Russian tabloid waves the flag for Karimov and Khinshtein

I had been following the story about the US getting evicted from the Karshi-Khanabad base in Uzbekistan out of the corner of my eye - my sister thoughtfully sent me a Washington Post article on the topic, and of course I've been following posts on the issue on Registan.

Then last week at the McDonald's (yes, friends, sometimes while in faraway lands I succumb to the temptation that dare not speak its name, a piping-hot 9-piece bag of Chicken McNuggets) in downtown Chisinau, I started reading the August 2 issue of Komsomol'skaya Pravda Moldova. This is the local version of the Russian tabloid Komsomol'skaia Pravda, which runs stories from the parent publication along with local items such as "Second-hand [clothing] Banned in Moldova." KP also has a Kazakhstan edition, and perhaps others.

Tashkent has given the USA six months to remove its bases" (translated by me)
Viktor Baranets, August 2, 2005

The Uzbek authorities have given Washington an ultimatum - they are to remove from Uzbek territory the Khanabad airbase (twenty airplanes and nearly 800 personnel) within six months. The base has been deployed in the republic since the spring of 2002, when the forces of the antiterrorist coalition were conducting the operation against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Until recently, the Uzbek authorities had not even dropped hints that the Americans should go home. But after the bloody events in Andijan in June [sic. - the events actually occurred in May] everything changed dramatically. The USA accused Tashkent of "crushing democracy." The response was not long in coming: President Islam Karimov advised the Americans to "go home."

They apparently thought he was joking and did not react for some time. But when Karimov once again officially repeated his position, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Tashkent in an instant in order to try to save the situation.

But the Uzbek leader didn't give in to the Americans' persuasion (or even to their threats). The Americans immediately took revenge - giving the Uzbeks who had fled to Kirghizia the status of "political refugees," they transported them to Europe and began presenting them as "victims of Karimov's totalitarian regime." Then Karimov demanded, rather than suggesting, that the USA leave Khanabad. And gave them six months to do so.

This escalation of tensions in Uzbek-American relations has yet another, little-known cause: the Khanabad base housed not only airmen but also personnel from one of the branches of the US special services, who were clandestinely preparing a "cotton" revolution in the republic. Now this operation has apparently fallen through.

Why does it matter what a newspaper publishes when it can't even get basic facts straight (it's a striking dereliction of journalistic duty, or at the very least astonishingly bad fact-checking, to report that the uprising in Andijan occurred in June) ? Well, maybe it doesn't, but, say what you will about KP, it does have a large circulation - 30 million per month, counting all of the paper's various editions, according to the proud graphic on the newspaper's front page, and 10,000 for the daily edition in Moldova. This is the type of news read by the average Russian, who's either far away from Moscow where pulp like KP is all that's available or is not inclined to read more responsible newspapers like Kommersant and Vedomosti.

The August 2 KP also provides us with some insight into the thought process, if it can be called that, of Russian Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein, the man behind the attempt to discredit Mikhail Kas'ianov with allegations that he privatized his government dacha in a shady way (here's Kommersant's take on that story, in English).

State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein: "I won't say who's next, so as not to scare anyone!" (translated by me)

It's possible that members of Yeltsin's family will come under fire in the near future.

Alexander Khinshtein: "Prepare for landing [trans. - in Russian this word - posadka - is similar to the word for being put in jail], Mr. Rushailo!"
[AK:] "Well, what of it, I really don't like the Family," Alexander Khinshtein confirmed in a telephone interview. "I think that the state should be an orphan. And all members of the Family should be locked up in the same cell, after dividing the men and women, of course."
[KP:] "Why did you jump so quickly from Kas'ianov to Rushailo?"
[AK:] "The one doesn't interfere with the other. Some information was received, and I put in a request for data on the property holdings of Rushailo and his family members."
[KP:] "Where do you get such information?"
[AK:] "From various places. Sometimes voters write in, sometimes it's journalists I know. Let's say you were to call me and tell me that you saw a fancy mansion somewhere, and the locals confirm that someone in power is living there. We'll get to the bottom of it."
[KP:] "And what are the potential results?"
[AK:] "It depends who you're talking about. With respect to Vladimir Rushailo, it's hard to say, for the time being. But with Kas'ianov, I think, everything's become clear already. All of the schemes he used to acquire the real estate are apparent, and all of the deals have been uncovered. Khodorkovsky said that the former Prime Minister would become president. Well, now they can propose each other as candidates to be the senior guy in their prison cell. It's too bad they let Yaponchik out. They would have made a great trio."
[KP:] "They say that Kas'ianov has some compromising information [kompromat], which might help him get out of this situation."
[AK:] "What compromising information, about who? Our President is a saint - he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he does judo."
[KP:] "Who's the next person on your 'black list'?"
[AK:] "It's too soon to say, I don't want to scare anyone."

At the same time, sources in the Duma have told us that the next "target" of Alexander Khinshtein will be none other than family members (with a lower-case letter) of the first President of the Russian Federation [Yeltsin].

Leaving aside how distasteful it is for an elected official to posture in print like this about what is essentially a watered-down reprise of the 1930's purges (with anonymous tips and show trials used to get rid of former political elites who have become inconvenient to those currently in Putin's inner circle), the supportive tone of KP's reportage leaves a reader with no doubt where the publication's sympathies lie. I guess one of the attractions of tabloid journalism to its readers is that it tells them how to think. It's not surprising that Khinshtein's career, prior to attaining the exalted status of Russian Duma Deputy, was as a columnist for the tabloid Moskovskii Komsomolets, which is just as "yellow" as KP.