March 7, RFE/RL -- In his annual
address pegged to the anniversary on March 8 of the deportation of the
entire Balkar people to Central Asia in 1944 on Stalin's orders,
Kabardino-Balkaria Republic President Arsen Kanokov -- a Kabardian -- referred to that deportation as "genocide" of the "fraternal Balkar people."
The
use of the term genocide is noteworthy for two reasons. It is far
stronger than anything Kanokov has said in the past. Last year, for
example, he described the deportation as "a monstrous crime."
And no other incumbent head of a North Caucasus republic whose
population was similarly deported en masse by Stalin has used that
term.
Why Kanokov should have been so outspoken this year can
only be guessed at. Relations between the Kabardian/Circassian majority
and the Balkar minority have been strained for years, and Kanokov
himself has shown little understanding of, or sympathy for the Balkars'
grievances. One Balkar activist who met with Kanokov in October 2008 subsequently told RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service "He didn't understand us, and he doesn't want to understand."
Over
the past 12 months, those tensions have intensified, fuelled by the
republican parliament's efforts to draft legislation on access to
upland pastures that would satisfy both the Kabardians and the Balkars.
The former are currently demanding the annulment of the draft law
adopted by the parliament in the first reading on October 30, which
transfers some 200,000 hectares of mountain grazing grounds to 16 Balkar-populated villages. |
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KBR President Arsen Kanokov |
Kanokov is reported to have met in
mid-January with representatives of Circassian NGOs and informed them
that the law on ownership of land will not been amended. Challenged to
explain why, Kanokov claimed that Balkar organizations lobby more
effectively than Circassians, and consequently, he personally is under
intense pressure. The Balkars have, Kanokov said, even secured the support of
the soon-to-be former president of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiyev,
arguably the most influential Turkic politician in Russia. The
ethno-genesis of the Balkars is unclear, but their language is Turkic,
as is that of the Karachais, the majority ethnic group in neighboring
Karachayevo-Cherkessia.
Over the past 12-15 months, Circassian
public organizations across the North Caucasus have begun to work more
closely together. One of the foci of that cooperation is their demand
-- formalized in a recent open letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
-- that the Russian Federation should publicly acknowledge that Sochi
-- the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics -- is historic Circassian
territory in the same way as the Canadian government acknowledged the
indigenous population of the site of the recent Winter Olympics in
Vancouver.
The question thus arises: assuming that Kanokov's
claim that Shaimiyev is supporting the Balkars is true, does Moscow see
a new role for Shaimiyev in exerting pressure on the presidents of
those North Caucasus republics with a sizeable Circassian population to
quash those inconvenient demands?
Or is Kanokov, whose
presidential term expires in September, simply trying desperately to
mollify the Balkars in order to prevent a new escalation of tension
between the republic's two titular ethnic groups that might cost him
renomination for a second term?
Source: RFE/RL