Translated material
“We came to work, not to sit”
Three Russians have been in a South Ossetian prison for a week
Yesterday, at the site of the Rosbalt news agency in Moscow, several Russian specialists with experience in South Ossetia spoke about a series of scandals that erupted in this small country, the independence of which is officially recognized by Russia . Three Russian citizens have been in a South Ossetian prison for a week now - Alexey Grunin, Andrey Abramov and Alexey Nosachev. According to the official version, three Russians were subjected to administrative arrest for 30 days due to the fact that they did not have South Ossetian registration. In addition, they can allegedly put pressure on witnesses during an investigation into the work of the enterprise of which they are employees. At the same time, the company’s leaders have not yet seen any official documents about the initiation of proceedings against the enterprise or criminal prosecution of its employees.The place of work of the three arrested Russians is the South Ossetian state unitary enterprise Aluton. This is a brewery. According to development director Dmitry Lazarev, the Russians restored previously idle production, launched the cycle last winter and received the first finished products in January. By April, it became clear that the plant was paying off and was capable of generating income for the owners. Mr. Lazarev is unable to accurately explain the cause of the problems that began at the end of April at the thriving new brewery. But it assumes that someone became interested in the enterprise and decided to take it over. According to South Ossetian law enforcement officers, Aluton received financial resources from the republic, for which it is now unable to account for, and also began brewing beer and selling it even before it had issued all the necessary licenses and sanitary and epidemiological conclusions. Mr. Lazarev categorically assures that everything is in order with the documents, they are all open and will be submitted to the prosecutor’s office, and that the brewery has not received any official complaints, much less accusations. But three of his employees - the head of the sales department, the driver and the storekeeper - have been in prison for a week, and one of them is seriously ill and needs medication.
“We don’t want to engage in any politics, but we came to South Ossetia to work, not to sit,” Mr. Lazarev shrugged. - “But that’s what you do in politics!” - Inga Kochieva, an employee of the South Ossetian embassy in Russia who was in the hall, answered him indignantly. - Russia saved the South Ossetian people in August 2008, but now the situation is different, this must be understood. And you make a legal issue into a problem of attitude towards Russian specialists. Why bring the dispute out of public view? Why are you holding a press conference in Moscow and not in South Ossetia?” “They’re imprisoning,” Dmitry Lazarev explained innocently.
Representatives of South Ossetia had approximately the same conversation with the director of the State Unitary Enterprise “Directorate for the Implementation of National Priority Projects of the Republic of South Ossetia” Ismail Karimov. A South Ossetian journalist reminded him of several criminal cases allegedly filed against him in Tskhinvali and asked why Mr. Karimov left South Ossetia. Mr. Karimov replied that he had not seen any official papers regarding the charges against him, but on April 12, “comrades” warned him about the impending arrest, and he hastened to leave the republic.
Mr. Karimov's enterprise is the general contractor for the program for the restoration of residential buildings in Tskhinvali and other settlements in South Ossetia. Mr. Karimov has been working as a director since August 2009 and claims that by this May the problem of restoring damaged housing could have been completely closed, but the republican authorities (even before Mr. Karimov’s appointment to the post) first for some reason handed out as many as 130 contracts there , where it was a question of restoring only 322 houses. And then for some reason they expanded the approved list of objects to 429, that is, by a third. When Mr. Karimov asked the head of the South Ossetian State Committee for the Implementation of Reconstruction Projects, Zurab Kabisov, where the money for the additional 107 houses would come from, he explained to him that by the end of the year it would be possible to save some of the budget expenses and pay from them.
But as soon as Mr. Karimov took office, the company immediately received a claim from a certain Tskhinvali company, which allegedly carried out work on clearing rubble and removing garbage and now demands 140 million rubles. fee. Mr. Karimov’s company deals only with money that comes from Russia, and spends it according to estimates approved, among other things, by the Russian Ministry of Regional Development. This estimate does not contain the column “clearing rubble and removing garbage,” but this did not stop officials from ordering the work and promising payment (in the amount of more than 10% of all money allocated for construction). The South Ossetian court demands that the directorate pay off the debt, the company's accounts are frozen, and the construction process, as a result, is once again stalled. Mr. Karimov asked if it was possible to at least look at the garbage that had been removed, but there was no such opportunity.
Russian experts believe that problems related to the legal status of their colleagues working in South Ossetia have recently worsened. According to them, approximately half of the Russian personnel faced threats, pressure and intimidation from the security forces of the republic. Three arrested employees of the brewing company had their Russian passports taken away with the words: “If you don’t want to leave, sit here for now.” Participants in the press conference believe that some restored state-owned enterprises are subject to raider attacks by private structures “under the patronage of individual South Ossetian officials.” Supplies of equipment from Russia are blocked, and transport of companies operating in the republic, including private transport of employees, is taken away without clear legal grounds.
The participants of the press conference hope that the data they released will reach the attention of South Ossetia President Eduard Kokoity, and he will take the necessary measures against his negligent employees. However, remarks from South Ossetian officials who attended the press conference suggest that the president will not be able to become an independent arbiter in these conflicts, since he is one of the parties. This was indirectly confirmed by the victims themselves, who explain everything that is happening with the desire of certain forces to discredit the government of Vadim Brovtsev. In their opinion, Mr. Brovtsev’s office “blocked all possibilities for misuse of financial resources allocated from the budget of the Russian Federation for the restoration of South Ossetia.” By the way, the South Ossetian budget is formed at the expense of the Russian Federation by 98.3%.
Chelyabinsk businessman Mr. Brovtsev (as the Vremya Novostei newspaper wrote on April 30, 2010) headed the government of the independent republic in August 2009. He was known as a close acquaintance of the Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation Viktor Basargin - namely, the Ministry of Regional Development coordinates all Russian efforts on South Ossetian post-war rehabilitation. The Ministry of Regional Development apparently expected Vadim Brovtsev’s government to “block opportunities” for the theft of money by local officials.
True, Mr. Brovtsev’s opponents believe that, having partially pushed the local establishment away from the financial “watering hole”, the new team itself happily settled in the vacated place, allegedly sharing income with some officials of the Ministry of Regional Development, as well as with numerous contractors from Mr. Brovtsev’s hometown Ural. At the end of April, the South Ossetian parliament, controlled by President Kokoity, tried to initiate a vote of no confidence in the cabinet, but Mr. Brovtsev visited high-ranking patrons in Moscow and, it seems, sat in his chair: in any case, yesterday it was reported that he held a meeting with the heads of South Ossetian regions.
According to one version, the attack on Mr. Brovtsev was motivated not only by mercantile considerations, but also by politics: Eduard Kokoity’s presidential powers will expire next year. The Kremlin, through the head of the presidential administration Sergei Naryshkin, forbade him to increase the number of terms in power, and now some experts believe that Mr. Kokoity is counting on moving to the chair of prime minister to continue governing the republic. And this requires a more accommodating head of government who would agree to give up his seat at the right time.
As for the brewers, they are going to appeal to the Russian prosecutor's office to help them free the arrested employees. The problem is that Russia recognizes South Ossetia as an independent country, therefore the competence of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation does not extend to it. True, the other day the head of the Russian republic of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, expressed iron confidence in the upcoming unification of both Ossetias within the Russian state. But the development of events in Tskhinvali after the recognition of independence increases the number of Russians who may not want such a unification.