November 2, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3599  3600 3601

Johnson's Russia List
#3600
2 November 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: West wants Russia compliance with arms treaty fast.
2. Reuters: Putin says Chechnya not harming links with West.
3. AFP: Moscow money machines steal credit card code numbers.
4. Moscow Times: Catherine Belton, Foreign Direct Investment Up 60%.
5. Jerry Hough: Visas.
6. RFE/RL: Paul Goble, Russia: Analysis From Washington -- Fungibility.
7. THE GALINA STAROVOITOVA FELLOWSHIP ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT 
RESOLUTION ESTABLISHED AT THE KENNAN INSTITUTE OF THE WOODROW WILSON CENTER.
8. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: THE DUMA ELECTIONS: ECONOMIC 
PROGRAMS AND IMPLICATIONS. A Presentation by Mikhail Dmitriev.
9. Ira Straus: Re "How Dare You Defame Islam" article.
10. The Times (UK): Anthony Loyd, Held as a spy in the Chechen war.
11. Itar-Tass: RUSSIA'S Election Commission to Register 6 More Blocs.] 

*******


#1
West wants Russia compliance with arms treaty fast
By Adam Jasser


OSLO, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Russia must give the West a credible plan for
scaling down its military build-up in North Caucasus before or at a
European security summit in Istanbul this month, senior Western officials
said on Tuesday. 


Russia's military offensive against Chechen rebels put its military might
well above the limit on heavy weaponry it can deploy on its southern flank
under the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE). 


The build-up adds to growing Western alarm about civilian casualties in
Chechnya, and is jeopardising plans to revise the CFE treaty at the summit
of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on
November 18-19. 


It's very important for us to come to an agreement with the Russians on
this before or at the summit,'' Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne
Bondevik told reporters after talks with the European Union's new foreign
policy supremo, Javier Solana. 


Solana said the West recognised Russia's problems in controlling its
rebellious southern provinces, but added that Moscow had to comply with
agreed limits. 


``Russia will have to comply not only with the new adapted treaty but also
with the old,'' he said. 


RUSSIA TRIES TO REASSURE THE WEST 


Russia has so far ignored Western pleas to scale down its military
operations in Chechnya, saying it will not relent in the pursuit of
``bandits and terrorists.'' 


But it is loath to cause a fiasco at the OSCE summit as it hopes the
organisation will one day replace NATO as the pillar of European security. 


Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily said on Tuesday that the
OSCE summit was in danger because of the Russian offensive in Chechnya. 


``More and more Western governments are asking whether the long-planned
meeting of heads of state and government can go ahead in its originally
planned form at all,'' it said. 


On Monday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried to assure Western
leaders gathered in Oslo for a Middle East summit that Moscow would abide
by the new and old limits. 


``Russia remains fully committed to the CFE treaty,'' he said. 


But a Russian statement released in Oslo failed to give any timetable for a
pullout of extra forces, saying vaguely it would happen when ``necessary
conditions'' were created on the ground. 


Bondevik made clear the statement fell short of what the West wanted, but
said it was a welcome start to negotiations in the run-up to the Istanbul
meeting. 


``For the time being there is contradiction (in Russia's statement), there
is no doubt about that,'' he said. ``We will be working on that in the
weeks ahead of us until the summit.'' 


STAKES HIGH FOR CLINTON 


President Bill Clinton, who plans to attend the OSCE summit, will add fresh
pressure on Moscow when he meets Putin later on Tuesday, officials said. 


Clinton and the Russian Prime Minister are among dignitaries attending the
Oslo meeting, held in memory of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. 


``The president will express his deep concern at the continuing violence
and the indiscriminate use of force,'' one senior U.S. official said. ``He
will be fairly tough on Putin.'' 


Western diplomats say Clinton's credibility would be at risk if he showed
up at an OSCE summit that failed in its chief task of approving the new
arms control agreement for Europe. 


*******


#2
Putin says Chechnya not harming links with West

PARIS, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, dismissing
Western charges of indiscriminate bombing in Chechnya, has said he saw no
sign that the conflict in the Caucasus was harming Russia's relations with
the West. 


In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published on Tuesday, Putin
said the international community had no doubts that Chechnya was a Russian
domestic matter. 


``Regarding relations with our European and U.S. partners, I do not see any
sign of deterioration over Chechnya,'' he said. 


Western countries have accused Russia of using disproportionate force in
Chechnya. The White House has said President Bill Clinton, who was set to
meet Putin in Oslo later in the day, would tell him of his concern over
``the indiscriminate use of force against innocent civilians.'' 


``All our actions, including military operations, are adapted to the
situation,'' Putin told Le Figaro. 


He said Russia's offensive in the breakaway Caucasus region would not stop
until rebels had been eradicated. But Russian troops, who have moved to
within a few miles of the capital Grozny were not in a hurry to take it at
any price. 


``Military circumstances will decide when and how we take Grozny,'' Putin
said. 


*******


#3
Moscow money machines steal credit card code numbers


MOSCOW, Nov 2 (AFP) - Thousands of holders of foreign credit cards are
scared to use them in Moscow bank teller machines after a scam involving
theft of the PIN numbers.
Six thousand dollars were debited from Israel, where he has never set foot,
from Christophe's Paris bank account while Wim's account in the Netherlands
shed 2,500 dollars to someone operating from the United States.


Hundreds of foreigners have received letters warning them of the theft of
their secret code numbers, the business daily Moscow Times revealed recently.


The scam has in fact mobilised experts of Visa and Europay since last
summer and also most Russian banks equipped with teller machines.


Europay, the main European credit card manager in charge notably of
Mastercard and Cirrus cards, sent a team of investigators to Moscow last week.


They began probing transactions at Union Card and several Russian banks
such as Alfa Bank and Avobank which issue the cards to their customers, the
business daily Kommersant reported.


The probe seens to show that the scam is linked one way or another with
Moscow's bank teller machines. But the link is not clear. The fraudulent
system is apparently not installed inside the machines and experts have not
ruled out that the PIN numbers might be copied during the clearing
operations of Russian banks.


Europay admits the problem but says it is not widespread and failed to give
any indication of the amounts involved, the Russian banks implicated or the
scam mechanism.


"Our probe has shown there is a computer fraud, but we are trying not to
give anything away because confidence is worth much more than a few
individual cases of fraud, said Richard Hainsworth of Thomson Bank Watch.


Credit card details are perhaps extracted from a Russian computer centre
managing the operations of international credit card systems, ITAR-TASS
news agency said, quoting banking sources.


Some Russian banks have decided to replace their customers' cards.
Kommersant said that 65,000 cards of the Europay system have been affected.


Peter Warner, head of Europay's anti-fraud unit told Kommersant its report
was true overall. "But it is an isolated case linked to the particularities
of the Moscow credit card market. Losses are minimal."


The credit card companies say they have to be secretive to get to the
bottom of the fraud.


Russian bankers say they are not to blame. "There is no fraud by the banks.
Europay is taking preventive measures and the level of frauds through the
theft of PIN numbers is lower in Russia than elsewhere, said Alexader
Poliakov, chairman of the directors of the association of Russian banks
which are members of Europay. 
*******


#4
Moscow Times
November 2, 1999 
Foreign Direct Investment Up 60% 
By Catherine Belton
Staff Writer


Foreign direct investment in the Russian economy jumped 60 percent during the 
second fiscal quarter compared to the same period last year and offshore tax 
haven Cyprus ranked as the nation's fourth largest investor, according to the 
latest figures released by the Russian Central Bank and the State Statistics 
Committee. 


Direct investment from the Cyprus tax haven accounted for 8.5 percent of the 
second quarter foreign direct investment total of $277 million. It stands at 
$61.37 million and is on a par with investment channeled into the Russian 
economy by Britain. 


The United States tops the list with 37.5 percent of total foreign direct 
investment, followed by Germany and the Netherlands with 11 percent and 9.3 
percent respectively. 


Economists said Monday the relatively high investment levels from Cyprus 
suggest that part of the billions of dollars that left Russia as capital 
flight through off-shore accounts into banks abroad may be coming back. 


"Investment from Cyprus is still substantially less than the amounts flowing 
out, but it is an encouraging development and a direct consequence of 
devaluation," said Philip Poole, head of emerging market research at ING 
Barings. 


The Russian economy has been experiencing a boomlet in the wake of ruble 
devaluation and rising world commodity prices. Russian goods have become more 
competitive on world markets and production costs for domestic industry have 
been lowered. Industrial output has risen 7 percent over the first nine 
months of this year from the same period in 1998, the State Statistics 
Committee says. 


Devaluation also saw the dollar price of Russian assets plummet, making it a 
little more attractive for Russian companies holding funds off-shore to 
transfer them back, Poole said in a telephone interview from London. 


In the most recent example of direct investment from Cyprus, the company 
Reforma Investment Ltd. won a privatization tender on Friday for 9 percent of 
Russian oil major LUKoil at a bid of just $200 million. Oil industry insiders 
say LUKoil itself was almost certainly behind the Cyprus company, which 
snapped up the stake from the Russian government at a bargain price. 


But even though foreign direct investment is picking up and some funds are 
returning to the economy from off-shore havens abroad, economists warned on 
Monday that investment as a whole in the Russian economy still remains at 
dismally low levels and that capital flight is still high. 


"The rise in foreign direct investment over the second quarter is encouraging 
but it's still minute," said Peter Westin, an economist atthe Russian 
European Center for Economic Policy. 


"The increase is based on the extremely low level of direct investment during 
the same period last year and has chiefly been fueled by foreign companies 
already present on the Russian market going into local production," he said. 


There has been a rash of investment announcements by Western companies taking 
advantage of the ruble devaluation and lower production costs to launch 
plants in Russia. 


Most recently German yogurt company Ehrmann announced plans to open a dairy 
production facility in the Moscow region in 2000. Total investment in the 
project has been earmarked at 80 million Deutsche marks ($42 million). 


The Ehrmann plant in the Ramenskoye region of Moscow will begin producing 
yogurt, tvorog, kefir and smetana. The company has been selling yogurt in 
Russia for five years. 


Baby food manufacturer Dutch Nutricia is modernizing its plant in the town of 
Istra in the Moscow region. Total investment in the project so far stands at 
over $60 million and is aimed at enhancing production facilities for the 
Malish, Bebelak and Malytka dried milk products the company sells in Russia. 


The largest producer of baby food in the world, Swiss company NestlĪ, is also 
reportedly mulling plans to launch local production of the food in Russia. 


Economists point out, however, that while foreign investment in the consumer 
goods sector and in the food processing industry in particular is on the up, 
this has little impact on the Russian economy as a whole. 


"The consumer goods sector may be the fastest growing and the food and 
beverage sectors may be the major attractions for foreign investors, but 
these sectors are small, can't drive the economy and aren't going to attract 
billions of dollars," Westin said. "Major sectors like oil and gas won't 
attract large investment until the production-sharing agreement gets off the 
ground. That could take several years." 


Sixty percent of foreign direct investment this year has been in the food 
processing industry, while just 15 percent has gone to the fuel industry, he 
said. 


While packaging giant Tetrapak has decided to go through with plans to invest 
a further $8 million this year into opening a new central office building in 
Moscow with staff training facilities, the company's finance director said 
Tetrapak was still proceeding with caution given the political uncertainty 
surrounding presidential elections next year. 


"Political instability is almost a secondary factor compared to the obstacles 
presented by the legal risk of investing in Russia," Westin said. "Lack of 
law enforcement and little protection of shareholders rights remain serious 
issues." 


== 


Some of 1999's major foreign projects 


-Danish candy maker Dandy, in conjunction with the EBRD and a Danish emerging 
market investment fund, plowed $94 million into a Dirol chewing gum factory 
in Novgorod 


-Wrigley's sunk $70 million into a chewing gum plant in St. Petersburg 


-Caterpillar invested $50 million in local production 


-NestlĪ has invested $30 million in six existing factories throughout Russia 


-Philip Morris put $330 million into a plant in the Leningrad region 


-International Paper spent $65 million to acquire a controlling stake in a 
local paper mill in St. Petersburg 


-EBRD invested $40 million in Baltika breweries 


- Catherine Belton 


*******


#5
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 
From: "Jerry F. Hough" <jhough@duke.edu>
Subject: Visas


Never have I generated such published and unpublished response as 
to my communications on the visas.


I would like to make two comments. First, it is obvious that 
there are outrageous arbitrary features to the visa policy. I gather the 
problem is the unintended consequences of the restraints on 
deportation of those who don't return. It apparently is so difficult and 
costly to deport people that the rational response is not to admit. But 
I understand there are exchange visas in which it is easy to deport if 
the exchange agency does not approve an extension. Can this principle 
not be extended to persons being invited by friends? Can there not be 
special visas in which waiver of the right to resist deportation is built 
into the acceptance of the visa?


Second, on the exchange, I still think that the cost-benefit 
question needs to be raised. Russia has 150 million people. Is the 
sending of 50 children of intellectuals to American business schools 
really going to have any effect in Russia?. I am not going to argue if 
people want to finance such exchanges, but I remain annoyed when it is 
defended as support for democratization. There are enormous things 
that we can do to promote democratization, but we have to reach large 
numbers of people (which means in Russia) and we have to reach those 
other than children of intellectuals or nomenklatura who already are 
pro-Western. But both of these cut against the grain and are not 
done. It is a real shame.


*******


#6
Russia: Analysis From Washington -- Fungibility
By Paul Goble


Washington, 1 November 1999 (RFE/RL) -- Moscow's simultaneous use of funds to 
stage its current campaign against Chechnya and its continuing efforts to 
extract new loans and other assistance from the West highlight a fundamental 
and potentially troubling fact about money: its fungibility. 


That financial term refers to the fact that once money from various sources 
is mixed together in a single account, it is difficult if not impossible to 
specify where every particular unit of those funds came from and even more to 
say where every unit of that combined account is going to. 


When individuals make transactions to hide the source of various funds or to 
allow such money to be spent for other purposes, this process is sometimes 
called money laundering. That is what appears to have happened with at least 
some of the Russian funds passing through the Bank of New York and other 
Western financial institutions. 


But when governments do it with money they have obtained from various 
sources, there is no applicable term beyond fungibility, a fact that has 
major consequences both for those who receive such money as well as for those 
who give it. 


For those governments who receive such funds, this aspect of the nature of 
money means that they may be able to get funds for projects they want to 
carry out by asking donor countries for assistance on projects the latter 
support and then by diverting the money after they are given it. 


For those governments and international agencies, the challenge arising from 
this aspect of finance is much greater. All of them have an interest in 
promoting particular programs and even more particular outcomes from such 
programs. 


Thus, these donors are likely to be loathe to cut back or end assistance lest 
they undermine the possibility that their favored programs will be carried 
out. But because money is fungible, these aid sources know that their 
assistance almost inevitably allows those who receive it to shift funds to 
other programs which the donors may oppose. 


Thus, money intended to promote health care programs or fundamental economic 
reform may end up being used for military purposes -- even military purposes 
directed against those giving the assistance. 


At the level of nation states, such political diversions of funds are far 
more serious and usually far larger than the corrupt diversion of assistance 
by individuals and groups seeking to benefit themselves. 


It is more serious because it is something donor countries can do little or 
nothing about without subverting their own purposes in giving assistance. And 
it is larger because the amounts of money involved are in virtually every 
case far larger. 


This problem has confronted donor countries for many years, but in the past, 
most Western aid went to smaller and weaker countries who were seldom in a 
position to use the fungibility of financial assistance against the donors, 
even if those receiving money were personally corrupt. 


But now in the case of the Russian Federation, the West faces precisely this 
challenge. Neither the major Western countries nor the principal 
international financial institutions are prepared to reduce or cut off 
assistance of various kinds to Moscow lest such a reduction in aid undercut 
Russia's transition toward free markets and democracy. 


At the same time, however, Moscow in the past has been prepared to divert 
financial assistance it does receive -- be it direct assistance or the 
rescheduling or canceling of debt -- in ways that it sees fit and often for 
purposes far different than Western donors clearly intended. 


That is likely to become the next financial crisis between East and West, one 
reflecting less the personal corruption of some Russian leaders than their 
ability to make use of the fungibility of money. 


*******


#7
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999
From: "JOSEPH DRESEN" <DRESENJO@WWIC.SI.EDU> 
Subject: THE GALINA STAROVOITOVA FELLOWSHIP


THE GALINA STAROVOITOVA FELLOWSHIP
ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION
ESTABLISHED AT THE KENNAN INSTITUTE OF THE
WOODROW WILSON CENTER


Washington, D.C.- The Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars (WWICS) has announced a fellowship in remembrance of
Galina Starovoitova, a visiting scholar at the Wilson Center in 1989 and a
leading Russian human rights activist until her untimely death in 1998.


The Galina Starovoitova Fellowship on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution
was established following a speech given by U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright in Moscow on January 25, 1999, in which she announced
funding for a memorial fellowship in honor of Starovoitova at the WWICS's
Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. "This fellowship is
important to the Woodrow Wilson Center not only because it is in memory of
one of our former scholars, but also because it honors an individual who
made a remarkable contribution to human rights," said Lee H. Hamilton,
Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center. The Fellowship is funded and
administered in cooperation with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.


In addition to her human rights advocacy, Starovoitova served as a deputy
in the lower house of the Russian parliament (Duma). She won her Duma seat
from St. Petersburg in Russia's December 1995 legislative elections.
Starovoitova served in the Congress of the Peoples' Deputies during
1989-1991 and was a presidential advisor on ethnic relations until 1992.
She was a co-founder of the Democratic Russia movement and was a candidate
in Russia's 1996 presidential elections. She was shot in St. Petersburg on
November 20, 1998 by two unknown assassins. 


During her tenure at the Kennan Institute, she worked on a project
entitled, "Urban Ethnic Groups in the Soviet Union". "Galina exemplified
all the best qualities of the Kennan Institute and of Russia," remarked
Blair Ruble, Director of the Kennan Institute. She also was a visiting
professor at Brown University and a fellow in the Jennings Randolph
fellowship program at the United States Institute of Peace during 1993-94,
where she completed research on self-determination movements in the former
Soviet Union.


In keeping with both the legacies of Woodrow Wilson and Galina
Starovoitova, the Starovoitova Fellowship will be available to prominent
scholars or policy makers from the Russian Federation who have successfully
bridged the world of ideas and public affairs to advance human rights and
conflict resolution. "This new fellowship is a kind of memorial not only to
Galina, who I personally knew, but also to the first wave of democratic
fighters as a whole. It is a real and practical contribution toward
promoting humanitarian values in my country," commented Anatoly L.
Adamishin, Minister of the Russian Federation Ministry for CIS
(Commonwealth of Independent States) Countries Cooperation, former
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom, and a current
public policy scholar at the Kennan Institute.


Men and women with outstanding capability and experience from a wide
variety of backgrounds (including government, the private sector, and
academia) are eligible for the fellowship. For academic participants,
eligibility is limited to the postdoctoral level, and it is normally
expected that academic candidates will have demonstrated their scholarly
development by publication beyond their Ph.D. dissertation. For other
applicants, an equivalent level of professional achievement is expected.


Under the terms of the grant, the Galina Starovoitova Fellowship offers a
monthly stipend, research facilities, word processing support, and research
assistance. Grant recipients are required to be in residence at the Kennan
Institute in Washington, D.C. for the duration of their grant. The
Starovoitova fellow is expected to hold public lectures on themes of
conflict resolution and human rights while conducting research on a
specific topic. In addition, the Starovoitova Fellow will actively
participate in discussions with the public policy and academic communities,
including giving speeches and lectures at other institutions and taking
part in meetings and conferences.


The Kennan Institute will hold one round of competitive selection for one
nine-month Starovoitova Fellowship in 2000. The deadline for the submission
of applications and supporting material is January 1, 2000. Decision on
appointment will be made in March 2000, and the Fellowship can be commenced
as early as September 2000. For more information on the Starovoitova
Fellowship, please contact the Kennan Institute at 202-691-4100.


******


#8
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Russian and Eurasian Program 


Issue Brief
Vol. 1, No. 8, October 28, 1999


THE DUMA ELECTIONS: ECONOMIC PROGRAMS AND IMPLICATIONS
A Presentation by Mikhail Dmitriev, October 27, 1999


All major political parties competing in the upcoming Duma elections have 
drafted pro-market economic programs. This was a key conclusion in the 
presentation by Mikhail Dmitriev, former first deputy minister of labor and 
social policy. Dmitriev currently co-chairs the Project on Post-Soviet 
Economies in Transition at the Carnegie Moscow Center, where he is a 
scholar-in-residence. He based his presentation on his recent survey of the 
economic proposals of the four parties poised to break the five percent 
threshold needed to attain seats in the Duma: Yabloko, the Communist Party 
(KPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) -- recently renamed Zhirinovsky's 
Bloc, and Fatherland-All Russia. He compared the current economic programs to 
each other and to the economic programs drafted by the parties elected to the 
Duma in 1995: Yabloko, the KPRF, the LDPR, and Our Home is Russia (NDR). 


Dmitriev rated the proposed economic policies of each of these parties on 
their support for market reform and on the degree to which their policies are 
economically realistic. He divided his analysis into ten categories: monetary 
policy, tax policy, foreign trade and international capital flows, state 
intervention, structural policy, privatization and property rights, land 
ownership, welfare benefits, labor markets, and health and education policy.


DMITRIEV'S FINDINGS:


Monetary Policy:


Compared to 1995, all of the parties have grown wary of inflation, and no 
party is proposing large-scale printing of money. Yabloko is most committed 
to fighting inflation, while the three other major parties continue to 
promote looser monetary policy. The KPRF claims that "managed money issuing" 
could lead to eight to ten percent growth in GDP next year. Fatherland-All 
Russia seeks to attain growth through other means, such as differentiated 
interest rates. 


Tax Policy:


In 1995 proposed taxation policies were highly unrealistic and out of line 
with market reform, explained Dmitriev. They were overly progressive and 
allowed serious economic distortions by failing to end the numerous tax 
exemptions which the government was granting to chosen sectors of the 
economy. In contrast, in 1999 all parties agree that a priority of economic 
reform must be reduction of the tax burden, streamlining of the tax 
collection system, and a shift of the tax burden away from the producer to 
the consumer. Yabloko and the KPRF have the most specific proposals to attain 
this last goal. Only Yabloko's program, however, includes discussion of how 
to minimize taxes on labor.


Foreign Trade and International Capital Flows:


In 1995 all four Duma parties were highly protectionist, catering to 
unrealistic, populist demands to keep foreign competitors out of the Russian 
market. Today, Dmitriev said, two of the major parties -- Yabloko and 
Fatherland-All Russia -- accept foreign competition. Although the KPRF and 
LDPR continue to support high customs tariffs as a means to increase domestic 
economic growth, they, too, seek to reduce distortions in the tax system by 
reducing exemptions for the government's favored importers.


State Intervention:


As in 1995, Yabloko is the most market-oriented and realistic in terms of its 
position on state intervention. The other major parties claim that their goal 
is to increase the efficiency of state regulation, but their proposals -- 
which for some parties include large-scale government support for industries 
based on economic indicators gathered over five-year periods -- are still 
reminiscent of state planning. 


Structural Policy:


The proposed structural policies of the current parties are only slightly 
more liberal than in 1995, Dmitriev concluded. All of the proposals in this 
category are highly unrealistic. Yabloko seeks to target industries such as 
aeronautics and space technology. It hopes to attract much of these funds 
from the private sector, but the levels of investment which it seeks to 
attain are, according to Dmitriev, completely impractical. The other parties 
propose devoting more state funds to the support of selected industries. 
Fatherland-All Russia suggests using money from the gas and oil industry to 
support the development of import-substitution sectors. 


Privatization and Property Rights:


In 1995 a major aim of the KPRF was to alter the outcome of privatization, 
including the long-run goal of renationalization of major industries. While 
the Communists proposed the most stringent renationalization plans, other 
major parties also claimed that privatization had occurred unjustly and that 
some revision of property distribution was necessary. Between 1995 and 1999, 
argued Dmitriev, a major shift has taken place. Yabloko's focus is now on 
improving corporate governance. It seeks, for example, to increase protection 
of shareholders' rights. The other parties continue to claim that the outcome 
of privatization was unjust, but they propose judicial reform rather than 
administrative redistribution of property. In one of the most drastic 
turnarounds since 1995, the KPRF is now talking about how to enforce property 
rights. In unambiguous terms, the KPRF accepts that where competition exists, 
private property should be the dominant form of ownership. Although the KPRF 
continues to support collective ownership, it now defines this term as it is 
defined in western economies, meaning private, employee-owned firms. The 
KPRF's economic program supports state ownership only for natural monopolies 
and enterprises in need of long-term restructuring.


Land Ownership


Dmitriev noted that less change has occurred between 1995 and 1999 in this 
category than in any other. The KPRF continues to reject outright private 
ownership of land. Fatherland-All Russia and the LDPR remain cautious about 
major reform of land ownership. Even Yabloko's program offers only vague 
statements admitting that private ownership of land is a necessity, not 
specific proposals about how to proceed.


Social Policy: Welfare Benefits, the Labor Market, and Health and Education 
Policies


Compared to 1995 when the economic programs of most of the major parties 
continued to support Soviet-style social policy, a major shift has occurred. 
Most of the parties' attitudes toward social policy now resemble 
euro-socialist ideas. Even the KPRF supports, for those who can afford it, 
the privatization of health care and education.


CONCLUDING REMARKS:


Dmitriev concluded by comparing the amount of change in each party's economic 
program since 1995. He found that Yabloko's economic proposals remained 
fairly similar, continuing to exhibit both support for the market and a high 
degree of realism. The LDPR's proposals shifted from slightly anti-market to 
slightly pro-market yet remain driven by populist pressures rather than 
realistic economic goals. Finally, he found that the KPRF's economic thinking 
has evolved dramatically from very populist and anti-market to slightly 
pro-market and less unrealistic. Fatherland-All Russia did not exist in 1995.


He also provided some final remarks on the overall realism of the parties' 
economic programs. By his calculations, the social policies which the major 
parties are proposing would require spending levels between 30 and 40 percent 
of GDP, which the government clearly cannot afford. Dmitriev explained that 
on the whole, the economic programs of the current parties are more 
realistically oriented than the 1995 programs. The programs do not, however, 
account for the change in economic conditions caused by the August 1998 
financial crisis. Consequently, in the context of 1995 conditions, the 1995 
economic programs may have been more feasible than the 1999 programs are in 
the context of 1999 conditions. 


On the positive side, Dmitriev noted a convergence in the attitudes toward 
economic reform of the major parties between 1995 and 1999. Although he 
emphasized that analysis of pre-election economic programs is no surefire 
indicator of the economic policies of the next Duma, Dmitriev speculated that 
the growing centrist consensus on economic issues among the parties might 
foster effective, although moderate, economic reform.


Summary by Jordan Gans-Morse, Junior Fellow with the Russian and Eurasian 


*******


#9
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 
Subject: Re "How Dare You Defame Islam" article


It seems to me that the article below [DJ: Not reproduced here], 
while concentrating on questions of 
Islam and Islamism that go far beyond the borders of Russia, has a lot of 
bearing on the discussion on JRL itself regarding these questions inside 
Russia. Or, perhaps, on the relative dearth of such discussion, even during 
the present cycle of conflicts in the Caucasus. 


It may also help explain why the public space in the West, starting with the 
internet, is full of appeals for the West to come to the help of Chechnya and 
punish Russia, which has risen to the level of a public campaign with a 
common platform and a series of demands, to which Western policy is beginning 
to yield; while there are virtually no appeals to come to the help of Russia. 
Or why the appeals of the first kind come replete with criticisms of the 
West's for being hypocritical in its failure thus far to give Chechnya much 
support; while there are virtually no comments on the various hypocrisies 
that can be discerned in the West's criticisms of the Russian war effort, and 
in its failure thus far to give Russia much support. 


There have been a few exceptions to this rule: there have been some comments 
on Western hypocrisy in its criticisms of Russia. However, they mostly come 
from Russia itself, and have not become a part of the Western debate. Indeed, 
for the most part, they do not even attempt to make an appeal to the West. 
The cases I can think of are:


(1) reprints from the Russian press on JRL. These at least show that Russians 
do discuss among themselves about Western hypocrisy, but they are duly 
ignored in the West.


(2) a few comments of my own. These brought in a number of accolades and some 
interesting supporting material in my personal email; but these 
correspondents, some of whom have written to JRL on other occasions, mostly 
didn't seem to copy to JRL on this occasion. It also brought in some hate 
email in response, a fraction of the milder instances of which did appear on 
JRL. Along with some of the obfuscatory responses, which argued that Islamism 
was irrelevant and it was always this or that detail that was the issue. 


(3) one single attempt by a Russian to engage the West on this subject. JRL 
reproduced this from The Russia Journal (I think). It received a prompt 
public stoning in the form of numerous angry replies on JRL, taking it 
bitterly and lengthily to task for every one of its misstatements and 
over-statements. The heat was intense enough that the Russia Journal itself 
evidently felt some of it; it sent in a letter to JRL dissociating itself 
from the article and explaining, a bit defensively, the virtues of the policy 
of the Journal in publishing differing views.


This kind of thing, above and beyond any objective factors, may help in 
explaining why the discussion on this subject has been rather feeble and 
one-sided among us. The chilling effect does seem to work. 


The article below places these instances in a broader context. It shows that 
the traditional repression of criticism of Islam within majority-Islamic 
societies is linking up, when it comes over to the West, with political 
correctness and speech codes, inflicting legal penalties on critics of Islam 
(without giving up the use of terrorist threats as a supplementary means of 
intimidation). This may explain the rather peculiar fact that criticism of 
Islam and of Islamism is getting labeled as "racism", even though Islam is in 
no sense a race and includes tens of millions of people of every major race. 
Christianists have begun using some of the same tricks, too, trying to use 
political correctness for the sake of getting criticism of Christianity 
suppressed. All of which suggests that these instances on JRL may well have a 
broader significance, above and beyond the constriction of discussion on an 
immediate policy question.
- - - - - - -
"How Dare You Defame Islam" 
Daniel Pipes (Director, Middle East Forum, Philadelphia)
Commentary 
November 1999 


******


#10
The Times (UK)
2 November 1999
[for personal use only]
Held as a spy in the Chechen war 
Anthony Loyd, the only Western reporter to witness Moscow's drive into
Chechnya in the past week,tells of his three days imprisonedby the Russian
military. A veteran reporter of the 1995-96 Chechen war, he returned last
month, andwas arrested on Thursday whiletrying to find his way back into
the breakaway republic. Loyd was interrogated through the nightby men in
balaclavas, to the surreal accompaniment of Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender 


"HARRY" was my principal interrogator. I don't even know what his face
looks like, for he was always masked in a black balaclava during questioning. 
"Do you like Elvis?" he asked me suddenly during my first night of captivity. 


"Uh, yeah," I responded dully, mind already fuddled by the barrage of
questions I had received in the previous hours. He produced a tape recorder
and pressed play. Star shells and flares illuminated the darkened Chechen
plain around us, bathing the western battlefield in a weird purple glow,
punctuated by shining trails of tracer fire and the flashes of field guns. 


"Love me tender, love me true," the King crooned, as thunderous Russian
artillery rocked the night. 


"So Anthony," Harry began again, leaning forward, eyes staring out from the
mask. "Let's go back to the beginning one more time. . ." 


>From the bowels of the Russian war machine, the view was as surreal as any
I have had in my life. 


Harry knows a lot about me now, but all I know of him is that he was aged
30, an officer in the KGB's successor, the FSB, and had learnt English in a
"special school". Our first meeting was by a roadside in Chechnya, as I
stood guarded by Russian troops while my clothing and belongings were being
given an extremely professional search by a special police unit. 


Russian forces had sealed the Chechen-Ingush border six days previously,
before two brigades advanced slowly into the west of separatist Chechnya. I
had been trapped by the move in Ingushetia, and was trying desperately to
get back into Chechnya with a friend and colleague, a 30-year-old American
photographer, Tyler Hicks. 


Mulling our chances in a hotel in the Ingush capital, Nazran, we had got to
know a very strange character. Mojumder Amin was a wealthy Bangladeshi, and
representative of an Islamic organisation liaising with the Chechen
leadership in an effort to reach a negotiated settlement to the war. 


Among his documents was a fax from Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime
Minister, apparently granting him permission to enter Chechnya. Last
Thursday, in the middle of the afternoon, Mr Amin announced that he was
embarking for Grozny in a large Volga and asked if we would like to
accompany him. We had ten minutes to make a decision. 


"The plan sounds so crazed that it might just work," Tyler remarked,
scratching his beard thoughtfully. So with this indisputable logic, we
leapt into the Volga. 


The plan, of course, failed dismally. Though we cruised through the first
two Russian checkpoints, Mr Putin's fax doing its work, right on the border
we bumped into a Russian brigadier. 


In no time Mr Amin, his own documents apparently satisfying the Russians,
was sent packing back to Nazran, while Tyler and I were dragged off at
speed over the border, and our time in custody began. 


Harry could play both good and bad cop, sometimes being friendly; at
others, if he noticed a discrepancy of detail in our accounts, cold and
officious. He seemed to be able to recall tiny pieces of information from
our answers and confront us with them if subsequently they contradicted
anything else we said. He never worked alone, and was usually accompanied
by another FSB officer as well as an armed escort. 


Inevitably, we were presented with "the spy" scenario at first. "What is
your rank and duty?" was the first question I was asked, as Harry leafed
through my passport, itself stacked with visas from the world's shadier
quarters: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and Yugoslavia to name but
a few. Indeed, "Good morning spies", became one commander's ritual greeting
to us. 


My biggest concern was that the Russians would discover who my contact was
inside Chechnya. I had managed to eat the page of my notebook with his name
and telephone number on it before we were pulled out of the car. 


In the seconds before we were separated, I murmured to Tyler that he should
say that I alone had the details of who we were meeting, so that our
stories would not contradict each other. Harry never did get the man's real
name. 


Between interrogation sessions we were held in a field tent with a platoon
of federation special forces, surrounded by artillery positions and
firebases. These troops appeared genuinely amused by our company. We slept,
as they did, on planks on the ground, huddled around a wood stove wrapped
up in thick greatcoats, and ate their thin stew and bread three times a day. 


"Good guns, shit food, not enough water," one of them told me of his army
as he cleaned his PB silenced assault rifle, complete with Cobra laser
telescopic sight, a piece of technology so efficient that it can kill a
person with no more sound than a soft cough. 


They were a tough, capable team, a balanced unit of specialists from all
over Russia, including medics, snipers and communications experts, but few
seemed to care one way or another for the war in Chechnya, in spite of the
propaganda they were subjected to. 


Their own officers, as well as Russian radio, informed them regularly that
there were no civilians left in the capital, Grozny, and that all Chechens,
apart from terrorists, wanted Russian troops to take over the state again
so that they could live peacefully. 


"I just do this for the money," one of them, Nicolai, told me as I
struggled to understand the rules of a card game, appropriately named
"Russian Fool". His wage of 1,500 roubles (£37.50) a month was considered a
reasonable pay packet by Russian standards, though it barely kept his wife
and six-month-old son, who lived in Moscow. He was aged 24 and had been in
the army since he was 18, first as a paratrooper, then in two subsequent
anti-terrorist special units. 


"Russia is stuck halfway between the old communist system and capitalism,"
he explained, "so our economy is totally screwed up. It is not a question
of wanting to be a soldier or not, it is a question of doing whatever you
can to have enough money to get by." 


Harry and the other officers I encountered knew exactly what they wanted
out of the war. "We lost it last time," he said bluntly, "and this time we
are going to win it." 


That was the last time I saw Harry. He had hinted that we might be moved
elsewhere, possibly to a jail, and asked if there was anything we wanted. I
asked for some vodka and a ride to the frontline, but he just laughed and
asked more questions. 


On the third day of our detention, with the fighting moving deeper into
Chechnya, a helicopter landed beside the position. Tyler and I wondered
optimistically if it carried someone with enough authority to order our
release. By that stage we thought it was possible that we could be sent to
a prison for a while, but that it was unlikely. 


Our greatest fear was born from an understanding that a vast, lumbering
organisation had incarcerated us in a time and place of great confusion,
and that we might just be stuck in limbo for weeks, sitting in a cell
somewhere for no other reason than that no one had the clout to let us go. 


The army was doing its thing, the Government something else; everybody
wanted a slice of Chechnya for their own reasons and the fate of two
foreigners was of no great importance. If there was a chain of command
running back to Moscow, I never felt it. 


No one disembarked from the helicopter but we were loaded on to it. Inside
there was a death-charged teenager at the machine gun in the nose cone,
dressed from head to toe in black with a leather flying cap and blue
sunglasses; there were two pilots and three soldiers. The machine started
up into the air, hovered briefly, then swooped away northwards. 


Below us, scores of tank tracks crawled over a landscape pitted by shell
explosions, while two villages burned furiously to the east. The
helicopter's nose dipped as the machine gunner strafed targets below us,
the chattering of his fire scarcely audible above the throb of the rotors.
All in all it was quite a ride, and Tyler and I grinned happily away at
each other, like boys, the way men always smile in helicopters. 


Our good humour soon ended. The helicopter dropped us in Mozdok, the main
Russian base in the north Caucasus, a dull grey sprawl of malicious
officialdom and Cold War shadows. New guards received us with hostility,
bundling us into a car to a new interrogation centre. Separated from Tyler
again, I found myself seated in front of a military intelligence colonel
who was patting my passport from one hand to the other, sneering. 


"Your passport has now disappeared," he said, sliding it into a drawer, his
voice little more than a whisper. "Without it you have no identity. You do
not exist. And that is what we can do to you if we wish - make you
disappear." 


It was not the most promising start, but after a couple of hours had passed
we had got to the stage of drinking vodka toasts to the British Army, and
his questioning technique was hopeless. His so-called "computer expert",
called in to check my laptop files for the umpteenth time, was so inept he
could barely turn the machine on. These guys were clowns compared with
Harry and his boys. I felt quite insulted. 


Tyler got the same treatment, and afterwards they seemed unsure of what to
do with us. So in true Russian pass-the-buck style, at nightfall they
handed us back to another FSB cell in Mozdok. 


Lenin stared down from a wall in every room in the grimy, dust-laden
building, which stank of decay, apathy and stagnation, a vestige of a
half-dead system. 


Bellies full of vodka but little else, we again went through our stories.
It seemed that we were just being shunted from one group to another,
getting interrogation after interrogation from a variety of security forces
that never communicated with each other. 


Six men were inside this building, a nightshift commanded by a
youthful-looking man named Sasha. They had grey, nondescript faces, and
were among the most stupid people I have met. 


The atmosphere was already tense as Tyler and I, believing that serious
diplomatic efforts were under way to secure our release, were getting more
confident, as well as tired and angry. Rather than just answer the
questions, we were starting to refuse to co-operate unless granted access
to a phone to call our embassies and tell them of our whereabouts. 


After one screaming match, they left us to sleep on the floor, then rushed
in at 4am to question me again. I did end up answering them, as silence
just added to the pervading sense of purposelessness and futility. 


Next I was shut in Sasha's office, while in the next room I could hear
Tyler getting the treatment again. 


"You will answer my questions," Sasha's voice rose through the wall. 


"I'm sick of your bullshit," Tyler yelled back. 


Later in the morning a new FSB officer arrived, a more intelligent and
sophisticated man. He escorted us to the central phone office where we were
allowed to make a phone call. (We could not call from the FSB building, he
told us, as it was a secret.) 


I rang Giles Whittell at The Times bureau in Moscow. "Tell the embassy I'm
being treated like a dog by the FSB in Mozdok," I complained loudly, "as
well as beginning to act like one." 


Unseen and unheard, after Giles's subsequent call to the British Embassy,
the spirits of the diplomatic community's nether world of intelligence
gatherers spoke: Russians, English, and American. I do not know who said
what to whom, only that within 20 minutes of that call the FSB took us out
to breakfast at a restaurant, and half an hour later got us a taxi back to
Ingushetia. 


Mr Amin was sitting in the hotel restaurant in Nazran as Tyler and I walked
in. "Hello boys," he smiled widely, gold-embroidered skull cap twinkling.
"I'm going back to the Chechen border again tomorrow with a new fax to try
for Grozny. Do you want to come?" 


I looked at him in disbelief, but the man was absolutely serious. 
*******


#11
RUSSIA'S Election Commission to Register 6 More Blocs.


MOSCOW, November 2 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Central Election Commission
meets at 4 p.m. on Tuesday to consider registration of federal lists of
candidates of six more electioral blocs. 


These are the Bloc of Zhirinovsky, the Bloc of Andrei Nikolayev-Svyatoslav
Fyodorov, Medved (Bear), Spas (Saviour) and National Salvation Front (FNS). 


Commission chairman Alexander Veshnyakov told reporters on Monday that a
preliminary probe had shown that the FNS has no adequate signature lists to
be registered for elections to the State Duma, or parliament's lower house,
due on December 19. 


The FNS has not posted an electoral security "to be on the safe side", as
other blocs have. 


Registration is likely to be granted to the federal list of Spas, which is
the renamed swastika and Nazi salute-brandishing movement Russian National
Unity. Veshnyakov said the Central Election Commission would "never take
decisions of a political character", referring to the issue of Spas
registration. He said the election commission could be guided by a ruling
of the Supreme Court on registration of Spas. 


However, the court refused to handle an appeal by the Justice Ministry
concerning Spas, which Veshnyakov described as an indication of
"helplessness of the Justice Ministry". 


A total of 16 electoral groups and blocs has been through registration for
the Duma elections. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) of Vladimir
Zhirinovsky and the Moslem movement Nur have been eaerlier deinied
registration. 


The Central Election Commission is to decide on registration of eight more
blocs on the last registration day, November 3. 


As for candidates to run in single-mandate constituencies, Veshnyakov said
a total of 1,200 had been registered. The registration deadline for
first-past-the post elections is also November 3. 


******