Paul Goble
Staunton,
April 3 – More than 1,000 residents of Petrazovodsk took part in a
demonstration there yesterday which called for the ouster of the Karelia’s
current head Aleksandr Khudilaynen, “the first region in Russia” in Putin’s
times where the local population has demanded such a step, according to
Karelian republic television.
(The television station's assertion is not literally true: the people in several North Caucasian republics have demonstrated for the same ends at various points in the last decade. What is true is that by asserting this, the station has raised the stakes for both Petrozavodsk and Moscow in what might otherwise have been a minor issue.)
The
protest was sparked by the arrest of Olga Zaletskaya, a Yabloko deputy in the
city council, and Aleksandra Kornilova, another Yabloko activist who is the
director of a local trading firm, for what the demonstrators said were trumped
up charges intended to remove two of Khudilaynen’s critics (currenttime.tv/content/article/26930088.html).
The
Yabloko Party council in Moscow and its Petrozavodsk section are demanding that
the two be immediately released, saying that their arrests are politically
motivated in advance of elections there and promising that a demonstration to
be held on April 9 will repeat and extend the demands of Karelian residents.
Dmitry
Rybakov of the Moscow council said that “the April 9 meeting will be “against
political repressions in Karelia and for the retirement of Aleksandr Petrovich
Khudilaynen as head of the republic.” Moreover,
like the one yesterday, it will call for an elected rather than a
Moscow-appointed leadership.
Anatoly
Tsygankov, the head of the Center for Political and Social Research in Karelia,
suggested that the arrests, which were supposedly triggered by an investigation
into land sales there, may not be as baseless as the demonstrators suggest,
given that there are always conflicts about such things.
But as
the Petrozavodsk television station put it, there is general agreement among
city residents that the 13-day arrest of Zaletskaya, who has two young children
and an elderly father, is “impermissible” and that “her detention will hardly
increase support for the current leadership.”
Both
these arrests and the protests they have triggered will only exacerbate
tensions in Karelia and concerns in Moscow. In recent months, several Russian
legislators in Petrozavodsk and Moscow security officials have suggested that
separatism is on the rise there, and they will almost certainly view these
protests as evidence that they are right.
Such
fears mean the Russian authorities are likely to try to block the demonstration
planned for April 9, possibly by arresting more opponents of the
Putin-installed regime and stepping up their campaign against what they see as
Finnish-inspired separatist attitudes there. (“Separatism
in Karelia More Serious than Many Think, Petrozavodsk Deputy Says” (December
17, 2014) windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/12/window-on-eurasia-separatism-in-karelia.html).
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