Paul Goble
Staunton, June 21 – While many non-Russian groups are still interested in pursuing autonomy within the current borders of the Russian Federation, an increasing number now seek independence, a sign of a new “dawn” of national movements there, according to the League of Free Nations.
Yesterday, the League, which brings together the national movements of peoples enslaved by Moscow, held a press conference in Prague at which political emigres from the North Caucasus, the Middle Volga and Siberia. Participants said that the survival of their nations could not be secured by autonomy and that it requires that they have independent states.
They said that once they gain independence, they would be more than ready to speak about cooperation with other new states but that independence had to precede cooperation or there would be a great risk that Moscow would hijack any such cooperation or betray it in some other way.
And at the same time, the participants called on Moscow to be deprived of its nuclear weapons so that it can’t continue to blackmail others and stripped of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council so that it can’t continue to block the efforts of other states to promote stability and democracy.
The speakers whose remarks can be heard on the Facebook page of the League included Rafis Kashapov, a founder of the Free Idel-Ural movement; Ruslan Gabbasov, a Bashkir activist; Rajana Dugar-DePonte, a Buryat scholar and activist; Vladimir Dovdanov, a representative of the Kalmyk nation; Vyacheslav Dyomin, a Cossack activist, and Erzya Syres Bolyaen.
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