Blowing Up Russia (32 page)
Authors: Alexander Litvinenko
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Russia & the Former Soviet Union, #Political Science, #General, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Terrorism, #World, #Russian & Former Soviet Union, #Social Science, #Violence in Society, #True Crime, #Espionage, #Murder
However, gently dissolving the FSB in the MVD is not enough. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation must initiate a full-scale investigation into all of the sensational terrorist attacks, first and foremost into the September bombings, whether they succeeded or were foiled, including the incident in Ryazan, this investigation must be transferred from an FSB due to be disbanded to a specially created agency at the MVD, and the individuals involved in organizing terrorist attacks in Russia must be punished as the law requires.
The State Duma must draft and approve as a matter of urgency a law of inspection and promulgation, which prohibits former and current members of the agencies of state security from occupying elected positions or state posts for the next twenty-five years, and obliging all former and current members of the organs of state security to retire by a deadline agreed with a commission especially established for this purpose. This decree of the State Duma must also extend to the current president of Russia and former head of the KGB Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
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The FSB in power (in place of a conclusion) The Federal Security Service has now succeeded in getting its own candidate elected president. When Putin spoke on the anniversary of the founding of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission on December 20, he began his address to his colleagues by saying that the FSB s assignment had been completed-he had become the Prime Minister of Russia.
The restoration of the memorial plaque to Andropov on the Bolshaya Lubyanka building which houses the FSB, a toast to the health of Stalin with the leader of the Russian communists Zyuganov, bombings in residential buildings and a new war in Chechnya, the passing of a law making it legal once again to investigate individuals on the basis of anonymous denunciations, the promotion to positions of power of FSB generals and army officers; and finally, the total destruction of the foundations of a constitutional society built on the admittedly frail but, nonetheless, democratic values of a market economy, the strangling of the freedom of speech-these are only a few of the achievements of Prime Minister and President Putin during the initial months of his rule.
To this must be added the militarization of the Russian economy; the beginning of a new arms race; an increase in the smuggling and sale of Russian weapons and military technologies to governments hostile to the developed nations of the world; the use of FSB channels for the smuggling of narcotics under the control and protection of the FSB from Central and Southeast Asia to Russia and onwards to the West.
Future historians will have to answer the question of who was responsible for the brilliant succession of precisely planned moves which brought Putin to power, and who it was that proposed Putin as a potential candidate to the first president s intimate entourage, which in turn presented the former head of the KGB to Yeltsin as his successor. But perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that Stepashin and Primakov, the two candidates for the role of successor who preceded Putin, also came from the structures of coercion. Yeltsin was amazingly stubborn in his efforts to hand over his post to someone from the agencies of state security.
In the year 2000 elections, the Russian voters were faced with a delightful list of candidates: the old KGB-man Primakov, who confidently boasted that if he came to power he would put 90,000 businessmen (i.e. the entire business elite of Russia) in jail; the young KGB-man Putin, who before he was elected emphasized the need to continue Yeltsin s policies; and the communist Zyuganov, whose future actions could easily be predicted.
In order to jail 90,000 businessmen, Primakov would have had to arrest sixty people every day, including weekends and holidays, throughout his four-year term as president.
The young KGB-man Putin promised to be less bloodthirsty. Perhaps the election campaign was deliberately scripted by someone on the principle of good cop/bad cop?
The bad cop Primakov voluntarily withdrew his candidacy, following a crushing defeat in
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the elections to the State Duma. That only left the young KGB-man and the communist.
It was the same kind of black-and-white choice as in 1996, and Putin won. He has not entirely disappointed the people s trust. At least he appears not to be working at a rate of sixty people a day, unless you count the whirlwind of terror and anti-terror and the war in Chechnya. But Putin undoubtedly deserves the title of tyrant, since he deliberately destroyed the initial shoots of self-government in Russia with his very first decrees, and he now exercises that transparent form of arbitrary rule, which the Russian people know as bespredel (literally- without limits ). He is perfectly described by the definition of a tyrant given by the Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary of 1989: a ruler whose power is founded on arbitrary decision and violence.
Russia, however, is an unpredictable country-this is the only thing which we know for certain about it. And it may prove to be a source of strength more powerful than the clenched fist of the secret services.
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Epilogue
An organization is considered to be a terrorist organization if at least one of its structural components participates in terrorist activities with the consent of at least one of the governing organs of this organization&
The organization is considered to be a terrorist organization and is subject to liquidation on the basis of a court decision.
Upon the liquidation of any organization determined to be a terrorist organization, the property belonging to it is confiscated and appropriated by the government.
The Federal Law of the Russian Federation on combating terrorism Enacted by the State Duma on 3 July 1998. Approved by the Council of the Federation on 9 July 1998. Signed by President B.N. Yeltsin on 25 July 1998.
At midnight on September& of the year 20& , the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia was disbanded by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation in a truly historical decision which marked the beginning of a new era in the development of democratic institutions in Russia. In view of this Decree s obvious importance, we have decided to present the full text of the Decree to our readers.
Decree of the President of the Russian Federation On the dissolution of the following agencies of state security: the Federal Security Service, the External Intelligence Service, The Federal Secret Police Service, the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information.
1. The activities of the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia from December 1917 to the present are hereby declared to be in contradiction of the laws of the Russian Federation as promulgated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and contrary to the interests of the people.
2. The following agencies of state security are hereby disbanded: the Federal Security Service, the External Intelligence Service, the Federal Secret Police Service, the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information.
3. The legal instruments governing the activities of these agencies are declared null and void as of the date of publication of this Decree.
4. Within thirty days from the publication of this Decree, a Public Commission shall be established to investigate the crimes committed by agencies of state security against the state s own citizens both within Russia and beyond its borders. The membership of this commission shall include prominent public figures, civil rights activists, lawyers, deputies of the State Duma, and representatives of the mass media. The chairman of the
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Public Commission shall be appointed by the President of the Russian Federation and shall be accountable to him.
5. All restrictions on access to archives of the agencies of state security are hereby removed. The Public Commission for the investigation of crimes committed by agencies of state security against the state s own citizens is hereby instructed to devise and implement a program for the publication of documents of particular public interest.
6. The records of operations carried out by agencies of state security in relation to persons of Russian or foreign nationality shall be made available to such persons or, if they are no longer alive, to their surviving relatives.
7. Should individuals who have been the subject of operations conducted by agencies of state security consider that the agencies of state security have violated their civil rights and thereby caused them moral and material harm, they shall be entitled under the terms of currently effective legislation to make application to the judiciary of Russia or their country of residence for legal action to be taken against specific members of the agencies of state security.
8. As of midnight January 1, 2002, the agencies of the Ministry of the Interior shall stand guard over all office premises of the agencies of state security and continue to guard them until further notice.
9. The Ministry of the Interior shall appoint a commandant (from the staff of the Ministry) to be responsible for guarding the office premises of the agencies of state security throughout Russia. Agents of the Ministry of the Interior shall rigorously suppress any acts of insubordination by members of the agencies of state security. 10. Within a period of ninety days from the promulgation of the present Decree, the Public Commission for the investigation of crimes committed by agencies of state security against the state s own citizens and the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation shall jointly define the terms for the transfer of a number of the functions of the abolished agencies of state security to the competence of the Ministry of the Interior. 11. The Office of the President shall draft a law of inspection and promulgation applicable to present and former members of the agencies of state security and their agents and shall, within a period of ten days from the publication of the present Decree, forward the draft bill to the State Duma for consideration. Special attention shall be paid in this matter to those members of the organs of state security, whose activities were connected the so-called struggle against dissent. 12. All present and former members of the agencies of state security shall within a period of one month furnish the tax office of the relevant territorial unit of the Russian Federation with a formal declaration of property owned by themselves and their close relatives (including parents, brothers and sisters, and close relatives of husbands and wives, both present and past), the said declaration to include the following: real estate,
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vehicles, accounts in Russian and foreign banks, shares and securities issued by Russian and foreign companies, together with a detailed statement of the sources of income which was used to acquire such property. In the course of the year 2002, the tax authorities of the Russian Federation shall take appropriate measures to verify these declarations and decide upon appropriate action in accordance with procedures specified under the terms of Russian tax legislation.
As from the date of signing and publication of the present Decree until such time as the tax investigations been completed, all individuals and organizations are prohibited from performing any transactions for the purchase, sale, gift, alienation or mortgaging of real estate, vehicles, shares and securities or the transfer of money from accounts belonging to present or former members of the agencies of state security or their relatives. All such transactions performed during the period specified to which present or former members of the agencies of state security or their relatives are party shall be declared null and void. 13. Until such time as they are discharged to the reserves of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, all military personnel of the agencies of state security shall be bound by the following terms: a) they shall remain at their places of residence; b) within seven days of the publication of the present Decree, they shall register temporarily with the Office of the Interior for the area in which they are registered as resident, for which purpose commissioners shall be appointed from among the officer corps of the Ministry of the Interior; c) within twenty-four hours of the publication of the present Decree, they shall surrender the official personal weapons of their rank, official identity cards, undercover identity papers, keys and seals to the commissioner at the Office of the Interior, together with a detailed account of their workplace and official functions, the titles of their departments and sections, and individual positions; d) until such time as they are discharged to the reserves, military personnel of the agencies of state security must report in person to the commissioner at the Office of the Interior for the area in which they are registered as resident as follows: generals and admirals once every three days; senior and junior officers once every five days; warrant officers, first sergeants, sergeants, and privates once every seven days. The commissioners at the Offices of the Interior shall establish special records for this purpose; e) for violations of these instructions, the officers commanding Offices of the Interior shall impose upon the guilty parties penalties up to and including garrison arrest. Failure to sign in as required shall be regarded as failure to report for duty;
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f) financial allowances shall be paid via the financial agencies of the aforementioned Offices of the Interior at the rates set for supernumerary military personnel, until such time as a decision is taken to discharge the persons concerned. 14. Within seven days of the publication of the present Decree, members of the agencies of state security shall draw up a detailed account of their work in the agencies of state security from the day of their enrollment to the date of publication of the Decree on the dissolution of the said agencies, which shall include the following: a) specific mention of their involvement in particular operations and the titles of such operations, concerning whom and on whose instructions the operations were carried out, and, in addition, everything known to them about operations carried out by other members of their agency and other agencies; b) a statement of the complete identification data of resident agents, other agents, owners of apartments used for secret meetings and clandestine or conspiratorial purposes, the names and addresses of contacts; the locations at which their private and professional files are kept; their operational names, together with the identification data of the subjects of relevant operations and the locations of their files; c) Senior staff members of the agencies of state security must indicate the full titles of their units and the identification data and places of residence of their subordinates; d) the accounts specified above must be submitted to the commissioners at the Offices of the Interior, logged in the register of individual statements, and forwarded directly to the chairman of the Public Commission; e) individual members of the agencies of state security who have permitted the deliberate destruction of operational records without authorization shall be subject to the provisions of criminal law. 15. Persons who have previously served in the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia and continue at the present time to serve in the state institutions of the Russian Federation must be withdrawn from active service within five days and shall remain at the disposal of such departments until such time as the law of inspection and promulgation applicable to present and former members of the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia shall come into effect. 16. The provisions of the present Decree shall apply to all present or former members of the agencies of state security and also to all persons who have at any time served in or been members of the secret service staff of the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia. 17. The present Decree shall be regarded by all military personnel of the agencies of state security as a written order from their Commander in Chief. Those who disobey this order shall be held criminally responsible.
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18. This Decree comes into force on the day when it is signed and published in the mass media.
President of the Russian Federation
Commander in Chief
***
Anticipating the future is always a risky business, and attempting to anticipate political developments in Russia is even more so. Nonetheless, we would maintain that the only inaccuracy in the presidential decree which serves as the epilogue to this book is its precise date. We are absolutely convinced that this decree will be promulgated at some time in the near future. If not, then what would be the point of our writing this book?
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APPENDICES
Documents and materials collected by the authors after the first Russian and English editions of Blowing Up Russia
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Appendix 1
Translation from Russian Transcript of the Meeting of the State Duma Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, September 13, 1999 Chairman: Seleznev G.N.
Seleznev G.N.:
Good morning, esteemed colleagues!
Our press service requests us to allow the cameras in for two minutes for official recording. No objections? Please, Victor Ivanovich, then let them come in. (the recording proceeds) - Esteemed colleagues! Today in Russia is a day or mourning! Let us start our meeting and stand in memory of all the people killed in Dagestan and Moscow. (A minute of silence) Please, sit down.
As you can see, the agenda for the council meeting, the first in this session, is huge. But I think that now we will have to have an exchange of opinions concerning tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Evidently we shall have to make certain corrections to the scheduling previously proposed. So as you can see, the first day envisages the consideration of the legislative program for this session tomorrow.
But I think that now we will have an exchange of opinions on what corrections to make, how in general to structure tomorrow s session of the State Duma. It will be necessary, of course, to hear the matter of the situation with regard to events in Dagestan and the terrorist acts in Moscow. We shall have to decide about the time. The head of the government will only be here tomorrow at two o clock. His plane has taken off, but it s a day s journey from there and an eight hour time difference. I have spoken with his secretariat, they told me that they are meeting him tomorrow at two.
And so now let us have an exchange of opinions. Perhaps we&
Seleznev G.N.
Here is another statement. It is reported from Rostov on Don that tonight a residential house was bombed in the town of Volgodonsk.
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Zhirinovsky V.V.
And there is a nuclear power station in Volgodonsk.
Ivanenko S.V.
Of course, it is absolutely impossible to put it off, to show such cowardice in this situation, and I cannot call it anything else. It is simply indecent for a country that is at war and for authorities who must rise to the needs of the moment.
Concerning the issue of responsibility I wish to say to Mr. Zhirinovsky that he should have voted for impeachment instead of talking nonsense. For impeachment over Chechnya. (Noise in the hall) As for tomorrow s session, I believe it is essential to plan from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. for the question of the situation in the North Caucasus and the terrorist acts in the Russian Federation. On this question it seems to me we can hear information from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior and the Director of the FSB and have an exchange of opinions. The leaders of the factions will speak. Without determining beforehand what documents we are going to enact. Because at the moment it is still too early to say that we are capable of doing anything meaningful. If we manage to make a good resolution, then good, then we ll pass it tomorrow. If we don t, then we don t.
Seleznev G.N.
I would like to listen to the chairmen of the committees for defense and security.
Roman Semenovich, please.
Polkovich R.S.
Esteemed colleagues, the first thing I wish to say is earnestly to request all the leaders of factions and everyone else, when we discuss the situation in Dagestan and so forth, to take a very carefully considered approach to what you are going to say. There, in Dagestan, what the soldiers and everyone else are afraid of is that in our debates we will get away from the basic question of what has to be done there, how to put an end to this whole business so that we get back to working out our relations with each other.
Extract from the transcript of the meeting of September 13, 1999 Certified with the square seal of the Administration of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.
Department of Documentation.
Archives of the State Duma.
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Appendix 2
Translation from Russian Transcript of the Plenary Meeting of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, September 17, 1999 Morning Session Chairman: G.N. Seleznev, Chairman of the State Duma Chairman:
1. Esteemed Deputies, good morning! Please take your seats&
2. Vladimir Volfovich, please.
V.V. Zhirinovsky, leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party faction:
I think that the absence of the initiator of the question emphasizes that the question is unnecessary, it is superfluous. Leave our Ministers in peace today.
Look what is happening in our country! Do you remember, Gennady Nikolaevich, you told us on Monday that a house in Volgodonsk had been blown up, three days before the explosion. That can be interpreted as a provocation: if the State Duma knows that a house has been blown up allegedly on Monday, and it is actually blown up on Thursday. And we are dealing with quite different matters at the time. Let us rather deal with this. How did it happen: they report you that at 11 o clock in the morning a house was blown up, but the Rostov Region administration was not aware that you had been informed about it? Everyone goes to sleep, three days later there s an explosion, and then they start to take measures.
Yesterday you spoke very well about the change of ownership of Transfert and at this time, now the workers in Krasnoyarsk are fighting off the same OMON as Lebed attempts to seize a plant that was privatized a long time ago. Let s have not double standards! If you are interested in Transfert &
The microphone is switched off.
Chairman:
Vladimir Volfovich, we should be interested in everything. Where unlawful actions prevail we should intervene. (Shouts from the hall) Very well, I understand the position of your faction. Sergei Nikolaevich Reshulsky, please.
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Appendix 3 Statement of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, February 11, 2002
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Appendix 4 First expert analysis of Achemez Gochiyaev s photographs
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Appendix 5 Second expert analysis of Achemez Gochiyaev s photographs
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Appendix 6 Expert assessment of incident in Ryazan on September 22, 1999
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Appendix 7 Expert assessment of suspected improvised explosive device
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Appendix 8 Expert assessment of explosive device found in Ryazan apartment house
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Appendix 9 Testimony of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Galkin following November 18, 1999
[Senior lieutenant A.V. Galkin is giving an interview to a group of foreign journalists, including one from America and one from Turkey. The questions are asked in English and translated into Russian. The print-out gives the Russian translations of the questions as spoken by the interpreter and Galkin s replies.] Journalist/Interpreter (further: Journalist): can you introduce yourself please.
The State Duma must draft and approve as a matter of urgency a law of inspection and promulgation, which prohibits former and current members of the agencies of state security from occupying elected positions or state posts for the next twenty-five years, and obliging all former and current members of the organs of state security to retire by a deadline agreed with a commission especially established for this purpose. This decree of the State Duma must also extend to the current president of Russia and former head of the KGB Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
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The FSB in power (in place of a conclusion) The Federal Security Service has now succeeded in getting its own candidate elected president. When Putin spoke on the anniversary of the founding of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission on December 20, he began his address to his colleagues by saying that the FSB s assignment had been completed-he had become the Prime Minister of Russia.
The restoration of the memorial plaque to Andropov on the Bolshaya Lubyanka building which houses the FSB, a toast to the health of Stalin with the leader of the Russian communists Zyuganov, bombings in residential buildings and a new war in Chechnya, the passing of a law making it legal once again to investigate individuals on the basis of anonymous denunciations, the promotion to positions of power of FSB generals and army officers; and finally, the total destruction of the foundations of a constitutional society built on the admittedly frail but, nonetheless, democratic values of a market economy, the strangling of the freedom of speech-these are only a few of the achievements of Prime Minister and President Putin during the initial months of his rule.
To this must be added the militarization of the Russian economy; the beginning of a new arms race; an increase in the smuggling and sale of Russian weapons and military technologies to governments hostile to the developed nations of the world; the use of FSB channels for the smuggling of narcotics under the control and protection of the FSB from Central and Southeast Asia to Russia and onwards to the West.
Future historians will have to answer the question of who was responsible for the brilliant succession of precisely planned moves which brought Putin to power, and who it was that proposed Putin as a potential candidate to the first president s intimate entourage, which in turn presented the former head of the KGB to Yeltsin as his successor. But perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that Stepashin and Primakov, the two candidates for the role of successor who preceded Putin, also came from the structures of coercion. Yeltsin was amazingly stubborn in his efforts to hand over his post to someone from the agencies of state security.
In the year 2000 elections, the Russian voters were faced with a delightful list of candidates: the old KGB-man Primakov, who confidently boasted that if he came to power he would put 90,000 businessmen (i.e. the entire business elite of Russia) in jail; the young KGB-man Putin, who before he was elected emphasized the need to continue Yeltsin s policies; and the communist Zyuganov, whose future actions could easily be predicted.
In order to jail 90,000 businessmen, Primakov would have had to arrest sixty people every day, including weekends and holidays, throughout his four-year term as president.
The young KGB-man Putin promised to be less bloodthirsty. Perhaps the election campaign was deliberately scripted by someone on the principle of good cop/bad cop?
The bad cop Primakov voluntarily withdrew his candidacy, following a crushing defeat in
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the elections to the State Duma. That only left the young KGB-man and the communist.
It was the same kind of black-and-white choice as in 1996, and Putin won. He has not entirely disappointed the people s trust. At least he appears not to be working at a rate of sixty people a day, unless you count the whirlwind of terror and anti-terror and the war in Chechnya. But Putin undoubtedly deserves the title of tyrant, since he deliberately destroyed the initial shoots of self-government in Russia with his very first decrees, and he now exercises that transparent form of arbitrary rule, which the Russian people know as bespredel (literally- without limits ). He is perfectly described by the definition of a tyrant given by the Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary of 1989: a ruler whose power is founded on arbitrary decision and violence.
Russia, however, is an unpredictable country-this is the only thing which we know for certain about it. And it may prove to be a source of strength more powerful than the clenched fist of the secret services.
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Epilogue
An organization is considered to be a terrorist organization if at least one of its structural components participates in terrorist activities with the consent of at least one of the governing organs of this organization&
The organization is considered to be a terrorist organization and is subject to liquidation on the basis of a court decision.
Upon the liquidation of any organization determined to be a terrorist organization, the property belonging to it is confiscated and appropriated by the government.
The Federal Law of the Russian Federation on combating terrorism Enacted by the State Duma on 3 July 1998. Approved by the Council of the Federation on 9 July 1998. Signed by President B.N. Yeltsin on 25 July 1998.
At midnight on September& of the year 20& , the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia was disbanded by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation in a truly historical decision which marked the beginning of a new era in the development of democratic institutions in Russia. In view of this Decree s obvious importance, we have decided to present the full text of the Decree to our readers.
Decree of the President of the Russian Federation On the dissolution of the following agencies of state security: the Federal Security Service, the External Intelligence Service, The Federal Secret Police Service, the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information.
1. The activities of the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia from December 1917 to the present are hereby declared to be in contradiction of the laws of the Russian Federation as promulgated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and contrary to the interests of the people.
2. The following agencies of state security are hereby disbanded: the Federal Security Service, the External Intelligence Service, the Federal Secret Police Service, the Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information.
3. The legal instruments governing the activities of these agencies are declared null and void as of the date of publication of this Decree.
4. Within thirty days from the publication of this Decree, a Public Commission shall be established to investigate the crimes committed by agencies of state security against the state s own citizens both within Russia and beyond its borders. The membership of this commission shall include prominent public figures, civil rights activists, lawyers, deputies of the State Duma, and representatives of the mass media. The chairman of the
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Public Commission shall be appointed by the President of the Russian Federation and shall be accountable to him.
5. All restrictions on access to archives of the agencies of state security are hereby removed. The Public Commission for the investigation of crimes committed by agencies of state security against the state s own citizens is hereby instructed to devise and implement a program for the publication of documents of particular public interest.
6. The records of operations carried out by agencies of state security in relation to persons of Russian or foreign nationality shall be made available to such persons or, if they are no longer alive, to their surviving relatives.
7. Should individuals who have been the subject of operations conducted by agencies of state security consider that the agencies of state security have violated their civil rights and thereby caused them moral and material harm, they shall be entitled under the terms of currently effective legislation to make application to the judiciary of Russia or their country of residence for legal action to be taken against specific members of the agencies of state security.
8. As of midnight January 1, 2002, the agencies of the Ministry of the Interior shall stand guard over all office premises of the agencies of state security and continue to guard them until further notice.
9. The Ministry of the Interior shall appoint a commandant (from the staff of the Ministry) to be responsible for guarding the office premises of the agencies of state security throughout Russia. Agents of the Ministry of the Interior shall rigorously suppress any acts of insubordination by members of the agencies of state security. 10. Within a period of ninety days from the promulgation of the present Decree, the Public Commission for the investigation of crimes committed by agencies of state security against the state s own citizens and the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation shall jointly define the terms for the transfer of a number of the functions of the abolished agencies of state security to the competence of the Ministry of the Interior. 11. The Office of the President shall draft a law of inspection and promulgation applicable to present and former members of the agencies of state security and their agents and shall, within a period of ten days from the publication of the present Decree, forward the draft bill to the State Duma for consideration. Special attention shall be paid in this matter to those members of the organs of state security, whose activities were connected the so-called struggle against dissent. 12. All present and former members of the agencies of state security shall within a period of one month furnish the tax office of the relevant territorial unit of the Russian Federation with a formal declaration of property owned by themselves and their close relatives (including parents, brothers and sisters, and close relatives of husbands and wives, both present and past), the said declaration to include the following: real estate,
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vehicles, accounts in Russian and foreign banks, shares and securities issued by Russian and foreign companies, together with a detailed statement of the sources of income which was used to acquire such property. In the course of the year 2002, the tax authorities of the Russian Federation shall take appropriate measures to verify these declarations and decide upon appropriate action in accordance with procedures specified under the terms of Russian tax legislation.
As from the date of signing and publication of the present Decree until such time as the tax investigations been completed, all individuals and organizations are prohibited from performing any transactions for the purchase, sale, gift, alienation or mortgaging of real estate, vehicles, shares and securities or the transfer of money from accounts belonging to present or former members of the agencies of state security or their relatives. All such transactions performed during the period specified to which present or former members of the agencies of state security or their relatives are party shall be declared null and void. 13. Until such time as they are discharged to the reserves of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, all military personnel of the agencies of state security shall be bound by the following terms: a) they shall remain at their places of residence; b) within seven days of the publication of the present Decree, they shall register temporarily with the Office of the Interior for the area in which they are registered as resident, for which purpose commissioners shall be appointed from among the officer corps of the Ministry of the Interior; c) within twenty-four hours of the publication of the present Decree, they shall surrender the official personal weapons of their rank, official identity cards, undercover identity papers, keys and seals to the commissioner at the Office of the Interior, together with a detailed account of their workplace and official functions, the titles of their departments and sections, and individual positions; d) until such time as they are discharged to the reserves, military personnel of the agencies of state security must report in person to the commissioner at the Office of the Interior for the area in which they are registered as resident as follows: generals and admirals once every three days; senior and junior officers once every five days; warrant officers, first sergeants, sergeants, and privates once every seven days. The commissioners at the Offices of the Interior shall establish special records for this purpose; e) for violations of these instructions, the officers commanding Offices of the Interior shall impose upon the guilty parties penalties up to and including garrison arrest. Failure to sign in as required shall be regarded as failure to report for duty;
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f) financial allowances shall be paid via the financial agencies of the aforementioned Offices of the Interior at the rates set for supernumerary military personnel, until such time as a decision is taken to discharge the persons concerned. 14. Within seven days of the publication of the present Decree, members of the agencies of state security shall draw up a detailed account of their work in the agencies of state security from the day of their enrollment to the date of publication of the Decree on the dissolution of the said agencies, which shall include the following: a) specific mention of their involvement in particular operations and the titles of such operations, concerning whom and on whose instructions the operations were carried out, and, in addition, everything known to them about operations carried out by other members of their agency and other agencies; b) a statement of the complete identification data of resident agents, other agents, owners of apartments used for secret meetings and clandestine or conspiratorial purposes, the names and addresses of contacts; the locations at which their private and professional files are kept; their operational names, together with the identification data of the subjects of relevant operations and the locations of their files; c) Senior staff members of the agencies of state security must indicate the full titles of their units and the identification data and places of residence of their subordinates; d) the accounts specified above must be submitted to the commissioners at the Offices of the Interior, logged in the register of individual statements, and forwarded directly to the chairman of the Public Commission; e) individual members of the agencies of state security who have permitted the deliberate destruction of operational records without authorization shall be subject to the provisions of criminal law. 15. Persons who have previously served in the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia and continue at the present time to serve in the state institutions of the Russian Federation must be withdrawn from active service within five days and shall remain at the disposal of such departments until such time as the law of inspection and promulgation applicable to present and former members of the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia shall come into effect. 16. The provisions of the present Decree shall apply to all present or former members of the agencies of state security and also to all persons who have at any time served in or been members of the secret service staff of the agencies of state security of the USSR and Russia. 17. The present Decree shall be regarded by all military personnel of the agencies of state security as a written order from their Commander in Chief. Those who disobey this order shall be held criminally responsible.
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18. This Decree comes into force on the day when it is signed and published in the mass media.
President of the Russian Federation
Commander in Chief
***
Anticipating the future is always a risky business, and attempting to anticipate political developments in Russia is even more so. Nonetheless, we would maintain that the only inaccuracy in the presidential decree which serves as the epilogue to this book is its precise date. We are absolutely convinced that this decree will be promulgated at some time in the near future. If not, then what would be the point of our writing this book?
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APPENDICES
Documents and materials collected by the authors after the first Russian and English editions of Blowing Up Russia
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Appendix 1
Translation from Russian Transcript of the Meeting of the State Duma Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, September 13, 1999 Chairman: Seleznev G.N.
Seleznev G.N.:
Good morning, esteemed colleagues!
Our press service requests us to allow the cameras in for two minutes for official recording. No objections? Please, Victor Ivanovich, then let them come in. (the recording proceeds) - Esteemed colleagues! Today in Russia is a day or mourning! Let us start our meeting and stand in memory of all the people killed in Dagestan and Moscow. (A minute of silence) Please, sit down.
As you can see, the agenda for the council meeting, the first in this session, is huge. But I think that now we will have to have an exchange of opinions concerning tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Evidently we shall have to make certain corrections to the scheduling previously proposed. So as you can see, the first day envisages the consideration of the legislative program for this session tomorrow.
But I think that now we will have an exchange of opinions on what corrections to make, how in general to structure tomorrow s session of the State Duma. It will be necessary, of course, to hear the matter of the situation with regard to events in Dagestan and the terrorist acts in Moscow. We shall have to decide about the time. The head of the government will only be here tomorrow at two o clock. His plane has taken off, but it s a day s journey from there and an eight hour time difference. I have spoken with his secretariat, they told me that they are meeting him tomorrow at two.
And so now let us have an exchange of opinions. Perhaps we&
Seleznev G.N.
Here is another statement. It is reported from Rostov on Don that tonight a residential house was bombed in the town of Volgodonsk.
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Zhirinovsky V.V.
And there is a nuclear power station in Volgodonsk.
Ivanenko S.V.
Of course, it is absolutely impossible to put it off, to show such cowardice in this situation, and I cannot call it anything else. It is simply indecent for a country that is at war and for authorities who must rise to the needs of the moment.
Concerning the issue of responsibility I wish to say to Mr. Zhirinovsky that he should have voted for impeachment instead of talking nonsense. For impeachment over Chechnya. (Noise in the hall) As for tomorrow s session, I believe it is essential to plan from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. for the question of the situation in the North Caucasus and the terrorist acts in the Russian Federation. On this question it seems to me we can hear information from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior and the Director of the FSB and have an exchange of opinions. The leaders of the factions will speak. Without determining beforehand what documents we are going to enact. Because at the moment it is still too early to say that we are capable of doing anything meaningful. If we manage to make a good resolution, then good, then we ll pass it tomorrow. If we don t, then we don t.
Seleznev G.N.
I would like to listen to the chairmen of the committees for defense and security.
Roman Semenovich, please.
Polkovich R.S.
Esteemed colleagues, the first thing I wish to say is earnestly to request all the leaders of factions and everyone else, when we discuss the situation in Dagestan and so forth, to take a very carefully considered approach to what you are going to say. There, in Dagestan, what the soldiers and everyone else are afraid of is that in our debates we will get away from the basic question of what has to be done there, how to put an end to this whole business so that we get back to working out our relations with each other.
Extract from the transcript of the meeting of September 13, 1999 Certified with the square seal of the Administration of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.
Department of Documentation.
Archives of the State Duma.
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Appendix 2
Translation from Russian Transcript of the Plenary Meeting of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, September 17, 1999 Morning Session Chairman: G.N. Seleznev, Chairman of the State Duma Chairman:
1. Esteemed Deputies, good morning! Please take your seats&
2. Vladimir Volfovich, please.
V.V. Zhirinovsky, leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party faction:
I think that the absence of the initiator of the question emphasizes that the question is unnecessary, it is superfluous. Leave our Ministers in peace today.
Look what is happening in our country! Do you remember, Gennady Nikolaevich, you told us on Monday that a house in Volgodonsk had been blown up, three days before the explosion. That can be interpreted as a provocation: if the State Duma knows that a house has been blown up allegedly on Monday, and it is actually blown up on Thursday. And we are dealing with quite different matters at the time. Let us rather deal with this. How did it happen: they report you that at 11 o clock in the morning a house was blown up, but the Rostov Region administration was not aware that you had been informed about it? Everyone goes to sleep, three days later there s an explosion, and then they start to take measures.
Yesterday you spoke very well about the change of ownership of Transfert and at this time, now the workers in Krasnoyarsk are fighting off the same OMON as Lebed attempts to seize a plant that was privatized a long time ago. Let s have not double standards! If you are interested in Transfert &
The microphone is switched off.
Chairman:
Vladimir Volfovich, we should be interested in everything. Where unlawful actions prevail we should intervene. (Shouts from the hall) Very well, I understand the position of your faction. Sergei Nikolaevich Reshulsky, please.
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Appendix 3 Statement of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, February 11, 2002
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Appendix 4 First expert analysis of Achemez Gochiyaev s photographs
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Appendix 5 Second expert analysis of Achemez Gochiyaev s photographs
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Appendix 6 Expert assessment of incident in Ryazan on September 22, 1999
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Appendix 7 Expert assessment of suspected improvised explosive device
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Appendix 8 Expert assessment of explosive device found in Ryazan apartment house
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Appendix 9 Testimony of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Galkin following November 18, 1999
[Senior lieutenant A.V. Galkin is giving an interview to a group of foreign journalists, including one from America and one from Turkey. The questions are asked in English and translated into Russian. The print-out gives the Russian translations of the questions as spoken by the interpreter and Galkin s replies.] Journalist/Interpreter (further: Journalist): can you introduce yourself please.
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