Johnson's Russia List
#6565
22 November 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Contents:
  1. AP: Bush Tries to Ease Russia Over NATO.
  2. Washington Post: Masha Lipman, Bush's Gift to Putin. 
  3. RIA Novosti: THIS WILL BE GEORGE BUSH'S FIRST VISIT TO TSARSKOYE SELO, 
WHILE VLADIMIR PUTIN WAS THERE MANY TIMES.
  4. Boston Globe: David Filipov. BUSH-PUTIN MEETING. Leaders may skirt 
Chechnya issues.
  5. AP: NATO to Seek Ties With Central Asia.
  6. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Alexei Bogaturov, AN ALLIANCE WITH DISAGREEMENTS.
The US and Russia may finally unite - with Russia as subordinate partner.
  7. Konservator: Gleb Pavlovsky, THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS 
MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA.
  8. RIA Novosti: FOREIGN CITIZENS IN MOSCOW GET THEIR FIRST SPECIAL
MIGRATION 
CARDS.
  9. Moscow Times: Simon Saradzhyan, Core of Army to Go Contract by 2008.
  10. Wall Street Journal: Jeanne Whalen, As Russian Oil Exports Soar, Tanker 
Traffic Causes Woes.
  11. Washington Post: Michael Dobbs and Susan Glasser, Russian Oil Fears 
Play in Iraq Policy. Moscow Neutrality During War Sought.
  12. UPI: Eric Johnson, Moldova's time bomb.
  13. The Guardian (UK): John Laughland, The Prague racket. Nato is now a 
device to exert control and extract cash. Those who resist, like Belarus, 
are punished.
  14. San Jose Mercury News: Elise Ackerman, Russia joins tech-worker game.
  15. Washington Post: Susan Glasser, NTV Feeling Kremlin's Wrath. 
Once-Humbled Station Asserts Itself as Symbol of Free Speech.] 

*******

#1
Bush Tries to Ease Russia Over NATO
November 22, 2002
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - President Bush hastened Friday to reassure
Russian President Vladimir Putin that NATO's freshly christened expansion
to Russia's western border poses no threat and that Moscow's economic
interests will be honored in any postwar Iraq.

Bush was making a brief trip to St. Petersburg on Friday, the morning after
NATO agreed to expand its membership into the territory of the former
Soviet Union. He planned an 80-minute meeting with Putin.

``I'm off to St. Petersburg to visit with our friend Vladimir Putin to
assure him that NATO expansion is in Russia's best interests,'' Bush told
dozens of leaders at a European-Atlantic Partnership Council meeting.

``Russia does not require a buffer zone of protection; it needs peaceful
and prosperous neighbors who are also friends,'' Bush said earlier.

Referring to the human rights and counterterrorism agenda he planned to
press with Putin, Bush added, ``We need a strong and democratic Russia as
our friend and partner to face the next century's new challenges.''

Asked by LNK-TV of Lithuania whether he trusts Putin, Bush replied, ``Of
course I do.''

Before leaving for Russia, Bush attended one last NATO meeting and posed
for photos with the leaders of Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, a sort of
consolation prize for countries that didn't make the cut in this year's
expansion invitations, but hope to be included in the next round.

The president and first lady Laura Bush were to be on the ground in Russia
just 2 1/2 hours before going to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, to
celebrate the Baltic nations' invitation to join NATO in 2004.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, former Soviet states nestled along the
Russian border, were among the seven ex-communist countries offered NATO
membership at this week's alliance summit in Prague.

``The Baltic countries know what it means to live under fear and the lack
of freedom and to have these countries be allied with the United States and
other nations is important to our soul. It's important to have that sense
of freedom as a source of vigor and strength,'' Bush told LNK.

At the meeting of the European-Atlantic Partnership Council, which
encompasses nations seeking to join the alliance, Bush said he weclomed
``partner countries who wish to draw closer to NATO.''

But he insisted that ``the delarations of these countries must be met with
actions,'' calling on them to help in the war against terrorism and promote
democracy.

The 19 leaders of today's NATO, including staunchly anti-war Germany, also
issued a unanimous pledge to help the United Nations ``fully and
immediately'' disarm Iraq.

Russia had been reluctant to take on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein because
his government owes $8 billion for equipment the Soviets sold Iraq during
the 1980s and its war with Iran. Bush assured the Russians on Thursday that
``of course those interests will be honored'' in any post-disarmament or
postwar situation.

``We'll be interested in all interests. We have no desire to run the show,
to run the country,'' Bush told Russia's NTV. ``We will work to encourage
the development of new leadership - should this happen - that will
recognize the rights of all citizens that live in this country, that will
keep the territorial integrity of Iraq intact. And we understand Russia has
got interests there, as do other countries.''

It was Bush's phone call to Putin this month, when the United States was
seeking votes from the U.N. Security Council, that led to the scheduling of
Friday's trip. In that conversation, White House officials said, Putin told
Bush he should come to Russia after the NATO summit, leaving unspoken - but
clear to Bush - the message that the Russian people will want to be
reassured that an expanded NATO means no harm to Russia.

Bush immediately accepted, without consulting his staff, the officials said.

In its summit declaration, the NATO leaders committed themselves to
broadening cooperation with Russia as ``equal partners.''

But at least one of the NATO newcomers - Latvia - voiced some skepticism
about nationalist sentiment in Russia.

``I hope that this step will be a reminder to those forces in Russia who
may still think in terms of the former Soviet empire that those days are
gone,'' said President Vaira Vike Freiberga. ``Those days are gone - they
are on the dustheap of history,'' he said.

Bush has promised to ``absolutely'' raise Putin's least favorite subject,
the Chechen war.

In the NTV television interview aired Thursday in Russia, Bush said
Chechnya was an internal issue for Russia but that he would encourage Putin
``as best I can'' to solve the conflict peacefully.

Putin has likened Moscow's war with Chechen rebels in the breakaway
province to the U.S.-led fight against al-Qaida terrorists. But Bush,
acknowledging terrorist elements in Chechnya, insists the violence there is
best resolved diplomatically.

Russian peace advocates say the United States has done next to nothing to
push the Kremlin to initiate a peace process because Washington has been so
focused on the international terror campaign, and is reluctant to alienate
Putin, who has proven to be a valuable diplomatic partner.

*******

#2
Washington Post
November 22, 2002
Bush's Gift to Putin 
By Masha Lipman

MOSCOW -- President Bush has likened the Oct. 23 seizure of hostages in a
Moscow theater to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. He
couldn't have come up with a better present for his good friend Vladimir
before their meeting in St. Petersburg. President Vladimir Putin, of
course, will not admit that the terrorist attack was in any way related to
the ferocious and bloody war the Russian army has waged on Chechnya for the
past three years.

This war, which Putin started in 1999 as a reasonable response to Chechen
incursions, has turned into a tragic vicious circle. Chechen fighters'
attacks on the occupying Russian forces month after month have been
followed by Russian retaliation -- most of it directed at civilians, since
it's much easier to carry out punitive operations against them than to go
after guerrillas in the mountains. The Chechen civilians are routinely
tortured and robbed. They are taken from their homes, to be released later
-- if they are lucky -- in exchange for money paid by their relatives.

This war has claimed the lives of about 4,500 Russian soldiers and
10,000-15,000 Chechens, and it has led to ever-growing hatred by the
Chechen people for the occupiers. Those who seized more than 800 hostages
in the Moscow theater were monstrous criminals. Yet to say that "the people
who seized the hostages were killers, like the people who carried out the
attack on America," as Bush did this week, is to help Putin shed
responsibility for the Chechen war, a war that has propelled him to
popularity and whose practices he has never publicly regretted.

"The more you love freedom," Bush told Radio Free Europe, "the more likely
it is you'll be attacked." But the Chechen killers who seized the hostages
did not do it because Russia is such a lover of freedom. Their unpardonable
crime is directly related to the atrocities committed by the Russian army
against the Chechen people.

"Some people are attempting to blame Vladimir," Bush said, "but it is the
terrorists that ought to be blamed for everything."

In fact, those who "blame Vladimir" are liberal Russian media and a group
of liberal politicians who are trying to find out how a gang of terrorists
traveled across Russia and its capital and transported a whole arsenal of
guns and explosives to the Moscow theater. They also seek to establish what
caused the deaths of more than 120 people, of whom only a few died at the
hands of the terrorists.

Based on their own independent investigation, members of a liberal Duma
faction blame those in charge of the operation for their disregard for
human lives. Most of the casualties were caused by the bungled rescue
operation after the storming of the theater. Those people died because of
the lack of timely medical aid. Unconscious and unable to breathe, those
men, women and children needed urgent measures to restore breathing.
Instead, they were thrown into buses, which took them to hospitals -- in
many cases too late for medical treatment. Doctors who agreed to talk to
the press said that the number of casualties could have been much smaller
had the medical part of the operation been organized properly.

Although Bush's support is no doubt welcome, the Russian president has
shown that he is quite capable of standing up for himself. And he is not
squeamish about the rhetoric he picks to defend his cause. When a French
reporter at the recent European summit in Brussels asked him an unfriendly
question about the performance of the Russian army in Chechnya, Putin
responded in a bizarre and ugly manner. He invited the reporter to come to
Moscow to be circumcised, and in a threatening tone he promised to see to
it that "nothing would grow back afterward."

Putin also has other defenders. The Russian consulate in Berlin sent a
warning to Germany's ARD television because it deemed its coverage of the
theater tragedy inappropriately critical of policymakers. The channel was
warned that their journalists would find it hard to work in Moscow.

As for the Russian media, those not directly controlled by the government
did a good job of informing the public about the anti-terrorist operation
and how human lives were lost. According to some sources, this resulted in
the chief executive of a national channel being summoned to the Kremlin and
threatened with the loss of his job. Meanwhile, to discourage the overly
inquisitive press, the Russian legislature hurriedly passed amendments
imposing limits on how acts of terrorism may be covered. And to further
prove its loyalty to Putin, the Duma refused to open a parliamentary
investigation into how the hostages died. The investigative initiative
launched by a liberal Duma faction was voted down by other legislators.

What Bush apparently sought, with his words on the theater tragedy, was not
to defend Putin, who is not exactly under fire in Russia, but rather to
enlist the Russian president's support for his impending war in Iraq.

Chechnya, of course, is much less important than Iraq, just as in 1995-96
it was much less important than the goal of NATO expansion, which the
Clinton administration was then pursuing. Thus the United States raised no
serious objections when former Russian president Boris Yeltsin waged the
first Chechen war, even though Washington had far more influence with the
Kremlin than it has now and the war at that time was unpopular with the
Russian people. "We should have focused . . . more critically and more
consistently on the damage that the Russian rampage was inflicting on
innocent civilians," Strobe Talbott, deputy secretary of state in the
Clinton administration, wrote in his book about the United States' Russia
policy.

So it went with America and the Chechen people then, and so it still goes.

The writer, deputy editor of the Russian newsmagazine Ezhenedel'ny Zhurnal,
writes a monthly column for The Post. 

*******

#3
THIS WILL BE GEORGE BUSH'S FIRST VISIT TO TSARSKOYE SELO, WHILE VLADIMIR
PUTIN WAS THERE MANY TIMES 

ST. PETERSBURG, NOVEMBER 22, 2002. /From RIA Novosti correspondent Anna
Novak/--On Friday, the presidents of Russia and the USA and their wives
will visit the Catherine Palace situated in the Tsarskoye Selo
museum-preserve (in the town of Pushkin, a suburb of St. Petersburg, which
was one of the country residences of the Russian emperors). This will be
the first time that George Bush will visit Tsarskoye Selo, whereas Vladimir
Putin has been there many times, RIA Novosti was told in the Tsarskoye Selo
museum-preserve. 

No special excursion round the museum has been planned for George Bush and
Vladimir Putin. They will hold negotiations in the Blue Drawing Room, the
biggest state hall of all those designed in the Catherine Palace by
architect Charles Cameron in 1781-1783. 

While the Presidents conduct negotiations, their wives Lyudmila Putin and
Laura Bush, will be taken round the museum by its director Ivan Sautov. The
ladies will be shown the Antikammer (anti-chambers) - three small state
halls of the palace situated opposite Rastrelli's main halls. During the
rule of Catherine II one of these chambers served as a billiard room for
the empress, another was used for staging home plays, whose actors were
members of the royal family and their courtiers. Early in the 20th century,
one of these chambers was turned into a kind of gymhall with horizontal
bars used by the children of the last Russian emperor. 

In the course of the past 15 years restoration work has been underway in
the Anti-Chambers, and only high-ranking guests were shown their interior
decoration and the work that is being done there. Vladimir Putin and Queen
Elizabeth II of Britain have already been there. It is expected that the
Chambers will be open for visitors in 2003. 

RIA Novosti was told that, to enable the wives of the Russian and American
Presidents to get an idea of how the Tsarskoye Selo experts work, small
workshops will be opened in one of the Anti-Chambers where amber carvers,
parquet specialists and gilders will be at work. 

The construction of the Grand Tsarskoye Selo Palace (from 1910 called
Catherine's Palace) began in the first quarter of the 18th century. In
August 1724, a celebration on the occasion of the construction of the
chambers of Catherine I was held. It was attended by Peter I. 

The first reconstruction of the palace - under Yelizaveta Petrovna - was
headed by Francesco Rastrelli. The palace which he created with interiors
decorated with gilded carvings, amber and mirrors, is considered one of the
masterpieces of Russian baroque. In the course of two centuries Tsarskoye
Selo served as the summer residence of the Russian emperors. 

The historical art museum in the Catherine Palace was opened in 1918.
During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) the palaces and parks were
destroyed by the German Nazi invaders. Their restoration continues to this
day. In January 1983, by a decision of the Council of Ministers of the
RSFSR, the Tsarskoye Selo palaces and parks were given the status of a
preserve. At present, the museums have more than 20,000 displays, including
a collection of weapons which belonged to the Russian emperors, of
paintings, decorative applied art, furniture, and amber articles created by
West European and Russian masters. 

********

#4
Boston Globe
November 22, 2002
BUSH-PUTIN MEETING
Leaders may skirt Chechnya issues
By David Filipov, Globe Staff

MOSCOW - President Bush, due to arrive in Russia today for talks with
Vladimir V. Putin, said yesterday that he would try to persuade the Russian
leader to find a peaceful settlement to the bloody eight-year conflict in
Chechnya. 

But with an agenda that includes discussions on terrorism, NATO expansion,
and plans to disarm Iraq, it appeared unlikely that Bush would push very
hard on Chechnya during the three-hour meeting outside Putin's native St.
Petersburg. And that appears to suit both sides.

Advocates of a peace process in Chechnya say that the United States is too
focused on its war on terrorism and too unwilling to alienate Putin to put
pressure on the Kremlin. They also say the West is ignoring Putin's harsh
domestic policies aimed at curbing dissent at home, and his inability or
unwillingness to rein in the military in Chechnya.

''We see a silent deal between the United States and its president and
Russia and its president: `You support us in the antiterrorist operation
and sanctions against Iraq, and we'll close our eyes to what's going on in
Chechnya,''' said Ivan Rybkin, former head of Russia's Security Council,
who has unsuccessfully tried to restart talks with Chechen rebels.

Russia's bogged-down campaign to rid the territory of rebels, who have
fought federal troops since 1994, has dogged Putin since he took office in
January 2000, and the conflict clearly brings out a dark side of his
character. That side was in evidence last week in Brussels, when the
Russian leader used crude language to respond to a reporter's question on
Chechnya.

In contrast, the man Bush has taken to calling ''my friend Vladimir'' has
come off as a witty, worldly, and westernizing leader during the
presidents' most recent meetings. Their relationship has grown closer since
Putin threw his support behind the US-led war on terrorism, and Bush's
visit is an important achievement for the Kremlin leader.

Political analyst Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute of
Globalization Studies in Moscow, said the Kremlin has gone so far as to
portray Bush's and Putin's harmony as a sign that Moscow and Washington are
closer to each other on the fight against terrorism than either side is to
Europe on the issue. Kagarlitsky and others are concerned that by taking
advantage of Putin's support on terrorism, Bush is ignoring Russia's
crackdown on dissent.

Bush, in an interview broadcast on Russian NTV television yesterday, gave
full backing to Putin in his handling of the siege at a Moscow theater, in
which security forces used narcotic gas to subdue armed rebels and rescue
hostages. More than 700 of the captives were freed, but 41 guerrillas and
128 hostages died, most from the effects of the gas.

Bush rejected the notion that Putin was to blame for the high death toll in
the theater siege.

''My friend Vladimir Putin found himself in an utterly difficult situation:
The terrorists were threatening to kill 800 people. He did his utmost and
he did it to save lives, to save people,'' Bush said. ''The terrorists
should be blamed. They should pay for what they did.''

Bush went on to say he hoped ''a solution can be found in a peaceful way''
in Chechnya, adding that in his talks with Putin he would ''be trying to
direct him toward a peaceful solution to the problem.''

Bush also expressed support for the Kremlin's long-standing claim that the
Chechen resistance is part of an international Islamist conspiracy,
pointing out that Osama bin Laden praised the Moscow hostage-takers in his
most recent video.

The US president's upbeat comments on Chechnya contrasted with those of
Putin last week at a European Union summit in Brussels. The Russian leader
suggested that a French reporter asking about the use of land mines in
Chechnya be circumcised, remarks that an EU spokesman termed ''unacceptable.''

Bush today is not likely to spend much time on alleged human rights
violations in Chechnya and on efforts underway in Russia to restrict the
freedom of the press to cover the war and or any other military activity
deemed ''antiterrorist.'' Russian journalists have asked Putin to block
amendments to legislation on the media, which sailed through both houses of
the largely pro-Kremlin Parliament last week.

Meanwhile, Parliament has rebuffed the idea of an independent inquiry into
the theater raid. Such an investigation might shed light on the failure of
law enforcement agencies to prevent guerrillas from traveling from Chechnya
and ferrying large amounts of weapons and explosives into the Moscow theater.

Since Putin came to power, the Kremlin has acted to muffle public criticism
of the government, first of all by controlling the most influential media. 

Although his popularity rating rose to 85 percent after the hostage crisis,
Putin has so far been unable to make good on promises to defeat the rebels
and restore order in Russia. Insurgent leaders remain at large and the
rebel's raids kill between 10 and 15 soldiers a week. Russian troops
retaliate, human rights groups say, by rounding up, torturing, and killing
innocent civilian Chechens.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
 
*******

#5
NATO to Seek Ties With Central Asia
November 22, 2002
By PAUL AMES

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - After agreeing to expand their alliance deep
into the former Soviet bloc, NATO leaders reached out Friday to the Central
Asian nations whose assistance proved vital in the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan.

NATO is eager to develop closer ties with the former Soviet republics that
run through a volatile region north of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan,
seeing them as potential allies in the fight against terrorism - a security
challenge that has become a top priority for the Western alliance.

``We have to be bold,'' NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson told leaders
Friday. ``We have to look beyond traditional roles and infuse the whole
process with new substance.''

The alliance ``has committed itself at the very highest level'' to the war
on terror, he said.

Leaders of more than 20 non-NATO nations stretching from Ireland to
Uzbekistan were scheduled to meet with the 19 alliance leaders Friday on
the second and final day of NATO's first summit behind the former Iron
Curtain.

One leader missing is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although Russia has
muted its opposition to NATO's expansion plans, Putin did not want to be
too closely associated with the alliance's decision Thursday to invite in
the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania as well as Bulgaria,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

However, in a sign that NATO-Russia relations remain warm since the two
sides signed a wide-ranging cooperation agreement in May, President Bush
was to leave the Prague meeting early Friday to meet Putin in St. Petersburg.

``I'm off to St. Petersburg to visit with our friend Vladimir Putin to
assure him that NATO expansion is in Russia's best interests,'' Bush told
leaders Friday.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov held separate talks with his NATO
counterparts, and the two sides issued a statement expressing ``deep
satisfaction'' at the progress made working together in areas such
peacekeeping and counterterrorism.

Ivanov welcomed assurances by NATO leaders that the alliance's expansion
was not aimed against Russia.

Russia and NATO will increasingly work together as long as the alliance
focuses on ``opposing new threats and challenges of this contemporary world
- the same challenges Russia is trying to counter today,'' Ivanov told a
news conference.

NATO officials gave chilly receptions to two of Russia's neighbors.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko was kept away when Czech authorities
denied him a visa because of human rights concerns.

Ukraine's President, Leonid Kuchma, did arrive, but the alliance changed
normal seating arrangements that would have placed him next to British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and one seat away from Bush. Kuchma is suspected
of authorized sales of sensitive radar technology to Iraq in defiance of
U.N. sanctions.

``The Ukrainian president knows there's a shadow over him,'' Robertson said
Thursday.

Aside from expanding into the Balkans, Baltic states and Central Europe,
NATO leaders also agreed Thursday on reforms designed to shift the focus of
the alliance's military might to the dangers posed by terrorism, failed
states and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Leaders agreed to create a 20,000-strong rapid reaction force, invest in
new military equipment including ground surveillance planes, smart bombs
and electronic jamming gear, and streamline the alliance's military command.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the new force ``will contribute a
great deal to NATO's relevance,'' though he was unsure what the American
contribution to it will be.

Rumsfeld, heading Friday to Slovakia, said he would press new NATO members
to reform their militaries and discuss how they can focus on niche
capaiblities for the alliance.

The seven new countries have ``militaries that were focused on the old
Soviet model,'' he told reporters. ``If there is something no longer
relevant to the 21st century, that is it. And these countries know that.''

NATO views its European-Atlantic Partnership Council, which met Friday, as
increasingly important in spreading stability and defense cooperation over
three continents. It encompasses nations seeking to join NATO such as
Croatia and Albania, traditional neutrals like Sweden and Finland, and
former Soviet states including Armenia and Kazakhstan.

One senior alliance diplomat last week called countries of Central Asia and
the Caucasus NATO's ``next frontier.'' He said building ties with them over
the next 10 to 15 years would be a new priority following the last decade's
outreach to eastern Europe.

In a sign of NATO's growing interests in that region, China sent its first
official delegation to the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, to
open a dialogue with the Western military alliance.
   
******

#6
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
November 22, 2002
AN ALLIANCE WITH DISAGREEMENTS
The US and Russia may finally unite - with Russia as subordinate partner
Author: Alexei Bogaturov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE WORLD HAS CHANGED, BRINGING RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES A 
COMMON ENEMY. EUROPE AND NATO ARE BEGINNING TO PLAY AN AUXILIARY ROLE 
IN US FOREIGN POLICY. IN CREATING ITS NEW FOREIGN POLICY STRATEGY, THE 
US WILL HAVE TO SEEK SUPPORT FROM BRITAIN, JAPAN, PROBABLY INDIA, AND 
MAYBE RUSSIA. 

     Will Russia and America be able to form an alliance at their 
third attempt? They failed in the first attempt, under Gorbachev: the 
Soviet Union broke up and the lovely idea of a Soviet-American global 
"alliance in the name of order" was still-born. The second was no 
success either: during his time in power, Boris Yeltsin constantly 
nagged Clinton, demanding an equal partnership, but only took the 
matter to a quarrel over the war in Kosovo. The Americans have never 
understood why Moscow sought equality without having equal resources 
with the US.
     Putin has been lucky. First, the situation in Russia is better 
than it was under Yeltsin - oil prices remain high, from time to time 
even enabling the government to recollect the need of structural 
adjustments in the economy and giving up Russia's orientation towards 
natural resources exports. Secondly, we have finally found a common 
enemy with America: its name is terrorism. Not that we could help the 
United States very much against it. And not that the United States has 
helped us very much against it in Chechnya. Yet having a common enemy 
is a great force, and it can do a lot of good: for the first time 
since the victory over the Nazis in 1945, Russia and America have seen 
some practical use in each other. To tell the truth, they formerly 
only thought about minimizing damage at best.
     These new circumstances have notably changed the political and 
psychological background of Russian-American relations. For the first 
time since Gorbachev, the Americans have again started to treat Russia 
with a shade of significant interest and restrained respect. Russia 
has become more interesting for Americans because the configuration of 
US global interests has "suddenly" changed, and in the new one Russia 
has started to play a role quite different from what it had in the old 
transitional structure of international relations and America's 
foreign policy pursuits, which remained in last century.
     First, before our very eyes US foreign policy is becoming "more 
Eurasian". Nothing of the kind has happened before. Of course, 
American strategic concepts mentioned Eurasia. For nearly two 
centuries, the United States' main foreign policy task was said to be 
counteraction to the appearance of a power capable of establishing its 
hegemony in Eurasia. However, such mentions of Eurasia were more like 
formal. In actual fact, the system of US foreign policy priorities was 
absolutely dominated by Europe, Western hemisphere countries, and 
Japan. Europe was main.
     Now it is different. Europe remains main. However, it meaning has 
become different. The former Europe was the front defense line for the 
US, a front of opposition to the most dangerous enemy. Now Europe is 
an American policy hinterland, while the front has moved to the depth 
of Central Eurasia where Afghanistan borders on the former Central 
Asian republics of the USSR and two new nuclear powers of the world: 
India and Pakistan. In the new century here is situated the new 
geopolitical center of the world. To the east of it is China, powerful 
and dangerous. To the west - Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia - three 
powerful oil states that are openly, as the first two, or half-openly, 
as the third, inimical to the United States. Europe cannot or nearly 
cannot help the Americans in this part of the world. Its lot is to 
play an auxiliary role in the American global strategy.
     Secondly, the role of NATO has changed, at least to the same 
amount to which Europe's strategic role has reduced. For NATO is first 
of all a European organization, and only one NATO country - Britain - 
can in practice help the United States in solving global or Eurasian 
policy tasks. Like Europe, the North-Atlantic Alliance is very 
important for the US, but not so much important as before. It is 
losing its old military destination. At any rate, NATO is certainly 
losing it in its present country composition.
     Paradoxically enough, "saving" the old NATO as a military-
political structure actively involved in US foreign policy interests 
requires engaging Russia in it. For only the replenishment of the 
alliance with the Russian geopolitical (dimensional) resource can 
enable it to acquire new positions that would allow counting on a 
prevailing influence in Central Eurasia, the world's new geopolitical 
center. If Russia is not invited to NATO, the alliance, which is now 
becoming really clear, must be reformed indeed. Out of an offensive 
shock structure of a global meaning it is doomed to turn into a 
"usual" European security structure. In the latter case the Americans 
will have to build their offensive foreign policy strategy resting on 
bilateral unions - with Britain, Japan, and perhaps, India.
     Hence, thirdly, a new role for the United States partnership with 
Russia. What if Russia happens to be among these real and potential 
allies of the US? Indeed, the policy of alliance with the US was 
proclaimed ten years ago, but something like actual cooperation has 
begun to manifest itself only this year. It can't be because 
Washington has just "suddenly" fallen in love with Russia (no, and 
hardly ever), can it? More likely, they have finally come to need 
something badly. Hence is the new formula of a "double solution" for 
relations with Russia: consistently criticizing Moscow for the 
existing discrepancies of its actions with American notions of 
advisability (in the Chechnya problem for example), but at the same 
time involving it in long-term political and military-political 
interaction with Washington, the US retaining the leading role in 
forming the Russian-American quasi-union system.
     On the one hand, this is a chance for Russia to strengthen its 
position among the world's most influential powers. On the other, it's 
a risk and challenge: a quasi-union, and possibly a normal alliance 
with America in future can only be based on both countries' interests, 
calculated meticulously and in cold blood.
     The United States is currently more tolerant than ever about 
Russia's policies in its neighboring countries, on human rights, and 
in the Middle East. But this is the external aspect of the situation.
     It also hides deep contradictions in the main issue. The US is 
ready to offer Moscow what it believes to be quite honorable - the 
role of a follower partner, with all the consequences: the need to 
take Washington's interests into account in Russia's foreign and 
domestic policy. However, most of the elite in Russia is not yet 
prepared to agree to this role. Therefore, while wishing for 
rapprochement, we ought to be prepared for some inevitable quarrels on 
the way to it.
(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky)

*******

#7
Konservator
November 15, 2002
THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA
Author: Gleb Pavlovsky, president of the Effective Policy Foundation
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 1960S-80S HAS DEGENERATED TO A 
PITIFUL FINALE IN RUSSIA TODAY. HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS WHO CALL FOR AN 
END TO THE WAR IN CHECHNYA ARE SELF-INTERESTED AND ENTIRELY ALIENATED 
FROM THE REST OF RUSSIAN SOCIETY.

Today's human rights movement is not concerned about the lives of 
citizens

     Not everyone is aware that Russia - or, more precisely, the USSR 
- was the birthplace of the human rights movement. This is where it 
was invented in the 1960s, and this is where it took on global 
significance. And this is where it has degenerated, right before the 
eyes of its creators and the classics of the genre, some of whom are 
still alive. In the mid-1960s, when all oppositional, anti-Soviet, and 
anti-Bolshevik political models were rejected by the victors' society, 
including the educated class, those who were anti-Soviet found 
themselves marginalized. Then, rejecting sectarianism, the party line, 
and an underground existence, a new phenomenon arose in Moscow: the 
human rights movement. We are now witnessing its pitiful finale.
     In Soviet times, the movement was prepared to have, and did have, 
a respectful dialogue with even the most hostile totalitarian regime. 
This dialogue was based on the entirely undemocratic constitution of 
1936, rather like Iraq's constitution; but this did not prevent some 
splendid results from being achieved.
     These days, the speeches of human rights activists appear 
intentionally insolent, one-sided, and thoughtless; giving one's 
opponent a fair hearing is considered optional in these circles, as it 
was among Lysenko supporters. The St. Petersburg-based Memorial 
society suddenly declared the killing of the terrorists at the Moscow 
theater to be "state terrorism". Moscow's human rights activists 
rushed to defend Zakayev and Maskhadov from the nation against which 
they are fighting.
     "President Maskhadov represents the lawful government of 
Chechnya... And who is Putin?" Sergei Kovalev's words are a 
demonstrative break with the ethics of the Human Rights Committee era. 
Clearly, those who have appropriated the label of "human rights 
activist", while taking no personal risks and not really wishing to 
help anyone, are deliberately burning bridges between themselves and 
the nation, its people, and its leaders. Though they have nothing 
helpful to offer society, they still insult it.
     "The storming of the theater was not provoked by the terrorists." 
How are we to interpret this extraordinary thesis from a document 
signed by Kovalev, among others? Do people have the right to set up a 
concentration camp in central Moscow, turning Muscovites into slaves - 
without thereby placing themselves outside the law, to be killed by 
anyone at any opportunity? In a comparable situation, the Soviet-era 
human rights movement took the side of liberty and safety for real 
people. It aimed to secure the basic conditions required for Soviet 
people to exist as individuals: the right to write, to read, to tell 
the truth, and to address the government as equals. That human rights 
movement despised traitors and turncoats. It was a civilian law 
enforcement body that rapidly became a global force, one which the 
Soviet government couldn't destroy.
     Today's human rights movement is not concerned at all about the 
lives of citizens. It seeks rights in isolation from humans, like 
funding from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or 
small grants. A vacuum has formed in the area of defending real 
rights: the right to security, liberty, property, sovereignty. For 
example, Russia essentially has no such organizations as the Heritage 
Foundation or the D.A.R. in the United States. When our Committee of 
Soldiers' Mothers starts demanding larger and more effective military 
operations from the government, when it learns to welcome essential 
preventive operations - then it will gain a natural basis for 
monitoring the effectiveness of military structures. But now, when the 
Committee of Soldiers' Mothers calls for the state to disarm before 
its enemies, it is only a self-interested lobby group: mothers trying 
to ensure that the sons of other mothers, not their own, serve in the 
military. This is not a moral standpoint. These days, Russian citizens 
and Russian human rights activists speak different languages, live in 
different countries, and fight in different armies.
     It's curious how what is meant to be the professional core goal 
for human rights activists - defending the rights of ordinary people - 
now requires to be smuggled into their midst. At a recent human rights 
congress, this was how Svetlana Gannushkina from Civil Cooperation 
reminded the assembled pacifist heroes of their duty to counter 
everyday abuses by the police: "I urge all lawyers to start a campaign 
in support of people on whom police plant drugs or weapons, and those 
who face police harassment... I believe this is one way of opposing 
the war in Chechnya." This is black comedy: in persuading human rights 
activists to do their duty, one is obliged to pay tribute to the 
sacred cow of pacifism: "No war in Chechnya!"
     Human rights activists may be militarists or pacifists, that's 
their own affair. But they cannot be defeatists. The U.N. Human Rights 
Declaration arose as a manifesto of ideas for the anti-fascism 
movement. The human rights movement of the 1960s-80s was a 
continuation, by other means, of the war against Hitler. Vicotry over 
a new global enemy will give the world a new concept of liberties and 
rights for individuals. If the human rights movement still has a moral 
future, it can only be found on this path.
(Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin)

*******

#8
FOREIGN CITIZENS IN MOSCOW GET THEIR FIRST SPECIAL MIGRATION CARDS 

MOSCOW, November 22, 2002. /from a RIA Novosti correspondent/--Foreign
citizens in Moscow have got their first special migration cards. 

Starting from November 22nd, every foreign citizen arriving to Russia must
fill in a migration card while passing through the customs check. It
consists of two informational margins and reminds of a telephone bill.
Law-enforcement agents keep the upper part of the migration card at the
entry, the bottom part is returned when a person is leaving. 

Vladimir Grachev, Head of the first interregional Visa and Registration
Department at the Interior Department of Moscow's Central Administrative
district where first foreign citizens were obtaining their migration cards
today, said that the procedure would allow to count the number of
foreigners who remained in Russia after their visas expired, in other words
it would determine the number of illegal migrants. 

According to Grachev, law-enforcement bodies will have the information on
illegal migrants, because a migration card contains all their personal
data: first and last name, surname, date of birth, sex, passport number,
citizenship, purpose of the visit, temporary residence in Russia, and the
period of stay. 

Migration cards are numbered, however they don't have watermarks and are
printed. 

*******

#9
Moscow Times
November 22, 2002
Core of Army to Go Contract by 2008
By Simon Saradzhyan 
Staff Writer 

The long-debated but still hazy plan to reform the military began to take
shape Thursday as Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov pledged to transform the
core of the army into a fully professional force by 2008.

Ivanov, speaking after a government meeting on military reform, said as
many as 92 units composed of ground forces, airborne troops and marines
will become all-volunteer within five years. The units will include 10
divisions, seven brigades and 13 regiments composed of 166,000 soldiers, he
said. The transition will start in 2004.

"This is a rather ambitious but feasible task," Ivanov told reporters.
"These units will form the foundation of a new, professional army."

The number of units in the military is classified as a state secret. Ivanov
said earlier this week that the military has about 1.1 million personnel,
including 500,000 officers and 600,000 soldiers and sergeants. Officers
sign contracts to serve, and only a fraction of them are conscripted. In
comparison, only 130,000 of the 500,000 soldiers and sergeants are volunteers.

Ivanov said Thursday that the transfer involves high-readiness units,
meaning they are theoretically able to deploy and engage in combat on short
notice. However, most of them are not able to do so, because the law does
not allow conscripts who have served for less than six months to be sent
into combat. 

Ivanov said that if the transition proves a success, the Defense Ministry
and General Staff will decide when to end conscription for the remaining
high-readiness units as well as for navy vessels and others in the branches
of the armed forces that are on combat duty.

However, it remained unclear Thursday when the military will abandon
conscription altogether. 

Government agencies and liberal politicians have been battling over when
and how to carry out the reform and how much it will cost ever since
President Vladimir Putin endorsed a Defense Ministry plan last year to
switch to fully professional armed forces. At the time, Putin ordered the
government to draft a transition program. 

Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov complied by setting up a special task force
that has grown to include not only officials from the Defense Ministry and
other government agencies but also prominent members of the State Duma,
such as Union of the Right Forces leader Boris Nemtsov. 

The group, in which Nemtsov plays an outspoken role, is expected to present
a draft program to the government in June that proposes the transition to a
professional army be completed by 2008.

However, Ivanov and the chief of the General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin, had
their own program for the core of the armed forces to switch to contract
soldiers by 2011. No deadline has been set for other units.

Ivanov and Kvashnin have cautioned that the reform timeline hinges on the
results of an experiment in the Pskov region to turn the 76th Airborne
Division into a fully professional force. The experiment, which began in
September, has stalled over a lack of volunteers, many discouraged by low
wages. The division has managed to attract fewer than 600 young men, while
a Defense Ministry plan calls for at least 1,630 soldiers to be recruited
to fill the divisions' two regiments by January.

Nemtsov has repeatedly accused the military's top brass of deliberately
stalling the Pskov experiment to discredit the idea of fully professional
armed forces.

Ivanov has rejected the allegations and noted that simply ending
conscription would not make the armed forces more capable unless soldiers
are better trained and equipped. 

One of the few issues that both liberal politicians and generals agree on
is that young men who do not want to serve will still be called up for
training. Nemtsov wants this training to last for six months, compared to
the two years that conscripts now have to serve. Ivanov remains undecided.

Nemtsov claimed a victory Thursday after the government meeting, which he
attended. He told reporters that the government is leaning toward setting
the deadline for a full transition of the armed forces to 2008 or earlier.

However, Ivanov appears to be gaining the upper hand in the reform battle.
On Wednesday he managed to convince Putin, who will have the final say on
the matter as the commander-in-chief, to endorse his proposal that sets no
deadline for a full transition, Kommersant reported.

******* 

#10
Wall Street Journal
November 22, 2002   
As Russian Oil Exports Soar, Tanker Traffic Causes Woes
By JEANNE WHALEN 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MOSCOW -- The sinking of a tanker full of Russian crude off the coast of
Spain is a sharp reminder of a new reality: as oil exports from the former
Soviet Union soar, tanker traffic around Europe is also on the rise,
causing new environmental concerns and forcing coastal nations to establish
new navigational systems to cope.

A burst of investment in the former Soviet Union has boosted oil exports
from the region nearly 40% over the past three years. The U.S. has welcomed
the new oil as a buffer against instability in the Middle East, but some
coastal European nations are increasingly nervous about the region's
growing oil trade.

The Baltic Sea today handles three times the Russian oil that it did seven
years ago, and exports are expected to keep climbing as Russia expands
existing ports and builds new ones. Tanker congestion has been especially
acute in the narrow Gulf of Finland, which connects St. Petersburg and
other Russian ports to the Baltic. "We are very concerned about it -- if
something happens in the Gulf of Finland, the currents will push all the
oil to the Finnish coastal area," says Markku Mylly, director of the
Finnish Maritime Association's traffic department.

To cope, Russia , Finland and Estonia are spending tens of millions of
dollars to unite their navigational radars and port computer systems in an
attempt to ensure seamless tanker flows. In essence, they are painting a
dotted white line down the center of the gulf, requiring all eastbound
ships to travel along the south coast and all westbound ships along the
north. The partners are also establishing a common ship log to keep track
of every tanker that passes through.

But Mr. Mylly still worries. The gulf is dotted by hundreds of rocky
islands and, in the winter months, ice floes. "When we speak about big
tankers going through shallow, narrow areas there is always the risk of
accident," he says. The latest incident happened last year, when a giant
tanker in poor condition sprang a leak at a port in Tallinn, Estonia. The
tanker was flying a so-called "flag of convenience," meaning it was
registered in an offshore zone. In the late 1980s, two different Soviet
tankers dumped a total of 10,000 metric tons of oil into the gulf, Mr.
Mylly says.

With one eye on the Baltic, Scandinavian officials are also turning a
worried gaze northward toward new oil traffic along their Arctic rim.
Russia's biggest oil producer, OAO Lukoil, has already begun shipping oil
across the Arctic from a small export terminal on the Barents Sea and hopes
to lead construction of a much bigger, $4.5 billion Arctic facility in
Murmansk in the coming years.

Producing far more oil than they can currently export due to lack of
pipelines and ports, Russian producers are scrambling to build
infrastructure that will help them reach new markets. The Arctic is one of
the most tempting new seaways because it considerably cuts the travel
distance to western Europe and the U.S.

But thick ice and sudden windstorms at the top of the world create obvious
risks. Lukoil recently bought 10 new ice-breaking tankers to ply the
Arctic. Built in Russia and Germany, the double-hulled tankers meet the
highest international safety standards, a Lukoil spokeswoman said. But
Greenpeace and other environmental groups say the remoteness of the
northern route would leave rescue teams scrambling to respond to any accident.

Russian port and shipping officials say their safety standards meet
international norms and are sound enough to handle soaring exports. Captain
Mikhail Sinelnikov, harbormaster of the St. Petersburg port where the
Prestige loaded up with fuel oil, said his inspectors didn't perform the
kind of thorough review mandated by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding,
a ship safety accord, because the Prestige carried a warranty valid through
2006. But port officials did inspect the Prestige for "ecological safety,"
testing the readiness of its crew and equipment.

"It's a serious inspection -- we check all tankers this way," Mr.
Sinelnikov said in a phone interview. Shipping brokers in London and
western Europe agree that Russia's ports work to basic European norms and
are raising their standards as new equipment is adopted.

But statistics show that Russian ships themselves aren't up to snuff. Last
year, commercial vessels registered in Russia , including oil tankers, were
among the most frequently targeted for inspections in foreign ports due to
safety concerns, according to Simon Carroll, Greenpeace's representative to
the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations ship safety body.
"Either their safety certificates are not up to standard or there are
obvious problems when they come into port," Mr. Carroll says. "So you'd
have to ask -- if there is going to be a massive increase in shipping out
of Russia , what might the implications be?"

Vyacheslav Zamoryanov, head of the Union of Russian Ship Owners, scoffed at
talk of low standards. "Not one ship under the Russian flag can go to sea
unless it has undergone a thorough inspection," he said.

Russian-owned ships and trading companies export only a fraction of
Russia's oil. The business is international, attracting vessels from all
over the world. But that's of little comfort to Turkish environmentalists
who have watched tanker traffic in the Black Sea more than double over the
past five years as Russian and Caspian Sea oil production climbs.

Last month, Turkey adopted tough new rules to cut down on tanker traffic
through the narrow Bosporus. And in future years, some Caspian crude oil
will bypass the Black Sea and the Bosporus and flow directly to the
Mediterranean in a new pipeline. But Bayran Istuk, a scientist with the
Turkish Marine Research Foundation, is still horrified by the number of
steel hulks plying the one-kilometer-wide Bosporus cutting through the
heart of Istanbul.

"Imagine if tankers went up the Seine River in Paris or up the canals of
Amsterdam -- no one can accept this," he said. "More oil transportation on
the Black Sea will bring severe threats for the ecosystem."

*******

#11
Washington Post
November 22, 2002
Russian Oil Fears Play in Iraq Policy 
Moscow Neutrality During War Sought 
By Michael Dobbs and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writers

Like his father during the run-up to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, President
Bush is using the lure of money and political respect to persuade a
reluctant Russia not to stand in the way of a U.S.-led war with Iraq.

Russian officials say they have reached an understanding with the Bush
administration on Russia's economic interests in Iraq, including concerns
about the plummeting price of oil as a result of an Iraqi oil boom should
President Saddam Hussein be overthrown. While vigorously denying that there
has been a specific agreement, U.S. officials say they are aware of Russian
concerns and are taking them into account in planning for a post-Hussein Iraq.

"We understand that Russia has got interests there, as do other countries,"
Bush told the independent Russian television station NTV in an interview
broadcast last night. "And of course those interests will be honored."

On Saturday, Bush will acknowledge Moscow's role in agreeing to a unanimous
United Nations Security Council vote on a stringent new inspections regime
for Iraq, by traveling to the former Russian imperial capital of St.
Petersburg for his seventh meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Over the past few days, Bush has gone out of his way to praise Putin for
his help in the war on terrorism and his handling of a recent hostage
crisis in Moscow, in which 128 civilians were killed by poison gas
administered by government security forces in an attempt to free them from
Chechen guerrillas.

The American wooing of Putin is reminiscent of the diplomatic campaign
waged by President George H.W. Bush in the fall of 1990 to win the support
of then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for U.N. resolutions endorsing the
use of "all necessary means" to end Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. In return
for Soviet acquiescence in the use of military force against Baghdad, Bush
held out the prospect of political and economic support for Gorbachev at a
time when he was struggling to hold the Soviet Union together.

The main difference between the two rounds of diplomacy, according to U.S.
and Russian analysts, is that Putin is more realistic than Gorbachev about
what he can get in return for giving Washington a relatively free hand in
Iraq. Rather than demanding a huge infusion of Western aid for a moribund
economy, he has focused his attention on gaining U.S. assurances of respect
for Russian economic interests in Iraq, most of which center on the
country's future as the largest Middle East oil producer, after Saudi Arabia.

"Putin is a very pragmatic politician," said Dmitri Simes, president of the
Nixon Center, a Washington think tank that has focused on U.S.-Russian
relations. "Instead of trying to stop things that are going to happen
anyway, he tries to get the most he can, both for his country and for
himself politically."

At the top of Putin's list of economic concerns is the fear of collapsing
oil prices once U.N. trade sanctions against Baghdad are removed and
Western investment begins to pour into the neglected Iraqi oil sector.
According to an estimate by Celeste Wallander of the Washington-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies, a $6 fall in the price of a
barrel of oil would slash Russian economic growth in half. If the price
fell to $13 a barrel, most Russian oil companies would no longer be
profitable.

Russian and U.S. officials said Putin is also anxious to protect the
contracts of Russian oil companies in Iraq, including a $3.5 billion deal
for the state-owned Lukoil to develop a giant oil field in southern Iraq,
and would like to recover up to $12 billion in old Iraqi debts. One
possibility believed to be under discussion is to use a portion of Iraqi
oil proceeds to pay off part of the Russian debt. 

A high-ranking Russian foreign ministry official involved in negotiations
with the United States over the U.N. resolution told an American visitor to
Moscow this week that a "gentleman's agreement" had been reached with
Washington on Iraq. 

He said the deal centered on maintaining a price of oil at around $21 a
barrel, the price used by Russian government planners for long-term budget
estimates. Oil prices have been hovering around $25 a barrel for much of
this year.

While acknowledging that discussions have taken place with the Russians
over the price of oil, U.S. officials dismissed suggestions that the United
States can influence the market very much. They added, however, that they
have tried to allay Russian concerns about plummeting oil prices in the
wake of a U.S. victory in Iraq, concerns that are described as exaggerated
by many American experts.

"Generally, we would like to see stability [in the oil price]," said a U.S.
official involved in Russia negotiations. "Wild swings up and down unsettle
the markets."

Iraq produces around 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, compared with Saudi
daily output of around 7.4 million barrels. Estimates of Iraqi production
by 2010, in the event of large-scale foreign investment and a lifting of
sanctions, vary from around 4 million barrels a day to 7 million or even 8
million. 

By addressing Russian concerns about falling oil prices, the United States
would also be looking after the interests of Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally
in any future Persian Gulf conflict. In the short term, however, the low
cost of extracting Saudi oil means that Riyadh is much better positioned
than Moscow to ride out a period of low prices. In the past, analysts note,
the Saudis have deliberately used low oil prices as a weapon for forcing
other producers out of the market.

Russian officials have painful memories of the way in which the Saudis used
their excess capacity to flood world oil markets in 1985, the year that
Gorbachev came to power, causing prices to drop by more than half to a low
of $12 a barrel. Combined with declining Soviet oil production, plummeting
prices effectively destroyed Gorbachev's hopes of reinvigorating the Soviet
economy, leading directly to the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Since Putin took office in 1998, by contrast, Russian oil exports have
jumped sharply from 3.8 million to 5.4 million barrels a day, providing a
ray of light in an otherwise gloomy economic picture. 

By drawing up a concrete economic wish list on Iraq, Putin is following a
different strategy from Gorbachev, who dreamed of a "grand bargain" with
the United States under which the Soviet Union would receive large-scale
economic assistance in return for sweeping economic reforms. "Both sides
made promises that they could not come through on," said Jack Matlock, a
Princeton university professor who served as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet
Union during the Gorbachev period.

Glasser reported from Moscow. 

*****

#12
Eastern Approaches: Moldova's time bomb 
By Eric Johnson

CHISINAU, Moldova, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Last year at this time, Matti Sidoroff
and other Western officials were upbeat about an international project to
clean up mountains of old, Warsaw Pact weapons decaying toward spontaneous
combustion near a city in northern Moldova.

It seemed the intractable arguments over financing the job, Russia's
responsibility and compensation demands from an eastern Moldovan
independence movement had finally been resolved. 

As a result, trainloads of aerial bombs, rifle ammunition, tanks and other
materiel -- some dating from World War II -- were finally scheduled to roll
away from the massive stockpile at the Kolbasna army base to
weapons-disposal sites in Moldova and Russia. The United States, West
Europe and Russia were cooperating in the huge and badly needed
demilitarization project.

But today Sidoroff, an official with the project-coordinating Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, is far less optimistic.

The project that began with fireworks of hope has started to fizzle.

"We regret that time is passing without results," Sidoroff told United
Press International. "And the ammunition is getting no less dangerous."

In the past year only three trains have hauled away loads from the Kolbasna
depot, which includes an estimated 42,000 tons of materiel totaling twice
the blasting power, if not nuclear impact, of the Hiroshima bomb. Only two
trains actually carried explosives; the other towed away 42 cars of
non-explosive equipment.

Sidoroff said more than 100 trains and eight months of non-stop work will
be needed to finish the task.

"There is so much stuff to be shipped," he lamented.

But the project has bogged down in disagreements between the Russian army
and the Transdniestrian independence movement, which has de facto control
over a narrow strip of land between Moldova and Ukraine -- a strip that
includes Kolbasna.

Details of the dispute are fuzzy, Sidoroff said. But it appears the
Transdniestrians are demanding "transportion fees" from the Russians. He
stopped short of calling it an extortion scheme.

"The Transdniestrians have put up the obstacles," he said. "They've put a
condition that the Russians must pay for every train, every (rail) wagon
that leaves.

"We don't know the details, but the negotiations have been very difficult."

Meanwhile, the potential time bomb continues ticking at the army base few
miles outside the city of Rybnitsa, population 50,000.

The project at Kolbasna and a smaller effort at a munitions dump near the
city of Tiraspol were started last year. The goal is to destroy weaponry
left behind when the Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991 and the 14th Soviet
Army, later called the 14th Russian, was eliminated in 1995. Some of the
arms came from former Soviet satellites Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which
broke away in 1990.

As the Soviet empire crumbled, unused weaponry piled up in Moldova.

The Vienna-based OSCE put together the demilitarization project and secured
western funding in 1999 after getting Russia to agree to pull its troops
out of Moldova, an ex-Soviet state sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania.
The pullout is to be completed by the end of this year.

Many of the Russian troops have been stationed at the Kolbasna and Tiraspol
depots to help Moscow maintain its influence over Moldova as well as
prevent the weapons from falling into the hands of the Transdniestrians.

Some form of Transdniestrian independence is a continued focus of
negotiations involving Russia, Moldova and the movement's leaders, who
claim Tiraspol as their capital.

Sidoroff said the talks have been complicated by allegations of human
rights violations by the Transdniestrian administration. For example, he
said, Romanian-speaking Moldovans in the region say their children are
forced to study only in Russian at school.

Such disagreements have only served to complicate the most serious issue
facing the region: Getting rid of the weapons.

The international community has been enormously supportive, with more than
a dozen countries donating some $7 million so far to pay for what Moldova
said it can't afford.

A pair of sophisticated, weapons-eating machines arrived in Moldova last
spring: a so-called Donovan Chamber from the United States and a
German-made Luthe kiln. A rocket-disposal plant in Murmansk, Russia, is
another planned destination for Kolbasna's explosives. And Russia is
providing the trains.

Sidoroff would like to see the trains really start rolling after December
7. That's when he thinks talks with the Transdniestrians may reach some
sort of solution.

At least that's his wish. Until then, Sidoroff and others with the OSCE
Mission in Moldova will have to be thankful for small miracles, such as the
few trains that have managed to carry off at least some munitions.

"This year we witnessed three trains leaving," he said. "It's not much, but
it's something."

*******

#13
The Guardian (UK)
November 22, 2002
The Prague racket 
Nato is now a device to exert control and extract cash. Those who resist,
like Belarus, are punished 
By John Laughland
John Laughland is a trustee of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group 

At the Nato summit in Prague this week, one man is notable by his absence.
Last Friday, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was refused a visa
on instructions from Washington, an unprecedented diplomatic snub. After a
six-year propaganda campaign waged against Lukashenko by the west, he now
stands isolated. The EU is about to slap a travel ban on him and his
ministers, like the one imposed against the Zimbabwean government.
Meanwhile, some American politicians have started to refer to Belarus as
part of the axis of evil. 

The reasons given for the west's hostility towards Belarus are that
Lukashenko is authoritarian and a "dictator". This is an odd charge, given
that the losing candidates in last September's presidential elections
conceded that the incumbent president had won more votes than them. It is
also strange for the west to revile Lukashenko when it courts so
assiduously President Putin, whose own election, like all those in Russia
since 1991, was outrageously rigged. 

Most of the charges levelled against Belarus are absurd. It is often
claimed that people are beaten for speaking Belarusian; in fact it is the
official state language and Lukashenko himself speaks it frequently. It is
also alleged that Catholics and Jews are persecuted there. But the Catholic
hierarchy was restored under Lukashenko and the Oxford Institute for Hebrew
and Jewish Studies has just confirmed that the Jewish community in Belarus
is flourishing. It is also stated repeatedly, without evidence, that
Lukashenko has had his political opponents murdered: these claims persist
in spite of the fact that one of his alleged victims was discovered alive
and well and living in London. 

The real reason why the west hates Lukashenko has nothing to do with
concern for democracy or human rights. It is instead that, as a genuinely
popular politician who has preserved his country from the worst ravages
which economic reform has inflicted on its neighbours, Lukashenko is not
given to taking orders. In this respect, he is unlike any of the other
senior former communist officials currently hobnobbing in Prague. The
west's friends in eastern Europe today have their hands firmly on the
commanding heights of political control in their countries, just as in many
cases they personally did under communist dictatorship. 

The west prefers such people because the demands it makes on post-communist
countries are so unpopular. All eastern European states are required to
sell off their national economic assets to foreigners, and close down their
agriculture by accepting the dumping of subsidised EU food imports. This
creates massive social disruption and unemployment. In addition, they must
spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence, preferably on arms made in the US. 

Consequently, a small country like Lithuania, whose economy has collapsed
so catastrophically, has just announced the purchase of $34m worth of
Stinger missiles, made by the Raytheon Corporation of Tucson, Arizona. When
Tanzania announced it was spending $40m on a new civilian air traffic
control system, there was an outcry; but Lithuania, whose official GDP is
not much larger than Tanzania's, will have to spend $240m on arms every
year as the price for Nato membership. And Lithuania is just one of seven
new member states, all of which are spending hundreds of millions of
dollars on arms. 

The economic interests driving Nato expansion are so blatant that the man
who co-ordinates US policy on the matter practically has
"military-industrial complex" as his middle name. Bruce Jackson, president
of the US committee on Nato, is a former military intelligence officer in
the US army who became vice-president of Lockheed Martin, the gigantic US
arms manufacturer and biggest provider of financial control and accounting
services to the Pentagon, from whose accounts trillions of dollars have
disappeared. 

Jackson left Lockheed Martin in August to take up his new full-time
political job of "promoting democracy in a united Europe". But a good
illustration of the economic agenda which is really behind Nato expansion
was given when Jackson recently told Bulgaria that its membership of Nato
would depend on it selling the national tobacco factory to the "right"
foreign buyer. 

Far from promoting democracy in eastern Europe, Washington is promoting a
system of political and military control not unlike that once practised by
the Soviet Union. Unlike that empire, which collapsed because the centre
was weaker than the periphery, the new Nato is both a mechanism for
extracting Danegeld from new member states for the benefit of the US arms
industry, and also - ever since the promulgation of Nato's New Strategic
Concept in April 1999 - an instrument for getting others to protect US
interests around the world, including the supply of primary resources such
as oil. It is, in short, a racket. Any state which refuses to play ball
knows the consequences: the humiliating treatment meted out to President
Lukashenko is simply intended pour encourager les autres. 

********

#14
San Jose Mercury News 
November 22, 2002 
Russia joins tech-worker game
OFFICIALS USE MEETING TO PITCH TALENTS OF ITS WORKFORCE
By Elise Ackerman

Quick: Name a foreign country with thousands of highly trained software
programmers willing to work cheaper than their U.S. counterparts.

No, not India. Try Russia.

That was the message three dozen Russian outsourcing companies brought to
the second U.S.-Russia Technology Roundtable in San Jose on Thursday. Part
of an ongoing dialogue that was endorsed by President Bush and Russian
President Vladimir Putin at the Houston summit last year, the round table
seeks to foster cooperation between American and Russian technology companies.

But many of the attendees were also hoping for something more tangible --
like a hefty outsourcing contract that can provide some of Russia's
million-plus technically trained workers with employment in their fields.

``The round table opens the possibility for concrete agreements and
projects,'' said Vadim Grishin, deputy director of Russia's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. ``Ten years ago it would have been difficult to imagine
the prospect of this kind of contact,'' he noted.

India gets attention

Indeed, 10 years ago Russia was just beginning to transform itself into a
market economy. Having survived a coup attempt by communist hard-liners,
President Boris Yeltsin was lifting price controls and beginning to
privatize state industries.

Taking advantage of an abundance of smart techies, companies like Intel and
Sun Microsystems hired dozens of Russian contractors, but the trend failed
to catch on.

Over the next decade, Russia's tiny tech industry languished as Indian
officials aggressively promoted their country as the offshore development
site of choice.

``Russia is where India was 10 years ago,'' said Steve Chase, president of
Intel Russia. Information technology makes up only about 1 percent of
Russia's gross domestic product. Although 1.3 million Russians have degrees
in fields like computer science or engineering, only 70,000 currently work
in information technology-related jobs.

Talent abounds

A lot of talent is untapped, Chase said. Over the years, Intel has expanded
its presence in Russia and now employs 400 people. ``They are extremely
creative; they are imaginative; they are disciplined,'' Chase said. ``When
it comes to solving mathematical algorithms, they are basically unbeatable.''

Russian techies are also inexpensive. An Intel employee in the Russian city
of Nizhny Novgorod is lucky to earn 25 percent of what an employee makes in
Santa Clara, according to Richard Wirt, general manager of Intel's software
and solutions group.

Some Russians get paid even less.

Boris Renski, the founder of Selectosa Systems, recently delivered a
customized Web-based program for tracking jobs and materials to a
California-based advertising company for only $8,000. Selectosa could
afford to charge so little because its Russian programmers earn $400 to
$600 a month, Renski said.

Trying to stand out

Renski attended the round table hoping to drum up bigger contracts, because
he said the smaller jobs are consistently being underbid by freelance
programmers from all over the world who look for work on online
marketplaces. But, Renski noted ruefully, the bigger contracts tend to go
to the more established firms. ``Indian companies are the most well
known,'' he said. ``A lot of people won't consider Russian companies.''

Stephen Lane, a research director at Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based IT
consultancy, said Russian developers stand out for their ability to handle
complex projects based on core engineering. ``They have to find other areas
where they can differentiate themselves,'' he said. ``One of the biggest
struggles is that they are up against the dominant player in the industry.''
 
*******

#15
Washington Post
November 22, 2002
NTV Feeling Kremlin's Wrath 
Once-Humbled Station Asserts Itself as Symbol of Free Speech 
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service

MOSCOW, Nov. 21 -- In the Kremlin, they're seething at Savik Shuster, the
blunt Canadian-raised host of NTV's popular interview show, "Freedom of
Speech."

So angry, in fact, that network sources said they demanded he be fired
after the recent Moscow hostage crisis because of a show featuring
anguished relatives of some hostages, pleading with Russian officials to
end the war in Chechnya and not to storm the theater.

And Shuster is just one of dozens of journalists and news organizations to
feel the heat from the Kremlin's post-hostage media crackdown, its most
severe since Vladimir Putin came to power three years ago. Top officials
have been especially furious at NTV, owned by the state-controlled energy
giant Gazprom. "There was quite a bit of pressure," Shuster said. "They
didn't like it all."

Shuster may be on the outs with the Kremlin, but he was welcomed this week
in the White House, where President Bush gave him an exclusive interview
before a Friday meeting with Putin. Bush strongly backed Putin's decision
to storm the theater, saying "he did what he had to do to save lives." But
the other point was clear, too. To start his White House session, Shuster
identified himself as host of "Freedom of Speech." To which Bush replied,
"I am a supporter. The more freedom of speech -- the better the world would
be. Don't you think?"

Here in Moscow, the irony of NTV's new status as symbol of Russian free
speech has not gone unnoticed.

It was only last year that NTV was the subject of a bitter takeover by
Gazprom, with the network's original owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, forced out.
Many in the team of journalists who had built Russia's first independent
national network left after a dramatic showdown in which their signal was
yanked off the air by the state. The new management, led by American-born
businessman Boris Jordan, seemed to have the Kremlin's blessing.

Now, it is Jordan who is complaining about undue official pressure. He
fielded demands from Kremlin chief of staff Alexander Voloshin and press
secretary Alexander Gromov to fire Shuster and reprimand another network
star, Leonid Parfyonov, network sources said. Jordan's own role as head of
NTV has also been questioned, the sources said.

"The paradox of the situation is that Jordan was put in this position in
order to make NTV totally obedient," said Viktor Shenderovich, a well-known
political satirist who decamped from NTV when Jordan took over. "But the
Kremlin's problem is that besides Boris Jordan there are some journalists
left on NTV who keep on working as journalists and not propagators of the
Kremlin's views." 

Shenderovich also has continued to rile the Kremlin from his new perch at
TVS, the network founded by the former NTV team but owned by some Russian
oligarchs, including the head of the Russian electricity monopoly, Anatoly
Chubais. After a stinging post-hostage broadcast of his program "Free
Cheese," Shenderovich said, the Kremlin called in Chubais to demand that
Shenderovich be fired. TVS refused.

"The Kremlin began this crackdown long before the hostage-taking,"
Shenderovich said. "It's just that their efforts became much stronger after
the theater seizure because the coverage of the hostage situation
demonstrated to the Kremlin that freedom hasn't been eliminated completely."

Other journalists agreed with Shenderovich. "They just got another pretext
to strengthen their grip," said Anton Nosick, editor in chief of the
popular Internet news site, www.lenta.ru/ . 

The most far-reaching part of the new campaign involves amendments to
Russian law on mass media coverage of terrorist emergencies that make it
illegal to broadcast or print news "serving propaganda or justifying
extremist activities." The changes sailed through the parliament after the
hostage-taking and are now awaiting Putin's signature.

Critics in the press, who issued a plea to Putin this week not to sign the
law, fear that it will bar not only broadcast of specific information about
anti-terrorist operations, but also criticism of Russian policy in Chechnya. 

"The law is so generally written that it will put journalists and editors
in situations where virtually anything they say could be in violation,"
said NTV's Jordan.

But in an interview, the Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei
Yastrzhembsky, said he saw "no reason" Putin should not sign the measure,
insisting it was only restating prohibitions that already exist under
Russia's 1998 law on terrorism. "It's not about policy," Yastrzhembsky
said. "They criticize the war in Chechnya every day in the Russian press."

As for Kremlin pressure to fire journalists and other post-hostage
retribution, Yastrzhembsky said he had expressed his concern to several
networks, but only during the 58-hour standoff with the Chechen guerrillas.
He acknowledged that other Kremlin officials might have made more specific
demands, but added, "Nobody was fired."

In the case of NTV, he allowed that there was significant dissatisfaction
inside the Kremlin, but said there had been "no official strong-arming of
NTV."

Top officials at the network disagree.

"There was direct pressure to remove certain journalists who they felt had
improperly behaved," said a senior NTV official. "It was a direct attempt
to influence editorial policy."

Shuster's program featuring distraught hostage relatives was one irritant;
another was Parfyonov's decision to hire a lip reader to try to make out
what Putin was saying in a filmed meeting with top officials that the
Kremlin released without the sound. And there was a charge that NTV had
aired the Russian special forces' storming of the theater live, which an
NTV official called "a totally false accusation fabricated by our
competitors and people in government."

NTV's enemies in the Kremlin apparently took their complaints directly to
Putin.

Reports in the Russian media and a network source said Voloshin and Press
Minister Mikhail Lesin had compiled a videotape of NTV's hostage coverage
and shown it to Putin in late October in an effort to prove the network's
"anti-Kremlin position" during the crisis.

Bitter divisions remain in the press over last year's NTV takeover, and
many journalists said they can't accept that NTV is really being singled
out by the Kremlin for being too independent.

Nosick scoffed at the "mock punishment" of NTV, suggesting it was really
just an excuse to go after more genuinely independent news outlets. "NTV is
already a Kremlin channel," he said. 

Now, though, NTV has the White House imprimatur to make the argument that
it is really an independent channel.

Last year, Shuster said, Washington "had a narrow, simplistic view that NTV
was taken over by the state and freedom of speech disappeared in Russia."
But he added: "That was absolutely not true. I think they understand it now."

*******

Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: 
http://www.cdi.org/russia
Archive for Johnson's Russia List:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson
With support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and 
the MacArthur Foundation
A project of the Center for Defense Information (CDI)
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20036