Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 7 – After an
article sharply criticized Moscow for not admitting more Circassians from Syria
(windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/07/circassian-activist-denounces-moscow.html),
the Regnum news agency asked the Russian Foreign Ministry for its reaction. The
MFA said decisions about such admissions are the province of the republics, not
Moscow.
In yet another example of Moscow’s
proclivity to shift responsibility but not resources to the regions and
republics, the foreign ministry in a 600 word statement says that the republics
and regions of Russia have the right to decide which applicants for admission
to the country will be accepted under the compatriots program (regnum.ru/news/polit/2683485.html).
This statement is disingenuous in at
least three ways. First, the Russian embassy in Syria decides who gets the
necessary travel documents for admission to the Russian Federation. Consequently,
a federal agency is the first obstacle to the return of the thousands of
Circassians who want to leave war-torn Syria for their ancestral homeland.
Second, the republics and regions
may have the right to allow Circassians from Syria to become part of the
compatriots program; but it is an unfunded liability. The Circassian republics –
Adygeya, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia – are dependent on
subsidies from the center because they do not retain the taxes they collect.
And third, as the Russian foreign
ministry acknowledges, decisions on who gets residence status are made not by
the republic government as a whole but by the interior ministry which is far
more subordinate to the Russian Federation government than it is to any of the
republics.
Moscow does not want the Circassians
to return because it fears that their presence in the North Caucasus could
upset the ethnic balance there and power more demands for the restoration of a
single Circassia and more generally because it does not want more Muslims in Russia
(windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/06/circassians-only-one-of-many-muslim.html).
And to that end, it has made it ever
more difficult for the Circassian republics to take Circassians in, forcing
them for financial reasons to be Moscow’s agents in this effort rather than
allowing them to act as they would like to if they had the funds (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/05/moscow-north-caucasus-republics-making.html).
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