Dagestan – A Terrorized Land in Turmoil

The silence by which Dagestan has been conveniently covered by the Western mass media has ended. Just today, 5 Russian officers have been killed in clashes with forces of the national liberation of Dagestan whom the Russian tyrants indiscriminately call ‘Islamists’. The event will have a great impact on future developments, and it would be wise to keep a close on Dagestan and its peoples’commitment to freedom and independence.

As a matter of fact, if South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been liberated from Georgia in the Western Caucasus region, Dagestan – in the Eastern Caucasus region – must be the next country to achieve independence in the geopolitically critically area.

Dagestan is linguistically very diverse, although all the more than 30 ethnic groups share the same Caucasian culture. Only less than 6 per cent of the population are Russians, and even in the capital, Mahachkala, they constitute no more than 15 per cent of the population.

The largest ethnic groups are the Avars (28 %), the Dargins (16 %), the Kumyks (13 %), and the Lezgins (12 %). Smaller groups include the Laks (5 %), the Tabasarans (5 %), the Chechens (5 %), the Azerbaijanis (4 %), the Nogais (2 %), and a number of really small groups. In Mahachkala, the population is constituted by Avars (23 %), Kumyks (17 %), Russians (15 %), Dargins (13 %), Laks (12 %), and Lezgins (9 %).

(Figures mentioned in: http://users.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/2003/tsets-5.htm)

I republish here a wide range of recent reports focusing on local developments that certainly herald the termination of the Russian tyranny on the Western coast of the Caspian Sea where Dagestan lies in the north of Azerbaijan. The last piece is a general background feature elaborated by FAST (Update Russia/Dagestan No. 3: Trends in conflict and cooperation Jun - Aug 2007). In forthcoming articles, I will shed more light on this long tyrannized land with great history and brave people.

Russian officers killed in Dagestan
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/10/20081021142834158604.html

At least five members of Russian security forces have been killed in clashes with armed men in the north Caucasus province of Dagestan.

Four of the dead were special forces officers who were killed as they searched for fighters who opened fire on a police car killing at least one officer, a local interior ministry spokesman, said on Tuesday.

"A special operation is continuing to seize members of an illegal armed group," the spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The clashes took place in a forested area about 45km south of Makhachkala.

"A gunfight started in which four police were killed and six injured," an official with the regional police force said. He said casualties among the fighters were unknown.

"The gunfight has been under way four about five hours now."

Three other police officers travelling with the dead policeman were also injured when their car came under fire.

Located on the Caspian Sea coast, the republic of Dagestan is part of the Russian Federation and is one of several restive regions in the Russian Caucasus.

A weekend clash in Ingushetia was officially said to have left three soldiers dead, although some news reports said the real toll was far higher.

Both Dagestan and Ingushetia border Chechnya, the scene of two full-scale wars since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Federal forces have largely pacified Chechnya, but attacks have increased in the neighbouring regions in recent months.

Human rights organisations have said that unemployment, a lack of opportunities and tough reprisals by security bodies have pushed young men in Dagestan towards movements fighting against the Moscow government.

In Dagestan, journalists of "Nastoyaschee Vremya" appeal against Judicial Board's decision
http://eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/engnews/id/1230852.html

The journalists of the Dagestan weekly magazine named "Nastoyaschee Vremya" (Present Time) have appealed against the decision of the Judicial Board on Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of Dagestan on cancelling the criminal case against Rizvan Rizvanov, Director General of the enterprise-founder.

On behalf of the victims, a corresponding complaint was lodged to the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Republic by lawyer Sergey Kvasov.

We remind you that on June 16 the Investigatory Committee of the Investigatory Department for the Kirov District of Makhachkala passed a statement to initiate a criminal case against Director General of the "Nastoyaschee Vremya" weekly Mr Rizvanov, under Article "Hampering lawful professional activities of journalists".

Then, a month later, the Court of the Kirov District of Makhachkala cancelled this decision for the absence of victims' representatives, and the Judicial Board of the Supreme Court upheld this decision. The Prosecutor's Office of Dagestan demands cancellation of these decisions as adopted through violation of the norms of the Code of Criminal procedure.

MIA of Dagestan asserts that they don't sell bodies of killed terrorists to relatives
http://eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/engnews/id/1230851.html

Today, the head of the press-service of Dagestanian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has refuted the statements that the bodies of the terrorists, who had been liquidated during special operations, and not subject to issuance for burial, are sold by militiamen to relatives.

Mark Tolchinskiy, head of the MIA's press service, said today that militia is not engaged in selling bodies of murdered terrorists, which, according to the federal legislation, cannot be given out to their relatives for burial.

Mr Tolchinskiy has stated, dwelling on the special operation held on September 17 in the Suleiman-Stalskiy District of Dagestan, that "all the persons liquidated during the operation on September 17 in the Suleiman-Stalskiy District were buried secretly from their relatives in a mass tomb with serial number tags attached. The exception was made to Ramil Navruzov, whose body was officially given out. This guy had no attitude to terrorism, and just helped terrorists with food and money."

We remind you that the information that militiamen were allegedly selling bodies of terrorists to their relatives for burial was announced in the course of several rallies.

One of such pickets was organized on September 19 by relatives of the casualties of the special operation conducted in the Suleiman-Stalskiy District.

We remind you that the relatives of eight out of ten casualties, who rallied at the Prosecutor's Office, had asserted that their children were no terrorists. According to their version, two months ago in Derbent a fight burst out after a wedding party, in which one person was killed. Four persons out of the participants of the fight, being afraid of punishment for the murder, went to hide in the woods. The others, as the relatives assert, were summoned to the UBOP (Department to fight organized crime) for interrogations and asked to disclose the whereabouts of their friends. After that, the others also went away to the woods.

Parents of the casualties assert that some intermediaries have already approached them offering to buy out the bodies at a rate of 1 million roubles.

HRC "Memorial": kidnappings and bombardments are daily events in Northern Caucasus
http://eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/engnews/id/1228934.html

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" has prepared a new issue of the Information Bulletin "Chronicle of Violence" for August 2008, related to the conflict in the Northern Caucasus. According to human rights activists, kidnappings, attacks of unknown persons, bombardments and murders happen practically every day in conflict.

Two examples follow. On August 1, in Southwest district of the city of Nazran, Republic of Ingushetia, Kazbek Abukarovich Kiev, born in 1972, a native of the Chechen Republic, was kidnapped by employees of unidentified power agencies.

Only on August 5, his relatives managed to find out that Kazbek was kept in Nalchik SIZO (pre-trial prison). The human rights activists assert that the power agents have violently broken the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure by having failed to notify his relatives about his whereabouts within 12 hours and to give them a chance to send an advocate to the detainee.

What happened with Kazbek Kiev was qualified by human rights activists as kidnapping, although cases of this sort escape the official statistics of kidnappings.

On August 2, in the Pliev Municipal District of Nazran, employees of federal power agencies shot dead two local residents: Khamzat Izmailovich Gardanov, born in 1978, and Daud Magomedovich Chibiev, born in 1982. According to the HRC "Memorial", both of them happened to occur in the area, where unknown criminals who had shelled militiamen were searched.

Many eyewitnesses of this incident assert that Gardanov and Chibiev did not render any armed resistance. The power agents planted a pistol on the dead Gardanov (having made some shots from it) and three magazines. People who saw it are afraid to give official evidences, they told about it to Gardanov's relatives only, the HRC "Memorial" reports.

The "Chronicle of Violence" also remarks the counterterrorist operation in Gimry village, Untsukul District of the Republic of Dagestan, damage of a gas main on August 6 in Bamut village, Achhoi-Martan District of the Chechen Republic, shelling of Magomed Mutsolgov, head of the human rights organization ANCO "Mashr" on August 13 in Karabulak, Republic of Ingushetia, and murder of Magomed Evloev, owner of the oppositional website "Ingushetia.Ru", on August 31.

An office of the social organization «Dagestan without orphans» to be opened in Makhachkala
http://eng.riadagestan.ru/news/2008/10/01/3817/

Makhachkala, October 1, 2008. The social organization «Dagestan without orphans» has been created by natives of Dagestan in Moscow. The idea of creation of such a charitable organization occurred to the vice-president of Dagestan Cultural Centre in Moscow Magomed Abdulkhabirov and was supported by a businessman and art sponsor Omari Kallaev, who became the organizaton coordinator.

"Dagestan without orphans" has been founded in April of the current year only, but much has already been done for its development.

A charitable evening at Avar theatre of Makhachkala, taken place in July, made many people recollect that there are about 7 thousand orphans in Dagestan. Pupils of children's orphanages make 10% of number of the children deprived of parents’ love. One could manage to collect more than 700 thousand rubles at that charity marathon. At present this sum should be spent on social needs of orphans.

To make this process more effective one has made a decision to create a branch of the organization in Makhachkala.

"Now we are preparing two programs. We will create a training centre with a board for graduates of children's homes to live and to be trained with subsequent employment assistance. We also plan to develop a program on housing providing. Our direction has a lot of variants. Maybe, we will build a house, or we will pay an extra grant from the movement’s income plus to the sum allocated by the state movement", - a movement’s representative Abdullah Kallaev has told the RIA "Dagestan" correspondent.

The movement’s income will be formed be means of donations of citizens, charitable actions and other activity of the movement. "During charity events we will to hand over badges, diplomas, which will indicate a sum of our benefactors and their status nomination. Let people know about a good job", - A.Kallaev has noted.

One more direction is searching for needy people. The social movement elaborates internal rules of activity. Written requests with their detailed description and applicant’s contact details will be fixed by a movement’s member in a register. Applications for assistance rendering, which come to Makhachkalinski office, will be presumably considered by the Executive council every 10th date of a month. Thus, the plan of measures on assistance rendering will be elaborated; means for these purposes will be allocated from the organization’s own budget. Requests of large costs will be submitted to the Board of directors for consideration.

A question of personnel selection has also been solved in the organiztion. Graduates of children's orphanages will become its permanent staff members.

FAST Update Russia/Dagestan No. 3: Trends in conflict and cooperation Jun - Aug 2007
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/TBRL-78ALXR?OpenDocument

Political

There were no significant political events in Daghestan during the reporting period. Minor changes were underway in the existing structure and staff of the power apparatus created under the new president of the republic, Mukhu Aliev. A new committee was created (on support to entrepreneurship) and the ombudsman's office headed by Umupazil Omarova positioned itself as a noticeable institution.

The work on border delimitation with Azerbaijan has been in progress for many years and was continued: another meeting between Daghestani/Russian and Azeri representatives took place in July in the city of Makhachkala. Two locations are particularly controversial: the waterworks facility distributing water to canals leading both to Azerbaijan and Daghestan from the Samur borderline river and the mountainous zone where the borders of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia intersect. These two parts of the border remain unregulated and continue to be an obstacle for signing the final form of the border treaty.

Security

Security problems continue to be a serious concern in Daghestan. There was no decisive shift in the "war" between youth groups of religious extremists and law enforcement personnel. Assassination attempts against servicemen of law enforcement agencies, attacks and bombings often causing casualties have become routine events in Daghestan.

Lately, a strong public reaction has been triggered by cases of disappearances of citizens abducted by "people in camouflage fatigues". Investigations conducted by relatives of missing persons confirmed that in a number of incidences people were detained in violation of proper arrest procedures by the law enforcement agencies. Often, detainees were taken to neighboring Chechnya to conceal abduction cases. Sometimes relatives are able to pay ransom to get back them back but more often they become victims of torture or execution. In response to this, a social organization "Mothers of Daghestan" was created and became widely known through direct actions (mostly rallies and hunger strikes) by its members - women who have lost their children and husbands. Media attention has also increased. Authorities have been forced to react and have already held a number of urgent consultation meetings. On 1 August, Daghestani President Mukhu Aliev held a meeting on the problem of kidnappings in the republic. The meeting was attended by heads of law enforcement bodies and representatives of human rights and public organizations. The president stated that the problem remains acute and that many measures proposed on the 29 May meeting have not been implemented. The problem persists due to a lack of thorough and objective analysis of the situation in the republic, inefficient search and release operations and other factors. However, the prosecutor's office has acknowledged (incidents) facts of extrajudicial secret abductions. It seems that the "hunting of law enforcement personnel" by armed radicals has led to law enforcement bodies waging their own secret war against specific persons without staying within the constraints of the law. At the moment, it is only possible to observe whether political authorities will be able to restrain the unlawful violence of law enforcement agencies.

Social

Despite the fact that a year and a half ago the presidential form of rule was established in Daghestan, independent and at times fiercely critical press continue to exist (unlike in many other republics of the Northern Caucasus), social organizations that are in opposition to political power continue to be active, protest rallies and public hearings on acutely topical issues are still being held, which are able to influence authorities. The recently created post of an ombudsman under the president began to play a noticeable - and not at all decorative - role in supporting the above mentioned public initiatives. "Mothers of Daghestan" were able to uncover the abductions of people by police and make these facts a subject of political discussions. Public events were organized by the "Yabloko" opposition party, "Memorial" and other human rights NGOs.

Mass protests in Daghestan are also becoming more organized. For example, the inhabitants of a settlement where electricity supply has been stopped due to unpaid bills (as part of a dispute between the self-governance body and the energy company) were able to blockade a federal road for many hours. Rural communities are getting organized and carrying out well-coordinated actions against unlawful acts by their municipal authorities.

At the same time, another social phenomenon appears to require serious attention. Trivial quarrels began to provoke spontaneous mass violence involving the use of weapons, arson etc. If this happened in the past, one could safely conclude that some well-organized interest groups were behind the incidents. Today, however, it is clearly not the case; banal clashes still escalate into serious confrontations involving hundreds of people. It even happened in the multi-ethnic localities between representatives of the same ethnic group.

Economic

Daghestan's leaders are engaged in bringing order into local economic relations. Special attention is being paid to supporting small and medium size businesses (SMEs) that suffer most from officials representing numerous state regulating and controlling structures. In June the government allocated over 22 million rubles in credits to small businesses. Seminars were organized by a specially created government committee on supporting the SMEs, which focused on building effective relations between entrepreneurs and state regulators.

There were some successes in overcoming the disproportions and ethnic monopolism in certain branches of the republic's economy. In mid-July an official presentation of MTS (Russian telecom giant) was held in the republic. Only now this company managed to penetrate the local market. Before that, Daghestan had just one operator - "Dagtelecom" - the sole provider of mobile communications in the entire republic.

Activities are underway to establish a railway-ferry boat connection between the ports of Aktau (Kazakhstan), Astrakhan and Makhachkala. The first meeting of the coordination council was held in Makhachkala in July. Daghestan is to become a trans-shipment point in the railway transportation corridor between Kazakhstan and Russia.

The government of Daghestan is working on attracting foreign and Russian investors in the following industries: extraction of hydrocarbons off the shelf in the Daghestani sector of the Caspian Sea, construction of a cascade of hydroelectric power stations on mountain rivers, building a large cement plant, development of tourist zones at the Caspian seashore, establishment of tanker loading and off-loading operations in the seaport of Makhachkala.

There were some measures aimed to oust western companies from the local market. Inspections of DOC (Daghestani Oil Company) resulted in a recommendation to withdraw the license on developing the Gasha oil field (11 million barrels) owned by the British company "Transmeridian Exploration" based on an alleged violation of environmental and fiscal regulations.

Outlook

Daghestan as well as Russia as a whole is entering a difficult transition period. A distribution of influential political actors between the party election lists is due to begin in autumn, followed by the election campaign and the elections to the State Duma as such. All this will require a high level of consolidation by political elites of all ideological orientations at all levels. Simultaneously, relations between power structures and society will also become increasingly "tactful". This will mean that no significant upheavals can be expected either in the power hierarchy or in society in the near future.

FAST International / FEWER Eurasia
Country Team: Russia, Daghestan
Sonnenbergstrasse 17
3000 Bern 7
Switzerland
Russia@swisspeace.ch
www.swisspeace.org

FAST International is the early warning program of swisspeace, covering 25 countries/regions in Africa, Asia and Europe. Based in Bern, Switzerland, the program is funded and utilized by an international consortium of development agencies, including the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Note
Picture: Mahachkala, the capital of Dagestan