Sunday, August 24, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Russian Actions in Georgia Show Why Tatarstan Must Be Independent, Activists There Say
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 24 – Russian aggression in Georgia is the clearest indication yet of why the oil-rich Republic of Tatarstan in the Middle Volga region must pursue independence from the Russian Federation, according to an appeal released this week by the Tatar Independence Party Ittifak.
The appeal, which has circulated for the last three days by email, has attracted little attention from the media either in Russia or the West, but because it signals that Moscow’s actions in Georgia are affecting non-Russian communities far from the Caucasus, it is important to take note of.
The current Russian leadership, the appeal notes, views “the collapse of the Soviet Union as the biggest tragedy of the 20th century” and thus “under the pretext of peacekeeping and defending the rights’ of the Ossetians and the Abkhazians, ...
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