Berezovsky's revenge

Accusing fingers are being pointed at Russian President Vladimir Putin for masterminding a bombing campaign originally blamed on Chechen separatists, writes Negar Azimi
In September 1999, a series of bombs ripped through apartment buildings in Moscow and the small southern Russia town of Volgodonsk, leaving nearly 300 people dead in their wake. At the time, the blasts were blamed on Chechen insurgents. The Kremlin rapidly used the collective rage borne of the occasion to justify the deployment of troops to the breakaway republic.
But in London last week, Boris Berezovsky -- a former ally of the president and currently a mega-media mogul in exile -- created a stir by claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the bombings. Berezovsky charges that in fact it was the Russian state security service which masterminded the plot.
Standing before journalists in London on 5 March, Berezovsky presented a meticulously prepared array of evidence in support of his request for a public investigation into the bombings. His efforts came complete with a 10- minute clip from a documentary film and testimonies from former state security (FSB) agent Nikita Chekulin, a British explosives expert, and a woman who lost her mother in the attacks in question. Berezovsky sought to prove that the Kremlin was behind the attacks as the premise for an ensuing Chechen campaign that would facilitate then-Prime Minister Putin's meteoric rise to power on a wave of strong public sentiment.
"I am sure the bombings were organised by the FSB. It's not just speculation," Berezovsky told journalists. "I am not saying Putin ordered the attacks ... I am saying that he knew such things were taking place."
In an attempt to pre-empt such allegations, the Kremlin emphasised their own position, claiming that Berezovsky was bankrolling the Chechen terrorist movement in the Caucasus. As for the FSB, it categorically denied any involvement in the bombings. A spokesman for the state security service brushed off the allegations as "groundless and lacking in common sense."
Integral to Berezovsky's argument and the accompanying documentary, "Assassination of Russia," is a series of inexplicable events in the city of Ryazan, south of Moscow, in the days following the first explosions in 1999. Following residents' reports of suspicious behaviour, police found three bags of white powder in an apartment basement. Shortly thereafter, the Russian interior minister reported that the police had discovered explosives in the bags and were on the verge of arresting those responsible. Nevertheless, in a bizarre turn of events, the state security FSB denied such claims and reported that the powder in question had been mere sugar, while Nikolai Petrushev, head of the FSB, declared that the sacks had been part of a counter-terrorism drill. The official investigation was called off soon afterwards.
This month's dramatic proceedings in London are not the first time that Berezovsky has accused the Kremlin of responsibility for the 1999 affair. Neither is it likely to be the last. The two sides have been exchanging blows since Berezovsky, a former darling of the Kremlin during Boris Yeltsin's tenure there, fell out of favour with the nascent Putin camp -- whom, incidentally, he helped bring to power through his vast media network.
In the period just before the March 2000 elections, The New Yorker wrote, "Berezovsky unleashed a propaganda blitz that obliterated the opposition as surely as Russia's tanks obliterated Grozny." At least two candidates who were widely felt to have a reasonable chance of winning over Putin -- the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, and the former premier Yevgeny Primakov -- were swiftly eliminated through an elaborate smear campaign.
What was Berezovsky's motive in orchestrating such a campaign? Simple: without friends in the highest of places, the oligarch's sphere of influence would take a serious beating. The Yeltsin years had taught him that. Just as in 1996, when millionaires flocked to help re-elect Yeltsin, Berezovsky doubtless expected favours in return.
But the victorious Putin changed the rules of the game. Berezovsky rapidly fell out of presidential favor. "Putin could not agree with Berezovsky dictating [to him] ... while overly ambitious Berezovsky could not agree to be pushed to the margins of Russian politics," Polish journalist and expert on the new Russian élite Zygmunt Dzieciolowski told Al-Ahram Weekly:
As early as July 2000, a shunned Berezovsky was raising serious allegations surrounding the Kremlin's "undemocratic" policy toward the Russian regions. At the time, most saw him as an unlikely crusader for democracy, and dismissed him as nothing but a bitter voice after having received the cold shoulder from Putin. The hard-hitting newspaper Novaya Gazeta noted with irony that "Berezovsky's youthful fervour and his leap into the breach in the name of democracy and truth are amazing."
At this month's London press conference, though, Berezovsky continued to press the democracy card. "Ever since Putin came to power, people have been asking: is he really a democratic president of Russia or simply an old- style dictator putting on a show for the West?" he asked. "Why does he continue to block investigations into the deadliest terrorist attacks in our history?"
When the erstwhile partnership between Putin and Berezovsky soured, the millionaire left the country and stepped up his criticism of the president. It has now become a virtual vendetta. Berezovsky facilitated the birth of the opposition Russia Liberal Movement and he contributes to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, a human rights organ known to be critical of the government.
Furthermore, the attacks on either side continue unabated. In late January this year, the FSB's Patrushev asserted in an interview aired on the NTV channel that Berezovsky was actively funding the Chechen resistance. "We do indeed have such information, highly documented information. This deals in particular with the financing of illegal armed groups and their leaders," Patrushev reported.
Berezovsky denied all charges, brushing them off as "absolutely senseless" and politically motivated.
Earlier that month, Berezovsky's TV-6 television station -- which was the last independent television station in the whole of the country -- was shut down by a court ruling. The year before, Berezovsky's NTV was taken over by the partially state-owned gas giant Gazprom. NTV had been a fierce critic of the government, notably criticising Russian actions in Chechnya as well as Putin's treatment of the Kursk submarine disaster in 2000.
A mathematician by training, Berezovsky entered the realm of private enterprise by founding Logovaz, Russia's primary car dealership, in the late 1980s. His entrepreneurial dabblings to date include TV, oil, airlines, and banking. In 1996, he became deputy secretary of Russia's security council, a top-level body charged with coordinating defence and security issues. In 1999, he became a member of the State Duma and for some time he served as the Russian government's special envoy to Chechnya, responsible for distributing the money Moscow did (or did not) allocate to rebuild the republic. What he definitely did achieve during this tenure in Grozny was to facilitate the payment of ransom for hostages taken in Chechnya -- an action which some might construe as encouraging terrorism. The details, as yet, remain unclear.
Berezovsky, for his part, does not seem willing to forgive or forget. In the late 1990s, Forbes Magazine dubbed the magnate "the Russian Godfather." He promptly sued the publication.
Those who know him report that he is unscrupulous. "He's consumed by greed and very short tempered. He is not the type of person that most people would want as a friend," Mark Kramer, Director of the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies and a Senior Associate at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University, told the Weekly:
In the weeks following Berezovsky's publicly aired allegations, the documentary film he used -- made by the little-known French company Transparence Productions and in part funded by Berezovsky himself -- is creating a mini-media frenzy in Russia. The opposition Berezovsky- backed Liberal Russia Movement presented the film to a room packed with journalists and human rights activists last week. Sources who saw the film told Al-Ahram Weekly that it based its argument on wholly circumstantial evidence, incorporating interviews with Ryazan police and residents. Others noted that the film revealed little that was not known before. "In principle, Berezovsky's account added nothing new," Dzieciolowski said.
Whether the public takes Berezovsky's claims seriously remains to be seen, although it is clear that the political mud-slinging between Putin and his former confidante is far from over. Russia has already issued a warrant for Berezovsky's arrest in connection with an Aeroflot embezzlement scam, while a myriad of others in the country hope to indict him for his alleged involvement in funding the Chechen incursion into Daghestan (the investigation has just been extended by three months). Needless to say, Putin's cronies in the FSB are out to nail Berezovsky -- and quickly. While his ultimate extradition may be unlikely, the jilted tycoon would doubtless be arrested the second he sets foot on Russian soil.
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