Caucasian organization condemns authorities' role in Nalchik events
KABARDINO-BALKARIYA, 19 December, Caucasus Times - A public organization in the southern Russian republic of Kabarda-Balkaria - the Independent Socio-Research Centre - has condemned the role of the power-wielding structures in the events in Nalchik on 13-14 October. In an "open letter" to the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kabarda-Balkar President Arsen Kanokov and the Russian public, it accuses the Kremlin of conducting a "disastrous and ruinous" policy in the North Caucasus and presenting the events in Nalchik in such a way as to depict the rebels'actions as terrorism when in fact they were simply demonstrating against the "hopeless situation" imposed on them by the authorities. The following is the text of the report headlined "Organizing the Nalchik rebellion by an armed unit of young worshippers was the latest successful operation by the special services".

Kremlin's "destructive" policy in the Caucasus

Kabarda-Balkaria, 14 December: The Caucasus Times has received an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kabarda-Balkar President Arsen Kanokov and the Russian public. The authors of the letter - members of the non-government public-academic organization Independent Socio-Research Centre (ISRC), which was reformed after the tragic events in Nalchik on 13 and 14 October - call upon the country's leaders and public to focus attention on the destructive and ruinous nature of the policy adopted by the Kremlin in relation to the North Caucasus. The agency's editors are publishing the letter without any alterations.

The recent (Nalchik) events in the Caucasus have shown that the course which is currently being pursued at the [Federal] Centre in relation to the Caucasus is utterly destructive and disastrous. Following the tragic events in Nalchik on 13and 14 October, the non-government public-academic organization Independent Socio-Research Centre (ISRC) has resumed its work. The ISRC has currently taken up the task of researching socio-political and ideological-organizational problems and the causes and consequences of the armed rebellion by a group of young worshippers in the Kabarda-Balkar Republic against the republic's power-wielding structures.

Aim to split Kabarda-Balkar society

With the support of its campaigners, the ISRC has collected a vast amount of material which has a direct or indirect bearing on the tragic events in Nalchik. The overall conclusion to be drawn from this material is that the tragic events of 13 and 14 October 2005 were inspired by influential forces with the aim of shifting the development of events in Chechnya to the Kabarda-Balkar Republic [KBR], to split Kabarda-Balkar society, to provoke a clash between individual groups and to turn the republic into a hot-spot of the Caucasus with unpredictable consequences.

The public of the republic expects an immediate and objective answer to the following basic questions. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that the wording of these questions includes elements of the substance of and the reasons behind these events and circumstances.

1. On what basis, by whom and why was a "police state in a separate republic" created long before the events of October?

2. Since the republic was swarming with policemen and other power-wielding bodies, on what basis did the federal and regional (Southern Federal District) centres describe the KBR as the most stable region in southern Russia? Why was a stable situation based on a preponderance of power-wielding bodies and the suppression of elementary civil rights of the population imposed on the republic to satisfy the authorities who had lost control?

3. If, according to the testimony of the Russian president's representative in the Southern Federal District, Dmitriy Kozak, the KBR is in 88th and penultimate place among all the components of the federation in terms of standard of living, on what basis can the Russian president describe the KBR as a dynamically developing republic?

4. For what reason has a situation of coercion and fear and the inappropriate use of force against any show of dissatisfaction among the population at the unjust and arbitrary actions of the authorities who have ruined and brought the republic to a state of extreme poverty and lawlessness, been established in "the most stable republic in the south"?


5. On what basis did the ministries of justice and internal affairs, the prosecutor's office and the supreme and local courts of the KBR crush and ban the activities of 17 political parties and public organizations, which is a violation of the constitutional rights of the citizens of the KBR?

6. Why was a situation of a lack of legal protection for the citizens against the violation of their lawful rights and freedoms established in the republic? For example, why were all unlawful court verdicts on banning the activities of parties and public organizations maintained and remained in force by the Russian Supreme Court? Why after 13-14 October have all arrests and detentions been carried out without the participation of courts and without any verdicts being passed? Why are these detained and arrested persons being questioned without the participation of lawyers, and with the use of torture? Why are the deputy prosecutor general and deputy interior minister of the Russian Federation permitting and encouraging such blatant violations of the law?

7. By what right have the KBR authorities over the past years crushed the opposition press and closed access to materials critical of the tragic situation in the KBR in the official media

8. On what basis did the republic's authorities openly declare devout Muslims to be enemies of Russia and the peoples of the KBR? What specific crimes against Russia and the KBR have been committed by the 422 people whose names are on the list of enemies of the regime?

9. With what purpose have the police and other power-wielding bodies of the KBR, fully supported by the federal authorities, artificially created unavoidable conditions and reasons for forming detachments of vengeance by armed young worshippers?

10. There are clear signs that secret agents of the police and special services have been taking a direct part in forming anti-police combat detachments. Consequently, the leaders of the power-wielding structures of the KBR and the Russian Federation were given broad notification of the development of the formation of these detachments and their intentions. The question thus arises: why were no measures taken to prevent such a development of events? Why were all conditions created for arming these detachments and force to be used against police stations and special services premises, which were specifically expecting attacks and had been strengthened and were preparing for destruction?

It is common knowledge that two weeks before the start of the armed rebellion, the power-wielding bodies of the republic received strong reinforcements in the form of armed detachments from almost all components in southern Russia. They were distributed to their places of deployment by the local militia and special services who were then attacked by the invaders. Consequently, the republic's and federal power-wielding bodies knew about the intentions of the rebels, what targets they would attack, what forces would be used to do so and at what time this would occur.

These obvious facts beg the following questions:

11.Why during that time did neither the local nor the federal power bodies take any measures to prevent the clash with the armed detachment of rebels?

12.Why was the population of the republic not informed about the approaching threat? Why, for example, did the federal and local power bodies not approach the elders of the republic with whom Mr Kozak had met prior to these events in Rostov-on-Don and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin after the tragic events in Nalchik?

Why did the local and federal authorities not approach the mothers of members of the anti-police combat groups beforehand to avoid a repeat of the situation with the Beslan mothers? Who thought it necessary that the Kabarda-Balkar mothers of those who were killed in the war against the police, who have been driven to despair because the dead bodies of their children have unlawfully not been returned, should now be forced to say in public that after their children they themselves would oppose such an authority? Who benefited from deliberately creating such a situation in the republic and to what purpose?

Police "arranged" battle

It is clear that such a situation is vital above all to the republic's police, who need an infinite increase in strength and funding in their "solid" work against a similarly strong and dangerous enemy. The police itself created an enemy which essentially has never existed in the republic and arranged a public battle in broad daylight in an unsuspecting town. The question arises: was it just [Kabarda-Balkar Interior Minister] Gen [Khachim] Shogenov who needed this "heroic" destruction of a group of bitter young worshippers at the cost of the death of 35 of his men? Could he alone have carried out such a "brilliant and costly" operation, and what forces gave Shogenov and his team the opportunity to carry out such a shameful and dangerous operation for the peoples of the republic, and to what purpose?

13. As most people are now aware, Wahhabism in the KBR "was created in the birth-pangs" of the police and the Spiritual Board of the Muslims. The police received staff and huge amounts of money for the fight against Wahhabism. At the same time, apart from, possibly, some small groups of non-traditional Islam, there has been a complete absence of organized forces of Wahhabis, as happened in Dagestan and Chechnya, in the KBR.


Wahhabism in the KBR had to be created not only in the interests of increasing the strength and elevating the status and wages of the police, and for this purpose, as the press has reported, the interior minister of the KBR is turning to the Spiritual Board of the Muslims to present a list of Wahhabis. The head of the Spiritual Board of the Muslims of the KBR, [Shafig] Pshikhachev, is compiling a list of 50 people from among his opponents, the main group of whom have demanded the return of the money which disappeared after being collected to build a mosque in Nalchik. But the 50 Wahhabis did not suit Shogenov, and on his instruction the police were brought in to make up a list of Wahhabis.

This is how a deception is being carried out about the existence of a strong detachment of Wahhabis numbering 422 men and their names. On the basis of this falsification, state measures are being carried out to "disarm" them.

To justify this flouting of the law, a former president of the KBR is going on television to address the people, and the "heroic" work of the police and the prosecutor's office in protecting "stability in the republic" from a falsified contingent made up of Wahhabis, is beginning.

Does this not prove that the rebels were not planning to seize power, to change the state system in the republic, to seize hostages or to harm their own people in any way, but intended only to put an end to the endless horrors of police brutality against them through mass suicide? Against this background a question also arises which is important as regards the future.

During the meeting between the new president and young people on 3 November 2005, it was reported that 5,000 people had been seized in the KBR by a Wahhabi movement. It is vital to the future of the peoples of the KBR that the authenticity of this figure is established. Are there not grounds for suspicion that this figure of 5,000 was produced in the same way as Pshikhachev and Shogenov compiled their list of 400 Wahhabis?

The "successful" struggle of the KBR Interior Ministry and special services against 400 artificially created Wahhabis led to the October tragedy in Nalchik and to a damaging split in Kabarda-Balkar society, as well as to hostility towards it on the part of the Russian public. Are these same forces now preparing to fight against 5,000 Kabarda-Balkar Wahhabis?! It is not difficult to imagine that the consequences of such a "successful struggle" against this "enemy" in the imagination of the power-wielding bodies could pose a threat to the republic's existence in general!

Paper calls for referendum to abolish ethnic republics

In the central Russian press, after the Kabarda-Balkar armed uprising against the police and special services, the authoritative Argumenty I Fakty newspaper, which is the most popular among the Russian people, and which has made a sound contribution to creating the myth about criminal "individuals of Caucasian nationality", has with dubious reasons already managed to try to prove the "need for administrative reform in the Caucasus". It is trying to prove the "need to hold a referendum on the abolition of the ethnic republics" in the Caucasus and the creation of super-national power bodies for them.

Parallels immediately come to mind - after Beslan the gubernatorial and presidential elections in the republic were cancelled, but certain presidents in the republic (for example, the head of North Ossetia, Aleksandr Dzasokhov) suggested renaming them heads of republic. This is another practical step towards abolishing the republic after the abolition of their sovereignty and formal statehood, which has already been carried out by way of a review of the constitutions of the republics. Will there not be a referendum which Argumenty i Fakty is making such a noise about?

14. As is known, the 400 Muslims of the KBR who had been driven to "despair"

(having given its appraisal to the rebellion by some of the young worshippers of the KBR in Nalchik, the Russian interior minister did not state the reason which led to their despair) appealed to the Russian president before the armed rebellion "to allow them to emigrate to any country of the world where people are more tolerant towards Muslims than they are in Kabarda-Balkaria".

Was it not in relation to them that Minister Shogenov and Prosecutor Kotov organized the sheer state-organized terror which to young Muslims made death and collective suicide preferable to life under such repression? Why did this howl of despair by 400 young people ready to leave their homeland not become the subject of attention by the authorities of the KBR and the Russian Federation? Why did the reasons for this desperate decision not become the subject of attention of the public in the republic?

Investigation groups and the public commission, which the authorities declared was being set up in the republic, must expose in detail the dangerous role of the leaders of the power-wielding bodies in the KBR and, especially, the Interior Ministry and prosecutor's office in the tragic events of 13-14 October 2005 in Nalchik. It is important to give a meaning to the date of the armed demonstration.

Was it a coincidence that on 12 October 2005 Shogenov was named as Interior Minister in the new government, and this was followed by the start of a poorly prepared, "desperate" demonstration of over a dozen armed detachments throughout the city, which was crammed with troops, a motor-rifle regiment, a tank battalion, a crack battalion of Interior Ministry troops, a border detachment, the biggest local police units in the Caucasus, a Centre "T" structure, anti-terrorism units and a group of the operational directorate of the Main Department of the Interior Ministry for the Southern Federal District?

Minister Shogenov told the whole country: "It was not they who declared war on me. I declared war on them." Shogenov believes the carnage in Nalchik was his personal war.Rebellion "not a crime"

The activities of the anti-police uprising by young people on 13-14 October do not constitute a crime, as provided by article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on terrorism. This follows from an unpublished decision of the Russian State Duma on the events in Nalchik and statements in the press by a number of experts. For example, G.Gudkov, a member of the Russian State Duma security committee, commenting on the reports of heads of the power-wielding departments at a session of the Duma said: "This was not a terrorist act, otherwise the bandits would have seized a school or a kindergarten. This was essentially an armed riot against the incumbent power...[ellipsis as published] they were driven to this out of poverty and a sense of hopelessness."

This article of the Russian Criminal Code stipulates that actions designed to violate public security, frighten the population and prevent the power bodies from taking decisions are qualified as terrorism. The rebels did not pursue any of these objectives. Meanwhile, there are sufficient articles in the Criminal Code which cover the actions of the rebels.

So why are high-ranking jurists instituting proceedings on the events as though it were terrorism? Is it not because the article on terrorism givers the prosecution the opportunity to organize a terrifying and inhuman operation with dead bodies? If the rebels are terrorists, then their dead bodies cannot by law be handed over to their families. That is what happened. But at the same time the parents and close relatives are being invited to identify their loved ones among a pile of rotting corpses already crawling with worms.

Many of the corpses of townspeople who were killed accidentally during the fighting were found to be in this condition. A picture of rotting naked corpses was so ghastly and disgusting that the press decided not to publish it. What was the point of this loathsome operation? To instil panic and fear among the population? To deepen the psychological trauma inflicted on Kabarda-Balkar society?

Karachay-Cherkessia next?

17. Some politicians believe that "the events in Nalchik showed once again the helplessness of the Russian special services and the law-enforcement bodies". The evidence produced on the events and its causes, it would seem, point to the opposite. The organization of the Nalchik rebellion by an armed unit of young KBR worshippers against the police and the special services under an artificial screen of Wahhabism is the latest successful operation by the special services and law-enforcement bodies to draw another - in this case the Kabarda-Balkar - people into the suicidal war of the peoples of the Caucasus. The central media have already informed Russia that it is now the turn of Karachay-Cherkessia.

18. The ISRC has come against many difficult questions concerning the positions of the republic and federal leadership in relation to the Nalchik events. The decision of the parliament of the KBR of 20 October 2005 on the events in Nalchik on 13-14 October 2005 poses a number of important questions:

(i) Parliament "unreservedly condemns the armed attack on the law-enforcement bodies and innocent civilians". Parliament has no grounds for the claim of the attack on innocent civilians! Why does parliament make such a false claim?;

(ii) Parliament asks the Russian president "to endorse the concept of state national policy". Perhaps it would have been better for the KBR parliament to insert in this concept certain ideas preventing such events?;

(iii) Does it propose lifting the moratorium on the death penalty?!

(iv) Could parliament not see how bravely the rebels went to their death?!

(v) Surely the fear of death would not stop young people driven to despair in their desire to die rather than live under terror?;

(vi) Why is there not a single word in the decision about the responsibility of the bodies and individuals involved in organizing this tragedy?

Questions must inevitably be asked of the Russian leadership:

(i) It is common knowledge that the rebels did not carry out an attack on Nalchik. They were attacking the law-enforcement bodies in an open battle. Therefore, it was not an act of terrorism;

(ii) What was the point of the advice to the newly-appointed KBR president to restore order as it was under [former KBR president Valeriy] Kokov? Is it not clear that the events of 13-14 October were the result of Kokov's rule?;

(iii) At the conference of the top leaders on the events in Nalchik did the question "Have they been destroyed?" come from the lips first of all of Vladimir Putin? Could he not have first asked "Why has this been allowed to happen? Where were the preventive measures?";

(iv) And then there is the threat to the future: "That is what will happen to all those who take up arms against their own people!?". What was the meaning of this? After all, the leadership was well aware that in Nalchik the rebels did not take up arms against their own people! Why make them guilty of something they did not do?;

(v) Why did the leadership not state what would happen to the leadership of the power-wielding structures who cleverly organized these events?;

(vi) Why does the leadership identify the police and the special services with the people?
Luiza Orozaeva, Caucasus Times, Nalchik
http://www.caucasustimes.com/article.asp?id=6923