Nalchik/Agency Caucasus – North Caucasus, a region of southern Russia which is left alone to face serious problems of their worst kind, was not allowed to appear as a topic worthy of discussion in St. Petersburg, a city that has recently hosted a series of debates by liberal Russian intellectuals over the new course of democratic movement in Russia.
The Caucasus did not receive mention in the written statement handed out in the wake of the debates, which attracted a turnout of 200. The statement was solely aimed to call upon the democratic forces to unite.
Among the liberal Russian intellectuals were Garri Kasparov, former world chess champion, who is politically regarded as a symbol of opposition to the current Russian President Vladimir Putin; Boris Nemtsov, former Deputy Prime Minister and one of the co-founders of the Russian political party Union of Right Forces; and Vladimir Bukovski, a writer and political activist.
Although invited as the single representative of North Caucasus to join the debates, Valeri Haijukov, Head of the Kabarda-Balkar Center for Human Rights, left the city with feelings of frustration because he could not get his turn within time alloted to deliver his speech.
"All speakers talked of both illicit and explicit censorship, the muzzling of opposition, and the shutting down of newspapers and television channels as different versions of the attack on democracy. But the fact is that it is North Caucasus that has to face all these things. North Caucasus is an area where Russia tests both its military and political experiments for future use in a large scale," Hatijukov told reporters after his return to Nalchik.
The usurpation of power by the Committee of Emergency Situation from the government in the mid-1990s was followed by a process in North Caucasus where several democratic institutions ceased to exist, said Hatijukov, and accused the democrats who had been in power before the government was overthrown of looking at things now going on in North Caucasus from behind a scene.
"Adygei Khase, which was a Kabarda non-governmental organization that I was leading, was fully disbanded in the late 1990s. At that time, the administration set up a new committee of organization and the congress of our organization was held without us participating in it," said Hatijukov. "We all thought that the liberals and democrats in the Russian administration would then try to protect us, which did not happen. This is the way the Russian liberalism has always been. The Russian democrats turn a blind eye to their principles when it is North Caucasus that needs to be dealt with."
When asked to comment on a claim that the Russian democrats made an objective evaluation of the results of both elections and referendums held in North Caucasus under the circumstances of a military operation, Hatijukov said: "How come? The thing is clear that under such circumstances can no democratic process be talked of." RE/ÖZ/FT
Resim altı: Kasparov, an opposition leader, was arrested in a demonstration staged ahead of the presidential elections last year in Moscow, capital of Russia…
