February 17,
2000
This Date's Issues: 4113 4114
4115
Johnson's Russia List
#4115
17 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com
[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Sebastian Alison, Russia can only watch as oil debate
rages.
2. Dipcourier NG: Dmitry GORNOSTAYEV, THE HIGH PROBABILITY OF TRUCE.
Russia, West Ready to Stop Confrontation. For How Long?
3. Reuters: Russia says no lowering of nuclear threshold.
4. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: SPS Looking Weaker Next To Yabloko.
5. the eXile: March Madness Continues! Press Review by Matt
Taibbi.
6. RF Tax Collection at US Embassy in Moscow.]
*******
#1
ANALYSIS-Russia can only watch as oil debate rages
By Sebastian Alison
MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - OPEC seems to have handed Russia's Acting
President Vladimir Putin another stroke of luck in his presidential
election bid.
The oil producers cartel will meet on March 27 and could decide to raise
output, easing the market price of crude and cutting Moscow's income from a
key export -- the day after Russians go to the polls to elect a president.
As pressure mounts from the U.S and others for the Organisation of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries to dampen down soaring prices, Russia, the
world's number three producer, can only watch as a decline in windfall
revenues becomes likely.
``This is a discussion between the U.S. and OPEC. It isn't something for
Russia to be involved in,'' Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United
Financial Group in Moscow, said.
``Russia is a big oil producer and a moderately big exporter, but its
export flexibility is zero. It exports at the maximum.''
On Wednesday U.S. President Bill Clinton called for stable oil prices which
were not too high, and did not rule out drawing down oil from the country's
emergency stockpile to that end.
OPEC member Venezuela's oil minister Ali Rodriguez said on Thursday that
OPEC should take steps against high prices. And Saudi oil minister Ali
al-Naimi said on Thursday that a price of between $20 and $25 per barrel --
well below current levels -- would be ideal.
RUSSIA WILL SUFFER
The consensus that lower prices are desirable is building, and Russia can
only await the consequences. Oil and gas exports account for up to half of
all Russian hard currency export earnings, and any softening of prices
translates into instant loss of cash.
James Henderson, head of research at Renaissance Capital brokerage in
Moscow, said Russia exports around 850 million barrels of crude a year, so
each dollar off the price corresponds to a loss of some $850 million per
year.
The federal budget for 2000 assumes a price of $17 per barrel for Russian
Urals export blend crude, which typically trades at a discount to benchmark
Brent crude.
Henderson said that to meet the budget projection of $17, Brent would need
to average $18.50 to $19 this year. Brent so far this year has averaged $26
a barrel.
But the budget also assumes the International Monetary Fund will give
Russia $2.6 billion this year. If it does not, Russia will need another $3
per barrel on the oil price to make up for that, taking its Brent target
price to $22 a barrel.
``$22 looks like the number below which you need to start asking questions
about alternative sources of finance,'' Henderson said.
NO INFLUENCE
But Russia appears unable to influence prices at all, although in recent
years it has flirted with OPEC and even offered production cuts of its own
to help boost prices -- although statistics suggest it failed to do so.
``Historically the Russians haven't been involved in these decisions,''
O'Sullivan said. ``When they were involved they didn't keep their end of
the bargain, and they don't have the flexibility to have any input into the
decision -- they're price takers not price setters.''
The lack of flexibility stems from the fact that Russia already exports as
much as it can, and cannot afford to cut exports in the hope of boosting
prices.
Nor can it raise exports to make up losses caused by lower prices, partly
because of export capacity constraints, and partly because it already
struggles to meet domestic demand.
So its future economic strength is now in the hands of others, a common
position for a country which depends heavily on exporting raw materials
whose price is set elsewhere.
``Russia is going to be a price taker for some time to come until it can
either expand its export capacity or expand production further,''
Renaissance Capital's Henderson said.
He pointed out that Russia also derived substantial revenues from a crude
oil export tax of 15 euros per tonne, or around $2 per barrel, and this may
have to be cut if prices start to fall.
Last March, when OPEC introduced production cuts to shore up prices, the
price did not react immediately but grew steadily as inventories began to
be depleted.
Henderson expected the same to happen this year if OPEC decided to raise
production, with any increase in supplies not appearing on the market until
May -- well after the presidential election, when prices may still be
reasonably bouyant.
``It's quite lucky for Putin that the election is not two months after the
OPEC meeting but just before,'' he said.
*******
#2
Dipcourier NG No. 3
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
THE HIGH PROBABILITY OF TRUCE
Russia, West Ready to Stop Confrontation. For How Long?
By Dmitry GORNOSTAYEV
The Western strategists no longer seem frightened by the
inevitable establishment of Putin in the Kremlin. They must
stop being frightened and start thinking of ways to decode
Putin's black box. On the other hand, one can hardly demand
openness from the object of severe criticism.
The Russian leadership, although proud of its disregard
for the Western opinion over Chechnya, understands very well
that this cannot last long. Above all because it needs the West
in order to handle the problems of its multi-billion-dollar
debts, task of reviving the national economy with the help of
foreign investments, and the problem of international terrorism
in the self-same Chechnya.
Anyway, Russia and the West, which quarrelled over the
NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, are on the verge of letting
off steam over the war in the North Caucasus. In other words,
the time has come for making up. The only question is how long
this time will last.
There are signs of appeasement, and more signs appeared
surprisingly frequently in the past few days. First Mikhail
Kasyanov was given a chance -- quite unexpectedly -- to report
to Putin (and Putin could hence report to the people) about the
cancellation of a part of Russia's debt to the London Club.
Then President Bill Clinton started praising Putin --
quite unexpectedly again. He said in an online web interview
last Tuesday that he respected the acting Russian president and
that Chechens are largely responsible for the heavy toll among
the peaceful population, while the Russian authorities had the
right to combat terrorism on their own territory.
Barely a day later NATO Secretary General George Robertson
came to Moscow. The surprising thing is not that he came to
Moscow, but that he was allowed to come to Moscow. This is a
large step forward by the Russian side. Moscow has kept silent
for a very long time, and agreed to talk only now.
On the other hand, our sources say the Russian Foreign
Ministry pondered ways of normalising dialogue with NATO
already last autumn. There was one condition: This must be done
without detriment to Russia's prestige. It appears that the
ministry has resolved this far from the largest problem.
A few words about Americans on the side. "On the side,"
because their attitude to Russia differs from the European
stand in that it is much more favourable -- at least for now.
The Council of Ministers of the European Union issues numerous
harsh statements over Chechnya, while Clinton well-nigh
justifies the Russian actions in the Caucasus.
And Washington prefers to publicly gloss over the scandal
with Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky. Of course,
Madeleine Albright had to mention this problem during her
recent visit to Moscow, but it is indicative how quickly the
Department of State announced that it had not issued any
official statements on Babitsky or made harsh demands in the UN
Security Council.
It is possible that the current US administration, which
is completing its last year in office and has been regularly
spanked for its foreign policy flops in the Russian direction,
decided to work on the public opinion. This is probably why it
is nodding favourably at Putin. We have not lost Russia, the
Clinton administration seems to be saying to American voters,
and Putin is a step forward compared to the last few months of
Yeltsin's rule.
But if these actions were prompted by purely internal
reasons, we should not believe Clinton's words about Russia.
Although being a pragmatic politician, he really wants to
develop US-Russian relations. It appears that a temporary truce
is just around the corner. But the respite can turn out to be
very short.
******
#3
Russia says no lowering of nuclear threshold
MOSCOW, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Russia has not lowered the threshold for using
its huge nuclear arsenal in its revamped national security concept,
Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, reporting on a Security
Council meeting.
Russia's new security concept, approved by Acting President Vladimir Putin
on January 6, said Moscow envisaged the potential use of atomic weapons
``to repel armed aggression,'' a statement which was interpreted as meaning
the threshold had been lowered.
``Statements that Russia appears to have lowered the threshold for the use
of nuclear weapons are untrue,'' the ministry quoted Security Council
Secretary Sergei Ivanov as saying on Tuesday.
Ivanov, a former KGB spy, said the use of nuclear weapons was not ruled
out. ``Russia has never stated the possibility of being the first to use
nuclear weapons. At the same time, Russia does not make a commitment to not
being the first.''
Ivanov met diplomats on Tuesday to clarify Russia's revamped national
security concept.
Under the previous concept published in 1997, Russia reserved the right to
use its nuclear arsenal, the world's second largest, only if its very
existence were threatened.
The new version seemed to reflect Russia's more antagonist view of the
world by saying Moscow's main security task was to deter any attacks,
nuclear of conventional, against Russia and its allies.
The concept had also listed one of the main foreign threats as NATO's
eastern enlargement and own new strategy.
But on Wednesday, NATO and Russia agreed to thaw their ties significantly
after a year of Cold War-style tensions over Kosovo and Chechnya. They made
clear that the relations, frozen by Russia after the alliance bombed
Yugoslavia last year, were still a little chilly.
*******
#4
Moscow Times
February 17, 2000
EDITORIAL: SPS Looking Weaker Next To Yabloko
Boris Nemtsov declared a victory Wednesday after the State Duma installed him
and Yabloko's Vladimir Lukin as deputy speakers. He called it a defeat for
the Communists, who had helped block the nominations. "Centrist and
center-right factions in the chamber have a chance in the near future to work
constructively, without the Communists, on a range of key laws for our
country - land and tax codes, passing a responsible and honest budget,"
Reuters quoted Nemtsov as saying.
That would certainly be nice. Well-regulated land sales and tax reform are
long overdue.
But the appointment of Nemtsov and Lukin to these minor posts isn't much of a
victory. It does not reverse the far-more-eloquent previous snub the Duma
offered by initially denying them these posts - which, by tradition, are
their due, as every major Duma party is supposed to have one of the deputy
speaker's chairs.
And the very notion that the Communists are the main obstacle to reform is
such a worn-out fallacy that it's hard to believe someone as supposedly savvy
as Nemtsov could still be flogging this flimsy excuse for Russia's
stagnation. Reform stalled not so much because of truculent Communists, but
because the Kremlin's interest in real reform - as opposed to sweet-talking
the IMF - was less than overwhelming.
As dysfunctional as the Communists can be, they were not the ones who created
the current system of crony capitalism through rigged privatizations. It was
the Kremlin, under Boris Yeltsin and Anatoly Chubais. Now, some of the same
moguls created under Yeltsin appear to have secured a friendly successor in
the person of acting President Vladimir Putin.
Given that, the bargain struck by the ostensibly liberal Union of Right
Forces with the Kremlin seems like less and less of a good deal. The Union of
Right Forces supports the Kremlin through a cooperation deal struck with the
Unity party. And gets what in return? A vague promise to take up, but not
necessarily support, several reform bills.
By comparison, the Yabloko party seems to have done better by not supporting
the Kremlin. They're out of power, yes, but they haven't clouded what it is
they stand for. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky has kept open the
possibility of making a respectable third-place run for president. If things
go to a second round, that would put him in a kingmaker's position, like that
of Alexander Lebed in 1996.
The Union of Right Forces, however, seems to have little chance to have any
real influence at all.
- Dave McHugh
******
#5
From: Matt Taibbi <exile.taibbi@matrix.ru>
Subject: march madness continued
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000
the eXile
March Madness Continues!
Press Review
By Matt Taibbi
Welcome back, sports fans! In case you missed the gala kickoff last issue,
the eXile is holding its first annual March Madness Worst Journalist
Contest. We bracketed 32 of the city's leading hacks into pairs and pitted
them notebook to notebook in dog-eat-dog competition. Sixteen lucky winners
advanced in our last issue; what follow are the results of round two, which
determined who will appear in the tournament's final eight.
Unlike the first round, in which there was a great deal of close
competition, the second round was characterized by blowouts. The match
between the Financial Times's John Thornhill and the Globe and Mail's
Geoffrey York, for instance, had to be stopped in the first quarter by
officials when Thornhill was hit with a technical foul for taunting
following a run of nine unanswered mixed metaphors. It was that kind of day
for the underdogs. As far as we're concerned, though, the blowouts only
ensured that there would be no weak links left in the field. See for
yourself; here's how Round two went:
John Thornhill, Financial Times, def. Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail
Sometimes the worst part about a newspaper article is its headline. In this
case, giant-killer John Thornhill, who knocked off #1 seed Rick Paddock in
the first round, could have breezed past overmatched challenger Geoffrey
York of the Globe and Mail solely on the strength of the headline from his
Feb. 12 article, "Sale may signal business clean-up." Preposterously,
Thornhill's article argued that the sale of some of the UK-based Trans
World Aluminum company's Russian assets to shareholders of the Sibneft oil
company signaled a "cleaning-up" phase in the development of Russian
business. As in, Trans World's assets in Russia will be more honestly run
under Roman Abramovitch and Boris Berezovsky.
This is, quite possibly, the stupidest thing to be written by a Western
journalist living in Russia this year. A remarkable combination of
intellectual, moral, and personal inadequacies are required to will into
being an article such as this, and Thornhill clearly has all of them in
abundance. For instance, take the following set of paragraphs:
'The move comes at a time when several of Russia's business oligarchs are
making efforts to "clean up" their businesses in anticipation that Vladimir
Putin is elected president in March.
'Mr Putin has stressed he wants to create equal rules of the game for all
businesses in Russia and is increasing the pressure on Russia's oligarchs
to invest at home rather than siphon their cash abroad.'
To write sentences like these without elaborating upon them, a reporter
must be first and foremost a supremely lazy and apathetic person, for no
diligent journalist or careful writer would ever expose to his reader to
such an unseemly pile of unanswered questions. Which of Russia's "several
business oligarchs" does Thornhill mean? What "efforts" can Thornhill point
to that any of these oligarchs have made to "clean up" their businesses?
And what, concretely, does Thornhill have in mind when he says that Putin
is "increasing the pressure" on oligarchs to invest at home? Thornhill
doesn't elaborate on any of this and just leaves us hanging. Even if these
two paragraphs weren't the insane bullshit that they are, this would be the
sloppiest of sloppy newswriting.
Which is too bad, because one cannot afford to be sloppy when one is being
as crudely cynical and dishonest as Thornhill is being here. Thornhill does
not answer any of these unanswered questions because, as he must surely
know, there are no answers to them. The oligarchs are not "cleaning up",
and there is no evidence that Putin-the man who was once the loyal chief
deputy to Pavel Borodin, Russia's all-time leading capital exporter-- is
pressuring anyone to invest at home rather than send money abroad. And as
for attaching the names of Abramovich (who was once arrested for stealing
railroad wagons full of petroleum) and Berezovsky (who was recently refused
a visa to the Davos conference in anticipation of his indictment on
money-laundering charges) to the idea of "clean" business? well, that's
just disgusting. Thornhill should be fed his own testicles for writing such
a thing.
Meanwhile, Thornhill's opponent, Geoff York, bowed out of the tournament
with a thorough bio on Putin, including as an afterthought a fair part of
the necessary information that the dissolute, lazy hack Thornhill elected
to leave out of his. Here's a passage that Thornhill could have and should
have put in his piece after his mention of Putin:
"After Mr. Sobchak lost the mayor's job in 1996, Mr. Putin moved to Moscow
and became a senior aide in the Kremlin property department -- one of the
most secretive and corrupt branches of the presidential administration. It
used a closed bidding system to conceal its own business dealings, worth
billions of dollars, and to award lucrative contracts to well-connected
insiders."
We wanted York to advance because he still hasn't reviewed our book and we
therefore still need the leverage, but we were helpless before God on this
one. We could write a hundred books and it wouldn't justify getting
Thornhill out of this tournament yet. York out; the Financial Times stays
alive.
Maura Reynolds (8), Los Angeles Times, def. Brian Whitmore, Boston Globe
One thing that too few journalists are censured for is the crime of blowing
the gatekeeper to get in the gate. Whether it's in the form of
too-enthusiastically gushing over a highly-placed official who has deigned
to give you an exclusive interview, or (in this case), in the form of
writing nice things about the armed force that leads you on a tour of the
territory it has decimated, you're always screwing your reader in the end
if you sell your soul to get him a scoop. In her February 13 piece,
"Grozny's Basement Survivors Find Few Signs of Life", Maura Reynolds of the
L.A. Times without a doubt screws her reader badly-- but only after
nauseating him with her atrocious writing skills.
Here's the lead to Reynolds's piece:
'GROZNY, Russia-- The ground here in Chechnya's capital is literally
scorched. It stretches, black and tender, between piles of concrete too
shapeless even to be called ruins.'
First of all, what does the phrase "literally scorched" mean? Can one have
a "figuratively scorched" ground? What would such a ground look like?
Secondly, the inclusion of the word "tender" here sets off a virtual
explosion of superfluous and/or ineptly-applied modifiers. By my reckoning
there are at least 10 clearly superfluous adjectives in this article:
"tender", "dusty", "smoky", "grimy", "filthy", "deep", "timid", "green" and
"charred" (cruelly herded together in the positively loathsome sentence,
"But with the dawn, some evidence of hope emerges like green shoots through
charred earth") and "dark".
But Reynolds's poor writing is the least of her worries in this piece. The
really disgusting part about her article is her thinly-disguised flattery
of the Emergencies Ministry, who I would bet almost anything acted as her
guide for at least part of this story (the tipoff being that she quotes an
Emergencies Ministry driver). Throughout the piece, she describes the
Ministry (the MChS) in a way that makes them out to be a sort of Russian
Red Cross-a benevolent aid service helping war victims. Here's one example:
'?Russian officials moving in to begin the slow job of clearing the
destruction and healing the victims find themselves debating whether the
landscape looks more like Dresden or Stalingrad.
'``They said they would bomb Grozny to the ground. Well, they bombed Grozny
to the ground,'' said Alexander Kudryashov, an emergencies ministry driver
arriving in the city with food and medicine.'
And another example:
'Looking for a site for a field hospital, the emergencies ministry resorted
to an old bus depot on the edge of town. The roof was only half missing.
'"In a couple of days, I think we'll be seeing about 300 people a day,''
said Serge Goncharov, the doctor running the hospital, which treated its
first patients Saturday. ``Children will be coming back, and they will pick
up anything. They pick up grenades and get their hands blown off. It
happens to adults too.'''
And another, in this case casting the ministry as one of those "green
shoots" of hope:
'The emergencies ministry has set up four feeding stations offering hot
meals once a day.'
What Reynolds has conveniently forgotten to tell her reader is that the
Emergencies Minister, Sergei Shoigu, has been one of the staunchest nuke
'em-till-they-glow supporters of the Chechen war effort, right from the
very beginning. As the head of the pro-Putin, pro-war Unity party, Shoigu
was the driving voice behind the effort to rally the Russian population
into a bloodlust over Chechnya. Shoigu was the one who directed the effort
to send civilian refugees back into Chechnya so that they could have their
heads blown off by Russian bombs. What's more, Reynolds seems to forget
that the MChS is also an armed force which participated in the fighting in
Chechnya. In several places she actually contrasts the MChS with the
soldiers, a gross error. The MChS doctors and aid workers she encountered
may be genuinely good people, but they are working for the very
organization which brought about the emergency that required their charity.
Leaving all of this stuff out is too high a price to pay for a guided tour
of a bomb site.
The eXile prescribes a soaking and ten friendly minutes with a car battery
to Reynolds's opponent, Brian Whitmore of the Boston Globe, for quoting
wretched ex-World Bank quote whore Charles Blitzer in his Feb. 2 piece,
"Russia's Dirty Money". Otherwise, however, Whitmore's piece on the Mabetex
scandal was solid and thorough. He never had a chance in this one. Reynolds
on to round three; New England's last hope bows out.
Gareth Jones (6), Reuters, def. Andrew Jack, Financial Times
Why does Gareth Jones always have that smile on his face? Because he knows
there will always be jobs for people willing and able to write cringing,
voluminously syrupy praise of Swine in Power. In our last visit to
Jonesland we caught the Reuters standout tripping over himself to call
repulsive Duma vermin Gennady Seleznyov "dapper"; in this round Jones
contrives somehow to describe as "charming" a man who is primarily
distinguished by his lack of personality and presence-Vladimir Putin.
Here's the lead to Jones's piece:
'MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The door opens. A short, brisk man strides out
purposefully with a bevy of aides in tow and ushers his waiting guest
politely into a seat.
'Vladimir Putin oozes cool confidence after barely a month as Russia's
acting president, and on Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright became the latest Western official to feel the force of his
charm.'
First, the small mistakes. I'm not sure a man can be "brisk". He can have a
brisk walk, but I don't think he himself can be brisk. Secondly, about the
politeness of Putin's ushering of Madeline into her seat?well, what the
hell was he supposed to do-- give her a wedgie and kick her in the knees?
In a less routinely slavish writer than Jones, calling attention (in the
lead!) to a politician's observance of absolutely mandatory politeness
might be dismissed as simply an oversight or evidence of mild laziness, but
in Jones it fits in all too nicely with the overall pattern of his
rhetoric. As was the case with Seleznyov, he seems to enjoy giving powerful
people credit for anything and everything they have to offer-- right down,
in Putin's case, to an ability to not act like a slobbering beast in
public.
Furthermore, Jones here commits the always-irritating sin of reporting as
fact the mythical reactions and emotions of public figures during public
events. How do we know Madeline Albright felt "the full force of his
charm"? Even if she said she did-which she didn't, exactly-there would be
no reason to believe her. In general this kind of extrapolation of the
feelings of public figures has the overall effect of making them seem
larger than life. Tell us what they said, tell us what you think they felt,
but don't tell us what they felt, because you can't possibly know. I mean,
who's your source, Santa Claus? That's particularly true in this case, when
the likelihood of Albright's having been genuinely charmed by Vladimir
Putin is? well, I'd say absolutely zero, but then again, Madeline Albright
probably hasn't had sex with a man in a long time, so it's hard to say?
It is probably necessary to admit the remote possibility that Jones here
is being ironic in his use of this overtly ridiculous "full force of his
charm" phrase. If this is indeed the case, it is a very sad, very small,
and very timid joke, one which does little more than underscore the
humiliatingly severe limits on self-expression that must be the rule for
chain-gang writers at places like Reuters. If it is not a joke, then Jones
is either a fool or a mean propagandist. To call Vladimir Putin charming in
the middle of the decimation of Grozny is inappropriate almost any way you
look at it.
Jones goes on, as he did with Seleznyov, to throw all kinds of nice words
at Putin: he is "firm", "alert", "healthy", a man who has "vigour" and "a
clear grasp of his brief" (is this another joke, with a touch of Freud
added?) and should be praised for his "measured flexibility" and
"decisiveness". Jones also adds, incorrectly, that Putin has avoided "the
sharp language used by some Russian officials" in talking about the Chechen
war. Wasn't it Vladimir Putin who said, "We'll kill them even in the
toilet"? What could be sharper than that?
But Jones's utter desperation to attach any kind of positive adjective to
Putin is best borne out in the following passage:
'``This guy (Putin) is self-assured, but he has every reason to be,
considering his popularity (in Russia),'' said one official in Albright's
party, adding that ``steely'' was not an inappropriate adjective to apply
to the former KGB spy.'
Jones here couldn't even get an anonymous official to confirm, without
prodding, that the use of the blurry and utterly meaningless adjective
"steely" was positively appropriate. The best he can get out of his source
is a "not inappropriate", with prodding. These are some pretty serious
verbal gymnastics. You'll never look far for work in this world if you're
willing to make stretches like that.
In contrast, Andrew Jack of the Financial Times in his Feb 12. 109-word
dispatch, "Rebels 'Surrender' to Police" used only one adjective,
"local"-and he didn't have to stretch for it. Jones therefore advances
easily, ending the FT's hopes for putting two writers into the final eight.
Michael Gordon (3), New York Times, def. Owen Matthews, Newsweek
Owen Matthews hasn't filed since the last round. Michael Gordon doesn't
have that problem. He's been filing constantly, on a daily basis almost,
delivering detailed accounts of the war zone in Chechnya home to the
friendly folks who read the New York Times. In fact, Gordon has been so
prodigiously successful at filing while other big-time reporters haven't
that he even made the news recently on account of it. A thing called
Editors and Publishers magazine, a boosterish industry-friendly trade
magazine about print media-a sort of Adweek for hacks-published an article
on January 24 in which Gordon was lauded not only for being the sole
big-market print reporter working in Russia to consistently deliver stories
from the front, but for being the only major print reporter responsible
enough to fully cooperate with the Russian authorities and stay within the
"rules" in covering the war. The piece, by E & P's Joe Strupp, leads off by
talking about the failure of certain major news organizations to gain
access to the war because their reporters "lacked the proper credentials"
and were detained by Russian authorities.
The reporters Strupp is talking about, seven in all, are Daniel Williams of
The Washington Post, David Filipov of the Boston Globe, Marcus Warren of
London's Daily Telegraph; Rodriguez Fernandez of Spain's El Pais; Ricardo
Ortego of Spanish Antenna 3 TV; and Ortego's camera operator, Teimuraz
Gabashvili.
Ostensibly detained for lacking the proper credentials, what these
reporters were really detained for was doing their jobs-i.e. not
restricting themselves to the Russian side of the war, and attempting to
get to the Chechen side to give a more balanced picture of what was going
on. What they did took guts and integrity; all were risking losing their
immediate livelihoods by having permission to work in Russia revoked by the
authorities. Furthermore, the news organizations they worked for showed
some huevos by being willing to get beat by the New York Times from time to
time in order to give their journalists a chance to cover the war
correctly.
Editors and Publishers doesn't call attention to any of this, or give any
of these journalists credit for doing the right thing; instead, it
castigates them in not-so-subtle fashion for their poor market performance
in comparison to Gordon's New York Times:
'A review of stories about the war published in daily newspapers over
several days last week revealed that each news organization had taken
decidedly different approaches to coverage.
'On Jan. 17, for example, The New York Times published a first-person
account by Gordon of Russian officials touring the war-torn area in
Chechnya, responding to complaints from refugees, and keeping watch for
snipers.
'The same day, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street
Journal, and The Washington Post each published AP stories on other events,
with the Post offering only a world briefs item on air attacks over Grozny
that used a Defense Ministry source...
'? Although the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post also have
published staff-written material about the war, most of the stories have
been datelined Moscow and have reported on issues linked to the Russian
capital rather than inside Chechnya.'
The second paragraph above provides a rare, sickening glimpse at the true
face of the news business. Strupp obviously doesn't know anything about the
Chechen war; he doesn't know how loaded and ambiguous phrases like
"responding to complaints from refugees" and "keeping watch for snipers"
are. He also doesn't care. For Strupp, the industry analyst, it doesn't
matter what it was Gordon got. It only matters that he got it. That's what
modern news is all about-getting a story that contains the titillating
superficial aspects of good reporting, regardless of whether the reporting
is any good or not. Get the pictures at all costs; fuck up the story if you
need to.
For all of Gordon's prodigiousness at filing, his reporting is far behind
the pack and has been from the outset. The other bureau big shots were down
in Chechnya much earlier and, having exposed themselves to both sides of
the issue, are clearly better informed. Gordon came to the story late and
hasn't once left the Russian side of the battle, and his reporting is
obviously skewed in a pro-Russian direction as a result. His February 14
piece, "Russian Troops Order Evacuation of Grozny", is a perfect example of
his myopic approach to the war. The piece describes in an unemotional way
the Russian clean-up operation, citing information that has clearly been
spoon-fed to him by the Russian authorities. Not once does he talk about
the civilian casualties in Grozny, or mention the senseless marauding and
burning of remaining residences by Russian troops, or describe with any
kind of alarm the scale of senseless destruction wrought by the Russians in
the city. Instead, he seems more to share the mean logistical concerns of
the Russian commanders when he writes stuff like this:
'Looting has been a serious problem. The first complement of pro-Russian
Chechen police officers arrived Monday.'
Well, thank God for that. We're sure they'll do a good job. Here's another
example of Gordon acting as ventriloquist dummy to the Russian military
spokesmen:
'Col. Nikolai A. Zaitsev, a senior Interior Ministry officer, said the
capital of the embattled province of Chechnya had become too dangerous for
its inhabitants. It will be off-limits for two weeks
while Interior Ministry troops comb the city for weapons, unexploded
bombs and booby-traps.
'Russian officers conceded that the move was also a precaution against
rebel infiltration. Leaflets circulated throught the city Monday warning
residents that militants were planning a new guerrilla
campaign.'
Note the use of the word "conceded" here-there's the ventriloquism in
action. The officials didn't "concede" anything to Gordon, not in the
traditional sense of being presented with an independently researched fact
and forced to admit its truth. No, what they did here is "concede" their
pretext for evacuating the few remaining people from their homes and doing
whatever it is they're really doing there, burying evidence or looting or
whatever. The pretext they're "conceding" is exactly the same as the
pretext for the entire war, namely that it was undertaken as a precaution
against terrorist attacks. They could have just announced this pretext, but
it seems a lot more convincing, a lot more like the truth, when you can
"concede" it to the bureau chief of the New York Times.
How does Gordon justify sending such one-sided, biased reports home to the
world's most influential newspaper? Amazingly, he answers that question
himself in the Editors and Publishers article:
'"We made a different choice to follow rules and regulations and work
within the system," said Gordon, who has filed daily dispatches from within
the battle zone for a number of weeks. "Others didn't want to, and jumped
the gun."'
Yes, you caught that right-that's Gordon actually bragging that he plays
ball with the Russians to get access to war zones. No less shocking is the
fact that Gordon here has the balls to denigrate his fellow journalists for
"jumping the gun" in not playing along with the Russians' wishes. It's one
thing to be a whore, but to brag about it, and worse still publicly thumb
your nose at your colleagues for risking their lives to preserve the
integrity of their profession-well, that's another thing entirely. This is
a level of professional villainy I don't think Moscow's Western press corps
has ever seen before.
eXile readers might also have noticed that Gordon has been appearing a lot
on Russian television lately. As a reward for being so obedient, he's
clearly being granted by the Russians the status of elder spokesman for the
Western journalism community. Soon he'll be co-hosting Sergei Dorenko's
show, no doubt.
I would think some kind of collective action against Gordon by his
colleagues has to be pending-a boycott, a petition, a malevolent
professional intrigue, something. In the meantime, Gordon remains a Menace
II Society and is through to the next round in a walk.
Giles Whittell, Times UK, def. Alice Lagnado, Times UK
Alice Lagnado, back from her sojourn in elaborate and long-winded disguise
in Chechnya, has apparently not filed in the past two weeks. There are some
people who have argued that a reporter who does not file should
automatically advance to the next round. We at the eXile disagree. On the
contrary, in most cases, a reporter should be rewarded for not filing.
There are lots of journalists out there who argue that criticism of their
hack-formulaic articles is unfair, because they're just doing their jobs,
doing what their editors tell them to do, etc. In response to that argument
we have the following to say: hey, there's always McDonald's, guys.
Nobody's forcing you at gunpoint to write blowjob pieces about monsters
like Vladimir Putin, or to run around Grozny with fake beards on, angling
for book contracts. There are other jobs out there.
Therefore it makes no sense to keep someone in the running for the title of
worst journalist if someone has just made the best possible case against
his candidacy, i.e. has simply stopped practicing journalism.
The question probably would have been moot in this case, anyway, for
Lagnado's boss, Giles Whittell, put forth a strong enough effort to
guarantee victory against anything Lagnado was likely to cough up. The lead
to his Feb. 8 piece, "Chechen Warlords In Bitter Battle for Power", went as
follows:
'AS SHAMIL BASAYEV's foot was amputated under local anaesthetic last week
outside Grozny, he let the video cameras roll. The rebel warlord's flair
for publicity may serve him well as Chechens and the wider world wait for a
leader to emerge from the wreckage of the republic's latest war.'
This is not exactly a lead-o-matic lead, but close, an affectionate salute
to one. The "As something happened near something located next to something
else last week, something happened" structure of the lead sentence is
classic lead-o-matic language. Two elements are missing, however. One is
the lead-o-matic byline. The standard form insists upon (EXOTIC CITY,
Foreign Country) as the byline location, but Whittell couldn't do that one
because, as you knew if you looked closely, he wasn't at the exotic scene
of the crime. The actual byline reads, "FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW',
which actually could have been amended to read "FROM GILES WHITTELL IN
FRONT OF HIS TELEVISION SET." That Whitell wrote this piece from TV is no
crime, but his lead sure leaves readers the impression that he was in the
same general vicinity of Basayev when he had the foot amputated.
The second problem with this lead is that Whittell violates the simplest
grade-school rules of composition by not giving his far-less informed
reader the slightest clue as to how this Basayev person came to be having
his foot amputated. I must confess to having read this article before I
knew the amputation story in full, and was therefore totally baffled as I
continued reading down this piece and discovered that Whittell doesn't
anywhere elaborate on the basic news elements of the amputation story. In
fact, Whittell goes a full six paragraphs after the lead without returning
to his introductory subject, and even then only to say:
'?Mr Basayev, a former computer salesman and Soviet Army fireman, now ranks
as Chechnya's best-known warlord, loathed by the Russians but admired for
his military daring. Minus a foot, he is more popular than ever among
diehard separatists. But as a potential figurehead Mr Basayev is hamstrung,
since Russia will not include him in talks.'
Is Whittell kidding, having a little private laugh with himself, when he
describes someone who's just lost a foot as being politically "hamstrung"?
I sure hope so.
In sum, Whittell's article goes something like this: "I saw someone get his
foot amputated on television and I either don't know or don't care to tell
you why. There is a vicious power struggle going on between warlords in
Chechnya, and I know this because Russian television, which has an interest
in furthering this idea, told me. The Chechens claim they're okay and
united behind one guy but I don't believe them because analysts working for
Western think-tanks tell me not to. I also don't believe him because even
here from my seat in Moscow I, Giles Whittell, know what the Chechen people
are really thinking ("The problem for Chechnya is that few people believe
this," Whittell writes). Meanwhile that guy is still missing his foot and
is therefore hamstrung politically. Moving on, there is another guy out
there who is a candidate to be a rebel leader [Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev] but I
don't have any additional information about him so that's where my piece
ends."
Whittell at least left the Moscow Times alone in this piece, but it didn't
help much. Boss Giles advances; Alice Lagnado goes back to the costume
room.
Helen Womack (5), Independent, def. Marcus Warren, Electronic Telegraph
Womack tried to worm her way out of the tournament by going on "vacation"
over the last two weeks, but she advances anyway because Warren did
absolutely nothing to deserve advancing. His laid-back Feb. 15
letter-from-Moscow piece, "TV puppets come under fire from Putin court",
hits all the cylinders; it supports a cause worth supporting in the Kukli
people, doesn't try to do too much, is wittily and entertainingly written,
and even manages to skillfully weave into the text an impressively prete
ntious term, "lese-majeste", without showing any strain on the surrounding
sentences. Warren obviously has full control over the "letter from afar"
genre-toss in a bunch of interesting news flashes, keep the segues short,
keep it light and chatty, don't over-dramatize the distance from home, etc.
Pieces like this are what British reporters are designed for.
Womack didn't file, but the strength of her previous work carries her past
Warren on this one. In looking back at her work over the last year it was
hard to avoid noticing that Womack has for some time (since the departure
of Anna Blundy) been establishing herself as the Western press corps' most
fearsome anti-Russian-female terrorist. This paramilitary force of Russian
women-haters to which she belongs has been operating above ground for about
ten years in Russia, or ever since the mini-skirt arrived here. One of its
most malicious practices involves calling Russian women whores for not
being as ugly or badly-dressed as they are. In Womack's piece from October
3 of last year, "Russian Dolls"-ostensibly a homage to Raisa Gorbacheva but
really an assault on cute Russian girls-- she shows 'em how:
'But to a young woman, dressed in skin-tight silver jumper and heavy
make-up like a model going to a party (despite being a secretary on her
lunch break), Gorbacheva meant nothing?'
Note Womack's frustration at the girl being dressed up "despite being a
secretary", whatever that means. Later on, she goes to the extreme lengths
of quoting a Western p.r. consultant to get her real message across:
'Lawrence McDonnell, a British businessman who runs a public relations
company, Pravda, in Moscow, puts it more succinctly. "The look of a typical
Russian woman in her twenties can be summed up in one word: sex," he says.
"Frankly, if they were in Britain there'd be a danger of being thought of
as tarty."'
I don't know why Western female reporters persist in writing these stories.
When they do, they're as much as announcing to the world that they're
bitter, sexually-frustrated, unhappy people. And their stories are mean and
petty to boot. Womack's vacation tactic ineffective; she advances to round
three.
Matrin Nesirky, Reuters, def. Celestine Bohlen (7), New York Times
Technically an upset, but not really-sort of like Tennessee beating the
spread over the Rams. After two weeks of competition, we can definitely say
this about Martin Nesirky: the man has his game face on. His February 3
piece, "Russian Security Chief Says No Need to Fear KGB", was one of those
rare articles which can bring the whole crowd to its feet. After about four
graphs of it, actually, you could hear the fans stamping their feet and
howling "We Will Rock You" at the doomed Bohlen.
The crux of his piece was that KGB veterans like Vladimir Putin are okay
because a friendly KGB veteran who (just like you and me!) reads spy novels
in English says so. Here's how it leads:
'MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Russia and the outside world need have nothing
to fear from Soviet-era KGB agents such as Acting President Vladimir Putin,
according to the secretary of the influential Security Council.
'Sergei Ivanov, who spent 20 years in intelligence himself and reads
English-language spy novels, told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in an
interview published on Thursday there would be changes to the security
services but no major shake-up.'
Nesirky's lead sentence reads at first like a declarative statement of
fact-the world has nothing to fear from Soviet-era ex-KGB agents. This is a
standard straight-news rhetorical device, the leading off with a
declarative assertion that actually belongs to an interview subject (for
straight news reporters are not allowed to simply declare their own
opinions), but even within the muddled ethics of wire-service writing
Nesirky fails miserably here. For the usual practice with these sorts of
leads is for the reporter to balance the lead assertion with a
hastily-interjected antithesis a few paragraphs down, i.e. "But while
Ivanov says X, others maintained that he is totally full of shit because of
Y?"
Nesirky doesn't do this. The entire article flows freely from the lead
assertion, leading one to believe-and I actually do believe this-that
Nesirky personally agrees with the idea that the world has nothing to fear
from ex-KGB agents like Vladimir Putin. That this idea is transparently
ridiculous on its face-obviously the world has lots to fear from ex-KGB
agents, some of the world's leading experts on torture, surveillance, and
repression-doesn't seem to bother Nesirky. In fact, the Reuters chief
correspondent seems to be totally pacified, charmed even, by the glaringly
irrelevant fact that Ivanov reads Frederick Forsyth novels. This fact is
introduced at the beginning and the end of the piece as a means of
enhancing Ivanov's credibility with Western readers, despite the fact that
intelligence service vets who speak foreign languages usually learned them
in service of official enmity of their subject countries. Ivanov knows
English because he learned it in order to spy on us! And now that he's
telling us we shouldn't worry about his former colleagues, we're supposed
to simply believe him, because he says so? Nesirky seems a fool for buying
into this idea, but he doesn't stop there; he wants also to convince us
that KGB veterans should simply be admired in general, because they are
highly qualified professionals:
'Ivanov, who worked as a spy in Europe and Africa, said those who harboured
such fears should remember the KGB had employed only the best people.
'``It was done in an extremely demanding and strict way,'' he said. ``They
only took the cream.'''
Best people? Best at what? Snitching on their friends? Nesirky doesn't
elaborate, or offer any evidence to debunk this increasingly popular
argument, that having a KGB vet as President of Russia is not only not
necessarily undesirable, but actually desirable, for the very reason that
KGB people are such consummate professionals. Vladimir Putin is okay, the
argument goes, because spies are good people. Nesirky appears to actually
believe this himself; his text reads like an article written by a British
spy frustrated by the lack of respect for his profession. Who knows, maybe
he is.
One last thing about Nesirky's piece; the entire thing was taken from
Komsomolskaya Pravda. Not a single phone call in there. This just
demonstrates what desperate lengths he was willing to go to to make his
point. For a wire-service baron like Nesirky to run a full-fledged news
analysis based on something with such minor news value, he had to have been
either very hard up for a story or very excited about the theme personally.
You be the judge.
In contrast to Nesirky's article, Celestine Bohlen's Feb. 2 piece, "Mothers
Teach Art of Draft Dodging," reads like Shakespeare. In it she distances
herself from her vile colleague Gordon by writing in great detail, through
the vehicle of Russian war mothers, about what a tremendously evil pile of
shit the Chechen war effort is. Like most of the contests in this round,
this was a rout. Nesirky moves on.
David Hoffman (2), Washington Post, met Gary Peach, Moscow Times (late)
This one went into overtime. At the eXile deadline, there was still no
winner. Peach was about to advance automatically on the strength of
Hoffman's failure to file for two weeks, but then a rumor reached us that a
piece of his was coming out soon, and we elected to wait. We can't have too
many forefeits; it wouldn't be fair to the ticket holders. You'll therefore
see the results to two contests in this space in the next issue. Stay
tuned. It's March Madness, baby!
********
#6
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000
From: x
Subject: RF Tax Collection
On 1 February 2000, Russian nationals employed at the US Embassy Moscow
suffered an approximately 40% pay cut as part of a payroll deduction plan
to provide income tax payments directly to the government of the Russian
Federation. Previously there had been a great deal of argument between the
embassy and the government about the failure of these employees to make
their own tax payments. While one can understand the desirability for all
citizens to pay taxes, the Russian government seems to go after those most
vulnerable, easiest to intimidate, and least likely to solve the financial
crisis. As is the case with multinational corporations, these foreign
nationals do not receive a wage which is even comparable to that which
would have to be paid to an expatriate. Additionally, these individuals
which are to some extent vetted, so that there is some degree of certainty
regarding their loyalty. They are then harassed by their own government for
being politically unreliable and they are marked adversely for life. If
the US government is to make an example of their own employees, should we
not also have insisted that the Russian Federation Government also collect
taxes from pop stars, Mafia, oligarchs, and their own apparatchiki also?
Why should we penalize those Russians which are struggling to establish the
middle class and which have served us so well? If the Clinton
Administration feels so strongly about setting an example which subsidizes
the well known corruption within the Russian government, perhaps they could
also provide a salary increase for these employees in order to partially
offset the withholding tax loss. A happy employee is a productive,
reliable employee!
*******
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