Window On Eurasia: Daghestanis Criticize Plans To Create National Military Units
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posted by eagle on September, 2010 as DAGESTAN
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 7 – As Daghestan descends into violence, experts there have criticized one of Moscow’s proposals for addressing the situation – the creation of a Chechen-style battalion made up of people from the local nationalities who, the Russian authorities assume, will be more ready and able to go into the mountains and fight the militants.
In the current issue of "Nastoyashcheye vremya,” Khatima Nisredova reports on a roundtable held in Makhachkala last week to discuss three questions that the creation of such a unit raises: would it be effective, what would be the forms and work of such units, and what would be their rules of engagement (gazeta-nv.ru/content/view/4695/109/).
The organizers, she says, invited "journalists, politicians, public figures, lawyers, and representatives of the powers that be and law enforcement structures.” But unfortunately, the latter, who are "the most ...
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Moscow Times: Defense Minister Dispatched to Dagestan After Weekend Blasts
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posted by eagle on as DAGESTAN
Defense Minister Dispatched to Dagestan After Weekend Blasts
06 September 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev dispatched Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to Dagestan on Sunday after the North Caucasus republic was rocked by a series of attacks that killed at least three people and injured dozens, including a local government minister.
Serdyukov arrived in the local capital, Makhachkala, on Sunday afternoon to personally oversee efforts to aid the victims, Interfax reported. He has orders to regularly brief Medvedev on the situation, the report said, citing the Kremlin's press service.
The biggest attack happened early Sunday when a Lada packed with explosives blew up inside a military firing range near the city of Buinaksk, about 50 kilometers west of Makhachkala. Shortly after, a roadside bomb targeted investigators driving to the scene of the blast.
The first bomb killed three to five soldiers and injured more than 30, while the second caused no injuries, RIA-Novosti reported.
The car, ...
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Window On Eurasia: Daghestanis Less Strict In Their Islam Than Their Counterparts In Chechnya And Ingushetia, Poll Finds
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posted by eagle on as DAGESTAN
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 31 – Although Daghestan has the reputation of being the most Islamic republic in the Russian Federation, the residents of its capital city Makhachkala are both more religiously diverse and less disciplined in their practice of the faith than the residents of the capitals of Chechnya and Ingushetia, according to an independent poll.
Over the last year, the Prague-based Caucasus Times news service has had its journalists poll residents of the capitals of the republics of the North Caucasus conduct informal polls of several hundred residents in each of them concerning their religious affiliations and religious practice.
Last week, the news services interviewed 200 people in the Daghestani capital, and while the poll by its very nature could not be fully representative, the Caucasus Times said that it considered ...
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Window On Eurasia: Daghestanis Promised Census Won’t ‘Create Or Destroy’ Nations, Official Says
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posted by eagle on as DAGESTAN
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 1 – Daghestanis, the residents of the most multi-national non-Russian republic of the Russian Federation and one where the number of nationalities has varied widely in past censuses, have been told that the upcoming enumeration will not "create or destroy” nations.
Yesterday, Sergey Ilyashenko, the head of the Daghestani statistic committee, said yesterday that the census will only measure the self-declared ethnic identities of the people there, a matter of some importance given that the political system in that republic is based on a careful balance of ethnic groups (www.riadagestan.ru/news/2010/08/31/102368/).
"No peoples in the course of the census will be created or destroyed,” the republic statistics chief said. "The [Russian] constitution enshrines the right of citizens to specify their nationality, and this right is realized during the census. What an individual calls himself, we ...
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Window On Eurasia: Having Exceeded Its Haj Quota Last Year, Daghestan Seeks Still Larger Allotment
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posted by eagle on as DAGESTAN
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 3 – In 2009, Daghestan was allotted 6,000 of the 20,500 Russian haj slots but in fact 16,000 Daghestanis made the pilgrimage. As a result, Makhachkala is seeking to increase the republic’s permitted number from the 8,000 Moscow has allowed to 13,000, a demand that creates problems for both Russian officials and the Saudi authorities.
Yesterday in the Daghestani capital, Ilyas Umakhanov, the deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee, and Rizvan Kurbanov, the republic’s first vice prime minister, met to discuss the upcoming haj and the level of Daghestani participation in it (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/173747/).
That meeting sets the stage for a all-Russian meeting on the haj that is scheduled to take place in the Daghestani capital September 15 at which will be present not only the republic’s president but also ...
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