October 8, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4568 • 4569 

Johnson's Russia List
#4568
8 October 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
DJ: This Sunday's query: What do you most value about JRL?
1. New York Times: Patrick Tyler, How Yeltsin Nearly Scuttled Democracy 
in Russia.
2. Reuters: Ron Popeski, Yeltsin shows new book,says Chechnya big burden.
3. Itar-Tass: RUSSIA'S YELTSIN DEVOTES BOOK TO THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT NEW 
RUSSIA.
4. The Russia Journal: Andrei Piontkovsky, There, far to the north, in 
Paris. Musings on Pushkin’s poetry, Gaudi’s spires and the distant glimmer 
of a Europe idealized in the Russian imagination.
5. The Straits Times: John Helmer, WHAT DID THE KREMLIN DO IN BELGRADE -- 
CAVE IN, OR DIG IN?
6. Ira Straus: India-Russia-America: the quiet emergence of a new 
strategic triangle.
7. Albert Weeks: Hand sign in Belgrade.
8. New York Times Book Review: Robert Kaplan, Who Lost Russia? 
Two books look at what has happened since the end of the cold war. 
(Stephen Cohen's FAILED CRUSADE: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist 
Russia and Chrystia Freeland's SALE OF THE CENTURY: Russia's Wild Ride 
>From Communism to Capitalism)
9. AFP: Building boom grips Moscow.
10. Washington Post: Jim Hoagland, Bush and Putin Also Lose.
11. AFP: Moscow could prove key Kostunica ally over Kosovo.
12. Reuters: US investors welcome rebound, still wary on Russia.]


******


#1
New York Times
October 8, 2000
[for personal use only]
How Yeltsin Nearly Scuttled Democracy in Russia
By PATRICK E. TYLER
MOSCOW, Oct. 7 - In a new memoir, former President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia 
says that he had all but decided in 1996 to upend the democratic process in 
Russia by banning the Communist Party, dissolving Parliament and postponing 
presidential elections he seemed certain at the time to lose.


With his approval rating bottomed out at 3 percent, the Russian leader says, 
he came to the conclusion that he was not "able to manage the crisis within 
the framework of the current Constitution" and though he knew he would "pay a 
heavy price in credibility," he ordered decrees drafted that would have 
effectively turned his rule into a dictatorship. 


In doing so, he recounts, "I would fix one of the main problems I'd had since 
the beginning of my presidential term," namely that "the Communist Party 
would be finished forever in Russia." He credits his daughter, Tatyana B. 
Dyachenko, and former Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly B. Chubais for convincing 
him that shredding the Constitution with an illegal grab for power would 
backfire. "Finally, I reversed a decision I had almost already made," he 
writes, and "became ashamed before those who believed in me."


Mr. Yeltsin's memoir is likely to rekindle the debate about his contribution 
to the democratic process in Russia after the Soviet breakup in 1991 that he 
helped to engineer. The book includes a number of frank disclosures, 
including a confession of his weakness for alcohol. 


There are some significant omissions in the book. While Mr. Yeltsin discusses 
his role in supporting military assaults on rebellious Chechnya in 1994 and 
again in 1999, the book contains only a cursory discussion of the origins of 
the conflict, in which Mr. Yeltsin fails to engage those critics who argue 
that he missed chances to avert through negotiation the civil war that has 
cost tens of thousands of lives and has displaced hundreds of thousands of 
people.


Mr. Yeltsin pays scant heed to the rampant corruption and crony capitalism 
that marked his rule. He blames corruption on the low pay of Russian 
bureaucrats managing multimillion-dollar industries, and on the ingrained 
habit of "paying under the table."


As for the corruption investigation that has come closest to his family, 
involving the Swiss construction company Mabatex, which is engaged in the 
renovation of the Kremlin, Mr. Yeltsin says that neither he nor any member of 
his family has taken kickbacks. He lists his assets at a little more than 
$300,000 in cash, plus an apartment and a country house on 10 acres outside 
Moscow.


Though Mr. Yeltsin does not describe himself as an alcoholic, he confesses in 
the book to a compulsion to drink when under pressure, a compulsion he says 
he overcame to a great extent after his heart attack and by-pass operation in 
1996.


"Fairly early on I concluded that alcohol was the only means quickly to get 
rid of stress," he says, recounting an embarrassing episode in 1994, when 
during a visit to Berlin, a tipsy Yeltsin tried to conduct a military 
orchestra.


The 400-page book, "Midnight Diaries," is being published this month by 
PublicAffairs. Excerpts will appear in Newsweek magazine, and the Russian 
journal Argumenty i Fakty has already published a lengthy extract.


Mr. Yeltsin writes that he determined as early as March 1999 that the best 
candidate to succeed him was a little-known former K.G.B. officer, Vladimir 
V. Putin, who at that time was running Russia's Federal Security Service.


Still, Mr. Yeltsin writes, he appointed Sergei V. Stepashin as a "decoy" 
prime minister for three months because Mr. Yeltsin feared that the departing 
prime minister, Yevgeny M. Primakov, who disliked Mr. Putin, would mount a 
campaign to undermine him. If true, this maneuver is typical of the wile that 
Mr. Yeltsin often displayed in staying on top of Russia's power politics.


Mr. Primakov , also a former intelligence chief, "had tremendous political 
reserves," Mr. Yeltsin says, "but his rule threatened to roll back reforms, 
collapse the embryonic economic freedoms, and trample the democratic 
liberties that we had managed to nurture and preserve in these past few 
years."


He described Mr. Primakov as an "old Soviet type" who kept a "special file" 
on journalists and other critics. "Every clipping was carefully underlined 
with colored pencils," Mr. Yeltsin recounts. "I couldn't believe my eyes," he 
adds, saying Mr. Primakov had "too much red in his political palette," who 
could not read the newspaper without suspecting "complicated intrigues, 
subtexts or threats from his political opponents." 


Mr. Yeltsin says he realized that Russia needed a younger face — Mr.
Putin is 
48 — while playing a computer game with his grandson Borya. "I know that 
youth is not a panacea," he said, for "there are 40-year-olds with 
totalitarian natures," but youth was an essential criterion in choosing Mr. 
Putin. 


Mr. Putin's star rose in Mr. Yeltsin's eyes not only because he was willing 
to go on the attack in Chechnya but also because he was willing to circumvent 
the law when his mentor, the former St. Petersburg mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, 
was under criminal investigation in 1998. Mr. Putin considered the case 
against Mr. Sobchak politically motivated.


"Using his connections in St. Petersburg, Putin made a deal with a private 
airline and brought Sobchak out to Finland. From there, Sobchak made his way 
to Paris," where he lived until Mr. Putin's rise made it possible for him to 
return to Russia last year. He died in February. 


Mr. Putin's covert operation to smuggle the ailing Mr. Sobchak out of the 
country was of questionable legality and was done without Mr. Yeltsin's 
knowledge or approval, but "when I learned what Putin had done, I felt a 
profound sense of respect and gratitude toward him," Mr. Yeltsin says.


The first decree issued by Mr. Putin after his stunning appointment last Dec. 
31 as acting president guaranteed Mr. Yeltsin immunity from prosecution after 
he left office. 


******


#2
Yeltsin shows new book,says Chechnya big burden
By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin presented 
his third book on Saturday and told a television interviewer he saw the lives 
lost in war in Chechnya as the biggest responsibility he had to bear. 


Yeltsin flashed a big smile as unveiled the book, entitled ``Presidential 
Marathon'' in Russian, at a glittering reception and warned friends, 
government officials and top industrialists they would find interesting 
reading but no startling surprises. 


Excerpts of the book, outlining his career from re-election in 1996 until his 
surprise New Year's Eve resignation, have appeared in some Russian dailies, 
particularly a description of his emotions as he stepped down. 


In his interview, Yeltsin said he could not shake off responsibility for the 
Chechnya campaigns. He also said his decision to quit had since been 
vindicated, spoke of close ties with the leaders of Germany and Japan and of 
his distaste for his long-time rival, former Soviet President Mikhail 
Gorbachev. 


``I cannot shirk responsibility for Chechnya. I cannot shake off the guilt 
for the grief of so many mothers and fathers,'' he told ORT public 
television. 


But Russia, he said, had to act against Chechen separatists. Russia withdrew 
from Chechnya after a 1994-96 war and launched a new offensive against the 
rebels just over a year ago, when Yeltsin was still in office. 


``No,'' he said when asked whether there had been any alternative. 
``Nevertheless, I was the one who took the decision and therefore I am 
responsible for it.'' 


DECISION TO QUIT WAS CORRECT 


Yeltsin, who spoke slowly and looked tired during his interview, said he had 
resigned to protect Russia's interests. He said he had had faith in Vladimir 
Putin, his chosen successor, and that his decision had been proved right 
later. 


``It was difficult to take such a situation. After all, what was I to do 
next? I couldn't possibly be idle,'' he said. ``I took the step strictly in 
the interests of Russia. The president had to be changed. I had to leave 
office at the right time.'' 


The decision, he said, had been correct ``without question.'' 


``I knew Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) well enough to put forward his 
candidature. Now I know him even better to be certain that the decision was 
the proper one.'' 


Yeltsin did not always agree with decisions taken by Putin, but had resisted 
the temptation to confront him or offer advice. 


``Such thoughts do come into my head sometimes,'' he said. ``But I have never 
got the urge to pick up the phone.'' 


In presenting the book, to be unveiled internationally at the Frankfurt book 
fair later this month, Yeltsin said readers might still find some ``rather 
hot'' material. 


He said the book underscored what there was to be proud of in 10 years of 
post-communist development, including the entrenchment of freedoms and moves 
towards the market economy. 


Yeltsin told ORT he had never been come under pressure from the ``oligarchs'' 
-- industrialists who made quick fortunes in the aftermath of the collapse of 
Soviet rule and operated in close contact with the Kremlin. 


``None of the oligarchs exerted any influence,'' he said. ``Nor did anyone 
dare to do so. Whoever would have done so would have got such a rebuff that 
he would know better than try again.'' 


He said his daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, seen by critics as having undue 
influence over his administration, had also never been given the chance to 
exert pressure. 


``I told her never to put pressure on me in any way as it was pointless,'' he 
said. 


DISTASTE FOR GORBACHEV 


Yeltsin acknowledged that Gorbachev, who repeatedly clashed with him before 
being forced to resign on Christmas Day 1991, had played a major role. 


``However much he was criticised, he was still monumental,'' he said. ``This 
should not be forgotten, even if you criticise him and don't like him. And I 
don't like him.'' 


Yeltsin recalled his foreign contacts fondly, particularly his personal 
relationship with former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and former 
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. 


He described Kohl's censure by his own Christian Democrat Party over a 
funding scandal as ``unfair'' and said he admired U.S. President Bill Clinton 
despite the scandals he endured. 


He said he learned of the impending uproar over Clinton's relationship with 
White House intern Monica Lewinsky before it was made public but had chosen 
not to warn the U.S. President. 


******


#3
RUSSIA'S YELTSIN DEVOTES BOOK TO THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT NEW RUSSIA
ITAR-TASS 


Moscow, 7th October: Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin said his book,
`The Presidential Marathon', is about the people who helped build a new
Russia during the 10 years when he was in power. 


"The most important achievement is that we did not deviate from democracy
and freedom, and for this we should give credit to all Russian people. I
tried to describe this in the book," he said on Saturday [7th October]. 


"This not a sensational book," he said, adding that "if you leaf through
it, you will not find anything hot." 


Yeltsin said he feels proud that he lives in Russia "where the country can
be changed so dramatically in 10 years". 


Speaking of his feelings in connection with the publication of his book,
Yeltsin said, "Both joy because I managed to write and publish it this
year" and "the author's excitement" and "pride because many people have
already shown interest in this book". 


He said that the publication of the book in other countries will begin a
week after its presentation in Russia. 


The presentation involved many of those with whom Yeltsin worked closely
during his presidency, including former presidential chiefs of staff
Anatoliy Chubays and Valentin Yumashev, representatives of the present
Kremlin team - first presidential deputy chief of staff Dmitriy Medvedev
and presidential deputy chief of staff Sergey Prikhodko -- and members of
the government -- Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev, Minister of Railways
Nikolay Aksyonenko, Chief of the General Staff Army General Anatoliy
Kvashnin, Mass Media Minister [Minister for Press, TV and Radio
Broadcasting and Mass Communications],Mikhail Lesin -- and other prominent
politicians, cultural figures and journalists. 


All adult members of Yeltsin's family were also present. They listened to
his presentation with excitement and joyful smiles. 


******


#4
The Russia Journal
October 7-13, 2000
SEASON OF DISCONTENT: There, far to the north, in Paris
By Andrei Piontkovsky
Musings on Pushkin’s poetry, Gaudi’s spires and the distant glimmer of a
Europe idealized in the Russian imagination.


There is, in Alexander Pushkin’s Don Juan, a truly amazing line. One of the
characters, Laura, it seems, begins a reply with the words: "There, far to
the north, in Paris…." It would often come to my mind, like one of Mozart’s
melodies, in minutes of joy or sadness. And not just because it has such a
musical ring in Russian. I was always convinced that Pushkin meant in his
words more than just the place where his tragedy took place. He gave his
words their own secret meaning and an intensely heady breath of freedom. 


The freedom contained in those words was to be far more of a threat in the
eyes of the gendarmes from the Third Department (the political police of
the time) than Pushkin’s openly rebellious line "For You and Your throne, I
feel hate."


Tyrants love to be hated. It makes them feel important and gives them an
excuse to swell the ranks of their beloved secret services and special
representations. Tyrants can’t bear to be ignored. In the ice-cold St.
Petersburg of Tsar Nicholas I, to write "There, far to the north, in
Paris," signified the absolute freedom of this European genius and his
escape from the walls of his imperial prison.


Like generations of Russians before and after him, including my own
generation, Pushkin was not allowed to travel abroad. Our isolation from
the West seemed so utterly complete and bleakly eternal that sometimes
Europe seemed to us a virtual reality ­ existing only in books ­ and that
the waves of the Atlantic Ocean broke on the shores of Belarus. Being so
cut off from this other world, we knew and loved its Martian civilization
perhaps more than the natives themselves. 


Several decades passed, which saw me outlive goodness knows how many
general secretaries and presidents. And then I unexpectedly found myself on
the streets of Barcelona, where once a young English idealist and member of
the international brigades, Eric Blair, became George Orwell and went on to
deal communism a mortal blow with his great books. (Don’t confuse him with
Tony Blair, who will never become Orwell.)


It always amazed me how this Englishman, who had never set foot in the
Soviet Union and had seen only how the local Spanish communists, helped by
their Soviet comrades, crushed their political opponents in Barcelona,
could reproduce and transmit in such faithful and familiar detail the
spirit and day-to-day life of our era.


But, finding myself in Barcelona, it wasn’t George Orwell who interested me
this time as much as Antonio Gaudi, the man who ignored the laws of
gravity. Gaudi overturned these laws with his famous mirror models, and his
flower-buildings, turning their facades skywards to the sun. 


Standing on the sun-bathed Placa de Gaudi, I also raised my face skywards
so as to take in better the Sagrada Familia Cathedral and thought:


There, far to the north, in Paris
Clouds perhaps darken the skies
Cold rain falls and the wind howls
But what concern is it of ours?


Only, why did they decide to finish building the cathedral? Left by the
Master in its unfinished state, it breathed the spirit of his time, of his
immortality, his agonies of creation and his heroic defeat. Isn’t the life
of each of us, after all, like a rough text, left unfinished and torn off
halfway through a word.


(Andrei Piontkovsky is director of the Center of Strategic Research.)
******


#5
From: "John Helmer" <helmer@atom.ru>
Subject: WHAT DID THE KREMLIN DO IN BELGRADE -- CAVE IN, OR DIG IN?
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 


Coming in The Straits Times, Tuesday, October 10, 2000. 


WHAT DID THE KREMLIN DO IN BELGRADE -- CAVE IN, OR DIG IN?
News analysis
>From John Helmer in Moscow


There is an old Russian saying that if you drink, you die. And if you don't 
drink, you die. So it's better to drink.


If that was the choice facing Russian policy towards last week's events in 
Belgrade, the Russian parliament was first to point out that President 
Vladimir Putin's endorsement of Kostunica's election was worse than death.


Was Putin's action a sign of vacillation and weakness under foreign 
pressure, as his domestic critics are now claiming? And does the Russian
action in conceding to the Yugoslav opposition, headed by Vojislav Kostunica, 
mean international pressure can also succeed in bringing down 
other governments close to the Kremlin, such as the Belarus government headed 
by Alexander Lukashenko?

On Friday, according to Gennady Seleznev, the speaker of the State Duma, who 
generally tries to stay in line with the Kremlin, there was no justification 
for Putin to support Kostunica, let alone join the United States and the 
NATO powers to encourage an opposition seizure of power in the streets of 
Belgrade. In the streets, Seleznev said, there was nothing but a "crowd high 
on alcohol and drugs."


Alexander Shabanov, a senior Communist Party deputy, told The Straits
Times on Friday "the present revolt cannot last long. The assault on the 
building of the parliament is a crime. A group of warmed-up people on the 
Belgrade streets is hard to reason with."


Shabanov was speaking after Putin had authorized the despatch of Foreign 
Minister Igor Ivanov to Belgrade on Friday. By then it was already known that 
Ivanov was carrying a message from Putin to Kostunica congratulating him on 
"his victory in the presidential election". 


In the West, that was immediately interpreted as a signal the Kremlin had 
caved in, and was abandoning esident Slobodan Milosevic to his fate. Noone 
attended Ivanov's later clarification. "I did not congratulate 
Mr. Kostunica as president," Ivanov said, "but congratulated him with his 
success, with his victory, in the elections."


Was there any practical difference, Ivanov's critics in the Duma thundered?
By the time Ivanov had returned to Moscow, Milosevic had met Kostunica, and
in 
the presence of the Yugoslav army chief, to confirm the transfer of power.


"The thing that happened today I cannot comment on in any other way than by 
using obscene language," Alexei Mitrofanov told The Straits Times.
Mitrofanov, 
a former Foreign Ministry official, is a member of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's 
small party in parliament, and a strong nationalist. He attacked Ivanov for 
bowing to NATO pressure. "Once again, Russia exercises the role of the 
advocate for Western countries, Germany first of all. It is the same role we 
played with German reunification. What did we receive from that -- thanks, 
plus two kopecks of credit." 


According to Mitrofanov, "Russia needed Milosevic. The 
situation was still recoverable. We still could get some guarantees. But now 
Russia's acknowledgement of Kostunica means Milosevic has lost his game."
Mitrofanov was one of the first deputies among the Duma nationalists to 
break with Putin. 


The Communists remained convinced that Ivanov was acting 
on clear Kremlin instructions; that the policy of supporting constitutional 
rule in Yugoslavia meant support for Milosevic, at least until after another 
round of voting; and finally, that there was no split between the Foreign 
Ministry, the Kremlin Security Council which acts as Putin's personal policy 
staff, or the General Staff. 


Putin's invitation to Moscow for both Milosevic and Kostunica, repeated
after Putin returned to Moscow from a trip to India, seemed to the Duma 
nationalists to mean the Kremlin was sticking to Milosevic.
"President Putin personally supervises foreign relations," said a spokesman 
for Dmitri Rogozin, the non-communist chairman of the Duma International 
Relations Committee, and a well-known nationalist. Rogozin had publicly
backed 
Russian support for Milosevic as the constitutional head of state in 
Yugoslavia. "We can't comment on the Kremlin's opinion of the situation,"his 
spokesman told The Straits Times. "The Kremlin's opinion can't differ from
the 
Foreign Ministry or the Defence Ministry."


Rogozin did emphasize there was no support in parliament for a Russian 
offer of exile for Milosevic. But Rogozin also believed there was no need for 
the offer, so long as the Kremlin did not abandon Milosevic.


The Communists were equally adamant on this point. "The parliamentary 
statement on the situation in Yugoslavia supports President Putin's position. 
A coup is a coup," Shabanov told The Straits Times late Friday afternoon.
The Communists saw no reason why Milosevic should not be 
able to reestablish himself; and every reason why Putin should not do nothing 
to side with NATO against him.


Vyacheslav Nikonov, a former member of the Duma International Relations 
Committee, who runs a political consultancy that is close to the Kremlin,
told 
The Straits Times he did not see any evidence of a split among Russian 
policymakers between those favouring Milosevic, and those for Kostunica. 


According to Nikonov, the Kremlin saw events in Belgrade moving in two 
directions. "The first is if Milosevic is convinced by Russia, or by his 
generals to leave. Or [secondly], if Milosevic keeps claiming power, the 
situation may become murderous. In both cases, Milosevic will not need 
political exile. In case he gives up, he will receive protection within the 
country. If he keeps fighting for the presidency, then he will not ask
anybody 
for political asylum."


The key issue for Putin and his staff, according to Nikovov, was "how 
Milosevic estimates his chances."


That is what Putin despatched his foreign minister to Belgrade to find out. 
While the west was focusing on Ivanov's meeting with Kostunica, the meeting 
that followed between Ivanov and Milosevic was the decisive one.


Russian sources in Moscow believe Milosevic had made his decision to 
give up the presidency, but remain in the Yugoslav parliament, before
Ivanov arrived. It is possible Milosevic had already signalled his intention, 
and Ivanov was despatched to make sure. 


Russian sources do not credit Russian pressure as forcing Milosevic, 
because they do not believe Milosevic has trusted the Kremlin since former 
President Boris Yeltsin and former Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin 
abandoned him during last year's NATO bombing campaign.


Yeltsin's actions at that time launched Putin's rise to power, by 
triggering a General Staff rebellion against his authority. The first 
manifestation was the Russian military occupation of Pristina airport on 
June 11, 1999. Yeltsin became so fearful over the next several weeks, he 
decided he could not trust his then Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin.
Putin, the head of the Federal Security Service, replaced Stepashin in
August. 


While pro-American newspapers in Moscow are now reporting there was a split 
between the Security Council, favouring Milosevic's resistance, and the 
Foreign Ministry, favouring NATO, the real choice in Russian policy was 
already made. Milosevic made it.


Russians acknowledge that after last year's events, Milosevic had no reason
to 
trust Russian promises. The Russian assessment was there was little they
could 
do to assure their interest in Yugoslavia so long as Milosevic hung on to 
power; little they could do if he relinqished it; and nothing they could to 
persuade him in one direction or another.


Was this a policy of "foolishness and betrayal", as Mitrofanov now says?


The Kremlin will not argue the point in public. The game, Milosevic told 
the Kremlin, isn't exactly over. For Russia's reasons, not NATO's, Putin 
agreed. Preserving the anti-western opposition in Yugoslavia, after Milosevic 
steps down, is the main Russian reason now.


******


#6
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000
Subject: The triangle takes another step toward reality


India-Russia-America: the quiet emergence of a new strategic triangle
by Ira Straus


"The threat of international terrorism could help establish a kind of 
regional alliance of Moscow, Delhi and Washington." -- Vladimir Lukin, with 
Russian President Putin in Delhi, India, October 2000


It is a kind of diplomatic revolution. After decades of an 
America-China-Pakistan-Afghanistan axis in opposition to Russia and India, an 
America-India-Russia grouping emerged in the year 2000 in opposition to 
Afghanistan and to dangers from Pakistan and China. For decades, America had 
supported Pakistan against India and Islamic Central Asian rebels against 
Russia. The end of the Cold War deprived that posture of its rationale, but 
for a time it persisted. Then, at the turn of the millennium, it suddenly 
gave way.


The turnabout began quietly, with an inconspicuous article on the internet 
new service, Johnson’s Russia List, dated July 8, 1999. Observing that there 
had been a shift in U.S. policy away from Pakistan and the Taliban and toward 
the side of India and Russia, it argued that the U.S. was putting aside its 
cold war clientele patterns and awakening to its true, permanent interests in 
the region. On this basis, it speculated that it would be natural for a 
diplomatic triangle to emerge between the U.S., Russia and India.


The article was picked up from the internet by a number of Russians and 
Indians, including officials of the foreign ministry of India, who liked the 
idea. Seminars were held on it at Moscow City University and at the Russian 
State Humanities University in September 2000, in the week prior to Mr. 
Putin’s visit to India.


In the course of the year since the article first appeared, a U.S.-India 
working group has been formed on terrorism and Afghanistan. A U.S.-Russia 
working group on terrorism and Afghanistan has also been formed. Two legs of 
the triangle were thus in place. The third leg was drawn, like a finishing 
touch on a picture, in the course of Putin’s visit to India last week: a 
Russia-India working group was formed on terrorism and Afghanistan. 


With this, the triangle can already be seen in outline. The three legs are 
all in place: there are three working groups, linking each of the three 
countries to the other two, and the working groups all deal the identical 
subject matter of terrorism and Afghanistan. 


What remains to be done is to put the three legs together. In other words, 
the bilateral working groups ought to meet sometimes in a tripartite working 
group. This would make the triangle a tangible reality. The working group 
could proceed to meet at a higher level, leading ultimately to a summit 
meeting. This would make the triangle visible to the public as well as 
tangible to the policymaker.


The three countries have plenty of motivation for uniting their forces and 
upgrading their cooperation. They are all democratic in orientation, even if 
sometimes falling far short of democracy in practice. This contrasts to the 
days of the Cold War, when they stood on opposite sides of the fence in a 
global struggle for power and for the future trend of world development. 
Moreover, they share the honor of being targeted by the same extremist and 
terrorist movements. In particular, they share an enemy in the Taliban in 
Afghanistan. Fortunately, this is not a world-class enemy. Taliban and 
similar movements have been able to survive thus far thanks largely on the 
hope of playing upon the differences that these three great countries have 
had in the past. If the three great powers in the area coordinate their 
diplomacy and unite their forces, they are sure to be able to squeeze out the 
extremists and reduce them to a marginal factor in world politics. 


******


#7
From: "Albert L. Weeks" <AWeeks1@compuserve.com>
Subject: Hand sign
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 


Readers may have noticed that in photos of
Russian protesters and celebrants during the August 1991
"revolution" in Moscow, people held up their hands
to show a modified V-for-victory sign. However, they added
their thumbs, holding down their fourth and little fingers. 
This three-fingered sign was also flashed
in Belgrade during the storming of the parliament and 
TV buildings. It is the old Orthodox-Slavic symbol of the
Trinity and is used as a mark of celebration.


******


#8
New York Times Book Review
October 8, 2000
[for personal use only]
Who Lost Russia? 
Two books look at what has happened since the end of the cold war. 
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
Robert D. Kaplan, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is author of 
the forthcoming ''Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle 
East, and the Caucasus.'' 


FAILED CRUSADE 
America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia.
By Stephen F. Cohen.
304 pp. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company. $21.95.


SALE OF THE CENTURY
Russia's Wild Ride From Communism to Capitalism. 
By Chrystia Freeland.
305 pp. New York: 
Crown Business. $27.50. 


When German officials began their efforts to integrate 17 million former East 
Germans into the West following four decades of Communism, American diplomats 
and economists hoped to do likewise with over 140 million Russians, spread 
over seven time zones, after seven decades of Communism. The Germans will 
likely succeed, but it has been a much harder task than they originally 
envisioned. The Americans have failed. Seventy years of history's most 
comprehensive totalitarianism, following centuries of absolutism, left an 
institutional and moral void that -- compounded by the suddenness of the 
Soviet collapse -- has so far proved impossible to overcome. ''So great is 
Russia's economic and thus social catastrophe that we must now speak of 
another unprecedented development: the literal demodernization of a 
20th-century country,'' writes Stephen F. Cohen, professor of Russian studies 
at New York University, in ''Failed Crusade.'' 


Even before Russia's financial collapse of August-September, 1998, in which 
Western investors lost tens of billions of dollars, Russia's gross domestic 
product was half of what it had been in the early 1990's: twice the decline 
of the United States economy during the Great Depression. Cohen blames bad 
advice from the United States for the debacle, and his terse, blistering 
polemic assails the entire community of Russia experts who, he claims, 
''committed malpractice throughout the 1990's.'' 


Cohen refers to America's Russia hands as ''missionaries'' and 
''evangelists.'' Suffused with post-cold-war triumphalism, they regarded 
Russia as ''a nation ready, willing and able to be transformed into some 
replica of America.'' There is almost no scholar, investor, economist or 
journalist associated with Russia who is not castigated (if not in the text, 
then in the notes) by way of an arrogant or Pollyannaish remark that the 
author has dug up. Cohen attacks people -- including Richard Pipes and 
Zbigniew Brzezinski -- who understood in the 1980's, as he did not, that 
Soviet Communism could not be salvaged. He fails to emphasize that the 
Russians never implemented much of the advice of the very experts he attacks 
for losing Russia. And his own advice -- that we should not have bombed 
Serbia or expanded NATO and that we should adopt instead the ''collective 
approaches'' of the United Nations, all for the sake of courting Russia -- 
amounts to capitulation, not engagement. 


Nevertheless, Cohen writes with bracing clarity on a subject obscured by 
euphemisms and double talk regarding Russia's so-called democratic renewal. 
It is precisely Cohen's insight about the Soviet system's deep roots in 
Russia's past -- an insight that in the 1980's helped blind him to 
Communism's irredeemable failure -- that has allowed him since the early 
1990's to see that capitalist shock therapy would ultimately fail. According 
to Cohen, a people's historical experience supersedes economic theory. Thus, 
as he explains, what worked for Poland -- a small, ethnically homogeneous 
country exposed to the Enlightenment, with a rudimentary market 
infrastructure even before the collapse of the Berlin Wall -- would not 
necessarily work for Russia. Cohen provides a stimulating counterchronology 
to challenge the official Washington view of post-cold-war Russia as a string 
of qualified successes and disasters avoided, in which good democrats, led by 
former President Boris Yeltsin, have battled bad neocommunists, particularly 
Yevgeny Primakov, a former prime minister and foreign minister. 


Cohen writes that in 1991, Yeltsin, without any responsible preparation, 
abolished the Soviet Union, creating a bureaucratic vacuum. In 1992 and 1993, 
''hyperinflation generated by economic shock therapy . . . wiped out the life 
savings of most Russians.'' Also in 1993, Yeltsin used tanks to overhaul the 
elected Parliament and the entire constitutional order of post-Soviet Russia. 
The next year, he launched a war against Chechnya, killing tens of thousands 
of civilians. In 1998, following a series of financial deals that failed to 
benefit most Russians, Yeltsin's government -- after promising never to do so 
-- devalued the ruble and froze bank accounts, economically decimating 
average citizens once again. And in 1999, after a series of apartment house 
bomb blasts that Russia's own security services may have set, Vladimir Putin, 
then prime minister, and a former K.G.B. agent, launched a second war against 
Chechnya, killing thousands more civilians. The war's popularity helped Putin 
to succeed Yeltsin as president, in nearly monarchical fashion. 


Cohen's thesis is that Yeltsin, rather than Russia's first democratic leader, 
was a neoczarist bumbler who destroyed a democratization process that, in 
fact, should be credited to Mikhail Gorbachev. As for Primakov, rather than 
the Communist-era ogre so labeled by the American media, he was a ''centrist 
by nature,'' and the only prime minister to rely on Parliament rather than on 
the oligarchs. And whereas reformers such as Anatoly Chubais, the darling of 
America's Russia experts, were despised throughout Russia for colluding with 
the oligarchs to destroy living standards, Primakov, hated in Washington, was 
popular at home for steering between radical reform and Communism, in order 
to alleviate the suffering of ordinary people. 


Cohen is particularly scathing toward American journalists, whom he depicts 
as overly influenced by the prosperity of a small, rapacious upper class in 
the major Russian cities, and who seldom ventured into the countryside to see 
the terrible price of the reformers' handiwork. For example, he derides an 
editorial in The New York Times for celebrating a new McDonald's in Moscow, 
frequented by the nouveau riche arriving in Jeep Cherokees and Toyota Land 
Cruisers, while the average monthly wage ''was about $60, and falling.'' 
Though, broadly speaking, his criticism of the American press is valid, there 
are important exceptions, notably the travel writer Jeffrey Tayler, who wrote 
extensively for The Atlantic Monthly about the most distant parts of rural 
Russia in the 1990's, substantiating Cohen's own claims about the destruction 
of living standards. 


Cohen's argument is impressively confirmed in its essentials by Chrystia 
Freeland's ''Sale of the Century.'' Freeland, a former Moscow bureau chief 
for The Financial Times, has written one of the finest works of journalism on 
post-Soviet Russia. In an often witty, savvy style that demonstrates a 
thorough knowledge of economics and of Russian society, she has reconstructed 
the inside story of how Russia was undermined by a new establishment composed 
of oligarchs and reformers, each of whom needed the other. By giving away the 
major companies to these tycoons, she writes, ''Russia was robbed in broad 
daylight, by businessmen who broke no laws, assisted by the West's best 
friends in the Kremlin -- the young reformers.'' 


The result was a ''capitalist politburo'' supporting ''a narrow layer of the 
super-rich,'' while destitute people in the hinterlands, robbed of the value 
of their life savings by the reformers' price liberalization, froze to death 
in snowbanks. Freeland reports that it was Primakov who ''was determined to 
weaken the oligarchs' grip . . . and his campaign against them had more 
muscle'' than that of the young reformers. She notes, too, that the ''moral 
sensitivity'' of the Gorbachev era -- in which the public was repelled by the 
use of force in Lithuania -- gave way to indifference during the Yeltsin 
years, in which the ''blood bath'' perpetrated by Russian troops in Chechnya 
offended almost nobody. 


However, while American triumphalism and navete contributed to Russia's 
economic free fall in the 1990's, it does not follow that American officials 
and economists are morally culpable. Embattled policy makers like Strobe 
Talbott, the State Department's Russia czar, had only distasteful options at 
their disposal. Moreover, if Russia does improve economically and morally in 
the coming years, the last 10 may not seem in retrospect as awful as Cohen, 
in particular, depicts them. On the other hand, a decade of chaos has 
fostered, among average Russians, a longing for order that could legitimize a 
new and lethal despotism under Putin. The historian Martin Malia has argued 
that it is the ''heavy Soviet heritage, not the mistakes of the last decade, 
real though those are, that is the major source of the present impasse.'' It 
is that burdensome past that has blunted the West's influence. Indeed, Cohen 
himself sounds somewhat like a missionary by ascribing so much importance to 
his own society's impact on such a distant, vast and intractable country. 


*******


#9
Building boom grips Moscow


MOSCOW, Oct 8 (AFP) - 
Moscow is covered with scaffolding amid a frenzied building boom as workers 
rush to erect office buildings, apartment blocks and shops in every part of 
the Russian capital.


Moscow Deputy Mayor Vladimir Ressin said that Moscow was covered with 
thousands of cranes and that tens of thousands of mechanical diggers and 
740,000 building workers were labouring on the building sites.


Last year, 3.5 million square metres of new housing were built, and the same 
amount is planned for this year, Ressin said. He added that a small number of 
existing occupants had been rehoused, but that most of the new buildings -- 
more than two million square metres a year -- were put on the market.


In the heart of the city and the outskirts alike, all the new buildings sell 
like hot cakes, say Ressin, the builders, who often are also the investors 
and the real estate agents.


The average price is 650 dollars per square metre but the figure can reach 
4,500 dollars in the city centre for apartments that are sold off without any 
problem despite the lack of internal fixtures and fittings.


At the same time, office buildings are in high demand, especially the luxury 
end of the market.


"There is a high occupancy rate, and we are heading for a shortage next year, 
said Arnaud Benoit, head of Colliers HIB real estate.


In the city centre, 1.5 million square metres of offices were put on sale 
this year - "not enough," said Benoit, in a capital where oil companies 
Slavneft and Sibneft are taking over thousands of square metres of prime 
office space.


Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov is also doing his bit to renovate the historic 
centre of the capital, with construction of an underground shopping centre 
under the Manezh Aquare, rebuilding of the Saviour Cathedral and renovation 
of the Bolshoi theatre.


A step away from Red Square, a new business and shopping centre, the Gostini 
Dvor -- a building dating from the epoch of Catherine the Great -- has been 
completely renovated at a cost of 300 million dollars.


Critics of the mayor, such as Yuri Bocharov from the Academy of Architecture, 
say he is trying to confuse investors.


"He is copying the gigantic projects of the totalitarian period, but is doing 
nothing to solve the strategic problems of the capital's development," 
Bocharov said in a recent issue of the weekly Vlast.


******


#10
Washington Post
October 8, 2000
[for personal use only]
Bush and Putin Also Lose
By Jim Hoagland


The overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic by the Serbian nation comes as an 
uplifting October Surprise in this election year. Its effects ripple out from 
the Balkans to touch Russia, China, the American presidential race and the 
very practice of global power politics. 


Once again a Milosevic defeat changes the world for the better. Like other 
dictators, Milosevic damages his authoritarian friends and strengthens his 
democratic enemies with his last desperate attempts to cling to power.


The biggest shock will be felt by China's ruling gerontocracy. Beijing was 
the last major capital to support Milosevic enthusiastically with its money 
and diplomacy. The ouster of a Communist boss by an enraged people cheated 
out of political freedom can only increase nervousness and the temptation for 
repression in China.


But the biggest immediate damage is done to Vladimir Putin. The Russian 
president's stumbling efforts to save the Serb dictator in extremis have 
deepened official Washington's already-strong doubts about Putin's 
understanding of and commitment to democracy.


Given a chance to lead in an area of Russian influence, Putin followed 
slowly, grudgingly and incompetently. The White House never will say it has 
given up on Putin's government as a serious partner. But it effectively has.


This is how the Yugoslav revolution bounces into the U.S. campaign's final 
full month as the unexpected foreign policy crisis that challengers fear. And 
it does bounce largely to the disadvantage of George W. Bush's candidacy.


Putin's role in Yugoslavia was the subject of a brief exchange in Tuesday 
night's debate. But neither Bush nor Al Gore brought out the essential point: 
Despite direct prodding from President Clinton and European governments, 
Putin refused to abandon Milosevic as people power raced toward critical mass 
in Belgrade. There was no lack of outside pressure.


In a 35-minute telephone conversation on Sept. 30, Clinton appealed to Putin 
to recognize the clear victory that Vojislav Kostunica had gained in the 
Yugoslav presidential election six days earlier.


The results were indisputable, Clinton bluntly told Putin. Kostunica had the 
official tallies that showed his victory. Then, a senior U.S. official says, 
Clinton asked the Russian to urge Milosevic privately to step down and to 
recognize Kostunica publicly.


Putin declined, left on a trip to India and stayed out of touch with Clinton. 
Returning Thursday to bitter arguments within the Kremlin over Milosevic's 
fate, he finally dispatched Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to Belgrade with a 
letter congratulating Kostunica on his apparent victory.


Incredibly, Ivanov also tried to secure the president-elect's agreement that 
Milosevic would continue to play a political role in Yugoslavia, according to 
diplomatic sources.


Russia's intent seems clear: As long as Milosevic is around, the West will 
not be able to have a close relationship with Belgrade. Russia's residual 
role in the Balkans would be built on protecting an indicted war 
criminal--who has lost four wars of aggression in the past decade--and his 
cronies.


That is an ignoble aim. It rules Putin out as a potentially constructive 
force, as Bush suggested he still was on Tuesday. Putin's performance also 
girds Gore against Bush's more general attack on Russia: The vice president 
can argue that failings in the relationship are the fault of a Russian leader 
who is not ready for prime time.


The unraveling of Milosevic's regime in high vote-chasing season also 
buttresses the more activist philosophy of international engagement Gore has 
laid out in his campaign. Economic sanctions and peacekeeping 
deployments--both of which Gore favors for the Balkans--played important 
roles in undermining Milosevic's regime.


Dick Cheney has suggested in the campaign that economic sanctions generally 
have little utility. As defense secretary, Bush's running mate supported the 
refusal of Colin Powell and others to consider intervention in the Balkans 
against Milosevic. The United States supposedly had no dog in that fight.


Kostunica's victory confounds both theses. It also punctures the often 
repeated idea that it is pointless to work for the overthrow of tyrants like 
Milosevic or Saddam Hussein because the next ruler will be just as bad.


Such historical pessimism has too frequently led to crippling passivity in 
U.S. foreign policy in dealing with tyrants, from Beijing to Baghdad to 
Belgrade. Whatever its effect on the candidates and this campaign, 
Yugoslavia's October Surprise should serve as a beacon for Americans 
illuminating their nation's role in the world.


There must be practical restraints on America's activism abroad. Vietnam and 
Somalia provide clear and indisputable lessons on that point. But they are 
not the whole story. Bosnia, Kosovo and now Serbia are part of the story too. 
They show what can be accomplished when hope and hard work overcome pessimism 
and passivity.


******


#11
Moscow could prove key Kostunica ally over Kosovo


MOSCOW, Oct 8 (AFP) - 
Despite Moscow's late conversion to his cause, newly-installed Yugoslav 
President Vojislav Kostunica could find Moscow a valuable ally in Belgrade's 
battle to restore its control over Kosovo.


In his inauguration address the moderate nationalist firmly staked his claim 
to the rebel province, regarded as the birthplace of Orthodox Serbia's 
statehood but 90 percent populated by Muslim ethnic-Albanians.


The 56-year-old lawyer pledged to "protect the sovereignty, independence and 
integrity" of his country, and to ensure Kosovo fully returns to the Yugoslav 
fold.


That, and his desire to keep Western-leaning Montenegro hitched to the 
limping Yugoslav Federation, could complicate Kostunica's ties with the 
European capitals even as he tries to end Serbia's international isolation.


Analysts warn that Western euphoria over the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic 
could prove short-lived, for nationalist sentiment at home and his own 
political beliefs will limit the new Belgrade leader's room for manoeuvre.


And while President Vladimir Putin's failure to quickly recognise his victory 
saw an irritated Kostunica throw some barbs in Moscow's direction, the 
Kremlin could redeem itself by offering unwavering support over Kosovo.


And that could throw the West on the back foot, says Andrei Piontkovsky, a 
respected Moscow commentator.


"I think the Western position on Kosovo will be more vulnerable now than 
before," he said. "Russia didn't realise that in its anti-Western rhetoric 
and anti-Western manoeuvring that Kostunica was a more valuable partner than 
Milosevic," he said.


In a letter signalling Moscow's acceptance of Kostunica as Yugoslavia's new 
ruler, Putin said Friday that Moscow would "firmly and without fail speak out 
for the absolute respect of the independence, sovereignty and territorial 
integrity of the FRY."


NATO's presence in Kosovo was predicated on Milosevic's seemingly iron grip 
on power, but Western capitals will now have to grasp the nettle of returning 
the province to Belgrade and disarming Albanian secessionists.


For with the political demise of Milosevic, indicted on war crimes and crimes 
against humanity by a UN-backed international tribunal over his crackdown in 
Kosovo, the option of independence for the province appears to have receded.


"(Moscow) will be able to say to the West, you supported the democratic 
opposition, you welcomed its coming to power. So, there's a new democratic 
government in Belgrade and we should all support it," said Piontkovsky.


However, the perennial weakness of the Russian economy and the millions of 
euros the European Community is prepared to throw at a compliant Serbia could 
mean Russia fails to cash in on its principled defence of the borders of its 
historic ally, some warn.


"Western countries have a very specific plan for a small common market for 
the Balkans, in which Serbia can be included," said Sergei Markov, director 
of Moscow's Institute of Political Studies.


"The Yugoslavs voted for a Yugoslavia in Europe," he said. "They want to come 
out of isolation and be part of Europe again. So I'm absolutely sure 
Kostunica will try to build good relations with the West."


Unable to throw money at a problem, Russia will push for compromise and seek 
to use its undoubted influence in the Balkans region to keep the Yugoslav 
Federation together, with Kosovo as an integral part, he added.


"It's not the strongest position, but it is a position," said Markov, "and it 
gives Russia a role."


******


#12
US investors welcome rebound, still wary on Russia
By Lida Poletz

BOSTON, Oct. 7 (Reuters) - U.S. investors are still wary of sinking money 
into Russia, despite the country's remarkable economic rebound from financial 
crisis two years ago, participants at a U.S.-Russia conference said on 
Saturday. 


Bankers and business people joined international financiers in lauding 
Russia's strong economic growth, predicted to surge as much as 7 percent this 
year, and the government's vows to carry out sweeping reforms. 


But in the next breath, many stressed that critical reforms -- in banking, 
corporate governance and the courts -- are still lacking, and that investors' 
confidence in the country remains badly bruised by the 1998 financial 
meltdown. 


It will probably be years before foreign strategic investors start committing 
capital to Russia in earnest, predicted Michael Calvey, managing partner at 
investment company Baring Vostok Capital Partners. 


"Most multinationals know they have to have a Russia strategy, but there is a 
greater awareness of risks, so I still see a very small investment in dollar 
terms in the next three to four years," Calvey told a panel on banking and 
finance. 


Investors are also mindful that much of the energy-rich country's recovery is 
linked to the steep rise in international oil prices, as well as the 1998 
devaluation of the rouble, which helped domestic companies compete with 
importers. And the effects of these stimulative measures won't last forever. 


"I have never been so optimistic about the macroeconomic situation as today," 
said Jim Nail at ATON Capital group, who has worked in Russia for 16 years. 
"But it is clear the current situation is temporary. The rouble is 
strengthening every day and oil prices are leveling off and will start to 
fall." 


BANKING, CORPORATE REFORMS NEEDED 


For the moment, foreign investment is a scarce commodity in Russia -- 
relative to gross domestic product, investment rates in the Czech Republic, 
Hungary and Poland were twice as high as in Russia last year, the 
International Monetary Fund said. 


On the plus side, Russia's recent tax reforms were widely welcomed. But 
conference participants said the Russian government must now go on to 
establish fair play in business, protect property rights, introduce 
international accounting standards and address concerns about corruption. 


A lack of banking reforms is another sore spot. Alexander Knaster, managing 
director at Alfa-Bank, one of Russia's leading commercial banks, painted a 
bleak picture of the Russian financial sector as overcrowded with underfunded 
banks, and predicted many institutions will close in the near future. 


Still, Knaster saw a silver lining: "The banking sector is a mess, but there 
are opportunities. The key is to come up with a successful business model, 
even in a terrible market environment." 


*******