…WHILE DUMA COMMISSION PREPARES TO REVIEW PRIVATIZATION PROCESS.

Meanwhile, an ad hoc Duma commission charged with "analyzing the results of privatization in 1992-95 and determining the responsibility of officials for its negative results" will hold its first, closed-door session on February 20. The commission is stuffed with Communists and members of the Liberal Democratic Party. Pavel Bunich, who chairs the Duma Property, Privatization, and Economic Activities Committee — under whose aegis the commission falls — told Interfax he will not participate in the commission’s activities since "its very name indicates that it will not be impartial." (4) Earlier Bunich was even more forthright, telling a newspaper he will not take part since he prefers not to "waste time on nonsense." (5)

Workers Continue Protests.