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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 4 (August 2001)
A recommended link: The Prague Watchdog: http://www.watchdog.cz/
A Czech human rights organisation following the situation in Chechnya.
THE BALTICS
Representative of the US Republicans, Julie Finlay, supported the Baltic countries’ NATO membership in an interview of the Estonian daily Postimees. Mrs. Finlay said that Russia has no right to sabotage this development and Russia has no right to decide about the security political solutions of independent countries. If Germany and Spain oppose the NATO enlargement to Baltic countries, these countries must be persuaded more. Finlay believed that the opposition of some European NATO allies is the last obstacle on the way of the Baltic countries to NATO membership. Russia will not get the last word. Instead, NATO has to make it clear that it supports the Baltic countries to become members of NATO. "What could Russia do if the Baltic countries are accepted in the Alliance? Would they attack Estonia?" Mrs. Finlay does not believe so. Instead, as long as Russia can sabotage the NATO membership and refuse to sign border contracts, it may do anything. But after NATO membership, it cannot. Because of this reason, the West must first make things clear to Russia. (Postimees, 18th May.)
Also Zbigniew Brzezinski who belongs to the best US strategic experts on Eurasia, again expressed his support for the Baltic countries’ NATO membership, and considered it of primary importance that the Baltic countries can get into NATO as soon as possible. (Postimees, 18th May.)
Mõõdukad (’the Moderates’, Estonia’s social democratic party, which is however considerably more liberal and market-oriented than Western European social democrats) chose as a new chairman of the party the Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves, and as expected, Andres Tarand as their president candidate. Tarand is one of the three supposedly strongest candidates, together with Toomas Savi of Reformierakond (’Reform Party’, a libertarian party) and Peeter Tulviste of Isamaaliit (’Fatherland Union’, a conservative party). Tulviste is former principal of the University of Tartu.
The Finnish President Tarja Halonen visited Riga and tried all she could in order to not say anything decisive about the NATO membership of the Baltic countries. Still the Balts somehow managed to make an optimistic interpretation that Mrs. Halonen supports them. During the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis’s visit to Finland, Mrs. Halonen said that Finland supports Lithuania’s membership in the EU. (Helsingin Sanomat, 13th May; RFE, 22nd May.)
POLAND, CZECH REPUBLIC and SLOVAKIA
Poland postponed her goal year for EU membership from 2003 to 2004. (RFE, 22nd May.)
The Czech head negotiator for EU membership, Pavel Telicka, said he trusted in the EU that the Union can reach a compromise and 12 or 13 member countries will accept entirely free movement of labour within the Union’s territory two years after the eastern enlargement, and the rest 5 members would accept it five years after the enlargement. (RFE, 22nd May.)
Religious communities of the Czech Republic are concerned of the rising threat of neo-Nazism. The example of the Jewish comminities was followed by Catholic and also other organisations. The Czech government considers to infiltrate extreme right with agents. (RFE, 22nd May.)
The Slovak Gypsy Parliament, founded in March, hoped that in the national census on 26th May the Gypsies would register themselves as Gypsies more numerously than earlier. In 1991, only 82’000 people registered themseves as Gypsies. The chairman of the Gypsy Parliament, Ladislav Fizik, hoped that now as many as 300’000 people would register themselves as Gypsies, but he is afraid that 200’000 South Slovakian Gypsies will register themselves as Hungarians. (Many of these Gypsies are in fact Hungarian speakers.) According to Fizik, some 87 % of labour-aged Gypsies are unemployed, which means as many as 160’000 persons. (RFE, 21st May.)
HUNGARY
According to the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, double citizenship of expatriote Hungarians would not increase their travelling into the EU even when Hungary becomes member of the EU. State Secretary Zsolt Nemeth of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry said in Oradea (in Romania, in Hungarian Nagyvárad), in the inauguration of a Hungarian college on 19th May, that "when accepting the status law [on double citizenship], Hungary is paying a 80-year-old debt". According to Nemeth, it is a relity and common state of affairs in Central Europe that the borders of the states do not coincide with the borders of nations. (RFE, 21st May.)
ROMANIA and MOLDOVA
The leadership changed in the Romanian Democratic Party (the socialists), when Petre Român was pushed aside and replaced with the Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu. Basescu said he wants to reform the party towards more positive to market economy, wipe away Marxism, and take course towards "European social democracy". (RFE, 21st May.)
King Mihai and his wife Anna Bourbon-Parma returned to Romania and met with President Ion Iliescu and Premier Adrian Nastase. They were accompanied by Princess Margareta and Prince Radu von Hohenzollern-Veringen. The King visited Arges and said he would "gradually" return his residence permanently to Romania. (RFE, 21st May.)
Transnistria released one of its illegally imprisoned and death-sentenced political prisoners, the Romanian patriot Ilie Ilascu, who opposed separatism of Stalinist Transnistria, the Russian occupation, and supported Bessarabia’s reunification with the rest of Romania. Among others, Amnesty International had several times appealed for Ilascu, who was illegally sentenced to death for "crimes against the unity of the Soviet Union".
Partidul România Mare (PRM) appealed on Putin and Voronin that they would pressure Transnistria to release also the other members of Ilascu’s group, Alexandru Lesca, Tudor Petrov-Popa and Andrei Ivantoc, who have long suffered as political prisoners in Tiraspol. They are supporters of the reunification of Romania and Moldova and demand Russian troops to be removed from Moldovan territory. (RFE, 22nd May.)
BULGARIA
The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán demanded Bulgaria to reform her secret service, which still contained Soviet-time traditions. Orbán said this would be necessary if Bulgaria was going to get into the NATO, where Hungary already is. Orbán hinted that in the NATO the Bulgarian secret service might leak information to Russia. (RFE, 21st May.)
A commission of the Bulgarian parliament published names of the agents of the communist secret service. Among the names released there were six candidates of the forthcoming parliament elections – for example the leader of the ethnic Turkish minority’s party (DPS) Ahmet Dogan, the former defence minister of the ODS government (1992) Aleksandar Staliiski, and the deputy prime minister of the socialist government (1992-1996) Rumen Getchev. (RFE, 22nd May.)
Probably the most famous operation of the Bulgarian communist secret service was participation in the KGB-led operation to murder the Polish-born Pope John Paul II. Andropov was the mastermind of the operation and it was led by the KGB, but the Bulgarians recruited the murderer, a Turkish right-wing extremist Ahmet Agca. Also the "Bulgarian umbrella", armed with a poison thorn, became a conception, when it was used in several murders of dissidents in Western countries. The best known case took place in London.
According to the gallups, the Bulgarian parliament elections had a surprising leader, the royalists led by Simeon II. The present Prime Minister Ivan Kostov, who leads the ODS party, said that he did not exclude any coalition option except the "former communist parties". Kostov’s statement was intrepreted so that he was ready to align his party with Simeon II. (RFE, 22nd May.)
Still some time ago, the registration of the royalists as a party was tried to be prevented, but now Simeon II’s movement has become the most quickly emerging political power in Bulgaria. The movement represented quite a brave economic programme with radical tax reforms. In foreign politics, Simeon II leans strongly towards the West. Solomon Passy, a representative of the party, said that NATO and EU would have primary place in foreign policy. In the east, "Ukraine is as important as Russia, in many senses even more important". (RFE, 22nd May.)
Some Balkanian experts are more skeptical about Simeon II’s party. The Macedonian journalist, writer and economic advisor Samuel Vaknin characterised the party as populistic, and its rhetorics empty. Its apparent economic radicalism does not significantly differ from Kostov’s goals, but is based on much vaguer ideas, whereas Kostov is a real expert of economy. The Romanian historian Silviu Miloiu commented Simeon’s speeches that they sound ominously much like those of Corneliu Vadim Tudor. A lot of speech and populism but not much to do with reality. Simeon II, the heir of the Bulgarian royal family, has spent most of his life as a businessman in Spain.
When Simeon II finally won the election and formed the government, his extravagant promises on economic reform continued, but there are also many very positive signs, like the access to government posts that Simeon II offered for Bulgaria’s ethnic Turks, the most important ethnic minority in the country.
WESTERN BALKANS
In Macedonia, the fighting between Albanian guerrillas and the government troops has continued. The West supports the Macedonian government. Albania, USA and EU have negotiated on training ethnic Albanian policemen to Macedonia’s Albanian regions in the OSCE’s control. (RFE, 21st May.)
In Southern Serbia, the Albanian guerrillas of the Albanian-inhabited Presevo valley have announced that they will agree to be disarmed. The agreement with the Albanians was won by NATO. Shefket Musliu, the most important commander of Presevo’s guerrillas, promised that the militants will be demilitarised, demobilised and the armed groupings will be dispersed. The head of NATO’s Yugoslavian office, Shawn Sullivan, believed that the guerrillas will keep their promise. One of the Albanian militant commanders, Muhamet Xhemaili, refused to give up weapons, but even from his group men started to surrender to NATO peacekeepers. Later on 21st May, Xhemaili was arrested. Serbian troops have been allowed to return to the Presevo valley. (RFE, 22nd May.)
The Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zarko Korac hinted on 18th May in Geneva that Serbia could charge Slobodan Milosevic also for war crimes. Slobo’s Financial Minister Borislav Milacic was arrested for embezzlement of the state treasury. In the same case other defendents include the former deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic and the leader of "Politika" newspaper and closed friend of Slobo’s daughter, Hadzi-Dragan Antic. The latter is believed to have left the country. (RFE, 21st May.)
Another Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic suggested that Kosova should be divided between Serbian and Albanian parts. This would be a compromise, where the Albanians would get their part of Kosova, but at the same time Serbia would get those parts that were inhabited by Serbs and "culturally important". (RFE, 21st May.)
The Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina is worried in case that the US is going to remove part of its peacekeepers from the country. (RFE, 22nd May.)
BELARUS
In Belarus there were protests against the Soviet-styled "people’s congress". In result, 30 were arrested and the agents in civilian clothes were beating demonstrators. (RFE, 21st May.)
Informer of the Belarussian KGB, Fyodar Kotau, accused the head of the OSCE observer team, the German Hans-Georg Wieck, of intrigues and agitation to overthrow Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Kotau added that Wieck was "a former German intelligence officer". (RFE, 22nd May.)
About hundred Belarussian politicians and persons of publicity created on 21st May a group called "For New Belarus", which aims at supporting Lukashenka’s opponents in the elections, and appealed on them to choose one among them, behind whom everybody would gather. Presently, Lucastro’s challengers include Mihail Chyhir, Wladzimir Hancharyk, Syamyon Domash, Syarhei Kalyakin and Pavel Kazlowski. The support group is chaired by the former agriculture minister Vasil Lyavonau, and also Stanislau Shushkevich and Mechyslau Hryb are participating. (RFE, 22nd May.)
UKRAINE
The Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and the Moldovan communist President Vladimir Voronin came closer to each other and made an agreement, i.a. concerning visa freedom between the countries. (RFE, 21st May.)
Crimean Tatars commemorated their deportation by Stalin in 1944, demanded return of their stolen lands, right to return to Crimea, and compensation to the returning immigrants from the Ukrainian state. The Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev reminded that the people in question were original people returning to their homeland. (Reuters, 18th May.)
Ukraine opened an embassy in Baghdad on 20th May. (RFE, 21st May.)
Kuchma appointed Anatoly Kinah, relatively unknown leader of a "business party", to replace the former liberal Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, whom Kuchma earlier fired. Kinah is an oligarch who has been characterised as one belonging to the Soviet nomenclature, and not a real friend of market economy, but rather an advocate of the interests of certain economic elites. (RFE Security Watch, 21st May.)
SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze suggested a new agreement with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, to reunite Georgia. The latters rejected the offer and announced that they would only accept full independence. (Glasnost, 16th May.) Russia backs the separatists of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and practically occupies these areas from Georgia. Majority of local population did not support separatism in any of these cases. Instead of genuine national liberation movements, these cases were rather Russian attempts to divide and rule, to destabilise Georgia and to maintain military presence in Georgian territory.
NORTHERN CAUCASUS
Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov said in the interview of a Polish newspaper: "Russia cannot win this war. Nobody has won a war against guerrilla army – not a superpower, not a regime and not an army. Not in Vietnam, not in Algeria, not in Afghanistan. And neither will win in Chechnya." (Paul Goble: "Hearts and Minds", RFE, 21st May.) The war continues and intensifies throughout the summer, as the mobility of the Chechens is again improved.
The war is also spreading to adjacent regions. In Ingushetia Russian troops stroke against a bus. In Dagestan on 13th May, a child was killed and parents wounded when a Russian helicopter opened fire against a civilian vehicle. (Glasnost, 16th May.)
Also the Russian spy hysteria continues. The chief of FSB’s North Ossetian bureau, Lieutenant General Vladimir Bezugli, claimed that many of the employees of humanitarian aid organisations working in the North Caucasus are "spies of the CIA", who "supply the Chechen rebels with food and medicines". (Interfax, 18th May.)
The accusations are targeted against, besides the US, Russia’s neighbours, against whom Russia is fighting a diplomatic war by the means of disinformation and provocative propaganda. The Russian news agencies Interfax and Itar-Tass were "accidentally" at the same time spreading a claim, based on anonymous "reliable sources", that the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov would try to receive material and educational support for the Chechen troops from the Estonian Ministry of Defence, with which Maskhadov was claimed to be in constant contact. (RFE, 22nd May.)
Russia has also continued to attack against Georgia with the usual accusations, claiming that Georgia supports the Chechens, arms them, and that the Chechen commander Ruslan Gelayev would be preparing guerrilla actions from Georgia’s Pankisi gorge. The Russians referred to a vague video tape gained from nobody else than the notorious Shamil Basayev himself! Georgia of course dismissed the accusations and told that everything was calm in the Pankisi gorge. (RFE, 22nd May.)
Russia’s ambitions for Georgia are most obvious and the Pankisi gorge, and Russian myths about it, are just a means of propaganda. Russia can also be expected to try real provocations and pogroms to spread the conflict to Georgia’s Kist areas. In the district of Akhmeta there have been clear symptoms of agent provocateur activity of Russian secret service, like attacks against Georgian police (by "angry villagers") and spreading rumours about kidnappings and other basic stuff of Russian anti-Chechen propaganda.
Russia has increased her military activity in the occupied South Ossetia (Samadjablo), which legally belongs to Georgia. Russia has referred to a vague incident on 13th May between Russian soldiers and "Chechens". (RFE, 22nd May.) It is absolutely unclear what would Chechens have to do in South Ossetia, hostile territory, when there are territories in Georgian control east of South Ossetia, and for example the Pankisi gorge, where a significant Chechen minority lives. Routes between Chechnya and Georgia surpass the Caucasus mountains east from South Ossetia. At the moment even the slopes of Kazbek are nicely green and passing the mountains to Chechnya is not too difficult.
RUSSIA
In Russia it is generally imagined that the US would support the Chechen struggle for liberation. For example Vladimir Maksimenko, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote in his geopolitical article targeted against Zbigniew Brzezinski: "During the second Chechen War in 1999-2000 the West manifested its support to the Chechen leaders and their separatist and expansionist goals" (!). (Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 3/2000.)
While Russia hates the US, the US loves Russia. The phenomenon was cleverly described by Keijo Korhonen in his column "The Eternal Attraction of Russia" (Suomen Kuvalehti, 18/2001, 4th May.): "The solid basis of good Russo-American relations is the Americans’ general positively romantic image of eternal Russia. Nothing can break that image. ... But even more important is that the United States and Russia have never fought against each other. Russians have never been considered as enemies in the U.S. ... After the collapse of Soviet socialism, Russia became for the Americans a prodigal son who returned from his wrong paths. All mistakes are forgiven, disappointments swallowed. Calves of dozens of billions of dollars are slaughtered for Russia again and again, however badly Russia behaved. ... Have a look upon what’s happening all the time in Chechnya, which is a conquered imperial dominion for Russia as well as Finland was up until 1917. ... NATO is not planning an intervention and is not going to bomb Moscow. Russia has her own permission, licence to kill.... The United States will always ‘understand’ Russia, its problems and its goals. Russia’s voice is heard in Washington, and listened to."
The issue was also discussed by Jukka Tarkka in his column concerning former Finnish President Mauno Koivisto’s book about the "Russian Idea": "At least from the 1400s to the Soviet times, Russia has been expansionistic and aggressive in a national-mystical way (Koivisto, pp. 50, 51, 226, 270, 292). All those territories belong to Russia, which have once been conquered by Russia, or where Russian blood has been spilled. That means also Finland belongs to Russia. … The relations of present Russia to the CIS countries, to Baltic republics and Chechnya do not support the idea that the Korean War or evern the collapse of the Soviet Union would have changed at all the Russian idea described by Koivisto." (Turun Sanomat, 2nd May.)
Besides the US and Chechens, Russia projects her hatred and revanchism to all her neighbours. Besides the Baltic countries and Georgia, also Azerbaijan has received almost daily loads of full-scale propaganda shelling. An Azerbaijani sociologist Rasim Musabekov defended the good will of the Azerbaijanis against the attacks of Russians by writing that unlike in Russia, where an all-penetrating racist and xenophobic hatred prevails against neighbour peoples, especially Caucasians, in Azerbaijan Russians are not particularly hated. Rather, the negative feelings are directed against the Russian state, which is understandably seen as an aggressive and hostile actor. According to the study, the Azerbaijanis have much more positive attitudes towards Turkey, the US, Georgia, Israel and Ukraine than towards Russia. "However, despite the racist persecution Russia is conducting upon Azerbaijanis, the Azerbaijanis are friendly toward Russian people, and there is not such prevalent Russophobia as in Poland, Czech Republic, Finland and other Baltic countries" (!). (Central Asia and the Caucasus, 3/2000.)
Musabekov’s comparison must be understood against the background that he argues in the Russian speaking academic discussion, where considering Poland, Finland and "other Baltic countries" as "fascist" and "Russophobic" seems to be a generally accepted approach. Russians still feel extremely negative about all their neighbours, if compared to other nations in the region, and in academic discussion also Finland is often parallelled to other frontier nations that have seceded from the Russian Empire. Exactly like Koivisto, too, remarked, also Finland is understood as a part of the Russian goal of interest spheres for future’s Greater Russia. This means it would be good for Finns, too, to observe and study those means of propaganda, disinformation and political indoctrination that Russia uses against her other border states.
There is, however, also large disconsent about the Kremlin’s imperial conduct of Russian idea, also among Russian intellectuals. The Russian sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky was against the Chechen war, which was, according to him, only supported by fascists and racists. These do not listen to any rational arguments. "Every time when somebody speaks about human rights or a peaceful solution, they sarcastically say that no Chechen has won a Nobel prize in mathematics. Does this mean also Luxemburg should be destroyed?" (The Moscow Times, 18th May.)
* * *
Novye Izvestiya (whoch was founded by the journalists of the captured Izvestiya) wrote that the death polls given by Sergei Yastrzhembsky and the "power ministries" about those killed in Chechnya are just fiction and that the only goal in which the FSB has succeeded is the abolition of free flow of information, so that neither the Kremlin nor the Russian people would get to know what is really happening in the war more alarming than Afghanistan’s. (RFE, 21st May.)
The Kremlin is trying to create a tripod party system in Russia. Only parties that would be left alive, would be the communists on the left, the democratic opposition on the right, and the Kremlin’s loyal majority in the centre. More small parties have been abolished and pressured to abolish themselves. (Novye Izvestiya, 18th May.)
George W. Bush and Gerhard Schröder criticised Vladimir Putin for transforming the Russian elite back to the Soviet model, for abolition of free media, and for arming Iran. They also thought that in this kind of situation, Russia should not be supported. (RFE Newsline, 21st May.)
According to a Russian poll, 71 % of Russians do not believe that the Soviet Union could be rehabilitated. However, 16 % are "optimists" (!) who believe that the Soviet Union can be returned. (Strana.ru, 16th May.)
The energy giant Gazprom "verticalised" itself by dropping out all the minority stockholders from the board’s candidate list. (RFE, 21st May.) Meanwhile, the Kremlin wants to capture into its control a satellite owned by Vladimir Gusinsky. (RFE Security Watch, 21st May.)
The former Russian foreign and prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, who was recently appointed to ambassador in Ukraine, defined as "criminal" all such group who aim at "weakening the president", and demanded police forces to be used against all opponents of Putin. (RFE, 21st May.)
According to a representative of the Duma Defence Committee, Aleksey Arbatov, only 20 % of Russia’s weaponry is modern. Arbatov demanded increase in defence spending. In the Soviet Union, weapons used to be spent more money on… (RFE, 21st May.)
Vesta company in St. Petersburg has helped non-Jews wishing to emigrate to Israel by falsifying documents and even by painting anti-Semitic graffitis in walls in their neighbourhood as evidence of persecution. The clients were also taught Jewish customs so that they would pass for the authorities as Jews. (RFE, 21st May.)
Putin and Venezuela’s populist President Hugo Chavez agreed that the price of oil should be kept as high as possible. (RFE, Security Watch, 21st May.)
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who was just recently visiting Saddam Hussein in Iraq, continued honouring Russia’s favourite Muslims and visited Libya as a guest of Muammar al-Qaddafi. In Libya, Zhirinovsky demanded formation of a new anti-Western bloc, which would include "Russia, certain CIS countries, some Balkan countries [Serbia at least], several Arab countries, and Libya." (RFE Security Watch, 21st May.)
The FSB’s chief Nikolai Patrushev admitted that there is no end for the Chechen War in horizon. Propaganda chief Sergei Yastrzhembsky, in his turn, admitted that Russian casualties had taken radical rise in recent times. Patrushev said that what could be expected was only worse: "eliminating the Chechen fighters is not worth of those sacrifices that would fall upon us", he warned President Putin. (RFE Security Watch, 21st May.)
IDEL-URAL
Tatarstan is conducting her own foreign politics in a cunning way. Towards Europe and the West it stayes invisible as a part of Russia, but towards Asia it behaves like an independent state. Tatarstan has started large bilateral trade with Iraq, and latest Prime Minister Rustam Minnikhanov met ambassadors of ASEAN countries, persuading them to invest in Tatarstan. (RFE Security Watch, 21st May.)
In Bashkortostan those graduating from school received Russian passports in Bashkir language and with the Bashkir coat of arms. The general-governor of the Volga federal district, Sergei Kiriyenko, said that this does not violate Russian integrity at all. In the capital of Bashkortostan, Öfö (Ufa), newspapers are published in six languages already: Bashkir, Russian, Tatar, Chuvassian, Udmurtian and Mari. (RFE Tatar-Bashkir Report, 18th May.)