March 25, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4196 • 4197   4198

Johnson's Russia List
#4197
25 March 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Itar-Tass: Candidates Take Breather Before RUSSIA'S 
Sunday Polls. 
2. AFP: Vladivostok voters expect little change after Russian 
presidential vote.
3. The Times (UK): Giles Whittell, Corruption 'scandal' haunts 
Putin's future.
4. Reuters: Foreign observers seek clean Russian vote.
5. Itar-Tass: Manual Issued for Observers of RUSSIA'S Polls.
6. Vladimir Lissniak: In response to Kitty Dolan's Machiavelli 
Quote. (re legal education)
7. Financial Times (UK): Putin's young Rasputins: Andrew Jack 
finds Russia's acting president relying on image-makers more than 
policy advisers.
8. Newsday: Tim McDaniel, A Plebescite with a Phantom Public.
9. The Guardian (UK) editorial: When the winning is easy. 
Running Russia will be the difficult bit.
10. New York Times: Michael Gordon, Russian TV Network Ties 
Putin Rival to Jews, Gays and Foreigners. (Yavlinsky)
11. Los Angeles Times: Mayerbek Nunayev and Richard Paddock,
Systematic Plundering of Chechnya Reported.]

*******

#1
Candidates Take Breather Before RUSSIA'S Sunday Polls. 

MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) - Most of 11 candidates for Russian president 
take a breather on Saturday, the last day before March 26 presidential 
elections. 

With campaigning and advertisement banned 24 hours ahead of voting, they are 
set to relax and communicate with families. 

Film-maker and State Duma deputy Stanislav Govorukhin, whose name is first on 
ballots, told Itar-Tass that he was going to go to his countryside house in 
the village of Snegiri to engage in his hobby, the painting of studies 
outdoors. 

Umar Dzhabrailov, manager of Moscow's Radisson-Slavjanskaya Hotel, said he 
would have a rest in Saturday or probably would go out to some get-together 
"related to high life". 

A spokesman at campaign headquarters of Vladimir Zhirinovskly, leader of the 
Liberal Democratic Party and its faction in the State Duma, told Itar-Tass 
that he returns from a campaign tour on Saturday and plans no "special 
functions --Vladimir Volfovich will simply have a rest".

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov will convene a meeting of his 
campaign headquarters before to attend a football match of Spartak, Moscow, 
and Alania, North Ossetia on Saturday night. 

Ella Pamfilova, who is the sole woman among presidential candidates, said she 
wanted to give the day to her family. 

"I will have a good sleep, get the house in order, comb all emotions and 
thoughts, communicate with the granddaughter," she told Itar-Tass by the 
phone. 

Alexei Podberyozkin, leader of Spiritual Heritage group, will divide his day 
between the family and some work at his campaign headquarters. 

Acting President Vladimir Putin was expected to spend Saturday in his work 
place. 

Suspended Russian Prosecutor-General Yury Skuratov meets international 
observers and works in his campaign headquarters. 

A spokesman at the headquarters of Samara regional governor Konstantin Titov 
told Itar-Tass that he was going to have a walk on Samara's embankment with 
his granddaughter and "breath the Volga". 

Kemerovo regional governor Aman Tuleyev is most likely to attend to his work 
routine. 

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko movement, who is the last on 
ballots, was going to watch the Spartak-Alania match. 

*******

#2
Vladivostok voters expect little change after Russian presidential vote

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, March 25 (AFP) - 
Russians in the crumbling port of Vladivostok will be among the first to vote 
in Sunday's presidential election, but few in the Far East believe the 
outcome will help them in their struggle to survive.

With the local government paralysed by corruption and officials answering to 
mafia interests, the majority of factories stand silent, workers are not paid 
for months on end and heat and electricity are hard to come by even in the 
frigid winter months.

Some 7,000 kilometers (4,400 miles) from the Kremlin, few in Vladivostok 
believe presidential politics will have much affect on bringing the home of 
Russia's Pacific fleet back to life.

Viktor Cherepkov, a popular former mayor who was sacked by Moscow in December 
1998, swept his arm over a hillside view of the quiet port on the eve of the 
election.

"There used to be hundreds, even thousands, of ships moving in and out of 
this harbor, not only during the Soviet period but as late as 1994. Today 
this has all died away," Cherepkov said with a sad shake of his head.

The former mayor doesn't hold out much hope that the outcome of a 
presidential campaign centered seven time zones away in Moscow can influence 
life here.

"Real power in the Primorsky region is in the hands of bandits," he said. 
"Under such a condition, decisions and any plans are directed toward the 
interests of the criminal world."

Though Sunday's front-runner, former KGB spy Vladimir Putin, has made the 
need to introduce a strong state in order to smash the power of the mafia and 
wipe out corruption a cornerstone of his campaign, few believe the long-arm 
of the Kremlin can reach the Far East.

Putin was charged with ending corruption as former head of the Federal 
Security Service (former KGB) also, but nothing changed, Cherepkov said.

But Putin supporters counter that the acting president has already given the 
local economy a boost.

"We have many military-industrial enterprises that weren't working, and Putin 
has increased state orders by one-and-a-half times, which will encourage 
production," said Alexander Troitsky, who works on Putin's campaign.

Yet a long road lies ahead if the region is to return to its long-past glory 
days.

During the Soviet period, half the region's factories worked in the 
military-industrial complex. Today their production makes up less than one 
percent of the local economy, said Vladimir Sozinov, first vice president of 
the regional economics and planning committee.

Sozinov believes the federal government's main task should be to provide 
cheap energy and transport to keep the Far East connected to European Russia.

The federal government "has signed a series of protocols, but all this 
remains on paper," he said.

Judging from the campaign, virtually none of the candidates has much interest 
in the Far East.

Of the 11 candidates, only former general prosecutor Yury Skuratov even 
bothered to campaign in the region, home to 2.5 million voters.

In a region where Putin's Unity bloc received wide support during the 
parliamentary elections in December, many locals said they were not planning 
to vote on Sunday.

Among those who will go to the polls, support was mixed and did not reflect 
the high ratings Putin has received in national polls.

Two days before the poll, Antonina Kudinova, who repairs elevators for the 
city, was undecided.

"My son says, 'Mama, vote for (liberal Yabloko leader Grigory) Yavlinsky.' My 
daughter is for (Communist Party leader Gennady) Zyuganov and I'm looking at 
Putin, but I don't know," she said.

"Mama, Putin is Yeltsin's appointee and under him nothing will change," her 
daughter, Svetlana, interrupted.

After nine years under Yeltsin, Kudinova's prospects, like those of most of 
Vladivostok's 800,000 residents, have worsened -- she hasn't been paid in 
three months and her apartment, like most in the city is heated only to just 
above freezing.

"Under the Communists, we lived well. We could raise our children, quality 
food was cheap or free, education was free and we could travel," she recalled 
nostalgically.

Meanwhile Sozinov, banging on his wooden desk, said problems with heating and 
electricity should not be exaggerated. "This year no one froze."

*******

#3
The Times (UK)
March 25 2000
[for personal use only] 
Corruption 'scandal' haunts Putin's future 
FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW

VLADIMIR PUTIN was the focus yesterday of corruption allegations that will do 
little to alter the result of tomorrow's presidential election but could 
haunt his crucial early months in power. 

Even as Mr Putin vowed to use his former KGB colleagues to tackle corruption, 
one of his rivals accused him of squandering public money while he was deputy 
mayor of St Petersburg and predicted that the scandal, which has simmered for 
years, could lead to impeachment charges within the year. 

The acting President, who is all but certain to run Russia for the next four 
years, has already been accused of losing track of £7 million in a botched 
scheme to feed St Petersburg during Russia's financial crisis of 1991-92. On 
Thursday a Moscow newspaper linked him to another £2.5 million that 
disappeared from the city's funds over the next four years, and claimed that 
a grateful building firm had built him a £37,000 lakeside dacha. Yesterday 
Yuri Skuratov, Russia's suspended prosecutor-general, said that Mr Putin's 
name was on a list of senior corrupt officials which he plans to publish 
after the election. 

In a recent interview with The Times, the head of Mr Putin's campaign staff 
rejected the allegations swirling round the acting President as "artificially 
inflated" and "due simply to the election". There is little doubt that the 
latest claims are politically timed - some were published in the staunchly 
liberal Novaya Gazeta newspaper, while Mr Skuratov is himself a presidential 
candidate - but they are too precise to be ignored. 

Starting in 1993, according to Novaya Gazeta, Mr Putin, then head of St 
Petersburg's "Committee for External Relations", lobbied hard for a proposal 
by the 20th Trest building firm to build a giant business centre on the 
city's outskirts. Thanks to him, the city granted the firm a £55,000 loan at 
minimal interest at a time of hyperinflation. 

Mr Putin approved further credits to the same firm totalling £2.5 million. 
Less than a tenth of the money went on city-approved projects, Interior 
Ministry investigators believe, with the rest going via a series of Spanish 
banks to fund a 64-unit apartment hotel in the Spanish resort of Torrevieja. 
The St Petersburg business centre was never built and the loan was never 
repaid, the investigators claim. 

The inquiry into 20th Trest - number 144128 in the Interior Ministry's files 
- is continuing, though Novaya Gazeta claimed this week that detectives 
assigned to the case had recently said that they feared for their lives. 

A separate investigation into Mr Putin's role in a 1991-92 fiasco involving 
his granting of export licences to dubious local companies was dropped when 
it recommended that he be dismissed. 

Yesterday the former colonel in the KGB - whose successor body is the FSB - 
said that he planned to use other former spies to target Russia's corruption. 
"I am bringing into my inner circle people from law enforcement bodies," Mr 
Putin told the American ABC channel. "I have known them for many years and I 
trust them. It has nothing to do with ideology. It's only a matter of their 
professional qualities and personal relationships." 

Attempting to make light of the problem of corruption, which has alarmed 
Western investors since the August 1998 financial crash, he called it a 
question of failing "to guarantee equal opportunities for all participants in 
the market". 

Mr Putin's enemies are lining up to accuse him of having unequal access to St 
Petersburg's volatile market in the early and mid-1990s, and some fear it 
could be dangerous work. "I fear for our journalists' safety," Novaya 
Gazeta's editor said yesterday. "Putin has brought all his FSB cronies down 
from St Petersburg, but our team is stronger than his. The Russian 
intelligentsia will never die." 

******

#4
Foreign observers seek clean Russian vote
By Michael Steen

MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) - International observers set to check that ballot 
boxes do not get stuffed with fake votes in Russia's impending presidential 
election said on Friday they hoped their presence would ensure a clean vote. 

But the Communist candidate for Sunday's election warned against massive 
electoral fraud in some regions and an experienced election monitor told 
Reuters the conduct of the campaign had been worrying. 

Acting President Vladimir Putin is widely predicted to win the ballot, with 
opinion poll ratings of more than double those of his closest rival, 
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov. 

Zyuganov told a group of observers from the Organisation for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that they should be on their guard in a series 
of regions including Bashkortostan and Tatarstan in the Urals. 

``In these regions we know the result will be fixed,'' Zyuganov said, adding 
that there had been infringements during December's State Duma lower house of 
parliament election. 

The OSCE said at the time the election had been conducted more or less 
fairly, with only minor violations. 

The Central Election Commission said around 1,000 foreign observers had been 
given permission to visit polling stations across Russia's vast landmass 
during voting on Sunday. 

But the election monitor told Reuters that the main question of electoral 
fairness hinged on the pre-election campaign conducted on television. 

The great majority of Russia's 108 million voters rely on partly state-owned 
ORT and RTR television as their single source of news and information. 

Putin declined formally to campaign in recent weeks, but has received 
wall-to-wall coverage on RTR and ORT news programmes as he undertook what the 
Kremlin called working trips to regions, on one occasion flying to separatist 
Chechnya in a jet fighter. 

``The Duma elections were truly the filthiest elections that I've ever seen. 
These ones have been rather better but there have been deteriorations in 
recent days which is rather worrying,'' said the election monitor, who asked 
not to be named. 

ORT broadcast three separate reports attacking leading liberal candidate 
Grigory Yavlinsky on Thursday, one of which said Yavlinsky illegally took 
money from Western backers, which his office has denied. 

In a country where anti-semitism and homophobia can be found, ORT also showed 
groups of Jews and homosexuals expressing their support for Yavlinsky. 

CHECHNYA VOTE CRITICISED 

Heinrich Pichler, the political affairs officer for the OSCE election 
observation unit, said he had not seen the ORT broadcast but he viewed it as 
an exception in an otherwise relatively clean campaign. 

He said the OSCE aimed to monitor polling stations across Russia, but had not 
sent anyone to Chechnya due to security concerns in the war-torn region. 

Sergei Kovalyov, a Russian rights campaigner, told Ekho Moskvy radio that 
holding elections in a warzone such as Chechnya broke Russian law. 

The OSCE's 300-strong group of observers includes several dozen European 
parliamentarians who on Friday met candidates' representatives and election 
commission officials. 

One observer, Belgian Christian Democrat parliamentarian Pieter De Crem, said 
it was important for the OSCE to watch the elections to help Russia to become 
a stable democracy. 

``Russia is still the great unknown to Western Europe and the the Western 
world,'' he said. ``In a few years we need to see an adult political system 
here that can compete with our own and guarantee stability.'' 

*******

#5
Manual Issued for Observers of RUSSIA'S Polls. .

MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) - The Europe mission of the Organisation for 
Security and Cooperation in Europe/Bureau for Democracy Institutions and 
Human Rights has issued a manual for international observers who will monitor 
Russia's presidential elections on March 26, a spokesperson for the mission's 
Moscow office told Itar-Tass. 

The manual's circulation is 400,000. The office's deputy chief Linda 
Edgeworth said the manual's section one presents general information on 
Russia's pre-election situation. 

She said this sections lays out the political and economic situation, 
features of Russian mass media, campaigning techniques, brief profiles of 
presidential candidates and their platforms, and the role of international 
observers in the elections. 

Section two contains instructions for observers, or what they should do 
during the election day and vote counting. 

*******

#6
From: "Vladimir Lissniak" <vlissniak@pericles.ru>
Subject: In response to Kitty Dolan's Machiavelli Quote
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 

I agree. Russia needs not constitutional reform but change in thinking
and legal education.

Law has ritual meaning in this country and legal fiction is more than a
common
thing. Ethics in the legal profession is often unknown. I can show you a few
authentic contracts in real estate, for example, where a client of a Moscow
Realty is cornered,
squeezed and dehydrated. And the poor thing, being illiterate signs a bunch
of
suicidal legal documents under time pressure and hassle, not suspecting that
they alienate his property for two roubles and ninety-nine cents. If you
look at these papers you will see
that the lawyers who concocted them are worse than hired killers.
Law schools are mushrooming, however, not many graduates from law schools
can think in legal terms, do research, or use their brains for something
more sophisticated than registration or incorporation, although the latter
on many occasions needs imagination too.

Constitution? Who really cares very much beyond the Garden Ring. If you
think that beat officer or housing commission will listen to your argument
on Article 25, you are wrong. He or they will be insisting upon entering
your premises
referring to his/their status. This status is more important than the
Constitution.
Judges are approched in presence of the procedural opponent with proposals
to meet for a tea party...

Judicial decisions are hardly enforced ... and you name what is not a real
problem in law here.

In short there will be enough to do for the next couple of generations.

I can send, for the asking, the table of contents and introduction to a
Russian
textbook for eight-year high school students, prepared by four enthusiasts
to whom I would erect bronze monuments just for the attempt to do something
really useful in this country. I was asked to write comments on this
material
and to my shame did not find time to do it. This textbook would be an
answer to Ms. Dolan's question (any initiatives that have been taken to
bring ... part of the equation into play?).
The person who gave the materials is Lidya I. Siomina from Open Society
Institute (lsemina@osi.ru).

Best regards,
Vladimir Lissniak
Pericles Training Center
ANO Pericles
ABLE (American Business & Legal Education) Project
Tverskaya Ul 10, Suite 319
Moscow 103009 Russia
7-095-292-5188/6463
vlissniak@pericles.ru

*******

#7
Financial Times (UK)
25 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin's young Rasputins: Andrew Jack finds Russia's acting president
relying on image-makers more than policy advisers.

There is a sweet smell in the corridors of Alexander House, the marble-
lined Moscow headquarters of Vladimir Putin's presidential election
campaign. It comes from the chocolate factory just across the river, but
seems to express the staff's confidence in their candidate's almost certain
success on Sunday. 

Mr Putin's advisers have in the two months created one of the most
successful "non-campaigns" in modern electoral history - directing maximum
media attention to the candidate, with minimal scrutiny of his policies. 

Whether taking the controls of a fighter jet on his way to greet troops in
Chechnya, tossing an opponent casually over his shoulder in a judo contest,
or relaxing at home with his poodle, the television and newspaper pictures
have been an image-makers' dream. 

A steely-eyed, unemotional former KGB employee who kept a low profile for
most of his professional life has been transformed into a public figure
invariably described as youthful, energetic and decisive. Not bad for a
candidate who appeared to have received the kiss of death when the hugely
unpopular Boris Yeltsin anointed him acting prime minister and then his
chosen successor as president last August. 

"The strategy behind the campaign is that there is no campaign," says
Ksenia Ponomaryova, a communications consultant who is deputy head of the
election staff. "It might look like an image-maker's work, but what you see
is simply Mr Putin. The only person who stands behind him is himself." 

Irina Petrovskaya, television critic for the newspaper Izvestiya, is more
sceptical. "This has been a campaign in the best traditions of
Brezhnev-style Soviet propaganda," she says, citing widely distributed
pictures of Mr Putin chatting to journalists on a brand new Moscow suburban
train "while all the other trains were cancelled". 

What is undeniable is that every effort has been made to avoid alienating
voters by setting out an electoral programme, let alone entering into
debate with rivals. Apart from a vague statement diffused on the internet
at the end of last year, the only significant insight into Mr Putin's
thinking came in a rambling letter to voters full of generalities,
published late last month. 

Mr Putin's choice of advisers does, however, reveal clues to his future
style of leadership. Many are relatively young, like Dmitri Medvedev, head
of the campaign and a former law teacher on leave of absence from his post
as a presidential adviser in the Kremlin. He is one of a number of
acquaintances drawn from Mr Putin's native St Petersburg. 

So is German Gref, who heads the Centre for Strategic Studies, a think-tank
resident in Alexander House that was set up to devise an economic programme
for the president. He has loyally stalled publication of any
recommendations until well after the elections are over. 

There is Mikhail Margelov, head of Rosinformcentre, the state information
body set up to co-ordinate and control information on the Chechen war. More
than any other event, it was the fighting in the North Caucasus that gained
Mr Putin his reputation as a decisive figure willing to use force to
restore Russia's might. 

If Alexander Voloshin, Mr Putin's chief of staff, was inherited from Mr
Yeltsin, he is not alone in representing the old guard. Apart from Mr
Margelov, at least two other advisers were involved in Mr Yeltsin's
successful re-election campaign in 1996. They are Gleb Pavlovsky, a
political consultant whose Foundation for Effective Politics is based in
Alexander House; and Alexander Oslon, head of the Public Opinion
Foundation, a polling group. 

In public, Mr Putin has stressed his desire to distance himself from
Russia's oligarchs, the powerful business interests so influential during
Mr Yeltsin's regime. Yet two other Kremlin secondees on the campaign staff,
Vladislav Surkov and Alexander Abramov, are both former executives with
Alfa Group, a bank controlled by Peter Aven. Mr Aven says he still sees his
former colleagues informally while stressing that they are now accountable
to their new masters and not to him. 

Even Alexander House itself was once controlled by Alexander Smolensky, an
oligarch accused of shifting assets into other companies while leaving his
SBS Agro bank - and tens of thousands of depositors - with nothing after
its bankruptcy following the August 1998 crisis. Mr Putin may have
transformed his image, but his campaign building symbolises how Russian
politics still inhabits the past. 

******

#8
Newsday
19 March 2000
[for personal use only]
A Plebescite with a Phantom Public
By Timothy McDaniel
Timothy McDaniel is professor of sociology at the 
University of California at San Diego and the author of "The Agony of the 
Russian Idea."

EVEN AS AMERICA closes the book on any meaningfully contested presidential 
primaries and prepares for the rigors of the general campaign, Russia's 
fledgling republic elects its first post-Yeltsin leader next week. The 
constrasts here are instructive. In the United States, after much sound and 
fury, the winner of the general election will be the candidate who can build 
the broadest coalition based on promises to key constituencies and on the 
artful manipulation of political symbols. 

Plagued by so many afflictions in the recent past, the Russian public has at 
least been spared the uncertainties of a hard-fought campaign. Buoyed by the 
brutal campaign in Chechnya and the creative self-destruction of all 
potential rivals, from Communists to liberals, Acting President Vladimir 
Putin's approval rating stands somewhere near 60 percent. It is a remarkable 
feat for a previously obscure figure who was anointed by one of the most 
unpopular political leaders in modern Russian history. 

Despite the lack of drama, the significance of the upcoming Russian election 
is enormous. On the one hand, it bears witness to one of the few positive 
legacies of the Boris Yeltsin era, the creation of a democratic system. On 
the other hand, Yeltsin's heir has assailed the state and society that 
Yeltsin did so much to create. 

The terms of the indictment are harsh indeed. The very future of Russia is 
threatened, Putin has warned. The country may fall apart or become part of 
the "third echelon" of modern states. It has lost its moral compass; it does 
not value its own culture. The society is lawless and the government corrupt 
and ineffective. And by its own acts, admits Putin, the government has 
permitted and even nurtured economic crime. 

Such is Putin's jeremiad against Yeltsin's Russia.The prescription for 
recovery seems equally harsh: Movement forward requires a break with the 
surrounding chaos, and tough measures to restore order. All this shoud be 
done without ideological passion, says Putin, who recognizes the harm done 
both by Communist ideology and the ideology of market reform based on foreign 
textbooks. He sees himself as above all a pragmatist, one who is willing to 
face the most complicated problems honestly and offer practical solutions to 
them. 

What, then, are the solutions for Russia's problems? For Putin, Russian 
history and shared world experience both show that there can be no well-being 
without the rule of law-and that the rule of law depends, in turn, upon a 
strong state. In Russia, in particular, he affirms that the state has always 
been the source of both order and dynamism. The state must reassert this 
tradition first by reforming itself, purging corrupt officials and distancing 
itself from selfish economic interest groups. Thus will begin an authentic 
restoration of the national ideals of patriotism, statism and social 
solidarity-the values spelled out in Putin's first major political 
pronouncement issued a few days before Yeltsin's New Year's resignation. 

Putin's promises to restore order have won him broad support among the 
Russian masses. Not only the Chechen war, but also such measures as the 
payment of long-overdue pensions and his deft manipulation of the parties in 
the new Duma, have convinced people that Putin is a man of action. "What is 
said is done," Putin likes to repeat. Since people seem to assume that rules 
and order will only be applied to others (Chechens, the economic oligarchy, 
etc.), the majority is happy for now. 

The minority, which probably includes much of the educated class of Russia, 
is very worried indeed. Commentators have vied with each other to locate the 
appropriate tyrant to compare Putin with. Is it Peter the Great or Bonaparte 
or Pinochet-or even Stalin, or Hitler? (One respected Russian commentator 
renamed Yeltsin "Boris Hindenburg," a reference to the German chancellor who 
allowed Hitler to come to power.) These critics are convinced that a 
modernized police state is coming to Russia. Their fears are founded in part 
on Putin's style, which reminds many people all too vividly of his long KGB 
background. There are repeated references to his cold, lifeless eyes and to 
his terse, no-nonsense way of speaking (which is sometimes laced with 
underworld argot). 

Also disquieting is a quite intentional vagueness about crucial issues. For 
example, when asked whether he really intended to shake things up, Putin 
replied that he was simply unwilling to say. Nor has he been forthcoming 
about his stance toward the Russian oligarchs, allowing much room for 
speculation. Of course, much of the apprehension is also due to the 
authorities' deeds since Putin assumed power. Apart from the brutal Chechen 
war, which has earned the country widespread global rebuke for human-rights 
violations, there is the infamous Babitsky affair. Andrei Babitsky, a 
journalist critical of the Russian war effort in Chechnya, disappeared, was 
tortured and then resurfaced in ways that strongly suggested the complicity 
of the Russian state. Putin has also put forward proposals to reintroduce 
military education in high schools and initiatives to monitor Internet 
communications-further fueling fears in Russia's dissenting minority that he 
seeks to fashion a post-Communist police state. 

In my view, such alarmism disguises the real dangers in Putin's vision of the 
future of Russia. He has repeatedly said that civil rights, freedom and 
democracy are essential for progress in the 21st Century, that only through 
them can individual welfare, and thus social progress, be assured. Clearly, 
he has learned some lessons from his exposure to western societies. He also 
knows that Russia cannot seal itself off from the rest of the world and 
become a pariah nation. Thus, his pragmatism, if nothing else, pushes him 
towards liberalism. We will not witness a restoration of absolutely arbitrary 
dictatorship under Putin. 

But neither will there be a deepening of democracy, for it is clear from all 
of his policy pronouncements that Putin has no understanding of democracy's 
deeper principles. His is a managerial, technocratic view of democracy. 
Reform, he says, must begin with the state itself, which must be turned into 
a competent and honest instrument of government. A democratic reformer would, 
by contrast, also stress the need for the political organization of society, 
which in Russia remains as structureless as a mollusk. This reformed state 
has the responsibility of developing an adequate set of rules, so that, in 
the words of Putin's open letter to the Russian people, the leader can "tune 
people in to common goals" and "put everyone in their proper places and help 
them acquire confidence in their own strength." (Does everyone have a "proper 
place" in a free society?) To adopt Putin's metaphor, bringing order to a 
house means that you must know what it contains. And so, Putin contends that 
all Russia's resources, natural and human, state and private, "everything 
Russia owns, uses and has at its disposal today" must be taken account of and 
mobilized for the people's collective well-being. 

In Putin's political vision, then, people will have rights and the ability to 
dispose of their resources, but always within limits delineated by a state 
that alone can make the rules on the basis of "pragmatic" criteria. Of 
course, the state proceeds down this path without any true dialogue with the 
society whose welfare it presumes to protect. 

Putin betrays his profoundly antidemocratic instincts in his refusal to 
publish the details of his program before the elections. To publicize his 
program, he has said, would only turn it into an object of debate and attack. 

It never entered his mind that a political program might be a useful way to 
build support-or that social groups have the right to have input into the 
definition of goals. Similarly, in his efforts to define the nation's common 
vision, Putin has created a "Center for Strategic Projects," which-only after 
the election-will announce to the Russian public what its aspirations and 
values should be. Clearly, organized and independent social groups are only 
obstacles in Putin's world view: They interfere with the pragmatic 
disposition of resources. 

Putin is certainly right that the stability of Russia requires the rule of 
law and the deepening of democracy, so that the potentially fatal gap between 
state and society can be bridged. Unfortunately, his technocratic and statist 
vision of politics deprives him of any real insights into the meaning of his 
own words. With such leaders, Russia may forever remain in the second tier of 
nations. 

*******

#9
The Guardian (UK)
March 25, 2000
Editorial
When the winning is easy 
Running Russia will be the difficult bit

Russia goes to the polls tomorrow to choose a successor to President Boris 
Yeltsin. Unusually in a democratic election, the result is already known in 
advance. The degree of certainty about the outcome does not quite match 
Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak recently took over 95% of the vote, or indeed 
Margaret Thatcher's 1983 contest with Michael Foot. But it would be a foolish 
kulak indeed who bet his roubles on a victory for Communist Gennady Zyuganov 
or Grigory Yavlinsky, the liberals' standard-bearer. The problem with this 
election is that it has hardly been an election at all - more a referendum on 
one man's popularity. 

Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, acting president, Yeltsin protégé, 
hammer of the Chechens, and Tony Blair's newest pal, is so far ahead in the 
opinion polls that the only real question is whether he will attract 
sufficient votes (50% or more) to avoid a second-round run-off. Mr Putin has 
achieved the American politician's trick of running as an anti-establishment 
candidate while enjoying the backing of the establishment. He presents 
himself, when he has deigned to campaign at all, as a new, young, energetic 
face ready to break with the past, restore Russia's national pride, stand up 
for its interests abroad, and crack down hard on crime and corruption at 
home. But his political base comprises essentially the same Kremlin-centred 
clique of power-brokers, businessmen and media tycoons which pulled Mr 
Yeltsin's strings in his later years. 

Whether Mr Putin is his own man, or an oligarchs' frontman, a reformer or a 
neo-Stalinist, remains unclear. He has produced no manifesto or economic 
programme. He effectively controls much of the media and has eschewed TV 
debates. He has avoided ideological battles and controversial commitments. 
His decision to raise defence spending and pensions, on the other hand, is 
not one that any true patriot could contest. But while their candidate has 
skated over the issues, his managers have worked hard to broaden the appeal 
of their uncharismatic, dour-looking charge. To soften his image as ex-KGB 
apparatchik, he has been variously portrayed as doting family man, dog-lover, 
vodka tippler, karate chopper, ladies' man, and really, one helluva of a fun 
guy to be around. Whether all this is actually true is as uncertain as his 
policy on relations with the Ukraine. Last month, we asked: "Who is Vladimir 
Putin?" The answer is that, after this most unenlightening of elections, we 
and the Russian people still do not know. 

The problems facing Mr Putin once he takes office in his own right will not, 
however, be so easily avoided. The Chechnya war - sadly, the single most 
important reason for his success - is far from over. Nor is separatism 
confined to that devastated Caucasus nation. Simply holding Russia together 
will be one of his toughest challenges. Another will be how to revive the 
country's chaotic economy, particularly its rusting industrial base and 
primitive agriculture. On this rests his promise that, after a miserable 
post-Communist decade, life for ordinary Russians, including the 50m in 
poverty, can be better, safer, and fairer. Strengthening the "organs of the 
state", although it may bring greater repression, cannot bring greater 
prosperity. For this Mr Putin will continue to need well-managed western 
help. He knows this very well - hence his befriending of Mr Blair. 
Reconciling Russia's need for good relations with the west with the new 
nationalism on which he has ridden to power will be Mr Putin's biggest test. 
Winning this non-election is the easy bit. Then we shall see which way he 
jumps. 

*******

#10
New York Times
25 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Russian TV Network Ties Putin Rival to Jews, Gays and Foreigners
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

MOSCOW, March 24 -- Russia's state-owned television has broadcast reports
that 
the nation's leading liberal challenger to Vladimir V. Putin is supported by 
Jews, homosexuals and foreigners. 

The three prime-time reports by the ORT television network were clearly 
intended to exploit the anti-Semitism, homophobia and suspicion of foreigners 
that still pervade Russian society, as well as its enthusiasm for conspiracy 
theories. 

The reports, broadcast Thursday night, indicated that the forces behind Mr. 
Putin were trying to make sure that he would win more than 50 percent of the 
votes cast Sunday. He needs that many to avoid a runoff, which would be held 
April 16. 

The candidate against whom the broadcasts were aimed, Grigori A. Yavlinsky, 
the leader of the liberal Yabloko faction, is generally held to have no 
chance in the election. But though Mr. Yavlinsky, who is part Jewish, is 
running a distant third out of 11 candidates, he stands to siphon the most 
votes from Mr. Putin. He therefore poses the greatest danger to the acting 
president's chances of winning a mandate on the first round. Hoping to score 
a decisive victory, Mr. Putin implored Russians today to go to the polls and 
pick a leader who could restore the country's prestige and command its 
nuclear arsenal. The Russian Orthodox patriarch Aleksy II also urged a high 
turnout. 

But the televised reports had a different tone. Kseniya Ponomaryova, deputy 
head of Mr. Putin's election headquarters, said she saw nothing wrong with 
the reports, which she said the campaign had not orchestrated. 

"ORT has shown that gays support Yavlinsky, and that there are grounds to 
consider that his campaign is financed by persons who do not have Russian 
citizenship," she said. "What can I say about it?" 

But others said the reports made a mockery of the Kremlin's pledge to take 
the high road. 

"Putin promised no dirty tricks during the presidential campaign," said 
Georgi A. Arbatov, a longtime specialist on Russia's relationship with the 
West. "But now they are turning all the propaganda against Yavlinsky during 
the last days of the campaign. Putin's whole style reminds me of a policeman 
in the provinces." 

The Russian government owns 51 percent of ORT, whose reports are seen 
throughout Russia. Boris A. Berezovsky, the tycoon, master political 
intriguer, Putin supporter and Yavlinsky foe, is also a major owner and has 
an played an influential behind-the-scenes role at the network. 

Certainly, ORT has not hesitated in the past to join the political fray. 
Before parliamentary elections in December, Sergei Dorenko, the host of one 
of the network's most watched news affairs shows, conducted attacks against 
Yevgeny M. Primakov, the former prime minister, and Yuri M. Luzhkov, the 
Moscow mayor, both Putin rivals. 

The relentless criticism was one reason Mr. Primakov and Mr. Luzhkov fell way 
behind Mr. Putin in the opinion polls and decided not to take part in the 
presidential campaign. But the broadcast Thursday night was exceptional even 
by ORT standards. 

One of its reports charged that the candidate was bankrolled by powerful 
Jewish businessmen, specifically Vladimir V. Gusinsky, the head of the NTV, 
Russia's only independent television network. He is one of Russia's most 
prominent Jewish citizens. 

Mr. Gusinsky has dual Russian and Israeli citizenship. ORT's report, however, 
emphasized his Jewish background. It showed Mr. Gusinsky at a banquet with 
Hasidic leaders, who were wearing black fedoras and skullcaps. 

Mr. Gusinsky has made it no secret that he thinks Mr. Yavlinsky is the best 
candidate for Russia. But ORT suggested darkly that Mr. Yavlinsky was 
secretly being financed by "Israeli citizens." It was a striking attack in 
light of Mr. Putin's vows to battle anti-Semitism. 

The network also charged, without producing any evidence, that Mr. 
Yavlinsky's campaign was receiving financial support from two German research 
organizations. But its most eye-catching report was about gay Russians who 
ostensibly are backing Mr. Yavlinsky. 

There is little tolerance in Russia for homosexuals, who have not been a 
visible or important factor in the nation's political life. So the report 
that a gay group had organized a press conference in the "Blue Heart Club" 
created a stir. "Blue" is Russian slang for "gay." 

The ORT report cautioned that the press conference might be part of a 
disinformation campaign, but not until it had first broadcast the effusive 
declarations of support for Mr. Yavlinsky. 

Along with ORT, Russia's other state-owned television network, RTR, attended 
the event. NTV said that it had not been invited and that the entire episode 
appeared to have been staged. 

That was hardly the only mud that has been slung at Mr. Yavlinsky. ORT has 
also charged that he secretly underwent plastic surgery. 

Tonight, ORT's coverage of him was more restrained. It continued to criticize 
him, but also mentioned a letter he had written denying that his campaign had 
received foreign funds. 

In addition, the two German research groups featured in the ORT report told 
the Russian press they were not underwriting Mr. Yavlinsky's presidential 
bid. 

For all its unsavoryness, the logic of ORT's attacks on Mr. Yavlinsky is 
clear. Mr. Yavlinsky is only expected to receive 5 percent to 10 percent of 
the vote. 

But Mr. Putin could use those voters, many of them from Russia's emerging 
middle class, to achieve the majority he is seeking in the first round. 

Igor Malashenko, a senior executive at Mr. Berezovsky's media conglomerate
[DJ: Gusinsky's NTV?], 
said there were several explanations for ORT's broadcast. Mr. Berezovsky, he 
said, might be going out of his way to demonstrate his loyalty to Mr. Putin. 
And Mr. Putin's campaign team, he said, is anxious to avoid a runoff. 

"People are not terribly excited by the election," Mr. Malashenko said. "So 
they want to demonstrate that there is some sinister conspiracy against Putin 
-- basically, a Jewish conspiracy." 

Otto Latsis, a political analyst at the daily Izvestia, said he doubted that 
Mr. Putin has personally authorized the broadcasts and described them as 
despicable and foolish. 

"Whoever made the decision was trying too hard," he said. 

******

#11
Los Angeles Times
25 March 2000
[for personal use only]
Systematic Plundering of Chechnya Reported 
Caucasus: Russian military denies hauling off entire households in convoys
and shipping them out of republic. 
By MAYERBEK NUNAYEV, RICHARD C. PADDOCK, Special to The Times

GROZNY, Russia--Federal forces in the separatist republic of Chechnya
have engaged in widespread, systematic looting of occupied territory,
hauling household goods by the truckload to other parts of Russia,
sometimes even killing witnesses to their crimes, Chechen civilians and
human rights activists say. 
As Russian troops have moved into captured cities and towns, convoys
of military trucks stuffed with appliances, rugs and kitchenware that once
furnished Chechen homes have become a familiar sight on the roads leading
out of the devastated province, witnesses say. 
At a military airport near Grozny, the ruined Chechen capital,
helicopters and trucks deliver stolen household goods that are then
transferred to military transport planes, said Satsita Timrayeva, 31, a
worker at the airfield. 
"I have witnessed many times how soldiers brought truckloads of looted
things to the airport to be further shipped to Mozdok, Khasavyurt or other
destinations in Russia," she said. "I am sure this is all looted. Has
anyone ever seen a commando company, for instance, traveling with bathroom
mirrors, freezers or carpets? They take everything they can carry." 
Based on the accounts of Chechen refugees who have fled to the
neighboring republic of Ingushetia, human rights activists charge that
Russian soldiers engaged in looting have killed dozens of civilians who
sought to stop the soldiers or happened to witness their crimes. 
New York-based Human Rights Watch has documented 123 cases in which
soldiers allegedly killed civilians, and nearly all of them occurred while
the killers were looting Chechen homes, the group says. 
"Looting is the most systematic abuse occurring in Chechnya," said
Malcolm Hawkes, a Human Rights Watch researcher reached in Ingushetia.
"It's highly organized; it's highly efficient. It is occurring with the
full knowledge of the military authorities. Military vehicles are used to
carry off the goods." 
Russian officials repeatedly have dismissed most charges of atrocities
in Chechnya as rebel propaganda. In Moscow, the chief military prosecutor,
Yuri G. Dyomin, said Friday that it would be "impossible" for looting to
take place on such a mass scale because it would require the connivance of
entire military units, their officers and guards at the numerous
checkpoints in the occupied territory. 
"In a war zone, it's completely unthinkable," the military prosecutor
said. "And to start with, who needs all that junk?" 
Acting President Vladimir V. Putin, whose popularity has soared
because of the war, has refused to allow any independent international
investigation of charges of looting, executions, rape and other brutality
in Chechnya. Nor has Putin, who is widely expected to win election Sunday,
risked offending the military by speaking out against atrocities or urging
his troops to respect the rights of civilians. 
This week, Dyomin announced that Russian soldiers were not involved in
the slaughter of 62 civilians in the village of Aldy last month. He left
open the possibility, however, that elite Interior Ministry police troops
known as the OMON--who do not come under his jurisdiction--took part in the
alleged killings. The case is still being investigated, he said. 
Despite Russia's official denials of looting, Chechen civilians
provide vivid accounts of how soldiers and police troops have stripped
homes bare, carted away the goods in military vehicles and--out of spite or
to destroy evidence--set houses on fire. 
In Aldy, Kometa Imayeva described how she watched in February as
soldiers looted the house of her neighbors, the Rakhmayevs. Another
neighbor, 80-year-old Akhmed Atbiyev, approached the soldiers and asked
them to take only what they needed in their daily lives. 
Without saying a word, one of the soldiers turned and shot the old
man, she recounted. When his 76-year-old sister, Sabila, ran up to the body
and began wailing, the same soldier shot her too, Imayeva said. 
"After this, the group continued loading the booty onto the truck,"
she said. "The fact that they had just killed two peaceful elderly people
did not stop the marauders." 
On highways, the military often makes no effort to hide its
activities. One convoy of five large trucks stuffed with household goods
was headed toward the border with Ingushetia in late February. It was
escorted by Interior Ministry troops apparently leaving Chechnya after
their tour of duty in the war zone. In the last truck, men in uniform could
be seen taking women's and children's clothes out of large canvas bags and
holding them up, apparently selecting the items they wanted. 
Zara Khamidova, a refugee who returned to Grozny in mid-March,
described systematic looting and destruction of the city by Russian forces. 
"The pattern is always the same: First they send out a reconnaissance
detail to see what is left in the houses and where a truck needs to be sent
to, to collect the property," she said. "Then soldiers arrive on trucks in
the afternoon, escorted by one or two armored personnel carriers for
protection. They take the things out, load them on the trucks, set the
houses on fire and leave. They always work very promptly, like
professionals." 
Another Grozny resident, Satsita Akhtayeva, 38, said she watched last
month as soldiers drove up to a nine-story apartment building in a huge
truck and loaded up stereo equipment, kitchenware, crystal, rugs, strollers
and other items. 
"The soldiers were working hard while their commander was giving them
orders on what to take and how to load it on the truck," she said. 
Next door, another group of soldiers was loading a second truck while
an armored personnel carrier stood guard, she said. "I knew the soldiers
were stealing from civilian apartments, but I did not have the courage to
tell them to stop," she said. "I was alone, and they would have killed me
as an accidental witness to their crime." 
Human Rights Watch researcher Peter Bouckaert said inaction by
military officials has given soldiers the sense that looting homes and
abusing the local population are acceptable conduct. 
"The military command has done little to stop looting or to punish
soldiers who are caught looting," he said. "Therefore, a climate of
impunity has rapidly developed. The looting in Chechnya is so widespread
that it is simply impossible for the military command to be unaware of the
problem." 
While Russia has said it is trying to eradicate bandits, restore
normal life in Chechnya and win the trust of the civilian population, the
alleged conduct of its soldiers has undercut the government's public
relations efforts. Some Chechens say the rebels' ranks have been bolstered
by men who had no interest in fighting until they lost their relatives or
their homes to pillaging Russian soldiers. 
In the town of Alkhan-Kala, Movlad Khazayev recounted how four Russian
soldiers entered his house and announced that they were staying overnight.
Khazayev said he tried to be hospitable--he fed them the last of his food
and let them sleep in the family's beds. 
In the morning, the soldiers showed their gratitude: The lieutenant in
charge ordered Khazayev, 62, and his family into the cellar and threatened
to kill them if they came out while the soldiers were still there, he said.
The family members huddled in the dark for hours before they dared to go
upstairs. 
"What a sight we saw when we emerged from the basement," Khazayev
said. "Everything was taken out of our house. A TV set, a refrigerator, a
stereo, a vacuum cleaner, several rugs, kitchenware, a washing
machine--everything was gone." 
Human rights researcher Hawkes said Russian soldiers typically keep
the looted items they want but sell most of it at secondhand markets that
flourish throughout Russia. Authorities make no effort to seize the stolen
goods at the markets and to try to return them to their owners, he said. 
"Given the brazen and open manner in which Chechen homes are being
stripped bare, the widespread reporting of the phenomenon and the massive
eyewitness testimony to the looting," he said, "one must assume this is de
facto military policy in the region." 
Special correspondent Nunayev reported from Grozny, Aldy and
Alkhan-Kala. Times staff writer Paddock reported from Moscow. 

******