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Thursday, December 16 -- Volume 1, Issue 148
EURASIA DAILY MONITOR
IN THIS ISSUE:
*Kyiv re-opens investigation into Yushchenko's illness
*Decision imminent on Siberian oil pipeline
*Astana unveils new hanger at Karaganda air base
*Moscow creates political stalemate inside OSCE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WAS YUSHCHENKO POISONED?
Ahead of the December 26 repeat presidential runoff, which will again
pit opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko against Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych, debate has resumed over Yushchenko's mysterious
illness. On December 11, the Vienna-based Rudolfinerhaus clinic
announced that Yushchenko had definitely been poisoned by dioxin, a
highly toxic substances that is difficult to neutralize. Yushchenko
turned to Rudolfinerhaus in September, complaining of severe stomach
and back pain.
His face remains distorted by ulcers and pockmarks, which prompted the
ad hoc parliamentary commission set up to investigate his illness to
claim that it was due to a viral herpes infection. The
Prosecutor-General's Office then closed a criminal investigation
launched in October. Last weekend, the Austrian doctors who treated
Yushchenko stopped short of corroborating his claim that he had
deliberately been poisoned to derail his election campaign.
At a December 10 press conference in Kyiv, prior to visiting
Rudolfinerhaus for additional tests over the weekend, Yushchenko
characterized his poisoning as a "political reprisal." On returning
from Vienna on December 12, Yushchenko promised to shortly supply the
Ukrainian public with proof that "the authorities did it." "Time is
needed to complete this investigation," he said. And a serious
investigation will take place, if Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun
is to be trusted.
On December 11 Piskun re-launched the investigation, which had been
closed by his predecessor Hennady Vasylyev, a Yanukovych crony. Piskun
was fired by President Leonid Kuchma last year, replaced with
Vasylyev, and then reinstated as Prosecutor-General on December 10,
following a December 9 court verdict saying that his dismissal was
illegal. In an interview with the opposition weekly Svoboda on
December 14, Piskun expressed sympathy with the opposition protests
over the controversial November 21 runoff, which forced the
authorities to call a repeat election. Piskun said he would be
prepared to work under a new president.
Yushchenko welcomed the re-opening of the case, while the EU expressed
its concern over the potential implications. "If there has been a case
of deliberate poisoning, those who are responsible must be brought to
justice," declared Emma Udwin, an EU Commission spokeswoman (Reuters,
December 13). And Yanukovych, speaking on the same day, denied
complicity in Yushchenko's poisoning and wished him a speedy recovery.
The chairman of the parliamentary commission looking into Yushchenko's
poisoning, former KGB officer Volodymyr Sivkovych, called the Austrian
clinic's conclusions "nonsense." Sivkovych, whose obstinate belief in
the herpes diagnosis is shared by the Ukrainian authorities, lashed
out at Yushchenko's Vienna-based doctor Mykola Korpan, accusing him of
"having made a lot of statements based on God knows what." Sivkovych
said that his commission would not take the Austrian conclusions
seriously until it received "official documents." Yet not all of
Sivkovych's colleagues share his opinion. Oleksandr Volkov, another
member of the parliamentary commission who was once an influential
aide to Kuchma and now has become a vocal supporter of Yushchenko,
accused Sivkovych of politicizing the issue. The commission's work has
been effectively blocked by internal disagreements, and it is expected
to reconvene only after the December 26 election.
Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Health Oleksandr Orda, who has long
been jealous of Yushchenko's trust in foreign doctors, tried to cast
doubt on Rudolfinerhaus's credentials. "I would recommend the people
who tested Yushchenko's blood to read special literature on this," he
said. "It is impossible to determine the absence or presence of dioxin
from blood tests." Orda also stated that if Yuschenko was really
poisoned deliberately, it could not happen overnight. "In order for
dioxin to produce the effect on Yushchenko that we are observing now,
it must have been administered in small doses for some two,
two-and-a-half months," (Itar-Tass, December 13). Orda's Russian
counterpart holds a similar opinion. "Dioxin does not belong to [the
group of known] fast-acting poisons," according to Yuri Ostapenko,
head of the Russian Health Ministry's technology center (ORT, December
13). "The effect of poisoning will be felt some time later, from
several days to several weeks." If Orda and Ostapenko are right, the
suspicions of those observers who suggest that Yushchenko's early
September dinner with Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Ihor
Smeshko and his deputy, Volodymyr Satsyuk, and Yushchenko's subsequent
illness were not pure coincidence, may be groundless.
One of those observers, SBU general Valery Kravchenko, has hinted that
Moscow might have assisted Ukrainian secret agents. Talking to the
opposition TV Channel 5, Kravchenko, just released from prison
following his accusations against the authorities early this year of
spying on opposition figures abroad, suggested that Yushchenko may
have survived a plot by Ukrainian and Russian secret services thanks
to secret agents' "greediness." "Maybe they put too little poison," he
said. "Maybe they put only half of it to keep something for
themselves." Be that as it may, the Austrian clinic's conclusion that
Yushchenko was poisoned, rather than contracted a benign viral
infection, as his foes insist, is sure to gain him some points ahead
of the crucial runoff.
(Inter TV, UNIAN, December 10; Channel 5, December 9, 11, 13, 14;
Channel One (ORT), December 12; Itar-Tass, Interfax-Ukraine, Reuters,
December 13; Svoboda, December 14)
--Oleg Varfolomeyev
RUSSIA OPTS FOR PACIFIC ROUTE, BUT HELPING CHINA SAVE FACE
The Russian government is expected to make the final decision on the
destination of the Siberian oil pipeline as early as the next few
days. The pipeline would link the Russian oil fields near Taishet,
northwest of Lake Baikal, to either the Chinese city of Daqing or the
Russian Pacific port of Nakhodka (the so-called China route vs. the
Pacific route). The competition between China and Japan over the
direction of the pipeline has been well publicized. The expectation is
that the Russian government will announce its intention to build the
pipeline all the way to Nakhodka, from where it can export the
petroleum to a wide number of markets, rather than being tied to a
single Chinese market (Nikkei Shimbun, December 15).
Last May officials from Russia's state oil-pipeline monopoly,
Transneft, revealed that the Pacific route would go through Taishet,
Kazachinskoye, Tynda, Skovorodino, and Khabarovsk to Nakhodka,
crossing Russia's Irkutsk, Chita, Amur, Buryat, and Primor
regions. Crude would then be shipped to Japan, China, Korea,
Indonesia, and Australia (Itar-Tass, May 2). The estimated costs for
such a pipeline have swollen to $15 billion, but this figure does not
seem to be prohibitive to the Japanese, who have been actively
lobbying for the Pacific route, much to the dismay of Chinese
officials who were certain as recently as June 2002 that the pipeline
would terminate in Daqing. This was when Yukos seemed to have the
leading role in the development of the pipeline. Transneft has now
taken the leading role, and officials there have not been shy about
warning of the dangers of relying on a single Chinese market.
Many in Japan are speculating that the decision to go with the Pacific
route has already been made and that the announcement is strictly pro
forma (Nikkei Shimbun, December 15). The decision, when it does come,
will have the potential to greatly affect -- and complicate --
Moscow's relations with China and Japan.
The Russian government indicated as early as March that it favored the
Pacific route, primarily for strategic reasons. As it turns out,
domestic politics may also have a large deal to do with the ultimate
decision, as Yukos is now literally about to have its cake eaten, and
Transneft and Gazprom seem to have a firm grip on Far Eastern oil and
gas projects. Additionally, as one analyst has pointed out, economic
and financial issues have "taken a back seat in project decisions."
President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov have
stated that the new pipelines will remain state property and that
there are no plans to allow private players -- foreign or domestic --
entry into the transportation of oil or natural gas (Russia Profile,
November 29).
The fact that Russia has not made a big deal of the impending
announcement is perhaps meant to keep the Chinese from losing face and
being offended, should the decision go for the Pacific route as
expected. China and Russia are in the middle of a period of tremendous
interaction, with a border demarcation agreement having recently been
signed and with the high-profile visit by Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov to China earlier this week. During Ivanov's visit the
two sides agreed to conduct the first joint military exercises in
decades (China People's Daily, December 14).
In a nod to addressing China's energy concerns, some officials from
Russia have indicated that eventually a spur will be opened running to
Daqing in northeastern China (Nikkei Shimbun, December 15). In a move
highlighting China's desire to access Russian energy sources, the
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is expected to make a bid
for the Russian oil company Yuganskneftegaz at a public auction on
December 19. A similar bid submitted by CNPC for a part of Slavneft in
2002 failed after an intense lobbying campaign by Russian lawmakers to
exclude the Chinese company. CNPC will have to compete with
Gazpromneft for the prize (a controlling 74% share of
Yuganskneftegaz), but the Chinese have deep pockets and, they are
expected to offer up to $20 billion (Kommersant, December 10).
Although an announcement on the pipeline terminus may be expected at
any moment, if no decision is made, then it can be assumed that the
Russian government is wary of damaging its relations with China at a
time when relations with the United States are on shaky ground.
--Henry Weidel
KAZAKHSTAN SEEKS DIVERSE SECURITY PARTNERS
Kazakhstan has opened a new hanger at a military air base in
Karaganda, both commemorating Independence Day (December 15) and
highlighting its image as a regional power prepared to take its place
in constructing regional security and combating terrorism. Hailing the
development at Karaganda as the first of its kind within the CIS,
since the base will serve as a facility for repairing and restoring
air force equipment, Kazakhstani military authorities regard the
facility as further evidence that the country is ready to play an
active part in countering the threat posed by international terrorism
(Khabar Television, December 15).
The hanger itself, estimated at around 3,000 square km, took two years
to construct and includes special laboratories for testing related
electronics equipment. It is able to hold two fighters of MiG-31
capacity and perhaps carry out repairs on Boeing passenger aircraft,
given the height of the hanger. Equally possible, based on
Kazakhstan's close relationship within the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and its growing bilateral ties with Russia, would
be the future deployment and repair of Russian combat aircraft
carrying out strike missions within Central Asia.
In recent years the Kazakhstani military has struggled to come to
terms with the problems of Soviet-legacy forces and failed to find
adequate mechanisms to capitalize on the U.S. financing for overseas
training for its officers. Many officers return to Kazakhstan unable
to utilize their education and assist in. improving local
standards. This positive development comes at a time when efforts are
being stepped up to cement ties with both Russia and China.
Nurtay Abykayev, chairman of Kazakhstan's Senate, believes that the
visit to Kazakhstan by a delegation from the Russian Federation
Council "crowns a major set of events carried out as part of the Year
of Russia in Kazakhstan, which is nearing completion, and the Year of
Kazakhstan in Russia that preceded it," (Itar-Tass, December
13). Sergei Mironov, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council,
believes such multilateral institutions as the Eurasian Economic
Community, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Central
Asian Cooperation Organization, combined with the Single Economic
Space serve as "a basis for multilateral integration that enables us
to look into the future with confidence." Mironov, no doubt also
carrying a political overture from the Kremlin, conveyed praise on the
Kazakhstani government for cooperation in the spirit of a strategic
partnership with Russia in the mutually important areas of
counter-terrorism and stemming the flow of illegal narcotics across
the porous Kazakhstan-Russia border.Simultaneously, Kazakhstan has
proceeded to strengthen its evolving security ties with China, pulled
together by mutual concerns over Uighur separatists. Kasymzhomart
Tokayev, Kazakhstan's foreign minister, has described Kazakhstan's
relations with China as the cornerstone of future foreign
policy. Though this principally involves oil and gas cooperation,
serving to deepen the nature of bilateral relations, security factors
are playing an increasing role in determining the specific contours of
cooperation. Tokayev observed, "We believe that military exercises
should have a specific context and purpose. At a time when the main
threat to the modern world and security is international terrorism,
such exercises should be aimed at counteracting specific threats posed
by terrorist organizations" (Interfax-Kazakhstan, December 15).
Such diplomatic moves, while understood in some Western capitals,
underscore Washington's lack of any genuine and deep recognition of
Kazakhstan's security needs. The Kazakhstani authorities, like many
other states both inside the region and beyond, refuse to openly admit
the presence of an indigenous terrorist threat. The mounting evidence
of the involvement of Kazakhstani citizens in the bombings in Tashkent
in spring 2004, at first vehemently denied in Astana but later
witnessing intelligence and security cooperation in the ensuing
investigation, has also been exacerbated by reports of Kazakhstani
citizens held in Guantanamo Bay. Four Kazakhstani citizens
incarcerated by the U.S. government became involved in militant
Islamic activities in an area south of Almaty and developed links with
the Taliban. The Kazakhstani Foreign Ministry has applied intense
diplomatic pressure in order to secure their return to
Kazakhstan. Sensitive negotiations relating to Kazakhstani nationals,
far from simply highlighting the vast international diversity of the
suspects involved in the war on terror, draw attention to Kazakhstan's
unspoken security problems. Its main security threats are domestic in
nature, and although the authorities are able to reluctantly cooperate
with their Uzbek counterparts in a criminal investigation into the
terrorist attacks in Tashkent, officials realize that some elements of
its citizenry may be involved in terrorist or militant
organizations. Such rationale explains the security priority in
cooperating with China over Uighur separatists. In other words, there
is a genuine state concern with the threat posed by certain groups or
individuals and there is that which gains the government financial aid
packages from abroad -- emphasizing the nature of international
terrorism and its threat to Kazakhstan. Washington may rationalize
Kazakhstan's official "multi-vector" foreign policy, seeking to avoid
favoring any one state in its international relations, but the
emergence of China and re-emergence of Russia in the security dynamics
of the region, neither of which promote democracy or Western economic
interests, will continue to cause bewilderment until such times as
planners in the United States recognize how deftly the Kazakhstani
government is playing the game of maximizing foreign security
assistance in return for little by way of genuine reform.
--Roger N. McDermott
OSCE "REFORM" -- OR A NEW LEASE ON LIFE?
With two weeks remaining from the OSCE's 2004 budgetary authorization,
Moscow threatens to block adoption of the 2005 budget unless the
organization introduces Russian-proposed "reforms." Those proposals
seek to: boost the OSCE's role in the military-political and security
sphere, where Russia can and does manipulate the organization;
emasculate the OSCE in the democracy sphere, where the organization
can and does operate independently of Russia; and curtail overall
Western influence in the OSCE by restricting extra-budgetary funding
of the organization.
Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Minister
Vladimir Chizhov, and other officials pushed those proposals
forcefully at the OSCE's year-end conference in Sofia on December 6-7,
and continue to do so afterwards. Moscow argues that OSCE activities
are doubly imbalanced: functionally, by focusing selectively on
democracy issues while neglecting all-European military-security
issues; and geographically, by focusing on political developments in
post-Soviet countries while ignoring what Moscow describes as flawed
elections and human-rights violations in Western countries and their
new allies.
The "reform" proposals target three OSCE institutions and processes:
the Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
(ODIHR), which specializes in monitoring elections throughout the OSCE
area; the organization's field missions; and its budget-formation
procedures. Russian officials continually refer to reform proposals
advanced by the presidents of eight CIS countries in their July 3 and
September 15 collective statements to the OSCE. At the Sofia year-end
meeting, however, only Belarus acted as a convinced supporter of those
reform proposals.
The joint Russia-Belarus proposal calls for tasking ODIHR to: take
into account the work done in the CIS on developing election
standards; use those standards, alongside Western ones, in working out
a "common, uniform set of criteria" for OSCE-CIS appraisals of
elections; increase the proportion of CIS countries' representatives
in ODIHR election observation missions; finance election observation
through the OSCE's unified budget only [i.e., disallowing Western
countries' contributions; these do not require Russian approval,
whereas the unified budget does].
Russia and Belarus gave the OSCE until June 30, 2005, to introduce
these changes, and the organization's Permanent Council to adopt new
political guidelines for OSCE/ODIHR election monitoring in line with
those changes. In a similar vein, the statement by CIS Executive
Committee Chairman and Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo called
for "coordination" of OSCE/ODIHR and CIS election observation
missions, with a view to issuing "joint assessments" of elections. As
is often the case, Russia spoke on the collective behalf of the CIS
without reflecting a consensus among those 12 countries. In the
end-game negotiations on the draft final declaration, Armenia proposed
inserting a positive reference to developing a common OSCE-CIS set of
election standards. Armenia had similarly lined up behind Russia and
Belarus in accepting the fraudulent election of Viktor Yanukovych as
president of Ukraine.
Had such "reforms" been in place, OSCE/ODIHR could not have
ascertained the electoral fraud in Ukraine, would have joined the
Rushailo-led CIS monitoring mission in blessing the fraudulent
returns, and would have been prevented from deciding -- as it did at
Sofia -- to send and fund observers to the repeat runoff in Ukraine.
To "reform" the OSCE's field missions, Russia proposes to: restrict
the missions' extra-budgetary funding, which mostly consists of
above-board contributions by Western countries to local pro-democracy
activities; confine the scope of missions' activities to socioeconomic
projects requested by host countries' authorities; limit the missions'
mandate to one-year renewable terms, subject to the host government's
agreement each time; and increase the proportion of representatives of
certain CIS member countries in OSCE field missions. The
organization's German-led Minsk Office was "reformed" already in 2003
along these lines.
The proposed budgetary "reform" would entail: revising the scales of
OSCE member countries' contributions "according to their ability to
pay" [i.e., reducing CIS countries' contributions]; ending or curbing
the practice of extra-budgetary funding of the OSCE in general [thus
cutting the organization's overall financial resources]; and
establishing budget formation procedures that would, in their
practical effect, severely restrict the OSCE's ability to function
without Russia's or its supporters' approval.
Russia gave the OSCE until December 31 to commit itself to proceeding
down this road. "In the absence of firm obligations on this score, we
cannot vote the 2005 budget," Lavrov and Chizhov both warned. Their
statements and those of other Russian officials before, during, and
after the Sofia meeting strongly suggested that Russia can either keep
the OSCE in business or push it toward demise ("throw it on the
sidelines of history," in Lavrov's unreferenced paraphrase of
Trotsky), depending on the extent to which it cooperates with Russian
policies.
Such warnings exploit the OSCE's structural vulnerabilities, fear of
demise through irrelevance, awareness of its rapidly diminishing
raisons d'etre -- save election-monitoring, which Moscow now wants to
rein in -- and its disposition to give in to Russia year after year in
the military-security sphere as a price of remaining a player in that
sphere. Anxious about institutional survival, and damaged by Russia
perhaps irreparably at the 2002 Porto and 2003 Maastricht year-end
meetings over a wide range of security and democracy issues, the OSCE
hides its weaknesses and failures from public view. It prefers to
paper over the problems, instead of debating them openly and exposing
Russia's tactics.
At the Sofia meeting, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that the
United States "categorically disagreed" with Russian proposals to
shift OSCE's focus away from democracy building in post-Soviet
countries. The European Union spoke out in a similar vein. Dutch
Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Bot, speaking for the EU's
presidency on behalf of all member countries, as well as the External
Relations and European Neighborhood Commissioner Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, both ruled out any reduction of OSCE
democracy-building activities, or a "rebalancing" of security and
pro-democracy goals at the expense of the latter. Whether this stance,
taken in the year-end meeting's media limelight, can hold in the
non-transparent give-and-take with Russia.
The OSCE's incoming Slovenian Chairmanship for 2005 sounds
anxious. According to that country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, OSCE
Chairman-in-Office-designate Dimitrji Rupel, in his closing statement
at Sofia, "Foremost among these challenges . . . is the fissure in
relations [between] East and West. As a stark reflection of this
regrettable reality . . . the more we talk of no new dividing lines in
Europe, the more we are confronted with them. I therefore read
carefully the Moscow declaration and Astana address of Presidents of
CIS states . . . a resounding expression of dissatisfaction at the
highest level, which has to be taken into account. I intend to work
relentlessly to address this situation." Pointing to the urgent need
to adopt the 2005 budget before the end of 2004, Rupel stated,
"Without this, the very functioning of the organization would be in
jeopardy . . . . My biggest concern at the moment is to avert a
political stalemate in the organization."
If that concern is overriding -- and Russian tactics are indeed
designed to make it the overriding concern for the OSCE -- then the
temptation may well persist to ensure the organization's survival
through continuing concessions to Russia regarding the "frozen
conflicts," CFE Treaty and Istanbul Commitment implementation, border
monitoring, and other security issues, as well as using the OSCE to
reopen ethnic issues in Estonia and Latvia at Russian insistence. That
approach would only deepen the OSCE's crisis.
Russian duress and for the third consecutive year, the OSCE at Sofia
was unable even to cite its own earlier resolutions; let alone call,
if only symbolically, for their implementation. The organization lost
the final vestiges of its credibility in the security sphere at the
Sofia meeting.
That repeat failure, however, points the OSCE's way out of
crisis. Election monitoring, promotion of good governance, and
democratic institution building in post-Soviet countries are
compelling raisons d'etre for the organization. It is in the democracy
sphere that the OSCE can bring its comparative advantages to
bear. This, not Russian-prescribed "reforms," can provide the OSCE
with a new lease on life.
(Documents of the OSCE's 2004 year-end ministerial conference, Vienna
and Sofia, December 1-8; Interfax, RIA-Novosti, December 9-12).
--Vladimir Socor
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Thursday, December 16 -- Volume 1, Issue 148
EURASIA DAILY MONITOR
IN THIS ISSUE:
*Kyiv re-opens investigation into Yushchenko's illness
*Decision imminent on Siberian oil pipeline
*Astana unveils new hanger at Karaganda air base
*Moscow creates political stalemate inside OSCE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WAS YUSHCHENKO POISONED?
Ahead of the December 26 repeat presidential runoff, which will again
pit opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko against Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych, debate has resumed over Yushchenko's mysterious
illness. On December 11, the Vienna-based Rudolfinerhaus clinic
announced that Yushchenko had definitely been poisoned by dioxin, a
highly toxic substances that is difficult to neutralize. Yushchenko
turned to Rudolfinerhaus in September, complaining of severe stomach
and back pain.
His face remains distorted by ulcers and pockmarks, which prompted the
ad hoc parliamentary commission set up to investigate his illness to
claim that it was due to a viral herpes infection. The
Prosecutor-General's Office then closed a criminal investigation
launched in October. Last weekend, the Austrian doctors who treated
Yushchenko stopped short of corroborating his claim that he had
deliberately been poisoned to derail his election campaign.
At a December 10 press conference in Kyiv, prior to visiting
Rudolfinerhaus for additional tests over the weekend, Yushchenko
characterized his poisoning as a "political reprisal." On returning
from Vienna on December 12, Yushchenko promised to shortly supply the
Ukrainian public with proof that "the authorities did it." "Time is
needed to complete this investigation," he said. And a serious
investigation will take place, if Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun
is to be trusted.
On December 11 Piskun re-launched the investigation, which had been
closed by his predecessor Hennady Vasylyev, a Yanukovych crony. Piskun
was fired by President Leonid Kuchma last year, replaced with
Vasylyev, and then reinstated as Prosecutor-General on December 10,
following a December 9 court verdict saying that his dismissal was
illegal. In an interview with the opposition weekly Svoboda on
December 14, Piskun expressed sympathy with the opposition protests
over the controversial November 21 runoff, which forced the
authorities to call a repeat election. Piskun said he would be
prepared to work under a new president.
Yushchenko welcomed the re-opening of the case, while the EU expressed
its concern over the potential implications. "If there has been a case
of deliberate poisoning, those who are responsible must be brought to
justice," declared Emma Udwin, an EU Commission spokeswoman (Reuters,
December 13). And Yanukovych, speaking on the same day, denied
complicity in Yushchenko's poisoning and wished him a speedy recovery.
The chairman of the parliamentary commission looking into Yushchenko's
poisoning, former KGB officer Volodymyr Sivkovych, called the Austrian
clinic's conclusions "nonsense." Sivkovych, whose obstinate belief in
the herpes diagnosis is shared by the Ukrainian authorities, lashed
out at Yushchenko's Vienna-based doctor Mykola Korpan, accusing him of
"having made a lot of statements based on God knows what." Sivkovych
said that his commission would not take the Austrian conclusions
seriously until it received "official documents." Yet not all of
Sivkovych's colleagues share his opinion. Oleksandr Volkov, another
member of the parliamentary commission who was once an influential
aide to Kuchma and now has become a vocal supporter of Yushchenko,
accused Sivkovych of politicizing the issue. The commission's work has
been effectively blocked by internal disagreements, and it is expected
to reconvene only after the December 26 election.
Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Health Oleksandr Orda, who has long
been jealous of Yushchenko's trust in foreign doctors, tried to cast
doubt on Rudolfinerhaus's credentials. "I would recommend the people
who tested Yushchenko's blood to read special literature on this," he
said. "It is impossible to determine the absence or presence of dioxin
from blood tests." Orda also stated that if Yuschenko was really
poisoned deliberately, it could not happen overnight. "In order for
dioxin to produce the effect on Yushchenko that we are observing now,
it must have been administered in small doses for some two,
two-and-a-half months," (Itar-Tass, December 13). Orda's Russian
counterpart holds a similar opinion. "Dioxin does not belong to [the
group of known] fast-acting poisons," according to Yuri Ostapenko,
head of the Russian Health Ministry's technology center (ORT, December
13). "The effect of poisoning will be felt some time later, from
several days to several weeks." If Orda and Ostapenko are right, the
suspicions of those observers who suggest that Yushchenko's early
September dinner with Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Ihor
Smeshko and his deputy, Volodymyr Satsyuk, and Yushchenko's subsequent
illness were not pure coincidence, may be groundless.
One of those observers, SBU general Valery Kravchenko, has hinted that
Moscow might have assisted Ukrainian secret agents. Talking to the
opposition TV Channel 5, Kravchenko, just released from prison
following his accusations against the authorities early this year of
spying on opposition figures abroad, suggested that Yushchenko may
have survived a plot by Ukrainian and Russian secret services thanks
to secret agents' "greediness." "Maybe they put too little poison," he
said. "Maybe they put only half of it to keep something for
themselves." Be that as it may, the Austrian clinic's conclusion that
Yushchenko was poisoned, rather than contracted a benign viral
infection, as his foes insist, is sure to gain him some points ahead
of the crucial runoff.
(Inter TV, UNIAN, December 10; Channel 5, December 9, 11, 13, 14;
Channel One (ORT), December 12; Itar-Tass, Interfax-Ukraine, Reuters,
December 13; Svoboda, December 14)
--Oleg Varfolomeyev
RUSSIA OPTS FOR PACIFIC ROUTE, BUT HELPING CHINA SAVE FACE
The Russian government is expected to make the final decision on the
destination of the Siberian oil pipeline as early as the next few
days. The pipeline would link the Russian oil fields near Taishet,
northwest of Lake Baikal, to either the Chinese city of Daqing or the
Russian Pacific port of Nakhodka (the so-called China route vs. the
Pacific route). The competition between China and Japan over the
direction of the pipeline has been well publicized. The expectation is
that the Russian government will announce its intention to build the
pipeline all the way to Nakhodka, from where it can export the
petroleum to a wide number of markets, rather than being tied to a
single Chinese market (Nikkei Shimbun, December 15).
Last May officials from Russia's state oil-pipeline monopoly,
Transneft, revealed that the Pacific route would go through Taishet,
Kazachinskoye, Tynda, Skovorodino, and Khabarovsk to Nakhodka,
crossing Russia's Irkutsk, Chita, Amur, Buryat, and Primor
regions. Crude would then be shipped to Japan, China, Korea,
Indonesia, and Australia (Itar-Tass, May 2). The estimated costs for
such a pipeline have swollen to $15 billion, but this figure does not
seem to be prohibitive to the Japanese, who have been actively
lobbying for the Pacific route, much to the dismay of Chinese
officials who were certain as recently as June 2002 that the pipeline
would terminate in Daqing. This was when Yukos seemed to have the
leading role in the development of the pipeline. Transneft has now
taken the leading role, and officials there have not been shy about
warning of the dangers of relying on a single Chinese market.
Many in Japan are speculating that the decision to go with the Pacific
route has already been made and that the announcement is strictly pro
forma (Nikkei Shimbun, December 15). The decision, when it does come,
will have the potential to greatly affect -- and complicate --
Moscow's relations with China and Japan.
The Russian government indicated as early as March that it favored the
Pacific route, primarily for strategic reasons. As it turns out,
domestic politics may also have a large deal to do with the ultimate
decision, as Yukos is now literally about to have its cake eaten, and
Transneft and Gazprom seem to have a firm grip on Far Eastern oil and
gas projects. Additionally, as one analyst has pointed out, economic
and financial issues have "taken a back seat in project decisions."
President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov have
stated that the new pipelines will remain state property and that
there are no plans to allow private players -- foreign or domestic --
entry into the transportation of oil or natural gas (Russia Profile,
November 29).
The fact that Russia has not made a big deal of the impending
announcement is perhaps meant to keep the Chinese from losing face and
being offended, should the decision go for the Pacific route as
expected. China and Russia are in the middle of a period of tremendous
interaction, with a border demarcation agreement having recently been
signed and with the high-profile visit by Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov to China earlier this week. During Ivanov's visit the
two sides agreed to conduct the first joint military exercises in
decades (China People's Daily, December 14).
In a nod to addressing China's energy concerns, some officials from
Russia have indicated that eventually a spur will be opened running to
Daqing in northeastern China (Nikkei Shimbun, December 15). In a move
highlighting China's desire to access Russian energy sources, the
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is expected to make a bid
for the Russian oil company Yuganskneftegaz at a public auction on
December 19. A similar bid submitted by CNPC for a part of Slavneft in
2002 failed after an intense lobbying campaign by Russian lawmakers to
exclude the Chinese company. CNPC will have to compete with
Gazpromneft for the prize (a controlling 74% share of
Yuganskneftegaz), but the Chinese have deep pockets and, they are
expected to offer up to $20 billion (Kommersant, December 10).
Although an announcement on the pipeline terminus may be expected at
any moment, if no decision is made, then it can be assumed that the
Russian government is wary of damaging its relations with China at a
time when relations with the United States are on shaky ground.
--Henry Weidel
KAZAKHSTAN SEEKS DIVERSE SECURITY PARTNERS
Kazakhstan has opened a new hanger at a military air base in
Karaganda, both commemorating Independence Day (December 15) and
highlighting its image as a regional power prepared to take its place
in constructing regional security and combating terrorism. Hailing the
development at Karaganda as the first of its kind within the CIS,
since the base will serve as a facility for repairing and restoring
air force equipment, Kazakhstani military authorities regard the
facility as further evidence that the country is ready to play an
active part in countering the threat posed by international terrorism
(Khabar Television, December 15).
The hanger itself, estimated at around 3,000 square km, took two years
to construct and includes special laboratories for testing related
electronics equipment. It is able to hold two fighters of MiG-31
capacity and perhaps carry out repairs on Boeing passenger aircraft,
given the height of the hanger. Equally possible, based on
Kazakhstan's close relationship within the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) and its growing bilateral ties with Russia, would
be the future deployment and repair of Russian combat aircraft
carrying out strike missions within Central Asia.
In recent years the Kazakhstani military has struggled to come to
terms with the problems of Soviet-legacy forces and failed to find
adequate mechanisms to capitalize on the U.S. financing for overseas
training for its officers. Many officers return to Kazakhstan unable
to utilize their education and assist in. improving local
standards. This positive development comes at a time when efforts are
being stepped up to cement ties with both Russia and China.
Nurtay Abykayev, chairman of Kazakhstan's Senate, believes that the
visit to Kazakhstan by a delegation from the Russian Federation
Council "crowns a major set of events carried out as part of the Year
of Russia in Kazakhstan, which is nearing completion, and the Year of
Kazakhstan in Russia that preceded it," (Itar-Tass, December
13). Sergei Mironov, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council,
believes such multilateral institutions as the Eurasian Economic
Community, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Central
Asian Cooperation Organization, combined with the Single Economic
Space serve as "a basis for multilateral integration that enables us
to look into the future with confidence." Mironov, no doubt also
carrying a political overture from the Kremlin, conveyed praise on the
Kazakhstani government for cooperation in the spirit of a strategic
partnership with Russia in the mutually important areas of
counter-terrorism and stemming the flow of illegal narcotics across
the porous Kazakhstan-Russia border.Simultaneously, Kazakhstan has
proceeded to strengthen its evolving security ties with China, pulled
together by mutual concerns over Uighur separatists. Kasymzhomart
Tokayev, Kazakhstan's foreign minister, has described Kazakhstan's
relations with China as the cornerstone of future foreign
policy. Though this principally involves oil and gas cooperation,
serving to deepen the nature of bilateral relations, security factors
are playing an increasing role in determining the specific contours of
cooperation. Tokayev observed, "We believe that military exercises
should have a specific context and purpose. At a time when the main
threat to the modern world and security is international terrorism,
such exercises should be aimed at counteracting specific threats posed
by terrorist organizations" (Interfax-Kazakhstan, December 15).
Such diplomatic moves, while understood in some Western capitals,
underscore Washington's lack of any genuine and deep recognition of
Kazakhstan's security needs. The Kazakhstani authorities, like many
other states both inside the region and beyond, refuse to openly admit
the presence of an indigenous terrorist threat. The mounting evidence
of the involvement of Kazakhstani citizens in the bombings in Tashkent
in spring 2004, at first vehemently denied in Astana but later
witnessing intelligence and security cooperation in the ensuing
investigation, has also been exacerbated by reports of Kazakhstani
citizens held in Guantanamo Bay. Four Kazakhstani citizens
incarcerated by the U.S. government became involved in militant
Islamic activities in an area south of Almaty and developed links with
the Taliban. The Kazakhstani Foreign Ministry has applied intense
diplomatic pressure in order to secure their return to
Kazakhstan. Sensitive negotiations relating to Kazakhstani nationals,
far from simply highlighting the vast international diversity of the
suspects involved in the war on terror, draw attention to Kazakhstan's
unspoken security problems. Its main security threats are domestic in
nature, and although the authorities are able to reluctantly cooperate
with their Uzbek counterparts in a criminal investigation into the
terrorist attacks in Tashkent, officials realize that some elements of
its citizenry may be involved in terrorist or militant
organizations. Such rationale explains the security priority in
cooperating with China over Uighur separatists. In other words, there
is a genuine state concern with the threat posed by certain groups or
individuals and there is that which gains the government financial aid
packages from abroad -- emphasizing the nature of international
terrorism and its threat to Kazakhstan. Washington may rationalize
Kazakhstan's official "multi-vector" foreign policy, seeking to avoid
favoring any one state in its international relations, but the
emergence of China and re-emergence of Russia in the security dynamics
of the region, neither of which promote democracy or Western economic
interests, will continue to cause bewilderment until such times as
planners in the United States recognize how deftly the Kazakhstani
government is playing the game of maximizing foreign security
assistance in return for little by way of genuine reform.
--Roger N. McDermott
OSCE "REFORM" -- OR A NEW LEASE ON LIFE?
With two weeks remaining from the OSCE's 2004 budgetary authorization,
Moscow threatens to block adoption of the 2005 budget unless the
organization introduces Russian-proposed "reforms." Those proposals
seek to: boost the OSCE's role in the military-political and security
sphere, where Russia can and does manipulate the organization;
emasculate the OSCE in the democracy sphere, where the organization
can and does operate independently of Russia; and curtail overall
Western influence in the OSCE by restricting extra-budgetary funding
of the organization.
Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Minister
Vladimir Chizhov, and other officials pushed those proposals
forcefully at the OSCE's year-end conference in Sofia on December 6-7,
and continue to do so afterwards. Moscow argues that OSCE activities
are doubly imbalanced: functionally, by focusing selectively on
democracy issues while neglecting all-European military-security
issues; and geographically, by focusing on political developments in
post-Soviet countries while ignoring what Moscow describes as flawed
elections and human-rights violations in Western countries and their
new allies.
The "reform" proposals target three OSCE institutions and processes:
the Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
(ODIHR), which specializes in monitoring elections throughout the OSCE
area; the organization's field missions; and its budget-formation
procedures. Russian officials continually refer to reform proposals
advanced by the presidents of eight CIS countries in their July 3 and
September 15 collective statements to the OSCE. At the Sofia year-end
meeting, however, only Belarus acted as a convinced supporter of those
reform proposals.
The joint Russia-Belarus proposal calls for tasking ODIHR to: take
into account the work done in the CIS on developing election
standards; use those standards, alongside Western ones, in working out
a "common, uniform set of criteria" for OSCE-CIS appraisals of
elections; increase the proportion of CIS countries' representatives
in ODIHR election observation missions; finance election observation
through the OSCE's unified budget only [i.e., disallowing Western
countries' contributions; these do not require Russian approval,
whereas the unified budget does].
Russia and Belarus gave the OSCE until June 30, 2005, to introduce
these changes, and the organization's Permanent Council to adopt new
political guidelines for OSCE/ODIHR election monitoring in line with
those changes. In a similar vein, the statement by CIS Executive
Committee Chairman and Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo called
for "coordination" of OSCE/ODIHR and CIS election observation
missions, with a view to issuing "joint assessments" of elections. As
is often the case, Russia spoke on the collective behalf of the CIS
without reflecting a consensus among those 12 countries. In the
end-game negotiations on the draft final declaration, Armenia proposed
inserting a positive reference to developing a common OSCE-CIS set of
election standards. Armenia had similarly lined up behind Russia and
Belarus in accepting the fraudulent election of Viktor Yanukovych as
president of Ukraine.
Had such "reforms" been in place, OSCE/ODIHR could not have
ascertained the electoral fraud in Ukraine, would have joined the
Rushailo-led CIS monitoring mission in blessing the fraudulent
returns, and would have been prevented from deciding -- as it did at
Sofia -- to send and fund observers to the repeat runoff in Ukraine.
To "reform" the OSCE's field missions, Russia proposes to: restrict
the missions' extra-budgetary funding, which mostly consists of
above-board contributions by Western countries to local pro-democracy
activities; confine the scope of missions' activities to socioeconomic
projects requested by host countries' authorities; limit the missions'
mandate to one-year renewable terms, subject to the host government's
agreement each time; and increase the proportion of representatives of
certain CIS member countries in OSCE field missions. The
organization's German-led Minsk Office was "reformed" already in 2003
along these lines.
The proposed budgetary "reform" would entail: revising the scales of
OSCE member countries' contributions "according to their ability to
pay" [i.e., reducing CIS countries' contributions]; ending or curbing
the practice of extra-budgetary funding of the OSCE in general [thus
cutting the organization's overall financial resources]; and
establishing budget formation procedures that would, in their
practical effect, severely restrict the OSCE's ability to function
without Russia's or its supporters' approval.
Russia gave the OSCE until December 31 to commit itself to proceeding
down this road. "In the absence of firm obligations on this score, we
cannot vote the 2005 budget," Lavrov and Chizhov both warned. Their
statements and those of other Russian officials before, during, and
after the Sofia meeting strongly suggested that Russia can either keep
the OSCE in business or push it toward demise ("throw it on the
sidelines of history," in Lavrov's unreferenced paraphrase of
Trotsky), depending on the extent to which it cooperates with Russian
policies.
Such warnings exploit the OSCE's structural vulnerabilities, fear of
demise through irrelevance, awareness of its rapidly diminishing
raisons d'etre -- save election-monitoring, which Moscow now wants to
rein in -- and its disposition to give in to Russia year after year in
the military-security sphere as a price of remaining a player in that
sphere. Anxious about institutional survival, and damaged by Russia
perhaps irreparably at the 2002 Porto and 2003 Maastricht year-end
meetings over a wide range of security and democracy issues, the OSCE
hides its weaknesses and failures from public view. It prefers to
paper over the problems, instead of debating them openly and exposing
Russia's tactics.
At the Sofia meeting, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that the
United States "categorically disagreed" with Russian proposals to
shift OSCE's focus away from democracy building in post-Soviet
countries. The European Union spoke out in a similar vein. Dutch
Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Bot, speaking for the EU's
presidency on behalf of all member countries, as well as the External
Relations and European Neighborhood Commissioner Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, both ruled out any reduction of OSCE
democracy-building activities, or a "rebalancing" of security and
pro-democracy goals at the expense of the latter. Whether this stance,
taken in the year-end meeting's media limelight, can hold in the
non-transparent give-and-take with Russia.
The OSCE's incoming Slovenian Chairmanship for 2005 sounds
anxious. According to that country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, OSCE
Chairman-in-Office-designate Dimitrji Rupel, in his closing statement
at Sofia, "Foremost among these challenges . . . is the fissure in
relations [between] East and West. As a stark reflection of this
regrettable reality . . . the more we talk of no new dividing lines in
Europe, the more we are confronted with them. I therefore read
carefully the Moscow declaration and Astana address of Presidents of
CIS states . . . a resounding expression of dissatisfaction at the
highest level, which has to be taken into account. I intend to work
relentlessly to address this situation." Pointing to the urgent need
to adopt the 2005 budget before the end of 2004, Rupel stated,
"Without this, the very functioning of the organization would be in
jeopardy . . . . My biggest concern at the moment is to avert a
political stalemate in the organization."
If that concern is overriding -- and Russian tactics are indeed
designed to make it the overriding concern for the OSCE -- then the
temptation may well persist to ensure the organization's survival
through continuing concessions to Russia regarding the "frozen
conflicts," CFE Treaty and Istanbul Commitment implementation, border
monitoring, and other security issues, as well as using the OSCE to
reopen ethnic issues in Estonia and Latvia at Russian insistence. That
approach would only deepen the OSCE's crisis.
Russian duress and for the third consecutive year, the OSCE at Sofia
was unable even to cite its own earlier resolutions; let alone call,
if only symbolically, for their implementation. The organization lost
the final vestiges of its credibility in the security sphere at the
Sofia meeting.
That repeat failure, however, points the OSCE's way out of
crisis. Election monitoring, promotion of good governance, and
democratic institution building in post-Soviet countries are
compelling raisons d'etre for the organization. It is in the democracy
sphere that the OSCE can bring its comparative advantages to
bear. This, not Russian-prescribed "reforms," can provide the OSCE
with a new lease on life.
(Documents of the OSCE's 2004 year-end ministerial conference, Vienna
and Sofia, December 1-8; Interfax, RIA-Novosti, December 9-12).
--Vladimir Socor
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