Author: Chakhmakhchian Vatche

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State info agency
April 2 2004

MOSCOW DECLARATION MEETS AZERBAIJAN INTERESTS
[April 02, 2004, 15:27:06]

A meeting of the Milli Majlis Standing Commission on Security and
Defense Affairs was held on April 1 to discuss the draft laws `On
Ratification of Moscow Declaration of the Republic of Azerbaijan and
the Russian Federation’, `Agreement on Mutual Secret Data Protection
between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Government
the Russian Federation’, and `On Introducing Amendments and
Supplements in Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of
Azerbaijan’.

Deputy Chairman of the Milli Majlis, Chair of the Commission Ziyafat
Asgarov said the Moscow Declaration whose foundation was laid by our
nationwide leader Heydar Aliyev, would play an important role in
development of Azerbaijan-Russia strategic partnership.

The document was signed in the course of the President of Azerbaijan
Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Moscow in February. The Declaration says that
the parties pursue joint activity in political, trade and economic,
humanitarian, security and defense, universal and regional spheres,
as well as in the Caspian. The document also confirms that Russia
recognizes territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, stands for
unconditional fulfillment of the resolutions of UN Security Council
and OSCE concerning Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
and bilateral military cooperation not directed against the third
party.

The three draft laws have been decided to be submitted to the Milli
Majlis for discussion.

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
_________________________________________ ____________________
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 4, No. 12, 2 April 2004

A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics

COMPLETE REACTION AND WRAP-UP OF RUSSIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
Get comprehensive analysis and all the breaking news about the
Russian elections at RFE/RL’s dedicated webpage “Russia Votes
2003-04”:

************************************************************
HEADLINES:
* PUTIN CONSOLIDATES HIS ADMINISTRATION
* IGOR SECHIN: GATEKEEPER OR INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ACTOR
* RUSSIA’S EVOLVING LIBERALISM
************************************************************

KREMLIN/WHITE HOUSE

PUTIN CONSOLIDATES HIS ADMINISTRATION

By Victor Yasmann

During a discussion with journalists at the president’s
Black Sea residence in Sochi on 27 March, President Vladimir Putin
announced that the sweeping reorganization of the presidential
administration, following shortly after the reshuffling of the
government earlier this month (see “RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly,”
12 March 2004), should complete the first stage of the country’s
administrative reform.
Like the government reorganization, Putin’s rearrangement
of the presidential administration was essentially
technical-bureaucratic in nature, rather than political. Under the
plan, which was drafted by administration chief of staff Dmitrii
Medvedev, the new structure will have three levels. At the top will
be Medvedev and his two deputies (under the old system, there were
eight deputy administration heads). The two remaining deputies are
Vladislav Surkov, who formerly oversaw elections and work with
political parties and public organizations, and Igor Sechin, who
until recently was responsible for the president’s schedule and
for work with documents. Surkov is reputed to be close to the
so-called Family of the era of former President Boris Yeltsin, while
Sechin is associated with the “St. Petersburg chekisty,” leading
analysts to believe the two will maintain a balance between the
interests of these groups.
The remaining six deputy-administration-head slots have been
abolished, and many of the former deputies have been given the status
of presidential aides. Under the new scheme, former deputy
administration head Aleksandr Abramov, who was responsible for
federal issues, will become a presidential aide and will also serve
as secretary of the State Council. Former deputy administration heads
Dzhakhan Pollyeva (who oversaw the Kremlin experts’ group and
speech writing), Igor Shuvalov (economics), and Viktor Ivanov
(personnel matters) will become presidential aides. Sergei Prikhodko
will continue as presidential foreign-policy aide. Rounding out the
administration’s second tier, State Legal Department head Larisa
Brycheva has also been given the status of a presidential aide.
The third level of the administration will comprise the heads
of 12 functional departments and other administration units.
Outside of this three-tiered system, but also part of the
presidential administration, there will be the offices of the
presidential envoys to the seven federal districts, the Security
Council and its apparatus, the presidential chancellery, and the
secretariat. Aleksei Gromov will remain head of the presidential
press service, and Igor Shchegolev remains chief of protocol.
Speaking to journalists on 27 March, Medvedev said that the
precise division of labor among the deputy administration heads, the
presidential aides, and the department heads is yet to be worked out.
He indicated that most of the administration’s 2,000 personnel
will keep their jobs, although there could be some cuts in
departments that will be abolished. It is believed, for instance,
that the administration’s economy departments will be
incorporated into the structure of the experts’ groups, while the
Domestic Policy Department will be folded into the Territorial
Department. Likewise, the Information Department will become part of
the presidential press service.
The administration reform parallels the recent government
restructuring proposed by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. That
three-tiered system consists of 14 “super-ministries” responsible for
policy formulation and decision making, followed by a layer of
federal services responsible for policy implementation, and a tier of
federal agencies responsible for monitoring and oversight.
The parallel structures should help consolidate the
administration and the government and enable Putin to be more
actively involved in the workings of the cabinet than he was when
Mikhail Kasyanov was prime minister. The abolition of the
presidential administration’s Economy Department is indicative of
this consolidation. Under Kasyanov, the administration’s Economy
Department was headed by Anton Danilov-Danilyan, who frequently
debated economics with Kasyanov and the government,
“Kommersant-Daily” reported on 26 March. Analysts believe that Putin
has such confidence in Fradkov’s economic judgment that he does
not feel the need to monitor the government’s economic-policy
ministries any longer.
Speaking about the administration reform during the press
briefing in Sochi on 27 March, Putin noted that the administration
had not been restructured since it was created in 1991. “That was a
time of revolution, and the administration was founded as the
headquarters of revolution,” Putin said. “Now we need an efficient
tool of government that will correspond to its tasks and will not
intervene in the spheres of jurisdiction of other power bodies,
including the government.”
Putin also spoke about his decision to dismiss Kasyanov’s
government on 24 February, just over two weeks before the 14 March
presidential election. At the time, Putin said that he wanted to
present his new government to the electorate before the vote. On 27
March, however, Putin said that Kasyanov’s government had lost
the momentum of reform and that it is necessary “from time to time to
shake up such a structure because people…begin to value their
posts” more than working effectively.
Neither explanation, however, seems convincing, since very
few key officeholders lost their posts as a result of the government
shake-up, with the notable exception of Kasyanov himself. Many
analysts continue to believe that the shake-up was rushed through
before the election in order to eliminate Kasyanov as a real or
imagined political rival to Putin. Some forces within the Kremlin
likely viewed Kasyanov as a figure capable of consolidating the
anti-Putin political forces and gaining support both at home and
abroad among those who are irritated by Putin’s style of
governance.

PROFILE

IGOR SECHIN: GATEKEEPER OR INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ACTOR. Even as
analysts continue to sift through the various appointments and
reappointments and the renaming of many federal agencies of the last
few weeks, at least a few clear winners have emerged: the new
government chief of staff Dmitrii Kozak and the two remaining deputy
presidential heads, Vladislav Surkov and Igor Sechin.
Sechin’s continued prominence comes as little surprise.
For the past 13 years, Sechin has worked by Putin’s side. Sechin
is the only official whom Putin has taken with him to every new job,
“Moskovskii komsomolets” noted on 2 February 2000. Little outwardly
has changed in the function of his posts, although his title has
changed over the years. Sechin keeps Putin’s schedule, overseeing
the flow of people and documents to him.
Perceptions of Sechin have altered over the years. In St.
Petersburg, he was viewed more or less as a selfless executor of
Putin’s will. However, since coming to Moscow, press reports have
proliferated about his supposed pursuit of various agendas.
Sechin, 43, was born in Leningrad. He studied Portuguese and
French at Leningrad State University (LGU). He is also fluent in
Spanish, according to “Kadrovaya politika,” No. 2 (2001). After
graduating from LGU in 1984, he went to work as a military
“translator” in Angola and later at the Tekhnoimport company in
Mozambique. His work in a conflict zone has caused some analysts to
conclude that he must have been — and might still be — connected
with the Russian intelligence services. His official biography
includes no such information. “Kommersant-Vlast,” No. 9, reported
this year that according to an unidentified source in Russian
Military Intelligence (GRU), Sechin once worked as a translator for a
Soviet military adviser who worked for the GRU.
Certainly, Sechin possesses certain personal characteristics
valued by the intelligence services. “Profil,” No. 27 (2001),
reported that, according to his former colleagues in St. Petersburg,
Sechin does not reveal information about his personal life or
demonstrate emotion. His former supervisor from the Leningrad City
Soviet, Margarita Gromyko, noted that he didn’t volunteer the
information that he had been a military translator, saying she
learned the facts of his biography only from his employment form.
Another colleague from the St. Petersburg mayor’s office recalled
that Sechin was unusually communicative, but still closed at the same
time. “No one knew about his personal life or his family situation,”
he recalled.
After his experience in Mozambique, Sechin served a stint in
the Soviet Army. Then he became a foreign-languages instructor at
LGU, and he served as a specialist in international economic
relations for the Leningrad City Soviet’s Executive Political
Committee from 1988 until 1991. Sechin’s City Soviet supervisor
at the time, Gromyko, described him as mild and kind and not one of
those people who climbs to the top over the bodies of his
competitors.
During a trip to Brazil for the mayor’s office — one of
St. Petersburg’s sister cities is Rio de Janeiro — Sechin first
became acquainted with Putin, who was then a not-very-prominent,
quiet assistant to St. Petersburg Mayor Anatolii Sobchak, according
to “Profil.” Later, when Putin became deputy mayor, he made Sechin
the head of his secretariat.
A former colleague recalls that Sechin quickly became the
center of that office. He has a prodigious memory, and he works “like
a loyal dog, never biting anyone on his own initiative, but only for
the team.” The key to his success, according to the same colleague,
was that he “never exceeded his responsibilities” and “never
expressed any emotion.” From 1991 until the end of Sobchak’s
administration in 1996, Sechin rose as Putin rose, from assistant to
the director to head of the apparatus of the deputy mayor, to head of
the apparatus of the first deputy mayor.
In 1997, when Putin came to Moscow to head the Kremlin’s
Control Department, he took Sechin with him. “Rossiiskie vesti”
suggested on 9 October 2002 that Sechin has changed since coming to
Moscow, becoming more of an active “instrument” for taking actions
that Putin, for whatever reasons, wishes to distance himself from.
For example, it was reportedly Sechin who took concrete measures to
bring down former Railways Minister Viktor Aksenenko and to rein in
former Media Minister Mikhail Lesin. According to the weekly, several
analysts have suggested that Sechin has grown over time into a
political actor, following the path of Vladimir Kryuchkov, who was
the director of the personal secretariat of Yurii Andropov when he
was chairman of the KGB.
Ivan Goryachev, writing on grani.ru, a website funded by
former oligarch Boris Berezovskii, on 12 February 2002 alleged that
Sechin lobbied the idea of creating a national sports channel to
replace TVS. In other reports, Goryachev suggested that Sechin,
together with fellow deputy presidential administration head Viktor
Ivanov, locked horns with fellow deputy presidential administration
head Vladislav Surkov over control of the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia
party. In addition, Sechin and banker Sergei Pugachev reportedly
supported a 2001 Duma inquiry against then-presidential
administration head Aleksandr Voloshin.
At the same time as grani.ru and other websites detailed a
pattern of behind-the-scenes machinations by Sechin, other reports
periodically appeared suggesting that Sechin’s star had faded and
his power was waning. “Moskovskii komsomolets” on 20 June 2000
claimed that problems with Sechin’s performance during the first
months of Putin’s presidency enabled his rivals to overshadow him
and remove him from the “big leagues.” Sechin tried to take on a
“political role” too quickly after Putin became president, and there
were reportedly constant problems with Putin’s schedule. During
one trip to Germany, Putin reportedly had to take part in 24 events
in one day. Similarly, “Kto est kto” on 3 September 2001 argued that
since Dmitrii Medvedev became head of the presidential apparatus and
Dmitrii Kozak was moved to head the government apparatus,
Sechin’s influence within the presidential administration has
weakened.
If these reports are correct, then Sechin’s influence
waxes and wanes fairly frequently. At the same time, by all outward
appearances, his standing with Putin has remained unchanged over the
years. Sechin’s former supervisor Gromyko laughs at the notion
that Sechin would pursue his own political agenda, according to
“Profil.” The weekly also interviewed an unidentified former KGB
general who has known Sechin for many years who perhaps provides an
alternative explanation for the Sechin’s alleged
behind-the-scenes activities. “In my life there exist four people
whom I trust in any situation unconditionally,” the general said.
“One of these is Sechin. I can say definitely that it is possible
that what these newspapers describe takes place in real life. But
only Sechin has never done anything without an order from above. Does
this mean that everything that takes place occurs at the initiative
of the president? Understand that as you will.” (Julie A. Corwin)

PARTIES

RUSSIA’S EVOLVING LIBERALISM

By Robert Coalson

Since the failure of either of Russia’s liberal parties
— Yabloko and the Union of Rightist Forces (SPS) — to enter the
Duma in the 7 December elections and the failure of the liberal
wing’s least-sullied figure, former SPS co-leader Irina Khakamada
to pick up even 4 percent of the vote in the 14 March presidential
election, analysts have been avidly discussing the demise and even
death of Russian liberalism. Advocates of the resurgent
“national-patriotic” ideologies — who are getting ever more space in
the national press — have lauded the country’s supposed
rejection of liberal ideals, which they say have led to great divides
within society and to the collapse of Russia as a respected world
power.
Jailed former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovskii, still
Russia’s richest person and for many the embodiment of the
injustices of the liberal policies of the 1990s, published in
“Vedomosti” on 29 March a long, soul-searching commentary titled “The
Crisis Of Liberalism In Russia.” In his article, Khodorkovskii
rejects the notion that liberalism is somehow inherently unsuitable
for Russia or that there is something fundamentally wrong with
liberal precepts. Instead, he admits ruefully, “those whom fate and
history entrusted to be the preservers of liberal values in our
country could not cope with that task.” To his credit, Khodorkovskii
includes himself among this number, among those who betrayed liberal
values for their own selfish interests and who smugly decided that in
Russia it is not necessary to take into consideration the interests
or views of the masses.
Khodorkovskii’s article blames the liberals for failing
when they had power in the 1990s under former President Boris Yeltsin
to care for the “90 percent” of the population that was not prepared
to do without state paternalism. He lambastes big business for
fostering and propping up a weak state system in order to pursue its
own interests. He labels the governments that presided over the 1998
financial crisis and its consequences “irresponsible and incompetent”
and regrets that those liberals who might have been able to prevent
the crisis did not insist more strongly that something can and should
be done.
He castigates the liberal elite for betraying its values and
“doing everything possible to establish financial and administrative
control over the media” in order to control public opinion. Likewise,
he criticizes the elite’s manipulation of the election process.
“How can I — one of the biggest sponsors of the 1996 presidential
campaign — forget what truly monstrous efforts were required in
order to force the Russia people ‘to vote with their
hearts’?” Khodorkovskii asks.
Clearly, Khodorkovskii argues, Russian liberalism has dug
itself into a deep hole, and it will take considerable effort to
return the country to a path of liberal development. He offers
several suggestions for beginning that process, including developing
“a new strategy” for interacting with the government after asking
oneself, “What have you done for Russia?” He calls on Russian
liberals to eschew popularity in the West for the esteem of their
countrymen. He urges them to recognize the legitimacy of President
Vladimir Putin and of the presidency as “the institution that
guarantees the integrity and stability of the country.” According to
Khodorkovskii, the development of civil society is impossible without
the government playing a leading role.
Business, he argues, must renounce the shortsighted benefits
of a weak state and an undeveloped civil society. It must seek to
legitimize the 1990s-era privatizations in the eyes of the public by
endorsing tax reforms that “will force business to share with the
people” and other steps “that will not be very pleasant for major
owners.”
Much of what Khodorkovskii advocates can be boiled down to
“overcoming the complexes and phobias” that have characterized the
entire history of Russian liberalism, including the last decade.
Civil society, he notes, is formed over generations “and not in an
instant by the wave of a magic wand.”
In an article on politcom.ru on 29 March, Center for
Political Technologies Deputy Director Aleksei Makarkin, analyzing
the data from a recent survey of Russian attitudes by the Ekspertiza
foundation, argues that, despite the mistakes of the liberals and
contrary to the crowing of the “national-patriotic” ideologues, the
public at large is slowly, but inexorably becoming more liberal.
Makarkin, for instance, notes that, although xenophobia
remains high in Russia, negative attitudes toward the Soviet-era
official “enemy” — Jews — are declining, despite the concerted
efforts of nationalists to enflame anti-Semitism with references the
hated oligarchs or Unified Energy Systems head Anatolii Chubais. He
argues that much of the increase in xenophobia is a reaction to real
social problems like poverty, crime, and terrorism rather than an
irrational phobia or the result of a state policy.
Likewise, Makarkin noted that 37 percent of respondents
agreed with the statement that “relations between Russia and the West
can be genuinely amicable,” despite recent events such as the
complete discrediting of Russia’s pro-Western reformers, the NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia, the U.S.-led military action against former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the U.S. abrogation of the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the current eastward expansion of
NATO.
He also drew attention to the fact that an ever-decreasing
percentage of Russians agrees with statements such “it is immoral to
be rich in a poor country.” In the Ekspertiza poll, 39 percent of
respondents agreed with this proposition, while 47 percent disagreed.
He also notes that, compared to Soviet times, support for the death
penalty is much weaker now, with only 29 percent of respondents
agreeing that “enemies of the people should be executed.” Twenty
percent agreed that bribe-taking officials should be executed.
Forty-eight percent of respondents agreed that it is worse to condemn
an innocent person than to let a guilty person go free, while just 28
percent felt the opposite.
In short, Makarkin argues that, despite the fact that in the
Soviet era “the pluralistic political tradition was almost entirely
lost in Russia” and despite the peculiarities of the Soviet-era
dissident movement — such as the role played by Jewish refusniks who
were fighting largely for their individual rights rather than for a
liberal restructuring of the country or the prominence in the
movement of right-wing nationalists — liberal ideals are making
steady inroads in the public consciousness.
Makarkin concludes that these shifts in attitude are making
it steadily more difficult for the government to act in heavy-handed,
authoritarian ways. He notes for example that that Federal Security
Service (FSB) has been forced to launch a publicity campaign to
garner support for the idea that juries should not hear cases
involving state secrets. In the past, he implies, the FSB could
simply have manipulated the courts or the political system to achieve
its ends. Such tendencies could be more fundamental and lasting than
the current “crisis” in the upper echelons of liberalism

ELECTIONS

FAR NORTHERN INCUMBENT UNSEATED… Arkhangelsk Oblast Governor
Anatolii Yefremov lost his bid for a third term by a large margin in
the second round of the oblast’s gubernatorial election on 28
March, Russian media reported. According to preliminary results with
86 percent of the votes counted, Yefremov’s challenger, local
dairy director Nikolai Kiselev, received 74.36 percent, compared with
just 17.88 percent for Yefremov, RIA-Novosti reported on 29 March.
Yefremov’s chief rival in the race, State Duma Deputy and local
oligarch Vladimir Krupchak, withdrew from the first round after a
meeting in the Kremlin just one week before the voting (see “RFE/RL
Newsline,” 5 March 2004). According to “Kommersant-Daily” on 26
March, local analysts believe that although the Kremlin asked
Krupchak to withdraw, it did not necessarily support Yefremov.
Presidential administration officials were simply not willing to work
with Krupchak. According to ITAR-TASS, Kiselev is a member of the
Unified Russia party, although the party did not nominate him for
governor. JAC

…AS GENERAL JOINS GOVERNORS’ RANKS IN CENTRAL DISTRICT.
Recently elected Motherland State Duma Deputy and former Airborne
Troops commander General Georgii Shpak was elected governor of Ryazan
Oblast on 28 March in the second round of the gubernatorial election
there, Russian media reported on 29 March. With more than 99 percent
of the ballots counted, Shpak had 53.65 percent of the vote, compared
with 40.17 percent for Unified Russia Deputy Igor Morozov, RBK
reported on 29 March. Just over 5 percent voted “against all.” The
turnout was 48.61 percent. “Moskovskii komsomolets” reported on 25
March that rumors were circulating in Ryazan before the ballot that
Morozov did not have the support of the presidential administration
— as he had claimed. The rumors were fed in part by a televised
remarks by presidential envoy to the Central Federal District Georgii
Poltavchenko, who reportedly said, “And who is Morozov?” The daily
also reported that recent polls showed a surge in popularity for
Shpak that was almost in direct proportion to the attacks on him.
Newspapers and leaflets were reportedly circulated accusing him of
being a thief and drunkard. JAC

STATE DUMA

DUMA GIVES INITIAL NOD TO BILL INCREASING NUMBER OF PAYING STUDENTS
AT PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS… The Duma approved on 26 March in their
first reading amendments to the federal law on education that would
remove limitations on the number of paid admissions to specialized
educational institutions, such as law schools and state- and
municipal-administration schools, RIA-Novosti reported. The vote was
333 in favor and 94 against. “For the last 10 years there has been a
huge growth in the number of non-state-sector educational
institutions preparing students in prestigious specialties,” State
Duma Education and Science Committee Chairman Valentin Ivanov
(Unified Russia) told gazeta.ru. “Rectors of state institutions
consider the [current] situation discriminatory and believe it is
leading to the pushing of students out to the private sector.”
According to gazeta.ru, opponents of the bill fear it will lead to
the destruction of the system of free education. The bill was
originally sponsored by deputies from the last Duma — Aleksandr
Shishlov (Yabloko) and Sergei Yushenkov (independent). JAC

…AND REDUCES DUMA STAFF. Deputies also approved on 26 March
amendments to the law on the status of members of the Federation
Council and the State Duma governing the certification of
legislators’ assistants, RosBalt reported. The bill passed
narrowly, with just 226 in favor — the exact number required for
passage. Under the bill, which was sponsored by the Unified Russia
faction, each legislator would be allowed five staff assistants and
40 so-called public assistants. According to gazeta.ru, the Liberal
Democratic Party of Russia, the Communists, and Motherland opposed
the bill. If enacted, the bill would deprive public assistants of the
right to ride free of charge on public transportation and of immunity
from arrest. Duma Regulations Committee Chairman Oleg Kovalev
explained that sometimes “dubious personalities” become public
assistants and use their status for various misdeeds and even
“crime,” gazeta.ru reported. JAC

COMINGS & GOINGS

IN: Kirov Oblast’s legislature on 25 March confirmed Aleksei Klishin
as its representative in the Federation Council, “Kommersant-Daily”
reported on 26 March. Klishin previously headed the Moscow
Interterritorial College of Lawyers. Klishin replaces Mikhail
Mikheev, who has served in the upper chamber since April 2001. An
unidentified source in the oblast administration told the daily
that Klishin has very good — but private — connections in Moscow.
He specializes in the regulation of foreign investment, tax
legislation, and property rights.

IN: Also on 25 March, Tomsk Oblast’s legislature confirmed Aleksandr
Suvorov as the new Federation Council representative for the
oblast’s executive branch, the daily reported. Suvorov was most
recently the chief federal inspector for Tomsk Oblast. He replaces
Vladimir Zhidkikh, who was elected to the Duma in December.

IN: Former Audit Chamber auditor Gennadii Batanov will head the
Pension Fund, RosBalt reported on 26 March, citing the government
information department. Former Perm Oblast Deputy Governor
Anatolii Temkin will become a deputy natural resources minister.
Former First Deputy Culture Minister Denis Molchanov will become
director of the Government Information Department, replacing Aleksei
Gorshkov. Ramil Khabriev will head the Federal Health Care and Social
Development Supervisory Service. According to ITAR-TASS, Khabriev was
previously director-general of the Biopreparat joint-stock company.

IN: On 25 March, government chief of staff Dmitrii Kozak issued a
decree appointing Aleksandr Zharov as his assistant for press
relations, ITAR-TASS reported. Zharov is a former Health
Ministry spokesman and adviser to the chairman of RIA-Novosti. On 25
March, Prime Minster Fradkov appointed Stanislav Ilyasov director of
the Federal Fisheries Agency. On 24 March, Fradkov appointed Oleg
Vyugin to head the Federal Financial Markets Service. Vyugin is a
former Central Bank deputy chairman, a former deputy finance
minister, and a former chief economist at Troika-Dialog.

IN: State Duma Deputy Vladimir Katrenko (Unified Russia) has been
selected by his faction to replace Aleksandr Zhukov, who was
recently appointed deputy prime minister, as deputy Duma speaker,
RosBalt reported. Katrenko is a former deputy governor of Stavropol
Krai, and he served as chairman of the Duma’s Transportation,
Energy, and Communications Committee in the last Duma.

DEMOTED: Prime Minister Fradkov announced on 25 March that each
federal minister will have only two deputy ministers, Russian media
reported. According to “Vremya novostei” on 19 March, government
apparatus head Dmitrii Kozak suggested trimming the number of deputy
ministers, a proposal that Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin and
Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref reportedly
vigorously protested. According to the daily, Gref has 12 deputy
ministers and three first deputy ministers, while Kudrin has nine
deputy ministers and three first deputy ministers.

IN: Prime Minister Fradkov announced new federal-government
appointments on 23 March, ITAR-TASS and RBK reported. He selected
former State Reserves Agency Deputy Director Anatolii Ledovskikh to
head the new Federal Mining Agency. Former Federal Mining and
Industrial Monitoring Authority Director Vladimir Kulechev will head
the Federal Technological Inspectorate. Former Duma Deputy Vladimir
Averchenko (People’s Deputy) will head the Federal Construction and
Housing Agency.

OUT: Former Labor Minister Aleksandr Pochinok has been passed over
for the position of head of the new Federal Employment Service,
which has instead been given to one of his former deputies, Maksim
Topilin, gazeta.ru reported on 30 March. Topilin, 36, is a native
Muscovite who graduated from the Plekhanov Economics Institute in
1988.

POLITICAL CALENDAR

1 April: Spring military call-up begins

2 April: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will pay a brief
working visit to Russia

3 April: French President Jacques Chirac will visit Russia

4-6 April: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to visit Russia

4 April: Second round of gubernatorial elections will be held
in Koryak Autonomous Okrug and Altai Krai

6-7 April: Foreign ministers of five Caspian littoral states
— Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Iran — to meet
in Moscow

7-8 April: NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will
visit Moscow

8 April: Cabinet of ministers will discuss tax reforms

Mid-April: Interior Ministry to withdraw 3,000 troops from Chechnya

16 April: An international conference on “Russia-EU Neighbors:
Questions of Cooperation Across Borders” will be held in Pskov

17 April: People’s Party will hold a party congress

23 April: First anniversary of the killing of State Duma
Deputy Sergei Yushenkov

24 April: Second congress of the People’s Patriotic Union-Motherland,
which is headed by former presidential candidate Sergei Glazev, will
be held

May: Federal Atomic Energy Agency head Aleksandr Rumyantsev to visit
Iran, according to ITAR-TASS

1 May: Date by which Russia expects talks with EU and its future
members to conclude

3-4 May: Labor Day holiday observed

7 May: President Putin to be inaugurated for his second term

9 May: Date by which a decree elaborating functions of newly
restructured ministries will be adopted and departmental statutes
will be ratified, according to Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Zhukov
on 16 March

10 May: Victory Day holiday observed

19 May: Agrarian Party must settle its financial accounts with the
Central Election Commission or face a ban on political activity

30 May: Date by which prosecutors must either complete their
criminal investigation of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovskii or
ask a Moscow court to extend his period of pretrial detention

1 June: New deadline for exchanging Soviet-era passports for
new Russian passports

20 June: Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney will perform a concert in
St. Petersburg’s Palace Square

28-29 June: President Putin expected to attend NATO summit in Istanbul

1 July: First anniversary of the creation of Federal Antinarcotics
Agency

2 July: End of State Duma’s spring session

3 July: Communist Party will hold congress to hear reports and elect
new party officials

September: St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum plans to open the
Hermitage Center, which will exhibit works from the Hermitage’s
collection, in the city of Kazan

November: Gubernatorial election in Pskov Oblast

December: Gubernatorial elections in Bryansk, Kamchatka, and Ivanovo
oblasts.

*********************************************************
Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.

The “RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly” is prepared by Julie A. Corwin
on the basis of a variety of sources. It is distributed every
Wednesday.

Direct comments to Julie A. Corwin at [email protected].
For information on reprints, see:

Back issues are online at

Armenian leader orders investigation into beating of rights activist

Mediamax news agency
31 Mar 04

YEREVAN

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan charged Prosecutor-General Agvan
Ovsepyan to investigate the attack on the Helsinki Association
chairman, Mikael Daniyelyan, and find the perpetrators of the crime,
the presidential press service told Mediamax today.

The chairman of the Helsinki Association of Armenia, Mikael
Daniyelyan, was beaten by unknown assailants near his house on the
morning of 30 March.

Armenian opposition leader issues ultimatum to authorities

A1+ web site
31 Mar 04

At a press conference today, [leader of the National Democratic bloc]
MP Arshak Sadoyan issued an ultimatum to the Armenian
authorities. Sadoyan is confident that the current situation in the
republic is fraught with bloody clashes, and the authorities will be
responsible for that.

The press conference was mainly devoted to the referendum on a vote of
no confidence, which under the Constitutional Court’s decision should
have been conducted by 16 April.

Until that period, parliament will have three sessions, i.e. from 12
to 14 April. Arshak Sadoyan said that the people has the right to urge
parliament and the president to accept the Constitutional Court’s
decision.

“If parliament does not adopt the decision, the people has the right
to urge clashes and civil disobedience,” the opposition deputy said.

Arshak Sadoyan believes that the opposition bloc, which is discussing
this prospect, will join his ultimatum. The deputy said that the
deadline for making the ultimatum public is very likely to be on 12
April.

New Model Armenia

Geographical
March 2004
Vol. 76, Issue 3, p24

Text and photography by Nick Smith

With a history of persecution, natural disasters and political
upheaval, Armenia has lurched from one crisis to another. But now it’s
poised to recover and, with the aid of a population in diaspora, is
starting to reinvent itself as a heritage tourist destination.

Not many people visit Armenia. In fact, as many people go to Lord’s on
the first day of a test match as go to Armenia in a year. Most of the
30,000 visitors are ‘heritage tourists’, which is to say that they are
part of the estimated four million-strong globally distributed network
of the Armenian diaspora, descendants of refugee Turkish Armenians who
fled this part of Central Asia during the Ottoman persecution of
1915. Most come to rediscover their homeland, track down long-lost
distant relatives and to commemorate their ancestors. They are a
much-needed source of income for the two million or so Armenians who
live in Armenia today.

Once a far-reaching territory ranging from the Black to the Caspian
sea, Armenia is now landlocked in the Southern Caucasus, covering an
area little more than the size of Belgium. It is the smallest of the
former Soviet states and was the most reluctant to become independent
when the USSR collapsed in 1991. Armenia benefited from a longstanding
and strong political alliance, relying heavily on the machinery of the
Soviet economy. Now, with little of its own heavy industry or
electronic engineering to support it, Armenia’s youth has emigrated
westward in search of jobs and tertiary education, while the elderly
and unemployed have returned to the land to scratch out a living as
subsistence farmers. War in the 1990s with neighbouring Azerbaijan
drained the economy further, while migration in same period reduced
Armenia’s population by a quarter.

It’s a hard life, not helped by the fact that Armenia has a
surprisingly dry climate that gives rise to vast areas of
semidesert. More than 80 per cent of its arable farmland needs to be
irrigated. Some relief from the unremitting hardship comes in the form
of tourism: Armenia has an incomparable wealth of medieval (and
earlier) religious architecture, to which members of the diaspora make
pilgrimage. At the same time, Armenia has the most beautiful landscape
imaginable — the majestic scenery that the country’s great composer
Aram Ilich Khachaturian describes in his sublime 20th-century
orchestral works.

Khachaturian is buried under a slab of grey-black granite in the
Pantheon of Heroes in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. You can see much of
the city from his resting place: its drab centre fades into an even
more drab urban sprawl, designed by Soviet architects with an eye more
on utility than aesthetics. But there are redeeming features: apart
from the recently refurbished Republic Square (formerly Lenin Square),
there’s an impressive, if defunct, Ferris wheel on the skyline, as
well as the imperious Ararat brandy factory perched on a plateau high
above Victory bridge.

Armenians are proud of their brandy. And so they should be: its deep
amber colour and smoky simplicity make the ten-year-old a fine match
for any cognac. Boris Yeltzin likes it so much that he has his own
barrels in the factory’s cellars, as does singer, songwriter, actor
and local hero Charles Aznovour. Recently, the brandy has been getting
better and better. But it may be the only thing: for Armenians, life
under the hammer and sickle was comparatively rosy. But since the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, the country has become one of the
poorest in the developed world, with an average annual inflation rate
of 172 per cent. It has also ceded control of its energy utilities to
Russia in lieu of debts.

Not far from Khachaturian’s grave is a bronze statue of Komitas, a
composer whom Armenians hold in even higher regard than Khachaturian,
if that is possible. As an ethnomusicologist, Komitas travelled the
length and breadth of Armenia collecting its traditional folk songs,
which he then wove into the fabric of his own music, music that
defines Armenia as much as its red, blue and gold flag. As my guide,
Nina Dadayan, put it, “He writes in the colours of the countryside,
the gold and the green of the hillsides.”

During the First World War, Komitas saw firsthand the slaughter of
those whose culture he had done so much to save. He survived the
genocide, but having witnessed the rape and murder of his people, he
was plagued by mental illness for the rest of his life. He was unable
to complete his ongoing choral work, Divine Liturgy, which became the
last music he ever wrote, and died in Paris in 1935 a broken and
beaten man. If you look carefully at his statue in the Pantheon you’ll
see it is tarnished and covered with grime, apart from the right index
finger, which shines like gold. This has been kept clean by the stream
of Armenians who visit the cemetery to pay their respects by touching
his hand.

The genocide is an incredibly emotive subject. The Armenian section of
the Financial Times World Desk Reference 2004 sums it up, somewhat
dispassionately, as follows: “1915: Ottomans exile 1.75 million
Turkish Armenians; most die.” And while the book is very careful not
to use the word ‘genocide’, the Armenians aren’t so
lily-livered. According to the Armenian National Institute (ANI) in
Washington, there are 28 official genocide memorials in the
country. The main one is at Tsitsernakaberd (‘Swallow Castle’) and is
a 44-metre stele that symbolises the survival and rebirth of the
Armenian people. Next to the stele is a ring of 12 huge basalt slabs
— closely resembling traditional khachkars, or engraved memorials —
which encircle and lean towards an eternal flame. The steps down to
the flame are extremely steep, and you have to look at your feet to
avoid stumbling. This has the effect of making visitors appear to be
in mourning. Why there is a need to create this illusion defeats me:
most people I saw there were weeping.

The current British government does not recognise the 1915 genocide.
Fact. On the Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001, the UK, along with many
other nations (including the USA), honoured the victims of genocide in
the 20th century, including the Jews killed during the Second Word War
and the Tutsis murdered in Rwanda in 1994. But there was no mention of
Armenia. Nicholas Holding, an expert on the former Soviet Union and
author of the new Bradt Travel Guide to Armenia, says, “So far as the
1915 genocide is concerned, every Turkish government since has denied
that it even happened, as have certain US academics. The evidence to
the contrary seems overwhelming. I imagine that Tony Blair’s
reluctance to acknowledge it stems from his unwillingness for obvious
reasons to upset Turkey, as well as his own ignorance.”

One “obvious reason” is that Blair and George W Bush need Turkish
goodwill to secure permission for the use of Incirlik airbase, from
where they launch air raids on Iraq. Critics of the British-US
alliance see this denial as shameful — as shameful as denying, say,
Auschwitz to spare Gerhard Schroeder’s feelings. Writing in the New
York Press on the 2001 Holocaust Memorial Day, journalist Charles
Glass said: “Alas poor Tony. Upon whose lack of integrity will he
model his own when Bill [Clinton] departs? I suppose Al Gore or George
W Bush is up to the job.” Bush appears to have fulfilled Glass’s
expectations.

The UK’s current position is completely at odds with its historical
record. The first official report on the atrocities against Armenians
in 1915 was prepared for the British government by Viscount Bryce, who
submitted his findings to parliament, which published them in an
official document in 1916. Wartime prime minister David Lloyd George
said that Ottoman policies regarding its Armenian subjects resulted in
“exterminating and deporting the whole race”. The foreign secretary
James Balfour described the massacres as “calculated atrocities”,
while Winston Churchill, writing in 1929, ten years before the
beginning of the Second World War, referred to the massacres as an
“administrative holocaust”.

The facts and the record haven’t changed. What has changed, says Dr
Rouben Adalian, director of the ANI, is the willingness of the British
government to concede to the Turkish government’s insistence on
denying the Armenian genocide. “The reluctance to affirm the
historical record in the face of official denial implies participation
in that denial,” he says. “That is the major departure from the
original position of the British government back in 1915.”

In December 2003, the Swiss lower house of parliament voted to label
the killings by Ottoman Empire forces as ‘genocide’ — a move welcomed
by the Armenian ambassador to Switzerland, Zograb Mnatsakanyan, who
said on Armenian television, “The Swiss parliament has again confirmed
its adherence to human values and justice.”

With the addition of Switzerland, the list of countries that recognise
the genocide now has 15 signatories. This includes France, Argentina
and Russia, but no UK or USA.

John Hovagimian bounds up the perilously steep and narrow stone
staircase up to the entrance of the Sourp Astrastatsatjin (‘Holy
Theotokos’) of the Noarovank monastery. With his designer travel gear
and chunky SLR slung around his neck, he looks prosperous and
confident. To Hovagimian, his tour of Armenia’s heritage with his
newfound Russian and Georgian friends is a big party. And why
shouldn’t it be? He’s glad to be home. “Come on down,” he shouts,
before quietly correcting himself, “er, up, I mean”. Talking with him,
it emerges that his exuberance is mostly superficial. “It’s nice to
know we have a history. It’s a feeling of grandeur. Every Armenian
feels this way, and we cry inside for the tragedy. But now you see our
architecture restored, where once there were no roads.”

Most visitors are, like Hovagimian, members of the Armenian diaspora,
usually from Canada, France or the USA. And most are fabulously
wealthy by the standards of native Armenians. One Armenian
philanthropist, who paid for so much of the restoration work and the
reappointing of Republic Square in Yerevan, is billionaire Kirk
Kerkorian, a man who made his money in Las Vegas hotels and Hollywood
movies.

And there is some serious urban development in Yerevan. Although
estimates vary considerably, there seems to be a consensus on
Kerkorian contributing somewhere in the region of $130 million (USD)
for a major facelift of the civic centre of the country’s capital. So
you will see plenty of new pavements and resurfaced roads. In fact,
there are 20 kilometres of new streets in Yerevan, there are five-star
Western-style hotels and there are Gucci and Armani.

Travelling around Armenia it’s easy to see what donations by members
of the diaspora are doing for the country, but not so easy to see what
they mean for the people. Whenever there is a celebration, there is
always money. (For example, when Armenia’s war-damaged tourism
industry decided to give itself a much-needed boost in 2001 by touting
the year as the 1,700th anniversary of Armenian Christianity.) And yet
only one in 1,000 Armenians owns a car and only 14 per cent of the
population is connected to a telephone.

Critics of the influx of funds from abroad say that there is no other
rational conclusion than this: the money may well be restoring civic
and devotional heritage architecture, but it’s also turning Armenia
into a rich man’s playground and transforming Yerevan into a ghastly
imitation of any Western European city you care to mention. Why
rebuild quite so many churches, they ask, when Armenia has so many
rare metals and semi-precious minerals lying underground waiting to be
exploited? The aid money should be spent releasing the natural wealth
of the country and helping the indigenous people on a day-to-day
basis. The reply from the diaspora is that the development is
creating employment and wealth in a country staggering under the
burden of its own poverty as a result of the post-Soviet transition.

But it isn’t necessarily that simple. “Even a quick survey of the
contributions of overseas Armenian organisations would show that
members of the diaspora remain very concerned about the well-being of
the population in Armenia,” says Adalian. He offers the example of the
largest of the philanthropic groups, the Armenian General Benevolent
Union, which supports a range of services from soup kitchens to
institutions of higher education such as the American University of
Armenia which, Adalian says, is “preparing new generations of leaders
and managers”.

However well planned, the spending of money from the diaspora is
dictated by external events. “There was no choice but to seek to
rehouse the 500,000 made homeless by the 1988 earthquake,” says
Holding. Also, the closure of several borders meant that road and rail
routes to Iran in the south that passed through the Azeri exclave of
Nakhichevan were now literally off limits. This meant that less-used
routes — such as that which connects Armenia with Iran via the Selim
Pass — which had suffered terribly from soil erosion and
underinvestment, had to be rebuilt virtually from scratch.

Conservationists have objected to the reconstruction of the Selim Pass
road because it travels within a few metres of an ancient Silk Road
caravanserai. Increased tourism, they say, will ruin the magic of the
place. They also claim, with more justification, that vibrations from
the huge freight lorries that are forecast to travel regularly over
the pass will damage the fabric of this ancient building.

However, this is the only route into the Yerevan district of Armenia
from the south. As such, it’s an umbilical cord to Iran and, by
extension, the outside world. Currently, the Turkish border is closed,
as are the two Azerbaijan borders, and there’s little sign of any
immediate resolution. To the north, the relationship with Georgia is
unstable, although improvements in the political and economic
conditions there can only contribute to “reducing ethnic tensions and
security concerns across the entire Caucasus region”, says Adalian.

PHOTO CAPTION Clockwise from right: the fourth-century monastery of
Geghard (‘spear’) was built into the side of a mountain and later
surrounded by walls. On the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2000, it
is named after the spear that pierced Christ’s side at Calvary;
‘temporary housing in Vayots Dzor is now well into its second decade;
the Temple of Garni, which was built in the first century AD,
subsequently destroyed by earthquake and renovated several times

While it is tempting to think that the collapse of the Soviet Union
could only have been a good thing, many Armenians would argue with
this. Under the Soviet regime, people may have lived like “machines”,
says my guide, but at least it was all planned out for them. “There
was no need to think for tomorrow,” she says. There were holidays and
pensions, and there was electricity and public transport. Now, one of
the few trains that runs through Armenia takes six hours to complete
its 70-kilometre journey (that’s slower than a London bus on Oxford
Street). “The problem is,” says Nina, offering a somewhat unnecessary
explanation, “there are too many stops and the train doesn’t go fast
enough.”

It’s not just the trains that have fallen into disrepair. As you drive
around Lake Sevan there is mile after mile of abandoned heavy
machinery, now broken and idle. They stand by countless unfinished
construction projects that became derelict before they were ever
used. There are blocks of concrete crumbling to nothing, their metal
reinforcements rusting away. There are sections of oil pipeline lying
unconnected on scrubland by the side of the road.

Most of the land around Lake Sevan is reclaimed. During the 1950s,
Soviet hydro-electric power engineers decided to lower the level of
the lake by 19 metres. As with so many Soviet schemes, the engineers
were betrayed by their idealism and instead of benefit-ting from
unlimited free power, new land for arable farming and livestock
grazing, they got a wasteland. Most of the fish in the lake died and
the land proved to be useless for cultivation. Only a gorse-like scrub
plant now grows there in any abundance, while peasants working above
the old shoreline dig up potatoes, for which they will receive
100drams (7p) per sack, with their bare hands. In the background, a
monastery stands on a headland — once an island — jutting out into
the lake.

Further along the shoreline there is the faded optimism of the 1960s
Soviet residential areas of Sevan, with its close-packed blocks of
apartments in estates with names like ‘Gagarin’, and the obligatory
Ferris wheel in the luna park, the likes of which you can see in
Zanzibar, Mozambique, and the former East Germany. It’s what my guide
calls, without a trace of irony, “good old Soviet architecture”. It’s
hard to see what the nostalgia is all about — they’re every bit as
horrible as some of London or Manchester’s worst blocks of flats or
Glasgow’s tenements. It’s a far cry from the splendor of Armenia’s
churches.

In the shadow of Mount Ararat there is a monastery called Khor Virap,
where Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned in the third century
AD. Despite his title, he wasn’t a manuscript illuminator
(illustrator). He got his name, and was subsequently imprisoned, for
casting the light of Christianity into the dark comers of Armenia. For
a small fee, you can release doves from this monastery, in the same
way as Noah did as the flood subsided and his ark came to rest on
Mount Ararat. In this case, however, the doves fly back to their cages
and their owners ‘sell’ them again to the next unsuspecting diaspora
tourist.

It’s a place of mixed feelings. In the local orphanage, children are
encouraged to draw pictures of Ararat and Noah’s ark. These crayon
drawings are stuck on the wall next to US flags. One class has
obviously been taught to write, “We love George Bush.”

I wonder if the children who made these drawings have been taught that
Ararat, the national symbol of Armenia, is in Turkey and that they
will never get the chance to climb it.

Visiting Armenia

Nick Smith travelled to Armenia with British Mediterranean Airways (0845
772 2277;).

Regent Holidays can organise trips to Armenia (0117 921 1711;
).

Armenia with Nagorno Karabagh by Nicholas Holding is the first
English-language guide to Armenia. It is published by Bradt.

PHOTO CAPTION Clockwise from top left: men in Vayots Dzor trade smoked
fish from Lake Sevan; old women meet in the ‘Field of Khatchkars’, whose
900-or-so engraved stone memorials are a national treasure.

PHOTO CAPTION Noaravank monastery, built in the 13th and 14th centuries
and renovated in 1998 with money from the diaspora.

PHOTO CAPTION Clockwise from right: high above the Yeghegis valley is
the fifth-century fortress of Smbataberd, guarded on three sides by
steep cliffs.
Local legend has it that it fell to the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century
when they used a thirsty horse to sniff out its water supply; the
eternal flame at the genocide memorial at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan;
the memorial’s 44-metre stele.

PHOTO CAPTION Top: standing just below the top of the Selim Pass
(2,410metres), the caravanserai at Selim, one of the best-preserved in
the world, used to be an important resthouse for traders following the
Silk Road; Above: subsistence farmers scratch out a living growing
potatoes at the Selim Pass.

PHOTO CAPTION Clockwise from top left: Gregory the Illuminator kneels
before King Trdat in a 17th-century Turkish manuscript; Mount Ararat and
the monastery of Khor Virap (deep dungeon), where Gregory was imprisoned
by King Trdat in the late third century; a child’s drawing of Noah’s ark
on Mount Ararat.

*************************************
Earthquakes in the Caucasus: a shaky history

As the recent earthquake in southern Iran tragically showed, the
collision of the Eurasian and Arabian tectonic plates has turned this
part of Central Asia into an earthquake danger zone. Although it lies
to the north of Iran, Armenia sits on the same boundary and is subject
to the same catastrophic geophysical forces.

As tectonic plates move, they often grind against each other, slowly
building up stress until one of them moves suddenly. When this
happens, the result is an earthquake, a natural phenomenon with which
Armenia is all too familiar. Historical accounts describe how
earthquakes claimed thousands of lives, destroyed the ancient cities
of Erznka, Erzroom, Basen and Dvin and ruined the temples of Garni
(below left) and Zvartnots.

On 7 December 1988, northwestern Armenia was struck by a quake
measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale. It devastated the cities of
Giumri, Vanadzor and Spitak. Countless houses were obliterated,
leaving more than half a million people homeless. Manufacturing, as
well as cultural, scientific and educational institutions, were
destroyed. According to the UN Development Programme, more than 45,000
people were pulled from the rubble, 25,000 of whom were dead. In 2000,
the UNDP estimated that 20,000 people were still displaced and living
in temporary housing (left).

Geographical is the property of Campion Interactive Publishing

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
March 27 2004

Armitage Supports Opening Of Turkish-Armenian Borders

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Friday that
if Turkey opened its border with Armenia, the benefits would be swift
and plentiful, The Associated Press reported.
“It seems to me that the opening of the border between Armenia and
Turkey would benefit the peoples of both sides rather dramatically
and rather quickly,” he said, during a visit to the Armenian capital,
Yerevan.
Armitage’s statement came as a response to that of the Azerbaijani
President, Ilham Aliyev, who said Wednesday that Turkey’s opening its
borders with Armenia would make the Karabakh problem `absolutely
impossible to resolve peacefully.’

Aliyev noted that his country could lose an important lever in case
if Turkey were to open its doors to Armenia.

`It also would make it impossible to continue the peace talks and
would even bring the talks to an end.’

Armitage said the United States has discussed the issue with Turkey.

“I think to be fair, our Turkish friends have had their hands full
recently with concerns about northern Iraq and the ongoing Cyprus
talks, but I hope as those concerns are ameliorated that they will be
able to turn their attention to the reopening of the border,” Armitage
said, according to the AP.

He also warned that the solution to Nagorno-Karabakh can’t “be
imposed from top-down, from the outside.”

In his turn, the Azerbaijani President Aliyev called on the nations
`who have a say in the world politics’ not to press Turkey to open
the borders.

`If they want to see the Karabakh conflict resolved quickly, they
have to refrain from pressing on Turkey,’ the president said. But he
expressed hope at the same that Turkey could withstand all such
pressures.

`Turkey is a great and powerful state … and the Turkish-Azerbaijani
brotherhood is above everything,’ Aliyev stressed.

Armenian Foreign Ministry was also quick to react to Aliyev’s
statement. According to Arminfo, the Armenian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Gamlet Gasparian stated that the opening of
Turkish-Armenian borders would not impede finding a solution to
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but would help resolve it easily by
boosting regional cooperation.

Gasparian also expressed belief that that Turkey could more actively
engage in the region’s political and economic processes, if it
`refuses to side with Azerbaijan’s position.’

Turkey has no diplomatic relationship with Yerevan and has been
keeping its borders closed with Armenia since the latter gained
independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In return for establishing diplomatic relations and opening the
borders, Turkey demands Armenia give up propagating the alleged
genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman Turkey in early 20th century,
stop territorial claims against Ankara and withdraw from Azerbaijan’s
occupied territories.

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
March 25, 2004

ISLAM WINS AGAIN

The terrorist act in Spain shocked the world. Ousting the Serbs from
their own territory made the picture complete. We may conclude that
Islam has won once again. The Christian civilization was amazed just
like when they were amazed when on a fine day the heart of the
Christian world, Constantinople was renamed Istanbul. The traditional
western democrat, the orthodox Slavonic and even the hot-blooded
Spaniard, looking around themselves, understood that they have
appeared at the hottest spot of the war, because all the spots of the
terrorist war are hot. And instead of making an adequate conclusion,
they decided to isolate themselves in their small Europe and never
again deal with a Mohammedan hoping they would leave them alone. They
forgot that the situation has changed and the Mohammedan people in a
very civilized and democratic way have long ago intruded in Europe and
already claim rights. The psychology of ostrich has always been
typical of the western Christian civilization. Its representatives,
true to their beliefs, have always been tolerant to the
representatives of other religions. Forgetting that there are
militarist religious teachings, which do not tolerate others. And that
these teachings, calmly but consistently, profiting of others’
tolerance, intrude in others’ territories, increase in number, soon
become the majority and oust the others, massacre, assimilate, impose
their will on the local population. Even if we did not know the
history, the geographical changes in the recent 100 years testify to
this. Probably, the western civilizations will disappear but denying
to the end that Islam, nevertheless, was stronger. It will disappear
because it won’t confess that the religious war continues, that
democracy, the principle that “all the people are equal”, the
progressive atheist ideas, globalization and pacifism killed the
instinct of self-preservation in the western people. Whereas, this
instinct is powerful in the Mohammedan and Chinese peoples. As
distinct to the European, thinking for himself only, the Mohammedan
and Chinese peoples think for the future generation, they will never
legalize homosexual marriages, as these do not produce children.
Probably, the next ethnic confrontations will be between the Muslims
and the Chinese when the Christian world will be finally divided
between them. Only now the Europeans have realized the danger
threatening their lives. If they had done sooner, they would not allow
the Muslim Albanians to invade a whole region in the Balkans and make
a den for terrorism in Europe. They would not allow Azerbaijan take
over small Karabakh which has throughout its history fought against
those whom Europe today considers an enemy. Now it is already
late. First, even in case of the greatest desire the western
Christians cannot oust all the Muslim people from their territories;
they have made deep roots there already. Second, the Mohammedan
people, realizing that they will not win the war if they fight face to
face, have chosen the cruelest way of fighting, terrorizing
people. And third, the Mohammedan people are ready to sacrifice their
lives to their ideas as different from the Europeans considering their
lives sacred. It is enough that they perceive the danger to their
lives, they will demand from their government to withdraw the forces
from Iraq. Millions of people have gone out for pacifist protests. It
is all the same for them where the danger comes from, only let them
alone. They are not willing to fight for the rights they declared but
which are now decaying. See what happened in France where they wanted
to forbid the Mohammedan people to wear their symbols. It turns out
that from the point of view of ethnic and religious self-preservation
the Armenians are among the strongest nations. For so many centuries
already we have been fighting against the Muslim world but still are
not scared of them. Even, in Karabakh we won an unprecedented victory
because we were able to defend our right to live in our own
territory. The European civilization has two options: either to fight,
or to yield.

NAIRA HAYRUMIAN

A1 Plus | 21:38:13 | 25-03-2004 | Social |

MARCH WILL TAKE PLACE

The public is aware that a march and a rally will take place on April 2, the
2nd anniversary of “A1+” TV Company ceasing from broadcasting area.

Yerevan Mayor was informed about the measures but he decided not to sanction
the march and to allow the rally at the territory near Matenadaran and not
on the Liberty Square.

In response to Mayor’s “permission” the initiating group again informed in
written that the measures will be held under the program introduced
beforehand.

The executives of Police Department of Center Commune told initiating group
head Vardan Harutyunyan on March 24 that the march is illegal and they will
do their best to hamper it.

On March 25 “A1+” Chair Mesrop Movsesyan and the initiating group member
Tigran Ter-Esayan were told the same in the Police Department.

After persuasion of the law-enforcement bodies the initiating group decided
that the ungrounded refusal of the municipal authorities is unlawful. The
26th article of Armenian Constitution says: “Citizens have the right to hold
peace and unarmed meetings, marches and rallies”.

—

A1 Plus | 19:15:53 | 25-03-2004 | Social |

DISCUSSION OF THE NEW LABOR CODE

Justice Ministry has today initiated an open discussion the new Labor Code.

“Armenian Labor Code was elaborated in 1972. It was amended in 1996 and
doesn’t correspond to the present life. A bill on labor code was worked. It
is now discussed in Parliament. There were many suggestions over it. It is
important to cause the public to be informed about it”, Justice Deputy
Minister Tigran Mukuchyan said.

Making a working contract with each employee was added in the new Code.

Under the Code, children over 16 can work, 14-16-year-old children can work
at agreement of the parents, and the children up to 14 are forbidden to work
at all.

According to Code, labor time makes 40 hours weekly, for 14-16-year-old
children 24 hours weekly, and 36 hours per week for 16-18-year-old ones.

Labor legislation applies to the citizens of Armenia, foreign citizens, and
juridical persons. It doesn’t apply to servicemen and the citizens in
correctional facilities.

—

AzerTag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
March 25 2004

OMBUDSMAN MEETS WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF SWISS FEDERAL ORGANIZATION
FOR REFUGEES
[March 25, 2004, 17:23:37]

Commissioner on Human Rights in Azerbaijan Republic (ombudsman)
Elmira Suleymanova has met with representatives of the Swiss Federal
Organization for Refugees Kristina Ptaifer Romano and Hans Peter
Blair.

During the conversation, Elmira Suleymanova stated that considerable
moral and property damage has been caused to the people by the
Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan. She drew the guests’
attention to the pressing needs of those who had lost their
relatives, property, and now live under hard conditions in refugee
camps. According to the Ombudsman, 51,1 % of this category of people
are able-bodied, and 34,6 % – under the age of 15. She stressed the
necessity of humanitarian aid to these people from international
donors, pointed out concern the President of the country and the
Government showed about the displaced people, and told of the measure
aimed at solving their problems. Dwelling on the business relations
between the State Committee on Refugees and Internally Displaced
Persons and representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
in Azerbaijan including conducting joint seminars-trainings, Mrs.
Suleymanova expressed hope for fruitful cooperation with the Swiss
Federal Organization for Refugees. The Commissioner on Human Rights
answered questions from the guests, and updated them on the work
carried out to ensure international protection for Chechen, Afghan,
Iraqi and other foreign asylum seekers, who had arrived in Azerbaijan
escaping from the extreme conditions in their homelands, as well as
restoration of refugee women’s and their children’s rights.

Kristina Ptaifer and Hans Peter Blair expressed satisfaction with the
meeting and promised to render assistance to solve the problems of
refugees and IDPs in Azerbaijan.