December 29, 1999    
This Date's Issues:• 3712  • 3713 

Johnson's Russia List
#3713
29 December 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russian court acquits Russian environmentalist. (Nikitin)
2. Trud: WHAT MAKES LIFE HARDER. (Poll)
3. Reuters: Russia has mountain to climb to fix economy - Putin.
4. Moscow Times: Yevgenia Borisova, 'Liberated' Chechnya Far From Orderly.
5. Martin Malia: Re Jonas Bernstein's letter, JRL #3709.
6. Press Trust of India: Vinay Shukla, Russia set to complete a century 
full of blood and sweat.
7. Boston Globe: David Filipov, Displaced Chechens fear Russia reprisals.
8. Itar-Tass: Sergeyev Says Chechnya Action Successful, in Last Stretch.
9. New York Times: Joseph Kahn, U.S. Backs Away From Bid to Cut Off Aid 
to Russia.
10. Washington Post: David Ignatius, The Rodhams, Back in Georgia.]


*******


#1
Russian court acquits Russian environmentalist

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A Russian court acquitted former 
Russian naval captain Alexander Nikitin on Wednesday of charges that he had 
revealed state secrets while working for a Norwegian environmental group. 


Judge Sergei Golets said the accusations of treason and espionage brought 
against Nikitin were a violation of the Russian constitution because they 
were based on secret orders from the Defence Ministry which he could not have 
known about. 


``The use of these orders is a direct violation of the constitution of the 
Russian Federation,'' said Golets, noting that a law on state secrets only 
came into effect after Nikitin's arrest in February 1996. 


Nikitin's supporters broke into applause after Golets announced the verdict 
at the city court of St Petersburg, Russia's second city. 


``This is very good news for Russia,'' said Nikitin, who was arrested after 
he drew up a report for the Norwegian group Bellona on radioactive pollution 
by Russia's Northern Fleet. 


Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor body of the Soviet-era 
KGB, can still appeal against Wednesday's ruling. Environmentalists have 
accused the FSB of prolonging the court case in order to hush up Nikitin's 
embarrassing revelations. 


******


#2
Trud
December 29, 1999
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
WHAT MAKES LIFE HARDER
By Vitaly GOLOVACHEV

The Russian National Public Opinion Center (VTSIOM)
conducted another survey in the last two weeks of December. The
topics it covered included social ones, as the respondents were
asked to give answers to the question featured as headline here.
The following table shows the distribution of various responses
as percentage of the total number of those polled; the summary
value may exceed 100 percent because the respondents were allowed
to give several answers.
Table.


1994 1998 1999
----------------------------------------------------------
Low income 68 75 71
Health problems, poor availability
of health care 27 31 29
Frustration, gloomy prospects 22 27 29
Everyday life problems 21 25 24
Fear of losing job 24 19 22
Impossibility of ensuring good
education for children 9 12 19
Bad housing 15 13 14
Lack of spare time 11 9 10
Lack of accord in the family 4 4 4
A family member's drinking 6 4 3
Don't know 6 2 4


The results of this survey suggest that no serious
improvement has occurred in the lives of the Russians over the
past five years. More than two-thirds of the population keep
complaining of poor incomes. Today, just like in the previous
years, tens of millions of Russians refer to it as their
number-one problem. Number two is health and poor availability of
medical services. Every third or fourth respondent mentioned it
to the interviewer. Many low-income families cannot afford
expensive medication; neither can they choose a good clinic to
have complicated surgery not covered by their compulsory
insurance.
Also worth special attention is the fact that the number of
people experiencing frustration, not seeing any prospects worth
living for, is steadily growing. This is an alarming trend. When
such mood is characteristic of 29 percent of a country's adult
population, not of a small marginal group, the government has a
serious reason for reflecting on the reform outcome. It was
launched with the purpose of opening broader and brighter
prospects to people, not of confining them to a miserable
existence.
Every fifth respondent is concerned about losing his or her
job and about the unavailability of a good education to the
children. These serious problems pushed to the margins such
common issues as family quarrels and drinking.

******


#3
Russia has mountain to climb to fix economy - Putin
By Brian Killen

MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whose plans 
for the economy have been a well-kept secret until now, has outlined a grand 
vision of how to save his country from further humiliating decline. 


A policy statement published on Tuesday on a new government Internet website 
(www.pravitelstvo.gov.ru) gave a rare insight into the thinking of the 
ex-spy, a man who is clear favourite to succeed President Boris Yeltsin when 
his term ends in June 2000. 


The statement clearly aimed to dispel the notion that Putin lacked ideas on 
the economy. It also appeared tailored to appeal to both liberals and 
leftists ahead of next year's election. 


But it painted a stark picture of the economy and made no rash promises. In 
fact, it called for a 10- to 15-year strategy and said Russia had a long way 
to go to match the likes of Spain and Portugal, never mind the United States. 


Putin, who took office in August and was named by Yeltsin as his preferred 
successor, drew many comparisons between Russia and the economies of the 
United States and China. 


``In the 1990s, Russia's gross domestic product has halved. According to the 
overall size of GDP, we are 10 times smaller than the United States and five 
times less than China,'' he said. 


He said Russia should aim for fast growth, with improved conditions for 
investment and new economic directions. 


He cited experts saying Russia would need at least eight percent annual 
growth in GDP for 15 years to match Spain or Portugal, or 10 percent growth 
to equal Britain or France. Russia's 1999 GDP is expected to grow 1.5-2.0 
percent. 


``Russia is going through one of the most difficult periods of its many 
centuries of history. For the first time in 200-300 years, it is facing a 
real danger of being in the second, or even the third echelon of the world's 
states,'' he said. 


PUTIN AIMS FOR REGULATED MARKET ECONOMY 


The 47-year-old premier, whose popularity is riding high amid widespread 
public support for Russia's military campaign in the breakaway Chechnya 
region, said people wanted to work in conditions of stability and peace. 


``They want to use those opportunities and prospects which are opened up by 
various forms of ownership, entrepreneurial freedom and market relations,'' 
he said. 


He said the country had to learn from the stop-start reforms that marked the 
1990s as the command-administrative Soviet system was chaotically dismantled, 
output and living standards plummeted and crime and corruption flourished. 


``The country needs a long-term nationwide development strategy,'' he said. 
``The second important lesson of the 1990s is the conclusion that Russia 
needs to form a comprehensive system of state regulation of the economy and 
social sphere.'' 


Putin said there was no alternative to a market economy, but the state was 
obliged to support such sectors as science, education, culture and health. 


He also ruled out any reforms that would reduce living standards further as 
poverty was already widespread. 


FOREIGN INVESTMENT TO BE ENCOURAGED 


Putin acknowledged the importance of Russia's raw materials sector, saying 
energy and metals accounted for 15 percent of GDP and more than 70 percent of 
export revenues. 


But he said a new direction was needed, putting more emphasis on consumer 
goods and services and high technology. 


He also complained about declining domestic investment in manufacturing 
industry and noted foreign investors were in no hurry to come to Russia. 


``Productivity in the real sector is extremely low,'' he said, adding that 
industry was uncompetitive and most Russian machinery and equipment was more 
than 10 years old. 


``I'll tell you frankly, the country's recovery will be long and difficult 
without foreign capital. We have no time for a slow revival, so we should do 
everything to attract foreign capital to our country.'' 


******


#4
Moscow Times
December 29, 1999 
'Liberated' Chechnya Far From Orderly 
By Yevgenia Borisova
Staff Writer 


ACHKHOI-MARTAN, Chechnya -- There is no gas and no electricity. The
schools are closed, and in some cases commandeered by Russian troops as
headquarters. There are no pensions, no other social welfare payments and
no humanitarian aid. 


Welcome to occupied, liberated Chechnya - where the Russian authorities
claim to be bringing in order and helping people live stable, ordinary
lives. 


The Moscow Times visited six villages last week in the north of Chechnya -
Achkhoi-Martan, Kater-Yurt, Valerik, Gekhi, Urus-Martan and Goiskoye. All
of these villages were in a region of Chechnya occupied weeks ago by
federal forces and long declared free of terrorists; in each of them,
people suffered badly during the first 1994-96 Chechen war and in the
subsequent years of post-war chaos. 


But in interview after interview, residents of these villages were
unanimous in saying that life has gone from bad to far worse with the
arrival of Russian forces. 


"[General Vladimir] Shamanov promised last month that there would be gas
in the village, heat, electricity, jobs, and that children would go to
school - but nothing has been done," said Aindy, 25, of Achkhoi-Martan.
Like most Chechen civilians, he did not want his last name printed for fear
of reprisals. 


Achkhoi-Martan was the only village among the six visited that was
receiving any electricity - but only from midnight to 5 a.m. 


"It is an insult to give us power like this [at such useless times of
day]," said Fatima, 35, a resident of Grozny who had taken refuge in
Achkoi-Martan. "I think they are just afraid to turn it on in the evenings
because then we could hear all these happy-life fairy tales [on Russian
television] about how we are living now." 


That was a comment echoed again and again. In Kater-Yurt, for example,
35-year-old Zara described how she fled from her native village of Kulary
when the shock wave of an explosion tore the roof off of her house. "Where
is that Russian aid, I wonder?" Zara asked rhetorically. "I think they
intentionally aren't restoring the electricity here so that we don't know
what lies they tell Russians about our life here." 


Although there have been reports that pensions and social welfare payments
are being paid out to Chechens in territories under federal control, no one
interviewed knew of anyone who had received such a payment since the war
broke out. 


Men spend the daylight hours working on the roofs of houses, trying to
patch holes from shells or shrapnel - or in cases where the entire roof has
been ripped away, to lay down some sort of cover. For material they
cannibalize neighboring deserted or destroyed houses; those who have no
home at all move in with relatives or neighbors. 


Some have also taken up arms and patrol village perimeters, often in
conjunction with Russian forces. 


Locals expressed the hope that these men would form the backbone of a
homegrown police force in some distant, post-war future. 


As winter descends on Chechnya, the men also scavenge for wood to keep
their homes warm. Most of the trees along the roads have been felled, and
some are turning to chopping down orchards. 


"It is a shame to have to cut down our gardens. But otherwise how could we
survive this winter?" said Khamzat, 33, a Kater-Yurt resident. 


Though these are more or less pacified regions, explosions and machine-gun
fire can be heard nearby, and Russian aviation passing over occasionally
will zoom low to shoot at people or livestock - which is one reason why
roaming far afield in search of firewood is considered reckless. 


At night it is hard to sleep, as artillery fire pounds the neighboring
countryside, and the shock waves of explosions rattle windows. Many people
look exhausted; many cope by medicating themselves with sedatives. 


In the evenings, some light up kerosinki - kerosene lamps - or run small
electric lamps of off car batteries. 


But evening light, when it is possible, is still a luxury to be sparingly
husbanded. Most people simply sit in the dark, trading experiences and
troubles in quiet conversations. They go to sleep early. 


Otherwise, there is precious little to do in the occupied territories -
and as far as most teenagers are concerned, nothing at all. 


Musa, 16, in September enrolled in a Grozny college. But soon after, he
had to flee to relatives in Kater-Yurt. He said that teenagers can only
hang around Kater-Yurt and talk. "It is so hard to do nothing," he said. 


Farming is a lost cause, Chechens said: Most of the fields around are
mined, and local crops have been killed off from noxious clouds raised by
bombing raids. 


"We used to grow almost everything here. Now our crops are poor. Our earth
has been exhausted and spoiled by chemicals blown in from the burning
chemical plants and oil wells," said Usman, 71, one of the elders of
Kater-Yurt. 


Pears and apples in local orchards were covered by black sores this year,
and could not be sold. 


"We used to plant onions and garlic this time every year," said Malika,
30, of Kater-Yurt. "Now we can't do it. The fields are mined, and we are
afraid of planes. I wanted to go to collect corn recently, but people said
planes are diving at people to scare them. I have to feed our animals, but
soon there will be nothing to feed them with. 


"Many of our neighbors have their winter stocks almost exhausted by now.
There is almost nothing to sell already and anyway people don't have money
and can't pay the price," Malika continued. "There is a woman with six
children living across the road. She just lives off what we and other
villagers give her. I think in about three months hunger might set in here." 


Schools stood empty in all of the villages, their glassless windows
yawning black holes. Some had been taken over as Interior Ministry base
camps. 


"We have no teachers," said the wife of Akhmed, 48, a resident of Gekhi.
She complained that all teachers had fled in 1994, during the first war,
and then "Wahhabis" - in the Chechen understanding, followers of a militant
Islam - had ruled that girls could not go to school. With the arrival of
the Russian occupation forces, however, nothing has improved, she said. 


"We had seven schools here, and not one has started to work since the
Russians came," she said furiously. "My girl is ten, she should be in the
fourth grade, but she has studied only a few months in her life. She cannot
read, she cannot even count to ten!" 


"It has become far worse here than it was before the war," said Isa of
Urus-Martan, 48. The father of seven children, he was a truck driver, but
lost his job when the Russian bombing raids began. 


"Food has become very expensive and scarce. There is no electricity, no
work, no pensions - and the Wahhabis, who confiscated all our food stocks
when the war started, are coming here regularly in their fashionable cars,
without any problems," Isa said. 


"What is this [Russian military] campaign for?" 


******


#5
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 
From: mmalia@uclink4.berkeley.edu (Martin Malia)
Subject: Jonas Bernstein's letter, JRL #3709, December 25, 1999


It is flattering to discover that one of my old occasional pieces
is remembered by a current reader of the JRL. It would be even more
flattering to find that the reader in question had understood the piece's
argument. Jonas Bernstein, however, takes a couple of phrases out of
context from my NYT op-ed of August 1997 without noting that his misuse of
them is contradicted by the article's overall argument.
If I then said that the August 1997 crash marked the end of the
Yeltsin era, it was because it surely looked so at the time. Yeltsin had
to fire his last reformer, Kiryenko, and make the old apparatchik,
Primakov, Prime Minister, who immediately put the open Communists Maslyukov
and Gerashchenko in charge of the economy. And the lot of them certainly
hoped that this marked the "end of the Yeltsin era" and of "Russia's
liberal experiment." Fortunately, however, they soon ran out of steam
because they had no alternative program to Yeltsin's. So when the old
reprobate made his second return from the grave in last Sunday's elections,
this clearly was an "improvement" vis-a-vis the impending
Primakov-Luchkov-Zyuganov coalition.
And If I also wrote in August 1997 that the theory of "market
democracy as a universal ideal" had suffered a grave defeat, it was
because, in the wake of the East Asian and Russian meltdowns, it indeed
appeared that the global boom of the nineties had reached its limit (as a
historian I never bought into "end of history triumphalism"). Fortunately,
however, the Brazilian domino did not fall (remember that one?), the ruble
did not succumb to uncontrolled inflation (as was then expected), and the
Russian economy is now reviving. This morning the New York Times reported
that even Berezovsky's shady oil company, Sibneft, is turning to proper
international business methods. So why not call this an improvement?
Even more important, however, is that the basic mode of analysis in
both articles (as in everything I have written since Communism's collapse)
is the same. To quote from the August 1997 piece, "In practice..the
liberal West could only support a liberal market democracy for Russia."
"..the twentieth-century record overall is clear: in the long run, there
does exist a distinctive correlation between free markets and free
politics." Both articles cite the Polish case as the post-Communist
demonstration of this fact. That matters did not work out this way in
Russia "was not the result of faulty fiscal and monetary policy alone. The
deeper reason is the legacy of the leviathan Soviet state, which when it
collapsed left behind only administrative and economic rubble..."
So we are left with the paradox that the only possible policy was
followed, however imperfectly, by Yeltsin's reformers, and in some
significant measure it came up short ("failed," if you will). Yet this
does not mean that there exists an alternative policy, as Yeltsin's critics
insist, without however saying what it is. The Primakov interlude after
August 1997 at least demonstrated this, along with the sad cases of Ukraine
and especially Belorus.
Finally, Bernstein is disdainful of American academics' "obsolete
debate over Communism." Well, mainstream Western Sovietology spent six
years under Gorbachev mistakenly telling us how reformable Communism was;
so a real analytical post-mortem is in order yet still not on that
mainstream's agenda. Would that there were a little debate. Bernstein is
also proud of spending "the 90s on the ground in Russia," where he surely
found much dirt and corruption. But that is not where he could learn what
Communism was; and without understanding its apalling legacy he will never
make sense of Yeltsin era's turpitudes -- or of its genuine successes.


*******


#6
From: "PTI MOSCOW/Vinay Shukla" <pti@com2com.ru>
Subject: RUSSIA-YEAR ENDER
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 


Russia set to complete a century full of blood and sweat
>From Vinay Shukla


Moscow, Dec (PTI) - the twentieth century was perhaps the bloodiest
century in 1010 years of Christian Russia and at its dusk in 1999 the
Russian state was still at the crossroads facing the same questions,
answers to which it was looking at its beginning.


The defeat in war with Japan and first Russian revolution of 1905, first
world war from 1914 which lead to the fall of the great Russian empire and
end of monarchy in February 1917, Bolshevik revolution in October 1917,
civil war from 1917-1921, Stalin's class war and purges, second world war
with Germany from 1941 to 1945, cold war with the west and disintegration
of the great Soviet empire in 1991 -soaked in the blood of millions and
millions of its citizens - all these events are too much for any nation to
endure in the course of just one century.


Then there were moments of joy and pride for the nation- soaked in the
sweat of millions of Russians - great social experiment to carve a new man
and build a new society based on social justice and universal welfare of
its members - the experiment failed, but fallout was so substantial that a
country of peasants transformed into a mighty industrial and military
power, first to tread the outer space, a country of total illiteracy
accumulated unfathomed intellectual potential.


It is thanks to the legacy of the militarised system created by Stalin,
Russia survived the last decade of the century just 'selling' the assets of
the Soviet empire and still retained enough potential and momentum to
bounce back in the foreseeable future, if not as a global, but at least as
a major Eurasian power.


In 1999 when Russia's former east-European satellites were celebrating the
10th anniversary of a Europe without communism and basking under the sun of
Nato, the people of Russia were still voting in large numbers for the
communists and blaming the former cold war rivals and allies alike for the
'wasted decade'.


The year of 1999, proved a turning point in post-Soviet Russia's political
development, the U-turn over Atlantic in march by prime minister Yevgeny
Primakov in response to Nato's consorted attack on its historic ally
Yugoslavia, also was the signal of imminent bankruptcy of the Kremlin
course and the beginning of the end of Yeltsin era.


This hastened the search for Yeltsin's successor. Anyone, who held the
prime-ministerial post was a sure winner to succeed Yeltsin, so, Primakov
dreaded and hated by the Kremlin inner 


Circle, was abruptly dismissed in may to install a loyal premier, Sergei
Stepashin, former security service chief and interior minister.


However, the momentum of Primakov's U-turn over Atlantic was so strong that
the army, encouraged by the widespread popular discontent over Kremlin's
handling of the Kosovo crisis and failure to protect Slavonic brothers, in
a desperate move rushed a Russian armoured column from Bosnia to Kosovo
ahead of Nato forces, virtually stealing their victory. This was on June
12, the day Russia was celebrating its national day. 


Yeltsin, considerably weakened after surviving impeachment in may with only
few votes, had no other option left, but to praise his generals for the
subtle move intimidating Nato and pretend that it was done on his orders.


But it was the day, which virtually sealed the fate of Stepashin and the
Kremlin renewed the search for a strong successor, who could control the
military.


Formation of two powerful anti-Yeltsin blocs 'fatherland' of influential
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and ''All Russia'' of rich regional lords in July
and failure to foil their merger in august under the leadership of popular
ex-premier Yevgeny Primakov sealed the fate of premier Stepashin.


Terrified at the consolidation of an alternative elite capable of
dislodging the regime, the Kremlin had to frantically look for another
loyal successor, capable of firmly controlling the army and simultaneously
keeping the anti-Yeltsin opposition led by PRIMAKOV and LUZHKOV at bay.


The appointment of his federal security service (FSB) chief concurrently
holding the post of security council secretary, Vladimir PUTIN as the new
prime minister of Russia and naming him as his successor by president
Yeltsin on august 9 was the biggest gamble played by the Kremlin in recent
years.


Massive incursion of Islamic guerrillas into DAGESTAN from the territory of
breakaway Chechnya, widely anticipated as an excuse to put-off DUMA polls,
was good pretext to replace STEPASHIN with PUTIN, specially in view of
initial government failure to check their advance.


Putin badly needed a 'small victorious war' to consolidate his hold over
the army demoralised by the humiliating defeat in 


1994-96 first Chechnya war and Moscow's political and military debacle
during the Kosovo crisis.


Putin also needed a military victory for gaining popularity and share it
with hastily conceived new pro-Kremlin party 


'Yedinstvo' to scuttle the powerful non-communist opposition led by equally
popular ex-premier Primakov.


With the help of mud-slinging campaign through two powerful
government-controlled TV channels, the Kremlin succeeded in clipping the
wings of the communist party as -well -as ground the PRIMAKOV led alliance
of rich regional elite.


The outcome of DUMA elections of December 19 is perhaps the most
outstanding event of the year, which would have a far-reaching impact on
Russia's development in the long run, since its significance is not only
limited to the ongoing power struggle.


For Yeltsin it was a grand victory, for the first time he will have a
docile Duma, where the communists will not be in a position to scuttle
government decisions. But this also heralded the end of Yeltsin era and
completion a painful transition period, which would be crowned with the
transfer of powers to the newly elected president in June 2000.


At the same time the present situation with Duma is fraught with many
inherent challenges, when none of its wings have a decisive majority in the
house and one- forth members are just a motley crowd.


And the uniqueness of the emerging situation is this that in spite of
pre-election calls of forming a Duma backed cabinet; it would be a Duma
formed by Putin. But what will happen if one fine day Yeltsin dismisses
PUTIN, like his four predecessors and appoint another successor?


This would mean a jolt to the emerging Russian parliamentarism and a blow
to Russia's fledgling democracy, which on the backdrop of Chechnya war
under the 'Putin charisma' has already deviated from the liberal path and
could be sliding towards a 'soft' dictatorship.


"The question of power" raised by Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin at
the beginning of this century still remains unanswered at the turn of the
century.


Albeit, the international events and domestic developments in 1999 have
already shaped the contours of the future Russia in the new century.


- A country with a multi-party system, essentially loyal to the regime;
selective freedom of speech and lame civil rights; mixed economy with
greater state share and control.


- Anti-us, anti-Nato, but pragmatic foreign policy. 


- 'Stick and carrot' policy vis-à-vis CIS countries.


- Greater leaning towards china and India for seeking a counterbalance on
the global scale.


- Closer political and economic interaction with the third world countries
declared pariah states by the west.


The emerging contours of new Russia are essentially traditional and not
based on any new vectors or are communist inventions.


The western liberalism, with its supremacy of human rights over the state
is alien to Russia and except for a brief infatuation of ruling elites at
different junctures in the history, it was never embraced by the Russian
masses.


Anti-west sentiments in Russia are traditionally strong and also are not
the legacy of the communist rule. In medieval ages in Russia the western
Europeans were called 'nemtsy', which means a 'dumb' person, only after
peter the great exposed Russia to the west in 18th century this has
acquired the meaning -"German".


Christianity embraced by the Russians 1010 years ago to become part of a
common Europe, ceased to be a cementing factor several centuries ago with
the divorce of Russian Orthodox Church from the Vatican.


Even today the Moscow patriarchy of the orthodox church is unwilling to
reconcile with the Vatican and is sticking to obsolete Julian calendar, so
that the orthodox Russians do not celebrate Easter and Christmas on the
same day with their western neighbours. 

******* 


#7
Boston Globe
29 December 1999
[for personal use only]
Displaced Chechens fear Russia reprisals 
By David Filipov


SLEPTSOVSKAYA, Russia - With the battle between government troops and 
separatist rebels still raging in Chechnya's capital, Russian authorities are 
telling tens of thousands of refugees to return to what is left of their 
homes in the embattled republic.


But for many refugees at crowded tent camps on Chechnya's windswept western 
frontier, the order to return is not just a sentence to harsh winter 
conditions in war-wrecked towns with little shelter, little aid, and no way 
to make a living.


Moving back will put them face to face with what they fear most: Russian 
paramilitary troops who, according to numerous accounts by refugees and human 
rights workers, run roughshod over the villages they are supposed to police, 
routinely looting homes and shooting at anyone who tries to resist. Even as 
authorities pressure the villagers to return, Russian military officers 
refuse to offer guarantees that the Chechens and their homes will be spared 
further violence.


Although Moscow says its operation in Chechnya is aimed at restoring law, 
order, and normal life, Chechens describe a vengeful occupying army whose 
soldiers often seem intent on punishing everyone, whether or not they are 
rebel fighters.


While Russian commanders predict the imminent capture of the capital, Grozny, 
and a quick end to the war in Chechnya after that, refugees fear the partisan 
fighting will continue around their towns indefinitely.


Malika Abdulkhalimova knows what that means. The mother of six thought life 
would get better in Sernovodsk after the Russians drove rebel fighters out in 
November and conducted several sweeps to make sure there were none hiding 
among the civilian population. But night after night, Abdulkhalimova said, 
her family still hunkers in the basement while the troops fire on their 
ruined town.


''The next day they'll say, `Sorry, some of the guys got drunk,' or, `We had 
a holiday yesterday,' or `We thought we saw rebels,''' Abdulkhalimova said in 
Sleptsovskaya, a border town inside the Russian region of Ingushetia that is 
temporary home to most of the 250,000 civilians who have fled Chechnya.


''I truly worry what will happen on New Year's,'' she said, as a truck 
carrying Russian paramilitary troops and Christmas trees rumbled across the 
border into Chechnya.


But after a brief stay in Ingushetia, Abdulkhalimova is returning home. Last 
week she saw an announcement, signed by five Russian commanders, outside the 
tent camp where she had been staying. It told residents of Sernovodsk and 
other towns declared ''safe'' to ''return to your homes,'' adding that 
''humanitarian aid will no longer be handed out to you.'' The next day she 
was refused her ration of a loaf of bread.


That was the day Russia tried to force thousands of refugees back into 
Chechnya by coupling an engine to the railroad cars where they were living 
and towing them toward Sernovodsk. The effort stopped only when refugees 
blocked the tracks.


Authorities here quietly rescinded the order to return after protests from 
human rights organizations and the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees. Now, Russian authorities said Chechens may stay at the camps until 
the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. 


Some people have gotten the message and are returning now. Officials at the 
Sputnik camp, which had 9,000 refugees a month ago, said 2,000 have left.


But others are afraid to go. Laura Lolayeva, the head of a family from 
Samashki, another devastated village whose residents have been told to go 
back, said she had asked Russian officers at a checkpoint near the town if it 
was safe to return.


''We asked what guarantees we have that we won't get shot at later,'' 
Lolayeva said in her tent, where six adults and four children share three 
beds. ''They say there is no guarantee.''


Fueling the fears of people like Lolayeva are reports coming from places like 
Alkhan-Yurt, where locals said Russian paramilitary police went on a rampage 
earlier this month, looting and burning houses and killing up to 41 civilians.


''A significant number of homes in the village were burned by the looting 
soldiers,'' said a report issued yesterday by Human Rights Watch, the New 
York-based human rights monitoring group, which detailed the deaths of 17 
civilians.


Refugees and human rights workers said looting is not isolated, but occurs 
most often in villages like Alkhan-Yurt, where rebel fighters resisted the 
advance of Russian troops.


After Russian television showed video footage that appeared to implicate 
troops in the looting in Alkhan-Yurt, authorities promised to investigate. 
But last week, the acting federal prosecutor said no evidence of wrongdoing 
had been found.


The commander of the forces in Alkhan-Yurt, Major General Vladimir Shamanov, 
was one of four generals awarded the Hero of Russia medal by President Boris 
N. Yeltsin in a Kremlin ceremony.


In Grozny, pro-Russian Chechen forces said yesterday they were meeting 
unexpectedly fierce resistance, and a combination of foggy weather and smoke 
rising from numerous fires that the Russians accuse the rebels of setting 
made it harder for Russian air and artillery to be effective. As the fighting 
raged, 10,000 to 40,000 civilians were believed to be still trapped in 
cellars with little food.


Russia's generals have been careful to characterize the three-month offensive 
in Chechnya as a well-planned, careful, and successful operation that has 
avoided the heavy losses Russian forces suffered in the last war. Even if the 
Russians capture Grozny, the conflict is likely to drag on in the mountainous 
south, where heavy fighting is underway along supply routes the rebels had 
been using to ferry supplies into Chechnya from Georgia. Civilian refugees 
had been trying to escape using the same routes.


''We should be ready for heavy resistance, and a drawn out guerrilla war,'' 
said Ingushetia's President Ruslan Aushev, a former Soviet general. 


Aushev said he could imagine the current war going like the last one, when 
Russian troops occupied much of Chechnya's territory by early 1996, only to 
take heavy losses and ultimately lose Grozny in August.


Yesterday, the rumor going around the Sputnik camp had it that the rebels 
would launch a major counterattack on Jan. 9, after the end of Ramadan. Such 
rumors are why Taisa Takayeva, who is supposed to persuade refugees to move 
out of the camp, has been deliberately delaying the task.


''They say it's safe now,'' Takayeva said. ''But who can say what will happen 
there in two weeks?'' 


******


#8
Sergeyev Says Chechnya Action Successful, in Last Stretch.


MOSCOW, December 29 (Itar-Tass) - Federal forces are in the last phase of the 
anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev 
told reporters on Wednesday. 


He said troops are finishing an "active phase" of the operation. Sergeyev 
said "now it is difficult to say how the situation will be taking shape 
further, but it is clear that there will be no fourth stage of the operation, 
and we will manage within the third stage, at which final tasks are set." 


He said success of the anti-terrorist operation was "determined first of all 
by established interaction of all Russian power bodies participating in this 
military operation. 


"We worried most of all that it would be difficult to get this interaction on 
the track. However, the decision made by the Russian president secured unity 
of all power men (power-wielding ministries) with an understanding of the 
importance of resolving this task for Russia," Sergeyev said. 


He said "this has allowed one to concentrate efforts and find a common 
algorithm of action, a language of understanding at all levels of operating 
troops and the leadership". 


"Naturally, the operation in Chechnya would have been conducted with the same 
mistakes as there were in the past if units of permanent combat readiness had 
not been created in progress of reforming the Russian armed forces," Sergeyev 
added. 


******


#9
New York Times
December 29, 1999
[for personal use only]
U.S. Backs Away From Bid to Cut Off Aid to Russia
By JOSEPH KAHN


WASHINGTON -- The United States will not seek to block economic aid to Russia 
as punishment for that country's widely condemned campaign against separatist 
rebels in Chechnya, a Clinton administration official said Tuesday. 


The official, speaking after Russia won the release Tuesday of a $100 million 
loan from the World Bank, said that aid packages to Russia from the United 
States, the World Bank or its sister agency, the International Monetary Fund, 
would be considered on a case-by-case basis. But he said that the Clinton 
administration would not apply an umbrella political standard when reviewing 
aid programs and has no plans to cut off aid in general as a way of punishing 
Russia for its military campaign in Chechnya. 


"We support this disbursement of funds, which will be used to restructure the 
coal sector," said the official, who declined to be identified by name. "It 
is fully consistent with the common objective of promoting market reforms in 
Russia." 


The World Bank loan released Tuesday to help Russia restructure its coal 
industry did not require the formal approval of the United States. But 
Washington often uses its influence at the bank and the International 
Monetary Fund to block loans that it considers contrary to its national 
interest. 


Last week, the administration sent a different signal when Secretary of State 
Madeleine Albright ordered the Export-Import Bank to reject a $500 million 
loan for Russia. Albright cited concerns about the Russian state-affiliated 
oil company that would have received the money and State Department officials 
said the decision had nothing to do with Chechnya. But other administration 
officials suggested at the time that the Chechnya conflict had heightened the 
political sensitivity of economic cooperation with Russia. 


The approval of aid from the World Bank immediately raised Russian hopes that 
the United States would not block a much larger aid package from the monetary 
fund. The fund must decide whether to release $640 million to Russia that it 
delayed in September, citing Russia's failure to meet certain conditions of 
the loan. A decision on whether Russia has met those conditions could come as 
soon as next month. 


"It is good news, a good event. The World Bank has grasped positively what is 
happening in the Russian economy," Alexander Livshits, a senior Russia 
economic envoy, said Tuesday on Moscow television. "I think this is not the 
last good news." 


Clinton administration officials said they did not intend to signal that 
their support for World Bank loans would necessarily carry over to aid from 
the monetary fund, which is designed to help Russia pay back earlier loans it 
has received from international agencies. But they said that the United 
States was not applying a political litmus test to economic aid and that the 
administration would continue to pursue its broad economic objectives in 
Russia despite the Chechnya campaign. 


What the war in Chechnya has done, one administration official said, was to 
make the United States reluctant to approve any new loan disbursements if 
Russia had not strictly adhered to the terms of using previous aid. In other 
words, Russia is not going to get much latitude in the way it uses aid, but 
could still see a steady flow of foreign loans as long as it uses them 
properly. 


Russia had fully met the conditions of previous World Bank loans to its coal 
industry, and therefore the bank and the United States had no grounds to hold 
up aid, officials at the bank and the Clinton administration said. 


The World Bank loan will mean little to the Russian economy or the country's 
ability to wage war against Chechen separatists. The money is earmarked 
exclusively to "cushion the impact" of mass layoffs in the coal industry. 
Russia has agreed to close 116 inefficient mines as a condition of receiving 
the aid. 


But the loan is still an important symbol for the Russian government, which 
has been working to show that its economic relations with the outside world 
are still on track despite international condemnation of its military actions 
in Chechnya. 


Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whose centrist political party did well in 
Russia's recent parliamentary elections, has promised to jump-start economic 
reforms advocated by the West even as he leads the uncompromising military 
effort. His party includes a number of politicians who say they would like to 
speed up efforts to remake Russia's economy in the Western mold, changes that 
came to a standstill when Russia devalued its currency and defaulted on some 
of its debt in August 1998. 


The Clinton administration has also been eager to show that economic 
engagement with Russia, a broad policy of helping Russia manage its economy 
and its finances, has paid dividends despite an increasingly strained 
relationship with Moscow over geopolitical issues. Officials said that 
cutting off aid to Russia now makes no sense, given that politicians who 
favor economic changes are ascendant and that Russian markets have begun to 
recover from the sharp reversal they suffered last year. 


Human rights groups criticized the World Bank's decision to release the 
loans. 


"We are seriously disappointed by the Bank's decision," Holly Cartner, 
executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division, 
said in a statement. "The Bank's stated commitment to addressing the 'human 
aspects' of development rings hollow when its funds are paid directly to a 
government pursuing the kind of abusive campaign we are witnessing in 
Chechnya." 


The World Bank staff considered the Chechnya conflict when reviewing whether 
to release the aid, according to a bank spokeswoman, Gina Ciagne. But that 
review focused solely on the financial impact -- whether the war effort would 
so deplete Russia's financial resources and scare away investors that the 
country would have a hard time paying back the loans, she said. 


Long term, the war could have that effect, Ms. Ciagne said in describing the 
conclusion of the World Bank review. But it did not threaten to do so now. 


She said the bank was legally obligated to disburse the money agreed to in 
the 1997 coal-sector reform package, provided that Russia met the conditions 
of the loan. 


*****


#10
Washington Post
29 December 1999
[for personal use only]
The Rodhams, Back in Georgia
By David Ignatius


Despite assurances last September that they would withdraw from an 
embarrassing business venture that involved harvesting hazelnuts in the 
former Soviet republic of Georgia, the first lady's brothers, Hugh and Tony 
Rodham, were back in the Georgian port city of Batumi this month. 


Local media reported their journey as if it were a traveling carnival. 
"Hillary's Interesting Brothers in Istanbul," read the headline in the Dec. 8 
edition of the Turkish daily Hurriyet. A photo showed the two beefy brothers, 
dressed in blue jeans and sneakers, en route to Batumi. "Hazelnut Tycoons," 
joked the photo caption.


The rambling Rodhams spent several days in Batumi, according to local press 
reports, "in hopes of reviving a failed deal to . . . sell hazelnuts" through 
a company called Argo Holdings. A Russian-American newsletter called 
Intercon's Daily quoted the local political boss in Batumi, Aslan Abashidze, 
touting their return. 


"This visit of the Rodhams to Batumi shows that the scandal caused by the 
hazelnut business of the Rodhams was groundless," said Abashidze, who is the 
leading political rival of Georgia's president and staunch U.S. ally, Eduard 
Shevardnadze.


Now, this is precisely the sort of political fallout that infuriated national 
security adviser Sandy Berger when the Rodhams' business venture was first 
reported in this column last September. Abashidze was claiming back then that 
the Rodhams' venture was a sign of "political support . . . by U.S. President 
Bill Clinton." That irked Shevardnadze, and a chagrined Berger urged the 
Rodhams to drop the Batumi connection like a hot hazelnut. They refused his 
initial request but, under what was described as "White House pressure," 
agreed to withdraw. 


Or did they? In an interview last week, Tony Rodham confirmed that he was 
still working with Argo Holdings to export Georgian hazelnuts. Now, he said, 
he's just in the distribution end of the business, with no investment in the 
hazelnut processing factory in Batumi. His brother Hugh has dropped out 
entirely, he said. "We're just looking to sell hazelnuts," Tony Rodham 
explained.


Has Tony Rodham checked this new arrangement with Sandy Berger or the NSC 
staff? "Under no circumstances," he replied. "Why should I? I'm a private 
businessman. I'm not involved in politics."


Rodham's insistence that he's just an ordinary guy is reminiscent of other 
wayward presidential kin, from Donald Nixon to Billy Carter. Despite his 
protestations, he's not just another private businessman. He has a blood 
connection to the White House, and he's seen that way around the world. 


This is a particularly bad moment, as it happens, for members of the First 
Family to be wandering the Caucasus. Russia is fighting a bloody war in 
Chechnya, just across the border from Georgia. The Russians have been 
squeezing Georgia, too, including recent military attacks on Georgian border 
posts. Meanwhile, the Rodham's pal Abashidze is reportedly getting Russian 
help in his political battle against Shevardnadze. So there's more at stake 
here than nuts.


The White House is not amused. Late yesterday, spokesman Joe Lockhart issued 
the following statement: "In September, after discussing it with the 
president, Mr. Berger urged the Rodhams to end their involvement with this 
venture. . . . The Rodhams indicated at that time that they would do so. If 
in fact this project is still going forward, we don't approve and will 
continue to make clear to Georgian officials that this venture has no 
connection with or sanction from the U.S. government."


Tony Rodham's path to the hazelnut business illustrates the pitfalls for 
presidential relatives. The initial connection came through Robert B. Kay, a 
New York lawyer who says he first met Tony Rodham in the early 1990s at a 
Democratic Party event. Kay later helped start a banking-support business in 
Russia called IBN Limited, which sought to use "smart cards" for ATM machines 
and purchases. 


Kay says IBN hired Rodham to help make arrangements for a 1997 visit by a 
Russian delegation, including Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, to conclude an 
agreement to test the smart cards. The group met in Washington with Sen. 
Barbara Boxer, who is Rodham's mother-in-law, and with Berger at the NSC--a 
meeting at which President Clinton himself made a brief appearance. 


Kay says he doesn't know if Rodham was the person who arranged the 
presidential meeting--which was bound to impress the Russians with IBN's 
political connections. "If he was, great," says Kay. 


Rodham also co-signed a letter in April 1996 to Rem Ivanovich Vyakhirev, 
chairman of the board of the giant Russian energy company Gazprom, whom he 
had met at a dinner in New York.


Rodham proposed that Gazprom employees "should be among the first to be 
issued IBN cards as part of the IBN pilot program." The Clinton 
administration was working closely at that time with Gazprom's former chief 
and then Russian prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin.


The Russian smart-card business foundered in 1997 because of Russia's growing 
economic problems. But through Kay and IBN, Tony Rodham had met a Georgian 
emigre named Vasili Patarkalishvili. The Georgian had founded a bank in 
Batumi, known as Liberty Bank, for Georgians who wanted to hold money in 
offshore accounts, but it, too, was suffering from the financial crisis. Now 
Patarkalishvili persuaded the Rodhams to join him in the hazelnut business, 
through Argo Holdings. 


The adventures of Tony Rodham, the man who would be hazelnut king, won't do 
any lasting damage to U.S. foreign policy. But the tale does make you wonder 
about the perspicacity of Hillary Rodham Clinton. If she can't keep tabs on 
her own brothers' travels in exotic lands, what on earth will she do about 
all the lobbyists who'll be swarming around her if she wins that Senate seat? 


******