Paul Goble
Vienna, October 6 – After Friday’s explosions in Tskhinvali, South Ossetian officials and Russian media outlets have suggested that Georgian security services “are preparing new terrorist acts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” charges that Moscow could use to justify slowing its promised withdrawal of forces from other parts of the Republic of Georgia by October 10.
Even as Moscow begun pulling out some military units from the so-called “buffer zones” around South Ossetia and Abkhazia yesterday, officials in South Ossetia and Moscow blamed Georgia for the blasts whicih resulted in 11 deaths and said Tbilisi is planning more such attacks in the future (http://www.nr2.ru/incidents/199307.html).
In two articles over the last four days, Russian analyst Andrei Areshev suggests that he, like many in both Tskhinvali and Moscow, views Friday’s action as either part of a Georgian “low intensity” campaign against Russia or a second August 8th, the day the Russian-Georgian war began (www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1655 and www.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1659).
According to Areshev, “the diplomatic interference of the European Union” in the Russian-Georgian conflict up to this point and by means of its observers is intended to “transform the military-political success of Moscow into its political-diplomatic and eventually its military defeat in the Caucasus”
The Europeans, he continues in terms many Russians probably agree with, “want to penetrate the territory of the states newly recognized by Russia as if they remained Georgian territory,” a goal that Tbilisi fully supports as a step toward its recovery of these two breakaway republics.
And consequently, he writes, “the border territories of Georgia are being transformed into a launch pad for terrorist acts and provocations against the new states,” given that the EU observers not only will provide protection to Georgian activists but can be counted on to broadcast to the world Georgia’s version of whatever happens.
Indeed, he charges, “the OSCE observers have worked with the Georgian special services (the Interior Ministry and the department of military intelligence of the joint staff of the Armed Forces of Georgia) and have handed over to them information about the force structures of South Ossetia and the Russian peacekeeping battalion.”
It is in this context, Areshev argues that “the terrorist act in Tskhinval” [as Russians and South Ossetians now insist Tskhinvali be spelled] last Friday must be understood, an action that he insists represents “the beginning of a new stage of low intensity conflict” which perhaps points to a new Georgian adventure that could re-ignite the broader conflict.
According to Areshev, the South Ossetian interior ministry has in its possession “information about the preparation by Georgian special services of new terrorist acts on the territory” not only of South Ossetia but in Abkhazia as well. And he says that to inflame the situation, Georgians plan to stage provocations by dressing in Russian uniforms.
As a result, the Moscow analyst argues, “it is difficult not to agree” with a South Ossetian official “when he speaks about the complete lack of trust there to European observers” because “in the past they have already compromised themselves by their cooperation with Georgian military commanders.”
Over the next week, Russian peacekeepers are scheduled to quit “the buffer territory,” and as they do, South Ossetian interior minister Mikhail Mindzayev says “the Georgian side will continue its diversionary-terrorist activity on the territory of the Republic of South Ossetia,” shield by the presence of EU observers.
In this “difficult” situation, Areshev concludes, fulfilling the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan, especially since Tbilisi has put its own spin on it, could create real dangers, especially if Russian forces do not “destroy regardless of their location and despite diplomatic conditions” all the facilities that could be used for terrorist actions against South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
While he is careful not to suggest that Russia might fail to live up to its side of the plan, others are less so, with one independent Russian portal even being willing to ask pointedly who benefits from this explosion (http://babr.ru/?pt=news&event=v1&IDE=47875) – Areshev’s words clearly reflect the view of many in the Russian security agencies who oppose a pullback.
And their beliefs, especially if carefully and cleverly articulated by Russian officials, almost certainly would find understanding among many in the West who are increasingly willing to accept Moscow’s version of the Russian-Georgian war in which Tbilisi is to blame even though it did not invade another country and Moscow is innocent even though it did.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Window on Eurasia: National Movements in North Caucasus Now Threaten Existing Borders
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 6 – After Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, several national movements in the North Caucasus have stepped up their efforts to unite the territories on which their communities live, drives that threaten not only to spark new conflicts in that region but also to challenge existing domestic and international borders.
In an extensive article that appeared in “Dagestanskaya Pravda” on Friday, Abdulgamid Aliyev describes the various and often mutually reinforcing ethnic and religious problems of the Caucasus that in his view are growing more acute even though the power of the federal center has increased (www.dagpravda.ru/?com=materials&task=view&page=material&id=3396).
Despite the strengthening of federal power,” he writes, “various conflict-generating factors continue to operate” in the region. Among the most important are the conflicts between the Circassians and the Turkic language groups, the Ossetian and Ingush movements, and the traditional Muslims and the Wahhabis.
The tensions among Muslim groups have attracted a great deal of attention, but “the most important factor of political processes” in the North Caucasus, Aliyev argues, is “the poly-ethnic quality” of the region and the efforts of various groups to form their own republics either by breaking with existing republics or combining several of those into one.
The efforts of Circassian groups to combine all or parts of the five different republics Stalin divided them into have attracted some attention, the Daghestani author says, but other groups which are becoming more active in this regard have received less, even though their efforts might prove an even greater threat to existing arrangements.
At a meeting in Yekerinburg in July of this year, a congress of Lezgin peoples, organized by the Sadval Movement called for the restoration – in fact, establishment -- of a sovereign and possibly independent Republic of Lezginistan, a territory that include parts of Daghestan and northern Azerbaijan.
The Kumyk national movement Tenglik, Aliyev notes, is pressing for the creation of a Kumyk Republic within a federalized Daghestan, a drive that is encouraging other groups in that most multi-national republic to do the same and leading at least some of them to use “unconstitutional forms and methods of struggle” against the authorities in Makhachkala.
Meanwhile, he points out, the Birlik Organization seeks to bring together “by means of democratic methods” the Turkic-speaking Nogay, who are “currently split among Stavropol kray, Daghestan, Astrakhan , Karachayevo-Cherkessia, and Chechnya.” Nogay people, which is split among Stavropol kray, Daghestan, Astrakhan oblast, Karachay-Cherkessia and Chechnya.
And, Aliyev continues, “similar processes” now exist among other national groups in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karacyaevo-Cherkessia,” processes that Moscow, Baku, and the existing republic elites in the North Caucasus oppose but have not found a way to block, especially when these ethnic challenges combine with religious and criminal ones.
Most of the nationalities involved are relatively small, Aliyev concedes, but that does not make the ethno-territorial conflicts these national movements are certain to provoke irrelevant: More than eight out of ten of the terrorist acts in the Russian Federation last year took place in the Southern Federal District, and one fifth of the country’s criminal groups are based there.
Moreover, with the collapse of the Muslim spiritual directorate (MSD) system in the North Caucasus at the end of Soviet times, Aliyev continues, Wahhabism has assumed an ever greater role and now serves “as a suitable ideological platform for a large number of destructive forces” in the North Caucasus, including ethno-national ones.
This religio-nationalist combination, he continues, has been further exacerbated by social-economic problems and outside interference. Economic problems have multiplied since 1991, and unemployment is high across the region, thus creating a potential army of militants for various movements.
And as the recent events in Georgia have shown, Aliyev says, the United States and NATO are quite prepared to play in these troubled waters, either directly or through clients like Georgia whose “dangerous level of militarization” threatened so many people in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Given these threats, the Daghestani commentator says, it is imperative that Moscow do more than it has done so far. Strengthening the vertical of power was a good start, but “a governmental nationality policy, especially in such a multinational and poly-confessional region as the North Caucasus will not be realized without a coordinating organ.”
That is something Russia has not had since the dismantling of the ministry for nationality affairs six years ago. But it is more than just a new bureaucracy that is needed, Aliyev says. “a totally new policy for the resolution of the problems of the region, the prevention of extremism and terrorism, and the realization of the most important economic tasks is needed as well.”
And that policy, he concludes, to be effective will have to reflect the history and culture of all the peoples of the region because as the popular saying has it, “a tree can live without branches and leave, but having lost its roots, it will die.” Those trying to impose outside models on the North Caucasus need to remember that as well.
Vienna, October 6 – After Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, several national movements in the North Caucasus have stepped up their efforts to unite the territories on which their communities live, drives that threaten not only to spark new conflicts in that region but also to challenge existing domestic and international borders.
In an extensive article that appeared in “Dagestanskaya Pravda” on Friday, Abdulgamid Aliyev describes the various and often mutually reinforcing ethnic and religious problems of the Caucasus that in his view are growing more acute even though the power of the federal center has increased (www.dagpravda.ru/?com=materials&task=view&page=material&id=3396).
Despite the strengthening of federal power,” he writes, “various conflict-generating factors continue to operate” in the region. Among the most important are the conflicts between the Circassians and the Turkic language groups, the Ossetian and Ingush movements, and the traditional Muslims and the Wahhabis.
The tensions among Muslim groups have attracted a great deal of attention, but “the most important factor of political processes” in the North Caucasus, Aliyev argues, is “the poly-ethnic quality” of the region and the efforts of various groups to form their own republics either by breaking with existing republics or combining several of those into one.
The efforts of Circassian groups to combine all or parts of the five different republics Stalin divided them into have attracted some attention, the Daghestani author says, but other groups which are becoming more active in this regard have received less, even though their efforts might prove an even greater threat to existing arrangements.
At a meeting in Yekerinburg in July of this year, a congress of Lezgin peoples, organized by the Sadval Movement called for the restoration – in fact, establishment -- of a sovereign and possibly independent Republic of Lezginistan, a territory that include parts of Daghestan and northern Azerbaijan.
The Kumyk national movement Tenglik, Aliyev notes, is pressing for the creation of a Kumyk Republic within a federalized Daghestan, a drive that is encouraging other groups in that most multi-national republic to do the same and leading at least some of them to use “unconstitutional forms and methods of struggle” against the authorities in Makhachkala.
Meanwhile, he points out, the Birlik Organization seeks to bring together “by means of democratic methods” the Turkic-speaking Nogay, who are “currently split among Stavropol kray, Daghestan, Astrakhan , Karachayevo-Cherkessia, and Chechnya.” Nogay people, which is split among Stavropol kray, Daghestan, Astrakhan oblast, Karachay-Cherkessia and Chechnya.
And, Aliyev continues, “similar processes” now exist among other national groups in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karacyaevo-Cherkessia,” processes that Moscow, Baku, and the existing republic elites in the North Caucasus oppose but have not found a way to block, especially when these ethnic challenges combine with religious and criminal ones.
Most of the nationalities involved are relatively small, Aliyev concedes, but that does not make the ethno-territorial conflicts these national movements are certain to provoke irrelevant: More than eight out of ten of the terrorist acts in the Russian Federation last year took place in the Southern Federal District, and one fifth of the country’s criminal groups are based there.
Moreover, with the collapse of the Muslim spiritual directorate (MSD) system in the North Caucasus at the end of Soviet times, Aliyev continues, Wahhabism has assumed an ever greater role and now serves “as a suitable ideological platform for a large number of destructive forces” in the North Caucasus, including ethno-national ones.
This religio-nationalist combination, he continues, has been further exacerbated by social-economic problems and outside interference. Economic problems have multiplied since 1991, and unemployment is high across the region, thus creating a potential army of militants for various movements.
And as the recent events in Georgia have shown, Aliyev says, the United States and NATO are quite prepared to play in these troubled waters, either directly or through clients like Georgia whose “dangerous level of militarization” threatened so many people in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Given these threats, the Daghestani commentator says, it is imperative that Moscow do more than it has done so far. Strengthening the vertical of power was a good start, but “a governmental nationality policy, especially in such a multinational and poly-confessional region as the North Caucasus will not be realized without a coordinating organ.”
That is something Russia has not had since the dismantling of the ministry for nationality affairs six years ago. But it is more than just a new bureaucracy that is needed, Aliyev says. “a totally new policy for the resolution of the problems of the region, the prevention of extremism and terrorism, and the realization of the most important economic tasks is needed as well.”
And that policy, he concludes, to be effective will have to reflect the history and culture of all the peoples of the region because as the popular saying has it, “a tree can live without branches and leave, but having lost its roots, it will die.” Those trying to impose outside models on the North Caucasus need to remember that as well.
Window on Eurasia: Ethnic Russians in Ukraine Re-identifying as Ukrainians
Paul Goble
Vienna, October 6 –More than three million ethnic Russians living in Ukraine have re-identified themselves as Ukrainians since 1991, nearly a thousand times the number of Ukrainians who may have dual citizenship in the Russian Federation, a ratio that appears to be increasing and is of increasing concern to Moscow.
On the one hand, this pattern suggests that ethnic Russians in Ukraine increasingly identify themselves with that country and its titular nation, an attitude that makes it more difficult for Moscow to play this ethnic card against Kyiv. And on the other, it points to the weakness of Russian ethnic identity more generally, something few Russian nationalists want to admit.
In an interview posted on Moscow’s Politcom.ru at the end of last week, Nikolai Shul’ga, deputy director of the Kyiv Institute of Sociology and head of the Foundation for the Support of Russian Culture noted that the number of people in Ukraine identifying themselves as Russians fell from 11.3 million in 1989 to 8 million in 2001 (www.politcom.ru/article.php?id=6969).
Emigration explains only a few hundred thousand of that 3.3 million decline, he said. Most of it reflects “ethnic conformism,” a feeling on the part of many there that it is “more suitable” to declare oneself an ethnic Ukrainian, even if one speaks Russian and feels himself part of Russian culture.
Indeed, he continued, what is happening in Ukraine is a separation of language and national self-identification, with the number of Ukrainians who declared Russian to be their native language actually increased by more than a million between the 1989 Soviet and 2001Ukrainian censuses.
There are at least three reasons for this: First, some of the Russians who had re-identified as Ukrainians nonetheless declared Russian as their native language. Second, the two censuses asked questions about identity and language in a different order, with language first in the former and identity first in the second, an order that by itself may have contributed to this change.
And third – and this may be the most important finding for both Ukraine and the Russian Federation – the changes between the two censuses suggest that for many but far from all people in Ukraine, national identity and native language are not nearly as tightly linked as many have assumed in the past.
For Kyiv, this means that national identity in Ukraine is increasingly strong, with people retaining their Ukrainian national identity even if they continue or decide to begin to speak Russian, a pattern few Ukrainian nationalists find acceptable but one that points to the success rather than the failure of Ukrainian statehood.
And for Moscow, this pattern means that promoting Russian language in Ukraine as the Russian government and its allies continue to try to do – most recently by a new website directed at Russian speakers in Ukraine (www.rus.in.ua) – may not have the identity or political consequences that the Russian government would like.
Asked whether he believed that the number in Ukraine of those who identify themselves as ethnic Russians will continue to fall, even if the use of Russian continues to be widespread, Shul’ga said that over the next several years “the number of Russians and Russian speakers will decline significantly.”
Meanwhile, another report last week calls attention to another aspect of the relationship between Russian and Ukrainian identity. Next year marks the centenary of completion of the tsarist program to resettle Ukrainians (and others) in the Russian Far East in order to strengthen the central Russian government’s control of that region (odnarodyna.ru/articles/4/305.html).
The Ukrainians who were moved there called their place of settlement “zeleniy klin” [‘the green triangle”] and were able to maintain not only their language but even their identity well into the 20th century despite the efforts of the Soviet authorities to russianize and russify them.
The identity of this several hundred thousand-strong community played a key role in the defeat of the White Russian forces in the Far East during the Russian Civil War because the Whites unlike the Reds refused to promise to respect the right of the Ukrainian nation to self-determination.
Soviet researchers, émigré historians like Ivan Svit, and American scholars like John Stephan pointed out that many residents in the Far East retained their Ukrainian identity even when under pressure from the Soviet authorities they learned Russian and declared themselves to be ethnic Russians.
(In the mid-1980s, in a move few now recall, the United States broadcast to the region from Japan in Ukrainian, the only time in the history of US international broadcasting to the Soviet Union when the US broadcast to a region in a language different than the one the Soviet government declared was the language of the titular nationality.)
And in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some in the Ukrainian parliament called for the recognition of the Zeleniy klin as Eastern Ukraine, a proposal that went nowhere but did call attention to the millions of people in the Russian Federation who continued to define themselves as Ukrainians even if they had to declare something else.
Now, this anniversary of the formation of the Green Triangle is likely to call the attention not only of many in Moscow and Kyiv but of analysts in the West that Ukrainian national identity is stronger than many have thought and that Russian national identity for many, except when supported by a strong state, may very well be weaker.
Vienna, October 6 –More than three million ethnic Russians living in Ukraine have re-identified themselves as Ukrainians since 1991, nearly a thousand times the number of Ukrainians who may have dual citizenship in the Russian Federation, a ratio that appears to be increasing and is of increasing concern to Moscow.
On the one hand, this pattern suggests that ethnic Russians in Ukraine increasingly identify themselves with that country and its titular nation, an attitude that makes it more difficult for Moscow to play this ethnic card against Kyiv. And on the other, it points to the weakness of Russian ethnic identity more generally, something few Russian nationalists want to admit.
In an interview posted on Moscow’s Politcom.ru at the end of last week, Nikolai Shul’ga, deputy director of the Kyiv Institute of Sociology and head of the Foundation for the Support of Russian Culture noted that the number of people in Ukraine identifying themselves as Russians fell from 11.3 million in 1989 to 8 million in 2001 (www.politcom.ru/article.php?id=6969).
Emigration explains only a few hundred thousand of that 3.3 million decline, he said. Most of it reflects “ethnic conformism,” a feeling on the part of many there that it is “more suitable” to declare oneself an ethnic Ukrainian, even if one speaks Russian and feels himself part of Russian culture.
Indeed, he continued, what is happening in Ukraine is a separation of language and national self-identification, with the number of Ukrainians who declared Russian to be their native language actually increased by more than a million between the 1989 Soviet and 2001Ukrainian censuses.
There are at least three reasons for this: First, some of the Russians who had re-identified as Ukrainians nonetheless declared Russian as their native language. Second, the two censuses asked questions about identity and language in a different order, with language first in the former and identity first in the second, an order that by itself may have contributed to this change.
And third – and this may be the most important finding for both Ukraine and the Russian Federation – the changes between the two censuses suggest that for many but far from all people in Ukraine, national identity and native language are not nearly as tightly linked as many have assumed in the past.
For Kyiv, this means that national identity in Ukraine is increasingly strong, with people retaining their Ukrainian national identity even if they continue or decide to begin to speak Russian, a pattern few Ukrainian nationalists find acceptable but one that points to the success rather than the failure of Ukrainian statehood.
And for Moscow, this pattern means that promoting Russian language in Ukraine as the Russian government and its allies continue to try to do – most recently by a new website directed at Russian speakers in Ukraine (www.rus.in.ua) – may not have the identity or political consequences that the Russian government would like.
Asked whether he believed that the number in Ukraine of those who identify themselves as ethnic Russians will continue to fall, even if the use of Russian continues to be widespread, Shul’ga said that over the next several years “the number of Russians and Russian speakers will decline significantly.”
Meanwhile, another report last week calls attention to another aspect of the relationship between Russian and Ukrainian identity. Next year marks the centenary of completion of the tsarist program to resettle Ukrainians (and others) in the Russian Far East in order to strengthen the central Russian government’s control of that region (odnarodyna.ru/articles/4/305.html).
The Ukrainians who were moved there called their place of settlement “zeleniy klin” [‘the green triangle”] and were able to maintain not only their language but even their identity well into the 20th century despite the efforts of the Soviet authorities to russianize and russify them.
The identity of this several hundred thousand-strong community played a key role in the defeat of the White Russian forces in the Far East during the Russian Civil War because the Whites unlike the Reds refused to promise to respect the right of the Ukrainian nation to self-determination.
Soviet researchers, émigré historians like Ivan Svit, and American scholars like John Stephan pointed out that many residents in the Far East retained their Ukrainian identity even when under pressure from the Soviet authorities they learned Russian and declared themselves to be ethnic Russians.
(In the mid-1980s, in a move few now recall, the United States broadcast to the region from Japan in Ukrainian, the only time in the history of US international broadcasting to the Soviet Union when the US broadcast to a region in a language different than the one the Soviet government declared was the language of the titular nationality.)
And in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, some in the Ukrainian parliament called for the recognition of the Zeleniy klin as Eastern Ukraine, a proposal that went nowhere but did call attention to the millions of people in the Russian Federation who continued to define themselves as Ukrainians even if they had to declare something else.
Now, this anniversary of the formation of the Green Triangle is likely to call the attention not only of many in Moscow and Kyiv but of analysts in the West that Ukrainian national identity is stronger than many have thought and that Russian national identity for many, except when supported by a strong state, may very well be weaker.
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