February 25, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4131 4132

Johnson's Russia List
#4132
25 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russian arms control envoy rules out changes to ABM.
2. AFP: Russia's Putin unveils crime-busting election platform.
3. Reuters: Putin calls for great, prosperous Russia.
4. AP: Concerns on Atrocities in Chechnya.
5. Moscow Times: Robert Coalson, Sobchak's Dubious Legacy.
6. AP: Source Unknown in N.Y. Bank Scandal.
7. Sarah Mendelson: Democracy Assistance Study.
8. Ray Thomas: RE: 4130-Albats/BONY Scam and Putin.
9. BBC MONITORING: RUSSIA IS NOT AN AGGRESSOR AND HAS NO PLANS TO BECOME ONE - SECURITY CHIEF.(Sergey Ivanov)
10. Ben Brodkin: Soviet dissidents.
11. Washington Post: Peter Bouckaert, The Real War Begins.(Chechnya)
12. Boston Globe: Kevin Cullen, NATO, Russia have trouble reconciling.
13. Jonathan Sanders: Afrika Evokes: The Soviet Schizophrenic Spirit, Installed in New York.]

*******

#1
Russian arms control envoy rules out changes to ABM

GENEVA, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A senior Russian arms control official on Thursday 
condemned the proposed U.S. national missile defence system and ruled out 
accepting any changes to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). 

Vasily Sidorov, Russian ambassador to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, 
again urged the 66-member state forum to launch negotiations aimed at 
preventing an arms race in outer space. 

China's envoy, Hu Xiaodi, also slammed the proposed U.S. shield and urged 
Washington to refrain from further testing. 

Hu also said that the United States should stop seeking changes to the 1972 
pact and should agree to launching the negotiations on outer space at the 
world's only multilateral arms control body. 

Diplomats say the United States is the only country blocking the required 
consensus at the Geneva forum. 

In bilateral talks with Russia, the United States is seeking amendments to 
the landmark ABM treaty, which limits the types of systems which Russia and 
the United States may deploy to intercept incoming missiles. 

``Prevention of an arms race both in outer space and on Earth fully and 
completely depends on the viability of the 1972 ABM treaty. Its regime 
permits to prevent emergence of a whole class of space weapons, namely ABM 
weapons,'' Sidorov said. 

``We want to unambiguously state that the Russian side is not holding 
negotiations on adaptation of the ABM treaty with the United States,'' he 
said. ``We openly and frankly state that we will not take part in the 
destruction of this fundamental document and in practical terms it is the 
very existence of the Agreement that is actually at stake.'' 

Moscow's position had been ``reconfirmed once again'' during the visit of 
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Moscow earlier this month, 
according to Sidorov. 

Albright has told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she saw signs 
of open-mindedness in arms control talks with Russian leaders including 
Acting President Vladimir Putin. 

The Pentagon is due to send a recommendation to U.S. President Bill Clinton 
in June on whether to build a national missile defence system. 

Clinton is under pressure from the Republican-led Congress to proceed quickly 
with it so as to protect U.S. cities against attack from ``rogue states.'' 

*******

#2
Russia's Putin unveils crime-busting election platform

MOSCOW, Feb 25 (AFP) - 
Russia's acting president Vladimir Putin on friday unveiled a populist 
election manifesto, tough on crime and Chechen rebels, which he hopes will 
push him to victory in next month's presidential poll.

In an "open letter" o electors published in the Izvestia daily, Putin said 
Russia's two main problems were "the lack of will" and "the lack of firmness" 
which notably allowed criminal gangs to develop throughout the country.

He espoused a "dictatorship of the law" to fight crime on all fronts in an 
election platform short of surprises. Putin's main vote-winner among Russia's 
electorate at the moment is the campaign being waged by Russian forces 
against Chechen rebels.

"While we talk about the fight against crime... it is taking root everywhere, 
to the extent that a republic of the Russian federation, Chechnya, has been 
transformed into a fortress for the criminal underworld," he said

but the Russian army is defeating the "Chechen bandits" in a move towards 
establishing "a dictatorship of the law which is fair to all".

"It's the first step, others will follow," Putin, the firm favourite to win 
the March 26 presidential poll, added.

"Democracy, that's the dictatorship of the law," he stressed.

"Plus a strong government, plus personal freedom," he said, adding that the 
rights of the individual would be respected.

The other priorities of his government he listed as: The fight against 
poverty and the defence of Russia's new market economy against both criminal 
and bureaucratic misdeeds.

"Only the country's real interests, in particular its economic interests, 
will drive Russian foreign policy," said Putin, former president Boris 
Yeltsin's handpicked heir apparent.

According to a recent opinion poll, 59 percent of Russian voters support 
Putin, who, experts say, could take the presidential vote at the first round 
on March 26.

Putin's aggressive stance towards rebels in Chechnya dominates his image.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. after meeting Putin earlier this 
month, described him as "a very well-informed person, a very good 
interlocutor and a Russian patriot."

But Washington officials concede off the record that there is little concrete 
evidence to suggest whether Putin is closer at heart to liberal economist 
Yegor Gaidar or to Stalin.

*******

#3
Putin calls for great, prosperous Russia
By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Acting President Vladimir Putin told voters on 
Thursday that Russia was beset by the paradox of being a ``rich country of 
poor people'' and said it was his ambition to create a strong, prosperous 
country. 

Putin, heavily favoured in next month's presidential election, pointed to 
military successes in Chechnya as an example of how order might be restored. 
And he said Russia had to focus on resolving its domestic problems, even at 
the cost of pulling out of prestigious international projects. 

``It was once said in Russia: 'Our country is rich but lacking in order.' No 
one will ever again say that of us,'' Putin said in a page-long ``open 
letter'' printed on Thursday evening in the daily Izvestia. 

``We have to say out loud: we are a rich country of poor people, a country of 
paradoxes, social, economic and cultural, rather than political in nature.'' 

Growing crime, he said, was a prime example of post-Soviet society falling 
prey to disorder, particularly in Chechnya ``occupied by the criminal world 
and turned into a fortress.'' 

``It was worth our while to confront and defeat the bandits. A real step 
forward has been made towards the primacy of law and dictatorships of 
legislation before which all are equal.'' 

Russians had nothing to fear from ensuring order in society: ``The stronger 
the state, the freer the individual,'' he wrote. 

Calls to proceed with the five-month-old military campaign in separatist 
Chechnya and restore a measure of greatness have figured prominently in 
Putin's pronouncements since taking over as acting president after Boris 
Yeltsin's new year resignation. 

Putin's standing in opinion polls far outstrips any of his 10 rivals taking 
part in the March 26 poll. 

Two polls published on Wednesday put him just below 60 percent, compared to 
18 to 22 for Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov, his closest opponent. 
But one analyst said his rating might be overstated and some surveys have 
given him less than the 50 percent needed for outright victory in the first 
round. 

Other candidates are given little chance of doing better than single figures. 

ZYUGANOV SAYS PUTIN HAS NO POLICIES 

Zyuganov, campaigning at a Moscow theatre, repeated accusations that voters 
knew nothing of Putin's policies. China, he said, had shown the example of a 
country able to feed its people and ensure economic growth. 

``Nothing has been said about whether property will be in the hands of a few 
or belong to the people,'' he said in televised comments. ``Nothing has been 
said about supporting domestic production or about solving our cultural 
problems.'' 

Putin has promised to disclose by the end of the month a detailed electoral 
platform, which is being drafted by a Moscow think tank. 

In his open letter, he revealed few specific plans but said state control was 
necessary to right Russia's economy, generate growth and persuade people that 
``it is more worth their while to work honestly than to steal.'' 

He said Russia might have to opt out of international projects if it could 
not afford them, but did not elaborate. 

``If one or another international project is not profitable, however 
appealing it may seem, we need not get involved,'' he wrote. ``If Russia is 
pressed to deal with costly global matters while we are living in debt or are 
unable to pay salaries, we will have to consider our options and perhaps put 
matters off.'' 

*******

#4
Concerns on Atrocities in Chechnya
February 25, 2000
By JUDITH INGRAM

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian television broadcast footage today suggesting Russian 
troops had committed atrocities against Chechens, as Europe's chief human 
rights advocate met with top Russian officials over the war in the breakaway 
republic.

The film, which was supplied by the German television station N24, showed a 
pile of men's bodies in a ditch. The men's ankles were bound with wire, and 
at least one of the bodies was missing an ear. It also showed soldiers 
pushing a body wrapped in a blanket off a Russian armored vehicle, and a 
military truck dragging a dead man across a field.

Russian TV networks said the pictures apparently showed captured Chechen 
fighters whom Russian troops had tortured and killed.

Sergei Yatsrzhembsky, the chief presidential spokesman on Chechnya, called 
the footage ``a very serious document that demands thorough study, first of 
all regarding the circumstances of the Chechens' death.''

``The chief military prosecutor's office must definitely pay attention to 
this video,'' he said.

But other Russian officials dismissed the footage as ``propaganda'' and ``a 
falsification.''

``The authors of the TV report carried out a political order,'' said Oleg 
Aksyonov, spokesman for Russia's Interior Ministry, according to the Interfax 
news agency. He added that ``elementary logic suggests that if a crime were 
committed, video recording was unlikely to be permitted.''

He said that the tape actually showed the burial of rebels killed in combat.

Russia's human rights commissioner, Oleg Mironov, called the tape ``another 
propaganda trick by the rebels.''

``In the present situation, when the operations of Russian troops in Chechnya 
are under unremitting control, hardly anyone would risk committing the 
unlawful acts shown on the tape,'' Interfax quoted him as saying.

It was unclear just what control he was referring to. The Russian authorities 
have so far made Chechnya off-limits to Russian and foreign human rights 
groups, and they have tried to heavily restrict journalists' movements.

The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, has 
requested permission to visit Chechnya. He met today with Foreign Minister 
Igor Ivanov, the newly appointed human rights commissioner for Chechnya, 
Vladimir Kalamanov, and Mironov.

The Russians and the Chechens have regularly traded accusations of barbarity, 
with each side claiming the other's fighters are torturing and mutilating 
their opponents. The two sides have also accused each other of mistreating 
civilians, using them as human shields, looting their property and summarily 
executing them.

Foreign governments have concentrated their criticism on Russian treatment of 
civilians. They have protested alleged war crimes including three civilian 
massacres documented by international human rights groups and the alleged 
torture of Chechen detainees in so-called filtration camps. Moscow has 
angrily denied the allegations.

********

#5
Moscow Times
February 25, 2000 
MEDIA WATCH: Sobchak's Dubious Legacy 
By Robert Coalson 

My mother-in-law burst into tears when she heard last weekend that former St. 
Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak had died. She herself was surprised by the 
force of her reaction to the news, since she - like millions of average 
Russians - has lost virtually all interest in politics over the last few 
years. 

For her, as for so many others, Sobchak personified an era of lofty and 
as-yet unrealized dreams. 

In the days since his death, all the local and central media have commented 
on the irony of his journey from the heights of popularity in the late '80s 
and '90s to his lost re-election bid for mayor in 1996 and his ignominious 
months as an exile in Paris in 1998 and 1999. 

His admirers repeated their praise of him as an honest and principled 
democrat, while his political enemies resurrected their charges of 
corruption. Average citizens were left with their natural compassion for a 
man who has died too young, but with precious little sense of who he really 
was, what he really set out to do and what, in the end, he managed to 
achieve. 

At the risk of seeming hard-hearted, I cannot help but think that Sobchak 
himself bears much of the blame for the fact that he left no clear legacy. 

Although he fervently believed in the rule of law and free-market economics, 
he simply did not trust the true foundation of democracy: an open information 
society. 

Either from vanity or from a desire for expedience (or, most likely, from a 
combination of both), Sobchak was only too pleased to maintain the political 
control of the media that he inherited from the Soviet system. As a principal 
author of the Russian Constitution and as mayor of the country's 
second-largest city with an enormous popular mandate, Sobchak had the best 
opportunity of allto initiate the process of institutionalizing freedom of 
the press here. Instead, he kept municipal newspapers and broadcast outlets 
firmly under his control and did nothing to enable private media to become 
financially viable. His administration was opaque. 

I don't mean to say that things necessarily would have turned out 
differently. Sobchak himself was aware of the burden of the Soviet legacy. 
"We are trying to build a democratic society in Russia on the basis of 
resources that are totally inappropriate for that," he said once, even before 
he had become mayor. "I mean our upbringing, our convictions and prejudices, 
our legal and economic system." 

But I don't think he realized the extent to which he himself was a victim of 
Soviet political culture. That culture prevented him from understanding that 
democracy is not a gift that benevolent leaders can hand down to the people, 
but a messy process of popular consensus-building based on reliable access to 
information. 

It is sadly telling that Sobchak, perhaps the person who most deserves the 
title of author of the Russian Constitution, fled the country when faced with 
charges of corruption, knowing that he could never get a fair trial within 
the system he helped create. The power of the state-controlled media, which 
had passed into the hands of his political enemies, was easily sufficient to 
overwhelm the legal process. 

"Journalism," as the clichÎ goes, "is the first rough draft of history." In 
the case of Sobchak and in the case of the entire post-Soviet period, that 
rough draft simply was not written. As a result, I fear, we will never really 
understand the achievements and failures of this period. We won't learn from 
the mistakes that were made, and we will not appreciate the greatness of 
people like Sobchak. 

Personally, I suspect that Sobchak was as close to a truly heroic personality 
as we are likely to find among post-Soviet politicians. I think that the mere 
fact that he was an incumbent who lost an election and surrendered power 
indicates that he was unwilling to stoop to tactics that many Russian 
politicians consider "just part of the game." 

But we will never really know. On the door of the St. Petersburg apartment 
building where Sobchak lived, an anonymous admirer has posted a poem that 
ends with the words, "The Lord is with him - and so is the truth." And that 
is the tragedy: If only he could have left the truth behind with us. 

Robert Coalson is a program director for the National Press Institute. The 
views expressed here are not necessarily those of NPI. 

*******

#6
Source Unknown in N.Y. Bank Scandal 
By Vladimir Isachenkov
Associated Press Writer
Feb. 24, 2000

MOSCOW Russian police are continuing to probe the banks that allegedly
helped launder $7 billion through the Bank of New York, but have yet to
determine the source of the money, a top investigator said in an interview
published Thursday. 

Alexander Mikhailenko, the head of the Interior Ministry's department for
combating money laundering, said there is no evidence to back allegations
that some of the money funneled abroad belonged to the Russian mob or
companies trying to dodge taxes. 

"Tax evasion or laundering of criminal proceeds don't figure in the case
yet," Mikhailenko said in the interview in the daily Vremya MN. 

Mikhailenko said that the probe involves the Russian banks Flamingo, DKB
and Sobinbank. 

"We are trying to find the sources of the money and conditions of their
transfer," he said. 

The Bank of New York case, which began to unravel in August, entered a new
stage last week when a former Bank of New York executive and her husband
pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges. 

Lucy Edwards, the bank's former Eastern European Division vice president,
and Peter Berlin admitted helping Russian bankers wash the billions through
accounts at the bank in order to avoid Russian taxes and cover up the
money's connection to crimes including money used as ransom for a
kidnapping in Russia. 

Mikhailenko said his department had cooperated with U.S. investigators who
came to Russia last fall to question some people in the case, and
complained that the Americans failed to provide any information about the
testimony by Edwards and Berlin. 

"It means that we are carrying out our own investigation, while they are
carrying out theirs," he said. 

The DKB and Flamingo banks have gone out of business, but two prominent
Russian banks that were linked to them, Sobinbank and MDM, are still on the
scene. 

Alexander Mamut, who had close ties with former President Boris Yeltsin's
inner circle, was a Sobinbank board member who later took the helm of MDM.
He has denied any wrongdoing. 

MDM released a statement Thursday saying it has had no dealings with either
DKB or Flamingo since 1996, when MDM briefly owned shares in both banks.
Even then, MDM's role in those banks didn't involve any say in their
financial activities, the statement read. 

At the same time, MDM acknowledged that in 1996 it regularly transferred
money to its account with the Bank of New York on behalf of Sobinbank.
Sobinbank at the time didn't have its own account with BONY and had to act
through MDM, the statement said. 

MDM said it would invite an international auditor to confirm its claims. 

******

#7
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 
From: Sarah Mendelson <smende01@tufts.edu>
Subject: Democracy Assistance Study

Dear David,

The Carnegie Endowment's Project on Democracy and Rule of Law
has recently published a working paper that summarizes the findings and
recommendations of the study that colleagues and I have completed on
evaluating democracy assistance and Western NGOs strategies in East/Central
Europe and Eurasia.

The working paper, the research guidelines and all the case studies from the
project are available on the web at:
www.ceip.org/programs/democr/NGOs/index.html
For a hard copy of the working paper, please contact the Carnegie Endowment
directly at pubs@ceip.org

This project was funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation to Columbia
University.

many thanks,
Sarah Mendelson
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Tufts University

********

#8
From: R.Thomas@open.ac.uk (Ray Thomas)
Subject: RE: 4130-Albats/BONY Scam and Putin.
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 21:32:26 -0000

Yevgenia Albats references to the BONY scandal points out that statistics
show that each attempt by the government or Central Bank to tighten control
over money does nothing but increase the mount of money that rushes out of
the country. 

It should be emphasised that the use of the phrase 'capital flight' to
describe this process is misleading. 'Capital flight' as that term is
commonly used in the West refers to the speculative movement of capital that
people like George Soros know all about. But the movement of capital from
Russia has little to do with speculation. It is a matter of trying to
keep money safe. Entrepreneurs, capitalists, and kleptocrats in Russia
have little in the way of safe places to keep even their working capital.
Safe from the government, safe from Russian banks, as well as safe from
taxation.

Putin in advocating more power to the state shows no awareness of this
problem. Russians keep their money in dollars and abroad because they don't
trust the government. Increasing the power of government will only make
it more certain that all will strive to keep their money in hard currency.
Increasing the power of government will probably make the development of a
proper banking system more difficult because banks depend upon trust. How
can trust in banks develop if they continue to be subservient to the
Kremlin?

Bob Elliss (JRL 4802) described Yeltsin as a lethal fool, and it was
difficult to disagree with his summary. Putin has already demonstrated
that he is a lethal circus-master. He can complete the destruction of a
major city, desolate a country, give medals to the agents of destruction,
and get the crowd to cheer. But who would leave their money in the hands
of a circus-master? It is very sad that the crowd have been deluded into
thinking that this self-same circus-master can also do anything effective
about the Russian economy or the standard of living of the mass of the
population.

******

#9
BBC MONITORING
RUSSIA IS NOT AN AGGRESSOR AND HAS NO PLANS TO BECOME ONE - 
SECURITY CHIEF
Source: Russian Public TV, Moscow, in Russian 1800 gmt 23 Feb 00 

Security Council Secretary Sergey Ivanov has said that Russia is not an 
aggressor and is not going to be one. He believes, however, that Russia needs 
a strong army and defence. Until then, not many people will treat it with 
much respect, he explained. Speaking about Russia's new national security 
concept, he said that his country would never use nuclear weapons first. 
However, Russia is not saying that it will not use nuclear weapons if it is 
subjected to "full-scale aggression which may lead to Russia's breakdown and 
demise", he added. Responding to recent reports on the possibility of Chechen 
rebels assassinating Russia's acting President Vladimir Putin, he said he had 
no information to prove that an attempt on Putin's life was being prepared 
and would be carried out on a specific day. The following are excerpts from 
the interview broadcast in the "Here and Now" programme on Russian Public TV 
on 23rd February: 

[Presenter] My guest today is [Russian] Security Council Secretary Sergey 
Ivanov. Good evening, Sergey Borisovich. How serious are all those reports on 
possible attempts on the lives of top officials? 

[A] Good evening... I have no specific information to show that today, 
tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, for example, a specific attempt is or 
will be prepared on the life of acting Russian President Vladimir 
Vladimirovich Putin. However, there is general information that Chechen 
terrorists are nursing such plans, and it is not new. I can give you an 
example. We have already seen it briefly on television but I do not remember 
on which channel. Television showed a Turkish mercenary who was brought to 
Moscow after he was captured in Chechnya. At the time of his arrest he had a 
passport on him - which, as we in special services say, shows the entire 
geography of terrorism - and a letter from [Chechen President Aslan] 
Maskhadov to people who think the way he does, an appeal in which he openly 
urged them to carry out a terrorist act in relation to Vladimir Vladimirovich 
Putin. Therefore, in principle, this is possible and federal security 
services and the Federal Bodyguard Service are currently engaged in 
appropriate work. However, I would not like to comment on why this issue 
emerged today. I have no - 

[Q] Perhaps tomorrow since it is a holiday today. In the light of these 
alarming reports, I would like to talk to you about the new national security 
concept. National security, no doubt, means the life of this top person. Has 
the publication of the document changed the way ordinary people feel about 
their security? 

[A] I doubt ordinary citizens are familiar with the text of the national 
security concept even though it is not a secret. It was published - 

[Q] I think they will believe you. 

[A] I hope so, and I am prepared to tell you briefly its main provisions, if 
you wish. 

[Q] What I mean is whether it is more of [changes tack] Since you were in 
America and had discussions with leading US politicians, is the national 
security concept more of a document to ensure that they have better 
understanding of our national interests or for our citizens to have better 
understanding of what is involved in their security? 

[A] Both, because this concept is unique. It is the only such concept in the 
world in that it unites both internal and external threats. If we take the 
NATO concept, for example, which is similar to our national security concept, 
it examines only external threats... 

[Q] Is an increase in defence procurement - which may prove extremely 
difficult in our financial situation - linked with the new security concept? 

[A] Yes, it is linked with the military doctrine which is being drawn up and 
with the state's overall approach. Until Russia has a strong army and 
defence, not many people will treat it with much respect. We firmly believe 
in this conclusion of ours. And I think the majority of television viewers 
and the country's population share this view. 

[Q] Could you tell us about the main internal threat and the main external 
threat? 

[A] The internal threat has several aspects, of course, including economic 
security, issues of terrorism, the problem of crime and problems of 
information security, which were mentioned in the security concept for the 
first time. Speaking about the external threat, everyone is interested in one 
thing of course, i.e. the possibility of nuclear weapons being used. I 
recently gave a rather detailed briefing to diplomats on this concept. A 
total of 57 ambassadors were present at it. And all their questions, of 
course, kept going back to this issue. I would like to say briefly but 
absolutely clearly the following with regard to the possibility of nuclear 
weapons being used. Russia has never talked and is not talking about using 
nuclear weapons first. But at the same time Russia is not saying that it will 
not use nuclear weapons if it is subjected to full-scale aggression which may 
lead to Russia's breakdown and demise. This is a brief thesis. On the other 
hand, our entire military doctrine, the state of our army and its armaments 
make it clear to everyone that Russia is not an aggressor and is not going to 
be one. The doctrine is quite peaceful. And when I said that it is not going 
to use [nuclear weapons] first, it does not mean that it will not use them at 
all. This is what the dialectic of restraint is all about. 

[A] Yes, I see. Thank you. 

******

#10
From: "Ben Brodkin" <benatny@hotmail.com>
Subject: Soviet dissidents
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000

At risk of being accused of beating a dead horse, I feel compelled to 
respond to several contributions regarding the Soviet dissidents.

Several authors argued that the dissidents had no affect on the actual path 
taken by the USSR because they had very few followers. That argument 
reminds me of a phrase attributed to Stalin during WWII. When he was told 
that it would be in the interests of the allies to improve relations between 
the USSR and the Vatican, Stalin asked: "But how many army divisions can the 
Pope contribute?"

The strength of the dissidents was not in numbers. They were the first ones 
who challenged the totalitarian state and destroyed the myth of its 
supernatural power. They also challenged the state's monopoly on 
information by disseminating samizdat. That monopoly was jealously 
protected by the iron curtain and guarded by the KGB. It let the Soviet 
propaganda machine create the myth of the workers' paradise, of starving 
workers in capitalist countries, etc.

Even if that monopoly was reduced only from 100% to 99.9%, the effect was 
out of proportion. For example, there were cases when college students 
'naively' asked their professors of Marxism about the actual wages of 
American workers. Such an embarrassing question asked in a large audience 
often became the main event on the campus. I have no doubt that such events 
were reported to the top of the Soviet hierarchy.

The second point is as follows. Many Soviet dissidents emigrated either 
voluntarily or otherwise. But that does not mean that the Soviets got rid 
of the problem. Each emigrant left behind dozens of friends and relatives 
who became even bolder. When they emigrated, they left still more friends 
behind, etc. Clearly, that process was unstoppable and made glasnost 
unavoidable.

Finally, I can sense a bias against the dissidents in several contributions. 
For example, let me quote Peter Mahoney (JRL 4120): "Gessen's wife, Anya, 
quoted in Gessen's article, provides a rather harsh summation of the actions 
of most dissidents: "They sat around in kitchens and complained about the 
Soviet Union. That's all." (I missed Gessen's original article, that's why 
I quote the quotation).

I wish to remind them that many Soviet dissidents were routinely jailed or 
exiled to the east of the Volga river even during the enlightened 70s. In 
that, they differed from their American counterparts who could demonstrate 
against the Vietnam war and still continue their academic careers, unless 
they burned ROTC buildings.

*******

#11
Washington Post
February 25, 2000
[for personal use only]
The Real War Begins
By Peter Bouckaert
The writer is a Human Rights Watch investigator who has been documenting 
abuses in the Chechen conflict from Nazran for the past three months.

NAZRAN, Russia. For months, the international community's response to
Russia's 
abusive campaign in Chechnya has been all talk and no action. In recent 
weeks, as allegations of summary executions emerged, even the rhetorical 
condemnations ceased. The West was too busy breathing a collective sigh of 
relief over the fall of Chechnya's capital, Grozny: Now that the war was 
winding up, they could get down to business with Acting Russian President 
Vladimir Putin, Secretary Madeleine K. Albright's "can-do" guy in the Kremlin.

From Ingushetia, where hundreds of thousands of Chechens have taken refuge, 
it is clear that the worst may yet be on the way. Unless they are immediately 
reined in, Russian forces will commit many more war crimes as they take 
control of Chechnya.

I have been documenting these atrocities for Human Rights Watch during the 
last three months. I have evidence of more than 100 summary executions 
committed by Russian troops during the takeover of Grozny, acts of murder by 
Russian soldiers plain and simple, and I am investigating dozens more. Most 
of the victims have been elderly men and women, who emerged from their 
cellars after months of bombing and shelling only to be shot down by Russian 
soldiers "liberating" Grozny. The Russians have detained hundreds of Chechen 
men in "filtration camps," where they are at risk of torture.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to explain the usefulness of my work to 
grieving Chechens. Every day, I am told that our work is pointless: The 
international community doesn't care about Chechnya, and won't do anything 
anyway, so why record its suffering? What do I tell a father who just lost 
his only two sons, summarily executed by Russian soldiers? Or the woman who 
is carrying around the burned remains of her two sisters, unable to travel to 
their home village for a traditional burial?

I am tired of going to funerals and expressing my condolences for senseless 
murders, acts of sheer brutality. There is little I can promise: There is no 
indication that the abuses will end or that the perpetrators of these crimes 
will be punished. In the wake of the noble principles announced during the 
Kosovo and East Timor crises, the silence of the international community on 
Chechnya is deafening. To date, the international community has given the 
Russian government no reason to fear any repercussions for its actions. 

This must change. There are steps the international community can take to 
stop the violations in Chechnya.

First, governments must upgrade their rhetoric to call the violations in 
Chechnya what they are, war crimes, and to insist on accountability. If the 
Russian government will not investigate, the international community should. 
European states should haul Russia before the European Court of Human Rights 
and instigate an inquiry by the Council of Europe. The United States and 
others should use the upcoming session of the United Nations Commission on 
Human Rights to establish a commission of inquiry or other mechanism to 
investigate war crimes.

Second, the international community must insist on a monitoring presence in 
Ingushetia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 
of which the United States is a member, has an Assistance Group to Chechnya, 
left over from the last war and currently based in Moscow. In theory, it 
enjoys all possible freedom of movement in Chechnya and the neighboring 
provinces. Yet the OSCE and its member states have meekly accepted Russia's 
persistent refusal to let the group travel even to neighboring Ingushetia.

In the meantime, governments should be quietly dispatching their Moscow 
representatives to Ingushetia to bear witness. The U.S. government has sought 
to justify its inaction by claiming it does not have its own intelligence 
about abuses. At the same time, to the best of our knowledge, no U.S. 
official has traveled to the region since the outbreak of hostilities last 
fall. Security concerns relating to travel to the region are a convenient 
excuse. From my time here, I can attest that while security is an issue, it 
can be addressed, and international representatives who travel to the region 
will find that they enjoy an extremely cooperative relationship with local 
authorities.

Finally, the World Bank and the IMF should explicitly suspend pending loan 
payments until the Russian Federation takes steps to rein in its troops, 
begins a meaningful process of accountability for abuses and fully cooperates 
with the deployment of an international monitoring presence in the north 
Caucasus. The IMF and the World Bank should not be financing a government 
bent on a policy that is so destructive and contrary to their institutional 
missions as is the Russian military operation in Chechnya.

From where I sit, it is clear that the war in Chechnya is far from over and 
that the events that will leave the most lasting and troubling scars still 
are unfolding. Unless international actors take a firm stand against these 
atrocities, history will certainly judge them poorly.

******

#12
Boston Globe
February 25, 2000
[for personal use only]
NATO, Russia have trouble reconciling 
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff

RUSSELS - Attempts to patch relations between NATO and Russia are being 
severely tested by new strains over Kosovo, Moscow's military campaign in 
Chechnya, and US plans to build a new missile system.

After meetings last week with senior Russian officials, including Acting 
President Vladimir Putin, NATO Secretary General George Robertson said, 
''We've moved from permafrost to slightly softer ground.''

But while American officials are encouraged, they also suspect that Putin is 
interested in doing more than simply repairing relations between the old Cold 
War rivals damaged by NATO's war against Russian ally Yugoslavia.

US officials believe Putin's gesture to reestablish relations with NATO 
nearly a year after the war over Kosovo was at least partially motivated by 
Russia's desire to drive a wedge between the Americans and their European 
allies over US plans to deploy a National Missile Defense system.

According to a senior NATO official, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov 
brought up the missile defense issue with Robertson during their meeting. 
President Clinton has indicated he will decide by July whether to give the 
missile program the go-ahead.

The Russians consider the system a violation of treaties they have signed 
with the United States to reduce the number of missiles held by the Cold War 
superpowers. Many European allies fear the new system will restart the arms 
race and leave European capitals open to attack. Such a shift in the ''shared 
risk'' between the United States and its allies could dramatically alter the 
trans-Atlantic alliance, several European diplomats here said.

US diplomats throughout Europe acknowledge they need to do more to reassure 
European allies.

''We have a lot of serious work ahead of us to explain what'' National 
Missile Defense ''is and what it is not,'' said one of those US diplomats, 
speaking on the condition that he not be named. ''The next few months are 
going to be intense, especially at the bilateral level.''

As NATO tries to keep a lid on the tensions in the divided city of Mitrovica 
in Kosovo, some of the allies are trying to goad others to make good on their 
commitments to send police officers to work in the UN police force in Kosovo.

While NATO has rushed troop reinforcements to Mitrovica, and accused the 
regime of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of fomenting trouble there, 
US and British diplomats contend Kosovo needs more police officers more than 
it does more soldiers.

Bernard Kouchner, the UN official in charge of Kosovo, has complained that 
only about half of the 5,000 to 6,000 police officers promised by the NATO 
countries have arrived.

Britain, Germany, and the United States have sent more police than they 
originally promised, but while France quickly agreed this week to send more 
troops to Mitrovica to separate Serbs on one side of the city and ethnic 
Albanians on the other, Paris has been reluctant to send police officers. 
While the Europeans had pledged to take the lead role in making Kosovo more 
stable, several smaller countries, such as Belgium, have not kept commitments 
to send police, US officials said.

''The situation in Mitrovica, and the isolated attacks and killings of 
civilians that have happened elsewhere in Kosovo, can be better addressed by 
police officers, not heavily-armed troops,'' said one US diplomat.

While the Russians pointed to Mitrovica as evidence that NATO was failing its 
mission in Kosovo, Robertson said the situation on the ground was improving.

''When it comes to Kosovo, we say the glass is half full, the Russians say 
it's half empty,'' said one senior NATO official.

US officials believe the National Missile Defense program suffers from 
comparison to the so-called Star Wars program that was proposed by the Reagan 
administration before the Cold War ended and US concerns shifted from Russia 
to smaller nations such as North Korea and Iraq.

Besides convincing their European allies that the National Missile Defense 
system is a much scaled down version of Star Wars, US officials have to, as 
one put it, ''make the Europeans understand the depth of bipartisan support'' 
for missile defense.

''The allies are beginning to realize it has a momentum in the US,'' the 
official added.

But if some of the allies do, the Russians do not. Nor do the Russians accept 
criticism for their ''scorched earth'' campaign against Muslim separatists in 
Chechnya. NATO officials said about half of the six hours of meetings 
Robertson held with Russian officials last week was devoted to Chechnya.

Still, NATO officials expressed surprise that the Russians did not try to 
justify their military campaign by drawing comparisons with NATO's air war 
against Serbia.

''They weren't arrogant about it,'' said one senior NATO official who 
attended the meetings. ''They just stressed that, in their view, the 
Chechnyans are bandits, supported by an international conspiracy that is a 
danger to the West as well. Putin asked us, `Faced with a terrorist threat, 
what would you do.' When we said dialogue, the Russians rolled their eyes.''

NATO officials said the Russians assured them that, as one official put it, 
''it will all be over in a few weeks,'' an assessment NATO does not share.

Robertson said NATO does not believe the war in Chechnya ''is right in 
principle, nor do we believe that this is right in practice, simply sowing 
seeds for future conflicts.''

Robertson acknowledged that the differences of opinion over Chechnya show 
that the recent rapproachment needs to go much further. While Russia agreed 
to send its foreign minister to a NATO meeting in Florence in May, and its 
defense minister to a meeting in June, the Russians would not discuss 
allowing NATO to open a liaison office in Moscow. Despite the rift over 
Kosovo, the Russians have maintained the 30 officials it has assigned to a 
liaison office here in Brussels. Nor was there a commitment to joint 
exercises, nor was a date agreed to draw up a memorandum of understanding.

A joint communique that pledged to ''make their mutual cooperation a 
cornerstone for European security'' was reached after considerable haggling.

''We sparred on every word,'' a senior NATO official conceded. ''We had to be 
careful not to commit to no more Kosovos.''

*******

#13
From: Jonathan Sanders <room101@interport.net>
Subject: FW: Dr. Sanders prescription for the Soviet schizophrenic spirit
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 

Afrika Evokes: The Soviet Schizophrenic Spirit, Installed in New York
By Jonathan Sanders

Recreating the ethos of a time gone-by, the contexts, feel, emotions and 
confusions of a now "former" world is particularly difficult for rational 
minded analysts. Those who make sense of the spirit of an age operate on 
slippery slopes. Tools employed by scientists and scholars can categorize 
the components of a past. But sober analysis cannot recreate the taste of 
Proust's madeleine crumbs; neither can Soviet experts replicate the 
peculiar smell of a Komunalka hallway. The elusive quality of living among 
Soviet peoples, (who as Nadezhda Mandlstam so aptly put it, were "slightly 
unbalanced mentally-not exactly ill, but not normal either") will, in the 
future, only compounds the usual problem common to students of all past 
civilizations.

The avant-garde St. Petersburg artist, Sergei Bugaev (Afrika) provides a 
bit of foreign aid to those of us suffering from the poverty our 
replicative skills with his mammoth installation, ",Mir: Made in the XX 
Century," now on view until March 11th at New York's I-20 gallery (529 West 
20th Street).

Afrika, whose unlikely sounding moniker is in fact a play on the cultural 
history reference to the vneshnii vid (outward appearance) of the great 
Russian national poet, Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin. The beloved St. 
Petersburg word master traced his ancestry and distinctive physiognomy to 
the African slave, Hannibal. .

Russia's great romantic poet --- whose lines are on the lips of every 
daughter and son of the motherland --- may have been teased as boy for his 
"outsider's" appearance, but he was always proud of his African blood. 
Pushkin, whose classical verse is so dear to allthose those entranced 
exponents of the Slavic soul - the deep inner self, of course represents 
the outsider as insider. In this powerful, sometimes over-powerful exhibit, 
the artist known as Afrika makes an archive of collective memory that 
revisit the painful tensions experienced in the technological twentieth 
century as inner space pulled against outer space.

The macro-Soviet view provided draws on Bugaev's strong historical senses. 
In general his work deconstructs and reconstructs socialist realities. It 
revisits this century's avant-garde heritage; it refracts Socialist 
Realism. The exhibit, on view through 11 March, at 529 West 20th Street, 
Pplays on the mind's eye and ear with elements of autobiography. Bugaev's 
gargantuan work reflects the Soviet funhouse mirror, the Schizophrenic 
Spirit of someone who came of age amidst the crumbling tableaux of 
Brezhnev's socialism. It contains easel traces of someone who avoided that 
communist party's general secretary's biggest last mistake - the last hot 
battle of the cold war --- the Afghanistan debacle --- by checking himself 
into a psychiatric hospital to avoid conscription. In an episode of 
absurdity so delicious it would seem to have been created by Gogol or 
Bulgakov, but has the added advantage of being true, Afrika relates how the 
18 year old best son of the socialist fatherland had his mother tell the 
army psychiatrist "that I was crazy. And when she showed them my art, they 
believed her."

To make the references explicit, Afrika fills the air with a sound track of 
sound therapy. . This is not the devastating economic experimentation on 
live subjects carried out by the Gaidar-Sachs-Chubais "boys in pink pants" 
new kleptocratic order. It is something less abstractly traumatic. In the 
center of the darkened installation hall is a black "Amnesia Sphere" - a 
kind of Buckminster Fuller's bad dream made real (or perhaps Soviet 
surreal). An endless videotape loop projects from above the structure 
showing Afrika's interaction with patients in a Crimean psychiatric 
hospital as they endure illegal electroshock therapy. It is not pretty. The 
soundscape leaves pathos hanging heavily in the air.

The telling nuance and lasting value of this landmark installation depends 
on its photographic elements.

The 33-year-old St. Petersburg visual narrator's current work formed the 
ground floor exhibit of Russia's entry to the 48th Venice Biennale. Bugaev 
centers this installationshow on hundreds of enameled steel plates that he 
and his technicians reproduced. Famous, infamous, and obscure photographs 
from the hundred years before Gorbachev confront the viewer. In a huge 
darkened space the cacophony of photographic images assaults the viewer. 

It creates a feeling akin to tumbling inside a Kaleidoscope created from 
several generations of Ogonek-lovers archives. .(Ogonek, the popular 
Russian weekly picture magazine, whose title means 'small fires,' 
significantly predates, "Life"; it recently celebrated its 100th 
anniversary).

Helter-skelter, the photo-enameled steel plates are everywhere ---, even 
underfoot. Gallery visitors interact with imagery. Feet produce acoustic 
counterpoint to photographs of what William Henry Chamberlin called, 
"Russia's Iron Age.". Here the great landmarks of Soviet history, from the 
top down, meets messages from the bottom up and as well as a middle 
marching towards a radiant future. Russia's Iron Age is everywhere. 
Everything from the triumphant smoke- belching chimneys of Magnitogorsk,, 
to the conquest of Siberian distance by the iron horse, to the iron-fisted 
drive of the man of steel (Stalin) towards forced collectivization, 
state-enforced famine, and forced labor-as well as pictures of the joys of 
and the mind-ironing grind of everyday life, captured by skilled (and 
killed) Soviet photographers --- all the contradictory depictions of 
differing realities --- stand cheek-by-jowl together.

The giant metal tubes, called rockets that shook the earth and America's 
technological self-confidence with Sputnik, in 1957, enjoy a 
phenomenological pride of place. Bugaev uses the triumph of eastern 
humanity's conquest of space as a key element in the Soviet iconography of 
power. In the conceptual world he creates, the engineers who put homo 
sovieticus into orbit dictated one of the XX Ccentury's master narratives.

The story lines drawn by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev and his comrade
soviet space pioneers provide context and perspective. Cognoscente will
recognize his -oh-so-Soviet official airbrushed portrait tossed in among
photographs of everdayeveryday Stalin era and Khrushchev era life, but
since the exhibit eschews explanatory labels, the face of this long
nameless, "Chief Designer" of the Soviet rocket program may appear to be
that of another grey official, albeit one who traveled from the gulag to
the greatness of burial in the Kremlin wall and his comrade soviet space
pioneers

Bugaev observes, as if from afar, the shifting scene of the Soviet 
experiment. The metaphor of the stranger in a strange land fights with a 
sense of a displaced earthling struggling with the unreality of 
weightlessness. The artist acts as an earth-born creature who is enduring 
extraterrestrial experiences by acts of self-tranquilization. Self-mastery 
depends on conjuring up familiar images of home. In stimulating the visual 
cortex Afrika strives to let collective-memory-by-photographic-images help 
give a sense to the senseless. The show's title draws on the Soviet space 
program too. The space station Mir went up just as familiar Soviet 
structures were falling down. Mir, the last gasp of Soviet earth shaking 
scientific achievement, is important to Bugaev less for its shoddy 
reputation in the west, but because symbolically the observer had left 
mother-earth behind; that is, he was taken beyond the bounds of his own 
self and those of his old symbolic home.

On leaving this relic-remembrance of the Soviet past some may be reminded 
of Marcel Proust dark reflection, "Happiness is beneficial for the body but 
it is grief that develops the powers of the mind." Those interested in the 
recreated the mood, feel, and texture of a Soviet time past and/or those 
concerned with inculcating a sense of this sentiment among their students 
should take in "Mir: Made in the XX Century" before it is boxed up and sent 
back to its next stop, BerlinSt.Petersburg. So far it seems no one is 
willing to pay the price to keep this telling but troubling representation 
of an age gone by open to the American public. Russians, of course, are the 
ones paying the psychic price. Afrika's installation lets outsiders begin 
to sense the cost.

*******

Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: 
http://www.cdi.org/russia