When Moscow intervened militarily in Georgia last year, it stood accused of double standards, supporting the secessionists of South Ossetia and Abkhazia having mercilessly crushed similar desires in Chechnya.
Having demonstrated with all the military might it could muster that separatism will not be countenanced, Moscow now appears to be moving a step further in reasserting central control over its massive and ethnically diverse land. In what is seen as a political move prompted directly by the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Russian Constitutional Court has just ordered a number of autonomous republics to remove all references to their “sovereignty” from their constitutions on the basis that there is only one sovereignty: Russia’s.
This may seem legalistic quibbling but it is far more than that and it is not going to stop at words on pieces of paper. It is not just separatism that is unacceptable to Moscow. It seems it is autonomy as well — and all that autonomy includes, including the use of local languages and promotion of local cultures.
As well as Chechnya, Bashkortostan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Buryatia and others, Tataristan is included in the court order. Its view of itself perfectly illustrates the divide. It did not participate in the 1991 referendum on the Russian Constitution and regards itself as a sovereign state that has delegated control of certain of its affairs, notably foreign policy and defense, to Moscow. It sees itself as sovereign state in a partnership of equals with Russia — not exactly Moscow’s understanding of the relationship. The republic, whose President Mintimer Shaimiev was awarded the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam two years ago by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, is now under pressure from Moscow over its use of the Tatar language and promotion of Tatar culture.
This is a start of what is likely to be a nasty political struggle to haul in the republics. It remains to be seen whether it will work or whether it will so alienate the people of these republics as to actually promote secessionism and violence.
Russia is already fighting a secessionist struggle. Although it claimed two months ago that the war in Chechnya was over, the reality is that the conflict has merely shifted elsewhere in the Caucasus. Violence in the neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia has spiraled over the past two years. So far this year, 75 security officials, 48 civilians and 112 militants have been killed in terrorist attacks in the region — and there is no sign of improvement. The past three weeks have seen three high-profile killings — that of a senior Muslim cleric in the Dagestan capital Makhachkala who had stood up against religious extremism, last Friday’s murder of the Dagestani interior minister and, two days ago, that of a top judge in Ingushetia just hours after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had flown in to reassure the region that Russia was dealing with matters.
Given the gravity of the situation, it might be thought that Moscow would not want to provoke further militant opposition at this point in time. Turning back the clock on autonomy may well spark a great deal of anger — and worse.
Rebuke to official culture of secrecy
Excerpts from an editorial in The Independent yesterday:
When it comes to dealing with terror suspects, this (British) government seems incapable of learning from its mistakes. After the September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, ministers were panicked into locking up foreign suspects without a proper trial. In 2005 the Law Lords ruled that this emergency detention contravened the European Convention on Human Rights.
The government’s response was to subject these suspects to a system of control orders, which drastically curtailed their movement and freedom of association. And now those control orders have also been found legally flawed by a panel of Law Lords.
The new Home Secretary Alan Johnson has promised to “consider this judgment and our options carefully”. We shall have to wait and see what emerges but considering the tortuous history of this case it is hard to be optimistic about the chances of the government coming up with a sensible plan of action.
Yesterday’s unanimous verdict ought not to have come as a surprise, given the opaque nature of the control-order system. As Lord Phillips of Matravers, the senior law lord on the case, put it: “A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him.” It is not only the European Convention on Human Rights which enshrines this principle in our law. The right of the accused to an open trial goes back to Magna Carta.
In recent years ministers have attempted to portray opponents of control orders as insufficiently serious about the terrorism threat facing Britain. Such attacks would have more credibility were it not for the fact that seven individuals have absconded while under supervision in the past three years. Control orders have been a classic manifestation of this government’s tendency to ineffective authoritarianism.
