April 6, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4229 • 4230 •  4231

Johnson's Russia List
#4231
6 April 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Detained American in Good Health.
2. Reuters: Russia to crack down on orphan traffic.
3. The Guardian (UK) editorial: Vote for suspension. 
The west has been lax over Chechnya.
4. Argumenty i Fakty: Andrei Uglanov, WILL THE OLIGARCHS BE 
WHIPPED THIS SPRING?
5. Ira Straus: Small is ugly (continued).
6. The Daily Yomiuri (Japan): Alexander Tsipko, Another Russian 
revolution has ended.
7. Reuters: Georgia a Throwback to a Bygone Age.
8. Baltimore Sun: Will Englund, Russia and U.S. take on a 
herculean task. Chemical weapons left after Cold War defy joint effort.
9. Reuters: All-action Putin, and he's not president yet.
10. Argumenty i Fakty: Vitaly Solovyov, FRESH BLOOD.
(Putin's team)
11. Reuters: IMF's Fischer Set to Meet With Putin to Discuss 
Russian Economy.]

*******

#1
Detained American in Good Health
April 6, 2000
By NICK WADHAMS

MOSCOW (AP) - An American citizen being held in a Moscow prison after he was 
detained on spying charges appeared to be in good health and said he was 
being treated well, a U.S. embassy official said today. 

The American was detained Wednesday in an operation by Russia's Federal 
Security Service. Russian officials alleged he had developed contacts with 
Russian scientists in efforts to steal state secrets. 

An official at the American Embassy, who refused to comment on the spying 
charges, said the detained man had been visited by a U.S. consular officer at 
the Lefortovo prison in Moscow. 

``He appeared to be in good health and made no complaints about his treatment 
of any kind,'' said the official, who asked not to be named. 

A second official at the embassy said Russian authorities hadn't filed any 
formal charges, but were investigating the American under an article of the 
Russian criminal code concerning espionage and had appointed him a Russian 
lawyer. 

The American has not authorized the release of his name, the official said. 

ABC News reported Wednesday that the American is Edmond Pope, a retired U.S. 
Navy captain. It said he was in his mid-fifties, spent much of his career 
working in naval intelligence, and traveled often to Russia to carry out work 
for Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory. 

Russian security officials said the man now worked for a private firm in 
Moscow but had once worked for American intelligence services. 

The American Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, which represents American 
businesses in Russia, said today that it hadn't heard of the man mentioned in 
the ABC report. 

``We don't know of anyone by that name, and we haven't heard of any company 
he's associated with,'' said Scott Blacklin, the chamber's president. ``We're 
as hungry for information about this as anyone else.'' 

The incident was the latest in a string of spying arrests in Russia and the 
United States, and seemed likely to further strain already tense relations 
between the two. 

An American diplomat, Cheri Leberknight, left Russia late last year after she 
was detained and accused of being a CIA agent. Shortly afterward, Washington 
expelled a Russian diplomat allegedly caught picking up transmissions from a 
bugging device discovered at the U.S. State Department. 

The West's relations with Russia were strained by NATO's assault last year on 
Yugoslavia and Western criticism of Moscow's military offensive in Chechnya. 

*******

#2
Russia to crack down on orphan traffic

MOSCOW, April 5 (Reuters) - Russia pledged on Wednesday to crack down on 
middlemen trafficking in orphans for adoption in the West. 

``Middlemen are prohibited in adoption cases, which means any person involved 
in the selection and transmission of children on behalf of future adoptive 
parents,'' according to a government statement of the new rules obtained by 
Reuters. 

Some foreign organisations would be allowed to help in adoption cases, but 
they would have to be registered and to report back on the well-being of the 
children. 

Among those barred from acting as intermediaries were Russian officials 
dealing with orphans, their spouses and relatives. 

Russian media say that with 620,000 children in orphanages and economic 
hardship ruling out most Russians as foster parents, the traffic to the West 
grows by leaps and bounds. 

The Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda reported this week that orphanage staff 
in the central town of Ryazan had sold 77 children abroad for up to $20,000 
each. 

``The delivery of children to rich foreigners is like a conveyor belt,'' the 
paper said. 

*******

#3
The Guardian (UK)
6 April 2000
Editorial
Vote for suspension 
The west has been lax over Chechnya

The Council of Europe will decide today whether to suspend Russia because of 
its conduct in Chechnya. It must not hesitate. The 41-nation council, whose 
proudest achievement is the European convention on human rights, has a rare 
chance to strike a blow for common decency. By taking a stand, it will give 
vicarious expression to the real disgust felt in Europe at how Vladimir 
Putin, trading blood for votes, equated election campaigning with military 
conquest. By its symbolic action, the council can show that the thousands of 
Chechen dead are not forgotten. By punishing Russia, however mildly, it will 
put to shame those European leaders who have appeased Moscow's new man; the 
terrible twins of EU foreign policy, Chris Patten and Javier Solana, who 
shuttled and waffled and did diddly-squat; the grand-sounding, ineffectual 
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, bamboozled by Boris 
Yeltsin in Istanbul last November; and the Clinton administration, which has 
done for Chechnya what Roosevelt and Churchill did for Poland. 

Lack of respect for human rights is a longstanding Russian government 
tradition. Not much effort is needed to recall the eras of Sakharov, Bonner 
and Andropov; of Stalin's deportations and purges; of the terrors inflicted 
by Beria's NKVD and its Tsarist predecessors. In their disdainful treatment 
in Moscow this week of the valiant Mary Robinson, the UN's human rights 
chief, the supposedly modernising Mr Putin and his sharp-suited cronies 
showed how little they understand (or care about) the way expectations and 
responsibilities have changed since then. Mrs Robinson, backed by Kofi Annan, 
demands an independent commission of investigation in Chechnya. The Council 
of Europe wants an inquiry, too, plus a ceasefire and peace talks, all to be 
under way by June 1. This is reasonable. But Mr Putin, emboldened by victory, 
believes more than ever that he can bluff, block, bluster, fib and finagle 
his way out of his fix, whatever the outside world may say. 

He may be right. For no mechanism exists for a thorough international probe 
of the Chechnya bloodbath without Russia's agreement. One is planned. The UN 
international criminal court, launched in Rome in 1998, could be the ideal 
instrument for handling such a situation. But the treaty setting up the court 
is opposed by a handful of countries. The US is one; and, yes, Russia is 
another. 

*******

#4
Argumenty i Fakty No. 14
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
WILL THE OLIGARCHS BE WHIPPED THIS SPRING?
By Andrei UGLANOV

The winning team is getting ready for a two-stage 
formation of the government. There will be few changes at the 
first stage, with major reshuffles to be effected in 
September-October, when the economic programme of German Gref 
is finalised. The new president seemingly understands that this 
process should not lead to an all-out war between the Moscow 
and the St. Petersburg clans. The St. Petersburg team are not 
aliens, but they clearly lack managerial experience of the 
federal scale.
However, one major change can take place very soon. The 
ministry of information will be most probably liquidated, which 
means that Mikhail Lesin will lose his post. His ministry was 
created to control information flows during the elections, and 
is no longer needed now. 

Will Yabloko Fall?
The position of Vice-Premier Valentina Matviyenko is not 
clear. It seemed immediately after the death of Anatoly Sobchak 
that she would replace the current St. Petersburg mayor 
Vladimir Yakovlev. But the polls show that Yakovlev can get 
three times more votes than Matviyenko, she can hardly hope to 
be openly supported by the president. 
The Kremlin's support for Matviyenko, sincere or feigned, 
pursued the aim of stopping Igor Artemyev of Yabloko from 
winning the elections or even getting a high score. 
Why should the new presidential team "waste" democratic 
opposition? Why kick Yabloko once again after its loss at the 
parliamentary and the presidential elections? Experts think 
that the new power, with its strong etatist stand, is 
dissatisfied with the clearly pro-Western position of Yabloko 
and its leader, Grigory Yavlinsky. Neither does it like the 
strong link between Yavlinsky and media magnate Vladimir 
Gusinsky, and above all its TV channel, NTV. For they created 
the greatest problems for Putin's election staff during the 
elections. 
They also fear that Yavlinsky might criticise (on NTV) the 
economic programme of the president. And one can rest assured 
that Grigory Yavlinsky will not miss this opportunity. This is 
why Yabloko must fall, and its place of liberal opposition 
should be taken by the quite predictable Boris Nemtsov, Sergei 
Kiriyenko and possibly Irina Khakamada. Together with their 
Union of Right Forces (SPS).
But it would be very difficult, even impossible, to jam 
NTV, which millions of Russians and Western fans regard as 
possibly the best Russian channel. And democratic institutions 
abroad will not allow Putin's team to do this without detriment 
to the new president. So, the only way out in this situation is 
to use financial instruments of pressurising Gusinsky. Gazprom 
head Rem Vyakhirev was recommended to demand the repayment of a 
large loan from Gusinsky. Or else he will be trampled underfoot.
On the other hand, it is rumoured that oligarch Gusinsky 
was offered to join the information policy of the Kremlin, in 
which case he would be left alone. No, they will not strip NTV 
of its broadcasting license. But if Media-MOST does not accept 
a compromise before the official inauguration of Putin, "NTV 
will be subjected to an information circumcision," as one 
official said. In other words, its journalists will become 
personae non grata. 
These problems have overshadowed the work of the new 
president, in particular in the economy. The elections are 
over, but Vladimir Putin continues his tour of the country. 
This is no longer enough; we want practical deeds. 

Who Will Protect Berezovsky?
Let's get back to reshuffles. It appears that the 
presidential staff will be overhauled. According to one 
scenario, it will be divided into two blocks. One block will be 
the presidential staff proper (25-30 staffers), and the other 
will be incorporated by the Security Council, where it would 
most probably die a slow death while fighting with the 
"constitutional reform." As a result, Vladimir Putin will 
tackle regional problems himself, with the help of the 
government. Consequently, there will be no need to fire 
Alexander Voloshin. Instead, he will be "overhauled."
Under another, more favoured, scenario, the presidential 
staff and the government should become one team. So that the 
future premier would not be intoxicated with the wind of 
independence. We still remember very well how one of our 
premiers yielded to the influence of the oligarchs and launched 
his own game -- despite the living president. 
It is from this viewpoint that we should regard the 
warning -- or offer -- made to Boris Berezovsky: give up ORT 
and be free to do your oil and aluminium business. It is 
rumoured that Berezovsky rejected the proposal and is getting 
ready for a war.
This would have hardly frightened Putin, if not for one 
thing. It is said that Tatyana Dyachenko stood up in defence of 
Berezovsky and turned for protection to her father, Boris 
Yeltsin. So, it is quite possible that the first president 
would interfere in the conflict on the side of Berezovsky.
Putin's team does not want this at all. The new president 
does not want to quarrel with Boris Nikolayevich. 

*******

#5
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 
Subject: Small is ugly (continued)

When Putin headed the Kremlin's Control Department (before becoming FSB head 
and subsequently Prime Minister), he "uncovered 9,000 cases in which federal 
money totaling some 3 trillion rubles ($104 billion at the current exchange 
rate) had been spent by the regions for purposes other than those intended." 
(Julie A. Corwin, RFE/RL Russian Federation Report, 5 April 2000, in JRL 
4229) 

All such regional diversion of spending presumably counts as corruption, 
theft, etc.

The sum of $104 billion is several times the size of the entire annual 
Russian Federal budget. If most of the misspending occurred before the 1998 
devaluation, and if the calculation were made, as it probably ought to be, at 
the exchange rates of the time instead of 1999 exchange rates, then the 
actual figure for regional diversion of funds might be more like $500 
billion. 

These figures indicate regional corruption on a gargantuan scale. Is it 
proportionately greater than the corruption on the Federal level? This is 
something that would be worth trying to calculate, no matter how imperfectly. 

It has become ritualistic in the West to say, ‘stop aiding the corrupt 
Russian central government, route it all to the regions instead’. This is 
widely used as an aid-bashing line. Aid-giving agencies have generally taken 
up the same line and made an effort to route things through the regions. A 
calculation might well show that they have got it upside-down and would do 
better to deal with the Center and ignore the bashers.

*******

#6
The Daily Yomiuri (Japan)
6 April 2000 
Another Russian revolution has ended 
By Alexander Tsipko
(Tsipko is director of the Political Research Center in Moscow.) 

It is not true that big historical changes take place over a long period.
In Russia, epochs can replace one another within a day. We found ourselves
in a completely new country at 2 a.m. on March 27, just after it had become
clear that Vladimir Putin had been elected president. The feeling of
uncertainty about the possibility of sudden change that we had all felt
during the years of former President Boris Yeltsin's rule vanished, and is
unlikely to resurface in the near future. 

That feeling was connected not only to the personal peculiarities,
unpredictable character and sudden ridiculous decisions of the first
Russian president. His decisions sometimes turned Russia upside down,
although some of them were important. Only Yeltsin could give power in
Russia to a group of junior researchers who had no experience in state
management, but who then found themselves in charge of liberal reforms in a
patriarchal country. Only Yeltsin could change prime ministers four times
in two years. However, Yeltsin's epoch was unpredictable, basically because
it was revolutionary. It was the last stage of the democratic revolution
that had started in the Soviet Union in 1985 under the name of perestroika. 

A revolution, and particularly a Russian antitotalitarian revolution, is
especially remarkable for the uncertainty of its outcome. It may end with
the restoration of the old authoritarian regime, or lead to democracy, or
pave the way for a new dictatorship. 

For a long time, nobody could predict the result of all that upheaval, or
who eventually would take power in Russia--communists, who had no wish to
become social democrats, or radical reformers, or a third party. 

Now it is clear that Putin was chosen as president not only by the
"family," but by the people of Russia, who had grown tired of the
revolution, of radicals and their political passions, of Yeltsin himself,
and of all the charismatic leaders of our democratic revolution--Gennady
Zyuganov, Grigory Yavlinsky, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The common people of
Russia instinctively recognized Putin as a stabilizer who would embody
predictable, firm and stable power. 

Of course, Putin is not Stalin. However, Putin's coming to power has
something in common with the coming to power of the "chief of all peoples."
Putin is often compared with Prince Vladimir the Great, who ruled Kievan
Rus at the end of the 10th century and was famous for introducing Orthodoxy
as the national religion. The victories of both Stalin and Putin mark the
end of the revolutions of the Russian intelligentsia. Both Stalin and Putin
came to power after society had become disillusioned with charismatic
leaders and barricade heroes. Both came to power on a wave of patriotic
feeling when the public was longing for a "strong hand" and a "strong
Russia." It was not intellect, but self-preservation and the desire to put
an end to revolutionary turmoil that made people vote for Putin. 

>From the end of 1998 through the beginning of last year, Yevgeny Primakov
was a politician who embodied stability and public order. If Yeltsin had
decided to make Primakov his successor, then we would have had another
country--not Putin's but Primakov's--and the revolutionary epoch would have
ended with the restoration to power of Mikhail Gorbachev's
social-democratic group. But Primakov, due both to his age and the weakness
of the leftist social base, would not have been able to maintain a firm
grip on power, or remain in office for long--he was unable to provide
complete and final satisfaction. Yeltsin probably recognized these weak
points and, until his last day in power, never stopped looking for a
successor who would be able to win the election and protect the country
from prolonged revolutionary turmoil. So, instead of a Primakov restoration
of the Gorbachev faction's power, we have seen a restoration of the power
of Soviet patriots and state supporters nurtured by the KGB. 

Since Putin was supported not by intellect or heart, but by instinct as a
"president of hope," it was very important for him to be elected
immediately and with great fanfare. Russians always treat the change of
epochs as a mystery, so a Putin victory was being seen by many as an almost
sacred event. 

Alas, no miracle happened. Putin won in the first round but it was no great
triumph, having received just 52.5 percent of the votes, and even those
came with the help of so-called administrative levers. But Putin's victory
is beneficial to Russia because it contributed to the feelings of
consolidation among his supporters, who account for about half the
country's population and include people of all generations, rightists,
leftists and centrists. 

Russia was lucky this time. Putin won without the help of big money and
saved his image as a national nonparty leader. We now have the chance not
only to put an end to the epoch of revolutionary storms, but also to get
rid of certain features of the Yeltsin regime, such as militant
anticommunism and oligarchic privatization of the state. For Putin, there
are no obstacles to freeing himself from subordination to the "family" and
to conducting his own domestic and foreign policies. 

Russia changed as soon as Putin's victory was proclaimed, because at that
moment the old conflicts of the Yeltsin era died like the conflict between
leftist procommunist patriots and rightist pro-West and pro-American
liberals. This fact is connected with both Putin's function as national
leader and his personal ideological views. 

As a military premier and then as a military acting president, Putin
stepped beyond the former confrontation between communists and liberals,
between so-called reform supporters and so-called reform opponents. The
reason was simple. During the second Chechen war, he had to solve the
national problems of how to recover the territory of the Russian Federation
and restore authority to Russia's victorious army. War with Chechen
terrorists became a factor in the consolidation of Russian society before
the presidential election. After Putin's election victory, that sentiment
became ingrained. 

One reason Putin managed to sidestep the ideological fight between
communists and liberals was because he used liberal patriotism as the basis
of state ideology. He included in his policy both patriotic and liberal
values. 

In an article titled "Russia on the verge of the millennium," published in
Nezavisimaya Gazeta on New Year's Eve, Putin called upon Russians to
overcome the eternal Russian split between those who support a strong state
and those who like freedom. He proclaimed that a new national idea would
emerge as a natural union of universal human values with time-honored
Russian ones. Among those time-honored values, Putin mentioned patriotism,
sovereignty, statehood and social justice. Therefore, one might be able to
predict the first actions of Putin as new president of Russia. 

Putin's victory in the first round led to the decline of all of the former
political stars, and of communism itself. The mission of the Russian
Federation Communist Party (CPRF) as a party of leftist patriotism lost its
meaning because Putin embodies both patriotism and social ideals. Several
hours before his victory became evident, Putin announced his solidarity
with those who had voted for Zyuganov. He said he understood those who
disagreed with the regime, since for many years, it had not been able to
meet people's everyday needs. 

Putin's attitude toward CPRF supporters reflects one of the main
characteristics of the new political regime. As a politician, Putin takes
responsibility for the realization of social demands of that part of the
population whose interests in Yeltsin's Russia were represented by CPRF. 

In the new political situation, the CPRF will gradually be compelled to
leave the political scene because the Kremlin will take on board the CPRF's
main values and tasks. One should remember that the CPRF is less communist
than the patriotic party that emerged in the early years of Yeltsin's rule
as a reaction to the Soviet Union's collapse and Yeltsin's defeatist
policies. 

There is no room in politics for the CPRF in its present form because the
tasks of Russia's restoration as an entity, the revitalization of power,
the rebirth of the military-industrial complex and the maintenance of an
independent foreign policy are in the hands of the new president. As a
result, the CPRF, as a forced union of red and white patriots, is destined
to disintegrate. White patriots, or statehood pragmatics, will follow
Putin, and red patriots will be doomed to become red once again, or
Marxist-Leninists. 

On the other hand, Putin's victory killed all hopes of forming a liberal
democratic opposition to the Kremlin. Yes, communists are losing hope for
their future. But our Westernized liberals, as "Yabloko," and the union of
rightist forces have already lost their influence in Russia. 

The election was a defeat for the liberals in that it showed that society
has very little trust in political power, which cannot become the main
foothold for the new president. The decrease of the popularity of liberal
ideas was confirmed by the resounding election failure of Yavlinsky, who
represented a democratic alternative to Putin. 

Yavlinsky's election campaign was surprisingly aggressive and apparently
expensive. Most influential oligarchs (Vladimir Gussinsky and Boris
Berezovsky first and foremost) joined forces with Western sponsors to lobby
Yavlinsky. Their goal was to attract some of Putin's voters and to provoke
a second round of voting. As a "bronze medalist," Yavlinsky could effect
little change in a big political game aimed at forcing Putin to give
long-term concessions to the "democratic public," or the pro-West liberal
intelligentsia. 

Disappointment was great when Yavlinsky got less than 6 percent of the
votes, less than in 1996. The result is not only a personal defeat for the
Yabloko leader, who from now on can hardly pretend to be the main
democratic opponent of the regime. More important, the "Moscow circle" that
is behind Yavlinsky lost its chance to restore its influence over Russian
politics. 

We can conclude that the liberal, pro-West intelligentsia has suffered its
first serious political defeat within the last 10 years, having recorded
victories in the August 1991 democratic revolution and the autumn 1993
confrontation between the reformist president and patriotic People's
Congress deputies. 

After Putin's election victory, Russia settled down, but in a typically
Russian way--we came out of revolution not through the creation of a civil
society and the strengthening of the multiparty system. Instead, we are
moving toward peace and consolidation through unanimity and the coming
together of the political elite around a patriotic leader. 

Now we are observing the neutralization of radicals, both right and left,
and at the same time the fading away of political life in general. Even
journalists feel no wish to criticize. There is no reason for quarrels and
political discussions among those who in a moment became patriots and state
supporters. 

The public is losing interest in politics. Everybody's attention has been
drawn to the young, energetic president for whom they have been waiting so
long. Many are hoping that Putin will put an end to the unlimited power of
oligarchs and the liberties of regional barons. 

We are returning to a Russian political tradition in which all
responsibility for the country's situation is given to a supreme ruler,
with the public playing the role of observers. That is the price to be paid
for the consolidation of a new Russia, which came into being first of all
because of the modest victories of federal troops in Chechnya. Right now,
there is no other source of power for Putin. 

******

#7
Georgia a Throwback to a Bygone Age

ZEMO PARTSKHMA, Apr 6, 2000 -- (Reuters) A kerosene lamp, jerrybuilt 
wood-burning stove, and box of safety matches count as high tech in the home 
of 70-year-old Valiko Kikvadze.

That's if you don't count a broken 30-year-old black and white television set 
in the corner of his tiny wood-frame abode. Fixing it is useless as the 
electricity rarely works.

As the 21st century begins, much of ex-Soviet Georgia seems a throwback to a 
bygone age.

In rural regions like Kikvadze's Guria, a land of lush green hills and 
rolling tea plantations and the ancestral home of President Eduard 
Shevardnadze, electric light bulbs are a luxury associated with Communist 
times, donkey carts have replaced cars, and spades help do the work tractors 
once did.

Shevardnadze is running for five more years in office on Sunday but 
widespread poverty has taken its toll on his popularity. Some are not at all 
interested in the election, or simply believe the vote will be decided 
without them.

"What is the point in voting? Our leaders don't listen to us anyway. All my 
energy goes to just trying to find enough food to stay alive," said Kikvadze 
in his spartan home.

BACK TO BASICS

While the Soviet break-up badly affected the economies of all former 
republics, few suffered as much as Georgia spoiled for decades by generous 
subsidies from Moscow.

In exchange for its exports of wines and citrus fruits, bound for the dinner 
tables of the same Communist bosses who frequented its Black Sea beaches, 
Georgia was supplied with cheap energy, fuel, and finished goods.

The same exports now face either intense competition on world markets or buy 
far less than they once did.

For example, in the 1980s, one kilo (2.2lb) of highly prized Georgian 
tangerines fetched eight litters of subsidized petrol. Now, the same kilo 
buys less than one.

Some former collective farmers have not fared badly since land redistribution 
began earlier this decade. Agricultural output is increasing.

But there is an entire class of Georgian rural dwellers who worked in small 
industries and state agencies which collapsed or no longer pay living wages.

Kikvadze, a wisp of a man with a lazy right eye, worked as a builder and 
later at a food processing plant. Now he relies on his small garden and a few 
chickens.

"I lived the good life. I traveled all over the Soviet Union. I was a person, 
but now I live like an animal," he says, rolling home-grown tobacco into a 
cigarette.

A 1990 calendar and postcard-sized picture of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, 
an ethnic Georgian, adorn the wall of his house.

Even Kikvadze's miniscule 12 lari ($6) pension has not been paid for months.

Forced to sell the family cow to pay for his wife's funeral three months ago, 
he has just stale bread to offer guests to accompany his delicious home-made 
wine, a vital element of any Georgian country home.

Then there are the country's chronic, ubiquitous winter shortages of 
electricity.

Little better after five years of disruption and widely blamed on government 
corruption, they lead to small talk and gossip in every quarter of society.

"The lights have come on only a few times this winter. If they do, it's 
usually at one or two in the morning. What good does that do me?" Kikvadze 
said.

A nighttime drive through Guria is a trip back in time, candles flickering 
dimly in windows and horse-drawn carts pulling hay along potholed roads.

In the regional center Ozurgeti, a key tea-producing area, rusting disused 
trolleybuses stand incongruously as animals wander back and forth across the 
main road.

"The people who are really hurting are the ones in the urban centers. These 
people are barely keeping their heads above water," said a western diplomat 
in the capital, Tbilisi.

"I've been in towns where everyone sits around watching TV from midnight to 
two a.m. when the lights come on. They don't have jobs to go to the next day, 
so what difference does it make," said the diplomat.

"Our former so-called intelligentsia in Ozurgeti, the people who worked for 
the (Communist) party, they are even worse off than I am," said Kikvadze.

"If you have a plot of land, you can eat. If you live in an apartment, you 
may not."

SOME SAY LITTLE ALTERNATIVE TO SHEVARDNADZE

With no opinion polls to go by, it is difficult to predict how Sunday's vote 
will go, though most analysts say they believe 72-year-old Shervardnadze has 
a good chance of getting the outright majority he needs to win in the first 
round.

His two main rivals, Dzhumber Patiashvili, like Shevardnadze a former head of 
the Georgian Soviet Communist party, and Aslan Abashidze, leader of the 
autonomous Adzhara region on the Black Sea, are running as allies and hope to 
collect enough votes between them to force a run off.

Patiashvili enjoys pockets of support, especially among poorer sections of 
the population.

"Shevardnadze's no good. There is no heat, gas, electricity, jobs, nothing. 
Just look at this place. It's a mess," said 27-year old Gia Talakashvili, 
walking with two friends on the main square in the town of Gori, famous as 
the birthplace of Stalin.

But many people interviewed said they would vote for Shevardnadze, a former 
Soviet foreign minister, because they saw him as the only person with the 
stature to run the country.

Yuser Labadze, owner of a Gori shop which sells hunting guns, said it made no 
sense to vote for Patiashvili or Abashidze, both former Communist 
functionaries.

"Shevardnadze should get five more years to prove what he can do. Then we can 
throw him out if we want. If there was a new, young candidate running, it 
might be different. but these guys opposing him are just old Communists like 
he is. What's the point in voting for them?"

******

#8
Baltimore Sun
6 April 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia and U.S. take on a herculean task
Chemical weapons left after Cold War defy joint effort
By Will Englund
Sun Foreign Staff

MOSCOW -- The research institute where Russian scientists spent decades 
perfecting ever more deadly chemical weapons consists of a ramshackle 
collection of laboratories crammed into a triangular plot off the Highway of 
the Enthusiasts in the heavy-industry belt of eastern Moscow. 

The buildings, some apparently abandoned and most in poor repair, are linked 
by battered above-ground pipes that weave in and out, over and along the 
muddy alleys. 

This was a top-secret place, and it was only six years ago that security 
officials were prosecuting a Russian chemist for daring to talk about what 
went on inside. 

Now Russia says it is eager to destroy its huge chemical-weapons stockpile 
and was glad to have the U.S. government construct a state-of-the-art 
analytical lab here to help that process. 

Yesterday, Russian and American officials showed off the new lab -- 
discreetly fenced off from the rest of the institute by coils of barbed wire 
to keep inquisitive visitors away from what their Russian hosts don't want 
them to see. 

The delegations swept in with television cameras in tow and a ribbon to cut. 
The rest of the institute was deadly quiet, seemingly abandoned, the only 
people stirring a few soldiers lurking down the alleyways. 

The officials congratulated each other on their cooperation and pledged to 
move on to the real work that lies ahead. 

"I think all involved in the project understand that it has not been an easy 
thing to arrive at the point where we are today," said U.S. Ambassador James 
F. Collins. 

Since it began in 1996, the joint Russian-American program has been based on 
the idea that the Americans would pay to destroy Russian weapons because it 
was in America's interest to do so. 

But the effort has been marked by considerable delay, a lack of trust, 
American accusations that the Russians are withholding information, 
suspicions within the Russian military that the Americans are stealing 
secrets and, finally, a decision by a dissatisfied Congress to cut out all 
funds for the program in this year's budget. 

On April 1 Russia missed its first significant deadline under the 1997 
Chemical Weapons Convention. By that date, it was supposed to have destroyed 
400 tons of munitions; it has yet to build a place to carry out the work. 

Yesterday's tour and official transfer of the new lab were designed to strike 
a positive note and get the money back on track next year in time to begin 
work on an industrial-scale demolition plant in Shchuchye, in western 
Siberia. 

The United States has spent about $200 million on the Russian program, 
project manager Adolph Ernst, from the U.S. Army arsenal at Edgewood, said 
yesterday -- $18.5 million on the lab in Moscow, and the rest on development 
and design work, mobile laboratories, training and other support activities. 

Work on the lab here was able to continue this year because, with the project 
about a year behind schedule, there was money available from earlier budgets. 

Under what is known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the United 
States is supposed to spend an additional $688 million in the years ahead to 
build the Shchuchye plant. 

Russia has budgeted about $21 million of its own funds this year, Zinovy Pak, 
general director of the Munitions Agency, said yesterday -- but typically in 
Russia the amount spent often falls considerably short of what has been 
budgeted. Russia is appealing to Western European nations to help it meet its 
share. 

Tons of weapons 

The task is formidable. 

In Shchuchye the Russians have stored about 2 million artillery rounds and 
rocket warheads filled with 5,460 tons of chemical weapons material -- mostly 
nerve agents, which are designed to kill soldiers the way pesticides kill 
insects. 

According to a critical report issued by the U.S. General Accounting Office 
last year, the plant the United States wants to build would be able to 
destroy 500 tons a year, meaning the work would extend at least until 2017, 
10 years after the date set by the Chemical Weapons Convention for 
destruction of the entire arsenal. 

And Shchuchye contains less than 20 percent of Russia's declared stockpile of 
40,000 tons of chemical weapons. 

American and Russian officials made it clear yesterday that they believe the 
program is at a critical juncture. Beset by problems, it will either get 
moving again within a year -- with renewed U.S. spending -- or face 
insurmountable obstacles. 

Yuri Kapralov, representing the Russian Foreign Ministry, declared that the 
American money was not charity. "When we were persuaded to sign the Chemical 
Weapons Convention," he said, "we were told that international assistance 
would be provided for our efforts." 

But the Russians have been stingy with their information and have managed to 
raise fears about proliferation. In 1995, the former head of the chemical 
weapons forces, Gen. Anatoly Kuntsevich, was accused of smuggling materials 
to Syria. Although charges were withdrawn a year later, there have been new 
suspicions about his role in helping Iraq obtain nerve agents. 

New threats developed 

Earlier, despite Moscow's claims in the 1980s that it had long since given up 
chemical weapons, a dissident scientist at the Moscow lab named Vil 
Mirzayanov revealed that research had continued through 1992 and that a new 
series of virulent and potentially undetectable agents called Novichok had 
been developed. 

Viktor Petrunin, who is still director of the lab, known officially as the 
State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, had 
won a Lenin Prize for his work on Novichok. Mirzayanov was prosecuted for 
revealing state secrets. Charges against him were dropped in 1994 and he 
later emmigrated to the United States. 

He believes that Russia is most likely not pursuing further work on Novichok, 
but some arms control experts fear that the agents may have been obtained by 
rogue states. 

Russia's relentless pursuit of its war in Chechnya also has raised questions 
about U.S. financial support for a program that is essentially a military 
one. Moscow announced Monday that it has spent $385 million on the war. 

The four-story building that was dedicated yesterday contains 27 laboratories 
and about 80 other rooms. The lab work will focus on fine-tuning the process 
to be used in Shchuchye, and then providing environmental monitoring and 
quality control of the process. It will be staffed by the same scientists who 
less than a decade ago were working on new chemical weapons for battlefield 
use. 

Ernst said that one reason for the delay in constructing the lab, housed in 
an older building that had been stripped clean, was that workers found an 
unexpected hazard as they went along. Nothing exotic like nerve gas, just 
huge amounts of one of the Soviet Union's favorite building materials -- 
asbestos. 

*******

#9
All-action Putin, and he's not president yet
By Martin Nesirky

MOSCOW, April 6 (Reuters) - Is it a plane? Is it a submarine? No, it's just 
Russia's president-elect fulfilling a childhood dream. 

Vladimir Putin spent the night on the Delta-class nuclear submarine Karelia 
plying 400 metres (1,300 feet) beneath choppy Arctic waves and then watched 
missile-firing exercises on Thursday from a Northern Fleet naval cruiser. 

Last month, not long before his election win, he flew to rebel Chechnya 
aboard a two-man Sukhoi-27 fighter jet. 

Putin was separated from the ``suitcase'' controlling Russia's nuclear 
arsenal when aboard the fighter and it was not clear whether it could have 
worked from a submerged submarine. But the president-elect seems unperturbed. 

``As commander-in-chief I want to see everything myself, touch it and feel 
what it's like,'' Putin told Russian reporters when asked to explain his 
military-minded stunts. 

He also confided he had long dreamt of a submarine ride. In a book published 
last month, Putin said he toyed with the idea of being a pilot as a child but 
went for the KGB instead. 

PUTIN'S EVERYWHERE 

Putin did not officially campaign for the presidency he inherited as 
caretaker when Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 31. But his image-building 
activities helped to do the trick far more than his vague policy 
pronouncements. 

His first trip as acting president, just hours after Yeltsin quit, was to 
hand out hunting knives to soldiers in Chechnya, where he launched a 
vote-winning war to quell separatist rebels. 

The 47-year-old former KGB spy had already demonstrated his unarmed combat 
skills on the judo mat and he later took a proletarian ride on a commuter 
train as well as driving a modest Russian-made car off the assembly line. 

``Putin's everywhere,'' enthused RIA news agency. ``First as prime minister 
and then as acting president as well, Vladimir Putin has mastered practically 
all modes of transport, and above all, military vehicles.'' 

Now comfortably elected, Putin, with his trademark bashful smile, seemingly 
has less need for such imagery. 

INAUGURATION HURDLE STILL TO CLEAR 

But with the ceremonial hurdle of a May 7 inauguration still to clear, it is 
a tactic that usefully keeps him in the public eye and in favour with the 
military until he can act with the full weight of the presidency. 

Putin has proved highly popular with the armed forces. Indeed, there was a 
tussle over which submarine would take him overnight. He opted for the 
Karelia, which test-fired two nuclear-capable missiles to celebrate his 
election win. 

The president-elect has yet to provide detailed plans for Russia, not least 
the economy. So public relations will remain important for a man virtually 
unknown nine months ago. 

He has spoken of market reforms in a strong state but his policy programme 
has not yet been finalised. It is also not clear who will be in the new 
government he must appoint. 

In the meantime, it is anybody's guess what the next stunt will be. But there 
do appear to be some limits. 

Asked recently at the Star City cosmonaut training school outside Moscow 
whether he would not like to go into space, he replied: ``I know full well 
how expensive it is to put each gram of cargo into orbit. I think my weight 
is not worth the money.'' 

*******

#10
Argumenty i Fakty No. 14
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
FRESH BLOOD
By Vitaly SOLOVYOV

Young Wolves
A new team is coming to power in Russia. Fresh blood is 
being injected into the veins of the Yeltsin state organism. 
This does not mean that the government will be cleansed of 
veterans, as one cannot do without them at a certain stage. But 
the "commanding heights" will be held by people who are 
mentally close to Putin. The "young wolves," these energetic 
professionals will be either of the same age as Putin, or even 
younger. They are not the grey-suited "tough managers" of the 
Yeltsin-Chernomyrdin age. 
Let's see how old Putin's closest associates are. Security 
Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov is 47. Chief of the government 
staff Dmitry Kozak is 41. Vladimir Kozhin, head of the 
president's business management administration, is 41. First 
Deputy Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, a potential candidate 
for premiership, is 39. German Gref, head of Putin's think tank 
-- the Centre of Strategic Research, is 35. And Dmitry 
Medvedev, head of Putin's election staff who might replace 
Alexander Voloshin, is 34.
That generation was born not in the dark 1930s or the 
trouble war period of the 1940s. The new president of Russia 
was not yet five months old when Stalin died. Putin's 
generation did not see the Gulag camps. Their mentality 
developed during Khrushchev's thaw in the 1960s. They grew up 
together with the country, which breathed a sigh of relief 
after decades of totalitarian persecution and suffering. 
They reached their teens when the Soviet Union jubilantly 
explored the space and won prizes at film festivals, at a time 
of Kosygin's reforms and brilliant international victories of 
our athletes. They grew up in an atmosphere of mounting pride 
for "our Soviet homeland," pride that was measured not in the 
number of tanks, guns and planes, but in the humanitarian, 
cultural might of the country. 
Putin's generation began their careers in the 1970s, the 
time of the Helsinki Act and detente. The future fledglings of 
Putin's nest probably remember that time for the unprecedented 
openness of the borders, long lines at the visa department of 
the US Embassy, and mass student exchanges. They breathed the 
air of freedom and were bound to see that not everything was as 
bright and rosy in the country as they thought in their green 
years.
They must have seen that Brezhnev's "developed socialism" was 
stagnating much quicker than the notorious West. The deployment 
of troops in Afghanistan, which became the first nail in the 
coffin of the Soviet empire, dispelled the thinking people's 
last doubts concerning the doomed regime.

Putin's Conscripts
After that, we had Gorbachev's perestroika, which many of 
Putin's generation entered as mature people. Most of them had 
worked abroad, learned foreign languages, and acquired friends 
among Western intellectuals. Already at that time, they became 
convinced pro-market democrats, because they saw with their own 
eyes the advantages of the market and democracy over the State 
Planning Committee and the Communist Party. 
When Yeltsin came to power, they got a chance to implement 
their ambitious plans of making Russia a civilised country. 
Some of them (like Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Pyotr 
Aven and Alexander Shokhin) launched the shock reforms in the 
government, thus becoming the focus of the public wrath. Others 
(like Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov) blazed the trail in 
big business and grew into oligarchs. But both played a vital 
part in helping Russia to irreversibly depart from communism in 
the past ten years. 
And now is the time of Putin's conscript. We hardly know 
anything about the new favourites other than that Putin went on 
a reconnaissance raid with some, improved St. Petersburg with 
others, and regards still others as professional lawyers and 
economists. We can only hope that Putin's gut feeling, who, 
being an ex-secret service man, knows the price of misjudging 
people, will not let him down. We can only hope that the new 
government will be more clever, talented and energetic. And 
that everything will be fine. 

*******

#11
IMF's Fischer Set to Meet With Putin to Discuss Russian Economy

Moscow, April 6 (Bloomberg)
-- Russian President-Elect Vladimir Putin will take a first step today in 
mending relations with the International Monetary Fund, detailing his 
economic plans in a meeting with the fund's acting chief. 

The fund stopped lending to Russia in September, in part because of 
opposition to Russia's war in Chechnya, Putin's main policy initiative since 
he was appointed prime minister in August. Now, fresh from his victory last 
month as Russia's second freely elected president, he'll meet IMF Acting 
Managing Director Stanley Fischer, in Moscow on a two-day visit. 

Both Russia and the IMF sought to play down expectations for Fischer's visit 
and both have reason to keep it low-key. The government may be reluctant to 
make any renewed cooperation with the IMF public, and the fund, which will 
bring European Bank for Reconstruction and Development President Horst 
Koehler on board as the new managing director in May, also may be cautious 
about reaching out too fast to Putin, analysts said. 

``We survived so far,'' said First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, 
said in an interview in Russian daily Kommersant. ``There will be no drama if 
we do not have external (financing) sources.'' 

In fact, Russia, facing foreign debt payments of $1 billion per month this 
quarter, needs the fund to resume lending, particularly with retreating world 
oil prices threatening to reduce hard currency revenue, analysts said. 

Reforms 

Already, Putin has shown he's willing to pursue economic reforms recommended 
by the fund, including decisions this week to break up the monopoly electric 
utility and order state companies and agencies to pay their electric, heat 
and gas bills. 

``There's renewed interest from the Russian side to get the IMF agreements 
implemented, especially with oil prices substantially weaker,'' said Eric 
Kraus, chief strategist at Nikoil Investment Co. 

During his Moscow visit, Fischer will meet Putin as well as First Deputy 
Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, and take part in an academic conference that 
Johannes Linn, World Bank vice president for Europe and Central Asia, also 
will attend. 

Fischer said before he left that he'll talk with Putin ``about what his views 
are for an economic reform program. Inevitably we'll talk about relations 
with the IMF but this is not fundamentally a negotiating mission.'' 

Probably, formal loan talks wouldn't start until after Putin's May 7 
inauguration. 

`Ideology' 

Alexander Shokhin, chairman of the banking committee in Russia's lower house 
of parliament, the Duma, said the government and IMF must ``agree on an 
ideology of joint cooperation.'' 

Russia has indicated it may try to reach a new agreement with the fund, 
particularly after it successfully surpassed many previous IMF requirements 
-- from lowering the inflation rate to boosting tax collection. The economy 
grew 3.2 percent last year, helped largely by the devaluation of the ruble 
and rising world oil prices, and some analysts said it could grow by as much 
as 5 percent this year. 

Russia's 2000 budget anticipates about $5.9 billion in foreign loans, 
including about $4.5 billion from the IMF and the World Bank. 

Fischer's visit is seen as a chance to conduct informal discussions that 
could lead to more formal negotiations in the near future, Shokhin said. 

``The visit of Mr. Fischer is likely to pave the way for a serious policy 
dialogue between Russia and the IMF, but we do not expect any formal 
announcement as such, given that it is in nobody's interest to publicize the 
renewed engagement,'' said Goohoon Kwon, senior economist at ABN Amro in 
London. 

Chechnya 

The war in Chechnya remains a key concern for IMF member states. Russian 
troops are fighting Islamic militants that Putin has blamed for a series of 
apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities. The United Nations High 
Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson yesterday said both Russia and 
Chechen rebels have violated human rights in the North Caucasus, the Interfax 
news agency reported. 

``Putin clearly wants to reach out to the West and has shown he wants to,'' 
said Martin Taylor, who manages $1.5 billion in East European assets at 
Baring Asset Management in London. ``But the big but is Chechnya. If concerns 
about human rights in Chechnya increase, then the IMF could make Putin 
wait.'' 

Improved relations with the IMF is important for Russia to reach agreement 
with the Paris Club of sovereign creditors on restructuring billions of 
dollars of Soviet-era debt later this year. 

The IMF may agree to resume lending to Russia in the third quarter, analysts 
said, though there's always the chance Putin could refuse it. Depending on 
development of global commodities prices and Russia's revenue collection, the 
new president may seek to show the IMF he doesn't need the fund's help. 

``Putin would love to say `No thanks' to the IMF,'' said Roland Nash, in 
charge of credit analysis at Renaissance Capital brokerage. ``It would give 
Mr. Putin tremendous kudos to refuse it.'' 

*******