A Russian Safari
Since the new year, there has been a serious rise in attacks against non-slavic immigrants in Russia, mainly in the city of Moscow. Human rights groups accuse nationalist extremists, with neo-Nazi sympathies, of murdering between 41-53 immigrants, most of which are from Central Asia or the Caucacus. These types of attacks have occurred in recent years in Russia, but they are becoming more organized and severe. Many of the victims have been stabbed 20-30 times during an attack and far-right websites warn that future attacks may include the use of bombs and guns. Semyon Charny, an expert at the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, said the situation in Moscow was ‘like a safari.’
The city of Moscow has a large Central Asian minority, about 850,000 of the city’s 10 million inhabitants, who many perform manual labor positions in which there are not enough ethnic Russians to perform. Unfortunately, many Russian citizens seem to see the immigrants as threatening and weak government oversight and policing has helped provide legitimacy to these feelings. In fact, the government has recently passed anti-immigration legislation which some have argued gave tacit approval to the attacks.
Steps have been taken to try to curb this violence by human rights groups, the Russian government, and CA and Caucacus authorities. In late February, the Russian police arrested many leaders of various far-right groups, and in at least one case one leader received a conviction for ‘agitating inter-ethnic discord,’ but the violence has continued as others have taken their place. Raimkul Attakurov, ambassador for Kyrgyzstan in Russia, wrote a letter to Russia’s human rights ombudsman calling the incidents ‘the savage attacks of fascist monsters.’ Embassies have told their citizens to keep a low profile, not to go out on their own, especially to bars, and be well-dressed. Russian government officials have also sat down to discuss the problem with local Azeri, Kyrgyz, Tajik local community leaders, but alas nothing has curbed the ethnic violence.
It seems clear that outright racism has been a factor in these attacks. Opinion polls show that many Russians are ‘uncomfortable’ with the presence of these CA/Caucacus immigrants, even if they aren’t ‘taking their jobs.’ Putin’s domestic and foreign policy has worked hard to bring back Russia’s sense of importance in the world and in regional affairs and this may be helping to create a backlash against non-slavs in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
What should the Russian government do to curb these attacks? What should the governments of the CA/Caucasus states do? I read that there had been diplomatic calls against these abuses from several states, like the above mentioned Kyrg Ambassador Attakurov, but did not find many other official protests. The CA states depend on employment and remittances from Russia so their governments obviously do not want to upset the boat, but this is becoming a serious problem. These neo-Nazi groups have a fascist agenda of violence and hatred that cannot be accepted/condoned/pacified/ignored.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:20 am
[…] Patrick Frost at Central Asia Foreign Policy Blog recently posted a disturbing article about violence against minorities in Russia. Of course, most of the non-Slavic residents are from Central Asia and the Caucacus. Around 50 people were killed in clear hate crimes in the first three months of 2008, according to human rights groups. That’s four times more such attacks than last year in the same period. It’s also around one attack every other day! […]