - but without any kind of legal definitions that
would regulate the lives of civilians or the actions and status of the
government troops. The law on countering terrorism, on which the
second campaign in Chechnya is based, is too narrow - and too dubious
- to serve as a legislative foundation for such an extensive and
destructive operation which has lasted almost three years.
Under these circumstances, specific decisions are left to the
discretion of division and sub-division commanders, or quite often
even ordinary soldiers - who are constantly facing the threat of
attack, who are incapable of distinguishing ordinary townsfolk and
countryfolk from armed separatists and frequently make no attempt to
do so.
Moreover, since full-scale warfare was discontinued in spring
2000, the federal troops have been experiencing shortages of weapons,
ammunition, and military hardware (the multiple helicopter crashes are
only the most obvious sign of this). The living conditions of the
troops are unsatisfactory; confusion and abuses abound in the payment
of wages; the rights and benefits of military personnel are not
clearly defined. All this facilitates corruption, demoralization,
growing anger, declining discipline, and crime among the troops;
sometimes it encourages them into looting, crime, and other unlawful
actions directed against the civilians of Chechnya.
Another ubiquitous factor is the extreme confusion and disorder
in the federal and region government bodies in Chechnya; the actions
of the military and intelligence agencies are poorly coordinated,
often being arranged "via Moscow". This leads to inefficiency in
government, competition between government bodies at the federal and
regional levels, conflict between pro-Moscow Chechen leaders, internal
quarrels and unreliability in the Chechen police force. This creates
fertile ground for corruption and theft of financial and material
resources - within and en route to Chechnya.
And, last but not least - now that the operation in Afghanistan
is over, the United States and Western Europe are once again
criticizing Russia over Chechnya, though less vigorously than before
September 11. The destruction of the Taliban has lost the Chechen
separatists a major ally and partner, complicating their activities in
the West. All the same, assistance to Chechen rebels from foreign
Islamic extremist organizations and international terrorism may soon
increase.
Clearly, the problem of Chechnya can only be permanently resolved
by political means. This means nothing other than negotiations and
agreements with the leaders of the armed opposition, including Aslan
Maskhadov. This might take the form of a peace conference in Moscow,
at which the president, the opposition leaders, and Chechen loyalists
would sign some relevant agreements acceptable to all parties.
However, such negotiations must not become a smokescreen for continued
war on both sides; at the same time, they cannot entail another case
of capitulation by the federal government.
Firstly, a clear legal foundation must be created for continuing
the operation. This would involve declaring a state of emergency in
Chechnya and surrounding districts, based on the state of emergency
law passed in May 2001, with a precise list of the rights and
obligations of civilians, troops, the federal government, and the
government of Chechnya. All armed resistance or violation of emergency
regulations must be firmly and lawfully suppressed, in line with the
state of emergency. At the same time, all possible measures must be
taken to limit collateral damage for civilians.
The system of government in Chechnya must be regulated, with
tight coordination of all military and special operations,
reconstruction and social welfare measures, humanitarian aid, the
formation and protection of local government bodies. As long as the
state of emergency is in force, there should be one sole
representative of the president in Chechnya; and all military and
civilian bodies should be subordinate to that person, with a stringent
and distinct system of accountability, management, and hierarchy.
Another important step is to use the Federal Border Guard Service
to completely cut off guerrilla movement across the borders of
Chechnya. This will require amending the laws on state borders and on
border guards; increasing the budget of the Federal Border Guards
Service by about 2 billion rubles; and increasing border guard numbers
by at least 10,000.
Within Chechnya, search operations should be stopped; fixed-
location checkpoints should be acknowledged as being counter-
productive - their numbers should be reduced, partially replaced by
mobile checkpoints. Apart from exceptional cases, the practice of
shelling and air strikes on villages should be stopped; guerrillas
ought to be destroyed as they cross borders or travel within Chechnya,
or surrounded and blockaded within villages. The focus should shift to
intelligence operations, espionage, precision air strikes and shelling
of guerrilla bases outside villages.
The troops in Chechnya must be provided with everything they need
in terms of military hardware and weapons, the best available in
Russia, as well as communications and computer systems, high salaries
and full benefits. The use of all-contract divisions, with no
conscripts, should be maximized; coordination of military operations
under unified command must be improved. More frequent and regular
rotation of troops is also required. It would then be easier to take
stern measures to stop breaches of discipline by military personnel,
corruption, and crime - within the troops and against civilians.
To the north of the Terek River, where the situation is more
calm, the federal government can make the state of emergency regime
milder, and restore the social functions of the state and local
government bodies. Pro-Moscow leaders of Chechnya may work there, and
returning refugees to these districts is possible.
Finally, Moscow should clearly and openly state its position for
the negotiations it proposes to hold with leaders of the armed
opposition. Chechnya's status as part of the Russian Federation is
non-negotiable, as well as the supremacy of the Constitution and
federal law, and the need for a long-term presence by federal troops
and law enforcement agencies; but there should be as much flexibility
as possible in deciding specific issues of status and programs for the
reconstruction of Chechnya.
All this would make it possible for the federal government to
stop being on the defensive in foreign policy on the issue of
Chechnya; Moscow could go on the offensive, stepping up its diplomatic
and public relations efforts to discredit the armed opposition, to
publicize its crimes and links with international terrorism. This
issue should be placed on the agenda at all talks between Russia and
other nations or international organizations; the stance they take on
Chechnya will be a deciding factor in the development of Russia's
relations with them.
********
#8
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
August 13, 2002
Russian mob craves power, expert says
By BEVERLEY SMITH
To some, it makes perfect sense that alleged Russian mobster Alimzhan
Tokhtakhounov may have dabbled in the outcome of Olympic skating events,
all for an extension of his French visa.
Not for money, police say. For what, really?
Organized crime in Russia, akin to the Mafia, was born out of a Soviet
"connive-to-survive attitude" fostered by a state-run economy with
shortages and therefore widespread bribery and thievery, according to James
Finchenauer and Elin Waring, authors of Russian Mafia in America.
In Russian society, power is based on who you know and what influence you
may wield, said RCMP Inspector Glenn Hanna of a combined forces special
enforcement unit that examines Russian mob influence.
"If you were seen to be involved with people with power, people then
assumed that you had power," he said. "And there's always this search for a
patina of respectability. And it shows they have influence and connections
at high levels."
Tokhtakhounov surrounded himself with well-known Russian and Ukrainian
athletes such as professional tennis players Andrei Medvedev, Yevgeny
Kafelnikov and Marat Safin. He also socialized with famous Russian singers.
"They are chaotic, very devious, practically genetically so," said Eric
Morse, a sports consultant who has worked in Russia and once toured with
the Kirov ballet in the United States as an assistant manager. "They often
do things without knowing why they do them."
Morse knew Valentin Sych, who was shot to death after trying to stamp out
corruption in the Russian hockey federation. He was also witness to an
incredible scene in the early 1990s when a couple of young Russian
ballerinas decided to defect in the United States, although they
unwittingly attempted it at a time when defection wasn't really necessary
anymore.
The act, however, ignited the ire of the ballet's artistic director, who
abducted them and was about to send them back to the Russian gulags when
police stopped them.
A report quoted the Washington chief of police saying it became clear after
interviewing all of the principals that none had any idea why they were
doing what they were doing.
Hanna said the Eastern European groups do not have defined structures or
hierarchies like other organized crime groups. Some groups have a strict
hierarchy, while others are more fluid, with smaller groups banding
together for a specific purpose.
However, it allows the organized crime groups to adapt readily. The Russian
mobsters quickly became involved in fuel tax scams in the United States,
but because it was "the traditional playground of the Gotti [Gambino]
family, they started paying tribute to the traditional groups," Hanna said.
"The traditional groups thought this was just great. They were showing
respect. But it wasn't that. It was just the price of doing business. It
was cheaper to pay the other group to have peace and let the money come in
than go to war with them."
Tokhtakhounov is said to belong to the Solsnetskaia organization, the most
powerful organization of all, and named for the Moscow suburb where it
originated.
One of its crime bosses sent his soldiers all over the world, but he
decided to go to Israel, a popular residence among Russian mobsters because
of its open-door policy for Russian Jews seeking refuge. They are thought
to use Israel as a base for laundering illegal funds.
In 1997, an alleged Russian mob boss was arrested in Israel on charges of
murder and fraud. Grigory Lerner was suspected of trying to buy political
influence and even seeking appointment as an Israeli cabinet minister. The
charges against him included defrauding Russian banks of more than
$75-million, organizing the murder of a Russian banker and attempting other
murders and falsifying his documents to get Israeli citizenship.
Like Tokhtakhounov, Lerner was known in Russian immigrant circles as a
generous benefactor. Tokhtakhounov also has an Israeli passport.
Organized crime existed quietly before demise of the Soviet Union, then
afterward became a major force in the political, business and economic life
of Eastern European countries.
One RCMP investigator described what happened to the Soviet mob after the
country broke up. "It was like watching kids in a candy store that had
never been in one before," the officer said.
********
#9
New York Times
August 13, 2002
Handful of Corporate Raiders Transform Russia's Economy
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
KORYAZHMA, Russia, Aug. 7 — Deep in the pine forest of the Russian north, a
battle is being fought over the shape of a Russian economy increasingly
concentrated in the hands of just a few tycoons.
In an action giving new meaning to the concept of a hostile takeover,
corporate raiders employed by one of Russia's most powerful businessmen
have put a large pulp and paper mill — quite literally — under siege. A
brigade of the tycoon's private security guards lies in wait, ready to take
the mill, 575 miles northeast of Moscow.
The mill's current owner, a smaller company, has barricaded factory
territory with buses, train cars and guards of its own. It refused to yield
last week when court bailiffs drove up with orders to install a new chairman.
The scene is more than just a fine piece of Russian corporate theater.
These are the front lines of a phenomenon that has transformed the economy
in the last three years. A handful of large business groups have been
moving through systematically, buying up entire industries.
Using their financial might and political connections, the groups have
swallowed the coal industry, steel, car manufacturing, aluminum, and now
timber. One result has been a concentration of Russia's wealth: just eight
business groups control 85 percent of revenue from Russia's 64 biggest
private companies, according to a recent report by Peter Boone and Denis
Rodionov, economists at the Moscow-based subsidiary of UBS Warburg, a Swiss
investment bank.
As strange as it may seem in economic terms, this is progress. Unlike the
oligarchs of the era of Boris N. Yeltsin, who had political influence but
not the same kind of economic sway, these groups have begun reshaping the
rusting hulk of the Soviet economy, in ruins after a decade of looting and
neglect. They pay taxes and invest. Some are seeking to entwine their
companies with the West.
Tycoons themselves often compare their experience to J. P. Morgan's
organization of trusts in early 20th-century America, when financial
plotters used aggressive takeover tactics and malleable state legislatures
to form giant monopolies like U.S. Steel, and began obeying the rules only
after they established control.
But serious questions remain about whether the tycoons — who made their
fortunes riding roughshod over Russia's weak legal system — will be willing
to give up the heavy-handed ways that propelled them to the top, and abide
by equal rules for all.
"There is much manipulation in the courts and law enforcement," said
Grigory A. Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko political party. "It is
a kind of corporate, partly criminal system — a legal marriage between
business and power."
The standoff at the pulp and paper mill is emblematic of that marriage. It
began this month, after Oleg V. Deripaska, at 34 one of Russia's biggest
business tycoons, plucked away legal control of the mill in an elaborate
legal maneuver — a takeover tactic he had perfected in the last three years
of piecing together a vast business empire.
This time, the victim, a Russian company called Ilim Pulp Enterprises,
refused to concede defeat.
The choreographed dance that is this takeover began in a Siberian region
five time zones east of the paper mill, where a hitherto unknown individual
with just 20 shares in the mill and a baffling corporate consciousness
filed suit in a local court charging that Ilim Pulp had not complied with
all the conditions of its 1994 privatization.
Before Ilim even knew about the court case (Mr. Deripaska's advisers said
Ilim had been notified by mail), the Siberian court confiscated two-thirds
of the mill's stock and returned it to the far-off St. Petersburg branch of
the state property committee, which promptly sold the stock to Mr. Deripaska.
"At first, I thought it was a joke," said Frank Graves, a Canadian who was
hired in April as the chief operating officer of Ilim Pulp. "But then I
realized we had a serious problem. It's not that the bully wants to take
our ball. He wants the whole bloody playground."
Mr. Deripaska, who owns several playgrounds already — three-quarters of
Russia's aluminum industry and a large slice of car manufacturing — was
expecting to get it. But Ilim fought back with methods Mr. Deripaska
probably recognized: The mill managers enlisted Koryazhma's mayor,
prosecutor and court bailiffs to defend it. Mr. Deripaska's cohorts accuse
the managers of paying them off.
It is unlikely that any shots will be fired over the barricades at
Koryazhma. Times have changed since the early turbulent years of Russian
capitalism, when big business relied on violence to eliminate rivals. For
instance, the aluminum industry, where Mr. Deripaska made his first
fortune, was torn by contract killings in the mid-1990's as different
groups fought for control. (Indeed, Mr. Deripaska, who is married to Boris
N. Yeltsin's step-granddaughter, has been refused a visa to the United
States, apparently because of his early unsavory connections.)
The real casualty is Russia's legal system, already deeply scarred from the
bare-knuckled tactics of the last decade. President Vladimir V. Putin's
reformers have been rewriting laws to strengthen it: just last week, a new
Arbitrage Procedural Code took effect, prohibiting the use of civil suits
in corporate disputes like Koryazhma.
But for the changes to work, tycoons have to be willing to moderate their
methods as they have adapted to new business reality, Mr. Yavlinsky said.
The new tycoons differ both from the state monoliths of Soviet times, when
the state owned everything from oil companies to grocery stores, and the
oligarchs of the Yeltsin era. Then, when the state began selling its crown
jewels in the mid-1990's, a handful of bankers amassed fortunes in property.
But for all their bravado, their access to the halls of power and their
control of the media, the oligarchs' economic influence then did not reach
much further than oil and metals.
Several of the bankers were destroyed in the collapse of the ruble in 1998.
Still others were banished two years later, when Mr. Putin was elected
president, and their political connections to Mr. Yeltsin proved unpalatable.
The handful that survived have now quietly extended their reach to the far
ends of the economy. They were joined by several newcomers, like the gruff,
lanky Mr. Deripaska, who at the tender age of 26 was already director of a
large aluminum plant in Siberia.
A key question will be how Mr. Putin, who has been doing some consolidation
of his own in politics and the media, chooses to coexist with the business
groups.
The tycoons themselves say there has been tension. Their existence "makes
politicians uncomfortable," said Mikhail M. Fridman, 38, chairman of the
board of Alfa Group, whose holdings include oil, retail and a mobile phone
company. "Business groups have many levers of influence. I don't think Mr.
Putin likes this."
But others, like Mr. Yavlinsky, say the president's relationship with big
business looks friendly.
"Mr. Putin is a representative of the business groups," he said.
As for Mr. Putin, he once promised to liquidate the oligarchs as a class.
Yet many have gone on to build large empires in the economy. He banished
them from government where they used to dictate policy under Mr. Yeltsin,
but they continue to use their might to influence poorly paid bureaucrats
and judges in Russia's provinces.
All this runs counter to Mr. Putin's pledge to crack down on corruption and
modernize the Russian state.
Economists like Mr. Boone argue that the legal system is less imperiled
than it may seem because the tycoons, with immense empires to protect, in
fact have more reason now than ever to want to play by the rules.
In the American case a century ago, while judicial and political corruption
were also rife, it was the lobbying of small businesses that eventually led
to the breaking of the trusts and a more evenly applied rule of law, Ron
Chernow, author of biographies of J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller,
said in an interview.
That same force in Russia is virtually nonexistent. Small businesses, in
many countries an engine of economic growth, have barely emerged in Russia.
Small companies have a harder time protecting themselves from predator
bureaucrats and larger competitors, than do large wealthy business groups.
A recent study by the Center for Economic and Financial Research, a
Moscow-based institute that polled 2,000 small business across Russia,
found that companies stop growing once they reach a size of six or seven
employees.
At that size, the "administrative pressure," or expensive, time-consuming
encounters with Russia's sprawling bureaucracy, "becomes more severe," said
Yekaterina Zhuravskaya, director of the study. That creates what she called
a "glass ceiling."
Mr. Fridman, the Alfa Group chairman, put it more bluntly: "We have an
advantage as a big group, and we use it. It's natural. But it's not so good
for the economy."
*******
#10
Moscow Times
August 13, 2002
A Glimpse of the Media Sector in 2109?
By Alexei Pankin
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Do you recall the pitched battles over freedom of speech that marked
Putin's accession to the throne? The fight over NTV and TV6, the rallies
and demonstrations of support held across the country? The reports
delivered in the Council of Europe on freedom of speech in Russia? The
intervention on behalf of the journalists by the U.S. government and the
European Union? It then seemed to many that Russia was moving inexorably
toward the rebirth of totalitarianism.
Then suddenly everything changed, as if someone had waved a magic wand. In
June of this year, at a conference called The Media Industry: Directions
for Reform, the government and the press reached consensus that the mass
media is not just about freedom of speech, but also about business. The
government promised to create a business climate in which the press could
work honestly and profitably, while the press, for its part, promised to
learn how to work profitably and honestly. It was a sort of "velvet
revolution" carried out by the very same people, in the very same jobs, who
not so long ago were fighting the free speech wars.
The atmosphere in the media community has calmed to such an extent that
last Friday one of the main "persecutors of free speech," Press Minister
Mikhail Lesin, met at the Soros Foundation in Moscow with some of the most
ardent free speech advocates -- representatives of Western organizations
such as USAID, Tacis, the World Bank, the Eurasia and Ford foundations, the
Dutch Matra/KAP, and others. The conversation dealt with a very mundane
question: how the Press Ministry and foreign donors can coordinate their
efforts to improve training for people working in the media sector and to
improve the business culture in the sector.
The meeting had its share of sharp exchanges, of course. A representative
of the European Union asked Lesin: "You talk a lot about the government
getting out of the media market. Is there a timetable in place?" The
minister clearly gets asked this question a lot, and he doesn't have a
hard-and-fast answer. But Lesin and his staff had done their homework. His
deputy, Vladimir Grigoryev, leapt into action, handing out photocopies of
an article from Printing Trade Bulletin, a publication put out by the
Society of Owners of Printing Establishments in St. Petersburg. The article
was dated February 1909.
The article states: "Above all, our publishing entrepreneurs encounter
entirely abnormal competition from our state-owned printing houses, which
not only monopolize certain aspects of the printing trade, but also
undermine prices industry-wide.
"Whereas Austria, Germany, the North American United States and France all
have a single state printing house, and whereas England has none
whatsoever, here in Russia every regional capital has its own 'state
printing house.' Petersburg has more than 20 state printing houses, and
Moscow, 10 or so. All of these printing houses not only accept private
orders, they even solicit such orders through the newspapers.
"Russian state printing houses need not amortize their equipment nor pay
taxes -- in a word, they do not bear all of the expenses that fall
inevitably to the lot of private entrepreneurs. Their monopoly on many
types of printing ensures them a steady stream of work. Russia's state
printing houses are therefore thriving at a time when private printing
houses are struggling to make ends meet."
Upon reading this text dating back almost 100 years, I thought to myself:
It's just like an editorial in The Moscow Times or Vedomosti about the
state of the television industry or privately owned provincial newspapers
today. The Ford Foundation representative asked aloud: "And when do you
expect the next October Revolution?"
It's really true: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals
(www.internews.ru/sreda)
********
#11
FEATURE-Harmony on the Volga for Russia's Muslim Tatarstan?
By Clara Ferreira-Marques
KAZAN, Russia, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Elmira Hedya was once the exuberant
feminist editor of a Soviet women's magazine.
Now in her 70s, having embraced Islam in her retirement, Hedya runs a
Muslim women's group in Tatarstan, a Russian region on the Volga river. In
her latest battle, she and another 12 women are fighting the Russian
Interior Ministry for the right to wear a hijab, or headscarf, in her
passport photograph.
"We have to fulfil the laws of God," said the once fiercely atheist
activist, squinting through thick glasses.
"There is a philosophy underlying the hijab. If the girls stay covered, the
men will stay clean."
After more than 70 years of Soviet rule, many of the ethnic Tatars that
make up just over half the region's population have re-embraced Islam,
their traditional faith.
Mosques mushrooming across the province have stoked an ethnic and religious
revival which has also seen Tatar, close to the Turkic dialects spoken by
the horsemen of the Golden Horde, rise to the rank of state language
alongside Russian.
In Kazan, a quiet town of pedestrian streets and ancient mosques on the
Volga some 720 km (450 miles) east of Moscow, passers-by are as likely to
hear Tatar as they are Russian.
Today's Tatarstan has matured from the region that caused Moscow's greatest
headaches in the heady days that followed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet
Union. Young men and women who carried red and green Tatar flags to demand
independence on Kazan streets have become teachers, doctors and civil
servants.
Few in 1991 would have bet on a peaceful solution.
When Russian troops poured into rebellious, mainly Muslim Chechnya in 1994,
Kazan too was cashing in on Moscow's weakening grip. That culminated in
demands for full independence -- despite Tatarstan's location thousands of
kilometres (miles) from international borders.
Hundreds of Tatars gathered across the region during that war and the
current campaign launched in 1999 to support Chechen separatists and
demonstrate against the Russian show of force.
More worryingly for Moscow, Tatarstan has serious financial clout,
including several defence plants and some 10 percent of Russia's oil reserves.
Gusman Iskhakov, Tatarstan's moderate mufti (Muslim religious leader), says
many of the inflammatory demands for independence were based on
ill-digested notions of Islam and ethnic identity.
"We were forced by circumstance to send our children abroad to Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia to study," Iskhakov said of the Soviet period, when the region
had no religious schools.
"When they came back, they began openly correcting the imams. It was like a
sick man who took all his pills at once -- he almost died."
Many who took their first steps abroad moved south to Chechnya and
Afghanistan, in search of other forms of Islam.
But a decade on, while Russian troops still patrol Chechnya, Tatarstan
bills itself as a model of inter-ethnic harmony.
"People go to Chechnya to understand why there is war and come here to
understand why there is no war," Iskhakov smiled.
"Tatars think before they act. We live in central Russia, where winter
temperatures drop to minus 30, so our blood is colder than it would be in
the Caucasus."
"TAKE AS MUCH SOVEREIGNTY AS YOU CAN"
Many put the delicate balance down to the skill and flexible political
principles of Tatarstan's leader, Minitimer Shaimiyev.
An ethnic Tatar who bears an uncanny resemblance to Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev, Shaimiyev is into his third term as president, a path to power
which, as with many regional governors, began in the corridors of the
Communist Party.
Sitting in a gold armchair in his lavish residence, Shaimiyev is not shy of
playing up his role in history.
"When (former president Boris) Yeltsin came and he saw the people crowded
into the squares, he spoke to them and said 'take as much sovereignty as
you can'. He had to say this, he had no other choice," he said.
"I lived through the perestroika years, when the Tatar population was
demanding full independence. The Russians were understandably very worried,
but I said things would be fine. My main achievement was to live up to
their hopes."
Moscow clearly knows the weight of its Tatar problem. When President
Vladimir Putin named regional envoys to rein in rebellious regions, it was
10 months before the Kremlin envoy to Tatarstan, former prime minister
Sergei Kirienko, visited Kazan.
"Like all regional leaders, Shaimiyev is accused of corruption, ambition,
nepotism. But Tatarstan is a very complex region and he has kept it in
hand," Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Institute for International Peace
said in Moscow.
"Despite his ambitions, he has found the correct language in which to deal
with Moscow -- when necessary he puts himself forward, but he also knows
how to meet them halfway."
But the question, Shaimiyev says, is who will succeed him -- and will he be
able to hold the region's fragile balance in check: "Only a centrist has
the right to become president."
But could an ethnic Russian become leader?
"Every citizen has the right to run for president, but he must speak both
of Tatarstan's state languages," Shaimiyev said.
Few of region's ethnic Russians speak Tatar.
RUST-BELT EXTREMISM
Outside prosperous Kazan, buzzing with public works projects run by slick
officials promoting the "Tatar model," Tatarstan's rust-belt towns are less
keen to speak of ethnic peace.
At least two of the handful of Russian-born Taliban prisoners in the U.S.
detention camp in Guantanamo Bay are ethnic Tatars.
"I answer for the imams, for the teachers, but if the boys want to go to
Chechnya, I cannot hold them back. I cannot gag them and we cannot close
all the schools," Iskhakov said.
Ittifak, a party based in the industrial town of Naberezhny Chelny, 300 km
(180 miles) north of Kazan, is among the most vocal proponents of full
independence. Built around the KamAZ truck factory only four decades ago,
the city of grey Soviet apartment blocks was known as Brezhnev until 1991.
"In any situation you will have five percent of satisfied people, and 95
percent dissatisfied. Radicalism feeds off that five percent," said Farit
Urazayev, a nationalist activist who works for the International Tatar
Congress, an organisation serving millions of Tatars outside the region.
"Naberezhny Chelny was a city too young to be able to cope with social
upheaval."
The problems are worse, he says, for ethnic Russians than for ethnic
Tatars, who have a high birth rate and strong representation in local
government.
"It is a dying nation. The Russian people are in a terrible state --
alcoholism, drugs," Urazayev said. "This worries us because we would much
rather have a prosperous neighbour -- he may not give, but at least he will
not take."
********
#12
Poll dims hopes for peace in breakaway Karabakh
August 12, 2002
By Hasmik Mkrtchyan
STEPANAKERT, Azerbaijan (Reuters) - Azerbaijan's Armenian-populated rebel
region of Nagorno-Karabakh has re-elected an independence hard-liner as its
leader, dimming prospects of an end soon to a 14-year conflict.
Electoral officials said Monday preliminary figures showed Arkady Gukasyan
had resoundingly won a new five-year term as "president" of the mountainous
territory that broke away from then Soviet Azerbaijan in 1988.
Gukasyan, a 45-year-old language expert, took 89 percent of the vote in
Sunday's poll, held in defiance of Baku and the world community that does
not recognize Karabakh's self-declared independence.
Azerbaijan immediately condemned the election and its outcome as illegal.
"The elections were not legitimate and their results have no legal power.
We are sure the international community will not recognize them," Azeri
foreign ministry spokesman Metin Mirza told Reuters in Baku.
During campaigning, Gukasyan took an uncompromising stand on independence
despite the economic hardship and political isolation it has brought to the
territory.
Sunday he contemptuously dismissed Azerbaijan President Haydar Aliyev as a
politician "on his way out" and said there was "no alternative" to
independence.
Aliyev is to hold fresh Karabakh peace talks Wednesday with Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan, a native of Karabakh and the territory's former
leader. Armenia alone recognizes Karabakh's independence.
But Sunday's election indicates that prospects of a breakthrough are slim.
The enclave, in western Azerbaijan, broke away from Baku's rule in 1988
when the Soviet Union was in its death throes triggering a war between
Armenia and Azerbaijan that raged long after the two countries had won
independence from Moscow.
About 35,000 people were killed and 1 million made homeless. The Azeris
were finally driven out and a cease-fire has been in force since 1994.
The dispute has defied a solution despite mediation efforts by Russia, the
United States and France.
Despite international condemnation, Karabakh officials hope the new
elections will ultimately help their quest for recognition.
*******
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