Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 25 – The ecological
protests in Voronezh oblasts in the course of which a geologists’ camp was
burned can become just as environmental activism in 1988 did the basis for
political mobilization of the population and ultimately a challenge to the
existing political and economic system in the Russian Federation, according to
a Russian analyst.
A generation ago, Sergey Gupalo
argued yesterday on the Forum-MSK.ru site, leftist groups in Poltava used
protests against environmental activism as the foundation for broader political
protests against the CPSU and for the democratization of Soviet society rather
than just the creation of a market economy (forum-msk.org/material/region/9949670.html).
Unfortunately, the left-wing author
says, this social energy was hijacked by some in Moscow toward the promotion of
“all-human values” in ways that led not to better environmental protection or
greater equality but rather toward even greater harm to workers and the world
around them by the establishment of unrestrained free market capitalism.
Now, however, the workers are
beginning to stir, just as they did in 1988, and their ecological protests in
the Novokhoper district of Voronezh represent “the first phase” of what Gupalo
suggests could become “the first phase” of “a new Russian revolution,” just as
environmental activism promised to become at the end of Soviet times.
Although Gupalo’s argument likely is
overstated and reflects his hopes more than the facts on the ground, his point
that ecological protests can grow into broader ones is true: it happened in
Estonia and elsewhere at the end of the Soviet period. Consequently, the events
over the weekend in Voronezh and their pre-history deserve more attention than
they have received.
On Saturday, more than 1500 people
assembled in the Novokhoper district of Voronezh oblast to protest the presence
of a group of geologists who were looking of nickel deposits. After a peaceful
meeting, some of those present went to the geologists’ camp and set part of it
afire, leading to at least three injuries but no deaths (vz.ru/society/2013/6/23/638426.html and youtube.com/watch?v=vqP2GLJA4us&feature=youtu.be).
According
to local officials, many attending the meeting were nationalists and Cossacks
who arrived by bus from Voronezh, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Samara and Krasnodar
and those responsible for the torching of the camp were “provocateurs” of yet
unspecified origin (forum-msk.org/material/news/9948806.html).
Viktor Volodatsky, the ataman
Cossacks and a member of the Duma defense committee, the Cossacks “wanted to
achieve a ban on the mining of nickel [exclusively] by legal means” and the
violence against the geologists was “a provocation” designed to allow the local
authorities to ignore the demands of the population that no nickel mining take
place.
The residents of Voronezh have a
long history of environmental activism. In the 1970s and 1980s, “Vzglyad”
reported, they unsuccessfully opposed the opening of five mines in the area;
and they have known about current plans to open a nickel mine in their area for
more than a year.
The opponents of nickel mining say
that any such mines “will lead to a castatrophic lowering of ground water
levels” and thus “destroy local agriculture.
They also doubt” official claims that the mines will provide new jobs
and a boost to the economy. Instead, the opponents say, only the Moscow owners
of the mine would benefit.
Opposition to the mines is
widespread. According to a December 2012
poll by the Moscow Institute of Sociology, 98 percent of the residents of the
Novokhoper district consider any nickel mining there to be harmful and “a third
said they were prepared” to use extra-legal means to block it (kramola.info/vesti/protivostojanie/dobycha-nikelja-v-chernozeme-aktivnye-dejstvija).
Even
before last weekend, some of the residents were prepared to act in that way,
and officials have responded with force.
On May 13, for example, a group of environmental activists there were
beaten when they set up a protest camp. And the activists have gained support
from the expert community in Moscow.
Experts
of the Russian Social Chamber as well as scholars at the Russian Academy of
Sciences and Moscow State University prepared a report which concluded that any
nickel mining in Voronezh would have “seriously negative ecological and social
consequences.” They added that the region should develop only as an
agricultural and touristic center.
On
June 14, a week before the recent violence, documents about “serious social
tension” in the region were given to Russian Vice Prime Minister A.V.
Dvorkovich, and the issue was then raised on June 18 with Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev when he visited Irkutsk (http://savekhoper.ru/?page_id=1319).
But instead of taking the objections
of the residents of Voronezh seriously, Russian officials dug in on behalf of
the businesses that want to start mining in the area. A day before the most recent protest, a
Voronezh court rejected an appeal for a referendum on mining. As a result, the
local population appears to have felt they had no alternative by to act as they
did.
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