SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #862 (30), Tuesday, April 22, 2003
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TITLE: Rydnik Drops His City Court Appeal
AUTHOR: By Vladimir Kovalev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In a decision much like that made less than a month earlier by one of his political allies, Legislative Assembly Lawmaker Yury Rydnik announced on Saturday that he was withdrawing his appeal of a City Court ruling that he should be stripped of his place in the assembly.
On Feb. 28, the City Court ruled that Rydnik had broken electoral laws during his campaign in the run up to last December's elections and that his victory in electoral district No. 41 should be annulled. Rydnik, who is the head of the United City bloc, which had been Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's source of support in the Legislative Assembly, immediately filed an appeal of the decision with Russia's Supreme Court.
But, in an eerie echo of Yakovlev's announcement on April 2 that he would no longer try to amend the St. Petersburg City Charter to win the opportunity to run for another term as governor, Rydnik said on Saturday that he was giving up the fight.
"I have instructed my attorney to withdraw the appeal from the Supreme Court," Interfax quoted Rydnik as saying on Saturday. "I made the decision for two reasons. First, the likely decision of the [Supreme] Court had become clear to me. Second, I don't think that it is right for me to stir up the political situation in the city, which has only just stabilized to be clear and understandable."
Rydnik's assumption, with regard to the Supreme Court's position on the question, turned out to be accurate on Monday as, despite his announcement on Saturday, the court threw out his appeal. The court also ruled against similar appeals that had been filed by the responsible election commissions at both the district and city levels, Interfax reported.
The City Court's ruling against Rydnik was based on Article 77.1a of the Russian Federal Elections Code, which says that any winning candidate can be disqualified if he or she exceeds the spending limit set for the vote by 10 percent or more.
Two other candidates in the district, Dmitry Burenin, the head of the St. Petersburg Audit Chamber and Vyacheslav Makarov, a colonel at the St. Petersburg Aerospace Military Academy, filed complaints related to the work of a joint-stock company that Rydnik set up last fall to clean staircases in residential buildings in District No. 41, and to 115 Balt-Uneximbank commercials that were broadcast on Channel 5 between Nov. 28 and Dec. 6.
Burenin and Makarov said that 2.6 million rubles (about $78,000) had been given by Balt-Uneximbank, of which Rydnik is the chairperson of the board of directors, to fund a cleaning company set up by one of Rydnik's relatives - complete with uniforms with "Rydnik" stenciled on the back - and at least $9,500 to pay for the television advertisements, which, the plaintiffs said, might have influenced voters.
Neither Burenin nor Makarov could be reached for comment on Monday but, in a story in Monday's edition of the daily newspaper Kommersant, Burenin hinted that the voiding of the election results in district No. 41 might not be the end of this story.
"If justice has really been re-established, we will make the violations Mr. Rydnik committed public once more," Burenin was quoted as saying. "Maybe this time the case will be more interesting for the prosecutor's office."
The Kommersant quoted both Burenin and Makarov as saying that they would not be candidates in a by-election to fill the vacant seat in the assembly.
Other local politicians said Monday that Rydnik's decision was a positive sign for future elections in the city.
"What Rydnik did in this campaign hasn't been done here before and I think that he felt pretty sure that he wouldn't be punished for it," Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the political council of the Yabloko faction, said in a telephone interview Monday. "What he did could have created a very dangerous precedent for the next set of elections," he said.
While Rydnik said that he had decided to pull his appeal of his own accord, others were not so sure.
"I think this was the result of, on the one hand, political pressure and, on the other, the threat that other questions would be asked if he continued with the appeal," Vladimir Yeryomenko, a member of the United City bloc, said in a telephone interview Monday. "This is a very dangerous tendency that shows that it is possible for them to break any deputy using force, very powerful force."
Yeryomenko refused to say who he meant by "them."
Leonid Kesselman, a political analyst of the Sociological Department of Russian Academy of Science, said that Rydnik's opponents most likely threatened him in relation with his work at Balt-Uneximbank.
"I think he did the right thing. If he didn't, he would have first heard the court's decision, and then it would have been found that he had also committed violations in some of his dealings, so he would have ended up [in jail] waiting for another decision," Kesselman said in a telephone interview Monday. "This is, of course, abnormal [legal behavior] but, here, this is the usual practice, with which everyone is familiar and with which everyone is used to working."
The United City faction, with Rydnik at its head, had been supportive of Yakovlev's attempts to run for a third term but, on Monday, Smolny had nothing to say on the lawmaker's decision.
"According to my list of City Hall officials, there is no-one here by the name of Rydnik." Alexander Afanasyev, City Hall spokesperson, said in a telephone interview on Monday. "Therefore, it's none of my business to comment on his decisions."
But, while Rydnik is not on any staff lists at City Hall, his ties with Smolny, through Balt-Uneximbank, are close. According to reports from the City Audit Chamber, about 60 percent of the city's $2.36-billion budget-fund accounts are with Balt-Uneximbank.
According to local election legislation, a by-election to fill the vacant seat in the assembly from district No. 41 must be held within four months of Rydnik's official departure, which is marked from the time that the City Election Commission receives official notification of the rejection of the appeal from the Supreme Court. Vishnevsky said that this could take a couple of weeks.
TITLE: Mourners Say Farewells to Murdered Politician
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Hundreds of people - politicians, lawmakers and ordinary Russians - came on Sunday to bid a last farewell to Sergei Yushenkov, a rare critic of the government in the State Duma.
In mourners' recollections and tributes there was a common refrain: Yushenkov was an honest man who was not afraid to speak out.
"He was killed because he was the most sincere and decent man among them all," said Zhanna Mikheyeva, an elderly woman in a worn gray coat, pointing at a group of newsmakers surrounded by reporters at the entrance to the Moscow Palace of Youth, where the funeral was held Sunday morning.
Mikheyeva said she did not know Yushenkov personally and came simply to pay her respects.
"He had the moral strength to tell the truth to everyone. And he was too young to die, especially to die in the way he did," she said. Her lips trembled as tears came to her eyes.
Yushenkov, 52, the head of Liberal Russia, was gunned down by an unidentified man who waited for him near his apartment building in northwestern Moscow on Thursday evening.
Over the course of four hours on a sunny Sunday morning, people carrying flowers emerged from luxury sedans and from the nearby Frunzenskaya metro station and joined a line of mourners leading into the vast lobby of the palace. A few men carrying white flags of Liberal Russia stood near the entrance with gloomy expressions.
The Moscow government sent 230 police officers to guard the palace, and mourners had to go through metal detectors to get inside the hall.
Draped everywhere in black fabric, the crowded hall was dimly lit except for Yushenkov's open casket of polished wood and a color portrait, which were illuminated from above by a powerful spotlight. Sorrowful tunes alternating with motets in high female voices poured from loudspeakers, muffling emotional outbursts in the hall.
Four guards of honor armed with carbines stood sentinel beside the casket. Each guard was shadowed by one of Yushenkov's friends or colleagues, who stood motionless.
An aisle of red carpet led mourners past the casket. Long tables were placed to either side, where piles of flowers grew. Wreaths from various organizations stood in a row along the wall behind the casket.
Labor Minister Alexander Pochinok was the only high-ranking government member who attended the funeral. He dragged in a huge wreath himself.
A gray-haired man walked along the aisle with two white carnations in his hand and abruptly stopped, turned his face toward the casket, bowed briskly and rushed out of the hall, his face covered with tears.
Yushenkov's wife, Valentina, clad all in black with a black wide-brimmed hat covering her eyes, sat in the first of the few rows of chairs near the casket. Their children, son Alexei and daughter Yelena, sat on either side of her.
Some of the arriving mourners walked directly toward Valentina Yushenkova, apparently offering her their condolences, which evoked new sobs from her. Alexei, the image of his father, held her by the arm.
Many of the mourners said they will remember Yushenkov for his stance against the Chechnya war and his efforts to discover the truth behind the 1999 apartment building bombings, which took more than 300 lives.
"When we were fed the bullshit about restoring constitutional order in Chechnya, and then about the counter-terrorist operation there, Yushenkov was the first who honestly called it war," said Vadim Nikanorov, a pensioner, who was standing in the crowd on crutches.
"He was very close to learning who was behind the bombings in Russia in 1999," said Vera Gordeyeva, 37. "I believe he was killed in order to shut him up." Yushenkov had been looking for evidence to back up allegations that the Federal Security Service was behind the bombings.
Yushenkov's colleagues from the Duma who spoke at the funeral vowed to find those who had ordered and carried out the hit. They lamented the ability of contract killers to operate with seeming impunity.
"His life was cut short by ignoble shots," Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov said. "These shots don't cease. Lawmakers and common people are killed. It is our duty to Yushenkov and all others to find those who ordered this crime." He said the investigation should become "the start of a struggle against banditism and contract killers."
Yushenkov was the ninth member of the State Duma to be killed in nine years. Among the others were Galina Starovoitova and another Liberal Russia co-chairperson, Vladimir Golovlyov. No one has been convicted in any of these murders.
"It had seemed to us that political terror was in the past, but this murder demonstrates that we are looking it in the face," said Boris Nemtsov, head of the Union of Right Forces. "We must do everything possible to stop this ignoble political terror. His ignoble murder happened because there is complete impunity, because the government is completely helpless."
Artur Chilingarov, a deputy Duma speaker from Fatherland-All Russia and the master of ceremonies at the funeral, read a letter of condolences from President Vladimir Putin and publicly asked Yushenkov's family to forgive him for being among the authorities who had failed to protect Yushenkov's life.
After the funeral, a motorcade led by a black Mercedes hearse proceeded to the Vagankovskoye Cemetery, where Russian and Soviet political and cultural figures lie.
Several hundred mourners, standing among the tombs, watched as the casket was lowered into its granite bedding. Honor guards fired a salute of three salvoes.
"We live in a country where ignoble actions go unpunished," said Viktor Pokhmelkin, the last of the original three co-chairpeople of Liberal Russia.
TITLE: Lenenergo Boss Out Of Race for Governor
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: As the buildup to the next gubernatorial elections hots up following Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's confirmation that he will not run for a third term, another major potential candidate appears to have bowed out of the race.
Andrei Likhachyov, general director of local power monopoly Lenenergo, confirmed at a press conference on Monday that he would not run for the post if Valentina Matviyenko, the newly appointed presidential representative for the Northwest Region, ran for the office. Likhachyov said he would support Matviyenko if she ran.
Shortly afterward, Matviyenko responded by welcoming Likhachyov's willingness to work with her "in a single team" at a briefing in St. Petersburg.
Yakovlev's term lasts until June 2004. He announced two weeks ago that he would not run in the next elections. At the end of March, Likhachyov announced his intention to run for the office and, at the beginning of April, Matvyienko announced the same intention at a closed meeting of Legislative Assembly deputies opposed to Yakovlev. On Saturday, Likhachyov said that he would not be running for the post of governor if Matviyenko were to stand. "I don't intend to compete with Matviyenko," he said. "Essentially, we're representatives of the same camp."
Instead, Likhachyov has proposed his own political program for the reform of the city's economy to Matviyenko. The program was developed at the Petersburg 2015 entrepreneurs' club and plans for major private investment in the city's communal and housing facilities.
At a meeting of Petersburg 2015 on Saturday, Matviyenko gave general approval to the program, and said that the club "is proposing genuine solutions to many of the city's problems."
Sources close to Likhachyov say he would head the city government if Matviyenko became governor. According to Eduard Tiktinsky, general director of the RBI holding, a member of the Petersburg 2015 club closely involved in the development of the program, "[The program] should become a guide to action for the new government of St. Petersburg."
Tiktinsky said that Likhachyov could be chairperson of the new city government. "There's the governor, who carries out the representative functions, but the solution of the management problems has to be carried out by a different person," Tiktinsky said.
A source within the presidential administration who asked to remain nameless agreed. "Likhachyov really has been offered the post of premier [of the St. Petersburg administration], and he's willingly agreed to that proposal," the source said. "But, if Matviyenko doesn't get winning support by the fall, the Kremlin could put forward another candidate."
At present, Yakovlev combines the posts of governor and chairperson of the City Administration. To separate the two positions, an amendment will have to be made to the City Charter. Legislative Assembly Deputy Nikita Ananov said that the current division of strength within the assembly would allow for the adoption of such an amendment. "It's obvious that Likhachyov understands the city's administration and he must be trusted with the position," Ananov said.
Officially, Likhachyov maintains that he is currently "enjoying working as a hired manager at a large company."
(Vedomosti, SPT)
TITLE: Awkward Questions Raised by Murder
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - State Duma deputies mourned the loss of Sergei Yushenkov, the Liberal Russia leader shot dead by an unknown gunman, and unleashed a storm of criticism against the government for failing to crack down on crime.
Liberal deputies close to Yushenkov warned that it was precisely President Vladimir Putin's attempts to strengthen the power of the security services in the name of law and order that had posed a threat to the man who had been at the forefront of Russia's first wave of democracy. Recently, Yushenkov had strongly opposed authoritarian moves under Putin and was the deputy head of a Duma committee investigating the possible involvement of security forces in the apartment bombings of 1999.
The debate poses awkward questions for Putin, who has built his rule on establishing a "dictatorship of the law" after the chaos of the Yeltsin years, giving new powers to the security forces and taking steps to bring Russia's unruly regions into line. But as the list of high-profile, unsolved contract killings of national and regional politicians grows, the moves seem more successful in curbing political freedoms than in reining in crime.
Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov saw the killing as proof that Putin has not done enough on crime. He called for a closed-door hearing for Wednesday with the heads of the Federal Security Service, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office, with a warning that anyone who cannot answer for their responsibilites should "step down."
"The question of questions that citizens are putting before the state is when will we end the reign of criminality in Russia," he said Friday after a stormy Duma session where deputies from the Communist Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky's LDPR and the pro-Kremlin Unity faction lashed out at the government for its inability to solve crimes.
"Murders, attempted murders, theft, a whole pile of economic crimes - all this remains today and, in the eyes of the people, it remains unpunished," Seleznyov said, Interfax reported.
Communist Deputy Ivan Nikitchuk called on Putin to speak to the Duma to explain why the contract killings of the past year remain unsolved. Fellow Communist Viktor Ilyukhin joined Seleznyov in calling for heads to roll. Ilyukhin proposed a Duma vote on firing Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, but the measure fell 76 votes short of the 226 required.
But the only remaining co-chairperson of Yushenkov's Liberal Russia party, Viktor Pokhmelkin, asked the deputies on Friday not to drum up "PR out of blood." A close associate of Yushenkov, independent lawmaker Yuly Rybakov, said he thought the killing had its roots in the unchecked rise of "certain sections" of the security services under Putin.
"There are groups within the security services that are getting more and more influential and getting more and more money. The names aren't important, what's important is that there are such forces," Rybakov said in an interview Friday. "These are forces that don't want to see liberal ideology in Russian politics."
"There is a systematic destruction of all liberal politicians of the first wave. There is a definite trend," he said, citing the deaths of liberal lawmaker Galina Starovoitova in St. Petersburg in 1998, and of Vladimir Golovyov, another Liberal Russia co-chairperson, last summer.
Leading liberal lawmaker Sergei Kovalyov urged Putin in an open letter Friday to make sure law-enforcement agents examined the possible involvement of the president's political supporters in the killing. "The people who ordered and organized Yushenkov's death could be people who are supporting the current vector of political development in Russia, secret or open co-authors of this course - in other words, your supporters, Mr. President," he wrote.
He wrote that, even though he had no reason to suspect official members of the state-security services of being involved, former KGB officials or other opponents of liberal ideas could stand behind the crime. Kovalyov, along with the majority of Yushenkov's Duma colleagues from both the left and right wings, have rejected that financial misdoings or rifts in Yushenkov's personal relations could have been behind the Thursday murder, which Russia's political elite has branded a political killing.
But Interfax on Sunday cited unnamed sources within law-enforcement agencies as saying the main line of inquiry was heading toward the deputy's financial and personal dealings. "The investigation is being based on the fact that Yushenkov could be a victim of infighting over party financing, mixed up with personal ties," the sources told Interfax.
The unnamed law enforcers also said investigators had managed to put together a composite sketch of the killer based on the reports of witnesses.
Gryzlov on Sunday sought to assure the public that the police this time at least was on its way to solving the crime.
TITLE: Chechen Rebel Attack Kills 7
AUTHOR: By Yuri Bagrov
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Chechen rebels opened fire on Russian positions, killing seven service personnel and wounding another seven, an official said Sunday.
Federal outposts came under fire 18 times in the past 24 hours, an official in Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration said. Rebels also sprayed a military car with gunfire near the town of Argun, Chechnya's third-largest city, killing two soldiers and wounding one, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In Grozny, an armored military car detonated a land mine on Sunday, wounding a Chechen police officer and a passer-by. Adlan Takayev, head of the Oktyabrsky Interior Minister in Grozny, was in the car, but survived the explosion, the Chechen official said.
TITLE: Indonesia Looks To Boost Trade
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri signed a friendship treaty on Monday, and ministers in the two governments penned additional agreements on weapons sales and space cooperation that are intended to help to restore their countries' one-time close economic and political ties.
"I am convinced that the 'Declaration on the Foundations of Friendship and Partnership Relations Between Russia and Indonesia in the 21st Century' will provide an important impulse to the cooperation between the two countries," Putin said. "Our countries have a rich experience in mutually beneficial cooperation."
The two leaders signed the declaration after holding a one-on-one meeting and a larger meeting that was attended by numerous cabinet officials and Indonesian business representatives looking for ways to boost the two countries' lagging trade ties. Trade turnover between the two countries last year came to just $192 million, including $30.7 million in Russian exports including metals, chemicals and fertilizer, Itar-Tass reported.
Megawati arrived in Moscow on Sunday at the begining of a five-day trip that is expected to focus heavily on questions of weapons sales. She was scheduled to visit a Russian Air Force testing ground for Sukhoi fighter jets outside of Moscow on Tuesday, and her delegation was then to sign a contract for delivery of two Su-27 and two Su-30 fighters.
The two countries had been close to signing a deal in 1997 for the delivery of 12 Su-30K fighters and eight Mi-171V helicopters but, following the 1998 Asian economic crash, Indonesia has had little ready cash for military purchases.
"We are glad that the economic situation in your country has improved, which gives hope that we will be able to boost our relations in all spheres - economics, military-technical cooperation and culture," Putin told Megawati.
Twelve years ago, Washington slapped a ban on all arms sales to Indonesia because of human-rights abuses, forcing Jakarta to diversify its sources. The Indonesian defense ministry recently purchased 10,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, a squadron of naval helicopters and a dozen armored personnel carriers for its marines from Russia.
The friendship treaty also included a pledge for "cooperation in the sphere of defense industries," Itar-Tass reported.
Megawati and Putin said that they had also discussed cooperation in the fight against terrorism and in trying to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis. Their friendship declaration called for working to stem nuclear proliferation and to create a nuclear-free zone in Southeast Asia.
TITLE: Poisoning Cases Mount in Volgograd
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia - Twenty more children in Volgograd sought hospital treatment on Sunday for symptoms of gas poisoning, bringing the total number of people affected by a leak at an oil refinery to 93, officials said.
The victims are almost exclusively children between the ages of 10 and 16, said Lt. Col. Igor Mikhailov, a duty officer at the Emergency Situation Ministry's southern branch.
A mix of propane and butane leaked Thursday from a damaged pipe collar at a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd, forming a poisonous gas cloud that temporarily hovered over the Krasnoarmeisky district, a populated neighborhood with numerous schools.
Officials have said that the cloud had dissipated, but the past two days have seen the number of children seeking hospital treatment triple. It was not immediately clear why the numbers had increased so dramatically.
Itar-Tass reported that most of the victims started to complain about symptoms on Thursday. Mikhailov said the symptoms include headaches, drowsiness and teary eyes. Adults' bodies have coped more easily with the poison.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Budanov Retrial Begins
ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia (AP) - A military court in Rostov-on-Don began a retrial Monday of Colonel Yury Budanov, who has admitted killing an 18-year-old Chechen woman, Elza Kungayeva, but so far evaded conviction.
During Monday's court session in the North Caucasus Military Court in Rostov-Na-Donu, Abdulla Khamzayev, a lawyer for woman's family, called for Judge Vladimir Bukreyev to be removed, claiming that he had not acted to stem insults and threats against Khamzayev and the victim's family and that he was biased against Chechens. He questioned the objectivity of the two "people's representatives" who accompany the judge in court and suggested new ones should be recruited from the Caucasus region to ensure they are not biased in favor of the military.
The judge rejected the motions. Alexei Dulimov, a lawyer for Budanov, accused Khamzayev of trying to delay the trial and turn it into a "political battleground."
Chechnya Operations
VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia (AP) - Moscow was preparing to shift control over Chechnya from the Federal Security Service to the Interior Ministry, a deputy interior minister said Monday. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, a deputy interior minister and chief of the interior troops, said the ministry was expected to take charge of the operations in Chechnya some time in the second half of the year, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported.
Rabbi Deported
ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia (AP) - A rabbi from a Rostov synagogue was deported Sunday after a court found him guilty of violating visa rules. Rabbi Eliyashiv Kaplun said his deportation after seven years at the synagogue was part of a long effort by security officials to drive him from the country.
Judge Galina Abramova ruled that Kaplun had violated visa rules by not having his visa properly registered and not leaving the country when it expired. In addition to being deported, Kaplun was also fined by the court in Rostov-na-Donu.
Rabbi Adolf Shayevich, a leader in the Jewish community, told Ekho Moskvy radio that he saw no hidden motives, laying the blame for the deportation on Kaplun, Interfax reported. Shayevich predicted that Kaplun would apply for a new visa and return.
Subs to Be Scrapped
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia plans to scrap 17 decommissioned nuclear submarines this year, the same as last year, the Atomic Energy Ministry said.
About 100 nuclear-powered submarines have been disposed of since 1998. Another 100 submarines from the Northern and Pacific Fleets are languishing at docks with nuclear fuel in their reactors, waiting for disposal, the Interfax-Military News Agency said Friday, citing ministry statistics.
"Our main task is to unload nuclear fuel from submarines and ship it to the Mayak facility in the Chelyabinsk region for storage and subsequent processing," Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev was quoted as saying.
The United States has helped fund the dismantling of the submarines, contributing $120.1 million to the Zvezda plant in the Far East. But officials have complained that U.S. money is now drying up.
Kaliningrad Deal
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia, Lithuania and the European Union have worked out differences over travel between Russia and its Kaliningrad exclave, a Foreign Ministry official said.
"We have found a mutually acceptable solution for this issue at a political level," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Razov was quoted by Interfax as saying Friday.
"Until today, there have been technical, organizational and partly political ambiguities as to how these transit documents should be issued, how requests for them should be made, how much time they will take to prepare, etc.," he was quoted as saying, adding that the newly prepared agreement should answer those questions.
Razov said he hoped the agreement would simplify the procedure so that a Russian citizen will be able to request the EU-approved document at the same time as purchasing a railway ticket.
TITLE: U.S. Still Seeking for Iraqi WMD
AUTHOR: By Robert Burns
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The United States has inspection teams inside Iraq searching for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday, adding that the government would "obviously look with favor on" Iraqis who provide information on hidden materials.
Rumsfeld declined to confirm a story that said a U.S. team had been told that Iraqis destroyed and buried chemical weapons and biological-warfare equipment days before the March 20 beginning of the war. The story appeared in The New York Times, which said the information had been relayed to a government search team by an Iraqi scientist claiming to have worked in Saddam Hussein's chemical-weapons program.
General Richard Myers, chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that "there are ongoing operations. There are, no kidding, ongoing operations and we're just better off not commenting."
On another subject, Myers said Marines had engaged in a firefight during the day near a Mosul airfield. One Marine was wounded, and the "attackers escaped and we have no idea who they were," he added.
In addition, Myers said special forces found a "very large weapons cache" south of Kirkuk, consisting of 40 bunkers jammed with weaponry. Included were 50 SA-7s, handheld surface-to-air missiles.
Rumsfeld was not forthcoming in his discussion of the search for weapons of mass destruction, except to say that interagency government teams were searching suspected sites as well as what he described as "opportunistic" ones that were passed along by Iraqis.
The Times story said an Iraqi scientist who claims to have worked in Saddam Hussein's chemical-weapons program told a U.S. military team that Iraq destroyed and buried chemical weapons and biological-warfare equipment only days before the war began March 20.
Members of MET Alpha - the Mobile Exploitation Team set up to hunt for illegal weapons of mass destruction - said the scientist led Americans to material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, according to The New York Times.
TITLE: Customs Code Passed by Duma
AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - It took 3 1/2 years, but the State Duma on Friday finally passed in the key second reading a new Customs Code that will replace the Byzantine code cobbled together in haste a decade ago.
Lawmakers passed the code, which is hundreds of pages long and contains 439 articles, by a vote of 396-1 with no abstentions.
Deputy Valery Draganov, head of the Duma's subcommittee on customs and former head of the State Customs Committee, or GTK, trumpeted the legislation for moving the country closer to international norms, a major requirement for entering the World Trade Organization.
After passing a first reading in November 1999, work on the code was shelved during parliamentary and presidential elections that December and the following March. The authors of the code, primarily the GTK with the help of Draganov and other deputies, did not begin working on the thousands of proposed amendments until the end of 2001, and their stated intention was to streamline trade, stimulate economic growth and curb the arbitrariness of the powerful and paramilitary GTK, which collects 40 percent of all federal budget revenues, or about $20 billion a year.
Draganov said that compromises were struck between the GTK, deputies and the business community on more than 300 issues. However, although the code addresses many of the headaches importers and exporters have long complained about, such as reducing the maximum time for customs clearance from 10 days to three, the wording in many of the articles is still too vague to protect small operators from continued extortion by notoriously unscrupulous GTK officials, critics say.
The problem,most often cited by businesses, with the 1993 code is its lack of "direct application," which has resulted in the GTK having to issue more than 3,500 clarifying bylaws and instructions to its officers.
Draganov told the Duma that, while not perfect, the new law will reduce the amount of such bylaws and instructions to a minimum - and when issued will only come into force after 90 days, not immediately, and without notice as is currently the case, giving importers and customs officials alike time to acquaint themselves with the new rules, Interfax reported.
Leonid Lozbenko, first deputy GTK chairperson, told the American Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that the GTK would retain the right to interpret 30 percent of the articles in the new code, adding that he expected it to easily pass a third reading in the Duma and the Federation Council and to be signed by the president in time to come into effect Jan. 1.
Alexei Mordashov, head of steel giant Severstal and chairperson of the working groups on customs and WTO for the influential Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, told Kommersant on Friday that while "very progressive ... one cannot say that the new code is ideal or that it fully satisfies the business [community]."
"Practices will remain the same, but the law ... provides the stimulus to change the situation and limit bad practices," he said.
Others, however, said they doubt that the new code will solve the problems created by the old one.
"This is wishful thinking, not reality," said Sergei Istomin, a former customs official who now advises the Duma.
"In the revised code, the GTK's power to interpret the law has not changed one iota," he said. "Look at the bill introduced to the Duma 18 months ago and the one that passed in the second reading - they are twin brothers. The mountain has given birth to a mouse," he said, referring to the thousands of amendments that were suggested by deputies but not adopted.
One amendment that did not make it through, thanks largely to intense lobbying by Russian Aluminum, or RusAl, would have outlawed tolling, a common tax-avoidance practice by which the raw materials used in manufacturing aluminum - bauxite ore and alumina - are "borrowed" from offshore companies and then returned as a finished product, but without having to pay export duties.
RusAl was outraged last month when the government recommended scrapping tolling, saying it would cost it $400 million a year and 48,000 jobs.
Istomin said that while the new code may not create too many problems for large corporations like RusAl or Severstal, which "have a huge amount of in-house customs specialists," it will do little to curb the abilities of the GTK to prey on small and medium-sized businesses.
For example, he said, claims by the GTK that the code is one of "maximum direct application" is meaningless, because in several articles the documents that businesses are required to produce are listed in the first clause, but the vague phrase "and other documents" follows in the second clause.
"Everyone is so jubilant today, but the problem is that no one has read the new code. Tomorrow, they will look at it, analyze it and wake up to reality," he said.
Alexei Zernov, vice president of the Kaliningrad Association of Forwarding Agents, agreed.
"Everyone has been deceived ... Only two or three changes have been introduced in the 2,000 pages of suggested amendments, and the number of documents required in the customs process can still be determined by the GTK," Zernov wrote in an e-mail.
"That means that if you do not have the extra information about a given good that a customs office thinks to ask for, then it has the right to extend its inspection indefinitely."
"With such a code, who would trade with us? A smart business will say: 'Better trade with China. They have a code of direct application and just 40 articles.'"
Intellectual-property owners, too, are outraged by the new code.
Lawmakers ignored a key proposal by the government that would have given customs officials the right to seize suspected counterfeit goods ex officio, or on their own initiative, without an official request from the intellectual-property owner, said Alexander Shelemekh of the Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights.
"For some reason, deputies failed to understand that rejecting the government proposal deals a serious blow to future customs operations," he said.
Shelemekh said that the ex-officio clause is a common practice in other countries, adding that in Europe about half of all seizures of pirated goods are conducted in such a way.
TITLE: Growth Surpasses Expectations
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The economy surged by an annual rate of growth of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared with 3.7 percent in the same period in 2002, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said at a cabinet meeting Thursday.
"The results of the first quarter are cheering. This is a heartening indicator. But the positive trend could be lost without further systematic action," Kasyanov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Similar GDP growth was last seen at the end of 2000 - and the economy was shrinking at the time. In addition, growth that year was the result of an economic rebound from the 1998 financial crisis, while the 6.4-percent rate this year is pure growth, economists said.
"The economy is flying," said Al Breach, chief economist with Brunswick UBS.
"Fate is giving Russia a gift for the third time in the five years since the 1998 economic crisis," said Alexei Moiseyev, economist with Renaissance Capital.
The gift Moiseyev was referring to is negative interest rates. Banks tie interest rates to the ruble-exchange rate, and with high inflation factored in, factories are ending up with free money to invest in production.
"It's quite simple. You borrow at 12 percent to build another beer-producing line, and beer prices get 15 percent more expensive due to inflation. This is a very attractive option," Moiseyev said.
Industrial production shot up at an annual rate of 6 percent in the first quarter of this year, Kasyanov said, citing State Statistics Committee figures.
The previous two "gifts" that stimulated the post-1998 economy were the relatively long-lasting effects of the ruble devaluation and three years of high international oil prices.
The economy grew 4.3 percent in 2002, compared with 5 percent in 2001 and 9 percent in 2000. The government is forecasting annual growth of 4 percent to 5 percent this year and next.
Moiseyev said that the current availability of money for investment is priming big companies for further growth. Worryingly, however, the small and medium-size businesses that fuel the economies of developed countries are being left out of the windfall, he said.
Kasyanov stressed at the cabinet meeting that industrial growth was not tied only to the expanding oil sector.
"In addition to ongoing growth in oil and heavy metals, high growth rates were registered in machine-building and a number of other sectors, including a range of processing industries," he said.
Kasyanov, however, noted that light industry is continuing to lag behind. The sector soared in 1999 and 2000, fueled by a trend towards import substitution after the ruble devaluation.
Breach said first-quarter growth was also linked to strong domestic demand, which has been steadily growing due to political and economic stability. "Russians are starting to feel comfortable investing savings domestically," he said.
TITLE: RusAl, Base Element Face Investigation, File Seizures
AUTHOR: By Maria Rozhkova
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW - Interior Ministry investigators have raided Oleg Deripaska's Base Element and Russian Aluminum offices, confiscating documents as part of an ongoing investigation initiated by Deripaska adversary Andrei Andreyev, who claims the oligarch stole his assets.
Andreyev, an entrepreneur, says he is the legal owner of majority stakes in insurers Ingosstrakh (controlled by Base Element) and Rossia, as well as Avtobank and dozens of other companies that were sold - without his consent, he says - in September 2001.
Avtobank executive Natalya Rayevskaya and one Rodion Gazmayev, about whom little is known, signed the agreement allowing the sale, while RusAl board member David Davidovich and Nafta-Moskva board member Dzhabrail Shykhaliyev signed the agreement on the buyer's behalf.
In a recent interview, Rayevskaya said that she had been pressured with threats to sign the agreement, though she had no right to do so.
Andreyev said the deal was illegal almost as soon as it had been completed and went to the authorities right away.
Andreyev says investigators opened the case last January.
In April, the assets in question - including 84 percent of Ingosstrakh, 84 percent of Rossia and 65 percent of Avtobank - were frozen by authorities, pending a decision on rightful ownership. But on June 28, the shares were unfrozen. The stakes were held by Base Element, Millhouse Capital and Nafta-Moskva. The June ruling was then overturned on Sept. 10, and the stakes were frozen again, but not before Base Element and its partners got busy trading the shares that Andreyev says are his.
The investigation continued, and documents were seized last year from the offices of Nafta-Moskva.
Speaking about last week's raid, a RusAl employee, who wished to remain anonymous, said 20 investigators came to the building with six armed guards: "They produced papers giving them the right to take documents as part of the Andreyev criminal investigation and spent about three hours in the office."
A spokesperson for Base Element, also raided by investigators last Wednesday, refused to comment. The Interior Ministry likewise declined.
The RusAl source said investigators pored through accounting and legal department files. Spokesperson Vera Kurochkina said RusAl had nothing to do with the Andreyev case but gave investigators full access to everything they wanted to see.
A government official close to the investigation who wished to remain nameless said that some interesting documents had already been found and more document confiscations should be expected.
TITLE: The Prospects for Lucrative West Qurna Field
AUTHOR: By Stephen O'Sullivan
TEXT: WITH the war on Iraq seemingly over, attention is turning to the country's future. Russian interests in the country include past and future trade, debt and oil. LUKoil is the major Russian company involved and the one most at risk of any backlash against non-U.S. companies benefiting from the rehabilitation of Iraq. The concern is real and the risks are genuine, but we believe that LUKoil will retain its place in Iraq's oil sector, although the impact on the company itself will, as always, take some time to become evident.
Now that the fighting in Iraq is winding down, the belief that if the war itself was not about oil, then the peace is very much about oil, means that one needs to assess Russia's role in a post-Hussein Iraq. For Russia, read LUKoil, since the rest of the Russian oil and gas industry has but a small part to play in the early postwar world of the Iraqi oil industry.
LUKoil is the longest-serving Russian company in Iraq, having signed its original contract to develop the West Qurna field in 1997. The field contains 7.8 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, making it one of the largest in Iraq. LUKoil and its partners Zarubezhneft and Mashinoimport have held the license since the 1997 signing, but have not carried out any development, because to have done so would have breached the UN sanctions imposed on the country.
LUKoil's refusal to breach sanctions had been a perpetual irritant to the Iraqis, but the necessity to maintain good relations with Russia meant that they never pressed the point to its logical conclusion. However, when Russia voted with the other Security Council members to support the return of weapons inspectors, Baghdad lost patience and LUKoil lost its contract. The Iraqi position was that LUKoil had been negotiating with the U.S. authorities about the retention of its contract in a future Iraq. Whatever the true reason, LUKoil lost the contract, at least in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's eyes.
Is there some agreement between Russia and the United States over the protection of Russia's interests in Iraq? Statements by LUKoil's Vagit Alekperov that he had assurances from President Vladimir Putin that its interests would be protected certainly suggest that there is. Whether an interim or final Iraqi administration subscribes to that agreement is another matter.
Under international law, however, the position appears clear. A change of government is not an acceptable reason to void a contract, and the West Qurna contract should remain valid. Regimes may come and go but the sovereign state of Iraq remains in existence. The alternative view is that the original contracts were not signed in the interests of the Iraqi people, because companies from countries unwilling to deal with Hussein's regime were excluded from the bidding, thereby depressing the price. They should be voided and reauctioned, say the supporters of radical reform.
LUKoil appears to share the view that its contracts are legally valid, appointing a firm of U.K.-based lawyers to protect its interests and warning other companies that it will take any necessary steps to safeguard those interests, including going to arbitration and delaying the field development for six to eight years. The company is clearly willing to play hardball where Iraq is concerned.
To the victors the spoils? Possibly, although realpolitik will almost certainly play a role. Putin did not actually threaten to veto a second UN resolution, leaving Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to make the running in this direction.
Despite relatively light damage to infrastructure, oil exports from Iraq are suspended and look unlikely to resume until July, because only the Security Council has the legal authority to authorize a resumption of oil-for-food or lift the sanctions (although the latter will expire eventually anyway). With Russia and France both veto powers in the Security Council, the opportunities for deal-making exist, although there are those who would balk at any suggestion of a deal to the detriment of the states that had fought the war. "The Iraqi people" may own the oil, but someone else will doubtless be managing it for them.
LUKoil will probably keep its stake in West Qurna, although perhaps in a consortium of oil companies, including one or two from the United States and Britain in order to share the benefits of victory more widely. Few companies would want to take on the challenge -and risk - of developing such a large field on their own and a consortium of oil companies is probably the right way forward. LUKoil, too, would probably welcome the opportunity to work as an equal partner with Western companies on the project, noting the stature it would then have in the global oil industry.
The impact on LUKoil itself will not be significant. When it lost the contract late last year, when it looked as if it might regain it and when it lost it definitively, the share price was unmoved. Iraq has been still too distant a prospect for investors, despite them being accustomed to the company's "jam tomorrow" approach to shareholder value.
Nevertheless, with Iraq set to return to the fold of the global oil industry, the prospects for LUKoil's interests in Iraq actually look brighter than at any stage in the last six years. Notwithstanding the debate over who gets what, the eventual lifting of sanctions means that, finally, West Qurna is a project that has a realistic future.
Stephen O'Sullivan, co-head of research at United Financial Group, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Dividing and Conquering Bureaucrats
TEXT: AT the end of the 14th century, Chu Yuan-chang, first emperor of the Ming dynasty, decided to root out bribery in China. Guilty officials were beaten with sticks and put in stocks. Before long, the entire civil service was locked up, leaving no one to run the country. This problem was solved by carting the officials back to their offices and forcing them to do their old jobs with thick, heavy boards around their necks.
You get the impression that we're going to see something similar in Russia soon. The White Swan prison camp will soon be joined by a new facility for crooked and bungling government officials. All the usual amenities will be provided on site. They'll just enclose the White House with barbed wire and start handing down sentences. For failure to implement reforms: five years. For embezzlement: four years. Sentence to be served in your office.
Judge for yourself. First, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov publicly castigated Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin for dragging his feet on tax reform. Next, he laid into Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref. Then, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov announced that Kasyanov was wanted for questioning in a crab-fishing scam.
Scandals. The war on corruption. Just like in developed democracies. Investigators' revelations, a storm in the press, millions in bribes. There's just one thing missing. No one was fired, no one stepped down. The dog barks and the thief carries on.
Will Kasyanov get the axe?
To answer that question, you need to ask yourself another. Is it conceivable that Kasyanov would publicly and harshly criticize two cabinet members - both of them part of the St. Petersburg clan to boot - entirely on his own initiative?
Somehow I don't think so. It's much more likely that Kasyanov was given the green light. Not in writing, not even in words. Just a wink and a nod. A sympathetic look. Kasyanov explains: "It's really not my fault, you know. Kudrin dropped the ball on economic reform." His listener nods, as if to say: "I hear you." Encouraged, Kasyanov hops up on his soapbox. And? And nothing. Did they sack Gref and Kudrin? No. Kasyanov's words fell flat, but he wasn't sacked, either. Why would he get the sack if he had already got a wink and a nod from on high?
Now ask yourself another question. Is it conceivable that the Prosecutor General's Office got the idea of trying to reel in Kasyanov on its own?
Somehow I don't think so. It's much more likely that Kolesnikov was given the green light. Not in writing, not even in words. Just a wink and a nod. A conversation in passing: "The prime minister has gone too far, dressing down ministers as though he were in charge." His listener nods, as if to say: "I hear you." Encouraged, Kolesnikov calls a press conference. And? And nothing. Did they interrogate Kasyanov? No. Kolesnikov's words fell flat, but he wasn't sacked either. Why would he get the sack if he already had a wink and a nod from on high?
The principle at work here is one that replaces the democratic separation of powers with authoritarian clan feuds. A similar atmosphere reigned within the KGB. Everyone spied on everyone else. Everyone ratted on everyone else. And the boss was neither here nor there. He just nodded, saying nothing. This is not a principle of governance, because governance implies forward motion, and you can't get far with all this backbiting going on.
It is a principle of exercising control. The ruler's rivals are dispatched without the ruler's involvement, far from the center of power. And theft is built into the system. There's simply no way to manage those who don't steal.
Which brings us back to our original question: Is Kasyanov's head on the block? No. That would mean that the prosecutor general is in charge. And in Russia, the president is in charge.
But something is bound to happen. In practice, scandals like these usually serve as diversions. A feint is made on one flank, and a breach is opened on the other. The last time rumors about top-level government resignations got everyone this worked up, the Gazprom board was overhauled instead.
Yulia Latynina is host of "Yest Mneniye" ("Some Might Say") on TVS.
TITLE: Joining Is the Easy Part
AUTHOR: By Igor Leshukov
TEXT: LAST year, the NATO summit in Prague issued an official invitation to a number of eastern European countries, including the Baltic States, to become members of the alliance. Shortly afterward, the European Union, in Copenhagen, made a commitment to accept most of the former Eastern bloc countries. Last week, in Athens, the Baltic States and a number of Central European governments took the next step in realizing their chief ambition of joining these two Western institutions.
The fact that these countries were able to make these moves was the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and their movement has been portrayed as being a "return to Europe" - the West - where they historically belong, after being bound by force for decades to the East. This was a politically motivated argument advanced to justify a pragmatic plea for membership in an exclusive club of wealthy countries, and to ensure safeguards against the possibility of the recurrence of the Soviet past. Under the present ratification timetable, the Baltic states will become EU and NATO members by 2004. Since a positive outcome in the ratification process appears to be assured, the celebrations in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius can begin.
But, what seems to most to be a happy ending seems to me to be the beginning of a long and troublesome process. Contrary to rosy expectations, the eastward enlargement of the two organizations in question may bring surprises.
In a fairy tale by Soviet writer Yevgeny Shvarts, the citizens of a city have been waging a protracted fight against a dragon. They continuously fail in their battle before a simple moral becomes apparent - the dragon they battle is actually within themselves.
The moral seems an appropriate one here, as to overcome the ugliness and habits of the Soviet past will be a difficult task. Such an achievement will require more than simply embracing Western institutions. What is required is a profound transformation of society. It remains to be seen whether the Baltic States and former Warsaw Pact and COMECON members will possess the determination to implement such an agenda. To date, political and social developments haven't provided sufficient evidence to answer this question.
During the Brezhnev era, we - Russians - would travel to the Baltic Republics - Pribaltika - eager to explore the only "European" place we were allowed to visit freely. When I visit one of the Baltic States today, it is a strange feeling. Even though I have to get a visa to go and pay in hard currency while I'm there, it's like I haven't really left my own country. Baltic politicians and business leaders may talk a different game than their Russian counterparts but, when it comes to their values and interests, they are essentially the same folks. The cozy renovation of medieval city centers, Western cars and good restaurants make life a lot more pleasant, but they don't necessarily mean that that society has changed. The allegedly defeated dragon, after some time, still reveals its face and habits.
The road to the EU is a one-way street with a strong-handed Brussels as the traffic cop. Joining the EU is like joining an orthodox monastery - if you want in, you have to comply to the norms and rules. So far, European integration has proved its ability to apply its template to the new adherents. The European Commission and some EU member states remain optimistic that the Central European and Baltic States will be absorbed into the existing Western body relatively easily, that the outcome of the process is predetermined. According to Western logic, they simply have no other choice. While the candidate countries account for about one quarter of the present EU population, they represent only a small portion of EU output in economic terms. The possibility of their accession bringing a negative impact on the European Union or NATO would seem to be small, if not negligible.
I see the situation differently. The human factor cannot be subordinated to questions of relative GDP in this case. The "dragon" is still inside, and its influence should not be underestimated. The societal diseases associated with the Soviet style and history of governance tend to be tenacious and long lived.
The Eastern enlargement has all the makings of a dramatic test of the viability and robustness of Western institutions. The European Commission has already weathered one extremely critical situation following Greece's accession, when many officials privately admitted that allowing that country to enter the common market was a mistake.
More analogously, after an initial phase of euphoria that accompanied German reunification, Germany has encountered enormous difficulties in transforming "Ossis" (East Germans) into "Wessis" (West Germans). This process is still far from being accomplished, even though Germany is a single country with a single people.
The integration of Eastern Europeans into the Western European community will be at least as difficult. The treaties of accession and prospective membership will certainly be deeply appreciated accessories. But more mundane practices and what remains of the dragon inside these new members will ultimately determine reality
Igor Leshukov is the head of the Institute for International Affairs, St. Petersburg, a private think tank. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: How Far Has Russia Really Progressed?
TEXT: THE shocking and senseless murder of Sergei Yushenkov serves as a grim reminder of just how little progress has been made since the high-profile murders of Moskovsky Komsomolets investigative journalist Dmitry Kholodov and ORT head Vlad Listyev almost a decade ago.
Yushenkov is the third liberal Duma deputy to have been killed in the past five years: Last summer, his Liberal Russia co-chairperson, Vladimir Golovlyov, was gunned down while walking his dog and, in November 1998, Galina Starovoitova was shot dead in the stairwell of her St. Petersburg apartment block.
In contrast to other recent high-profile killings, the dominant view is that the murder was politically motivated rather than linked to money. In many ways, this makes this case all the more disturbing.
Tributes to Yushenkov's integrity and unimpeachable character have been flooding in. A veteran of every Russian parliament since 1990, he distinguished himself as a politician of principle who did not change tack depending on how the political winds were blowing (a rarity not just in Russia). And Liberal Russia presented no serious threat to anyone, with extremely modest prospects in the upcoming elections.
Probably the most controversial aspect of Liberal Russia's activities was its involvement with Boris Berezovsky, who was briefly a co-chairperson of the party. Relations soured last fall and Berezovsky was expelled from the party, although wrangling over control of the party still goes on.
In the past few days, there has been a great deal of speculation surrounding the murder and highly contradictory versions have been put forward - with certain politicians cynically seeking to exploit the murder for their own political ends.
Some say that shady elements close to President Vladimir Putin are trying to sow fear among the opposition before the elections and/or to intimidate Berezovsky personally; others see the hand of Berezovsky behind it attempting to blacken the reputation of the Putin administration and bolster the case against his extradition; while still others see the murder as an attempt to discredit Putin and his promises to institute law and order. And on, and on.
However, in the fog of speculation, at least one thing is overridingly clear: As with previous cases, Yushenkov's murder will not be solved and those who took out the contract on him will not be found. Furthermore, the chances that any high-ranking law-enforcement official will be fired for failure to do his job are extremely remote. And, while this all-pervasive atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity reigns, real progress will remain just as elusive as it has been for the past decade.
TITLE: Saying Farewell To An Unusual Human Being
TEXT: IN May 1988, the magazine Vek XX i Mir held a round-table discussion entitled: "The Army and Society." In those days, Glasnost had only just begun to shed some light on the Soviet armed forces, as the first articles on hazing and other "non-regulation" behavior in the ranks were published. At the same time, animosity towards people in uniform was on the rise in "democratic" circles. The military establishment responded by accusing its critics of lacking patriotism and forgetting the principles of Marxism.
It was in this atmosphere that we decided to organize one of the first dialogues between civilians and soldiers in the perestroika era. On the civilian side, we invited several well-known "democratic political commentators." The military was respresented by two lieutenant colonels - Sergei Yushenkov and Alexander Savinkin - and Major Mikhail Smagin.
Their participation in the round table at Vek XX i Mir - a magazine much hated by the Soviet top brass - was quite a civic feat for active officers. They were accompanied by their commanding officer, General Nikita Chaldymov, a man of similarly broad views, if more guarded than his younger colleagues. Chaldymov managed to convince official representatives of the armed forces' Main Political Directorate, or Glavpur, to take part as well.
The discussion was heated. The "democrats" accused the army generally, and the officers present in particular, of all mortal sins. The official military representatives responded in kind. At one point Andrei Nuikin, one of the well-known commentators, asked if an anti-perestroika military coup was possible in the Soviet Union. The very notion of a coup was seditious in May 1988. But Yushenkov proceeded to discuss this possibility - a civic feat even bolder than taking a seat at the table in the first place.
The transcript of the round table had not even been typed out when General Alexei Lizichyov, head of Glavpur, blasted the magazine during a session of the Supreme Soviet. This was before it had become an elected body, of course. Chaldymov was chewed out by the defense minister himself.
I worried that, under that pressure, Yushenkov and his friends would ask us not to run the round-table transcript. They did not, and this was a civic feat far more courageous than the first two.
Lizichyov's attack roused the indignation of our "democratic" participants. They demanded that the transcript be accompanied by a strong rebuke of the Glavpur chief, who was then the third highest ranking official in the military hierarchy. "What are you thinking?" a magazine editor said to them. "[Yushenkov and his friends] are under incredible pressure. Our priority has to be to get the text published and not make any more trouble for them than they've already made for themselves. They could be drummed out of the army!"
"There's no harm in that," a popular commentator said. "If they're upstanding people, they've got no business in the army anyway. And if they're scum like the rest, then let them suffer." Such was the "democracy" that gave us Boris Yeltsin.
You may object that Yushenkov supported Yeltsin, too. And that he was therefore a "democrat," too. That's true. But he never wished anyone ill. Among our "democrats" he stood out as an unusual and very compelling human being.
May he rest in peace.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals. [www.sreda-mag.ru]
TITLE: Chris Floyd's Global Eye
TEXT: Desolation Row
In recent days, the perverse moral calculus that guides the masters of war in the White House has revealed itself with startling clarity - laid bare, like the gurgling intestines of a three-year-old child whose skin has been flayed by a fragmentation bomb.
As the desolation - sorry, liberation - of Iraq continued apace, the Masters moved, quickly and efficiently, to secure the country's oilfields, but they blithely and deliberately failed to secure the lives of innocent people left in bombed-out cities without any system of law or governance. Unlike oil rigs - which, after all, could be restored if something happened to them - the actual human beings destroyed in the chaos that followed the invaders' high-tech blitzkrieg cannot be replaced - not even by no-bid, $7-billion reconstruction contracts to Dick Cheney's Halliburton.
You'd think that conquerors who'd come to "liberate" a suffering people would have brought enough troops to actually secure the territory - and the lives and livelihoods of said suffering people - as they conquered it. Of course, this kind of thing is unglamorous work, not very telegenic; what's more, you can't just farm it out in fat contracts to your political cronies. So why bother? Who cares? What's a little "untidiness" - as Don Rumsfeld called the slow, agonizing deaths of worthless "collateral damage" lying untreated in ransacked hospitals - when you're remaking the world? As that other breaker of countries, Joe Stalin, used to say: "When wood is chopped, chips fly."
The oil-securing conquerors also failed to safeguard Iraq's storehouses of antiquity - irreplaceable treasures from the earliest days of human civilization, which first arose on this land's now-cratered, uranium-soaked soil. Here, humanity first learned to write, to count, make medicine, form cities, create laws, map the stars. Here, humanity first began its excruciatingly slow - and obviously incomplete - emergence from the dictatorship of instinct, the shackles of genetic programming, the blind, voracious animal need that still thrashes in the mud of our monkey brains.
Priceless artifacts that recorded this millennia-long struggle for emergence and transcendence were destroyed in the space of a few hours during the orgy of looting that swept Iraq in the conquerors' wake. Although, in Baghdad, a few ordinary American soldiers tried to intervene at first, they were quickly ordered away by their superiors [sic] and forced to stand idle while mobs of destitute Shiites - brutalized by former CIA asset Saddam Hussein, by punitive sanctions that devoured their society and strengthened the hand of their oppressor and by days of indiscriminate bombing that blew their loved ones to bits - smashed the heritage of our human commonality.
But let's be fair. The Oval One's occupiers did manage to secure two important buildings in the midst of the rampage: the Interior Ministry, with all of Hussein's juicy intelligence files - why let good torture go to waste? - and, of course, the Oil Ministry. In fact, the file-grab has already produced a shocking revelation: It seems that Moscow and Baghdad were sharing intelligence in a joint effort to combat Osama bin Laden - you know, the guy whose "close connection" to Hussein was the main reason that the terror-rattled (and deliberately deceived) American public finally supported Bush's war of aggression.
Unfortunately for that rattled and deceived populace, the chaos in Iraq will only mean more repression in the Homeland. For it confirms the deepest fears of the Bushist ruling clique. They believe that the veneer of civilization is wafer-thin, that a single terrorist attack can crack it - thus the panicky discarding of civil liberties after Sept. 11. A few more such blows, they think, will shatter American society to pieces. So, measures even more draconian will now be promulgated. Last week, the White House began moving to have the "emergency" powers of the notorious PATRIOT Act made permanent. Secret arrests, centralization of personal data, classification of citizens into ranks of "security-worthiness," unrestricted surveillance and more - all are in the works or, even now, being implemented.
That's how little faith these so-called super-patriots really have in the United States. It is they, not the dissenters, who despise their own country, who believe it's too weak and unworthy for freedom.
Of course, their concerns aren't completely unfounded. For the breakdown we saw in Iraq is indeed an ever-present risk for vastly unequal societies, where the rich and powerful commit crimes with impunity while the poor and powerless fill the jails. Where rulers practice the most blatant deceit, lie and cheat their way into authority, propagate absurd myths about themselves, paint their common thuggery in the colors of patriotism and religion. Where, above all, they set the ultimate example of lawlessness for their people: launching wars against countries that haven't attacked them, teaching that killing, corruption and ruin - not law, not communion, not transcendence - are the supreme expressions of civilization, the basis of human society.
It's a dangerous lesson, especially for people shaken by disaster: war, repression - or terrorist attacks. That's why the Bushist clique is worried. True, they are also physical cowards - dodging wars they were glad for others to fight - and weaklings as well, dependent on sugar daddies and crony contracts to make their way in the world. Such timorous specimens would naturally underestimate the resilience of American society.
Yet perhaps they have reason to worry. Perhaps what they see in Iraq's desolation is not just the ruin of an evil regime they once gladly succored - but the kind of moral rot they are now engendering by their own example.
Perhaps we should all start worrying.
TITLE: Iverson's the Brightest of All-Star Sundays
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PHILADELPHIA - Of all the prolific offensive performances in the opening games of this year's NBA playoffs, Allen Iverson's was the best. Not only that, it was one of the greatest in NBA playoff history.
Iverson scored 55 points Sunday night in a brilliant display of shooting, making 21 of 32 shots while eclipsing his previous playoff-high of 54 as the Philadelphia 76ers defeated the New Orleans Hornets 98-90.
"That was his best ever, by far," Philadelphia coach Larry Brown said.
Iverson scored 20 in the fourth quarter to help his team hang onto the lead throughout the final 12 minutes of a closely contested, physical game.
Iverson joined Michael Jordan, Rick Barry, Charles Barkley, Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor as the only players to score 55 or more in a playoff game. Jordan holds the NBA record of 63.
"When I'm out there on the basketball court in front of 20,000 people, and I'm making shots and they're into it and jumping up and cheering, that's what I get the goose bumps from," Iverson said. "Because I know when these people leave this arena, that might be something they'll cherish for the rest of their life."
The fans weren't the only ones cherishing it. Iverson's coach and teammates were in awe, as were the Hornets.
"The only player I've ever seen play like that was Michael Jordan," Derrick Coleman said.
"It's right up there with Mike's 63," Hornets coach Paul Silas said.
"It was the single-best performance I've ever been a part of," Philadelphia's Keith Van Horn said.
During the first seven games of the postseason Saturday and earlier Sunday, there was a 46-point performance by Dirk Nowitzki of Dallas and a 43-point outing by Orlando's Tracy McGrady.
Iverson outdid them by a bunch, hitting nearly everything he tossed up with the exception of a stretch of five consecutive misses during the third quarter.
"He must've been watching TV all day, watching all those young gunners putting up those numbers - and he had the last game in prime time," the Sixers' Aaron McKie said.
With Philadelphia clinging to a two-point lead, Iverson came off a pick from Van Horn and hit a 3 to make it 89-84. On Philadelphia's next possession, he dribble-faked Stacey Augmon off-balance, stepped back and hit another 3 to reach 51 points and give the Sixers a 92-84 lead with three minutes left.
After the Hornets pulled to 94-90, Iverson used his lightning speed to drive around George Lynch for a layup that gave him his final points with 0:37.3 left.
Iverson reached 50 points for the third time in 46 career playoff games. It was his ninth game with at least 40.
"I caught a rhythm. The basket looked like an ocean, and I was just throwing rocks in," Iverson said.
Iverson reached 30 points just 3 1/2 minutes into the third quarter, but he missed his next five shots while being defended by Augmon before hitting a 3-pointer that gave the 76ers a 70-68 lead entering the fourth period.
Iverson then made his first four shots of the final quarter.
Eric Snow added 15 points and Aaron McKie 12 for Philadelphia.
Jamal Mashburn led the Hornets with 28.
L.A. Lakers 117, Minnesota 98. Kobe Bryant scored 39 points and Shaquille O'Neal had 32 points and 10 rebounds as the Lakers defeated the Timberwolves to open their first-round series Sunday.
"You can tell by our intensity out there," forward Robert Horry said, "the playoffs is a totally different game."
Bryant scored 29 points in the first half, on 12-of-16 shooting. The Lakers led the entire game, shot 55 percent from the floor and went 10-for-19 from 3-point range.
Game 2 is Tuesday night in Minneapolis.
"They just shot the lights out of the ball," said forward Kevin Garnett. "We'll just have to do that on Tuesday."
Garnett had 23 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists - not nearly enough to help the Timberwolves win with home-court advantage for the first time in their history; they were eliminated in the opening round each of the past six years.
"We're pretty experienced at taking crowds out of games," said Bryant. He later dismissed the idea that the Lakers were vulnerable without that extra home game in the first round.
"I don't know what the big deal is about playing on the road," he said. "I've never seen fans scream loud enough to block my jump shot."
Orlando 99, Detroit 94. Tracy McGrady set a team playoff record with 43 points to help the Magic hold off the top-seeded Pistons on Sunday in Game 1 of their first-round Eastern Conference series.
"This guy is arguably the best player on the planet," Detroit coach Rick Carlisle said. "We know that, and we know he is going to score some points and do some spectacular things. But if he goes for 40-plus in every game, it's going to be really hard for us."
Six Pistons tried to guard the NBA's leading scorer, who was 15-of-28 from the field and 10-of-12 from the line.
It was a particularly impressive effort considering that Detroit allowed opponents just 87.7 points per game this season. No other team's average was under 90.
"I felt like I could get any shot," McGrady said.
TITLE: Lightning Strike Capitals for Series Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - It took 11 seasons for the Tampa Bay Lightning to win a playoff series, so they didn't care if it took a few extra overtimes.
Martin St. Louis scored his fifth goal of the series on a power play 4:03 into the third overtime Sunday to give the Lightning a 2-1 victory over the Washington Capitals.
The Lightning, after dropping the first two games at home, won four straight to win the best-of-seven series and advance in the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
"It's been a long time coming, no question," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "There's been some lean years out there. We're hoping we continue to go. You never know how far you're going in the playoffs, but you need to come back and do it again, and that's how you solidify your organization.
"We don't want this to be a one-year thing - or a one-series thing."
Tampa Bay's only previous postseason appearance came in 1996, when it lost 4-2 to Philadelphia. The third-seeded Lightning will play No. 2 New Jersey in the second round.
St. Louis scored on a power play after the Capitals were whistled for too many men. St. Louis took Vincent Lecavalier's pass behind the net, circled to the right of the crease and put the shot above Olaf Kolzig's glove.
"We were fortunate," Tortorella said. "A power play at that time of the game, when both teams are so very tired, it's definitely an advantage."
The culprit was defenseman Jason Doig, who hopped off the bench too soon and found the puck at his stick. It was a tough blow for a team that lost Game 3 - when leading the series 2-0 - on a 5-on-3 overtime power play.
"He just was a little too excited to get out there," Washington coach Bruce Cassidy said. "The way this whole series went, I was sitting in the locker room shaking my head, thinking we found a way to beat ourselves in terms of allowing those calls to be made, I guess.
"When you look at the way we lost games, sometimes it's just not to be."
The Capitals added another collapse to their playoff legacy, blowing a two-game series lead for the fourth time since 1992. They lost four straight - something that didn't happen during the regular season - and are 2-10 in their last 12 home playoff games.
Nikolai Khabibulin, inconsistent early in the series, was outstanding in overtime and finished with 60 saves for the Lightning. Kolzig had 44.
Tampa Bay's Dave Andreychuk sent the game to overtime with a power-play goal with 4:06 remaining in regulation. The puck came to him on a fortuitous deflection off the skate of Capitals defenseman Ken Klee.
Peter Bondra scored during a second-period power play for the Capitals.
Andreychuk's goal was Tampa Bay's first that wasn't scored by a member of the Lecavalier-St. Louis-Vaclav Prospal line since it was formed in Game 3. Cassidy put his top line - led by Jagr - against the Lecavalier line this game and finally shut it down - until St. Louis' game-winner.
"We open the door for them, and Marty St. Louis' line kicked it down every time," Cassidy said.
A roughing call after the whistle on Ben Clymer - the type of penalty the Lightning avoided for the better part of three games - led to Bondra's fourth goal of the series.
That score ended an 0-for-13 power-play slump by the Capitals. It also gaveWashington its first lead since the end of Game 2.
Vancouver 4, St. Louis 3. Markus Naslund had a goal and two assists as the Canucks staved off elimination for the second straight game, beating the Blues on Sunday night to force a decisive Game 7 in the first-round playoff series.
"We made it pretty hard on ourselves in the third period," Canucks center Trevor Linden said. "But all in all we did what we wanted to do and what we wanted to have, and that's an opportunity for a Game 7."
Whoever wins Tuesday's game in Vancouver will play the winner of the series between Colorado and Minnesota.
"We're a confident team, we are," said Blues center Doug Weight, who had two goals and an assist. "We believe we're the better team right now and we've got to go prove it."
Mattias Ohlund had a goal and an assist for the Canucks, who scored twice in each of the first two periods. Vancouver had two power-play goals in the second period as the Blues repeatedly hurt themselves with ill-advised penalties.
The Blues made it interesting with third-period goals by Eric Boguniecki and Weight before the comeback fell short. St. Louis outshot Vancouver 13-2 in the third period.
"We had a much better third period," forward Cory Stillman said. "If we could have come out like that at the start, it might have been a different game."
St. Louis has never lost a series in which it led 3-1, but the Canucks have come back twice from that deficit to win.
"Momentum can definitely work in your favor," center Brendan Morrison said. "And I guess we've got it right now."