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Eurasia Daily Monitor - 01/05/2004

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  • Eurasia Daily Monitor - 01/05/2004

    The Jamestown Foundation
    Wednesday, January 5, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 3
    EURASIA DAILY MONITOR

    IN THIS ISSUE:


    *Yerevan agrees to add troops to Polish force in Iraq
    *New Islamic terrorist group emerges in Tajikistan
    *As tensions increase with West, Russia must look to China for allies
    *New documentary implicates Russia in second attempt to murder Yushchenko

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    ARMENIA TO DEPLOY TOKEN CONTINGENT TO IRAQ


    On December 24, the Armenian parliament approved a symbolic deployment
    of Armenian military personnel as part of the U.S.-led coalition in
    Iraq. The vote was 91-23, with one abstention, after a seven-hour
    closed session late into the night. A last-hour switch by the
    opposition National Unity Party of Artashes Geghamian ensured the wide
    margin for passing a deeply unpopular decision, made palatable to the
    public by the token size of the troop commitment. The Armenian
    Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutiun, a component of the governing
    coalition, voted against the deployment, as did the opposition Justice
    bloc.



    Technically, the parliament was voting to ratify Armenia's signature
    on the Memorandum of Understanding with Poland -- lead country of the
    multinational force in south-central Iraq -- on the deployment of
    Armenian personnel with that force. Armenia is the nineteenth country
    to become a party to that Memorandum.



    The Defense Ministry has announced that the Armenian contingent is
    ready for deployment as of January 5, but has not made public any
    specific date for actual deployment. The ministry had adumbrated that
    possibility with Washington as well as with the Armenian public since
    late 2003, but it has taken more than a year to put it into
    practice. The uncertainty and delays have inspired remarks that Poland
    might withdraw from Iraq before the Armenians ever arrive, thus
    rendering any Armenian deployment moot.



    The parliament also approved the Defense Ministry's concept of sending
    46 personnel to Iraq for one year. The group consists of: two
    officers, one signals specialist, 30 drivers, ten sappers, and three
    medical doctors with civilian specialties. Armenian personnel are not
    to participate in combat, but only in humanitarian activities. They
    are also barred from any joint actions with Azerbaijani troops in
    Iraq. The Armenian group will deploy without equipment, and Yerevan
    will only pay the soldiers' base salaries. Coalition forces in the
    theater will provide the equipment, and the United States almost all
    the funding for the Armenian group.



    Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian is the prime mover behind this
    mission, not only in the military but also in the internal political
    arena. Sarkisian argues that Armenia cannot afford to stand aside and
    risk forfeiting U.S. goodwill at a time when Azerbaijan and Georgia
    are present with troops in Iraq (and elsewhere) to support the United
    States. Sarkisian's political statements obliquely suggest that the
    Iraq deployment would raise Armenia's standing in Washington, mitigate
    what he terms "discriminatory" treatment there, and earn a title to
    more favorable consideration of Armenian interests in the
    region. Without publicly alluding to the Karabakh issue in this
    context, Sarkisian has hinted that he expects Washington to lean on
    Turkey to open the border with Armenia, as one of the possible
    quid-pro-quos for the deployment to Iraq (Armenian Public Television,
    December 25; Noian Tapan, December 27).



    Somewhat more defensively, Prime Minister Andranik Margarian argues,
    "Armenia's presence [in Iraq] is primarily symbolic and for political
    purposes" (Haiastani Hanrapetutiun, December 25). The government in
    Yerevan rejects any characterization of the mission as a "military
    presence," terming it instead a "humanitarian presence." This line
    reflects concern for the group's safety in the dangerous environment
    of Iraq, as well as seeking to mitigate the domestic political fallout
    from the deployment decision. Armenian public opinion surveys are
    showing less than 10% approval of the mission and more than 50%
    disapproval. Cutting across the political spectrum is the view that
    Armenia's presence alongside the United States would expose Iraq's
    Armenian diaspora community to reprisals from insurgents. That
    community, currently estimated at nearly 30,000, is concentrated
    almost entirely in the insurgency-plagued Sunni area.



    (Mediamax, Armenpress, Noian Tapan, PanArmenian News, December 23-30).



    --Vladimir Socor





    TAJIKISTAN OFFICIALS FAIL TO APPREHEND KEY MEMBER OF BAYAT


    On the night of December 25-26, 2004, law-enforcement officials in
    Tajikistan attempted to apprehend a member of the Islamic terrorist
    organization Bayat, Ali Aminov, in the village of Chorku, Isfara
    district, Sogdy oblast (northern Tajikistan). Law-enforcement agents
    had received a tip that Aminov was hiding in his sister's house. At
    approximately 1 am a police task force surrounded the house and
    attempted to storm the compound to apprehend the terrorist. However,
    the occupants responded with armed resistance and the standoff soon
    deteriorated into full-blown armed confrontation. The police task
    force retreated under heavy fire and called for backup. A special
    forces regiment arrived by 4 am. Upon entering the house, the members
    of the special forces team encountered resistance from Aminov's
    relatives. Aminov himself managed to escape through a secret passage
    (Vecherny Bishkek, December 29).



    The first indications of Bayat's existence ("bayat" means "a vow" in
    Arabic) appeared in the press in April 2004, when Tajikistan's special
    services apprehended 20 members of this organization in the Isfara
    oblast of northern Tajikistan. The suspects were accused of carrying
    out several aggravated criminal acts that were motivated by racial and
    religious hatred. The group was charged with the January 2004
    assassination of the head of the Baptist community in Isfara, Sergei
    Bessarab, as well as torching several mosques that were headed by
    imams, whom the terrorists believed had exhibited excessive loyalty to
    the ruling regime. According to the Office of the Prosecutor-General
    of Tajikistan, the suspects resisted arrest and searches of their
    houses, carried out by law-enforcement officials, turned up hidden
    arms caches.



    Bayat is not affiliated with such outlawed organizations as
    Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT) or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU),
    which are better known in the region. Nor does Bayat maintain any
    links with the only legally functioning Islamic organization: the
    Party of Islamic Revival of Tajikistan. According to some sources, the
    Bayat activists are Tajik citizens who previously had fought on the
    side of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, and some of them are now
    imprisoned at the American military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. A
    connection between Bayat and the IMU should not be ruled out, however,
    because IMU militants have been known to operate in the Fergana
    Valley, and they also fought along side the Afghan Taliban members
    (see EDM, May 3, 2004). Currently Bayat is trying to spread its
    influence to neighboring countries. Thus, a branch of the Bayat
    movement was recently opened in Osh, Kyrgyzstan (Vecherny Bishkek,
    December 29).



    Isfara is a very special region in Tajikistan. The population there is
    more religious than in other regions of the country. In July 2002 the
    President of Tajikistan, Imomali Rakhmonov, visited the city of Isfara
    and stated that three citizens, who were originally from the Isfara
    region and who had fought on the side of Taliban, were being held at
    Guantanamo. Furthermore, the Party of Islamic Revival of Tajikistan is
    particularly strong in the Isfara region. In the 2000 parliamentary
    elections, the majority of this region's population voted for the
    Party of Islamic Revival. Moreover, in the main Islamist enclave --
    the village of Chorku -- 93% of the votes cast were for the Party of
    Islamic Revival (Forum18.org, May 27, 2004). In a sense, Chorku,
    albeit to a lesser degree, resembles the Islamist enclave in the
    village of Karamakhi in Dagestan, which was destroyed by Russian
    troops in 1999. For example, both villages strictly prohibited alcohol
    consumption and required women to wear veils while in public. The
    centers of public life are mosques, and the imams adjudicate and
    resolve all disputes in accordance with the Sharia law.



    The Islamist enclave in Isfara region is dangerous also because of its
    geographic location. Isfara is located in the Fergana Valley section
    of Tajikistan, only a few kilometers from the Uzbek and Kyrgyz parts
    of the Fergana Valley. The Valley is widely considered to be one of
    the most potentially volatile areas in Central Asia. In 1989
    anti-Jewish pogroms took place in Andizhan (Uzbekistan), which led to
    the exodus of the Jewish population from that city. That same year,
    inter-ethnic clashes between Uzbeks and Meskhetian Turks broke out in
    the Uzbek city of Fergana, which resulted in 150 casualties and the
    mass exodus of Meskhetian Turks from Uzbekistan. In 1990 inter-ethnic
    clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz claimed 320 lives in Osh
    oblast (Kyrgyzstan). Furthermore, all the leaders and the majority of
    the militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are originally
    from the Fergana Valley. The addition of another militant group will
    hardly calm the region.



    --Igor Rotar





    RUSSIA AND CHINA: DO OIL AND WEAPONS MAKE A MARRIAGE?



    Russo-Chinese relations in 2004 were not all sweetness and light.
    Moscow's destruction of Yukos and preference for a Japanese rather
    than a Chinese pipeline in Siberia put severe pressure on Chinese oil
    supplies, because Yukos was China's main Russian oil supplier and
    Chinese demand for energy is exploding. Thus shortages or supply
    failures seriously injured China's economy and led to public muttering
    about Russia's unreliability. However, as Russia's ties to the West
    worsened in late 2004, it had no choice but to turn back to China and
    find a solution that entailed guaranteeing Beijing more access to
    Russian energy supplies.



    To overcome their bilateral tensions in energy, the two governments
    have arrived at a four-part solution.



    First, Russian firms will participate in joint construction of nuclear
    power plants with China, and they will build a thermal power plant at
    Yimin and Weijiamao (RIA-Novosti December 21).



    Second, efforts are underway, apparently with Kazakhstan's support, to
    involve Russian companies in the current project of laying a pipeline
    from Kazakhstan to China. There are also discussions about sharing
    energy from the Kurmangazy oil field (RIA-Novosti, December 22). This
    would create another avenue by which Russian energy supplies could go
    to China.



    Third, because no pipeline is currently available, Russian railroads
    will transport up to 30 million tons of energy to China by 2007,
    beginning with 10 million tons in 2005. While the railroads could
    handle freight up to 50 million tons, that is their maximum, and a
    pipeline would have to be built to carry annual amounts of 50 million
    tons or more. This railway shipment program thus represents a
    tripling of current oil shipments to China by 2007, from the existing
    level of 10 million tons annually (Itar-Tass, December 24).



    Finally, Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated that the China
    National Petroleum Company (CNPC) might be invited to take part in the
    production of Yuganskneftgaz, which was the main production unit of
    Yukos. Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko has indicated that
    CNPC might gain as much as a 20% ownership of the new company that is
    to be owned and managed by Gazprom. Beijing would thus be able to
    recoup the energy that was going to China before Yukos was destroyed
    (Kremlin.ru, December 21; Reuters, December 30).



    While the Yukos affair has incurred much criticism abroad and will
    reduce the efficiency of Russia's energy companies, soliciting Chinese
    participation represents an effort to mollify Beijing and give the
    deal a patina of legitimacy. Ironically, it represents a major policy
    reversal from 2002, when xenophobic protests derailed earlier Chinese
    efforts to buy into Slavneft. Thus, this deal also signifies Russian
    efforts to come to terms with the rise in Chinese economic power that
    clearly fueled huge anxieties in the Kremlin.



    But the rapprochement with Beijing goes beyond energy supplies to
    encompass defense issues as well. Russia and China will hold
    bilateral army exercises in China during 2005 that will apparently
    test the new Russian weapons that are also going to China
    (Nezavisimoye voyennoye obozreniye, December 17). These exercises
    will be "quite large" and involve not only large numbers of ground
    forces but also state-of-the-art weapons, navy, air, long-range
    aviation, and submarine forces to provide interaction with Chinese
    forces (Itar-Tass, December 27). These exercises, particularly on the
    planned scale, are unprecedented and mark an expansion of both Russian
    and Chinese military diplomacy to encompass greater interaction among
    their militaries.



    Russian arms sales to China faltered in 2004 because China demanded
    only the most advanced weapons while Russia insisted on the extension
    of existing contracts for the supply of weapons (RIA-Novosti, December
    20). This dispute prompted China to press harder for the termination
    of the EU embargo , but with only limited success. While the
    possibility of renewed EU arms sales to China must alarm Russian arms
    dealers who cannot survive without selling China weapons systems,
    China still must rely on the Russian market for now because of the
    strong American opposition and threats to the EU if it lifted
    sanctions (Russian Business Monitor, December 22; Vedomosti, December
    20; RIA-Novosti, December 20; NTV, November 8, 2004). Thus during
    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's visit to China in December,
    agreements were hammered out upgrading the scope of Russian arms sales
    to China. These agreements include delivery of Su-30MK2 fighters and
    licensing the assembly in China of Sukhoi-27SK aircraft for the
    Chinese Navy (Itar-Tass, December 13). Thus in 2005 Russia will sell
    24 more Su-30 planes to China (Itar-Tass, December 13; Russian
    Business Monitor, December 22). Other big deals involving Ilyushin-76
    Candid transport planes, Ilyushin-78 Midas aerial tankers, and engines
    for China's Super 7 and Super 8 planes are also being discussed
    (Interfax-AVN Military News Agency, December 24).



    Paradoxically, these deals reveal the existing tensions in
    Sino-Russian relations as well as the efforts to overcome them. China
    wants state-of-the-art weapons that Russia, for obvious reasons, is
    not prepared to sell, but Beijing still cannot generate sufficient
    leverage to push Moscow to sell those weapons. However, in the energy
    sector Beijing can induce Russia to live up to existing contracts,
    sell energy to China, and even invite it into some form of equity
    ownership in Russian energy firms. This may not be the ideal solution
    for China, but it shows that while Chinese economic power is clearly
    growing, it still cannot compel Russia to comply with Chinese demands
    in defense economics. Nor is it entirely clear that this energy deal
    will eventually work out to China's benefit, given the atavistic fears
    of Chinese economic power in Moscow. While Russo-Chinese relations
    may have reached "unprecedented heights," according to Presidents
    Putin and Hu Jintao, closer examination suggests that the mountain
    that both sides are still climbing remains a rocky one.



    --Lionel Martin





    DETAILS EMERGE OF SECOND RUSSIAN PLOT TO ASSASSINATE YUSHCHENKO


    As Viktor Yushchenko prepares for his inauguration as Ukraine's third
    president, he knows that Ukraine-Russia relations will be one of the
    most difficult issues he faces. The Economist (December 29) advised
    Yushchenko, "to kiss and make up with Russia and Vladimir Putin, who
    backed Mr. Yanukovych and has thus been humiliated by his defeat."
    Such reconciliation will be far easier said than done. Russia is
    reportedly behind two attempts on Yushchenko's life, one through
    poisoning and a second with a bomb. Yushchenko alluded to the latter
    plot when he said, "Those who wanted to blow myself up did not
    undertake it, because they came too close and could have blown
    themselves up" (Ukrayinska pravda, December 16).



    While details of the poisoning are better known, evidence of the bomb
    threat has only just come to light in a documentary on Channel Five, a
    Ukrainian television station sympathetic to Yushchenko. Details aired
    in the weekly "Zakryta Zona" (Closed Zone) documentary, under the
    suitable title "Terrorists" (5tv.com.ua/pr_archiv/136/0/265/).



    During last year's election campaign a still-unexplained bomb
    detonated in Kyiv, killing one person and injuring dozens more. The
    Kuchma government blamed the Ukrainian People's Party (UNP), a member
    of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc, for the attack. Explosives were also
    planted during searches of the offices of opposition youth groups. The
    Security Service (SBU) and Interior Ministry (MVS) have now admitted
    that charges of "terrorism" against the UNP and youth groups were
    false (Ukrayinska pravda, December 16; razom.org.ua, December 23).



    According to Channel Five, the real terrorists were the authorities,
    conspiring with the Russian security services (FSB). It would be naive
    to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin was unaware of the
    plot. An illicitly transcribed telephone conversation, cited at length
    in the "Zakryta Zona" documentary, between a Ukrainian informant and
    an FSB officer showed how the Russian authorities were fully aware of
    the dirty tricks being used by Russian political advisors working for
    Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. The "advisors," such as
    Gleb Pavlovsky and Marat Gelman, worked with Yanukovych's shadow
    campaign headquarters, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Andriy
    Kluyev. Presidential administration head and Social Democratic United
    Party (SDPUo) leader Viktor Medvedchuk served as Gelman and
    Pavlovsky's principal contact. The taped conversation reveals that
    Gelman and Pavlovsky considered assassination to be a legitimate
    campaign strategy. The FSB officer on the tape specifically discusses
    the poisoning of Yushchenko.



    The bomb attempt may have been conceived after the poison failed to
    kill Yushchenko before election day. Plans for the bomb attack were
    discovered when a spetsnaz unit of the State Defense Service (DSO) was
    sent to investigate a burglar alarm. The alarm went off near one of
    the three offices used by the Yushchenko campaign. The DSO noticed a
    car with Russian license plates and asked the two occupants for their
    documents. After a check of their Russian and Ukrainian passports
    revealed them to be false, a search of the car's trunk found three
    kilos of plastic explosives, enough to destroy everything within a
    500-meter radius.



    Both passengers were arrested and a subsequent investigation unmasked
    them as Mikhail M. Shugay and Marat B. Moskvitin, Russian citizens
    from the Moscow region. Their only contact in Moscow had been a
    certain "Surguchov" who had hired them in September for the bombing
    operation against Yushchenko and his ally, Yulia Tymoshenko. The
    terrorists were to receive $50,000 after the bomb plot was
    completed. After smuggling the explosives through the
    Russian-Ukrainian border, both FSB operatives set up a safe house in
    the village of Dudarkiv, 15 kilometers from Kyiv. A search of these
    premises found pistols, radio equipment, and bomb-making instructions.



    The plot thickens with additional taped telephone conversations played
    in the "Zakryta Zona" documentary. These conversations were made by
    the SBU during the elections and handed over to Yushchenko after round
    two. Kluyev is heard discussing with unknown individuals the
    whereabouts of Yushchenko's office and where the leadership of the
    Yushchenko camp meets. The documentary's producers believe that
    Kluyev sought this intelligence to pass on to the Russian
    assassination team, so that bombs could be placed to murder not only
    Yushchenko, but also other members of his team, such as Tymoshenko.



    Increasing evidence points to Russian involvement in Yushchenko's
    poisoning. In December Yushchenko's doctors in Vienna concluded that
    he had, in fact, been poisoned by TCDD, the most toxic form of
    dioxin. His dioxin level was 6,000 times higher than normal and the
    second highest recorded in history. Alexander V. Litvinenko, who
    served in the KGB and the FSB before defecting to the United Kingdom,
    has revealed that the FSB has a secret laboratory in Moscow that
    specializes in poisons. A former dissident scientist now living in the
    United States, Vil S. Mirzayanov, reported that this institute studied
    dioxins while developing defoliants for the military. (TCDD was a
    component of Agent Orange.) SBU defector Valeriy Krawchenko also
    pointed to this FSB laboratory as the likely source of the dioxin that
    poisoned Yushchenko (New York Times, December 15).



    Yushchenko has alleged that the poisoning took place during a
    September 5, 2004, dinner at the home of then-deputy SBU chairman
    Volodymyr Satsyuk, a member of the SDPUo. This again reveals the
    involvement of Medvedchuk and Russian political advisors working for
    Yanukovych. Not surprisingly, Satsyuk and Kluyev have hurriedly
    abandoned their government positions to return to parliament, where
    they enjoy immunity.



    Russia's involvement in two terrorist attacks in Ukraine, a poisoning
    and bombing, make a mockery of Putin's alleged commitment to work
    alongside the United States in the international war on terrorism.



    --Taras Kuzio

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Eurasia Daily Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown
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