Militaries take over land -- and pay rent for land?
Ukrainian Weekly For Upping the Rent the Russian Navy Pays
| A military uses force to violate rights but can be persuaded to respect a duty -- paying rent to those whom it excludes. We trim and append this 2008 article, "Asking a beggar for bread, we give alms to the wealthy", originally published by Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper, Kiev, on July 12, distributed by the BBC, then posted by iStockAnalyst of San Diego, August 3. |
by Valentyna Samar
Someone should telephone the Ukrainian Finance Ministry and find out much money we still owe Russia for gas, which for 20 years has been a source for joy and headaches. According to our bi-national agreement, the end of 2007 was the deadline for clearing the debt. Why has Ukraine not yet paid off of this debt? Because of poor judgment, culpable negligence, or state treason?Read our treaties with a clear head. Read twice any agreement between Ukraine and Russia. They provide for the signing of separate agreements, most of which have not even been negotiated. The treaties themselves look as if they were written by Hodja Nasreddin, who told an emir that it would take 20 years to teach his donkey to read the Quran, hoping that during this period of time either the donkey or emir would die.
Ukrainian experts say the treaty is not simply unjust but a robbery. Former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian navy, Vice-Adm Volodymyr Bezkorovaynyy, says that the cost of Ukraine’s share the Black Sea Fleet kept by Russia was pulled out of thin air. The amount, 521m dollars, is the price of one old cruiser. It’s lower than our ships' value as scrap metal. The real value was 6,5bn dollars. It's too late to demand that the money be paid back. But who gave the green light to such prices and why?
For a while, Russia did sell gas to Ukraine at a price that was lower than the world price. Yet in a separate court case in which Russia’s Gazprom tried to collect unpaid gas bills from Ukraine, in company documents it said that it was selling gas to Europe for 67.5 dollars in 1997 and in 1992-2000 charged Ukraine 80 dollars. With its Gazprom company which can serve as a universal tactical and strategic weapon, especially in countries weakened by corruption, why does Russia need the Black Sea Fleet?
We subconsciously believe that we owe Russia for gas. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. If nothing is done, our children will likely to be born with "debtor complex".
Meanwhile, we still have not completed an inventory of property that we can not now rent out.
Five individuals obtained land plots for individual dwelling construction in Massandra village which is located on the territory of the Black Sea Fleet's base. Could it be somebody doing military service there? Did somebody get in on the act? And who owns the companies that got an opportunity to carry out construction on the territory of the naval base?
For the last year, Ukrainian mass media have speculated about the rent amount. Their evaluation ranged from 400m dollars to 4bn dollars, sometimes reaching 5bn-6bn dollars. Unfortunately, nobody used substantiation and methods of calculations.
Russia should pay realistic amounts for the lease of land, infrastructure, water areas, and radio frequencies.
The international land appraisal standard has a very simple formula. The land costs as much as the income it may generate. We do not take into account objects located on it.
The Fleet's sanatorium (located in the centre of Yalta) at 12% should pay rent of 2,358,486.38 hryvnyas per year, or 487,290.574 dollars. Do not ask me where it is possible to lease land in Yalta at such a price. Certainly, it does not exist in reality, only on paper.
We are not going to tire our readers with huge figures. "Classical" rental payment only for Crimean and Sevastopol land may equal 250m dollars at the minimum. Land plus buildings of the entire base brings the figure up to 1.5bn dollars per year, much more than the 97m dollars Russia now pays.
JJS: While the rent should be the fair market value, militaries should also often pay more, since their war games damage the environment.
Beyond that, how must it feel, one nation having a military base in another nation’s territory? Would Americans like to have a Canadian base, never mind an Arabian base, in Ohio? Not likely.
Yet the US has bases all over the world, and pays rent for some of the land; even Cuba’s Castro must accept his $1.5 million per year for Guantanomo. And to keep peace with local governments, some US bases even pay rent to US cities and counties, eventho’ not legally bound to.
Imagine: something as barbaric as a land conqueror would do something as civilized as pay rent for land.
Who knows; given that bases often occupy prime land, perhaps militaries can evolve into urban developers, legitimately -- unlike the above.
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Land Reform Defeated; Russia Will Imitate West Instead
Hundreds of protesters take down Navy fence in Vieques
Russia's Natural Resource Values Are Enormous |
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