This story almost got drowned out by the power outage hullabaloo:
Russia says UN, NATO calls for Uzbek probe 'unfair'
Wed May 25, 2005 8:52 AM ET
ARE, Sweden (Reuters) - Russia on Wednesday denounced as unfair a call by the United Nations and NATO for an international investigation into a military crackdown in Uzbekistan, in which hundreds of people may have died.
Moscow backs the Uzbek government in blaming the bloodshed in the town of Andizhan earlier this month on radical Islamists. [...]
"Putting forward a demand for an international investigation as an ultimatum is neither appropriate nor fair," said Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov at a meeting of NATO countries and partner states in Sweden. [...]
"We are gathered here as partners and partnership means trust. If one partner says it can carry out an investigation itself, that should be respected," Chizhov told reporters.
"The countries calling for an international investigation recently competed with each other hailing Uzbekistan's role as a key player in the global anti-terrorist coalition. Now they realize who they were dealing with," he said.
Presumably Russia would like the US to replicate its reprehensible mid-1990's stance on Chechnya and say that this is Uzbekistan's "internal affair."
But it will be interesting to see whether the last sentences quoted are much talked about - this Russian Deputy Foreign Minister seems to be saying, "lay off the Uzbeks, you knew Karimov was capable of this and so did we." He may have a point, but at least the West is half-heartedly demanding an investigation. Russia, on the other hand, appears to be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with China in its response to the events in Andijan.
...comes the finger-pointing. Looks like for now most of it is in Chubais's direction, which is to be expected. The nationalist political party Rodina has already weighed in:
Rodina faction to demand resignation of UES head in Duma
May 25 2005 5:52PM MSK
MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax) - The Duma's Rodina faction plans to raise the issue of dismissing Anatoly Chubais from the post of head of Unified Energy Systems (UES) at the Friday meeting of the lower house. "We have been saying for a long time that Chubais is the wrong person to head such a major monopoly and the outages in Moscow today only prove that we are right," said Ivan Kharchenko, faction member and deputy chairman of the Duma property committee. Kharchenko said the faction would have an emergency conference on Thursday over the large-scale energy crisis in Moscow and initiate the ouster of Chubais at the Duma Council.
No doubt the professional pundits will be all over this by the time tomorrow morning's Moscow Times op-ed page goes to press, but I have to wonder when one of these stories about blaming Chubais will mention what an easy political target he is, due to his extreme unpopularity with the Russian electorate. So far, the blame game looks like a way for Rodina to score some easy points with elderly and lower-income people who are bitter about rising power costs; and for Putin to try to cripple Chubais's chances (if he even has any) of mounting a challenge or playing a role in the upcoming 2008 presidential succession battle (I hesitate to use the word "campaign"). What challenges such as Rodina's miss is the fact that changing the management of UES will not change the fact that the country continues to squeeze the last drops out of infrastructure improvements made during Soviet times (in this case, the plant that failed was over 40 years old), without any comprehensive plan to replace these facilities as they age beyond their usable lifespan. While Chubais has to bear some of the responsibility for failing to prevent these outages, he can't possibly be blamed for the overall situation.Update: In addition to a sincere-sounding apology, Chubais has come out with a couple of comments - one pointing out that the power outages in the US a couple of years ago were much more serious than what happened in Moscow today; and one pointing out that investment in the country's electrical supply infrastructure has been underfunded for decades. These statements will no doubt be criticized in coming days, as the latter one already has - "With the growth of electricity tariffs that we've seen recently, this is a quite a cynical statement," said Andrei Isaev, chairman of the Duma's Labor and Social Policy committee. (all of those links are to brief RIA Novosti wire items in Russian)
From Reuters:
Putin slams power monopoly after big Moscow outage
Wed May 25, 2005 9:23 AM ET, By Christian Lowe
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after a big power outage that President Vladimir Putin blamed on the state-owned electricity monopoly headed by a liberal politician viewed with suspicion by the Kremlin. [...]
Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said the breakdown was caused by a fire and explosion overnight at an electricity substation. There was no evidence of a terrorist attack, he said.
But Putin, who delayed a provincial trip because of the crisis, pointed the finger at the management of Unified Energy System whose chief executive is Anatoly Chubais, one of the architects of the post-Soviet market revolution whose liberal views sit uneasily with Kremlin hard-liners.
"It is entirely possible to talk about a lack of attention on the part of RAO UES to the current activity of the company."
"They should work not only on global problems about company policy and its restructuring, but also pay attention to current activity," Putin said in televised remarks.
Chubais, one of Russia's best known figures who survived an assassination attempt in March, was quoted as saying he accepted full responsibility for the outage.
Putin was clearly suggesting that Chubais was spending too much time on his widely-publicised plans for a corporate restructuring of the electricity behemoth and was losing sight of the operational running of the firm. [...]
While he has generally refrained from open criticism of Kremlin policy, Chubais was one of the few public figures inside Russia to condemn the prosecution of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky who is on trial for fraud and tax evasion.
Chubais may soon be looking for people to condemn his own prosecution:
Russia opens criminal case against UES management
Wed May 25, 2005 10:05 AM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors on Wednesday opened a criminal case against the management of power monopoly Unified Energy System (UES) after a major power outage in Moscow, Interfax news agency reported.
The case was opened to investigate possible negligence, the agency quoted the prosecutor general's office as saying.
Under Russian law, prosecutors must formally open a criminal case to allow police fully to investigate the incident. It does not necessarily lead to prosecution.
President Vladimir Putin has already blamed UES Chief Executive Anatoly Chubais for the power cut which left much of the capital without power, saying management had neglected the company's problems to concentrate on a restructuring plan.
Chubais, a leading political liberal who is spearheading the reform of the electricity giant, is viewed with suspicion by Kremlin hard-liners.
He seems to wisely be trying to get out in front of the issue:
Chubais ready to bear responsibility for Moscow power outages May 25 2005 4:19PM MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax) - Unified Energy Systems (UES) CEO Anatoly Chubais told reporters in response to President Vladimir Putin's criticism of the UES management that he was ready to bear responsibility for the trouble in power supplies in Moscow.
"UES and its chairman are responsible for energy supplies," he said. "I am not shirking responsibly," he said. Chubais said he was aware of the presidential criticism adding, "there can be no difference of opinion on that." "It is my key task in the next few hours to revive power supplies. Everything else will be done later," he said.
A thorough rundown of what's known about the outages in Moscow today is available here in Russian. I've paraphrased it in English below.
To sum it up, Energy Minister Khristenko has now stated that the initial cause of the outage was a fire at the Chagino substation just outside of Moscow. Sources say that the fire was due to aged equipment at the substation, which was brought on-line in 1963.
As a result, cascading outage took place, which was brought under control by 13.09 today, according to RAO UES, and Moscow is currently operating with access to 10% less electricity than required. Large "mega" stores on the outskirts of the city closed en masse, leading to huge traffic jams, and some stores downtown are closed as well.
In addition, telephone service was out for a time in the south-western part of the city, but all of the capital's airports continued to operate normally, and 95% of those stranded in the metro have already been evacuated without casualties.
RIA Novosti also reports Khristenko's claim that these outages are not due to the activity of terrorists.
No doubt this will all be blamed, by the public if not by the authorities, on RAO UES CEO Anatoly Chubais.
The Western wires are picking up the story - Reuters quotes Energy Minister Khristenko saying that the outage was caused by an unspecified explosion at an unspecified power substation.
BBC News quotes a RAO UES spokesperson saying that the cause was a fire at a substation and goes on to speculate that the outage may have been exacerbated by the hot weather creating increased power demand.
MosNews also has the story covered in English.
The MICEX exchange suspended trading for two hours today because traders were having trouble contacting the exchange.
Apparently the cause of the outage was a fire at and failure of a power station in Tula - sounds like something similar to what happened when a failure at a facility in Cleveland triggered the outages in New York two years ago.
It's possible that the fire and possible release of pollutants into the atmosphere that occurred last night at a large Moscow oil refinery was also related to this outage.
People in the city are very concerned, some are reacting with panic to the situation. Other events, perhaps not linked to the power outages, seem to be feeding that sense of concern. I've heard reports from colleagues of fires at the VDNKh (VVTs expo center) and at the Soviet Army Theater. In addition, looking outside, it appears that a big thunderstorm is also bearing down on the city.Several of the websites that Muscovites check for news are still inaccessible, presumably due to being overloaded by news-hungry citizens.
Power outages in several regions of Moscow have stopped public transit in its tracks and stranded people trying to get around the city in the middle of a minor heat wave. Echo of Moscow and Lenta.ru websites are currently inaccessible (to me, anyway), probably overloaded with people checking on the situation, RIA Novosti reports that 15 hospitals were left without power and that people are being evacuated from those portions of the metro that were left without power. RIA Novosti's most recent English-language report (I couldn't access the text of this page for a few minutes, either) is headlined "Close to 20,000 people stuck in metro tunnel over power outage":MOSCOW, May 25, 13.07 (RIA Novosti) - "Forty-three trains are stuck in the metro line section from Serpukhovskaya station to Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo. There are a total of 20,000 passengers in the tunnel," the Moscow Metro's press service told reporters.
On the RBC wire I see that RAO UES does not exclude the possibility of terrorist involvement, although that seems far-fetched at this point.
At 4:28 this morning, Moscow time, "Scraps of Moscow" logged its 10,000th visitor. Not a very big deal on the internet in this day and age - many sites get that much traffic in a day or less - but it feels noteworthy to me. The milestone visitor happened to be someone located in San Diego, California, who has been a frequent visitor recently (5 times in the last week or so). Thanks to all of you for coming by to visit.
Just emailed to me by a Russian friend under the subject line above:
Khodorkovsky has been sentenced to listen to his own sentence for life.
Dark humor, Soviet-style - it's back...
I heard on the radio this morning (Sergei Bountman's monologue on Echo of Moscow Radio) about a new wrinkle in the circus surrounding the Khodorkovsky trial. Anyone observing this event in the media has already heard about the hundreds of police officers at the courthouse daily, the pro-Khodorkovsky protesters beaten and arrested, and the anti-Khodorkovsky protesters installed in their place, not to mention the irregularities going on inside the courthouse. The news from yesterday is that the Moscow city authorities have picked this time to conduct "previously scheduled" road work on the stretch of road just in front of the courthouse. Bountman goes on to criticize the authorities' conduct of the circus surrounding the trial (I've translated this part; the rest is available in Russian at the link above):
But one question remains, and it's not an idle one. Guys, if this is just a regular criminal court proceeding, if this is a clear-cut case of fraud, then why are you making such a fuss about it? Why did you wave your nightsticks a week ago, why did you deploy three cordons of guards and all of those trucks? Are you expecting Shamil' Basayev and his posse? Why do your eyes start darting around when people ask simple questions? And for whom did you set out the so-called [anti-Khodorkovsky] "general public" like hedgerows, for Bush and Schroeder? And if you're so tough and sure of yourselves, really, why do your eyes keep darting around? The way you're doing it looks so petty and pitiful. You can see the threads sticking out. Like blue jeans made in Sovok [the USSR - the last sentence reads even better in Russian: "Блу джинс маде ин совок." ].
Update - the New York Times noted this new development in their story about the trial today as well ("For Russians, a Looming Verdict, and Heavy Equipment," by Steven Lee Myers):
When the [pro-Khodorkovsky] protesters arrived Monday morning, bulky construction machinery already occupied the side of Kalanchevskaya Street where others had assembled each day last week, undaunted by the grit and noise of road repair, to denounce what they called the government's selective prosecution of Mr. Khodorkovsky.
Kalanchevskaya, like most of Moscow's streets, certainly could use the work, but the timing and location of the repairs - directly opposite the courthouse - at least raised the question of selective reconstruction.
"The authorities seem to be afraid," Yelena L. Liptser, a lawyer for Mr. Khodorkovsky's partner and co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, said during a break in the proceeding, "but I do not know what they fear."
The trial, now in its 12th month, has often been called a test of the strength of Russia's judicial system. The rendering of a verdict, now in its second week, is revealing some of the system's absurdities.
The court's three judges resumed Monday, for a sixth day, the task of reading aloud a verdict said to be more than a thousand pages long (though accompanied now by the pounding of jackhammers instead of the chants of Mr. Khodorkovsky's supporters, as happened last week).
This New York Times article ("Toe Tags Offer Clues to Uzbeks' Uprising," by C.J. Chivers, from yesterday's paper - you'll have to register to read it, but it's worth it) has one of the most even-handed accounts of what took place there that I've seen yet.
The most interesting information that I hadn't seen elsewhere was about another way of calculating the death toll:
The scale of death is fiercely contested. Mr. Karimov said 32 Uzbek troops and 137 other people had been killed. An opposition party says that at least 745 civilians died in Andijon and Pakhtaabad, a border town, the next day. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, a Vienna-based group, says Uzbek troops may have killed 1,000 unarmed people.
An independent visit to Andijon by a photographer working for The New York Times also found indications that the death toll was much larger than Mr. Karimov has said. Bullet-riddled bodies were returned to families with numbered toe tags and certificates, families told the photographer and her translator. The numbers on the tags, they said, ranged from the teens to the hundreds.
And although the government has since tried to collect the certificates, they said, two families retained them and showed them to the photographer. One was No. 284. The other, which accompanied the remains of Rakhmatula Nadirov, 30, was 378. The same number was written on the dead man's leg, his mother said.
The article also has survivors' accounts of the demonstration in Andijan and of the flight of some of the demonstrators into Kyrgyzstan. It is a must-read if you are trying to stay current on the situation. Don't overlook it just because it's the "mainstream media," not surprisingly they are often better equipped than bloggers to cover stories in remote areas.
