Paul Goble
Vienna, September 4 – Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has led ever more Bashkirs to express their dissatisfaction with the status their republic and their nation now have within the Russian Federation and to invoke the principle of national self-determination as the basis for a solution.
That does not mean that the members of this Turkic Muslim group on the Middle Volga are about to press for independence, although there is some sentiment for that step, but rather that ethnic Bashkirs are convinced that now is the time to regain for themselves some of the rights they lost during the presidency of Vladimir Putin.
And consequently, they are now prepared to challenge the Russian government on those grounds, invoking the right of nations to self-determination both as a means to convince others that their demands should be met and, perhaps equally important, as a threat to Moscow if the central government decides to ignore them.
These are just some of the conclusions suggested by the results of a focus group of the leaders of various Bashkir social organizations conducted by the Network of Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning in Bashkortostan at the end of August and reported by the Regnum.ru news agency yesterday (www.regnum.ru/news/1049977.html).
The group included representatives of the World Kurultai of Bashkirs, the Union of Bashkir Youth, the Institute of History at the Ufa Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the dean of the history faculty at Bashkir State University, the head of the philosophy department at another Ufa school, and the vice president of the “Gray Wolves” national movement.
In the wake of the events in Georgia, Regnum.ru repotted, all members of this group invoked the right of nations to self-determination in their discussion of how to overcome what they view as the current less than satisfactory state of the rights of Bashkirs and the Republic of Bashkortostan.
And collectively, on the basis of that, the members of this focus group made five points. First, they said that with the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they “expect a broadening of the rights of the titular ethnos of Bashkortostan and an increase in both the actual and formal status of this subject of the Federation.”
Second, they said that in the wake of what Moscow has done in Georgia, “the president of Bashkortostan can be only a Bashkir by nationality, who knows the Bashkir language,” an arrangement they said that would restore earlier practice and one that must be fixed in law so that it will not be changed again.
Third, they insisted that “it is necessary to return the norm and practice of general elections of the head of a subject of the Russian Federation,” something that Vladimir Putin did away with but an arrangement that is absolutely essential for nations within Russia under the terms of the right of nations to self-determination.
Fourth, the participants in this focus group said that the fiscal policies of the Russian Federation must be changed so that donor regions like Bashkortostan can keep more of what they have been paying in taxes rather than having to hand it over to the central government for its uses and transfer to other regions.
And fifth, the participants said, the right of nations to self-determination requires that Moscow reduce its efforts to limit the powers of republic governments to deal with the situation on their own territories, as Moscow has been doing since Putin came to power, and to transfer back some of the powers which Moscow has already seized. .
The Regnum.ru report notes that Bashkirs in general and the members of this focus group in particular were among the first to come out in support of Russia’s military moves to defend the South Ossetians and the Abkhazians and even to back Moscow’s recognition of the two breakaway republics.
But those actions may not mean what Moscow hoped they meant. Instead, Regnum.ru said, such support may reflect “a hope that this could give them the occasion for demanding the broadening of rights and authority of the ‘national’ subjects [in Russia], which have been seriously reduced over the last eight years during the construction of the ‘power vertical.’”
To the extent that is the logic of the Bashkirs – and the extensive quotations from the participants in this focus group makes it clear that is the case for them – then Moscow’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is having a domino effect with the Russian Federation, even if it is not yet as dramatic as many think it will become.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Ingush Tragedy Likely to ‘End with a New Andizhan,’ Latynina Warns
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 3 – Former FSB general and current Ingushetia head Murat Zyazikov is likely to respond to protests against his rule following the death of Magomed Yevloyev at the hands of his security forces with “a new Andizhan,” a crushing blow that will intimidate the opposition and leave Moscow no choice but to support him to the hilt.
That conclusion, with its reference to Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s suppression of demonstrations in his country in MY 2005, is offered by Yuliya Latynina, a distinguished Russian journalist who has specialized in recent years on the North Caucasus, in an analysis published today in Moscow’s “Yezhednevniy zhurnal” (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=8372).
“After the murder of Magomed Yevloyev,” Latynina says, “the legal Ingush opposition found itself in the same position that [Georgian President] Mikhail Saakashvili did the evening of [August] 7.” It is did nothing, it would lose face and trust; if it responded, “it would call forth a crushing blow.”
The Ingush opposition has responded, and consequently, she argues, “it is completely possible that this will end” with Zyazikov employing massive and lethal force against it, “a new Andizhan.” That will intimidate law-abiding Ingush but give a new boost to militants like Rustamat Makhauri and Magas.
. In other comments, Latynina dismisses two other arguments that some have made in recent days. On the one hand, she suggests that “Ingushetia is too small a republic to blow up [because] it does not have a critical mass.” If it is destroyed completely, “no one in the world will even notice.”
And on the other, she says that those who argue that Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia opens “a Pandora’s box” in the North Caucasus where other republics may seek to follow suit. But independence she says, is not won “by the invocation of precedents” but by those who “take up arms.”
At the same time, she continues, “the destabilization of the Caucasus” since the Georgian events reflects a fundamental divide in the Russian Federation. As a country, “Russia needs peace [there], but the siloviki need stars and power,” something they can only win by stirring up trouble and engaging in more violent acts.
Moreover, she adds, “the contemporary Russian model of power is so constructed that those in power can do anything – from the most familiar things like corruption to the most exotic like loss of control over the territory of a republic.” In this situation, the real criminals are not those who take bribes or assist in murders but those who have made this system possible.
In this situation, Latynina concludes, Zyazikov should not be viewed as “the hand of Moscow.” Instead, “Moscow and the Kremlin have become [his] hostages. There is nothing that he might do that Moscow would not be forced to approve.” He knows that, and consequently the immediate future in Ingushetia looks dire indeed.
Latynina’s comments and her reference to Andizhan will attract more attention to a statement by a 27-year-old former officer of the Uzbekistan National Security Service upon his defection in London (www.rferl.org/content/Former_Uzbek_Spy_Seeks_Asylum/1195372.html picked up by kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/09/03/60745.shtml).
According to Ikram Yabukov, Islam Karimov personally gave the order for the use of lethal force in Andizhan which left 1500 protesters there dead, the most dramatic of the Uzbek president’s actions against his own people and the one that prompted him to move abroad, hopefully beyond the reach of Karimov’s agents.
And Latynina’s words, which are always attended to by Western correspondents, should also have the effect of calling attention to the latest act of desperation by the people of Ingushetia in the face of Zyazikov’s increasing willingness to use force to preserve himself in power (www.ingushetiya.ru/news/15420.html).
Late yesterday, the Ingush opposition issued an appeal to the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and Canada to grant them citizenship so they might enjoy what protections that might offer against new threats from Zyazikov and his force structures.
In making their appeal, the Ingush opposition said that the deteriorating situation in their republic “requires immediate intervention by the international community.” If that does not happen, then “the political murders, the suppression of independent thinking, and attacks on the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation will acquire a threatening character.”
And the Ingush appeal concluded in what seems to be an act of despair rather than real hope that “the world must finally recognize that today a new authoritarian regime is being constructed in Russia, one for which there do not exist such concepts as human rights and the freedoms of its citizens.”
Vienna, September 3 – Former FSB general and current Ingushetia head Murat Zyazikov is likely to respond to protests against his rule following the death of Magomed Yevloyev at the hands of his security forces with “a new Andizhan,” a crushing blow that will intimidate the opposition and leave Moscow no choice but to support him to the hilt.
That conclusion, with its reference to Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s suppression of demonstrations in his country in MY 2005, is offered by Yuliya Latynina, a distinguished Russian journalist who has specialized in recent years on the North Caucasus, in an analysis published today in Moscow’s “Yezhednevniy zhurnal” (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=8372).
“After the murder of Magomed Yevloyev,” Latynina says, “the legal Ingush opposition found itself in the same position that [Georgian President] Mikhail Saakashvili did the evening of [August] 7.” It is did nothing, it would lose face and trust; if it responded, “it would call forth a crushing blow.”
The Ingush opposition has responded, and consequently, she argues, “it is completely possible that this will end” with Zyazikov employing massive and lethal force against it, “a new Andizhan.” That will intimidate law-abiding Ingush but give a new boost to militants like Rustamat Makhauri and Magas.
. In other comments, Latynina dismisses two other arguments that some have made in recent days. On the one hand, she suggests that “Ingushetia is too small a republic to blow up [because] it does not have a critical mass.” If it is destroyed completely, “no one in the world will even notice.”
And on the other, she says that those who argue that Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia opens “a Pandora’s box” in the North Caucasus where other republics may seek to follow suit. But independence she says, is not won “by the invocation of precedents” but by those who “take up arms.”
At the same time, she continues, “the destabilization of the Caucasus” since the Georgian events reflects a fundamental divide in the Russian Federation. As a country, “Russia needs peace [there], but the siloviki need stars and power,” something they can only win by stirring up trouble and engaging in more violent acts.
Moreover, she adds, “the contemporary Russian model of power is so constructed that those in power can do anything – from the most familiar things like corruption to the most exotic like loss of control over the territory of a republic.” In this situation, the real criminals are not those who take bribes or assist in murders but those who have made this system possible.
In this situation, Latynina concludes, Zyazikov should not be viewed as “the hand of Moscow.” Instead, “Moscow and the Kremlin have become [his] hostages. There is nothing that he might do that Moscow would not be forced to approve.” He knows that, and consequently the immediate future in Ingushetia looks dire indeed.
Latynina’s comments and her reference to Andizhan will attract more attention to a statement by a 27-year-old former officer of the Uzbekistan National Security Service upon his defection in London (www.rferl.org/content/Former_Uzbek_Spy_Seeks_Asylum/1195372.html picked up by kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/09/03/60745.shtml).
According to Ikram Yabukov, Islam Karimov personally gave the order for the use of lethal force in Andizhan which left 1500 protesters there dead, the most dramatic of the Uzbek president’s actions against his own people and the one that prompted him to move abroad, hopefully beyond the reach of Karimov’s agents.
And Latynina’s words, which are always attended to by Western correspondents, should also have the effect of calling attention to the latest act of desperation by the people of Ingushetia in the face of Zyazikov’s increasing willingness to use force to preserve himself in power (www.ingushetiya.ru/news/15420.html).
Late yesterday, the Ingush opposition issued an appeal to the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and Canada to grant them citizenship so they might enjoy what protections that might offer against new threats from Zyazikov and his force structures.
In making their appeal, the Ingush opposition said that the deteriorating situation in their republic “requires immediate intervention by the international community.” If that does not happen, then “the political murders, the suppression of independent thinking, and attacks on the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation will acquire a threatening character.”
And the Ingush appeal concluded in what seems to be an act of despair rather than real hope that “the world must finally recognize that today a new authoritarian regime is being constructed in Russia, one for which there do not exist such concepts as human rights and the freedoms of its citizens.”
Window on Eurasia: Muslims Seen Moving into Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Changing Religious Balance in Both
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 3 – Russia’s military and political actions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are likely to have another unintended consequence: they are likely to make it easier and more attractive for Muslim émigrés from the North Caucasus to return there and change the ethno-religious balance not only in these two republics but in the region more generally.
At present, Muslims constitute approximately 35 percent of the populations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but both Muslim leaders there and analysts in Moscow say that the new situation which has arisen in the wake of Russia’s moves in Georgia is certain to increase that figure, possibly to the tipping point of more than 50 percent.
In an interview given to “NZ-Religii” and published today, Timur Dzyba, the mufti of Abkhazia, said that Muslims in his republic – including Abkhaz, North Caucasians, Tatars, Bashkirs and Turks – have been able to maintain their share of the population in recent times but now expect to expand it (religion.ng.ru/facts/2008-09-03/1_suhum.html?mthree=2).
In the 19th century, he noted, the tsarist authorities expelled “a significant part of the Abkhaz-Abaza population.” Nows, perhaps as many as 500,000 Abkhaz live abroad, as well as many of the five million strong Circassian communities there who view themselves as closely related to the Abkhaz and who have celebrated Sukhumi’s declaration of independence.
After the war in 1992-93, the mufti continued, the Abkhaz authorities established a Committee for the Repatriation of the Abkhaz, and over the past 15 years, more than 1,000 have returned. But now, the mufti said, far more are likely to do so as the republic’s economy improves and as transportation ties with Turkey expand.
Contacts between Abkhazia and the Abkhaz of Turkey are expanding rapidly, he said, and as a result, “repatriation will become more intense,” with visa problems reduced to a minimum and the government in Sukhumi actively interested in developing its ties with Turkey and boosting the size of its population.
Dzyba insisted that relations between Muslims and Christians in Abkhazia are good, that those returning are not going to be informed by the events of the 19th century – “times have changed” – and that the expanding Muslim population will not lead to demands that Muslims play a larger role in the government offices in Sukhumi.
One reason for his confidence in this regard, the mufti pointed out, is that Abkhazia’s Muslims have developed ties with the traditional Muslim leaders of the Russian Federation. And another is that the level of religious knowledge and activity among the Muslim community in Abkhazia remains low.
But even as he invoked this as a reason for believing that an increase in the percentage of Muslims there will not destabilize the situation, the Islamic leader said that he hoped that the influx of Abkhaz and other groups from abroad, many of whom are more deeply religious than the Abkhaz in Abkhazia have been, would lead to a rebirth of Islam there.
Meanwhile, in a comment to the Portal-Credo.ru website, Andrey Gusev argued that the religious balance in South Ossetia is also set to change under the new circumstances, as a result of both immigration and the activities of the mufti of North Ossetia, Ali-haji Yevsteyev, an ethnic Russian convert to Islam (www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=comment&id=1452).
Saying that “it is difficult to predict” whether the Islamic factor will grow in Abkhazia as a result of immigration, Gusev said that “in Ossetia (North and South), it is obviously doing so.” Immigration and demographic factors are increasing the share of Muslims there, but far more important is the work of Mufti Yevsteyev.
“A product of a mixed Russian-Ossetin family which professed Orthodoxy,” Gusev noted, “Yevsteyev is well educated (he has degrees from two Muslim universities) and is the first mufti directly elected by believers and not by the [Russian government-backed] Islamic-bureaucratic” structures.
That has given him enormous authority locally, something that has allowed him to stand up to the political authorities but also a quality has attracted some negative reviews from Russian commanders and officials on the scene and from the heads of the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) in neighboring republics.
Meanwhile, the Moscow Patriarchate has not been willing to accept Orthodox parishes in the two breakaway republics, despite requests from both places. It does not want to create a precedent that church borders should follow political ones, a notion Kyiv would be happy to deploy against Moscow (religion.ng.ru/facts/2008-09-03/1_osetia.html?mthree=1).
Vienna, September 3 – Russia’s military and political actions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are likely to have another unintended consequence: they are likely to make it easier and more attractive for Muslim émigrés from the North Caucasus to return there and change the ethno-religious balance not only in these two republics but in the region more generally.
At present, Muslims constitute approximately 35 percent of the populations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but both Muslim leaders there and analysts in Moscow say that the new situation which has arisen in the wake of Russia’s moves in Georgia is certain to increase that figure, possibly to the tipping point of more than 50 percent.
In an interview given to “NZ-Religii” and published today, Timur Dzyba, the mufti of Abkhazia, said that Muslims in his republic – including Abkhaz, North Caucasians, Tatars, Bashkirs and Turks – have been able to maintain their share of the population in recent times but now expect to expand it (religion.ng.ru/facts/2008-09-03/1_suhum.html?mthree=2).
In the 19th century, he noted, the tsarist authorities expelled “a significant part of the Abkhaz-Abaza population.” Nows, perhaps as many as 500,000 Abkhaz live abroad, as well as many of the five million strong Circassian communities there who view themselves as closely related to the Abkhaz and who have celebrated Sukhumi’s declaration of independence.
After the war in 1992-93, the mufti continued, the Abkhaz authorities established a Committee for the Repatriation of the Abkhaz, and over the past 15 years, more than 1,000 have returned. But now, the mufti said, far more are likely to do so as the republic’s economy improves and as transportation ties with Turkey expand.
Contacts between Abkhazia and the Abkhaz of Turkey are expanding rapidly, he said, and as a result, “repatriation will become more intense,” with visa problems reduced to a minimum and the government in Sukhumi actively interested in developing its ties with Turkey and boosting the size of its population.
Dzyba insisted that relations between Muslims and Christians in Abkhazia are good, that those returning are not going to be informed by the events of the 19th century – “times have changed” – and that the expanding Muslim population will not lead to demands that Muslims play a larger role in the government offices in Sukhumi.
One reason for his confidence in this regard, the mufti pointed out, is that Abkhazia’s Muslims have developed ties with the traditional Muslim leaders of the Russian Federation. And another is that the level of religious knowledge and activity among the Muslim community in Abkhazia remains low.
But even as he invoked this as a reason for believing that an increase in the percentage of Muslims there will not destabilize the situation, the Islamic leader said that he hoped that the influx of Abkhaz and other groups from abroad, many of whom are more deeply religious than the Abkhaz in Abkhazia have been, would lead to a rebirth of Islam there.
Meanwhile, in a comment to the Portal-Credo.ru website, Andrey Gusev argued that the religious balance in South Ossetia is also set to change under the new circumstances, as a result of both immigration and the activities of the mufti of North Ossetia, Ali-haji Yevsteyev, an ethnic Russian convert to Islam (www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=comment&id=1452).
Saying that “it is difficult to predict” whether the Islamic factor will grow in Abkhazia as a result of immigration, Gusev said that “in Ossetia (North and South), it is obviously doing so.” Immigration and demographic factors are increasing the share of Muslims there, but far more important is the work of Mufti Yevsteyev.
“A product of a mixed Russian-Ossetin family which professed Orthodoxy,” Gusev noted, “Yevsteyev is well educated (he has degrees from two Muslim universities) and is the first mufti directly elected by believers and not by the [Russian government-backed] Islamic-bureaucratic” structures.
That has given him enormous authority locally, something that has allowed him to stand up to the political authorities but also a quality has attracted some negative reviews from Russian commanders and officials on the scene and from the heads of the Muslim Spiritual Directorates (MSDs) in neighboring republics.
Meanwhile, the Moscow Patriarchate has not been willing to accept Orthodox parishes in the two breakaway republics, despite requests from both places. It does not want to create a precedent that church borders should follow political ones, a notion Kyiv would be happy to deploy against Moscow (religion.ng.ru/facts/2008-09-03/1_osetia.html?mthree=1).
Window on Eurasia: High Rates of Incarceration Shaping Russian Life and Moscow’s Image Abroad
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 3 – Nearly 25 percent of Russian men have passed through their country’s prison system at some point in their lives, an enormous share of the total and a group whose experiences are shaping Russian society, politics, and even the country’s image in foreign capitals, according to a retired Supreme Court justice.
In yesterday’s “Rossiiskaya gazeta,” Vladimir Radchenko provided extensive data to support his argument that the percentage of Russians who are in or who have passed through what he calls “our ‘prison population’” has reached a critical level in terms of its impact on the broader society (rg.ru/2008/09/02/radchenko.html).
The impact of those who returned from the GULAG in the 1950s has received a great deal of attention, but that of those who were convicted or jailed at the end of the Soviet period or since 1991 has received less, Radchenko notes. But he points out that the numbers in each case are large and current judicial arrangements suggest the numbers and impact are on thel increase.
Between 1992 and 2007, more than 15 million citizens of the Russian Federation were convicted in criminal cases, and five million of them served time in the country’s prisons or camps, figures that constitute more than 10 percent and three percent of the population respectively.
These figures represent a huge jump from the late Soviet period, Radchenko points out. Between 1987 and 1991, statistics show, only 2.5 million Russians were convicted, a figure almost 50 percent lower per year than in the post-Soviet Russian Federation, although higher than the immediately preceding period because of a tightening of republic legal codes.
At present, the jurist continues, Russian society is being flooded with those – one quarter of the adult male population – who now have “a jail education” either in Soviet or Russian penal institutions. Not only does this show that draconian laws do not cut crime – indeed, they may result in more crimes being registered – but it points to other developments as well.
Radchenko focuses on the first of these consequences and urges both a revision in the country’s criminal code to reduce the number of those convicted incarcerated and to improve the ways in which the penal system prepares those it is about to release for re-entry into the larger society.
But others are highlighting Radchenko’s argument about the impact of such massive prison experience in Russian society and are extending it as well. In a commentary on the Sobkorr.ru portal yesterday, Yuri Gladysh notes that such experience is leading to “the criminalization of Russian society” (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48BD279FBE652.html).
Not only are prisons and camps leading their graduates to commit more crimes, he writes, but the release and return of those who have served time “is contributing to the rapid transformation of the country into an enormous ‘zone,’ with all the ensuring consequences” that are increasingly on public view.
Ever more widely are individual Russians and Russian leaders using “criminal terminology,” the former because so many of them have experience with the prison system and the latter because this allows them to portray themselves as being close to the people. Vladimir Putin’s comments about the Chechens in 2000 and the Georgians now are classic examples.
But that is far from the worst consequence of former prisoners on Russian society, Gladysh insists. On the one hand, their attitudes are having a rapid and large impact on the values of that society, undermining much of the “social-cultural” foundation on which Russian society has rested “for several centuries.
And on the other, the criminalization of Russia, especially as it has affected the actions and statements of Russian leaders, has now had a serious impact on the image of Russia abroad, both among its competitors and more recently among its supposed closest friends, an impact that is reducing Moscow’s influence.
That has become especially obvious during the Georgian crisis, the Sobkorr.ru commentator says. And it can be clearly seen in the ways Russian leaders have talked and acted over the last few weeks and Moscow propagandists have regularly accused the West of wanting to act as “international gendarmes.”
“But how could it be otherwise?” Gladysh asks rhetorically and with obvious bitterness. “After all, when they are confronted by hooligans, law-abiding citizens usually call the police. That is a completely natural reaction.”
Vienna, September 3 – Nearly 25 percent of Russian men have passed through their country’s prison system at some point in their lives, an enormous share of the total and a group whose experiences are shaping Russian society, politics, and even the country’s image in foreign capitals, according to a retired Supreme Court justice.
In yesterday’s “Rossiiskaya gazeta,” Vladimir Radchenko provided extensive data to support his argument that the percentage of Russians who are in or who have passed through what he calls “our ‘prison population’” has reached a critical level in terms of its impact on the broader society (rg.ru/2008/09/02/radchenko.html).
The impact of those who returned from the GULAG in the 1950s has received a great deal of attention, but that of those who were convicted or jailed at the end of the Soviet period or since 1991 has received less, Radchenko notes. But he points out that the numbers in each case are large and current judicial arrangements suggest the numbers and impact are on thel increase.
Between 1992 and 2007, more than 15 million citizens of the Russian Federation were convicted in criminal cases, and five million of them served time in the country’s prisons or camps, figures that constitute more than 10 percent and three percent of the population respectively.
These figures represent a huge jump from the late Soviet period, Radchenko points out. Between 1987 and 1991, statistics show, only 2.5 million Russians were convicted, a figure almost 50 percent lower per year than in the post-Soviet Russian Federation, although higher than the immediately preceding period because of a tightening of republic legal codes.
At present, the jurist continues, Russian society is being flooded with those – one quarter of the adult male population – who now have “a jail education” either in Soviet or Russian penal institutions. Not only does this show that draconian laws do not cut crime – indeed, they may result in more crimes being registered – but it points to other developments as well.
Radchenko focuses on the first of these consequences and urges both a revision in the country’s criminal code to reduce the number of those convicted incarcerated and to improve the ways in which the penal system prepares those it is about to release for re-entry into the larger society.
But others are highlighting Radchenko’s argument about the impact of such massive prison experience in Russian society and are extending it as well. In a commentary on the Sobkorr.ru portal yesterday, Yuri Gladysh notes that such experience is leading to “the criminalization of Russian society” (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48BD279FBE652.html).
Not only are prisons and camps leading their graduates to commit more crimes, he writes, but the release and return of those who have served time “is contributing to the rapid transformation of the country into an enormous ‘zone,’ with all the ensuring consequences” that are increasingly on public view.
Ever more widely are individual Russians and Russian leaders using “criminal terminology,” the former because so many of them have experience with the prison system and the latter because this allows them to portray themselves as being close to the people. Vladimir Putin’s comments about the Chechens in 2000 and the Georgians now are classic examples.
But that is far from the worst consequence of former prisoners on Russian society, Gladysh insists. On the one hand, their attitudes are having a rapid and large impact on the values of that society, undermining much of the “social-cultural” foundation on which Russian society has rested “for several centuries.
And on the other, the criminalization of Russia, especially as it has affected the actions and statements of Russian leaders, has now had a serious impact on the image of Russia abroad, both among its competitors and more recently among its supposed closest friends, an impact that is reducing Moscow’s influence.
That has become especially obvious during the Georgian crisis, the Sobkorr.ru commentator says. And it can be clearly seen in the ways Russian leaders have talked and acted over the last few weeks and Moscow propagandists have regularly accused the West of wanting to act as “international gendarmes.”
“But how could it be otherwise?” Gladysh asks rhetorically and with obvious bitterness. “After all, when they are confronted by hooligans, law-abiding citizens usually call the police. That is a completely natural reaction.”
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Russia ‘Losing Ingushetia before Absorbing South Ossetia,’ Moscow Analysts Say
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 2 -- The death of Magomed Yevloyev, which most Ingush and rights groups blame on the government of Murat Zyazikov, his officials say was an accident, and a few writers suggest was a provocation by the West, has radicalized opinion there to the point that, in the words of one analyst, Russia risks “losing Ingushetia before it can absorb South Ossetia.”
Yevloyev, the owner of the independent news portal Ingushetiya.ru which Zyazikov has long sought to shut down and a major opposition figure in his own right, died of bullet wounds to the head while in the custody of Zyazikov’s militia on Sunday. And his funeral yesterday grew into a mass protest, leading to a meeting today that the authorities dispersed.
At the funeral, opposition figures said that the Yevloyev family had declared a blood feud with the Zyazikovs and the family of his interior minister and indicated that protest meetings would continue until Zyazikov was removed from office and held responsible for his actions against the people of Ingushetia.
Indeed, one of the speakers said that the murder of Yevloyev by Zyazikov’s thugs ends any hope for the rule of law as long as the incumbent president remains. Not only does this make it more rather than less likely that people on both sides will now turn to violence, but it also means more Ingush will call for independence (www.ingushetiya.ru/news/15402.html).
The meeting today adopted a resolution calling on Ruslan Aushev, whom KGB general Zyazikov replaced in 2002, apparently because Aushev was too popular and too independent, to return to Ingushetia in order to lead the movement against his successor and thus prevent the “destruction” of more Ingush (www.nr2.ru/incidents/194104.html).
That meeting, unlike the one today, was broken up by police loyal to Zyazikov, although the interior ministry there said no one had been hurt and although opposition leaders said they would organize new protests (www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Regions/m.140837.html and www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1228312.html).
Zyazikov’s confidence that he could arrange the murder of a political opponent with the expectation that Moscow would back him up is disturbing. But even more striking is the way in which this latest action completes his transformation of Ingushetia from one of the most loyal republics in the North Caucasus to one whose people seek independence.
As Sobkorr.ru observer Sergey Petrunin pointed out yesterday, Ingushetia was a relatively quiet place in the 1990s, with a population that did not want to be linked to the independence-minded Chechens and a political opposition that was always interested in working within the law (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48BBCC227BD35.html).
But now thanks to the actions and crimes of Zyazikov, Ingushetia has been “transformed into almost the most unstable [republic in the North Caucasus and the biggest headache” for Moscow, “surpassing even neighboring Chechnya.” Indeed, Petrunin said, “many observers now consider that “what is taking place in Ingushetia can be classified as a real civil war.”
But an even sharper and more devastating comment was made by Moscow commentator Mikhail Delyagin on the Forum.msk.ru portal today. “Russia,” he writes,” has not succeeded in uniting with itself South Ossetia” but it has “already lost Ingushetia,” thanks to the actions of Zyazikov and his clique (forum.msk.ru/material/news/524732.html).
“The actions of the authorities in Ingushetia do not have any reasonable justification or explanation,” Delyagin continues. Indeed, what is taking place there recalls the Gongadze case in Ukraine which triggered the Orange Revolution there. But the situation in Ingushetia in fact is much worse.
(Heorhiy Gongadze was the 31-year-old publisher of the opposition Internet journal “Ukrainska Pravda” in Kyiv when he disappeared in September 2000. He was later found beheaded, and widespread suspicions that the highest levels of the Ukrainian government were behind his murder helped power the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.)
Under Zyazikov, there has been “total lawlessness,” and “no one even thinks to try to hide it.” That is not something that can be corrected if the same people remain in power. Indeed, Delyagin argues, the only thing Moscow can do to try to “save the situation” is “to immediately arrest the entire administration of Ingushetia and all the siloviki there without exception.”
Then, using the resources at its disposal, the Moscow commentator concludes, the central Russian government should vigorously interrogate all these officials which the Putin government dispatched to that region in order to determine “which of them perhaps is less guilty” than the others.
That is unlikely to happen. Were Moscow to do that, other regions in the North Caucasus and elsewhere, including in particular Mari El, would rise up as well. But unless Moscow either sacrifices Zyazikov or applies sufficient force to intimidate and not just enrage, Ingushetia is likely to lead a new “parade of sovereignties” which could threaten Russia as a whole.
Vienna, September 2 -- The death of Magomed Yevloyev, which most Ingush and rights groups blame on the government of Murat Zyazikov, his officials say was an accident, and a few writers suggest was a provocation by the West, has radicalized opinion there to the point that, in the words of one analyst, Russia risks “losing Ingushetia before it can absorb South Ossetia.”
Yevloyev, the owner of the independent news portal Ingushetiya.ru which Zyazikov has long sought to shut down and a major opposition figure in his own right, died of bullet wounds to the head while in the custody of Zyazikov’s militia on Sunday. And his funeral yesterday grew into a mass protest, leading to a meeting today that the authorities dispersed.
At the funeral, opposition figures said that the Yevloyev family had declared a blood feud with the Zyazikovs and the family of his interior minister and indicated that protest meetings would continue until Zyazikov was removed from office and held responsible for his actions against the people of Ingushetia.
Indeed, one of the speakers said that the murder of Yevloyev by Zyazikov’s thugs ends any hope for the rule of law as long as the incumbent president remains. Not only does this make it more rather than less likely that people on both sides will now turn to violence, but it also means more Ingush will call for independence (www.ingushetiya.ru/news/15402.html).
The meeting today adopted a resolution calling on Ruslan Aushev, whom KGB general Zyazikov replaced in 2002, apparently because Aushev was too popular and too independent, to return to Ingushetia in order to lead the movement against his successor and thus prevent the “destruction” of more Ingush (www.nr2.ru/incidents/194104.html).
That meeting, unlike the one today, was broken up by police loyal to Zyazikov, although the interior ministry there said no one had been hurt and although opposition leaders said they would organize new protests (www.grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Regions/m.140837.html and www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1228312.html).
Zyazikov’s confidence that he could arrange the murder of a political opponent with the expectation that Moscow would back him up is disturbing. But even more striking is the way in which this latest action completes his transformation of Ingushetia from one of the most loyal republics in the North Caucasus to one whose people seek independence.
As Sobkorr.ru observer Sergey Petrunin pointed out yesterday, Ingushetia was a relatively quiet place in the 1990s, with a population that did not want to be linked to the independence-minded Chechens and a political opposition that was always interested in working within the law (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48BBCC227BD35.html).
But now thanks to the actions and crimes of Zyazikov, Ingushetia has been “transformed into almost the most unstable [republic in the North Caucasus and the biggest headache” for Moscow, “surpassing even neighboring Chechnya.” Indeed, Petrunin said, “many observers now consider that “what is taking place in Ingushetia can be classified as a real civil war.”
But an even sharper and more devastating comment was made by Moscow commentator Mikhail Delyagin on the Forum.msk.ru portal today. “Russia,” he writes,” has not succeeded in uniting with itself South Ossetia” but it has “already lost Ingushetia,” thanks to the actions of Zyazikov and his clique (forum.msk.ru/material/news/524732.html).
“The actions of the authorities in Ingushetia do not have any reasonable justification or explanation,” Delyagin continues. Indeed, what is taking place there recalls the Gongadze case in Ukraine which triggered the Orange Revolution there. But the situation in Ingushetia in fact is much worse.
(Heorhiy Gongadze was the 31-year-old publisher of the opposition Internet journal “Ukrainska Pravda” in Kyiv when he disappeared in September 2000. He was later found beheaded, and widespread suspicions that the highest levels of the Ukrainian government were behind his murder helped power the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.)
Under Zyazikov, there has been “total lawlessness,” and “no one even thinks to try to hide it.” That is not something that can be corrected if the same people remain in power. Indeed, Delyagin argues, the only thing Moscow can do to try to “save the situation” is “to immediately arrest the entire administration of Ingushetia and all the siloviki there without exception.”
Then, using the resources at its disposal, the Moscow commentator concludes, the central Russian government should vigorously interrogate all these officials which the Putin government dispatched to that region in order to determine “which of them perhaps is less guilty” than the others.
That is unlikely to happen. Were Moscow to do that, other regions in the North Caucasus and elsewhere, including in particular Mari El, would rise up as well. But unless Moscow either sacrifices Zyazikov or applies sufficient force to intimidate and not just enrage, Ingushetia is likely to lead a new “parade of sovereignties” which could threaten Russia as a whole.
Window on Eurasia: Are More Border Changes Ahead in Eurasia?
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 2 – The widespread assumption that the Russian Federation will ultimately incorporate South Ossetia into its territory has led a Georgian parliamentarian to suggest Tbilisi should be making its own territorial demands on Russia, a proposal that calls attention to the ways in which border changes have taken place in Eurasia in recent times.
Yesterday, Georgian agencies reported that Koba Habazi, a member of the Georgian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has urged Tbilisi to lodge a territorial claim against Russia with the United Nations for Sochi in order to make it more difficult for Moscow to hold the Olympics there in 2014 (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48BBB62F5364D.html).
“I am not saying that this is achievable at the present stage,” Habazi said, “but when a territory becomes disputed [as this action would make Sochi], then the chances for holding the Olympiad there are reduced” – especially since the world is now dividing up between those who back Moscow and those who are its opponents.
In making this proposal, Habazi was adding his voice to those in the United States Congress who have introduced a resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee not to hold the games in Sochi because of Moscow’s military actions in Georgia, a resolution that is slated to be voted on later this month.
Commenting on this Georgian parliamentarian’s suggestion, Sobkorr.ru’s Igor Gladysh says that “one can certainly understand the logic” behind it and even find certain “historical justifications” for Georgia’s claim as well as for a variety of other claims that countries might lodge against the Russian Federation – or other states.
“In almost the entire territory of the present-day Russian Federation there lived in former times peoples who did not have any relationship to the Slavs,” he writes. And “even the basin of the Moscow river was a place where Finno-Ugric tribes lived,” something which Gladysh noted, he himself “had more than once had the occasion” to comment upon.
And he noted that others have picked up this theme as well. On this week’s “Vesti nedeli” television program, Dmitry Kiselyev went so far as to cite communism’s founding father, Karl Marx, as having “expressed doubt in the very fact of the existence of the Russian nation as such.”
But -- and this is Gladysh’s main point -- “the majority of major powers of the world find themselves in an analogous situation,” on in which many other countries or peoples “might advance similar claims,” something most do not do because they know similar claims could be advanced against them and because they can be confident that almost no one will support them.
Nonetheless, Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and widespread predictions that it will ultimately absorb the latter if not the former call attention to three things that the international community has largely ignored or even flatly denied. First, border changes among the Soviet republics before 1991 were not rare – there were more than 200 of them.
Second, there have been territorial changes among the post-Soviet states since that time, most recently between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which sparked protests in the latter, and between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, which has been managed relatively calmly over the last month (www.easttime.ru/news/1/3/708.html).
And third, because of this history and because of its implications for the future of the former Soviet republics and even their survival, Russia’s latest moves have renewed discussions in many of them about the way in which tsarist and Soviet officials changed borders in order to control them. (See, for example, www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=355).
There is a fourth aspect of this situation but it is not truly political: That is the shifting of the borders of economic or religious groups as the result of political border changes. Among the most contentious of these at present are possible changes in the borders of the canonical territory of various Orthodox churches (www.vremya.ru/2008/159/51/211564.html).
Russia’s actions in Georgia thus entail yet another threat to stability: By suggesting that borders are in play and that they can be changed by military action rather than negotiation, Moscow has exacerbated national feelings among both Russians who see this as a step toward rebuilding the empire and non-Russians who fear that is exactly what Moscow intends.
And those feelings are going to play a significant role in the lives of all the countries of Eurasia, even if at the end of the day, the borders remain where they have been, because by casting doubt on that, the Russian government has not only snubbed its nose at the international system but raised a question the answer to which always cuts more than one way.
Vienna, September 2 – The widespread assumption that the Russian Federation will ultimately incorporate South Ossetia into its territory has led a Georgian parliamentarian to suggest Tbilisi should be making its own territorial demands on Russia, a proposal that calls attention to the ways in which border changes have taken place in Eurasia in recent times.
Yesterday, Georgian agencies reported that Koba Habazi, a member of the Georgian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has urged Tbilisi to lodge a territorial claim against Russia with the United Nations for Sochi in order to make it more difficult for Moscow to hold the Olympics there in 2014 (www.sobkorr.ru/news/48BBB62F5364D.html).
“I am not saying that this is achievable at the present stage,” Habazi said, “but when a territory becomes disputed [as this action would make Sochi], then the chances for holding the Olympiad there are reduced” – especially since the world is now dividing up between those who back Moscow and those who are its opponents.
In making this proposal, Habazi was adding his voice to those in the United States Congress who have introduced a resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee not to hold the games in Sochi because of Moscow’s military actions in Georgia, a resolution that is slated to be voted on later this month.
Commenting on this Georgian parliamentarian’s suggestion, Sobkorr.ru’s Igor Gladysh says that “one can certainly understand the logic” behind it and even find certain “historical justifications” for Georgia’s claim as well as for a variety of other claims that countries might lodge against the Russian Federation – or other states.
“In almost the entire territory of the present-day Russian Federation there lived in former times peoples who did not have any relationship to the Slavs,” he writes. And “even the basin of the Moscow river was a place where Finno-Ugric tribes lived,” something which Gladysh noted, he himself “had more than once had the occasion” to comment upon.
And he noted that others have picked up this theme as well. On this week’s “Vesti nedeli” television program, Dmitry Kiselyev went so far as to cite communism’s founding father, Karl Marx, as having “expressed doubt in the very fact of the existence of the Russian nation as such.”
But -- and this is Gladysh’s main point -- “the majority of major powers of the world find themselves in an analogous situation,” on in which many other countries or peoples “might advance similar claims,” something most do not do because they know similar claims could be advanced against them and because they can be confident that almost no one will support them.
Nonetheless, Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and widespread predictions that it will ultimately absorb the latter if not the former call attention to three things that the international community has largely ignored or even flatly denied. First, border changes among the Soviet republics before 1991 were not rare – there were more than 200 of them.
Second, there have been territorial changes among the post-Soviet states since that time, most recently between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which sparked protests in the latter, and between Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, which has been managed relatively calmly over the last month (www.easttime.ru/news/1/3/708.html).
And third, because of this history and because of its implications for the future of the former Soviet republics and even their survival, Russia’s latest moves have renewed discussions in many of them about the way in which tsarist and Soviet officials changed borders in order to control them. (See, for example, www.ethnoglobus.com/?page=full&id=355).
There is a fourth aspect of this situation but it is not truly political: That is the shifting of the borders of economic or religious groups as the result of political border changes. Among the most contentious of these at present are possible changes in the borders of the canonical territory of various Orthodox churches (www.vremya.ru/2008/159/51/211564.html).
Russia’s actions in Georgia thus entail yet another threat to stability: By suggesting that borders are in play and that they can be changed by military action rather than negotiation, Moscow has exacerbated national feelings among both Russians who see this as a step toward rebuilding the empire and non-Russians who fear that is exactly what Moscow intends.
And those feelings are going to play a significant role in the lives of all the countries of Eurasia, even if at the end of the day, the borders remain where they have been, because by casting doubt on that, the Russian government has not only snubbed its nose at the international system but raised a question the answer to which always cuts more than one way.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Moves in Georgia Reinforcing Authoritarianism in Russia
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 2 – Moscow’s moves in Georgia are having a profound impact on Russian domestic politics and policies, not only tightening the relationship between Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin but sparking the kind of witch hunts for “a fifth column” that presage even more repression at least in the short term.
The interrelationship between Russia’s foreign and domestic politics and policies has always been closer than many either there or in the West have assumed. And as the fallout from the Georgian events shows, this linkage is now closer than ever before, according to an article in today’s “Nezavizimaya gazeta” (www.ng.ru/ng_politics/2008-09-02/13_echo.html).
Surveying the opinion of the expert community in Moscow, the paper’s Vladimir Razumov argues that many are convinced that Medvedev and Putin responded to the Georgian moves in South Ossetia in the way that they did because the Russian people, increasingly affected by the nationalist rhetoric of the Kremlin, was more than prepared to go along.
Initially, he points out, some commentators suggested that Moscow would not respond to Georgia’s action because South Ossetia was not central to the Russian government’s interest in pocketing the profits from the export of oil and gas. Indeed, many felt, there was a sense that any action could put those profits at risk.
But both the Medvedev-Putin tandem and the Russian people more generally viewed Tbilisi’s actions as a challenge to Russia’s standing in the world, and so the actions of the former were supported by the latter with enthusiasm in most cases, a pattern that convinced the Russian leadership that the people would support its moves even beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Thus, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” journalist continues, “the behavior of the Russian ruling elite in the last weeks is a demonstration that it does not fear anyone or anything anymore – not only domestic but foreign opponents – and that it intends to establish the rules of the game both in internal and in foreign policy.”
And he adds, “the quiet reaction of the [Russian population] without any outburst of hurrah-patriotic and revanchist attitudes, shows that society accepts what has taken place as a given,” a set of inclinations that is already having consequences for Russian politics and Russian policies at home.
Among the most important of these, only some of which are enumerated by Razumov, are the following: First, Moscow’s actions in Georgia have cemented the relationship between Medvedev and Putin, with the former now closer to Putin than ever before, willing to sacrifice many of his reforms and not the harbinger of liberalism many had expected.
Second, the conflict in Georgia has sparked both new Russian actions to clamp down hard on those few remaining media outlets, including Internet blogs, which are not controlled by the regime and calls for going after what many nationalists calls “the fifth column” within Russia, a group for most that includes both non-Russians and Russian opposition figures.
And third, Moscow’s actions in Georgia have had an impact on two domestic groups – economic elites and non-Russian republics – that seem certain to play a role in Russian political life in the coming days. On the one hand, however patriotic they may be, Russian businessmen can hardly be pleased with the collapse of their portfolios and investment possibilities.
And on the other, increasing restiveness in Ingushetia as well as in other parts of the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga suggests that Moscow will be confronted with new ethnic challenges that both the elite’s own inclinations and the population’s current attitudes are likely to want to respond to with force.
In both cases, the Russian government will undoubtedly take a hard line, not because it is forced to by the population as it might be if that country were a democracy but rather because the regime can count on support from the majority of Russians if it portrays all such actions as standing up to threats from abroad and especially from the United States.
That interaction between Russian domestic and foreign policy does not point to any softening in either sphere at least in the short term. In foreign affairs, this is likely to make it increasingly difficult for Western governments to find a common language with Russian leaders either now or in the coming months, however hard the former try and the latter demand.
And in domestic affairs, it suggests that Russia will move in an increasingly authoritarian direction, striking out at domestic “enemies” in the name of fighting foreign ones and thus threatening many of the freedoms which the Russian people acquired after 1991 and making a popular explosion there eventually if not immediately all the more likely.
Vienna, September 2 – Moscow’s moves in Georgia are having a profound impact on Russian domestic politics and policies, not only tightening the relationship between Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin but sparking the kind of witch hunts for “a fifth column” that presage even more repression at least in the short term.
The interrelationship between Russia’s foreign and domestic politics and policies has always been closer than many either there or in the West have assumed. And as the fallout from the Georgian events shows, this linkage is now closer than ever before, according to an article in today’s “Nezavizimaya gazeta” (www.ng.ru/ng_politics/2008-09-02/13_echo.html).
Surveying the opinion of the expert community in Moscow, the paper’s Vladimir Razumov argues that many are convinced that Medvedev and Putin responded to the Georgian moves in South Ossetia in the way that they did because the Russian people, increasingly affected by the nationalist rhetoric of the Kremlin, was more than prepared to go along.
Initially, he points out, some commentators suggested that Moscow would not respond to Georgia’s action because South Ossetia was not central to the Russian government’s interest in pocketing the profits from the export of oil and gas. Indeed, many felt, there was a sense that any action could put those profits at risk.
But both the Medvedev-Putin tandem and the Russian people more generally viewed Tbilisi’s actions as a challenge to Russia’s standing in the world, and so the actions of the former were supported by the latter with enthusiasm in most cases, a pattern that convinced the Russian leadership that the people would support its moves even beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Thus, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” journalist continues, “the behavior of the Russian ruling elite in the last weeks is a demonstration that it does not fear anyone or anything anymore – not only domestic but foreign opponents – and that it intends to establish the rules of the game both in internal and in foreign policy.”
And he adds, “the quiet reaction of the [Russian population] without any outburst of hurrah-patriotic and revanchist attitudes, shows that society accepts what has taken place as a given,” a set of inclinations that is already having consequences for Russian politics and Russian policies at home.
Among the most important of these, only some of which are enumerated by Razumov, are the following: First, Moscow’s actions in Georgia have cemented the relationship between Medvedev and Putin, with the former now closer to Putin than ever before, willing to sacrifice many of his reforms and not the harbinger of liberalism many had expected.
Second, the conflict in Georgia has sparked both new Russian actions to clamp down hard on those few remaining media outlets, including Internet blogs, which are not controlled by the regime and calls for going after what many nationalists calls “the fifth column” within Russia, a group for most that includes both non-Russians and Russian opposition figures.
And third, Moscow’s actions in Georgia have had an impact on two domestic groups – economic elites and non-Russian republics – that seem certain to play a role in Russian political life in the coming days. On the one hand, however patriotic they may be, Russian businessmen can hardly be pleased with the collapse of their portfolios and investment possibilities.
And on the other, increasing restiveness in Ingushetia as well as in other parts of the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga suggests that Moscow will be confronted with new ethnic challenges that both the elite’s own inclinations and the population’s current attitudes are likely to want to respond to with force.
In both cases, the Russian government will undoubtedly take a hard line, not because it is forced to by the population as it might be if that country were a democracy but rather because the regime can count on support from the majority of Russians if it portrays all such actions as standing up to threats from abroad and especially from the United States.
That interaction between Russian domestic and foreign policy does not point to any softening in either sphere at least in the short term. In foreign affairs, this is likely to make it increasingly difficult for Western governments to find a common language with Russian leaders either now or in the coming months, however hard the former try and the latter demand.
And in domestic affairs, it suggests that Russia will move in an increasingly authoritarian direction, striking out at domestic “enemies” in the name of fighting foreign ones and thus threatening many of the freedoms which the Russian people acquired after 1991 and making a popular explosion there eventually if not immediately all the more likely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
