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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 2 (October 31, 2000)
The World Report by ‘The Eurasian Politician’ gives you the general overview of world politics in every four-month period. It offers the ‘red clues’ of what’s going on in the world of the new millennium by paying attention on the relevant lines, the connections of seemingly independent events, and by suggesting ongoing tendencies and phenomena. Thereby ‘The Eurasian Politician’, with the help of our expert advisors, offers a wider understanding of the world politics, which the scattered and alienated news of the great news agencies, spreading almost uniformly throughout the world, often lack. The purpose of The Eurasian Politician’s World Report is not to go into details, discussed on various levels in our articles, essays and reports, but to give a general image of the settings of the game.
Content:
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND NATO
WESTERN EUROPE (Britain, France, the Benelux)
NORTHERN EUROPE (Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltics)
WEST CENTRAL EUROPE (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
EAST CENTRAL EUROPE (Visegrad countries, Slovenia, Romania, Moldova)
MEDITERRANEAN EUROPE (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Cyprus)
THE BALKANS (former Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria)
EUROPEAN ORIENT (Turkey, the Caucasus)
EAST SLAVONIC COUNTRIES (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus)
CENTRAL ASIA (Turkestan, Mongolia, Afghanistan)
MIDDLE EAST (Israel, the Arab States, Iran)
SOUTH ASIA (Indian Subcontinent and the Himalayas)
EAST ASIA (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan)
SOUTH-EAST ASIA (Indochina, Thailand, Burma, the Sundas, the Philippines)
OTHER CONTINENTS (Africa, North America, Latin America, Oceania)
GENERAL: Some of the main features of the second period of 2000 in Eurasia have been: the continuation of inertia of the European Union and the discussion concerning the eastward enlargement of the Western organisations, the EU and NATO; continuation of the power struggle of Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, acting against the federalism of Russia and the position of regions and republics, against independent media, and against a series of accidents casting a shadow over the regime’s nature; presidential elections in Yugoslavia, in which the opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica won Milosevic; geopolitical games in the Caucasus and around the Caspian oil, still ongoing war in Chechnya but simultaneous removal of Russian troops from Georgia; uncertain peace process in the Middle East with Israeli removal from Southern Lebanon and failure of the Camp David negotiations, with consequent outburst of conflict in Palestine; continued acts of the regime against independent media in Iran; rising heat between India, Pakistan, the Islamists and the Kashmiri independence activists over the fate of Kashmir; the opening relations of the Koreas; the reactivation of anticommunist movements in Laos; instability in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and the implications of the Abu Sayyaf affair on the island of Jolo. Outside Eurasia, some relevant trends during this period have been: the U.S. presidential election being await and its consequences to the world politics; Colombian violence and rhetorics on a new Vietnam for the U.S.; eruption of violence and rebellions in the Pacific island states of Fiji and Solomon Islands; and a looming "African World War" spreading bloodshed throughout the continent.
It requires no special expertise to notice today, that the positive momentum of the early 1990s, when everybody believed in a quick enlargement of both the European Union and NATO, has been passed. The development of European integration is in crisis. The development of NATO has been put in ice, to wait for the solution of the U.S. presidential election, since Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic became members in 1999. The earlier "quick-track" group of six applicant countries to the EU - Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus - was extended in Helsinki, December 1999, to include seven more countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Malta. Of the countries with some prospects of membership in the Western organisations in the present world order, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ukraine, let alone Serbia and Belarus which are still entirely bound to the Russian reference group of political culture, still remain closed off. Georgia and Azerbaijan have shown some interest to join Turkey in NATO, but as NATO did not yet accept even Slovenia, Estonia and Romania as new members, such enlargement of the Western security umbrella remains a distant dream of a better future.
Six applicant countries to the EU already appealed on the EU to become accepted by 2003. Western decision-makers, however, have changed their minds since the French President Jacques Chirac’s promise in 1997 that Poland would be a member in 2000. Now the West speaks about 2005 as the earliest opportunity to take new members, and even them only five or six of them: Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and possibly Cyprus. The more optimistic speakers speak about the inclusion of Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Malta in this group. Romania and Bulgaria are feared for their bigger size and economic problems, and especially for their agriculture. Turkey still rises strong prejudices for her Muslim faith, vast size and bad reputation in human rights issues in her eastern borderlands.
Probably the Union’s main problem, however, already starts within itself in the very form it exists today. It is not the applicant countries’ ability to fulfil various kinds of criteria summoned upon them by the present EU - some criteria that many of the present member countries would not have fulfilled when they were accepted as members for political reasons. The question of the Union’s own structure is a hard one as long as no member state is willing to give up its share of power or money, and as the Western countries are ruled by social-democrat parties that are unwilling to liberalise the EU system of administrative and interventionist view on economy. For a liberal EU it would not be a problem to accept new member states that are poorer than the existing members, since there would be no need to massive subvention. The very issue is agriculture, a sector that presently swallows over 40 per cent of the EU budget. It is the very issue that makes eastward enlargement so difficult - supposing that as big a country as Poland should be, for political and economic reasons, in the front line of the enlargement. In Poland, there are more peasants than in the whole present EU.
As pointed out by a Finnish economist, Professor Tauno Tiusanen, in a seminar of research on Russia and East Europe in August, judging the economic factors, an eastern enlargement of the EU to large agrarian East European countries such as Poland, nothing to speak about Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, is simply impossible with the present stagnated system of the Union. However, as Prof. Tiusanen added, an eastern enlargement in the close future is still absolutely necessary for the future of Europe, since the same economic factors also witness a gap between Europe’s rich and poor, which means that there must be integration that at least begins to cure the disaster that fifty years of socialist rule left as an heritage. For the present Union, such small countries as Slovenia and Estonia would not be as problematic as the large ones with a huge agricultural sector - but the core states of the present EU, Germany and France, with the addition of the large Mediterranean members, are not very interested in Slovenia and Estonia, but in the continental geopolitical dimension that Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary can offer. These three are, besides, already guaranteed to belong to the West by their NATO membership, while continued Western hesitation on the status of the Baltic and Balkan countries shows that the West has not overruled an idea of keeping these regions as a playground in the games being played with Russia.
Another signal by the EU that does not promise anything good for ‘Zwischeneuropa’ is the development of the EU attitude on Russia’s development. Putin’s rise into power has been accompanied in the West by liturgy and moral ambivalence that alarmingly resembles the Western attitudes at the rising Nazi regime of Germany in the late interwar period. In the 30s the German aggression was not provoked by any Western isolation and blockade as sometimes implicitly claimed, but encouraged by constant reluctance by the West to see the reality in Germany’s development, in the Nazi desires for expansion, and in the looming Nazi-Soviet alliance to share Zwischeneuropa. Rhetorics of ‘not isolating Germany’ and ‘need of strong leadership’ were repeated in a way that should cause an historic déjà vu for the politicians of our days. In the interwar Europe the lack of security of Zwischeneuropa brought about authoritarian regimes between the two totalitarian systems: from Pilsudski’s Poland and Antonescu’s Romania to the Baltic regimes of Päts, Ulmanis and Smetona. In the 1990s, the regimes of Iliescu in Romania until 1995, Meciar in Slovakia until 1999, Tudjman in Croatia until 1999 and Berisha in Albania until 1997 indicated such nationalist reaction to the insecure position threatened by Russia and Serbia and feeling of helplessness in the grand game between the West and Russia. In the CIS states around Russia, this authoritarian situation still prevails.
During the EU chairmanships of Portugal and France, the statements of the EU towards Russia and the ongoing atrocities of Russia against the Chechens have grown into an alarming direction: An apex of European hypocrisy concerning its policy toward Russia was presented in the decision to remove all the sanctions due to the Russian harsh human rights violations in the aggression against Chechnya, although the war was and still is going on in the Chechen Republic. The decision was excused with a remark that hardly makes Russia’s neighbours feel secure: "Now Russia has a strong leader." Such open encouragement for Putin to increase authoritarian tendencies in ruling Russia may prove very dangerous for Europe, unless she welcomes continued violence in the Caucasus, in the Balkans, in Russia’s near abroad and finally maybe in Russia herself.
Another alarming tone of the EU’s turning into explicit dishonesty was the Portuguese socialist Foreign Minister Jaime Gama’s comment on Russian aggression against Chechnya: "Europe understands Russia. We also have terrorists and we fight them." Instead of taking a righteous stand at the ongoing real threats against European stability, mainly caused by the stubborn imperialist policies of Russia and Serbia over their small neighbours, the European Union’s member states are still stuck into the swamp of the Haider farce. It is not a wonder that euro-skepticism is in a steep rise in many Eastern countries, for example in Estonia and Hungary which are both among the most prospective candidates for prompt EU membership.
Western policy is risking the favour of the hidden hand of virtue and attraction that has so far brought the victory of the Cold War to the Western camp, and guaranteed the willingness of the Eastern states to seek integration into the West, and as far as in Russia, co-operation with the West. If the West turns against its own fundamental values right beyond the imagined boundaries of interest spheres, encouraging Russia to return to imperialism, centralism and strong leadership, it will inevitably lose its ability to attract and encourage countries like Russia and Serbia to develop into a more desirable direction. Moreover, it will signal insecurity and risk the positive development in Zwischeneuropa - most acutely in Romania and in the Baltic states as well as in countries like Georgia and Azerbaijan, and even in Turkey. The whole mission of the EU as well as of NATO may be in a much more serious danger than the Western leaders now dare to think.
After a conflict with the EU Chairman Romano Prodi (mentioned in the last issue’s World Report), the Finnish ombudsman Jacob Söderman, advocate of transparency within the Union’s decision-making, has confronted Javier Solana, former NATO head secretary and present EU’s ‘foreign minister’, over the secrecy of the security co-operation between NATO and the EU. Söderman was criticised also at home for exceeding his duties, but the argument reveals some fundamental problems in the ongoing reconstruction of Western and European security. The WEU, Western-European Union, has become history, and the construction of common European security policy, let alone making it real, has not shown any concrete steps forward. NATO’s role is changing - not because the threat that Russia constitutes for Intermediate Europe would have suddenly disappeared but because the Atlantic nature of NATO is becoming irrelevant due to the end of the bipolar world order.
Although NATO has proved more capable of handling with small terror regimes, like those of Saddam and Milosevic, than OSCE let alone EU, the actions NATO has taken, have not been fulfilled in an entirely logical way. Iraq and Serbia were punished, but neither any of the terror regimes was removed and replaced with a more desired one, nor a lasting solution was made concerning the status of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosova, or the de facto independent Kurdistan of Northern Iraq. This seems illogical, as the supposed sovereignty of Yugoslavia and Iraq was nevertheless touched. Against nuclear powers like Russia and China, the Alliance appears powerless. However, Russia is the very country against which most of the new applicants of NATO membership desire protection. NATO’s task in fighting communism is finished in Europe, unless we encounter Serbia and Belarus as the last communist regimes in Europe. However, the more general character of NATO’s original task - protecting the Western liberty, democracy and market economy against the terror of aggressive terror regimes - should still be there.
Yet small-scale terror in the form of rebels and terrorist groups within NATO countries - for example the PKK, the ETA and the IRA - can hardly said to lie within the range of such a vast Alliance’s concerns. Much more, the Alliance should be directed against a much more powerful source of terror: the one constituted by terror regimes, states using terror (policy of fear) and aggression as an everyday means of driving their interests around themselves. The U.S. took Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as such. After a long hesitation, during which horrible wars took place in former Yugoslavia, the West finally agreed to take Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia as such, too. However, despite the horrors of Transnistria, Georgia, Abkhazia, Karabagh and Chechnya, NATO has refused to touch the delicate issue of the threat Russia imposes upon her neighbours, and upon her own citizens. What makes Russia different from Yugoslavia is very obvious: size, importance and nuclear weapons. Because of these, it would be very questionable for NATO to advocate direct means against Russia’s policies. However, it does not mean that NATO should reject its own task of protecting Western values of liberty, market economy and democracy against terror and violence.
The new settings of the European situation mean that either NATO should grow from an Atlantic club of security and prosperity into a Western-European security alliance that would secure the prospects of liberty, market economy and democracy also in Intermediate Europe, by balancing Russia and all the smaller aggressive regimes of the region with a clear security guarantee, finally eliminating the risk that the existence of insecure ‘grey zones’ in the Baltics, in East Europe, in the Balkans and in the Caucasus are constituting for European stability. This kind of development for NATO will be necessary for maintaining its role. On the other hand, it is most improbable that the Americans would agree to further rise their input in European defense, while simultaneously an increasing amount of Europeans find American hegemony over their continent uneasy. This means that Europeans desiring the security and stability that only NATO has been able to bring to the continent must take increasing responsibility of their own security. This requires purposeful European co-operation, first with NATO, but step by step it should lead into a credible construction of European security structures that carry the ideological heritage of NATO.
Reactivation of terrorism and violent groupings in the traditional minor hotspots of the West continued during the early second period of 2000. In Spain’s Basque Country the communist terrorist organisation ETA had declared end of ceasefire already earlier, and continued bombings. Violence was re-intensified also in Northern Ireland, familiarly by the Protestant marches across Catholic city quarters. Same happened in Corsica. At the end of August, the French minister of internal affairs Jean-Pierre Chevènement quitted as a protest to the Corsican policy of Premier Lionel Jospin’s government. Minister Chevènement was replaced by Daniel Vaillant, a socialist.
The Netherlands suffered from a vast explosion of a fireworks storage, and in France there was a remarkable air accident when a Concorde crashed north of Paris in late July. The new headquarters of the British intelligence MI6 was shot with a minor missile, recalling the beginning of the newest Bond movie "When the World is not Enough". (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
France’s chairmanship of the European Union has been marked by the French preference for a deepened integration of the EU’s "hard core" instead of eastwards enlargement which would call for liberalisation of the EU’s presently social-democratic and bureaucratic structure, especially the vast agricultural subvention system (CAP), of which France benefits, could not realistically be maintained if Poland, let alone France’s own favourite in the east, Romania, would be integrated into the Union.
According to The Economist, both the British Labour, led by Tony Blair, and the French social-democrats, led by Lionel Jospin, have fallen greatly in popular support. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
All over Western Europe, there were riots and road blockades of protesters against the high fuel taxation. Finally France had to yield to the demands of the people in September, to decrease taxation of fuel. (The Economist, 16th-22nd Sept.) Elsewhere, the fuel revolt continued. The extremely high price of oil has mainly benefited Russia and contributed to the country’s war expenses, but also the U.S. due to the dollar’s rate. Those suffering most of the OPEC cartel’s policy are those oil producer countries who, unlike Russia, would have the capacity to produce more oil to the market - for instance, Iran and some Arab countries.
The Faeroe Islands, an autonomous province of Denmark, has agreed with Copenhagen that the Faeroes are heading towards independence. The remaining disagreement concerns mainly the length of the period during which Denmark should continue paying regional subventions to the secessionist islands. [However, it is unlikely that the Danish government would start bombing Tórshavn into dust, spreading myths about a terrorist conspiracy network of the fanatic Faeric separatists.] The islands have a genuine Scandinavic language, which is closer to Danish and Norwegian than Icelandic is, but still more unrecognisable for Danes, Swedes and Norwegians than these three main Scandinavic languages. The overwhelming basis of Faeric economy is fishing.
In September, the Danes voted on joining the currency union of Europe. In the referendum, the "no" votes won with six per cent. It is unclear how this will influence the already otherwise shaky development of a common European currency. After the acceptance of Greece to enter the euro region, only Britain, Sweden and Denmark, among the EU member states, are now staying out from euro. Popular arguments against the euro vary in these three countries: while Sweden and Denmark fear for the competitiveness of their social-democratic ‘welfare state’ system, Britain fears the downright opposite, the common currency’s being part of interventionist socialist economic policy that would hurt the free market.
According to a Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, there is an unexploded American nuclear bomb lying in the sea off Thule on Greenland’s coast. The bomb would originate in a B-52 bomber that fell in 1968. The aircraft contained four bombs, of which one was never found, according to the Danish newspaper. The upcoming of this issue is most probably connected to the American missile shield project, as Thule has been proposed to be one of the important bases for the anti-ballistic missile programme.
The Öresund bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark was finally completed and opened, making Copenhagen and Malmö neighbour cities. The bridge connection from the southern province of Scania (Skåne) in Sweden right to Denmark’s Zealand (Sjælland) is supposed to increase regionalism and especially benefit Scania, where already now most people go shopping to Copenhagen instead of Stockholm far away in the north. Working and housing across the Öresund is becoming ever more common. In early Middle Ages, Scania used to belong to Denmark, until it was conquered by Sweden in a war. A distinctive dialect (Swedish with a Danish accent) is spoken in Scania and seeing the Scanian flag (red with yellow cross) is not uncommon.
The transnational regionalism that is taking place in the peaceful regions of Europe proves that secessionism and integration are not necessarily opposite phenomena in the present Eurasian development. Same search for authentic polities and connections can be seen both behind tendencies towards integration and regionalism in areas of high legitimacy and behind tendencies towards disintegration and separatism in areas of low legitimacy.
Budgetary politics has dominated over the discussion in Finland since Finance Minister Sauli Niinistö had success in forming the budget. Niinistö is the leader of the Finnish Conservative Party ‘Kokoomus’. Thank to Niinistö’s efforts, Finland got a budget that supposed to decrease the presently very high taxation. After the budgetary negotiations, Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen and his social-democrats finally had to yield to 6,4 billion FIM decreases in taxes. In the rare situation where the Finnish budget leaves availability for a fair investment on the payback of foreign debt. Still, even after the decrease, the tax rate is still 45 per cent, and public sector 46 per cent of the GNP.
Argument on nomination of the leadership of the Finnish Bank caused troubles between and within the Centre Party and Kokoomus. Finland awaits a local election in October.
Finland has ‘celebrated’ the 100th anniversary of the former semi-authoritarian President Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, a politician who has divided the historians’ views into two opposite camps. One, represented by the "official historian" of Kekkonen, Prof. Juhani Suomi, who has a privilege by Kekkonen himself to use his archives, wants to paint a picture of a clever statesman who could keep Finland out of deeper Soviet influence and pressure by personally strong relations with Moscow. The other camp, represented by a productive historian Prof. Hannu Rautkallio, considers Kekkonen as a man of Moscow, who came notoriously close to the limits of treason by his KGB contacts and by his authoritarian involvement in all societal life, including the imposing of press censure. In the anniversary year, dozens of new books concerning Kekkonen and his era have been published.
President Tarja Halonen (now ‘Mrs’ since in August she married her partner Pertti Arajärvi) made unclear statements on the NATO issue, which has traditionally been a taboo in the Finnish debate. It is very improbable that Finland would apply for NATO membership in the near future, even though Finland shares the very same geopolitical problem that makes the Baltic countries, Romania and so on to desire NATO membership so desperately. President Halonen’s unclear statements on the possible NATO enlargement to the Baltic countries caused confusion in the media (HS 4th July), as some interpreted Mrs Halonen’s statement - that "NATO should knows its responsibility of the consequences of the NATO membership of the Baltic countries to the stability of the region" and "NATO has responsibility of the results of taking new members, and NATO has responsibility of the results of not taking new members" - to be in favour of the NATO membership of the Baltic countries, while others interpreted it as skepticism and favouring the Russian view on the issue.
The Baltic concerns for the reluctance of the West to enlarge NATO, after the ‘favourites’ Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic achieved their NATO membership in 1999, are expressed in a column in Eesti Päevaleht (17th Aug) by MP Mart Nutt, representing ‘Isamaaliit’ (Fatherland Union, the Estonian Conservative Party). He warns of Russia turning more and more centralist, federalism in Russia becoming a formality like in the times of the Soviet power. Economy is being subjugated under the arbitrary power of bureaucracy; the power structures (FSB and the army elite) are growing again into one with ideology (ruling Party and Church), the unholy union being completed by economy that is totally intertwined into the power structure. This is an optimal basis for totalitarianism. "History has suggested that closing society and concentrated power do not tolerate free press."
Mr Nutt points out that the politics of hegemony that Russia is trying to drive over its claimed "rightful sphere of interest", the former Soviet Union, has made even the "most tireless international ear of Russia, the OSCE" to defend the Baltic stand against Russia’s continuous propaganda and accusations against the Baltic countries in regard to the status of the Russian minorities. A well-known Russian analyst Sergei Karaganov wrote that "if the Baltic states are not returned to the Russian sphere of interest by 2005, they will be lost forever". This shows that the geopolitical ambitions of Russia stay strictly imperialistic. Nutt concludes that the Russian aggression does not leave alternatives for Estonia – as soon as possible into EU and NATO.
However, historically it has been naive to trust in Western help for the liberty of the Baltic countries, or any countries bordering Russia. In a conference of American Estonians in August, the Estonian President Lennart Meri spoke in a chilly tone about the Western ignorance and indifference for the Baltic countries. This was followed by a very strong and unconstructive reaction by the US and Canadian governments.
In the Lithuanian parliament elections, the pendulum changed power for the favour of the former communists, now social-democrats, led by Algirdas Brasauskas, whose party gained almost a third-part of the votes. The other winner of the election was the Social-Liberal Party, led by Arturas Paulauskas, another old communist, who was defeated in the past presidential election by the American-Lithuanian candidate Valdas Adamkus. Third most popular party was the Liberal Union, a more right-wing oriented liberal party. The main right-wing party, Sajudis, led by the legendary pro-independence politician Vytautas Landsbergis, got only a bit more than 8 per cent of the votes, yet losing less than expected.
In elections on 8th October, the Lithuanian Liberal Union became the second largest political force with 35 seats (up from 1 seat in the previous parliament) out of 141. The LLU will form a government with the New Alliance (29 seats), the Lithuanian Centre Union (3 seats) and the Modern
Christian Democrats (1 seat). (Liberal International, 16th Oct.) Rolandas Paksas, leader of the Liberal Union, became the prime minister of Lithuania. (Postimees, 25th Oct.) Paulauskas became the Chairman of Parliament. The victory of the liberal parties, especially that of Paksas’s right-wing liberal party, guarantees that the high percentage of votes for the socialists does not damage Lithuanian development.
In a latest poll by Eesti Päevaleht (9th Oct.) the former favourite for next Estonian presidency, Andres Tarand of ‘Mõõdukad’ (the Moderates, Estonian social-democratic party, which is, however, very liberal and market-oriented in its policy) had lost popularity, whereas a well-known populist candidate, Edgar Savisaar of ‘Keskerakond’ (Centre Party) has maintained his 15 per cent popularity, thus becoming the favourite candidate now. Savisaar gets his support mainly from the countryside, but is also favoured by ethnic Russians and people with Soviet-time nostalgia. The second most popular candidate in the poll was Toomas Savi, who maintained his 11 per cent support. A newcomer with surprisingly big popularity was the Võru ‘vallavanem’ Robert Lepikson who got 6 per cent support. Besides Savisaar, also Lepikson has criticised the present government coalition of Isamaa, Mõõdukad and Reformierakond. (Eesti Päevaleht, 9th Oct.) The election of the second president of the ‘Second Republic’ of Estonia (the first was in the interwar period) will be in 2001.
An American millionaire made diving investigations to the wreck of "Estonia", a traveller boat between Stockholm and Estonia that sunk in autumn 1994 demanding more than 900 people’s lives, in co-operation with a German TV journalist. Many people in Estonia, Sweden and Finland were upset for that they regarded the diving as violating the peace of a grave, but the diving could not be prevented as the wreck was in international waters. However, the investigations did not lead to any new findings.
The most inconsiderate European boycott against Austria seems finally be over. A final ritual to correct the tragic error, which European governments made in attacking a fully democratic country, was performed by "the Three Wise Men" who were delegated to check Austria’s liability. The three men were the former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who has gained some international respect by playing the role of a mediator in the Namibian independence and Yugoslav peace negotiations; a German law expert Jochen Frowein, and a Spanish politician Marcelino Oreja. Their Austria report of course concluded that there is no violations against minority rights in Austria. The whole farce had begun, when the FPÖ, a populist right-wing party in Jörg Haider’s leadership, won the parliamentary elections, and when the traditional consensus of Austrian conservatives and social-democrats this time did not work to build a government without the FPÖ.
The Austrian farce in the European Union, however, immediately rose anti-EU attitudes throughout Central Europe, extending to the candidate countries of the EU enlargement. First, there are now larger suspicions than before about the Union turning into an arbitrary machine of ruling social-democratic parties of the European countries and attacking such small member countries as Austria, manipulating its politics and violating its sovereignty.
Secondly, the anti-European case of populists like Haider has appealed to ever larger groups – largely thank to the martyr’s laurel that the inconsiderate European politicians gave to Haider in the form of the boycott. Now more populist politicians in Germany, Austria etc. are turning the attitudes against EU’s enlargement eastwards. They use mythic fears that "thousands of poor eastern people would flock to the West by eastward enlargement and steal our jobs". This is of course a myth, as the EU membership of East European countries would hardly change conditions of people’s mobility from the level it is now.
Respectively, anti-European rhetorics have lately triumphed in the candidate countries, as well. The Estonians have become ever increasingly skeptical at EU (unlike NATO, which they believe to fulfil their real motives to get integrated to the West), and in Hungary, the new Fidesz government is stating that "we still aim at European integration, but we are not going to accept any conditions". The rhetorics in many East European candidate countries largely resemble the one that occurred in Finland, Sweden and Austria before these countries became members in the EU: It is feared that "now Germans flock here and buy our lands, companies and lake-shores". Such thing never happened; people waited for rich European masses to flock into Finnish nature in vain.
A referendum on foreigner laws was held in Switzerland. Also this referendum raised wide publicity in European countries, and the same rhetorics concerning "xenophobia" and so on, already seen in respect to Austria, was repeated. The results in Switzerland, however, proved positive.
The Romanian President Emil Constantinescu’s announcement (The Economist, 29th July-4th Aug.) that he would not be a candidate in the looming Romanian presidential election constitutes a major danger for the stability of whole Eastern Europe. The serious risk in the development of the country is that the former communists would after all return into power and halt Romania’s economic reforms towards market economy, as well as possibly change the enthusiastically western orientation of Romanian foreign politics.
Still in 1997 all educated people in Romania seemed to agree that Ion Iliescu is history; that he will never again return to power. Iliescu, a politruk of Ceausescu’s, became the heir of the fallen dictator’s power, and as the first president of liberated Romania, his regime was able to slow down Romania’s economic and political reformation. He imposed openly anti-Hungarian policies in Transylvania, and used the Jiu Valley miners to crush student demonstrations in Bucharest. In 1996, first in parliament elections, then in presidential elections, Iliescu’s socialists suffered crushing defeat to the liberal Centre Party of Emil Constantinescu. In Constantinescu’s time, Romania quickly improved its economy. In 1995-1997 the economic growth was massive, but due to the very poor settings in the beginning, economy ruined by Ceausescu’s era, the economic development of the country is still in major troubles, especially as the economic development stagnated in 1998. Constantinescu’s refusal to be candidate in the presidential election in 2000 was explained by himself as bearing the responsibility for failure to improve the economy sufficiently.
Also Romania’s minority rights were radically improved as soon as Constantinescu raised power; the position of Hungarians in Transylvania was improved as well as the relationship between Hungary and Romania. Two of the ministers in Constantinescu’s government have been ethnic Hungarians. Also the situation with Gypsies – a major minority problem for all the East European countries – was improved. A major danger is constituted by Transylvanian Romanian ultra-nationalists, for example the present mayor of Cluj (Kolozsvár, Klausenburg), Gheorghe Funar. Other ultra-nationalists, such as the Jiu miner revolt leader Miron Cozma, and his supposed patron Corneliu Vadim Tudor, suffered major setbacks during 1999, but in case that the socialists would win the coming president election and ally themselves with the ultra-nationalists, Romania’s stability may be in danger. The risk is largely contributed by the present Hungarian government’s refusal to feel itself bound by the neighbour treaties made with Slovakia and Romania during the socialist Gyula Horn’s period.
Romania is the only country between the Russian troops occupying Moldova’s eastern region Transnistria (where the Russian and Ukrainian separatists have established an openly Bolshevik de facto state under Russian armed occupation), and the Serbian troops. In case Romanian stability and sincere western orientation would collapse, all Balkans may be in serious danger to become a playground of Russian and Serbian inspired destabilizers. The whole European peace is then in danger, especially as the West has been reluctant to accept Romania to NATO, and to find a lasting political solution to the question of Yugoslavia.
Some Western analysts might consider Romania’s collapse as desirable, as it would legitimate drawing a "Huntington line" as a new iron curtain along the medieval church boundary, leaving Romania and all the Orthodox countries of the Balkans into a Russian and Serbian sphere of interest. However, especially in Romania, but also in Albania, Russian or Serbian dominion would never again be accepted without active armed resistance. Driving Huntingtonian politics in the Balkans would seriously risk all Europe’s stability. Moreover, it would most probably trigger new tensions in the relations between Greece and Turkey.
Hungary speaks out to be the most prepared candidate for the EU’s enlargement. Together with Slovenia and Estonia, this is probably true. However, the hindrances on the way towards the first true round of eastward enlargement of the Union do not lie in the fulfilment of the criteria, as formulated by the present member states, by the candidate states in the East. In fact, with any objective criteria for instance Slovenia would be more prepared for the EU membership than many of the present member states. The biggest obstacles on the way to EU’s enlargement lie within the bureaucratic inertia and agricultural subvention system of the present EU. There is very little, if anything, that the candidate countries can really make in order to satisfy the present EU, as it is the EU, not the candidates, that is not prepared for the enlargement.
After the rise of the Fidesz government, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in Hungary, the Hungarian foreign policy has clearly returned towards nationalist tendencies – emphasis being on the situation of the transnational Hungarians living in Romania (Transylvania), Slovakia, Serbia (Voivodina), Ukraine (Ruthenia and North Bucovina) and on minor scale in Austria, Croatia and Slovenia. Another feature in the present Hungarian politics pointing at a more nationalist tendency is the rising euro-skepticism. Now Hungary is already a member of NATO, so that the most immediate security deficit has been effectively covered – even if Hungary’s common border with Serbia made the country directly involved in the very first NATO war after the NATO enlargement. Hungary, however, was much more loyal to the NATO stand than two other NATO members, Czech Republic and Greece; the first sympathising the Serbs because of Slavonic commonality, the latter because of Orthodox faith.
Viktor Orbán’s statements concerning a) the "illegitimacy" of the previous socialist government’s treaties with Meciar’s Slovakia and Iliescu’s Romania concerning the borders and the treatment of Hungarian minorities, and b) the skepticism and frustration over the lack of progress in the European integration on the EU’s side, may imply some serious threats in the regional stability of South-East Europe. Also in the economic policy, the right-wing government has quite paradoxically emphasised more protectionistic policies than Gyula Horn’s socialist government that, after all, executed the so-called Bokros Programme – named after the socialist (but politically most "neo-liberal") Finance Minister Lajos Bokros. Especially the impact of the Fidesz’s partner in the government, the "Minor Farmer Party", has been extremely nationalistic. The same happened actually in Poland already before, by the brave economic programme of Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz.
In order to recover the economy in East European countries, it is absolutely necessary to continue liberal economic policies and privatisation. Hungary would be, indeed, very well prepared for EU membership, and thanks to the successful Bokros Programme, the Hungarian economy has indeed recovered from the catastrophe looming in 1994-1995. During Horn’s period, Hungary was actively supporting Romania’s NATO membership, which was very wise and long-sighted policy, since in the long run Romania’s integration to the Western security structures would be the best guarantee for the security of Hungarians both in Hungary and outside.
In the beginning of June, Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek’s right-wing government had a crisis in Poland, when the coalition partner, right-wing liberal Unia Wolnosci (Freedom Union) left the government. Buzek has, however, continued with a minority government. (The Economist, 3rd-9th June.)
Preceding the looming Polish presidential election, where socialist victory for the present President Aleksander Kwasniewski is expected, there has been dishwashing, both Kwasniewski and the Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa blaming each other of contacts to the communist secret police. Both the gentlemen’s reputation was, however, cleared in investigations, thereby allowing them to be candidates in the 2000 presidential election. In regard to the accusations made against Walesa, the documents claiming Walesa’s collaboration with the communist secret service were proven falsifications produced by the secret service in the 1980s in order to spoil Walesa’s reputation, for which purpose a special group was founded. (AP, 11th Aug)
A clear victory for Kwasniewski has been expected. Although Kwasniewski was a member of the communist nomenclature, and despite the fears that appeared first that his presidency would be a similar setback for Poland than Meciar for Slovakia and Iliescu for Romania, Kwasniewski proved relatively successful and moderate. Under his period Poland continued following Balcerowicz’s economic programme and finally reached NATO membership in 1999. Meanwhile, the old Solidarnosc that had led Poland into freedom and basically pioneered the whole East European liberation in the 1980s, has been split into smaller and smaller sections. Walesa himself has lost popularity, and now the most credible right-wing candidate who could have some chances against Kwasniewski, is the impartial candidate Andrzej Olechowski, present foreign minister.
More than 60 per cent support has been estimated for Kwasniewski, although recently also his popularity has been falling. Olechowski has been expected to get about 12 per cent support, thus allowing him to challenge Kwasniewski in the second round, if Kwasniewski would fall under 50 per cent in support. The next candidates would then be Marian Krzaklewski of the AWS (Solidarnosc), and Jaroslaw Kalinowski of the Agrarian Party. Walesa is estimated to get no more than 1 per cent. The rest of the candidates, extending from the communist candidate Piotr Ikonowicz to the right-wing populists (mainly anti-EU parties) Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Andrzej Lepper, Jan Olszewski and Jan Lopuszanski, and candidates somewhat more unclear in their political commitment, Dariusz Grabowski, Bogdan Pawlowski, and the national democrat Tadeusz Wilecki.
If the right wing does not unite its forces behind some of the candidates (probably most successfully behind Olechowski), Kwasniewski will win already in the first round of the election. In Poland, however, Kwasniewski’s victory would no longer be a major setback – neither economically nor foreign-politically – as a victory for someone like Iliescu in Romania could be, even if Iliescu would stay defiant at Russian influence (as he actually did, unlike Slovakia’s Meciar).
Added in October: As expected, Kwasniewski won already in the first round and continues as the president of Poland.
Der Spiegel (37/11th Sep 2000) asked the popularity of different EU member candidates of German public. The most popular new member states would be Hungary, Malta, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and all the three Baltic countries. Also Slovenia’s popularity was already three years ago more than 50 per cent. More recently, the halfway has been exceeded by Cyprus and Bulgaria. Only Turkey and Romania are opposed by a majority of Germans, Turkey being slightly more popular – possibly due to German Turkish participation in the gallup.
The order of popularity only weakly correlates with the GNP per capita of 1998. Cyprus, Slovenia and Czech Republic are already over 50 per cent of EU’s in living standards; Turkey is the poorest, only 23 per cent of the EU’s level. Romania and Latvia, however, are almost equally poor (27 per cent), and in all these three countries the economic growth was negative in 1999.
If we look at a slightly better indicator (yet problematic, too) than the GNP, namely the PPP (Purchase Power Parity), we get Slovenia to the top, soon followed by Czech Republic, Hungary and Estonia. After some gap come Poland, Slovakia and Croatia, and yet poorer, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Turkey. If compared to Ukraine or Russia, however, even these five are closer to the European level.
It is clear that, comparing the public popularity with objective measures, especially Slovenia and Romania suffer from image deficit. Slovenia is still thought to belong to the notorious reference group of "former Yugoslavia". Romania has throughout the 1990s suffered from extremely and disproportionally negative media image in Central European countries like Germany, Austria and Hungary. Only in France, the attitudes towards the linguistic relative nation Romania have been basically positive, but on the other hand France has been much more unconstructive and skeptical at the whole idea of eastward enlargement than Germany has. The bad reputation of Romania seems odd as the southern neighbour Bulgaria has got increasingly positive image as a "cradle of Slavonic Orthodox Europe" in the German-speaking media. However, Bulgaria has been clearly more pro-Russian and pro-Serbian than Romania, which has been looking towards France. (Yet Bulgarian attitudes are far from those of for instance Serbs or Macedonian Slavs, and can be understood better due to the geographic location far from Russian aggression.)
Besides Poland (which got basically all its foreign debt forgotten, unlike Hungary etc.) and Russia, a clear favour of Western eastern policy has been lain upon Ukraine. In the long run it is of course strategically wise to improve Ukraine’s independence from Russia, and possibly to create "a second Russia" out of Ukraine, to be a buffer state between Europe and Russia. It is however not logical that at the same time another big South-East European state with strategically important location, namely Romania, has been discriminated. Romania is not Slavonic like Ukraine, and the Romanian Orthodoxism is directed towards Greece rather than Moscow. Even if poor and economically weak, Romanian economy has still been most successful if compared with the Ukrainian one. The alignment and loyalty of Romania towards NATO and the West is much stronger than Ukraine’s. And finally, also Romania forms an important part of the "Heartland" of Eastern Europe, besides located between the Hungarian steppes and the Black Sea, blocking Russia out of the Balkans, and finishing Serbia’s besiege by pro-Western powers.
Completed with Slovenian NATO membership, Romania’s membership in NATO would be a most wise strategic move from the West, in order to secure the stability of the post-Cold-War European status quo. The Anschluss of the other Romanian republic, Republic of Moldova, back to Romania, is not an issue of major importance if stability can be maintained in the region. In that case the independence of Moldova can best be helped by strengthening the mother state Romania. Moldova’s sad Russian-pressured CIS yoke will then inevitably grow weaker in foreign-political importance.
Transnistria (in Russian: Transdnyestriya), which was occupied by Russian forces from Moldova (Moldavia) in a bloody civil war ten years ago, is run by Russian hard-line communists who failed in their attempted coup in Moscow in August 1991. The de facto separatist state is totally dependent on the Russian army, illegally occupying the territory of Moldova, a country whose independence Russia has recognised. The Moldavians are Romanians, but their desires of reunification with Romania and European orientation were destroyed by the civil war that gave Russia a chance to isolate the republic and to force a new president, government, and to annex the country to the CIS, like happened in Georgia and Azerbaijan after the Russian-backed coups in these countries.
The rebel stripe of Transnistria is like a museum of Soviet communism. In the ‘independence day’ parade, Russian tanks were passing a platform decorated with scythe and hammer, where the president of the region, a bishop, a Cossack chief, and half a dozen officers were standing. Schoolgirls were guarding the memorial of the unknown soldier. The biggest company is Sheriff Concern, whose founders include the president’s son and former police chief, nowadays the customs chief. In fact everybody is millionaire in Transnistria, but bread costs half million Transnistrian rubles. In the military barracks, Russian passports are being issued for those willing to travel. (Der Spiegel, 40/2nd Oct.)
Hooliganism in Prague
In September, Prague was plagued with riots by anti-capitalist, mainly communist and anarchist, youth, gathered there from all over Western countries. Already before, the hooligans had threatened to "make Prague a European Seattle".
With just over 92 percent of the votes counted, Janez Drnovsek’s Liberal Democrats (LDS) have nearly 36 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections held on 15 October. In second place are the (conservative) Social Democrats (SDS) with nearly 16 percent. Third place goes to the former communists (ZLSD), who have just over 12 percent, followed very closely by the Christian Democratic coalition (SLS+SKD). Mr Drnovsek will most likely become the next prime minister of Slovenia. (Liberal International, 16th Oct.)
Not a long time was passed from the last time when Slovenia got a new government. In June, a right-wing government started in Ljubljana, led by an former emigrant Slovenian and a banker, Andrej Bajuk. (The Economist, 10th-16th June.)
During this period, the Basque terrorism of the ETA was suddenly reactivated in Spain. Several bombs were blown up in various locations, and political murders took place. Considering the traditionally Russian sources of assistance and finance of ETA and other extreme left terrorist groups in Europe, the statement by Jaime Gama, foreign minister of Spain’s neighbour Portugal, seems most misleading: "Europe understand Russia; we also have terrorists and we fight them." Mr Gama was referring to the continuing Russian genocide against Chechens. Calling the Chechens terrorists have been common in the Russian war propaganda, but there is no evidence whatsoever of Chechen involvement in the original bomb blasts in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buinaksk last autumn, and the Chechens have not committed terror acts against Russian civilians, while the opposite has taken place all the time.
Another most misleading reference to the issue of "terrorism" is given by the Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic, affording Belgrade’s emissary a long interview in the government’s newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta and talks with Ivanov. ... "Brussels and Washington," he said, "do not realise that those who help terrorists and separatists, such as [former Kosovo Liberation Army commander Hashim] Thaci, [Former KLA commander Agim] Ceku, [Chechen president Aslan] Maskhadov and others, are opening a ‘Pandora’s box’ - they should not be surprised at the ‘reverse effect’ such as in Riyadh, Cairo, New York, Corsica, Bilbao, Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam, and so forth." (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 16 May 00; FBIS-EEU-2000-0516; via World News Connection).
A cynical mind could take the statement of Jovanovic, representative of a most active terror regime, to be a threat against the West. As the Corsican separatists and ETA have never supported the freedom fight of the Chechens or Kosovars, the "reverse effects" in Corsica or Bilbao cannot be due to "encouraging extremist Islamists". It is well known, which governments have traditionally reactivated extreme leftist terrorist groups in Europe, and for which motives.
Usually the Russian and Serbian rhetoric fundamentally fails to understand the important qualitative difference between traditionally Moscow-supported international and national terrorist organisations (PKK, ETA, IRA...) and terror regimes (Serbia, Libya, Taliban, Iraq...) on one hand, and genuine popularly supported legitimate movements of national freedom struggle (Kosova, Chechnya, Kashmir, East Turkestan, Tibet, Iraq’s Kurdistan...) that mainly fight the very same regimes (Russia, China, Serbia, India) who are spreading the "terrorist" rhetorics to world media.
A military commander of the ETA, Ignacio Gracia Arregui, along with 35 other ETA militants, were arrested in Spain in late September. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
The Spanish intelligence "Cesid" as well as the American "Institute for Science and International Security" ISIS published information pointing at a possible nuclear weapon programme in Algeria ("The Middle East", June 2000). David Albright, president of ISIS, has expressed disquiet at the fact Algeria might soon have the capacity to produce plutonium, of a quality which could then be used to produce nuclear weapons.
Albright told The Middle East recent disclosures indicate China has been the principal supplier of nuclear technology to Algiers since the two countries signed a secret accord in 1983. The agreement with Beijing made provision for the construction of the nuclear complex near Birine as well as the Es Salam reactor, a hot cell laboratory, and another facility for the production of radioisotopes. A Spanish intelligence report discloses that Algeria has already concluded the second phase of its nuclear programme. The ISIS notes that besides Chinese expertise, Algeria has also received Argentinian aid. Argentina originally sold Algeria the Nur research reactor in 1989.
There is also a direct link to developments at Es Salam, which the West finds disquieting. Although there have been some problems with construction, the facility should, according to Spanish intelligence sources, begin functioning "within months". What worries the Americans and the Spanish is despite the fact Algeria has renounced nuclear weapons, signed the identical Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) that has been circulated among the major powers, and submitted voluntarily to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) controls, its embattled government is continuing with a nuclear programme, the full details of which are being concealed from monitoring authorities. "In two years it might have the facilities necessary to produce military plutonium, the key element in nuclear weapons", Albright told the specialist publication, Jane’s Terrorism & Security Monitor.
ISIS maintains this information is the basis of a report recently produced by the Spanish secret service, Cesid, and presented to the Madrid government. Cesid was unequivocal about the development. It describes the clandestine programme as a danger and warns of the implications of tolerating an Algerian deception regarding military objectives. There are several other Islamic states interested in what is happening in Algiers. Meanwhile, at a confidential Washington DC intelligence briefing last June, it was announced that the Algerian armed forces are in possession of a variety of delivery vehicles including bombers, missile launchers and Soviet-made rockets, all of which are quite capable of carrying nuclear weapons. It was further claimed that Algeria has access to underground missile testing sites where, before independence, France carried out its own nuclear weapons testing programme.
However, tensions arose when, as a consequence of IAEA inspections, it was discovered that three kilogrammes of enriched uranium, quantities of heavy water and a collection of natural uranium, supplied by China, had not been declared. In theory, the Es Salam reactor has the capacity to produce up to three kilogrammes of plutonium annually and it would not be difficult for small quantities to be diverted for military purposes. Currently, Algeria depends on outside suppliers of nuclear fuel. Its main limitation, the Cesid report states, is the country’s inability to undertake a military nuclear programme on its own. However, the discovery of uranium in the southern Hoggar mountain region puts Algeria in a special category.
Interestingly, all documentation related to the project has been classified as secret by the Algerian authorities, which, says the Spanish report, "is surprising considering the supposedly peaceful use to which Algeria’s nuclear programme was to have been put". In any event, Cesid argues, with Algeria’s abundant energy resources, especially natural gas, it has no need to choose the nuclear route for power production. The only conclusion the Spanish intelligence agency could reach – and which was contained in its confidential report – was that the development of Es Salam was undertaken with strictly military objectives. Significantly, Washington concurs.
While both the nuclear fuel and necessary assistance seems to come from China, there is also a link to Iran, Algiers having "strangely" good relationship with Teheran, and Iran being possibly interested to test its own nuke in the Algerian Sahara, where also Charles de Gaulle blew up his bomb. The inspiration for a nuclear weapon programme apparently comes from the model of India and Pakistan. Also in India and Pakistan there the nukes were most welcome for internal political spirit, and this is exactly what Algeria, a country loving patriotic pathos but collapsing in a civil war, desperately needs.
A communist pro-Russian and anti-Western terrorist group shot the British military attaché in Athens, Greece. (The Economist, 10th-16th June.)
Former Yugoslavia is once again living an eve of new turmoil. After the Yugoslav presidential election where the dictator Slobodan Milosevic was defeated by a joint opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica, Milosevic gave in and stepped down from power surprisingly easily. However, the first expressions spoken out by Kostunica were not as positive as the euphoric Western media would like to report. Almost first things Kostunica declared were that although relations with Montenegro (with which Kostunica did not have warm relations) should be repaired, this would be in order to keep Montenegro as a part of Yugoslavia. Besides, Kostunica cast cold water upon the necks of those who hoped a constructive policy to take part in regard to Kosova, by declaring in the familiar Serbian nationalist style that Kosova is an integral part of sovereign Yugoslavia, and should stay as such, and that now the West would not have arguments to continue their "occupation" in "Serbian territory". (Eesti Päevaleht, 9th Oct.)
And the West is doing very little in order to impose a lasting political solution to the Balkans. Instead, they are likely to do like the Serbs, backed by Russia, probably hope: to imagine that returning Albanian-inhabited Kosova into Serbian power would no longer be a problem, since Serbia is suddenly supposed to be democratic. Yet there would be again an opportunity to reach a lasting solution. The solution should indeed include serious revision of the status of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosova, and some kind of agreement concerning minority rights in Sanjak and Voivodina. This would be a historical chance to do what should have been done in 1991, 1992, 1995 etc. already: to put an end to the failed attempts to keep Yugoslavia together in violent means. NATO is already involved, both in Bosnia and in Kosova, so it had better make a final commitment to a new order in the area of former Yugoslavia. The inevitable loss of Kosova, and perhaps of Montenegro, would psychologically be better to be executed as the last failure of Milosevic rather than as the first "betrayal" of Kostunica against the Serbs.
Besides, in a democratising Serbia, the population could be awarded with a kind of confederal status with the Bosnian Serb Republic, which would be a much more natural addition to Serbia than Kosova. The present Serbs, as well as Western leaders, should indeed get familiar with the fact that it will be impossible to return Kosova to Serbian control without causing a new wave of bloodshed between Serbs and Albanians. As well, the idea of maintaining UN and NATO forces forever in order to keep on an artificial and temporary solution in Bosnia and Kosova is doomed to fail, once policy changes in the West rise questions of the price of this investment, seeing no advance in the political will to complete the mission.
The only realistic way to complete the peace mission in the Balkans will be a solution covering Bosnia, Serbia, Kosova and Montenegro at the same time, in a way that the presently prevailing realities are being recognised: Kosova cannot become a direct part of Serbia without major bloodshed, and keeping Bosnia united is idealistic fantasy. The Belgian or Swiss model could have worked in Bosnia if imposed in time. In Macedonia it could still work, and prevent a new war between Slavs and Albanians there. In Kosova, such a model actually never had a realistic chance, as Serbia was dedicated to nationalist and imperialist policies. An elegant split-up of the present rump Yugoslavia along with some kind of a consensus between Kosova, Montenegro and the healthy powers in Serbia, could be guaranteed by the West in a Balkan Pact including Bosnia, Sanjak and Voivodina as well. Neighbouring countries directly influenced, as Albania, Hungary and Croatia, should be present in the negotiations. The solution should not be dictated by vetoes of Russia and China, but by imperatives of the local situation, in the guidance of NATO that is already involved.
Where it comes to the political line of Mr Kostunica, the statement made by Western analysts have been rather controversial. Others, like many European newspapers, have figured him out as a democrat, even western-oriented one. Others, like the American institute Stratfor, have pointed out that Kostunica is actually an extreme nationalist, whose lines in questions concerning the attitudes towards West, or to Kosova, are not too different from those of Milosevic. Probably both the views are one-eyed and exaggerated: Surely Kostunica can be seen better than Milosevic, the initiator of all Balkan wars of the 1990s (except the Croatian counter-attack against the Serbian-established rebel Republic of Krajina, and the Albanian civil war in 1997). On the other hand, Kostunica’s victory would have been impossible without strong nationalist pathos with all the hints to Serbian mystified ultra-nationalism. His true line could be rather expected to be more unpolitical and less national-socialistic than Milosevic’s. However, there is no reason to expect that he would automatically change Serbia’s course towards Europe - as long as Serbia seizes Montenegro and wants to reconquer Kosova, the country will stay as a satellite of similarly thinking Eurasian empires, Russia and China. Only with ideas leading to abandonment of Kosova’s reconquest by force, Serbia can be expected to approach other European states.
More alarming is the Western passivity in front of the true chances in this historical change taking place in Serbia. Many tendencies in Western - especially U.S. - attitudes suggest that the U.S. would actually desire Russian involvement in Serbia’s development instead of Western. This may, in turn, suggest real aspirations to impose the Huntingtonian division of Europe into U.S. and Russian spheres of interest along the old church boundary. Such a "new Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" would, however, not bring about stability in Eastern Europe, but instead, throw the Balkans, Romania, Moldova, Greece and Turkey into a very dangerous direction. Two world wars were already triggered around Serbia’s development. Historically thinking, a third one would not be surprising.
Even if the prospects of getting immediate solutions to the Balkan conflicts initiated by Serbia are not very good, Milosevic’s fall is a very good sign of a new kind of development. It could at its best give new hopes for the remaining authoritarian post-communist states, where the oppositions are struggling against major oppression and unfair elections – in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. At least in Azerbaijan and in some Turkestan states the oppositions have taken up the issue of "Yugoslav model" actively after the Milosevic’s surrender. (Turkistan News, 7th Oct.) However, does the West have equal interest to care about democracy, human rights and end of Russian-backed dictatorship in countries ‘farther east’ from European backyards? At least Azerbaijan, with huge strategic importance and looming elections, should lie in also the West’s immediate interest.
Addition in October: Vojislav Kostunica admitted the guilt of the Serbian troops to genocide against Kosovar Albanians. However, he also reminded that there were crimes also committed against Serbs. (Postimees & Eesti Päevaleht, 25th Oct.) However, the faith of the missing Albanians imprisoned in Serbian prisons remains unclear. They have not been released. For instance, lots of students of the Prishtina University who were deported to Serbian prisons by the military and paramilitary troops, are political prisoners and have not been released to return to Kosova, although Serbian inhabitants that fled the take-over of Kosova by NATO troops have been returning to their homes in the NATO’s protection.
In Croatia, President Stipe Mesic has confronted the nationalists representing the former nationalist president Tudjman’s legacy, about the trials of accused war criminals. Mr Mesic would be willing to hand over to the Hague the accused war criminals of the Croatian side, while the nationalists, heavily backed by Herzegovina Croats, demand that the war criminals should not be handed over.
In Montenegro, the Western-oriented President Milo Djukanovic, who was hated by Milosevic and has neither very warm relations with Kostunica, won the local election in Podgorica, but in Herzeg Novi, the pro-Serbian extremists won. (The Economist, 17th-23rd June.) This may indicate a danger of civil war taking place in Montenegro if Kostunica’s policy towards Montenegro’s demands for larger autonomy will be unconstructive.
In August, Milosevic arrested several Westerners accusing them for espionage, murder conspiracy against himself, and travelling to Montenegro without a Yugoslav visa (the Montenegrin government has maintained visa freedom for years already). (The Economist, 5th-11th Aug; 12th-18th Aug.) In August, the former president of Serbia, Ivan Stambulic, disappeared after having criticised Milosevic. (The Economist, 2nd-8th Sept.) Disappearing of opposition politicians has been most frequent in the countries of the Russian bloc, in Serbia, in Belarus and in Russia, throughout the recent times. Time will show if Serbia will be the first one of these to move to a more positive direction.
Turkey is moving to a positive direction: There is economic growth taking place after stagnation of 1999, and at the end of spring, Turkey got a new moderate president, former judge Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who was finally supported by all the major parties. So, the fears that were caused by Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit’s attempts to renew President Süleyman Demirel’s reign and failure in doing so were proved vain. Mr Sezer is remembered for his active demands for improving human rights in Turkey. (TDN, NYT, 30th Apr. 1999) The press and public in Turkey are more than before denouncing misbehaviours of Turkish military and police leaders - this is easier now as the formerly powerful extreme communist terrorist organisation PKK, claiming a Kurdish cause, has been paralysed since the capture of its leader Abdullah Öcalan, and some other PKK leaders.
Also the Islamists have lost their teeth in Turkey. The Islamist ‘Virtue Party’ (Fazilet Partisi) suffers from deepening internal quarrels, and in the party meeting on 14th May, the moderate wing proved surprisingly powerful, as its challenger to the chairman Recai Kutani, Abdullah Gül, got more than 40 per cent of the votes. The moderation of Turkey’s Islamists is expected to calm down Turkish society even more. Thanks for this development have been addressed on the other hand to the support by EU and USA, that has made the Islamists to adopt a similar role that various Christian Democratic parties in Europe have. On the other hand the development may have been influenced by the fall of Iran’s Islamist revolution, and by the Turkish army protecting the secular constitution. (NZZ, 30th May.)
In early July, the Turkish government announced that all the 60’000-70’000 village guards of the martial law provinces would be disarmed (they have been for a long time accused for crimes against Kurdish population). During the first half of the year, as many as 5’000 village guards have been convicted and punished for crimes. The problem is both economical (the village guards have been paid a minimum salary of state official) and security-related (many Kurdish village guards carry arms also in civil). The village guards have also occupied many houses of evacuees, although according to the law all the houses belong to their previous owners. Thousands of evacuated inhabitants have already applied for returning to their homes. (NZZ, 8th Aug.) In August, President Sezer overruled a military-inspired decree permitting the government to sack bureaucrats it considered not secular enough or too pro-Kurdish. (The Economist, 12th-18th Aug.) The rejection of this law is not proved to have only good consequences, since it could have been used to diminish the chances of Islamists to gain power.
However, the western orientation of Turkish foreign politics is still getting frustrated, although in December 1999, the Helsinki decision on EU’s enlargement finally accepted Turkey as a candidate. Few believe in the sincerity of Western acceptance of Turkey to be fully welcome member in the European family. Moreover, the anti-Islamism that is in rise in the West as a fashionable tendency of searching for a new enemy after the Cold War, has stroke Turkey, too. This, of course, is most paradoxical, as Turkey is an openly secular country and opposes Islamism.
The Turkish tendency of foreign political moderation has not only had good results: Passiveness of Turkey in the liberation and decolonisation struggle of Caucasian and Central Asian nations against Russian rule, and in keeping an eye in the oppressed minority rights of the Turks living in Iran, Iraq and Syria, has deprived Turkey from one of its greatest potential tasks in world politics: that of being the main Western, secular and democratic lighthouse of the Orient, opposing Russian, Arabic and Iranian hegemony over Inner Asia and the Middle East. Turkey’s security co-operation with Israel and preferably also Jordan has of course brought new prospects for the region, but the other main direction of Turkish interests - Caucasia and Turkestan - has seen no concrete steps. The recent friction in US-Azerbaijani relations, the stagnation of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline plan in co-operation with Georgia and Azerbaijan, and the total Turkish failure in supporting democratic oppositions in the Central Asian Turkic dictatorships, have kept Turkey isolated from the great lines of world politics. This is not fair, and not desirable for Western and European interests, if we consider Turkey’s size and potentiality for importance in the region.
However, Turkey has acted like a most timid minor state that has to bow at Brussels as well as at Moscow. In February, Turkey sent back one hundred Chechens from the Georgian border. The case caused a bitter quarrel within the radical right-wing MHP party. In Turkey there are estimated seven million people who originate in the Caucasus. They are mainly Circassians, but also Chechens, who fled imperial Russia’s genocide policy in Caucasia in late 1800s and in 1920s. (NZZ, 4th-5th Mar.) Still it seems that Turkey is only suffering from Russian claims of conspiratory assistance to the Chechens, while the only friends of Chechnya seem to be Georgia, Poland and the tiny neighbour Ingushetia.
Of course Turkey is not alone guilty to its lack of impact that it could have. The Western policies considering Turkey and its role in the Middle East and Inner Asia have not been very consistent. Partly this can be explained by the fact that Clinton’s foreign policy has been dominated by such openly pro-Russian figures as Strobe Talbot and the CIA leader George Tenet (who is an Orthodox and whose line, thus, can be expected to be quite different from that of Woolsey), and the Republican experts of consistent Eurasian policy, such as Brzezinski, Wolfowitz, Shalikashvili and even McCain, have been criticising the Democrat foreign policy in vain. Partly, however, the Western failure in seeing its own prospects in Eurasian policies have been due to common misunderstanding of the situation due to biased media. Simplistic Huntingtonian ideas of religiously based "clashes of civilisations" should be first replaced with expertise of Brzezinski’s type in the Western strategy, before anything consistent can come out of Eurasian politics.
However, also positive development has taken place in the Western policy towards the Eurasian Heartland: A Finnish Turku-based daily Turun Sanomat (8th Aug 2000) reported of the removal of Russian troops from Georgia. Since 1991 Russia had four military bases in Georgia proper, and besides, Russia occupied two large regions (Abkhazia and Samadzablo) from Georgia in the so-called civil war. The US government has already granted Russia about 10 million USD for closing down two of the military bases, and Georgia and Russia start negotiations concerning closing of the remaining two bases. The historical removal of Russian troops, according to Jouko Grönholm of Turun Sanomat, tells about slow but inevitable change in the international development of Transcaucasia.
Not until in last November’s OSCE Summit, Russia agreed to sign a treaty to remove its troops from independent Georgia. At the same time, NATO comes in to investigate the bases left by Russian troops, especially the airbase of Vaziani. Georgia, along with Azerbaijan, has hoped to achieve NATO membership some day in the future. In the long run, this would be most desirable achievement for Western interests in Eurasia, since through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, the West would have access to the Caspian and Turkestan regions. Security-related talks have been opened between Eduard Shevardnadze and British and American generals.
If the Russian troops are indeed being removed from Georgia proper, the situation in Abkhazia and Samadzablo (South Ossetia) would be the next problem on Georgia’s path towards freedom from Russian military yoke. However, if Russia would not be resisted by Chechen independence fighters (whom Georgians quite openly sympathise), Russia could very soon again increase its destabilising involvement in South Caucasia, too.
On 24th April, Los Angeles Times interviewed Chechens of the Georgian-Chechen borderlands, and local Georgian authorities. In the interview it was remarked that both refugees and Georgia’s Chechens are sometimes visiting Chechnya in order to participate the resistance, and that Russia is purposefully bombing also targets in Georgia’s territory. It was generally feared that Russia would escalate the war to the whole Caucasian region. (Turkistan News, 26th Apr.)
In May, the Georgian parliament chose Gia Arsenishvili to new prime minister. Also Armenia got a new prime minister, Andranik Margarian from the Republican Party, who belongs to the moderate critics of President Robert Kocharian.
In a shooting that took place on 9th-10th July, a Georgian rebel leader Akaki Eliava was killed. (Monitor, 13th July.) The Georgian government and press called him "Zviadist" (supporter of the first democratically elected president of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia), while the actual Zviadists considered him as a soldier mutineer protesting his too low salary, or a provocateur, leading a short rebellion in October 1998. Some suspected the shooting to have been staged by the regime. (TOL.)
During the spring and summer, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were accepted as members of the Council of Europe, despite vast violations of human rights. However, the membership of the CoE had already become quite inflated when Russia was accepted - amidst most cruel genocide in Chechnya and despite aggressions against sovereign states Russia itself had recognised.
In September, the four most Western-oriented CIS members - Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine - made a deal on co-operation against Russian hegemony. Russia immediately revenged by abolishing the visa freedom for the citizens of these countries. (The Economist, 16th-22nd Sept.) Meanwhile, Russia is aiming at destabilisation of these republics by sharing Russian visas and passports (citizenship) in the areas of Moldavian, Georgian and Azerbaijani territory it occupies, or where it has military bases. This obscure activity that produces masses of Russian citizens within the borders of states Russia had recognised as independent, takes place at least in the Russian-occupied separatist ‘republics’ of Transnistria (Moldova), Abkhazia (Georgia), South Ossetia (Georgia, in Georgian Samadzablo), Karabagh (Azerbaijan), and in the Dzavakheti area of Georgia, inhabited by Armenians, where Russia has a military base.
The resistance of exactly these countries against Russian domination has long roots. Moldova is historically a part of Romania, the two third-parts of Moldova are still in Romania, while the present republic is actually Eastern Moldova, or Bessarabia, which was occupied by the Soviet Union from Romania. Georgia and Azerbaijan have long history already before the Russian conquest of Caucasia in the 19th century. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova were annexed to the CIS only after a violent Russian intervention (in all cases Russia backed a civil war and then organised a coup d’état by old Soviet nomenclature).
The biggest mistake that the Western understanding of the Caucasian situation can make, is to suppose, along with Russian propaganda, that the conflicts in the Caucasus are based on religion - i.e. to make the Huntingtonian conclusion. This conclusion could not be falser. Iran, for example, has been supporting the (Monophysite Christian) Armenians in the Karabagh conflict - against the Azeris who are Shi’ites. Besides Iran, Azerbaijan is the only country in the world with Shi’ite predominance. Moreover, talks about Islamist Arabic and Afghan support for the Chechen independence struggle have never been confirmed with any factual information. It is most likely that all the reports concerning such support to Chechens is disinformation originating in Russian security-related sources or mere imagination. Chechens do not need military training in Afghanistan, and nor do the Afghans in Chechnya - there is no reliable information of any interaction between these two countries, which are, moreover, religiously in opposite camps, Chechens being predominantly secular Sufi-inspired Sunnites, the Taliban movement of Afghanistan being extreme form of Islamist puritan fundamentalism.
The German intelligence BND denies newspaper leaks concerning its co-operation with Russia. Instead, the BND remarks that the proportion of members in Islamist organisations among the remaining Chechen population is only 5 per cent, yet they are said to form almost half of the guerrilla army of 3500 men. The author of an article in Neue Zürcher Zeitung considered the BND’s explanations partly unreliable and purposefully disinformative. The BND’s remark ignores the fact that the Chechen troops basically act following a rotation principle: the men are all in turn ‘resting’ as civilians, and when needed, they can be mobilised in great amounts. The BND also spreads the common disinformation that as many as 85 per cent of the Islamists would be recruited from countries outside Chechnya. Even the Russians have never been able to prove the numerous claims, for example by showing the claimed captured Afghan, Arab, Baltic or Finnish prisoners. (NZZ, 10th May.) It is more probable that if there are foreign volunteers among the Chechen fighters, their numbers are small, and they mainly originate in neighbouring Caucasian countries and republics (Ingushetia, Dagestan, Georgia, Azerbaijan), and/or represent the ethnic Chechen diaspora (Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Western countries).
There is no evidence of any real support from the Arabic countries, either. The often repeated myth in Russian media about "Wahhabites" or "Wahhabi extremists" is misunderstood in the West, since in the Russian context the word Wahhabi traditionally (due to the Soviet propaganda) refers to any Muslim resistance against Moscow, while in the real world the Wahhabis are the predominant Islamic school of Saudi-Arabia. Although there have been stories about the adventures of an Arabic (Jordanian or Saudi) "Wahhabite" called Khattab in Chechnya, there have been no reliable reports of real clashes between him and the Russians. Quite the contrary, it seems that Khattab, as well as Osama bin Laden, are mythical figures whose terror acts are directed against the West, not against Russia, and whose public outbursts are directed to harm the Chechen national liberation cause rather than to aid it. It can also be asked, why during the summer 1999 Khattab was constantly shown in Russian TV threatening to revenge with bombs in Moscow the Russian bombings of two accused "Wahhabite" villages in Dagestan (where there was no military activity and where lots of innocent civilians died; also Khattab’s wife is said to be from one of these villages). It seems Khattab was an essential part of the Russian provocation aimed at legitimisation of a new disastrous war, and a domestic take-over by a Security Committee regime. (See "History of Provocations" by A. Leitzinger in the last issue of The Eurasian Politician.)
A fact remains that most of the Chechen weaponry has come from the Russian army, not from any mysterious Islamic conspiracy extending from Kosova to Chechnya and Tajikistan, from Sinkiang to Mindanao. The Russian weapons come either directly from the Russian troops in Chechnya (stolen, bribed and seized) or from Georgia and Azerbaijan, the only two countries that have reportedly assisted the Chechen liberation movement. Anyway, the war is still going on in Chechnya, and a new winter is looming. It means a new humanitarian catastrophe, which the West should be prepared for. Russia occupies two third-parts of Chechnya, and has moved the puppet regime’s capital back from Gudermes to Groznyi (Dzoxar-Gala) in fear of Chechen counter-attack. The occupation is nominal in terms of real control, but most concrete misery for the local civil population that is constantly abused and terrorised by the Russian occupation troops. Destruction and devastation of the remaining villages and towns by Russian troops continues.
In fact, the situation in the Caucasian-Caspian chessboard is most far from a religious "clash of civilizations". The United States’ most promising partners in the region consist of secular Sunnite Turkey, secular Shi’ite Azerbaijan, and predominantly Christian Georgia. On the opposite side, the Russian-led "unholy alliance" with contrary pipeline plans and destabilising interests in the region consists of Orthodox Russia, Monophysite Armenia, Islamist Shi’ite Iran, and socialist Sunnite Turkmenistan. Together with Russia’s southern Islamic allies, like Syria, the latter "unholy alliance" is aiding and arming destabilising terrorist movements like the PKK of the Kurds, and Russian-initiated separatist regimes of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabagh, and the Islamic radicals (like the Basayev brothers, Khattab) opposing the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov’s moderate Chechen regime.
Considering the last-mentioned phenomenon - that Russia and its allies have actually been aiding the most fanatic forces within Chechnya in order to destabilise the de facto independent country since the end of the first war in 1996 - it is not a surprise that President Putin nominated the former Islamist Chechen Mufti Ahmed Kadyrov to be the new puppet regent of Chechnya, Zavgayev being in Tanzania and Gantemirov’s bandits having betrayed Russian hopes. Kadyrov used to be one of the Chechen Islamists opposing President Maskhadov’s secular politics and pressuring the implementation of sharia law in Chechnya. By the nomination of him, Putin showed that Russia is indeed not fighting against extreme Islam in Chechnya, but against the moderate Chechen government - that is, national liberationists. The war in Chechnya is about secession, not about religion - except in Russian propaganda that has widely manipulated the Russian and Western attitudes towards the war.
In Chechnya, a remarkable Chechen intelligence leader, Abu Musayev, was murdered during the period. He had controversial reputation, but he had several successful military and intelligence operations against the Russian military, which made him a remarkable person for the Chechen independence struggle. In May, there was fighting both in Chechnya and in Ingushetia, between Russian and Chechen troops (Monitor, 16th May).
The Kremlin-nominated Russian representative in occupied Chechnya, Nikolai Koshman, fired the notorious Chechen ‘Quisling’ Bislan Gantemirov in early June. Gantemirov was released from prison by Putin last autumn in order to get him to head a pro-Russian Chechen regime - Gantemirov worked as a Quisling for Moscow also in the first Chechen War (1994-1996) but was later convicted by Russia for embezzlement of the war reparations that Russia promised to Chechnya in the Hasavyurt Pact in 1996 (the money never reached Chechnya). In spring Gantemirov was promoted to colonel-lieutenant of the Russian army, a street was named after him in the occupied ruins of Grozny (Dzoxar-Gala). However, it seems to have been surprisingly hard for Russia to find any proper Quisling among the one million or less surviving Chechens. (Monitor, 1st June.)
The anniversary of the second Chechen War was passed in the end of September, and although the war has already several times been declared finished, it is nothing like that. Russian tactics has changed into the tactics of "burn land" - they destroy village by village all Chechnya, and the massacre sees no end. Russian soldiers and policemen sent to the occupied parts of the republic are suffering the results of the disastrous war policy of the Russian leaders: Also the Chechens have been forced to adopt new tactics. Blamed for terrorism in Russian propaganda, yet without any credible evidence, the Chechen fighters have finally adopted also radical means of resistance. In the summer, the Chechen fighters made several suicidal strikes, killing and wounding hundreds of Russian military and militia. Russia does not even control its strongholds in Chechnya, since the local population is all united - however disunited in trivial matters - to support the freedom of the tiny republic.
Vladimir Putin has trapped himself into the bloody war in North Caucasus, and he has rejected all negotiations with "bandits" - as he calls also the moderate Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov - that he can no more yield in front of Chechen commando strikes. He will have the Russian occupants stay in Chechnya as long as his war policy holds. Due to effective Russian isolation of the region from both Russian and international media, there is very little news coverage on Chechnya during this second war, and it seems for the Western leaders, that what is away from their eyes, is away from their minds. However, it can be asked how long the Western toleration for Russian aggression can hold, especially if it leads to further escalation of the war, and radicalisation of Caucasian Muslims, who are traditionally tolerant and moderate in questions of faith.
The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat, who still during the first war fired their Moscow correspondent for stating that the war in Chechnya was a colonial war, wrote in their leader, that expresses the official stand of the newspaper, that "Russia can not in fact economically or militarily afford a lengthened colonial war in the Caucasus. However, the Russian leaders do not seem to have the psychological ability to admit that their policy is from a wrong century." (HS, 5th July.)
Yet both Western and Islamic countries stay reluctant to criticise Russia and even support her aggression against Chechens. The chairman of the Minister Committee of European Council, the Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini, praised in Moscow in the summer, that there is a de facto ceasefire in Chechnya, and so the situation has been "remarkably improved". (Der Spiegel, 2nd-3rd July.) Because of this entirely false supposition, the EU has stopped all (the very moderate) economical sanctions against Russia.
In Tehran, the assembly of foreign ministers of Islamic countries received a literary appeal from the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, dated on 15th June. According to Maskhadov, 500’000 Chechens were killed in Stalin’s purges, and 120’000 in the first Chechen War 1994-1996. Since last September, the Russian army has killed more than 40’000 Chechens. "And yet, not a single Islamic State has done anything to stop this genocide. All we hear is that the war is an internal issue of the Russian Federation and that you respect the territorial integrity of the Russian State. Russia itself has de facto recognised the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria when President Yeltsin signed the 1997 Russian-Chechen Peace Treaty. And if this is not enough, then you can recall the right of peoples to self-determination, which is clearly fixed in International Law and the United Nations Charter." (Turkistan News, 3rd July.)
For news concerning the Chechen War, we recommend "The Chechen Times":
Radical Chechen opposition politician Movladi Udugov’s site http://www.kavkaz.org often offers prompt war information, but does not represent the official stand of the Chechen leadership. It can be found in: http://www.chechengovernment.com . Russian view (from Dagestan) can be found at:
A new link has appeared at: http://www.webhostcorp.com/members/caucasian/index.html.
The Chechnya Information Channel can be found at: http://www.ichkeria.org.
A Swiss journalist described the situation in the Chechen capital Grozny (Dzoxar-Gala). During his several hours in the ruined city he did not see a single building that would not have been damaged. The bombing taking part from September to January destroyed the city more totally than the whole first war (1994-1996). Bodies have been left in the non-repaired ruins, water is undrinkable and both electricity and gas are missing. Last year there were still 300’000 inhabitants, in February only 20’000. An estimated amount of 40’000 people have returned to the city since - mainly women and ethnic Russians. Black market trade and criminality prosper under the Russian control. Every night there is shooting taking place. As macabre as it may sound, the entrepreneurs are protecting their property from looting by surrounding it with mine fields. (NZZ, 2nd June.)
In an interview made by the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza on 19th June, the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov overruled the Russian disinformation concerning him being wounded or that he would have made separate peace offer. Mr Maskhadov emphasises that the Chechens did not start the war and they do not want it, but independence is the condition for peace. According to Maskhadov, "during the times of peace the Chechens sometimes quarrel needlessly much and they lack a bit discipline, but the history has taught us one thing: whenever the lethal threat appears from side of the eternally unstable Russia, only unity can save us". During the few peaceful years between 1996 and 1999, Maskhadov was avoiding confrontation with his political rival Shamil Basayev, because he - most correctly, as was proved later - was afraid that Russia was only waiting for a chance to repeated war and revenge. (Turkistan News, 21st June.)
Any internal conflict within Chechnya would have given the chance. Russia never got it and thereby the fancy stories were invented and marketed to both Russians and the West: Chechnya serving as a ‘centre of international crime’ (how would an isolated country with totally destroyed infrastructure and lack of communications and electricity be able to serve as an international centre of Eurasian drug trade or terrorism?), being part of an ‘Islamist conspiracy’ (again how?), and so on. Finally the casus belli was arranged by the Dagestani provocation performed by Basayev and 1000 men, of whom only 300 were Chechens (the rest being mainly Dagestanis), and the mysterious, still unsolved, bomb blasts in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buinaksk.
On 29th April there was a mass demonstration against Haidar Aliyev’s authoritarian regime in Baku. Lots of opposition politicians were arrested, for instance Ulvi Hakimov, chairman of the National Democracy Foundation, Arif Hadzhiyev, general secretary of ‘Musavat’, Vagif Hadzhibeyli, chairman of ‘Ährari’, and Panah Huseinov, chairman of the Popular Party. The police also beat women, representing among others the Azeri Turkish Women’s Association, Democratic Reform Party and Institute of Political Pluralism. (Turkistan News, 30th Apr.-3rd May.) A new opposition demonstration was organised for 17th June, including the leader of the Popular Front Abulfaz Elçibey, the leader of Musavat Isa Gamber, the leader of Democratic Party Ilias Ismailov, and the leader of Citizens’ Solidarity Party Sabir Rustamkhanli. (Azerbaijan Bulletin, 8th June.)
Abulfaz Ali Elçibey, the first democratically elected president of post-Soviet Azerbaijan, and after General Aliyev’s coup an important opposition leader, died in August. As also the present Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliyev, a former KGB general and Mid-East spymaster, is in a very bad condition and his death is to be expected soon, a succession struggle can be expected to begin in Azerbaijan, strategically the most important Transcaucasian state with vast Caspian oil resources. Russia is expected to back Aliyev’s son into succession, which would make Azerbaijan a similar kind of pro-Russian vassal state, led by an authoritarian dynasty, as Russia’s southern allies Syria and Iraq are. Though the Azeri regime has again prohibited the ‘Musavat’ party to attend the forthcoming elections, which are moreover expected to be entirely unfair, the West should be interested to back somebody more constructive, less authoritarian and more West-oriented politician - for example Isa Gamber or Ali Kerimov of the Musavat. Elçibey’s supporters also consist the chairwoman of the Liberal Party, Lale Shovket.
Elçibey was born in Naxçivan (Nakhichevan) in 1938 and by education he was a linguist. He was pro-Turkic and anti-communist, for which opinions he was imprisoned in 1974-1976. When the Soviet Union split up, Elçibey led the Popular Front, and he was elected to president in the first (and so far last) free election in 1992. In the same year Elçibey participated the OSCE Summit in Helsinki, but next year he was overthrown in a Russian-backed coup d’état. After that, Elçibey spent four years in home arrest, and the recent years as a leader of the opposition. Elçibey died in lunge cancer in a Turkish hospital on 22nd August. (Azerbaijan Bulletin, 24th Aug.)
It would lie in immediate US, European, Turkish and Israeli interests to back Azerbaijan’s sovereignty from Russian as well as Iranian domination, and to prevent formation of a deeply illegitimate authoritarian dynastic regime that would be bound to Russian and Iranian vassalship. It would also consequently construct the pipelines through Russian and Iranian territory, which would mean more Russian strategic and military investment (and consequently, resistance and devastation) in North and South Caucasus. After the Baltic countries, Azerbaijan (along with Georgia which, however, does not have similar natural resources) has the best prospects of all the former Soviet states to sovereignty and development into a Western-styled country of Turkish secular and democratic model rather than Central Asian or Iranian tyrannical model. Due to its oil resources and geopolitically important location as a bridge eastwards from Turkey towards Turkestan, Azerbaijan will stay in the rational strategic interests of the West, as pointed out by Zbigniew Brzezinski.
In the North Caucasian republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia there have been constant tensions between ethnic groups. It seems that there would be tensions between the Turkic (Karachais and Balkars) and Caucasic (Kabardians and Cherkessians) nations of the both republics - both the conglomerate republics were artificially created in the 1900s in order to shake the ethnic compositions and to split larger Turkic and Circassian nations into quarrelsome tribes subjected to other ethnic groups, and mixed with Russian immigrants. In the republic of Adygea, the Adige Circassians and the Russians are confronting each other, the Russians being upset of granting jobs to one hundred Circassians who came from Kosovo. In the 1860s Russia expelled most of the Circassian nation into Turkey, which in its turn settled them into Kosovo that was in that time part of the Turkish Empire. Now Russians fear continued re-immigration of Circassians to their old homeland. (IWPR’s Caucasus Reporting Service, 20th Apr.) In the reality the confrontations in North Caucasia are not so much between ethnic groups but between the old communist nomenclature, backed by Russia, and the nationalists defying them and now often united by Islamic revival.
The development of Russian attitudes suggests that problems will spread in Russia. Although the amount of Russians supporting the Chechen War, according to a poll by Segodnya, has decreased from the February amount of 73 % to about 50 %, the amount of Russians explicitly hating Chechens has risen up to 44 %. "The most cynical people already warn that Russian cities soon need new bomb blasts to maintain the support for the war." (Suomen Kuvalehti 30/28th July; Segodnya, 28th Aug.)
In Ingushetia, Chechnya’s neighbour republic, where Chechen refugees have fled in mass, lacks 361 million rubles, and Moscow has not paid these money. Because of that, the supply of water and bread in the refugee camps have been stopped, although more refugees are flocking out of Chechnya every day. (Independent Information Centre "Glasnost": North Caucasus Daily News Service, 13th Sept. http://www.glasnostonline.org .) According to Russian authorities, common security has not been disturbed in Chechnya enough (despite a war going on) to grant the refugees with their legal rights. Equally well Russia also violates the constitutional freedom of moving from place to place by its citizens. At the same time as the humanitarian catastrophe is getting worse by approaching winter, Western media and aid organisations seem to have lost their interest in North Caucasus – probably because of Russia’s isolation policy that has made all humanitarian work very hard. However the innocent victims of the worst genocide of post-Cold-War times (that is still continuing) would demand all the possible attention and help.
Generally the development in Russia during Putin’s reign in 2000 has been what could be expected in the process of his rise into power by a new war in Chechnya and by Yeltsin’s new year show to guarantee Putin as his successor - an historical déjà vu for those who recalled Paul von Hindenburg and Hitler’s nomination. Putin’s main lines in internal politics have been to radically increase centralism and state domination - over regions, over media and over economy. This means that Putin has been abolishing the remnants of federalism, freedom of speech and democratic system in Russia. These lines not only recall the Soviet times, but maybe even more, the czarist periods when Jews, Freemasons and liberals were seen as Muslims, oligarchs and dissidents today, when the Circassian genocide corresponded the present Chechen genocide, and when Russia played the active hidden hand behind the Balkan wars and initiation of world wars.
Putin has also showed tendencies of turning towards the Eurasianist approach of the three-fold Russian geopolitical thought by searching for ideological and moral basis for his policy from the well-known Russian nationalist and former dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.) The other two main schools being traditionally the Slavophiles & Panslavists, and the Zapadniks, i.e. the Western-oriented. Throughout modern Russian history, czarist, Soviet and post-communist times, the Russian geopolitical thinkers have belonged to one of these three groups. For example, Andrei Sakharov, and on some level also the former foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev, can be described as Zapadniks, while Solzhenitsyn is a Eurasianist. Both Eurasianists and Slavophiles (as well as Russian Panslavists) have traditionally appeared anti-Western and many of them have supported southern expansion. Putin’s turn to search philosophical basis for geopolitical policies recalls Francisco Franco’s turn towards so far marginal Falangist ideology. However, as much as many right-wing Western observers hoped Putin to become a Russian Franco or a Russian Pinochet in the meaning of "putting economy to an order by authoritarian rule", Putin is proving that in Russia authoritarianism has traditionally occurred without any improvement in economy.
The continuation of the Chechen War will increase both war hysteria and war tiredness in Russia. The politicians committed to the war in the first place will not be able to stop it, because then nothing would have been won with the mindless sacrifices. Thereby the war is likely to continue as long as Putin is the leader of Russia, and the legitimisation of the war calls for provocations, pogroms and other political refreshments every now and then. At the same time the ethnic minorities and regions will get totally alienated from the state. Czars Nicholas I and Nicholas II almost made their empire collapse as they could not stop the wars they had started - Nicholas I in Caucasia and Crimea, Nicholas II against Japan and in the WW I. Putin’s militarism has similarities with both these predecessors. (AU, 18-20.)
Putin’s ‘Ordnung muss sein’ policy increasingly resembles the Russian policy between 1905 and 1914. The euphoria of reformation after the humiliating defeat to the Japanese had been left behind, and the central power started to cancel autonomy formerly given to the imperial dominions - for example Finland. If the revolutions of 1905 and 1991 can be compared, are we then now living the correspondent of 1914...? (AU, 22-23.)
Putin’s rise has also been compared with the development of Napoleon Bonaparte’s career 200 years ago. A difference seems to be that Bonaparte first rushed to make peace with the numerous enemies of France, while Putin first had to create an image as a warlord. An interesting question is if Putin will be able to abandon his army to the distant battlefields as promptly as Bonaparte when he returned from his campaign in Egypt. Both the leaders based their power on strong secret police. (AU, 18-20.)
A third parallel could be found in the career development of Benito Mussolini. The fascist argumentation about strength of aggressive and expansionist nations versus degenerate democratic fallen nations highly resembles the political rhetorics prevailing in Russia before, during, and after Putin’s rise. Also Mussolini set up ‘moralist’ campaigns against the ‘oligarchs’ of his times, demanding centralisation and state involvement in economy, at the same time strongly relying on myths and religious images. Apart from Hitler’s indiscriminate expansionism and willingness to fight anyone, Mussolini and Putin have been following the more traditional lines of imperialism. Putin, like Mussolini, does not want to mess too much with the strong Western powers, as the aggression needed to "unite" internal polity can be directed against "second-class" victims: Mussolini attacked Albania and Ethiopia, Putin seeks glorifying battlefields in Caucasia and Central Asia.
When Mussolini attacked to Ethiopia (Abessinia), he first made it clear that England and France would not oppose this aggression too strongly. This was what Yeltsin and Putin did in relation to the Western attitudes to Chechnya, too. However, soon after the start of the aggression, the West found itself in a nasty situation both in Ethiopia and in Chechnya. The brutality and exaggerated violence of the Italian aggression against Ethiopian tribes rose criticism in England: Was it really necessary to cast poison gas upon some basically unarmed ‘Negroes’? This was not ‘fair game’. Same kind of tones - without any concrete opposition - were heard in the West in regard to the ‘exaggerated and indiscriminate use of violence by Russian forces against civilians’. Italy was also criticised for bombing the Red Cross staff in Ethiopia. Likewise, Russia wished no foreign, especially no Western, witnesses for its second Chechen War.
Of course both Mussolini and Putin had to know it most clearly, that the Western superpowers would not really intervene, or punish them from a couple of genocides against strategically unimportant nations. Britain would have had a very effective weapon against Italy: oil blockade by closing the Suez canal from Italian ships. However, the Britons decided not to use such ‘extreme methods’ for such an ‘issue of minor importance’ as the massacre and conquest of Ethiopia was. The same policy by the West has been observed in relation to the Russian policy towards the Caucasus. So, basically the Western message is that all that people like Mussolini and Putin would have to fear is discussion on the option of using a couple of economic sanctions. This was also for a long time the Western message for people like Saddam and Milosevic, let alone for Hitler in the times of the Anschluss, Sudetenland and Czechoslovakian occupation.
The Council of Europe decided that it would not exclude Russia, even though there was nothing concrete from Russia’s side that would have met the most moderate Western demands of ‘more constructive attitude to the war in Chechnya’. Quite the contrary, while bloodshed of civilians continued in Chechnya, the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov accused the Baltic countries of ‘violating the human rights’ of their Russian minorities. (Monitor, 15th May.) [Already in 1998, more than 80 per cent of the Russians in Estonia claimed to be happier than if Estonia would be part of the Russian Federation. No human rights violations have been reported to occur against the Russians as ethnic group in the Baltic countries.]
The Ethiopian War was extremely popular among Italians, exactly as Mussolini had foreseen when he wished to ‘raise Italian self-esteem and warrior-like nature’. The FSB made it sure that the second Chechen War would be popular among Russians, by very similar provocations and mass propaganda that Mussolini had used 70 years earlier. Both the Ethiopian and the Chechen War were designed to cover up internal political illegitimacy, and to back up into power two authoritarian centralist leaders.
The famous Russian human rights activist and widow of Andrei Sakharov, Yelena Bonner, stated last April: "The war is horrible not only for Chechnya but for Russia as well. Because Russia, blinded by militarism, is becoming a fascist state. The methods being employed by the military are methods of genocide; the things happening in Chechnya today are crimes against humanity and they deserve their own Nuremberg."
Common opinion in Russia has turned ever more hostile against Muslims. Researcher Aleksey Malashenko told that in 1992 only 17 per cent of the Russians considered Islam as a "bad thing", but as many as 80 per cent of the present Russian youth think so! The main reason is purposeful agitation of hatred and propaganda through the Russian state-controlled media. Putin’s crusader style speeches in Britain have been compensated by the Kremlin by founding a loyalist Muslim group named Refah in the Duma (the name is same as the Turkish Islamist party’s). At the same time the Chechen resistance against Russian occupation is being addressed to various foreign conspiracies, extending from Arab mercenaries and Turkish secret service even to Scots wearing quilts. (New Statesman, 1st May.)
Most highly flammable situation are born when hopes have first been raised, but are then not met. This happened in Germany in the beginning of 30s, when the economy collapsed again after WW I. In Russia, the situation is worst in peripheries. When their inhabitants are trying to get to Moscow and other wealthier cities, these are likely to start controlling migration by returning to the Soviet system where one’s home place was ordered and migration strictly limited. Also people’s tendency to support pogroms is expected to rise during autumn, and besides Caucasians, also Muslims in general will be targeted. A lot of signs of this tendency are visible. (AU, Aug.)
In Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, the first mosque of the Russian Far East was founded last summer to serve the more than 30’000 Muslims of the region. However, the local press and Orthodox church fervently attacked the mosque, mocking the mayor who had permitted the mosque as the "honour Tatar". The car of the local Muslim community’s head was blown up, and his mother was threatened by phonecalls. A year later, the religious hatred has not ceased but strengthened, and is getting more systematically organised. Several parties, movements, and the Orthodox church demand closing of the mosque, as, according to the bishop, "a mosque in Slavonic environment causes international conflicts". The same tendency occurs also elsewhere in Siberia: constructing a mosque in Vladivostok was halted due to Orthodox protests. The nearest mosque is in Irkutsk, 5000 km from Petropavlovsk. (www.scmp.com)
Major oppression of free press started in Russia already a year ago, and by April (Eurasia-Geopolitics, 5th Apr) there were no independent publications any more in most regions, only two independent newspapers in St. Petersburg, and practically freedom of speech in Russia was dependent on Moscow publications. However, oppression of Moscow press began next. Artyom Borovik, a journalist of the critical Versiya newspaper was killed in a mysterious flight accident while investigating the so-called "bomb practise" of Ryazan, where the FSB was caught installing a bomb in an apartment block during the bomb blast wave, for which Chechens were accused and which formed the casus belli for Putin to attack Chechnya. (See "History of Provocations" in the last issue of The Eurasian Politician.) Moscow Times suddenly got about 10 million USD taxes. (Eurasia-Geopolitics, 5th Apr.)
Vladimir Gusinsky’s ‘Media-Most’ was persecuted by joint efforts of the Russian gas giant Gazprom (controlled by the Kremlin circles) and the FSB. The FSB made raids against Media-Most and created accusations against the last large independent media concern in Moscow. (Monitor, 15th-16th May.) A journalist of Novaya Gazeta, after criticising the government, was beaten up in Moscow (Monitor, 15th May). Newspapers ‘Panorama’ and ‘Tak nado’, published in the region of Pskov (Pihkva) have found themselves in troubles after criticising the regional leader. The printing press threatens to stop printing the issues and the editorial office has been kicked out from their quarters. (RFE Russian Federation Report, 24th May.) ‘Kurier Plyus’ of the Republic of Komi has been drawn into court trial, because the newspaper supported the Yabloko candidate Grigory Yavlinsky in March’s president election, and has criticised the regional administration of Komi. (RFE Russian Federation Report, 17th May.)
A member of the republican parliament of Buryatia, Andrei Butyugov, beat a journalist of the local newspaper ‘Vyecherni Ulan-Ude’. In March, Butyugov threatened to kill a TV reporter. As a parliamentarian, Butyugov enjoys criminal immunity and cannot be charged. (RFE, Russian Federation Report, 31st May.) The independent TV company STV-3 of the Omsk region was deprived of its transmission frequency. STV-3 had been criticising the administration of Governor Leonid Polezhayev, who now controls four of the five local televisions. (RFE Russian Federation Report, 14th June.) According to Versiya, two journalists and one radio reporter were murdered in Russia in July; three more have disappeared. Six journalists were beaten. In five cases printing houses refused to print the newspaper. In Kaliningrad (Königsberg) oblast, a post of "vice-governor of information security" (i.e. sensor) was established. (Versiya, 8th-14th August.)
The counter-moves by "oligarchs" such as the media moguls Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky have been almost as mysterious as Putin’s moves and later denials. The results have been same: Free media became a short period in the near history of post-Cold-War Russia. The unholy unification of state, church, party, press and economy into the leadership of the Security Committee (former Ohrana, Cheka, KGB, now FSB) largely resemble the most chauvinist times of the czarist empire. Besides, the war Russia re-started in against Chechnya sees no end in the next 10-15 years, unless the Russian aggression will grow short of international and domestic support. Vladimir Gusinsky was arrested on 13th June, and even though he was later released after he promised to move to Spain, and probably had to make other concessions to Putin’s regime, his arrest destroyed the freedom of the last eminent independent television company in Russia. Gusinsky’s arrest was expected already when ‘Media-Most’ became the last all-national opposition media.
Boris Pustintsev’s article "Russia’s Media - Back to the USSR?" and Richard F. Staar’s article "KGB & Other Buddies in Putin’s Apparatus" foresee a very undesirable direction of development: The Russian Security Service (FSB), customs, tax and other authorities are controlling the e-mail traffic through most internet servers. Those servers who have not accepted this, are threatened with abolishment of their licence. If e-mail does not reach the receiver, it is claimed, the receiver gets a note according to which "the FSB agent checking your mail is not available at the moment". (Der Spiegel 18/1st May) In the similar obvious style, fear has traditionally been implemented in order to control people in police states.
On 13th May Putin gave order to reorganise Russian regions into seven large general gubernaments, whose leaders are appointed by Putin. Russia can hardly be called a federation if the regional reorganisation that Putin is creating will really work, since it will abolish the autonomy of regions and republics and subject them into the arbitrary power of the Kremlin. Although the elected leaders’ power is being annulled, their reactions have been indifferently tame. (Monitor, 15th May.) According to the law the governors cannot be sacked, but Putin wants to weaken their self-assurance and independence. (Monitor, 10th May.) The Moscow Times described the regional rearrangement on 24th May as "a shift from arbitrary rule of governors into centralised arbitrary rule". (Monitor, 25th May.)
On 28th June the Upper House in Russia voted against the law strongly pushed through by Putin, with the superior majority of 129 against 13 votes. The eternal ‘optimism’ of Western observers is well shown in their faith that although the former Russian governments had it very difficult to get any law initiatives through, now Putin is believed to push his laws through despite all the constitutional hindrances. Surely also the regional leaders have prepared for hardening battle for power, and they will not give out their power for free. (AU, 25-26.)
In the St. Petersburg mayor election on 14th May, the Kremlin backed the communist candidate, old mayor Vladimir Yakovlev. The opposition organised on 4th May a common pre-election, which was won by Igor Artemyev, a Yabloko MP (Monitor 9th May). However, Yakovlev was told to have got a suspiciously clear victory over Artemyev. (Monitor 15th May; TOL.)
Worse than for the ethnically Russian regions of the Russian Federation, the tightening grip of Moscow’s central power is for the ethnically non-Russian regions within the federation – many of them being republics (former ASSRs; they were not granted independence like the SSRs, although there were more than 20 declarations of independence by various ASSRs from North Caucasus to Tuva and the Idel-Ural region) and others autonomous oblasts.
The Turkic and Finno-Ugric nations of the Mid-Volga (Idel) region form a historical regional entity. (See "The Idea of Idel-Ural" by A. Leitzinger in the last issue of The Eurasian Politician.) In 1918 this region was a de facto independent but short-lived state under the name Idel-Ural, where the Turco-Tatar and Finno-Ugric nations formed together a majority over the region’s Russians. The Soviet power, however, preferred to split the region into various republics and oblasts of various degrees, often drawing the borders so that most of each nation were left outside the given national homeland and Russians were made biggest single national group in many of the regions. Since the split-up of the USSR, the Idel-Ural nations have recovered their co-operation. (AU, 18-20) The regionally strongest republic with largest autonomy is Tatarstan (Turkic, Muslim), which uses its own flag and recently adopted Latin script of Turkic model. (Turkistan News) In Mari El (the Maris are Finno-Ugric, religiously Orthodox and Shamanist), a group of activists gathered on 24th April to found an Idel-Ural Foundation in order to publish a newspaper to lobby Idel-Ural co-operation. The participants of the meeting told that recently the FSB has tightened surveillance of all minority nationalities throughout Russia. (RFE 3rd May.)
Putin has overruled decisions made by authorities in, among others, Ingushetia and Bashkortostan, and abolished regional legislation. Tatarstan, however, has been left in relative peace for the time being, probably because of its great wealth and strength - apparently Putin needs the support of Tatarstan’s strongman Mintimer Shaimiyev. Governor of Novgorod Mikhail Prusak has however declared that "there cannot be a situation in this country that the Tatars in Tatarstan have more rights than the Tatars in Novgorod" (RFE Russian Federation Report, 17th May) - that is, that the rights of Tatars should be diminished everywhere, emphasising the position of ethnic Russians as a privileged Herrenvolk. In the Volga general gubernament, which has non-Russian majority, the ‘presidential representative’ is former liberal prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko, who is, besides the general-governor of Siberia, the only leader in Putin’s regional administration who does not have secret police or army background. This may promise some extra time for the relative autonomy of the Volga region’s non-Russian nations. However, in the flammable region of North Caucasus, the president’s representative is the notorious former commander of the Russian troops in Chechnya and a war criminal, General Viktor Kazantsev.
Aleksandr Kotenkov, the presidential representative in the Duma, threatened on 25th May that at least 16 governors would be charged. Kotenkov named in four regions that have most emphasised their autonomy, and which are now demanded to adapt themselves into the centre’s legislation: Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Tuva, and Sakha (Yakutia). (RFE Russian Federation Report, 31st May.) Later it was whispered that Putin would prepare sacking regional leaders or mayors in Ingushetia (the talented President Ruslan Aushev, who has been critical at the war in neighbouring Chechnya), Kalmykia (Kirsan Ilyumzhinov), St. Petersburg (Vladimir Yakovlev), Kaliningrad (former Königsberg) and in the gubernament of Primorsk by the Pacific. (RFE Russian Federation Report, 7th June.)
Besides the Idel-Ural, also other ethnic groups have reacted to the rising centralism in Russia: The Kazakhs of Orenburg region demanded an autonomous region of their own between Bashkortostan and Kazakhstan, the group being led by Azamat Baydauletov. The demands will surely not be taken welcome by the Kremlin - especially as such an oblast would connect the Turkic republics of Idel-Ural to the independent Turkic states of Central Asia, and Russia’s policy has been to isolate ethnic non-Russians so that their regions would be surrounded by ‘cleansed’ Russian areas. It has been supposed that the Kazakh demand is a Kazakhstan-inspired reaction to the ethnic Russian separatism in Kazakhstan. (Kazakh News, 7th June.)
It is highly unlikely that Russians as well as the West would favour the bloody war forever, legitimated only by fancy stories about a Muslim extremist conspiracy - even though in Russia a constant state of war is rather natural a status for the empire’s being. Moreover, as the Russian power will be increasingly challenged also in Central Asia - the authoritarian vassal regimes being incapable of preserving any kind of stability, and Russian policy’s inconsistency becoming ever more transparent in the Afghanistan and Turkistan affairs. It does not come as a surprise that Putin has searched for friends for Russian foreign policy in China, North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Serbia. Guns have been traded to India, in accordance with the old tradition.
The local election in Russia proved to be a true parody of ‘democratic elections’, with its massive fraud and manipulation of the results. The same farce is probably to be expected in Belarus and Azerbaijan next.
In early July there were several bomb explosions taking place in Southern Russia and Northern Caucasia, and again no information whatsoever has been gained concerning the guilty parts. The usual baseless accusations against Chechens have been repeated and besides, local criminal and religious groups have been suspected. (Monitor, 10th July.) At the same time with these bombs the Chechens indeed committed bomb strikes, some of them suicidal, to military targets in Chechnya, and openly admitted these as part of the war. No Chechen has claimed responsibility of the terror acts outside Chechnya. There was also a bomb blast in a shopping centre Riga in early autumn, wounding many and killing one, but located in Latvia, no Chechen or other ethnic accusation were of course made. Instead, the local newspapers’ main suspect has been competition between Russian-dominated "security companies". (Postimees, 18th Oct.)
Meanwhile, some new accidents shook the Russian media in August, directing the attention away from the ongoing massacre of Chechen civilians and Russian soldiers in Chechnya.
First, there was again a bomb blast in Moscow, this time in the Pushkin Square (see Paul Starobin’s article). In regard to this time’s bomb, Putin surprised the Western observers by warning not to blame the Chechens automatically, while his former opponent, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, seemed to have taken up the role of "extreme nationalist", against which background Putin’s "relative moderation" could be profiled in the West. Luzhkov automatically addressed the bomb to Chechens. Later, some "people with Caucasian appearance" were against arrested but they had to be released soon, as there was nothing pointing at Caucasian involvement in the bomb blast. Like all the more than 40 bomb blasts that have taken place in apartment blocks in Moscow since 1995, also this one probably remains unsolved. It is strange, however, that now when Putin does no longer need a casus belli of bomb blasts, the automatic blaming of Chechens was not necessary - but still no hint has been given of cleaning the Chechens’ reputation concerning the autumn 1999 bomb blasts.
The Pushkin Square bomb was immediately exploited by Moscow police who started to collect bribes and stop cars attempting to enter the city, not those attempting to leave, as would have been logical. In Moscow, where one cannot live freely any more but one needs permission, it is a common practice that bribes are collected from the "illegal" inhabitants, especially Muslims. (Kalle Koponen, the HS correspondent in Moscow.) At the same time, the citizens’ trust in authorities has weakened even more than before, and new private security troops have been founded in big Russian cities. (TOL, 7th-13rd Aug.) Within a week after the bomb, more than 8’000 people were arrested in Moscow, and according to the Russian police, 200 of them had committed crimes. It remained obscure who were the 7’800 people who were arrested without reason. (The NIS Observed, 23rd Aug.)
The second accident took place when a Antyei class (known as Oscar 2 in the Western countries) submarine "Kursk" with two nuclear reactors sunk into the Barents Sea off the coast of the Kola Peninsula in the mid-August. All the crew drowned and Putin was largely criticised in the Russian media for not showing enough efforts to rescue the crew in time. The accident also showed the traditional Russian habit of hiding all the information from the public, and the tendency of using conspiracy theories - such as the claimed American or British submarine having caused the sinking of "Kursk". Later it seemed that the sinking was actually caused by the Russian "Peter the Great". Humorous Russian journalists already wrote that next thing would be to find recently used diving equipment with a Chechen flag from the coast of Kola Peninsula. In Urus-Martan the "security-related sources" would then find a mysterious piece of paper explaining a Chechen plan to sink "Kursk".
The "Kursk" accident created unexpected troubles to Putin who was accused of indifference in regard to the sailors who drowned. Common mourning took over Russian media. At the same time the Chechen War continues, but the Russian audience seems to be very selective in attributing their sorrow. Soon after the Kursk accident, a fire took place in the Ostankino television tower. Chechens were again accused for this, too, and the humorous Russian internet journalists wrote: "According to the recent information gained by the FSB from security-related sources (FSB), the fire of the Ostankino tower was caused by a crash with a Western, probably American or British, TV tower." After the fire was over, the Russian TV started to transmit again, and the style of the news praising Putin was even ironically familiar from the old Brezhnev times.
Usually the West is supposed to tolerate and support the numerous above-mentioned undesirable tendencies because of all kinds of criticism let alone action against Russia’s policies is said to threaten the fragile supposed democratisation and transition of Russia towards market economy. Every now and then the Western media has found it proper to express sincere optimism concerning Russian economy or leadership. Regularly these expectations have suffered more than slight disappointment. In the beginning of the summer, the over-optimistic estimations of Russian economy once again popped up in Western media. But in July followed the inevitable more realistic backwave. Finally on 15th July even the financial advisor of Putin, Andrei Illarionov, admitted that the Russian compatibility had fallen with a third-part within less than half a year. Apparently Russia again expects the West to support its economy from a total collapse, which is only halted by the maintenance of the high prices of oil. With price regulation and general statism, Russia is still a light-year from market economy. (Stratfor, 18th July.) The foreign investors are also distracted by the massive level of crime and corruption in Russian administration. They are surely not assured by the new prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, who has faced new suspicions concerning bribery from Switzerland. (Monitor, 17th July.)
The notorious Ryazan bomb practice has not been the only odd ‘practice’ for Russian security troops. In early July, a "prison revolt practice" took place in Tomsk, including many funny features. In the Siberian prisoner colony number 4, oppressing riots was "practised" by forcing 80 prisoners out from their cells to run along dark vaults. The Spetsnaz (special troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) then "practised" their skills by breaking arms, ribs and chins of the prisoners. After the practice the prisoners started a protest refusing to eat and 14 of them cut their wrists. (RFE, Russian Federation Report, 19th July.)
Religious freedom in Russia is very relative. In July, the Council of Russian Muftis – a kind of Islamic Episcopal Assembly – protested against the initiative to prohibit "Wahhabism" by law. According to the muftis, the authorities are using the term totally arbitrarily and causing purposeful confusion of concepts. This is true, since Wahhabism (a puritan sect of Islam, prevalent in Saudi Arabia) has never occurred in the Caucasus, let alone among Tatars and other Russian Muslims. The term "Wahhabism" has been used by Soviet and later Russian propaganda in the meaning of any Muslim resistance to Moscow. Real Wahhabis and other puritan interpreters of Islam are actually traditionally opposite to the Sufi and Ishân forms of "localised" and non-politicised Islam that have traditionally been prevalent in the Caucasus. In contrast to the Russian oppression of religious freedom, it can be mentioned that the Chechen constitution explicitly separates religion from politics and guarantees the rights of religious minorities in Chechnya (Christians and Jews).
Paul Goble of the RFE reminds us of the propagandistic use of the terms connected to Islam, for instance ‘Wahhabism’: "On the one hand, Moscow has used this implicit tie between an otherwise undefined Muslim groups and foreign terrorists to justify its campaign in Chechnya and to encourage Central Asian leaders into co-operating with Moscow against a supposed threat from the south. ... And on the other hand, ... both the U.S. and Western European governments have sometimes used ‘Wahhabism’ as Moscow does, treating the term itself as justification for Moscow’s concerns in the region." (RFE, 7th July.)
The Crimean Peninsula belongs to Ukraine nowadays. It was annexed to Ukraine (from Russia) by Nikita Khruschev, but before Stalin’s genocides the majority of Crimean population were Crimean Tatars, Turkic-speaking Muslims, who ruled the glorious Crimean Khanate until its conquest by Russians in the 18th century. Now twelve per cent (260’000 people) of the population of Crimea are Tatars, who have slowly been returning to their homeland since the mass deportation to Siberia and Central Asia by Stalin 56 years ago. Outside Crimes, there are yet 150’000-230’000 Tatars waiting for the permission to return to Crimea. The Crimean Tatars have no representation in the regional parliament, dominated by ethnic Russians, and they have no opportunity to teaching in their own language. Seventy per cent of the Tatars are unemployed and most still lack the Ukrainian citizenship. The Crimean Tatars have organised demonstrations and appealed to the Ukrainian government, which they wish to pressure the ethnically Russian majority of today’s Crimea to respect the rights of the Tatars. Ukrainian nationalists have supported the Tatar demands, but the Russian communist leader of Crimea, Leonid Hratsh, has threatened his audience with "a Chechnya in Crimea". (Monitor, 24th May.)
A nationalist Ukrainian composer was killed by Russian mobs in the Ruthenian city of Lviv (Lvov, Lemberg) on 28th May. One of the killers was set free and he disappeared, another one appeared to be son of a high-rank police officer. The case raised anger among ethnic Ukrainians, inspiring the Ukrainian national-socialist party to arrange an anti-Russian demonstration. (RFE Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report, 6th June.) After the incident, public use of Russian language was prohibited in Lviv, and at the same time the regional parliament prohibited "indecent songs". (NZZ, 26th July.) The Ukrainian ambassador in Bern remarks that due to the Soviet-time Russification, Ukrainian language is still threatened and demands "protection". However, unlike Russia, Ukraine does not discriminate people into various nationalities (in Russia, the notorious fifth column of the passport indicates ethnic nationality), and there is no discrimination based on mother tongue. (NZZ, 10th Aug.)
Russia is not the only country in Europe attacking against the freedom of press while Serbia is getting (possibly) liberated from dictatorship. Belarus strictly remains in the Soviet-style communism under the dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Aleksandr Lukashenko). In May and June, three remaining Belarussian independent journals got ‘warning’ from the state’s press committee. (RFE Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report, 6th June.) Priests, opposition parties, organisations committed to Belarussian language and culture, and opponents of Belarus’s Anschluss to Russia have been persecuted by the bureaucracy as well as mobs of Lukashenka’s regime. (RFE Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report, 25th July, 29th August.) On 29th July more than thousand representatives from various parts of Belarus gathered to the "First Pan-Belarussian Congress for Independence" to protest against the annexation of Belarus to Russia by Lukashenka’s pro-Russian regime. The congress was organised by the Belarussian World Alliance (Batskavshtshyna), the Chernobyl Committee, the former prime minister Mikhail Chyhir and some scientists and artists. The new parliament is suspected to abolish even the remnants of Belarussian independence for Russia, which is likely to create large tensions and possibly a major wave of refugees to Poland and Western countries.
The same development has taken place even in the supposedly most West-oriented of the three East Slavonic countries, Ukraine: Freedom of press has been suffocated by astronomic fines. According to a Ukrainian journalist association, newspapers were taken into court 2200 times last year alone, average six newspapers every day! The total sum of the charges was thrice as big as the state’s budget. The main chargers were local politicians and businessmen claiming that the press had insulted their honour. Especially by the approaching elections, newspapers criticising President Leonid Kuchma were targeted by accusation campaigns, and if the charges did not lead to fines, the newspaper was attacked by tax, fire or health inspectors. Bank accounts have been arbitrarily closed. After such a campaign, the only independent national television company in Ukraine, STB, had to check its attitude at the president. (NZZ, 9th June.)
The former prime minister of Ukraine Mr Lazarenko was convicted in a Swiss court to one and half years prison for money-laundering. However, Lazarenko has been under arrest in the US since February 1999. The Americans suspect him of money-laundering of 114 million USD, and Ukrainian authorities complete the charges with 700 million USD embezzlement and murder. Lazarenko’s advocates are hinting that the present Ukrainian leadership is not quite innocent either. (NZZ, 3rd July.) Simultaneously, the Swiss prosecutors are investigating much bigger money-laundering of Russia, compared with which Ukraine is in the position of little brother. Names of the leading Kremlin elite pop out in the investigations regularly, including Vladimir Putin, especially concerning his background as the deputy of the now deceased St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, during which time Putin was the "security advisor" of several obscure companies now accused in the mafia investigations.
An article on the myths and realities of "extreme Islam" has been published by the International Eurasian Institute for Economic and Political Research: http://iicas.org/english/publkz_8_12_99.htm
Cassandra Cavanaugh of the Human Rights Watch writes about the tyrannical situation continuing in the Central Asian dictatorships. The violations against political and religious liberty as well as freedom of speech have only increased, and are expected to be increased by the loss of legitimacy by the Russian-backed ex-communist nomenclature regimes. Besides Russia, however, even the USA is supporting Islam Karimov’s Uzbekistan in tyrannical policies against the opposition, claiming to aim at "prevention of Islam’s politicisation", although probably Karimov’s dictatorship and state Islam only contribute to the monopolisation of opposition power into the hands of religious movements. (HS, 13th Aug.)
It is commonly mistaken that the USA would support the Central Asian regimes’ independence from Moscow’s colonial yoke, although all the dictatorships in Central Asia actually represent the former Soviet nomenclature and act as Russia’s vassal regimes. Instead of Islamists, the regimes of Central Asia have actually oppressed mainly ‘democratic’, moderate Islamic, Pan-Turkic and anticommunist powers. The Turkestani dictatorships have also exploited the same style of anti-Islamic disinformation as Russia, aiming at general confusion and mixing up concepts in the Western public. Simon Churchyard wrote about Kyrgyzstan’s rhetorics against Uzbek rebels of the Hizb ut-Tahrir. According to Churchyard, Kyrgyz authorities are purposefully mixing up the concepts for disinformative purposes to brand Islamist opposition as well as peaceful opposition and missionaries, including Christians, Bahais and Krishna movement as criminals, terrorists and extremists: "This has been in speeches which cleverly switch between the terms ‘Wahhabi’, ‘terrorist’, ‘religious extremist’, ‘fundamentalist’ and Hizb ut-Tahrir. Because the term has developed such strong resonance by playing on certain North American and European fears and prejudices, the West has been cautious about opposing human rights abuses committed by Kyrgyzstan under the cover of ‘combating fundamentalism’." (Turkistan News, 13th June.)
The Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov (‘Türkmenbashi’), has ordered the backgrounds of university students to be checked three generations backwards, as was the practice in Stalin’s times, when a bourgeois background made an obstacle to studies. The U.S. Foreign Ministry’s office of democracy, human rights and labour has published an annual report on religious freedom. Turkmenistan is accused of oppression against all other religions except Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity. [Other reports tell about persecution against Sunni Muslims as well, as the case of the prohibiting of Turkmen translation of the Quraan shows.] Unregistered religious communities are being threatened, their meetings and missionary work is prohibited; the activity of Baptists, other Christian groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Bahais has been suffocated. (RFE Turkmen Report, 5th Sept.)
The success of the Yugoslav opposition in overthrowing Milosevic’s tyranny, however, has raised lots of hopes for parallel development in the Central Asian dictatorships. (Turkistan News, 7th Oct.) However, Yugoslavian opposition can at least except some Western sympathy for their efforts, and Yugoslavia is not similarly recognised as Russian interest sphere as Central Asia, where there is very little hope for media coverage let alone aid by the West for the oppositions in order to overthrow the nomenclature tyrannies of Karimov, Niyazov, Nazarbayev, Akayev and Rakhmanov.
The Kyrgyz presidential election will be held at the end of October.
The emigration of Russians from Kyrgyzstan has decreased since 1993, according to a Bishkek Centre for Social and Economic Studies. In 1993, almost 90’000 Russians left the republic, while in 1998 only 8000 Russians left. The distribution of Russian newspapers in Kyrgyzstan is five times that of newspapers published in Kyrgyz language. There are seven Russian-speaking TV channels in Kyrgyzstan, and only one transmitting in the majority language, Kyrgyz. (Kyrgyz News, 22nd May.) So, the position of the Russian minority does not appear specially oppressed. According to the constitution, the only ‘state language’ of Kyrgyzstan is Kyrgyz, but Russian has been declared an ‘official language’. Nobody knows the difference between these definitions, but the Kyrgyz government aims at pleasing both Russia and the Kyrgyz nationalists by doing so. (Kyrgyz News, 24th-25th May.)
An active opposition leader Topchubek Turgunaliyev, together with researcher Adil Kasimov, founded a new party called ‘Erkindik’ (Freedom) in February. The new party announces the ‘original line’ of the ERK party, ‘Erkin Kirgizstan’ (Free Kyrgyzstan), a party originally founded by Turgunaliyev but slipped into the leadership of a rival politician Tursunbai Bakiruulu in 1995. The new party was registered in April and in May Turgunaliyev became its leader. Besides, Turgunaliyev leads (and has founded) a Guild of Political Prisoners and a Democratic Party (founded in 1998, and still not registered). The Guild of Political Prisoners could not be registered because according to the government, there are no political prisoners in Kyrgyzstan. The former leader of Women’s Democratic Party, Kalen Sidikova, called for a founding assembly for a party called ‘El-Ene Ajalzat’ in May. (Kyrgyz News, 22nd and 25th May.)
In the Turkistan Newsletter (24th Apr), Jonathan S. Landrethg writes about East Turkestan, nowadays the Chinese province of Sinkiang (Xinjiang). China vanquished the independence of East Turkestan 50 years ago, and many Uighurs fled to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (AU, 25-26). China is investing in the development and traffic connections of the province in order to encourage the Han Chinese to immigrate to Sinkiang, traditionally inhabited by Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs. In the capital of the province, Ürümqi, already 80 per cent of inhabitants are Han Chinese, whereas of the 18 million inhabitants of the province in total, already 8 million are Chinese. Fifty years ago they were only 200’000, which shows the aggressiveness of Chinese colonisation, aiming at turning the Uighurs a minority in their own land and thus make the Chinese annexation of East Turkestan permanent. Oil production in the province has increased annually with the average of 13 per cent. Cotton is another important product. (Turkistan News 24th Aug.)
The leader of "United National Revolution Front of East Turkestan", Yusupbek Mukhlisi, who lives in Kazakhstan, tells about at least 1350 executions of Uighurs by China between January 1997 and March 1999. Also the "Regional Uighur Society", led by Khozhamberdi Kakharman, is based in Kazakhstan. Abdulgappar Shakhiar, a militant leader acting in Sinkiang enjoys the trust of 27 Uighur organisations. (NZZ 21st & 25th July.)
Website of the Uyghur Human Rights Coalition: http://www.uyghurs.org
In April and May, fighting was going on in the province of Ghori. (Omaid Weekly, 8th May.) A meeting of four Central Asian CIS leaders on 21st April discussed a "pre-eliminatory" raids against "terrorist targets" in Afghanistan - probably meaning Uzbek rebel base in the Taliban-controlled city of Kunduz. Uzbekistan is the most active country, eager to play the role of a regional hegemon and to get involved in Afghanistan as well as in Tajikistan - for which reason Karimov’s Uzbekistan is feared in the neighbour countries, especially in Tajikistan, even more than the former master Russia (Shirin Akiner’s lectures on the relations between Russia and Islam in Central Asia in September). Uzbekistan has also approached India in the issue of military involvement in Afghanistan. The stand of the Russian military seems Janus-faced and typically ‘divide et impera’ strategic: On one hand the Russians helped the Uzbek rebels to move their base from Tajikistan to Afghanistan’s territory last November, but on the other hand General Anatoly Kvashnin, general staff commander, publicly announced (on 28th Jan.) the necessity of raids against Uzbeks in Afghanistan. (Monitor, 4th May.)
One thinkable scenario is that if Russia commits itself to an intervention against Afghanistan again, this will happen in co-operation with Iran. The result would not be total destruction of the Taliban, but rather rising a "third power" into rule in the cities of Mazar-i Sharif and Herat. Part of the Taliban (the air forces) and the Uzbek generals (Dostum and Malik) will be united, probably in the nominal leadership of Ismail Khan, and prevent Ahmed Shah Masoud’s troops from advancing into Kabul (against Taliban). The new government of Afghanistan gets international recognition, but no improvement will take place in the country’s economy and human rights. The Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan. (AU, 18-20.)
The Taliban started its traditional grand campaign against the resistance north of Kabul on 1st July, but they did not gain remarkable success. A mysterious bomb exploded in the Pakistani embassy in Kabul on 10th July. (Eurasia-Geopolitics, 14th July; NZZ, 11th July.) According to the supporters of Ahmad Shah Masoud a Pakistani brigadier general has been wounded in the fighting, and also otherwise the Pakistani army is being split into sections on the question whether they should support the Taliban or not. The Omaid Weekly, however, says that a "final" campaign by the Pakistani supporters of the Taliban is yet to be expected. (Omaid Weekly, 17th July.) After the failure of July, the Taliban claimed to have conquered a minor town of Ishkämish in August, and threatened again Taloqan. (Stratfor, 4th Aug.) The anti-Taliban forces announced they had bounced back Taliban’s attack some days later, and again on 13th August. (Omaid Weekly, 7th, 14th Aug.)
The Taliban, however, conquered Taloqan on 6th September. Autumn showed some success for the Taliban troops, and Russia and France have rushed to consider diplomatic approach to the Taliban regime. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.) India has been warming up its ties with the Taliban, too. Even Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov suddenly stated very moderate stands on the Taliban during his visit to Turkmenistan [Taliban’s traditional friend has been Niyazov’s Turkmenistan], and he also blamed the Russian intelligence for exaggerated disinformation on the ‘Islamist threat’ and active provocations. (Turkistan Economy Bulletin, 27th Sept. & Interfax 29th Sept.) Russia and its allies are more and more openly abandoning the Northern League and favouring the Taliban. This is very bad news to Ahmad Shah Masoud’s freedom fighters, who are not supported by the West, despite the West’s supposed disgust against the Taliban. More than 100’000 Afghan refugees have flocked to the Tajik border. (RFE 29th Sept.) The legal Afghan government (anti-Taliban) already warns of 200’000 refugees being flocked in Badakshan. If these people move north to Tajikistan, where the UNHCR warned of looming hunger, a humanitarian catastrophe is close. (AU, 38-40.)
The oil pipeline project from Turkmenistan to Pakistan has once again popped up in the meeting of the presidents of these countries. In the previous plan the pipeline would have crossed area in the Taliban’s control, while in the newer version an alternative crossing Iran’s territory is suggested. (Monitor, 20th May.)
Afghan internet journals opposing the fundamentalist Taliban (supporting the Northern Alliance):
Subhe Omaid: http://www.subheomaid.com
Lemar-Aftaab, directed for women: http://www.afghanmagazine.com
Twice a week in NE Afghanistan: http://www.payamemaihan.com
A communist Revolution Party gained crushing victory in the Mongolian parliament elections in early July, seizing 72 of the 76 parliament seats. It is to be expected that the Revolution Party will slow down all economic reforms that have been leading Mongolia slowly towards market economy. The economic programme had been initiated by the winner of the 1996 parliament elections, the Democratic Union, which made an end to the 70 years of communist rule in Mongolia. However, the power shift in Ulan Bator is perhaps not as bad as it would seem in the low-populated, poor and weak country sandwiched between the giants Russia and China. The leader of the Revolution Party, Nambariin Enkhbayar, a British-educated literature intellectual, is considered to be rather an "euro-socialist" than a hardline communist. He has stated Tony Blair to be a model for him, and a "middle way" to be the path of his party. (HS 4th July.)
Israeli troops left Southern Lebanon in May, leaving the area to the control of the Hizbollah guerrilla. The shift of military control was peaceful, and even part of the SLA supporters who first fled to Israel in fear of Hizbollah revenge later returned to their home villages in the protection of UNIFIL. (HS, 26th May.) The Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi rushed on 25th May to negotiate with Hizbollah and with the Lebanese government. It seemed possible that a competition of influence in Lebanon between Iran and Syria could take place, although the countries have stayed in most warm co-operation throughout the 1980s and 1990s. (Stratfor 25th May.)
Israel and Hizbollah maintained peace and calm in the region, although some analysts forecast troubles since Israel’s removal. For instance, the Hizbollah allows the Israelis to pump water from the Wazzani spring, located on the Lebanese side of the border. (NZZ, 11th July.) However, there have been intra-Lebanese tensions: The competing Shi’ite parties Hizbollah and Amal were shooting each other on 16th July, and two Hizbollah men were killed. The Lebanese government is trying to use the Amal to overrule Hizbollah influence in Southern Lebanon. In the background of this, there may also lie increasing competition between Syria and Iran of their influence in Lebanon, since the common enmity against Israel has decreased in importance. There are quite enough of armed groupings in Lebanon. According to Jane’s Information Group, International Institute of Strategic Studies, and Stratfor, there are following groups: The Lebanese Army which is loyal to Syria, 55’000 men; the Syrian Army in Beirut and in the Bekkaa Valley, 35’000 men; the Hizbollah Militia, loyal to Iran, located in Southern Lebanon, 3’000-5’000 men; the Amal Militia, loyal to Syria, located in South, less than 3’000 men; the Druze PSP, loyal to Syria, located in South, less than 3’000 men; and finally 150 Iranian Rev. Guards in Southern Lebanon and probably in the Bekkaa Valley.
In July, Palestinian peace negotiations took place in Camp David, U.S. In the end, the peace process was ruined to the quarrel over Jerusalem’s status. When returning from Camp David, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was respected for his unyieldingness, while the Israeli President Ehud Barak was criticised strongly by Israeli nationalists and religious extremists. (The Economist, 29th July-4th Aug.) In August, the expected government crisis took place in Israel, when the foreign minister David Levy quit. The new foreign minister is Shlomo Ben-Ami. The right-wing strengthened when the right-wing candidate Moshe Katzav won Shimon Peres, the former prime minister. (The Economist, 5th-11th Aug.) In late August Barak took revenge and suggested secularising Israel. (The Economist, 26th Aug.-1st Sept.) Palestine postponed the declaration of independence to 15th November.
In October the tensions broke out into a war, and more than 100 people have already died in clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli army. Most of the victims are Palestinians. If Israel and the Palestinian leaders cannot pacify the situation by mid-November, the war is risking to escalate.
In Lebanon in early September, the party of a former prime minister and a businessman Rafik Hariri won the parliamentary election. (The Economist, 9th-15th Sept.)
Under the rule of the new king, Jordan has developed into a very positive direction, possibly starting stronger co-operation with the alliance formed by Turkey and Israel. (Turkey is the most important strategic ally of Israel at the moment.) Jordan’s Western orientation between such pro-Russian countries as Syria and Iraq, and yet having many historical tensions with Israel, is not easy, but the present development promises better future, especially if the newly started Palestinian conflict does not spread. (Its escalation would be in the interests of Syria, Iraq and Russia.) In September, Jordan sentenced to death six people for contacts of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organisation. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
The notorious Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad, died in June. His son Bashar al-Assad became the new president. Western interest rose immediately and there were lots of reports covering the situation in Syria. They varied from unnecessary religiously biased criticism to naive over-optimism over the power shift’s impact, which cannot be expected to be too enormous. However, in July Bashar al-Assad released political prisoners, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood. (The Economist, 29th July-4th Aug.)
War sees no end even in Iraq. According to the Americans, the bombed targets were military targets and the bombing was punishment for Iraqi artillery’s provocations; according to the Iraqis the Americans bombed civilian targets, including a railway station. The US claims to protect the Kurds of North Iraq and the Shi’ites of South Iraq with the security zones - Iraq does not recognise these zones. (Reuters/AP via HS 14th Aug.) Like in Yugoslavia, also in Iraq the US policy has been clearly inconsistent. On one hand the intervention has been done and it is being continued. On the other hand Saddam is still in power, and Iraq is not allowed to disintegrate, in which case there could finally be an independent Kurdistan connecting Iraq’s large Kurdish and Turcoman (Turkish) minorities. Also Turkey bombed Iraq in mid-August and dozens of people got killed – most of them were not the targeted PKK guerrillas. (NZZ, 24th Aug.)
In Iraq, all the minorities – Kurds, Turcomans and Christian Assyrians – regularly face oppression by the Iraqi government, but the Turcomans and Assyrians have recently complained of the Kurdish KDP attacking them as well in the Kurdish-controlled areas of Northern Iraq. (Turkistan Newsletter, 16th July; RFE Iraq Report, 14th and 21st July.) The Iraqi Kurdish Party KDP has been fighting against the Turkish communist terrorist organisation PKK for a long time. In July, the KDP reported that it had conquered all the PKK camps in its area. At least 40 Kurds were reported to have been killed in the fighting. (RFE Iraq Report, 14th July.)
In the city of Rumad, 400 Kakai families have got an order from the Iraqi authorities to move to the Kurdish autonomous area: "Families in all districts of Kirkuk received forms they had to fill out concerning becoming Arab, family location during the 1947 and 1957 population censuses, number of the family living abroad or in Kurdish-controlled areas, number of family members arrested on political charges, religious belief, location during the 1991 uprising, and affiliation to parties of the ‘Kurdistan Front’. Every family had to provide the deeds to its house to the authorities. The deed is returned after it changes its ethnic affiliation to Arab. Families providing inaccurate information will have their house deeds confiscated and a family member will be detained until the rest of the family is deported." (RFE Iraq Report, 26th May.)
Iraq is said to hold secret negotiations with Israel concerning the deportation of more than 300’000 (that is: all!) Lebanese Palestinians to Iraq in response to breaking the international blockade. (RFE Iraq Report, 26th May.) Iraq, PLO and Israel have all denied the rumours, whereas the representatives of Northern Iraq’s minority peoples (Kurds, Turks, Assyrians) have all been telling about deportations of people from the Kirkuk area, preparing settlement of Palestinians into their homes. According to the Assyrians, Iraq aims at settlement of as many as half million Palestinians in the region of Kirkuk. (RFE Iraq Report, 19th May.) Later, Iraqi sources claimed that Iraq has abandoned the plan to settle Palestinians in Kirkuk area. At the same time, Colombian army sources have claimed that the Colombian drug dealers are buying land from the demilitarised zones in Iraq in response for the cocaine they have sold. (RFE Iraq Report, 9th June.)
The notorious terrorist Sabri al-Banna (‘Abu Nidal’), who was believed to be dying in a Cairo hospital, was claimed to have returned to Baghdad by London-based Arab newspapers. He is said to have kidnapped three Palestinian youths and executed two of them for that they had quit his party. (RFE, Iraq Report, 18th Aug.) If Abu Nidal is still active, he can be expected to recruit more members among the Palestinians settled to Iraq. ‘Kurdistani Nüwe’, published by the PUK, told on 1st July about the Palestinians settled in Kirkuk. According to the newspaper, the Revolutionary Council of Iraq decided (17th May) to confiscate houses of Kurds in the provinces of Kirkuk and Diyala and to hand them over to Palestinians. During the three first weeks of June, 270 Palestinian families were settled in Kirkuk. By an order of the presidential office on 11th June, the Kurdish and Turkish families of Duz, Daquq, Haweja and Khanaqin were ordered to be registered as Arabs, or elsewhere expelled. (Press Review of the Washington Kurdish Institute.) A Sorani newspaper told that in the county of Shaykhan, Iraqi authorities handed over houses confiscated from Kurds to members of the Baath Party. (RFE Iraq Report, 25th Aug.)
However, there is also positive development in Iraq. Baghdad has been opening foreign relations with Russia, Serbia, Armenia and Syria, but also with ‘normal’ countries like Turkey and Jordan. Although the country is still suffering from embargo, foreign embassies have been established and foreign trade has increased. On 11th August the railway connection to Syria was opened after being closed for 19 years, and the first internet café of Iraq was opened in Baghdad. (RFE Iraq Report, 4th Aug; AU, Aug.) In late July, the Iraqi deputy premier Tariq Aziz visited Putin in Moscow. (The Economist, 29th-4th Aug.)
The populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with Saddam Hussein in August, and also visited Iran on the way to Baghdad and then headed to Indonesia. Venezuela is acting as the chairman state of OPEC. Before the general meeting of OPEC, Chavez is also going to visit Libya, Nigeria and Algeria. (Reuters, AP, 11th Aug; The Economist, 12th-18th Aug.)
After the parliament election of Iran in February, the results were still unclear in April. Already in February, a researcher of the French state institute CNRF, Alexandre Adler, compared in Le Courrier Mohammed Khatami with Mikhail Gorbachev. The Iranian reform has not been entirely what it has looked like in the minds of hopeful Western observers. Like Gorbachev has been glorified by Western writers, although he never intended to bury the Soviet Union, also Khatami hardly wants to bury Iranian Islamism - but instead, save it.
The most radical groups in Iran are fighting civil war against the government and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s notorious secret service. The radical groups are accused of terrorism; many of them are left wing groups. One acting on the limits of law is ‘Mojahedin Enqelab Eslami’ (Strugglers of Islamic Revolution) which is a group formed by left-wing ministers, and led by Mohammed Salamati. The more moderate reformist parties are divided into two camps: ‘Mosharekat’ (Participation Front) is an economically left-wing party supporting President Khatami, and having reached a majority in the new parliament. ‘Kargorazan Sazandengi’ (Servants of Construction Party) is a "centre" party supporting the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Close to it there are also ‘Eslami Kar’ (Islamic Labour), a non-Marxist labour party founded in early 1980s, headed by Abolqasem Sarhadizadeh, and a more conservative ‘Etedal vä Towseh’ (Moderation and Development). An addition to this party field is ‘Hambastegi’ (Solidarity) which is led by Reza Rahchamani. The conservatives and independent groups got total third-part of the parliament seats. (MEI 25th Feb.)
The reformists have a majority in the Iranian parliament. In August, a radical reformist Ali Akbar Mohtashami won President Khatami’s brother and became elected to the chairman of the reformist majority in the parliament. (The Economist, 19th-25th Aug.)
In mid-April there were lots of riots between the reformist youth and the conservatives (Islamists). On 18th April, the parliament accepted a new press law that limits the already low freedom of speech in Iran. This does not seem like reformation towards liberal democracy. Since the law had been accepted, several reformist newspapers have been banned in Iran. (The Economist, 12th-18th Aug.) Also in this sense Iran seems to go a parallel path with that of Russia. Throughout the spring and summer, there have been riots taking place in various cities of Iran. In June, students were fighting against the police and against Islamists in Tehran. (The Economist, 15th-21st June.)
Saudi Arabian authorities arrested in April members of an Ismaelite sect living in the vicinity of the Yemen border. They are being accused for, among others, being witches. Yemen has a traditional border dispute with Saudi Arabia. In January, Saudi Arabia occupied a border mountain. (Stratfor, 25th Apr, 24th May.)
The Russian minister of defence Igor Sergeyev’s visit to Yemen on 22nd May rose some attention on the activated Russian arms trade at the Red Sea mouth. The arms trading may also have connections to the Ethiopian-Eritrean War. According to BBC, both the countries used at least 200 million USD to purchases of Russian fighters, and an average of 1 million USD for daily military expenses since May 1998. The final success of Ethiopia during our period may have been due to the fact that Russia took finally more and more openly the Ethiopian side, while the USA has kept both the countries in a blockade - even though favouring Eritrea in diplomacy. (Monitor, 17th May.) The U.S. ‘neutrality’ in such conflicts (as in the Balkans and in the Caucasus, too) clearly favours the Russian-backed side in each conflict.
Kuwait’s supreme court rejected the appeals that could have given women in Kuwait vote in national elections. The conservatives of Kuwait fail to recognise that the election law actually stays in contradiction against the constitution from 1962. Accepting the reform would have been suitable in Kuwait, where, however, women are highly educated and there are women in important positions in economy as well as in universities. (HS 5th July.) Kuwait has again been shocked of the statements made by Iraqi leaders. (HS 11th Aug.)
In late August, an aeroplane of "Gulf Air" fell into the Gulf in Bahrain. (The Economist, 26th Aug.-1st Sept.)
According to Ilkka Karisto (HS, 13th Aug.), seven people die violently in Kashmir every day. Hizbul Mujahideen, a pro-Pakistani militant group, has been negotiating with India, which has been answered by terror acts by those opposing the negotiations. In the news coverage on Kashmir, however, only the marginal militant groupings, dominated by Pakistani and Afghan mujahideen who demand Kashmir’s annexation to Pakistan, get attention, while the predominantly Kashmiri groupings, backed by a majority of Kashmir’s population and demanding independence of Kashmir from both India and Pakistan, are seldom remarked by the media. According to various surveys the majority of Kashmiri people (who are predominantly Muslims, though there are also remarkable Hindu populations mainly in Jammu and in Srinagar, Buddhists in Ladakh, and minor Christian groups) supports an independent Kashmir, as suggested by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), moderate Kashmiri liberation organisation led by Amanullah Khan.
The Indian government, led by a Hindu extremist Atal Bihari Vajpayee, uniformly rejected autonomy for Kashmir on 4th July. The suggestion to provide enlarged autonomy for the state of Jammu and Kashmir would have given Kashmir a president of its own, a prime minister, and a system of court. (HS 5th July.) Indian occupation in Kashmir has been most cruel and continues to constitute one of the biggest military concentrations in the world. Within Kashmir, India’s absolute refusal for any ideas of autonomy is a backlash for the Kashmiri Prime Minister Farooq Abdullah, too. Farooq Abdullah won his seat in 1996 by promising Kashmir an autonomy as well as reconstruction. India never really provided Kashmir with the promised reconstruction money to repair the schools and infrastructure destroyed by Indian army, and as they now also reject the autonomy, there is very little basis for credibility for a pro-Indian Kashmiri authority of Farooq Abdullah. (HS, 28th June.)
The negotiations between India and the pro-Pakistani militants of Hizbul Mujahideen proved more damage than development in the Indian-Kashmiri relations. Khalid Mahmud from the "Institute of Regional Studies" in Islamabad commented the negotiation by stating that India attempted to divide the lines of the freedom fighters but made a big mistake. (The Economist, 12th-18th Aug.)
In Pakistan, the development of civil liberties and human rights has been positive after Pervez Musharraf’s military coup that overthrew the corrupted "democracy" of Nawaz Sharif. Violence between religious groups stopped almost entirely for half a year, more attention has been paid on the "honour murders" of women. Also UNHCR recognises that Pakistani courts are independent. (Nordic Directorates of Immigration.)
Despite the general positive tendency in Pakistan’s development, new outbursts of violence have occurred in the country: some violence has taken place between the predominant Sunnites and the Shi’ite minorities, some sectarian unrest has occurred, and the "Mohajirs" (originating in India) were revolting in Karachi. There was also unrest in the Punjabi capital Lahore. In September there was a bomb blast in Islamabad, and accusations were directed against India and the Taliban. However, Musharraf’s regime still appears stable. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
A lot is written about the "honour murders" of women in Pakistan, where the numbers of women killed by their close male relatives for "honour" reasons (breaking against sexual norms) has been decreased by the efforts of the present Pakistani government to improve the human rights. Much less is heard of the murders of women by burning, that takes place regularly among Hindus of India. Hundreds of women are murdered by burning in India every year. ("Kumppani", Finnish Foreign Ministry sponsored magazine on issues connected with developing countries.)
Besides Muslims (in Kashmir, Punjab, but also elsewhere in India), also Christians have been persecuted in India, which is governed by the religious extremist party Bharatiya Janata of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The extreme Hindu organisation Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is claimed to have initiated a campaign including beating priests and raping nuns (two Christians have been murdered), burning and stealing of Bibles, sacrilege of altars, bomb blasts and burning of Christian schools and hospitals. Most cases have taken place in the states of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. (NZZ, 30th June.)
Three Indian ministers threatened to quit the government as a protest as the state of Maharashtra formally accused the Hindu extremist Bal Thackeray for agitation of anti-Muslim pogroms and riots. (The Economist, 22nd-28th June.)
More than a hundred thousand people have been evacuated in the floods of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. (Reuters, 30th Aug. 2000) In June, hundreds of people died in Manila (Philippines) and in Bombay (Mumbai) when mud and rubbish buried people. (The Economist, 15th-21st June.)
The Tamil war was activated in Sri Lanka again. Fighting has taken place throughout the period, and bombs have exploded, for example in late September six people were killed in a bomb blast in Colombo. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.) In October, the Tamil Tigers committed a terror strike to the harbour city of Trincomalee. (Postimees, 25th Oct.) The Tamils live in the northern parts of the island of Ceylon, but an absolute majority of the world’s Tamils live in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which is one of the most densely inhabited states in India. Unlike the mainly Hindu Tamils of India, the Ceylonese Tamils are Christians, while the main population of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the Sinhalese, are Buddhists. The Tamil secessionism, however, like most of the secessionism taking place from Kosova to Chechnya, from Kashmir to East Timor and Aceh, from Mindanao to Uighuristan, is not predominantly religious in nature, like it is too easily suggested by media, especially when speaking about the cases where the secessionists happen to be Muslims.
Religion, when it separates the secessionist people from the ruling ethnos, can work as a unifying element, but far too easily the Western analysts dismiss national liberationism as "religious extremism". The latter view is of course emphasised by the governments seeking to oppress the secessionists, as they wish to brand their opponent as "fundamentalists" and "terrorists" – words which immediately rise Western antipathies. Though the Tamils of Sri Lanka and the Karenis of Burma are Christian secessionists in Buddhist countries, the East Timorese and West Papuans are Christian (and animist) separatists in a Muslim country, the Chechens and Kosovars are Muslim freedom-fighters in Christian countries, the Kashmiris are mainly Muslims in a Hindu-dominated country, and also the Buddhist Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs have different faith from the Han Chinese, this all does not mean that all these people would be fighting a religious war. Religious extremism seldom appears as ethnically selective, although Aceh (Muslim secessionism in Muslim country) and some internal tensions in many countries may be religiously inspired. In Afghanistan, the resistance against the Taliban opposes the Taliban’s tyranny, not Islam, as the anti-Taliban forces are Muslims as well. The above-mentioned cases of secessionism or resistance are all based on the willing of political freedom and finally independence of a polity, building a state on their own. These cases must not be mixed up with terrorist movements (PKK, ETA, IRA...) and some Russian-established de facto "states" (Transnistria, Abkhazia) that mainly serve as vassals and occupation bases of the aggressor.
In August, the Sri Lankan parliament rejected more autonomy to be given to the Tamil region. (The Economist, 12th-18th Aug.) Sri Lanka is repeating the mistakes that India has made for decades in regard to Kashmir. Thus, there is no end to be expected to the Tamil war.
The female prime minister of Sri Lanka, Sirimaro Bandaranaike, quitted her duties after a long veteran career. President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka is Mrs Bandaranaike’s daughter. The minister of internal affairs, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, became the new prime minister. Mrs Bandaranaike was the first female prime minister of the world. She drove socialist policy, that caused major problems and poverty, and for example pushed through the socialisation of religious schools to the state. (HS 11th Aug.)
In August, the Koreas allowed historical chance for relatives from different sides of the divided country to meet each other. (HS 14th Aug.) Russia has intensified its relations with the most isolated communist dictatorship of the world, and to the Okinawa G8 summit, President Putin brought messages from the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. The Kims - Kim Jong-Il of North Korea, and President Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea - met in Pyongyang in June. (The Economist, 17th-23rd June.) Since, also several Western countries have opened their relations with Pyongyang. Latest, the U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with Kim Jong-Il in October. However, it would be very premature to suppose that North Korea would be opening up, and that stability on the Korean Peninsula could be expected. The state of misery in North Korea is on an absurd level, none except the highest communist party elite has had any relations to the outer world since the communist take-over. People are starving. The gap between South and North Korea is the deepest in the world in both economical and political terms.
The Economist wrote in September that "rewarding bad behaviour [of North Korea] is not the way to peace on the Korean Peninsula". The article, titled "More bribes for North Korea?" goes on: "America, South Korea and Japan seem in danger of falling for the latest of North Korea’s old tricks: the trap set by Kim Jong-Il’s recent offer, made through Russia, to abandon his missile programme and its destabilising sales of rockets and technology to places such as Iran, Pakistan or Libya, if others will provide the means for him to launch satellites into space." (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
The G7 group of wealthy industrial states (U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan) has grown up to include Russia, although the Russian economy is about the size of Sweden’s. The G8 meeting took place on the Japanese island of Okinawa which still hosts large American military base. On his way to Okinawa, the Russian President Putin visited Asian communist dictatorships China and North Korea. (The Economist, 22nd-28th June.)
China was accepted to the WTO (some time after Albania) after the U.S. Senate normalised relations with China. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.) This does not change the fact that China is a communist dictatorship with planned economy and all power concentrated to the Communist Party. The Chinese "market bolshevism" may prove a nasty surprise for those now speaking about burial of communism. The Chinese law and order creates a dangerous illusion of stability and easily makes the Western observer to draw conclusions much more illusory than the purposefully optimistic forecasts for Russia, that most people do not take seriously. True, Chinese economy has been doing better than the Russian, though this is yet not much. A time-bomb of major unrest is looming in the vast Chinese countryside. Western eye is usually restricted to a few prospering metropoles (like in Russia’s case, too).
Besides, the official expansionism of Chinese foreign political and geopolitical strategy constitutes another regional time-bomb. The geopolitical expansion of Chinese hegemony is most visible all around the "Centre’s Empire", and is in direct correlation to the fading of U.S. hegemony in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and Russian hegemony in Central Asia and the Russian Far East. China may wait for decades or centuries with (Outer) Mongolia, but with Laos, Burma, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Far East, and islands of the Pacific, the Chinese game has been started long ago, yet it has remained unobserved for most Western observers. Others, like Huntington, might grant China the hegemony of whole East Asia without resistance. That would, however, not mean that the free Asian countries would not resist Chinese expansion. In the continuing passiveness of American supremacy, many have already turned to other great powers, like Bhutan, Nepal and Burma towards India, Vietnam towards India and Iraq. The most anxious neighbour of China is of course Taiwan, which increasingly fears that the U.S. will not stay committed to defend Taiwanese liberty against Chinese aggression.
Considering China’s ambitions in gaining geopolitical hegemony over Southeast Asia, it is understandable that the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are most concerned for the consequences of the recent destabilisation of these countries that have traditionally stayed defiant against communism and Chinese influence. The Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on 9th June that Japan should no longer feel guilt because of the WW II, but instead, Japan should step out and take a stronger leader’s position in Asia. (Reuters, Stratfor, 9th June.) Masashi Nishihara, the leader of Japanese Defence Academy, said to journalists that Japan should form closer ties with Indonesia in order to get safety from the increasing Chinese power in Southeast Asia. (Reuters, Stratfor, 28th June.)
China is also persecuting ethnic (Uighur, Tibetan) and religious (Muslim, Christian, Falun Gong) minorities. Persecution against Christians was reported in August. (The Economist, 26th Aug.-1st Sept.)
Stratfor reported in the summer about the ongoing struggle in Laos. On 3rd July a group of armed Laotians and Thais attacked in South Laos against the customs post of Vang Tao. At least six people died in the incident. The raid had been anticipated by a series of bombs (in May and in June), which have been addressed to the rebels belonging to Hmong minority. They coincided with the exiled Laotian Prince Sauryavong Savang’s visit to the United States. According to Stratfor, the raid was probably a manifestation aiming at fund-raising for the anti-communist struggle among Laotians living in foreign countries. In long run, the development in Laos may attract China to intervene. (Stratfor, 7th July.) China has long shown tendencies of considering Laos one of the most prompt targets on its expansionist strategy in Asia.
Immediately after the raid, Prince Sauryavong informed ‘Radio France Internationale’ that the royal house is ready to commit to the service of the nation to help to return freedom, peace and democracy to Laos. Laos is led by a stagnated agrarian communist regime. The Laotian rebels also proved their ability to recruit their fighters among poor Laos and Thai peasants of the border areas. The head of the exiled Laotian government told to ‘Radio France Internationale’ that the anti-communist troops on the border area of Laos, Thailand and Cambodia consists of about 900 men. (Stratfor, 7th July.)
The communist regime of Laos is supported by Vietnam, and as long as Vietnam and China are rivals in the region, anyone but China would not have a great interest in getting involved in the Laotian struggle. Cambodia, ruled by Prime Minister Hun Sen, is bound to Vietnam, and Thailand is more interested in general stability in the Mekong area. However, for China’s geopolitical interests a chance to bring about some kind of a coup in Vientiane could appear attractive. (Stratfor, 7th July.)
The Mekong co-operation, which is important for the Southeast Asian countries, was mentioned by Stratfor’s report. It is indeed important to notice that Thailand, which is a ‘lighthouse’ of freedom in the area, attracting the surrounding dictatorships Burma, Laos and Cambodia, has also the interest of not breaking its ties with the governments of these dictatorships, because Thailand has current border disputes with Burma, and a friction in Thai relations to Laos and Cambodia would only serve Chinese and maybe Vietnamese interest. On the other hand Thailand actively closes its eyes from refugee, exile and opposition Laotians, Cambodians and Burmese in its territory. Thailand intervenes in the activities of neighbours’ oppositions only when they do something armed and harmful for Thailand - like earlier Kareni "Christian Student Fighter" raid to a Thai hospital.
Only Vietnam presently considers Laos as its vassal, and Vietnamese troops and tanks were observed in Laos in June and again in July. A diplomat said to AFP: "We have seen military vehicles carrying Vietnamese troops in the streets of Vientiane." Hmongs living in the U.S. have supported the resistance movement fighting against the Laotian regime, and they have received increasing amounts of weapons smuggled from Thailand. (AFP, Stratfor, 5th June.)
Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri gains more power in Indonesia. In August, President Wahid handed over the daily political decision-making to his vice-president Megawati Sukarnoputri. President Wahid, often better known with the nickname Gus Dur, is old, sick, and almost blind. An Indonesian politologist Arbi Sanit comments Wahid’s move by stating that the idea of sharing power is a good one, but Sukarnoputri is the wrong choice. She lacks experience, vision, and a statesman’s wit. (HS 11th Aug.)
The secession of East Timor from Indonesia, which was successful due to the constructive goodwill of the Indonesian regime under President Habibie, and later Wahid, and which was completed by strong Western support for East Timor’s separatism, did not automatically lead to stabilisation of the region. The UN peacekeepers were attacked in East Timor, and on the other hand, unrest had spread to the Western half of the newly divided island. In September, Indonesia rejected UN observers to West Timor. (The Economist, 23rd-29th Sept.)
Besides Timor, also the northern Sumatra province of Aceh has been struggling for independence for a long time. Also the Moluccas and Western Papua (Irian Jaya), which were both occupied by Indonesia during Sukarno’s period, have regularly rebelled against Indonesian dominion. The Moluccan "civil war" has often been branded as religious, but it is rather an ethnic conflict between the original (Christian) inhabitants and the Javanese immigrants (colonists). (The Economist, 24th-30th June, 1st-7th July.) The Papuan conflict is much more complicated, as there are several independence-aiming tribes and ethnic groups in the western half of the giant island of New Guinea. The inhabitants of the island are mainly racially dark-skinned Melanesian peoples, some of the tribes very "backward". The Papuans belong to nativist (animist), Christian and Muslim religions. Indonesia clearly appears as a colonising empire in New Guinea.
The leader of the Aceh independence movement, Teuku Don Zulfahr, was murdered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in early June. Later the police of Kuala Lumpur announced it had arrested three Indonesian men, who were claimed to have been drinking with Teuku Don Zulfahr before his disappearance and murder. (The Straits Times, Stratfor, 15th June.)
The hostage situation of the Jolo Island in Southern Philippines ceased to be interesting for the Western media since most of the Western hostages were finally freed, although many Philippine and Malaysian hostages and one American [Black, Muslim, so apparently not as important as the rest of Western hostages] stayed in the hands of the kidnappers. The kidnapper gang, called Abu Sayyaf, claims Islamist separatism for the southern Muslim majority islands of the Philippines, but also this incident is very unlikely to have anything to do with religious issues. The Abu Sayyaf kidnappers appeared as totally uneducated and driven by merely financial interests. That does not mean that there would not lie a more profound illegitimacy in the Philippine rule over its southern islands.
Diplomatic glory went to Libya, which paid the ransom to the kidnappers of Jolo. In Tripoli, a propaganda outburst dominated the "miraculous rescue of the kidnapped by ‘the world’s leader’ Muammar al-Qaddafi". The United Nations isolated Libya in the 1980s among other reasons because Qaddafi’s regime was arming and supporting terrorism. Now Abu Sayyaf gets weapons, money and publicity in a scale that Libya’s earlier clients can only dream of. Before, Libya was isolated: now it is being awarded. The result may be a real boom of terrorism and kidnappings throughout the world. (Helsingin Sanomat, 31st Aug 2000.) In their claimed fight against terrorism, the world governments end up supporting true terrorist gangs, awarding terror regimes with diplomatic favours and IMF loans, and adopting disinformation claiming the Chechen, Kosovar, Central Asian, Kashmiri and Uighur freedom fighters and Laotian anticommunists to be terrorists.
There are not only Muslim extremists on the southern islands of the Philippines. At least 20 people died in mid-August in a clash between the police and a Christian cult. (AP, via HS, 13th Aug.) Immediately after the release of the Western hostages, the Philippine army attacked Jolo, on the Philippine President Joseph Estrada’s orders. (The Economist, 16th-22nd Sept.)
The Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi invited Vladimir Putin to visit Libya, and Putin accepted the invitation. (The Economist, 5th-11th Aug.) A ceasefire and peace was achieved between Ethiopia and Eritrea in Algiers in June. (The Economist, 24th-30th June.) In Uganda, stability and President Yoweri Museveni’s regime won in an election where the majority of electors supported Museveni’s "non-party" policy. (The Economist, 1st-7th July.) In Zimbabwe, the development was not as positive, as the dictator Robert Mugabe claimed a pseudo-victory in an "election". (The Economist, 1st-7th June.) The illegal confiscation of White-owned lands on racial basis, by Mugabe’s provocation, has not been settled.
Civil wars were at large in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In and around Zaire (Congo), the conflicts are getting the shape of an "African World War", where two camps are being formed: One Marxist and Bantu-dominated, consisting of the tyrannies of Kabila’s Congo-Kinshasa, communist Angola and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, as well as South Africa and Namibia; the other of Museveni’s Uganda and the governments of Rwanda and Burundi as well as some Guinean coast states.
The presidential race is getting intensified in the U.S. between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Latest polls show Bush leading.
If the ballistic missile shield plan of the U.S. would succeed (unlike the tests have shown so far), the system could diminish the meaning of nuclear powers and the threat imposed by a multipolar world dictated by few nuclear empires. This could change the present status quo radically - in many cases to the positive direction, as it is always generally positive to diminish the rule of horror in world politics. The Russian and Chinese opposition against the missile shield has obvious motives.
In Mexico, the 71 years of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s power finally ended. Vicente Fox’s victory was a very positive sign for Mexico. (The Economist, 8th-14th June.)
The world’s religious leaders gathered in the UN, New York, at the end of August. There were more than a thousand participants, but due to Chinese pressure, Dalai Lama of Tibet was not even invited.
In the Latin American front, the USA is getting into a new Vietnam in Colombia, while both Russia and Iraq have been claimed to have armed the Colombian drug cartels. Famine took place in Honduras. The Venezuelan populist President Hugo Chavez makes us anxious: Can he become a new Castro, as the Cuban dictator’s times are approaching their end? Alberto Fujimori won the presidential election in Peru, but later agreed to step down and arrange new elections. Fujimori’s secret police chief Vladimiro Montesinos into exile to Panama. In Chile, Augusto Pinochet goes into trial.
A wave of violence shook the otherwise paradise-profiled Oceanic island realms. A bloody rebellion first took place in the Solomon Islands. Then there was a rebellion in Fiji, ending with the quitting of the Indian-born prime minister, like the rebels demanded. However, the leader of the rebels, George Speight, was later imprisoned. The French colony of New Caledonia is heading towards independence with French consensus. So, besides the Faeroe Islands, even France is giving an example that secession need not be bloody and violent.
AKK
Thanks for material to AL, CAJ, TR and others.
Some regular sources of news material:
AU = Aasian Uutisia (the numbers of issues refer to weeks)
EWI RRR = East-West Institute, Russian Regional Report
HS = Helsingin Sanomat
NZZ = Neue Zürcher Zeitung
RFE = Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Stratfor = Stratfor’s Global Intelligence Update (www.stratfor.com)
TOL = Transition Online