April 18, 2000   
This Date's Issues: 4254 • 4255 • 4256

Johnson's Russia List
#4256
18 April 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AFP: Putin trip makes London a Russian stepping-stone to West: papers.
2. Bloomberg: More Russians Think Chechnya War Won't End Soon, 
Poll Shows.
3. New York Times: Thomas Friedman, BizCzarism.
4. Ha'aretz: Isabella Ginor, Putin proclaims crackdown on contacts with foreigners.
5. Trud: Vitaly Golovachev, TRUST IN PRESIDENT-ELECT IS GROWING.
6. Reuters: Russian Duma seeks to upstage U.S. on arms.
7. AP: Clinton-Putin Summit Topics Come Up.
8. Moscow Times: Igor Semenenko, Tax Reform Atop State's Agenda.
9. RFE/RL: Bruce Pannier, Central Asia: Security On Agenda During Albright Visit.
10. Philadelphia Inquirer: Philip Berman, A case for Yeltsin as true force in democracy drive. (review of Aron's Yeltsin)
11. The Guardian (UK): Hugo Young, A welcome for Putin, the butcher of Chechnya. Having talked about ethics, Blair shows how irrelevant they are.]

*******

#1
Putin trip makes London a Russian stepping-stone to West: papers

MOSCOW, April 18 (AFP) - 
Moscow dailies on Tuesday said President-elect Vladimir Putin's visit to 
London had built a bridge between the Kremlin and more skeptical Western 
politicians and investors.

The warm praise for Putin's controversial visit dovetailed with comment in 
several London dailies which said the new Kremlin chief had upstaged British 
Prime Tony Blair during their joint press conference Monday.

They said he had turned in a bravura performance with a tub-thumping defence 
of his Chechnya war.

The liberal Moscow daily Sevodnya said the Kremlin and Downing Street had now 
developed an "exclusive" relationship in which Britain could act as 
interlocutor between Moscow and the United States on sensitive issues.

"The Kremlin does not hide the fact that Moscow views special ties with 
London as a step toward Washington, hoping to play the (British) card to its 
outmost," Sevodnya said.

Both ORT and RTR state television stations endorsed that assessment in their 
coverage of Putin's first trip abroad since his March 26 presidential victory.

Putin, who still serves as prime minister, had not been expected to travel 
abroad until after his May 7 inauguration and the official appointment of a 
new head of government.

However a series of recent foreign and domestic policy coups -- including 
parliament's ratification last week of the START II nuclear disarmament 
treaty -- may have convinced Putin that an offer to visit London could not be 
missed.

The press on Tuesday said Putin had succeeded fully in his mission to improve 
Russia's ties with the West which have been chilled by Moscow's perceived 
brutal pursuit of the Chechen war.

"Blair showed that the West was still talking to and respecting Russia, and 
Putin won a softening on Moscow's problem in Chechnya," the Kommersant 
business daily said.

Kommersant cited one close member of Putin's entourage as saying after the 
London visit: "We have made a breakthrough."

And the papers praised Putin for meeting with British investors before going 
on to more formal affairs.

"Investors in Russia will have their own ombudsman," said the centrist 
Izvestia daily, adding that Putin presented 31 potential projects to British 
business leaders during his trip.

However some took a slightly more cynical approach.

"Russians in the City: English skeptics gather to take a look at Putin," the 
Vedomosity daily said in a headline.

It said Putin had been greeted in London without any euphoria.

********

#2
More Russians Think Chechnya War Won't End Soon, Poll Shows

Moscow, April 18 (Bloomberg) -- More Russians think the war in Chechnya
will not end soon, a recent opinion poll by Russia's Public Opinion Fund
shows. The fund is a public organization founded in 1990 by former
members of the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion, the largest
state-owned research company in Russia. In the following poll, 1500
people were surveyed in January and March 2000. The results have a margin
error of 3.8 percentage points. Figures are in percentages. How long do
you think the war in Chechnya will last?
January March 
Until spring 2000 11 n/a 
Until summer 2000 12 10 
Until fall 2000 8 9 
Until the end of 2000 11 12 
Will not end in 2000 31 45 
Difficult to answer 27 24 

The following conclusions were drawn by the Public Opinion Fund from the
results of various recent polls. As of mid-March, 66 percent of Russians
support Russia's offensive in Chechnya, while only 24 percent are against
it. The latter also think that (as a percentage of those opposing the war
in Chechnya; figures in brackets represent percentages of the total number
of respondents polled): 
Russian soldiers' fighting spirit is low 37 (23) 
News about violent behavior of Russian soldiers towards the peaceful
population are true 39 (29) Peace talks in Chechnya should be
started immediately 51 (29) 
Attitude toward Putin will improve if he begins the peace talks
39 (22) 
(4/17 Public Opinion Fund, www.fom.ru) 

********

#3
New York Times
April 18, 2000
[for personal use only]
BizCzarism
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

MOSCOW -- The Russian political analyst Sergei Markov was trying to explain
to me over tea the other day the state of the Russian state: "If you look
at it from far away," he said, "the Russian state looks like a big
[Charles] Atlas, full of muscles. But as you get closer you realize that
this Atlas is actually dead. Inside, this huge body is full of worms, who
are eating the body and feeding off it. Sometimes an arm or a leg moves a
little, but that's not because Atlas is alive, it's because the worms have
moved an arm or leg. It's a very depressing and ugly state." 

I'll say. Mr. Markov's imagery may be overdrawn, but it's not all that far
from the truth. The most important story in Russia today is what has
happened to the Russian state. It has been privatized, and, like everything
else, in the worst possible way. 


At every level, different ministries, department heads, agencies,
governates and mayoralties have gone into partnership with private
businesses, local oligarchs or criminal elements, creating a kind of
21st-century Russian feudalism -- I'd call it "BizCzarism." Last week one
newspaper ran a graphic of deputy ministers at the Ministry of Energy, with
lines tracing which oil company each of them works for -- in tandem with
their government jobs. 

The different K.G.B. clans, intelligence services and police forces have
driven the mobsters out of business -- not by putting them in jail, but by
taking over their protection rackets. Now your bank might pay the K.G.B.
for what Russians call "roof," a k a protection, and the bank next door
might pay the Interior Ministry for the same protection. 

"A classmate of mine called the other day and said he had changed his
'roof' from the Mafia to one of the state intelligence services -- they are
very polite and they charge less than the Mafia," said Mr. Markov. "If you
are in the government and you don't take a bribe now, people don't look at
you as honest. They look at you as stupid. It means we have a huge moral
crisis -- people don't have values of what is good and bad." 

It also means a permanent economic crisis. A privatized Russian state
cannot act as a normal state -- adjudicating disputes, protecting private
property and the sanctity of contracts or harnessing the energy of the
nation so that Russia can create new wealth. Without such a state, Russia
will never get the foreign investment it needs for sustained growth. And
without foreign investment, all these towns in Russia where the whole town
works for one factory cannot be turned into 10-factory towns, and without
that happening the government will go on subsidizing the one factory in
that town -- even if it is totally inefficient. And when bad factories are
subsidized the government can't control its budget and good factories can't
gain market share and become globally competitive. And if good companies
can't emerge, Russia's economy will keep rising and falling on the price of
oil, its biggest export. 

Glenn Waller, who heads the association of foreign oil companies here,
points out that for Russia to have a meaningful economic reform program,
what the newly elected president, Vladimir Putin, needs most are "levers
that he can pull, and he needs for those levers to be attached to something
so that when he pulls them something happens on the other end." 

One should not be misled by Mr. Putin's recent trip to England, or Russia's
ratification of Start II. The wheels are not on tight here, because this
privatized Russian state "has reproduced itself at every level," observed
the commentator Andrei Piontkovsky. "It is a system of robber capitalism
that cannot be changed by removing seven corrupt gentlemen in Moscow. This
Russian reality is sometimes difficult to grasp, because it has never been
depicted in any economic textbook." 

For Russia to be stabilized Mr. Putin must reclaim the state. But he
himself rose to power thanks to one of these business-government clans. Can
he now break away? That's certainly what Russia's people want. He would
have to start small and focus on one area at a time where he can
re-establish state control. 

Russia's democracy is real and has taken root, but it will never flourish
without a real state and the rule of law. Which is why the truly important
war here -- the one that will decide this country's fate -- is not the war
over who controls Chechnya. It's the war over who controls Russia. 

*******

#4
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000
From: Isabella Ginor <remgin@mail.netvision.net.il>
Subject: Putin proclaims crackdown on contacts with foreigners

Putin proclaims crackdown on contacts with foreigners 
By Isabella Ginor 
Ha'aretz, April 17 2000 

Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin arrived in Britain, on his first
trip to the West, bearing an olive branch in the form of a Duma vote two
days earlier to ratify the START-II treaty. But in the closed session of
the Russian Parliament in which he advocated the ratification, Putin also
made comments that could only add to the anxiety of those concerned by the
President's KGB past and his present connections there, including a row of
recent nominations to senior positions. 

The NTV television channel confirmed Sunday with quotes from the Duma
transript what some Russian internet newsletters (polit.ru, smi.ru) had
revealed the day before: while answering opposition attacks on Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov, Putin declared that the minister, like any elected or
other official or any Russian citizen, would face criminal proceedings if
they maintained contacts with foreigners beyond the call of their duties.
"Actions already undertaken by the FSB (the KGB's successor agency -- I.G.)
prove that this is entirely feasible." NTV reported that these remarks were
greeted with a heavy silence in the chamber, broken only by one member's
loud but unprintable response. 

All this came as no surprise to Sergei Grigoryants, a journalist and former
dissident who spent many years in Soviet prisons and later established the
Glasnost Defence Foundation for protection of press freedom. "There's no
doubt that a process of isolating Russia from the world is already in
motion, and with some success," he told Ha'Aretz from Moscow. "surveillance
of correspondence with abroad is now an official reality. A special federal
agency was established for the purpose, supposedly with the mission of
protecting intellectual property. But its mandate includes a clause
instructing it to 'assess the results of abuse of intellectual property'." 

The practical significance of this became evident three weeks ago to the
St. Petersburg chapter of the Soldiers' Mothers' organization. In this case
-- which according to Grigoryants was far from singular -- the mothers sent
a parcel to New York by means of a courier service. The clerk warned them
that if it were found to contain anti-government material, the parcel would
be returned and the senders charged $50, which would include the return fee
and a fine. 

"Unlike Soviet times, when the mothers sent me the details and I called the
courier service, they didn't even try to deny the existence of this
censorship. They explained calmly that the agency in charge operates out of
the Moscow customs house, and their warning was made according to its
rules. Regular letters, I was told, are subjected to random checks, but
everything send through express dispatching services is opened." 

In the last three weeks, says Grigoryants, new customs regulations were
also promulgated. A new form for customs declarations by travellers
entering or leaving the country includes, alongside the usual items for
drugs, weapons and the like, a demand for the declarer to state whether his
baggage contains books, printed matter and other "receptacles of
information." Grigoryants warns that "like in the USSR, this definition can
be construed to include even letters. So it permits a complete embargo on
export and import of information. The customs service isn't implementing
it yet, but the regulation is already in place." 

Similar legislation recently adopted by the Duma sanctions eavesdropping on
e-mail, indicating that the necessary technology has already been acquired. 

Procedures for the actual entry of the foreigners themselves have been
tightened as well. "It has become very hard for our foundation to invite
foreign guests for our conferences," says Grigoryants. "Hitherto, in order
to do so we needed only the consent of the consular division at the Foreign
ministry. We had a general authorization from them, and our invitees were
accordingly issued visas. Now, we are required to obtain the additional
consent of OVIR (the visa authority that achieved notoriety in the days of
refuseniks). That means getting the approval of the Interior Ministry and
the KGB" -- Grigoryants insists on using the old acronym, as if to show
that little has changed. 

In reporting Putin's speech NTV asked whether the President-elect's talks
in London would not be putting him in breach of the rules he announced to
the Duma, by meeting foreigners beyond the call of duty. 

*******

#5
Trud
April 18, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
TRUST IN PRESIDENT-ELECT IS GROWING
By Vitaly GOLOVACHEV

This April, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre 
(VTsIOM) carried out yet another public opinion poll among the 
adult population. Among the questions asked was the attitude to 
the president-elect and to the work of the government. The 
possible margin of error is within 3.8 percent.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT VLADIMIR PUTIN?

(Up to three answers could be given. The three answers - 
out of the 15 versions of answers proposed to the respondents - 
which gathered the greatest number are given below).

------------------------------------------------------------
October April
1999 2000
------------------------------------------------------------
He is an energetic, resolute,
strong-willed individual 41 46
He is a man who can put
things in order in the country 21 29
I support his policy towards
Chechnya 24 21
------------------------------------------------------------

As we see, over the past six months trust in Putin 
continued growing. The only thing in the way is, it seems, the 
declining support for the policy pursued in Chechnya (from 24 
to 21 percent). On the other hand, people wait from Putin some 
concrete steps aimed at changing the situation for the better 
and rectifying mistakes made by previous leaders. They also 
hope that Putin will distance himself from the odious oligarchs 
and other similar figures. To the question, "What is it that 
you dislike about Vladimir Putin?", 39 percent of Russians 
answered: "He is linked with Yeltsin and his retinue." Thus, 
the number of people who would not like the president-elect to 
"be linked with anybody" has grown tangibly. Only 12 percent of 
the respondents do not like that Vladimir Putin does not have 
any "clearcut political line" to pursue.
As for complaints about the work of the present 
government, the main ones (as is shown by the April poll) are 
inadequate concern about social protection of the population, 
unemployment, and a fall in people's real incomes. To be 
objective, it is worth noting that inflation has been at a 
rather low level in recent months. However, for a third of the 
country's citizens who live in poverty, every percent (even 0.5 
percent) of the rise in prices is noticeable.

*******

#6
Russian Duma seeks to upstage U.S. on arms
By Martin Nesirky

MOSCOW, April 18 (Reuters) - Russia's parliament decided on Tuesday it would 
vote on ratifying the global nuclear test ban treaty on Friday and looked set 
to approve the deal just a week after backing another major arms control 
agreement. 

Assuming the State Duma or lower house ratifies the test ban treaty as 
expected, Russia will then be able to upstage the United States at an 
important U.N. review conference next week on halting the spread of nuclear 
weapons. 

``If this treaty is ratified now, Russia will have a clear advantage at the 
international conference,'' Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Duma's international 
affairs committee, told reporters. 

Given Russia's limited finances, arms control is a crucial area for 
President-elect Vladimir Putin and he has already started to force the pace 
even before his May 7 inauguration. Arms control serves the dual purpose of 
freeing up funds for new weapons and presenting a more accommodating face to 
the West. 

That will be important as he tries to attract foreign investment. With two 
major arms accords under his belt, Putin would also be well placed for his 
first summit with President Bill Clinton in Moscow in June. 

Rogozin said the Duma's agenda-setting council had decided to vote on the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on Friday. 

Clinton failed last October to persuade the Senate to ratify the CTBT, which 
outlaws nuclear tests. It is not an arms-cutting treaty but if the Duma 
ratifies it, Russia will be a step ahead. 

``The spotlight will be on us,'' a U.S. diplomat said last week. RIA news 
agency quoted Putin's representative in the Duma as saying the chamber was 
likely to approve the treaty. 

Last Friday, the Duma comfortably ratified the U.S.-Russian START-2 nuclear 
arms reduction treaty, smoothing the way for Putin before he started his 
first visit abroad on Sunday. 

The Federation Council upper house is scheduled to vote on START-2 on 
Wednesday and is likely to follow the Duma's suit. 

Under START-2, the two sides agree to slash the number of warheads from 6,000 
to no more than 3,500 each by 2007. 

DISARMAMENT DEBATE REACTIVATED 

The two powers are now discussing a new round of talks on a follow-on START-3 
treaty that would cut arsenals still further. 

The Clinton administration wants to cut back to 2,000-2,500 warheads each. 
Putin has said Russia, faced with scarce funds and ageing weapons, was ready 
to go even lower, to 1,500 each. 

In addition, Putin said last Friday the arms control ball was now firmly in 
Washington's court. The Duma underscored this point by approving motions 
authorising Putin to abandon START-2 if the United States goes ahead with a 
missile defence plan. 

Washington wants to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to allow it 
to deploy its missile defence system. Moscow has so far ruled any changes to 
that treaty but Putin hinted at a possible compromise during a visit to 
London on Monday. 

It remains to be seen what form that compromise will take, although it looks 
as though it may hinge on what is defined as a legitimate defence system 
against missile strikes from so-called rogue stages such as Iraq or North 
Korea. 

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told CNN ahead of a visit to the United States 
that what he dubbed the ``Putin Plan'' would involve START-3 talks and 
looking into cooperating on non-strategic anti-missile systems as well as 
other measures. 

If the Duma ratifies the test ban treaty, Putin and Ivanov will be able to 
clamber further on to the moral high ground in negotiations on cutting a deal 
on ABM. 

Yet in a sign those talks will not be easy, the Russian Foreign Ministry 
complained again on Tuesday Norway was setting up a missile-watching station 
as a proxy for the United States. 

Oslo says the Arctic station is to track space debris but Moscow does not 
believe this. It says the station violates ABM. 

As they did last week, Ivanov and Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev will be on 
hand in the Duma this week to brief deputies ahead of the vote on the test 
ban treaty. 

Sergeyev will also explain to deputies about Russia's problems fulfilling the 
terms of a major chemical weapons destruction pact because of underfunding in 
the military. 

*******

#7
Clinton-Putin Summit Topics Come Up
April 18, 2000
By BARRY SCHWEID

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton will get a chance to pitch for missile
defense systems and a lighter Russian hand in Chechnya when he meets at a
Moscow summit with President Vladimir Putin in early June. 

Close to three decades of U.S.-Russian cooperation to curb nuclear weapons
could be nearing an end despite last week's ratification of the START II
treaty by the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. 

Putin is threatening to jettison all major arms-control accords with the
United States if the administration undercuts a 1972 treaty that bars
development of anti-missile technology. Clinton is nearing a decision to go
ahead with a limited system and wants Putin's approval. 

The Russian president, a career KGB official largely untested as a
politician, won election March 26 partly on a wave of public approval of
his war against rebels in Chechnya. That has not ended the rebellion,
however, and Clinton is sure to appeal to Putin to engage in serious
negotiations with Chechen leaders and to adopt a kinder approach to the
republic. 

Riding on Clinton's appeal is the certainty that Putin wants a good
relationship with the West. The Russian president has scored some points
with his early commitment to economic order and currently, on his first
trip west with a visit to Britain, with his promise that Russia will not
return to isolationism. 

The summit will be June 4-5 in Moscow as part of a Clinton trip to Europe.
The White House announced he would travel to Portugal May 30-June 1 for a
summit with leaders of the European Union; to Aachen and Berlin, Germany,
June 1-3; and from Moscow to Kiev, Ukraine, June 6. 

In Aachen, the president will be awarded the Charlemagne Prize for
contributions to European unification and in Berlin will attend with
leaders of a dozen other countries a summit on ``third way'' politics
hosted by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The idea is to consider
alternatives to the traditional liberal and conservative approaches to
government. 

Clinton winds up his European journey in Ukraine with a meeting with
President Leonid Kuchma. 

The anti-missile question is sure to be an important part of the Moscow
meeting. 

Three former American negotiators said Monday the START II agreement is
imperiled by conservative Senate Republicans who want to overturn the ban
on missile defenses. 

The negotiators also questioned whether the administration has a strategy
to implement the treaty's mutual cutbacks of about 50 percent in nuclear
missiles. 

``I don't think there's a game plan,'' ex-negotiator Thomas Graham said at
a news conference held by the private Arms Control Association. ``They are
thinking mostly about domestic politics and electing the vice president.'' 

Graham also said proceeding with a limited defense against missiles without
green lights from Russia, the European allies and China would amount to ``a
recipe for rekindling the nuclear arms race.'' 

Spurgeon Keeny, the association's president, said it would be the United
States' advantage if the two countries carry out the 1993 treaty. 

While reducing U.S. and Russian stockpiles of long-range nuclear weapons to
3,000 to 3,500 from current levels of about 6,000 each, the treaty would
ban Russia's land-based multiple-warhead SS-18 missiles, the most powerful
weapon in the Russian arsenal. 

Graham and Keeny, who held senior posts in the defunct U.S. Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency, and Jack Mendelsohn, a former U.S. negotiator on
START II, said the administration must seek Senate approval of various
amendments to the 1993 treaty. 

But trying for that, they said, would give conservative Republicans a
chance to scuttle the 1972 treaty banning missile defenses. That landmark
pact set the stage for cooperation between the United States and the
then-Soviet Union on reining in nuclear weapons. 

On Monday, U.S. and Russian negotiators began a round of talks in Geneva to
cut nuclear arsenals to 2,000 to 2,500 missiles, or even fewer if Putin has
his way. 

*******

#8
Moscow Times
April 18, 2000 
Tax Reform Atop State's Agenda 
By Igor Semenenko
Staff Writer

The government is hoping to push through radical tax reforms this year, 
lowering the general tax burden but also moving to raise compliance, a top 
government official said Monday. 

Hopefully, the second part of the Tax Code will make it through the State 
Duma as early as this summer, First Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov 
said. 

The first section of the Tax Code was passed in 1998, but the much-needed 
second half of the code - which will round out the laws covering such matters 
as profit tax, value added tax, income tax and excises - has yet to be 
presented to parliament. 

"Within three or four years, the nominal tax burden as a percentage of gross 
domestic product should be lowered from its current level of 41 percent to 
approximately 34 percent," Shatalov said. 

The nominal tax burden counts all taxes that can be theoretically collected 
on the basis of existing tax rates. 

The government plans to scrap sales tax and a number of local taxes, lower 
payroll taxes and rework the means for defining resident status for tax 
purposes, Shatalov said. 

Under the current system, foreign and Russian citizens are deemed to be 
residents for tax purposes if they spend 183 days or more in Russia for any 
calendar year. 

The Finance Ministry wants to change this to give authorities the discretion 
to determine whether or not Russia represents a "vital zone of interest" for 
either individuals or legal entities whose permanent residence may be 
elsewhere. Any individuals or entities for whom Russia is deemed to represent 
a vital zone of interest will then be declared residents for tax purposes. 

This would allow the government to tax individuals living most of the year 
abroad but who have sources of income in Russia, as well as legal entities 
based in off-shore zones but which earn income in Russia. 

These measures would chiefly be aimed at cutting down tax avoidance by 
Russian firms and businessmen who use the existing tax residency rules to cut 
down their tax burden, Shatalov said. 

During his trip to London on Monday, President-elect Vladimir Putin called 
tax reform one of the key priorities of the new government, along with 
foreign-debt servicing, the fight against red tape and the perfection of the 
legal system. 

However, private businesses are at least as concerned with market 
liberalization as they are with tax issues. 

"No less important is to create equal market conditions for businesses," said 
Grigory Vygon, researcher with the Institute of Financial Research. 

Vygon says some measures popularized by the government were less 
revolutionary than could seem at first glance. Most businesses already know 
how to get around the tax office. 

For example, many oil companies are not worried by sales tax because they 
sell crude to intermediary companies at a third of the price on the domestic 
market, he said. 

At the same time, the existence of tax breaks, production sharing agreements 
and other discriminatory tax measures favor businesses with political 
connections over those who lack such clout. 

"For example, it is very important for us to have a common market for alcohol 
products," said Alexander Romanov, a spokesman for the European Business 
Club. "Currently, it looks like 89 fiefdoms run by local governors." 

Romanov said the government's recent proposal to charge excise tax at customs 
would work against alcohol importers, who face trade barriers when trying to 
crack regional alcohol markets. 

"Governors will not be motivated to let outside producers in if all taxes are 
charged outside the region," he said. 

Meanwhile, it is unclear how realistic Shatalov's tax-reform goals are. It 
could be very hard to push the Finance Ministry's tax package through the 
Duma in the few months remaining before deputies leave for summer vacations. 

"We have not yet seen any documents, so its premature to discuss the issue," 
said Galina Beryozkina, tax adviser to the parliament's upper chamber budget 
committee. "We shall have to see how realistic these plans are." 

******

#9
Central Asia: Security On Agenda During Albright Visit
By Bruce Pannier

Political and military officials from both the U.S. and Russia have been 
visiting the CIS countries of Central Asia with offers of training and other 
help. RFE/RL correspondent Bruce Pannier reports that what these countries 
seek most is security aid -- and that is where the Russians have been 
offering the most. 

Prague, 14 April 2000 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright 
has visited Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and today she is in Uzbekistan. Her 
visit is just the latest in an April parade of U.S. and Russian dignitaries 
through the region. 

CIA Director George Tenet was in Central Asia this month, followed by FBI 
head Louis Freeh. The Kremlin's Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky just 
finished a tour of the region, preceded by Russian Security Council head 
Sergei Ivanov. And General Leonid Maltsev, a high Russian official for CIS 
military cooperation, was also an April visitor. This month has also already 
seen two sets of military exercises in the region, as well as a conference of 
CIS security ministers. 

The topic running through all these events is security in Central Asia -- and 
the United States and Russia seem to be competing to assist the five 
countries.

Security became the dominant issue for the region last year, when a series of 
insurrections and terrorist attacks shook the confidence of several Central 
Asian governments. In February 1999, terrorists planted bombs in the Uzbek 
capital Tashkent in an apparent attempt to kill President Islam Karimov. In 
August, hundreds of mainly Uzbek Islamic extremists crossed from Tajikistan 
into southern Kyrgyzstan, seized villages and took hostages in what became a 
two-month standoff. The group, which calls itself the Islamic Movement of 
Uzbekistan and is believed to be responsible for the attempt against Karimov, 
said it wanted to overthrow the Uzbek government and establish an Islamic 
state. The militants retreated to their bases in Tajikistan, and are still 
considered a threat.

This Islamic movement has proved an effective lever for Russia to promote its 
interests in Central Asia. On Wednesday in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, 
Yastrzhembsky told a press conference that Kyrgyzstan, as he put it: 
"...considers Russia as its strategic partner, as a state that can help 
immediately if, god forbid, some setbacks like the events of last year 
happen."

That was also Yastrzhembsky's message to Uzbek President Karimov earlier this 
week. Karimov pulled his country out of the CIS Collective Security Treaty 
last year, saying the treaty provided no guarantee of help. Following the 
visit of Russia's then-prime minister Vladimir Putin last December, Tashkent 
changed its view of relations with Russia. This year, Karimov has often 
spoken of defeating terrorists and militants with Russia's help. 

Moscow has a substantial military presence in the region. Some 20,000 
soldiers are under Russian command in Tajikistan, guarding the border with 
Afghanistan. 

When the security heads of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, 
Tajikistan, and Russia met last weekend in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, 
several of them said they needed Russia's help. Kyrgyz security chief Bolot 
Januzakov said there are signs of trouble again along his country's southern 
border. And Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov said separatism, religious 
extremism and terrorism are growing trends in the region as a whole.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov talked tough at that 
meeting, saying that the fight against international terrorism sometimes 
requires unconventional methods. When asked whether Afghanistan could be a 
target for strikes, Ivanov even said he would not rule that out under certain 
circumstances. "If the situation is menacing, and if aggression and banditry 
take on a large-scale character, I would not theoretically exclude this 
possibility."

As the month of April started, the CIS military exercises known as Southern 
Shield 2000 were about halfway through. Some 13,000 troops from Russia, 
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan practiced ways to counter 
the kind of attack seen in Kyrgyzstan last year. Live-fire exercises near the 
southern Uzbek border city of Termez simulated destroying terrorist bases in 
Afghanistan. And live-fire exercises in southern Tajikistan simulated 
repelling a large incursion from Afghanistan.

Observing those maneuvers, Russian General Maltsev took the opportunity to 
repeat a common Russian theme, saying the militants plaguing Central Asia are 
the same kind of threat that Russian troops are fighting in Chechnya. The 
implication is clear: Russia has dealt strongly against what it calls 
"terrorists" and can lend its neighbors this expertise.

The U.S., too, has been quick to demonstrate that it can offer military aid. 
As Southern Shield 2000 was ending, a U.S. Army mountain warfare unit was 
drilling with Uzbek soldiers north of Tashkent. Officially, the exercise was 
just routine training in keeping with bilateral agreements. But Uzbekistan 
does not have mountains. The mountains are farther east, in Tajikistan, and 
somewhere in them lurk the militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. 

During their Central Asian visits, CIA director Tenet and FBI director Freeh 
are likely to have discussed security and counter-terrorist measures. Little 
information, however, was made public. Freeh said the FBI is opening an 
office in Kazakhstan to assist in investigations of money-laundering.

When U.S. Secretary of State Albright visits Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and 
Uzbekistan next week, security will certainly be one topic. But Albright will 
be obliged to mention the recent elections in all three countries, which were 
not very democratic. State Department spokesman James Foley said the 
secretary would not "pull any punches" criticizing the countries for their 
poor records on human rights and democratic practice.

The United States can supply the region with many things, such as financial 
support and technical aid. Russia can supply the region with one big thing, 
military support. The more worried about security Central Asian leaders 
become, the more likely they are to seek military aid instead of focusing on 
long-term democracy building. 

(Iskander Aliev of the Tajik Service and Naryn Idinov of the Kyrgyz Service 
contributed to this report.) 

*******

#10
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 16, 2000
book review

A case for Yeltsin as true force in democracy drive 
Review by Philip Berman

Yeltsin
A Revolutionary Life
By Leon Aron
St. Martin's Press. 896 pp. $35

Leon Aron's magnificent book on Boris Yeltsin is much more than a biography.

It is a passionate narrative of Russian life in an era that was, in a
sense, created and molded by Yeltsin, its central character.

Aron portrays Yeltsin - contrary to the common Western view of the Russian
leader as an erratic lightweight - as a giant who, in an impossibly short
time, tried to create a democratic and purely capitalistic Russia.

What emerges from this biography is that it was Yeltsin, not Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, who effected Russia's decisive break with its communist past. It
was Yeltsin, not Gorbachev, who stood for the basic principles of
democracy. Distracted by the uproar about Yeltsin's drinking sprees,
Westerners did not take Yeltsin seriously. For them, he was a Russian bear
with a white pompadour and reddish, bulky face. 

Born in Siberia in 1931, a "descendant of Siberian pioneers," Yeltsin was
educated as an engineer and made a name as a builder. But he left his mark
on Russian history as a politician who broke all the rules, who was
humiliated many times by Russia's last communist leader, Gorbachev, was
dismissed from the Politburo, and was nearly killed. But like Antaeus, the
giant who wrestled Hercules, Yeltsin drew strength from his roots - in
Yeltsin's case, roots not into Mother Earth but into both the Russian
people and the new democracy.

In 1985, Gorbachev promoted Yeltsin to the position of the first secretary
of the Moscow city party committee, a very prestigious post that Nikita S.
Khrushchev had held before the death of Stalin. In February 1986, Yeltsin
became an "elected" member of the Politburo, the Communist Party's ruling
body. His tireless efforts to improve food supplies sent his popularity
soaring.

Yeltsin's revolt against communist policy and the whole polity structured
by Gorbachev, called glasnost, started at the Central Committee meeting on
Oct. 21 1987. It was a bombshell when Yeltsin, after agonizing hesitation,
decided to speak his mind and criticized party leadership for not going
along the path of political and economic reforms. He also spoke against
Gorbachev's "cult of personality."

For his efforts, Yeltsin was demoted and humiliated, but he would recover.

Gorbachev had taken the position that Russia's "course of action must be
solely in the interests of socialist choice. No objective is higher than
that." This meant no free market and no land to peasants. One journalist
observed that "like Lot's wife, Gorbachev 'looked back at the Staraya
Square,' (where the Central Committee headquarters were) and turned into a
pillar of salt," Aron writes. "Democracy . . . flowed around him, like a
stream around a stone, and he found himself suddenly aged, in the rearguard
of a marching army."

Yeltsin, who understood that real democracy should be based on private
ownership, and especially on the private ownership of land, was in the
vanguard of that army, and was elected Russia's first president in June
1991. (Only one man in a position of power in 20th-century Russia had
declared the private ownership of land by peasants to be his main
objective. That was Peter Stolypin, Russia's prime minister in 1906. The
20th century could have been much different had the Russian legislature,
the Duma, or the czar listened to him.)

The new democracy in the Soviet Union had many crucial events, but two of
them were particularly important. And Yeltsin played a critical role in both.

When hard-line Communists launched a coup attempt in 1991 against
Gorbachev, who had remained general secretary of the Communist Party and
president of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin achieved worldwide fame by
barricading himself inside the White House, the seat of Russian government,
and climbing atop a tank to defy the plotters. Popular support rallied to
save the new democracy.

In 1993, a new attempt to turn back to Stalinist times was made by
Communists, Russian nationalists and fascists, and was again thwarted by
Yeltsin's popular support. Miners struck to elect him despite the absence
of milk and meat for their families and not being paid their salaries.
Intellectuals and democrats put their lives on the line, new tycoons
provided enormous financial support, and people, who wasted their lives in
the constant endless queues for food, came into the streets, day and night,
repeatedly supporting Yeltsin. Finally, Yeltsin sent tanks against the
White House after Communists had seized the state television station.

Aron, the Moscow-born director of Russian Studies at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, characterizes Gorbachev's policy of
glasnost and perestroika as "a political centaur, reasonably transparent
and democratic above the shoulders, but showing a great deal of Soviet hoof
and tail in the nether areas."

By contrast, Yeltsin declared: "The Party must, once and for all, separate
itself from the state and 'liquidate' Party cells in the armed forces,
state security agencies and all state organs."

Yeltsin wanted to make certain that the bureaucracy to which Gorbachev was
so stubbornly devoted did not get a chance to reestablish itself.

Fighting for reelection to the presidency in 1996, Yeltsin said before an
audience in Sverdlovsk: "The main danger is a bureaucratic, elitist regime,
the self-reproducing cancer of the power of the nomenklatura. The key thing
is to remove the roots of that cancer, especially the Party apparatus."

In 1996, Yeltsin's opponent for reelection was the newly emerged chairman
of the Communist Party, Gennady A. Zyuganov. All antidemocratic forces,
including Victor Anpilov, leader of the nationalist party Working Russia,
and the so-called popular-patriotic forces were united around Zyuganov.

Yeltsin's record as president was hardly unsullied. He was burdened by the
war in Chechnya and other policy mistakes. But Anatoly Chubais, one of the
leading figures in the democratic movement, asked in stark terms what might
happen should Yeltsin not be reelected: "How many thousands . . . will be
rotting away in [prison] camps? How many will be able to attend the next
congress of our party - or of other parties allied with us? . . . Isn't it
clear that there is one and only one question facing Russia today: Will
there be a second coming of Communism - or not?"

When Yeltsin was a high school student, he tried to disassemble a military
grenade. It cost him two fingers. In his adulthood, he tried to perform a
considerably more dangerous and gigantic task: to dissolve the Soviet
empire. It almost cost him his life. 

He dissolved the Communist Party, dissolved the Soviet Union, considerably
reducing its military threat to the neighbors. He released Baltic countries
from the yoke of communism, despite Gorbachev's bloodshed in Vilnius, the
capital of Lithuania. 

He tried to build a Russian democracy. Did he succeed? Only the future will
tell. 

As for Gorbachev, he did everything he could to turn back the clock,
actually elevating all the people who were organizers of the 1991 putsch to
their positions of responsibility and decision-making.

Where is Russia now?

As Aron puts it: "Having risen to rid themselves of totalitarian tyranny,
the peoples of newly liberated nations found themselves delivered to the
'clowns': former communist officials, the political and industrial
nomenklatura, who demolished the 'circus' of the one-party state and
replaced it with a bleak and dirty bazaar in which everything and everybody
appeared to be for sale."

In his book, Leon Aron has attained a rare depth and understanding of the
communist system, making this voluminous work an invaluable and enjoyable
read.

While I was writing this review, a new president of this "bazaar" was
elected in Russia, former KGB agent Vladimir V. Putin. As one may recall,
glasnost - intended at first as a Trojan horse to the West - started with
the KGB chief Yuri V. Andropov. We will see whether Russian democracy will
be stopped by Putin, the former KGB agent.

As Aron warns: "In the end, after exhaustive attempts at achieving the
'sweet liberty of citizenship,' the 'cold' and the 'disarray' would set in,
enveloping Russia in yet another period of authoritarianism, impoverishment
and dissipation of its immense natural riches and talent. The attributes of
the traditional Russian state - authoritarianism, imperialism, militarism,
xenophobia - are far from extinguished."

*******

#11
The Guardian (UK)
18 April 2000
[for personal use only]
A welcome for Putin, the butcher of Chechnya 
Having talked about ethics, Blair shows how irrelevant they are
By Hugo Young 

When Tony Blair met Vladimir Putin yesterday, he said he would raise the
subject of Moscow's atrocities in Chechnya. There's no reason to doubt that
he did so, but equally no reason to suppose he had the slightest effect. He
blew his powder at their first meeting in St Petersburg. In the full
read-out of that wide-ranging conversation which London immediately
supplied to Washington, what most struck the Americans was Putin's
unyielding severity on Chechnya. It was harsher than they expected. The
Russian replied to Blair's expressions of disapproval with brutal
indifference. 

This gives Mr Blair's protestations about his meeting yesterday an aura of
empty piety. The words will have been spoken, but then the leaders moved on
to other business. No doubt this was done with civility. Mr Putin studies
his interlocutors with the care of a trained agent to touch the right
buttons. When he first met Madeleine Albright, he broke the ice by talking
about Munich. To the French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, he dwelt on
Europe. James Wolfensohn, head of the World Bank, was favoured with a
humouring of his love of classical music. So one may be sure the Third Way
was batted between interpreters at the Downing Street lunch. 

For that is what Mr Blair likes to talk about, irrespective of who is
listening. Dialogue, in all and any circumstances, has become the hallmark
of his foreign policy. Far from being a leader especially confined within
the limits of what is supposed to be "ethical", he is ruthlessly dismissive
of such fine points of propriety. Moral protest, such as Putin generated in
Whitehall and elsewhere, will cut no ice. This contrast between the theory
and practice of Blair presents a startling spectacle. 

He's a fervent believer in his powers of persuasion. That's how he has
conducted his European policy for three years. He's entranced by talk, and
the spirit of this, after Britain's years of silence and/or aggression in
EU councils and committees, is reciprocated. There's hardly a leader in the
Union with whom he is not best friends, a trait which, a Foreign Office man
once told me, had, in the innocent beginning, problems as well as virtues.
Such was the pleasure and admiration Blair's early meetings produced that
he would return from Europe convinced he had surmounted all the tiresome
old problems. Everyone, it seemed, agreed with him. His success in dialogue
made, perhaps makes, him believe that anything is possible. 

He can't seriously imagine Chechnya is amenable to the same treatment. But
the education of Mr Putin to the meaning of economic reform is more
plausible. Engagement, for Blair, turns out to be in all circumstances
preferable to ostracism. The concrete gains for Britain may be hard to
detect. The suggestion that British business might get a head-start in the
reformed Russian economy is as dubious in its premise as its conclusion:
the economy has yet to be reformed, and business's success or failure
against German and American competitors has never had much to do with
sweet-talking politicians. 

But for Britain to be first into Putin's Moscow is the kind of vacuous coup
diplomats dream of. It also plays to the leader's ambition to be out in
front. With the Queen enlisted to give tea to the butcher of Chechnya, we
learn how far Mr Blair will go to establish priorities that are quite
different from those with which he apparently began. 

Under any other leader, this would be striking enough. Moscow is in breach
of elementary international protocols. Putin contemptuously humiliated the
UN human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, refusing to acknowledge that
she had any locus in Chechnya. The Council of Europe, to which Russia was
admitted in hope of tying Russian freedoms to the standards of an
international charter, takes such a serious view of the Chechnyan
brutalities that her membership may soon be suspended. 

Ignoring these signals, riding rough over their implications, could not
normally be done with impunity. Even a morally uncluttered head of
government - Chirac, say, or even Clinton - would experience embarrassment
trying to clarify why he was prepared to welcome the leader who had so
affronted international opinion. For Putin, let's be clear, is the winner
here. Putative British contracts, or special Blairite third-way
instruction, count for little beside the royal respectability the new
Russian has been accorded without making a single concession to the legal
order his country signed up to. This is what, by the canons of proper
behaviour, needs to be explained away. 

Blair, however, has another problem as well. He was going to be a different
sort of leader, standing for something new in the grammar of foreign
policy, an ethical dimension. He raised expectations. These have been
betrayed many times over. Whether in Sierra Leone or Iraq or Indonesia,
they look like a sick joke. The phrase, in fact, can now be seen as the
most foolish platform from which any new government has ever launched
itself into the international arena. But it stands in the record. It has
not been glossed, still less repudiated, by ministers. It remains in the
mind, as the benchmark by which these ministers said they would be judged. 

This is what makes the Blair-Putin alliance so arresting. Having once
talked about ethics, which neither Margaret Thatcher nor John Major ever
did, Blair shows how irrelevant they are. He is wholly pragmatic,
ruthlessly focused, hard-as-nails committed to the supreme relevance of his
own persuasive role. The outrage expressed by many sincere people against
this premature welcoming of Putin into the embrace of the western powers
meets Blair's own passionate unconcern. 

There is a case for getting on with Putin. He looks likely to be in power
for some time. He may have a mandate for reform which brings legal order to
a chaotic economic regime. Under him, Russia will be engaged in
reassembling its presence on the world scene. By coming to London, he opens
himself to western influence. On nuclear disarmament, he has an inescapable
role. Britain, in this respect, has taken the chance to play her part as a
proxy for Washington, which will even now have gobbled up a complete
transcript of the London conversations. 

What's more compelling is the ease with which Blair dumped his pretensions
in order to achieve this. The case for sticks not carrots, against the
perpetrator of Chechnyan barbarities, goes unheard, just as it did with
Jiang Zemin, and might, in the right circumstances, with Saddam Hussein.
Instead we get a lot of stuff about men of the same generation who are able
to understand each other. New men. New bonds. Special chemistry. This has
its possibilities. But ethics? Schmethics. A hard man is sucking up to a
harder one, as Bismarck might have said. 

*******

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