May 11, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3279 •3280   • 

Johnson's Russia List
#3280
11 May 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Primakov spokesman dismisses report of dismissal.
2. AP: Yeltsin Faces Impeachment Hearing.
3. Reuters: NATO attack moves Russia, China closer.
4. Moscow Times: John Varoli, 16th-Century Advice Applicable In '99.
5. Interfax: Russia: OSCE Officials Passed Intelligence to NATO.
6. BBC: Kiev: The grey reality.
7. USIA: U.S. ENVOYS TO CASPIAN BASIN TOUT INVESTMENT PROSPECTS.
8. The Independent (UK): Helen Womack, Street Life - Nightingale sings in 
Red Square as budgie falls in soup.
9. The Russia Journal: Russia is the Outsider in the New European Order.
10. Moscow Times: Gary Peach, THE ANALYST: A Fudge Would Suit Both
Government 
and the IMF.
11. Washington Post letter from Rep. Curt Weldon: Finding a Way Out of
Kosovo.
12. RFE/RL: Paul Goble, Russia: Analysis From Washington -- An Occasion Not 
A Cause.] 

*******

#1
Primakov spokesman dismisses report of dismissal

MOSCOW, May 11 (Reuters) - A spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny 
Primakov dismissed as ``a trial balloon'' a radio report on Tuesday that the 
premier would soon be sacked. 

Ekho Moskvy radio, citing ``Kremlin sources,'' said earlier on Tuesday that 
President Boris Yeltsin was preparing to fire Primakov and replace him with 
little-known Railways Minister Nikolai Asyonenko. 

But Primakov spokesman Andrei Korotkov told Reuters he knew of no such plans, 
and called the media report ``just a trial balloon.'' 

``They want to see how we will react,'' he said. Korotkov did not say whom he 
meant by ``they.'' 

``Thank God it's just Aksyonenko and not Putin,'' he said, referring to 
Vladimir Putin, secretary of the advisory Security Council and head of the 
Federal Security Service, the main successor organ of the Soviet-era KGB. 

Yeltsin's foes have suggested the president might turn to the heads of law 
enforcement and military units to prepare for a cabinet that would take a 
tougher line with the communist- and nationalist-dominated parliament if he 
sacked Primakov. 

Last week Yeltsin promoted Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin, who commands 
hundreds of thousands of troops and more than a million police, to the post 
of Primakov's first deputy. 

Analysts have detected increasing differences between Yeltsin and Primakov 
revolving around the often-ill president's resentment of the premier's 
growing political profile as well as Primakov's handling of the economy. 

Rumours about a looming confrontation between Yeltsin and Primakov have 
swirled in Moscow in the run-up to an impeachment vote in the lower house of 
parliament set for later this week. 

The Kremlin has refused comment on all such reports, and again declined to 
comment on Tuesday. 

*******

#2
Yeltsin Faces Impeachment Hearing
May 11, 199
By BARRY RENFREW

MOSCOW (AP) -- The lower chamber of parliament decided today to start 
impeachment proceedings against President Boris Yeltsin despite strong 
opposition from the government.

The governing council of the State Duma, the lower chamber, agreed to start 
three days of hearings on Thursday. Yeltsin faces five charges and opposition 
leaders hope to oust him from office.

Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov criticized the Duma's decision, saying he 
believes Yeltsin must serve out his term, which ends next summer. He said his 
government would not support the Duma.

Yeltsin rebuffed an invitation from the Duma to attend the hearings and is 
``calm,'' said Alexander Kotenkov, the presidential envoy to the Duma. The 
president does not want the impeachment proceedings delayed, he said.

``If the deputies put them off once again, the president will take certain 
measures,'' said Kotenkov, without providing any more details.

Yeltsin is expected to survive even if the Duma votes for impeachment. To 
remove him, the upper chamber of parliament and the supreme and 
constitutional courts must also approve the impeachment -- something 
considered very unlikely.

Some Duma deputies suggested today that proceedings may be delayed at the 
last moment, as they were last month, because the opposition is not confident 
of success. Delaying the vote would allow the opposition to maintain pressure 
on Yeltsin.

The charges against Yeltsin include instigating the 1991 Soviet collapse, 
improperly using force against hard-line lawmakers in 1993, launching a 
1994-96 war in the separatist republic of Chechnya, ruining the nation's 
military and waging genocide against the Russian people by pursuing economic 
policies that impoverished the country.

The Chechen count is the only one given a reasonable chance of being passed.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a presidential aspirant, blasted the Duma today, 
saying it would not succeed in removing Yeltsin. He said the lawmakers should 
be tackling Russia's economic crisis.

``I think that any kind of destabilization of our life isn't beneficial for 
us and is harmful,'' he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Gennady Zyuganov, who heads the Communist faction in the Duma, said the 
Russian people have already effectively condemned Yeltsin's policies, noting 
that his approval ratings are in the low single digits. But opinion polls 
indicate many Russians oppose impeachment, fearing it would destabilize the 
country.

Yeltsin has indicated he may fire Primakov or the entire Cabinet. Yeltsin has 
a history of abruptly firing aides and even government ministers and is 
notorious for his resentment of subordinates who appear to overshadow him.

Some politicians say Yeltsin may even dissolve parliament, prompting a major 
political crisis.

*******

#3
ANALYSIS-NATO attack moves Russia, China closer
By Adam Tanner

MOSCOW, May 11 (Reuters) - NATO's fatal strike against the Chinese embassy in 
Belgrade could bring Russia and China closer in the long term and strengthen 
Moscow's hand as a mediator in the war in Yugoslavia, foreign policy experts 
said on Tuesday. 

``China was not especially outspoken up until now, but now that it directly 
impacts them they should be stronger in their support of Russia,'' said 
Alexander Yakovlev, a foreign relations professor at the Academy of Sciences' 
Far East Institute. 

``If it receives active Chinese support, naturally Russia's role will grow 
and become more influential.'' 

Russia has steadfastly opposed the seven-week-old NATO air war against 
Yugoslavia, a fellow Slav and Orthodox Christian state, but in recent weeks 
had been moving closer to NATO in trying to find a diplomatic solution. 

China had also opposed the air strikes, but the death of three of its 
citizens and wounding of more than 20 in NATO's accidental strike against 
China's embassy in Belgrade on Friday has brought Beijing even more in tune 
with the Russian line. 

``This event will have consequences in our relations with China, no doubt 
about it,'' said a Foreign Ministry official. While ruling out formal 
alliances, he expected relations, which have improved in recent years, to 
continue to grow closer. 

China had strong ties with Moscow after its 1949 Communist revolution, but 
these soon worsened and border skirmishes broke out in the late 1960s. 

With the recent warming, top-level visits have become more routine. President 
Boris Yeltsin's special envoy on Yugoslavia, former Prime Minister Viktor 
Chernomyrdin, held talks in Beijing on Tuesday with Chinese President Jiang 
Zemin. 

``The main principle is to stop the bombing and that is the main position,'' 
Chernomyrdin said of China's stance. 

Russia has taken the ``stop the bombing'' line since the war started, and 
believes every NATO strike that goes astray and kills civilians has 
strengthened its arguments. 

The Russian daily Sevodnya highlighted the new diplomatic complexities 
following the Chinese embassy attack in its Tuesday front-page headline. 

``Viktor Chernomyrdin is sent to the 'Eastern Front','' it wrote, adding that 
Moscow may seek to use the situation to strengthen strategic ties with 
Beijing. 

Domestic Russian political factors are likely to play a complicating role in 
the coming days as parliament's lower house, the Duma, prepares to begin 
debating five impeachment charges against Yeltsin on Thursday. 

The president was particularly bellicose in his anti-NATO rhetoric a month 
ago until the Duma -- which has strongly backed Yugoslavia -- postponed the 
discussion. Yeltsin could resume a similar tough line to appease his domestic 
adversaries. 

Chernomyrdin has taken a different tack in the lead-up to presidential 
elections next year, which he says he will contest, by projecting an image of 
calm if unexciting stability. 

``There should not be any sabre-rattling. That would be stupid,'' he said in 
an interview published in Tuesday's Komsomolskaya Pravda. 

In the longer term, experts see China not only strengthening Moscow's hand in 
shaping the diplomatic outcome in Yugoslavia, but perhaps even moving towards 
a new grouping to counterbalance the West. 

``If the United States wants to unite Russia and China in a struggle against 
it, they can consider they are going down the right path,'' said commentator 
Alexei Shcherbakov, a former Soviet political prisoner. ``A common enemy is 
emerging.'' 

*******

#4
Moscow Times
May 11, 1999 
16th-Century Advice Applicable In '99 
By John Varoli
NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE 

Only a few years ago, thanks to decades of Soviet propaganda, the word
"Domostroi'' f the title of a 16th-century guide to living written by the
spiritual mentor of Ivan the Terrible f conjured up images of medieval
horrors, including instructions on how to beat one's wife properly.
(Actually, it says simply that a man should deal "sternly'' with a wayward
wife.) 

Domostroi, which translates awkwardly as "home-building,'' was essentially
good housekeeping for medieval Russians. Compiled in the mid-1500s by
Silvester, a Russian Orthodox priest, it is a mix of Orthodox teaching and
Russian folk traditions. 

Seven years since it was placed on sale to the general Russian public,
copies have found their way into many homes. Publishers herald it as wise
moral instruction for today's lost generation. They may not be all wrong.
Much about life in Russia is eternal and the Domostroi unexpectedly
provides some apt guidance. 

Consider: 

FOREIGN GOODS: Chapter 47 encourages one "to buy all sorts of foreign
goods þ as much as you want.'' 

Russia's manufactured goods are notorious for chronic defects and poor
quality. Indeed, before a devaluation of the ruble last August, some 60
percent of the country's consumer goods were imported, and they still enjoy
great popularity among Russians, even though jumping in price. 

DRINKING: Chapter 15 warns, "See the embarrassment and reproach in the
fruitless waste that is drinking. If you ever go away drunk and fall asleep
on the road, then you'll never make it home, and you will pay dearly for
it. They'll steal all your clothes from you. And if you do not regain your
sobriety, you will lose both your body and your soul, for many drunkards
have perished from wine and frozen to death along the roadside.'' 

Wintry Russian streets are still full of sleeping drunks, not only
homeless people but often more propertied members of the community as well.
Last year in Moscow alone, 557 people froze to death. 

PREPAREDNESS: Chapter 40 says, "An upstanding man and a proper wife, and
all thinking and reasonable people, are careful to store up on various
items for the home, foodstuffs, and drink. þ An upstanding man and an
upstanding woman will not want during a time of deficit.'' 

A relevant observation in August, when the ruble's 70 percent devaluation
led store owners to pull goods off the shelves until the currency
stabilized. 

CALUMNY: Chapter 10 declares, "Do not express any lie, slander and deceit
toward the Tsar, prince or any member of the aristocracy f God will destroy
anyone speaking such lies.'' 

Alas, such exhortations have been ignored as Russia's political and
economic elite have made a national sport out of publicizing compromising
material against one another. In the latest round, Prosecutor General Yury
Skuratov and the Kremlin have been flinging charges of corruption back and
forth. Boris Berezovsky and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov have also been
trading allegations f with prosecutors, with Primakov's approval, accusing
Berezovsky of money-laundering and Berezovsky claiming Primakov is
engineering his political persecution as a businessman. 

******

#5
Russia: OSCE Officials Passed Intelligence to NATO 

MOSCOW, May 9 (Interfax) - Since the mission of 
the Organization for Security an Cooperation in Europe began its work in 
Kosovo, some of its members from among NATO representatives have been 
engaged in operations which have nothing to do with their direct duties, 
Russian military-diplomatic sources have told Interfax. The said members 
passed intelligence about the location of the Yugoslav armed forces' and 
police's units to NATO residents through radio channels, and documented 
the movement of Yugoslav troops and police, which helped the Albanian 
separatists carry out terrorist acts and escape return strikes. According 
to the Interfax sources, representatives of the United States, Canada and 
Germany provided the headquarters of the OSCE mission with biased 
reports, openly provoked Serbs to take inadequate measures and visited 
the regions controlled by the separatists without informing the other 
mission members of the goal of their trips. They also made maps of the 
terrain, bridges and tunnels. Individual mission members secretly met 
with Kosovo terrorists in the territory controlled by the Albanian 
terrorists, the sources said. 

*******

#6
BBC
May 10, 1999 
Kiev: The grey reality 
By News Online's Alex Kirby 

The double row of horse chestnuts lining the boulevard from the airport is 
aflame just now with springtime candles, a gleaming white counterpoint to the 
verdant green of the birch forest. 

In the city itself, clean and friendly, young couples stroll arm in arm. 

Many carry small bouquets of lilac or lily-of-the-valley as they listen to 
the street musicians, or gaze at the designer labels in the shop windows. 

Gleaming top-of-the-range Western saloons and four-wheel-drives sit nose to 
tail along the kerbs. 

The Mafia, people say, is no longer the potent force it was only a few years 
ago. 

Even the police, many still wearing the huge old Soviet-style peaked caps 
half the size of dustbin lids, have learnt to smile benevolently. 

Religion makes a comeback - and so does poverty 

Kiev, in short, seems the very image of a modern city, a place that has 
happily made the leap from rigid state control to a relaxed liberal 
democracy. 

Beyond the city centre, though, and out in the fertile but increasingly 
neglected countryside, it is a grimmer story. 

The bare statistics give some idea of the desperation. 

The population is falling, down from 52 million at independence in 1992 to 
under 50 million now. 

Partly that is because for six or seven years after the Chernobyl nuclear 
reactor exploded in April 1986, few people chose to have babies at all. 

Add to that missing generation the steady haemorrhage of emigration, as 
Ukrainians opt for a better life abroad. 

And, ominously, life expectancy is dropping. 

A Ukrainian boy born today can expect to live for 65 years, a good 10 years 
below the west European level, and a sharp drop from Soviet days. 

Freedom for what ? 

For women the deterioration is less marked, but still evident. 

Older people, especially, wonder what they have gained from the fall of the 
Soviet state. 

Many pensioners live on 35 to 40 gryvnia a month, equal to about $10. 

The cheapest loaf of bread costs 60 kopeks (100 kopeks equal one gryvnia). 

The golden city belies the grey realities 

Many now believe independence was part of a Western plot to topple the rich 
and powerful empire they fondly remember. 

And some believe that, while the old regime had to go, the West could have 
done far more to help Ukraine to change. 

"I live one day at a time," a young professional woman says. 

"I do not want to think about what tomorrow may bring. 

"Our politicians will change nothing, and we have stopped hoping. 

"A few days ago I met my old music teacher in the street. She had trained at 
the Moscow Conservatoire. 

"Now she sells eggs to earn a living. That is what we have come to in 
Ukraine." 

*******

#7
USIA
10 May 1999 
U.S. ENVOYS TO CASPIAN BASIN TOUT INVESTMENT PROSPECTS 
(Say financial payoff requires long-term commitment) (900)
By Phillip Kurata
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- U.S. ambassadors assigned to energy-rich countries
surrounding the Caspian Sea are offering "gold key" service to U.S.
businesses considering investing in Central Asia.

"We offer gold key service.... We will help you get started. We'll
help you make appointments. We'll rent you a car. We'll rent you an
interpreter. We'll make hotel reservations -- all kinds of things like
this," U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Stanley Escudero said at a May 7
business forum in Washington.

The U.S. embassies in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan offer similar
services to help U.S. companies capitalize on potentially enormous
opportunities in the Caspian Basin, which has huge oil and gas
reserves. The U.S. government has opened a business center in Ankara,
Turkey, staffed by trade promotion officials to help U.S. business
people to establish contacts in Turkey and points east.

The U.S. Caspian diplomacy is pegged to two proposed pipelines. One
would carry crude oil from Baku, Azerbaijan, through Georgia to
Turkey's Mediterranean port at Ceyhan. The second would pump natural
gas from Turkmenistan, under the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan and
Georgia to Turkey.

The United States and its NATO partner Turkey have embarked on a
policy to bring democracy, stability and prosperity to the Caucasus
and Central Asia by encouraging foreign investment in the region's
fledgling free market economies.

Ambassador Escudero said business, not aid, fosters development.

"What develops a nation is business activity. What develops a nation
is the new wealth which is created and the new knowledge that is
created and the multiplier effect of successful activities....
Azerbaijan is ready for that. It's ripe for it," Escudero said.

Speaking at the same forum with Escudero were U.S. Ambassador to
Armenia Michael Lemmon, U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Kenneth Yalowitz,
U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan Richard Jones, U.S. Ambassador to
Turkmenistan Steve Mann, U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Joseph Presel,
and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris.

With the exception of Parris, the ambassadors also spoke to business
conferences in New Orleans and New York to publicize the investment
opportunities in the Caucasus Basin. The three main U.S. trade
agencies -- the Trade and Development Agency, the Export-Import Bank,
and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation -- are offering
incentives and guarantees to U.S. companies willing to risk investment
in the former Soviet republics.

Jones, the U.S. envoy to Kazakhstan, voiced a theme common to all the
ambassadors.

"Kazakhstan is not a market for the faint hearted. It's a
high-maintenance business environment that will require financial
strength and a significant amount of executive time and energy to make
your business profitable," he said.

Costly customs delays, bureaucratic red tape to obtain work permits,
inconsistent application of the tax code and lack of respect for
contracts are a partial list of pitfalls facing U.S. businesses in
Kazakhstan, Jones said.

Nevertheless, more than 100 U.S. companies have opened offices in
Almaty, the commercial capital of Kazakhstan, in sectors such as oil
and gas, consumer goods, power generation and telecommunications,
Jones said. The ambassador has a doctorate in business and said he was
chosen for the Kazakhstan assignment because he could be instrumental
in helping the country's conversion to a Western-style economy.

"I met with President (Nursultan) Nazarbayev just prior to my
departure from Kazakhstan for this tour to stress our concerns in
commercial issues. In this meeting, he reiterated his strong desire
for more U.S. direct investment in Kazakhstan. He also reiterated his
wish to diversify Kazakhstan's economy, create more jobs and spur
economic growth," Jones said.

Turkmenistan, possessing the world's fourth largest proven reserves of
natural gas and large oil deposits, is hampered by a lingering
addiction to central planning, Ambassador Mann said.

President Saparmurat Niyazov personally supervises political affairs,
even at the local level, Mann said.

"With Turkmenistan, the question is, When is this energy potential
going to be exploited? Will it be? I think the answer is, yes, it will
be. I think the time is now," Mann said.

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are progressing toward a resolution of
their territorial dispute over the delineation of the Caspian Sea.

The ambassador said he is encouraged by the competence of Niyazov's
advisers and ministers in the energy sector who have convinced the
Turkmen leader to approve the construction of a trans-Caspian natural
gas pipeline.

Turkmen gas is a crucial element in Turkey's development plans. Within
a decade, natural gas is projected to account for a quarter of
Turkey's energy needs. At present, the clean-burning fuel satisfies
about an eighth of Turkey's energy consumption.

Turkey, with it commercial and historical ties to Central Asia, is the
springboard for injecting Western capital and technology into the
Caspian Basin, said Ambassador Parris said.

"I think there is probably no better example anywhere in the world of
two countries cooperating in terms of strategic objectives than the
work that the United States and the government of Turkey have done to
help to move toward the reality of an east-west energy transportation
corridor," Parris said.

Construction of pipelines raises the necessity for broad-based
infrastructure development, the ambassadors said. They highlighted the
need for cement factories, roads, airports, water purification systems
and waste management.

"Pretty much the entire gamut of projects which are involved in the
redevelopment of a country," Ambassador Escudero said.

*******

#8
The Independent (UK)
11 May 1999
[for personal use only]
Street Life - Nightingale sings in Red Square as budgie falls in soup
By Helen Womack
Samotechny Lane, Moscow 

Many years have passed since a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square but you 
hear them everywhere in Russia at this time of year. I was walking down by 
the Moscow river the other evening and they were giving a gala performance. 
It started to snow and still they went on trilling. 

Perhaps they were singing in honour of Victory Day, the Russian World War Two 
veterans' beloved holiday. Like us, the Russians have a famous song about the 
nightingale: "Nightingale, nightingale, do not disturb the soldier, Let the 
soldiers sleep awhile." Wan-ting to know more about the little bird with the 
incredible liquid sound that puts to shame the best opera singers, I went to 
visit Stanislav Afrikantov, an ornithologist at Moscow's Academy of 
Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology. Nightingales are his hobby but he 
earns his living as a vet and a new version of the dead parrot sketch was 
going on as I entered his office. 

Student vet: "I've got a woman here who says her budgie fell in the soup. Dr 
Afrikantov: "Well, has it boiled itself? If it's boiled itself, there's 
nothing we can do." Student vet: "No, it's just scalded its feet." After 
which, with many apologies, Dr Afrikantov turned to me and got out his 
encyclopaedias and egg charts. 

I wanted to know if it was true, as I had heard, that nightingales have up to 
40 different trills. "Yes, absolutely true," he said, "and you can only hear 
them for two weeks of the year." 

He told me that the bird I had heard by the river was the common nightingale 
of eastern Europe. With its red throat, it was not to be confused with the 
southern nightingale that mostly fails to sing in Berkeley Square or with the 
blue nightingale of China and Japan. 

Few birds, except the crow, can survive in Russia during the harsh winter. 
Common nightingales are among the migratory birds that come in from Africa 
when the leaves finally burst on the trees here. The nightingales rest for 
five days after their arduous journey, then build their nests in low bushes 
by rivers and produce their eggs. 

Dr Afrikantov pointed on a chart to some pebbly eggs, half way in size 
between the globe that the ostrich lays and the pea-like egg of the 
hummingbird. "The nightingale is a gentleman," he said. "He sings to serenade 
his mate while she sits on the nest." The recital continues for about two 
weeks until the eggs hatch, after which the birds have no time for music as 
they are busy feeding their offspring with ants, spiders and caterpillars. 
They fly back to Africa in August without even singing a farewell encore. 

By some miracle of instinct, the birds return to exactly the same spot each 
year but they are faithful for one season only and, with the new spring, the 
male will usually sing for a different mate. 

The adult male's repertoire is so wide that he can give an entire concert 
without repeating the same trill. Nightingales live for up to six years. The 
older ones, who know more songs than the young ones, pass on their knowledge. 

Inevitably, Man has been unable to resist the temptation to catch them. 
However, unlike parrots that chatter happily in captivity, nightingales, 
being migratory birds, must be free. They die if put in cages. Normally, the 
dull sparrow-like birds are cautious but Dr Afrikantov said that when they 
were singing they got carried away and exposed themselves to predators. 

At which point, the student vet came in again, carrying a tiger-striped cat. 
If you ask me, the beast was perfectly healthy. Perhaps it had heard the 
nightingales sing and come in for some information about these delicious, er 
sorry, delightful little birds. 

*******

#9
The Russia Journal
http://www.russiajournal.com
May 10-16, 1999
Russia is the Outsider in the New European Order
Russia may have been the main victor in 1945, but in today's Europe, this is 
far from obvious to many Russians.

Victory Day in Russia is a time of remembrance, a time for honoring the 
courage and immense sacrifices of the Soviet Union.

Russians have cause to feel pride in their achievements. Only this pride has 
become somewhat tinged with bitterness, and a sense of confusion and 
humiliation has crept in to many minds. This is understandable; in the simple 
logic of things, the victors reap the spoils and prosper, while the defeated 
side is left to pick up the pieces of shattered ambitions. 

But 54 years after the Red Army marched into Berlin, it is Russia that looks 
like Europe's loser, and it is no wonder that present-day school children are 
sometimes confused as to who fought with who and who actually won. 

These days, Germany is one of Russia's most active economic partners. It 
channels much-needed investment into the faltering Russian economy, provides 
technical assistance and food aid. German veterans' associations provide help 
to their Russian counterparts, the men they once fought. 

Russia has lost much of its old influence and sits now on the edge of Europe, 
one hand outstretched for money, the other making threatening gestures that 
for the most part go ignored. NATO has bypassed the UN Security Council to 
launch air strikes against Yugoslavia despite Russian protests. 

Post-Cold War talk of building the common European home that French General 
Charles de Gaulle and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev both called for in 
their time, has remained just talk. The European home, for better or worse, 
still has American guards at the gate. Events in Yugoslavia only serve to 
reinforce this state of affairs. While the Europeans dithered, people died in 
Kosovo, and NATO had to come to the rescue. 

The Russians would have preferred to beef up the Organization for Security 
and Cooperation in Europe. And NATO, they say, is not even needed any more, 
since the Warsaw Pact no longer exists and Central and Eastern European 
countries are in the line to join the European Union. NATO may be based in 
Brussels, have a host of European members and a Spanish Secretary General, 
but America has the firepower and the final word. 

NATO bombs continued to fall on Belgrade while Russian special envoy Viktor 
Chernomyrdin met with Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic. And the Russians feel 
slighted. 

They feel like their voice no longer counts. They lost millions of lives 
fighting to free Europe from the horror of Fascism earlier this century, and 
now their calls for negotiations rather than bombs are brushed aside. 

The Hungarians held up their trucks with humanitarian aid for Yugoslavia, the 
Bulgarians made a fuss before finally allowing Russian planes with 
humanitarian aid to land at Sofia airport. 

Fifty four years earlier, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet 
dictator Josef Stalin divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. 
Bulgaria was to go to the Soviet Union, Hungary went the same way. Now 
Hungary is a member of NATO, Bulgaria is knocking on that organization's 
door, even some of the former Soviet republics have expressed their desire to 
be officially on America's side. 

For most of the post-war period, Europe was a divided continent, caught 
between two systems. 

The Victory Day parade in Moscow was not just an act of commemoration, but a 
display of military muscle. 

The tanks and missile launchers rolling through Red Square inspired both fear 
and respect. 

When Stalin came to the Potsdam conference in the summer of 1945, he 
deliberately arrived a day late. 

He could afford to make people wait. At home he was venerated like a god, at 
Potsdam he sat down with American President Harry Truman, who had taken over 
after Roosevelt's death, and Clement Attlee, who had defeated Winston 
Churchill in the British general election. 

Stalin was not concerned with such things, Churchill could be swept aside, 
but Stalin was like a monument in himself, thinking and acting only on a 
grand scale, coming to defeated Germany to collect his due.

Now the balance is all in America's favor, and it does not matter how much 
anyone tries to point out the flaws in 

President Clinton's foreign policy, perhaps no one country has ever had so 
many opportunities for shaping the world. Russian Prime Minister Evgenii 
Primakov would not have dreamed of doing as Stalin did and simply turning up 
late somewhere. 

But he did order his plane to return to Russia on learning of NATO's decision 
to begin airstrikes - and came under fire from some quarters for having 
fouled up chances of getting money from those same western nations that were 
gearing up to bomb Belgrade. 

It used to be that whoever brandished the biggest stick was leader and force 
was the final argument. Something of that logic remains in our more subtle, 
but not always more civilized twentieth century. Only today's sticks are so 
costly that most countries' budgets do not stretch to their acquisition, 
upkeep, and constant improvement. America's budget does, and the U.S. 
generously offers its protection to its allies. Hence the long line of 
candidates.

And what can Russia offer these days? The reality is that it can offer little 
at this point, and its former, not very willing allies are still too wary of 
their large neighbor, and too fresh out of the past to envisage new forms of 
cooperation. 

The Soviet Union was once famously qualified as "Upper Volta with rockets." 
The rockets still cause some worry, the Americans have allocated funds to 
help Russia dismantle nuclear warheads, and persistent rumors circulate about 
the existence of a nuclear black market. As for the "Upper Volta" bit, the 
people of that country, now Burkina Faso, might say that Russia has more 
problems than they do. 

Even in prosperous France, old people who remember the Nazi occupation speak 
with grudging admiration of how Germany turned itself into an economic 
powerhouse that now performs better than France. What can the Russians think 
then, comparing their situation to that of the country they defeated in the 
War? 

Stalin believed in a post-war Europe that would eventually be his. All of it 
- a Soviet Europe. It was not such a naive vision, in the Communist 
Manifesto, Marx and Engels described communism as a specter haunting Europe 
and when the war ended, that specter looked more present than ever. France 
and Italy both had large communist parties that had gained a lot of influence 
during the war years, through their involvement in resistance movements and 
Stalin gave every possible kind of support. 

But money spoke louder than any slogans about a radiant socialist future. The 
Marshall plan, put together by the American government, was not just about 
rebuilding war-torn Europe. 

It was also an effective political instrument and an example of the kind of 
strategy that was to determine the course of the new war - the Cold War.

In traditional thinking, wars were won through a combination of heroic 
sacrifice, sheer courage, and sound strategy. Russians never had any shortage 
of those things, as they proved to the world in the fight against Hitler. And 
in traditional thinking, wars were lost because the other side fought better 
and had more effective weapons. The Second World War fits that model, while 
all that came after was a battle of a very different sort. While visiting 
America, Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev said that the Soviet 
Union was turning out missiles just like sausages. It would have been better 
if the Soviet Union had simply learned to turn out sausages. 

In this new war, it was not tanks and bombs that played the crucial role, it 
really was simple things like sausages, food in abundance after the hungry 
war years, fridges, television sets and cars. As living standards rose in 
Western Europe, communist parties found themselves relegated to an 
increasingly isolated opposition. Satisfied consumers had little incentive to 
foment revolution. Stalin's hopes for a Soviet Europe faded fast as the West, 
under U.S. leadership, put together a whole system of economic and defense 
agreements designed to strengthen their ties and keep communism at bay.

The symbol of the post-war era has been the nuclear bomb - the weapon that 
ushered us into the atomic age. Only it would be perhaps more fitting to 
place the second half of this century under the dollar sign. 

The ultimate weapon was not the one Stalin thought he had acquired when the 
Soviet Union carried out its first nuclear test in 1949. The ultimate weapon 
was one that he and subsequent Soviet leaders neglected - a dynamic economy 
and strong currency.

And so now Russia protests against NATO action in Yugoslavia, while counting 
on money from the International Monetary Fund, to which America is the 
biggest contributor. 

The paradoxes pile up and the Russians swing between nostalgia for the past 
and resentment of the present. The victors of 1945 have a hard time 
recognizing themselves in today's Europe.

*******

#10
Moscow Times
May 11, 1999 
THE ANALYST: A Fudge Would Suit Both Government and the IMF 
By Gary Peach
Staff Writer 

The way things stand now, Russia will not see a single dollar from the
International Monetary Fund this year. On the basis of their demands to the
Russian government, IMF directors have all but ensured that, on merit
alone, the fund will not be obliged to dole out a dime to the economically
paralyzed government of Yevgeny Primakov. So if any international finance
is to be granted in the coming months, the decision to do so will be
entirely political. 

The IMF, in other words, scored a clear tactical victory during the latest
round of negotiations in Washington. The task for fund directors Michel
Camdessus and Stanley Fisher was to reach a tentative agreement for the
allocation of new money that would make Russia feel it had the IMF's
support, while tagging on certain conditions f legislative and otherwise f
that would render final allocation all but impossible. Since 1992 the fund
has "burned" $19 billion in Russia, during which the economy has
contracted, the currency self-destructed, and investor and consumer
confidence evaporated. IMF directors and staff dread the idea of
incinerating more of their assets in the Russian hellfire, even if any new
money will effectively be utilized to roll over the country's outstanding
debt to the fund. 

To achieve this subtle, somewhat twisted objective, the fund asked the
Russian government f including legislators f to pass a number of laws that
will increase budget revenues, reform the banking industry, and tighten the
existing bankruptcy law. Some of the items on the IMF wish list, such as a
delay in lowering the value-added tax, pose little problem, whereas
others, like raising the excise on gasoline and alcohol, are bound to stir
resentment. Legislators of all colors will pout and protest at any measure
that would hit consumers; this is, after all, an election year. The same
holds true for legislation on banks and bankruptcy; every lawmaker has a
company or two (or 20) in his region that he or she will protect from the
"interference of international financiers." 

The time frame f and the timing f are also enough to bury any hope of an
IMF-led summer of salvation. All draft laws are scheduled to be submitted
to the Duma by about June 1, in the expectation that they will be speedily
cranked out through the inefficient machinery of Russia's bicameral
legislature in time for the meeting of the IMF's executive board at the end
of June. 

In the interim, the situation in Russia could take a turn for the worse.
The president could be impeached, the government fired, and
devil-knows-what-else could occur. In this inconducive environment, there
is no reason to believe that parliamentary leaders such as Gennady Zyuganov
(who are interested in maximum instability in the country) will be
prepared to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with the ink
of freshly drafted laws put together "for the IMF's sake." 

Finally, there is the matter regarding the fate of the last batch of money
from the IMF f the $4.8 billion sent out last August. Camdessus & Co. want
a full report from the government as to how this chunk of change (now
one-fourth of Russia's 1999 revenues) was eventually spent (which they will
use when they are called on the carpet by the executive board and fund
shareholders). But here again we see Camdessus acting with cunning. It is
not just the money last August that has come under suspicion, but all $19
billion over seven years. Fimaco, the Central Bank's offshore vehicle that
operated on the bank's international reserves, and may have used money from
the IMF, was in full swing in 1996. Therefore, any report should have a
wider scope and include a full history on the use of IMF credits. 

But this is precisely what the IMF and the Russian government fear. Full
disclosure on this subject would probably blow a permanent hole in the
universe. The IMF is terrified of what might be uncovered should the shroud
of secrecy be rigorously pulled back from Fimaco. In fact, it is unlikely
this disclosure demand even originates with the fund; here the instigator
is more likely a handful of U.S. senators and the Treasury Department.
Russia is equally petrified. The Central Bank is already being investigated
on the use of the $4.8 billion by the Audit Chamber and the prosecutor's
office, and it is known Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko had to quash an Audit
Chamber report on the same scandal earlier this year. How, and in what
form, this report will be delivered to the IMF will speak volumes on the
IMF-Russian relationship. 

For Russia, the prognosis could not be more bleak. Camdessus cannot risk
another failure here, and is no doubt being advised that it would be better
to put Russia in payment arrears than to disburse more money at a time
when nothing in Russia has improved (save for oil prices). This would be
the optimal way to avoid the double humiliation of a Russian default to
the IMF and more reckless financial assistance. 

*******

#11
Washington Post
10 May 1999
Letter from Rep. Curt Weldon
Finding a Way Out of Kosovo

A congressional delegation I organized met April 30 and May 1 in Vienna
with Russian Duma members to discuss Kosovo. We came up with a framework
that could end the war -- and managed to offend the Clinton administration,
the foreign policy establishment, many ideologues on the left and right,
and The Post [editorial, May 5].

The proposal we worked out will end the conflict on NATO's terms. It
includes a pullout of all Serb troops from all of Kosovo, Macedonia and
Albania to ensure that no weapons flow back to Kosovo, and it provides for
armed international troops in Kosovo (the composition determined by the
five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council).

This agreement allows us to end this war without a massive ground campaign
-- and it accomplishes NATO's goals. Yet armchair warriors call it
appeasement, and career diplomats are appalled that we would allow the
Russians to help.

This raises a series of questions:

Do we have a compelling national interest in the Balkans? The Balkans have
no precious resources, and they sit astride no strategic waterway. Serbia
threatens no NATO ally, and Slobodan Milosevic advances no grand ideology.
A danger always exists that the war could spread, but that risk is
exacerbated, not reduced, by the intervention of a great power.

All of us agree that the odious practice of ethnic cleansing must end. But
ending ethnic cleansing is a job for a regional power. The United States
should use its might for bigger things, such as true threats to world peace
and American interests. 

What are the spoils of victory? The right to keep troops in Yugoslavia for
10 years or more while we sort out ancient ethnic hatreds. Troops that
should be available for critical missions -- the Korean peninsula, the
Persian Gulf -- will be stuck in a Balkan quagmire, while our European
allies hold our coats.

Why not use the Russians? The gray eminences of foreign policy are appalled
at the thought that we would push the Russians to help end this conflict
and that we would leave the door open to a Russian presence in the region
once the guns are silenced. Let's leave aside the logic of using the
Russians, who have more influence with President Milosevic than any other
nation, to help get Mr. Milosevic to accept NATO's terms. Take the issue of
allowing the Russians to put troops into an international force. Amazingly,
we are insisting that any ground presence in Kosovo be a NATO force that
will undoubtedly be dominated by Americans. Is it not enough that we fly
more than 85 percent of the sorties over Kosovo and Serbia? We have more
than 600 aircraft in the theater. The British have 39.

When will someone else shoulder the load where the United States has no
national interest? If Russians want to contribute to a multinational force
in Kosovo, good for them. Let them contribute to peace in Europe. When this
grubby war is over, and after America has done the hard and thankless work
of bringing Milosevic to heel, we should come home. Now that we have fought
Europe's war, Europe can keep its own peace.

We do not need this war, and we should not fight it one minute longer than
we need to. If the Russians can help meet our objectives without further
loss of life, let them. Then let us bring our warriors home, rebuild our
military and prepare for the true threats that the world's only superpower
will have to grapple with in the 21st century.

CURT WELDON
U.S. Representative (R-Pa.)
Washington 

*******

#12
Russia: Analysis From Washington -- An Occasion Not A Cause 
By Paul Goble

Washington, 10 May 1999 (RFE/RL) -- The Kosovo compromise reached between
Moscow and NATO is unlikely to reverse the rising tide of anti-Western and
anti-American attitudes in Russia or to open a new era of East-West
cooperation. Instead, it may have just the opposite effect, intensifying
these attitudes and leading to new confrontations between Moscow and the
Western alliance. 

The reasons for this sobering conclusion are not far too seek. To a greater
extent than many realize, the events in Kosovo have been more an occasion
than a cause for the expression of Russian anger at the West over a variety
of issues including what many Russians see as the West's intentional
isolation and even victimization of Russia. 

The Kosovo crisis has provided both a focus and a vocabulary for anger
about Russia's economic and political decline, its loss of international
influence, and the absence of significant Western assistance to help
Russians overcome their current difficulties -- all issues that both polls
and political statements suggest have been agitating ever more Russians
over the past several years. 

And because that is the case, no resolution of the Kosovo conflict -- even
one that involves Moscow in the process -- will do much by itself to
address these deeper sources of anger and distrust. Indeed, such a
resolution could have the opposite effect by highlighting the West's
increasing involvement with East European countries relative to its
involvement with the Russian Federation. 

That trend in popular attitudes may even be amplified at the official level
precisely because of the lessons Russian leaders appear likely to draw from
their experiences in the complex diplomatic maneuvering that both preceded
last week's agreement and is certain to continue in the days ahead
regardless of whether a final resolution of the Kosovo crisis is in fact
achieved. 

First of all, at least some Russian leaders appear to have concluded that
threats and outbursts of indignation are more effective in leading the West
to include them in discussions than a more cooperative stance would have
been. 

Until a few days ago, Russian leaders were making statements and taking
actions that would have seemed to preclude their participation in any
accord with the West to help stop Slobodan Milosevic's vicious campaign of
ethnic cleansing. 

Russian President Boris Yeltsin, for example, said that Russia would not
allow NATO to act unilaterally in Kosovo. The Russian Duma voted to invite
Yugoslavia to join in a new union with Russia and Belarus. And numerous
ordinary Russians were volunteering to go to Yugoslavia to support the Serbs. 

But had Russians not spoken out in this way, many Russian leaders may
conclude, Moscow would have been ignored rather than courted as a possible
helpmate in reaching a solution. 

Moreover, at least some in the Russian capital are likely to conclude that
the policy of supporting or at least maintaining close contacts with
regimes most Western countries oppose is the best way of rebuilding Russian
influence in the world. 

Not only is the policy of developing ties with countries who are angry at
the West in general and the United States in particular been a key plank in
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's policy agenda, but Moscow's
maintenance of close ties with Milosevic has made it credible as an
interlocutor with the Serbs and thus given the Russian government leverage
far out of proportion to its actual power. 

And finally, ever more Russian officials are likely to conclude that a
combination of threats, however rhetorical and improbable, and offers to
help, such as the mission of former Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin, is the
best means to weaken the role of NATO where Moscow has only a voice while
strengthening the role of the UN Security Council where Moscow has a veto.
To the extent that the Russian government draws these lessons from the
Kosovo, Moscow is likely to employ them in the future as well. And to the
extent that happens, the East-West accords on Kosovo that many have been
celebrating could soon prove to be a source of discord not only in the
Balkans but in a variety of other regions as well. 

*******