Paul Goble
Staunton, September 27 – Militants in the North Caucasus republics want to create a situation in which residents there will decide that they would be better off outside of the Russian Federation, but even more, the head of the Republic of North Ossetia says, they seek by their actions to get Russians to want precisely that.
To that end, Taymuraz Mamsurov says in an interview published in today’s “Kommersant,” the militants try to do everything so that Russians will view North Caucasians as “wild men whom it is impossible to education but only possible to destroy” so that eventually Russians will say enough (kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1511641&NodesID=6).
And in pursuit of that goal, he continues, they are prepared to engage in the most horrific act of terrorism like the September 9th explosion in Vladikavkaz and to fight on for perhaps as many as ten years more, something they hope to be able to achieve by keeping the population of the region in a condition of constant fear.
To defeat them, Mamsurov argues, “we must learn to live in conditions of war. Now, we must quickly learn from our mistakes. In blood, unfortunately. But the most terrible thing is if our people will live in horror and fear.” People cannot and must not live that way. “Therefore one must learn how to counter these threats and wait until all this will end.”
After the Vladikavkaz attack, Mamsurov acknowledges that many Ossetians and especially the young were inclined to blame the Ingush, not only because an entire generation has grown up among the Ossetians blaming the Ingush and vice versa but because young people tend to be especially emotional on such subjects. If they were otherwise, it would be “strange.”
The North Ossetian leader said that Ingush President Yevkurov had called him immediately after the events to express his sympathies but that it was very difficult for him to say anything publically, given the passions in both republics. That is something, Mamsurov says he fully understands.
In other comments, Mamsurov says that he made contacts with the Israelis after the Beslan terrorist act because “one must teach people” not only that “each day is a gift but also to be able to live with the threat of terrorism, and not become immobilized by fear of that possibility even as one minimizes the threat. That is something the Israelis have done.
The North Ossetian leader also says that his relations with the law enforcement organs in his republic are good, even though “by federal law, [he] does not have the right to appoint or remove them and they have the right not to tell me all that I want to know.” But he suggests that he gets information “about everything.”
Mamsurov argues that Islam is not to blame for all the problems in the North Caucasus as many seem to think – even those responsible for Beslan were from other faiths. And he adds that despite his own ethnic heritage, he had “never in [his] life” gone to a mosque, and believed that “faith without knowledge is fanaticism.
But Mamsurov’s most important comments concern how he would conduct the struggle against the militants. On the one hand, he stresses that it is an ideological fight, one in which current leaders like himself must make sure that another generation does not grow up hating people of other groups and blaming them for all their own problems.
And on the other, he calls for draconian punishments. Those who engage in the killing of innocents must be killed. There is no other “medicine” for them. Moreover, the families of the militants and those who stand behind the one and the other must bear full responsibility for what the terrorists do.
Mamsurov dismisses as impossible the idea suicide bombers do not care about their lives. Such an individual is simply specially prepared, just like some dogs are in the military. Such an individual “does not sacrifice himself. He is not alive. [Instead,] this is an individual who does not know religion or the value of life or the mother who bore and nursed him.”
In fact, such an individual is simply “a thing in human form that is chosen because of his psychological problems.” No ideas are behind his action, Mamsurov continues, and certainly no religion supports this kind of behavior. That is a hard lesson to learn, but it is a necessary one if such phenomena are to be defeated.
What the peoples of the North Caucasus are involved in is “a war. This is not some kind of petty banditism. And when one is involved in a war one must act accordingly. If I take you prisoner, I read out law. If I am required to keep you in prison and feed you and so on, I must do that. If I am required in military time to shoot you, then I must do so.”
More to the point, “you must know about this. When you leave your home, you must know what you are getting involved in. And if you go along this path, then you must know that even if you die, this is what will happen with your family and close friends. This is not some kind of Caucasian wildness; it must be based on law and on the decision of a court.”
If the peoples of the North Caucasus are to defeat the militants, Mamsurov concludes, everyone must understand that, both the militants and those they seek to destroy or enslave.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Kamchatka Draftees Can’t Show Up for Military Service Because of Costly Air Fares
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 27 – For four years, a Kamchatka journalist says, draftees from Koryak district have not been able to show up for military service because there has been no money from the government to pay for the air fares needed to bring them to central dispatch places, one measure of the difficulties involved in connecting parts of Russia not linked by roads.
But as Vyacheslav Skalatsky shows, the combination of cutbacks in air service to distant locations within the Russian Federation and rapidly increasing prices for air fares has broader consequences, both preventing young men from getting better jobs that military experience can open for them and meaning that people who are ill cannot get medical attention.
When he first reported this, the Kamchatka journalist says, he and his colleagues “understood that the bureaucrats might have not been able to deal with this problem just as with others. But we were not prepared to plumb the depths of their unprofessionalism. Now that has happened (www.raipon.info/index.php/component/content/article/1-novosti/1196-im-ne-doehat),
Skalatsky notes that “the task of bringing draftees to the kray center is only part of a large social problem of the entire Koryak district. Young people [from there] cannot be called to military service as is guaranteed by the Constitution. And then they cannot find more or less attractive work because of the lack of such service.”
But instead of addressing this problem, regional officials have sought to shift responsibility for and place blame on anyone but themselves. And when Koryak residents have complained, the bureaucrats have often routed their letters to the wrong officials who in turn have either ignored them or answered with “empty” promises.
One appeal, he said, complained that the situation had deteriorated since the Koryak district was amalgamated into the Kamchatka kray as part of then-President Vladimir Putin’s push to reduce the number of federal subjects by combining in the first instance, small, so-called “matryoshka” non-Russian districts with larger and predominantly Russian ones.
And another letter that Skalatsky read out on television pointed out to officials that many young men can’t find jobs because of this situation. Those “without a military ticket,” she pointed out, “are not hired on a permanent basis,” something that leaves them with few prospects and little hope for the future.
One official told her that the military commissar of Kamchatka kray says that the kray government cannot pay for the flights because Moscow has not provided the necessary funds “to the full extent.” He promised to see what could be done, but since that time, the people and draftees of Koryakia have not received any help.
What they and others have received are proud and entirely “empty” boasts by kray officials. Oskana Gerasimova, the kray development minister, told a session of the Russian-American Pacific Ocean Partnership Group that Kamchatka has all that it needs to be a leader in the development of trade ties between Russia and Pacific Rim and European countries.
Skalatsky says that it would be “interesting” to learn how Gerasimova squares this claim with the situation of “those draftees who FOR YEARS have not been able to reach the draft assembly point because of the absence of money and air communications” and feels comfortable in asserting that Kamchatka is able to respond “adequately to ‘the challenges of the times.’”
Some might be tempted to view this situation as exceptional, but another report today, this time in “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” suggests that similar problems are intensifying in the roughly one-third of the Russian Federation that lies in the north and whose residents are not linked to the rest of the country by any roads, let alone good ones.
According to the Moscow paper’s Krasnoyarsk correspondent, Aleksandr Chernyavsky, 11 days ago, officials closed the civilian airport in Dixon, the northernmost such facility in the Russian Federation, ending regular air service between that location and the south and stranding some 60 passengers waiting on the tarmac(www.ng.ru/regions/2010-09-27/100_dixon.html).
“The air bridge for residents of Dixon” – more than 600 people – “is vitally necessary, Chernyavsky continues. By plane are delivered not only the residents of the local settlement but also doctors, mail, and fresh products like milk and vegetables.” Official promises to establish “helicopter communication” do not appear likely to make up for the loss of plane service.
Vasily Nechayev, the head of the education commission of the regional legislature, says that this failure of the industry and energy ministry and the Taymyr district authorities is generating “serious concerns among the kray parliamentarians. But the local executive responds that that the closure was not his fault but that of aviation safety officials.
To bring the airport up to Russian safety standards will require 250 million rubles (8 million US dollars), an amount local legislatures promise to try to find in next year’s budget. In the meantime, residents of that northern settlement will have to make do without fresh milk and vegetables and perhaps, like the Koryaks, won’t be able to send their sons south to the army.
Staunton, September 27 – For four years, a Kamchatka journalist says, draftees from Koryak district have not been able to show up for military service because there has been no money from the government to pay for the air fares needed to bring them to central dispatch places, one measure of the difficulties involved in connecting parts of Russia not linked by roads.
But as Vyacheslav Skalatsky shows, the combination of cutbacks in air service to distant locations within the Russian Federation and rapidly increasing prices for air fares has broader consequences, both preventing young men from getting better jobs that military experience can open for them and meaning that people who are ill cannot get medical attention.
When he first reported this, the Kamchatka journalist says, he and his colleagues “understood that the bureaucrats might have not been able to deal with this problem just as with others. But we were not prepared to plumb the depths of their unprofessionalism. Now that has happened (www.raipon.info/index.php/component/content/article/1-novosti/1196-im-ne-doehat),
Skalatsky notes that “the task of bringing draftees to the kray center is only part of a large social problem of the entire Koryak district. Young people [from there] cannot be called to military service as is guaranteed by the Constitution. And then they cannot find more or less attractive work because of the lack of such service.”
But instead of addressing this problem, regional officials have sought to shift responsibility for and place blame on anyone but themselves. And when Koryak residents have complained, the bureaucrats have often routed their letters to the wrong officials who in turn have either ignored them or answered with “empty” promises.
One appeal, he said, complained that the situation had deteriorated since the Koryak district was amalgamated into the Kamchatka kray as part of then-President Vladimir Putin’s push to reduce the number of federal subjects by combining in the first instance, small, so-called “matryoshka” non-Russian districts with larger and predominantly Russian ones.
And another letter that Skalatsky read out on television pointed out to officials that many young men can’t find jobs because of this situation. Those “without a military ticket,” she pointed out, “are not hired on a permanent basis,” something that leaves them with few prospects and little hope for the future.
One official told her that the military commissar of Kamchatka kray says that the kray government cannot pay for the flights because Moscow has not provided the necessary funds “to the full extent.” He promised to see what could be done, but since that time, the people and draftees of Koryakia have not received any help.
What they and others have received are proud and entirely “empty” boasts by kray officials. Oskana Gerasimova, the kray development minister, told a session of the Russian-American Pacific Ocean Partnership Group that Kamchatka has all that it needs to be a leader in the development of trade ties between Russia and Pacific Rim and European countries.
Skalatsky says that it would be “interesting” to learn how Gerasimova squares this claim with the situation of “those draftees who FOR YEARS have not been able to reach the draft assembly point because of the absence of money and air communications” and feels comfortable in asserting that Kamchatka is able to respond “adequately to ‘the challenges of the times.’”
Some might be tempted to view this situation as exceptional, but another report today, this time in “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” suggests that similar problems are intensifying in the roughly one-third of the Russian Federation that lies in the north and whose residents are not linked to the rest of the country by any roads, let alone good ones.
According to the Moscow paper’s Krasnoyarsk correspondent, Aleksandr Chernyavsky, 11 days ago, officials closed the civilian airport in Dixon, the northernmost such facility in the Russian Federation, ending regular air service between that location and the south and stranding some 60 passengers waiting on the tarmac(www.ng.ru/regions/2010-09-27/100_dixon.html).
“The air bridge for residents of Dixon” – more than 600 people – “is vitally necessary, Chernyavsky continues. By plane are delivered not only the residents of the local settlement but also doctors, mail, and fresh products like milk and vegetables.” Official promises to establish “helicopter communication” do not appear likely to make up for the loss of plane service.
Vasily Nechayev, the head of the education commission of the regional legislature, says that this failure of the industry and energy ministry and the Taymyr district authorities is generating “serious concerns among the kray parliamentarians. But the local executive responds that that the closure was not his fault but that of aviation safety officials.
To bring the airport up to Russian safety standards will require 250 million rubles (8 million US dollars), an amount local legislatures promise to try to find in next year’s budget. In the meantime, residents of that northern settlement will have to make do without fresh milk and vegetables and perhaps, like the Koryaks, won’t be able to send their sons south to the army.
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