Message-ID: <218581ACEC23D31184CD0008C7333E7F1CA5D4@LONDON_SRV>
From: Institute for War & Peace Reporting <info@iwpr.net>
To: Institute for War & Peace Reporting <info@iwpr.net>
Subject: IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 18
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 04:13:58 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Sender: owner-crsenglish@angus.mystery.com
Reply-To: Institute for War & Peace Reporting <info@iwpr.net>
Precedence: bulk



WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 18, February 11, 2000.

MOSCOW TARGETS MOUNTAIN STRONGHOLDS. Russia carpet-bombs the Chechen
mountains in a bid to flush out rebel troops. But the separatists say the
only victims of the raids are unarmed civilians. Ruslan Isaev in Nazran
reports.

CHECHEN 'SPIRITS' HAUNT RUSSIANS. The Russian army's propaganda machine is
misfiring as Chechens leaders it claims to have killed rise from their
graves. Ruslan Isaev in Nazran counts the living.

A SENTRY'S TALE. Federal troops take pity on a Russian woman searching
desperately for her missing fiancé. Erik Batuev in Chechnya reports.

CLASH OF THE TBLISI TITANS. Georgia's political heavyweights are set to
cross swords in the wake of Shevardnadze's expected election victory. Ia
Antadze in Tblisi follows the rivals.

TURKEY EASES ARMENIA BLOCKADE. Economic hardship has prompted Turkey to ease
its blockade of neighbouring Armenia. Artem Yerkanian in Yerevan reports.

AZERBAIJAN'S U-TURN ON CENSORSHIP. Increasing attacks on the independent
media raise concerns of a official effort by the authorities in Baku to
silence their critics. Shakhin Rzayev in Baku reports.

********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************

MOSCOW TARGETS MOUNTAIN STRONGHOLDS

Russia carpet-bombs the Chechen mountains in a bid to flush out rebel
troops. But the separatists say the only victims of the raids are unarmed
civilians.

By Ruslan Isaev in Nazran

Russian aircraft continued to pound mountain villages to the south of Grozny
this week, despite Chechen claims that they had already been abandoned by
separatist forces.

Rebel leaders said that Su-24 bombers had staged dozens of sorties over
Itum-Kale and Shatoy, strategic heights near the Georgian border, blasting
the settlements with vacuum bombs and napalm. Seventy civilians were
reported to have died in the attacks between February 6-9.

Itum-Kale was seized on Thursday by Russian paratroops dropped from
helicopter gunships - a victory which the Russian high command has hailed as
the final stage in its seizure of the Argun Gorge.

However, Chechen commander Aslambek Abdulkhadzhiev said rebel guerrillas had
left the village several days previously, heading for remote mountain
strongholds to the east and west. Airborne units captured nothing more than
"deserted heaps of rubble", he said.

In an earlier incident, Russian bombers blitzed Katyr-Yurt and Shaami-Yurt
with 1.5-tonne bombs, deployed for the first time in the campaign. Federal
troops surrounded the villages after 600 guerrillas under Ruslan Gelaev were
reported to be regrouping there.

After nearly a week of ground-to-ground rocket bombardments, the civilian
populations of Katyr-Yurt and Shaami-Yurt left the settlement under a white
flag to negotiate a ceasefire with Russian commanders. One local elder who
gave his name as Shamil said the rebels had left the village the previous
evening, moving on to mountain strongholds.

Shamil claimed that many of the civilians fell under a mortar barrage while
others were fired on by Russian troops. Soon, the streets were littered with
corpses which residents were too terrified to bury.

Russian troops entered the village on February 8 and embarked on an orgy of
looting, said Shamil, burning down the plundered houses in a bid to cover
their tracks.

The federal press-centre subsequently announced that 300 Chechen fighters
were killed in the fighting around Katyr-Yurt - but it has often succumbed
to the temptation to exaggerate rebel losses in the past.

The bombing raids came as an ominous prelude to the "last phase of the
anti-terrorist campaign in Chechnya" as federal troops attempt to seize the
Argun and Vedeno gorges, two vital passes into the rocky hinterland.

General Victor Kazantsev, commander of the Russian forces, said February 9,
"We know where the bandit groups are congregating. First and foremost, they
will be destroyed there. The fate of the bandits has already been decided."

Fired by their surprise victory in Grozny, federal forces have been swift to
follow up their advantage, mounting up to 200 bombing raids a day over the
mountain passes. It is thought there are between 5,000 and 7,000 separatists
still at large.

While Moscow trumpeted its victory along the Argun River, paratroops were
dropped on Day, Khidi-Khutor and Tsa-Vedeno, key positions on the high
ground south-east of Grozny. Serzhen-Yurt, at the mouth of the Vedeno Gorge,
was reportedly seized by elite Russian marines on Thursday night.

But despite a new confidence amongst the Russian general staff, occupying
forces are facing constant harassment in territories already under their
control. In the wake of the Grozny siege, rebel fighters are apparently
melting back into the civilian population, waiting for opportunities to
launch partisan attacks on federal strongholds.

Last week, two gun emplacements in Urus-Martan and Achkhoy-Martan were fired
on by rebel snipers while, four kilometres outside Argun, guerrillas
destroyed a stretch of railway track, then strafed two military trains with
rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire.

Federal retaliation has been brutal. Refugees heading for the Ingushetian
border tell horrifying tales of Russian terror tactics while Chechen leaders
claim 600 civilians have been shot by federal troops since the retreat from
the capital. New York-based Human Rights Watch says it is investigating
around 50 reports of summary executions.

Seda Saralapova, from the Michurina district of Grozny, said she had seen 20
people shot in the courtyard of a local hospital. Saralapova had been hiding
in a debris-choked shell-hole at the time. She said the civilians -
including two 10-year-old girls, Zoya Sultanova and Malika Serbieva - were
executed after Russian troops had looted and burned their homes.

Dismissing out of hand any accusations that war crimes have been committed
in Chechnya, Russia's generals are taking tougher measures to assert federal
control over occupied villages.

Forces have been redeployed across the republic: a division has been based
at Khankala, in Grozny's western suburbs, while motor-rifle regiments of
between 2,500 and 3,000 men will be stationed at Shali and Itum-Kale by the
end of March.

Around 50 fortified checkpoints have been set up along the main highways
into Grozny while 30 kilometres of mountain roads have been mined. On
Thursday, the rebels' underground TV station, Kavkaz, was discovered by
federal agents in the village of Oktyabrskoe near the Dagestani border and
shut down.

Rebels who surrendered during the retreat from Grozny - 5,000 according to
General Kazantsev, 500 according to Justice Minister Yuri Chaika - have been
dispatched to detention camps. More than 230 have reportedly been released.

Yuri Biryukov, of the Russian prosecutor's office said most of the prisoners
were captured after the February 1 government amnesty had expired. "If the
Duma extends the amnesty, then we'll reconsider this question [of setting
them free]," he said.

Ruslan Isaev, a freelance Chechen reporter, is a regular IWPR contributor.


CHECHEN 'SPIRITS' HAUNT RUSSIANS

The Russian army's propaganda machine is misfiring as Chechens leaders it
claims to have killed rise from their graves.

By Ruslan Isaev in Nazran

As Russia's war machine shifts its focus to Chechnya's southern mountains,
its propaganda machine is homing in on the rebel high command.

Realising that cohesion within the rebel forces relies largely on the
charisma of individual commanders, Moscow has been devoting considerable
efforts to killing them off - if only on paper.

The trouble is the "spirits" - the federal army's nickname for the Chechens
-have a habit of coming back to haunt the wishful-thinking Russian generals.

Vice-President Vakha Arsanov, declared dead by the federal press centre on
February 1, rose from the grave a week later to declare, "Rumours of my
death are greatly exaggerated" in an interview on the underground Chechen TV
station, Kavkaz.

Ruslan Gelaev, who was on the official casualty list after the fall of
Grozny, reappeared on February 2 to organise the defence of Katyr-Yurt where
a large rebel force was surrounded by Russian troops and pounded by
artillery.

Aslambek Ismailov, commander of the Grozny defence garrison, was resurrected
by the Russians on February 7 when he was named as one of the field
commanders who took part in the exchange of Radio Liberty reporter Andrei
Babitsky for two Russian PoWs. Chechen sources had reported that Ismailov
died in Alkhan-Kala during the retreat from the shattered capital.

It was, in fact, after the Alkhan-Kala bloodbath that the Russian generals
started counting heads. It is thought that a force of 2,000 rebels blundered
into a minefield near the village as they attempted to break out of Grozny
on January 31.

With unusual candour, the Chechen high command announced that three top
commanders died in the fiasco: Grozny Mayor Lecha Dudaev, Aslambek Ismailov
and Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov.

The Russian media added that maverick warlord Shamil Basaev had lost both
legs and his right eye. They eventually settled for the heel of his right
foot.

Meanwhile, General Victor Kazantsev, commander of the Russian forces in
Chechnya, declared that the Chechen high command had been effectively
destroyed and "a number of ring-leaders are currently in captivity".

Kazantsev refused to name any of his high-ranking prisoners, although they
are thought to include Chechen health minister Umar Khambiev, who was chief
surgeon at Grozny's Hospital No. 9 throughout the Russian siege.

However, despite the bold assertions of the Russian generals, federal agents
have reportedly been exhuming the corpses of dozens of rebel fighters in a
bid to check their facts.

It is thought the bodies were removed by Russian army lorries in the dead of
night so that experts from the Federal Security Service could later
establish their identities and amend their Most Wanted list.

Villagers in Alkhan-Kala report that around 10 corpses were dug up in the
first days of February, including the body of Lecha Dudaev, nephew of
Chechnya's first president, Dzhokhar Dudaev. Similar incidents have been
reported in the Michurina and Zavodskoy districts of Grozny.

Hopes that the feared warlord Emir Khattab might be among the casualties
were dashed when the Jordanian-born militant appeared on Chechen TV to
announce his plans to defend rebel mountain strongholds. Declared dead on
two occasions by the Russian general staff, Khattab continues to inspire his
followers by a reputation for invulnerability.

By turning humble mortals into living legends, the Russian propaganda
machine may be doing the embattled military far more harm than good.

Ruslan Isaev, a freelance Chechen reporter, is a regular IWPR contributor 


A SENTRY'S TALE

Federal troops take pity on a Russian woman searching desperately for her
missing fiancé.

By Erik Batuev in Chechnya

The sentry gaped in astonishment. A young woman was making her way towards
the bunker, weaving deftly between the trip wires, which criss-crossed the
road. In the half-light of the early morning, her movements seemed practised
and deliberate.

The paratrooper had every reason to be jittery. Several days before, his
unit had approached a group of Chechens near the town of Gudermes. The men
had raised their hands in surrender, waited for the soldiers to come near.
Then, on a prearranged signal, they pulled hand grenades out of their
pockets and bowled them towards the enemy.

To his growing discomfort, the sentry noticed that the woman was clutching
her hands to her chest, as if carrying a heavy object. He turned to his
comrades in alarm, yelling that a Chechen kamikaze was launching a surprise
attack. The snipers rushed to the gun emplacements and trained their weapons
on the intruder.

"Halt, who goes there?" The woman stopped in her tracks, gripping her coat
with a fierce intensity. "Hands up!" The paratrooper's voice cracked with
tension. The woman raised her hands and smiled - apparently, there was
nothing concealed inside her coat.

The soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment, then the sergeant asked
for a volunteer to search her. A corporal ventured out and walked up to the
woman. The snipers stared fiercely through their telescopic sights. She
didn't flinch as the man searched her pockets.

"She's clean!" he called out with barely concealed relief. The woman kept
smiling.

After the tension had subsided, the soldiers warmed to their unexpected
guest. They gave her a cup of tea, asked her how she came to be there. The
woman told them that she was a Russian and her fiancé, a federal soldier,
had gone missing in action during the first Chechen war. She had been
searching for him for nearly four years, clinging to the hope that he might
somehow have survived.

In the beginning, she had pursued one clue after another, eagerly seizing at
rumours that he was a prisoner, a hostage or a fugitive from the military
authorities. She took charity, lived like a vagrant. Once she fell into the
hands of Chechen guerrillas. They held her in a cellar for nearly a week and
treated her like a slave. Then they sold her on to another gang and the
woman gradually lost her grip on reality.

Now she smiles too much and wanders through the Russian military positions,
in search of a ghost.

The paratroopers kept her in their bunker for a while, said she was one of
"their own" because her fiancé had been soldier. Then they handed her on to
the military police, who said she was insane and sent her to Mozdok. The
paratroopers quickly forgot about the woman - she was a tiny speck in a vast
river of human suffering which swept past them every day.

Erik Batuev is a journalist with Svet newspaper in Nazran 


CLASH OF THE TBLISI TITANS

Georgia's political heavyweights are set to cross swords in the wake of
Shevardnadze's expected election victory

By Ia Antadze in Tblisi

A fierce power struggle is brewing in Georgia between the leading lights of
the ruling cabal.

Serving President Eduard Shevardnadze's victory in elections scheduled for
April 9 appears to be a foregone conclusion, but the battle to succeed him
will then begin in earnest.

An intense rivalry is already emerging among the three main contenders in
Shevardnadze's ruling Citizen's Union party, which mopped up nearly
two-thirds of the seats in last year's parliamentary elections, effectively
pushing all other political factions out of the picture.

But the three gladiators, Parliamentary Chairman Zurab Zhvania, Minister of
State Vaja Lordkipanidze and Niko Lekishvili, leader of the parliamentary
majority, are expected to step up their fight for popular support, increased
parliamentary influence and, last but not least, the approval of President
Shevardnadze after he is re-elected.

They will also be struggling to discredit one another wherever possible and
score political points.

The most immediate prize is the post of prime-minister, proposed 18 months
ago as part of a package of constitutional reforms. It is likely the post
will be introduced after the April elections and whomever Shevardnadze
appoints will be seen as his heir apparent in 2005.

Lekishvili is a former entrepreneur who enjoys the respect of the local
business community. In the last elections, he succeeded in bringing a large
body of his supporters into parliament and now wields considerable influence
over the republic's top financiers.

While Lekishvili lacks the power base to launch his own leadership bid, he
may choose to throw his weight behind either of his rivals and this could
seriously tilt the balance of power in the Georgian government.

Zurab Zhvania has been working hard to portray himself as a bastion of
honesty. He is a champion of free speech, national culture and
nongovernmental groups. However, his reputation has been tarnished by his
apparent inability to shake up the Georgian legal system, which is dogged by
corruption and in-fighting. 

Many voters are also concerned that the ranks of the Citizen's Union party -
hand-picked by Zhvania - includes several controversial figures who are
opposed to legislative reforms.

Formerly Georgia's ambassador to Moscow, Vaja Lordkipanidze was recalled by
Shevardnadze in August 1998 and appointed Minister of State. He has since
been given the hottest political potatoes to juggle: Abkhazia and the
national economy.

These unenviable tasks offer Lordkipanidze opportunities both for covering
himself in political glory and for committing political suicide. The
Georgian refugees who fled Abkhazia during the conflict are pinning their
hopes on Lordkipanidze - and will be slow to forgive him if he fails.

The challenge of turning round the Georgian economy is no less demanding.
According to the state department of statistics, 90 per cent of the
population live below the poverty line while 30 per cent are thought to
exist on the edge of starvation. The average salary in Georgia is around 70
lari ($35) a month whilst the minimum required for a normal existence is
estimated at between 113 and 190 lari.

Vaja Lordkipanidze is well aware that his rivals are eagerly awaiting his
downfall. Zurab Zhvania misses no opportunity to highlight the failure of
economic reforms and has applauded recent moves by Shevardnadze to increase
Lordkipanidze's responsibilities. Give the minister of state enough rope,
reasons Zhvania, and he will hang himself.

But Lordkipanidze himself is cautious, rarely entering into open conflict
and keeping his personal spheres of interest tightly under wraps. He knows
that Zhvania will have to start tackling major national problems if he is to
gain credibility within the party and the country as a whole.

Shevardnadze will have to time his appointment of a prime minister
carefully. Too soon and the candidate will be unlikely to last the distance;
too late and he will have no time to gain the public's confidence.

Certainly, the population at large will look at the president's official
heir with intense scrutiny. While they credit Shevardnadze with building the
Georgian state, they no longer expect him to spearhead the radical reforms
needed to drag the fledgling republic onto the international stage.

Ia Antadze is a journalist on the Tbilisi newspaper Kavkasioni.


TURKEY EASES ARMENIA BLOCKADE

Economic hardship has prompted Turkey to ease its blockade of neighbouring
Armenia.

By Artem Yerkanian in Yerevan

The stretch of railway from the Turkish town of Kars to the Armenian border
is rusty. The last train crossed the frontier in 1993, when the Turkish
authorities, under heavy pressure from the US government, agreed to send its
neighbour urgent humanitarian aid.

The Turkish authorities closed the border as a gesture of support for
Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, an
Armenian-populated enclave in Azerbaijan.

But Armenians learned to live under the Turkish blockade, and one imposed by
Azerbaijan, finding new trading routes through Iran and the seaports of
Georgia.

Now, however, Turkey is keen to improve relations with Armenia and the
reopening of the border is high of the agenda. Not least because the Turkish
provinces close to the Armenian border, in particular Kars and Erzrum, are
less economically developed than the rest of the country.

Local experts say that social problems and unemployment are a major reason
for emigration from Kars to central Turkey, currently running at 8,000
people per year. The government is concerned the depopulation could
eventually lead to local Kurds outnumbering Turks.

Many Turks there hope the opening of the border will boost the regional
economy. "Isolation damages both sides, " says the mayor of Kars, Naib
Alibeioghlu. " The present situation favours Georgia and Iran, who are
making big profits by serving as intermediaries between the Turkish and
Armenian businessmen".

Businessmen, it seems, are not waiting for the government to give them the
green light to deal with Armenia. They have already struck an agreement to
trade directly on the Turkish-Georgian border.

"Our goods arrive in Armenia through third countries, " said the President
of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Trabzon, a Turkish city. "The
lifting of the border blockade will be great for our country. It will
improve the situation in the eastern part of the Black Sea, and open new
markets for Turkey."

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to lift the blockade are being stepped up. The
late prime minister of Armenia, Vazgen Sarkisian, called on Washington last
September to press the Turkish authorities to end Yerevan's isolation. And
Armenian President Robert Kocharian declared in November that the problem
would be solved in near future, following talks with his Turkish
counterpart, Suleiman Demirel.

In another sign of improving relations between the two countries, Gumir in
Armenia and Kars have declared themselves sister cities.

And, increasingly, more and more Turkish firms are doing business directly
with Armenia, without recourse to third countries. Five or six companies
involved in trade, tourism and transportation are now based in Yerevan.
There is a whole network of shops in the Armenian border town of Gumir
belonging to a businessman from Turkey.

Gradually, Armenian manufacturers are entering into the Turkish market too.
Everything from cheese, raw leather and benches are finding their way across
the border. "Companies rebuilding towns in north-eastern Turkey damaged by
the recent earthquake need inexpensive, but quality cement," said spokesman
for the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ministry, Ara Papian. "The
Turks can easily purchase it in Armenia."

The volume of informal trade between Turkey and Armenia totals approximately
$120 million per year. Roads and railways will allow both countries to make
significant profits from transit. Experts believe that, once the border is
opened, the figure could increase tenfold.

Artem Yerkanian is deputy editor-in-chief of Novoe Vremya ("New Times")
newspaper in Yerevan 


AZERBAIJAN'S U-TURN ON CENSORSHIP

Increasing attacks on the independent media raise concerns of a official
effort by the authorities in Baku to silence their critics.

By Shakhin Rzayev in Baku

The offices of Azerbaijan's biggest selling opposition newspaper were
stormed this week by government supporters and one of its journalists
arrested in the latest crackdown on the country's independent media.

The raid on Eni Musavet and the detention of Elbai Gasanly, who was later
released, comes four months after the independent broadcaster, Sara, was
forced off the air. [See "The Silencing of Sara TV," by Shahin Rzayev,
Caucasus Reporting Service No. 5, 4-Nov-99]

The episode suggests that the authorities are seeking roll back press
freedoms, despite the repeal of a presidential decree on censorship two
years ago. Local analysts believe the government is being encouraged by
muted international reaction to Sara's closure.

In the latest incident, around 100 people from the town of Nekhram of the
Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic demonstrated on February 7 in front of the
Eni Musavat's offices.

The protest was sparked by series of articles by one of the paper's
reporters, Albai Gasanly, which had been highly critical of Nakhichevan's
leading official, Vasif Talybov, and suggested that the residents of Nekhram
- the home town of President Geider Aliev - enjoyed a privileged life.

The protesters attempted to storm the newspaper office, brushing past
police, but were held back by barricades assembled by the journalists. "We'd
never seen our police behaving so meekly before," said one journalist inside
the building.

Eni Musavat sells almost three times as many copies as its largest rival and
generally reflects the views of the opposition Musavat Party, which is
headed by Isa Gambar, the former speaker of the Azerbaijan parliament.

Several hours before the attack on Eni Musavat's offices, Gasanly was
arrested and flown to Nakhichevan, where he was sentenced to 15 days in
prison. Other people interviewed in his controversial articles were also
arrested.

Independent newspapers subsequently published prominent photographs of
Gasanly and demanded his release. He was freed a day after their appeal.

The chairman of the Musavat Party, Isa Gambar said that he considered
Gasanly's arrest an act of revenge against the journalist and an attempt to
scare the free press.

Ex-president Abulfaz Elchibei described the raid on the newspaper as
"government terror" and alleged that "Geidar Aliev knew about the action,
and that supporters of his brother, Dzhalal Aliev, took a direct part in
it."

The leader of the Azerbaijani Social Democrat Party, Zardusht Alizade, said
the president's family is a taboo subject. Indeed, last summer, a journalist
with the Bakinsky Boulevard newspaper, Irada Guseinova, was sentenced to a
year in prison for calling Dzhalal "King of the Petrol Pumps". Talybov, the
subject of Gasanly's investigation, is married to Aliev's niece.

Aliev has yet to respond to the incidents but his adviser Ali Gasanov said,
"The inhabitants of Nekhram were upset by the publications in the Eni
Musavat newspaper and expressed their unhappiness. That is their
constitutional right, though the method of protest was poorly chosen."

The view was echoed by Dzhalal Aliev who condemned the Musavat Party as a
fascist organisation and described the attacks on the newspaper as an
"appropriate reaction" by Azeri citizens.

Shahin Rzayev is IWPR Project Editor in Baku.

********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************

IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service provides the regional and international
community with unique insiders' perspective on the Caucasus. Using our
network of local journalists, the service publishes objective news and
analysis from across the region upon a weekly basis.

The service forms part of IWPR's Caucasus Project based in Tbilisi and
London which supports local media development while encouraging better local
and international understanding of a conflicted yet emerging region.

IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service is supported by the UK National Lottery
Charities Board. The service is currently available on the Web in English
and will shortly be available in Russian. All IWPR's reporting services
including Balkan Crisis Reports and Tribunal Update are available free of
charge via e-mail subscription or direct from the Web.

The institute will be launching a fourth news service, IWPR Central Asia
Reports, in the coming months. To subscribe to any of our existing or
forthcoming news services, e-mail IWPR Programmes Officer Duncan Furey at
duncan@iwpr.net.

For further details on this project and other information services and media
programmes, visit IWPR's Website: <www.iwpr.net>.

Editor-in-chief: Anthony Borden. Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Assistant
Editor: Alan Davis. Commissioning Editors: Giorgi Topouria in Tbilisi,
Shahin Rzayev in Baku, Mark Grigorian in Yerevan, Michael Randall and Saule
Mukhametrakhimova in London. Editorial Assistance: Felix Corley and Heather
Milner. To comment on this service, contact IWPR's Programme Director: Alan
Davis alan@iwpr.net

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a London-based independent
non-profit organisation supporting regional media and democratic change.

Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, United
Kingdom.Tel: (44 171) 713 7130; Fax: (44 171) 713 7140. E-mail:
info@iwpr.net; Web: www.iwpr.net

The opinions expressed in IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service are those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of
IWPR.

Copyright (c) IWPR 2000

IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 18

-- ### --

{#} ----------------------------------------------------+[ crsenglish ]+---