DATE=8/31/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / AUGUST EVENTS
NUMBER=5-46952
BYLINE=EVE CONANT
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
///// RE-PRINTING AS BACKGROUND REPORT. /////
INTRO: Russian newspapers are dubbing this past month
"Black August" - because of three major disasters.
Moscow Correspondent Eve Conant reports politicians
and average Russians alike are arguing that August was
not a month of accidents. Saying instead, it is a
sign that Russia's infrastructure, society, and
economy are in a dire state almost 10-years after the
fall of the Soviet Union.
TEXT: As the smoke was still rising over the
Ostankino television tower, President Vladimir Putin
warned, in his words - this emergency highlights the
condition of our vital facilities and our entire
nation.
/// PUTIN ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
Mr. Putin says - the government must not neglect
Russia's large-scale problems. Only economic
development can help us avoid accidents in the future.
August began with a fatal bombing in a busy
underground passageway in Moscow. But that crisis was
soon overshadowed by the tragic sinking of the nuclear
submarine Kursk which plunged to the bottom of the
Barents Sea, taking the lives of all 118-crewmen with
it. Briefly diverting attention from that was this
week's devastating fire at Moscow's main T-V tower,
which blacked out television reception for millions of
Moscow viewers.
Each crisis overshadowed the next. Each revealed, in
different ways, the underlying faults in the Russian
system - inadequate police surveillance, a lack of
discipline and training in the armed forces, a lack of
technological progress, and the seeming unwillingness
of Russia's leaders to take responsibility or tell the
truth.
/// OPT /// Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov
explained the series of disasters as a metaphor for
the faults of the Kremlin administration.
/// OPT // ZYUGANOV ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE ///
Mr. Zyuganov says - we are realizing the sober truth;
that we are on a terrible path. Unless citizens
become active, nothing will ever improve. If people
enter the government in order to plunder, then it is
not a real government. /// END OPT ///
But Dimitry Trenin of the Moscow Carnegie Center says
that while President Putin has survived the disasters
politically, the series of accidents underscore how
poorly equipped his administration is to deal with
emergencies.
/// TRENIN ACT ///
I think that this, as we used to say in the
past, is no coincidence. Mr. Putin, who is
riding high in the opinion of most people, may
crash to the ground if this series of events
continues to show the incompetence of exactly
the same elements in which Mr. Putin wants to
build his new Russian state - the security
services, the military, and various state
bodies.
/// END ACT ///
For many, President Putin's slow response to the
sinking of the submarine Kursk, and the lack of
information about the fate of the 118-seamen inside,
revealed him as a supporter of a strong state who,
above all else, is determined to protect its prestige
- even at the expense of its citizens.
/// OPT /// Twenty-nine-year-old housewife Svetlana
Alyokhina says she and her friends lost respect for
President Putin after he refused immediate offers of
help from the West to save the crew of the Kursk.
/// OPT // ALYOKHINA ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE ///
/// OPT /// She says - President Putin could have
saved those men. They were not criminals, they were
the best citizens we have. But he rejected the help -
which makes us think that no one is trying to protect
us. It is as if they want to destroy us. /// END
OPT ///
Thirty-two-year-old Andrei Elansky says President
Putin should not be judged for the disasters, that he
simply inherited a bankrupt country.
/// ELANSKY ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
He says - this was going to happen anyway - it is a
consequence of our old system. Everything is rotten
and nothing is being fixed. So it all collapsed this
August.
Political analyst Dimitry Evstafiev says that the
August events above all should serve as a warning to
the Russian government that it can no longer rely on
Soviet-era technology or resources.
/// EVSTAFIEV ACT ///
It brought Mr. Putin and his government to the
point of a choice, whether to continue the line
`everything is business as usual' and continue
to exploit Soviet assets, or to begin a new
investment policy in infrastructure. That is
one of the most important results of the fire in
Ostankino.
/// END ACT ///
Most importantly, he says, Russia's cash-strapped
government simply cannot financially or politically
afford any more disasters such as the fire, the bomb
attack, or the sinking of the Russian navy's pride -
the Kursk, and its entire crew. (SIGNED)
NEB/EC/JWH/RAE
31-Aug-2000 12:05 PM EDT (31-Aug-2000 1605 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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