Genuine Federalism in North Caucasus Would Lead to Islamization and Separatism, CIS Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 10 – Vladimir Yevseyev, the senior specialist on the Caucasus at Moscow’s CIS Institute, says that genuine federalism in the North Caucasus would be a mistake because it would lead to the Islamization of several of the republics there and to intensified separatist movements.

            Russian experts, officials and politicians have often suggested that one reason why the Russian Federation can’t have “real” federalism is because that would lead to dangerous centrifugal forces, but they typically couch such arguments in language that doesn’t show just how opposed they are to what the Russian Constitution requires.

            But Yevseyev is amazingly blunt. On Ekho Moskvy in response to a question from a Moscow housewife (echo.msk.ru/programs/bezkupur/2312550-echo/), he says the following:

“Real federalism in the North Caucasus could lead to a significant weakening there of the influence of the federal center, particularly in Daghestan where there live a large number of numerically small peoples. This would be accompanied by the Islamization of some Republics of the North Caucasus.

“As a result, separatism, which we have already suffered in Chechnya, could arise, especially given the return to the North Caucasus of radical Islamists who had fought in Syria.

“In the southern Caucasus, real federalism could exist only in Georgia with the goal of reunifying in this republic Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However, local elites, both in Tbilisi and in Sukhum and Tsikhval are categorically against this.

“But real federalism in principle is impossible in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There only two possibilities are under consideration: the preservation of the situation as it is or the seizure of this territory by Azerbaijan and the practically complete expulsion from it of the Armenians.”

            In response to a question from a Moscow student, Yevseyev says that “in the Caucasus, people respect the federal center if it represents a real force both militarily and economically. There, they are accustomed to live in the course of many centuries … Any displace of weakness by the center will be treated as a loss of respect.”

            The Moscow analyst responds to another questioner that “in both the North and South Caucasus, there is nostalgia for the USSR, especially among the elderly and intelligentsia who have not found a worthy place in contemporary conditions. But this undoubtedly is a small part of the local population.”

            Asked by an architect whether the Caucasus represents a threat to Russia, Yevseyev said that “the north Caucasus is not a threat for Russia but rather a serious challenge.” And it is the kind of challenge that many other countries face as well. He added that “without the support of the federal center, the North Caucasus won’t be able to cope with terrorism.”

            Yevseyev also said that “now, the problem of nationalism in the North Caucasus does not have its former intensity, but local separatism as before represents a significant threat for the preservation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.”

            And his final comment, to a journalist who telephoned in to the station, may be the one people in the region will focus on. He says that “of course,” republics in the North Caucasus can be headed by those without any ethnic or biographic links to them.  And points to Vladimir Vasiliyev in Daghestan as an example of that.