A Step At A Time

"With regard to Iran, the situation is bi-dimensional. US intervention has two parameters to consider. The most imminent issue is indeed monitoring the Iranian non-conventional build up. The question is when and at what stage do we act unilaterally? However, it is not that simple, for the US is not a single player here and I don't mean the Europeans, but the Iranians themselves. With Ahmadinijad in power, the Mullahs are moving to the counter offensive in the region. There is a regional context to any American confrontation with Tehran. I cannot imagine any sort of military move against the regime -if indeed the nuclear red lines are crossed- with Syria's regime in the back, and more importantly with Hizbollah's global reach. Our analysts, experts and planners must take Iranian-controlled Terrorism (Hizbollah) and to a certain extent the radical intelligence services in Damascus when they contemplate maps for strikes or other surgical operations on Iranian mainland.

"For if US airpower bombs any target inside Iran, Hizbollah will bomb US cities with all their hidden power. So, in short, the long arm of the Iranian regime -the terrorist networks- must be dealt with either before, or during a potential campaign. But, if one observes the state of affairs of Hizbollah today in Lebanon, you'd conclude that its policies are all guided towards aborting all US policies. They know the confrontation is coming, and are preparing for it, ahead of time.

"The other dimension of US intervention in Iran, is as it was discussed by our colleagues on the panel, on behalf of Iran's civil society. But it is only when the level of oppression is wide, bloody and visible worldwide, that Washington can mobilize worldwide efforts in that direction. Hence, the reasonable policy is to offer full fledged support to the democracy movement in Iran. Not a symbolic posture with symbolic logistics, but an all-out campaign to enable the opposition forces to face off with the regime. The President, the Europeans and other nations world-wide must act swiftly and dramatically in their support of the "struggle of the Iranian people." Short of strategic moves, they will be offering the Iranian masses to their bullies, and we will have to wait for another generation. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, Ahmadinijad's installation in power is the equivalent of "sealing off the fortress" before drama erupts. In conclusion, I believe historic opportunities are ripe for US revolutionary action in the region, but the window is not that wide, before it shuts down again."

Dr. Walid Phares, in a FrontPage symposium moderated by Jamie Glazov

Once again the London Guildhall Summer School (director Scott Stroman, web site www.guildhallsummerschool.com) – now celebrating its 20th anniversary - held its well-attended 5-day course in jazz, rock and studio music, along with the usual advanced jazz weekend, singers’ weekend and recording engineering courses. As in the previous two years, the 5-day course included a substantial strings component, ably led by New York-resident Canadian violist amd violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch, who also performed in a tutors’ concert on the Wednesday evening.

The strings course, attended this year by students from the United Kingdom, Iceland and New Zealand, was composed of practical seminars covering a wide range of topics and special areas of interest, including transcription, rhythm syllabics, jazz scale exercises, harmony & ear training, and harmonic analysis of jazz standards with reference both to the construction of the improvised line and to string backing. Each morning seminar was followed by an hour and a half of workshop activity focused on the string ensemble, with piano, bass and drums. Among the compositions chosen as course material were Thelonious Monk’s We See, McCoy Tyner’s Passion Dance, and (in a repeat from last year) Henry Mancini’s A Shot In The Dark, which the ensemble performed at the final concert.

The afternoon theory, rhythm and workshop classes, led by a corpus of tutors some twenty-five strong, including saxophonists Don Rendell, Malcolm Miles, Jean Toussaint and Martin Hathaway, pianist Huw Warren, vocalist Donna Canale and many others, were not divided up by instrument, and so there was an opportunity for students to work in ensembles of different and varied kinds. Each workshop led to a recording session in the school’s basement studios and a performance at the final concert. As in previous years, the presence of strings in the workshop ensembles led to some interesting and sometimes problematic situations, though these were usually resolved in a satisfactory way. My own experience in a Level 4 improvisation workshop with a group formed of 4 saxes, viola, guitar, piano, bass and drums involved an encounter with a non-functioning microphone in the recording studio which in our performance of Joe Lovano’s Luna Park more or less failed to pick up the sound of the viola at all. Since the previous day’s recording of the string ensemble in the same studio hadn’t entailed any such problems, I didn’t take an amp to the recording and relied on the studio sound system, which was doubtless a mistake. In general, during the week I had the impression that there is still quite a way to go before strings are generally integrated and accepted as “normal” instruments in jazz education and jazz ensemble playing. Jazz viola in particular seems – perhaps unsurprisingly – a slightly marginal genre of playing, with course tutors quite happy in a group setting to refer to “the violin”, when meaning the viola (one tutor even asked me, in class, quite seriously: “what’s the difference between a viola and a violin?”, though I like to think that this was probably a didactic question aimed at informing students of other instruments who might not be aware of what the difference was).

The Wednesday evening tutors’ concert also revealed some discrepancies with the integration of string instruments in a jazz setting. Tanya Kalmanovitch’s playing was certainly audible, but while this was in many ways a rousing and entertaining concert, as a listener one had the sense that the other musicians were not wholly attuned to the presence of a string player in their midst. This was particularly noticeable in one of Tanya’s own compositions, where her fine, melodic solo – in a meditative, lyrical, but also intellectually structured vein – was undermined by alarmingly insensitive playing from the group’s pianist.

In spite of the occasional problems, however, this was a stimulating week of jazz education and music making, which I would wholeheartedly recommend to string players, whatever their level of training. One of the most striking aspects of this year’s strings course was the high level of technical ability among the students, and their openness to all kinds of music, from classical through world music to jazz. The spirited performance given by Tanya’s klezmer ensemble at the final concert on the Friday evening made one aware of the futility of applying categories to music – for this lively rendering of the traditional dance tune “Odessa Bulgarish” with clarinets and strings was unmistakably jazz.

Once again, thank you, Tanya.

I'm back from a week's music at GSS - mostly improvisation for strings, with Tanya Kalmanovitch, and mostly very enjoyable - and am now catching up with the week's blogging. It'll take me a day or so to get back to normal posting.

The U.K. Sunday Times has a report on Project Klebnikov, the inquiry set up by a group of U.S.investigative journalists to probe the murder in Moscow of their colleague, Paul Klebnikov:

In an apparent breakthrough, Russian prosecutors claimed last month that the killing — the first of a western journalist in the country — had been ordered by Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, a fugitive Chechen warlord whom Klebnikov had interviewed for a book published in 2003.

Klebnikov’s family and friends are sceptical, however, and more than a dozen reporters, including representatives of Vanity Fair, the glossy US magazine, 60 Minutes, the flagship CBS TV programme, and Forbes, the business magazine where Klebnikov worked, have joined forces to try to find the truth.

The initiative — named Project Klebnikov — is aimed not only at uncovering fresh lines of inquiry into the killing, but also at continuing some of the reporter’s own investigative work.

“I felt that something needed to be done for Paul, for journalism and for Russia,” said Richard Behar, a friend of Klebnikov who has worked for Forbes, as well as for Time and Fortune magazines. “Paul was working on a number of sensitive projects and I want us to take up from where he left off."

The article notes that

Far from congratulating the Russians on solving the murder, American authorities have urged them to continue their inquiries. Critics suspect that the investigators found it more convenient to blame a Chechen than to explore suggestions that Klebnikov had uncovered documents which influential figures in the Byzantine world of Russian politics and business did not want to be published.

It has been suggested that the journalist was working on a story that would have shown how millions of dollars earmarked by the Kremlin to rebuild Chechnya had been stolen. He is also believed to have been looking into links between organised crime and Russia’s car industry.

The two Chechen wars have brought their procession of horror. Anglo-Saxon interference tends to prolong this drama while blaming the Kremlin for it. This criminal policy could bring about reactions of a similar nature by the Russian Federation in the areas of Anglo-Saxon influence and cause a spiral of violence in peripheral scenarios like during the Cold War.

Marivilia Carrasco
Mexican Foreign Affairs Analyst, Director of Reseña Internacional, the Movimiento de Solidaridad Iberoamericana daily. She also writes editorials for Voces del Periodista, a fortnightly publication of the Club de Periodistas de México.

The translation of the following Chechenpress interview and phone-in with Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB and FSB officer who now lives in London, England, is extremely rough from the point of view of English style and syntax, and was clearly not made by someone whose native language is English. Nevertheless, it offers some unique insights into the workings of Russia's intelligence and security services and their involvement in the Chechnya conflict and the Ukraine crisis, and as such is worthy of close attention. Incidentally, Litvinenko's book Blowing Up Russia, though banned in the Russian Federation, is available in a very fluent and readable English translation,and can be ordered here (there are some online excerpts, too). The links that are given at the end of the translated interview are to the Russian-language edition:

A. Litvinenko about Explosions of the Houses and the Beginning of the Russian-Chechen War

The interactive programs "Speak to America" with participation of the invited experts and radio listeners are broadcasted from Monday till Friday at 21 o'clock , Moscow time. You can also listen to them in record on our site after the ether.

The participant of the program is Alexander Litvinenko - the former lieutenant colonel of the FSB, which has received a political asylum in the Great Britain, the co-author of the book forbidden in Russia "The FSB Blows Russia up", written in the co-authorship with a Doctor of historical and philosophical sciences, American writer Yury Felshtinskiy. The second, corrected and added edition of this book is published this year in the USA by the publishing house “Liberty Publishing House”.

Inna Dubinskaya is the interrogator of the program.

"The Voice of America " : Your book "The FSB Blows Russia up" is published in English and Russian, a documentary film "An Attempt at Russia " has been shot after it. Three years have passed since the first edition of the book. What for is the second edition necessary?

Alexander Litvinenko : Yury Felshtinsky and I do not stop work on collecting of proofs about acts of terrorism in Russia in 1999… The new materials, which have appeared after the first edition, essentially supplement and prove our version that in 1999 the explosions in the Russian cities were carried out by agents of the Russian special services.

V.A .: According to your words, the purpose of the book "The FSB Blows Russia up" is to show, that problems of Russia are caused not with Yeltsin's reforms, but with the opposition, which was rendered to these reforms by the Russian special services, unleashed both Chechen wars "to turn Russia from democracy to dictatorship, militarism and chauvinism". What do you think have you reached this purpose and whether after reading of your book the reader will have a clear representation about for whom and for what the war in the Chechen Republic was necessary?

A.L .: I think, that clever, thinking people, having read the book, will reflect on in what country they live, and in what country their children will live. Even before writing of the book, in 1998, I and my comrades including Michael Trepashkin, who is in prison now, came out at a press conference with the application that, actually, special services were prepared for a plot with the purpose of capture of the authority. Unfortunately, for that moment the civil society in Russia was weak, today it is absolutely absent, therefore we were not heard, and we had to struggle against this system alone. You see the result of it: Michael is in prison, I had to emigrate, and some our comrades were broken and began to slander us and to refuse their words.

G.A .: In the foreword to the first edition you write, "After the period of the obvious confusion, caused by the events in August, 1991, the special service realized the advantage of a new, free from the party control epoch". Why was this situation favorable for the special services?

A.L .: Inside the Central Committee of the party there had always been a system of struggle between the special services and the party top. Those people won, who were supported by the special services. In 1991 those people, who supported the party bosses, were falling out from balconies, and those, who supported the KGB, remained alive and now control the party money. Though the party controlled the KGB, it permanently used to leave out of this control, and it resulted to the capture of the authority by the KGB.

The KGB does not realize one thing: it can exist only when there is an ideology. Today it reminds a house dog, who has left from under the control of the owner; first it began to steal sausages and when the owner specified the place to it, it gnawed him and now walks across the flat alone. We were tried to be convinced, that the KGB was stability. We see, what kind of stability it is: every day there is terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, murders, violence - Russia is choked in blood. It is the result of that the KGB is in the Kremlin.

G.A .: If it is really the result of that the KGB is in the Kremlin, how can you explain the extremely high popularity of, according to your words, the protege of the KGB president Putin? Polls show, that his rating is more than 60 %.

A.L .: I do not think that all these ratings are the truth and that Putin is supported by 60 %. Look other interrogations: recently "The Echo of Moscow" asked a question about the trust to the judicial system. 97 % of the interrogated do not trust the judicial system. How can then 60 % trust the president?

Certainly, there are people, who feel nostalgia for the Soviet past, when everyone had guaranteed 150 roubles. They knew that if they stood in a queue for a detergent powder and socks, by the New Year they would receive two pairs of socks for coupons, and it calmed people down. These are those people, who support Putin. They feel nostalgia for their slavery, because Putin, basically, inherently, also is a slave, as a free person cannot make slaves of people, and today Putin makes slaves of people. That is, he wants to control everything, so that everybody would obey him, and do only what he needs. It is slavish ideology and psychology. There are free people, there are a lot of them from the right side and from the left one, and I am sure, that 60 % of the country does not support Putin.

A call from Kazakhstan : Why are special services interested in dismembering of Russia ? - In fact they are called to keep its unity and integrity?

A.L .: Russian special services are able to do only one thing - to destroy. Their very ideology is violence, to solve problems with force. It seems to them, that this is the only way for Russia to remain in the structure, in which it is now: a powerful state, an empire. "We shall strangle everyone dissatisfied with force". Certainly, the majority of employees do not want the disintegration of Russia , but they do not understand that they do something, because of what Russia will disintegrate. Those clever people, who understand it, can do nothing, because there is a vertical of authority, about which Putin used to speak, and the one, who does not match this vertical, turns out to be in the next world, or in prison, or in emigration.

A call from Kazakhstan : What can you say about invalids of the war in the Chechen Republic ?

A.L .: What happens now in the Chechen Republic is, certainly, genocide of small people, a terrible tragedy, a shame of the whole Russian state and its citizens. Any war is victims, invalids, orphans, and I think, that those people, who unleash war, should understand, in what it will result and to be responsible for it. The invalids, both the Russian military men and Chechens, and civilians of any nationality are victims of genocide and the terrorist regime of the Russian state and the people, who rule it.

A call from the Leningrad region : Everyone say, that there is genocide against the Chechen Republic and, for some reason, they consider it to be intrigues of the KGB, but, in no way they make comments on acts of Chechens outside the Chechen Republic. When Umar Dzhabrailov wanted to become the president of Russia and wished to take the hotel "Radisson-Slavic" from a citizen of the USA (he was shot right in the center of Moscow), for some reason nobody was speaking then, that it was the KGB. Or they hide the truth about colonel Budanov, to whom a Chechen girl simply told, what was done with her relatives in Russia , and he hammered her to death? Why do not they say, what Chechens do outside the Chechen Republic , as if they are such good guys?

A.L .: The Russian state began a terrorist operation against the Chechen state, and I have seen the documents, in which the president of Russia Yeltsin and president Mashadov signed the peace treaty, which, by the way, only the adjacent states can sign. That is, Russia de facto and de jure recognized the Chechen state as independent. After that Russia committed a crime against the Chechen Republic under the guise of carrying out of an antiterrorist operation.

When this operation began, it was necessary for the Russian armies to enter the territory of the Chechen Republic to detain 11 or 12 terrorists, who were searched. For today only few people are detained, and the quantity of acts of terrorism for this period for a year makes about five hundred. Thus, the efficiency of the antiterrorist operation has led to an increase of acts of terrorism and terrorists hundreds times. The international experts, speaking in court in England , define these events as "a war". It is a war, which was unleashed by the Russian state against the Chechen one, for the period of which from one million Chechens 250 thousand are killed, 35 thousand of them are children. It is genocide, and all of us will be responsible for it, all citizens of Russia .

G.A .: Djohar Dudaev's coming to authority in 1991 was perceived by the Russian special services without objections. And beginning with 1992, bribes were received from Dudaev for the Soviet arms left in the Chechen Republic . These bribes, you write, were taken by three employees of the law enforcement bodies, supervising access to Yeltsin: the chief of the security service of the president Alexander Korzhakov, the chief of the Federal security service Michael Barsukov and the first vice-premier Oleg Soskovets. Soon they began to take bribes in exchange for the decision of the problems connected with independence of the Chechen Republic . When Dudaev refused to give the next bribe and threatened to reveal the names of the participants of the transactions, it led to that Dudaev became "a dangerous witness, who should have been killed". So, you write, the war in the Chechen Republic began. Whether it means, that three people unleashed the Chechen war: Korzhakov, Barsukov and Soskovets? How did they manage to persuade Yeltsin to begin full-scale military actions?

A.L .: I am sure, that Yeltsin was convinced by those three, because at that time they completely supervised "the access to the body". But they were supported by the system and the people, understanding, that if Russia moved by the way, by which it had moved in 1991-1992, very quickly it would come to democracy, there would be a private property, market economy and then there would be no place for the officers of the special services in the society. They would have either to live for a salary, or to work and to earn money on equal with everybody conditions, to what they, naturally, were not used. Therefore the only way to mislead Russia from the way of democracy was to make the democratic president illegitimate and to unleash a war, as it was done.

As far as the weapon is concerned, a huge quantity of it was left in the Chechen Republic . We are friends with Ahmed Zakaev, and he told me once, "Everybody says, that I am a gangster, a member of an illegal formation. But look: Russian armies were withdrawn, left to us some thousands of cars with cartridges, explosives, tanks, planes, machine guns. All this should be protected, but how can we do it? And Djohar Dudaev established the Chechen army, and I am accused, that I am a general of an illegal armed formation". Why is it illegal? In fact, there were military parades there, deputies of the Duma, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky, used to visit them. In 1996 I was told be Alla Dudaeva, that Korzhakov, Barsukov and Soskovets had taken bribes from Dudaev. I reported on it to the management - to General Vyacheslav Voloh, whom you can find by phone 132-77-55 in Moscow , and he told me, that there was no need to report on it to anybody.

A call from Cheboksary : Could you comment the information, that Putin, Patrushev, Sergey Ivanov, probably, participated in Victor Yushchenko's poisoning.

A.L .: Russian special services actively participated in the elections in Ukraine , supporting Yanukovich according to Kuchma's request. For eight years of his board Kuchma had turned from the nationally elected president into a Kremlin KGB puppet. Naturally, they wanted to change one puppet for another. But there was Yushchenko on their way, a powerful oppositionist, intelligent, clever, and strong. Special services realized that if Yushchenko was alive, it would be extremely difficult to seize the authority. And they took their usual path: if there is no person, there is no problem.

Poison is the same weapon for them, as a knife or a pistol. Only a specialist can apply it, who has worked in this sphere for a long time. In Moscow there is a special laboratory of operational and tactical management of the FSB on poisons, whence the poison was transferred to Ukraine (there are not such laboratories in Ukraine ). The application of poisons by the Russian special services is strictly regulated. Only the head of the FSB or his first assistant can give the order to apply it. If it is a political murder, the head of the FSB Patrushev would have never dared to do it, not having informed president Putin. I do not have any doubts, that the initiators of the plot to kill Yushchenko were Putin and Kuchma, who ordered the heads of the Russian and Ukrainian special services. And today Yushchenko's face is an evident display of the foreign policy of mister Putin.

G.A .: In your book you mention, that in 1999 the public opinion of Russians and the international community was on the party of Chechens. You write that it was necessary to create an extremely negative image of Chechens to affect the attitude of Russians to the Chechen Republic and to force them to believe in necessity of a new military intervention. This purpose was achieved: soon after the explosions of the houses in Moscow , Volgodonsk and Buinaksk 64 % of Russians expressed their support for massed bombardments of the Chechen Republic . Chechens were accused of the explosions. Meanwhile, as you specify in the book, that it was extremely unprofitable and illogical for the Chechen Republic to organize any acts of terrorism. Why?

A.L .: Because they simply did not need it. And Chechens did not have such forces and means to organize explosions of four houses for a month. And then there is also such a fact. The break between the two blown up houses in Moscow makes week. After the explosion of the first house the person, who had leased two cellars in both houses, was detained and interrogated. He testified that he had really leased two cellars – in the Guryanov Street and in the Kashirka Highway to one and the same person. For a week between the explosion in the Guryanov Street and the interrogation and the second explosion in the Kashirka Highway , nobody found time to see, what the one, who had rented both cellars, put in the Kashirka Highway .

A call from Germany : Tell us, please, about participation of Chechens in defense of the Brest fortress during the Great Patriotic War.

A.L .: 200 Chechens participated in the defense. By the way, an uncle of Ahmed Zakaev was lost at defense of the Brest fortress.

An anonymous call : Do you know how much money Yushchenko stole from the national bank and why he declared himself to be the president before the official elections?

A.L .: If Yushchenko has really stolen money, why is he still free? If he did it, today on all screens, Internet-sites, in all newspapers there would be documents about it, and he would not exist today as a politician.

A call from Kiev : Do not you think that the primitive approach to special services, which you propagandize, is interesting to nobody already for a long time? Probably, there is "the fifth column" in the Russian special services, which dreams of a reconstruction of the USSR . And leave your fantasy about Yushchenko for your new book!

A.L .: Russian services also are primitive, and the person, who heads them and is in the Kremlin now, is also primitive. And this primitive approach has led to that they have blown up Yandarbiev in Qatar and have poisoned Yushchenko.

G.A .: In the chapter "The FSB against People" you write, that "it was important for the FSB to involve Russia in a war as soon as possible, so that the presidential elections in Russia would take place on the background of a big war and so that the new president… would inherit a war". What for did the FSB need, that the elected president turned out to be before the war in the Chechen Republic ?

A.L .: The president, waging an illegal war, is illegitimate. When there is a war, the state is ruled by generals. The explosions of the houses had the purpose not only to unleash the war, not only to make unknown Putin famous, but also to spread Putin with blood, because when these explosions were prepared, Putin was the head of the FSB and one week before the terrorist attack was appointed to a new post. All this is a planned action, and Putin is connected with blood with this system of the KGB.

G.A .: The first foreign edition of your book in Russian, as it is known, was arrested in Russia . Whether our listeners can get acquainted with the second edition? Where and how is it possible to do?

A.L .: The book can be found in the Internet sites:

http://www.chechenpress.com/news/2004/07/31/book1.shtml

http://www.somnenie.narod.ru/bl/knigaLF/titul.html

http://terror99.ru/book.htm

http://www.compromat.ru/main/fsb/kniga.htm

Chechenpress, the Department of mass-media, 24.07.05.

Saturday July 23, 2005
World News - The News International, Pakistan

Dozens flee Chechen village for second time

NALCHIK, Russia: Dozens of residents of a Chechen village have fled to a neighboring Russian region for the second time in two months, officials said Friday, in what human rights activists said was an attempt to escape abuses by local security forces.

Thirty residents of the Borozdinovskaya village fled their homes and crossed into the neighboring province of Dagestan on Thursday, settling in the town of Kizlyar, the Chechen president’s press service said.

But Vyacheslav Burov, Kizlyar’s top official, said that up to 80 residents fled to his town on Thursday and still more came Friday, their makeshift tent camp now numbering over 100 people. Hundreds of Borozdinovskaya residents virtually the entire village spent two weeks in the Kizlyar camp in June after security forces conducted a brutal raid in their village, killing one elderly villager and leaving 11 others missing and feared dead. Chechnya has been locked in a separatist conflict for much of the past decade, and human rights groups accuse Russian forces and their local allies of repeated abuses against civilians, including kidnappings and extra judicial killings.

But the June 4 raid pitted ethnic Chechens against ethnic Dagestanis,marking the first serious conflict between the two groups.

Villagers blamed the raid on members of the Vostok battalion, comprised mostly of ethnic Chechens but subordinate to the Russian military. Residents returned in late June only after President Vladimir Putin’s top envoy to southern Russia, Dmitry Kozak intervened and Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov offered safety guarantees and compensation. Saigid Murtuzaliev, a Dagestani lawmaker who helped mediate the crisis, speculated that it was the slow provision of compensation that prompted the villagers to flee to Dagestan for the second time.

Human rights groups, however, said Borozdinskaya residents were driven by fear for their safety. "In all of Chechnya I haven’t seen a place where people would be as scared,’’ said Svetlana Gannushkina, an activist with the Russian human rights group Memorial.

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2005-daily/23-07-2005/world/w6.htm

(via chechnya-sl)

22.7.2005

The "Vostok" Battalion really was in Borozdinovsk

RUSSIA, Moscow. According to a statement by the "Social verdict" foundation on 21 July an informed source from the Republic of Chechnya has put a photocopy of an official police document, relating to what occurred at the village of Borozdinovsk on 4 June, at the disposal of the Nizhegorodsk committee against torture, which is conducting a public investigation which took place there.

As a result of an attack in Borozdinovsk several homes were burnt down, several inhabitants were injured, and 11 people went missing.

On 20 July the Committee Against Torture received an official copy of the duty section of the Interior Ministry of Chechnya's communication records from the communication record book No. 535 of the 5 June 2005 (registered at 20.15). The document states that "On 05.06.2005 a message was received by the duty section of the Interior Ministry from the Shelkovsk Regional Department of the Interior Ministry that on 04.06.2005 in the period from 15.00 until 20.30 the "Vostok" battalion of the Ministry of Defence numbering between 70 and 80 people carried out a special operation in Borozdinovsk. During the operation to arrest or eliminate members of illegally armed groups the battalion, moving in 2 armoured personnel carriers, three armoured "Ural" cars, 6 - 8 trucks, and cars, arrested inhabitants of the village of Borozdinovsk on suspicion of committing crimes".

There then followed a list of 11 surnames of missing people and an indication that while special operations were being conducted in the village for reasons unknown a fire broke out in the village, which caused fatalities. The circumstances behind these deaths are being established. The 11 people who in the official version were reported as missing were, in the communications report, detained in order to check their details with an Interior Ministry database. This document also states that their names did not appear in this database and confirms that all the material had been handed over to the prosecutor's office.

News agency PRIMA-News [2005-07-21-Rus-06]

http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2005/7/22/33047.html

Posting is going to be intermittent during the coming week. Things should be back to normal by next Saturday.

It seems that the London police, in their reaction to the dangerous situation on thre streets and on public transport, haven't taken the path of caution advised, for example, in the article by Alexander Golts I referred to earlier. The man who was shot at Stockwell Tube station was the wrong one. Now anyone who has dark hair or dark skin may feel threatened and at risk in London, and that can only arouse antagonism and resentment. With some experience of the dire effects of racial profiling by police intent on "cracking down", some independent Russian news outlets like gazeta.ru are coming out with headlines such as "London police making deadly mistakes".

With the situation in London as tense as it has been these past few weeks, one can understand the police response, and also that there was probably very little time to make a decision. But couldn't it have been possible to merely wound the man? The repeated shots to the head suggest a level of violence that can only be self-defeating.

On the Project Syndicate website, Nina L. Khrushcheva reflects on what she sees as Russia's split personality, as exemplified in its current president:

Indeed, Putin’s signature characteristic is to be all men for all Russia’s people. By blending the Soviet past with the Tsarist past and a few shards of Yeltsin-era democracy, Putin seems to think that he can neutralize the extremes of Russian history. Instead, the extremes seem to be squeezing out the desire for modernization.

High oil prices now seem to be the only factor allowing Putin to keep the reform charade going. The nineteenth-century czar Alexander III once said: “Russia has only two true allies – its army and its navy.” Oil is Putin’s army and navy, allowing him to build and maintain the image of a strong, but also an internationalist, state.

Alexander's formula is also popular today with Putin’s nationalists in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In his pro-imperial Russia film “The Barber of Siberia,” the Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov – whose father composed the Stalin-era national anthem that Putin recently revived – used the coronation of Alexander III as the symbolic centerpiece of Russia’s greatness, inviting Russian leaders to walk in his footsteps.

This strong-willed monarch, while ruling the Russian empire autocratically, managed to bring stability and prosperity, allowing capitalism to take root. He worked to strengthen and modernize Russia’s armed forces while avoiding armed conflict. He became known as “The Peasants’ Tsar,” though he didn’t tolerate any opposition thinking contrary to his own.

Putin sees his own crusade to save Russia from disintegration and separatism as similar to Alexander’s. But how forward-looking is it to model a twenty-first-century country on the absolutist example of the past?

Stalin is yet another cherished role model. Here, too, Putin tries to walk on both sides of the street, calling Koba a tyrant to sooth the wounded feelings the Baltic leaders, yet instantly qualifying his remarks by saying that Stalin was no Hitler. Can we really compare the degree of evil of these two men?

Despite his insistence on rubbing shoulders with world leaders and portraying himself as a modernizer, Putin, like his predecessors, is in fact a ruler who believes that only authoritarian rule can protect his country from anarchy and disintegration. But the old ideas, the mimicry and symbols Putin employs to achieve his goals, no longer correspond to today’s realities or Russia’s present capabilities.

Previously, it was Russia’s Western mission that was pure Potemkin village. Now Russianness itself seems to lack a secure foundation, for it is but a hollow shell of discarded state symbols. Like a bad driver, a nation that looks left and right but never ahead is bound to crash.

Hat tip: Marius

Kommersant's day-by-day reporting of the trial of Nurpashi Kulayev continues. An excerpt from the latest report (my tr.):

25 year-old Zarina Pukhayeva said that among the terrorists on the second day after the seizure of the school she saw a woman of Slav appearance, "not a shakhidka". She told the investigation about this.

"She had a rifle, and she was obviously a sniper. Her blond hair was in a ponytail. I didn't see again after that, not even in the photographs of the killed fighters.

"If I have understood you correctly, you saw this woman on the second day (after the school was seized - K.)?", Judge Aguzarov asked.

"Yes, she wasn't there any more after that."

"Kulayev, did you see this woman?" the presiding judge asked, turning to him.

"No, I didn't. But they told me about her in the "sixth department" (the Interior Ministry [MVD] department dealing with the fight against organized crime) said, and the investigators also talked about her.

"Was she in the vehicle with you?"

"No."

"I also wanted to say that there were more than 32 fighters there," Pukhayeva said. "I mean, there were two fighters standing by each window."

(via chechnya-sl)

From the Finnish journal SixDegrees, an interview with Finland-Swedish businessman Mikael Storsjö, who last year rescued the Chechen resistance information site Kavkaz Center from being shut down after pressure from the Russian government and special services:

SixDegrees met Mikael Storsjö, a man who hosted web pages of the Chechen news agency on a Finnish server, kavakazcenter.com, which resulted in the Finnish security police coming after him hours after opening the site. How did a Finland-Swede IT-entrepreneur become involved with the Chechen resistance movement?

Storsjö prefers to talk about freedom of speech rather than having a narrow discussion on terrorism; he thinks both sides of the conflict should be heard equally.

How did you come into contact with Chechen resistance?

Since my childhood, I have had an interest in Caucasus, ever since I started reading Tolstoi’s books. Over the years, I have been following several web pages, including Kavkaz-Center, which I suddenly noticed had been closed down. As I run a web hotel and we have freedom of speech in Finland, I welcomed them to put up their web server in our web hotel. They warned me about the political consequences, but, at that point, I didn’t think it would ever become such a big issue.

How long did it take until it was found out that you were hosting that web page?

Very shortly after opening the site in Finland, some Russians spotted it and found out that the page was located on Sonera’s network. After that, some politicians and the Ministry of the Interior contacted the Security Police and gave them an order to check out what was happening. Also on the same day, Sonera was asked to shut the site down which they didn’t do since they couldn’t see any reason to do so without criminal evidence. However, they gave my information to the Security Police and the next morning I received a phone call from them. They suggested a meeting and two police officers were in my office in less than ten minutes.

Should Sonera have given out your information?

I don’t think it was appropriate. On the other hand, we know that Sonera is not very safe when it comes to confidentiality. It wasn’t illegal but not really necessary.

What happened when you met the Security Police officers?

They told me that what I was doing was a dangerous activity in the international context and thus asked me to take the server down. I said that I didn’t find anything illegal in this activity and told them that I was not prepared to do so. When I asked them whether they could point out anything criminal on the site, they replied that there was some harsh language and hatred on a discussion forum; some Russians had apparently said that they hoped to place a nuclear bomb over Chechnya to get rid of the people.

According to Finnish law, discussion forums are not part of the Internet publication and therefore are not the editor-in-chief’s responsibility. There is a special value in these kinds of websites because every conflict has at least two sides and it is not fair that only one side can get their opinions out to the public. The same evening they called me asking for more information. They had translated 30-40 pages of text from the Russian version of the site into Finnish because neither of the police officers spoke Russian.

I wonder, as a citizen, how efficiently the police are using their scarce resources. Some four people worked with this issue, around the clock, during the weekend, while other duties were neglected because of lack of funds, I find this upsetting. I also think that the police have misunderstood their role in a democratic society. They should protect the people to use their constitutional rights, not to convince people to give their rights away.

Did they consider Chechens as terrorists?

No, I don’t think they did. It was more a question of how Russian authorities will look upon the issue. We mostly discussed the political situation in Russia, the media and how the society is becoming militarized.

Did you feel that the pressure originated from Russia or it just to prevent that pressure happening?

I would say that it is the second alternative. For example, Erkki Tuomioja, Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed on his web site that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately took steps to stop the website once they had found out about it. However, he was wrongly informed thinking that it was a site encouraging people to take terrorist action. I heard that in the end he did not find his own actions very appropriate and changed his website.

Have you learnt what people are so afraid of in those pages?

The pages have many readers, especially in Russia where there are only a few oppositional media. The government is keeping everything else under strict control. They are afraid that too many people follow this media and it will influence public opinion. This web page is somewhat radical, it represents an Islamic view. Anyway, I don’t think they support the fundamental Wahhabism movement, which according to some scientific studies has limited support in Chechnya.

The Russian government fears Muslims and Islamic movements; they simply don’t know how to handle the situation with diminishing population combined with a growing number of Muslims. A third reason is the person who started kavkazcenter.com, Movladi Udugov, the Minister of Media and Information in Dudaev’s Government during the first Chechnya war. Russians are very afraid of Muslim attacks and have personal hatred against Udugov, who won the propaganda war during the first Chechen war.

How did you put it up again?

I tried to put the server up here in Finland into some other web hotels but they all refused because they were afraid of having the Security Police running around their corridors. The following step was to fix a new Internet connection myself. I tried to do that in my living room but the delivery time was too long. In the end, I called a company in Sweden that had some slightly anarchistic pages and a lot of media turbulence around them. After half-an-hour, they called me back and asked me to come there with my server.

Have you had any further contact with the Security Police?

Not anything similar to their first visits, but they are interested in knowing what is happening. I have been in contact with them myself because I have nothing to hide. I feel, as a taxpayer, that they should not need to work finding information that I can give them directly! One of these police officers was invited and came to our company’s Christmas party! They are just doing their job and I have nothing against keeping them informed, on the contrary, the better they are informed the smaller the risk that they will do something stupid.

Has Russian Security contacted you?

I had a discussion with one bureaucrat from the Russian Embassy when the site was shut down. That discussion was meaningless because he just kept telling me how good everything is in Chechnya, how it is being rebuilt and there is only a handful of terrorists. You cannot have a real discussion if the other person lives in denial. Either he is a liar or maybe he really believes this because he only reads Russian news!

It is not regarded as a problem that over the years about 250,000 people have been killed and hundreds of people are still killed each year. In Russia, nobody speaks about it and nobody knows about it. There have not been any contacts from the Russian side except when I went to Caucasus at turn of the year. I applied for a visa to Russia via the Finland-Russia association but I was refused. The clerk at the association asked the consulate why and she was told - you know why. Apparently, I am a persona non grata for them.

How did the media learn about the story?

I have been working in media and I know it is very important to get your own version out. I contacted Hufvudstadsbladet, where I knew a reporter and told him the story. It could have been a discussion about terrorists, but I preferred to discuss freedom of speech. By going first to the press, I succeeded in turning the discussion towards the topic of my preference. That is why I got most politicians and human rights activists to support me. If I had been quiet, they would have referred to me as some monster with a terrorist site in Finland.

Does freedom of speech exist in Western society or is it a myth?

It exists here more than in communist, fascist or Islamic countries, for example. The main problem is that freedom of speech demands money. As Churchill said, “Democracy is a bad governmental system but the best one we know”. The same applies to the freedom of speech in the Western world - it is not perfect but it is the best we know.

What’s the future of Chechnya?

It is clear that you cannot solve the conflict by violence. This war has been ongoing for 400 years. During the Caucasus war in the 19th century more than half of the population was killed, and during the deportation in 1944 one third died. During Putin’s and Yeltsin’s wars, one fourth of the population have been killed. All that together is more than 100 percent! Many Russians have been killed too; they have lost close to 25,000 soldiers, which cost society a great deal. I hope that one day they will make a political deal that is perfect for both parties, though anything is better than the present situation. I think we will see a free Chechnya one day but many lives will be lost before that.


Facts

Born 1957 in Fiskars

M.Sc. (Econ)

Entrepreneur in EDP business since 1983

Running a business centre (Office House) since 1986

Freelance journalist

Interests: reading, Internet, political history, organizational activities, different kinds of outdoor activities

Summer plans: trekking a couple of weeks in Greater Caucasus mountains (Azerbaijan and Georgia)

At Prague Watchdog, a translation I've made of an essay by Yuna Letts about her recent visit to the Chechen capital Grozny:

All journalists with the chronic form of the illness of their own profession have two or three aims in the early stages of their work. Some dream of reporting directly from a burning house, some are obsessed with notes of criminal proceedings, some fervently desire to take part in a scientific experiment. In the fourth year of journalistic syndrome, some of my little goals were achieved - living contact with Pele, Digger excavations, three months in a sect, Shabbat in a most rigid and inaccessible synagogue. My vanity was satisfied. There was just one thing that would not let me sleep – a city, dead and mysterious, a city of weeping and of decomposing bodies – Grozny. Only I went there not as a female journalist, but, but as "a person of this world".

Of course it would it foolish and dishonest with regard to those people simply to go to Grozny with the aim of taking a stroll and "running under the bullets a little". I went there to meet the writer Ismail Mukayev, to discuss an inter-republican project and regular collaboration with Chechen literary organizations. He advised to me to conceal my journalistic certification, not to talk with anyone on the way and not to stick my neck out when I didn’t need to.

In the North Caucasus

I travelled from Nalchik. The Gazelle minibuses that go to Grozny outwardly resemble hearses - black all over: black blinds on the windows, black seats, the drivers in black clothing, dark glasses, with stiff black beards. The passengers were mainly women with children, a few young girls and two lads. The Chechen girls wore skirts and shawls, almost without cosmetics, they seldom spoke Russian. All the women were accompanied by someone.

My looks are generic. If need be, it’s possible to see Chechen features in them, but also Kabardian, or Jewish ones, and even the representatives of the one nationality or the other are deceived by this similarity. But I did a foolish thing - I went in jeans, and so right from the very beginning I attracted the suspicious glances of my fellow-travellers.

I soon got the jitters. The driver was talking in Chechen, and rather rudely, too, shouting something, waving his hands. Then I understood what the matter was: he was asking who hadn’t paid. It was me, of course. The whole minibus turned round and looked at me as though I were an enemy of the people – by now they had realized that I knew no Chechen.

A ticket from Kabardino-Balkaria to Chechnya costs 200 rubles. This a lot of money for Chechens, and so they seldom manage to get to the most peaceful Caucasian republic, only out of necessity - to buy household items and provisions that aren’t available in Grozny. Chechens are not liked here. Locals told me that they once came for the markets of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic – to Nalchik, Maisky, Prokhladny – stood for a day with their wares and never went there again – they were “asked” not to poke their noses into other people’s lands.

We faced the prospect of crossing several borders – there are approximately five checkpoints, not counting the additional checks made before public holidays. The problems started for me at the very first of these. One can also see it from the frontier guards’ point of view - a girl of strange appearance, registered in the Smolensk Oblast and re-registered in Moscow, travelling from Nalchik to Grozny. Alone.

The whole of my translation of the essay can be read at the Prague Watchdog website, here. The original Russian text is here.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.


From: W.H. Auden - 'September 1, 1939'

A Nazi leaflet from the V-1 bombing campaign against London and Britain in World War 2.

At RFE/RL, Roman Kupchinsky considers the possible psychological impact of the London terror attacks:

Simply put, the fact that the terrorists used nonlethal devices during a time of lower passenger usage could have been meant to create panic as opposed to injury. The 21 July attackers would have shown the British public and security forces that they are still able to strike when and where they wish, and that the mass-transit system in London cannot be fully protected, even when it is on the high alert status of 21 July.

The psychological impact these latest attacks might have on Londoners is difficult to predict, but it could have the effect of galvanizing opposition in Great Britain to the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts.

Moreover, it could also precipitate a strong anti-Muslim backlash in England, which could conceivably lead to racial tensions and increase Islamic militancy in the country.

If that is the intent of the organization behind the attacks in London, then the tactic could indeed be a powerful tool that might be used in other countries with large Muslim populations.

As the British authorities ponder how best to respond to the current wave of terrorist bombings, which may augur a sustained campaign not unlike those of the IRA, lasting for many months, or even years, they are all too aware that the manner of their response will have an impact beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. In Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, the perceptive commentator Alexander Golts considers the implications for Russia of what is taking place in Britain. An excerpt, in my translation:

London has not randomly been chosen as the target of terrorist attacks. Its tolerance, dignity and confidence in the inviolability of the law are the personification of Western civilization. The terrorists are confronting its steadfastness with their terrible experiment. Will Londoners remain as they were before, or will fear of the invisible enemy turn into racism, xenophobia, the persecution of "foreigners"?

The terrorists are clearly going on the assumption that the London bobbies have been given permission to behave like Moscow cops – stopping a man in the subway merely because the colour of his hair and the shape of his nose are suspicious. In short, that they will betray their traditions, and start "rubbing out in the outhouse". And then, the terrorists feel encouraged to believe, British Muslims, who have absorbed confidence in the inviolability of their own rights along with their mothers’ milk, will feel they have been insulted. As a result, some will turn up in the ranks of the supporters of "Al-Qaeda".

What happens now in Britain will be extremely important for Russia. Putin and his entourage are watching very closely how the leaders of the Great Powers act in extreme situations. The YUKOS affair became possible after the American invasion of Iraq: President Putin, who has never believed in democracy and the supremacy of law, viewed them as something like a club necktie, which one was supposed to wear. And he wore it for so long and no longer, until he saw that when his friend George got impatient he didn’t give a damn about international law. Putin concluded that the main thing was not law, but the presence of force and determination, the notorious "resource". If the British follow the road of "extremism" – the effect will be felt in Russia, for sure.

The BBC reports that a man has been shot dead by police at Stockwell Tube station, South London.

The best live blogging of the ongoing situation is to be found at perfect.co.uk, where Robin Grant is providing an hour-by-hour update.

http://www.lenta.ru/news/2005/07/21/proof/

Human rights activists have proved that the inhabitants of Borozdinovskaya have been detained by military servicemen

Human rights organization "The committee against tortures" obtained information, which proves that 11 inhabitants of the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya, who have being considered as disappeared without a trace in the course of the raid on the village on 4 June, were detained on suspicion of committing crimes by the soldiers of the Vostok battalion.

In "The committee against tortures" press release, which was sent to Gazetu.Ru, [http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/07/21/oa_164750.shtml] an informed source from the Chechen republic presented at the committee's disposal a xerocopy of a sheet of the registration booklet of the duty unit of MVD of Chechnya under No 535 of 5 June, 2005, (registration was marked at 8:15PM).

It's indicated in it that "on 5 June into the duty unit of the MVD of Chechnya entered this report of the operative duty officer of Shelkovsky ROVD, that on 4 June from 3:00Pm to 8:30 PM the soldiers of Vostok battalion numbering 70-80 people, who were moving by two APCs [BTRs], three armored Ural trucks, six-eight UAZ jeeps and passenger motor vehicles, when conducting of special-measures on detention and destruction of the members of illegal armed units in the populated area Borozdinovskaya detained on suspicion of committing crimes some inhabitants of Borozdinovskaya settlement".

In this registration booklet it is also noted, that those particular persons were detained for checking in in the base of data of the information center MVD of Chechnya. However, it was established after the checking that these persons aren't registered, in the data base - it was emphasized in the report.

See also: Borozdinovskaya

(via chechnya-sl)

In the London Times, Jeremy Page describes how "Europe's last dictator" and Putin have agreed a unity plot to stay in power:

President Lukashenko of Belarus arrived in Russia yesterday to promote a reunification plan for the two countries to offset growing Western influence in the former Soviet Union.

Some analysts say that the new union would allow Vladimir Putin to stay on as President after 2008, when, having served two terms, he is obliged to step down under the present Russian Constitution.

The two countries formed a loose union in 1996, but it has been hampered by economic disputes and personal animosity between Mr Lukashenko and Mr Putin.

Both leaders, however, appear to have put aside their differences after revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and now seem to be forging ahead with plans to form a new union.

Russian officials say that they are drawing up a draft constitution to be presented to the two leaders in the autumn, and that they are discussing plans for the Russian rouble to be introduced in Belarus next year.

"It is much more of a reality than people think," said Ivan Makoshok, a spokesman for the embryonic Russia-Belarus Union, estimating that full reunification could take as little as two years.

Mr Lukashenko has ruled his country of ten million people for more than a decade by reviving Soviet-style economic controls, silencing opponents and holding a series of flawed elections and referendums.

But analysts say he now fears that he could become the latest in a sequence of autocrats across the former Soviet Union to be toppled in a Western-backed revolution.

The United States has called President Lukashenko "Europe's last dictator" and last year passed the Belarus Democracy Act, which authorises assistance for a regime change in what the White House calls an "outpost of tyranny". Mr Putin, meanwhile, is anxious to prevent another former Soviet state turning its back on Moscow and
pursuing integration with the West.

The idea of reunification has been championed by Pavel Borodin, the secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union, who hired Mr Putin as his deputy while serving as head of the Kremlin's property department in 1996. The only question is who would head the new union. Talks on reunification came to a halt in 2002 after Mr Lukashenko balked at the idea of Mr Putin taking the top post and demanded equal status.

Mr Lukashenko still harbours aspirations to share power with Mr Putin and some analysts say that he is simply trying to extract economic concessions from Russia. But others see a genuine convergence of interests, if not a warming, which could ultimately lead to the creation of a new political, as well as economic, union.

Aleksandr Yakovenko, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "It would not be an exaggeration to say that bilateral relations have been ascending, resting on the centuries-long brotherhood of the Russian and Belarussian people. We are discussing making preparations for agreements on the legal status of the union state's property and on providing Russian and Belarussian citizens with equal rights."

(Hat tip: Marius)

"Did you see President Lukashenko and TVC President Poptsov on TV?" asks Natalia Gevorkian in Kommersant:

The wonderful, kind, sincere, and unbiased Lukashenko. An angel, simply an angel. He made an appearance just for the visit. With persistence worthy of the best, Moscow continues to cajole leaders who have no future.

In the eyes of the Russian leadership, these relations with Lukashenko, who is considered an outcast by normal people, probably have a specific, momentary objective. For example, the de facto formation of a union of the two countries by a single ruble space, which brings along with it a dominant Russian presence in the Belarussian economy. A liberal empire à la Chubais, peaceful economic expansion.

It remains only to convince Lukashenko that this will be good for him too. Of course, he's not very likable, but he's not an idiot. And he knows all about the levers of government that he will personally lose in this case. They might remind him of the risks of losing everything according to the Ukrainian scenario, because this time, the West has already decided not to conceal this. It turns out that if Russia stressed its real presence in Belarus, the West would reconsider its
democratization program.

Read the rest.

I managed to catch Kevin Sim's film Beslan on UK Channel 4 this evening. As one might expect, the documentary raises more questions than it answers. It's a powerful film, largely compiled from newsreel footage, perhaps spoiled at times by unnecessary background music, and a certain "dramatic effect" element that also seems redundant, given the subject matter. Nonetheless, the interviews with survivors and with relatives of those who perished in School No. 1 are genuine, deeply moving and convincing. One man whose personality came through very strongly was Ruslan Aushev, the former Ingushetian president who tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers. The film makes it clear beyond doubt that he was sidelined by the Russian federal authorities, who were intent on ordering the storming of the school. The personalities and motivation of the terrorists were much less clear - and this is where the questions arise. Aushev stated that the men who seized the school were not high on drugs at all, but merely extremely confident. And the question of what happened to them is also obscure: it seems possible that instead of being killed, as the authorities claim, they escaped and got away.

The issue of the use of rocket flamethrowers in the ending of the siege is not mentioned in the film, though the scenes showing the blaze they caused are included.

In Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, Yulia Latynina writes about President Putin's incognito visit to Dagestan:

English version:

Dagestan Needs More Than Boots

President Vladimir Putin traveled to Dagestan last week, though the visit was not made public until after his departure. When the head of state has to travel unannounced for security reasons, you know the region he's visiting is having problems.

News coverage of the visit made this clear. Putin tackled Dagestan's problems head-on. His criticism of the footwear provided to soldiers in alpine units was particularly hard-hitting. "You can't walk on flat ground in these, much less in the mountains," Putin declared.

Unfortunately, Dagestan's problems are not limited to the poor quality of soldiers' boots. The republic is awash in corruption. Of Dagestani leader Magomedali Magomedov's three sons, one controls Khleboprodukt, which produces baked goods, and another controls Deneb, a producer of mineral water. Dagestanis joke that the president has put his sons on bread and water rations. The third son is in charge of oil transshipment in the region.

It's frequently said that there is a single ruling clan in this multiethnic republic: the Dargin. That's not entirely true. Most government jobs are sold to the highest bidder, and when money's involved, ethnicity doesn't matter so much. Jobs are often sold to several bidders at once, however, and the question of who gets the job is left up to them to decide.

Terrorism in Dagestan is the result of total corruption. The only business in Dagestan is the sale of government jobs, not the production of goods. Residents of the republic can therefore be divided into four categories: those who were given a job based on family ties; those who bought a job; the armed guards who protect people in the first two categories; and the unemployed young people with no money or prospects who are recruited by the Wahhabis and paid to kill cops.

When you're not in the business of earning money but divvying it up, you don't need workers, you need servants and family. It doesn't matter if you're a murderer or a Wahhabi in this case. What matters is whether you're related by blood or grew up in the same village.

There was a shootout in late May near the Gimri tunnel. Explosives were discovered. The Wahhabis had wanted to blow up the tunnel. One of the men killed on the Wahhabis' side was rumored to have been carrying an ID from the Federal Security Service, but that's not the important thing. What's important is that when cops arrived in Gimri to arrest the people who had planted the explosives, the locals simply refused to let them in.

A similar shootout took place in Khasavyurt when Ramzan Kadyrov's boys came to arrest the Adzhiyev brothers. The ensuing gunbattle between the Chechens and the local Kumyks raged all night. Kadyrov's reinforcements couldn't get through because the Kumyks had blocked the bridge across the river with a couple of cars loaded with gravel. One man was killed on each side, and the next morning Kadyrov's boys turned around and went back to Chechnya.

Shootouts, rallies and demonstrations like these happen every week, and they usually involve anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand people. This past spring, about 100 people blocked the entrance to the regional FSB office in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. They demanded the release of the Gairbekov brothers, who had been arrested in the attempted murder of the head of Dagestan's pension fund. The crowd didn't care whether the Gairbekov brothers had tried to blow up the pension chief. They weren't interested in the brothers' longstanding ties to Shamil Basayev. They were simply the Gairbekovs' friends and relatives.

With all this going on, Putin traveled to Dagestan and discovered that the footwear provided to alpine units in the region didn't pass muster.

Yulia Latynina hosts a talk show on Ekho Moskvy.

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

PUTIN CALLS FOR BANNING FOREIGN FUNDING OF POLITICAL ACTIVITIES ON RUSSIAN SOIL... At a meeting with members of the Council for Promoting the Development of Civil Society on 20 July, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for restricting foreign financing of "political activities" of Russian NGOs, Russian news agencies reported. "Not a single, self-respecting country will allow that, and neither will we," Putin said. "We believe who pays the piper calls the tune," he added. Putin added that the government is ready to establish grants for public organizations, but these should not be interpreted as an attempt by the state to bribe the groups. Politika Fund head Vyacheslav Nikonov told Interfax that Putin's remarks are likely connected to "events" in the former Soviet Union, noting that the revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan "were financed from abroad." He added that "the U.S. has already allocated $58 million for Russian democracy. No doubt, this money will be distributed through public organizations." JAC

The four London incidents involving detonators or failed explosions now appear to be concluded, with police requesting the public to return to normal activity. Casualties are reported to be very light. Three tube lines are still closed.

In a fifth incident, BBC News 24 TV showed pictures of police with automatic weapons arresting a man outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.

Update (17.20 BST): The situation at UCH seems to be resolving itself, with patients being allowed to leave. Press are still being kept outside, however.

BBC News 24 is no longer showing the film of the man being arrested at gunpoint outside the MOD. The only footage of the arrest currently being shown is of the man lying prostrate on the pavement under police guard.

Five tube lines remain closed.

20.20 BST: Police cordons are still being maintained in large areas of the city.

At EDM, Sergei Blagov writes:

From July 18 to 24, Russia is holding large-scale military maneuvers aimed at countering potential terrorist attacks in its Far East region. However, since terrorists have not yet really targeted Russia's Far East, the drill is understood to have other purposes as well.

The drill, code named "Vostok 2005," aims at preparing for "the fight against international terrorism in all its aspects," according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The military exercise is designed to boost security in order to confront "separatists, radical religious-nationalist movements, and international radical groups," according to a Ministry statement. Furthermore, the maneuvers aim at training "practical measures to forestall attempts to undermine Russian territorial integrity."

The official Ministry of Defense statement fails to reveal what group might try to undermine Russian territorial integrity in the Far East or how they would accomplish this goal. However, the drill involves significant numbers of troops: more than 5,000 personnel from the land forces, air force, railway, and Interior Ministry.

The war games appear to indicate that Russian military planners still emphasize conventional, large-scale warfare. Troops of the 5th Army, based in Ussuriisk, Primorie region, and the 35th Army, based in Belogorsk, Amur region, as well as the 83rd paratrooper brigade, the 14th spetsnaz special brigade, and the 55th marine brigade from Vladivostok are participating, according to Russian media reports. The drill also involves five Su-24 jet fighters of the 11th air force army, as well as two Su-25.

The first Far Eastern war games were held in 2002. Two years later, in June 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Pacific Fleet's Rybachy submarine base (Kamchatka oblast) to observe the "Mobility 2004" exercises. Putin's presence at the drill indicated the Kremlin's concern with Far Eastern security issues.

The 2005 drill, held under the command of General Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, and General Vladimir Bulgakov, deputy commander of the Russian land forces, is divided in two stages. The first stage, July 18-21, involves anti-terrorist operations, while the second stage, July 21-24, is devoted to training troops to repel outside intervention.

However, many Russian media outlets were not really impressed by the war games and did not accept the official "anti-terrorist" rationale for the drill. Only Trud (July 18) described the drill as major maneuvers of strategic importance. Other publications sounded somewhat critical.

The location of the anti-terrorism drill sparked confusion, as the Russian Far East faces more pressing challenges and threats than terrorism, Strana.ru commented on July 19. Drills like "Vostok 2005" may possibly boost Russian military clout in the region, but they are unlikely to solve other problems, such as security on the Korean peninsula and the long-standing territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands, Strana.ru said.

The 11th air force army would be taught to combat bandits, Lenta.ru ironically commented on July 18. Kommersant speculated that some of "Vostok 2005" troops could take part in joint exercises with China next month (Kommersant, July 19).

However, the military officially confirmed a Chinese connection with the "Vostok 2005" drill. According to General Baluyevsky, the drill aims at improving coordination between troops of the Far Eastern military district and forces of the Pacific Fleet. In a report released by the Far Eastern military district press office on July 19, Baluyevsky is quoted as saying, "I have a number of strategic issues to explore during the maneuvers." Furthermore, "special attention" would be given to preparations for joint maneuvers with China in mid-August," he said.

Russia is scheduled to hold unprecedented joint war-games with China on August 12-26, 2005. The exercise was first mentioned in a memorandum of understanding between the Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov in July 2004. China and Russia first revealed plans for joint military exercises in December 2004, when Ivanov visited China. The war games are expected to involve Russia's strategic Tu-95MS bombers firing cruise missiles, presumably to drill on how to overcome missile defense systems.

Defense ministers from other Shanghai Cooperation Organization member-states, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, are due to observe the August drill. Strana.ru said that the drill coincided with speculation that Beijing could hope to set up a military base in Kyrgyzstan, which would be the first People's Liberation Army facility outside China.

However, Russian strategists have a number of Far Eastern issues to explore. For example, some time ago Russian media were prone to speculate about possible Russian military involvement in Korea. "Russia's best response to a possible nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula would be a preemptive missile strike against North Korean nuclear facilities, carried out by the Russian Pacific Fleet," the country's leading daily, Izvestiya, claimed two years ago. The daily also quoted anonymous Pacific Fleet sources as saying that Russia's Varyag cruiser would be able to use its cruise missiles and destroy North Korean launch facilities.

Yet apart from Izvestiya's odd leak, the Kremlin has repeatedly offered to mediate in the Korean stand off. President Putin has repeatedly argued that Pyongyang is unlikely to draft any aggressive plans and also urged to provide North Korea with guarantees of non-aggression.

Thus the Russian war games may not involve training for preemptive strikes against North Korea. However, "Vostok 2005" appears to indicate Moscow's growing interest in Far Eastern security, which is not surprising on the eve of unprecedented joint war games with China next month.

From Mosnews, an account of something that doesn't seem particularly surprising:

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly known as the KGB, gave terrorist training to Ayman-al-Zawahiri, the second most wanted member of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden, Asian News International reported Sunday.

The Pakistani newspaper The Dawn quoted a report in the Polish newspaper “Rzeczpospolita” that before deciding to join Osama, Zawahiri received terrorist training in 1998 at an FSB camp in Dagestan.

Thereafter, he shifted his base to Afghanistan to become Osama bin Laden’s deputy, the paper quoted a former FSB agent as saying.

The agent also claimed that Zawahiri was not the only link between the FSB and al-Qaeda

(Hat tip: Free Thoughts)

The Kremlin is regularly stepping up its propaganda effort to portray itself as an ally in the war on terror. On Moscow Region Channel 3 TV's "Main Theme" (July 15), commentator Andrei Dobrov referred to British ambassador Tony Brenton's 7/7 press conference remark that the extradition of Chechen government envoy Akhmed Zakayev to Russia might be secured if backed up by sufficient evidence. The British Foreign Office subsequently downplayed these remarks, and stated that there was no likelihood of Zakayev's extradition being contemplated, but of course there is no reference to this in Dobrov's commentary. That commentary reeks of the oily rhetoric and sanctimonious schadenfreude that were characteristic of Soviet journalism in the 1970s. There are even eerie echoes of Wolf Mitler and Lord Haw-Haw:

[Dobrov] It is terrible, of course, but terrorist acts have a way of forcing people to face up to reality soberly. The USA before and after September 11 is two different countries. Even Russia, with all its experience of struggling against terrorism, has not changed its policy quite so drastically as the States. Whereas previously the Americans preferred to act diplomatically and portrayed their military as mostly morons with the nuclear bomb, now diplomacy is but a cog in the US war machine.

True, the Americans are idealists. They think they can make the Earth a safer place to live on if they take control of the whole world. Sadly, this is not so. But for the moment, they believe in this idea so much they are ready to die for it

-----


[Dobrov] I am afraid a real war has begun in the world. It is in its initial period, when the warring sides are searching for allies and identifying adversaries. The problem is that the sides are not clearly defined. There is no clash between the East and the West and there is no front-line. Not one country in the East these days would claim to be the homeland of the terrorists who bombed New York, London and so on.

It can be said, of course, that one blast [as heard] would not rock British society, that political correctness and commitment to the rule of law would prevent the terrorists from setting the English on people descended from the Orient, thereby creating fertile ground for the recruitment of new supporters and new fighters. But what if there were a series of blasts at some intervals? Say, once a year? What if blasts came every six months?

Look at how the methods are changing. September 11 was a dramatic terrorist act, but it was very labour-intensive. Planes had to be commandeered, flown where necessary and so forth. Now terrorist acts have become much simpler. A man is on a train. When two trains meet in a tunnel, he blows himself up.

Just what can security services do against this? With all due respect to their personnel, I can say: not much. Prevention of terrorist acts is an exceedingly difficult and thankless business. British police were on permanent alert and what did they achieve?

The world is changing fast and not for the better, as we can see. The cold war between the West and Russia, which some are trying to bring back, must cease, or else there will be no sides left in this dispute. Therefore, politicians who are raising tensions instead of lowering them are effectively accomplices to terrorists. Organizations such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] must be dissolved and proscribed as terror accomplices.

(Via chechnya-sl)

The Moscow Times reports that Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel has now changed his story, and has acknowledged that commandos fired flamethrowers into the packed Beslan school gym, fueling speculation about what set off the blaze that engulfed the building and contributed to the deaths of scores of hostages.

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel, who reversed his earlier statements by making the admission last week, adamantly insisted, however, that the Shmel flamethrowers could not have sparked the inferno during a special forces operation to free the 1,200 hostages on Sept. 3. More than 330 people died in the Sept. 1-3 attack, about half of them children.

If prosecutors find that the commandos intentionally ignited the gym, as some Beslan residents and a regional lawmaker believe, it would mean that Russia violated an international convention banning the use of incendiary weapons that might injure or kill civilians, said Alexander Cherkasov, a senior member of the Memorial human rights group. Prosecutors also would then face the potentially unpleasant prospect of having to open an investigation into the military and security officials who organized the rescue operation, he said.

Although classified as a flamethrower, the Shmel in fact launches rocket-propelled projectiles, according to Jane's Information Group, an international center for defense information. The Shmel has three modifications: the RPO-A, whose shells explode; the RPO-Z, whose shells are incendiary; and the RPO-D, whose shells create smoke.

The report also gives the reactions of parents who lost children in the storming of the school:

Beslan residents attending the ongoing trial of the only suspected surviving hostage-taker in the North Ossetian Supreme Court in Vladikavkaz said they had not noticed any glowing but were convinced that the commandos had caused the fire. Aza Gumesova, whose child died in the gym, said the fire was so hot that the metal crowns on her child's teeth melted.

In Bolshoy Gorod, Masha Gessen writes about the journey she made with Garry Kasparov to the south of Russia, and describes the problems involved in attempting to make Russian realities comprehensible to those who have never set foot in the real Russia, which begins beyond the main cities of St Petersburg and Moscow:

"Well, you have to understand what happens when you travel outside Moscow." I was utterly ashamed about the series of banalities I had said over the phone to the editor of New York Times Magazine. "Russia is a very big country"; "Moscow is not Russia." And the most betraying phrase of all, the one each of my sentences began with: "Well, you have to understand."

The editor was trying to understand. She remembered the word stability and asked: "Is the opposition really smothered right at birth? And everywhere? And on orders from Moscow?" I replied that stability is really a necessary minimum when you're thankful that nothing's falling apart. And that the further away you go from Moscow, the more fragile that balance is. In conditions like these, an opposition is an unaffordable luxury. And you don't need any special orders from Moscow to understand that. The editor grew dismayed and, it appeared, began doubting the veracity of the story I had just told her.

And the story of my five-day trip with former chess champion and current opposition politician Garry Kasparov in the North Caucasus and in southern Russia was incredible indeed. I joined him on assignment from the New York Times Magazine, but no one anticipated the scoop that I was about to get. In five days, Kasparov managed to get himself turned away from 10 places. When he went to the Kizlyar refugee camp, he was warned off in the traditional manner: "We cannot guarantee security." When he planned to attend an awards ceremony at a children's chess tournament, the head of the Dagestan Chess Federation was threatened with losing his job. In an armored conference hall in Beslan, someone suddenly started showing the cartoon Madagascar. Outside, someone sprayed ketchup on us. In Vladikavkaz, they didn't let us in on the pretext of a fallen curtain (we can imagine that it was an iron one), while outside a local community center children gathered for a drawing contest accompanied by outrageously loud and endless "Chunga-Changa." In Stavropol they shut down the airport because they reportedly found rocks on the runway. In that city, every institution - from the community center to the city hotel, as if on cue - declared that their electricity had been cut off. Even though in the hotel, televisions, refrigerators, and air conditioners seemed to work just fine. They didn't let us land at the Rostov and Taganrog airports either - this time without any explanation. We had to rent taxi vans to get from Stavropol to Rostov. A young man at a Rostov public library noted that he had never seen a politician riding in a taxi van before. Meanwhile, in the library itself, a water pipe was said to have ruptured.. In each of the regions, Kasparov was always pursued by a couple of cars - we counted 10 in Stavropol alone.

At the end of the last day of our trip they finally let our airplane land in Rostov - so that Kasparov and Co. could hurry off back to Moscow. "Can you believe that only five days and four nights have passed since we left Moscow?" Kasparov asked. "It feels like a month and a half." Most importantly, it was hard to believe that five days ago we were an excited group from Moscow, content, smug, traveling in a chartered plane (by the way, the VIP room in Stavropol we reserved in advance was suddenly closed on the day of our arrival for "failure to conform to regulation"). Now we presented a pathetic picture: exhausted, dressed in clothes ruined by eggs and ketchup.

That is a separate story. When the heavy hand of a bodyguard bent my head down, I only heard shouts and felt something sticky on my face. It was cold, so I decided it wasn't blood. And I couldn't see anything - the stickiness was not transparent. When I touched my head, I felt broken egg shells. I rubbed my eyes. Kasparov was standing next to me. Usually, he rarely loses self control, but his face was twisted. On his face was a sticky, shiny liquid: he had been hit with two eggs. It was certain that the egg that hit me had been directed at me.

This is what we "have to understand:" we traveled from Moscow into Russia. It's not very stable there, beyond Moscow. The balance there is so fragile that if an opposition leader opens his mouth, everything crumbles.

After a couple of hours, I tried to wash off the remains of the raw egg that had dried in my hair along with the eggshells. It was in the Vladikavkaz hotel, a nice place, recently renovated. There's nice furniture and a new TV set. Rare drops of warm water fell from the faucet. It wasn't that there was no one we could complain to, it was that there was nothing to complain about: this is what is considered to be prosperity in the provinces, this is stability. In reality, this is the necessary minimum, the water is almost hot, so that you can wash every morning before work. In these conditions, getting eggs in your hair is an unaffordable luxury.

See also: Hiding Behind Children
The Fathers of Beslan and the Silver Mercedes Jeep

Chechnya Weekly has a more detailed account than the one I linked to earlier:

During the third week of June, Doku Umarov gave an interview in Chechnya to Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky, a transcript of which was published by the separatist Chechenpress and Kavkazcenter websites on July 15. Among other things, the Chechen rebel field commander, who was recently named the rebel movement's vice-president (see Chechnya Weekly, June 22), expressed his disapproval of terrorist attacks like the Beslan operation and his adherence to traditional as opposed to radical Islam.

Asked whether he would concede that there is a significant portion of the Chechen population that "cannot conceive of life outside of Russia," Umarov replied that if you took away the "terror" and "fear" instilled by the Russian army, not even one percent of the Chechen population would say they could not conceive of Chechnya independent of Russia. "Earlier, in the epoch of the Soviet Union, when there was one country, maybe," he said. "But now, after six years, I think that there are not any such people." They simply state this out of fear, Umarov said.

At the same time, Umarov did not contradict Babitsky's statement that it was not possible for the rebels to win the conflict militarily. Instead, he seemed to place hopes in a change of administration in Moscow. "In any case, we are people of faith," he said. "A person without faith is not a complete person. We are on the path of Allah; it is a sacred path for us. We are this way obligated to do jihad. Today, a superpower that the entire world must reckon with cannot win militarily; this should also be analyzed. But until there is a change of government [and] reasonable people come to power, you can't count on an end to the war. There is also not a hopeless situation. Things are not as bad for us as some people think. Because it would be bad if it were the year 2000 and the start of Putin's administration. And I believe that the era is changing, that all governments change and that his epoch will end [and] reasonable people will come to power. Such an administration, such an empire sooner or later must come to an end. And today …to live with these people is practically impossible. It is impossible for any self-respecting person."

Umarov dismissed the idea that the rebels today consist only of adherents of radical Islam as "work of the FSB" and a lie of "Kadyrov's clan." "A Muslim, any Muslim, any person, must live according to some laws. And if a Muslim lives according to the Sharia, if that Sharia forbids him from carousing or smoking or doing something, [then] I think this is not bad. But I, for example, joined the war as a patriot. Before the war I was in Moscow, and when the occupation began, I understood that war was already inevitable, [and] I arrived [in Chechnya] as a patriot. Maybe at that time I didn't know how to pray; I don't remember. To claim today that I'm a Wahhabi or that I'm a person of radical Islam is laughable. I have an entire front; I pass along the front and don't see that they're trying to present Wahhabism, terrorism to the whole world."

Babitsky noted to Umarov that Shamil Basaev had planned and carried out several terrorist attacks and justified them on the grounds that "Allah grants the right to take from an adversary what has been taken from you." Umarov responded: "In any case, today we do not have such a right. If we use such methods, then, I think, there will be no way back to a humane cast of mind." Asked whether the terrorist attacks in Beslan and Moscow have been recognized as morally legitimate for "all fighting Chechens," Umarov answered: "No, these operations have not passed any legitimization in the eyes of the resistance. We were simply horrified by what they did in Beslan."

On the other hand, Babitsky asked Umarov about accusations that he was involved in kidnappings-for-ransom during the period between Chechnya's two wars. Umarov said that as the secretary of the separatist Security Council, then president Aslan Maskhadov sent him around Chechnya to stem opposition from warlords like Arbi Baraev, who was involved in the hostage-for-ransom business, and "because of these contacts I began to be accused of it." Umarov said he told Maskhadov that if he is found guilty of hostage-taking in court, "I shall not lift a finger to protect myself…Show me at least one fact." He then added: "But look today, those people who especially succeeded in slave trading, where are these people now?" Umarov referred to Movladi Baisarov, the head of an armed unit loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov who has been widely accused of kidnappings, and to Sulim Yamadaev, head of the GRU-connected Vostok battalion. Still, Babitsky noted that Umarov's answer did not "dispel doubts" about his own role in kidnappings and that Umarov will have to answer to "more detailed" accusations in the future.

Umarov also conceded that the Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces had been able to eliminate a significant portion of the rebels' original command structure. "That's life," he said. "Maybe I won't be around tomorrow. That's life; we're not immortal, we're not gods. Life goes on. We, the old, must give up our places; how many young people are waiting on line to take these places. There's no such thing as war without losses. Maskhadov and others have left on the path to Allah. Maskhadov's place has been taken by [Abdul-Khalim] Saidulaev, 38-years-old, young, full of energy, smart. Tomorrow someone from among these young people can take my place; he'll be even better than me…[There have been] big losses. Basically, I did not consider them to be so appreciable before Mashadov's death; simply Mashadov's death was a great loss. And so in general each commander that dies, in his place immediately – maybe I'm not fair to the dead, but younger, more energetic people take their places and the loss is forgotten rather quickly. You don't forget, of course, your brothers, your friends, but their places are taken by more forceful, energetic people." According to Umarov, all of his close relatives, including his wife and six-month-old child, his brother, his father-in-law and his wife's brother, have been kidnapped.

On the other hand, Umarov insisted his forces have inflicted heavy losses on federal forces, and cited an incident in which, he claimed, rebels killed 38 members of a 39-man GRU unit in a battle that took place in the Itum-Kale district.

Of equal interest in the Umarov interview were Andrei Babitsky's own observations. "I was really amazed at how freely the Chechen guerrillas move in the woods, not looking around, not observing any apparent precautionary measures," he said. "When I was here two years ago, the atmosphere was completely different. The Chechens expected an attack every second, spent entire days preparing for it. There were entrenchments, guards protecting the camp round the clock in any weather. Nothing of the kind happens now. The mood of the camp is more reminiscent of a rest quarters for hunters. Only the remote rumble of a spy plane reminds one of war. ‘Today we move rather freely,' Umarov says. There often arises a situation in which two groups, Chechen and Russian, run into each other in the woods and part without engaging. Nobody needs superfluous victims."

Still, Babitsky also noted that the rebels still find it necessary to take some precautions. "For example, the Chechens do not use mobile [telephone] communications in the mountains at all or use it [only] in extreme cases even though each has a receiver," he wrote. "Coming upon a forest, they shake the battery out of it, since, according to their assertions, even a switched-off phone equipped with a battery can be tapped and its bearings taken. And the bearings define the point from which a call has been made within a radius of 20 meters and in literally ten minutes an artillery strike can be made on it. Russian artillery units are situated in the republic so that they can cover any position with fire from four different disposition locations. ‘These days in Chechnya there is a full moon,' some Chechens told me. ‘At such a time we move at night in the woods in small groups, inasmuch as the Russian military forces have various devices with which they can easily trace our movements.'"

An Iranian blogger has posted photographs of the public execution in Mashad, eastern Iran, of two young men (one under 18) for the crime of homosexuality.

(via GVO)

The Washington Times has an op-ed about the case of Paul Klebnikov, the American journalist who a year ago was shot dead in a premeditated killing in Moscow. The identity of the murderer(s) remains disputed, as does the motive for the killing. Russia remains very far from guaranteeing liberties, and even life, for prominent foreign reporters:

Who killed Mr. Klebnikov? For starters, Mr. Klebnikov did not know the answer himself, to judge by what he said in the hours before he died. In the nexus of Russian business, politics and crime, where Mr. Klebnikov's journalism probed, any number of potential villains could have emerged. The evidentiary trail apparently leads in many different directions: In a phone interview with The Washington Times, Richard Behar, head of Project Klebnikov, a team of investigative reporters and writers looking to unravel the murder and the stories Mr. Klebnikov was pursuing when he was murdered, tells us his team is investigating at least five major theories, one in Moscow, one based in London, one centering on the Chechen Nukhayev about whom Mr. Klebnikov wrote "Conversation with a Barbarian" and two which he cannot discuss. Project Klebnikov is awaiting evidence before reaching conclusions about any of the theories.

The same cannot be said about Russian authorities. Last month, Russian investigators closed the case and claimed they had solved it, but declined to provide the evidence. They pinned the murder on the Chechen Nukhayev, concluding that Nukhayev ordered the killing because Mr. Klebnikov's book "negatively spoke about [him] and criticized his statements." Nukhayev is a fugitive; two suspects are already in custody. Many doubt that the Russians have solid evidence, however, and think the case was rushed for political reasons.

The Putin government could clear the air with a simple move: Order the police to release the evidence. The facts will speak for themselves. If the evidence is flimsy, of course, the case will need to be reopened.

Mr. Putin should take a personal interest in solving the Klebnikov murder to the satisfaction of Westerners. It's clear enough from his crackdown on the Russian press that Mr. Putin isn't serious about Western-style freedoms for Russians. But the Klebnikov case tests his attitude toward the West. Mr. Putin may well think Russia can enjoy economic freedoms while rejecting political freedoms. If he does, he is likely to let the Klebnikov case rest. Fortunately, Mr. Behar and Project Klebnikov will not.

Insofar as Russia wants to sit -- as a democracy -- at the table with Western democracies, it needs to get powerful and ruthless people in Russia to behave as though they live in a place where the rule of law prevails. That will be an ongoing effort. The West stands prepared to help battle Russia's plague of corruption and organized crime. But if Russia stalls and dissembles even in cases where Western government are watching closely, its commitment to democracy and openness will be cast in doubt.

(Hat tip: Marius)

For more on Paul Klebnikov, and the murder case, see this post

Losing the Steppes

By VLADIMIR SOCOR

At their summit this week, Russia, China, and four Central Asian countries asked the United States and its allies in the antiterrorist coalition to set a date for withdrawal of their forces from Central Asia. It is the first such request from any party in the region since the American-led forces established a presence at air bases and other facilities in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in late 2001.

Those forces and assets in Central Asia are key to U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan now and into the foreseeable future. They are also a long-term necessity given the wide array of possible contingencies in this strategically vital and unstable region, from the energy-rich Caspian basin --- key to Europe's energy security in the years ahead --- and Iran through Afghanistan and Pakistan and all all the way to western China.

Rightly aghast at the force-withdrawal request, U.S. diplomats are rushing to repair the damage in Central Asian capitals. The Pentagon had been telling the rest of Washington for months that this was coming, but its warnings were scarcely heeded. The Russian and Chinese presidents, Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao, were the prime movers behind the "time to go home" call issued July 5 at the six countries' summit in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital. It was the first major statement issued by the SCO since Moscow and Beijing created it in 2001 to offset the growing American influence in Central Asia. At that time, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan joined the organization pro-forma and with varying degrees of reluctance.

In fact, since then Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and even Tajikistan (which still hosts Russian troops) have mostly sought to cast their lot with the United States and have allowed American-led coalition forces on their territories. Kazakhstan even offered such an arrangement on its own initiative, though it was not taken up by Washington. Their governments shared America's perceptions of the threats posed by international terrorism and radical Islam; they counted on effective U.S. security assistance to ensure and consolidate their stability; and they expected an infusion of foreign aid to reward the basing and transit arrangements.

Now, however, they seem to be lining up behind Russia and China in asking those forces to leave. The main argument is that the situation in Afghanistan is basically stable and that the main phase of the coalition's operations has been completed -- an assertion that represents a stark about-face by Russia and other SCO members. Until most recently, the official position in Moscow and other capitals acknowledged that Afghanistan remained a source of threats to the region and indeed to Russia, implicitly justifying the U.S.-led military presence in Central Asia.

In fact, the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. Active operations by American and allied forces have recently intensified in response to Taliban attacks. NATO is preparing to deploy additional forces there to provide security for parliamentary elections in September, as well as to increase the number of the NATO-run Provincial Reconstruction Teams. The Central Asian bases that support U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan are needed as much as ever.

U.S. diplomats in Central Asian capitals are now arguing that the request to set a date for withdrawal is premature. However, SCO's assessment is not meant to reflect the security situation in Afghanistan or around it. Rather, Moscow and Beijing want to nudge the U.S. and allied forces from Central Asia. China does not want an American military presence near its western borders, and Mr. Putin is bent on reclaiming Russian leadership in the region.

Diplomats at the summit stopped short of phrasing the request as an ultimatum or naming specific dates for the withdrawal. Nevertheless, Mr. Putin's top foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, suggested that process might take from several months to a year and a half. Off the record, Russian officials were telling the press -- in fact, signaling to Washington -- that they want "precise and clear answers" about withdrawal timelines.

Timetable or not, some Central Asian governments have already begun placing limits on U.S. activities in their countries and sidling up to Moscow. Last month, Uzbek President Islam Karimov suspended the landing of C-17 heavy transport planes, as well as nighttime flights, at the U.S. base Karshi-Khanabad. And in a meeting two weeks ago with Mr. Putin, President Karimov signaled that he is poised to rely more heavily on Russia as his country's main security partner. Russia is now planning a ground-force joint exercise in Uzbekistan for the first time since the end of the Soviet era.

Some months ago, Kyrgyzstan's then-president Askar Akayev bowed to Moscow and forbade AWACS reconnaissance flights out of Manas, the U.S.-led airbase in Kyrgyzstan. Then in April, Mr. Akayev was ousted by a putative democratic revolution that has brought political confusion and social anarchy. Last month, new prime minister Felix Kulov, a Soviet-era police general and would-be strongman, called for a second Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan. (The first one was established in 2003, only a few miles from the American base, and potentially capable of interfering with its operations). Mr.Kulov, while pro-Russian, at least is not anti-American. But the postrevolution government's presumably pro-American minister of foreign affairs, Roza Otunbayeva, hastened to endorse SCO's call for a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. This could not have been the U.S. game plan in supporting regime change in Kyrgyzstan.

Sadly, U.S. credibility in the region has eroded since 2002-2003. Three recent developments have accelerated that erosion. First, the Taliban has reemerged as a fighting force in Afghanistan, against the backdrop of a booming Afghan drug trade that affects Central Asia and much of Eurasia. Partly contradicting its own assessment regarding Afghanistan, the SCO summit described the narcotics trade originating there as a major security challenge. Unfortunately, the U.S.-led coalition has tolerated this narcotics boom, undermining its own political and economic reconstruction efforts for the sake of expedient arrangements with drug- and war-lords.

The second eroding factor was the misfired democratic revolution in Kyrgyzstan -- an event seen as destabilizing in the short term at least. And third, the confused and uncoordinated U.S. response to the May 13 rebellion and crackdown in Andijan has left Uzbekistan isolated from the West and once again dependent on Russia for security assistance and diplomatic support.

Once it weathers -- as it should -- the call for withdrawal of its forces, the U.S. needs to move beyond emergency-handling, to a thorough review of its long-term policy on Central Asia. In a region so strategically vital to the U.S. and to energy-hungry Europe, diplomacy needs to find the right balance between the requirements of military access and those of revolutionary reforms. Policy must be geared to ensuring a long-term presence, and not be clouded by short-term political considerations in Washington or splendid isolation by the European Union.

Mr. Socor is a senior fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, publishers of the Eurasia Daily Monitor.
(via global-geopolitics)

In trying to appeal to centrist liberals, American apologists for communist regimes and movements deliberately downplayed the aspects of Marxism-Leninism that liberals found repugnant - one-party dictatorship, class genocide, censorship, and the repression of intellectual and religious dissent. Instead, the pro-communist left emphasized truths, and untruths, that would appeal to American liberal values. Thus liberal opposition to European imperialism was enlisted in the service of Soviet and Chinese imperalism; liberal rejection of authoritarian dictatorship was enlisted in the service of totalitarian dictatorship; and liberal loathing of the horrors of war and conscription was enlisted in the service of the most militarized and regimented societies in the world. The tragedy of liberal perfectionism lay in the ease with which all too many sincere liberals were deceived and manipulated by a totalitarian left whose ultimate goal was the eradication of liberalism both as a philosophy and as a way of life.

Michael Lind, in Vietnam: The Necessary War

Earlier this year, observers in the West heaved a sigh of relief when Moscow agreed to withdraw Russian military bases from Georgia. Now, however, the real strategy behind this apparent concession is becoming clear. In EDM, Zaal Anjaparidze writes that Moscow appears to be using the bases to impede Tbilisi's efforts to bring stability to the country:

On July 15, the Georgian military intercepted two T-72 tanks from the Russian military base in Batumi (Ajaria). According to the Georgian side, the tanks were heading to the Gonio training ground near Batumi to participate in military exercises. The Russian tanks were released later that same day. Symptomatically, the incident occurred on the eve of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's scheduled visit to Ajaria, where he will meet with local leaders to review preparations for the holiday season and ways to attract more tourists to the region.

The Russian military command said that Georgia's actions ran counter to the agreement reached between the Russian and Georgian foreign ministers whereby Russia has the right to fully use the Gonio training ground until September 1, 2005 (RBK TV, July 15).

Colonel Vladimir Kuparadze, deputy commander of the Group of Russian Forces in the Trans-Caucasus, claimed that there was neither a formal nor an informal agreement between the Georgian and Russian sides prohibiting military exercises at the Gonio firing range during the holiday season. He also denied that Russia planned any military exercise in Gonio. Kuparadze said that the tanks were being moved for a maintenance inspection only, but for some reason the Georgian side considered this relocation to be "maneuvers" and detained the tanks. Kuparadze described the decision by the base command to suspend equipment transfers as a "goodwill gesture," as if the Russians were ready to retaliate (Civil Georgia, Rosbalt, Media News, TV Rustavi-2, July 15).

The Georgian side seemed to view the issue in both a military and a political context. Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, known for his stubborn attitude toward Russia, said, "Everyone must get used to one fact: this is a state and they must obey the laws of this state. The holiday season is underway in Ajaria, and we will not put up with what has been happening for years when tanks have been firing 500 meters from the people relaxing on beaches," he stressed (Caucasus Press, TV Rustavi-2, July 15). Okruashvili's statement that this type of behavior by the Russian military is absolutely unacceptable emphasized that the days of smooth-tongued relations with Russia have passed.

The Georgian side charged that the command of the military base did not clear its plans for military exercises in Gonio with the Georgian authorities. The Georgian side also claimed that any military training in Gonio was prohibited from July 15 to September 15, when Ajaria's beaches receive the largest inflow of tourists. The Georgian Defense Ministry claimed that it had informed the command of the Russian troops in Georgia about this in advance. Moreover, the Georgian defense officials said that, instead of Gonio, they had suggested that the Russian military conduct exercises in Simoneti (near Kutaisi -- Georgia's second largest city), which is 150 kilometers away from Batumi. The Ministry said that the Russian side had ignored its request to not conduct military exercises during the holiday season in Ajaria.

MOSCOW TO BALTICS: ANNEXATION WAS LEGAL, RESISTANCE CRIMINAL

by Vladimir Socor


In a news conference for Baltic journalists on July 18 in Moscow, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Chizhov added an innovative nuance to Russia's official thesis that the 50-year occupation of the Baltic states had been legal. While rejecting the term "occupation," Chizhov asked the three Baltic states to distinguish between the concept of occupation and that of annexation.

As successor to the Soviet Union, he said, Russia "does not dispute" the fact that the Baltic states were annexed, but "annexation and occupation are two different things." The annexation was legal, Chizhov claimed, and therefore the ensuing period cannot be called an occupation. In carrying out the annexation, "All the formalities of international law that were in effect during the Second World War were observed." Thus, he concluded, the annexation of the Baltic states "legitimized the entry of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia into the Soviet Union."

Chizhov went on to pronounce the 1920 peace treaties between Soviet Russia (from 1922 on the Soviet Union) and the Baltic states as "void," on the grounds that the Baltic states had "joined" the Soviet Union in the "legal" way he described. While familiar, this assertion directly bears on the ongoing controversy caused by Moscow's refusal to ratify the border agreements that it recently signed (after a decade's delay) with Estonia and Latvia. Interpretative statements, made by those two countries in the course of their internal ratification procedures, cite the 1920 peace treaties and their uninterrupted validity in international law during the occupation period. Those treaties are cornerstones to the Baltic states' title to legal continuity and their 1991 restoration of sovereignty.

Moscow, however, avoids recognizing the Baltic states' title as continuation states, so as to disclaim responsibility for the Soviet Union's actions on the Baltic states' territories during the occupation era. Chizhov's remarks portrayed those actions as a Soviet internal affair: "The history of the Soviet Union is a common property of all the peoples that were part of it."

The thesis that anti-Soviet armed resistance was criminal seems a logical corollary to the claim that the annexation was legal. On July 19, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement condemning the annual commemorative gathering in Tartu, Estonia, of veterans of the armed resistance as "extremist" and "fascist." While assailing the Estonian division that fought alongside German forces against the Red Army in 1944, the MFA statement also denounced the Forest Brothers -- who resisted unaided for years after the war -- as "bandit formations." The July 16 event in Tartu actually brought together some of the surviving Estonian veterans from Estonia itself, Finland, and Sweden, as well as members of the Memento Society of victims of Soviet repression.

On July 19, the Russian Federation Council's International Affairs Committee chairman, Mikhail Margelov, held another news conference for Baltic journalists. While calling for improved relations between Russia and the Baltic states, Margelov seemed to undermine his own case somewhat by diagnosing Baltic governments with "political schizophrenia." Flanking him, the head of Russia's Foreign and Defense Policy Council, Sergei Karaganov, termed the occupation question a "trivial issue" (BNS, July 19).

In Vilnius, the chairman of the International Commission to Evaluate the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes, Emanuelis Zingeris, issued a statement in response to Chizhov's assertions. Zingeris observes that those assertions contravene international law as well as casting doubt on the repudiation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact by the Soviet Union in 1989. (That resolution, by the USSR Congress of People's Deputies, stopped short of questioning the annexation of the Baltic states as a consequence of the pact). Zingeris, who is also one of the leaders of Lithuania's Jewish community, announced in the same statement that Lithuania would shortly host a large-scale international conference to evaluate the consequences of the Yalta system of division of Europe 1945-91.

(BNS, Interfax, July 16-19)

(via EDM)

THE SILENCE OF THE SILOVIKI: HAVE THEY LOST PUTIN'S TRUST?

By Pavel K. Baev

Monday, July 18, 2005


By mid-July, the political season in Russia should be over, but the intensity of expert commentary is so high now that one might think that parliamentary elections are just half a year away. In fact, they are not due until December 2007, which, by Russian standards, is far beyond the category of "foreseeable future." The presidential administration keeps the show running, and the most visible figure in this extremely closed body has been its deputy head, Vladislav Surkov. For most of his career, he preferred to stay in the shadows, and this new public profile appears so out of character that some commentators are speculating about possible presidential ambitions (Gazeta.ru, July 13).


The latest sensation was the text of Surkov's "secret" speech at the May 15 meeting of Business Russia published on Radio Liberty's website (www.svoboda.org) and duly denounced as inaccurate by officials of this association of entrepreneurs (Lenta.ru, July 12). The main message of the address was a call to the business elite not to be "squeamish" and to join the Kremlin-backed United Russia party. The same appeal figured prominently in Surkov's earlier presentations as well as in his boss Dmitry Medvedev's interview with Ekspert (April 4).

Putin's closest aides try to convince various audiences, including even rock musicians, to unite around the Kremlin, which is portrayed as the only guarantor of the country's sovereignty and even survival (Ezhednevny zhurnal, July 15). The risks are not elaborated upon but the hints on chaos and dissolution are dark indeed and the fears come out quite clearly; Surkov's phrase "We are just afraid" certainly rings true (Ekho Moskvy, July 14). The specter of "color revolutions" has not disappeared since the May massacre in Andijan, Uzbekistan, which Russia justifies as legitimate use of force against "terrorists."

The main tone of this PR-campaign is, nevertheless, reassuringly positive with pronounced liberal-democratic overtones. What is particularly striking is that the same tone has dominated Putin's recent public speeches, starting with his April address to parliament. Meeting with potential Western investors in St. Petersburg, or with journalists in Gleneagles, or paying a "surprise" visit to Komsomolskaya pravda (May 24) Russia's president confirms his adherence to democratic values and market reforms. Even when gathering his "power ministers" in Dagestan, a republic torn by civil strife and terrorism, he refrained from any emotional rhetoric resembling his post-Beslan speech and merely criticized the heavy boots designed for new mountain brigades (Newsru.com, July 15).

This Western-liberal drift certainly goes against the preferences of the powerful interest group in Putin's innermost circle known as siloviki and consisting mostly of former mid-rank KGB officers from St. Petersburg. They are believed to be behind the attack on and dismemberment of the oil giant Yukos, a poorly planned and clumsily executed "special operation" that has caused Putin plenty of embarrassment in the international arena. Now experts venture opinions, informed mostly by rumors but elaborated in full-blown analytical reports, that Medvedev and Surkov are gathering support from business elites in order to push siloviki into the back rows of Putin's court and eventually expel them from the Kremlin (Vedomosti, June 24; Ekho Moskvy, July 14). These speculations might be entirely off target, but they are encouraged by the silence in that camp that is supposed to be led by Igor Sechin and Viktor Ivanov in the presidential administration and Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the FSB.

Some commentators suggest that siloviki are just busy digesting the "juicy morsels" of Yukos and quarrelling between themselves about the non-merger of Gazprom and Rosneft (Gazeta.ru, July 15). It appears possible, nevertheless, that they are momentarily outplayed in the big political game, since Medvedev and Surkov are able to propose a solution for the "problem of 2008" -- a codename for the transition of power at the end of Putin's second presidential term. Their persistent appeal for unity in the political class could signify careful preparation for shifting the parliamentary elections to 2006, a preemptive strike that would catch the opposition unprepared and secure a stable environment for the choice of a "reasonable" successor (Gazeta.ru, July 14). Putin then would face the need to make the same choice that Yeltsin did in early 1996 when he fired his all-powerful personal bodyguard and drinking partner Alexander Korzhakov and embraced Anatoly Chubais and a team of skilled managers who secured his reelection.

The siloviki, however, might simply wait, knowing that Yeltsin was a natural leader with keen political instincts -- but Putin is not. He is just a bureaucrat who by chance was propelled way above his level of incompetence and so cannot admit any mistake, blaming instead insidious "enemies" (Ezhednevny zhurnal, June 22). Until recently, it was Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was appointed the "main enemy" and punished accordingly; now this role is assigned to Leonid Nevzlin, who dared to speak against Putin before the U.S. Congress (Kommersant, July 15). Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister who appeals to many in the political elite as a presidential candidate, is identified as another "enemy." A very timely analysis by Alfa bank argues that possible business support for Kasyanov is a highly destabilizing factor, while the preferable option would be a continuation of Putin's term beyond 2008 (Vedomosti, July 15). Siloviki do not argue with the enemies -- an investigation has been launched against Kasyanov who allegedly "privatized" a comfortable dacha, an issue that is certain to touch a raw nerve with every urban dweller in Russia (Vremya novostei, July 12).

Surkov and Medvedev may pin their hopes on the assumption that Putin would not want to spoil his long-awaited chairmanship of the G-8, but Sechin and Ivanov are certain that when the going gets tough Putin would forget his superficial "liberalism" and fall back on his trusted comrades. And the only thing that is foreseeable about Russia's future is that another crisis will strike and the Kremlin will be paralyzed again by the fear of responsibility for any decision.

(via EDM)

Those who visit here with any degree of regularity will be aware that in general I try to keep a low profile where personal opinion and commentary are concerned. Over the fourteen months of this blog’s existence, I’ve often preferred to let events and reports speak for themselves, rather than intervene with my own ideas on what has happened. It’s seemed to me on the whole, looking at world events in the post 9/11 global political climate, that what can be observed – vis-à-vis Iraq, the war on terror, the Middle East, the growing Sino-Russian entente, the “axis of evil” – is a tendency, a direction that continues to reinforce itself. Just as in the Cold War, the democracies of the Western world, led by the United States, are coming under sustained pressure and attack from forces antithetical to democracy and liberty. The London bombings of 7/7 merely confirm and further intensify that global trend.

It’s perhaps in the attempt to pinpoint and identify the anti-democratic forces that the perceptions of this weblog tend to differ somewhat from those to be found in a number of other sources. A great deal of commentary in the blogosphere and the Web in general is now devoted to the discussion of Islamism, which is seen as the new threat and enemy, analogous to the threat of Nazism and Communism in the 20th century. In such discussion, the historical defeat of Nazism and Communism is very often taken as a given, a set of facts that can’t be denied or argued with. In particular, the notion that in the late 1980s the West definitively “won” the Cold War is in many quarters accepted as an incontrovertible truth. The liberation of the former Soviet Union’s satellite states in Eastern Europe is pointed to as a living example of this new world order. Yet, while they are happy to acknowledge the new and democratic face of Europe, those who take this line of argument are frequently hesitant or silent when it comes to the matter of what has taken place in the neighbouring Russian Federation since the supposed Western victory.

As the Russian author and journalist Masha Gessen has commented, fifteen years after the collapse of Communism, Russia is restoring many of the old regime’s symbols and some of its repressive ways. She talks of a climate of “stagnant fear” , and of the impossibility of cleansing Russia’s collective memory and conscience (its “national soul”) because of the fact that the victims of Communist tyranny and terror were also its perpetrators, mostly willing ones, and because “we who did not spend eighteen years or even a day in that hell… we have no right to sit in judgment on our grandparents.” This is a machination by the structures of power that not even Hitler was able to achieve. In addition to blocking the nation’s memory and its ability to come to terms with its past, the Russian leadership has for more than ten years embroiled the country in a brutal and savage war in the North Caucasus, a war waged against a small people that tried to establish a form of independence along the lines of that which was regained by the Baltic states in the aftermath of the collapse of Communism. This “war” – which has really amounted to a sustained pogrom carried out by Russian forces with the help of local quislings – has served as a rationale for abandoning the faint beginnings of democracy that were beginning to be observed in Russia in the early 1990s. It has also demonstrated that the Russian authorities have links to terrorist organizations and are involved in the practice of state terror, for the participation of Russian special forces in terrorist acts both in Chechnya and within Russia itself is now beyond question. Under the authoritarian rule of Putin, Russia is steering a course towards a form of fascism which derives its energies and its symbolism from both Stalinist and Nazi traditions. As they move closer together, Russia and China are establishing close co-operation with rogue states like North Korea and Syria, supplying nuclear technology to Iran, destabilizing the countries of Central Asia, and working globally to oppose the U.S. in every field. The existence of shadowy organizations calling themselves “Al Qaeda”, “Islamic Jihad”, and the rest should not make us forget the recent past, when Moscow employed the weapon of Islamic and international terrorism against the West for its own political purposes, just as it used the conflict in South East Asia to confound the U.S. and its allies. The Soviet Union may not formally exist – but those who sustained and guided it are still in power.

Unite Against Terror may be a good slogan for the beginning of the 21st century. But unless it includes the perception that the main practitioners, agents and promoters of terror in today’s world continue to be the forces which in the 20th century made terror into the foundation of totalitarian states – let’s recall the title of Robert Conquest’s groundbreaking study of Stalin’s Russia, The Great Terror – it will remain a shibboleth, a party or group identification that doesn’t take us much beyond a catchphrase like ‘Ban the Bomb’.


(See also: The New Cold War)

Russian Prosecutor Fails to Explain Chechen President Maskhadov’s Death

The Special Working Group on the case of CRI President Aslan Maskhadov states that, in response to an inquiry from Maskhadov’s relatives, the General Prosecutor`s Office of Russia produced only a copy of the record of the death of Aslan Maskhadov, authorised by the prosecutor’s stamp.

The refusal of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office to produce official medical evidence of the cause of death suggests either that they do not know how President Aslan Maskhadov died or that they are deliberately concealing this information from the public.

We would like to point out that even the copy of the record of death was drawn up with some crude violations of Russian Federation laws:

1. The form says that the record of Aslan Maskhadov’s death was drawn up on 6 June 2005, but the form was issued on 2 June 2005, four days before the record was drawn up.

2. According to Russian law, a record of death is drawn up within three days of a death, but Aslan Maskhadov’s record was drawn up three months after his demise.

3. The place of his birth has been left blank, although the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian law-enforcement agencies know full well where Aslan Maskhadov was born.

4. The form’s serial number is obscured by the stamp of the General Prosecutor`s Office of Russia and it is impossible to make it out.

If the law-enforcement agencies make so many mistakes (or falsifications?) in such a simple document, it is not difficult to imagine the quality of their investigation into the circumstances of Aslan Maskhadov’s death, an investigation whose results have been described by the authorities as authoritative.

The decision to set up the Special Working Group was taken after CRI President Aslan Maskhadov’s death.

http://www.unpo.org/news_detail.php?arg=14&par=2801

If the Soviet archives are accurate, and if the statements made by Walton and Bartlett [Kennedy family friends who met with Khrushchev aides in Moscow during 1963-64] were authorized by him, then Robert Kennedy was guilty of acts of insubordination and political treachery with few if any parallels in American history. A sitting attorney general, by channels chosen to avoid drawing the attention of the president whom he served and other officials of the U.S. government, was denigrating the newly inaugurated president [Johnson] behind his back – and, worse was urging America’s Soviet enemies to stand firm until he, Robert Kennedy, could become president in 1968 and pursue a policy more to Moscow’s liking. Richard Nixon’s secret dealings with the South Vietnamese government in the election of 1968, and his later conniving with the Greek military dictatorship, were petty misdemeanors by comparison; those regimes were allies, not rivals. (The claims of Robert Dallek and other presidential historians that Lyndon Johnson’s fears of sabotage by the Kennedy circle were “paranoid” must be reevaluated, in light of the revelations from Moscow.)

- Michael Lind, in Vietnam: The Necessary War

In his Writer's Choice series, Norman Geras has a feature by John Lloyd on the Soviet Jewish writer Vasily Grossman, whose great novel Zhizn' i Sud'ba (Life and Fate) caused mortal offence to Communist Party ideologist Mikhail Suslov:

Suslov, the Politburo member in charge of ideology, is reported as having said it could not be published for 200 years. However, it was smuggled out on microfilm to the west by Vladimir Voinovich, and published, first in France in 1980, then in English in 1985 - just as Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and another thaw began.

Why the 200 year ban? Because Life and Fate commits what was still, in a 'liberal' environment, the unthinkable sin of arguing for the moral equivalence of Nazism and Soviet communism. In a central chapter, a senior SS officer, Obersturmbahnführer Liss, and an old Bolshevik officer, Mikhail Moskovskoy, speak in the former's office in the prison camp in which Moskovskoy is held. Liss treats him kindly, and calls him 'teacher'. And he tells him that they serve the same - philosophic - master. 'Lenin', says Liss, 'considered himself a builder of internationalism while in actual fact he was creating the great nationalism of the 20th century... and we learned many things from Stalin. To build socialism in one country, one must destroy the peasants' freedom to sow what they like and sell what they like. Stalin didn't shilly-shally - he liquidated millions of peasants. Our Hitler saw that the Jews were the enemy hindering the National Socialist movement. And he liquidated millions of Jews. But Hitler's no mere student: he's a genius in his own right... you must believe me. You've kept silent while I've been talking, but I know that I'm like a mirror for you - a surgical mirror.'

For a little more about Grossman and the political context in which he lived and worked, see this post.

http://www.echo.msk.ru/guests/8025/


[Presenter S. Buntman] We have in the studio Stanislav Belkovsky -
political expert, president of the National Strategy Institute. Good
afternoon, Stanislav.

[Belkovsky] Good afternoon.

[passage omitted]

[Belkovsky] This regime is pushing us closer to a collapse of the state. So, the sooner it quits and hands power in to a new generation of politicians caring about creation of a new wealth rather than about legalization of their capitals in the West, the less likely is the country to collapse upon our heads.

[Passage omitted]

[Belkovsky] Instability is inevitable, just because processes are going on in the country which Putin can neither control nor prevent. For instance, the Kremlin cannot control the North Caucasus today de-facto. And Putin knows it. And for him it is crucial to leave office before this fact is obvious to the country and the rest of the world. The national infrastructure, which has not been renovated since
the Brezhnev era, is in a deepest crisis. And the blackout in May [in Moscow] is just the first sign [of deterioration].

[Passage omitted]

Putin understands it. And as he is not a Stalin but just an average European who dreams of being a rich rentier with an income of several hundred millions of dollars a year, of being an Abramovich.
[passage omitted]

[He wants] to head some international structure and so on. He doesn't want to resign amid tragedy and catastrophe. That is why I am sincerely sure that Putin himself doesn't want any third term - not because he is a democrat or a liberal - but because he is very afraid of responsibility. We saw it during the Kursk submarine disaster, during the Beslan crisis, during the Nord-Ost siege, during all other crises that occurred in the country. We saw anyone but him at the footlights. He crawled out only after the crisis had been resolved, and often in spite of his own actions. That is why I think he doesn't want to stay in power after 2008 and wants to resign before his term ends. And he understands that destabilisation may come due to objective reasons, not because of somebody's evil will, long before [his term expires]. That is why he and his objective allies - Abramovichs, Fridmans and so on - do anything to make this happy period of illusory stability last longer.

[passage omitted]

(via chechnya-sl)

In the Moscow Times, a report on the two-week camp in Tver at which Nashi ("Ours") commissars are planning the future strategy of the pro-Putin youth movement. An excerpt:

Soviet-era songs drifted from the main stage in the center of the camp, where the commissars gathered at 8 a.m. They stood at even intervals on a enormous grid of plastic strips. Young people who had birthdays that day were called to the stage and congratulated, then most of the group left for the daily five-kilometer run. Two circles of young women performed aerobics for the eager lenses of photographers.

-----

The star of the show Saturday was Kremlin adviser and political consultant Gleb Pavlovsky, who walked through the camp, trailed by dozens of young people, more than a few shirtless and suntanned. They questioned him and listened closely as he opined about the military draft and Ukraine's Orange Revolution. He was visibly pleased with the attention.

"I love talking with these young people," Pavlovsky said. "We need to prepare a politically literate generation because the lack of a developed political culture means a small number of people can make dangerously radical decisions."

Hundreds sat, notebooks in hand, during Pavlovsky's lecture that afternoon. He first warned against an obsessive search for Russia's enemies, saying it distracted from a proper focus on problems such as poverty in the regions and public education. Turning to the theme of combating fascism -- another of Nashi's stated goals -- Pavlovsky said Russia was fulfilling Western Europe's need to find a "problem" population. "Russia is the Jew of the 21st century," he said.

Commissar Alexei Gorelov, 19, said the large turnout for Pavlovsky's lecture was proof of the effect the camp was having on the young people. "Walk around the camp and listen," he said. "No one's talking about beer and girls. They're talking about politics. I've seen people transform in front of my eyes."

(Hat tip: Marius)

Publius Pundit has an item about the Russian youth group "Nashi" (Ours). Putin and assorted sidekicks, including the soulful Vladislav Surkov, have pledged to make the group "the heirs to the government". The blog comments:

The potential and power of a country’s motivated youth can be either a revolutionary blessing or a curse. It can be seen from the American anti-war movement of the early ’70s to the Ukrainian PORA group that helped organize the Orange Revolution. Deeply authoritarian governments realize this and use it to their benefit by creating such groups to support their regimes. Think Hitler Youth, something a liberal democratic government would never need to or be able to create.

From the Prague Watchdog:


July 15th 2005 · Prague Watchdog

People in Need to close its North Caucasus office

By Adam Havlin

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The renowned Czech humanitarian organization People in Need (PIN) has been forced to close its mission in the North Caucasus, which has been in operation since the beginning of 2000.

In a press release issued yesterday, the organization said its decision reflected "systematic pressure from Russian authorities, who in April 2005 denied PIN’s request to renew its accreditation for work in the Russian Federation".

The organization has been under Russian pressure for the last nine months, when according to the head of the Caucasian mission, Marek Vozka, the Russian authorities started carrying out "extensive controls at the mission, from hygiene to work safety".

In addition, disinformation appeared recently in the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty, in which the author indirectly accused the Czech humanitarian organization of financial irregularities, collaborating with rebels, and disobeying Russian laws.

The authorities' pressure against the charity has culminated with their refusal to renew the registration required to carry out activities in Russia.

People in Need immediately reapplied for registration, an answer to which is expected within the coming three months. The organization has transferred a few of its projects to local organizations. However, a significant amount of its activities have had to be put on ice.

People in Need has so far been active in several districts of Grozny, as well as in mountainous areas of Chechnya and in Ingushetia. The charity is considered one of the leading organizations active in the North Caucasus. The organization raised some 600 million Czech crowns (24 million dollars) since 2000.

Apart from distributing food and reconstructing homes, People in Need also provided a network of schools in refugee camps located in Ingushetia, and organized after-school activities and psycho-social assistance.

www.watchdog.cz

Brussels, July 13, 2005


Joint Declaration

on the 65th anniversary of the proclamation of the United States policy of non-recognition regarding the forcible seizure of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union



On June 22, 2005, the President of the European Parliament made a statement on behalf of the largest democratic representative body in the world, conveying his sympathy to the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nations on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the illegal occupation of the three independent Baltic states by the Soviet Union and also expressing his satisfaction that these nations have been able to return to the family of united Europe as free and democratic member states.

In defiance of half a century of totalitarian terror, genocide and suppression of all basic human rights Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians succeeded in retaining their identity, language and hopes to regain independent statehood. Their determined fight was significantly helped by a clear and principled position taken by the United States Government almost immediately after the initial military takeover of the Baltic states by the Red Army and the toppling of their legitimate governments through foreign intervention.

On July 23, 1940, Sumner Welles, acting US Secretary of State, stated that the “devious processes whereunder the political independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic republics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – were to be deliberately annihilated by one of their more powerful neighbours, have been rapidly drawn to their conclusion.” He declared that “the people of the United States are opposed to predatory activities no matter whether they are carried out by the use of force or by the threat of force.”

Referring to the Stimson doctrine, the acting Secretary of State indicated that non-recognition of illegal seizure of foreign territories would be applied to the Soviet Union as it had been applied to Japan, Germany and Italy. As a result, the diplomatic representations of the Baltic republics were allowed to continue their activities in the United States; steps were taken to protect the assets of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the United States. America also refused to turn over Baltic merchant vessels in United States ports to the Soviet Union.

Responding on August 9, 1940 to a Soviet note, the US State Department concluded that it had become “apparent that the governments and people of those countries /i.e. the Baltic states/ were being deprived of freedom of action by foreign troops which had entered their territories by force or threat of force”.

As a result of the declaration by acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles on July 23, 1940 and the ensuing steps taken by consecutive American administrations, the firm resolve of the United States to adhere to the policies of self-determination of peoples and non-recognition of forcible seizure of territory – especially with regard to Eastern Europe – was confirmed. The non-recognition policy of the largest democracy in the world, regarding the illegal annexation of the Baltic states lasted for half a century, despite immense pressures of pragmatic Realpolitik. The continued recognition by the United States of the diplomatic representatives of the Baltic states until the victorious end in August 1991 encouraged many other Western democracies not to yield to Soviet pressure and to continue to regard the Baltic states as illegally occupied.

The United States policy of non-recognition of the illegal Soviet annexation in 1940 is deeply appreciated by the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nations. Most of us who have been living under conditions of Soviet occupation can testify that the United States´ clear position made Kremlin rulers often hesitant, especially after the death of Stalin, fully to implement the policy of Russification and suppression of national cultures and languages in the Baltic states. The Communist administration would never admit it officially, yet we could feel the difference - the occupied Baltic nations were treated on several occasions in a more flexible and cautious way because of the special attention paid to them by the Western democracies. This was immensely important in helping us to gain time and persist until the collapse of the Soviet empire. In 1991, the continuing policy of non-recognition contributed to restoring independence of the Baltic states on the basis of their legal continuity.

Representing for the first time newly free Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the European Parliament, which supported the restoration of our independence already in 1983, we would like to use this anniversary to strengthen the solidarity and intensify mutual cooperation of democratic nations on both sides of the Atlantic. The principles proclaimed by the acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles on July 23, 1940, have by no means lost their practical significance today. Unfortunately even today Russia, the legal successor to the Soviet Union, still officially claims that the occupation and subsequent annexation of the three Baltic States in 1940 was the expression of the free will of these nations. Clearly, the united stand of free democratic nations based on the principles of non-recognition of forcible seizure of any territory will be the best guarantee for the Baltic nations that the "methods of gunmen" - to quote The New York Times editorial from July 24, 1940 - will never again be used to deprive small countries of their sovereignty.

Members of the European Parliament:
Mr. Georgs Andrejevs (Latvia, ALDE)
Mrs. Laima Liucija Andrikiene (Lithuania, EPP-ED)
Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis (Latvia, EPP-ED)
Mr. Toomas-Hendrik Ilves (Estonia, PSE)
Mr. Eugenijus Gentvilas (Lithuania, ALDE)
Mr. Tunne Kelam (Estonia, EPP-ED)
Mr. Guntars Krasts (Latvia, UEN)
Mr. Girts Valdis Kristovskis (Latvia, UEN)
Mr. Aldis Kuskis (Latvia, EPP-ED)
Mr. Vytautas Landsbergis (Lithuania, EPP-ED)
Mrs. Marianne Mikko (Estonia, PSE)
Mrs. Siiri Oviir (Estonia, ALDE)
Mr. Rihards Piks (Latvia, EPP-ED)
Mr. Aloyzas Sakalas (Lithuania, PSE)
Mr. Toomas Savi (Estonia, ALDE)
Mr. Andres Tarand (Estonia, PSE)
Mrs. Inese Vaidere (Latvia, UEN)
Mr. Roberts Zile (Latvia, UEN)

(via MAK)

Hamzat Akaev, writing at Chechenpress, has a question:

Has anybody thought, why the chronology of the beginning of the modern version of terrorism begins since the 11th of September, 2001? Why is this date practically always present in statements of George Bush, Blair and their other colleagues by the "antiterrorist" struggle?

And whether there were no autumn explosions in Moscow and other cities of Russia in 1999? Why not to begin the tragic chronology, for example, since September, 9, 1999 , when there was an explosion in the apartment house,in the Guryanov Street in Moscow as the result of which 94 people were lost and more than 200 were wounded? How can such strange forgetfulness be explained? Or are not the lost Russians already considered to be people?

Let's try to answer at least some "whys". Speaking about September explosions in the cities of Russia , it is necessary to note, that there the Russian special services worked, as they say, brilliantly, but till a certain moment.

We do not know, in how many Russian cities there still would be explosions and how many hundreds of “dear Russians” would be blown up, if it had not been for vigilance of the citizens of Ryazan. Thanks to Ryazan inhabitants, the demolition men were seized by their hands, and terrorists turned out to be … employees of the FSB – the special service, which should protect Russians and Russia from especially dangerous crimes, such as terrorism. But it turned out; employees of the Russian special services blew up their citizens. And it happened, when earlier these special services had been headed by the president of Russia Putin! Do they blow up their citizens following the instruction of the president?! However these facts took place and they became known because of the failure, which happened in Ryazan. Thus, there is a fat terrorist stain on president Putin and the whole management of Russia, which till now is not washed off, and it hardly will, as the Kremlin and Lubyanka oppose to carrying out of the objective investigations of the acts of terrorism, witnesses are pursued, and people named to be the suspected, are simply shot. There is no need to hope for objectivity of the courts at the authority of Putin, there can be no speech about it. Thus, Putin with his special services remain to be the main suspected in the Russian acts of terrorism.

Here, probably, there is the answer to the question - why the struggle against “international terrorism” officially begins not since the date of explosions of the houses in September, 1999. If the demolition men from Putin's FSB in Ryazan were not got, there is a great probability that the harmonious annals of international terror would begin since the date of the Russian explosions.

On the other hand, if it had not been for the Ryazan failure, and the special operation against others, planned to be sacrificed for the sake of the territorial integrity, Russians, had passed successfully, it is not known, how much worse the destiny of the population of the Chechen Republic would be. As a matter of fact, Putin has not received an unequivocal "green traffic light" for his actions in the Chechen Republic from his western partners. And even today, in spite of the fact that Putin admits to be a partner in the “Great antiterrorist” one, and leaders of this coalition do not hasten to reproach the Russian partner with genocide in the Caucasus , they do not include the event in Russia in the autumn of 1999 in the list of attacks of the international terror. Why? In fact, to present Russia as the first victim of the international terrorists would be favorable for its logic joining the world fight against terror. If the explosions in the Russian cities are excluded from the list of terrorist attacks, to what category do they correlate? Whether the silence of the "Eight" concerning the explosions in the Russian cities specifies, that president Putin arranged a “Black September” in Russia?

In turn, concealing of the Russian explosions only strengthens suspicions that members of the "Eight" perfectly know the high-ranking terrorist by sight. And now this person is in their around, and at the following summit in Moscow he will be in the role of a hospitable host.

If the silence about so perspective theme for the common antiterrorist business about the explosions in Russia, is the result of doubt of the western leaders in Putin's versions – it means, there is a hope for presence of conscience in them. It is only a pity that the level of conscience and honor in them, almost as according to Marx, depends on the price level of oil and gas.

The Carnival of the Revolutions is up at Boxing Alcibiades, with a wide and varied menu of pro-democracy fare.

On July 3, Timur Aliyev's Chechen Society Newspaper published the first part of an interview with the French philosopher and publicist André Glucksmann. Now the paper has published the second part of the interview, in which among other things Glucksmann talks about his own personal experience of Chechnya.

Chechen Society newspaper, # 14(52), July 19, 2005

André Glucksmann:
“Russia is digging itself a grave in Chechnya”
Part 2

The French philosopher and fighter of totalitarianism Andre Gluksmann talks about his vision for the future of Russia, the Caucasus and Chechnya, as a whole and separately, in an exclusive interview for the “Chechen Society” newspaper.

Interview by Alan Tskhurbaev

-What is your forecast for the future of Russian-Chechen relations?

- Russia is digging a grave for itself in Chechnya. Not just because it is behaving badly from the point of view of morality and humanity, but also because it is destroying its own future. Over the last 10 years around a million Russian soldiers have gone to fight in Chechnya. All of them are morally ruined. They have learnt to kill, to sell corpses, to torture and to have no respect for ordinary civilians. If you have learnt to do this then you will reproduce [this behaviour] upon your return to your own country. This has now become a threat to peace in Russia. What will these soldiers do now they are sick from what they have been doing, from the torture and violence? They will continue to do the same thing when they become members of the security structures, gangsters or policemen.
Russia is already familiar with this concept after Afghanistan. There are statistics, official questionnaires.
What's more Putin is using the war in Chechnya in order to restrict human rights, which are already all too rare in Russia. For example, after Beslan, he changed open elections for regional heads and tightened his grip around the throat of the mass media. Chechnya is an opportunity to re-assert a dictatorship in the country, one which is not communist, because those ideas are dead, but one which is Stalinist in its essence and in its actions.

- With the latest reforms in Russia it is beginning to seem like Russia is practically a macro-Chechnya. What is your attitude towards these Kremlin "reforms"?

- I am convinced that for the last 300 years the war in Chechnya has not just been colonial in character, it is not just a war about tiny reserves of oil, no. First and foremost it is a pedagogical war. That means that the Kremlin, whether it is Tsarist, Stalinist or "Putinist", has wanted to show an example, but not to Chechens but to Russians. It has wanted to show simple Russian citizens what it means not to obey the Kremlin. "If you don't obey my orders", the Tsar, Stalin or Putin is saying, "Your fate will be that of the Chechens". So it is in fact an enormous pedagogical experience.

I am not the first to say this because Ermolov, the Tsarist general (who founded Grozny by the way) said that the Chechen was a terrible example of relcalcitrance and impertinence, who showed a bad example to all his Majesty's subjects.

And Tolstoy wrote about exactly the same thing in his last novel. "The Tsar could not countenance the Chechen warriors who loved freedom and had a feeling of pride". And the whole of great Russian literature, whilst not always in agreement with this, still always delights in the beauty of women from the Caucasus, in the dignity, love of freedom and the pride of the men. But it is natural, that when you loose freedom and become a slave you lose your beauty. Beauty is the beauty of freedom. That is what people delight in in the Caucasus, that is what becomes a torture in all the Chechen wars. Chechnya is an example of freedom, of dignity and an example for the whole Russian population.

- Recently in the Duma there have been voices calling for the abolition of autonomies in the Caucasus, calling them unnecessary relics of the past.

- I think that it is the Duma, which is an unnecessary relic of the past. It is just a chamber for registration. Whenever it proposes something, Putin speaks as though it is proposing this to Putin. I think that it would be possible to economise on the Duma and make it so that Putin just talked to himself on the television. But the Duma has other great ideas like the restriction of all rights and it has been discussing this for two or three months now. When the Duma speaks it is Putin scratching his own head and coming up with ideas.

Even the ancient Greeks during the time of Herodotus spoke of the Caucasus and about its numerous nationalities. We should not forget that Prometheus, the demigod who snatched fire from Zeus, was shackled to one of the rock faces of the Caucasus. As a civilisation it is a lot more ancient, more multicultural and multi-national, a lot more valuable and ancient than ….. the Duma.

- Why then can these ancient peoples not find a common language?

- That isn't how it is at all. Let's take Dagestan. Of course there is tension there, but there are between 40 and 80 different peoples there depending on whether you count them according to ethnicity or origin, but in any case there is a huge number of languages there. Despite this Dagestan has not exploded in military hatred. Quite the opposite in fact, I would say that the Caucasus show us an example of the co-existence of cultures, languages, very different traditions. It is a great example.

Naturally the great powers, Russia first and foremost, have always tried to divide and rule these peoples. This was the position of the Tsars and then of Stalin. Because of this there does exist a very real source of conflict in Dagestan, and between the Ossetians and the Ingush, as a consequence of the repressions of 1944. A huge number of peoples were deported, especially Chechens. To this day there are disputes, not only territorial but also civil.

I know Chechens who still take their children to show them the house, which no longer belongs to them because of Stalin's repressions. This shows how this situation of tension has been provoked either by today's Kremlin or by Stalin's and I think it is admirable that in spite of it all, Putin has not yet succeeded in kindling the fire and spilling blood across the whole of the Caucasus.

- What are your memories of the Caucasus?

- My memories of the Caucasus and of Chechnya come from June-July 2000 when I managed to get there illegally. And my memories aren't about the start of the war but my admiration for the civilisation which was coping with all of this. I saw Chechens who were tending their gardens as much as they could allow themselves, and everything was growing there: berries, fruits….

If we left those from the Caucasus in peace I think that they would have a much more civilized way of life than the Russians. They can engage in commerce anywhere, build houses, tend to their gardens. It was after all Chechen men who built houses in Siberia, whilst the women in Brezhnev's time engaged in commerce in Korea, Czechoslovakia, the Emirates. At first it was the women and then the men when they were allowed to leave.

I think that this is a region with a very high level of civilization, it is the Mediterranean of Russia. At the end of the day it is thanks to the Caucasus that Moscow has been able to eat fruits. There is the inventiveness and insight of an ancient civilization here, one which I find admirable, as I do the heroism of the Chechen people. It is after all a people which is opposing the third campaign to destroy it in 300 years, and which is opposing an enemy which outnumbers it 150 times.

I can only say one thing at this point and that is to wish a quick end to the Putin regime for the Chechen people. And Putin will fall because he is bringing revolution on himself, as happened in 1953 when Berlin revolted against the Soviet army, as in 1956 when the workers of Poland revolted and in 1968 in Prague...

We are observing a fundamental phenomenon in the 21st Century - a movement, which tries to oppose despots, both big despots like Putin, and little ones like Kadyrov, and little by little this movement will win.

"Chechen Society" newspaper, #14, 19 July 2005
http://www.chechensociety.net/


Andre Glucksmann:
«Si Poutine a un allie actuellement, c’est Bassaev»
2 partie

Interview par Alan TSKHURRBAEV

- Quel est votre pronostic concernant les relations russo-tchetchenes ?

- La Russie creuse sa propre tombe en Tchetchenie. Pas seulement parce qu'elle se conduit mal, de facon immorale et inhumaine, mais aussi parce qu'elle detruit son propre avenir. Il y a probablement un million de soldats russes qui sont alles en Tchetchenie au cours des dix dernieres annees. Ils sont tous ete pourris. Ils ont appris a tuer, ils ont appris a vendre des cadavres, a torturer, a ne jamais respecter les civils. Quand on apprend des choses comme ca, on les reproduit quand on retourne dans son propre pays. C'est donc une menace pour la paix civile en Russie Que feront ces soldats qui sont malades de ce qu'ils font, malades de torturer, malades de violer, ils continueront d'une facon ou d'une autre en se faisant agent de securite, bandits ou policiers. On a vu cela deja en Russie, il y a eu des statistiques, des enquetes officielles, avec les soldats qui revenaient d'Afghanistan. La, c'est la meme chose. En plus, Poutine utilise la guerre en Tchetchenie pour restreindre les libertes deja assez rares en Russie. Par exemple apres Beslan il a supprime l'election des gouverneurs mais pas seulement, il a resserre sa poigne autour des mass medias. La Tchetchenie c'est l'occasion de retablir une dictature qui n'est communiste parce que les idees communistes sont mortes, mais qui est stalinienne dans sa pratique, dans ses operations.

- Les dernieres transformations, comme la suppression des elections font apparaitre la Russie comme un macro-Tchetchenie. Que pensez-vous de ces reformes du Kremlin ?

- Je pense effectivement que depuis 300 ans, la Tchetchenie, ce n'est pas seulement une guerre coloniale, ce n'est pas seulement une guerre pour un tout petit peu de petrole, ce n'est meme pas du tout ca. C'est d'abord une guerre pedagogique. C'est-a-dire que le Kremlin, que ce soit le Kremlin des tsars, de Staline, de Beria ou de Poutine, veut faire un exemple, mais pas pour les Tchetchenes, pour les Russes. Il veut apprendre aux simples citoyens russes ce qu'il en coute quand on desobeit au Kremlin. " Si vous n'obeissez pas a mes oukases, dit le tsar, dit Staline, dit Poutine, le sort qui vous est reserve, c'est celui des Tchetchenes ". Donc c'est une grande experience pedagogique. Et je ne suis pas original en le disant, puisque Iermolov, qui fut le general du tsar qui a d'ailleurs cree Groznyi, a explique que le Tchetchene est un exemple epouvantable d'indocilite, d'insolence, qui risque de montrer le mauvais exemple a tous les sujets de Sa Majeste. Et Tolstoi, dans sa derniere nouvelle, a explique exactement la meme chose : le tsar ne pouvait pas supporter d'avoir en face de lui des guerriers tchetchenes qui etaient libres, qui avaient le sens de la dignite. Et toute la grande litterature russe, n'est pas toujours d'accord, mais admire au Caucase la beaute des femmes et la dignite, la liberte, des hommes. Mais c'est la meme chose, quand on perd sa liberte, quand on devient esclave, on n'est pas belle. La beaute, c'est la beaute de la liberte. C'est ca qui est admire au Caucase, et c'est ca qui est martyrise dans toutes les guerres de Tchetchenie. Le Tchetchene c'est l'exemple de liberte, de dignite, un exemple pour l'ensemble de la population russe.

- Ces derniers temps, a la Douma, on propose de supprimer les autonomie dans le Caucase russe. On les considere comme des sequelles inutiles du passe.

- Je pense que c'est la Douma qui est une sequelle inutile du passe. C'est une chambre d'enregistrement. Quand elle propose quelque chose, c'est Poutine qui parle, et comme elle le propose a Poutine… Je pense qu'on pourrait economiser la Douma et faire que Poutine se parle a lui-meme a la television. Mais la Douma a aussi d'autres grandes idees, en particulier celle de restreindre toutes les libertes, ca la prend comme ca tous les deux ou trois mois.
Quand la Douma parle, c'est Poutine qui se gratte la tete et lance une idee.
Deja les Grecs antiques au temps d'Herodote parlaient du Caucase et de la multiplicite de ses peuples. Il ne faut pas oublier que Promethee, le demi-dieu qui arracha le feu a Zeus fut supplicie dans une montagne du Caucase. C'est une civilisation beaucoup plus vieille, une civilisation multiculturelle, multi populaire, multiethnique, c'est une civilisation beaucoup plus precieuse beaucoup plus ancienne que… que la Douma.

- Pourquoi ces cultures si anciennes ne peuvent pas se comprendre ?

- Ce n'est pas vrai. Si on regarde le Daghestan, il y a bien sur beaucoup de tensions, mais enfin quand meme il y a entre 40 et 80, ca depend comment on les compte, ethnies ou origines differentes, en tout cas enormement de langues. Mais jusqu'a maintenant le Daghestan n'a pas eclate en haines militaires. Donc au contraire, moi j'aurais plutot tendance a dire que le Caucase montre un exemple de coexistence entre des cultures, des langues, des traditions tres differentes, que c'est un exemple admirable. Alors bien sur les grandes puissances, en premier lieu la Russie, essaient de diviser pour regner. Ca, on n'a pas attendu Poutine, c'etait deja la position des tsars, c'etait encore la position de Staline. Donc il y a une veritable source de conflit, au Daghestan, entre l'Ossetie et les Ingouches il y a des exactions qui datent de 1944. On a deporte beaucoup de peuples, et en particulier les Tchetchenes. Depuis ce temps-la il y a des litiges territoriaux mais aussi civils. Je connais des Tchetchenes qui vont encore montrer a leurs enfants la ferme de leurs grands-parents qui ne leur appartient plus, a cause de la deportation stalinienne, donc, il a ete entretenu et organise par le Kremlin d'aujourd'hui ou par Staline un etat de tension et je trouve d'autant plus admirable le fait que, malgre tout, Poutine ne soit pas encore arrive a mettre a feu et a sang l'ensemble du Caucase.

- Quelle est votre souvenir du Caucase ?

- Moi mon souvenir du Caucase ou de la Tchetchenie ou je suis alle illegalement en juin-juillet de l'an 2000. Et la mon souvenir ce n'est pas du tout le reveil du conflit, mais l'admirable civilisation que ca comporte. J'ai vu chaque Tchetchene des qu'il le pouvait, cultiver un jardin ou tout fleurissait en meme temps : les potirons, les fruits, tout. Si on laisse les Caucasiens tranquilles, je pense qu'ils sont beaucoup plus civilises que le mode de vie russe. Ils sont capables de faire du commerce partout, d'entretenir les jardins, de construire des maisons partout, ce sont quand meme les macons tchetchenes qui ont construits beaucoup beaucoup maisons en Siberie et ce sont aussi des femmes tchetchenes qui allees faire du commerce en Coree, en Tchecoslovaquie du temps de Brejnev et dans les Emirats des qu'elles ont pu, etc., les femmes d'abord et ensuite les hommes quand ils ont pus sortir. Je trouve que c'est une region extremement civilisee, c'est la mediterranee de la Russie. Apres tout si Moscou a pu manger des fruits pendant stalinienne ou brejnevienne, c'est parce que le Caucase apportait des fruits. . Il y a la une ingeniosite, la subtilite d'une civilisation ancienne que je trouve totalement admirable, comme je trouve admirable l'heroisme des Tchetchenes. C'est quand meme un peuple qui a resiste a trois campagnes d'extermination et qui depuis 300 ans lutte contre un ennemi 150 fois plus grand. . Et la je n'ai qu'in chose a dire c'est que je m'incline devant tant de grandeur et j'espere qu'ils arriveront a attendre que Poutine tombe. Et Poutine tombera par ce qu'il appelle lui-meme une revolution permanente et qui est due au courant de liberte qui travaille le peuple et qui dure depuis 1953 quand Berlin s'est revolte contre l'armee russe, depuis 1956 quand les ouvriers et la population polonaise se sont revoltes, depuis 68 quand Prague s'et revoltee. Il y a un phenomene fondamental pour le XXIe siecle, contre lequel les despotes, les grands comme Poutine ou les petits comme Kadirov, essaient de resister, mais petit a petit, ce mouvement gagne.

"Chechen Society" newspaper, #14, 19 July 2005
http://www.chechensociety.net/

A new monograph entitled The Hijacked Caravan - Refuting Suicide Bombings as Martyrdom Operations in Contemporary Jihad Strategy is available for download (pdf format) at the Ihsanic Intelligence website. The introduction to the monograph states that

- The Hijacked Caravan is the first and only Islamic legal ruling which unequivocally condemns suicide bombing in all circumstances.

- Suicide terrorism has no precedent in fourteen centuries of Sunni Islamic tradition

- Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qa’eda have adopted the use of suicide bombings from the Hindu-Marxist terrorist groups like the Tamil Tigers and kamikaze pilots from Japan

- Islamist terrorists killing Muslims are considered to be in the tradition of the khawarij, an ancient Islamic heretical sect which also assassinated Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, Imam Ali

- Suicide bombings invoked under the rubric of Islamist terrorism, outside Israel and the Palestinian Territories, grew three-fold within the space of three years after 9/11, killing twice as many people as had been killed over two decades.

- Within the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, a case often given global exception by some scholars for using this tactic, suicide bombings doubled as did the number of people killed in the three years after 9/11 compared to the previous seven years of suicide terrorism. Worldwide, in merely three years after 9/11, the number of suicide bombings had increased three-fold than it had over two decades, whilst the number of people killed had doubled.

- Worldwide, for every person who undertook a suicide bombing prior to 9/11, 18 people were likely to be killed. After 9/11, this figure fell to killing of 14 people on average, which was only as a result of the disproportionate rise in the “export” of this practice to groups worldwide.

- Suicide bombing in the name of Islam has occurred in more than 20 countries: Lebanon [1981], Kuwait [1983], Argentina [1992], Panama, Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories [1994], Pakistan, Croatia [1995], Saudi Arabia [1996], Tanzania, Kenya [1998], Yemen, Chechnya [2000], USA, Kashmir, Afghanistan [2001], Tunisia, Indonesia, Algeria [2002], Morocco, Russia, India, Iraq, Turkey [2003], Uzbekistan and Spain [2004] - and possibly United Kingdom [2005].

(via global-geopolitics)

From a Reuters report:

Russia's President Vladimir Putin told ministers on Friday they must work harder to crush violent insurgents in the North Caucasus region, a six-year-old election pledge that still eludes the Kremlin chief.

Putin was making a rare visit to the mountainous region on Russia's southern flank, scene of a long fight with separatist rebels in Chechnya and worsening violence in neighbouring Dagestan that has spilled over from Chechnya.

Putin's previously unpublicised arrival in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala, was his first time in the region since the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 2004 Beslan school siege in which over 300 people -- half of them children -- were killed.

"In the past few years a lot of work has been done in the North Caucasus and the south of Russia," Putin told ministers and military commanders in camouflage fatigues.

"But from the point of view of fighting organised crime and terrorism, the situation remains fairly difficult and we can't say we have done everything possible so that we can feel relaxed," Putin said in televised remarks.

Dressed in a black polo shirt and shadowed by guards with automatic weapons, Putin toured a secret service training centre and flew in a military helicopter to inspect a border patrol tasked with intercepting armed groups.

RFE/RL reports that Western media in Uzbekistan trying to cover the issue of the massacre at Andijan on May 13 are, like independent Uzbek and Russian media, coming under concerted attack by spin doctors and media "consultants", many of whom originate from neighbouring Russia. The assault on Western press coverage is leading to growing conflict between the U.S. and EU on the one hand, and the Russian Federal authorities on the other.

Pressure on NGO Internews is part of a concerted campaign to discredit Western media following the mid-May uprising in which hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed after Uzbek troops opened fire on demonstrators. Some say the assault on Western media has become more "aggressive and professional" and suggest Uzbek authorities are getting help from their Russian neighbors

Writing in "Vremya novostei" on 29 June, Arkadii Dubnov sounded a similar theme. "The U.S. and EU are insisting on an independent investigation of Andijon, which Tashkent with the support of Moscow is categorically refusing. As Russian political analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov expressed recently, the West is proceeding with a "presumption of guilt" with regard to the Uzbek president.... Not surprisingly, official Tashkent is grateful for Moscow's support. According to Dubnov, a "well-informed" expert on Russian-Uzbek relations speaking on the grounds on anonymity, told the daily that "Tashkent will have to pay for such support."

Whether or not Russia is playing a role in the Uzbek authorities' handling of the domestic and international fallout from Andijon, the United States, for its part, appears intent on continuing to try to influence Tashkent policy. This week, U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith (Republican) announced that he has introduced legislation that would halt both military and humanitarian aid to Central Asian governments that fail to democratize or respect human rights.

So far, Uzbekistan has not appeared to react to Congressman Smith's effort. But two weeks ago, speaking from Moscow, President Islam Karimov signaled that the campaign against the Uzbek media has support at the highest level. He accused Western journalists of arriving in Andijon prior to the unrest in order to "occupy convenient positions for reporting," RIA-Novosti quoted him as saying on 28 June. "This was a professional, thoroughly prepared operation," Karimov concluded.

RFE/RL has published an interview by noted Russian correspondent Andrei Babitsky with Chechen field commander Doku Umarov,who sees no alternative to armed struggle with Russia. From the English-language summary of the interview:

"Until we are freed from beneath the Russian jackboot, I can see no alternative, because there are no other possibilities left to us at the moment, particularly in view of what Russia and the so-called Russian Army has done here in the last six years. In my opinion, no honest patriot or citizen of Chechnya can see any other way," Umarov told RFE/RL.

Like most of the current rebel leadership, Umarov maintains that dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin is impossible. But he says he believes the armed resistance will outlive the present Russian leadership.

"Until change brings more reasonable people to power [in Russia], of course there can be no hope the war will end," he said. "But the situation isn't hopeless. Things aren't going so badly for us. They would have been bad had this been 2000 and the start of the Putin era, but I think times are changing. His time is coming to an end and reasonable people will come to power."

Hat tip: Marius

It was the ex-Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky who famously asserted that the Cold War was ended by the Western powers one day too early. In a 2003 interview, commenting on the Western Left’s support for Islamist terrorism, he stated that “twenty years ago the Left aided and abetted the equally barbaric Soviet regime. Even the current "peace campaign" is just a copy of the 1980s campaign for nuclear disarmament of the West and against placement of "American" missiles in Europe, against SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) and Western re-armament program. Even some participants are the same. This fact simply confirms what I've been saying since 1993: we did not win the Cold War. We did not finish off our enemies either in the East (where old communist nomenklatura and the KGB are still in power), or in the West (where their old collaborators are still a major political force).”

With Russia and China now rallying round a new strategic axis in Central Asia, with levels of Russian military and commercial espionage in the West growing to levels not seen in thirty years, and with the Chinese Communists currently attempting to buy the favour of Western governments, while maintaining a huge spy presence in countries such as Australia, it looks as though Bukovsky’s analysis continues to hold true. China’s most recent intervention, in which Major General Zhu Chenghu (speaking, as is customary on these occasions, in a "personal" capacity) threatened that China will use nuclear weapons if attacked by the U.S. in any future confrontation over Taiwan, confirms the thesis. The Cold War is not over. It has merely entered a new phase.

The West faces the same enemies as before, enemies who are now aided and abetted not only by the Western Left, but also by the newly refurbished power-manipulating instrument of international terrorism.

A few days ago, the "bridge-blogging" Global Voices Online changed its design. It seems that the site's political orientation also changed.

The bulk of Russia's foreign policy specialists interpret the rallying of Central Asian states around what they call an emergent Russian-Chinese strategic axis as a clear sign of the regional leaders' bitter disillusionment with America. Since the waves of the "color revolutions" began sweeping the post-Soviet lands in the end of 2003, the Central Asian autocratic rulers grew increasingly suspicious of Washington's political designs and, naturally, became wary of the U.S. military presence in their territories.

Some Russian political pundits view the Andijan events as a crucial turning point in the changing of the region's geopolitical equation -- both in terms of the regional countries' strategic orientation and of their domestic policies. According to several policy papers penned recently by Russia's conservative political thinkers, following the political upheavals in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, as well as the violent riots in Uzbekistan, the Central Asian ruling clans appeared to have changed their perspective on a U.S. presence in Central Asia. Now the United States has likely come to be regarded as a "destabilizing factor" rather than a necessary precondition for maintaining peace and security in the region.

"The irritation, if not the outright fear, caused by the perceived American policy of regime change in post-Soviet Eurasia is taking on the form of an "institutionalized protest," as one commentary put it. In this context, all the recent Kremlin summitry -- the meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Hu Jintao, Uzbek president Islam Karimov's visit to Moscow, and the SCO gathering in Astana -- has seemingly indicated that a group of regional countries is engaged in setting up an "institutionalized counterweight to American hegemony and expansionism in Central Asia."

Igor Torbakov, in EDM

Taras Kuzio writes that Kyiv's role in Iraq may make it vulnerable to terrorist attacks:

Ukraine responded to the July 7 terrorist attacks in London by expanding preventative measures to combat potential terrorists. With Ukraine contributing the fourth-largest contingent of troops in Iraq, the Ukrainian government understandably fears that terrorists could target Kyiv and its metro system. The terrorist attacks in Madrid and London have been linked to the Spanish and British deployments in Iraq. Spain withdrew its troops after terrorist attacks on the eve of the March 2004 parliamentary elections returned the Socialists to power.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry ordered the special forces units guarding strategically important facilities to be on heightened alert. President Viktor Yushchenko also made changes in the composition of the Anti-Crisis Center that he heads (Interfax-Ukraine, July 13). The Center was created in November 2002 to coordinate executive responses to national crises.

Yushchenko's decision to retain the Anti-Crisis Center came as a surprise, as many government bodies have been closed or merged recently to avoid duplication. Most of the Center's members also sit on the National Security and Defense Council. Both bodies include the president and prime minister; the emergencies, defense, transport, fuel and energy, interior, and foreign ministers; as well as chairmen of the Border Service, Security Service, and State Protection Service.

The new Anti-Terrorist Coordination Center created within the Ministry of Transport and Communications could also overlap (Interfax-Ukraine, July 11). Headed by Deputy Minister of Transport Mykola Hodiyenko, this Center will coordinate its activities with the Security Service's Anti-Terrorist Center.

Under President Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine contributed the largest contingent of non-NATO member troops to Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed from power in spring 2003. The troops are stationed in the Polish sector and are not believed to be a potential al-Qaeda target.

While Yushchenko believes that the Ukrainian troops have shown themselves "to be true professionals and patriots," (Channel 5, August 10, 2004) other coalition members do not share this opinion. During military skirmishes last year, Ukrainian troops reportedly retreated and U.S. and British troops had to be called in to regain control over the area.

Corruption is a major problem. Major-General Serhiy Savchenko, commander of Ukrainian forces in Iraq, was arrested in February at Kyiv's Borispil Airport, when he and other officers were caught "escorting" coffins containing $300,000 in cash (Ukrayinska pravda, June 13). The practice of transporting contraband (i.e. narcotics, cash, etc.) in coffins, rather than the remains of soldiers, has a long history going back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The Iraq deployment never became a major issue in Ukraine's 2004 presidential election (see EDM, May 12, 14, 2004) for two reasons. First, foreign policy in general never became an election issue. Only 7% of Ukrainians saw East-West relations as an election issue (Politychnyi Portret Ukrayiny, no. 29, 2004). Second, the Kuchma regime was afraid to raise the Iraqi issue, as they had themselves dispatched troops in 2003 when heir apparent Viktor Yanukovych was prime minister. Polls during the 2004 election showed that three-quarters of Ukrainians opposed the presence of their troops in Iraq.

The irony of the 2004 election was that the candidate castigated as an "American lackey," Yushchenko, was the one who supported the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Iraq. The Yushchenko camp feared that Kuchma and Yanukovych would use Ukrainian troops in Iraq to curry favor with the United States during the election year. The plan worked to a degree; while censoring authoritarian trends in Ukraine, the United States also refrained from criticizing Kuchma too forcefully. As one commentary summed it up: "The purpose of the policy of camouflaged guarantees is to keep Ukrainian troops in Iraq" (Zerkalo Nedeli/Tyzhnia, April 30). Although Washington preferred a Yushchenko victory, it could have done business with Yanukovych (Business Week, November 8, 2004).

After his victory, Yushchenko and his allies accused the United States of holding its tongue until round one of the Ukrainian election (October 31) and the U.S. presidential election (November 2) had ended. Yet prior to these critical dates, the Ukrainian elections had witnessed numerous dirty tricks including the poisoning of Yushchenko and a bomb threat.

Kuchma upstaged Yushchenko by ordering the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops on January 11, only three weeks before Yushchenko's inauguration and two weeks after his eventual election on December 26 (see EDM, January 14). Kuchma also sought to play to the public mood after eight Ukrainian soldiers died in the first week of January in an explosion inside Iraq (Financial Times, January 11).

Ukraine's then-defense minister, Oleksandr Kuzmuk, announced that Ukraine would withdraw one battalion in March-April and the remainder by the summer. Yushchenko has re-negotiated this timeline to the end of the year in the spirit of renewed relations with the United States after Yushchenko met President George W. Bush at NATO in February and in Washington in April (see EDM, April 4 and 7).

U.S.-Ukrainian relations are unlikely to decline as a consequence of Ukraine withdrawing its troops by the end of 2005. A small Ukrainian contingent will remain to train Iraqi National Guardsmen. Unlike Spain, which hastily withdrew its large contingent of troops without consultations, Yushchenko has sought to alleviate fears that he would not take into account American and Polish sensitivities. Yushchenko's main strategic aim is to remove Ukraine's troops from Iraq ahead of the March 2006 parliamentary election, and thereby remove one issue on which the Communist or centrist opposition could attack his election coalition. Washington seems only too happy to assist Yushchenko on this score.

In Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, Leonid Radzikhovsky draws a portrait of Putin crony Vladislav Surkov, whose secret speech has caused some ripples, and whom some have tipped as a possible successor to the great dictator. An excerpt, in translation:

Before us is the speech of a clever, conservative, cynical, patriotic, very Russian public official. His words (with suitable corrections for the age) could be endorsed not only by Pobedonostsev or Witte, but, what is most comical of all, even by V.I. Ulyanov, who broke his head against the reality of Russia and at the end of his life himself became... a despairing Russian conservative!

Perhaps we might begin with Ulyanov. In his secret (just like Surkov’s speech!) "Letter to the Congress" he wrote that they, the ruling elite, were the "thinnest layer", "a drop in the ocean of the people", and trembled with fear before the "small internal struggle in this layer", which would overturn his entire supremacy.

Well, thank God, we don’t have a dictatorship, the severity of the problems is not the same at all - but the problems are the same.

The thinnest layer of a closed elite – plus "140,000,000 very poor and complex people" (Surkov).The binary structure of society has not changed… for how many years, exactly?

Since the days of the Leninist nomenklatura? Since the time of Witte? Since the 19th century? But what good is it if the structure of society (the “superstructure” ) changes, but the “base” doesn’t change one iota? Agrarian Russia has become a source of raw materials, that’s all. Not estates of wheat but estates of petroleum, and the estate owners are not the Counts Vorontsov-Dashkov, but the Abramoviches and the Millers, the Bogdanchikovs and the Alekperovs... But in other respects everything is as before: a country of exports and poverty ("we shan’t eat it all – we’ll export it"), a Eurasia/Aziopa that lives “off the land”.

What about social psychology?

You've only got to begin to do anything to find out how few honest, honourable people there are. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I think: "Oh Lord, you've given us huge forests, infinite fields, and endless horizons, and we, living here, ought really to be giants."

What’s this? The night thoughts of Mr. Surkov after a meeting with Unity Party MPs ? No, it’s The Cherry Orchard by Mr. Chekhov, 1904.

http://www.ng.ru/politics/2005-07-13/1_kavkaz.html

СЕВЕРНЫЙ КАВКАЗ ГОТОВИТСЯ К БОЛЬШОЙ ВОЙНЕ
Идет масштабная переброска войск в соседние с Чечней регионы
Владимир Мухин

В ближайшие месяцы будет значительно увеличена группировка силовых подразделений внутренних войск МВД РФ на Северном Кавказе. В ответ на действия боевиков в Чечне, Дагестане и других регионах Северного Кавказа федеральный Центр готовит силовые контрмеры, связанные с дальнейшей милитаризацией всего региона. Размах и суть реорганизации таковы, что речь можно вести о подготовке к боевым действиям таких масштабов, каких до сих пор федеральным силам вести не приходилось.

The July issue of National Geographic Magazine has a feature on the Chechnya war, and some very powerful photo-reportage.

from Chechnya Weekly

MOSCOW PLACES ITS BETS ON "STATE TERRORISTS" IN CHECHNYA

By John B. Dunlop

The political fall-out from a political debacle that occurred in early June in the village of Borozdinovskaya in northern Chechnya - pro-Moscow Chechen special forces nominally subordinated to the Russian GRU conducted a brutal cleansing operation during which they abducted 10-11 men, whose present fate is unknown, from the settlement - continues to resonate in Russian society and, especially, among Russian journalists. Notably, Putin's plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, has felt required to term the pogrom an act of political "sabotage." (On July 12, a spokesman for Chechen President Alu Alkhanov says all 11 persons abducted from Borozdinovskaya were "alive and well" and would be returned home.)

A well-known journalist and leading specialist on Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaya, noted in the June 27 issue of Novaya gazeta that "cleansing operations with the participation of ‘unidentified [pro-Moscow] Chechen power structures' have now become a part of daily Chechen life." On June 4, the village of Borodzinovskaya was, in her words, "assaulted by ‘state bandits', as they are called in Chechnya, who conducted a pogrom, engaged in marauding, abducted ten people, incinerated an old man in his own home, and then moved on."

Virtually every day, Politkovskaya wrote, representatives of unidentified pro-Moscow Chechen power structures wearing camouflage uniforms and masks arrive in armored transport carriers and other vehicles and carry out acts of kidnapping and violence against the local populace. Taking the month of June 2005 as a random sample, Politkovskaya reported that such incidents occurred on June 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16 and 17 (at which point she broke off her list).

Even the office of the federal Prosecutor General's Office in the North Caucasus, Politkovskaya noted, now refers to "unidentified power structures of Chechnya" in its official written reports. This "indirectly confirms," in her view, that such structures are uncontrolled by Russian law. In point of fact, she emphasized, the members of these "unidentified state structures" are well known to the authorities, as is the location of their bases.

Who are these "unidentified power structures"? In the first place, Politkovskaya stipulated, they are the followers of the pro-Moscow Chechen first deputy prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, the so-called Kadyrovites, "the unquestionable leaders in the further criminalization of Chechnya under the Russian flag." Second, there are the bitter pro-Moscow rivals of the Kadyrovites: the Yamadaevtsy, the Kokievtsy and others. "Their institutional adherence," she noted, "is fluid, but in general and on the whole the Kokievtsy and Yamadaevtsy are Chechen detachments of the [Russian] GRU." Politkovskaya wondered why no senior officer of the GRU has yet chosen to inspect these outlaw units.

The "dragon of state terrorism," Politkovskaya concluded her essay, represents a growing menace for Chechnya and for Russia. No district chiefs of administration have proven capable of controlling these rogue power structures. When one courageous head of administration, Malika Umzhaeva, attempted to do so, she was taken out of her home at gunpoint and executed on the spot by the GRU (in this instance, the soldiers of the GRU unit happened to be Slavs).

A similar point of view to that of Politkovskaya was recently expressed in an article published by another well-known journalist, Yulia Latynina, in the July 4 issue of Novaya gazeta. Latynina has in recent months become increasingly absorbed in the fate of the North Caucasus and has published a number of essays on the region in Novaya gazeta and on the website ej.ru. Like Politkovskaya, Latynina took the bloody pogrom at Borozdinovskaya as a jumping off point for her article. "The disappearance of people," she observed, "has become an ordinary event both in Chechnya, and in Ingushetia, and in Dagestan." People are being abducted in significant numbers by pro-Moscow Chechen forces, "some because they cooperated with the rebels, some out of personal enmity, and some to obtain payment of a ransom. And since [the relatives and friends of those abducted] would take revenge for the beatings and torture inflicted on the victims, they are then simply murdered and their bodies are ‘tossed out' as if they had been killed in a victorious battle."

It is true, Latynina continued, that such behavior "gives birth to more vengeance seekers than it serves to destroy, but, on the other hand, the Kremlin is able with satisfaction to learn about victories in which there have been no losses [on the pro-Moscow side]." "Of course," she added sardonically, "to obtain victory over an opponent who has been tied up with ropes is, of course, easy."

"Ethnic purges," Latynina went on to stress, "represent [another] constant reality in Chechnya." Pro-Moscow Chechen forces have carried out an ethnic cleansing of Dargins in the village of Dubovskaya and of Nogai from the village of Voskresenskaya (about 3,500 Nogai were forced to leave the republic). As a result of this harsh campaign of ethnic cleansing, Chechnya has de facto become a mono-ethnic republic: "In 1989, Chechens in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR comprised 67 percent of the population. Today they comprise 97 percent."

The root of the problem today, Latynina believes, lies in the attitude of the Russian regime to the peoples of the North Caucasus: "Putin's Russia relates to the Caucasus as to an occupied territory. Only occupiers could fire a tank into an apartment building in Makhachkala [Dagestan] because there were terrorists in one of the apartments. In Moscow that would not happen. In Moscow residents live in apartment buildings. Here there are Aborigines."

"The federal authorities," Latynina wrote, "are incapable of providing security in the Caucasus, because the [local] people who are empowered by the regime are at the same time the chief organizers of murders. In addition, they are so incompetent and corrupt that, instead of killing the enemies of Russia, they, in the best case, kill their personal enemies and, in the worst case, whomever happens to be at hand."

"Whom are you relying on?" Latynina concluded her essay by asking one of the residents of Borozdinovskaya, expecting to hear the answer "Putin" or "Kozak." "We rely on Allah," came the answer. "Kremlin, take care," she warned. "Allah did not command Muslims to submit to infidels. A couple of matches more [added to the current political bonfire] and those who speak in the name of Allah will triumph."

Igor Korolkov, another leading Russian journalist, who is a frequent contributor to the weekly Moskovskie novosti, has arrived at similar conclusions. "Placing its bets on armed clans," he warned in the June 23 issue, "the Russian authorities have created a situation in which the task of reestablishing constitutional order [in Chechnya] and of developing the republic's economy has been put off for the indefinite future." Formerly Chechnya was a republic being robbed by people with guns who were hostile to Moscow. "Now," Korolkov concluded, "it is being robbed by people loyal to the regime."

To sum up, it seems evident that as long as Moscow permits "state bandits" to carry out with impunity a campaign of pillaging, kidnapping and murder, there can be little possibility of addressing the core social and economic problems of the republic. Recently Putin's deputy head of the presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov, who is half-Chechen, said in an interview with Der Spiegel (which polit.ru published in Russian on June 21): "In Chechnya, according to official statistics, 70 percent of the working-age populace are unemployed." Such a figure, he said, "represents a catastrophe." But, as Surkov was surely aware, as long as state terrorism is permitted to run amok in Chechnya, there can in fact be no addressing of such fundamental issues as mass unemployment.

In Indochina, as in Korea, American soldiers and their allies, often without realizing it, were engaged in direct combat with Soviet and Chinese troops. On occasion the soldiers of Brezhnev and Mao were killing Americans in Vietnam. The decision of the Johnson administration not to invade North Vietnam, then, was based on a correct evaluation of direct Chinese military intervention, as well as on a well-informed fear of provoking a Soviet-American confrontation. The argument of the praetorian school that Johnson could have brought the war to a quick end by invading North Vietnam has been completely discredited.

Michael Lind, in Vietnam: The Necessary War (1999)

Tageblatt, on why there was no minute's silence in Russia today for the victims of the London bombings:

La Russie n'a pas décrété de minute de silence jeudi en hommage aux victimes des attentats perpétrés la semaine dernière à Londres, contrairement à l'Europe.

»Nous ne décrétons pas de minute de silence», a déclaré le service de presse du Kremlin, interrogé par l'AFP, sans vouloir préciser les raisons de cette décision.

Le président de la commission des Affaires étrangères de la Douma (Chambre basse du Parlement) Konstantin Kossatchev a souligné sur la radio Echo de Moscou que chaque pays pouvait choisir d'exprimer sa compassion comme il l'entendait.

Après la prise d'otages de Beslan (Caucase du Nord) en septembre 2004, il n'y a pas eu non plus »d'expression unie de compassion» en Europe, a-t-il relevé.

»Dans un pays, il y a eu une minute de silence, dans un autre une marche de deuil» en hommage aux 330 personnes tuées dans la prise d'otages de Beslan en septembre dernier (sans compter les membres du commando pro-tchétchène), a-t-il rappelé pour expliquer la réaction de Moscou.

Il a cependant souligné que la session de jeudi de la Douma avait débuté avec l'évocation des attentats de Londres et il s'est dit »certain que le peuple russe était avec le peuple britannique, quelle que soit la forme d'expression» de sa compassion.

Le député communiste Viktor Ilioukhine, vice-président de la commission à la sécurité, est allé jusqu'à voir dans cette abstention russe une sanction vis-à-vis de Londres, qui a offert l'asile politique à l'émissaire indépendantiste tchétchène Akhmed Zakaïev.

»Aujourd'hui en Angleterre se trouvent de nombreux Tchétchènes, qui ont l'asile politique (...). Cela a sans doute joué un rôle significatif dans la décision du président», a déclaré M. Ilioukhine sur la même radio.

Après la prise d'otages de Beslan (1er-3 septembre), une minute de silence avait été observée le 13 septembre 2004 dans les bâtiments gouvernementaux et dans les écoles du Royaume-Uni.

Les députés européens réunis en session plénière à Strasbourg avaient fait de même le lendemain, ainsi que dans plusieurs pays européens.

Les attentats contre trois rames du métro londonien et un bus jeudi dernier ont fait au moins 52 morts et 700 blessés, selon un bilan toujours provisoire.

See also this link

(Hat tip: Marius)

BOSNIAN SERBS REPORTEDLY CHEER INDICTEES IN SREBRENICA. At a 12 July commemorative meeting in the House of Culture in Srebrenica, several hundred people chanted the names of war crimes indictees and former Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, the Sarajevo daily "Dnevni avaz" reported on 14 July, quoting unnamed Serbs who were present at the gathering. Also in the hall were several top Bosnian Serb leaders, including Republika Srpska President Dragan Cavic, Prime Minister Pero Bukejlovic, and Interior Minister Darko Matijasevic. According to the daily, none of the Bosnian Serb officials reacted to the chants of "Long live Karadzic" and "Long live Mladic." One person in the hall later told "Dnevni avaz" that the leaders "didn't do anything, and on some of their faces you could almost see contented smiles." Sadik Ahmetovic, who is a Muslim vice president of Srebrenica's town council, told the daily that the reactions of the officials show that "nothing has changed in their policies from the days of war, war crimes, and genocide against the [Muslims] of Srebrenica down to today" (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11, 12, and 13 July 2005). PM

(from today's RFE/RL Newsline)

With the Kremlin's increasing stranglehold on the flow of information out of Russia, it's becoming evident that English-language versions of Russian press reports and commentaries, especially if they come from sources outside government control, are being subjected to cutting and censorship of various kinds. An example is Yulia Latynina's recent column on the Kremlin's "information block", which appeared in several publications,including Moscow Times. You can read the English version here. In fact, the Russian version of the article, published in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, contains many things that are not to be found in the English version. They include much more detailed commentary on government statements relating to the Beslan events and their investigation by the parliamentary commission, on bizarre official announcements relating to the Kulayev trial, and on the June 4 abductions at Borozdinovskaya. Here is the Russian-language version of the article, in my translation:

The Information Block Sickness

Last week several events took place in Russia which at first sight do not appear to be interconnected.

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel caused a sensation in the arms market when he stated that the “Bumblebee” (Shmel’) flamethrower “is not a weapon of incendiary action”.

Eli Isayev, Chechnya’s representative with the President of Russia, stated that the eleven people who were abducted in the village of Borozdinovskaya on June 4 are alive and well. "They will be returned,” he said.

There appeared in the press a secret report by the Dmitry Kozak, the President’s special representative in the Southern Federal Region, about the situation in the Caucasus.

And Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, solemnly celebrated the day of Moscow’s exclusion from the list of bidders to hold the 2008 Olympics.

What is the connection between these events?

They are different symptoms of the same sickness - the authorities’ information block.

Why on the day that the International Olympic Committee announced the winning city for 2012 did the Moscow authorities decide to orchestrate a celebration at Vasilyevsky Spusk? Because Yuri Mikhailovich badly wanted to host the games in Moscow. In the first place, because of the political dividends it would bring him. In the second place, because of his wife’s close relations with the Moscow construction industry. And since the mayor badly wanted the Olympics, he publicly declared anyone who expressed doubt in Moscow’s triumph to be agents of the West who were trying to drag Russia into the orbit of Orange revolutions. After that, it became difficult for any of the mayor’s close associates to tell him that the chances of victory were slim. No one wants to get a reputation as an agent of the West.

And if no one said anything to the contrary, it meant that Moscow was going to win. And if Moscow was going to win, then a celebration was in order. It was a lot easier for officials to rustle up a crowd by order at Vasilyevsky than to tell the mayor the truth.

Why was Kozak’s secret report leaked to the press? Because it was the only way to get it to the president’s attention. Otherwise it would just have gathered dust in some corner. After all, Kozak was warning that Dagestan might break away from Russia, while everyone else was reporting that that a “peace process” was unfolding in the Caucasus.

Why did Mr. Shepel reveal that the “Bumblebee" (Shmel’) RPOs possess no incendiary action? Because the building where 32 terrorists and more than 1200 hostages were located, was fired on by tanks and "Bumblebees", and the people who did this ought to be sitting on the same bench as Nurpashi Kulayev [the only surviving terrorist, currently on trial]. The only difference is that the terrorists, who killed the children with bombs, are called the enemies of Russia, while the people who fired on the children with "Bumblebees" are called its defenders and rulers.

For whom is this statement needed? For the fathers, who ran after the soldiers into the blazing hall and saw the fire of the thermobaric explosion, which instantly burns up the air with all its contents to a radius of 20 metres, burn their children? For the mothers, who have already once been told that the "Bumblebees" were used by the terrorists? For the members of the initiative group, which found and were the first to show to the parliamentary commission, and then also to the prosecutor’s office, the launch canisters from the "Bumblebees", and then were dismayed to hear from the members of the same commission, that, unfortunately, the commission had made an error in the copying of the numbers of "Bumblebees"?

No. It is needed for the peace of mind of those who gave orders to kill the terrorists, but not to free the hostages. It’s important for them to read that apparently a "Bumblebee" RPO is really just a defective kind of airgun. And that these airguns were fired at the school only when there were no more hostages remaining in it.

Why did Eli Isayev state that the eleven people who were abducted in Borozdinovskaya, "are alive and well"? Because this statement was not intended for the relatives of those who disappeared, who the very next day after the “sweep operation” dug up in the ruins of the incinerated houses a heap of fried human flesh, and stuffed it into four packages which were sent for examination. This statement was intended for only a few people, and perhaps for only one person.

It is on his desk that they will place the news summary, which tells him that he lives in the best of all worlds. In a world where flamethrowers shoot thumbtacks, the victims of sweep operations come back to life at the prosecution’s first demand, while in Chechnya the peace process continues.

The Kremlin increasingly resembles a driver who has a television set instead of a windshield. And instead of a real road this television set shows a limitless highway with no cars coming the other way. How long will such a car continue to travel along the mountain switchback?

More sophisticated maximal realists took Marxism-Leninism seriously as a militant secular religion. Dean Acheson, reflecting on the late 1940s and early 1950s, wrote that “the threat to Western Europe seemed to me singularly like that which Islam had posed several centuries before, with its combination of ideological zeal and fighting power.” In the 1950s, the British political scientist Martin Wright made the same comparison. “The Jacobins of the French Revolution, and the Communists (on a parallel with Islam), divided the world into Dar-al-Islam and Dar-al-Harb” – that is, the “Abode of Peace” and the “Abode of War.” Bertrand Russell (who became a bitter critic of the Cold War in his old age) had written as early as 1921: “Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam… Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.” In this connection, it is worth noting that the term “cold war” – guerra fría – was first used in the thirteenth century in connection with the low-level border war in Spain between the rival religious civilizations of Latin Christendom and Islam.

Michael Lind, in Vietnam: The Necessary War (1999)

Ignoring the Facts, Driving Blithely On
By Yulia Latynina

Last week, President Vladimir Putin stated his hope that, after the bombings in London, the West would stop using double standards when it came to terrorism. The media got their hands on the secret report on the situation in the North Caucasus written by the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak. And last but not least, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov celebrated when the city lost its bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

What's the connection between these seemingly unrelated events? They are all symptoms of the same disorder: the authorities' absolute imperviousness to realistic information.

Why did the Moscow authorities decide to orchestrate a celebration on Vasilyevsky Spusk as the International Olympic Committee announced the winning city for 2012? Because Luzhkov really, really wanted to host the Games, both to earn political dividends and to help out his wife, one of the biggest players in the Moscow construction business. Since the mayor really wanted the Olympics, he more or less publicly declared that anyone expressing doubt about Moscow's bid was an agent of the West trying to drag Russia into the Orange Revolution orbit.

After this kind of declaration, it became next to impossible for the mayor's close associates to tell him that the city's chances were slim. No one wants to get a reputation as an agent of the West.

Since no one said anything to the contrary, it meant Moscow was destined to win. And if Moscow was going to win, a celebration was in order. It was a lot easier for officials to scare up a crowd than to give the mayor a reality check.

Why did Kozak's secret report get leaked to the press? Because it was the only way to get the president to pay attention. Otherwise, the report would have likely gathered dust in some corner. After all, Kozak warned that Dagestan might break away from Russia, while everyone else around Putin is talking about the peace process unfolding in the Caucasus.

Why did Putin feel the need to harp on "double standards" right after the terrorist attacks in London? Because as many Russians offered flowers and condolences at the British Embassy, Russian state television seemed to say, "See? We told you so!" The implication was that Britain granted asylum to terrorists like Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev, and now it was paying the price. Even Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin joined in the chorus of criticism, which was simply embarrassing.

Putin sincerely wanted to fight terrorism in cooperation with the West. But then came Beslan, when some believe hostages came under fire from tanks and flamethrowers. The morning after the bloodbath, Putin should have bitten the bullet and tried to find those responsible for the mess. And he found them: The culprits were those who still see Russia as a threat.

Now, something similar has struck London. Putin could have faced facts and honestly acknowledged that the terrorists and the West are not in cahoots against Russia. But instead he returned to the old double standards shtick.

The Kremlin is a lot like a driver whose windshield has been replaced by a television screen. Instead of the mountain switchback ahead of him, the driver sees only an open highway. Under such conditions, the joy ride won't last long.

Yulia Latynina hosts a talk show on Ekho Moskvy.

(via chechnya-sl)

A photograph of Ignaty Ioakhimovich Grinevitsky (1856-1881), the member of the People's Will (Narodnaya Volya) organization who on March 1 1881 threw the bomb that killed both himself and Tsar Alexander II of Russia.

RFE/RL reports that London police are going on the theory that last Thursday's blasts were the work of suicide bombers:

Police say they have identified four suspects, and say it is very likely that at least one of the suspects was among the at least 52 people who were killed in the bombings.

Police said they had security camera film of the four suspects meeting at the King's Cross rail station in central London shortly before the 7 July bombings.

British news reports said at least three of the suspects were believed to be British men of Pakistani origin.

Incidentally, on the question of terminology ("suicide bomber" versus "homicide bomber", and the rest), see Eugene Volokh's recent post, which gives a decent airing to most sides of the argument.

From MEMRI, an excerpt from an interview with the director of the London Al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies, Dr. Hani Al-Siba'i. The excerpt follows a more recent interview in which Al-Siba'i talks about the London bombings.

Al-Siba'i: "As for the slaughtering and the recordings used [by Al-Zarqawi] - we must consider these people's mentality. What is their source of authority? The problem is that our sheiks, our clerics, and the religious institutions - especially official ones - are constantly running away from the truth."

Host: "The truth? What is the truth?"

Al-Siba'i: "That is the question I'd like to answer. Do these people base themselves on Islamic law or not? They claim that they do, and to support it, they say that slaughtering appeared in a hadith by the Prophet, which was pronounced authentic by Sheik Ahmad Shaker. The Prophet told the Quraysh tribe: 'I have brought slaughter upon you,' making this gesture. But these are religious issues that may be disputed."

Al-Siba'i: "The Mujahideen say: 'This is the time for Jihad jurisprudence. Iraq is an occupied country, so we must study Jihad jurisprudence, which is exceptional law. In this case, there is no need to ask permission – a wife does not need to ask for her husband's permission to fight.'"

Host: "There is no consensus here. This is just one opinion."

Al-Siba'i: "This is the opinion of the greatest clerics."

Host: "But there are other clerics who criticize and condemn what is happening…"

Al-Siba'i: "The problem, Dr. Muhammad…"

Host: "Does the problem lie with Al-Zarqawi or with the religious scholars?"

Al-Siba'i: "The problem lies with the religious scholars. When they are asked to confront these [ Mujahideen ], to talk with them and respond to the evidence they present. [The Mujahideen ] tell the Prophet drove nails into and gouged out the eyes of people from the 'Urayna Tribe. They were merely a group of thieves who stole from sheep herders, and the Prophet drove nails into them and threw them into the Al-Hrara area, and left them there to die. He blinded them and cut off their opposite legs and arms. This is what the Prophet did on a trifling matter – let alone in war. What else could they do when a 1000 lb. bomb lands on a house or a shack belonging to poor people, and the world doesn't shed a tear, but cries only about the slaughtering? All they have is a knife… "

Host: "Dr. Al-Siba'i, do you personally condemn anything they do? Can you say that even though you support these groups' case, they use such means? Is there a single method you are willing to condemn?"

Al-Siba'i: "I, myself… I condemn the occupation, which is the cause of all these tragedies. The occupation caused all these disasters. The country was safe and peaceful, until the Americans came, and we are expected to blame those who fight in defense of their honor?! When people hear me say… I received a picture over the internet, and when I opened it I saw a woman being raped by seven men. An Iraqi woman in prison – this is on American websites now – and when I saw her, I couldn't sleep a wink. A woman being raped, completely naked, in prison."

Host: "This is a despicable picture, worthy of condemnation."

Al-Siba'i: "You expect me to criticize them for using a knife to slaughter some American?!"

Ali Al-Saraf, Iraqi Journalist: "Dr. Hani said the Prophet gouged out a man's eye, killed another, and threw…"

Al-Siba'i: "This is a true tradition in the collection of Al-Bukhari."

Al-Saraf: "Excuse me, the Prophet did not do this to innocent people, like this riffraff in Iraq. They kill people who have nothing to do with…"

Al-Siba'i: "Do you mean the Americans?"

Al-Saraf: "I mean the riffraff – American or not – who kill innocent people."

Al-Siba'i: "The only riffraff I know are the Americans."

Al-Saraf: "If the Americans kill innocent people, they are riffraff, and if your guys, the Islamists, kill innocent people they are riffraff too."

Al-Siba'i: "Excuse me, don't say 'your guys.'"

Al-Saraf: "There are innocent people who are being murdered for no reason. Margaret Hassan shouldn't have been slaughtered, nor Kenneth Bigley, who was about to retire. He was put in a cage smaller then a chicken coop. I don't know what human sentiment has the audacity to call despicable actions 'resistance.'"

Al-Siba'i: People believe lies and falsehoods. Allow me to disagree with Mr. Ali. Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi himself issued a communiqué – and I believe Mr. Kamil and people who follow the press know this – he issued a communiqué that appeared on all TV channels, in which he called upon the group that kidnapped Margaret Hassan to release her, and said she was innocent. She was slaughtered by [Iyad] Allawi's gang… They don't even acknowledge the term 'civilians.'"

Host: "Who decides what the term means?"

Al-Siba'i: "The religious legal authority. One reads in history… I have an historical religious source of authority. Islamic history has no term for 'civilian' in the Western sense. This is a Western term. In our Islamic rules of war, one can be a 'combatant', a 'non-combatant', or 'protected by an agreement.' A person can be a combatant even if he does not carry a weapon. In other words, a person who came to wash and cook for the American soldiers in order to free them to fight – like the Nepalese – such a person is considered a combatant."

We are in a world war.

"We are in the throes of a world war, raging over the entire globe, and characterised by the absence of lines of conflict and an easily identifiable enemy. There are sometimes long pauses between one attack and the next, consequently creating the wrong impression that the battle is all over."

[Efraim] Halevy who is now a special adviser to Quest, a London-based security and intelligence consultancy, is seen as one of the world's most eminent authorities on terrorism, with extensive security service contacts.

He said the 'great wars' of the 20th century lasted less than this war, and the end was nowhere in sight. "The aim of the enemy is not to defeat western civilisation but to destroy its sources of power and existence, and to render it a relic of the past.

"It does not seek a territorial victory or a regime change; it wants to turn western civilisation into history and will stop at nothing less than that.

"It will show no mercy or compassion and no appreciation for these noble values when practised by us. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that seven years after this war broke out at the embassies in east Africa, we can see its conclusion.

"For a while - too short a while - we are engrossed with the sheer horror of what we have seen and heard, but with the passage of time our memories fade and we return to our daily lives, forgetting that the war is still raging out there and that more strikes are sure to follow.

"In practice, no government today can provide an effective 'suit of protection' for the ordinary citizen. There can be no protection for every bus, every train, every street, every square. In these times the ordinary citizen must be vigilant and must make his personal contribution to the war effort.

"This war is already one of the longest in modern times. As things appear now, it is destined to be part of our daily lives for many years to come - until the enemy is eliminated - as it surely will be."

Hat tip: Free Thoughts

Global Voices Online has a new design.

This guy has problems.

Hat tip: MAK

Daniel Pipes doesn't like the British.

Chechnya today is as close to a Hobbesian state as exists on earth. Grozny is a moonscape of gas fires, open sewers, and bombed-out buildings. There is almost no legitimate economy: at least seventy-five per cent of the Chechen workforce is unemployed. Criminal gangs dominate the social order. Politicians are assassinated; journalists and aid workers are abducted, even executed. The Russian Army troops who remain are corrupt, lawless, given to raping, kidnapping, and executing civilians. Whatever funds Moscow sends for rebuilding invariably end up stolen.

In recent years, especially since September 11, 2001, Putin has tried hard to paint Basayev as the equivalent of Osama bin Laden, and his men as linked closely with Al Qaeda. This is a complicated equation. Reports of Chechen rebels training with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan remain murky. There is no doubt, however, that Basayev and his followers in Chechnya have been deeply influenced by the tactics, ideology, and language of jihadists abroad. Basayev, who has a bushy beard and a clean-shaven pate, dispatches video and audio manifestos, affecting a bin Laden-like image as a holy warrior. He has taken on field commanders and advisers from Saudi Arabia. And he has cultivated a group of so-called "black widows," women willing to sacrifice themselves as hostage-takers, assassins, and suicide bombers.

Last week, in the wake of the massacre in Beslan, Putin gathered a group of Western reporters and scholars at his house outside Moscow and repudiated the idea of a negotiated settlement with the likes of Basayev. "Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House, engage in talks, ask him what he wants, and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?" he said. "You find it possible to set some limits on your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?"

Putin is an increasingly autocratic leader. He has neutered state-controlled television, compromised the rise of an independent judiciary, and impeded independent political movements and parties. L'état, c'est Putin. And yet he has no choice but to go after Basayev. The demands of the Chechen jihadists now extend beyond Chechen independence. As Basayev made plain with his incursion into the neighboring republic of Dagestan five years ago, he is interested in pure vengeance and in extending his reach throughout the northern Caucasus.

In the longer term, finding real negotiating partners will be harder than finding Basayev. "The Russian leadership constantly reiterates that it is fighting not Chechen separatists but international terrorists, and this has finally become a self-fulfilling prophecy," Andrei Piontkovsky, one of the leading political analysts in Moscow, has written. "Thanks to the methods with which we have waged this war, we have turned practically the whole population of Chechnya into enemies."

From the briefing section of the PBS presentation on Kevin Sim's documentary film Siege of School No. 1.

PBS is to show a film about the Beslan siege. The film's director, Kevin Sim, comments:

During the filming, I asked members of the crew to find something that carried the meaning of what happened here. There were a dozen or so objects in a bag marked, "Things Found in the Beslan School". A protractor; a cardboard clock for learning how to tell the time; an alphabet book; a map of England with London and Oxford and Liverpool all clearly marked. There were postcards of Pushkin and Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy, a school register for eight-year olds with columns for performance in tests and a complete set of vinyl LPs of the story "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". There was a strong sense that it was not only people that died at Beslan that day.

In the school gymnasium -- where most of the deaths occurred -- there was a rain soaked poster expressing solidarity from the school children of Columbine in the United States: "Children of Russian School, We are with you" it said.

We have to ask ourselves what we are doing when we make films like this. Terrorists want to change the world, but their tactic is to get on the nine o'clock news. If we following the law of diminishing returns, terrorists must try harder and harder to catch the eye of the news editor and the commissioner of documentaries. At Beslan they succeeded at a cost which can be seen in the film. But the world didn't change. They have already announced that there will be more attacks. This is going to go on.

It was a shocking film to make.

This week's Carnival of the Revolutions is up at Publius Pundit, hosted by the irrepressible Rob Mayer. Go and read it!

The fateful question for the human race seems to be whether, and to what extent, the development of its civilization will manage to overcome the disturbance of communal life caused by the human drive for aggression and self-destruction. Perhaps in this context the present age is worthy of special interest. Human beings have made such strides in controlling the forces of nature that, with the help of these forces, they will have no difficulty in exterminating one another, down to the last man. They know this, and it is this knowledge that accounts for much of their present disquiet, unhappiness and anxiety. And now it is to be expected that the other of the two ‘heavenly powers’, immortal Eros, will try to assert himself in the struggle with his equally immortal adversary. But who can foresee the outcome?

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930)

Veronica Khokhlova has a link to the Tel-Aviv Diary of the Israeli poet and writer Karen Alkalay-Gut.

While reading the entry, I was reminded of the World War 2 Tube Shelter drawings of the British sculptor Henry Moore, which also express some of the "womb-like" quality Karen Alkalay-Gut invokes in her post.

In New Times, Vladimir Voronov asks: Is the Kremlin prepared to use force to retain power?

Portraying any anti-regime protest as Islamic radicalism and terrorism may seem to the Russian leadership as a smart tactic that could be used for deterring the threat of "color revolutions" even beyond Central Asia. This threat now appears particularly intense in the North Caucasus, where, during the last year, the interplay between growing public discontent, violent struggle between criminal clans, and spillover from the Chechen war-zone have acquired an uncontrollable character. Counter-terrorism was the Kremlin's strategy of choice back in autumn 1999 when the second Chechen war was launched, but now it has become the "last resort" option. Exploiting the rhetoric of solidarity in the struggle against a common "evil" enemy, Putin may deflect Western criticism of his "internal affairs" in Dagestan, or Ingushetia, or indeed Chechnya -- but that cannot hide the fact that he is fast losing his war against terrorism. The shock of the explosions in London was so heavy because it was the first attack on English soil since the heyday of the IRA, but Moscow has gone through too many shocks of this sort, so maybe it was a good idea to organize the summit in St. Petersburg, which has been spared so far. It is, however, difficult to expect tangible results from that "energy plus terrorism minus democracy" summit agenda.

Pavel K. Baev, on how Putin is already shaping the agenda for the next G8 summit, to be held in St Petersburg, Russia.

An RFE/RL report on Islamic extremists in Britain. An excerpt:

Tahramee is an activist at London's Tooting mosque. He says the extremists could not belong to any "normal" mosque, because they would be quickly excluded.

He includes among "extremists" one of Britain's most controversial militant Muslim organizations, the Al-Mahajiroun, which is tied to London-based cleric Umar Bakri Muhammad. The group advocated the creation of an Islamist state in Britain, and Bakri has asserted in a sermon on the Internet that Islamist attacks in Britain are permissible.

Tahramree calls the Al-Mahajiroun a terrorist association.

"I heard this name, but I think they are nothing but a terrorists association," Tahramree said. "They are totally uneducated people. They are totally brainwashed by the mullahs, and they are telling them to actually do this sort of stuff."

Israel says two alleged members of the Al-Mahajiroun took part in a suicide attack in Tel Aviv in 2003. The group is since said to have disbanded.

Close to the Tooting mosque, a group of teenage Muslim girls walks past slowly. They say they attend the Brentwood state college, and they are returning home from school. They condemn extremists and point out that there were Muslims among the casualties, but they say they do not know of any extremist groups in their community.

"There probably are some here in Britain, but they probably are under cover, you know," one girl said. "They won't, they won't really put, you know...Because in the mosque, you know, we, we condemn violence. We think this is wrong what they are doing."

It seems that an overwhelming majority of British Muslims have no idea where or who the extremists are.

And it seems to be impossible to contact Al-Muhajiroun leader Omar Bakri Mohammed or his deputy, Anjem Choudary, formerly a lecturer at the London School of Shari'a. Calls to their three known numbers produce messages from the telephone company saying the calls cannot be connected.

Another controversial radical cleric, Abu Hamza, is in prison awaiting trial for allegedly soliciting people at religious meetings to murder non-Muslims, including Jews. A handful of his followers have been banned from the Finsbury mosque where Abu Hamza preached.

So are there any extremist groups operating today in Britain?

Inayat Bunglawala is a spokesman of the Muslim Council of Britain -- perhaps the most prominent mainstream Muslim organization in the country. The group's leader recently was knighted by the Queen for working to promote understanding between religions and community and it has strongly condemned the bombings.

Bunglawala says extremists groups are still around but now they have gone underground.

"Al-Muhajiroun officially disbanded last year," Bunglawala said. "But they still exist as remnants. I mean some of them went to this so-called Seydi Effect group. Some of them have re-emerged under different names, go underground, but the elements of hatred are still there."

But could the extremist groups grow stronger in the future, or are they – as many mosque leaders say -- effectively isolated from mainstream British Muslim life by disgust over their tactics?

Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, the leader of the Muslim Parliament and a director of the Muslim Institute, says there is no formal "ban" in the community on the groups, but they are considered outcasts.

"There is no formal thing [as a ban], but a lot of people have told us that anybody who claims to have any association with Al-Muhajiroun are simply unwanted, undesirable people in any mosque," Siddiqui said.

It seems that the perpetrators of London's carnage cannot really hope for any support from mainstream Muslims.

As London police announced on Sunday, more than 1,700 people so far have phoned their special line with clues related to the bombing. The callers provided "much valuable information," and many of them were Muslims.

In Yezehdnevnyi Zhurnal Leonid Radzikhovsky has an article entitled "Moscow Echo", on the subject of the London bombings and Russian reaction to them:

Official propaganda (supplied by Putin himself - a fine place and time he found for it!) and the moods of [Russian] society at large are coinciding and can be reduced to two words: "double standards". These words relate to the British, and have an explicit nuance of condemnation.

"Double" in two senses. First, you went into Iraq – now you've got hit, and you’re surprised. Perhaps the blood of Iraqis is a different colour from yours? In the second place, over there in London you’ve been adopting a policy of religious tolerance to various Zakayevs – and now you’ve got your! You accuse Russia of harsh methods of combating terrorism – well, this is what happens if you go soft on it.

The poorly concealed schadenfreude (with the required official sympathy for "ordinary Londoners") of these arguments is obvious. In essence, they can be reduced to one: the blasts are a reciprocal act, an act of defence, an act of legitimate (though, of course, lamentable) self-defence. "In war as in war". Well, we - Russia – take a neutral position in this war (i.e., we actually justify the "self-defending terrorists"). Anyway, Russia is not original. Something similar was said in the West apropos of Beslan and Nord-Ost by the craziest of the human rights activists. True, not one Western government (so far as I know) ever preached at Russia over the fresh corpses.

On the whole, Russia is keeping well abreast in terms of “double standards” - not only we do not lag behind our western colleagues, but in many respects we exceed them. We act correspondingly - we supply nuclear technologies to Iran,we give what political help we can to "fighters for the liberation of Palestine" (we have "terrorists", they have "a national liberation movement"), we condemn the US-British invasion of Iraq (in Chechnya we are fighting for "constitutional order", and they are committing aggression "under a pretext of a struggle for democracy"). On the whole, we behave towards the USA and Israel approximately as France and Germany do. True, we get angry when Europe applies the same standards to Chechnya.

Politically correct Europe angrily condemns the United States for its unjust war in Iraq; Israel - for the occupation of Palestine; Russia - for the atrocities in Chechnya. Meanwhile, the U.S. upbraids Russia for Chechnya, and Russian public opinion is piously convinced that the enemy of Russia is, first of all, by no means Islamists but, as anyone can see, the U.S. and Israel, which want us to “fall out” with the Islamists. It’s all against all: continental Europe does not agree with the U.S. and Britain, Russia and Israel; the U.S. and Britain do not agree with Russia; Russian public opinion hates the U.S. and Israel, and is angered by continental Europe, and Israel - well, its opinion about Russia and Europe is generally of no interest to anyone….

Thus, neither at the level of moods and emotions nor, even more so, at the level of action, can there be any talk of "a united anti-terrorist front" (i.e., there’s quite enough talk already!), and there is no “second edition” of the anti-Hitler coalition…

But perhaps this is how it should be? Perhaps it’s not necessary, this united front? Perhaps there is no "one single enemy"? There are just isolated episodes not really connected with one another?

[passage omitted]

To me the opposite view seems more correct – the theory of "the global terrorist war", the war of civilizations, though without a visible front and without a united centre. Yes, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Indonesia and so on are weakly interconnected, as are the bombings in New York, Moscow, London, Tel Aviv, although, undoubtedly, they quite frequently involve the same people and money. The main thing, however, is that the connection is an ideological and moral one, not an organizational one.

I am convinced that although the "liberation of Palestine", "liberation of Chechnya", and the "liberation of Iraq" are serious pretexts, they are only pretexts. And it’s always possible to find a pretext - someone declares (in Russia declares!) that September 11 was merely a "legitimate response": how dare the U.S. maintain its military bases in Saudi Arabia? Now they have been attacked in response ... It’s possible to argue like that. If they were to blow up a couple of apartment blocks in Moscow, and then explain: this why we need to keep bases in Abkhazia and Transnistria, they are is our legitimate self-defence – will that argument seem convincing in Moscow to those who make such wild explanations of September 11?

Certainly, the Iraqi, Chechen, Palestinian pretexts look far more convincing, and for many Palestinians, Iraqis and Chechens they are not entirely a pretext. But to those who pay for them, they are pretexts, just the same as "American bases" were for September 11.

There’s another reason: yes, no matter how banal it may sound, this is a struggle by terrorist methods for world domination. By the way, there was a precedent: something similar occurred in Europe, in Russia to be more precise, 100 years ago, when terrorists - Social Revolutionaries, Anarchists and Bolsheviks - waged terror "on behalf of" the working class. Then as now the different gangs of revolutionary terrorists were autonomous, went to offer self-sacrifice, there was united centre or plan, they simply pursued enemy like wild beasts, following the bloody trail, by the smell of blood. In those days terror was "pin-pointed", against ministers and tsars, while now it is done more on a mass scale, against the population – that’s democracy!

There are general social reasons. In the late 19th and early 20th century there began a great mixing of classes, and the proletariat emerged and onto the greater historical scene, demanding its portion of power and property. A religion was created - Marxism, and the extreme, "shakhid" flank of that religion was composed of revolutionary terrorists. Well, on the whole, they did not attain THEIR goal, i.e., the political domination of THEIR groups (with the exception of Russia), but the position and status of workers was very greatly altered. To the point where the proletariat itself disappeared.

There is of course an obvious analogy with the late 19th and early 20th century, when the great mixing of peoples began. Millions of Moslems have gushed out into Europe and central Russia, a second "awakening of the East" has begun, and against this background terrorist organizations have arisen which want to "privatize'" this movement and, after harnessing it, to storm their way to power. What do they actually mean by "power" – the universal transition of Europe and USA into Islam,? It’s not clear, although there is no shortage of fantasies on this score. It’s as it always is: "We shall destroy the whole world of tyranny TO ITS FOUNDATIONS, and only then...". "We shall destroy" is always more comprehensible than "and then...".

At all events, the analogy is not a good omen for the present day. The present religion (Islam) is much more durable than the Marxist pseudo-religion, and cohesion based on national and confessional principles is much more reliable than "proletarians of every land, unite", but politically correct Europe and USA, and corrupted Russia rather less so – are capable of resistance.

And nevertheless, the West does not have any other way out except to overcome this “difficulty”.. And for some reason I am confident that it will be overcome! And if it’s overcome, then Russia, too...

(my quick tr.)

In MediaGuardian (free reg required), a report that Britain's home secretary Charles Clarke is pushing again for a move to compel Internet and phone companies to retain their records of traffic on millions of private emails, text messages and mobile phone calls for up to three years:

Mr Clarke stressed that the compulsory scheme would not mean spying on the content of any email or text message: "Telecommunications records ... which record what calls were made from what number to another number at what time are of very important use for intelligence. I am not talking about the content of any call but the fact that a call was made." Much of the data are kept for billing purposes, but only for a short period

Even so, this seems like a fairly major infringement of privacy and civil liberties.

The BBC has a report on the discovery of a new mass grave at Srebrenica.

The site in the town of Potocari may contain scores or hundreds of bodies.

Bosnian official Murat Hurtic said the grave is 18m (60ft) long, the Belgrade-based Radio B92 website reported.

The exhumations began on Friday, and 30 bodies have so far been recovered

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/message/45201

Janusz Bugajski, director of the East Europe Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington:

Russia's preoccupation with its own disintegration has several causes and effects. It is partly defensive, stemming from a deliberately exaggerated sense of victimhood, in which it is claimed that the West conspired to destroy the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. It is partly self-serving, as it enables Putin and his entourage to pose as the defenders of Russian national interests against external and internal enemies. And it is partly motivational, in that official warnings about cataclysms are intended to mobilize "patriotic forces," undermine the opposition, and reinforce public trust in the Kremlin.

Putin's critics also warn about Russia's fragmentation: the nationalists and communists because they favor a tighter dictatorship, and the liberals because they argue that Moscow's ultra-centralism will provoke centrifugal forces throughout the federation. Despite all these dire predictions, Russia has thus far held together, partly because Putin has proved to be more vertical than Yeltsin (pun intended), and partly because of inertia. However, Russia's potential disintegration could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although Putin has calculated that too much democracy would encourage separatism, rising political, regional, and economic aspirations may not be containable by Russia's incompetent bureaucratic and security strata.

However, we should not uncritically assume that the dissolution of the patchwork Russian Federation will be a cataclysm or that the emergence of several new countries will be inevitably destabilizing. An independent Kaliningrad can make faster progress toward Europe, an independent Siberia and Far East may attract more substantial Japanese investment and Chinese entrepreneurship, and independent Muslim republics in the North Caucasus can reduce growing Islamic militancy within Russia. As a more compact and manageable state, Russia itself could undergo more impressive development. It is high time that a sober debate on Russia's future is initiated both inside and outside the country, rather than the incessant warnings of Armageddon by Russian and Western alarmists.

"It was a frightening environment to be chased along an open road by a Russian fighter, shooting rockets when you're in a Lada," he says, frowning into the sun. "The Chechen war, that really put me off wars. I saw a place that I had visited when it was at peace destroyed by war. I saw that nobody cared either." Since the Chechen war coincided with the conflict in former Yugoslavia, Meek says, the western media's coverage was focused there.

James Meek, interviewed about his new book, in Scotland On Sunday.

Hat tip: Marius

At RFE/RL, Rob Parsons has a well-thought-out article about the current state of uncertainty in Britain in the aftermath of 7/7:

How do you defend, though, against an enemy with no formalized command structure and so well blended into local communities as to be almost invisible?

Rob Watson is a specialist on security issues for the BBC's World Service. He says one of the biggest difficulties facing the police is that the threat often comes from people with no previous criminal record.

"People are just not on the radar," Watson told RFE/RL. "What I mean by that is people who haven't followed the traditional route as Islamic extremists. They haven't trained in Afghanistan; they don't necessarily worship at a radical mosque; they don't have any criminal record and have no association with known groups that are being monitored. That is every security service's nightmare. You're looking for an extremist needle in a very, very large haystack."

And the article goes on to consider some widespread public attitudes:

For all the stoicism, attitudes among the public are confused. How should an open society fight back?

"I think the danger is people will lose their rights and that's the worst thing that can happen really," said passerby Paul Griffiths. "I think it will be a dangerous thing if they do clamp down and we start to live in a police state."

You don't want to have a backlash against the Muslim community in Britain," added another man, Chris Burgess. "You want to tighten up security but you don't want to infringe on people's rights."

Others took a less tolerant view.

"I think we should tighten up on the immigration because as you know they don't know how many people are being allowed into the country and the Muslims are actually serious," David Kay said.

But there are no ready answers. Some have suggested accelerating the introduction of identity cards, an issue that is already a political hot potato in Britain. But identity cards did nothing to prevent the bombings in Madrid last year.

Certainly, whoever did plant the bombs was obviously anxious to divide Britain's communities against one another.

As the noted revolutionary said: "Who whom?"

Writing in Kommersant, Valery Panyushkin points out the differences between Russian and British reactions to acts of terrorism:

And now, please, follow the reaction of the British authorities and British citizens.

First, will any elections be cancelled in Britain in connection with the London acts of terror with a view to increasing and improving the efficiency of government in the UK and strengthening the vertical of power?

Secondly, will the Prime Minister Tony Blair accuse any TV channel or any TV programme of describing or showing in too great detail the event for the sake of reaching a higher rating, thus preventing the special task forces to liquidate the consequences of the blasts? Will any programme accused by the head of government be closed down? And will the TV channel accused by the head of government change its owner?

Thirdly, will the editor-in-chief of any British newspaper be fired for publishing the photos from the place of the tragedy on the front page of his paper?

Fourthly, will the head of the special services or the commissioner of the London police be awarded for the successful liquidation of the consequences of the terrorist act, or, on the contrary, will any important person from these services be dismissed?

Fifthly, will the British people rally around the ruling party following the act of terror, or, on the contrary, will the opposition in the British parliament accuse the ruling party of thoughtlessly waging an oil war?

Sixthly, will the rules of the registration of newcomers to London be made more complex?

Seventhly, just find out whether people dressed in exotic costumes of all countries of the world are stopped in London streets. Are they stopped because they are not blond and not freckled and should they present their documents there and then?

Just imagine: a typical Moslem man with two wives dressed in black, their heads covered with scarves and surrounded with several children walk around Hyde Park. Suddenly, a policeman comes up to this Moslem man and demands that he produce his documents.

Such a thing cannot be imagined at all.

Hat tip: Marius

[The article can also be read in Russian here]

It's essential to honestly acknowledge that this kind of terrorism is a threat that is going to be around for a very long time. It will only be possible to manage it by "civilizing" the Greater Middle East. For this, the model of Iraq is not suitable. Humanity needs to devise methods to achieve the nonviolent education of millions of people. There is simply no other way.

Alexander Golts, writing about the London bombings in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal.

Global Voices Online has an interesting survey of blogosphere reaction to the Memín Pinguín controversy. One commenter notes:

Well, this has certainly been an issue that leaves people on both sides of it a bit perplexed. The reaction of the black community is also diversified but I think that, if there was anyone that we should get mad at, we should get mad at the American politicians. Having much other stuff to worry about, they played the ’sensitivity on pseudo-racism’ card on the issue… evidently because a few weeks before Vicente Fox had not apologized publically. He just ‘cleared things up’.

I would hope that our american neighbors remember that a sample of one man for a population of 104 million should not be taken into account as a good representation of the whole community.

That is why us mexicans won’t think that americans always choke on pretzels, or forget famous frases (fool me once, shame on… derrrrr), or can’t pronounce nuclear.

Analogically, americans won’t think that all mexicans wear sombreros and eat at taco bells…

So, what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t take one man’s words and condemn a whole country for the ideas of our president, which clearly don’t represent how the majority of Mexico thinks about the USA and black people.

A quick snapshot across Greenwich Park yesterday afternoon. The photo's a bit dark, but it was that kind of afternoon - sunshine with shadows.

Statement by A. Zakayev with regard to the terrorist acts in London

Chechenpress, Department of Official Information, 07.07.05

On behalf of the Government of the Chechen Republic I express my sincere sympathy and condolences to all Londoners who suffered from the terrorist attacks today. We believe that any form of violence against the civilian population deserves contempt and decisive condemnation.

Only infamous purposes can be pursued by terrorist acts. More than everyone else, the Chechens understand the Londoners, since they have themselves been terrorized by Russia for more than 10 years. The majority of our towns and villages have been eradicated from the face of the earth, and the number of killed citizens exceeds 200,000.

We do not have any doubts that the terrorists who attacked London and the terrorist government machinery of Russia are in connection with each other, coordinate their actions and pursue shared objectives.

As a man living in London with my family, I, too, express my sympathy and condolences to the Londoners on behalf of all Chechens who found refuge in the United Kingdom.

Ahmed Zakayev, Chechen Government Minister

Special Envoy of the President of the ChRI. London, 07.07.05.

http://www.chechenpress.org/events/2005/07/07/15.shtml

(via chechnya-sl)

As the statements from Moscow on the Estonia-Russia border treaty grow increasingly ugly and increasingly similar to those that emanated fron the Kremlin in an earlier age, before the Second World War, it may be salutory to recall what happened at Tallinn Harbour in the autumn of 1939. The report clearly shows that everything that took place was known to the U.S. and the Western democracies, and still it was allowed to happen.

Tug of Power

Monday, Oct. 23, 1939

Brawny jack-tars of the Red Navy this week entered the harbor of Tallinn, Estonia's capital, on a hulking grey-snouted cruiser and ten smaller Soviet warships. To statesmen this was grim business, the physical establishment of the Red Navy on a base dominating Estonia and commanding the Gulf of Finland in accordance with the treaty which Dictator Stalin recently forced Estonia to sign (TIME, Oct. 16), but for the sailors it was a lark, an adventure into the strange world of Capitalism.

They crowded to the rails, rubbernecking eagerly as the towers of the City Hall came into view, and then the long, squat shipbuilding yards and factories of Tallinn. Like Cook's Tour lecturers, Communist political commissars on the Soviet warships pointed out the sights, reminded Red Navy tars that in Tallinn once lived that popular Old Bolshevik gaffer Mikhail Kalinin who today is frontman for secretive Joseph Stalin in the role of Soviet President. "Look there, comrades!" cried the political commissar, "Over there you can see where Mikhail Ivanovich once worked as a mechanic."

The Red sailors grinned as Nazi steamers, busy in Tallinn harbor taking aboard Germans for evacuation to the Reich (see p. 21) , dipped their swastika flags three times in salute to the Soviet flotilla which replied with three dips of the hammer & sickle. Orders then cracked, Soviet gunners leaped to their positions, and a Red salute of 21 guns belched out over Tallinn, smartly returned by shore batteries.

As the ships dropped anchor, Estonian naval officers came aboard and Soviet captains offered them large glasses of smoking hot Russian tea. Immediate question was what to do with 300 Red Army troops who were now sailing into the harbor aboard the Soviet transport Luga. These were only the first instalment of 25,000 Soviet soldiers who are being brought to Estonia under the Treaty to garrison Stalin's bases. The Estonians agreed to billet these troops in private homes. Since most Estonians speak or understand Russian, since every Red Army soldier is well drilled in Communist propaganda, this billeting seemed clearly a Soviet opening wedge. Moreover the Red Fleet brought quantities of Moscow newspapers, immediately put on sale in Tallinn kiosks, and curious Estonians promptly bought them up. Off the Soviet cruiser stepped ace Communist Propagandist Vsevolod Vishnevski, announcing that in Tallinn he will deliver a public lecture on "The Soviet Union."

(from TIME magazine's archive)


See also: Back to the Past

Nathan at Registan has a roundup of Uzbekistan-related links. They include an Uzbek policeman's account of what happened in Andijan on May 13, and an IWPR report on the U.S.-Uzbek split.

As a result, we have a bunch of secrets and mysteries. We don‘t know who actually planned the terrorist attack and what the goal of the attack really was; nor do we know how the operation was prepared and how many terrorists there were; or whether they had a local group supporting them and if supplies were delivered ahead of time. We have no understanding of any particular demands made by the terrorists. We don‘t know, and may never know, the true reason behind the explosion in the gym.

And then there is the mystery about the other side of the barricades such as the chaos in Beslan, which also demands an explanation. And there‘s the legal proceedings, which have hardly begun yet have turned into a tragic farce. The prosecution, having exhibited the one and only defendant, has been acknowledged to be totally weak. It could neither conduct a standard investigation nor even force a minor actor to play the part according to its own rules and pre-written script

Vladimir Voronov, in a special report for Prague Watchdog.

A report I translated for the Prague Watchdog website earlier today:

Chechen activists rally in Grozny to seek retrial in Ulman case

By Ruslan Isayev

GROZNY, Chechnya - A rally took place in Grozny on Wednesday against the court decision of the jury which in May this year acquitted a group of Russian spetsnaz soldiers under the command of Eduard Ulman.

Chechen human rights activists and NGO representatives gathered on one of Grozny’s squares and demanded not only a retrial, but also the transfer of the court proceedings to Chechnya – the scene of the crime.

The protest action lasted almost all day. Anyone who wished to was able to sign on the spot the petition addressed to the Prosecutor General and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation demanding that the acquittal verdict be overturned.

The action’s organizer was the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship. The organization’s co-chairman Minkail Ezhiyev said that by their decision to acquit the killers of peaceful civilians who were not guilty of anything, the jurors had showed how remote they are from the problem of Chechnya, and that they apparently consider Chechens to be second-grade human beings.

“The purpose of our action is to draw the attention of public opinion and to bring about the overturning of this decision, a change in the composition of the jury, and the transfer of the trial to Chechnya,” Ezhiyev noted.

It will be recalled that a group of GRU spetsnaz soldiers under the command of Captain Eduard Ulman was charged with the murder of six residents of Chechnya in January 2002. At a retrial the North-Caucasus Military Court in Rostov-on-Don acquitted the accused men on the basis of a jury verdict which found that they had been following the orders of their superiors.

On June 2 2005 the relatives of the innocent civilians who died at the hands of the spetsnaz soldiers filed a writ of appeal against the acquittal.

www.watchdog.cz

Open letter to the President of the French Republic from Member of the European Parliament Alexander Stubb on statements by the President on the 4th of July 2005 concerning quality of Finnish and British food.

5 July, 2005


Monsieur le Président de la République
Palais de l'Elysée 55
Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris

France

Dear President Chirac,

There have been colourful versions of your statements on Finnish and British food culture presented in the international media lately. According to press sources, you stated on the 4th of July to President Putin and Chancellor Schroeder with regard to the Brits: "One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad. After Finland, it is the country with the worst food."

The incident has raised considerable interest in the United Kingdom and in Finland. Our Finnish-British family (my wife is British) has also paid close attention to your negative image of the cuisines of our native countries.

In order to revise your unfortunate impression of Finno-British cuisine my wife and I would like to invite you to join us for dinner at our home in Genval, Belgium at your convenience. We will endeavour to obtain authentic Finnish and British ingredients in order to avoid disappointment.

Menu planned by Finnish celebrity chef Jyrki Sukula:

* Fish and chips - Roe of vendace with Lapland potato chips
* Cep broth with turnip rye pie
* Rack of baby lamb from Åland with nettle mash
* Finnish berries marinated in Arctic brambleberry wine with beestings pudding

We hope that, as the President of an esteemed wine-producing country, you could provide the wines for the dinner.

I remain respectfully yours and await a reply at your convenience.

Sincerely,




(via Leopoldo)

Like President Putin, the British Fascists of the BNP have also not been slow to seek to make political capital out of the bombings in London today.

At Gleneagles, Russia's President Putin has spent the morning making political capital out of the London bombing tragedy, talking of "double standards" and "doing too little to unite our efforts in the most effective way in the battle against terrorism". Edward at A Fistful of Euros has some trenchant commentary:

Maybe there were questions about whether or not the US was sufficiently prepared for ’new style’ international terrorism before 09/11, certainly there are such questions about Spain and 03/11, but is anyone seriously suggesting that the UK police and security services haven’t been totally focused on trying to prevent this kind of tragedy. So, number one I resent the insinuation, and number two I resent any attempt to use this to drag the UK into the scandalous war Putin has been waging in Chechenia.

The dead are not only not yet cold, they are not even counted. Again chosing a voice I would not normally identify with, I can only re-iterate this point from Tim Worstall:

“May I just remind you of one of those little rules that we have in our civilised society? We bury the dead and console the bereaved before we start making asinine political points.”

The comments section of this post at Europhobia is the best running commentary on the bomb attacks in London today, and their aftermath, that I've found so far.

(via Instapundit)

At EDM, Oleg Varfolomeyev has a roundup of media reports and other information on the current uncertainty surrounding Ukraine's Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko:

A shadow has been cast on the integrity of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, as two "oligarchs" vie for control over a lucrative steel business. For the past several weeks the Ukrainian media has been rife with a rumor saying that the Dnipropetrovsk-based Privat group was buying Ukraine's second-most popular TV channel, 1+1, for Tymoshenko, in exchange for the government taking the Nikopol Ferroalloys Plant (NFZ) from "oligarch" Viktor Pinchuk and passing it to Privat. Tymoshenko has been too slow to deny this allegation, which may damage her reputation ahead of next year's parliamentary elections. Ukrainians do not like their oligarchs, and the allegations against Tymoshenko of conniving with one tycoon against the other are sure to damage her popularity.

In mid-June several Ukrainian and Russian websites reported that television manager Oleksandr Rodnyansky and his German partner, Boris Fuchsmann, had sold their minority stakes in 1+1, a business that they co-own with Ronald Lauder's Central European Media Enterprises (CME), to Privat. This was confirmed by Ihor Kurus, a member of the Ukrainian National Council for TV and Radio Broadcasting, which regulates the media. Ukrainian websites circulated the rumor that Tymoshenko was somehow involved in the negotiations. But on June 22 Rodnyansky, who is chair of the 1+1 board of directors, issued a statement for the media saying that nothing has changed in the structure of 1+1's ownership. Rodnyansky advised Kurus to "use competent and reliable sources of information." But on June 24 CME said that it was going to consolidate its ownership of 1+1 to 60%, thereby indirectly confirming that something was going to change at 1+1.

On June 23 an anonymous source from Yushchenko's secretariat was quoted by Telekritika as saying that Privat was finalizing the purchase of Rodnyansky's and Fuchsmann's shares in 1+1. Then, according to the source, Privat would pass the 40% stake in 1+1 bought from them to "one of the companies controlled by Tymoshenko personally" in exchange for the government passing control over NFZ to Privat. Telekritika, a news outlet for media specialists, does not target wide audiences, and the report might have passed unnoticed but for the newspaper Fakty, which quoted Telekritika as a source for its own article repeating the allegation. Fakty, which is one of Ukraine's most popular dailies, is linked to former President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, who bought NFZ from the state in 2003. Pinchuk's ownership of NFZ has been disputed in court, and Privat, which is a minority holder in Nikopol, does not conceal its intention to acquire NFZ by purchasing it from the state in a re-privatization tender if Pinchuk fails to prove that he bought NFZ honestly.

On June 28 Russia's Renova management group announced that, together with Yevrazholding, it was buying a controlling stake in NFZ. Apparently Pinchuk used a recess between court hearings in order to get rid of the political hot potato by selling it to the Russians. Privat has protested against the planned transaction, recommending that the buyers thoroughly check whether NFZ's sellers had the right to sell it in the first place. Tymoshenko also warned the Russian businesses that they might face legal problems over NFZ. Tymoshenko's interference has been a boon to her critics, who claimed her warning was proof of connivance with Privat's boss, Ihor Kolomoysky, against Pinchuk.

On July 2, asked by journalists about her relations with Privat, Tymoshenko denied having special sympathies for this oligarchic group. "My relations with all representatives of businesses are absolutely official," she said. Speaking in a televised interview on July 3, Tymoshenko vehemently denied reports saying that she planned to take control over 1+1 in exchange for helping Privat buy NFZ from the state. She noted that this allegation had been disseminated by Pinchuk-controlled media. "In order to protect his turf, he slings mud at the government," she said. Tymoshenko was probably too late with her denial, and the resulting media storm will be hard to quell.

The Ukrainian edition of the Russian magazine Ekspert wrote on June 27 that Privat was going to take control over 1+1 in order to influence next year's parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Ekspert called Privat "the Orange oligarchs," and claimed that Privat had contributed to financing the youth organization Pora, which was a key player for Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko in the Orange Revolution last December. And muckraking Obkom website wrote, "Obviously, after re-privatization Tymoshenko will ensure priority treatment for Privat in a tender for the state-owned stake in NFZ." Furthermore, "If Privat pays more than Pinchuk, everybody except the latter will be satisfied -- the budget will get funds, Tymoshenko political assets, and Kolomoysky a lucrative property," Obkom concluded.

(Ukrrudprom.com, June 16; Rupor.ru, June 21; Ukrayinska pravda, June 22, July 2; Telekritika.kiev.ua, June 23; Korrespodent.net, June 25; Expert-Ukraina, June 27; Interfax-Ukraine, June 28; Fakty, July 2; Inter TV, July 3; Delovaya stolitsa, Obkom.net.ua, July 4)

Kto kogo? (кто кого?)

V.I. Lenin


Possible translations:

Who whom?

Who is doing what to whom?

Who is getting whom?

Who is imposing his will on whom?

December 23, 1994 is the date which can be regarded as the beginning of the FSB's terrorist campaign against Russia. From then on, terrorist attacks became a commonplace occurrence.

Yuri Felshtinsky & Alexander Litvinenko: Blowing Up Russia.

Moscow's latest statement on the Russia-Estonia border agreement has a distinctly creepy tone. Now Poland is being targeted by rhetoric that's becoming almost Stalinesque in its innuendo and cynicism:

Commentary of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Russia in connection with the statements of the President of the Republic of Poland A. Kwasniewski regarding the Russian- Estonian Border Treaty

1519-06-07-2005

In Moscow the statements made on his visit to Estonia by the President of the Republic of Poland A. Kwasniewski in support of Tallinn "in all questions concerning the border", including "the dispute connected with the border treaty with Russia", and also his calls to the European Union to intervene in the negotiation process between Russia and Estonia. By doing so, the Polish leader showed solidarity with the possibility of the advancement by Tallinn of territorial claims on Russia, which, as is known, in the context of the recent resolution of the Estonian parliament became the reason for Russia’s revoking its signature to the border agreements with Estonia.

In Poland of all places it must be well known that to call into question the presently existing boundaries in Europe would open a "Pandora's box". Especially because, whether anyone in Warsaw likes it or not, it was precisely our country which ensured that Poland for the first time in recent history would obtain internationally recognized and secure borders, and would not experience territorial claims on the part of its neighbours.

In Moscow, naturally, attention is focused on Poland’s activity in the post-Soviet space. However, in its relations with its neighbours, including Estonia, Russia does not require the services of mediators, including those from Warsaw.

We would also like to note that hitherto the European Union has had no territorial problems with Russia, and we hope that these will not be artificially created.

6 July 2005

Marius Labentowicz has written in response to my post Late in the Day, about the Polish contribution to Britain's war effort during the Second World War. I'm most grateful to him for having taken the time and trouble to provide all the information in his letter.

Dear David,

I really appreciate your post "Late in the day", with that photo depicting those pilots, who are standing beside a Liberator bomber, (they might had been Poles too [yes, they were, DM]) on some British airfield. Thank you.

Let me please describe for your readers this not well known detail about the 1946 Victory Parade in London. Actually, there were some Poles who got an invitation to the Parade. The only representatives of the Polish Army invited to the London Victory Parade in 1946 were the pilots of the 303 Fighter Squadron who fought in the RAF.

The 303 Kosciuszko Fighter Squadron was the most effective Polish squadron during the Second World War, it achieved the highest number of kills from amongst 66 Allied fighter squadrons engaged in the Battle of Britain, even though it was late in joining combat 2 months after the battle had begun.

ITS PILOTS DECIDED TO REFUSE THE INVITATION SINCE NO OTHER POLISH UNITS HAD BEEN INVITED.


Below is a photo of some of the Squadron's pilots

303 squadron pilots. From the left side: Sgt. Stasik, P/O Socha, P/O Kolecki, F/O Lipiński, F/O Horbaczewski, F/O Schmidt, F/Sgt Giermar (on the wing), F/Lt Zumbach, S/Ldr Kołaczewski, F/Lt Żak, F/Sgt Popek, F/O Bieńkowski, F/O Kłosin, F/O Kolubiński, F/Sgt Karczmarz, F/Sgt Sochacki, F/Sgt Wojciechowski and on the propeller F/O Głowacki (May 1942, Northolt).

From The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum London.

******

Well, to finish this story, I have to mention about this book (there's also the Polish edition of it, with Norman Davies' introduction to it, it was published in Nov. 2004 in Poland) by American authors Lynn Olson and Stanley Cloud.

The book's title - "A Question of Honor" - tells exactly why the
Polish fighter-pilots refused to go to the Parade of 1946 in London.

P.S.

I think, anyone who is interested in the WWII history should read this well-written book, on top of that, its authours also bring to us personal stories of the five Squadron's pilots after the War. As for ex. Jan Zumbach's story - who in the '60s became a mercenary in Congo-Katanga.


Marius


A few more links below:


http://www.writtenvoices.com/books/questionofhonorcov2.jpg

A Question of Honor: The Forgotten Polish Heroes of World War II
by Lynn Olson and Stanley Cloud

Excerpted from the Publisher:

About the book:

A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known, and brilliantly told story of the scores of Polish fighter pilots who helped save England during the Battle of Britain and of their stunning betrayal by the United States and England at the end of World War II.

Centering on five pilots of the renowned Kosciuszko Squadron, the authors show how the fliers, driven by their passionate desire to liberate their homeland, came to be counted among the most heroic and successful fighter pilots of World War II. Drawing on the Kosciuszko Squadron's unofficial diary -- filled with the fliers' personal experiences in combat -- and on letters, interviews, memoirs, histories, and photographs, the authors bring the men and battles of the squadron vividly to life. We follow the principal characters from their training before the war, through their hair-raising escape from Poland to France and then, after the fall of France, to Britain. We see how, first treated with disdain by the RAF, the Polish pilots played a crucial role during the Battle of Britain, where their daredevil skill in engaging German Messerschmitts in close and deadly combat while protecting the planes in their own groups soon made them legendary. And we learn what happened to them after the war, when their country was abandoned and handed over to the Soviet Union.

A Question of Honor also gives us a revelatory history of Poland during World War II and of the many thousands in the Polish armed forces who fought with the Allies. It tells of the country's unending struggle against both Hitler and Stalin, its long battle for independence, and the tragic collapse of that dream in the "peace" that followed.

Powerful, moving, deeply involving, A Question of Honor is an important addition to the literature of World War II.

Reviews:

"A Question of Honor is exciting and compelling, a fine story too rarely told, a tribute to the Polish fighting spirit, and a well-written war history about a distant but very good neighbor."

--Alan Furst, author of Blood of Victory, Dark Star, and Night Soldiers.

"The Polish airmen who escaped their savaged country in 1939 made a major contribution to the Royal Air Force's victory in the Battle of Britain in 1940. 303 Squadron, which they formed, was the most successful of all RAF units in shooting down German aircraft attempting to bomb Britain into surrender. Their subsequent treatment by the British government, including its refusal to let the survivors march in the Victory Parade of 1946 in craven deference to Stalin, was one of the most shameful episodes of the Cold War."

--Sir John Keegan, author of The Face of Battle, A History of Warfare and The Second World War

"A gripping account of personal gallantry and of political treachery. On a par with the recent best-sellers about the fighting men of World War II."

--Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter

"This book presents us with one of the most disgraceful ethical horrors of World War II -- how, believing the need to support Stalin at all costs, we discredited, and later neglected, our oldest, bravest, and most trustworthy ally in order to conceal the truth of a revolting crime."

--Robert Conquest, author of Stalin and The Great Terror

"Following up the acclaimed The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Frontlines of Broadcast Journalism, the authors offer a solid addition to WWII aviation history . . . the political balance they bring to telling the political story is noteworthy."

--Publishers Weekly

"Olson and Cloud (coauthors, The Murrow Boys) tell the fascinating story of the Polish fighter pilots who helped defend England during World War II's Battle of Britain and the Allies' shameful ignoring of the Poles at war's end. This powerful history belongs in World War II collections . . ."

--Library Journal

A lively tale of Poland's famed WWII fighter wing . . . A fine portrait, and a well-placed condemnation of a shameful episode in history: the betrayal of Poland.

--Kirkus Reviews

About the authors:

Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud are co-authors of The Murrow Boys, a biography of the correspondents whom Edward R. Murrow hired before and during World War II to create CBS News. Olson is the author of Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970. Cloud, a former Washington bureau chief for Time, was also a national political correspondent, White House correspondent, Saigon bureau chief, and Moscow correspondent for Time.

Olson was a Moscow correspondent for the Associated Press and White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. She and Cloud are married and live in Washington, D.C.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

http://polish-jewish-heritage.org/Eng/mar_03_review.htm

REVIEW OF "A QUESTION OF HONOR" - EXCHANGE OF LETTERS BETWEEN THE AUTHORS AND THE REVIEWER

LETTER BY FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER WLADYSLAW BARTOSZEWSKI

http://www.questionofhonor.com/olson_cloud_QA.htm

Here is the last part of the article:

This would seem to be a very simple choice. A choice between the truth and the lie. From the wings, it seems trivial. On the spot it proves to be very difficult.

This choice is like a picture on TV. It’s from a distance that a cat on the screen looks like a cat. But close to it decomposes into coloured dots. Thus it is with a choice - when you are inside the situation, it always decomposes into coloured dots.

Close to, it’s very simple to convince oneself that the mother of the murdered child is asking about the weapons that were hidden in the school not because she wants to learn truth. But because she has been set to do this by your political enemy, a merchant of vodka or narcotics. Or the agents of the CIA. Or the West, which wants to ruin Russia. True, everyone is talking about the weapons under the floor of the library. But if this is admitted, then your close relatives and friends in the law enforcement agencies may suffer. Therefore it’s better to let her be an agent of the CIA. Better to smash the windows in the teachers’ committee. Better to terrorize the women in mourning from your silver Mercedes.

It is terrible to imagine what the mothers of the murdered children are being subjected to by the men who are supposed to protect them. Men whose children also perished, but who were connected through business with the cops, who let the terrorists through, and with the Kremlin, which appoints people to authority. These men justify their behaviour. They say: we will take revenge in a year’s time. Earlier is impossible. Until a year of mourning has passed, one cannot behave in a strident fashion. It’s against out customsIt’s shameful.

What year? A year later, trial of Kulayev is over, the i’s have been dotted, the situation is played out. A year later, were it not for the mothers of Beslan, there would be a terrorist act carried out by foolish terrorists who began by making no demands, and ended by blowing up their own bomb. A year later there is no one to take revenge on: the terrorists are dead, and the Kremlin has nothing to do with it.

It was the death of their children that changed the mothers of Beslan from oppressed housewives to people, who rose to the heights civic courage. Lie killed their children, and they want to know truth. Some of them are even ready to forgive Nurpashi Kulayev if he will help them to learn this truth. This is a greater act of Christian mercy than it is possible to demand of anyone, ever.

And in response to this courage the new head of the republic Taymuraz Mamsurov says in an interview that "it is simply impossible to require reasonable behaviour from them in the state they are in". When the mother of a murdered child says: "I want to know who gave the order to the sniper", I don’t have a sense that this is unreasonable behaviour. I have a sense that only her courage is making it possible for the head of the republic to repeat after the women: "I still have questions, the answers to which I shall seek for myself.”

Why intimidate the women? If you’re a man – come and talk to them. Say: "I also want to take revenge on those who murdered our children. I also want to know the truth ". Say that you were forced to dissemble before the Kremlin, but that you also want to take revenge. If it comes to that – go down to the FSB and report that you just went down to the mothers of Beslan committee to reassure them.

Why intimidate women who want to know the truth?

Here is a quick translation of the next section of Yulia Latynina's text:

Without having been there, on the spot, it is difficult to visualize the situation in the republic. And the point is not that that the new head of Ossetia Mamsurov and his entourage are bad people, on whom Moscow has placed a gambling bet. The point is that the republic is ruled by criminal money. There is other kind. It is possible to choose a policy that deals in vodka. It is possible to choose one that trades in narcotics. And it is possible to choose one that trades in people. A very wide political spectrum, is it not? Choose, citizens. Place your bets.

Of course, there are decent people, too. But if you appoint a decent person to lead a republic in which the entire elite is a criminal one, it’s much the same as appointing a sheep to lead wolves. A guarantee that the wolves will not obey.

It was in this nest of serpents that Beslan happened. And the mothers of Beslan proved to be the only force that lay outside the system and was not connected with the universal club.

From the wings, it all seems simple: there is the truth about the act of terror, which must be explained. And there are the mothers of Beslan, who are ascertaining this truth. They get up and testify in court: "A tank fired on the school". And the prosecutor rises and shouts: "Why are you lying?"

But since the mothers have nothing to lose, they continue to speak and to ask questions. And as a result of their questions many things that the authorities did not want to say have come to light. By now everyone knows that tanks fired on the school. By now it is too late to assert that “Shmel” flamethrowers were fired at the school after the hostages had run out of it.. It is not only the hostages testify to this - the people, who ran into the hall tell about this. They ran and saw the children, who stood like living torches, writhing and stretching out their hands. They shouted "run" to them, but they were already burning and falling. They burned as if their bodies were made from gasoline. Bodies do not burn like that from the burst of explosives. They burn like that after a volumetric explosion.

It has already become a public fact: the explosion was not caused not by chance, and not by carelessness. A sniper took out the terrorist who was standing on the “button”. Do you remember that video cassette, on which the demands of terrorists were presented, and which they threw from the window? On TV it was said afterwards that the cassette proved to be empty. The demands were conveyed to President Putin, and after that it was announced that the terrorists were making no demands. But on the video cassette there were filmed sequences. From them it was easy to work out where the bomber was standing and how to take him out. It may be assumed that preparations for an operation were made based on that same cassette on which “there were no demands".

There is the lying, which killed the children, and the truth, which their mothers want to ascertain. And only thanks to their conduct at the trial is this truth emerging to the light. Both Stanislav Kesayev (head of the Ossetian Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist act) and Taymuraz Mamsurov are saying: many things are not clear to us, we don’t agree with the official version.

But, unfortunately, this difference between the truth and the lie is distinctly visible only from outside. From inside, in Ossetia, everything is much more complex. Indeed it is not only the federals who are to blame for the act of terror. Not only the Kremlin, which said that the terrorists were making no demands. There is, let us assume, the brigade of Ingush who were carrying out repairs in the schooll. And the weapons, which were almost certainly under the floor of the library. But the men who got those weapons were shot on the first day. The only one, the quietest one, whom they did not shoot, jumped out as the corpses were being thrown outside, and is now constantly confused in his statements to the court.

It was the local law enforcement agencies that let those weapons through. And the local law enforcement agencies are connected with the bandits. And the bandits are the political elite. How are the bandits going to go on dealing in vodka and gasoline, if their partners are kicked out of the law enforcement agencies for having let the weapons into the school? And this elite is still getting phone calls from the Kremlin, saying “take the women away.”

This, too, is a most terrible thing. The same Taymuraz Mamsurov, Ossetia’s new head, is unquestionably a brave and strong man. Otherwise he would not have become the richest man in a republic, where the main business is vodka and oil. Mamsurov also had children in the school. His daughter is still receiving medical treatment in Moscow. And a choice stands before him, whose side to take - his own children or his own cops.

In Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal there's a new and quite long article by Yulia Latynina on the subject of Beslan. It's entitled The Fathers of Beslan and the Silver Mercedes Jeep ("Gelaendewagen"). Here is a very quick translation of the first page. If I can get time, I'll translate some more of this important text:

The Fathers of Beslan and the Silver Merecedes

Garry Kasparov's trip to the south of Russia was crowned with success. In Daghestan they promised to kill him (knowing Daghestan, I can testify: they meant it), in Beslan they threw eggs at him, in Stavropol' they turned off the lights in the building where he was going to speak, and they forbade him to stay at the hotel, while in Rostov and completely they had no scruples at all about flooding the building, where he was supposed to appear, with water.

Any fool can come and gather a couple of hundred people around him. But to cause a gigantic coordinated campaign of this kind! (And it’s also being said that the vertical of power in our country has come unstuck.) They obviously gave away something to Kasparov in advance. He is not yet not a serious rival of the authorities. On the other hand, one must assume that it’s more pleasant to fight Kasparov than to fight the terrorists.

But I don’t want to talk about Kasparov. I want to talk about Beslan, where the angry fathers of the murdered children threw eggs at the visitors, as the state TV channels reported.

I can testify: there was at least one father. His name is Igor Kozyrev, his child perished in School No 1.

This injured father first shouted to Kasparov that he did not want to listen to him, and then, when the infuriated Ossetian women told him to leave, ran off to a silver Merecedes jeep from which some more men with brick-red faces jumped out, and began to throw eggs. The mothers of Beslan rushed towards him - Kozyrev ran away. After this, the mothers of the murdered children began to wail and apologize to the visitor, and one of them – this was later –had a heart attack. This was a most terrible thing: she just sat down right there on the asphalt and lost consciousness. But the injured father was observing us from the silver Merecedes jeep.

Afterwards it was explained to me why this shaven-headed brickred faced Igor did not beat the women up in front of everyone. Since the events at Beslan he had been given a conditional sentence,and so he couldn’t do any killing in public. According to all the rules, he should have been in jail, but he had been let off. He was a very necessary person in the team: they have plenty of brick-red faces, but injured fathers are hard to come by.

For his freedom, like his Mercedes jeep, Igor Kozyrev is most likely obliged to Tamerlan Dzabiyev (he is known as “Tamik”) - the right-hand man of Taymuraz Mamsurov and the probable future mayor of Beslan. Dzabiyev is a man of authority in the republic. His friends say that when in the early 1990s fortunes were made out of kidnapping people (the buyers were mainly Chechens and ingush), Dzabiyev mediated in the ransoms. His enemies say that he was actually a seller.

When Dzasokhov took power in the republic, where were the only fortunes made were criminal ones - in the trade of vodka, narcotics or human beings, he cleared the place with Mamsurov’s help, and Mamsurov relied on the support of men like Dzabiyev.

This is what is most terrible. What did Kasparov lose? He got some officially sanctioned eggs thrown at him and left. But the mothers of Beslan remained.

Poland's sizeable contribution to the British war effort in World War II has never been adequately recognized by Britain. Polish aid to Britain included the first breaking of the German "Enigma" code in 1932-33 by three Polish mathematicians (Marjan Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki) which laid the basis for British intelligence efforts at Bletchley Park during the actual war, and the information supplied by Polish spies on several vital areas: Hitler's invasion of Russia, the VI and V2 rockets and other secret weapons, and the Nazi defences in France in advance of the D-Day landings. The thousands of Polish troops stationed in Britain during the war also contributed greatly to the British and Allied war effort.

In 1946 a Victory Parade was held in London, without Polish participation. Stalin had objected to a Polish presence at the ceremonies, and his wishes were obeyed by the British government, which was afraid of offending him.

This Sunday another parade will take place on the Mall, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, and a contingent of Polish war veterans will head it. In a report on the preparations for the parade, the Financial Times throws some light on interesting aspects of the new British attitude:

It's very good that it's happening. But it's a bit late in the day," says 95-year-old Witold Leitgeber, a former Polish army captain who, like many others, settled in Britain after the war.

Jan Zielonka, lecturer in European politics at Oxford University, says: "Historically, Polish contribution to the war has never been sufficiently acknowledged. Poland provided the fourth largest Allied army in the war yet they were excluded from marching in the celebration because Stalin wanted it so."

The invitation to the Polish veterans is the latest in a series of British gestures to respond to historical Polish grievances.

Tony Blair, the prime minister, has addressed these complaints as part of efforts to build relations with the European Union's new members, especially Poland.

The parade coincides with the start of the UK's presidency of the EU, but British and Polish officials insist that the invitation has nothing to do with the UK's current political challenges in Europe. "It's not about politics. It's about acknowledging the Poles' valuable contributions to the Allies' victory," said the Foreign Office.

Officials said the invitation was issued in April, after months of planning. The ground was laid two years ago when Mr Blair formally expressed regret to Poland for the 1946 parade snub.

However, putting right the historical record has improved bilateral ties in a broader sense.

Adam Rotfeld, Poland's foreign minister, told the Financial Times yesterday: "These issues are important in Poland because Poles have been deceived so often about their history (notably, under communism). This matters to our national identity."

(Hat tip: Marius)

A new website - pravdaBeslana.ru - has been created in order to gather together all the factual material connected with the tragedy in the North Ossetian town of Beslan on 1-3 September 2004. By reading the site it's possible, for example, to follow the the complete shorthand records of the trial of Nurpashi Kulayev, the only terrorist captured alive. The trial is still continuing at the Supreme Court of North Ossetia, located in Vladikavkaz.

(via chechnya-sl)

On June 29 the IHT had an article by Elaine Sciolino about a French official's learning curve. The official is France's new foreign minister, and by all accounts the learning curve is quite a steep one:

How does a cardiologist and former health minister with no foreign policy experience suddenly transform himself into the foreign minister of France? With lots of enthusiasm and a request for forgiveness.

Philippe Douste-Blazy welcomed the Anglo-American press to the Quai d'Orsay on Tuesday and revealed what he knows and does not know about the world.

"I have a very interesting, very passionate profession, where I probably could have made, I believe, two, three times more money a month than being a deputy or a minister," he said of his decision to give up medicine. "But I chose politics, because I like politics."

Ignoring the negative connotation politics has in diplomacy, Douste-Blazy made clear Tuesday that he intends to be a very political foreign minister.

"I am a political man," he said. "For me, that's not pejorative. On the contrary, it is one of the most beautiful missions that can exist for a person."

He added that his country's Foreign Ministry "needs a politician more than ever."

Clearly, Douste-Blazy, 52, who entered political life when he was elected mayor of Lourdes 16 years ago, is learning the new job along the way. He asked journalists for "a bit of charity" if his answers were "not yet precise," and told them they had "many things to teach him."

Asked about the scandal in Italy where 13 CIA-led agents have been indicted for their abduction of a radical Muslim cleric, Douste-Blazy replied, "I'm not up on that. I'm not up on that."

Turning to a line of aides sitting behind him, he assured his audience, "I am going to immediately look into that with my staff."

There is a lot more of this, and I would suggest that it makes disquieting reading.

(Hat tip: MAK)

Lenta.ru claims that Pukach's trail has been lost in Israel.

(Hat tip: Marius)

Writing in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, Yulia Latynina has some commentary on the "lesser evil"-"greater evil" argument currently being utilised by the Putin regime to influence Russian - and foreign - public opinion in the long run-up to the 2008 presidential elections [my tr.]:

Lubyanka-Grozny-Moscow

"I can say very confidently that the terrorists who derailed the "Grozny- Moscow" train will be caught", I wrote immediately after the terrorist act that was committed on the 152nd kilometer of the Moscow-Paveletsk railroad. And lo and behold: two suspects have already been arrested. They are Russian National Unity party members Vladimir Vlasov and Mikhail Klevachev.

In declaring that the terrorists would be caught, I based my prediction on the strange aspects of this act of terror. It was immediately registered as a terrorist act (though usually the police show extreme reluctance to do this, not even the explosion of two aircraft is recognized as an act of terror for long), it did not involve any deaths (as all the other easily-solved terrorist acts have done), and there weren’t any loose ends. So that I half guessed: they had solved the terrorist act. But I can honestly acknowledge that I did not understand the entire depth of the solvers’ intention.

For the terrorist act was committed not by some Chechens, butt by members of RNE (Russian National Unity) party.

It must be said that in the decades of its existence RNE has not been particularly noted for terrorist activity. The most terrible crime committed by members of RNE was the murder in Voronezh of a dark-skinned student, one against three. It’s interesting that in the early 90s RNE, which revered force, was unable to put up any competition with criminal groups. Going to “show-downs” is not the same as beating up an African three against one.

And suddenly – an industrial electric detonator, melted TNT. And the main thing – the ages of the terrorists. 47 and 49. I will willingly believe that in spite of their venerable age, these independent fighters were so inexperienced that the investigators quickly found them without needing to be prompted. But a question lurks behind the scenes – what (or who?) motivated two elderly urban loonies to do battle with the Chechens?

The sudden epidemic of fury which struck Russian nationalists – their letter against the Jews, their attempt to assassinate Chubais, then Chechens, compels one to suppose that some coordinated and very large-scale special operation is underway.

The purpose of the operation is simple: to solve the problem of President Putin’s third term. I.e., to solve it technically is simple. If you want, you can change the consititution, if you want, you can unite with Belorussia. But, in addition to the technical solution, an ideological foundation is necessary. It is necessary that the West and the intellectuals will agree: if Russia is a country of antisemites, nationalists and Black Hundreds, then Putin is better than the nationalists.

The ideology of the choice of the "lesser evil" was already applied during the elections of 1996, when everyone voted for Yeltsin (in order not to let Zyuganov win), and before the Putin elections, when Putin proved to be a lesser evil than Primakov, who actually spoke out against the market. It’s described somewhat phantasmagorically in Yuli Dubov’s book with an analogous title (“The Big Slice”).

The scarecrow of communism will no longer respond to resuscitation; therefore the nationalists are being prepared for the role of "greater evil". Look, it’s said, what a terrible country Russia is. In it they attempt to assassinate Chubais, derail a train full of Chechen men and women, sign antisemitic letters - and these people will get to power if President Putin doesn’t stop them. You must keep Putin, or else you’ll get Rogozin or that Makashov fellow.

It’s easy to understand why Chubais is necessary to this construction. He is quite indispensable. Chubais is the living example who will explain to the West that Putin is better than Rogozin. Chubais is the person who will tell this to the right-wing electorate. And Ustinov is also necessary for this construction in order to serve as a reminder to Chubais.

------------

Within the framework of this construction it is completely understandable why Russian antisemites wrote their letter precisely on the eve of Putin’s visit to Auschwitz. Giving the President precisely the occasion he needed to show himself as only defender of Jews in Russia.

There is, by the way, one curious detail in this trip. The day before it took place, Russian news agencies announced that in Auschwitz President Putin would be given a medal founded by the Israeli government – as a sign of respect for the role played by Russian troops in the liberation of Auschwitz. And that the medal would be presented by Israel’s President, Moshe Katsav. The medal is called "Rescue", and it is the first such medal. I.e., all the remaining rescuers of Jews can claim medals number two, three and four. If Jews, for example, decide to posthumously award Moses, who led them out Egypt, then Moses will be the second. But the first will be - President Putin.

Unfortunately, the Israeli media learned of this news. And they were greatly astonished. Because, in the first place, in Israel there are no medals. But in the second place, the contribution of President Putin to the victory over fascism seemed by them not so significant. And they telephoned President Moshe Katsav, asking him to explain why he was going to award Putin with a medal?

After this, it became clear that the Israeli government knew nothing about the medal. But Avi Granot, Moshe Katsav’s political adviser, explained that actually the President of Israel had indeed been asked to present this medal to Putin, but that the request had come from Russian Rabbi Berl Lazar. And that the medal had been founded by some structures under his management.

After which, at Auschwitz Katsav declined to meet with Putin, so did not receive the medal. And if it had not been for the aggressive Israeli journalists (eternally these Jews befoul everything), all would have been well! Now the antisemites write a letter against the Jews – and then a week later, President Putin speaks out against this letter and receives the number one “Rescue” Medal one from the President of Israel.

As I have already written, the current residents of the Kremlin, because of the specific character of their past profession, have not been taught to govern business or state. But they do have a professional knowledge of how to conduct special operations and manipulations of public opinion.

The special operation involving the creation of the "greater evil" in the person of nationalists who blow up Chechen trains, Jewish synagogues and Chubais, is the very thing that they do know how to accomplish. Whether it will be any use, it’s hard to say.

Footnote: It may be worth noting that today Kommersant newspaper has a story claiming that Vlasov and Klevachev (the two nationalists at the centre of the row) have been expelled from the Russian National Unity party (RNE). However this may be, it only adds to the sense of a stage-managed manipulation, rather than providing reassurance. DM

The Washington Post reports that

Russians who appeal to the European Court of Human Rights after their relatives disappear or are killed in Chechnya or neighboring Ingushetia face constant threats to force them to drop the cases. In at least five instances, applicants to the court were themselves killed or had disappeared, according to lawyers, human rights groups, court records and relatives.

In April, two men were taken from their homes by armed men after filing a case about the abduction of eight people in a Chechen village in 2004, according to Memorial, a Russian human rights group. The body of one of the petitioners was found in May. Members of his family are now living in fear and considering withdrawing the case, according to Memorial.

The whole article makes disturbing reading. There are detailed case notes and accounts of threats and persecution. The article also documents the problems caused by the sheer volume of work involved.

The court is facing a huge backlog of cases. Last August, it formally gave priority to all cases related to the conflict in Chechnya, a decision that appeared to have been motivated, in part, by reports of pressure on applicants, according to the Justice Initiative.

In addition, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, whose member states set up the court in 1959, passed a resolution last year expressing "outrage" about a number of cases in which applicants had been killed or had disappeared.

In a FAZ op-ed headed Baltische Gärung ("Baltic Ferment", July 3), Robert von Lucius commented on the new democratic "axis" which appears to be forming from Tallinn, Riga und Vilnius, through Ukraine and Poland, to Georgia and Armenia:

For the Kremlin, which first lost from its sphere of influence Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states, then the Black Sea neighbors and finally Ukraine and parts of Central Asia, that is certainly a disturbing development. Putin knows that the Baltic states were the yeast in the fermentation process not only in the break-up and fall of the Soviet Union. That is precisely the reason for his anger, his - in spite of brief moments of hesitation and conflict - irreconcilable behaviour and his quarrelsome disposition. And this explains also, why he invited to Koenigsberg his "friends" from Berlin and Paris, but not his immediate neighbours, Poland and Lithuania. From this point of view, the presidents of Poland and Lithuania could interpret their not being invited on Sunday as an unintended compliment: They were not invited because Putin takes them seriously - perhaps more seriously than many a foreign policy advisor in Berlin.

Für den Kreml, der erst Ungarn, Polen, die Tschechoslowakei und die baltischen Staaten, dann Schwarzmeeranrainer und schließlich die Ukraine und Teile Zentralasiens aus seinem Einflußbereich entschwinden sah, ist das gewiß eine beunruhigende Entwicklung. Putin weiß, daß die baltischen Staaten nicht nur bei der Auflösung und dem Fall der Sowjetunion die Hefe im Gärprozeß waren. Gerade das ist der Grund seines Zorns, seines - trotz kurzer Momente des Schwankens und Aufeinanderzugehens - unversöhnlichen Auftretens und seiner Streitlust. Und es erklärt auch, warum er zwar seine "Freunde" in Berlin und Paris nach Königsberg einlud, nicht aber die unmittelbaren Nachbarn Polen und Litauen. So gesehen, könnten die Präsidenten Polens und Litauens ihre Nichteinladung an diesem Sonntag als ungewolltes Kompliment auffassen: Sie wurden gerade deshalb nicht geladen, weil Putin sie ernst nimmt - vielleicht ernster als manchen Außenpolitiker in Berlin.

(Hat tip: Marius, global-geopolitics)

I haven't seen much commentary in the blogosphere on the interesting remarks of President Chirac to his colleagues Schroeder and Putin at their recent meeting in Kaliningrad.

"The only thing they [the English] have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow," Chirac quipped, according to the paper, prompting laughter from Putin and Schroeder.

When asked about Chirac's reported comments on Monday, French government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told reporters: "I have nothing particular to say."

Relations between France and Britain were already at a low point, with Blair and Chirac blaming each other for the failure of June talks on the EU's long-term budget talks.

Blair, of course, was absent - and so when the talk turned to such subjects as EU farm subsidies and Britain's role in resisting them, M. Chirac evidently felt it safe to be rather more frank than usual. The Reuters report noted:

Blair, who took over the EU presidency last week, has irked Paris with his drive to cut EU farm subsidies.

Chirac took the opportunity to snipe at British food. "You can't trust people who cook as badly as that," he joked, the paper said. "After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."

The race between Paris and London to host the 2012 Olympics is further testing relations. Blair wrote in the Paris-based International Herald Tribune on Monday that London was the "perfect venue" for the games.

The French newspaper Libération went further in its report:

"What about hamburgers?", asked Putin, who still cultivates a vestige of rivalry with the United States. "No, no, hamburgers, that's nothing", answered Chirac. And the French president recalled how the Scotsman, Lord Robertson, the former secretary-general of NATO, had made him taste a special ragoût (haggis) of his country: "From there, our difficulties with NATO..."

…virtually no one had access to the sort of literature that the censors could read. Take For Whom the Bell Tolls and tally up the reasons it could not have been allowed: the author was ideologically unreliable – neither a Soviet sympathizer nor safely dead, which meant he could make a comment about the Soviet Union at any moment; the book showed the Spanish communists as terrorists; the book included questioning of acceptable violence against the class enemy; the book contained sex scenes. Any one of these factors was sufficient to put the book on the banned list.

The books available to the general Soviet public were a literature of elisions, and in a sense this was as it should be: literature reflected life. The central feature of Soviet life was unspoken. This feature was fear. For Ruzya’s generation fear turned into a habit. Before they finished high school, Ruzya’s gang had learned to shout praise for the Soviet Union into the ceiling vent – a gesture that was probably of little practical use but helped stave off the fear. As soon as telephones were installed in their apartments, they developed the habit of placing pillows over them to disable them as bugging devices…

Masha Gessen: Ester and Ruzya (2004)

The number of prisoners who have maimed themselves in protest at conditions in the Lgov prison in southwestern Russia has now reached 800, RFE/RL reports.

See also: Maiming Protest

"Here's something you probably didn't know," Thomas L. Friedman wrote in the International Herald Tribune on June 30. "Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg":

Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita gross domestic product higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went from the sick man of Europe to the rich man in less than a generation is an amazing story. It tells you a lot about Europe today: All the innovation is happening on the periphery by those countries embracing globalization in their own ways - Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe - while those following the French-German social model are suffering high unemployment and low growth.

The whole of Friedman's analysis of how Ireland "made it" is worth reading, as is his conclusion, which gives the recipe for success:

Make high school and college education free; make your corporate taxes low, simple and transparent; actively seek out global companies; open your economy to competition; speak English; keep your fiscal house in order; and build a consensus around the whole package with labor and management - then hang in there, because there will be bumps in the road - and you, too, can become one of the richest countries in Europe.

"It wasn't a miracle, we didn't find gold," said Mary Harney. "It was the right domestic policies and embracing globalization."

This week's Carnival of Revolutions is up at Registan. There are lots of interesting posts on a wide range of pro-democracy topics.

(Hat tip: Siberian Light)

Kommersant, July 04, 2005

Uzbek Bloodshed Shows Weakness

// The Price of the Question//

After Uzbekistani authorities suppressed the uprising in Andijan in May, at the cost of hundreds of dead and wounded, many, including many in Russia, took Islam Karimov's cruelty as a sign of the strength of his regime. The line of thought was that he, unlike Eduard Shevardnadze, Leonid Kuchma or Askar Akayev, was able to resist unrest on the streets and showed the decisiveness to prevent a velvet revolution and strangle it in its very infancy.

But now it can be seen that the events in Andijan were evidence of the weakness of the Karimov regime. The strength of any ruler is his ability to control the situation without the use of military force against his own people. By giving the order to shoot into the unarmed crowd, he showed his weakness and that he is no longer fit to rule the country. And that diagnosis will be acted upon without doubt. It is just a matter of time.

The unavoidability of that outcome is understood by both those close to the Uzbek president and his opponents. This is clear from the battle beginning in the Uzbekistani elite, especially law-enforcement heads, to be his successor. In his presence, the battle is exclusively to draw closer to the president, who has no intentions of going anywhere, and not to succeed him.

Another sign of Karimov's impending departure is the burst of energy from the democratic opposition, such as the visit by leader of the Erk Party Mohammed Salih to the United States. Washington had condemned the use of force in Andijan before the visit. Now, organizational steps may be taken, such as the international isolation of the Karimov regime. That will be a serious lesson for other authoritarian rulers in the CIS and more confirmation that the wave of velvet revolutions is not over there.

Russia still has time to correct its position relative to the Uzbekistani leader. And not only the Uzbekistani.

After the events in Andijan, Moscow decided to take on the thankless role of practically the only international advocate of Karimov. His likely exit could cause Russia considerable unpleasantness. There is only one direction for Moscow to move in, and that is toward those who will replace the authoritarian Uzbek leader soon enough.

by Gennady Sysoev

Russian Article as of July 04, 2005

(via global-geopolitics)

In an article for Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, correspondent Alexander Ryklin describes his experiences while covering the visit of Garry Kasparov to the south of Russia last week. The FSB and "special forces" did everything in their power to obstruct Kasparov's visit – the chess-player turned politician was pelted with eggs, abused, and denied access to hotels and restaurants. As Ryklin points out, one of the most disturbing features of the organized hostility was that children as young as 10 or 11 were used for the purposes of obstruction [my tr.]:

At the moment of our arrival three dozen children were covering the area in front of the entrance to the Palace of Culture with chalk drawings. They were guarded by about a hundred policemen (most of whom were actually captains and majors) and also by some men in plain clothes. They may have been FSB officials, or they may just have been thugs. Songs in bravura style came from powerful loudspeakers. The people who had come to listen to Kasparov crowded on the edges of the cordon. At one moment one of the moms of the young artists, having apparently taken me for a "man in plain clothes", timidly asked if the children would have to stay out in the heat for much longer. "I mean, they’ve been drawing all morning, the poor things.” It need hardly be said how emotionally the situation was viewed by the members of the “Mothers of Beslan” Committee, who had come to Vladikavkaz to meet Kasparov. “They’ve used our children for cover again,” the women were saying. One of them was taken ill, and an ambulance had to be called. It was then that the incident with the eggs took place. And again children were used. They were brought in on a minibus…

How does one begin to understand why something is banned – or, as Ruzya had to do, when something ought to be banned? As a novice censor at Glavlit, Ruzya studied memos like this one explaining why a U.S.-published biography of Albert Einstein could not be allowed:

1)The author of the introduction recommends studying the works of contemporary reactionary philosophers John Dewey, G. Santayana, G. Mupa, Betrand Russell and others. In several places in the introduction the author calls such backwards personalities as Betrand Russell, J. Dewey and others “great thinkers”.

2) In the chapter called “Einstein’s Social Philosophy”, the author relays Einstein’s thinking: Einstein believes that the world is facing a crisis and that humanity is in danger of a catastrophe. The only salvation lies in organizing the intellectual and spiritual forces of the world into one moral force, something like the “conscience of the world.” Morality is the highest value of all, such is Einstein’s credo. Never do anything that contradicts your conscience, even if the state demands it…

So morality fell outside the law because it might contradict state policy. And memory fell outside the law, too, because it could contradict the official version of history.

Masha Gessen, in Ester and Ruzya

Chechen Society Newspaper has published the first part of an interview with the French philosopher and publicist André Glucksmann, who throughout the Cold War worked and wrote in support of Soviet dissidents like Solzhenitsyn, Sinyavsky and Sakharov. Glucksmann's opposition to the post-Soviet Kremlin's Chechnya policy has led to him being declared persona non grata in the Russian Federation. His visit to Chechnya in 2000 was made illegally, yet he was able to witness the brutality and its consequences at first hand. For reasons that he makes clear in the interview, Glucksmann believes that Putin and Basayev are working hand in hand.



Andre Glucksmann:

«If Putin has an ally, it is Basaev”

Part I



Interviewed by Alan TSKHURBAEV

- You are probably the most ardent defender of Chechnya and Chechens in Europe, why is this?

- I have been writing books and speaking in defense of dissidents from the Soviet empire since the beginning of the 1970s from what is now the last century, so that means I have been doing this for 35 years. First of all I wrote a book in defense of Solzhenitsyn and his “Gulag Archipelago”, criticizing the fact that Europeans, in particular those from the left-wing parties of Europe and France, did not protest against the “Gulag”, even though they considered it to be a terrible camp similar to those of the Nazis.

I said that for the imprisoned and exiled it makes no difference if the flag is red or black. Your feelings are the same, whether you are suffering at the hands of communists or fascists. I said that you have to put yourself in the place of the political prisoners. At the beginning of the 1990s straight after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russian dissidents told me that this wasn’t the end. They explained that there was a danger of what they termed then a “red-black” danger, a danger of a dictatorship that wouldn’t be communist, but which could return again to the practice of repression using the communist apparatus but without the communist ideology. They were speaking about the police, army and the nomenclature.

Later on I quickly became convinced they were right when in the Former Yugoslavia the Communist leader Milosevic held on to power and organized ethnic cleansing during the war, which took the lives of a minimum of 200,000 people. He tortured, tormented and created a dictatorship, establishing a union between the right-wing radical nationalists, the fascist racists and the far left. It was not ideology that was at the center of this but a way of doing things, a practice, which was in essence Stalinist.

Then when I saw how the war in Chechnya was being unleashed I told myself that Milosovic had given birth to a creature similar to himself and that the example from Milosovic in Belgrade was continuing in Moscow. Naturally I took up a position against this at once.

- What is Chechnya for you?

- Today for me Chechnya is a people who have gone through the worst of the worst, the most bloody and sickening war, which is devastating the planet. This is not the only war in the world but it is the most bloody in the sense that there is no other people in the world who over the last ten years have lost between a quarter and a fifth of their population. I know that the Chechens as a nation are not so numerous, but if we compare the overall number of Chechens with the number of those killed and wounded and the number of children who have been killed, then it has to be the worst thing that is happening on our planet today. And it is horrendous that this is happening with the silent agreement of the whole world.

- What is your opinion of the Chechen people?

- I think that this is a people with extreme valour who are standing up to their worst times. On one hand this is because they are opposing this using all possible means, and they are not always military.

Each person is opposing this as much as he or she can. The Chechen people are not just opposing this by taking hostages, but risking going mad from the pain. If you compare the situation of the Palestinians and the Chechens, then the fate of the former is not as terrible, although it is agonizing, but [in Chechnya] there is a thousand times more terrorism against the civilian population.

I am against the taking of hostages as at the Dubrovka theatre or in Beslan. I consider this to be a crime against humanity, as they were making an attempt on the lives of innocent citizens, but I do think it is positive that there are so few events like this at present.

All the Chechens I know, with whom I have contact, as despite it all we do have the possibility to have contact (through the internet or direct contact I know almost everything that is going on in Grozny), they are all against things like this.

What I find amazing about the Chechens is that not only are they opposing aggression and the worst that is taking place in the world at the moment, but that they are resisting the temptation to go mad from pain and kill just anyone.

- What did the death of Maskhadov mean for you? What will it mean for the future political landscape in Chechnya?

- The consequences depend on the Chechens themselves and on Western countries. Its meaning lies in the desire of those who killed him to carry on this war to the end, destroying any possibility for peace and negotiation. He was killed precisely at the moment when he was preparing to show that he was able to give the order for a peace fire. It was a savage, destructive wish on Putin’s part.

Two factors confirm this. First of all, the fact that Putin did not apologize at all for the death of Maskhadov, by that I mean that he never said that he would have preferred to take Maskhadov prisoner, this idea never occurred to him. It was definitely an order to kill that was circulated because there was a price on his head.

If this had been an accident in conditions of war he could have said this during his conversation with the head of the FSB.

The second factor is the absolutely vile way they flaunted the photographs of his corpse and then refused to give [his body] to his relatives. These are two pieces of evidence proving that it wasn’t an accident but an intentional desire to kill the man who could start peace negotiations. I know Maskhadov’s plan for Chechnya, for negotiations, it had existed for 3 years and I believe that it was absolutely correct, exemplary. It was a real anti-terrorist conciliation and I find it catastrophic that Putin wished to demonstrate with his murder that he was not prepared to negotiate peace with those with whom he was at war.

- What do you think about the other plans like Maskhadov’s to end the Chechen conflict?

- I think the plan suggested by Maskhadov and published by Il’yas Akhmadov was completely reasonable. It consisted of the disarmament of both camps: through the withdrawal of the Russian army and the disarmament of all Chechens under international supervision. I think this is a very fitting way of establishing the peace in this war, which has had a serious development in the form of terrorism. It worked out in Kosovo, which means there has been a precedent. It is a very refined idea and I think that it is this kind of peace that we should be searching for throughout the twenty first century at this time of international terrorism. And I find the fact that Western diplomacy does not support this plan to be utterly criminal.

- Do you consider Shamil’ Basaev to be a terrorist or a victim of Russian politics?

- I have no sympathy for Basaev. I do not consider him to be a victim. He is more like a puppet of Russian politics. He served with the FSB in Georgia, got money from the Executive Committee in his time from Yeltsin, then from Putin, and particularly from Berezovsky. He served as the spark that enabled Putin to unleash the second Chechen war and today he is helping him in the most monstrous way to turn the face of Chechnya in the world into the face of a blood-thirsty monster.

I think that he is working for Putin (whether this is voluntary or not, I don’t know). If he isn’t working of his own volition, which is quite possible, then it shows how incompetent he is. If he is working of his own volition then this has to be the limit. The Beslan terrorist act served Putin as an excuse to silence all his critics in the democratic west as far as his policy in Chechnya is concerned. This is the best thing that he could have done for Putin through the inhuman taking of hostages. I think that if Putin has an ally, it is Basaev.

Translated by Claire C.RIMMER.

"Chechen Society" newspaper, #13, 04 July 2005
http://www.chechensociety.net/





«Si Poutine a un allié actuellement, c’est Bassaev»

Première partie

Interview par Alan TSKHURRBAEV


- André Glucksmann, vous êtes probablement le plus grand défenseur de la cause tchétchène en Europe. Pourquoi ?

- J’écris des livres et j’agis pour les dissidents de l’empire soviétique depuis les années 70, c’est-à-dire depuis 35 ans. J’ai écrit un livre au début, défendant Soljenitsyne et l’Archipel du Goulag, et attaquant le fait que des Européens et en particulier la gauche européenne et française ne protestait pas contre le Goulag, alors qu’ils considéraient comme épouvantables, à juste titre, les camps nazis. Je disais que pour un détenu ou un déporté, la différence ne tient pas au drapeau, qu’il soit rouge ou noir. Le déporté a le même sentiment quand il est frappé au nom du communisme et au nom du fascisme. Je disais qu’il fallait se placer du point de vue du déporté. Ce sont les dissidents russes en 90, juste après la chute du Mur qui m’ont expliqué que ce n’était pas fini. Ils ont expliqué qu’il y avait un danger, qu’à l’époque ils appelaient « rouge noir », de dictature, non communiste, mais qui pouvait reprendre, sans l’idéologie communiste souvent, tous les mauvais traitements, la pratique des l’appareils communistes, qu’il s’agisse de la police, de l’armée ou de la nomenklatura. Et j’ai vérifié cela très vite par la suite, parce qu’en Yougoslavie, l’ancien chef communiste, Milosevic, a gardé le pouvoir, et a organisé des épurations ethniques, c’est-à-dire qu’il a fait des guerres qui ont fait 200 000 morts au moins. Il a martyrisé, torturé, exercé une dictature en faisant une union sacrée entre l’extrême-droite nationaliste et raciste, fascisante, et l’extrême-gauche. L’important ce n’était pas l’idéologie, mais la pratique, qui était en fait d’origine stalinienne. Et quand j’ai vu démarrer la guerre en Tchétchénie, je me suis dit : Milosevic fait des petits, la leçon de Milosevic passe de Belgrade à Moscou. Et donc, j’ai pris position contre tout de suite. Voilà pour la réponse à votre première question.

- Que représente la Tchétchénie pour vous ?

- Elle représente un peuple soumis aujourd’hui au pire du pire, à la plus grave, à la plus sanglante et à la plus abominable guerre qui dévaste la planète. Ce n’est pas la seule, mais c’est la plus sanglante, en ce sens qu’il n’y a pas un autre peuple qui dans ces 10 dernières années ait perdu entre un cinquième et un quart (1/5e et ¼ ) de sa population. Donc c’est ce qu’il y de plus grave sur notre planète. Je sais que les Tchétchènes ne sont pas immensément nombreux mais si on met en proportion le nombre des Tchétchènes et le nombre des morts, des blessés et des enfants tués, c’est la plus épouvantable chose qui se passe aujourd’hui sur notre planète. Et c’est très épouvantable aussi que ça se passe dans le silence mondial le plus total.

- Quelle est votre opinion du peuple tchétchène?

- Je pense que c’est un peuple qui subit actuellement le pire avec un courage fou. D’une part parce qu’il résiste avec toute les possibilités de résistance, qui ne sont pas nécessairement militaires. Chacun résiste autant qu’il le peut, comme il le peut. Mais il ne résiste pas seulement à l’envahisseur, il résiste aussi à la tentation de devenir fou de douleur. Si vous comparez les Palestiniens et les Tchétchènes : pour un sort qui est mille fois moins terrible, celui des Palestiniens, quoique douloureux, il y a mille fois plus de terrorisme, d’agression contre des civils (en Palestine). Je suis contre les prises d’otages comme celle du théâtre de la Doubrovka, ou de Beslan. Je trouve que ce sont des crimes contre l’humanité, puisqu’ils s’attaquent à des civils, mais j’apprécie le fait qu’il y ait très peu pour l’instant, d’événements de ce genre (en Tchétchénie). Tous les Tchétchènes que je connais, avec qui je communique, puisque malgré tout on peut communiquer, il y a le Net, il y a les gens qu’on rencontre, et je sais à peu près ce qui se passe à Groznyï, sont contre. Ce que je trouve admirable chez les Tchétchènes c’est 1) qu’ils résistent à une agression, la pire qui soit aujourd’hui dans le monde, et 2) qu’ils résistent à la tentation de devenir fous de douleur de tuer n’importe qui.

- Quelle est pour vous la signification de la mort de Maskhadov et quelles en seront selon vous les conséquences ?

- Les conséquences dépendront des Tchétchènes et des occidentaux. La signification, c’est une volonté, de la part de ceux qui l’ont tué, de faire la guerre jusqu’au bout, de tuer toutes les chances de paix et de négociation. Il a été tué précisément au moment où il venait de montrer qu’il était capable de commander un cessez-le-feu. C’est une volonté sauvage d’extermination de la part de Poutine. Deux choses vérifient cela : la première, c’est que Poutine ne s’est absolument pas excusé de la mort de Maskhadov, il n’a jamais dit qu’il aurait préféré qu’on le fasse prisonnier, ça ne lui est pas venu à l’idée. C’est vraiment un ordre de tuer qui a été diffusé, c’est pour ça qu’on a mis sa tête à prix. Si cela avait été un malheur de la guerre, il aurait très bien pu le dire, quand il a discuté avec le chef du FSB. Le second point, c’est cette façon absolument ignoble d’exposer les photos de son cadavre et de refuser qu’il soit rendu à sa famille. Ce sont deux façons de montrer que ce n’est pas du tout un hasard, mais une volonté de tuer, d’assassiner celui qui était le plus capable de négocier la paix. Je connais le plan de Maskhadov pour la Tchétchénie, pour la négociation, il existe depuis 3 ans, je le trouve tout à fait correct, exemplaire, c’est une vrai paix anti-terrorisme et je trouve absolument catastrophique la volonté, manifestée par le meurtre, qu’a Poutine de ne pas faire la paix avec ceux contre qui il se bat.

- Alors vous pensez la que la mort de Maskhadov va aggraver la situation?

- Bien sûr ça aggrave la situation et c’est pour cela que tous les Tchétchènes, mais aussi tous ceux qui sont pour la liberté et pour la paix ont pleuré à la mort de Maskhadov.

- Concernant les plans alternatifs à celui de Maskhadov?

- Je trouve que le plan proposé par Maskhadov et publié par Ilias Akhmadov est tout à fait judicieux qui consiste à désarmer les deux camps : par le retrait de l’armée russe et par le désarment de tous les Tchétchènes, sous contrôle international. Je crois que c’est exactement le type de paix possible dans un combat où il y a un très grave exercice du terrorisme. Au Kosovo c’est ce qui a marché. Il y a donc un exemple. C’est très finement pensé et je pense que c’est ce genre de paix qu’il faudra chercher pendant tout le XXIe siècle, à l’heure du terrorisme international. Je trouve que les diplomaties occidentales sont parfaitement criminelles de ne pas soutenir ce plan.

- Concernant Chamil Bassaev, vous le voyez plutôt comme un terroriste ou une victime de la politique russe?

- Je n’ai aucune sympathie pour Bassaev. Je ne pense pas qu’il soit une victime de la politique russe parce qu’il a été un employé politique russe. Il a servi le FSB en Géorgie, il a reçu de l’argent du comité électoral, à la fois de Eltsine et de Poutine, en particulier de Bérezovski, il a été l’étincelle qui a permis à Poutine de déclencher la deuxième guerre de Tchétchénie et aujourd’hui il aide épouvantablement Poutine à transformer l’image du Tchétchène dans le monde en image de monstre brutal. Je pense qu’il travaille, volontairement ou pas, ça je l’ignore, pour Poutine. Alors si ce n’est pas volontaire, et c’est possible, ça prouve qu’il est complètement incompétent. Si c’est volontaire, c’est le comble. L’épisode de Beslan sert absolument à Poutine à faire taire toutes les critiques qui peuvent exister en occident dans les démocraties quant à sa politique en Tchétchénie. C’est le meilleur service qu’on puisse rendre à Poutine que de faire des prises d’otages inhumaines comme Beslan. Je pense que si Poutine a un allié actuellement, c’est Bassaev.

In early 1994 I moved back to Moscow. My grandmothers argued about my move, told me that it was a terrible idea but welcomed me and proceeded to worry that I would change my mind and leave again. Once, I almost did. When I moved, I set a limit for my stay in Russia, one that aimed to calm my own fears, as well as my father’s and my friends’. I said I would stay as long as the country did not go back to what it had been. It was an unintentionally vague standard: certainly the process of breaking away from the Soviet past would sooner or later be reversed, and just as certainly, the Soviet regime as we had known it would never be restored. I would have to decide for myself whether the reversal went so far that I had to become an exile again. In January 1995, standing in the shower in my grandmother Ruzya’s Moscow apartment, where I was living the first year back in Russia, I considered whether in the week-old war in Chechnya meant I should end my love affair with the country and go back to the United States. Was there a way to remain in Russia without entering into a compromise with the state, which was killing people? This was how I became a war reporter.

I did not tell my grandmothers I was going to Chechnya that time – or any of the dozen or so times thereafter. They would have worried too much. Whenever I was in Moscow, they called me at least once a day to check on my whereabouts. They worried about my safety and sanity and otherwise tried to take up grandmothering where they had left off. I pushed back gently, securing my independence. And I went over for tea and asked endless questions. In return, they told me their lives – and the confusing story I am trying to write. The story of a country that does not know when to forget and when not to forgive became the story of two women. There is also the story of Jakub, Ester’s father, who made his own choices and his own compromises, living in a ghetto in Nazi-occupied Bialystok. And there is my own story. It is all of a piece.

Masha Gessen, in the introduction to her book Ester and Ruzya – How My Grandmother Survived Hitler’s War and Stalin’s Peace (2004)

The Eurasia Research Center's Global Geopolitics forum now has a Wordpress news site.

Britain's Telegraph newspaper has two stories on Ukraine:

A report by Rober Gedye in Kyiv discusses the threats and intimidation directed from Moscow against Ukraine's Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko - the icon of the Orange Revolution - who is being made the subject of a "fraud investigation" in Russia:

Betraying contempt for Russia's political establishment, she described the refusal of its prosecutor-general to drop fraud charges against her as an "ineffective attempt to break unwanted politicians".

Mrs Timoshenko, 44, whose reformist zeal and distinctive braids won her heroine status alongside the presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko when they swept away the old order late last year, cancelled an official visit to Russia two months ago. She had been told that a warrant against her on fraud charges remained in force, and said yesterday that Russia was living in the past if it thought such methods would achieve results.

"Some Russian politicians still pursue out-dated Stalinist methods. But they do not understand that times have changed," she said.

"This is no longer an effective way to break people. Russia has to come to terms with the fact that Ukraine is a strong and independent country with strong, independent politicians."

Another report by Gedye focuses on the search for those responsible for the poisoning of Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko:

Ukraine's authorities know who was behind the attempt to poison President Viktor Yushchenko and have traced the substance used in the plot to a laboratory for banned chemical weapons, it emerged yesterday.

The former Soviet state's security services had also deployed the same poison to kill others, Mr Yushchenko said in an interview.

A number of people suspected of involvement in the assassination attempt last September are on the run, he went on, adding that he was "certain that everybody will be caught" eventually.

The disclosure that the poison was made in Ukraine went some way to dispel suspicions that Russia was involved in the plot to get rid of Mr Yushchenko when he was leader of the country's opposition last autumn.

However, Petro Poroshenko, the head of Ukraine's security services, refused to rule out the possibility. He said the attempt to kill the president, who fell ill after a dinner with Ukrainian security chiefs, involved "specialists belonging to an existing or former secret service".

(via Marius)

A reader in Iran asked me to post a picture of the Soviet dissident Yuli Daniel. Here is one: it forms part of a collage also showing Sinyavsky and Solzhenitsyn, and a page from one of Solzhenitsyn's letters. Daniel is on the top left.

Rice Urges Parliamentarians To Think Boldly, Globally
Secretary addresses OSCE Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Washington


Following is the State Department transcript:


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
July 1, 2005

REMARKS

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Opening Remarks at OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's
14th Annual Session

July 1, 2005

JW Marriott Hotel
Washington, D.C.

(2:55 p.m. EDT)

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Congressman Hastings, for that really warm welcome and your leadership of this great organization. I appreciate the kind invitation to address the distinguished members here of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. I appreciate this opportunity to reaffirm President Bush's deep commitment to the OSCE and to its important work in advancing freedom.

Strong parliaments, representative of and answerable to the people, are essential to the defense of human liberty and the growth of vibrant democracies. I thank the legislators who are here today who have labored so tirelessly for human rights, the rule of law, free and fair elections, and the development of transparent, accountable institutions of government across the OSCE community and around the globe. And I applaud the Parliamentary Assembly for helping to build vital support in national parliaments for OSCE's efforts.

I am deeply honored to share the platform today with Speaker Hastert. Your presence here today, Mr. Speaker, testifies to the steadfast support of the United States Congress and the American people for the OSCE and the democratic principles it enshrines.

I want thank all of the officials of the OSCE who are here, especially my friend, Foreign Minister Rupel of Slovenia, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, for his wise leadership. And I can assure you, we've spent a lot of time on the telephone together in recent months as we have worked our way through multiple challenges.

My appreciation to Senator Voinovich for leading the U.S. Delegation, Senator Brownback, Congressman Smith - the Co-Chairs of our own Helsinki Commission here in the audience -- for their expert counsel.

And I would just like to draw attention to the fact that I want to thank our outgoing Ambassador to the OSCE, Ambassador Stephan Minikes, who has really distinguished himself in bringing the OSCE agenda into the center of American foreign policy, and to welcome Julie Finley, who was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as our new Ambassador to the OSCE.

On August 1, we will mark the 30th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. The Final Act's principles linking security among states to respect for human rights within states form the core of the OSCE to this day. Thirty years ago, the Helsinki accords stirred great controversy here in the United States, as well as in Canada and in Western Europe. Many feared that the West was legitimizing Soviet domination of Eastern Europe in exchange for paper promises on security and human rights. And so, when President Gerald Ford signed the accords, he spoke these prophetic words to the leaders who had gathered from East and West: "History will judge this Conference," he said, "not by what we say here today but by what we do tomorrow, not by the promises we make, but by the promises we keep."

The following May, physicist and human rights activist Yuri Orlov held a press conference in Moscow to announce the formation of a citizens' group to promote compliance with the Helsinki agreement. With a smile, Orlov asked the members of the group to join him in the traditional toast of Soviet dissidents: "To the success of our hopeless cause!"

Later, other citizens' groups were established in Ukraine, Lithuania, Armenia and Georgia, and similar efforts were undertaken in Czechoslovakia, Poland and elsewhere. These brave men and women did not accept the Final Act as a legitimation of the unacceptable status quo. Instead, they seized on the Helsinki agreement as an instrument with which to press for human rights and peaceful change. One by one, they were to feel the heavy hand of oppression. But they never stopped believing in the power of the Helsinki principles to advance the cause of freedom and they challenged the signatory states to transform the paper promises into determined acts of political will.

Because these courageous men and women did not give up -- and because the free nations of the West kept faith with them and with our own democratic principles -- what seemed a hopeless cause three decades ago has been transformed into a hopeful future for tens of millions of people.

In the three decades since the signing of the Helsinki accords, we have seen a Europe divided by force united in peace. We have seen captive nations free themselves from communist tyranny and closed societies open to a world of ideas and information. We have seen courageous men and women of conscience emerge from long years of persecution to lead their countries onto the path of democracy. For the past thirty years, the Helsinki process has not just borne witness to historic transformations, the Helsinki process has helped to bring those transformations about.

And today, all around the globe, men and women are embracing the same universal values that are enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act. Impatient patriots are calling upon their governments to meet the non-negotiable demands of human dignity, and by doing so, they are helping to establish the foundations for lasting security. Who could have imagined that the men and women of Afghanistan would line up along long, dusty roads to cast their ballots or that OSCE monitors would be there observing those unprecedented elections? Who would have imagined that millions of Iraqis would defy death threats to vote? Or that free and fair elections would be held in the Palestinian territories? And who in their wildest dreams could have imagined the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon?

In the last year alone within our own OSCE community, we saw citizens rise in the multitudes of rose and orange and tulip to secure a democratic future for their countries. As we meet, the OSCE is helping Kyrgyzstan to prepare for its presidential elections only ten days away - elections that hold so much hope for Kyrgyzstan's democratic future.

The gains for freedom have been dramatic, but much remains to be done if Helsinki's great promise is to be fully realized in all 55 signatory states.

Regrettably, the governments of some OSCE states, most notably Belarus and Uzbekistan, are failing to live up to their commitments on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. They reject OSCE's offers of assistance, charging interference in their internal affairs. That was a false charge when the Soviets made it and it is a false charge now.

Elsewhere in our OSCE community, frozen conflicts in the Caucasus and Moldova have yet to be resolved through peaceful settlements. And tensions in these regions also must be reduced through Russia's fulfillment of its Istanbul Commitments. The recent agreement between Russia and Georgia is a positive step toward fulfilling those commitments.

And even as we work to resolve old conflicts, we must work together to address the new transnational security threat from terrorism.

There is much that we still must do within our OSCE community to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination, including discrimination against Muslims, and to put an end to trafficking in persons. There is work to be done on behalf of women's rights and the education of girls.

As the Chairman-in-Office and the Parliamentary Assembly take a fresh look at the OSCE agenda and consider these and other items, preserving the integrity of Helsinki principles and ensuring that the OSCE continues to be an agent of peaceful, democratic transformation should be paramount objectives. Any new procedures must not come at the expense of principle, and any institutional reforms should be geared to strengthening OSCE's ability to produce results on the ground, particularly through its field missions.

And, as you consider how OSCE fits into Europe's evolving architecture, I would urge you to think boldly about how OSCE's pioneering example help governments and citizens working for democracy, prosperity and peace in other parts of the world where freedom is still denied.

As it was 30 years ago, so it is today: We, the member-states of the OSCE, will be judged not by the promises we make, but by the promises we keep.

I was fortunate in 1989 to be the White House specialist on the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. And what I remember most about those turbulent, yet hopeful, days, of the rise of solidarity and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the revolution in Romania and ultimately the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, what I remember most is that on any given day that which had seemed impossible one day seemed inevitable the next. That is the nature of great historic change and we are in a time of great historic change.

We all know, however, that what seems inevitable is, of course, not inevitable. It takes the hard work, the dedication and the commitment of the men and women who seek their freedom. It takes the hard work and the dedicated commitment of those who would support them in organizations like this. But it also takes faith in the universal principles of freedom, liberty and human rights.

Thank you very much for all that you do every day.

(Applause.)

Created: 01 Jul 2005 Updated: 01 Jul 2005

http://usinfo.state.gov/utils/printpage.html

After yesterday's bomb blast in the outskirts of Daghestan's capital, Makhachkala, which is reported to have killed at least 10 Russian soldiers, Caucasian Knot has a report on a new statement by Daghestani guerrillas [my tr.]:

Guerrillas of Daghestan are threatening Moscow with acts of terror and sabotage

As the Kavkaz-Center Chechen separatist website reports, at a session of the “Shariat” Shura of the Islamic Dzhamaat of Daghestan a resolution was taken concerning the widening of the zone of military operations. In addition to Daghestan, the guerrillas intend to carry out sabotage more actively in the rest of Russia, and also directly in Moscow. “At the session of the “Shariat” Shura of the Islamic Dzhamaat of Daghestan, in accordance with the decree of Amir Abdul-Khalim concerning the transfer of military operations to the territory of Russia, a resolution was taken concerning the dispatch of Daghestani mujahadeen to the territory of Moscow, in order to carry out a series of sabotage operations in the capital city of Russia,” the statement says.

Moreover, the guerrillas do not endorse the promise made by Basayev to avoid carrying out terrorist acts on civilian objectives. “We are coming to Russia for you, and we will get you in your own homes! If necessary, we will attack you and kill you together with your wives and children,” the statement goes on.

The Russian law enforcement agencies have so far made no reaction to the threats of the guerrillas of Daghestan, Gazeta.ru reports.

The recent controversy over the remarks made by Vicente Fox to George Bush on the subject of Mexican migrants to the United States and their position in U.S. society caused some friction in U.S.-Mexico relations. Now the Mexican post office has released a series of commemorative postage stamps which have aroused a storm of protest north of the border. The stamps feature a black Mexican cartoon character called Memín Pinguín. The BBC reports on the story and comments:

Anti-racism campaigners and White House officials had condemned the stamps, based on the Memin Pinguin cartoon, as the character has large eyes and lips.

Mr Fox said he did not understand the hostile reaction in the US, and urged Americans to read the original comics.

Many Mexicans appeared to back Mr Fox, queuing for hours to buy the stamps.

In an interview with the Associated Press news agency, Mr Fox said the Memin Pinguin character is "an image in a comic I have known since infancy".

"It is cherished here in Mexico," the president added.

The BBC also notes that

In Mexico City, hundreds flocked to post offices to try and get their own copies of the stamps.

Mr Fox urged Americans to read the Memin Pinguin comics.

Many took exception to comments by White House spokesman Scott McClellan that the stamps "have no place in today's world".

"We are not racists. We are not offending anyone. He is a very sweet character," shopper Teresa Montalvo said.

"People's colour is all the same to us, we are all brothers."

Businessman Cesar Alonso Alvarado accused the US of discriminating against Mexico, a country without a significant black community and little understanding of political correctness.

"They're the racists. They're worse than we are, but they just want to belittle us, like always," he said.

But there was criticism of the Mr Fox in Mexico's newspapers

"The capacity of Fox's government for provoking international scandals through predictable or avoidable details is incredible," La Jornada wrote.

At México desde fuera, Rodolfo has written a fascinating study of Memin Pinguin, accompanied by illustrations from the cartoon series. Among other things, he says:

I grew up with him and he was great. Memín (something like Little Bill) is by all means a caricature, so its physical traits are exaggerated, but here is the catch: he was extremely smart, he always was the hero, although her mother will punish him when he misbehaved, or when he missed classes. He was a sort of leader of a group like the Little Rascals. Moreover, he had a deep sense of justice and respect. For sure, he had a strong accent in his Spanish. He was not a bright student, otherwise he would be an angel, so he was frequently grounded by his mother and the professors at his school. He was very poor, so he worked selling newspapers in the streets. As far as I remember he had no dad, or at least I do not remember him, that was sad.

The character has its roots or popular Mexican plays in which an "outsider" (either an Indian, a Black, or a female) will beat the crap out of an old greedy male or an abusive white, rich , obnoxious female abusing her mother who -of course- was forced to work in low pay informal jobs. He was a true popular hero.

Moreover, you gotta realize that the "category" race is not universal, so even if Memín will be unacceptable here in the post- 1960s U.S. in Mexico, back in the 1950s and 1960s things were very different. Memín belongs to a generation of cartoons that are very specific to that old Mexico. There was one called Hermelinda Linda who, despite the name (Beautiful Hermelinda) was an ugly witch. Very fat, with pimples in the nose, living is a house full of cats and all sorts of crap. There was other called La Familia Burrón (the last name is kind of close to Donkey, so it is kind of funny). The family, however, was very nice; the dad was a hardworking man, and the mother a housemaker, but the characters are ugly as hell. Long, long legs, small torsos, and very long arms.

I can understand why here the character looks awful, but in Mexico, 30 or 40 years ago, the perception of race was quite different. Finally, I think that the Mexican government, hardly my favorite, is following the same trend that put Mickey Mouse on the US Postal Service stamps long ago.

Read it all. Though you need some Spanish, as only part of Rodolfo's post is in English.

At With A Grain Of Salt!, BeadY has a meditation on dogs:

The first time I heard about the strange juxtaposition of Americans and dogs was when I read about the running dogs of US imperialism in various Marxist publications. Since then and looking around now, we have Pakistan being described as America’s hunting dog, Blair being described as US President George Bush’s poodle and so on and so forth. I know USA is the hyper-power today and allies/sympathisers of hyper-powers do get more than their fair share of stick. Still, can we call these client states and people as dogs? Surely, that is not so bad, is it? I am a dog lover and as everybody knows, dogs are kind, gentle, loveable, adorable, faithful, beautiful, and intelligent and so on and so forth. Just what is the problem with these people, eh?

First, one thing should be clear. It is human nature to denigrate other people. Swearing seems to be a rather common human trait. However, what I found interesting was this propensity to call people as dogs. As a self-confessed dog lover, I do not understand why people think of dogs as bad. I have had years of dog companionship, they are loveable and adorable. They protect your homes, herd your sheep, listen adoringly to your drivel, hump your legs in sheer joy and widdle all over your nice new carpet, chew on your furniture and lick your ears, leave hair all over your bedspread and your kids cry when they die. I used my little doggie, Koko, as my audience when I used to prepare for my lectures. If he would not sigh, fall asleep, yawn, whine, yowl, or snore, then there was a good chance that the lecture would be good.

“Dogs are good guys”, Morley said, “No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does” and Aldous Huxley corroborated, "To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.” Then again, Edward Abbey took a contrarian view saying: "When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.” Dog is man’s best friend, so to say, although a Karel Capek quote goes: "If dogs could talk, perhaps we'd find it just as hard to get along with them as we do with people." It is a strange thing. People, who are homeless, at least on the streets of London and NY, frequently