February 17, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4113 4114 4115

Johnson's Russia List
#4114
17 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Obshchaya Gazeta: PUBLIC OPINION POLL: TOUGH RULE MEANS...
2. Reuters: Soccer-Spartak captain wants to leave Russia because of crime.
3. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, War Criminals Bury Grudge.(re Russia and NATO)
4. the eXile: Boris Kagarlitsky, Welcome to the Banana Republic.
5. BBC MONITORING: RUSSIAN THINK TANK PONDERS THREE ECONOMIC STRATEGIES. (Mikhail Berger in Segodnya)
6. Boston Globe: Brian Whitmore, Russian promises expose. (Skuratov)
7. The Independent (UK): Patrick Cockburn, Russia's filtration camp policy is 'to cripple Chechens for life'. Captured male and female civilians tortured and raped by masked soldiers.
8. Pavel Baev: PUTIN'S HONEYMOON COMING TO THE END.
9. Argumenty i Fakty: Vitaly TSEPLYAYEV, AN ALTERNATIVE TO PUTIN. Russia's Communist No. One Ready to Run for President. 
10. Ben Brodkin: Soviet dissidents.] 

*******

#1
Obshchaya Gazeta No. 7
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
PUBLIC OPINION POLL
The results of the poll conducted among visitors to the 
Obshchaya Gazeta web-site from February 9 to February 16, 2000 
(percent).

TOUGH RULE MEANS:

(1) Supremacy of the state over
the individual - 20.7% 
(2) Rule of law and order - 34.1% 
(3) Limits on constitutional freedoms - 17.8% 
(4) Persecution of dissidents - 11.9% 
(5) Absence of public control over
special services - 8.9% 
(6) Various other answers - 6.6% 

*******

#2
Soccer-Spartak captain wants to leave Russia because of crime

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Spartak Moscow captain Andrei Tikhonov has said he 
wants to leave Russia because of crime. 

The 29-year-old midfielder had his jeep stolen on Sunday and was quoted on 
Thursday as saying he now wants to move abroad. 

``I'm leaving Russia to play abroad. I no longer want to fear for my family 
every single day,'' he told Russian daily Sport-Express. 

Tikhonov's jeep was stolen near his house in suburban Moscow after his wife 
had left the car and their 18-month-old baby boy inside for just a moment to 
open the gate. 

According to police, the thief jumped into the car and threw the baby out as 
he drove away. 

Tikhonov is in Turkey where Spartak are having a two-week pre-season training 
camp. 

Several years ago, then Spartak captain Viktor Onopko cited crime as his 
primary motive for leaving Russia after his car had been stolen. 

``The stolen jeep was the last straw in my decision to leave,'' Onopko said 
at the time before joining Spanish first division side Oviedo in 1996. 

******

#3
Moscow Times
February 17, 2000 
DEFENSE DOSSIER: War Criminals Bury Grudge 
By Pavel Felgenhauer 

Less than a year after Western powers began a bombing campaign against 
Yugoslavia, Russia and NATO decided to bury the hatchet and be friends again. 
NATO's secretary general, George Robertson, came to Moscow on Tuesday to meet 
Russian acting President Vladimir Putin, to palm press with top Russian 
generals and to "unfreeze" previously stalled relations. 

NATO's military actions in the Balkans are still very much a bone of 
contention between NATO and Russia. But today Russia is itself fighting a war 
in Chechnya that is even more dirty than NATO's Balkans aggression. So the 
Kremlin needs any token gesture of support from the West it can get. 

In the beginning of the war in Chechnya the going was relatively easy. 
Russian forces took over a number of Chechen towns without much fighting. But 
by the end of December Russian forces attacked Grozny with an onslaught of 
heavy shells and bombs. 

Today Grozny is a ghost city of smoking rubble where several hundred thousand 
survivors of this and the last war still cower in cellars. They hide there 
terrified by the savage bombardments, harassed and often killed by marauding 
Russian troops. 

After the rebels broke out of Grozny, they passed through several villages in 
southwest Chechnya. The Russian forces followed the rebels and attacked 
village after village. Chechen refugees say entire villages were razed in 
these revenge attacks and hundreds of civilians killed or wounded. 

The Russian pro-government ORT television last week showed one of these 
reprisal attacks: the bombing of Gekhi-Chu, a large village southwest of 
Grozny. The footage displayed TOS-1 multiple missile launchers lobbing 
rockets into Gekhi-Chu. Several days later Reuters distributed footage 
showing the results of the attack on the town: houses destroyed, scores of 
civilians killed. 

TOS-1 rockets are filled by a flammable liquid that causes aerosol explosions 
at impact, killing people, destroying property and causing fires. TOS means 
"heavy fire-throwing system." There is evidence that TOS-1 was used against 
Grozny and other Chechen regions. The third protocol of the 1980 Geneva 
Convention - signed and ratified by Russia - forbids the use of such 
"air-delivered incendiary weapons." 

Reprisal attacks on villages and the use of TOS-1, to say nothing of the 
Tochka-U ballistic missiles, are war crimes. Tochka-U can fly 120 kilometers 
and can cover up to seven hectares with cluster shrapnel on impact. The 
Tochka-U was used against Grozny, Shali, Alkhan-Kala and other Chechen towns. 
During the first Chechen war in 1994-96 such weapons were not used. This time 
Putin authorized attacks that inflict mass destruction on civilians. 

Today there seems enough evidence to indict Putin and his top general for war 
crimes. It is understandable that such conditions would lead Putin to make a 
friend in NATO and get tacit support from the West for his continued 
Caucasian bloodbath. But why was NATO Secretary General Robertson so eager to 
offer support? Maybe because Robertson is also a war criminal. 

Recently the New York-based Human Rights Watch group published a report on 
the Balkans war confirming that NATO bombs killed hundreds of civilians in 
Yugoslavia and Kosovo and that some of NATO's attacks were deliberately 
directed against civilian targets. 

The report also says the United States stopped using their internationally 
outlawed cluster bombs during the Balkans campaign because of civilian 
casualties, but that Britain continued to use them. Robertson was the British 
defense minister during the war. Of course, NATO itself did not conduct any 
official investigation of crimes against civilians during the bombing in 
former Yugoslavia and does not plan to do so. 

NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia convinced the Russian government and 
Russian public that international law does not mean anything and that brute 
military force is the only true argument. It is no surprise that the Kremlin 
decided to invade Chechnya last March when NATO bombs began to fall, and that 
today Kremlin and the military have in essence scrapped the Geneva 
conventions on warfare. 

On Wednesday war criminals from West and East met in Moscow. Most likely they 
represented figures from a new security order for Europe: We bomb the 
Balkans, you bomb the Caucasus and we'll all respect each others' right to 
bomb civilians in fringe regions when we wish. 

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow. 

********

#4
From: Matt Taibbi <exile.taibbi@matrix.ru>
Subject: Welcome to the Banana Republic
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 

the eXile
Welcome to the Banana Republic
By Boris Kagarlitsky
(This article was originally published in Novaya Gazeta.)

Why have American leaders fallen in love with Putin? Instead of the planned 
forty minutes, Madeline Albright chatted with him for three hours and left 
completely charmed. In fact, Ms. Albright was so charmed that she managed 
to forget to bring up the issue of the missing journalist Andrei Babitsky 
with our leaders during the conversation, even though he used to work for 
an American radio company-and one funded by American taxpayer money, no 
less. But hey, what's one man compared to the world of big-time politics?
World Bank director James Wolfensohn also left Moscow completely satisfied. 
Maybe he, too, was genuinely carried away by the Chekist charm of the 
acting president. But it's more likely that this newfound enthrallment of 
Russia's Western partners has its roots elsewhere.

Vladimir Putin is a reformer, our foreign guests announced warmly. 
Conspicuously, however, they were in no hurry to call him a democrat. If 
there was once a time when they would have explained to us that an open 
market, an open economy and active participation in the global economy was 
necessary, because without them there would be no democracy, then that time 
has passed and the tune has changed. For the West, privatization, economic 
liberalism and the participation of foreign capital in the Russian economy 
have become so necessary so that for the sake of them, even democracy can 
be sacrificed.

Even at the very beginning of Putin's tenure as Prime Minister, the 
American weekly "Newsweek" published a lead article in which the new 
principles of American politicians in Russia were outlined rather frankly:
"Economic and political reforms should be carried out in an organized 
period of time," the magazine wrote on July 27. "In Russia, such a 
possibility existed in the early 90's when a new system formed, when true 
liberals were in power, when Boris Yeltsin was sound in mind and body, when 
it was possible to openly admire the West. The US held a huge influence in 
Russia, which was looking for it's new place in the world. But we used up 
everything ourselves. Now we can only worry about causing the smallest 
possible damage. The West should make peace, keeping in mind that the 
attempt to convert Russia into a liberal democracy failed. The US now has 
only one interest in Russia - the safety of the entire Soviet nuclear 
arsenal."

Clearly, the Newsweek writer was being somewhat disingenuous here. 
Obviously, American interests in our country are not restricted to the 
safety of the atomic bomb. We have Western companies here which import raw 
materials from Russia, capital is fleeing Russia and landing abroad, and 
there is always the issue of the debts Russia owes to the West. The point, 
however, is that as far as Washington politicians in Russia are concerned, 
the magazine was substantially correct. Americans hang around in Russia not 
for the cause of democracy per se, but in pursuit of their own obvious 
interests. And as far as they're concerned, so long as those interests are 
safe, Russians can manage without democracy somehow.

This sudden turnaround could only seem surprising to those people who 
sincerely believed that all the West's interest and interference in our 
affairs in the last ten years or so was rooted in a genuine care and 
concern for our national well-being. On the other hand, those with any 
knowledge of the way the West deals with Latin American countries or third 
world Asian nations could hardly be surprised by the way things have turned 
out here. If you know anything about the way the world works, you can 
understand how the nationalist rhetoric of our new government is not only 
acceptable, but actually is actually pleasing to the ears of the West's 
leaders.

It goes without saying, of course, that Putin will decisively protect our 
sovereignty against any threat from abroad. Particularly against attempts 
by foreign lawmakers to interfere in our internal politics. We will make it 
plain; we reserve the right to bomb our own cities, herd our own citizens 
into refugee camps, and deal in our own way with our own journalists. These 
matters are absolutely essential to the preservation of our national pride, 
and we won't budge an inch on them. Smaller questions are a different 
matter, of course. As regards the export of arms, the repayment of state 
debt, the transportation of oil, economic partnerships with "third 
countries", or the control over nuclear weapons-in these matters, we're 
rational people and of course willing to compromise.

We worry a lot over our army, especially over its generals. But while 
Anatoly Chubais talks about the rebirth of the army, our armed forces are 
disintegrating. It isn't just that the army is suffering huge losses in 
Chechnya, or that our soldiers are demoralized by what they see there, and 
even more demoralized by what they're doing there. The problem lay in 
another direction entirely: the very basis for Russia's national defense 
readiness is withering away. We're continuing to fight using the Soviet 
strategic reserve. And that reserve, as is the case with the economy, is 
coming to its end. An enormous amount of technology and armaments are being 
thrown around in Chechnya. How much of it will be destroyed, how much 
stolen-that's not the important thing. The key fact is that there is 
nothing to replace all the arms and equipment being put into Chechnya with. 
And for the most part, the weapons and equipment are being taken from the 
Western front. It would seem that after the eastward expansion of NATO, we 
would logically do best to fortify exactly that part of our border. But no, 
the North Caucasus are more important to us.

At the very moment that the American delegation was visiting with Putin, 
the American military detained a Russian oil tanker in the Persian Gulf. 
Journalists wondered aloud if our diplomats acted decisively enough in the 
matter, or whether this was a conscious attempt by the United States to 
"tweak" Russia. And in fact, our diplomats couldn't muster the strength to 
defend our ship. Only ten years ago such an incident could not have 
occurred, because Russia at the time had a functioning navy. Nowadays our 
warships aren't even capable of going out in our own territorial waters on 
exercises, much less operate effectively on distant foreign seas. Therefore 
our diplomats can crank up the rhetoric as much as they like-no one will 
take them seriously anyway.

Even as Putin talks about our national dignity, a conflict is forming 
around our largest aircraft-building corporation-MIG. It's bad enough that 
there is once again no money in the budget for new defense orders for the 
factory, but even the situation on the export front is now lamentable. In 
going to war in Chechnya, and spreading so much racist and anti-Muslim 
rhetoric, the Russian political elite has all but eliminated the last 
remaining markets for Russian airplanes-in the Arab countries, in Malaysia, 
etc.

One more other amusing detail: press outlets controlled by Boris 
Berezovsky, which jubilantly embraced the Chechen offensive and have 
essentially since September been leading Putin's campaign for the 
presidency, have been simultaneously conducting an information war against 
the Russian military-industrial complex. The most scandalous example was 
the attack by Mikhail Leontev on ORT against that same MIG company. The 
ideologue of the "strong state" had the wisdom to say that MIG, as a 
company, more or less no longer exists. The program was seen by 
representatives of the Indian military, who subsequently put off a 
multimillion-dollar order-what if the company was really falling apart? A 
commission was sent from India to investigate. All the factories seemed to 
be in place, along with the management... the poor Indians didn't 
understand that on our national television networks, even in the best of 
times, the anchormen can simply "misspeak"...

The situation is dramatic enough: if economic policy is not changed 
quickly, we will lose not only our markets. Our strategic control over our 
own air defense will also be lost. As concerns the countries of the third 
world, their fate will be simply tragic. Having lost the last alternative 
source of arms to bolster their militaries, they will simply be handed over 
to NATO. What the result of that will be, we saw already in Yugoslavia.

And so, we insist upon national dignity, but not upon a national defense. 
Still less do we insist upon our own industry. As long as Russia continues 
to fight in Chechnya, she will be pushed farther into the third world. 
Russia is losing its status as a great power and seems to have come to 
terms with the fact. She has come to terms with her new status as a 
supplier of raw materials for the world's markets. At the same time, she 
has come into possession of a "strong leader". And order will be restored 
in the country. Order of the type that is most necessary to American and 
German transnational corporations.

Putin's Russia needs armed forces alright, but the function of these armed 
forces will be different. They will be police. A military-police complex is 
very cheap to maintain; it doesn't require either strategic avionics or 
advanced technology. And what Russia already has can be put to new use. For 
instance, heavy bombers can be sent to Chechnya. There is even talk that 
high-speed, high-altitude fighters will be used as ground-attack aircraft. 
It goes without saying that planes designed to fly high and fly fast will 
be extremely ineffective when used at low altitudes and low speeds. But 
that doesn't matter. What matters is that we have this leftover Soviet 
technology, and it must be used somehow.

Our liberal intellectuals long ago fell in love with General Pinochet. The 
aforementioned Leontev has been offering the Chilean dictatorial model as a 
plan for our national development for almost ten years now. But really, 
what kind of an example is it? An economic liberal and a true patriot, all 
wrapped in one tidy political package! A military man, he restored order in 
the country, shot the leftist ideologues, and shut the mouths of 
irresponsible journalists. And whoever protested too loudly-he disappeared 
without a trace!

The dream of making a Pinochet out of Putin clearly did not originate 
solely in the excited imaginations of certain very decisive intellectuals. 
It fits too well with the historical pattern set by the West in its 
dealings with "peripheral" countries. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s 
authoritarian regimes appeared throughout Asia and Latin America with the 
full backing of the United States. These regimes were not always as bloody 
as the one in Chile. They didn't kill everybody, not by a long shot. There 
were many people in these places who were actually allowed to make public 
statements criticizing their governments-up until a certain point, when the 
"incendiary" figure would simply disappear. And elections were held only 
with prearranged results. Parliaments formed, but made sure not to 
seriously vie for power. The important thing was not the repression itself. 
The important thing was to instill an atmosphere of fear-based support of 
the leader.

In all these regimes there were two main ideological principles: for 
"positive" ideology, a program of nationalism, and for consolidation of the 
population against a common enemy, a continuing fight against terrorists or 
separatists. The enemy must necessarily be a domestic enemy, but for some 
reason the forces used against them must always be specifically the 
military and the intelligence services, which at times can be empowered 
during states of emergency to take over the function of the police.
As far as terrorism is concerned, we're all set; as long as there's even 
one Chechen left alive, there will always be both terrorism and separatism. 

Of course, the dictators of the 1970s always had a third ideological trump 
card: anticommunism. Here we have a problem. The Communists here support 
the government, and making them into a bogeyman will therefore be 
problematic. Incidentally, even this is not a unique situation-in Argentina 
during the very height of repression in the 1970s the communist party 
supported the "nationally-oriented" dictatorship. Incidentally, 
anticommunism as an ideological basis for government has not yet been 
disposed of in this country-Berezovsky's television stations have been 
continually exposing the "final myth", proving over and over that fascist 
Germany didn't actually invade Russia in 1941, but was in fact defending 
itself against Stalinist aggression. If someone of sincerely left-leaning 
orientation decides to seriously oppose the Kremlin, you can bet that the 
entire machinery of anti-communist propaganda will be mobilized in a 
heartbeat.

And so, welcome to the Banana republic, ladies and gentlemen! No need to 
think about what might be: think about what is already. The only thing 
missing are the bananas-the rest we have in abundance. We have the 
nationalist leader, the lapdog opposition, the regulated press, the fake 
elections, the corrupt officials, the filtration camps, and the army 
committing purges in the mountains. And now we even have our first 
disappeared person.

The West, of course, will judge us harshly for all of these flaws. Just as 
it endlessly judged Pinochet. And like Pinochet, we will answer the West 
that we will not allow it to insult our national dignity. And everyone will 
be happy.

When Mr. Yastrzhembsky tells us the news about Babitsky, he is not merely 
putting forth a particular version of Kremlin propaganda. He is repeating, 
in a slightly different form, exactly the same line that the press office 
of the state department in Washington has been repeating for decades.
What's the problem? we're asked in the Kremlin. And they explain: Babitsky 
voluntarily went along with the exchange to the bandits! Proof? Here's his 
own signature!

What's going on with the Russians? they're asking in Washington. And the 
answer comes down: the Russians themselves didn't need democracy. They 
wanted this regime themselves! Proof? An official Election Commission 
report on the election results.

********

#5
BBC MONITORING 
RUSSIAN THINK TANK PONDERS THREE ECONOMIC STRATEGIES
Source: `Segodnya', Moscow, in Russian 14 Feb 00 

The Russian think tank - the Centre for Strategic Elaborations - has brought 
together three leading academics with different views of economic strategy as 
the first step in its task to work out a programme for action for acting 
president Vladimir Putin. In an article entitled "The Three-Headed Eagle: The 
Quest for the `Correct' Path for the Country's Development Continues", 
Mikhail Berger said that the Centre's head, German Gref held the first 
general discussion between "liberal" Prof Yevgeniy Yasin, Academician Viktor 
Ivanter and Yaroslav Kuzmin rector of the "Higher Economic School" State 
University . Although he gave no details of what was discussed at the 
meeting, Berger said Gref was trying to bring together the three very 
different views although "the concepts presented are not easily amenable to 
synthesis". There follows the text of the article: 

[Mikhail Berger article: "Three-Headed Eagle; The Quest for the 'Correct' 
Path for the Country's Development Continues"] 

The Centre for Strategic Elaborations [TsSR] has held its first public 
discussion of Russia's possible economic strategy. The TsSR which is headed 
by German Gref is considered to be the generator of global ideas which is 
closest to the Kremlin and to Vladimir Putin and it is to formulate for the 
future president a programme for action in all key areas. The first general 
discussion took place around the economic part of this task. The Institute of 
National Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Viktor 
Ivanter), the "Higher Economic School" State University (Yaroslav Kuzmin) and 
Professor Yevgeniy Yasin (Yevgeniy Yasin) [as published] presented their 
elaborations. Let us note that there have been incessant disputes over the 
paths of economic development all through the 1990s, but the fundamental 
difference of this economic discussion lies in the fact that it has a chance 
of influencing real politics. 

As can easily be guessed, the theses of Professor Yasin contained an updated 
programme of liberal reforms which Russia has been trying to implement in 
recent years taking account, naturally, of the errors and experience that 
have been accumulated. Academician Ivanter in his report presented a 
viewpoint which to one degree or another reflects the views of the Russian 
Academy of Sciences Economics Department and of that trend in economic 
thought which conditionally has been called "academic" (state concern about 
the loading of production capacities and the stimulation of internal demand, 
and that includes by way of exerting pressure on employers for the purpose of 
raising pay in the non-state sector). The theses presented by Yaroslav 
Kuzmin, rector of the Higher Economic School, were not of a clearly 
pronounced "Westernist" nature nor hypothetically "anti-Western" (the 
long-standing battle between the two views of our two-headed eagle). The head 
of the Higher Economic School analyzed the problems with which the 
development of the world economy is confronting Russia and tried to assess 
the consequences of the choice of any particular model for the country's 
'economic behaviour." 

As the first discussion has shown, the concepts presented are not easily 
amenable to synthesis. This applies particularly to the "academic" concept of 
Ivanter and of the "liberal" Yasin. Nevertheless, German Gref is calculating 
that the TsSR, as an open forum for discussion, will be able to engender some 
kind of synthetic end product - a sort of "three-headed eagle", which would 
incorporate all that is best from what is being proposed by the 
irreconcilable opponents. However, as practice shows, a harmonious symbiosis 
never results. Everything ultimately depends on who produces the selection of 
"everything that is best" and what precisely his approaches and views are. 
But for the moment it is not known who this will be. 

*******

#6
Boston Globe
17 February 2000
[for personal use only]
Russian promises expose 
By Brian Whitmore, Globe Correspondent

MOSCOW - As Russia's federal prosecutor, Yury Skuratov knew some of the 
Kremlin's deepest, darkest secrets. Now, as a besieged outsider running for 
president, he is threatening to tell all.

His target: the acting president, Vladimir V. Putin, who is favored to win 
next month's presidential vote.

Of Russia's 15 presidential hopefuls, Skuratov's bid for the Kremlin seems 
one of the most quixotic. Shunned by most of Russia's political elite, he 
barely registers on most opinion polls.

But Skuratov, who lost his job as prosecutor last year after he began 
investigating Kremlin corruption, said his campaign is less about winning 
power than about telling the people the truth about Putin.

''I am a sober man, and I understand that my chances are not great. But I 
want people to know what they are voting for. I want them to know who Putin 
really is,'' Skuratov said.

According to Skuratov, Putin serves the interests of a group of businessmen 
and bureaucrats, known as ''The Family,'' who wielded enormous influence 
under President Boris N. Yeltsin.

Calling Putin ''part of the criminal group that rules Russia,'' Skuratov 
claimed to have compromising material on the acting president that he would 
reveal during the election campaign. He declined to give details.

''As far as Putin's personal involvement in corruption goes, there will be a 
discussion about this in due time,'' Skuratov said.

But in more ways than one, Skuratov has earned a reputation as the prosecutor 
with no clothes. 

While the fight against corruption is the centerpiece of his presidential 
campaign, he himself stands accused of graft. Moreover, for months, Skuratov 
has teased the public with promises to reveal dirt on Putin. But when asked 
for specifics, he has said over and over that it was not yet time. 

For most of his term as Russia's top law-enforcement officer, Skuratov was 
assailed by his enemies as a do-nothing prosecutor. When he decided to take 
on official corruption, after Russia's financial collapse in August 1998, he 
went all the way - implicating Yeltsin, his closest advisers and his family.

Last February, he accused Yeltsin and his daughters of taking bribes from a 
Swiss construction firm called Mabatex that had won lucrative contracts to 
renovate the Kremlin. This month, Swiss prosecutors issued an arrest warrant 
for a former Yeltsin aide, Pavel Borodin, in connection with the case. 

Skuratov later claimed to have information that 780 current and former 
officials had used inside information to trade on Russia's once-lucrative 
treasury bill market.

Faced with a hostile prosecutor, Yeltsin's inner circle moved quickly to 
remove him.

In an action seen as an attempt by the Kremlin to discredit Skuratov, Russian 
state television aired a tape last March of a man resembling the prosecutor 
frolicking in bed with two prostitutes. 

Yeltsin then suspended Skuratov after law enforcement officials said the 
prostitutes had been provided by organized crime figures seeking the 
dismissal of criminal cases against them. 

Skuratov became the target of another criminal inquiry this month alleging 
that he had received bribes in the form of free business suits from Mabatex, 
the Swiss construction firm. 

Skuratov has denied wrongdoing. He said that the videotape was a fabrication 
and that the suits had been given to him as part of his official Kremlin 
wardrobe. ''These criminal cases are attempts to pressure me,'' he said.

''People who vote for me will be voting against corruption. Any fight against 
corruption needs to start at the very top, with the Kremlin,'' Skuratov said, 
adding: ''We have a saying in Russian: The fish rots from the head.''

Skuratov is one of 15 people who have submitted the 500,000 signatures 
necessary to run for president. So far, Russia's Electoral Commission has 
officially registered only Putin, the Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, the 
nationalist leader Alexei Podberyozkin and the Kemerovo regional governor, 
Aman Tuleyev. 

*******

#7
The Independent (UK)
17 February 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia's filtration camp policy is 'to cripple Chechens for life' 
Captured male and female civilians tortured and raped by masked soldiers 
By Patrick Cockburn in Moscow 

Horrifying new evidence is emerging of systematic beatings and rape by 
Russian soldiers of Chechen civilians and suspected guerrillas who are being 
held prisoner in what Russia calls"filtration camps" in northern Chechnya. 

Ruslan, a 21-year old man from Grozny, the Chechen capital, who does not want 
to give his family name, is one of the few prisoners to be freed. He has 
described how girls as young as 13 were raped by masked Russian soldiers. 

Still bowed over in pain from being hit with a metal hammer on the back he 
says: "I thought nothing could be worse than the rubber sticks. Then I 
realised that the rubber sticks were nothing in comparison to the hammer." 
When Ruslan was first arrested he was stripped of his clothes and kept in a 
specially refrigerated room at the camp in Chernkozovo. 

He was only released when his mother borrowed money to pay a large bribe. His 
experiences appear to be typical of the treatment received by those Chechens 
who have been arrested since a general mopping up operation started in 
Chechnya in mid-January. General Viktor Kazantsev, the Russian army commander 
in the north Caucasus, announced that all Chechen males between the ages of 
10 and 60 would be considered as suspects. 

Ruslan's story confirms the account given in a letter from a Russian soldier 
serving at Chernokozovo, published by The Independent last week, of merciless 
beatings and systematic rape of both men and women. Both Ruslan and the 
soldier say that almost none of the prisoners in the filtration camp have any 
connection with Chechen guerrillas. Most were arrested at the whim of Russian 
soldiers at checkpoints or during house-to-house searches. "They are 
literally being killed here, one just has to hear the cries of robust healthy 
guys whose bones are being broken," wrote the soldier. 

There is growing evidence that the treatment inflicted on the Chechen 
prisoners by Russian soldiers is equal in brutality to that suffered by 
Bosnian Muslims in the early Nineties for which some of the perpetrators are 
now on trial for war crimes. 

In an interview with Human Rights Watch in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, 
Ruslan described how he was arrested on 16 January at a checkpoint as he and 
his family were trying to leave Chechnya. 

His mother and sister desperately tried to prevent him from being taken away 
but were told by the Russian soldiers that they would be shot unless they 
desisted. 

Ruslan was among the first Chechens taken by van to Chernokozovo, an old 
Soviet prison on the Terek river in north-west Chechnya. He says: We were 
told by the soldiers 'don't even whisper to each other or we will shoot 
you'." 

As the prisoners left the van they were forced to run between lines of 
soldiers who beat them with rubber batons. The Russian soldiers, who were 
always masked, worked in shifts of 12 to carry out the beatings. "I was like 
a ball between them", says Ruslan. The only Russian whom he saw unmasked was 
the official investigator. Ruslan said: "He knew I was a fighter." 

When Ruslan denied that he knew any fighters he was beaten again. The 
beatings appear to be aimed at maiming young Chechens, breaking their ribs 
and fingers and bursting their eardrums. From 6pm to 11pm the prisoners were 
forced to stand with their arms raised. "He read out a decree that was on his 
desk." said Ruslan. "It said that 150,000 Chechens have to pass through the 
filtration camps." The official investigator added that the purpose of the 
camp was that those who survived would go out of it "crippled for the rest of 
their lives". Ruslan claims that thesoldiers who were guarding the prisoners 
were raping the detained women, including girls as young as 13. Confirming 
the account of the Russian soldier who served in Chernokozovo, Ruslan says 
the guards also raped the men. 

Peter Bruckaert, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, said the accounts of 
rape and mistreatment from the first prisoners coming out of the filtration 
camps are consistent with each other. He adds that there have been massive 
round-ups of Chechens over the last few weeks. He said Russian TV has shown 
pictures of young men in Grozny being tossed into the back of trucks like 
logs of wood. 

Ruslan was only released on 5 February because a pro-Russian Chechen arranged 
for the release of two Russian soldiers held by the Chechen fighters and his 
mother borrowed money to pay a bribe. 

There are signs that the Russian authorities intend to intensify the 
occupation of Chechnya by increasing the number of filtration camps. The 
Russian daily Commersant reported yesterday that a prison is to be first 
building rebuilt by Russia in Grozny. Most of the Chechen capital is in ruins 
as a result of prolonged bombardment by Russian artillery and aircraft and 
the prison will be given priority over providing shelter for either the 
Russian army or civilians. 

* The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, 
yesterday attacked Moscow for refusing her request to visit areas affected by 
the Chechen conflict. "The suffering caused by indiscriminate bombing and 
seeming disregard for civilians must not be compounded by the denial of the 
basic human rights of people in Chechnya." she said. 

*******

#8
From: Pavel Baev <Pavel@prio.no>
Subject: Putin's honeymoon
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 10:42:17 +0100

PUTIN'S HONEYMOON COMING TO THE END
By Pavel Baev (pavel@prio.no)

Traditionally, politicians can enjoy office 'honeymoons' after being
elected, but with Vladimir Putin it is a different picture: he is going
through his '100 days' now. The starting point was not December 31, when
Yeltsin cleared him the way, but a couple of weeks earlier, when the results
of the parliamentary elections became clear. During the last two months, we
have seen all the typical 'newly-wed' features in his political behaviour:
he brings in a new team of ambitious but inexperienced aids, he makes some
mistakes (like the order to convert 100% of export revenues into roubles),
he is allowed to take certain unpopular decision (like calling reservists
for the military service or, even more, raising prices for vodka). And by
mid-April (assuming there will be the second round of elections) his
honeymoon might well be over. 

Certainly, this period is not only about being nice, it must provide answers
to the key question about what sort of a president the country really has.
It is quite surprising, therefore, that media pundits and fellow-politicians
continue to speculate about 'Putin's mystery'. Selling the image of an
'impenetrable enigma', the Kremlin's spin doctors are probably scoring extra
points in the opinion polls, but in fact by now there is very little
mysterious about the Acting President. It does not take a great insight to
see the all too familiar features of a low-middle level Soviet apparatchik,
but it is always tempting to believe that there is more to this man than
meets the eye on the TV screen. One way to undress the PR camouflage might
be to eliminate the non-existent and make a short list (in no particular
order) of things Putin is definitely NOT.

1. Putin is not a public politician. His only electoral experience is
managing Sobchak's political campaign in St. Petersburg - and the biter
failure has hardly made Putin a big fan of free elections. The December 1999
parliamentary elections has proved him to be a master of media abuse,
behind-the-scenes pressure and manipulation. We might even suggest that by
nature Putting belongs to 'shadows', those working in smoke-filled rooms and
carpeted corridors, operating outside the public scrutiny and media
attention. He is definitely uncomfortable in the forefront.

2. Putin is not a leader. All his life he worked in a 'system' and - unlike
Yeltsin or Gorbachev - was never in charge of anything. He may be a fast
learner and can develop a taste for leadership, but no signs of a natural
'alfa dog' are visible. He definitely is a team player and a firm believer
in loyalty, so we are not going to see more of Yeltsin's games with
counter-balancing favourites and bureaucracies. 

3. Putin is not a thinker or a visionary. As every man in his late-40s, he
is often desperate to be wise, but by that age the ability to think big is
just impossible to hide. Being a hard worker all his life, Putin is punctual
and methodical (perhaps, more German than Russian in this respect). Somewhat
paradoxically, this man of a plan is now without a plan, that is without a
well-developed plan what to do after the presidential elections. He has, or
at least tries to project, the idea of a strong and centralised Russia, but
hardly has a clue about how to get from here to there. Hence the initiative
about creating a 'super-think-tank', headed by his loyal lieutenant German
Graf, which, most probably, will share the fate of institutions built by
Gaidar, Yavlinsky, and too many other (who remembers anything about
Burbulis?). Another potential problem here is that in Russia nothing ever
goes according to plan (assuming one is produced), so Putin is looking into
some disappointments and forced flexibility.

4. Putin is not a Eurasianist, whatever meaning you attach to this ambiguous
term. Primakov had real Oriental academic expertise; Yeltsin, working most
of his life in his native Urals, had the gut feeling for Russian 'glubinka'
(deep periphery), but Putin is very much a man from St. Petersburg. He may
be not that interested in hugging foreign leaders (an exercise personally
very important to Yeltsin). His long exposure to Europe does not make him a
Westerniser, but it makes him less interested and attentive to the problems
of Far East and Siberia, less enthusiastic about building alliances with
China, perhaps less committed to the feeble CIS networks.

5. Putin is not a media star. Not only does he not thrive being the centre
of attention, but often shows nearly instinctive disgust towards
journalists. His PR experts are working really hard on it, constructing two
barely compatible images. One is that of a knife - sharp and categorical,
steely and silent (sort of resembling Mack the Knife); the tone-setting
point here was handing the New Year gifts to soldiers in Gudermes. Another,
and a more recent image is that of a White Poodle - friendly, domestic,
touchy-feely. What makes this last image more convincing is certainly
Putin's genuine ordinariness; nothing super-human about this man, one of us,
how can we not vote for him? 

6. Putin is not a liberal. It is not just his professional KGB background
that proves it (no, we should not presume every KGB agent guilty until found
innocent). It is also not the same sort of illiberalism we can see in
Chubais, for whom it does not matter a fart in the universe what people
think about, or how they suffer from, his reforms. Putin sincerely values
the state far more than any freedoms or human rights, for which he has very
little respect. Chechnya is the ultimate proof here.

7. Putin is not a self-made man. The point here is not that he was
hand-picked and took up consequently by Sobchak, Chubais, Borodin and
Yeltsin and has accumulated some political and personal debts to them. The
real problem for him is that even now, trying to establish himself as
nobody's man and distance himself from the Family, the oligarchs and the
'rightists' (to the great disappointment of Nemtsov and Kiriyenko), he still
resembles an air balloon. Many eager hands are pumping air into his
campaign, while Chechnya makes a small hole from which the air is
permanently leaking. The elections could transform the balloon into a
cannon-ball, but util that Putin have to be aware of needles - and some
people (Borodin, most probably) may keep those needles or know of their
existence (relaxed Berezovsky is a likely suspect).

8. Putin is not a Mr. Clean. Again, it is not his KGB past that matters here
(though the records of his too long stay in Dresden might contain some
unpleasant pages). But being the organizer in Sobchak's administration in
St. Petersburg, a key member of Chubais' team in the Kremlin, a figure in
Borodin's presidential business empire leaves Putin beyond doubts about
personal incorruptibility. He is not very eager to declare yet another war
against corruption, but clearing the Augean stables in the Kremlin is a
practical necessity. Corruption has become not a feature but a systemic
function of Russia's political system; this function has also become
self-destructive, it has to be brought under control - but it remains to be
seen whether Putin is up to the job. 

The list is not complete, we still have a leader in the making with many
lessons to learn. One thing for sure - Putin is not the answer to all the
expectations loaded upon him by the state apparatus and regional governors,
interest groups and top brass, and millions of voters as well. His
legitimacy is already weakened, his support base could disintegrate very
quickly after first hard presidential choices about resource allocation, his
team may just have no talent. Yes, Putin personifies Russia's attempt to
reinvent itself as a strong, disciplined, dynamic and coherent state - but
come the hangover morning after, and the plain fact that it is not might
become undeniable. 

Pavel Baev
International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) 

*******

#9
Argumenty i Fakty No. 7
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
AN ALTERNATIVE TO PUTIN
Russia's Communist No. One Ready to Run for President 
By Vitaly TSEPLYAYEV

According to our sources, high-ranking Kremlin officials 
are seriously worried over the fact that Vladimir Putin would 
lack any alternative during the forthcoming presidential 
elections. In their opinion, everything is proceeding too 
smoothly and too easily. One gets the impression that Vladimir 
Putin will have to compete with all sorts of political midgets. 
However, this situation apparently doesn't befit our leader.

Candidate No. 1
Meanwhile such an alternative, namely Gennady Zyuganov, to 
Putin does exist.
Opinion-poll results imply that Zyuganov's chances of 
being elected as Russia's next president are rather slim. As of 
today, Putin's electorate exceeds that of Zyuganov by an 
impressive 300 percent. However, popularity ratings tend to 
fluctuate time and again.
One should not underestimate Zyuganov only because he is 
backed by real-life and very powerful election resources.
First of all, the list of such resources includes a 
devoted pro-Communist electorate that will vote for its idol 
without any reminders whatsoever. We must face the facts -- the 
KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) had always 
faced the pro-government party on equal terms during their 
six-year war, winning twice as a result. Let's compare the 
share of voters siding with Russia's powers-that-be and the 
opposition in the course of parliamentary and presidential 
elections (See Table One).

Table One
------------------------------------------------------ 
1993 Russia's Choice -- 15.51% KPRF -- 12.40% 
------------------------------------------------------ 
1995 Our Home Is Russia -- 10.13% KPRF -- 22.30% 
------------------------------------------------------ 
1996 First Boris Yeltsin -- 35.28% Gennady -- 32.03% round 
Zyuganov Second Boris Yeltsin -- 53.83% 
Gennady -- 40.30% round Zyuganov 
------------------------------------------------------ 
1999 Unity -- 23.32% KPRF -- 24.29% 
------------------------------------------------------ 
Second, the Communists boast a ramified partisan 
organization, which riddles all strata of Russian society. 
Small wonder, the Communists were the first to submit 500,000 
signatures in Zyuganov's support to the Russian Federation's 
Central Election Commission.
Third, the Communists possess substantial financial and 
administrative resources. The KPRF is eagerly subsidized by 
dozens of patriotic-minded bankers and businessmen. The Russian 
Federation's State Duma replete with all its technical 
advantages, e.g. special communications networks, cars, office 
equipment, etc., constitutes Zyuganov's main bridge-head.
Besides, all those Red governors should not be overlooked 
either.
Fourth, numerous mass-media bodies are doing their best to 
promote the Russian Communist Party's candidate. Zyuganov 
himself admits that he is supported by 300 regional newspapers. 
Add to this a number of central newspapers, as well as RTR's 
Parliamentary Hour TV program. The anti-Kremlin NTV and TVTs 
television channels have also become Zyuganov's unwitting 
allies.

Always Second?
Boris Nemtsov believes that Zyuganov will, at best, place 
second during the current presidential election race.
The Communists have lost quite a few supporters, after 
ecstatically embracing the Kremlin throughout the entire 
State-Duma crisis, Nemtsov pointed out. He also believes that 
the main Communist slogan, e.g. the KPRF's struggle against the 
so-called unpopular regime, has now become irrelevant.
For his own part, writer Alexander Prokhanov thinks that 
Putin faces a tortuous and extremely acute struggle.
How can Zyuganov defeat his adversary? He must 
emphatically oppose land sales, the ratification of the 
START-II treaty and the dismembering of Gazprom, Prokhanov 
stressed. Putin said that there won't be any re-division of 
property. Zyuganov must say that all those factories and 
oil-fields, which were seized by criminal methods, must be 
taken away from ineffective owners; and the monies thus derived 
must be channelled into the social sector, Prokhanov said in 
conclusion.
But does Zyuganov himself intend to wage an uncompromising 
struggle? Why should he change his eternal-dissident status, 
subsequently assuming responsibility for Russia with its sick 
economy and war-torn Chechnya? We asked this question to 
Gennady Zyuganov himself. According to Zyuganov, he is ready to 
fight for the Kremlin; besides, Zyuganov doesn't consider his 
rival's positions as absolutely fail-safe.
Putin's supporters had vied with us in the course of 
State-Duma elections, collecting less votes as a result, 
Zyuganov stressed. Apart from that, Putin faces a rather 
unfavorable situation at this stage. The Russian army has 
bogged down in Chechnya. Inflation in Russia has topped the 
three-percent mark.
No successes are in sight, Zyuganov said in conclusion.
Frankly speaking, Zyuganov has no alternative but to fight 
for presidency in real earnest just because the KPRF won't 
forgive yet another defeat on his part. Zyuganov must fight 
Putin real tough, provided that he doesn't want to commit 
political suicide. Consequently, the Kremlin's public-relations 
experts would have no reason to feel bored and to complain 
about the absence of an "alternative."

********

#10
From: "Ben Brodkin" <benatny@hotmail.com>
Subject: Soviet dissidents
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 12:37:03 PST

I have enjoyed the several articles concerning the Soviet dissidents, but I 
disagree with their authors on two points.

1. Peter P. Mahoney in 4111 says that "the actions of the Russian 
dissidents had absolutely nothing to do with the eventual collapse of the 
Soviet Union, any more than the actions of the American anti-war dissidents 
during the Vietnam era had anything to do with the end of the Vietnam war".

I will defer to Peter on the subject of the Vietnam war. But I believe the 
Soviet dissidents dealt a major blow to the Soviet regime. To prevent 
further misconceptions, I use the term dissident in a broad sense, 
including, say, the song writers Vizbor, Okudzhava and Vysotsky. Their 
songs were banned but known and loved by millions of people during 
Brezhnev's era. The samizdat books by Solzhenitsin and Galich were widely 
read too. It is true that most of the people did not read samizdat, but 
most of the people do not read any books, period.

The dissidents set out to break the most closely guarded commodity in the 
USSR - its iron curtain - and they definitely succeeded in making a few 
cracks in it. Their other contribution was helping people overcome their 
fears. All of a sudden, it dawned on people that they can appeal actions of 
government officials; initiate civil suits based on the hithrto ignored 
Soviet laws; apply for emigration permits.

That went against the very grain of the Soviet society that was built on 
total control by the KGB and its fear by the population. Once that was 
shattered, it was only a matter of time before glasnost arrived.

2. The second point is the question of whether or not the dissidents could 
play a role in the post-Soviet society. I believe Solzhenitsin had a chance 
to play such a role but he missed it. He should have returned to Russia 
much earlier. But instead, he kept setting conditions for his return until 
it was too late.

It is unclear what his contribution could have been. But we have two 
examples of dissidents in other parts of the world: Khomeini and Mandela. 
They led their countries in different directions. So, a hypothetical 
direction that Russia could have taken under Solzhenitsin is anybody's 
guess.

*******

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