Post by peterd on Sept 20, 2013 11:44:37 GMT -8
Russian Neo-Nazis Organize Rally in Moscow
The “Russkie” organization, which emerged out of the 2011–2012 protest movement against the ruling United Russia party and now-President Vladimir Putin, organized a rally on September 14 to protest the “distribution of Russian citizenship,” a legislative act that received its first reading in the State Duma on Friday. The law, “about the rights of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation,” would ease Russian language requirements for citizens of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and make naturalization easier. According to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 100,921 people from outside the Russian Federation applied for citizenship between 2010 and 2012 (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1707456.html), but presumably, with the aid of this new law, this number would increase. The law fulfills a request Putin made to the Duma to draft such a bill on April 30, 2013 (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1654934.html). Russia is in need of more people in the labor market to sustain economic development—an especially severe problem given that between 1989 and 2012, Russia’s population shrank by nearly 9 million people, which has represented the largest decline in a country outside of wartime. Today, many of the workers on Russian building sites and in Russian markets come from neighboring countries in the post-Soviet space, including Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Yet despite the economic imperatives driving the law, it is controversial because many ethnic Russians see people from the FSU—and even internal migrants from the North Caucasus—as threatening to a relatively homogenous Russian culture (see EDM, October, 27, 2011; November 26, 2012; September 6, 9; 2013).
Last week’s Moscow protests were organized by the Russkie movement, of which the two main affiliates are the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (known by its Russian acronym “DPNI” and led by Alexander Belov—real name Potkin: “Belov” is derived from the Russian word for “white”) and the Slavic Union (the most widespread—now banned—skinhead gang in Russia, known by its provocative Russian acronym that references the Nazi SS). According to the website of the DPNI, the protests seemed to be national in scope, with rallies planned in Moscow, Astrakhan, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibersk, Penza, Syktyvkar, St. Petersburg and Khabarovsk. Smaller protests had been agreed in “Chelyabinsk and Volgograd and other cities” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/vazhnoe/37257/). The Moscow rally was held on Pushkin square and attracted around 200 people (http://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2013/09/14/n_3183197.shtml). The target of the Moscow protest was “the distribution of Russian citizenship to Central Asians and Caucasians” and also drew one unnamed member of the Duma (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37276/). The “unsanctioned protest” resulted in the arrest of 25 people (http://www.mk.ru/moscow/news/2013/09/14/915443-na-nesanktsionirovannoy-aktsii-v-moskve-zaderzhanyi-25-chelovek.html). Apparently the authorities were well-prepared for the protest and had two police vehicles and many officers present. The DPNI’s own members described “OMON [Russian riot police] on every corner” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37276/), a claim that implies the Russian authorities are well aware of and concerned about the dangers implied by the promotion of ethnic nationalism in a multi-ethnic country.
While it is unclear whether the rallies in other Russian cities were also unsanctioned, they apparently were not as well-attended as the one in Moscow. Photographs of the rally in Astrakhan, for example, show possibly 30 activists with the Imperial black-gold-white striped Russian flag—a symbol popularly adopted by Russia’s far-right nationalists (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37291/). The Penza rally had less than 20 protestors (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37290/), the Krasnoyarsk rally possibly 30 protestors (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37289/), and the rally in the ethnic republic of Komi had fewer than two dozen participants (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37289/). The rally in St. Petersburg attracted two dozen picketers and was held along Nevsky Prospect (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37280/). Although attendance at the rallies may not have been sizeable, the ability of the DPNI to marshal a cross-country response to the law is nevertheless impressive and suggests the sense of threat felt by ethnic Russian nationalists.
The DPNI had certainly prepared a great deal of material for the protest. The organization provided protest materials and links to informational resources, including posters featuring Central Asian and Caucasian faces that proclaimed: “Yesterday they came into our country in order to live. Now they dictate our rights. Tomorrow they may become citizens. They will elect their own President, their own government to make new laws.” Other slogans were more direct, instructing people to “Stop the Occupation!” or simply “Protest!” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/vazhnoe/37211/). Other “agitation materials” included pictures of Russian girls in kitsch dress with the slogan “Russia is Russian land,” as well as a sign bearing the words, “We do not need a Russia without [ethnic] Russians,” and, “Putin is the President of Tajikistan”—apparently drawing attention to the growing number of Tajik migrants to Russia (http://www.dpni.org/articles/vazhnoe/37252/). The group also compiled a specific list of slogans approved for the protest that included all of those listed above as well as the command: “Putin, stop bringing migrants!” The protest materials reinforce the sense that the rally was as much about the ethnic status of Russians in the Russian Federation as it was about the naturalization of foreigners.
The drafting of the naturalization law demonstrates the polarization of and contradictions inherent in Russian society two decades after the fall of Communism. Recent polls show that Russians retain an ethnic definition of nationality, with 44 percent saying that Ukrainians may become Russian after living there a few years, versus just 7 percent who say the same about Chechen or Dagestani people—even though the latter are already legally citizens of the Russian Federation (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/most-russians-dont-want-gays-as-neighbors-poll-finds/485903.html). Such sentiments blatantly contradict the official conception of the Russian nation as a civic community that transcends ethnicity. Moreover, many Russians associate those belonging to other ethnic groups with criminal activity, a view affirmed by Putin in December 2010 when he declared the need to clamp down on ethnic crime (http://www.vz.ru/news/2010/12/27/457978.html). Some Russians view Neo-Nazi skinheads as protectors of their communities from this criminal threat, as was illustrated by a Russian nationalist attack on foreign merchants in St. Petersburg on July 31 (see EDM, August 5).
The rallies are also evidence of the enduring power of ethnic nationalism to bring Russians out onto the street and even risk arrest. While the rallies were small, the number of people in attendance looks larger when one considers that there has been little overall public attention paid to this law and that many members of the Russian opposition are exhausted after two years of protesting amidst government crackdowns (see EDM, September 9). Nationality, it seems, is an issue that will not go away.
--Richard Arnold
____________________________________________________
North Caucasus Leaders Adopt Kadyrov Model to Dealing with Militants
Militants carried out two significant attacks in Chechnya and Ingushetia on September 16 and 17. The attacks took place in the districts that are adjacent to each other and have the same name—Sunzha. In the past, there was a single Sunzha district in Checheno-Ingushetia, but when Ingushetia seceded in 1992, Sunzha district was divided between Chechnya and Ingushetia, retaining its name in each.
At about 2 a.m. on September 16, a suicide attacker drove his car to the Sunzha district police station in Sernovodsk, Chechnya. After failing to drive onto the police station’s yard, the bomber blew himself up at the gate. Three people died on the spot and four others were wounded (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/230143/). Two of the killed were police officers dispatched from the Chuvash Republic—Leonid Puchkov and Alexander Yegorov (www.cheboksary.ru/crimen/16092013/page24266.htm). The third slain police officer, Yuni Suleimanov, was from the local Chechen police force. The suicide bomber was identified as Isa Khildikhoroev of Sunzha district’s Assinovskaya village. Experts estimated the strength of the blast outside the Sunzha district police station at 60 kilograms of TNT (http://lifenews.ru/#!news/119368). It should be noted that this was the first suicide bomber attack in Chechnya since August 2012 (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/230146/).
The suicide bomber in Sernovodsk was reportedly identified by Sulanbek (Salman) Machukaev, who also told police about another forthcoming attack. According to the Ingush police, Machukaev surrendered to the Sleptsovskaya district police on the morning of September 16. The Russian security services, however, said that Machukaev tried to infiltrate the district police station but was intercepted before he could detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) (http://www.interfax.ru/russia/txt.asp?id=329043). Following his arrest, Machukaev told the police that his brother Adam Machukaev was preparing another attack targeting police. According to the arrested militant, his brother was likely to be driving a stolen car.
Adam Machukaev was on the wanted list of the police in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district for participation in an illegal armed formation. The police finally located him in the Ingush Sunzha district near the village of Nesterovskaya. When Adam Machukaev realized that he could not escape, he rammed a police car. According to the police, the trunk of the militant’s car was full of explosives, and a blast that followed the collision killed one police officer and injured four others. According to the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee, Adam Machukaev detonated an IED when the police tried to arrest him, killing one police officer and seriously injuring three others (http://www.ingushetiyaru.org/news/36548/). Rebel news sources reported that two people died and three were wounded (http://kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2013/09/17/100617.shtml).
According to the testimony of the arrested Sulanbek Machukaev, there were plans to attack police in several other locations. A counter-terrorism operation regime was introduced in Chechnya’s Sunzha district, which further dampened the militants’ resolve. However, while the police were able to foil the attacks, they failed to find the potential attackers (http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20130916/963476306.html).
The suicide bombers Adam Machukaev and Isa Khildikhoroev, as well as the captured militant Sulanbek Machukaev were members of a jamaat led by Beslan Makhauri that operates on both sides of the Chechen-Ingush border (http://www.itar-tass.com/c21/877972.html).
The reaction of the authorities in the two republics to the suicide attacks was peculiar. The press service of the head of Ingushetia reported that the republic’s police placed the blame for the terrorist attacks in the republic on the Chechen authorities, saying that the militants were infiltrating Ingushetia from Chechnya (http://www.ingushetia.ru/m-news/archives/019319.shtml).
Ramzan Kadyrov returned the favor, explaining on his Instagram account: “We cannot simply watch how guerrillas coolly load a car with explosives in the neighboring territory and then our people die” (http://news.mail.ru/inregions/caucasus/26/society/14795703/). Kadyrov then called on the Ingush authorities to cooperate in the fight against the militants. An unsuspecting reader would think that the leaders of two sovereign states were discussing security issues, whereas, in fact, both territories are just administrative units of the Russian state.
Meanwhile, the recently appointed head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov reacted by promising measures like those taken by the Israeli and Chechen authorities. “We will expropriate the homes of the people who are helping the bandit underground, (who) rent their houses, their territory to the bandits,” he said. “Instead, we will give the homes of the accomplices to those who need housing or will build public buildings on the sites of those houses” (http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/659717). Contemplating a large negative backlash across the country, Yevkurov the next day amended his comment, saying that he meant “abandoned, unused buildings, where members of illegal armed groups are finding refuge and plotting their dirty crimes” (http://magas.su/tera/yunus-bek-evkurov-snositsya-budut-te-domakotorye-ispolzuyutsya-zabrosheny-khozyaevami). He also proposed expanding work to raise public awareness to ensure that Ingushetia’s residents know that supplying food and other services to the militants was under a strict ban. Thus, Ingushetia’s leader has begun employing the same methods as Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya.
However, this is not a mere replication of his neighbor’s tactics. The Dagestani leader, Ramazan Abdulatipov, has chosen approximately the same tactics. So one can observe Moscow’s general strategy in the North Caucasus, when in exchange for a free hand at the local level, Moscow’s protégé should ensure well-being in his republic and provide favorable results during elections (http://ria.ru/analytics/20130515/937476998.html). Therefore, this is not a spontaneous reaction of a regional bureaucrat to the bomb attacks in the North Caucasus. Rather, it is essentially a colonial system that allows the central state to put part of the responsibility on the regional leaders, in exchange for the appearance of peace.
This system worked fairly well in the 19th century and even under Communism in the 20th century. However, there is no way for this system of governance not to backfire and result in Moscow’s loss of control over the region. Even fragile autonomy eventually makes people want complete sovereignty. The more Moscow relies on its regional henchmen, the more the region drifts away from Russia psychologically, toward complete independence.
--Mairbek Vatchagaev
______________________________________________________
Is Chuvashia about to Trigger a New ‘Parade of Sovereignties?’
No protest demonstration or statement from the opposition generates as much concern in the Russian capital as any suggestion that the republics and regions of the Russian Federation may be about to begin a new “parade of sovereignties” (see EDM, August 13). The term refers to the unilateral seizure of power at the end of the Soviet era, not only by the union republics, which obtained independence as a result, but also by autonomous republics and some Russian oblasts and krais, which failed to achieve full sovereignty at that time.
The reason for Russian fears in this regard is two-fold. On the one hand, any restarting of such “a parade” would call into question the strength of Vladimir Putin’s much-ballyhooed “power vertical” and lead members of the elite to consider challenging him and the Kremlin on their own. And on the other hand, and perhaps even more disturbingly to those in Moscow, there is a very real fear that any movements toward such “a parade,” however small they might appear now, could quickly explode especially if, as now, the Russian economy worsens and Moscow increasingly lacks the resources to buy off regional elites.
If, the last time around, the trigger for such a movement came from expected places such as the Baltic countries and Tatarstan, this time it appears to be emerging in some less anticipated ones, possibly because the center has neglected them on the basis of an assumption that they would not or cannot create any serious problems. But given the growing intensity of communications among officials and activists in the republics, krais and oblasts of the Russian Federation, such thinking may prove to be a fatal mistake.
The most intriguing “trigger” for such a development comes this week from Chuvashia, a small republic in the Middle Volga. It has 1.3 million people on a territory of 7,066 square miles and an economy based on agriculture and engineering. Its titular nation—the Chuvash—is an ethnically Turkic group whose predominant religion is Orthodox Christianity. For most of their recent history, the Chuvash have been ignored both in Moscow and the West with most of the attention to that region going to the larger and more activist republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan or the three Finno-Ugric republics—Mordvinia, Mari-El and Udmurtia—because of their ties to Finno-Ugric states abroad and their economic wealth. Together, these six contiguous republics are known historically as Idel-Ural.
But in recent months, the Chuvash have become increasingly active in ways that recall the earlier “parade of sovereignties.” And this suggests that what is taking place in Chuvashia’s capital of Cheboksary is attracting the attention of other non-Russian regions—and even some Russian ones with significant ethnic minorities as well.
Earlier this month, 100 Chuvash activists held a meeting to protest the loss of the attributes of statehood from their constitution, attributes like a president and a state council, which Vladimir Putin forced officials to strip out of that document in the name of creating “a common legal space” in Russia. Participants in the meeting, which attracted both republic and international attention, carried signs demanding that these institutions be restored and pointed out that it is truly “nonsensical” that Chuvashia has a Presidential Boulevard but no president (www.turkist.org/2013/09/chuvash-republic.html).
Speakers to the meeting included Eduard Mochalov, the editor of the local independent newspaper Vzyatka, and Ille Ivanov, who has been the subject of persecution this year for demanding that officials obey the law by providing Chuvash language signs in the streets and on public transportation alongside Russian ones. Mochalov not only supported the restoration of the Chuvash Republic’s state symbols, but also called for the restoration of elections in all of Russia’s federal units, including of a president for Chuvashia. And the editor also demanded that several hated Moscow-installed officials be fired.
Many might be tempted to dismiss this as an isolated incident, one that the Chuvash are unlikely to repeat and one that is even less likely to occur elsewhere. But that would be a mistake. Chuvash activists have been increasingly active and are hosting or taking part in meetings at which representatives of other federal subjects and nationalities can learn about their complaints and what they are trying to do in response.
Only a week ago, for example, Chuvash delegates took part in an Ufa conference on “The Current Problems of Dialects of the Languages of the Peoples of Russia” at which they, together with other non-Russian experts talked about threats to non-Russian education. The Chuvash delegation offered a resolution saying that if the loss of speakers of non-Russian languages is not stopped, “this will lead to the disappearance not only of languages but of a number of peoples of the Russian Federation” (http://www.irekle.org/news/i1306.html). The other delegations supported this resolution, including its call for Russia to ratify the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages—something that Moscow has been unwilling to do.
Consequently, a Christian Turkic republic, still under Moscow’s radar, may in fact be taking the lead in launching a new parade of sovereignties.
--Paul Goble
The “Russkie” organization, which emerged out of the 2011–2012 protest movement against the ruling United Russia party and now-President Vladimir Putin, organized a rally on September 14 to protest the “distribution of Russian citizenship,” a legislative act that received its first reading in the State Duma on Friday. The law, “about the rights of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation,” would ease Russian language requirements for citizens of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and make naturalization easier. According to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 100,921 people from outside the Russian Federation applied for citizenship between 2010 and 2012 (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1707456.html), but presumably, with the aid of this new law, this number would increase. The law fulfills a request Putin made to the Duma to draft such a bill on April 30, 2013 (http://www.regnum.ru/news/1654934.html). Russia is in need of more people in the labor market to sustain economic development—an especially severe problem given that between 1989 and 2012, Russia’s population shrank by nearly 9 million people, which has represented the largest decline in a country outside of wartime. Today, many of the workers on Russian building sites and in Russian markets come from neighboring countries in the post-Soviet space, including Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Yet despite the economic imperatives driving the law, it is controversial because many ethnic Russians see people from the FSU—and even internal migrants from the North Caucasus—as threatening to a relatively homogenous Russian culture (see EDM, October, 27, 2011; November 26, 2012; September 6, 9; 2013).
Last week’s Moscow protests were organized by the Russkie movement, of which the two main affiliates are the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (known by its Russian acronym “DPNI” and led by Alexander Belov—real name Potkin: “Belov” is derived from the Russian word for “white”) and the Slavic Union (the most widespread—now banned—skinhead gang in Russia, known by its provocative Russian acronym that references the Nazi SS). According to the website of the DPNI, the protests seemed to be national in scope, with rallies planned in Moscow, Astrakhan, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibersk, Penza, Syktyvkar, St. Petersburg and Khabarovsk. Smaller protests had been agreed in “Chelyabinsk and Volgograd and other cities” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/vazhnoe/37257/). The Moscow rally was held on Pushkin square and attracted around 200 people (http://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2013/09/14/n_3183197.shtml). The target of the Moscow protest was “the distribution of Russian citizenship to Central Asians and Caucasians” and also drew one unnamed member of the Duma (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37276/). The “unsanctioned protest” resulted in the arrest of 25 people (http://www.mk.ru/moscow/news/2013/09/14/915443-na-nesanktsionirovannoy-aktsii-v-moskve-zaderzhanyi-25-chelovek.html). Apparently the authorities were well-prepared for the protest and had two police vehicles and many officers present. The DPNI’s own members described “OMON [Russian riot police] on every corner” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37276/), a claim that implies the Russian authorities are well aware of and concerned about the dangers implied by the promotion of ethnic nationalism in a multi-ethnic country.
While it is unclear whether the rallies in other Russian cities were also unsanctioned, they apparently were not as well-attended as the one in Moscow. Photographs of the rally in Astrakhan, for example, show possibly 30 activists with the Imperial black-gold-white striped Russian flag—a symbol popularly adopted by Russia’s far-right nationalists (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37291/). The Penza rally had less than 20 protestors (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37290/), the Krasnoyarsk rally possibly 30 protestors (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37289/), and the rally in the ethnic republic of Komi had fewer than two dozen participants (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37289/). The rally in St. Petersburg attracted two dozen picketers and was held along Nevsky Prospect (http://www.dpni.org/articles/novostnaya/37280/). Although attendance at the rallies may not have been sizeable, the ability of the DPNI to marshal a cross-country response to the law is nevertheless impressive and suggests the sense of threat felt by ethnic Russian nationalists.
The DPNI had certainly prepared a great deal of material for the protest. The organization provided protest materials and links to informational resources, including posters featuring Central Asian and Caucasian faces that proclaimed: “Yesterday they came into our country in order to live. Now they dictate our rights. Tomorrow they may become citizens. They will elect their own President, their own government to make new laws.” Other slogans were more direct, instructing people to “Stop the Occupation!” or simply “Protest!” (http://www.dpni.org/articles/vazhnoe/37211/). Other “agitation materials” included pictures of Russian girls in kitsch dress with the slogan “Russia is Russian land,” as well as a sign bearing the words, “We do not need a Russia without [ethnic] Russians,” and, “Putin is the President of Tajikistan”—apparently drawing attention to the growing number of Tajik migrants to Russia (http://www.dpni.org/articles/vazhnoe/37252/). The group also compiled a specific list of slogans approved for the protest that included all of those listed above as well as the command: “Putin, stop bringing migrants!” The protest materials reinforce the sense that the rally was as much about the ethnic status of Russians in the Russian Federation as it was about the naturalization of foreigners.
The drafting of the naturalization law demonstrates the polarization of and contradictions inherent in Russian society two decades after the fall of Communism. Recent polls show that Russians retain an ethnic definition of nationality, with 44 percent saying that Ukrainians may become Russian after living there a few years, versus just 7 percent who say the same about Chechen or Dagestani people—even though the latter are already legally citizens of the Russian Federation (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/most-russians-dont-want-gays-as-neighbors-poll-finds/485903.html). Such sentiments blatantly contradict the official conception of the Russian nation as a civic community that transcends ethnicity. Moreover, many Russians associate those belonging to other ethnic groups with criminal activity, a view affirmed by Putin in December 2010 when he declared the need to clamp down on ethnic crime (http://www.vz.ru/news/2010/12/27/457978.html). Some Russians view Neo-Nazi skinheads as protectors of their communities from this criminal threat, as was illustrated by a Russian nationalist attack on foreign merchants in St. Petersburg on July 31 (see EDM, August 5).
The rallies are also evidence of the enduring power of ethnic nationalism to bring Russians out onto the street and even risk arrest. While the rallies were small, the number of people in attendance looks larger when one considers that there has been little overall public attention paid to this law and that many members of the Russian opposition are exhausted after two years of protesting amidst government crackdowns (see EDM, September 9). Nationality, it seems, is an issue that will not go away.
--Richard Arnold
____________________________________________________
North Caucasus Leaders Adopt Kadyrov Model to Dealing with Militants
Militants carried out two significant attacks in Chechnya and Ingushetia on September 16 and 17. The attacks took place in the districts that are adjacent to each other and have the same name—Sunzha. In the past, there was a single Sunzha district in Checheno-Ingushetia, but when Ingushetia seceded in 1992, Sunzha district was divided between Chechnya and Ingushetia, retaining its name in each.
At about 2 a.m. on September 16, a suicide attacker drove his car to the Sunzha district police station in Sernovodsk, Chechnya. After failing to drive onto the police station’s yard, the bomber blew himself up at the gate. Three people died on the spot and four others were wounded (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/230143/). Two of the killed were police officers dispatched from the Chuvash Republic—Leonid Puchkov and Alexander Yegorov (www.cheboksary.ru/crimen/16092013/page24266.htm). The third slain police officer, Yuni Suleimanov, was from the local Chechen police force. The suicide bomber was identified as Isa Khildikhoroev of Sunzha district’s Assinovskaya village. Experts estimated the strength of the blast outside the Sunzha district police station at 60 kilograms of TNT (http://lifenews.ru/#!news/119368). It should be noted that this was the first suicide bomber attack in Chechnya since August 2012 (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/230146/).
The suicide bomber in Sernovodsk was reportedly identified by Sulanbek (Salman) Machukaev, who also told police about another forthcoming attack. According to the Ingush police, Machukaev surrendered to the Sleptsovskaya district police on the morning of September 16. The Russian security services, however, said that Machukaev tried to infiltrate the district police station but was intercepted before he could detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) (http://www.interfax.ru/russia/txt.asp?id=329043). Following his arrest, Machukaev told the police that his brother Adam Machukaev was preparing another attack targeting police. According to the arrested militant, his brother was likely to be driving a stolen car.
Adam Machukaev was on the wanted list of the police in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district for participation in an illegal armed formation. The police finally located him in the Ingush Sunzha district near the village of Nesterovskaya. When Adam Machukaev realized that he could not escape, he rammed a police car. According to the police, the trunk of the militant’s car was full of explosives, and a blast that followed the collision killed one police officer and injured four others. According to the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee, Adam Machukaev detonated an IED when the police tried to arrest him, killing one police officer and seriously injuring three others (http://www.ingushetiyaru.org/news/36548/). Rebel news sources reported that two people died and three were wounded (http://kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2013/09/17/100617.shtml).
According to the testimony of the arrested Sulanbek Machukaev, there were plans to attack police in several other locations. A counter-terrorism operation regime was introduced in Chechnya’s Sunzha district, which further dampened the militants’ resolve. However, while the police were able to foil the attacks, they failed to find the potential attackers (http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20130916/963476306.html).
The suicide bombers Adam Machukaev and Isa Khildikhoroev, as well as the captured militant Sulanbek Machukaev were members of a jamaat led by Beslan Makhauri that operates on both sides of the Chechen-Ingush border (http://www.itar-tass.com/c21/877972.html).
The reaction of the authorities in the two republics to the suicide attacks was peculiar. The press service of the head of Ingushetia reported that the republic’s police placed the blame for the terrorist attacks in the republic on the Chechen authorities, saying that the militants were infiltrating Ingushetia from Chechnya (http://www.ingushetia.ru/m-news/archives/019319.shtml).
Ramzan Kadyrov returned the favor, explaining on his Instagram account: “We cannot simply watch how guerrillas coolly load a car with explosives in the neighboring territory and then our people die” (http://news.mail.ru/inregions/caucasus/26/society/14795703/). Kadyrov then called on the Ingush authorities to cooperate in the fight against the militants. An unsuspecting reader would think that the leaders of two sovereign states were discussing security issues, whereas, in fact, both territories are just administrative units of the Russian state.
Meanwhile, the recently appointed head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov reacted by promising measures like those taken by the Israeli and Chechen authorities. “We will expropriate the homes of the people who are helping the bandit underground, (who) rent their houses, their territory to the bandits,” he said. “Instead, we will give the homes of the accomplices to those who need housing or will build public buildings on the sites of those houses” (http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/659717). Contemplating a large negative backlash across the country, Yevkurov the next day amended his comment, saying that he meant “abandoned, unused buildings, where members of illegal armed groups are finding refuge and plotting their dirty crimes” (http://magas.su/tera/yunus-bek-evkurov-snositsya-budut-te-domakotorye-ispolzuyutsya-zabrosheny-khozyaevami). He also proposed expanding work to raise public awareness to ensure that Ingushetia’s residents know that supplying food and other services to the militants was under a strict ban. Thus, Ingushetia’s leader has begun employing the same methods as Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya.
However, this is not a mere replication of his neighbor’s tactics. The Dagestani leader, Ramazan Abdulatipov, has chosen approximately the same tactics. So one can observe Moscow’s general strategy in the North Caucasus, when in exchange for a free hand at the local level, Moscow’s protégé should ensure well-being in his republic and provide favorable results during elections (http://ria.ru/analytics/20130515/937476998.html). Therefore, this is not a spontaneous reaction of a regional bureaucrat to the bomb attacks in the North Caucasus. Rather, it is essentially a colonial system that allows the central state to put part of the responsibility on the regional leaders, in exchange for the appearance of peace.
This system worked fairly well in the 19th century and even under Communism in the 20th century. However, there is no way for this system of governance not to backfire and result in Moscow’s loss of control over the region. Even fragile autonomy eventually makes people want complete sovereignty. The more Moscow relies on its regional henchmen, the more the region drifts away from Russia psychologically, toward complete independence.
--Mairbek Vatchagaev
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Is Chuvashia about to Trigger a New ‘Parade of Sovereignties?’
No protest demonstration or statement from the opposition generates as much concern in the Russian capital as any suggestion that the republics and regions of the Russian Federation may be about to begin a new “parade of sovereignties” (see EDM, August 13). The term refers to the unilateral seizure of power at the end of the Soviet era, not only by the union republics, which obtained independence as a result, but also by autonomous republics and some Russian oblasts and krais, which failed to achieve full sovereignty at that time.
The reason for Russian fears in this regard is two-fold. On the one hand, any restarting of such “a parade” would call into question the strength of Vladimir Putin’s much-ballyhooed “power vertical” and lead members of the elite to consider challenging him and the Kremlin on their own. And on the other hand, and perhaps even more disturbingly to those in Moscow, there is a very real fear that any movements toward such “a parade,” however small they might appear now, could quickly explode especially if, as now, the Russian economy worsens and Moscow increasingly lacks the resources to buy off regional elites.
If, the last time around, the trigger for such a movement came from expected places such as the Baltic countries and Tatarstan, this time it appears to be emerging in some less anticipated ones, possibly because the center has neglected them on the basis of an assumption that they would not or cannot create any serious problems. But given the growing intensity of communications among officials and activists in the republics, krais and oblasts of the Russian Federation, such thinking may prove to be a fatal mistake.
The most intriguing “trigger” for such a development comes this week from Chuvashia, a small republic in the Middle Volga. It has 1.3 million people on a territory of 7,066 square miles and an economy based on agriculture and engineering. Its titular nation—the Chuvash—is an ethnically Turkic group whose predominant religion is Orthodox Christianity. For most of their recent history, the Chuvash have been ignored both in Moscow and the West with most of the attention to that region going to the larger and more activist republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan or the three Finno-Ugric republics—Mordvinia, Mari-El and Udmurtia—because of their ties to Finno-Ugric states abroad and their economic wealth. Together, these six contiguous republics are known historically as Idel-Ural.
But in recent months, the Chuvash have become increasingly active in ways that recall the earlier “parade of sovereignties.” And this suggests that what is taking place in Chuvashia’s capital of Cheboksary is attracting the attention of other non-Russian regions—and even some Russian ones with significant ethnic minorities as well.
Earlier this month, 100 Chuvash activists held a meeting to protest the loss of the attributes of statehood from their constitution, attributes like a president and a state council, which Vladimir Putin forced officials to strip out of that document in the name of creating “a common legal space” in Russia. Participants in the meeting, which attracted both republic and international attention, carried signs demanding that these institutions be restored and pointed out that it is truly “nonsensical” that Chuvashia has a Presidential Boulevard but no president (www.turkist.org/2013/09/chuvash-republic.html).
Speakers to the meeting included Eduard Mochalov, the editor of the local independent newspaper Vzyatka, and Ille Ivanov, who has been the subject of persecution this year for demanding that officials obey the law by providing Chuvash language signs in the streets and on public transportation alongside Russian ones. Mochalov not only supported the restoration of the Chuvash Republic’s state symbols, but also called for the restoration of elections in all of Russia’s federal units, including of a president for Chuvashia. And the editor also demanded that several hated Moscow-installed officials be fired.
Many might be tempted to dismiss this as an isolated incident, one that the Chuvash are unlikely to repeat and one that is even less likely to occur elsewhere. But that would be a mistake. Chuvash activists have been increasingly active and are hosting or taking part in meetings at which representatives of other federal subjects and nationalities can learn about their complaints and what they are trying to do in response.
Only a week ago, for example, Chuvash delegates took part in an Ufa conference on “The Current Problems of Dialects of the Languages of the Peoples of Russia” at which they, together with other non-Russian experts talked about threats to non-Russian education. The Chuvash delegation offered a resolution saying that if the loss of speakers of non-Russian languages is not stopped, “this will lead to the disappearance not only of languages but of a number of peoples of the Russian Federation” (http://www.irekle.org/news/i1306.html). The other delegations supported this resolution, including its call for Russia to ratify the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages—something that Moscow has been unwilling to do.
Consequently, a Christian Turkic republic, still under Moscow’s radar, may in fact be taking the lead in launching a new parade of sovereignties.
--Paul Goble