Volume One, Number 20
Wednesday, November 21, 2001

BIGOTRY MONITOR
A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia,

and Religious Persecution in the Former Communist World and Western Europe

EDITOR: CHARLES FENYVESI
(News and Editorial Policy within the sole discretion of the editor)

Published by UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union
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THE NEW WORLD ORDER ACCORDING TO BUSH AND PUTIN BEGINS TO EVOLVE. Shots fired in the air by Northern Alliance fighters celebrating Taliban's retreat from most of Afghanistan served as the background music to the new world order born in Crawford, Texas. Three days after President Vladimir Putin's return home, tentative chords from the same harmony were heard in Moscow where his special envoy to Chechnya, Viktor Kazantsev, met with Akhmed Zakayev, Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov's representative. The encounter, the first face-to-face session by officials from the two sides in two years, took place at Sheremetyovo-2 international airport. Russia's Interfax news agency broke the story, adding that the talks would go on for several days. But they did not. The meeting, held behind closed doors, lasted only two hours, and neither side would release details on the discussions, according to Itar-Tass. At first, the Kremlin would not even confirm to the Associated Press that the meeting took place. Upon flying back to his home base in Istanbul, Zakayev said he was "very happy" with the talks. The dialogue will continue, Kazantzev said, though he did not say when. On the same day, November18, an official in Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration announced that in the preceding 24 hours, nine Russian servicemen were killed and 24 wounded in rebel attacks and land mine explosions.

Up until now, Putin repeatedly spurned Western suggestions for negotiations. Polls suggest that his tough stance has been responsible for much of his domestic approval rating, now at 70 percent. But, AP reports from Moscow, the September 11 attacks and the worldwide response "profoundly affected the war in Chechnya." According to AP, analysts in Moscow say that President George Bush's war on terrorism means that the rebels can no longer expect the aid Russia claims they receive from Islamic extremist organizations abroad. At the same time, Putin's support for the U.S. anti-terror campaign has been accompanied by efforts to bring Russia closer to the West that has charged Russia with using excessive force in Chechnya. During the summit, Bush said he was "encouraged by President Putin's commitment to a political dialogue in Chechnya.''

THE CRAWFORD MOMENT. The summit yielded no public breakthroughs on the hard issues of national defense, but the verbal accord on human rights sounded reassuring. "The atmospherics at the summit were terrific," said Michael McFaul, the Stanford University Russia specialist who helped prepare Bush for a previous meeting with Putin. "Putin has made a fundamental choice that Russia wants to be part of the West... But expectations on both sides weren't met in terms of deliverables." The U.S. news media noted with satisfaction that "the two very different men," each conservative in his own way, "sealed their friendship" in the course of two days of rain and thunder in Crawford, Texas, and displayed "extraordinary camaraderie" in this fourth meeting of theirs in six months. Putin sounded more than just upbeat. "At the end of the day," he said in a call-in show on National Public Radio, a first by a Russian leader, "we will be able to arrive at a solution that will be acceptable for everyone involved." For Bush, it was his first triumph in foreign affairs - and he did it his way, following his instincts, and practicing the craft that his friends say he is best at: one-on-one informal bargaining. Bush, "Newsweek" reported, "placed an enormous bet on his putative soulmate. So far, it looks like a good bet." The Bush-Putin Show even injected substance into style. The morning after the dinner in the breezeway of the Prairie Chapel Ranch, Bush invited his guest to sit in on his usual national-security briefing by CIA Director George Tenet. "Newsweek" reported that the trio used, "in the best good-ole-boy fashion, …some off-color language to describe the terrorists."

According to the latest "Newsweek" poll, Bush registers an 85 percent approval rating, "lengthening an already impressive run of stratospheric popularity." However, Putin's "new closeness to Washington" is "a seemingly high-risk gamble for any Kremlin leader, especially one with no clear power base at home," Reuters noted. In its assessment of the summit, the pro-Kremlin Strana.ru web site said that the common stand against international terrorism "is not enough to give a 100 percent guarantee that the current partnership with Washington is irreversible." Nevertheless, the site's analysts and many other Russian observers used the adjective "significant" in describing the progress Putin made with Bush since the beginning of this year.

RUSSIA'S HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN PAINTS GRIM PICTURE. The human rights situation in Russia is a matter for grave concern, human rights ombudsman Oleg Mironov told the State Duma on November 15, according to Itar-Tass. He said his office receives 2,000 complaints a month, detailing violations of fundamental human rights. He singled out people with disabilities, now numbering 10 million, whose situation he described as "catastrophic." Their proportion in the population is increasing, he said, especially among service personnel and children. He called attention to the continuing loss of life in Chechnya among servicemen, the elderly, women, and children. "The Chechen problem still cannot be resolved by military means," Mironov pointed out, warning that a raft of social, moral, and cultural measures were needed to rebuild the republic.

THREE THEORIES SEEK TO EXPLAIN OCTOBER 30 'POGROM.' Muscovites offer three theories for the October 30 "pogrom" targeting dark-skinned foreigners, reports Matt Taibi for "The Nation." The first theory points to a small extremist party, probably Russian National Unity led by the neo-Nazi Alexander Barkashov. According to the other two theories, small extremist groups secretly manipulated by the government were responsible. While one scenario blames the Putin administration for instigating the attack as part of its new terror policy; the other charges that forces within the government orchestrated the events to sabotage President Putin's pro-West orientation. "The Nation" quotes Sergei Mitrokhin, a Duma deputy for the liberal Yabloko party, who cannot exclude the possibility that the government is using the skinheads. "It is very convenient for an authoritarian government to have at its disposal these crowds of willing, young violent youths who will do just about anything you tell them to do," he said. "The same kinds of people were used for similar political ends in Germany in the 1930s." But Mitrokhin is inclined to believe that the attacks sought to discredit Putin at a time when he is under the Western scrutiny. Taibi found anti-Caucasian feeling "at an all-time high" and cited a call-in poll by TV-Center in which an astonishing 87 percent of Muscovites sided with the pogromists. Only 7 percent of the callers said they would have attempted to stop the attacks.

PROTESTANT SERVICE IN TURKMENISTAN RAIDED, MEMBERS FINED. On November 15, police, security, and local officials raided a service of the Word of Life Church in the Turkmen capital Ashgabad and detained 41 people, according to Keston News Service. A day later, they were released, but only after paying fines totalling more than 40 million manats ($7,700 at the official exchange rate). Though the fines varied from individual to individual, most paid one million manats ($190), the average monthly wage in Turkmenistan. The fines were imposed under a Soviet era law that punishes unregistered religious activity. No Protestant group has been allowed registration in the country. The authorities also threatened to confiscate the private apartment where the Protestant service was held.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "Democracy in Russia is a more important factor for the United States than whether Russia will sign security agreements or allow Washington to conduct another dozen nuclear weapons tests," wrote Michael McFaul and Nikolai Zlobin in the weekly "Obshchaya Gazeta" of November 14-21. "Ignoring the short-term problems of democratic development would guarantee that Russia would never become a full partner to the West in the long term. A half-democratic Russia will always be a half-ally to the U.S."

SAYING 'YES' TO DEATH
Young Bolsheviks Are as Determined to Kill and Destroy as Their Predecessors

The violent character of the National Bolshevik Party's (NBP) ideology suggests more of a terrorist than a political threat to Russia, it appears from a rare debate in a newspaper between an extreme-left leader and a journalist. The newspaper, aimed at the young generation, is published in the North Caucasus, at the edge of the Russian world where Russians are in a minority.

In an article pulsing with fury, the "commissar" of NBP's Dagestani branch, Igor Boykov, defined his party's goal: "to seize power in a national and social revolution." In the October 26 edition of the newspaper "Molodezh Dagestana" (Youth of Dagestan), Boykov explained that what attracts people, most of them around age 18, to National Bolshevism is "a deep hatred for the inhumane SYSTEM [capitals as published] of the troika: liberalism, democracy, and capitalism." Boykov said that once the NBP is in power, it will "abrogate all agreements with the West," "send the IMF to hell, refuse to repay loans, and freeze all foreign investment… A traditionalist and hierarchical society will be built on the basis of the ideals of spiritual courage and social and national justice." He claimed: "The NBP's severe and principled position on key issues inspires the young generation's sympathy. The party's official slogan is 'Russia is everything, the rest is nothing!' We salute with the raised fist of the right hand and the exclamation: 'Yes, death!'"

"Direct action" and "precision strikes" have been the party's tactics, as for example seizing the tower of the Church of St. Peter in Riga, Latvia in November 2000, and flying over its top the red banner of Soviet communism. Boykov is outraged that a court condemned his comrades as terrorists and sentenced them to 15 years in prison. "Such monstrous injustice can neither be forgotten nor forgiven," Boykov fumed, charging that Russia's FSB tipped off the Latvian authorities. "The NBP favors Russian separatists," he declared. "Our party demands that our historical lands populated by Russians be returned to Russia."

The young National Bolshevik's rhetoric suggests raw provincial talent ready to storm the capital. The response came from a passionate commentator for the newspaper, Konstantin Zachesov, who proclaimed "the supremacy of humanism: not nationality or the state, but humanism. Human rights and freedom should be the priority." He argued for "a united anti-Nazi front in Dagestan and in Russia."

Why are democracy, liberalism, and capitalism "inhumane" and deserve to be hated? Zachesov asked. "We should probably conclude that dictatorship, ideological intolerance, and socialism are more 'humane,' [as were] for instance, Stalin's concentration camps, mass killings of 'enemies of the people,' exile of dissidents, long bread queues or a personality cult….All right, we have started hating democracy, freedom, and capitalism, so what happens next? A traditionalist (based on the cult of the NBP and its leaders?) and hierarchical (NBP leaders and their supporters on top and the rest below?) society will be built on the basis of the ideals of spiritual courage (this is interesting, what other courage is there?) and social and national justice (concentration camps and queues?)… What is more, this will be not mere socialism, but 'Russian socialism.'

"The bacillus of Nazism is more infectious and dreadful than anthrax. This is because the bacillus of Nazism infects and poisons the human spirit, and this trouble is greater than ailments of the body. Hatred is not curable!

"There is a sad saying that the only lesson of history is that no lesson has been learned from it. We are chuckling tolerantly while looking at our latter-day followers of Nazism, at how a young Nazi snake is growing into a Nazi dragon."

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