Russia and the CIS News Digest
Russian Leaders: War Has Been Declared
As the United Nations Security Council convened Sept. 1 at Russia's request, to consult on a response to the string of attacks in Russiatwo downed airliners, a bloody subway bombing on Aug. 31, and the horrific school slaughter in Beslan, in North OssetiaRussian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia was at war. "The explosion at the Rizhskaya Metro station," he said, "was, unfortunately, not the first and, I'm afraid, not the last act of terrorism. In effect, war has been declared on us, in which the enemy is invisible and there is no front line."
Patriarch Alexi II of the Russian Orthodox Church issued a statement the same day: "Russia has collided with an evil force, which plans to subjugate not only our country, but the entire world." He called for world unity against terrorism and praised the Islamic clergy of Russia, who had offered to mediate to free the children.
In Paris, Le Monde reported of President Vladimir Putin's Sept. 6 session with Western journalists, held two days after his address to the nation (see InDepth), that the Russian President "reiterated the accusation he had launched in a veiled form, against Western countries which appear to use double-talk. On the one side, their leaders assure the Russian President of their solidarity in the fight against terrorism. On the other, the intelligence services and the military'who have not abandoned their Cold War prejudices' [Putin's words]entertain contacts with those the international press calls the 'rebels.' ... 'Because certain political circles in the West want to weaken Russia, just as the Romans wanted to destroy Carthage.' But, continued Putin, 'We will not allow this scenario to come to pass.'"
On Sept. 8, as Russia began to make defense and security changes in the wake of the Beslan massacre of schoolchildren, Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky warned, "As for launching preemptive strikes on terrorist bases, we will carry out all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world."
Economist Berates Russia Over 'Frozen Conflicts'
The Aug. 21-27 London Economist took up the issue of the potential for crises to explode around Russia's periphery in CIS countries, an area that is now the border zone between Russia and NATO. The Economist grouped the recent fighting in South Ossetia, Georgia, together with other "former Soviet war zones," where "unresolved wars have poisoned the newly independent republics of the former Soviet south, and [these] could flare anew." These "frozen conflicts" are Transdniestria (Moldova), Abkhazia, and South Ossetia (Georgia), and Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenia/Azerbaijan). They have made the countries of the "former Soviet south" emerge "as stunted, embittered, and ill-governed creatures."
The Economist passed judgment on what should be a state and what shouldn't: "South Ossetia is not a viable state. It lives on crime. Its government needs to be closed down as part of a generous settlement which Georgia now offers." (Notably, the editorial did not apply these criteria to Chechnya.) The bottom line is that "America and Europe should give more help to Georgia's Mikhail Saakashvili, whose openness to ethnic coexistence and western values make him the region's most promising leader for decades; the governments of the West should steady his hand while affirming his choices. They should also look beyond Georgia, to other 'frozen conflicts' in the region. One is in Moldova, where another rebel statelet, Transdniestria, lives on smuggling and Russian guns. Then there is a far bigger stand-off: over Nagorno-Karabakh and its environs, where a decade ago Armenians broke free from Azerbaijan and expelled local Azeris. That logjam has other causes besides Russian meddling, but it would be easier to shift if Russia worked constructively with the West. All these conflicts destabilise countries on the new borders of NATO and the European Union. The four Russian-backed statelets at the heart of these disputes have something in common: They have no legal existence, and can easily serve as a free-for-all for illegal activity of every kind."
The London Financial Times also editorialized for making Russia follow instructions from the West on how to settle these hot spots. The FT endorsed Georgian President Saakashvili's scheme for the EU to supervise the settlement process: "Overt U.S. involvement in South Ossetia might backfire. Better perhaps for the initiative to be taken by the European Union, possibly through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.... Peacemaking on Russia's borders will not be easy, but will be much more difficult if the violence gets any worse."
Russians Speak of Foreign Hand Behind Attacks
Following President Putin's Sept. 4 speech, Russian commentators are calling the recent terror campaign in Russia a virtual "casus belli" for a new East-West conflict. Among the most explicit reaffirmations of the President's statement that international terrorism has no independent existence, but functions only as "an instrument" of powerful international circles, committed to the early destruction of Russia as a nuclear-armed power, was a Sept. 7 article from the popular business news service RBC, headlined "The West Is Unleashing Suicide Bombers Against Russia." In language virtually unheard of since the Cold War, RBC charged that the wave of attacks was preceded by "an ultimatum" to turn over the Caucasus region to "Anglo-Saxon control." Referring to the London Economist's late-August feature (see above), RBC said that this magazine, "which expresses the positions of Great Britain's establishment, formulated the Western position concerning the Caucasus, and above all, the policy of the Anglo-Saxon elite, very precisely." RBC then pointed to recent evidence that "foreign specialists" have been arming and training Chechen guerrillas.
"The only way to resist," wrote RBC, "would be for Moscow to make it known, that we are ready to fight a new war, according to new rules and new methodsnot with mythical 'international terrorists,' who do not exist and never did, but with the controllers of the 'insurgents and freedom fighters'; a war against the geopolitical puppet-masters, who would destroy thousands of Russians in order to achieve their new division of the world."
On Sept. 7, the Russian news agency KMNews.ru ran carried an unsigned commentary, "School seizure was planned in Washington and London." Based on the ties between the brutal Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, who has been linked to the Beslan attack, and Chechen separatist politicians Akhmad Zakayev (in London) and Ilyas Akhmadov (in the USA), KMNews wrote: "What about our partners in the 'anti-terrorist coalition'?... Willingly or not, Downing Street and the White House provoked the guerrillas to these latest attacks. Willingly or not, Great Britain and the USA have nurtured the separatists with material, informational, and diplomatic resources. Willingly or not, the policy of London and Washington fostered the current terrorist acts.... It is no secret, that the West is vitally interested in maintaining instability in the Caucasus. That makes it easier to pump out the fossil fuels, extracted in the Caspian region, and it makes it easier to control Georgia and Azerbaijan, and to exert influence on Armenia. Finally, it makes it easier to drive Russia out of the Caspian and the Caucasus....
"Alas, it must be recognized that the coauthors of the current tragic events are to be found not in the Arab countries of the Middle East, but on the banks of the Thames and the Potomac."
On Sept. 7, Russia renewed demands for the extradition of Zakayev and Akhmadov.
Russian, German, and French Leaders Meet in Sochi
President Putin met German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder one-on-one in Sochi Aug. 30, discussing "the full range of bilateral relations and joint action on the international scene," according to the Kremlin news service. President Jacques Chirac of France joined them the next day, delayed by the crisis around the French journalists, taken hostage in Iraq. After the consultations, they agreed on the following points:
* No troops to Iraq; Germany will continue training Iraqi police and military outside Iraq, in neighboring Gulf states;
* Shared interest in rapid economic reconstruction of Iraq, in which all three governments want to cooperate;
* Cooperation and information exchange among their intelligence agencies, against organized crime, the drug trade, and terrorism;
* Cooperation in the framework of "strategic partnership EU-Russia," with additional emphasis on increased Russian oil and gas deliveries to Europe. Putin promised improvements in transport capacities for oil and gas. Schroeder attacked speculative increases of oil prices on the western markets;
* In Chechnya, a political solution, return to civilian rule, and economic reconstruction. Chirac and Schroeder said they have no reason to doubt that the Aug. 29 Presidential elections in Chechnya, won by Alu Alkhanov with over 70%, were democratic.
On Sept. 3, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung carried Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's lengthy article on the Russian-German "strategic partnership." Observing that the potential of their bilateral relations had barely been tapped, Lavrov said that proposals for high-tech branches of the economy would be on the agenda of the Sept. 10-11 German-Russian economic summit in Hamburg. (Putin skipped the summit due to the escalation of irregular warfare in Russia, but the "St. Petersburg Forum" session in Hamburg went forward.) Lavrov wrote that Russia wants to develop "mutually beneficial cooperation in aerospace, information technology, telecom, biotechnology, development of new materials, laser technology, nano-technologies, etc."
Schroeder addressed Russian relations and the situation in the North Caucasus, when he opened Parliament on Sept. 8. He said that solutions for Chechnya can be found only in the framework of Russian territorial integrity. The next day, without a further meeting, Putin and Schroeder issued a joint statement on "international terrorism," in which they said that the Beslan school attack, "directed against innocent children, is a new dimension of the threat international terrorism poses to all mankind." An itemization of steps that Russia and Germany intend to take, included their commitment "to wage an unflagging fight against the financing of terrorism and to implement the recommendations of the FATF" (the Financial Action Task Force on Money-Laundering), as well as preemptive action to catch terrorists, coordination of efforts against weapons-acquisition by terrorists, information exchange, protection of embassies, action against cyberterrorism, actions to reduce the recruitment of suicide-bombers and other terrorists, and support for other countries that are fighting terrorism.
Russian Academy Report: Russian Population Could Be Halved
The Moscow Times of Aug. 24 reported on a document circulating within the Russian government, which warns that the Russian population will shrink by one-half by mid-century, unless drastic changes are made. The report originates with the Institute of Labor Medicine of the Russian Academy of Sciences (director: Nikolai Izmerov), and has been circulated under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, the Social Insurance Fund, and an NGO called Health of the Workforce.
Looking at the impact of collapsed public health and health care in Russia, the report notes that the Russian workforce is shrinking twice as fast as the total population. It says that "in the last 12 years, the country's population has fallen by 5 million; at the same time, the working population fell by more than 12 million." Ten million workers, or about 1 million people per year, will die from 2006 to 2015, it projects, meaning that the population will drop by one-half by 2060, and that "very soon, Russia will not have enough soldiers and workers." It says that work-related illnesses, injuries, and deaths cost Russia $65 billion in 1999, and that accidents and a toxic work environment give workers in the coal, power, machinery construction, and metallurgy industries a mortality rate double the rate in other industrialized nations. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in health care, it says, "Very soon the medical and demographic situation will lead to a serious deficit in labor resources."
The Moscow Times quoted an unnamed official at the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, who denounced the report, saying, "Anyone can write something up and then ask for money." The drastic numbers given in the report, however, are consistent with a growing body of reports on Russian life expectancy, birth and death rates, social disintegration, and the spread of HIV, TB, and other diseases.
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