Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 30 – Illegal seizures
of land by Balkar activists in Khasanya and Belaya Rechka threatens the
existence of both Kabardino-Balkaria (KBR) and Karachayevo-Cherkessia (KChR) by
raising the spectre of a Karachayevo-Balkar Republic and as a result of a
Circassian one – the Kabards and the Cherkess are sub-groups of that nation –
as well.
Given rural overpopulation, a
complex ethnic mix, and Russian laws that are not easily applied to local
conditions, the North Caucasus has long been the site of disputes over the
control of land. But the potential of the current seizures to reorder political
arrangements in the region to trigger more inter-ethnic violence could at a
minimum force Moscow to send in more troops.
It may be difficult to imagine that
something so small as the seizure of several fields by local activists could
have that effect, experts say, but consideration of the context shows why such conclusions
are justified (kavpolit.com/sobytiya-v-sele-belaya-rechka-chast-realizacii-plana-po-sozdaniyu-karachaevo-balkarskoj-respubliki/ and kavpolit.com/vmesto-togo-chtoby-reshat-socialno-ekonomicheskie-problemy-minregion-okrashivaet-ix-v-etnicheskie-tona/).
Aslan
Beshto, a Circassian activist whose people would at least initially be the
losers in any such reordering of the borders in the North Caucasus, provides a
commentary about this complex situation. His article is cast as a response to another
by Muradin Rakhayev, a Balkar leader
Illegal
land seizures by Balkars near Nalchik, Beshto writes, may seem justified and
elicit a certain sympathy given the problems of that nation. But anyone who
examines the background of these actions will be concerned given both what has
been happening and what “shadowy players” like Balkar nationalists and Turkey have
as their ultimate goals.
For the last 20 years “at a minimum,”
Beshto says, the Balkars have “cultivated the ethnic myth that all the
present-day territory of Kabardino-Balkaria is the immemorial land of the Balkars”
and that lands that should be under their control have been handed to others,
such as the Kabards, by outsiders.
But everyone needs to understand
that “the very same problems which exist” in Belaya Rechka exist as well in all
municipalities both of the republic and of the country as a whole.” If current arrangements are overturned by
illegal actions in one place, that can easily trigger other illegal actions
elsewhere.
If one turns to the archives, Beshto
continues, one finds that the Balkars actually seized what were historically
Kabard lands. But that is not something the Balkars care to acknowledge
now. Instead, at the end of last summer,
the “Vestnik Balkarii” published a declaration saying that the “Kabard people
in general has no rights” to make any claim to these lands.
As a Circassian, Beshto says, he has
encountered “such manifestations of nationalism constantly,” most disturbingly
in a declaration also last summer of the Council of Elders of the Balkar People
which declared that “the next step” for the group should be “the establishment
of a Karachayevo-Balkar (Alan) Republic” in place of the bi-national KBR and
KChR.
“If that were to happen,” the
Circassian activist continues, “then the division of Kabardino-Balkaria would
occur” along the borders of the existing municipalities, with all the impact
that would have on neighboring areas, including the KChR.
Beshto suggests that standing behind
the Balkars is Turkey with its plans for a Greater Turan and that the Balkars,
a Turkic people, have been able to invoke Russian law to justify what they are
doing even though the specific law on local administration was drawn up with an
eye to parts of Russia not suffering from overpopulation and a shortage of
land.
“By some miracle and thanks to the
wisdom” of Gennady Khloponin, the presidential plenipotentiary for the area, Beshto
says, the current crisis may have passed, but he argues that the authorities
have been too inclined to make concessions to the Balkars in the past and that
as a result the Balkars are increasing their demands.
That leaves Khloponin and Moscow
with few good choices: if the Russian authorities continue to give in to the
Balkars, the Circassians will mobilize to oppose them, but if the Russians don’t,
Moscow will have to use force to restrain the Balkars and that will only
exacerbate their national feelings.
In short, the complex
administrative-territorial system that Stalin created and left behind him, one that requires high levels
of coercion to maintain, remains a poison pill for Moscow in the North Caucasus
in the first instance but ultimately in other regions of the Russian Federation
as well.
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