Paul Goble
Staunton, May 25 – Unlike in Western countries which have law-based states, historical analogies are particularly important and suggestive in Russia because there “the lessons of the past are not learned, crimes by the state are not punished, and mistakes are not overcome,” according to Grani.ru commentator Irina Pavlova.
That reality, she argues in her latest commentary, makes especially worrisome “the essential similarity” between what is going on in the Russian political system now and what took place in Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1937, the year that opened the way to what is often called “the great terror” (grani.ru/opinion/m.188681.html).
In advance of the December 1937 elections to the Supreme Soviet, Pavlova notes, Andrey Zhdanov, then a candidate member to the Politburo, said it was necessary to achieve “the furthest most strengthening of the political activity of the masses and the inclusion of new strata of the toilers in the work of the administration of the state,” adding that the Bolshevik Party must “guarantee its leading role in the front of ‘social organizations and the society of the toilers.”
Two weeks ago, in advance of the Duma elections scheduled for December 2011, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the establishment of an All-Russian Peoples Front and said in Volgograd [formerly Stalingrad] that “namely the United Russia Party must lead the preparation of the masses for the elections.”
Several days later, Putin said that “we are creating the All-Russian Peoples Front in order that there will be a demand for all constructive ideas” from various parts of society and that there will be “an additional chance for the immediate direct participation [of the masses] in the development of the most important government decisions.”
In 1937, Pavlova continues, “only ‘social organizations and societies of toilers’ could nominate candidates for the Supreme Soviet, and the chief jurist of the USSR at that time, Andrey Vyzhinsky, said that these groups are those which put “as their task the active participation in socialist construction of the USSR and also the support of the strengthening of the defense of the country.”
Those qualities at the time deprived groups like religious parishes “which were permitted to exist only for ‘the satisfaction of their religious requirements,” of a similar right to nominate candidates.
At present, Pavlova says, citizens “inclined toward opposition” are similarly excluded. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said that opposition figures like Eduard Limonov, Mikhail Kasyanov and Boris Nemtsov could not join the new peoples front because “as far as I am aware, these persons do not share either the strategic or tactical goals of United Russia.”
“In 1937,” Pavlova continues, “mass popular enthusiasm was observed.” That enthusiasm was then directed against Stalin’s opponents. Indeed, it was at the same party plenum that a decision was approved to “transfer the cases of Bukharin and Ryzhkov to the NKVD” and to go after regional leaders who displayed “a cult of personality.”
During the 1937 election campaign, there was much talk about “wreckers” and “enemies of the people.” Now, the “main” subject, according to President Dmitry Medvedev is “the struggle with corruption,” a struggle that is supposed to involve, just like its predecessor, “the most varied forces” and be directed at those viewed as the opponents of the Kremlin.
Pavlova points out that as a result, “in 1937, the mass election campaign became a cover for the conduct of a government policy of repression.” Today, there are differences, but the current situation “ever more recalls one before a storm” that must “somehow or other” break out as part of a resolution.
Obviously historical analogies do not explain everything, Pavlova says, but she asks a series of pointed questions on the basis of her comparison: “Will the struggle with corruption turn out to be a new edition of the cadres reform of 1937?” Will the current leadership which is riddled with thieves be replaced by “young ‘nashists,’ ready to struggle for modernization?”
And even more seriously, “will ‘a cadres reform’ of the 2011 model develop in such a way, if it does take place, that it will lead to a broad struggle with ‘extremists,’ ‘extra-systemic liberals’ and other citizens” the regime’s leaders view as “disloyal.” The danger is real enough, she suggests, to justify real alarm.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Despite Promises, Russian Draftees are Fighting and Dying in the North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 24 – Despite repeated promises by senior Moscow officials and the explicit provisions of several laws, Russian draftees are being sent to fight and die in the hotspots of the North Caucasus, a situation a major Moscow paper is calling attention to and one likely to spark both more resistance to the draft and more questions about Russia’s policies in that region.
The deaths of several draftees in Ingushetia have prompted “Moskovsky komsomolets” to declare in a headline that “The Russian Army is Outside the Law” because the defense ministry has declared that such personnel “must not be involved in counter-terrorist operations” (www.mk.ru/politics/article/2011/05/19/590609-rossiyskaya-armiya-vne-zakona.html).
Indeed, the widely published ministerial decree specifies that draftees are not even to be positioned “in the zone” of such counter-terrorist operations. Apparently, the paper continued, “the command of the military unit does not know anything about this order. Or how else can one explain the fact” that this set of deaths of draftees is not the first?
A source in the military procuracy told the paper that “such violations are taking place everywhere,” even though commanders know the order and investigators have addressed many of these situations, a process that is complicated because commanders often do what they can to hide the facts of these and other violations of the military code.
The major reason commanders want to use draftees is that such personnel cost less and are far more numerous than professional soldiers, but another experts say is that the latter are far more prepared to speak up for their rights than are the draftees. If the pay of the professionals is late, for example, they raise such a fuss that commanders hurry to address the problem.
Because the command is unwilling to investigate these violations, activists have appealed to the Counter-Terrorist Committee and also to the Federation Council, but they have either been ignored or “given to understand that about the Russian Army today one can speak only as about the dead – either something good or nothing at all.”
However, the numerous cases of the violation of the defense minstry’s own orders and of the rights of draftees almost certainly will increase calls for a shift to a professional military, something Russia would find hard to pay for unless it significantly reduced the size of its armed forces, or an increase in the amount of draft resistance.
And in the current environment, these two trends appear to be coming together. In St. Petersburg over the weekend, for example, some 150 people staged a demonstration under the banner “Say No to the Draft” during which speakers called for the creation of a purely professional military (ingria.info/lenta/347-2011-05-22-08-50-40).
This meeting is likely to lead to others, all the more so because it was organized by groups with sections elsewhere and by political parties, including Yabloko, which are likely to be interested in using this issue to attract attention and support in the run up to the 2011 and 2012 elections.
Staunton, May 24 – Despite repeated promises by senior Moscow officials and the explicit provisions of several laws, Russian draftees are being sent to fight and die in the hotspots of the North Caucasus, a situation a major Moscow paper is calling attention to and one likely to spark both more resistance to the draft and more questions about Russia’s policies in that region.
The deaths of several draftees in Ingushetia have prompted “Moskovsky komsomolets” to declare in a headline that “The Russian Army is Outside the Law” because the defense ministry has declared that such personnel “must not be involved in counter-terrorist operations” (www.mk.ru/politics/article/2011/05/19/590609-rossiyskaya-armiya-vne-zakona.html).
Indeed, the widely published ministerial decree specifies that draftees are not even to be positioned “in the zone” of such counter-terrorist operations. Apparently, the paper continued, “the command of the military unit does not know anything about this order. Or how else can one explain the fact” that this set of deaths of draftees is not the first?
A source in the military procuracy told the paper that “such violations are taking place everywhere,” even though commanders know the order and investigators have addressed many of these situations, a process that is complicated because commanders often do what they can to hide the facts of these and other violations of the military code.
The major reason commanders want to use draftees is that such personnel cost less and are far more numerous than professional soldiers, but another experts say is that the latter are far more prepared to speak up for their rights than are the draftees. If the pay of the professionals is late, for example, they raise such a fuss that commanders hurry to address the problem.
Because the command is unwilling to investigate these violations, activists have appealed to the Counter-Terrorist Committee and also to the Federation Council, but they have either been ignored or “given to understand that about the Russian Army today one can speak only as about the dead – either something good or nothing at all.”
However, the numerous cases of the violation of the defense minstry’s own orders and of the rights of draftees almost certainly will increase calls for a shift to a professional military, something Russia would find hard to pay for unless it significantly reduced the size of its armed forces, or an increase in the amount of draft resistance.
And in the current environment, these two trends appear to be coming together. In St. Petersburg over the weekend, for example, some 150 people staged a demonstration under the banner “Say No to the Draft” during which speakers called for the creation of a purely professional military (ingria.info/lenta/347-2011-05-22-08-50-40).
This meeting is likely to lead to others, all the more so because it was organized by groups with sections elsewhere and by political parties, including Yabloko, which are likely to be interested in using this issue to attract attention and support in the run up to the 2011 and 2012 elections.
Window on Eurasia: Middle Class ‘Fleeing’ Russia, Moscow Experts Say
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 24 – Members of the middle class, including both entrepreneurs and intellectuals on whom the future of democratic development in the Russian Federation depends, are now fleeting that country in ever-increasing numbers, a trend that both testifies to Russia’s current problems and casts a shadow over its future.
In the current issue of the Moscow weekly “New Times,” Natalya Alyarinskaya and Dmitry Dokuchayev report that according to Russian officials, 1.25 million Russians, “chiefly businessmen and representatives of the middle class,” have left the country over the last three years (http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/39135).
Their departure, the two journalists say, is “almost as large as the first which took place after the October coup in 1917 when about two million people left” Russia. And the devote the remainder of their article to exploring the answers as to “why these people are leaving Russia and whether it is possible to stop this exodus?”
The findings of a recent poll by the Levada Center showing that 50 percent of Russians “dream of leaving the country,” including “two thirds [of those] under 35,” and that “63 percent of those questioned would like their children to study and work abroad” rather than in their homeland.
But those findings, which express interest and desire rather than action, have now been made even more a matter of concern by other data. Vladimir Gruzdyev, a Duma deputy of the ruling United Russia Party said that in 2010, “the number of individual entrepreneurs dropped from 4.61 to 4.11 million,” with most of the half million not only leaving business but Russia.
Igor Nikolayev, the head of strategic prognostications for FBK suggests that this statistic “should be increased by a factor of two if not three.” The reason? “Many people keep their citizenship and apartment in Russia, and although their entire family has been living in the West for a long time, they do not fall within the emigration statistics.”
And Vladislav Inozemtsev, the director of the Center for Research on Post-Industrial Society, says the situation may be even worse than those figures show. According to his research, “45 percent of [university] graduates do not exclude the possibility of leaving and almost half of them firmly intend to seek” work abroad.
According to Moscow experts, the two journalists say, there are now about four million Russians living in the European Union and the United States, distributing themselves according to ease of entry, cost of living and the existence of a Russian community with which they can find support at least at first.
No one knows for certain just how many more of Russia’s middle class are really waiting to join them, “sitting on their suitcases,” to use the Russian expression. But the number has certainly gone up in the last few years because, in the words of one expert, opportunities have declined while “administrative pressure has increased.”
According to Moscow political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, “the main cause” pushing members of the Russian middle class to think about emigration is “the lack of a future,” the sense that for Russians now, unlike a decade ago, there is no light at the end of the tunnel but only more darkness.
Moreover, the members of this class increasingly feel the envy of those below them in the social pyramid and pressure from the political elite above. And they fear that the current situation may get even worse after the 2011 and 2012 elections which could set in train a new set of challenges they would rather avoid by moving out of Russia.
Most analysts fear the impact of these departures, especially since in many ways it is the best and the brightest who are leaving. Approximately 15 percent of all Russians have higher education, but among those leaving, “more than 40 percent do,” thus undermining the ability of the Russian economy to modernize or even keep up.
A few experts, like Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a specialist on elites at the Russian Academy of Sciences, suggest that no one should be upset by these trends because they show that Russia is becoming part of the global society and that Russians are “step by step becoming people of the world.”
But others take a gloomier view. Oreshkin says that “the sense of total corruption does not leave [these people].” Consequently, to improve matters and retain more of the Russian middle class, the country must “in the first instance destroy the power vertical, cleanse itself from corruption and conduct honest elections.”
However, he continues, even if Russia manages to do this, “a minimum of about five years will be required for people [now] abroad to believe that the situation for business in Russia has changed for the better” and decide that they should be working at home rather than living abroad.
Staunton, May 24 – Members of the middle class, including both entrepreneurs and intellectuals on whom the future of democratic development in the Russian Federation depends, are now fleeting that country in ever-increasing numbers, a trend that both testifies to Russia’s current problems and casts a shadow over its future.
In the current issue of the Moscow weekly “New Times,” Natalya Alyarinskaya and Dmitry Dokuchayev report that according to Russian officials, 1.25 million Russians, “chiefly businessmen and representatives of the middle class,” have left the country over the last three years (http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/39135).
Their departure, the two journalists say, is “almost as large as the first which took place after the October coup in 1917 when about two million people left” Russia. And the devote the remainder of their article to exploring the answers as to “why these people are leaving Russia and whether it is possible to stop this exodus?”
The findings of a recent poll by the Levada Center showing that 50 percent of Russians “dream of leaving the country,” including “two thirds [of those] under 35,” and that “63 percent of those questioned would like their children to study and work abroad” rather than in their homeland.
But those findings, which express interest and desire rather than action, have now been made even more a matter of concern by other data. Vladimir Gruzdyev, a Duma deputy of the ruling United Russia Party said that in 2010, “the number of individual entrepreneurs dropped from 4.61 to 4.11 million,” with most of the half million not only leaving business but Russia.
Igor Nikolayev, the head of strategic prognostications for FBK suggests that this statistic “should be increased by a factor of two if not three.” The reason? “Many people keep their citizenship and apartment in Russia, and although their entire family has been living in the West for a long time, they do not fall within the emigration statistics.”
And Vladislav Inozemtsev, the director of the Center for Research on Post-Industrial Society, says the situation may be even worse than those figures show. According to his research, “45 percent of [university] graduates do not exclude the possibility of leaving and almost half of them firmly intend to seek” work abroad.
According to Moscow experts, the two journalists say, there are now about four million Russians living in the European Union and the United States, distributing themselves according to ease of entry, cost of living and the existence of a Russian community with which they can find support at least at first.
No one knows for certain just how many more of Russia’s middle class are really waiting to join them, “sitting on their suitcases,” to use the Russian expression. But the number has certainly gone up in the last few years because, in the words of one expert, opportunities have declined while “administrative pressure has increased.”
According to Moscow political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, “the main cause” pushing members of the Russian middle class to think about emigration is “the lack of a future,” the sense that for Russians now, unlike a decade ago, there is no light at the end of the tunnel but only more darkness.
Moreover, the members of this class increasingly feel the envy of those below them in the social pyramid and pressure from the political elite above. And they fear that the current situation may get even worse after the 2011 and 2012 elections which could set in train a new set of challenges they would rather avoid by moving out of Russia.
Most analysts fear the impact of these departures, especially since in many ways it is the best and the brightest who are leaving. Approximately 15 percent of all Russians have higher education, but among those leaving, “more than 40 percent do,” thus undermining the ability of the Russian economy to modernize or even keep up.
A few experts, like Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a specialist on elites at the Russian Academy of Sciences, suggest that no one should be upset by these trends because they show that Russia is becoming part of the global society and that Russians are “step by step becoming people of the world.”
But others take a gloomier view. Oreshkin says that “the sense of total corruption does not leave [these people].” Consequently, to improve matters and retain more of the Russian middle class, the country must “in the first instance destroy the power vertical, cleanse itself from corruption and conduct honest elections.”
However, he continues, even if Russia manages to do this, “a minimum of about five years will be required for people [now] abroad to believe that the situation for business in Russia has changed for the better” and decide that they should be working at home rather than living abroad.
Window on Eurasia: Russia’s Northern Peoples Use UN to Press Moscow on Ethnic Rights
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 23 – Representatives of the numerically small and often widely dispersed peoples of Russia’s Arctic north have used a United Nations forum to press the Russian government to respect their collective rights, but President Dmitry Medvedev has indicated that he believes the regions in which they live rather than Moscow should bear the costs of doing so.
Last week, during the sessions in New York of the United Nations Forum on the Issues of Indigenous Peoples, representatives of the Russian Federation’s numerically small peoples of the North issued a series of demands to Moscow ranging from help in countering the effects of global warming to recognizing their right to self-determination.
Valentina Sovkina, the speaker of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula, issued the most sweeping demand. She called on Moscow to observe the right of all indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation to self-determination, something she pointed out the Russian government is committed to by treaty (finugor.ru/node/17742).
Vasily Nemechkin, a member of the governing board of the Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (MAFUN), made a more limited demand. He called on the Russian powers that be to establish a special ombudsman to ensure the rights of native peoples, including his own (mariuver.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/mafun-ombudsmen/).
And Tatyana Achirgina, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference of Chukotka, called on Rusdsia to reaffirm its treaty support for the rights of indigenous people by approving the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and living up to its provisions (www.raipon.info/component/content/article/1-novosti/1974-arkticheskij-kokus-deklaraciju-oon-.html).
UN officials and especially representatives of UNESCO expressed their support for the Northern peoples and indicated that they are ready to address their problems, especially those arising from global warming and increased economic activity in the Arctic region (www.raipon.info/component/content/article/1-novosti/1973-junesko-usilit-rabotu-s-korennymi-narodami.html).
Over the last several decades, Russia’s Northern peoples have sought to advance their cause in Moscow by building alliances with other indigenous peoples in the Arctic through such institutions as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and they are now using such links to enlist the UN as well.
The strategy has worked at least up to a point: Russia’s Northern Peoples currently receive disproportionate subsidies from Moscow compared to the all-Russian per capita average. But leaders of these communities argue that environmental challenges, the activities of business groups, and their traditional cultures require greater support.
They received some encouragement last week from a comment by President Dmitry Medvedev at his press conference. He said that he now understands the problems of the Northern peoples, but he suggested that these problems should be addressed not by the central government but by regional officials (www.raipon.info/component/content/article/1-novosti/1971-prezident-rossii-znaet-o-problemah-severnyh-narodov.html).
From the point of view of the Northern peoples, Medvedev’s suggestion that regional officials rather than Moscow should focus on these issues and bear the cost of resolving them will not be welcome. And as a result, some of their leaders are likely to try to advance their interests in international forums like the UN, potentially adding to Moscow’s problems there.
Staunton, May 23 – Representatives of the numerically small and often widely dispersed peoples of Russia’s Arctic north have used a United Nations forum to press the Russian government to respect their collective rights, but President Dmitry Medvedev has indicated that he believes the regions in which they live rather than Moscow should bear the costs of doing so.
Last week, during the sessions in New York of the United Nations Forum on the Issues of Indigenous Peoples, representatives of the Russian Federation’s numerically small peoples of the North issued a series of demands to Moscow ranging from help in countering the effects of global warming to recognizing their right to self-determination.
Valentina Sovkina, the speaker of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula, issued the most sweeping demand. She called on Moscow to observe the right of all indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation to self-determination, something she pointed out the Russian government is committed to by treaty (finugor.ru/node/17742).
Vasily Nemechkin, a member of the governing board of the Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (MAFUN), made a more limited demand. He called on the Russian powers that be to establish a special ombudsman to ensure the rights of native peoples, including his own (mariuver.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/mafun-ombudsmen/).
And Tatyana Achirgina, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference of Chukotka, called on Rusdsia to reaffirm its treaty support for the rights of indigenous people by approving the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and living up to its provisions (www.raipon.info/component/content/article/1-novosti/1974-arkticheskij-kokus-deklaraciju-oon-.html).
UN officials and especially representatives of UNESCO expressed their support for the Northern peoples and indicated that they are ready to address their problems, especially those arising from global warming and increased economic activity in the Arctic region (www.raipon.info/component/content/article/1-novosti/1973-junesko-usilit-rabotu-s-korennymi-narodami.html).
Over the last several decades, Russia’s Northern peoples have sought to advance their cause in Moscow by building alliances with other indigenous peoples in the Arctic through such institutions as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and they are now using such links to enlist the UN as well.
The strategy has worked at least up to a point: Russia’s Northern Peoples currently receive disproportionate subsidies from Moscow compared to the all-Russian per capita average. But leaders of these communities argue that environmental challenges, the activities of business groups, and their traditional cultures require greater support.
They received some encouragement last week from a comment by President Dmitry Medvedev at his press conference. He said that he now understands the problems of the Northern peoples, but he suggested that these problems should be addressed not by the central government but by regional officials (www.raipon.info/component/content/article/1-novosti/1971-prezident-rossii-znaet-o-problemah-severnyh-narodov.html).
From the point of view of the Northern peoples, Medvedev’s suggestion that regional officials rather than Moscow should focus on these issues and bear the cost of resolving them will not be welcome. And as a result, some of their leaders are likely to try to advance their interests in international forums like the UN, potentially adding to Moscow’s problems there.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Window on Eurasia: South Korea Continues to Hope to Host 2014 Winter Olympiad, Moscow Paper Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 21 – South Korea, which lost out to Russia in the competition to hold the Winter Olympics in 2014, is continuing to build facilities for such a competition, apparently in hopes that the Sochi Games will be cancelled either because of construction problems or security concerns, according to Moscow’s “Izvestiya.”
“Izvestiya” correspondents Andrey Reut and Aleksey Severov report that “Korea is continuing to build Olympic sites despite having lost to Russia the right to hold the 2014 Olympiad.” More than half of the South Korean sites are ready, and “the remaining ones are being build at record rates” (www.izvestia.ru/investigation/article3155383/).
Having visited the sites, the Russian journalists say they want to answer the question: “What are [the South Koreans] counting on?” But in fact, the article may be designed to send a message to the international community: Any problems now in the run-up to the Sochi Games are the result of Georgian actions rather than Russian problems.
“Officially,” the Russian journalists say, officials and Olympic activists in Seoul are competing for the 2018 games, in which there are officially three candidates – Germany, France and South Korea. That would be the third attempt to bring the Olympics to South, given that “the previous two have failed.”
Despite that, “the Koreans are all the same actively engaged in construction,” the “Izvestiya” journalists say, “more actively than in Sochi,” and consequently regardless of the results of the voting in the International Olympic Committee, “practically all the Olympic venues” in South Korea are “already prepared.”
“The main intrigue” here, the journalists say, involves the question: “Why spend billions of dollars on games which Korea has not yet won the right to hold?” According to the article, “Olympic officials are not answering this question, but indirectly they confirm: they [still] have hopes for 2014.”
Speaking with what “Izvestiya” characterized as “ironic Eastern diplomacy,” Yang Chung Pak, the secretary general of the Korean Olympic Committee, refused to answer the direct question whether his group was preparing for 2014. “Let us hope,” he said, “that Sochi will hold one of the best Winter Olympics” in that year.
Could it in fact happen, the journalists ask, that the 2014 games could be taken away from Russia and handed over to Korea? There are only “two possible causes,” they say. The first would be a failure of Russia to build all the venues on time, and the second basis “for the hopes of the Koreans” would be “instability in the region.”
The two “Izvestiya” journalists say that “representatives of the Russian special services” tell them that “in Sochi have appeared groups of potential diversionists from Georgia who have tried to settle in as local residents” or to take the guise of “builders” of Olympic sites. And the services add that “it is possible there even exists a program” in Georgia to block the games.
“Georgian politicians have more than once spoken about this,” “Izvestiya” says, beginning in the fall of 2008, after the Russian-Georgian war, when Tbilisi proposed shifting the games to South Korea or to Austria. The motivations for this, the paper continues, were political rather than ecological, despite Georgian claims to the contrary.
Moreover, the Moscow paper continues, there even exists in Georgia “a special commission” which is preparing “a boycott plan,” as the head of that country’s parliamentary committee for diaspora affairs, Nugzar Tsiklauri, has said. “But all this is only words,” the Russian journalists say.
The Olympics have never been taken away from one city and given to another, Russian Olympic Committee officials say, and the Olympic Charter does not allow for it. But apparently, the South Koreans still have “hope for a miracle” in this regard. And because they have the money, they are more than ready to prepare for one.
Staunton, May 21 – South Korea, which lost out to Russia in the competition to hold the Winter Olympics in 2014, is continuing to build facilities for such a competition, apparently in hopes that the Sochi Games will be cancelled either because of construction problems or security concerns, according to Moscow’s “Izvestiya.”
“Izvestiya” correspondents Andrey Reut and Aleksey Severov report that “Korea is continuing to build Olympic sites despite having lost to Russia the right to hold the 2014 Olympiad.” More than half of the South Korean sites are ready, and “the remaining ones are being build at record rates” (www.izvestia.ru/investigation/article3155383/).
Having visited the sites, the Russian journalists say they want to answer the question: “What are [the South Koreans] counting on?” But in fact, the article may be designed to send a message to the international community: Any problems now in the run-up to the Sochi Games are the result of Georgian actions rather than Russian problems.
“Officially,” the Russian journalists say, officials and Olympic activists in Seoul are competing for the 2018 games, in which there are officially three candidates – Germany, France and South Korea. That would be the third attempt to bring the Olympics to South, given that “the previous two have failed.”
Despite that, “the Koreans are all the same actively engaged in construction,” the “Izvestiya” journalists say, “more actively than in Sochi,” and consequently regardless of the results of the voting in the International Olympic Committee, “practically all the Olympic venues” in South Korea are “already prepared.”
“The main intrigue” here, the journalists say, involves the question: “Why spend billions of dollars on games which Korea has not yet won the right to hold?” According to the article, “Olympic officials are not answering this question, but indirectly they confirm: they [still] have hopes for 2014.”
Speaking with what “Izvestiya” characterized as “ironic Eastern diplomacy,” Yang Chung Pak, the secretary general of the Korean Olympic Committee, refused to answer the direct question whether his group was preparing for 2014. “Let us hope,” he said, “that Sochi will hold one of the best Winter Olympics” in that year.
Could it in fact happen, the journalists ask, that the 2014 games could be taken away from Russia and handed over to Korea? There are only “two possible causes,” they say. The first would be a failure of Russia to build all the venues on time, and the second basis “for the hopes of the Koreans” would be “instability in the region.”
The two “Izvestiya” journalists say that “representatives of the Russian special services” tell them that “in Sochi have appeared groups of potential diversionists from Georgia who have tried to settle in as local residents” or to take the guise of “builders” of Olympic sites. And the services add that “it is possible there even exists a program” in Georgia to block the games.
“Georgian politicians have more than once spoken about this,” “Izvestiya” says, beginning in the fall of 2008, after the Russian-Georgian war, when Tbilisi proposed shifting the games to South Korea or to Austria. The motivations for this, the paper continues, were political rather than ecological, despite Georgian claims to the contrary.
Moreover, the Moscow paper continues, there even exists in Georgia “a special commission” which is preparing “a boycott plan,” as the head of that country’s parliamentary committee for diaspora affairs, Nugzar Tsiklauri, has said. “But all this is only words,” the Russian journalists say.
The Olympics have never been taken away from one city and given to another, Russian Olympic Committee officials say, and the Olympic Charter does not allow for it. But apparently, the South Koreans still have “hope for a miracle” in this regard. And because they have the money, they are more than ready to prepare for one.
Window on Eurasia: Recognition of Circassian Genocide Part of Broader Georgian Campaign in North Caucasus
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 21 – The Georgian parliament’s adoption yesterday of a resolution declaring the mass killings of Circassians 150 years ago to have been a genocide is part of a broad Tbilisi campaign to extend its influence in the North Caucasus by undermining Russian control there.
That conclusion is suggested both by the debate preceding the adoption of the resolution and by two other recent developments, one in Georgia involving the expansion of broadcasts into the North Caucasus from Georgia and a second in that region itself where demonstrators invoked Georgian support to pressure local officials.
Yesterday, the Georgian parliament passed a government-backed resolution saying that the “pre-planned” mass killing of Circassians in the 1860s constituted “a genocide” and that those forced to leave their homeland and their descendents should be recognized as “refugees” (www.circassianworld.com/new/headlines/1571-georgia-recognizes-circassian-genocide.html).
Backers of the resolution said that this declaration is “not directed against the Russian people” because “the Russian people should not be permanently living under the burden imposed on them by their leaders in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century and the twenty-first century.”
But many Russians and at least some Georgians are likely to view it otherwise, in part because another deputy from the ruling party, Givi Targamadze, said that the Georgian parliament should also take up “the situation surrounding other peoples” in the North Caucasus, a step he said would “lead us to a powerful and significant Caucasian unity.”
Deputies of the Christian Democratic Movement abstained from voting, arguing that the vote was taken too hastily, but only one parliamentarian spoke against the resolution. Jondi Bagaturia said that while “it is impossible not to show solidarity towards the Circassian people,” Georgians should consider whether that “will not look unfair” to the Armenians.
That is because Armenians have frequently asked Georgia to declare the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire a genocide, something Georgian officials and parliamentarians have refused to do, most recently a month ago.
Another deputy, Nuzgar Tsiklauri, chairman of the diaspora and Caucasian issues committee in the parliament, countered that it was “inappropriate” to link the two issues. Tbilisi could address these questions with “Georgia’s two friendly nations,” Armenia and Turkey, “with “a positive dialogue,’ and “meddling in this process would be ‘unjustified.’”
The second development indicating that this decision was very political and directed against Russian interests in the North Caucasus was the launch earlier this year of a Russian-language television channel in Georgia targeted at that region, PIK television, which can be viewed on the Internet ( pik.tv/ru).
Yesterday and today, that channel gave prominent coverage to yesterday’s decision of the Georgian parliament to declare the 1864 killings of the Circassians a genocide and headlined its story, “Georgia has become the first to recognize the genocide of the Circassian people” (pik.tv/ru/news/story/gruziia-stala-pervoy-kto-priznal-genocid-cherkesskogo-naroda).
But a third development this week, although it has attracted far less international attention, may prove to be equally consequential. In Daghestan, members of the Dido nationality on Tuesday organized a demonstration in Makhachkala demanding that their nationality be given official status and their own ethno-territorial unit (www.ndelo.ru/one_stat.php?id=4908).
The meeting, which attracted some 80 people and adopted a resolution sent to both the Daghestan and Russian Federation governments, took place under a banner declaring in Russian “Daghestan Refuses; Georgia Helps,” a message that, if taken up by other groups in that republic and beyond, could further complicate Moscow’s tasks in the region.
Staunton, May 21 – The Georgian parliament’s adoption yesterday of a resolution declaring the mass killings of Circassians 150 years ago to have been a genocide is part of a broad Tbilisi campaign to extend its influence in the North Caucasus by undermining Russian control there.
That conclusion is suggested both by the debate preceding the adoption of the resolution and by two other recent developments, one in Georgia involving the expansion of broadcasts into the North Caucasus from Georgia and a second in that region itself where demonstrators invoked Georgian support to pressure local officials.
Yesterday, the Georgian parliament passed a government-backed resolution saying that the “pre-planned” mass killing of Circassians in the 1860s constituted “a genocide” and that those forced to leave their homeland and their descendents should be recognized as “refugees” (www.circassianworld.com/new/headlines/1571-georgia-recognizes-circassian-genocide.html).
Backers of the resolution said that this declaration is “not directed against the Russian people” because “the Russian people should not be permanently living under the burden imposed on them by their leaders in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century and the twenty-first century.”
But many Russians and at least some Georgians are likely to view it otherwise, in part because another deputy from the ruling party, Givi Targamadze, said that the Georgian parliament should also take up “the situation surrounding other peoples” in the North Caucasus, a step he said would “lead us to a powerful and significant Caucasian unity.”
Deputies of the Christian Democratic Movement abstained from voting, arguing that the vote was taken too hastily, but only one parliamentarian spoke against the resolution. Jondi Bagaturia said that while “it is impossible not to show solidarity towards the Circassian people,” Georgians should consider whether that “will not look unfair” to the Armenians.
That is because Armenians have frequently asked Georgia to declare the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire a genocide, something Georgian officials and parliamentarians have refused to do, most recently a month ago.
Another deputy, Nuzgar Tsiklauri, chairman of the diaspora and Caucasian issues committee in the parliament, countered that it was “inappropriate” to link the two issues. Tbilisi could address these questions with “Georgia’s two friendly nations,” Armenia and Turkey, “with “a positive dialogue,’ and “meddling in this process would be ‘unjustified.’”
The second development indicating that this decision was very political and directed against Russian interests in the North Caucasus was the launch earlier this year of a Russian-language television channel in Georgia targeted at that region, PIK television, which can be viewed on the Internet ( pik.tv/ru).
Yesterday and today, that channel gave prominent coverage to yesterday’s decision of the Georgian parliament to declare the 1864 killings of the Circassians a genocide and headlined its story, “Georgia has become the first to recognize the genocide of the Circassian people” (pik.tv/ru/news/story/gruziia-stala-pervoy-kto-priznal-genocid-cherkesskogo-naroda).
But a third development this week, although it has attracted far less international attention, may prove to be equally consequential. In Daghestan, members of the Dido nationality on Tuesday organized a demonstration in Makhachkala demanding that their nationality be given official status and their own ethno-territorial unit (www.ndelo.ru/one_stat.php?id=4908).
The meeting, which attracted some 80 people and adopted a resolution sent to both the Daghestan and Russian Federation governments, took place under a banner declaring in Russian “Daghestan Refuses; Georgia Helps,” a message that, if taken up by other groups in that republic and beyond, could further complicate Moscow’s tasks in the region.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Fight against Extremism Lacks Clear Definitions, SOVA Head Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, May 21 – Russia’s struggle against extremism “does not have clearly defined tasks” because the government “cannot clearly formulate them,” and as a result, various officials, operating on the basis of “their own interests” rather than on the basis of law act in ways that contradict one another, according to the head of the SOVA analytic center.
Not only does that shortcoming undermine the rule of law and the protection of the rights of citizens, but it means that some genuinely extremist materials escape any ban at all while many entirely innocent publications are deemed extremist, thereby sending a chill through the entire society.
In an interview published this week in “Epoch Times,” Aleksandr Verkhovsky says that “in any country, there are legal limitations of rights” when they come into conflict with other rights or goals, but in Russia, such limitations go far beyond that because the state has failed to define the basis for such limitations (www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/47852/54/).
Verkhovsky says that in his work, he encounters what are clearly legally justified limitations on religious texts that are clearly “directed” at inspiring hatred toward others. “Here I understand why they are banning them,” he continues. But “often, I do not understand” because there is no apparent basis for taking this step.
According to the SOVA leader, this is at least partially explained by what he believes is the fact that officials “themselves do not know what they want to achieve” by their acitons. In order for there to be understanding, there is a need for one side to be able to explain its acitons to another.” But in the case of Russia’s struggle with extremism, that isn’t possible.
“The state cannot formulate [these tasks] clearly,” either because it lacks the ability to do so or because it wants to retain maximum flexibility. And consequently, “many various groups of bureaucrats” act independently and often in contradiction with one another because they are “guided by their own interests and ideas” rather than by the legal definitions.
Some officials engaged in these activities undoubtedly are sincere in their stated belief that this or that religious group is “socially dangerous and must be uprooted.” But others appear to be doing so to attract attention, justify budgets or out of personal vindictiveness,m all things that undermine the rule of law.
“The main repressive mechanism” in this struggle is the banning of the distribution of materials “recognized as extremist,” Verkhovsky says. And on the basis of judicial decisions, the justice ministry maintains a list of publications that have been declared extremist. “But one must not use this list” because of a whole range of problems.
There are many mistakes in this list, the result of multiple decisions which sometimes find a particular work extremist and at other times declare it not to be and of the failure of the justice ministry to update the list in an appropriate and timely fashion. And consequently “it is clear that this cannot work in principle.”
And there is another problem, Verkhovsky notes. “In the law it is written how this list is to be added to but nothing is said about the basis on which materials can be removed from the list … [Thus,] this situation is not legal because in this case there are no norms” as any legal arrangement requires.
In the opinion of the SOVA chief, there should be “either an amendment to the law or a directive of the Justice Ministry regulating this procedure or an explanation by the Supreme Court.” But none of these things has yet happened, although he adds that “a resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Court” is working on these issues.
That effort, he adds, allows “the weak hope that some kind of wise explanations will be adopted and that they will have obligatory force.”
Another serious problem in this area, Verkhovsky points out, is the use of the charge of extremism by officials without the sanction of a court. That isn’t supposed to happen under the law, but by drawing analogies with materials that have been banned, officials often broaden the scope of anti-extremist actions.
And still a third problem involves the use of expertise in deciding whether this or that item is extremist. Ten years ago, expertise was not widely employed; now, it is involved in almost every case, and Verkhovsky says, it is being misused, with experts expressing their view on whether something is extremist, a conclusion only judges are entitled to make.
The situation of experts on religious or other groups is like that of a specialist on ballistics, Verkhovsky says. The expert can be asked about how a bullet flew or from what gun it came, “but it is impermissible to ask him who killed Sidorov or whether he was killed because of hatred. If such a question is given to an expert, this is a crude procedural violation.”
Staunton, May 21 – Russia’s struggle against extremism “does not have clearly defined tasks” because the government “cannot clearly formulate them,” and as a result, various officials, operating on the basis of “their own interests” rather than on the basis of law act in ways that contradict one another, according to the head of the SOVA analytic center.
Not only does that shortcoming undermine the rule of law and the protection of the rights of citizens, but it means that some genuinely extremist materials escape any ban at all while many entirely innocent publications are deemed extremist, thereby sending a chill through the entire society.
In an interview published this week in “Epoch Times,” Aleksandr Verkhovsky says that “in any country, there are legal limitations of rights” when they come into conflict with other rights or goals, but in Russia, such limitations go far beyond that because the state has failed to define the basis for such limitations (www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/47852/54/).
Verkhovsky says that in his work, he encounters what are clearly legally justified limitations on religious texts that are clearly “directed” at inspiring hatred toward others. “Here I understand why they are banning them,” he continues. But “often, I do not understand” because there is no apparent basis for taking this step.
According to the SOVA leader, this is at least partially explained by what he believes is the fact that officials “themselves do not know what they want to achieve” by their acitons. In order for there to be understanding, there is a need for one side to be able to explain its acitons to another.” But in the case of Russia’s struggle with extremism, that isn’t possible.
“The state cannot formulate [these tasks] clearly,” either because it lacks the ability to do so or because it wants to retain maximum flexibility. And consequently, “many various groups of bureaucrats” act independently and often in contradiction with one another because they are “guided by their own interests and ideas” rather than by the legal definitions.
Some officials engaged in these activities undoubtedly are sincere in their stated belief that this or that religious group is “socially dangerous and must be uprooted.” But others appear to be doing so to attract attention, justify budgets or out of personal vindictiveness,m all things that undermine the rule of law.
“The main repressive mechanism” in this struggle is the banning of the distribution of materials “recognized as extremist,” Verkhovsky says. And on the basis of judicial decisions, the justice ministry maintains a list of publications that have been declared extremist. “But one must not use this list” because of a whole range of problems.
There are many mistakes in this list, the result of multiple decisions which sometimes find a particular work extremist and at other times declare it not to be and of the failure of the justice ministry to update the list in an appropriate and timely fashion. And consequently “it is clear that this cannot work in principle.”
And there is another problem, Verkhovsky notes. “In the law it is written how this list is to be added to but nothing is said about the basis on which materials can be removed from the list … [Thus,] this situation is not legal because in this case there are no norms” as any legal arrangement requires.
In the opinion of the SOVA chief, there should be “either an amendment to the law or a directive of the Justice Ministry regulating this procedure or an explanation by the Supreme Court.” But none of these things has yet happened, although he adds that “a resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Court” is working on these issues.
That effort, he adds, allows “the weak hope that some kind of wise explanations will be adopted and that they will have obligatory force.”
Another serious problem in this area, Verkhovsky points out, is the use of the charge of extremism by officials without the sanction of a court. That isn’t supposed to happen under the law, but by drawing analogies with materials that have been banned, officials often broaden the scope of anti-extremist actions.
And still a third problem involves the use of expertise in deciding whether this or that item is extremist. Ten years ago, expertise was not widely employed; now, it is involved in almost every case, and Verkhovsky says, it is being misused, with experts expressing their view on whether something is extremist, a conclusion only judges are entitled to make.
The situation of experts on religious or other groups is like that of a specialist on ballistics, Verkhovsky says. The expert can be asked about how a bullet flew or from what gun it came, “but it is impermissible to ask him who killed Sidorov or whether he was killed because of hatred. If such a question is given to an expert, this is a crude procedural violation.”
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