Paul Goble
Staunton, October 28 – Moscow is making plans to exploit its position as a “fresh water superpower” and sell some of its holdings of this increasingly precious commodity to water-short neighbors and other countries further afield, according to senior officials in the government of the Russian Federation.
In the wake of a UN report that only fifteen years from now, two out of three residents of the planet will not have access to sufficient supplies of potable water, some Russian officials are thinking about exporting their country’s supplies for profit but others are worried that the Russian Federation may eventually face a shortage (bezpontow.ru/news%2Bview%2B150.html).
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says that “the place of Russia in the world water market is being formulated. [Russia has] a quarter of the world’s supplies of fresh water, and we intend to use this advantage to the full extent,” an indication that Moscow will use water in much the same way it has used gas and oil.
But before Moscow can do so, many experts and officials believe that Russia must improve its own water supplies. Two-thirds of its reserves have been contaminated in the course of industrial development, and in addition, “two-thirds of the water pipes [in the Russian Federation] need immediate repairs.”
That is something not lost of many Russians, experts say. “The majority of Russians [currently] drink bottled water, and those who cannot [afford to do so], filter or even boil the water coming out of the tap.” Despite those precautions, illnesses from contaminated water are widespread.
Gennady Onishchenko, the chief public health official in the country, notes that “in Moscow we are buying technology with the goal of improving the quality of water” for Russians. But, he notes, there are still places around the country where water is not yet piped into the houses of residents.
Meanwhile, however, Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev is focusing far more on the export possibilities. “We must not buy Perrier,” he says; “we must sell our water abroad. We are increasing the extent of exports by improving conditions for businesses [to take that step] because the export of water is not a government function.”
But there is a possibility that it could become one -- and perhaps more quickly than anyone is now planning for. Today, Novosti reported that Romin Madinov, a deputy n the lower house of the Kazakhstan parliament, is suggesting that his country send grain to Russia in exchange for water from Siberian rivers (eco.rian.ru/business/20101028/290070912.html).
Today, Madinov said, Kazakhstan is very much interested in the much-discussed Siberian river diversion project because that country needs water, and now Kazakhstan has something which the Russian Federation needs and wants in exchange – grain this year when the Russian harvest was smaller and grain and meat in the future when water could allow for larger crops.
Madinov made these remarks at a government conference in Astana, and he added in conclusion that “having received water for our territory … Kazakhstan could actively develop a livestock industry, and for Russia, which already is buying more than a million tons of meat a year abroad, purchasing it from Kazakhstan would be much more economical.”
Whether this argument will win favor with President Nursultan Nazarbayev or become the basis for Kazakhstan-Russian conversations, one thing is very clear, water has already joined oil and gas as a strategic resource for Moscow and almost certainly will be used as petroleum is for both profit and political goals.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Neo-Nazi Groups, Extremist Crime Increasing Rapidly in Russia, Senior MVD Official Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 28 – Major General Sergey Girko, the head of the Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs, says that there are now more than 150 neo-Nazi groups in his country and that both their number and the number of extremist crimes they commit is rising rapidly.
Speaking to an international conference in Moscow on combating extremist and terrorist groups and crime today, Girko acknowledged that for that reason as well as many others, “the operational situation in the area of countering extremism on the territory of the Russian Federation remains complicated” (www.vnii-mvd.ru/news/1128).
Girko said that “every year” the number of crimes of an extremist nature in Russia has been growing. “If in 2007, there were 356 such crimes registered” – a 35 percent increase over the year before – “then in 2008, this figure increased to 460 (up 29 percent) and in 2009 to 548 (up 19 percent).”
The current year has been no exception to this pattern, the MVD general said. During the first six months of the year, there were 370 such crimes recorded, up by 39 percent over the same period in 2009. And that figure suggests that there will be a comparable increase for the entire year as well.
Moreover, Girko continued, “the number of radical groups based on the ideology of national, racial and religious tolerance also continues to grow.” According to MVD figures, there are now “more than 150 radical neo-fascist groups” in Russia “whose members profess a cult of nationalism and racial superiority” and seek to implement it with violence.
The MVD institute director said that “we very well understand that statistics are not an absolutely exact barometer” in this area. “As law enforcement practice shows, at the initial stage, extremist crimes are sometimes classified as having been committed for other reasons” all the more so because extremist groups are often combined with ordinary criminal ones.
“In Russia,” he continued, “particularly in recent years,” the powers that be have adopted “a complex of legislative and organizational measures in order to react in an adequate fashion to the existing threats from the side of organized criminal formations of an extremist and terrorist direction.”
Among these steps, Girko said, has been “the creation of a government system of countering extremism in which a particular place undoubtedly belongs to law enforcement organs.” They in turn have created inside the MVD a special department, whose staff specializes in providing advice on how to respond to and then prevent extremist crime.
His own institute, Girko said, conducts research and makes recommendations in this area in order to “raise the level” of the understanding of front-line officers in the struggle with this kind of crime and to generalize on the findings of investigators so that what one group learns all can benefit from.
The institute’s research, he continued, shows how complicated and multi-faceted is the task of those who seek to combat such crimes, and Girko suggested that what is “required” now is the involvement of “all institutions of government power” in this struggle, with each being responsible for one or another sector.
While a great deal has been accomplished, Girko said, “work in this direction in many regions [of the Russian Federation] is not being carried out at all or is being carried out in an ineffective way.” In all too many places, such activities are limited to declarations of good intentions rather than continuing action.
Girko concluded by saying that Russia’s fight against extremist crimes can only benefit from the experiences of others who have assembled in Moscow for this conference, and he said that the speeches and deliberations of the group would be published so that they could benefit everyone who is engaged in this struggle.
Staunton, October 28 – Major General Sergey Girko, the head of the Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs, says that there are now more than 150 neo-Nazi groups in his country and that both their number and the number of extremist crimes they commit is rising rapidly.
Speaking to an international conference in Moscow on combating extremist and terrorist groups and crime today, Girko acknowledged that for that reason as well as many others, “the operational situation in the area of countering extremism on the territory of the Russian Federation remains complicated” (www.vnii-mvd.ru/news/1128).
Girko said that “every year” the number of crimes of an extremist nature in Russia has been growing. “If in 2007, there were 356 such crimes registered” – a 35 percent increase over the year before – “then in 2008, this figure increased to 460 (up 29 percent) and in 2009 to 548 (up 19 percent).”
The current year has been no exception to this pattern, the MVD general said. During the first six months of the year, there were 370 such crimes recorded, up by 39 percent over the same period in 2009. And that figure suggests that there will be a comparable increase for the entire year as well.
Moreover, Girko continued, “the number of radical groups based on the ideology of national, racial and religious tolerance also continues to grow.” According to MVD figures, there are now “more than 150 radical neo-fascist groups” in Russia “whose members profess a cult of nationalism and racial superiority” and seek to implement it with violence.
The MVD institute director said that “we very well understand that statistics are not an absolutely exact barometer” in this area. “As law enforcement practice shows, at the initial stage, extremist crimes are sometimes classified as having been committed for other reasons” all the more so because extremist groups are often combined with ordinary criminal ones.
“In Russia,” he continued, “particularly in recent years,” the powers that be have adopted “a complex of legislative and organizational measures in order to react in an adequate fashion to the existing threats from the side of organized criminal formations of an extremist and terrorist direction.”
Among these steps, Girko said, has been “the creation of a government system of countering extremism in which a particular place undoubtedly belongs to law enforcement organs.” They in turn have created inside the MVD a special department, whose staff specializes in providing advice on how to respond to and then prevent extremist crime.
His own institute, Girko said, conducts research and makes recommendations in this area in order to “raise the level” of the understanding of front-line officers in the struggle with this kind of crime and to generalize on the findings of investigators so that what one group learns all can benefit from.
The institute’s research, he continued, shows how complicated and multi-faceted is the task of those who seek to combat such crimes, and Girko suggested that what is “required” now is the involvement of “all institutions of government power” in this struggle, with each being responsible for one or another sector.
While a great deal has been accomplished, Girko said, “work in this direction in many regions [of the Russian Federation] is not being carried out at all or is being carried out in an ineffective way.” In all too many places, such activities are limited to declarations of good intentions rather than continuing action.
Girko concluded by saying that Russia’s fight against extremist crimes can only benefit from the experiences of others who have assembled in Moscow for this conference, and he said that the speeches and deliberations of the group would be published so that they could benefit everyone who is engaged in this struggle.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow Already Has More than 100 Mosques, Silantyev Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 28 – Roman Silantyev, a specialist on Islam in the Russian Federation with close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, says there are currently six major mosques and “about 100 smaller” ones in Moscow, a statement which will only exacerbate the fight over whether officials in the Russian capital should approve building additional Muslim facilities.
Silantyev, who is notorious among Muslims for his sharp attacks on the leaders of Islam in Russia and who most recently attracted attention with an interview in which he said that there were far fewer Muslims in the Russian Federation than Muslim leaders claim, is injecting himself into the fight over new mosques.
In an interview published today in Moscow’s “Trud-7,” Silantyev says that “at present there are about 500,000 Muslims” in Moscow. Many Russian officials and Muslim leaders have suggested far higher numbers, ranging up to 2.5 million, but Silantyev dismisses such numbers (www.trud.ru/article/28-10-2010/253119_moskva_minaretam_ne_verit.html).
It is not clear from his remarks whether Silantyev is referring to Muslim believers or “ethnic” Muslims, the latter term including all those who are members of traditionally Muslim nationalities. If the latter, his estimate is too small. And in this connection, it is worth noting that Silantyev, like most Russian Orthodox, counts all ethnic Russians as Orthodox Christians.
But however that may be, the specialist says that Moscow’s Muslims currently have the use of “six major mosques and about 100 small ones.” The six include the four that existed from Soviet times, and two that have been built in recent years. The 100 smaller ones he refers to presumably include prayer rooms without any official registration.
Counting such prayer rooms as mosques is at the very least a stretch. These temporary facilities recall the kind of “underground” mosques that existed in Soviet times when believers held prayers in private apartments and houses when there was no mosque available. What is striking is that Silantyev is reintroducing this Soviet-era measure now.
Moreover, the Orthodox specialist on Islam continues, Muslims have had opportunities to build more but haven’t taken advantage of them. Former Mayor Yuri Luzhkov offered them eight [additional] pieces of land during his tenure – Muslims have sometimes spoken of 11 such offers, Silantyev says, “but over the last 14 years, nothing was built on these parcels.”
Whether new Mayor Sergey Sobyanin will change that is very much an open question, Silantyev says. On the one hand, he has expressed his support for building more religious facilities, but as the specialist says, the new man in charge could hardly do otherwise. But on the other, in the near future, the situation for Muslims with regard to facilities may get “still worse.”
That is because, Silantyev says, there is mounting public opposition to the construction of mosques, opposition that is fueled by anti-immigrant sentiments and that is encouraged by opposition in Western Europe and the United States to the construction of mosques any new mosques there.
And it is also because, he points out, the Muslim leadership lacks the funds to pay for the reconstruction of the major mosque on Prospekt Mira. Rebuilding that facility would cost as much as a half billion US dollars, and that is an amount that the Russian Muslim community cannot hope to raise on its own. As a result, reconstruction may in this case mean closure.
According to Silantyev, “the question of the construction of mosques can be resolved without scandals,” arguing that “it would be logical to construct a major mosque not alongside apartment buildings but for example next to the [capital’s] Muslim cemetery which is located in a convenient place.”
Such a location would be less offensive to others, Silantyev suggests, but he ignores the reality that this would treat Muslims very much as second class citizens because his own church leadership has called for the construction of Russian Orthodox churches within walking distance of every Orthodox Muscovite.
Silantyev’s interview is contained within a larger article by “Trud” journalist Dmitry Ivanov who not only describes the growing tensions between ethnic Russian residents of Tekstilshchiki who oppose building a mosque there and Muslim leaders who say any failure to do so will provoke an explosion of Muslim anger.
The Russian opponents of building a mosque there have launched a website, www.mecheti.net, and collected more than 6500 signatures on an appeal to Russian leaders not to allow a mosque to be put up where they could not erect a church and where its construction would deprive them of a public park.
Muslim supporters of a mosque in that Moscow neighborhood also have had held demonstrations and circulated a petition backing the idea, and they have expressed hope that the new Moscow mayor will back them not only as a matter of policy but because of his experience in Tyumen, where Muslim groups are now quite active.
But some Muslim leaders are skeptical that Sobyanin will support the construction of that mosque or any other. Geydar Dzhemal, the president of the Russian Islamic Committee, for example, says that he doesn’t think that the new mayor will agree to the construction of any new mosques.
What he does expect, Dzhemal told “Trud,” is that there will be “a growth in the activity of nationalist organizations” and an increase in “inter-ethnic clashes and in the general tension of society,” something he suggested will contribute to “a process of destabilization [of the Russian capital] from below.”
Staunton, October 28 – Roman Silantyev, a specialist on Islam in the Russian Federation with close ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, says there are currently six major mosques and “about 100 smaller” ones in Moscow, a statement which will only exacerbate the fight over whether officials in the Russian capital should approve building additional Muslim facilities.
Silantyev, who is notorious among Muslims for his sharp attacks on the leaders of Islam in Russia and who most recently attracted attention with an interview in which he said that there were far fewer Muslims in the Russian Federation than Muslim leaders claim, is injecting himself into the fight over new mosques.
In an interview published today in Moscow’s “Trud-7,” Silantyev says that “at present there are about 500,000 Muslims” in Moscow. Many Russian officials and Muslim leaders have suggested far higher numbers, ranging up to 2.5 million, but Silantyev dismisses such numbers (www.trud.ru/article/28-10-2010/253119_moskva_minaretam_ne_verit.html).
It is not clear from his remarks whether Silantyev is referring to Muslim believers or “ethnic” Muslims, the latter term including all those who are members of traditionally Muslim nationalities. If the latter, his estimate is too small. And in this connection, it is worth noting that Silantyev, like most Russian Orthodox, counts all ethnic Russians as Orthodox Christians.
But however that may be, the specialist says that Moscow’s Muslims currently have the use of “six major mosques and about 100 small ones.” The six include the four that existed from Soviet times, and two that have been built in recent years. The 100 smaller ones he refers to presumably include prayer rooms without any official registration.
Counting such prayer rooms as mosques is at the very least a stretch. These temporary facilities recall the kind of “underground” mosques that existed in Soviet times when believers held prayers in private apartments and houses when there was no mosque available. What is striking is that Silantyev is reintroducing this Soviet-era measure now.
Moreover, the Orthodox specialist on Islam continues, Muslims have had opportunities to build more but haven’t taken advantage of them. Former Mayor Yuri Luzhkov offered them eight [additional] pieces of land during his tenure – Muslims have sometimes spoken of 11 such offers, Silantyev says, “but over the last 14 years, nothing was built on these parcels.”
Whether new Mayor Sergey Sobyanin will change that is very much an open question, Silantyev says. On the one hand, he has expressed his support for building more religious facilities, but as the specialist says, the new man in charge could hardly do otherwise. But on the other, in the near future, the situation for Muslims with regard to facilities may get “still worse.”
That is because, Silantyev says, there is mounting public opposition to the construction of mosques, opposition that is fueled by anti-immigrant sentiments and that is encouraged by opposition in Western Europe and the United States to the construction of mosques any new mosques there.
And it is also because, he points out, the Muslim leadership lacks the funds to pay for the reconstruction of the major mosque on Prospekt Mira. Rebuilding that facility would cost as much as a half billion US dollars, and that is an amount that the Russian Muslim community cannot hope to raise on its own. As a result, reconstruction may in this case mean closure.
According to Silantyev, “the question of the construction of mosques can be resolved without scandals,” arguing that “it would be logical to construct a major mosque not alongside apartment buildings but for example next to the [capital’s] Muslim cemetery which is located in a convenient place.”
Such a location would be less offensive to others, Silantyev suggests, but he ignores the reality that this would treat Muslims very much as second class citizens because his own church leadership has called for the construction of Russian Orthodox churches within walking distance of every Orthodox Muscovite.
Silantyev’s interview is contained within a larger article by “Trud” journalist Dmitry Ivanov who not only describes the growing tensions between ethnic Russian residents of Tekstilshchiki who oppose building a mosque there and Muslim leaders who say any failure to do so will provoke an explosion of Muslim anger.
The Russian opponents of building a mosque there have launched a website, www.mecheti.net, and collected more than 6500 signatures on an appeal to Russian leaders not to allow a mosque to be put up where they could not erect a church and where its construction would deprive them of a public park.
Muslim supporters of a mosque in that Moscow neighborhood also have had held demonstrations and circulated a petition backing the idea, and they have expressed hope that the new Moscow mayor will back them not only as a matter of policy but because of his experience in Tyumen, where Muslim groups are now quite active.
But some Muslim leaders are skeptical that Sobyanin will support the construction of that mosque or any other. Geydar Dzhemal, the president of the Russian Islamic Committee, for example, says that he doesn’t think that the new mayor will agree to the construction of any new mosques.
What he does expect, Dzhemal told “Trud,” is that there will be “a growth in the activity of nationalist organizations” and an increase in “inter-ethnic clashes and in the general tension of society,” something he suggested will contribute to “a process of destabilization [of the Russian capital] from below.”
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