Circassian World News Blog

Sergei Bagapsh, Abkhazia’s Leader, Dies at 62, by Ellen Barry

2011-05-30T23:50:00.008+03:00

The New York Times, MOSCOW — Sergei V. Bagapsh, who led the Black Sea enclave of Abkhazia through a tumultuous effort to gain independence from Georgia without being absorbed by Russia, died Sunday in Moscow. He was 62.

Mr. Bagapsh had successful surgery to remove growths on his lung on May 21, but succumbed to complications that ended in heart failure, medical officials told the Interfax news service.

The affable manner of Mr. Bagapsh, who governed Abkhazia as its president, concealed the strategic thinking of a chess player, a quality he used to maneuver the nationalist upheaval of the post-Soviet period. Though he was an ethnic Abkhaz, he married into a large Georgian family, and remained on good terms with his in-laws even as Abkhazia’s separatist war in the early 1990s tore the country apart.

The August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia was a victory for Mr. Bagapsh, who had long lobbied the Kremlin — or any other government, for that matter — to recognize Abkhazia as a sovereign nation. The slender wedge of beachfront land, once a cherished vacation spot for the Soviet nomenklatura, or ruling elite, was now under the protection of the Russian Army, and Mr. Bagapsh was received in Moscow as a bona fide head of state.

But he found himself in a far more difficult position than he had anticipated. Russians lined up immediately to grab prime real estate and privatize energy and transportation infrastructure, which could be crucial to preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Under extraordinary pressure from Russia to compromise, Mr. Bagapsh also had to answer domestic critics who accused him of selling off Abkhazia’s assets.

“After the August war, Abkhaz society — and this was also the tragedy of Bagapsh — is, if anything, more divided than it was before,” said Peter Semneby, the former European Union special representative to the South Caucasus, who met many times with Mr. Bagapsh.

“You have those who are very uncomfortable with the dominating role of Russia, and what they see as selling out, many of whom were behind the independence movement in the first place,” he said. “On the other hand, you have those who see a lot of economic opportunity. And these interests are very much being played out against each other.”

Both Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, and its prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, said on Sunday that they would view Mr. Bagapsh’s body to say farewell in person.

His death will very likely usher in a competition for power in Abkhazia, with Russia and Georgia jockeying for direct access to the next leader. Candidates for early presidential elections, scheduled for three months from now, will most likely include Prime Minister Sergei M. Shamba, who has advocated a “multivector” foreign policy that includes alliances with Turkey and the West; Vice President Aleksandr Ankvab, a close ally of Mr. Bagapsh; and Raul Khajimba, a former K.G.B. officer who left government to head an opposition party.

It has proved difficult to manipulate Abkhaz politics in the past. In 2004, Russia threw its weight behind Mr. Khajimba: pop stars were flown in to hold free concerts in his name; Mr. Putin, then the president, appeared with him on billboards; Russian lawmakers threatened to cut off the tangerine imports that were the territory’s economic lifeline. Mr. Bagapsh’s opponents, meanwhile, suggested he would cave to pressure from Tbilisi because his wife was Georgian.

Mr. Bagapsh won anyway. Russia imposed an import blockade, so that tons of tangerines rotted in trucks at the border. But Mr. Bagapsh moved into the presidential headquarters and set about negotiating with Mr. Khajimba, eventually forming a coalition government.

Recalling that brutal political war in an interview two years ago, Mr. Bagapsh was characteristically easygoing.

“I understood that it was politics, and it would pass, and I was right,” he said. “All the people who swore at me, said I was a mafioso and a bandit and so forth — today, they are my friends.”

Guram Odishariya, a writer, grew up not far from Mr. Bagapsh in the Abkhaz capital, known in Georgian as Sukhumi and in Abkhaz as Sukhum, a city where men gather on an embankment to play chess. Mr. Bagapsh showed an early aptitude for the long game, he said.

“He is the kind of person who plays 15 steps ahead,” he said. “There are leaders who play a child’s game, but Bagapsh is not one of them.”

Source: The New York Times

On the Passing of Sergey Bagapsh, the President of Abkhazia - CircassianWorld
Abkhaz Leader Sergei Bagapsh Dies, by Liz Fuller

Beware of Greeks bringing gifts, by Richard Berge

2011-05-15T15:28:00.007+03:00

antigeopolitics, May 14 -- Ahead of the anniversary of the mass killings and forced exile of the Circassians from their ancestral lands in the Caucasus at the hands of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century, which will be marked on the 21st of May, the parliament of Georgia has again mooted the possibility of recognising these events as genocide. The Circassian genocide has had a profound impact on Circassian history and national identity, and the process towards its recognition is given huge importance by many Circassians, especially among the diaspora in Turkey and the wider Middle East. However, until recently, no state has shown willingness to officially recognise the Circassians genocide as such. This changed in late 2010, when following a speech by president Mikhail Saakashvili, the process towards recognising the Circassian genocide was begun by the Georgian parliament. This process further sparked a conference on the Circassian genocide held in Tbilisi in March 2011, organised by the Jamestown Foundation and with the participation of the so-called American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, both known instruments of the US foreign policy establishment.

Since its failed bid to recapture the breakaway republics Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 2008 August War, the Georgian overture towards the Circassians has formed part of a charm offensive to shore up support for Georgia among the peoples of the Russian North Caucasus, and drive a wedge between Russia and the peoples of the region. As seen from Tbilisi, the conflicts in the Georgian breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are merely the result of Russian efforts to destabilize an independent and sovereign Georgian state, and Georgia reckons that two can play this came. Ostensibly under the aegis of pan-Caucasian unity and solidarity, Georgian president Mikhal Saakashvili has ordered the abolition of visas to Georgia for citizens from North Caucasus republics, as well as the establishment of the Russian-language satellite TV channel “First Caucasian” or PIK in Russian. The idea was to give the inhabitants of the North Caucasus more possibilities for education and trade in Georgia, and also provide them with a source of “unbiased” information that is not controlled by the Russian government.

While Russian authorities have universally condemned Georgia’s moves, many in the North Caucasus republics themselves have been cautiously optimistic or supportive. However, there is considerable lingering distrust of the Georgian actions and their motives in the North Caucasus for historical and ideological reasons. The Circassians especially point to the role played by Georgia in the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus, where the Georgian nobility participated on Russia’s side against Circassians and other highlanders in the Great Caucasian War, which events eventually led to the Circassian genocide. Circassians also note what they see as double standards in Georgian dealings with them and what they see as their “brother nation”, the Abkhaz, especially in the light of Georgia’s attempts to suppress Abkhaz national aspirations during the 1992-1993 war in Abkhazia. In any case, it is widely believed that the Georgian conception of Caucasian unity is designed to further Georgia’s ambition to become a regional leader, a role which the other Caucasian peoples, fiercely independent and assured of their own position in the region, would naturally be wary to grant it.

There is also notable cause for concern when assessing the renewed Western interest in the Circassians and their predicament. Some Western opinion formers and policy makers acting through organisations such as the Jamestown Foundation have primarily the national interests of the West and the United States at heart, and seek to use the Circassians and other peoples of the North Caucasus as tools to further their own geopolitical agenda. This turn of events has historical precedents in British interest in the Circassian cause in the period running up to the Cirmean War, which even included pledges of military support to the Circassians in their fight against the Russian Empire. However, Circassian hopes in the British eventually turned out to be misplaced, as Britain abandoned all aid to the Circassians following the end of the war. Current Western support for the Circassians is not likely to be more reliable.

It is not at all clear either that recognition of the Circassian genocide by Georgia or other third parties would have the positive effect that Circassian nationalists, especially in the diaspora, are hoping for. Rather than force concessions from Moscow on cultural or political rights, or exact some form of apology and reparation for past wrongdoings, it is more likely that recognition will only harden the front between Russia and the Circassians and worsen the lot of Circassians currently living in Circassia. Examples here can be readily drawn from the efforts of many countries to recognise the Armenian genocide, which so far has failed to make Ankara relent on its position. In addition, the stubbornness by which recognition has been pursued, especially by the Armenian diaspora, have actually helped to further complicate the relationship between Armenia and Turkey, forestalling beneficial economic and diplomatic steps like the reopening of the Turko-Armenian border. Consequently, those among the Circassians who are prepared to accept outside support for their cause would do well to ponder who their allies are, and which possible consequences recognition could entail.

Source: antigeopolitics

Richard Berge holds a BA in Politics and Georgian language from the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London, and a MA in Politics, Security and Integration from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at UCL. He has worked for the Norwegian Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2009 and the European Centre for Minority Issues in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2010, focusing on human rights, freedom of information and minority rights in both countries. He is currently looking to publish his MA thesis on the political situation of the Armenian minority in Abkhazia.

Related Issues

Terrorism meets xenophobia in Russia, by Charles King and Rajan Menon

2011-02-06T21:47:00.003+02:00

Terrorism meets xenophobia in Russia

Deadly tit-for-tat between ethnic Russians and North Caucasus migrants is escalating.

Los Angeles Times

By Charles King and Rajan Menon

February 6, 2011

If current demographic trends continue, within the next half-century Muslims will constitute a sizable part, perhaps even a plurality, of Russia's population; indeed, Moscow currently has more Muslim inhabitants than any other European city. And unlike those in Amsterdam or Paris, most of Moscow's Muslims are citizens, not immigrants — products of the Russian Empire's 19th century southward expansion. In the coming decades, Muslim peoples from Russia's North Caucasus and Volga regions, together with migrants from neighboring Central Asia and Azerbaijan, will continue to displace Russia's Slavic core and reshape how the country defines itself.

These shifts pose new challenges to Russia's stability. Last December, following the slaying of an ethnic Russian in Moscow, allegedly by a man from the North Caucasus, mobs of chanting youths took to the streets, arms raised in Nazi salutes. "Moscow for Muscovites," read one of their tamer bits of graffiti. Photos and video showed other young men — pummeled, bloodied and dark-haired — cowering behind a thin phalanx of police officers.

Russia has an undeniable terrorism problem emanating from its restive North Caucasus, a region featuring authoritarian politics and a growing Islamist insurgency. But it also has a xenophobia problem. Xenophobic mob attacks on Muslim minorities in the national capital and other major cities could make terrorism attacks occasions for additional bloodshed. This deadly tit-for-tat threatens, especially in the context of an economic crisis, to stoke ethnic and religious conflict, empowering Russia's increasingly visible ultranationalist forces.

The people targeted in the violent episodes exemplified by Moscow's December demonstrations were primarily from the North Caucasus, a mountainous stretch along Russia's southern border with Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the wake of two wars in Chechnya, an insurgency has gained ground across the area. That, along with poverty, joblessness and the indiscriminate roundups of young men by state security services, has spurred out-migration from the area since the 1990s.

The more chaotic the North Caucasus becomes, the larger the exodus of people to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, and in turn the greater the likelihood of violence between far-right hooligans and Russian Muslims.

Russia's leaders understand the stakes. President Dmitry Medvedev has labeled the North Caucasus his country's greatest internal problem. After the December riots, he denounced the fanatics for sowing disorder. Likewise, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned against extremism of all sorts.

Moscow has also tried to stabilize the North Caucasus. It has increased investment in Chechnya, seeking to rebuild the republic after the weakening of the insurgency there. Still, the other North Caucasus republics — unfamiliar places such as Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria — remain mired in poverty and unemployment. The Kremlin has sought to buy off power brokers in the region, hoping to rely on the local strongmen to keep order and crack down on suspected insurgents.

But this is not the kind of thoroughgoing reform that is needed. And the indiscriminate dragnets deployed against Muslim men in the region have driven even more young people to leave or to join the insurgency's ranks.

In the meantime, anti-migrant chauvinists in major cities farther north have made life even more miserable for those fleeing the North Caucasus. Politicians have inflamed the situation by painting all Muslim migrants as criminals and aliens. And the Russian media tend to denounce the chaos while ignoring the victims — unless they are ethnic Russians.

Russia has seen all this before. The eruptions of violence against neighbors who were also perceived as insidious outsiders marked Russia's early 20th century. Anti-Jewish pogroms in then-Russian cities such as Kishinev and Odessa assaulted one of the Russian Empire's most vibrant communities. But they also hurt Russia: by increasing emigration, staining the country's international reputation and creating a repertoire of violence against Jews that was reprised during the Bolshevik revolution and Russian civil war.

Then, as now, the thugs were a tiny part of the population. Neither today's extreme nationalists nor the Islamist terrorists are representative of the communities they claim to speak for — a point Medvedev, who has praised Islam as a vital part of Russian history, has been at pains to make.

It is a fine line the Russian government must walk. In responding to terrorism, the government must be careful to separate the terrorists from the rest of Russia's large Muslim community. Medvedev's use of the term "pogrom" to describe last December's riots is a step in the right direction. Without such clear signals from Moscow, Muslims in and from the North Caucasus — who, after all, have been the main victims of Islamist terrorism for years — will wonder whether the country they now call home is big enough to embrace them.

The Domodedovo Airport bombing points to the need for better intelligence and policing to protect all of Russia's citizens. Russia's creaking security services, often heavy handed and inefficient, have scored some remarkable successes against insurgents, and the airport attack will be another opportunity to reexamine the performance of state institutions. But the larger challenge for Russian citizens and their government involves coming to terms with a future in which the Muslim periphery is no longer so peripheral.

Charles King is a professor at Georgetown University and the author of "Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams." Rajan Menon is a professor of political science at City College of New York/City University of New York and the author of "The End of Alliances."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Cherkesov's relatives treat murder of "Spartak" fan as tragic accident

2010-12-17T11:57:00.001+02:00

Caucasian Knot, Dec. 13, 2010 -- Relatives and friends of Aslan Cherkesov, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria, suspected of murdering Yegor Sviridov, a football fan of "Spartak" in Moscow, consider what had happened to be a tragic accident, which was caused by a fatal coincidence.

"I know the pain of loss," said Sonya Cherkesova, Aslan's mother, "six months ago I buried my elder son. I express my sincere and heartfelt condolences to the mother of the deceased boy. Along with that, I want to declare to the whole world: my son is not a killer! He could not kill a man just so - whatever they talk about him!"

The traumatic pistol from which the fatal shot was made belonged to Aslan Cherkesov for two years. "He's never used it during this time," his mother said. "I know my son: if his life had not been in real danger, he wouldn't have used it this time either."

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Sviridov was shot dead from a traumatic pistol at night on December 6 in Moscow in a mass brawl. Not far from the place of the incident militiamen detained Aslan Cherkesov, 26, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria and found a traumatic pistol on him. Under decision of the court, Aslan Cherkesov was detained for two months - till February 6, 2011. Cherkesov himself declared his innocence, saying that his actions were self-defence, and he fired blindly, without aiming.

According to his relatives, Cherkesov with his friends was in the bar at "Rechnoy Vokzal". His three friends went out a bit earlier, while he paused to buy cigarettes. When he went out, his friends were lying on the pavement, and four persons were beating them. Aslan had his arms twisted out, and he was thrown on a car hood. Then, according to his story, they started choking him. When he saw a "rosettes" (a broken bottle neck with sharp edges looking like petals) in hands of one of the attackers, he pulled his pistol out of the back pocket of his trousers and made three shots into the air. The fourth shot was fatal.

Sonya Cherkesova does not deny that her son had administrative offences: "But those were minor offences; the murder, of which my son is accused, is quite a different thing."

"Journalists write that Aslan did not study anywhere and did not work. They try to make a complete 'rogue' out of him. I am very indignant with this, it's a lie! My brother has higher education, he worked as a rescue in the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE), and then was engaged in real estate business - he worked in a realtor company," said Ann Cherkesova.

Besides, the woman was furious that her brother was announced to be a nationalist: "How can he be a nationalist, when he has a Russian wife, who was pregnant with his child?"

Ann told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent about her intention to meet the family of the deceased young man. "Despite the threat to kill us, arriving from 'Spartak' fans, we'll surely meet the family of Yegor Sviridov to tell them that we are very sorry about what has happened," she said.

See earlier reports: "Rally of football fans in Moscow escalated into clash with OMON fighters," "In Moscow, 3000 fans commemorate "Spartak" fan killed in a mass brawl," "Spartak fans against RFU's refusal to toughen punishment to Anzhi."

Source: Caucasian Knot

Related Issues

Fearing Clashes, Police Detain Scores

2010-12-16T11:44:00.003+02:00

Riot police officers detaining young men they suspect of seeking to stage interracial riots outside the Kievsky train station in Moscow on Wednesday.

By Natalya Krainova - The Moscow Times

Thousands of riot police patrolled downtown Moscow on Wednesday, detaining at least 800 people, conducting pat-downs and closing the Yevropeisky shopping center and access to the nearby Kievskaya metro station to stave off violence in the area.

Police feared that thousands of young people, inflamed over the killing of an ethnic Russian in a brawl with Caucasus natives on Dec. 5 and a subsequent riot by ethnic Russians that targeted Caucasus natives last weekend, would heed online calls to stage a violent rally in front of the Yevropeisky mall at 6 p.m.

Hundreds of young people — Caucasus natives and ethnic Russians — gathered in the vicinity of the mall on Wednesday evening, many of them chanting “Russia for Russians” and “Moscow for Muscovites.”

Police detained anyone whom they considered a potential threat, dragging them to waiting police buses.

“The situation in Moscow is under the control of law enforcement agencies. Residents have no reason to feel threatened,” police spokesman Viktor Biryukov said, Interfax reported.

But the situation remained tense late Wednesday, with many young people itching for a fight. A Moscow Times reporter overheard four boys aged 14 to 15 discussing how to carry out an attack on Caucasus natives as they drank alcoholic cocktails near the Noviye Cheryomushki metro station. “Now we’re going to find a [racial epithet] to beat,” said one. “What’s most important is to make sure that there are no cops around.”

A 20-year-old Caucasus native was hospitalized after he was beaten in a Moscow region commuter train by a group of about 20 young people screaming nationalist slogans, a police source told Interfax.

Shortly before 6 p.m., a fight broke out between ultranationalists and Caucasus youth, some of them armed with baseball bats and metal rods, on Smolenskaya Naberezhnaya, near the Yevropeisky mall. At least five people were injured, Interfax reported.

Riot police were also patrolling Manezh Square, where 5,500 football fans and nationalists angered over the death of football fan Yegor Sviridov, 28, staged an unsanctioned rally that turned violent Saturday when protesters attacked a group of Caucasus natives who passed by.

The Japanese Embassy recommended that its nationals stay off Moscow streets because “riots are possible,” an embassy source told Interfax.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin promised Tuesday to deal harshly with anyone who attempted a repeat of Saturday’s violence. President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the police to punish those responsible and offered assurances on Twitter that the authorities remained in control.

But in the hours after Saturday’s riot, a message appeared online that called for revenge and was attributed to a Caucasus blogger.

“I call on you to arm yourselves if possible and have no fear and not to hide at home,” said the blogger’s message. “We will decide at the scene about further actions.”

The call, which bloggers said was first posted on the social network VKontakte.ru but was deleted by late Saturday, was reposted more than 3,300 times on LiveJournal by late Wednesday.

Police have downplayed the message as a provocation by ultranationalists, but many young people appear to have heeded the call.

By late Wednesday, police had detained at least 800 people, including 400 near the Yevropeisky mall, police spokesman Biryukov said. Many of those detained were Caucasus natives carrying air guns and other weapons, he said. Other reports said the number of detainees reached 1,200.

About 600 young people chanting nationalist phrases and obscenities marched from Kievsky Station toward nearby Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya Ulitsa, Interfax reported. Riot police walked beside the crowd, blocking an attempt by several dozen youth to shut off Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya Ulitsa to traffic, RIA-Novosti reported.

By 6 p.m., the Yevropeisky mall and the exit from the Kievskaya metro station were closed.

The threat of violence hung over other cities as well. About 60 people were detained near Sennaya Ploshchad in St. Petersburg on suspicion of planning a riot, Interfax reported, citing local police. In downtown Samara, about 100 young people were detained on suspicion of planning to hold an unsanctioned gathering, local police told Interfax.

North Caucasus leaders urged young people to refrain from violence. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov warned at a news conference late Tuesday that “pressure” would be placed on any Chechens who took part in rallies in Moscow.

“If any one of our Chechen young men allows himself to take part in mass protests in Moscow … he will be pressured through his family and friends according to our traditions and customs, which do not tolerate disobedience,” he said.

Said Amirov, mayor of the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, called on Caucasus natives to opt for “a dialogue on the level of people of authority representing the conflict parties” instead of rallying on Moscow’s streets, RIA-Novosti reported.

The All-Russian Association of Fans also asked football fans not to take part in rallies Wednesday “because it might have a negative effect on the fan community,” association head Alexander Shprygin told Interfax.

Meanwhile, the security services were searching the Internet for extremist speech and determining IP addresses of those who posted extremist messages, RIA-Novosti reported, citing an unidentified senior security official.

Source: The Moscow Times

Related Issues

Far right goes on rampage during anti-immigrant clashes in Moscow - The Independent
Statement of the Kabardino-Balkaria Human Rights Centre
Over 1,300 detained in Moscow as police head off riot suspects - Ria Novosti
Russia ethnic riots: Hundreds arrested in Moscow - BBC
Photo report from the riots
Kasparov, Nemtsov & Yashin on Moscow’s Ethnic Riots - The Other Russia
Fearing Clashes, Police Detain Scores, by Natalya Krainova - The Moscow Times
Russia's Race Riots: Are Police Turning a Blind Eye? - Time

Far right goes on rampage during anti-immigrant clashes in Moscow

2010-12-16T11:23:00.006+02:00

Many of the demonstrators shouted nationalist slogans and gave Nazi salutes.

By Shaun Walker in Moscow - The Independent

Police detained around 1,000 people in central Moscow yesterday in an attempt to contain ethnic tensions between Russian nationalists and migrant workers – sparked by the killing of a football fan – from flaring into pitched street battles.

Thousands of riot police patrolled locations across the city, including the Kiev Station, where there were rumours that a massed fight could take place between the two groups. Police checked documents and confiscated knives and other weapons, calling on the crowds to disperse and detaining anyone who disobeyed orders, herding them into waiting buses.

The Russian capital has been tense since the weekend, when protests over the murder of Yegor Sviridov, a Spartak Moscow football fan, turned violent. Mr Sviridov was killed earlier this month, allegedly shot dead by a native of Russia's troubled, mainly Muslim, North Caucasus region.

On Saturday, thousands of football fans and nationalists packed Moscow's Manezh Square, near the Kremlin, and began attacking anyone of a non-Slavic appearance. In terrifying scenes, riot police had to tell bloodied victims to hide under cars as they fought off the angry mob and waited for reinforcements. After the fighting on the square was brought under control, mobs of youths entered the metro system, and proceeded to pull people who looked non-Russian from trains and assault them on the platform. Dozens were injured.

Yesterday, nationalist groups said they were planning to meet again, while the Russian blogosphere had been awash with rumours that hundreds of Chechens and other natives of the North Caucasus were travelling to Moscow to exact revenge for Saturday's attacks. The fear was of a clash between two heavily armed gangs bent on revenge.

In the end, while the police detained hundreds, there was little in the way of fighting. Groups of nationalists shouted "Russia for Russians!" and "Moscow for Muscovites", while scuffles broke out at various locations across the Russian capital. But the serious battles that had been expected did not materialise, and most of those detained were released shortly afterwards.

The situation in the Russian capital remains tense, however, with nationalist leaders using rhetoric designed to stoke tension. "Today Moscow is a dangerous city, mainly due to immigrants from the North Caucasus and Central Asia," said Alexander Belov, a nationalist figurehead who formerly led the Movement against Illegal Immigration. "Russia is now a battleground. If you go out unarmed, you have minimal chance of surviving. I call on every Russian to carry a gun or at least a knife – not to do so is an act of criminal irresponsibility."

President Dmitry Medvedev has called for order and promised that those provoking riots will be punished.

Source: The Independent

Related Issues

Statement of the Kabardino-Balkaria Human Rights Centre
Over 1,300 detained in Moscow as police head off riot suspects - Ria Novosti
Russia ethnic riots: Hundreds arrested in Moscow - BBC
Photo report from the riots
Kasparov, Nemtsov & Yashin on Moscow’s Ethnic Riots - The Other Russia
Fearing Clashes, Police Detain Scores, by Natalya Krainova - The Moscow Times
Russia's Race Riots: Are Police Turning a Blind Eye? - Time
Boy, 14, suspected of racist murder in Moscow - Herald Sun

Geopolitics For Dummies: What Does The Collapse Of The Soviet Union Really Mean? By Eugene Ivanov

2010-12-13T21:00:00.007+02:00

The Ivanov Report, December 13, 2010 -- Regardless of how one would characterize the collapse of the Soviet Union -- as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" or just its "major geopolitical disaster" -- everyone appears to agree that it was one of the 20th century's most fateful geopolitical events. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once called it a "genuine drama" for the Russian nation. In contrast, many in the West celebrated the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a Cold War trophy and a sign of the "end of history."

While the fact that the Soviet Union has "collapsed" is not in dispute, little attention is being paid to what the Soviet Union, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), actually was. The only thing everyone seems to remember is that the USSR was composed of 15 so-called Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR). So when the USSR was "collapsing", the "collapse" was supposed to proceed precisely along the borders separating the SSRs, resulting in the creation of 15 newly independent states. Can it get any simpler than that?

Not so fast. In 1991, the Soviet Union was a true administrative monster that held together as many as 173 different territorial entities: 15 above-mentioned SSRs, 20 Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs, parts of SSRs), 8 autonomous regions, 114 regions, 6 territories ("край"), and 10 autonomous districts.

Countless changes to this administrative puzzle have occurred in almost 70 years (1922-1991) that the Soviet Union was in existence: new districts, regions and republics emerged and then disappeared with the speed of images on a slide show; borders between entities were drawn and redrawn, and then redrawn again, by a restless hand of a mysterious artist; shuffling smaller "republics" between bigger ones was taking place almost as often as shuffling cards in professional poker. Just a few examples. In 1936, the Kazakh and Kyrgyz ASSRs ceased being parts of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the largest SSR in the USSR, and were "upgraded" to the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSRs, while the Karakalpak ASSR was transferred from the RSFSR to the Uzbek SSR. In the 1950's, a swath of RSFSR territories bordering the Kazakh SSR went under the Kazakh SSR's jurisdiction. In 1954, the Ukraine SSR got a gift from the RSFSR: Crimea (the Crimea region of the RSFSR).

Think about that for a moment. Crimea has been an intrinsic part of Russia for almost 200 years, with the Russian Empire spending blood and treasure, during the Crimean War of 1853-1856, to keep the peninsula within its borders. And then, a Communist apparatchik, Nikita Khrushchev, following the best traditions of the Soviet Union's arbitrariness, just transferred Crimea from Russia proper to Ukraine. (The reason for Khrushchev's decision -- to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia -- sounds especially absurd today.) Is it not incumbent upon anyone who wants to put away the legacy of the Soviet Union to condemn this act of supreme state stupidity (the term "state treason" would perhaps be more appropriate) and to demand that Crimea be returned to where it truly belongs: in Russia?

Granted, the borders of some Soviet Socialist Republics -- the three Baltic SSRs (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) come to mind first -- did reflect historically established demarcations between stable and mature nations. But others did not. Instead, they were created by the malicious mind of the world's most creative nation builder, Josef Stalin. Take the Georgian SSR. This product of Stalin's imaginative cartography included the Abkhaz ASSR and South Ossetia autonomous region, both placed under Georgian rule in contradiction to historic and common sense and despite protestations by both the Abkhaz and Ossetian people. So when in 1991, Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia rightfully demanded their independence from Georgia. They won it, after an armed rebellion, in 1992-1993. But the Western governments have refused to accept their de facto independence. Western strategists apparently believed that in this part of the Soviet Union, its "collapse" should be partial, so that Georgia's independence from the USSR was legitimate, despite the fact that Georgia joined the USSR voluntarily, but the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia was not, despite the fact that both entities were made part of Georgia by Stalin's order.

Our Secretary of State ought to consider this the next time she articulates U.S. policy in the region. The Madam Secretary should remember that by vowing to uphold Georgia's "territorial integrity", she is attempting to preserve the legacy of the Soviet Union (and fulfill the dreams of its bloody dictator).

(The Soviet Union is hardly the only place where creative geopolitical cartography was applied. The West applauded the "collapse" of Yugoslavia, a mini-"evil empire" for many. But for the NATO strategists, the "collapse" was not complete enough, so NATO took away, by brutal force, Kosovo from Serbia. But when Serbs in Western Kosovo wanted to join their compatriots in Serbia to stop the ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Kosovars, the West cried foul and vowed to uphold the "territorial integrity" of the narcomafia heaven that contemporary Kosovo is.)

It will take time to heal all the wounds -- political, economic, social, cultural, and physological -- the precipitious and disorderly disintegration of the Soviet Union has caused to Russia and its people. It will also take time to fully understand what the Soviet Union was and was not in the history of the Russian state. The burden of this work lies on the shoulders of the Russians themselves. But we in the West can help, too. First, by accepting that today's Russia is not a Soviet Union and will never be one. Second, by realizing that the "collapse" of the Soviet Union is still going on, and we can't just end its history by whim.

Source: The Ivanov Report

Soccer fans clash with police in Moscow

2010-12-12T12:14:00.013+02:00

(CNN), December 12 -- Police have released more than 60 soccer fans detained Saturday in downtown Moscow riots that injured 29 people, an interior department spokesman said Sunday, according to state-run media.

Hundreds of soccer fans clashed with Moscow police as an unsanctioned nationalist-tinged mass memorial for a fellow supporter turned violent, according to state media.

The confrontations took place in Manezh Square, outside the Kremlin, and led to the arrests of 65 Spartak Moscow fans for "disobedience," Moscow police spokesman Viktor Biryukov said, according to official Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

An undetermined number of people -- including several police -- were hurt in the clashes, news agencies reported.

The head of the Spartak Moscow fan club told the semi-official news agency RIA Novosti that the showdown had nothing to do with sports but instead was rooted in problems in Russian society. Nationalist group members stirred the clashes, Russian Football Union president Sergei Fursenko told the news agency.

Some 5,000 fans of the Moscow soccer club had gathered to remember a fellow fan, Yegor Sviridov, who was killed December 6 in northern Moscow by several men from Russia's Caucasus region.

Police blocked their rally, but fans then started a fight with men from Caucasus, reported Itar-Tass. Hundreds of fans chanted nationalist slogans, with some throwing flares and smoke pellets at police.

Video on the independent Russia 24 network showed helmeted police officers clubbing protesters and dragging them away.

Anti-riot police used batons to try to break up the gathering and help facilitate traffic through the area, according to Itar-Tass. Some fights broke out, and several police officers were injured.

Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev used a megaphone to urge the crowd to disperse, saying, "You have let (your) steam out. Now you'd better go home," reported Itar-Tass. Kolokoltsev later credited Interior Ministry official Yuri Demidov for giving "exhaustive answers" to fans' questions and calming them down.

Still, according to Itar-Tass, about 300 supporters "crushed everything" on their way from the square to the subway, breaking lights on escalators and smashing windows on a train.

Kolokoltsev said that he was confident that all those involved in the December 6 confrontation in northern Moscow would be arrested. Itar-Tass reported Friday that two of those suspects had already been detained.

Source: CNN

Related issues

Fans clash with troops in Moscow - The Guardian
Factbox: Clashes in Moscow and St. Petersburg involving football fans - Ria Novosti
Police step up security at railway stations over possible football fans’ protests - Itar-Tass
Football Fans, Troops Clash in Moscow - The Moscow Times

During an unauthorized rally fans at the Manege Square a few dozens people attacked migrants from the Caucasus (Ria Novosti)

21 May 1864: From Dmitri Kipiani to Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich Romanov

2010-12-09T21:35:00.003+02:00

Excerpt from Stanislav Lakoba's ''Двуглавый орел и традиционная Абхазия'' (Double-headed eagle, traditional Abkhazia)

In the suppression of the last pockets of resistance in the Caucasus, Georgian militia, loyal servants of the autocratic state, played a significant role. Together with the Russian troops, they took part in the victory parade at Krasnaya Polyana on 21 May 1864. And on 9 June, as a crowd gathered, Tiflis Marshal of the Nobility, Dmitri Kipiani, greeted the Governor of the Caucasus, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich Romanov, with the words:

"Your Imperial Highness! You have completed the conquest of the Caucasus and have thus incorporated in history an event of enormous importance that is inseparable from your name. Persons selected by the Georgian nobility bring your Imperial Highness congratulations in the name of all social classes."

In June, the autocratic state abolished the Abkhazian monarchy and instituted a temporary "military-national administration." Thereafter, Abkhazia was renamed the Sukhum Military Department of the Russian Empire. General P. N. Shatilov became Head of the Department on 12 July 1864.

*****

В подавлении последних очагов сопротивления на Кавказе большую роль сыграли и грузинские ополчения - верные служители самодержавия. Вместе с русскими войсками они принимали участие в торжественном параде победы на Красной Поляне 21 мая 1864 года. А уже 9 июня при стечении народа тифлисский предводитель дворянства Дмитрий Кипиани обратился с приветствием к наместнику на Кавказе, великому князю Михаилу Николаевичу Романову:

"Ваше Императорское Высочество! Вы довершили покорение Кавказа и тем внесли в историю неразлучное с вашим именем событие громадной важности. Избранные грузинским дворянством, приносим Вашему Императорскому высочеству поздравление от имени всего сословия".

В июне самодержавие упразднило Абхазское княжество и ввело временное "военно-народное управление". Отныне Абхазия была переименована в Сухумский военный отдел Российской империи. Начальником отдела 12 июля 1864 г. стал генерал П. Н. Шатилов.

http://www.apsny.ru/history/history.php?page=content/abkh_mir.htm

Двуглавый орел и традиционная Абхазия

Станислав Лакоба

********************

Appendix:

- Many Georgians were eager to take advantage of the privileges associated with imperial service, associate themselves with Europe's notion of progress, and also distinguish themselves from nearby rival and Islamic peoples such as the North Caucasus mountaineers.[5]

- Service records from the imperial era left in what has recently been renamed the Georgian National Archive illustrate the important role played by Georgians in various wars against both mountaineers and the Ottoman Turks.[6]

- Colonel Giorgi Tsereteli from Kutaisi, for example, not to be confused with the writer and sometime theater critic referred to later in this article, managed to survive fighting in Chechnia and Dagestan from 1855-59, service on the Lezgin Line after the conquest, and combat in the war of 1877-78 against the Turks. In 1876 he helped put down a rebellion in Svanetia.[7]

- After the conquest, a Georgian was considered sufficiently reliable to administer troublesome Dagestan oblast¢ in the 1880s. [8]

- Tbilisi served not only as the base of imperial administration and a growing imperial educated society, but also as an anchor for the Russian military in their prosecution of the long Caucasus War.[9]

- Tbilisi was host to important innovations in Russian imperial policy. The well-known geographic, ethnic, and religious complexities of the region perhaps contributed to a general willingness on the part of Russian officialdom to innovate in its administration of this frontier. Tsar Nicholas I himself lost patience with the seemingly interminable war and granted extensive authority to Prince Vorontsov, an unusually powerful and independent figure in the imperial administration. As Anthony Rhinelander has explained, Vorontsov was experienced in the borderlands and well-acquainted with the Caucasus, where he began his military career as an adjutant to Georgian Prince P. D. Tsitsianov (Paata Tsitsishvili) in the early 19th century.

The Dilemmas of Enlightenment in the Eastern Borderlands: The Theater and Library in Tbilisi, by Austin Jersild and Neli Melkadze http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/kritika/v003/3.1jersild.html

Notes

[5] sakartvelos sakhelmtsipo saistorio arkivi (Georgian National Historical Archive, Tbilisi, hereafterSSSA) f. 4, op. 3, 1846–1855, d. 181, ll. 22, 60

[6] SSSA f. 7, op. 8, 1861–74, d. 2, ll. 21–52.

[7] SSSA f. 229, op. 1, 1884–85, d. 127, ll. 33–37.

[8] SSSA f. 229, op. 1, 1888, d. 220.

[9] On the war and Sufism in the North Caucasus, see Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994), and Anna Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 2000).

Interview: Zakayev Says ‘No Irresolvable Issues’ Between Russia, Chechnya

2010-09-23T16:35:00.002+03:00

RFE/RL | September 23, 2010

Akhmed Zakayev, head of the Chechen government in exile, returned to London on September 22 following his brief detention in Poland on an international arrest warrant requested by Russia. Zakayev had been in Poland to address the World Chechen Congress, which was meeting to develop a plan for ending the violence in the Russian republic and secure its “de-occupation.” He says he will return to Poland when necessary to participate in an extradition hearing.

Zakayev spoke with RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Natalya Golitsyna about his experience in Poland and about the status of the Chechen independence movement.

RFE/RL: You have said you were a victim of the political games of Poland and Russia. What do you mean by that?

Akhmed Zakayev: I mean that the Polish leadership and the Polish prosecutors had every reason to ignore the request that Russia sent to Poland because I had already been detained twice under that request. The first time was in Copenhagen [in 2002], and in Britain there was already a court process that lasted nearly a year on the basis of this very same request.

So Poland, as a member of the European Union, had every right to ignore this from a legal point of view. But in this matter, I think, political matters trumped the legal and rights aspects. That is why, in order to please Russia, they initiated an extradition procedure. In this sense, undoubtedly, I think that I became a victim because the congress and the efforts we were making in Copenhagen were nearly ruined, although we’d discussed all this with the Polish leadership and Polish politicians five or six months ago. And it was on the basis of agreement with them that the congress was arranged in Poland.

At the last moment, when Russia learned that I would participate, there was pressure on Poland and these papers were sent in order to disrupt the congress. Unfortunately, Poland helped them in this.

RFE/RL: Some people think that the idea of Chechen independence is no longer realistic. They say that since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, all Chechen groups – particularly separatist groups – are considered terrorists in the West.

Zakayev: I absolutely do not agree with that. Quite the opposite. There have been strong changes in international politics regarding Chechnya and Chechen subjects. The first is the recognition of Kosovo by the United States and the European Union. The second is Russia’s recognition of [the breakaway Georgian regions of] Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The third was the decision of the international tribunal in The Hague that Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia did not violate international law.

All three of these developments in international politics indicate that Chechnya and the Chechen question remain on the agenda.

As far as the claim that Chechens themselves are tired and have given up on the idea of independence goes, it has nothing to do with reality. Chechnya is a concentration camp, and usually people in concentration camps try to survive. They don’t go around making political demands. A good example is the Holocaust. No one then was talking about the creation of a state of Israel. They were trying to survive, and they did.

And that is what is happening in Chechnya now – the people are just trying to survive. Chechens will never give up because the idea of Chechen independence and freedom is not something [former Chechen President Djokhar] Dudayev or [former Chechen President Aslan] Maskhadov or Zakayev invented. It is a national idea that exists and will be supported until it becomes reality.

That is why I look at the future of Chechnya now with greater optimism than 10 or 15 years ago. And what is most important – in Russia itself there is the understanding that the current situation in Chechnya has to be changed. What is going on in Chechnya right now is costing Russia a lot, and this situation is all held together by one person, by the personal ambitions of [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin. Because a person who entered the political scene through Chechen blood, through the Chechen war, cannot admit that this was a mistake and that it is necessary to try something else.

This is the only reason that the conflict is continuing, and it will continue as long as Putin maintains a political position in Russia. That may be another 12 years….But for the national liberation movement, 10 or 12 years is not enough time to suppress or halt the movement itself.

RFE/RL: Does the idea of independence have broad support in Chechnya itself?

Zakayev: The fact that people in Chechnya today do not speak about independence is a sign of the times. I remember some examples. After the 1944 deportation and after the Chechens returned in 1956-57, during this period until 1990, the Chechens lived as if nothing had happened, as if everything was forgotten. But the slightest spark, which happened in the 1990s when there was the coup attempt [against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev] and such waves passed through Russia, it was precisely the 1944 deportation that became the detonator for everything that came later.

And compared to that, what has happened in the last 10 years…. Even old people who lived through both experiences say that the deportation was nothing compared to what is happening now. It is a land mine planted in Chechen society. And sooner or later, it will explode. But I am categorically against any revolutions. I don’t think the Chechen people can survive yet another revolution. It would be a national tragedy. That is why we must find a transition from the current regime to a normally formed power structure chosen by the Chechen people.

RFE/RL: Last summer you were expected to hold talks with the authorities in Chechnya, with the authorities in Russia. What has happened in the last year that made these good intentions collapse?

Zakayev: The problem was that they demonstrated their insincerity. What they stated publicly and what really happened were two different things. They declared good will and a desire for me to return home. But when we ran up against concrete questions that had to be settled, everything came to a halt.

The first matter was the people being held in Russian camps. That is, about 25,000 people. The second matter was the return of Maskhadov’s body. The third was the matter of not persecuting the relatives of Chechen fighters. Without settling these questions, it is not possible to discuss the consolidation of Chechen society. And without consolidating society, it is impossible to work out a unified political program that could be the basis for a lasting peace.

Everything ended on these formulas, because these three questions were within the competence of Moscow and Chechnya. But Moscow was not ready to settle these questions. And that’s where it ended.

RFE/RL: Those were your demands. What were you willing to concede to make such a dialogue happen?

Zakayev: We said from the beginning that Chechens have never set themselves the goal of defeating Russia. The matter of independence was never an end in itself for Chechens. Chechen independence is a guarantee of security. At one point, Putin said that the status of Chechnya is not important for Russia. On the basis of these two political components, we could have found settlement that would have been absolutely acceptable for Russia and for Chechnya, that would have satisfied everyone and facilitated a lasting peace.

There is the peace agreement signed by Maskhadov and in that agreement there is a project for another agreement where the Chechen side declared a single defensive space, a single economic and customs space. All these questions were resolvable. I am confident that even now there are no irresolvable issues in relations between Russia and Chechnya.

Source: RFE/RL

Window on Eurasia: Caucasus Emirate ‘a Product of Russian Special Services,’ Chechen Émigré Leader Says

The Caucasian Wars Go Pacific, by Thomas de Waal

2010-09-22T15:38:00.003+03:00

The National Interest | September 21, 2010

India, Nauru, Tuvalu. What do these three states have in common? The latter pair, both tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean, are two of the world’s smallest nations. By my calculations, India is 44,000 times more populous than Nauru and Tuvalu put together.

But it is UN General Assembly month, everyone who is not a permanent member of the Security Council is equal and a vote is a vote. Which is why the Georgia-Russia conflict has now opened up a new warm front in the Pacific.

Strangely enough, I know a little about Nauru, population 14,000, area eight square miles (or about one eighth of the District of Columbia), because the first head of state I ever interviewed was its president. His was the smallest state in the world and I was a very junior reporter with the BBC, so we were a good match. It was 1992 and I was compiling a report on a controversial shipment of plutonium that Japan was sending home by sea. Nauru had risked the wrath of the Japanese by saying it would not allow the ship to pass through its territorial waters. I telephoned half way across the world to be told that President Bernard Dowiyogo was actually in Kensington, London, that week and would be happy to give me an interview.

Nauru slipped from my consciousness until the day in 2009 when it suddenly and to much hilarity became the fourth country to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. It was all of course about money. Back in 1992 I hadn’t realized that poor courageous Nauru was also virtually bankrupt. It used to have spectacularly large deposits of phosphate, formed by centuries of bird droppings. Mining by British, German and Australian companies briefly gave Nauru the largest income per capita in the world in the 1960s, but then the phosphate began to run out, the landscape was devastated and the revenues were mismanaged. From the 1990s the microstate dabbled in offshore banking, was accused of being a haven for money laundering and for several years provided a home to a group of Afghan refugees whom Australia was prepared to pay not to keep.

All these ventures ran out of steam, until the government hit on a more durable revenue-earning scheme: converting UN membership into cash. Which is why Nauru has the distinction of being the only country in the world to have recognized as independent Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia—no hang-ups here about Europe’s post–Cold War borders. It also managed to recognize, de-recognize and then re-recognize the Taiwanese government, causing Beijing twice to sever diplomatic relations. I can only guess how much Nauru earned from these nifty about-turns, but we do know that, after recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russians donated nine million dollars to refurbish the island’s port.

Washington plays this game too, having had Nauru bulk up the No vote on the UN’s recurring resolutions on “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine” in which the United States tends to look rather lonely. In 2009 164 countries voted in favor of the latest such resolution; of the seven countries who voted against, four, alongside the United States, Israel and Australia, were Pacific microstates, Nauru among them.

Now Georgia has found a way to strike back, via Tuvalu, the closest Pacific state to Nauru. On September 11, it was reported that the government in Tbilisi is “providing financial aid to the permanent mission of Tuvalu to the United Nations.” Later it was confirmed that Georgia had paid for a medical shipment to Tuvalu worth “about $12,000,” or roughly one dollar for each of the island’s inhabitants.

And, hey presto, Tuvalu was one of fifty countries (along, incidentally, with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia) which voted in favor of the recent Georgian-sponsored United Nations General Assembly reaffirming the right of return of all refugees to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Naturally Nauru (and the Solomon Islands) were among seventeen nations voting against.

Fortunately, there are no signs of a new Caucasian war breaking out on the equator. Pacific geography means that although Nauru and Tuvalu are formally neighbors, they are actually eight hundred miles apart—and besides the South Ossetians have no warships. But both Georgia and Russia should be careful. Paying obeisance to Pacific microstates with the population of a U.S. suburb will only encourage little territories in both the North and South Caucasus—South Ossetia, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, the list continues—to ask the question, “If they can be UN members, why can’t we?”

Thomas de Waal is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Source: The National Interest

Call Off the Great Game, by Thomas de Waal

An Unfaltering Gaze, by Dmitry Babich

2010-09-21T23:23:00.003+03:00

Russia Profile, September 21, 2010

The Jobs of Provincial City Historians Are Back in Vogue

Russia’s regions are now using the history of their cities to forge their unique local identities.

The proclivity toward writing about a city, or even a town, usually the one where the author grew up, became widespread among Russia’s historians during the 1990s. Yuri Borisyonok, the editor in chief of the Rodina magazine, a monthly collection of historical essays and research published on glossy paper with pretty pictures, explained: “In the Soviet times, the best way for a historian to make a career was to go to Moscow or St. Petersburg, get an education and find a relatively well paid job with some scientific body, studying general problems of the country’s history—a research institute or an academic magazine.” To graduate from the historical faculty of Moscow State University and then return to one’s native town to teach at a school or, heaven forbid, to work at a local museum or an archive meant to fail. But this changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “The state stopped distributing apartments, and payment for research work became laughably small,” Borisyonok said. “Historians in Moscow and St. Petersburg found themselves fighting for survival. In this situation, opportunities offered by the governors and mayors in Russia’s provinces suddenly became more appealing.”

Indeed, with the shift from a centralized economy to economic federalism that occurred during the 1990s, Russia’s regions suddenly developed greater interest in their local histories. The rich historical past of some of these regions (primarily Novgorod, Kazan, Yaroslavl, Vladimir and Pskov, among many others) offered an opportunity to attract more tourists and to raise the region’s prestige. Even the governors of not very affluent regions developed an interest in their local histories and allotted funds for historical research from local budgets. At some stage, part of this historical research took a self-aggrandizing turn, justifying certain regions’ separatist ambitions. But the easing of political tensions in the country and general pragmatism later led to a certain shift of interest from “ethnic history” to “city history.” The latter provided more opportunities to mold a local identity beyond ethnic definitions, since Russia’s cities and towns, as elsewhere in the world, tend to be multiethnic, with a history of belonging to different states at different times.

A city of many nations

A good example of how a city’s history can be important for an entire region or even for the whole of Russia is Sochi, the future home of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. A city of 330,000 people, it is a good example of a troubled but fascinating history, reflecting some of the most important stages in the history of Russia and its neighbors.

Located on the territory of the Byzantine Empire and ruled by the mostly Greek-speaking successors of ancient Roman emperors, Sochi was a part of medieval Circassia and a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century until 1829, when it became part of Russia as a result of Turkey’s defeat in the Russo-Turkish war of 1828 to 1829. Seen as a key to the Caucasus Mountains, the city became the scene of protracted fighting between the advancing Russian colonizers and the local tribes. In the 1860s a large part of the local Adyghe population was faced with a choice: to be deported to Turkey or to move to other areas of the Russian Empire. As a result of tsarist policies the indigenous people were outnumbered by Russians—a situation characteristic of our times, too. At the same time, this period of history, decried by Circassian activists as “genocide,” serves today as a pretext for protests against holding the Olympics in Sochi. The format of urban (not ethnic!) history allows one to tackle even this thorny issue with tact, telling the truth without insulting anyone’s feelings.

After the end of hostilities in the Caucuses the city fell into its usual slumber, which continued until the early 1930s, when Joseph Stalin developed a taste for vacationing in that city. (Contrary to rumors about his workaholic character, during most of the 1930s Stalin spent at least two months every year vacationing in the south). Coupled with a similar passion for the place on behalf of the “first person in the Red Army,” Kliment Voroshilov, this became the driving force behind the city’s first general reconstruction, started by special Politburo order on October 9, 1933. The reconstruction was done on a grand scale, but in the post-Stalinist period of Soviet history the pace of change somewhat slowed, as Stalin’s successors in power preferred Crimea. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea found itself a part of independent Ukraine, and thus inaccessible for domestic vacationing. With Crimea out of business, Sochi was given a new boost by the continued presence of Russian presidents.

Both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin became great fans of Sochi. They pumped funds into it, citing the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sochi became the only major health resort with access to warm seas on Russia’s territory. On July 4, 2006, Putin’s tireless lobbying of Sochi brought the desired result: the International Olympic Committee chose Sochi as the location of the 2014 winter games, preferring it to South Korea’s Pyeongchang and Austria’s Salzburg. Interestingly, every one of these major events and epochs in the city’s history found its devoted researchers among brilliant local (and outside) historians.

A deadly profession

The period before the Russo-Turkish war was best covered by Yuri Voronov, a native of the neighboring Abkhazia. After Abkhazia became a de facto independent country in 1993, separating itself from the nationalist Georgia of the early 1990s and fending off an attempt to bring it back to heel by the multi-faced Eduard Shevardnadze in 1992, Voronov devoted a lot of effort to studying the ties between Sochi and the ancient Abkhazian kingdom in the seventh to the tenth centuries. It was a classic attempt to use history to build a national identity. In Voronov’s case, however, it was not mere opportunism, but a conscious attempt to bring to fruition the work of a lifetime.

In 1979, long before Gorbachev’s liberalization revealed the dormant animosity between Georgians and Abkhazians, Voronov published the book “The Antiquities of Sochi and its Environs.” During Georgia’s short but bloody war with the multiethnic splinter state of Abkhazia, Voronov became a member of the Abkhazian Parliament. In 1994, meeting a group of journalists, Voronov described the predicament of the Abkhazian population, then cut off from Sochi by Russia’s border guards. Acting on the orders of Russia’s leadership, which at the time tried to ally with Eduard Shevardnadze, the Russian border guards in the north and the Georgian army in the south isolated Abkhazia for several years from the outside world. This alliance with the White Fox, as Shevardnadze is known in his own country, proved to be remarkably short-lived and futile, since Abkhazians never “crawled on their knees” back to Georgia, as Tbilisi had hoped.

“Sochi fascinates me as a wonderful example of multi-ethnicity,” Voronov said at the time. “If local history teaches us anything, it is that borders in the Caucasus are always bloody and dangerous. This area forms a very complex and multi-faceted entity, and you can never divide it to everyone’s satisfaction. Ethnocentrism and the construction of mono-ethnic states in the Caucasus is often tantamount to genocide. Sochi, with its ancient walls, portal graves and magnificent antiquities, has always been at one of the crossroads of the world’s civilizations.”

Unfortunately, Voronov was murdered in September of 1995 by an unknown criminal near his home in Tsebelda, an Abkhazian valley not far from Sochi. Public opinion linked this murder to Voronov’s activity as the leader of the Russian community in Abkhazia. Voronov’s death marked the end of a period of immature freedom and separatist tidings ushered in by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms in the mid-1980s. A new, more down-to-earth vision of city history was needed.

The stench of Stalin’s failed struggle

And this vision was realized in the work of Sochi’s younger city historian, Lyudmila Kosheleva. Unlike Voronov, she did not go deep into the region’s ancient past, but instead concentrated on the fascinating story of Sochi’s reconstruction in the early years of Stalin’s rule. In the early 2000s, Kosheleva laid her hands on the fascinating correspondence of Stalin’s Politburo members discussing ways to clean up Sochi, which in 1933 to 1934, very much like nowadays, actually turned into the Soviet Union’s summer capital.

In a letter to Abel Yenukidze, the secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, published by Kosheleva in the Rodina magazine, the nominal head of the Red Army Kliment Voroshilov complained in 1933: “Everything is done in a very sloppy way… Since 1923 I regularly take (like hundreds of others) the dirt baths in Matsesta; this treatment must have some effect on my body. So, do you think our doctors keep track of my condition, draw the necessary conclusions, etc.? Nothing of the sort! In our sanatoriums this process is set in a lamentably shabby way. [Deputy Chief Sanitary Inspector Mikhail] Metallikov is naïve to the point of being criminal about it. He does not know anything, believes everything and allows himself to be deceived as the worst kind of idiot.”

It should be noted that in 1937 Metallikov was executed on Stalin’s orders. Officially, his meeting with the son of exiled Leon Trotsky at a scientific conference in Paris was the reason, but obviously the pitiful condition of Matsesta baths did not earn Metallikov a lot of friends in the Politburo. Metallikov’s sister Bronislava Metallikova was the wife of Alexander Poskryobyshev, Stalin’s personal secretary, but even her intervention did not save the poor doctor. The same terrible fate awaited Bronislava herself in the late 1930s, along with Voroshilov’s addressee, Abel Yenukidze. Why? Probably because, as Stalin wrote in September 1935 in a special message to Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov, “The water in Matsesta baths stays dirty, upon taking a bath it is still necessary to wash oneself again in fresh water at home… A special check revealed that the tanks had not been cleaned since 1933, developing a covering of dirt 30 centimeters thick. And this dirt is dumped with Matsesta water into the baths of the patients.”

Somehow, the Bolshevik leaders, always eager to require self-sacrifice from other citizens, were remarkably attentive to their own health and abhorred being sacrificed to some standard proletarian negligence. Kosheleva’s city-centered research reveals this better than hundreds of pages of abstract dissertations. And probably the reasons behind the cruelty of Stalin and Voroshilov should be looked for in more prosaic matters than Shakespearean ruminations about genius and villainy.

It should be noted that Matsesta’s waters stayed dirty even after a special order from the Politburo on October 9, 1933, which required putting all the dirt into a special sewer. The execution of Sochi’s mayor Alexander Metelyov in 1937 did not help, either—a demonstration of the “effectiveness” of Stalin’s system.

Source: Russia Profile

Window on Eurasia: Caucasus Emirate ‘a Product of Russian Special Services,’ Chechen Émigré Leader Says

2010-09-20T14:46:00.005+03:00

by Paul Goble

Staunton, September 20 – Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen nationalist leader in emigration, said yesterday that the shadowy Islamist Caucasus Emirate and its head Doku Umarov are “a product of the Russian special services,” which are used by Moscow for its own purposes rather than reflecting the aspirations of the people of Chechnya.

“In order to understand this,” Zakayev said, “it is sufficient to trace the history of the North Caucasus for the last 20 years. Such Islamist structures appeared as soon as Russia had need of them,” and both the Emirate and Umarov will disappear “when Russia ceases to have need of them” (skfonews.ru/news/1779).

The Chechen leader provided no specific evidence for his charges, relying instead on what could be no more than a continuing string of coincidences. But by making this suggestion now, he positions himself to challenge Russian suggestions that he and his associates are terrorists and to undercut Moscow’s image of itself as a leader of the counter-terrorist effort.

Zakayev, a leader of the Chechen movement in the 1990s, was in Poland for the World Congress of the Chechen People. When he arrived, he was arrested by the Poles on an Interpol warrant based on Russian charges that he was involved in terrorism. A Polish court then released him, and he has returned to London to get a new Polish visa in order to return for a hearing.

The relations between radical groups in the Caucasus and the Russian security services have a long and complicated history. Many of the radicals, such as Shamil Basayev, earlier served in Russian agencies, and many commentators have suggested that at least some of them continue to operate under Russian control.

Sometimes, as with Zakayev’s charges, these suggestions are self-serving whether they are true or not: If it is the case that Moscow is behind this or that radical movement such as the Emirate or if at least some accept those charges as true, then it follows that the Chechen national movement itself is not guilty of many of the things Moscow says it is.

But what makes Zakayev’s suggestion special is that he is making this charge not about links between Moscow and the national movements in the North Caucasus but rather about ties between the Russian special services and an Islamist group, charges that if accepted would discredit Moscow’s presentation of itself as an ally of the West in the war against terrorism.

Zakayev’s statement came at the end of a three-day Chechen conference near Warsaw at which, according to Kavkaz-Uzel.ru, its participants acknowledged that “in recent times, the world has practically forgotten about the Chechen problem.” By both his appearance and his charges, Zakayev was trying to change that (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/174407/).

Deni Teps, the president of the World Congress of the Chechen People, told the assembly that “the conflict [in Chechnya] not only has not ceased but it is spreading and now covers the entire territory of the Caucasus. And the so-called struggle with Islamist extremist has led to war between Christian countries” and Muslim ones, a very dangerous development.

The meeting called on the United Nations to convene “an international tribunal on Chechnya and on the European Union and council of Europe to organize a conference on the situation in the [Chechen] republic together with representatives of Russia,” Kavkaz-Uzel.ru reported, citing a Radio Liberty report.

Neither is likely to take this step: Russian opposition to anything that recalls the Chechen national struggle is too strong and Moscow’s influence too great. But Zakayev’s comments and the meeting in Poland show that the Chechen cause has not disappeared as Moscow claims and that the nature of the Islamist movement there may be different than Moscow suggests.

Source: Window on Eurasia

Russia and Turkey in new conditions in Black Sea region, by Aleхander Sotnichenko

2010-09-04T11:03:00.007+03:00

East+West Review Analytics Agency (24/08/10)

XXI century presented new reality for both Russia and Turkey. Now we can see that the West doesn’t want to include neither Turkey, nor Russia to its political and economical structures. Despite the development of western style modernization in our countries, Turkey has no chances to be a full member of the EU, but Russia looks more and more unfriendly in western eyes: I think we’ve lost the possibility to enter WTO in real future. We’re aliens for the West. It is the axiom for nowadays policy of Europe and USA, and I don’t see the prospects of changing this view.

The political elite of both Turkey and Russia was disappointed by the failed experiences of close and equal co-operation with the West in 1990-es. Turkey hasn’t been invited to the club of safe and well-developed European countries and we don’t hope that it’ll occur in close times. The political and economical support of the USA halts when the interests of Ankara cross the Washington pass, like it took place in 1974-1975 in Cyprus, or 2004 in Iraq. The main countries of liberal Europe recognize the “Armenian genocide” and even imprison people, who don’t. Turkey is always criticized for the human rights violation, for the low level of economical development (which is much better, then in Romania or Bulgaria for example), for the growing role of Military forces (supporting at the same time the Kurdish separatism from EU NGO’s) etc.

The same situation appears in the relations between Russia and the West. It’s possible to stop terrorism in bombing very distant independent countries Iraq, Afganistan or Pakistan, but the same style operations in the territory of Russian state are recognized as a genocide and violation of peoples self-determination. In 1991 after the fall of Soviet Union and Warsaw Treaty Organization all progressive people were waiting for the disbandment of NATO as a military organization. But instead USA invites new members to NATO (the most part of them supports all the overseas operations of Washington) despite the serious warnings of leading specialists in International Relations[1], bombs Russian ally Yugoslavia and play active role in anti-Moscow “orange revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. Now we see the real hostility of the USA policy in the Caucasus and in the structuring of new Anti-Missile system (BMD) in Eastern Europe. The later history of Russia – USA and Turkey – USA relations could be resumed: We can be allies of Washington only if our interests follows the mainstream of the American policy. I see that our political elites begin to understand this reality.

The relations between Russia and Turkey in XX century were not friendly. We were enemies in World War I and during the Cold War, in 1945-1946 Turkey was an object of Stalin’s expansion, and in 90-es Ankara tried to move Moscow’s influence from the Caucasus and Central Asia regions. All this initiatives did not give prospects for future friendship, but economy, geopolitics and security make us closer even if it is not corresponding with Turkish proverb “Moskovdan dost olmaz” or Russian old meaning basurman (musulman) as an enemy.

All years of XXI century our positions became closer and closer. We stopped to support separatist movements in the territory of a partner. The level of commodity circulation grew more then in 10 times from about 2 bln $ in 2000 to 25 bln $ in 2007, and this tendency continuous in 2008. Russia became the second economical partner of Turkey, but our economical relations not always reflect in political field. The last conflict in Georgia gave us a good chance to open a new page of the real partnership between Russia and Ankara.

The first and the main aspect of the Turkish plan of Caucasian Alliance is to stave off the West from the real policy in the Caucasus. Indeed, last 20 years the western political organizations or conflict resolution theories and programs haven’t solve any ethnic conflicts in the region. The only way of resolution was demonstrated in Georgia, where the USA at first supported the “Rose revolution”, and then armed with their allies for future wars against Abkhazia and South Ossetia. If the war in the Caucasus for USA is only the incomes from selling armament issue and an occasion for interference, for its neighbors it’s a thousands of refugees, closing of active trade ways, possible foreign presence in a zone of conflict.

The countries of the region (like Turkey and Russia) not only know better how to establish peace and stability because their historical fates, peoples and religions are associated with the Caucasus. They are really interested in stability much more then in war because it’s necessary for their own security and economic prosperity. For me as for Russian it is an omission that the idea of Caucasian Alliance came not from Moscow, but from Ankara. That means Turkey will play a leading role in this organization. But there is no other way to make the Caucasus “Zone of peace and Stability” except the co-operation between Russia and Turkey, and Russian suggestions also have to be coordinated with the main plan.

What are the points of co-operation for Turkey and Russia in the Caucasus?

Turkey-Armenia dialogue can not be positive without the mediating role of Russia. Armenia is a political and military partner of Russia, member of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russian military bases are situated in Armenia. People of Armenia don’t believe Turkey and I don’t think that the bilateral initiatives will be successful. Only Russia can help Yerevan to understand correctly Turkish suggestions and connect the both sides around common political platform.

The same we can say about the relations between Russia and Georgia. Ankara hasn’t broken the relations with Tbilisi in August 2008, but Moscow did. The image of Turkey as a mediator is much better for Russia then all other possible, like USA for example. Turkey is interested in expansion of its capital to Abkhazia as an experienced investor to real estate and tourism, also there are thousands of muhajeers Abaza origin in Turkey, who want to have business in their native land. Solving the problem of international recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is very important not only for Russian official structures, but also for Turkish business.

Armenian Security Council mentioned, that the mediating role of Turkey is impossible in resolution of the Karabakh conflict[2], the same reaction we have to wait from Azerbaijan if Russia offers its mediating mission. The OSCE mission failed: after 15 years of negotiations we can’t see any results of their activities. Only the joint effort of Turkey and Russia, framing their common position and joint mediating mission can make peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and solve the problem of Karabakh.

Caucasus is a very important transition region for oil and gas. In conditions of low-intensity permanent conflict we see multibillion losses of Baku – Tbilisi – Ceyhan pipeline, the impossibility of establishing Nabucco and several other projects. All countries of the Caucasus are interested in export or import energy resources like oil, gas or electricity. May be this projects are not profitable for all countries of the region, but pending the negotiations this problems can be solved in the region.

There is one problem: Iran is also situated in the Caucasus. What is interesting, they answered the Turkish initiative a month later after Erdogan’s statement with their own suggestions. Iran has a good relations with Armenia, and Yerevan doesn’t want to refuse it’s support. Iran has some antagonisms with neighbors – the status and sea borders on the Caspian sea, the religious invasion of Iranian funds to Azerbaijan and the distribution of Turkic nationalism ideology among Iranian azeri’s from pan-Turkism organizations of Turkey and Azerbaijan. Iran is in “Axis of Evil” list and hardly criticized by the West. The participation of Iran in the project of collateral co-operation can activate the negative reaction of the West (especially USA and Israel) which can prevent the positive development of the peacekeeping process in the Caucasus.

So, we are now very close to the future fantastic alliance, which can change the role of Turkey and Russia in the region and present our countries new possibilities of development and co-operation. We can establish an equal coordination system between our countries in the Caucasus and transform the level our relations from economical to full-size partnership. All we need is a coherent program of co-operation between the parts of a dialogue and the political will of our governments.

[1] The antagonist of the expansion of the military alliance is George Kennan. See Kennan G. Fateful Error // New York Times. - 1997. - 5 Febr.

[2] Security Council of Armenia: Turkey can’t be the Mediator in Resolution of Karabakh Conflict.// http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1057068.html

Source: East+West Review Analytics Agency

Russian Rights Activist Battles On In Chechnya

2010-08-31T21:02:00.005+03:00

Kheda Saratova is one of a handful of human rights activists left who continue to risk their lives in Chechnya.

By Gregory Feifer - RFE/RL, August 31, 2010

Nothing about Kheda Saratova's demeanor indicated the nature of her work when I first met her in Grozny five years ago.

She was escorting a group of rights activists to her native district of Shatoi, a lush stretch in the Caucasus Mountains in which some of the most protracted fighting in Chechnya had taken place.

Sunny and smiling, her elegant features crowned by dark bangs under a head scarf set back on her head, Saratova betrayed none of the hell she'd lived through. Not only had she survived both Chechen wars, but she took a job investigating the grim violence that characterized those conflicts: disappearances, torture, and murder that would otherwise have remained unknown.

Grozny was just beginning to be rebuilt and piles of rubble that were once buildings had been cleared from the city center. But violence was continuing and Saratova was taking us to a tiny village in the mountains where residents had been attacked by unknown men in armored personnel carriers.

Some of Saratova's relatives had been appointed officials in Shatoi, where family connections are most important, and she had arranged for local police commandos to accompany us. It was typical of the way she operates: using friends and acquaintances among the local authorities to help Chechnya's countless victims.

Today, Saratova is still doing similarly grim work, heading a human rights organization she recently founded called Objectiv.

Kidnapping, Ransom, And Murder

When I spoke to her recently, she'd spent three days negotiating the ransom for a kidnap victim, a 24-year-old man she says was abducted two months ago by soldiers because his businesswoman mother earns a relatively good income. She says they're demanding $30,000 for his release.

"They're former rebels, not the kind who fought for an idea [of independence], but those who easily switch from fighting for one side to the other," she says. "Today, they occupy official positions and spend their time kidnapping, demanding ransoms, and murder."

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has overseen the astoundingly fast reconstruction of his region, thanks to vast amounts of money from Moscow. He's built Europe's biggest mosque, Western-looking cafes line Grozny's main street, Putin Avenue, and residential skyscrapers are going up.

But Chechnya's apparent calm hides a frightening reality. Rights groups say the security forces are carrying out a brutal campaign against the families of the few remaining insurgents, abducting relatives and burning their houses. Locals say many are beaten and some killed. They say weapons are often planted next to their bodies, enabling the security forces to claim they've killed more militants.

Saratova says such actions are driving young men into the militants' ranks. "When they see evil, of course they'll want to join the rebels."

She says she doesn't think Kadyrov knows the extent to which his forces are involved in violent crime. "However much we criticize him," Saratova says, "he's done a lot to improve life, at least on the surface."

Saratova adds that "the people around" Kadyrov "are undermining him, not ordinary Chechens," most of whom want peace. "We who know the price of war, who buried our friends and loved ones with our own hands, are ready to do anything to hold onto peace," she says.

'No One Needs My Truth'

Life for the very few Chechens brave enough to document abuses in their region was always risky. But the kidnapping and killing of Natalya Estemirova in Chechnya last year sent shock waves though the human rights community. Memorial, the preeminent rights group for which she worked, shut its Grozny office for six months.

Today, Saratova is one of the very few people in Chechnya not afraid to speak as freely as she does. She says many Chechens say they agree with her, but implore her to keep quiet. "No one needs my truth," she says.

"Every night I go to sleep telling myself I'll leave Chechnya the following morning. But every morning I get more calls from victims, relatives of kidnapped people, and I just can't leave," she continues. "I'll either end up going crazy, or something will happen to me."

She adds matter-of-factly: "People are killed for telling the truth. If they kill me, they kill me. But I love my homeland, why do I have to flee?"

Burying The Dead In Grozny

Saratova was married to a policeman and raising their 1-year-old son when the first war began in 1994.

On a visit to Moscow when the conflict broke out, she made her way back to Chechnya's neighboring region of Ingushetia before walking three days back to Grozny against a stream of refugees fleeing the city.

Finding her apartment empty, she believed her family members had been killed. When she later found them where they were taking shelter in a village outside the city, "I couldn't stop sobbing," she says.

Saratova buried friends and acquaintances before the first Chechen war ceased in 1996; none of her family was hurt. Soon after war began again -- when then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched an invasion in 1999 -- Saratova's husband left her.

At this time, Saratova began taking in elderly women, mostly Russian, who lived in her apartment block and had nowhere to flee the fierce shelling of the city by Russian forces.

"I never in my life would have thought I'd know what real hunger is in this day and age, but I did," she recalls. "Once for three days I ate absolutely nothing."

During the lulls, Saratova helped her neighbors bury the dead.

Risking Everything

When a television journalist asked Saratova to smuggle videotapes across the border into Ingushetia, she jumped at the chance to help the outside world understand what was happening in her homeland. "I naively thought there would be someone who could press a button and end the war if he only knew what was going on," she says.

Sneaking out of the city on foot, she hitched rides for several days before giving the tape to a researcher from Amnesty International. Hoping to continue helping her war-ravaged region, Saratova soon joined Memorial, which opened an Ingushetia office to document the violence across the border in Chechnya.

Saratova began traveling across Chechnya to document abuses, mainly casualties from the military's so-called clean-up operations. She often worked with Estemirova, with whom she shared a room. "Day in and day out," she says, "we'd cross into Chechnya under fire to visit villages under siege, where people were fleeing."

To pass numerous military checkpoints, the women invented stories about rescuing relatives. Sometimes they brought along their small children, hiding videotapes in their backpacks. "It was horrible," Saratova says. "Sometimes now I can't believe that was me doing that."

Tanya Lokshina, deputy director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, has worked with Saratova in Chechnya for a decade. She says Saratova was heavily pregnant with her second son in 2003 but insisted on taking her to document torture cases and disappearances. "She took me on some totally crazy travels in the mountains," Lokshina says, "when all I could do was think she was going to pop."

Finding Hope

Saratova says Objectiv, her current organization, serves as a "24-hour emergency service" assisting anyone who has "been injured, abducted, tortured, found, anything -- and needs our help."

But she says Estemirova's death last year was "very difficult for me to bear because back then we miraculously didn't die, when it was really dangerous."

Memorial has curtailed its activities in the region, placing more burden and risk on the very few people like Saratova who still report on abuses by the local authorities.

Among the alarming recent developments is the rise of abuses against women. Kadyrov promotes polygamy and in 2007 he violated Russian law by issuing a decree banning women and girls who were not wearing head scarves from entering schools, universities, and other public buildings.

Men have begun harassing women on the streets deemed not to be covered enough. And women are increasingly being abducted and forced into marriage.

Unlike Saratova, Lokshina believes Kadyrov does control his local security forces. "I'm Moscow-based and I can afford to say much more [than Saratova]," she says.

Despite the shared gloom over Chechnya's past and present, Saratova says the fact she can reach some government officials today is already an improvement.

"I hope very much there will be more of that," she says. "There are very few of us Chechens. We have to find a way to live together peacefully."

Source: RFE/RL

'Thank You, Ramzan' - The Chechen Leader's Personality Cult - RFE/RL

Window on Eurasia: Balkars Again Push for Their Own National Republic in North Caucasus

2010-08-31T09:57:00.000+03:00

Paul Goble

Vienna, August 30 – Angered by what they see as the ethnocratic approach of the Kabard majority which dominates the Kabardino-Balkar Republic (KBR) and frightened by Circassian calls for the formation of a single republic for that nationality, the Turkic Balkars are again calling for the formation of a Balkar Republic within the Russian Federation.

The numerically small Balkar nation is unlikely to achieve its goal: Indeed, moves in that direction would not only lead to the demise of the KBR but also to the dismantling of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, another binational state but one in which the Turkic-speaking Karachays outnumber and dominate the Circassian Cherkess.

Consequently, Moscow will do whatever it can to prevent the Balkars from achieving their goals even though there is a very real possibility that some in the Russian capital may view the Balkar effort as a useful countermove to the Circassian one, especially given Moscow’s nervousness about instability near where the Sochi Olympics are scheduled to take place.

That is especially true because Turkey, although currently home to five million Circassians, is offering itself as the leader of the Turkic-speaking world and thus may now rein in Circassian activists there if it appears that the Turkic-speaking Balkars and Karachays are being mistreated.

Both the 80,000 Balkars and the 140,000 Karachays, the two Turkic peoples in this region, are minorities within a region dominated by the Circassians. Both were deported by Stalin at the end of World War II, and when they were allowed back, they were again combined with Circassian groups.

With the demise of the Soviet Union, some in both groups pressed for their own national republic. The Balkars pushed especially hard in 1996 and then again in 2006, but in both cases, Russian officials came down hard on them, and the movements appeared to dissipate. Now, however, the Balkars are again making demands.

In March, the Council of Elders of the Balkar People called for the formation of a Balkar Republic, but on May 31, the Supreme Court liquidated that organization, arguing that the appeals of the Council violated the KBR Constitution and threatened inter-ethnic peace in that republic (www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=20272).

But the Council appealed, and the Russian Supreme Court set aside the KBR court’s decision, an action that led the Council itself to step up its demands for an independent republic and the KBR prosecutors to initiate yet another case against the Council and its members for “extremism.”

Last week, the Council announced that it was beginning the organization of an all-Balkar congress, one that presumably would involve Turkic speakers not only from the KBR but across the North Caucasus, to discuss what to do next in order to achieve “the self-determination of the Balkar people” (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/173346/).

Council leader Oyus Gurtuyev said that the call for such a meeting follows meetings in “all” Balkar population points which decided to “delegate plenipotentiary authority for the defense of the interests of the Balkar people to the Council of Elders of the Balkar People,” a claim that it is plausible but impossible to check.

Gurtuyev said that his group had been “forced to take this step” after “several bureaucrats” of Balkar nationality had written to North Caucasus Plenipotentiary Representative Aleksandr Khloponin saying that the Council does not “reflect the general opinion” of the Balkar nation.

In other comments, Gurtuyev said that the Council had formed an alliance with the Karachayevo-Balkar Elbrus organization, the Balkaria group, and the Peasant Union, Having “decided to consolidate [their] forces in order to put before the government issues which agitate our people.”

Gurtuyev and other speakers stressed that the group would always act within the law, was not being funded from abroad, and was interested in negotiating over pressing issues rather than simply striking a pose. But many of the issues that the group is concerned about – such as control of or access to pasture land – are so explosive that even raising them threatens to spark violence.

Indeed, one Council leader said something that would guarantee that: He said that if the powers that be don’t meet Balkar demands, then the Balkars “will ask the federal center for self-determination or inclusion in Stavropol kray,” a move some Russian nationalists might favor but one that would call into question all administrative-territorial divisions in the region.

Source: Window on Eurasia

Report: 100 Russian skinheads attack concertgoers

2010-08-29T23:54:00.007+03:00

By David Novak, The Associated Press -- MOSCOW — Scores of bare-chested skinheads attacked a crowd of about 3,000 people at a rock concert in central Russia on Sunday, beating them with clubs, media reports said.

Dozens of people were left bloodied and dazed in the attack, television and news agencies reported, and state news channel Rossiya-24 said a 14-year-old girl was killed at the concert in Miass, 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) east of Moscow.

Fourteen ambulances were called to the scene, the channel said, citing witness accounts. The motive for the attack was not known, and authorities couldn't be reached for comment. The ITAR-Tass agency said local police had refused comment.

Many of Russia's top rock acts were attending the "Tornado" rock festival, the agency said.

Russia has an ingrained neo-Nazi skinhead movement. Attacks on dark-skinned foreigners in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been relatively common in recent years. The January 2009 murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova prompted a Kremlin crackdown on ultranationalists, who were blamed for the killings.

In April, a Moscow court banned the far-right Slavic Union, whose Russian acronym SS intentionally mimicked that used by the Nazis' infamous paramilitary. The group was declared extremist and shut down. Then the group's leader, Dmitry Demushkin, told The Associated Press it tried to promote its far-right agenda legally and warned that the ban would enrage and embolden Russia's most radical ultranationalists.

Russia's ultranationalist movement is so deeply embedded in the country's culture that militant groups have sprouted up around Russia to fight it. Anti-racist groups regularly spearhead attacks on ultranationalists, sparking revenge assaults in an intensifying clash of ideologies.

Neo-Nazi and other ultranationalist groups mushroomed in Russia after the 1991 Soviet collapse. The influx of immigrant workers and two wars with Chechen separatists triggered xenophobia and a surge in hate crimes.

Racially motivated attacks, often targeting people from Caucasus and Central Asia, peaked in 2008, when 110 were killed and 487 wounded, an independent watchdog, Sova, said. The Moscow Bureau for Human Rights estimated that some 70,000 neo-Nazis were active in Russia — compared with a just few thousand in the early 1990s.

Source: Yahoo News

Related Issues

Teenage girl killed in skinhead rampage at Russian festival - Guardian
Russia skinheads attack music festival - BBC
From Russia With Hate
Can Anyone Stop the Rise of Russia's Skinheads?, by Paul Goble
Dark skinneds can not enter! by Hakan Aksay

How the Russian-Georgian War Has Changed the World - Interview with Paul Goble

2010-08-14T13:51:00.003+03:00

(This interview was published on VOA News in Russian, 10 August 2010)

On the second anniversary of the Russian-Georgian war Yulia Savchenko talked about the consequences of confrontation and conflict lessons with Paul Goble - political scientist, a former specialist on ethnic minorities the U.S. State Department, and now a researcher with the Diplomatic Academy of Azerbaijan.

Yulia Savchenko: This is the second anniversary of the Georgian-Russian conflict of 2008. Different people have taken different things from this conflict. What do you think Georgia has learned from the conflict?

Paul Goble: Different people in Georgia have learned different lessons. Many, except perhaps the president, understand why the conflict happened. On the eve of the fighting, he clearly showed that he had misinterpreted the rules of the game in the international arena as well as misinterpreted remarks of the US President and Secretary of State. He interpreted their statements that the US always supports its friends as meaning he could do whatever he pleased. Since that time, he has used the threatening posture of Russia to distract attention and silence his opponents. Whatever else, Georgia in the future needs to show more creativity in dealing with the new environment than it did earlier.

Others have learned from the conflict. Russia’s neighbors now can see that Moscow is not constrained in showing who is the boss in the region even to the point of using force. No one thought that was the case, but now these countries have no guarantee that it won’thappen again. This has changed their perception of their own defensive needs and of Russia more generally.

That is only one of the ways Russia suffered as a result of the war. While Vladimir Putin and his team have proclaimed their victory, many Russians recognize that his decision was ill-conceived as well The Russian army did not do well, with poorly trained soldiers shooting at each other. As a result, Russia does not look as strong as it did. Instead, it looks like a weak bully. That is a very dangerous situation for any country to be in.

JS: And what this conflict has taught the United States?

PG: The US certainly has learned a few things. Perhaps first of all, we have had the lesson driven home that when we deal with other countries, we must always be sure that our statements are not misinterpreted. Clearly Saakashvili heard things from Washington that Washington did not in the end intend. U.S. policymakers need to be clear about what the US will and won’t do, regardless of a desire to show oneself supportive and friendly. Another lesson I hope we have learned is that Moscow today is not prepared to live by the rules. To go forward, Russia will have to work hard to reassure the US and others that it will behave as countries are supposed to.

JS: Two years ago, after the clash between Russia and Georgia, you testified that you support the principle of national self-determination. Do you think the Obama administration will follow this advice, especially in the wake of the International Court’s decision on Kosovo?

PG: I believe in the right of nations to self-determination. I believe that Abkhazia has demonstrated its ability to translate this right into reality. The situation regarding South Ossetia is much more problematic both because of the existence of North Ossetia, its own relations with the Russian Federation, and its geographic position as a kind of dagger aimed at Tbilisi.

In many respects, the step that would most disturb Moscow would be if the West and the US in particular were to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Imagine what it would mean if 27 NATO members had embassies in Sukhumi. That would open the question of the recognition of republics now north of the Russian Federation border.

I do not exclude such a development. It would be more interesting if Georgia has recognized Abkhazia. Abkhazians, of course, would likely seek to find a way to prevent that if only because of the obvious undesirable consequences for Moscow. Consequently, it won’t happen soon. But if these states remain recognized only by a few states, this will be the beginning of an era in which there may be many partially recognized states.

Thinking ahead to the tenth anniversary of the conflict, I hope that at that time we will be able to discuss this crisis more soberly with fewer comments about Russian aggression, more foreign embassies in Abkhazia. I don’t know whether an American one will be among them, but some kind of reconciliation of all parties is likely, if only because living in a world where all past crimes are constantly at the center of attention is so very difficult.

VOA News -Как российско-грузинская война изменила мир
Related
Thinking the Unthinkable: What if Georgia and the West Were to Recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia? by Paul Goble
Two year anniversary of August War 2008, by Irakli Khintba
Why Can Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili Not Emulate Willi Brandt? by Liz Fuller

[AW] Articles on 2008 Russo-Georgian War and Abkhazia

2010-08-07T19:35:00.002+03:00

On the anniversary of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, experts here share their thoughts on the August war insofar as it affected Abkhazia. The views expressed in commentaries are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of Abkhaz World.

Why Can Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili Not Emulate Willi Brandt?
By Liz Fuller | Special to Abkhaz World
British scholar who joined Radio Liberty as Caucasus analyst in July 1980

Thinking the Unthinkable:What if Georgia and the West Were to Recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia?
By Paul Goble | Special to Abkhaz World
Writer, Political Analyst

The Impact of the War in Georgia on Russian Public Opinion
By Stephen D. Shenfield | Special to Abkhaz World
Independent researcher and translator

The Georgia War and its consequences

By Alexander Rahr | Special to Abkhaz World
Program Director for Russia/Eurasia, German Council on Foreign Relations; Berlin

The Abkhazian paradox and the Montenegrin model
By Laurent Vinatier | Special to Abkhaz World
Senior Research Associates, Thomas More Institute, Paris

*****

Two year anniversary of August War 2008
By Irakli Khintba | IISS - The International Institute for Strategic Studies
Lecturer in political science at the Abkhazian State University, and a fellow at the Centre for Humanitarian Programmes; Sukhum

The ghost of the Soviet Union
By Sergey Markedonov | IISS - The International Institute for Strategic Studies
Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Russia and Eurasia Program Washington, DC

*****

Abkhazia and the Caucasus: the west’s choice
By Neal Ascherson | openDemocracy
Journalist and writer; London

AbkhazWorld.com

Review: Let Our Fame Be Great

2010-08-03T20:20:00.002+03:00

Journalist Oliver Bullough delivers a detailed, moving history of the too often overlooked people of the Caucasus.

Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus By Oliver Bullough Basic Books 528 pp., $28.95

By Bob Blaisdell / August 3, 2010

Perhaps the best way to begin is to be honest. What if we just admit we don’t know much about the Caucasus, that we’re confused by the term “Caucasian,” that we’re not sure who those defiant people are and why we should admire their long resistance to Russian invasion? If that’s our first step, then the second should be to pick a copy of Let Our Fame Be Great, a most compelling history of the region by British journalist Oliver Bullough.

Bullough begins by explaining that this region, spanning the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, was, for more than a thousand years, like an inland island, little subject to outside influences.

“Dagestan was not considered entirely Muslim until the late sixteenth century,” writes Bullough. “Chechnya was also late to Islam, and the last Chechens probably did not convert until the late eighteenth century. Some Ingush were still pagan until the 1860s.”

It even took bearish Russia until the late 18th century to break through the geographical obstacles and start attempting the takeover of the Caucasus piece by piece, meeting plenty of defiance from the poor, mostly illiterate, independent peoples – who, on the whole, grouped themselves within each people by family units, and understood nothing of what states or nations meant: “The long absence ... of a foreign ruler or a foreign religion allowed the mountain customs to continue largely unchanged into the modern age. Communities were governed by councils of elders, and land was held in common by each village.”

As for the recent, post-Soviet violent history, I cringe in reflex, but until now I must admit that I knew far too little except that Vladimir Putin in 1999 gathered national political power as he crushed the chaos in the Caucasus with military assaults. So the Caucasus are to Russia what the American southwest might have been had the various native American tribes converted to a common religion and been able to continue frustrating the US and Mexican invaders. From the czars to Stalin to Putin, resistance in the Caucasus to Russian governance and customs has resulted, Bullough argues, in exile or genocide of the natives.

As Bullough dashes and darts us through the amazing and forgotten episodes of the region, we see that this is a book of discoveries, not a textbook, a personally driven but impressively researched history-adventure. The “Fame” of the title? It’s ironic: the peoples, so conscious of themselves, so culturally and family oriented that their fame continues to speak loudly to themselves, have been dismissively written out of Russian history. This Russian obliviousness to its own history of repression used to surprise Bullough but now just really ticks him off: “Where once the Balkar and Karachai nations had been written out of existence, now the fact that they had been written out of existence was itself written out of existence.”

Bullough divides the book into four sections, and each is compelling. The history of the Circassians, for instance, who had lived in the region along the eastern coast of the Black Sea for hundreds of years, began losing their independence and freedom in 1764 with the arrival of a Russian army. Thus began Russian policy, which through czars, dictators, and presidents, has been remarkably consistent. The native peoples were usually welcome to completely submit (“Why should we?” – “You’re under arrest for daring to ask!”) and be subject to exile to deserted regions or, if they insisted on defending themselves, they could taste the might of the Russian military.

It sends chills up Bullough’s spine that Sochi, in southern Russia, in the very region where hundreds of thousands of Circassians were exiled or killed, was granted the Winter Olympics in 2014: “It is not just Sochi that is insensitive to the Circassian claims of genocide, but the whole coast, which – if it remembers the nineteenth-century war at all – celebrates it as a victory, not as the squalid campaign of attrition and slaughter that it really was.”

The Chechen wars, the despicable Chechen acts of terrorism in Moscow and Beslan, the amazing Russian demolition in the 1990s of Grozny – it’s all reviewed by Bullough. He’s appalled by the Chechen terrorism, which he covered firsthand as a reporter, despite his great sympathy with the plight of the vast majority of the population. Since 2000, about 20 percent of the Chechens have applied for asylum. While they love their land, it is a literal minefield. Bullough fears, however, that European assimilation will not be easy for the anarchic Chechens: “The law-abiding, orderly Austrian system could not be more alien to a Chechen man raised on the concept that ripping off the state was a duty and a pleasure.”

As cultural history filtered through the eyes and heart of a bright and earnest young writer, the book most similar to this one – as fresh and vital, admiring and frustrated – is Isabel Fonseca’s “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey,” about another group of variously associated peoples without a sovereign homeland. Bullough concludes:

“[T]he history of Russia’s conquest is one of tragedy for the people of the mountains. The Circassians, the mountain Turks, the Ingush and the Chechens have all suffered horribly just so the map of Russia could be the shape the tsars, the general secretaries and the presidents wanted it to be.”

Bob Blaisdell edited “Tolstoy as Teacher: Leo Tolstoy’s Writings on Education.”

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

The Caucasus: Haunting history - The Economist
Let Our Fame Be Great, Review by Justin Marozzi
Interview: Oliver Bullough, author By David Robinson - The Scotsman

Window on Eurasia: Russian Supreme Court Ruling Likely to Exacerbate Ethnic Tensions in Kabardino-Balkaria

2010-07-29T11:56:00.004+03:00

Paul Goble

Staunton, July 28 – Tensions between the Kabardin majority and the Balkar minority in the bi-national North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria are likely to be exacerbated by the decision of the Russian Supreme Court to set aside the decision of KBR’s highest court to ban the activity of the Council of Elders of the Balkar People as “extremist.”

Leaders of the Council of Elders celebrated yesterday’s decision which set aside the May 31st ruling by the Kabardino-Balkaria republic supreme court. One of their number, Oyus Gurtuyev, said that the Moscow decision shows “that [the Balkars] have acted within the law and that the law defends us” (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/172180/).

Gurtuyev’s comments are more significant than a first glance might suggest. On the one hand, the leaders of Kabardino-Balkaria, where 55 percent of the population is Circassian Kabardins and 12 percent consists of the Turkic Balkars, have pursued the Balkars on charges of extremism for several years.

In 2007, republic prosecutors warned the organization against “extremist” activity and brought criminal charges against Gurtuyev, the head of the council, for disseminating “intentionally false reports which attacked the honor and director of the President of the KBR and stained his reputation.”

Moreover, earlier this year, KBR prosecutors charged that the Council of Elders of the Balkar People had engaged in extremist activity by disseminating a report entitled “The Status of the Balkar People in the KBR: Sources of Problems and Paths of Overcoming Them” which pointed to anti-Balkar actions by the Kabardin majority.

And on the other, the Kabardins and Balkars are currently locked in a struggle over the control of pastureland, a struggle in which the Kabardins are seeking to overturn a Russian law on territorial arrangements of municipal administrations and the Balkars are demanding that Moscow insist on its full enforcement.

That measure, Federal Law 131 “On the organization of local self-administration” specifies that there must not be any un-administered space between settlements in heavily populated areas, a requirement that would seem to be ethnically neutral but in the case of the KBR, it is anything but.

The Balkars, despite being minorities, dominate many of the villages in the mountains, and if the law is in fact imposed, it would give them control over pastures between them, pastures that in the past ethnic Kabardins have traditionally made use of. Not surprisingly, some Kabardins are seeking to have the law overturned or at least ignored.

The struggle has been heating up, with Balkars staging demonstrations and hunger strikes both in the KBR and in Moscow, but the outcome of a meeting in Nalchik over the weekend suggests that tensions are continuing to rise and that there may soon be a major confrontation between the two nations in that already troubled republic (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/172087/).

On Saturday, Balkar activists assembled in the republic capital to consider both how to continue the fight to ensure that the municipality land law will not be changed and what Balkars should do in the face of rising activism among the Kabardins, a subgroup of the Circassians who are seeking the formation of a single Circassian Republic in the North Caucasus.

One Balkar leader, Dalkhat Baydayev, told those in attendance that Balkars have been “the first who have raised [their] heads for the fulfillment of laws in order that Russia should be a legal state.” Consequently, it seems certain that those who share his perspective will be encouraged by the Russian Supreme Court decision this week.

But it is clear that they face an uphill battle. KBR President Arsen Kanokov, a Kabardin, supports changing the law or even eliminating it altogether, other speakers at the session said, and he has built alliances both with Aleksandr Khloponin, the Presidential plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus, and Moscow officials to push that agenda.

The Balkars, however, think they have succeeded in “blocking” these efforts so far. They feel, Dzhambulat Etteyev, another of their leaders, said, that “this law has already been working for five years” and that there is “no basis” for changing it. Nonetheless, the Balkars continue to be worried.

Bakhautdin Etezov, a third Balkar speaker, said that something was not right in Moscow and in Nalchik, and he speculated that “all this means either a crisis among the powers that be or a conspiracy against the Balkar people or even that someone very much wants to divide up Russia into pieces.”

The Balkars say they are very much against all of that, and at Saturday’s session, several speakers called for the creating of a Coordinating Council of Balkar Social Organizations” so that there will be a single organization capable of speaking on behalf of the entire Balkar people, something they currently feel they lack.

. And at the conclusion of the session, Ruslan Babayev, another of their leaders, declared that the Balkars now have only “a single way out” of their problems – “self-determination,” even though he insisted that the Balkars remain “supporters of resolving all [their] problems on the basis of the Constitution and Federal Laws.”

This new upsurge of Balkar activism could presage a concerted drive to end the bi-national KBR, something that in turn could trigger not only an expanded effort to move toward a united Circassian Republic but spark greater activism among other Turkic groups across the North Caucasus, including the Karachays of Karachayevo-Cherkessia.

Source: Window on Eurasia

Concert to showcase Kingdom’s cultural diversity

2010-07-26T18:27:00.001+03:00

By Hana Namrouqa - The Jordan Times

July 26, AMMAN -- Folkloric dances, music and poetry of different nations will be featured at the Roman Theatre downtown Amman on Friday night, in a concert showcasing the Kingdom’s cultural diversity.

Organised by UNESCO Amman and the Jordanian Caucasian Cultural Society, the event includes Jordanian folkloric dances, Circassian dances and music, Bukhari poetry from Uzbekistan, Kazakh music, Turkish music and dances, Chechen music, Armenian folkloric dances and music, and poetry recital from Daghestan.

"Jordan’s multicultural society will celebrate years of amiable coexistence among its diverse groups who have lived in Jordan for decades becoming part of the community yet still retaining important elements of their heritage," the UNESCO Amman office said in a statement on its website.

Jordanian Caucasian Cultural Society President Fakhruddin Daghestani said the night of cultural diversity, which starts at 7:00pm and ends at 9:00pm, marks the UN’s International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures.

"The event seeks to highlight the different cultures in Jordan and preserve minorities' cultures," he told The Jordan Times yesterday, noting that it is open to the public.

"The event will be held at the Roman Theatre because it has a capacity of around 3,000 spectators, and we are expecting a huge turnout," Daghestani noted.

He underscored the Kingdom's cultural diversity, noting that 11 groups live in harmony in Jordan: Bedouins, Circassians, Chechens, Armenians, Bukharans, Kazakhs, Turks, Dagestanis, Druze, Bosnians and Assyrians.

Established last year, the Jordanian Caucasian Cultural Society seeks to preserve Jordanian and Caucasian culture and folklore by holding festivals and lectures, among other activities.

Source: The Jordan Times

Kosovo and the International Court, by Jack Matlock

2010-07-26T01:07:00.001+03:00

If Kosovo independence is recognized, why not South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Why defend the right of self-determination in one instance and deny it in others?

Jack Matlock

American professor and former ambassador

The ruling by the International Court of Justice that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate international law (see Dan Bilefsky’s article in the New York Times today) will be used by the Kosovo government to argue that it entitles Kosovo to diplomatic recognition by other governments. Serbia will deny this and point out that the ruling was carefully limited, making clear that diplomatic recognition is a political, not a legal decision.

ICJ President Judge Hisashi Owada, centre, flanked by Judge Peter Tomka, left, and Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, right, at the court in The Hague on Thursday, July 22, 2010.

I have not read the court’s ruling, which was by a 10-4 majority and thus not unanimous, and do not know whether the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 were taken into account. Possibly not, because the Helsinki document was a political not legalcommitment. Signatories made a commitment to observe certain human rights, which we used with great effect to encourage correction of human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. It also contained a commitment not to change international borders without the consent of both parties involved.

For this reason, I would interpret the court’s ruling to be that the Kosovo authorities had a right to declare independence, but that that declaration was not legally binding on other countries. The court did not rule on the question of whether other countries are obligated to recognize Kosovo’s independence. If other countries adhere to the Helsinki Final Act, they would be violating one of its principles to do so without Serbia’s concurrence. Nevertheless, the United States and the majority (though far from all) European countries have recognized Kosovo’s independence. The court’s ruling will doubtless facilitate Kosovo’s campaign for further recognition, though it is already clear that neither Serbia nor Russia agree. China, given its problems in Xinjang and Tibet will most likely also not agree, providing two potential vetoes against UN membership.

I opposed the bombing of Serbia over Kosovo and was opposed to what I considered the premature U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s independence (which is hardly total since it requires UN assistance to keep order within the country). Nevertheless, what is done is done. At the present time, all parties would be served by putting this issue behind them and encouraging both Kosovo and Serbia to move into an association with the European Union, and eventual membership.

However, if this is to happen, the U.S. should adopt a more consistent policy in regard to other frozen conflicts. If Kosovo independence is recognized, why not South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Why defend the right of self-determination in one instance and deny it in others? This goes also for areas like Trans-Dniestr, Northern Cyprus, and (hold your breath) Kurdistan. No? Well, think about it. Are we to cherry pick the conflicting principles of international law and apply some when it suits us and others when it doesn’t?

But my bottom line is that the United States should ease itself out of these local and regional problems. They represent no-win situations for outsiders. So why don’t we just step aside, do all we can to avoid violence in the area, but leave the rest to the people directly involved?

Jack Matlock is a career diplomat who served on the front lines of American diplomacy during the Cold War and was U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union when the Cold War ended. Since retiring from the Foreign Service, he has focused on understanding how the Cold War ended and how the lessons from that experience might be applied to public policy today.

For more biographical details, see the Wikipedia page: Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

Source: Here & Now: A Blog (July 24, 2010)

Sochi: the capital of a lost people

2010-07-25T21:33:00.003+03:00

by Stefan Candea, Around the Black Sea Project

The passage from the laid-back atmosphere in Abkhazia to the thriving and animate Russian district of Krasnodar is quite sudden. Even from the frontier point one can see the district is jam-packed: shops glued one to another, crammed cars in endless traffic jams and ongoing massive works on the infrastructure. As usual, the ubiquitous police forces keep a close watch over everything and anything. Hardly did we reach Adler when we saw on the left a huge billboard announcing extensive works to set up one of the many facilities where the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games (OG) will take place.

The narrow road winding up between the mountains and the sea cannot take in the army of tourists that keeps flooding in. Officially, in the Sochi region alone, about four and a half million tourists visit the Black Sea coast. The coast stretches along 300 kilometers north to Anapa and is strewn with tourist resorts which leads to traffic jams whatever the day, hour and weather may be. Vladimir Putin has promised the International Olympic Committee Russia would set aside 12 billion dollars for the infrastructure in order to ensure a proper development of the Olympic Games. However, Russian opposition politicians, among whom also a former prime-minister, claim the money is wasted on games which will turn out to be a disaster because of corruption, organized crime and lack of snow.

Nevertheless, the infrastructure is just one of the many problems the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games raise. The Russian authorities are facing a situation similar to that of China in 2008 when the state was accused of the brutal breach of the Tibetans’ rights. And yet, the Chinese didn’t dare organize the Olympics in Tibet. The year and place of the inauguration of the Olympic Games, Krasnaya Polyana, mark 150 years since the first genocide in modern European history and the expulsion from their own country of a people who have been living in exile for generations. The people: the Circassians who were pushed to the Black Sea by the armies of Tsarist Russia in 1864, at the end of over a 100-year war to conquer Caucasus. The row of Russian forts between Sukhum and Anapa, now turned into tourist resorts, prepared the defeat of the Circassian people: they cut off their connection to the sea and their trade and supply means.

Over one million Circassians were driven out by the Ottoman Empire in an operation strikingly similar to the massive Soviet deportations. Approximately 300.000 people drowned, died of hunger or illness on the beaches where they had taken refuge. Most of the survivors settled in Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Israel. Circassian families went so far as Bulgaria, Romania and Kosovo. Around five million Circassian live in the world and over 500.00 live in Krasnodar, Stavropol, Northern Ossetia and in three artificially-created republics: Adygea, Kabardino-Balkar and Karachay-Cherkess. Although they belong to the same people, they were separated, mixed with other nations and given a different name depending on the territory they lived on: Circassians, Kabardins, Shapsugs and Adyghe.

When I left Romania I didn’t know the first thing about the Circassians. It was in Ankara that I read about their protests against the Sochi Olympic Games and I eventually discovered Oliver Bullough’s (British journalist) very recent book which I used as my main source of documentation. Among the sources the book recommended there was a site of the Circassian community to which I turned to for contacts in Sochi. In less than half a day my message reached Ankara, Nalchik and made it back to Sochi. In the evening I met with the representatives of a local organization of Circassians and the following day we were fixed up in a nearby village.

Murat and Salikh are two thirty-year-old young men who were born in the Circassian villages around Sochi. They are part of HASE, an association set up by the Shapsug tribe. Murat works in marketing and Salikh in energy export. Both of them learned a false history in school: the history that mentions Circassians only in passing as people who existed once, but ‘left the table’ at a certain point. Salikh showed me old maps of Circassia, symbols, flags and pictures from commemorations, all of them saved on his mobile phone. He said the power of his people resides in everybody knowing by heart the history of their own family up to the seventh generation. He was very interested in the book I bought in Ankara, a book whose author (a foreigner) recounts in great detail Salikh’s very own history. I offered him the book.

The Russian state’s reaction to this type of issues is much too fierce, especially in the area of the Caucasian republics. Therefore, the HASE organization doesn’t insist on the official recognition of the term ‘genocide’, but only that of the historical events that led to the deportation and death of the Circassian people. Moreover, they demand the symbols of the Circassian tribes that were exterminated in Sochi be included amongst the other Olympic Games emblems. Other groups from different regions have a much radical view on things, requesting the cancellation of the Olympic Games or the establishment of the Circassian Republic.

July 19, 2010

Source: Around the Black Sea

Window on Eurasia: Dam Bombing Could Be ‘Dress Rehearsal’ for Sochi Olympics, Moscow Analyst Says

2010-07-23T21:23:00.003+03:00

Paul Goble

Staunton, July 22 – Most Russian commentators have suggested that the bombing this week of a hydroelectric dam in the North Caucasus was either simply a continuation of the activities of anti-government groups in that region or was specifically directed against the leadership of Kabardino-Balkaria or Presidential Plenipotentiary Aleksandr Khloponin.

All those factors could be at work, Aleksandr Krylov, a senior scholar at the Moscow Institute of International Economics and International Relations, acknowledges, but he argues that the bombing may in fact be part of a broader effort by Circassian groups and others to derail plans for the Sochi Olympics in 2014 (www.nakanune.ru/articles/14789).

Krylov specifically notes that “there is an intensification now in the North Caucasus of the Circassian problem, which is directly connected with the upcoming Olympiad, and certain forces are actively attempting to play the Circassian card for their own purposes,” an effort that has found “mass support in local society” there.

In support of his argument, Krylov points to what happened in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics. It was no accident, he suggests, that “on the eve of the Chinese Olympics the theme of Tibet and the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous district sounded to strongly. This was not a simple coincidence; there are influential forces in the world who strive to use ethnic games.”

Krylov’s suggestion is important for at least three reasons. First, it reflects a continuing lack of consensus in the Russian capital not only over the source of violence in the North Caucasus but also on how best to counter it, with officials divided between those who favor force and those who believe only economic change will lead to an improvement, albeit over time.

Second, it is yet another indication that those Circassians who seek the formation of a single republic for their nationality in the North Caucasus and demand official recognition of the genocide carried out against them nearly 150 years ago by tsarist authorities have gotten the attention of Moscow, albeit perhaps not the kind of attention they seek.

And third, and perhaps most important, Krylov’s argument highlights the growing tendency of officials in the Russian capital to view all issues in the North Caucasus through the prism of preparations for the Sochi Olympics, the 2014 games that Vladimir Putin has indicated he views as a major part of his legacy.

On the one hand, such a perspective suggests that Moscow may be prepared to use even more force against those like the Circassians it suspects of trying to undermine Russia’s ability to prepare for and stage the games and that the center will adopt an even harder line against the Circassians now than it has in the past.

And on the other, Krylov’s linkage of the Circassians and the question of the Sochi Games could simultaneously lead Moscow to devote more attention to the ethnic dimension of conflicts in the region, aspects of the conflict there which many in Moscow and elsewhere have discounted because of the rise of Islamist politics.

In response to questions put by Nakanune.ru, Krylov made a number of additional points about Russian policy in the North Caucasus in the wake of the latest attack. He said that the decision of anti-Russian forces to attack something as major as a dam shows that “the local underground has become more active” and that “the situation will continue to get worse.”

Indeed, he says, “it is completely possible that those forces which are striving toward the destabilization [of the region] want to push the situation there to the level of Chechnya a decade ago.” Given the likelihood of such plans, Krylov continues, “that is the chief cause” behind the dam explosion, and not “some kind of contradictions in the local elite.”

Asked directly what forces might be interested in such an outcome, Krylov responds that “there are many such forces both locally and abroad,” including Al Qaeda, “criminal groups, various foreign states who in some fashion want to put pressure on Russia in their interests and are using for this the Circassian factor and the unstable situation.”

Local elites, Krylov says, are exploiting all this, seeking to “shift responsibility” for everything onto Moscow and “receive from the federal center concessions and what is most important financial means.” And consequently in the years leading up to the Sochi Games, “we will have an extremely complex situation in this [Circassian] part of the Caucasus.”

According to Krylov, the most important thing Moscow can do is to define the problem correctly and “foresee threats.” Up to now, he says, “our powers that be have been reacting to what happens.” As a result, the initiative belongs not to the powers that be but rather to those who oppose them.

Fighting terrorism is hard for everyone, Krylov concedes, but it seems harder for Russia than for others. “Our western ‘allies’ learn from their mistakes and do not have repeats of the explosions which have occurred. With us, on the other hand, is observed a certain psychological freeze: terrorist acts take place with regularity and quite frequently. This is very disturbing.”

Asked whether the new law on the FSB will change the situation, Krylov says that only the future will tell. But he notes that “we have a large number of ideas and various documents, but then somehow this all is very poorly followed in the real work of the organs,” institutions that for all their shortcomings are nonetheless doing a great deal.

“If they were not effective,” the IMEMO analyst suggests, “the situation would be much worse, but up to now they have functioned insufficiently effectively in order to block the majority of threats which are arising for the security of the state.”

Source: Window on Eurasia

Militants hit Russia power plant, killing two guards - BBC
What has highlighted the explosion at the Baksan hydroelectric? - Sufian Zhemukhov

Rights Activists In North Caucasus Appeal To Medvedev For Protection

2010-07-23T15:54:00.000+03:00

July 23, RFE/RL -- MOSCOW -- Human rights activists in the North Caucasus are appealing to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to take action to protect them from attacks and allow them to work safely, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.

The written appeal to Medvedev comes after Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov remarked during a television interview that workers at the human rights organization Memorial are "enemies of the people, enemies of the law, and enemies of the state."

Valentin Gefter, the director of Russia's Human Rights Institute, said the problem is not just with Kadyrov, but with the governments and officials throughout the North Caucasus.

"Unfortunately, the problem isn't corrupt soldiers or some sort of underground, but crimes committed by police officers and members of the local government," Gefter said. "While it's a local problem, it seems that the federal government isn't doing anything about it."

In May, Medvedev met with activists working in the North Caucasus and assured them that he fully supported their work.

Kheda Saratova, a human rights activist in the region, said that after she heard Kadyrov's statement she called his office and spoke to his press secretary.

"I asked him what the president's words meant and if, as a human rights activist in Chechnya, I was now considered a criminal by the government," she said. "And he answered me, 'You should cut down your activity.'"

Source: RFE/RL

Kosovo's independence is legal, UN court rules

2010-07-22T17:30:00.015+03:00

Decision in favour of Kosovo's independence could have far-reaching implications for other separatist movements

Peter Beaumont, Guardian -- Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in February 2008 did not violate international law, the international court of justice (ICJ) said today in a groundbreaking ruling that could have far-reaching implications for separatist movements around the world, as well as for Belgrade's stalled EU membership talks.

The long-awaited ruling - which the court took up after a complaint to the UN from Serbia - is now likely to lead to more countries recognising Kosovo's independence and move Pristina closer to entry into the UN. At present, Kosovo's statehood is backed by 69 countries but it requires over 100 before it can join the UN.

Announcing the decision, the court of justice president, Hisashi Owada, said international law contains no "prohibition on declarations of independence".

Although both Belgrade and Pristina had said they were confident of a ruling in their favour, speculation began to emerge a few hours before today's announcement in the Hague that the decision - which is not legally binding - had gone Kosovo's way.

Prior to the judgement, the US vice-president, Joe Biden, had made it clear that the US would not contemplate a retreat from Kosovo's newly independent status.

Key considerations that the UN's top court examined - arising out of dozens of submissions by UN member states as well as by Kosovo's own leadership - have focused on issues of sovereignty, the slim volume of precedent in international law, and how formerly large states such as the USSR broke up along administrative borders.

Serbia has continued to demand Kosovo be returned, arguing it has been the cradle of their civilisation and national identity since 1389, when a Christian army led by Serbian Prince Lazar lost an epic battle to invading Ottoman forces.

The ruling is expected to have profound ramifications on the wider international stage, bolstering demands for recognition by territories as diverse as Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria.

The ICJ's ruling is not, however, expected to have an immediate impact on the situation on the ground in Kosovo, where a small area with a Serb majority has itself split away around the north of the town of Mitrovica, which has about 100,000 residents. That deadlock has sometimes erupted into violence, despite intense international efforts, with Serbs and Kosovans running their own areas.

Kosovo sparked sharp debate worldwide when it seceded from Serbia in 2008, following the bloody 1998-99 war and almost a decade of international administration. The 1998-99 war, triggered by a brutal crackdown by Serb forces against Kosovo's separatist ethnic Albanians, left about 10,000 ethnic Albanians dead before ending after a 78-day Nato bombing campaign. Hundreds of Serbs were also killed in retaliatory attacks.

Today's ruling will reinforce Kosovo's resistance to any kind of renegotiation - particularly over the status of the Serb majority areas in the north.

Kosovo's foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, said before the ruling that reopening negotiations was "inconceivable".

Speaking yesterday, the Serbian foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, had warned that even in the event of a ruling against it, Belgrade would not be ready to give up its claim on Kosovo.

"Serbia will not change its position regarding Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence and necessity of a compromise," he said. "Our fight for such a solution will probably be long and difficult, but we will not give up."

Jeremic, who was in The Hague for the ruling, had said earlier that he expected the decision to vindicate Serbia, which would lead to new negotiations on both sides.

US State Department legal adviser Harold Koh said: "Serbia seeks an opinion by this court that would turn back time ... [and] undermine the progress and stability that Kosovo's declaration has brought to the region."Leading the other side of the argument is Serbia's traditional ally Russia, which has fought against its own separatist movement in Chechnya. Moscow has demanded Kosovo's independence be annulled, and last year was joined in its opposition by Spain and China, each also facing major secessionist movements.

Source: Guardian

Related issues

UN Court Says Kosovo Independence 'Did Not Violate International Law'-RFE/RL
ICJ says Kosovo statehood 'legal' - Al Jazeera
Kosovo case in the International Court of Justice: time to shed illusions, by Petr Iskenderov
If yes to Kosovo, why not Karabakh, Abkhazia and S. Ossetia - Armen Hareyan
Kosovo and the International Court, by Jack Matlock
FACTBOX - Scenarios after world court ruling on Kosovo - Reuters
Q&A: Kosovo's future - BBC

Georgia’s new “strategy”: What’s behind it?, by Liana Kvarchelia

2010-07-21T23:06:00.002+03:00

It looks like the Georgian so called “Strategy on occupied territories”, that claims the de-isolation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as it’s main purpose, was in fact designed for exactly the opposite purposes. The political frames of the Strategy suggest that Georgia’s idea of de-isolation in reality means “de-occupation” of Abkhazia. Needless to say, that this approach is totally unacceptable for Abkhazia, since those who live in Abkhazia do not consider themselves “occupied”, but rather feel protected against another possible Georgia’s reckless military adventure.

It is very likely that the Strategy was invented to intercept EU initiatives (European “engagement without recognition” approach). The aim is either to try to channel them through Georgia, or at least to discredit them by linking international engagement to the idea of “de-occupation” and Georgia’s “territorial integrity”. Knowing that the international community is not prepared to do anything in Abkhazia without Georgia’s consent, and realizing that Abkhazia will be very unlikely to accept international aid channeled through Georgia, the Georgian Government is in fact trying to block any direct international engagement in Abkhazia.

The Georgian approach reflects certain illusions that exist in the Georgian society. One of such illusions is the hope that if Abkhazia is left alone to deal with Russia, Abkhazians would eventually realize the risks of their asymmetric relations with Moscow and turn back to Georgia. On the other hand, if Georgia really counts on Abkhazia’s acceptance of the “Strategy”, then Georgia’s interests are ensured in the document, that pre-conditions any aid to Abkhazia by providing strong Georgian control. So the whole business is about either blocking Abkhazia’s external contacts, or controlling them.

It is highly unlikely that Abkhazia will respond positively to Georgia’s Strategy and the subsequent Action Plan. It is also unlikely, that Abkhazia will turn to Georgia in the face of growing Russia’s presence. Within Abkhazia unification with Georgia is not regarded as an alternative at all. The question is, whether the EU will be able to put substance in their own strategy, and make it absolutely clear (to Georgia in the first place), that EU’s engagement is not designed to help the Georgians to get back what they have lost through the war.

Liana Kvarchelia

Deputy director, Centre for Humanitarian Programmes, Sukhum, Abkhazia

Georgia’s new “strategy”: What’s behind it?, by Liana Kvarchelia - Abkhaz World
Relates Issues
Georgia Unveils 'Strategy On Occupied Territories', by Liz Fuller - RFE/RL
Georgia's fine, lofty, useless strategy, by George Hewitt - The Guardian

Militants hit Russia power plant, killing two guards

2010-07-21T23:00:00.003+03:00

BBC, July 21 -- Armed militants have stormed a hydroelectric power station in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, killing two guards and detonating four bombs.

TV footage showed fires raging at the plant, in the mainly Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkaria republic.

Officials said the fires were now under control, and that electricity supplies had not been affected.

Analysts say it appears to be an escalation of Islamist insurgent attacks on Russian economic targets.

"This shows the scourge of terrorism is not only not subsiding, but expanding geographically," said Gennady Gudkov, deputy head of the security committee of Russia's parliament, according to the Reuters news agency.

President Dmitry Medvedev said that security had been stepped up.

"Spoke to head of FSB [security service] and president of Kabardino-Balkaria. Security at strategic sites tightened after today's explosions," he said in a message on the social-networking website Twitter, which limits messages to 140 characters.

Kabardino-Balkaria has seen less militant violence than the other semi-autonomous republics in the region: Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

The most serious attack in Kabardino-Balkaria came in October 2005 when dozens of men stormed the regional capital Nalchik. The Russian government said 136 people were killed, including 91 militants.

'No disaster threat'

State-owned firm RusHydro, which runs the power station, said in a statement on its website that explosions had hit the plant at 0525 local time (0125 GMT) on Wednesday.

The attackers detonated four explosive devices in the 25-megawatt plant on the Baksan river, but a fifth failed to go off.

Investigators said two explosions shook the plant's turbine room and another two hit the transformer vault.

According to police spokesman Adlan Kakakuyev, two cars carrying half a dozen assailants had attacked the plant, shooting two guards and wounding three other people.

The attackers reportedly seized two Kalashnikov assault rifles from the dead guards.

The same group are believed to have earlier opened fire on a police station in the town of Baksan.

Officials said the flow of water from the dam, on the Baksan river, had been stopped to prevent any flooding downriver.

Electricity supplies had not been disrupted because power had been rerouted from elsewhere, the authorities said.

Regional officials said there was no further danger of a "technical accident or disaster" at the plant, which was built in the 1930s.

According to Russia's Ria-Novosti news agency, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has put Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin in charge of repairing the damaged power station.

Militants hit Russia power plant, killing two guards - BBC
Related News
New Kabardino-Balkaria Militant Commander Suspected Behind Power Plant Attack - RFE/RL
Video of wreckage after blasts rock hydropower plant in Russia - RT
Blasts at hydro plant in North Caucasus qualified as subversive acts - Itar-Tass

The Stalin-Beria Terror in Abkhazia, 1936-1953, by Stephen D. Shenfield

2010-07-02T11:10:00.004+03:00

June 2010 - Special to Abkhaz World

Background

In the period 1922—1930 Abkhazia enjoyed the status of a union republic associated with but not subordinate to Georgia. On February 19, 1931 the Sixth All-Georgian Congress of Soviets decided, presumably with Stalin’s consent, to deprive Abkhazia of this status and incorporate it into Georgia as an autonomous republic. In several Abkhaz villages there were mass protests against this change as well as against forced collectivization, then underway across the Soviet Union. Georgian leader Lavrenti Beria mobilized a security police detachment to suppress the protests, but Nestor Lakoba, the first leader of Soviet Abkhazia, managed to defuse the confrontation and avert bloodshed.

The result was that Abkhazia retained substantial de facto autonomy for another five or six years, although Lakoba now needed to make frequent visits to Tbilisi to consult with the Georgian leadership. By referring to the special conditions prevailing in Abkhazia, he was able to halt collectivization, avoid carrying out purges, and even distribute financial allowances to Abkhaz princes and nobles. In these respects, Abkhazia found itself in a uniquely protected position at a time of general upheaval.

Murder of Nestor Lakoba and subsequent purges

This idyll came to a sudden end with the death of Nestor Lakoba in December 1936, ushering in the period of repression that I refer to as the Stalin—Beria terror. The cause of Lakoba’s death has never been formally established, although historians acknowledge that he died under suspicious circumstances. However, various oral versions have survived. In an interview given by the famous Abkhaz writer Fazil Iskander, the interviewer suggests that Beria summoned Lakoba to his office and shot him right there, but Iskander rejects this version:

No, no, he was poisoned by Beria! What do I know? An order came from Beria that Lakoba should report to him in Tbilisi.. Nestor Apollonovich usually went to Tbilisi with his wife, but on this occasion he refused to take her with him—apparently he understood that things were difficult there. He arrived in Tbilisi, and on the very first day he and Beria had a vicious row at the offices of the Georgian Central Committee. [According to historian Stanislav Lakoba, Beria presented Lakoba with a plan to resettle peasants from Western Georgia in Abkhazia, which Lakoba refused to implement—SDS] Lakoba returned to his hotel room. After a while the telephone rang. It was Beria’s wife Nina, or perhaps Beria’s mother. “Why are you and Lavrenti quarreling, Nestor? You are friends, after all. Come to our place, we’ll dine together.” So she persuaded Lakoba to come. I’m sure she knew nothing of Beria’s intention. When they met, Beria handed his “friend” a glass of poisoned wine. After the meal Beria and Lakoba went to the theater, where Lakoba felt unwell, stood up, and headed for the exit. On the street he told his chauffeur in Abkhaz: “They’ve killed me!” He repeated these words a number of times, evidently already feeling the effect of the poison. Hardly had he reached his hotel room when he lay down and died. Some time—half an hour or an hour—later Beria turned up at the hotel...

I was a little boy at the time and vaguely remember how it was declared that Lakoba had died of a heart attack or something of the sort. His body was brought to Abkhazia, but Lakoba’s wife was a very courageous woman: knowing of the difficult relations between her husband and Beria, she called in her physician, who determined that Lakoba had been poisoned. Then she asked the physician to go to Moscow and inform [the Kremlin] of the cause of Lakoba’s death. The physician set off, but on the way he was intercepted and taken to Sochi. After that all trace of him is lost. Evidently he was either shot right away or jailed.

After that there began in Abkhazia [show] trials like those taking place in Moscow. It was Beria’s intention that Lakoba’s chief accusor should be his own wife. The chief accusation against him was that he had been a Turkish spy. [Lakoba’s wife was of Turkish origin—SDS] But Lakoba’s wife, despite every kind of torture, would not betray her husband, so she never appeared in court. She went insane from the tortures and died in jail.

They had a son. He was immediately arrested. When the war began, he wrote Beria a letter: “Uncle Lavrenti, let me out of jail and I’ll go to the front.” Beria is said to have responded: “What? Is he still alive?”—and gave the order for him to be shot.1 Read all article... (AW)

Caucasian Consensus, by Tom Balmforth

2010-06-25T12:36:00.007+03:00

Russia Profile, June 24, 2010

There May Be More Consensus Between Russia and the PACE, But Moscow's Delegates Still Want More Recognition of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's "Positive Role"

A report and resolution condemning Russian policy in the North Caucasus got unanimous backing at the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday and was even approved by top Russian officials. This is the first time such a resolution has been approved without any objections in the 14 years of Russia’s membership on the Council of Europe. No one doubts this is a signal from the Kremlin, but deciphering it is another matter. Is it all just a PR smoke screen, or are there fresh political winds blowing in the Kremlin?

The June 22 PACE resolution on the North Caucasus was approved almost unanimously by various delegations including top Russian officials, even though it condemns “systemic human rights violations and the climate of complete impunity.” This is the first time consensus across the board has been reached at a PACE session on rights issues in Russia’s troubled Caucasus region. Activists and politicians alike are hailing the breakthrough as “unprecedented.”

Two members of the Russian delegation, including State Duma Deputies Sergei Markov and Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee, abstained from the vote along with four other non-Russians. Other Russian delegates such as Ivan Melnikov, another State Duma deputy, voted in favor, and others such as Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov gave it full backing.

“What is unprecedented is that the resolution was approved by everyone: the Parliamentary Assembly, human rights activists, Akhmed Zakayev, and the Russian delegation,” said Oleg Orlov, the head of human rights at Memorial, who was at the conference.

Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen emissary wanted in Russia but supposed to be living in exile in London, caused a big stir when he burst into the Strasbourg conference uninvited, having apparently duped his way in with a fake pass. PACE’s plenary session had already been strained as the Estonian delegation in particular vilified Russia’s policy on the volatile region in Russia’s south, but even Zakayev gatecrashing did not prevent overall consensus on the resolution and report. Ingush president Yevkurov called the findings of the PACE report “unbiased” and “objective.” Orlov said both the report and the resolution were “excellent.”

The resolution starts positively by praising Russia’s “impressive efforts…to rebuild towns often reduced to heaps of rubble, and to restore and improve the country’s infrastructures,” after the two bloody Chechen wars. But the report goes on to castigate developments in Chechnya with increasingly emotive language. “The climate of impunity…and the passiveness of the authorities…seriously undermine the population’s trust in the security forces and the state institutions generally, and thus feed the nefarious spiral of violence,” reads the resolution.

In a press statement after the plenary session, Zakayev was even more barbed in his appraisal of Russian policy: “I would state that no window dressing about the so-called ‘rejuvenated’ Chechen Republic can serve as compensation for 250,000 lives of our countrymen, sacrificed on the altar of freedom and independence of our motherland – or for the ongoing violence.”

The republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan both came out relatively well from the report. Ingushetia’s president was commended for fomenting “constructive dialogue” with civil society, despite the increase in violent insurgency. Meanwhile the Dagestan security forces were mildly criticized after they “were not always lawful and productive” in their response to the recent increase in violence.

So have the Russians changed tack? Orlov said the unprecedentedly positive reaction of the Russian delegation had to indicate a clear change of policy. “It’s clearly a signal, and must have come from the Kremlin. It’s a good signal of course. But what it means is another matter. Is it the case that the Russian authorities have finally recognized that they need to fight human rights abuses in the North Caucasus, and that these abuses are impeding the situation stabilizing? This we can only hope,” said Orlov. “We will have to wait and see if this is just a Potemkin village.”

Sergei Markov told Russia Profile there had been no change in the position of the Russian authorities. “This new report simply moved closer to the Russian position,” said Markov. “It’s not a change in Kremlin policy – the results reflect a change of policy from the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe.”

Russia has never simply “ignored” that the human rights situation in the North Caucasus is “far from ideal,” as previous PACE resolutions have stated, said Markov. “This report actually paid tribute to the attempt of the Russian authorities to make improvements, but with one exception: this report does not recognize the positive role of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov,” said Markov.

The resolution says that “the current [Chechen] authorities continue to nurture a climate of pervading fear, despite the undeniable successes in the sphere of reconstruction and the appreciable improvement of infrastructure in this region, torn by two cruel and devastating wars.”

It continues: the Assembly “was deeply saddened by the violent death or the disappearance of personalities such as Anna Politkovskaya, Natalia Estemirova, Stanislav Markelov, Magomed Yevloyev, Maksharip Aushev, Zarema Gaisanova, Zarema Sadulayeva, Rashid Ozdoyev and many others, and expresses its perplexity and anguish at the fact that to date none of these cases has been elucidated by the investigating system.”

Five out of eight of these cases are linked specifically to Chechnya. The report also found that there are “strong indications” that the Chechen authorities, or “at least circles close to them,” were responsible for the murder of Kadyrov’s bodyguard-turned-critic Umar Israilov in Vienna in January 2009.

A case was opened yesterday against the two Chechens charged with gunning down Ruslan Yamadaev, an old rival of Kadyrov, in 2008. Since then Yamadaev’s brother was assassinated in Dubai, and a third brother narrowly escaped being murdered by his bodyguard. The bodyguard publically claims that Kadyrov offered $1 million for the third brother’s murder.

A press release posted on Ramzan Kadyrov’s Web site the day of the conference reads: “Everything must follow the letter of the law in the Chechen Republic.”

Caucasian Consensus, by Tom Balmforth - Russia Profile
Related issues
Human rights in the North Caucasus: the most serious situation in the geographical area of the Council of Europe
Russia Approves PACE Resolution On North Caucasus For First Time - RFE/RL
PACE resolution discussion on North Caucasus turns sour - paper - Ria-Novosti

Circassians Demand Division Of Karachayevo-Cherkessia Republic

2010-06-08T18:42:00.002+03:00

RFE/RL, June 7 -- Meeting in Cherkessk on June 5, representatives of the Circassian minority demanded the division of the Karachayevo-Cherkessia Republic (KChR) to recreate the separate Cherkess Autonomous Oblast that existed from 1928-1957. They have addressed a request to that effect to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and North Caucasus Federal District head Aleksandr Khloponin. It is the third such demand for Circassian autonomy in the past 17 years.

The so-called congress of the Cherkess people that formulated the demand for an autonomous oblast within the Russian Federation with the status of a separate republic was attended by the same 500-plus delegates who participated in a similar gathering in November 2008. On that occasion too, some delegates had advocated calling for a separate Cherkess republic comprising parts of the KChR, the neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, and the Republic of Adygeya. But delegates from Kabardino-Balkaria, where the Kabardians (ethnic cousins to the Cherkess) constitute a majority, declined to support that proposal. It was finally decided not to issue any such demand, but to give the Russian leadership time to address the KChR Circassians' grievances.

Foremost among the Circassian minority's complaints was the failure of KChR President Boris Ebzeyev to abide by a long-standing unwritten agreement on the division of leading posts among the republic's various ethnic groups. In line with that agreement, if the KChR president is a Karachai (as are Ebzeyev and his predecessor Mustafa Batdyev), the prime minister is a Circassian and the parliament speaker a Russian. According to the All-Russian census of 2002, 38.5 percent of the republic's population of 430,000 are Karachais, and 33.6 percent are Russians. The Circassians are the third largest ethnic group, accounting for 11.3 percent of the total.

Following his nomination as president in September 2008, Ebzeyev antagonized the Circassians by naming a Greek, Vladimir Kayshev, as prime minister and two Russians consecutively as parliament speaker. Tensions rose to the point that in March this year, the Russian, Cherkess, Abazin, and Nogai minorities addressed a collective appeal to the Russian leadership to replace Ebzeyev, whose leadership style has been described as "somnolent feudalism," as president with a Russian.

In an attempt to defuse those tensions, North Caucasus Federal District head Khloponin traveled to Cherkessk in late April and gave Ebzeyev until May 1 to name a Circassian as prime minister. But Ebzeyev failed to meet that deadline, and the man tentatively identified as his preferred choice for that position, his aide Fral Shbzukhov, was murdered in mid-May.

Ebzeyev then proposed as premier Circassian Muradin Kemov, who had served as acting prime minister since Kayshev's dismissal, rather than either of two alternative candidates whom the Circassian community preferred. Kemov attended the June 5 gathering "not in his capacity as prime minister but as a Circassian," according to Mukhammed Cherkesov, who heads the KChR-based Circassian public organization Adyghe Khase.

A second collective Cherkess grievance, according to Cherkesov, is perceived economic and cultural discrimination of the Cherkess by the Karachai majority.

The June 5 congress was also attended by representatives of the KChR's other ethnic minorities, including Nikolay Khokhlachev, a Russian who heads the Coordinating Council of National Public Organizations.

Mussa Takushinov, representing the KChR's Abazin minority, told Caucasian Knot that until now he has always opposed the idea of splitting the KChR, but now he sees it as the only solution to the mutual lack of respect between the various ethnic groups.

The delegates stressed that during the process of recreating the Cherkess Autonomous Oblast -- a process that they acknowledge will take years -- and selecting its leaders, the rights of all the ethnic groups that will live there must be respected. They further acknowledged that creating a new oblast will require changes to the constitution of the existing KChR. But Cherkasov said he does not believe that a referendum on the issue is necessary. "No one asked our opinion when they lumped us together with the Karachais," he said.

There has been no official reaction yet to the Circassians' bombshell from Ebzeyev's administration. But Karachai parliament deputy Akhmad Ebzeyev (not known to be a close relative to his namesake Boris) downplayed it as motivated primarily by unnamed Circassian interest groups out to embarrass the president.

Circassians Demand Division Of Karachayevo-Cherkessia Republic - RFE/RL, Caucasus Report
Related Issues
Circassians move to seek autonomy within Russia
Ethnic Circassians in Caucasus Demand Autonomous Region, by Alexander Bratersky - The Moscow Times
KChR Circassians Seek Restoration of Their Own Republic, Promise Protests if Moscow Ignores Them, by Paul Goble - Window on Eurasia

Circassians move to seek autonomy within Russia

2010-06-06T12:04:00.003+03:00

Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Teberda state nature reserve

MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) -- A public organization of Circassians, a North Caucasus ethnic group, gathered for an emergency congress on Saturday to ask the Russian authorities to create a Circassian autonomous area, Russian media reported.

The Circassian autonomous area existed within the Soviet Union in 1928-1957. The majority of Russian Circassians currently live in the Russian North Caucasus Republic of Karachai-Circassia, where they make the third largest ethnic group (11.3%), after Karachais and Russians, according to the 2002 census.

"Under the current state of affairs in the Republic of Karachai-Circassia, the Circassian people have no legal perspective for their revival and development," Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted a statement by the congress' organization committee.

A similar request filed in 2008 was "ignored" by the Russian authorities, the congress said.

The public organization of Circassians has been seeking autonomy for Circassians since 1994, citing "mono-national ethnocracy" and "a violation of constitutional rights of Circassians and other peoples to hold the leading posts in the republic."

Political controversies in republic came into focus in March after a leader of the organization's youth movement was killed. Members of the movement claimed that this was an assassination. The tensions further escalated last month after an aide to the republic's president, an ethnic Circassian, was killed on May 12.

Circassians move to seek autonomy within Russia - RIA Novosti

Human rights in the North Caucasus: the most serious situation in the geographical area of the Council of Europe

2010-06-01T18:08:00.003+03:00

Strasbourg, 31.05.2010 – The situation in the North Caucasus region, particularly the Chechen Republic, Ingushetia and Dagestan, is currently “the most serious and delicate situation” from the angle of protecting human rights and affirming the rule of law in the whole geographic area covered by the Council of Europe, as stressed by the text adopted this morning by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), on the basis of the report drawn up by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE).

The unanimously adopted draft resolution paints a dark picture, particularly in the Chechen Republic, where the current authorities continue to nurture “a climate of pervading fear”, recurrent disappearances of opponents of the Government and champions of human rights “remain widely unpunished” and the judicial organs “plainly do nothing about the misdeeds of the security forces”. All of this is happening in an atmosphere of personalisation of power which is “disgraceful in a democracy”.

In Ingushetia, the parliamentarians noted “an alarming upsurge of violence since 2009”, while in Dagestan, the outbreak of terrorist acts has prompted “prompted responses of the security forces which are not always lawful and productive".

The text adopted reaffirmed the Assembly’s aversion to any act of terrorism, a phenomenon which can only be fought effectively “while respecting fundamental rights”. It also pays tribute to human rights advocates, lawyers and journalists working in difficult circumstances, and often in peril of their lives, to help victims obtain justice and denounce abuses.

The draft resolution calls on the Russian central and regional executive and judicial authorities to combat terrorism “by availing themselves of the instruments provided by the law-based state”, and to look for the causes of the radicalisation in progress and the growing hold of religious extremism; to prosecute and try “in accordance with the law all culprits of human rights violations”, including members of the security forces, and to co-operate more closely with the human rights defence organisations, while “protecting their staff members effectively against possible reprisals”.

In connection with enforcing the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights finding serious and repeated violations of fundamental rights, the text welcomes the “specific efforts made by the Russian authorities”, while observing that “appreciable results in the matter are still awaited”. The climate of overall impunity illustrated by the Court’s judgments “seriously undermine(s) the population’s trust in the security forces and the state institutions generally, and thus feed(s) the nefarious spiral of violence”.

In the parliamentarians’ view, the other Council of Europe member countries should co-operate with the Russian authorities in combating terrorism, “guarantee adequate protection to the Chechen exiles” whom they have received in their territory and “consider with the greatest care and caution extradition requests in respect of exiles

from the North Caucasian republics who would risk being killed, subjected to torture or an unfair trial”.

The Assembly will be debating the draft resolution in Strasbourg during its forthcoming summer plenary session (21-25 June 2010).

Report (provisional version) (PDF)
Source: Council of Europe (COE)

String Quartet No.2 (On Kabardinian Themes), by Sergei Prokofiev

2010-05-30T23:03:00.003+03:00

Sergey Prokofiev String Quartet no 2 from Musica Viva Online Video Talks.

String Quartet No. 2 in F Major Op. 92 (On Kabardinian Themes) (1942)

Chamber music played a relatively small role in Prokofiev’s musical output. His fame rests on his orchestral music - the symphonies, concerti, ballets, film scores and piano music. However, his few chamber music works, the two string quartets, the Overture on Hebrew Themes (performed by the Sierra Chamber Society in the 1988 season) and the two sonatas for violin and piano remain popular and are often performed.

The String Quartet No. 2 was composed in about five weeks in the autumn of 1942 in the little town of Nalchik, in the Kabardino-Balkaria Autonomous Republic, located in the foothills of the northern Caucasus mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas. During the summer of 1942, following the demise of the non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, as the German Army was overrunning Russia, the Soviet government evacuated a group of its then favored musicians, actors, artists and professors from Moscow to the safety of this little known region.

It was under these circumstances that Prokofiev came to know of the folk music of this area. His fascination with the music led him to write this Quartet, the aim of which was to achieve, "a combination of virtually untouched folk material and the most classical of classical forms, the string quartet."

Each of the three movements of the work contains actual folk songs and dances. Prokofiev took care not to prettify the music. He strove to keep the often harsh harmonies and "barbaric" rhythms of the originals, as had Stravinsky, Bartok and Skzymanowski in their use of folk materials of Russia, Hungary and Poland. In his faithfulness to his sources, Prokofiev came under adverse criticism from the official critics who also praised him for his use of folk music. Despite the carping of the critics, the work was an immediate success. The work was premiered by the reknowned Beethoven Quartet in Moscow on September 5, 1942 but the start of the performance had to be delayed due to a German air raid.

The first movement (Allegro sostenuto) is based on the dance, Udzh Starikov, heard at the beginning and on the song Sosruko, in which three players create an accordion-like accompaniment to the song, sung by the violin.

The second movement (Adagio) is based on a Kabardian love song, Synilyaklik Zhir, given to the cello to sing in a high voice. The middle section utilizes a folk dance, Islamei, which seeks to imitate the sound of the kemange (Shikhepishina), a variety of spike fiddle originating in Persia and in use in various forms throughout the Middle East. It is a long necked fiddle with typically 3 strings. It is held vertically, with the spike resting on the player’s knee and bowed. The movement ends with a brief return of the opening song.

The third movement (Allegro) is based on a mountain dance known as Getegezhev Ogurbi alternating with two lyrical themes and a reminiscence of the first movement.

All Article and Musics - Circassian World
Related Issue
Islamey: an Oriental Fantasy by Mily A. Balakirev

A counterproductive approach to Abkhazia

2010-05-30T11:58:00.004+03:00

Letters to the Editor

Washington Post, Sunday, May 30, 2010

Although one could raise many points of dispute with Kurt Volker's May 25 op-ed, "Avoiding an Olympic mess," on policy prescriptions toward the disputed territory of Abkhazia, I would like to focus on one. Mr. Volker recommended that the United States and European Union assume a position of diplomatic nonrecognition and economic isolation of Abkhazia.

This proposal suggests nothing more than a continuation of the same isolationist policies that have failed since 1994, during which time the United States and the international community have driven the people of Abkhazia into a position whereby the only support they are able to accept comes from Russia. Criminalizing business activity and investments in the region and revoking travel possibilities for those living in Abkhazia, as Mr. Volker proposed, would only further ensure that Abkhazia's future lies with its northern neighbor.

The best way to guarantee security in this region is to finally open the avenues for practical relationships to be built between Abkhazia, its neighbors, and the West.

Patrik Shirak, Washington

The Kremlin's Chechen Dragon, by Amy Knight

2010-05-28T18:42:00.003+03:00

Chechen President Ramzan A. Kadyrov, with a portrait of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, February, 2009

The New York Review of Books

In the summer of 2004, two years and four months before she was gunned down in the entrance to her Moscow apartment, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya made a bold visit to Chechnya to interview 27-year-old Ramzan Kadyrov, who had recently become (with the Kremlin’s blessing) the republic’s de-facto leader. It proved to be a harrowing experience. When they met face to face, Kadyrov could not contain his rage at Politkovskaya for reporting on his brutal rise to power, even threatening to have her shot. Politkovskaya concluded later that “a little dragon has been raised by the Kremlin. Now they need to feed it. Otherwise it will spit fire.”

Politkovskaya was all too right. Since becoming president of Chechnya in 2007, Kadyrov has made the republic into his own fiefdom, which he rules by violence and terror. He has also, apparently, had his gunmen carry out a series of brazen killings of his perceived enemies in Moscow, Dubai, Istanbul and the North Caucasus.

Until recently, the Kremlin, which has provided military and economic support to Kadyrov’s regime, consistently brushed off the murder allegations against him. Since April, prosecutors in two separate cases—a murder in Vienna and a murder attempt in Moscow—have for the first time implicated Kadyrov directly. And in the weeks since those revelations, the Kremlin leadership appears to be showing misgivings about its unconditional support for Kadyrov. How these cases play out could have profound effects on the future of Moscow’s Chechen policy.

It has long been known that Moscow has allowed Kadyrov to run the Chechen Republic with ruthless force, facilitating his extensive cult of personality and funding his lavish lifestyle while ignoring the alarmingly frequent kidnappings, disappearances, and torture of those suspected of opposing his rule. But Kadyrov’s bloody vendettas have not been limited to rival Chechen clans. Indeed, it now appears that he has been going after anyone who draws attention to the shocking human rights abuses in Chechnya committed under his auspices—and that Politkovskaya herself may have been one of his first targets.

The list of likely victims is chilling: In January 2009, there was the Moscow shooting of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov (together with a journalist friend) who had pursued legal cases against Kadyrov. That same month Umar Israilov, a former member of Kadyrov’s security team who was granted asylum in Austria and subsequently made shocking allegations of human rights abuses against Kadyrov, was killed by Chechen gunmen in Vienna. And in July 2009 came the murder of Politkovskaya’s close colleague, Natalia Estemirova, who had been documenting the widespread abductions and extra-judicial executions by Kadyrov’s counter-insurgency forces for Novaya gazeta, Human Rights Watch, and Memorial. Estemirova was kidnapped by four men in broad daylight as she left her Grozny apartment. Hours later, her body, riddled with bullets, was found in a ditch in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

After the Politkovskaya killing, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin went out of his way to point out that the murder hurt Kadyrov “much more than any newspaper article [i.e. those written by Politkovskaya] could do.” Last summer, when Estemirova’s family, friends, and colleagues gathered in Grozny to mourn her on the 40th day of her death (a Russian orthodox tradition), Putin flew to the Chechen capitol to attend a state ceremony with Kadyrov by his side. Significantly, Kadyrov was allowed to take personal control of the investigation into Estemirova’s murder and there have been no arrests.

Moscow has also rejected demands by the Dubai government for the extradition of Kadyrov’s cousin Adam Delimkhanov, a member of the Russian parliament and Putin’s United Russia Party, who they accuse of having organized the March 2009 murder of yet another Kadyrov opponent, Sulim Yamadayev, who was a member of a rival Chechen clan. (On April 12, a Dubai court sentenced two men of Central Asian origin to life imprisonment for the killing.)

But how long can Moscow ignore the mounting evidence against its Chechen puppet? In April the counter-terrorism department of the Vienna police handed over a confidential 214-page report to Austrian prosecutors in which they named Kadyrov and his top aide, Shaa Turlayev, as the “principal offenders” in the January 2009 murder of Israilov, the former member of Kadyrov’s security guard. According to Israilov’s widow, Turlayev appeared in Vienna shortly before the murder and tried unsuccessfully to meet with her husband. In addition, the man charged with organizing the killing locally, a Chechen refugee who now calls himself Otto Kaltenbrunner, placed a call to Turlayev immediately after the murder. Moreover, a copy of Turlayev’s passport was found in the getaway car, along with an electronic airline ticket that he used to travel to Austria. As a representative of Human Rights Watch puts it: “the conclusions reached by the Austrian Prosecutor’s Office about Ramzan Kadyrov…should prompt the Russian government to finally take the necessary steps to restore the rule of law in Chechnya.”

Meanwhile, Kadyrov’s Kremlin backers have also been facing pressure from a Moscow investigation into an attempted murder in June 2009. The victim of the failed attempt was Isa Yamadayev, the brother of Salim Yamadayev, the murder victim in Dubai, and of Ruslan Yamadayev, a State Duma Deputy who was killed in Moscow in 2008. In April of this year the Moscow District Court began holding secret hearings about the case. Incredibly, a transcript and video of the interrogation of the accused would-be killer ended up in the hands of the intended victim, Yamadayev, who leaked it to a major Russian paper, Moskovskii Komsomolets. During his questioning, the accused, Khavash Yusupov, confessed to the crime and claimed that he was hired by none other than Shaa Turlayev. Yusupov said that Turlayev took him for a meeting with Kadyrov, who ordered the killing.

It remains to be seen whether Austria will indict Kadyrov when it issues formal charges in the Vienna murder in a few weeks, and what the Moscow Court will decide to do about Kadyrov. But the fact that, in the Moscow case, highly damaging testimony about the Chechen president and his top advisor was allowed to appear in the Russian media suggests that some members of the Kremlin elite may have decided that Kadyrov needs to be reined in. Could Russian President Dmitry Medvedev be among them? In contrast to Putin, Medvedev has expressed strong concerns about the unsolved murders and the problem of human rights abuses in the Caucasus. Responding to the Estemirova case last summer, Medvedev said it was “obvious” that she was killed because of her human rights work and expressed his personal condolences to her family and friends.

In January, Medvedev appointed a presidential envoy, Alexander Khloponin, to a newly formed North Caucasus Federal District, which some observers interpreted as an effort to exert Moscow’s control over the region, especially Chechnya. More recently, on May 19, Medvedev invited human rights activists to a two and a half –hour meeting in Moscow, in which Estemirova’s murder was discussed. It was not the first time the Kremlin has met with human rights advocates. But it was a departure for Medvedev because the meeting was devoted entirely to the situation in the troubled North Caucasus. With Khloponin at his side, Medvedev listened to grim details of the abuses attributed to Kadyrov’s counter-insurgency forces in Chechnya and to the concerns that surround unsolved murders like Estemirova’s.

“If you think I don’t know some of the facts,” Medvedev told the participants in the meeting, “well, that’s not the case. I know more than anyone else here because it is my job to know. Have no doubt. I know some very sad things.” In what seemed to be a reference to Kadyrov, who routinely ridicules the efforts of human rights workers, Medvedev also said that political leaders in the Caucasus who do not engage in a dialogue with non-governmental organizations in the region “must ultimately leave.”

However sincere Medvedev might be (and there are many skeptics), at the moment he is not in a position to topple Kadyrov without the concurrence of Putin and members of his powerful Federal Security Service, who installed Kadyrov as the leader of Chechnya. And it appears that the Putin has been unwilling to rein in Kadyrov in part because he fears that doing so would create even more instability in the North Caucasus region (and possibly more terrorist bombings in places like Moscow).

As Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, observed: “The impunity and omnipotence of Ramzan Kadyrov depends on the support of…Putin. As long as Putin supports him nobody will touch a hair on Kadyrov’s head, even if he kills us all.” Perhaps the recent revelations about Kadyrov will finally convince Putin and his colleagues that it is time for Kadyrov to go.

May 27, 2010 2:15 p.m.

The Kremlin's Chechen Dragon, by Amy Knight -The New York Review of Books
Related Issues
Chechnya: A long Struggle for re-Independence - Part 1 of 4
Grigory Pasko: R.I.P., Stanislav Markelov (1974-2009)
Anna Politkovskaya's lawyer Stanislav Markelov shot dead in Moscow
Anna Politkovskaya: the search for justice continues

Circassian Tribal Council rebuffs calls to boycott elections

2010-05-28T00:22:00.003+03:00

AMMONNEWS - (Exclusive), May 27 -- The Circassian Tribal Council decided on Wednesday to form a committee to discuss the new electoral law and the calls of a group of Circassians to boycott the upcoming parliamentary elections because the government did not allocate a Circassian parliamentary seat for the Third District in Amman.

During a meeting at the Circassian Association between the Circassian Tribal Council and a group of Circassians calling for boycotting the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Council listened to the opinions of those calling for a boycott and justifications for their demands. The Council decided to form the committee to discuss the issue and conduct the appropriate communications with government entities to look into government’s decision not to re-instate Circassian representation to the Third District.

The group calling for the boycott justified their demands noting the symbolic and historic Circassian presence in the area.

The Council decided to reconvene on Friday and hold a wider meeting with Circassian civil society organization to look into the appropriate steps in this regard.

Sources inside the Council doubted that the community would resort to boycotting the elections as a solution, noting that it would not allow any entity to take advantage of such circumstances to pass personal agendas and objectives that may cause divisions among the Circassian Jordanian community.

A member of the group calling for the boycott said that the matter "stops here," referring to the fact that the group laid the matter in the hands of the community elders, and noting that the message has been received by the community decision makers.

Participants in the meeting stressed the need to resort to democratic means and called for constructive dialogue to expose their voices and demands, stressing also on the need to maintain the “unique and respected image of the Circassian community in Jordan, well known for its commitment and loyalty to Jordan and the Hashemite leadership.”

The Circassian Tribal Council also met with a government official on Wednesday, a meeting that lasted well until mid night.

It is noted that a group of young Circassians had distributed a statement in the past several days calling for boycotting the upcoming parliamentary elections, in response to the government's lack of response to Circassian demands to re-instate Circassian parliamentary representation to the Third District in Amman.

Circassian Tribal Council rebuffs calls to boycott elections - Ammon News

Diasporas: A new sort of togetherness

2010-05-20T23:46:00.003+03:00

Circassians in Turkey: lonely no longer

Diasporas
A new sort of togetherness
With new technology and new concerns, émigrés reinvent themselves

The Economist, May 20, 2010

AT A Hindu temple in Chicago, hundreds of people of Indian descent, professing many faiths, turned up from across Illinois and farther afield to hear a speaker from back home. But the meeting on May 15th was not the usual style of diaspora politics, in which a nation’s far-flung children are urged to cheer for the homeland.

The man they came to see was Jayaprakash Narayan, head of a movement called Lok Satta which opposes corruption and wants electoral reform. And the aim of his month-long American tour, which includes venues like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Google headquarters in California, is to get support from Indian-Americans for a drive to correct some of India’s failings. That sounds a lot better than passing round the hat for hardline Hindu nationalist causes, something else that occurs in the diaspora.

Bad, sleazy government, Mr Narayan says, is holding India back, crippling the country in its race with China. Having voted with their feet by leaving the country, he adds, Indians abroad should now help make their homeland worth staying in. Independent India’s early rulers had picked up statist ideas when studying in Britain; a new cohort of Indians, having thrived in economies like America’s, are nudging the country towards a freer market. This transmission of ideas, he notes, is easier in an electronic age.

All this is a long way from ethnic lobbying of the old school, in which people from country A are persuaded to use their votes to tilt their new homeland’s policies and make them less favourable to country (or regime) B, their ancient bugbear. Or else they are urged to fight old causes in an even more direct way—by sending money to extremist groups. In almost every democracy that has received migrants from troubled places, the influence (or at least, perceived influence) of groups committed to particular national causes has been a feature of political life, and of foreign-policy debates.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former American national security adviser, has controversially described the Cuban-Americans, the Armenian-Americans and the supporters of Israel as the three most effective groups in Washington, DC—while agreeing that the lobby of his native Poland “was at one time influential”. A landmark in the efforts of ethnic groups to affect American foreign policy was the arms embargo placed on Turkey in the 1970s, under the sway of Greek-Americans angry over the Turkish takeover of northern Cyprus.

Until recently at least, it seemed that the influence of ethnic constituencies was doomed to fade. For one thing, the communities on which they were based are blurring into wider societies. Gone are the days when Irish-Americans looked mainly to fellow Hibernians to socialise with; today’s Lebanese-Australian teenager is as likely to hang out with youngsters from Vietnam as with other Levantines. In America, meanwhile, support for Israel is no longer an especially Jewish cause; the largest body of pro-Israel hawks are evangelical Christians, while many Jews are critical of Israeli policies,

True, groups can hold together as long as there is one big woe to be redressed. For Armenians, the big cause is recognition that the mass killings of 1915 were genocide. Yet the power of a single issue cuts both ways: once the great cause is achieved (as with Baltic independence in 1991) or lost (as with Sri Lanka’s Tamils), the reason for hanging together can fade away.

Life in the old dog
Despite all this, the latest signs are that diasporas have life in them yet. As Mr Narayan shows, they are interacting with their homelands in more creative ways. The American Ireland Fund has raised over $250m, mainly from rich Irish-Americans, to promote charitable causes, and above all inter-community relations; a lot better than giving money for guns. A new breed of wealthy Greek-Americans is doing more interesting things than counting congressional votes: funding libraries, scholarships and university chairs in Hellenic studies in the United States, for example. And this week George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, met successful businessmen of Hellenic origin from five countries (such as Andrew Liveris, chief executive of America’s Dow Chemical company), in the hope that they could lend their struggling homeland some badly needed pizzazz.

But perhaps the main reason why diasporas are perking up is simply the new ease of communications. With the internet and social networks, people with a common origin or concern can stay in touch and pool their efforts—with a flexibility and spontaneity that would amaze old-time lobbyists, reliant on faxes, phones and foreign-ministry briefings.

Take a diaspora as obscure as the Indians are visible. The Circassians descend from a Caucasus nation obliterated by Russia’s tsar in the mid-19th century, losing around half its 2m population. Nine out of ten Circassians now live in diaspora: survivors fled to all corners of the Ottoman empire and beyond. Only 20 years ago, they were dwindling, with moribund diaspora bodies under Soviet tutelage. The internet is rekindling the cause. Facebook and Twitter link thousands of Circassians, helping them raise the national profile. Facebook groups and Twitter feeds enabled Circassians to co-ordinate the protests held on May 21st in Berlin, Istanbul, New York, The Hague and Washington, DC, to mark the 146th anniversary of what they term a genocide. They plan to make their feelings known at Sochi—the site of the killings—during the 2014 Olympics.

Politics is just one part of the diaspora’s e-revival. Reassembling fragmented cultures is another. Circassians can find their long-lost music and dance on YouTube. Information about history and culture that was once obscure or falsified is now a click away. Online Circassian dictionaries and language courses are emerging. Internet forums can facilitate the search for a spouse.

For some diasporas, any alternative to politics is welcome. In Ukraine the diaspora is the biggest donor for the Ukrainian Catholic University, the country’s main independent provider of higher learning. Rigorous education is less glamorous than getting Ukraine into NATO or keeping the Russian bear at bay. But the gains are palpable, in contrast to the chaos and corruption of Kiev politics which faze many émigrés.

Such stories mark a big turnaround for diasporas, which over the last century have often had to wage an uphill struggle against time and geography. “One by one, all remaining links to our old life are vanishing […] Our Baghdad, my Baghdad is gone for ever.” So concludes “Memories of Eden”, Violette Shamash’s reflections on Jewish life in that city. A community which a century ago made up almost 40% of the city’s population now lives chiefly in fading memories. But the people to whom memories are dear (if only because of things heard from grandparents) can now cultivate and share them more easily.

E-communications provide some hope of keeping at bay all the forces which threaten the existence of diasporas, especially small ones: assimilation (seen in the decline of once-mighty tongues like Yiddish and Latino) and the danger of irrelevance as the world moves on. But that will only work if the will to keep old languages and cultures alive really exists. In the easy-come, easy-go ethos of the electronic age, virtual communities die as well as live.

Diasporas: A new sort of togetherness - The Economist
Related Issue
Reflections on the Caucasus: 21 May 1864-2010 - Circassian World

Reflections on the Caucasus: 21 May 1864-2010

2010-05-20T23:42:00.003+03:00

“I had a dream last night. I can’t tell it to you, because it was in Ubykh,” said the last speaker of the Ubykh language, Tevfik Esenç. When he passed away in 1992, the unique language of the the Ubykh people, the indigenous people of Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will be held, also died. This was one of the consequences of the fall of the Caucasus, which was celebrated by the Russian armies with triumphalism and a procession in the Valley of Kbaada, now called Krasnaya Polyana on May 21, 1864.

What the 21st May brings to the mind of the Adyghes (Circassians), the Abkhazians, and the Ubykhs, who have been scattered all over the world and struggling to preserve their cultures and languages today, must be exile and genocide... But what do experts have to say about 21 May, about the Adyghes, Abkhazians and Ubykhs? And what are their thoughts?

This project is the outcome of a desire of CircassianWorld.com, which has always tried to publicize academic works from the very day of its inception, to provide a platform for academics, researchers, politicians, journalists, and executives of NGOs from various countries to express their opinions about the 21st May, the North Caucasus, and its peoples.

I would like wholeheartedly to thank all of the following people who have contributed to this project proferring their valuable thoughts for inclusion on this site.

Metin Sönmez,
CircassianWorld.com & AbkhazWorld.com
Ed.

The authors were given complete freedom regarding the content of their texts whose maximum length was specified as around one page. Their views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the CW website. The texts have been listed alphabetically according to the names of the authors.

Annsi Kullberg, Antero Leitzinger, Ayhan Kaya, Cem Özdemir, Charles King, Daniel Müller, Eiji Miyazawa, Erol Taymaz, Fethi Açıkel, George Anchabadze, Georgi Derluguian, Georgy Chochiev, Hakan Kırımlı, Irma Kreiten, John Colarusso, Karlos Zurutuza, Kemal Karpat, Khasan Kasumov, Laurent Vinatier, Liana Kvarchelia, Mark Levene, Max Sher, Michael Khodarkovsky, Mohydeen Quandour, Moshe Gammer, Muhittin Özsağlam, Murat Papşu, Musa Shanibov, Naima Neflyasheva, Neal Ascherson, Oliver Bullough, Patrick Armstrong, Paul Henze, Paula Garb, Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski, Rieks Smeets, Seteney Shami, Sibel Siber, Stephen Shenfield, Sufian Zhemukhov, Thomas De Waal, Walter Richmond, Yakov Gordin. Read All Articles...

Reflections on the Caucasus: 21 May 1864-2010 - Circassian World

Circassians in bid to save language

2010-05-14T15:29:00.004+03:00

Al Jazeera English, May 14 - Unesco has warned that half of all the languages spoken on the planet will are likely to disappear by the end of the century, and some say we all stand to lose once they are gone.

There are more than 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world - many aren't recorded and don't have a written form.

Their loss could limit our knowledge about history, culture and nature.

Nisreen El-Shamayleh reports on the Circassian diaspora in Jordan.

Source: Al Jazeraa English

Complicated histories haunt the Caucasus, by Jonathan O'Brien

2010-04-19T13:57:00.005+03:00

April 18, ThePost.ie -- Reviewed by Jonathan O'Brien

Let Our Fame Be Great

By Oliver Bullough

Some of the photographs of the Caucasus countryside featured in Let Our Fame Be Great would make you want to jump on the next plane and go there for your summer holidays.

The region looks like a Timotei ad filmed on a superhuman scale, all lush green meadows, glorious sunshine, endless forests and jagged, massive peaks framed against an implausibly blue sky. Even in still photos, it radiates a serenity as old as time itself.

You can’t do anything of the kind, of course, unless your desire to gaze upon some mind blowing scenery vastly outweighs your regard for your own physical safety.

Only the most hard-bitten of travellers, or those rich enough to afford personal bodyguards, can even think about it. The Caucasus should be another Switzerland, but instead it’s one of the world’s most dangerous places.

The local bandits and the notoriously trigger-happy Russian army would both quite easily shoot you just for the hell of it. Say the word ‘Caucasus’ and most people will think of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Those equally fascinating nations, however, are not the subject of Let Our Fame Be Great (the title comes from a prayer by the Narts, the mythical ancestors of the region’s current inhabitants) - this book is strictly about the patchwork quilt of the north Caucasus.

The places Oliver Bullough visits and writes about are technically on Russian Federation soil, but everything else about them is distinctly and stubbornly non Russified.

Geography is the key to understanding the Caucasus. Its dizzyingly steep mountains, many of which even now are unreachable by road, are home to thousands of tiny communities whose cultures and customs evolved in isolation from each other over the centuries.

It’s often the case that two villages several miles apart speak totally unrelated languages. To get an idea of the linguistic diversity of the region, consider the fact that Dagestan’s two million inhabitants use 40 languages between them; the entire European Union has 65.The place is an ethnographer’s dream.

Bullough, a former Reuters journalist, has written two-thirds of a great book - the sections where he obsessively retraces the narratives of 19th century battles between the Russian occupying forces and the local tribes people are the exceptions, tending to get bogged down in minutiae and sameyness.

Perhaps that’s unavoidable. The Caucasus being the kind of place it is, everything carries a deeper historical resonance.

Bullough notes in passing that in Sochi, the spa resort which will host the next Winter Olympics, the helipad used by Vladimir Putin when holidaying in the area is on the very spot where the Russian army paraded after finally forcing the local Circassian-Ubykhs to surrender in 1864.Today’s Circassians are enraged about the Winter Games being staged there on the 150th anniversary of their defeat, but no one really cares what they think.

If you’ve never heard of the Circassians, and you probably haven’t, that’s because they were subjected to a brutal dispersal and genocide two centuries ago, some 300,000 of them dying while being forcibly pushed off their land near the Black Sea in the mid-1800s.

In Israel, Bullough meets some of their descendants and learns about habze, the curiously antiquated moral and cultural code by which they still live.

The Chechens received similar treatment a century later, suffering deportation en masse to the steppes of central Asia because Stalin thought they were collaborating with the Nazis, and being allowed to return only after he had died.

The definitive story of Russia’s mid1990s onslaught on the place has already been written by Carlotta Gall and Thomas deWaal. Wisely, Bullough attacks the subject at a micro level instead, telling the shockingly bleak stories of Zarema Muzhakoyeva, a would-be ‘‘black widow’’ suicide bomber who lost her nerve at the last moment and turned herself over to the Moscow police; and of a family who returned home to Grozny in 1994, four decades after being sent to Kazakhstan, only to have their newly-built house flattened by the Russian air force within three months. (Light relief is provided by an encounter with Khasan ‘Dedushka’ Bibulatov, an old man with a colourful criminal past whose swearing would embarrass Bertie Blunt’s parrot.)

One quibble with the book is its slightly arbitrary selections of topic - in contrast to the many pages devoted to the Circassians, the Ossetians are mentioned only a tiny handful of times.

The final section of the book (about the Beslan massacre of 2004) is set in North Ossetia, but looks at the event rather than the people.

Bullough attends the depressing show trial of the one surviving hostage-taker, who is given life imprisonment despite severe doubts over the extent of his involvement.

With the EU having no huge desire to cross swords with Putin, and the Americans interested only in Georgia’s potential Nato membership, the north Caucasus peoples remain an object of near total indifference to western governments.

Their story is both truly heartbreaking and exceptionally complex. Bullough has done a good job of getting it down in this fine, if occasionally sidetracked, book.

Complicated histories haunt the Caucasus, by Jonathan O'Brien - ThePost.ie
Related
The Caucasus: Haunting history - The Economist
Let Our Fame Be Great, Review, by Justin Marozzi - The Financial Times
Let Our Fame be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus, by Oliver Bullough (The Sunday Times review by Wendell Steavenson)

Russia scientist fears arrest over Olympic warnings, by Richard Galpin - BBC

2010-04-18T20:43:00.015+03:00

By Richard Galpin - BBC News, Moscow - April 16

A senior scientist has told the BBC he has fled Russia to avoid arrest after warning of a possible disaster in the run-up to - or even during - the next Winter Olympics.

Sergei Volkov

The games are due to be held in the southern Russian city of Sochi in 2014.

Dr Sergei Volkov, a former consultant to the Sochi Winter Olympics, is in hiding in southern Ukraine because he fears being detained by Russian authorities on trumped-up criminal charges.

He says he refused to keep quiet after discovering that the massive construction programme was forging ahead without essential research into the region's complex geology and ecology.

"It's a potentially dangerous area," said Dr Volkov, a geologist by profession.

He gave the interview in a small room where he now lives with just a laptop, an internet connection and a few books and files.

"There have been big landslides in the past and there are large deposits of mercury, uranium and other potentially dangerous minerals. But all scientific advice is being ignored," he said.

He believes the government took the political decision to hold the games before they had thought through how much preliminary work was needed in the area.

Shortly after arriving in Ukraine, Dr Volkov wrote an open letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warning him of the dangers.

He sent his letter after a storm destroyed a new cargo port being built in Sochi for the Olympics.

"Not a particularly strong storm destroyed this important infrastructure project," he wrote.

"At least $14m [of work] was washed away by the sea, to say nothing of the lives of [three] seamen.

"And this serious catastrophe with the loss of human life is just the start of similar accidents which will follow," he warned.

The Olympic stadium at Sochi is being built to tight deadlines

Warnings 'ignored'

What happened at the port is evidence, Dr Volkov believes, of his worst fears coming true.

He says building work began last year without basic research into local geology and weather patterns.

He had warned that it was not a suitable place for a port, but says he was ignored.

Now one of his biggest concerns is an $8bn (£5bn) project for a new road and rail link between Olympic venues being built on the Black Sea coast near Sochi and venues in the mountains.

It is supposed to be a centre-piece of the infrastructure development in the area.

Pile-drivers, cranes, bulldozers and cement-mixers are transforming a long, beautiful valley containing the Mzymta River into a frenetic industrial landscape.

It is one of the main reasons the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned in February that "preparation for the Olympics is out of control, construction is of poor quality and vast damage to the environment has already been done".

But Dr Volkov's main worry is not for the environment.

He fears the builders are cutting a swathe through the valley up towards the mountains without taking into account how unstable the area is geologically.

He refers to a massive landslide in the late 1960s and warns there could be a repeat.

"The road is being built and tunnels dug in this same district," he says.

"This is seriously affecting the mountains."

Active landslide

Driving along the old road between the coast and the high peaks, we found an active landslide being cleared by excavators to protect traffic passing beneath.

Higher up next to the ski slopes Sergei Avdeev, mayor of Krasnaya Polyana - the village nearest the Olympic sites - told us he shared Dr Volkov's worries.

He said he had considered resigning over the issue.

"When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the games to Russia, they knew full well that Russia did not have enough time to do proper research and build all the facilities in line with international environmental and construction standards," he says.

"I pray to God that there will not be any consequences. The only thing we can do is pray and hope."

In answers e-mailed to the BBC, the IOC dismissed these concerns.

"Construction of the facilities, related infrastructure, and safety issues are the responsibility of the Russian organisers and the government," it said.

"We are confident in the research they did prior to the start of construction and the work they are undertaking now."

Allegations that corners are being cut in the rush to meet deadlines are also strongly denied by the main state-owned Olympic construction company, Olimpstroi.

"It's not a secret that Sochi has a very tough geological landscape," says Alexandra Kosterina, the main spokesperson.

"But all necessary research has been done... and we are building everything in line with international standards and with recommendations from the IOC."

The Sochi 2014 project is Russia's first experience of hosting the Winter Olympics.

The prestige of the country is at stake and it cannot afford to make any mistakes.

-- In pictures: Sochi Olympic preparations (Pics and text: Artyom Liss, BBC)

Russia scientist fears arrest over Olympic warnings, By Richard Galpin - BBC News
Related News
Can the 2014 Sochi Games Be Saved?‏, by Paul Goble - Window on Eurasia

Can the 2014 Sochi Games Be Saved?‏, by Paul Goble

2010-04-13T21:29:00.001+03:00

Window on Eurasia

Vienna, April 13 – Even before the International Olympic Committee, after intense lobbying by then-Russian President Vladimir Putin, awarded the 2014 Winter Games to Sochi, it was obvious to many that Russia would face serious challenges in getting the venue ready for the Olympics and ensuring that they passed off safely.

Now, all the problems they warned about– violence in neighboring areas, environmental concerns, objections to holding such a competition on the site of a nineteenth century genocide, and both paying for infrastructure and finding workers to build it – have become more obvious, and as a result, some in Moscow are casting about for possible solutions.

Last year, opposition figure Boris Nemtsov suggested that the name Sochi Games be retained but that the competitions take place at existing sports facilities in other Russian cities, but now, the editors of Liberty.ru have proposed saving the day by creating new federal subject directly subordinate to Moscow (www.liberty.ru/Themes/Kak-spasti-Olimpiadu-v-Sochi).

“Many of the administrative problems which are having a negative impact on preparations for the Games are the result of the subordination of Sochi to Krasnodar kray,” they argue. Consequently, removing Sochi from that kray and creating a separate Black Sea kray could “allow the securing of a more effective relationship of the center and the region.”

Such a new federal subject, the Liberty.ru editors say, would not have to coordinate with Krasnodar and could receive subsidies directly from the federal budget and thus get all the money the central government intends them to have, thus bypassing the “power ‘filters’” of the existing kray.

The editors point out that there is a precedent for taking this step even in Sochi itself. Between August 1948 and June 1958, Sochi was “like Moscow, Leningrad [now St. Petersburg], Kyiv and Sevastopol, a city of republic subordination” because it served as a resort that was used largely by senior officials of the central government.

“In the Soviet Union,” the editors say, it was well understood that Sochi is a special place which one must not compare with any other region of Russia.” Consequently, “the return to Sochi of such a special status within the framework of the Russian Federation should help the revival of the region and the successful conduct of the 2014 Olympics.”

Not only does the Russian Federation have the recent tradition of amalgamating regions – another one of Putin’s pet projects – but, the editors say, “it is possible to provide a multitude of arguments in favor of the separating out of Sochi” from Krasnodar kray. “The main one is that Sochi and Krasnodar kray have radically different structures both economically and socially.”

Krasnodar is based on agriculture, while Sochi is based on tourism and now the Olympics. And after the games are held, the editors say, there will be even more reason to keep Sochi separate so that it will be able to promote itself rather than become yet another “company town” (http://www.liberty.ru/columns/Zametki-o-social-nom/Monogorod-odnoj-Olimpiady).

Sochi must not be allowed to fall back to the status of “a provincial resort, less attractive than Turkey and Egypt, with empty stadiums,” the editors say. Moreover, they suggest, “the establishment of a Black Sea kray will become for the city a real reward for the Olympics,” making into “a model tourist region” perhaps “on the model of the American Las Vegas.”

The Liberty.ru editors helpfully attach an 800-word draft law that, if adopted, would lead to the creation of the new kray, a draft they say they will be forwarding “through deputies friendly to us for consideration by the corresponding commissions of the State Duma” after seeking support from the government, the National Olympic Committee and the Social Chamber (www.liberty.ru/groups/federal-bureaucrats/FKZ-Ob-obrazovanii-v-sostave-Rossijskoj-Federacii-novogo-sub-ekta-Rossijskoj-Federacii-CHernomorskogo-kraya).

Given how many problems the creation of such a new federal subject in the North Caucasus would cause and how few of the problems it would solve in advance of the planned games, it is unlikely that this proposal will receive widespread support. But it is a measure of just how desperate some in Moscow have become that such an idea is being floated at all.

Can the 2014 Sochi Games Be Saved?‏, by Paul Goble - Window on Eurasia

The Caucasus: Haunting history

2010-04-01T18:34:00.004+03:00

Mar 31st 2010 From The Economist print edition

Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus. By Oliver Bullough. Allen Lane; 496 pages; £25. To be published in America by Basic Books in August. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

WESTERN colonialists have often behaved abominably but they usually repent of it later. Move east, though, and the picture becomes cloudier. Few now remember what happened to Circassia. As the Ottoman empire crumbled in the mid-19th century, Russia conquered the loosely held Turkish domains on the north-east coast of the Black Sea—and huge numbers of the anarchic, steely Circassian tribespeople died in what would today be termed a genocidal colonial war. Many more fled the killing grounds, crossing the Black Sea in leaky and overcrowded ships, many of them to die miserably in now-forgotten refugee camps on the Turkish coast. Around half the Circassian population of 2m perished.

Oliver Bullough’s first book marks him out as a distinguished researcher, observer and narrator. The opening chapters deal with a part of history wholly neglected in Russia. It is as if Americans had never heard of the Sioux, and Wounded Knee had become a tourist resort where the events of 1890 had faded from memory.

That is pretty much how surviving Circassians now see the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which 150 years ago was the site of their final and greatest defeat and massacre. Mr Bullough tracks down their remnants, determined and despairing by turns, in Russia and in exile. His quest takes him from dirt-poor villages in Kosovo to influential bits of Jordanian officialdom. He paints a haunting portrait of a people blown to the winds by a forgotten storm.

His research is formidable. He unearths long-buried contemporary accounts of the killings, and desperate pleas for help buried in old files in the British Foreign Office. He matches this with accounts of the contemporary diasporas, often both nostalgic for what they have lost and disgusted by what they find when they return.

If the tsarist conquest of the northern Caucasus was savage, what followed under communism was worse, including the Stalin-era deportations of whole nations to the steppes of Central Asia. A particularly harrowing account is of a wartime massacre in the Cherek valley in Balkaria (a Turkic-speaking district next door to the former Circassia). Like the murder of Polish officers at Katyn, this was carried out by Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD—but then cynically blamed on the Germans. But whereas Poles have doggedly defended their history against falsifiers, the Circassians have been all but voiceless. One of Mr Bullough’s most powerful points is how little about the Circassians can be found even in works by specialist historians of the region.

The heirs to this history visit cruel, random destruction in terrorist attacks, bringing botched responses by the authorities. Mr Bullough unpicks the seizure, by terrorists claiming to be Chechen fighters, of the Beslan school in North Ossetia, a neighbouring republic in Russia’s Caucasus, in 2004. And he investigates the background of the women who have become suicide-bombers to avenge their husbands, sons and brothers—a tactic which, early indications suggest, was repeated in two attacks on the Moscow metro this week.

Russian and then Soviet rule brought literacy, electricity and roads to the region, and uprooted feudalism. But by Mr Bullough’s account, it would be a travesty to call that a civilising mission. It has come with a shocking mixture of brutality, incompetence and corruption, entrenching criminality on all sides.

The Caucasus: Haunting history - The Economist
Related Issue
Let Our Fame Be Great, Review by Justin Marozzi

Prosecution of human rights activists in Ulan-Ude (Buryatia), by Stephen Shenfield

2010-03-30T16:21:00.004+03:00

On April 23, 2009, the procuracy of the Republic of Buryatia in Ulan-Udecharged two local human rights activists and members of the Democratic Union, journalist Nadezhda Nizovkina and lawyer Tatyana Stetsura, with the offence of ³inciting social hatred² under Article 282 of the Criminal Codeof the Russian Federation, on the grounds that three texts written and disseminated by them ³incite hatred on social grounds toward officers of thepolice, procuracy, Federal Security Service, army, and prison service.²

Article 282, which carries penalties of up to five years of imprisonment,was originally directed solely against the incitement of hatred on ethnic,racial, or religious grounds. Anti-fascist activists often complained that the authorities were too reluctant to press charges under the Article against hate propagandists.

In 2003, however, the scope of Article 282 was expanded to cover incitementof hatred on grounds of sex, language, origin, or ³membership in any socialgroup.² It is now common practice to charge activists of various politicalorientations with "inciting social hatred." As critics have pointed out, protesting against anyone and anything can be construed as inciting socialhatred. For instance, protesting against or simply publishing information about murders can be construed as inciting hatred against members of the"social group" of murderers.

Nizovkina and Stetsura are graduates of the law faculty of Buryatia State University. They have engaged in protests against abuses committed by various state agencies, including the cruel treatment of minors held inclosed institutions, and in defense of ethnic minorities and Buryat autonomy. They have also spoken on local television.

The three texts on which the charges are based were written, posted on websites, distributed as leaflets, and published in the journal "Svobodnoeslovo" (Free Word) between November 2008 and March 2009.

The first text was in defense of Imam Bakhtiar Umarov, who initiated the construction of a mosque in Ulan-Ude and was arrested on charges of "terrorism." The authors argued that the charges against him were fabricated.

The second text marked the 65th anniversary of Stalin's deportation of Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, and nine other ethnic groups in 1944. The authors stated that the force structures still commit atrocities against members of ethnic minorities today and that the perpetrators are rewarded with medals and bonuses.

The third text was in defense of Volgograd journalist Elena Maglevannaya, who was being sued for defamation by the managers of Penal Colony No. 15 after publishing a series of articles alleging that Chechen political prisoners were being tortured in the colony. She had focused especially on the case of Zubair Zubairayev, who had been sentenced on (as she argued)fabricated charges of possessing weapons and making an attempt on the lifeof a law enforcement officer.

On September 4, 2009, Nizovkina and Stetsura were examined at the Transbaikal Laboratory of Judicial Expertise (under the Ministry of Justice) by psychologist Yuliya Malinina and linguist Galina Sudoplatova, who chairs the Russian Language Department at Buryatia State University. Based on the examination and linguistic analysis of the three texts, Malinina and Sudoplatova issued an All-Sided Judicial Psychological-Linguistic Expert Appraisal. Nizovkina and Stetsura were found to be immature personalities exhibiting "chronic malice and unhappiness" and "sociopathic tendencies." Since then two further appraisals have been conducted.

On February 18, 2010 Nizovkina and Stetsura went to Moscow to take part in a law seminar. As they went without permission from the investigator, they are afraid of being arrested if they return to Ulan-Ude. They have therefo reremained in Moscow (though of course they may be arrested there too). They plan to appeal to the Constitutional Court on the grounds that Article 282 is unconstitutional.

Source: documents and e-mail communications from Nadezhda Nizovkina

Stephen D. Shenfield

Asker Soht: “Dialogue is the only formula for a solution of accumulated problems”

2010-03-19T12:48:00.005+02:00

16.03.2010 – 12:20 – NatPress.Net
Source: Caucasus Knot – 04 March 2010
(translated by Asker Soht)

Asker Soht (Chief of the Press Service of the Ex-President of Adygea Khazret Sovmen): “Dialogue is the only acceptable formula for a civilized solution of accumulated problems”.

Last years’ events actualized problems in the West of the Caucasus, which can be collectively specified as a “Circassian issue”. Exclusively for “The Caucasian Knot”, Senior Research Associate of the Civilizational and Regional Studies Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences Naima Neflyasheva discussed them with Asker Soht, one of the most active members of the International Circassian Association, Chief of the Press Service of the Ex-President of Adygea Khazret Sovmen.

Q. Let’s return to the main for the North Caucasus event of January 2010, when the North Caucasus Federal District was established by the Edict of the President of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev. In the context of the new Caucasian policy of Dmitry Medvedev, the establishment of the North Caucasus Federal District is a natural phenomenon. Features of traditional social organization and, as a consequence, of political culture of the North Caucasian peoples, are quite specific. They require a governance model different from other Russian Federation regions. However, Adygea, the only of North Caucasian republics, was not included into the new district, though all problems of this small republic are similar to overall Caucasian problems, and its development trends have the same vector. Besides, new districting is artificially breaking relationship between Adygea and two other republics – Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, where the Adyghes are titular peoples. What do you think about this? Does it seem probable that a new impulse will be given to the project of merger between Adygea and Krasnodar Territory?

A. I disagree with the thesis that all problems of the Republic of Adygea are similar to overall Caucasian problems. In my opinion, Adygea is the only North Caucasian republic, where all preconditions for effective modernization and development are present. I just feel inspired by the fact that the Republic of Adygea has not entered the “disaster circle” outlined by the Edict. It should be remembered that division of the state into federal districts has nothing to do with its territorial system. The administration of the federal district as such is only a coordinator of federal structures. And nothing more. I don’t find threats to the unity of our people and especially to its nationhood in this decision.

Q. It is known that geographical and administrative separation of the Adyghes in the Russian Federation is one of problems of the present-day Adyghe ethnos. On the other hand, there is an idea of merger of the Adyghes into one subject of the Russian Federation – it is supported by some Adyghe social movements, for example, the Circassian Congress. This idea is very popular among the young people and is actively debated at the Circassian portals forums. Don’t you think that most likely this project will hardly be implemented after the establishment of the North-Caucasus Federal District?

A. The idea of merger of Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and the Republic of Adygea into one federal subject is not at all on the agenda of Adygea social life. At the moment, it is a virtual problem, which is practically not debated in our republic at any level. Moreover, it is by no means interrelated with the establishment of the new federal district.

The President of the Russian Federation clearly formulated objectives of the establishment of the North Caucasus Federal District: counter-terrorism, economical and social modernization, stabilization of socio-political life in the region.

With respect to plans on the merger of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and the Republic of Adygea into one federal subject, I expressed my viewpoint on the matter many times: I do not see political preconditions for this. In my view, the idea has a right to exist, but, at this historical stage, it can’t be implemented for a variety of reasons, and will remain same over the next decades. Setting up and solving problems of such level should rely not only on the public consensus in republics (as a matter of fact, there is lack of it in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and the Republic of Adygea), but be actively supported, on the whole, in the Russian society – by leading political parties and leaders of the country. Failing all this, the idea as such will become a factor of political manipulations, acute ideological struggle and have extremely unfavourable political repercussions. That is why, it is counterproductive to put continued emphasis on it.

Q. What is productive then?

A. Today, we have to concentrate our efforts, first of all, on the development of horizontal relations, active interaction with the Circassian Diaspora. Population Census coming in 2010, which induces a launch and widening of the campaign for registering all Adyghes of the Russian Federation under a single ethnicon – the Circassians; intensification of the Circassian youth’s contacts; creation of a common available information space; assistance in learning the mother language, studying culture and history in countries of the Diaspora; protection of rights and interests of the Adyghes, assistance to returnees and their adaptation at historical homeland – here are problems, which, in my view, our generation is destined to solve.

Q. The development of horizontal relations was also mentioned at the Public Forum “The Caucasus: Tradition and Modernization”, which was held in Nalchik on November 30th, 2009, on the initiative of the member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Maxim Shevchenko. What is the benefit of horizontal relations’ formation for stabilization of the present-day North Caucasus, and actually, what is that?

I do not support active involvement of the Circassians in overall Caucasian processes. Interaction is a two-way street. From this perspective, the Eastern Caucasus is unable to give us anything positive. We don’t have leverages over the socio-political situation in this Caucasian region. Our area of responsibility is Krasnodar Territory, Adygea, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and the Kabardino-Balkar Republic. On the basis of this thesis, it is more advantageous for us, at the present stage, to focus on developing horizontal relations within our people, to “reopen” the Diaspora in its whole variety to ourselves, and historical homeland with its successes and problems – to the Diaspora. It is impossible to restore the unity of the people in the absence of available information space and active human contacts. 99% of the Diaspora Circassians have never visited historical homeland, 99% of the Russian Federation Circassians have never been to the Diaspora – that is the area of focus.

Q. It seems to me that such an approach, when those horizontal relations, mentioned by you, are severely restricted only by the limits of their region, will lead to isolation. It is a throwback to medieval clanship, which is simply destined to fail in the present-day world. And I cannot agree with you that the Eastern Caucasus is unable to give us anything. In Dagestan, for example, four opposition periodicals are being published, traditions of political culture are more advanced there than in the Western Caucasus, and the culture of political polemics is higher.

- The isolationism is needed by today’s realities. An inextricable tangle of unresolvable contradictions is being formed in the Eastern Caucasus. In fact, there is a war on there. In spite of our apparent historical and cultural unity, today it is a different world, and we have to distance ourselves from it in all senses. Our goals and objectives are different. We must preserve stability, predictability and clear understanding of our apparent desires by the country we live in. Otherwise, we shall be unable to solve any problem our people are facing.

Q. There is no doubt that Population Census of 2010 will play a certain part in creation of common Adyghe cultural space. Being one nation united by history and system of values, the Adyghes are variously named in different subjects of the Russian Federation. Such name as the Adygeis, actually, was created by the Soviet time and, on the whole, was always rejected by the Adyghes living in the West.

A. The coming Population Census will become a peculiar kind of barometer reflecting development trends of our people. Undoubtedly, I do support the return of a single name – the Circassians, to the “Adyghe” ethnos. I am looking forward to the Census as such and its results.

Read more... Nat Press

March 1st, 2010 Caucasian Knot.

Corruption and lawlessness or who lives happily ever after in Karachaevo-Cherkessia? Part 1., by Alexei Karaev

2010-03-18T17:12:00.011+02:00

'There are no ethnic elites in KChR; local government is the only policy elite'

Boris Ebzeev

Backgrounds for ethnic conflicts.

Small in the sense of territory, but huge in the matter of instability, the republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia attracts more attention lately. The reports about adversarial atmosphere accelerated, and in the end of the February 2010 the republic was visited be the President-Dmitry Medvedev with his Plenipotentiary Representative in the North Caucasus –Alexandr Khloponin. The short visit to republic disclosed to the federal administration small parts of all “beauties” of life for an ordinary person in the republic; although the vast part of all goers are thoroughly being hidden from an outer power in corrupted offices f local governors.

The main reason for the escalation of instability is the violation of the parity treaty of 1999 by the current local government. According to the treaty formula, the president of the republic should be of karachai nationality, the head of the local Cabinet of ministers- a Circassian, the head of the Parliament – a Russian.

The blocking of the candidate of Vyacheslav Derev, a Circassian by nationality, to the Federation Council by the majority of the karachai parliamentarians even worsened the situation. It triggered mass protests from the behalf of the Circassian population. Disregard of absolutely legitimate claims of Circassian public organizations led to the decadence of already strained political and public situation in the republic. Youth movements “Adighe Khasa” of neighbor republics – Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and Adygea, got involved into action as well. More than once leaders of public organizations from the three mentioned regions declared that the lawlessness of local government towards its citizens is not acceptable and that it should be stopped.

Most of the political experts and politicians themselves, going deeply into the problem of KChR, agreed upon a statement that despite his work experience in the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Boris Ebzeev- the current president of KChR, turned out to be extremely not ready to manage the region. For the short time period of his administration, he showed the lack of ethnical delicacy and did not take into consideration all the specificity and subtlety of the stability in KChR. Boris Ebzeev was also noticed to overindulge in alcoholic beverages, which of course reflects on his actions and decisions. Apparently the growing problems stress out the head of the region, and the desire to “relax” becomes stronger every day.

For the better understanding all the reforms of the republic administration were divided into next subcategories:

1. Staffing Policy

Here are the most “outstanding” examples of Ebzeev’s staff policy:

1. Everest Gochiyaev (the cousin of the President) - was assigned as a head of municipal settlement “Poselok Dombai”. Used to be a person involved in the case of concealing of the leader of terrorist bands- A. Gochiyaev, who is responsible for terrorist actions in Moscow. E. Gochiyaev is also known by his connections to the criminal community of the republic.

2. Arashukov Rauf (son of the head of “Stavropolreioggaz” and “Stavropolkraigaz”) – assigned as a head of Khabez area of the republic. Was born in 1987, at the age of 17 he became the deputy of Stavropol City Duma, later he became the minister of labor and social development of KChR, then an adviser-assistant of Ebzeev, and the latest position- the head of the Khabez area. The list of his criminal misdeeds is rather impressive and it can take some time to enumerate them.

3. Aliev Ismail- assigned as the first vice-Prime minister of KChR, supervises the economic part. Karachai nationalist- one of the main ideologists and propagandist of the idea that karachai people are the superior than other nations. He has no managing experience at all. A very notorious person, with a very aggressive intolerance to everything that cannot be claimed as “Karachai”.

4. Aibazov Ratmir- Senator from the republic in the Federation Council. “Selected” by the Parliament of the republic, after his candidacy was offered by the president Ebzeev. In 1979 he was sentenced to 6 years for forceful rape. In 2003 his case and his file “accidentally” disappeared from the archives. He built up his wealth by criminal activity. In 1999 a criminal case was initiated against him –large scale fraud. After extensive investigation his case was “closed”. Estimated capital- 100 million euro. It is know fact that Aibazov “assigns” his relatives as judges with the help of the head of the Supreme Court of KChR Andrei Davydkov. Aibazov gives to Ebzeev expensive apartments and cars as gifts.

5. Uzdenov Umar- “selected” as the head of Malokarachaevskiy area. Notoriously famous by his connections to the criminal and terroristic bands. His candidacy was offered by Ebzeev and supported by citizens, nonofficial “agitated” by criminals.

Thus, at the amount of 38% from the population of the republic, the Karachais take the positions of:

• Investigating Committee – 70%
• Executive branch – 44%
• Officers of justice – more than 80%
• Courts (including the Supreme Court) – more than 50%
• Audit Chamber – 42%
• Selection Committee – 52%
• Parliament deputy – 51%
• Prosecutor General Office – more than 50%

It seems clear that B. Ebzeev shows absolute ethnocracy in staffiing policy. It need to mention that in all his decisions Ebzeev is supported by all means by his own son.

2. Economics

In the list of prosperity of regions in the RF every month Karachaevo-Circassia decays lower and lower. The next data are dated back the middle of 2009(current situation is even worse):

- Agriculture and cattle stock decreased enormously, as well decreased crop acres. Manufacturing products became more expensive, more than on 10%.

- Manufacturing decreased more than on 11%.

- The building sector: the amount of work decreased more than on 57%. The building of social apartments is frozen. Correspondingly, all construction sector ministers- arte the people of Ebzeev and Aibazov.

- Disposable real income decreased on 7%.

- Wage arrears grew up to 70%.

Experts noticed that the economic situation in the republic is critical. And the authorities of KChR don’t do anything to improve it and to get out of the crisis. All they do is just talk.

3. Criminal situation.

Despite of all attempts of KchR authorities to hide the data, we managed to get the statistics of criminal actions in the region. The increase of crimes grew up to 17% with the comparison to the same period of time for the last year. The increase of especially grave crimes is 32,6%. In 1,8 times increased the number of murders and assassinations, in 3,5 times increased the number of street crimes, in 1,6 times increased the number of economic fraud, in 2 times- bribery. As they say, the pressure of bureaucracy on business grew in times. The tax payments in business area decreased on 30%- many businessmen and investors left their business.

The situation that has been described can be called nothing other than “administrative racket” towards to businessmen. That in turn helps in reorganizing of the financial streams and in elimination of contenders.

The head of the economic –crime campaign department in KChR A. Khapaev is the main executor of such type of orders. He has constant connections with criminal world of the republic. His assignment for the position of vice minister’s position is being actively lobbying by the President Ebzeev and the Senator Aitbazov.

4. Conclusions:

1. The authorities of the republic and Boris Ebzeev himself are not capable of handling their duties;

2. There are system problems in the region management;

3. Living standard is much lower than in Russia in general;

4. The corruption level is extremely high the unity of criminal world and of the local government is beyond the pale;

5. Social and Economic data are very upsetting in general;

6. There’s no adequate activity to protect the citizens from the terrorist organizations;

7. The political situation is extremely tensed. The authorities are not capable of constructive dialogue with representatives of civil society – that can lead to social explosion.

Dmitriy Medvedev’s visit to KChR indicates that the Federal center sees danger for the North Caucasus stability and for the Russian Federation, in general, in actions of Boris Ebzeev and his associates.

Alexei Karaev
Independent journalist, freelancer
Cherkessk, KChR
March 14, 2010

Let Our Fame Be Great, Review by Justin Marozzi

2010-03-15T11:45:00.003+02:00

March 15 - Financial Times

Let Our Fame Be Great: Struggle and Survival in the Caucasus
By Oliver Bullough Allen Lane £25, 478 pages
FT Bookshop price: £20

When Oliver Bullough sets out his store in the opening pages of this wonderful travel history, preparing the reader for a journey through the little-known Caucasus, I couldn’t help recalling the words of Winston Churchill to the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1937: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia.

“I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race, has come in and taken their place.”

For the native Americans, the Aborigines and subsequently the Palestinians, substitute the peoples of the Caucasus, giving way before the expansionist power of the Russians.

Bullough, who reported from Russia and the former Soviet Union for seven years before making this impressive debut as an author, begins his heartfelt and compelling history with a brief survey of the momentous events of July 1783. This was when the Russians first opened their way to the south, defeating the nomadic horsemen of the Nogai horde along the marshy eastern shores of the Sea of Azov, in southwest Russia, paving the way for the subjugation of an entire region. Within a century, what the author calls “the first modern genocide on European soil” had been perpetrated by Russian hands. In 1864, the Circassians were finally defeated, with 300,000 dead.

Today, the nomads have gone. Their descendants live in Turkey, Jordan, Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East, leaving land rebranded with villages such as Bright Path of Lenin and the Revolutionary Wave that eke out an existence beneath the foothills of the towering Caucasus range.

The Crimean war provided a tantalising glimpse of a Free Circassia on the eastern lands of the Black Sea, south of the Sea of Azov, but the chance was lost through the bickering and indecision of the great powers. Henceforth, Circassians tended to enter western consciousness – and the Ottoman sultan’s blue-tiled harem in Constantinople – only in the form of blue-eyed, light-skinned concubines. Such indolent imprisonment was no doubt undesirable, but in an age in which supposedly free western women were no models of 21st-century emancipation, their lives were certainly less wretched than Bullough suggests. Harem life tended to be more nuanced than western writers often allow.

While sensitive as a historian, Bullough is also deft as a reporter. In Moscow he almost slips on a fatty piece of flesh from a female suicide bomber’s attack. He writes vividly from Beslan during the aftermath of the hostage tragedy in 2004.

Though he does not mention it, the judge, Tamerlan Aguzarov, presiding over the trial of a Chechen called Nurpashi Kulayev, is named after the great Turkic warlord who spent decades putting the Caucasus to the sword with his ferocious army of mounted archers. Kulayev, who can barely speak Russian (“I am not agree. I without translator, I cannot completely. I badly understand in Russia”), is denied an interpreter in a show trial that boils over with the fury of the Beslan mothers. The investigative reporting here suggests that Kulayev, sentenced to life imprisonment, may have been innocent.

Bloodshed and cruelty run through these pages with terrible regularity. Bullough goes back to 1721, the first encounter between the Russians and the peoples of Chechnya and Dagestan, when one of Tsar Peter I’s cavalry detachments, seeking to grab the south-eastern shore of the Caspian Sea from enfeebled Persia, was wiped out by the mountain folk.

By 1817, the Russian general Alexei Yermolov, hero of the Napoleonic wars, was starting construction of a fort that would become the city of Grozny – whose name literally means “threatening”.

Yermolov’s policy towards the Caucasus was perhaps not so different from that of Moscow today: “I desire that the terror of my name shall guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses,” he said.

The campaigner in Bullough occasionally gets the better of him. It is not the case, as he argues, that the world has branded the entire Chechen nation as terrorists. The feeble west may have stepped swiftly by, as it so often does, but many commentators, including Bullough’s fellow reporters, have detailed Moscow’s shameful cleansing in Grozny and beyond.

The ethnic and linguistic mix of the Caucasus both fascinates and confuses. As an example, the 2m people of Dagestan speak 40 languages. Across the entire European Union, by comparison, there are 65 languages. Caucasus folklore tells of the people’s mythic ancestors, the Narts, being offered by their god the choice of a short and famous life or a long life without glory. Without blinking, they choose a life of freedom and fame. “Their fame is not great, and their stories have not been told, but truly they deserve to be,” Bullough writes. With this impassioned volume he has struck a blow for the glory of the Caucasus and helped to give voice to the voiceless.

Justin Marozzi is the author of ‘Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World’ (HarperPerennial)

Let Our Fame Be Great, Review by Justin Marozzi - Financial Times
Related Issues
Let Our Fame be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus by Oliver Bullough - The Sunday Times review by Wendell Steavenson
Interview: Oliver Bullough, author By David Robinson - The Scotsman

Vladislav Ardzinba's obit in AP and double standarts of AP on partly recognized states

2010-03-08T18:05:00.006+02:00

''The Associated Press (“AP”) is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.''

This excerpt comes from AP’s ‘About Us’ section.

Goethe said once: ''I can promise to be frank, but not to be impartial''. Usually people are expects neutrality, unbiased news from the media organizations but usually it’s not happens and actually that is not all wrong - IF its including honesty… Yes, media organizations also can be partial but the most important thing is to become partial with honesty and CONSISTENCY.

Please see below a letter sent to AP editors FIVE times but unfortunately without any reply. Draw your own conclusions...

In this letter you will see a very good example of AP’s bias in their news-reporting.

If you also would like to show your reaction, you can send a letter to: apfeedback@ap.org; info@ap.org

---

Dear Editor,

I am writing to express concern with regard to the newly published news ''Vladislav Ardzinba, Once Led Abkhazia, Dies at 64'' (March 5, 2010) (AP)

I should note that the North Caucasians who came to the defence of Abkhazia when Georgia attacked in August 1992 were volunteers, organised by the Confederation of the (Mountain) Peoples of the Caucasus under its president Yuri (Musa) Shanibov. Ardzinba did NOT call in Chechen mercenaries. It is true that some of the volunteers (notably the Chechens) earned a fearsome reputation, but, after all, war is war...

As for the organising of ethnic cleansing, quite the opposite is true. See the condolence-message written by George Hewitt on 4 March. And HERE you can see the copy of the leaflet distributed just before the end of the war urging civilised treatment of soldiers laying down their arms or the non-combatant population; It’s included Prof. George Hewitt’s article in 'Transcaucasian Boundaries'.

The 2nd UNPO report from the end of 1993 said that the majority of Georgians who left did so BEFORE the arrival of the Abkhazians, (See: 'THE MAJORITY OF GEORGIANS, HOWEVER, FLED BEFORE ABKHAZIAN AND NORTHERN CAUCASUS TROOPS ARRIVED.' [Report of a UNPO Coordinated Human Rights Mission to Abkhazia and Georgia, p.13] AND a UN Security Council report (17 November 1993, S/26795 ) on the basis of its own investigation of ethnic cleansing charges from November 1993 stated that there was no evidence to support the charge.

It also occurs to me that, if one wants to talk about the role of Chechen mercenaries in Abkhazia, one should be talking about the recruitment by the GEORGIAN authorities in October 2001 (i.e. in the time of Shevardnadze, still supported by the West, including the USA) of Ruslan Gelaev and his band. They were transported across Georgia in Kamaz trucks from the Pankisi Gorge and infiltrated into the Upper Kodor Valley. From there they mounted an attack, notably on the Armenian-populated village of Naa. Overall some 40 people were killed, and a UNOMIG helicopter was shot down, with the loss of 9 lives. Now that's real mercenary activity!

And the second point is about the partly recognised states.

There is no surprise that 'Sukhum' (Abkhazia) was represented as part of Georgia in your news: ''Vladislav Ardzinba, Once Led Abkhazia, Dies at 64''

SUKHUMI, Georgia (AP) —

I think it is still necessary to note that Abkhazia has been recognized by four members the United Nations, namely Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru.

I would like to ask, what about Kosovo? Is ASSOCIATED PRESS using this title ''PRISTINA, SERBIA''? Or prefer to use ''PRISTINA, KOSOVO'' ? Or only PRISTINA?

See: ''EU Police in Kosovo Arrest Alleged Hit Man'' PRISTINA, Kosovo November 30, 2009 (AP)

More examples can be found.

What about TAIPEI?

See: ''Poll Setback Tests Taiwan's China-Friendly Leader'' TAIPEI, Taiwan February 28, 2010 (AP)

I personally have NO objection to the independence of Kosovo or Taiwan, but the question that troubles me is the different treatment of partly recognised states.

Kosovo is recognized by 65 members of the International Community, Taiwan is recognized by 22 countries, Abkhazia is recognized by 4. Given this, and I am sure you have some scheme to corroborate these figures, might I ask what the criteria are for the ASSOCIATED PRESS to present a state as a state?

What precise number of recognitions will be necessary before Abkhazia has earned the right to be represented as an independent country not related to Georgia?

Let me note that Georgianisation of Abkhazia's toponymy was introduced at the time of Stalin (who, as I'm sure you know, was Georgian). This was the time of immense discrimination against the Abkhazian population, including the reduction of the status of Abkhazia to that of an autonomous republic within Georgia. If the ASSOCIATED PRESS still recognizes Stalin's toponymy within Abkhazia, consistency would demand that it use the same Stalin-imposed names for the rest of the former Soviet countries with, for example, Stalingrad instead of Volgograd or Gorky instead of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, or Zhdanov instead of Mariupol in the Ukraine, or Tskhakaya instead of Senaki in Abkhazia's neighbouring Mingrelian in western Georgia, or other names of numerous Soviet leaders and dictators of that time.

Kind regards,

Metin Sönmez

CircassianWorld.com & AbkhazWorld.com
Admin

PS. >> Historical Maps: Abkhazia at various times in history

http://gallery.abkhazworld.com/#4.41

The maps included here give an idea of the frontiers of Abkhazia at various times in history. The Abkhazians call their capital /Aqw'a/, but it is more usually known in other languages as Sukhum (Sukhum-Kalé or Sukhum-Kaleh in the period of Turkish influence along the Black Sea's eastern coast; /soxumi/ in Georgian). The ending -i in the form /Sukhumi/ represents the Georgian Nominative case-suffix, and it became attached to /Sukhum/ from the late 1930s when Stalin (Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili) and his Mingrelian lieutenant in Transcaucasia, Lavrent'i Beria, began to implement a series of anti-Abkhazian policies. Abkhazians today, for obvious reasons, resent the attachment of this element from the language of a people they see as oppressors.

Vladislav Ardzinba: A politician from the category of “inconvenient”, by Alexander Krylov

2010-03-05T09:56:00.004+02:00

Stoletie, March 4 - This morning it was announced that VG Ardzinba died in Moscow on 65 th year of life in the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.

V. Ardzinba worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies,USSR Academy of Sciences, for many years. He was an excellent scholar, a specialist in the Hatti (the oldest population in Minor Asia), whose language he argued to be common with the Abkhaz-Adyghe language-family. He wrote an excellent monograph, “The rituals and myths of ancient Anatolia”, which later was defended as his doctoral dissertation.

V. Ardzinba was never a careerist. In Soviet times, he was occupied with cuneiform and proto-Hittite — hardly the choice of a careerist. Vladislav Grigoryevich was man of science, but fate literally pushed him into politics. And that he turned out to be worthy of his historical role was a hugely fortunate for the Abkhazians. V. Ardzinba was a politician from God, the leader of the nation at its most tragic of times.

He was not a typical politician – too soft and intelligent, but in a critical situation for the sake of national interests capable of the most decisive measures.

He was also a politician from the “inconvenient” category. In 1994 he did not conceal his negative attitude towards Russia’s policy in Chechnya, considering the beginning of the first Chechen war a monumental mistake, and he offered the Kremlin to mediate in deciding the problem by entirely different means. But in those years of Yeltsin’s leadership such disagreement was not deemed to be acceptable. The Kremlin was so angry that Yeltsin gave the order to block the border of Abkhazia, and the blockade lasted for several years. Today, the correctness of V. G. Ardzinba’s stance is obvious to all.

The circumstances of his illness are still not clear. In 1997, he flew to Tbilisi for negotiations; I saw him in Pitsunda immediately thereafter and, remembering how in 1936 at the home of Beria the Abkhaz leader, Nestor Lakoba, was poisoned, made the wholly bad joke : “Vladislav, I hope you didn’t eat anything there, did you?” In response, Ardzinba could only shrug it off with a joyless sigh.

Shortly after his visit to Tbilisi, he started having problems with his health. It is this that gives grounds for the suspicion that he was poisoned. By the way, the head of his body-guard, who also travelled to Tbilisi, suddenly died soon after this trip.

The fact that physicians of different countries were unable to reach a clear diagnosis of Vladislav Grigoryevich’s illness, gives ground for suggesting that his disease was the result of the action of some substances which are available for use by intelligence agencies but unknown to modern medicine.

The last time I saw Vladislav Grigoryevich was in October 2008. We had not met for several years, and his progressive disease was striking. His eyes sparkled as of old, his mind remained perfectly clear, but he moved and spoke with the greatest of difficulty. We had a long conversation about the problems of Abkhazia, its future, the prospects for the survival of the Abkhaz ethnic group, Russia’s recognition of the republic, and to what this recognition might lead, because there are not only positive but also negative aspects. In the context of globalization we are witnessing the disappearance of tens if not hundreds of small nationalities, so that, even after Russia’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia, the problem of the ethnic revival of the Abkhazians remains serious. And he understood that problem very clearly.

During our last meeting I had the impression that what he most wanted was that the split which occurred a few years ago in Abkhazian society be finally repaired. I hope that his political heirs will succeed in solving this problem.

- Политик из разряда «неудобных», Александр Крылов - Stoletie)

Translated by Disa Wurdem

Source: Abkhaz World

Related Issues

Georgia's fine, lofty, useless strategy, by George Hewitt

2010-02-24T23:39:00.001+02:00

Georgia's new plans to reintegrate Abkhazia and South Ossetia ignore a fundamental problem: their people aren't interested

The Guardian

The Soviet constitution introduced in 1936 by Iosep Dzhugashvili, the Georgian better known to the world as Stalin, has been described as one of the most exemplary documents of its kind. The fact that it was the same year that Stalin unleashed the Great Terror on his own citizens demonstrates the dangerous gap between theory and reality. It is a gap again clear from the government of Georgia's recently published state strategy on occupied territories. Like Stalin's constitution it may win approval from foreign supporters, but on the ground in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it is a total irrelevance.

For all the document's fine words and lofty sentiments, the fundamental problem is ignored: the Abkhazians and South Ossetians have not the slightest wish to be "reintegrated" into a unitary Georgian state. Georgian president Mikheil Saak'ashvili can discuss this strategy in the west, as he did on his visit to London last week, but nobody in Abkhazia or South Ossetia is interested in joining in these discussions. Their priorities are direct contacts with the west along with the freedom to travel outside their republics on their own passports. If the west refuses to meet these requests, the result will not be a weakening of resolve but even closer links with Moscow.

Even a quick reading of Georgia's new strategy document reveals its flaws. Paragraph four asserts that Georgia "rejects the pursuit of a military solution". If this is so, it is strange that the Saak'ashvili government doggedly refuses to sign a non-aggression pact with the Abkhazians and South Ossetians. Even after the August 2008 war – sparked by Saak'ashvili's assault on Tskhinvali – the Georgian delegation to the Geneva peace-talks says it will only sign such an accord with Russia, not with Abkhazia or South Ossetia. But it is precisely because of repeated Georgian attacks over many years that the Abkhazians and South Ossetians have no trust in Tbilisi, striving to rebuild its military capability, and insist on determining their own destiny.

Nor will the Abkhazians put much trust in the assurance on page two of the strategy of the intent to support "the preservation of cultural heritage and identity". It is etched into their collective memory how Georgian forces in 1992 burnt to the ground their research institute with its priceless library and state archives. Fire-fighters were kept away at gunpoint in order to destroy much of Abkhazia's cultural heritage and erase documentary evidence of Abkhazian presence on their land.

When Eduard Shevardnadze returned to his homeland in March 1992, Georgia was in chaos, with war raging in South Ossetia, a violent insurgency in Mingrelia in support of his ousted predecessor, and tensions building next-door in Abkhazia. It was at this moment that the west, with John Major's Conservative government in the lead, made a crucial miscalculation. Already struggling with the break up of Yugoslavia, they decided to ignore the rights of the Abkhazians and South Ossetians to self-determination and instead champion Georgia's territorial integrity, granting it membership of the IMF, World Bank and United Nations.

Georgia celebrated by attacking Abkhazia a fortnight later, sparking a 14-month war, which it lost but which cost the victorious Abkhazians 4% of their population. Since then, all they have been offered by Tbilisi is essentially a return to the status quo ante bellum. It is hardly surprising that they have rejected such a deal.

For much of the post-war period Moscow's stance was decidedly unsympathetic to the Abkhazians. Shevardnadze's former Politburo colleague Boris Yeltsin was Russian president, and his protege, Andrey Kozyrev, was foreign minister. But Abkhazian determination not to yield and the election of Vladimir Putin as Yeltsin's successor brought about a change.

The "no war, no peace" status of the disputed territories had to be resolved, and Saak'ashvili's move against South Ossetia provided the opportunity. The Georgian military was ejected from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia's K'odor Valley. President Dmitry Medvedev then promptly corrected Russia's mistake in recognising Georgia's Soviet frontiers – a move made solely to try to limit the secession movements within Russia itself.

Georgia should accept the tide of history and abandon its fantasy re-integration strategy. It is no good, for example, branding the government of Abkhazia as a puppet regime when Sergei Bagapsh has twice won the presidency in democratic elections.

There is a role, too, for Georgia's western friends. They need to persuade Tbilisi to face reality and recognise the lost territories. This would then allow the international community to follow suit. It would finally pave the way for meaningful talks on how to establish viable stability across Transcaucasia – something which must be in everyone's interest.

Georgia's fine, lofty, useless strategy, by George Hewitt - The Guardian

In Memoriam Georges Charachidzé (1930 - 20 February 2010)

2010-02-23T01:30:00.007+02:00

Prof. Georges Charachidzé has passed away on 20 Feb. 2010, in Paris.

Born in 1930 in France of a Georgian father and a French mother, Georges Charachidzé became a pupil of the great French scholar Georges Dumézil in 1953 when the latter agreed to supervise Charachidzé's doctoral thesis, which turned into his first publication ('Le Système religieux de la Géorgie païenne' = 'The Religious System of Pagan Georgia'). He was to adopt his supervisor's interests in the Caucasus and eventually, after Dumézil's death, take on his mantle as main collaborator with Ubykh's last fully competent speaker Tevfik Esenç in order to continue research on this soon-to-become-extinct North West Caucasian language -- Tevfik himself died in 1992.

He studied Ossetic religion and language with Dumézil, which resulted in 'La Mémoire indo-européenne du Caucase' (= 'The Indo-European Memoir of the Caucasus'), Ossetic belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language-family. Comparison of the Greek mythological character Prometheus with such Caucasian counterparts as Georgian Amiran and Abkhaz Abryskj’yl led to 'Prométhée ou le Caucase' (= 'Prometheus or the Caucasus').

Charachidzé first accompanied his master on a field-work trip to Turkey in the the 1960s. But Ubykh was not the only object of his research based on work with native speakers resident there, producing a monograph 'Grammaire de la langue avar' (= 'Grammar of the Avar Language', 1981), Avar being a Daghestanian language (and, of course, one on which Dumézil himself had worked in the 1930s!).

Dumézil had agreed to write the description of Ubykh for volume 2 of the series The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus, which volume was devoted to the North West Caucasian languages and edited by George Hewitt; it appeared in 1989. However, Dumézil, who died in 1987, was unable to write the article, and the task passed to Charachidzé.

Upon the deaths of K’alist’rat’e and Nino Salia, the founders and financiers of the long-running, Paris-based journal for Caucasian studies 'Bedi Kartlisa' (= 'Destiny of Kartli/Georgia'), Charachidzé was the prime mover in organising, editing and publishing the successor journal 'Revue des Etudes Géorgiennes et Caucasiennes' (= 'Review of Georgian and Caucasian Studies'), which, sadly, did not enjoy as long a run as its illustrious predecessor. In this outlet Charachidzé published a number of articles with Esenç offering further analyses of Ubykh after the pattern of Dumézil's earlier articles. He also published there on Abkhaz. If one examines the list of contributions that appeared under Charachidzé's editorship, it will be seen that Charachidzé was happily free from the chauvinism that so blighted his paternal homeland from its late Soviet period through to its (ongoing) years of tortured independence, and this is to Charachidzé's eternal credit.

It was well-known that Dumézil was not totally enamoured of Hans Vogt's 'gift' to him in 1963 of 'Dictionnaire de la langue oubykh' (= 'Dictionary of the Ubykh Language') and warned against its use without the sizeable list of emendations that Dumézil himself included in his 'Documents Anatoliens III'. For years Charachidzé worked on a new Ubykh dictionary but never felt able to promise a date for its appearance. The work no doubt exists amongst his papers in manuscript-form, and it is to be hoped that someone will step forward to see it through to publication to serve as the most fitting memorial for this devoted student of the Caucasus whose passing we all now mourn.

May his good works live on, and may his soul eternally rest in perfect peace!

Circassian World

Special thanks to Prof. George Hewitt for his contribution.

Goerges Charachidze, The Languages of the Caucasus.

Georges Charachidzé to evoke the languages of the Caucasus, and more particularly the last lecture of Ubykh.

Georges Charachidzé, les langues du Caucase from Circassian World on Vimeo.

WWF: Sochi Olympic Construction ‘Out of Control’

2010-02-18T10:27:00.002+02:00

The Other Russia , Feb. 17

Ecologists from the Russian bureau of the World Wildlife Foundation are threatening to withdraw their support for the 2014 Winter Olympics, scheduled to take place in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi, the Kommersant newspaper reports.

In a scathing press release published on their website on Wednesday, the ecologists announced that preparation for the Olympics “has gone out of control, the quality of construction is poor, and great damage to the surrounding environment has already been caused and is going to continue.” Since building contractors have ignored all of the ecologists’ objections, says the announcement, the WWF is putting a halt to cooperation with Olympstroy, the state-owned corporation primarily responsible for construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi.

Representatives at Olympstroy called the announcement a complete surprise, arguing that they have always made an effort to take statements from the WWF into account.

Igor Chestin, head of the Russian bureau of the WWF, disagrees. “We intentionally picked the beginning of the Olympics in Vancouver to tell the world how things are going with observing ecological norms during facility construction in Sochi,” he said. Despite creating a working group and coordination council to bring together ecologists and representatives from Olympstroy and other contracted organizations, and despite the contractors’ approval of all of the ecologists’ proposals for facility construction, there have never been any tangible results.

“The proposals are documented and formalized, but then everything they do goes to the contrary,” Chestin said in outrage. “Last September, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak assured us that the construction would not touch the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve. And now Rosregistr has changed its borders, and Gazprom is building a road to its resort there,” referring to Russia’s massive natural gas corporation.

According to ecologists’ estimates, the cost of the ecological impact of roads and railways being constructed in Sochi is 240 billion rubles, about $8 billion. However, the figure “is based on zoological and biological research conducted by less than ten people in only a couple of weeks.” As a result, unique trees were chopped down and no compensational measures were taken to decrease the impact on the surrounding environment, ecologists say. Additionally, the condition of the surrounding environment is still unmonitored, despite the fact that construction began in 2008. Several prominent parks and reserves have meanwhile suffered a significant decrease in size, including Sochi National Park and the Utrish nature reserve. Plans to build a nature park in Imeretinskaya Valley, which would have compensated for some of the damage caused by the construction, have fallen through.

Even measures that have theoretically been taken to compensate for environmental damage came under criticism in the WWF statement. “A striking example is the planting of box trees to compensate for the virgin forest chopped down during roads and railways construction,” says the WWF. “There was an announcement that seedlings would be brought in from a cultivation facility, but there is a great deal of evidence that they were simply pulled up from the natural forest. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that no cultivation facility for box trees exists in Russia.”

Chestin said that as a result, the WWF was halting their partnership with Olympstroy and would meanwhile investigate the possibility of withdrawing their support for the Sochi Olympics altogether. “Russian organizations cannot influence anything, and therefore we are going to UNESCO and will wait for a commission from there in the spring,” he said in conclusion.

WWF: Sochi Olympic Construction ‘Out of Control’ - The Other Russia

Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Approach in the North Caucasus Shows ‘Powerlessness of Power,’ Alekseyeva Says

2010-02-17T12:18:00.005+02:00

Paul Goble

Americus, February 16 – Moscow’s efforts to resolve the challenges it has faced in the North Caucasus over the last 20 years by force alone, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the grand dame of Russia’s human rights community says, have demonstrated “the powerlessness of [that kind of] power” and have contributed to the spread of “civil war” across the region.

In a comment in “Osobaya bukhva” today, Alekseyeva argues that even a “superficial” examination of what has taken place in that region shows the non-expert that Moscow is not solving the problems it faces but making them worse
(www.specletter.com/obcshestvo/2010-02-16/v-pjatigorsk-priehal-krizisnyi-upravljajucshii.html).

Moscow’s policy failure in this regard “began in Chechnya, [but] now it has spread already almost in all republics,” because the central powers that be have “not changed their tactic” and have acted in ways that lead either the victims or the families of the victims to “go into the woods” to take revenge.

At present, Alekseyeva continues, “the majority of those who are in the forests” are there not at least to start to pursue an ideological agenda but rather to take revenge. But once there, they can be mobilized by others and thus become an even greater threat as the recent appearance of suicide bombers, something Russia has not faced before, shows.

Across the North Caucasus, she says, “a definite social group is subjected to terror: men from 15 to 40, that is, the group of people that the federal powers that be suppose can form terrorists and participants in uprisings.” Such people, “when they lay down to sleep, do not know whether they will wake up in their own beds.

Some members of this category of people, of course, are in fact terrorists, Alekseyeva concedes. But a far larger number are not and are denounced as such by the FSB which wants to be able to claim success and which finds it “much simpler” to break into the homes of young men, seize them and “say that [they] are backers of the terrorists.”

The FSB tortures those it arrests until they “admit” ties to the terrorists. “Sometimes, [they] die during these tortures.” Sometimes their disfigured bodies are found, but sometimes they are not. But the effect is the same: their relatives feel compelled to take revenge for the victims of this campaign of torture.

In this way, the Moscow human rights activist says, Moscow is producing “an explosion” across the region, “and as long as [the powers that be] do so, they will increase the number of terrorists” and lead at least some who had not been sympathetic to those fighting Moscow to change their minds and to revise their views of the Russian state.

That is because, Alekseyeva points out, “in any normal state,” those who do engage in terrorist acts are tried and sentenced to prison. “But not to torture and not to death.” Tragically, in the case of Russia today, the people of the North Caucasus can see that they do not live in a state which lives according to the law – “and that creates the basis for civil war.”

Alekseyeva says that she is somewhat cheered by the appointment of Aleksandr Khloponin as head of the new North Caucasus Federal District because he showed himself while governor of Krasnoyarsk kray “a good crisis manager.” And consequently, there is hope that he can be effective in the North Caucasus.

Obviously, he will need to address the terrible problem of unemployment in the North Caucasus, especially among the young where as many as 80 percent do not have regular jobs. Alekseyeva says that she is “not saying that every unemployed person is a terrorist,” but young people without jobs are more inclined to become one than are older people.

But an improved social and economic policy will be effective, she suggests, only relatively slowly over the course of several years. And it will work far better if it is accompanied with a change in the counterproductive approach of the FSB “with its extra-judicial arrests and tortures.” If those two things happen, then there could finally be reason for hope.

Moscow’s Approach in the North Caucasus Shows ‘Powerlessness of Power,’ Alekseyeva Says, by Paul Goble - Window on Eurasia

Prof. Linnart Mäll has passed away‏

2010-02-15T12:07:00.013+02:00

Linnart Mäll (7 June 1938 – 14 February 2010)

Linnart Mäll, the Estonian historian, orientalist, translator and politician, passed away on the morning of February 14, 2010. He was one of the founders of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization as well as its first Chairman from 1991-3.

He was very active in campaigning for the rights of the nations of the Caucasus in the 1990s and will be fondly remembered by the Abkhazians, Circassians, Chechens and all the other nations of those mountains.

Estonia and the world have lost a significant scholar and an original thinker. May his good works live on, and may his soul eternally rest in perfect peace!

Circassian World

About Linnart Mäll

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnart_M%C3%A4ll

http://www.unpo.org/content/view/95/236/

Institute of the Rights of Peoples: http://www.unpo.ee/

Publication

- ''The Rights of Peoples: Ideals and Reality'', Ed. Linnart Mäll, Institute of the Rights of Peoples: Tartu 2006. (PDF)

- ''Report of a UNPO Mission to Abkhazia, Georgia and the Northern Caucasus'', November 1992 (PDF)

Linnart Mäll, First UNPO Chairperson, Passes Away , UNPO
In memoriam Linnart Mäll, President of the Republic of Estonia

UNPO General Assembly, 1995, Estonia
Chechnya Mission (1997) Erkin Alptekin, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Linnart Mäll