Reports & Papers
from
BCSIA
3
"Russia''s Presidential Elections and the Battle Against Corruption"
Sergei Stepashin, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission
of the Russian State Duma; Former Prime Minister of Russia, 1999
March 14, 2000
With introduction and comments by:
Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Timothy Colton: Director, Davis Center for Russian Studies
Sponsored by BCSIA''s Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
Transcript
Graham Allison: We are so pleased to welcome Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin here to Harvard as part of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project''s attempt to understand what is happening in Russia today. In particular, what is happening in Russian democratic development with the presidential election coming up on March 26th.
Sergei Stepashin is superbly well qualified to offer us thoughts about the broader picture in Russia and the specific topic of corruption in Russia, and the efforts to limit or constrain corruption given a remarkable career. In his most recent incarnation he ran as the Number 2 on the Yabloko list and was elected to the Duma where he is now a member of the Duma and chairman of the Duma''s Anti-Corruption Commission. In earlier phases of his career he has been a deputy of the Russian Supreme Council, elected in 1990, which was when he and the current Acting President Putin began working together. In 1992 he was appointed Deputy Minister for Security of the Russian Federation and became head of the Federal Secret Service in March of 1994. In 1997 he served as Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Victor Chernomyrdin, and from April 1998 as Minister of Internal Affairs in the cabinet of Kiriyenko and then thereafter Primakov. On May 19th, he became Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and was succeeded by Vladimir Putin.
He is a person who has seen many parts of the Russian security and justice administration, who has seen the parliament, who now sees the Duma, who served as prime minister and who is a very young man— I said yesterday that he was at the beginning of his career and he said "well that is probably not fair." But, maybe the middle. It is a great opportunity for us to have him here. We had him in Washington yesterday as part of a joint Davis Center-Kennedy School briefing for the press on the upcoming Russian elections. His presentation at lunch at the National Press Club you can actually see on the CSPAN website. You just go to CSPAN.org and you can pick that up.
We are very glad to have him here in the flesh today. He will make some initial comments. Then we will have a comment by our colleague Tim Colton, the Director of the Davis Center. Then we will be open for questions and discussion. We are very pleased to welcome Prime Minister Stepashin here today.
Sergei Stepashin: Good afternoon, dear colleagues. I am very grateful to Mr. Allison for giving me this opportunity to speak here at Harvard University. I was thinking when he spoke about my career that there is indeed a point there. If I had stayed in the position of Prime Minister last August, then presently I would be facing the necessity to become a president. And so that would have made my presence today very unlikely. I believe that Mr. Yeltsin made a correct choice.
On the 26th of March presidential elections will be held in my country, and there are very many of my compatriots here I believe. It is a particularly important topic in this context in relation to what I am talking about now. First of all, nobody in Russia or abroad believed what actually did happen in reality; that is that Mr. Yeltsin resigned before the end of his term. This is not only due to his health. He just determined himself when he wanted to resign. He also, as a wise politician, believed that by resigning at that particular time, he would create the best chances for the person whom he appointed as his successor, Mr. Putin. And he was right.
There is also one more subtle point which used to be pointed out a lot and now it is largely ignored. Frequently it was mentioned that Yeltsin would never resign because the "Family" would not let him go. The "Family" would not let him go, it was said, because it is very corrupt. It will be afraid of letting a new person assume power. So, Yeltsin''s reign would basically continue as long as the "Family" wanted.
However this did not happen and Yeltsin did resign. In his decree, Putin indeed granted immunity to the president. However, this was more of a political act than a really legal one. Everything that has to do with the immunity of the former head of state has to be regulated by law. I do believe we will be able to pass such a law.
It had a different aspect of significance in my view: the new head of state— and I believe it will be Mr. Putin, and it may very well be determined on the first round of elections on the 26th of March— will have every opportunity to start an economic, legal and legislative fight against one of the most important problems that we are facing now, which is corruption. So the question arises of whether this future president actually has resources to achieve that, and if so, what are those resources? I think that the answer to that is yes. My certainty is based on a number of points that I am going to go through.
First of all, Putin had experience working in various security services before he became the president. He worked as the head of the Federal Security Service and was also the head of the Security Council. It is indeed the Federal Security Service that, ever since 1994 and at the time I was the head of it, was invested with fighting corruption at the highest levels of the government. That means that Mr. Putin has information and access to further information about what happens in that area with regard to corruption in the country and the most prominent people who are known for being corrupt. This is a very important point.
The second important point is that over the five years that were very fascinating and interesting both for the country and St. Petersburg, my home-town, Putin was the head of the economic affairs, foreign export and industrial business in St. Petersburg when Sobchak was the mayor. That was between 1991 and 1995. I would say that Putin was not at all bad at that. That is probably the reason why, for St. Petersburg more than for any other region in the country, the default of 1998 was much less painful than for any other place in Russia, largely due to that— maybe except Moscow, but Moscow is somewhat of a separate issue.
A person who worked both in business and in law enforcement is capable of telling the difference between free enterprise and "profiteering" as it was called in the Soviet times. He can also tell the difference between corruption and attempts to create conditions for normal economic operation in the country.
The third circumstance which I believe is very important may be the last but not least. I would probably even say that it is the highest in importance taking into account the peculiarities of the government system in Russia. This important instance is that Mr. Putin is not financially linked or engaged with any of the large financial and industrial groups, which Mr. Nemtsov was the first to term "oligarchs." I do not want to accuse Mr. Yeltsin of anything, but after 1996 his position was indeed quite difficult. Even though he was a very honest person, a person of great moral integrity, who never personally took advantage of any kind of financial aspects (the dirty accusations that were hurled at him were not true) nevertheless, he understood very well that he won the elections of 1996, when he was already ill, largely due to considerable financial support from those groups.
We all know about these circumstances. Not only was there a box from Xerox that was brought into the White House but also we all know the information about the considerable financial support from the companies that helped him win the elections. There was one particular example from the time when I was Minister of Interior. I will not name the people who were involved in that. Even though we did not start criminal proceedings, we did start an investigation and are working on it.
One of those oligarchs was doing things that violated legislation, specifically financial banking and credit institution regulations. One quite high person in the government said to me, "but he helped us in 1996, so what are we going to do with him now?" I said I would talk to the president about it. When I told Mr. Yeltsin, he said, "Don''t worry about it. Work like you are supposed to work." But the important aspect is that it is a precedent when people come with things like that.
It is an extremely important point that after the elections, Putin will not have to pay those kinds of debts. After he assumed the position of acting president, he did not include in his circle any of the oligarchs who were very eager to form a line to get in. He is not conducting a full-blown election campaign, which is probably correct because he is already an acting president. He has all the administrative resources and government resources. This also gives him the freedom to investigate people who previously believed that they could not be punished or taken to court.
Because the overall problem of corruption runs much deeper than even the points that I highlighted, we created a special high corruption committee and prepared a program on how to battle corruption. I submitted it to Mr. Putin about three weeks ago. I would say that you are the first audience to hear it. We have not been involving either the Russian or the international community in outlining what we are going to do. I would like to highlight the points of that program, and how we are aiming to battle corruption. This is the program that was accepted by the acting president. We would call it the "Components for the National and High Corruption Campaign."
The first aspect is reforming the financial sector of the government. This is budget reform. It envisages introducing a budget code. That code is based on transparency of all the financial flows in the country. It includes open hearings on the budgets at all levels, both federal and regional. It includes supervision of the execution of the budget and audits when necessary. It includes the reform of state purchasing using budget resources. There will be a purchasing code which will govern how the system is operating. It will be an overall audit of the whole system of state purchasing throughout the country.
I will just present one example, which I will have to refrain from in the future due to the lack of time. There was a system of agriculture purchasing - state purchasing of agricultural products throughout the country. Due to this system, the way it was set up through tenders, it sometimes came to the point when canned meat was supplied to the Krasnodar Region (which is in the Southwestern part) from Vladivostock, which is in the Far East. This is a tremendous distance. There was a tremendous mark-up that was earned by those people and was used to line their pockets just due to transporting the commodity from one end of the country to the other.
The next aspect of reforming the government''s financial system is setting up and implementing a full treasury system for executing the budget. This year, we are planning to complete the transfer of all the settlements by the government in the process of the budget to the treasury system.
An extremely important aspect is to improve tax administration. It is very important to ensure equal treatment of all taxpayers. It is also very important to prevent the situation when a number of economic entities and agents are implicitly allowed to accumulate tax arrears. Effectively, this means that it is extremely important to reform the overall tax legislation throughout the country in the nearest future. The existing system is multi-bracketed, multi-layered and complicated. The VAT is very high. Effectively it forces the enterprises to hide their profits and go underground.
Immediately after the elections we will indeed have the actual opportunity to make a real tax system reform. This will be ensured by Mr. Putin''s victory in the elections, I believe with a significant lead. That would give him the political freedom to get a lot done. It is also quite convenient for him to have the situation in the state Duma at the moment. The forces are in his favor. Another aspect is the very favorable situation with oil prices, which are the highest in several decades. This ensures considerable revenue for the budget. Therefore Mr. Putin indeed has a chance to provide a radical change in the tax system over the next three months after the elections.
The next aspect of the state financial reform, which is very much talked about in Russia, is altering the approach to privatization matters. Of course I would say it is senseless at this point even to raise the issue of de-privatization, which Mr. Zyuganov talks about repeatedly. But it would make sense of course to introduce a system of anti-corruption pacts. Those would be signed by all the parties involved in privatization of something. It will include an aspect of information transparency and a clause on having to return the funds if there is some abuse or something that is being done wrong. It will also include the creation of an entity that would assess the progress of privatization over a given period of time with the right to go public on the violations that were committed during the process of privatization. There would be open information on profits and expenditures related to privatization. Of course all of that should have been done in 1992 or 1993.
The second set of components for that national program is the reform of the state administration. This includes a proper, justified approach: when you accept somebody to work in the state administration, there should be rotation, or changing of people over time, who work in that system. It also includes improvement of their disclosure regarding their revenues and property. It is very important to ensure maximum transparency and clarity when you talk about what the government does and what function it performs. There should be only a minimal amount of secrecy. Of course it is very important to downsize the staff there and improve their payment. Because it is completely impossible of course when a person at a very high level in the government does not make enough money to feed his family. You cannot have this person work just for the money that he gets from the government. He would necessarily look for other sources of income and loopholes in the existing system.
What I am saying may seem to be just a matter of common sense, but of course it is very important to have the people in the government administration treasure their position and understand that if they lose their job, they lose a significant source of income. However, presently this is not the case. So they run the risk of taking bribes knowing that even if they are expelled from the system they will be able to find themselves a position somewhere else
There is another important aspect which should be at the base of this administrative reform. That is, creating the situation when a person in the government administration would not have to make a decision that has economic or financial consequences. In other words he would just do the technical or analytical work, but would not make a decision that entails profit or revenue loss for some other people.
Unfortunately, currently there is a situation where there is sort of a silent price list of how much you pay for one signature or another and how much you have to pay to people in order to put through some sort of business endeavor. This should be eradicated as a phenomenon, and not just by putting away or taking out of position one person or another.
The third aspect of the national program is the struggle with monopolies at all levels of government. It is very important to assess the possibilities of introducing competition in various areas of the economy, which includes energy supplies, telephone connections, and state banking services. Then expanding the rules established for the government management and administration to the managers of commercial enterprises which are to some extent controlled by the government. Also creating a black list of managers… and improving the requirements for financial reporting of the state and semi-state controlled enterprises. Internal surveys are needed on the quality of services provided by the state.
The fourth aspect is using less regulation for economic activities. This means giving up excessive over-regulation of producers'' access the market, and limiting the rights of various controlling entities, which basically use their position just to take bribes. Also, reforming the process of working with documents, i.e. streamlining paperwork. We need to introduce the principle that might be called "positive administrative silence." In other words, when you send some application to the state authorities, and if within a certain strictly defined time there is no rejection nor any additional inquiry, your application is considered approved. Improving the judicial system. Providing an independent entity that would work on revoking the decisions made by the state authorities in some instance or another, which introduced excessive regulation of economic activities. Improving legislation aimed at defending consumer rights. Making certain that it is required to warn the enterprises when certain rules or regulations that apply to them are going to change.
The fifth section of the Anti-Corruption Program is as follows. It is the support for civic institutions. The first aspect is an anti-corruption campaign in the media, which can very seriously affect public opinion and make people aware of how deep this problem is. Providing support to the journalists and reporters when they are doing some sort of investigation, instead of what presently happens which is punishment if they go somewhere where the authorities don''t want them to go. Creating a special civic legal service, which would work on resolving conflicts between individuals and the state. Creating an educational program for the population, because unfortunately a lot of the citizens of the country do not know their rights and how to protect them.
The sixth section is providing and supporting reform in the private sector. I would first of all note that it is necessary to improve the role of ethics in conducting business. That would include approval of the business code and making widely known the information of how the state purchasing system is going to work. Adopting recommendations for private enterprises as to how the managers are going to declare the profits of the enterprises, the property that the enterprise owns.
The seventh and last section, which has already started, refers to the legislative aspects of our work. This will be the work of the commission to battle corruption in the Duma of which I am the head at the moment. Our work is to analyze all the existing legislation in the country in order to see where there are instances where it actually encourages corruption. Making appropriate changes to the tax code, the criminal code, and the civil code, to eliminate these instances. We have also agreed with the Duma that all the new bills that are going to be submitted will have to go not only through the committee on legislation, but they will also have to go through the Anti-Corruption Committee in order for us to see whether there are instances when those rules might have adverse effects.
Another aspect, which is my personal point, is to change the approach of law enforcement entities when we are talking about corruption. There are three major problems in that area. Unfortunately a lot of people working in the law enforcement services and the Federal Security Service, do not have an understanding of the economic issues. They cannot find the great errors or violations when we are talking about corruption particularly in economic crimes. Unfortunately there is still the stereotype among the staff of the law enforcement services and the investigators that everybody who is involved in any kind of business is potentially a criminal.
The second very important aspect is providing modern equipment to our law enforcement authorities for investigation of the most serious crimes in the economic sphere, particularly money laundering. When we work together with Interpol and other international agencies, we realize that we are very very far behind in terms of our equipment.
The third important problem that I encountered when I was working on those issues is that various financial organizations are trying to use the law enforcement organs and authorities in fights against each other. When two large companies, or oligarchs if you wish to call them, are fighting amongst themselves, sometimes they make documents available to the law enforcement authorities to compromise the other firm. Therefore they are basically using the state this way as a weapon in their internal feuds. This is of course a very serious problem that we have to counter.
Of course international cooperation is of utmost important. I remember the years of 1991-93 when I was the head of the security services in St. Petersburg and the deputy head of the Ministry of the Interior. We had to work on those problems. Unfortunately,at that time, there was lack of proper legislation due to the fact that the Soviet Union had disintegrated and there was no Soviet legislation any more, and there was no Russian legislation yet. That led to the fact that Western businessmen who came to the country worked with a regime, which could not strictly speaking be called legal. Some of them are presently surprised about why the Russian "con men" tricked them. That is because they should have checked with whom they were dealing. This is one aspect when we are talking about protecting the investors including the foreign ones. Another important aspect is cooperation with law enforcement authorities of other countries including the United States.
Finally, the Duma ratified two important laws, which took them five years to get through. They are: (1) for international cooperation in case of investigation and (2) extradition law. This finally means that people who were able to escape to Russia from the legislation of their own country cannot do so any more. We have recently signed that agreement with the United States.
To conclude my speech, after which as agreed we will be able to have some questions and answers, I would say that indeed countering corruption is not just economic, but it is a very important political aspect in our country. I believe that currently we have a much better and deeper understanding in Russia as to what corruption is, and what causes it, and how to fight it best. And, also we have the political will in place. I do believe that we will be able to conquer this evil in my country.
Therefore I am very glad to invite everybody, not only those who are from Russia and studying in Harvard, but anybody who is willing, to come back to Russia, or just come to Russia and we will conquer corruption together and make good business. Thank you.
Tim Colton: The first thing I would like to do is thank Mr. Stepashin for giving a very serious talk on a serious subject. Many of us, I think, have been to gatherings with a former head of government or head of state of an important country at which very little is actually said except for expressions of good wishes and general comments. This was absolutely not like that. I think that is terrific. He talked in some detail about some potentially very important measures that he hopes the government of Russia, under new management, is going to take.
We had a discussion earlier today where I raised the question, after a very different set of remarks by Sergei Stepashin, about whether there wasn''t too much hope being placed in Russia in one individual. I don''t think that people with Sergei Stepashin''s level of experience are likely to be carried away with enthusiasm for an individual, but it is striking that there is so much talk these days about what this president, whom we are simply assuming will be elected, it seems a pretty safe assumption, what he is going to do. What his thoughts are. What his experience was. We have every day on the internet, more information about his background. There is a new website which I just found today, maybe some of you have seen it already, with new information about Putin''s life. All of that is perfectly natural and normal. But it would be a pity I suppose if anybody really thought that just changing the president was going to be enough to change the country. I am certainly not suggesting that Sergei Stepashin thinks that.
What he talked about today was not so much one person or the mindset or point of view of one individual, but actually policy in a very concrete way. I think it is especially appropriate to hear this in the walls of the Kennedy School, a place which occupies itself with these things professionally.
My question is of a somewhat different nature. Let us say first of all that Putin is elected. I think that is pretty safe. Let us also assume that he really means to do something about corruption. I am prepared to accept that most likely he does mean to do that. Let us say that the program that Sergei Stepashin was outlining for us, or some variation on it is actually adopted over the next little while, presumably some things will improve.
But as I listen to this list of measures, I wondered a little bit about why all of this took place in the first place. That is, are these remedies going to be adequate given the systemic roots of corruption in post-communist countries? I don''t pretend to have the answer to making sure that the program addresses the roots. This is a very profound question. But, it would seem to me that from the point of view of our political experience, we would look for some institutional safeguards in addition to properly crafted policy and programs of the kind that were discussed here. That we would look for transparency, not just at the level of the mechanisms of accounting and procurement in government agencies, although that is obviously very important and would be a huge step forward. But I think on a somewhat grander scale about accountability and transparency of institutions, which in the Russian 1990s have perhaps followed a downward trend in terms of transparency.
I am thinking of three in particular. I know that Sergei Stepashin has experience with several of these. My three: parliament, parties and the press. How do these democratic institutions that a decade ago were democratized to a very considerable extent in Russia, how do they fit into the overall plan? Parliament after all in many countries is a forum in which investigations of bad management in government and government corruption and government malfeasance occur. But there is very little of it in the state Duma. Mr. Putin seems to be opposed to amending the constitution to make the Duma more powerful. So I would be curious about that.
I think I would also be curious, and there is no need to answer all of these, but I am throwing these out for you to think about Sergei. As far as the political parties are concerned, again the trend would seem to be negative. Political parties in Russia are perhaps taken less seriously today than they were five years ago. For the second time, a president of Russia is going to be elected who has nothing really to do with a political party. This is not the trend that we expected earlier in the 1990s. I wonder whether you would have any comment on that and how this might relate to corruption.
Finally, the press. Here again it is a very complicated subject. I think there are many who have expressed concern that the mass media in Russia, although they are certainly not under the thumb of the authorities like they were in the Soviet days, are perhaps less free, diverse and critical than they were five years ago.
So my questions are largely of this somewhat more general nature. Again, I would like to repeat how much I appreciate, and I am sure many people here did, the content of this report which was really very unusual for the occasion. I thank him for that very much.
Sergei Stepashin: I will try to respond very briefly to these three main questions. Regarding the parliament, last year an amendment to the constitution was adopted in the first reading which gave parliament the right to investigate— similar to the United States, where the Senate has investigatory powers. I hope that this year we will be able to carry this amendment through the second and third reading in both the upper and lower chambers. Putin, I talked to him, promised to sign this measure. I think this is going to be a very important step because if we are serious about dealing with corruption, we have to implement this measure in our country.
As for parties, Yeltsin was not a party candidate as you know even though he was a candidate and in the Politburo, he was not a Communist Party candidate. He was not elected from the Communist Party. I believe that the next four years allow us to form a solid two or three party system, which will bring us to the point where during the next elections we will be able to offer candidates from the parties in a civilized way.
Right now there are several parties that support Putin''s approach and vice versa. Putin endorses the main direction of, say, the Union of Right-Wing Forces and to a certain degree, Yabloko. I believe that after the elections, Yavlinsky will be able to offer his views again on his anti-corruption campaign that was proposed in the Yabloko party program.
As for the press and the media, I think I expressed my views quite clearly yesterday at the National Press Club when I said that fears that Putin is going to change and toughen laws and reduce those freedoms that the media enjoy in Russia are unfounded. I believe that our press and media are going to continue to enjoy those freedoms including the electronic media such as the internet. But frankly speaking there are people who are pushing him in that direction. But even though he is being pushed in that direction, he understands, as well as those who surround him understand, that freedom of the press and freedom of speech are one of the few real accomplishments of the last decade.
I think my concern is largely with the press itself. I am concerned mostly with the fact that many journalists are financially engaged and connected with certain economic groups and that they are practically for sale. You could have any kind of view of Luzhkov or Primakov, but you would probably agree that the methods used by Berezovsky through his television station, ORT, were not acceptable. This is where the government could play a serious role. For instance in regards to ORT, for the first time its license was not renewed and the tender will be opened on May 25th for any other participants and bidders.
I think I expressed my views clearly that a good politician will be able to use good journalistic analysis to his advantage always. Thank you.
Mike Pezner(?) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Mr. Stepashin, I would like to ask, in 1995, as the director of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service, you were quoted as saying the FSK was less than prepared for the strength of the Dudayev opposition. I would like to ask, what would you do differently today in terms of the FSB''s support for the war effort in Chechnya, and do you think that these changes have already taken place in the new war?
Sergei Stepashin: Unfortunately history does not allow hypothetical answers, but if we could go back to 1994, I would probably try to do everything I could to avoid direct military conflict in 1994. There was a serious opposition to Dudayev then. The majority of Chechens knew that he was leading Chechnya to a catastrophe and complete annihilation, which eventually did occur. We then had an opportunity to strengthen those opposition forces. We probably should not have rushed and accelerated the events especially after the unsuccessful raid in Grozny in 1994. I am quite clear that we then had this opportunity.
But now in 1999 the situation is quite different. For all practical purposes, Chechnya did gain this independence that it so much wanted. It received it from Lebed in 1996. Having this de facto independence since 1996, most solid Chechens left the country subsequently. I am talking about Chechen nationals. Ethnic Russians left the country much earlier.
To make what really happened clearer to you, because I know first hand, in the three years that followed the de facto independence, a group of about 20,000 men formed gangs, large bands of armed people who had no structure or law. They were conducting atrocities, cutting people heads off and so on. They did whatever they wanted. If it were out a thousand miles from Russia like the Falklands were to Great Britain, that would be one thing. But this was right on Russian territory in the center of the Northern Caucasus. Because of the presence of Chechen bandits, the rich lands of Stavropol region were not farmed. They stole cattle first. Then they kidnapped children and adults and did it in Ingushetia in well. So they presented a clear and present danger to their neighbors.
Eventually it all came down to their attack on Dagestan, on the people of the same faith. I was then living out my last day as a prime minister, the night between August 8th and 9th when I was in Kazan, Tatarstan. I called Yeltsin when I found out about this raid in Dagestan. I asked him for the authority to command a strike on these bandits in Dagestan. I received that authority, and this was my last act.
The only controversial issue that remained then was crossing the Terek River. Before the terrorist attacks on Volgadonsk and Moscow, we were hesitant regarding whether or not we should cross the Terek River. But then this issue was resolved by them striking first. So when they carried that war onto Russian territory proper, when they committed those acts in Moscow and the Rostov Region, the issue of power, and actual authority in the country was raised: was there was anybody in charge who could stop them?
I think that this war could not be called an anti-terrorist campaign. It wouldn''t be fair to call it an anti-terrorist campaign. The anti-terrorist phase is about to begin now. But, I would say the breaking point was the capture and arrest of Raduyev who is now in Lefortovo prison in Moscow, and was a former secretary of the Komsomol in Gudermes.
What is happening there is a full-scale military operation against armed groups of people who total about 25,000 armed men. Even two or three years ago I proposed changing Chechnya''s status and introducing the new status of "rebel region," which would untie the hands of the military and special forces in cleaning up those areas. This is what we did not get. And having to cross the border of the law is what we are being criticized for now.
In addition to having to conduct an anti-terrorist operation, the main objective and the most difficult thing to do right now is to provide the infrastructure, finances and resources for the Chechens who fled the republic to Ingushetia. The number of these people is over 280,000 to come back and resettle in their territory.
And there is another proposal, only as a joke. Remember that Putin said that are willing to join NATO. I think we should join NATO and then bring in the NATO forces into Chechnya. That would be a radical solution.
Graham Allison: Only if we can trade you Kosovo for it…. On the Chechen issue, which we could discuss for a very long period of time, let me recommend to those of you, especially interested in that to go look at the transcript on the SDI website of Stepashin''s talk yesterday (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/BCSIA/sdi.nsf/www/home); the presentation he made at lunch included about 40 minutes on Chechen issues in its many angles. It was a very good question and an interesting answer. And one that we could go on with for a very long period of time. But I am just giving you another place to get further information.
Michael Lelyveld of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Today my organization was informed by the Russian Media Ministry, I assume it is the Ministry of Information, that all its recordings since February 15th have been requested. We were also informed that from now on, the ministry would consider that any interviews with Chechen leaders would be considered a violation of Russian law. Those leaders include President Maskhadov. My question is whether in the United States and in Russia, there is the same understanding when we speak of freedom of the press. First I guess I would like to know whether these sorts of things are temporary before the election, or are these kinds of restrictions going to continue after the election? Also, do you feel that Acting President Putin understands that freedom of the press means that some things that are printed will be unfavorable to his government, as we understand it in this country? Or will he only support freedom of the press when what the press prints is favorable.
Sergei Stepashin: I will find out about those requests when I go back… My personal opinion is that it is counterproductive to try to fight with journalists. It means that you are gaining troubles for yourself. I believe that this is the journalist''s personal risk that he is taking when he goes out to interview such men as Maskhadov. It is fine with me that he does that. I think our journalists would be thrilled to, say, have an interview with Hitler in 1943, for instance. But it was impossible to do it.
I don''t think you should be prosecuted for conducting an interview with Maskhadov or anybody like that. I knew this man personally. I worked with him and so what should I do now? Seek refuge here in the States?
Regarding whether people like being criticized, of course only a mad man likes it when he is criticized. Normal people take it differently. Putin should be patient. Knowing the man, I believe that he will be patient enough and will take criticism stoically. I believe that there is criticism around. There is not only praise of him. If you knew our program "Puppets," it criticizes Putin. They made of funny puppet of me as well. Again, I believe that there should be such thing as journalistic ethics. Journalists should not be for sale and corrupt. They should not distort the truth or the facts to reflect someone''s political views.
Wendon Smith from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy: There have been a lot of reports and evidence of the targeting by the FSB of groups and individuals who research and report on the problems associated with nuclear waste and other military complex. I am speaking specifically of Zoifo, Pasco, Nikitin, Handler and others. Do you see the targeting of these individuals as evidence of corruption in the KGB in light of the fact that most of these verdicts have come back "not guilty," where the evidence-gathering methods have been questioned?"
Sergei Stepashin: Things that have to do with nuclear waste, they were initiated while I was head of the FSB. It is a bit premature for me to tell you all the details, but I can report on Yeltsin''s proposed to trip to Germany when he was supposed to have met with Kohl. There was the head of German security services who got himself into a jam. I helped him out of that jam. Federal Security Services do not have a problem investigating those cases other than perhaps one problem. Years ago, no one would think that reselling nuclear waste would become a serious commercial idea, because technologically it does not make any sense. But for two months in a row, all of our media was covering this nuclear waste. This is a stone toward journalists.
Then there were the ridiculous cases when, say, a man picked up a little bit of nuclear waste and ran around trying to find a buyer for this sack of nuclear waste. He ended up receiving a huge dose of radiation and presented danger to other people.
On a more serious note, however, I would prefer to talk about issues that present real global threats such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We discussed that issue with Gore and Clinton back in July.
Richard Pipes: You spoke mostly of corruption in government. But it seems to me to be a relatively minor problem compared to corruption in the private sector. Of people who have stolen enormous quantities of Russian natural resources and Russian industrial establishments. Yesterday we had here a talk by Vladimir Brovkin who is a specialist on the subject. He gave an appalling picture of how people have essentially stolen Russia''s aluminum industry and made tens of billions of dollars which they have taken abroad. These elements are connected on the one side with high government officials and on the other with the mafia. What can be done to stop this kind of corruption and to retrieve these resources?
Sergei Stepashin: I would still stick to my definition of corruption. I still believe on the government side there is corruption. On the private side, it is just criminals. You are absolutely right that they join forces. They have grown to become very close to each other and this is not only in the aluminum sector that you mentioned, but also in gas and oil.
There are two ways of resolving this issue. The first one is working with the anti-monopoly committee and implementing anti-monopoly legislature. This is precisely why Putin delegated this to an anti-monopoly commission. Regarding aluminum, the second approach is carrying out regular investigation and regular law enforcement functions. There are several examples of successful law enforcement operations such as the Port of Nakhodka.
Regarding Krasnoyarsk aluminum, a strange thing happened. When I was Interior Minister, we sent a large delegation of law enforcement officers from various agencies, 180 people, that was headed by my former deputy, basically a policeman from God, his name was Kolesnikov. There were three people in charge of the whole aluminum racket in Krasnoyarsk: the Cherny brothers and Bykov. So we conducted a series of measures on Bykov, and we reached a certain degree of success. There has not been a trial yet, therefore I am not at liberty to disclose things or really accuse him. He ran away abroad. And the Hungarians are now about to extradite him. While he was on the run, some real slick con artists bought out his controlling packet of stock. Incidentally these two people are now deputies in the Duma…