Finland threatens elderly dissident with deportation

The Finnish government is threatening to deport Maria Kirbasova, a semi-paralysed 67-year-old Russian woman who led an organisation of mothers of Russian conscripts, and also a protest against the war in Chechnya. From YLE (Finnish State Radio and TV):

Kirbasova's daughter, Kermen Soitu, told YLE Sunday that she and her mother have been contacted by many Finns offering their encouragement. In addition several church parishes have offered support, but none had extended sanctuary to Kirbasova. Soitu did not say if sanctuary would be sought from the church if no other means is found to keep her mother in the country.

Soitu did say that her mother will not return voluntarily to Russia.

"If the police come to the door with guns and forcibly take her away, then she will have to go. This is a familiar situation for my mother. During the Second World War she was exiled to Siberia. History repeats itself." said Kermin Soitu.

The Finnish Immigration Service rejected a residence permit application by Kirbasova because a mother-daughter relationship is not considered sufficient grounds for residence.
On Friday, the Helsinki Administrative Court rejected an appeal and upheld the order for her deportation.

Kirbasova arrived in Finland to stay with her daughter last October following her husband's funeral. The elderly and ailing Kirbasova wants to stay in Finland because of the quality of health care and rehabilitation services. She has no relatives in Russia to provide her with care. Her daughter has been supporting her and paying her medical bills in Finland.

One difficulty connected to Kirbasova returning to reside in Russia is her involvement in founding an organization opposed to the conflict in Chechnya.

"She has not been popular with the establishment in Russia for a long time. And, as a dissident, she will not get even the least amount of help," her daughter says.

Vera has more on the Kirbasova case here.

Update (June 10): Maria Kirbasova has been granted a one-week period of grace.

Obama's Schumer Problem

The New York Sun has taken Democratic senator Charles Schumer to task for suggesting in the WSJ that the U.S. could obtain more leverage on Iran by adopting a more concilatory approach to Russia in matters of foreign policy, and especially in the matter of the missile defence shield:

First, we must treat Russia as an equal partner when it comes to policy in the Caspian Sea region, recognizing Russia's traditional role in the region. Second, we must offer to make Russia whole if it joins in our Iranian boycott and forgoes trade revenues with Iran. That will cost the U.S. roughly $2 billion to $3 billion a year, about what we spend in Iraq each week. Third, we should tell Mr. Putin we will cease building the ineffective antinuclear missile defense sites in Eastern Europe in return for him joining the boycott.

The Sun responds:

Mr. Schumer claims that the missile defense sites are "to thwart the threat of a nuclear missile attack by Iran," a threat that Mr. Schumer describes as "hypothetical and remote." Well, if the governments in Poland, and Czech Republic, and Romania thought the threat was so remote, they would not have invited the missile defense sites to be there.

Our enemies have already launched large-scale attacks against European targets — 191 killed in the Madrid train bombing of 2004, 52 dead in the London bus and subway bombing of 2005, eight killed on Monday at the bombing of the Danish embassy at Islamabad. To the relatives and friends of those victims the threat seems neither hypothetical nor remote. Nor to the Israelis who were attacked by Iraqi scud missiles in the Gulf War or by Hezbollah terrorists with Zelzal and Fajr missiles during the 2006 Lebanon War.

Memories Denied

While in Russia itself the process of de-sovietization (the public discussion of what happened during the Soviet era) has never really begun, and probably never will, in the Union's neighbouring former republics the process is already advanced. One of the most striking recent manifestations of this was the publication in 2006 of a full-length book by the Estonian film maker and journalist Imbi Paju, entitled Memories Denied (Finnish translation (2006) - Torjutut muistot, Swedish translation (2007) - Förträngda minnen). The book examines in minute detail the stages of the cultural genocide that was waged by Moscow against the small independent West European Estonian state. Yet the description is not that of an anonymous history text - as in Paju's documentary film of the same title, it is transmitted through the mouths of living survivors, who include Imbi Paju's mother and aunt. While the narrative is extremely moving on a personal level, it also throws unique light on aspects of 20th century European political reality, especially the close relation between the ideologies of Nazism and Soviet Communism, which throughout the 1930s worked in a collaborative symbiosis, the results of which only became truly perceptible towards the end of the decade. A short extract from the chapter on the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939 gives some idea of the period's terrible surrealism, which had consequences that were all too real and apparent:

While compiling the documentary Memories Denied, I viewed some film clips of the pact signing ceremony. As the Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany, Ribbentrop, emerged from his airplane in Moscow, swastika flags were flying in the capital of the Soviet Union. My mother and her twin sister were then 9 years old. I found myself thinking – in a mere moment, it was a single gesture of one statesman’s hand, his signature, that determined the fate of a small person, a child.

On September 27, 1939, Ribbentrop returned to Moscow to discuss the infamous additional protocols, which were secret. Even thirty years later, Molotov would deny their existence. British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, in his work Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar has vividly described how Ribbentrop held his talks with Molotov at the green baize table in the Kremlin.

It was evening. Stalin wanted not only Estonia and Latvia, but Lithuania as well. Ribbentrop telegraphed Hitler asking his approval for the transfer of Lithuania. Since Hitler’s reply did not come right away, the talks were postponed until the next day. But no reply came on that day either. Still, Ribbentrop wanted to negotiate some cartographic details with Stalin. That night, while Stalin held a gala dinner for the Germans, the Russians met with Karl Selter, the unhappy Estonian Foreign Minister, to force him to agree to Russian military bases on Estonian soil, the first step toward occupation. While this was going on, the German guests were being welcomed at the door of the Great Kremlin Palace through the dull Congress Hall into the brightly lit scarlet and gold reception room. Stalin’s manner was simple and unpretentious, beaming with paternal benevolence that turned into icy coldness as he rapped out orders. The behavior of the Russians was so vulgar that Ribbentrop said he felt as at ease as he did among old Nazi comrades. As dinner ended, Stalin and Molotov excused themselves to attend to business. The Germans were sent off to the Bolshoi to watch Swan Lake. As he left, Stalin whispered to Kaganovich, “We must win time.” Then they walked upstairs where the Estonian Foreign Minister Karl Selter waited fearfully to find out what Stalin was planning to do with his tiny country. Molotov demanded the deployment of a Soviet garrison of 35,000 troops in Estonia – more than the entire Estonian army. “Come on, Molotov, you’re too harsh on our friends,” said Stalin, suggesting instead that 25,000 Russian soldiers be deployed to Estonia. Having swallowed the small country of Estonia during the first act of Swan Lake, Stalin returned to the Germans at midnight for a final session during which Hitler telephoned his agreement to the Lithuanian concession.

No sooner was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed than Russia began devouring Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Kremlin had little sympathy for those who had shattered the 200-year continuity of the tsarist empire. The prime ministers of the three Baltic states were summoned to sign a “defense and mutual assistance pact” that would let the Soviet Union establish military bases on their territory, which would of course ensure the continued independence of these three countries. Since the only other alternative was war, all three Baltic States reluctantly agreed, hoping to find some escape from the situation at a later time.

(Torjutut muistot / Tõrjutud mälestused) Like Publishing Ltd., 2006
English translation from the Estonian original by Tiina Ets

The publishing rights of Memories Denied are with
OTAVA GROUP AGENCY
Hanna Kjellberg
Foreign Rights Manager
hanna.kjellberg@otava.fi

http://www.otava.fi/oga

Meanwhile, RFE/RL reports that a group of deputies at the European Parliament have launched a drive to have the EU declare August 23 a European Day of Commemoration of the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

A Permanent Irritant

At Prague Watchdog, Sergei Gligvashvili speculates that Chechnya's increasingly independent President Ramzan Kadyrov may break with tradition and fail to disappear, as Chechen presidents usually do, at the behest of Moscow.

Russia planning invasion of Georgia - 2

Vladimir Socor, in EDM:

Russia’s deployment of armor and artillery in recent weeks to Abkhazia compounds its violations of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE). The Russian military had all along stockpiled such “unaccounted-for treaty-limited equipment” in Abkhazia and is now adding to it. A rebuilt rail line can also help reactivate the Gudauta base with its large storage capacity, where Russia retains a garrison in further breach of the CFE Treaty package.

According to interviews with the de facto Abkhaz leaders in the Russian and Western media (Interfax, AP, May 31), the railroad will be used in part for carrying building materials from Abkhazia to nearby Sochi in Russia, the 2014 Winter Olympics site. In March Russia’s Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak announced that Russia would use construction materials and manpower from Abkhazia for the Sochi Olympics projects. In May Russia’s Krasnodar Territory governor Aleksandr Tkachev signed an agreement with Abkhaz authorities on transporting millions of tons of building materials (apparently stone and wood) from Abkhazia to Sochi (Kommersant, June 2). If this is done, the Sochi Olympics will be tainted through close association with Russia’s seizure of territory by force from a neighboring country.

The timing of Russia’s deployment adds insult to the West. The deployment coincided exactly with the May 30-31 trip by fifteen ambassadors of European Union countries from Tbilisi to Sokhumi in an unprecedented peace initiative. It also seems timed to demonstrate Russia’s sense of impunity ahead of EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana’s June 5 visit to Tbilisi and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s June 7 meeting with Medvedev in St. Petersburg.

Russia planning invasion of Georgia

UPI reports that the Georgian foreign ministry has alleged that Russian officials are planning an invasion of Georgia's Abkhazia region.

The Litivinenko Annexe

Ian Traynor, writing in the Guardian about the EU's new strategic partnership project:

Under what a European diplomat described as "the Litvinenko annexe", Moscow would come under pressure to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the Russian MP and main suspect in the London murder by radiation poisoning.

UN Supports Georgia Claim

Via BBC:

A Russian jet did shoot down an unmanned Georgian drone over the breakaway
Georgian region of Abkhazia last month, UN monitors say.

Returning

Prague Watchdog's Andrei Babitsky discusses the question of the Chechen returnees.

Thaw in a frozen conflict

The situation in the Kodori Gorge continues to be uneasy, with both sides in the "frozen" conflict warning of impending war. A lot of this appears to be rhetoric for foreign consumption. However, something is afoot, and a Times correspondent witnessed

a convoy of Russian military fuel tankers en route to Sukhumi from the border crossing on the Psoi river. At an Abkhaz base near the Kodori Gorge troops took delivery of two trucks loaded with shells.

Who's Who on Ethnic Cleansing

Joining with Russia to excuse ethnic cleansing was an unusual constellation of countries: Armenia, Belarus, North Korea, India, Iran, Myanmar, Serbia, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela.

EDM

Derision

Given his track record of inflammatory remarks, Luzhkov had been met on arrival at Simferopol airport by Ukrainian State Security Service officials, who gave him a written warning against infringing Ukrainian law or undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In front of television cameras, Luzhkov read out the warning derisively and, with his entourage, burst out laughing at the Ukrainian document (Russian Television, May 10).

-Vladimir Socor, in Eurasia Daily Monitor

Rescheduling

I'm currently getting uaed to the new schedule at Prague Watchdog, where some changes in the way the site operates are underway. This is taking up some time, and it means I'll be posting a bit less here for a while. However, I'll hope to resume more frequent posting soon.

Breaking the Silence

As EU ministers prepare to visit Georgia next week, Jamestown's Eurasia Daily Monitor points to a hushed-up fact that needs to be borne in mind by the delegation:

The Russian military, not the Abkhaz (17 percent of the region’s pre-conflict population) evicted the Georgian population (45 percent of the pre-conflict population) from Abkhazia by force. Yet Moscow has tried to put an Abkhaz face on that act, thereby turning the Abkhaz from ad hoc allies into long-term hostages to Russian policy. Using a similar method, Russia is now attempting to put an Abkhaz face on the downing of one or more Georgian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in internationally recognized Georgian air space.

The Timing of a War

In the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum considers the possibility that Abkhazia could become the starting point of a larger war, and reflects:

If you wanted to attack an American ally, or if you just wanted to destabilize and unnerve an American ally, wouldn't this be the perfect moment? Perhaps if the Russians don't take the opportunity, someone else will.

.

Putin's Choice

In the Washington Quarterly, Zbigniew Brzezinski writes about Vladimir Putin, suggesting that "the turn toward political authoritarianism in Russia was a choice, not a necessity."

(Hat tip: Marius)

International Support for Georgia

Civil Georgia has published a series of statements from international figures and organizations on the present crisis (the full text of each statement may be read by going to the Civil Georgia site):

EU statement:
"The EU is seriously concerned about recent developments in the Georgian conflict areas, particularly regarding the latest decision of the Russian Federation... to establish official ties with institutions of the de facto authorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia without the consent of the Government of Georgia. The EU calls on the Russian Federation not to implement its decision." Full Text

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary General:
“I am deeply concerned by the actions Russia has taken to establish legal links with the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia... The Russian steps undermine that [Georgia's] sovereignty. I urge the Russian Federation to reverse these measures, and call on the Georgian authorities to continue to show restraint.” Full Text

Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State:
We are very concerned about the [Russian] presidential decree that was issued... The United States is absolutely committed to the territorial integrity of Georgia. We believe that there should be an effort to carry out the plans that the Georgians have talked about to try and deal with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Obviously, the people of those regions need to have a good life and Georgia needs to provide for them. But we are very concerned at the steps that have been taken and we have made our views known to the Russian Government. Full Text

The U.S. Department of State statement:
"This step challenges Georgia’s territorial integrity and would not be in keeping with Russia’s status as a “facilitator” of the peace process." Full Text

Julie Finley, U.S. ambassador to the OSCE:
“This move, coupled with Russia’s recent lifting of CIS sanctions that opens the possibility for military assistance to Abkhazia, has significantly increased tensions in an already volatile region... Russia is supposed to be facilitating a peace process in Georgia but is instead openly siding with the separatists, calling into question Russia’s facilitator role. We urge Russia to respect Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, to repeal the April 16th instructions, to play a constructive role in accordance with its commitment to act as a facilitator to the peace process, and to work with Georgia to encourage the Abkhaz and South Ossetian leaders to engage on Georgia’s new proposals for a peaceful settlement of the conflicts as a basis for finding a way forward.” Full Text

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the Estonian President:
“One possible interpretation is that the refusal, the opposition to giving MAP by some [NATO] members, some allies, was perceived [in Moscow] as a green light to proceed with this rather dangerous step… The Russian decree we think is provocative, counterproductive and ultimately wrong... We think that this kind of decree should be withdrawn or revoked.” Full Text

Valdas Adamkus, President of Lithuania:
“Such actions destabilise situation and threaten security and stability in the whole region. I urge Russia to respect Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and to continue dialogue with Georgia’s government in Tbilisi... I encourage EU governing bodies and EU Member States to have and state their clear position regarding Russia's actions.” Full Text

Carl Bildt, Foreign Minister of Sweden:
“News that Moscow will be taking a number of measures to establish closer ties with the Georgian areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is deeply disquieting… If measures are now taken that create the impression that this [Georgia’s] territorial integrity is in fact being violated - and with the aim of actually integrating these areas with Russia - it may have serious consequences. A political conflict in the immediate neighbourhood of the future winter Olympics is not in anyone's interest - least of all Russia's.” Full Text

Alexander Stubb, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Finnish Foreign Minister:
“I urge all parties involved to refrain from any unilateral actions which could further destabilize the already tense situation. I call on the parties to look for ways to build confidence and engage in efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflicts.” Full Text

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's spokeswoman, Christina Gallach:
"We are concerned about these unilateral decisions, we have always supported Georgia's territorial integrity.. We have always believed that this type of conflict must be resolved through dialogue." Full Text

Sir Brian Fall, the UK Special Representative for the South Caucasus:
“The proposed package of Russian unilateral measures relating to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia, would only increase tensions in the region.” Full Text

Statement by the Bureau of the South Caucasus Delegation of the European Parliament:
“These steps undermine the principle of territorial integrity of Georgia, as stipulated by all relevant UN resolutions and question Russia’s role of the impartial moderator in the peace process. We are convinced that such steps will only increase tensions in the region and we hope that Georgia remains stable despite any provocation, as well as the UN becomes aware of negative consequences of Russian military presence there.” Full Text

NATO Warns Russia

From the BBC:

Nato has warned Russia that its recent troop build-up in Georgia's two breakaway regions undermines its neighbour's territorial integrity.

Russia's moves in Abkhazia and South Ossetia were raising tensions in the area, a Nato spokesman said.

Russian troop buildup in Georgia

The Russian defence ministry has announced that it is building up troop contingents in the secessionist Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. AP reports.

Cyber attack

RFE/RL, on the mass cyber attack which peaked on Monday, hitting its broadcast services and making them inaccessible to the outside world:

The attack, which started on April 26, intially targeted the website of RFE/RL's Belarus Service, but quickly spread to other sites. Within hours, eight RFE/RL websites (Belarus, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Tatar-Bashkir, Radio Farda, South Slavic, Russian, and Tajik) were knocked out or otherwise affected.

The "denial-of-service" (DOS) attack was intended to make the targeted website unavailable to its users, according to RFE/RL's Director of Technology Luke Springer. "The way this is normally done is by flooding the target website with fake requests to communicate, thereby using up all [the website's] free sources and rendering the site useless to all the legitimate users," Springer said.

Prodi to Gazprom?

According to a report in the English-language edition of Kommersant newspaper, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller could offer outgoing Italian prime minister Romano Prodi a top post in the South Stream gas pipeline project when he meets Prodi in Rome today.

However, Mr Prodi has turned down the offer, Reuters says.

Ineos

Just a note: Dr. Hans-Ludwig Niederberger, the Grangemouth site director employed by Ineos, the UK industrial chemicals company at the centre of the current labour dispute, is based in Cologne, Germany. Ineos has interests in the Russian Federation, among other countries.

About Bout - III

According to a recent Newsru.com report, Bout also left traces in Belorussia between 1996 and 1999, when the Russian arms dealer traded with the Lukashenko regime in what appear to have been Belorussian ventures connected with exporting arms and weaponry abroad.

Meanwhile, Bout's wife has said in an interview for the London Times newspaper that her husband is a "poet", not a "the lord of war".

See also: About Bout
About Bout - II

Russia shoots down Georgian plane

A Russian fighter jet has shot down an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft over Georgian territory, the BBC reports.

About Bout - II

Yulia Latynina has some caustic commentary on the Kremlin's support for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout,who is currently is being held in Thailand on suspicion of plotting to sell Russian-made Igla shoulder-fired missiles to Colombian drug cartels:

Bout was poised to sell a mere 100 of these missiles to drug barons, who had been planning to use them to shoot down U.S. helicopters foolish enough to fly over their plantations.

To his credit, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement on Friday that the country would take all necessary measures to ensure that Bout's rights are not violated.

Bout was arrested on March 6 -- more than a month ago -- but Moscow's offer to help the international arms dealer came last week. In the age of instantaneous communications, such a slow response could only mean that some other method was used to establish a connection with authorities -- money, for example. When the problem of a Russian citizen arrested abroad can be resolved by a phone call, the result is seen right away. But when these issues are decided with cash payments, this is a more complicated process. Negotiations are delicate, and you have to work out how the money will be transferred. All of this takes a lot of time.

And the juiciest part of the Foreign Ministry's statement is that Russia has no plans to press charges against Bout. The power ministries have to account for all Igla missiles in their stock, and state arms exporter Rosoboronexport has a strict monopoly on the the trade of Igla and similar weaponry. This system of tight control was instituted to prevent black market sales to terrorists.

See also: About Bout

Mart Laar on Georgia and Russia

The Estonian member of parliament, writing in the Financial Times, sees echoes of the 1930s in Russia's ongoing annexation of the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia:

According to Mr Putin's "instruction", Russia will open "representations" in the two territories to protect the interests of Russian citizens there and to foster co-operation. Russia will claim that it has many citizens to protect in the two Georgian territories, after it illegally distributed its passports to anyone remaining after the civil wars and ethnic cleansing of the 1990s.

"Those who cannot learn from history," said George Santayana, the Spanish philosopher, "are doomed to repeat it." In 1937, Hitler agitated for the rights of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia; in 1938, he annexed Sudetenland into the Reich, purging it of non-Germans. In Abkhazia, most Georgians, Armenians, Estonians, Greeks and Russians - perhaps 500,000 in all - are already gone. Russia recognises Georgia's international boundaries, but its actions belie its words.

Russia's "representations" will be less than official consulates, although consular services will be offered from offices in neighbouring bits of Russia. "Representation" is a euphemism to soothe western fears that Moscow may recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in tit-for-tat retaliation for western recognition of Kosovo. However, in Moscow's insidious gambit, the "representations" will be among the final steps toward annexation of the two Georgian territories.

Blundering Peacocks

The BBC's Mark Mardell speculates about the likely impact on Europe of the new leaders of Italy and France respectively.

Hat tip: Leopoldo

Sphere of Influence - 2

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

DAILY CALLS ON RUSSIA TO CHANGE TONE TOWARD UKRAINE
General Yury Baluyevsky, who heads Russia's General Staff, attracted widespread attention at home and abroad when he said in Moscow on April 11 that "Russia will take unambiguous action toward ensuring its interests along its borders. These will not only be military measures, but also steps of a different character," Russian and international media reported. He did not elaborate but nonetheless "intrigued half the world," "Nezavisimaya gazeta" wrote on April 14 (see Part II). The daily argued that "Baluyevsky and whoever writes his lines" are simply playing into the hands of those abroad who "accuse [Russia] of behaving aggressively and disrespecting its nearest neighbors." The paper noted that any "harsh tone from Russia facilitates consolidation among political forces and the public in Ukraine and Georgia, lending strength to proponents of NATO membership." "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported that "NATO is waiting for Moscow to explain what kind of measures it intends to take. As of April 13, no public explanations have been provided. Neither was there any confirmation or denial of media reports that President [Vladimir] Putin, speaking at the NATO summit in Bucharest, questioned Ukraine's right to statehood and threatened to annex the Crimea." The newspaper argued that "if Russia wishes to delay NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, it should withdraw its threats and change its tone. It should call on Kyiv and Tbilisi to expand cooperation in the areas where this is possible, and concentrate on discussing disputed issues without any excess publicity." The paper noted that "regardless of geopolitical constructs, Ukraine and Georgia will remain our neighbors. Thus, in taking any steps at present, we should think about the future of Russia's relations with these countries." On April 14, "Izvestia" wrote that four countries with which Russia has problematic relations are in the process of changing their ambassadors in Moscow, namely the United States, Great Britain, Estonia, and Ukraine. PM

- - - - - -

RIGHTS ACTIVISTS WARN OF VIOLENCE MARKING HITLER'S BIRTHDAY
Russian human rights activists are calling on police to be vigilant in connection with actions that radical nationalists plan to take on April 20 -- the birthday of Adolf Hitler, newsru.com reported on April 14, citing Interfax. The website reported that immigrants are already highly anxious in anticipation of possible attacks and ready to "administer justice." Newsru.com noted that for 20 years -- since the 1980s -- radical nationalists have attempted to mark Hitler's birthday with public actions and that a large number of attacks by skinheads on people from the Caucasus and Central Asia and other foreign citizens, as well as the desecration of Jewish establishments, usually take place on that day. Aleksandr Brod, the director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, said that one radical nationalist organization has already announced plans to carry out mass actions on April 20. "Since 2002, in Moscow institutes of higher learning where foreign students study, they have been permitted to miss lectures and also advised not to leave their dormitories," Brod said. "Institutes of higher learning in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod have adopted this practice." According to newsru.com, various diaspora groups have vowed to dispense their own justice in response to the inaction of the Russian authorities in preventing racial violence. It quoted Brod as saying that radical immigrant websites are full of calls to mark April 20 with violence. JB

Sphere of Influence

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

RUSSIA STRESSES NEW DEMAND ON MISSILE DEFENSE...
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Ekho Moskvy radio on April 8 that Moscow wants a permanent military presence at planned U.S. missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Lavrov argued that "in all the many proposals [on missile defense], we are interested only in two things: the permanent presence of our officers and reliable technological means of monitoring" the sites. During his recent summit with U.S. President George W. Bush in Sochi, President Vladimir Putin referred to a possible permanent presence at those sites if "a global missile-defense [system] with equal democratic-style access to managing such a system" does not come to pass. Russia does not appear to have publicly stressed the issue of a permanent presence before, but Lavrov said on April 8 that it is a sticking point in negotiations over Washington's plans to station a radar base in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland. He argued that it is important for Moscow to see "second-by-second" where the radar is directed and what is happening at the interceptor base. In an apparent effort to split Washington from Prague just days after a U.S.-Czech agreement on the radar site was announced, Lavrov warned that Czech or Polish resistance to the Russian demand would "devalue" recent assurances given to Russia by the United States on missile defense. He complained that officials of the two countries, which were occupied by Soviet forces for decades, "don't even want to hear" about a permanent Russian presence at the sites (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 27, March 7 and 20, and April 4, 2008). Lavrov mocked the U.S. offer of "reciprocity" in arranging occasional inspections of the sites by Russian officials based in Warsaw and Prague, saying that Russia has no intention of establishing its own bases in those countries or near the United States. Asked if Russia might set up military sites of its own in Cuba or Venezuela in response to the U.S. plans, Lavrov replied that Russia would rely on unspecified "military-technical measures" instead. PM

...PROVOKING CRITICISM IN POLAND
Foreign Minister Lavrov's demand on April 8 for a permanent Russian presence at planned U.S. missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic came after the latest round of Russian-Polish consultations in Moscow failed to bridge differences, news agencies reported. Witold Waszczykowski, who heads the Polish negotiating team, told Poland's PAP news agency that Lavrov's demands are "too far-fetched." Referring to a possible permanent Russian military presence in Poland, Waszczykowski said that "we had that here already [in tsarist and Soviet times]. Such a solution will not be repeated." He added that the proposed missile-defense "installation could be accessible to visitors or inspectors, but we don't think there is any need for a permanent presence of Russian monitors there.... In addition to that, we have to establish a sort of mutual regime, with Polish inspectors having the right to inspect some Russian installations." Czech officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of any permanent Russian presence at the radar site, although they, too, would be willing to consider occasional visits by Russian officials. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra told the daily "Hospodarske noviny" recently that "we are willing to negotiate about Russian inspections, but definitely not in the form of a permanent presence of Russian soldiers in the Czech Republic." Some European observers suggested that Russia is keen to keep up its political momentum after the April 2-4 Bucharest NATO summit. Russia was widely seen to have used energy and political leverage over Germany, France, and some other Western European states to ensure their opposition to U.S. and Eastern European support for granting Membership Action Plans (MAP), an important step on the road to full NATO membership, to Georgia and Ukraine (see "RFE/RL Newsline," April 3, 4, 7, and 8, 2008). PM

RUSSIA AGAIN VOWS TO BLOCK NATO ENLARGEMENT
Foreign Minister Lavrov told Ekho Moskvy radio on April 8 that Moscow will do all it can to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia in order "to avoid an inevitable serious exacerbation of our relations with both the alliance and our neighbors." He repeated Moscow's long-standing arguments that NATO enlargement is rooted in "Cold War logic," that much of the Ukrainian public is opposed to NATO membership, and that the pro-Moscow leaderships of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions oppose Georgian membership. Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin wrote in the April 7 issue of the government daily "Rossiiskaya gazeta" that "all countries seeking to join NATO have to hold a referendum first. The decision has to be made by all Ukrainian citizens. Would they be prepared to send their boys to certain death in Iraq or Afghanistan for the sake of Atlantic solidarity?" "The Moscow Times" commented on April 9, however, that "Russia's main argument against NATO enlargement is that it would threaten its security. That is nonsense, and Russia knows it." The paper added that "the Kremlin has found that behaving like a spoiled child gets results: the right to influence developments in former Soviet countries. In other words, Russia is being allowed to reassert its sphere of influence -- a concept that should have been superceded by that of 'Europe Whole and Free,' which the entire European Union appeared to have embraced when communism collapsed." The daily stressed that "the crux of the matter is Europe's lack of political will to forge a unified stand toward Russia. This has led the Kremlin to pursue a classic 'divide-and-rule' strategy by tempting some big European countries into bilateral agreements -- particularly on energy issues -- that preclude a common EU position" (see End Note, "RFE/RL Newsline," March 17, 2008). Alluding to the Western European objections to MAPs for Georgia and Ukraine, Polish President Lech Kaczynski commented on the eve of the NATO summit that West Germany was allowed to join NATO in 1955 even though it claimed to represent, but did not control, all of Germany. The Polish daily "Rzeczpospolita" pointed out recently that Germany did not hold a referendum in 1990 on NATO membership for the former East Germany, where strong pacifist and anti-American sentiments might have led to a rejection of NATO accession. PM

RUSSIAN LEGISLATOR TOUTS CHINESE MILITARY COOPERATION, DESPITE FALLING TRADE
Colonel General Viktor Zavarzin, the head of the State Duma's Defense Committee, said in Beijing on April 8 that military cooperation plays an important role in Russian-Chinese relations, Interfax reported. He noted that "the total number of events at which key subjects in Russian-Chinese military cooperation are discussed is 30 to 35 a year. Chinese specialists are trained at Russian Defense Ministry academies. Direct ties between the respective military services [and] military academies...are improving." Zavarzin added that joint exercises and inspections take place along and near the two countries' common border. His remarks follow recent reports that Russian arms sales to China dropped by 62 percent in 2007 because China's industrial capabilities are beginning to approach those of its neighbor, and because it seeks more sophisticated technology than Russia is willing or able to offer (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 31, 2008, and End Note, "RFE/RL Newsline," September 12, 2007, and March 12, 2008). PM

The world without America

Commenting on Jamie Glazov's recent FrontPage interview with Ahmed Zakayev, JR Nyquist writes:

According to Zakayev, al Qaeda is “a global provocation, designed to clash the Islamic world with the Western world, thus weakening both sides as much as possible. Those who capitalize on that are Russia, China and their allies in the totalitarian camp.” Zakayev is almost certainly correct.

....

For those who curse the United States and Israel, who embrace various conspiracy theories, I offer this caveat. Do you want Russia and China to dominate the world? Would you trust the heirs of Mao Zedong and the disciples of Felix Dzerzhinsky to keep the peace, to maintain freedom, to further global prosperity? Do you want the legacy of Ivan the Terrible and the first Ch’in Emperor?

Pivoting on a dime

RFE/RL's Brian Whitmore, on the mood swings on Day 3 of the NATO summit in Romania:

NATO appeared to have caved in the face of Russian pressure.

By lunchtime on April 3, everything had changed.

Rumors had been swirling through the cavernous corridors and vast halls of Bucharest's Palace of Parliament all morning that something was in the works.

By the time NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer addressed the media in the early afternoon (hours later than scheduled), it appeared that Georgia and Ukraine would get more than they hoped for.

There would be no MAP at this time, that was true. But there would be what sounded like a pretty firm commitment of eventual membership. Not a firm commitment for MAPs -- but actual membership. All the key players who famously opposed the MAP this time around were on board, including Germany and France.

Moreover, NATO foreign ministers have been instructed to assess Kyiv and Tbilisi's progress in December 2008 and have authority to issue formal MAPs as early as then -- provided the progress was sufficient. It would all be in an official protocol by the evening, we were told.

The mood in the Georgian and Ukrainian delegations pivoted on a dime, from bitter disappointment to unexpected elation. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said Ukraine had "broken the sound barrier." Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili called the announcement a "geopolitical coup."

One top Georgian official, speaking on background, told my colleagues from RFE/RL's Georgian Service that the decision was even better than getting a MAP. They would be admitted to NATO after all. The only question was when.

One can't help but wonder whether this was what was supposed to happen all along. Given German and French objections, few expected Georgia and Ukraine to get MAPs here in Bucharest. I expected them to come no sooner than at NATO's 60th anniversary summit next year.

Yelena Tregubova

Via RFE/RL's Newsline (April 2 2008):

Yelena Tregubova, the former "Kommersant" reporter and author of the best-selling book "Tales Of A Kremlin Digger" who fled Russia after an explosion caused minor damage outside the door of her Moscow apartment in 2004, told the Reuters news agency on April 2 that Britain has granted her political asylum. Reuters quoted Tregubova as saying from London that she applied for asylum because her life would be in danger in Russia due to opposition to her critical writings about the Kremlin under President Putin and that her asylum application was approved by Britain's Home Office. As newsru.com noted on April 2, in a BBC television interview in July 2007, Tregubova accused the Russian leadership of practicing censorship and thereby violating the Russian Constitution. Tregubova also said that when officials from the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office came to London and interviewed self-exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky about the radiation poisoning death of former FSB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko, they tried to get Berezovsky to give them her address. JB

Postindustrial

Copenhagen-based poet and painter Grzegorz Wroblewski has posted a selection of his latest pictures at Saatchi Online.

Zakayev Interview

In FrontPage Magazine, Jamie Glazov interviews Ahmed Zakayev.

Tibet: 1959 and Today - 2

The official website of the Central Tibetan Administration presents a constantly updated series of newsflashes, official press releases and other reports and materials, including statements by the Dalai Lama.


See also in this blog: Tibet: 1959 and Today

Back to the Past

Haaretz points to a disturbing resurgence of anti-Semitism in Russia.

Armed Clashes in Chechnya

Reuters reports on a renewal of fighting in southern Chechnya:

Five security officers, three separatists and a passer-by were killed during the gun battle in the Urus-Martanovskiy district just after 10:00 pm Moscow time (3 p.m. EDT) on Wednesday night, Interfax reported.

"A group of 10 to 15 militants were discovered in a wood on the outskirts of the village of Alkhazurovo... An armed clash took place with law-enforcement officers," a security source was quoted as saying by Interfax.

The local resident was shot dead by escaping separatists when they fired on his car, while two other passengers were injured, agencies reported.

Spotlight on Russia

News of an upcoming event, Spotlight on Russia, at the Royal United Services Institute in London on May 14, organized by the Chechnya Peace Forum.

Missing the Point

Two-thirds of the way through an assessment of the U.S. missile defence shield as "Russia's Red Herring" in negotiations with a Washington administration that is sometimes seen as slow to put two and two together where foreign policy issues - particularly Russia-related ones - are concerned, Robert Amsterdam writes:

Washington's failure to respond positively to Putin's unprecedented security cooperation following 9/11 will go down as the greatest wasted opportunity in recent history.

One wonders whether Washington - or indeed any other Western government professing to uphold the values of democracy and human rights - could have responded positively to "security" initiatives by a regime that engendered the documented massacres committed by its armed forces in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, and - it now seems probable - the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia which killed several hundred innocent civilians and served as a pretext for the opening of the second Russian military campaign in Chechnya.

In Search of an Opposition

We don’t need “political experts” and “political technology specialists”, not economists and not politicians in the traditional sense of the word. We need intelligent, daring and extremely well-meaning leaders who instead of loud opposition noises, can create a decisive, calm, persistent and unwavering protest and not allow it to slip out from the tradition of the great peaceful Eastern European victories over despotism, to not allow bloodshed and the brown-shirt plague. This is incredibly difficult. It is much harder in Russia than it was in Poland or Czechoslovakia, harder even than in Ukraine.

Sergei Kovalev, in an open letter to Vladimir Putin

Cross of Shame

A Serb group plans to build a huge, illuminated cross on a hill from which Serb artillery shelled Sarajevo during the 1992-96 Bosnia war, AP reports:

On Wednesday, the Sarajevo Association of War Victims criticized the plan to build the cross, calling it shameful to build the memorial in a location from which the Serb artillery pounded the city, killing thousands of people. The association issued a statement calling the planned monument a "provocation for the citizens of Sarajevo."

"It is an illegal, immoral and shameful act, especially because it will be erected in memory of Serb soldiers who kept the city under siege, committing crimes for which their commanders have received long prison sentences at The Hague Tribunal," the group said.

The association said it will urge Bosnia's international administrator, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak, to bar the cross on the ground that it could threaten the country's peace.

Sarajevo's mayor, Semiha Borovac, said the monument would enrage people in Sarajevo.

"This is not contributing to reconciliation. It is not in the tradition of Sarajevo to build such monuments. We build churches. ... But this I cannot support," she said in an interview.

Anti-Semitism on the Rise

CNN, on a new report from the U.S. State Department:

Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event," the report says.

The report -- called Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism and given to Congress on Thursday -- is dedicated to the memory of the late U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, a survivor of the Holocaust, the extermination of 6 million Jews during World War II.

The report details physical acts of anti-Semitism, such as attacks, property damage, and cemetery desecration. It also lists manifestations such as conspiracy theories concerning Jews, Holocaust denial, anti-Zionism and the demonization of Israel.

"Over much of the past decade, U.S. embassies worldwide have noted an increase in anti-Semitic incidents, such as attacks on Jewish people, property, community institutions, and religious facilities," the report says.

All of Europe

"It was in these halls that a colleague turned to me amidst a MEP’s speech about the mass deportations in her country. Why can’t you people forget about the past and think of the future? he asked.

"It is perhaps uncomfortable to hear but while we all know the history of Europe we know also that that Europe is actually only a part of Europe, as the great historian of Europe Norman Davies has so effectively shown.

"For the history of Europe includes the history of all of Europe, with all of its glory and woes. We are today the inheritors of the Europe of Bismarck’s social reforms as well as of the Salazar regime. Of the world's first constitutional democracy as well as the repressions of brutal internal security services."

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, speaking in Strasbourg.

The natives can do it

Firmly in the spirit of Neville Chamberlain, a former British ambassador to Moscow expresses sentiments that are quite openly reactionary - a real throwback to the 1930s - in a Financial Times op-ed piece entitled Let the Russians Sort Out Russia:

Although Russians today do not enjoy our kind of democracy, they do enjoy an unprecedented, if precarious, degree of personal prosperity, of access to information, of freedom to travel and even - within limits - to express their views. To argue that they cannot go on to construct their own version of democracy is a kind of racism. It may take decades, even generations; the construction of democracy always does. But if the Indians can do it, so can the Russians.

Equidistance

In the IHT, John Vinocur takes a look at the U.S. Presidential candidates' policies on Europe and Russia, and concludes that there is not much likelihood of Europe and the U.S. seeing eye to eye on these issues for a while, at any rate. In particular, of Senator McCain, who is about to embark on a tour of European capitals, he notes that

the membership list for the League of Democracies he promises to create in his first term doesn't include Russia. He also wants the G-8 group of industrial powers to exclude Russia from its summits.

That's a lot to digest for a nervous and hardly united EU where any American representing foreign policy firmness can be quickly caricatured as a Donald Rumsfeld - whose strategy McCain abhorred.

Even in France, where the Sarkozy line six months ago was all about Russia's "brutality," McCain may now hear concern for Russian "sensibilities," and that, in Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's words, Moscow must now "have the place that belongs to it."

All of this comes down to more, much more, American-European divergence.

If Europeans want to label McCain as the next postulant for a trouble-making White House, they ought to hear Hillary Clinton on how George Bush gave Putin's confrontational policies "a free pass." Or Barack Obama's put-down of "anti-American posturing from European allies that enjoy the blanket of our protection."

Feel familiar? Whoever the new president, whatever the New Europe, the evidence says you've been here before.

Hat tip: Leopoldo

Smart Finns

In the Wall Street Journal, Ellen Gamerman asks from Helsinki, Finland: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal.

The Age of Assassins

In the Times, Oleg Gordievsky reviews a new book by Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky. Entitled The Age of Assassins: the Rise and Rise of Vladimir Putin, it traces the Russian leader's career since 1975, but is also effectively a history of Russia over the past 17 years. From the review's conclusion:

The authors state that it should have become obvious by now that Russia's Government “would henceforth be run and be controlled by people who hated America and Western Europe, who had no experience in building anything, who acted in secrecy while belonging to an organisation of which - as with the Gestapo in Nazi Germany - not a single good word can be said in its defence”. It is difficult to disagree with this judgment.

Oligarchs in trouble

In the JC, Yuri Felshtinsky writes about Why the Kremlin wants its oligarchs Jewish. Excerpt:

It is true that Jewish businessmen are crucial for modern Russia in a way Jewish Russians never were under Communism. But that does not mean they are indispensable. The main rule for an oligarch is that you do what the Kremlin tells you. If you cross the line and try to take a piece of pie from Kremlin, you end up like Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, Patarkatsishvili, etc. Russia is a free country, so the choice is yours.

The Russian Finans magazine wrote two weeks ago that there are now more than 101 billionaires in Russia. Many of them are not Jewish. That the Kremlin has at last allowed commercial power to be entrusted to Russians rather than to Russian Jews is a sign that they must have found a satisfactory way of stopping businessmen from becoming too powerful without having to resort to assassinations, as in the late nineties. The Kremlin clearly no longer needs Jewish businessmen; so what they once needed to give, they are now taking away again.

About Bout

As Andean leaders head for a summit dominated by the stridently anti-American gesture politics of Hugo Chavez, one of the real instigators of the current crisis is in police captivity:

[Viktor] Bout, charged in New York with conspiring to sell weapons worth millions of dollars to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, faces up to 10 years in jail if found guilty in Thailand.

Russian bomber buzzes US carrier - again

Via RFE/RL:

RUSSIAN BOMBER BUZZES U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER
For the second time in less than a month, a Russian bomber flew over the aircraft carrier "U.S.S. Nimitz" on March 5, news agencies reported. The plane was then intercepted by U.S. F/A-18 jet fighters, which escorted it out of the area off the Korean coast, news agencies reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," February 1 and 13, 2008). Reuters quoted unnamed U.S. military officials in Washington as saying that they do not consider the plane, which flew 610 meters above the ship, "a threat or concern." Following the previous such incident, some U.S. officials on a panel of experts argued that the Russian action was legal and "normal." Most of the experts agreed, however, that it is "not a good idea" to buzz an aircraft carrier. The Russian daily "Komsomolskaya pravda" wrote on February 13 that such incidents can often lead to unforeseen consequences, even if the pilot's actions are in keeping with accepted international practice. In Moscow on March 6, Air Force Colonel General Yury Solovyov, who is in charge of the capital's air defenses, said that those aircraft will be "modernized" by 2011 so that "they will remain technically and tactically superior to NATO planes," Interfax reported. PM

See also: Russian bomber buzzes U.S. carrier

Origins of Hatred

In January, Jeffrey Goldberg reviewed a new book by the German scholar and author Matthias Küntzel on the roots of modern Muslim anti-Semitism for the New York Times, pointing out that although Küntzel sometimes overreaches himself in the book, and tends towards oversimplification, some of his insights and analyses are truly worthy of reflection. In particular,

The Muslim Brotherhood, Küntzel goes on, was a crucial distributor of Arabic translations of “Mein Kampf” and the “Protocols.” Across the Arab world, he states, Nazi methods and ideology whipped up anti-Zionist fervor, and the effects of this concerted campaign are still being felt today.

Medvedev the Bear

Robert Service, writing about the bearishness of Mr Medvedev (medved' is the Russian word for a bear):

The chances are surely slim that Medvedev is a closet liberal. The evidence suggests that the pessimists are nearer the mark. It is true that Medvedev has spoken warmly about democracy. At the world economic forum at Davos last year he noted that the most successful economies are underpinned by fair elections and impartial justice. He talks a good talk. His face is bland and smiling – he looks like a former member of a 1980s boyband. At only 42 he seems to bring a fresh approach to public policy.

In reality the future Russian president belongs to a ruthless ruling group. Like Putin he comes from St Petersburg, and their association has been long and close. Medvedev trained as a lawyer and put his expertise at the Kremlin’s disposal at a time when Putin was hammering his enemies into the ground.

Racist Russia

Paul Goble writes in his Window on Eurasia blog about the fateful consequences of officially sponsored xenophobia and racism in Russia,summarizing an article in the current issue of Novaya Gazeta by the Russian journalist Natalya Mursaliyeva:

Aleksandr Asmolov, a psychology professor at Moscow State University, told her that as a result of the attitudes the authorities have expressed and thus sanctioned, prejudice has overwhelmed reason and Russia now finds itself in a situation in which those who engage in “lynch law” are turned into heroes.

Because of that, he continued, the country is becoming “a closed society,” one in which tolerance for other groups is viewed not as a public and private virtue but rather as a limitation on the rights of the majority. And the spread of that attitude in recent years, Asmolov suggested, has put the country on “a suicidal path.”

Vyacheslav Sharov, a social psychologist and psychotherapist, supported that view. He told Mursaliyeva that until officials change their public messages, “xenophobes of all kinds will receive from [the current comments] a signal of approval,” a sense that attacking migrants is something that the authorities actually welcome.

Moreover, he continued, the behavior of such xenophobic individuals and groups is one that can be called “fascism” or even “terrorism” because its victims often are not those guilty of any crimes at all but rather innocent bystanders who are only ethnically similar to those the xenophobes blame for their problems.

But the most damning comments about this trend and Putin’s responsibility for it were offered by Lev Gudkov of the Levada Analytic Center. Although arguing that no one index measures all aspects of xenophobia, he said the rapidly growing support for the idea of “Russia for the Russians” as indicative of the problem.

“Before Putin,” the current high level of public backing for that idea simply “did not exist.” At the same time, however, Gudkov carefully noted that Putin and his team had not so much created something out of nothing but rather had made use of “mass prejudices” to generate support for themselves and their policies.

Unfortunately, in playing to the worst in the population rather than the best, he continued, Putin and his command had encouraged many xenophobic Russians to assume that their attitudes were entirely justified. And that in turn has not only intensified these feelings among those who already had them but led more to adopt them as well.

Many officials, he continued, have an interest in ensuring that migrants are kept in a position of fear. Such a situation pays “its own dividends.” And as to officials in the “law enforcement organs,” there, Gudkov said, “the level of xenophobia and hostility [to non-Russians] is stronger and greater than in any other sphere.

All this promotes the notion among Russians that their nation is “always right,” that others are trying to diminish it, and that attacks on representatives of these “others” are thus justified and even backed by the authorities themselves. “They don’t respect us,” Russians say; “we have to show them who is boss.”

Gudkov noted that research shows that “the propaganda of racism” of this kind is increasing, with ever more Russians concluding that “the superiority of the titular nationalism has risen to the status of an official rule of behavior.” This rule is as yet “unwritten,” he continued, but it has been accepted at the highest levels.”

Mursaliyeva concludes with the following observation: “The genie of xenophobia has escaped the bottle” during Putin’s administration, but it might still be controlled if the new president changed the messages he sends to his countrymen about how they should behave.

But if that does not happen, she argues, the future is truly frightening. As anyone who has examined what happens when governments play to the racism of the crowd knows, such regimes quickly find themselves prisoners of the very monster they have allowed to emerge.

Weimar Russia

Interviewed in the Moscow Times, Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has discussed the current political and social climate in Russia:

"There is a mentality of being stabbed in the back that reminds me of the Weimar republic... The Weimar mentality ... is so similar that I really hope that we do not go off in the wrong direction," he said, speaking by telephone from the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

With Bush in Africa

Travelling through Africa with President George W. Bush for Time, Bob Geldof sees and hears the genuinely good qualities of the U.S. leader, as well as the things that are possibly not so good:

I have always heard that Bush mangles language and I've laughed at the satires of his diction. He shrugs them off, but I think he's sensitive about it. He has some verbal tics, but in public and with me he speaks fluently and in wonderful aphorisms, like:

"Stop coming to Africa feeling guilty. Come with love and feeling confident for its future."

"When we see hunger we feed them. Not to spread our influence, but because they're hungry."

"U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders."

"Africa has changed since I've become President. Not because of me, but because of African leaders."

Torturing the Innocent

Although one wonders whether the presence of the Guantánamo Bay Prison did not, in fact, deter other 9/11s that might have occurred in its absence, the points raised by Jeremy Putley in his Online Review discussion of the issues do give one pause for thought. In particular, one remembers Bush's endorsement of Putin...

Of course, the United States is not the only country that uses torture. It is endemic in the Russian penal system, and in China's; both the largest country in the world and the most populous torture their own citizens. But the conduct of the US is the saddest case of a nation corrupted, because it is no longer that "shining city on a hill" that once represented a standard for the world to emulate; and because it is the US leadership itself that has seen fit to depart so radically from America's core values.

On the evidence provided by Andy Worthington and the other authoritative books referred to here, the judgment has to be that the US over-reacted to the events of 9/11. Quite apart from the perverse decision to go to war in Iraq, what other verdict could there be, considering its adoption of torture as a method of punishment, and torture as a technique for the gathering of faulty intelligence?

Putin's legacy: a massacre

The Independent's Shaun Walker, from Beslan, North Ossetia:

As Mr Putin prepares to hand over power, Beslan is still suffocating in a pall of tears and anger. For Mr Nazarov, as for many in this town of 35,000 people, voting for Mr Medvedev on Sunday is unthinkable. "I would not vote for anyone who was recommended by Putin," he says. Hanging the picture of Mr Putin and his heir among the photographs of victims is his way of saying what he believes the political course of Mr Putin and his heir-apparent leads to.

Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the sole surviving hostage-taker, was jailed for life in 2006 but, for Mr Nazarov and other victims' relatives, many questions about the events of 2004 remain unanswered. How were the terrorists able to take School No 1 hostage without any resistance, who ordered the special forces to storm the building, and was the blaze which engulfed the gymnasium and killed so many started by rockets fired by the Russian troops?

NY Philharmonic Arrives in North Korea

CNN reports the arrival of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in North Korea:

The visit comes as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended Monday's inauguration of South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak. She said before leaving Washington that she had no plans to stop in Pyongyang during a trip that also takes her to China and Japan.

"I don't think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea," Rice, a classical pianist herself, said Friday, while also conceding the benefit of the event in giving North Koreans a window to the outside world.

The concert will feature Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 and "An American in Paris" by George Gershwin. Among the encores planned is the Korean folk song "Arirang," beloved in both the North and South.

The performance will begin with the orchestra playing the national anthems of both countries and the U.S. and North Korean flags will stand together on stage, said the Philharmonic's president and executive director, Zarin Mehta.

Ahead of their arrival, North Korea was even tearing down the anti-U.S. posters that line the streets of Pyongyang, Mehta said Sunday. He cited a diplomat based there who briefed the orchestra before its departure from Beijing, the last stop on a tour of the greater China region.

Full Hearts - 2

It looks as though Friday Night Lights, which because of the Writers' Strike came to a standstill with episode 15 of Season 2, may survive and flourish after all, with the possibility of a Season 3. San Diego media blogger Kristin Dos Santos writes that

Inside sources confirm to me that NBC Universal (the studio that makes FNL) is currently talking to various networks about the idea of sharing the show's third season among more than one channel in an effort to save the series from cancellation and broaden its audience.

Those channels in discussion include the CW, TNT, DirecTV and a place called Comcast Entertainment Group, which, hmmm, sounds familiar because, oh yeah, they sign my checks. Both E! and G4 fall under the Comcast umbrella.

This would be good news, as FNL is probably one of the most inventive American TV series to have aired in the past decade, and has the potential to become a hit worldwide. It certainly deserves to.

See also: Full Hearts

Watching Russia

Via AP:

...U.S. diplomat Nicholas Burns called on Serbia's main ally Russia to repudiate a suggestion by one of its officials [Dmitry Rogozin] that it may need to use military force to earn respect after the U.S. and other countries recognized the independence of Kosovo, which is mainly ethnic Albanian, over strong Serb and Russian protests.

"We strongly advise Russia to be more responsible in its public comments toward Kosovo," Burns said, responding to questions in an online written discussion. "Russia is isolated this week — very few countries are supporting its position."

Serbs Attack US Embassy - 3

Via CNN:

Richard Holbrooke, a former negotiator in the Balkans under President Clinton, said: "The fact that (independence has) not happened as peacefully as people had hoped is the direct result of the incitement to violence by extremist elements in Belgrade, implicitly and privately supported by the Russians."

Serbs Attack US Embassy - 2

From RFE/RL:

As night fell, parts of the crowd broke away and marched to the U.S. Embassy. Black smoke and flames were soon billowing out a front window.

The same group also vandalized the neighboring Croatian Embassy, a McDonald’s restaurant, and several other stores. Elsewhere in the city, police beat back crowds who tried to attack the Turkish and British embassies.

Television images showed hundreds of people surging through the streets as anti-riot police arrived and fired tear gas canisters as crowd control.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns had telephoned Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic to convey the message that they had not adequately protected the U.S. Embassy.

------

On February 17 and 18, crowds threw stones at the U.S. and Turkish embassies in Belgrade and damaged the mission of Slovenia, which currently heads the rotating EU Presidency.

Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilic, who heads the New Serbia party, said on February 20 that the action was "just Serbian youth expressing their protest" over the "dismembering of Serbia," adding that such incidents are part of "democracy."

Serbs Attack US Embassy

Via the BBC:

Several hundred protesters have attacked and broken into the US embassy in the Serbian capital Belgrade, setting fire to part of it.

The embassy was closed and unprotected at the time. Reports say the Croatian and UK embassies were also attacked.

Russophone Reactions

At Global Voices Online, Veronica Khokhlova has posted a translation of Russophone reactions to Kosovo's declaration of independence.

The Politics of Precedent - 3

In the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum reminds her readers that the wars of Yugoslavia actually began in Kosovo - in the late 1980s, when Milosevic deprived the province of its autonomy, installed a new police force, and by 1990 had more or less destroyed Kosovo's civic, cultural and political life. Then, by backing Serbian minorities across the former Yugoslavia, Milosevic inspired the creation of similiar campaigns of terror, intimidation and murder by local Serb militias:

...the result of this activity -- discrimination, ethnic cleansing, warfare -- was a complete disaster for Serbia. The Serbian economy went down the tubes; the Serb dominance of ex-Yugoslavia evaporated; Belgrade, the Serb capital, was bombed. Now Serbia looks set to be dismembered as well: Some European countries and the United States have recognized Kosovo's independence, something that wouldn't have happened two decades ago. Milosevic the super-nationalist -- the would-be leader of a revived, powerful, successful Serbia -- damaged no country nearly so much as he damaged Serbia itself.

Keep that lesson in mind over the next few months as others in Europe -- and possibly elsewhere -- attempt to use the Kosovo example as a precedent. After all, if the Albanians can be independent from Serbia, the Abkhazians and South Ossetians would like to be independent from Georgia, the Basques and the Catalonians don't see why they shouldn't be independent from Spain, and who knows what could happen in Cyprus.

In some of these cases, there are other, larger neighbors that might be interested in facilitating the split, just as Serbia was keen to encourage ethnic Serbs in Bosnia or Croatia. Most notably, and most notoriously, the Russians have made ominous noises and dropped dark hints about those Georgian separatist groups, and one can certainly see their logic. What a perfect way to take revenge on those difficult, NATO-loving Georgians: Encourage Georgia's ethnic minorities to launch civil war. Besides, the timing could hardly be better. In the waning days of the Bush administration, is Abkhazia anybody's central concern? During the most interesting U.S. presidential campaign in decades, is anyone going to spare a thought for South Ossetia?

Except that if Abkhazia and South Ossetia were to secede, and civil war in Georgia were to follow, the Russians would then have a failed state on their borders. And, as we know from Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Africa, ethnic and religious civil wars have a nasty way of spreading to their neighbors. Chaos in Georgia might be in the short-term interest of a small group of Putinites, desperate to raise the specter of warfare, annoy the West, and cling to power (much like Milosevic, once upon a time), but it is most definitely not in the long-term interest of Russia.

Russia's policy toward these would-be separatists over the next few weeks will therefore reveal a great deal about the mentality of Russia's ruling clan. If the denizens of the Kremlin have a shred of concern about their compatriots' future well-being, they'll shut up and try to calm everyone down. If not -- well, I hope they remember that the risks of the law of unintended consequences apply to them, too.

The Politics of Precedent - 2

Vladimir Socor takes a more skeptical view of Russia's reaction to Kosovar independence, and considers that Russia's bluff has been called on the issue:

Moscow’s threat to use Kosova’s secession as a “precedent” or “model” for resolving post-Soviet conflicts was never a credible threat, unless the Kremlin was bent on incurring severe damage and no gain to its policies on a wide range of interests: Relations with the West, with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (far beyond those immediately affected by secessions) and with international organizations, as well as Russia’s own security situation in the North Caucasus would have been jeopardized.

Those concerned about Russian exploitation of a Kosova “precedent” overlooked the fact that Moscow remains more than content to exploit the existing, “frozen” situation in the unresolved conflicts. This it can continue doing effectively and at low cost to itself, as long as the West does not prioritize the resolution of the post-Soviet conflicts.

Indications are now multiplying that Moscow has blinked on its most specific threat: that to “recognize the independence” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia had singled out these two Georgian territories as prime candidates for “recognition.” This line of attack contradicted Moscow’s own claim that resolution of all secessionist conflicts in Europe and the world must follow a common “model” or “single standard.” Such selectivity about Abkhazia and South Ossetia reflected Moscow’s special enmity toward Georgia, the immediate territorial proximity (whereas Karabakh and Transnistria are not contiguous to Russia), and the Russian policy of allowing Armenia de facto a free hand in Karabakh, while Moscow claims de facto a free hand in the two Georgian territories.

Largely for those reasons, Moscow handed out Russian citizenship en masse in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, so as to claim a right of intrusive protection there, including military presence. At the same time it left the issues of citizenship and security protection in Karabakh up to Armenia. And it has been negotiating with Moldova since 2006 regarding a settlement that would leave Transnistria within Moldova, in return for a certain measure of Russian political and military oversight over a Moldovan state “reunified” in that way.

These highly differentiated, expediency-based approaches nullified from the outset Russia’s argument about a “Kosovo precedent” with general applicability. Had it applied such a “precedent” unilaterally in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Kremlin would have been exposed as singularizing Georgia and targeting it for a wanton act of aggression. With Russian troops and Russian-appointed local leaders already deployed in those two enclaves, any Russian “recognition” would have been seen worldwide as open military occupation and annexation. Moscow did not need to risk such a scenario, since the existing situation suits Russian purposes well.

As Kosova’s declaration of independence and Western recognition drew near, Moscow must have concluded that its threats against Georgia were unusable threats. Consequently, Moscow seems to be seeking a face-saving exit from a political impasse into which it has driven itself. Suddenly the Kremlin is downplaying its all-too-recent, dire warnings.

The Exception

Commenting on the news of Fidel Castro's resignation, Carl Bildt points out:

I dag är Kuba det enda landet i den västra hemisfären som saknar en folkvald regering. I stället tyngs det av ett föråldrat och förstelnat kommunistiskt styre.

Today Cuba is the only country in the western hemisphere which lacks a popularly elected government. Instead it is weighed down by an obsolete and fossilized Communist regime.

The Politics of Precedent

RFE/RL's Brian Whitmore, on the wider repercussions of Kosovo's declaration of independence:

The Chechen situation places Moscow uncomfortably between two contradictory sentiments. While it has done little to dampen separatist sentiments in territories affecting its neighbors, it has staunchly rejected the Kosovo model for its own breakaway conflicts like that in Chechnya.

Indeed, analysts have pointed out, the Kremlin is entering perilous and unpredictable territory by raising the issue of a Kosovo precedent. For this reason, [Sabine]Freizer says she does not expect Moscow to press the issue very hard.

"Russia is taking a risk by saying that Kosovo is now a case that is going to set a precedent in other parts of the former Soviet space," Freizer says. "They risk having this go beyond Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester -- and perhaps even Nagorno-Karabakh -- to their own territory of the Russian Federation, to Chechnya or other parts of the North Caucasus."

Officials of other CIS states with breakaway conflicts are, not surprisingly, far from enthusiastic about the Kosovo declaration.

In Georgia, authorities have rejected any comparison between its breakaway enclaves and Kosovo, adding that they have no plans to recognize the former Serbian territory.

"Georgia is not planning to assume any position in relation to Kosovo, nor is it going to recognize it," Temur Iakobashvili, Georgia's state minister for reintegration, tells RFE/RL's Georgian Service.

"This process has evolved independently from us, and it's important that we stop looking for parallels between Kosovo and conflicts that exist in Georgia. Such parallels don't exist, and the sooner we forget the word 'Kosovo' the better it will be for us, as well as for the Abkhaz and the Russians," Iakobashvili adds. "Georgia is not going to recognize Kosovo -- this is not in our interests -- just like I think Russia is not going to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

Then there is Azerbaijan, which has spent a decade-and-a-half engaged in a protracted conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian enclave located within Azerbaijani territory that functions as a de facto independent republic with its own provisional government.

Baku fears Yerevan may use the Kosovo precedent during talks on Karabakh to upset the ongoing peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. To that end, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Khazar Ibrahim said Baku will not recognize Kosovo, calling Pristina's move "against the principles of international law and illegal."

To the Caucasus via Kosovo

A Chechenpress op-ed article says that

The Russian authorities have openly stated that they will annex the occupied Georgian territories following the recognition of Kosovo’s independence. The Kremlin has not managed to restrain itself until the recognition of Kosovo’ s independence has been completed and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced his country’s plans after the meeting with his puppets nicknamed ‘the President of Abkhazia’ and ‘the President of South Ossetia’.

Kosovo declares independence

CNN notes that

Russia -- Serbia's historic ally -- has remained opposed to Kosovo's independence. Russia, which has fought two wars against separatist rebels in its southwestern republic of Chechnya, has said that U.S. and European support for Kosovo's independence could lead to an "uncontrollable crisis" in the Balkans.

NATO Plans

United States Ambassador to Georgia John Tefft is interviewed by RFE/RL [excerpt]:

Another critical April engagement is the NATO summit in Bucharest. Georgia,like Ukraine, had been hoping to earn a boost in its admission bid with a Membership Action Plan -- a goal that may have been derailed by the November crisis.

Tefft says there has been "no change" in U.S. support for Georgia getting a plan.

"I don't know as we speak what will happen at the Bucharest summit in April. There are lots of discussions going on, many of them took place this weekend in Munich at the [February 9-10] security conference there. We'll just have to see," he says. "But getting back and firmly on the democratic path is really a critical part of Georgia's establishing that it is in fact a good candidate to be a member of NATO and to contribute to NATO."

All over for Rowan - II

Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post:

Many explanations for the archbishop's statements have already been proffered: the weakness of the Church of England, the paganism of the British, the feebleness of Williams's intellect, the decline of the West. At base, though, his beliefs are merely an elaborate, intellectualized version of a commonly held, and deeply offensive, Western prejudice: Alone among all of the world's many religious groups, Muslims living in Western countries cannot be expected to conform to Western law -- or perhaps do not deserve to be treated as legal equals of their non-Muslim neighbors.

Every time police shrug their shoulders when a Muslim woman complains that she has been forced to marry against her will, every time a Western doctor tries not to notice the female circumcisions being carried out in his hospital, they are acting in the spirit of the archbishop of Canterbury. So is the social worker who dismisses the plight of an illiterate, house-bound woman, removed from her village and sent across the world to marry a man she has never met, on the grounds that her religion prohibits interference. That's why -- if there is to be war between the British tabloids and the archbishop -- I'm on the side of the Sun.

Patarkatsishvili Dead

Russian media are reporting that Badri Patarkatsishvili has died suddenly in London, and that British police are investigating the incident - though most sources indicate the cause of death as a heart attack. The Georgian's death has been confirmed by Boris Berezovsky.

The BBC has a report here.

From the Guardian:

His death has prompted speculation about whether or not a force more sinister than nature played a part in his heart attack.

In December, Patarkatsishvili claimed he had obtained a 45-minute audiotape recording of an official in the Georgian interior ministry asking a Chechen warlord to murder him while he was in Britain or Israel, where he also had a home. Transcripts were published in the Sunday Times.

"I believe they want to kill me," he said. Patarkatsishvili hired Lord Goldsmith - who said he took the threat "very seriously" - to represent him.

A top Georgian analyst said it was highly unlikely Georgia's government would have murdered Patarkatsishvili, despite the fact he was an outspoken critic of the regime.

The government led by Mikhail Saakashvili did not have the capability to pull off an assassination in Britain, Zaza Gachechiladze, editor in chief of the Georgian Messenger, told the Guardian.

"I don't think he was killed by anybody in Georgia. Technically, we don't have that much possibilities. We don't have a very much sophisticated intelligence service," Gachechiladze said.

And the Telegraph notes that

While the investigation into the death of Mr Patarkatsishvili - a sworn enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin - remains at an early stage, even speculation that the Russia state could be involved will fan diplomatic flames.

Russian bomber buzzes US carrier

CNN reports on how a Russian bomber twice flew about 2,000 feet over the deck of the USS Nimitz in the Western Pacific at the weekend.

Four turboprop Tupolev-95 Bear bombers took off from Ukrainka air base, in Russia's Far East, in the middle of the night, Japanese officials told The Associated Press, adding that one of the jets violated Japanese airspace.

63

It's my birthday today. I'm 63.

Medical Blackmail

Robert Amsterdam writes about the fate of the former Executive Vice President of Yukos, who is dying from HIV AIDS in a Russian jail cell:

Vasily Alexanyan (Aleksanyan, Alexanian) is dying. This is a fact. He is dying because he has refused the offers for medical treatment from the prosecutors in exchange for false testimony against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Yukos. I cannot overstate the importance of this tragedy, which explains more about the injustice, lack of rule of law, and ruthless persecution of these political prisoners than any argument I can put forth. What other government uses medical blackmail to create legal cover for their crimes?

All over for Rowan

Damian Thompson, in the Telegraph:

Anglicans in parts of Nigeria live under what is, in effect, totalitarian Sharia. It goes without saying Williams does not defend the stoning of adulterous women and other charming Islamic practices. But, in his interview with the BBC, his condemnation of "bad" Sharia is deeply buried in acres of Vichyite waffle about the need to see Sharia "case by case within an overall framework of the principles laid down in the Koran and the Hadith".

For the Archbishop of Canterbury to propose an extension of British Sharia in the same week that we learned of the extent to which the Sharia authorities cover up "honour crimes" reveals a degree of ineptitude that even George Carey never managed.

And, talking of George, watch this space. Lord Carey of Clifton is no fan of his successor, but a very big fan of African Anglicans persecuted by Sharia. I would be very surprised if he can resist intervening in this dispute.

Anyway, I reckon it's all over for Rowan.

Archbishop's Public Blunder

Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury has finally put his foot in it in a momentous way - with a truly outrageous statement. Via the BBC:

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Hat tip: Leopoldo

The Currency of Violence

In the Washington Post, Nora Boustany writes about the growing spread of Islamist ideology in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, profiling the Chechen researcher, journalist and sociologist Ousam Baysaev:

In his lecture, Baysaev showed a slide of a wall to illustrate the shift from secular to Islamic influence within the separatist movement. One slogan that had been sprayed on the wall graffiti-style read: "Freedom or Death." Beneath it was a more recent one declaring: "Chechnya is the Province of Allah."

"They perceive themselves as having no outlet," Baysaev said of the rebels, adding that they would probably "take the fight to a broader area" that would include Ingushetia, Dagestan and other nearby republics.

A Bang, Not A Whimper

Jeff Nyquist, on how The Cold War Never Ended (excerpt):

By some counts, Russia has the best intelligence service in the world. A cheap trick of latter-day prognostication is to watch Russian moves with an eye to what they know. Prior to 9/11 the Russian parliament staged hearings in which testimony was presented about an imminent attack on America by “shadow forces.” The dollar was expected to crash. The Russian people were encouraged to trade their dollars for gold. To this end, gold was made legal tender in Russia. Anyone watching these hearings, knowing the prescience of Russian intelligence, would conclude that something “very nasty” was coming against America. And sure enough, 9/11 proved the point. Russian spies go everywhere. They look into everything.

It is worth noting that Russian economic moves have been telltale since 1998. At the time, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, Russia was cooperating with the West. But there were disturbing cracks in the friendly façade. A defector warned that Russia had a secret intelligence “alliance” with China. Even more disturbing, Russia was still working on a super-plague biological weapon, planning to build new missiles, cheating on other arms agreements. Russia was refurbishing underground nuclear bunkers and nuclear-proof cities. Why were these preparations taking place in the midst of peace, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin?

Long ago Russian strategists predicted the West would suffer a severe economic crisis. As far back as the 1950s Russian strategists talked of a “forty-year” strategy and more, with strategic preparations in the clandestine, criminal, economic and political spheres. Though Communist ideology is supposed to be dead, Western analysts shouldn’t underestimate the ongoing influence of Marxist ideas. Having seen the world through the lens of Marxism-Leninism, Russian and Chinese leaders didn’t become overnight disciples of John Locke or Adam Smith. The old battle line remains between rich nations and poor nations, between capitalism and socialism. As a self-conceived champion of the poor nations, the Marxist always anticipates a global capitalist meltdown that will bring about a new balance of power (in favor of a Marxist bloc of countries). This is part wishful thinking, part realistic thinking. History teaches that financial crashes periodically occur. If you are plotting to overthrow a global social system, it is logical to strike when that system has suffered an upset. In terms of playing to this expectation, the Chinese have concentrated on trade while the Russians have concentrated on monopolizing raw materials (oil, natural gas and minerals).

Hat tip: Marko

Enemy Street

Prague Watchdog's Umalt Chadayev, on Grozny's Moscow-backed city administration's plan to rename a Grozny street.

King: Putin masterminded 1999 apartment bombings

From the Sunday Telegraph:

...Sir David King, who as the Government's Chief Scientist played a key role in the investigation into Litvinenko's murder, has accused the Russian president of masterminding the murder of nearly 300 of his own people in the Moscow apartment bombings in 1999, which Putin blamed on Chechen terrorists.

"I can tell you that Putin was responsible for the bombings," Sir David claimed to Mandrake at the Morgan Stanley Great Britons Awards. "I've seen the evidence. There is no way that Putin would have won the election if it wasn't for the bombings. Before them he was getting 10 per cent approval ratings. After, they shot up to 80 per cent."

Russia granted refugee status to Milosevices

Via the BBC:

Russia granted refugee status to the wife and son of the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the country's immigration service has admitted.

The two were given the status in March 2005, Russian officials said.