Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Official Silence
By Yulia Latynina
For the past two weeks, the state television stations have given blanket coverage to the growing threat of skinheads. Mindless nationalism is obviously a very bad thing. Yet something prevents me from joining in the chorus of indignation on the television news.
The main reason is that the Kremlin is exploiting the issue of nationalism as part of a blatant political strategy. In the run-up to the presidential election in 2008, the specter of rising nationalism will be used to frighten us into voting for the incumbent.
There is also a disturbing discrepancy between the official indignation about skinheads and the official silence about so much else. Take the case of Zaur Tutov, the culture minister from the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, who was attacked by a gang of skinheads earlier this month. The attack, which left Tutov with a broken jaw, set off the current spate of official concern about hate crimes.
For several years now, ethnic Kabardins belonging to the Jamaat of Kabardino-Balkaria have been tortured and humiliated by the authorities. Their desperate requests for protection have fallen on deaf ears. When these people took up arms in the regional capital, Nalchik, on Oct. 13, 2005, and attacked the cops who had terrorized them for so long, no one in the government ever publicly asked the obvious question: Why had these people turned to violence?
It’s highly unlikely that the beer-swilling defenders of the Russian people ever saw photographs of the rebels in Nalchik, their faces disfigured by torture. But they unconsciously know that if the cops in Nalchik can get away with kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach, then breaking a man’s jaw in Moscow is downright liberal by comparison.
In Moscow, skinheads broke Zaur Tutov’s jaw. In the North Caucasus, tanks have been used in special operations for the last two years. In Nalchik, the leader of the Yarmuk jamaat, Muslim Atayev, was gunned down in January 2005 along with his 8-month-old daughter. In the Dagestani village of Solnechnoye in the Khasavyurt region, on the border with Chechnya, cops fired a grenade launcher at a nursery in the course of a special operation despite the desperate appeals of one of the mothers. Among the victims was the 6-year-old daughter of a local imam, who had allowed guerrillas to stay the night at his house. A short while later in nearby Khasavyurt, a 3-year-old child was killed in cold blood during a similar operation. The child lived across the hall from an apartment occupied by guerrillas.
The beer-swilling defenders of the Russian people almost certainly never heard of 6-year-old Sumaya Abdurashidova or 3-year-old Kerim Tadzhutdinov. But they unconsciously know that if the cops in the North Caucasus can fire grenade launchers at children, then in Moscow there’s nothing to stop you cold-cocking a guy with a bottle.
In Moscow, skinheads broke Zaur Tutov’s jaw. During the tenure of former Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, more than 200 people were abducted by unidentified government agents. Some of the disappeared were probably guerrillas, but we’ll never know for sure. There were no trials, and when a man is forced to sit on a champagne bottle or has nails driven through his knee caps, he’ll admit to just about anything. One thing is certain, however: As a result of such torture, the number of fighters in the Caucasus has risen exponentially, because the locals are not inclined to forgive and forget.
Moscow and the North Caucasus are living in different eras: Moscow in 2006, and the North Caucasus in 1937.
If the Kremlin is serious about improving relations with the people of the North Caucasus, it faces bigger problems than gangs of skinheads. The authorities in the North Caucasus are behaving as though they are in occupied territory. And things tend to end badly for occupying forces, especially when they’re not supported by an army.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/04/19/007.html
