Johnson's Russia List
#6574
27 November 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Contents:
1. BBC: Risk of internet collapse rising.
2. AP: Soviet-Era Red Star Gets Rehabilitated.
3. RIA Novosti: MOSCOW TO BECOME BUFFER BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND BAGHDAD.
4. Novaya Gazeta Digest.
5. AFP: Putin stance on Russian media curbs wins mixed reviews.
6. AP: Former Theater Hostages Sue Moscow Gov't.
7. Reuters: Russia Greens say security service oppressing them.
8. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, Coal Blooded Crime or Calumny?
9. Knight Ridder Newspapers: Mark McDonald, U.S. automakers starting new
revolution in Russia.
10. Moskovsky Komsomolets: Melor Sturua, DOES THE UNITED STATES NEED NATO?
11. El Pais (Spain): Russian military official says NATO "ungovernable",
more so after expansion.
12. RFE/RL: Valentinas Mite, Plans For Referendum In Chechnya May Be Hollow
Gesture.
13. IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA: Saule Mukhametrakhimova, NATO LOOKS TO
CENTRAL ASIA. The strategically-important former Soviet republics now have
the opportunity to work more closely with the alliance.
14. Times Literary Supplement (UK): Rosemary Righter, Chaos and corruption
in Kazakhstan. Dictators thrive on what Stalin left behind.]
*******
#1
BBC
26 November 2002
Risk of internet collapse rising
Simulated attacks on key internet hubs have shown how vulnerable the
worldwide network is to disruption by disaster or terrorist action.
If an attack or disaster destroyed the major nodes of the internet, the
network itself could begin to unravel, warn the scientists who carried out
the simulations.
The virtual attacks showed that the net would keep going in major cities,
but outlying areas and smaller towns would gradually be cut off.
The researchers warn that the net has become more vulnerable as it has
become more commercialised and key net cables are concentrated in the hands
of fewer organisations.
Cutting the ties
The simulations were carried out by a trio of scientists from Ohio State
University led by Tony Grubesic, Assistant Professor of Geography at the
University of Cincinnati.
Dr Grubesic compared the net to US air traffic system.
"If weather stops or delays traffic in a major airport hub, like Chicago's
O'Hare, air passengers throughout the country may feel the effects," said
Dr Grubesic, "even if they are not travelling to Chicago."
In its early days the net was as decentralised, as possible with multiple
links between many of the nodes forming it. If one node disappeared,
traffic could easily flow to other links and route traffic to all parts.
However, said the researchers, the increasing commercialisation of the net
has seen the emergence of large hubs that act as key distribution points
for some parts of the web.
As a result, the net has become much more vulnerable to attack.
"If you destroyed a major internet hub, you would also destroy all the
links that are connected to it," said Morton O'Kelly, Professor of
Geography at Ohio State University.
"It would have ripple effects throughout the internet"
Small worlds
US cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago and
Washington DC are large net hubs and have several connections to the web.
As a result any attack would bump up traffic levels on these links, but the
larger cities would probably maintain net services.
By contrast, warn the researchers, smaller cities that rely on the large
hubs to keep them connected cut see their links severed by an attack on
their routing centre.
The researchers said the attack on the World Trade Centre revealed how
disruption could spread.
A major net hub was destroyed during the attack and severed links between
New York City and three New York counties.
"The ability for networks to re-route, re-connect and have redundancy is
clearly important for the survival of the internet in the face of
disasters," said Dr Grubesic.
The researchers' work will appear in the February 2003 edition of
Telematics and Informatics.
*******
#2
Soviet-Era Red Star Gets Rehabilitated
November 26, 2002
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin brought back the Soviet-era red star
Tuesday as the Russian military's emblem, the latest in a series of
restored communist symbols that play to nostalgia but have some people wary
of a return to the repressive past.
Once the most recognized icon of the Soviet Union after the hammer and
sickle, the five-point star never vanished but was phased out after the
fall of the Iron Curtain. Putin's plan - if backed by parliament, as
expected - would return the star officially to the military's enormous
parade banners. Military caps and belt buckles would likely be next.
``The star is sacred for all servicemen,'' Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov
said at a meeting of top generals broadcast on television, with a frowning
Putin seated behind him. ``Our fathers and grandfathers went to battle with
the star.''
Restoring the star - the defense minister's idea - was expected to please
the conservative military, and appeared to be a Kremlin attempt to
reinforce servicemen's loyalty.
The move comes after the Russian parliament, on Putin's initiative,
rehabilitated the tune of the old Soviet anthem with new words. It also
brought back the Soviet-era red banner as the military flag, which now
should get back its star.
Putin says he hopes the resurrected symbols will help mend deep rifts in
society by acknowledging achievements of the Soviet past that older
generations cherish.
But critics say the revivals send a powerful, potentially troubling, signal
to the rest of the country. Some fear the return of authoritarian icons
could herald a return of a Soviet-style authoritarian regime. Others say
the symbols could be abused by Russians too young to understand their meaning.
``It's very serious. Because it doesn't just feed old people's nostalgia,
but also effects the youth who don't understand the fascist or communist
ideologies but are eager to grasp their symbols,'' said Sergei Grigoryants,
a Soviet-era dissident and strong critic of the government.
The star had symbolized the Red Army since the army's formation after the
1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The Russian military newspaper is called ``Red
Star.'' But the star appeared elsewhere, too, on the communist flag above
the hammer and sickle and in the graphics of Soviet-era TV news broadcasts.
And the star was never wiped out entirely. It remained on older-model tanks
and planes. Red stars sit atop the pointed towers of the Kremlin, even today.
In bringing back old icons, lawmakers also endorsed the czarist-era
white-red-and-blue flag that Russia has been using since the 1991 Soviet
demise, as well as the old imperial emblem of a double-headed eagle.
One observer sees it as Putin's scattershot plan to broaden his support base.
``No one is left out: Communists get their anthem, the conservatives have a
double-headed eagle and democrats their tricolor flag,'' says Lyudmila
Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, a
leading human rights organization.
``It makes one wonder what kind of national ideology such a state has,''
she said.
Others interpreted the call to bring back the red star as an indication
that the government had abandoned its push for radical military reform.
The Kremlin had wanted a leaner, professional military to replace its bulky
Soviet-style army. Top military brass had opposed government plans to
abandon the unpopular draft and switch to a volunteer force. The ranks are
unhappy, too, over wages that remain just over $100 a month for a junior
officer.
Returning the star could boost morale, said Pavel Felgenhauer, an
independent military analyst. ``It may look like a trifle, but it gives an
important signal to both the top brass and the civilian bureaucracy that
the Soviet military machine will remain,'' he said.
The president's attitude about communist trappings is a sharp contrast with
the policy of his predecessor. Boris Yeltsin loathed the old symbols, and
staunchly resisted hardline pressure to restore the old anthem.
There seems to be no such opposition today: The proposal to bring back the
star should easily pass through the parliament, dominated by pro-government
centrists who usually follow the wishes of the Kremlin.
*******
#3
C O M M E N T A R Y MOSCOW TO BECOME BUFFER BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND BAGHDAD
MOSCOW, November 26, 2002. /from RIA Novosti observer Marianna Belenkaya/. -
The new countdown for both Iraq and the entire international community will
begin on Wednesday, November 27, the day when international weapons
inspectors are to return to Iraq after four years of absence. Their aim is to
find out whether or not Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.
According to the Russian authorities, at present the key thing is to create
optimum conditions for the work of the international inspectors in Iraq and
to ensure that their conclusions on Iraq's having weapons of mass destruction
are clearcut and unambiguous. The future of Iraq can be discussed only after
the inspectors deliver their report: either to lift sanctions against the
country, or to disarm it, or to launch a military campaign. It means that the
attitude and actions of both the inspectors and the Iraqis themselves will
determine whether or not a new Gulf War will break out.
However, despite the declared independence of the inspections, their work in
Iraq is conditioned by many factors. Among these are Iraq's long-term
distrust of the United Nations and the United States, Washington's attitude
and latent economic interests that certain countries have in Iraq.
The controversy between the parts broke out before the launch of the
inspections. Let's recall that Resolution 1441 lays out strict conditions for
the inspections: unhampered access to all the civilian and military sites and
the possibility of talking to any Iraqi citizen if needed.
But having agreed to the inspections, the Iraqi government was quick to make
a few reservations. Among other things it was noted that while cooperating
with the international inspectors the Iraqi government "would take into
account their conduct and hostile intentions, their improper attitude towards
the respect for national pride of the [Iraqi] nation, its independence and
security as well as the security, independence and sovereignty of the
country." The first serious conflict may break out on December 8, the
deadline by which Iraq must submit all the information on having weapons of
mass destruction or carrying out military research programs. However, judging
by Naji Sabri's letter to the UN Secretary General, Baghdad continues to deny
having weapons of mass destruction. IAEA Director Mohamed El Baradei noted
that if on December 8 Iraq continued to insist that it had no weapons of mass
destruction then the IAEA would proceed with international inspections to
make sure that the information was true and accurate.
However, Washington is not apt to trust Baghdad's statements. The United
States has its own list of Iraq's violations in the field of developing and
possessing weapons of mass destruction. Representatives of the American
administration claim that they are not seeking to release the information on
the list, because Baghdad does not know the exact intelligence data the
United States has at its disposal and therefore is unable to take it into
account while compiling its report.
Washington intends to show down only after December 8, when it will be
possible to compare the two reports, those of Iraq and the United States.
From the beginning Washington has been inclined to suppose that Baghdad has
weapons of mass destruction and has been distrustful of the readiness to
cooperate expressed by the Iraqi authorities. The United States does not rule
out military settlement of the Iraqi conflict.
Unlike its American partners, Moscow hopes that the issue of Iraq's having
weapons of mass destruction will be settled once and for all, and sanctions
against the country will be lifted which will allow Russian and other
companies to work freely in Iraq. Russian officials seek to make Iraq take no
notice of possible provocation, but instead demonstrate, in fact not in word,
the readiness for cooperation. Otherwise Russia was washing its hands and
Iraq will face serious consequences.
Russia is trying to persuade the United States not to rush the course of
events and wait for the results of the inspections. The inspectors are due to
submit their first report on December 27. But even then it will be too early
to judge the outcome. So, Moscow's task is to become a buffer between
Washington and Baghdad, and try to convince the two countries of keeping
their tempers and arming themselves with patience. However, Russia continues
to express concern about the US ultimate goal in Iraq: the country's
disarmament or a change of regime.
President Bush repeatedly stated that the only way to disarm Iraq completely
was to remove the present regime from power. But a new regime, apart from
saying that it is still unclear who can replace Saddam Hussein, means a lot
of problems for Moscow. Firstly, the zone of Russia's influence will
obviously shrink /although the issue of our influence in Baghdad is
controversial/. Secondly, many Iraqi oppositionists are saying that they do
not find it necessary to keep contracts with Russian or other foreign
companies signed by the Hussein government. Although it is likely that Moscow
has been given certain guarantees.
That's why in his interview with the NTV company on the eve of his visit to
Russia US President Bush promised to take Russia's interests in Iraq into
account. First of all such interests include keeping Russian companies'
contracts in Iraq, especially in the oil industry, as well as ensuring that
Iraq repays its debt. Back in summer Russia and the United States were
rumored to have reached certain agreements on keeping Russia's contracts in
Iraq, but for the first time such a promise was made publicly, especially at
the top level.
American analysts note that Bush's public statement is a major sign that
"Russia's interests will be protected, oil contracts will be respected and
debts repaid, if a new regime comes to power in Baghdad." Of course, Bush's
statement has no documentary proof, but politicians of such level are not apt
to make idle promises.
*******
#4
Novaya Gazeta Digest
No. 87, Monday, 25 November 2002
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba_sch@hotmail.com)
Research analyst at the Moscow office of the Center for Defense Information
* LEADING ARTICLE. “Black Hole in the Third Reading” is dedicated to the
State Duma’s acceptance of the 2003 Budget of the Russian Federation. “In
addition to taxes we spend on the government, a lot of money goes to the
paragovernment -- all those people who view their positions as tools for
personal gain,” contemplates columnist Yulia Latynina in the article “The
Duma Accepted a Budget That’s Not Even Military -- It’s Simply Thieverous.”
In addition to the official budget, which sets government spending at 66
billion rubles, there is also a black budget that is used for elections,
state PR, the special services -- or simply stolen. The author analyzes
budget items and clarifies the principles of spending. Almost 600 billion
goes to the power organs -- 39 billion to healthcare. In this article you
will find out why the military was so opposed to revealing defense spending.
Why are we so stingy with pensions and so generous with construction? If
we look closely, the problem is not that we are spending too much on the
army -- it’s that we’re spending to little on social services -- it’s
because you can’t steal pensions.
In “Feeding the Motherland” (the “The Law and Thieves’ Law” column)
Aleksandr Dobrovinsky, concludes that the economic miracle is very clear.
The main problem within the system is that the government is fed by the hand
that robs it. Our government is so grateful to the crooks for these
handouts that it writes laws that allow them to steal more effectively. The
law serves the very oligarch who takes capital abroad, shirks taxes, and
abuses the country daily between lunch and bowling. How can we make the
black market, offshore accounts, kickbacks and bribes unnecessary? How can
we cut down on capital flight? Officials, now owners of the state, aren’t
interested... But in reality, just three minor corrections to the law would
help the country get on its feet.
* The SPECIAL REPORT of this issue is dedicated to the success of Russian
geneticists. Yuri Safronov writes about the new breed of canine -- part
husky part coyote -- that is now employed in sniffing out drugs and
explosives.
* ISSUE DETAILS. “Liberal reforms in a country where the bureaucracy won?
That doesn’t exist...” writes Yevgeniya Albatz, and cites similar reforms in
England, America, New Zealand, Italy, and other countries. Such reforms
were difficult in countries with a functioning legal system, a free media,
and business support. It’s unclear how administrative reform can be carried
out in Russia. In Russia there are no independent prosecutors or
independent courts; small business is completely strangled by bureaucracy
and monopolies; the media is half-strangled. Reform of the government “from
above” contradicts the very nature of the system of the Russian executive
branch, which has no support except the bureaucracy -- with or without
epaulettes. In a half-closed corporative state, reforms will be opposed not
only by officials, but also by monopolies, oligarchs, and anyone else who
can lose out from these reforms. This inert crowd always supports the
president and raises his rating through the roof. Thus, the presidential
administration and the president himself should oppose real reform. We’re
realists -- we’re not going to think they will cut off the branch they
exerted so much energy capturing...
* CONSEQUENCES. Military columnist Vyacheslav Izmailov takes us back to the
events of August 1996 in Chechnya with his article “If the Khasavyurt
Agreement is synonymous to treason -- who betrayed whom?” Khasavyurt was a
result of official Chechen policy since 1994. On March 31, 1996, Yeltsin
declared that “peace” would start in Chechnya as of April 1. In reality,
combat was never ended. By August 1996, the military did not have control
over the situation in Grozny or Chechnya as a whole. Elections, vacations
of experienced officers, the withdrawal of troops, provocations by police
officers to leave Grozny on that ill-fated day… The new arrivals were not
uniformed and equipped. Uniformed children and peaceful civilians were
dying for no good reason. Security Council Chairman General Lebed, arrived
on the scene on the second day. It was necessary to stop the murder, and he
did. Khasavyurt followed. State Duma Deputy Vladimir Lukin declared “we
absolutely needed a break.” Lukin was one of the authors of the Khasavyurt
agreement. "Over six years later, I still maintain that the agreement was
necessary... But the break was not used by both sides...”
* PRESSURE POINT. Back in 1996, Yeltsin signed an order to the switch to a
contract system for the army. But the peaceful transformation did not
succeed. A struggle between the General Headquarters and the Union of Right
Forces unfolded. On 21 November, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov moved to
decide personally how and when the army will be changed. Orkhan Djemal’s
article “Army for Internal Use” wonders whose interests and methods drive
the army reform. The army’s combat readiness depends directly on the
presence of professionals in its ranks. The switch to contract service does
not imply the cancellation of the draft. In addition to combat divisions
there will be a parallel army that will provide two years of service to the
Defense Ministry. The progress of the reforms is predictable. The reform is
being fitted to the Chechen War. The future army is being prepared for
internal use.
* CHRONICLES OF THE ABSURD. Why is Russia a favorite of the world
championship in corruption? In “Defenders of the Looking Glass”, Aleksandr
Yagodin explains. It is difficult for an honest prosecutor to survive in
Russia. It’s all virtual reality: the obvious becomes unbelievable, and the
actions are directly contradicting the words. Criminals who used to be
afraid of showing their noses are now stampeding into the government and
business, and the law is powerless before this “elite.” The notorious
Letter of the Law depends on several points of views.
* ALSO IN THE ISSUE
- Sergei Shargunov on why orphans were kicked out of a unique hospital in
Peredelkino.
- The teacher is a mass profession. But it is possible and necessary to
prepare professional, conscientious, worthy teachers, writes columnist
Yevgenii Bunimovich in the article “The Russian Standard isn’t a bottle of
vodka, it’s education reform.”
- “We have just one party again -- the ruling party. Look closely at this
party, citizens. And the sooner the better, since it’s starting to look at
you” warns Viktor Shenderovich in “Lessens for Yesterday.”
- Monologue of film director Aleksei German about cinema, people from the
Caucasus and chauvinists -- “We’re becoming Fascister”
- About 250 migrants from Chechnya are still outside the law. “The vaccine
against indifference is money,” writes Margarita Domnikova about a campaign
by Novaya Gazeta readers in support of these people.
- There are only seven notes: the hits of current Russian show business are
rife with plagiarism. Yulia Sankovich in “Cardboard from Paris.”
Contact information for the Novaya Gazeta Digest (in Russian)
(095) 923-9485
www.novayagazeta.ru
*******
#5
Putin stance on Russian media curbs wins mixed reviews
November 26, 2002
AFP
President Vladimir Putin won praise Tuesday from Western investors but
skepticism from Russian reporters and rights advocates after he vetoed
legislation aimed at limiting news coverage in crisis situations.
The Kremlin-backed draft sailed through Russia's two houses of parliament
following last month's Moscow theater hostage standoff, in which at least 129
civilians died.
But Putin -- who came under rare but heavy media criticism for authorizing
use of a knockout gas during a rescue raid responsible for most of the deaths
-- unexpectedly struck down the legislation Monday even while criticizing
news coverage of the incident.
Many feared the laws would further curb the limited independent reporting
about the three-year war in Chechnya -- a brutal guerrilla conflict which the
Chechen hostage-takers demanded that Putin halt. The media curbs may still
resurface after being reworded by parliamentary committees.
And Putin's veto received a decidedly mixed response Tuesday. A group of
Russian reporters accused the president of simply trying to brush up his poor
image on media rights in the West, while still pushing through censorship
rules in the long-term.
But some Western investors read the veto as a long-overdue show of Putin's
democratic credentials.
Monday's veto "will help correct his image of being unfriendly to press
freedom," Christopher Granville, chief economist at the United Financial
Group investment fund, one of Russia's largest, said in a research note.
"Putin has adroitly taken this opportunity offered to him by (parliament)
deputies to improve his liberal credentials alongside his better established
'law and order' record," the investment house said.
Some Russian reporters could hardly disagree more.
"This was all orchestrated by the Kremlin to show the West that Putin backs
press freedoms -- and that is exactly how the story was presented by the
Western media," said Alexander Ryklin, a political correspondent with the
Yezhenedelny Zhurnal weekly.
Ryklin argued that the vetoed legislation will soon come back to life -- if
only in a slightly revised form -- while in the mean time forcing reporters
to censor themselves so as to avoid trouble from the Kremlin.
"The authorities' problems with the media are simple: They do not need
information -- they need modern counter-propaganda," renowned political
commentator Leonid Radzikhovsky wrote in a column for the Vremya daily.
"The Kremlin wants to see the journalists launch their own merciless war
against terrorism," he added.
Several Russian rights advocates and more reserved political analysts agreed.
"Journalists are going to have to be more vigilant," Alexei Simonov,
president of the Glasnost Foundation human rights watchdog, told AFP.
"Putin has taken a step toward the media, and is expecting something in
return," Simonov said, adding that he still though that "there will soon be a
change of rules in the (media) game."
And Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the Soviet-era USA-Canada political
research institute, agreed that the Putin veto "was planned in advance" by
Kremlin media handlers.
"It is aimed at helping Putin avoid Western criticism that he is building a
police state. This was supposed to both scare journalists, and afterwards
show Putin as a defender of reporters' rights," the analyst said.
"But in the long term, I do not think the future looks good for the media."
Both Western and Russian media reports said Kremlin advisors attacked at
least two television stations -- NTV and STS -- for broadcasting interviews
with hostage takers and hiring lip readers to try to make out Putin's words
in silent footage of an emergency meeting during the crisis.
Both stations refused to fire the reporters involved. The media later put up
a rare united front by petitioning Putin to veto the legislation last week.
The media amendments would have made it illegal to broadcast and print news
"serving propaganda or justifying extremist activities, including statements
of people trying to stop an anti-terrorist operation and justification of
such opposition."
The wording appears directly aimed at reporting about Putin's self-declared
"anti-terrorist" operation in Chechnya.
*******
#6
Former Theater Hostages Sue Moscow Gov't
November 26, 2002
By ERIC ENGLEMAN
MOSCOW (AP) - Two former hostages and the father of a third have filed the
first lawsuit seeking damages from the Moscow government over last month's
theater siege, their lawyer said Tuesday.
In a related development, Russian authorities detained two more people on
suspicion of involvement in the siege, in which 41 Chechen rebels and 129
hostages died.
The siege began Oct. 23, when Chechen rebels stormed a Moscow theater, taking
hundreds of people captive during a musical performance. It ended three days
later when Russian special forces stormed the building, killing the
hostage-takers. Many hostages also died from the effects of a narcotic gas
used to knock out the militants.
Former hostages Alexandra Ryabtseva, and her father, Alexander Ryabtsev, sued
the Moscow city government Tuesday for $1 million each in damages. Pyotr
Sidorenkov, whose son Yuri was one of the hostages killed by the narcotic, is
seeking $500,000 in compensation, said the lawyer for the three plaintiffs,
Igor Trunov.
Trunov is basing his case on Russia's new anti-terrorism law, which he said
stipulates that the Russian region where a terrorist attack occurs should pay
moral and material damages to the victims.
``Our success is guaranteed,'' he claimed, adding that the only question was
how much compensation the court was willing to approve.
Through a spokesman, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov rejected the rejected the
lawsuit as groundless.
``The Chechen issue and its consequences are not within the jurisdiction of
the Moscow authorities in any way,'' Interfax news agency quoted the
spokesman, Sergei Tsoi, as saying. ``Its settlement is a national task.''
The Moscow city government has said it will pay the equivalent of about
$3,150 to the victims' families and half that amount to former hostages who
survived.
Interfax also reported the arrests Tuesday of Irina Ivanteyeva, 28, and her
boyfriend Viktor Croitoru, 26, of Moldova. They were seen throwing two cloth
bags into the Moscow river a day after Khampash Sobraliyev, Ivanteyeva's
former husband, brought the bags to her apartment on Oct. 25, Interfax
reported, quoting unidentified law enforcement sources.
Sobraliyev, a native of Chechnya, was detained earlier. Divers raised a
suicide bomber's belt and a homemade hand grenade from the river bottom near
the apartment - weapons similar to those found in the theater after it was
retaken from the rebels, Interfax said.
*******
#7
Russia Greens say security service oppressing them
November 26, 2002
By Oliver Bullough
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ecologists said Tuesday a police swoop on a group
denouncing radioactive pollution of Russia's unique Lake Baikal was part of a
long-term security service campaign to crush environmental movements.
Baikal Environmental Wave was raided Friday evening by the FSB (Federal
Security Service), one of the successor groups to the KGB, whose officers
took documents and computers, saying they contained state secrets.
More than 100 environmental and civil rights organizations signed a statement
to protest the raid on the group, which publicized business and government
activities it said were harmful to the vast lake's environment.
"Together with its fight against terrorism, fascism, drug smuggling and
organized crime, the FSB is also conducting a fight against ecologists," the
statement said.
Lake Baikal, a UNESCO heritage site as big as Belgium, holds one-fifth of the
world's fresh water. It saw some of the Soviet Union's first environmental
protests -- against a factory that pollutes its waters to this day.
Environmental movements frequently have confronted Russian authorities,
especially since President Vladimir Putin came to power.
Prominent environmentalist Grigory Pasko lost his appeal of a spying
conviction this year for giving information to Japanese media about Russian
dumping of nuclear waste off Russia's Pacific coast.
In another celebrated case, former navy Capt. Alexander Nikitin was acquitted
in 2000 when tried on treason charges for publishing data on radioactive
pollution in Arctic seas.
"The FSB is pushing (against environmentalists), and seeing if there is a
reaction. If they get no reaction, that's fine, if there is one, they'll keep
trying," Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, told a news
conference.
Maps seized by the FSB, the domestic security agency, contained details
compiled by the group of radioactive pollution round the lake. It also
campaigned against a pipeline due to run to China through the area and backed
by YUKOS, Russia's number two oil company, and the China National Petroleum
Corp.
The FSB made no reply to requests to comment on the raid.
*******
#8
Moscow Times
November 27, 2002
Coal Blooded Crime or Calumny?
By Yulia Latynina
Oleg Misevra, president of Siberian Coal Energy Company Baikal-Ugol, or
SUEK, the nation's top coal producer, has released details of his
negotations with rival Russky Ugol. Misevra alleged that Vadim Varshavsky,
head of Russky Ugol, had threatened to have him jailed for murder if he did
not hand over a 30 percent stake in Dalvostugol, a major coal producer in
the Amur region.
Varshavsky has categorically denied the accusation and pledges to sue
Misevra for slander.
A number of circumstances give Misevra's accusation the look of truth,
however.
SUEK is a subsidiary of financial-industrial giant MDM Group, whose MDM
Bank is considered the bank of choice of the notorious Yeltsin-era
"family." SUEK owns about one-third of Russia's coal, and the companies it
manages are expected to produce some 70 million tons of coal this year.
Russky Ugol claims to produce 30 million tons annually. Independent experts
put its output at a rather more modest 2 million tons. The company's
founders include Mezhprombank, considered the bank of choice of the St.
Petersburg chekists.
MDM Group's strategy is to achieve a total monopoly on coal production east
of the Urals. The strategy of the Petersburgers is to make their presence
felt in every sphere controlled by the oligarchs. The result is an unending
series of skirmishes.
The skirmish that erupted over Dalvostugol followed the usual pattern -- a
reshuffle of top management, canceled privatization auctions, police, swat
teams, and finally a 3 billion ruble debt to the federal government that
forced the company into bankruptcy. As a result the company is now run by
an acting director hand-picked by Russky Ugol.
The acting director's term expires on Dec. 4, however. And on Dec. 3 a new
law on bankruptcy comes into force, according to which the government's
interests in bankruptcy cases will be respresented by the agency of its
choice. At present the Tax Ministry handles all such cases involving debt
owed to the federal government. In the case of Dalvostugol, the Kremlin
sides with MDM Group, the Tax Ministry with Mezhprombank.
At this point, Misevra said that he began getting calls from Varshavsky
demanding that he hand over the Dalvostugol stock, acquired by MDM Group
this summer. In exchange, he said, Varshavsky promised to quash a criminal
investigation into the murder of Ivan Kartashev.
This was truly a case of murder most foul. Kartashev, deputy general
director of SUEK's trading arm Rosuglesbyt, was murdered on Aug. 11. As
late as July he was himself the general director, but then he was demoted
for alleged theft. Smarting from this indignity, Kartashev told Miserva
that he was moving to Russky Ugol. Misevra cut Kartashev off and nearly
punched him in the face.
Kartashev's murder inspired a flurry of conspiracy theories. According to
one, the corporate climate is such that leaving to go work for a competitor
is equivalent to treason. The traitor was executed. Another theory holds
that Russky Ugol needed an informer. Kartashev, whose own hands were far
from clean, was the first name on Russky Ugol's list. He was recruited,
pumped for information and killed. It's important to keep in mind that both
of these theories, and hundreds of others that swirl around the murder, are
the stuff of fiction.
It's not that hard to understand the Petersburgers' strategy. They don't
have deep pockets or good managers, but they do have friends in the
prosecutor's office. Companies used to be carved up with the help of
hitmen; now cops are used instead. Take the case of Anatoly Bykov, who lost
control of Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant after his arrest.
But Bykov's arrest was just one operation in an industrial war that also
involved law suits, a raw materials blockade, etc. And Bykov was arrested
on the basis of a taped conversation with a hitman.
In the Kartashev case there is no proof save a letter sent by an unknown
Bashkir deputy to Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov. In the letter the
deputy states that "Kartashev's murder was just one link in the criminal
activities of people who will resort to anything to achieve their goals."
In short, if Varshavsky really threatened Misevra, a good idea was fouled
up by poor execution.
Yulia Latynina is host of "Yest Mneniye" on TVS.
*******
#9
Knight Ridder Newspapers
November 25, 2002
U.S. automakers starting new revolution in Russia
By Mark McDonald
VSEVOLOZHSK, Russia - On a frozen potato field outside St. Petersburg, a few
running-dog American capitalists are trying to stage something of an
industrial revolution. Vladimir Lenin, rest his communist soul, would not
approve.
Ford Motor Co. has just opened a new $150 million assembly plant here,
becoming the first foreign carmaker to own an assembly plant in post-Soviet
Russia. Ford hopes to produce 10,000 Focus cars next year, wooing the
emerging Russian middle class with Western goodies such as heated windshields
and on-the-spot financing.
General Motors is getting in on the revolution, too. GM has formed a $335
million partnership with the leading Russian automaker, AvtoVAZ, and they're
already rolling out a spiffier version of the Niva, a small, lightweight
sports utility vehicle. Their plant in Togliatti, in southern Russia, plans
to make 30,000 Chevrolet Nivas next year, targeting the cash-strapped
proletariat that wants a Western brand at a low price.
Two U.S. auto giants, two starkly different corporate approaches and one
almost inevitable result - the end of the ramshackle Russian auto industry.
Within 10 years, one Ford executive said, every Russian car manufacturer will
have closed up shop or been swallowed by foreigners.
"Some of the dinosaurs are already gone, and I really don't see how any of
them will be able to survive," said Murray Gilbert, general director of the
new Ford plant. "If the Volvos of the world can't survive, how is AvtoVAZ
going to make it? They'll either get into bed with General Motors or they
won't exist."
World-class automakers must sell millions of cars each year to finance new
technologies, research, design and expansion. Russian carmakers are simply
too small, too backward, too corrupt, too broke, too Soviet. Even the
Kremlin's 35 percent tariff on imported cars hasn't been enough to save the
domestic manufacturers.
Even AvtoVAZ is struggling, despite owning 70 percent of the new-car market
in Russia. Its sheer size made it the only viable Russian partner for a
foreign carmaker, and as GM surveyed the field, it quickly understood it
would be AvtoVAZ or nothing.
"We found it overwhelmingly compelling to partner with AvtoVAZ," said Heidi
McCormack, GM's general director in Russia and the former Soviet republics.
"They know how to make inexpensive cars, and the marriage of our knowledge
with their production base is exactly what we needed."
It's the Ford venture, however, that European and Japanese companies will be
watching most closely. Any future auto ventures in Russia will almost have to
be based on the Ford model - build a new plant, import Western technology,
machinery and parts, use expatriate managers for the start-up, then hire and
train new generations of Russian managers and line workers.
With Russia's low costs for land, energy, labor and raw materials, Ford hopes
to export cars eventually from its St. Petersburg plant to Europe.
"If our model is successful - and it will be - Volkswagen and all the others
will be here within 12 months," Gilbert predicted.
"All eyes are on Ford," said GM's McCormack, "and fingers are crossed."
Russian car buyers have been crossing their fingers for decades, and without
much luck. The domestically made cars - the tinny Ladas, lumbering Volgas and
rattletrap Sputniks - are notorious for their shoddy construction,
kidney-killing suspensions and almost total lack of safety features. They
are, however, cheap: Most of the 1 million new cars made in Russia each year
cost $4,000 to $7,000.
Middle-class Russians have turned increasingly to secondhand European models,
especially those from Germany. Analysts and automakers say quality is
paramount in today's car market, and it's that upwardly mobile segment -
buyers in the $10,000 to $15,000 range - that Ford is hoping to capture.
The Russian version of the Focus - with a base price of $10,900 - has a
sturdier suspension and higher ride than its European counterpart, the better
to handle the horrible Russian roads. There's also a larger battery and a
heated windshield, the better to handle the horrible Russian winters.
"If you go to $11,900, you can get a pretty damn good Focus with Western
European specs," Gilbert said. "The Russian middle class isn't emerging; it's
already here, and people are spending money. They have cash flow and they can
handle the loan."
Almost all car buyers in Russia pay cash. Everyday Russians avoid banks,
preferring to keep their money in cash - usually in dollars or euros - that
they hide in mattresses and sock drawers at home.
To get consumers over the important and difficult $10,000 price barrier, Ford
is pushing a financing program that it is rare here - half the purchase price
down, with two and a half years to pay off the balance at a 10 percent
interest rate.
"It's quite unusual to buy a car on credit," said Elena Sakhunova, an
auto-industry analyst at the United Financial Group in Moscow. "But Russians
are more and more Western-oriented, and they see on movies and TV how you can
buy cars and houses this way. It's a very good marketing strategy by Ford."
Ford does have some experience in Russia. The company sent its first dealer
to Russia in 1907 and sold a number of cars and tractors here over the years,
even after the revolution of 1917 that brought the communists to power. In
1929 the Soviet Union invited Ford to set up factories in Moscow and Gorky,
now known as Nizhni Novgorod. The plants were producing by the end of 1930
but were taken over by the communist state in 1935.
Despite its history here, Ford has some branding to do.
"Not a lot of people recognize their brand," Sakhunova said. "People don't
believe it's bad, but when they think of price, quality and prestige, they
don't think about Ford. They think about Audi, BMW or Mercedes."
Ford said it was working hard on the fit and finish of its Russian-built
Focus, sacrificing volume for the time being to get higher quality. In
contrast, General Motors wants to sell a lot of basic cars, right away, at a
low price. It has priced the new Niva at $8,000, which is in the price range
for the bulk of Russian buyers.
"Our philosophy insists on large volume and robust market segments," said
McCormack, a former investment banker in Moscow.
GM and AvtoVAZ engineers have made some 800 changes, large and small, to the
bare-boned, Soviet-era Niva. "Now it feels like a car," McCormack said.
The two companies each hold 42 percent of their new joint venture, and the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has the rest. The bank put
in $30 million in cash and a $100 million loan.
"This project is not only on the radar screen at GM, it's spotlighted," said
McCormack, who, somewhat metaphorically, drives around Moscow in a Chevy
TrailBlazer.
She had to blaze a few trails in structuring GM's deal with AvtoVAZ. The
Russian firm hasn't had the cleanest of corporate reputations over the years,
so GM insisted on starting a new corporate entity, entirely separate from the
old-line, light-fingered Russian management.
"The way we insulated ourselves from the past was to create new structures
and run things ourselves," McCormack said. "There's no GM cash propping up
AvtoVAZ."
Meanwhile, the presence of Ford and General Motors in Russia is "really,
really great," said financial analyst Sakhunova. "The Ford factory, as a
symbol, is wonderful. It shows Russia is more and more integrated into the
world economy."
She also understands what foreign competition is likely to do to Russian
carmakers.
"Yes, I know," she said. "To lose our auto industry would be terrible."
*******
#10
Moskovsky Komsomolets
No. 264
November 2002
DOES THE UNITED STATES NEED NATO?
By Melor STURUA
Prague hosted yet another NATO summit a few days ago;
still this summit can be called a landmark event, if we analyze
some of its parameters. First of all, NATO admitted three
former Soviet republics, i.e. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia,
for the first time ever. Second, the alliance, which used to be
an anti-Soviet bloc, has now basically evolved into an
anti-terrorist entity. This was demanded by President George
Bush Jr. of the United States.
Nonetheless, new NATO members and former Warsaw Pact members,
as well as post-Soviet republics, made no bones about the fact
that they perceived their NATO membership as an insurance
policy against possible Russian revenge-seeking moods, first
and foremost.
However, Prague gave in to Washington's demands, what with
NATO deciding to establish the European anti-terrorist rapid
deployment force similar to US special forces. Moreover, the
alliance issued a stern warning to Saddam Hussein, noting that
even the slightest violation of the latest UN Security Council
resolution would cause his regime to collapse. This virtually
amounted to an ultimatum - Saddam must either disarm completely
and unconditionally or face war. Curiously enough, but
President Bush didn't try and persuade the entire NATO to
declare war on Iraq. On the contrary, the US leader suggested
that only separate NATO members take part in military
operations. The White House almost officially refers to this
tactic as the coalition of the willing. To cut a long story
short, President Bush, who fears that NATO is an unwieldy
organization, also thinks that the adoption of all decisions by
consensus at NATO forums might well delay or even thwart a
fast-paced attack on Baghdad. The US leader's apprehensions are
not something groundless. France voices some serious
objections. For his own part, German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder has repeated once again that his country won't take
part in military operations against Iraq.
That's why Bush wants to attack Baghdad with those, who wish to
do so. The relevant Afghan experience has convinced him that
the United States can do perfectly well without NATO. Meanwhile
Washington needs allies for its war in Iraq for mostly
political, rather than military, purposes. The US
Administration thus wants to tell the world that America is not
the only country, which wants to teach the Iraqi dictator a
lesson and to overthrow him.
President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation didn't
attend NATO's Prague summit. Nonetheless, his presence could be
felt among the main "dramatis personae" of this political
theater. Someone apparently doubted this; however, such doubts
were completely dispelled, after Bush flew over from Prague to
St. Petersburg. US-Russian rapprochement, which is a fait
accompli, also constitutes a political reality. It would be
naive to think that such rapprochement is nothing but the
result of mutual sympathies between the two leaders. It goes
without saying that their personal chemistry plays a tremendous
role here.
Nonetheless, this subjective factor rests on a common objective
foundation, i.e. the struggle against international terrorism.
Bush is having problems with Iraq and Osama bin Laden's
Al-Qaida. Meanwhile Putin faces problems in Chechnya. Putin and
Bush met each other in St. Petersburg for the first time after
the October 2002 Moscow tragedy (at a local culture center).
Bush wholeheartedly supported Putin's actions aimed at
liquidating Chechen terrorists. The US leader talked to Eastern
European journalists, before leaving for Prague; he informed
them that Putin had made some rather tough decisions. You are
trying to accuse Vladimir; however, terrorists must be accused
instead, Bush stressed. Al-Qaida terrorists operate in
Chechnya, Bush added.
Afghanistan has convinced Bush that Russia is an even more
reliable ally in the fight against international terrorism than
Western Europe is.
Prague and St. Petersburg highlight a tell-tale trend to
the effect that both Washington and Moscow, which are joining
hands, are thus distancing themselves from Western Europe to
some extent. Moscow's reasons for doing this can be summed up
in the following two words - Kaliningrad and Chechnya. It
should be mentioned in this connection that Russia opposed the
holding of a European Union summit in Copenhagen because the
Government of Denmark decided to accommodate the so-called
international Chechen congress. The far from smooth Russia - EU
summit was eventually held in Brussels. Russia rejected an EU
attempt to include the "Chechen issue" in the agenda. As
compared to Russian-US relations, Russia and the EU maintain
much broader and more profound economic and financial
relations. Moreover, the keys to Russia's eventual WTO (World
Trade Organization) membership lie in Brussels. Nonetheless,
Brussels understands perfectly well that it will never be able
to effectively compete with the United States for Russia's
attention. The main task for Russia now is to ensure security.
The United States will always be Russia's natural partner in
this field.
*******
#11
Russian military official says NATO "ungovernable", more so after expansion
El Pais (Spain)
21 November 2002
[translation for personal use only]
Russian military official says NATO "ungovernable", more so after expansion
First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Col-Gen Yuriy
Baluyevskiy said NATO is almost impossible to govern and expansion will
only aggravate the issue, in an interview published in a Spanish daily
newspaper. The general also said that the measures being considered by
NATO to combat international terrorism do not respond to the threat. The
following is the text of the interview with Baluyevskiy by Pilar Bonet,
"Expansion will make NATO more ungovernable", carried on the Spanish
newspaper El Pais web site on 21 November; subheadings inserted
editorially
Moscow: NATO is "practically ungovernable" and incapable of responding
to the common threat of terrorism, says Col-Gen Yuriy Baluyevskiy, first
deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces and his country's main
negotiator on weapons issues, in an interview with El Pais.
[Pilar Bonet] How do you rate the new cooperation mechanism between
Russia and NATO?
[Yuriy Baluyevskiy] We've started well, but I'm pragmatic and a little
sceptical and I wouldn't want to go back to what we had in the previous
Russia-NATO Council, that is to say, more conversations than deeds. We've
progressed in the naval field and we're preparing a document that will
regulate our relations in maritime rescue operations. We've also advanced
on the social defence of the armed forces and we're exchanging points of
view on military reform. A group of experts has examined Russian
technology for destroying antipersonnel mines. But a setback is not out
of the question. We wouldn't come to a cold war, but there are issues
that could cast a shadow over our relations and they have to do with the
new expansion. In Prague, I'd like NATO to reflect on the failure by the
new member states to fulfil the obligations they took on [as candidates
to join the organization], which Hungary has revealed. From a technical
and military point of view, none of the Baltic states meet NATO's
criteria, but these criteria take a back seat behind politics. As a
specialist in systems, I believe NATO is practically ungovernable and
tomorrow [in the future], from the point of view of being governable, it
will be even worse. Expansion, beyond a certain number, produces the
faults we saw after 11 September. Now we're seeing how decisions are
being made reluctantly.
Nuclear weapons
[Bonet] In Europe today, there is still a secret amount of tactical or
short-range nuclear weapons. Since 1991, Washington and Moscow have each
separately announced unilateral reductions in this class of weapon, not
subject as yet to any system of mutual control. What's the situation?
[Baluyevskiy] Russia has all its nuclear weapons, strategic or
non-strategic, on its own territory. Because of that, to be able to speak
to the USA on an equal footing, the Americans should take to their
territory the nuclear weapons they have outside it. But current
negotiations between Russia and the USA are centred on the TRPOE [as
received]. We shall come to non-strategic nuclear weapons in due course,
but first let's begin with the agreement we have just signed. After
ratifying and putting into practice the TPPOE [as received], the next
thing will be the reduction of non-strategic offensive weapons. Both we
and the USA still keep this figure secret and so far we have not
exchanged precise information on the subject, although we have fulfilled
all unilateral obligations taken on since the times of [former Soviet
President Mikhail] Gorbachev and we are not a threat to anyone.
[Bonet] Has NATO given you guarantees that nuclear weapons will not be
installed in the new member states?
[Baluyevskiy] We don't have those guarantees. They tell us that it's
possible that the Baltic countries, on joining NATO, will assume duties
within the framework of the Conventional Forces [in Europe] (CFE) Treaty.
It's possible, but we are pragmatic and we would like more precision.
[Bonet] NATO expansion has lost importance... [El Pais ellipsis]
[Baluyevskiy] Personally, I believe confrontation between Russia and
NATO is not possible and that the ruling organisms in the Alliance are
disorientated by the loss of the opponent. The enemy has disappeared, but
the desire to spend money, to create weapons systems is still there and
it is much stronger in the mind and politics of the West than in Russia.
Terrorism
[Bonet] Could terrorism be said to have helped you overcome the
confrontation with NATO?
[Baluyevskiy] The measures that NATO is considering and the direction
it is taking, above all in the field of the armed forces, is not in tune
with the threats from terrorism. Terrorists must be fought with selective
methods.
[Bonet] Don't you think the concern over tactical nuclear weapons,
more manageable than the strategic ones, is precisely because of the fear
of them falling into the hands of the terrorists?
[Baluyevskiy] In Belgium a few days ago, they arrested several people
that were trying to break into a NATO base where tactical nuclear weapons
are kept. Neither we nor the specialists from other countries have the
slightest fear for the security levels of Russia's nuclear arsenals. We
know everything we have down to the last unit, we know how many we have,
where we have them and how we have them, what it costs and what to do
about it.
[Bonet] The Russian government is this week [18-24 November]
discussing changes to military doctrine that would allow the [Russian]
armed forces to attack terrorists for preventive purposes.
[Baluyevskiy] According to our constitution, the main purpose of the
army is to defend against the external enemy. We do not see an external
enemy in either the USA or NATO, but we do see a common enemy in
international terrorism. In those terrible days of the taking of the
hostages, the armed forces did not participate in the liquidation of the
terrorists in the Moscow theatre. I think the armed forces should take
part in cases like those, because they have the means that permit them to
put adversaries out of action. I believe these means exist in other
countries' armies and that great effort is made to create weapons that do
not kill.
When our [prime]minister [Vladimir Putin] speaks of preventive
attacks, I, as a military man, understand that in the case of mass
hostage-taking, ways have to be found of neutralizing the terrorists that
do not end in the maximum damage that these [people] aspire to. The
purpose of the clarifications of the conceptual document that we will
study is for the armed forces to participate more efficiently in the
fight against terrorism, which requires changes to the legal framework in
order to use the armed forces in internal situations and for the creation
of units capable of carrying out tasks that are different to conventional
ones.
*******
#12
Russia: Plans For Referendum In Chechnya May Be Hollow Gesture
By Valentinas Mite
Russia has announced plans to hold a referendum in Chechnya on a new
constitution. The referendum would be preceded by an international
conference, but it's not yet clear who would be invited. Pro-Moscow Chechens
say a referendum and new constitution is the quickest road to peace.
Analysts, on the other hand, say that without the active involvement of
Chechen separatists, any vote is likely to be meaningless.
Prague, 26 November 2002 (RFE/RL) -- The Russian minister for Chechnya,
Stanislav Ilyasov, has announced plans to hold a constitutional referendum in
the breakaway republic sometime in March.
Speaking on 22 November, Ilyasov said the Kremlin had approved a plan for a
Chechen constitution that provides for the establishment of a republic and a
one-chamber parliament.
The idea for the referendum was proposed by pro-Moscow Chechens on 7
November. In an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, they said the
main problem facing Chechnya was the lack of a constitution and urged the
Kremlin to organize a referendum as soon as possible.
Aslambek Aslakhanov, a deputy in the State Duma representing Chechnya, signed
the appeal. He said a referendum and constitution is the quickest way to end
the bloodshed. "Every day, people are killed [in Chechnya]. Every day, young
people die, and every day, people are abducted and shot and their corpses
found. It is impossible to wait any longer for negotiations to start.
Something must be done," Aslakhanov said.
Aslakhanov said an international conference on Chechnya would precede the
referendum, but it's not yet clear who would attend the conference.
Aslakhanov said the Chechen opposition should be invited but not those now
fighting Russian forces. "During the last week, I spoke about this problem
with some Kremlin officials, and they told me that those Chechens who are not
wanted by Russian authorities would be allowed to take part in the
conference," Aslakhanov said.
The question remains, however, how effective such a conference would be,
since almost all of the Chechen separatist leaders, including Chechen
President Aslan Maskhadov, are wanted by Russian authorities.
Putin has described Maskhadov as a "murderer" and "scum," and just two weeks
ago blamed Maskhadov for almost all of the breakaway republic's troubles.
"[Maskhadov] led the republic to economic collapse, famine, destruction of
the social and cultural sphere, genocide against other ethnic groups in
Chechnya, and heavy casualties of ethnic Chechens," Putin said.
Ivan Rybkin, a Russian Duma deputy and former chairman of parliament, is
skeptical about the success of the referendum. He said any vote held without
the inclusion of the separatist leadership is not likely to succeed. "These
people who are resisting 100,000 federal troops must take part [in the
negotiations]. Federal troops are there not against [Duma Deputy Ruslan]
Khasbulatov, who is an academic and professor, [and] not against Aslakhanov,
who is general and a member of the Russian Duma," Rybkin said.
Brussels-based Russia analyst Marius Vahl of the Center for European Policy
Studies agreed, saying that in his opinion, Chechnya is not yet ready for a
referendum or elections. He said the separatists would not stop fighting just
because the Russians decided to have a referendum.
Vahl said he thinks Russia is probably using the idea of a referendum as a
way of showing the West that it seeks a peaceful solution for Chechnya. But a
referendum alone is not likely to be very persuasive. "I think so. I mean the
view in the West is very clear: You need to have a political solution, a
political settlement that will have to be negotiated between the ones who are
fighting. Simply holding elections in Russian-controlled parts of Chechnya --
I don't think that will make any difference on opinion in the West," Vahl
said.
Dov Lynch, an analyst from the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris, is
also critical about a referendum. "This referendum is still far from falling
in line [with a] policy of peace and [the] search for peace. It really falls
in line with the current Russian policy of isolating, eliminating, destroying
separatists, terrorists, whatever they want to call them, and is not really a
step toward peace," Lynch said.
Lynch said Russian authorities will hail the referendum as a step toward
peace, but in reality, he said, it would be more a "Potemkin village."
Analysts say any vote would be heavily weighted in Russia's favor.
Separatists would not likely vote, but the 100,000 Russian soldiers now
deployed in Chechnya probably would.
*******
#13
IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA
No. 164, November 26, 2002
NATO LOOKS TO CENTRAL ASIA
The strategically-important former Soviet republics now have the
opportunity to work more closely with the alliance.
By Saule Mukhametrakhimova in Prague
Saule Mukhametrakhimova is IWPR's Central Asia Project Manager in London
The ongoing "war on terror" has led to a change in how NATO views the
Central Asian nations.
The five former Soviet republics, which are not members of the alliance,
will now have the chance to work with NATO through the Partnership for
Peace programme.
This new era of cooperation was announced at NATO's recent Prague summit.
"We encourage partners, including the countries of the
strategically-important regions of Caucasus and Central Asia, to take
advantage of these mechanisms," read an alliance statement.
The September 11 attack on America leant new importance to the Central
Asian countries. The United States-led offensive that followed saw
coalition forces set up bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, to launch
operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.
According to Central Asian expert Donald Jensen, the region can be used as
staging post for combating extremist networks based in South Asia. It is
also convenient as a place to organise intelligence operations against
radical groups both inside and outside the region.
Addressing the summit, Rustum Jumaev, a spokesperson for Uzbek president
Islam Karimov, spokes of his fears for the stability of the region. In
spite of the new interim administration in Afghanistan, which borders
three Central Asian republics, he said security was still a great concern.
The fundamentalist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, still poses a
threat to the region. The group, which has links to Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda organisation, has been blacklisted by the US.
"Although the main forces of the IMU were defeated after war in
Afghanistan, there are still pockets of the group hiding in Afghan
territory and in the neighbouring countries," Jumaev said.
"This group attempted to sneak back into Central Asia this year. Although
they were unsuccessful, we cannot exclude the fact that remnants of the
IMU might try to re-group."
As well as boosting security, NATO can help the Central Asian nations
tackle the problem of drug trafficking across their territory. The region
is a main transit route for smugglers taking narcotics from Afghanistan to
Russia and beyond.
"It is via this route that drugs find their way onto the streets of
European cities such as London and Berlin," said NATO spokeswoman Stefanie
Babst.
She added that this prompted some within the alliance to argue that the
body should pay more attention to what is happening at the periphery of
its sphere of influence, especially drug smuggling, which is a major
source of funding for armed groups.
Central Asian governments have confirmed that this problem is on the rise.
In a summit speech, Kazak president Nursultan Nazarbaev said the volume of
narcotics being trafficked had increased in recent times.
President Karimov echoed this view in his address, noting that extremists
are now joining forces with drug traffickers and pointing out that there
is lack of coordination between international organisations and regional
governments implementing anti-smuggling programmes.
However, analysts fear that talk of war, extremism and security will
sideline concern over human rights and the development of democracy. It
seems that the international community's demand for reforms has been
overshadowed by the need to secure the cooperation of Central Asian
republics in military matters.
Dismissing criticism that the US is aligning itself too closely with
authoritarian Central Asian governments, President George W Bush said,
"The more people ... work with the US, the more likely it is that they
will work to improve the human condition."
An official from a western political institution told IWPR admitted there
is not much the alliance can do encourage Central Asian leaders to improve
democracy in the region. "NATO is an inter-governmental organisation. It
does not have the apparatus to influence these countries in the same way
as the individual countries in the alliance can," he said.
*******
#14
Times Literary Supplement (UK)
25 November 2002
Chaos and corruption in Kazakhstan
Dictators thrive on what Stalin left behind
By Rosemary Righter
Joma Nazpary
POST-SOVIET CHAOS
Violence and dispossession in Kazakhstan
232pp. Pluto. £45 (paperback, £18.99).
0 7453 1597 6
Caroline Humphrey
THE UNMAKING OF SOVIET LIFE
Everyday economies after Socialism
265pp. Cornell University Press; distributed in the UK by Plymbridge.
£30.50 (paperback, £12.95).
0 8014 3981 7
Martha Brill Olcott
KAZAKHSTAN
Unfulfilled promise
322pp. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. $44
(paperback, $24.95).
0 87003 189 9
The vast land mass of steppe, desert, once flourishing Silk Road cities and
intimidating mountain ranges we now call Central Asia runs south of
Siberia, east of the Volga River, west of China’s grim Taklamakan desert
and down to Afghanistan. It has been a conduit for cultural and mercantile
exchange since Chinese silks came to ancient Greece and Rome, but it has
also historically been a turbulent terra incognita whose complex tribal and
religious cross-currents have perplexed both East and West. It is still, to
a large extent and with troubling implications for the effort to contain
Islamist terrorism, terra incognita.
This is the frontier territory where the northern arc of Islam meets the
wilder reaches of the Christianized world. The threat of militant Islam
exercised Western rulers in the Middle Ages just as, courtesy of al-Qaeda,
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Chechen Islamists, it does today.
Its sweeping plains bred great generals, Genghis Khan most notoriously, but
also the learned but cruel Timur, Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, the “scourge of
God”, whose armies fanned out from Samarkand to hammer at Europe’s gates.
The blood of both men ran in the veins of Zahiruddin Babur, who after a
stint lording it over Kabul sensibly went south to found the Indian Mughal
Empire. The region also sent great generals mad, and not just the British:
it was in the fertile reaches of Transoxiana, between the great Amu Darya
and Syr Darya rivers, that Alexander the Great finally succumbed to
megalomania and murdered his best general, Cleitus the Black.
Outsiders of many religions and none – Arab, Turk, Persian, Russian and
Chinese – have coveted Central Asia’s precious ores, its splendid horses
and its fertile crescents since the days of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
They meddled constantly in the region’s running battles between settled
civilizations and nomadic empires, and between mullahs, shamans and
Christians, converting, bribing and otherwise seeking to subdue its
despotic khanates. Central Asia always held great mineral wealth, now known
to include strategically important deposits of oil and natural gas.
Abruptly, under the dominion of the Soviet Union, this sparsely peopled
expanse nearly as large as the United States all but vanished from the
Western world’s political map. Since September 11, it has made a dramatic
reappearance; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the un-savoury dictatorship in
Uzbekistan are critical links in the US-led counter-terrorist offensive.
The Russian Empire had colonized Central Asia, but it was the Soviet Union
that, against bitter resistance, modernized it – and ruthlessly, terribly,
despoiled it. Soviet map-makers drew “national” borders, a wholly alien
concept, around five new Soviet Socialist “stans”, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan – and, on Stalin’s orders, ensured
that each republic contained enough minorities and disputed territory to
buttress Moscow’s cynical claim to be Central Asia’s “stabilizer”. Soviet
engineers laid roads and railways, built dams, brought electricity, clinics
and compulsory education to the remotest settlements. Soviet social
engineers constructed five standardized official languages and “national
identities” from the ethnic and linguistic patchwork woven by centuries of
migration. They set about obliterating every cultural link with the
“feudal” past, hacking with particular ferocity at its Islamic roots.
Soviet planners corralled Uzbek farmers in giant cotton farms, irrigated by
methods that, they knew, would destroy the Aral Sea, the world’s
fourth-largest lake. The pastoral societies of the Kazakh hordes – the word
Kazakh means “free rider” – were forcibly “denomadized” by Stalin; those
who resisted collectivization were killed or sent to the Gulags. Unused to
farming, people died like flies; two million, a tenth of the entire Kazakh
population, perished between 1926 and 1933. The Sovietization of Central
Asia was accelerated by the hundreds of thousands of Russians, Ukrainians
and other Soviet nationalities sent in to work the region’s rich coal, iron
and oil deposits and, in the 1950s, to plough up miles of steppe in
Khrushchev’s grandiose Virgin Lands scheme.
Soviet scientists were sent to top-secret “nuclear cities” to conduct
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons tests in ring-fenced test zones
occupying thousands of square miles. Deliberately, and scandalously, they
used people living in and around the secret test zones as human guinea
pigs, relentlessly exposing them to radiation poisoning for four decades. I
have seen, in Semipalatinsk, a test site the size of Wales, the terrible
legacy – galloping cancer rates, immunological deficiencies and malign
genetic mutations such as babies born without limbs. It is an ecological
disaster zone. The damage will endure for generations. Kazakhstan, almost
certainly the most lethally polluted country on earth, was the worst
affected. But poisonous residues and radioactive waste are a hazard
throughout the region.
This was the system that Joma Nazpary describes in Post-Soviet Chaos , his
extraordinary jeremiad on the “immense tragedy” of “the sudden and brutal
emergence of market forces” in Kazakhstan, previously “the most
far-reaching welfare state world history has ever witnessed. Life-time
employment, free access to education, cheap access to housing, electricity,
central heating, gas, telephone, transport, health-care, sport, books,
theatre . . . ”. You might think that people whose lives and lands were
held so cheap would differ, vehemently. Many do, as a recent journey
through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan made plain.
Yet Sovietization was highly successful in severing Central Asians from
their cultural reference points. So the sudden death of the belief system
imposed on them, and the chaotic collapse of what Caroline Humphrey
describes in The Unmaking of Soviet Life as a “suffocating mesh of
benevolence and cruelty”, induced a particularly acute form of post-Soviet
malaise. Even in Kazakhstan, the richest as well as the largest of the
“stans”, Martha Brill Olcott observes that it has been “far easier to get
people to renounce the political ideology of the Soviet Union than to
abandon the social contract that went with it”. For all their enthusiasm
for Westernization, even the urban young “seem to retain their parents’
expectation that the state will meet its citizens’ social welfare needs”.
Myths about Soviet egalitarianism and “order” are reinforced by the
dictatorial leanings and, above all, the industrial-scale rapacity of the
postmodern khans who now lead the stans. All but one – Kyrgyzstan’s
President Askar Askayev – are former Soviet apparatchiks; and all seem to
think that capitalism is about the maximization of dynastic profit.
Combined with economic misery, the dissolution of people’s sense of
themselves and their societies rent the social and political fabric of
Central Asia.
The books under review are concerned almost entirely with the region’s
post-Soviet identity, or more precisely, with its search for one. They deal
mainly with the grim decade after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 – a
time of terrible psychological and economic dislocation. Abruptly deprived
of the Soviet subsidies and markets that had created the illusion of
economic viability, industry largely collapsed in the 1990s. Social
services disintegrated. So did much agriculture. The Kazakh steppes are
littered with the derelict remnants of collective farms. Those in
Uzbekistan still operate, but only because farm-workers are semi-slaves who
are paid, for example, $3 for a tonne of cotton that the State then sells
for $1,300. The regime of Islam Karimov has contrived to combine the
cruellest aspects of Soviet collectivization and pre-Soviet feudalism.
Nazpary, whose subtitle is Violence and dispossession in Kazakhstan , takes
an explicitly worm’s-eye view of this turbulence from the meaner streets of
Almaty in the hyperinflationary mid-1990s. His analysis is the weakest of
the three. In the first place Almaty, better known to most of us as Alma
Ata, is anything but a typical Soviet, or indeed Central Asian, city.
Tucked under the breathtaking Tienshan range that divides Kazakhstan from
Kyrgyzstan (and China), it is a place of wide tree-shaded boulevards built
by the Russians as a leafy refuge from the stifling summers of the steppes.
Before President Nursultan Nazarbayev purpose-built Astana in the dusty
plains far to the north, it was the capital of Kazakhstan. The struggle
this overweening ruler is having in getting anyone to move to Astana
suggests that the locals do not share Nazpary’s grim view of Almaty.
Secondly, Nazpary reads too much into what is no more than a snapshot – a
fifteen-month stay that coincided with a period of maximum hardship,
disorganization and despair – of a society in rapid evolution. Some of his
pavement portraits are compelling, as are his depictions of the multiple
subterfuges people adopted to survive. But his “Down and Out in Almaty”
fails to get under the skin, perhaps because it lacks the humanity and
sense of the absurd that distinguished Orwell’s observations from the
gutters of London and Paris.
Above all, what purports to be dispassionate sociological observation is
driven by a dogmatic detestation of capitalism – not just Kazakhstan’s
corrupt, crony capitalism, but any capitalism. Privatization in Nazpary’s
book is “plunder” – not just in practice (where he has a point) but by
definition; all market reforms are an American plot to dominate “the world
system” through “the dispossession of millions of people from \ their basic
economic and cultural rights”. Nazpary concedes that under Soviet rule,
black markets compensated for endemic shortages, mafia-like networks
operated and corruption riddled the dual bureaucracies of Party and State
that dominated the transactions of daily life. Yet, he contends, there was
at least order, if not honour, among thieves; he quotes, approvingly, the
factory worker who complains: “In the past they stole but there was enough
for us. Now they are still stealing but there is not enough for us.”
There may not be “enough”; but there is no shortage of customers in
Almaty’s colourful markets. You do see miserable, grinding poverty in
Kazakhstan today; but in this vast country, five times the size of France,
you see it mainly in neglected steppe villages, on the edges of rustbelt
towns and in the wastelands of the nuclear test grounds – the places that
are furthest from making the transition to the market economy which Nazpary
detests.
Central Asia’s problem is not the free market, but the way its development
has been constricted, and the energies of its many skilled and highly
educated people have been held back, by lack of know-how, by stifling,
venal and largely unreconstructed bureaucracy, by trade barriers that
compound these landlocked countries’ remoteness from the new markets they
need to reach – and by enervating, endemic corruption. For about the
stealing, there is no question. It is possible for a foreigner to travel in
Central Asia without paying bribes, though a lorry-driver would typically
pay $1,000 in roadblock “levies” to get a load from one end of Kazakhstan
to another; but it is impossible not to observe how routine and corrosive
the practice is.
Altogether more illuminating, as well as more readable, are Caroline
Humphrey’s essays in The Unmaking of Soviet Life on the often highly
localized networks and “strategies beyond the law” that people from Moscow
to Mongolia have devised to shelter them against “the aggressiveness of
everyday life” and the distrusted and widely resented post-Soviet regimes
they live under. Particularly valuable is her dissection of “corruption”.
She argues that people make clear distinctions between the bribe direct,
“generally understood to be reprehensible” because it takes advantage of
weakness; other equally “extra- legal” acts, such as the use of personal
connections to bypass regulations, which are seen as morally legitimate
forms of reciprocal support even when “favours” are exchanged; and
pilfering from the workplace, which decades of “predatory Socialism” made
people look on almost as a personal “right”.
Everywhere, she writes, one finds “ordinary people turning to extraordinary
ends . . . simply to stay afloat”, but this does not mean that they or
their societies are thereby hopelessly corrupted. What people are doing is
writing their own rule books, in a piecemeal process that “at the same time
sharpens the will to profit personally and sensitises the moral faculty”.
And because their “everyday economies” constantly involve “ethical choices,
new, possibly more benign arrangements are bound to emerge”.
The question, of course, is how long this will take. Humphrey quotes a
policeman. “What is going on is grabbing and division of everything that
belongs to no one. Law will be needed only when the property-owners have
sucked it all dry and say ‘Enough!’ then we’ll play by the rules.” That is,
I think, what is now happening in Putin’s Russia. But in Central Asia, the
coercive new rulers, their rapacious extended families and the
“businessmen” who, in opportunistic alliance or for self-protection, pay
them obsequious court, are still kings of the dungheap . . .
*******
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