VAHAN HOVHANESIAN SAYS PA OSCE SESSION FOILED GEORGIAN AND AZERI PLANS
Armenpress
YEREVAN, JULY 10, ARMENPRESS: Deputy parliament chairman Vahan
Hovhanesian from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), who is
also head of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly
of the OSCE, back home from the July 3-7 PA OSCE summer session in
Brussels, told a news conference that despite the efforts of Georgia
and Azerbaijan the session passed pro-Armenian resolutions.
Hovhanesian gave an extensive narration of how Georgian and Azerbaijani
delegates had been trying to urge the session to pass a resolution
stipulating that ‘all secessionist republics must return back to who
they belonged before.”
He said Georgians and Azeris were also fighting to rule out the
Kosovo and Montenegro conflict resolution models as a precedent for
resolution of other conflicts. He said both proposals were rejected,
instead an Armenian proposal suggesting that Serbia’s demeanor be
commended after Montenegro voted to part with it was adopted.
At the close of its fifteenth annual session the Parliamentary Assembly
of the OSCE elected Goran Lennmarker (Sweden) as its new President,
to serve a one-year term. Over 200 parliamentarians from across the
OSCE region took part in the Session in Brussels, in which the Assembly
also passed the Brussels Declaration which includes recommendations
in the fields of security, economics, environmental affairs and
humanitarian issues.
Hovhanesian also shifted to the Russian decision to close a border
checkpoint on Georgia’s border saying that the Russian decision
hits most Armenian interests. Russia closed the Zemo Larsi border
checkpoint early Saturday morning for an indefinite period, which
has created problems for people traveling between Georgia and Armenia.
“Our Russian counterparts should realize that every step against
Georgia also hurts Armenia’s interests.
Therefore, they should be more flexible and careful,” Hovhanesian
said today.

PRIME MINISTER MARGARIAN DENOUNCES RUSSIA’S CLOSURE OF BORDER CHECKPOINT WITH GEORGIA
Armenpress
YEREVAN, JULY 10, ARMENPRESS: Prime minister Andranik Margarian said
officials in Yerevan were negotiating with Russian counterpart to urge
them to keep a border checkpoint on the border wth Georgia open at
least until the end of this month not to hamper Armenian businessmen
to take Armenian agricultural goods to Russia. He said this broder
checkpoint was no less important for Armenia than for Georgia.
“I would not like to look for political motives behind Moscow’s
decision to close the border checkpoint, but one thing is clear. In
accordance with the Russian-Georgian Agreement on Customs Control and
Border Checkpoints, the sides shall notify each other of restriction
of movement caused by repair works at the border checkpoints no later
than three months before the commencement of such works, which was
not observed concerning this case and therefore, the Georgian side
could not warn Armenia… Diplomats are working to settle the problem,
let us wait and see what they may attain, but the situation is very
difficult,” he said.
Margarian said the closure hits primarily Armenia because Georgia
does not export goods to Russia after it imposed a ban on Georgian
goods. Georgian prime minister Zurab Nogaideli said actually the
border checkpoint is Armenia’s. He slammed Russian authorities for
failing to warn Georgia as stipulated by the agreement.

How Wangui called airport to clear way for Arturs
By Biketi Kikechi
The Standard, Kenya
July 11 2006
Narc activist Mary Wambui’s daughter, Winnie Wangui, made several
calls to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to have the Artur
brothers received, it emerged on Monday.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs protocol officer Paul Letoya testifies
during the Kiruki Commission of inquiry on Monday.
Winnie first called protocol officer Paul Latoya at 6pm on June
8 asking him to assist her guests. The Foreign Affairs ministry
officer said he acted on Winnie’s instructions because she was a
senior officer in the ministry.
“She is a senior officer at the ministry and I’m not supposed to
ignore instructions from such officers,” said Latoya.
The commission inquiring into the affairs of the mysterious foreigners
Artur Sargasyan and Artur Margaryan held its ninth sitting yesterday,
with Latoya as its 19th witness.
Protocol requirements
The two foreigners were deported last month after causing a security
breach at the airport. Latoya – who receives ministers, diplomats and
other senior Government officers – accorded similar treatment to the
Artur brothers when he found them at the Duty Free Shops lounge.
His duties include helping VIPs through the Customs and Immigration
desks, and also to beat long queues.
Said Latoya: “She (Wangui) called again and gave me the description
of the guests and also told me that they were the Artur brothers”.
He then proceeded to the Duty Free lounge where he met and informed
Margaryan that he had been instructed by Winnie to facilitate their
protocol requirements. Latoya then went back to his office on the
understanding that he would return when the Emirates flight from
Dubai lands.
When he went back later after receiving another call from Winnie,
Latoya found Margaryan, two Asian looking
people and Sargsyan, who, he said, had just arrived.
Contradictory testimony
Monday’s evidence appeared to contradict the testimony of another
witness, David Opar Ouya, who last week said Sargasyan was at Panari
Sky Centre before going to the airport.
Lawyer Kamau Kuria, who appears for Winnie Wangui at the Kiruki
Commission, makes a point at the proceedings on Monday.
Mrs Rosemary Chirchir, a security officer at the airport, also said
Sargsyan arrived at the airport and was met by Margaryan and four
other people. The Emirates airline passenger manifest, however,
had the name of Artur Gervokyan, the only person listed as a VIP.
Latoya said he found two supervisors assisting the visitors, and
decided to go back to the office but Winnie called again asking him
to continue helping the foreigners with the clearance.
“I went to the baggage area and found that they had already identified
their luggage, but the Customs officers demanded that we call the
owners,” said Latoya.
He told the commission that he dashed to the Duty Free lounge and
fetched Margaryan, the Asian-looking people.
Special treatment
While there, Latoya said he received yet another call from Winnie
asking whether he understood any Customs procedures.
He said it was then that he sought assistance from a Customs officer,
who, however, declined to take Winnie’s call, saying he was too
junior. He said he then went to his office.
The protocol officer denied claims he facilitated the movement of the
alleged Armenians and their friends from the airport through Unit 1.
Mrs Chirchir had earlier claimed she did not question the foreigners’
movement through the Unit because Latoya accompanied them.
“They did not go through the Immigration and Customs desk; instead,
they went through Unit 1 normally used by passengers going to board
their flights,” said Chirchir.
She said VIPs who were accompanied by protocol officers were always
given special treatment.
Hotel commotion disputed
Kuria, however, told the witness she was not saying the truth because
the passengers had gone through the Customs desk and the baggage area,
where a commotion had ensued.
Chirchir replied that she had remained in Unit 1 throughout the time
and did not know what was happening at the baggage area because the
two were some 300 metres apart.
Chirchir also told Kuria that she could not rely on press reports
because newspapers “can write anything.” She told the commission that
Sargsyan arrived in the country on June 8, 2006, and anyone claiming
he fought and caused a commotion at a hotel on Mombasa Road was a liar.
She insisted that Latoya visited Unit 1 three times and took Margaryan
and his group upstairs after the Armenian told her he was expecting
his brother from Dubai.
Commissioner Ahmed Isaack asked Kuria to clarify whether he was
representing Winnie Mwai or Winnie Wangui as he had applied earlier.
Kuria said the person mentioned by the witness in the statement he
wrote at the commission was his client.

Winnie wanted VIP deal for Arturs, inquiry told
Story by MUGUMO MUNENE and LUCAS BARASA
Publication Date: 7/11/2006
The Nation, Kenya
July 11 2006
Details of how Ms Winnie Wangui laboured to smooth the way for the
Armenian brothers just moments before they caused a commotion at the
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) were laid bare before the
Kiruki Commission yesterday.
And for the first time at the commission, the issue of her identity
came up after a witness told the inquiry that Ms Wangui was known in
the office as Ms Winnie Mwai.
Ms Wangui – daughter of political activist and businesswoman Mary
Wambui – made a series of frantic calls to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs officer stationed at the airport, asking that the brothers
and guests they were expecting be accorded VIP treatment.
And Ms Wangui was still enquiring on their well-being about half an
hour after they had clashed with Customs officers before they left
the airport.
The ministry’s protocol officer on duty on that day, Mr Paul Latoya,
told the Kiruki Commission yesterday that he had to abide by the
instructions from Ms Wangui since she was a senior foreign affairs
official at the time.
Ordinarily, Mr Latoya told the commission, the VIP treatment was
reserved for Cabinet ministers, assistant ministers, permanent
secretaries and diplomats.
Other guests may be accorded the courtesy if instructions are issued
by a senior government officer.
Once a person is termed a VIP, the protocol officer assists them
receive faster service at the Immigration and the Customs desks while
they wait at the Government VIP or Kenya Duty Free lounges.
Mr Latoya told the inquiry that Ms Wangui was known in the office as
Ms Winnie Mwai.
Her lawyer, Dr Kamau Kuria grappled with the issue after the commission
asked him to clarify whether the two names referred to the same person
once he rose to question Mr Latoya.
Commissioner Ahmed Issack asked: Dr Kuria, you are on record for
Winnie Wangui and the witness is talking about Winnie Mwai. Are they
one and the same?
Kuria: I was given this (witness) statement and I’m not responsible
for the writing of the statement.
Issack: We can assume that they are the same person basically?
Kuria: I don’t know who recorded the statement but this is the client
I have come to represent… Yes.
And when he finally turned to Mr Latoya, Dr Kuria did not challenge
the evidence that Ms Wangui had made the calls requesting for special
treatment for the Armenians.
According to Mr Latoya, Ms Wangui had always been referred to as Winnie
Mwai for the three years he has worked at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and the tag pinned to the door of her office bore that name.
She is among the 11 government officials who were suspended shortly
after the Artur brothers and two of their associates were spirited
out of the country following a dramatic incident at JKIA.
During the incident, the brothers and their associates had engaged
Customs officers in a standoff over a demand that duty be paid for
seven closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.
The witness told the commission that the luggage belonged to “Margaryan
and Pattni.”
Yesterday Mr Latoya told the commission that Ms Wangui had called him
at least six times seeking to know whether the Artur brothers and their
guests were comfortable and whether they had been cleared to leave.
The testimony became the first to link Ms Wangui to the Armenians in
evidence at the public inquiry, which enters its 10th sitting today.
The commission has been told that the two brothers earlier on March 13,
made their way to the Government VIP lounge for a Press conference,
whose authority had been given by Kenya Airports Authority deputy
managing director Naomi Cidi.

KPA and the taxman differ on status of Arturs cargo
Story by NATION Correspondent
Publication Date: 7/11/2006
The Nation, Kenya
July 11 2006
There was conflicting information on the status of containers imported
by the two Armenian brothers as the joint parliamentary committee
began receiving evidence on the saga in Mombasa.
According to the Kenya Ports Authority, there were only four containers
belonging to the Artur brothers. But the Kenya Revenue Authority says
there were more than seven whose whereabouts remain a mystery.
KPA container terminal manager James Rarieya told the team co-chaired
by Changamwe MP Ramadhan Kajembe and his Kabete counterpart Paul Muite,
that the four containers had been seized and were being held by the
port police.
“Three containers are being held by Mombasa port police, while the
fourth was intercepted while being transported to Nairobi, and is
being held at the Inland Container Deport in Nairobi,” Mr Rarieya said.
But a KRA southern region senior assistant commissioner Alphonse
Ntongaiti said there were more containers linked to Artur Margaryan
and his brother Artur Sargsyan that had not been cleared.
“Two of the containers imported by Kensington Holdings Limited have not
been claimed, as the clearing agent has gone underground,” Mr Ntongaiti
told the team that was going round the port’s container terminal.
Only one container in police custody had been opened to have the
goods verified, but the remaining two were still intact, awaiting a
court order to have them opened and goods determined.
Earlier, Mr Muite raised concerns that the container verified did
not have its false wooden bottom opened to ensure proper verification.
The two containers that have not been claimed bear serial numbers
PONU 761388 and PONU 801448, and were imported by Kensington Holdings
from Dubai.
Mr Muite called on those with information involving the two people
and the companies associated with them to present it to the committee.
“We will also want to collect information from companies such as
Brotherlink International, Kensington Holdings and the clearing
agents of the companies that handled the goods for the Armenians,”
Mr Kajembe said.
Mr Muite said the joint committee was interested in establishing
where the other containers were, whether duty has been assessed and
paid and the type of goods that the two brothers had imported.

Arif Yunusov: “Invitation of Georgia to NATO on the threshold of G8 summit is a blunt challenge to Russia”
Today, Azerbaijan
July 10 2006
11 July 2006 [03:15] – Today.Az
Regnum’s interview with Arif Yunusov, political analyst, head of
Conflictology and Migration Department, Institute for Peace and
Democracy, Azerbaijan.
In what formulation the Karabakh problem will be presented at the
G8 summit in St. Petersburg (most probably, on the sidelines of
the summit)?
I suppose, the Karabakh problem will not occupy any significant
place in discussions at the St. Petersburg summit. Most probably,
the Karabakh problem will be somehow discussed on the sidelines of
debates between Russia and the USA. However, it will be in context of
settlement of other conflicts. In other words, the top priority at the
summit will be discussion of Kosovo. In its turn, Russia would raise
the issue of necessity of a universal approach to all the conflicts,
and in this aspect, probably, a discussion will be held on Abkhazia,
South Ossetia and Karabakh; if the Karabakh problem is to be reflected
in the documents officially, it will be only in the form of supporting
position of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs conveyed on June 22. But
separately the Karabakh problem will not be discussed at the summit.
What is Russia’s mission and role in settling this problem?
Concerning the Karabakh issue, Russia’s role is significant indeed.
It is another matter, how strongly it aspires for using its
opportunities. Until now Russia has been taking a hesitating
position, giving the initiative to the US. And. I suppose, the Russian
authorities will not be distressed, if what at the current stage is
named as the Prague Process ends up with another failure.
Will Russia, which itself has faced separatism in Chechnya in its case,
insist upon universal nature of the Kosovo precedent?
Of course, Russia would insist upon universal character of the Kosovo
precedent. Essentially, both Russian authorities of various levels
and many representatives of the political elite have repeatedly
talked about it. At the same time, Chechen separatism will play no
special role for the Russian authorities. The Chechen separatism
did not hinder Russia from playing a negative role in the conflicts
in Azerbaijan (Karabakh), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and
Moldova (Transdnestr). It is exactly the case, when one should speak
of double standards.
What aims will the group of Western countries pursue and are there
any objective grounds for possible criticism of the Russian policy?
The G8 summit in St. Petersburg can become very important for Russia
and the whole world too. It is not a secret any more that relations
between Russia and the West have started worsening considerably
recently. After more than ten years of talking about Russia’s
“integration” with the West and “strategic partnership” between Moscow
and Washington, today officials from the USA and Western Europe express
their concern publicly concerning internal political situation in
Russia and its relations with republics of the former USSR. And
Russia’s making advances to China and Iran stir serious alert and
the question, what to do with Putin Russia. At first, criticism
towards Russia was made through Western mass media. And on May 4,
US Vice President Dick Cheney directly accused the Kremlin in “unfair
infringement upon civil rights” and use the country’s energy resources
as “instruments of intimidation and blackmail”. And recent almost
demonstratively pompous reception by George Bush to Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili and proposal to join NATO on the threshold of the
summit are just a blunt challenge to Russia. This way, it is shown
that the period of the carrot policy towards Russia has failed and now
a stage of stick has been started. Of course, at the summit, first of
all, the issue is to be considered of Russia’s using energy resources
for exerting political pressure and blackmail of the former Soviet
republics. There will be also criticism of Russia’s policy towards
former USSR countries, as well as in the East. In a lesser extent,
a question about reduction of democratic processes in Russia itself.
In many expects, this criticism will be of undoubtedly objective
character. However, the matter is, that policy of leading Western
countries has also dual nature, and just like Russia, the USA connives
at actions of authoritarian leaders if they have energy resources
and agree to support policy of the West. It will let Putin rebut the
criticism. On the other hand, the West should comprehend: Russia for
many reasons cannot be fully pro-Western or anti-Western.
It is an internal Russia’s problem, and its tragedy and strength
simultaneously. So, the West should take Russia as it is, but not
live in the world of illusions and believe that Russia has a chance
to become a part of the Wet. In his turn, Putin will try to turn
the summit into a large-scale propagandist show in order to prove
that Russia has regenerated, become a superpower again, although a
democratic one and with free market economy.
What can Azerbaijan expect from the summit in terms of securing
energy safety?
To a known extent Azerbaijan can gain profit from the summit. Because
one of the most acute discussions will be the problem of energy
security of Western countries and their fear that a new Russia, as
they believe, has assumed the policy of effective use of weapons in
foreign policy. In this connection, not so important in scale of Russia
and Arab countries energy resources of Azerbaijan can be partly an
alternative for Georgia, Ukraine, Poland and some other countries. I
suppose, in this issue the West will pay even more attention to
the problem of safe supply of Azerbaijani energy resources and
strengthening its influence in this country. But Russia would hardly
agree with such developments, and that means that geopolitical life
at South Caucasus will only increase.
URL:

Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), VA
July 10 2006
This article appears in the July 14, 2006 issue of Executive
Intelligence Review.
June in Russia: A Month of Surprises
by Roman Bessonov
Since his elevation to the Russian Presidency in 1999, Vladimir
Putin regularly takes political analysts by surprise. This year it
is happening more and more frequently.
For professional political analysts, Putin’s decisions in diplomacy,
foreign trade, and domestic policy, especially when it comes to
personnel assignments, bring on real headaches. Forced to give some
plausible explanation of the latest trip abroad, or a new appointment
at home, the commentators often invent two or three parallel versions
of what might be behind it. Sometimes it turns out that all the
explanations were wrong, and the real significance of the event is
revealed months, or even years, later.
After a series of such analytic flops, the disgraced domestic and
foreign pundits have found an excuse for their own lack of insight:
Allegedly, Putin’s unpredictability is rooted in his former career
in the intelligence service.
This theory is less than convincing. Two previous candidates to succeed
Boris Yeltsin as President, Yevgeni Primakov and Sergei Stepashin, also
originated from the intelligence community. But their major political
moves were fairly predictable. It was impossible to miss, for instance,
that Primakov would strike a political alliance with Moscow Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov and then-Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov. The same goes for
Stepashin’s clumsy flirtation with ex-Premier Victor Chernomyrdin and
the latter’s U.S. partner, Al Gore, on the eve of both the Russian
and the American Presidential elections in 2000.
The disgrace of these contenders for the succession was explained at
the time by Yeltsin’s suspicious nature. He was presumed to be trying
to make sure that his name would not be smeared, and his family would
not face problems, after he retired.
Power transitions in Russia historically have been really
troublesome. But egocentric fear was not necessarily Yeltsin’s sole
motive. Persons close to him indicate that the ambitious ex-chief of
the Sverdlovsk Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
was less than satisfied with the political place and reputation he had
earned, due precisely to the policies of his patrons and sympathizers
in the West. Consciously or subconsciously, Yeltsin could have been
trying to select a successor, who would not share his weak points;
who would be most likely to avoid his mistakes, and to serve as a
guarantor not only of his own family interests, but of something
larger-what he regarded as the “throne.”
In two years of work as Russia’s national security chief, a post he
entered by surprise, at the unprecedentedly low rank of colonel,
Vladimir Putin had earned the highest confidence. Which of his
qualities impressed Yeltsin? This secret has never been revealed in
any of the numerous writings of the elder or the younger political
careerists, as they attempted to hype their own role in the
non-transparent selection of Putin.
In August 1999, informed observers were expecting the replacement
of the Prime Minister. Still, none of the renowned specialists in
politics and political psychology could explain why precisely Putin
was the one who appeared to become Yeltsin’s new and last favorite.
None of those specialists ever tried to estimate the real challenge
faced by Putin when he inherited the authority to govern, with only
two years of experience in a top position, the ambiguous status of
being chosen by a very unpopular predecessor, no experience in military
affairs, and a great lack of knowledge of national and global economic
reality at a time of epochal changes.
Seven years have passed since the Summer of 1999, when Yeltsin
resigned, entrusting to Putin the immense burden of responsibility over
this huge country, which he received with half-stalled industries,
abandoned agriculture, a dysfunctional tax system, and huge gaps in
revenue. Social guarantees had collapsed; wage and pension arrears
were unpaid in many regions for months or years. Financial oligarchs,
well protected at home and abroad, exercised arbitrary rule over
parts of the economy. Russia’s military and security capabilities
were devastated, hardly able to deal with a terrorist insurgency
along the strategic southern borders.
It was a complicated mess, where all the fragmented social groups were
interwoven in murky connections. The posterity of first post-Soviet
Premier Yegor Gaidar’s “institutionalist” reforms, along with the
later deals between a shaky Kremlin and unbridled nouveaux riches,
had given birth to powerful clans, involving state officials,
businessmen, customs officials, police officers, and gangsters. The
control of electronic mass media by the very people who donated
money and equipment to armed separatists was just one example. This
perversion was described neither in social science textbooks, nor in
classified intelligence reports.
Could he improve the situation by focussing on any particular problem,
without involving others? In order to re-establish social security,
it was necessary to increase revenue. In order to gain control
over the egocentric private interests, one needed to reinforce the
government apparatus. In order to combat separatist tendencies,
the entire administrative system needed to be completely reorganized.
Could a perverted reality be managed by any ordinary means? A good
lesson was the purge in Gazprom, which Putin initiated too soon, too
abruptly, and too openly. Before the new team could start its work,
half of the natural gas monopoly’s assets were siphoned off into
private havens, and it took the company over a year to recoup them.
Could Putin rely on his own intelligence community? Since the early
1990s, a lot of qualified officers had resigned from the intelligence
bodies, joining banks and corporations, where they could achieve a
far higher social status than before. In the depleted ranks of the
intelligence community, social, ideological, and moral polarization
developed in the same way as among other professionals. But an
important peculiarity was that former chekisty (intelligence officers,
so-called after the early Soviet intelligence organization, the
Cheka), hired by the oligarchs, often served with greater devotion
than any other managers, and thus achieved the status of strategists
for Russia’s new billionaires.
Could Putin behave openly and sincerely under these domestic
circumstances, with a no less troublesome foreign policy situation?
Sometimes it seemed that he would like to, but during his first six
years in office, he was unable to.
A Plagiarized Misconception
Putin delivered his latest surprise for the Russian media community
on the evening of June 15 in Shanghai, China, in a half-dark room on
the 32nd floor of a huge hotel, where the Russian delegation resided
during the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
A famous Russian journalist, Kommersant’s Andrei Kolesnikov, was
trying to extract as much information from the President as possible.
The more answers he got, the more he was puzzled, as his readers would
also be, since they are well educated in the subtle details of everyday
Kremlinology, but terribly ignorant of the crucial contradictions in
the global economy.
The President was in a good mood, which he explained with one sentence:
“We have never had such friendly relations with China.”
Putin emphasized the significance of Russia’s economic relations with
Iran, and the commitment of both countries to cooperate in the Caspian
basin and across Asia. On that evening, Russian and foreign mass media
were informed about a new transnational project, involving three major
countries of the region, and a corporation from the fourth country. The
three states, with a very complicated history of relations, were India,
Pakistan, and Iran. The corporation was Russia’s Gazprom.
For the curious reporters, that was a pretext to raise their favorite
issue: the person of Deputy Premier Dmitri Medvedev, chairman of
the board of Gazprom, and a graduate of the same Law Faculty of the
same Leningrad University as Vladimir Putin. So, is it true that he
is the President’s preferred successor, while Defense Minister and
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, sharing the President’s own
intelligence background, is his bitter rival?
Surprisingly, the answer followed immediately. Putin explained that the
duet of Medvedev and Ivanov, with their special distribution of most
important missions in the government, was established at the request
of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. “Didn’t you know?” he inquired.
On behalf of the journalist team, Komersant’s author admits: no,
we did not. That idea never entered our minds. Why? Because of the
fabulous secrecy of Putin’s decision-making, or due to what a Russian
author once called “lazy brains”?
Since the 1990s, analysts had interpreted Russian state policy in terms
of “balance” and “unbalance.” Such terms might have been appropriate
for Yeltsin’s personnel policies, but his successor’s thinking and
behavior could not be grasped in such a simple way. Yet even six
years after Yeltsin’s resignation, political experts were unable
to apprehend the qualitative differences between his personality
and Putin’s, noticing a clear contrast only in self-expression and
everyday habits. Applying the same mold to the new leader, the expert
community missed a most significant distinction: Putin’s ability to
draw lessons from his own experience.
By the Summer of 2006, when the accumulation of changes displayed
itself as a spectacular shift in the character of Russian domestic
and foreign policy, the linearly thinking analysts found themselves
completely helpless.
How could they recognize this shift, if even the figure of the Prime
Minister was viewed by them as a mere “technocrat,” without regard
for Fradkov’s background as trade envoy in India, deputy chairman
of the U.S.S.R.’s Foreign Trade Committee and later of the Russian
Federation’s Foreign Trade Ministry, then head of the Federal Tax
Police, and Russia’s representative to the European Union? Why was
he seen as a “technocrat”? Only because the choice of the new Prime
Minister, back in Summer 2004, did not match the artificial division
of the establishment into “liberals” and “force figures” (the notorious
siloviki), introduced by the overrated analyst Gleb Pavlovsky.
This black-and-white pattern was conveniently plagiarized by Western
experts, whose own linear thinking missed the simple fact that
Pavlovsky’s views reflected not reality, but rather an attempt to
manipulate this reality by interpreting it. The narrow-mindedness of
Western authors, who continued to reproduce this simplistic pattern
for half a decade, reflected nothing but the mental heritage of the
Cold War. On issues of Russian policy, both domestic and foreign
politologists have fallen into the trap of their own constructs.
When the “technical” Premier proposed to divide the Ministry of
Economy Development and Trade, this initiative was viewed as a “game”
by the chekisty. Yet one day later, the President discharged Prosecutor
General Vladimir Ustinov, regarded as a key ally of the chekisty.
This replacement, naturally, was the next subject of the discussion
in that Shanghai hotel room. Again, the President was quite sincere,
explaining that Ustinov would get a new appointment, to another top
government position. Five days later, his new job was made public:
Minister of Justice.
Despite Putin’s prompting, not a single expert was able to guess that
the apparent demotion of Ustinov did not spell the end of his career.
Similarly, none foresaw that ex-Justice Minister Yuri Chaika would be
named prosecutor general. What was widely regarded as a power struggle
turned out to be a “castling” of two top officials, equally trusted
by the Kremlin, for reasons possibly related to the administration
of Russia’s major state-owned energy-exporting firms. Perhaps Putin
will reveal the details in his memoirs, a couple of decades hence.
A Farewell to Curtsies
Putin’s Shanghai remarks followed the jubilee summit of the
SCO, which includes Russia, China, and four countries of Central
Asia. The presence of top political figures from all the strategically
important countries of the region, including the Presidents of Iran
and Afghanistan, demonstrated that the SCO represents far more than
a mechanical “counterbalance” to U.S. forays in the region, as it is
traditionally viewed in both Russian and Western media.
This fact was understood at least by Kommersant’s author, based on
his experience at the Tenth International Economic Forum in St.
Petersburg, which Putin attended immediately prior to the SCO summit.
Writing about First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev’s address to
the Forum’s international guests, Kommersant expressed alarm that
Medvedev, widely regarded as Putin’s successor, “made not a single
curtsy to liberalism.”
What was the opposition liberal paper, a formerly respectable business
weekly, transformed into a biased political leak sheet since its
takeover by Boris Berezovsky, so nervous about?
Medvedev, according to the Pavlovsky scheme, had been regarded as
a model “liberal,” as opposed to the siloviki from the security and
military services. Moreover, Medvedev was supposed to represent the
“liberal faction” within Gazprom. His St. Petersburg speech shattered
this construct.
Secondly, Medvedev dared to address the most painful subject for
a Russian liberal: the state of affairs in the global financial
community, whose agents of influence had directly shaped the mentality
and activity of Russia’s first post-Soviet governments. The absence
of “curtsies to liberalism” indicated that the relevant Russian
institutions and parties are doomed.
Medvedev stated plainly that the global financial system is
undergoing a crisis, which will result in a dramatic change in the
years immediately ahead. In the context of this warning, which it is
hard to imagine his making even one year ago, Medvedev reiterated the
idea that the Russian ruble could become one of the world’s reserve
currencies. Further, he said that Russia, perceived today primarily
as a supplier of oil and gas, should elevate its role in the global
division of labor. How, exactly? The answer was more than clear:
The economic engine for such an elevation is the strategy of creating
international infrastructure corridors.
The Iran-India-Pakistan gas pipeline project, discussed two days later
in Shanghai, served as a good example of an economic policy, designed
for the new era that would begin with the referenced dramatic change
in international finances. Kommersant’s authors should have said more:
Medvedev’s presentation did not contain any curtsy to the current
concept of monocentric globalism; instead, it alluded to the guidelines
of a new policy, which really was first formulated by Lyndon LaRouche.
Confirming that the “no-curtsy” approach was not merely a spin-off of
Medvedev’s personal views, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin suddenly
started talking about the Russian economy’s need for long-term,
low-interest loans to finance strategic investments. Days later, Kudrin
agreed for a 25% increase of disbursements from the Federal budget
into the government’s Investment Fund. Simultaneously, the Finance
Ministry initiated a return to a progressive income tax, from the
flat-tax system instituted by neo-liberal ideologues some years ago.
International media focussed more on Kudrin’s push to make early
repayment of the remaining part of Russia’s debt to the Paris Club
of state-to-state creditors. The proposal was echoed by Putin, who
said in St. Peterburg, “By boosting the amount of foreign currency
reserves and by repaying a comparable amount of Russia’s foreign
debt, we have established Russia’s economic independence.” The goal of
national economic independence was made public for the first time in 15
years. The time has arrived, in what the Finance Minister characterized
as “a new economic reality.” Not more than that, but not less.
For two months prior, liberal papers had been chanting that the
Russian leadership would make a number of compromises, in order to
please the G-8 countries on the eve of the July 15 summit in St.
Petersburg, especially for the purpose of accelerating Russia’s leap
into the World Trade Organization (WTO). The globalist “fifth column”
in the Russian media excitedly quoted John Snow, the former U.S.
Treasury Secretary, as foreseeing Russia’s possible accession to the
WTO before the July summit.
But Medvedev and, later, Economics Minister German Gref both made
clear that Russia is in no hurry to join the major institution of
economic globalism. Speaking to journalists during the informal media
session in Shanghai, Putin put an end to speculation on this issue,
pointing out that Russia is not going to accept double standards:
“It is hard to negotiate when our colleagues from the United States
are raising issues that had been regarded as resolved. As a matter of
fact, they are trying to coordinate our entry not with the rules of
the WTO, but with their own national legislation. This is unserious.”
Thus it was clear that the “no-curtsy” principle had been chosen by
the President himself.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed the same principle in
a diplomatic setting, with especially subtle irony. At the June
29 Moscow press conference of G-8 foreign ministers, just hours
after being caught on tape needling and harping at Lavrov over Iraq
and Iran issues, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a
particularly inane, condescending account of how she views “democracy”
in Russia. Noting that she had first visited Russia in 1979, Rice
averred that she had “noticed many changes since then.”
“What a coincidence,” rejoined Lavrov, “1979 was also the year of my
own first visit to the United States, and I, too, have noticed many
changes, which we shall discuss with the U.S. leadership.” Rice was
visibly nonplussed.
The Sinking Beacons
“Russia should develop both to the West and the East,” declared
Medvedev in St. Petersburg. During June the schedule of Russia’s
President was dominated by diplomacy in the East. He spent five days
in Shanghai and Astana, Kazakstan. Before that remarkable tour, Putin
received the chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference;
after the Asia tour, he held a meeting with the Prime Minister
of Turkey.
What the international media calls a “turn toward the East” was
predetermined by what happened during the past two decades of Moscow’s
relations with the Western political and financial community. Two
decades ago, the alluring brilliance of the West’s prosperity seduced
millions of Soviet consumers, including the younger generation of the
U.S.S.R.’s elite. While members of what Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
had declared to be a “new historical community of humans, the Soviet
people,” were turning toward a new glistening beacon-namely, a Western
supermarket-professional anti-Communists triumphantly celebrated the
collapse of the “Iron Curtain,” viewed as the West’s victory in the
Cold War.
In that heady time at the end of the 1980s, sober warnings about
the West’s own imminent decline were neglected. Lyndon laRouche,
the author of the SDI-based concept of mutual scientific progress of
the West and the East, was kept away from the public in a prison cell.
His imprisonment reflected the profound immorality, which was soon
to begin steadily, year after year, converting geopolitical triumph
into miserable strategic doom.
The light of the West’s globalist beacon faded in the eyes of Russians
with every shock-therapy decree; with every layoff at a newly deserted
giant of industry; with every shell that in 1993 struck the charred
wall of the freely elected but too disobedient Parliament; with the
end of the ex-Soviet national space program; with chilling news from
the spreading areas of irregular warfare, located right along the
line of Anglo-American corporations’ unbridled appetites.
For the flight-forward ideologues of the globalist world order, the
obviously ripening shift in Russian minds served as an argument for
more provocational expansion. The new campaign was more a political
offensive than an economic one. First came the simultaneous enlargement
of the EU and NATO in May 2003. Then, a series of coups d’etat along
Russia’s borders, triumphantly described as “democratic revolutions.”
Ironically, this new crusade, instead of inspiring more nations with
the advantages of universal democracy, exposed, to an unprecedented
extent, the shoddy quality of globalist policies. Most impressive was
the example of misfortunate Ukraine, where a successful coup d’etat,
celebrated in Washington and Brussels, led, in less than a year,
to a miserable state of political paralysis.
In Tashkent, Bishkek, and Astana, similar coup plans met stiff
resistance, having the net effect of a shrinkage of the Anglo-American
military influence in the region, and a boost of strategic cooperation
between Moscow and Beijing.
The “colored revolution” design (orange for Ukraine, rose for Georgia,
etc.), which was officially declared by George W. Bush as a principal
strategy, undermined the economy in the post-Soviet countries where
it took hold. With every bloody clash in the devastated Iraq, also
officially declared a model democracy, “globalism” and “disaster”
were becoming synonyms. The ugliness of the Bush-Cheney “export of
democracy” to Iraq, with its too visible underpinning of corporate
greed, was the last argument for many Russians who had continued to
be enthralled by the beacon of the West.
The continuous alarmist mantra of the international press, focussed
on Russia’s reluctance to accept allegedly universal globalist values
and standards of behavior, sounds today more and more amusing to
Russians themselves, especially when their own views are interpreted
as the result of chekist pressure. Why should the notorious chekisty
be blamed for the defeat of Russian liberal parties in the Duma
elections of 2003? Or, for the alienation of unrecognized breakaway
areas in Georgia and Moldavia from their “mother democracies”? Or,
finally, for the commitment of Russia’s leadership to a stronger
partnership with Southeast Asia, where there is the prospect of more
promising export markets, as well as joint scientific projects with
the emerging economies?
The stupidity of the alarmist arguments, multiplied in the
international media in May and June, is viewed in Russia as one more
symptom of a progressive paralysis of the globalist concept. The
diplomatic agenda of June 2006 confirmed this perception. The fruitful
new round of Russian diplomacy with major Asian nations coincided
with spectacular displays of disarray in the ranks of the community of
“winners of the Cold War.”
In June, Italy became the latest European country to decide to withdraw
its troops from Iraq. In June, the U.S. President was rebuffed by
the Supreme Court over the illegitimate exercise of authority in the
Guantanamo penitentiary. In June, a squad of NATO troops, arriving in
Feodosia, Crimea (Ukraine), was driven away not by Russian siloviki,
but by political demonstrations. The picketers condemned the would-be
“guardians of democracy,” inclusively for undermining the region’s
income from tourism. NATO’s Sea Breeze-2006 maneuvers were stymied.
In June, WTO President Pascal Lamy warned of the possibility of a
collapse of the organization, to which Russia is supposed to pay an
expensive entry ticket. A debate among the EU, the United States,
and the emerging economies of the G-20, lasting for five years,
has led into a blind alley.
Will the anticipation of a qualitative change in global policy,
expressed in Medvedev’s presentation, introduce a new agenda for
global trade issues? Will the most powerful states of the world,
seeking to prevent the implication of the financial collapse, have
enough time and responsibility to develop a new language of dialogue,
not based on Cold War stereotypes? By starting his Message to the
Federal Assembly, delivered in May, with a quotation from Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, Putin sent a clear message also to Washington. Why
not start the revision of the global economic affairs with the equally
critical problems of Russian agricultural workers and American farmers?
A Railroad, a Highway, and a Sun
The doom of respectable global institutions has touched off hysterics
in the Russian liberal media. Like their counterparts in the West, they
launched a campaign against the Kremlin on the eve of the G-8 summit,
energetically hyping its importance, while even more enthusiastically
predicting its failure. At first, the professed skeptics trumpeted
in unison that President Bush would boycott the event. This scenario
was retailed many times, before Condoleezza Rice announced that Bush
is still coming to St. Petersburg.
Other pessimistic remarks focussed on Russia’s unequal status in
the G-8. Readers were told that probably Russia’s finance minister
would be not invited to the strategic discussion of global financial
affairs. When all the ministers still arrived in St. Petersburg,
and listened to Russia’s top state financial officials attentively,
the skeptics then forecast a failure of Russian-German financial
negotiations. After this pessimistic forecast also burst, observers
predicted a collapse of Russia’s talks with the Paris Club.
Still, on June 29, the Paris Club agreed to accept Russia’s early
repayment of its remaining $22.3 billion Paris Club debt. The following
day, the Russian government removed all capital transfer restrictions,
making the Russian ruble officially fully convertible. The same liberal
authors who used to promote the ruble’s convertibility, now raise
doubts about the danger of too great an influx of foreign capital,
as well as the possibility that, in the event of a collapse of oil
prices, a convertible ruble would ruin the economy.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister announces his decision to convey
over $5 billion, economized due to the early Paris Club repayment, to
the government’s Investment Fund, designed for domestic investments
in large-scale projects. On the same day, the President discusses
the investment policy with leaders of the United Russia Party. The
discussion is focussed on highway infrastructure as a fundamental
factor for the national economy.
On June 14 Sergei Kiriyenko, former co-chairman of the liberal Union
of Right Alliance, travels, in his new capacity as chairman of the
Federal nuclear energy agency, to Severodvinsk, the once-famous
nuclear-submarine-building center. He announces a unique project
of floating nuclear power plants, also usable for desalination of
sea water, which are going to be produced both for domestic needs
and for export. The design belongs to the St. Petersburg-based
Atomenergoproyekt Institute.
The most impressive scientific presentation of the month was also made
in the President’s native city, St. Petersburg. On the first day of
the International Economic Forum, the annual Global Energy Prize was
presented to an international team, involved in the project of the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The prize
was awarded to Yevgeni Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Center
and chairman of Russia’s Public Chamber; to Robert Aymar, general
director of the European Nuclear Research Center (CERN); and to Masaji
Yoshikawa, a director of Japan’s Thermonuclear Research Council.
In his speech, Academician Velikhov recalled that the project to
build a “man-made sun” was started in the U.S.S.R., which proposed to
unify the efforts of four major international programs on controlled
thermonuclear fusion: those of the Soviet Union, the U.S.A., Europe,
and Japan. The feasibility study was completed, however, only in
2001. Four years later, the parties agreed to choose the Cadarache
Nuclear Center, France, as the site for construction of the reactor.
Months later, the project was joined by India.
Beware the Loft!
Ridiculing the new wave of “Russophobia,” pouring from the pages of
American papers on the eve of the G-8 summit, London Guardian author
Jonathan Steele explained this hysterical chorus in terms of the U.S.
neo-cons’ rage over Russia’s increasing independence in economic and
political affairs. Steele characterized Dick Cheney’s April tirade
against Russia, delivered in Vilnius, Lithuania, as the most arrogant
attack on Russia since 1991, illustrating Cheney’s hypocrisy by citing
his exceptionally friendly treatment of Kazakstan-where he was about
to seek economic concessions. Kazakstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev
signed a commitment to supply oil to the Americans’ favorite pipeline
project, from Baku, Azerbaijan to Ceyhan, Turkey.
Putin appeared unperturbed by Nazarbayev’s concession to Cheney.
Simple calculations suggest an additional 3 million tons of crude
annually will not change the weather above the Caspian. For Kazakstan,
participation in Russia’s space program is more important than the
export of oil, which it exports not only northward (to Russia) and
westward (for Baku-Ceyhan), but, most of all, to China in the East.
In June, the Russian audience learned from a respectable U.S. author
that Bush’s White House has cooked one more pancake: a project for
Ukraine’s “express” entry into NATO. A similar pancake, according to
informed private sources, is being cooked in Armenia, involving a
“peacekeeping” siege of the unrecognized Karabakh Republic, and a
“humanitarian” control of this republic’s border with Iran. The
character of the preparations, especially in Armenia, indicates that
the most vicious options, involving U.S. military force, cannot be
ruled out.
Even such a strong critic of Russia’s policies as Nikolay Zlobin of the
World Security Institute says in a recent interview with the Polit.ru
website, “The United States often doesn’t understand what it is doing.”
Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff points out that Putin might well be envied by
every other G-8 leader, since he is the only one of them who could be
re-elected, if he wishes, tomorrow. The point is well taken. It could
be added that Washington’s preferred alternative to Putin, former Prime
Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, is, by contrast, the most colorless “colored
revolution” stooge ever contemplated. And his greatest blunder was
not the hasty purchase of a country house on his last day in office,
but his public statements in support of the business oligarchs.
Openly, Vladimir Putin declared only once, at the start of his first
Presidential term, that “the oligarchs should be kept equally distant”
from state power. This remark was later ridiculed, as not all of the
tycoons were distanced at the same moment.
Today, however, it is quite obvious that the leading role in the
Russian economy has been acquired by state-dominated corporations and
banks, while the previously dominant privately owned oligarchical
groups are now unable to dictate their will to the state, or to
privatize Russia’s foreign policy.
Today, international financial institutions no longer dictate Russia’s
budget policy. Not only the Federal authorities, but also Russia’s
regions are refusing to borrow from the World Bank. Numerous foreign
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which freely operated in
the country in Yeltsin’s time, are now forced either to comply with
newly adopted legislative restrictions, or to curtail their activity
in Russia.
Today, persons in the government who had earned their reputations
as free-market liberals, are displaying a shift in the direction
of dirigist economic policies. Meanwhile, libertarian blockheads,
typified by von Hayekian professor Yevgeni Yasin and ex-Presidential
Advisor Andrei Illarionov, are alienated from policy-making.
The preparations for this change required a long time, great patience,
personal courage, and a high level of privacy in decision-making. June
2006 was a month of surprises, unravelling one after another.
Take Finance Minister Kudrin’s exclamation that “Russia will no
longer stand with an outstretched hand!” Or, Medvedev’s promotion of
the ruble as a world reserve currency. And Gazprom’s rapid-fire move
into numerous European markets, with new export agreements.
Or, the surprise initiatives of Russia’s Nuclear Energy Agency,
echoed by Defense Minister Ivanov’s surprise directive, announced
in St. Petersburg, that 90% of Russia’s military production should
involve dual-use technologies.
A strategic shift, equally in political, economic, foreign,
and public affairs, is quite evident. This does not mean that it
is irreversible. The recent example of Ukraine, where the first
economic results of Victor Yanukovich’s government were buried by
the postmodernist coup d’etat, labeled a “revolution,” at the end of
2004, exemplifies the fragility of a political construction, in which
the leader who has some progressive intentions is separated from the
people by a formidable barrier, such as the powerful parasitic class,
rooted back in the late Soviet period, to which most of today’s
criminal groups owe their rise.
“Do you enjoy visiting your native city?” a journalist asked Putin in
Shanghai. Again, Putin was unusually sincere. “I’d like to,” he said.
“But in my native city, I am also surrounded by bodyguards.”
On June 29, just two weeks before the G-8 summit, the St. Petersburg
police discovered a cache of weapons in the loft of a house on
Moskovsky Prospect, facing the official delegations’ motorcade route.
Similar preparations were made by unidentified persons in September
2004, when the President was going to arrive in St. Petersburg with
Yanukovich. Half a year before, Russian and Israeli intelligence
sources warned the Kremlin about an assassination attempt, designed
by one of the most arrogant emigre oligarchs: The idea was to make
the colorless Prime Minister acting President, and then parachute
him into the Russian “throne.”
Many times in Russian, American, and European history, promising
intentions of general benefit have been reversed by means of the
physical extermination of those who dared to express them aloud.
Putin’s manner of secret decision-making, followed by surprise moves,
is well substantiated.
006/3328russia_surprises.html

South Bend Tribune, IN –
July 10 2006
Pita pizzas add pleasant dash of Armenian flavor
ROBIN MATHER JENKINS
Chicago Tribune
A stop at a Middle Eastern bakery and a stack of freshly baked pitas
rekindled my appetite for lahmajoun, a dish I learned to make from
Armenian-American friends in Detroit. It’s a terrific solution for
the dinner rush. I’m told that lahmajoun (la-ma-ZHOON) translates
from Arabic to “meat dough,” but if you think of it as individual
pizzas, you would be closer to the mark.
If lamb isn’t your favorite, substitute ground beef or even ground
turkey.
Try adding diced tomato or tomato paste to the meat while browning.
If you can find za’atar, the Middle Eastern blend of sumac, oregano
and sesame seeds, use that instead of the oregano.
Lemonade and limeade are both so easily made at home that you can
make a pitcher while the lahmajouns bake. The juice from half a lemon
or a whole lime should be adequate for a glassful. Sweeten to taste.
Lahmajoun
1 pound lean ground lamb
1 onion, finely chopped or grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
8 whole wheat or regular pitas
1/4 cup pine nuts
4 ounces crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Heat oven to 350 F. Combine lamb, onion, garlic, oregano, salt and
red pepper flakes in a mixing bowl. Mix gently with hands until
well-blended.
Arrange pitas on baking sheets. Divide lamb mixture among the pitas.
Scatter pine nuts and feta over the meat mixture. Bake 20 minutes, or
until meat is done and pitas are crisp. Sprinkle with parsley. Serves
8.
Nutrition information per serving: 354 calories, 37 percent of
calories from fat, 15 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 50 mg cholesterol, 38
g carbohydrates, 19 g protein, 677 mg sodium, 5 g fiber
Preparation time: 30 minutes.

NKR DEFENSE MINISTER: KARABAKH SOLELY FOR PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
July 10 2006
STEPANAKERT, July 10. /ARKA – Novosti-Armenia/. In Stepanakert the NKR
Minster of Defense, Lieutenant-General Seyran Ohanyan told journalists
Karabakh is solely for peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.
He said territories, which are under the control of Karabakh, are
not an end in itself, but serve as a security zone for safe vital
activity of the republic.
Ohanyan emphasized that issues relating to territories, as well as
quartering of peacemakers may be considered only on the last stage
of settlement of the conflict, after solution of the main problem –
legal status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
“If the main problem is not solved, giving back territories will be
out of the question”, Ohanyan stated.
Speaking of possibility of resumption of military actions in the
context of bellicose statements of the Azerbaijani President, Ohanyan
expressed an opinion that “Azerbaijan does not want to initiate a war”.
He finds the bellicose rhetoric is aimed at probing into the public
opinion and has its home policy objects.
At the same time Ohanyan said the NKR Defence Army has a plan of
effective countermeasures aimed at protecting the republic, and in
case of an emergency “life will show who’s capable of what”. S.P.
-0–

EFFORTS MADE IN 2006TO STRENGTHEN NAGORNO-KARABAKH REPUBLIC’S DEFENSE
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
July 10 2006
STEPANAKERT, July 10. /ARKA/. All the measures, planned by
Nagorno-Karabakh army to strengthen the republic defense, were taken
in 2006, NKR Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan said on Friday.
In his words, the army leadership’s attention has always been focused
on training officers.
“There is a prospect plane on training and granting appropriate ranks,
depending on the education obtained”, he said.
The minister also said that a non-stop consistent work is being carried
out and certain amount of money is being targeted for engineering
equipment improvement. M.V.-0–