Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 2 – Rarely does
a day go by when there isn’t one or another Russian anniversary that at least
some take note of, but often the most important lessons of the events being
remembered are ignored or downplayed even though they say a great deal about
where Russia is not only in the past but now as well.
Three such anniversaries recalled in
recent days that have important lessons for the future include:
·
The
13th anniversary of the Beslan Events. The most important lesson is
that despite the high profile nature of that crime, no one has been punished
for it in the intervening period and no serious provisions have been introduced
in Russian law to help the victims of that attack and their relatives (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59A9C1D3B18DB
and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/308927/).
·
The
21st anniversary of the signing of the Khasavyurt accords which put
an end to the first post-Soviet Chechen war.
That accord which could have been a road map to a peaceful future in the
North Caucasus not only was vitiated by Moscow’s failure to live up to a single
one of its provisions but also by Vladimir Putin’s blowing up of Russian apartment
buildings in 1999 to restart the Chechen war and boost himself into the Russian
presidency (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/308807/).
·
The
77th anniversary of the forcible annexation of the Baltic countries
by Stalin on the basis of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
In a new book, Moscow television journalist Leonid Parfenov observes that at
that time “the Kremlin proceeded toward annexation step by step, seeking until
the last moment not to reveal its true goal” (meduza.io/feature/2017/09/03/namedni-zahvat-pribaltiki-i-rio-rita).
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