ETHNIC CLEANSING A LA RUSSE
By Laure Akai
Of all the repression which has taken place after the September coup, by far the most outrageous has been the racist measures taken by the government to cleanse the capital on a racial basis. Immediately following the blashing of the White House on October 4, special troops and regular police began a round up of all "illegal aliens" in the city. Thousands were deported and many more thousands fled, terrified for their safety.
The legal basis used for this mass operation was the "propiska" or permit system, a relic of the Stalinist past which required citizens of the former Soviet Union to have a permit to live in Moscow (or any other region) stamped in their passport. Normally this could only be obtained by birthright, a special invitation to study or work, or through marriage. For years there was a market of fake marriages to get around the system. Without a propiska, finding work or a place to live in Moscow was virtually impossible. But in the last few years, as visa regulations were relaxed and as apartments began to appear freely on the market for rent, more amd more people simply ignored these rules and came to live in Moscow. Most of these people are ethnically Russian, but also a large number of others have settled here, including many Armenian and Georgian refugees, many traders from Central Asia and China, and a great deal of Americans and Europeans.
The operation to crack down on illegal residents, which resulted in over 5,000 deportations within the first two weeks alone was targeted almost exclusively on dark-skinned peoples of the Soviet Union. There was no effort at all to conceal the fact that the prime targets in this operation were people first and foremost from the Caucasus, and from Central Asia. Searches and identity checks were conducted on dark skinned people as "whites" were left alone.
This harassment of people of colour has been going on for some time in Moscow, and indeed has always existed to a certain extent in the Soviet Union Daily people of colour are stopped and harassed, often having to pay regular bribes to the police to avoid arrest. Now the government, using the pretext of the propiska system, have institutionalized this racism.
Most Russians blame people of colour, more specifically "Caucasians", for the astronomical crime rate in the city. Government officials, police and even the TV news claim that "80% of all the crime commited in Moscow is commited by Caucasians". If this figure is based on arrest records, it is because of the fact that these people are much more likely to be arrested than white skinned people. The police and the government claim that they are "fighting crime", but in a city where the Russian mafia carries on their business in the open, where law enforcement officials are famous for taking bribes, where police peddleguns and where theft and corruption takes place in the government, this is a laughable exuse.
The general population has been by and large supportive of these deportations. Most Russians, newly impoverished, insecure about the future, etc., are seeking people whom they can blame and take out their frustrations on. Before the coup, the police had called on people to inform on their neighbours if they expected them of being illegal aliens. Hundreds of people called on the first day of the appeal. Now 40,000 citizens have volunteered to help patrol the streets, keeping an eye out for crime and "suspicious individuals".
During the operation numerous human rights abuses were reported. Most typically people were grabbed and sent to detention centres, without being able to contact friends, relatives, their embassy, and often without a chance to argue their position. There have been reports of people having their posessions and documents stolen and of one man having his papers bearing his refugee status torn up. Some people were sent to special "work camps" to earn the money for their "trip home". Those who have been arrested and deported include people who were passing through Moscow or who had legal status. One businessman was arrested at a hotel as he tried to register and 65 Chinese students were held and may still be deported. Embassies and businesses have been reported harassment of their employees. Sometimes the scenes have been truly ugly. At one Moscow food market, Russian merchants reportedly helped police turn over the fruit stands, beat and arrest traders from Azerbaijan. The remaining vendors, now devoid of much competition, have raised the prices on their own vegetables.
Although human rights groups have petitioned the government and foreign embassies have lodged their protests, the government is totally non-plused. And why shouldn't they be when around them the major powers of the world carry on similar campaigns with impugnity? Latching on the main theme of the 90's, Russia wants to bleach out its population, and shut up its borders for those without money, or those with dark skin. The rest are welcome.
People are encouraged to write letters of protest to the Russian government and to picket consular offices in their cities. For more information write to the Moscow Institute for the Study of Racism, Fascism and Nationalism.
(krazchenko@glas.apc.org)
Spunk Anarchist Collective.