Eurasia Daily Monitor - The Jamestown Foundation

Growing Sense of Polarization and Escalating Tensions in Crimea Ahead of 69th Anniversary of Crimean Tatar Deportation

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:51:00 -0400

Each year on May 18, around 25,000�30,000 Crimean Tatars gather in Crimea�s capital Simferopol to commemorate the 1944 deportation of their parents and grandparents from their historical homeland. They come to Simferopol from all cities and towns and conduct a peaceful meeting organized by the Mejlis�the executive body representing the Crimean Tatars�in front of the Crimean Musical Drama Theater in Simferopol�s Central Square and remember the victims of the mass deportation on guarded and sealed cattle-trains. Of the total Crimean Tatar population at that time, 46.2 percent perished during this forced exile (http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ex-dissident-tatar-reflects-on-a-life-of-fighting--12498.html).

Crimea differs from the rest of Ukraine because it is the only autonomous republic with its own unicameral parliament (with 100 members) and Council of Ministers, thus having a similar institutional structure to that of the Ukrainian state. Under all previous presidents of Ukraine, the planning of this May 18 Crimean Tatar Remembrance Day of Victims of the Deportation event had received considerable support from both the Crimean and the Ukrainian authorities. In fact, during these commemorative gatherings, alongside the Mejlis officials and the mufti (religious authority) of Crimea, a representative of the Ukrainian president, the head of the Crimean parliament, and the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP) participated in the ceremonies. In 2013, however, under Anatoli Mogilev, the chairman of the Council of Ministers in Crimea, the governmental attitude to the Day of Remembrance has changed drastically. Mogilev was appointed by President Viktor Yanukovych in November, 2011. Insisting that he was ill, he opted out of the May 18 gatherings in 2012, marking the first time a Crimean leader did not participate in this event. Even before his appointment, Mogilev was well-known in Crimea for his anti-Tatar sentiments, his brutal order of police units (BERKUT) to attack peacefully protesting Crimean Tatar business owners in the Ai Petri hills in 2007 while he was a police chief, and his subsequent Krymskaya Pravda article (2008) in which he praised the Joseph Stalin�era deportation of the Crimean Tatars (http://www.unpo.org/article/10968).

On February 25, 2013, under Mogilev�s leadership, the Crimean authorities announced that the May 18 event needed to be approved by the Crimean Council of Ministers. Consequently, the Simferopol City Council declared that they were going to ban the annual May 18 gathering that has been organized by the Crimean Tatar Mejlis since the early 1990s. This decision of the Crimean authorities was not received well by Mustafa Cemilev, the head of the Mejlis, who stated that Crimean Tatars will come to the Central Square in Simferopol as a large collective regardless of the ban, and if they are not allowed to hold their remembrance day, then they will block the roads, paralyze traffic, and take their protests to other regions of Crimea (http://www.radiosvoboda.org/content/article/24914543.html).

Meanwhile, the Crimean authorities affirmed that they accepted a proposal from the Milli Firqa (National Front), an opposition group to the Mejlis, which was now going to be in charge of the May 18 event. There are irreconcilable differences between these two groups. The Mejlis is the single body representing Crimean Tatars in Crimea since its establishment in 1991. Milli Firqa, on the other hand, consists of a group of Crimean Tatars who had called on the Russian Federation and Tatarstan to �defend the indigenous and other numerically small ethnic communities of Crimea against the genocidal policies of Ukraine� right after the Russian-Georgian August 2008 war (http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/09/window-on-eurasia-moscows-effort-to.html).

On March 12, 2013, in an interview with the Russian-based news site Noviy Region, Mogilev stated that he did not recognize the Mejlis, referred to it as an entity outside the legal framework of Ukraine, and wanted to omit the word �Mejlis� from any conversation (http://qha.com.ua/mogilyov-meclis-kelimesini-kaldirip-atalim). Consequently, Cemilev suggested that Mogilev should read the past rulings of the Ukrainian state, reminding him that the Mejlis was approved by the president of Ukraine via a signed decree on May 18, 1999 (http://qha.com.ua/kirimoglu-ktmm-ukrayna-nin-hukuksal-alani-icindedir).

In April 2013, the organizing committee under Mogilev�s chairmanship declared that this year�s May 18 gathering was going to be held in two different locations in Simferopol: one in the Central Square organized by the Mejlis, and the other, organized by the members of the Milli Firqa hand-picked by Mogilev, in front of the Supreme Council of Crimea (Verhovna Rada�the regional legislature). Rejecting the idea of this �divided� day of remembrance, the Mejlis still continued trying to construct a dialogue with the Crimean authorities and sent a letter to the chairperson of the Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and Inter-Ethnic Relations, Andrei Shevchenko, and asked him to mediate between the Crimean authorities and the Mejlis (http://qha.com.ua/kirim-hukumeti-ile-ktmm-arasindaki-sorunu-yatistirma-cagrisi). In an effort to avoid unnecessary conflict in Crimea, Shevchenko asked President Yanukovych to intervene in the conflict between the Crimean government and the Crimean Tatar Mejlis; but Kyiv remained unresponsive (http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1362775408).

Aggravated by Kyiv�s silence, while Cemilev was visiting the Czech Republic and then Germany in April 2013, he met with diaspora members living in Europe and informed them about the issues facing the May 18 event in Crimea. Subsequently 38 members of European diaspora organizations gave Mustafa Cemilev their full support (http://qha.com.ua/kirim-tatar-milli-meclisine-tam-destek-125867tr.html) and declared that they were going to hold peaceful protests in front of Ukrainian embassies in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and The Hague (http://www.ulkuocaklari.org.tr/avrupada-18-mayis-kirim-surgunu-protestolari-duzenlenecek.html). Subsequently, they circulated online flyers about these protests with the addresses of those embassies in each country on social media (Facebook and Twitter); they also posted a video on the 1944 deportation on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7J29C4qPcI&feature=share).

On May 4, the Mejlis held an emergency meeting with Crimean Tatar diaspora organizations from Europe, the United States and Turkey. At the end of this meeting, 41 Crimean Tatar diaspora organizations in Turkey as well as others from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Lithuania and the United states jointly stated that, to show their solidarity with the Mejlis, they were going to execute the same protest action in front of Ukrainian embassies in their respective countries (http://qha.com.ua/diaspora-dernek-baskanlari-kirim-da-olaganustu-toplaniyor-125716tr.html). Meanwhile 12 billboards dedicated to the victims of the 1944 deportation were installed in Simferopol and in other locations (http://qha.com.ua/billboards-on-deportation-day-installed-in-aqmescit-photo-126221en.html).

On May 10, Milli Firqa declared that they were not going to hold a gathering in front of the Crimean parliament, and that they were not going to participate in the rally organized by the leaders of the Mejlis in Simferopol�s Central Square (http://crimea24.info/2013/05/10/dvukh-krymskotatarskikh-mitingov-ne-budet-milli-firka-ustupila-medzhlisu/).

As the anniversary of the May 18 deportations approaches, it is not clear how the events are going to unfold. Nevertheless, the developments leading up to this year�s commemoration illustrate that, under President Yanukovych, Ukraine regressed in terms of inter-ethnic relations in Crimea. Conflict prevention on the peninsula is important, especially now, five months prior to the Association Agreement with the European Union, including a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) due to be signed in November 2013. These recent political intrigues in Crimea undoubtedly underscore the countless issues that still need the attention of Ukrainian and international policymakers.

Crimean Tatars to Protest Ukrainian Actions on Deportation Anniversary

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:49:00 -0400

Tomorrow (May 18) marks the 69th anniversary of Joseph Stalin�s deportation of the Crimean Tatar nation from their homeland on trumped-up charges of collaboration with the Germans during World War II. And once again, Crimean Tatars and their friends around the world will mark that sad date with solemn meetings and public demonstrations. But this year, faced with a deteriorating situation in their homeland caused by Ukrainian and Russian officials, they will be holding their most important protests for the first time at Ukrainian diplomatic missions in Europe and presenting a petition demanding that Kyiv intervene to allow the more than 100,000 Crimean Tatars still in exile in Uzbekistan to return to their homeland and to resolve the problems facing those already there, including allowing them to recover lands that were taken from them, massive unemployment, education in their native language, and an end to widespread prejudice and discrimination by Ukrainian and Russian officials.

They are taking this step of refocusing their protests because in the words of Crimea�s Mufti Haci Emirali Ablaev, this week, the political and economic situation in Crimea has deteriorated to the point that it is �as bad, if not worse than it was in 1783 [when the Russian Empire absorbed Crimea] and 90 years ago [when Stalin imposed his brutal dictatorship on the people there. The reasons for his conclusion, entirely shared by Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Cemilev and the Mejlis (the executive body that represents the Crimean Tatars), which met to discuss the May 18 actions two weeks ago, are to be found in the attitudes and actions of Anatoly Mogilev, the prime minister of the Autonomous Republic of Crimean.

Mogilev has routinely violated human and civil rights of the Crimean Tatars and most recently has sought to block the work of the Crimean Tatar parliament and the commemoration of the May 18 anniversary. Those actions reflect his longstanding anti-Crimean Tatar attitudes. He has frequently referred to the 300,000 Crimean Tatars living in Crimea as �a diaspora,� and five years ago, he published an article defending Stalin�s deportation of the nation, calling its members �traitors and collaborators.� The year before that, as chief of security for the Autonomous Republic, he used force against Crimean Tatar businessmen in Ai Petri near Yalta, bulldozing their establishments. Crimean Tatars have regularly asked Kyiv to intervene against him on their behalf, but having failed in those attempts, they are now raising the stakes by organizing protests at Ukrainian embassies and consulates abroad (khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1368569483).

In Crimea itself, Crimean Tatars have already erected 12 billboards to mark the sad anniversary. Refat Chubarov, the first deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, will also organize requiem evenings and other gatherings, which are expected to attract 7,000 Crimean Tatars. Hundreds of Crimean Tatars will gather in diaspora centers in Central Asia, Europe and the United States (qha.com.ua/v-simferopole-razmescheno-12-bigbordov-posvyaschennih-pamyati-jertv-deportatsii-foto-126124.html).

Stalin�s deportation of the Crimean Tatars was both brutal and thorough. Almost all those exiled to Central Asia were women and children�most Crimean Tatar men were serving in the Red Army and only on their return home were these �traitors� sent east�many died immediately on the way or of starvation and disease in the first months of their exile, and almost 50 percent of the 238,500 Crimean Tatars rounded up and put in boxcars died during the first two years in exile. In one especially infamous example, the Soviet secret police drowned the residents of three Crimean Tatar villages the authorities had missed during their May 18, 1944, roundup.

The Crimean Tatars were only able to return home in significant numbers after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the Ukrainian government has done little to help them: it did not grant them automatic citizenship as it did to other Ukrainians who were out of the republic at the date the citizenship law went into effect and thus has made it far more difficult for them to return; it did not allow the Crimean Tatars to restore either their homes or their republic; and it dispatched officials like Mogilev who were openly hostile to the Crimean Tatars. Moreover, Kyiv has done little or nothing to oppose the anti�Crimean Tatar attitudes of Moscow and ethnic Russians living on the peninsula.

Many might expect that memories of the horrors of the deportation would have faded by this time, but the reverse is actually the case. The oppressive actions of the Ukrainians have reinforced them, as have the good works of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis and diaspora organizations around the world. But there is an additional factor at work: The Crimean Tatars were not the only people exiled from Crimea in 1944. Others included 97,000 other Tatars living there, 67,000 Bulgarians, 48,000 Greeks, 37,000 Gregorian Armenians, 12,000 Poles and 2,000 Serbs. All these groups include people who will not, in the words of the Crimean Tatar appeals this year, ever forget or allow anything to be forgotten (zvezdapovolzhya.ru/obshestvo/18-maya-godovschina-deportatsii-09-05-2013.html).

Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan Presidential Summit Boosts Joint Ties

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:34:00 -0400

Turkmenistani President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov made a state visit to Kazakhstan on May 10�11. Kazakhstan�s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that his counterpart�s visit �demonstrates the mutual desire to develop these fraternal relations and raise trade and economic relations to a new level� (Trend, May 10). Berdimuhamedov similarly stated that, �Relations between our states have always been, and we are sure, will [continue] at a very high level. They have always been of a trust-based and fraternal nature� (Interfax-Kazakhstan, May 10).

In their joint news conference after their May 10 talks in Astana, Nazarbayev and Berdimuhamedov related that their discussion had addressed boosting mutual trade and investment; deepening cultural, humanitarian and educational ties; and addressing important regional security issues such as the situation in Afghanistan, rehabilitating the Caspian and Aral Seas, and countering cross-border terrorism, organized crime and narcotics trafficking (Interfax-Kazakhsta, May 10).

Calling Kazakhstan an important and reliable partner, Berdimuhamedov said that the two governments �agreed to expand our cooperation in the economic sphere, support increasing and diversifying bilateral trade and mutual investment, develop partnerships�in such spheres as satellite communications and telecommunications� as well as energy and transportation (Trend, May 10).

Toward this end, the two governments signed a number of bilateral agreements. In addition to a general presidential communique, these include a cooperation program involving both countries� foreign ministries, a deal to open new consulates in the cities of Aktau and Turkmenbashi, an agreement between their national academies of sciences, an accord between their national railways, a plan to convene a business and creative intellectuals forum, and a mutual cultural promotion arrangement that would see Days of Turkmenistan�s Culture in Kazakhstan and Days of Kazakhstan�s Culture in Turkmenistan (Trend, Central Asian News Service, May 10). They also agreed to enhance cooperation between their national legislatures in order to augment parliamentary support for their joint projects, which typically require supporting legislation (Trend, May 11).

The most noteworthy event during the summit occurred on May 11, when Berdimuhamedov and Nazarbayev inaugurated the Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan segment of a new tri-national railway that extends through Iran. This 146-kilometer segment runs from Uzen in Kazakhstan to Etrek in Turkmenistan through the Bolashak-Serhetyak border crossing (connecting Kazakhstan�s Mangistau Region and Turkmenistan�s Balkan Region). In October 2007 the Kazakhstani, Turkmenistani and Iranian governments signed an agreement to construct a railroad running from Uzen to Gorgan in Iran. They began building this $1.4 billion 869-km �North-South� Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway, also known as the �Caspian Sea eastern rail corridor,� at the end of September 2009 (Railway Gazette, May 13). Construction of the 700-km Turkmenistan-Iranian section from Bereket to Gorgan is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014 (ITAR-TASS, May 10).

Building the Uzen-Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek-Gorgan (Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran) railway supports landlocked Kazakhstan�s external trade diversification strategy, which aims to supplement the country�s traditional trade conduits through Russian territory with additional routes to Kazakhstan�s east, west and south. The new North-South railway will also increase the flow of goods via Turkmenistan and Iran to the Persian Gulf. By its fifth year of operation, the railway is expected to convey more than 10 million tons of cargo annually (mostly energy products, but also grain and other Kazakhstani goods) (Trend, May 4). It will also increase Kazakhstan�s yearly trade by as much as $5�10 billion, with significant boosts in turnover with Turkmenistan, Iran and additional countries (Universal newswires, February 12).

The tri-national railway should also attract considerable traffic from other Central Asian countries, whose transportation links with world markets remain underdeveloped. The existing railway travels a much longer winding route through Uzbekistan. Noting that the new railway aims to link the transport networks of Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, Nazarbayev argued that the new direct route to the Gulf would give Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan �a significant competitive advantage� in attracting transit shipments from other Eurasian countries (Kazinform, May 11). The new Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan railway would also enlarge their bilateral trade, which amounted to some $350 million in 2012 (ITAR-TASS, May 10). Kazakhstan exports mostly energy and agricultural products, chemicals and textiles to Turkmenistan, while purchasing food, construction materials, metal products, electric appliances, equipment, vehicles and natural gas (for isolated regions of southern Kazakhstan) from Turkmenistan (ITAR-TASS, May 10).

While in Astana, Berdimuhamedov said that, �The positions of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan practically always coincide. Our vision is for maintaining stability and security in Central Asia, as well as in the Caspian region; preventing conflict situations; resolving all existing problems through political and diplomatic measures; and strengthening mutual understanding and good-neighborliness� (Interfax-Kazakhstan, May 10). One reason for these shared strategic goals is that Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are similar in many respects: they are rich in mineral resources; export a large amount of oil and gas through Russia; and are landlocked states, seeking additional means of access to international markets that do not require the use of Russia as a transit country. Their bilateral relations do not suffer from any major problems, and increasing economic interdependence has been strengthening their incentives to cooperate.

Their proximity has resulted, in part, in the shared use of energy export pipelines. Each year Turkmenistan ships more than 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas to Russia and China through Kazakhstan (ITAR-TASS, May 10). In order to reduce their dependence on access to Russian territory, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have cooperated to diversify their energy export routes beyond those that go through Russia.

In particular, China�s energy consumption and consequently imports of hydrocarbons has been surging. Both Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan participate in the Central Asia�China oil pipeline that was initiated in 2006. A Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline began operating in December 2009. After his May 10 talks, Nazarbayev confirmed plans to increase the pipeline�s annual capacity from about 40 bcm of gas to some 65 bcm in coming years (Central Asian News Service, May 10).

Another logical export route for Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan is to ship their oil and gas to European markets via pipelines through the sectors of the Caspian seabed closest to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. A long-planned 300-km Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline would run from Turkmenistan�s Caspian Sea coast to Azerbaijan, where it would be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor.

Through their joint efforts to diversify their oil and gas exports, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have reduced their dependence on Russia but increased their mutual reliance. Turkmenistani hydrocarbons are being transported through Kazakhstan to China and Russia, while Kazakhstani goods are transported through Turkmenistan�s territory to Iran and elsewhere. This interdependence, uncommon among Central Asian countries, gives both counties strong incentives to maintain good relations.

Sources of Moldova�s Political Chaos: The Parliamentary System

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:26:00 -0400

Moldova�s tripartite government, the Alliance for European Integration (AEI), has foundered over its internal contradictions, and will no longer be resuscitated in its previously existing form. Two of AEI�s parties have scuttled Prime Minister Vlad Filat�s government in a sequence of steps: on March 5 in Parliament, and on April 22 in an unabashedly politicized Constitutional Court.

From the AEI�s inception in 2009, the Democratic Party of tycoon Vlad Plahotniuc and parliament chairman Marian Lupu combined with the Liberal Party of Mihai Ghimpu in an informal alliance within the Alliance, relentlessly attacking Filat�s Liberal-Democrat Party from both flanks. The AEI experienced collapse or near-collapse several times since 2010. What kept the coalition going, if barely, was: 1) concessions from Filat�s party under duress to the two lesser parties, as a price for maintaining the coalition; 2) the common policy of isolating the Communist Party, Moldova�s largest and deemed capable of revanche; and 3) Brussels�s insistence on preserving the AEI�s democratic-looking, European-sounding brand, even at the cost of tolerating the profound dysfunctionalities and rampant corruption, mainly emanating from two of the coalition�s parties.

The sources of Moldova�s political chaos are of two types: structural and circumstantial. One structural source is the parliamentary system of governance. That system was introduced to Moldova prematurely, with a loophole-riddled constitution and despite the absence of rule of law, consolidated state institutions, genuine political parties, or civic consciousness among masses of voters divided by ethno-linguistic identities. As a consequence, Moldova is experiencing recurrent constitutional and political crises, as well as a permanent crisis of its state institutions since 2009 (see below). The current phase of the crisis is the most pervasive yet.

Moldova�s 101-seat parliament is utterly unworkable in its deep fragmentation. The parliament collapsed in 2009 and again in 2010, necessitating pre-term elections after failing to form coherent majorities. The current parliament risks the same fate. It comprises 34 Communist deputies led by former head of state (2001-2009) Vladimir Voronin; 31 from Filat�s Liberal-Democrat Party; 15 from the Democratic Party of the recently deposed parliamentary chairman Marian Lupu and tycoon Vlad Plahotniuc; 12 from the Liberal Party, now officially split between party leader Mihai Ghimpu�s group of 5 deputies and the Reform-Liberal group of 7 deputies; as well as 9 �free-floating� deputies, 7 of whom are hardline leftist defectors from the Communist Party (Tribuna, March 30).

This parliament has turned into an arena of a Hobbesian struggle of all against all�more devastating than the previous political crises. Those had involved a fixed pattern of bipolar confrontations between the Communist Party and the tripartite AEI, in parallel with intra-AEI rivalries that could still be kept under some control. In recent months, however, the escalation of intra-AEI conflicts has enabled the Communist Party to break free from isolation and become a pivotal player in tactical parliamentary alliances. These are short-lived, ad hoc combinations among parties and factions, shifting in kaleidoscopic patterns and convulsing the institutional setup with each shift.

On February 13, Filat�s Liberal-Democrats withdrew from AEI�s 2010 coalition agreement, which had facilitated Plahotniuc�s rise to unchecked power in the justice and law enforcement systems. On February 15, the Liberal-Democrats and Communists voted jointly to remove Plahotniuc as first vice chairman of parliament, apparently targeting Lupu next. But, on March 5, the Plahotniuc-Lupu Democratic Party and the Communists jointly brought down the AEI government on a no-confidence motion. Although the Democratic Party and Ghimpu�s Liberals had their own ministers in the AEI government, they agitated for its downfall hoping to weaken Filat and his party fatally; and they enlisted the Communists toward that end. Ghimpu�s Liberals threatened to impeach President Nicolae Timofti if the latter re-designated Filat (and, by implication, his ministerial team) to lead the AEI government again. Nevertheless on April 10, characterizing Filat as �the most capable political leader� (Moldpres, April 10), Timofti re-designated him as prime minister�candidate to preserve the AEI government.

The all-against-all continued unabated. On April 17�21, Plahotniuc extorted sweeping concessions from Filat under the threat to combine with the Communists (and, of course, with Ghimpu�s Liberals) blocking a Filat-led AEI government. An ad hoc parliamentary majority of Filat�s and Plahotniuc�s parties then enacted those concessions to Plahotniuc into law. But, on April 25�26, Filat�s Liberal-Democrats and the Communist Party voted jointly to remove Plahotniuc�s nominal party leader Lupu from the post of chairman of parliament, and elect Liberal-Democrat Liliana Palihovici to that post. And on May 3, the ad hoc parliamentary majority of Liberal-Democrats and Communists fully reversed the concessions granted to Plahotniuc�s party barely two weeks earlier. Throughout these permutations, the smaller parliamentary groups took sides on strictly tactical considerations, the value of their few votes rising as the intra-AEI conflicts escalated (see EDM, April 25, May 9, 12).

Internecine rivalries had crippled the AEI from the moment of its birth in 2009, despite the shared fear of a Communist revanche. The �European Integration� title was intended in part to demarcate this Alliance starkly from the Communist Party. However, fully one third of Moldova�s electorate identified with the Communists during these years, and continues to do so. Given the AEI�s own factionalization, the policy of isolating the Communist Party turned out to be impractical. It became a source of instability in the political system, inasmuch as a constitutional majority or even a stable organic majority (three fifths) was impossible to achieve in Parliament without the Communists.

From 2009 to date, AEI-governed Moldova has experienced three parliamentary elections, all inconclusive (it now risks a fourth); a constitutional referendum, which failed due to low turnout; and multiple failed attempts to elect a head of state in parliament from 2009 until 2012, when the post was at last filled after a three-year vacancy.

Moldova had been, until 2000, a semi-presidential, semi-parliamentary republic, marked by contests between presidents and the parliament over their respective competencies. In 2000, political parties pushed through constitutional amendments that turned Moldova into a parliamentary republic. Within months, the parliament disintegrated into chaos, with kaleidoscopic combinations and permutations among parties and factions, similar to the situation in 2013. With parliament collapsing as an institution, pre-term elections were called for 2001. Voter backlash against the parliamentary parties (most of them with the word �Democratic� in their titles) carried the Communist Party back to power. While in power, the Communists maintained the parliamentary republic intact on paper, but ran it in practice as a presidential republic (2001�2009) under Voronin.

At present, the AEI�s parties as well as the European Union fear a Communist revanche, in the event that pre-term elections are called to resolve this crisis. They actually fear that voters will penalize the AEI, particularly the Plahotniuc-Lupu and Ghimpu parties, for the political chaos. If such a backlash brings the Communist Party back to power, this would amount to a re-run of 2001, and for similar reasons. Moldova has demonstrated that it is unprepared to handle the parliamentary system of governance. It has led either to Communist revanche or to systemic instability, having been introduced to Moldova without the necessary pre-requisites in place.

Tilting at Windmills: Why Do the West�s Belarus Policies Not Succeed?

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:07:00 -0400

In Belarus, the second Sunday of May is celebrated as the Day of the National Emblem and Flag. �For a true citizen, there is nothing more sacred than the coat of arms and the flag of his or her country. Looking at them, each one of us feels inseparable from a single large family whose name is the Belarusian people,� President Alyaksandr Lukashenka told the nation on May 10 (http://news.tut.by/politics/347845.html).

The official symbols of independent Belarus are the slightly modified insignia of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to the Belarusian president, �our emblem and flag reflect [�] a succession, a historical tradition, and an inextricable connection between the past, present and future of the country.� In Belarus, however, there is no consensus about the country�s past, present and future. The Belarusian opposition pledges allegiance to alternative national symbols. They also reflect a historical (albeit interrupted) succession dating back to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). On May 6, several fans of the Belarusian national ice hockey team hoisted the alternative GDL-related flag during the Belarus-Slovenia match at the world championship in Sweden. Security guards attacked them and led them out, explaining that the flag contradicted safety measures. The International Ice Hockey Federation had decided to recognize the alternative flag of Belarus as �a political symbol� (http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2103&artikel=5526099).

The alternative symbols of Belarus were in fact its only symbols from 1992 to 1995. At the referendum of May 1995, however, 75.1 percent of Belarusians voted for their replacement by new-old ones�that is, by the current flag and emblem symbolizing the link with the country�s more recent (compared with the GDL) past. According to a national survey published by the Warsaw-based Belarusian Analytical Workroom (Issue No. 7, March 2013), 67.5 percent of Belarusians consider the current red-and-green flag and coat of arms of the Republic of Belarus to be �their own,� and only 9.7 percent are committed to the alternative symbols.

�During its formative years, every nation-state strives to prove that its historical roots are long and traditions are lasting,� writes Valer Karbalevich of the Belarusian Service of Radio Liberty. �The deeper they go into history the better. Lukashenka, however, effectively jettisoned the entire Belarusian history and declared the Great Patriotic War [World War II] the start of nation-building. And the date of Minsk�s liberation from the Nazis became Belarus�s Independence Day. Usually, new countries emerging from the ruins of an empire strive to ideologically distance themselves from the empire�s core. It is no accident that during the breakup of the Soviet Union, nationalism in all Soviet republics [except Belarus] had an anti-Russian streak. In Belarus, however, everything was the other way round. No ideational schism occurred between independent Belarus and its Russian and Soviet legacies. All the social life of the country is imbued with nostalgia for the Soviet past�from the flag and coat of arms to street names and names assigned to subway stations, etc.� Karbalevich noted (http://www.svaboda.org/content/article/24982525.html).

Whether or not one likes Belarus�s birthmarks pointed out by Karbalevich, they are real and their meaning is no mystery. Most Belarusians have not yet cut the umbilical cord connecting their country with Mother Russia. Otherwise, 70 percent of Belarusians would not find it acceptable to merge their country into a single state with Russia if this would improve their wellbeing (see EDM, April 11). Moreover, a situation whereby almost 80 percent of Belarusians do not consider Russia to be a foreign country (see EDM, March 15) would also be unthinkable.

Because of this reality, certain generalizations about Russian society appear to be relevant to Belarus. This applies to the divide between the majority of the population craving state paternalism and the resourceful and self-sufficient minority. It also applies to the aforementioned argument about the national symbols of Belarus, which are related to diverging perceptions of the national interest. According to Dmitry Trenin, Director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, the absence of a national consensus about the country�s fundamental national interest implies a lack of a �political nation��a common national identity that transcends all domestic political debates and factionalism. �In Russia,� writes Trenin, �a political nation is still absent, and this is a true foundation for the existence of a tsarist regime. If there is no political nation, the choice is straightforward: It is between chaos and the tsar. Despite its attendant minuses the latter alternative is better� Russian liberals would make a mistake,� adds Trenin, �if they expect too much [support] from the West. Ironically, that mistake would be even graver if those expectations are proven right� The attempts of the liberals to use the West as leverage to influence the Russian regime are either useless or harmful� (ej.ru/?a=note&id=12931‎).

The same argument can be extended to the exaggerated expectations of the Belarusian �democrats.� It is hardly a thoughtful strategy for the West to play along with their expectations. Yet, inviting only the Belarusian opposition�which is not at all represented in Belarus�s legislature�to the EURONEST, scheduled for May 28�29, in Brussels (racyja.eu/index.php?id=104&zoom=13865‎), is an example of just such a seemingly nonsensical policy. EURONEST is a �parliamentary forum to promote political association and further economic integration between the European Union and the Eastern European Partners [the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries of Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia]� (http://www.euronest.europarl.europa.eu/euronest/cms/cache/offonce/home;jsessionid=B940840E55E13B4E019CAACA4CF45DA7). However, the other EaP countries, including Azerbaijan and Armenia, will be represented by their parliamentary deputies�not solely extra-parliamentary opposition members.

It seems as though EU foreign policy-makers are still under the impression that it is prudent to crave democracy in Belarus more ardently than Belarusians themselves do. As if to illustrate this point, an article recently appeared in the online opposition publication, Naviny.by, which asked, �What on earth can the opposition do in the absence of public demand for change?� (http://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2013/05/14/ic_articles_112_181760/). If EU policy has indeed ossified in this way, it is unlikely to ever produce its intended results in Belarus. More likely, Brussels may have washed its hands of Belarus, and the respective acknowledgment is pending.

International Islamist Movement Spreads to the North Caucasus

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:05:00 -0400

The Jamestown Foundation has repeatedly reported on Hizb ut-Tahrir�s (HuT) activities in Russia over the past several years. And as the investigation of the Boston bombings progresses, reports are surfacing in the West that Tamerlan Tsarnaev interacted with Magomed Kartashov, the leader of the Dagestan-based Union of the Just�essentially an offshoot of HuT (see Simon Shuster, Time.com, May 8). HuT is banned in Russia and has been driven underground, so Kartashov�s Union of the Just is nothing more than an offshoot of HuT with a new label. Due to the poor level of Western understanding about this group and its activities in Russia, Jamestown felt it appropriate to provide its readers with some background information should further details emerge about the links between Tsarnaev and this HuT offshoot.

Previous reports about the activities of Hizb-ut-Tahrir primarily focused on such regions of Russia as Tatarstan, Moscow and St. Petersburg (see EDM, November 20, 2012). However, this Islamic organization is active throughout most parts of the post-Soviet space, including Ukraine�especially in the Crimea�and the countries of Central Asia, including Kazakhstan (www.kavkazoved.info/news/2012/12/20/hizb-ut-tahrir-ot-kryma-do-kitaya.html). Now it has also started operating in the North Caucasus as well.

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (a.k.a. Party of Liberation) is an international organization that is banned in Russia. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation designated HuT a terrorist organization and outlawed it on February 4, 2003. The organization is also on the list of banned organizations in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (www.cisatc.org/134/160/208).

Despite the ban, arrests of suspected HuT members in various parts of the Russian Federation are regularly reported. Reprisals against members of the party persist even though its program does not envisage taking any actions against Russia. According to Vitaly Ponomaryov, director of the human rights group Memorial�s program for monitoring human rights in Central Asia, the party was outlawed in Russia to appease Uzbekistani authorities because it is highly influential in Uzbekistan (http://muslimgauze.narod.ru/hizbut.html). An alternative explanation for the oppression of HuT in Russia is that it is considered to be under the control of Western security services, a claim made because the group operates freely in the United Kingdom (www.vesti.kg/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=142). Arrests of party members in Russia do not go unnoticed among party members elsewhere in the world, who have called on Russia not to ban their movement (http://hizb.org.ua/ru/izdaniya/proklamacii/794-hizb-ut-tahrir.html). Demonstrations by Hizb ut-Tahrir�s members in front of the Russian Consulate in Simferopol, Ukraine, protesting the arrests of their colleagues, indicated that Russia had made yet another enemy (http://mail.volga-tv.ru/politika/Islamisty-iz-Khizb-ut-Takhrir-piketirovali-rossiyskoe-konsulstvo-v-Simferopole-FOTO-VIDEO-Konsul-vyrazil-vozmushchenie-passivnostyu-vlastey.html).

Hizb ut-Tahrir was long thought of as an organization that had no interest in the North Caucasus, instead being focused mostly on Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the large Tatar diasporas in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The organization also worked among the ethnic Uzbek, Tajik and Kazakh diasporas concentrated in large Russian cities. It would be logically consistent to expect HuT to work among Turkic-speaking groups in the North Caucasus. However, an analysis of recent events shows that the organization does not rely solely on Turkic-speaking ethnicities.

In 2012, HuT was still not prepared to go public, and the North Caucasus public began talking about this Islamic group for the first time after a rally in the central square in Makhachkala, Dagestan, on February 8. Along with the Salafi organization the Association Ahlu al Sunna, there were also black banners identified at these rallies, and their bearers reportedly were party members of HuT. These banners were familiar to many people who knew about previous events in Tatarstan (http://xn--c1adwdmv.xn--p1ai/news/1625472.html). That was the organization�s first public exposure in the North Caucasus.

The second warning about Hizb ut-Tahrir�s expanding influence in the North Caucasus came from Ingushetia several months ago. On March 2, Ingush law enforcement agents detained four local residents on suspicion of being members of HuT. According to an Ingush interior ministry spokesperson, on February 29, police received a tip from local residents about a functioning HuT cell. The police confiscated a large amount of literature while detaining the suspects (www.interfax-russia.ru/South/news.asp?id=297361&sec=1672).

The movement received additional attention following an incident near the city of Kizlyar, Dagestan, when a wedding procession with black banners was stopped by the police and its participants were beaten up. The wedding procession, consisting of 25 cars, was dispersed by the police simply because they had �displayed extremist symbols� (http://kavpolit.com/imidzh-dagestana-i-xizb-ut-taxrir/).

Russian authorities have never charged any of the detained HuT members with participating in or sympathizing with terrorist activities. This is apparently not of concern to the Russian authorities. Indeed, even a conference in Kazan organized by the Russian Institute of Strategic Research (RISI) in 2012 could not coherently explain why the party should be considered a terrorist organization (www.riss.ru/index.php/actions/1328-fdjhl#.UY_ylzQqyKI). Conference participants spoke at length about the harmful nature of this organization, but did not cite a single instance of its involvement in terrorist activities. While regarding the idea of creating an Islamic state as a seditious plot, they could not explain why HuT members should be considered terrorists simply for believing in certain ideas.

Hizb ut-Tahrir�s appearance in the North Caucasus may cause yet another division among Muslims in the region. Even though the party calls for the creation of an Islamic Caliphate as its primary goal, it also recognizes the legitimacy of other Muslims. Most strikingly, as the organization strives to build a worldwide Caliphate, it does not ally itself with the jihadists anywhere in the world, including in the North Caucasus. Moreover, the armed resistance movement in the North Caucasus considers this party a sect that does not understand Islamic teaching (http://ummanews.com/opinions/9786-2013-01-28-22-57-23.html).

For the Russian authorities it would be much easier to have to deal with HuT than with militant jihadists. So it is plausible that the party�s emergence in the North Caucasus is not accidental. The Islamic party may become a political wing of the Islamists that will attract Salafi supporters.

At the moment, it appears that Hizb ut-Tahrir�s supporters are primarily concentrated in Kizlyar, in northern Dagestan. Since this movement is officially outlawed, its adherents operate under the guise of other organizations. The Union of the Just in Kizlyar, which is headed by Magomed Kartashov, represents Hizb ut-Tahrir. Kartashov is a relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the slain Boston bombing suspect. However, the Union of the Just is not a Salafi organization. The Salafis do not recognize HuT, their ideology or their means of struggle. For the Salafis, it is simply a sect that has no right to exist (http://world.time.com/2013/05/08/exclusive-cousin-who-became-close-to-tamerlan-tsarnaev-in-dagestan-is-a-prominent-islamist/#ixzz2SlgzKDNN).

Thus, Hizb-ut-Tahrir is manifesting itself as a new player in the political arena of the North Caucasus. It will certainly make inroads into the support bases of other Islamic movements in the region due to the conservative culture of the local inhabitants, particularly in places like Dagestan. However, it is too early to say who will suffer most from the drain, the Sufis or the Salafis. It is plausible that Russian authorities could be behind HuT�s emergence in the North Caucasus, as the Russian special services likely could be secretly supporting these groups by simply allowing them to freely meet, operate and hold public rallies in the hope that it will undermine Salafist groups who stand to suffer the most from the defection of adherents. Since the bulk of the supporters of the regional resistance movements are made up of Salafist-leaning groups, the rise of another Islamic group like HuT stands to benefit Kremlin aims in splintering these groups. If the situation develops in an unexpected way, however, it could spin out of Moscow�s control once and for all�and much sooner than expected.

One thing is certain, as Western experts and journalists pay closer attention to the North Caucasus because of the Tsarnaev brothers, more and more details will emerge about these little-known groups in the North Caucasus like the Union of the Just led by Kartashov. Journalists and analysts should not rush to indiscriminately accept the interpretations by Kremlin-backed sources or certain Russian journalists regarding Hizb-ut-Tahrir or other such groups in the North Caucasus without first assessing the background, history and aims of these organizations in Russia. Most importantly, outside observers will need to discern whether sudden new revelations about a little-known group might not be part of a Kremlin-led information campaign aimed at convincing Western security services that Moscow is an indispensable ally in counter-terrorism cooperation. Accepting all such claims uncritically may force Western law enforcement and counter-terrorism experts to spend time and precious resources investigating groups that in reality have little influence in the tangled web of Islamic militancy in the North Caucasus.

The Kremlin Antagonizes Obama Administration with Impunity

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:02:00 -0400

Last-minute efforts during recent meetings with President Vladimir Putin by British Prime Minister David Cameron, his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and United States Secretary of State John Kerry to dissuade Russia from shipping modern, long-range anti-aircraft S-300 missiles to Syria have all dismally failed. A top-level diplomat told Jamestown the Israeli delegation led by Netanyahu, which met Putin this week in Sochi, presented facts and figures describing the terrible threats emanating from Syria and its increasingly loose stockpile of long-range and chemical weapons to the entire region. Putin rebuffed the pressure and pleas from Netanyahu, Cameron, Kerry and other Western statesmen, repeating the mantra that the S-300s are �defensive weapons� and their deployment in Syria will help stabilize the region (Kommersant, May 15). The media in Moscow has reported that four divisions of S-300s with 100 to 150 simultaneously deployable, guided anti-aircraft missiles have been already shipped to Syria and are being deployed for action by Russian military �advisor� crews, since the Syrians are not fully ready to effectively use these advanced and complicated weapons (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 16).

Adding insult to injury, the Kremlin chose this week to publicly promote a Cold War�style spy scandal. Accredited diplomat Ryan Fogle, a third secretary in the political department at the US embassy in Moscow, who enjoys full diplomatic immunity under the Vienna convention, was forcefully apprehended by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents for allegedly attempting to recruit an officer from one of Russia�s special services. Russian state news channels repeatedly showed footage of Fogle being pinned to the ground. He was alleged to have been in possession of �special technical devices, written instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited, a large sum of cash and means of changing his appearance,� according to the FSB. The Russian foreign ministry referred to Fogle as a �cadre CIA agent� and ordered his deportation (RIA Novosti, May 14).

If the official Russian reports are taken at face value, Fogle either did not receive or was in the process of receiving classified or sensitive information; allegedly, he was only seeking a meeting with a Russian citizen, which is not in itself a felony. Tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats for alleged spying activities or other irregularities have continued since the end of the Cold War, but in most instances they have happened behind the scenes without any public scandals. According to FSB sources, Fogle was under surveillance for some two years after he was posted to Moscow, before the decision to use his arrest as a propaganda show was made (Interfax, May 16).

Sources in the FSB further note that Fogle could have been seeking information about North Caucasian Islamist militants in connection with the Boston marathon bombing, which makes his public arrest seem even more ludicrous (Kommersant, May 15). The Russian authorities have been running an internally-aimed anti-American public relations campaign to mobilize public opinion in Russia behind Putin and to paint the pro-democracy opposition as US agents, so a highly public arrest of an alleged �US spy� was deemed necessary (Vedomosti, May 15). The Kremlin and the FSB seem to aim to restore the Cold War practice of keeping foreign diplomats in a glass ball, fully separated from Russian society by mutual fear. The Fogle incident means that any diplomat meeting any Russian who did not receive official approval to meet potentially risks expulsion, while his Russian contact�possible FSB repressions. At the same time Fogle was arrested, an hour-long propaganda film, �Boloto� (�Swamp�), was aired on the state television channel Rossiya TV about the US State Department financing opposition figures in Russia in an attempt to destroy the proud nation (http://www.vesti.ru/videos?vid=507646&cid=1).

In Russia, a decision to go public with Fogle could have been made only at the highest level of political authority. Apparently, Putin gave the go-ahead after his first meeting with Kerry last week in the Kremlin. He evidently decided the Barack Obama administration is an easy pushover, which needs Russian cooperation on Syria and other issues so badly, it will swallow with hardly a whimper the use of a US diplomat as PR fodder together with the deployment of S-300 missiles with Russian crews to Syria. In Moscow, Secretary Kerry, among other things, agreed to sponsor together with Russia an international conference on Syria that would bring together the Syrian rebels and President Bashar al-Assad�s regime. After a meeting in the Kremlin, Kerry told journalists: �A good new relationship with Russia is beginning� (Interfax, May 8). After the Fogle scandal erupted, Russian journalists triumphantly reported on State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell meekly insisting the affair would not spoil relations: �We have a very broad and deep relationship with the Russians across a whole host of issues and we will continue to work on our diplomacy with them directly� (RIA Novosti, May 14).

Putin is insistent on keeping the Assad regime in power at any cost. The mainstream opinion in Moscow is that Assad needs some more time to use his firepower superiority and additional support from Iran and Hezbollah fighters to decisively win the civil war. Russia�s main goal is to buy Assad more time, preventing a foreign intervention in the form of a no-fly zone or arms supplies to the rebels. The deployment of additional Russian military advisors, together with the S-300 missiles as a trip-wire force, was allegedly reported to the Netanyahu delegation�and seen as a way to dissuade possible further punishing Israeli strikes deeper into Syria or an establishment of a US-led no-fly zone, since this could involve killing Russians (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 16).

Kerry�s visit to Moscow made it abundantly clear the Obama administration�s main political goal on Syria is to have a pretext not to get involved, even if this pretext is as questionable as co-hosting with Russia an international conference to persuade the rebels and Assad to turn into agreeable bedfellows. It was announced in Moscow the Syrian conference may happen somewhere after June 10 (Interfax, May 16). That allows for at least another month of unmitigated carnage in Syria�a price both Obama and Putin seem ready to shoulder as part of a flourishing �new relationship.�

FBI Director Mueller�s Visit to Georgia Highlights Bilateral Counter-Terrorism Cooperation

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:41:00 -0400

On May 8, Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), visited Georgia. The official reason for the visit was to assess the terrorism risks in the region in connection with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. �The FBI is responsible for protecting Americans against terrorism, and so in the run up to the Sochi Olympics, Mr. Mueller has been consulting throughout the region on what can be done to protect the athletes at the upcoming Olympic Games,� United States Ambassador to Georgia Richard Norland said at a press conference (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26036). The FBI director met with Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili behind closed doors, and he also he spoke face-to-face with Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani and other authorities from the Georgian law enforcement agencies (http://www.vesti.az/news/157787). Mueller was not able to meet Georgian Interior Minister Irakly Garibashvili, however, who was on a visit to Israel at the time. The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs is responsible for fighting terrorism as this government body includes the Department of Counterintelligence as well as Georgia�s Anti-Terrorist Center.

The press services of the prime minister and the interior ministry limited their official press releases to brief comments about the talks held with the top FBI official and the essence of his discussion with the Georgian authorities. �The question of deepening cooperation was discussed at the talks with Mueller. The two sides conferred about mutual interaction, including the law enforcement field,� the prime minister�s press release said vaguely (http://1tv.ge/news-view/50021?lang=en). �Director Mueller underscored the solid partnership and successful history of cooperation between the FBI and Georgian law enforcement and received assurances that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice will remain strong partners of the FBI in the future,� the US embassy reported (http://georgia.usembassy.gov/latest-news/pressreleases2013/fbi_director_tbilisi.html).

The official sources did not specify in what context the cooperation on fighting terrorism between the two sides was discussed and what questions were raised. However, judging by the circumstantial evidence and unofficial sources, the safety of athletes in Sochi was not the only topic of interest during talks between Robert Mueller and Prime Minister Ivanishvili and officials from the Georgian interior ministry.

It is noteworthy that the FBI director arrived in Tbilisi from Moscow, where he held talks on cooperation with Russian security services pertaining to the investigation of the April 15 terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon (http://www.itar-tass.com/c154/730154.html). The problem of providing safety for Olympic athletes in the unstable Caucasian region was discussed against this background. It is therefore plausible, and confirmed by unofficial sources in the State Chancellery of Georgia, that the investigation of the attack in Boston was also discussed in Tbilisi. This is all the more likely since the Russian and international press raised the issue of a possible link of one of the �Boston bombers,� Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to Georgia. In particular, the Russian newspaper Izvestia, wrote in an unfounded article that Tsarnaev participated in a seminar sponsored by the Fund of Caucasus that took place in Tbilisi (http://izvestia.ru/news/549252). The Georgian government denied the allegation, pointing out that the supposed Georgian interior ministry colonel presented as a source for the Izvestia report does not even exist (http://www.georgiatoday.ge/article_details.php?id=11057). The Fund of Caucasus, meanwhile, reassured Jamestown that the foundation is not a religious organization, but only deals with research questions; and Tamerlan Tsarnaev was never invited to participate in any of its events. Moreover, Tsarnaev never visited Georgia, which can be easily verified via the border control service database. Nevertheless, the FBI would have wanted to verify whatever truth was in the account.

Another topic of interest to Mueller on his trip to Tbilisi was likely the scandal related to the report of Georgia�s ombudsman, Ucha Nanushvili. Last month, the ombudsman directly accused Mikheil Saakashvili�s administration of having trained terrorists in 2012 on Georgian soil, in the vicinity of the border with Russia (http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=25911). According to Nanuashvili, Georgian security services invited a group of young Chechens�including former residents of the Pankisi gorge, Dagestan and Chechnya, as well as from European countries�trained and armed them at Georgian military bases, and promised to send them to Chechnya. At the last moment, according to Nanushvili, the security services deceived their trainees and killed them in a special operation in the Lopota gorge in September 2012. Seven North Caucasian rebels and three members of the Georgian military died in the clash. The Ivanishvili government seems to have taken the accusations by the ombudsman seriously, and it has resumed its investigation of last year�s events in the Lopota gorge (http://www.georgiatimes.info/en/news/89446.html). The corpses of the killed rebels have been exhumed for forensic retesting. Their relatives assert that the rebels came to Georgia having received reassurances from Georgia�s security services.

Yet, it must be noted that Ucha Nanushvili has not provided any evidence to support his theory apart from the statements of the family members of the rebels. �Perhaps, [the relatives] are making these statements only in order to take revenge on the former authorities of Georgia who killed their sons, husbands and brothers in a counter-terrorist operation?� Nika Imnaishvili, a terrorism expert with the informational agency GHN, suggested in an interview with Jamestown. In the expert�s opinion, it was not logically consistent for the Georgian authorities to prepare terrorists for dispatching them to the North Caucasus, spend resources on them, take such risks and then kill them in a special operation.

Analyst Mamuka Areshidze told Jamestown that he personally communicated with Chechens who came from Europe to Georgia at different times. �They were saying that they were preparing in the Pankisi gorge for war in Syria, not for fighting Russians in Chechnya,� Areshidze claimed. The analyst confirmed that these Chechen fighters had a substantial arsenal of weapons and were well-trained. They could not answer his question about how they would travel to Syria from Georgia with all their weapons via several countries, however.
Many unanswered questions still linger in this story, but it has all the overtones of the continuing political struggle between Prime Minister Ivanishvili and President Saakashvili. The prime minister�s team is determined to discredit the president before his Western friends, especially in the US. It is hard to believe that the Georgian president would have risked so much to prepare Chechen terrorists for dispatching them to Russia. Saakashvili repeatedly stressed his pride for the role he played in resolving the security problem in the Pankisi gorge in 2004�2005 (http://www.civil.ge/rus/article.php?id=4632). Training Chechen fighters on Georgian soil would have not only risked renewed Russian aggression, but also possibly damaged the relationship with Washington if such official Georgian government cooperation with terrorists had come to light. More likely, the allegations of Georgian security services training terrorists and of Tbilisi�s links to the Tamerlan Tsarnaev are nothing more than a propaganda attack.

The FBI will clearly need to weigh all these factors as it evaluates the United States� counter-terrorism cooperation relationship with Georgia. Nevertheless, the primary message that Mueller delivered to the Georgian authorities was Washington�s expectation from Tbilisi of complete transparency in all investigations of terrorist attacks and full cooperation with all interested parties to exclude any future risks. A closer Georgian-US partnership in counter-terrorism can be one way to ensure that such transparency is achieved.

Potential Socialist-led Government in Bulgaria Could Help Russian Energy Interests

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:38:00 -0400

The Bulgarian general elections on May 12 produced a hung parliament and little hope that the political stalemate would be easily overcome. Political instability is expected to continue during a prolonged period of appointing a new government. The scandals with pre-election wiretapping and the discovery of additional ballot papers before Election Day continue to resonate with the public, further poisoning the political environment (TV7, BNT, BTA, May 11; Capital Daily, Mediapool.bg, May 15).

The former ruling party, Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), which was ousted by public protests in February, won the election with 30.5 percent of the vote, but failed to gain a parliamentary majority to form a cabinet. In addition, GERB is ostracized by other parties represented in parliament and is unlikely to find coalition partners�it will need two coalition partners to form an administration. The Socialist party (BSP) follows closely behind GERB with 26.6 percent. The other parties in parliament will be the two archenemies�the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) with 11.29 percent of the vote and the ultra-nationalist Ataka with 7.3 percent. Each of them has vowed not to participate in any coalition with the other (BTA, Dnevnik Daily, May 15).

The traditional coalition partners�the Socialists and the Turkish Movement�have together gained 121 out of the 240 seats, which gives them a slight majority over GERB and Ataka, GERB�s controversial supporter in the previous parliament. But Ataka�s leader Volen Siderov has stated that GERB should not continue ruling the country (BTA, May 15). Animosities between GERB and Ataka spiked when the ultra-nationalists took advantage of the public protests against high electricity prices in February that brought down the government of Boyko Borisov. Riding on public sentiment against the electricity distributors (two Czech and one Austrian company), Siderov developed a program aiming to end what he calls �the colonial yoke� in Bulgaria. The program includes re-nationalization of major enterprises, including those in the energy sector, and expelling foreign investors.

In another unprecedented development, for the first time the traditional center-right parties credited with a major contribution to democratization in Bulgaria during the past 24 years, will not be present in the new parliament. The Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) and the Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (a splinter from the UDF) failed to pass the 4-percent threshold. Their respective leaders Emil Kabaivanov and Ivan Kostov, former prime minister of the most successful reformist government in recent history (1997��2001), both resigned the day after the election. The leader of the newly-established Bulgaria for Citizens Movement, Meglena Kuneva, also resigned after her party gained only 3.25 percent of the vote (BNT, Trud, Standart, 24 Chasa, May 13).

The final election results point to the possibility of a Socialist-led minority coalition government, although it will be extremely fragile due to limited parliamentary support. The return of the Socialists, with their pro-Moscow orientation and strong connections with Russian energy interests, poses major questions regarding Bulgaria�s future energy policy. The GERB government did stand up to Russia in defending national energy interests. Borisov cancelled two Russian energy projects: the Burgas-Alexandropolis oil pipeline (for environmental concerns) and the Belene Nuclear Power Plant (for economic unviability and lack of financing.) The Socialists have stated during the election campaign that they would reinstate the Belene NPP project (Focus Information Agency, May 3).

Furthermore, Bulgaria�s support for the Nabucco-West natural gas pipeline may weaken under Moscow�s pressure to build the Russian-led South Stream gas pipeline. The Nabucco-West gas pipeline is a modification of the initial Nabucco pipeline project designed to transfer Caspian gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. Nabucco-West would extend the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) currently being built from Azerbaijan�s Caspian shore to the western part of Turkey. In May, Sofia issued an environmental permit for the 424-kilometer Bulgarian section of the Nabucco pipeline, ahead of the environmental impact study planned for the South Stream pipeline later this year (Focus Information Agency, May 8).

There is also little doubt that a Socialist government will not allow shale gas exploration and production in Bulgaria. The Socialists openly supported public protests in 2011 and 2012 that led to a moratorium on shale gas exploration in January 2012 (see EDM, January 24, 2012). According to some reports, the Russian energy lobby in Bulgaria financed the anti-shale gas campaign. Gazprom has the most to gain from suspending a potential shale gas boom throughout Central-Eastern Europe.

The urgent need of Russia�s energy lobby to have a friendly government installed in Sofia may help explain why the Socialists ran such an unusually aggressive and negative election campaign replete with scandals. It started with the Socialist party�s attempt, along with Ataka, to hijack public protests against high energy prices in February, making strong statements against the political system as a whole and the parliament as an institution. Latchezar Toshev, a UDF parliamentarian, stated before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on April 25 that the groupings that tried to benefit from the protests included the youth branch of the Russophile Association, anti-Western groups, and young members of socialist and neo-communist parties (assembly.coe.int, April 25). These groups gravitate mostly toward the Socialist party and are often mobilized for street protests.

According to Bulgarian political scientist Ognyan Minchev, the aggressive campaign to replace Borisov�s government was likely executed with the help of Russian security services. �None of the Bulgarian security agencies has the capacity and efficiency to pull together such a well-calculated campaign of discrediting GERB and the state institutions�this was clearly the handwriting of the KGB. Russia has already economically subsumed Serbia and Montenegro, it could not possibly leave Bulgaria outside of its perimeter of influence. There are obvious similarities in the events that took place in Georgia six months ago and what is now happening in Bulgaria. In both cases, Moscow attempted to have friendly governments to promote its interests.� Minchev added there are growing concerns in Bulgaria that the United States� passive policy toward Russia unties the Kremlin�s hands to aggressively pursue economic, energy and political interests in Eastern Europe without repercussions (Author�s interview, May 14).

Ethnic Abaza React to Rising Karachai Nationalism

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:36:00 -0400

On May 3, groups of Karachay and Abaza youth clashed in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. According to a member of the Abaza organization, Janibek Kuzhev, the fight took place in the village of Psyzh in Abazin district of Karachaevo-Cherkessia. As Karachay youth tried to intimidatingly drive through the village in 30 cars, the Abaza youth blocked their way, not allowing them to pass. The Karachays, celebrating the Day of Karachay People�s Revival, had reportedly attempted to enter the village at midnight. The Abaza activists said that last year the Karachay youth entered their village late at night and chanted provocative nationalist slogans. This year, as young people on both sides prepared for the encounter, the incident led to a confrontation and reverted to a fistfight that was stopped by the police (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/223785/).

Deputy Interior Minister of Karachaevo-Cherkessia Boris Erkenov denied the clash took place in the district, saying that the police prevented this from happening and that �nothing special happened on May 3.� Yet, the head of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Rashid Temrezov, condemned the attempt of the Karachay youth to march on Psyzh village. �When all the republic was celebrating the Day of Karachay People�s Revival, it has a unifying nature for all peoples of the republic. A group of young people, presumably from Ust-Jeguta district, totally blocked traffic in the republic�s capital and then for some reason went to the village of Psyzh of Abaza district. Serious trespasses against public order and traffic regulations occurred,� said the head of the republic at a governmental meeting (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/223822/). Ethnic Karachays were sent en masse into exile to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1943 for alleged mass collaboration with the Germans. After their rehabilitation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and later in the post-Soviet era, the Karachays have marked the return to their homeland by celebrating the Day of Karachay People�s Revival in the republic.

Periodic incidents of marches of one ethnic group through the perceived �canonical� territory of another ethnic group strikingly resemble similar trends in Northern Ireland where Catholics and Protestant communities have repeated disputes of the same kind. The inter-ethnic situation in Karachaevo-Cherkessia has never been without some problems in the past two decades, but reports of ethnic clashes in the republic occur more often now, than several years ago. This republic is the second most ethnically diverse in the North Caucasus after Dagestan. Ethnic Abaza, who are related both to the Circassians and to the Abkhaz, comprise about 8 percent of the population of the republic. Ethnic Karachays comprise the plurality in the republic with 41 percent of the republican population. Karachays are followed by a large, but politically powerless, Russian population of 32 percent. The Circassians (Cherkess) make up the remaining 12 percent of the republican population. Ethnic Nogais are another indigenous ethnic group in the republic and comprises a little over 3 percent of the total population of Karachaevo-Cherkessia.

In August 2012, police officials of Karachay ethnicity in Karachaevo-Cherkessia clashed with a group of Circassian youth that marched through republican capital city, Cherkessk. The police officers reportedly fired their guns in the air and were confronted by defiant Circassians. At the time, Circassian organizations warned that the continuation of what they regarded as discriminatory policies of the Karachay elites toward ethnic Circassians may lead to a destabilization of the situation in the republic and beyond (http://natpress.net/index.php?newsid=9374).

Ethnic clashes and general instability are not something unfamiliar to the residents of Karachaevo-Cherkessia. During the 1999 local presidential elections, the Karachay and Circassian communities of the republic nearly went to war with each other over the position of the republican president. In 2004, protesters stormed government building in Cherkessk and occupied the office of the then-president of the republic, Mustafa Batdyev, for several days, demanding his resignation. Batdyev�s son-in-law was implicated in a killing of a group of local businessmen that the Karachaevo-Cherkessian government failed to investigate until the civil unrest exploded (http://www.ng.ru/regions/2004-11-11/1_batdyev.html).

The development of the nationalities policy in Karachaevo-Cherkessia took a markedly different turn in comparison to Dagestan. In Dagestan, ethnic groups live in ethnically mixed districts and towns, especially in the lowlands where the majority of the republican population resides. Ethnic minorities� demands to allow them have some form of administrative autonomy within Dagestan do not find support in the government. Whereas, in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, the government chose to support its ethnic minorities� claims for their own ethnic territories.

In 2006, the Abaza district was officially established near the capital city of Cherkessk. While the district contains only five villages, it has a population of 17,000 people, which comprises less than half of the total Abaza population residing in the entire republic. In 2007, the Nogai district was established in the northern part of the republic that has a substantial population of ethnic Nogais. The Nogai district is also small, made up of about 16,000 people and five rural settlements. The creation of the districts for minorities apparently appeased them to some extent, but it is not known yet how this will affect the republic�s ethnic situation in the long run.

As the latest incidents show, the ethnic enclaves of minorities are perceived by the minorities themselves and outsiders as ethnic fortresses and enclaves similar to the various ethnic pockets found in the Balkans. As in the Balkans, these local residents often feel a strong desire to defend their enclaves should they be attacked, depending on the ethnic group. Increasingly, rising nationalism in Russia is creating a blowback effect among ethnic groups in the North Caucasus, as groups like the Karachai experience rising nationalist sentiment while smaller groups like the Abaza feel threatened by this surge.