Johnson's Russia List
#6568
24 November 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Contents:
  1. Newsweek: Eve Conant, More Questions Than Answers. Conspiracy theories
fester as Russians struggle to find out why so many hostages died in last
month’s theater raid.
  2. The Observer (UK): Nick Paton Walsh, Barbie is banned from Russia,
without love. The doll's outrageous curves are corrupting the minds of
children,
says President Putin who wants to promote 'wholesome' values instead.
  3. Reuters: Dostoyevsky relevant to life today says ancestor.
  4. The Korea Herald: Art Buchwald, Russian-American friendship.
  5. BBC Monitoring: Minister says Russian-US partnership good for world
stability. (Igor Ivanov)
  6. Newsday editorial: Bush-Putin Relationship Ties Russia to West.
  7. The Economist (UK): Playing the system. (re UES)
  8. RIA Novosti: GERMAN FILM-MAKERS SHOOTING FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY
ABOUT
STALIN IN YALTA.
  9. RFE/RL: Jean-Christophe Peuch, Georgia: Shevardnadze Officially Requests
Invitation To Join NATO.
  10. The Russia Journal: Otto Latsis, Time for deportation again?
  11. BBC Monitoring: Western "pressure" on CIS states makes them turn to
Moscow - paper.
  12. Matthew Maly: From the 6th Russian Investment Symposium.
  13. JTA: Effort launched to create network of Russian emigres on national
level. (in US)
  14. Reuters: US moves to allay Russia economic concerns on Iraq.
  15. New York Times: Neela Banerjee and Sabrina Tavernise, Why U.S.
Oil Companies and Russian Resources Don't Mix.]

********

#1
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
More Questions Than Answers
Conspiracy theories fester as Russians struggle to find out why so many
hostages died in last month’s theater raid
By Eve Conant

      Nov. 23 —  Ask Alexander Shabalov for details about the pre-dawn raid
to save hundreds of hostages in a besieged Moscow theater on Oct. 26, and
his swarthy face becomes set in anger, he smokes a few more cigarettes and
his hands begin to shake. “Almost every single hostage was still alive when
we came into the theater,” says Shabalov, head of Moscow’s
quasi-governmental Rescue Services. It was only after they were freed, he
says, that the dying began.
      SHABALOV, A 44-YEAR-OLD former paratrooper and KGB man, is one of the
officials who has found himself catapulted into the spotlight over
questions about how Russian forces used disabling gas to rescue the more
than 800 people held by Chechen separatists. As many as 128 died in a
rescue operation that is still raising questions and suspicions among
Russians trying to find out just why so many lives were lost.
       Unlike many involved in the rescue, though, Shabalov is one of the
few trying to find the answers. Perhaps that is because the theater tragedy
echoes a personal one that he endured 10 years ago, when his 3-year-old
daughter was injured in a car accident. “When I ran to a militia post with
my bleeding girl in my arms, the policeman had no radio,” says Shabalov.
“When I finally found the hospital, the surgeon had gone home for dinner.”
His daughter died waiting for medical care. “I know what negligence,
inaction and poor planning is,” says Shabalov.
       And when almost 100 of his men, with no warning or information,
raced in to help evacuate hundreds of hostages, leaving their gas masks in
their rescue vans because they weren’t told disabling gas had been pumped
into the theater, he faced that negligence again-this time, he believes, on
a “criminal” scale.
       According to Shabalov, Russia’s Emergency Situations Minister Sergey
Shoigu “personally took away our digital camera and 90 minutes worth of
videotape,” including 40 minutes that detailed the bulk of the evacuation,
from the moment victims were unconscious in their chairs to their haphazard
removal, dragged by their feet and arms and placed on their backs on the
theater’s main steps. (Shoigu has not responded to the allegations.) The
Rescue Service is required by law, says Shabalov, to record their work. Now
Shabalov is prepared to sue to get the tape back. “There is nothing on that
tape that qualifies as a state secret,” he says. “There is, however,
material that could be used to make conclusions about criminal action, or
inaction, that led to human victims.”
       Questions are also being asked about whether Russian authorities had
made any plans at all to minimize casualties after the raid. In the chaotic
minutes and hours following the gas attack, the city bus drivers who carted
away most of the hostages did not know the addresses of local hospitals.
Many of those hospitals did not have toxicology wards. Panicked doctors
begged semi-conscious victims to tell them what had happened to them.
       And then there is the question of the timing of the raid.
Journalist-negotiator Anna Politkovskaya told a radio program the day after
it took place that although she understood the need of the FSB security
services to prepare for an operation, she was “absolutely certain that
there was a chance to reach an agreement [with the hostage-takers]. “It
seemed to me that all options to release hostages had not yet been
exhausted that night,” she said.
       To add the confusion, there is a lingering doubt that fentanyl was
the only substance used to gas the theater, raising questions as to whether
the Russian government has really disclosed what it pumped through the
theater’s ventilation system. Why did the hostage-takers not set off their
explosives? And why was there not more of an effort to capture some
hostage-takers alive, given that they could have provided reams of
intelligence about the plot and perhaps future plans?
       There is no question that Vladimir Putin’s popularity in the wake of
the crisis is soaring. But the strain is showing. At a recent EU-Russia
summit in Brussels, the agitated Russian president shocked an entire
conference hall by suggesting to a French reporter quizzing him on Chechnya
come to Moscow to “get circumcised” in such a way that “nothing ever grows
from you again.” A European Commission spokesman called Putin’s comments
“highly regrettable.” Putin’s aides raced to say the president was
“exhausted” and “sick and tired of Chechnya.”
       But Russia’s press barely took notice, except to rationalize the
outburst. At home, Putin is a hero, with approval ratings hovering at 77
percent. His tough talk on Chechnya is reminiscent of the rhetoric that
helped get him elected two years ago, when he threatened to destroy Chechen
separatists, even in the “outhouse.” Support for the war is also on the
rise. Almost 50 percent of Russians recently polled think Russian troops
are not being tough enough in Chechnya.
       Some Chechens believe this reaction is exactly what Putin wanted
when he ordered the storming of the theater rather than continuing to
negotiate for the hostages’ release. “The military and the FSB have a
deadlock in Chechnya,” says Ousman Ferzaouli, Denmark’s representative for
Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. “They needed new adrenaline to convince
the Russian people to support this war.”
       Meanwhile, the truth about the raid may be forever obscured. Doctors
have signed forms saying they will not discuss the event. Russia’s upper
house of Parliament has voted to restrict media access to information
during terrorist acts and Russian lawmakers in the pro-Kremlin lower house
rejected two proposals to set up an independent commission of inquiry into
the siege. Supporters of the proposal say the inquiry is needed to review
Kremlin assertions, especially the main claim that Putin only launched the
operation after the rebels began executing hostages. Two hostages were shot
in the hours before the raid, but survivors say that was only after one of
them ran to the front of the hall with a bottle in his hand.
       Olga, 21, a hostage survivor too afraid to give her last name, says
there was no talk of imminent executions in the theater. She did hear
shooting right before the raid, “but it sounded like it was outside, there
was no shooting inside the building.” Yet she has no doubt her captors were
prepared to use their explosives. When the gas started filling the room the
hostage-takers who called all the shots were not physically present in the
hall. “The women and the younger boys took orders for everything. They
would not set those explosives off on their own,” she says.
       When Olga saw the grayish gas cloud wafting into the theater she
covered her mouth with a scarf and hit the floor. She was one of the few
hostages who never lost consciousness and the cloud she saw may provide
some clues to the gas used. Some Russian newspapers argue that fentanyl, a
strong narcotic, could not have been used alone. They speculate that
another powerful drug-the anesthetic gas halothene-must have been used to
aerosolize the mixture, with recommended dosages doubled or trebled for
maximum impact. Others, such as whistle blower and 26-year veteran of
Russia’s chemical weapons program Vil Mirzayanov, suspect a military gas
may have also been used. “In the 1980s we developed an analogue to the well
known psychotropic drug BZ, which we called Substance 78,” he told
NEWSWEEK. It is a hallucinogenic drug, says Mirzayanov, “which causes
people to have happy dreams, to sleep and not to care about wars and
weapons. It would have a grayish-violet color when mixed with halothane in
aerosol form.”
       Peter Kaiser, a spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons in Amsterdam, says his organization is still in contact
with the Russians regarding the “technical details” of the gas used. But,
he says, “based on the elements of information” provided by the Russian
government, his organization is of the view that “no violation of the
[Chemical Weapons Treaty] has occurred.
       Inside Russia, asking too many questions can still be risky. Russian
journalist Andrey Soldatov and others from the Versiya newspaper who helped
him write a damning report on the FSB’s action, are being questioned by a
Russian prosecutor. FSB investigators have already confiscated Soldatov’s
files and computer. Nonetheless, he is still trying to dig for answers. “If
there were really so many explosives in the theatre, up to two tons,
wouldn’t they have evacuated the nearby houses?” asks Soldatov.
       Rescue Services chief Shabalov also has larger concerns. “The
correct decision was made [to gas and storm the building]. But as for the
victims, this is criminal inaction,” he says. “Was this an accident, or did
someone want to discredit the President?” With so much stonewalling, it’s
hardly surprising that conspiracy theorists are having a field day.

*******

#2
The Observer (UK)
24 November 2002
Barbie is banned from Russia, without love
The doll's outrageous curves are corrupting the minds of children, says
President Putin who wants to promote 'wholesome' values instead, reports
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow

An unfeasably busty plastic doll, known for her lavish tastes and docile
boyfriend, is an unlikely enemy of the Russian state. But Barbie, along
with a host of Western toys, faces the wrath of the Kremlin for
contaminating the young minds of Russia.

The Russian Ministry of Education has included Barbie along with a list of
other toys and games, such as Pokémon, that face a ban because of the
supposedly harmful effects they have on the minds of young children.
Barbie, in particular, is under fire because the doll is thought to awaken
sexual impulses in the minds of the very young, and encourage consumerism
among Russian infants.

The move will be seen as part of the Kremlin's attempts to control the
sense of identity of young Russians. Russian President Vladimir Putin is
keen to foster ideals of family and patriotism alongside the belief that
Russia was, and can be again, a great imperial power.

The Ministry sent a request to the Russian Government this month to create
a special commission to examine the psychological effects of toys and games
which provoke aggression, fear and 'premature sexual manifestations'.

An Education Ministry document says: 'The Russian market is overwhelmed
with different toys of foreign production, part of which is damaging for
children and is not destined for use of small children.'

One of the principal causes for concern, government sources have said, is
Barbie, a runaway success for Western-orientated children growing up amid a
blossoming Russian retail trade.

Under a plan reminiscent of the harsh controls imposed on children's toys
during Soviet times, a number of criterion have been pinpointed, asking
whether the toy 'provokes aggression, or cruelty towards other players,' if
it contains 'themes of immorality and violence, or provokes unhealthy
interest in sexual problems,' or if it inspires 'disdain or negativity to
the racial peculiarities and physical inadequacies' of other people.

A council of experts was created in December, whose first results decreed
that Pokémon cards, which have gained the same cult status in Russian
playgrounds as in those of Britain, must be altered, removing orders on the
cards bidding children, or Pokémon characters, to poison or kill other
Pokémon characters. The decree also demanded the cards be translated into
Russian, the latter move seen as an attempt to protect the mother tongue
from Western infection.

Yet Russian psychologists have rounded on the moves against Barbie, saying
the accusations are unfounded. Sociologist and children's psychologist
Natalia Grishayeva said: 'People are writing that Barbie stimulates early
sexual interest, but no scientific tests have been done. TV, films, Russian
magazines for teenagers and porn on the Internet are truly responsible for
this. This is where state regulation must be.'

But she acknowledges that Barbie dominates the Russian toy market. 'Barbie
has removed all other kinds of doll. It is being bought for two- to
four-year-old children when it is meant for seven- to eight-year-old girls.'

Grishayeva said Barbie could spoil early development in a child and may be
foisting Western paranoia about slim figures on Russian females at an early
age. 'The doll creates a particular idea about body image,' she added.
'Young children try to correspond and dreaming of growing up to be two
metres tall, with slim hips, and huge breasts. My advice to Barbie
producers would be to offer lots of different body types.'

The government answer to Barbie, Ken, and their assorted paraphernalia, has
been Natasha and Dima. Boris Bukharov, Deputy Director of Science at the
Moscow Institute of Toys, said: 'They were recently put into production,
along with a daughter, a friend and a complete set of furniture.' He
admitted: 'Our dolls still suffer from a lack of glamour and diversity.'

Natasha and Dima are the latest in a long series of Russian replacements
for their popular Western counterparts. After a three-year ousting from
television by the Teletubbies, the beloved Fila the dog, Khrusha the pig,
and Stepashka the hare returned to Russian televisions last year, due to
popular demand. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Santa Claus,
reigned large in Russia, until Russian authorities produced Dyed Moros,
Grandfather Frost, who usurped the man from Lapland with his own legend in
which a figure based on the Russian Saint Nicholas lives in Veliki Ustiuk,
in northern Russia.

The Kremlin has recently tried to extend its control over other fields of
Russian entertainment, the Ministry of Culture announcing that vital state
funding would be given in preference to films of a patriotic nature. The
state film industry has suggested limiting the number of Hollywood films
aired in Russia. Putin is also considered close to creating a post for a
high-profile Minister of Youth, to steer Russia's youth towards his set of
'wholesome' ideals.

*******

#3
FEATURE-Dostoyevsky relevant to life today says ancestor
By Claire Bigg

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Nov 23 (Reuters) - The axe murders of an elderly
money-lender and her sister may not at first glance appear to shed much
light on Russia's place in a fast-changing world of globalisation.

But the great-grandson of Fyodor Dostoyevksy, whose novel "Crime and
Punishment" revolves around this grisly event, says that work and others by
the celebrated 19th century writer can help Russians find their bearings in
the 21st century.

"Dostoyevsky's greatest legacy is to have defined the word 'russkost', or
the essence of the Russian spirit," said Dmitry Dostoyevsky, 57, who has
inherited some of his ancestor's fascination with people-watching.

"Today's globalisation process, which standardises people, ends up creating
a reverse reaction. At some point, people start asking themselves who they
really are. This is the best time for Russians to open Dostoyevsky's books."

An eight-year stint as a tram driver in his native St Petersburg -- he now
helps out at a city museum devoted to his ancestor -- gave Dmitry ample
opportunity to study Russians at close quarters.

The experience persuaded him that his great-grandfather's enduring
popularity stems from his ability to encapsulate the intricate and
passionate Russian soul.

"Crime and Punishment" is above all an incisive and blood-chilling analysis
of the darkest areas of human psychology, just as relevant today in the
Russia governed by another St Petersburg native -- President Vladimir Putin.

"Everyone has done things in a state nearing madness. The thought that
killing somebody will make you a kind of god has occurred to all of us,"
Dmitry Dostoyevsky said.

"What Dostoevsky does is describe in detail what happens to you if you
commit such an act."

"Crime and Punishment," Dostoyevsky's best known work, focuses on neurotic,
misery-ridden student Rodion Raskolnikov, who endures a long ordeal after
committing the murders.

Raskolnikov roams the grimmest parts of St Petersburg in a half delirious
state, turns himself in to the police and is sent to a camp in Siberia. He
is finally redeemed by embracing faith.

"HUMAN ANTHILL"

Dmitry Dostoyevsky has always lived in the city where the writer spent 28
years, using its maze of grimy streets and canals as the setting for most
of his novels.

He looks very much like many Russian men of his generation: bearded, a
shade scruffy, with a bent for trying to solve the world's problems during
coffee-fuelled debates in cramped Russian kitchens. Like many Russians, he
has had different jobs, from taxi driver to factory worker making crystal
vases.

He remembers most fondly his days as tram driver, spent riding through a
city almost created by his great-grandfather's pen and observing its
residents unnoticed.

"I liked driving through Dostoevsky's city, through the 'human anthill', to
use his expression. I enjoyed catching glimpses of people's day-to-day
lives through the windows.

"You sit quite high in a tram, so you are able to look directly into ground
floor apartments," he confessed cheerfully from atop a small kitchen stool.

Dmitry shunned Dostoyevsky for almost 30 years, repelled by the inevitable
questions raised when he mentioned his surname.

Now, he says his great-grandfather's writings can help Russians, especially
younger generations, cope with tragedies.

"I am very happy to see that most young people today, regardless of how
hard life can be for them now, discover Dostoyevsky much earlier than I did.

"This will help them understand themselves better during the most difficult
moments of their lives."

But what makes Dostoyevsky most relevant in today's Russia, he says, is the
religious message at the heart of each novel.

PARADISE LOST, AND FOUND

Despite the Soviet Union's attempt to eradicate religion, faith flourished
after the 1991 collapse of communist rule. The story of a young man's
evolution from a gruesome murder to God, therefore, finds a keen audience
in modern Russia.

Dostoyevsky, who cherished Western ideals and revolutionary theories in his
youth, had become a strong monarchist and a devout Orthodox Christian by
the end of his life.

Largely behind this change was his involvement with utopian socialists in
the 1840s, for which he was sentenced to death. The execution turned out to
be a mock one, and he was sent into exile in Siberia for 10 years,
including four in a prison camp.

These events lead to the onset of severe epilepsy which plagued Dostoyevsky
for the rest of his life and which contributed to his reputation as
impulsive and unstable.

But what ultimately appeals, in Dostoyevsky's work, is that the most
wretched and sinful are offered redemption.

As his heir puts it: "There are still many Raskolnikovs today."

*******

#4
The Korea Herald
November 25, 2002
Russian-American friendship
By Art Buchwald

A wild thing happened last week. I attended a Russian-American friendship
dinner at the Russian Embassy.

Because it was a black-tie affair, I couldn't tell the Russians from the
Americans.

The honoree was Tatiana Kudriavtseva, who has translated such leading
American writers as Norman Mailer, William Styron, John Updike and Gore
Vidal into Russian. She also did the same for "Gone With the Wind.''

I had very mixed feelings about going into the embassy. It seemed like only
yesterday that Sen. Joe McCarthy, as well as the House Un-American
Activities Committee, wanted names of anyone who gave a hint of being
friendly with the Russians.

The fellow travelers were called traitors and Communist rats. The only way
the committee could get blacklists was to force the witnesses at the
hearings to give up the names of their friends.

As I entered the well-guarded gates of the embassy, I thought, "How long
will it be before I am called before a House committee and have to testify
that I attended a friendship dinner for the Russians?''

They would ask me for names and I would turn over the program for the
evening, which lists, among the sponsors, Sen. Ted Stevens, Trent Lott, Ted
Daschle and Joseph Biden.

The second thing that went through my mind was that I live only four blocks
from the embassy. For years it was the most forbidding place in Washington.
No one went in unless they were Russian or from an Iron Curtain country.

The Americans had rented apartments overlooking the embassy, and there were
always two or three police cars or unmarked FBI vans videotaping the
Russians, who were taping them.

Now I was being treated with open arms by the ex-Evil Empire.

A friend of mine had a theory. He said in the good old days, the two major
powers divided up the world. One side was responsible for everything in
their sphere and the U.S. was responsible for the rest.

Looking back on it as nuclear powers, we were happy with the arrangement.
Then Russia lost its control over its half and we have now lost control
over ours.

I'm in the embassy rubbing shoulders with the Washington and Russian elite.
My friend Bill Styron is making a speech in honor of Madam Kudriavtseva,
who translated "Sophie's Choice.''

He told us about the first time they got together in Moscow when there was
the threat of censorship.

Madam Kudriavtseva told Bill, "This scene, which is too bawdy, has to go.''

"Suppose I insist that it remain in?'' Bill asked.

The translator said, "Then I would be arrested.''

And then she added, "And this love scene has to be taken out.''

"What happens if I refuse?''

"Then I will be taken to a gulag,'' Madam Kudriavtseva said. "And this
paragraph with the couple in bed also has to go.''

"What will happen if you leave the scene in?''

"I will be executed.''

The food was excellent, and for the first time, I had warm feelings for the
Russian people.

The only hitch was when we left it took a long time to get our cars from
the valet-parking people.

One discouraged person said, "The reason it takes so long is that the
Russians are now parking all the automobiles in the tunnel the FBI dug
before we became friendly with them.''
(Tribune Media Services)

*******

#5
BBC Monitoring
Minister says Russian-US partnership good for world stability
Source: Channel One TV, Moscow, in Russian 1800 gmt 23 Nov 02

[Presenter] Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov was interviewed by Channel
One tonight about the problems of the modern world and Russia's priorities
in foreign policy.

[Correspondent] Russia and the USA have been enemies, friends and partners
in their history. What are we now?

[Ivanov] I think we are partners now, partners in resolving the problems
which our countries and the international community are facing now. We have
appreciated the significance of this partnership when we have encountered a
shared threat for real, the threat of terrorism. Having appreciated this
significance, having realized that we are partners now in the fight against
a common enemy, we are strengthening this partnership.

This partnership will require a great deal of effort from either side, of
course. This partnership will require mutual trust and mutual understanding
of interests. This is a long process. This does not mean we will have no
disagreements or conflicts. But if we follow this common main, strategic
goal - fight against shared threats and challenges - I am confident that
this partnership will be strengthened for the benefit of our countries and
stability in the world in general.

[Correspondent] Iraq is now very high on the international agenda. Russia
has always been against military strikes against Iraq. But if bombing
starts, what can Russia do?

[Ivanov] We are in favour of strengthening the regime of nonproliferation
of weapons of mass destruction. We are against weapons of mass destruction
spreading. Therefore, this is a common goal for us. We must be sure that
Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. If Iraq has them, they must be
destroyed. In the name of this we are prepared to work together but, I
reiterate, on the basis of respect for international law and, in this case,
of strict adherence to the provisions of Resolution 1441.

[Correspondent] Yesterday you were at a NATO summit in Prague. The summit
has expanded NATO's borders and accepted the Baltic republics. Thus NATO
has gone beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union. Does this mean that
Russia has lost in any sense, that its national interests have been hurt?

[Ivanov] There should be a clear understanding that if Russia loses in what
concerns security, then everyone will lose. We, at the same time, have
noticed that NATO has put down in its documents the need to change what
concerns the military aspect of the organization.

Russia or the former Soviet Union or what remains of the former Soviet
Union are not the enemy anymore, there are now completely new threats. If
so, NATO activities must change direction towards countering these new
threats and challenges.

For us, of course, the interests of national security are a priority. We
will watch NATO's actions carefully, for them not to be in conflict with
the interests of our national security. We have received assurances from
the NATO leadership, US president and leaders of other NATO member states
that NATO's actions will not run counter to the interests of security. It
is important that these words translate into deeds.

[Correspondent] Does Russia have any levers of influence which it can use
if these promises remain promises?

[Ivanov] There is only one lever today and I think it is the main lever:
understanding that we live in a mutually dependent world. The closer our
cooperation in the fight against shared threats is, the more secure we will
feel. We believe that the understanding of this is growing ever stronger in
the world.

[Correspondent] Igor Sergeyevich, thank you very much for finding time and
opportunity to answer our questions.

*******

#6
Newsday
November 24, 2002
Editorial
Bush-Putin Relationship Ties Russia to West

The Russian-American relationship remains one of the most crucial aspects
of U.S. foreign policy and forging a cooperative framework to deal with the
age of terror now is a key strategic concern for both nations. So it was
important for President George W. Bush to meet with Russian President
Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg following the Prague summit, which added
seven new members - all but one a former Soviet satellite - to the NATO
alliance.

But the meeting was far more than an obligatory courtesy call to thank
Putin for his support of the UN resolution on Iraq's disarmament and to
reassure him that the latest NATO expansion poses no threat to Russian
interests. Bush brought from Prague a declaration in which NATO leaders
committed themselves to broadening cooperation with Russia as "equal
partners." With this move, Bush is shrewdly melding the expansion of NATO
with an expansion of Russia's role in NATO, a role that is in the nascent
stage now but, properly developed, would tie Moscow more tightly to the West.

This should not preclude Bush from also pushing for a closer strategic
relationship between Moscow and Washington. Faced with the threat of terror
and the inroads al-Qaida has made among Islamic populations in Russia, it
is in Putin's best interest to cooperate with Washington on common
strategic concerns. In turn, clinching closer ties to Washington and NATO
would give Russia a greater trade and economic entree to the West - a huge
plus for Putin.

The success of Bush's visit was best measured in the joint statement the
two leaders issued after their private talks, calling on Iraq "to comply
fully and immediately" with the UN disarmament resolution. It was a big
symbolic victory for Bush, since Putin had been the most reluctant of the
Security Council's veto-bearing members to approve of the move against Iraq.

In turn, Bush assured Putin that Russian interests in Iraq - $8 billion
owed in arms sales and billions of dollars more in prospective oil
development contracts - would be safeguarded in the aftermath of a possible
war. This was the first time Bush or any member of his administration made
such assurances in public, though it was known that without them Putin
might never have agreed to go along with a tough Iraq resolution.

Bush, however, was a bit too effusive in praising Putin for his handling of
the Chechen hostage crisis, which resulted in a deadly debacle because of
Putin's ham-handedness and damaging decision not to reveal the toxic nature
of the knockout gas used to break the siege in a Moscow theater. One hopes
that in private Bush showed better judgment on the Chechen issue.

Russia must be made to see that its national interests - economic as well
as strategic - would be best served by cooperation with the West. Putin
knows this well, but he needs to convince hard-line nationalists in his
government who still bristle at the post-Soviet decline of Russian power
and prestige.

In this meeting, Bush may have given him the right leverage to press for
forging closer ties to Washington and NATO.

*******

#7
The Economist (UK)
November 23-29, 2002
Playing the system
Moscow

They were once colleagues, but Andrei Illarionov and Anatoly Chubais have
since fallen out. Respectively economic adviser to President Vladimir
Putin, and boss of Unified Energy System (UES), Russia's electricity
monopoly, the two are now at each other's throats over the planned
restructuring of the electricity sector.

The plan, in gestation for two-and-a-half years but now bogged down in
parliament, is a classic piece of vertical disintegration, keeping the
nationwide grid in state hands but breaking up distribution and generation
into bite-sized chunks, creating a competitive market in electricity. The
rows, of which the latest broke at a conference in Boston last week, are
about how Mr Chubais is preparing for it. Minority shareholders say Mr
Chubais has been pre-emptively selling UES assets cheaply on the sly,
despite Mr Putin's decree last year that the company must be broken up "pro
rata"--ensuring that anybody with a stake now will have the same stake in
its restructured parts. But after several deals reminiscent of the 1990s
loans-for-shares privatisation (in which Mr Chubais oversaw the sale of
state assets, now worth $25 billion, for some $1.2 billion), repeated
delays to the restructuring programme and a lacklustre share price, in
September the UES boss announced a freeze on asset sales.

In Boston, UES said that private firms might manage one or two of the ten
planned wholesale generating companies. These new "gencos", insists UES,
would get no special rights to the assets they manage, and their expertise
would appeal to future investors. Minority shareholders are suspicious.
Alexander Branis, of Moscow-based Prosperity Capital Management, a member
of the UES board, thinks the scheme is "a pretext to move assets to other
holders". Other shareholders, led by Hermitage Capital, another Moscow
firm, have gathered enough proxy votes to call an extraordinary general
meeting. They threaten to have Mr Chubais fired, unless the government
reins him in. (A vote to oust him would need government support, as it is
the largest shareholder.)

UES needs to attract private investment fast. Without it, there will be
widespread blackouts in a few years. But nobody knows the true state of the
system, argues Mr Branis. Under Soviet central planning, power-plant
managers exaggerated their investment needs. The Soviets were inefficient:
relative to economic output, Russia uses up to four times as much
electricity as west European countries. Now business is more
energy-conscious, demand for power is growing more slowly. Until the market
is liberalised, nobody knows what demand will be.

Fears of asset-stripping aside, Mr Illarionov thinks the main weakness in
the reform plan is that Mr Chubais may control the national grid, a
powerful weapon in a country where vast regions have one supply line. Mr
Chubais dismisses Mr Illarionov's attacks as personally motivated. He hopes
that the reform bill, which has been held up by some 1,800 amendments, will
have a second reading on December 18th.

If it does not, coming elections could delay it until late 2004--giving
critics of Mr Chubais plenty of time to undermine him. But if Mr Illarionov
has the president's ear, why is the UES boss still in his job? Either Mr
Putin likes to watch his subordinates scrapping; or Mr Chubais has too many
allies. On that question, even the voluble Mr Illarionov prefers to be
silent.

******

#8
GERMAN FILM-MAKERS SHOOTING FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY ABOUT STALIN IN YALTA

SIMFEROPOL, 23 November 2002. /from RIA Novosti correspondent Svetlana
Tumanova/. - A group of German film-makers from Berlin has completed
shooting a unique feature-length documentary about Joseph Stalin to mark
the notorious leader's 50-th death anniversary, Sergei Kanev, head of
Crimea's Union of Film-Makers told journalists.

Inga Trimpert-Wolfram, a well-known German historian specializing in
research on the 40s-50s watershed period of the twentieth century, authored
the project preliminarily titled as Great Dictator.

"For many years I have been trying to determine the main difference between
the last century's two major political figures. In my opinion, what sets
them apart is the fact that Hitler was killing Germany's enemies whereas
Stalin was killing his fellow countrymen," she maintained at her meeting
with the Yalta-based film-makers.

In her film, Ms Trimpert-Wolfram intends to "show the Stalin-dominated
period of Russian history from a new perspective", to try and make an
insight into the innermost recesses of Stalin's character and create a
psychological portrait not only of Stalin, a global-sized politician of his
time, but also of Stalin, a human being, whose controversial nature remains
enigmatic to this day." Among other things, the German film-makers'
innovative approach, Sergei Kanev points out, comes across in the style of
their presentation. The author of the film never appears on screen, with
the narration coming from Stalin himself, a move that is meant to help
convey the true feel of the period's atmosphere.

When in the Crimea, the German film-making crew was shooting in such
notable locations as Yalta's southern seaside and the Massandra (Vorontsov)
and Livadia estate museums, the latter being the venue of the famous 1944
Yalta conference where the three leaders of the anti-fascist coalition
discussed the blueprints of the postwar world order and where the
stereotype of Stalin as "a great dictator" was given its first "crack".
"The Yalta conference displayed Stalin not as a villain Bolshevik he had
been traditionally depicted in the West, but as a man who defeated Hitler,
Inga Trimpert-Wolfram said. She added that the Crimea was but an episode in
her multi-layered historical epic spanning also the Caucasus where the
future "Koba" had started his revolutionary pursuit, Moscow and Samara, the
centre of the latter still holding an underground bunker, a residence of
the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

Part of the film's footage has already been shot in Georgia, in Tbilisi and
Gori, the latter being Stalin's birthplace where one can still visit the
house he had been born in and a railway car that took him to the Potsdam
conference in 1945.

According to Sergei Kanev, the Crimea's Union of Film-Makers will receive
the film's full copy in 2 - 3 months and is going to show it to the public
in early March of 2003 to mark Stalin's 50-th death anniversary.

******

#9
Georgia: Shevardnadze Officially Requests Invitation To Join NATO
By Jean-Christophe Peuch

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze today officially requested that his
country be invited to join NATO. The Georgian leader, in Prague for this
week's alliance summit, said much work remains before his country is ready
to join NATO, but he expressed confidence that Georgia will eventually make
a strong candidate for entry.

Prague, 22 November 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Georgian President Eduard
Shevardnadze, speaking today on the second and final day of the Prague NATO
summit, officially requested that his country be invited to join the
53-year-old alliance.

Speaking to RFE/RL after the Georgian leader's announcement, presidential
spokesman Kakha Imnadze said the following: "[President] Shevardnadze
stated that Georgia is ready to enter NATO, that he is perfectly aware that
it is not an easy process, that we need to undergo a serious preparation in
the foreseeable future. He also said that the country will do everything so
that Georgia becomes a member of NATO and to reach those standards that
will really allow Georgia to become a fully fledged member of the alliance."

Georgian Security Council Secretary Tedo Japaridze said Shevardnadze met
today with U.S. President George W. Bush, who expressed his support for
Tbilisi's membership bid. Washington this year launched a $64 million
program to modernize Georgia's armed forces and train them in antiterrorism
tactics.

Shevardnadze, who in the past has said he expected his country to "knock at
NATO's door" by 2005, this time avoided giving any indication of a possible
admission time frame.

Speaking to journalists and students from NATO countries at RFE/RL's
headquarters yesterday, the Georgian leader said he realized that it would
take time before his country is invited to become a member of the alliance.

Addressing NATO leaders today, Shevardnadze said that, although Georgia's
road toward the alliance will not be a short one, "it will not be as long
as it seemed a few years ago," Georgia's Prime News quoted him as saying.

As the Georgian leader said yesterday, his country must first gain economic
strength and restore its territorial integrity before it can reasonably
expect to join NATO.

Shevardnadze was referring to unresolved conflicts in the separatist
republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have been out of Tbilisi's
control since the early 1990s.

Georgian officials believe the key to resolving the conflicts lies in
Moscow's hands.

Russia actively supported both Abkhazia and South Ossetia during the active
phase of the conflicts and later mediated between Tbilisi and its breakaway
regions. Georgia has since accused Moscow of de facto annexing Abkhazia and
South Ossetia by illegally granting Russian citizenship to residents in
both regions.

Relations between Tbilisi and Moscow have further deteriorated in recent
months after Russia threatened to launch military strikes on Chechen
training camps allegedly located in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a reportedly
lawless area close to the Chechen border.

Georgia's Interior Ministry since then has proceeded to restore its
authority in Pankisi, arresting several wanted criminals and alleged
Chechen separatist fighters.

Although he did not directly allude to Russia in his remarks yesterday,
Shevardnadze hinted that Georgia sees NATO membership as a guarantee
against security threats from Moscow. "NATO membership means security for
Georgia. It means that we will have final security guarantees. Throughout
our history, we have seen a lot of hardship, and I think that today the
only right decision is to become a member of NATO," Shevardnadze said.

Russia has not yet reacted to Georgia's decision to apply for NATO membership.

Another bone of contention between the two countries is the presence of two
Russian military bases in Georgia, one in the predominantly ethnic Armenian
region of Akhalkalaki and the other in Batumi, the capital of the southern
autonomous republic of Adjaria.

In 1999, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE,
demanded that all Russian troops withdraw from Georgia as soon as possible.

Russia last year vacated two other military bases (Gudauta and Vaziani) and
one military airfield (Marneuli) but has so far refused to agree on a time
frame for the vacation of Akhalkalaki and Batumi.

Moscow insists that it may be another 10 years before it has either the
money or the infrastructure necessary to complete its withdrawal from
Georgia. Tbilisi says it wants both bases vacated within the next three years.

Yesterday, Shevardnadze said that Moscow must comply with the OSCE decision
because "there is no other alternative." "If we take into account that
decisions have been made by international organizations, that decisions
regarding the withdrawal of the Russian military bases from Georgia have
been made by the OSCE at the highest level, then these decisions must be
fulfilled," Shevardnadze said.

In a more conciliatory tone, Shevardnadze said Georgia should be
"realistic" in its demands and take Russia's financial concerns into
consideration.

Talking to reporters today in Prague, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
said he hoped Moscow and Tbilisi would reach a "mutually satisfactory"
agreement on the issue.

Both capitals regard the Akhalkalaki and Batumi bases as a major obstacle
to the signing of a new bilateral treaty designed to replace a similar pact
signed in 1994 but never ratified by Moscow.

(Koba Liklikadze of RFE/RL's Georgian Service contributed to this report.)

******

#10
The Russia Journal
November 22-28, 2002
Time for deportation again?
Otto Latsis

The news that 70 illegal Tajik immigrants would be deported from Moscow
Oblast caused a stir last week. At the same time, an even more sensational
event that harkened back to the deportations of a completely different era
was the news that hundreds of Chechen families living in refugee camps in
Ingushetia asked Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev to allow them to go to
Kazakstan. Then, U.S. embassy officials visited Krasnodar Krai, the homebase
of Meskhetinian Turks, sparking off rumors that they would be allowed to
immigrate to the United States. These three different anticipated events had
the same outcome: None of them came to pass.

There was no room in the plane for the Tajiks. The Moscow Oblast authorities
decided to save money on tickets by putting the Tajiks on a military plane
making its weekly mail run to the Russian division guarding the Tajik-Afghan
border. But the plane turned out to already be full of Defense Ministry
passengers.

The Chechen refugees got a preliminary reply from Kazakstan that their
request would not be granted. This was only to be expected – their request
was more an act of desperation than a practical plan.

Finally, the U.S. State Department said it had no definite answer yet on the
Meskhetinian Turks and was still studying the problem.

It is not the consequences of these events that are important, however, but
how they characterize the political situation in Russia today. The mass
deportation of the Chechen people to Kazakstan 58 years ago, which saw at
least a quarter of the deportees die of cold and hunger on the way, is still
seen as one of the bleakest pages in Chechen history and one of the greatest
crimes of the Stalin regime. For these people to ask to be sent back into
exile voluntarily shows just how desperate they are.

The Meskhetinian Turks, on the other hand, don't want to go anywhere. Like
the Chechens, Stalin exiled them from their homeland. But they were unable to
return to Georgia, where they had lived for hundreds of years, because homes
and land had been taken by new settlers, and, after the Soviet Union
collapsed, there was not even any legal basis for their return.

Krasnodar Krai, where they have spent the last decade, has become their place
of permanent residence, but the new governor, Alexander Tkachyov, is making
life all but impossible for them and trying to force them to leave. Given
that the Meskhetinian Turks are known as a hardworking and law-abiding
people, it's hard to see the point in Tkachyov's actions. Most likely, it's
just Tkachyov displaying his notorious xenophobia.

The case of the 70 Tajiks in Moscow Oblast is quite different. The term
"illegal immigrants" that has been applied to them doesn't reflect the facts.
The Tajiks did not sneak across borders or hide in the holds of ships to get
here. Nor do they plan to stay in Russia for good. They are typical migrant
laborers who shelled out what for them is a lot of money for a tourist visa
to Russia, to spend some time here working on construction sites.

The Tajiks work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and are happy to be paid
half of what their Russian counterparts earn because it is still five to 10
times more than what they would be paid at home. Their Russian employers
often cheat them and try to get out of paying them anything at all at the end
of the season. The employers are in league with the police, who milk migrant
workers for bribes at every turn. If, for whatever bureaucratic reason, the
Tajiks don't manage to extend their registration on time, they become
"illegal" and are then easy prey for the police, who stop people with
non-Slavic looks on the street, forcing them to empty their wallets.

This has all become a part of the migrant workers' (and they are not just
Tajiks) daily lives, and there is nothing they can do to stop it. The
authorities ignore the occasional articles in the press about these problems.
But it's hard for a non-bureaucratic mind to understand what the point was
behind the Moscow Oblast authorities' decision to turn its shameful actions
into such a public operation.

Were they trying to score points by taking advantage of the anti-immigrant
hysteria whipped up by the hostage-taking in Moscow? If so, then their
actions had the reverse effect, as, from a purely practical point of view,
the operation was a flop.

It's not by chance that various people have mentioned the grim word
"deportation" over recent days and in various contexts.

It reflects the atmosphere of lawlessness and arbitrariness that is spreading
further and further through Russia, and that is inseparable from the eight
years of the ongoing war in Chechnya. It would be naive to think that the
only victims will be Chechens, Meskhetinian Turks and migrant workers. More
and more often, all Russians are becoming victims of this stifling atmosphere.

*******

#11
BBC Monitoring
Western "pressure" on CIS states makes them turn to Moscow - paper
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 21 Nov 02

Russia's heavyweight broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta has said that officials
from some CIS countries which believe they are under pressure from the West
in one form or another have started visiting Moscow more frequently.
Russia's influence within the CIS has increased considerably, the paper
said. Some analysts have started talking about the possibility of creating
a powerful union of states under Russia's administration, on whose borders
a new "iron curtain" will be formed, according to the paper. The following
is an excerpt from a report in Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 21
November:

Every foreign policy step by [Belarusian President] Alyaksandr Lukashenka
becomes a sensation nowadays. His image personifies the creation of a new
"iron curtain" on the border between two worlds - the world subordinate to
the West and the world ruled by Russia. It is revealing that essentially
without any legal grounds for this, the West has deemed eight people from
the Belarusian top state leadership "not suitable for travelling abroad".
Europe and the United States have started to check hypercritically the
documents of a great many political figures and statesmen from CIS
countries. And these have started being drawn to Russia... [ellipsis as
published].

Last week Vladimir Putin offered tea to his Ukrainian counterpart. And next
week, the Belarusian president will pay a friendly visit to the Kremlin.
Moreover, like Kuchma, Lukashenka has arranged the meeting with Putin by
telephone... Minsk is equating the actions of the EU with "the actions of
fascist Germany, which in the name of combating communism burnt down cities
and killed people". Against this backdrop Lukashenka's expected arrival in
Moscow is seen as the action of a man driven into a corner. According to
certain reports, Minsk is prepared to transfer a number of very attractive
installations in the oil and gas infrastructure to Russia today on terms
acceptable to it, although earlier the Belarusian authorities had been
refusing to include the question of the privatization of such enterprises
on the agenda of the talks with Russia.

The European structures and Western democracies that have politically
isolated (de jure and de facto) a number of regimes within the CIS that the
West finds objectionable have so far achieved the opposite of what they
expected: All the CIS presidents and their entourages, perceiving pressure
from the West in one form or another, have started visiting Moscow more
frequently. As a result, Russia's influence within the CIS has broadened
considerably. To such an extent that certain analysts have started talking
about the possibility of creating a powerful union of states under Russia's
administration, on whose borders, as in Soviet times, an "iron curtain"
will be formed. In this case, Russian foreign policy will be given an
additional, very serious trump card in talks with the EU and the United
States.

******

#12
From: "Matthew Maly" 
Subject: From the 6th Russian Investment Symposium
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002

Russians studying English often ask a question, "Why write 'sought' when you
could have just spell it 'sot'?" Indeed, 'sot' is a shorter and more logical
spelling that conveys the same sequence of sounds. And the answer is that
English spelling does not seek to be the easiest and most logical, but aims
to preserve the history of the language, showing English the way it
developed through centuries of its existence. Wel, Ai khav dzhast attended a
6th Russian Investment Symposium, wich sot tu prezent Russia in a bit tu
"lodzhical" a lait.

Let's start with the short talk given by the Governor of Evenkiya.
Evenkiya's territory is huge and chock full of natural resources. Evenkiya
has a population of just 90, 000 - and yet, it has no investment projects
going. Now, if I were to tell you that Fort Knox is protected by just two
midgets, would you not be amazed? How could so few people be able to keep
everyone away from so much treasure? Just as I was getting ready for the
Governor to discuss what kind of an extra powerful Investor Repellant does
Evenkiya use to keep its industrial virginity, the Governor ended his talk:
"Come, be the first ever western investor in Evenkiya!" Thanks, but I'd
rather not.

This talk is very representative of what happened at this Symposium. There
are real issues, but they are never discussed, and then there are issues
that appear very relevant but absolutely do not get us closer to the
solution. When I was 17, I was once able to get beautiful Masha to come to
my place while my parents were out. I wanted you-know-what, but Masha wanted
me to help her with algebra homework. After that, we discussed the chemistry
teacher, a few movies, and then drank some juice. I rated the evening as
highly unsatisfactory, and at the Symposium I felt the same way.

How could you not love the talk delivered by the Russian Labor Minister,
Alexander Pochinok! The entire talk was based on a formula "You want that?
Okay!" that he repeated at least ten times in a short speech. You want more
laws? Okay! You want more figures? Okay! You want to see economic growth?
Okay! Pochinok ended his talk actually laughing with joy: he felt that he
had delivered. Even a quick-and-dirty examination of his figures would
reveal that they are phony and irrelevant - but this is not the issue. The
issue is: if everything in Russia is "Okay" why is it such a disaster? Why
is there no investment, no civil society, and probably no future for the
country as we see it today?

Let me answer these questions to show what the real issues are. In a course
of their long history, SOME human societies developed a concept of an
INDIVIDUAL. To exist, individuals need PRIVATE PROPERTY, which would enable
them to shape their INDIVIDUAL DESTINY. That made private property valuable,
and to protect it, societies made LAWS. Please feel free to make definitions
as we go along. PRIVATE PROPERTY is what an INDIVIDUAL unconditionally
possesses so that he could shape his individual destiny. A law is a rule
that offers comprehensive protection of this private property. Now, if you
wear handcuffs, are they your private property? No, they are not, because
they do not help YOU to shape YOUR individual destiny. Please note that from
that it follows that not everything that is "yours" is your private
property. Next. Suppose there is a regulation stating that should you jump
fifty feet in the air, you will be able to hold a piece of bread in your
left hand for seven seconds. Is this a law? No, it is not, even if it passed
the State Duma and "signed into law" by Putin himself. It is not a law
because it turns a piece of bread into an impossible-to-possess virtual
entity. Since Russia has no concept of an individual, it has no private
property, and thus, BY DEFINITION, does not have ANY laws. A statement, "Let
me do that since my uncle can kick your butt" is not a law, and yet in
Russia it is the only way to compose a valid "legal" statement.

Thus, the true topic of the Symposium should have been: "Does Russia
recognize an Individual, so that he can creatively use Private Property,
which therefore needs to be protected by Laws, in such a way that
Individuals possessing Private Property protected by Laws would form a Civil
Society?"  But that topic was not discussed. Instead, we heard that Russian
society, which is characterized by an exceptionally low creative potential,
was somehow able to sell its oil (which is an asset that was not really
"produced") at such a price as to exhibit a 4% growth of a set of figures
vaguely and indirectly related to some aspects of Russia's economic
condition. Okay??

The reality of the Russian legal system was actually discussed at the
Symposium, but only indirectly. Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital Management
revealed that out of 32 times he has been to Russian courts he lost 31
times. Mr. Browder's claims are very reasonable, but they are formulated
with a western legal logic (Mr. Browder pointedly added that he won four out
of four of the western cases he has been a party to). Well, Mr. Browder's
legal record in Russia is a conclusive proof that he is not a personal
friend of Mr. Putin's judo trainer. Befriend the trainer, Mr. Browder, and
you will see your legal briefs acquire undisputed legal merit, under the
Russian "law".

Here is how Symposium's logic went: "Private property is good, laws are
good, cooperation on a win/win basis is good - therefore Russia should have
them, and if you name something "property" or "law" that is exactly what
they would be, even if they demonstrably lack some major defining
characteristics".  Let me give you another example of this logic. The larger
is the brain of an animal, the smarter it is, and the more it can do.
Elephant's brain in a thousand times larger than that of a pigeon. Muscles
make an animal stronger, and an elephant has a thousand times more body mass
than a pigeon. Since a pigeon could fly, it follows that an elephant, with
all its brain and muscle strength, can surely fly like a rocket. Now, a
close examination of an elephant reveals large floppy ears, which, as we
gleefully point out, a pigeon, being too underdeveloped, does not have. We
therefore rename these ears as "elephant's wings" and have Pochinok tell us
the ear floppability has increased 4 percent, wholly unrelated to observable
insect activity, and state that elephant is "resting before takeoff".

Russia has catastrophic problems stemming from the fact that property there
is conditionally controlled by those whose hands can grab but cannot plant a
seed. In Russia, breakdown of an old system gave rise to several
uncontrolled, highly dangerous processes, such as creation of a criminal
state, demographic and religious tensions, and an epidemic of infectious
diseases that will soon threaten the world. These issues were not discussed
at all; instead, there was yet another discussion of how can the
disintegration be used to gain temporary profit. Well, as the Titanic was
sinking there indeed was much to grab. If you could grab the earrings and
still make it to the lifeboat, Russia is indeed a place for you.

There also was a discussion of some genuinely successful Russian businesses,
such as IT businesses. These businesses are successful in part because they
find it easier to pretend that they do nothing and do not earn anything.
Russians exist, Russians adapt, and some Russians do succeed, but they still
cannot openly show that they are independent and genuinely free creators of
their own destiny.

Sooner rather than later there will be a real discussion of Russia. Russia's
problem is that it does not have individuals and thus does not have
citizens. 150 million people inhabit this huge area of Earth's surface, but
do not possess it; and so the conditional possession gravitates towards
Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, and the like, giving an appearance of a "business
success" to an untrained or a very biased observer.

Just as the English language, Russia has its own, historically influenced,
illogical, and yet clearly understandable, "spelling". We cannot hope to
reform Russia if we refuse to see Russia for what it really is.

Matthew Maly

http://matthew-maly.ru/index-eng.html

P.S. If you want to see how I failed to realize that a sequence of letters
"a $67M of US funds to be used for conversion of the former Soviet producers
of weapons of mass destruction" should actually be read as "a gift of the US
Government to a small group of Americans", please go here:
http://matthew-maly.ru/library/def-dscr.html

********

#13
Effort launched to create network of Russian emigres on national level
By Sharon Samber

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (JTA) — More than a half-million immigrants and
refugees from the former Soviet Union have flowed into the United States
during the last few decades, but there has been no effort to organize them
into a nationwide body — until now.

With the help of a government grant, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is
setting up a national network to strengthen and connect local organizations
serving Russian Jews.

The technical assistance will teach local groups how to apply for federal
funding and form social service organizations. The grant will also help
local groups share information, conduct training and develop program ideas.

The $176,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’
Office of Refugee Resettlement will help phase in a project called LOREO —
for Local Russian Emigre Organizations — over the next three years.

Project coordinators will be put in place this year in New York, Atlanta,
San Francisco and Minneapolis.

HIAS will provide training and teach the local leaders how to launch
advocacy programs and work together with Jewish federations. HIAS also will
develop a bilingual civic participation guide to increase voter
registration and help Russian emigres become U.S. citizens.

An interactive LOREO Web site is also in the works. Planners expect that
its message board, monthly calendar and links will help facilitate
grass-roots organizing efforts.

Since the mid-1970s, HIAS has helped more than 300,000 Jewish refugees from
the former Soviet Union and its successor states escape persecution and
rebuild new lives in the United States.

Getting the Russian-speaking population to organize and develop political
skills is long overdue, according to Leonard Glickman, president of HIAS.

“They should be much further along than they are,” he said.

A number of factors have prevented the community from organizing on a
national scale. They include a lack of funding, language barriers and a
mistrust of government left over from the immigrants’ days in the Soviet
Union.

Wariness of political organizations has likewise given Russian-speakers
little incentive to get involved in American politics.

But now it seems the timing is right: Many immigrants and refugees who came
to the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s have established
themselves financially.

In the Los Angeles area, for example, people are settled and more willing
to become involved on a community level, said Helen Levin, the executive
director of the Russian community center in West Hollywood.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian-speakers live in the Los Angeles area.
While most are well-educated and professional, they have to be “more
organized and more active in American life,” Levin said.

“How to unite them all and interest them all is the crucial question, and
that’s what we have to work on.”

Some of the most pressing issues for Los Angeles and other communities are
after-school programming for immigrant youths, access to Jewish education
and care for the elderly.

HIAS primarily wants to act as a facilitator and allow the local
organizations to team up with federations to become part of the larger
American Jewish community, said Marina Belotserkovsky, herself an immigrant
from the former Soviet Union and now the director of HIAS’ office of
Russian-Community Outreach.

The small advocacy efforts of volunteer organizations can coalesce into
something more forceful and helpful, Belotserkovsky said.

“The community now is very ready,” she added.

*******

#14
US moves to allay Russia economic concerns on Iraq
By Carol Giacomo

WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - With a statement this week by President
George W. Bush, the United States has moved to allay what some experts
believe is Moscow's top Iraq-related concern, ensuring Russian economic
interests are respected if Saddam Hussein is overthrown.

Until now, U.S. officials seeking Russian support for America's Iraq policy
have provided general assurances in private that Russia could count on
recouping debt from, and continuing lucrative oil business with, the
government in Baghdad, if a new leadership comes to power.

Bush took such assurances to a more formal and public level when he told
Russia's NTV Television on Thursday that if there is regime change in
Baghdad, "we fully realize that Russia has economic interests in Iraq, as
do other countries."

"Of course, these interests will be taken into account," he added.

Bush did not spell out exactly what that means. U.S. officials say there
are too many variables in Iraq's future and argue it's not up to Washington
to parcel out Iraqi resources.

But analysts said the president's public comments were an important sign
that Russian interests will be protected, meaning oil contracts will be
honored and debts repaid.

"It's significant," said Russian expert Celeste Wallender.

"I think it's not hard and fast, but a pretty solid indication, that the
U.S. position is going to be that those (Russian oil) contracts are
legitimate" even after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has left the scene,
said Wallender,

Russia/Eurasia program director at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.

DEBT, OIL

After much debate, Russia backed a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council
resolution adopted Nov 8 that gives Iraq a "final opportunity" to disarm or
face a U.S. threat of war.

Russia has been concerned that if Washington takes action to oust Saddam,
billions of dollars in contracts and agreements signed by Saddam's regime
with Russian oil firms to develop Iraq's oil fields will be deemed moot,
allowing American and other western companies to benefit.

Also, Iraq owes Russia $8 billion plus interest for an estimated total of
$12 billion.

"The main imperatives behind Russia's policy on Iraq have been and remain
clearly economic and geoeconomic," according to Ekaterina Stepanova of
Moscow's Institute of World Economy and International Relations.

Russia has a $3.5 billion, 23-year deal with Iraq to rehabilitate Iraqi
oilfields, including the West Qurna field, one of the world richest
deposits, she said in an analysis.

Also, Iraq previously has announced that it was inclined to favor Russia
over France and other contenders for awarding development rights to two
other fields, Majnoon and Nahr Umar.

In the past two years, Russian oil companies Lukoil, Tatneft, Slavneft and
Zarubezhneft controlled one-third of Iraq's multi-billion dollar oil export
market, she said.

In 2001, Russia received the largest share of Iraq's contracts -- up to
$1.3 billion -- under the United Nations' oil-for-food program, which
allows Iraq to sell oil only to buy supplies for Iraqi civilians,
Stepanova's analysis said.

Iraq's oil exports are controlled by the U.N. in this way because of
sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.

While dismissing questions about the future of Russian oil contracts with
Iraq as hypothetical at this point, deputy spokesman Phillip Reeker told
reporters on Friday: "I think obviously legitimate contracts are something
that the United States and the international community takes quite seriously."

Use of the word "legitimate" could be important. Some U.S. officials have
privately questioned how many of the Russian deals with Iraq would meet
that criteria.

Members of the Iraqi opposition, who are keen to be part of any new
government that succeeds Saddam, have said they would reconsider oil deals
signed by Saddam, and just what impact they would have in this regard is
unclear.

PRICE STABILITY

Moscow worries that a U.S.-led war in Iraq and a surge of western oil
companies into the country could collapse the price of oil, with a severe
economic impact on Russia.

The Washington Post, citing a high-ranking Russian foreign ministry
official, reported on Friday that Moscow and Washington had a "gentleman's
agreement" to maintain oil at around $21 per barrel. Oil prices have been
at $25 per barrel.

A State Department official played down the possibility of such a deal. He
said the United States cannot control the oil markets and that, at least in
the short term, Iraq has limited ability to increase production, so any
sudden dumping of oil that could spike the price is unlikely.

He did, however, reiterate Washington's keen interest in maintaining
stability in world oil markets.

Wallender said this commitment to stable prices is more significant in
Russian terms than it might seem because "there are ways of affecting the
global price of oil" through the production of key countries like Saudi
Arabia and Russia.

She said she believes the United States is now on board to ensure Moscow is
fully reimbursed for Iraq's debt, although there likely would be
negotiations on the interest rate and repayment schedule.

Other noteworthy U.S. moves are an Ex-Im Bank promise to guarantee loans
for building Russia's oil production infrastructure and a joint statement
by Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that includes U.S.
endorsement of Russian plans to build a deep water port for energy exports,
she said.

*******

#15
New York Times
November 24, 2002
Why U.S. Oil Companies and Russian Resources Don't Mix
By NEELA BANERJEE and SABRINA TAVERNISE

In a little over a year, the United States has done a startling diplomatic
about-face on Russia, moving it from second-rate-power status to vital
ally, thanks mostly to one thing: oil.

Eager to develop sources of oil outside the Middle East, the Bush
administration is pushing American oil companies to invest in Russia, and
President Vladimir V. Putin has thrown his weight behind tax and regulatory
changes to draw foreign investment.

The only problem is that American oil companies are not buying. After years
of grappling with stubborn bureaucracies and hostile local oil companies,
Western executives doubt that even Mr. Putin can make investing in Russia
much easier. The Russian industry, led by companies like Yukos and Sibneft,
has turned itself around and is now battling to keep foreigners off its turf.

The two sides are mired in a standoff that most executives and analysts say
will drag on for years.

"Russia's a long-term option: if it comes into play in 5 or 10 years,
that's great," said Frank C. Ingriselli, president and chief executive of
Global Venture Investments, an energy consulting company in White Plains
and a former president of Texaco's Timan Pechora project, now shuttered, in
northern Russia. "And I'm looking at it optimistically."

Most Westerners' projects in Russia breed grim assessments. Consider the
Polar Lights project of ConocoPhillips in the harsh tundra of the Timan
Pechora Basin. From the project's start in 1994, the company, together with
a Russian partner, sought an agreement with the government to set future
taxes.

It never got one. So the company has kept its investment low, at about $400
million, while profits have fallen far short. From 1994 to 1997 alone, its
tax burden shot up more than sixfold. "There wasn't sufficient stability to
go ahead with $1 billion or $2 billion" in investment, said Eric Bell,
president of Conoco International Petroleum, a ConocoPhillips subsidiary.

Though oil multinationals are accustomed to tough investment conditions,
Russia's are particularly difficult. Opportunities for foreigners are few.
Negotiations that last a few months elsewhere continue for years in Russia.

Russians and Westerners generally agree, however, that if foreigners are
allowed in, they should develop new, multibillion-barrel oil and gas fields
that the Russians lack the experience to tap. Because that would cost
billions of dollars, Western companies want legislation in Russia to
protect their investments. Yet some of the most powerful figures in
Russia's oil industry, like Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, chief executive of
Yukos, have lobbied against such laws, and the proposals have generally
languished.

As a result, industry experts say, foreign oil companies may sniff around
and announce a few projects, but Russia will probably miss out on much of
the $1 trillion in oil investment expected worldwide over the next decade.

"There is often a resistance to getting big foreign oil companies into
Russia because, in my opinion, it would show the weaknesses of Russian oil
companies," said Simon Kukes, the president of the Tyumen Oil Company,
Russia's fourth-largest producer. "If this continues, there will only be
losers on both sides."

But with 49 billion barrels of oil, 1,680 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas and proximity to European and Asian markets, Russia is too big to be
ignored.

Production fell after the Soviet Union crumbled, but in the last four years
privatized companies have made Russia the world's second-biggest oil
exporter, after Saudi Arabia (5.1 million barrels a day, versus Saudi
Arabia's 6.7 million). The Bush administration believes that more Russian
oil could flow with the help of American investment.

Americans, in fact, were exploring projects in Russia even before the
Soviet Union fell apart, but a decade later they can point to few
successes. Over that period, Western companies invested approximately $5
billion.

In comparison, foreign oil companies have invested $13 billion in
neighboring Kazakhstan since 1993, the United States Energy Department
says, and about $8 billion in Azerbaijan since 1994, according to the
Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting group in Washington.

Only a handful of joint projects are running in Russia. In the Russian Far
East, near Sakhalin Island, a consortium led by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group
is pumping 80,000 barrels a day from the Sea of Okhotsk. A second
consortium near Sakhalin, headed by Exxon Mobil, is setting up a platform
to tap another set of fields. TotalFinaElf of France is producing oil in
Siberia with Norsk Hydro of Norway, and BP owns part of a Russian oil
company called Sidanko.

But Shell warned Russia last week that it would not proceed with an $8.5
billion phase of its Sakhalin project unless the country made tax laws more
stable.

Many projects ushered in with fanfare in the early 1990's have died. Amoco
gave up on the Priobskoye field in Siberia, after spending $100 million,
because it said its partner, Yukos, constantly changed the terms. In 1997,
Russia unexpectedly canceled an oil deal with Exxon, and a venture between
Gazprom and Royal Dutch/Shell to tap huge Siberian natural gas deposits was
shelved.

Now Western companies, encouraged by the warming between the United States
and Russia, are looking into Russia again, though gingerly. So far, they
have limited themselves to hiring consultants, inquiring about exploration
and production projects or the prospect of buying equity stakes. It is the
corporate equivalent of "dipping more than their big toe in, maybe a little
toe, too," said Thane Gustafson of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

The stunning revival of Russian oil was engineered by a new generation of
executives, like Mr. Khodorkovsky of Yukos and Eugene Shvidler of Sibneft.
Their efforts were bolstered by a weak ruble and high oil prices.

The new Russian oil companies emerged in the mid-1990's, when the
government divided the sprawling industry among influential executives
through insider deals that excluded foreigners.

Russian production, after peaking at about 11 million barrels a day under
the Soviets in the mid-1980's, fell to about six million in 1996, said
Goskomstat, the Russian statistics agency. Since then, it has pushed
steadily higher, to 7.7 million a day, and Mr. Kukes of Tyumen estimated
that it could hit 10.2 million by 2010. Most of Russia's oil goes to
Europe, and even with increased production, the amount of Russian oil that
would come to the United States remains unclear.

The new Russian managers trimmed bloated work forces and spun off
inefficient units. But mostly, the turnaround came after the Russians hired
Western oil-field services companies, like Halliburton and Schlumberger, to
repair wells. In 2001, Russian companies invested $10 billion in their oil
industry, the World Bank said, compared with $1.5 billion in 1999.

Halliburton is among the few foreign concerns to get a foothold. Russian
oil companies outsource what their Western counterparts would consider core
competencies, explained Jacek Gawron, Halliburton's vice president for
Eurasia.

"We come with engineering teams and the understanding of the subsurface
geology to provide remedies, the technology for resolving the problems,"
Mr. Gawron said. "We're not threatening because we are not striving to get
an equity position in the oil assets."

Having healed their oil industry, Russian companies are deeply reluctant to
surrender it. "I support having Western companies work with us," Mr. Kukes
said, "But the much more common view among Russian oil executives is: we
can do without."

At the heart of the resistance is fear of losing control — over management
of fields that are now producing, and those Russia will turn to in the
future. Foreign multinationals are used to sharing the risk by forming
consortiums; Russians have little experience with that.

"If an American company looking for a Russian partner wants to be at the
steering wheel, it will not work," said Eugene Khartukov, director of the
International Center for Petroleum Business Studies in Moscow. "Russian
companies don't want that. They are saying, `Bring money, but you can't
have any great influence over management.' "

The Russians are concentrating on western Siberia, a patchwork of stunted
birch forests and swamp roughly the size of Alaska and Texas combined —
and, so far, Russia's most prolific oil region. But most Western companies
want access to the mammoth oil and gas reservoirs that were identified by
the Soviets but remain largely untouched by Russian companies.

The old fields, said Mr. Ingriselli, formerly of Texaco, and other
foreigners, were developed recklessly by the Soviets, without particular
concern for the longevity of fields or environmental damage. Moreover,
Western companies are rewarded by investors when they add significantly to
proven reserves, and Russia's new fields offer that chance.

But the risks of going into such areas are enormous, and the required
investment is huge. Many reservoirs are in places that are icebound much of
the year, like the planned Northern Territories Project in the Russian
northwest Arctic, which holds an estimated 4.27 billion barrels of oil, as
well as the Verkhnechonsk, Talakan and Yurubchen reservoirs in eastern
Siberia.

Oil companies going into new zones would have to build practically all the
facilities needed. Oil from northern Caspian Sea fields, for instance,
would need to be moved out by pipelines that are yet to be built.

Then there are the perennial headaches of pumping oil in Russia. The
pipeline system is controlled by a government agency, Transneft, that
limits exports to 30 percent of production. The Russians ship much oil by
rail, so transportation costs are high. Any remaining oil is sold at home,
at prices far below world levels — a condition that would severely limit a
Western company's return on investment. Russia is also notorious for
changing the laws for Westerners in the middle of the game, or blocking
projects, creating a level of uncertainty that makes foreigners nervous.

Texaco's Timan Pechora project, for one, fell apart because the company and
its Russian partners could not persuade the local governor to sign on, Mr.
Ingriselli said. The governor, he said, wanted a bigger piece of the
profits for his region, and Moscow did little to change his mind. "Part of
it comes down to the reluctance of the federal government," he said, "to
really support a legal infrastructure that would give confidence to make
multibillion investments."

The resistance comes from a fear of being swindled by sharp foreigners, he
explained. "They look at oil as being their bloodline," Mr. Ingriselli
said. "Their feeling is, `What right do you have to come in here to take
that oil from our country and profit from it?' "

Faced with such hurdles, foreigners insist that Russia adopt a set of laws
to flesh out production-sharing agreements. Changes in the Russian tax code
that could smooth the way for such agreements may be passed by the
Parliament before year-end, largely at Mr. Putin's insistence, said Aleksei
Melnikov, a Russian legislator.

Other aspects of the law have yet to be adopted. Top Russian oil
executives, led by Mr. Khodorkovsky of Yukos, have so far lobbied
successfully against them. Recently, he was quoted by Finansovaya
Izvestiya, a Russian newspaper, as saying the production-sharing laws would
"create preferences and provoke corruption."

By keeping foreigners out of new fields, industry experts said, Russia runs
the risk of delaying their development so long that production from mature
fields might fall rapidly before new sources can replace them. The Russian
government has noted that domestic companies are depleting reserves faster
than they are replacing them.

Though the Russians have succeeded at outsourcing nearly all the functions
of traditional oil companies, there are limits to that approach.
Halliburton, for example, contends that it is in no position to take on the
exploration and development work needed to bring new reservoirs on stream.
The Russians will need the decades of expertise that foreign companies
have, as well as their deep pockets, to develop new fields in the harshest
regions, most experts argue.

"I think the government looks around and says, `None of these big fields
are being developed, and why is that?' " Mr. Bell of Conoco said. "The big
projects ConocoPhillips is looking at will require billions of dollars in
investment."

But Mr. Khodorkovsky and other Russian oil executives contend that Russian
companies will be able to develop those fields on their own. They are
proven fast learners, and if they lack expertise now, they can hire the
Western executives, engineers and geologists who have it, the companies say.

Mr. Gustafson of Cambridge Energy said, "Their feeling is that '10 years
ago, no one expected us to be where we are now, and who's to say what we
will be able to do in the next 10 years?' "

******

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