Translated material
"We're sorry"
Putin apologized to the CIS presidents for rampant xenophobia in Russia
The opportunity given to the CIS leaders by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of last week to meet Dmitry Medvedev as a successor, or even to meet him for the first time, not one of them dared to ignore.Even the outgoing President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan chose to leave Yerevan, inflamed by the protests , where the opposition is demanding a review of the results of the presidential elections, which became the implementation of the Armenian version of Operation Successor. Even the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, who visited Moscow a couple of weeks before Mr. Medvedev's presentation and who, upon returning to Tashkent, was to immediately go to distant Seoul to take part in the inauguration of the new president of South Korea. Even Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who met with Mr. Putin in the Kremlin just a few days before the informal CIS summit. And during this meeting, as Mr. Yushchenko said in an interview with Vremya Novostey, he “gave his word” to Putin to pay for the gas. Not to mention Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who also met with Vladimir Putin on the eve of the summit.
In a word, the turnout of the Commonwealth presidents in Moscow was one hundred percent, like the voter turnout in elections somewhere in Chechnya. This can be considered a serious achievement for the Kremlin, which has not often managed to attract such attention from the leaders of the post-Soviet space in recent years. By the way, the meeting that took place on February 22 was the 16th CIS summit, including the fourth in eight years of Putin’s presidency.
However, for the first time, the meeting of the presidents, scheduled in Moscow, took place at the Reception House of the Russian Government. Thus, the hosts demonstrated delicacy to the best of their ability: the meeting took place not in the Kremlin, the residence of the Russian president, but on a site subordinate to First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, formally still only a presidential candidate. And also on the future platform of Vladimir Putin himself, the Prime Minister of Russia.
However, as Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev noted when preparing to go to Moscow, the current presidential elections in Russia are “devoid of intrigue,” and the distinguished guests invited by Putin knew for sure that they were going to meet the future owner of the Kremlin. It is curious that, perhaps for the first time in the last eight years, journalists accredited to the summit in Moscow were deprived of the opportunity to see the presidents of the Commonwealth in person. Media representatives followed the heads of state only on a television monitor, as is usually done during CIS summits in Minsk.
Summing up the development of the CIS during his presidency, Mr. Putin, for obvious reasons, refrained from listing the successes. Instead, he chose to once again reassure his colleagues that “the Commonwealth is a clear and abiding Russian priority,” in particular because “the preservation of historical ties between peoples is necessary.” Mr. Putin also spoke about “complex problems that we inherited from the past, which have not yet lost their urgency and have not yet been resolved.”
“Yesterday we met with some colleagues in a bilateral format, and almost everyone raised the question that citizens of the CIS countries, including Russia, sometimes face manifestations of xenophobia, intolerance and even criminal attacks on their lives,” he said Vladimir Putin. “We are sorry and will do everything to ensure that the criminals are found, exposed and punished. We will fight this unfailingly and constantly,” Mr. Putin said. Similar promises in Russia have been made in recent years, at best, at the level of heads of law enforcement agencies. Against their background, Putin’s “we are sorry” is perhaps worth a lot. It is not in the habit of the current Russian leader to make public apologies to foreigners. This time such words were spoken.
However, as it turned out, Vladimir Putin sees the causes of the current troubles in Russian life in a rather utilitarian way. “You and I understand perfectly well that such manifestations of nationalism and xenophobia are directly related to how the authorities regulate migration problems,” explained the Russian President. “That is why - I already spoke about this earlier - we made decisions in the field of economics and small business, guided primarily by these considerations, so that citizens of the CIS countries who come to Russia for temporary residence or want to stay for a longer period would be protected, and the local population also did not feel disadvantaged, especially in the labor market. Our position is open and clear. I repeat once again: as for criminal manifestations, we will fight it,” the Russian president concluded this topic.
Meanwhile, the reasons for xenophobia in Russia in the Commonwealth countries themselves are seen much more broadly. In particular, in the ideas of nationalism that are being planted on Russian soil are of an openly chauvinistic nature. Moreover, some representatives of the Russian power elite are also involved in this. In Kyrgyzstan, whose citizens have become the most frequent victims of skinheads in recent weeks, in this regard they drew attention to a phrase recently uttered by the current Russian representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin. Answering a journalist’s question whether there is democracy in Russia, Mr. Rogozin literally said the following: “Democracy is the rule of the majority, and the majority in Russia are Russians. Therefore, democracy will come in Russia when the Russians gain power here.”
On the same day as the CIS summit in Moscow (February 22), in Bishkek, Kyrgyz human rights activists and representatives of various non-governmental organizations marched from the Memorial to the Fighters Against Fascism to the Russian Embassy. They left carnations at the embassy fence in memory of the Kyrgyz citizens “who died in Russia at the hands of Nazis, skinheads and racists.” There they also published an appeal to the presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Russia demanding that they take immediate measures to protect their compatriots in Russia. The Kyrgyz parliament also adopted an appeal to the Russian authorities in this regard.
“About 80% of the text of the address is devoted to words about friendship and cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Russia, only at the end, in literally eight lines, we talk about the murders of our compatriots,” noted deputy Alisher Mamasaliev. “We say that there were murders, and, as if apologizing for the concern, we ask the State Duma to pay attention to this issue.”
The deputy proposed changing the text. “Otherwise we will be humiliated again. These are not just murders, but murders committed on ethnic grounds, with the aim of inciting ethnic hatred. And now in Kyrgyzstan the opinion of the Kyrgyz people against the Russians is being formed,” warned Alisher Mamasaliev.
The discussion in the Kyrgyz parliament reached such intensity that its speaker Adakhan Madumarov raised the question of removing Kyrgyz Ambassador to Moscow Raimkul Attakurov, who was appointed to this post only a month ago, as not ensuring the safety of Kyrgyz citizens in Russia. Of course, the manifestation of populism so characteristic of current Kyrgyz politics was not supported this time...
The deputy head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kyrgyzstan tried to reassure the deputies, saying that his Russian colleagues were already reporting the first successes - the detention of members of “youth groups” suspected of attacking the Kyrgyz. And two days after the CIS summit, the leadership of the Moscow police reported the detention of a group of 11 skinheads and football fans from the Moscow region, accused of attacking an Azerbaijani citizen.
Let us note that in Azerbaijan, as in other countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, whose citizens most often become victims of attacks by Russian ultranationalists, they avoid bringing these problems to the public level. As one of the Azerbaijani officials states in a conversation with Vremya Novostey on condition of anonymity, for two reasons. Firstly, to avoid a surge of anti-Russian sentiments in their countries. And secondly, in order not to spoil relations with the Moscow authorities, with whom the leadership of the Azerbaijani diaspora seems to have very trusting relations.