by Mark Rice-Oxley
MOSCOW, Jan 13 (AFP)
Russia hit out Wednesday at US sanctions against institutes suspected of leaking sensitive
technology to Iran and
threatened reprisals, warning the move would harm already testy relations.&127;
A day after the Clinton administration penalised three Russian science laboratories for
their ties to Tehran, Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov slammed the move as �counterproductive for relations,� while
the foreign ministry
threatened countermeasures.
Officials in Moscow and Tehran said there could be no justification for the sanctions as
none of the three organisations
could have leaked sensitive material or know-how.
�Today�s actions by the United States can only complicate Russo-American relations,�
the foreign ministry said in an
official statement. �They will of course not go without a response,� it said, adding
that officials will take up the issue with
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during an official visit to Moscow later this
month.
The row over sensitive technology leaks compounds already tetchy relations between the two
erstwhile superpowers.
Moscow was critical of a series of US foreign policy moves last year, not least the
decision to bomb Iraq, but remains
dependent on US benevolence for financial support in its hour of critical economic need.
Washington has insistently nagged at Moscow over its ties with Tehran, expressing grave
doubts about a Russian project
to build a civil nuclear reactor in southern Iran and scrutinising research units in
Moscow closely for technology and
know-how leaks.
Having already penalised seven Russian institutes and companies last July for suspected
ties with Iran, Washington
slapped sanctions on three more on Tuesday � the Moscow Aviation Institute, the
Scientific Research and Design
Institute of Power Technology, and the Mendeleyev University.
The latter, which cooperates with Iran in educating students, dismissed the sanctions as
�groundless.� Iranian embassy
officials were quoted by the official news agency as saying it had no dealings at all with
the other two institutes.
Under the sanctions, the institutes are denied US aid and barred from exporting goods to
the United States.
Russia has insisted its nuclear cooperation with Iran cannot help Tehran build atomic
weapons. Primakov�s deputy, Yury
Maslyukov, who left Moscow for a three-day trip to the United States, stressed that Russia
was maintaining tight control
over technology exports.
�Russia unstintingly adheres to the generally accepted principles and norms of
non-proliferation and actively participates
in corresponding international accords and conventions,� Maslyukov wrote in the
Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily
He said Russia already maintained �an effective system of export control which meets
international standards� and
which countered the spread of technology which could help other nations build nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons
and the missile means to deliver them.
In the atomic energy ministry meanwhile, deputy minister Lev Ryabov said that US haste to
indict Russian institutes and
companies raised questions over the whole nature of international non-proliferation
agreements.
�The United States sometimes interprets accords on nuclear material too freely, which
puts a question mark over all the
agreements which have been secured with the international community,� Ryabov told Russian
television.
By Paul Goble
Washington, Jan 13
(RFE/RL)
Russia�s enormous economic and political difficulties over the past several years have
prompted many there and
elsewhere to ask � why don�t more Russians go on strike or engage in political
demonstrations?
A new U.S. Information Agency report, �Who Protests in Russia,� both reports how few
Russians have taken part in
such protests and provides at least part of the answer as to why.
Based on extensive polling in Russia over the last few years, the report says that only
seven percent of Russians claim
that they have taken part in any political rally or demonstration, and only four percent
have gone on strike. The report
further suggests that the number of Russians prepared to engage in such protests has been
declining.
And it explains these figures by suggesting that overwhelming majorities of Russians do
not take part in such protests
because they do not believe that either economic actions or political demonstrations will
in the end do them any good.
But the report�s focus on those who do protest calls attention to three factors which
could mean that this trend will be
reversed, leading more Russians to take part in strikes and demonstrations over the next
few years, and thus, to
challenge existing power relations in Russian economic and political life.
First, as the report shows, those Russians who feel personally desperate, who have not
been paid for extensive periods
and who lack alternative sources of support are far more likely to protest than those who
do not. Up to now, many
Russians have refrained from doing so either because they did not think protests would
work, because they still felt they
had something to lose, or because they could turn to family and friends for support.
But if conditions deteriorate, as now seems likely, and if people learn about strike
actions or public protests, then ever
more Russians will fall into this �personal desperation� and thus, may take to the
streets.
Second, according to the USIA report, Russians who are members of a trade union or are
active supporters of one or
another political party are far more likely to participate in demonstrations than those
who do not. Over the last three
years, the presence of a trade union in a workplace �more than doubles� the likelihood
that those employed there will
participate in strikes or other forms of protest.
And during the same period, those who report �a great deal� of interest in politics are
almost eight times as likely to
participate in strikes or protests than those who say they have �no interest at all.�
On the one hand, this pattern suggests that strikes may become more likely as political
parties try to use trade unions in
order to reach more voters. So far that has not happened very often. Thus, the report
notes that only six percent of
employed Russians now say that a member of the Russian Communist Party member has asked
them to join a protest.
And, on the other, it implies that as more Russians focus on politics during the upcoming
parliamentary and presidential
elections, an increasing number of them are likely to participate in public
demonstrations.
That will be particularly likely, the USIA study suggests, if Russian political parties
run campaigns that seek to identify
who is to blame for Russia�s current predicament. That is because Russians who think
they know �who is to blame� are
far more likely to protest than those who do not. Moreover, because of the overlap, the
USIA polls found that between
those who protest for economic reasons and those who do so for political ones, any
increase in economic protests could
spark an increase in political protests, and vice versa.
And third, as the USIA report notes, the roughly 7.5 million Russians who have
participated in protests over the last
several years may see their numbers grow if additional Russians working in jobs they
consider strategically important are
able to successfully challenge the authorities and win concessions or at least back pay.
Consequently, as the Russian
government and Russian firms attempt to live up to their promises to pay back wages,
workers who have not yet
received them may seek to use strikes to catch up with those who have. And that in turn
could lead to an explosive cycle
that the authorities might find difficult to contain.
None of this is to say that Russia is about to face a tidal wave of strikes and political
demonstrations. Rather it is to note
that the passivity many Russians have displayed up to now is the product of specific
experiences and calculations, just
as much as it reflects some underlying national culture.
And thus, it is to suggest that as in the past, the quiescence the Russians now display
could end more quickly and
explosively than many observers now predict.
SIMFEROPOL,
Ukraine
Jan 13 (AFP)
The new constitution of the autonomous republic of Crimea clearly moors it to the Ukraine,
despite the hopes of pro-
Russian separatists, the Crimean parliamentary speaker said Wednesday.
Speaker Leonid Grach told AFP: �This constitution is a rampart against any new separatist
wave. It is an example of the
unified state settling (ethnic) problems.�
The constitution, which was approved by the Crimean parliament last October and came into
force Tuesday, states
clearly that �the Crimea is an indivisible part of Ukraine.�&127;
Crimea, which enjoys the status of an autonomous republic within Ukraine, has threatened
on several occasions to break
away from Kiev, which gained its own independence in 1991, and join its Russian neighbour.
Crimean � and even on occasion Russian � officials have contested Kiev�s authority
over the Black Sea peninsula,
where most people are ethnic Russians and which was a part of Russia until 1954.
Moscow�s nationalist major Yuri Luzhkov recently said that Sevastopol, a town in the
southwest of Crimea, �is and will
remain a Russian town, no matter what decisions are currently made.�
Grach said the new constitution, �like the Russia-Ukraine friendship treaty of May 1997,
helps resolve one of the most
painful problems between Russia and Ukraine: who the territory of Crimea belongs to.�
The constitution, approved by a large parliamentary majority, also stresses that Ukrainian
is the peninsula�s official
language, although it insists on the �development and protection of the Russian
language.�