Sean-Paul Kelley | San Antonio | September 12
The Agonist – This is the first of what I hope will be many. I will do my best to update these whenever circumstances warrant with a target of at least once a quarter. The next News Guidance I expect to do is for the South Asia/Indo-Pak region.
More after the jump.
What are Putin’s motives and goals? Any basic assertions and/or assumptions that need to be re-evaluated? Is Putin pro-Western or pro-Russian in the old Slavophile tradition? Is he a new Peter the Great (as some have said) or is he something else? I think one assumption that most of us can agree upon is that he is the single most significant political force in Russia right now.
INTERNAL EVENTS AND TRENDS
Long-term:
Foreign Direct investment, increase and growth of the Russian technology base, democratization or creeping authoritarianism?
Do you see any recognizable trends? What, if any of this, is occuring in the US-Russia context?
Short-term:
Relations with Yukos and other oligarchs?
What’s happening with the Siloviki (the Saint Petersburg clan that originally supported Putin’s accession to the Presidency). Chechnya, developments, negotiations, attacks? Rebel movements in Ingushetia? Inter-clan conflict in Daghestan? Kabardino-Balkaria? Stories about reconstruction aid and corruption? Anything on the Pankisi Gorge?
EXTERNAL EVENTS AND TRENDS
The Caucasus, Chechnya, Georgia, Ossetia and Abkhazia. What’s happening here? Negotiations? Shots-fired? Creeping American influence? Is Georgia, as I have asserted recently, the key to unlocking Putin’s plan?
Central Asian States: Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. New basing arrangements? Developments? Deployments? Withdrawals? New Terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan? Kyrgyzstan? Kazakhstan? Any IMU sightings? How about Hizb-ut-Tahrir?
The Russian Far East and The Far East: China, the Shanghai Group, North Korea and the Six Power Talks, Oil developments in the Far East: Russia and Japan, Kazakhs and Japan, how is this playing with the Chinese?
All of this should be considered in the context of US-Russia relations as well.
Are there any recognizable trends here?
What have I missed? Any threats looming?
This is post is only for guidance. If you are interested in the region, hotlist the post and refer back to it when you are scanning and reading the news. This post can be used as a compilation thread, of sorts. But its purpose is more for guidance than anything else.
From the Council on Foreign Relations, September 10, 2004
Stephen R. Sestanovich, the Council’s top expert on Russia, says that criticism of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is mounting in the aftermath of the massacre in Beslan, where hundreds of schoolchildren, teachers, and parents died while being held hostage by Chechen separatists. Sestanovich says that “no one–in Russia or elsewhere–thinks [Putin has] a plan, much less a good plan. He’s made solving the problem of Chechnya one of his big claims to domestic political legitimacy in the past five years, and now it’s clear that Russia is more vulnerable than it was before.”
The George F. Kennan fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies and a senior State Department adviser in the Clinton administration, Sestanovich says that the horrors of Beslan have emboldened Putin’s critics. “The media are showing signs of renewed openness, even of courage. Political figures are more ready to speak out and say that Putin is not succeeding, and they’re getting a chance to be heard.”
Sestanovich was interviewed on September 9, 2004, by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org.
interview & embedded links @
http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot1_091004.html
The Eternal Value of Autocracy
Created: 09.09.2004 16:31 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:31 MSK
Fyodor Lukyanov
Gazeta.Ru
Differences in the interpretation of the Beslan hostage drama by Russia and the West could well drive a wedge between the two sides, reducing relations to their lowest point since the demise of the Soviet empire.
Vladimir Putin’s meeting with western journalists and policy experts was supposed to crown the long-planned international conference entitled ‘Russia at the Turn of the Century: Hopes and Realities,’ held under the aegis of RIA-Novosti and the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.
In the wake of the tragic events in Beslan the routine event turned into a political event of international importance, likely to play a crucial role in shaping Moscow’s future relations with the leading Western capitals.
Many delegates admitted they had been most impressed not by what Putin said at the conference, but how he said it — confidently, vigorously, with conviction.
In the course of Putin’s presidency Russia’s relationship with the West has seen several stages. By the beginning of his second term in office it became clear that no legal or ideological integration of Russia into the western world, so much hoped for in 1990s, had taken place.
Due to various reasons the European choice, declared a decade ago and reiterated with Putin’s advent to the Kremlin was never implemented. On the contrary, the socio-political model of modern Russia is moving further and further from western, especially European, patterns, representing a mixture of tradition of Russian autocracy, far-eastern concepts of authoritarian modernization and individual elements of liberal democracy.
Whether the western state system could triumph in Russia in late 20th and the early 21st centuries is another matter for discussion. One way or another, it has never happened.
Quite recently western partners actively sought to contribute to Russia’s transformation, but now they have restrained their ardor. At any rate, the first half of this year saw changes in the relations between Russia and the European Union, relations in which the humanitarian component has hitherto prevailed.
The parties switched from the bickering caused by differences in interpretation of democracy and human rights issues to a practical bargaining on more specific issues of interaction. In relations with the US that change occurred even earlier when Bush famously “looked into Putin’s eyes” in Ljubljana, and then Putin decisively supported Bush in the wake of 9/11.
Moscow, on its part, hailed the transfer to a new form of relationship, which suggested that the Russian state would guarantee that the West’s key desires, first and foremost, oil and gas, would be satisfied, while Russia’s internal affairs would be none of its western partners’ business. Actually, that model is quite viable and has been successfully tested with many countries.
However, the issue of ‘values’ is again being raised; moreover, this time it is Russia that is set to initiate the discussion.
Regardless of the monstrosity of the latest terror attack in Russia, neither the US nor Europe seem to have revised their approach to the beginnings and instigators of the Caucasian conflict. It is hardly a coincidence that EU officials are so insistently demanding an explanation from Moscow.
The more terrible the actions of the terrorists, the more convinced is the West that Russia must revise its Chechnya policy seen in the West as the root of all Russia’s tragedies.
Russia, on the contrary — not only the leadership but also most ordinary Russians — sees the Beslan drama as the final blow to the idea of talks with the leaders of the self-proclaimed independent Ichkerian republic.
And this is a question of ‘values’, as Vladimir Putin told his foreign guests at his residence in Novoogaryovo: child-killers and their accomplices have lost their right to anything.
The differences in interpretation of the events in Beslan by Russia and the West are likely to sow the deepest discord between Russia and the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is no secret that many members of our political establishment still view Russia as a great power, encircled by enemies.
Putin’s vague allusions to those who incite terrorists, included in his address to the nation, were reiterated in Novoogaryovo. The president rebuked the West for regular meetings with leaders of the Chechen underground and its unwillingness to call them murderers.
The response came the next day. Richard Boucher, spokesman for the State Department, pledged the US would continue meeting Chechen separatists, noting that the US’ views on certain ‘political figures’ differs from that of Russia.
This statement paves the way for a strengthening of positions by Moscow ideologists who have long been calling for the erection of ‘Fortress Russia’.
Is the transition to the ‘pragmatic’ model mentioned above possible in this situation? Basically, yes, even more so as our establishment is by no means ready to sever ties with the West completely. Admittedly, that model only works provided it is based on the authorities’ ability to ensure stability.
Destabilization casts doubt on the basis of any interaction.
In the course of a decade of the Chechen war we have seen many terrible incidents, and yet those were individual acts perpetrated at lengthy time intervals, not connected with one another directly. Today Russia faces a large-scale campaign, with one blow following another.
A real terrorist war is, for instance, what has been unleashed more than once since the early 1970s by Palestinian extremists or the fighters of Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s and 1980s. Something similar, although on a lesser scale, happened in Germany in the late 1970s, where left-wing radicals sent shockwaves across the country.
This is a durability test both for the state and society, while no one in Russia seems ready to undergo that test, of which much has already been said and written. It is worth adding that the inability to rein in the terrorists will also disrupt the country’s foreign policy.
Link here.
both current & past, neo-cons v. others; interesting in that he mentions ex-Clinton people are beginning to criticize them when they hadn’t before, an excerpt:
Now, some of the sharpest criticism heard of the Bush administration today is coming from Clinton-era officials whom Ms. Rice assailed four years ago. “We’re pretending that the Russians are playing ball with us to a far greater extent than they actually are,” Mr. Sestanovich said. Says Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations: “They’ve given Putin a blank check.”
there is also a quote from Sestanovich in it(interview posted above)
WEEK IN REVIEW | September 12, 2004
Allies Against Terror, Sliding Farther Apart
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN (NYT) News
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/weekinreview/12weis.html?ex=1252728000&en=0e5fd3fc77211e99&
;ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
September 12, 2004
Allies Against Terror, Sliding Farther Apart
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON — Thre tumultuous years ago, President Bush memorably proclaimed that he had looked into the soul of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and found a man with whom he could do business. But if there is any soul-searching going on today in the Bush administration, it is over why the latest attacks by Chechen terrorists in Russia have deepened a recent estrangement between the two countries.
Despite the understandable horror after the massacre of schoolchildren and other attacks, administration officials were taken aback by the almost despairing tone of Mr. Putin as he lashed out at the United States last week for suggesting that Chechen demands needed to be addressed politically as well as militarily.
“Why don’t you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?” Mr. Putin was quoted as telling a group of Western visitors.
After that cri de coeur, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell hastened to declare that “there can be no justification for what happened in Russia” and “no compromise in this battle.” The White House let it be known that President Bush had telephoned his soulmate to express condolences. Other officials, responding to Mr. Putin’s complaint that the United States had granted asylum to a Chechen leader and had contacts with others, said that the asylum case was granted by the courts and that the American government cut off even low-level contacts with Chechens two years ago.
While they moved quickly to address Mr. Putin’s concerns, some administration officials concede that they nonetheless have growing doubts about the nature of his leadership – not just over the brutal crackdown on the rebels in Chechnya that seems not to be working, but also over other steps that hark back to a Russian authoritarianism of old: prosecution of dissenters and business leaders, fettering of the free press, distribution of Russian assets to cronies, meddling in the internal affairs of Georgia and other neighbors, and the country’s peremptory cancellation last year of exploration deals with American oil companies. “The Russians are sending very mixed signals right now,” said a senior administration official. “They’re very ambivalent about their whole relationship with the West. Do they want to be a part of it? Not quite. Do they want to be against it? Not that either.”
Former officials echoed that view. “Over the past couple of years, people in the U.S. government have had this nervous sense that the Putin policy in Chechnya might be wrong, but a suspicion that it might work,” said Stephen R. Sestanovich, a top Russia hand in the Clinton administration. “What the last two weeks have done is explode that idea. We’re no longer worried that what Putin is doing is just unsavory or grotesque. It’s just a failure.”
At a time when the Bush administration has been pilloried for allegedly failing to work with allies, Mr. Bush and his aides have worked hard at courting Russia and can legitimately claim dividends. Among them are acquiescence on expanding NATO into Russia’s front yard, on establishing an American military presence in parts of the old Soviet Union, and in revising a Nixon-era treaty so it would allow American pursuit of a national missile defense system. No less important, administration officials say, is cooperation in pressing Iran and North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons programs. On Iraq, finally, Moscow complained about the war but made less trouble than it could have.
What is startling about this record is the range of criticism saying that Mr. Putin could have done a lot more for the United States on Iran, Iraq and North Korea, and that the administration has essentially given Mr. Putin and his team a pass by not voicing sufficient public criticism of his authoritarian streak.
Some of that criticism has come from neoconservatives who used to attack the Clinton administration for turning a blind eye to President Boris Yeltsin. One such critic, ironically, was Condoleezza Rice, then a Bush campaign adviser, who in 2000 wrote an article for Foreign Affairs charging that the Clinton administration had engaged in “happy talk” with the Kremlin while Mr. Yeltsin let his friends loot the Russian treasury.
Now, some of the sharpest criticism heard of the Bush administration today is coming from Clinton-era officials whom Ms. Rice assailed four years ago. “We’re pretending that the Russians are playing ball with us to a far greater extent than they actually are,” Mr. Sestanovich said. Says Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations: “They’ve given Putin a blank check.”
Mr. Powell responded, during in a recent interview, that he has gone out of his way to put such issues on the table whenever he meets with Russian leaders, even writing a critical opinion piece in Izvestia last winter.
“Come on now,” he said. “There are problems in Russia that we have to deal with, but did anyone expect that Putin would suddenly listen to everything he’s heard from outsiders? We have not been restrained in letting the Russians know where we think they need to change behavior and improve performance.”
Still, there is anxiety about trends in Russia, based on long experience with the unpredictable nature of its erratic relationship with the West. The anxiety is coupled with a widespread view that the Chechen problem has no obvious solution, rooted as it is in aspirations for independence that date to the early days of the czarist empire, as much as in the toxic tendency of Islamic militants everywhere to employ the most extreme tactics.
There is a feeling among many that, as Mr. Putin suggested in his outburst last week, the United States can ill afford to lecture Mr. Putin on the need to reach political solutions after muscling its way into Iraq. But in a presidential campaign in which Mr. Bush is claiming that the United States is winning the war on terrorism, few people would say that Mr. Putin could now go to the Russian public to say the same thing.
Administration officials say they are determined to use the problems with Chechnya as an opportunity for more, not less, cooperation with Russia in areas like airline safety and the sharing of intelligence on terrorists. “We’ve got a lot of stuff that we can do, and we just need to keep working at it,” said an official.
The officials also dismiss the idea that Mr. Bush, for all the talk of his famous looking into Mr. Putin’s soul, has any illusions about the problems with Moscow.
“I can assure you, he gets it,” said an administration official who has dealt with the president on this issue. “The fact is that the next American president, whether it’s Bush or Kerry, is going to have to develop a constructive relationship with Moscow when all the trends are not good.”
Putin Seeks New Kremlin Powers to Counter Terrorism
Anya Ardeyeva
Moscow
13 Sep 2004, 15:26 UTC
VOA
In response to a series of deadly terror attacks in Russia in recent weeks, President Vladimir Putin has announced a number of proposed changes to Russia’s political system. The initiatives, aimed at improving security, will also give a massive boost to the Kremlin’s powers.
President Putin spoke at an extraordinary meeting of Russia’s top security and military officials Monday, summoned in the wake of the bloody school hostage-taking in North Ossetia.
The president said Russia had failed to build a strong and united state, and he suggested the creation of a new federal agency to coordinate the fight against terror.
President Putin said that Russia needs a single organization capable of not only dealing with terror attacks, but also working to avert them. He said the new agency should have the authority to destroy criminals in their hideouts, and if necessary, abroad.
Mr. Putin said that central government control is the key to preventing terrorist attacks, and also ordered the country’s security services to increase their international cooperation.
He suggested changing the elections to the country’s powerful lower house of parliament, or the State Duma, to a purely proportional system, based on party lists. The move would eliminate the local constituencies that currently make up half of the 450 seats in the chamber. At the moment, the pro-Kremlin “Unity” party has an overwhelming majority in the Duma.
The Russian leader also called for regional governors, who sit in the upper house of parliament, to be elected by regional legislatures after being nominated by the president. At the moment, the people directly elect regional governors in Russia.
According to political analyst Masha Lipman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow, President Putin’s proposals fit a pattern.
“President Putin’s policy throughout his time in office has been to weaken all democratic institutions, to concentrate a lot of power in the center, to make [the] presidency the most powerful, and actually the sole, decision maker in the country,” she explained.
Still, Ms. Lipman says Russia must take some sort of action to end terrorist attacks. She says what remains to be seen is whether President Putin’s proposals will be more effective than his efforts to tackle other problems.
“President Putin seems to be prepared to reform the state security bodies,” she added. “However, the question is whether his reform will be reduced to a simple reshuffling, restructuring, or it will be the real serious dramatic reform that is required under the circumstances. And this is to do something about the corruption, about the incompetence, about the inefficiency. This is a tremendous challenge for President Putin and whether or not he is capable of it is an open question.”
Mr. Putin’s statement Monday came just days after some 430 people were killed in a series of terrorist attacks in Russia. In the worst incident, more than 300 people, about half of them children, were killed after gunmen seized a school in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia. There were also two airplane hijackings and a suicide bombing at a railway station.
Russian President Says Moves Necessary to Combat Terrorism
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 13, 2004; 11:14 AM
MOSCOW, Sept. 13 — President Vladimir Putin outlined plans Monday to “radically” change the Russian political system in a way that would increase his own power, portraying the moves as a means of combating terrorism in the aftermath of this month’s deadly school seizure.
Putin’s plan would eliminate the popular election of governors and individual members of parliament. The president would appoint governors, subject to the confirmation of regional legislatures. All members of the lower house of parliament, known as the State Duma, would be drawn from party lists rather than elected in individual districts.
“State authority must not only be adjusted to work in crisis situations,” Putin said at a televised meeting with his cabinet. “The mechanisms of its work must be radically reviewed in order to prevent crises.”
He added that “the terrorists’ long-term plans are aimed at disintegrating the country and shaking the state” and that “the country’s unity is the main condition for resisting terrorists.”
Putin’s announcement came 10 days after the tragic conclusion of a 52-hour hostage crisis in the southern town of Beslan, where terrorists seized a school and 1,200 children, parents and teachers. The confrontation ended in a flurry of explosions and hours of gunfire that left at least 328 people dead, half of them children, and many more still missing.
In response, Putin promised to restructure security agencies but offered few details. He did reshuffle administrators in the North Caucasus region of the country to install one of his most trusted lieutenants. He removed the presidential envoy for southern Russia, Vladimir Yakovlev, and replaced him with Dmitri Kozak, a longtime Putin aide, and simultaneously put Kozak in charge of a new commission charged with security of the southern region that includes Beslan as well as wartorn Chechnya.
In eliminating the election of governors, Putin would formally take charge of naming administrators of the 89 regions that make up the Russian Federation. Since taking office on New Year’s Eve 1999, Putin has constantly worked to rein in independent-minded governors, who under his predecessor frequently defied Moscow’s authority. He kicked the governors out of the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, and appointed seven presidential envoys, sometimes called super-governors, to supervise the governors in their regions.
Putin’s plan to restructure the State Duma would strengthen the power of his party, United Russia, and the surrogate or allied parties dominated by the Kremlin. Under the current system, half of the 450 members are elected in individual districts and the other half from party lists according to the share of the vote each party gets.
Under the party list, or proportional system, political structures such as United Russia carry far more sway. The only two Western-oriented democratic parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, were both knocked out of the Duma in party-list voting in last December’s election; the only members of those parties who made it into parliament were elected in individual districts.
Putin did not explain why such a change would combat terrorism, except to say that authorities needed to suppress terrorism and “national parties must serve as one of the mechanisms for this.”
Putin’s changes would require parliamentary approval, but since he already controls both houses, legislators and analysts predicted he would have no problem passing them by the end of the year.
————————————————-
September 13, 2004
Putin Moves to Increase Power, Citing Effort to Fight Terror
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET
MOSCOW (AP) — Responding to a series of deadly terror attacks, President Vladimir Putin on Monday moved to significantly strengthen the Kremlin’s grip on power, with new measures that include the naming of regional governors and an overhaul of the electoral system.
Putin told Cabinet members and security officials convened in special session that the future of Russia was at stake and urged the creation of a central, powerful anti-terror agency.
“The organizers and perpetrators of the terror attack are aiming at the disintegration of the state, the breakup of Russia,” he said. “We need a single organization capable of not only dealing with terror attacks but also working to avert them, destroy criminals in their hideouts, and if necessary, abroad.”
Putin’s declaration followed a series of stunning terror attacks blamed on Chechen rebels, climaxing in the three-day school seizure in southern Russia in which more than 330 people were killed.
He said he would propose legislation abolishing the election of local governors by popular vote. Instead, they would be nominated by the president and confirmed by local legislatures — a move that would undo the remaining vestiges of the local autonomy already chipped away by Putin during his first term in office.
Putin explained his move by the need to streamline and strengthen the executive branch to make it more capable of combating terror.
His critics immediately assailed the proposal as a self-destructive effort that could fuel dissent in the provinces.
“The abolition of elections in the Russian regions deals a blow to the foundations of Russian federalism and means the return to the extremely inefficient system of government,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, a leading member of the liberal Yabloko party.
Sergei Markov, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, said the president’s move against the governors could help curb corruption that has flourished in some regions.
“At the same time, it means … a lowering of (their) general political authority and a serious lowering of political pluralism,” Markov told Ekho Moskvy radio.
In another move aimed to strengthen the federal authorities, Putin recommended eliminating the individual races that currently fill half of the seats in the national parliament and have the entire lower house filled by parties on a proportional basis.
Putin said that the move would help foster dialogue by expanding the clout of political parties, but his opponents warned it would further increase the clout of the Kremlin-controlled parliament factions that already enjoy an overwhelming majority in the lower house, the State Duma.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the few opposition deputies, scorned the president’s political proposals and said if they were approved, “the next Duma will be simply virtual, it will consist of just marionette party lists and won’t enjoy any authority.”
“How is it possible the president doesn’t understand that it won’t strengthen the country, it will further tear apart the unity of the country and tear federal organs power away from the people?” he told Ekho Moskvy radio. “Yes, the Kremlin’s authority will be strengthened, but the country will be weakened.”
Although Putin has been criticized for strengthening his own powers in the past, three weeks of violence and the deaths of 430 people have led to increased support among the Russian people for measures to combat terrorism.
Putin named one of his closest confidants, Cabinet chief of staff Dmitry Kozak, to represent him in the southern district that includes the Caucasus.
Putin said official corruption that had helped terrorists — such as the issuing of documents “leading to grave consequences,” should be punished with particular severity.
He also signaled a possible government crackdown on Islamic groups, proposing that extremist organizations serving as a cover for terrorists should be outlawed.
A new structure called the Public Chamber would strengthen public oversight of the government and the actions of law enforcement agencies, he said. The chamber would involve non-governmental organizations and other groups in the fight against terror.
Putin said that terrorism is rooted in the North Caucasus’ low living standards, in widespread unemployment, and in poor education.
“This is a rich, fertile ground for the growth of extremist propaganda and the recruitment of new supporters of terror,” Putin said. “The North Caucasus is a key strategic region for Russia. It is a victim of terrorism and also a springboard for it.”
New York Times
September 13, 2004 1:42 PM ET
Putin Moves to Increase Power, Citing Effort to Fight Terror
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The Kremlin’s pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional bodies would be strengthened under the plan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/international/europe/13CND-RUSS.html?hp
MOSCOW, Sept. 13 — President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a sweeping overhaul of Russia’s political system today in what he called an effort to unite the country against terrorism. If enacted, as expected, his proposals would strengthen the Kremlin’s already pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional governments.
Mr. Putin, meeting in special session with cabinet ministers and regional government leaders, outlined what would be the most significant political restructuring in Russia in more than a decade — one that critics immediately said would violate the constitution and stifle what political opposition remains.
Under Mr. Putin’s proposals, which he said required only legislative approval and not constitutional amendments, the governors or presidents of the country’s 89 regions would no longer be elected by popular vote but rather by local parliaments — and only on the president’s recommendation.
Seats in the lower house of the federal parliament, or Duma, would be elected entirely on national party slates, eliminating district races across the country that now decide half of the parliament’s composition. In last December’s elections, those races accounted for all of the independents and liberals now serving in the Duma.
In the wake of the school siege in Beslan, the downing of two passenger airlines and other terrorist attacks that have shaken the country, Mr. Putin argued once again that Russia was ill-prepared to fight terrorism and said the country needed a more unified political system. His proposals, however, made clear that for him unity means a consolidation of power in the executive branch.
“Those who inspire, organize and carry out terrorist acts are striving to disintegrate the country,” Mr. Putin said in televised remarks that the state channels rebroadcast repeatedly, in their entirety, through the day and evening. “They strive for the break up of the state, for the ruin of Russia. I am sure that the unity of the country is the main prerequisite for victory over terror.”
Across the short spectrum of political opposition in today’s Russia, reactions ranged from stunned disbelief to helpless anger.
Gennady A. Zyuganov, the leader of the main opposition party, the Communists, called the proposals “ill conceived.” Sergei S. Mitrokhin, a leader of the liberal Yabloko party, said they represented “the elimination of the last links in a system of checks and balances.”
Mikhail M. Zadornov, an independent deputy who was elected from a district in southern Moscow last year, said that rather than unifying Russians against terror, the proposals would simply disenfranchise them from politics and the state.
“All these measures,” he said in a telephone interview, “mean we are coming back to the U.S.S.R.”
The electoral changes require the approval of parliament, but since the party loyal to Mr. Putin, United Russia, controls more than two-thirds of the 450 seats, that is almost a foregone conclusion. Mr. Mitrokhin said that while Mr. Putin’s proposals “contradict the letter and the spirit of the constitution,” challenges to them would be futile.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “in Russia there is no independent parliament and no independent judiciary.”
In the wrenching days since the siege at Middle School No. 1 in Beslan, where Chechen and other terrorists held and ultimately killed hundreds of hostages, Mr. Putin has appeared publicly a handful of times and with unusual candor acknowledged the government’s failures and weaknesses in fighting terrorism. Until today, however, he had offered only the vaguest proposals to fix them, instead exhorting Russians to mobilize against the threats facing the country.
In the years since Boris N. Yeltsin elevated him to the presidency on Dec. 31, 1999, Mr. Putin has steadily consolidated political power in the executive branch, often by the sheer force of his will. He took away the power to appoint the upper house of parliament from the regions. He imposed a structure of seven federal districts over the vast and unruly country, each led by his appointees. He also used the Kremlin’s vast power over television and government resources, as well as his own popularity, to reward loyal governors and punish or push aside disloyal ones.
His proposals today, however, went further than any of other steps under Mr. Putin’s watch.
Since Russia adopted a new constitution in 1993, residents of the country’s 89 regions, from Chukotka in the east to Kaliningrad in the west, have elected their governors or, in some places, presidents. They have also sent their own regional deputies to Moscow. Mr. Putin’s proposals would take those choices out of the voters’ hands.
Mr. Putin said the change in parliamentary elections would strengthen the national parties, which he said would ensure “a real dialogue and interaction between power and society in the fight against terror.”
In last December’s elections, only four parties crossed the threshold for winning seats and three of them generally support the Kremlin: United Russia, the Liberal Democrats and Motherland. The Communist Party, marginalized and increasingly disorganized, remains the only pure opposition party. Two other prominent opposition parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, failed to win any seats.
A direct proportional election would give the advantage of incumbency to those parties in power and eliminate local grass-roots campaigns that have provided the handful of dissenting voices heard on the Duma floor.
Andrei A. Piontovsky, an analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow, said the change in regional elections could have the unintended consequence of alienating voters in the ethnic patchwork of semi-autonomous regions and republics, many led by presidents who enjoy at least a degree of independence from the central government.
“It is not only stupid,” Mr. Piontovsky said of the proposal to have Mr. Putin appoint regional leaders to be approved by local parliaments. “It is very sensitive for the national republics like Tatarstan and those in the North Caucasus. It will be a humiliation to the people there.”
After Mr. Putin’s meeting, a number of regional leaders loyal to the Kremlin appeared on state television and endorsed his proposals, if not that one specifically. They included Tatarstan’s president, Mintimer S. Shaymiyev, Valentina I. Matvienko, the governor of the city of St. Petersburg, and Alu Alkahnov, the newly elected president of Chechnya.
In Beslan’s aftermath, Mr. Putin has faced unusually pointed criticism from the public and in newspapers. Last Friday, appearing to bow to pressure, he agreed to a public inquiry into the attack on the school, though one controlled by the Federal Council, whose members he appoints. On Saturday, he also dismissed the interior minister and security chief of North Ossetia, where Beslan is located, though not its president, Aleksandr S. Dzosokhov, who was among those at Mr. Putin’s special session today.
In addition to the changes in the political system, Mr. Putin also demoted his representative in the Southern Federal District, Vladimir A. Yakovlev, who had overseen Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus. In his place, Mr. Putin appointed one of his most trusted aides, Dmitry N. Kozak, who since March has served as chief of the government. Before that Mr. Kozak had overseen Mr. Putin’s efforts to rewrite the criminal code and to streamline the government.
Mr. Putin also proposed the unification of counter-terrorism efforts in a single agency, citing the examples of “a whole number of countries which have been confronted with the terrorist threat.” That appeared to be a reference to agencies like the Department of Homeland Security in the United States — which some here have said Russia should emulate — but Mr. Putin did not provide any details.
Mr. Putin also called for banning “extremist organizations using religious, nationalistic and any other phraseology as cover” and toughen penalties for crimes committed by terrorists, even minor ones. He cited the example of obtaining a false passport that could be used to evade the police.
The electoral changes, however, provoked the fiercest criticism. Several politicians and analysts said the proposals had little to do with better protecting Russia from terrorist attacks like those in the last three weeks.
“It is not a reaction to a terrorist attack,” Mr. Zadornov said. “It is an attempt to change the political system to have more control.”
Link here.
If Georgia does not repay its debts Russia may close its air space for Georgian airplanes after October 1, 2004, a source in the Transport Ministry said.
“The Georgian aviation administration was notified on September 3 about the termination of the air navigation service for Georgian airlines in the Russian air space if debts for this service are not repaid,” the source emphasized. According to information of the Transport Ministry, the debt of Georgian airlines for the air navigation service in the Russian air space makes more than 3.6 million dollars.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/42c62680-05b1-11d9-bff2-00000e2511c8.html
Putin rolls back regional freedoms of Yeltsin years
The Kremlin has long considered further centralisation. Events at Beslan seem to have put plans on fast forward, says Andrew Jack
Published: September 13 2004 21:00 | Last updated: September 13 2004 21:00
Ever since Vladimir Putin was elected president in 2000, he has been reversing the power-sharing structures created by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. His announcement on Monday that he will end the direct election of regional governors takes the centralisation process to a new level, raising fresh questions about the effectiveness of a central authority in delivering results.
Mr Yeltsin’s constitution in 1993 created a hybrid federal parliament, with half its members voted into office by proportional representation from party lists and the rest directly elected from “single mandate districts”.
He also famously handed the country’s 89 regional governors “as much autonomy as you can swallow”, and formalised their direct popular elections in 1996.
Mr Putin’s view – shared by many ordinary Russians and mooted by other senior politicians in the past – is that in the 1990s such democratic “freedoms” quickly came to be equated with anarchy, manipulation and corruption by competing economic and political interests, and needed reining in.
In response, during his first term he gave himself the authority to dismiss governors under suspicion of breaking the law; banned them from sitting in the Federation Council – the upper parliamentary chamber – and appointed seven presidential plenipotentiaries across the country to supervise their work.
He applied pressure to reverse regional laws that contradicted federal ones, took over the governors’ powers to appoint judges and law enforcement officials and squeezed their budgets, shifting the balance of funding back towards the federal authorities.
Mr Putin has talked for more than four years about recreating the Soviet-era “vertical” of power with decision-making dictated at the top. But his policies have replaced one bureaucracy with another still more remote, while manifestly ineffective in preventing the spate of terror attacks.
The Beslan siege appears to have accelerated ideas of further political centralisation long under consideration by the Kremlin.
“Putin has been effective in reducing the power of the regions but it is not clear that he has been able to control the results,” says Robert Orttung, associate research professor at the American University in Washington, DC and a specialist on Russian regional affairs, who argues that the erosion of local democracy has reduced accountability.
“These reforms are a huge step backwards”, he says. “In a country the size of Russia, you need a federal system run by local people to deal with local interests. There is no way you can run the country from Moscow. There is a direct correlation between the level of democracy, which is decreasing, and the level of corruption, which is increasing.”
On paper the changes in the federal parliament appear to move Russia towards a western-style system with a handful of political parties. In practice they will mean the elimination of independent candidates who owe their election to local people, such as Mr Ryzhkov. They will be replaced by those more directly under the control of the Kremlin, whose United Russia party currently dominates a much muted parliament.
Given the failure of previous attempts under Mr Putin to foster civil society through organisations carefully co-ordinated by the Kremlin, his suggestions yesterday of true citizens’ control through new “chambers” was also met with scepticism.
Boris Makarenko, a Moscow-based political analyst, says: “This system might work in good weather, but it is no good if the conditions deteriorate. The Kremlin does not have a pool of people to nominate, so it will reappoint existing officials or seek people in the local elites based on loyalty with no guarantee of their competence.”
He also argues that the latest centralising reforms will undermine local people’s belief in their governors, leaving Mr Putin and the federal authorities more directly exposed and responsible. “This is obviously a step in the direction of greater authoritarianism.”
just thought you’d be interested!
Beslan Siege Was Work of al Qaeda Cell from… Kabardino-Balkaria
From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 173 Updated by DEBKAfile
September 13, 2004, 3:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=903
New York Times
September 14
EDITORIAL
Russia’s Lurch Backward
Faced with the most serious crisis of his presidency, Vladimir Putin is using the slaughter at the Beslan middle school as an excuse to suffocate democracy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/opinion/14tue2.html
BP Venture in Russia Plans More Output and Investment
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
BP’s Russian venture will increase oil output this year by more than its planned 12 percent and plans to raise spending in 2005 for a second year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/business/worldbusiness/14bp.html
September 14, 2004
BP Venture in Russia Plans More Output and Investment
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Vladimir Suvorov/Bloomberg News
Robert Dudley, chief executive of TNK-BP in Moscow, told investors yesterday that the company would raise spending in 2005.
OSCOW, Sept. 13 (Bloomberg News) – The Russian venture of BP will increase oil output this year by more than its planned 12 percent and plans to raise spending in 2005 for a second year to ramp up production as oil continues to trade near historic highs.
Investments in projects will be $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion next year, up from the $1.3 billion planned for 2004, Robert Dudley, the chief executive of TNK-BP, told investors during a presentation in Moscow. Oil output rose 17 percent, to a record 1.5 million barrels a day in August, compared with the average output for 2003.
“Our production growth is very competitive,” Mr. Dudley said in the presentation. “TNK-BP is well positioned in the Russian industry.”
BP’s second-quarter profit surged 35 percent thanks to rising production at TNK-BP and higher oil prices. BP, which is based in London, has predicted oil and gas output this year will jump at least 10 percent. TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest oil producer, has been raising output at the fastest pace in Russia this year, according to government statistics.
BP agreed last year to pay the Alfa Group, Access Industries and Renova Inc. $7.7 billion to pool oil assets including the Tyumen Oil Company with BP’s Russian assets, creating TNK-BP.
The increase in investments for 2005 is partly because of TNK-BP’s buyout of the Yukos Oil Company’s 56 percent stake in Rospan International, a Siberian natural gas producer, Mr. Dudley said. Yukos on Aug. 2 asked Russian authorities for permission to sell the stake for $357 million to TNK-BP, which already held 44 percent of Rospan, to help Yukos meet a $3.4 billion tax bill.
“Yukos wasn’t financing its share in the project for a number of months,” said Viktor Vekselberg, TNK-BP’s chief operating officer.
Rospan may reach production of as much as 49 billion cubic feet a year in the future. TNK-BP is producing about 19.7 billion cubic feet of gas a year, most of which is extracted along with crude oil.
TNK-BP is also increasing spending as it seeks to develop the Kovykta gas field in east Siberia to supply China and South Korea, Mr. Dudley said.
TNK-BP, which is based in Moscow, invested $515 million in projects in the first half of the year.
First-half profit totaled $1.73 billion, TNK-BP said, without giving figures for the period a year ago. The venture’s net income for the full year of 2003 totaled $2.81 billion.
TNK-BP’s net debt dropped to $691 million at the end of the first half, from $1.85 billion at the start of 2004. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization totaled $2.78 billion in the first half of 2004.
The company is developing new crude oil export routes through ports on the White Sea and Black Sea coasts, Tony Considine, an executive vice president at TNK-BP, told investors in Moscow. It plans to export about 55 percent of its crude this year.
TNK-BP is also investing in the construction of oil loading facilities at its Saratov and Ryazan refineries in Russia to export crude by rail. The company plans to invest $330 million in refining and oil marketing projects this year, up from $230 million in 2003, Mr. Considine said.
“Russia needs additional export capacity,” Mr. Dudley said. “Rail shipments stay economically viable with prices above $20.”
The company has 2,200 filling stations in Russia and Ukraine. Its refineries process about 14 percent of the oil in Russia, which is the world’s fifth-largest retail market for oil products.
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002499.html
and here
http://themoderatevoice.typepad.com/blog/2004/09/the_draconian_s.html
for archival purposes
By Alex Nicholson Associated Press Writer
Published: Sep 14, 2004
MOSCOW (AP) – Russian energy giant Gazprom said Tuesday it would acquire state-owned oil company Rosneft in a stock swap expected to ultimately ease restrictions on foreign investment in the world’s biggest natural gas producer. Gazprom shares surged 15 percent.
Analysts welcomed the proposal, which gives the Russian government a controlling stake in Gazprom – a key condition for President Vladimir Putin’s long-promised lifting of limitations on share ownership.
“Soon we will have a large company, that in the future would be turned into a transnational company of world significance,” Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said in comments carried Tuesday evening by the Interfax news agency.
Foreigners now are barred from owning local stock in Gazprom, which is the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe and controls 10 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves.
While an estimated 6 percent to 8 percent of local Gazprom stock is owned by foreigners domestically through various indirect schemes, only 4.42 percent of the company’s shares trades on foreign stock exchanges – at a considerable premium.
Gazprom will swap 10.7 percent of its stock for 100 percent of Rosneft, according Gazprom chief executive officer Alexei Miller. The government currently owns 39 percent of Gazprom.
“This is a deal that the market has been waiting for for a long time. It will be a real locomotive for the whole Russian stock market,” Miller said. The acquisition should be completed by the end of the year, he said.
Chief strategist at Alfa Bank Chris Weafer said the merger laid the foundations for the creation of a state-controlled energy giant that could eventually include Yuganskneftegaz, a 1 million barrel per day subsidiary belonging to the beleaguered Yukos oil giant, which is being prepared for sale by authorities to help satisfy Yukos’ massive back-tax debts.
In light of the Kremlin’s legal clampdown on Yukos, whose value has collapsed by 75 percent since its $45 billion peak capitalization, the news that Gazprom reform was under way was particularly heartening for investors.
The government prosecution of oil giant Yukos and its jailed billionaire owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky for alleged fraud and tax abuse has been widely viewed as retribution for Khodorkovsky’s political activities.
“I would say this is a watershed moment for the Russian stock market,” said William Browder, chief executive officer at Hermitage Capital Management, which has $1.5 billion under management from U.S. and European investors.
“From the beginning of the stock market’s histoRy in 1992 there has been this phenomenon where the country’s biggest and most important company was closed to foreign money,” he said. “This will effectively open the market to a huge amount of Western money.”
The swap will also boost Gazprom’s oil output from some 220,000 barrels per day to about 1 million, Miller told news agencies. The combined company will have an estimated 652.7 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves and 2.4 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, Dow Jones NewsWires reported.
Shares in Gazprom closed up 15 percent at 67.73 rubles ($2.30) on Moscow’s RTS exchange.
AP-ES-09-14-04 1507EDT
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBMFR5F4ZD.html
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
Aired September 14, 2004 – 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
excerpt from
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0409/14/ldt.00.html
ANNOUNCER: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT continues with more news, debate and opinion. Here now, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: The United States tonight is reacting skeptically to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to massively overhaul Russia’s political system. Putin says the changes are needed to fight rising radical Islamist terrorism in Russia, most recently citing the murder of hundreds of schoolchildren in Beslan.
The overhaul would consolidate Putin’s power over regional governments, concentrate political power within the Kremlin. Secretary of State Colin Powell today told Reuters News Agency that the plan pulls back on some of Russia’s democratic reform.
Joining me now for more on the impact of Russia’s moves, Graham Allison, professor of international security at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard university, joining us from Boston; from Washington, D.C., Anatol Levin, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment.
Thank you both for being here.
Let me begin, if I may, Anatol. The moves by Putin following the massacre in Beslan, the terrorists and separatist movements within Chechnya, is he justified to make these moves in your judgment?
ANATOL LEVIN, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: No, on the whole not. There are justifications for them, but I think, in general, they’re unwise and potentially very dangerous because by trying to impose much closer central rule on Russia’s ethnic autonomous republics in particular, he risks spreading ethnic unrest to parts of the Russian federation which so far have actually lived pretty contentedly and very peacefully within Russia.
So I think that this is very dangerous, it’s very counterproductive, and, above all, it doesn’t really answer the threat of Chechen terrorism and Islamist terrorism and, above all, it doesn’t answer catastrophic failings of the Russian security forces.
DOBBS: Graham Allison, do you agree?
GRAHAM ALLISON, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I do. I think that this is an instance in which Putin is exploiting a tragedy to consolidate power in a manner that has nothing whatever to do with the failures of the approach to Chechnya that he’s been taking and it will have no impact on that problem.
DOBBS: You’re both dubious of the effectiveness of this move by Putin. So we’re left with a number of unresolved issues, in your judgment, it seems, if I understand you correctly.
One, it doesn’t really respond or resolve the Chechnyan issue for the Russians. Secondly, it’s ineffective in the war against radical Islamist terrorism. And, thirdly, it certainly creates great ambiguity about Russia’s commitment to democratic reform or a suggestion, if you will, that they’re headed back toward communism.
Can it be said that strongly, Anatol?
LEVIN: They’re certainly not headed back toward communism. After all, the world is full of semi-authoritarian states with free market systems, many of them, it must be said, allies of the United States.
Putin is in no sense a communist, but I think he has been very much influenced by two things. One is the really disastrous decline of Russia under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, which he associates — and, to some extent, it must be said rightly — with the collapse of central state power and an anarchy of competing jurisdictions in Russia.
DOBBS: Well, if I may say, Anatol, just to be — if I may interject, historically here, the fact is the collapse occurred before the market reforms. It simply accelerated the decline, but the decline was well in place, the collapse.
LEVIN: Well, the collapse of the Soviet Union did, but Putin, for example, would also associate the Yeltsin period with, for example, the plundering of the Russian state by powerful polyarchical businessmen.
DOBBS: Sure.
LEVIN: But, secondly, you see, Putin — and it must be said a lot of people around the world — have been very heavily influenced by the tremendous success of the authoritarian Chinese state in developing China.
DOBBS: I thought that was — I thought the Chinese were your reference at the outset.
LEVIN: Well, absolutely.
DOBBS: Let me ask Graham Allison very quickly, if I may, Anatol, I — what are the implications here for the United States? The contact between our countries, Secretary of State Powell has been in Russia over the course of the past three and a half years, six times. Not a decidedly active relationship, if one judges it on that basis.
What is the implication here for the relationship 20 United States and Russia going forward?
ALLISON: Well, I think the bottom line here is that Putin has a failed strategy in dealing with Chechnya, and a failed strategy in dealing with terrorism. And this is exacerbating the problem, certainly not helping it. So, I think that the issue for the U.S. as we think about Russia and our stakes in Russia, is whether we can help Putin better understand that the hand that he’s currently playing is simply not working. And stand back a little bit and try to figure out whether there is a better alternative, which I think there is.
DOBBS: Would you like to be the U.S. representative who approaches Vladimir Putin to say, “Mr. President, you don’t quite have the firm grip that the United States does on international policy and we think we have the better answer for you.”
Anatol, would you like to be that person.
LEVIN: Well, no, I am sure the regulation government would reply. The U.S. is not doing too well in Iraq. I prefer to be the U.S. representative in Russia than I would be the Russian president. You know, with all of the criticism one can justly make of Putin. You know, he is ruling an extremely difficult country. And many of the decisions he has to make are very difficult.
DOBBS: Gentlemen, we thank you both. Graham Allison and we thank you very much, Anatol Levin, for being with us.
more analysis by Myers.
I’ll use the archive urls here whenever the “url translator” will give them to me (Sean-Paul, they are the long ones, with “userland” at the end, those will give you access after it goes to archive):
New York Times
September 15
NEWS ANALYSIS
From Those Putin Would Weaken, Praise
By STEVEN LEE MYERS in Moscow
The reaction to Vladimir V. Putin’s plan to overhaul Russia’s political system swept away any doubts about his grip on power.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/international/europe/15russia.html?ex=1252900800&en=e5ff9ecdae
f537d9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
The Chechen’s Story: From Unrivaled Guerrilla Leader to the Terror of Russia
By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: September 15, 2004
MOSCOW, Sept. 14
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/international/europe/15chechen.html
Graphic to go with above: Russia’s Most Wanted, Basayev
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2004/09/14/international/15CHECH-GRAPH.html
Powell Offers New Criticism of Putin Limits on Reforms
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: September 15, 2004
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 -
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/politics/15reax.html?ex=1252900800&en=f2c606dca46b10b0&ei=
5090&partner=rssuserland
Schools in Beslan Delay Reopening
By REUTERS
Published: September 15, 2004
MOSCOW, Sept. 14
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/international/europe/15schools.html
Critics Say Putin Must Address Security Corruption
Comments Follow Move To Centralize Authority
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 15, 2004; Page A17
MOSCOW, Sept. 14 — President Vladimir Putin’s move to enhance his power in response to a wave of terrorism does not take on the real problem: the corrupt and unreformed security services that produced Putin in the first place, according to many politicians and analysts….
continued @
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21515-2004Sep14.html
especially cause it got put in Global War on Terror Section:
Yeltsin fears for Russia freedoms
(Global War On Terror, All Topics)
posted by Mark on 09/16/2004 08:37:19 PM EDT
http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/9/16/173719/568
note that there are different interpretations there on what Yeltsin said; WaPo said he was supportive of Putin.
Chechen rebel claims Beslan siege
BBC News – 36 minutes ago
Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the Beslan school siege, in which more than 320 hostages were killed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3664864.stm
Posted on Fri, Sep. 17, 2004
Leader Says Rebels Responsible for Siege
Associated Press
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/9685207.htm?1c
MOSCOW – Radical Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev purportedly took responsibility Friday for a recent series of terrorist attacks in Russia but put ultimate blame for a school massacre on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a letter posted Friday on the Kavkaz-Center Web site, Basayev said he had sent a letter to Putin proposing “independence (for Chechnya) in exchange for security.” It was impossible to confirm whether the letter was genuine, but the Web site is considered a mouthpiece for Basayev and his previous claims of responsibility have appeared there.
He said that if Russia withdrew its troops, Chechnya would neither support nor finance groups fighting Russia, and “we can guarantee that all of Russia’s Muslims refrain from armed methods of struggle against the Russian Federation, at least for 10-15 years, on condition that freedom of religion (as is guaranteed in the Russian Federation) be respected.
Basayev said his band was responsible for an August explosion at a bus stop outside Moscow, the near-simultaneous bombings of two planes the same night, a suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station a week later, and the school hostage-taking that ended in a hail of gunfire and explosions. More than 430 people have been killed in the attacks.
“A terrible tragedy occurred in the city of Beslan; the Kremlin vampire destroyed and wounded 1,000 children and adults, giving the ordering to storm the school for the sake of imperial ambitions and the preservation of his own throne,” Basayev wrote.
but right now the English version of site is loading very slowly, and I don’t know if it actually is posted on the English version of the site yet? Maybe it is not translated?
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/
entry page:
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/
overwhelmed. I got a white page with “cannot get data.” On the entry page, you get “The page cannot be displayed…” in IE. Will try again tomorrow, or maybe a news story will post the letter in full.
Still, it would be interesting to see how they present it at Kavkaz, BECAUSE all their stories to date have been pushing conspiracy theories for Beslan, either that it is all Putin’s fault the way it ended up, and he did it on purpose, or, that it actually was all a KGB plot kinda stuff.
So now it’s a 180 degree turn by having the big cheese accept responsibility…
unfortunately because they link to drudge!!
at present on the main page:
if I clicked on any of those links, then I would get “can’t get data.”
Also the page itself will load sometimes, other times not. Right now not.
AND looks like it matters not, though! Because I suspect it’s not there in English, probably only on the Russian site. I did manage to get the “Chechnya” page on the English menu, and it wasn’t there either.
No time to translate but Poland is dealing with a growing influx of Chechen refugees. About 3500 this year, 300 of them in the past two weeks and reports of more in the pipeline (they come by train and bus). These are official ‘refugee’ status application numbers. There may be more who’ve come in completely under the radar.
One of many Polish language stories on the subject can be found
here
September 17, 2004
Chechen Leader Said to Take Credit for School Siege in Russia
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:38 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-School-Seizure.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
&position=
MOSCOW (AP) — Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev purportedly took responsibility Friday for a bloody school siege and other recent terrorist attacks that have killed more than 430 people, but put ultimate blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an e-mail posted Friday on the Kavkaz-Center Web site, Basayev defended the Sept. 1-3 school siege in Beslan, which ended with the deaths of about 338 people, including many children. It wasn’t possible to confirm the letter’s authenticity, though it was similar to previous ones believed posted by Basayev.
The letter, addressed to Putin, offered Basayev’s own account about the raid, and even supported one of the Russian government’s most controversial and disputed claims: that Arabs were among the hostage takers.
“A terrible tragedy occurred in the city of Beslan; the Kremlin vampire destroyed and wounded 1,000 children and adults, giving the ordering to storm the school for the sake of imperial ambitions and the preservation of his own throne,” Basayev purportedly wrote.
The e-mail said there were 33 attackers including 10 Chechen men, two Chechen women, nine Ingush, three ethnic Russians, two Arabs, and five other Russian citizens from various ethnic groups. Russian authorities have said there were 32 attackers, all but one of whom had been killed. One was captured and is giving evidence.
He said he personally had trained the attackers for 10 days in a forest outside the village of Batako-Yurt, 12 miles outside Beslan. He denied any of the fighters had objected when they found out children would be among the hostages — contradicting Russian reports that one militant had killed another who protested.
Basayev said his brigade was responsible for an August explosion at a bus stop outside Moscow, the near-simultaneous bombings of two planes the same night, a suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station a week later, and the school hostage-taking in Beslan.
More than 430 people were killed in the attacks.
The letter was signed by Basayev’s nom de guerre, “Abdallakh Shamil, Emir of the Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs’ Brigade.” The site where it appeared is widely considered a mouthpiece for Basayev, and his previous claims of responsibility have appeared there.
Russian leaders said repeatedly that they had not planned to storm the school, where the attackers had rigged bombs surrounding about 1,200 hostages.
According to Russian officials and witnesses, emergency crews had gone in to collect the bodies of slain hostages when some of the bombs blew up accidentally and gunmen opened fire on hostages who tried to flee. Only then, they said, did special forces troops launch their assault.
Basayev rejected that claim. The letter said that the emergency crews were actually security service officers, and that the explosions rang out only after those workers had yelled “Run out!” to the hostages.
Basayev also tied the attacks directly to the Chechen war. Russia withdrew troops after a stalemate with Chechen rebels in 1997 and then returned under Putin in 1999.
“We regret what happened in Beslan. It’s simply that the war, which Putin declared on us five years ago, which has destroyed more than 40,000 Chechen children and crippled more than 5,000 of them, has gone back to where it started from,” he wrote.
He also denied Russian claims that he receives money from al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden, and said he had received only $10,000 from abroad this year. The weapons, truck and explosives had been stolen from Russian arsenals — or, as he put it sarcastically, “deducted from the Russian budget.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told reporters Friday that despite their claims, the Chechen rebels are “fed from abroad.”
“We are convinced that this is part of the chain of international terrorist activity,” Yakovenko said.
Almost immediately after the Beslan tragedy, Russia claimed Basayev and another Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, orchestrated the attack. Putin announced a $10 million reward for their arrest.
Basayev said his fighters had presented several demands to resolve the standoff, including the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and independence for the republic.
But Basayev clearly would have known Russia would never agree to the demands, which included Putin’s resignation. Putin has ruled out any negotiations with Chechen rebels, insisting that the war-battered region is returning to normalcy under the Kremlin’s twin programs of vesting increasing authority in elected Chechen officials and law enforcement services and reconstruction.
Basayev’s letter said he sent his message to Putin through former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev — a respected regional figure who successfully negotiated freedom for 26 of the hostages — and North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov.
The Federal Security Service’s spokesman in Chechnya, Maj.-Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, said authorities had known “long ago” that Basayev was responsible for the series of attacks. The Beslan attack could have been planned only by a warlord of Basayev’s rank because the group that carried it out was a “combined force from various bands,” he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Shabalkin also said he was convinced that Maskhadov — who is considered outside Russia as more moderate than Basayev — knew in advance of the attacks, even if he wasn’t directly involved. He said the two rebel leaders played “good cop, bad cop” — with Maskhadov distancing himself and Basayev frequently taking the blame.
Shabalkin also said that the security service had detained an Algerian mercenary, identified as Kamal Urakhli, who had served as an explosives expert in Basayev’s group. Urakhli had lived in Great Britain for about 10 years, he said in remarks broadcast on Russian television.
Russian officials have berated Britain for giving refuge to Maskhadov emissary Akhmad Zakayev, saying they have given him a tribune to spread rebel propaganda. The Foreign Ministry summoned the British charge d’affaires, Steven Wordsworth, on Thursday to protest the “intensification of the anti-Russian actions” of Zakayev and another exile from Russia, Boris Berezovsky, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Chechen Rebel Takes Credit for Recent Attacks in Russia
By C. J. CHIVERS September 17 5:07 PM ET
Shamil Basayev has taken responsibility for planning acts of terror that killed more than 440 people since August.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/international/europe/17CND-RUSS.html?hp
earlier version above
New York Times
September 18, 2004
Chechen Rebel Grimly Vows More Attacks
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/international/europe/18russia.html?hp
(photo portrait @ url)
MOSCOW, Sept. 17 – Shamil Basayev, the elusive Chechen guerrilla commander who has become Russia’s most wanted man, has claimed responsibility for planning acts of terror that have killed more than 440 people here since August and is threatening more attacks, according to a statement released on a separatist Web site on Friday.
In a lengthy letter posted early Friday morning, Mr. Basayev said his group, the Riyadus-Salakhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs, “had carried out a number of successful combat operations on the territory of Russia.”
He then listed the acts that have unnerved the nation since Aug. 24 : two bombs in Moscow, the in-flight destruction of two passenger jets and the siege of a public school in Beslan, in which hundreds of children were injured or killed.
Mr. Basayev’s statement was defiant and mostly unrepentant, describing in detail elements of the planning for the terror acts, rebutting portions of official accounts and vowing that violence would continue, no matter the impression that Chechens leave on the world.
He briefly expressed regret at the deaths of children – “We are sorry for what happened,” the statement said at one point – but insisted his followers had not shot children or used them for cover. And rather than blame the captors who held children at gunpoint amid a network of bombs, he placed fault for the ensuing death toll on Russian forces, which he accused of staging a botched assault.
His tone was unrepentant at the end. “The fight against us continues without any rules with the connivance of the entire world, so we are not bound by any obligations with anyone and we shall fight the way we find comfortable and beneficial,” the statement said.
“We do not have any options,” it continued. “We are offered a war and we shall continue waging it to the victory, whatever is said about us or whatever labels are stuck on us.”
Mr. Basayev’s statement circulated on a day that President Vladimir V. Putin intimated that the use of force against the terrorist group might be imminent. “We in Russia are engaged in serious preparations at the moment to act against terrorists in a preventive manner,” he said at a conference of mayors here.
Since the siege in Beslan Mr. Putin has acted similarly to the way President Bush did after the attacks in the United States in 2001, saying Russia will conduct military operations on foreign soil if necessary to thwart terrorist attacks. His remarks today left open the possibility of a strike anywhere.
“The front line of this war that has been imposed on us can transit every street and every house,” he said, according to Interfax. “This war has no rear and neutral zones, and terrorists set up their bases and coordinating centers in areas where they are not rebuffed.”
The letter attributed to Mr. Basayev was posted in Russian on the Web site. Although its authenticity could not be confirmed today, in the past the site, operated in part from Lithuania, has carried exclusive material from Mr. Basayev. The posting provoked a stinging reaction on Friday from Russian and other officials, who treated it as if it were real.
Lithuania announced that it would move to shut the Web site down, and in an appearance in Warsaw, Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, called Mr. Basayev “inhuman” and “not worthy of existence,” according to wire reports.
The letter also evoked dismay among Chechens. One of Mr. Basayev’s former staff members, who worked for him when he held government office in Chechnya in 1998, said the war he waged was counterproductive, making life more difficult for the people he claims to defend.
“There are consequences for this for Chechens, and not only those who live in Chechnya, but those in Moscow or other parts of Russia, even those who live in Europe,” said the former staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears for her safety.
Several Russian officials blasted Mr. Basayev as well, saying that while they believed he was responsible for the attacks he was not trustworthy on details, among them his claim that he was not collaborating with international terrorist groups.
Mr. Basayev, 39, once a celebrated nationalist fighter who evolved during more than a decade of war into an underground leader who mixes Chechen separatism with militant Islam, insisted in the statement that he had planned and paid for the attacks without international help. His claim seemed intended to counter allegations by the Kremlin and Russian security services that he has been doing the bidding of Al Qaeda.
“I am not acquainted with bin Laden,” he wrote. He said he had “personally prepared this group for 10 days in the forest,” and had underwritten all the attacks for slightly more than $20,000, using weapons, vehicles and explosives looted during previous raids.
He also said 33 militants had seized Middle School No. 1, including 2 Arabs. An official from the Federal Security Service had said after the final battle that 10 Arabs were among the corpses, but evidence of them has not materialized publicly to date, and Russian officials have been backing away from that claim.
There were marks of Mr. Basayev’s sarcastic style in the statement today. The letter referred to Russia as “Rusnya,” a sneering form that he has used in the past. In a fashion also characteristic of Mr. Basayev, the screed included Islamic references but was overwhelmingly focused on regional and national concerns. “Chechens fight only against Rusnya for their freedom and independence,” it said.
And in the macabre humor typical of Mr. Basayev, the statement claimed that bombs in the planes and in Moscow were “our early voting for Alkhanov,” a reference to Alu Alkhanov, a Kremlin loyalist who won the Chechen presidency on Aug. 29 in an election regarded as rigged.
Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for President Putin, said the allegations against the Kremlin and Russia’s security services did not merit a reply.
“We feel it is completely unnecessary to respond to any statement made by a terrorist, a terrorist who accepts responsibility for murdering children,” he said.
He then said that two elements of the statement were false. First, Mr. Peskov said, no matter the statement’s claim, Mr. Basayev must raise his money either through crime or international donors. “When he is talking about his money, it is black money,” he said.
He also said Russian authorities had not planned to assault the school, but rushed the gymnasium only after bombs had exploded inside – a description witnesses have generally confirmed. “Those who were there in Beslan saw this with their own eyes,” Mr. Peskov said.
Russia has put a $10.3 million bounty on Mr. Basayev. Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for counterterrorism forces in the North Caucasus, said in a telephone interview today that tips were coming in. “I think we will catch him and try him,” he said. He added that the search was proving difficult thus far.
Russia’s Media: Through the Looking Glass
by Vladimir Vedrashko and Katya Zapletnyuk
17 September 2004
Russian newspapers asked some of the questions they should have about Beslan, but found few answers.
It has become a litmus test that has revealed the current limits on freedom of speech in Russia. For three days, over 1,200 children and parents were held hostage in North Ossetia; for most of that time, Russian officials knowingly downplayed the numbers, saying there were just 354 in that school in the town of Beslan. Perhaps the oddly precise figure was meant to convince the public of its veracity. But, now that it is clear and admitted by the authorities that Russian officials lied, some of Russia’s media outlets have become critical of the Kremlin.
Even some of the media who had themselves spread the official propaganda have published or aired doubts and puzzled questions. On 5 September, Sergei Brilyov, the presenter of the Vesti nedeli, a weekly current-affairs program, turned to viewers of the television station Rossiya and asked: “Should we pretend that everything is OK, and in a crisis act as if the crisis is not that large? Those who confirmed the official number of hostages–354 people–must have been trying to persuade themselves that the situation is under their control. At such moments society needs the truth.”
Coming from a man who, as well as being a well-known presenter, also manages this state-controlled channel, these were almost revolutionary words, the commentator Irina Petrovskaya wrote in Izvestiya.
“What prevented Vesti Nedeli from informing society of, if not about the whole truth, at least some of it?” asked Petrovskaya.
It was a rhetorical question: the main obstacle was the Kremlin’s complete control of Russian television.
THE HIDDEN CASUALTIES
Neither during nor after the crisis has a single Russian media outlet carried an official statement providing a clear explanation of the situation in Beslan or about the number and nationality of the terrorists, says Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.
Some journalists who would have pressed for clear explanations and published the facts they uncovered may have been unable to, prevented perhaps by the authorities. That may sound like speculation but, given the journalists’ controversial backgrounds, it is also plausible. Andrei Babitsky, who in 2000 was found guilty of using a false passport but whose real crime was–critics assert–his coverage of Chechnya, tried to fly to Beslan but was detained for “hooliganism” by police after three unknown men picked a quarrel with him in a Moscow airport. Anna Politkovskaya, another journalist whose reports on Chechnya have angered officials, fell ill with severe food poisoning during a flight to the Caucasus.
But the majority of journalists who worked in Beslan between the time the hostages were seized, on 1 September, and the time the school was stormed, on 3 September, said that authorities did not actively impede their work. Instead, the journalists encountered more problems with locals angered by the deliberately low hostage figures reported on state-controlled television channels.
Still, it was clear that the authorities were willing to give real information only under heavy pressure. North Ossetia’s president, Aleksandr Dzasokhov, acknowledged that the number of hostages exceeded 900 only after parents of children taken hostage announced that they would make their own lists.
There was also clear hostility from some officials. The head of the local branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Valery Andreev, said on 3 September that “sporadic gun fire on the part of the terrorists were provoked by journalists and local inhabitants who always want to be in the thick of things.”
When the discrepancy between the official and the real number of hostages became clearer to the media (after a group of hostages was released on 2 September), the authorities tried another tack. Lev Dzugaev, the spokesman for the North Ossetian president, and for North Ossetia’s interior minister, Kazbek Dzantiev, held a press briefing at which they asked journalists “for some time not to report to their newsrooms information about what is going on in the city and to consult with the emergency headquarters before release their reports.”
On the same day, an organization grouping together the heads of 24 media outlets (mainly government-controlled) called on all Russian media to observe the guidelines of the domestic Anti-Terrorist Convention adopted after terrorists seized hostages in the Dubrovka theater in Moscow in October 2002.
According to Panfilov, most Russian journalists objected to that convention, seeing it as an attempt by the government to restrict freedom of speech. Even so, Russian journalists had learned much from the coverage of the Dubrovka crisis. “That time, there was much more chaos, and information was broadcast without being checked,” says Andrei Sharyi, deputy director of the Russian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). That was not the case this time.
Petrovskaya also saw a difference. “This time, television channels did not disclose the movements and plans of spetsnaz troops [Russia's elite troops], nor did they spread rumors, air unchecked facts, or give the floor to hostages’ relatives.”
But, as she wrote, “what convention made them spread lies disguised as the `official version’?”
THE UNSEEN CASUALTIES
The consequences of such lies were deadly. According to eye-witnesses, the terrorists became particularly brutal after hearing false accounts of the numbers of hostages being broadcast on television. It was at this point that they began to deny the hostages water. “They want 354, so they will get 354,” terrorists were quoted as saying, indicating that only 354 hostages would be released.
For Petrovskaya, those journalists who reported official lies about the Beslan crisis caused greater harm than those who reported unverified information during the Dubrovka crisis.
Another casualty was a paper that had tried to inform the Russian public about the true scale of the tragedy in Beslan. On 4 September, the Saturday edition of Izvestiya looked unlike any previous edition, carrying huge photographs of wounded children on its front and back pages. On Monday, Izvestiya’s editor-in-chief Raf Shakirov was forced to resign for having failed to provide “proper” coverage of the massacre. “Management of the newspaper and myself failed to agree on the nature of the coverage,” Shakirov told RFE/RL. The management of the newspaper found the coverage “too emotional.”
Another casualty, though, was the media’s (and government’s) credibility. Some papers retained their readers’ trust. “Liberal newspapers, including Moskovskie novosti and Kommersant ask questions such as how the tragedy could have happened and who should be held responsible. They look for answers,” says Sharyi. But those are, as he says, papers for people who themselves ask questions. But only 12 percent of Russians share such liberal ideas, says Sharyi.
Maybe so, but even the majority who do not buy the liberal papers question the state’s version of events. Even though all the media of genuinely mass influence–the television channels–are controlled by the state and carefully censored, the majority of Russians are convinced that information is being concealed from them. Officials may have tried to downplay the crisis, newscasters may have spoken as if the crisis were an ordinary event, and their bosses may have chosen not to change their regular programming–but even the curtailed footage of half-naked fleeing children was enough for many to draw their own conclusions about the gravity of the situation. According to an opinion poll conducted immediately after the crisis by the Independent Analytical Center, only 13 percent of the 1,974 respondents from across Russia were convinced that they were receiving true and accurate information in the state media. About 45 percent felt that some information was being concealed for security reasons, and 22 percent answered that, with some exceptions, all information coming from state media was false. About 18 percent believed that the media consistently reported lies or concealed important facts.
The response to the Beslan tragedy by officials and the media suggests there is a battle underway for the minds of Russian people. The skepticism of Russians indicates that control of most of the media does not mean control of Russians’ minds. And, while the government has been busy cementing over what Russians call the “information field,” green shoots of truthful reporting have surfaced through the cracks. To emerge so strongly in such unfavorable circumstances suggest these shoots are very strong, giving the hope that they can grow further. It is perhaps because of this skepticism and the reports such as Izvestiya’s that Rossiya said that “at such moments a society needs the truth,” and that Putin has now agreed to what he had originally refused: a parliamentary investigation into the handling of the crisis.
But, with Putin now calling national unity a top priority and assuming even greater control over the regions, the question is whether even more total control of the media is likely–and whether in the future the authorities would more actively prevent journalists from doing their job. But, as things stand now, in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy, the government’s credibility is at stake. The Kremlin immediately organized a rally against terrorism, reportedly attended by 130,000 people; but there has perhaps never been a “massive public protest” organized by the Kremlin that looked so hollow.
Vladimir Vedrashko is co-founder of the Moscow-based Human Rights Publishers. Among its publications is the quarterly human-rights journal Pravozashchitnik. Katya Zapletnyuk is a TOL correspondent.
Transitions
Russian Coverage: Where the Missing May Have Gone
by Nikolai Gritchin and Vadim Rechkalov
17 September 2004
An account of the events in Beslan that may have angered the Kremlin. From Izvestiya.
Editor’s note: Under pressure from the Kremlin, the editor-in-chief of a leading Russian daily, Izvestiya, was sacked for his paper’s coverage of the tragedy in Beslan on 6 September. To provide TOL readers with an idea of the type of coverage that the Kremlin was unhappy with, we have translated an account of the hostage crisis published in Izvestiya in which its correspondents question the official account and offer their own conclusions on some of the key issues and rumors raised by the crisis. This article appeared in Izvestiya on 6 September.
BESLAN, Russia–Some 338 dead, 435 injured and about 200 missing: that is the result of the drama in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, where terrorists on 1 September seized a school and took hostage over a thousand children. Today and 7 September have been declared days of mourning in Russia. Izvestiya’s correspondents in Beslan have conducted their own investigation and have tried to find out where the missing have gone, who began the storming of the school, and whether it would have been possible to reach an agreement with the militants.
“IF SOMEONE HAD NOT OPENED FIRE, EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN ALL RIGHT”
The official version, given by Deputy General Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky, is that “events did not develop according to the plans of the authorities who were in charge of the situation. The events developed spontaneously, and were started by the bandits, as two explosions followed by shots fired at the backs of escaping hostages forced [the authorities] to take appropriate measures…” This version is unlikely to change because those who started the shooting will carry the responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of children. Izvestiya’s correspondents in Beslan have conducted their own investigation and have concluded that it was not the special services who had begun the storm. Members of the spetsnaz [commandos] of the FSB [Federal Security Service] were at the time training in a building of a similar school. It seems highly likely that is was the parents of children taken hostage who began to shoot at the militants
So, who shot first?
The official information is that on 3 September, first, an explosion was heard in the school, then shooting began, which turned into fierce fighting that ended only at 23:00 when, in a house neighboring the school into which the terrorists had moved, flame throwers killed the last two last bandits.
At 13:10 Izvestiya correspondents were relatively close to the school. One of us was inside the cordon that had been created 200 meters around the gym, and two others were walking and were just planning to cross the railway line to reach the town’s hospital, where corpses from the school were due to be delivered after a handover agreed with the militants the day before. We heard very well how everything began. There was no initial explosion. What came first was a burst of sub-machine gunfire, which became more and more intensive. And only some time later–maybe seconds later, maybe a minute later–there was an explosion.
Most likely, it was people within the cordon who opened fire. They could have been the local armed volunteers who, from the first day of the siege, had been watching anyone who approached the school. They had hunting rifles and automatic guns. Very likely, one of them lost self-control and fired. Having heard shooting, the militants thought that storm began and started firing at the employees of the Emergency Situations Ministry who had come to take away the corpses of the hostages who had been shot.
Two Emergency Ministry men, 45-year-old Valery Zamaraev and 41-year-old Dmitry Kormilin, died. This is what one of the surviving rescuers told us anonymously.
“It was a simply a trap, to take dead bodies. Why did they need professionals to take away corpses? They could have left them lying there. I had a direct telephone connection to the leader [of the terrorists]. He said: “No ugly men [FSB agents] should come with you.” We drove a truck in, opened the doors, opened the flaps on the side, showed that it was empty, brought the corpse of one fighter to the porch; they were afraid to take them away themselves from some open area. Then the doctor went with them round the corner, and we remained standing by a fence with our hands up. And then some shooting began. There was no explosion before that. After that, the militants began shooting at us. If that someone had not opened fire, everything would have been all right. We had reached an ordinary type of agreement with the fighters. We were absolutely convinced that we would return.”
“HE HAD A TYPICAL CHECHEN APPEARANCE”
Was there some chance of reaching an agreement with the terrorists and to let them go, exchanging children, for example, for politicians and officials?
Probably yes.
According to people who directly or indirectly communicated with the bandits (the Emergency Ministry employee already mentioned, some of the hostages), the terrorists were not completely crazy. There was a chance of reaching an agreement with them because, at the least, they had entered into some talks. They had released 26 people, women with young babies. They had agreed to hand over dead bodies.
A professional mediator tries first of all to ascertain what a criminal’s motivations are. Is it an idea, some drug-induced intoxication, or something else, such as money, that is driving them? This is how one of the hostages, 12-year-old Dzera Dzestelova, describes the terrorists.
“On the first day there were some 10 fighters in the gym, among them two women,” Dzena says. “The women came along towards evening or the following day, I can’t remember. They wore belts with explosives; they were dressed in all black, in headscarves covering their faces up to their eyes. Each woman kept one hand on the belt at all times and the other on a pistol. They said not a word all that time. But judging by the way they moved, their figures, they were about 25 years old, not older. Unlike the women, all the men immediately took off their masks. They did not take them entirely off, but lifted them up and wore them like ordinary caps. The leader of the militants looked 40 years old. He was about as tall as my mother, some 179 centimeters. As skinny as a skeleton. When he entered, his right hand was bloody. Doctor Larisa was in the gym; she bandaged him up. He was not very malicious, even if he was the leader. He wore a black cap, from under which you could see his hair, and he had a brownish beard. He wore tracksuit bottoms and black jogging shoes with three gold stripes, and he had a camouflage jacket that reached down to his knees. He fired only two times in all that time. At first he walked with a gun but then, when everyone had calmed down, without any gun at all. There was another who was very malicious. At every trifle, he fired his sub-machine gun. People were frightened. He had a beard. He was kind of short, 1 meter 60 centimeters. And there was one who was kind. One woman even told him: `You are kind.’ At that, he shouted: `Don’t speak to me!’ There were women with babies, and babies cry all the time, they don’t understand, they want to eat. So that fighter came up to one of the babies and even tried to calm him down. He said: `Don’t cry.’ But the baby did not calm down. How can you calm down when such a frightening man comes up to you? He had no beard or moustache. And he had a scar on his neck, as if his throat had been cut before. There was also a fighter named Isa; tall, well-set, with a short beard. They said on television that an Ossetian, Valery Khodov, was among the militants. I don’t know. There was a boy; he was about 19 years old, not older. No beard, an ordinary haircut; he didn’t look like a militant. He could even have been an Ossetian. They hardly used each others’ names. Only a couple of times, accidentally. One of the men had a strange name, Safila. And I was amazed that they each had a toothbrush and toothpaste sticking out of the breast pocket, along with chargers, grenades, and knives. When I saw [the toothbrushes] I began paying attention to their teeth. A choice selection; all had even, white, hard teeth. All, except the leader and this Ossetian boy, were about 27-30, not older. I can’t say any more about them. They did not like it when someone looked at them. So I did not examine them closely.”
We do not know for certain, what Dr [Leonid] Roshal and General [Ruslan] Aushev talked to the bandits about [Roshal and Aushev were called in as negotiators]. But we know the content of a conversation between a terrorist and one of the hostages, 15-year-old Santa Zangiyeva, who managed to engage one of the terrorists in conversation on the second day of the siege.
“He was a thin, tall man, about 35 years old,” Samanta told us. “A Chechen, judging by the accent. And not only by the accent. I can’t explain it, but he had a typically Chechen appearance. You know, they have people of that light type, blue-eyed and red-haired. He had a red beard. His right hand was bandaged. I think I know where he injured it. When he drove us into the school. There was a throng near the doors and he broke the windows and pushed the children inside, through them. That man was the most malicious of our captors. He hardly let anyone go to the toilet, he threatened us constantly, and fired at the ceiling with a sub-machine gun. I felt ill from the stuffiness. I sometimes lost consciousness, and my mother asked him to lead me out to the corridor to get a breath of air. Surprisingly, he agreed. In the corridor I felt sick, my legs nearly gave way. I almost sat on a tall green rucksack, one of those along the wall in the corridor. But he said: `Don’t sit on that one, there are bombs in it; sit on this one.’ And he pointed to a place next to him. So we were sitting next to each other on rucksacks. Soon I came to my senses and became so brave that I asked him: `Young man, will you let us go, at least the children?’
When I asked about the children I meant not only the little ones, but those like me. He answered sharply: “No.”
`And why?’
`Your Russian troops in Chechnya are catching such as you and cutting their heads. I had a daughter of roughly your age. They killed her.’
`And why don’t you let us drink?’
`Putin wants to kill us. He has poisoned the water pipes so that we die. One of our people drank from it and poisoned himself.’
`Why do you treat us so badly?’
`And where did you ever hear that hostages are treated well? All right, that’s enough, you’re irritating me, go away.’
I stood up and went to the gym. But the bandit suddenly stopped me and asked if I had a handkerchief. You should wet it, he said. You can wipe your face with a wet handkerchief, suck out moisture from it, and it will be a bit easier to sit in the gym for a while. But I didn’t have a handkerchief on me. When I returned home I saw on television the corpses of the bandits lying in the schoolyard. The red-haired one with the bandaged hand was among them. If they had been taken alive and I’d been given a sub-machine gun, I would shoot them without a second thought.”
It is evident from this fragment that at least one of the bandits, and not the calmest of them, had quite an understandable psychological motive–the death of his daughter. How it would be possible to use that motivation to help the hostages, we do not know. For that type of thing there are professional psychologists and mediators. And they had something to talk with that terrorist about.
Among the hostages were the son and daughter of Taimuraz Mamsurov, the chairman of the parliament in the republic [of North Ossetia].
“The militants somehow identified Mamsurov’s children at once,” says one of the hostages, Fatima Zandiyeva, who is about 35. “The militants kept that boy and girl in special conditions. From time to time, the bandits led them away from the gym to talk on the phone with their parents. Once, Mamsurov’s son asked one of the militants: `You won’t kill us?’ `We won’t if your father does everything we demand.’ `Papa will do anything,’ the boy said. After those words, one of the militants kissed the boy. I don’t know what it was they wanted from Teimuraz Mamsurov. The terrorists had told us they were demanding the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya, the release of militants from European jails, and a plane.”
It is evident from this fragment that, despite the assertions of the crisis-management center that the bandits did not make any demands, there were probably some demands. The words of Fatima Zandiyeva about the plane are indirectly verified by the fact that they seized a school in Beslan, and it is not more than eight kilometers from the school to the Vladikavkaz airport. To where the terrorists would have flown, in what country they were awaited, is another question. But again, seen from this point of view, their plan does not look absurd.
WHERE THE MISSING COULD BE MISSING
How many hostages were there? How many died, and where are those who are missing?
The number of hostages taken is one of the main questions. At first, the difference between the official and unofficial estimates of the number of hostages ran into the hundreds. The day after the school was stormed, Lev Dzugayev, the press officer of the president of North Ossetia, said that there had been over a thousand hostages.
“There were some 800 people in the gym, no fewer,” says 12-year-old Dzera Dzestelova says. “Of those, up to 20 were teachers. Including the headmistress, Lidiya Alexandrovna. There were very many first-graders and children up to 12 years old. Those were in a majority. There were only some 15 senior pupils. The rest of the senior pupils were in the assembly hall on the second floor above the dining hall. Our headmaster was led out and we learned that from her. In the gym we sat on the floor, at least three people per square meter, with our legs and hands amongst others, sitting in this manner. There were also hostages in a training hall, adjacent to the gym.”
As this paper went to print, the authorities in North Ossetia were reporting informed that about 338 were dead and approximately 200 missing.
Izvestiya’s correspondents have examined the site of the fight and came to the following conclusions. The militants may have led some of the hostages to a two-storey house next to the school. The gym and the two-storey house are about 40 meters apart. The house is now almost entirely destroyed. The militants fought there until nearly 23:00 on 3 September. It is possible to assume that some missing hostages lie under its debris.
THE RUMORS: TRUTH AND FICTION
Immediately after the storm several rumors began to spread around the town and were immediately picked up by the media. We have tried to verify or refute them.
One of the main rumors is that after the storming of the school, some of the militants–particularly the women–ran out with the hostages and disappeared into the city.
“The women with suicide belts were in the gym with us for only one day,” 12-year-old Dzera Dzestelova says. “They led the women and girls out to the toilet. Then they went away and that night we heard an explosion in a small building for the first grades. It was so strong that those who were by the door were even thrown by the force of the blast.”
Our sources in the crisis-management center told us on 2 September that two women had been killed in fighting or by mishandling their weapons. Another female militant was killed during the storm. She was allegedly on the roof of the school. Commandos saw a fourth female militant running from the school with a machine-gun. She was not firing, but was simply carrying the machine-gun. She was killed immediately. Izvestiya correspondents on 4 September had a chance to look at the corpses of the terrorists lying in the schoolyard. Twenty of them were laid out in a row and there were six more closed in plastic bags beside them. We did not see any women among the corpses, or, rather, we could not distinguish them from the men, as the corpses were so damaged. But the corpses of the women were perhaps in the closed bags.
It was clear from there that it would have been practically impossible to break through the cordon. As well as the federal troops controlling the exits, there were also locals.
Local people are said to have beaten to death two men who were allegedly militants, though they may not have been.
This is true. This is what eyewitnesses told Izvestiya.
“On 3 September, at approximately 16:00, while the fighting was still going on, while we removed injured children, near the hospital locals stopped a militia car carrying an injured man suspected of being a militant,” says Irbek, a taxi driver. “One of the volunteers fired at the roof of the car with a rifle. The car stopped. The people attacked it, grabbed the suspect, and beat him to death. But he was probably a militant. He shouted out that he was an Ossetian, a brother. But he uttered this as if was poem that he’d learned off by heart. It was clear from his accent that he was not an Ossetian. He was tall, unshaven, wearing rather dirty clothes, about 40 years old. The militiamen cried: “What are you doing? This is mob rule, we will investigate this!” But no one paid attention to them. They killed him and then said: investigate. He was still twitching, but he was already a corpse. The militiamen took him by his legs and arms and threw him into the car. Men who were waiting for their children killed him. There were some three hundred of them. But not all of them beat him, only those who managed to squeeze through.”
“It occurred about 17:00 on 3 September, near the school,” says [another man,] Fyodor. “The fighting was still continuing. People were hiding behind fences. And suddenly they all rushed to one place. They fell on someone and began beating him with their legs. From their shouts, I understood that it was a militant. People formed a circle, kicked him some times and left to give everyone else a chance to join in. When the crowd stepped aside, I saw an absolutely naked body that showed no sign of life. Only on his hands did he have anything–gloves, like those a driver wears. And there were traces of camouflage on his legs. He as a young man with long, dark curling hair, I would say, with a foppish appearance. Smoothly shaven, maybe an Arab. While they were beating him, an ambulance reversed towards him. It took the corpse away.”
As for the rumor about a black terrorist, we did not see one among the dead bodies of the militants. This is what one of the local fighters told us.
“He wasn’t a black man,” our interlocutor told us. “He simply began to rot from the heat, his body became darker. He’d been lying there since 1 September. [A man named] Ashot had killed him. Ashot’s birthday was on 1 September, but he had to work that day. He’s standing at home, ironing the trousers of his uniform, when he hears some shooting. They had a training room near the school, a school fence, an acacia tree. Ashot ran there, parted the leaves on the acacia, saw the militants passing some packages through a window. They all climbed in, but the last one was still in the street. Ashot emptied nearly all the ammunition of his Makarov [pistol] on him. He fell where he stood. The militants began firing back, but Ashot hid behind a concrete breeze block. And then he hurried off to the police station.”
This reference to packages partly refutes another rumor, that the militants had stored all the weapons in the school in advance.
Some migrant workers carried out reconstruction work in the school in the summer. Locals suspect them of cooperating with the militants. But, according to our sources in the operational headquarters, the militants came to Beslan on 1 September in two vehicles, a GAZ-66 truck and a Gazel truck. They had weapons such as these with them: large-caliber Kalashnikov machine guns, sub-machine guns with grenade cup dischargers, pistols, antitank mortars, Mukha grenade launchers, grenades, and about 20 kilograms of explosives and ammunition. All this could well be delivered in two cars.
Practically from the first day of the school siege the authorities began declaring that some known militants were among the terrorists. Particularly, the notorious Magomed Yevloyev [leader of a rebel group and a man who, in June, Russian authorities said they had killed], also known as Magas, and [Iznaur] Kodzoyev and Vladimir Khodov. As far as we know, these people have not yet been identified among the dead. They may have been cited because they are known terrorist figures, are on the federal wanted list, and theoretically they could be expected to take part in any terrorist act.
And one more terrible rumor is that the militants raped some of the hostages.
These rumors emerged when, in the early minutes of the fighting, the bodies of some children who were naked or had only the remnants of clothing were carried out.
“It is all lies about rape,” a tenth-grader, Inna Arkova, who was one of the hostages, told Izvestiya. “They were naked because it was so hot in the gym, so stuffy, that many were sitting only in panties.”
Transitions
the soldier’s story here:
Why a Russian Soldier can’t forget his military service (trans) (The Russian Federation, All Topics)
posted by Marek on 09/18/2004 03:45:59 PM EDT
http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/9/18/123329/954
I remembered this article on icons being made of Russian “martyrs” to the Chechan war:
NEW YORK TIMES
KURILOVO JOURNAL
From Village Boy to Soldier, Martyr and, Many Say, Saint
By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 21, 2003
http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=14208
and it made me think, my god, what is going to happen with the “martyrs” of Beslan? What myths are they going to be made into?
We already saw the photographers making Pieta Madonnas of the mothers–two examples here:
http://scoop.agonist.org/comments/2004/8/31/234236/733/55#55
What I fear from all of this is that Putin will ramp up the whole “war of civilizations”, i.e. “war of religions” meme, whip it up, demogogue-style. (Exactly playing into what Osama wants.)
Already you see in the icon story, nearly a year ago, the myth vs. the reality of Marek’s story. A demagogue could do a lot with this.
The shocking thing to me about it all is the strength of it in Russian culture. One would think that after going through what they did with Afghanistan that there would be very little mythologizing of the soldier by Russians.
So how dangerous is the reaction to Beslan? That is what I would watch for.
links to most of the good Chechan stories on the old Bulletin Board, here:
http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=17152
Just got reminded of it looking the above up. Worth a gander for material.
Nice thoughtful summary/analysis piece by Steven Lee Myers.
Maps are EXCELLENT with great articles within the images, be sure to take a look as they are too wide to post as images here. I think because I was able to get the archive url on the Myers article, one should be able to access those links past archive time as well; and I will put the direct links to them here.
New York Times Week in Review 9/19
DARK AGE
Putin Gambles on Raw Power
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
The response of Vladimir V. Putin after the school siege in Beslan dashed hopes that Russia had left behind its history of authoritarianism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/weekinreview/19myer.html?ex=1253332800&en=fe18f5e33f84a490&
;ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
Map: Russia’s Ethnic Jigsaw Puzzle
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/09/18/weekinreview/nwr_RUSSIAmap_040919.gif
Map: Piecing Together the Caucasus
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/09/18/weekinreview/nwr_CAUCASUS_040919.gif
Interactive Feature: Terror in Russia
this I cannot get an url for because it is Macromedia Flash; you get a link to it on the page
Los Angeles Times
September 19
Whispered in Russia: Democracy Is Finished
By Kim Murphy
Some fear that Putin’s response to attacks has little to do with terror and everything to do with expanding the government’s power.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-putin19sep19,1,1418022.story?coll=la-headlines-w
orld
New York Times
September 20, 2004
In Ethnic Tinderbox, Fear of Revenge for School Killings
By SETH MYDANS
James Hill for The New York Times
An Ingush woman at a camp for Ingush refugees in North Ossetia. She and 1,200 other Ingush have lived here for 12 years after fleeing violence.
KARTSA, Russia, Sept. 19 – As grief begins to mutate into anger two weeks after the mass killings in Beslan, this drab little town not far away waits in fear for possible reprisals.
The people here are ethnic Ingush. The victims of the killings were mostly Ossetians. The feuds and hatreds between the groups go back too far to calculate.
Little has been made public about the backgrounds of the attackers, and none have been identified as Ingush, but there seems to be no doubt in the minds of the people of Beslan.
“Ingushis!” shouted a group of mourners when asked this weekend who was responsible. “Ingushis killed our children!”
The people of Kartsa knew this would happen and began to feel the danger even before the hostage-taking ended Sept. 3, said Zarema Tochiyeva, 40, a French teacher. “The word is that the Ossetians are preparing to attack us here,” she said. “To them, Ingush is not a nationality but an enemy. Monsters. That’s it. Once they’ve decided on that, they don’t need to think any further.”
The two peoples fought a brief, brutal war just 12 years ago and Kartsa, a lonely enclave of about 5,000 people, still bears the scars in ruined and abandoned buildings.
Both here and in Beslan, people are talking about Oct. 13, the end of a 40-day mourning period, when the traditional moment comes to contemplate revenge. Already, a local Ingush doctor said, there have been small eruptions of violence in almost every village in the Prigorodny region, disputed land along the border with Ingushetia.
Ms. Tochiyeva said some families were fleeing across the border into Ingushetia. Police officers at checkpoints have become more nervous, and border crossing points have been reinforced. The local agricultural institute has given its students an indefinite leave, residents said.
The fear now, expressed even by President Vladimir V. Putin, is that fighting could spread through the North Caucasus region of Russia, expanding the war in Chechnya and re-igniting other simmering conflicts.
“This is a rich, fertile ground for the growth of extremist propaganda and the recruitment of new supporters of terror,” he said after the Beslan killings. “The North Caucasus is a key strategic region for Russia. It is a victim of terrorism and also a springboard for it.”
Like a number of experts on the region, Mr. Putin suggested that touching off conflict might have been the aim of the people who seized the Beslan school, killing more than 300 people, half of them children. He said the attackers hoped to “rupture the fragile balance” of ethnic and religious differences in the region.
Kartsa and the nearby Ingush enclave of Mayski are the tinderbox. “It would take just one match and this whole place would go up in flames,” said a policeman on the road into town. Already in recent months killings, kidnappings and bombings have increased in the republic of Ingushetia, which lies between North Ossetia and Chechnya, where a brutal 10-year war continues with no end in sight.
On June 22, hundreds of well-armed rebels took over part of Ingushetia’s capital, Nazran, raided an armory and killed up to 100 people before withdrawing into the hills.
Long-running ethnic tensions have intensified recently in Dagestan, across the eastern border of Chechnya, where Chechen rebels briefly took over two villages in 1999.
To the west of North Ossetia, deeply rooted ethnic tensions divide two other republics whose names alone suggest the complexity of the region – Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
“The unique danger in my judgment is that there is a ‘Chechen fuse’ running to other ethnic conflicts,” said Clifford Kupchan, vice president and senior fellow at the Nixon Center, a foreign policy research institute in Washington, in an e-mail interview. He said the Beslan siege might have been part of an attempt to ignite that fuse.
The most recent grievances in North Ossetia are a direct result of the brutality of Stalin, who deported the Ingush and Chechens to Central Asia in 1944 and gave parts of Ingush land to the Ossetians. The exiles returned in the mid-1950′s, after Stalin’s death, and many reclaimed their homes. But the Prigorodny region remained in dispute, and open warfare flared in 1992. Hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands of Ingush became refugees.
Local enmities are age-old. Russian attempts to subdue Chechnya and the Northeast Caucasus may be newer, but they go back for two centuries, since Gen. Aleksei Yermolov tried the same strong-arm approach that is failing today.
“I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses,” he wrote to the czar in 1816.
He added a thought that Mr. Putin might embrace, “Moderation in the eyes of the Asiatics is a sign of weakness, and out of pure humanity I am inexorably severe.”
One hostage-taker who has been identified was a hardened rebel who had been tortured so horribly by Russian soldiers that his father said he had gone mad, said Tanya Lokshina, a leading human rights campaigner with the Moscow Helsinki Group. The Beslan siege appears to have been his response.
The writer Mikhail Lermontov, who traveled the Caucasus in the 19th century, seems to have met people like this. In a poem, he wrote, “Friendship is true – revenge is truer still; There, good for good is paid, and blood for blood.”
In a shed in Beslan not far from the school where their families died, a dozen mourners – men and women in black – gathered under two bare light bulbs to eat and talk. Their hatred for the Ingush was fierce.
“No one is going to forgive, that’s certain,” said Robert Khodov, 37, a truck driver. “This is the Caucasus. That doesn’t happen.” He said it was forbidden to touch a weapon during the mourning period. “But wait till the 40 days are over,” he said, and made a cutting motion with one hand across the palm of the other.
New York Times
September 20, 2004
Intimidation Alleged in Vote in Kazakhstan
By CHRISTOPHER PALA
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/international/asia/20kazak.html
ALMATY, Kazakhstan, Sept. 19 – Kazakhstan voted for a largely toothless Parliament on Sunday in an election marred by low turnout, widespread irregularities and a climate of intimidation.
Human rights monitors said the election contradicted government promises that Kazakhstan, an oil-producing nation nearly four times the size of Texas, was slowly moving toward democracy.
The election was held under a new law praised for bringing Kazakhstan closer to international standards than most former Soviet republics.
But Dos Kushyn, the director of the Network of Independent Monitors, which placed 2,000 observers around the country, said after polls closed: “I have never seen such a degree of unreadiness and focused falsification among the electoral commissions. In the last elections, there were violations, but nothing like this.”
Acacia Shields, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in an interview in Almaty: “This election really discredits Kazakhstan’s bid to be known as the democracy of Central Asia. It sets a sour precedent for upcoming elections throughout the region.”
About 330 foreign observers working under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are expected to deliver their assessment on Monday afternoon, after the results are known.
Kazakhstan, a multiethnic Muslim nation where more than a third of the population is Russian, has religious freedom, a well-managed economy and strong economic growth. Political killings are unknown, and the only political prisoner was allowed to leave prison for house arrest so he could resume running the main opposition party, Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan.
The new election law was a result of international and domestic pressure on the government of President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. It included a provision for computer voting in some urban precincts.
Voters cast a ballot for one of 12 parties but were not told who was running on each party list. They also voted for one of as many as 20 candidates but were not shown which party, if any, the candidates represented.
The system is “complicated and cumbersome,” said Patrick Merloe, director of election programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington.
The computerized system also raised fears that the government could know how everyone had voted.
Yulia, 19, a kindergarten teacher who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used, said her school director had gathered all the teachers and told them to call their students’ parents and tell them that they must vote for a pro-presidential candidate, or their children would face expulsion.
“She told us to vote for this woman, and she said that she would know how we voted,” Yulia said with disgust.
Kanat, 21, a geography student who also spoke on the condition that only his first name be used, said the 200 residents of his student housing unit had been told that if they did not vote for the candidate of the president’s party, Otan, they would lose their housing.
“I voted for an opposition party because I’m in my fourth year and I have my opinions, but I think the younger students all voted for Otan out of fear,” he said.
Tom Bridle, of the National Democratic Institute, said, “We’ve observed a climate of intimidation all day set by local officials that really undermine confidence in the fairness of these elections.”
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBRMGQ6DZD.html
Lithuania Shuts Down Pro-Chechen Web Site, Starts Investigation
The Associated Press
Published: Sep 20, 2004
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) – A pro-independence Chechen Web site was shut down by the Lithuanian government, officials said on Monday, two days after a message claiming responsibility for the school massacre in southern Russia was posted on it.
Lithuania’s State Security Department on Monday began investigating the site, which is hosted by Elneta, an Internet service provider in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
The company’s director, Rimantas Pasys, was questioned by security officials but was not arrested, security spokesman Vytautas Makauskas said.
The site – http://www.kavkazcenter.com – is regarded as a clearing house for pro-Chechen information and a mouthpiece for Chechen rebel leaders battling Russian troops in the breakaway province. The site is based on a server in the apartment of renowned Soviet-era dissident and political prisoner Viktoras Petkus.
It disappeared from the Web over the weekend except for a short announcement in English, Russian and Turkish saying the site was blocked.
On Friday, the site posted a letter – purportedly by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev – in which he claimed responsibility for the three-day siege of a Russian school in Beslan this month. More than 330 people died in the standoff, nearly half of them children.
It was impossible to confirm whether the letter on the Web site was genuine, but Basayev’s previous claims of responsibility have appeared there.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBRMGQ6DZD.html
From Pravda but interesting as far as media
No more reports on terrorism?!
09/20/2004 16:08
Informational taboo in mass media will enable authorities to conceal a great deal of information pertaining to terrorist acts.
State Duma may limit the amount of information that gets transmitted through electronic media in times of terrorist acts involving hostages. According to the “Echo of Moscow”, special Duma’s Committee of Informational Politics has already come up with certain amendments on such account. They mainly concern radio and television. Reporters may be forbidden to comment on anything regarding rescuing of hostages, until the operation is over. According to committee deputy chief Alexander Krutov, it is a known fact that terrorists watch all news channels and, states the delegate, journalists act as terrorists” press-secretaries.
The state has once attempted to administer such regulations after the “Nord-Ost” tragedy. One cannot possibly forget the enraged Russian president, rebuking directors of TV stations. Back then, NTV was criticized the most. As a result, media giants had no other choice but to adopt the antiterrorist convention, which limited the amount of information of terrorist acts to be broadcasted. Afterwards, in early August of 2004, Television committee has adopted the so-called linguistic censorship. Reporters and news anchors of Russia”s leading channels were no longer allowed to use certain words and phrases; instead, they had to choose appropriate synonyms. Such phrases as “bank crisis”, “elimination of state benefits”, and such words as “killer”, “Shakhid”, “Chechnya” were considered inappropriate by the committee to be used on air.
Well, that’s quite understandable: television is state-owned and has to accomplish those goals proposed by the government. Another issue is of interest though: Where is non-governmental, i.e. independent television then? Unfortunately, today the situation is such that a director of any TV channel, who does not wish to get in trouble and to have his license confiscated, has to adhere to self-censorship. The licensing law in turn is such that one can effortlessly nag at anything if one so wishes.
In general, censorship can be quite helpful at times. Oftentimes, even the most truthful statement made in a timely manner can make society panic, which obviously, rarely results in anything good. Nevertheless, people want to know what”s happening; they also want to be certain that they are told the truth. That’s where the conflict emerges.
Let’s see what sociologists have to say in regards to this matter. Based on the official results of the recent Public Opinion Survey, 62% of respondents agreed with state censorship of television programs. Whereas among the youngest group of respondents (ages 18-24) only 49% of respondents supported state censorship, an older group of respondents (60 and up) had 71% of pro-censorship individuals.
At the same time, it would be incorrect to assume that all Russians approve media censorship. Topics that should be censored however are sex, pornography (36%), as well as abuse of any sort, violence, crime (32%). Many people also wanted to “rid television” from advertising (22%). It is basically “moral censorship” that is at stake here, not some dissidence on TV.
Expert’s opinion:
“Arguments concerning the issue of whether or not it is appropriate to broadcast images of mutilated bodies, blood etc. have been going on for the past 50 years or so. The issue still has not been resolved.” “On the other hand, people have a right to know. On the other hand however, we cannot allow explicit images of violence to trigger sadistic instinct in people.
At the same time it is also a known fact that frequent depiction of violence on screen somewhat numbs people”s ability to be sympathetic,” considers head of the department of psychoanalysis of the Institute of Psychology Mikhail Romashkevich.
Yegor Belous
Read the original in Russian: http://politics.pravda.ru/politics/2004/1/1/6/18059_TSENZURATV.html (Translated by: Anna Ossipova)
censorship like this could, for example, stop the internet beheadings, and many of the Islamic (not the local) kidnappings,
IF ONLY the whole world went along with it,
that’s the kicker!
This is the foolish Soviet attitude, that one can control information, that people won’t hear of things somehow. Makes for mistrust of government and conspiracy theorizing, is the problem.
(Interesting also that somehow, some way, North Korea has managed to be one of the few to truly stay sealed off from the world and be able to do this.)
Russia
Volume 8 Number 179
Monday, 20 September 2004
previous issue
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/1-rus.asp
NOTE TO READERS:
KAZAKHSTAN VOTES 2004 — Get all the info on the candidates and parties in the upcoming Kazakh elections. Go to: http://www.rferl.org/specials/kazakhelections/
MOSCOW TO URGE EXPANSION OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told “Kommersant-Daily” on 20 September that Russia intends to lobby for changes in the structure of the UN Security Council. Lavrov is scheduled to address the UN’s 59th General Assembly on 23 September. Lavrov complained that virtually all decisions on combating international terrorism are currently being made in the United States, which he said has largely succeeded in imposing its own will on questions regarding Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan. He said that he will propose the creation of a UN-coordinated global threat-response system. The newspaper commented that the goal of the proposal is to place the global struggle against terrorism firmly under UN control and to prevent the United States from using the war on terror to advance its own geopolitical aims. Moscow is prepared to endorse Security Council membership for Germany, Japan, Brazil, and India, the daily reported. RC
SECURITY ORGANS REPORTEDLY THWART MOSCOW CAR-BOMB PLOT…
Authorities in Moscow on the night of 17-18 September apparently prevented one or more terrorist acts, Russian media reported on 20 September. The Federal Security Service (FSB) reportedly found a car laden with explosives, which agents were able to liquidate using robot sappers. According to “Vremya novostei,” the car was reportedly driven into Moscow by St. Petersburg resident Aleksandr Pumane, who is a retired submariner. He was arrested by authorities and, under questioning, allegedly told police about “several other cars” that were being prepared with explosives. Pumane reportedly said that he had been paid $1,000 to park the car on Kutuzovskii Prospekt, in a spot passed regularly by the motorcades of President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials. RC
…AS SUSPECT DIES AFTER THREE-HOUR INTERROGATION
The 38-year-old Pumane was rushed to a Moscow hospital unconscious early in the morning of 18 September after having been questioned by police and FSB agents for more than three hours, gazeta.ru and other Russian media reported. He died shortly thereafter in the emergency room, reportedly suffering from a massive brain hemorrhage, skull fractures, and injuries to his back, stomach, and hips. Moscow city prosecutors have opened a case in connection with the death on charges of exceeding authority and manslaughter. ITAR-TASS reported on 18 September that Pumane died after suffering a heart attack during questioning. It added that Pumane himself had planted the explosives and that he intended for them to explode when guests of the conference of world mayors were scheduled to visit a museum of the Battle of Borodino on 18 September. RC
YUKOS PLAYS HARDBALL WITH EXPORTS TO CHINA
Embattled oil giant Yukos will cut its exports to China by two-thirds because of difficulties it is having paying for transportation costs, “The Moscow Times” reported on 20 September. The company reportedly decided to cut its exports to China from 150,000 barrels per day to 50,000, and the decision comes just one week before Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is due to visit Moscow. Yukos accounts for almost all of Russia’s oil exports to China, the daily reported. “This is a deliberately provocative action by the company at a very sensitive time,” Alfa-Bank strategist Chris Weafer was quoted as saying. “It raises the chances of a retaliatory action by the government.” An unidentified Yukos source told aksnews.ru on 20 September that “as soon as they unfreeze our accounts, we will immediately renew shipments in full.” “We hope the government understands all the risks to the country’s reputation in the event of a disruption of exports,” the source said. “Especially since the exports are being carried out under an intergovernmental agreement.” RC
NEWSPAPER SAYS FRIDINSKII WILL SPECIALIZE IN COUNTERTERRORISM
“Kommersant-Daily” reported on 17 September that Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinskii, who was transferred to Moscow from the Southern Federal District last week, will take the place of retired Deputy Prosecutor General Vasilii Kolmogorov and will specialize in counterterrorism. “Kolmogorov was one of the veterans of the fight against the oligarchs,” an unidentified source in the Prosecutor-General’s Office told the daily. “But priorities have changed today and terrorists have replaced oligarchs as the national threat.” Kolmogorov, who retired in January, was best known for spearheading the case against former oligarch Vladimir Gusinskii. RC
FOUR INJURED IN RACIALLY MOTIVATED ASSAULT IN MOSCOW
Four men from the Caucasus were attacked and beaten on 18 September in a Moscow subway train by a group of 20 to 50 young people, Interfax reported. The four men were hospitalized with contusions and knife wounds, while none of the attackers were captured. Ekho Moskvy reported on 19 September that a case has been opened on charges of inciting ethnic hatred, rather than hooliganism as was previously reported. “Gazeta” reported on 20 September that Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin has apologized to Magomed Tolboev, a Hero of Russia and test pilot from Daghestan who was beaten by two police officers on 9 September (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 10 September 2004). “I wanted an official apology,” Tolboev told the daily. “I got it. I don’t intend to take revenge on anyone.” A police spokeswoman told the daily that the department has received 6,585 complaints about police behavior so far this year. Of these, 2,687 were confirmed by department probes and handed over to prosecutors, leading to 198 criminal cases and charges being filed against 127 officers. RC
FSB OFFICER ARRESTED UNDER SUSPICION HE HELPED CRIMINALS LEAVE THE COUNTRY
An unidentified warrant officer of the FSB’s border service has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion that he helped wanted criminals flee the country, Interfax reported on 20 September, citing a Moscow police spokesman. A Palestinian who owns a small travel agency was also reportedly arrested in a sting operation in which a police agent posing as a wanted criminal ordered a fake passport for $1,500. The report did not say how many criminals might have been helped to escape, but it said that police confiscated 10 blank passports, 30 blank air tickets, and 60 forged stamps from various organizations, including departments of the FSB’s border service. RC
GOVERNORS WEIGH IN ON PROPOSED CHANGES TO ELECTION LAW
Ivanovo Oblast Governor Vladimir Tikhonov has criticized President Putin’s new plans for choosing governors as “a step backward” that would foster corruption, “Izvestiya” reported on 17 September. He warned that if regional legislatures are to elect candidates nominated by the president, politicians will bring “sacks of money” to bribe the bureaucrats who advise the president on potential nominees. Tikhonov blamed current problems with governance on the fact that “democratically elected governors do not posses full power within their region.” According to “Izvestiya,” only two other regional leaders have spoken out against Putin’s proposals: Nenets Autonomous Okrug Governor Vladimir Butov, who is ineligible to run for a third term and has been implicated in several criminal cases, and Murmansk Oblast Governor Yurii Yevdokimov. However, two days after Yevdokimov criticized Putin’s idea, his press service issued a statement saying that he agreed with all of the president’s proposals, “Izvestiya” reported. Tomsk Oblast Governor Viktor Kress on 18 September praised Putin’s proposals but added that governors chosen under the new system should themselves have greater authority over the “power” agencies (silovoi blok) and the branches of federal agencies and ministries in their regions, ORT reported. LB
RECALLED NIZHNII NOVGOROD SENATOR MAY KEEP HIS SEAT
Influential politicians are seeking to block Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast Governor Gennadii Khodyrev’s decision to recall Yevgenii Bushmin, his representative to the Federation Council (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 16 September 2004), regions.ru reported on 19 September. In an open letter to members of the Nizhnii Novgorod legislature, Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov on 18 September warned that recalling Bushmin would “complicate the work of the Federation Council” and “does not serve the interests of Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast.” Bushmin chairs the Federation Council’s Budget Committee, which is working on the 2005 budget. Presidential envoy to the Volga Federal District Sergei Kirienko characterized Khodyrev’s decision as “illogical” and untimely, “Vedomosti” reported on 17 September, citing ITAR-TASS. Yevgenii Lyulin, chairman of Nizhnii Novgorod Oblast’s legislature, told “Vedomosti” that two-thirds of the region’s legislators may vote to block Khodyrev’s decision. Even if they do not, “Vedomosti” speculated that Bushmin may continue to chair the Federation Council’s Budget Committee as a senator from another region. Bushmin told the daily that he had already received such offers from representatives of two regions, which he declined to name. LB
DUMA TO CONSIDER NEW MEDIA RESTRICTIONS
State Duma Information Policy Committee Deputy Chairman Aleksandr Krutov (Motherland) has drafted amendments to Russia’s law on the mass media, which his committee will consider soon, Russian media reported on 17 September. Krutov told Interfax that the amendments would prohibit television networks and radio stations from reporting on hostage crises or counterterrorism operations aimed at freeing hostages. He argued that during such crises, electronic media and television in particular “are in essence mouthpieces, press secretaries of the terrorists.” In contrast, “If a terrorist act is not covered — I emphasize that I am speaking mainly of television — it largely loses its meaning, because the goal of terrorists is to sow fear not only among hostages, but also to have a great resonance in society.” Also on 17 September, a ban came into effect on vendors selling newspapers and magazines inside Moscow metro stations and within a 25-meter radius of metro stations, “Novye izvestiya” reported the same day. The ban is one of the security measures prompted by the 31 August suicide bombing in the metro. A director of a newspaper distribution company predicted that newspaper circulations will “collapse” because of the new restrictions. LB
MEDIA WATCHDOGS DECRY STATE PRESSURE ON JOURNALISTS
The Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES) has presented the OSCE with a report on the work of Russian journalists during the Beslan hostage crisis, Grani.ru reported on 17 September, citing an Ekho Moskvy radio interview with CJES Director Oleg Panfilov. The report describes what Panfilov called “various forms of censorship,” including self-censorship by journalists, censorship by editors, and censorship by owners of media outlets, such as what led to the resignation of “Izvestiya” Editor in Chief Raf Shakirov (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 7 September 2004). Meanwhile, Bulgarian Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman in Office Solomon Pasi told Ekho Moskvy on 17 September that the OSCE will review a report by its own Commission on Media Freedom, which accused the Russian authorities of concealing information about the Beslan tragedy. Also on 17 September, the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers and World Forum of Editors issued an open letter to Putin criticizing government interference with the media, the CJES reported, citing Voice of America’s Russian Service. The open letter argued, “The Russian people have the right to complete information about everything connected to the Beslan tragedy.” LB
REPORT: KREMLIN READY TO PROPOSE ITS CANDIDATE TO TAKE OVER ‘IZVESTIYA’
Ekho Moskvy on 19 September cited an unidentified Kremlin source as saying that the presidential administration intends to recommend that ProfMedia, the media-holding company of oligarch Vladimir Potanin’s Interros group, hire Vitalii Tretyakov as editor in chief of the influential daily “Izvestiya.” Tretyakov, who was the founder and long-time editor of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” and who is now a columnist for “Rossiiskaya gazeta,” told the station that he has received no such offer. Former “Izvestiya” Editor in Chief Shakirov resigned on 6 September over the daily’s coverage of the Beslan hostage drama (see End Note, “RFE/RL Newsline,” 7 September 2004). RC
LIBERALS SEEK REFERENDUM TO END THE DRAFT
The Soldiers’ Mothers Committee, Yabloko, the Union of Rightist Forces, and Free Choice-2008 Committee are seeking to call a referendum on replacing the draft with a professional, all-volunteer army, “Novye izvestiya” reported on 17 September. The drive was prompted by a Defense Ministry proposal to limit military-draft deferments, since demographic trends are reducing the number of draft-age men in Russia (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 20 July 2004). A recent survey by the Levada Analytical Center found 72 percent in favor of a professional army and just 23 percent for preserving the draft. However, a new federal constitutional law on referendums, approved by the parliament this summer, puts huge obstacles before groups wishing to call a referendum, “Novye izvestiya” noted. Among other things, advocates must collect at least 2 million signatures, with no more than 50,000 signatures from any single Russian region, using only registered signature collectors of whom there can be at most 100 in any region. The Central Election Commission, Supreme Court, and Constitutional Court must all approve the wording of the referendum question. Soldiers’ Mothers Committee Chairwoman Valentina Melnikova told “Novye izvestiya” that if they fail to get the referendum on the ballot, they will challenge the law on referendums in the Constitutional Court. LB
LITHUANIA SHUTS DOWN CHECHEN WEBSITE
Lithuania will take steps in the near future to close the Chechen website http://www.kavkaz-center.com, BNS quoted Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas as saying following a Defense Committee meeting in Vilnius on 17 September, Reuters reported. The site, which is sympathetic to the Chechen resistance, posted earlier on 17 September radical field commander Shamil Basaev’s claim of responsibility for the Beslan hostage taking and for the downing on 24 August of two Russian passenger aircraft (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 17 September 2004). On 13 September, the Russian Foreign Ministry formally demanded that Lithuanian Ambassador to Russia Rimantas Sidlauskas see that the site was closed (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 14 September 2004). On 18 September, kavkaz-center.com posted a statement saying that its Internet service provider Elnet has rejected pressure from the Lithuanian security service to close the site, after which Lithuanian Telecom blocked the site’s server. The site’s staff rejected allegations that the posting of Basaev’s statement served to fuel interreligious and interethnic hatred, noting that Basaev sent the same statement by e-mail to numerous other media outlets which have not been subject to similar accusations for publicizing it. LF
OSCE CHAIRMAN VOICES READINESS TO HELP RESOLVE CHECHEN CONFLICT
Bulgarian Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairman in Office Pasi told Ekho Moskvy on 17 September in Moscow that although the OSCE has no mandate to mediate a solution for the Chechen conflict, the OSCE is ready to offer specific proposals for doing so, according to http://www.chechenpress.info on 18 September. “The OSCE could help and catalyze specific processes,” Pasi said. He added that the primary responsibility for finding a solution lies with the conflict participants, and that no international organization can impose a solution against their will. Also on 18 September, ITAR-TASS quoted Pasi as telling journalists while flying back to Sofia that he discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov economic and humanitarian projects that the OSCE is ready to implement in Chechnya. LF
PRO-MOSCOW CHECHENS APPALLED BY PROPOSED PARDON FOR RUSSIAN OFFICER
Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov and State Council speaker Taus Dzhabrailov have both categorically condemned the proposal by the Ulyanovsk pardons commission to pardon Colonel Yurii Budanov, Reuters and chechenpress.info reported on 17 and 19 September respectively. Budanov was sentenced in July 2003 to 10 years’ imprisonment for the rape and murder in early 2000 of a young Chechen woman. Four months ago he filed an application with the Ulyanovsk pardons commission for a pardon, but almost immediately withdrew it (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 28 July 2003 and 18 and 20 May 2004). Dmitrii Kozak, named last week by President Putin as presidential envoy to the South Russia Federal District, told “Vesti nedeli” that such a pardon is a presidential prerogative, and that he does not exclude it in the case of Budanov who, Kozak pointed out, has spent four years in custody, according to http://www.ingushetiya.ru. Kadyrov, for his part, warned that “we shall not allow this criminal to be released,” according to http://www.chechenpress.info. He termed the pardon commission’s proposal “spitting in the souls of the long-suffering Chechen people.” LF
RFE/RFL
Monday, 20 September 2004
Analysis: Terrorism, Common Ground, And The CIS Summit
blurb:
“CIS summits are held regularly, as if they are actually doing something. But do they have any impact?” — Uzbek President Karimov
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/9a889321-6b57-4134-9b8c-5b2181ae98ca.html
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has always been an organization of countries united more by the shared burden of an ambiguous past than by a common vision of the future.
Since it arose on the ruins of the Soviet Union to bring together 12 newly independent states (all of the former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states), the CIS has struggled both to define a clear mission for itself and fashion effective mechanisms to implement the decisions it makes. With Russia now embarking on a war on terror, the 16 September summit of CIS leaders in Astana, Kazakhstan, took place in a changed climate. But as new concerns spring to the fore and old problems continue to bedevil the CIS, member states are increasingly looking elsewhere for solutions.
Ruslan Grinberg, director of the Institute of International Economic and Political Research, wrote in “Nezavisimaya gazeta” on 16 September that “the CIS was never an integrationist group as the phrase is commonly understood. By the logic of the Belovezh [Agreement, which abolished the Soviet Union]…it was necessary to create as quickly as possible in place of the dissolved USSR some kind of a liquidation committee to carry out the divorce proceedings in a more or less manageable fashion. For all its flaws, the CIS coped with this task.”
The organization’s subsequent legacy has been less than inspiring. Uzbek President Islam Karimov indulged his penchant for bluntness and expressed a widely shared frustration with the CIS in the lead-up to the most recent summit. Speaking to Uzbek TV in Tashkent on 15 September before his departure for Astana, Karimov said: “CIS summits are held regularly, as if they are actually doing something. But do they have any impact? I think this is a natural question.” Karimov gave his own response in the form of a chuckle. He summed up, “We pinned great hopes on the CIS. Unfortunately, its activity over the past 13 years has not met our expectations.”"CIS summits are held regularly, as if they are actually doing something. But do they have any impact?” — Uzbek President Karimov
But the 16 September summit, which brought together all of the CIS leaders except Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, collided with events that precluded the pretence of business as usual. Russia, which remains the dominant force in the CIS, suffered a string of terrorist attacks in late August and early September culminating in the horrific bloodbath at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. Against this tragic backdrop, terrorism suddenly loomed as the summit’s inevitable overarching theme.
As expected, the struggle against terrorism dominated the summit’s public statements and agreements. No breakthroughs were forthcoming, although the summit participants signed documents intended to combat illegal migration, organized crime, and drug trafficking. As “Gazeta” noted, the agreements all fit under the general rubric of fighting terrorism through heightened attention to movements of people and money (although the increased surveillance, if implemented, could well hinder the CIS’s long-stated goal of achieving greater integration among member states).
More importantly, the concept of a war on terror set the tone for the summit. A joint statement after the summit read, “The terrorists who have committed crimes against the Russian Federation present an extremely serious danger to all countries of the world without exception. The heads of the CIS member states express their full solidarity with the Russian Federation in its battle against terrorism.”
Although this general consensus did not give rise to a welter of concrete initiatives, two noteworthy statements came from leaders in Central Asia, where terrorism has long been a hot-button issue and the official interpretation of the terrorist threat is closest to that voiced by Russian officials of late — a worldwide jihad fomented by Islamic extremists. Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev told the post-summit news conference that “I am a decisive supporter of a strategy of preemptive strikes,” Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. The comment echoed earlier remarks by Russian General Yurii Baluevskii and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that Russia is prepared, if necessary, to undertake preemptive strikes against terrorist bases anywhere in the world they are located. For his part, Uzbek President Karimov suggested the creation of a CIS-wide list of terrorist organizations and individuals, Interfax reported.
Somewhat lost in the shuffle was one initiative that would normally have led news reports from the summit. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev used his position as host to unveil a sweeping plan to reform the CIS by abolishing a number of ineffective existing bodies and concentrating work around a new Security Council. But with the summit’s primary focus elsewhere, the only reaction to Nazarbaev’s proposals was a commitment to have foreign ministers examine them before next year’s summit in Minsk, Belarus.
The underlying tensions of the CIS peeked out from behind the overall antiterrorism agenda at a contentious post-summit news conference. With journalists’ questions concerned mainly with unresolved conflicts along the CIS’s western flank, from the Caucasus to Transdniester, the session devolved into what “Izvestiya” described as “a competition of barbed remarks, rather polite and decorous, but still representative of competing claims.” The public dialogue so unnerved Karimov that he chided his colleagues, in a probable reference to outspoken Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, for engaging in “self-promotion.”
But if the CIS remains hamstrung by an inefficient structure, the immense difficulty of coordinating decision making among 12 squabble-prone independent states, and a lack of effective mechanisms for ensuring that decisions are carried out, the concerns aired at the CIS summit could well lead to actions outside the organization’s framework. Precedents exist. For example, the oft-noted need for CIS economic integration has found concrete expression in the Single Economic Space (SES) that Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine are trying to establish. At a 15 September meeting on the eve of the CIS leaders’ summit, SES presidents took several steps to move the project along.
When Kyrgyz President Akaev voiced support for preemptive strikes, he put it in the context of a non-CIS organization. Akaev said that he based his support on “the lessons learned from the fight against armed groups of militants in Kyrgyzstan in 1999-2000,” Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. He continued: “But then there was no mechanism to bring into play the high-precision weapons that are needed for preemptive strikes. At present, there is such a mechanism — the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and its rapid-reaction forces in Central Asia.” The CSTO member states are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia, some combination of which may likely be willing to take concrete steps to increase antiterrorism cooperation.”It is important for us that there be no ‘double standards.’ One doesn’t see this within the CIS.” — Russian President Putin
Still, Akaev’s remarks drew a sour response from Uzbek President Karimov, who called Akaev’s faith in military solutions “superficial,” “Vremya novostei” reported. Karimov concluded grimly, “Terrorism today is an all-encompassing ill, a creeping force. If it could be liquidated with missiles, it would be a simple problem to solve. But no one has yet found a solution to the problem of suicide bombers,” Interfax reported.
The clearest indication of where common ground may lie came in a comment by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the post-summit press conference. Putin defined terrorists as “criminals who hide behind political, religious, and nationalistic slogans while they try to accomplish things that have nothing to do with what they proclaim publicly,” Vesti reported. He also noted, “It is important for us that there be no ‘double standards.’ One doesn’t see this within the CIS,” RIA-Novosti reported.
“Double standards” are, of course, a staple of debates over terrorism. Central Asian governments often see double standards in the West’s refusal to accept their definitions of religious extremism and the resultant Western criticism of human rights violations in the course of their efforts to combat extremism. This, it seems, is how President Putin used the phrase — as an implicit criticism of those who disagree with his definition of terrorism. And while he may be exaggerating the extent of agreement throughout the entire CIS, there is considerable affection for this usage of “double standards” among some member states, particularly in Central Asia.
The threat of terrorism is unlikely to revive the CIS. But it may well lead to closer cooperation between Russia and the CIS member states with which it now finds it has both the common cause of fighting terrorism and the common complaint that its definition or terrorism is not universally shared.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2004 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
from the September 21, 2004 edition – http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0921/p01s03-woeu.html
Russia uses KGB playbook on press
Reporters covering Beslan say they were drugged by officials.
By Scott Peterson
MOSCOW – Like scores of her colleagues, Georgian television journalist Nana Lezhava reported on the terrorist school seizure at Beslan.
But her coverage ended in arrest by the FSB, Russia’s security service once known as the KGB. Tests show she was drugged during interrogation – one of several incidents that are raising questions about Russian handling of the media.
Officials have acknowledged deliberately downplaying hostage and casualty numbers. A top newspaper editor in Moscow has been fired for “emotional” coverage; even one of Russia’s state-controlled TV broadcasters has complained of lack of truth. And two known Kremlin critics were prevented from reaching Beslan at all, by KGB-style methods.
“When Nana was interrogated by FSB officials, she was offered a cup of coffee,” says Tudu Kurtgelia, head of news for Georgia’s Rustavi-2 TV. “She was told they added some cognac to the coffee and she lost her senses. She doesn’t remember anything, and only came to a day later, in hospital.”
Hundreds of miles away, on a flight from Moscow to get to the Beslan hostage scene, journalist Anna Politkovskaya asked for tea from a stewardess. After drinking it she lost consciousness, and upon landing was taken to a hospital.
“Somebody did not want me to reach Beslan,” says Ms. Politkovskaya, a writer for Novaya Gazeta and frequent critic of Moscow’s policy in Chechnya, who – because of her contacts with the relatively “moderate” rebel faction of Aslan Maskhadov – had played a mediating role in a previous siege.
In this case, Politkovskaya was on the phone constantly at the airport, perhaps raising official eyebrows as she tried to convince those close to the at-large former Chechen president to intervene in the hostage crisis. “We have old Byzantine traditions to eliminate unwanted people,” says Politkovskaya. “Even a hint from a top official to his subordinates is sometimes enough for them to act.”
Media fallout from Beslan
The two suspected drug cases are part of the media fallout from Beslan, where at least 330 people died, half of them children. While many journalists were able to report the events relatively unhindered, analysts say the stream of official misinformation, incidents of harassment, and suspected druggings have set a new precedent in attempts to control the media.
A nationwide poll of nearly 2,000 Russians found that 85 percent felt they were not receiving the full story; nearly 20 percent said they were constantly being deceived. The irreverent print media – the least controlled format in the country – poured scorn on official versions of events.
Official information was often contradictory or wrong. Initially, aides to President Vladimir Putin listed hostage-takers’ demands; later officials said there were none. The precise figure of 354 hostages was clung to, even as locals said more than 1,200 people were captive.
“A triple credibility gap arose, between the government and the media, between the media and the citizens, and between the government and the people,” notes a report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued last Thursday. “This is a serious drawback for democracy.”
Kommersant-Vlast magazine listed some of the guidelines to limit what the press could and couldn’t report. At NTV, for example, a “semiofficial document” was circulated early in the Beslan crisis, demanding media self-censorship on everything from troops deployed to names and nationalities of witnesses, relatives, and even hostages.
The words “special operation” was prohibited, as was “shahid” [suicide martyr] – a word that, along with the phrase “war in Chechnya,” has already been prohibited on state TV for a year. Forbidden, too, were listing of hostage-takers’ demands and interviews with hostage relatives. Analysis of options to save the hostages, of steps already taken, or reasons for the crisis was also forbidden.
The impact was felt even at Rossiya TV, considered the Kremlin’s mouthpiece, which acknowledged government deception. “At such moments, society needs to know the truth,” Rossiya news anchor Sergei Brilyov announced on air, blaming “generals, the military, and civilians” who refuse to act “until the president gives them the order.”
Debating the role of journalists
These attempts to control the media are sparking a debate in Russia about the role of the media as acts of terror unfold – a debate that raged in October 2002 after Chechens seized a Moscow theater and 800 hostages. Later, broadcasters voluntarily agreed to a list of self-censorship restrictions.
Some critics argue that full disclosure of the facts can be dangerous. “I think this is the kind of lie that saves lives,” says Alexei Pankin, editor of Sreda magazine. “I take it for granted that [authorities] are not competent, and I know that attacking them and revealing they are lying will not make them any better, only more frustrated.”
Journalists have a broader responsibility, too, Mr. Pankin says. The terrorist “objective is to intimidate … by the sheer scope of villainy,” he wrote in a recent editorial. “They are the only ones with an interest in the broadest and fullest coverage of the catastrophe; they murder people precisely in order to get on TV screens and newspaper pages.”
That view differs from results of one call-in poll Friday of more than 3,000 by Ekho Moskvy, Russia’s last independent radio broadcaster. Some 85 percent believe that an uncensored press helps battle terror.
“The authorities were hysterical after the [Beslan] terrorist acts, so they vented their anger on harmless journalists,” says Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. “But Rus- sian journalists didn’t seem to learn how to resist.”
Among those who did is Raf Shakirov, the former chief editor of Izvestia, who was forced to resign after the crisis. The paper’s critical reporting culminated in a powerful day-after issue: The front-page was covered by an image of a rescuer carrying a near-naked schoolgirl; on the back page, one photo of a woman grieving as she touched the head of a dead child.
“I was reproached for coverage that was too emotional, and I was told I should not traumatize people,” says Mr. Shakirov. “Wasn’t it more harmful to ignore information or give wrong information? When they gave wrong figures and said terrorists gave no demands, wasn’t it a threat to hostages’ lives? No doubt it was.”
The media debate is already shifting into Russian politics, where some State Duma deputies want to block press talk of terrorist attacks at all.
“We should make sure that the media do not facilitate terrorist activity and all means are good for this,” Lyubov Sliska, a ranking Duma deputy told one newspaper. “We should not be afraid of the suppression of freedom of speech, the suppression of democracy.”
* Monitor Moscow staffer Olga Podolskaya contributed to this report.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/09/3248599a-e8ea-42aa-acfb-c05426d4feb5.html
Tuesday, 21 September 2004
Analysis: Putin’s ‘Managed’ Investigation Into Beslan
By Robert Coalson
Shortly after the 4 September conclusion of the tragic school hostage taking in Beslan, North Ossetia, President Vladimir Putin said that there would be no public investigation into the incident. Speaking to Western journalists and academics on 6 September, Putin said that he would conduct an internal probe into the matter. He added that if the Duma looked into it, the investigation would become “a political show” and “would not be very effective,” “The Guardian” reported the next day.
A few days later, however, a “political show” of a different sort got under way, Kremlin critics say. Putin held a televised meeting on 10 September with Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov, in which the latter informed him that the Federal Assembly intended to create an interparliamentary commission to probe the affair. Such televised meetings have become a prominent feature of Putin’s post-Beslan management style: on 14 September, for instance, he held a stage-managed meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in which the prime minister “informed” him that Gazprom should be allowed to purchase state oil company Rosneft.
As the cameras rolled, Putin told Mironov on 10 September that “we are all interested in getting a complete and objective picture of the tragic events,” Russian media reported. Putin further said he would order all executive-branch agencies to cooperate with the legislature’s investigation. Although Putin’s apparent volte face might have been prompted by the negative reaction in Russia and the West to his statement rejecting an independent inquiry, no one expected that the meeting with Mironov signaled a real change of heart or strategy.
On 20 September, the Federation Council held a closed-door session during which the composition of the investigating commission was determined. A few days earlier, council Deputy Chairman Aleksandr Torshin told RIA-Novosti that the commission’s schedule had largely been determined, even though its membership had not been named. Torshin emphasized that the legislation governing such commissions is incomplete and that the commission would have no authority to compel senior officials to testify. He added, though, that it might even ask Putin himself to answer questions.
During its 20 September meeting, the Federation Council decided that the commission would comprise 11 council members and 10 Duma deputies and would be headed by Torshin. The 11 council members are: Torshin, Defense and Security Committee member Aleksei Aleksandrov, Constitutional Law Committee Deputy Chairman Leonid Bindar, Industry Committee Deputy Chairman Erik Bugulov, Economy Committee First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Gusev, Legal and Judicial Affairs Committee member Rudik Iskuzhin, Audit Chamber Cooperation Commission Deputy Chairman Yurii Kovalev, Federation Council Affairs Commission Chairman Vladimir Kulakov, CIS Affairs Committee member Oleg Panteleev, Defense Committee Deputy Chairman Vyacheslav Popov, and Constitutional Law Committee Chairman Valerii Fedorov.
The 10 Duma members are expected to be named on 25 September. Seven will represent Unified Russia, with one each from the Communist Party, Motherland, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. “Vremya novostei” and “Nezavisimaya gazeta” noted on 21 September that there will most likely be no independent deputies on the commission, even though independent Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov was the first to call for an independent probe.
Mironov told “Vremya novostei” that commission members were selected in part on the basis of their contacts with the secret services. “People selected for the commission are ones who have a high level of access,” Mironov said. The paper predicted that the Duma representatives would be dominated by Unified Russia loyalists and former security-service figures — “people who won’t ask ‘unnecessary’ questions.”
At a press conference announcing the commission, Mironov stressed that it will not conduct a public investigation. “Commission members will not have the right to publicize information about the progress of the investigation or to comment on it except at official press conferences sanctioned by the commission chairman,” Mironov said, according to km.ru and other Russian media. Mironov said the commission will prepare a final report, but refused to say whether that report will be made public. “Kommersant-Daily” reported on 21 September that Mironov has also ordered that commission members not be allowed to discuss the commission’s work even after the probe is completed without his permission.
The semi-formed commission began work immediately and arrived on 21 September in North Ossetia to begin five days of testimony from local witnesses and officials. However, few analysts expressed confidence that the commission would ever produce definitive answers to lingering questions about the Beslan events, including the identities of the hostage takers, the exact numbers of hostages and victims, what the government’s plans were for either negotiating with the terrorists or storming the building, and how former Ingushetian President Ruslan Aushev was able to negotiate with the hostage takers and to secure the release of 26 of the hostages.
“It will be impossible to have any confidence in this commission and its conclusions,” Ryzhkov told “Nezavisimaya gazeta” on 21 September, “because Unified Russia is compromised by the same authorities who allowed such failures in the North Caucasus and, in particular, in Beslan.”
Other Articles Written By Robert Coalson:
Analysis: A ‘Privatization’ Deal To Create A New State Oil Giant
Analysis: The Kremlin’s Reaction — Stay The Course
Analysis: A War On Terrorists Or A War On Journalists?
Analysis: Russia Girds Itself For War
Analysis: Russia’s Banking Sector — Nervousness Plus Incompetence Equals Crisis?
Analysis: Russia’s Government — Manufacturing Accountability
Analysis: Keeping Yukos Guessing
Analysis: Will The Media Pay For Russia’s Banking Crisis?
Analysis: Crisis Of Confidence In Russia’s Central Bank?
Analysis: Putin Casts His Vote For Bush
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1312202,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704
Russia seeks UN terror listing for Chechens
Associated Press
Friday September 24, 2004
The Guardian
Russia today asked the UN to extend its list of international terrorists to include Chechen rebels.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, urged the international community to treat the rebels in the same way it treats al-Qaida operatives.
“Those who slaughtered children in Beslan and hijacked aeroplanes to attack America are creatures of the same breed,” he said in a forceful speech to the UN general assembly.
“Harbouring terrorists, their henchmen and sponsors undermines the unity and mutual trust of parties to the anti-terrorist front, serves as a justification for their actions and actually encourages them to commit similar crimes in other countries,” he added.
Russia also circulated a draft security council resolution that stressed the need for the 15 member nations to “cooperate fully” in tracking down the perpetrators and organisers of terrorist attacks.
The proposed text would ask the committee that monitors what governments are doing to fight terrorism to consider ways of creating a new list of “individuals, groups and entities involved in or associated with terrorist activities”.
The list would be separate from the one setting out sanctions against al-Qaida and the Taliban, which was drawn up in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US, according to a copy obtained by the Associated Press.
The draft resolution also asked the committee to consider punishments including travel bans, freezing financial assets and “expedited extradition of anyone named in the list”.
The US was reviewing the proposal, said the secretary of state, Colin Powell, who met Mr Lavrov yesterday.
The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, supported the initiative and said Britain would “work closely” with Russia on the wording to prevent terrorists from abusing asylum status. Russia has denounced countries for granting asylum to Chechen leaders it has linked to violence.
“We cannot let terrorists exploit a protection designed for the persecuted, not the persecutors,” Mr Straw said. However, he stressed that no EU member state would return suspects to face the death penalty.
UN diplomats said the resolution was likely to be formally introduced today. Mr Lavrov did not single out any countries in his speech but Russia was particularly upset by the granting of British refugee status to Akhmed Zakayev, an envoy for the Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, and US asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov, whom Mr Maskhadov named as his foreign minister while he was Chechnya’s president in 1999.
The development comes about three weeks after militants staged a series of attacks in Russia, including the hostage crisis at a school in Beslan, in which more than 330 people were killed.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,274248,00.html?
Russians target Caucasus people after terror attacks
Moscow police round up 11,000 people, many of them from the turbulent region, as public sentiment turns against them
MOSCOW – Colonel (Ret) Magomed Tolboyev is a retired Russian air force officer and a decorated test pilot who flew under the cosmonaut programme. He is a recipient of his country’s highest honour, the Hero of Russia award.
But on Sept 8, none of that could compensate for his dark hair and a passport that shows he was born in Dagestan, one of the turbulent republics of the North Caucasus.
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Police at a subway station here demanded to see his documents, as they do of many Caucasian-looking people these days in the wake of a wave of terrorist acts linked to Chechens and other insurgents from the Caucasus.
They grabbed him by his shirt and choked him until he nearly passed out.
‘As an officer, I was deeply insulted,’ he said on Wednesday. ‘I told them (they were young) enough to be one of my children. And that they should salute a colonel when they talk to one, and not stand there nibbling sunflower seeds. But I knew these cops could bundle me into their car, take me away and simply kill me.’
He got an apology from Moscow’s police chief. But thousands of other suspects have not been as fortunate.
In recent days, more than 11,000 people – many of them from Caucasus – have been rounded up by police on charges of living in the capital without legal registration. Nearly 900 had been deported by the middle of this week.
Officials admit it can be hard for people from the Caucasus to obtain the proper documents. But with the attacks so fresh in the memory, there has been little public objection to the arrests.
‘Everybody’s worried. Everybody’s in shock,’ said student Vsevolod Krasnikov, 19. ‘First of all, we need to establish real law and order in Chechnya, because most of the terrorists come from Chechnya. And then we should lock the borders and check out everybody who tries to come here.’
In a survey last month – before a bombing at a Moscow subway, the suicide-bombing of two jets and a mass hostage-taking at a school blamed on Chechen insurgents – 46 per cent of Russians in 128 cities favoured limits on where natives of the Caucasus can reside.
Some legislators now want to prohibit them from entering the capital during periods of terrorist violence.
‘The Constitution defines 31 rights and freedoms, and I think the most important right and freedom is the right to life,’ said Moscow city legislator Yury Popov, who proposed the temporary ban.
‘I think we have a moral obligation to temporarily restrict some other less important rights to assure this most important right, to life.’
For years, visitors from Chechnya and the surrounding republics have been subject to special scrutiny by Moscow police.
But since the school siege in Beslan in the republic of North Ossetia, police have stepped up their surveillance. Some said they tried to stop nearly everyone of dark-haired and dark-skinned appearance.
Thugs, too, are apparently targeting people from the Caucasus. Last Saturday, about 30 young men entered a subway car and beat up three of them.
‘They were picking out the dark-skinned people, but when such a big fight started, other people got beaten, too,’ said Mr Bagrat Pogosian, an Armenian refugee from Azerbaijan, who was wounded. — Los Angeles Times
New York Times
September 25, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Poison Politics in Ukraine
By JASON T. SHAPLEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/opinion/25shaplen_.html
Think this year’s presidential campaign in the United States is nasty? Take a look at politics Ukrainian style. On Sept. 6 the leading opposition candidate in the presidential election disappeared from the campaign trail. The first news of Viktor Yushchenko came a week later: he had been in Austria, recovering from what aides initially thought was acute food poisoning but subsequently said was an attempt on his life. They quoted doctors in Vienna as saying his illness was due to “chemical substances not normally found in food products.” At a rally upon his return to Kiev a week ago, Radio Free Europe reported, Mr. Yushchenko’s face was swollen and half-paralyzed; he had difficulty reading his text and was salivating excessively.
President Leonid Kuchma – who is backing Mr. Yushchenko’s main opponent – laughed off accusations of foul play. The deputy head of his administration went a step further, suggesting that a Yushchenko aide should taste his food for him as they did with rulers in the Middle Ages. For its part, the state-controlled news media reported that Mr. Yushchenko might have had a stroke or heart attack with possibly lingering physical and mental effects.
The accusation of poisoning might seem frivolous were it not for the context of the campaign. The unpopular Mr. Kuchma is not running for a third term. Nonetheless, in a meeting in April, Mr. Kuchma made clear to several foreign policy experts and me that he intended to remain involved in politics after his term expired. In an effort to ensure this, he tried to pass a constitutional amendment in April that would have transferred power from the presidency to the Parliament, which his supporters control. Surprisingly, the amendment failed, falling six votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage.
The Bush administration – while admittedly focused on its own election campaign – should not ignore the Ukrainian contest. It should put more pressure on Mr. Kuchma to ensure free and fair elections, including balanced coverage of the candidates by the government-controlled news media.
This may be easier said than done. After holding Mr. Kuchma at arm’s length for two years (after he was accused of authorizing the sale of Kolchuga aircraft-tracking radar to Iraq), the Bush administration recently began to re-engage him. President Bush met with Mr. Kuchma at a NATO gathering in June, and several other administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, have visited Kiev recently.
The United States’ interest in Ukraine is understandable. It sits at a crossroads with Russia to its east and an expanding Europe to its west. Since the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, Kiev has been engaged in an extraordinary dance between the two. Against the odds, it has made remarkable changes in its military, economic, social and, to a lesser extent, political structure, while keeping both its eastern and western flanks relatively happy.
Its military transformation alone has been stunning: Ukraine has rid itself of all its all tactical and strategic nuclear weapons. In just 13 years, it has also transferred control of its armed forces from military leaders to a civilian defense minister and reduced its armed forces personnel from about 1 million to 350,000 (with further reductions to 200,000 planned by the end of next year). And it has established formal relations with NATO, which it would like to join. In addition to sending troops to Iraq, Ukraine has contributed forces to NATO missions around the world, including Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The changes on the non-military side of the equation have also been impressive. Ukraine’s economy grew more than 8 percent last year, on top of 4 percent growth in 2002 and 9 percent growth in 2001. Inflation has also dropped to single digits from a high of 10,000 percent in 1993. While Kiev is not quite a bustling metropolitan city filled with skyscrapers, high-end restaurants offer food on par with upper-end establishments in New York, middle-aged patrons fill sophisticated jazz clubs at night, and 20-something crowds can be found in the early morning hours on the floors of high-tech dance clubs.
Against such positive changes across so many sectors, the latest efforts by Mr. Kuchma to amend the constitution and the accusations of possible poisoning are troubling. The government-controlled news media’s election coverage is dominated by pictures of Mr. Yushchenko’s opponent, Prime Minister Viktor A. Yanukovich. Still, many people expect the election on Oct. 31 will result in a runoff.
While the Bush administration has carefully dealt with Mr. Kuchma so as not to push him toward Russia’s waiting embrace, it must also address his attempt to cling to power. The United States provided $189 million in aid to Ukraine during the fiscal year that ended last September, including $55 million for democracy programs centered in large part around these presidential elections. Any efforts to disrupt the electoral process should be met with threats of curtailing or suspending current and future aid.
Washington has other tools at its disposal as well. To this day, Ukrainians bridle at the “Little Russia” moniker for their country, as demonstrated by the title of Mr. Kuchma’s very own book, “Ukraine Is Not Russia.” Ukraine desperately wants to be part of NATO and the World Trade Organization, aspirations that Washington could use to encourage Kiev to turn toward the West and democracy. But it must also make clear that regardless of Ukraine’s geopolitical importance it will not shy away from confronting it on matters of principle like free and fair elections.
Jason T. Shaplen writes frequently on foreign policy.
Putin wants Media help against terrorism, but ignores Human Rights abuse!
(24.09.2004)
President Vladimir Putin announced today (Friday) that journalists should use their work to advance the anti-terrorist cause.
He was quoted as saying “It is obvious that the struggle against terrorism cannot be an excuse to infringe upon the freedom and independence of the press…But you yourselves, as professionals, should develop a model of work that would allow media to become an effective instrument in the struggle against terror, which would exclude any, even involuntary, form of assistance to terrorists’ goals”
Putin’s speech at a conference of international news agencies organized by Russia’s ITAR-Tass news agency, followed a recent announcement of political changes in the country. Seen by many as a way of gaining more power for the leader. Putin called for the changes following the Beslan school siege, which cost the lives of more than 300 people (half of these were children).
President Putin continues to talk of Democracy and freedom of the press, yet news stories on State Television are still being censored if they are not favourable to the Kremlin. He claims that the government are ready to work “openly and transparently” but said that the media must also act “with responsibility and truthfulness”. What he really means is, the government will continue to give the information it feels you should hear and the media must support the Kremlin more!
He also called upon journalists not to allow themselves to be used to advance terrorist aims and was critical that some had referred to the kidnappers in the Beslan siege as rebels and not terrorists. Most members of the Media would not think of “advancing” terrorist aims, but at the same time, they will not allow themselves to become the voice of the Kremlin. It is the job of a journalist to tell the news as it is, not the way others think it should be.
more
Full page ad, today’s NYT, page A19,
headline of ad in one-inch type, takes up 1/2 page:
Today, Kazahkhstan
has another
asset besides oil,
gas and minerals.
Democracy.
text of the ad, 2nd 1/2 of page, is 13 short paragraphs arguing that elections were free and fair.
Signed by
THE SENATE OF THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN
For full election results go to http://www.kazelection2004.org
NYT credit in small type at bottom:
Advertisement published by the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 57 Abai Street, Astana 473000, Republic of Kazakhstan. Email: pana@parlam.kz
Analysis: Beyond Beslan, The Caucasus’s Fissures Run Deep
By Jean-Christophe Peuch
Prague, 23 September 2004 (RFE/RL) — Gunmen with links to Chechen separatists seized a school in Russia’s autonomous republic of North Ossetia on 1 September. The three-day hostage crisis ended with the death of more than 330 people, nearly half of them children.
The tragedy — for which radical Chechen field command Shamil Basaev has claimed responsibility — sent a shockwave across the small northern Caucasus republic, which more than a decade ago saw predominantly Orthodox Christian Ossetians clash with minority Muslim Ingush. Although the conflict lasted only six days, it claimed hundreds of lives.
Moscow’s initial claims that some of the Beslan hostage takers were Ingush have sparked concerns that the crisis could rekindle interethnic and interreligious strife in the North Caucasus region.
Convinced that their Ingush neighbors bear responsibility for the Beslan bloodshed, some Ossetians have vowed to retaliate for the death of children and other relatives. Others fear Moscow’s apparent reluctance to shed light on the tragedy might prompt the Ossetians to simply look for scapegoats. As for Vladikavkaz resident Ruslan Bzarov, he believes Ossetians on both sides of the Russian-Georgian border are being victimized.Whatever the consequences of the Beslan tragedy, it will remain a milestone in the Caucasus’s troubled history.
“We Ossetians feel depressed and paralyzed by humiliation,” Bzarov tells RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service. “We understand that what happened did not happen by chance. We are in the center of the Caucasus. For 15 years now, we’ve been struggling so that our people are reunited. First, there were attempts to bring South Ossetia to its knees, then this tragedy in North Ossetia. We were hit because we’re Ossetians. The pain we’re enduring, I think, will force us to assess the situation and stick together,” he adds.
Whatever the consequences of the Beslan tragedy, it will remain a milestone in the Caucasus’s troubled history.
Home to speakers of over 50 languages, this mountainous area had a long record of unrest before the Bolsheviks imposed their rule in the early 1920s. The breakup of the Soviet empire in the late 1980s brought new disturbances and armed rebellions that, for the most part, continue today.
The region, in part, owes its past troubles to its strategic location at the crossroads of civilizations.
Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Khazars, Huns, Mongols, Persians, Seljuks, Arabs, and Ottomans have throughout history partly dominated the Caucasus, giving the region its ethnic, linguistic, and religious complexity.
Then, in the 18th century, came the Russians. And with the Russians more conflict.
Marie Bennigsen-Broxup is a leading expert on the Caucasus and the editor of the London-based “Central Asian Survey” quarterly. She tells RFE/RL that the arrival of the Russians marked a turning point in the region’s history.
“Historically, I think, a first event that would kind of set the tone for future developments was the uprising led by Sheikh Mansur at the end of the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine the Great. Sheikh Mansur was a Chechen and it was under him that for the first time a coalition of northern Caucasus peoples made up exclusively of Muslims fought the advance of Russian troops,” Bennigsen-Broxup says.
“Then, with Georgia asking to join Russia [as protection against the Ottoman Turks], we see a first real cleavage emerge between Muslim and Christian Orthodox nations. It is also around that time that Russia started relying on the partially Christianized Ossetians to expand its territorial conquests [in the north],” she adds.
Sheikh Mansur’s uprising was ruthlessly quelled in the late 1780s-early 1790s and its leader imprisoned in the Schlusselburg fortress.
Unrest resumed a few decades later under the guidance of a Daghestani-born Sufi mullah, known as Imam Shamil. It took Russia nearly a quarter-century to defeat the new rebellion and become the unrivaled power in the region.
Thornike Gordadze, who teaches Caucasus history at the Paris-based Institute of Political Studies, argues Russia’s military power is not the only reason for Shamil’s failure.
“Shamil is the only leader who ever managed — though imperfectly — to unify the North Caucasus against the Russians. But [paradoxically], by dividing its territory into separate regions and trying to impose his own lieutenants at the head of each region, he was also, in a way, responsible for the division and feudalization of the Caucasus. In the final analysis this is what precipitated his political and military end,” he says.
Whatever his errors, Shamil’s legacy remains vivid in the North Caucasus, especially among Chechens.
The aforementioned Shamil Basaev was reportedly named after the legendary Daghestani mullah. Born in Vedeno, near the place where Imam Shamil eventually surrendered to Russian troops in 1859, Basaev reportedly claims ancestry from one of the imam’s Chechen lieutenants.
For most Russians, Basaev is nothing more than a terrorist. But, despite his fighting alongside Moscow-backed Abkhaz separatists in the early 1990s, he is seen by many in the North Caucasus as a symbol of Chechnya’s struggle for independence against Russia.
In December 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered troops to invade Chechnya and bring the breakaway republic back into the fold.
Confronted with a series of military setbacks, the Kremlin agreed to sign a peace agreement in 1996. But war resumed three years later.
The two successive conflicts have already claimed tens of thousands of lives — mostly civilians — and, despite President Vladimir Putin’s assurances, nothing suggests a quick end to the fighting.
For nearly 10 years separatist fighters have been scoffing at Russia, raiding military positions in areas nominally under federal control, and carrying out attacks outside of Chechnya.
Separatist movements had stirred the Caucasus even before Chechnya declared its independence.
In June 1988, Azerbaijan’s predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh demanded to join Soviet Armenia, triggering war between Yerevan and Baku.
Further north, Abkhazia and South Ossetia seceded from the government of Georgia’s nationalist leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia before forcibly winning de facto independence.
Experts believe the Karabakh conflict could have been easily prevented were it not for the Soviet leadership’s failure — whether deliberate or not — to correctly assess political developments in the region.
Moscow, which lent military and political support to both the Abkhaz and South Ossetian separatists, is similarly blamed for Georgia’s separatist conflicts.
But for Ronald Grigor Suny, who teaches Georgian history at the University of Chicago, things are not so clear-cut.
“During the Soviet period, the Abkhaz went through a number of different levels of control over their republic, always, of course, under the ultimate authority of Moscow. Up to the 1930s Abkhazia was a union republic but then, gradually, as you move into the 1930s and on, it lost power [over its territory] as control was taken over by the Georgians and there was a kind of ‘Georgianization’ of Abkhazia. This, of course, led to bad feelings and antagonism and when the Abkhaz had a chance, eventually, they asserted their rights. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Abkhaz became fearful because the empire — the umpire — was gone. They felt they had to reassert their control and they very radically took over their little republic, throwing the Georgians out,” Suny says.
Ethnic and religious diversity is often cited as the main source of unrest in the Caucasus. Georgians and Russians have, in the past, blamed religion for their conflicts with the Abkhaz and Chechens, respectively.
Yet, Suny argues cultural diversity is not enough to spur violence. During the 19th century, Armenians were the predominant ethnic group in the Georgian capital Tiflis and dominated the city’s economic life. Yet, as he points out, peace between Armenians and Georgians prevailed.
“What you have in the Caucasus, even more acutely than almost anywhere else, is a combination of ethnicity, political power, and territorial control. In other words, each little unit is contested by a particular ethnicity that considers that unit to be its national homeland and it doesn’t want interference, or it fears control by another. So you’ve got this very intense struggle where ethnicity, politics, and territory all match — or want to match — each other and you have problems with other peoples who wish they had sovereign control over that area,” Suny says.
Soviet rulers are responsible for what historians call the “ultimate ethnicization” of the Caucasus.
“In the 19th century, especially in the North Caucasus, ethnic borders were extremely blurred and ethnicity was not the most salient identity. People were defining themselves with regard to a particular clan, or village, or ‘cemaat’ (religious community) — as in Daghestan for example — or even to a vague Caucasian or [Circassian] identity. Someone living on the territory of Chechnya was unable to define himself, or herself, as a Chechen, Ingush, or Kabard. Today, ethnicity is really what helps Chechens define themselves and the current ethnic borders that exist [in the region] have been drawn up by the Soviet administration,” Gordadze said.
Soviet leader Josef Stalin further encouraged divisions in the Caucasus by sponsoring scientific studies and population censuses that promoted ethnic identity among its various peoples.
He notably drew an artificial line between Adygeis, Kabards, and Cherkess, who were actually various subgroups of a single northwestern Caucasian people.
Stalin’s “divide and rule” policy culminated in the deportation of entire ethnic groups for alleged collaboration with Nazi occupation troops during World War II.
In 1943 and 1944, hundreds of thousands of Karachais, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Kalmuks, and Meskhetians were forcibly sent to the deserted Central Asian steppes, where many of them died.
Most of these “punished peoples” — as late historian Aleksandr Nekrich once called them — were rehabilitated and allowed to return home after Stalin’s death. Others, like the Meskhetians, are still fighting for rehabilitation and remain scattered throughout the former Soviet Union pending their hypothetical return to southern Georgia.
In parallel to the deportation of entire populations, the Soviet leader ordered that the administrative borders of the Caucasus be redelineated.
The Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic was abolished and part of its territory given to neighboring North Ossetia. When Ingush returned from exile in the late 1950s, many of them discovered that their property had been sold to Ossetians following the transfer of the territory to North Ossetia.
A similar pattern was followed in the Karachai Republic after its predominant ethnic group was deported and parts of the autonomy given to other regions.
Bennigsen-Broxup says that Stalin — by ordering some communities deported while sparing others — sowed ultimate disunion among regional peoples.
“In Kabardino-Balkariya, for example, there is a cleavage between the Kabards and the Balkars. The Kabards consider themselves privileged and ‘morally superior’ to the Balkars because they haven’t been deported. The same goes for the Cherkess and the Karachais. One can also notice the same phenomenon in Daghestan, where people often say the Chechens are ‘bad,’ otherwise they wouldn’t have been deported. Thus I would say the Soviet period turned into enemies peoples who earlier had been governed by some sort of cultural and historical unity and ruled by a common code of honor.”
Demands by the Ingush that Ossetians return lands and houses appropriated during the war paved the way for the 1992 interethnic conflict.
In the restored Karachayevo-Cherkessiya autonomy, tensions brought the republic’s two main communities on the verge of civil strife in the early 1990s.
Stalin’s policy, it could be argued, also had a positive effect since disunion among people in the Caucasus prevented the Chechen war from spreading throughout the region.
Ingush and Daghestanis have resisted Chechen attempts to draw them into the conflict — partly out of fear of a Russian backlash, partly because they did not have particularly warm feelings toward their neighbors.
Yet, the conflict created new fault lines in the region.
Soon after the first Chechen war broke out, radical Salafi preachers arrived in the North Caucasus from the Arab Peninsula and elsewhere to fight Russian troops. Only a few of these clerics are believed to remain in the region today.
But they have left an imprint, especially on young people.
“Starting from the early 1990s, there has been a religious revival which is not a repetition of the traditional religious cleavages of the years 1800-1850 that lasted up to the Soviet period. This reform movement is represented by a few extremely radical groups which have broken away from both the region’s Islamic traditions and the older generations and who believe that the ethnic divides that exist in the region have been imposed upon them by outsiders and must be abolished,” Gordadze says.Stalin — by ordering some communities deported while sparing others — sowed ultimate disunion among regional peoples.
Both economic hardship and social exclusion have helped radical Islamic organizations spread throughout Chechnya, Daghestan, Kabardino-Balkariya, and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya. However, Gordadze believes these groups remain marginal and do not represent a serious threat to the region’s traditional clan-based societies.
“Political Islam somehow remains a minority movement,” Gordadze says. “It is not powerful enough to impose itself upon the North Caucasus society. Yet this movement exists and, of course, the war and the behavior of Russian troops in Chechnya can only add fuel to it. But, as of today, it does not represent a predominant ideology and most people in the Caucasus do not share the world view of these groups.”
Yet, political infighting may prove an additional factor of instability in multiethnic Daghestan. Local leader Magomedali Magomedov has hinted he may retain power — in violation of the constitution that calls for a rotation among representatives of various ethnic groups — this amid a series of political assassinations in Daghestan in recent months.
“We may soon see in Daghestan a combination of ethnic and religious problems. In addition, we should keep in mind that, traditionally, Islamic groups there are much more radical than in Chechnya,” Bennigsen-Broxup says.
Recent wars have already had such devastating effects that restoring peace in neighboring Chechnya looks to be nearly impossible.
“In 1996 I would have certainly said that [peace was still possible],” Bennigsen-Broxup says. “But now we have a situation that is similar to that of Afghanistan. The war has been going on for 10 years almost without interruption. There is an entire generation of Chechens who know only war and that will have devastating consequences even if Russia were to agree to [separatist foreign minister] Ilyas Akhmadov’s plan to deploy an international peacekeeping force. One cannot create a generation which knows only war and hope everything can go well.”
Political developments in Abkhazia, where ailing, pro-Russian leader Vladislav Ardzinba is about to step down, are also a source of concern, as are Georgia’s possible moves to restore control over both the Black Sea province and South Ossetia.
Last month fighting broke out between Georgian troops and South Ossetian armed militias, threatening to degenerate into war.
The Georgian leadership blamed Russia for the unrest, accusing its peacekeeping forces of siding with the separatist leadership and demanding that they leave South Ossetia.
But settling Georgia’s separatist conflicts requires more than just Russian neutrality.
“It is wrong to believe that provided [Tbilisi] manages to strike a deal with Moscow these conflicts will be automatically settled. Separatism is a real issue in Abkhazia. It is, of course, supported by Moscow. But it is also largely founded on the experience of the 1930s and 1940s. Georgia has often in the past denied the existence of the Abkhaz as a distinct people and nation and this is a major concern for the Abkhaz,” Gordadze says.
“Unless the Georgians critically reassess their history and stop being obsessed with Moscow, they will be unable to find a durable solution to these conflicts,” he adds.
Other Articles Written By Jean-Christophe Peuch:
EU Commissioner Says ‘No More Obstacles’ To Entry Talks
Brussels, Ankara Cross Swords Over Legal Reform, Adultery Law
Beslan Hostage Crisis Rekindles Tensions Between Ossetians And Ingush
Russia Weighs In As Fighting Worsens In South Ossetia
Rogue Elements Blamed For South Ossetia Violence
Deadliest Fighting In Years Erupts In South Ossetia
Government Trumpets Victory Over Budget Revenues Amid Legal Concerns
Tensions Flare In Separatist Provinces
Kurdish Issues Dominate Turkish Prime Minister’s Visit To Iran
Meskhetians Setting Off Into New Exile But Vow To Continue Fighting
Thank you!
http://www.eurasianet.net/departments/insight/articles/pp092504.shtml
Interesting rhetoric coming from the Uzbeks: “Recent terrorist acts in the brotherly country of Russia, which killed hundreds of peaceful civilians, once again indicates that terrorism has geographic, religious, and racial attributes.”
Must watch for more of this.
“And this observation is worth watching for more evidence of: But China and Russia have also pushed the SCO to counter increased U.S. influence in Central Asia since the 11 September 2001 attacks on America, which led to U.S. troops deploying to the region for operations in neighboring Afghanistan.”
Include:
Moscow’s initial claims that some of the Beslan hostage takers were Ingush have sparked concerns that the crisis could rekindle interethnic and interreligious strife in the North Caucasus region.
Watch for evidence of this.
Also, next graf, watch for Ossetian retaliation.
And this graf: “Yet, political infighting may prove an additional factor of instability in multiethnic Daghestan. Local leader Magomedali Magomedov has hinted he may retain power — in violation of the constitution that calls for a rotation among representatives of various ethnic groups — this amid a series of political assassinations in Daghestan in recent months.”
Who’s been assasinated? I didn’t hear about this? Must watch for this as well.
Final graf is good as well, vis-a-vis Abkhazia: “”Unless the Georgians critically reassess their history and stop being obsessed with Moscow, they will be unable to find a durable solution to these conflicts,” he adds.”
http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/9/11/112427/043
Russia and the Kavkaz
And:
Azerbaijan, Oil and The Caucasian Strategy
http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/9/27/152558/034
So that I can take them off the hotlist.
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?menu=1&id_issue=10706748
Sep 28 2004 7:10PM
Former Ingush president calls for talks with “moderate” Chechen militants
MOSCOW. Sept 28 (Interfax) – The former president of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, on Tuesday called on the Russian leadership to hold talks with “moderate militants” in Chechnya.
Aushev argued that indiscriminate repressive measures against the separatist movement stimulated radicalization within it.
“Militants in Chechnya are not alike. There are moderate militants, and they make up a majority, and there are radicals,” he told a news conference at the Interfax headquarters in Moscow.
“The more we press everyone indiscriminately, the more radicals we create,” he said.
“There will be no peace in Chechnya without a political dialogue,” he said.
An Open Letter to the Heads of State and Government
Of the European Union and NATO
September 28, 2004
As citizens of the Euro-Atlantic community of democracies, we wish to express our sympathy and solidarity with the people of the Russian Federation in their struggle against terrorism. The mass murderers who seized School No. 1 in Beslan committed a heinous act of terrorism for which there can be no rationale or excuse. While other mass murderers have killed children and unarmed civilians, the calculated targeting of so many innocent children at school is an unprecedented act of barbarism that violates the values and norms of our community and which all civilized nations must condemn.
At the same time, we are deeply concerned that these tragic events are being used to further undermine democracy in Russia. Russia’s democratic institutions have always been weak and fragile. Since becoming President in January 2000, Vladimir Putin has made them even weaker. He has systematically undercut the freedom and independence of the press, destroyed the checks and balances in the Russian federal system, arbitrarily imprisoned both real and imagined political rivals, removed legitimate candidates from electoral ballots, harassed and arrested NGO leaders, and weakened Russia’s political parties. In the wake of the horrific crime in Beslan, President Putin has announced plans to further centralize power and to push through measures that will take Russia a step closer to authoritarian regime.
We are also worried about the deteriorating conduct of Russia in its foreign relations. President Putin’s foreign policy is increasingly marked by a threatening attitude towards Russia’s neighbors and Europe’s energy security, the return of rhetoric of militarism and empire, and by a refusal to comply with Russia’s international treaty obligations. In all aspects of Russian political life, the instruments of state power appear to be being rebuilt and the dominance of the security services to grow. We believe that this conduct cannot be accepted as the foundation of a true partnership between Russia and the democracies of NATO and the European Union.
These moves are only the latest evidence that the present Russian leadership is breaking away from the core democratic values of the Euro-Atlantic community. All too often in the past, the West has remained silent and restrained its criticism in the belief that President Putin’s steps in the wrong direction were temporary and the hope that Russia would soon return to a democratic and pro-Western path. Western leaders continue to embrace President Putin in the face of growing evidence that the country is moving in the wrong direction and that his strategy for fighting terrorism is producing less and less freedom. We firmly believe dictatorship will not and cannot be the answer to Russia’s problems and the very real threats it faces.
The leaders of the West must recognize that our current strategy towards Russia is failing. Our policies have failed to contribute to the democratic Russia we wished for and the people of this great country deserve after all the suffering they have endured. It is time for us to rethink how and to what extent we engage with Putin’s Russia and to put ourselves unambiguously on the side of democratic forces in Russia. At this critical time in history when the West is pushing for democratic change around the world, including in the broader Middle East, it is imperative that we do not look the other way in assessing Moscow’s behaviour or create a double standard for democracy in the countries which lie to Europe’s East. We must speak the truth about what is happening in Russia. We owe it to the victims of Beslan and the tens of thousands of Russian democrats who are still fighting to preserve democracy and human freedom in their country.
Note that while this is a PNAC document and its signers (at the link) include a who’s who of neocons, there are also a good number of decidedly non neocon types – Daalder, Albright, Garton Ash, Odezmir, Holbrooke, Buetikofer, etc.
Putin steamrolls forward with political change
September 29, 2004 Posted: 10:34 Moscow time (06:34 GMT)
See Also: Putin calls for overhaul of government structure | 13-Sep-2004
Putin tightens grip on regions after school siege | 13-Sep-2004
The Kremlin warned local leaders in the regions on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin could sweep them aside if they oppose his radical plans to tighten central control in post-Soviet Russia. Putin, meanwhile, sent a draft law to parliament that will give him the right to nominate regional governors, pushing forward planned changes that could redraw Russia’s political map but which have raised concern in the West.
Despite an outcry from opposition figures and unease even among some of Putin’s own followers, signs were that things were going his way with the main pro-Kremlin United Russia party moving to strengthen control over regional legislatures. The increasingly authoritarian Putin announced plans to nominate the leaders of the 89 regions – now elected and enjoying much power in fiefdoms far from the Kremlin – as part of a drive to reinforce the state in its battle against terrorism.
more at http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=45682
INTERNATIONAL | September 29, 2004
Russia Reluctant to Send Iran to UN Over Uranium
By REUTERS (Reuters) News
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-russia.html
NYT
Negotiator in Russia School Hostage Case Warns Revenge Could Ignite Regional Violence
By SETH MYDANS
Published: September 29, 2004
MOSCOW, Sept. 28 – The official sent by the Kremlin to negotiate with hostage takers in Beslan earlier this month warned Tuesday that violence could explode after the traditional 40-day mourning period for the victims of the Sept. 1 school attack that could cause the Caucasus region of southern Russia to “go up in flames.”
“I have received information that there are certain powers in North Ossetia who want and are calling for the settling of scores with the Ingush as soon as the 40 days pass,” said the official, Ruslan Aushev, the former president of Ingushetia, which borders North Ossetia. In a news conference on Tuesday, his first public appearance since the crisis, he described his part in trying to calm the hostage takers and warned that such violence would only play into the hands of those who organized such attacks.
Enmities between the Ingush and the Ossetia…
continued
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/international/europe/29beslan.html?ex=1254196800&en=8b634684da
5e59f0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
Just posting this article from yesterday because I thought it was strange and could end up meaning something
New York Times
September 29, 2004
Guggenheim Family Says Bidder in Lukoil Auction Is Not Related
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/business/worldbusiness/29lukoil.html?pagewanted=print&position
=
MOSCOW, Sept. 28 – No member of the prominent Guggenheim family of New York is taking part in the auction for a stake in the Russian oil giant Lukoil, a spokesman for the Guggenheim Brothers family investment firm said Tuesday.
The list of bidders for the Wednesday auction of the government’s 7.59 percent stake in Lukoil includes David Guggenheim and his firm, Dabir International. But the Guggenheim family insisted that David Guggenheim had no ties to it.
Dabir first appeared as a bidder for a stake in Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer after Yukos, in August, according to the Russian Federal Property Fund. The main bidder is ConocoPhillips, the American energy company that is widely expected to be the Kremlin-approved winner.
Peter O. Lawson-Johnston, chairman of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, a nonprofit organization, is unhappy about the Guggenheim name showing up in the Lukoil auction, according to his spokesman, Frank J. DiMartino.
Mr. DiMartino said that David Guggenheim of Dabir “has absolutely no affiliation with the Guggenheim family,” including the investment firms Guggenheim Brothers, Guggenheim Capital, and Guggenheim Partners, and philanthropic organizations including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation or the Guggenheim Museum.
It is unclear how David Guggenheim, whose address is listed as Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, is obtaining financing for the minimum Lukoil bid of $1.93 billion.
Someone who answered the telephone at Dabir, and identified himself as a spokesman, said the firm was “a holding company,” and was interested in the oil market in China and the United States, as well.
“The objective is to acquire and secure up to a total of 25 to 30 percent – the government shares in Lukoil plus more,” he said. He declined to identify the source of the firm’s financing or to say if it had other investors.
Cross-link,
Conoco Lukoil deal means a window to Iraq’s oil
Erin Arvedlund & Heather Timmons
posted by artappraiser on 09/30/2004 08:10:55 AM EDT
attached to ConocoPhillips Buys Stake in Lukoil
http://scoop.agonist.org/comments/2004/9/29/54226/0448/1#1
Cross-link,
series of Yukos deal articles by Erin Arvedlund for NYTimes, 9/21 through 9/28:
http://scoop.agonist.org/comments/2004/9/21/104918/547/1#1
Tracing a tragedy
First came the anger and grief, then the questions. Who were these people who could massacre children? Did the roots of the slaughter in Middle School Number 1 lie in the wreckage of Chechnya – or the rise of international Islamist terrorism? In an effort to understand the horrific events he witnessed earlier this month, Nick Paton Walsh travelled from Beslan, via turbulent Ingushetia, to the remote Chechen village which produced two of the world’s most reviled men
Read part 2
Thursday September 30, 2004
The Guardian
(Part One)
In Beslan, they are filling in the holes. The cemetery on the road from the airport is a sprawling mass of upturned earth, each fresh grave marked out from the surrounding mud by a perimeter of red bricks. The flowers and bare wooden stick crosses jut out from the rough grazing pasture.
A fortnight after the Beslan siege, the funerals are still going on, and 70 graves remain unfilled. The empty soil trenches are a reminder of how many families still face the gruesome process of identifying the scorched remains of their dead.
Read the Rest of Part One here
New York Times 10/4
In Russia, Dissent Grows Over Moves to Curb Autonomy
By STEVEN LEE MYERS in CHEBOKSARY, Sept. 30
President Vladimir V. Putin’s plan to concentrate more power in the Kremlin has inflamed popular discontent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/international/europe/04russia.html?ex=1254628800&en=ddc096861a
782425&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
James Hill for The New York Times
Chuvash singers prepared for a concert last week near Cheboksary, the capital of the republic of Chuvashia. The Chuvash language experienced a revival in theaters when the republic gained a measure of autonomy.
from the October 05, 2004 edition – http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1005/p06s01-woeu.html
Echoes of Russia’s Communist past?
Some experts charge that the Kremlin-backed United Russia party is transforming into a monolithic state force.
By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW – For the second time in his life, Mikhail Gerasimov is carrying a party card. A successful small businessman in the Moscow suburb of Perovo, Mr. Gerasimov is the newest local member of United Russia, the Kremlin-backed goliath that is fast becoming Russia’s largest and most influential political club.
“I decided to join up because of the stabilization of political life in Russia, and because of the growing public confidence toward the party of power and its leaders,” says the soft-spoken, graying owner of a company that removes abandoned cars on contract with city authorities.
Nearly two decades ago Gerasimov, then a mid-level manager in a defense factory, joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) for equally vague-sounding reasons.
“I wanted to do something in the public sphere,” he says. But his experience in that ruling party machine proved a bitter disappointment, because the leadership never listened to the party rank and file. “I hope United Russia will not repeat the experience of the CPSU, to drift so far from the people,” he adds.
But some experts warn that United Russia increasingly resembles the former CPSU which, at its peak, was a vast “state within a state” where all important decisions were made and then imposed by millions of loyal party members in every Soviet government office, legislature, workplace, school, and military unit.
A series of Kremlin-authored bills currently before the state Duma may accelerate United Russia’s transformation into a monolithic state party by making local governors appointed by the president rather than by popular vote, lifting a ban on senior civil servants joining any party, and electing the parliament on the basis of central party lists rather than local constituency races.
“As soon as bureaucrats see that a tightly centralized power system is returning in force in Russia, there is no doubt they will rush to join the party of power,” says Sergei Komokov, vice president of the independent Foundation for the Development of Parliamentarism in Moscow. “When the bureaucratic chain of command becomes consolidated into a single party, that party will dominate the state and nation. People from all sections of the elite will want to join.”
President Vladimir Putin’s portrait hangs on the wall at the Perovo United Russia headquarters, and party members refer to him as their leader. But, although the hyperpopular Mr. Putin openly backed the party in recent elections, he has yet to join. “There is growing speculation that Putin will take this step,” before the next cycle of elections, says Mr. Komokov. “That will be the signal to all bureaucrats that it is serious.”
United Russia evolved from a Kremlin-sponsored party created to back Putin in parliamentary and presidential elections nearly five years ago. In the last round of polls, with massive backing from officialdom and the state-run media, it won a thumping two-thirds majority in the state Duma and helped Putin to gain reelection earlier this year with 71 percent of the vote.
But critics charge United Russia’s star has risen as the country’s free press and democratic institutions have been crushed under steady Kremlin pummeling. After a recent wave of terror attacks that killed almost 500 people, a series of new laws before the Duma seem set to shrink the space for independent politics still further. “We are returning to the one-party system, where legislatures were purely decorative,” says Alexander Ivanchenko, chair of the independent Institute of Elections in Moscow. “I see no link to fighting terrorism here, just the same path the USSR took to its own destruction, the triumph of the bureaucracy.”
Old-style political culture
There are also disturbing echoes of Communist political culture, which insisted on total conformity to the party line and treated dissidents as enemies. “In our besieged country there has emerged a fifth column of left and right radicals,” Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, said in an interview last week with the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. “False liberals and real fascists have more and more in common, the same sponsors, the same hatred toward Putin’s Russia, as they say, but in fact toward Russia as such.”
In the past month alone, nearly 30 out of Russia’s 89 regional governors have applied to join United Russia; about 20 others were already in the ranks. According to Vladimir Medinsky, chief of United Russia’s Moscow branch, the party already has about 700,000 members nationwide – about twice the size of its only conceivable rival, Russia’s post-Soviet Communist Party – and 50,000 in Moscow alone. That includes dozens of “collective members,” such as trade unions and professional associations, who join en masse, he says.
Social work
In another parallel with the CPSU, which regarded itself as the social vanguard, United Russia officials say electoral work has a tiny place on their agenda. “Our daily work is with the population, helping pensioners, orphans, and other vulnerable groups,” says Elena Khaustova, head of the party’s Perovo branch. “If local people are in conflict with party policies, we help to explain it to them.”
But Ms. Khaustova, a former member of the Soviet Young Communist League, insists United Russia is not out to control the ideological, spiritual, and workaday lives of Russians as the CPSU once did. “I do this work because I enjoy it, because I feel I’m accomplishing something useful. There is no element of coercion in this, as there was in the Communist system,” she says.
Whereas the CPSU championed an ideology that reshaped every aspect of Soviet life, won converts worldwide, and challenged the West for global dominance, United Russia’s philosophy, as outlined by Moscow leader Mr. Medinsky, sounds more confusing than inspirational: “We are a liberal-conservative party that takes into account Russian traditions and national character,” he says.
Despite the slowness of Russia’s transition from Communism, compared to many other Eastern European countries, the past decade has nevertheless seen some grass-roots social change. “I have my own business, my own interests now,” notes new United Russia member Mr. Gerasimov. “No party is going to be telling me what to do.”
Even some critics say Putin is probably not interested in recreating a Soviet-style party-state, but is toughening Kremlin control in hopes of accelerating a market-driven modernization of Russian industry, infrastructure, and military power. “The aim is something more like the Chinese system than the Soviet,” says Vladimir Pribylovsky, president of Panorama, an independent think tank.
“Russian authorities have these plans, but you can’t repeat that [one-party state] history. The country has changed too much,” says Yury Levada, head of the Levada Center, Russia’s last independent polling agency. “People may not be actively resisting, but they’re not really going along with it either.”
http://www.mbktrial.com/
(found via home page of Washington Times. He has a big prominent ad at upper right there, red background, his picture, with several links.)
London mosque link to Beslan
Jason Burke
Sunday October 3, 2004
The Observer
A member of the group responsible for the Beslan school massacre last month is a British citizen who attended the infamous Finsbury Park mosque in north London, The Observer can reveal.
Two other members of the group, loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, are also believed to have been active in the UK until less than three years ago. They are suspected of taking part in the raid on the school in which 300 people, half of them children, died.
Russian security sources described Kamel Rabat Bouralha, 46 years old and the oldest of the three, as a ‘key aide’ of Basayev, who has a £5.5 million price on his head. Basayev has boasted of training the men who took control of the school and wired it with explosives. Investigators believe that the three men, all Algerian-born, travelled to Chechnya from London to take part in fighting there in 2001.
Russian investigators are thought to have now identified most of the 33 men who occupied the school in Beslan last month. They include two Algerians in their mid-30s called Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia. Both are thought to have been based in London until recently. Like Bouralha, they too are believed to have attended Finsbury Park mosque and to have joined the network of groups loyal to Basayev on arrival in Chechnya.
…. continued
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1318586,00.html
Analysis: Kremlin Articulates Its Ideological Platform
By Victor Yasmann
RFE/RL
The Kremlin
An influential senior Kremlin official recently defended a sweeping package of proposed political reforms, saying they protect the system from the “extreme conditions of an unannounced war” and increase President Vladimir Putin’s accountability.
In style and substance, presidential-administration deputy head Vladislav Surkov used a late-September interview to signal an open departure from the liberal values that have dominated much of Moscow’s stated policy since the fall of communism. Surprisingly, no one within the political opposition bothered to challenge either Surkov’s assertions or the premises on which they rest.
Surkov plays a much greater role within the Kremlin than his official title implies. He is among the most ardent ideologues — and implenters of domestic political projects — in Putin’s administration. Surkov played a key part in the State Duma elections of December 2003, which effectively emasculated the right and left wings of the Russian political spectrum.
He now appears to have taken on the role of political mastermind with respect to Putin’s proposed political reforms, as evidenced by his extensive interview in “Komsomolskaya pravda” on 29 September. In that interview, Surkov sought to convince the public that the rationale behind Putin’s new political course is solid.
First, Surkov reiterated the government perception that war has been declared on Russia from the outside (see “The Kremlin After Beslan”). He was more precise in his language than Putin has been, however, suggesting that the enemy comprises “interventionists.” In the United States, Europe, and the East, Surkov railed, there are “decision makers who are living on the phobias of the Cold War and who see Russia as a potential enemy. They take credit for the nearly bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union and want to further that achievement. Their goal is the destruction of our country.”
Second, Surkov identified the theater for this “secret” war: Russia’s southern provinces, particularly the Caucasus. “The detonation of our southern borders as a means of weakening Russia has been used repeatedly in the 19th and 20th centuries,” he added.
Third, he defined the weapon and other means that the enemy has used against Russia and that Russia itself has provided to the “interventionists.” He singled out corruption; criminals, including the “fighters for independence” in the Caucasus; and a “fifth column” within Russia that he described as “people forever lost for partnership.” “In a truly besieged country, a fifth column of leftist and rightist radicals has emerged. Apples and lemons are now growing on the same branch,” he added. “The pseudo-liberals and genuine Nazis have a lot in common; they have a common hatred for ‘Putin’s Russia,’ as they call it, and common foreign backers. They are sitting on various committees, waiting for 2008 [a presumed reference to the next presidential election] and talking about expediting the defeat of their own country in the war on terrorism.” This appears to be a thinly veiled reference to the liberal Yabloko party, Eduard Limonov’s leftist National-Bolshevik Party, and Committee 2008, which is headed by chess champion Garri Kasparov.
Last — perhaps predictably — Surkov seemed to dismiss any possible resolution of the Chechen dilemma on anything other than Moscow’s terms, effectively suggesting that alternatives entail “treason against the state.” “I’ll let you in on a secret: The Chechen problem, like the problem of world terrorism, has no single, simple solution,” he said.
Within this context of militant ideological thinking, Surkov then made his case for Putin’s proposed political reforms. He took exception with those who see no links between the terrorism threat and the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections and single-mandate districts. Surkov said such measures will strengthen the country and boost its “immunity from extremist infection.”
“Remember, the virus of terrorism has stricken the state at a time when the regions — with their operatic sovereignty and sickly, disposable political parties — have been unable to confront chaos in the country,” Surkov said. “We experienced a period of neo-feudal fragmentation in the 1990s, and that should not be repeated.”
Surkov appeared to be preparing the public for a long campaign, warning that the proposals will not provide a “quick victory over the enemy.” But he claimed the moves will increase the soundness of the Russian political system “in the extreme conditions of undeclared war.” The reforms would increase the level of Putin’s own political responsibility, he added.
“It will bring an end to the competition between the federal center and the regions — the competition for avoiding accountability for political mistakes and organizational mishaps that have been committed.”
The senior Kremlin staffer then defended Putin from accusations that he is using the Beslan school hostage tragedy to strengthen his personal powers and to curb democracy. “Putin is reinforcing the state, not himself, ” Surkov said, adding that Putin’s popularity rating is high and that he has few problems in his relations with regional leaders. Finally, the new system will require substantial amendments to the constitutions of many subjects of the Russian Federation, Surkov said, so it will come into force only in 2009, after Putin has left office.
The “bottom line” of Putin’s program is the “mobilization of the country in the fight against terrorism,” Surkov said. “We should all realize that the enemy is at the gates. We need vigilance, solidarity, and the unification of citizens’ and the state’s efforts.”
Surkov’s interview thus marks an openly declared departure from the liberal values espoused by the Kremlin in the 1990s and an equally bald-faced shift to the position of those forces within the Russian political class that profess the “ideology of national revanche” (see “The Clandestine Soviet Union”). Is it merely coincidence that Surkov used statements such as “interventionists,” which is the term used by the Bolsheviks in 1918-20 to describe Western troops fighting on Russian territory?
But despite the significance of Surkov’s bold manifesto, no one from the political opposition went to the trouble of commenting on it. Another Kremlin insider noted that fact: Effective Politics Foundation President Gleb Pavlovskii. Pavlovskii complained that there was little or no public reaction to Putin’s proposals, and no counterproposals or rival initiatives, according to an RTR report on 2 October.
“There was no thoughtful reaction, aside from the retrograde, dull reflection: ‘Don’t touch the old system, we like it.’” Pavlovskii offered that in most advanced countries, the opposition might even go so far as to disagree completely with the government, but it certainly maintains a running commentary on the ruling parties and their policies.
Pavlovskii went on to contribute to Surkov’s ideological platform, averring that Russia is indeed “at war” and adding: “Terror is torture by war. It is goes, stops, and goes again.” He went on to fuel Surkov’s conspiracy theory, suggesting that “groups of politicians in Arab and Western countries…support terrorists: Some give them money; others encourage them; and others simply rejoice quietly.” “The antiterror coalition is not sincere today,” Pavlovskii said. “Every time there is a terrorist attack on Russia, we receive…moral lectures on how we should change our policy, and we are saying, ‘Stop it, guys, we are not prepared to tolerate this any longer.’”
Pavlovskii also argued that pervasive corruption — especially within law enforcement — is among the strongest levers for terrorism in Russia (see “Between Terror And Corruption”).
Then Pavlovskii got to the substance of Putin’s proposed reforms, and his implicit criticism of the Russian public, suggesting that strengthening national security will likely lead to increased corruption. “But neither the president nor the government can do anything special to root out corruption,” he argued. “It must be national momentum that gets rid of corruption. This momentum can be concentrated in a political party or movement. It is necessary that the whole nation says, ‘Yes, there is corruption everywhere [in the world], but we are determined to rid [Russia] of official corruption.”
http://MondeDiplo.com/2004/10/01caucasia
Russia retreats into repression
By Ignacio Ramonet
THE hostage stand-off in Beslan, North Ossetia, was called Russia’s 9/11 and the comparison is valid in an important way: Russia can now see the world in terms of pre-Beslan and post-Beslan, just as the United States divides time into pre-and post-9/11, 2001. The mass hostage-taking on 3 September became a nightmare with at least 370 people dead, some 160 of them children. The world looked on mortified as this slaughter of the innocents happened before its eyes; it was also horrified by the Russian special forces’ brutal and blundering intervention.
Beslan marks a turning point in the continuing wars of the Caucasus (see The Caucasian melting-pot heats up). The hostage takers had a frightening capacity for violence, but the security services’ failure to prevent the tragedy was equally shocking. Beslan is the biggest crisis Vladimir Putin has faced since becoming Russia’s president. It is not clear that he fully understands why this is so. “We must admit that we had not grasped the complexity and the severity of the processes under way in our own country and elsewhere in the world,” said Putin the day after the siege ended in disaster. This statement was meant to reinforce the idea that Russia shares an adversary in common with other nations – international terrorism, a euphemism for radical Islam, or what some call the worldwide Islamic jihad.
This is the same tragic mistake that President George Bush made when he decided to attack Iraq in March 2003 as a way to combat al-Qaida. Like the Bush administration, Russia’s government is now declaring a war and talking about the need for a strong state. This means sweeping and largely anti-democratic changes to Russia’s political system (1), increased resources for the armed forces and increased powers to deploy them in pre-emptive strikes. “We will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world,” said Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the military’s general staff (2).
What Putin and his government refuse to admit is that the rise of terrorism and radical Islam in Russia’s territories in the Caucasus are both the symptoms of discontent and means of expression for primarily nationalist concerns. And history shows that nationalism is an exceptionally resilient and powerful source of political energy, as the Palestinians have demonstrated.
Nationalism is probably the single most important force in modern history: colonialism, imperialism and totalitarianism failed to stamp it out. Nationalism makes any alliances necessary to further its cause. We are seeing this now in Afghanistan and Iraq, where nationalism and radical Islam are coming together in national liberation struggles that have created horrible forms of terrorism.
The same thing is happening in Chechnya. From the start the Chechens were the strongest fighters against Russia’s conquest of the Caucasus. They bravely resisted Russian occupation as early as 1918 and then declared independence in 1991 as soon as the Soviet Union disintegrated. This led to the first Russo-Chechen war, which ended in August 1996 with the Chechens victorious – but Chechnya had been all but destroyed by the years of conflict.
The Russian army invaded Chechnya again in 1999 after a wave of terrorist attacks. This second war completed the destruction interrupted in 1996. Russia then held local elections in Chechnya, making sure that all key positions were filled by people who would obey the Moscow line. But the Chechen resistance did not disarm. It continued to attack and the Russians continued their policy of violent repression (3).
In the geopolitical context there are no easy solutions to the Chechen problem. The Russian authorities are less than pleased about the new economic and military ties between the US and Georgia and Azerbaijan, two independent countries just south of Chechnya. Moscow is beginning to feel like a superpower under siege, given Bush’s recent decision to move German-based US forces closer to Russia – into Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Hungary.
Putin’s response has been to maintain the Russian bases in Georgia and Azerbaijan, despite the opposition of their governments, and to reinforce Russia’s alliance with Armenia, which is still illegally occupying part of Azerbaijan. He is also supporting separatist movements in the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Unable to defeat the Chechen resistance on the ground, the Russians intend to prove their continuing power in the greater Caucasus. They are haunted by their humiliation in Afghanistan, but losing to Chechnya’s radical Islamists would be even more humiliating, since the total Chechen population is less than a million. Moreover it could easily trigger a chain reaction across the region, leading to further territorial losses for Russia. This is why Moscow so bluntly refuses to negotiate or to recognise a right to self-rule. But the brutal repression that goes with this policy is creating terrorist monsters prepared to commit terrible crimes.
(1) Putin has announced that the 89 regional governors of the Russian federation will no longer be elected by universal suffrage, but chosen by local parliaments from candidates put forward by the federal presidency.
(2) International Herald Tribune, Paris, 9 September 2004.
(3) See Anna Politkovskaya, A Small Corner of Hell: dispatches from Chechnya, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2003.
Georgia tries to recapture all its breakaway states
The Caucasian melting-pot heats up
by Jean Radvanyi
The school siege in Beslan, North Ossetia, demonstrated the Chechen resistance’s resort to extreme terrorism and desire to spread conflict across the volatile Caucasus region. The region is already trapped in a war of decolonisation because of its strategic importance both to Russia and to the western powers.
http://mondediplo.com/2004/10/08ossetia
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1327936,00.html
Kremlin to restrict small political parties
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Friday October 15, 2004
The Guardian
The Kremlin is increasing its stranglehold over political debate in Russia by getting pro-presidential deputies to introduce laws making it harder for smaller political parties to register. It also plans to increase the role of key officials of the president, Vladimir Putin, in party politics.
Pro-Kremlin MPs yesterday proposed a bill that would change the rules for registering political parties.
According to the bill, a party can only be registered if it has at least 50,000 members nationwide.
Previously, a party needed more than 100 members in half of Russia’s 89 regions, but it will now need 250 members in every region – and more than 500 in half of them.
The bill was proposed by three parties which dominate the Duma: the pro-Putin United Russia party, the equally loyal Liberal Democratic party and the nationalist Rodina party. Together they command at least 296 of the 450 seats in parliament – more than enough to pass the law.
Parties who do not satisfy the new rules will be denied registration and have to exist as “social organisations”. This would impact primarily upon the smaller parties, such as Yabloko.
Its politics is popular among the 20% of the population considered liberal, but it failed to gain enough votes to win any MPs during December’s elections.
Political analysts said the new rules allowed the Kremlin to decide which parties could exist.
Masha Lipman, from the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said the number of parties in parliament would “now be up to the Kremlin minders”.
“If they decide they want just two parties, and that one of those is liberal, then they can have a liberal party,” she said.
Rodina, one of the proponents of the bill, was created by the Kremlin just months before the last parliamentary elections and has just less than 40,000 members.
A spokeswoman said yesterday the party would not be affected by the bill as it anticipated having 4 million members by the end of 2005.
It was the fifth major change announced since the Beslan school siege last month, in which 344 people died.
Mr Putin has introduced plans to personally appoint regional governors, to ensure MPs are appointed to parliament only according to the proportion of votes their party gets, and for the Kremlin to appoint judges.
Ms Lipman said: “Once you have opted for this system rather than one with checks and balances, there’s nowhere you can stop.”
On Wednesday, the Duma rushed through a bill that permits senior members of the government to hold leading roles in a political party. At present, senior officials have to relinquish their party posts in order to serve in the government.
The move comes amid widespread speculation that the Kremlin is trying to find a way to let Mr Putin remain as leader after his second term expires in 2008 without having to amend the constitution to allow presidents to serve a third term.
One popular theory being discussed is that the Kremlin could create a parliamentary republic in which Mr Putin becomes leader of United Russia, and prime minister, and a loyal figurehead is appointed to the weakened post of president.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
A different way of talking to Russia
Anatol Lieven International Herald Tribune
Monday, October 18, 2004
WASHINGTON It is America or Western Europe. The year is 1984. An applicant for a government position is asked to describe his vision of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 20 years on. He describes a situation in which the Soviet Union had withdrawn peacefully from Eastern Europe and then dissolved itself – with a few exceptions, also peacefully.
Not only the Central European countries but the Baltic States, too, had joined NATO and the European Union. Ukraine was an independent democracy, albeit one with serious flaws. Russia remained partly authoritarian but also had representative institutions and a partly free press. It had adopted capitalism and was pursuing further free-market reforms. In this vision, despite the tremendous expansion of Western power at its expense over the previous 15 years, Russia was still seeking good relations and was threatening no vital Western interest.
Would the selection panel have appointed this applicant? Or would it not rather have dismissed him as an insane optimist, quite unfit to hold any responsible position? The answer is quite obvious. And it should remind us that although there are reasons to be concerned about developments in Russia today, most of them hardly appear catastrophic if one remembers the quite recent past and the tremendous progress made since then.
This also applies to Western warnings that moves by President Vladimir Putin toward a more authoritarian form of government must necessarily lead to a growth in hostility between Russia and the West. Some of the loudest voices to this effect have come from France – even as the French president travels to fully authoritarian, officially Communist China to seek better European-Chinese relations.
Few Westerners understand the utter fury that this kind of hypocritical Western obsession with Russia causes among many Russians. One reason they do not understand is that too much of the space available to Russian opinion in the West is reserved for a very small minority of Russians – those who, whether from conviction or opportunism, are prepared to agree with dominant Western views on most issues.
Unfortunately, the parties representing these views were crushingly rejected by Russian voters, and not because of some quirk of the Russian character, but for reasons any Western electorate would understand. When representatives of these groups participated in government in the 1990s, ordinary Russians saw living standards plunge and criminality soar. State resources were looted by a small group of would-be oligarchs in league with the Russian government of the time and transferred into Western banks and property.
The consequent collapse of revenues left Russia unable to deliver many basic services to its population. If today the security forces are a corrupt and demoralized shambles, one reason is that for much of the 1990s, their wages fell below subsistence levels, if they were paid at all. In view of all this, the surprising thing is not the authoritarian reaction in Russia – that would have happened in any society subjected to this kind of pressure. The surprising thing is that it has not been very much worse.
That is not to say that the West should pass by Putin’s latest moves in silence. While some have been fully justified, others are indeed dangerous for Russia’s stability and unity. The same is true of the conduct of the war in Chechnya, which has not only been excessively savage, but has manifestly failed in its chief goals. And while Russia’s desire to gain greater influence over its neighbors conforms absolutely to the model set by the United States in Central America, that is hardly a compliment.
There is, however, a better way to address Russia on these issues than the present widespread tendency to hurl abuse. The model is Turkey – also a country which for most of the past generation lived under authoritarian or semiauthoritarian rule, and conducted a brutal campaign against ethnic separatists.
In this case, the dominant Western approach was to place criticism of aspects of Turkey’s behavior in a general context of support, and to offer real integration into Western structures in return for changes in policy. The results have proved very successful. The present approach of many Westerners to Russia, by contrast, promises only future disaster.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/17/opinion/edlieven.html
KYRGYZSTAN: News agency to tackle cross-border information flow in Fergana Valley
18 Oct 2004 18:26:07 GMT
Source: IRIN
OSH, 18 October (IRIN) – A regional bureau, AKIpress-FERGANA, of the Kyrgyz AKIpress news agency has opened in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh aimed at improving the flow of cross-border information in Central Asia’s Fergana Valley, home to some 10 million people.
Eugene Gopkalo, the executive director of the agency, told IRIN that the bureau would cover seven provinces of the three countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – that share the valley.
“The representative bureau has been created to meet the growing needs of the local and international communities for timely and impartial information on the situation in the most densely populated region of Central Asia,” Gopkalo said at the opening ceremony on Saturday.
News and analytical material about the Fergana Valley will be published in four languages: Russian, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and English. To ensure this, the agency is working with a number of contributors from the three former Soviet republics.
The project is supported by the Eurasia Foundation and the Democratic Commission of the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.
“We want to promote the expansion of information space for the population of the [Fergana] region and Central Asia [as a whole],” Shakirat Toktosunova, head of the Eurasia Foundation’s office in Kyrgyzstan, told IRIN.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, neighbouring provinces in the valley located in different countries lacked information about each other, a worrying trend.
“Quite often a lack of information generates harmful rumours, forms inadequate public opinion and causes mutual suspicion,” Antonina Zakharova, an interethnic relations expert, told IRIN.
“There are many problems in the region, including land and water disputes, galloping unemployment and cross-border ecological threats. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of impartial information. Poor awareness amongst the people creates the ground for various incidents on the border and the growth of conflict trends,” Zakharova added.
Svetlana Gafarova, head of Gender Policy in Mass Media NGO and a well-known journalist, told IRIN that although the leaders of the Central Asian countries had repeatedly emphasised the need to create a common information space under the new conditions, there had been very little progress in that regard.
Some local residents endorsed that opinion. “My daughter lives in the neighbouring Uzbek city of Andijan, 50 km from Osh, and I do not know how life is like there. We have not received newspapers from that country for 10 years just as they have not got our press,” Maksuda Khaitalieva, a retired teacher from Osh, told IRIN.
“When my daughter occasionally comes to see us, she buys packs of newspapers and magazines. She says that they are in great demand there. People do want impartial information,” Maksuda maintained.
Grandmother Maksuda dreams of the day when obstacles to the distribution of newspapers published in the neighbouring republics of Central Asia will be removed. “Not everybody has a computer with access to the Internet as people here are very poor. We would like to have inexpensive newspapers,” she said.
A few years ago the Swiss-based CIMERA NGO and Eurasia Foundation started providing support to the local media to establish information exchange with colleagues from neighbouring countries.
Most of the independent mass media outlets in the valley implement their cross-border information exchange projects using grants from international organisations. “AKIpress-FERGANA hopes to do so without external financial support in the near future and to be based in the Fergana valley for a long time,” Gopkalo told IRIN. “We aim to provide people with reliable and unbiased information.”
“Any gap is terrible, but the information one is doubly so,” Maksuda said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/ae8106bc58383239644dc1ee46971384.htm
Russia: Choosing Security Over Oil Project?
October 15, 2004
via Stratfor
Summary
Sources in the Kremlin and Russian Energy Ministry say President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Beijing left the Chinese without a coveted oil pipeline. For geopolitical and economic reasons, Russia prefers to continue to keep the pipeline to China on hold.
Analysis
China and Russia achieved some progress on long-standing issues during President Vladimir Putin’s trip to China Oct. 14-16. China formally endorsed Moscow’s proposal to join the World Trade Organization on Oct. 14 and, according to sources, will stop anti-dumping procedures imposed on Russian goods and products. In addition, the two sides finalized the demarcation of their shared border along the Ussuri River, near the Russian city of Khabarovsk, completing the delimitation of the 2,600 mile-long boundary. Both issues exemplify the countries’ willingness to cooperate on a number of bilateral issues, but sources tell Stratfor that oil-thirsty China’s hopes for greater energy cooperation with Russia were dashed as Putin set tough conditions on the possibility of a Russian-Chinese pipeline project.
Moscow’s decision on the pipeline is based on geopolitical and economic factors; Russia is loath to accelerate the Chinese physical and economic encroachment on its sparsely populated Far East. But it seems Russia is willing to consider some risk to its security — if the price is (very) right.
Moscow is wary of Chinese designs on the Russian Far East, where, in Russian eyes, Chinese immigration during the last decade has created a dangerous demographic shift. The Russian government does not want to further expose its lands to a future Chinese invasion — of more immigrants, if not soldiers and tanks — by increasing transportation and economic ties between its Far East region and its Asian neighbor. Russian fears — in addition to the limited amount of money Beijing is willing to pony up — are prompting Moscow to continually brush off Chinese overtures to build an oil pipeline between the two countries.
According to sources in the Kremlin and the Russian Energy Ministry, Putin told China it would only get an oil pipeline from Siberia to the northeastern Chinese city of Daqing if it paid for further oil exploration and construction of the line. Putin also said that such a project would not be economically viable without at least 30 million tons of oil a year, if not much more.
Meanwhile, according to sources, Moscow remains dedicated to a pipeline to Nakhodka on Russia’s Pacific coast to serve Japan’s energy market. According to sources, the pipeline would originate in Taishet and run north of Lake Baikal — a route running far away from Russia’s border with China. The pipeline will probably follow the Baikal-Amur Railway line.
This is big news. First, the Russians told Beijing that the Japanese pipeline is a done deal, and China should stop holding out for a piece of the project or an alternative line. Second, the Russians are building the line through the wilderness of the central Russian Far East, instead of along a more southern route through on the comparatively developed corridor of the Trans-Siberian Railway that runs along the Chinese-Russian border. Moscow could not be clearer about its fear of Beijing’s intentions if it took a page out of China’s book and built a wall.
But, not one to completely disappoint (or lose an opportunity to sell more Russian oil), Putin promised to increase current Russian oil deliveries to China via rail from 10 to 30 million tons per year in the coming years, starting with an increase of up to 15 million tons a year by 2006.
Beijing tried to persuade Putin with an offer of $12 billion in investment, particularly in the oil sector, in Russia over the next five to 10 years. Sources say the Chinese are interested in getting a share of the oil and gas projects on Sakhalin Island off Russia’s Pacific coast, but Putin suggested the Chinese invest in Russia’s Eastern Siberian oil fields, which are far less developed than Sakhalin and more suitable for China’s relatively low-tech oil firms.
The Chinese offer is a comparatively paltry sum and vague. Russia and South Korea actually signed $4 billion worth of oil deals alone during President Roh Moo Hyun’s visit to Moscow in late September. And the Chinese offer does not hold a candle to Japan’s offer of $7 billion just to foot the bill for the construction of the Taishet-Nakhodka pipeline.
Sources say Putin was interested in the Chinese investment offer, but wants further clarification on the details of Beijing’s future investment before the Russians make a decision. In other words, Putin wants to see the money up front before he takes any action.
Analysis: Kremlin’s new terror lexicon
By PETER LAVELLE
MOSCOW, Oct. 22 (UPI) — The Beslan school hostage tragedy is changing how Russia understands and describes acts of terrorism around the world.
Before Beslan, Russian media reported on “terrorists” at home and “insurgents” in countries like Iraq. Since Beslan, insurgents in Iraq with increasing frequency are denoted as terrorists. The Kremlin, through state-controlled television, has essentially adopted the official U.S. lexicon and may be in the process of reassessing the threat Islamic fundamentalism poses to the world.
Days after the Beslan tragedy, President Vladimir Putin lambasted a visiting delegation of foreign journalists and Russia-watchers for the West’s preference to characterize perpetrators of terrorist acts in Russia as “rebels” and “insurgents.” To stress his point, Putin even slipped into English, terrorists killed Beslan’s children — not “rebels.”
In the tragedy, Islamic fundamentalist gunmen took over a school in Beslan and held students, teachers and parents hostage for two days. The violence killed more than 300 people, some 170 of them children.
Putin demands the West change its word choice when describing those behind acts of terrorism — word choice has already changed how the Kremlin understands terrorism beyond its borders.
According to a declassified report by the U.S.-based Foreign Broadcast Information Service on Russia’s media, the Beslan crisis may be an important benchmark influencing how the Kremlin describes international terrorism. In the first instance, Kremlin-controlled television has increased its usage of the term “terrorists” when referring to acts of violence in Iraq, previously the preference was to denote opponents of the U.S.-led occupation as “insurgents” or “gunmen.”
A second important finding is how the Kremlin directs coverage on the ongoing conflict in Iraq. Previously, there was a focus on characterizing Iraqi opposition to the U.S. occupation, but since Beslan, the Kremlin has shifted to a generalized characterization of the situation on the ground. It is now using language such as “acute situation on the ground,” “difficult situation,” and “certain progress” in “normalizing” the political “situation” in Iraq.
Third, the report says Russian media coverage of Iraq has declined and shifted to more specific individual events such as the ongoing hostage-taking spree in that country. Russian coverage of U.S.-directed military operations in Iraq has declined. This media shift is nothing less than remarkable. Russia was strongly opposed to military operations against Iraq and television transmissions since the invasion went to great length to highlight the difficulties U.S. forces face. In the aftermath of Beslan, this changed.
It is a truism Beslan has been a wake-up call for the Kremlin, revealing just how vulnerable Russia is to terrorism. However, Beslan also appears to have changed how the Kremlin understands terrorism beyond its borders and the threat Islamic fundamentalism poses for international security and order.
For years, the Kremlin claimed foreign terrorist networks have been operating in Chechnya, but has taken little meaningful notice or action against the same networks operating beyond Russia’s borders. Russia was against the invasion of Iraq, but is coming around to realize international terrorist networks are part of the violence in Iraq now.
The Kremlin’s lexicon change probably should not be interpreted as policy reversal n the U.S. military operations in Iraq. The only discernable policy change since the start of the conflict is to support international political measures that would increase situation in Iraq.
The horrific events that occurred in Beslan’s School No. 1 in September changed Russia forever. The Kremlin has started to understand terrorism is everyone’s problem. This change of perception has occurred as the West has discernibly distanced itself from Russia due to domestic political changes Putin has pursued to increase security at home and to confront terrorism. Russia has moved closer to the United States in its fight against international terrorism, while public opinion in the United States and the West in general has stepped away from Russia.
Russia’s awareness of international terrorism appears to have changed since Beslan. It acknowledges the United States is fighting a war against international terror and has altered its perception of events playing out in Iraq. The Kremlin must be wondering when the West will follow suit and adjust its terror lexicon to describe those behind acts of terror in Chechnya — not to speak of those responsible for the killings in Beslan.
Peter Lavelle is an independent Moscow-based analyst and the author of the electronic newsletter on Russia “Untimely Thoughts” untimely-thoughts.com.
Conclusions expressed above are the author’s and should not be associated in way with media research conducted by FBIS.
http://about.upi.com/products/perspectives/UPI-20041022-110616-3879R
October 23, 2004
Chechen Rebel Leader Is Reported to Be Close to Surrendering
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/international/23chechen.html
MOSCOW, Oct. 22 – The senior law enforcement official in Chechnya announced Friday that the authorities had nearly captured Aslan Maskhadov, one of the best-known leaders of the Chechen resistance, and that Mr. Maskhadov was planning to surrender soon.
The announcement, made by the first deputy prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, in Grozny, the Chechen capital, underscored the sense of urgency driving the hunts for senior separatists. It also exposed the tension among the Russian security agencies conducting them.
Mr. Kadyrov, the outspoken leader of a paramilitary force that is publicly loyal to Moscow and composed principally of former Chechen rebels, was unequivocal, saying that Mr. Maskhadov had narrowly escaped a recent battle in the Nozhai Yurt district, and “is searching for ways to reach the federal center to hold talks on laying down arms.”
“He will surrender to the authorities in the near future, or we will eliminate him,” Mr. Kadyrov continued, according to the Interfax news agency.
The Kremlin has made the capture of insurgent leaders a priority in its effort to quell a guerrilla war that has spilled over Chechnya’s border several times this year, including the attack last month at Middle School No. 1 in Beslan.
Mr. Kadyrov, son of Akhmad Kadyrov, the Chechen president who was assassinated this spring, is young, unrestrained and violent, and often described as a wild card in Chechen affairs. Even as he spoke of imminent success, security agencies involved in the search distanced themselves from his remarks.
Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, for counterterrorism forces in the North Caucasus, said he had no information that Mr. Maskhadov was contemplating surrender. “Let’s talk about realistic topics,” he said.
Sergei N. Ignatchenko, the senior spokesman for the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor to the K.G.B., was more circumspect but made clear the agency would not second Mr. Kadyrov’s claim.
“Kadyrov said this, and we don’t comment on what he says,” he said.
Moscow offered a $10.3 million reward last month for information leading to Mr. Maskhadov’s arrest or capture, making him Russia’s second most wanted man, behind Shamil Basayev, the Chechen guerrilla commander who has claimed responsibility for recent terror attacks, including the bombing of two passenger aircraft, a suicide bombing in Moscow and the Beslan killings in which at least 344 people died.
Although both men are considered Chechen separatists, there are stark differences between them. Mr. Maskhadov, a former Soviet artillery colonel turned rebel commander, was elected president of the breakaway republic in 1997 and held the office until the republic’s brief period of de facto independence ended with the resumption of fighting in 1999.
He has been living underground for several years and has denounced the recent terror attacks.
“There can be no justification for terror against innocent citizens, and that acts like this prevent international recognition of the Chechen state,” Mr. Maskhadov said, according to a statement posted on a rebel Web site that has been closely identified with him.
October 23, 2004
Russia Steps Up Antiterror Drive as Chechen War Spreads
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/international/europe/23russia.html
James Hill for The New York Times
Khava Khashiyeva, in a hospital with her children after the raid in which her husband, Magomed Khashiyev, was shot to death by Russian commandos. Moscow says he played a role in major terrorist attacks.
James Hill for The New York Times
Neighbors of Said Khashiyev walked through the ruins of his house after the raid, in which he and Magomed, a cousin of his, were killed.
The New York Times
Gamurziyevo is a tense village on the Chechen-Ingush border.
GAMURZIYEVO, Russia – Magomed Khashiyev has died again, this time for real.
He was surprised and cornered, caught during a rare reunion with his wife and four children in a small single-story house here on Oct. 10. After years of eluding the authorities, he spent his last moments fleeing shoeless through a garden, as Russian commandos riddled him with automatic rifle fire, witnesses and his relatives say.
Russian authorities described Mr. Khashiyev as an Islamic terrorist loyal to Shamil Basayev, the Chechen who claimed responsibility for the worst acts of terror to strike modern Russia, including the siege at a public school in Beslan in September in which at least 344 people were killed.
Mr. Khashiyev trained in a terrorist camp in Chechnya, the Russians said, led a wing of Mr. Basayev’s separatist group and helped organize attacks, including the seizure of the school. The unsparing pursuit of Mr. Khashiyev suggests Russia’s invigorated efforts to hunt separatists after terrorist attacks shook the country this year.
The Russian security services, which erroneously announced at least once before that they had killed him, all but openly celebrated his death. “We feel satisfaction,” said Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for counterterrorism forces in the North Caucasus.
For all the Russian authorities’ evident delight, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Khashiyev’s death and the fate that has befallen his family provide insight into why Russia’s war in the Caucasus has proved difficult to contain, much less win. It is a profile of the region’s porous security and extensive familial connections, and of inhumanity and violence gone awry as the combatants tug each other ever deeper into war.
Mr. Khashiyev, 27, was not Chechen. He was born in what is now Ingushetia, the republic to Chechnya’s west that has long supplied the war with Muslim fighters and has developed a potent anti-Moscow insurgency of its own. He waged underground war for years with the tacit support of his family, surviving in a tiny area where tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and intelligence officers are assigned.
For the family the hunt for him was a source of fear and fury. Mr. Khashiyev’s relatives said that his mother’s house was repeatedly raided over the last several years and that law enforcement officers often stole the family’s possessions.
During an interrogation by the security services, one of Mr. Khashiyev’s cousins was beaten to near infirmity, the family said, and another was abducted in a raid in September and has not been heard from since.
Moreover, the family said, the cousin who had been beaten was fatally shot in the assault that killed Mr. Khashiyev, and three women and seven children were struck by shrapnel. Another indignity came later, their families said, when armored vehicles knocked down the house in which Mr. Khashiyev had been trapped.
The destruction of life and property, conducted in a society bound by tribal codes of revenge, has been freighted with danger, his family said. “Probably the goal of the authorities is to scare people,” said Magomed Tsurova, an Ingush police officer and brother-in-law of Said Khashiyev, the cousin who died with Magomed. “The result is quite the opposite.”
The authorities’ description of Magomed Khashiyev is of a man whose depravity knew few bounds.
They say he recruited suicide bombers, helped plan a raid in June in which rebels masqueraded as police officers and killed people who stopped for them, and worked to prepare the terrorists who seized the school in Beslan. He willingly risked his relatives’ lives, traveling with his young children to shield him on heavily policed roads.
Little predicted such a course for his life. He was raised in Sleptsovsk, a village near the present Chechen border, a religious child who aspired to become a police officer, his family said.
He married in 1997. His wife, Khava Khashiyeva, said he seemed a normal man until the second Chechen war began in 1999. Then he changed. “He began to disappear,” she said.
For five years, she said, Mr. Khashiyev kept a rebel’s erratic schedule: home for hours or days, gone for weeks or months. No one knew when, or if, he would return.
Sometimes he sent men to his family with money or food, she said. But he never discussed politics or work with women, leaving her to wonder how he lived and what influenced his choices. Was he a nationalist? An Islamist? Both? “I asked him how he explained his absences,” Ms. Khashiyeva said. “He said, ‘It’s just my business.’ “
General Shabalkin said that through those years, Mr. Khashiyev was an active fighter, and attended a Chechen terrorist training camp run by Ibn al-Khattab, an Arab who was killed in 2002. Such associations would cost his family dearly.
Russian officers raided his mother’s house at least 10 times, his family said, asking for his whereabouts while stealing money, jewelry, cellphones, electronic equipment and photo albums, according to letters the family wrote to the local prosecutor’s office to demand investigations. “These were not searches,” said another cousin, Asya Khashiyeva. “They were robberies.”
The authorities wrote back that investigations were unnecessary, further enraging the Khashiyev clan.
As violence encircled him, Mr. Khashiyev seemed undeterred. He sometimes appeared at his mother’s house, although this year he had not been home since March, several relatives said.
General Shabalkin offered a simple reason. At a meeting last year of an Islamic council led by Mr. Basayev, the general said, Mr. Khashiyev was promoted to run a faction of Ingush rebels and became busy with added responsibilities. The new rank also made him a priority suspect for the military and police.
On March 17, his relatives said, Russians swept into the home of Said Khashiyev, another of Magomed’s cousins, and beat him for three hours, sometimes putting a phonebook against his head and striking it to deliver a wide, stunning blow. “All the time they asked, ‘Where is Magomed?’” said one of Said’s two wives, Fatima Khamatkhanova. Her husband limped for months afterward, she said.
On Sept. 3, hours before the siege in Beslan ended in carnage, masked Russians raided an auto shop operated by another of his cousins, Alaudin Khashiyev. Alaudin was abducted, witnesses said. Family members said they had complained to the Ingush government and law enforcement agencies. General Shabalkin and a spokesman for the Ingush administration said they knew nothing of it.
Mr. Khashiyev demonstrated his imperturbability and the gaps in Russian security once more on Oct. 8, when he arrived at his mother’s house with Dzhabrail Kostoyev, a driver. His hair fell to his shoulders, his wife said. He wore a beard. He said they were going to find their own apartment.
Ms. Khashiyeva gathered their four children in the car, and the family passed across Ingushetia and arrived here that night, at a home rented by Said Khashiyev, his wives and three children.
Said Khashiyev’s connections to Magomed are in dispute. General Shabalkin said he was an accomplice. Said’s second wife said that he was guiltless and that there was tension between the men, exacerbated because Magomed had arrived with a pistol. “My husband was against giving him shelter,” she said.
But tribal connections are strong in Ingushetia, and when Magomed said he needed a day to find an apartment, Said relented and let him in, she said. On Oct. 10 Magomed was still there. Said Khashiyev confronted his cousin again. “He asked Magomed to leave, to leave our family alone,” Fatima Khashiyeva said.
It was too late. Russia’s Federal Security Services, or F.S.B., had been tipped that Mr. Khashiyev was in the house, General Shabalkin said.
The raid began at about 6:20 p.m., when roughly 50 Russians surrounded the house, survivors and neighbors said.
The authorities say the men refused to surrender and a shootout ensued. Fatima said that her husband, Said, had been unarmed and that the men had tried only to flee.
This much is clear: shooting began, and Magomed and Said Khashiyev jumped out a window to the garden. A second surge of gunfire erupted.
Said was found dead beneath the window, his neighbors said. Magomed made it about 30 yards farther before he fell. Bullets had struck his right side and leg, his family said; one entered his brain behind the right ear.
Inside, the women frantically worked to protect the children, they say, covering them with rugs and lying atop them. Mr. Kostoyev ran to their room and told them he would jump out a window to escape.
They pleaded with him not to, as he might draw fire toward the children. He leapt anyway, they said. Gunfire resumed. A rocket later struck the building, injuring the women and children with flying glass, plaster and shrapnel, and bringing down the roof.
The families dug their way out. Two breast-feeding infants were among them. One, Fatima’s 3-month-old son, suffered a shrapnel injury on his right cheek. The other, a 10-month-old girl, suffered a skull injury and went into a coma.
Mr. Kostoyev was arrested. The authorities said that he was being investigated for collaborating with terrorists and that he is giving evidence against them.
Critics of Moscow’s policies in the Caucasus have warned that a paucity of justice or democracy is sustaining conflicts and risks fueling their expansion. As the Chechen war spreads, those who knew Mr. Khashiyev’s career and its consequences for his family say Ingushetia now feels as if it might explode.
“People cannot take it,” said Jaffar Khashiyev, a brother of Alaudin, the abducted man. “Even a stone, if water drips on it long enough, will crack.”
South Ossetia: A Sense of Foreboding
by Theresa Freese
21 October 2004
TOL
South Ossetia’s Georgians are grappling with the implications of Beslan.
VANATI, South Ossetia–”Parents are afraid. They are afraid of Beslan happening here. … Probably half the students haven’t shown up today,” says Giula, a teacher at the Vanati Secondary School.
Vanati lies in the disputed border area between Georgia and South Ossetia, a tearaway region of Georgia that has enjoyed de facto independence for over a decade. Beslan lies just over the Russian border, in North Ossetia. For South Ossetians, proximity and kinship heighten the tragedy of the Beslan hostage crisis, for which a Chechen warlord has claimed responsibility and which killed more than 330 people. Many more remain unaccounted for. For South Ossetia’s ethnic Georgians, like Giula, the slaughter added an extra layer of fear to a summer’s worth of trepidation.
Among both the Georgian and Ossetian communities of South Ossetia the immediate and unanimous reaction to the events in Beslan was sympathy for the victims and their families. “We all cried for them! Nobody wants to see children die,” Giula says. At supras, Georgian dinners where toasts are made according to a centuries-old tradition, families drank “to the children who died in Beslan, to their families, to peace.”
“We have sympathy even for our enemies,” a Georgian villager said.
And for Georgians in South Ossetia, Beslan has above all stoked fear of their neighbors. They now worry that the Ossetians, the victims in Beslan, might perpetrate a similar crime against the Georgians.
“It happened in their schools and it could happen in ours,” says Mariam, a Georgian resident of South Ossetia who had just survived another night of shooting over her home. “We feel sorry for their poor children.” And for Georgian children: she introduces her neighbor, Meri, a 14-year-old too afraid to go to school. She is one of many. It is regular gunfire that is keeping so many of Giula’s pupils away from school.
IN FEAR OF THE OSSETIANS
It might seem that the Georgians are worrying unnecessarily if they think that the South Ossetians could slaughter Georgian children, Beslan-style. But the Georgians here see too many parallels with their own recent experience not to fear that their children too might die in a bloodbath in a school.
Between 8 July and 18 August, fighting in this strip of land, supposedly a buffer zone patrolled by peacekeepers, left widespread destruction, economic hardship, and many dead and wounded (17 Georgian soldiers and an unknown number on the South Ossetian side died). Georgia was not blameless: after two successful and peaceful Rose Revolutions in Georgia and the semi-independent region of Ajaria, President Mikheil Saakashvili set his sights on re-establishing his country’s territorial integrity by bringing South Ossetia–and then Abkhazia–under Georgian sovereignty. He bolstered Georgia’s military presence (ostensibly to crack down on pervasive smuggling) and dangled economic carrots in front of ordinary South Ossetians. Georgians argue, though, that their government never intended events to escalate into an armed conflict. They believe Ossetians deliberately tried to provoke a conflict to thwart Saakashvili’s ambitions.
As in Beslan, defenseless civilians and schools were targeted. The conflict erupted after armed Ossetians broke the ceasefire rules and entered Vanati, in Georgian-controlled territory, and detained 38 Georgian police officers stationed there. As the conflict escalated, South Ossetian forces targeted Georgian schools. By mid-August, the schools in Vanati and Tamarasheni lay in ruins, with their windows blown out, their classrooms sprayed with bullets, and with large holes in their walls and those of nearby buildings. Schools in Achabeti and Kurta were less damaged, but the pockmarked roofs reminded parents that sending children to school could be dangerous.
Tamarasheni school bears the marks of war.
And, as may have been the case in Beslan, outsiders were possibly involved. Georgians claim Ossetian separatists hired armed men from Russia, including North Ossetia and Abkhazia, another secessionist territory in Georgia.
(After weeks of efforts to contact her, the spokeswoman for the South Ossetian government, Irina Gagloyeva, said that some schools on the South Ossetian side were lightly damaged but schooling had been unaffected. Georgians say they did not attack schools, pointing out that this would have undermined efforts to reunify South Ossetia with Georgia.)
The Georgians’ anxiety is fueled by ongoing incidents. Despite a ceasefire, villagers say there are numerous random detentions, beatings (including one apparent case of torture), bribes, cattle theft, and sporadic roadblocks by armed Ossetians. “We are not safe against a Beslan-style attack here!” exclaims Neli Kristisiashvili, a teacher at the secondary school in Tamarasheni. “We have no guarantee for our safety! How can we send our children to school?
“There is shooting every night. They just hit the Ivan Machabeli museum. They regularly fire automatic weapons in the direction of the school. I live and work here and I am afraid to stand by the windows. What can you put against a window to protect yourself? From Tskhinvali [the capital of South Ossetia], they can see right into our houses.”
On 12 October, another two peacekeepers were killed, the first casualties for some time. But violence–and bullets-are constantly in the air.
“Right now they are shooting in the air. But they could target us at any time,” asserts Lea Nasuashvili, the first person to be injured by gunfire after the ceasefire. Motioning to the hills above her home in Tamarasheni, she notes despondently, “There are Ossetian snipers there. It’s dangerous for anyone to walk around.”
Julietta Khaduri, the head of the Vanati school, tries to reason away concerns as parents discuss the possibility of a Georgian school becoming a new Beslan. “It will be clear it was the Ossetians if the same thing happens here. So I don’t think anything like that would occur.” She paused, “I hope the Ossetians wouldn’t do such a thing. They were our neighbors for a long time and nobody wants war.”
But then a parent points out, “It was our Ossetian neighbors in Dmenisi who shelled us.”
IN FEAR OF THE RUSSIANS
Beyond the identification with victims and the chill created by the parallels with Beslan, South Ossetia’s Georgians have another reason to fear: Russia.
Russia immediately tried to link the Beslan massacre to terrorists allegedly trained in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, which borders Chechnya and has long been a suspected safe haven for Chechen rebels. (The number of Chechens in the Pankisi Gorge has, in fact, been falling since Saakashvili came to power.)
But Georgians generally blame the Russians, not the terrorists, for the deaths in Beslan. “Russia has no anti-terrorism plan. That’s why they are trying to put the blame on Georgia,” says Aleko Kiknadze, commander in chief of the Georgian peacekeeping forces. “We now have many examples of this–not just Beslan. The Russian state and security forces do not cooperate with each other and are not prepared to deal with terrorism adequately. So, without any evidence, they blame others for their failures.”
Ceremony to mark the re-opening of Vanati school.
Guram Vakhtangashvili, a member of the Georgian parliament representing Georgian villages in South Ossetia, sees the attack in Beslan as evidence that Russia’s protection of South Ossetia, where it has peacekeeping troops, has actually made it easier for terrorists to strike. Vakhtangashvili argues that the terrorists chose Beslan for the attacks because they were able to use the road from Russia to Tskhinvali without being stopped. “The drivers of the vehicles said they were traveling to Tskhinvali and explained they were `going to fight the Georgians.’ That is how they got through the Russian checkpoints inside North Ossetia. But instead of crossing the border into South Ossetia, they went north to Beslan.”
Georgians in South Ossetia hope that the Beslan massacre could prompt Ossetians to view Russia in a different light. They generally blame the Russians, not the terrorists, for the deaths–and believe the events might actually help resolve the South Ossetia conflict. “The Russians killed their own children!” many mothers shouted at the school meeting. “Georgians would never do this–neither to Georgians nor to Ossetians!”
“Now let’s see if they want to join Russia!” one man bitterly remarked.
But the villagers don’t seem to put much faith in that hope. Instead, they worry that the Russian and South Ossetian authorities will use the tragedy as a way to exert additional pressure on Georgia. While Russian officials claim they support Georgia’s territorial integrity, they also comment that they need to defend “Russian citizens” living in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia supports the South Ossetians by providing them with Russian passports, pensions, and salaries, as well as–Georgians allege–military equipment and training. Georgians view such support as fueling the South Ossetia conflict and potentially starting one with Abkhazia. They now wonder if and when Russia will claim these territories as its own.
The decision by Russian peacekeepers to close South Ossetia’s border with Georgia at the Roki tunnel immediately after the massacre was seen as a deliberate economic blockade at a time when Georgian villagers on both sides of the border were preparing to sell their harvest to Russia. For the time, these products (mainly fruit) can be stored. “But if the roads remain blocked, there will be serious economic consequences for Georgia. Farmers will have nowhere to sell their crops.”
Apple farmers concur. “We are putting our apples in storage,” one man explains. “They should last through December.”
Giorgi Koberidze, a Tamarasheni teacher, said, “Everything the Russians and Ossetians do is a strategy against us. The Russian media are aggressive toward Georgia. They blame us for Beslan. And now Russia has blocked Georgian buses from entering its territory. This is a prelude to war.”
Now that the 40-day period of mourning for those who died in Beslan is over, many experts in the region expect ethnic and territorial conflicts between Ingushetia and neighboring North Ossetia to be reignited. That could spark a wider Caucasus conflict, potentially also involving South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the Russian republics of Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria.
One high-level Georgian government official believes, “Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan will be on our side. We have a common enemy–Russia. That is why they will support us. But this is mere speculation. We don’t want war.”
What chain of events could lead to this is hard for outsiders to predict. But locals also find it hard. “Everything is possible here,” says Shota, a Vanati villager. “Beslan is possible. A North Caucasus war is possible. It starts gradually. From small to big events. First they steal your cattle. Then they detain people. We are defenseless.”
Theresa Freese has been researching conflict resolution issues and conducting human rights and democratization work in South Ossetia since September 2003. Photos courtesy of the author.
Tuesday, 26 October 2004
A New Partnership In Russia
By Robert Coalson
Turning on the money valve
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Transportation Minister Igor Levitan told a cabinet session that a new economic entity, the state-private partnership (GChP), could provide a breakthrough for the Russian economy and, especially, for the transportation sector. To take just one example, according to RBK on 20 October, Russia currently has 890,000 kilometers of roads, but only 36 percent of them meet Transportation Ministry standards. Experts cited by the agency said the country needs at least 1.5 million kilometers of high-quality roads to meet its economic-development goals.
To mention another example, crucial bridges across the Volga River in Ulyanovsk, Saratov Oblast, and Volgograd have been delayed for years now because of funding delays. In Ulyanovsk, there is one bridge across the river that dates from the tsarist era, while the new bridge has been under construction now for more than 12 years and will require another $300 million in financing, “Profil,” No. 38, reported. The government sees the GChP as a potentially useful mechanism for building ports, airports, tunnels, pipelines, and railroads as well.
But in a country where the government is better known for “managing” than cooperating and where corruption threatens every aspect of the state, the idea has been greeted with resounding skepticism. “Profil” editorialized that the best-known example of “state-private partnership” in Russia at present is the Yukos affair and recalled the unfortunate experience of the high-speed rail line between Moscow and St. Petersburg, in which “not a single train ever set off, but the money allocated to the project zoomed away at such high speeds that to this day no one knows where it went.”
Although the legislative framework for the GChP in Russia has not yet been developed, Fradkov and others seem to envisage it as similar to the so-called public-private partnership that has been widely and often successfully used in the West for projects from transportation, to health care, education, prisons, and more. That model is designed to create mechanisms to realize long-term, socially important projects that require large initial outlays of capital.
But analysts in Russia have been speculating that the GChP is primarily about achieving the government’s goals and controlling the economy than it is about private-sector profits or development. The proposal has been developed under the auspices of the new state Council on Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship, which is headed by Fradkov. At the council’s first session in June, the topic of conversation was President Vladimir Putin’s call for the business to be more “socially responsible.” The council’s second session, just days before the cabinet session at which GChPs were discussed, was devoted to the new partnerships. “It is very important that state-private partnership not be turned into a synonym for social responsibility,” Industrial Investors Chairman Sergei Generalov told “Ekspert,” No. 39, “because these are fundamentally different concepts.”
The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) on 21 October held a conference devoted to the theme of “social responsibility,” on the first anniversary of President Putin’s initial appeal to business on the subject. RSPP Vice President Viktor Dombrovskii told “Nezavisimaya gazeta” on 22 October that so far most results in this area can be characterized as “voluntary-compulsory charity.” The weekly commented that it remains to be seen whether the GChP becomes “a new form of divvying up promising markets or a civilized mechanism for leveraging the resources of the state and private business.”
Regardless of the state’s intentions, the real threat to the success of GChPs is most likely corruption. “Ekspert” noted that even in the late 19th century, the government had to abandon a similar model in the railroad-construction sector because of massive corruption in assigning state concessions. The current government’s track record in the area of competitive tenders likewise inspires little confidence. “At first the state should invite foreign companies that professional organize tenders to act as its agents,” Generalov told “Ekspert.” However, Levitan announced on 10 October that the Economic Development and Trade Ministry “has agreed to fulfill the functions of the federal organ reviewing proposals for GChP-based infrastructure projects,” RIA-Novosti reported.
Opora business association head Sergei Borisov told “Finansovye izvestiya” on 6 October that he fears the GChP could become nothing more than a mechanism for eliminating competition with the help of government bureaucrats. He noted that the Moscow city government recently handed over 200 plots of land to Sibir Enerdzhi for the construction of gas stations.
Nonetheless, the daily reported that a draft law on GChP concessions could be adopted as early as February and the first major GChP-based projects could be announced in the spring. “Any activity, including state activity, creates many dangers. Including the danger of corruption,” Institute of Globalization President Mikhail Delyagin, former economics adviser to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, told “Profil,” No. 38. “We have to fight against corruption, but it is better to undertake a necessary project badly than not at all.”
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/10/c3c54906-23d7-4d78-8454-6d19d7ece945.html
October 27, 2004
Voices of Freedom Are Stilled by Europe’s Last Dictator
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/international/europe/27belarus.html
Yuri Ivanov for The New York Times
Classes meet secretly in apartments since the Belarus government closed the Humanities Lycée in 2003 in a crackdown by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko on institutions perceived as a threat to his rule.
MINSK, Belarus, Oct. 20 – By this time in the college semester, Marina Puzdrova should be making her way from class to class in the drab brick building on Brovka Street. Her university has been shuttered, though, its students and professors dispersed by the authoritarian whim of this country’s president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.
Miss Puzdrova, 19, would have a been a second-year student at the European Humanities University, which since its creation in 1992 has been an outpost of liberal education in an increasingly illiberal place. It was, therefore, a threat to the new state ideology that Mr. Lukashenko is steadily building.
Although offered a place at Belarus State University, she and two philosophy classmates, like others at the university, plan to leave Belarus instead, continuing their studies in the Czech Republic.
“There,” she said, “we hope to find some more personal freedom.”
On Oct. 17, Belarus held a constitutional referendum that gave Mr. Lukashenko the right to seek unlimited terms in office. The vote, denounced as illegitimate by political opponents and international observers, consolidated political power in what is already considered to be Europe’s last dictatorship.
Like the other nations that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union 13 years ago, this country of 10 million initially embraced its independence, only to have its democratic hopes fade along with Mr. Lukashenko’s rise to power. Although Mr. Lukashenko was first elected in 1994 with a populist mandate to fight corruption and restore stability, the country has become one of the most repressive of the former Soviet republics.
Mr. Lukashenko’s control extends far beyond politics. In 10 years in power, he has increased his sway over business, news media, civic organizations and schools – in short, over anyone or anything that might challenge him.
Journalists have been charged with criticizing the president, a crime punishable by fines, internal exile and up to four years in prison. What few private businesses exist – nearly 80 percent of the country’s economy remains in state hands – have faced prosecution based on what critics call the slimmest pretenses.
Private organizations have likewise been closed or harassed by the authorities, especially those that have received financial support from Europe or the United States, which Mr. Lukashenko regularly denounces in language reminiscent of the cold war.
The Belarussian Helsinki Committee, the local chapter of the international human rights organization, has since August 2003 faced a prosecutorial assault for, among other things, failing to use quotation marks around its name on official stationary.
“We think it cannot be worse,” Tatsiyana Pratsko, the committee’s president, said in an interview in her small office. “And it becomes worse.”
The United States and the European Union have increased their own pressure on Belarus, including a ban on travel to their countries by Mr. Lukashenko and other senior leaders suspected of involvement in the disappearances of political opponents in 1999 and 2000. Mr. Lukashenko has responded by strengthening his grip and intensifying his attacks on those he considers agents of the West.
Mr. Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss, has not only retained aspects of Soviet economics but has also moved to recreate the structures that allowed the Soviet Union to maintain order over society.
He issued a decree two years ago that required government agencies, factories and schools to hold “political information” meetings, like those once conducted by the Communists. Last year he created the Belarussian Union of Youth, which, like its Soviet-era inspiration, Komsomol, is a prerequisite to acquiring positions in the university or jobs. He has also established an official ideology, which remains ill-defined though it revolves around the unquestioned power of the presidency.
The government’s campaign against the European Humanities University is typical of Mr. Lukashenko’s operations. In April, the Education Ministry issued an order outlining 26 ways that classes and activities should be regulated in the country’s universities. They included restrictions on money from abroad, as well as on exchange programs. One measure called for monitoring of “the moral-psychological climate” in student dorms.
In such a climate, it was clear that the European Humanities University would become a target.
The university was established in the first heady days of Belarussian independence by a group of professors and the Belarussian Orthodox Church, which created its first department of theology. The concept was to create a private institution modeled on universities in Britain and the United States. It began with 67 students, but grew to nearly 1,000.
“People with free thought were formed here,” said Grigor Y. Miniankov, the dean of the university’s philosophy department. “They learned critical thinking. People like that are not wanted here.”
In January, the country’s education minister, Aleksandr Radkov, called for the resignation of the rector, Anatoly Mikhailov, who refused to go. In July, Mr. Lukashenko’s administration ordered the university evicted from its rented building on Brovka Street. A week later the Education Ministry revoked its license, citing, in a Kafkaesque twist, its lack of space for classes.
Mr. Lukashenko made his motive clear in a speech last month, denouncing the university’s educational mission as subversive.
“There was an implicit, though focal, intention to train here in Belarus, in the European Humanities University, first of all, the new Belarussian elite, aimed at leading Belarus to the West when the time is appropriate,” Mr. Lukashenko said.
“And what about other Belarussian universities, located in Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel and Mogilev, not speaking about other leading universities in Minsk?” he went on, according to a transcript published in the official newspaper Soviet Belarus. “Whom are they training? Servants and slaves for this very new elite?”
The Humanities University is struggling to stay alive in a virtual state. Dozens of students have transferred to universities in Europe and the United States that have agreed to recognize credits already earned. Dr. Mikhailov has left the country, accepting a position at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard.
Vladimir Dounaev, the vice rector, said classes would continue online.
“It is very difficult to close a concept,” he said. “We are living not in the era of Brezhnev, but of the Internet.”
In 2003, the government closed a high school with a similar mission. The school, the Humanities Lycée, now operates underground, conducting classes secretly in apartments, one step ahead of the authorities.
The school’s students – now down to fewer than 100 – continue to study, knowing their diplomas will not be recognized by the state.
Irina I. Sidorenko, the school’s deputy director, said the parents of many students had received threats of punishment.
“We feel ourselves hanging in the air, not knowing if we can survive another month,” she said. “One can only feel sorry for our society.”
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Feature Article
Thursday, 28 October 2004
Analysis: Religion, State, And Fear In Central Asia
By Daniel Kimmage
This story is one of many featured on RFE/RL’s new Religion And Tolerance webpage.(check it out!)
Central Asia is a region known throughout history for its diversity of devotion. Settled populations produced some of the greatest scholars of the Muslim medieval period, nomads retained age-old shamanistic rituals beneath a veneer of Islamic piety, and the mystical currents of Sufi brotherhoods ebbed and flowed beneath the structures and strictures of orthodoxy. However, the true depth and breadth of belief is difficult to categorize.
The habits of officialdom are more uniform. Although they now profess variations on an Islamic identity, today’s Central Asian leaders are still cards drawn from a Soviet deck, ever mindful of alternative sources of authority that might rival their own. They rule states that are top-heavy with mechanisms of control, and religion, with its frank recognition of a higher authority, can serve as the flashpoint for conflict. The cases of two very different religious figures who now find themselves behind bars show, however, that the road to confrontation always winds through local terrain.
AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF TURKMENISTAN
At first glance, Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah would seem to be an improbable candidate for the role of religious dissident. An ethnic Uzbek, Ibadullah rose to prominence in Turkmenistan, where he served as kazi, or judge, of the Turkmen SSR in the late Soviet period. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he became the newly independent country’s chief mufti, or highest religious authority with the power to issue rulings on questions of Islamic law. Even as Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov constructed an increasingly idiosyncratic system of one-man rule throughout the 1990s, Ibadullah remained the nominal leader of Turkmenistan’s Muslims. One can only guess at the qualities that allowed the chief mufti to survive for so long under a ruler who revived Stalin’s cult of personality as a farce of renamed months and rotating gold statuary, but an independent streak is unlikely to have been among them.
As the 21st century began, Niyazov metamorphosed irreversibly into Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great, head of all the Turkmen and president for life. With the country’s earthly affairs firmly under his sway, he turned his gaze inward, penning a spiritual guide for his subjects. In October 2001, the People’s Council pronounced Turkmenbashi’s “Rukhnama,” or book of the spirit, “the holy book of the Turkmen people.”
By early 2003, Ibadullah had fallen from grace. In January, he was removed as chief mufti; and in March 2004 he received a 22-year prison sentence. In the absence of an official clarification, observers have cast about for explanations, citing the former mufti’s ethnicity, his resistance to the imposition of the “Rukhnama” as “the holy book of the Turkmen people,” or the mundane missteps that can seal the fate of any courtier unlucky enough to anger his overlord.
Felix Corley is the editor of Forum 18 News Service, which focuses on religious freedom issues in the post-Soviet world and has provided extensive coverage of events in Central Asia. He told the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) on 18 March 2004 that “reports say that [Ibadullah] was removed as chief mufti because of his resistance to Niyazov’s desire to see his book ‘Rukhnama’ have a prominent place in Muslim worship, something offensive — if not blasphemous — to Muslims.” Forum 18 reported on 4 March 2004 that a copy of the “Rukhnama” is now displayed “at the entrance to every mosque and believers have to touch it as if it were a sacred object.” Moreover, Forum 18′s April 2004 survey of religious freedom in Turkmenistan noted that at least one mosque had been shut down after its imam “refused to put the ‘Rukhnama’ in a place of honor.”The government charges extremism, usually buttressing its case with the discovery of weapons or propaganda materials.
Peter Zalmayev, a representative of the New York-based International League for Human Rights (ILHR), told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service on 19 March 2004 that Ibadullah may have fallen victim to a combination of factors. “Most analysts and regional specialists, including the ILHR, believe that Ibadullah was imprisoned both for his opposition to the forced use of President Niyazov’s ‘Rukhnama’ as a holy book in the country’s mosques, and for criticizing Niyazov’s policies toward Muslims,” he said. “Over the past few years, Niyazov has conducted a campaign of repression not only against ethnic Uzbeks, but also against representatives of other ethnic minorities. Ethnic Uzbeks suffered repressions last year, and Ibadullah’s imprisonment was the biggest event on this count.”
Khudaiberdy Orazov, former president of the Central Bank and now a vocal exiled opponent of President Niyazov, told Forum 18 on 25 June 2004 that Ibadullah paved the way for his downfall with a 2002 booklet on prayer. “There was nothing political in the booklet,” Orazov said, “but Niyazov was angry that someone else was giving orders to the people.” According to Orazov, Niyazov told religious officials in August 2002 to remove copies of Ibadullah’s booklet from mosques and start looking for a new chief mufti.
Accurate information about Turkmenistan under Turkmenbashi is so difficult to come by that we simply cannot say which of the explanations for Ibadullah’s fall is closest to the truth. But the incident shows how the travails of a single religious figure open a window on the larger concerns of the state. In Turkmenistan, they include control over society down to the particulars of prayer; the unquestioned personal authority of President Niyazov to inculcate his spiritual ruminations as a sacred text on a par with the Koran; and the promotion of nationalism through the marginalization of ethnic minorities.
REPRESSION TO THE EXTREME
The concerns of state power are different in Uzbekistan, but religion is no less a flashpoint. Unlike the former chief imam, Alo Eshonkhujaev (spelled “Alokhon Ishankhojayev” in some reports) was a minor regional figure, yet he was also a product of his country’s religious establishment. A graduate of a Tashkent religious school, the 28-year-old was to have become on 1 April 2004 the imam of the central mosque in Margelan, a town in Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley. The date proved inauspicious, and the National Security Service (SNB) arrested Eshonkhujaev on 31 March at his home against a backdrop of bombings and shoot-outs in Tashkent.
He went on trial in mid-June on charges of illegal weapons possession and sedition, Forum 18 reported on 29 June 2004. As described by Forum 18 and the Uzbek opposition site Erkinyurt, the trial was a rather bewildering spectacle. Witnesses recanted their earlier testimony. In a marked departure from the norm in Uzbek trials of alleged fundamentalists, the region’s chief imam, Sobir hoja Eminov, testified that he had personally recommended Eshonkhujaev for the post of imam and that the young man had never held extremist views. For his part, Eshonkhujaev proclaimed his innocence, telling the court, “I obtained a religious education in accordance with the laws of Uzbekistan and have never done anything against the state.” Nevertheless, the court found Eshonkhujaev guilty, and on 6 July the judge sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. Akhmajon Madmarov, a local human rights activist, told Forum 18 that bedlam ensued after the verdict was announced, as the defendant’s mother fainted amid cries of outrage from onlookers.
Despite the unusual plea on Eshonkhujaev’s behalf from a representative of the Muslim establishment, the would-be imam’s case is in many ways similar to other trials that have taken place in Uzbekistan. The government charges extremism, usually buttressing its case with the discovery of weapons or propaganda materials. Human rights activists allege that a militantly secular and repressive government is merely targeting devout Muslims, framing them and often compelling them to confess under duress. When they are granted access to trials, Western observers have often found them flawed and suspect, as Human Rights Watch recently detailed in a 10 September statement about the Supreme Court trial of 15 defendants on charges stemming from March-April violence. For their part, Uzbek authorities have retorted that human rights activists ignore a genuine threat to the nation’s stability and coddle potential terrorists by calling them “Muslim dissidents.”
Although the cases of Nusrullah ibn Ibadullah and Alo Eshonkhujaev are hardly similar, they demonstrate that the treatment of religious figures can shine a light on the fears of the state. In Turkmenistan, the fear is that the presence of any leader in any area detracts from the golden aura of the supreme leader. Not surprisingly, Ibadullah’s successor as chief mufti has already been replaced. In Uzbekistan, the fear is that religion can serve as a vehicle for sedition and antistate violence. For critically minded observers, the question in both cases is whether the state in fact compounds its fear even as it strives to eliminate its sources.
Other Articles Written By Daniel Kimmage:
Analysis: Taking To The Streets In Uzbekistan
Analysis: Terrorism, Common Ground, And The CIS Summit
Analysis: Kazakhs In Beslan? The Multiethnic Face Of Post-Soviet Terror
Analysis: A River Runs Through It
Analysis: Terror In Uzbekistan
Kazakh Slavery Case Underscores Wider Problem
Analysis: U.S. Aid To Uzbekistan: Carrots And Sticks
Analysis: Kyrgyz Spy Scandal Takes Domestic Turn
Analysis: Russian Ambassador Leaves Turkmenistan
Analysis: Labor Migration and Tajik-Russian Relations
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2004 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Analysis: How Will Russian Governors Be Appointed?
By Robert Coalson
The State Duma, by a vote of 365-64 with four abstentions, voted on 29 October to adopt in its first reading President Vladimir Putin’s controversial proposal to eliminate the direct election of regional executive-branch heads, Russian media reported. Putin put forward the proposal in a 13 September speech outlining the government’s response to the tragic school hostage taking in Beslan, North Ossetia, earlier that month.
“The outdated executive-branch system” is being renovated, Deputy Vladimir Pekhtin (Unified Russia) told RIA-Novosti on 29 October, in order to “enhance the unity of the country and to forestall the emergence of crises in Russia.
As adopted in its first reading, the bill would replace the direct election of all regional executive-branch heads — including the presidents of the so-called ethnic republics — with a system under which regional legislatures confirm candidates nominated by the president of the Russian Federation. Legislators will confirm candidates by a simple majority; in the cases of regions with bicameral legislatures, both chambers will vote.
If a legislature twice declines to confirm the president’s nominee, the president has the right to disband the legislature and to appoint an acting regional head to serve until a new legislature is elected. The president would also have the right to dismiss any regional head for failure to fulfill his duties or if he “loses the president’s confidence.” Deputies were particularly concerned during the 29 October discussion of the bill about the vagueness of that formulation, “Gazeta” reported on 1 November.
According to media reports, the government and the Duma solicited comments from regional officials prior to the first reading of the bill. According to “Vedomosti” on 1 November, officials received 71 comments from local legislatures and 58 from local executive branches, all but one of which was positive. “The vote might not have taken place if more than one-third of the regional organs of power had sent negative conclusions about the bill,” Duma staff member Yurii Ovsyannikov told the daily.
Political analysts were split over whether the bill would be significantly modified before its second reading, which is scheduled for 16 November. Some viewed the current bill as an intentionally harsh formulation that the Kremlin intends to modify in order to create the impression that it is responding to the concerns of legislators and the public. Others, citing unnamed sources within the presidential administration, said the Kremlin is in no mood to compromise on this matter. “The presidential side made it clear that the hopes of deputies that the bill can be softened for its second reading are in vain,” “Gazeta” wrote on 1 November.
The one acknowledged dissenting review came from the legislature of the Chuvash Republic, which objected to the provision that would allow the president to disband recalcitrant legislatures. Tatar President Mintimer Shaimiev and the Tatar State Council expressed the exact same concern on 25 October, Interfax reported, but they otherwise endorsed the proposal. A number of deputies also objected to this provision and expressed the hope that it could be modified before the measure is adopted, “Rossiiskaya gazeta” reported on 1 November. “Vedomosti” reported the same day that Bashkir legislative Chairman Konstantin Tolkachev has said that “the dissolution of regional parliaments might create political instability in a region or even a state of permanent crisis.” If a legislature twice declines to confirm the president’s nominee, the president has the right to disband the legislature and to appoint an acting regional head to serve until a new legislature is elected.
However, the provision on disbanding legislatures is nearly an exact mirror of the constitutional provision that allows the president to disband a Duma that three times rejects his candidate for prime minister. With this precedent, it seems less likely that the Kremlin will feel obligated to compromise on this point. “Vedomosti,” however, reported on 1 November that the Kremlin is prepared to agree to hold nonbinding consultations with regional legislatures prior to submitting nominees. Federation Council Regional Policy Committee Chairman Viktor Grishin told the daily that “if there are advance consultations, then the process for disbanding the legislature loses its sense.”
Central Election Commission Chairman Aleksandr Veshnyakov told Interfax on 30 October that his agency has proposed four major changes to the bill. First, nominees for gubernatorial posts should be obligated to submit income-and-asset statements. Second, a mechanism should be codified according to which political parties would be able to suggest candidates to the president for nomination. Third, the current two-term restriction for regional executive-branch heads should be maintained. Finally, the law should expire automatically in 10 years.
As for the latter suggestion, presidential envoy to the Duma Aleksandr Kosopkin said that the Kremlin will not agree to a time limitation for the law, saying that the Duma can vote to change the law whenever it wants, “Rossiiskaya gazeta” reported. Kosopkin also reacted harshly to suggestions from some deputies that the so-called ethnic republics should be allowed to continue electing their presidents. “There can be no disparity among the subjects of the federation in this matter,” Kosopkin told deputies, according to Interfax on 29 October.
“Rossiiskaya gazeta” reported that the Duma has received 120 specific suggestions for changes in the regions, and some of them might be introduced. Many Unified Russia deputies reportedly want the law to contain more detailed provisions for the process of selecting nominees, including a plan of mandatory consultations.
Other proposed changes reportedly include limiting the term of acting regional heads to not more than one year and including a more specific description of the division of authority between regional governors and regional legislatures, including a mechanism by which legislatures can vote no confidence in an executive-branch head. “Izvestiya” on 30 October reported that some deputies want the bill to include a solid definition of the term of the executive-branch heads.
All discussion of possible modifications of the bill, however, has been hidden behind a facade of overwhelming support for the measure. Virtually all of Russia’s current governors have come out in favor of the proposed reform. The concerns expressed about certain provisions of the bill have been muted and tenuous, except for the objection of the Chuvash legislature. However, whether strengthening the executive branch can have the desired results of unifying the country remains to be seen. “The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union had no deficit of executive-branch power,” Duma Deputy Nikolai Gonchar (independent) said during the 29 October debate, “Kommersant-Daily” reported on 30 October. “And you know how those states ended up.”
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/11/be03db26-6623-44f3-81aa-2e49f47a57f2.html
Ingushetian security officer implicated in Beslan massacre
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Thursday November 4, 2004
The Guardian
A former policeman was among at least 30 militants who took more than 1,300 schoolchildren, parents and teachers hostage at a school in southern Russia in September, it was reported yesterday.
Russian special forces identified Bashir Pliyev by his fingerprints from among the militants killed during the siege of the school, the daily newspaper Vremya Novosti reported, citing investigators. He was a security officer in the interior ministry of Ingushetia, the republic that borders both Chechnya and North Ossetia, where Beslan is located.
The report comes a week after three senior Ingushetian policemen were charged with criminal negligence for failing to prevent the school being seized.
Officials have claimed that corrupt police officers give militants freedom of movement around the region and permitted the Beslan massacre, in which over 330 people died.
The newspaper quoted Bislan Khamkhoyev, the Ingushetian interior minister, as saying that some months ago Mr Pliyev had driven the Chechen militant leader and self-proclaimed organiser of the Beslan siege, Shamil Basayev, and his aide, Doku Umarov, into Ingushetia, where they met an Arab militant named Abu Kuteib.
At this meeting the militants planned a raid on the Ingushetian capital Nazran in June, during which over 100 local police officers were murdered and a weapons arsenal was reportedly plundered.
Mr Khamkhoyev added that he did not agree with the investigators’ conclusions reported by the newspaper and said that Mr Pliyev was on the run in Chechnya, as was the alleged leader of the militants, Ruslan Khuchbarov.
Investigators have said there may have been as many as 38 militants involved in Beslan. Only 32 bodies were recovered, and there has been speculation that several key militants escaped.
On Saturday, President Putin said the results of a two-month investigation by prosecutors into the massacre would be made public.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1342686,00.html
November 6, 2004
2nd Russian Jury Convicts a Physicist Who Was Acquitted of Spy Charges
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/international/europe/06russia.html
MOSCOW, Nov. 5 – A jury in Siberia convicted a physicist on Friday of spying for China, overturning a previous jury’s acquittal after a closed trial that highlighted flaws in Russia’s judicial system.
The jury rendered its verdict on the central espionage charge against the physicist, Valentin V. Danilov, even though the court’s judges have yet to hold a hearing to decide whether the information he is accused of passing along is even secret, his lawyer said. That hearing is now scheduled for Wednesday.
“This has no legal or logical justification,” the lawyer, Yelena V. Yevlinova, said in a telephone interview from Krasnoyarsk, the regional capital in central Siberia, where the trial was held.
Mr. Danilov, a researcher at Krasnoyarsk State University who was first charged in 2001, has acknowledged selling information about satellite technology to a Chinese company but argued that all of it was readily available from public sources.
Mr. Danilov was initially acquitted last December. His trial was the first of a recent flurry of espionage cases against scientists and researchers to be decided by a jury. Jury trials are still a relative novelty in Russia, having become an option for defendants in some serious cases only in 2002.
Although a new criminal code adopted that year was supposed to end double jeopardy except in extreme cases of judicial misconduct, prosecutors appealed Mr. Danilov’s acquittal, citing “significant procedural violations” during his first trial. Among them was the fact that his lawyers discussed material in front of jurors that had not been accepted as evidence.
In June the Supreme Court ordered a new trial, which began in September and was closed to the public. Ms. Yevlinova said the court’s chief judge refused to let her present evidence showing that the information Mr. Danilov showed was not secret. She said that in effect, the jury’s 12 members found that he signed a contract with the Chinese company, the Export and Import Company of Precise Machine Building. “It is not clear what crime he was convicted of,” she said.
Mr. Danilov, in a telephone interview, questioned the selection of the jury and the fact that a list of the jurors was never published. He said he suspected they had acted under pressure. “Not one of the jurors looked me in the face when the verdict was read,” he said. “When someone does not look you in the eyes, it means that they have problems with their conscience.”
Mr. Danilov’s case – like the more prominent trial of Russia’s richest man, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky – has eroded hopes that the legal reforms adopted in 2002 would give the judiciary greater independence. In practice, courts remain subject to the powerful influence of prosecutors and agencies like the Federal Security Service, the successor to the K.G.B.
In April, a jury convicted an arms control researcher, Igor Sutyagin, on charges similar to those against Mr. Danilov. Human rights organizations have criticized such prosecutions, saying they reflect a wariness of contacts between scientists and foreigners under President Vladimir V. Putin, especially those involving sensitive matters of the military.
Mr. Sutyagin, who worked for the U.S.A. and Canada Institute, a research group in Moscow, was accused of passing secrets to a British company that prosecutors said was a front for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Sutyagin, who argued that he had no access to state secrets, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Sophia Kishkovsky contributed reporting for this article.
NYT Week in Review 11/7
RETURN OF THE SHOW TRIAL
Stalin and the Czars Haunt Khodorkovsky in the Dock
By C. J. CHIVERS
A pliable court crushes Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the billionaire Russian businessman and a Kremlin foe, in full public view. Sound familiar?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/weekinreview/07chiv.html
BUSINESS / WORLD BUSINESS | November 5, 2004
An Oligarch Goes Home to Lift Georgia’s Economy
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND (NYT) News
An Oligarch Goes Home to Lift Georgia’s Economy
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND
Published: November 5, 2004
TBILISI, Georgia – Kakha Bendukidze, the new Georgian economy minister, points out his window in downtown Tbilisi to the shabby refugee hotel framed by a setting sun. “See that large building with the boarded-up windows?” he says. “It’s going to be either a Four Seasons hotel, or maybe commercial office space.”….
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/business/worldbusiness/05georgia.html
Russia starts moral crusade against media
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
12 November 2004
The Russian parliament has embarked upon a moral crusade to eradicate graphic scenes of sex and violence from the country’s television screens, prompting fears of a return of Soviet-style censorship.
Alarmed that Russia’s youth is being corrupted and brutalised by an endless diet of violence and hardcore erotica, deputies have voted to ban such images from 7am till 10pm.
In its present form, the ban would cover news programmes, feature films and documentaries and would prevent the factual or fictional representation of corpses, acts of murder, physical violence, acts that result “in harm to a person’s well-being”, rape or other violent acts of a sexual nature. Deputies in the Duma appear determined to take action, although the government, industry regulators and President Vladimir Putin believe self-regulation is the way forward.
In the first of three readings, 420 MPs backed the new Bill. Andrey Skoch, an MP from Mr Putin’s United Russia party, is behind the new legislation. He says the aim is to protect children from extreme images which have proliferated since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russian viewers are routinely treated to ultra-violent TV series or feature films about the country’s criminal underworld, documentaries and news programmes which think nothing of broadcasting images of mutilated and bomb-blasted corpses, and Crimewatch-style shows which hold nothing back.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Aleksey II, has demanded radical changes. “An hour scarcely passes on our TV screens today without rivers of human blood being split,” he said. “It’s as if they are trying to convince us that human life is worthless.”
The older generation, which grew up on ultra-conservative Soviet TV, strictly censored and sanitised, has long demanded action, and Russia’s newest generation of patriotic politicians say they are eager to “restore order” and clean up the nation’s morals. Boris Gryzlov, the Duma Speaker, said; “In the pursuit of ratings and commercial success [TV stations] have forgotten about their enormous educational role for the next generation of Russians.”
Deputies have been particularly unhappy about coverage of Chechen separatist-inspired acts of terror which the Russian media has a tendency to show in all their gory detail. Months ago, one MP tried and failed to impose a blanket ban on the live TV coverage of domestic terror acts, saying in situations such as the Beslan school siege the media was in effect disseminating “terrorist propaganda”.
Nationalist MPs such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky say the new Bill is just what is needed. “We cannot make TV sterile but we can at least keep some cruelty off the screen at peak times,” he said.
But the heads of Russia’s predominantly state-controlled TV stations have warned that the Bill borders on the absurd and risks ruining news reports, preventing the broadcast of classic Russian and foreign films and even cartoons. They have formed a working group hoping to persuade MPs to water down the legislation.
Vladimir Kulistikov, head of NTV, told the daily, Kommersant: “There is no doubt such a problem exists but do we really want to solve it using absurd means? If we follow the logic of this Bill, films about the Great Patriotic War [Second World War ] would be banned, as would War and Peace.”
He said truthful reporting of terror acts, criminal activity and disasters would be seriously impeded, and that, he added, equated to “the dissemination of deliberately false information about these very important events”.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=582022
Ex-Soviet Dissidents Lament Russia’s State
Saturday November 13, 2004 3:46 PM
AP Photo NYR104
By GERALD NADLER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – More than 50 former Soviet dissidents who spent years in prisons and Siberian exile say Russia is in danger of slipping back into a police state under President Vladimir Putin and the former KGB colleagues he has brought to power.
Graying and aging, the former political prisoners reminisced one night this week about how they challenged the totalitarian superpower to abide by laws that on paper guaranteed free speech, a free press and fair trials.
Today Russians are turning to Putin, a former KGB colonel, to restore order in their chaotic, market-driven democracy, said Eduard Kuznetsov, 65, who spent 17 years in prison for planning to hijack a plane in Leningrad in 1970 to get out of the Soviet Union.
“More than 50 percent of the key state positions are occupied by former KGB officials,” Kuznetsov said. “The KGB officials have a specific mentality. They can’t change. There is a danger that it will really be a police state. Not so straightforward as it was under Brezhnev, because there is inertia.
“Because they have to balance between the (opinion of) the free world and a controlled society.” Leonid Brezhnev ruled from 1964-82, now labeled the era of stagnation.
Vladimir Bukovsky, who was labeled insane and spent a total of 12 years in Soviet jails and psychiatric hospitals for repeatedly demonstrating, said Russia is “slowly returning to the pre-1991 situation” before the end of the Soviet Union.
“But it will never go back all the way to Brezhnev’s time. History doesn’t repeat itself so precisely. But they will make a couple of generations miserable again. That’s what they will do,” said Bukovsky, 61.
“You cannot return the Soviet system. It collapsed because it had to collapse. Not because the CIA undermined it or subverted it. They cannot understand in their small minds that it was absolutely doomed. Now by trying to restore it, they are simply bankrupting the country.”
Bukovsky, who won his freedom in a swap for Chilean Communist Louis Corvalan on Dec. 18, 1976, recalled that Putin has lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union as “a tragedy.” He said Putin’s colleagues also share this view.
“They do so because they used to be young officers of the KGB … and they still have the feeling that they served the great power and now they want the great power to be back, and they think by repeating the Soviet example they once again will bring greatness to Russia,” Bukovsky said.
Putin, who proposed ending the direct election of governors after the Beslan school hostage crisis in September in which more than 330 people, mainly children, were killed, has denied that his planned overhaul of the electoral system signaled a retreat from democracy. Putin earlier drew criticism for shutting down two independent television stations with national reach – purportedly for financial reasons.
Yuri Orlov, a physicist, now 80, who spent seven years in Soviet prisons and five in Siberian exile for forming a group to monitor Soviet compliance with the 1975 Helsinki agreement on human rights, said he fears Russia will regress but not to what it was. “Russia today is different.”
The reunion was held at the headquarters of the nonprofit American Jewish Committee. Vladimir Kozlovsky, who grew up in the Soviet Union and emigrated to the West in 1974, said the assembled dissidents were his idols.
“They were a major factor in turning Russia into a semi-free country from a heavily authoritarian one. My childhood heroes. People I don’t cease to admire. They probably spent a couple of hundred years combined in Soviet jails. And those were nasty jails. It was no picnic.”
Ludmilla Thorne, a veteran of the human rights movement who worked with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, said: “The initial stage of the Soviet Union’s demise is here in this building.
“The people you see in this room are the people who laid the foundation. The first epoch was dissent. These were a small group – 2,000 no more.”
She said the dissidents were using words like “glasnost” and “perestroika” nearly 20 years before former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev made them the slogan of his push for democratic and free-market reforms.
“After coming to power in March 1985, Gorbachev borrowed the term ‘glasnost’ and made it his own.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4613228,00.html
Putin Uses Soft Power to Restore the Russian Empire
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
President Vladimir Putin is wielding Russia’s considerable resources to keep those countries in what Russians call the “near abroad” under the sway of the Kremlin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/weekinreview/14myer.html?pagewanted=print&position=
November 14, 2004
Putin Uses Soft Power to Restore the Russian Empire
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
OSCOW — PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN is not subtle.
As the presidential campaign climaxed late last month in Ukraine, a country once dominated by Russia’s czars and commissars but now free to choose its own way, Mr. Putin went to Kiev for three days of politicking on behalf of the candidate who promised to strengthen bonds with Moscow.
That candidate came in a close second to one advocating closer ties to Europe – another way of calling for greater independence from its big neighbor. On Friday, barely a week ahead of the runoff, Mr. Putin was in Ukraine again.
In the language of international diplomacy this is known as interfering in another country’s internal affairs. For Mr. Putin, however, it is an increasingly typical feature of what might be called Russia’s soft imperialism.
From the edges of a new Europe to the Caucasus to Central Asia, Mr. Putin is wielding Russia’s considerable resources – and his personal clout – to keep those countries in what Russians call the “near abroad” under the sway, if not outright domination, of the Kremlin.
He has used Russia’s economic levers – above all, its oil and gas, often sold at discounts – to bind its neighbors into an ever tighter dependency. He has countered the American military buildup in Central Asia that followed the Sept. 11 attacks with a buildup of Russian forces in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
In Moldova and Georgia, Russia has openly abetted separatist regions by refusing to keep its commitments to withdraw its troops. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, it has also granted Russian citizenship to thousands who, technically, are citizens of other countries, an act that makes them candidates for the special attention of Kremlin diplomacy.
Mr. Putin is not rebuilding the Soviet Union. But he is trying to forge an economic, social and military facsimile, with Moscow again at the core, in all but three of its former republics. The notable exceptions are the Baltic nations, which irrevocably severed the old chains and now belong to NATO and the European Union. Elsewhere, despite new national identities that took root after the Soviet collapse, he appears to be succeeding.
“Russia is on its way to recover the degree of soft power the U.S.S.R. once enjoyed in its immediate sphere of influence,” Fiona Hill, an expert with the Brookings Institution, wrote in a recent study for the Foreign Policy Center in London, referring to the economic power and cultural influence that once accompanied the far harder power of the troops and security apparatus that controlled the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
It is no surprise that Mr. Putin, like any leader, would consider it his right to protect what he sees as the country’s interests in its extensive backyard, especially now that the United States, the European Union, China and others are actively pursuing their own business and strategic interests there. But some of his policies and pronouncements have revived fears of Russia’s long shadow.
In Poland, a former Soviet satellite, a scandal has erupted over allegations of bribery and espionage involving a Russian agent and the country’s largest oil company. “We are facing a restoration of the Russian empire through economic means,” Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, the former chief of intelligence, told a parliamentary inquiry last month.
Indeed, the rebound of Russia’s economy after the financial crisis of 1998 has given Mr. Putin new leverage with which to counter the economic and political incentives the West is offering Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia to lure them out of Moscow’s embrace.
Russia has the advantage of proximity and old ties, as well as linguistic bonds, because Russian remains the language of commerce and diplomacy throughout the region. Even more important, it has oil and gas. With demand spiking, even the United States is scrambling with China and Japan for access to Russia’s wells.
As Stephen O’Sullivan, the head of research at the United Financial Group in Moscow, put it, “Oil and gas is what makes Russia important to a lot of the world.”
Mr. Putin, who not long ago called the Soviet collapse a “national tragedy,” is clearly eager to reclaim for Russia some of its status as a superpower. And there is more to it than economics. The perceived losses of the Baltics and, more recently, of Georgia have been treated in Russia as a blow to national prestige.
That is what has made the outcome of Ukraine’s election so evidently vital to Mr. Putin. Despite gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine retains deep ties to Russia because it spent centuries under Moscow’s rule. Many Ukrainians are ethnic Russians. Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, was the birthplace of the Russian state and Russian Orthodox Church.
Now, President Leonid D. Kuchma’s decision to step down after 10 years has opened up a fiercely contested fight over the country’s future. Mr. Kuchma himself zigzagged between Russia and the West, but he has thrown his support to Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich, who has made it clear he feels the country’s interests lie to the east. And that makes Mr. Yanukovich the candidate favored by Mr. Putin over Viktor A. Yushchenko, who wants to balance trade with Russia with expanded ties to Ukraine’s European neighbors.
“This election is not about Yushchenko or Yanukovich or even Ukraine,” Hryhoriy M. Nemyria, director of the European Center for International Studies in Kiev, said in an interview after the first round of voting. “It’s about Russia.”
He said a victory for Mr. Yushchenko in the runoff would amount to a public humiliation of Mr. Putin, at home and abroad. “The perception would be that Ukraine escaped, like Georgia,” he said. “It would be like the escape of a little sister from the family.”
And that is almost certainly why Mr. Putin arrived again on Friday on what the Kremlin called a routine visit, promoting closer relations and announcing new ferry and rail links.
KYRGYZSTAN: Convicts in southern prison protest against abuse of their rights
18 Nov 2004 18:16:09 GMT
OSH, 18 November (IRIN) – A group of prisoners and detainees revolted on Tuesday evening in a temporary detention facility (TDF) in the southern city of Osh, Ziaydin Jamaldinov, a representative of the Kyrgyz Ombudsman, told IRIN on Thursday after he had visited the jail together with the head of a local human rights protection organisation.
Jamaldinov said that almost 20 prisoners, including four teenagers, harmed themselves, some seriously, in protest against use of violence in the prison. The victims were given medical aid and they were now being kept in their cells, he added.
“Inhabitants of the jail said that constant oppression on the part of the jailers forced them to make such a protest; they complained of bad medical services and a lack of basic living conditions. All this resulted in the revolt,” Sadikjan Makhmudov, director of the Osh-based Luch Solomona rights group, told IRIN.
The entire prison population, numbering some 250 people, have also gone on a hunger strike in response to the use of harsh measures at the facility, he noted.
Osh TDF is one of the oldest penitentiary establishments in the country. People under investigation and those sentenced to short imprisonment are kept there, along with those on their way to correctional facilities.
In September, Luch Solomona NGO, with assistance from international organisations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), monitored prison conditions in the jail.
They found overcrowding in cells – almost two prisoners to one place – along with an extremely high prevalence of tuberculosis, HIV and scabies. There was also a serious shortage of medicine and poor nourishment.
The NGO said that the basic rights of prisoners and detainees were being infringed, noting that rights were violated by both correction officers and police officers in charge of interrogation.
Samidin Satarov, chief of the investigative police department, told IRIN that the incident was an internal matter. According to prison officials, the protest was provoked by one of the informal leaders in the jail after the authorities refused him permission to see a visitor.
Law enforcement officials blame social problems in the penitentiary facility on extremely poor government financing. “Look how I am dressed,” said one of the senior guards, showing his greasy, patched jacket.
Meanwhile, local NGOs, who have been monitoring the situation in penitentiary facilities of southern Kyrgyzstan for several years, say that serious changes are needed to the system.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/61ed6c3c08b06def387bd14ce7842e6a.htm
Vladimir Putin: Claims of authoritarian drift “total nonsense”
12:21 PM EST Nov 19
STEVE GUTTERMAN
MOSCOW (AP) – President Vladimir Putin rejected concern that he is beating a path toward authoritarianism, calling such criticism “total nonsense” in an interview published Friday and saying Russia needs time to build democracy after centuries of heavy-handed rule.
“A return to any kind of totalitarian system is absolutely ruled out,” Putin said in an interview with Chilean media ahead of a visit to the Latin American country for an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.
But he said Russia will have its own brand of democracy, and needs a powerful government to keep the country together and prevent crime and chaos. “Democracy must not mean permissiveness. A free market must not mean the right to rob the state and the nation’s riches,” Putin said. “We will build not anarchy but democracy.”
The interview, Putin’s second actively publicized defence of widely criticized electoral reforms in as many days, was broadcast in part on state-run television and posted on the Kremlin Web site.
Putin has proposed eliminating elections of governors in Russia’s 89 regions – he would appoint the leaders instead – and ending the election of national legislators in district races in favour of a system in which parties would win all 450 State Duma states and distribute them to members from lists.
He announced the plans after September’s school hostage-taking in that killed more than 330 people, saying it is necessary to strengthen federal authority to avert further attacks.
Asked how he responds to critics who say he’s moving toward authoritarianism, Putin called their words “total nonsense.” He added, “Of course, any actions aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the functioning of the government are interpreted very cautiously. That’s understood.”
Putin suggested foreign governments should not criticize Russia’s political system, saying “every state seeks the form of democratic institutions that is most acceptable for itself.” He singled out the U.S. Electoral College system, which Russian officials often point to as a shortcoming of American democracy.
“Russia is still looking for the most optimal . . . ways of applying commonly accepted democratic institutions in our country,” Putin said. He said Russia’s authoritarian past makes it difficult to build democracy.
“Of course, as there was no civil society either in Czarist times or under Communism, we have been striving to create its institutions for the past 12 years,” Putin said. “But still, you must agree, in terms of thousand-year-old Russia this is an absolutely unnoticeable period of time. It’s necessary to work further on the creation of these institutions. We will do this persistently.”
Amid concerns of a retreat from democracy, Putin has said repeatedly that he is dedicated to fostering the creation of a civil society, but critics say many of his policies, actions and other statements belie those assurances.
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/041119/w111916.html
Kazak Oil Capital Runs Short of Petrol
Western Kazakstan’s oil wealth does not translate into cheap petrol for the locals.
By Saya Issa in Atyrau (RCA No. 327, 23-Nov-04)
Atyrau, on the shores of the Caspian Sea in western Kazakstan, is the country’s oil capital, so it comes as a surprise that petrol has become such a rare commodity that city taxi drivers staged a protest over spiralling prices earlier this month.
About 100 drivers of minibus taxis – which pick up and drop passengers along a set route – held a strike on November 1 to demand permission to increase fares so as to keep up with fuel costs.
About 80 per cent of the crude processed at the Atyrau refinery, one of the largest in Kazakstan and a major domestic and foreign supplier, comes from the giant state-owned oil company KazMunaiGaz.
One suggestion is that the refinery is running short of crude oil, but it is unclear why it would be unable to produce enough petrol to keep at least local drivers happy.
The public prosecutor for Atyrau region has accused KazMunaiGaz of undersupplying the Atyrau so as to shift more crude oil to international markets where prices soared to more than 50 US dollars a barrel this year. Prosecutors concluded that the refinery was operating at half its proper capacity, causing shortages and consequent price rises.
Only the more expensive grade of petrol is currently available in Atyrau, at around 50 US cents per litre – 10 or 15 cents more than in early October. The lower octane varieties used by most drivers have disappeared. In the countryside, the very low grades used only by some Russian-made cars and trucks are still available, but prices have jumped even higher to 1.20 dollars a litre.
Askar Kujagaliev, a member of Kazakstan’s parliament, has said he plans to raise the issue in the assembly.
“It is currently profitable for Kazakstan companies to supply oil to the international market. So they disrupt all the supply schedules to local refining plants,” he alleged.
Kujagaliev said he had received an assurance from Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov that if any firm was found to be selling crude abroad when it should have been supplying the domestic market, its government license would be rescinded.
The anti-monopoly commission in Atyrau has denied allegations that the Atyrau plant has been undersupplied. Instead, commission officials blamed the high price of refined petroleum products on the world market for affecting the local market.
The drivers who protested on November 1 say that if petrol costs stay high, they must be allowed to raise the prices they charge passengers by about 50 per cent.
Price hikes are a contentious and highly politicised issue in a city where minibuses – carrying up to 12 passengers each along a set route – are the only form of public transport for a population of 300,000. Three years ago, the local authorities did away with normal bus and trolleybus services across the city. Ordinary taxis cost twice as much as in the capital Astana and are too expensive for most locals to use regularly.
Minibus taxi routes have been farmed out to private businessmen, but it is the drivers working for them – who supply their own vehicles and buy the fuel – who are feeling the pinch.
Because the taxi business effectively operates as a local government-franchised public service, the drivers are not allowed to raise fares unless they apply for permission from the local anti-monopoly committee.
City administrators have met with the taxi firm owners and are considering their demands, but are thought to be unlikely to allow any price hikes because this would be so unpopular.
“We are currently studying the problem. I can say one thing for certain: before we raise fares, the public transport owners will have to justify every penny,” said deputy mayor Vyacheslav Jumurov. “If the price is justifiable, then we will have to agree with the protestors’ arguments.”
Caught between rising running costs and an official desire to avoid fare increases, the taxi drivers are finding it hard to stay in business.
Vehicle owners pay about 100 dollars a day to the owner of the particular route they operate on, and then have to cover maintenance as well as petrol.
“Many of us bought the minibuses on loan. How can we pay our creditors?” asked one taxi driver, a young woman who refused to give her name. “All the money we get goes to the [government] official who owns the route. There is not even enough to pay the drivers, buy petrol and repair the vehicles. There’s nothing but expenses. This business does not pay off.”
Kumis Tabyldieva, a conductor who collects fares for a minibus driver, said vehicle owners feel they have no choice but to mount a protest.
“How else can we protect our rights?” she said. “No one takes into account that we transport almost the entire city’s population. How much longer can we keep silent and put up with this abuse?”
Saya Issa is an independent journalist in Atyrau.
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca2/rca2_327_5_eng.txt
Putin says moral superiority helped Soviet troops defeat Nazis
07.12.2004, 16.35
ALABINO, Moscow region, December 7 (Itar-Tass) – Moral superiority enabled Soviet troops win the battle against Nazis near Moscow in December 1941, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday while visiting reenactment of an episode from that battle at a drill range of the Russian Armored Troops at Alabino near Moscow.
He retorted some western theories about the causes of Soviet victory in that crucial battle by saying: “We understand, of course, it is neither so-called General Winter nor rough terrain that helped our troops win”.
“We won because our morale was stronger, because our people showed real heroism,” Putin said.
“We won thanks to the people whom we’re calling veterans today,” he said. “We’ll remember them, we’ll be take pride in them, and their example will inspire our people for good things in the name of our beloved Russia”.
more at: http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=1537770&PageNum=1
For a transcript of a recent IWPR discussion on “After Beslan: Is the Chechnya Conflict Spreading?” at the Frontline Club in London go to http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?caucasus_beslan_script.html
Privatization, Kazakh-style
By Alexander Sukhanov
ALMATY – President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan has instructed the government to sell a part of shares of state companies, causing a ripple in the oil-rich country. Though a significant part of the largest Kazakh companies is controlled by foreign corporations, state companies until recently were holy cows controlled by several joint-stock companies, all state-owned.
Nazarbayev’s decision to develop the domestic stock market is part of his ambitious “2030″ economic strategy, which aims to turn Kazakhstan into a developed country by 2030. The Kazakh stock market has all the necessary infrastructure in place, but has not attracted a lot of investment. State-company shares soon to be listed on the market include Kazmunaygas (the national oil and gas company), KEGOK (electrical systems), Kazakhstan Temir Joly (railways), Kazakhtelecom (telecommunications) and Kazatomprom (uranium). The perception is that this big push to the stock market will set the ball rolling for other Kazakh companies.
The primary goal is to offer investment tools to Kazakh pension funds. Stock-market development will also solve another problem, changing the structure of foreign investment. At present, foreign corporations are simply buying Kazakh companies. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country was US$22 billion at the end of 2003 – more than half concentrated in the oil and gas industry. Even the largest Kazakh company, the oil giant TenghizChevroil, is not a joint-stock company.
Development of the stock market should create conditions for increasing portfolio investments and open new avenues for foreign investors. But the government’s plan is likely to meet many obstacles – because the rules in Kazakhstan are different from those foreign investors are used to. First, the management and control systems are different. As the state is the only shareholder, there are no shareholders’ meetings. Each state company is supervised by the so-called “authorized body” – the state ministry or a committee. Boards of directors invariably include high-ranking officials. The same official can be a member of the board of directors of several state companies simultaneously. Appointments are political, not based on business decisions. Nobody is surprised when a minister becomes president of a state company, a vice minister becomes vice president, or vice-versa.
Commercial activities of state companies are bound by a plethora of rules. State procurement procedures constrain development of these companies as well as reduce efficiency, and managers always find new ways to bypass the law. Investment activity is strictly regulated too. Recently, the Kazakh government ratified rules of development of investment programs for state companies that will apply in 2005. In practice, this means the perpetuation of the Soviet-style planned economy, with all companies working to a general plan.
more at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FL18Ag01.html
Analysis: Is Russia Ripe For An ‘Orange Revolution’?
By Julie A. Corwin
“Will Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’ spread to Russia?” may seem like an odd question to ask in the absence of any competitors to Russian President Vladimir Putin. After all, Putin easily won reelection this year. Yet, a virtual torrent of ink has been spilled in the Russian media in recent weeks posing exactly that question. The answers reflect not just how the authors view of events in Kyiv, but the desirability of participatory democracy in Russia.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/12/3d6da17b-4b48-43d5-8524-c6b711036bef.html
BOOKS | December 21, 2004
Capturing Lost Soul of Russia in Berlin
Mark Simon for The New York Times
Wladimir Kaminer represents an emerging Russo-German culture.
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER (NYT) News
….The crowd dances to Russian rock and Ukrainian folk music….
….In a city that has acquired one of the largest Russian populations in Europe outside the Russian Federation, Mr. Kaminer, 37, is more than the impresario of Berlin’s trendy club scene. He is a radio talk-show host, the author of several best-selling books depicting the life of Russian immigrants in Germany, and a sort of good-humored emblem of the emerging hybrid culture of Berlin, which is showing the effect of the German government’s effort to build up its Russian, especially its Russian-Jewish, population.
“Wladimir Kaminer is definitely the most famous Russian in Germany,” said Boris Feldman, 47, the editor of the weekly Russian-language newspaper Russkij Berlin, who came to Berlin from Riga, Latvia in 1990….
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/books/21kami.html?ex=1261371600&en=0bb3069d146da49b&ei=509
0&partner=rssuserland
Chechen rebel leader’s family ‘abducted’
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
14 January 2005
The hunt for one of Russia’s most wanted men — the Chechen rebel president Aslan Maskhadov — has taken an extraordinary twist with the kidnapping of eight of his relatives in what was allegedly an unorthodox attempt to “convince” him to give himself up.
Russia’s leading human rights group, Memorial, claims the kidnappings, which are reported to have taken place in December were perpetrated by forces loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Moscow-backed deputy Prime Minister.
Mr Kadyrov denies all knowledge of the matter, however, and argues that the disappearances have not been officially reported.
The hostages are reported to include two of Mr Maskhadov’s brothers, his sister, his nephew and a niece.
Along with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, Mr Maskhadov is the man Moscow most wants to see behind bars. It blames both men for the Beslan school massacre last September and has posted a $10m (£5.3m) reward for information leading to their “neutralisation”.
In reality the job of catching them falls to Mr Kadyrov, the son of the troubled province’s previous Moscow-backed president who was murdered last year.
Mr Kadyrov commands an unruly private army and boasted last September that he was on the verge of capturing Mr Maskhadov, a feat that would delight Russian president Vladimir Putin and earn the young Chechen a place in history.
more at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=600665
Kadyrov denies but is this somehow related.
Trust in Putin falling among Russians: opinion poll
By :
Date : 15 January 2005 0818 hrs (SST)
URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/127459/1/.html
~~
The survey also showed a sharp decline in the Russians’ trust in their government.
While in December 2003 34 percent of Russians hoped the government would be able to improve the country’s situation in the near future, only 25 percent of them shared that hope in December 2004.
The last months of 2004 also saw an increase in negative assessments among Russians.
Fifty-two percent of Russians polled in December 2004 thought their country was moving along the wrong path, as against 35 percent in December 2003.
At the same time, only 35 percent of Russians polled in December 2004 thought their country was going in the right direction, as against 51 percent in December 2003.
Analysis: Are Officials Masking Police Brutality In The Urals?
By Julie A. Corwin and Gulnara Khasanova
Human rights activists Lyudmila Alekseeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group and Lev Ponomarev of the For Human Rights movement told reporters in the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia on 13 January that they have collected evidence of mass beatings in the city of Blagoveshchensk during security raids on 10-14 December, RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service reported.
Alekseeva even charged that “there has not been such a mass violation of human rights anywhere in Russia outside of Chechnya.” According to Ponomarev, the police in charge wore masks, making it difficult to prosecute the guilty. But he argued that someone must take responsibility for the actions, suggesting that “this should be the leadership of the Bashkortostan Interior Ministry.”
‘Preventive’ Measure
The police raids in Blagoveshchensk that took place on 10-14 December were described as a “crime preventive” measure at the time. They followed an incident on 8 December in which a group of youths allegedly beat up five policemen, three of whom wound up requiring hospitalization.
During the ensuing raids, as many as 1,000 people were detained, many were beaten, and there were also reports of torture, RFE/RL’s Moscow bureau reported on 13 January. Of the more than 400 people who showed up at local hospitals, the majority had severe bruises, while many had sustained concussions or fractures. Human rights activists in Bashkortostan suggested that dozens of women had been raped, the bureau reported.
After information concerning the raids began circulating in the media near the end of December, the Russian Federal and Bashkortostan Interior ministries began to engage in damage control. After a meeting with human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev announced on 29 December that a probe was being carried out not only into the incident in Blagoveshchensk but also into the work of the republican Interior Ministry as a whole, ITAR-TASS reported.
more at:
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/01/4aac19b8-7e66-4591-9050-ece06155a112.html
Jan 21, 2005
Moscow stands firm on Korean standoff
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW – Speculation that a second intra-Korean summit could take place on the sidelines of Russia’s World War II victory celebrations is swirling, with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il both reportedly invited to the event.
The May 9 celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory, to be held in Moscow, is to be a major event in Russia. In all, the Kremlin has invited the leaders of 55 nations of World War II, including victors such as the United States, Britain and France; losers such as Germany and Japan; as well as those profoundly affected by it, such as China and Korea.
The possibility of a second summit in Russia isn’t unlikely, as the Kremlin has repeatedly offered to play the role of mediator in the ongoing Korean standoff. Russia is ready to host “any meetings and talks, to help in any form so as to normalize the situation” around North Korea, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated, and Moscow has long been pressing for the resumption of the six-nation talks to convince North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program, and for the non-nuclear status of the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea and South Korea, supported by the United States, China, Japan and Russia, have held several rounds of negotiations aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons drive. However, Kim has long resisted relinquishing his nation’s nuclear program, despite international pledges of security guarantees and economic aid.
Last September, Putin held summit talks in Moscow with his South Korean counterpart Roh. This resulted in a 10-point joint declaration pledging support a nuclear-free zone on the Korean Peninsula; strengthened cooperation in the six-nation talks; a block on weapons of mass destruction proliferation; joint actions to combat terrorism. In particular, the two leaders pledged to prevent the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
more at:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GA21Ag01.html
Afghanistan denies sale of Russian uranium on black market
KABUL, February 16 (Online): An official of the Afghan National Defence Ministry denied claims by Russian defence minister, Mr Sergey Ivanov, who had said that enriched Russian uranium have been sold on the Afghan black markets.
The Russian defence minister had recently made theses remarks at the session of NATO defence ministers in Paris.
The Russian defence minister had claimed that containers full of Russian enriched uranium have been sold in Afghanistan’s markets.
Bakhtar Information Agency reported that Gen Mohammad Zaher Azimi, spokesman of defence ministry, rejected these claims and added that the Afghan security forces have not encountered such incidents.
It is worth mentioning that the Russian defence minister has not made it clear when the incident has taken place.
End.
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=94114
================Uranium smuggled to Afghanistan from Russia : Ivanov
Sunday February 13, 2005 (1402 PST)
MOSCOW: Russia has disclosed that suspected uranium-containing boxes were smuggled to Afghanistan.
Russian Defence Minister Sergiev Ivanov conceded the uranium boxes had Russian language written on them, which were smuggled to Kabul to malign Moscow. He added that a probe was underway in the Russian Atomic Defence Commission in this regard.
According to BBC report, the minister told Russian TV channel that a conspiracy was continuing to create suspicion about the security measures for the Russian nuclear weapons and uranium. He claimed that they received some information that boxes in the name of Russian enriched uranium were being sold in black market in Afghanistan. According to him, these boxes were fake.
However, the minister did not say as to where they saw this material and about any contact with Afghan government in this respect.
He also expressed deep concern over the failure of the Afghan government and world community to prevent drug trafficking in that country. He claimed that most of the money earned from drug smuggling goes to terrorists.
http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=93827
“Ivanov +uranium” looking for the “BBC report” that they mention and all I really found was the same Pak Tribune stuff, tho I didn’t look hard.
Sounds almost like they found this tidbit and wanted to play it up like “see, other countries are loose with the uranium too, Khan’s not the only one” ?
lol, I was really truly lol, thinking “what the hell,” until I read the end of the article:
Morris is an adviser to the democratic forces of Moldova.
here’s the beginning and link:
The Hill 2/16
DICK MORRIS
East Europe’s orange dawn
To paraphrase Marx and Engels, a specter is haunting the tyrannical former communist regimes of Eastern Europe — the specter of the Orange Revolution.
Once safe ruling their impoverished enclaves of repression and corruption, the ex-communists, who go by such euphemisms as “moderate centrists,” are now facing massive popular revolt and a spreading demand for freedom and real democracy.
Beginning in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, the orange tide spread to Ukraine, where it engulfed the former nomenklatura and apparatchiks of the Soviet era and forced them from power. Now the revolution spreads, on its own as they all do, to tiny, oppressed Moldova….
http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/DickMorris/021605.html
P.S. still chuckling a bit…how the mighty have fallen et. al.
I searched BBC and found nothing, so who knows.
Dozens of mountain settlements are being steadily depopulated by the ongoing conflict.
By Umalt Dudayev in Usum-Kotar (CRS No. 274, 17-Feb-05)
A narrow, snow-covered dirt road leads to a few deserted houses with broken doors and windows, collapsing roofs and fences. Everything suggests this village has long been abandoned by its residents.
This is Usum-Kotar, a tiny village in the alpine Nozhai-Yurt district in the southeast of Chechnya – one of dozens of mountain settlements whose residents have been forced to flee in a process of depopulation barely reported to the outside world.
“This community was named after my great-grandfather Usum, who had founded it in the early 1900s,” said Yahya Usumov, 52, who lived in Usum-Kotar before the second Chechen conflict began in 1999.
“My grandfather and father lived here, as did my family and I, and my cousins with their families. But we’ve all had to leave. It’s no longer possible to stay in Usum-Kotar.”
Usumov lost his wife in the war. Although she died of a heart attack, the villager blames the constant bombing and shelling for wrecking her health. “My wife was only two years younger than me, and had never had health complaints before,” he told IWPR.
“The war took her away, like so many other Chechens. There was a lot of shooting and bombing going on all the time. Many people die of heart failure [here] because of all the anxiety, stress and fear. But no one cares.”
Usum-Kotar is situated close to a forest, making it vulnerable to Russian air or artillery strikes. The Russian military is suspicious of forested mountain areas in the south, which it believes are used as hiding places by guerrillas loyal to rebel Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, warlord Shamil Basayev, and other commanders.
“Since the war began in the autumn of 1999, the Russians have been constantly bombing and shelling the mountain gorges and forests both in our district and across southern Chechnya. They’re still doing it,” said Usumov.
“The locals were forced to flee, fearing for their own lives and those of their next of kin. Any village can be targeted at any time. Russian soldiers can break into your home any time, kill or kidnap you or your family members, and then vanish without a trace and no one will catch the perpetrators.”
As Chechen mountain villages have no gas or coal, people have to heat their homes with wood – but this has to be gathered in the forest, and few want to stray there. As well as the danger posed by the scores of landmines planted there, villagers run the risk of being captured by the Russian troops who comb the area looking for guerrillas.
[...]
Umalt Dudayev is the pseudonym of a Chechen journalist and IWPR contributor.
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/cau/cau_200502_274_4_eng.txt
Chechen warlord weds, and calls for holy war
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
24 February 2005
He is Russia’s most wanted man but the one-legged Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev is reported to have married his third wife in southern Russia and plotted with his guests to wage a new holy war against Russian forces.
The claim, posted on the official Chechen separatist rebel website, will embarrass the Russian authorities who have been trying to kill or capture Basayev for years.
~~~
The rebel website quoted Basayev as saying: “The meetings were pleasant and useful and inshallah [God willing] a jihad [holy war] will rage over the whole Caucasus this year.” A few days ago, it added, Basayev had returned to Chechnya with his “young bride”. Chechnya’s Moscow-backed authorities said the claims were propaganda and “a provocation”.
A unilateral rebel ceasefire expired yesterday but Aslan Maskhadov appeared to extend it, making a fresh call for the Russians to enter into negotiations with him, an offer they have consistently refused.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=614133
If President Bush thought he would receive support from Russian reporters when he raised the cause of free speech, he did not know much about the Kremlin press pool.
“What is this lack of freedom all about?” one Russian reporter challenged Bush during his joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. “Our regional and national media often criticize government institutions.”
Bush seemed surprised. “Obviously, if you’re a member of the Russian press, you feel like the press is free,” he replied. “You feel that way? That’s good.” Bush added, “That is a pretty interesting observation for those of us who don’t live in Russia to listen to.”
The exchange illustrated more about the state of freedom in Russia than met the eye. While Putin travels around with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin’s rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.
The Kremlin press pool is like so many institutions in Russia that have the trappings of a Western-style pluralistic society but operate under a different set of understandings, part of what analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center calls “the illusion of democracy.” Television channels air newscasts with fancy graphics but follow scripts approved by the Kremlin. Elections are held, but candidates out of favor with the Kremlin are often knocked off the ballot. Courts conduct trials, but the state almost never loses. Parliament meets but only to rubber-stamp Kremlin legislation.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51587-2005Feb24.html
One Russian friend likes to tell me a joke. We used to have a two-party system in Russia, he says – a Communist Party and a KGB Party. The KGB Party won and now Russia has a one-party system.
This is not what the Russian people fought for in August 1991.
Home > Comment > Commentators
Taras Chaban: Europe’s leaders must start standing up to Putin
They should not be fooled by the pro-democratic rhetoric of the Russian government
25 February 2005
An eagerly awaited summit of Presidents Bush and Putin took place in Slovakia yesterday. On both sides of the Atlantic it was previewed as a showdown, a defining moment not only for Russo-American relations but as an indication of how Bush’s foreign policy would be conducted during the second term.
Even before the meeting at Bratislava Castle, the US President had expressed, in his most outspoken language yet on Russia, Washington’s concerns about the reversal of democratic reforms and the rule of law. During a speech in Brussels he also urged European Union governments to place democracy at the heart of their dialogue with the Putin government.
Putin was quick to offer reassurance yesterday about these fears being “unfounded”. But Bush is right to be alarmed about the safety of democratic institutions and the behaviour of the Putin government towards Russia’s neighbouring states. Bush is also right to lecture the EU’s most powerful states that they need to adopt as strong a tone as Washington seems to be doing in their dealings with Moscow.
more
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=614520
Republic of Bashkortostan
// GENERAL INFORMATION
Republic of Bashkortostan is a democratic, constitutional, sovereign state within the Russian Federation expressing the will and interests of its multinational population. The republic possesses full state authority outside the realm of jurisdiction and powers of the Russian Federation in matters concerning joint jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan; determines and implements internal policy; participates in international relations within the limits of its authority; and has its own Constitution and legislation.
Emblem
The Republic of Bashkortostan was proclaimed a sovereign republic of the Russian Federation on October 11, 1990. The President is the head of state and the republic’s highest official. The bicameral National Assembly, or Kurultai, is the highest legislative and representative body; and the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Bashkortostan is the highest executive body.
The Republic of Bashkortostan covers an area of 143 600 km2 or 0.8% of the total area of the Russian Federation. It occupies a large part of the Southern Urals, the adjacent Bashkirian part of the Ural foreplains, and the high plain belt of the Bashkirian Transural region. It borders on Perm and Sverdlov regions in the north, Chelyabinsk Region in the southeast, Orenburg Region in the south and southwest, the Republic of Tatarstan in the west, and the Udmurt Republic in the northwest. Its territory extends 550 km from north to south and 430 km from west to east between 51°31′ and 56°34′ north latitude and 53°10′ and 59°59′ east longitude.
Flag
As of January 1, 1999, 4 110 300 people lived in the republic, including 2 540 200 in cities and 1 570 100 in rural areas. The Republic of Bashkortostan has the seventh-largest population among subjects of the Russian Federation.
People of nearly 100 different nationalities live in Bashkortostan, including Bashkirs, Russians, Tatars, Chuvash, Mari, Ukrainians, and Germans. The Bashkirs are the indigenous inhabitants.
more
http://www.kommersant.com/tree.asp?rubric=5&node=434&doc_id=-90
udges Who Acquit Forced Off Bench
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page A01
MOSCOW — The case before Judge Alexander Melikov involved a juvenile from Tajikistan who had gotten into a shoving match with a co-worker outside a train station in July 2003. The juvenile had allegedly thrown a beer bottle at the other man, but missed, according to court documents. The juvenile was charged with hooliganism.
In court, the victim said he forgave the young Tajik, who had no previous criminal record, and asked Melikov to be lenient. The judge gave the juvenile a four-year suspended sentence with three years of probation.
Prosecutors did not appeal.
But the sentence helped get Melikov stripped of his judgeship in December, when he was brought before a judicial disciplinary body called the Qualification Collegium. The judge was charged with 22 counts of “neglecting the interests of justice, belittling the reputation of judicial power, and undermining the people’s trust in the judicial system.” In the case of the Tajik, Melikov’s superior, Olga Yegorova, accused him of giving only suspended sentences to foreigners who had committed “grave crimes.”
Concerns about the independence of Russia’s justice system have recently focused on high-profile cases such as the prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil baron, and a series of treason trials involving Russian scholars. President Bush raised the issue of the rule of law as it relates to the quality of Russian democracy during his summit with President Vladimir Putin this past week.
The Melikov case illustrates how a climate of fear generally pervades the bench in Russian criminal courts. Judges are targeted for forced retirement or dismissal if they apply the law to acquit even everyday defendants, issue sentences that are seen as too lenient by court chairmen or fail to follow prosecution requests to send suspects to overcrowded pretrial prisons where they can languish for months, according to judges, law professors and lawyers. The climate reflects the growing power of the state in Putin’s Russia.
“Between 2001 and May 2004, I considered 460 criminal cases involving 544 individuals, and only four of my verdicts were overturned by higher courts,” said Melikov, 42, who was also criticized for suspending sentences and dropping charges when the parties reconciled.
A detailed review of Melikov’s work by three experts commissioned by the Russia-based Independent Council of Legal Experts found that his rulings, with one minor exception from a case in 1998, followed Russian law.
“The decisions of Alexander Melikov . . . are in line with the criminal and criminal-procedure law,” wrote Polina Lupinskaya, head of the Criminal Procedure Department at Moscow State Law Academy. The charges against him were “groundless,” she wrote, noting that treating foreigners such as the Tajik differently violates the Russian constitution.
In 2002, Russia adopted a code of criminal procedure that was supposed to herald a legal revolution by firmly establishing the independence of the judiciary, increasing the rights of the accused, and forcing firm rules of procedure and evidence on police and prosecutors. But the current system continues to perpetuate the Soviet practice of almost automatically convicting everyone who appears in court.
[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56441-2005Feb26.html
Monday, February 28, 2005. Issue 3114. Page 8.
KremlinYouth Encourage ‘Us’ to Get ‘Them’
By Masha Gessen
Imagine for a minute that in some country other than Russia — say, in the United States, or in Britain — there appeared a political organization that called itself “Us.” Not U.S. as in the United States, not Us as in Us Magazine, but Us as in “us vs. them.” Imagine further that this is an organization that supports, and is evidently supported by, the country’s current government. Now imagine the hue and cry, the outrage of all the righteous people who argue that an organization that openly divides its own country into those who are “us” and those who are “them” is despicable — and a government that supports and even inspires the use of the rhetoric of war against its own citizens is criminal.
Welcome to Russia. A group calling itself “Nashi” held its first congress at a resort hotel outside of Moscow on Saturday. The word nashi, which literally means “ours,” references Soviet movies about World War II. It’s an inspired choice: On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, 1940s patriotism is the only sort that virtually all Russians are willing to own. Nashi is the sort of word that one used in describing a battle scene in one of those movies — “Nashi just bombed the hell out of them” — when there could be no question of where the viewer’s loyalties lay. Nashi is also the kind of word one can apply to a sports game — but only, tellingly, when a Russian team is playing a foreign one. In other words, the most accurate translation of Nashi is Us.
The new movement is meant to replace Idushiye Vmeste, or Moving Together, the Kremlin-sponsored youth movement that has outlived its usefulness. The appearance of a counter-movement called “Moving Without Putin” seems to have sounded its death knell a couple of months ago. The leader of Moving Together, Vasily Yakemenko, is to head the new youth movement. But, moving under the new name, he and his young pro-Putin army will have to be more, well, more militant.
more
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/02/28/007.html
couldn’t find a thread so plopped it here
March 02, 2005
Russian defense chief: No defense will stop new missiles
~~~
“Russia will … remain a major nuclear power,” Ivanov said, according to Interfax. “But we will not bake missiles like pies. Their quantity should be such that it allows for the provision of our own security in any potential development of the international situation.”
Comments from Russian officials about planned missiles have been in part aimed at the United States and its nascent missile defense system. Russia opposed Washington’s withdrawal in 2002 from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to deploy a national missile defense shield, saying the pact was a key element of international security.
Ivanov also said that Russia will only sell Strelets air-defense missile systems to Syria if the price is right and will demand the right to subsequently check the location of the systems, Interfax reported. The United States and Israel have opposed Russia’s planned missile sales to Syria, which they accuse of sponsoring terrorism.
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-694579.php
Russia will not give arms to Pakistan: Ivanov
MOSCOW: Russia has not and will not in future supply defence products to Pakistan, The Hindu newspaper reported Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defence minister, as saying. Defending Russia’s proposed delivery of ground-to-air missiles to Syria, the Russian defence chief said Russia was more scrupulous in selecting its defence partners than the West.
“We do not have and will not have any military-technical cooperation with Pakistan, while Western countries are selling weapons to that country which has nuclear arms,” Mr Ivanov said, according to the Indian paper. During his visit to India in December, he warned that Russia could consider opening defence trade with Pakistan if India continued to source spares and upgrades to Russian-built weapons from third countries. daily times monitor
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-3-2005_pg7_51
Russian Media Reports Chechen Leader Maskhadov Killed
Maskhadov
8 March 2005 — A Russian military spokesman says Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has been killed.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/03/e890fff5-c6ad-461b-a93d-d5729941dab5.html
=================Chechen Leader Gives Exclusive Interview To RFE/RL
By Liz Fuller
Aslan Maskhadov (file photo)
Aslan Maskhadov supplied extensive answers on 4 March to questions submitted two weeks earlier via the Internet by RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service. The Russian text of the interview was also posted on 4 March on the pro-Maskhadov website chechenpress.co.uk
http://www.rferl.org/features/features_Article.aspx?m=03&y=2005&id=C8BF5CC0-D91F-4DAC-9185-A
451B1124B1D
Chechen Rebel Leader Maskhadov Killed, Russia Says
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; 11:07 AM
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has been killed, a spokesman for Russian forces said Tuesday.
Col. Ilya Shabalkin said Maskhadov was killed during a “special operation,” but he did not elaborate.
The Interfax news agency later quoted Shabalkin as saying Maskhadov had been killed in Tolstoy-Yurt, a village in the northern sector of Chechnya that generally has been under the tight control of Russian forces.
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16691-2005Mar8.html
Georgian parliament gives Russia less than a year to close military bases
By :
Date : 11 March 2005 0225 hrs (SST)
URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/136760/1/.html
TBILISI : Georgia’s parliament voted to give Russia until January 1, 2006 to close two military bases that remain in the former Soviet republic, in a move certain to further damage relations between Tbilisi and Moscow.
By a vote of 158 to 0 and over the objections of top government officials, parliament adopted a motion that says Moscow’s two bases would be considered illegal after the deadline.
In the motion, the lawmakers gave the government until May 15 to draw up a list of measures to go into effect in the event Tbilisi and Moscow are unable by May 1 to agree on “a concrete withdrawal timetable that is well-considered and acceptable to Georgia.”
~~
In a joint statement signed by Russia and Georgia during a 1999 summit of member countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Istanbul, Moscow agreed to close two of four military bases in Georgia and to present a timetable for closure of the remaining two.
Although two bases were shut down, the Russian foreign ministry said last month that Moscow was not bound by any time limit for closure of the remaining two bases, in the southern region of Akhalkalaki and the western city of Batumi.
more at
A leading publicist for Radio Echo, Viktor Shenderovich, had this to say about the dispute between Poland and Russia over Russia taking responsability for the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn (NKVD killed 4500 their in 1941, killed another 10,000 or so in two other locations, when the graves were found the Soviets blamed the massacre on the Germans)
What do those Poles want from us, why are they jerking us around about that Katyn? It happened, deal. We killed 4500 people then quietly buried them in the forest. And blamed it all on the fascists for half a century
The fascists were our allies back then and in fraternal solidarity used the same methods as us. They also shot Poles. It would have been a sin not to lay the blame on them. And now 60 years have passed and we will not give the Poles the NKVD documents on Katyn. How could we do such a thing! After all on every page of those documents are names of people who we honour to this very day – the colleauges and ancestors of our present day Chekist elites.
Today their grandkids are proud of their grandads, and besides a couple of those executioners are still alive. And today, on the sixtieth anniversary of the (WWII) victory they deserve their medal. And then we wonder that one nation after another runs away from us. And we’ll complain about the Baltics, that there SS veterans march in parades. Sure they do, they’re no worse than ours.
http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/wyborcza/1,34513,2600110.html
Thursday, March 17, 2005. Issue 3126. Page 4.
Aa Aa Aa
Plastic Surgery Offered to Basayev Informers
By Judith Ingram
The Associated Press
VLADIKAVKAZ — Stepping up their hunt for Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, the Federal Security Service said Wednesday that it would pay the costs of plastic surgery for anyone who gives information leading to his killing or capture, on top of a $10 million reward already promised.
Meanwhile, a senior prosecutor said a leader of the militants who took part in the Beslan attack last September had implicated the late rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in the attack.
The FSB said Tuesday that it had paid out a $10 million bounty to people who betrayed Maskhadov, who officials said was killed last week in a raid by FSB commandos. The FSB reaffirmed that an identical sum would be paid for information leading to the death or arrest of Basayev.
An FSB spokesman said the informers — who did not have to be Russian or even live in Russia — would be offered a new identity and place of residence, Itar-Tass reported.
“The law enforcement agencies guarantee their safety, with the option of taking a new passport, changing their residence, and if necessary, undergoing plastic surgery to change their features,” spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said.
The offer is in line with a new law that set up the country’s first witness protection program. The law allows authorities to offer plastic surgery.
more
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/03/17/015.html
Russian General: Bases In Georgia For Three More Years
Russian soldiers in Georgia (file photo)
16 March 2005 — A Russian general today said that Russia’s two remaining military bases in Georgia will remain operational for a “minimum” of three years.
General Aleksandr Rushkin, the deputy chief of staff, made his remarks today in Moscow. He said withdrawals from the bases at Akhalkalki and Batumi “will not be made shorter under any circumstances.”
Rushkin’s remarks come Russia seeks to re-open negotiations with Georgia over the future of the two Soviet-era bases. Georgia wants the bases closed as soon as possible.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/03/80f39f60-d825-4ec1-bf3a-bb6998bedd44.html
Prosecutors Demand 10 Years For Khodorkovskii
29 March 2005 — Prosecutors today asked a Moscow court to sentence Mikhail Khodorkovskii, the founder of the Yukos oil company, to 10 years in a prison labor camp for tax evasion and embezzlement.
Khodorkovskii has rejected the charges that stem from an alledgedly illegal acquisition of shares in a fertiliser company.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/03/95d806ac-d444-4e5e-b615-6219cc0ec6e6.html
Activists Seek Bashkortostan President’s Ouster
7 April 2005 — Activists from the central Russian republic of Bashkortostan flew to Moscow today to call for the removal of Bashkortostan President Murtaza Rakhimov.
Roughly 200 activists planned to deliver a petition to the Kremlin that they claim carries 100,000-plus signatures. Opponents accuse Rakhimov of human rights abuses and corruption.
The group has official permission to hold a demonstration today outside the Moscow headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Ramil Bignov, a senior member of an umbrella opposition coalition, has described the protest as a call for Rakhimov’s departure and an effort to draw Moscow’s attention to the republic’s problems.
President Rakhimov has ruled the predominantly Muslim republic since 1993. Russian President Vladimir Putin backed his reelection in 2003.
Bashkortostan’s opposition plans to erect a tent city near the presidential-administration building in Ufa on 1 May as part of its continuing campaign of protests.
A four-day security operation in the Bashkir city of Blagoveshchensk left hundreds of locals alleging that they had been beaten or abused, heightening public dissatisfaction and prompting rights groups to accuse authorities of gross rights violations.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/04/947ef513-f192-4d63-9bec-39d6d11932a6.html
Three Siberian regions vote to reunite, forming territory bigger than Western Europe
By Associated Press
Monday, April 18, 2005 – Updated: 11:38 AM EST
MOSCOW – Residents of three sparsely populated Siberian regions have voted to reunite in one resource-rich territory that will be larger than Western Europe, Russian media reported Monday, extending the trend of increased Kremlin control over the country’s far-flung provinces.
The Izvestia daily predicted that Sunday’s referendum on reunification of the Krasnoyarsk region with the Evenki and Taimyr districts would pave the way for a series of similar votes aimed at bringing the number of Russian regions down from the current 89 to around 35 or 40.
“Reduction of the number of federal subjects will increase the level of coordination and efficiency of regional authorities,” Izvestia quoted Vladimir Yakovlev, the minister of regional development, as saying.
Some 92 percent of voters in the Krasnoyarsk region, a vast territory with a population of some 2.9 million, 2,100 miles east of Moscow, voted in favor of reunification, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The Taimyr region, with a population of 40,000, had about 70 percent in favor, and the Evenki region of 17,700 had 79 percent in favor.
President Vladimir Putin, beaming, announced the results at a televised meeting and said the government should encourage such regional mergers.
“Enlargement is not a goal in itself,” he said. “Such measures are aimed at better living standards and the settlement of social, financial and economic problems.”
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http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=79050&format=text
Wednesday, 20 April 2005
Russia: Adygeya Leadership Reaffirms Opposition To Republic’s Liquidation
By Liz Fuller
20 April 2005 (RFE/RL) — The success of the 17 April referendum on subsuming the Taimyr and Evenk autonomous okrugs into Krasnoyarsk Krai is likely to encourage those Russian officials who favor holding a similar referendum on abolishing the current status of the Republic of Adygeya (RA) by subsuming it into Krasnodar Krai, within which it constitutes an enclave.
Adygeya’s Russian majority, which accounts for some 70 percent of the republic’s total population of 450,000 — 500,000, and which has for years protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the Adyg minority, may support the proposed merger with Krasnodar Krai. But the Adygs, including Adygeya’s top leaders, vehemently oppose it.
So, too, do 52 percent of the population of Krasnodar, according to an opinion poll cited by a member of the RA government quoted by AdygeyaNatPress on 5 April. Evenk Autonomous Oblast leader Boris Zolotarev opposed the planned merger with Krasnoyarsk when it was first mooted in 2002, as did his counterpart in Taimyr, Oleg Budargin, but both men subsequently shelved their objections.
Meeting in early March with members of the International Cherkess Association which represents the estimated 3 million Diaspora, Adygeya President Khazret Sovmen criticized the proposed merger with Krasnodar as “regressive” and a threat to inter-ethnic relations in what he termed an “explosive” region.
At a further meeting later that month with representatives of the Cherkess Diaspora, Sovmen again argued that his republic and Krasnodar Krai should continue to exist as separate regions, but he added that he favors closer economic and cultural ties between them, according to the paper “Shapsugiya” as quoted by kavkazweb.net on 25 March. (The authorities in Krasnodar Krai have since withdrawn funding for that paper, which was published twice monthly in a print run of some 3,000 for Krasnodar’s 12,000-strong Shapsug minority, according to AdygeyaNatPress on 31 March.) Sovmen rejected the arguments adduced by the leaders of Krasnodar Krai that the merger is economically expedient given that Adygeya is less developed than Krasnodar; he said that Adygeya has one of the highest economic growth rates in the entire Southern Federal District.
Within days, however, Krasnodar Krai Deputy Governor Murat Akhedzhak announced that the merger of the two regions was “not far off,” and that it would expedite investment in Adygeya, an argument rejected by activist Ali Avgan, who pointed out to AdygeyaNatPress on 5 April that the Shapsug population of Krasnodar needs investment even more urgently than does the Adyg minority in Adygeya. A representative of the AR government similarly took issue with Akhedzhak’s argument that Krasnodar is economically stronger than Adygeya. He told AdygeyaNatPress on condition of anonymity that “numerous” rural residents of Krasnodar regularly travel to Adygeya in search of seasonal or casual work.
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http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/04/d01566be-950b-4af2-9c86-f2537a71cf05.html