Paul Goble
Baku, January 17 – Daghestan, both in its capital city where people continue to demonstrate against the lack of electricity, heat and water in this coldest January in many years and in rural areas where Islamist groups continue to be active, is rapidly sliding toward the chaos of a civil war, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an article posted online this week, Igor Boykov, who writes frequently about the North Caucasus, said that the situation in Daghestan is already so bad that Moscow has effectively declared “a total information blockade in federal media about the true state of affairs” there (http://www.nazlobu.ru/publications/article2492.htm).
While nearly half of the million residents of Makhachkala are without basic services, he continued, central Russian media continue to insist that the only places in Russia where people are doing without them this winter are “two Yakut settlements with a population of a couple of hundred people.”
The republic and city governments have no immediately obvious way of ending the protests, which have grown bigger and more violent since the first of the year, by turning the electricity, heat and water supplies back on or of blocking the growing threat from Islamic radicals in the mountains.
Because of widespread official corruption, the republic owes so much money to its supplier of electricity that there is little or no hope that Makhachkala can pay what it owes or prevent the protests over heat and light from acquiring a political dimension, Boykov argued.
And it lacks the police power of its own to block the demonstrations, stem the continuing series of murders of local officials – one more of whom was killed last night -- or retake control of some of the republic’s outlying districts where Islamist radicals rather than the government are in effective control of the situation.
Should these the protests in the city link up with the Islamist elements in the countryside – and that is a very real possibility, Boykov suggested – then there would be “a revolutionary situation” in Daghestan that could threaten the ability of the authorities to keep order.
The protests in Makhachkala over the last several weeks have included mass meetings and the blocking of streets and public transport, and the demonstrators now are demanding not only that they get their heat and light back on but that the leaders of the republic be replaced.
At the barricades they have put up in some places, Makhachkala residents have put up signs with messages denouncing republic president Mukha Aliyev: “We believed you, but you have not justified our hopes,” Boykov says, citing the regional journal Chernovik, number 1 (2008).
And this anger about services has caused many people there to be increasingly angry about the way in which Aliyev and others falsified the parliamentary election returns. He reported that 90 percent of Daghestanis had taken part in the vote and that 90 percent had voted for United Russia. In fact, “no more than 8-9 percent” took part.
The reason the power was turned off at the end of last year is that local officials owe 200 to 400 million rubles (8 to 16 million U.S. dollars) to the power company, a debt the officials were directly responsible for incurring and one that they now have no resources to do anything about.
Indeed, Boykov wrote, the explanation for this debt “must be sought in the enormous palaces” which the officials have built for themselves from funds they have skimmed from the communal service payments of the population. And these houses thus now symbolize for many what is wrong in Daghestan.
And underlying this are simmering ethnic conflicts in that most multi-national republic of the Russian Federation, with members of one group blaming the situation on officials from another. Officials in the past have exploited such divisions to maintain order, but now, these divides could exacerbate current tensions.
Indeed, Boykov argued, “it is completely possible in the nearest future to expect not only mass protest actions but also mass disorders,” especially if people in the cities and Islamist elements in some rural areas link up, a development he suggests is quite likely.
Last summer, Daghestani President Aliyev had to acknowledge that the situation in the countryside of his republic has decayed to the point that the aul of Gimri in Untsukul rayon is “de facto beyond the jurisdiction of Makhachkala.” But in fact, other places are as well, Boykov said.
And despite the claims of both Makhachkala and Moscow, Daghestani militant organizations have “not been defeated. They are as before capable of military actions. And they are even expanding the zone of their influence, converting into a military theater Southern Daghestan which until recently had been stable.”
This militant underground, he said, is “actively infiltrating” the protest groups on the streets of Makhachkala, something that Boykov said had prompted him to suggest that Daghestan’s communists should “seize the initiative.” But the latter responded that they couldn’t: “There are no cadres and no people capable of working with the masses.”
That seems to be true of the government in Makhachkala as well, a lack that as Boykov concluded, could be filled by Islamist radicals. That they have the cadres and the people who can do so, he warned, is something about which no one in Moscow or Makhachkala should have any doubts.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Will Russia’s Muslims March under Russia’s Flag in Mecca Next Year?
Paul Goble
Baku, January 17 – This year, as apparently has been the case ever since the number of Muslims from the Russian Federation making the haj increased dramatically in the 1990s, Muslim pilgrims from that country did not assemble in Mecca under their country’s banner but rather under the flags of their national republics or even nations.
Such behavior, one Russian haji said, offended him, complicated the work of the Saudis and caused Muslims from elsewhere to wonder what is happening in Russia. But more seriously, such behavior raises the question of the ultimate loyalties of Russia’s Muslims and whether they can represent Moscow in its dealings with the Islamic world.
Now that the roughly 26,000 Muslims from Russia have returned from the holy places in Saudi Arabia, many of their co-religionists inside the country are beginning to reflect on how Russians should organize such pilgrimages in the future and on the role Russia’s Muslims should play in that country’s relations with Muslim countries.
Two products of such reflections are particularly instructive about the future of Russia’s Muslim community and its relationship with the central Russian government, the national republics in which many of its members live, and the worldwide umma of which they are a part.
In the first of these, Ibragim Techiyev, a leader of the Russian Islamic Inheritance who performed the haj this year, not only complained bitterly about several aspects of his experience but also proposed that Moscow assume an even greater measure of control over Russian hajis in the future (http://www.islamnasledie.ru/news.php?id=861).
His biggest complaint concerned what he said was the incompetence and greed of the Russian tour companies who failed to provide adequate food, transport or medical care for the hajis and kept asking them to pay extra for services that the Russian pilgrims had already paid for in advance.
Moreover, these tour firms, instead of hiring professional guides from the local population, recruited Russians studying in Saudi Arabia. And having done that, the firms did not train or adequately supervise them, and sometimes the tour operators did not even ensure that the guides showed up or knew what the Saudis expected.
Such problems, he said with obvious anger and regret, “occurred only among the Russian group of pilgrims. Muslims, who came from elsewhere, even those from the poorest countries, did not have such difficulties.” Only, the Russian hajis were thrown by their tour firms “to the winds of fate.”
Techiyev’s other complaint was that “the pilgrims did not raise their state flag” and proceed “as a group under “the Russian tricolor. Instead, the pilgrims from Russia “divided into groups on a regional and national basis and carried the flags of their republics and peoples.”
While the Muslims from Russia might have done so because the Russian Federation is a secular state in which the followers of Islam are a minority, no Muslim group from any other country did the same, something that embarrassed him and complicated the work of the religious authorities who did not know who was who.
Given these problems, Techiyev said, he believed that it is imperative that the Russian government take direct control of the haj process for Russia’s Muslims next year, thus ensuring that travel arrangements will be adequate and Russia’s Muslim citizens will represent the country in the manner that they should.
In a second article, members of prominent Kazan-based “Amal” Research Center discussed whether Moscow would be clever enough to employ Russia’s Muslims to lobby on is behalf in the Islamic world and whether this community in turn would be ready to do so (http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/analitika/napoglib/).
Given the increasing importance of the Muslim world and the threat to it and Russia’s interests by U.S. involvement there – something the Amal analysts said would likely intensify this year but not end with the elections – Moscow needs to think about what groups it can turn to for expanding ties with the Islamic countries.
Obviously, they suggested, the Russian government cannot turn to “the Orthodox hierarchs with their ideology of ‘the Third Rome’” or to “orientalists and specialists on Islam who study the faith from the outside or what is still worse, engage in a dirty information campaigns to blacken Islam.”
Nor can the Kremlin rely on “the presidents of national republics who not only do not represent a large part of the Russian umma but lack an intellectual or analytic base.” on “’decorative’ muftis who cannot say two words not just in Arabic but even in Russian” or on “conformists” who are involved in Islam only for money or status.
Instead, the analysts argued, Moscow needs to help Russia’s Muslims develop intellectually and politically and they in turn prepare themselves for a broader role. But at a time when, as Techiyev pointed out, Russia’s Muslims do not even march in Mecca under the Russian national flag, it is far from clear that either group will in fact do so.
Baku, January 17 – This year, as apparently has been the case ever since the number of Muslims from the Russian Federation making the haj increased dramatically in the 1990s, Muslim pilgrims from that country did not assemble in Mecca under their country’s banner but rather under the flags of their national republics or even nations.
Such behavior, one Russian haji said, offended him, complicated the work of the Saudis and caused Muslims from elsewhere to wonder what is happening in Russia. But more seriously, such behavior raises the question of the ultimate loyalties of Russia’s Muslims and whether they can represent Moscow in its dealings with the Islamic world.
Now that the roughly 26,000 Muslims from Russia have returned from the holy places in Saudi Arabia, many of their co-religionists inside the country are beginning to reflect on how Russians should organize such pilgrimages in the future and on the role Russia’s Muslims should play in that country’s relations with Muslim countries.
Two products of such reflections are particularly instructive about the future of Russia’s Muslim community and its relationship with the central Russian government, the national republics in which many of its members live, and the worldwide umma of which they are a part.
In the first of these, Ibragim Techiyev, a leader of the Russian Islamic Inheritance who performed the haj this year, not only complained bitterly about several aspects of his experience but also proposed that Moscow assume an even greater measure of control over Russian hajis in the future (http://www.islamnasledie.ru/news.php?id=861).
His biggest complaint concerned what he said was the incompetence and greed of the Russian tour companies who failed to provide adequate food, transport or medical care for the hajis and kept asking them to pay extra for services that the Russian pilgrims had already paid for in advance.
Moreover, these tour firms, instead of hiring professional guides from the local population, recruited Russians studying in Saudi Arabia. And having done that, the firms did not train or adequately supervise them, and sometimes the tour operators did not even ensure that the guides showed up or knew what the Saudis expected.
Such problems, he said with obvious anger and regret, “occurred only among the Russian group of pilgrims. Muslims, who came from elsewhere, even those from the poorest countries, did not have such difficulties.” Only, the Russian hajis were thrown by their tour firms “to the winds of fate.”
Techiyev’s other complaint was that “the pilgrims did not raise their state flag” and proceed “as a group under “the Russian tricolor. Instead, the pilgrims from Russia “divided into groups on a regional and national basis and carried the flags of their republics and peoples.”
While the Muslims from Russia might have done so because the Russian Federation is a secular state in which the followers of Islam are a minority, no Muslim group from any other country did the same, something that embarrassed him and complicated the work of the religious authorities who did not know who was who.
Given these problems, Techiyev said, he believed that it is imperative that the Russian government take direct control of the haj process for Russia’s Muslims next year, thus ensuring that travel arrangements will be adequate and Russia’s Muslim citizens will represent the country in the manner that they should.
In a second article, members of prominent Kazan-based “Amal” Research Center discussed whether Moscow would be clever enough to employ Russia’s Muslims to lobby on is behalf in the Islamic world and whether this community in turn would be ready to do so (http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/analitika/napoglib/).
Given the increasing importance of the Muslim world and the threat to it and Russia’s interests by U.S. involvement there – something the Amal analysts said would likely intensify this year but not end with the elections – Moscow needs to think about what groups it can turn to for expanding ties with the Islamic countries.
Obviously, they suggested, the Russian government cannot turn to “the Orthodox hierarchs with their ideology of ‘the Third Rome’” or to “orientalists and specialists on Islam who study the faith from the outside or what is still worse, engage in a dirty information campaigns to blacken Islam.”
Nor can the Kremlin rely on “the presidents of national republics who not only do not represent a large part of the Russian umma but lack an intellectual or analytic base.” on “’decorative’ muftis who cannot say two words not just in Arabic but even in Russian” or on “conformists” who are involved in Islam only for money or status.
Instead, the analysts argued, Moscow needs to help Russia’s Muslims develop intellectually and politically and they in turn prepare themselves for a broader role. But at a time when, as Techiyev pointed out, Russia’s Muslims do not even march in Mecca under the Russian national flag, it is far from clear that either group will in fact do so.
Window on Eurasia: More Regional Unions in Russia – and Perhaps One Divorce
Paul Goble
Baku, January 17 – After a pause occasioned by the parliamentary elections in December, the Kremlin is again planning to merge some of Russia’s federal subjects into larger units, but so far, it is doing so more quietly in the past lest it stir up problems and lead other subjects to seek a divorce from its neighbor as one is now trying to do.
According to a report on the Fontanka news portal this week, President Vladimir Putin’s policy of amalgamating has been “completely successful,” and consequently, the Kremlin wants to arrange more such unions in the near future, including in the North-West Federal District (http://www.fontanka.ru/2008/01/15/042/)
There, the first two candidates for combination, the site’s Aleksei Yakushev says, are Novgorod and Pskov oblasts, an idea that has been discussed since at least 2003 but was shelved because of the opposition of oblast leaders who felt that it would lead at a minimum to their loss of office.
Despite his upbeat assessment of the amalgamations that have taken place so far, Yakushev notes that “any unification is definitely stressful for the regional elite which can work to sabotage these processes,” and consequently, “during the period of an election campaign, it is scarcely appropriate to push it forward.”
That’s why, he continues, that “this process of preparation for unifications at present had become not as public as was the case with earlier ones. All the documents are being prepared in the quiet of offices. But all the same, there are leaks” – and they point to the combination of Novgorod and Pskov oblasts later this year.
According to a “highly placed” but anonymous source in the administration of Novgorod, “this question has practically been decided at the highest levels” and will be announced and implemented through a referendum shortly after the March presidential elections.
But there is a second reason why the powers that be in Moscow may not want to talk very much about this in public: There have been problems with some of the amalgamations, particularly the one between Chita and the Agin-Buryat district, and one non-Russian district is trying for a referendum to cut its ties with a Russian one.
In the Transbaikal, officials from the two units have been having trouble bringing their respective regulations into line and agreeing on power sharing. Indeed, reports in the media there suggest that the two sides may be angrier at each other than they were when this process started (http://www.aifvs.ru/nomer/555/01-1.shtml).
And in the North, Officials in the Nenets Autonomous District have called for a vote to severe their region’s ties with Arkhangelsk. This is the third time they have sought permission, and the Regnum news agency suggests they won’t gain the election commissions’s approval this time either (http://www.regnum.ru/news/942030.html).
Konstantin Zhuravlev, a deputy of the Arkhangelsk oblast Assembly, told a Regnum reporter that “on a political level, the struggle for independence by residents of the Nenets elicits interest and respect, but to a great degree, this initiative is above all senseless.”
That is because, he continued, “the subjects of the Russian Federation do not feel themselves self-standing since, despite its status, our state is not federative. Today both Russian law and the financial-administrative system have been created for a unitary state.”
But if Moscow is in charge of all federal subjects, it nonetheless matters to smaller ones if larger ones absorb them and give them orders or take control of some of their income stream, as Arkhangelsk leaders have said they are doing in the Nenets AO (http://www.barentsobserver.com/index.php?id=4450808&cat=16149&xforceredir=1&noredir=1).
Such comments are certain to infuriate the Nenets and to serve as yet another reason for them to seek a divorce from the Arkhangelsk authorities. And their anger would almost certainly be repeated elsewhere if the Kremlin were talking openly about combining more regions rather than seeking to do that quietly and behind the scenes.
Baku, January 17 – After a pause occasioned by the parliamentary elections in December, the Kremlin is again planning to merge some of Russia’s federal subjects into larger units, but so far, it is doing so more quietly in the past lest it stir up problems and lead other subjects to seek a divorce from its neighbor as one is now trying to do.
According to a report on the Fontanka news portal this week, President Vladimir Putin’s policy of amalgamating has been “completely successful,” and consequently, the Kremlin wants to arrange more such unions in the near future, including in the North-West Federal District (http://www.fontanka.ru/2008/01/15/042/)
There, the first two candidates for combination, the site’s Aleksei Yakushev says, are Novgorod and Pskov oblasts, an idea that has been discussed since at least 2003 but was shelved because of the opposition of oblast leaders who felt that it would lead at a minimum to their loss of office.
Despite his upbeat assessment of the amalgamations that have taken place so far, Yakushev notes that “any unification is definitely stressful for the regional elite which can work to sabotage these processes,” and consequently, “during the period of an election campaign, it is scarcely appropriate to push it forward.”
That’s why, he continues, that “this process of preparation for unifications at present had become not as public as was the case with earlier ones. All the documents are being prepared in the quiet of offices. But all the same, there are leaks” – and they point to the combination of Novgorod and Pskov oblasts later this year.
According to a “highly placed” but anonymous source in the administration of Novgorod, “this question has practically been decided at the highest levels” and will be announced and implemented through a referendum shortly after the March presidential elections.
But there is a second reason why the powers that be in Moscow may not want to talk very much about this in public: There have been problems with some of the amalgamations, particularly the one between Chita and the Agin-Buryat district, and one non-Russian district is trying for a referendum to cut its ties with a Russian one.
In the Transbaikal, officials from the two units have been having trouble bringing their respective regulations into line and agreeing on power sharing. Indeed, reports in the media there suggest that the two sides may be angrier at each other than they were when this process started (http://www.aifvs.ru/nomer/555/01-1.shtml).
And in the North, Officials in the Nenets Autonomous District have called for a vote to severe their region’s ties with Arkhangelsk. This is the third time they have sought permission, and the Regnum news agency suggests they won’t gain the election commissions’s approval this time either (http://www.regnum.ru/news/942030.html).
Konstantin Zhuravlev, a deputy of the Arkhangelsk oblast Assembly, told a Regnum reporter that “on a political level, the struggle for independence by residents of the Nenets elicits interest and respect, but to a great degree, this initiative is above all senseless.”
That is because, he continued, “the subjects of the Russian Federation do not feel themselves self-standing since, despite its status, our state is not federative. Today both Russian law and the financial-administrative system have been created for a unitary state.”
But if Moscow is in charge of all federal subjects, it nonetheless matters to smaller ones if larger ones absorb them and give them orders or take control of some of their income stream, as Arkhangelsk leaders have said they are doing in the Nenets AO (http://www.barentsobserver.com/index.php?id=4450808&cat=16149&xforceredir=1&noredir=1).
Such comments are certain to infuriate the Nenets and to serve as yet another reason for them to seek a divorce from the Arkhangelsk authorities. And their anger would almost certainly be repeated elsewhere if the Kremlin were talking openly about combining more regions rather than seeking to do that quietly and behind the scenes.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Window on Eurasia: How Moscow Killed the Free Press in Chita
Paul Goble
Baku, January 16 – Using some carrots and a lot of sticks, Russian officials over the last year have shut down the independent media outlets in Chita oblast, a campaign they may have assumed no one would notice because this occurred so far from Moscow but one that now has been exposed by a courageous media rights activist there.
In an article posted timed to coincide with last Sunday’s Day of the Russian Press, Vitaliy Cherkasov, a member of the Union of Journalists of Russia and head of the Transbaikal Human Rights Center, traces step by step what these officials have done to destroy the free press there (http://www.hro1.org/node/839).
Cherkasov says that during the campaign, Chita officials sometimes acting at Moscow’s urging and at others on their own but with the certainty that Moscow would back them up used “all” the administrative “levers’ at their disposal to subvert the Constitution’s guarantees of media freedom.
What triggered this “crusade” in Chita, he said, was Moscow’s campaign to win approval for its plan to merge the Agin-Buryat Autonomous District with Chita oblast. Local officials were told, he said, that the population had to demonstrate “unqualified support” for the Kremlin’s proposal
The region’s “loyal” media, of course, needed no convincing, he said. But officials arranged “conversations with the editors of publications less well disposed” to the authorities so that the journalists would know “what could be written and what it would be better not to write about.”
A signal event in this effort occurred on February 1. On that date, Russian Radio-Chita went off the air after 11 years of broadcasting. The “official” explanation was that this had to do with “brand” name issues, but employees of the station say that it was the result of the station’s critical coverage of the referendum on unification.
At the same time, officials in Chita tried to close down the last remaining independent rayon newspaper, Vsemu naperekor in Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy. Its editor, Natalya Filinova, was forced “underground” for a time by threats, the seizure of print runs and other forms of harassment.
What is important to understand, Cherkasov continued, is that by acting so harshly against the few, the many generally got the message and fell in line, thus guaranteeing their incomes and possibly seeing them increase because of the declining number of competitors for sales and advertising.
In May, the local company that had been retranslating REN-TV stopped doing so apparently under pressure from local and regional authorities unhappy with its “Week” program which in Cherkasov’s words “permitted itself to evaluate the situation in Russia from a critical point of view.”
Having driven REN-TV off the air, the journalist said, Chita officials gave that channel to a Chita company which uses taxpayer funs to “propagandize ‘the achievements’ of the city and oblast administration from morning to night.”
Local law enforcement officers got into the act not only as enforcers for their political bosses but also on their own behalf. Apparently sensing that they enjoyed particular support in the Russian capital, they visited various media outlets to ensure that the latter would not feature “any criticism” of the militia or prosecutors.
Then, in advance of the Russian parliamentary elections on December 2, Chita closed down Regnovosti.ru because it had been critical of the Kremlin’s preferred candidates of the party of power. Its editors said the closure was only “temporary,” but Cherkasov suggested that their site won’t be allowed to return unless it changes its tune.
And at the same time, local prosecutors tried to get the regional IP provider Sibir’telekom to restrict the access of local Internet users to sites with content that “violates the integrity of the Russian Federation, undermines the security of the state, and stirs social, racial and religious hostility.”
Sibir’telekom responded that “the majority of the sites” of concern were not hosted by it or even by other Russian IPs. Consequently, the authorities could demand that it close down all Internet access if they wanted to suffer the loss in information, but they could not ask Sibir’telekom to shut some of them. It can’t, the company said.
But Chita officials clearly are not through with the Internet. Earlier this month, they forced the local city site, www.Chita.ru to drop its “Cactus Forum” because too many visitors to that page were leaving posts critical of the authorities. Now, the page which had included “Cactus” features the far more anodyne “Weather in Chita.”
(Russian officials at present seem particularly concerned about Internet forums, one of the freest and sometimes least responsible parts of the web. Recently, they succeeded in forcing Ingushetia.ru to shut its forums down, lest extremist statements on them become the basis for criminal charges against that site’s operators.)
There is little reason to “envy” journalists in Chita, Cherkasov said. “They are caught between a rock and a hard place: Either they can keep their salaries and support their families [by toeing the line] or they can land among their unemployed colleagues” who have tried to maintain journalistic standards.
If they choose to do the first, they will not serve society or live up to their commitments. But if they choose the second, which is in many ways morally preferable, many of them in today’s Russia quite often will not be able function as journalists because no outlet can afford to hire them
But like Cherkasov himself, some of them are bravely soldiering on by turning to the Internet where even from the most distant corners of the Russian Federation, men and women like themselves can report the kind of news that Moscow and its minions in the provinces would very much prefer that no one heard about.
Baku, January 16 – Using some carrots and a lot of sticks, Russian officials over the last year have shut down the independent media outlets in Chita oblast, a campaign they may have assumed no one would notice because this occurred so far from Moscow but one that now has been exposed by a courageous media rights activist there.
In an article posted timed to coincide with last Sunday’s Day of the Russian Press, Vitaliy Cherkasov, a member of the Union of Journalists of Russia and head of the Transbaikal Human Rights Center, traces step by step what these officials have done to destroy the free press there (http://www.hro1.org/node/839).
Cherkasov says that during the campaign, Chita officials sometimes acting at Moscow’s urging and at others on their own but with the certainty that Moscow would back them up used “all” the administrative “levers’ at their disposal to subvert the Constitution’s guarantees of media freedom.
What triggered this “crusade” in Chita, he said, was Moscow’s campaign to win approval for its plan to merge the Agin-Buryat Autonomous District with Chita oblast. Local officials were told, he said, that the population had to demonstrate “unqualified support” for the Kremlin’s proposal
The region’s “loyal” media, of course, needed no convincing, he said. But officials arranged “conversations with the editors of publications less well disposed” to the authorities so that the journalists would know “what could be written and what it would be better not to write about.”
A signal event in this effort occurred on February 1. On that date, Russian Radio-Chita went off the air after 11 years of broadcasting. The “official” explanation was that this had to do with “brand” name issues, but employees of the station say that it was the result of the station’s critical coverage of the referendum on unification.
At the same time, officials in Chita tried to close down the last remaining independent rayon newspaper, Vsemu naperekor in Petrovsk-Zabaykalskiy. Its editor, Natalya Filinova, was forced “underground” for a time by threats, the seizure of print runs and other forms of harassment.
What is important to understand, Cherkasov continued, is that by acting so harshly against the few, the many generally got the message and fell in line, thus guaranteeing their incomes and possibly seeing them increase because of the declining number of competitors for sales and advertising.
In May, the local company that had been retranslating REN-TV stopped doing so apparently under pressure from local and regional authorities unhappy with its “Week” program which in Cherkasov’s words “permitted itself to evaluate the situation in Russia from a critical point of view.”
Having driven REN-TV off the air, the journalist said, Chita officials gave that channel to a Chita company which uses taxpayer funs to “propagandize ‘the achievements’ of the city and oblast administration from morning to night.”
Local law enforcement officers got into the act not only as enforcers for their political bosses but also on their own behalf. Apparently sensing that they enjoyed particular support in the Russian capital, they visited various media outlets to ensure that the latter would not feature “any criticism” of the militia or prosecutors.
Then, in advance of the Russian parliamentary elections on December 2, Chita closed down Regnovosti.ru because it had been critical of the Kremlin’s preferred candidates of the party of power. Its editors said the closure was only “temporary,” but Cherkasov suggested that their site won’t be allowed to return unless it changes its tune.
And at the same time, local prosecutors tried to get the regional IP provider Sibir’telekom to restrict the access of local Internet users to sites with content that “violates the integrity of the Russian Federation, undermines the security of the state, and stirs social, racial and religious hostility.”
Sibir’telekom responded that “the majority of the sites” of concern were not hosted by it or even by other Russian IPs. Consequently, the authorities could demand that it close down all Internet access if they wanted to suffer the loss in information, but they could not ask Sibir’telekom to shut some of them. It can’t, the company said.
But Chita officials clearly are not through with the Internet. Earlier this month, they forced the local city site, www.Chita.ru to drop its “Cactus Forum” because too many visitors to that page were leaving posts critical of the authorities. Now, the page which had included “Cactus” features the far more anodyne “Weather in Chita.”
(Russian officials at present seem particularly concerned about Internet forums, one of the freest and sometimes least responsible parts of the web. Recently, they succeeded in forcing Ingushetia.ru to shut its forums down, lest extremist statements on them become the basis for criminal charges against that site’s operators.)
There is little reason to “envy” journalists in Chita, Cherkasov said. “They are caught between a rock and a hard place: Either they can keep their salaries and support their families [by toeing the line] or they can land among their unemployed colleagues” who have tried to maintain journalistic standards.
If they choose to do the first, they will not serve society or live up to their commitments. But if they choose the second, which is in many ways morally preferable, many of them in today’s Russia quite often will not be able function as journalists because no outlet can afford to hire them
But like Cherkasov himself, some of them are bravely soldiering on by turning to the Internet where even from the most distant corners of the Russian Federation, men and women like themselves can report the kind of news that Moscow and its minions in the provinces would very much prefer that no one heard about.
Window on Eurasia: Kadyrov has Made Chechnya a Totalitarian State, Human Rights Group Says
Paul Goble
Baku, January 16 –In order to project an image of stability and apparently with the full backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has created “a totalitarian regime” in his still troubled north Caucasus republic, according to the Memorial Human Rights Center.
Yesterday at a Moscow press conference, Oleg Orlov reported on his organization’s monitoring of human and civil rights in Chechnya between August 2006 and October 2007. Memorial’s report will be published, but its basic conclusions have already been reported (http://www.sobkorr.ru/news/478C99694DC79.html).
A kind of “’peace’” has begun in Chechnya after long years of war, Orlov said. Its capital, Grozniy, is being rebuilt, and kidnappings and torture have become less common. But this progress, which Moscow has trumpeted and the West welcomed, he said, has been chiefly the work of Russian and international human rights groups.
Moreover, behind these welcome developments has been a frightening if less commented upon development -- Kadyrov’s use of the force structures he controls to instill fear in the Chechen people and to erect an ever more nasty state with aspirations to totalitarianism.
The Chechen president so dominates the media scene there that no one on the ground has the chance to challenge his positions by means of public commentary. And his police and military units increasingly act in a lawless fashion to seek out and punish anyone suspected of harboring anti-Kadyrov sentiments.
Svetlana Gannuushkina, another human rights activist, provided some additional details to the Sobkorr correspondent. She noted that at present, the militia routinely throws people out of their residences with its only explanation being that “we are fulfilling the orders of Ramzan Kadyrov.”
In addition to that, she said, Kadyrov’s agents frequently pursue Chechens who have fled to other former Soviet republics. Much of the time, Kadyrov’s men simply encourage anti-Chechen attitudes among the people of these countries so that the Chechens living among them will have no option but to return to their homeland
And Kadyrov’s approach is unwittingly getting support from some Western governments that, under pressure from Moscow and domestic anti-immigrant attitudes, are less willing to grant asylum to Chechens and more willing to expel them – even though they are aware that anyone returned to Grozny is likely to suffer persecution.
Because of this and because he enjoys the backing of Vladimir Putin, who seems willing to overlook Kadyrov’s actions as long as both can point to Chechnya as an island of “stability” in the North Caucasus, Kadyrov probably believes that he has little reason to change course.
But there is a potentially fatal flaw in his logic. If like his Kremlin patron, Kadyrov has sought to make his republic stable albeit at the cost of freedom, he has not, and again like Putin, achieved his goal. Instead, he has unwittingly created the pre-conditions for a new upsurge of violence and his own removal from power.
On the one hand, Chechens caught between his increasingly authoritarian, even totalitarian regime and the indifference or hostility of Moscow and the West are likely to be more willing to listen to radicals who insist that the only real option Chechens now have is a turn to violence.
And on the other, because his actions mean that many in Moscow do not believe Chechnya is effectively part of Russia (http://forum.msk.ru/material/lenty/426900.html), Kadyrov could lose see the support he enjoys there erode rapidly if he ever slips, something that could bring an end to his time in office.
Baku, January 16 –In order to project an image of stability and apparently with the full backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has created “a totalitarian regime” in his still troubled north Caucasus republic, according to the Memorial Human Rights Center.
Yesterday at a Moscow press conference, Oleg Orlov reported on his organization’s monitoring of human and civil rights in Chechnya between August 2006 and October 2007. Memorial’s report will be published, but its basic conclusions have already been reported (http://www.sobkorr.ru/news/478C99694DC79.html).
A kind of “’peace’” has begun in Chechnya after long years of war, Orlov said. Its capital, Grozniy, is being rebuilt, and kidnappings and torture have become less common. But this progress, which Moscow has trumpeted and the West welcomed, he said, has been chiefly the work of Russian and international human rights groups.
Moreover, behind these welcome developments has been a frightening if less commented upon development -- Kadyrov’s use of the force structures he controls to instill fear in the Chechen people and to erect an ever more nasty state with aspirations to totalitarianism.
The Chechen president so dominates the media scene there that no one on the ground has the chance to challenge his positions by means of public commentary. And his police and military units increasingly act in a lawless fashion to seek out and punish anyone suspected of harboring anti-Kadyrov sentiments.
Svetlana Gannuushkina, another human rights activist, provided some additional details to the Sobkorr correspondent. She noted that at present, the militia routinely throws people out of their residences with its only explanation being that “we are fulfilling the orders of Ramzan Kadyrov.”
In addition to that, she said, Kadyrov’s agents frequently pursue Chechens who have fled to other former Soviet republics. Much of the time, Kadyrov’s men simply encourage anti-Chechen attitudes among the people of these countries so that the Chechens living among them will have no option but to return to their homeland
And Kadyrov’s approach is unwittingly getting support from some Western governments that, under pressure from Moscow and domestic anti-immigrant attitudes, are less willing to grant asylum to Chechens and more willing to expel them – even though they are aware that anyone returned to Grozny is likely to suffer persecution.
Because of this and because he enjoys the backing of Vladimir Putin, who seems willing to overlook Kadyrov’s actions as long as both can point to Chechnya as an island of “stability” in the North Caucasus, Kadyrov probably believes that he has little reason to change course.
But there is a potentially fatal flaw in his logic. If like his Kremlin patron, Kadyrov has sought to make his republic stable albeit at the cost of freedom, he has not, and again like Putin, achieved his goal. Instead, he has unwittingly created the pre-conditions for a new upsurge of violence and his own removal from power.
On the one hand, Chechens caught between his increasingly authoritarian, even totalitarian regime and the indifference or hostility of Moscow and the West are likely to be more willing to listen to radicals who insist that the only real option Chechens now have is a turn to violence.
And on the other, because his actions mean that many in Moscow do not believe Chechnya is effectively part of Russia (http://forum.msk.ru/material/lenty/426900.html), Kadyrov could lose see the support he enjoys there erode rapidly if he ever slips, something that could bring an end to his time in office.
Window on Eurasia: Russian National Movement ‘Doesn’t Exist,’ Disappointed Veteran Says
Paul Goble
Baku, January 16 – At present, a serious Russian National Movement “does not exist,” is unlikely to win support from the population, and will not be able to challenge the Kremlin for power, according to someone who passed through the ranks of many groups that believed they could form the nucleus of such a movement.
Instead, its would-be leaders are incompetent, uncertain and penetrated, its tactics of limited use when not completely counterproductive, and its ability to reach out to the increasingly cynical population almost nil, Aleksandr Bol’shakov says in an essay posted online yesterday (http://www.apn.ru/publications/article18911.htm).
Bol’shakov would appear to know whereof he speaks. He notes that he spent “more than a decade” in what most people think of as the Russian movement, participating in Russian National Unity (RNE), the Slavic Community, Rodina, and Great Russia, as well as cooperating with Patriots of Russia, Rus’ and other groups.
Now, the disappointed activist writes, “it’s time to draw some conclusions” about what this was all about and whether it in fact will lead to anything. At least to judge from this article and assuming that he is not acting as an agent provocateur as many in the movement, Bol’shakov’s “conclusions” are entirely negative and merit close attention.
Any movement, he says, must do three things: It must “define and defend its idea.” It must introduce it to as many people as possible. And it must make its idea the one that defines the course of the country. Looking ahead to Russia’s presidential vote in March, he notes, it is obvious that Russian nationalists have not done any of these.
Those who call themselves Russian nationalists are deeply split, Bol’shakov continues, and many of them are more concerned with anathematizing other Russian nationalists than with forming a united front, winning support in the population, and taking power.
Were any one of these groups to take power, they would not only destroy the state but in their pursuit of enemies within the Russian nationalist camp would visit even more chaos and disaster than that which occurred “at the beginning of the last century when ‘you-know-who’ destroyed Russians.”
But that proposition is not going to be tested, Bol’shakov says, because “we [Russian nationalists] will not come to power.”
The reasons for that are both obvious and damning, he argues. Most of the nationalist groupings and parties are small, with incompetent leaders and a followers that consists of marginal losers unprepared to do anything much, fools who do not understand what they are involved with and government agents provocateurs who exploit both.
Moreover, “there is no money [the lifeblood of any political group], and there isn’t going to be.” No one would give any without some hope for a return, and Russian nationalists cannot promise any. And those involved in the movement directly seldom are in a position to earn the money the movement would need to grow.
(In this comedy, Bol’shakov suggests, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy’s clowning, which attracts the attention of the media, may be the only sensible strategy for people in this part of the Russian political spectrum. After all, the media coverage his antics get brings his ideas such as they are to a broad public.)
But even if money somehow magically appeared, Bol’shakov suggests, his own experience indicates that these groups do not know how to reach out to the masses. Russians today “have already gotten used to the idea that they are being constantly lied to.” And consequently, they tune out almost everything.
As a result, Russian nationalist leaflets and web pages seldom reach anyone except those already convinced, thus guaranteeing that the movement not only will not grow but also that it will gradually die. And its actions, small demonstrations and marches, have the effect of signally not how strong the movement is but how weak. And as for the so-called leaders of the Russian national movement, he says, they fall into three categories: First, the fools, most of whom are honestly concerned about the fate of their nation and country but who lack the means or understanding to do anything about it
The worst of these are those who sit at home, worry about “worldwide problems, and “almost daily adopt resolutions of the type “Concerning the incorrect nature of the actions of NATO in Iraq.” Such people are a threat to no one, Bol’shakov adds, other than perhaps to themselves.
Second, the businessmen, people for whom “the struggle is a business” that they engage into advance their careers. And third, the provocateurs, “all of whose actions are directed … at discrediting the Movement,” splitting it into smaller and smaller fractions more easily controlled, and driving its members away.
Unfortunately for the movement, Bol’shakov says, “it is practically impossible to distinguish the provocateur from the ideologically committed – their words are the same and their actions are similar. Consequently, one is always asking oneself whether someone is a fool or a provocateur?!”
“The ambitions of these little Fuehrers and little Napoleans [from all these categories] do not allow for the achievement of anything even resembling unity.” And those who believe unity is essential lack the means to fight back when such leaders inevitably work to discredit them.
Given the appearance of stability in the country, the government’s clever deployment of provocateurs and its use of Russian nationalist themes, and “the lack of support” from the population, the numerically small Russian national movement is not in a position to do very much at all, let alone think about taking power.
In these circumstances, Bol’shakov argues, Russian nationalists have “only three options”: First, they can give up, turn to the bottle and behave “like Soviet dissidents sitting in the kitchen and shedding tears about the Russian people.” In reality, many Russian nationalists are already doing exactly that.
Second, they can support the current president or an “Orange” revolution in the hopes that things may get worse and thus provide them with an opening. “Or” – and with that word, Bol’shakov ends his article, implicitly suggesting that neither he nor his former comrades in arms have much of an idea.
Bol’shakov’s comments are important not only because they show how poorly organized Russian nationalists as a group are but also that those who identify themselves as members of that group do not like Vladimir Putin who many believe has “weakened” the Russian nationalist movement by adopting many of its ideas.
Baku, January 16 – At present, a serious Russian National Movement “does not exist,” is unlikely to win support from the population, and will not be able to challenge the Kremlin for power, according to someone who passed through the ranks of many groups that believed they could form the nucleus of such a movement.
Instead, its would-be leaders are incompetent, uncertain and penetrated, its tactics of limited use when not completely counterproductive, and its ability to reach out to the increasingly cynical population almost nil, Aleksandr Bol’shakov says in an essay posted online yesterday (http://www.apn.ru/publications/article18911.htm).
Bol’shakov would appear to know whereof he speaks. He notes that he spent “more than a decade” in what most people think of as the Russian movement, participating in Russian National Unity (RNE), the Slavic Community, Rodina, and Great Russia, as well as cooperating with Patriots of Russia, Rus’ and other groups.
Now, the disappointed activist writes, “it’s time to draw some conclusions” about what this was all about and whether it in fact will lead to anything. At least to judge from this article and assuming that he is not acting as an agent provocateur as many in the movement, Bol’shakov’s “conclusions” are entirely negative and merit close attention.
Any movement, he says, must do three things: It must “define and defend its idea.” It must introduce it to as many people as possible. And it must make its idea the one that defines the course of the country. Looking ahead to Russia’s presidential vote in March, he notes, it is obvious that Russian nationalists have not done any of these.
Those who call themselves Russian nationalists are deeply split, Bol’shakov continues, and many of them are more concerned with anathematizing other Russian nationalists than with forming a united front, winning support in the population, and taking power.
Were any one of these groups to take power, they would not only destroy the state but in their pursuit of enemies within the Russian nationalist camp would visit even more chaos and disaster than that which occurred “at the beginning of the last century when ‘you-know-who’ destroyed Russians.”
But that proposition is not going to be tested, Bol’shakov says, because “we [Russian nationalists] will not come to power.”
The reasons for that are both obvious and damning, he argues. Most of the nationalist groupings and parties are small, with incompetent leaders and a followers that consists of marginal losers unprepared to do anything much, fools who do not understand what they are involved with and government agents provocateurs who exploit both.
Moreover, “there is no money [the lifeblood of any political group], and there isn’t going to be.” No one would give any without some hope for a return, and Russian nationalists cannot promise any. And those involved in the movement directly seldom are in a position to earn the money the movement would need to grow.
(In this comedy, Bol’shakov suggests, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy’s clowning, which attracts the attention of the media, may be the only sensible strategy for people in this part of the Russian political spectrum. After all, the media coverage his antics get brings his ideas such as they are to a broad public.)
But even if money somehow magically appeared, Bol’shakov suggests, his own experience indicates that these groups do not know how to reach out to the masses. Russians today “have already gotten used to the idea that they are being constantly lied to.” And consequently, they tune out almost everything.
As a result, Russian nationalist leaflets and web pages seldom reach anyone except those already convinced, thus guaranteeing that the movement not only will not grow but also that it will gradually die. And its actions, small demonstrations and marches, have the effect of signally not how strong the movement is but how weak. And as for the so-called leaders of the Russian national movement, he says, they fall into three categories: First, the fools, most of whom are honestly concerned about the fate of their nation and country but who lack the means or understanding to do anything about it
The worst of these are those who sit at home, worry about “worldwide problems, and “almost daily adopt resolutions of the type “Concerning the incorrect nature of the actions of NATO in Iraq.” Such people are a threat to no one, Bol’shakov adds, other than perhaps to themselves.
Second, the businessmen, people for whom “the struggle is a business” that they engage into advance their careers. And third, the provocateurs, “all of whose actions are directed … at discrediting the Movement,” splitting it into smaller and smaller fractions more easily controlled, and driving its members away.
Unfortunately for the movement, Bol’shakov says, “it is practically impossible to distinguish the provocateur from the ideologically committed – their words are the same and their actions are similar. Consequently, one is always asking oneself whether someone is a fool or a provocateur?!”
“The ambitions of these little Fuehrers and little Napoleans [from all these categories] do not allow for the achievement of anything even resembling unity.” And those who believe unity is essential lack the means to fight back when such leaders inevitably work to discredit them.
Given the appearance of stability in the country, the government’s clever deployment of provocateurs and its use of Russian nationalist themes, and “the lack of support” from the population, the numerically small Russian national movement is not in a position to do very much at all, let alone think about taking power.
In these circumstances, Bol’shakov argues, Russian nationalists have “only three options”: First, they can give up, turn to the bottle and behave “like Soviet dissidents sitting in the kitchen and shedding tears about the Russian people.” In reality, many Russian nationalists are already doing exactly that.
Second, they can support the current president or an “Orange” revolution in the hopes that things may get worse and thus provide them with an opening. “Or” – and with that word, Bol’shakov ends his article, implicitly suggesting that neither he nor his former comrades in arms have much of an idea.
Bol’shakov’s comments are important not only because they show how poorly organized Russian nationalists as a group are but also that those who identify themselves as members of that group do not like Vladimir Putin who many believe has “weakened” the Russian nationalist movement by adopting many of its ideas.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Some Post-Soviet States Light Up the Sky; Others Don’t
Paul Goble
Baku, January 15 – Comparing the economic development of the post-Soviet states is something like comparing apples and oranges: the 15 started at different points, have different resources and possibilities, and thus rank very differently depending upon the metrics used to assess them.
But now one observer of trends there has suggested using an unusual tool to determine how these countries are doing both over time and relative to one another – satellite photographs of the region at night that show which of these countries have the kind of economic develop that is lighting up the sky and which ones don’t.
And while many of the results that the Live Journal blogger reports are not surprising – the Russian cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg are the brightest spots on the map and lights in Georgia have gone out as that country has suffered industrial decline – others are rather more unexpected and intriguing.
A series of colorful satellite maps of the lights in the post-Soviet states at night is available at http://himmelwerft.livejournal.com/3759.html. Commentary on what they show can be found both there and conveniently for those with slower connections --because the maps themselves are not included -- at http://contrtv.ru/common/2578/.
According to the Living Journal writer, the Russian Federation which included the industrial core of the former Soviet Union suffered less from the collapse of that country than did many of the others, although regional changes in development are clearly visible from space at night.
Smaller Russians cities and rural areas have gone dark as industries there have declined and people have moved to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The extreme North, which suffered the most initially, is now coming back. But the cities along the Trans-Siberian railroad, the “golden chain” tying the country together, have not.
One regions where the lights have gone off and stayed off is war-torn Chechnya and the other troubled republics of the North Caucasus, locations which lit up the night sky two decades ago but which now are almost completely dark and, Moscow’s claims to the contrary, show no signs of brightening anytime soon.
Ukraine and Moldova have seen their capital cities become brighter but the other parts of these two countries have slipped into the dark. Troubled Georgia has gone dark except for the dimming lights of Tbilisi and the increasingly bright ones of its Black Sea ports. Armenia too has darkened over the decade.
But “the most interesting thing” these maps show, the Russian author says, is what is taking place in Azerbaijan. There, relative stability and the rapid growth of that country’s oil industry has allowed it to light up the sky, with Baku becoming the new bright star, one waxing even faster than the two Russia capitals.
Across the Caspian, the lights have dimmed throughout Central Asia. Rural areas there are now even darker than they were, the maps suggest, and while the cities have grown in population, they have not expanded industrially and thus in terms of the kind of power consumption that would allow them to stand out from the surrounding darkness.
But perhaps the greatest “concentration” of new lights in this enormous region is to be found in the Baltic countries. Having severed most of their economic ties to the former Soviet republics and linked their fate to Europe, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are now tied to the latter by a chain of bright lights visible from space.
Forty years ago, Western students of the Soviet Union were often advised to make their first visit to that country by flying at night from London to Moscow. For the first hour or so after take-off, such passengers could look down and see the bright lights of Western European countries.
Then when they crossed the intra-German border, they would notice that the lights had dimmed, and when they reached Poland, the lights would grow still fainter. Finally, when the flights carrying these academic specialists crossed the Polish-Soviet border, the land below would be almost dark -- until they reached the Soviet capital.
Now, with these new and remarkably detailed satellite maps, those who track developments in the post-Soviet states have a better or at least more “objective” way to assess the situation, although this measure too must be supplemented by other data to provide a full picture of just what is going on.
Baku, January 15 – Comparing the economic development of the post-Soviet states is something like comparing apples and oranges: the 15 started at different points, have different resources and possibilities, and thus rank very differently depending upon the metrics used to assess them.
But now one observer of trends there has suggested using an unusual tool to determine how these countries are doing both over time and relative to one another – satellite photographs of the region at night that show which of these countries have the kind of economic develop that is lighting up the sky and which ones don’t.
And while many of the results that the Live Journal blogger reports are not surprising – the Russian cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg are the brightest spots on the map and lights in Georgia have gone out as that country has suffered industrial decline – others are rather more unexpected and intriguing.
A series of colorful satellite maps of the lights in the post-Soviet states at night is available at http://himmelwerft.livejournal.com/3759.html. Commentary on what they show can be found both there and conveniently for those with slower connections --because the maps themselves are not included -- at http://contrtv.ru/common/2578/.
According to the Living Journal writer, the Russian Federation which included the industrial core of the former Soviet Union suffered less from the collapse of that country than did many of the others, although regional changes in development are clearly visible from space at night.
Smaller Russians cities and rural areas have gone dark as industries there have declined and people have moved to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The extreme North, which suffered the most initially, is now coming back. But the cities along the Trans-Siberian railroad, the “golden chain” tying the country together, have not.
One regions where the lights have gone off and stayed off is war-torn Chechnya and the other troubled republics of the North Caucasus, locations which lit up the night sky two decades ago but which now are almost completely dark and, Moscow’s claims to the contrary, show no signs of brightening anytime soon.
Ukraine and Moldova have seen their capital cities become brighter but the other parts of these two countries have slipped into the dark. Troubled Georgia has gone dark except for the dimming lights of Tbilisi and the increasingly bright ones of its Black Sea ports. Armenia too has darkened over the decade.
But “the most interesting thing” these maps show, the Russian author says, is what is taking place in Azerbaijan. There, relative stability and the rapid growth of that country’s oil industry has allowed it to light up the sky, with Baku becoming the new bright star, one waxing even faster than the two Russia capitals.
Across the Caspian, the lights have dimmed throughout Central Asia. Rural areas there are now even darker than they were, the maps suggest, and while the cities have grown in population, they have not expanded industrially and thus in terms of the kind of power consumption that would allow them to stand out from the surrounding darkness.
But perhaps the greatest “concentration” of new lights in this enormous region is to be found in the Baltic countries. Having severed most of their economic ties to the former Soviet republics and linked their fate to Europe, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are now tied to the latter by a chain of bright lights visible from space.
Forty years ago, Western students of the Soviet Union were often advised to make their first visit to that country by flying at night from London to Moscow. For the first hour or so after take-off, such passengers could look down and see the bright lights of Western European countries.
Then when they crossed the intra-German border, they would notice that the lights had dimmed, and when they reached Poland, the lights would grow still fainter. Finally, when the flights carrying these academic specialists crossed the Polish-Soviet border, the land below would be almost dark -- until they reached the Soviet capital.
Now, with these new and remarkably detailed satellite maps, those who track developments in the post-Soviet states have a better or at least more “objective” way to assess the situation, although this measure too must be supplemented by other data to provide a full picture of just what is going on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
