Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 28 – Now that 600
Cossacks are patrolling the streets of Moscow, Daghestanis in the Russian
capital insist they should have the same opportunity, a reflection of the fears
of North Caucasians that the Cossacks will be anything but law-abiding and of
the risks the Kremlin is running in allowing the Cossacks to play this role in
the first place.
“Izvestiya” reported today that
Daghestanis in Moscow are “afraid that Cossack druzhinniki, who yesterday began
to patrol central Moscow will exacerbate inter-ethnic tensions. To avoid that,
[they suggest that] representatives of the diaspora be attached to the
[Cossack] patrols” (izvestia.ru/news/540425).
Kamil Davdiyev, chairman of
the Daghestani Popular Assembly committee for inter-ethnic relations and
religious groups, said that the authorities in Moscow ought to have checked
with the North Caucasian diasporas before beginning to use Cossack patrols to
supplement the work of the police.
Had they done so,
he continued, they would have been told precisely why people from the North
Caucasus are concerned: In September, Aleksandr Tkachev, the governor of
Krasnodar Kray, began this practice by suggesting that the Cossacks, more than
the police, have the right to act as they see fit to maintain public order.
Another
Daghestani, Magomedrasul Omarov, the press secretary of the Muslim Spiritual
Directorate (MSD) of that republic, agreed and suggested to the Moscow paper
that using Cossack patrols for law enforcement was “excessive.” No such patrols
would be necessary “if the law enforcement organs were functioning in a normal
fashion.”
Setting up such
quasi-official forces raises the question, Omarov continued, of just what the
authorities may do next. What they
should be doing is ensuring that the police “do their jobs,” something that is
clearly not currently the case.
The Cossacks say
the fears of the North Caucasians are misplaced, “Izvestiya” said. Igor Gulichev, the first deputy ataman of the
South-East District Cossack Society, acknowledged that “in principle everything
is possible. But we [Cossacks],” he continued, “do not define our task as
persecuting those who think differently or are representatives of other
confessions or faiths.”
If the North Caucasians have any doubts
on that score, the ataman said, “there is only one way out: don’t violate
public order.” If “Daghestanis, Chechens, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, or Tajiks” do that,
“then no one [including the Cossack druzhinniki] will apply any measures”
against them. But the Cossacks will make sure that there is order.
Gulichev
insisted that Cossack units will coordinate all their activities with the local
organs of internal affairs. But already on the first day, there was evidence
reported both by “Izvestiya” and by “Novaya gazeta” (www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/55625.html)
that that is not the case at least some of the time.
The press office
of the Moscow Administration of Internal Affairs said that the Cossacks
patrolling the Belorussky railway station had not sought or received approval
for their actions there, a statement that makes what the Cossacks are doing all
the more disturbing, not only to people from the North Caucasus but to many
others as well.
That is because
the authorities either have a group that can act with little regard for the law
and can be disowned when necessary, an arrangement that invites and even
encourages abuse, or have one whose existence is likely to leader others to
organize themselves against the Cossacks, a development that could quickly
escalate conflict in the streets of Moscow.
At the very
least, as the “Novaya gazeta” article pointed out, this latest Kremlin-backed
move is certain to raise the question in the minds of many Russians: “Why in general are some groups of [private]
citizens given some kind of extra authority for control over the actions of
other citizens?”
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