Ryssland, oligarkerna och Putinregimen

Ämnet är givet i rubriken, här några länkar:

http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/gu...hsVersion2.pdf

http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/Joseph-...IMF17apr00.htm

http://www.theoligarchs.com/

http://www.ulfsbo.nu/ussr/robber_barons.html

http://www.cadtm.org/article.php3?id_article=536

http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cn...shtml?nd=39564

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ec...ics_watch.html

http://www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/p...os/pm_0085.pdf

http://sociology.berkeley.edu/facult...or_exposed.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...-Soviet_Russia

Okej, detta inlägg blir nog lite rörigt eller kanske snarare mastigt, men det beror inte på att klockan är mycket, inte heller på att jag håller på att bli sinnesförvirrad, och inte på att jag sitter och super . Jag har suttit och läst en del på nätet och samlat länkar i inlägget, och alla människor som uttalar sig om den ekonomiska "chockterapi" som Ryssland utsattes för med västligt och framför allt amerikanskt stöd och råd under Jeltsineran betecknar den förda politiken som liberal, marknadsliberal, nyliberal - ingen tycks se den som "socialistisk".

Alla är också ense om att den blev ett katastrofalt misslyckande, p.g.a. det maktvacuum som uppstod med en svag centralregering, bristfälliga lagar och korrupta rättssystem som möjliggjorde en handfull "oligarkers" besittningstagande av det mesta av Rysslands väldiga naturtillgångar och mängder av banker och företag. Hur kunde det gå så fruktansvärt illa, och varför anses det nu fel att Putin vänder sig mot de förbrytare som även såg till att få honom vald som president år 2000, när de väntade sig att han skulle bli lika lättstyrd som Jeltsin?


http://www.harbus.org/news/2004/02/1...a-609455.shtml

"Russia is not a normal country," said Professor Marshall Goldman, an internationally recognized authority on Russian politics and economics, in his meeting with HBS students on February 9th. Professor Goldman of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University came to campus to talk about his recent book "The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry".

The event, hosted by the Eastern European Association, attracted significant interest from the HBS community. Surrounded by dozens of students in a packed room at Cumnock Hall, Professor Goldman shared his prospective on the past and future of the Russian reforms, and answered a number of intriguing questions. His expert opinion was sought to add academic clarity to the recent publicized debate around 'the real facts about Russia'.

In his lecture, Professor Goldman gave a critical assessment of the approach to the economic reforms taken by the Russian government after the collapse of Soviet Union. Citing the examples of Poland and China, he argued that more gradual liberalization and privatization would generate wider social benefits in a less corrupt environment.

In addition, Marshall Goldman didn't miss the opportunity to pick on 'the
guys across the river', referring to Harvard Professors Andrei Shleifer and Jeffrey Sachs (now at Columbia) who consulted Russian authorities in early nineties and advocated 'shock therapy' reforms. He also quoted Shleifer's recent publication about Russia, 'A normal country'.
Professor Goldman talked at length about the genesis of the 'oligarchs', Russia's largest and most controversial businessmen. In the last few years, Russia 'delegated' 19 billionaires to the Forbes' World's Richest People list - more than Britain or France, for instance. In examining this unique Russian phenomenon, Marshall Goldman emphasized that the 'oligarchs' propelled themselves to riches after the start of perestroika in 1987. Coming from the ranks of Soviet government officials or black market dealers, these people took advantage of immature regulatory environment to build wealth, first through financial and export-import operations, and then by privatizing the country's natural resources and mass media. Oligarchs reached the peak of their influence in the late nineties after they ventured into politics and helped re-elect Boris Yeltsin the President of Russia. Ironically, the demise of the oligarchs follows the same route but in reverse: stripped of their media assets by President Putin, they lost their political weight, and are now gradually losing control over natural resources. The recent arrest of the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky served as an obvious indication of this trend."


Ett antal bokrecensioner, ett kapitel ur en bok och ett par nekrologer som talar om den undersökande journalisten Paul Klebnikov, en amerikansk medborgare som sköts ihjäl i Moskva i somras. Han hade skrivit boken Godfather of the Kremlin om Berezovskij och arbetade med en uppföljare om Rysslands stora svindlare. Den mest intressanta bok som figurerar här är förmodligen Stephen F. Cohens Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia, andra är Vadim Volkovs Violent Entrepreneurs och David E. Hoffmans The Oligarchs:

http://partners.nytimes.com/books/00...08kaplant.html

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall...226EXCERPT.htm

http://www.economist.com/people/disp...ory_id=2921517

http://www.untimely-thoughts.com/?art=718

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...34/ai_83794470

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/may1998/rus-m2.shtml

http://sociology.berkeley.edu/facult...transition.pdf


Khodorkovskij skrev i våras från sin häktescell ett offentligt brev om liberalernas svek i Ryssland, antagligen ett något desperat försök att ta sig ur fällan han hamnat i:

http://www.sptimesrussia.com/archive...op/t_12090.htm

"Jailed oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky has called for an end to attempts to undermine President Vladimir Putin and said big business should pay more taxes in return for having its property rights legitimized.

In a sharp turnaround from the fighting talk and warnings of looming dictatorship before his arrest, Khodorkovsky conceded in an article published Monday and penned from his cell in Matrosskaya Tishina that Putin was a positive force for reining in increasingly popular nationalist politicians.

He lashed out at liberal Boris Yeltsin-era policymakers for lining their pockets during the privatization process as the vast majority of the population plunged into poverty. He blamed big business for feeding that crony system, which, he said, has led the nation to scorn liberal parties such as the Union of Right Forces, which he funded.

In the more than 2,000-word article, which is mainly a treatise on the demise and the rout of liberal parties in last December's parliamentary elections, Khodorkovsky calls for the liberals to repent their sins of the last decade, when many of their leaders took positions of power and enriched themselves while espousing pro-market reforms.

"Those, whom fate and history entrusted with guarding liberal values in our country, did not manage their task," he wrote. "We should admit this now with all openness. The time of craftiness is over - and from the cells of detention wing No. 4, where I am now, this could be more clear than from other more comfortable places of residence."

Khodorkovsky accused the liberal leaders of deceiving the people during the Yeltsin-era voucher privatizations, but stopped short of examining his own role in rigged loans-for-shares deals that helped him earn a fortune of $15 billion, according to Forbes magazine's latest estimate."


En jämförelse mellan 90-talets Ryssland och det ottomanska rikets sönderfall:

http://demography.narod.ru/maxreed/ottoman.html

"Later, the combined forces of the industrial revolution and a globalizing market overturned the economic order and upset relations between outmoded state institutions and the modernizing economy. The tax and legal systems fell into disorder. At the same time, state servants turned from serving the state interest to using the state to serve their own, private interest. As state institutions decayed throughout the Ottoman Empire, public order broke down, armed gangs and bandits emerged, and rebellions began to erupt.

A similar withering of the state is underway in Russia. Events in the North Caucasus are only the most glaring evidence. There, the tiny secessionist republic of Chechnya defeated the Russian Army in 1996 after 21 months of intense fighting. Since that stunning defeat, the Russian military has grown only weaker. Today, renegade forces from Chechnya challenge the cash starved and often food starved Russian forces' now struggling to control the neighboring republic of Dagestan. As Moscow's grip weakens, armed conflict threatens to erupt in the nearby Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia as well.

Among Russia's myriad problems, its economic woes are the most publicized. Although inveterate optimists persist in heralding small success stories as the seeds of future economic recovery, thereby unwittingly suggesting that the existence of any economic activity at all is near miraculous, the fact is that the basic elements of order necessary for sustained economic growth continue to decay. The banking system is in shambles. And the police, rather than fighting criminals, increasingly compete with them for extortion and racketeering profits. Desperate Russians reportedly have begun even to commit murder for a few sacks of homegrown potatoes.

It is the inability of the state to provide fundamental order that has fostered the astounding boom in organized crime. Its growth has been so spectacular that, according to former CIA director James Woolsey among others, it is no longer possible to separate the state from the mafia. Significantly, the one thing the Russian state does seem to do well is to facilitate capital flight. Estimates of the amount of money to have left Russia over the past seven years range from $200 to $500 billion. Most of this money was earned from the unimaginative plundering of Russia's tremendous natural resources."

Om Yukosaffären och dess något oklara bakgrund och tänkbara följdverkningar:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4097309.stmMost commentators on the affair, particularly in the West, have tended to focus on the political.

"---Two main theories are in circulation:

Is Putin pulling the strings, or a helpless bystander?
The conspiracy theory argues that President Vladimir Putin hates Yukos, and especially its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, because of their support of opposition parties.
Fundamentally suspicious of big business, Mr Putin has chased out or brought to heel the clique of "oligarchs" that ruled the roost under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Yukos proved an unusually awkward customer, and so is being dealt with especially harshly.

The implication of this theory is that Yukos is only the most egregious of many cases; other businesses will be brought to book, if not necessarily for funding opposition parties than for not toeing the Kremlin's line.

A recent decision to insist on payment of back taxes by mobile operator Vimpelcom has been held up as the next case study.

The cock-up theory, meanwhile, is similar in the sense of seeing a politically-inspired government campaign against the oligarchs.
But it attributes the curiously protracted and secretive campaign against Yukos to a struggle for influence and money among various groups. Mr Putin, the theory goes, is not directing matters, because events have spiralled beyond the government's control.

Neither theory is especially comforting for Russian business. The government is either wicked or incompetent, or both.

As Yukos shrinks, Gazprom gets bigger
More persuasive, however, is a third explanation - one which has, if anything, even more troubling implications for economic reform.

On 2 November, Gazprom registered a new subsidiary, Gazpromneft, whose purpose was to gather together the firm's modest oil resources. (In 2003, the company produced just 16,000 barrels per day of oil, less than 1% of the output of Yukos.)

Gazpromneft is to be the vehicle for the previously-announced takeover of Rosneft, a once-mighty state oil producer now reduced to medium size.

The merger of Gazprom and Rosneft will have three main effects.

First, it will create a company with the potential to produce one million barrels per day of oil within the next few years.

Second, it will leave Gazprom fully state-owned, diluting private shareholders - currently 62% of the total - to a minority.

Third, Gazpromneft will be the perfect vehicle for the takeover of Yuganskneftegas, which will double its potential output and make it the country's biggest oil producer by far.---"

det finns bra artiklar om den senaste oligarken michael friedman och hans vimpelcom som krävs på restskatter av dom ryska myndigheterna

nu på söndag så firar vi att gazprom tar över yuganskneftgaz :smart:

Medierna
Putin's Media Blitz
http://www.time.com/time/europe/eu/m...107338,00.html

Independent media fighting for survival in Russia
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/06/17/russmedia020617

Länkar till en rad artiklar om samma ämne
http://www.internews.org/openmedia/o...ntvarchive.htm

Yukos mm
De seriösa bedömare du talar om Ezzelino som anser att Yukoshärvan är ett bevis på att lag och ordning upprätthålls i Ryssland har jag missat trots ett intensivt googlande.

De absurda skattekraven
http://www.mosnews.com/money/2004/12...alclaims.shtml

Metoden är inte ny. Man gjorde på samma sätt för att förstöra de fria medierna. Att det nu är en politisk motståndare som anklagas gör inte anklagelserna mer trovärdiga. Samtliga bedömare anser att hela härvan är politiskt motiverad. Dels krossar man en politisk motståndare och dels ökar man sitt inflytande över oljeindustrin.

Om Siloviki
http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/siloviki.shtml
Hyvens grabbar. Eller hur Ezzelino?

Du hittar säkert en del bland tidigare länkar i denna tråd: den första av länkarna nedan finns med där, men resten är nya. På vilket sätt skulle hanteringen av Khodorkovskijs kriminella affärer inte vara i överensstämmelse med Rysslands konstitution och lagar?

Jag ska svara på de övriga aspekterna av ditt inlägg senare, det är utmärkt att du samlar relevant material att begrunda.


http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/gu...hsVersion2.pdf

http://www.inthenationalinterest.com...e32Biblio.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/schaefer02272004.html

http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules....rticle&sid=232

http://www.oligarchy.trj.ru/index.shtml

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/681/in93.htm

"---A senior Kremlin official pointed out that Putin's astronomical poll ratings of approximately 80 per cent means that "we don't have to campaign" in order to win handily on 14 March. Putin's lone official campaign appearance was a speech at Moscow State University, broadcast live on state television. It was an apparent violation of equal- time election rules but the Central Election Commission had no objections, arguing the president's speech was of public interest.

Putin's realpolitik caused a stir at home and abroad, attracting much attention to this disciplined politician and major global policy player. During the ongoing war with a rebellious Chechnya, Putin successfully installed a loyal Chechen president, Akhmed Kadyrov, in elections last October. After this step, he presented Kadyrov in Washington and at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit in Malaysia, thus effectively placing all the responsibility for the ongoing atrocities in the breakaway republic squarely on the newly elected president's shoulders.

By the end of October Putin was once again making headlines, with the arrest of Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky on the pretext of tax evasion. Khodorkovsky and other business tycoons associated with Yeltsin's "wild, wild East" era of initial capital accumulation are considered to be the major threat to Kremlin hegemony within Russia. Putin managed to assure worried Western investors that this attack will not be continued, but hardly anyone believes that Khodorkovsky will be the last victim amongst the super-rich New Russians. Many analysts read the message as, "Stay by me and we can all get what we want."

Indeed, many Moscow-based Western money managers credit Putin with restoring order to the Russian economy and standing up to the oligarchs who grew fabulously rich while the standard of living for most Russians went down the drain. William Browder, who runs the $1.25 billion Hermitage Fund in Moscow, said, "Putin has restored order and imposed rules so that six guys don't wind up with everything. Anyone who has a chip on the table here wants him to continue what he's been doing."---"


http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=vi...&language_id=1

"---Moreover, Western media mostly covers events in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia's largest cities, or they show economic developments in the oil and gas sector, where most of the Western reforms are concentrated. But for the majority of the country, the effects of Westernization have been negative, resulting in a disastrous plunge in living standards. In effect, not much has improved for the rest of Russia, which sees only marginal changes to its existence compared with 1991.

Putin's attempts to assert his power are seen in the eyes of average citizens as the legitimate steps to restore order to a troubled land. To them, Putin has an enormous task ahead of him, and to them, numerous ministers and legislature members -- including liberals and democrats -- are slowing down his efforts. Under Putin, average Russians have been given a chance to regain at least a small part of normalcy that characterized their lives prior to 1991. Even the fear of future terrorist attacks is not blamed on Putin's inability to defend the country -- as it would be in the West -- but on the perpetrators themselves or members of the legislature who are obstructing forceful actions with "democratic" means.


Vladimir Putin has just celebrated his 52nd birthday. He is still a young president by world standards. He has promised to step down in 2008, after two presidential terms. Yet his present consolidation of power might result in profound changes to Russia's political future. He might invoke emergency rule -- in the face of one or several large-scale terrorist attacks on Russian soil -- in order to serve a third term in office. There is no visible or capable political opponent currently able to mount a challenge to his position. The last such man, General Alexander Lebed, was killed several years ago in a mysterious helicopter crash in Siberia.

Furthermore, average people across the wide country, hurt by Russia's irregular march towards Westernization -- unlike relatively well-off, progressive, English-speaking, Western-oriented citizens of Moscow and St. Petersburg -- see him as the man who can better the country economically, politically and internationally. While his approval rating has slipped in the last several years, the majority still prefers his rule.

His successful consolidation of power has placed him as the sole figure able to handle Russian affairs. Thus, once again, the unique paradigm of Russian-style democracy has reasserted itself -- with the powerful executive at its head, without any serious challenges to his power and firmly in control of the state's political, economic and security developments.---"

Det finns olika bud om de procentsatser i fråga om retroaktiv beskattning (dvs. åtgärdande av skattefusk) som gäller i fallet Yukos. Informationen i den artikel du hänvisade till var hämtad från Yukos engelska hemsida, här är en annan uppskattning:

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=523520

"---According to information of the Financial Research Institute (IFI), which regularly studies the tax load on large Russian companies in various sectors, in 2001 the leaders in proportion of revenue paid in taxes were Gazprom (43.1%) and Norilsk Nickel (37.4%). For the majority of other Russian companies, the tax load did not exceed 30% of revenue. Norilsk Nickel's tax load decreased to 32.3% in 2002, and the company conceded third place to Rosneft (34.4%); Gazprom was in first place (41.2%), and Surgutneftegaz was in second place (38%).

Senior IFI analyst Oleg Ordin notes that YUKOS's data on tax load, including claims presented to the company, are not quite accurate, even without consideration of fines and penalties. In his words, so-called net revenue was used to calculate this figure, that is, company revenues minus VAT (companies indicate it in GAAP-standard reports). Consequently, it is also necessary to subtract VAT claims to calculate tax load. However, even with this recalculation YUKOS's tax load of 49.5% of revenue for 2001 and 58.15% for 2002 exceeds the figures for all other companies. According to Mr. Ordin, “a tax load of 40% can be considered normal for resource companies under current world prices for their production”.---"


Det förblir också oklart av de artiklar jag läst om åtalet även innefattar Yukos stora svindlartid under 90-talet (alltså att den skatteflykt som då begicks så att säga ackumulerats och räknas in i siffrorna från 2000-2003 som i vissa sammanfattande artiklar tycks vara de budgetår som specificeras).


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4097967.stm

"---The Russian government has accused Yukos of misusing tax havens inside Russia in the 1990s in order to reduce its tax burden by a huge amount.
Yukos claims that the practice was legal at the time.
Supporters of former company chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky say the pursuit of Yukos is part of a government strategy to crack down on wealthy Russians who might pose a political threat.

Mr Khodorkovsky dabbled in politics, using his fortune to fund opposition groups.
Until October 2003, he was one of Russia's most influential men and - by some measures - its richest, worth an estimated $15bn.
He now sits in jail, awaiting the restart of his trial for fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement.---"


http://asia.news.yahoo.com/040521/ap/d82n0amg1.html

"---Khodorkovsky is accused of massive fraud and tax evasion as well as organizing a criminal group to defraud the government. He has maintained his innocence.

Asked at a news conference Friday what signal the government was trying to send with the Yukos case, President Vladimir Putin said, "The most important signal is that one must not steal.

"Everyone must observe the law, no matter what position he holds and how many millions or billions he has on his private or corporate accounts," Putin said, adding that he would not comment further in order to avoid pressuring the court.---"

Javlinskij och hans Yablokoparti (som nämndes i någon av dina källor förut) är inte folk jag hyser något större förtroende för, men här citerar de en del parlamentariska röster om Putins första tre år vid makten:

http://www.eng.yabloko.ru/Publ/2003/...ru_070503.html


Detta tycks definitivt vara en initierad, balanserad och oavhängig tidskrift, "Russia in Global Affairs", här några länkar till essäer av intresse för att få en bredare och djupare förståelse att det i 2004 års Ryssland liksom i alla andra länder inte är en fråga om svart och vitt och utopisk idealism och moraliserande brösttoner utan om att hitta en pragmatiskt framkomlig väg politiskt och ekonomiskt:

http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/7/521.html

http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/7/524.html

http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/7/519.html

http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/6/514.html

De medialänkar du anförde var lite ålderstigna...och vad gäller Gusinskij är han ju uppenbarligen en grov ekonomisk brottsling, som det är helt korrekt att
söka få utlämnad till Ryssland för rättegång. Men hans israeliska medborgarskap har gjort honom säker både i Spanien och Grekland. Hava Nagila!

Deripaska är en av de nyare oligarkerna, som absorberat Berezovskijs gamla TV-kanal och tydligen äger en av de fyra stora TV-kanalerna i landet:


http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7213-10.cfm

"---Deripaska's take-over of TVS was the latest episode in the chaotic saga of a channel set up almost a year ago following a controversial court decision shutting down TV6, a television network owned by self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a former Putin supporter turned into his arch-nemesis.

TVS took over TV6's assets and staff, and a shareholding pool of prominent businessmen, called Mediasotsyum, was set up to guarantee its independence.

But as an ever-growing number of shareholders sold their stake and walked out from the pool, Chubais and Deripaska quickly became its leading and increasingly conflicting figures.

Before being terminated, Berezovsky's TV6 had provided shelter to a host of independent-minded journalists who in 2001 had left formerly independent channel NTV after its controversial take-over by state-controled gas giant Gazprom.

Russia's three main television channels are state-owned Channel One and Rossia, as well as NTV, all considered by observers to be under strong Kremlin influence.

Russia is facing parliamentary elections next December and presidential elections in March 2004, in which Putin, who has held office since 2000, is widely expected to be reelected for a second mandate."


Liten översikt över större tidningar, men kanske lite knapphändig information:

http://www.world-newspapers.com/russia.html


Men i pressen tillåts fortfarande regimkritik, det är bara att kolla de få engelskspråkiga ryska tidningar som finns online:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

"---Liberal Moscow dailies and weeklies continue to portray a Russia that does not appear on the Kremlin-controlled national TV networks. You will not learn from government TV, for example, about the campaign against Yukos or the discord in the cabinet or the grief of Beslan or the incompetence in law enforcement. But you can read about all these things in liberal print media, and even see glimpses of these subjects on the formerly privately owned network NTV.

The print runs of liberal publications rarely exceed 100,000 copies, but criticism is not confined to small dailies. There are political Web sites that offer news, insightful analysis and independent opinion. Moskovsky Komsomolets, a peculiar daily whose otherwise tabloid-type content is often mixed with critical political coverage, has been running a series of highly critical "letters to the president" written by a prominent journalist of the perestroika years. This daily's circulation exceeds 1 million. Echo of Moscow, a liberal, highly interactive radio station, offers live, unrestrained political discussions of the kind that have been banished from national TV networks. There is even a liberal television station: REN TV. It draws on limited resources and has a much smaller audience than state-controlled national networks, but, unlike them, it is no propaganda mouthpiece.

The lower house of parliament has evolved into a rubber stamp for Kremlin policies, but it still has a minority who dare to speak out against them. Outside the parliament, dissident political groups have undertaken timid attempts to unite against Putin's anti-democratic initiatives.

These outlets and pockets may be small, but it is critical to each of them -- and to their audiences -- that others are also unafraid and around. No one outside Russia should forget that they still exist.

Of course, no one should be deluded about their influence, either. They make essentially no difference in policy formulation. The Kremlin dominates the political scene, and official media control the airwaves. The pro-Kremlin majority in the Duma easily overwhelms the few stubborn deputies and ignores opponents outside parliament. Moreover, the outlets of dissent are at the Kremlin's mercy. The editor of the privately owned daily Izvestia was fired over "inappropriate" coverage of Beslan. Print editors may go on doing their jobs, pretending not to think about tomorrow, yet each knows that pressure or change of ownership -- followed by a forced change of editorial policy -- is likely. As long as most Russian people are vaguely supportive of or indifferent to the rising authoritarianism, the Kremlin may silence the remaining free outlets one by one.

So why does Putin tolerate them? One theory has it that they are so small, and liberal attitudes are so unpopular among Russians, that the Kremlin figures it might as well maintain some appearance of freedom. Another may be that some in the Kremlin still see value in allowing at least a bit of space for alternative opinions. Though there is not much evidence that they harbor any freedom-lovers among them, the Kremlin aides are far from cohesive and may need these outlets to pursue their intrigues. Speculation about the maverick Illarionov's imminent resignation from the Kremlin staff has so far proved to be wrong.

But whatever the reason for the measure of tolerance, the Kremlin could at any time shift to toughness and move against the remaining outlets of independent political debate. Then the transformation of opposition into dissent would be complete, and the fear of the state that Illarionov warned about would become pervasive."

Visst är det av vikt att ha modiga undersökande journalister som Anna Politkovskaja, vars bok om Tjetjenienkriget jag uppskattar, men det blotta faktum att hon inte mördats eller fängslats eller hindrats resa till Tjetjenien trots sin obekväma kritik av den smutsiga, brutala och förnedrande ryska krigföringen är ju ett klart tecken på att pressen inte fått munkorg och tvångströja. Sedan finns det som sagt så vitt jag vet utrymme att publicera kommunistiska och nazistiska tidningar om man vill, också en nödvändig förutsättning för att någon form av yttrandefrihet ska anses råda.

Det är svårt att få något riktigt överskådligt grepp om läget: existerar det censur, och hur långtgående är den? Detta med att journalister dödas tämligen frekvent i Ryssland, exempelvis den modige Klebnikov i somras, är ett symptom på den organiserade brottslighetens fortfarande alltför stora makt, det är ju inte regimen som likviderar dem, vad jag vet.

Huruvida siloviki är hyvens killar eller inte kan jag inte uttala mig om, det är antagligen rätt hårdföra typer. Men hur ska gangsterväldet annars bekämpas?

"But if some consider the siloviki a threat to fragile Russian democracy, others regard their influence as a necessary counter-balance to Russia’s oligarchs."

Utdrag ur en riktigt intressant artikel i Russia Journal:


http://www.therussiajournal.com/?act...nter&obj=46416

"---Before the hot Caucasian sun blinds us, let’s refocus on two freshly announced tax problems. TNK— merged with BP and now called BP-TNK, hailed as one of the most important investments in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union — has been hit with a back-tax bill for 2001 for nearly $89 million. Sibneft, the oil company that Roman Abramovich owned and sold to buy London’s Chelsea Football Club is reported to have been served with a tax bill for nearly $800 million.

The news is no surprise to The Russia Journal and its readers. Only those in pathological denial or believing in their own public-relations propaganda will find these tax bills, and news reports of investigation into the tax payment schemes of other oil companies, as well as the major steel and aluminum exporters, surprising.

Public relations managers of the new targets have already begun to employ the same tactics that Yukos managers used in 2003 when its principal shareholders and top managers were arrested on tax evasion and fraud charges. Hit Putin for his authoritarian tendencies; seek shows of public support from U.S. and British diplomats; plant incendiary claims alleging corruption by Putin himself, or his aides in the foreign press.

The Russia Journal has long reported that Putin has been committed to a complete and impartial review of tax-avoidance practices by Russia’s natural resource monopolies. Hysterics in the London and New York financial press and opinions from analysts on foreign retainers aside, the methodical, calm and calculated manner in which the investigations have been carried out speaks volumes about how the Russian government has been coming of age.

Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov resisted investigations into the oligarchs' businesses and actively endorsed cash-out and sell-out schemes that would have placed these national resources beyond the reach of Russian laws and policies. Encouraged by Kasyanov's support for the oligarchs, mid to low level functionaries in the finance, trade, customs and tax agencies obstructed initiatives to complete tax audits, enforce the laws that are on the books, and abort such amendments to tax legislation that would close the most notorious loopholes, for example, tolling, as it is currently used by aluminum exporters.

Putin has been trying to end the sabotage of state institutions such as inland revenue, as well as the budgetary and audit arms. He has rejected suggestions from the oligarchs to make one-on-one deals involving token taxes or symbolic contributions to social causes, museums and cultural icons.

Putin has repeatedly said that the results of the Yeltsin-era privatization are not to be challenged. But what has happened since then is systematic stripping of the assets that were privatized, and massive theft from the annual earnings generated by those assets.---

Even the international lawyers advising Russian corporations on offering their shares or bonds to investors acknowledge the fact that illegal tax evasion by Russian corporates is massive. A recent share prospectus issued by steelmaker Mechel on the Wall Street, and a Eurobond offering in London by Alrosa make a mockery of Chubais's evasions. All they have to say in their clients' defense is that if everybody does it, it is corrupt, unfair, arbitrary, illegal, unconstitutional, authoritarian, Bolshevik, communist and dictatorial of Putin to choose his targets for recovering the tax.

But what if the TNK and Sibneft tax claims are followed by others? What if Putin is genuinely implementing the laws, all of the laws, relating to tax minimization, transfer pricing, tolling, and so forth? Will their retainers cry foul or fair for democracy?

Whichever it is may not matter for the future control of the oligarchs' assets. The willingness and ability of those oligarchs now facing large back-tax claims to come up with cash which they have avoided paying in the past will decide whether they can continue to control their companies, or whether management control will pass to those skilled in administering true costs and accounting for real profits. Those who prove unable or unwilling, those who continue quaffing the Chubais cocktail will open for their companies a path towards bankruptcy, and state control of the heavily indebted shells companies they have bled of cash.

The news media and the financial analysts frequently claim as a matter of fact that the tax shelters used by the oligarchs were legal up until this year. This is a misrepresentation. Some tax shelters, like the ones Abramovich created in Chukotka, were legal. But the way Sibneft, Russian Aluminum and others used the shelter was not. It takes painstaking and costly forensic audits to tell the difference. And in Russia, that still requires explicit support from the head of state.

It is no secret that companies controlled by Potanin, Vekselberg, Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have been under investigation for tax-related offences for some time now. But the first tax bills to be slapped on TNK and Sibneft are of great significance. They are the swallows of the summer the oligarchs have been fighting to shoot down. As bird-shooters will attest, it is hard to bring down a swallow with a gunshot. It' i impossible to talk them down from the parapets of the London and New York media.---"


http://www.minesandcommunities.org/A...ndoncall39.htm


En Finacial Timesartikel om Mikhail Fridmans affärer med British Petroleum:

"Russian Roulette.

By John Gapper
ft.com
Published: October 13 2003

Remember the fable of the scorpion and the frog? The frog agrees to carry the scorpion over the river on his back, believing the scorpion will not sting him because it would mean death for them both. Halfway across, the scorpion attacks anyway. As they sink, the frog asks why it acted so irrationally. "It was in my nature," the scorpion replies.

For investors in Russia - a new member of the investment grade club - the tale is worth pondering. It may resonate with BP, which this week sets out further details of its joint venture with TNK, the oil group controlled by Mikhail Fridman, an oligarch whose Alfa Group acquired a slice of the country's wealth in the late 1990s.

John Browne, BP's chief executive, has been stung before by Mr Fridman. After the 1998 Russian financial crisis, TNK outmanoeuvred BP to seize control of a subsidiary of Sidanco, an oil company in which BP had invested $480m. Its ruthless exploitation of bankruptcy laws ended with BP writing off $200m and lobbying the US government to block a loan to TNK.

Five years on, they have become friends. Lord Browne is full of praise for the astuteness of Mr Fridman and his two main partners in TNK, and is investing $6.8bn in a joint venture called TNK-BP. "Our relationship has been tested under extreme conditions, and we are learning to trust each other more and more," he says.

BP is not the only western company about to place its faith in Russia once more, despite the financial crises and dubious manoeuvrings of recent years. ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco are considering investing in YukosSibneft, and investment banks are wondering whether to risk their reputations by working for oligarchs who claim to have changed their ways.

The oligarchs have a beguiling argument for why they should be trusted this time: there are different incentives. In the late 1990s they were fighting to grab a share of Russia's wealth, using every legal (and, occasionally, illegal) mechanism to defeat others. Now they have gained control they need western partners, so they will behave better.

"Russians will always make a net present value calculation - the value of screwing you against the value of not screwing you," says one Moscow-based management consultant. Many Russian companies want outside help to manage their operations and gain access to international capital markets, so the calculation suggests they should clean up their acts.
---

This paradox applies a fortiori to oligarchs. In many ways, the best possible partner in Russia is a tough and wily one, able both to retain control of assets and to manage them effectively. While the frog could have chosen a different species of partner, the western company usually cannot: those with unblemished records tend not to have anything to sell.

It also helps to have a strong partner to protect your interests on the ground. Laws can be manipulated and recently acquired property rights challenged. Managing the business can be just as fraught: local bureaucrats have to be placated and managers of local subsidiaries persuaded not to siphon money to their own business partners.

Yet all this must be done without recourse to bribery or intimidation, forms of persuasion with which a western company cannot afford to be associated. And the scorpion must only sting in the interests of the joint venture; its partner needs to be confident that it will not revert to its old ways out of instinct, or a change in the calculation of advantage.

But any Russian partnership worth having carries a degree of risk. As Tommy Helsby, European chairman of Kroll Associates, a security consultancy that Mr Fridman hired to clear Alfa Group of accusations of past misconduct, including bribery and drug trafficking, puts it: "You just have to find the bootlegger who is turning into Joseph Kennedy, not the one who will become Meyer Lansky."

Ezzelino, du är förmodligen min favorit på detta forum, även om jag naturligvis inte håller mig dig om det allt. Men som du skriver själv så är det "mastigt", det du kommer med.....

Och då kommer min fråga: Jag uppfattar mig som relativt insatt i det du beskriver; men varför gullar svensk massmedia med en viss ägare av ett "engelskt" fotbollslag, är det av samma anledning? Är de okunniga eller.....

Är det för att hela problematiken är för "mastig"? Eller finns där andra förklaringar?

Frågeställningen kanske är s k OT men jag efterlyser ändå ett svar då laget ifråga är: Vidare i CL och i topp i sin liga, vilket innebär såväl en massmedial samt folklig uppmärksamhet.

Abramovitj ger folket bröd och skådespel och den engelska pressen för ingen anti-oligarkkampanj (någon moderat kritisk artikel i The Guardian, The Independent eller The Spectator kan man säkert hitta, men tabloiderna ägs av Murdoch och Black och andra som inte har minsta anledning att vilja stöta sig med en så galant och "generös" ryskjudisk gangster som Roman A.)
Oligarkerna har många inflytelserika samarbetspartners i London och New York, där den obligatoriska indignationen över minsta ifrågasättande av deras affärsmetoder från den ryska statens sida väller ut i form av nyliberala propagandaartiklar i "respektabla" tidningar som Business Week, Financial Times och Wall Street Journal.

De svenska tidningarna som snackar Abramovitj är ju bara intresserade av hans lyxyachter (världens största) och hans enorma investeringar i Chelsea:
att en sportredaktion skulle bry sig om att mannen är en grov ekonomisk förbrytare vore alldeles för mycket begärt. Själv läser jag flera gånger i veckan Aftonbladets Sportblad (enda jävla anledningen till att jag köper den skittidningen, förutom TV-bilagan), och den grabbigt naiva och julaftonsförväntansfulla stämningen i sportspalterna förstörs givetvis aldrig av några allvarligare reflektioner om bakgrunden till den enorma privatförmögenheten - de spektakulära nyförvärven och Chelseas ligaledning och eventuella chanser att ta hem Champions League är det enda vi vill läsa om i det sammanhanget, inte sant? (Jo, jag menar allvar, Sportbladet kan inte börja idka socioekonomisk kritik eller ströva in på områden bortom det sportsliga.)

Och någon övergripande kritik av kapitalistiska missförhållanden förekommer väl inte i någon tidning överhuvudtaget, alltså på de sidor som utger sig för att förmedla en fortlöpande bild av världsläget? Minnet är dessutom kort, perspektivet närsynt, den flåshurtiga optimismen påbjuden ovanifrån ("ja, det var nog lite otäckt på 90-talet i Ryssland, men det var väl kommunisternas eller nationalisternas fel det med, och nu är det bra, titta bara på Abramovitj, vilken kille, så naturlig och alltid glad, och vad han investerar sen, han kan verkligen få hjulen att snurra, snacka om mover and shaker!")
Journalisterna är okunniga, slöa, alltför välmående, omotiverade, korrupta, resignerade, skulle jag tro, jag vet inte...De accepterar de befintliga makthavarna och business as usual, tiger respektfullt och borgerligt sobert inför sådant jag tycker borde uppmärksammas med ett kallt intelligent hat och förakt därför att det orsakat och orsakar så mycket mänsklig nöd och förstörelse av naturen.