Russia and the CIS News Digest
Russia Pressures UK on Chechen Separatists
The Russian Foreign Ministry on Sept. 16 summoned British Chargé d'Affaires Steven Wordsworth to protest air time granted by the state-run BBC Corporation, to Akhmad Zakayev, the Chechen separatist representative in London, as well as his political friend, the exiled financial operator Boris Berezovsky. According to Itar-TASS, the Foreign Ministry told the diplomat that, "having granted asylum to these 'refugees,' the British authorities bear full responsibility for their remarks and actions." The protest continued, "The Russian side hopes that London will draw conclusions from the current situation and will take adequate steps to curb the provocative actions of the aforesaid persons."
In other responses to the escalation of irregular warfare against Russia, in the North Caucasus and elsewhere, President Vladimir Putin said Sept. 17 that preventive measures against terrorists were being prepared. Speaking after Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev had reportedly taken responsibility for the recent attacks, Putin said, "We are seriously preparing to act preventively against terrorists," adding that the steps would be "in strict accordance with the law and norms of the constitution, relying on international law." The same day, the Russian Prosecutor General's office announced that it had evidence that both Basayev and former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov were involved in the Sept. 1-3 hostage-taking in Beslan, North Ossetia, which ended in bloodshed. "The role of this inhuman being [Basayev] and the so-called president [Maskhadov] has been proven," Deputy Prosecutor Gen. Vladimir Kolesnikov said in a TV interview. He said that the two should be captured alive.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko announced Sept. 17 that Russia was concerned about financial flows sustaining terrorism in the North Caucasus, and that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would take this matter up in bilateral meetings when he attended this month's UN General Assembly session in New York.
Putin Denounces 'Double Standards' on Terrorism
Addressing a conference of world mayors, held Sept. 18 in Moscow, President Putin said that today's double standards on terrorism "recall the Munich Pact of 1938"appeasement. "I call for remembering lessons of history, the year 1938 and the Munich Pact," Putin said. "Of course, the situations are different in terms of the scale of consequences that occurred after World War II. But the situation is very similar. The indulgent and excusatory attitude toward killers is tantamount to abetting terrorism. We've encountered double standards in opinions about terrorism. Even today, these views, pernicious for the world and universal security, have not been overcome.... There continue to be attempts to divide terrorists into 'ours' and 'others,' into 'moderates' and 'radicals,' which, in effect leaves loopholes for terror, convenient loopholes in the public mind."
Car Bombing Attempt Reportedly Blocked in Moscow
The world mayors' conference, hosted by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov at the Museum of the Battle of Borodino, and attended by President Putin, may have been the target of a major terrorist attack Sept. 17. News about an attempted car-bombing in Moscow, possibly targetting the meeting's participants, was reported by in the Russian media Sept. 20. The incident involved the capture of an explosives-loaded van, and a man who was attempting to park itand who is reported to have said, under interrogation, that he was going to set up a car-bomb on Kutuzovsky Prospect, a main route for Putin's and other official motorcades when they travel to the Kremlin. He may also have given the location of other car-bombs, which are said to have been located and disarmed.
The person detained, identified as Navy veteran Alexander Pumane from St. Petersburg, then died in custody later during that night. Press reports focussed as much on whether or not he was beaten to death by the Moscow police, as on the question posed in a Strana.ru headline, "Whom Was Alexander Pumane Going To Blow Up?" An Itar-TASS dispatch said that Pumane had admitted to planning to detonate the car-bombs during a Saturday (Sept. 18) visit by guests of the conference of world mayors. None of these details was officially confirmed. The only thing about this story that appeared certain, is that there has been a markedly increased "noise" level about a large car-bomb, targetted at Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, President Putin, or other high officials.
Saakashvili Hosted by Jamestown Foundation
In New York for the UN General Assembly, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili spoke before business leaders Sept. 20, at an event arranged by the Jamestown Foundation. In his speech, Saakashvili claimed that the Georgian security forces had eliminated Chechen terrorist groups from the Pankisi Gorge, after renewed complaints from Russian authorities that terrorists were still active in this area.
Saakashvili's theme was "GeorgiaA Failed State No More." He emphasized that he was introducing responsible tax policies and liberalizing legislation on business and investment, and that the government would sell state property without delay.
He warned that moves were afoot to absorb the Georgian autonomous districts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia into the Russian Federation, in violation of international law. Russian troops are also still stationed at two bases in Georgia proper, he complained.
Saakashvili, in an apparent attempt to upgrade the troop-training agreement with NATO, said that Georgia was prepared to send even more troops to Iraq. Defense Minister Baramidze, meanwhile did go on to visit Pentagon officials in Washington. His agenda covered the continuation of U.S.-Georgian military programs, under which American instructors trained four commando battalions in Georgia, and the USA is carrying out technical retooling of the Georgian State Border Department and Coast Guard.
Ukrainian Election Outcome Uncertain
Opposition candidate Victor Yushchenko's lead in the Ukrainian election, scheduled for Oct. 31, has almost completely melted away, according to an evaluation in the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung of Sept. 18. Influential neo-liberal circles in the West have portrayed Yushchenko as "the Saakashvili of Ukraine," hoping to replicate Georgia's model of regime change.
Drama around Yushchenko heightened in mid-September, when he checked into a clinic in Vienna, after which medical and political sources reported evidence, albeit unconfirmed, that he might have been poisoned.
Russian Science Slated for Devastating 'Liberalization'
At the first autumn meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Russia scientists and scholars were informed that during their summer vacation, without consulting any of them, the Ministry of Education and Science had prepared a "business plan for the denationalization and privatization of fundamental science," in the words of Kommersant Sept. 15. Under the scheme, the number of state-run scientific organizations will be reduced from 2,338 to 100-200 by the year 2008. The others are supposed to struggle to exist in the jungle of the free market.
Academician Yuri Osipov, RAS President, emphasized that as the document had not been presented to the Academy "officially," it should not be regarded as serious. Some of his colleagues, however, felt compelled to speak out against this new assault on the flagship Russian scientific institution, which was founded by Tsar Peter the Great according to a plan drawn up by Gottfried Leibniz. Gennadi Mesyats, first vice president of the Academy, termed the ministry's initiative "a frontal offensive against fundamental science"which he found out about only the day before the Academy's Presidium was to meet.
Nikolai Dobretsov, head of the RAS Siberian department, informed the audience that a paragraph in the same ministry's new "Strategy for Innovative Development of the Russian Federation" exactly repeats the "business plan." "This 'strategy' was already discussed in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, so it is too late to argue," he concluded sadly. Academician Vitali Ginzburg, a Nobel Laureate in physics (2003), exclaimed, "Does that mean that Yury Sergeyevich (Osipov) will now be not elected by us, but appointed by the President, like a governor? That is poor stuff and nonsense!"
Academician Nikolai Plate, another deputy head of the RAS, urged his colleagues not to kid themselves about the seriousness of the measures: "This is a conscious, cold, cynical line pursued by a group of persons," he said, "[whose] purpose is to take over the Academy and use it for their own property needs." After this statement, nobody was surprised to hear Academician Dmitri Lvov, Academic Secretary of the RAS Economics Division, urging to write an open letter to President Putin, expressing no-confidence in Minister Andrei Fursenko. Kommersant quoted Fursenko's rejoinder, that only 40 RAS institutions, out of 5,000, function well. Science has been severely underfunded since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
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