December 13, 2000   

This Date's Issues:   4684 • 4685 • 4686

Johnson's Russia List
#4685
13 December 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: George Gedda, Clinton Praises Russian Policy.
2. The National Interest: Stephen Sestanovich, Where Does Russia Belong?
3. Bloomberg: Media Tycoon Gusinsky to Fight Extradition From Spain to Russia.
4. Washington Post editorial: An Unwarranted Arrest.
5. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, 'Government' by the Swan, Crab & Pike.
6. Christian Caryl: Luc Delahaye photos.
7. Wallace Kaufman: re Corzine on KAZAKHSTAN'S RUSSIAN PROBLEM behind
the times/4683).
8. Wall Street Journal: William Odom, The End of Glasnost.
9. The Times (UK): Alice Lagnado, Kursk echoes in new film.
10. BBC Monitoring: NTV, Russian woman sedated after Kursk tragedy makes new public protest.
11. AFP: Top US general warns Russia against Soviet-style war games.
12. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: SECRET PARAGRAPH OF THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY.
What Russia can gain by withdrawing from the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement.] 

*******

#1
Clinton Praises Russian Policy
December 13, 2000
By GEORGE GEDDA
 
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton was only half joking when he said in
1993, ``Gosh, I miss the Cold War.'' Clinton, of course, was referring to the
clarity of those four decades of U.S.-Soviet rivalry - in contrast to the
murkiness of the post-Soviet era.

Now, seven years later, things are no less opaque than they were when Clinton
made that statement.

The Russians have a way of keeping people confused by seemingly reaching out
in all directions.

And the confusion extends to the assessments of U.S.-Russian relations, with
Clinton trumpeting major advances and critics expressing despair over what
his policies have wrought.

There are times when Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB official,
seems nostalgic for the old days.

This week features a Putin visit to Cuba, a one-time Cold War ally of Moscow.
Last week, he proposed restoring the Soviet national anthem as well as the
Soviet era insignia for the Russian armed forces.

Two weeks ago, Russia unilaterally walked away from a 1995 agreement with the
United States that barred Moscow from making new weapons deals with Iran.

But there are occasions when Putin shows a conciliatory side toward
Washington - as in his recent decision to pardon an American, suffering from
ill health, just days after he had been sentenced to 20 years in prison on
spy charges.

And a newly released White House ``Fact Sheet'' highlights perceived gains in
relations under Clinton.

At Washington's prodding, the document says, Moscow dispatched troops to the
Balkans to participate in NATO missions. Clinton also won Russian support for
an agreement to end the Kosovo war. In addition, the document touts the
institutional links Moscow has established with NATO. As part of that
process, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will meet with Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov later this week in Brussels.

As Stephen Sestanovich, the top State Department Russian affairs expert,
notes in the current issue of The National Interest, dire predictions by
critics of a lasting U.S.-Russian estrangement have not come to pass.

That was the fear when three former Soviet allies - Hungary, Poland and the
Czech Republic - joined NATO last year. Moscow, the critics said, would
retaliate by refusing to ratify a nuclear weapons reduction treaty with
Washington. Moscow ratified it last April.

Still, Russia has shown a deep reluctance to participate in Western-dominated
institutions - if membership means accepting certain conditions.

An example is its attitude toward joining the World Trade Organization, which
sets rules for international commerce. The Russian hesitance contrasts
sharply with China's determined bid to join the WTO, a step anticipated in
early 2001.

Some of the criticism of Clinton's Russia policies is unsparing.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a Russian affairs expert, faults Clinton for
continuing to embrace former President Boris Yeltsin in the face of theft of
International Monetary Fund loans by criminal elements and other abuses.

``It wasn't surprising to me that polls last year showed that less than 2
percent of the Russian people were behind Boris Yeltsin,'' Weldon says. ``The
only support behind Boris Yeltsin last year was Bill Clinton ... and we
wonder why the Russian people lost confidence in America.''

And Peter Reddaway, of George Washington University, says Western economic
policies have had a devastating effect on Russia.

``The majority of Russians, who a decade ago saw democracy and free markets
as beacons of hope, now see before their eyes ugly perversions of these
institutions and wonder if they just won't work in Russia,'' he says.
``Opinion polls show profound doubt and even despair about Russia's future.
They also show that that anti-Americanism has permeated the whole society and
is probably now deeper than at any time in Russian history.

``A substantial majority believe that the United States and the West have
weakened Russia deliberately in order to exploit and humiliate it.''

EDITOR'S NOTE - George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated
Press since 1968.

******

#2
Excerpt
The National Interest
No. 62
Winter 2000/2001

Where Does Russia Belong?
By Stephen Sestanovich
US Department of State
Ambassador at Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for the
New Independent States

...The grim picture that Brzezinski paints in his article in the Fall 2000
issue of The National Interest, "Living With Russia"-unstable Muslims to
the south, multiplying Chinese to the east-is standard stuff for
hyperventilating Russian geopoliticians (who, of course, make it grimmer
still by adding aggressive Americans, Germans and Poles to the west). The
only way one could start an argument in Moscow with Brzezinski's analysis
would be by trying to persuade people that he actually offers a way out of
their fix. He envisions an "epiphany"-a sudden, blinding awareness of the
advantages of being a normal Western nation-that will, he says, "liberate
Russia from its ominous geopolitical context."

The typical Russian reaction to such hyperbole will likely be skepticism,
and rightly so. Is there, in fact, any foreseeable relationship that Russia
can have with the EU or NATO that will make a measurable short-term
difference in the depth of its domestic ills? Or that will insulate it
against radical Islamist groups to the south? Russians are likely to think
that they have to deal with these problems by putting their own house in
order, and in this they are not wrong.

Suppose, then, that we cannot get the Russians to be better joiners merely
by educating them about what is really in their interest. (In my
experience, Russians are not the only people who do not enjoy being told
our view of their interests.) Can we push them into it by actions that we
take on our own? Brzezinski proposes to bull ahead-but with an outstretched
hand. His program combines enlargement of NATO and the EU with formal
statements envisioning some sort of eventual Russian participation in both
organizations. By proposing to incorporate new members while deepening ties
with those left out, he recapitulates the basic approach taken by the
alliance in round one of enlargement. Clearly, he suggests, a second round
will call for the same kind of balance.

Yet striking a balance will be far harder when NATO is considering Russia's
immediate neighbors for membership. Russians who were willing privately to
pooh-pooh the significance of adding Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic
will not treat the Baltic states the same way. And they will hardly be
mollified by suggestions that their own ties to NATO (or the EU) might
develop faster if they were prepared to drop their objections to further
enlargement. One of the crucial principles that made it possible to find a
workable balance in the first round of NATO enlargement was precisely that
the Russians were not asked to drop their objections to the idea. In a
second round, those objections (at least to inclusion of the Baltic states)
will be far more intense. Brzezinski proposes, in effect, the following
deal to the Russians: if they do what we want most-welcome the enlargement
of the EU and NATO to all who want to join-we will reciprocate by doing
what they want least: accelerate the process and bring the alliance right
up to their borders as early as next year.

The next round of NATO membership decisions is likely to have an enormous
effect on Russian elite opinion-and, in turn, on the prospects for
Brzezinski's third approach to getting Russia to make an unhesitating
choice in favor of full integration into the West. As he sees it, the next
generation of Russian leaders will have a fundamentally different mindset
from the current one, reflecting far greater understanding of what the
world is like and of what Western ways have to offer. With such people in
charge, Russia's orientation toward the West should occur almost
automatically.

This depiction of Russia's next generation is so persuasive that one could
almost make waiting for it the heart of U.S. strategy. Yet quite apart from
the fact that the country has just elected a forty-seven year-old president
(so the next people in line may have quite a wait on their hands), the real
problem with such a long-term strategy is the possibility that the next
generation's world-view will change before its members come of age as
national leaders. The number of events that might shake their confidence in
the advantages of integration into the West is probably very small, and a
protracted global depression is surely at the top of the list. But a
sustained confrontation between their country and NATO can hardly be far
behind.

Only One Option?

In promoting Russia's integration into the West, we should certainly aim to
create what Brzezinski calls "a compelling context" in which the Russians
are more likely to make the right choice. Putin's recent statement
welcoming the prospect of EU enlargement may even be a sign that this
approach is working. And yet it is an illusion to think that we can so
narrowly limit Russia's room to maneuver so that the right choice is its
"only viable option." If nothing else, this objective is at odds with
Brzezinski's insight that a lasting choice will have to be one that the
Russians make themselves.

To understand the complexities involved in promoting a major country's path
toward integration, it is hard to do better than the analyses that
Brzezinski himself has published recently in The National Interest. In his
discussions of both China and Turkey, there is no suggestion that the other
guy's policy choices can ever be narrowed, godfather-style, to just one.
His article on "Living With China" in the Spring 2000 issue sets its sights
just as high as his proposals for Russia, announcing that the "central
strategic task of U.S. policy toward China should be nothing less than the
attainment of a fundamental, truly historic shift in the mindset of the
Chinese elite." Yet, presumably because the goal is so important,
Brzezinski favors extreme judiciousness in pursuing it. He worries, for
example, about forcing choices on China that it would not find "palatable",
and about pursuing outcomes that "no current Chinese leader could accept."
He speaks of "the imperative of sensitivity for Chinese concerns", and
warns that "how China is treated might well become a self-fulfilling
prophesy." There is no brave talk here of leaving the Chinese just one
viable option.

As for Turkey, Brzezinski's article on "Living With Russia" argues
convincingly that anyone interested in promoting a historic shift in the
mindset of the Russian elite needs to study Atatürk's achievement in giving
his country a post-imperial European identity after the break-up of the
Ottoman Empire. The importance of Turkey's modernization strategy as a
model not only for Russia but for other former Soviet states as well is
beyond question. Brzezinski is also right that its ultimate success was
made far more likely by the welcome that Turkey received in the West. A
half century in NATO served as a kind of antechamber for its current
candidacy before the EU.

Yet the story of Turkey's successful integration into the West has also
been one of ongoing unresolved tensions, many of which continue to the
present day. To these, the United States and its European allies have
responded over many decades with a balancing act combining encouragement
and restraint. Turkey did indeed start to make itself "post-imperial" under
Atatürk, but its relations with Greece, Cyprus, the Kurds and Armenia
remained-and remain-extremely complicated, to say the least. There were
other ways things could have turned out. Any one of a number of flashpoints
could have precipitated a break between us. If Turkey can serve as a model
for Russia, then let us be sure to make U.S. policy toward Turkey a model
as well. This sophisticated policy did not go into reverse just because at
any given moment Turkey's embrace of its integration into the West was less
than unequivocal.

There is always more than one option, a fact that teaches us to be wary of
grand designs. It is hard to argue with a plan that holds out the benefits
of early membership in NATO for all the democratic states of Central and
Eastern Europe that want it, and of consolidated democracy in a Russia that
is coming to grips at last with its internal problems, and of expanding
cooperation between NATO and Russia, and of reduced Russian pressure on its
neighbors, and of a consensus among Russians so strong that all this feels
like their own choice. But if this prospect sounds too good to be true,
then we should have an honest debate about the trade-offs that we may face
if the design does not work out as planned. If we are going to end up with
something less than the best of all possible worlds, then let us think
about it realistically in advance, so that we at least get the next-best
world rather than a truly undesirable one.

To have the debate we need about trade-offs, nothing is more important than
avoiding a mere restatement of old positions. This rule applies to those on
both sides of past discussions. Those who used to argue that enlargement of
the alliance would put Russian democracy at risk need to take account of
its impressive durability; if it remains vulnerable in 2001 (on which more
below), it is nevertheless not the vulnerability of 1996.

By the same token, those who used to argue that NATO and the EU were our
only effective tools for assuring the stability of Central and Eastern
Europe have to acknowledge that stability has put down deeper roots than
one could have counted on a half decade ago. Like Russian democracy, this
region may have its vulnerabilities, but they too have changed.

The Russians themselves will affect our debate about trade-offs, and they
need to know it. It goes without saying that Russian bellicosity-menacing
statements and worse-will only strengthen the case for putting enlargement
on a fast track. But could Russian leaders who take a different approach,
who at last get serious about their own integration on many different
fronts, including in their relations with NATO, elicit a Western response
that recognizes this change and tries to support it?...

******

#3
Media Tycoon Gusinsky to Fight Extradition From Spain to Russia
 
Moscow, Dec. 13 (Bloomberg)
-- Media Most Chairman Vladimir Gusinsky will fight Russian attempts to
have him extradited from Spain over fraud charges his lawyers say are
politically motivated and legally flimsy, the media company said.

Gusinsky, who founded Russia's biggest independent national television
station, NTV, was arrested yesterday at his home near San Roque, near Cadiz.
Spanish police acted on orders from international police organization
Interpol to pick up Gusinsky and begin the extradition process, said Jose
Maria Seara, speaker for the director general of the Spanish police.

``The arrest is the result of the disinformation given to the Spanish
authorities by the Russian Prosecutor General,'' said Media Most spokesman
Dmitry Ostalsky. ``Gusinsky does not want to come back to Russia because he
was put in prison this summer.''

Gusinsky was the first of Russia's so-called oligarchs to be targeted in
Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempt to curb the political influence of
the country's most powerful business leaders. Media Most said the Prosecutor
General is being used as a tool to end criticism of the government.

Russia's Prosecutor General has informed Spanish authorities about the
charges against Gusinsky. The Media Most chairman can be detained for up to
40 days, in which time Spain must decide whether to extradite him.

Moscow-based prosecutors accuse Gusinsky of receiving loans from OAO Gazprom,
the world's largest natural gas company by reserves, that were secured
against shares in Media Most companies that had no assets or were bankrupt.

Spanish Courts

A Spanish court in Sotogrande, near San Roque, ordered Gusinsky be held and
that his case be handed over to the Spanish Supreme Court, the Interfax news
agency reported. Gusinsky was then flown to Madrid under police custody.

Gusinsky is due to appear before judge Baltasar Garzon, who in 1998 made the
initial extradition request for Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet,
Interfax reported.

NTV has criticized the government's actions in Chechnya, reporting high
casualties on both sides and showing footage of the devastated republic where
Russia started attacking rebel bases a year ago.

It also has uncovered corruption in from Chechnya to Moscow to Vladivostok
and provided government critics with coverage often denied them by state
television. Other Russian channels generally show government actions in a
favorable light.

Putin has said Gusinsky's difficulties, including state-run Gazprom's
decision to sue Media Most to recover debts, are nothing to do with him. The
government does not involve itself in conflicts between companies, while the
Prosecutor General is constitutionally independent of the president, Putin
has said.

Interpol Vigilant

Interpol said in a statement that they received a request from Moscow to put
Gusinsky on the wanted list on Dec. 5. The arrest warrant was issued on Nov.
13 for fraud.

Interpol has asked Moscow to confirm that the request was not based on
political reasons.

``Interpol must remain ever vigilant of its obligation not to permit its
resources and global network to be used for purposes whose underlying
motivation is political, religious or racial,'' said Ronald Noble, secretary
general of Interpol, in a statement.

Gusinsky was arrested after Interpol's concerns were made public.

``I am convinced that Gusinsky will not be given over to our prosecutors to
be torn to pieces, and that Interpol will not expose itself to such a
disgrace,'' said Genri Reznik, Gusinsky's lawyer, Interfax reported.

Gazprom Dispute

Gusinsky fled abroad after he was released from Moscow's Butyrskya prison in
July. He was jailed over fraud charges arising from the state asset sale of a
St. Petersburg television company.

That case was dropped in July, after Gusinsky and Gazprom signed an agreement
guaranteeing the businessman's freedom in return for his media assets. The
charges -- which are unrelated to the case over which he was arrested this
week -- were revived last month.

Media Most said Gusinsky has spent time in Israel, Gibraltar Spain, the U.K.
and the U.S. since leaving Russia

After failing to answer a summons to return for questioning on Nov. 13,
Gusinsky was placed on Interpol's wanted list on Nov. 20, said Valery
Nikolayev, an investigator for the Prosecutor General's office.

The prosecutors' allegations are baseless, and Gazprom has no claims to Media
Most assets after signing a settlement last month with the media holding
company.

Gazprom agreed to accept stakes in Media Most and its subsidiaries, showing
that those companies are solvent and possess valuable assets, Ostalsky said.

The agreement will give the gas company a majority stake in NTV television, a
private station that reaches 110 million people, though it must try and sell
part of that stake -- reducing its holding below 50 percent -- to an
international investor. It also will receive majority stakes in Media Most
radio stations, magazines and newspapers.

******

#4
Washington Post
December 13, 2000
Editorial
An Unwarranted Arrest

VLADIMIR PUTIN'S war against Russia's independent civil society has now
spread beyond the country's borders. Yesterday Spanish police, acting on a
warrant issued by Moscow through the Interpol network, arrested Vladimir
Gusinsky, the founder of Russia's lone privately controlled television
network. Mr. Gusinsky left Russia earlier this year after Mr. Putin's
government launched a campaign against the country's remaining independent
media--of which the television station NTV is the flagship. Now the state
security apparatus that Mr. Putin is rapidly rebuilding is trying to enlist
the help of a European Union government in capturing Mr. Gusinsky and
returning him to Russia--no doubt for one of the show trials that Mr. Putin's
police and prosecutors have lately been staging.

As it happens, Mr. Gusinsky's case has been assigned to the same Spanish
judge, Baltasar Garzon, whose effort to extradite Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet became a controversial landmark of international justice. This time
there can be no controversy; the cause of human rights runs squarely against
extradition. Though hardly a saint--he is one of the country's notorious
post-Communist "oligarchs"--Mr. Gusinsky has bankrolled media outlets that
have been at the forefront of critical reporting on the Russian government
and military during both the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies. (In addition to
NTV, a radio station and a newspaper, his company's holdings include a weekly
newsmagazine published in association with Newsweek, which is owned by The
Washington Post Co.) Mr. Putin, in contrast, increasingly resembles Mr.
Pinochet in his attempt to build an authoritarian state to preside over a
liberal market economy.

The state's case against Mr. Gusinsky, never strong, is now pure pretense.
The general prosecutor's charge is that Mr. Gusinsky's company borrowed
several hundred million dollars from the energy conglomerate Gazprom and
failed to repay it. But a deal resolving that business dispute was struck
weeks ago, making Mr. Gusinsky's "crime" moot. That, of course, is not really
what is bothering Mr. Putin's police. More likely, it is that NTV has managed
to remain independent. Just last weekend, for example, star commentator
Yevgeny Kiselyov ravaged Mr. Putin's proposal to reinstate the Soviet Union's
anthem for Russia and return the Soviet red flag to the armed forces.

The Spanish police did Mr. Putin's Federal Security Service an unnecessary
and unjustified favor by arresting Mr. Gusinsky, since Moscow's warrant had
not yet been sanctioned by Interpol headquarters. Now his case will become a
crucial test of the willingness of European governments to tolerate a
restoration of KGB tactics in Russia. Mr. Putin has worked hard to charm
European Union leaders, proposing new economic and security deals and
volunteering his help in resisting the "hegemonic" policies of the United
States. So far the Europeans have eagerly played along; but to collaborate in
Mr. Putin's attempt to bend the international system of justice to serve his
campaign against Mr. Gusinsky would be to ratify the rule of secret police in
Russia once again. The Spanish government holds the power to make the final
decision about extraditions; backed by its European Union partners, it should
make clear now that Mr. Gusinsky will remain free.

******

#5
Moscow Times
December 13, 2000
'Government' by the Swan, Crab & Pike
By Yulia Latynina

Gazprom-Media withdrew its lawsuit against Media-MOST, and the government
announced that it had issued a warrant with Interpol for the arrest of
Media-MOST owner Vladimir Gusinsky. Doctors would probably label such
behavior "schizophrenic," a sign of a split consciousness. One half of the
government doesn?t seem to know what the other half is doing. This is that
nature of the "division of power" in the Russian government.

The classic system of dividing state power among the executive, legislative
and judicial branches does not work in Russia. However, it is not possible
to function without some way of controlling power and so Russia has
developed another system. This system is not democratic, but authoritarian
in the traditional "divide and conquer" style. Three distinct groups -- the
security organs (chekisty), the oligarchs and the liberals -- are all
struggling for access to power.

The most interesting thing is that these three groups seem to be living
together just fine. Each one has been allowed to go its own way. The
liberals are working to increase the transparency of markets. The chekisty
are lobbying the restoration of state monopolies, and the oligarchs are
divvying up state-owned enterprises.

The past year has been characterized by the continuing process of
redistributing property. The aluminum empire of Lev Chyorny has been
swallowed up by Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska. The same fate awaited
the empire of the Zhilovo brothers, the Kuznetsk Metallurgy Combine and the
Novokuznetsk Aluminum Factory.

LUKoil declined to purchase ONAKO after the tax police paid a visit, and
last week the tax police announced the opening of a criminal case against
Norilsk Nickel and the Magnitogorsk Metallurgy Plant. Traditionally, the
tax police carry out "financial reconnaissance" before a company is taken
over. Therefore, expect Norilsk and Magnitogorsk to be the next sites of
the battle of the titans.

One of the first orders that President Vladimir Putin gave after his
inauguration created Rosspirtprom, a state enterprise with controlling
shares in the main vodka-producing factories. This was a victory for the
chekisty. Another was the creation of Rosoboronexport, which reestablished
a state monopoly over arms exports. Former spy Sergei Belyaninov was named
head of Rosoboronexport.

One other area of interest for the chekisty is telecommunications. Leonid
Reiman and Valery Yashin, two of Putin's pals from St. Petersburg, have
been given key posts in this sector: Reiman is communications minister and
Yashin is head of the state holding company Svyazinvest. Since these
appointments, the Petersburg company Telecominvest, where both Reiman and
Yashin worked before coming to Moscow, has undertaken an unprecedented
expansion plan.

All the disaster scenarios for Russia center on the idea that the country
will follow one path to the extreme. Either the oligarchs or the chekisty
will dominate. In reality, though, we are seeing no movement at all. As the
fable goes, the swan, the crab and the pike cannot pull a cart anywhere.
This is not a system of movement, but an anti-democratic system of control.

This system guarantees the unlimited personal power of the president. He is
relieved of the need to make any strategic decisions because any such
decision in favor of one group will be immediately countermanded by the
actions of another. Unfortunately, though, if we don?t make decisions about
the economy, the economy will make these decisions for us. We?ve already
seen this scenario in August 1998.

Yulia Latynina is creator and host of "The Ruble Zone" on NTV television.

*******

#6
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000
From: Christian Caryl <CCaryl@compuserve.com>
Subject: Luc Delahaye photos

I just thought that JRL readers might be interested to hear about a new
book of Russia photos by Luc Delahaye. Billed as "melancholy road story,"
his book, entitled "Winterreise," contains some of the most poignant and
haunting images of life in this country I've ever seen. It's published by
Phaidon Press in the U.S. and England; I'm sure that it can be found on
Amazon. Incidentally, Newsweek, which has featured Luc's work in the past,
recently ran an item about the book that included a few of the photos.

******

#7
From: "Wallace Kaufman" <taconia@mindspring.com>
Subject:  Corzine on KAZAKHSTAN'S RUSSIAN PROBLEM behind the times.
( JRL 4683).
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000

>From the moment of independence in 1991 the chief social question for the
Kazakhstani government was, Whose country is this? Quietly but relentlessly
the government has been putting its answer in place. Russians, once an
ethnic  majority and well represented in business and government, no longer
fear they  will not have the same opportunities as ethnic Kazakhs,
especially when it comes to government jobs as Mr. Corzine predicts.  Its
happened.

Russians haven't had the same opportunities for at least five years. Each
year they have fewer and fewer opportunities whether we are talking about
students selected for scholarships or professionals in government.  With
the exception of the indispensable and brilliant Grigory Marchenko heading
the National Bank, Russians have been systematically eliminated from
positions of power. Occasionally a Russian gets an appointment, last a few
months, and disappears. In a country that still distributes plums largely
po blatu (by connections), the more ones ethnic group controls the top
spots, the more access the members of that group have to those positions
where extra income is available to lower level government
bureaucratscustoms inspectors, notaries, and traffic police, for example.
While moving Russians out of the money and away from power, the government
has been even handed with a few consolation prizescontributing to the
rebuilding of Orthodox churches as well as to new  osques.  

Mr. Corzine makes another mistake when he says, Many ethnic Russians have
left, but those that remain appear to have accepted the  changes . . .  If
by  accepted he means they have not become violent, thats generally true.
(A dozen or so Russians were arrested  and tried for plotting a coup of a
northern oblast last year.)   If he means they do not want ethnic civil
war, thats also true. For the foreseeable future they are enduring as they
endured communism, and the government has been careful to keep the
provocations below the boiling  point. 

The Kazakhstani governing powers, led by the former communist ruler
Nursultan Nazarbayev, have demonstrated a model of low level, slowly
evolving ethnic coup. In 1993 they issued a national currency entirely
devoid of Russian figures and enumerated only in Kazakh. A couple of years
ago parliament passed a law mandating that all citizens know Kazakh by
2006. Every candidate for president must pass a Kazakh language test. This
year  the government began to cut off objectionable Russian language
broadcasts from Russia, a favorite news and entertainment source for ethnic
Russians and many Kazakhs. The government wants to enforce a 20% maximum on
outside Russian programming, ostensibly to encourage more domestic
production. 

The Kazakhs have a variety of reasons for feeling that Kazakhstan should be
culturally and politically a Kazakh nation. They blame Russians for a
burden of past colonialism, discrimination and paternalism that
disadvantaged Kazakhs in the  former Soviet Union. Russians, however, point
out that they built most of todays cities, transportation and utility
services, and that while nomadic Kazakh clans dominated large parts of
present day country, until Soviet times Kazakhstan never had well defined
borders, the north (where most of the industry is) being as much a part of
Siberia as Kazakh territory. 

The historical blame game has led no country to prosperity or peace, and it
has destroyed several. No one should think this is a future problem.
Russian anger has been  building steadily since independence.   Kazakhstan
may achieve a quiet ethnic coup. Just as possible the increasing Islamic
incursions from the south may become a full-scale conflict. In that case
the predominantly Russian north may find itself along with its minerals,
coal, and possibly its oil rescued by Mother Russia.

*******

#8
Wall Street Journal
December 13, 2000 
[for personal use only] 
The End of Glasnost
By William E. Odom.
Mr. Odom, a former U.S. Army general and director of the
National Security Agency, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an
adjunct professor at Yale.

A pseudo-Soviet normalcy is emerging in Russia as glasnost declines and
perestroika gives way to new stagnation. All the while, the Clinton
administration behaves like an enabler with an alcoholic, encouraging these
trends. Consider a few items from past weeks reflecting the results of
Clinton policies:

An American businessman, Edmund Pope, was wrongly convicted of spying in a
kangaroo show trial while the U.S. government did virtually nothing to stop
it. (President Vladimir Putin has said he might pardon him.) Spain has
responded to Moscow's demand for the arrest and extradition of tycoon
Vladimir Gusinsky, not a cheering prospect for Russian and Western
businessmen. Russian admirals continue to blame the West for the tragedy of
the Kursk submarine, insisting that it collided with a foreign vessel. Yet
two former submarine commanders told a newspaper that a collision couldn't
cause such damage, and a secret report to the government attributed it to
liquid fuel leaking from a torpedo that caught fire as the crew tried to load
it.

Iran

On the diplomatic front, Russian officials offer ambiguous promises to limit
arms sales to Iran coupled with efforts to enlist the U.S. against Islamic
activists in Central Asia. Moscow has cut off supplies of electric power to
Georgia and imposed a visa regime that blocks critical trade with that
country. It also threatens military attacks inside Georgia against "Chechen
terrorists." Mr. Putin revealed the underlying spirit of these actions by
restoring the old Soviet national anthem, brushing aside many protests,
including Boris Yeltsin's, that it is a symbol of Stalinism. (Imagine Germany
readopting the Nazi Party's "Horst Wessel Lied" as its anthem.)

On the domestic front, Mr. Putin has created seven new regional
administrations, headed by ex-KGB and military generals, designed to destroy
the power of regional leaders. Nonloyalist governors are being investigated
for criminal activity. Because most are guilty of some infraction, they
either yield to blackmail or are forced to give way to the Kremlin's
candidates. A recent example is Alexander Rutskoi who, as the governor of
Kursk Oblast, was struck from the ballot by a court the day before the
election.

Hand in glove with this centralization policy is the revival of state control
of the press. Media Minister Mikhail Lesin has whittled away press freedoms,
and a number of journalists have been tried on phony charges or murdered. The
chief of the Russian Security Council recently condemned the "totalitarian
methods" of the independent media, failing to note that they used such
methods to insure Mr. Putin's election this spring.

Meanwhile, the war in Chechnya still festers. In May the foreign minister
protested that Russia had nothing to hide in Chechnya; in November, Gen.
Vladimir Shamanov affectionately described his command role there as "a
scavenger in a trash heap." The head of the Russian parliament's audit
chamber recently discovered that all the money earmarked for rebuilding
Chechnya has been embezzled. The few reliable reports coming from Chechnya
describe a wasteland of immeasurable human suffering, possibly beyond
recovery, like Afghanistan.

Some Western observers are optimistic about the Russian economy, pointing to
the increase in gross domestic product, which will reportedly be around 7%
this year. This figure is partly attributable to rising oil prices and partly
to the use of the "purchasing power parity" method of estimating GDP, which
yields numbers far above reality. A better indicator of economic policy is
postponement of the land code and cessation of most privatization (as well as
some reversals). Meanwhile, the Russian stock market has dropped 20% since
the first of the year, and most foreign investors have remained on the
sidelines since the crash of 1998.

Critics will call this a biased picture, and indeed it is. It fails to convey
adequately the perversity of Mr. Putin's policies. Although he clearly wants
to, he cannot restore the old Soviet-style planned economy, but he can
control the "commanding heights," as Lenin referred to nationalized industry
and the state bank. Today Mr. Putin has no disciplined party cadres of the
Bolshevik sort, but he does have the cadres of the ex-KGB and the military.
He is using them in all key appointments in precisely the way that Soviet
leaders used party cadres.

He cannot, however, periodically purge them as Lenin and Stalin did to ensure
discipline. This is apparent in his backing off of military reforms. The
chechentsy (ground force generals who are veterans of the war in Chechnya),
led by the chief of the general staff, Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, are struggling
against Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeev and his rocket-force officers
for control of the ministry. Rather than stop this fight, Mr. Putin acts as a
spectator.

The Russian president has also discovered a much larger military problem than
he initially recognized: In addition to 1.2 million personnel in the Defense
Ministry, he has 10 other uniformed organizations, making the total number of
personnel in uniform over three million. Yet if he cuts them drastically, he
will weaken a key source of political support. This probably explains why he
tolerates the admirals' deceitful handling of the Kursk disaster.

Mr. Putin cannot restore the Soviet Union, but he can reassert control over
the Caucasus and Central Asia and pursue troublemaking foreign policy unless
the U.S. and Europe obstruct him. Inexplicably, the Clinton administration
doesn't even try.

After using the International Monetary Fund for profligate capital
assistance, exacerbating Russia's economic and political problems, the
administration now ignores Russia's perverse behavior. Rumors are afoot in
Washington that the Russians are peddling to sympathetic U.S. officials the
idea of a joint U.S.-Russian operation against Muslims in Central Asia or the
Caucasus. This accords with Mr. Clinton's declining support to Central Asian
leaders who want help against radical Muslims. Instead, he is driving them
back into Mr. Putin's hands.

New Approach

Unfortunately, George W. Bush has spoken about Russia as if he would behave
in the same enabling fashion as Mr. Clinton. Al Gore, of course, has shaped
and supported Mr. Clinton's policy for eight years. The time has come,
however, to adopt a new approach toward Russia.
 
******

#9
The Times (UK)
DECEMBER 13 2000
Kursk echoes in new film
BY ALICE LAGNADO IN MOSCOW
 
HARRISON FORD and Liam Neeson are to star in a film about the sinking of a
Soviet submarine almost 40 years ago, a disaster which shocked the nation.
To understand the horror of the incident, the stars spent some time in Moscow
and St Petersburg last week speaking to survivors from the K-19, which went
into meltdown after its reactor malfunctioned on its maiden voyage off the
Norwegian coast in 1961.

The film, provisionally titled Making Widows, will be a disturbing reminder
for the families of the 118 sailors who died last August when the Kursk sank
in the Barents Sea.

The captain and crew of the K-19 were forced to try to cool the reactor in
order to avoid a nuclear disaster. They were eventually rescued by another
submarine, but eight officers died of acute radiation sickness within days
and six more died over the next few years.

Two reactors from the submarine were dumped at the bottom of the Kara Sea,
north of the Arctic Circle.
 
*******

#10
BBC Monitoring
Russian woman sedated after Kursk tragedy makes new public protest
Source: NTV International, Moscow, in Russian 1900 gmt 12 Dec 00

[Presenter] Russian officials have held new talks in Norway on preparations
for the operation to lift the nuclear submarine Kursk next year. The details
of this operation have still not been released. Meanwhile, in northern Russia
relatives of the dead seamen today met representatives of the authorities
during a ceremony at which they received awards on behalf of the men.
Heart-wrenching scenes took place there.

[Correspondent, reporting from Vidyayevo] Today widows of the seamen who died
aboard the nuclear submarine Kursk were once again forced to remember the
tragedy in the Barents Sea and to relive for the umpteenth time the pain
inflicted by the loss of their loved ones. As you know, all 118 members of
the Kursk crew were posthumously awarded high state awards. The solemn
ceremony for the handover of these awards to the relatives was held here, the
officers' mess at the Vidyayevo garrison, today.

Exactly four months have passed since the loss of the nuclear submarine
Kursk. Since then many families have left Vidyayevo for other Russian towns.
For that reason, there were only 31 awards waiting on the table on the stage.
I remind you that, under the presidential decree of 26th August, all members
of the Kursk crew were posthumously awarded the Order of Valour - all except
the submarine commander Gennadiy Lyachin. He was awarded the title of Hero of
Russia. The gold medal will be presented to his widow, Irina Lyachina, by
Vladimir Putin himself. However, she still attended the solemn ceremony in
the officers' mess.

At first everything, the bearing-out of the banner, the national anthem - for
now still played to Glinka's music - the reading of the president's decree
and the actual presentation ceremony went according to the prearranged
scenario...

When the presentation of the awards ended, all the relatives were invited
into a separate room for refreshments. But at that moment, to everybody's
surprise, Nadezhda Tylik, the mother of one of the dead seamen, mounted the
rostrum.

[Note: This appears to be the same "Nadya Tylik" who featured in reports and
pictures of a woman apparently being forcibly injected with a sedative whilst
haranguing the Russian deputy prime minister, Ilya Klebanov, over the
handling of the Kursk disaster. This led the 'Times' of 24th August to
compare the incident to the KGB's silencing of dissidents.]

Things did not go according to plan from that point onwards.

[Nadezhda Tylik, mother of Senior Lt Sergey Tylik, captioned] I want the
children of the dead men to know, when they grow up, that their fathers died
because of the negligence, bungling and, quite simply, indifference of the
powers that be. It so happens that the presentation of the awards at our
Vidyayevo garrison coincides with Constitution Day, the day we celebrate the
document which protects our rights. There's no need to open our letters
before kindly handing them over, to bug our telephones. These are all
breaches of our human rights as enshrined in the constitution. If they tell
journalists who try to meet me or members of the bereaved families that we
are being treated at a psychiatric clinic in St Petersburg, don't believe
them. This means we are being marched off to prison. No, I am sincerely sorry
for those who are to blame for this tragedy and those who have been forced to
lie to the relatives and friends of the dead. They will have to carry in
their hearts the heavy burden of a grievous sin. Be brave and repent before
it is too late.

[Correspondent] Without waiting for Nadezha Tylik to finish her speech, the
commander of the fleet ostentatiously left the hall. But the debate by the
rostrum continued.

[Journalist] Do you agree with what has just been said?

[Woman] Yes.

[Another woman, sobbing] We all agree with it. We all agree with it.

[Journalist] Are you afraid there might be some consequences as a result of
this?

[Tylik, defiantly] No, no, I am not afraid.

[Correspondent] Representatives of the command gathered all the press in
another room, without cameras and cassette recorders present, and pleaded
with us not to show Tylik's statement in our reports, describing her as sick.
However, this conversation was fruitless. The military's attempts to ban
journalists from contacting relatives of the dead in any way were also
unsuccessful. Many of them came up to us and said what they thought of the
awards which had just been presented.

[Svetlana Kuznetsova, widow of warrant officer Viktor Kuznetsov, captioned]
No award can make up for the loss of my husband, for the loss of my son's
father.

[Irina Shubina, widow of deputy commander of Kursk Aleksandr Shubin,
captioned] I will keep it and show it to my grandchildren. I will tell them
they had a granddad who was worthy of this award.

[Correspondent, over footage of woman on a stretcher] This woman was carried
out of the officers' mess on a stretcher. Journalists were immediately blamed
for her indisposition. Evidently, we were also responsible for other calls to
the ambulance service. The scandalous scene at the officers' mess escalated
and, in order to avoid still worse consequences, journalists were asked to
leave the garrison as quickly as possible. By all accounts, this was the last
mass descent on Vidyayevo by journalists - at least till the third stage of
the special operation to raise the submarine starts next summer...

******

#11
Top US general warns Russia against Soviet-style war games

MOSCOW, Dec 12 (AFP) -
Top US general Henry H. Shelton delivered a stern rebuke to Russia Tuesday
for staging Soviet-style war games, warning that such Cold War mentality was
souring relations between the former foes.

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Henry H. Shelton, who flew into
Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart General Anatoly Kvashnin, told
him that Washington's patience was running out, US military sources told AFP.

Last month, Russian military leaders boasted that warplanes had buzzed the
aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, taking its crew by surprise.

The Pentagon confirmed that Russian fighters had flown several hundred feet
directly over the Kitty Hawk October 17 in the Sea of Japan, taking
photographs of the deck that were later e-mailed by the Russians to the
vessel.

Russia also deployed five strategic Bear bombers in November to bases in the
Far East, in what the Pentagon claimed was preparation for training runs to
probe US air defenses around Alaska.

Shelton told reporters after the talks that he and Kvashnin had "discussed
the rhetoric that can sometimes accompany such incidents.

"We do not need to have this type of rhetoric associated with our operations
and operational exercises," he added.

Despite the sharp warning, both sides were at pains to downplay any
fundamental rift in their military relations, which soured during the NATO
war against Yugoslavia last year.

The two generals signed an agreement confirming contacts and exchanges this
year between the US and Russian militaries.

And although Russian military sources had indicated the two generals would
address prickly issues including Moscow's intention to resume arms sales to
Iran and a planned US missile shield, officially neither were on the agenda.

"From the US perspective, the NMD (national missile defence system) is a
political issue and one that will be dealt with by the US administration at
the political level," Shelton said.

Referring to Iran, he added: "It's an area of concern for us because we see
that it could destabilise the region but we hope that this will be sorted out
at political levels."

Kvashnin also insisted: "We didn't discuss the political issue but I don't
think there will be any problems and we'll work in accordance with
international agreements."

Last week, the Russian army's second-in-command dismissed as "unacceptable"
US threats to slap economic sanctions against Russia should it resume
military cooperation with Iran in violation of a secret 1995 agreement.

Moscow announced last month it was scrapping a five-year-old agreement with
Washington ending conventional arms sales to Iran, a decision that prompted a
White House warning that trade ties could suffer as a result.

Washington for its part wants to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the
cornerstone of Cold War nuclear deterrence, so it can forge ahead with plans
to defend itself against attacks from hostile states like Iran, Iraq and
North Korea.

Moscow insists the 1972 ABM treaty is the lynchpin of international
disarmament efforts, and has flatly refused to renegotiate the document.

Kvashnin reiterated this stance, but repeated an offer made by Russian
President Vladimir Putin to slash the number of each country's nuclear
warheads to less than 1,500.

Cash-strapped Russia finds it costly to maintain its ageing nuclear arsenal
and could compromise over the ABM treaty in return for a radical nuclear arms
reduction treaty.

******

#12
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
December 9, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
SECRET PARAGRAPH OF THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY
What Russia can gain by withdrawing from  the
Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement
By Alexei PODYMOV, Alexei VLADIMIROV
    
     On December 1, Russia withdrew from the secret parts of
the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreements and is resuming arms
deliveries to Iran, Vice-Premier Ilya Klebanov gave to
understand the other day.
    
     Officially, Russia did this because the USA had violated
certain provisions of the memorandum, namely secrecy (the US
Congress demanded during the presidential race that Gore must
explain the essence of "the deal of the century") and the
underhand - via agent companies - deliveries of US-made weapons
to the Taliban fighters. Besides, certain positive changes were
registered in Iran. And yet, Russia's decision was such a
bombshell that some politicians and mass media, above all in
the West, initially laughed it off it as a canard or a
misquotation of statements by top Russian officials.
     But, as it often happens, the bankers put everything in
their right places: The central banks of Russia and Iran signed
an agreement on cooperation, under which the Iranian Melli
Bank, one of the most influential in the East, will open an
affiliation in Russia already this year.
     The "price" of the denunciation of the agreement is 2
billion dollars. Under the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement, Russia
pledged to stop arms deliveries to Iran in replace for the US
pledge not to apply the sanctions stipulated in the Congress
resolution on supporting the regime of non-proliferation of
missile technology and weapons and mass destruction. The rules
of the game have been changed now.
     The attitudes of Russia and the USA to sanctions differ.
Russia believes that one should trade and cooperate with Iran,
just as with other countries. But the USA demands that Iran
must not be allowed to acquire sensitive technologies. In March
this year (when the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement was still
effective), the USA approved a Gillmor bill, stipulating
sanctions against any country that provides sensitive
technologies to Iran.
     These sanctions laid to the following actions. First,
Russian organisations and companies had been actually refused
financial and any other assistance from US state departments.
And second, American companies were prohibited from engaging in
any export-import operations with these Russian partners.
     But the trouble is that the problem of cooperation with
Iran is constantly linked with the prospects of Russo-American
cooperation in the nuclear and space spheres. The Americans
established a firm link between breaches in the transparency of
Russo-Iranian military-technical cooperation and termination of
financial assistance to Russia and well nigh complete
termination of cooperation in the sphere of missile-space
system.
     The financial situation of the Russian missile-space
sphere is far from positive now. Its cooperation with the USA
ensures it an annual income of 1.5 billion dollars, and it gets
as much from the peaceful use of nuclear energy. This is the
reverse side of the price of denunciating the agreement.
     We want to remind you about the scandal with the Baltic
State Technological University in February this year. At that
time, the Russian Federal Currency and Export Control Service
prohibited the training of Iranians in the missile departments
of that school. That decision was largely prompted by the
consideration that a loss of several hundred thousand dollars
by the university would be incomparable to potential losses of
Russian defence enterprises.
     By doing this, Russia reaffirmed its readiness to respect
the civilised norms of international trade in sensitive
commodities and technologies. The idea was that related
exporters must get a license for the delivery of their
commodities in foreign countries. This should be done in case
of commodities that are put on the lists of prohibited
equipment and materials, which can be used for the creation of
weapons of mass destruction, or if the exporter had been
officially informed thereof by concerned agencies.
     Our Western partners knew very well that Russia was
actively taking part in such international regimes as the
missile technology control regime, the nuclear providers group,
and the Wassenaar agreements on the export control over
conventional weapons. Of course, they were irked by Russia's
contribution to the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power
station in Iran, yet the overall climate of relations in the
sensitive - in the direct meaning of the word - sphere was
favourable.
     It is not fortuitous that the USA lifted sanctions from
two of the ten "punished" Russian organisations, the Polyus
research institute and the Inor research and production centre.
As for the Baltic State Technological University, sanctions
applied only to its rector, Savelyev, who was refused entry to
the USA. But everything can change now, and the cold autumn
might be followed by a severe winter.
 
******

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