Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 6 – Apparently operating
on the principle that if there is a problem, there should be a government structure
responsible for it, President Vladimir Putin is moving to recreate in fact if
not in name a ministry to oversee the Russian Federation’s increasingly intense
nationality problems.
But for the same reasons that such a
structure failed at the start of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, this move
is likely to come up short as well. That is because unless it is given the
powers of a super ministry, something that unlikely to happen, it won’t be able
to address ethnic issues now affecting and within the purview of other
ministries and state structures.
Consequently, as some Moscow critics
are already pointing out, this latest institutional return to the past only
highlights the extent to which Putin in his third term currently lacks any new
ideas on how to deal with one of the country’s most neuralgic but currently
most explosive problems.
Ever since Putin disbanded the
nationalities ministry at the start of his first term, some commentators and
experts have called for its restoration. Such calls increased in frequency and
intensity after Putin himself during the 2012 presidential campaign devoted an
entire article to the nationality problem.
Specifically, the Russian president
said, that there needs to be established in the system of federal organs of
power a special structure responsible for issues of national development,
inter-ethnic well-being and the inter-action of ethnoses.” The Ministry for
Regional Development, he continued, was treating these issues only as a second or
third-level task.
Not surprisingly, many Putin
supporters began to propose the establishment of a new nationalities ministry,
following the president’s logic of creating a structure for every problem. But
many, including Regional Affairs Minister Basargin and Vice Prime Minster
Dmitry Kozak opposed it (polit.ru/article/2013/11/05/ministry/).
Yesterday, Moscow’s “Kommersant”
cited a Kremlin source as saying that Putin’s call on November 1 for the
reorganization of the regional affairs ministry “in fact” represents “the
restoration of the Ministry for Nationality Affairs,” a fact the president’s
press spokesman appeared to confirm (kommersant.ru/doc/2336007).
According to the paper, the regional
affairs ministry will acquire an additional structure that will involve “regional
representatives,” and “it is possible, “Kommersant” continued, that “this will
be a government non-commercial organization” which will include “a unique
monitoring center with sections in each subject of the Russian Federation.”
The paper provided no additional
details and said that the new arrangements would be finalized in the coming
weeks. No surprisingly, that provoked discussion. Sergey Markov, a political scientist at
Moscow State University, told “Kommersant” that “of course a second Ministry
for Nationalities is being established.”
But it is “another question,” he
continued, whether the ministry will have sufficient clout to do very
much. “For this, [the person in charge]
needs to be at a minimum a vice prime minister.” Markov said that whatever arrangements were
made, the new structure must focus on the defense of ethnic Russians as much as
on that of smaller non-Russian groups.
Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the Petersburg
Politics Foundation, was more dismissive. He told “Kommersant” that by taking
this step, the Kremlin was giving the appearance of action without actually
doing anything. Even if the new structure is put in place, he said, Moscow will
continue its ad hoc approach to ethnic problems.
Margarita
Lyange, the head of the Guild of Inter-Ethnic Journalism, suggested that
earlier efforts by the Russian government to create an effective structure in
this area had failed because the Kremlin was not prepared to cede enough power
to it, a view shared by former nationalities minister Vladimir Zorin (nazaccent.ru/content/9604-ekspert-minregion-prevratilsya-v-ministerstvo-po.html
and izvestia.ru/news/559989).
But the most sweeping denunciation
of the latest bureaucratic move was offered by Svelanta Gannushkina, chairman
of the Civic Support Committee. She told
Rosbalt.ru that the regional development ministry had not improved the ethnic
situation in the country and that its lack of transparency did not bode well (rosbalt.ru/main/2013/11/05/1196080.html).
But Vyacheslav Mkhailov who served
as nationalities minister in the early 1990s was more optimistic at least regarding
reports that Aleksandr Kotenkov will head the new structure within the regional
affairs ministry. He suggested Kotenkov had significant experience because of
his role in managing the Osetin-Ingush conflict (nazaccent.ru/content/9610-eks-ministr-rf-po-delam-nacionalnostej-rasskazal.html).
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