October 31. 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3597

G Johnson's Russia List
#3597
31 October 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Baltimore Sun: Scott Shane, Russia's decay continues; Gorbachev saw it coming. The last Soviet leader, a towering but tragic figure, earned the right to say 'I told you so.'
2. Carol Scott Leonard: Interpretations of Russia's Future.
3. Reuters: Ukraine votes for president, polls said clean.
4. AFP: Voting begins in hotly contested Georgian parliamentary contest.
5. AFP: Ten years on, eastern Europe still divided.
6. Itar-Tass: Aims in Human Rights Protection Should Be Changed-Activist.(Irina Khakamada)
7. The Independent (UK): Land of passion and treachery. Death in Armenia, war in Chechnya: 'new' Russia only has old answers on its turbulent southern marches, writes Rupert Cornwell 
8. The Electonic Telegraph (UK): Francis Harris, Russia building a Czechbase 
to spy on Nato.
9. The Guardian (UK): Amelia Gentleman, Blind lead the blind in ex-Soviet ghetto' 
10. RUSSIAN AND INTERNATIONAL BALLET STARS IN WASHINGTON DC.
11. The Russia Journal: Vladislav Komarov, Kremlin chiefs pressed to let army win war.] 


*******


#1
Baltimore Sun
31 October 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia's decay continues; Gorbachev saw it coming
The last Soviet leader, a towering but tragic figure, earned the right to say 
'I told you so.'
By Scott Shane (sshane@erols.com)
Sun Staff
Sun reporter Scott Shane was Moscow correspondent for the last four years of 
the Gorbachev era and is author of "Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended 
the Soviet Union." 


Could life after communism have turned out better for Russia and its former 
Soviet neighbors? Mikhail Gorbachev insists that it could have. And things 
are so dismal today that his argument, tainted as it is by 
self-justification, is worth a fair hearing.


In the eight years since Boris Yeltsin used the aftermath of the failed coup 
against Gorbachev to maneuver his rival from power, the Russian economy has 
shrunk steadily and natural riches have been spirited abroad. Wealth has been 
monopolized by a handful of unprincipled oligarchs while millions have 
slipped into destitution.


Life expectancy for Russian men, ravaged by alcoholism, has plummeted. 
Once-conquered diseases such as tuberculosis and diphtheria have become 
epidemic. Crime has blossomed, and organized gangs operate with near impunity.


Neither has Yeltsin's democratic promise panned out. Yeltsin turned tanks on 
his own parliament in 1993 and loosed bombers on rebellious Chechnya in 1996 
and again today. His mental state seems only slightly less precarious than 
his physical state, which is ever more susceptible to colds that land him in 
the hospital for days. His decrepitude, and the rumors of family corruption, 
is an eerie echo of the last years of Leonid Brezhnev.


All this gives Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, still as physically and 
mentally robust as Yeltsin is impaired, an irresistible opportunity to say "I 
told you so." Like the retired principal who stops by school every month to 
tut-tut at the chaos and declare that he would have run things differently, 
Gorbachev periodically issues statements or publishes books recalling his 
glory days and decrying the current state of Russia.


Now he has published in English a new collection of essays and reminiscences 
called "Gorbachev: On My Country and The World" (Columbia University Press, 
300 pages, $29.95). Proposed to the publisher last year by Stephen Cohen, an 
expert on Russian politics at Princeton University, it combines three short 
works already published in Russian: the first on the Russian revolution of 
1917 and the nature of Soviet socialism; the second on the sudden demise of 
the Soviet Union in 1991 and the question of whether it was inevitable; and 
the third on what Gorbachev still calls "the new thinking," his coinage for 
the aggressively nice-guy policy with which he ended the Cold War.


The hard-liners who tried to oust Gorbachev in August 1991 made their move on 
the eve of the scheduled signing of a new treaty of union that the Soviet 
leader had hammered out with Yeltsin and leaders of the non-Russian 
republics. Gorbachev asserts the treaty would have transformed a 
super-centralized country into a truly free union of sovereign states.


That transition, he argues, would have permitted old economic relationships 
-- between, say, wire makers in Uzbekistan, picture-tube factories in Latvia 
and television plants in St. Petersburg -- to remain intact. It would have 
preserved a slimmed-down central government in Moscow to prevent or mediate 
ethnic disputes. It would have permitted a gradual, carefully managed move to 
a market economy, avoiding the hyperinflation and unemployment of shock 
therapy.


But the failed coup provoked so powerful a public reaction against the old 
regime that the Soviet system and all chances of reforming it were swept away 
overnight. Republics rushed to assert their independence, close their borders 
and erect trade barriers. Unscrupulous characters used political clout to 
grab huge shares of the national wealth.


All this might have been avoided, writes Gorbachev. His claims merit 
consideration, if for no other reason than his assured place as one of the 
towering political figures of the century. His courageous achievement in 
ending Soviet despotism without a lurch into bloody revolution or war, while 
not exactly what he intended, was epoch-making.


But Gorbachev's could-have-been theory does not hold up to scrutiny. The idea 
that the Soviet bureaucracy would willingly have turned over most of its 
power to the republics and become a modest, coordinating body is absurd. As 
was demonstrated by the coup, engineered by the heads of the KGB, ministry of 
defense and interior police, the central government was absolutely unable to 
share real power and control.


Likewise, it would have been neither desirable nor even possible to preserve 
the economic linkages created by Soviet bureaucrats while moving to a market 
economy. The attempt to plot production from Moscow led to an economy where 
some products were grossly overproduced (concrete, a kind of baby food no one 
liked, certain sizes of shoes) while others were disappearingly scarce (just 
about anything anyone wanted). The harrowing difficulty of moving to a market 
economy was precisely that all the old ties would, by definition, have to be 
broken.


The key to Gorbachev's analysis, ultimately, is wishful thinking. "I consider 
it my greatest sorrow and misfortune," he writes in a revealing moment, "that 
I did not succeed in preserving the country as a single whole."


But if Gorbachev's basic thesis cannot be sustained, the book contains much 
insight and candor. Some of his essays on the Soviet era are the most 
penetrating and honest he has written, often illustrated with excerpts from 
long-secret transcripts of Politburo meetings.


Gorbachev's verdict on the Soviet system is infinitely harsher than he ever 
articulated while he ran it; his comments resemble those of the most 
stridently anti-Communist Western historians.


He squarely condemns the Soviet state as totalitarian, writing of the "need 
to reject and condemn unconditionally the totalitarian system, a system that 
tramples on all that is human in human beings, that turns people into 
slaves." He says the arms race turned "the military-
industrial complex into the primary factor governing all politics and public 
consciousness in the U.S.S.R." Of the Stalin period, he writes that 
unceasing propaganda created "a deeply rooted delusion bordering on mass 
psychosis."


Such comments are particularly interesting in light of Gorbachev's long 
devotion to Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party. It was his clinging to 
the vocabulary and trappings of the dying political era that tried Russians' 
patience and made Yeltsin's anti-Communism seem refreshingly honest by 
comparison.


Since his humiliation by Yeltsin in 1991, Gorbachev has been a marginal, 
almost ridiculous figure at the outskirts of Russian politics.


Could that be changing? As surely as he succeeded Gorbachev to power, Yeltsin 
has now succeeded Gorbachev as the most despised of Russian politicians.


And there are signs of a mild Gorbachev revival. The former leader's 
unfeigned affection for his wife, Raisa, as she lay dying of leukemia this 
fall prompted an unprecedented burst of admiration for him in Russia. Now he 
has been tapped as a possible leader by a new social democratic party forming 
in Moscow.


This book is the product of a supple mind, ready to revise opinions and able 
to think broadly about the fate of Russia and the world. Gorbachev certainly 
is unlikely ever to be elected to any office, let alone to the Russian 
presidency. But it is hard to imagine that he would not be a better leader 
for this troubled giant of a nation than Yeltsin or many of those who might 
replace him. 


In Russia, stranger things have happened.


*******


#2
From: "Carol Scott Leonard" <carol.leonard@economics.oxford.ac.uk>
Subject: Interpretations of Russia's Future
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 


I have been attempting to follow the various reports presented here with the
aim of understanding the drift of the Russian economy and society.
Academics in Russian Studies, by comparison with other troubled areas of the
world, do have this unique daily access to informal information, which does
allow insight into micro-level events in economic and political affairs.
Heartfelt thanks go to David Johnson.


Even with extensive reporting, however, it is difficult to make sense of
what is occurring. The mostly pessimistic appraisals have been given great
acclaim, such as that in Gaddy and Ickes. Proved wrong for the past year, it
is claimed, nevertheless, that the improvement is probably more apparent
than real. Similarly, for the agricultural sector, there have been gloomy
predictions for the future based on nearly continual annual shortfalls in
output. The reversal of 1997, possibly evidence of recovery, was followed,
after the financial crisis, by a year's end report of downturn, thus
reinforcing the impression that whatever good comes of policy and economic
events, it can only be temporary.


This note is to say that there seems something seriously wrong with
estimates and reports that cannot respond to the upturn in economic data for
this year by a measure of optimism. One of the most important and visible
traits of Western reporting on Russia at present, and it also runs through
the congressional investigations of money-laundering, is that what is
happening in Russia is of less importance than what western observers think
is happening. The West is concerned with scandal, corruption, failure of
governance, and economic decline. There's much more than that going on in
Russia today.


It was curious that during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, there was a
dearth of information about the societies discovered in the West, meanwhile
European intellectuals became preoccupied with their own freedom and
consciousness as a consequence of having encountered different
civilizations. Similarly, in this listserv and most other publications about
Russia, one finds reference to each other's observations more than to the
Russian authorities.


Transition has been a long haul. A large part of the accomplishment still to
come has been due to the high level of education, which now includes new
education. New education seems to have been a process that was slow at first
but, more recently, speeding up. When I arrived in Russia in 1993 to take
up my post in the Budget Section for Agriculture in the Ministry of Finance,
those who were well educated on the needs of market-based agriculture
included the Deputy Minister for Agriculture and all of his colleagues who
were heads of Departments and Sections. In the Ministry of Agriculture,
there were certainly a number of reformers, beginning with the chief advisor
on agricultural reform, Professor Evgeniia Serova, but they were
outnumbered at all levels of administration. After seven years, by contrast,
there are many agricultural experts in Russia who are fully aware of the
depth of the problems with organisation and markets and familiar with the
appropriate strategies of resolving these problems; seemingly conservative
agrarian interests are powerful in the Duma, but a large part of that is
posturing.


Given initial conditions at the start of transition, it is not surprising
that the rebuilding of a Russia oriented to markets is taking time.
Government policy had never been designed in Russia to accommodate an
incentive-based economy. As a consequence, after the collapse of central
planning, there continues to exist the unwarranted trust, the assumption,
owing to an outmoded and false assumption of police and party enforcement,
that citizens will do as they are told, rather than as rationality dictates,
and this assumption still lies to some extent as a foundation of the fiscal
administration and government structure. The belief that citizens will obey
is not particularly well founded, although it is difficult to estimate the
size of the informal economy. Statistical information-gathering, as well as
current contracts and exchange, are hobbled by citizens taking advantage of
the assumption that there should be room allowed for manoeuvre, that late
deliveries and non-deliveries will go unpunished, that theft, passivity and
shirking will be accommodated by government and the private sector.


But the value of human capital should not be underestimated. Russian society
was highly educated, and market-based incentives are appearing everywhere,
along with mechanisms for contract enforcement. Highly publicised theft and
corruption continue to allure readers of the western press, but Russia is
moving slowly in a different direction. There is little pokazukha in the
accomplishments of the many new institutes of scientific learning in Russia:
the libraries are filled with major tools of learning, the scholars are well
published the west as well as in Russia. While we spend idle hours talking
in listservs about corruption and political scandals, major Russian scholars
are publishing pathbreaking new works, with exacting appendices and
bibliographies, on the Russian economy, history, and society. Boris
Mironov's two-volume social and economic history of pre-revolutionary has
just appeared, and there is little question that this work rivals, at the
level of analysis and in the setting of a paradigm, those of Kizevetter and
Solov'ev. New publications about the economy, fiscal policy, concepts of
private property, and analyses of reform are being published by the Gaidar
and other Institutes. New political parties -one can follow particularly
that of Yurii Boldyrev--that will have long term impact on transparency as
well as reform in government are being formed in preparations for the
December elections.


In the West, reporters seem separated from Russian reality, things going on
in universities, neighborhoods, and provincial towns. We hear about poverty,
yet we know that purchases of durables continue to increase. We hear that
the Gaidar and successive governments made mistakes in liberalising the
economy, yet we know little about the informal economy which has
particularly benefitted from the removal of central planning.


There is so much tiresome criticism of US involvement in the Russian
transition. As many American officials have rebutted, correctly, must we
forget the role of Russians in their own governance? Gaidar, and not
western economists, should be allowed to speak as an authority on what he
did. The real point and achievement of the Clinton administration strategy
was attained: many Americans went to Russia after 1992; this opening may
well be comparable to that achieved by Sun Yat Sen in Chinese history.
When the Russians wanted something, USAID was responsive. There were moments
of pressure in the areas of law, health care, and democratic institutions.
But, on the whole, US aid policy was relaxed. The US was interested in
helping Russians in ways they wanted to be helped; they were rather
remarkable in allowing consultants to carry off a large variety of mutually
agreed upon efforts at local levels. This meant that what was really going
on was a citizen's exchange. Can we forget, for a moment, American heroes
and concentrate on the little guy? I once met an extraoradinary women from
Harvard, a Ph.D in International Relations, who had been sent by the Peace
Corp to Nizhyii Novgorod to work as an advisor on corporate restructuring.
She reported that the situation upon entry was very difficult-machines were
breaking down, the fixed capital was nearly ruined. But after a year of
working with her counterparts, there was some feeling of optimism, that
investment funds could be found. Is this unimportant? There were so very
many of these people in Russia during my stay there, 1993-1996.


It is so important not only to be Americans in a globalising environment,
but to be social scientists. Part of the barrier to improved reporting is
language. Will there be new programs as a result of congressional inquiries
for Americans to learn Russian, Polish, Czech and Hungarian? I really hope
so.


*******


#3
Ukraine votes for president, polls said clean
By Brian Killen


KIEV, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Ukrainians voted on Sunday in a presidential 
election amid widespread disillusionment with reform and scepticism about 
prospects for change, but authorities said allegations of falsification were 
unfounded. 


``At the moment we cannot talk of any violations which might have a 
significant impact on the voting process,'' Central Electoral Commission head 
Mykhailo Ryabets told state television in early afternoon, saying voting was 
active. 


Results of the voting for a total field of 13 candidates, in which incumbent 
and front-runner Leonid Kuchma faces stiff competition from leftist rivals, 
were not expected to start trickling in until later in the evening. 


But while all three main presidential hopefuls appeared confident of victory 
as they cast ballots, none of them was expected to secure the 50 percent of 
votes required for victory and a runoff may be needed in two weeks' time. 


``I voted for a better life, for Ukraine to continue its present course,'' 
Kuchma, relaxed and smiling, told reporters. ``There can be minor deviations 
but the strategic course should remain unchanged.'' 


Kuchma's main challengers, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko and radical 
leftist Natalya Vitrenko, blame market reforms for ruining the economy, 
impoverishing the people and allowing corruption to flourish. 


They are hoping to tap a deep well of discontent and nostalgia for the 
stability and security of the Soviet past. 


But they doubted whether the election, Ukraine's third presidential poll 
since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, would be fair 
after a dirty campaign in which they accused Kuchma of manipulating the 
media. 


``I am in an excellent mood, but unfortunately the results of the election 
today do not depend only on the voters but on those who are trying to use 
their authority to preserve this system,'' Symonenko said as he voted. 


Vitrenko also complained of a dirty campaign. ``Now the problem is to see 
whether the voters believe me or if they believe this slander,'' she said. 


KUCHMA'S CHALLENGERS IN COMBATIVE MOOD 


When asked about possible defeat, Kuchma said: ``I don't see this as a 
tragedy and I am ready for any turn of events...I have never clung to power 
and I am not going to do that,'' he said, adding that he hoped the first 
round would be decisive. 


``The presidential marathon which has been unfolding in Ukraine has broken 
through all limits of morality and to continue it would be bad for society,'' 
he said. 


Vitrenko, who advocates breaking relations with the International Monetary 
Fund and sending capitalists to work in uranium mines, told journalists her 
headquarters had already received reports of voting procedure violations. 


Candidates have complained for weeks of an unusually dirty campaign and 
international observer groups, who have over 500 monitors patrolling polling 
stations across the country, say they are using experience from last year's 
parliamentary ballot. 


International observers at that election noted minor incidents but pronounced 
the ballot fair overall. 


Voters in the country of 50 million, where the economy has shrunk every year 
since independence and monthly wages average only $40, were generally 
pessimistic about the vote. 


``Nothing will change after these elections. I only voted so that the 
Communists will have a chance to change something. Hope dies last,'' said 
Valentin, an unemployed man voting for Symonenko. 


Other possible candidates for a second-round vote include Socialist Party 
leader Olexander Moroz and former prime minister and ex-KGB general Yevhen 
Marchuk. 


Voting closes at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) with preliminary results due to be made 
public around 1000 GMT on Monday. 


******


#4
Voting begins in hotly contested Georgian parliamentary contest


TBILISI, Oct 31 (AFP) - Voting began Sunday in Georgia's parliamentary 
elections after a hotly-contested campaign between the ruling Citizens Union 
of Georgia (CUG) and its main rival, the Revival of Georgia block.
Polls opened at 7:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) in some 2,300 stations around the 
southern Caucasus nation of 5.5 million.


The voting was due to end at 8:00 p.m., with first results to be announced 
Monday.


Parties must clear a seven percent barrier to qualify for the 150 seats to be 
filled from their candidate lists. The remaining 85 deputies are elected in 
direct-vote constituencies.


A total of 32 parties and around 5,000 candidates are taking part.


The election campaign was characterised by angry exchanges between the two 
leading groups, which accused each other of voter intimidation, list rigging, 
and blackmail.


President Eduard Shevardnadze and the rest of the CUG's officials tried to 
frame the election as a choice between stability and reform and what they 
described as the reactionary policies of their opponents.


But Georgia still suffers from massive unemployment, a shrinking industrial 
base and unpaid wages. Some analysts say that Shevardnadze could face an 
anti-reform and anti-Western backlash in his own electorate, though he is not 
a candidate in these elections.


Some 150 observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 
Europe are monitoring the voting.


Soundings indicate that the opposition Labour Party and Industry Will Save 
Georgia could secure seats. Shevardnadze's allies in the National Democratic 
Party and Peoples Party may also garner the needed seven percent.


"These are extremely important elections," Shevardnadze said in an interview 
published on Saturday. "Primarily they will show which path Georgia will 
follow in the future."


The CUG formed the majority of the outgoing parliament and represents a 
continuation of Shevardnadze's pro-Western, reform-oriented policies.


For many, Shevardnadze, Georgia's one time Communist party chief and 
perestroika-era foreign minister, represents the stability that Georgia now 
enjoys after years of economic chaos and civil war.


But the opposition Revival movement has caught the attention of many 
disillusioned voters thanks to its leader, Aslan Abashidze, who heads 
Georgia's autonomous Adjaria region.


The region has earned a reputation as one where salaries are paid on time, 
and the electricity works -- important considerations to a population where 
many still have yet to see the fruits of five years of reform. 
******


#5
Ten years on, eastern Europe still divided


VIENNA, Oct 31 (AFP) - Ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Europe's 
former communist bloc remains deeply divided -- but by economic and political 
gulfs rather than concrete barriers with the outside world. 


Despite western Europe's ambitions to integrate its ex-Warsaw Pact 
neighbours, some are still too clearly marked by their communist past, while 
conflicts in ex-Yugoslavia have cast a shadow across the entire southeast of 
the continent.


While countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have already 
joined NATO and are lined up for European Union membership within the 
forseeable future, their poorer Balkans neighbours can only look on enviously.


"It will take a while for investors to return to the Balkans," the World Bank 
director for Bulgaria and Romania, Andrew Vorkink, said with understatement 
at a recent regional conference in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.


The tearing down of the Berlin wall on November 9, 1989 was the defining 
moment which saw communist regimes topple across eastern Europe, from the 
Baltics to the Balkans.


Not surprisingly, it is the countries which were first to reform, in some 
cases even before 1989, which are now the region's frontrunners to join the 
Western mainstream.


Tourists or businessmen visiting Warsaw, Prague or Budapest these days can, 
with little mental effort, imagine themselves in any Western capital, such 
has been their transformation in just a decade.


Even former Soviet republics like the Baltic trio of Estonia, Latvia and 
Lithuania have wrought spectacular changes, helped by their Scandinavian 
neighbours to cast off the dark memories of their forced incorporation into 
the Soviet Union.


But further south countries like Bulgaria and Romania, where hardline 
communists held on until the very last, or the former Yugoslavia, where some 
say they are still holding on, have struggled to draw a line under the past.


On the streets of Sofia the poverty, while not as grinding as in nearby 
Albania for example, is still clear in the faces of Bulgarians whose monthly 
salary is barely 100 dollars.


Five former members of Europe's ex-communist bloc -- Poland, Hungary, the 
Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovenia -- opened European Union membership 
talks in November 1998.


Then on October 13 this year the European Commission proposed starting talks 
with the so-called second wave: Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, 
Romania and Malta.


But, recognising the relative weakness of Bulgaria's and Romania's EU 
applications, it imposed specific conditions on Sofia and Bucharest before it 
will allow talks to get under way.


"Bulgaria has continued to make progress in establishing a functioning market 
economy but further steps are needed and it is not yet in a position to cope 
with competitive pressure and market forces," said the Brussels report.


It meanwhile insisted that Romania improves its orphanages and take 
"appropriate measures ... to address the macro-economic situation" before it 
can begin entry talks.


The Balkan countries' efforts to catch up were dealt a severe blow by the 
Kosovo crisis this year, not only in the negative view it gave of the region, 
but by the blocking of the river Danube, a key transport route in and out of 
the region, by Yugoslav bridges destroyed by NATO war planes.


The Balkan Stability Pact, launched in Sarajevo in July, hopes to address the 
region's problems by offering international aid and investment in return for 
progress on democratisation.


But the longest shadow in the region is cast by the ex-communist country 
which has become isolated as a result of its own actions: rump Yugoslavia. 


"The whole region .. is kept hostage by the Serb criminal regime," said 
Albanian President Rexhep Meidani at a meeting of regional leaders in 
Salzburg following the Kosovo crisis earlier this year.


The European Union maintains that its doors remain open to all aspirants. 
"The countries of the former Yugoslavia and Albania aspire to EU membership 
but are far from meeting the criteria," it said last month.


"The Union is ready to offer them the perspective of future membership 
provided they work together with the Union and among themselves to implement 
a strategy of stabilisation for the region," it said. 
*******


#6
Aims in Human Rights Protection Should Be Changed-Activist.


ST.PETERSBURG, October 31 (Itar-Tass) - Leader of the Right-Wing Forces Union 
Irina Khakamada, speaking at the ongoing St.Petersburg conference "Human 
rights in Russia in the 21st century", suggested on Saturday that aims in 
human rights protection field should be changed. 


In Khakamada's opinion, there is "a problem of generations" among Russian 
human rights activists. Human rights activities were developing in Russia as 
struggle "against" the totalitarian regime. 


Under new conditions when instruments of a democratic society -- direct 
presidential elections and bicameral parliament -- are already operating in 
Russia, human rights activists have not learnt how to work "for". 


What is needed now is "protection of economic rights, the right to private 
property, rights to information, self-organisation and construction of a 
civic society". 


She warned that "if we do not protect people from rapaciousness of officials, 
they will never vote for the continuation of liberal reforms". The conference 
will last two days. 


Its participants -- Russian human rights activists, leader of the 
Byelorussian social democratic People's Gromada Stanislav Shushkevich, 
representatives from the International Human Rights Society, the Konrad 
Adenauer Foundation, Amnesty International, the international Helsinki Group, 
deputies of the European Parliament and the British parliament, as well as 
deputies of the State Duma and the Petersburg Legislative Assembly -- intend 
to hammer out new goals in the sphere of human rights protection.


*******


#7
The Independent (UK)
31 October 1999
[for personal use only]
Land of passion and treachery 
Death in Armenia, war in Chechnya: 'new' Russia only has old answers on its 
turbulent southern marches, writes Rupert Cornwell 


TODAY a numbed and grieving Armenia buries the prime minister and seven other 
senior officials cut down when a group of deranged gunmen burst into the 
Yerevan parliament last week. 


As it does so, a general election in neighbouring Georgia could damage the 
standing of its president Eduard Shevardnadze, the one acknowledged statesman 
of the region. And all the while, almost certainly, Russian bombs and shells 
will be raining down a few dozen miles away on the wretched people of 
Chechnya. The Caucasus has always been an unstable and dangerous place –
but 
rarely has it looked as dangerous as now. 


In all probability, there is no connection between Moscow's savage 
bludgeoning of Chechnya and an apparently random act of political 
assassination in Armenia. But in the Caucasus, nothing is sure. It is a land 
of passion and treachery, of ancient feuds and ancient memories, where 
poverty and violence are endemic, where as many as 50 distinct ethnic, racial 
and religious groups live in a territory no larger than the British Isles, 
and where chain reactions of instability can lead in almost any direction. In 
its time it has been fought over by Greeks, Turks and Persians. Distant 
European powers such as Britain have meddled there. But one giant shadow 
still hangs over the Caucasus. Its name is Russia. 


Until 1991, the region belonged to the Soviet Union. Before that, for a 
century or more, its component republics and statelets had been part of the 
Russian Empire. The collapse of Communism brought independence to Georgia, 
Armenia and Azerbaijan, but the bits that previously were in Soviet Russia
– 
Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia and the rest – remained
within 
the new Russia. In many respects ,however, the difference has been slight. 
The Romanovs are long gone, and Russia is weakened and half-bankrupt. But the 
mentality behind Tsar Nicholas I's remark 150 years ago still holds true: 
"Where the Russian flag has been hoisted, it can never be lowered." Now as 
then, Moscow regards the Caucasus as its backyard, within its sphere of 
influence, where it may meddle as it pleases. Eight years on, the Kremlin has 
barely come to terms with the reality of three independent states in 
Transcaucasia. And, as two Chechen wars within five years prove, woe betide 
the territory within Russian borders which seeks to break free. 


And so a pattern begins to emerge, and chain reactions become easier to 
discern. The onslaught against Chechnya was brought about not only by the 
bombs allegedly planted in Russian cities by Chechen terrorists – but
also by 
what Moscow saw as an attempt by Muslim insurgents in Chechnya to invade 
neighbouring Dagestan and set up a fundamentalist Islamic republic on 
Russia's southern edge. As a result of the onslaught, however, 180,000 
Chechen refugees have fled westward, throwing tiny Ingushetia into turmoil. 


The shockwaves spread southward, too, into Georgia, sympathetic to Chechnya 
and sharing a short and mountainous border with it. Whether Georgia is 
offering sanctuary to Chechen guerrillas is unknown. Were it to do so, it 
would assuredly incur Moscow's darkest fury. Between Russia and Georgia there 
is already no love lost. With good reason, Georgia suspects Moscow of having 
sought to weaken its statehood by backing the separatist movements in the 
Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia, meanwhile, is 
driven by personal anger as well as geopolitical ambition. 


Moscow has never forgiven Mr Shevardnadze for his role in hastening the 
break-up of the Soviet empire when he was foreign minister under Mikhail 
Gorbachev. In the Russian government many regard him as little better than a 
traitor – an opinion merely confirmed by Mr Shevardnadze's strongly 
pro-Western policies and his advocacy of Nato membership for Georgia. If he 
loses ground in today's vote, Russia's room to meddle can only increase. 


The Chechen ripples stretch into Azerbaijan as well. Control of Chechnya, 
astride a pipeline carrying oil from Baku, in Azerbaijan, to Russian Black 
Sea ports, is vital if Moscow is to retain its leverage in the Great Game 
already under way over the oilfields of the Caspian Sea and West Asia. 
Russian commanders believe Azerbaijan is a transit route for foreign 
mercenaries fighting with the Chechen rebels – though they deny having
bombed 
targets on the territory of a sovereign foreign state. 


And so finally to Armenia, Holy Russia's main Christian ally in the region, 
but since its independence a case study in the self-perpetuating Caucasian 
cycle of war and economic backwardness. Armenia's 11-year conflict with its 
ancestral foe Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh may have produced military 
victory and de facto virtual incorporation of the enclave into Armenia. But 
the cost has been huge: isolation, the loss of freight routes across 
Azerbaijan and into Russia, and disruption of its energy supplies. All this 
in a country already caught in a no man's land between a Communist command 
economy and the free market, where factionalism and corruption reign. 


The signs are that Nairi Unanian, former journalist, ultra-nationalist and 
leader of the assassins last Wednesday, was acting from longstanding disgust 
at the government. He wanted, he said, "to save the Armenian people from 
perishing". And if the chosen method was extreme, it is not unknown in a 
region where the gun has always been part of politics. But, ask others, was 
it really so simple ? 


A peace settlement containing a few figleaf concessions to Azerbaijan, by all 
accounts, is close to hand. Might not Mr Unanian have sought to prevent what 
he regarded as a sell-out of the national interest – and might Russia
somehow 
even have been involved? The war with Azerbaijan has obliged Armenia to 
maintain close military links with Moscow. A peace deal could render these 
unnecessary and cost the Kremlin an important strategic foothold in the 
Caucasus. In which case there would be a connection between Chechen 
insurrection and murder in Yerevan. Conspiracy theorising run amok? Perhaps. 
But in its long and anguished history, the Caucasus has seen worse. 


*******


#8
The Electonic Telegraph (UK)
31 October 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia building a Czech base to spy on Nato, says report
By Francis Harris in Prague


RUSSIAN spies are rebuilding a vast espionage network in the Czech Republic 
at a time when the country is being integrated into Nato's command structure 
as one of its newest members.


According to a confidential Czech government report, seen by The Telegraph, 
half of the 63 diplomats and 104 other staff at Russia's palatial Prague 
embassy are spies protected by diplomatic immunity - giving them a safe 
window on the West. There are significantly more Russian diplomats in Prague 
than in the other Nato newcomers Poland and Hungary. 


In Britain, which has a population six times that of the Czech Republic, 
Moscow has only 47 diplomats at its London embassy. Prague's Social 
Democratic government, eager to foster warm relations with Moscow, has shown 
little apparent concern. Ministers also appear somewhat ambivalent towards 
Nato. 


When the Kosovo conflict erupted a month after the Czechs joined the Western 
military alliance, Prague worked with the Greeks to construct a peace deal 
acceptable to President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. Prague has now 
become the regional centre of operations for Russia's military intelligence 
agency, the GRU. 


The Czech report points to a high volume of communications between the GRU's 
Prague residence and stations in Germany and Austria - suggesting that it 
co-ordinates activities over a wide area.


The 16-page counter-intelligence summary adds that Russian spies are seeking 
to establish networks among high-priority groups, including Left-wingers, 
ambitious young politicians, trade unionists, businessmen with Russian 
connections and students. Policemen and army officers have also been 
approached.


The spymasters are aided by a number of "illegals" - agents without 
diplomatic immunity. These are thought to include former Red Army officers 
who married Czechs during the Cold War, and Russian businessmen. The Czechs 
even suspect that Moscow's spies have gone into business with the Russian 
mafia to help overcome cuts in funding imposed since the end of the Cold War. 


They are said to join forces through companies that can be divided into legal 
and illegal entities, with one part making money and the other conducting 
covert espionage activities. Embassy staff are active in hiring new agents 
and reviving dormant networks left behind when Soviet forces withdrew eight 
years ago. The aim of the espionage is intended to "maintain, stabilise and 
gradually renew Russia's position in the region".


Anatol Lieven, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 
London, said former Warsaw Pact states such as the Czech Republic provided 
fertile territory for Moscow. He said: "Russian spies obviously didn't tear 
up or forget about what they inherited.


"They have endless contacts and very many opportunities to blackmail people 
using information gleaned in the past. The Czech Republic, in particular, may 
be attractive because, let's be honest, it's easier to give the Czechs the 
run-around than the Poles."


In the past decade, Germany has expelled 150 alleged Russian spies and Poland 
11. In the same period, the Czechs have demanded the removal of just one 
Russian diplomat, and he was allowed to leave in secret. Official 
indifference is causing increased concern among pro-Western Czech politicians.


Michal Zantovsky, chairman of the Czech senate's foreign affairs committee, 
asked: "Is the Czech counter-intelligence service [the BIS] actually 
interested in unmasking Russian agents, or has it reconciled itself to their 
presence here?"


******


#9
The Guardian (UK)
31 October 1999
[for personal use only]
Blind lead the blind in ex-Soviet 'ghetto' 
Amelia Gentleman in Moscow


Newcomers who stray from the industrial centre of Podolsk to the south of the 
town are usually taken aback by what they find. For more than 50 years this 
has been the town's blind quarter. Today the community remains - battered and 
diminished - but fighting to survive. 


The people, wearing dark glasses and carrying sticks, feel their way around 
the district, running their fingers along the brightly painted bannisters at 
the side of the pathways, or listening out for the radios hung as sound 
beacons by every main entrance. 


At the settlement's heart is a factory, struggling to provide work for the 
blind by producing consumer goods. Around it are blocks of flats built 
specially for the blind, a mini-supermarket run by five blind men, a braille 
library, a social club and a small theatre where a blind choir performs. 


This community, in the industrial town to the south of Moscow, is a remnant 
of an unusual Soviet programme for dealing with the blind: those who were 
able to work were offered housing and employment in small communes across the 
country. Half a mile away, on the other side of town, a settlement for the 
deaf has also survived. 


Under the Soviet Union the community flourished. The planned economy meant 
guaranteed orders for the factory, making anything from pins for military 
medals to electrical fittings for Soviet fridges. But after 1991, few wanted 
to buy Russian fridges when they could buy cheaper and better imported 
versions. Workers were sacked, salaries cut and the canteen - once the social 
centre - shut down. The blind community shrank from 300 to 112. 


Now a small flow of work is gradually returning: the Podolsk plant is 
scraping together a living for its workers by making plastic broom heads and 
light switches. Yakov Maksimov, 60, a former physics teacher who had to 
abandon teaching when he lost his sight, has been living and working on the 
Podolsk site since 1972. Although the work is monotonous, he is grateful for 
it. 'I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I like having a job; a few years 
ago when the factory had no work at all, we used to come in every morning and 
sit at our desks anyway.' 


A Russian television documentary recently portrayed the continued existence 
of these settlements as a scan dalously inhumane way of treating the blind, 
but Maksimov insists: 'It would be wrong to see this as a ghetto. We chose to 
live here.' 


Galia Yureva, 44, came to Podolsk when she was 17. She said: 'The blind need 
to have contact with each other. The more blind there are together, the 
better. We're like a big family here.' 


In the evenings many residents play chess together and evening entertainment 
is held at the club. Last week it was competition night, with races to see 
who was quickest at peeling potatoes and who was the best braille reader. 


Yet most complain bitterly about how their lot has worsened in the last 
decade. Tamara Sidorova came to Podolsk in 1965 and met her late husband on 
the factory floor. From her flat overlooking the factory, she described how 
she used to be able to supplement her monthly pension of 500 roubles (just 
over £12) with a salary of at least another 500 roubles. Now she only gets 
occasional work. 'Food prices now are almost at a European level to which our 
pensions simply don't correspond. Before the economic reforms my fridge was 
full; now I can't afford to buy meat or butter.' 


Sitting beneath a huge portrait of Lenin in his office, the factory's 
director, Anatoly Bashkatov, one of the few non-blind people in the 
community, said the responsibility for keeping the settlement alive weighed 
heavily on his mind. 


He was reluctant to admit the plant has a long way to go before becoming a 
commercial success. The problem, he said, was that under Communism all he had 
to do was to produce the goods; now he had not only to produce them but sell 
them as well. 


He said: 'The Russian blind are ready to make brooms for Britain. Tell them 
we can make European standard, ecologically clean brushes, but write that we 
need sponsors - otherwise I don't know what will happen to this place.' 
*******


#10
From: "Julia Mineeva" <jmineeva@hotmail.com>
Subject: Russian Ballet
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 


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ORDER FORM
Yes! I would like to purchase ________ tickets for November ______
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******


#11
The Russia Journal
November 1-7, 1999
Kremlin chiefs pressed to let army win war
By VLADISLAV KOMAROV 
Russia's military advantage in Chechnya rests on a shaky foundation of 
government unpredictability and political uncertainty.


Both military analysts and those behind the campaign say the success enjoyed 
by federal troops could soon be undermined. 


"Many question the federal troops' ability to complete anti-terrorist 
operations. I can confidently say the federal army group has enough power and 
morale, if only the army isn't ordered to back off," Interior Troops brigade 
commander Col. Yury Yeremeyev told The Russia Journal.


"Our greatest fear is that the Kremlin may decide to suspend the operation 
and begin drawn-out talks, giving militants a respite to lick wounds and 
amass new forces, as happened two years ago.


"It's impossible to come to terms with the militants. The only language they 
understand is that of force," Yeremeyev continued.


Judging by public statements from top officials, the president, prime 
minister, most regional leaders and State Duma deputies consider it necessary 
to maintain military actions in Chechnya until all terrorists are eliminated.


Meanwhile, insiders note that several factors are gaining momentum that could 
urge federal authorities to halt the operation and initiate negotiations.


"Our president is totally unpredictable," State Duma Security Committee 
Chairman Viktor Ilyukhin said, while expressing concern about the outcry 
raised by "certain political forces" over the tragic Oct. 21 Grozny 
marketplace bombing, which resulted in more than 200 casualties according to 
Chechen sources.


The incident prompted debate both in Russia and abroad, accusing federal 
authorities of excessive use of force and urging them to initiate peace talks 
with the Chechens.


Beslan Tashimirov, Chechnya's General Prosecutor's Office spokesman, claimed 
five missiles exploded in Grozny's center killing civilians there. Chechen 
President Aslan Maskhadov added that, as a former artillery officer, he can 
definitively state that missiles were intended to hit his residence but 
missed.


Russia's Defense Ministry asserts the Grozny explosions resulted from a 
"non-army operation conducted by Russia's special force with active support 
from the Chechen population."


"The operation involved clashes between Chechnya's two bandit formations, 
which have long since opposed one another," Armed Forces General Headquarters 
First Deputy Valery Manilov added.


Duma Deputy Ilyukhin described the explosions as an "attempt to discredit 
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, (then) in Helsinki attending the 
EU-Russia summit, in the eyes of the world public," and added the incident 
may have been provoked by Chechens with "far-reaching political plans."


Whatever the case, the Grozny events prompted U.S. Secretary of State 
Madeline Albright and her first deputy, Strobe Talbott, to urge a halt of 
Russian military actions and resolution of the conflict through political 
methods.


Russian Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry spokesmen replied that the 
activities of Russia in Chechnya are the Russian Federation's internal affair.


"Russia cannot ignore the United States and other Western nations. Being a 
debtor and plagued with economic problems, Russia is dependent on the West," 
said Russian Peoples Spiritual Unity Academy President Georgy Trapeznikov.


"However, not to the extent of allowing Western intervention in Russia's 
internal affairs. Domestic opposition represents a greater threat to a 
successful anti-terrorist operation." 


Viktor Ilyukhin claims a "fifth column" - represented by Yabloko leader 
Grigory Yavlinsky, Novaya Sila leader Sergei Kiriyenko and State Duma Deputy 
Konstantin Borovoi - is acting to terminate the anti-terrorist operation.


The list of forces advocating peace talks with Maskhadov is not limited to 
those mentioned above. North Caucasus republic leaders convened a meeting in 
Essentuki on Oct. 24. Ingush President Ruslan Aushev expressed support for 
Putin's anti-terrorist stance, but called on Russia to begin negotiations.


"I don't dismiss that at a certain stage of the operation we'll shift from 
purely military actions to political, economic and other measures," Col. Gen. 
Valery Manilov added. "But, my firm position is we must first eliminate all 
militants; I hope the president and the government will do so." 


Chairman of Russia's Information Center and 1994-96 Chechen war veteran Col. 
Vladimir Terentyev agreed. "In the previous war, the first truce and talks 
occurred after nearly six months of military action, late April 1995, as the 
country prepared its 50th anniversary celebrations of victory in World War 
II." 


He called those negotiations a grave error, shortly followed by the notorious 
Shamil Basayev terrorist hostage crisis at Budennovsk.


"If we repeat this same mistake now, we'll lose the war. I hope the president 
won't allow that," he concluded, in opinion shared by almost all Russia's 
military.


******