Johnson's Russia List
#6560
20 November 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Contents:
1. Reuters: Golfers Take Over New York's Russian Tea Room.
2. Dow Jones/AP: Russia Probe Finds Negligence In Moscow Theater Rescue Op.
3. Interfax: Chechen pro-Moscow leaders appeal to Putin to stop troops'
excesses.
4. Reuters: Russia arrest policy alienates Chechens-UN official.
5. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, Lawmakers Shooting Themselves in the Foot.
(re new media law)
6. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Baltics step from Russia's shadow
into Western club.
7. RFE/RL: Gregory Feifer, NATO: Russia Reluctantly Accepts Alliance
Expansion.
8. St. Petersburg Times: Igor Leshukov, The 'Window on the West' Should Be
Right Out Front.
9. gazeta.ru: Housing reforms put on hold.
10. Washington Times: Anti-Semitism spurs call to tighten Russian
immigration. (re Israel)
11. Chronicle of Higher Education: Peter Monaghan, A Cultural Hero of the
Soviet Era Looks to the Future. Now at Emory, Mikhail Epstein envisions new
modes of thought in the humanities.
12. UPI: Sam Vaknin, Europe's pariah strongman-I. (Belarus' Lukashenka)
13. UPI: Sam Vaknin, Europe's pariah strongman-II.
14. BBC Monitoring: German expert thinks US bases in Central Asia will go
soon - Kazakh paper. (Alexander Rahr)]
*******
#1
Golfers Take Over New York's Russian Tea Room
November 19, 2002
NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's tee-off time in the Russian Tea Room. The U.S. Golf
Association paid $16 million for the famous restaurant, which closed in July,
and plans to install a museum in what was one of Manhattan's most opulent
indoor spaces, an association official said on Tuesday.
"We wanted to boost the visibility for the sport and for the (association),"
said David Fay, executive director for golf's governing body in the United
States. "We wanted to have a presence back in Manhattan and we think the
location is perfect for us."
Founded in 1926 by former members of Russia's Imperial Ballet, the Russian
Tea Room served as a gathering place for New York's cultural, literary and
social set and was known for its flamboyant interior, replete with Tiffany
glass ceiling, ornately framed paintings and giant floral arrangements.
The restaurant closed in the late 1990s for an extensive $20 million
renovation and reopened in 1999. But business declined, operating costs
remained high and the owners struggled to turn a profit. In July, the
27,000-square-foot landmark closed its doors.
The golf association, which was founded in 1894 in New York and moved to
suburban Far Hills, New Jersey, in 1972, said the new museum would likely
open in two years.
In a sign that elegant evenings at the Russian Tea Room may not be gone
forever, Fay said the association plans to rent out part of the golf museum
for functions.
********
#2
Russia Probe Finds Negligence In Moscow Theater Rescue Op
November 19, 2002
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
MOSCOW (AP)--A Russian political party announced Tuesday the findings of its
investigation of last month's deadly hostage crisis, saying officials in
charge of the rescue had been negligent.
Some 128 victims died in the crisis - the overwhelming majority killed by an
opiate gas used to knock out the gunmen before Russian special forces entered
the building.
Many human rights activists and liberal lawmakers have criticized the
authorities for failing to immediately inform doctors about the gas and for
failing to organize timely treatment of victims.
"Negligence on the part of officials in charge of organizing first aid to
people in need of help, of their transfer to hospitals and of the overall
coordination of activities in rescuing them after their release was the chief
cause of the numerous deaths," said lawmaker Eduard Vorobyov, who led the
Union of Right Forces' probe, according to the Interfax news agency.
Vorobyov said the party's commission interviewed 11 experts, including people
who participated in the events. In remarks broadcast on NTV television, he
quoted one expert as saying that saving people wasn't the authorities' first
priority.
"The primary task was liquidating the terrorists. What would happen to the
people - that was secondary," he quoted the expert as saying.
The expert also said doctors should have been given details of the gas
immediately, Vorobyov said.
Russian officials were reluctant to release the name of the gas used, though
they insisted doctors had enough information to treat victims. Several days
after the fact, under extreme international pressure, officials revealed it
was fentanyl, a powerful opiate most often prescribed as a painkiller.
Party leader Boris Nemtsov said many officials could be brought to trial for
criminal negligence and for organizing a cover-up that had lethal
consequences. However, he expressed doubt that a thorough official
investigation would be conducted.
*******
#3
Chechen pro-Moscow leaders appeal to Putin to stop troops' excesses
Interfax
Moscow, 19 November: Chechen ministers and heads of other republican
agencies, heads of district administrations and members of the advisory
council reporting to the head of the republic's administration have called on
the Russian president to put a stop to illegal activities carried out by
federal units.
The incidence of such activities has increased after the recent terrorist
attack in Moscow, they argue.
"We are compelled to appeal to you urgently in your capacity as the senior
executive in Russia and guarantor of the observance of constitutional rights
of all citizens of Russia, whose integral part the Chechen republic is, with
its civilian population exceeding one million," the appeal says.
The destructive groups have stepped up their activities in Chechnya in recent
months, the appeal says. "There is no uniformity among them. Some are
die-hard terrorists who staged the tragedy in Moscow. Others are criminals
turned politicos, terrorists using Islamic and national slogans, etc.," it
says.
The signatories of the appeal recall that a vast majority of Chechen citizens
denounced the terrorist attack in Moscow.
"It is in the days following the terror attack in Moscow that the activities
of federal units in Chechnya have resulted in a drastic deterioration of the
political situation in the republic. Military units use armoured vehicles on
a massive scale to abduct civilians in the dead of the night," the appeal
says.
Numerous complaints to the republic's prosecution service, military
commandants of the districts, the military commandant of Chechnya, the
republic's administration and government remain unanswered, the appeal says.
"This plays into the hand of separatists and their chieftains who make
propaganda use of every case of arbitrary activities carried out by federal
units," it says.
"If night time abductions and killings of civilians continue, a social
upheaval may occur and every positive achievement of the recent years may be
lost," the appeal says.
The appeal was signed by Shaid Zhamaldayev, chairman of the advisory council
reporting to the republic's administration head; Adnan Magomadov, deputy head
of the republic's administration; Akhmed Abastov, administration head of
Gudermesskiy District; Shamil Burayev, administration head of
Achkhoy-Martanovskiy district; and Shirvani Yasayev, administration head of
Urus-Martanovskiy district.
Col Boris Podoprigora, deputy commander of the Combined Force in the North
Caucasus, told Interfax earlier in response to the criticism that the Chechen
administration levels at the activities of federal units in Chechnya, that
the military "faithfully abides by the principles of legitimacy in carrying
out activities aimed at timely and effective prevention of unconstitutional
manifestation and offences against law and order".
"In doing so the entire gamma of circumstances is recognized that call for
the use of force in order to restore peace and calm in the Chechen Republic,
which is an integral part of Russia," he said.
The command of the Combined Force believe that "any other interpretation of
the course of discussions on issues of vital importance for the future of
Chechnya would have a publicity rather than a political value," Podoprigora
said.
*******
#4
Russia arrest policy alienates Chechens-UN official
MOSCOW, Nov 19 (Reuters) Russian military sweeps of Caucasus refugee camps
and mass arrests of young men are driving ill-educated Chechen youths into
the arms of separatist rebels, a U.N. humanitarian official said today.
''We have a population which is increasingly alienated and they
understandably ask how their rights as citizens are being protected,''
Rosemary McCreery, U.N. humanitarian coordinator and head of the Russian
UNICEF children's fund, told Reuters.
''The whole situation is a time-bomb.'' Some Russian officials say refugee
camps in Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia are hotbeds of recruitment for
extremist Islamic organisations, which they link to Chechen separatists.
Russian military tactics, which have included sealing off whole areas and
arresting young men en masse, have been criticised by human rights groups,
which also say hundreds of Chechens have disappeared without trace after such
operations.
''The ones most at risk (of radicalisation) are the young men, the ones with
little education, the ones who are swept up in the mopping-up operations, the
ones who disappear,'' she said, speaking after a news conference.
According to U.N. figures there are 250,000 displaced people in Chechnya and
neighbouring Ingushetia, driven out by a decade of war between federal troops
and separatists.
Federal forces have stepped up security in the region since separatists
seized a Moscow theatre last month, and held more than 700 hostages for three
days. At least 128 hostages were killed along with the 41 rebels when special
forces stormed the building to end the siege.
Although Russian forces lose men on an almost daily basis, Moscow says the
military phase of the Chechen operation is almost over and hopes to close the
tent camps in Ingushetia, which house 20-25,000, by the end of this year.
Some 30-40,000 refugees have returned to Chechnya in the last 12 months,
although some rights groups have said they were forced into going back.
McCreery said refugees should only return of their own free will, and said
the U.N. was trying to persuade the Russian government to change its plan to
return the refugees.
''It is unlikely...that all the people will wish to return by the end of the
year to Chechnya,'' she said. ''The population that has returned...is living
in conditions that are grossly inadequate.'' Bhim Udas, country director for
the World Food Programme, said he had been told the Russian state had stopped
its food distribution system in the camps, and that he was worried there
would now be food shortages.
''The situation in the middle of winter isn't going to be very good. Even the
World Food Programme won't have enough food stocks to distribute from the
beginning of 2003,'' he said.
The U.N. was launching an appeal for 33.7 million dollars in donations to pay
for its programmes in Chechnya and neighbouring republics, the bulk of which
would be spent on food.
*******
#5
Moscow Times
November 20, 2002
Lawmakers Shooting Themselves in the Foot
By Yulia Latynina
President Vladimir Putin is expected this week to give final approval to
amendments to the laws on combatting terrorism and the mass media. The
Federal Assembly passed the amendments as part of the ongoing war on
terrorism.
Once the changes go into effect, it will be illegal for the press to
disseminate information on the manufacture of weapons, ammunition and
explosives. It will be forbidden to print, broadcast or put on the Internet
anything that might be construed as propaganda or justification for extremist
activities.
No longer will the media be able to publish information describing the
methods and tactics used to free hostages.
Russia's liberals are outraged, calling the amendments an attack on civil
rights. That's ridiculous. Experience has shown that television stations can
be shut down, newspapers driven into the ground and journalists silenced
without recourse to a law on terrorism. In its amended form the law on
combatting terrorism is overkill -- like a hitman packing a nuclear bomb. The
legislators who rammed the amendments through the Federal Assembly were less
interested in reprisals against journalists than they were in doing the
Kremlin's bidding. But our elected representatives forgot one little thing in
their haste to make themselves useful: The amendments they approved could
significantly hinder the war on terrorism. No one's questioning that during
time of war the mass media cannot and should not serve the function of
keeping the public fully informed. War requires deception; fooling the enemy
is half the battle.
On the other hand, the mass media can and should serve the function of
disseminating disinformation -- fooling the terrorists by fooling the people.
The press can and should cover those who justify the terrorists' actions and
declare that all of their demands will be met in order to lull the terrorists
into a false sense of security, thereby increasing the likelihood of freeing
the hostages. The press can and should discuss the weapons used by special
forces. It's up to the security services to feed the press false information
about their arsenal.
Parliament has stripped the government of one of its most effective and
awesome weapons in the war on terrorism on the pretext that its improper use
could result in casualties. In that case let's take away our swat teams'
machine guns. They might not understand the gravity of the situation and go
hold up the nearest convenience store.
While our legislators are busy demonstrating their extraordinary vigilance
with regard to the mass media, our police are demonstrating unbelievably
starry-eyed idealism with regard to the terrorists. Less than a day after
Sunday's explosions at Spartak Stadium in Vladikavkaz the local police
announced that the incident was just a case of vandalism. This announcement
was remarkably reminiscent of the police reaction to the bombing outside a
Moscow McDonald's restaurant in October that left one dead. In that case the
police promptly announced that the bombing was part of a gangster-related
feud. Later it emerged that the bombing had been carried out by the same
group that went on to seize the Theater na Dubrovke. If the police hadn't
written the McDonald's bombing off as a vendetta, they might have prevented
the "Nord Ost" tragedy.
The bombs in Vladikavkaz -- located a stone's throw from Chechnya -- might
have been planted by vandals. And local legal experts might argue that 1.5
kilograms of dynamite placed next to a lamp post fits the legal definition of
"embezzlement of government property" or "exceeding authority." But that
judgment could only be made at the end, not the beginning, of the
investigation.
You get the impression that the police simply don't want to keep track of the
acts of terrorism breaking out all over the country, just as they don't want
to record robberies, murders and rapes -- so as not to spoil their record of
success in solving crimes. Too bad that creative book-keeping doesn't help
win the war on terrorism.
Yulia Latynina is author and host of "Yest Mneniye" on TVS.
*******
#6
Christian Science Monitor
November 20, 2002
Baltics step from Russia's shadow into Western club
By Fred Weir | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
RIGA, LATVIA – Two decades ago, Raimonds Graube was drafted into the Soviet
armed forces, and later served several years as a reserve officer in the
vast military machine whose sole aim was to confront the West.
Until very recently, the possibility never crossed his mind that he might
one day command a NATO army.
In barely a dozen years, Colonel Graube's native Latvia, along with former
Soviet Baltic sister states Lithuania and Estonia, has struggled across the
20th century's harshest divide. After nearly half a century in the Soviet
fold, the Baltics are striving to regain their historical place in the West.
Despite a few last-minute doubts in the Pentagon about Latvia's
preparedness to join NATO, some significant domestic opposition, and the
protests of Russia, it seems almost certain that the coveted invitation
will be issued at the alliance's summit this week in Prague.
"This means we are moving to our goal, which is to be a firm and permanent
part of the West," says Colonel Graube, who heads Latvia's 5,500-strong
military - a force too small to even rate a single general.
"It is not just a geopolitical shift," he says. "A complete change of
systems has taken place in Latvia, from the Soviet way to the Western way
of doing things."
For many here, the moment is one of supreme historical vindication, and the
subject of unrestrained joy.
History's pawns
The three Baltic states have been mere playthings of great empires for
centuries. They enjoyed barely two decades of independence before a secret
deal between Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler handed them to
the USSR in 1939.
Many Latvians felt betrayed by the West's acquiescence to their country's
incorporation into the Soviet Union following World War II.
"For me personally, the idea of joining NATO is like touching the promised
land," says Latvia's new foreign minister, Sandra Kalniete, who was born in
Siberian exile because her Latvian parents were labeled "enemies of the
people" by the Kremlin. "At last, we will be in the shelter, after all the
dirty deals of the 20th century."
For Russia, however, NATO's seemingly inexorable march up to its
16th-century borders presents a strategic nightmare.
President Vladimir Putin has chosen to manage the problem pragmatically, by
signing on to the US-led antiterror coalition, forging a direct
relationship with NATO, and dropping the Kremlin's previous overt hostility
to the Baltic states' westward lunge.
But there is no concealing the growing disquiet among policy-making circles
in Moscow.
"The Baltics' entry into NATO will not improve security for anyone," says
Sergei Shishkarov, deputy chair of the State Duma's international affairs
committee. "Russia cannot be indifferent to what's happening on its
borders. This must entail a Russian response [such as a military
counterdeployment], and not just a political one," says Alexander Savelyov,
an expert with the official Institute of International Relations and World
Economy, which trains Russian diplomats
"Whatever it does, NATO will always carry with it the unpleasant odor of
the cold war," says Mr. Savelyov. "If we are speaking of building a better
Europe, it has become irrelevant."
Latvian leaders express hope that the move may actually improve relations
with Russia.
"Admission of Latvia to NATO will create the basis for normalization, and
assure that the Baltics will no longer be some kind of 'gray zone' of
Russia's influence," Ms. Kalniete says. "We believe Russia has also made
its European choice, and is moving in the same direction. We are ready to
use our expertise from being part of the USSR to boost understanding
between NATO and Russia."
But experts warn of considerable risk as NATO launches into a "big bang"
expansion that could see seven countries - the trio of ex-Soviet Baltic
states plus Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia - integrated into the
Alliance within a couple of years. Even the staunchest Latvian backers of
the idea admit that while the country's spirit may be ready, its military
forces, physical infrastructure, and perhaps even political culture are
not. Indeed, news agencies, citing unnamed Pentagon sources, reported last
week that the US may be having second thoughts about admitting Latvia into
NATO's inner circles due to high levels of corruption in its government and
security forces.
"We could have done much better in fighting corruption," says Grigory
Krupnikov, general secretary of the New Era Party, which won the most votes
in last month's general elections. He agrees that Latvia's post-Soviet
black market, which smuggles oil, gas, and vodka from Russia, and consumer
goods from Western Europe, has spawned high levels of official graft. "The
new government is committed to cleaning this up," Mr. Krupnikov says.
"After the invitation to join NATO, we will have to prove ourselves."
Latvia's conscript Army, built from scratch after the Soviet Union's
collapse in 1991, remains ill-trained and badly equipped by NATO standards.
The new government is committed to spending 2 per cent of GDP on defense
for much of the next decade, but some worry that may not be enough.
"Of course we are in a transitional stage," Graube says. "The question is,
are we ready to change? The answer is yes."
Most in Latvia's educated elite see joining NATO, followed by possible
admission to the European Union, as the only conceivable way for the
country to go.
Lingering doubts
But opinion polls show that the public has some reservations about NATO
membership. An October survey conducted by the independent Marketing and
Public Opinion Research Center in Riga found just 51 per cent of the
population favor quick accession to the Alliance.
"One reason for this is economic; people fear NATO membership will be just
too expensive for a poor country like Latvia," says Arnis Kaktins, the
center's director. About 80 percent of Latvia's population earns less than
$150 monthly. "People wonder, 'Why are we going to spend all this money on
military hardware when pensions are so low and public services so bad?' "
The Russians among them
A breakdown of the same survey points to an enduring divide within Latvian
society, and one that could spell trouble in future.
More than two-thirds of ethnic Latvians unambiguously back NATO membership.
But 40 percent of Latvia's 2.4 million people are Russian-speaking,
Soviet-era immigrants, of whom over half a million have not yet been
granted Latvian citizenship. Among them, opposition to NATO remains high,
at least partly due to fear that links with Russia - where many have
families and even businesses - may be ruptured if Latvia becomes the fault
line between East and West.
"We are hopeful that NATO membership will pressure Latvia to become more
open and democratic, and thereby help us to solve our internal problems,"
says Artis Pabriks, an expert with Latvian Transatlantic Organization, a
pro-NATO think tank. "Once we join NATO, Latvians will know that we are no
longer threatened, and Russians will understand that this state is here to
stay."
But critics fear NATO's new front line could become as solid as the Iron
Curtain of the cold war, trapping populations on either side.
"Putin is pragmatic, but it is not easy to get his people to accept that
the Baltics will join NATO," says Nikolajs Neilands, a former Soviet
diplomat and a leader of the left-wing Harmony Party in Latvia.
"We might have played a more constructive role, rather than antagonizing
Russia by hurrying into NATO, and worked with Putin to build stable,
peaceful, and democratic relations in this region," he reflects, "because
if Putin's reforms fail, everything can change in Russia, and that would be
disastrous for us all."
*******
#7
NATO: Russia Reluctantly Accepts Alliance Expansion
By Gregory Feifer
Grumbling but acquiescent, Russia will watch from the sidelines later this
week as NATO extends membership invitations to a number of states once part
of the Soviet sphere of influence. Moscow, which in the past has been an
outspoken opponent of expansion, now says the addition of seven relatively
weak states will only strain an outdated Cold War alliance that is becoming
less and less relevant. Russian politicians back their claims by noting that
Washington itself is circumventing the alliance in order to address its top
priorities, like counterterrorism, through bilateral and other channels.
Moscow, 19 November 2002 (RFE/RL) -- As NATO prepares to roll out its borders
to Russia's doorstep this week, Moscow is complaining -- but not too loudly.
Saying it opposes the expansion of a military alliance that effectively
divides Europe, the Kremlin has nonetheless thrown up its hands over NATO
expansion. Now, rather than opposing the change outright, it is chiding the
alliance, saying that the new members will only water down the organization's
effectiveness.
Top Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii told reporters in Prague on 15
November that Moscow continues to oppose NATO expansion as unnecessary. "We
consider the enlargement model to be based on inertia. It is an approach to
ensuring security that is based on inertia since it is absolutely evident
that after NATO's first wave of enlargement, neither the Czech Republic nor
Poland nor Hungary, having become members of NATO, and with all due respect
to these countries, has helped make NATO better operationally or more
effective in counteracting international terrorism. NATO's antiterrorist
fighting capabilities did not improve after the mechanical induction of these
three countries," Yastrzhembskii said.
At this week's NATO summit in Prague on 21-22 November, the alliance is
expected to extend invitations to the three former Soviet Baltic states --
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- as well as up to four former Soviet-bloc
countries, including Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania.
NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson has called the summit a
"defining moment" for the alliance, which also plans to unveil a
rapid-reaction force this week.
Russia will be represented at the summit by a delegation led by Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov, but Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be in
attendance, possibly to avoid the appearance of condoning the expansion.
Robert Nurick, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, said Russia has
reconciled itself to the fact that it cannot prevent broad NATO enlargement.
But he added that part of the motivation inside the Kremlin, particularly
among Putin's advisers, is the desire not to complicate broader NATO-Russia
relations and U.S.-Russia security collaboration. "They've made their point.
They've made it clear that they don't like [NATO expansion] and don't think
it makes much sense, but I think they've decided that it's really less
important than other issues that they have," Nurick said.
In addition to criticizing NATO enlargement, Moscow has voiced concern over
specific issues, such as radar systems in the Baltics, and has expressed
worry that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are not signatories to the Treaty
on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe on limits on troops and hardware.
But by last year, Putin was already publicly indicating that Russia would not
oppose the expansion, saying Moscow would not interfere if NATO opts to
become a political rather than a military body.
Such a change will not happen for some time, if it happens at all. But
Putin's words were seen as part of a post-11 September bid for better
relations with the United States.
Pro-Kremlin analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov is director of Moscow's Politika
Foundation. He told RFE/RL that Putin is likely to show no reaction when NATO
formally extends its invitations to new member countries, an announcement due
to be made on 21 November. Nikonov said the psychological shock over NATO's
plan to expand to Russia's borders played out several years ago when the
alliance first made its intentions clear. "Putin considers NATO expansion --
proposing a single undivided scheme of European security -- a mistake. But he
cannot stop the West from making those mistakes he sees himself," Nikonov
said.
Nikonov agreed with the official line that NATO expansion will weaken the
53-year-old alliance. "The addition of seven very weak members will, of
course, weaken any organization. NATO is increasingly turning from a military
bloc into an organization for collective security," Nikonov said.
The United States has appeared eager to convince Russia that NATO expansion
does not pose a military threat for Russia. U.S. President George W. Bush,
who will travel directly from Prague to St. Petersburg for talks with Putin,
told RFE/RL in an exclusive interview yesterday that his message to Russia
was that NATO expansion was "not a threat to you or your future; as a matter
of fact, it should enable you to grow peacefully." NATO expansion is not
expected to be discussed during the Bush-Putin meetings.
Konstantin Kosachev is the centrist deputy head of the Duma Foreign Affairs
Committee. He also said that expansion poses no security threat to Russia. He
added that the fact that Washington softened its strict requirements for NATO
candidates -- and did not rely on the alliance for its campaign in
Afghanistan -- signals that the United States is losing interest in NATO.
"The expansion of NATO is its own kind of path to nowhere. It's a dead-end
scenario of development. At the same time, it attracts colossal financial,
material, intellectual, human, and whatever other kind of resources,"
Kosachev said.
Russia protested loudly when NATO undertook its first expansion to include
former Warsaw Pact countries Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which
joined the alliance in 1999. Western commentators who opposed the move said
the alliance was needlessly provoking Moscow's ire over an organization that
was increasingly less relevant.
NATO then formed a Permanent Joint Council with Russia to assuage Russian
concerns over expansion. But Moscow complained the forum did not give Russia
any real say in the alliance's activities.
Relations between Russia and the West became increasingly tense soon after,
as weariness over economic collapse and the loss of superpower prestige
contributed to Russians' increasing disillusionment with their would-be
partners in the West.
A widespread feeling of anti-Western anger crested with the NATO bombing of
Russian ally Yugoslavia in 1999, during which Moscow suspended its relations
with the alliance.
But since then, relations have been on the upswing, especially after 11
September and Putin's pledge of support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
A new NATO-Russia Council was set up last May to give Russia a voice within
the alliance on some matters of mutual security, including counterterrorism
and rescue operations.
The Moscow Carnegie Center's Nurick said Moscow wants the new structure to
work and that both sides have signaled support for the framework, although it
is too early to tell whether the council will ultimately prove productive.
Kosachev said the true test will come when the two sides disagree on an issue
within the consensus-based organization. "If NATO tries to involve Russia in
the decision-making process," he said, "it will be possible to talk about
success."
But Nikonov said it is already too late for the NATO-Russia framework to bear
fruit. The top issue on the global agenda, the war on terrorism, is already
chiefly vetted through bilateral U.S.-Russia consultations. Russia's dialogue
with NATO, he said, has had almost nothing to do with counterterrorism
operations.
******
#8
St. Petersburg Times
November 19, 2002
The 'Window on the West' Should Be Right Out Front
By Igor Leshukov
Igor Leshukov is the director of the Institute of International Affairs, St.
Petersburg, a private think tank. He contributed this comment to The St.
Petersburg Times.
FOR many people, St. Petersburg is the most European of Russia's cities. The
signs of this are everywhere. Its history, geographic location and cultural
heritage all indicate its orientation toward European traditions and values.
There is a stong symbolic element as well in St. Petersburg's Westward
orientation, as it was specifically here, according to Russian mythology,
that Peter the Great hacked open a "window on Europe."
The symbolic foundations have been buttressed by historical practice. Since
its foundation, St. Petersburg has played a decisive role in giving Russia a
European identity, and Russia's fate along these lines and developments in
the city have been closely linked. Even during Soviet times, despite being
renamed Leningrad, the city remained - and sometimes suffered for being - a
symbol of a more open and liberal space - a sort of alternative to the more
conservative and ideologically driven Moscow. Given this background, what is
striking is that, now, Russia's government is placing such a high stake in
the development of closer links with Europe and its flagship institution -
the European Union - St. Petersburg is not playing any significant role in
the process. At best, the city and its splendid cultural sights serve as a
cozy backdrop against which President Vladimir Putin likes to meet with
foreign guests.
It makes you wonder what is going on. Is something wrong? Do the city's
European associations hold a different view? How serious can Russia's leaders
be about their commitment to foster good relations with Europe if St.
Petersburg is left at the margins of this process?
In Russian political rhetoric, the EU is traditionally presented as a
positive direction for European development - an antidote to NATO. In
contrast to the eastward expansion of the military alliance, Moscow has never
opposed enlargement of the EU.
But, even on the EU front, the Russian establishment has yet to abandon old
diseases and has been unable to formulate a constructive strategy. Official
Russia remains more concerned with damage limitation than with exploring the
potential for development. The Kaliningrad visa problem, and not St.
Petersburg's economic potential (for example), became the political test case
for both the government and the public for cooperation between the EU and
Russia. There is no doubt that the difficulties with regard to the exclave of
Kaliningrad were a headache that required treatment and some sort of
compromise solution. But focusing only on this sort of damage limitation is
clearly not the way to forge a constructive partnership.
Brussels cordially welcomed Moscow's proposal to treat Kaliningrad as a pilot
region for cooperation between the EU and Russia. As politically attractive
as it may be, this proposition is based on wrong assumptions. Pilot projects
are normally used to test approaches that will be implemented on a larger
scale later. As an exclave territory, Kaliningrad is special in so many
respects that, whatever is achieved, there can not be extended to or
duplicated in the rest of Russia. Other parts of Russia's Northwest Region
provide much more attractive prospects in this case, with St. Petersburg
clearly being the leading candidate and possessing the greatest potential for
exploration.
Peter the Great started his European experiment here in a blunt attempt to
build a modern European state. It makes a lot of sense, if only in terms of
political symbolism, to try finally to accomplish here what Peter started.
This shouldn't contradict the official ambition that Russia be something
larger than just a European entity, with a role that extends beyond European
borders. But I am convinced that Russia needs first to be European, and this
can not happen without St. Petersburg.
Despite its special history and European identification, St. Petersburg
remains a standard Russian region. Its European facade hides a troubling
ecological system, a crippled infrastructure, mounting municipal problems and
an unattractive investment climate. People used to describe St. Petersburg as
"a great city with a provincial fate." To realize its European potential is,
perhaps, the only way to break a vicious circle and to give the city a sense
of direction. This should not lie just in the realm of lofty ideas, but in
concrete deeds and real economic projects in cooperation with European bodies.
Being a very special case with limited opportunities for the application of
success or failure, Kaliningrad will not generate positive, large-scale
systemic effects, either in developing the Baltic Sea region or in developing
trends in EU-Russia cooperation. The St. Petersburg case is different, and to
mobilize its potential will have tremendous systemic effects.
It seems a simple proposition that, when there is no tangible success in St.
Petersburg, which is closer and more exposed to Europe than any other major
Russian city or region, there is little reason to expect significant progress
in that direction from the rest of the country.
*******
#9
gazeta.ru
November 19, 2002
Housing reforms put on hold
By Marina Sokolovskaya
The 1st reading of the draft bill on the fundamentals of the federal
housing policy has been postponed. The State Duma Council refused to
discuss the draft at its session on Tuesday, let alone to include it in the
agenda of this week’s plenary session even after the president’s opinion on
the bill became known. Thus, one of the most important issues – housing
reform – has been put on hold yet again.
According to the first deputy chief of the centrist Fatherland All Russia
faction Vyacheslav Volodin, the bill requires re-working. ''We cannot agree
with the abolition of privileges for many citizens, in particular for war
veterans,'' Volodin said on Tuesday. ''When the draft is to be reviewed, it
is difficult to say. This depends on the work of the deputies and of the
government.''
Presently, two bills on housing reform have been submitted to the lower
house – the one drawn up by the government, another prepared by member of
the Duma committee for labour and social policy Oleg Shein. Shein proposes,
among other things, not to abolish the current privileges but ''to
concentrate efforts on introducing order'' to the housing and communal
services. For instance, he backs the installation of water and gas meters
in all houses throughout the country.
In the opinion of Shein, the communal services have long become a source of
thefts by bosses and for replenishing election funds for mayors.
According to the author of the alternative draft, all the governmental
proposals amount to a doubling of rent payments and utility rates and the
abolishment of privileges as of January 2003.
But, according to comments by some deputies, Shein’s draft has been
destined to fail from the very start. Given the strong pro-Kremlin majority
in the lower house, the governmental draft will, beyond doubt, sooner or
later receive the approval of the State Duma.
It is unlikely that even the tough measures envisaged in the governmental
draft - such as the courts evicting tenants for failing to pay bills six
months in succession - will scare off the deputies.
Furthermore, the governmental draft abolishes all privileges presently
enjoyed by war and labour veterans, school teachers in rural areas and
doctors – altogether, some 26 million Russians with low incomes. The
government plans to substitute privileges with targeted subsidies that
would be granted to all those who really need them.
The government insists that the reforms are necessary since the current
state of affairs in the housing system is deplorable. According to various
sources, state subsidies to the housing system eat up from 40 per cent to
80 per cent of municipal budgets, and a considerable share of regional
budgets.
This, consequently, leads to a situation in which municipal authorities are
not interested in housing construction, since each new residential block or
social institution (school or hospitals) adds to the burden carried by
local budgets.
The situation in the housing and communal services sphere has been
considered difficult from the very beginning of perestroika in the mid-80s.
Yet, all attempts to overhaul the system have so far failed. This latest
attempt is not only out of a desire to improve the work of the communal
services, but also because of the international commitments assumed by the
Russian government.
One of the conditions of Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization
is the implementation of housing reforms, including the abolition of all
existing housing privileges.
Others claim that the forced implementation of the reforms is connected,
first and foremost, with the government’s desire to privatize the most
lucrative sections of the housing industry.
So far, only the liberal Yabloko Party has openly spoken out against the
government’s draft. In the opinion of their leader Grigory Yavlinsky, that
variant of the reform package ''is of a particularly fiscal nature''.
''Fiscal measures such as increasing tariffs are not linked with structural
changes, while the reforms are being implemented in the interests of the
monopoly provider of housing and communal services, not of the producer
thereof.''
Deputy Sergei Mitrokhin assumes that in truth nobody knows how the problem
of poverty both on the municipal and on the federal level can be solved.
Last Friday, during Putin’s meeting with the Duma faction leaders,
Yavlinsky, whose influence on the Kremlin has somewhat increased of late,
handed to the president his faction’s proposals on housing system reform.
The unexpected decision of the Duma Council to send the bill for
re-working, to all appearances also resulted from the Friday meeting.
*******
#10
Washington Times
November 19, 2002
Anti-Semitism spurs call to tighten Russian immigration
By Inigo Gilmore
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Russian immigrants who were invited to settle in Israel despite having
only distant Jewish roots are being blamed for a startling outbreak of
anti-Semitism in the country.
A growing number of incidents, including verbal and physical abuse,
swastikas daubed on walls and the desecration of a Jewish cemetery, has led
to calls for a rethinking of Israel's aggressive immigration policies.
Yuli Edelstein, an Israeli government minister responsible for
settling immigrants, on Saturday became the first senior government figure
to call openly for the immigration system to be changed.
In an interview, he said he was concerned about the rise in
anti-Semitism and its apparent connection with the "overzealous" policies
of the Jewish Agency, which is responsible for bringing immigrants to Israel.
He said he had met heads of the agency to press for more stringent
measures to filter out "undesirable" immigrants who have no intention of
adopting Jewish customs.
A survey of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union found that
70 percent did not qualify as "Jewish" according to religious law.
The problem has arisen because Israel's law of return grants anyone
with one Jewish grandparent the right to settle in Israel and to bring his
or her family. Critics say aggressive recruitment campaigns by the Jewish
Agency in former Soviet republics have tempted many people to move to
Israel despite only remote Jewish connections.
Zalman Gilchensky, 37, a Jerusalem rabbi who set up a center to
monitor the anti-Semitic attacks in Israel, has recorded at least 500
incidents during the past year and is leading a campaign to change the law.
He says it allows non-Jewish and sometimes anti-Semitic extended
families to immigrate to Israel, simply because one family member had a
Jewish grandfather.
Last week, Mr. Gilchensky organized the first public demonstration
about the issue outside the Jerusalem offices of the Jewish Agency. He
argued that the agency's rush to bring in new immigrants is endangering the
state of Israel.
The agency has acknowledged that it is disturbed by the anti-Semitism
but says it will not shift its policies on the right of return.
Spokesman Yehuda Weinraub said: "To change the law of return would
betray the trust with the Jewish community as a whole. The answer to this
problem lies in increasing education."
*******
#11
Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com
November 22, 2002
A Cultural Hero of the Soviet Era Looks to the Future
Now at Emory, Mikhail Epstein envisions new modes of thought in the humanities
By PETER MONAGHAN
Atlanta
For the past decade, an intellectual and cultural hero from Soviet-era
Moscow has been quietly producing ambitious and varied research here, on
the edge of Emory University's leafy suburban campus, in a converted house
that is the home of the Russian department.
Mikhail N. Epstein, whom the eminent Sovietologist Walter Laqueur has
called "probably the most important figure in Russian literary theory" of
recent decades, was a fabled figure among Moscow's intelligentsia in the
1970s and '80s.
The fact that he's rarely mentioned in literary and cultural-studies
circles in America "is to the disgrace of the academy," says Thomas R.
Epstein, a visiting professor in Slavic studies at Brown University. He's a
friend (no relation) of Mikhail, but his opinion is echoed by other
respected Slavists with a theoretical bent. The Russian may lack celebrity
in part because his work is so hard to pigeonhole.
As it happens, now is a good time to wander belatedly into Mikhail
Epstein's singular world, thanks to his latest book in translation. The
bulk of Cries in the New Wilderness: From the Files of the Moscow Institute
of Atheism (published this summer by Paul Dry Books) is a mock
"spetsizdat," or classified document, on emerging spiritual sects,
purportedly compiled in 1985 by a bureaucrat-scholar, R.O. Gibaydulina, Ph.D.
An atheist per state policy, Gibaydulina records with scientific dispassion
the words of various preachers and prophets. Among the Everyday Sects are,
for example, Thingwrights, who call for "a wholesale replacement of signs
by things." The Philistine Sects include Folls, who disrupt the "rational
projects" of the state. Among the Atheist sects, the Atheans "call upon man
to act as if God exists, even if He doesn't."
Cries in the New Wilderness, says Thomas Epstein, "to paraphrase Voltaire,
creates groups that, if they didn't exist -- and they didn't -- they would
have to have been created just to fully enact the realities of Soviet
life." It is a summa theologica of groups that tacitly disavow the Soviet
disavowal of religions.
An earlier form of the book circulated in Moscow in the late 1980s as a
classic samizdat -- underground -- manuscript before an American
Russian-language edition was published in 1993. Its underground status
derived from its wry, knowing humor: Mr. Epstein frames the Gibaydulina
report with mock-scholarly book reviews and a preface (as well as an
afterword, in the English edition) written by Mikhail N. Epstein -- or a
character of the same name -- who expresses the belief that the "lonely
voices of faith" are relieving the absurd "ideosphere" that gripped
20th-century life. They may even be "making room for a new freedom of
thought which goes under the ancient name of 'wisdom.'"
The entertaining mystification of Cries only begins to suggest the scope of
Mr. Epstein's writing. In Russia, and among alert American colleagues, he
is known for his works on Russian postmodernism and totalitarian language,
for his startling religious and philosophical writings, and for his
extensive Internet projects. His 15 books and hundreds of articles range
freely over historical, linguistic, literary, political, and religious ground.
"Of all the people that I know of in the East or the West who are doing
cultural studies," says Michael Holquist, a professor of comparative
literature and Slavic languages and literatures at Yale University, "he
comes as close as anybody to weaving a seamless web between the different
aspects of culture -- high, low, spiritual ... It's the ars combinatoria
that is so remarkable."
'Technohumanities'
On first meeting Mr. Epstein, who is 52, a visitor registers his Old World
manners, his grayed sweep of hair, his steady gaze behind bifocals. But
when he speaks, in nuanced English that bears only occasional traces of
Russian syntax, concrete reality dissolves in the light of his abstract
thought.
His new book, he says, is a "comedy of ideas," his response to a remark by
the French poet and critic Paul Valéry (1871-1945) that the modern era
called for a new "Intellectual Comedy" to succeed Dante's Divine Comedy,
which was born of feudal society, and Balzac's Human Comedy, which sprang
from bourgeois society. The right context for a third "comedy," says Mr.
Epstein, is surely the rise and fall of Communism -- a regime that sought
to make ideology reality.
Cries is part of an attempt to create "a whole branch of what I call
technohumanities" -- a practical application of ideas to the humanities
that he finds analogous to technology in the natural sciences and politics
in the social sciences. To the ancient Greeks, he points out, techne meant
"art." In his book, he says, "I see some nascent religious and
philosophical modes, but I try to articulate them to such a degree that
they become philology, the theoretical consciousness of these groups. This
is the artistic component."
He also increasingly favors another mode of the book -- the catalog of
ideas, or encyclopedia: "I think this is the form for the comedy of our time."
"I feel myself not very in favor of consecutive writings," he says. "I feel
this is a matter of the past, more and more, and I myself prefer what can
be called hypertextual connections, parallel processing of variations of
the same problem in several disciplines and languages."
After all, he continues, "time tends to evaporate in the contemporary
world, and I think that our intellectual enterprise should somehow reflect
that tendency."
Cries is part of a projected trilogy, another part of which is posted on
InteLnet, his complex of Web sites (http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/Index.html).
The posted portion is called the Book of Books -- "a little pretentiously,
I know," Mr. Epstein says, and is a growing compendium of ideas that
diverge from paradigms in the humanities. He explains on the site:
"Practically every generally accepted decision that is made in the
humanities (philosophy, literature, ethics, linguistics) leaves room for an
alternative yet unexpressed decision." Those theories and concepts "were
never conceived and realized ... because they failed to find their
exponents," in some cases because they were thwarted by "persecutions,
totalitarianism, destruction of culture, of philosophy, of theology."
"To tell you the truth," Mr. Epstein says, "my favorite intellectual
occupation is inventing new disciplines, new methods." The Book of Books is
full of proposals for such disciplines, for new genres and concepts, and
for new words to describe them. "Semionics," for example, would be the
science of "how to produce new signs," and "silentology" the inverse of
linguistics.
"This," he continues, "is what actually the humanities' enterprise may be:
finding mutenesses and lacunae in the languages of existing disciplines and
trying to fill them."
Postmodern on Its Own Terms
That reverie in some ways reveals the Russian tradition from which Mr.
Epstein springs: that of the literary critic straddling the border of
literature and philosophy.
In Moscow, Mr. Epstein made his biggest theoretical splash in the
mid-1980s, when he presented the startling idea that the Soviet Union was
postmodern -- and that it (and, earlier, Russia) had been so even before
the concept was coined in the West.
How could there be postmodernism when modernism itself had been so
suppressed in the Soviet state? Well, he said, because in Russian culture,
ideology -- specifically, socialist realism, a compromised Marxism -- stood
in for the two underpinnings of postmodernism in its Western formulation:
the "cultural logic of late capitalism," as Fredric Jameson put it, and the
"tyranny" of visual simulation and hyperreality, as described by Jean
Baudrillard.
The argument was all the more striking because the Russian humanities,
while strong in such areas as textual studies and literary history, had
avoided such galvanizing Western theories as poststructuralism,
deconstruction, and psychoanalysis, writes Caryl Emerson, a highly regarded
Slavist at Princeton University, in a recent essay in the journal Common
Knowledge.
Mr. Epstein stood out in Russian academe thanks also to his after-hours
activities. He held academic day jobs, beginning in the mid-1970s at
Moscow's Institute of World Literature. But at night, he was associating
with artists and writers, in a world that in Russia is traditionally set
apart from academe. In particular he championed the Conceptualists, who
used such elements as everyday objects, garbage, and blasphemy to produce
shocking, anti-aesthetic art that showed how ideology infects independent
thought. The group represented concepts, rather than objects, to show that
in an ideocratic society, as Mr. Epstein puts it, "everything was
ideologically infused and abused." In the Conceptualists, he located a
parallel to a key ingredient in postmodernism: irony.
As the Soviet state staggered toward its dissolution in the 1980s, Mr.
Epstein organized activities in Moscow that might, playfully but seriously,
help build alternatives to Soviet ideocracy. He formed such groups as the
Essayists Club, Image and Thought, and -- the most celebrated -- the
Laboratory of Contemporary Culture, in which intellectuals and artists
attempted to cross political, intellectual, and cultural borders -- those
set, for example, by the language of totalitarianism.
The attention he attracted caught up with him. As Sovietism petered out and
economic hardships racked the state, nationalists of the Pamyat' movement
took to harassing Mr. Epstein at his public appearances. "I received some
threats, and there were some publications against my being a Russian writer
with a Jewish name. My wife was afraid. When she tried to obtain food for
our four children, she was threatened because she was the wife of a Jew.
You understand."
He moved to the United States in 1990, teaching for a semester at Wesleyan
University, then working as a research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, in Washington, before settling at Emory.
His arrival in America caused great excitement among theory-oriented
American Slavists, says Dale E. Peterson, a professor of English and
Russian at Amherst College. Mr. Peterson hoped -- perhaps too
optimistically, he says now -- for "the kind of really complicated cultural
dialogue that has happened as, say, Western feminism has had to encounter
alternative formulations of feminist positions."
'Age of Anticipation'
One of Mr. Peterson's expectations did bear fruit. "I was anticipating to
find that while poststructuralist thinking in the West came largely out of
an age of suspicion, of decentering of self, and, through deconstruction,
of pointing out the indeterminacy of meaning, poststructuralist thinking in
Epstein's case and generally in the post-Soviet period comes out of an age
of anticipation."
Mr. Epstein agrees. In one of his central formulations, he suggests that
while postmodernism may assert the death of time, history, authorship,
originality, and God, "the epoch of deconstruction, demythologization, and
so on is over." After an epoch of "post-" -- poststructuralism,
postmodernism -- he says, we are entering an era of proto-, of "feeling as
if we are at the very beginning of some new trends and tendencies that we
are not yet able to preview or forecast, but we have to try."
Such an era would complete a drift in Western philosophy from the
indicative mode (pre-Kantian thinkers describing what is), to the
imperative mode (Kantian and post-Kantian thinkers describing what should
be), to a now-emerging epoch of the subjunctive mode, the mode of possibility.
"All these tendencies to the imperative mode are exhausted," he says. "In
the fall of Russian Communism, the activist approach is over, and in
deconstruction, the critical thrust of Western thought also is exhausted.
The epoch of the third mode, the subjunctive mode, is at the very
beginning, and we should try to create aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics,
some social and theological aspects of this new epoch."
Mr. Epstein discusses what that future might look like in The Philosophy of
the Possible: On Modalities of Culture and Thought, published in Russian
last year, and now under contract to be published in English. The book
expresses "the most interesting thing about Epstein: He's just really
optimistic," says Princeton's Ms. Emerson, "not naive."
His optimism resounds in his current work on the future of the humanities
as a fellow of Emory's Center for Humanistic Inquiry, and in his
development of InteLnet. In both undertakings, he emphasizes the benefit of
new modes of thinking: mystery and amazement. With Conceptualist
self-parody, he says his goal on the Web site is "to link everything to
everything else," to see what "mysteries" emerge.
Mystery is at the core of his fascination with spiritualism, particularly
with the Rus-sian tradition of "apophaticism," an elusive concept that
emphasizes human inadequacy and might be described as godless godfulness,
or a questing for a God who is an absence.
Mr. Epstein's emphasis on possibility is thorough. Toward his goal of new
ways of thinking, he advocates the free, nonproprietary sharing of ideas.
His colleagues compliment him on that unusual generosity, but they also
wonder if it is too utopian.
Ellen E. Berry, an English professor at Bowling Green State University who
co-wrote a 1999 book with Mr. Epstein on Russian and American styles of
"creative communication," says: "We used to tussle quite a bit over his
tendency to not see that this open interaction could sometimes lead to
violence, to the negation of the other's point of view. For someone who's
lived through violence, his thoughts don't turn to the possibility of
violence and even, if you will, of evil."
Take also Mr. Epstein's simple theory of "transculture," which holds that
while any society tends to be a trap, one can, through culture, liberate
oneself. Contrary to Lenin's remark that "one cannot live in a society and
be free of it," Mr. Epstein argues that "culture is not a product of
society, but a challenge and alternative to society."
Not only Lenin, of course, but also Freud, Foucault, and even Bakhtin --
whose shadows loom large in American humanities departments -- were less
sanguine about the possibilities of escaping society's shackles.
That may begin to explain why, as Mr. Peterson of Amherst College puts it,
"the splashdown effect of Epstein in the American intellectual world has
not been as large as I had hoped."
Now, Mr. Peterson says, "the time is either overdue, or ripe. It's hard to
say."
He and other advocates of Mr. Epstein's work cite additional reasons for
his relative obscurity. For one thing, among the last of the philologists,
most Slavists are suspicious of "theory." For another, translations of his
works into English have been slow in coming, not because of the difficulty
of his Russian prose, which his translators call lapidary, but because of
the unusual nature of his work.
The West has always been slow to pick up on Eastern European thought, often
discovering it only through, say, a French lens, says Mr. Holquist. "In the
American academy, anything that comes from east of the Seine is somehow not
considered quite serious."
But Mr. Epstein's ability to glide from academe to beyond is unusual, even
among Russian thinkers, says the Yale professor, and that confounds
American academics. "By any standard," sums up Mr. Holquist, "Mikhail is a
real original."
------
SOME PUBLICATIONS BY MIKHAIL N. EPSTEIN
After The Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian
Culture, translated by Anesa Miller-Pogacar (University of Massachusetts
Press, 1995)
Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative
Communication (St. Martin's Press, 1999; with Ellen E. Berry)
Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture, translated
by Slobodanka M. Vladiv-Glover (Berghahn Books, 1999; with Alexander A.
Genis and Slobodanka M. Vladiv-Glover)
Cries in the New Wilderness: From the Files of the Moscow Institute of
Atheism, translated by Eve Adler (Paul Dry Books, 2002)
For a full list of publications, with some summaries, see
http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/cv_books.html
Library catalogs generally list Mr. Epstein's Russian-language books under
the spelling "Epshtein."
*******
#12
Analysis: Europe's pariah strongman-I
By Sam Vaknin
UPI Senior Business Correspondent
SKOPJE, Macedonia, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Most of the post-communist countries in
transition are ruled either by reformed communists or by authoritarian
anti-communists. It is ironic that the West -- recently led more by the
European Union than by the United States -- helps the former to get elected
even as it demonizes and vilifies the latter. The "regime change" fad, one
must recall, started in the Balkans with Slobodan Milosevic, not in
Afghanistan, or Iraq.
Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former communist minister and the current president
of Poland is feted by the likes of George Bush. Vladimir Putin, a former KGB
officer and Russia's president, is a strategic ally of the United States.
Branko Crvnkovski -- an active "socialist" and the new prime minister of
Macedonia -- is the darling of the international community.
Vaclav Klaus (former prime minister of the Czech Republic), Vladimir Meciar
(former strongman and prime minister of Slovakia), Ljubco Georgievski (until
recently the outspoken prime minister of Macedonia) and Viktor Orban (voted
out as prime minister of Hungary earlier this year) -- all strident
anti-communists -- are shunned by the great democracies.
The West contributed to the electoral downfall of some of these leaders. When
it failed, it engineered their ostracism. Meciar, for instance, won the
popular vote twice but is still unable to form a government because both NATO
and the European Union made clear that a Slovakia headed by Meciar will be
barred from membership and accession.
But nowhere is European and American discomfiture and condemnation more
evident than in Ukraine and Belarus.
Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine's president, has just sacked his government and
installed a new, more friendly one, in its place. Kuchma has been accused by
the opposition and by the international media of every transgression -- from
selling radar systems to Iraq to ordering the murder of a journalist. He
hasn't visited a single European leader -- with the exception of Romano
Prodi, the chief of the European Commission -- for 2 years now.
Kuchma may attend NATO's Prague summit next week in the teeth of opposition
by NATO and a few European governments. Rumors are that he is priming new
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich erstwhile governor of the Donetsk region, to
replace him as president.
Aleksander Lukashenka, the beleaguered president of Belarus should be so
lucky. Indeed, he is the outstanding exception to the warm welcome that the
West has had for former Communists who have remained in power. The Czechs
flatly refused him an entry visa due to human rights violations in his
country. Minsk threatened to sever its diplomatic relations with Prague. The
EU will impose a travel ban tomorrow on Lukashenka and 50 members of his
administration. The EU has suspended in 1997 most financial aid and bilateral
trade programs with Belarus.
In an apparent tit-for-tat, Belarus again raised the issue of Chechen
refugees on its territory, refused entry by Poland. The Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe has been ignoring Belarusian complaints,
letting the impoverished country cope with the human flux at its own expense.
Lukashenka threatened to open Belarus' anyhow porous borders to un-policed
traffic.
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in a conference in Washington
last week, tellingly titled "Axis of Evil: Belarus -- The Missing Link" and
hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, the U.S. ambassador to Belarus,
Michael Kozak, chastised Lukashenka for having "chosen the wrong side in the
war on terrorism" and threatened that he "will soon face the consequences of
his illegal arms sales (and military training) to Iraq." The Polish delegate
mocked Lukashenka and his "friends in Baghdad." Poland used to rule west
Moldova between the world wars and Poles residing there are staunch
supporters of the opposition to the wily president.
Belarus implausibly -- though vehemently -- denies any wrongdoing. Minsk is
the target of delegations from every pariah state, from North Korea to Cuba.
The Iraqi minister of military industry is a frequent visitor. Belarus has
little choice. Boycotted and castigated by the West and multilateral lending
institutions, it has to resort to its Soviet-era export markets for trade and
investments.
The Belarus Act, a proposed bill pending in Congress, would grant massive
economic assistance to the fledgling opposition and impose economic sanctions
on the much-decried regime. Hitherto supported by an increasingly reluctant
Russia, Lukashenka, having expelled the OSCE monitoring and advisory team,
remains utterly isolated.
*******
#13
Analysis: Europe's pariah strongman - II
By Sam Vaknin
UPI Senior Business Correspondent
SKOPJE, Macedonia, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, as
opposed to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, rejected a union between Russia
and Belarus and instead offered to incorporate the 80,000-square-mile,
10-million-people country in the Russian Federation. If Russia joins the
World Trade Organization, as it is slated to do in a year or two, its customs
union with Belarus will go. All that's left binding this unlikely couple
together are two military bases with questionable relevance.
The friction between the neighboring duo is growing. Belarus owes Russia at
least $80 million for subsidized gas supplies since 1999. An angry Gazprom,
the partly state-owned Russian energy behemoth, accuses Belarus of pilfering
15 billion cubic meters of gas from the transit pipeline in the third quarter
of 2002.
In a meeting last week between Mikhail Kasyanov, prime minister of Russia and
Henadz Navitski, his Belarusian counterpart, Russia agreed to cover about
half the outstanding debt and to renew the flow of critical fuel, halved in
the last fortnight.
A possible debt-to-equity takeover of the much-coveted and strategically
located Belarusian pipeline network, Beltranshaz, was also discussed. It is
an alluring alternative to the Ukrainian route and the Finnish-Baltic North
European Gas Pipeline. The Belarusian potash industry is another likely
target once -- or if -- privatization sinks in.
Should Gazprom cease to sell to Belarus gas at the heavily subsidized Russian
prices, the country will grind to a halt. Other suppliers, such as Itera,
have already cut their supply by half. Belarus' decrepit industries, still
state-owned, centrally planned and managed by old-timers, rely on
heavy-handed government subventionary, interventionary and protectionist
policies. Heavy machinery, clunky and shoddy consumer goods and
petrochemicals constitute the bulk of Belarusian exports.
Strolling the drab, though tidy, streets of soot-suffused Minsk, it is hard
to believe that Belarus was once one of the most prosperous parts of the
USSR. The average income was 1.2 times the Soviet Union's. Gross domestic
product per capita was 1.5 times the average. Yet, Belarus has rejected
transition. It tolerated only a negligible private sector and mistreated
foreign investors.
It is even harder to believe that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka
was once a zealous fighter against corruption in his country. He won the 1994
presidential elections on a "clean hands" ticket, being an obscure state farm
director and then a crusading member of parliament. Re-elected in tainted
elections in 2001, Lukashenka has imposed a reign of ambient terror on his
countrymen. Human rights abuses and mysterious disappearances of dissidents
abound.
The president's "market socialism" is replete with five year plans, quotas,
and a nomenklatura of venal politicians and rent seeking managers. The BBC
reports that "farmers are being encouraged to grow bumper harvests for the
reward of a free carpet or TV set from the state." The Economist reported,
earlier this year, mass arrests of non-supportive company directors.
Some people are afraid to criticize the regime and for good reason. But what
the Western media consistently neglect to mention is that many Belarusians
are content. As opposed to other countries in transition, until fairly
recently, both salaries and pensions, though meager even by east European
standards, were paid on time. GDP per capita is a respectable $3,000 -- three
fifths the Czech Republic's and Hungary's.
Official unemployment is 2 percent, though, with underemployment, it is
probably closer to 10-15 percent, or half Poland's. According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 Yearbook, Russia spends about $1 billion
annually to subsidize Belarusian energy consumption and to purchase unwanted
Belarusian products. But even if true, this amounts to a mere 3 percent of
Belarusian GDP.
The rate of violent crime is low -- though electronic crime, the smuggling of
drugs and weapons and sex slavery flourish. The streets are clean. Heating is
affordable. Food and medicines are subsidized. The ever-receding prospect of
union with Russia now attracts the support of the majority of the population.
Lukashenka was the only deputy of Belarus' Supreme Soviet to have voted
against the dissolution of the USSR. In the current climate, this voting
record is a political asset.
The opposition is fractured and cantankerous and has consecutively boycotted
the elections. The few influential dissenting voices are from the president's
own ranks. The truth is that 48-year old Lukashenka, born in a tiny, backward
village, is popular among blue-collar workers and farmers. They call him
"father." Granted, judging by his Web site, he is a megalomaniac, but many
Belarusians find even this endearing. He is a "strong man" in the age-old
tradition of this region.
As far as the West is concerned, Belarus is a dangerous precedent. It proves
that there is life after Western sanctions and blatant meddling. Regrettably,
the Belarusians have traded their political freedom for bread and order. But,
if this sounds familiar, it is because the Russians have done the same.
Putin's Russia is a more orderly and lawful place -- but political and press
freedoms are curtailed, not to mention the massive abuse of human rights in
Chechnya.
Yet, no one in the West is contemplating to oust Putin or to boycott Russia.
None in Europe or in America is suggesting to apply to the rabid dictators of
Central Asia the treatment that the far less virulent Lukashenka is
receiving. It is this cynical double standard that gaffe-prone Lukashenka
rails against time and again. And justly so.
*******
#14
BBC Monitoring
German expert thinks US bases in Central Asia will go soon - Kazakh paper
Source: Panorama, Almaty, in Russian 18 Nov 02 p5
The USA has no long-term plans to keep its military bases in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan, Alexander Rahr, a German expert on the CIS countries says in an
interview with the Kazakh newspaper Panorama, published on 15 November. He
said Afghanistan was the reason for the US presence there and ruled out the
possibility of the USA "seriously thinking" of military action against China
"which is doing its best in order not to provoke the USA to take such steps".
He also urged the Central Asian countries, including the Caspian region, to
step up involvement in NATO programmes and EU defence policy in order to
improve ties with Europe. Speaking of Turkmenistan's possible involvement in
such international projects, Rahr described it as "a second North Korea"
because of its isolation. The following is the text of the interview.
Subheads have been added editorially.
Aleksandr Rahr, a well-known political scientist and expert on the CIS
countries at the reputable German Foreign Policy Society, answers questions
from Panorama.
Central Asia and the West
[Yaroslav Razumov, interviewer] A year ago, when troops from Western
countries entered Afghanistan and set up bases in the southern CIS countries
[Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan], many in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan,
thought that economic and political cooperation between the countries in the
region and the West would intensify and that investment would increase
following the defeat of the [Afghan] Taleban.
[Rahr] Yes, one has the impression that the West was interested in Central
Asia only as long as the war [the US-led antiterrorist operation] was under
way in Afghanistan. European humanitarian aid has started to restore
Afghanistan, but not to strengthen the CIS or GUUAM [Georgia, Ukraine,
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova]. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
which is aimed at combating terrorism, was not demanded by the West. I think
that many sighed with relief after [Russian President Vladimir] Putin also
lost his strategic interest in Central Asia, and ceased to regard it as a
sphere of his influence after he had let the Americans in there.
At least this is how these processes are assessed here. In my view, people in
Europe are indifferent to what the USA will do in the region. The main thing
is that the problems that the USA will create in a new world realignment
should not affect Europe - that is what people worry about.
One may regret that economic cooperation between the West and the countries
of Central Asia and the Caspian region has not reached a serious stage. It is
also noteworthy that the European Union is completely losing interest even in
those regions that are much closer to it both geographically and historically
- the Balkans and the Middle East.
There is no interest at all in a country such as Ukraine because Europe is
now busy with reforms within Europe; the time has come to put an end to the
illusions about building a successful "Big Europe". Everyone understands that
this entails heavy financial expenditure, and people and businesses are
afraid of taking risks because the economic situation is far from being the
best. This is the reason why international cooperation is becoming less
active. Everyone is now more interested in what America will do in Iraq.
Caspian project
[Interviewer] It follows from this that the relations of the Central Asian
countries with Western Europe are doomed to fall into a state of lethargy or
go into total reverse? What should be done in order to improve the situation?
[Rahr] Perhaps, if they want to expand their relations with the European
Union, these states should still try to step up their involvement in NATO
programmes and cooperation in defence policy, and discussions about Western
values should be started within those countries. For instance, whether
Kazakhstan can see itself in the Council of Europe and people's views about
that. Membership of that organization would become a precondition for
economic cooperation and for strengthening mutual understanding.
I think that discussions by the regional countries of the idea of a Caspian
stabilization pact could attract serious interest in Europe. For this, it
should be made clear to European foreign defence policy that it could, to
some extent, be applied to the Caspian region, affecting, of course, both
Central Asia and the Caucasus. Such a Caspian pact could be drawn up under
the auspices of Europe and, naturally, Russia and the countries in the
region. That is an idea for the future because Europeans do not want
geostrategically-thinking powers such as China, Russia and the USA to be in
confrontation in the region. Strategic institutions are now discussing the
idea of such a pact, and it is now in suspension.
European defence policy
[Interviewer] But is European foreign defence policy ready to be involved in
such a project, and is it possible to speak of the existence of such a policy
at all?
[Rahr] I think it will exist not only on paper. The point at issue is that
the bureaucratic process of development is very long and complicated - every
decision has to be agreed on at the level of all the EU member countries.
Sometimes it seems that the working out of a European defence policy hinders
NATO's expansion processes, which is actually so; the process of working out
this [defence] policy has been slowed down, but not stopped. This [process]
will continue, especially when ideas emerge about what Europe should do in
order to ensure stability. And the Caspian region is just such an area for
this process. Moreover, the EU does not pose any threat, as, perhaps, NATO
does under the auspices of the USA, which starts commanding after coming into
a region. European help as part of a foreign defence policy against terrorism
could give the Europeans an opportunity to actually provide scientific and
technical help to the Shanghai Cooperation organization.
Turkmenistan and the Caspian region
[Interviewer] Speaking of the Caspian region, one should pay attention to the
situation in Turkmenistan. To what extent can that country be involved in
such international projects?
[Rahr] It is really difficult to answer that question. Turkmenistan has
completely isolated itself, and is becoming a second North Korea. No one
knows what will happen there in the future. There are fears that Islam will
be forced to become even more active there because there has to be a state
ideology, since it is impossible to build a country based on a personality
cult alone. It is unclear where Turkmenistan will go with its gas resources -
so far it has failed to agree on this with both Russia and the Caucasus. It
is really difficult to predict the situation there, and the country is a
potential source of conflict.
China and the USA
[Interviewer] There are views, including those of German experts, that most
of the geopolitical motivations behind the presence of the US military bases
in the CIS countries in Central Asian lie not so much in the situation in
Afghanistan as in [wanting to] surround China and threaten it from the
direction to which Beijing is sensitive. What do you think about this theory?
[Rahr] I regard it as fantasy at the moment. I cannot imagine that the USA is
seriously thinking of military action against China, especially since China
is doing its best in order not to provoke the USA into taking such steps. If
one looks at the map and all these [US] bases, a picture emerges that is
really favourable for making such suggestions. But one should proceed
realistically from the fact that it was not accidental that the bases were
opened in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, but because there was a centre of
tension in Afghanistan. I think that the USA will not beef up its bases in
Central Asia, and it has no long-term plans to keep them there. They will
leave as quickly as they came. Especially since, I think, conflict may flare
up in other regions - in Pakistan, where stability is under a big question
mark, and, according to some experts, this is exactly where another
international explosion may take place; as well as Yemen, Indonesia and the
Philippines. A large-scale conflict may flare up in any of those regions
tomorrow, and, given this, I think that the USA is keeping its bases in
Central Asia only because of Afghanistan.
Iran, Europe, USA
[Interviewer] The Caspian region and the processes involving it are
inconceivable without Iran. There are different views about cooperation with
that country in Europe and the USA. Given this, what is your view of the Iran
situation?
[Rahr] The topic of Iran is one of the problematic ones as far as Europe's
relations with America are concerned. Europe considers that positive
processes are under way there, and the EU is, therefore, advocating not even
a critical dialogue but open relations with it, including cooperation in the
Caspian region. But America thinks differently and (without presenting any
evidence, though) keeps saying that Iran sponsors terrorist organizations
throughout the world. And that is a deadly argument against which the
Europeans have little to say following the 11 September [events in the USA
last year].
******
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