Window On Eurasia: Ingush Leader Says US, UK And Israel behind Destabilization Of North Caucasus
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posted by eagle on August, 2009 as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 18 – Ingushetia President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov says that the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel are behind efforts to destabilize the North Caucasus but that they will not succeed and that region will remain part of the Russian Federation for more than the next 100 years.
In an interview published in yesterday’s “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” Yevkurov, who has just been released from a Moscow hospital following a June 22 assassination attempt against him, made a number of comments which provide clues as to the approach he is likely to pursue now that he has returned to work (www.kp.ru/daily/24343.5/534268/).
But far and away the most intriguing were his words about who was responsible for the attacks against him and the increasing violence in his republic and across the entire North Caucasus. He suggested ...
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Window on Eurasia: Medvedev Proposes Special Punishment Regime for North Caucasus
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, August19 – In yet another move away from the Russian Federation as a common legal space but in a very different direction, President Dmitry Medvedev has proposed modifying laws to allow the Russian authorities to impose more severe punishments for those guilty of some crimes in the North Caucasus than for those guilty of the same crimes elsewhere.
Yesterday, Window on Eurasia: Medvedev Proposes Special Punishment Regime for North Caucasusat a meeting with his top security officials in Sochi, Medvedev said that Moscow “must prepare an entire packet of proposals which take into consideration the specifics of the struggle with crime in the south of the Russian Federation and in particular in the Caucasus” (www.gzt.ru/topnews/politics/255304.html). Such proposals, he continued, would not be “limited to changes in the code of criminal procedure.” And Pavel Krasheninnikov, the United Russia head ...
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Window On Eurasia: For Ukrainians, ‘Ukraine Is Ukraine;’ For Russians, ‘Russia Is Russia Plus Ukraine,’ Radzikhovsky Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 15 – Underlying the current escalation of tensions between Moscow and Kyiv is a fundamental difference in the way the two nations define themselves, a leading Moscow commentator says. For Ukrainians, “Ukraine is Ukraine,” but for Russians, “Russia is Russia plus Ukraine.”
In his Ekho Moskvy blog, Leonid Radzikhovsky argues that this difference in national self-conceptions is more important than any other factor in explaining why Moscow “again and again” acts as if Ukraine is Russia’s “INTERNAL affair,” something Ukrainians quite naturally view as outside inference in their own (echo.msk.ru/blog/radzihovski/612611-echo/).
Obviously, President Dmitry Medvedev hopes to win support at home by his attacks on Ukraine and Ukrainian officials, the Moscow commentator continues, but that is “SECONDARY” as an explanation for what is going on. The “PRIMARY” factor is “THE DEMAND ...
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Window On Eurasia: Siberia Needs Roads But Moscow Builds Pipelines
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 11 – Vladimir Putin’s latest swing through Siberia, a trip he said was intended to highlight the importance of Siberia for Russia, in fact underscored Moscow’s lack of interest in the people of that enormous region and demonstrated Siberia’s need to move toward decolonization, according to a Moscow reporter who followed in the prime minister’s footsteps.
In an article in “Novaya gazeta,” Aleksey Tarasov argues that this sad state of affairs reflects the way Moscow elites “use Siberia as exotic islands, for rest, public relations, and enrichment,” preferring to build pipelines from which they can extract wealth instead of roads that would benefit Siberians (www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/086/01.html).
And having described his own inability to drive home from Irkutsk westward, Tarasov pointedly notes that “if someone cannot drive home, he will search for another home,” a comment that clearly has ...
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Window On Eurasia: Tatar Children’s Book On Conquest Of Kazan In 1552 Outrages Russian
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 9 – A Tatar author’s richly illustrated children’s book on Ivan the Terrible’s conquest of Kazan in 1552 that asserts Tatarstan’s “struggle for the restoration of independence continues in our day” has prompted a Russian activist to demand that Moscow intervene to ban the book for “falsifying history to the detriment of Russia.”
On the “Svobodnaya pressa” website at the end of last week, Yan Stashkevich says that “children’s literature in Tatarstan is teaching that the Russian state is a mob of marauders, thieves and usurpers” and that the Tatar’s “struggle for the restoration of independence” has never ended (svpressa.ru/issue/news.php?id=12268).
And the Moscow journalist adds that this case is “not about ignoring the role of the Red Army in the victory over fascism and not about the revision of the results of the ...
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