Duma Deputies Withdraw Support For Embattled Balkar Colleague

Since then, however, the response continued, he has failed to fulfill voters' expectations and shown no interest in the social and economic problems the republic faces. Instead, he has aligned himself with, and serves as spokesman for, the Council of Elders of the Balkar People (SSBN) public organization, which the response described as an "extremist organization" that "seeks to destabilize the political situation" in the KBR. The KBR Supreme Court called a year ago for the dissolution of the SSBN on precisely those grounds, but the Russian Supreme Court annulled that decision two months later.

The response specifically denounced the role of the SSBN in seeking in September 2008 to thwart a horseback trek by Kabardians across the North Caucasus to mark the 300th anniversary of a local battle in which, according to Kabardian historians, Kabardian forces defeated those of the Crimean Tatar Khan. (There is no mention of such a battle in general histories of the Crimea.)

In the wake of the September standoff between Kabardians and Balkars, KBR President Arsen Kanokov met for the first time since his appointment in October 2005 with Balkar representatives, but the talks failed to temper mutual rancor or to address the Balkars' long-standing grievances.

The diatribe went on to accuse Zalikhanov and the SSBN of seeking to "appropriate lands that are historically Kabardian" with the ultimate aim of uniting with their Karachai ethnic kin as part of "a Great Turan" state in line with pan-Turkic ideology. It further demanded that Zalikhanov be required to answer in court for allegedly engaging in "overt political terrorism," a term chillingly reminiscent of the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s.

Just as ominously, the denunciation is co-signed by the heads of organizations representing not only the Kabardian majority, but also the local Russian, Adyg, and Cossack communities. That suggests the KBR's overwhelmingly Kabardian leadership has co-opted the republic's other ethnic minorities in its ongoing campaign to sideline and silence the Balkars.