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Johnson's Russia List
 

 

December 14, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3680 3681   






Johnson's Russia List
#3681
14 December 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. The Russia Journal: Andrei Piontkovsky, Politics returns to Stalin's 
era.

2. Toronto Sun: Matthew Fisher, Russia is not our friend.
3. Reuters: Elizabeth Piper, Appeal of Russian Communists fades in Tula.
4. Itar-Tass: Tenth Anniversary of SAKHAROV'S Death Marked in Nnovgorod.
5. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, Shifting political sands erode 
allegiances.

6. Andrei Liakhov: "Kinut" Revisited - An Expert Opinion.
7. Marian Dent: RE A. Miller and Russian Education.
8. Alexandre Konanykhine: US $33,500,000.00 verdict against IZVESTIA.
9. Moscow Times: Thomas de Waal, What Follows Victory? 
10. The Tablet (UK): Anatol Lieven, Second Act of the Chechen Tragedy.]


*******


#1
The Russia Journal
December 13-19, 1999
Politics returns to Stalin's era
By Andrei Piontkovsky
(Andrei Piontkovsky is director of the Center of Strategic Research in 
Moscow.)


'Those failing to leave Grozny would be considered terrorists and bandits and 
exterminated by artillery and aviation fire." Gen. Viktor Kazantsev preferred 
to call this text, promising death to tens of thousands of Russian citizens, 
not an ultimatum, but a humane warning. 


Let's not argue with the general about his choice of terms. In its essence, 
the text - signed by the Russian Armed Forces North Caucasus Joint Command - 
was a collective confession that a war crime was being prepared and a 
self-denunciation to The Hague tribunal. 


Only after the text sent shock waves round the world and dealt a severe blow 
to Russia's reputation did officials attempt to soften their interpretation 
of its ominous words. But why did it take international reaction for this to 
happen? Why, for a whole day, did not a single Russian politician, except 
Grigory Yavlinsky, not express outrage, or at least concern, over this 
"pre-planned massacre" of civilians?


The simple answer is that some of them just don't see anything wrong with the 
whole thing, while the others are frightened into silence by the reign of 
moral and propagandistic terror that pervades our media.


In an interview with daily Moskovsky Komsomolets about a month ago, Moscow 
Mayor Yury Luzhkov raised a number of just and indisputable points regarding 
the government's policies in Chechnya. In particular, he called carpet 
bombing unacceptable. Similar, but more cautious, reservations were raised by 
Yevgeny Primakov.


That was enough for the Kremlin-controlled media to accuse Luzhkov and 
Primakov of being in cahoots with foreign powers, sending their emissaries to 
them to plot the overthrow of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's patriotic 
government and depriving the armed forces of a glorious victory in the 
Caucasus. 


It is all reminiscent of the '30s, when prominent Bolsheviks Zinoviev and 
Kamenev found themselves accused of being enemies of the people. Luzhkov and 
Primakov have been appointed today's Zinoviev and Kamenev. The saddest thing 
is that having been appointed, they are now behaving like Zinoviev and 
Kamenev - immediately calling press conferences at which they and their aides 
insisted that they have no differences with the government over its policies 
in Chechnya and assured Putin of their full support.


The genetic memory of 1937, with its purges and show trials, has slipped back 
easily to haunt the present day. How often have we asked ourselves how 
well-known people in the '30s were able to write collective denunciations, 
call for "enemies" to be "shot like rabid dogs" and so on? But they could. 
Just as in 1999, one of leaders of the democratic movement - Anatoly Chubais 
- could publicly denounce Yavlinsky as a "traitor." That such serious 
accusations can be flung so casually at political opponents suggests that the 
Kremlin and its supporters will go to any lengths to keep their grip on power.


Half a year ago, almost two thirds of Duma deputies qualified President Boris 
Yeltsin's decisions leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of Russian 
citizens in the first Chechen war as being criminal. But Yeltsin has neither 
understood nor learned a thing. Again, he is pushing the country toward 
disaster, all to ensure that we receive undamaged what he has bequeathed us - 
bandit capitalism that wears the face of Berezovsky, Chubais, Abramovich and 
Putin. 


*******


#2
Toronto Sun
December 13, 1999 
Russia is not our friend
By MATTHEW FISHER (74511.357@CompuServe.com)
Sun's Columnist at Large


MOSCOW -- What is to be done about Russia? That eternal question is being 
asked again as Russia accelerates the slaughter of its own citizens in 
Chechnya. 


The West has been threatening to hurt Russia in recent days if it doesn't 
temper its raw behaviour in the Caucasus. This is only bluster. The West 
intends to do nothing about Russia because of Chechnya. 


This is only partially because the West still stupidly prefers Boris 
Yeltsin's regime to any of the alternatives. A much bigger reason the West 
will not act against Russia over Chechnya is that it cannot. 


Much has been made of the International Monetary Fund holding back a US$700 
million loan Russia was due to get this month. But this sum is peanuts beside 
the extra revenue Russia has been raking in because the international price 
of oil has risen dramatically this fall. 


Blocking new western investment in Russia or withdrawing the money already 
invested here is a non-starter, too. This is because after having been 
repeatedly fleeced, western companies have relatively little money invested 
in Russia today. Aside from a couple of big oil projects there are few plans 
to invest much new money in Russia any time soon. 


Doing nothing about Russia isn't only practical, it is common sense. Since 
there's no way to influence Russia and a lot of money to be lost by trading 
with or investing in it, the time has come to stop arguing with Russia and 
have as little to do with it as possible. 


Being Russia's pal simply hasn't worked. Inviting Russia into what became 
the Group of Eight was absurd. Not only does Russia not come anywhere close 
to qualifying economically, but whether on Iraq or Serbia or organized crime, 
Russia has tried almost as hard as it did during the Cold War to complicate 
life for the West since joining the world's most exclusive economic club. 


When the West finally threatened Russia with economic penalties because of 
its behaviour in Chechnya last week, Boris Yeltsin's outrageous response was 
to boast that Russia still had a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. 


Sending aid to Russia, whether in the form of food, money or medicine, has 
almost always resulted in fiascos. Giving Russians visas to travel in the 
West hasn't worked well, either. Much of what the West gave Russia has been 
stolen. Too many of the Russians who have visited the West are crooks. 


Russian mafias 


Only last week British Prime Minister Tony Blair had a secret meeting with 
the heads of his three intelligence services to discuss what he is said to 
believe is the greatest threat facing their country: the Russian mafia and 
other so-called Red mafia's across Eastern Europe. This news preceded by one 
day a BBC documentary on Semion Mogalevich, who is reputed to be the ruthless 
boss of the Russian mafia's global operations. 


Most Russians don't have a ruble to spare and can only dream of travelling 
abroad, but the presence of swarms of grotesquely rich New Russians with 
dubious backgrounds is impossible to miss in London. Real estate agents 
working in the city's most expensive boroughs say Russians have replaced Gulf 
Arabs as their best customers. 


Canada has had several brushes with the Russian mafia. The U.S. is reeling 
from the US$7 billion Republic Bank money-laundering scandal, which was 
apparently run by Russian emigres. 


Russian gangs have established significant bridgeheads in Prague, Warsaw and 
Budapest and are a big headache for police and bankers in Israel, Switzerland 
and Germany and big players in tax havens from the Cayman Islands to Vanuatu 
and Nauru. 


Russian politicians have been trying in their own way to help the West 
answer the eternal question about what should be done about Russia. Leading 
the charm offensive has been the prime minister and would-be president, 
Vladimir Putin. He and others have written articles for the editorial pages 
of blue ribbon newspapers in Germany, France, Britain and the U.S. about how 
Russia has confronted terrorism head-on in Chechnya. 


The war there isn't about terrorism, of course. It is designed to appeal to 
Russian nationalism so the Yeltsinites can win next week's parliamentary 
elections and next June's presidential election. 


The West probably can't resist dealing with Russia, but at the very least it 
should finally abandon the grim notion that only Russia's current kleptocracy 
can pull the country back from the abyss. 

******


#3
Appeal of Russian Communists fades in Tula
By Elizabeth Piper

TULA, Russia, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Vasily Starodubtsev has a dream that the 
Communist Party will romp home in Sunday's parliamentary election and that 
Russia will regain its pride. 


It is a dream not many people in his Tula region seem to share, and 
Starodubtsev knows it. 


``I know many voters just switch off their televisions, so as not to hear the 
lies for there is little good in the political world,'' said Starodubtsev, 
Tula governor and one of the leaders of a hardline coup against Soviet 
President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. 


``But there are some honest politicians left like Communist Party leader 
Gennady Zyuganov,'' he said in an interview in Tula, 160 km (100 miles) south 
of Moscow. 


He said he believed Zyuganov would lead the Communist Party, which is leading 
opinion polls, to victory in the election to the State Duma lower house for 
the second time. 


The tough-talking Starodubtsev won a seat in parliament's upper house two 
years ago, riding a wave of disillusionment over unpaid wages and pensions -- 
a combination which the Communists also hope will guarantee them many seats 
this time as well. 


Many people in Tula, squeezed between the pro-Communist Red Belt to the south 
and more reformist areas to the north, still feel the bite of tiny pay slips 
and unpaid pensions. 


But although the Communists could remain the single biggest party in the 
Duma, they are likely to fall far short of a majority and would gain little 
anyway because real power is in the hands of Russia's powerful presidency. 


It is not clear whether people will stay loyal to them in Tula or even vote 
at all. 


``Life is hard, wages are low,'' said Darya, a former librarian. ``But we 
can't return to the old days. We need to find another way, but no one is 
offering one. This election is just a joke.'' 


COMMUNISTS LOSE STRENGTH BEFORE ELECTION 


Starodubtsev is trying to persuade Russia's tired electorate to vote on 
Sunday for the Communist Party, which has been weakened by losing some allies 
to the centrist Fatherland-All Russia party of former Prime Minister Yevgeny 
Primakov. 


He says the battle is tough because the Communists have little or no money to 
pay for advertising. 


Allegations of dirty tricks have sullied election campaigning. Primakov has 
accused Kremlin officials of using bribes to persuade members of his party to 
quit the race. The Kremlin denies the charges. 


Zyuganov says his party has been all but denied air time by partisan 
television networks, echoing complaints he made during the last Duma election 
in 1995 and during the presidential election campaign of 1996. 


Opinions polls put the Communists in the lead, and the pro-Kremlin Unity 
group of Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu in second place. Lying third is 
Fatherland-All Russia. 


The Communists have benefitted in the past from having a solid core of voters 
who turn up to vote come rain or shine, but many of their supporters are 
ageing and their numbers are expected fall with time. 


NEED TO RETURN TO THE PAST 


Starodubtsev, who defends his participation in the coup against Gorbachev, 
says he and President Boris Yeltsin plunged Russia into poverty by turning 
away from Communism and the old Soviet system. 


``So-called democracy, which is not democracy, destroyed power and started a 
tragedy against the people,'' Starodubtsev, 67, said in a wooden-walled 
office between barking orders down the telephone on his desk and his mobile 
telephone. 


``For eight years, reform has completely destroyed the sciences, the army, 
the medical profession, and education. Yeltsin's not the only guilty one, 
Gorbachev is the most guilty.'' 


Starodubtsev also accuses today's politicians of continuing theattradition 
and forgetting the Russian people. 


``Russia's politicians are guilty. They have stolen money from the people and 
then used that money against the people. It is forgery, they have robbed the 
people.'' 


He dreams of a time when Russia will have a working and free medical service, 
free food for school-aged children, free homes and free holidays -- just like 
in the Soviet days. 


IN TULA, MANY SAY NO TO COMMUNIST RETURN 


People interviewed in Tula said they also wanted social guarantees, but would 
not pay for them by allowing a return to Communist rule. 


Sergei Raisky, director of Tula's School No. 30, said teachers whose wages 
were rarely paid on time were often tempted by Communist promises, but 
resisted casting votes for the party. 


``I've worked here 10 years and I think I can say that all of the 70 teachers 
here will not vote for the Communist Party because we want to move forward, 
not go back,'' Raisky said at his school, which he said the state had not 
renovated since 1958. 


``Even in the worst times we cannot hurt the children, we want them to have a 
free childhood,'' he said, his face brightening as he walked down the 
school's crumbling corridors and talked to groups of children. 


Andrei, 32, who owns furniture shops in Tula and Ryazan, said life was hard 
but ruled out a Communist return. 


``Things have gone bad for many. And you can understand old people for 
wanting the stability of the past. But we cannot go back, we just need to go 
forward in a better way,'' he said, laughing at a statue of Soviet state 
founder Vladimir Lenin in Tula's central square. 


Pointing up to the tall, stone figure, he said: ``His days have gone for 
good.'' 


*******


#4
Tenth Anniversary of SAKHAROV'S Death Marked in Nnovgorod.


NIZHNI NOVGOROD, December 14 (Itar-Tass) -- Nizhni Novgorod is marking on 
Tuesday the tenth anniversary of the passing away of Academician Andrei 
Sakharov. The prominent scientist and human rights champion lived in an 
administrative exile in the then closed city of Gorky, now Nizhni Novgorod, 
from 1980 to 1986. 


Flowers will be laid to the memorial plaque on the wall of the house in 
Prospekt Gagarina (Gagarin Avenue) where Andrei Sakharov spent nearly seven 
years, free excursions will be offered to the scientist's museum-apartment 
where visitors will sea a display of children's pictures "Myself and my 
rights." 


In the evening, a prize-winning string orchestra made up of teachers of the 
city's musical schools will play 18th-century Italian composer Giovanni 
Battista Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater", a hymn addressed by an ordinary mortal 
to the Mother of God on the day of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 


*******


#5
Financial Times (UK)
14 December 1999
[for personal use only]
RUSSIA: Shifting political sands erode allegiances 
By Andrew Jack in Moscow


Whoever wins the seats for the autonomous republic of Bashkortostan in 
Russia's various national elections, Murtaza Rakhimov, president of the 
oil-rich republic, usually gains.


According to his critics, he also has considerable influence over the 
outcomes.


Mr Rakhimov, former "red director" of a refinery who became president of 
Bashkortostan in 1993, has a good record of backing the winners even when it 
means changing sides or supporting multiple candidates. This has helped 
consolidate his own power in the process.


In the last elections to the national parliament, or Duma, in 1995 he 
endorsed the victorious Our Home is Russia (NDR), the ruling party of prime 
minister Victor Chernomyrdin, a native of the city of Orenburg, which borders 
Bashkortostan. In the 1996 presidential election, he supported the 
Communists, before switching in the second round to the eventual winner, 
Boris Yeltsin. Voting patterns in the republic reflected his change in tack.


Now he has turned his back on Mr Yeltsin as well as Mr Chernomyrdin, whose 
party seems unlikely even to scrape the 5 per cent of votes necessary to 
qualify for seats.


For the Duma race this Sunday, he has switched sides to what until recently 
seemed destined to be the new "party of power", the anti-Kremlin centre-left 
Fatherland-All Russia alliance (OVR) which opinion polls suggest will come 
second or third to a much-diminished Communist party.


Many former local NDR candidates, partisans and government officials have 
done the same. Rustem Shayakhmetov, OVR's campaign manager and head of the 
republic's state-controlled Chamber of Trade, says he changed allegiance 
because "a party should give something back to the people".


Like many Russians, he cites a litany of NDR's perceived failures, including 
the impoverishment of most of the population over the last decade, a loss of 
national pride and international influence, and a series of privatisations in 
the mid-1990s that he likens to theft, with "many factories that were sold 
for one kopeck (penny)".


By contrast, echoing OVR's preferred electoral slogan visible on many 
billboards in Bashkortostan, he says "politics is about concrete deeds, not 
just about words".


He points to the experience of the coalition's leader, Yevgeny Primakov, the 
former prime minister appointed after the August financial crisis last year 
who is widely thought to have restored economic and political stability.


Mr Shayakhmetov proudly cites Mr Primakov's decision to turn around his 
aircraft in mid-Atlantic on the way to meet US leaders after Nato began 
bombing Kosovo earlier this year. He praises Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of 
Moscow, founder of Fatherland and deputy leader of the coalition, for his 
management of Russia's capital city. "He understands economic development," 
he says.


Opposition parties argue that Mr Rakhimov's omnipresent regional 
administration is doing all it can to limit their chances of success - in 
spite of vigorous denials from the government.


Kamil Ismagilov, head of the Bashkir Communist party campaign, says: "Our 
supporters have been fired under trumped-up charges, meetings we arranged 
have been cancelled, and the vehicles the authorities are supposed to provide 
us with have never arrived."


In charges denied by Mr Rakhimov's office, the liberal Yabloko party claims 
its national leader, Gregory Yavlinsky, was forced to cancel his trip to the 
region in late November after permission was withdrawn to hold political 
meetings in the chosen venues and word leaked that his aircraft would be 
turned back at the airport.


The head of a local TV station - jointly owned by the regional administration 
and Mr Luzhkov - was sacked soon afterwards. He had offered air time to Mr 
Yavlinsky.


Alexander Arinin was de-registered in his bid against Mr Rakhimov in the 
Bashkir presidential race last year after being accused of fraud in the list 
of signatories who had endorsed him.


He says armed militiamen visited those on the list to persuade them to change 
their mind. He is fighting de-registration again in the current race.


But not everything is going OVR's way in the republic. Mr Arinin thinks the 
Moscow court system, to which he has taken his case, may be leaned on in his 
favour by the presidential administration given Mr Rakhimov's current 
anti-Kremlin stance.


OVR has been the focus of aggressive negative attacks in the national media, 
much of which is still controlled by President Yeltsin's entourage. Most 
notably, Mr Luzhkov is regularly lambasted on ORT, the mostly widely diffused 
television channel in the country.


Mr Rakhimov and the local parliament retaliated by briefly taking ORT off-air 
last month. After a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, he 
restored it. With Unity, the pro-Kremlin party endorsed by Mr Putin, now 
rising fast in the polls, some locals think the Bashkir president may be 
ready to offer it tacit support. But his considerable weight could still help 
deliver a strong score for OVR.


*******


#6
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 
From: "Andrei Liakhov" <liakhova@nortonrose.com>
Subject: RE: 3679-Berdy/Kinut


"Kinut" Revisited - An Expert Opinion


I've started my professional life a long time ago as a police officer and in
this capacity had to learn the criminal slang ("phenia") which was used by
A.Chubais in his description of the fate of the IMF funding in '98. 
So, "kinut" (present tense of kinuli" actually used by A.Chubais) always
implies an elaborate scheme which was planned and executed by a group of
people ("kidalu") with a single purpose to come into possession of
unsuspected victim's ("lokh") property. English expressions of "SCAM" or
"CON" are the best equivalents with "con" being the closest. 
As to the core of the issue: A couple of friends of mine were persuaded by
Chubais/Kirienko cronies (in one instance with direct reference to Chubais)
to continue funding the GKO market 1 week before Aug. 17 against the logic
all the available figures provided. Needless to say that the friends were
sacked by their banks shortly after the now famous date.


Besides both in Russian and most of European legal systems embezzlement is
always intentional, although the intent may be oblique (in English law) or
indirect (in Russian law).


******


#7
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 
From: "Marian Dent" <mdent@pericles.ru> 
Subject: RE A. Miller and Russian Education


I know I'm going to regret stepping into this one, but I've been reading
this from the sidelines for a while, and when I see an old friend (Sasha
Domrin) get so overheated at a good professional acquaintance (Andrew
Miller), with another email buddy (Andrei Liakhov) also in the fray, I have
poke my nose in. I want to comment to Sasha that it's time to calm down.
Both sides in the debate has some valid points and some exagerations.


Andrew Miller's piece, which started all this indeed went a bit overboard;
but I got the impression that it was out of genuine frustration. I will be
the first to yell that not every American law professor feels the way Andrew
does. But, admit it, we have all seen things in Russian legal education
today that Miller vents about--schools where "aparatchiks" seek to maintain
the status quo, professors who have given up, and students who would rather
cheat than study. Andrew's mistake was in generalizing and attacking the
system as a whole, because we all have also seen many deans doing a
difficult and thankless job trying to adjust their institutions to new
times, many dedicated and talented professors practically donating their
time to the schools, and many bright, hard working students. Sometimes,
after a long bout of running into the group that Andrew complains about, I
tend to get frustrated too and forget to credit the country for the latter
group. But, while Andrew's generalizations are overstated, lets not let it
start a personal or systemic attack.


Sasha Domrin of all people I am surprised to see responding with a
generalized counterattack on American legal education. For one thing, he
knows the American legal education system well enough that he realize that
the LL.M. he claims American law professors don't have is not a teaching
degree but is one that is primarily geared to foreign lawyers or to those in
narrow specialities such as tax. Comparing the various degrees between the
teachers in both countries is comparing apples and oranges.


And speaking of comparing apples and oranges, we have to be careful in
comparing elite to average and past to present. We certainly can't compare
MGIMO students to those at University of Wherever, nor Harvard students to
Russia's University of Wherever students. It seems to me that both Domrin
and Liakhov are products of the top of the Russian system and their kudos
are for the top of the Russian system, whereas Andrew Miller is suffering
through a lesser institution.


Also, whether one thinks it was bad or good before the fall of communism, no
one can seriously tell me that Russian legal education has not suffered from
that fall. On one hand there was a great opportunity to open up learning in
areas that were severely limited before--access to Western books and ideas
expanded, the rule-of-law philosophy was espoused, new respect for the law
was embraced, and top students started flocking to law schools. The last
decade was a tremendous and exciting time for law study. On the other hand,
there was no roadmap for this change. Old ideas were discredited, and
everyone's thinking was forced to change, but where does the average
professor go and how does he absorb all this at once? And what does he do
when the Western professors are treated with more respect simply because
they come from the West, where these ideas originated? On top of that,
suddenly the money dried up for anything that was not directly connected to
business and the market, and many great professors found themselves needing
to look elsewhere for a decent living. Perhaps this is the fault of the
West (for whom funding for Russian legal education was a sadly low
priority), but in any case the Russian educational system that Miller is
seeing now, may not be the same Russian educational system that nurtured the
intellects and generated the loyalties of Domrin and Liakhov.


For another thing, the comparison of professors that Sasha Domrin makes is
not completely valid. I agree with Sasha in that it's possible to find
American "advisors" who know absolutely nothing about the country to which
they "advise," and who sometimes have less smarts than the lowest Russian
law student. But come on Sasha, getting away from the isolated instances,
can you seriously tell me that you have not found that at least most
American law professors are equally as intelligent and equally as well
educated as most Russian law professors? Seems to me there is a pretty
mixed bag on both sides.


And looking at the students, can we at least agree that they excel in
different areas, rather than that one group excels above another? I teach
both Russian and American students too, and if I must generalize I find that
Russian students, on the whole, are more well read in literature, history,
math and languages, and are better at learning the blackletter law. On the
other hand, American students tend to forget the facts and figures, but are,
on the whole, better at critical thinking and at comprehending nuances of
complicated topics. Thus, which group is better educated tends to depend on
what definition you use of education.


In short, if Andrew Miller wants to remake Russian education in the American
model, he is indeed going too far. But don't we all fundamentally agree
that we can learn something from each other. Gentlemen, lets put away the
pistols and step back into the parlor. There is no reason to start a new
cold war on whose educational system is superior.


Marian Dent
ANO Pericles
ABLE (American Business & Legal Education) Project
Tverskaya Ul 10, Suite 319
Moscow 103009 Russia
7-095-292-5188/6463
pericles@glasnet.ru


******


#8
From: "Alexandre Konanykhine" <konanykhine@kmgi.com>
Subject: US $33,500,000.00 verdict against IZVESTIA
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 


Dear David,


I thought that you and your subscribers may be interested to know that the
jury just returned the $33.5 million verdict in my libel case against
Izvestia newspaper (case #97-1139, Arlington County Circuit Court).


$3,500,000 represent compensatory damages, $30,000,000 represent punitive
damages. I intend to enforce the judgment in the USA and all countries which
honor U.S. verdicts and where Izvestia has or may in the future have
representative offices or any other property. Simultaneously, we will
commence the enforcement proceedings in Russia.


According to the decision of the court, Izvestia knowingly, willfully, and
with actual malice published false and libelous information against me in
1996-1997, falsely accusing me of committing crimes of theft, bigamy, money
laundering and bribery. Izvestia conducted this character assassination
campaign on behalf of the Russian Organized Crime.


******


#9
Moscow Times
December 11, 1999 
What Follows Victory? 
By Thomas de Waal (tom.dewaal@bbc.co.uk)
Special to The Moscow Times
Thomas de Waal is the co-author with Carlotta Gall of "Chechnya: A Small 
Victorious War." He is a reporter with the BBC World Service. He contributed 
this comment to The Moscow Times. 


Russia is heading for a military victory in Chechnya. What happens next? It 
is depressing to recall that almost exactly five years ago in December 1994 
as the first Chechen war was beginning, I wrote a column for The Moscow Times 
entitled "Search for 'One Chechen.'" It quoted the tsarist conqueror of the 
Caucasus and founder of Grozny, General Alexei Yermolov, as saying that all 
he needed to subdue the mountain peoples was "one Chechen," who could work on 
his side. But I argued that Russia's decision to use force in Chechnya would 
make it impossible to locate its "one Chechen" on whom it could rely to 
govern in its name. 


The same is true today. Let us assume for a moment that Russia does indeed 
want to treat Chechnya as a subject of the Russian Federation and give it an 
elected Chechen leader f even in a rigged election. If that was a difficult 
task before, it is doubly so now, when the Chechen population has endured two 
brutal interventions by Russian soldiers and has developed a deep allergy to 
Russian military occupation. The Chechen the Russians require almost 
certainly does not exist: someone who both commands authority in Chechnya and 
yet is on the same side of the barricades as the Russian army. 


I do not believe that Moscow politicians fully understand how wide the gulf 
is that separates them from even the most outwardly loyal Chechen 
politicians. In interviews with most of Russia's former appointees over the 
years, I have heard them calmly discuss Chechen independence as a real option 
and describe their constant struggles to curb the excesses of the Russian 
military. I remember Salambek Khadzhiev, who headed Moscow's first 
pro-Russian government in 1995, saying how relieved he was that Chechen 
villages had not "disarmed" as instructed by the Russian armed forces; if 
they had given up their weapons, they would have been completely ravaged and 
looted, he observed. And when I last saw Musa Dzhamalkhanov, now Russia's 
deputy envoy to Chechnya and formerly a deputy prime minister in the second 
pro-Moscow government of Doku Zavgayev, he spent most of the time complaining 
about the behavior of the Russian soldiers who had arrested his relations and 
looted his home in Grozny. 


All of which is probably why Moscow has ended up freeing from jail and 
pardoning Beslan Gantemirov. Gantemirov has never stood for anything other 
than his own enrichment and personal power and has obviously been offered the 
right price. He reputedly made his money in the famous bank scams of 1991, 
when enterprising gangsters exchanged false promissory notes known as "avizo" 
for vast amounts of cash. He then set up Chechnya's first armed Islamic 
paramilitary group, known as the Islamic Path, and put it at the service of 
Dzhokhar Dudayev. It was they who seized the television center in Grozny on 
Aug. 22, 1991, signaling the start of the "Chechen revolution." After 
quarreling with Dudayev f again reportedly over money f he set himself up as 
Urus-Martan's first, but not last, armed warlord, and in 1993 gratefully 
accepted the gift of 17 Russian tanks to attack Dudayev. He re-emerged as 
mayor of Grozny in 1995, when he had a squad of men, who fought both the 
pro-Dudayev rebels and, more surreptitiously, Russian soldiers. Then he was 
arrested and imprisoned on embezzlement charges. 


Gantemirov is such a notorious bandit that Moscow cannot seriously consider 
him as anything other than a useful short-term military ally for mopping up 
western Chechnya. But if not him, then who? The Russians have long ago 
exhausted their stock of authoritative Chechen politicians. There is no 
prospect of inviting back from Tanzania Doku "Aeroportovich" Zavgayev f so 
nicknamed because he constantly feared leaving the Russian military 
protection of the Northern Airport, and a widely reviled figure in Chechnya. 
The former speaker of the Supreme Soviet, Ruslan Khasbulatov, who still 
commands authority in Chechnya, has taken a position of "a plague on both 
your houses," criticizing both the war and President Aslan Maskhadov. 


Eventually the Russians will need a strong Chechen who they can talk to, who 
cannot be called a stooge of Russia, who has the respect of both the militant 
section of the population and those who want to reach a deal with Russia. It 
would help if this person was voted into office in an election called free 
and fair by international observers. In short, they will need someone more or 
less like Maskhadov. But I fear that by the time they come round again to 
realizing this there may not be a Maskhadov any more. 


The only other option is to start again, as they did in 1816, by appointing a 
Russian viceroy and commander-in-chief of the Caucasus such as Yermolov. 
Yermolov was probably even more brutal than the current generation of Russian 
generals. As he was building Grozny, he declared "I desire that the terror of 
my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses, 
that my word should be for the natives a law more inevitable than death." 


As the generals of 1999 set about destroying Yermolov's city, they should ask 
themselves what his strategy of total force did for Chechnya and Russia. 


******


#10
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 
From: Anatol Lieven <lieven@iiss.org.uk> 
Subject: Second Act of the Chechen Tragedy


Dear David,
Here's my report on my recent trip to Igushetia and Moscow. 
Anatol


[The Tablet, London, 11th December 1999]
Second Act of the Chechen Tragedy
By Anatol Lieven
[Anatol Lieven, author of Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power recently
returned from visiting Ingushetia on the Chechen border.] 


Anywhere else, Manaz, the new "capital" of Ingushetia, might seem a bit
of a joke, yet another Third World presidential folly: three large
buildings ñ presidential office, government and parliament ñ with
columns and gold-tinted plastic domes stand in the middle of empty
fields stretching away towards the foothills of the Caucasus. The style
can only be described as "neo-Islamic airport hotel".


But this is the North Caucasus on the borders of Chechnya and close to
half a dozen lesser conflicts, and in these circumstances the new
capital has a very different emotional and moral weight: as a symbol of
construction and of rational collective effort in a region of war,
bloodthirsty criminality and politics which tend to veer from the
hysterical to the utterly cynical, often succeeding in being both
simultaneously. Manaz and indeed the whole history of the Ingush in
recent years are a tribute to the President of Ingushetia, General
Ruslan Aushev, and to the pragmatism and good sense of the Ingush people -
helped by the fact that if there are only 300,000 of you, you cannot afford
to make too many mistakes. 


If I go on in this perhaps uncharacteristically gushing style about the
Ingush, it is because Ingushetia provides such a pleasant contrast to
the disaster which has unfolded in neighbouring Chechnya over the years,
culminating in the latest bloody Russian invasion. Several times during my
stay I heard Chechen refugees say, "If only we had had a President like
Aushev, all these disasters could have been avoided." And certainly
everything that has happened has shown both the Russian and the Chechen
leaderships, and even to an extent the Russian and Chechen peoples, in the
worst possible light. The Ingush for their part alternate between bitterly
cursing the Russians for their invasion and the bombardment of civilians,
and blaming the Chechens for generating the anarchy of recent years,
especially the kidnappings which have claimed so many victims among Ingush
businessmen.


This phenomenon has also caused strong hostility to the Chechens among
their other Islamic neighbours, the Daghestanis ñ particularly the
modern and relatively secular intelligentsia which desperately fears
both the anarchic violence of Chechnya and the way in which it has
become a base for Islamist extremism. One representative of this class
in Daghestan, Dr Enver Kizriev, said in London recently: "Last time, the
Daghestani Government and people were strongly against the Russian war in
Chechnya. One hundred and fifty thousand refugees were housed in
Daghestan. This time the situation is totally reversed. Not merely have
Daghestanis refused to allow new Chechen refugees, but they are
expelling former ones. In this war, there is a good attitude to the
Russian soldiers; people bring them food and visit them in hospital." Dr
Kizriev said that this turnabout was due to the Chechen and Islamist
attack on Daghestan in August, but also to the criminality emerging from
Chechnya in recent years. 


The hostility of local peoples to the Chechens ñ and indeed, the
tendency in Chechnya of cruelty towards non-Chechens ñ is linked to the
intense national arrogance which helps give the Chechens their fighting
spirit but which is also one of the less pleasant features of Chechen
society. As a chance-met acquaintance from the Chechen mafia told me,
with a certain honest ruthlessness: "Anywhere in Russia, a Chechen can
only be number one, everyone else has to take second place. That may be
bad but that's the way it is. Naturally other people don't like it." 


An added complication is the tradition of the blood feud, which applies
when a Chechen kills a Chechen but not when a non- Chechen is killed,
except in the case of the closest personal guests. This has successfully
limited the internal political violence which might otherwise have ripped
Chechnya apart in recent years. On the other hand, several refugees told me
that the reason why President Aslan Maskhadov of Chechnya had been unable to
crack down on the well-known kidnapping gangs was precisely that he feared
that their deaths would create a whole series of disastrous blood feuds
directed against his followers and him personally. The practical result is
that the life of the most worthless Chechen is considered in Chechen society
to be more valuable than that of the most useful and valuable foreigner -
whether British Telecom engineers, UNHCR officials or aid workers, all of
whom have been kidnapped and in some cases murdered in recent years.


Resentment at these features of Chechen society has, however, not stopped
the Ingush with great humanity and generosity taking in more than 150,000
Chechen refugees - around three quarters of the total in the present war -
into their own homes. 


Sadly but not unexpectedly, their President expressed little optimism
for a settlement of the latest Chechen war, and none at all that Russia
would ever be able to impose stable rule on the Chechens. "The Russians
may be able to suppress the Chechens for a year or two", General Aushev
said, "but rebellion will always reappear. Chechens will always remember the
Russian crimes committed against them in the past. Yes, the Russians can
drive the Chechen detachments into the mountains, they can garrison the
country, but what then? The Chechens who support Moscow are a very small
minority, the population doesn't support or respect them." I had the same
impression, very strongly, on talking to Chechen refugees, who treated the
stooges whom the Russians are trying to introduce with complete contempt. 


Surprisingly, perhaps, these mixed sentiments about what has happened in
Chechnya were echoed by many Chechen refugees themselves. They
alternated between bitter hatred of Russia on the one hand and on the
other furious condemnation of leading Chechen commanders and especially
the greatest hero of the last war, Shamil Basayev. To my astonishment,
out of all the refugees I interviewed, only one expressed any sympathy
for Basayev, in in total contrast to the views of similar people in the
last war. According to one elderly former lorry-driver from the village
of Samashki, "We admired Basayev then, but when peace came and for three
years he did nothing good for the people, we lost all faith in him. We are
tired of fighting, we can't fight any more." The man added: "This time is
very different from 1995. Then it was an invasion, a clear fight. People
hoped for better from independence. This time, because of what has happened
over the past three years, the mood is very different. We don't know what
independence means. We would be glad to have our own state where we could be
prosperous and peaceful, but if we can't have a normal life and good
relations with our neighbours, then independence is pointless. We don't
trust any of our leaders any more." 


Also in contrast to the last war was the firm statement of most of the
refugees that they do not support the fighters who are resisting the
Russian invasion and did not allow them to base themselves in their
villages. The reasons for this changed mood, the refugees told me, were
twofold: on the one hand the criminality and violence of Chechnya in
recent years, and secondly fear of the Islamist extremists who have
based themselves in Chechnya and allied themselves to Basayev. 


>From these statements by the refugees, I surmised that compared to the
last war, there will be a considerably smaller flow of ordinary Chechens
to fight against the Russian forces and the Chechen resistance will be
forced to rely much more heavily on the hard-core fighting groups. Not
merely are these relatively small, but after the events of the last two
years, their leaders often hate each other. It is very difficult, for
example, to see President Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev, who have been
bitterly at odds for two years, working together in the way that they
did between 1994 and 1996.


As a result, sheer lack of numbers could be one reason why the Chechens
have given up so many places without a fight ñ though the struggle is
obviously intensifying enormously as the Russians close in on Grozny
itself. The Russians are conducting this war much more carefully and
systematically than the last one, using overwhelming firepower against
any defended positions. They are also, it seems, using the sporadic
bombardment of civilian targets to drive most of the population from
their homes and create "free-fire zones" like the Americans in Vietnam
and the French in Algeria. But as in those wars, this ruthless policy is
beginning to diminish the apathy of the Chechens and lead to stronger
resistance as young men whose relatives have been killed and homes destroyed
join the resistance to seek revenge. It is also true that through sheer
incompetent brutality, the Russians have often bombed and attacked the very
roads on which Chechen civilians are seeking to leave Chechnya.


To judge by what I saw, it would also be a grave mistake to exaggerate
the fighting spirit and quality of the Russian armed forces ñ as the
Russian media are now doing all the time. Undoubtedly their spirit is
higher than in the last war. Thanks to the various Chechen attacks on
Russia, culminating in the attack on Daghestan and perhaps (this is
unproven) the terror campaign in Moscow in September, ordinary Russian
troops do have a better idea of what they are fighting for: soldiers in
the front line at least appear to be better paid, clothed and fed ñ
though my evidence for this is second hand since the Russian forces this
time are observing a strict policy of refusing to allow Western
journalists through to the front. 


This better picture, however, is emphatically not true of most of the
Russian forces. The posts we visited in the Russian second line along
the valley of the Assa river on the Chechen- Ingush border were the same old
Russian Interior Ministry conscripts ñ miserable, thin, badly
clothed 19-year-olds. Even to a military amateur like myself, their
posts were undermanned and appallingly positioned, too far apart for
mutual support and immediately overlooked by wooded hills. In the fog of a
Caucausian winter, they will be virtually isolated and acutely
vulnerable.


Weirdly enough, these soldiers were actually worse housed than the
Chechen refugees in the camps we visited: the latter were in solid, warm
Russian army tents; many of the Russian conscripts by contrast appeared
to be sleeping in trenches under tarpaulins. I suspect that the reason -
apart from some desire to win hearts and minds and impress Western
public opinion - is that Russian Interior Ministry officials have gone
on selling off their troops' equipment on the black market, whereas the
Russian Emergency Ministry is now headed by Sergei Shoigu, head of the
Government's new Unity Block in the December parliamentary elections and a
likely future prime minister if the present incumbent, Vladimir Putin,
becomes President next year. Shoigu doubtless wants to show off his
efficiency to Russian voters.


The miserable state of the Russian second line suggested strongly to me
that the Russians are at the very least going to suffer some severe
local defeats in this war - and may indeed have begun to do so, if
unconfirmed reports from Chechnya are to be believed. The most important
question for the outcome of this war and perhaps for the whole future of
Russia and Russian nationalism is what effect this will have on Russian
public opinion. In 1994-96 disasters such as the bungled storming of Grozny
in January 1995 and Basayev's seizure of the town of Budyonnovsk in June
1995 led to a strong wave of popular opposition in Russia to the war. This
was critically important in bringing the Yeltsin regime to seek a ceasefire
with the Chechens, which allowed the latter to regroup and resupply their
forces, and later successfully to counterattack. This time, the mood of the
Russian public and above all the Russian media appears to be very different
- partly in the case of the media because so many Russian journalists have
been kidnapped by the Chechens.


Ordinary Russians have been truly infuriated by Chechen behaviour - not
only by the Moscow bombings (which a surprising number of Russians are
willing to concede may not have been the work of the Chechens), but by
the more than 1,300 kidnappings, often accompanied by torture and
mutilation.


In the words of Dr Sergei Markov, a former liberal, now turned very
hard-line indeed as far as the Chechens are concerned: "For three years
the Chechens were practically independent, and how did they use their
independence? To attack us in every way possible. That is why this war
is so different from the last one. I don't believe that public opinion
will change if Russia suffers defeats. Instead, support for the Russian
Government and the war will grow even stronger." 


Vladimir Putin undoubtedly launched the invasion in part to capitalise
on this mood and has indeed seen his popularity ratings shoot up as a
result from virtually zero to a level where (if Yeltsin does not sack
him first) he stands an excellent chance of being elected by popular
vote in the presidential elections of June 2000. Of course, really heavy
Russian casualties over a long period and a débâcle or two like
Budyonnovsk could change this mood, but it is very difficult for the
Russian public and for Western observers to know what the Russian
casualty figures actually are. At the end of November, the Russian
military admitted to 300 dead but the real figures ñ including died of
wounds, missing and so on ñ could already be more than three times that.


It is even more difficult to assess the level of Chechen civilian
casualties. As of 20 November, however, Human Rights Watch had counted
182 wounded in hospitals in Ingushetia. Five days later, the largest
Ingush hospital told me they had treated 133. Given the collapse of the
Chechen hospital system, Chechens are trying to carry as many civilian
wounded as possible to Ingushetia, which suggests that the numbers
there, though of course only a fraction of the total wounded, are quite
a large fraction. Going by the usual ratio of two or three wounded to
every person killed, this suggests a Chechen civilian death rate in the
hundreds rather than thousands ñ though of course this figure is rising
all the time. 


Inevitably, it sounds hard-hearted to add up figures in this way but it
is part of the responsible journalist's job to report accurately and
analyse carefully on the basis of the available evidence. Otherwise
there is a permanent tendency for us to become Caucausian (or
Balkan-style) journalists, minimising the number of victims of causes
with which we sympathise, relentlessly magnifying those of our perceived
enemies. The barrier against this is partly journalistic ethics and partly
sheer journalistic legwork. In the long run these are also values of
importance for mankind alongside peace and human rights. They will endure
even when the present war in Chechnya is over - and that, alas, will not be
for a very long time to come. 


******





 

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