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CDI Library > Johnson's Russia List

Johnson's Russia List
 

 

March 7, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4150 4151 4152

 

Johnson's Russia List
#4151
7 March 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Zhirinovsky Allowed in Russian Race.
2. Interfax: MORE AND MORE RUSSIANS WANT OFFENSIVE IN CHECHNYA TO CONTINUE.
3. BBC MONITORING: TOP RUSSIAN ANALYST DISMISSES ARMY'S CHANCES IN CHECHNYA. (Pavel Felgengauer)
4. Financial Times (UK): John Thornhill, Romantics pay tribute to human rights activist. (Sergei Kovalyev)
5. polit.ru: re monetization of settlements in business.
6. APN: Putin is setting dictatorship of poverty of ideas.(Mikhail Delyagin)
7. Interfax: RUSSIA JOINING NATO WILL TAKE TIME - SOURCES IN MOSCOW.
8. Landsbergis to Speak in Washington at Atlantic Council.
9. Peter Juviler: Re: 4148-Miller/Babitsky.
10. Dan Epstein: Re: 4148-Miller/Babitsky. (Yavlinsky)
11. Future Russia (www.futurerussia.ru) website.
12. The Russia Journal editorial: Incorrect essentials. Russia’s reformers failed once, but they should not be left out of Russia’s future. 
13. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Russian Media Role in March 26 Poll Eyed.
14. Interfax: KORZHAKOV CALLS FOR RE-CREATION OF KGB IN RUSSIA.
15. The Observer (UK): John Sweeney, Revealed: Russia's worst war crime in Chechnya. Vladimir Putin is the new hero of Russian democracy, courted by Western leaders. He is also responsible for one of the most savage atrocities since the Second World War. 
16. Itar-Tass: Foreigners Allowed 1,500 Dollars out of Russia Undeclared.]

*******

#1
Zhirinovsky Allowed in Russian Race
March 6, 2000
By JIM HEINTZ

MOSCOW (AP) - Ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose truculent 
statements and unrestrained antics have both appalled and attracted voters, 
on Monday won a Supreme Court order allowing him to register as a candidate 
in this month's presidential election. 

Zhirinovsky was among the first Russian politicians to announce presidential 
aspirations after Boris Yeltsin resigned Dec. 31. But the Central Election 
Commission rejected his candidacy last month, saying his financial 
declaration was invalid because it failed to include an apartment owned by 
his son. 

Russian law requires candidates to declare their assets and those of their 
immediate family. 

Zhirinovsky argued the omission was insignificant. The Supreme Court had 
earlier rejected Zhirinovsky's argument, but the court's Board of Appeal 
ruled Monday that banning Zhirinovsky was unlawful. It ordered the election 
commission to register him for the March 26 election, court spokeswoman Nelli 
Sokolova said. 

Sokolova said the ruling judge in the case had not disclosed the reason for 
the reversal. 

Election Commission Chairman Alexander Veshnyakov said Zhirinovsky would be 
registered on Tuesday, the news agency ITAR-Tass reported. Zhirinovsky called 
the decision a victory for ``the millions of people who will vote for the man 
they want elected,'' the Interfax news agency reported. 

The last-minute candidacy gives him little time to campaign, and Zhirinovsky 
is not expected to be a significant factor in the election. Acting President 
Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win. 

Zhirinovsky gained popularity in the early 1990s with his firebrand rhetoric 
- ranging from promises to annex Finland and Alaska to calls for resettling 
Jews and napalming Chechnya. He also gained notoriety for outbursts and 
fistfights in parliament, once spitting at legislators and throwing glasses 
of water on them. He came in fifth in the 1996 presidential election. 

But despite his maverick ways, Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party 
consistently backed Yeltsin in showdowns with the parliament, then dominated 
by Communists. 

Zhirinovsky's candidacy expands the election field to 12. Recent polls show 
Putin far ahead, with about 60 percent support against about 20 percent for 
his nearest challenger, Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov. 

Zyuganov has repeatedly criticized Putin, saying he does not have a clear 
electoral program. On Monday, he lashed out at Putin's statement that Russia 
should not rule out joining NATO. 

``I have a feeling that he doesn't have a single educated adviser,'' Zyuganov 
said on the NTV television channel. 

*******

#2
MORE AND MORE RUSSIANS WANT OFFENSIVE IN CHECHNYA TO CONTINUE

MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - The continuation of the federal offensive
in Chechnya is now favored by 70% of Russians compared to 61% three
months ago. This information is the result of a poll taken by the
All-Russia Center for Public Opinion of 1,600 adults at the end of
February this year and in late November last year. The statistical
margin of error is 4%.
Negotiations with the Chechen leadership are supported by 22% of
Russians (27% in late November) while 8% are undecided (12% previously).
Of those polled, 59% who favored a continuation of the offensive or
were undecided on the issue believe military actions should go on even
if federal troops suffer big losses (38% in November). Talks with
Chechen leadership in such a situation are supported by 8% (17%
previously). 12% were undecided (18%), and 22% had no comment (27%).
In the latest poll, 17% of respondents named Aslan Maskhadov the
legitimately elected president of Chechnya and 60% rejected this view.
23% were undecided.
22% of Russians favor a special status for Chechnya as compared
with other Federation territories and 59% disagree. 19% have no opinion
on this matter.

********

#3
BBC MONITORING
TOP RUSSIAN ANALYST DISMISSES ARMY'S CHANCES IN CHECHNYA
Text of report by Russian Ekho Moskvy radio on 5th March 

[Presenter] Here is independent military analyst Pavel Felgengauer. 

[Felgengauer] Our generals have been fighting guerrillas for 20 years, 
beginning with Afghanistan, then in the Caucasus or Central Asia. They have 
much experience, most of it bad. They remember their defeats, and the enemy's 
plentiful dirty tricks. But for some reason, they don't remember the 
guerrillas' strengths. 

The Russian flag was hoisted over Shatoy last week. Now every town and 
village worthy of the name in Chechnya is under our control, in theory at 
least. It would seem that the war is over. Deprived of their last bases and 
strongholds, the separatists and their leaders should now disperse to either 
Georgia or Turkey. Without bases or control of land, regular resistance 
becomes impossible. That's what they teach in the military academies. And 
guerrilla warfare in Chechnya is also impossible because the bandits don't 
enjoy public support, Putin aide Sergey Yastrzhembskiy said recently. 

But alas, the Chechen public weren't listening to Yastrzhembskiy. They do 
what they can to help, conceal and feed the rebels. The Russian propaganda 
machine has been proclaiming liberation for five months now. But it would 
seem that the Chechens themselves believe that they are under foreign 
occupation, and they are behaving accordingly. 

A Duma delegation visited Chechnya last week and met commanders and 
rank-and-file soldiers at various garrisons. One of the MPs later told me 
that the prevailing mood binding together the troops in Chechnya, from 
generals to privates, is hatred for the Chechens. The overall approach among 
the military is this - if we are to win, we have to destroy the Chechens down 
to the last man. 

Naturally, this does not coincide with the Russian government's social policy 
as it tries to win over the people by paying out pensions and giving other 
handouts. But that hatred keeps coming to the surface, despite everything. 
Soldiers often kill for no good reason anyone they find, including old men 
and women. Russian generals not only cover up murdering and looting soldiers 
but themselves carry out merciless punitive operations, committing numerous 
and premeditated war crimes as they wipe Chechen towns and villages and their 
populations from the face of the earth. 

To a large extent, the Americans behaved in a similar fashion in comparable 
circumstances in Vietnam. Naturally, hatred is met with hatred. Chechnya is 
becoming a scorched-earth zone, a killing ground. And guerrilla raids are 
being switched to areas which the Russians took virtually without a fight and 
where most of the people were at least noncommittal. 

Men of fighting age are being seized at random and tortured in Chechnya, on 
the often justified suspicion that they are guerrillas or support them. The 
Chechens are increasingly realizing that this is no fight between the 
wahhabites and the federals. This is already a matter of whether the Chechen 
nation will survive on its own land or whether it will be dispersed and 
killed off. All Chechens are now potential enemies of Russia. 

Our army and interior ministry units are not ready for this kind of total 
war, although they have brought it upon themselves by their barbarities, 
unbridled hatred and inability to fight honestly, cleanly and professionally. 

Last Thursday [2nd March], guerrillas destroyed a Moscow police commando 
convoy near Groznyy and got away with it. And those commandos were 
professional and experienced servicemen. So what does guerrilla warfare hold 
in store for the conscripts and newly-recruited contract soldiers? 

The military operation in Chechnya is now mostly over. Now the fighting will 
increasingly be on equal terms, without artillery or air power. As with the 
commandos in Groznyy. 

*******

#4
Financial Times (UK)
6 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Romantics pay tribute to human rights activist
By John Thornhill in Moscow 

Russia's era of political romanticism, which took off during the democratic 
revolution of August 1991, is likely to come to a definitive end this month 
with the election of a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, to the presidency. 

But with a last show of strength some of Russia's most incurable political 
romantics gathered this week to honour Sergei Kovalyev, the country's leading 
human rights campaigner and a fierce critic of the brutality of Mr Putin's 
military campaign in Chechnya. 

Sporting their trademark bottle-end glasses and tatty jumpers, they showered 
the former dissident with flowers and kisses to celebrate his 70th birthday, 
reminiscing about their days together in the Gulag prison camp system, and 
their joint struggle to defend human rights in Soviet times. 

Mr Kovalyev, an eminent biologist, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in 
1974 for "anti-Soviet propaganda". Upon his release he quickly resumed the 
fight to open up the Soviet system, becoming one of the most trusted 
lieutenants of Andrei Sakharov, the human rights activist. In 1995 Mr 
Kovalyev once again risked his life by visiting the Chechen capital Grozny as 
it was being bombarded by Russian forces. 

Hunched over a round table on Thursday night, Mr Kovalyev read his friends a 
speech, The Dreams of a Political Idealist, expressing his hope that Russia 
would one day join the community of civilised nations. 

He regretted that Russia wanted to play by its own rules in the international 
arena as the other nations of Europe were forging deeper and closer ties. "It 
is only our unhappy Russia which has for some reason decided that it can 
enter an elite club for gentlemen unshaven and tipsy, and conduct its bloody 
disputes within its walls," he said. 

While condemning the atrocities of Chechen terrorists, Mr Kovalyev said 
Russia's borders should end at the point where people did not wish to be 
Russian. 

Mr Kovalyev's birthday celebrations were clearly a bittersweet occasion for 
many participants. Several speakers expressed their regrets that the high 
hopes of the early 1990s had been dashed. But others suggested that it must 
count as some kind of victory that the celebration was being held in a public 
institute in the presence of television cameras. 

Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, paid a moving 
tribute to Mr Kovalyev as a man prepared to sacrifice his personal freedom 
for the sake of his country. Mr Yavlinsky contrasted such selfless behaviour 
with the selfishness of the country's current leadership, which was prepared 
to pay "any price for those goals which they consider important". 

Andrei Kozyrev, Russia's first post-Soviet foreign minister, who had 
previously clashed bitterly with Mr Kovalyev over the legitimacy of the first 
Chechen war, said he wished they could hold the birthday celebration in the 
Kremlin. 

"But it is great that we are not celebrating your birthday in prison," Mr 
Kozyrev added. "For the moment." 

******

#5
polit.ru
March 6, 2000
re monetization of settlements in business

Vremya MN has published data on the proportion of cash settlements in the 
payments of Russia's largest monopolies to the state. It's depressing: 
Gazprom's monetization of settlements stood at 18% (vs. the 46.7% agreed on 
with the IMF); the figure for the Unified Energy Systems national power grid 
was 32.5% (taking bills of exchange into account, 39% against the same 
46.7%), and only the Ministry of Railways came close to the target of 68.3%, 
having paid 60.5% in cash. On the whole, the level of monetization 
constituted 32,6% - the lowest value since last summer. Thus, the newspaper 
observes, unless Washington takes a political decision on the release of an 
IMF credit, Russia cannot expect any money until the 3rd quarter of this 
year. But then, the stalemate with the election of the IMF's head is still 
continuing, though according to Germany's weekly Welt am Sontag Europe has 
already begun consultations on putting forward another candidate instead of 
Caio Koch-Weser, who does not suit the United States. Notice that the hitch 
with the election of the IMF's managing director (in particular, the U.S., 
Russia, Australia, Brazil, India, Canada, and Saudi Arabia abstained in the 
straw poll) gave cause for some pessimists to speak of a possibility of Fund 
dissolution. 

*******

#6
APN
6 March, 2000
Putin is setting dictatorship of poverty of ideas

APN reporter quoted Mikhail Delyagin, director of Institute of Globolization 
Problems, as saying at his news conference that Vladimir Putin`s statements 
«create the situation when «dictatorship of law» will turn out into 
dictatorship of poverty of ideas, the country of this kind will eventually 
collapse.»

As Mikhail Delyagin said, «to believe Vladimir Putin`s words on the threshold 
of the election means to doubt his cleverness and professionalism.» But even 
taking into account this issue his numerous statements are notable for their 
emptiness or have antipode views on the role of the state in economy.

Mikhail Delyagin thinks that it is possible to conclude from recent Putin`s 
address to voters that catastrophic for Russia war in Chechnya is considered 
an example of how one should decide social problems. Putin suggests also that 
«Andropov-Chubais» press should be applied to set order and discipline 
without thinking over real problems and social problems should be solved at 
the expense of «new hard-working generation».

«It doesn`t matter for Putin what to tell about economics,» Delyagin said, 
«it looks like he decided to transfer its decision to governments which 
change each other while the crisis deepens.»

*******

#7
RUSSIA JOINING NATO WILL TAKE TIME - SOURCES IN MOSCOW

MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - Russia will not be able to join NATO
unless the alliance undergoes profound transformation, sources in Moscow
think.
Much time must elapse before Russia joins NATO through long-term
constructive cooperation, they said.
Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin in a BBC interview on
Sunday did not rule out the possibility that Russia may join NATO.
Russian may join a NATO which is "a European security institution
regarding Moscow as an equal partner in making decisions on
consolidating stability on the continent," the sources said.
However, "the alliance must first revise its attitude towards
Russia" because its "military component is aimed chiefly against
Russia," they said.
Significant technical issues must be resolved such as making
Russian defense hardware compatible with NATO standards, the sources
said. "Besides, the Russian army has its own tactics, strategy and
structure," they said.
Russia could be engaged chiefly in peacekeeping operations in the
framework of NATO, the sources said.
Until recently Russia opposed the plans to admit certain CIS member
nations and Baltic countries into NATO, they recalled. The sources were
not sure what the Russian position on this issue is today.

*******

#8
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2000 
From: Wayne Merry <ewmerry@acus.org> 
Subject: Landsbergis to Speak in Washington

Landsbergis to Speak in Washington:

Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania's first post-Soviet president and now
speaker of parliament, will discuss his country's relations with the West
and with Russia at a public meeting of the Atlantic Council of the United
States on Wednesday, March 8, at 11:00 am in the Falk Auditorium of the
Brookings Institution at 1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, in Washington. Dr.
Landsbergis will speak to mark the tenth anniversary of the resumption of
Lithuanian independence. Comment will be provided by former US Ambassador
to NATO Robert Hunter. RSVP to 202-778-4990 or email to mastebe@acus.org

*******

#9
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2000
From: Peter Juviler <pjuviler@barnard.edu> 
Subject: Re: 4148-Miller/Babitsky

Was intrigued by the metaphors of the dragons in Andrew Miller's "We Have
So Much To Learn, So Little Time," (JRL 4148) but spurred to
regret with him just one more sad tale of democrats' ineptitude.
But whereas political parties have yet
to provide an effective democratic base for Russian politics, the media
(whom he appears to slight though perhaps unintentionally with his
attempt to debunk the Babitsky affair) have
done better, when financial stringencies and retaliations against
journalist and censorship allowed. 
Hence my dismay at Mr. Miller' sarcastic dismissal of Babitsky's
reportage and of support for him. He who criticizes democratic politics
for inaction (justly) should think twice before de-valuing free-speaking
journalists for their actions and courage, and the efforts of various
other journalists and NGOs to protect them. 

Peter Juviler, Barnard College, Columbia University, in campaign-seized
NYC. 

*******

#10
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2000 
From: Dan Epstein <danevt@yahoo.com> 
Subject: Re: 4148-Miller/Babitsky

I am a traveling fellow from Harvard University and have been living in
Moscow since
September. I am writing in response to Andrew Miller's post in JRL #4148.

In this post, Mr. Miller asserted, regarding Grigory Yavlinsky's candidacy for
president, that "with only three weeks until the poll he is utterly silent
and there
are rumors of his withdrawal." I cannot claim to be an expert on political
rumors
circulating in Russia, but I do know that within just the last 24 hours I have
personally seen on my very own television Grigory Yavlinsky as a guest on
the NTV
program "Itogi" discussing his campaign issues with host Sergei Kisselev,
and later a
3-minute Yavlinsky campaign advertisement on the state-run ORT, presumably
part of the
20 free hours of air time that each candidate is allotted according to
campaign
rules. Additionally, I remember two weeks ago news broadcasts on the Day
of Defenders
of the Fatherland (Feb 23) showing Yavlinsky addressing members of Russia's
armed forces.

While it may be advisable to heed Mr. Miller's warning not to look to
Yavlinsky as a
"liberal champion," I would disagree with the evidence and reasoning he
cites for
doing so. In an article for the journal "Demokratizatsiya," Russian academic
Alexander Lukin also takes Westerners to task for supporting a single
"clan" of what
what Mr. Miller might term "liberal champions" to the exclusion of other
forces.
However, his argument is a bit more nuanced. Rather than fault the West for
supporting politically ineffectual "champions," he claims that there exists
(or at
least existed) a tendency for all actors in the post-Soviet political
climate to
pursue clan interests: "to redistribute power and property in their favor,"
which may
appear under the guise of nationalist, communist, liberal democratic, or other
ideologies. However, the result of the West's uncritical support for what
it saw as
"the good guys" in the post-Soviet political scene was not their ushering
in of a new
liberal democracy in Russia, but only their coming out a bit ahead of
others in the "gold rush" of privatization.

While Grigory Yavlinsky's clan certainly came out a bit behind others in
this gold rush, and as a result perhaps stands morally up-hill from other
self-proclaimed "young
reformers," it does seem behind as far as political success, even taking
into account
what I see on TV (although perhaps not as pathetically as Mr. Miller's post
might
suggest). In fact, one of Mr. Yavlinsky's statements on Itogi last night
was telling
of this: In response to Mr. Kisselev's question of "Why are you running for
president" (with the implication that he doesn't stand much of a chance of
winning),
Yavlinsky's immediate response was that "It's time to beat Zyuganov" [the
Communist
Party candidate who competed against Yeltsin in the run-off of the last
presidential
election and whose party got the largest percentage of party-list votes in
December's
Duma election]. Such an admission that he's running for second place
certainly does
not bespeak a powerful political organization capable of coming to power
and "saving the day".

But while even this goal may be far-fetched considering the political
reality, his
elaboration on it underscored what might be a more important lesson for the
West to
learn when dealing with Russian politics. He said that even though he does
not
predict victory in the presidential poll, his candidacy will allow the
millions of
Russians who do believe in the democratic and market economy ideals that he
tries to
represent to express that fact in a tangible way. What Western observers
might draw
from this idea is that in considering Russian politics, perhaps we should
not look for
one "liberal champion" - a St George (to capitalize on Mr. Miller's
imagery) to slay
all Russia's dragons and usher in a new era of democracy and prosperity.
Instead, we
should support the ideas and institutions of the liberalism we claim to
espouse and
let these be the main focus of our engagement with Russia, instead of this
or that aspiring St. George.

In fact, there is little, if any, evidence of successful democratic
transitions or
constructions in other parts of the world based around the leadership of a
single
"liberal champion" - or even a single clan thereof. The construction of
democracy in
many Western nations was a long process that seems to have depended far
more on the
strength and efficacy of institutions, to whose superior authority the
politicians
deferred (the US constitution, British parliament, etc), rather than trying
to control the flow of events themselves by their own personal authority.

While the world of difference between these and Russia weakens them as
examples,
perhaps more recently "democratized" nations will yield better fruit for
comparison.
Arguably, in none of the "three darlings" of the post-socialist world (Poland,
Hungary, and the Czech Republic) did a single St George or group of crusaders
construct the new order by itself. In fact, post-communists have played
the role of
the "party of power" at some point in two of these three. Thus, perhaps
the West
should look to throw its support behind not candidates and individuals, but
the
processes and institutions of democracy, with less regard for who is
effecting them.
Unfortunately, it seems that so many of us in the West know little enough
about
Russian political realities (to the detriment of my pride I am obliged to
include
myself in this group), that the only yardstick we can come up with for
judging events
is how Russia's perceived or self-proclaimed democrats are involved in or
react to them.

I think that now I am perhaps arguing Mr. Miller's own point rather than
against him.
For certainly, his Russian "St Georges" well illustrate the danger of one
ideologue,
playing the "leading role" in constructing the next era of Russian history.
I can
think of only one example among democratic nations where a single St
George's rise to
power ultimately resulting in a positive democratic transition - that of a
certain
general who just nice private flight from England back home to Chile.
Although the
brutality and length (a decade and a half) of that St George's battle with
Chile's
"dragons" makes it a pretty unpalatable model for a path to democracy,
perhaps if the
West cannot heed Mr. Lukin's constructive criticism that the West should have
"promoted agreement, compromise, the separation of powers, and the division of
authority," then our demand for a single St George prcludes heeding Mr.
Miller's
parting advice, as well. For in such a case, the most "realpolitische," if
not the
most appealing, path would be to come out in support of the man whom most
Russians
seem to see as their St George at the moment, and whom not a few have even
monickered
"our little Pinochet." And in fact, this poor substitute for nuanced and
well-informed policy on Russia seems to be the path that many Western
leaders are embracing - and have done for the past ten years.

Dan Epstein
Henry Russell Shaw Fellow, Harvard University
Moscow

******

#11
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2000 
From: "Alexander Domrin" <DOMRINA@juris.law.nyu.edu>
Subject: Future Russia (www.futurerussia.ru) website

I would like to inform JRL readers of a new Russian website -
Future Russia (www.futurerussia.ru)
- created by the "First Social Engineering Park"
and run by Eugeny Smirnov, President of National Academy 
of Intellectual and Social Technologies.
Future Russia is a project of Independent Expert Council
for Problems of Foreign and Domestic Policy (under 
the Federation Council), known, among other things,
for its periodical "Russia and the World: Political
Realities and Perspectives" (also available on the website).
The website starts a series of "Internet Forums" on
topical problems of Russian policy, with participation of
Russian policy-makers and experts. 
Participation of several presidential candidates 
(Podberezkin, Zuganov, Tuleev, Titov, Savost'yanov, Skuratov)
is expected this week in the forum on How to Cure Russia's
Problems in the Post-Yeltsin Era.

******

#12
The Russia Journal
March 6-12, 2000
Editorial
Incorrect essentials
Russia’s reformers failed once, but they should not be left out of Russia’s 
future. 

It is one of the oldest tricks in the book for governments to attempt to 
change the paradigms within which important issues are debated. In Russia, 
this is happening with the country's economy and is influencing the selection 
of personnel charged with managing it. 

On the back of ruble devaluation and an unexpected spike in oil prices, 
Russia experienced modest economic growth last year and looks likely to do so 
again this year. This appears to have lulled the Kremlin into a false sense 
of security. 

The current managers in the White House have not only sold the idea of their 
fiscal expertise to the population – while helping acting President Putin's 
campaign – but now seem to have become believers in their own fantasy. Worse 
still, the man destined to be the country's president seems to be leaning 
increasingly heavily on these bureaucratic shoulders.

An alarming trend is now taking place in Russia. Putin is beginning to 
surround himself with these technocrats – people who talk big but are, in 
reality, mediocre bureaucrats and average politicians. People who have 
enjoyed low-profile government positions for years – like Putin himself. 

Mikhail Kasyanov and Viktor Khristienko, for example, have produced no 
economic miracle. All they have done is not attempt to reverse the tough 
medicine administered by the Sergei Kiriyenko administration in its dying 
days. They are first-order bureaucrats, and it would be foolhardy to expect 
them to inject the sort of medicine the Russian economy needs.

The bureaucrats surrounding Putin would no doubt point to pensions being paid 
on time as an example of how things are improving. That is indeed good news. 
The only problem is that the money being paid out is virtually worthless 
after the August 1998 crash.

Moreover, the politicians who are supposed to define the vision of a new 
Russia and its new market economy with "dictatorship of law" are people 
lacking even basic education and understanding of the economy and the full 
extent of the mess Russia is in. These would-be doctors cannot cure serious 
ills.

It is time for Putin to start thinking of the composition of a team of tough 
politicians with commitment and capability.

We would go further. It is time to bring back the men with ideas, energy and 
a preparedness to shake up the country. In the current climate, it is not 
politically correct to say so, but there is no choice other than to bring 
back the young reformers.

Number one, Anatoly Chubais, the ideal candidate to be charged with the 
economy, perhaps as a deputy prime minister. Number two, Yegor Gaidar, could 
be given the reins of the Central Bank. And number three, and perhaps the 
most important, Grigory Yavlinsky, could be charged with social issues and 
the fight against corruption. There are other men of unblemished integrity – 
people like Sergei Stepashin, who must be given key positions in government.

Politically correct critics would argue, with some justification, that it was 
Chubais and Gaidar who brought Russia to its knees. Particularly Chubais, 
hardly the darling of the Russian people or Western observers of Russia. But 
they have served their time in the political wilderness and reflected on 
their mistakes. These are intelligent and committed men who deserve a second 
chance. Russia needs them.

Furthermore, if he is to avoid becoming politically irrelevant, Yavlinsky 
must now get into government. He has been proved accurate in his analysis of 
Russia's problems over the years, but now he has to try to prove he can 
change things. Yavlinsky cannot win an election – his only chance is to try 
to change things from the inside.

These men need to be brought into government because Russia's improving 
economy is an illusion. Structural reform is needed if a crisis is to be 
avoided in the future.

If Putin continues to surround himself with bureaucrats and former KGB 
officers, he is going to find that Russia’s problems will remain as 
intractable as ever. No matter how strong his will and patriotism, it will 
continue to be a rich country of poor people. 

Not to laud the Chubaises and Gaidars of Russia, but in the end, getting them 
back into government is the only way for Russia's economy and its people to 
have some chance of a truly prosperous future. The alternative is awful.

******

#13
Russian Media Role in Mar 26 Poll Eyed 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta
March 2, 2000
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Nataliya Kanatikova under the "Well, Well!" rubric: 
"Black PR in Operation. Media Dirty Tricks Will Not Disappear While 
There Are Dishonest Clients Around" 

Back in the pre-computer age it was a truism that 
he who controls the information, controls the world. Now even people 
outside the information process are coming to see that he who controls 
the manipulative techniques controls citizens' minds. 

Indeed, we have all experienced this for ourselves already in the 
State Duma election campaign when some media transformed themselves 
overnight from news media into... PR media and began "working on the 
image" of certain candidates whom some people disliked. 

Let us go further and say that PR people, buying time "unofficially" 
on television, radio, and in the press, are simply trying to turn us all 
from "Homo Sapiens," that is, sentient beings, into "Homo Zapiens." 
Viktor Pelevin, the contemporary Russian prose writer, uses this term to 
denote the victim of manipulative techniques: The TV viewer thinks that 
he is using the TV remote control to manipulate the screen, changing the 
image that he is tired of for a different one, in other words, he is 
"zapping," as they say in English, whereas in fact an invisible 
television director is "zapping" the viewer himself using successive 
changes of image. 

The stakes are the same in the presidential election race that is now 
underway. 

Have people really not noticed that one of the country's main 
television channels, which previously refrained from playing up the 
federal casualties in Chechnya, has recently begun strenuously steering 
everything in that direction. Any fool can see the purpose of this. 
It is to drive down the popularity rating of the most likely contender 
for the presidency. Why? Simply because the actual owner of the 
television station associates this contender with the establishment of an 
economy based on corporate entities, which he does not want, to replace 
the present economy based on individual entities. 

Another representative of this untransparent economy -- admittedly, a 
rank lower -- recently made transparent the manipulative PR technique 
that he uses. D. Khaydarov, former leader of the Kachkanar Mining and 
Enrichment Combine who was dismissed from this post, through oversight 
distributed a purely internal PR document at a news conference instead of 
the press release. It had everything! It contained the "prediction" 
that the mining and enrichment combine would be plundered and would 
disintegrate within a month. It contained the publication by the mining 
and enrichment combine's new leadership, of course, of "plans for the 
realization" of illegal revenue through the legalization of "shady" gold 
and other precious metals. These plans will culminate in the 
introduction into the media of disinformation claiming that the new 
leadership of the Kachkanar Mining and Enrichment Combine is preparing 
the... physical elimination of Khaydarov. But it does not end even 
there. 

The method that is emerging here is the "revelation" of a chain 
leading from the new leadership of the mining and enrichment combine to 
the "very top" ["samyy verkh"] -- either to Chubays or Voloshin. It 
depends on how you "present the material." And there is plenty of scope 
for the imagination: After all, there is a mysterious ellipsis after 
the name Voloshin. It is said that the trail leads to the "very very 
top" ["samyy-samyy verkh"]. This is how politicians are caught up in 
the remorseless machinery of dirty PR trickery. However, the authors of 
the scheme magnanimously allow a "peace scenario" to operate in the 
solution of the conflict between the old and new leaderships of the 
mining and enrichment combine. 

Through an amusing concatenation of circumstances this self-exposure 
of a specific client coincided with the publication in a central 
newspaper of an item which shocked the Russian public. It cited figures 
on how much the clients are shelling out on the "promotion" of 
disinformation in the media. Or on getting the media to withhold 
information unfavorable to the client. This publication came to mind 
when two central newspapers came into my hands. One newspaper published 
an article on the lamentable financial plight of the Sibirskiy Alyuminiy 
Industrial Group under the rubric "As an Advertisement." But the other 
newspaper published the same item as its own journalistic investigation! 
I wondered: Is this the start of the implementation of Khaydarov's PR 
plan? After all, the name of O. Deripaska, president of Sibirskiy 
Alyuminiy, features among the targets for possible attack in the plan 
mistakenly distributed among journalists. 

The placement of a "written-to-order" article or the decision to hold 
back some "damaging material" are the main components of black PR. The 
PR people themselves are fastidious about this aspect of their work. 
The Moscow representatives of this fashionable and sought-after 
profession recently opened their meeting by launching symbolic balloons 
into the air with the words "lies," "slander," and "disinformation" 
written on them. They all drifted into the air. Thus there were no 
clients like the former leader of the Kachkanar Mining and Enrichment 
Combine at the event. His "internal document" would have punctured the 
balloons bearing the inscriptions which represent the essence of the 
economy based on individual entities. 

*******

#14
KORZHAKOV CALLS FOR RE-CREATION OF KGB IN RUSSIA

MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - Alexander Korzhakov, the former chief
of first Russian President Boris Yeltsin's security service and now a
State Duma deputy, has called for re-creating the KGB in the country.
"By supporting Vladimir Putin for the country's president, our
people are sending an utterly clear message to those in power: it is
high time at last for special services to make a fist and strike those
who are preventing them from building a normal life. Russia needs its
KGB! It is high time to say this without blushing," Korzhakov has
written in an article for the Russian newspaper Argumenty I Fakty.
Now "we have the forces and essential special services to do this.
The Federal Security Service [FSB], Interior Ministry [MVD], Main
Intelligence Department [GRU], Foreign Intelligence Service [SVR], the
Federal Government Telecommunications Agency [FAPSI] are all capable of
solving the most complex tasks. The problem is that the special services
are operating as an unclenched fist without coordination."
Korzhakov said he believes "the first step toward creating a new
KGB should be the formation of a coordinating council of special
services at the Russian Security Council, directly subordinated to the
head of state. This will allow for the structuring of the future KGB and
for determining its functions and tasks."
"If the coordinating council of special services is created soon,
it will be possible to solve the problem of returning illegally
withdrawn capital to the country more effectively. The second top
priority is fighting terrorism through specific ways and means,
excluding the use of major military forces and the deaths of peaceful
citizens. The third task is to expose the illegal privatization of
strategic property items and veiled attempts to bankrupt plants and
mines for the purpose of privatization. Experience has shown that we
cannot do without special services for this, either," the ex-
presidential security service chief said.

******

#15
The Observer (UK)
5 March 2000
Revealed: Russia's worst war crime in Chechnya 
Vladimir Putin is the new hero of Russian democracy, courted by Western 
leaders. He is also responsible for one of the most savage atrocities since 
the Second World War. John Sweeney is the first journalist to reach the 
devastated village of Katyr Yurt, where 363 people were slaughtered by 
Russian forces

Her face burnt almost beyond recognition, she lies prone on her hospital bed 
and tells in a child's whispers of the day her mother, father, her two 
brothers, her sister and her cousin - among 363 people from the same village 
- were wiped out. 

At eight years old, Taisa Abakarova is an eyewitness to the worst war crime 
in the savage campaign of Russia's acting President, Vladimir Putin, against 
the 'terrorist fighters' of Chechnya. 

The village of Katyr Yurt, 'safe' in the Russian-occupied zone, far from the 
war's front line, and jam-packed with refugees, was untouched on the morning 
of 4 February when Russian aircraft, helicopters, fuel-air bombs and Grad 
missiles pulverised the village. They paused in the bombing at 3pm, shipped 
buses in, and allowed a white-flag convoy to leave - and then they bombed 
that as well, killing Taisa's family and many others. 

The Observer, in a joint investigation with Channel 4's Dispatches , went to 
Katyr Yurt and saw what was left: a landscape as if from the Somme, streets 
smashed to matchwood, trees shredded, blood-stained cellars, the survivors in 
a frenzy of fear. The village was littered with the remains of Russian 
'vacuum' bombs - fuel-air explosives that can suck your lungs inside out, 
their use against civilians banned by the Geneva Convention. 

Local witnesses, astonished by the first visit by Western outsiders to their 
village, ringed west and east by special troops from the Russian secret 
police, the FSB, said they had counted 363 corpses piled two or three high in 
the street - 'so many you couldn't get a car past them' - before the Russians 
took many of the bodies away and dumped them in a mass grave. 

Taisa has a cruelly burnt face, both hands burnt and bandaged, a broken right 
leg swathed in plaster, a left knee pinioned by iron bolts and internal 
bruising, and yet she wanted to tell us what happened. Taisa's father, 
Mansour, 45, a builder; her mother, Hava, 45, a school teacher; her brothers, 
Magomed, 14; Ruslan, 12; her cousin, Hava, eight; and her sister, Madina, 
six, were squashed into the family's black Volga saloon. She explained how 
the convoy left Katyr Yurt for what they hoped was safety. 'There was a white 
flag on our car, flying from a wooden stick,' she said. 'Then two planes came 
and they hit us and my dad and mum were sitting in front of us and my brother 
and me were sitting in the back seat. Then we were blown up. I fell to the 
mud in the ground.' 

Taisa winced as her aunt, Tabarik Zaumajeva, swabbed the burnt skin around 
her eye. The aunt said: 'At night she is scared to close her eyes. She told 
me that she was afraid the whole picture would come back.' 

The worst is that Taisa's aunt cannot bring herself to tell the little girl 
she is the only survivor of the seven people in the family car: 'I don't know 
how to tell her. If we tell her now, she wouldn't be able to bear it. She's 
already afraid to close her eyes at night. Last night she woke 10 times and 
we can't calm her down.' 

Katyr Yurt, to the west of Grozny, was quiet, calm and untouched on the night 
of 3 February. But Grozny had fallen and Chechen fighters had fled Russian 
revenge. Some of them passed through Katyr Yurt. There is one story that two 
Russian soldiers were kidnapped or killed that night. On the morning of 4 
February, all hell began. 

Putin - who is widely expected to become President when Russia votes this 
month - has consistently denied human rights abuses in Chechnya. Putin's 
denials have mollified Western leaders, and only last month Foreign Secretary 
Robin Cook met him in Moscow and went out of his way to praise the ex-KGB 
secret policeman who gave out hunting knives to his troops on New Year's Day. 
Cook said of Putin: 'I found his style refreshing and open, and his 
priorities for Russia are ones that we would share.' 

What follows is the evidence The Observer/Dispatches has obtained about what 
his forces did to the civilians of Katyr Yurt, evidence that might call into 
question the Foreign Secretary's endorsement of Putin's priorities 'that we 
would share'. 

Rumissa Medhidova is 27, but her face is so sick with grief and horror she 
looks 30 years older. She became a widow on 4 February. 'All the Russians 
left the village and at around 10am they started to bomb.They used 
everything. In the centre of the village, not one house is left standing. In 
one family there were three children around their dead mother. They had been 
shot in the leg by Kalashnikovs. At half past four, they said: "We will give 
you two hours". They sent buses in with white flags.' 

People rushed around to find white sheets or anything at all white to mark 
their cars. There was even time for a joke: 'I saw a cow with white on its 
horns and people were laughing.' 

The convoy set off, each car showing a white flag, some cars showing two or 
three, packed with mainly women and children - the men held back, to make 
more room for children, said Rumissa. It headed west towards the town of 
Achoi Martan and safety. 'When we were on the open road, they fired 
ground-to-air rockets at us. It was a big rocket, not as big as a car. It was 
strange. It didn't explode once, it exploded several times. Every car had 
flags, how many cars I don't know. It was a mess, lots of them. They hit us 
without stopping.' 

Could the Russians have mistaken the white-flag convoy for fighters? 'No, 
they couldn't mistake us. They knew very well there were a lot of refugees: 
16,000 refugees and 8,000 locals in the village. In front of us was a big car 
full of children, not grown-ups. They burnt before my eyes.' 

Her husband stepped out of the car and was killed by shrapnel. With her 
children, she ran from the carnage and made it Achoi Martan: 'I saw a lot of 
bodies but I don't know how many. There were a lot of people lying on the 
road. I didn't count them. I also saw different parts of burnt bodies 
collected in buckets.' 

And then the cover-up began: 'The Russians wouldn't allow the people in the 
village to collect the bodies. They only allowed people on the fifth day to 
go and collect the bodies. When people arrived there, they asked: "Where are 
the bodies of our people?" The Russians said some had already been burnt. 
People say the Russians took the bodies and threw them in a mass grave.' 

Another eyewitness, a wounded man of the killable age, said: ' They started 
bombing. Bombs, artillery. They were killing people. 

'At our local school on the edge of the village there were Spetsnaz troops. 
They said: "We will give you a safe corridor." So everyone started to go 
towards Achoi Martan. Then they used rockets against us. Some say 350 
refugees were killed, 170 from the village itself.' 

Zara Aktimirova, 59, was looking after her mother, Matusa Batalova, 85, who 
had been hit by shrapnel. 'The fear was so terrible I do not have the words 
... We were in a cellar. You could hear the vacuum bombs: "Whoosh, whoosh". 
We just got into this cellar and the whole house next to us was completely 
destroyed. If someone ran to the apartment block en-trance, snipers would 
fire and hit arms and legs.' 

Later she and her mother passed along the road and saw the wreckage of the 
white-flag convoy: 'The cars were mangled up, like mincemeat. I didn't count 
the cars, I was carrying my mother. The convoy stretched maybe three 
kilometres. Every car was hit.' Her mother was dying. 

Our fifth witness, a doctor, is glassy-eyed and dead-tired after operating on 
hundreds of patients without anaesthetics, medicines or electricity during 
the bombardment. He said: 'First they hit the village, then they gave 
civilians a corridor and they were shot. They didn't bring the dead to us, 
only those in agony. They brought 10 bodies, to check if they were alive or 
not: one baby among them, grown-ups, teenagers, some without both legs, burnt 
with traumas to the head, stomach. There were a lot of bodies in the village 
they didn't bring to us.' 

Our sixth witness stood outside the ruin of his home in Katyr Yurt, leaning 
on two crutches. Rizvan Vakhaev, 47, was contemptuous of the dangers of 
speaking out. When two vacuum bombs fell outside his house, the blasts killed 
eight people: six women, a man and an 11-year-old boy outright; 10 more have 
died since. His wife is seriously injured, as are three of his children. His 
daughter-in-law died immediately. 

He showed us where the children had been lying before the blast, and the 
remains of human intestines lying on the ground. The vacuum bomb is dropped 
by a parachute. As it falls to the ground, it releases a cloud of petrol 
vapour, which ignites, and the sky explodes. A US Defence Intelligence Agency 
study of 1993 reported: 'The kill mechanism against living targets is unique 
and unpleasant. What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the 
subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs.' 

An old lady, our seventh witness, emerged from a hole in the ground, 
trembling. She put a piece of bread to her mouth: 'We didn't eat yesterday 
and today. It was like Doomsday. Helicopters, planes, three bombs fell when 
we were in the cellar. Three sons and one daughter died. Our fourth son is 
dying at the hospital.' 

On our way out of the village, we stopped by the mosque. There we met our 
last eye-witness. He had made a tally of all the bodies before the Russians 
took them away, dragging some by chains from car bumpers. He had tried to 
wash the bodies, and give them some decency in the Muslim tradition. And the 
number of the dead? '363,' he said. 

As we left the ruins of Katyr Yurt, we saw wreckage from what was left of the 
white-flag convoy: broken cars, twisted, charred metal, a boot lying in the 
mud. And then we heard a burst of machine-gun fire, an echo of 'the 
refreshing and open' language of Vladimir Putin. 

'Dying for The President' will be shown on C4's 'Dispatches' on Thursday at 
9.30pm. 

john.sweeney@observer.co.uk 

******

#16
Foreigners Allowed 1,500 Dollars out of Russia Undeclared.

MOSCOW, March 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Physical entities - non-residents of the 
Russian Federation, have been temporarily allowed by a resolution of the 
State Customs Committee of March 2 to take foreign currency not exceeding 
1,500 dollars out of Russia undeclared and without sumbmitting documents 
authorizing its earlier intake or remittance into the Russian Federation, 
Prime Tass reported on Monday with reference to the press service of the 
State Customs Committee. 

The currency not exceeding the above mentioned sum "is now recognized by 
Customs bodies as commodities not intended for industrial or other commercial 
purposes", which allows a facilitated procedure of its transportation. 
Earlier, foreigners when moving any sum of money in hard currency had to 
declare it and submit either a bank certificate or a declaration on its 
intake into Russia. 

Physical entities - residents of the Russian Federation, have been authorized 
to take 1,500 dollars out of Russia via "a green corridor" as of February 11, 
2000. 

******

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