Paul Goble
Vienna, June 27 – Moscow appears ready to expand the size of its economic exclusion zone in the Arctic Sea by an area more than three times the size of Germany, an action that could give the Russian Federation new economic opportunities given global warming but that is certain to increase tensions among the polar powers.
Yesterday, in an article published in the “Murmanskiy vestnik,” Russian scholars who have been conducting research on the seabed of the Arctic reported that the continental shelf north of European Russia is 1.2 million square kilometers larger than previously assumed (http://www.b-port.com/info/smi/mv/?issue=2855&article=54288).
Under international law, Moscow can declare this enormous area an economic exclusion zone – meaning that only Russian firms can exploit it – even though a significant portion of this undersea area is situated more than 200 kilometers from the Russian coastline.
That would give Russian firms the opportunity to develop without competition petroleum fields estimated to contain nine to ten billion tons of fuel, although Russian experts said that the costs of extracting it under harsh northern conditions would be high and possibly prohibitive in the short run (http://www.nr2.ru/economy/126037.html).
That the very least, such a Russian claim – and it has not yet been made officially – would put Moscow on a collision course with the four other “Polar Powers” – the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway – who operate under a 1982 UN Law of the Sea accord, which all except the U.S. have ratified.
During the 1990s, Moscow backed away from some of the more extravagant and scientifically unsupported Soviet-era claims to economic control of the Arctic basin. But now, especially if it follows up on this research, one Russian expert said, Moscow will again be claiming all “the so-called polar possessions of the USSR.”
The research that would underlie such a claim was conducted over the last several years by scientists working on a Russian atomic-powered icebreaker, in the air, and on a drifting polar ice station. Russian agencies say that these investigations will continue, quite possibly leading to more claims (http://www.globalrus.ru/news/784067/).
So far, Russian scientists and Russian officials have released few details about their specific findings, but those are likely to tumble out in the coming days, especially as the governments of the four other powers press for data that could change the nature of economic and power relationships in the Arctic basin.
And that is all the more likely because at least one Russian military expert has already gone on record in the latest issue of “Natsional’nyye interesy” about what Moscow’s security interests in that region require both generally and as part of the international war on terrorism (http://www.pravaya.ru/leftright/472/12696?print=1).
UPDATE ON JULY 4 -- Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin approved a plan by the Russian government to conclude a treaty with Norway delimiting the Barents Sea (http://www.ng.ru/printed/79877). Given the timing of that announcement, it may be that Russian officials decided to play up the possibility of expanding Moscow's claims in the Artic to put press on Norway to accept or at least move towards the Russian position.
UPDATE ON JULY 14 – Yesterday, Gazprom signed an accord with France’s Total petroleum giant to develop gas fields in the Arctic, something that will give Moscow an even larger footprint there and thus exacerbate relations between the Russian Federation and Norway whose Statoil and Hydro companies had hoped to partner with Gazprom (http://lenta.ru/articles/2007/07/12/shtokman/ and http://www.km.ru, July 12).
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Saudis Turn Down Moscow Request for Increase in Haj Quota
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 27 – The Saudi Arabian ministry that sets country-by-country quotas for Muslims wishing to make the pilgrimage to Mecca has turned down Moscow’s request for a near doubling of the Russian number from 20,000 to 39,700 because of what President Vladimir Putin and others say is pent-up demand left over from Soviet times.
Earlier this year, Putin made this pitch to Saudi leaders during his visit to the kingdom, and last week, the Russian government’s Haj Commission repeated it during a visit to Riyadh. But the Saudi Haj Ministry rejected these appeals, Russian agencies reported this week (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-06-25/#16926).
Still on the table, Russian participants in last week’s negotiations say, is a fall-back Russian request for 5,000 additional haj slots for Muslims from the Russian Federation. But it is unclear whether the Saudis will be willing to violate their own rules to grant such a request from Moscow.
According to the Saudis, who exercise control over Islam’s two most holy sites, Mecca and Medina, each country around the world is to be allotted an annual haj quota equal to one-tenth of one percent of the Muslims living in it. Given the estimated 20 million Muslims living in Russia, the figure for that country should equal 20,000.
But because many of Russia’s Muslims who would have liked to make the haj earlier were blocked by Soviet anti-religious campaigns and because the economic recovery of some Muslim regions in the Russian Federation means more can afford to go, they last year bumped up against and may in fact have exceeded that figure.
If significant numbers of them try to do an end run around the Russian haj commission and go on their own, a very real possibility this year, the situation could become potentially explosive. And at the very least would likely mean that many who made the haj this way would carry back Saudi-based Wahhabist ideas.
That risk could help to explain why Putin made the request in the first place. But now that the Saudis have refused it, there are three questions certain to agitate many Muslims across the Russian Federation and especially in the northern Caucasus and Daghestan.
First, did Putin make the request for an increase in the number of Russian haji spaces in good faith? Or did the Russian president do so knowing in advance that it would be turned down, allowing him to pose as a defender of Islam and to blame others for these limits.
Second, is the Russian government prepared to impose even more draconian controls over its southern borders to prevent an explosion in the number of unregulated hajis – and could it be that some in Moscow welcome just such an opportunity to take a step few in Western governments would object to?
And third, will the Saudi action, entirely justified by Islamic tradition but offensive to many Muslims in Russia, have the effect of reducing the influence of Arab groups on Russia’s Muslims or alternatively of increasing the influence of those like Al-Qaeda who oppose Riyadh?
UPDATE ON JULY 4 -- On July 2, Akhmed Bilalov of the Russian Haj Commission confirmed that this year the Saudis will permit 20,500 Muslims from the Russian Federation to make the haj (http://www.islamnasledie.ru/news.php?id=626).
UPDATE ON JULY 11. On July 10, Bilalov said that his commission would continue to press for a higher ceiling after Russian Muslims had filled the 20,500 slots the Saudis have allotted them. He also announced that his commission has parcelled out the available slots in the follow way: Daghestan will get 13,400; Chechnya, 3,000; Tatarstan, 2500; and Ingushetiya, 1400. That leaves 200 spaces for all other Muslims in Russia (http://www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/print.php?act=news&id=19165).
Vienna, June 27 – The Saudi Arabian ministry that sets country-by-country quotas for Muslims wishing to make the pilgrimage to Mecca has turned down Moscow’s request for a near doubling of the Russian number from 20,000 to 39,700 because of what President Vladimir Putin and others say is pent-up demand left over from Soviet times.
Earlier this year, Putin made this pitch to Saudi leaders during his visit to the kingdom, and last week, the Russian government’s Haj Commission repeated it during a visit to Riyadh. But the Saudi Haj Ministry rejected these appeals, Russian agencies reported this week (http://www.islam.ru/rus/2007-06-25/#16926).
Still on the table, Russian participants in last week’s negotiations say, is a fall-back Russian request for 5,000 additional haj slots for Muslims from the Russian Federation. But it is unclear whether the Saudis will be willing to violate their own rules to grant such a request from Moscow.
According to the Saudis, who exercise control over Islam’s two most holy sites, Mecca and Medina, each country around the world is to be allotted an annual haj quota equal to one-tenth of one percent of the Muslims living in it. Given the estimated 20 million Muslims living in Russia, the figure for that country should equal 20,000.
But because many of Russia’s Muslims who would have liked to make the haj earlier were blocked by Soviet anti-religious campaigns and because the economic recovery of some Muslim regions in the Russian Federation means more can afford to go, they last year bumped up against and may in fact have exceeded that figure.
If significant numbers of them try to do an end run around the Russian haj commission and go on their own, a very real possibility this year, the situation could become potentially explosive. And at the very least would likely mean that many who made the haj this way would carry back Saudi-based Wahhabist ideas.
That risk could help to explain why Putin made the request in the first place. But now that the Saudis have refused it, there are three questions certain to agitate many Muslims across the Russian Federation and especially in the northern Caucasus and Daghestan.
First, did Putin make the request for an increase in the number of Russian haji spaces in good faith? Or did the Russian president do so knowing in advance that it would be turned down, allowing him to pose as a defender of Islam and to blame others for these limits.
Second, is the Russian government prepared to impose even more draconian controls over its southern borders to prevent an explosion in the number of unregulated hajis – and could it be that some in Moscow welcome just such an opportunity to take a step few in Western governments would object to?
And third, will the Saudi action, entirely justified by Islamic tradition but offensive to many Muslims in Russia, have the effect of reducing the influence of Arab groups on Russia’s Muslims or alternatively of increasing the influence of those like Al-Qaeda who oppose Riyadh?
UPDATE ON JULY 4 -- On July 2, Akhmed Bilalov of the Russian Haj Commission confirmed that this year the Saudis will permit 20,500 Muslims from the Russian Federation to make the haj (http://www.islamnasledie.ru/news.php?id=626).
UPDATE ON JULY 11. On July 10, Bilalov said that his commission would continue to press for a higher ceiling after Russian Muslims had filled the 20,500 slots the Saudis have allotted them. He also announced that his commission has parcelled out the available slots in the follow way: Daghestan will get 13,400; Chechnya, 3,000; Tatarstan, 2500; and Ingushetiya, 1400. That leaves 200 spaces for all other Muslims in Russia (http://www.interfax-religion.ru/islam/print.php?act=news&id=19165).
Window on Eurasia: Where the Russian Civil War is Not Yet Over
Paul Goble
Vienna, June 27 – Despite recent claims by President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Aleksii II that the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church marks the final end of the Russian Civil War, there is clear evidence that in many parts of the Russian Federation, that long-ago conflict continues to cast a shadow.
An article in this week’s “Nashe vremya” tells the story of the difficult return and reburial of General Oskar Kappel, one of the most widely respected leaders of the anti-Bolshevik White Movement in Siberia, after his remains were identified and exhumed in Harbin, China, at the end of last year (http://www.gazetanv.ru/article/?id=867).
Kappel, who won the admiration and love of his often working-class soldiers, died in January 1920 at the age of 36 during the Siberian Ice Campaign as the result of complications from an amputation. His followers carried his body to Chita where it was buried until the Red Army approached that city. They then removed it to Harbin.
There, Kappel was buried in the yard of the Iversk Orthodox Church. But even in that Chinese city, Kappel’s body was not fated to find eternal rest, “Nashe vremya” reports. Instead, in 1955 and on orders from Moscow, the Chinese communists dug up the grave and reportedly destroyed his remains.
But because of the affection Kappel had generated as a White leader who died with and for his men, he was not forgotten. And following the collapse of Soviet power, those who remembered him set up a special monument in his honor in the Cossack stanitsa of Utai in Irkutsk oblast where he died.
Then, at the end of last year, a group of his followers traveled to Harbin in the hopes that they would be able to find some of his remains. What they found was almost a miracle, “Nashe vremya” reports. After scraping away the evidence of destruction above his grave, “Vladimir Kappel lay as if alive.”
The Chinese authorities allowed this group to take Kappel’s body back to the Russian Federation for final reburial. But that effort ran into more obstacles than any of them expected. In Chita, where the new Kappelites first tried to bury him, the local governor prohibited it.
“Eighty seven years have passed,” “Nashe vremya” writes in sorrow, “and the Civil War continues to be a cancerous tumor in our souls, hearts and brains.” Moreover, officials now, however post-Soviet they may claim to be, all too often remain “commissars” with all the values of the Bolshevik past.
Having failed to bury Kappel in Chita, his supporters put his body back on a freight train which carried it to Perm, a city in which his grandson lives. But the authorities there also refused to give permission for the family and friends to rebury the White general.
“In all of Russia, it appeared, there were not two square meters of land for its modest hero-son,” “Nashe vremya” lamented.
But then Patriarch Aleksii II intervened and gave permission for Kappel’s reburial in the cemetery of the Don Monastery in Moscow. There his body now lies next to the grave of General Anton Denikin and émigré philosopher Andrei Ilin as well as many other figures from the past.
Unfortunately, even that January 14th reburial did not mark the end of Kappel’s travails.
His supporters hoped to erect an exact copy of the monument that had stood over his grave in Harbin. And they had set today as the date for its erection. But they were not able to collect enough money in the small donations that have supported this effort to do more than pay an advance to the sculptor.
They now have rescheduled this event for July 28, and they hope in the interim to collect enough money to pay for the new monument and its installation over what all those who remember General Kappel hope will truly be his final resting place of honor in the Russian capital of Moscow.
Meanwhile, there is some evidence that at least a few Moscow officials are prepared to support efforts to memorialize additional leaders of the anti-Bolshevik movement – at least when these monuments can be erected safely beyond the borders of the current Russian Federation.
Earlier this week, the Center for the National Glory of Russia, which numbers among its backers the ministers of foreign affairs and culture and mass communications, said it plans to erect a monument to those in the White Movement who passed through Gallipoli in Turkey in the early 1920s (http://www.rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=172077).
Vienna, June 27 – Despite recent claims by President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Aleksii II that the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church marks the final end of the Russian Civil War, there is clear evidence that in many parts of the Russian Federation, that long-ago conflict continues to cast a shadow.
An article in this week’s “Nashe vremya” tells the story of the difficult return and reburial of General Oskar Kappel, one of the most widely respected leaders of the anti-Bolshevik White Movement in Siberia, after his remains were identified and exhumed in Harbin, China, at the end of last year (http://www.gazetanv.ru/article/?id=867).
Kappel, who won the admiration and love of his often working-class soldiers, died in January 1920 at the age of 36 during the Siberian Ice Campaign as the result of complications from an amputation. His followers carried his body to Chita where it was buried until the Red Army approached that city. They then removed it to Harbin.
There, Kappel was buried in the yard of the Iversk Orthodox Church. But even in that Chinese city, Kappel’s body was not fated to find eternal rest, “Nashe vremya” reports. Instead, in 1955 and on orders from Moscow, the Chinese communists dug up the grave and reportedly destroyed his remains.
But because of the affection Kappel had generated as a White leader who died with and for his men, he was not forgotten. And following the collapse of Soviet power, those who remembered him set up a special monument in his honor in the Cossack stanitsa of Utai in Irkutsk oblast where he died.
Then, at the end of last year, a group of his followers traveled to Harbin in the hopes that they would be able to find some of his remains. What they found was almost a miracle, “Nashe vremya” reports. After scraping away the evidence of destruction above his grave, “Vladimir Kappel lay as if alive.”
The Chinese authorities allowed this group to take Kappel’s body back to the Russian Federation for final reburial. But that effort ran into more obstacles than any of them expected. In Chita, where the new Kappelites first tried to bury him, the local governor prohibited it.
“Eighty seven years have passed,” “Nashe vremya” writes in sorrow, “and the Civil War continues to be a cancerous tumor in our souls, hearts and brains.” Moreover, officials now, however post-Soviet they may claim to be, all too often remain “commissars” with all the values of the Bolshevik past.
Having failed to bury Kappel in Chita, his supporters put his body back on a freight train which carried it to Perm, a city in which his grandson lives. But the authorities there also refused to give permission for the family and friends to rebury the White general.
“In all of Russia, it appeared, there were not two square meters of land for its modest hero-son,” “Nashe vremya” lamented.
But then Patriarch Aleksii II intervened and gave permission for Kappel’s reburial in the cemetery of the Don Monastery in Moscow. There his body now lies next to the grave of General Anton Denikin and émigré philosopher Andrei Ilin as well as many other figures from the past.
Unfortunately, even that January 14th reburial did not mark the end of Kappel’s travails.
His supporters hoped to erect an exact copy of the monument that had stood over his grave in Harbin. And they had set today as the date for its erection. But they were not able to collect enough money in the small donations that have supported this effort to do more than pay an advance to the sculptor.
They now have rescheduled this event for July 28, and they hope in the interim to collect enough money to pay for the new monument and its installation over what all those who remember General Kappel hope will truly be his final resting place of honor in the Russian capital of Moscow.
Meanwhile, there is some evidence that at least a few Moscow officials are prepared to support efforts to memorialize additional leaders of the anti-Bolshevik movement – at least when these monuments can be erected safely beyond the borders of the current Russian Federation.
Earlier this week, the Center for the National Glory of Russia, which numbers among its backers the ministers of foreign affairs and culture and mass communications, said it plans to erect a monument to those in the White Movement who passed through Gallipoli in Turkey in the early 1920s (http://www.rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=172077).
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