Russia and Central Asia News Digest
Glazyev at Center of Duma Election Campaign
EIR's Jonathan Tennenbaum reports this week on Russia. He writes: On Sept. 4, the Russian State Duma (lower house of Parliament) election campaign was officially launched, with publication of a Presidential decree fixing the date of the election as Dec. 7 of this year. Thanks to developments over the summer, what had been expected to be a relatively uneventful campaign, leading to a continuation of the present political constellation in the Duma, now promises to become more turbulent. Of particular interest will be the fate of a new electoral grouping, launched by the well-known economist and Duma member Sergei Glazyev. See InDepth for full article.
Third Eurasian Conference on Transport Opens in St. Petersburg
The Third Eurasian Conference on Transport, latest in a series that has become crucial for the promotion of continental development corridors, opened Sept. 12 in St. Petersburg, Russia. High-ranking representatives of 40 countries are present, among them: Iranian Minister of Roads and Transport, Ahmad Khorram; the Russian Ministers of Railroads, Gennadi Faddeyev, and Transport, Sergei Frank, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev; high-ranking representatives of the European Commission and of international shipping organizations; and the secretary of the European Transport Ministers. All of them gave speeches. Kazakstan and Belarus were granted membership in the North-South corridor, which was initiated by Russian, Iran and India. Sergei Frank reported to the meeting on a decision taken days earlier by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to coordinate transportation projects in border regions among its member countriesin the heart of Eurasia.
Russian Foreign Minister: Iraq Situation Deteriorating
Speaking Sept. 5 during debate at the United Nations over a U.S. draft resolution on Iraq, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov made the following point: "One cannot but express surprise at statements made by some Washington officials that life in Iraq is returning to normal and becoming better virtually day by day.... One should not be misledthe situation in Iraq is becoming not better, but worse day by day."
Is U.S. Picking Russian To Loot Iraq's Economy?
The Russian Liberal politician Boris Nemtsov revealed in Moscow on Sept. 8 that the United States is recruiting Boris Yeltsin's former tsar for economic shock therapy, deregulation, and privatization, Yegor Gaidar, to provide "expertise" for a postwar economic policy in Iraq. George W. Bush has decided to seek Gaidar out of the conviction that "Gaidar is the world's sole specialist who knows how to recover a country's economy," Nemtsov said.
Gaidar, with a group of fellow technocrats who had been trained in the 1980s at London "free-trade" think-tanks, pioneered the brutal shock therapy that looted and ruined the Russian economy and completely discredited Yeltsin, beginning with Gaidar's term as Prime Minister in 1992.
After Nemtsov's announcement at the party congress of the Union of Right Forces, Gaidar confirmed that he has received an invitation from the Temporary Administration of Iraq. According to Izvestia on Sept. 8, Gaidar himself clarified that the Americans are concerned not even so much with reconstruction, as with creating a different type of economy in Iraq, than what it had before: "They are facing the problem of a collapsed totalitarian regime with a high level of state participation in the economy."
Strana.ru noted, "The American offer to Gaidar has a certain logic. Truly, there is probably no specialist in the world today, more experienced in privatizing the oil sector of an entire country.... Reform of the oil industry was one of the first undertakings of the first-wave reformists [in Russia], led by Gaidar." The USAID has been prescribing "shock therapy" for the Iraqi economy, wrote commentator Sergei Pletnev, with "mass privatization of Iraqi industry." Of course, "It is well known that the privatization of Russian oil resulted in the concentration of the sector in the hands of a few monopolists; hence the Americans should have no problem making use of Yegor Gaidar's experience. After that, Iraq will also need the people who thought up Russia's loans-for-shares auctions" (the privatization swindles by which the Russia's oligarchs' fortunes were amassed).
Gaidar said he is leaving for Iraq on Sept. 19, leading what amounts to a Mont Pelerin Society international hit squad: According to Izvestia, he will be joined by former Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov and Estonian ex-premier and "young reformer" Mart Laar. In 1997, Stoyanov surrendered Bulgaria's sovereignty under a "currency board" scheme modelled on British colonial times. Laar was a deregulation/privatization poster child, until he was ousted under a cloud of scandal surrounding the privatization of Estonia's railroads.
Russia Demands To Put Teeth in Implementation of Road Map
"The time has probably come for the world community, acting through the Quartet of mediators [the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations], or the United Nations Security Council, to impose tough terms on the conflicting parties so they comply with all provisions of the Road Map peace plan, which could require an international presence in the conflict area," Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov told the press in Sarajevo on Sept. 10. "Russia is seriously concerned over the new escalation of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," he declared, "because this endangers the implementation of the Road Map plan and the Middle East peace process in general."
"It is becoming more and more obvious that unless the world community intervenes in the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the most determined way," he warned, "it will be impossible to break the vicious circle of violence."
Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa, leaving Cairo to visit Russia, said it is expected that the Quartet would intervene, the Saudi Arabia News Agency reported.
Russian Submarine Designer Attacked
The evening of Sept. 9, Petr Gavriluk, chief engineer at the Rubin firm, was attacked at the entry to his private residence in St. Petersburg. He is a top submarine designer. Gavriluk was hit on the head with a hard object; then the attackers (according to eyewitnesses, two men), entered his flat, stole his computer, and also took about $1,000. Although initial police assessments spoke of a robbery, the attack has been the second against a leading engineer of the firmwhose products include nuclear-powered submarines of a new special class, for the Russian Navy.
|