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FOCUS OF THE PRESS: CHANGES IN CHECHNYA
Moscow, RIA Novosti
The situation in Chechnya remains in the focus of the Russian press. Newspapers point to changes for the better there.
Vremya Novostei wrote: "The warring parties in Chechnya have been unusually active of late. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office had a meeting in Grozny yesterday, which was also attended by the command of federal troops in Chechnya and the chairman of the Chechen government, Stanislav Ilyasov. The meeting discussed the legitimacy of the so-called mopping-up operations in Chechen towns and villages [aimed to reveal members of illegal armed groups hiding among civilians].
On the eve of the meeting, rebels carried out a series of raids. Apart from attacks on federal troops, they opened fire at the car of Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Avlady Alavdinov who is in charge of the restoration of Chechnya's agro-industrial sector. By sheer luck, the official was not harmed, but his driver was seriously wounded.
Neither the military nor civilian authorities were alarmed by the attacks. Members of the Chechen administration say that the recent raids by small bandit groups only attest to their impotence and that the Chechen government now controls the entire Chechen territory.
When commenting on mopping-up operations, the newspaper described the Russian Interior Ministry's decision to conduct these operations together with the heads of local administrations, elders and the clergy as extremely important. "Checks according to the new rules will be placed on record, which will let the public and the prosecutor's office control the military's actions," Vremya Novostei said.
Izvestia commented on a recent article in France's Le Monde, which harshly criticised Russia's policy in Chechnya. "The author of the article in Le Monde showed an excess of zeal in fulfilling her newspaper's assignment," Izvestia said. "Citing a Chechen woman who named herself as Aminat (naturally, she 'had to conceal' her real name), the journalist painted a vivid picture of blood everywhere, no justice at all, and pathological cruelty on the part of Russian troops - and as pathological fear on the part of Chechen people to tell the truth about their misfortunes to anyone. They could tell it only to Le Monde, and only in secret. This is strange, as one could see something different on TV in the last few days: crowds of Chechen women complaining to a visiting envoy of the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe, Tadeusz Iwinski, right before TV cameras and the military who were present there." Izvestia cited Iwinski as saying after his trip to Chechnya that he had seen some progress in the humanitarian situation in refugee camps in Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia, and that the atmosphere there had changed. He said he had the feeling that refugees were ready to return home.
Kommersant reported the opening of the first telephone exchange in Grozny. "In the last two years, telephone communications in the republic were available only to the Chechen government, the heads of administrations in some districts, and the military command," the newspaper wrote. "Telephone communications were established via satellites, which made them enormously expensive. Soon, anyone will be able to make a call to the Chechen capital, and Grozny residents will no more feel cut off from the rest of the world. The restoration of telephone communications in Chechnya took a very long time, as there were no guarantees of safety for operators. The building of the telephone exchange, capable of serving 1,500 users, will be heavily guarded. Telephones in the republic are a major step forward. Representatives of Russian authorities in Chechnya have said that telephone communications will soon be restored to the entire city. Over 2,000 private houses have already been restored in Grozny, and 100,000 square metres of municipal housing has been provided for residents. Private houses in Grozny are restored by local residents who are paid salaries for their work. The Chechen government hopes this move will help rebuild the city sooner," Kommersant wrote.
Vremya MN wrote about the struggle against rebels: "The military's actions in Chechnya have become more resolute of late. When attacked, federal troops, as a rule, retaliate by opening heavy fire, counterattacking and chasing the attackers, inflicting heavy casualties on them. Most of those killed are identified as local rebels. This means that rebels now find it more and more difficult to move about Chechnya and that there are fewer and fewer professionals among them. According to the Federal Security Service, the control system of the rebels has been fully disrupted, all rebel bases in the mountains have been destroyed, and a large number of armaments and munitions has been seized," the newspaper concluded.
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MOSCOW AND WARSAW MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME
Boris PETROV, RIA Novosti commentator
Moscow and Warsaw are intending to bring a new quality to Russo-Polish relations. The two states are going to pursue interaction on the basis of pragmatism in the political, economic and humanitarian spheres. This is how the results of Vladimir Putin's talks with the Polish leadership on the banks of the Vistula can be summarised.
This approach is even more important, when one takes into consideration the last ten years of lost opportunities and virtual stagnation in relations between the two countries.
The new scenario has arisen as a result of many objective and subjective reasons. However, the most important factor is that the countries' present leaders are of one opinion: the problems of the past should remain there, it's time to move on and make up for lost time.
In practical terms, this means that action should be quite clearly defined, promising both advantages and benefits for the Russian and Polish nations alike.
At this point, it would be useful to emphasise that five documents were signed during Putin's visit. There was an agreement on fitting Polish buses in the Kaliningrad Region. Continuing the economic theme, there was a document concerning co-operation between Russia's Vneshtorgbank and the Polish Bank of the Development of Agrarian Economy, as well as one on co-operation in the sphere of commercial arbitration between the two countries' trade and industry chambers. The tourist sphere was included with an agreement on co-operation; finally, a regional agreement between the Pskov administration and the Lubuskie Wojewcdztwo was also signed.
The Russian president believes that the number of signed agreements is not so important, as the readiness of the Polish and Russian leaderships to work so that ordinary citizens can feel the results. Vladimir Putin stressed that this was to become a feature of Russian policy.
The Russian side should understand the Poland's position, as made clear by President Aleksander Kwasniewski: "for the first time a chance has appeared to build relations with Russia, the like of which have never been in the two countries' history ... Poland is vitally interested in developing relations with Russia, as her influence will, in particular, depend on this, after she joins the European Union." It is important to point out here that Moscow is interested that Poland's impending accession to the EU does not damage its ties with the Kaliningrad Region (a Russian semi-enclave on the Baltic, bordering Poland and Latvia).
The Russian president expressed his unhappiness about how the Kaliningrad problem was being resolved. "We have not been able to achieve any business interaction with the EU on this problem," said Vladimir Putin. He reminded those present that after Latvia and Poland had become EU members, Kaliningrad would be an enclave within the Schengen agreement zone.
Vladimir Putin said that it would not only be the 1,300,000 inhabitants of Kaliningrad that would be affected by this, but also EU citizens. He commented that it was "impossible to keep [these people] under lock and key." Russia believes that this problem should be resolved before EU enlargement takes effect. On the political level "everyone is saying, yes, this must be solved, but we have not arrived at the stage of practical action," Putin said. In this connection, the Russian leader supported a proposal made by his Polish counterpart to hold a meeting between the Polish, Latvian and Russian heads of state with the EU leadership in Kaliningrad.
The most important area of co-operation between Russia and Poland is the completion of the first section of the Russian Yamal - Western Europe gas pipeline, which will run through Polish territory. Work on this is due to be finished by 2003.
The Russian corporation Gazprom has already invested 1 billion 300 million dollars in the project. Polish firms have received big orders for the first section and more will follow for the second. This construction of the second section will be decided by mid-February.
As to humanitarian problems, Vladimir Putin stressed that Russians greatly respected the Polish nation and believed that all the problems of the past should remain in history, while their lessons should be remembered for the future.
On the whole, Putin emphasised that he did not "see a single problem, which could become a bone of contention" in Russo-Polish relations. He added that an atmosphere of goodwill had been created around the Russian delegation. According to him, Poles' attitude towards Russia was evident in his contacts with ordinary people and politicians - not only on the part of the president and premier, but also the parliament.
In his turn, Aleksander Kwasniewski said that he saw Putin's visit being extremely important for Poland. "This is a new beginning for Polish-Russian relations," the Polish president stressed.
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MOSCOW DEVELOPS HOTEL NETWORK
By Raisa Zubova, RIA Novosti
In early January the Moscow authorities announced that the Intourist hotel would be demolished in April-something they have talked a lot about in the capital for two years now.
The 22-storey glass-and-concrete giant will soon be replaced by a five-star hotel living up to international standards, which will belong to one of the world's hotel chains-according to some sources, it will be Hilton.
The Intourist building erected in the late 1960s as a symbol of the Soviet architectural mind has been one of the least favourite buildings with Muscovites-grey, faceless, dull and somewhat shabby.
Specialists are ready to stand up for the monster, which is an example of the so-called international modernism which forged out Le Corbusier and van der Rohe and which is more preferable than rollicking eclecticism of present-day Moscow. It is much more preferable than the post-modernist glancing piece of glass, MacDonald's, built several years ago in Tverskaya Street.
The thing is that the doomed Intourist was a large hotel charging reasonable prices and situated in the very heart of Moscow, with the Kremlin, Red Square and the Bolshoi round the corner. The hotel was rather popular with middle class foreigners and was never short of guests.
However, the Moscow authorities have reportedly been considering the possibility of disassembling the building rather than liquidating it, and then re-assembling Intourist somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow.
In the early 1990s, representatives of the world's hotel chains began to show interest in Moscow. Famous western companies purchased and re-equipped the best-built hotels with a good location. Thus, the Balchug hotel turned into Balchug-Kempinski, Slavyanskaya was transformed into Slavyanskaya Radisson, and so on. Besides, western companies have built some new world-class hotels-Mariott Avrora Royal, Grand Hotel and others. Meanwhile, renowned giant hotels like Rossia, Moskva, Ukraina, etc. have been decaying until recently in the very centre of the city.
The Moscow government has been trying to modernise the Moskva hotel since 1993. This building constitutes a very well-known architectural monument to the Soviet constructionism of Stalin's epoch, which has lately been accommodating state Duma /lower house/ deputies coming from other towns.
The Moskva hotel praised and commemorated in many Soviet films of the 1930-1950s is situated even closer to Red Square than the Intourist hotel. 15-47 percent of the building no longer corresponds to international standards. However, the economic aspect has been a sticking point in its reconstruction until recently-the personnel of the hotel aspired for taking the property right from the city authorities, and this kept investors away.
After five years of judicial procedures, the authorities of Moscow retained the property right and announced a contest for its reconstruction. Nevertheless, at this point parliamentarians joined the strife by adopting the first reading of a draft law on gratuitously passing the hotel over to the federal property. Deputies do not want to lose the hotel which has become home for many of them. To all appearances, litigation around the hotel is highly likely to continue for another few years, thereby making it quite unattractive for investors.
The Rossia hotel, another giant of the Soviet hotel industry, is situated next to Red Square and was famed for hosting the annual Moscow film festival for many years. The building, which is far from perfect like Intourist, was built in 1967. It has not been repaired over the past 30 years and hardly lived up to the three star standards. The Moscow authorities once considered the possibility of knocking down the building, but gave up this idea later for the effort could have cost 700-800 million dollars.
As a result, they adopted rather an original reconstruction plan-hotels of different classes will replace the hotel giant. One of the sections will be five star, another-four star, the third one-three star and the fifth building will host a sports and entertainment centre.
The city authorities expect that the number of foreign guests of Moscow will increase five-fold by 2010, thereby raising the share of tourist revenues from the present 0.9 percent to 10 percent in the city budget. To this end, the number of hotel beds in Moscow should be augmented at least four- or five-fold.
The Moscow authorities have recently announced their plans to create a "golden ring"-a walking tourist zone in the centre of the capital, to incorporate the Kremlin, Manezh, Teatralnaya /Theatre/ Square, the Church of Christ the Saviour and many other sights. Seventeen new hotels, numerous car-parks, restaurants, cafes and clubs are to be built in this zone.
But the main concern is that there is an acute shortage of inexpensive middle-class hotels of good quality in Moscow, whereas this is the main precondition for an influx of tourists. Therefore, the city's tourist development programme envisages that two thirds of the hotels to be erected in the capital in the next few years be two and three star hotels.
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ANOTHER PAX AMERICANA?
By RIA Novosti political analyst Valentin KUNIN
On September 11th, 2001 New York and Washington were attacked by suicidal terrorists, with the international community rendering its support to the United States in the wake of such outrages. Quite a few analysts then began to say that a new global political era, an era of global consolidation during the struggle against international terrorism and other challenges facing mankind at the turn of the 21-st century, would now begin.
Much was also said about the beginning of a new era in Russian-US relations in connection with Moscow's resolute support of the counter-terrorist operation in Afghanistan. This was mentioned by political-science experts, President George Bush, Jr., of the United States and his closest aides, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and State Secretary Colin Powell.
According to Powell, seismic changes of a historic scale took place in US-Russian relations after the September 11th terrorist attacks. The White House also stopped criticizing the Chechen counter-terrorist operation in any way. Moreover, the US Administration's spokesmen kept stressing that they fully understood the fact that the actions of Russian authorities in the North Caucasus were quite justified.
Washington also started talking about its readiness to build a new system of global strategic security together with Russia as an equal partner.
All these and other similar statements prompted some of the world's mass-media bodies to hope that the United States would modify its policy aiming to create a uni-polar world, and that it would discard its Pax Americana concept, which seems to be an obsession.
However, events of the last few weeks show only too clearly that the reverse is true. Washington, which has got over the September 11th shock, has now started behaving in its traditional manner. In mid-December 2001 President Bush Jr. announced a unilateral US decision to abrogate the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty. The US State Department recently voiced its concern over the inadequate use of force by Russian troops during the Chechen counter-terrorist operation.
The White House has once again confirmed its reluctance to obtain any UN Security Council consent to conducting military operations in other countries of the world. Some Pentagon officials keep saying time and again that Iraq might also be attacked; well, these statements are quite alarming.
The United States is now moving to set up its military bases in some Central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan and Kirghizia. The US Defense Department's officials are openly saying that such bases, which will accommodate F-15 multi-role fighters, will serve as America's long-term regional outposts.
All these facts, the US decision to shred the ABM Treaty, in the first place, show only too clearly that the Bush Administration intends to implement its foreign-policy line, which had been outlined a year ago. Such policies are based on global military domination that would be ensured by the entire US economic and military might. They stipulate only one criterion, the protection of US national interests. At the same time, the interests of other countries will be heeded only if they don't contradict those hegemonic US aspirations.
However, such a claim to global domination is something obviously utopian. Despite its impressive economic and military potential, the United States is unable to cope with new international-security challenges, e.g. organized crime, drug trafficking, illegal arms sales, separatism, religious extremism and international terrorism, all on its own.
The tragic September 11th events prove this rather convincingly. Washington was forced to request international assistance for the sake of conducting an effective counter-terrorist operation on Afghan territory.
Nor can the United States tackle such highly important international problems as the limitation of nuclear weapons and other mass-destruction weapons, as well as their cuts, all by itself. The US Administration is in no position to settle old-time and new regional conflicts either.
This can't be accomplished without leading Western European countries, China, India and Russia, too. There's no doubting the fact that Russia, which is now facing quite a few problems, still remains a great nuclear power. Whether the United States likes it or not, it will have to reckon with this fact.
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