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CDI Library > Johnson's Russia List

Johnson's Russia List
 

 

July 8, 1998   
This Date's Issues: 2252 2253  


Johnson's Russia List
#2253
8 July 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Interfax: Russia Needs Decades To Create Normal Political System.
(Georgy Satarov).

2. Ben Slay: Re Grzegorz Kolodko's NYT op-ed republished in #2251.
3. Moscow Tribune: John Helmer, DREAMING OF POWER.
4. Bruce McClelland: Where to stick the sausage.
5. Obshchaya Gazeta: Yavlinskiy Letter to Yeltsin Published.
6. AP: Greg Myre, IMF Bailout Nears for Russia.
7. Financial Times (UK) letter: Peter Reddaway, IMF: Funding for Russia
would 
not solve the country's problems.

8. Reuben Johnson : Comment On AP:"Russia Arms Sales Needed Cash" 
JRL 3246.

9. Moskovskiy Komsomolets: Questions Raised on Officials' Incomes.
10. Jack Perrine: Let Them Eat Coal.
11. Philadelphia Inquirer: Jeffrey Fleishman, Tackling nuclear threat
with help from U.S.. Old Soviet bloc trains for lethal scenarios.

12. AP: Barry Schweid, Defector Warns of Russian Plans.]

*******

#1
Russia Needs Decades To Create Normal Political System 

MOSCOW, 4 Jul (Interfax) -- It will take decades to create a normal
political system in Russia, Georgey Satarov, former presidential adviser
and now head of the Indem Fund think tank, told the Interfax-AiF weekly.
"There are no leaders who could compare to Boris Yeltsin as he was at
the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s," he said.
Satarov also said it is impossible to create "a two-polar political
system" in Russia at present.
As regards President Yeltsin, he should "continue to confuse everyone
about whether he will run for a third time for as long as he can and as
energetically as he can," Satarov said. "But [Yeltsin] should say at the
last moment that he will not run for president," he said.
Yeltsin should select a successor and correct the situation in the
country by the year 2000, Satarov said.
He also said he believes that a successful presidential hopeful in 
2000 will be someone "who is not on NTV [Independent Television company]
popularity rating lists yet."
A possible negative scenario for Russia is that oligarches may
consolidate if the economic and social crisis continues to deteriorate and
may "lead some general to the throne, making him a dictator," Satarov said.
Such a development would likely involve violation of the constitution and
therefore give an impulse to collapse of the Russian Federation, he said.
The interview with Satarov will be published in full in the weekly's
next edition on Monday, July 6.

*******

#2
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 
From: Ben Slay <bslay@planecon.com>
Organization: PlanEcon, Inc.
Subject: Re Grzegorz Kolodko's NYT op-ed republished in #2251.

Grzegorz Kolodko's NYT op-ed piece on "Putting People First"
(republished in #2251) calls attention to the many ways in which
Poland's economic transition differs from Russia's. Many specialists on
transition economies would argue, however, that the emphasis should fall
on different factors.
Mr. Kolodko has frequently argued the economic policies pursued by his
bete noir, Leszek Balcerowicz, during 1990-91, were fundamentally
mistaken. In his NYT piece, Kolodko suggests that these policies were
abandoned after 1992, and that recovery did not begin until he became


deputy prime minister in 1994. In fact, however, Poland's economic
recovery began in 1992, only a few months after Balcerowicz left office.
Even according to official statistics (which are widely know to
underestimate economic activity), Poland's GDP posted growth of 2.6 and
3.8 percent, respectively, during 1992-93. The specter of hyperinflation
had been banished by mid-1990, and personal consumption actually began
growing in 1991.
Moreover, many (if not most) specialists on Poland believe that the
basic policy framework established during 1990-91 was largely continued
by Balcerowicz's successors -- including Mr. Kolodko himself. Of the
major economic policy initiatives pursued under Kolodko's direction, I
would say that only one -- replacing labor policy based on punitive wage
taxation with a more corporatist regime emphasizing tripartite
negotiations between labor, employers, and the government -- represented
a fundamental break with the pragmatic (in practice, if not in rhetoric)
liberalism of the first Balcerowicz period. For these reasons it is
difficult to ascribe Poland's accelerated economic growth, declining
fiscal deficits, or public debt during 1994-97 either to a fundamental
policy breakthrough or to pre-1992 failures in economic policies.
Readers may wish to know that the factual basis of some of Mr.
Kolodko's statements is not above reproach. For example, his charge that
Poland "attempted to privatize without a safety net" during 1990-91 is
difficult to reconcile with the facts that: 
** The system of unemployment benefits introduced during this time was
by international standards rather liberal, both in terms of eligibility
criteria and income replacement. This generosity had to be pared by
subsequent Finance Ministers -- including Mr. Kolodko.
** Poland's privatization program has consistently given extensive
privileges to workers in state enterprises being privatized, thanks to
which employees either receive stock for free or can purchase it at deep
discounts. 
Likewise, readers assessing Mr. Kolodko's criticism of the IMF "cudgel"
may wish to know that the Polish government has throughout the 1990s
sought to maintain good relations with the IMF. This was the case during
Mr. Kolodko's turn at the helm as well, even after Poland paid off its
IMF loans in 1995. 
There are many ways in which the Polish reform experience illuminates
important features of Russia's economic problems. One of them concerns
what the Russians call non-payments (or in Polish "payment blockages").
Poland nipped this critical problem in the bud in during 1991-93 by
forceful policies that prevented banks from rolling over bad loans to
hopeless debtors. Tough bankruptcy reform made it much easier for
creditors to liquidate deadbeats. Polish workers in declining industries
may have suffered many hardships, but extensive wage arrears, even
during 1990-91, have not been among them.
Mr. Kolodko is certainly correct in arguing that mistakes were made in
Poland during 1990-91. He is also correct in calling our attention to
the question of the Polish model's relevance for Russia. But the


argument that, in contrast to Mr. Kolodko's "humane" economics, IMF
policies are "killing" the Russian economy, is surely wide of the mark.
It would perhaps be more accurate to say that IMF-supported policies
have been on the whole successful in Poland, but not in Russia.
Economists, historians, and political scientists will long be arguing
the factors behind these different outcomes.

Ben Slay
PlanEcon, Washington

********

#3
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 1998 
From: helmer@glas.apc.org (John Helmer)

The Moscow Tribune, July 8, 1998
DREAMING OF POWER
By John Helmer

Waking up is hard to do.
The great Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov invented one of his nastiest
nightmares in which an aging blind man hears his much younger wife playing
with her lover. The duo cruelly torture the husband with
sounds he suspects he can recognize, but can't verify.
The Viennese novelist Franz Kafka wrote one of his most famous tales
about waking up. That's the one called "Metamorphosis", when the subject
discovers he's turning into a large beetle.
These inventions are too imaginative for politicians who are famous for
not sleeping too well.
After he retired, former US President Lyndon Johnson told his biographer 
about the nightmare he often had as president. He would dream he had woken 
from sleep to discover that his body was paralyzed, and he was unable to 
speak. He could still hear and see clearly, although that wasn't realized 
by his aides moving about in an anteroom. What was nightmarish for Johnson 
was the part of the dream where he could hear them talk openly about him,
but do nothing to make them obey him. 
Johnson, it will be remembered, surprised everyone when he voluntarily
decided not to run for re-election in 1968. Loss of power can feel like 
death, which is what made Johnson's decision to step aside so unusual. 
In Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev woke up twice to discover his power to
command 
had evaporated. In the first episode, at a Crimean dacha in 
August 1991, he picked up his telephone and discovered the line was dead.
In the second, four months later at the Kremlin, he scheduled a meeting 
in his office, but found it had been emptied of all his belongings.
It's on restless summer nights that politicians often dream nightmares
of losing power. 
From President Boris Yeltsin's point of view, he needs the special
kind of rest which he gets in the Karelian woods by a lake. The fresh
air, he's said, sharpens his appetite and galvanizes his limbs. He goes
there to restore his energy. 
While he's absent, the rumour mills of Moscow will turn, as they've done
every August since 1991, on the possibility of nightmares, putsches,
and unexpected awakenings.
The President's aides say he may postpone his rest if the Duma
fails to pass the emergency revenue measures he has said must be passed.
They haven't said what Yeltsin will do if half or less of his program is
adopted. 
It now looks almost certain the net revenue effect of what the Duma
will enact falls far short of the deficit and debt reduction
targets Yeltsin's ministers told him they need. On the other hand, Yeltsin 
may be reassured by the cobbling together of $5 billion in fresh


loans from the International Monetary Fund, $5 billion from the
World Bank, and $5 billion in new Eurobond issues. That's the rescue
package the government believes it needs to reduce the monthly
pressure on reserves, lower the short-term bond yields, and
avoid devaluation. Although still not yet decided, it's the fresh debt, 
not the promised revenue, that will be enough to allow the President 
to tell himself the banking system is still reliably, safely under his 
control. 
Bankers are the kind of people the nervous Julius Caesar once said -- in 
Shakepeare's version -- he trusted to keep around because, being well-fed,
they sleep well at night. If there are to be nightmares in the country, 
Yeltsin can assure himself, there's no need to lose sleep over them.
At least not until October, when the bankers' liabilities will be less
than they are now.

*********

#4
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998
From: "Bruce A. McClelland" <bmcclell@irex.ru>
Subject: Where to stick the sausage

At first, I thought the Gusev edit on Taibbi's translations of Russian
culinary prostorechie and psychiatric jargon was a tongue-in-cheek
commentary on much of the silliness of the preceding weeks' ad nauseam
debate on the nature of Freedom and Apple Pie.
Now, however, that Gusev has publicly conceded a couple of stylistic points
but maintained his right to disagree about the finer points of dull
sausage, while Gessen has referred to kielbasa in passing in her response
to Ms. Rosenberg, it has become clearer that the subversive strategy was to
move the JRL eXile debate to a venue less tired of it all and perhaps less
inclined to censorship: viz. the SEELANGs list.
See you there!

Bruce McClelland
Director, Internet Programs
IREX/Moscow

********

#5
Yavlinskiy Letter to Yeltsin Published 

Obshchaya Gazeta, No. 25
1 July 1998
[translation for personal use only]
Open letter to the President of Russia from Grigoriy
Yavlinskiy on behalf of the Yabloko public association: "Yabloko Has
Reminded the Guarantor That He Is the Guarantor"

At the end of last week the Yabloko faction adopted an open
letter to Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. We thought that it would find
its way into the newspapers. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The
text was not published, only accounts spiced in this form or the
other by journalists' commentaries appeared. I request that
Obshchaya Gazeta publish, if possible, the full text so that the
President have an opportunity to familiarize himself with it. We are
interested in this case in B.N. Yeltsin's response to the appeal to
him, not journalists' commentaries.
What has dictated this drastic way of framing the issue? It
has not hitherto been characteristic of our movement, today, though,
this is explained by a whole number of factors. The election
campaign in Bashkiria, which turned the elections into a comedy, the
bloody tragedy in Elista, and much else. All this is being
summarized in the minds of our constituent and leading him to the
unequivocal conclusion that it is time, simply essential, for
Yeltsin to go. This opinion did not arise all at once, and now it is
quite definite.


I n conveying this letter to the newspaper I would like to
emphasize that no one is working against Yeltsin, he is working
against himself and doing so at times with great enthusiasm.
[Signed] Grigoriy Yavlinskiy

Open Letter to the President of RussiaDear Boris Nikolayevich,

We consider it our duty to call your attention to the glaring
illegalities in a number of republics that are a part of the Russian
Federation.
We are uncomfortable with the composure, which at times
develops into open support, with which you, who call yourself the
guarantor of the Constitution, contemplate the outrages of the
regional authorities in a number of components of the Russian
Federation.
The enormous profanation called elections of the president of
the Republic of Bashkortostan has just been presented to the view of
the entire country.
The viewers of all television programs and the readers of
almost all newspapers have learned that:
President Rakhimov illegally brought the elections
forward;
t he Central Election Commission of the Republic of
Bashkortostan refused to register two candidates in opposition to
Rakhimov, ignoring the ruling of the Supreme Court;
independent news media such as the newspaper Vecherniy
Neftekamsk and the Timan radio station were persecuted in the course
of the campaign;
all the prerequisites for vote-rigging in favor of Rakhimov
were created;
the MVD authorities, which were essentially made Rakhimov's
personal secret police, were employed in the fight against
dissidents;
The only thing that the audience of the news media has not
heard is how you, the guarantor of the Constitution, have reacted to
these obvious facts of tyranny.
The propensity of the leadership of Bashkiria for unlawful
behavior could hardly have been news to you, who surely knows that
the republic is systematically mocking Russian legislation, flouting
human rights, strangling the independent press, and shamelessly
appropriating the powers of federal structures--those of yourself,
president of Russia, included.
For numerous governors and presidents of our country your
inaction is serving to confirm the idea that all this is permissible
and justified. But this is the quickest way to the feudal
disintegration of the country, which is increasingly coming to
resemble a confederation of appanage principalities.
The murder of our colleague Larisa Yudina has put on general
view the criminal essence of the Ilyumzhinov regime in Kalmykia. It
is obvious to all that such crimes cannot occur in a void. A
tremendous share of the responsibility for what happened in Kalmykia
is borne by the federal authorities, which simply failed to react to
the fact that the elections of the president of Kalmykia in October
1995 contained the most flagrant violations of Russian
legislation.
Are you aware that in conniving at the lawlessness,
"elections," and tyranny in Russia's regions you are assuming
responsibility for future political assassinations?
Today, two years prior to the expiration of your term, we
propose that you think not only about the discharge of your
constitutional obligations but also about your historical


responsibility. For the possibility that you will go down in the
history of Russia as the politician who was the cause of its
disintegration is today all too obvious.
[Signed] On behalf of the Yabloko public association, Grigoriy
Yavlinskiy.
18 June 1998.

********

#6
IMF Bailout Nears for Russia 
By Greg Myre
July 8, 1998

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia is moving closer toward acquiring a
multi-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund -- a deal
that aims to stabilize the country's sinking financial markets. 
Anatoly Chubais, Russia's representative to international lenders, said
the two sides hope to work out the details of a $10 billion to $15 billion
loan in meetings this week and next. 
``We have reached a mutual understanding with our partners,'' Chubais
told journalists Tuesday after meeting with the Moscow representatives of
the IMF and the World Bank. 
``We wanted to resolve all principal issues in a tight time frame, by
the end of the week, and spend the next week on working out practical
problems,'' he said. 
The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday. 
Many economists say the loan is essential to restore confidence to
Russia's faltering markets and halt the exodus of foreign investors. The
Russian stock market, which has lost more than half its value this year,
was down 5 percent on Tuesday and was off another 3 percent today. 
Yuri Timoschenko, a trader at CentreInvest Securities, said the market
was expected to continue falling about 3 to 5 percent daily until there
were positive developments, the Interfax news agency said. 
The market turmoil has not yet had much of an impact on ordinary
Russians. But the Russian ruble is under pressure as well, and a
devaluation would result in price hikes that would inflict additional pain
on all Russians. A new IMF loan would help ease the pressure on the ruble. 
Russia's financial markets have suffered several simultaneous blows --
the government's shaky finances, a drop in revenues from oil exports, and a
loss of investor confidence brought on by the Asian economic crisis. 
President Boris Yeltsin's administration also has presented an economic
stabilization package to parliament that includes more than 20 proposals,
most aimed at streamlining the country's complicated tax system. 
However, parliament's lower house has given only tentative approval to a
handful of measures, and is not scheduled to meet again until July 15. 
Martin Gilman, the IMF's chief representative in Moscow, said additional
aid to Russia would depend on the implementation of the government's
stabilization package. 
If the government's economic program becomes bogged down in the State
Duma, parliament's lower house, Yeltsin may sign the bills into law in the
form of decrees. 

********

#7
Financial Times (UK)
8 July 1998
[for personal use only]
Letter
IMF: Funding for Russia would not solve the country's problems
>From Professor Peter Reddaway

Sir, 
Your article "£6bn of Russia's budget misspent" (June 9) about Venyamin
Sokolov of Russia's Accounting Chamber, asserts: "The chamber . . . is an
agency with a strong Communist contingent which has long been viewed with
suspicion by Russia's market reformers. Mr Sokolov was deputy head of the
old Supreme Soviet which was dissolved in 1993 after becoming involved in
an uprising against Mr Yeltsin."
This passage smears Mr Sokolov, resembles what has been written by
propagandists for the reformers, and is largely untrue. It also reminds me
that the FBI was long viewed with suspicion by Al Capone. The chamber
derives from President Boris Yeltsin's 1993 constitution. Its 14 board
members, elected by both houses of parliament, include only one Communist.
With a staff of 700, it is state-funded and investigates possible
violations of law by the executive (to date, several thousand have been
documented).

Mr Sokolov was a chairman of the first Russian parliament. When Mr
Yeltsin dissolved it with an avowedly anti-constitutional decree in 1993,
Mr Sokolov actively, but in vain, sought to avoid a bloodbath by
negotiating a peaceful settlement. This strengthened his already widespread
reputation for fair-mindedness. Thus, when the new parliament's upper house
voted on the chamber, he received more votes than any other candidate.
Here in Washington Mr Sokolov had fruitful meetings with officials of
Congress, the World Bank and government agencies, including the chamber's
US equivalent, the General Accounting Office. I came away from two of these
meetings strengthened in the belief that the corruption of the Russian
government has indeed, as World Bank reports suggest, reached Nigerian
levels. Thus even if brilliant policies are espoused, almost nothing will
be implemented.
Yet this is the government that the Group of Seven and International
Monetary Fund seemingly intend to bail out - yet again. To do so, in my
view, would solve nothing, at least as long as Mr Yeltsin rules. It would
only increase the rising anti-westernism in Russia - and the scale of the
violence, when, as may eventually happen, the Russian masses cannot bear
their poverty and humiliation any longer.
Much better would be to choose a lesser evil by rejecting Mr Yeltsin's
loan request, thus causing some short- term pain for the innocent as well
as the guilty, but also - the crucial point - increasing the chances that
the Russians will soon be able to select better leaders, who, though they
will doubtless make mistakes, can try fresh approaches, and, if necessary,
be voted out.

Peter Reddaway, 
professor of political science, 
George Washington University, 
(formerly director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies,
Washington, DC), 
Washington DC, US

********

#8
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 
From: "Reuben F. Johnson (Australia)" <reubenj@glasnet.ru>
Subject: Comment On AP:"Russia Arms Sales Needed Cash" JRL 3246

By way of credentials, I am a defence, aviation and high
technology consultant who has been analysing and organising
projects with the Russian defence industry for over ten years. I
am a fluent Russian speaker, spend a good deal of my time in
Moscow, and have been travelling to Russia since 1982.

My response follows:

Every few months someone somewhere writes an article about
Russian arms sales abroad. Invariably the articles contain the
same salient points: 1) Russia needs to sell arms to make money,
2) many times these sales are to places that are not to the
liking of the US, 3) although the majority of arms sales are in
the area of conventional weapons there is some concern that
either nuclear, biological, chemical (weapons of mass destruction
or "WMD" in the official parlance of the arms control community)
technology and know-how and/or the missile delivery systems
necessary to place these WMD on target are being sold abroad in
contravention to Russian law and international export
restrictions, and 4) since the US and European firms sell arms
abroad to some of the same parts of the world that we would like


to see Russia stop exporting to criticism of Russia's arms export
policy is somewhat hypocritical.
Then the figures for Russian arms sales provided by
RosVooruzheniye are listed showing an upward spiral and that arms
exports from Russia are a growth business. The conclusion always
is that since Boris Nikolaevich has promised us to keep a closer
watch on these matters that we should be optimistic.
Now, I am not in violent disagreement with any of the points
above, and do not have an argument with the accuracy of
Shepherd's article. I am also somewhat encouraged by the fact
that this issue occasionally does emerge as part of the public
debate about Russia and that it is not totally eclipsed by the
stories chronicling the constant stream of scandalous conduct
from the Clinton White House, discussions of who the ten
wealthiest oligarches in Russia are, or superficial stories about
the new generation of young successful Russians who are doing
well because they work for American companies in Moscow and are
becoming good little capitalists. However, what I wish I would
see at some point is some examination of the policy blunders and
willful negligence in this area by both the US and Russian
Governments that have created this situation.
On the US side, there have been promises, programmes,
announcements and other statements that assured the Russian
defence industry that we were going to provide funding and assist
it in converting a large portion of its facilities into the
production of civilian products. However, from the Russian
perspective the US programme was instead designed to destroy
Russia's technical expertise in a number of leading edge
technologies and was anything but assistance. Russian firms that
made military satellites or defence electronics were not going to
be allowed to use US funding to produce civilian satellites or
computer workstations. Instead they were awarded contracts by
the USG to produce low-technology products that virtually assured
the scientists and engineers employed at these Russian defence
enterprises would be made redundant. NPO Mashinostroyenia, which
produces satellites and cruise missiles, was offered a project to
set up a bottling plant for an off-brand of cola. The prime
Russian producer of military electronics was told it could use US
funding to produce hearing aids. As a colleague of commented
when interviewed on this subject a few years ago by the Wall
Street Journal, it was like "going into Los Alamos and telling
the scientific staff that they now have to make Pampers - people
are insulted."
Needless to say, Russia's defence industry did feel insulted, as
well as threatened, by these moves. The amount of animosity
created, and the impression that the US is engaging in some
elaborate and orchestrated conspiracy to eliminate Russia from
the world arms market, is so poisonous to the long-term relations
between the two countries that it probably would have been better
if the US had done nothing at all in this area. The result now
is a rancorous, paranoid flow of articles from the Russian press
that talk about how the US is trying to eliminate Russia from


various regional arms markets and is engaging in elaborate
subterfuge to achieve this objective.
If the US Government is guilty of insensitivity and complete
ignorance of how to build a long-term relationship with Russia's
defence industrial base, the Russian Government has been just
plain negligent. Defence industries are strategically important
assets of a nation that can create a large number of spin-offs
into the civilian economy and can be the stimulus for a number of
scientific breakthroughs. For example, the internet, which is
changing the way the world we live in works, was originally
designed as a system that would permit communication between
government agencies in the aftermath of a nuclear strike. But,
in order for these spinoffs and collateral benefits to be
generated the government has to support these industries with
funding and political support, which clearly has not happened in
Russia.
The makers of the famous MiG fighter aircraft have not received a
single order for their current model - the MiG-29 - since 1991. 
No military manufacturer in the world could be expected to
survive if it suffered an eight-year drought in sales to its own
military customer. Stories of plants idled, defence workers not
being paid for months, and military products rotting in the field
next to the factory where they were produced because there is no
one to ship them to are common by now. This type of calloused
neglect by the government of the most promising sector of the
Russian economy is both criminal and perilous, and the
motivations for defence enterprises to sell anything they can to
anyone who is willing to pay are both clear and understandable..
What has added insult to injury has been the continuation of a
traditional Soviet practice which puts control of the sale abroad
of any commodities that can generate hard currency in the hands
of a corrupt and nefarious state-run monopoly. In the case of
these defence plants, in their struggle to survive and export
their products abroad they find themselves at the mercy of the
Russian state arms export agency, RosVooruzheniye. Shortly after
the formation of the agency, its employees quickly earned the
nickname of "Ros Vori" which sounds like an abbreviation of its
full title, but actually means "Russian Thieves" and reflected
how most defence plants felt about the agency's conduct. 
Complaints about enterprises not being paid for exports or the
Ros Vori holding back payment have become common, and
RosVooruzheniye has been under almost constant investigation for
corruption ever since it was founded.
Small wonder then that the Russian defence industry feels
abandoned by its own armed forces and thinks that its own
government will never provide it with any assistance. Small
wonder that Russian defence workers believe that the government
agency that they are forced to work with in the process of
searching for export markets is compose of liars and thieves that
cannot be trusted. Small wonder that the industry now sees no
benefit in trying to cooperate with the US or other western
firms. Small wonder that they seek to subvert export controls,


bypass RosVooruzheniye and sell what they can under the table to
any buyer who will pay in cash. How else can they possibly think
they will survive?
I cannot say that I approve of the sale by Russian firms of
advanced military technology to the likes of Iran or Lybia, but I
can easily understand why and how it happens. As for the people
in official positions in both Moscow and Washington who complain
about it, their stupidity or that of their predecessors is the
cause of today's state of affairs. If they had all stopped to
think about what they were doing, read a couple of books, or take
a course in defence economics 101 we would not be in the mess we
are today. The way it stands, we now stand to see the world
become a much more dangerous place than it could have become, and
the future is one in which Russia will see America as a hostile
nation that is attempting to weaken Russia's ability to defend
itself. Not exactly passing marks in the post-Cold War game of
how to make friends and keep the peace.

********

#9
Questions Raised on Officials' Incomes 

Moskovskiy Komsomolets
24 June 198
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Marina Ozerova: "The President's Billions: The
Country Is Being Beggared, Bureaucrats Are Getting Rich"

The Administration for Personnel Policy of the President of
the Russian Federation has finally made public the information on
last year's incomes and the property of top officials of state--
people of that same "thousand" that the new head of the tax service,
Boris Fedorov, has promised to drub first and foremost.
It would have been better not to have done that--not the
"drubbing," but the "making public." At least in that form...
We are not specialists of the State Tax Service. Perhaps that
is why we immediately had questions. To which--we know this in
advance--we will never be given a clear answer. Question number one:
with respect to our President Boris Nikolayevich. If one compares
the information from the declaration for 1996 with this year's, his
real estate has not increased: The same modest little dacha of 452.6
sq.m. on a green plot of four hectares. But something strange has
transpired with his monetary income. Last year, the President
declared 243 million old-style (of these, 22 are his yearly salary,
and the rest is interest on his bank holdings), taking only seventh
place in the rating of the richest officials.
This year, Yeltsin has already declared 1.95 billion, coming
in in second place. It is an impressive sum. Especially considering
that first place was taken by Sergey Generalov, who worked in 1997
at one of the largest financial-industrial groups--Rosprom (his
income--4.398 billion)...
Where did the President get that kind of money? It is unlikely
that B.N.'s interest on his holdings in Sberbank has increased
significantly, at least simple citizens have not noticed such
abundance in their own experience. Our President did not give any
lectures. He did not write any books. It is possible that the
President is as before receiving fabulous fees for the reprinting of
his best-seller "Notes of a President" in some language of the Tutsi


tribe? Or is he being paid fees for his traditional radio addresses?
Of this, the most interesting thing--because applied to officials it
is not how much that is so interesting as from where--the
Administration of Personnel Policy reports nothing.
One could ask the same question of Vice Premier Nemtsov, whose
income over the past year increased by a factor of six (more than 92
million rubles [R] in 1996, and 554 in 1997), if we did not know
that he received a ve-e-ery decent fee for his book,
"Provincial"...
Question number two. For some reason, many members of
government have turned out to be strangely deprived in the sense of
real estate. Down and out homeless people. Minister of Railways
Aksenenko and Minister of Culture Dementyeva do not own anything and
are not renting anything. Vice Premier Sysuyev, with sad eyes and a
yearly income of more than 137 million (in sixth place out of 26
officials) has only an apartment of 151 sq.m. And perhaps he does
not even have it, but rents it, our social woe, because in the
information presented to the public, personal property is not
separated from rented property. And Health Minister Rutkovskiy has
only a garage! Evidently, he spends the night there...
Economics Minister Yakov Urinson gladdens us. With him,
everything is as with civilized people. His income is 132 million,
an apartment of 100 sq.m., a garden of 600 sq.m. and a garden shed
of 78 sq.m., a parking garage, and he also rents a state dacha! So
the minister is in perfect order, and a trifle remains--to fix the
economy.
Well, and on the whole, the "hot ten" richest state officials
looks this way:
Minister of Fuel and Energy Generalov; President Yeltsin;
Deputy Chairman of Government Nemtsov;
Deputy Chairman of Government Viktor Khristenko--
R176,817,800;
Minister of Regional and National Policy Yevgeniy Sapiro--
R168,218,326;
Vice Premier Oleg Sysuyev--R137,385,010;
Minister of Economics Yakov Urinson--R132,570,899;
Minister of Railways Nikolay Aksenenko--R125,201,000;
Minister of Internal Affairs Sergey Stepashin--
R110,195,000;
Minister for Land Policy, Construction, and the Housing Sector
Ilya Yuzhanov--R93,426,000.
If only everyone lived like that!

********

#10
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 
From: Jack Perrine <Jack@minerva.com> 
Subject: Let Them Eat Coal

I thought the post of a day or so ago: Let them eat Coal was one of the
more powerful bits of writing in quite some time.....and I thought it
should free the eXile of any imagined blame for eons to come.......

However, on reading towards the end where it talked about the ever increasing
rate of accidents...many of which were fatal I wondered where this was
leading.....Russia is obviously existing on the coal produced by non paid
miners....but when all the miners are dead or too injured to work I wondered
what would happen then ......can it exit on the coal produced by non paid
ghosts....... 

Certainly it would take some very creative ads
to attract labor to a spot where it snows on the longest day of the year
/ where the labor hardly ever gets paid or fed / has so many deductions that
they end up having to pay the company for the privilege of the hardest


most dangerous work on the planet. Stalin had his own solution to that
problem.......but one wonders if such solutions are appropriate at
the present time

*******

#11
Philadelphia Inquirer
7 July 1998
[for personal use only]
Tackling nuclear threat with help from U.S.
Old Soviet bloc trains for lethal scenarios. 
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Inquirer Staff Writer

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The training exercise was fantasy, but to 27 Georgian
officials attending U.S.-funded courses here to stop nuclear smuggling, the
prospect of terrorists detonating a radioactive bomb in a country panicked
by civil war didn't seem so far-fetched.
Once part of the former Soviet Union, Georgia is alight with turmoil.
Separatist forces are fighting government troops. Rocket-propelled grenades
recently battered the president's motorcade. It is a country, U.S.
officials say, that could ignite chaos in a region where tons of uranium,
plutonium and other radioactive materials can easily slip onto the black
market.
Quietly and with $2 million in funding, the U.S. Department of Defense
and the FBI have been training officials in Georgia and three other former
Soviet republics to stem the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons. The courses -- held at the International Law Enforcement Academy
here -- have revealed an inability to handle chilling scenarios such as
widespread anthrax contamination or uranium trafficking to Middle East
countries.
"Our objective is assisting countries like Georgia as well as keeping
this stuff away from U.S borders," said Harlan J. Strauss, a senior
foreign-affairs specialist with the Department of Defense, who oversees the
program. "Helping countries 10,000 miles away secure their borders creates
the first line of defense for the U.S. in stopping the building of weapons
of mass destruction."
The Defense Department has also begun a separate program for border
guards and customs agents in the old Soviet bloc. Over the next year,
Washington may provide these countries with new technology -- such as a
computer the size of a cell phone -- to detect smuggled materials.
Dressed in jeans and plaid shirts, Georgian officials from the
ministries of Defense, Customs, National Security and Trade were given a
chance last month to see how they would respond to a terrorist attack.
In a mock "tabletop" exercise that was part of the Defense Department
and FBI training, the Georgian officials wrestled with an unfolding
scenario involving a bomb blast. Fifty people were killed, and cesium 137
-- a radioactive material used in medical research and released by the
explosion -- was contaminating Tbilisi.
Some officials reacted in the old Soviet style of muzzling the media and
not thoroughly informing the public. Some suggested seeking help from U.S.
spy satellites to find other hidden bombs. Others said they should notify
neighboring countries to prevent further contamination. Col. Bondo
Kamushadze, an official in the Ministry of Defense, said: "If panic breaks
out, the consequences will be indescribable."
After four hours of the exercise, Deputy Trade Minister Vilen Alavidze
concluded that his country was lax in a number of areas: poor cooperation
among government agencies, lack of chemical detectors and other equipment
to stop contamination, poorly guarded borders, and government officials not
well-versed in nuclear and biological weapons.
"The point is to stop the diversion of materials and technology for
weapons of mass destruction," said FBI special agent Joseph M. Tipton, who
helps oversee the 10-day program. "The U.S. doesn't have thorough
intelligence in this region. If we can help these countries in detection,
hopefully they'll share information, and we'll have influence in a tense
part of the world."


Some experts believe the training programs are a good first step, but
they say the United States should move more aggressively to counter
potential threats.
"It's a worthwhile endeavor, and it may make a difference at the
margins," said William C. Potter, director of the Center for
Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. "But the problems of nuclear
materials and smuggling are so enormous. Unless you extinguish the culture
of bribes, incompetence and other problems within these governments, all of
this training may be for naught."
Six countries carved from the former Soviet Union in Central Asia and
the Caucasus inherited about 1,200 pounds of weapons-usable nuclear
materials from reactors, research facilities and submarines. A larger
security concern, according to U.S. officials, looms in politically
unstable Russia, where poorly guarded plants house about 1,300 tons of
uranium and plutonium and most of the Cold War's 30,000 Soviet warheads.
One thousand pounds of highly enriched uranium is enough to manufacture
20 nuclear warheads.
U.S. officials fear that countries bordering Russia -- such as Georgia
and Kazakhstan -- are becoming transit states for organized crime and
terrorists running nuclear materials to Libya, Iran, and other Middle
Eastern countries. The rugged region that stretches from the Black Sea to
China has been navigated for centuries by bandits smuggling everything from
silk to heroin.
"Our most serious threat is turning into a highway for smugglers coming
out of Russia," said George Alexidze, Georgia's deputy minister of state
security, who is attending the U.S. training sessions. "These chemicals can
end up in Iran and Iraq. We cannot now control our borders. There's a lack
of equipment and knowledge of what to look for. There are parts of our
country where the phones go dead and you can't contact the guy in a border
post."
Precisely what chemicals and nuclear materials are hemorrhaging from the
former Soviet Union is a mystery. The largest cache of highly dangerous
nuclear materials was seized in 1994 in Prague when seven people were
arrested trying to sell more than six pounds of highly enriched uranium
stolen from Russia. More than 90 percent of nuclear smuggling cases
scattered across Europe and Asia involve lesser-grade radioactive materials
and hundreds of hoaxes and scams.
"But it's really unclear what's coming in or going out of any of these
countries," Strauss said.
In April, Georgia, fearing separatists would steal radioactive materials
for a bomb, asked the United States and Britain to cart away 8.8 pounds of
highly enriched uranium from a shut-down nuclear research reactor in
Tbilisi. The operation removed the country's most dangerous nuclear
materials. But Georgian officials say they are only beginning to assess the
extent of chemicals stored in abandoned Soviet military sites.
"There are dozens of military bases, and we don't know what we'll find
there," Alexidze said. "Fuel for rockets, cesium, and other radioactive and
biological materials. We also believe Russia supports separatists in
Georgia to destabilize our country. If they are getting help from Russia,
the terrorists could get their hands on all kinds of materials."
The training programs grew out of 1995 legislation that was followed by
congressional hearings offering frightening testimony on potential nuclear
and chemical threats posed by the breakup of the Soviet Union. They ranged
from terrorists using barrels of radioactive chemicals for political
extortion to the making of sophisticated nuclear devices.


At the time, Sen. Richard Lugar told a Senate committee: "The failure to
deal with this problem today almost surely will mean even the best border
controls, and the best effort of Customs, FBI and CIA, will never be able
to put the [ nuclear ] proliferation genie back in the bottle."
Several Georgian officials said they live in the midst of such dangers.
Their country of 5.5 million is bordered by the Black Sea, Turkey and
Russia. It is wedged into the oil-rich, but politically unstable region of
the Caspian Sea, which U.S. officials fear could one day explode into
conflict.
During their training, the Georgians caught glimpses of America's own
vulnerability. They were shown videos of terrorist bombings in Oklahoma
City and at the World Trade Center. They attended seminars and workshops
given by officials from the FBI, the departments of Defense and Energy, and
the Customs Service. One FBI agent told the group that a little red book
called Silent Death was full of recipies for weapons of mass destruction.
Dalys Talley, a chemical specialist with the U.S. Army, recited a
laundry list of wicked chemicals, including a choking agent that "smells
like new-mown grass" and causes "dry land drowning" as a victim's lungs
fill with fluid.
Sitting at a training-program reception dinner of chicken, wine and
chocolate cake, Alavidze, who lived most of his life under communist rule,
said he worried that someday a terrorist might detonate a bomb that would
be "Chernobyl to the power of 10."
"Georgia is a poor country," he said. "We don't have the detection
equipment to stop smugglers. The only way we can find out if a car is
smuggling nuclear materials or chemicals is to take it apart on the road.
Our poverty is our problem, but if we can't stop smuggling, it could also
be a problem for our neighbors."

******** 

#12
Defector Warns of Russian Plans 
By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
July 8, 1998

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Russian defector says military intelligence there is
gathering information on President Clinton, congressional leaders, members
of the Cabinet and key military leaders for assassination squads. 
Elite troops already are training in the United States and in the event
of war ``would try to assassinate as many American leaders as possible, as
well as their families,'' Stanislav Lunev, a former colonel in the Russian
military intelligence service, asserts in a book published Wednesday. 

They would also blow up power stations, telephone switching systems and
dams and target secret landing sites for Air Force One, wrote Lunev, who
defected in 1992. 
``The use of tactical nuclear weapons would be likely,'' he said. 
Declaring he wanted to use his experience ``to warn America of the dirty
tricks that can be played against her,'' the defector says Russian pilots
are training for action against the United States and NATO. 
In the book, ``Through the Eyes of the Enemy,'' and in an Associated
Press interview, Lunev said special agents were entering the United States
as foreign tourists on fake passports and that elite troops were locating
drop sites for small nuclear devices, known as ``suitcase bombs,'' in the
Shenandoah Valley outside Washington and the Hudson Valley of New York. 
``Russia remains terrified of the power of America, and Russian military
intelligence does everything it can to prepare for a war that it considers
inevitable,'' Lunev wrote. 
CIA and FBI officials declined to discuss the former colonel or his
assertions. On one of his central points, that Russian mobsters have
considerable control over the Russian government, including espionage
operations, CIA spokesperson Anya Guilsher said: 
``The Russian intelligence security services have expressed public
concern regarding Russian organized criminal ties to government officials.
There is a determined effort under way to prosecute officials for criminal
activity.'' 
Guilsher also said ``the Russian mafia is something we continue to watch
carefully.'' 
In the book, Lunev wrote that ``America is facing a nation led by
gangsters -- gangsters who have nuclear weapons. And some of these weapons
are on American soil.'' 
In a telephone interview, Lunev said the Russian government cannot
account for about 100 nuclear devices, and ``it's possible'' nuclear
weapons already have been dropped in the Shenandoah and Hudson valleys or
elsewhere in the United States. 
On the influence of Russian mobsters, he spoke without qualification.
``The mafia controls the government and the political establishment, and as
a result of this they have a huge influence over (President Boris) Yeltsin.'' 
Lunev shied away from registering an opinion of Clinton's decision to go
to Moscow in September for talks with Yeltsin. ``It's not my business,'' he
said. 
However, Lunev said it was more important to talk to the Russian
president about the proliferation of missile technology than to defer a
summit until the Russian parliament approves the START II missile reduction
treaty. 
Asked what his intentions were, Lunev said: ``I wish America to take
much more care about this country's national security because the Cold War
is not finished.'' 
Lunev went on: ``There is no military confrontation between the two
blocs, but the Cold War is still in play and going on in much more
dangerous ways. There is no open confrontation, but a lot of activity from
special services and criminals.'' 
Insisting that Russia was preparing for war with the United States, the
former intelligence officer said, ``Russian pilots are training for action
against NATO and the U.S. military. Russia still consider the United States
and NATO the main potential military adversaries.'' 
Asked how U.S. officials responded to his allegations, Lunev replied:
``They are very interested, but they are professional and they cannot
provide emotions.'' 

*******



 

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