October 11, 1997 
This Date's Issues: 1277 •1278

Johnson's Russia List
#1278
11 October 1997
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Gates, Soros See Russian Revival.
2. RIA Novosti: GRIGORI YAVLINSKY TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT.
3. Paul Goble (RFE/RL): Putting Russia's Regions In Play.
4. RIA Novosti: INTERESTS OF AMERICAN ARMS EXPORTERS UNDERLIE 
ALLEGATIONS OF AMERICAN MEDIA AS TO CONNECTIONS OF "RUSSIAN MAFIA" 
WITH LATIN-AMERICAN DRUG-DEALERS.
5. Reuter: How CIS states are ruled.
6. Los Angeles Times: Carol Williams, In the Kremlin, a Computer 
Czar. Russia: Moscow's inner sanctum opens its gates to Microsoft's 
chairman. 
7. Moskovskaya Pravda: Yeltsin's Enemies Seen Exploiting Regional 
Interests.
8. U.S. News and World Report: Christian Caryl, Ghosts from the 
gulag. Lithuania tries to remember Stalin and forget Hitler.
9. RIA Novosti: GENNADI ZYUGANOV ON BUDGETARY CRISIS.
10. RIA Novosti: SUBSISTENCE MINIMUM IN RUSSIA GROWS BY 43,000 
ROUBLES TO REACH 413,000 ROUBLES.
11. Boston Globe: Jonathan Power, Russian organized crime poses a 
nuclear threat.]

*******

#1
Gates, Soros See Russian Revival
October 11, 1997
By MITCHELL LANDSBERG
MOSCOW (AP) - When both Bill Gates and George Soros came nosing
through the wreckage of Russia's economy last week, a reasonable
person might have asked: What do they know that I don't?
Here were two of the world's richest and most savvy businessmen,
each in Moscow for far different reasons, each pronouncing himself
optimistic about Russia's future.
This is the same Russia in which millions of people go unpaid,
economic growth is - at best - at a standstill, crime and
corruption are rampant throughout the highest levels of society,
and few people trust a government that says it is committed to
reform.
What's going on?
The fact is, the visits by Gates and Soros are only the most
prominent manifestations of an increasing interest in Russia by
Western businesses and investors. Russia is hot, although most
Russians would be hard-pressed to understand why.
``It IS a hot market,'' observed Charles Blitzer, a London-based
economist who tracks emerging Eastern European markets for the
American investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.
Blitzer said investors have flocked to Russia in the past year
``because it's a country with big potential - in many respects
unrealized - and with big investment needs, and the expectation is
that the economic performance will improve.''
Both Gates and Soros made similar observations during their
parallel trips here.
Gates, the Microsoft chairman who is estimated by Forbes
magazine to be the world's richest person, spent Friday and
Saturday in Moscow meeting with many of the country's top business
and political leaders. He said he wanted to meet with Microsoft's
largest customers and also lobby for restrictions on software
piracy.
At a news conference that drew a huge crowd of Russian
reporters, Gates said Russia has ``a very bright future,'' both as
a software development center and computer industry market.
``Foreign investment in Russia has increased substantially in
the past year, as there is a growing perception of a stable
economic environment,'' he said.
Soros, one of the world's most successful investors and one of
its largest and most flamboyant philanthropists, is traveling
throughout Russia for two weeks to decide how to increase his
already substantial charitable donations.
He outlined his vision of Russia at the start of his trip with a
speech to a well-heeled crowd of reform-minded Russians in an
ornate hall near the Kremlin.
Soros said he had been pessimistic about Russia until earlier
this year, when President Boris Yeltsin appointed a young reformer,
Boris Nemtsov, to a top position in his government.
That signaled a serious dedication to change, he said. Now, for
the first time, ``I can see a realistic prospect of Russia moving
in a positive direction.''
Soros voted with his wallet, with investments totaling more than
$2 billion.
Plenty of other Westerners have done the same in the past year,
albeit more modestly.
Mutual fund companies have scrambled to open funds targeting
Russia and the emerging markets of Eastern Europe. So far this
year, foreign investors have plunged nearly $7 billion into Russia,
triple the amount for all of 1996.
Many Russians remain pessimistic about the country's future. In
one major nationwide survey this year, only 16 percent of Russians
said they expected the economy to improve in 1997, and the vast
majority said their personal prospects were the same or worse than
before.
Outside the big cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, most
Russians are worse off economically than they were under the Soviet
Union. Industrial production has collapsed in the past five years,
and many large industrial companies lack the cash to pay their
employees.
But while many remain gloomy, there have been glimmers of hope.
The government reported Thursday that Russia's gross domestic
product was up 0.2 percent for the first nine months of the year,
and industrial production was up 1.5 percent - miserable numbers
for most developed economies, but cause for celebration here after
years of sharp declines.
The government is projecting an increase in the gross domestic
product of 2 percent next year, and some economists are more
optimistic. Brigitte Granville, a Moscow-based economist for J.P.
Morgan, recently predicted a jump of 4 percent in GDP, based on
improved industrial production, stronger consumer spending and the
spread of economic reforms.
In his speech in Moscow, Soros acknowledged that the economic
and political situation in Russia today is ``intolerable.''
``This means that the present situation will not last,'' he
said. ``The only question is, in what direction will it change?''
Right now, the smart money says it will change for the better.
But even Soros and Gates know that Russia has frustrated the
optimists before. No one would be terribly surprised if it did it
again. 

*******

#2
GRIGORI YAVLINSKY TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT
BELGOROD, OCTOBER 11, RIA-NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT VALERI
GRIGORYEV - Yabloko leader Grigori Yavlinsky announced his
intention to run for president in 2000 here today.
Yavlinsky arrived in the area to support his movement's
grass-roots organization on the eve of Sunday elections to the
regional duma.
Talking to RIA-NOVOSTI about his chances of becoming
president, Yavlinsky stressed that his party, which is now being
created on the basis of the Yabloko movement, will make a
breakthrough by the year 2000. Right now, Yabloko is supported
by about 12 percent of all voters, which is much higher than
during the 1995 State-Duma elections. 

*******

#3
Russia: Analysis From Washington--Putting Russia's Regions In Play
By Paul Goble

Washington, 10 October 1997(RFE/RL) - Both Russian President Boris Yeltsin
and communist opposition leader Gennady Zyuganov are attempting to enlist
the support of the leaders of Russia's farflung regions.
Their respective appeals to a group few in Moscow have paid much
attention to in the past reflect both disarray in the Russian capital and a
shift in power from Moscow to the regions, a shift that many see as a
precondition for the development of Russian democracy.
But because Moscow and regional leaders do not agree on who should
perform which functions, the latter are likely to exploit this situation to
take even more power from the central government, something that could put
some of Russia's reforms at risk. 
On Thursday, communist leader Gennady Zyuganov called on regional leaders
who form the upper house of the Russian parliament to back him in his battle
with the government over economic reform and to agree to take part in a
roundtable on Russia's future course.
In the past, the regional leaders have been less hostile to Yeltsin and
the Russian government than has the Duma, the lower house. But Zyuganov
indicated that he believes the government's plan to cut subsidies to the
regions will drive them into his corner.
But Zyuganov is not the only player in this competition for the support
of regional leaders. Two weeks ago, Yeltsin addressed the Federation Council
and suggested that he was willing to yield even more power to the regions
that body's members represent.
Noting that there were problems between Moscow and the regions and
between the regions and local officials, the Russian President suggested
that the country needs to consider another draft law on "the division of
powers" between these various levels of authority.
"A lot of regional leaders already have enough experience, including with
foreign partners, so some of our laws or treaties on the division of powers
may need to be reviewed," Yeltsin said.
And he noted that "in the case of regions with whom we do not yet have
treaties, we take account of these points, that is, give you more
independence than today. I support this."
Because both Yeltsin and Zyuganov are competing for their support, the
leaders of the regions now have the opportunity to play one group off
against the other, extracting additional commitments for favors as the price
of their support.
That is what the leaders of Russia's regions did in 1991 and again in
1993. And their demands at those times had the effect of leading to a
radical and even uncontrolled flow of power from Moscow to the regions. 
Since the adoption of the latest Russian constitution, in December 1993,
Yeltsin has used the enormous powers of his office relative to those of the
parliament to limit or at least regularize this process. 
And in the absence of divisions in the Moscow political elite, the
regions have had less success in extracting even more powers from the
central authorities.
Now, however, Zyuganov has raised the possibility that these regional
leaders may be able to exploit such divisions in the Russian capital once again.
Clearly, he is hoping for that. But because of the changes in Russian
politics over the last few years, Zyuganov's hopes may be misplaced.
The regional leaders recognize that Yeltsin and not the Duma holds most
of the cards. And they know that Yeltsin is prepared to play these cards
against anyone who opposes him.
But because Moscow as a whole relative to the regions is so much weaker
than it was in the past, Zyuganov may put the regions into play once again
even though he may not be the chief beneficiary.
Instead, the regional leaders are likely to gain more power at the
expense of Moscow -- even if their gains do not spark a constitutional
crisis as they have in the past.<p>

*******

#4
INTERESTS OF AMERICAN ARMS EXPORTERS UNDERLIE ALLEGATIONS
OF AMERICAN MEDIA AS TO CONNECTIONS OF "RUSSIAN MAFIA" WITH
LATIN-AMERICAN DRUG-DEALERS
MOSCOW, OCTOBER 10, RIA NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT ALEXEI
MESHKOV - Real interests of American arms exporters outline
behind the recent allegations by certain American mass media
that "Russian mafia" has contacts with Latin-American
drug-dealers, and that Russian "godfathers" furnish Columbian
drug-dealers with arms. This announcement was made by Gennady
Tarasov, the Russian Foreign Ministry official spokesman, at
yesterday's news briefing.
According to him, "we are witnessing yet another instance
of dishonest competition, aimed at ousting Russia from South
American markets by hook or by crook."
Russia's policy in the area of military-technical contacts
is derived from the assumption that sales of military hardware
to foreign countries should not aggravate tensions, or shatter
the balance in any region of the world, Tarasov noted.
Therefore, notwithstanding the freedom of foreign trade in
Russia, our country's military-technical cooperation with other
nations, Latin American countries included, is closely
supervised by the government, the Russian diplomat stressed. 

******

#5
How CIS states are ruled

ALMATY, Oct 10 (Reuter) - Resource-rich Kazakhstan found itself with a new
prime minister on Friday. 
Here is a short summary of how governments and presidents interact in
Kazakhstan and the 11 other ex-Soviet republics that make up the Commonwealth
of Independent States. 

KAZAKHSTAN - President Nursultan Nazarbayev enjoys sweeping executive powers
in the oil-rich republic. He hires and fires ministers and the loyal
parliament rarely raises its voice in opposition. 
With an eye on future presidential elections, due in 2000 but possibly
earlier, the republic's former Communist Party chief is keen, say analysts,
to keep any possible rivals from rising to high -- hence reformer Akezhan
Kazhegeldin's dismissal on Friday as prime minister. 

UZBEKISTAN - President Islam Karimov brooks no opposition in his largely
desert nation of 23 million. He appoints all ministers and makes nearly all
important policy decisions. The parliament is largely ceremonial. 

TURKMENISTAN - The republic has a government and a parliament but President
Saparmurat Niyazov, focus of a Stalinist-style personality cult, makes all
the important decisions. Ministers earn notoriety only if they are sacked by
Niyazov when he is displeased at reversals in his neo-Soviet economic policy.

KYRGYZSTAN - President Askar Akayev began with the best democratic
credentials in Central Asia. But Akayev has recently taken on more powers in
line with his regional neighbours, eroding those of parliament. 

TAJIKISTAN - The republic, emerging from a four-year civil war, is currently
working out a power-sharing agreement between President Imomali Rakhmonov and
a commission for national reconciliation headed by the country's Islamist
opposition leader, Said Abdullo Nuri. Parliamentary elections are slated for
1998. 

RUSSIA - Boris Yeltsin has extensive powers as Russian president and works
closely with the reformist team put in charge of economic reform in a cabinet
reshuffle last spring. 
But Yeltsin likes to avoid being identified with any one faction and is known
to enjoy his role as ultimate arbiter. 
He has stormy relations with the Communist-dominated lower house of
parliament (State Duma) and has recently hinted he might dissolve it and call
an early election if it continues to hold up his economic reforms. 

UKRAINE - President Leonid Kuchma, whose term expires in October 1999, has
the power to re-appoint ministers whenever he likes and only needs
parliamentary approval for the prime minister. 
Foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund have pushed hard for
structural reforms in the government, seen as too bureaucratic despite key
reformers like Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Tyhypko and Finance Minister Ihor
Mityukov. 

BELARUS - President Alexander Lukashenko appoints the government although the
prime minister has to be approved by parliament, which generally backs him. 
Both branches of power are tightly controlled by the president following a
controversial constitution approved in a referendum in November 1996.
Lukashenko restarted the clock on his five-year term at the referendum and
the next election is now due in November 2001. 

MOLDOVA - President Petru Lucinschi must consult the Moldovan parliament
before making any government changes. While not formalised in the
constitution, power is divided between the president and parliament. 

GEORGIA - President Eduard Shevardnadze, elected in 1995 with over 75 percent
of the vote, presides over parliament where members of his Citizens Union
bloc have a solid majority. Both president and parliament are voted in for
five years and the next elections are due in 2000. 
Shevardnadze's relationship with lawmakers is far from dictatorial and he has
sometimes softened his positions depending upon what is politically feasible
with parliament. 

AZERBAIJAN - President Haydar Aliyev rules with a near absolute authority,
and is expected to run for another 5-year term in 1998. About 100 of 124
members of the Melli Mejlis, or parliament, belong either to his Yeni
Azerbaijan (New Azerbaijan) bloc or to small parties loyal to it; only 6
members are in outright opposition. 

ARMENIA - President Levon Ter-Petrosyan was barely re-elected in 1996 in
elections criticised as unfair by international monitors. 
The parliament (elected in 1995 for five years) is stacked overwhelmingly in
Ter-Petrosyan's favour which has made the legislature much of a rubber stamp.

*******

#6
Los Angeles Times
October 11, 1997 
[for personal use only]
In the Kremlin, a Computer Czar 
Russia: Moscow's inner sanctum opens its gates to Microsoft's chairman. 
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS, Times Staff Writer
 
MOSCOW--To the thump of computer-generated rock music and the piercing 
light of lasers, 4,000 Russian techno-nerds invaded the Kremlin on 
Friday in what looked more like a video game come to life than a 
pondering of the future in the inner sanctum of the old "Evil Empire." 
     The young and the geeky came to hear Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' 
hopeful vision of the world just ahead as Russia explodes out of the 
information vacuum that characterized the Communist era. 
     The packed State Kremlin Palace--where dour Communist bureaucrats 
once gathered to chart the future--and the live broadcast of the seminar 
to tens of millions of television viewers testified to the soaring 
interest among Russians in learning about the tools and toys available 
on the World Wide Web. 
     And thanks to a different kind of light being shined into long-dark 
corners of Russia by another American magnate, financier-philanthropist 
George Soros, access to the Internet is expanding, narrowing the gap 
between this country and the technologically revolutionized West. 
     "I think in a decade from now, most people will use the Web many 
times each day. They will take it for granted, like we use the telephone 
today," Gates told his rapt audience from nascent computer industries 
and university technology centers. 
     His message to the predominantly youthful audience, mostly 
bespectacled males in turtlenecks and running shoes, was that software 
programming offers a mother lode of new jobs for Russia's well-educated 
population. 
     And in Russia, still scared by its long isolation from Western 
contemporaries, people can contribute their knowledge and expertise and 
tap into that of others throughout the global community without leaving 
home, Gates noted. 
     "People don't have to move. They don't have to change where they 
are in order to make their skills available to customers on a global 
basis," the 41-year-old software czar told reporters earlier in the day. 
"This is the opposite of brain drain. This is 'brain retention,' along 
with incredible opportunity for people with strong educational 
backgrounds, which you know this country has a great deal of." 
     Business is the first user of advanced technology, and with Russia 
on the verge of transforming everything from banking to public 
transportation in the electronic era, Gates said he foresees "phenomenal 
growth" in computer and software development. 
     Skilled programmers are especially in demand, he said, noting that 
600,000 programming jobs have been created in the United States. 
     The main stumbling block to rapid development of information 
technologies in Russia, he said, is the country's notorious predilection 
for pirating software. 
     "Software companies are very dependent on people paying to license 
their software," Gates said. "It's the key to developing local 
industries. Developers can't fund their work, governments lose taxes, 
retailers can't stay in business, and there is no incentive to provide 
high-quality support." 
     Russia is reputed to be the world leader in software piracy, with 
91% of the programs in operation here today believed to have been 
illegally copied and distributed, said Olga Dergunova, Microsoft's 
general manager for Russia and other former Soviet republics. 
     With 1.5 million personal computers sold in Russia last year alone 
and sales rising sharply this year, drawing Russians into the global 
business and information channels linked by the Web is just a matter of 
time and pace, Gates said. 
     Extending Internet access to Russians throughout the country is the 
priority project of Soros, whose inspection tour of his projects aimed 
at developing democratic institutions coincided with Gates' lightning 
visit. 
     The Open Society Foundation, through which the Hungarian-born 
philanthropist has funneled more than $100 million into Russia, has 
embarked on an ambitious plan to set up 30 Internet training centers 
across the far-flung regions of Russia over the next year. 
     "The future of Russia lies in the provinces," Soros told a news 
conference in St. Petersburg, complaining that development has been too 
concentrated in the glitzy, go-go capital of Moscow. But he said he is 
observing a fundamental change in direction in Russia, from "robber 
capitalism" to the roots of a more equitable and stable society. 
     Gates used his two days here to stump for clients and stroke 
partners producing the hardware needed to use his Microsoft products. He 
visited the Vist company that assembles personal computers and controls 
about 15% of the Russian market, expecting to turn out 350,000 units 
this year. 
     At Gates' meeting with Vagit Alekperov, president of the powerful 
Lukoil company, Microsoft entered into an agreement to jointly develop 
software for prospecting and developing oil fields. And his talks with 
the chairmen of Russia's Central Bank and its biggest network of savings 
institutions, Sberbank, produced a $1.65-million contract to resolve a 
licensing issue for use of Microsoft tools in the automation of banking 
in Russia. 
     The fortunate 4,000 who visited a high-tech trade fair set up at 
the Kremlin conference before Gates' presentation also got a glimpse of 
the considerable inroads technology has already made in their lives. One 
local software producer partnered with Microsoft displayed the sleek new 
computerized pass system for Moscow's Metro subway system, and locally 
produced automatic teller machines were also on show. 
     Russian-language copies of Gates' "The Road Ahead" sold out as fast 
as vendors could pass them over to buyers wearing "Ya (Heart) Internet" 
buttons and proffering 52,000 rubles, or $8.87, for the hard-bound 
editions specially stamped for the occasion. 
Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories. You 
will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one. 

********

#7
Yeltsin's Enemies Seen Exploiting Regional Interests 

Moskovskaya Pravda
October 7, 1997
[translation for personal use only]
Commentary by Oleg Zhirnov: "Political Geometry: The War of
the 'Verticals' and the 'Horizontals'"

The story of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's canceled
visit to two Russian provinces contains quite a few strange elements. The
official reasons for the refusal [to allow the visit] were highly
contradictory. First, the visit was not coordinated with the Russian
[federal] Center. Then, let him give up [Russian TV journalist] Sheremet
first. If Alyaksandr Ryhoravich had "not given up Sheremet," but had
coordinated everything with Smolenskaya Square [Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs] well in advance and down to the last diplomatic comma, would they
have let him in? And if he had not coordinated everything but had gotten
the journalist out of prison, would Russia have welcomed him with open
arms?
Another thing is also unclear: why the wrath of the Russian president
came down so demonstratively on "friend Sasha," the head of a sovereign
state. And did not show itself with regard to those who are in effect B.
Yeltsin's subordinates, the two Russian governors. You would have thought
that this was where to strike! After all, they let down their boss by
breaking the rules of etiquette and causing a big furor. But there was no
public dressing down, only muffled, indirect grumbling.
This act of august leniency toward the offending governors echoes
another such act -- in distant Maritime Kray. There, the Vladivostok City
Duma took away the powers of Cherepkov, the city mayor, only recently
restored to his post by B. Yeltsin's special edict. This blow at the
president's prestige was clearly not inflicted without the knowledge of
Governor Nazdratenko, who is no favorite with the Center. But again the
president is in no hurry to display his fury at the obstreperous region. 
Therefore it is also worth examining the cancellation of the Belarusian
leader's visit in the context of the struggle now unfolding between
different political forces for the affections of Russian governors. Or
rather: in the context of the collision of two strategies in this
struggle.
The Russian president is courting the governors and is afraid to
offend them. Just recently he honored the Federation Council, made up of
regional heads, with his presence. Having fallen out with the "Red" Duma,
the president is trying to get support from senate members, who embody the
executive "vertical line of power." He wants to strengthen the vertical
"Center-regions" hierarchy. Yeltsin and Chubays are indulging the
governors, although they cannot give them much, in the big picture. In the
1998 budget the transfer of funds to the provinces has been "axed." The
president has laid on the local authorities the burden of financing the
construction of half of the 100,000 apartments for Russian army officers.
The president's enemies -- and not the "Reds," but others -- are also
working with regional heads. But they counter the Yeltsin doctrine of
"strengthening vertical ties" with a doctrine of establishing "horizontal
ties" between Russian federation components, bypassing the Center. To some
extent they are here utilizing the experience of B. Yeltsin himself, who at
one time beat the [Soviet] Union Center by appealing to the regions -- the
republics and autonomous formations of the former USSR. At that time, B.
Yeltsin struck at the state's unity, launching the slogan "take as much
sovereignty as you can." The actions of his current real opponents lack
this negative separatist thrust. On the contrary, the doctrine of
"strengthening horizontal ties" between Russian Federation regions cements
the state at the level of its foundations. While, however, minimizing and
belittling the role of Yeltsin's Center.
Lukashenka's canceled visit was obviously conceived within the
framework of this "horizontal ties" doctrine. By starting up direct
relations with the Russian regions, the allied republic energetically
joined in its realization. Before that, the Belarusian president had tried
to visit Kaliningrad Oblast. The Yeltsinites could no longer stand
Lukashenka's playing up to Yeltsin's political opponents and the Belarusian
president's adoption of their strategy. By blocking his visit they were
also trying indirectly to check Yeltsin's Russian opponents.
Contrary to the generally held opinion, the episode of the canceled
visit underlined the growing politically infirmity of the current regime. 
The enemies of the Yeltsinite clan are coming at it from the rear --
"horizontally." This was not successful this time, but it will be another
time.

*******

#8
U.S. News and World Report
20 October 1997
[for personal use only]
Ghosts from the gulag
Lithuania tries to remember Stalin and forget Hitler
BY CHRISTIAN CARYL

VILNIUS--One mass grave is couched in a fairy-tale forest on the 
outskirts of town. Another is in the city center, next to a red-clay 
tennis court. The Paneriai forest outside the Lithuanian capital of 
Vilnius marks the spot where 100,000 people, most of them Jews, were 
shot by invading German forces starting in autumn 1941. The Vilnius 
neighborhood called Tuskulenai contains 700 victims of Joseph Stalin's 
secret police, each skull neatly perforated by a single bullet.
Though both sites are more than half a century old, their ghosts remain 
unruly. Lithuania, one of the few countries to have known the rule both 
of Hitler and of Stalin, would these days prefer to remember its 
victimhood under the Soviets than the collaboration of some Lithuanians 
with the Nazis--in which 94 percent of Lithuania's 220,000 Jews were 
murdered. But an effort by prosecutors to track down and extradite 
former officials of the Soviet secret police for crimes against humanity 
has brought all of these ghosts back to life.
For Lithuanians it is an issue of justice. But members of the country's 
tiny remnant Jewish population of 5,000 fear that the increasing 
emphasis on the crimes of Stalin has a more sinister undertone--of 
trying to obscure and absolve the country's guilty past. In particular, 
Jewish leaders accuse prosecutors of showing little interest in pursuing 
Nazi collaborators who remain alive and free in Lithuania even now. "I 
tell them, `Get your own house in order!' " says Simon Alperavicius, 
head of the Jewish Community of Lithuania.
Backfire. Even the most innocent events in Lithuania these days have 
become supercharged with this controversy over the past. The latest 
recriminations were sparked by an official commemoration of an 
18th-century Jewish scholar, the Gaon of Vilna, revered as one of the 
greatest Talmudists in a Lithuania once known for its rich Jewish 
culture. The festivities, marking the 200th anniversary of the gaon's 
death this month, were the latest effort by the government to improve on 
a Lithuanian history long marred by antisemitism and, more recently, by 
official Soviet neglect of Jewish culture. Since Lithuania regained its 
independence in 1991, Jewish schools have been opened and cultural 
activities revived.
But this gesture of goodwill was dragged into the controversy last month 
when a leading Israeli Nazi hunter called upon Jewish organizations to 
boycott the event. Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 
Israel, was responding to news reports that the gaon's grave in Vilnius 
had been defaced by antisemites. The reports subsequently proved 
incorrect, but Zuroff's action brought to a boil the simmering dispute 
over prosecution of Nazi crimes. The commemoration came off as planned. 
But a speech before the Lithuanian parliament by Israel's ambassador to 
mark the occasion was heckled by right-wing deputies when he criticized 
Lithuania's failure to confront its own culpability in Nazi atrocities.
The foremost accused criminal to escape Lithuanian prosecution is 
Alexander Lileikis, once a high-ranking official of the Lithuanian 
security service under the Nazis. Lileikis, who spent most of his 
postwar life in the United States, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship 
and returned to Lithuania last year. Even though Lithuanian prosecutors 
acknowledge possessing wartime documents showing that Lileikis was 
responsible for handing over at least 53 Jews to certain death at the 
hands of the Gestapo between 1941 and 1944, they claim they are legally 
barred from prosecuting him now because of his bad health.
In any event, Zuroff's remarks set off a storm among Lithuanians angry 
at being typecast as unrepentant antisemites. One parliamentary deputy 
even called for slander charges to be brought against the Israeli, 
prompting Zuroff to respond: "They'll put me in jail before they ever 
get around to prosecuting Lileikis."
There is no historical dispute about the brutality of Stalin's rule. In 
1940 the country was gobbled up by the Soviet Union, and by the time of 
the German invasion the following year tens of thousands of Lithuanians 
were shot or deported to Siberia. After Soviet power returned in 1944, 
Lithuanian partisans took to the woods, starting a guerrilla war against 
Moscow's forces that continued well into the mid-1950s. Arvydas 
Anusauskas, a historian who heads the Genocide and Resistance Research 
Department in Vilnius, estimates that 100,000 Lithuanians, or 5 percent 
of the population, died. "Every second adult male Lithuanian met with 
repression in one form or another"--arrest, deportation, or execution, 
he says. During the guerrilla war against the Soviets from 1944 to 1953, 
special troops of the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB, combed the 
countryside for partisans and their supporters. Bodies were often 
mutilated and left lying in the streets and fields as warnings.
Stalinist hunters. At the beginning of this year, four former NKVD 
officers were tried and sentenced to prison for crimes against humanity 
committed during the guerrilla war of the 1940s. (One of the elderly 
accused died before the trial ended.) Lithuania has requested that 
Russia hand over three high-ranking former NKVD officers accused of 
Stalinist genocide, so far to no effect. Lithuanian researchers were 
allowed into Russian secret-police archives for the first time at the 
beginning of September, however.
But along with the prosecutions has arisen a movement in Lithuania that 
explicitly portrays the country as the victim of a genocidal campaign 
equal to or even greater than the Nazi annihilation of European Jewry. 
At the KGB Museum in Vilnius, a building with thick stone walls that was 
headquarters to both the Gestapo and the NKVD, visitors can view tiny 
basement cells where Soviet prisoners were held before execution. Today 
the building also houses Soviet secret-police archives that the 
Lithuanians managed to hold on to when the KGB left for good in 1991. 
Arunas Bubnys, director of the archives, claims that the crimes 
committed against Lithuania were part of a global Communist genocide 
that surpassed those of the Nazis: "If you take all the victims of 
Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, there's no question that that was the biggest 
genocide of all," he says.
The recently appointed Lithuanian general prosecutor, Kazys Pednycia, 
has made small steps toward easing tensions by working to remove the 
legal obstacles in the Lileikis case. But one explosive issue remains on 
the table: the hunt for two former NKVD officers of Jewish origin. One, 
Nachman Dusanski, apparently living in Israel, is accused by Lithuanian 
prosecutors of participating in the murder of 74 people just before the 
German invasion in 1941. He is said to have returned to Lithuania after 
the war to take part in the dirty war against anti-Soviet partisans. The 
other, Julius Slavinus, is accused of torturing Lithuanian prisoners in 
1945. He lives in Bonn, but the German government has refused Lithuanian 
extradition requests.
Earlier this year, Israel criticized Pednycia's predecessor for letting 
the same investigator handle the cases of both Lileikis and Slavinus. 
This was a sensitive issue because the "two genocides" theory heard in 
Lithuania often has a virulently antisemitic addendum: Lithuanian 
"revenge" against Jews under the Nazis was justified because Jews were 
Communist sympathizers who killed Lithuanians during the first Soviet 
occupation.
Of course, history does not happen in black and white. Nearly a quarter 
of the Lithuanians deported to Siberia in 1940 were Jews--and thousands 
of non-Jewish Lithuanians died in Nazi concentration camps. One of the 
most famous inmates of the basement cells in what is now the KGB Museum 
was Menachem Begin, the future Israeli prime minister. It was his 
deportation to Siberia by the Soviets that saved him from the Nazis.

********

#9
GENNADI ZYUGANOV ON BUDGETARY CRISIS
MOSCOW, OCTOBER 11, RIA-NOVOSTI CORRESPONDENT ALEXANDRA
UTKINA - The leftist opposition demands that four Russian
leaders, e.g. the President, the Prime Minister and both
Federal-Assembly Speakers, meet and discuss the current
budgetary crisis.
This was stated at a meeting with voters in Moscow's
Kuntsevo district here the other day by Russian Communist Party
leader Gennadi Zyuganov, who also heads the nation's Popular
Patriotic Alliance.
According to Zyuganov, the four leaders alone must make a
political decision as regards modified policies being insisted
upon by the opposition. Zyuganov once again suggested holding a
round-table discussion involving representatives of three
branches of power and chief administrators. In his words, the
nation's powers-that-be keep resisting such a discussion because
most administrators are, in fact, opposed to the draft tax code
and federal budget.
Zyuganov apparently pins high hopes on the October 15
Federation-Council session, which is to discuss the proposals by
233 deputies on holding a round-table discussion and organizing
the opposition's civil-protest campaign.
Zyuganov told those present that the question of passing a
no-confidence vote on the Cabinet would be raided after that
session.
We'll insist that the Government step down, Zyuganov went
on to say, adding that, in line with the current constitution,
the Premier alone has to resign. The opposition will demand the
approval of a Government-related bill, which would compel the
entire Cabinet to resign in case of a no-confidence vote,
Zyuganov stressed.
Replying to questions from his 700-person audience,
Zyuganov stressed that, given the current situation, any
compromise would deprive the opposition of some of its
supporters. An all-out war constitutes an alternative to
compromise, he added. Zyuganov believes that an alliance
involving popular-patriotic forces, labor unions and
nationalist-minded capital would overcome the ongoing crisis.
Talking about the possible dissolution of the State Duma,
Zyuganov stressed that such a move would serve to unleash a
Chechen-style conflict on Russian territory. The Communist
leader links this with land-sale rights. One can't buy or sell
land in Russia. Should this happen, in that case the Chechen
tragedy will move 500 km to the north and engulf the entire
country, he added. 

*******

#10
SUBSISTENCE MINIMUM IN RUSSIA GROWS BY 43,000 ROUBLES TO 
REACH 413,000 ROUBLES
MOSCOW, OCTOBER 10. /RIA Novosti/ -- According to the data
provided by the State Committee for Statistics, the average
amount of subsistence minimum in Russia in January- August 1997
constituted 413,000 roubles per month, while in the same period
last year this figure equalled 370,000 roubles.
Experts calculate the subsistence minimum appropriate for
the three groups of population: for able-bodied citizens it
constituted 464,000 roubles; for pensioners, 291,000 roubles;
and for children, 417,000 roubles in January- August 1997. The
correlation of money incomes and subsistence minimum exceeded
the last year's level by 214.6 and 195.2 per cent, respectively.
According to statistics, in August 1997, 30.8 million of
Russians or 20.9 per cent of the population had incomes below
the subsistence minimum. This figure constituted 22.6 per cent
last year. 

*******

#11
Boston Globe
11 October 1997
[for personal use only]
Russian organized crime poses a nuclear threat 
By Jonathan Power
Jonathan Power is a syndicated columnist. 

VIENNA- The fuss over Iran - the major investment by a French oil company and 
the alleged indirect support of Russia for Iran's nuclear bomb program - 
is taking our eyes off the real ball. It was the same three years ago 
when CIA leaks about North Korea's bomb ambitions were part of an effort 
to steamroller President Bill Clinton into ordering the bombing of North 
Korea's nuclear installations. 
The real issue in terms of imminent danger, both then and now, is the 
Russian ''mafia.'' ''The director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, has warned 
that Russian organized crime networks pose a menace to US national 
security and has asserted that there is now greater danger of a nuclear 
attack by some outlaw group than there was by the Soviet Union during 
the Cold War,'' reported the Washington Post last week. 
In conversation, Munir Ahmed Khan, the former chairman of the world's 
nuclear watchdog body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirms 
that opinion here is moving in the same direction as Freeh's. Khan, 
commenting on allegations made by the former Russian general and 
national security adviser, Alexander Lebed, that the mafia have stolen 
Soviet-era nuclear suitcase bombs, says that if this is true they would 
be usable, contrary to statements made by President Boris Yeltsin's 
government. ''Competent nuclear scientists, of which there are many out 
of work and in economic difficulties, could be hired to keep them 
operational.'' Khan knows a thing or two about undercover bomb work. He 
masterminded, against all the odds, the clandestine manufacture of 
Pakistan's nuclear bomb. 
Iran, even if it is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, or North Korea are 
unlikely ever to use them. Rogues they may be. Suicidal they are not. 
Both live in neighborhoods where a move to deploy such weapons would be 
met with a totally debilitating blitzkrieg. As Pakistan does, these 
countries would keep their nukes in the background, partly deterrent, 
partly prestige item. 
The Russian mafia and the people they do business with are another 
matter. If they do trade in nuclear weapons the danger will not be with 
governments with a fixed address where Washington, Moscow, London, 
Paris, or even Beijing know where to retaliate, it will be a free-lance 
terrorist group of no fixed abode, determined to use blackmail to secure 
a particular objective. It could be to force the withdrawal of the 
Turkish army from Kurdish areas, Israel from its settlements in 
Palestine, or to demand the release from prison of Colombian drug 
barons. 
Freeh promised ''drastic steps to prevent and detect'' nuclear weapons 
falling into the hands of Russian criminal gangs. Yet he admitted that 
the Russian syndicates with former KGB officers in the hierarchy run the 
most sophisticated criminal operations ever seen in the United States. 
What ''drastic steps'' does Freeh have up his sleeve? Former CIA 
Director John Deutch in the new issue of Foreign Policy, commenting on 
the statement that ''the US government is effectively organized to 
address the terrorist threat,'' said two words: ''Ha, ha.''
Every policy-maker should read this article. It makes the plain obvious: 
America is wide open to nuclear terrorist blackmail. Nevertheless, the 
White House is being very careful to keep the lid on the debate, for 
fear it could unnerve and alarm public opinion. 
Their caution and reticence is understandable. For decades Washington 
justified the possession of nuclear weapons as creating a stable balance 
of power. All through the Cold War years it paid little or no attention 
to the now known dangers of atmospheric testing or to those who warned 
that nuclear weapons were a Faustian bargain and would inevitably fall 
into the wrong hands or, as General George Lee Butler, the former head 
of US Strategic Command warned in January, be used by accident. 
Moreover, Washington, London, Paris, Bonn, Rome, Ottawa, and Tokyo 
missed the historic opportunity of the century to put Russia the right 
way up when they refused to provide the financial wherewithal to enable 
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to make what could have been a 
relatively smooth transition from rigid communism to a more liberal 
setup, something short of today's present wild west capitalism. They 
repeated their mistake when they, led by president George Bush, refused 
Boris Yeltsin help in late 1991, Washington sending as the sole emissary 
a Treasury under-secretary whose job was to insist to the new Russian 
government that they honor the old Soviet debt. 
Only 2 percent of NATO defense spending would have done the job and 
avoided nearly eight years of economic turmoil and, not least, the 
emergence of the mafia that now threatens us. 
No doubt Washington would like to deal with this grave crisis without 
having to throw into relief its past errors. Common sense suggests the 
White House is working with Moscow to try to quietly buy off the 
would-be nuclear terrorists. One wishes the authorities well, for if 
they fail it will be the greatest tragedy to befall humanity since 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

*******