Dateline: 29th February 2004

INTRODUCTION
Kaliningrad is the Russian territory inside Western Europe (and from May 2004) effectively inside the European Union. It was once part of German East Prussia, the German name being Koenigsberg. Today it is a prime target for German expansion Eastwards, using the systems carefully created within the European Union. Note how German Ministers below emphasise "human rights" and "Europe" as the key words in this process. While this has proved successful with western nations who have already lost their self-governance, it does not work so well with the Russians! By pursuing the Russian State through pressure in the East (Chechnya) and the West (Koenigsberg and pressure on the anti German regime in the Ukraine) and by reference to NATO, Germany seeks to reassert its power in the East. The following report is from our German colleagues at german-foreign-policy.com

KALININGRAD/MOSCOW - In Moscow, the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer argued for ,,human rights" and ,,democracy." The purpose of the trip was the opening of a consulate in Kaliningrad, a former German region, where Berlin's geopolitical interests conflict with Moscow's sovereign rights.

The real reason for the stopover was a mission for the western military alliances, which continue with their expansion into the Middle East and the encirclement of Russia. Berlin's task is to neutralize Russia's foreign policy protests by
interfering in Russian domestic politics. German pressure makes use of noticeable tensions within the GUS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and seeks to weaken the Russian central state by incremental secessions of its former satellites.

The German Foreign Minister's Russian visit follows the Munich military conference at the beginning of February. A formal agreement by all NATO ministers in Munich, settled, for the moment, differences over the expansion into Arab and Asian resource states (,,war against international terrorism"). The precise NATO programme which envisions the arming of Turkey to become a "frontline state" , and includes a military
deployment offensive up to Tadzhikistan, is to be published at a NATO conference in June. These endeavours touch on border regions of the GUS-States, especially Chechnya.

Potential for tension
Consequently, Chechnya is the focal point of German attempts to encourage secession, or at least autonomy, for the region of the Russian Caucasus (Having made specific efforts in Georgia but was less successful than the USA - see recent uprising -ed). Overt and covert contacts with internationally wanted terrorists are to serve these goals, while public pressure is applied on Moscow at the same time. During the
preliminary stage of the German foreign minister's Russian trip, Gernot Erler (SPD) the coordinator for German-Russian cooperation, threatened that Russia would "end up in a global dead end" if it insisted on its current sovereign rights in Chechnya.

The German Foreign Office judges Russia's democratic development ,,very
negatively." It is reported that in a politically paternalistic fashion, Foreign Minister Fischer expressed ,,with unusual candour", to Russian President Putin ,,Germany's misgivings" concerning ,,internal democratization" and ,,human rights" because of Russian actions in Chechnya. Aimed, particularly, at the German public, this
statement is to prepare for the potential tension caused by Berlin's own activities in that region. Because of these activities Fischer met with protests in Kaliningrad. Several Russian organizations pointed to Berlin's contacts with Chechen terrorists, who propagate a move by NATO troops into the Northern Caucasus.

Failing state
The German foreign minister's Kaliningrad stopover on the occasion of the opening of the, long controversial, German consulate (1) is described by Berlin's press as an avowal of a former German settlement seeking its future as a state. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the population of Kaliningrad in the meantime harbours ,,its own sense of home land which, however, does not refer to the mother land, but to its own region - and thus also to its European history and its geographic location".(2) Allusions to autonomy and secession are unmistakable.

Berlin's government consultants view Kaliningrad as one of the ,,'failing states' in immediate proximity" and set their sights on Kaliningrad as an operational area for the EU's independent military power.(3)

The folowing footnotes refer to www.german-foreign-policy.com

1) See also earlier article Strategic Projects
2) See also earlier article German ,,peace researchers" want ,,transnational civil society" for Kaliningrad
3) See also earlier article Plans for Action

Sources:
Deutschland zeigt Flagge in Kaliningrad; Koenigsberger Express 02.02.2004
Proteste gegen Besuch von Joschka Fischer in Kaliningrad; DW-Monitor Ost-/Suedosteuropa 09.02.2004
Russische Verhaeltnisse; dpa 11.02.2004
Zwischen Berlin und Moskau knistert es; Die Welt 13.02.2004
Streit mit Russland über die EU-Erweiterung; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13.02.2004
Zwischen Kaliningrad und Koenigsberg; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13.02.2004